WOTM 21 Final Spoiler - Game Submitted or Abandoned

[AlanH]

WOTM 21 Final Spoiler

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How did Santa do?

 

[Monnet]

Happy new year to all!

Just to say I had a very fun game. As announced, I tried to play as evil Santa but in the end, as it is often the case with my games, I ended up being split-personality Santa. Even though I started on a war path aiming at a domination victory that, for once, I felt capable of achieving, I was getting on very well with the Ottomans I was neighbours with, so I let them be and went for the Spaniards across the sea (I didn't like Isabella's attitude), which extended to a war with the Inca as well. It was obvious that I would have to attack the Malinese next to go with my original plan, but I just couldn't bring myself to it. That Mansa guy is so helpful!

So I changed tack and vaguely aimed for a space race, but then the Ottomans turned on me while my armies were away, quite late in the game already, and it was a long and painful war that took ages to play.

By the end of it, it was too late to go for a space race, so I just pottered along to a time victory. Just before the end, I went all evil again and attacked Mansa Musa (schizofrenic Santa! ), but I just wanted to make him my vassal for points, and he understood and capitulated very quickly

I'm glad I ended up having such a long game because it was very interesting and enjoyable, and I learnt lots about modern warfare, proxy diplomacy and sea battles. Had I been more ruthless, I could have scored many more points but, to be honest, it is usually lack of ruthlessness that mars my games and I'm not going to turn ruthless just because of that. Yes, I know

Thanks to the staff.

 

[Adama]

At 500 AD I had felt I was off to a good start. And, if you don’t know where you’re going, traveling fast down any ‘ol path with take you there.

I researched toward what I thought important - although I had no game plan to guide me as to what techs those were. I delayed Alpha, because I didn’t think I could trade, having met only one other civ (forgetting that he might have been intelligent or lucky enough to actually seek out other life forms elsewhere).

I expanded mostly east and west, and onto the Western Peninsula, without going south through the tundra. I even used Galleys to ferry Settlers (2) to that Peninsula. I was also building roads to the peninsula though.

Did I mention I learned a LOT from this game? But, time flies when you are challenged and having fun (Quintessential Newbie-QN- here). So, after a while, I realized I didn’t have a very good start at a cultural win. I really was behind in any kind of military struggle, since I hadn’t even located all of the other civs. I didn’t think I’d have time now to conquer the world, once I traded for a map of the known universe from Mehmed II. QN had completely forgotten domination – can you still conquer most of the world and claim a diplomatic victory? I had forgotten that too, but seems that I read somewhere that the rules had changed regarding the latter- maybe someone can set me straight?)

Anyway, wherever Alpha Centauri is, that’s where I decided to go. I have never played a spaceship launch game, so I dragged out whatever old notebook I had printed from War College or forum posts and read a little.

What I learned:

1. I thought I needed Aluminum. I had none. I DOW’ed Mehmed and took the Aluminum and a few cities sealing him back to the East. Maybe it’s like WMDs. I acted on the best information I had, and maybe I didn’t even actually have to have Aluminum (seems to make Space race a lot easier.) But, to my surprise, after the war, a source of Aluminum ‘sprang up’ near my capital {in 1880 AD if you’re following along at home}. There would have been no need for the war! Earlier, a Silver source had sprung up, so my administration should have known that Aluminum would be discovered soon enough…

2. Ah, but years later, it came to light in my research department that a space elevator could not have been built in any of my cities that I had in the Pre-Aluminum War era. {who new it has to be built near the equator?}

3. While I was preparing for the Aluminum War, I think it was Cyrus that converted to Democracy circa 1843 AD. {Emancipation Civic}

4. This is where the story turns sad. You see, I learned a LOT about civics in this game. Late in the game, I felt relatively sure that I could not win: as it turns out, I might have had a chance if I had a better Civilopedia research team.

5. But, I prepared for war (no serious chance of winning, just for the experience and fun of it… ). Then I had the brainstorm of converting to Slavery and ‘whipping’ spaceship parts and … and… also “popping” my newest discovery “Al Gore’s Internet”. Mr. Gore’s tech would have allowed me to catch up tech wise with everyone important. Ah, but I am getting a wee bit ahead of myself here.

