WOTM 26 Final Spoiler

[leif erikson]

WOTM 26 Final Spoiler

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in WOTM 26, then you MUST NOT read this thread unless

• You have submitted your entry

Posting Restrictions

• Please do not reveal locations of modern resources (coal and later)

 

[adrianj]

WOTM26 - Contender Save. First Spoiler here.

In summary, a very very tense Space Race Victory in 1832 AD, Score 47091.
(Posting Restrictions in a Final Spoiler??)

*** Session 6: 500 AD -> 1010 AD ***

Well, of all the AI I've met, I'm the first to Music, but I don't get the free GA. Ghandi is probably floating around somewhere... or maybe Ramesses since the Pyramids went quite quick. Current priority is Education followed by the mass university building.

I do manage to build the Great Library, which is nice. This far away AI (double check the pregame thread - there are 2) I haven't met yet is making me nervous about Liberalism. I'd love to meet them soon... I have some triremes out to find them.

I have met Ramesses (I was wrong about Pyramids though, Genghis Khan has them... possibly taken by force?). Ramesses has 3 cities, and is well behind in tech, so no threat to Liberalism. Unless I find this other person, I'm going to take Liberalism ASAP, probably claiming Printing Press for free... if I'm lucky enough to be first that is. Heh, the turn after I wrote that, I meet Hannibal, not doing great in tech, BUT Saladin can research Lib, so I am going to rush for it. With a few trades, I'm able to take Astronomy for the free tech in 1010 AD.

*** Session 7: 1010 AD -> 1430 AD ***

I'm reviewing my options here. I have 10 cities, and space enough for a couple more, do I need a war? Cyrus has planted a city on my land, and now with Astro I could effectively wage a war on him, perhaps claim him as a vassal. But he does have strong friends amongst the buddhists. Perhaps I should clean up Ramesses and maybe Hannibal at the same time? yes, I think that is the plan. Time to prepare to war, teching towards Steel.

Hmmm, Genghis has taken Ramesses capital, looks like I'll be too late for that one. In 1040 AD Egypt is destroyed.

In 1080 AD OxU is complete, and at 100% research I'm producing ~630 per turn at -88 gpt.

I'm still not sure about the war/diplo situation. I have a feeling that 10 cities may be enough to go to space, but I'm not sure. Ragnar in particular is out teching me at the moment. Decision: forget about war for now. New tech priorities: Biology for better farms, Communism for State Property, then get some workshops going. Perhaps put Physics in there earlier for the free GS.

I'm wondering if now would be a good time to get the world at war, while conveniently keeping myself out of it. Problem is, my main competition Ragnar and Saladin aren't up for it, and I don't want anyone coming out bigger than they already are. Decision: no war.

Oh dear. After researching Steam Power, I see that I have no coal. Saladin does, two in fact. And nobody really likes him anyway... For about the 15th time, I'm considering war. Next techs: Assembly Line -> Artillery. Or would a beeline for Combustion + Industrialism be better, to get my awesome Panzers in the game. Yeah, I think that would be good. Plus I'll also know where Aluminium might be.

*** Session 8: 1430 AD -> 1735 AD ***

Ok, I managed to trade for coal from Genghis, teching towards Industrialism. Again, contemplating if I do in fact need a war. Discovering Industrialism and finding I have no Aluiminium settles it - Saladin is my target.

In 1555 AD I have everything I need to build Panzers, and almost every city is working on them.

1580 AD, Hannibal has built Apollo. Oh dear. I'm teching towards The Internet...

By 1625 AD, I have my transports full of Panzers off the coast of Saladin's aluminium city. I declare, bringing Shaka in with me.

The war isn't going exactly according to plan. I captured the coastal city with the aluminium, but the 2 infantry I brought along to defend it have died in the counter attack. I have managed to capture 5 of Saladin's cities from the north, razing 3 of them. A Great General should help me heal my panzers to keep things moving. I'm hoping I can capitulate Saladin ASAP, and then I can simply demand the resources off him.

Gah, 1705 AD Ragnar attacks Saladin, landing his masses of tanks and gunships. He will probably take the capitulation now... dammit! Saladin says he is doing fine on his own. Oh no you aren't!

1715 AD. Come on Saladin, you have 4 cities left! Give it up! Oh great, he has gunships now. It's funny though, after he has lost so many cities and is ready to capitulate, I'm inclined to not take it. I've achieved my aim - I have aluminium (and coal for that matter) so I take peace. I love not needing the culture slider at 70% anymore Time for a golden age, maybe I can still build the internet.