6. I had led in the tech race (once I discovered Alphabet very late around 1350 AD). I was the first to Liberalism (free tech), Economics (free Merchant), Physics (free Great Scientist and revealing Uranium)… I had emphasized revealing resources, and being the QN (Quintessential Noob) I thought Uranium was necessary to power the Space Ship or something …

7. I found resources I needed down in the Tundra, which I had largely ignored. So, even before I could drill an oil well, I went and founded a city on top of some oil in the southeast tundra. A little later, to be sure, I founded a second “oil field” on a southern tundra peninsula which would need an oil platform (also which I didn’t have). Then I noticed that Mehmed was expanding between the bulk of my civ and my new found bonanzas. So, I founded a rather useless expensive city as a “stopper.” QUESTION: How do you … or should I say, is there a better way to stop AI creep into your supply lines—assuming that you are never guaranteed long range of open borders to allow access?

8. Over by the Uranium (which I guess I still thought was important) in the very southwest corner of my tundra empire, both Tofu (Japanese) and Cyrus founded tiny ‘ice fishing hole’ cities that could prove to be footholds and very troubling if they expanded and cut off my supply lines to the western peninsula. What’s your suggestion? {QUESTION}. I just founded another tiny, unprofitable, ‘stopper’ city to connect my supply lines and keep them honest.

9. Well back to my story in point #5 above: You can’t whip anything but units and buildings – not World Wonders or Space Ship parts {again, who knew?}. Guess what? Under Universal Suffrage (US), you can’t hurry anything other than a building or unit… {QN: once again, who knew?} And, about my civics education, can you guess what happens if you convert from Emancipation back to an old outdated form of government like Slavery after the world has tasted Democracy? My brain storm to do this was caused by U.N. resolutions which forced me by resolution law to change my existing civics to things like Free Religion, Universal Suffrage, and Free Market or something. Please visualize my GP farm with a population of over 30 souls, all working tiles or producing specialist points, suddenly thrown in disarray when Hereditary Rule no longer provided protection of Warriors and Axemen. Well, lets just say that a LOT of your population doesn’t like it and becomes very very very {did I say very?) unhappy. So, five turns of civil disrest after conversion to Slavery, thinking of course, I could whip away those unhappies, but instead, no work being done, no anything. I decided my little game was over, and decided to use my armies I had built to have some more fun with Mehmed II, who had become a little hostile toward me anyway-- well, he did look at me sort of funny! So, I launched a rather extensive campaign, taking two of his successive capitals. I thought everything would be okay when I was able to revolt back to Emancipation {gotta’ love Spiritual leaders- no anarchy}, but guess what happens to war weariness in a late game war in a large city when you can’t revolt to Police State, and you haven’t built any jails (who needs earthly jails if we’re going into space?) and you certainly haven’t bothered to build, which is it, I think Mt. Rushmore?

Now, my cities looked like they had just been founded, working the center tile only ( I am told by the authorities that because of my failure to read the Civilpedia before making such QN decisions, that they would have removed that citizen also if they could have found a lawful way). So, work on my grand Space Elevator stopped; research toward my Al Gore Internet (and it’s free techs from two other more advanced civilizations) also stopped. Now I understand the importance of the UN resolutions to have the world change its’ civics.

Now, it really was war for the fun of it for the rest of the game. Or, so I thought.

QUESTION: If the UN votes a world civic and you don’t have the required tech, what happens? {Let me hazard a guess-- your research tree is altered and you can’t research anything else until you get it? No? What then? And, in the meantime, until you do have the required tech, what civic is your civ operating in?

10. Of course, this Quintessential Newbie had made one more mistake: When hereditary rule went away, I deleted about 75 units such as Warriors, Axemen, Spearmen and thought I was saving $75 a turn (which had previously been ‘cheap and portable happiness’). Instead, with my modern army moving deeper into Mehmed’s territory, even railroads could not extract them in time to stop both Cyrus and Isabella from attacking on the west coast. It would have been nice to have some extra units available to upgrade. I also forgot to change to Nationhood when I changed back from Slavery … ugh. Eventually I got back to Nationhood and used the modern tech civic ( more or less equivalent I will suggest, to Slavery) to draft mech infantry units. I am apparently a very slow learner.

11. Another bright, brain trust idea of my QN military team had earlier been to form a surveillance network of subs, destroyers, frigates, and battleships around my borders just OUTSIDE my cultural borders. Later when I brought them home to defend my coasts I discovered- and remembered- that they were costing me $1gold each for being outside my borders every turn… I sure could’ve used that earlier in the game for such a long time. That ‘ship shield’ cost me a literal fortune, I guess that's right, huh?

12. I did learn a military tactic from the AI. Isabella lost seven transports to my small but effective navy. She sent landing parties to the same area (the first party landed and had to be eliminated on land- those first two transports I destroyed were already emptied). I ‘hid’ my ships in the city, and when she got close, I destroyed the escorts and my subs sank the transports. Then, they had enough movement factors left to get back into the city port to heal and avoid all the enemy navies searching for them.

Later on I discovered that by teaming up my fighters and bombers with attacks on enemy ships that no enemy ships were immune to my naval attacks. I also figured out that destruction of my city tile improvements were coming from fighters stationed on an enemy aircraft carrier. After this lightbulb went off, this QN promptly sank that carrier.

13. The ‘peace dividend’ prior to the war made it very entertaining. I got a few war generals. QUESTION: After you get a couple of cities with war academies for faster unit production, and even maybe the +2 experience the first time, if you decide to attach the general as a leader to a unit, what do you choose? I have always chosen medic III in earlier wars. But, now I had gunships {too awesome for BtS} and I gave one-two flankings, the extra 30% withdrawal promotion, one extra movement factor, 25% against gunpowder units—presuming that SAM infantry are their nemisis and are gunpowder units IIRC = If I Recall Correctly-- and I think one extra first strike chance. What do you think? Also, that last promotion—which is theoretically better, first strike or one star +10% power? Another QUESTION: Since cavalry are mounted, and Gunships promote from Cav, if you have +25% against mounted units, does that apply when you attack a gunship, or does it end with mammals such as horses or elephants?

14. QUESTION: How do I turn on Autosave for every turn? I saw that mentioned here somewhere, but no directions.

15. War movement: When you have a large SOD, how do you work with it? I have only been ‘waking’ up one fortified unit, ignoring it, and then moving other units. The screen comes back to the awakened unit where I want to work with other of its compadres. Is there a better was to move through a stack if you don’t want to hit “move all units” or all units of one kind? {to save management time?} By the way, I really enjoyed reading TheMeInTeam's article about playing quicker... learned a great deal.

16. QUESTION: Can someone direct me to a link about OCN (ONC?). I am presuming that means optimal number of cities? I always have problems with my economy and worry about whether to raze a foreign city. {or how much to expand on a given size map}. Is there a table of recommendations somewhere in war college or forums? The “We Yearn to Join the Motherland” or whatever also gives me pause. Guidance appreciated. I did see a table in the back of the BtS Reference Guide by CivMan, I think it was... is the 'target number of cities' on page 75 a good guide?

17. Anyway, as it turned out, with about 20 or 30 turns still left, I sued for peace with Cyrus (one of three enemies) and only AFTERwards did I realize that Mehmed was his vassal. Arrgh! Unwanted peace with Mehmed, who I had intended on wiping from the continent…. Did a pretty good job with that up until then.

But, a funny thing happened on the way to the church. Suddenly, there was no war going on ( I also made peace with Isabella after sinking several more of her ships). The people in my cities returned to work… QUESTION: What is the difference in unhappy faces that say “Hell No, We Won’t Go” and the more generic “War, what is it good for?” and why was I getting both?

18. Gadzooks! I was only a few (a few too many, as it materialized) from building the Engine, Life Support, and Stasis. I already had the Casings, Thrusters, and SS Cockpit. I finished the Internet World Wonder (WW) and received all kinds of gift techs from two other civs that finished out my research 100% (old techs and new techs- you get everything either of the two advanced civs have discovered that you are missing). I got a late game Great Engineer at this point and used him to finish the Space Elevator in my devastated equatorial production city. I still realized I couldn’t win, but I was amazed at how close it was. Diplomatic votes came and went: there was no winner. AI’s kept completing spaceship parts, but no one launched. At 2o5o AD, I was only 3-9 turns away from completing final parts. This was quite the learning experience: barring the “Slavery” mess, and if I had not gone into my late game “fun war”, I might actually have won this game. The AI never completed their space ships. {Who knew?}.

I lost a time victory to Cy@! Wow!

Can someone say, “RTDM” (Read The Darn Manual) or IDCATFOMPTSARTCENAT (It Doesn’t Cost A Thimble Full Of Mule Piss To Stop And Research The Civilopedia Every Now And Then). That’s a new CIV IV acronym …

One highlight to share: Cyrus had razed one of my border cities. I caught him sending a Settler and Garrison troops later to that spot. I arrived one turn too late to kill the Settler before he settled the city. So, I took a turn or two and attacked. When I looked again, maybe two turns later, there were 7 or 8 units! Closer examination revealed Ceasar had a settler and garrison troops there just waiting for me to destroy Cy’s level 1 city and then to settle it for Rome. [I was not at war with Rome, so there was nothing I could have done without starting yet another war.] I attacked and killed Cy’s garrions until the last one was weak. Then I used a gunship and killed the last unit (gunships cannot capture the city). Now it was empty. But, the very next turn, Cy had a spanking new, sparkling Mech Infantry in there! Not bad for a size one city in about 5 or 6 turns, even with US. Anyway, I gave the plot of ground to Ceasar on the next turn …