*** Session 9: 1735 AD -> 1832 AD ***

Things feel calmer now. I still have a headstart on building the internet, which I'm hoping will get me back into the space race. Pretty much everyone is building parts except for me so far. Although Ragnar seems to have put things on hold, what with his invasion of Arabia.

In 1790 I'm the proud owner of a shiny internets. For the first time in the game I have a tech lead! Now to see if my production is enough to beat the AIs. I reach the end of the tech tree in 1804 AD. Apollo program is built in 1812 AD. From what I can tell at this point, I am up on Hannibal only by Genetics. This lead may not be enough... I've assigned all the builds, and it looks like 10 turns is the absolute minimum I can do it all in, and that's with 1 less Casing...

1822 both Ragnar and Hannibal have completed all the required techs!!
Can I build my parts in the time it takes them to build the Stasis Chamber?? I have 5 turns left...

1828. 2 turns left... and I've managed to fit in the final Casing!
1830. 1 turn left...
1832. Bismarck Wins a Space Race Victory!!

Oh man, that was the most intense space race finish I have ever played!!

Final date: 1832 AD, score: 47091.

(The screenshot shows how close the space race was 3 turns before I launched. Hannibal was actually like that for the last 20 turns or so, he researched Genetics for the Stasis Chamber when I still had 5 turns to go)

 

[kcd_swede]

Well, almost.

Ragnar unfortunately completed a spaceship in 1906AD. I'm disapopinted by the loss, but encouraged that I'm not so far from winning at this level.

What happened: I didn't really decide on a VC at the start, figuring just survival would be a good way to start.

Although my scout pretty much explored the entire landmass without getting killed, I suffered wave after wave of barbarian warriors, which I knew would soon be archers. Got pillaged pretty good a few times, had to research archery just to survive. That let me get horse and copper going, and that ended my barb problems. I was able to capture 4 barb cities, though the last one was defended by 9 archers, so I had to build about 12 axe + chariots, but the turn before I attack, 6 of those archers mysteriously vanished. So I had overexpanded and built a lot of military (that were outdated compared to my accessible neighbors), and really damaged my economy. But goal #1 = survival, and I've got my hub settled and survival is secured.

Now I can start a culture game... except its a late start.

Tech rate initially sucked due to eco collapse, leaving me with only culture as a viable option. At the time I decided to go culture (ca 500BC), I had already caught 2 religions (founded none). By 1000AD I had four, which is quite excellent.

I really would have liked a spiritiual leader for this game. I did so many religion shifts and civic changes that right there I would have saved the 4 turns necessary for victory. I gave in to every demand made of me except the join war or cancel trade. I gave in to a couple of those when it was judicious to do so. By end game I had +24 with Ragnar and +17 with Shaka, +11 with Saldin... so if I had any tech and could have built the UN.... I'd have faced Ragnar and lost anyhow. OK, so culture was my only shot, at least this judgement was vindicated.

My first 3 cities founded were my legend cities. The only wonder built was Stonehenge (I really hate building munuments to get border pops), but this was built late, around 500BC iirc. I made a half-hearted attempt at the 'Mids, but was just as happy for the cash.

Tech-wise, it was worker techs and the early mil-enabling (barb fighting) techs I chose. After that it was simply choosing stuff that some AI didn't already have and trading it away as best I could. I managed to be able to keep in the tech-trading scheme until about 1500AD when I was going to stop research anyhow. Got gifted Printing Press about 1700AD. I don't think I got anything else after that.

Berlin had 'Henge, Palace, and 4 cathedrals at end, and was legendary in 1902 with no culture bombs. Hamburg had Globe Theater and Hermitage and 4 cathedrals, and finished 2nd with about 4 culture bombs. Munich had FP and 4 cathedrals and needed one more culture bomb than it got. All three heavily cottaged.

Some of my comments to myself during the game: "Yikes! Why am I in caste system for the last 20 turns of building temples???" or "Yikes! Why am I building monastaries to spread religion when I could have switched to OR ages ago???" or "Yikes! Why have I turned off research in favor of culture for 10 turns when I can't even adopt Free Speech yet???" or "Yikes, I'll need a GA farm somewhwere!!!" "Yikes! OR really sucks when you are trying to farm GA's!!!"

Note to self: One disadvantage to caving in to demands is that you often cannot change civics on the turn it's tech is discovered, and so there is no reminder prompt to do so, and then you forget. Or I do, anyhow.