Sorry for the long post. Thanks in advance for your input and answers to my {numerous} questions. I guess you can tell I thoroughly enjoyed this game because I learned so much, even though I suffered a dismal defeat very late in the game. And, as a QN, I now realize that I actually had winning chances up until my silly beginner mistakes.

Adama

 

[DynamicSpirit]

7. I found resources I needed down in the Tundra, which I had largely ignored. So, even before I could drill an oil well, I went and founded a city on top of some oil in the southeast tundra. A little later, to be sure, I founded a second “oil field” on a southern tundra peninsula which would need an oil platform (also which I didn’t have).

You don't need oil to build a spaceship. You don't strictly speaking need aluminium either, it's just quicker to build it if you have.

Then I noticed that Mehmed was expanding between the bulk of my civ and my new found bonanzas. So, I founded a rather useless expensive city as a “stopper.” QUESTION: How do you … or should I say, is there a better way to stop AI creep into your supply lines—assuming that you are never guaranteed long range of open borders to allow access?

Make sure you have access to the coast from the resource. Once you have astronomy, the resource can be 'traded' over the ocean, provided there is an ocean route that's not blocked by any non-open borders.

9. Well back to my story in point #5 above: You can’t whip anything but units and buildings – not World Wonders or Space Ship parts {again, who knew?}. Guess what? Under Universal Suffrage (US), you can’t hurry anything other than a building or unit… {QN: once again, who knew?}

Is that a question? If so, the answer is - well probably almost everyone else

So, five turns of civil disrest after conversion to Slavery, thinking of course, I could whip away those unhappies, but instead, no work being done, no anything.

I'm going to guess from your description that you kept whipping in cities before the previous unhappiness had gone away, yes? Let's say you've whipped something that's taken 3 population. On balance that immediately reduces the number of refusing-to-work citizens by 2 - because you have 3 less citizens BUT you have one extra unhappy one. That unhappy one lasts for a set number of turns - 10 on normal speed, 15 on epic. But the rub is that if you whip again before those turns are up, you now have TWO unhappy citizens from two lots of whipping. If you keep doing that, you quickly find that your overuse of the whip has made things worse, not better. Am I right in my guess of what you did?

QUESTION: If the UN votes a world civic and you don’t have the required tech, what happens? {Let me hazard a guess-- your research tree is altered and you can’t research anything else until you get it? No? What then? And, in the meantime, until you do have the required tech, what civic is your civ operating in?

No, you just swap to the compulsory civic anyway. And without anarchy too! I guess theoretically you could use that as a loophole to adopt a civic that you don't have the tech to use normally, but in practice it'd have to be a pretty unusual situation for that loophole to be worthwhile.

14. QUESTION: How do I turn on Autosave for every turn? I saw that mentioned here somewhere, but no directions.

Have a look in the folder your civilization data is in. It's most likely to be under C:\Documents and Settings\user\My Documents\My Games\. You'll see a file called CivilizationIV.ini. Open that file with a text editor, you'll find you can change all the settings, including the autosave, there. (I'd take a backup of the file before you start editing it, just in case...)

15. War movement: When you have a large SOD, how do you work with it? I have only been ‘waking’ up one fortified unit, ignoring it, and then moving other units.

The screen comes back to the awakened unit where I want to work with other of its compadres. Is there a better was to move through a stack if you don’t want to hit “move all units” or all units of one kind?

There's an option to move all units of one kind??? How do you do that? (Another question if anyone knows: Is there a way to select all uninjured units?). Other than that, I can't help much. The civ UI seems to me pretty crap in regard to unit selection. ALT+click selects all units. SHIFT+click and CTRL+click have other effects that I've never managed to consistently figure out what they are supposed to do. I tend to play around with clicking until I have the unit combination I want.

16. QUESTION: Can someone direct me to a link about OCN (ONC?). I am presuming that means optimal number of cities? I always have problems with my economy and worry about whether to raze a foreign city. {or how much to expand on a given size map}. Is there a table of recommendations somewhere in war college or forums?

I think whether to raze a city is something you pick up by judgement. (It's not just economic factors: It's how useful the city would be to you, how easy it would be to defend if the war is going to carry on, what the risk is of a 3rd civ founding there if you raze it, even whether it'd be better for you to just found your own city on the (better) neighbouring tile). One thing I do is glance at the top left of the screen where it tells me how much gold I'm making or losing per turn, and see how much that changes by the instant I capture the city, so when making the decision, I can factor in whether I think I can afford to lose however much gold per turn it's changed by.

QUESTION: What is the difference in unhappy faces that say “Hell No, We Won’t Go” and the more generic “War, what is it good for?” and why was I getting both?

War, what's it good for means they're unhappy about you being at war. Hell, we won't go means they're unhappy because you've been drafting units.

 

[dojoboy]

I very much enjoyed the game. I had a series of wars w/ Mehmed, eventually pushing him to the edge of the starting continent. I never bothered with wars overseas, preferred to trade with them when they were willing. I discovered Hinduism early, then Confucianism. Ran into some financial troubles, research down to 20% at one point. After I began building the space ship, I built the United Nations, and won the election easily. I generated several Great Engineers that I saved for the Space Elevator - built it. Then, sitting on some ICBM's, I launched for the victory. It was a great way to spend some down time over the holidays. Thanks CFC!

 

[Adama]

Is that a question? If so, the answer is - well probably almost everyone else


If you keep doing that, you quickly find that your overuse of the whip has made things worse, not better. Am I right in my guess of what you did?



There's an option to move all units of one kind??? How do you do that?

Ha! I laughed out loud ... "well probably almost everyone else ..."

Thanks for all the answers, DS! Wonderful information for all of us newbs.

As far as the slavery unhappies, biggest problem wasn't whipping; it was that I changed back to Slavery from Emancipation late in the game and I had brazillions of people yelling "We demand Emancipation" or whatever. { One of our illustrious leaders was told that two Brazilian soldiers were killed in Iraq. After immediately showing remorse and wringing his hands and almost wailing, he turned to an aide and whispered in his ear: "How many is a brazillion?" }

Moving all units of same kind is done by clicking on the first of two movement icons in the unit action area, bottom middle after clicking on a unit of a particular type. Alternatively, hot keys are {IIRC} G {for Go mode} and shift-G {for Go mode ALL units} and CNTRL-G {for Go mode for all of same unit type}. Finally, I can click and hold shift to select any number of units, just by holding down shift and clicking on various units of any type, and then move only those thus selected together to a new destination.

Thanks again for taking time to answer my numerous questions! All of noobs appreciate you, DS!

Best
Adama

 

[kcd_swede]

Shame I didn't write a 500AD spoiler... almost all the interesting stuff had happened by that point.

I settled more or less in place, iirc (if I recall correctly). I was planning on a fairly militant approach to this game, so built worker>warriors to size 3>settler

Researched Meditation to found a religion, then to BW then beeline pottery then all the worker techs. Forget about alphabet since map reveals that tech trading will be all but impossible until up to Optics. Focused on making cottages (my favorite floodplains improvement) to keep tech rate and war economy rolling.

My second city was settled in a good production spot with stone to the east, before I revealed where the copper was. Capitol built Stonehenge (for the GPro points... border popping not needed since state religion adopted) while city 2 built units, namely settlers/workers. Having the stone probably distracted me too much from the military aims, by making wonders too cheap to resist (Pyramids, GLH, Ang Wat, etc).

BW reveals copper outside my borders. City 3 claims the copper to the North and east of capitol. The second copper is near Mehmed's borders, and I decided to claim that with city 4 just to keep him out of the metals. It is also a good tactical location for impending ax attack on Mehmed. Built 5 axes and a spear in city 3, and then went on to attack. The spear was an afterthought, and when that chariot showed up was glad I had it!

The axe attack got me one or two cities, and then cultural defenses started being problem as I got to his core cities. Got techs for peace, and started building swords and cats for the next round. (That was a nice Christmas present to give us iron in an already mined hill!). The rest was history for Mehmed... by 500AD he is eliminated, and I kept all his cities. My city total at 500AD is 4 native, plus 4 or 5 captured. Tons of empty space on my continent to expand into. No barb probs because of the GWall that Mehmed had built for me in his capitol. Thanx Mehmed!

From 500ad to about 1100ad, I was basically just filling out the land and improving infrastructure. Lots of GS's and settled almost all of them. I considered bulbing towards Astro which would have been the smart thing to do, but felt like this game would go long enough to justify settling them (also note I got a lot of wonder-supplied bonuses for all specialists).

Beeline Optics, then astro. Circumnavigated the globe, traded maps etc.. and start planning the domination. My score is already double that of the nearest AI, and power isn't even that close. All those early cottages made sure I was way ahead of every AI in tech. I think Izzy had music which I lacked, but I had about a 4 or 5 tech lead on everyone.

Once galleons are made, Madrid and Barcelona are captured with heavily promoted Gallic warriors (Santa's little helpers), and a mace or two. Reinforced my forces with knights and trebs, and vassalized Spain when she was down to 2 crap cities. Without pause, I attack HC. My maces are upgraded to grenadiers. Some cavs and rifles also got into the fray at the end. HC vassalized when reduced to 2 or 3 crap cities.

Mansa was next, eliminated with cavs and cannons, for the most part. Then Toku & Washington attacked simultaneously. I got to use a tank to capture Toku's very last city. Probably should have prioritized fast moving units like Cavalry more than I did. All this troop movement took long time (both real life time and game years). I left Wash 2 cities, took capitulation, and went over the domination limit for land area (barely, thanks to settling all the iceball locations near my borders). Was over the population limit about 100 turns earlier. Anyhow, Domination victory in 1798AD is pretty good for me in an Astro-limited map, but I want to learn how to do this faster. Most advanced AI unit I encountered was one knight in America. I killed millions of longbows and maces, not much else.

Here's what I should do to improve my finish dates:
1) break the wonder-addiction!
2) build attack stack units in more than just two or three cities (i.e. build more military production cities and fewer science/commerce cities).

If anyone else has any tips for speedy finishing, I'm glad to consider it.

 

[PutCashIn]

Adana, that UN-Civic loophole gets more useful the higher you play...nothing like a good vote for global emancipation, inspired by some industrious AI on the other side of the world, when you dont even have constitution...

Aluminium is generally considered desirable, I have read conflicting reports on the Elevator but I like it, as I also like Robotics for Mech Inf. 30 Degree limitation only applies on cilyndrical/torodial btw.

I'd value '75 bones' worth of axemen and warriors about the same as I'd value a 'fortunes' worth of naval...both pretty cool! Just the fact you had them is a silver lining, for sure!

Attaching Generals as attack units is asking for 3% maybe to become !NOW!.
Wait unitll yourr playing an Imperialistic leader befor you try the General Army Of Death. Even then, your first one will most likely be +2 exp or Medic 3....

As I understand it, Mouse Wheel Up/Down and ,< >. buttons, I think, scroll through a selected stack.

I played for conquest because I dont know if I ever have, ~1950 win, most of the fun was staying below the domination threshold, !no give back city to vassal option in Warlords, ARRRGFGGGGGHHH!!!



I razed more cities in this game than in sum total ever, keke.

 

[BLubmuz]

Diplo in 1852 with self-vote. (the only kind of Diplo i like)

When i realize i have only 1 AI in my continent, the initial strategy was clear: wipe him ASAP, then caravels, then we'll see.

Mehmed gave me the GW and SH, i built Pyramids after Oracle for MC (a CS sling is too risky without gold or gems around).
I DoWed him around 500 AD, made peace for 4 techs, then finished him in 1142 AD.
Unfortunately i didn't explored the icy blobs early, so i hooked marble only very late.

Anyway, the AIs i met were far behind in techs, even Mansa.

Used liberalism for rifling, then start with Huayna with rifles and cannons arriving.
After wiped him in one shot, went for Izzy, not much units so the war lasted long. At a certain point i decided to vassallize her, just to save RL time.

In the meantime i made 2 very good moves: send a buddist missionary to Augustus (my income for the Shrine in Bibracte was indecent) and plant a city near the dyes close to Persia.

4th victim, Toku, wiped fast, then Wash, even faster.

At this point i haven't yet decided which victory achieve.
Just to stay on the right side i wiped Cyrus, with some obsolete wonders and Versailles.

I thought i could go for a time or a SR, but i got some problem of time, i've seen i owned the 66% of population, so i researched MM in 3 turns, built the UN with a GE, easily won the election.

If i decided for Diplo say 20 turns earlier, i surely could have save some 12 turns.
But probably this is compensated by an higher score for WWonders and population.

 

[da_Vinci]

Started this one thinking I'd go domination ...

Settled in place, named capitol "North Pole" On turn 33 popped masonry from a hut, first of many gifts.

Turn 84, 1510 BC built 'henge

Forget exactly when I founded Bibracte, east of NPole. Bibracte became my HE city. 22?? BC I think.

750 BC war on Mehmed with a worker steal.

310 BC 'mids

230 AD made peace with Mehmed for three techs

395 Parthenon

500 Great Lib

530 back to war with Mehmed

650 AD Hanging Gardens

680 Peace with Mehemed for more techs

710 Build Dai Miao

845 war Mehmed

1010 Mehmed dead

1265 Circumnav

Ok, now what? Thought about space, might even try that later on to see how it would have gone ... but felt like attacking.

Diplo? Domination? Well, lets go get the continent east (or west? or both) of me, and decide later. Had armies building on both my coasts.

1418 War Musa

1472 War Toku

Ok, this sealift is getting tedious, dom on a large map will be long, and RL says get this done, so diplo it is. Cyrus is friendly, and has not met Wash yet ... kill Musa Toku, reduce Wash to one and then gift him UN as Cyrus is close to being voting rival if I don't.

1583 war Wash

1607 Musa dead

1673 Toku dead

1697 peace Wash

1706 war Augustus (just to keep busy while getting UN up)

1736 build and gift UN to Wash

1750 diplo victory, 4069 base score, 51,134 Final Score.

dV

 

[beestar]

Adama / Quint. Newb.,

When you are suffering unhappiness (from drafting / war weariness / whipping / not being in Emancipation), are you increasing your culture slider to compensate? This is usually the fastest way to help with happiness, especially if you have Theatres and Colosseums and Broadcast Towers. Of course, this comes at the cost of money for research and upgrading. Just checking ...

 

[Adama]

Adama / Quint. Newb.,

When you are suffering unhappiness (from drafting / war weariness / whipping / not being in Emancipation), are you increasing your culture slider to compensate? This is usually the fastest way to help with happiness, especially if you have Theatres and Colosseums and Broadcast Towers. Of course, this comes at the cost of money for research and upgrading. Just checking ...

I'm just learning about Theatres, et. al., and the cultural slider. I used it in a recent xOTM for the first time, and think I am getting the hang of it! Thanks for the post. It's amazing how many aspects there are to this 'game' -- is it still just a game? My wife is trying to convince me ...

Thanks again
Adama

 

[Ronnie1]

I wanted to go milking for the "cow" this time, and everything went according to plan, right up until it didn't anymore.

I settled in place and expanded peacefully in both directions. I built most of the early stone wonders. I founded Confucianism and actually stayed in Organized Religion for most of the game. Confucianism spread to Mehemed and we were very friendly right up to where I attacked him.

After galleons arrived...I invaded the western continent with Musa and the others. I took and kept most of the cities there. I followed those wars by going after Capac and the lovely Isabella. After I had eliminated both of them, in the mid 1800's I was just going to farm everything and hit end turn for a while.

But that is when things went sideways for me....

I took too many cities.....

I started getting to close to the Dom limit, so I started gifting cities to Persia, Rome didn't want any. I was trying to give away high tile low pop cities, while founding coastal cities already inside borders. It was working well until I had two cities pop borders on the same turn a gifted city went into revolt, and all those tiles came back to me...........

So Dom limit achieved by 2 tiles in 1898 I think, base score around 9300......a wasted effort for sure.

 

[greatbeyond]

Santa was basking in the glow of worldly love, giving presents and trade of all kinds. Dear Santa had only ever been at war with Mehmed, a Grinch who had to be eliminated early. The elves finished the UN in 1770 and everyone started singing songs of world peace, joy, happiness, and contentment. The expectant crowds gathered 'round the Christmas tree waiting for the lighting of the "UN win" star at a decent date..... they waited, and waited, and waited.
First some of the guests would show up and not others, then those present left and different ones came to see the tree, the opponent changed several times, sometimes the vote was very close (4 votes), but apparently the world at large was fickle. Santa determined to unite the world made all sorts of trades and gifts. He tried to sign defensive pacts, (being the strongest and most advanced nation in the world, he thought it was a no-brainer) but no one wanted to unite with Santa. The mood of the crowd turned ugly in a moment ( after about 100 years and 15 votes or more) and their mood turned, they had been spurned for no reason, their love rejected, their outstretched hand slapped away, AHHHHHHH, kill, kill, attack, destroy the ungrateful masses, Ha, ha, ha, haaaaaa.

A rampaging Santa who has lost all of his love for mankind is not a pretty sight. He realized if they wouldn't vote for him of their own free will, he would cast their vote for them. MM who was at war with Tokugawa and his vassal Washington saw the train coming down the tracks and proposed to become a vassal of Santa's, so Santa gave his gift of world domination to Toku and Washy first, then the Army upgraded from Rifles to Infantry, and Caesar was next. After Caesar, Infantry was upgraded to MI and Cyrus fell. At this point Santa had enough votes, but MM spurned his love and walked out on Santa! NO ONE DOES THAT to the jolly old fat man. MM received only one gift that Christmas, the gift of the wailing and lamentations of his people! The vote came again and the subjugated masses chanted, SANTA!. SANTA!, SANTA! Santa forgave all the people and everyone lived happily ever after.

 

[toller pretzl]

There's an option to move all units of one kind??? How do you do that?

CTRL+click

9. Well back to my story in point #5 above: You can’t whip anything but units and buildings – not World Wonders or Space Ship parts {again, who knew?}.

Is that a question? If so, the answer is - well probably almost everyone else

Then how come I whipped all those world wonders in WOTM21

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Hmmm, I'm sure when I answered Adama's post I didn't see the reference to 'World Wonders - only the bit about not being able to build spaceships'. But I guess it must've been there coz it's there quoted in my reply as well as the original message.

Amazing how not only did I miss that but noone else picked it up in nearly a month (shameless attempt to make myself look less bad by spreading the blame)

 

[toller pretzl]

Unlike Jove, I saw 3 good cultural sites right away. It was my first cultural game where that happened, usually I see only two and get an enemy capital for the third.

Bibactre: in place, at least : at the river, with all the grassland and the corn and the pigs and the two floodplains and the wine. How can people not like that site ? Spoiled rotten, if you ask me.
Eventual size 21, cottaged to the max.

Vienne: 2 deer, pigs and corn, at a river to the east. So not near the stone (I built a secondary city for that) but a little farther east. Fantastic site, even better than the capital.
Eventual size 19, cottaged to the max.

Tolosa: north of Vienne, on the ivory. Pigs again, more food (was it deer or corn or both ?) and copper. I had an archer near this site when I saw Mehmed showing up with a settler slightly before mine. I declared war in the hope of scaring him off, but he went ahead anyway. Took his city with some luck and settled my own, took peace.
Eventual size 16, cottaged to the max.

Mine being a cultural game, I refused to research Iron Working and went at Mehmed with axes and spears. It was slow, also 'cause I didn't want to invest too much in military, but I had time. Eventually I extorted 3 techs from him, one of them being IW.

I built a Great-Artist-farm in Istanbul : 9 artists working there augmented with National Epic and Parthenon. But I also went wonder-crazy so :
8 Great Artists
3 Great Priests (shrine, founded christianity, founded islam)
2 Great Engineers (Taj Mahal and another wonder)
2 Great Scientists (bleh- maybe Great Library should be avoided in any cultural game) - two academies for the 4 cpt
1 Great General - military academy for the 3 cpt

Took the 4 late religions, built 12 cathedrals. 9 cities in all.

Bibactre : 2 GA bombed
Vienne : 1 GA bombed
Tolosa : 5 GA bombed

I don't like to settle Great Artists, it's so hard to predict how many you will need to bomb. However, with 3 good cities I made the mistake to make them grow at about the same speed (dividing the cultural goodies among them) and still keeping all my GA behind to be bombed. The result was that the last two GA were almost useless. I think you should either :
- make one city decidedly less developed, so you can throw most of your GA-boms at it in the end. At the same time you make sure the multipliers get priority for the first two cities, not the third. In my usual game, where I have only two good cities, this happens naturally.
- or, what would have worked in this game : settle some GA's (but how many, it's a tortuous question).

Cultural victory in 1655

 

[Alquest]

Hi all,

I have not submitted, as I was past deadline. Last three xOTM were just disgracefull..
This one too, a 2000 something spacerace vic is not something one wants to discuss here
Much more important than the above:
Thank you very much Alan H for a fantastic game. I have really enjoyed it!

 

[AlanH]

Hi all,

I have not submitted, as I was past deadline.

Hmm! WOTM 21 doesn't finish until 4th Feb. You actually had 3 days and 8 hours left as of the time of this post, and according to the GOTM Home Page. However, having come here you will not now be able to submit!!!

 

[Htadus]

I had a good start and somewhat mediocre space ship game. Was hoping to launch in the 18th century but that was not possible. I did eliminate Issabella and took some cities from Huyna. I went against my 5 year old sons advise and did not declare on both Persia and Japan since they were paying about 30 gpt total. He said "these guys are not smiling or friendly".

In my next monger game, he is going to be my Secretary of Defense.