I got attacked once (though I was in war two or three times). I had DP with Ragnar at the time (Vikings were the monster civ, not far from domination victory at the end), which saved me. I saw 3 Cavalry and 3 trebs land. I had cash at the time and just had gotten engineering, was able to upgrade to pikes all over the place (and still had way too much military for efficient culture VC). Hannibal razed 1 very nice coastal (former barb) city with a weird flood plains/plains combo tile. Fortunately I was able to kill his units off after that, and it grew back quickly after resettling it. Question: why resettle it when you've already got enough cities/temples for all your cathedrals? I don't know. It built mostly wealth to keep slider up as high as possible in the end-game. But it wasn't until about 1850AD I got the brilliant idea to delete a bunch of warriors and axemen and chariots. You see, I was still in Hereditary Rule... and at one point a millenium or so ago, I needed cheap units just to keep happiness levels. But I wasted a LOT of turns paying maintenence on those units (of course I was running running Pacifism civic... makes sense right ).

Now... I'm just waiting for one more GA to bomb Munich with, so I starve a city that had GE pollution to get it fastest... 10% chance GE means I got a GE, of course. He built a university in Munich... that's the best he could do for me. I got that final GA in another city the turn Ragnar won, too late.

If I was able to reload and play from my 1000AD save, I'd win this one in about 1830AD.

As it stands, I lose this one in 1906AD.

Stats: Cities capture = 4 (barbs); Cities disbanded after culture flipping = 3. Cities built: too many.

PS, Ragnar had only the engine missing from about 1830AD onward, which is why I was not focused; I figured I'd already been beaten and was just hitting enter waiting for the "YOU LOSE, SUCKER" message. I did not figure that Ragnar would race to every part except the engine, then go on war after war after war, then build the Space elevator - with only one part remaining???!!! - and only then when it looked like he might get beat finish the game.
Moral of the story: never give up! The AI don't really try to win, they try to prevent YOU from winning. And there's a great big distinction in that.

I'm not happy losing. It is not a moral victory to come close. However, it makes me think I will win one next time, and keeps me eager for the next WOTM.

Thanks for a nice game, Leif. Oktoberfest.... Germans... culture??? LOL!

 

[Rusten]

This sure got harder than I expected! When I talked about how good our land is in the first spoiler I had not seen the other continent yet. Those are some nice capitals alright. Add in warlords deity bonuses and it's a real struggle.

I did end up winning, but it was much more work than I had anticipated. on the map, I really enjoyed this one!

It was nice to feel warlords war weariness again, I've missed things like this. Nothing like running 100% culture and STILL have unhappy cities.

I'll write my spoiler later.

 

[leif erikson]

Congrats to those who played through and finished this game. Winning it must be especially gratifying.

I was a bit worried about how this one would play out. Comments on the map are very helpful as I learn how to put these games together. And thank you for the write-ups, it is good feedback for us all.

PS, Ragnar had only the engine missing from about 1830AD onward, which is why I was not focused; I figured I'd already been beaten and was just hitting enter waiting for the "YOU LOSE, SUCKER" message. I did not figure that Ragnar would race to every part except the engine, then go on war after war after war, then build the Space elevator - with only one part remaining???!!! - and only then when it looked like he might get beat finish the game.

What do you expect from a Viking?

Well, almost.

Moral of the story: never give up! The AI don't really try to win, they try to prevent YOU from winning. And there's a great big distinction in that.

I'm not happy losing. It is not a moral victory to come close. However, it makes me think I will win one next time, and keeps me eager for the next WOTM.

A very important moral.

This sure got harder than I expected! When I talked about how good our land is in the first spoiler I had not seen the other continent yet. Those are some nice capitals alright. Add in warlords deity bonuses and it's a real struggle.

Can't give you all the candy.

I must admit that most of this map is a random build generated by the game itself. I did do some substantial editing as I tested and learned its difficulty.

Perhaps a bit more discussion as more players finish.

 

[Rusten]

I was a bit worried about how this one would play out.

Perhaps a bit more discussion as more players finish.

Now you made me curious, but if you want to wait for more players to finish before elaborating that's ok.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I made innumerable mistakes from my carefully thought-out plans. I'm not talking about normal mistakes, but really dumb ones. For example I successfully slingshot MC, built my forge and worked an engineer so I could bulb Machinery. Later I built teh Colossus in my ORacle city just before my GE was supposed to pop in my capital and popped a GP elsewhere. Totally screwed up my tech-trading advantage. Brainless. Each mistake slowed me a bit. I wanted to win this militarily. Another one was that I carefully fogbusted my entire land area. That was good. But then I decided to move one warrior for a couple turns (can't even remember what the idiotic reason was), which allowed two barb archers to quickly spawn and this screwed up building a settler which led to Joao settling the stone just before me... On and on.

So in the end I had to scramble to research the nukes techs so I could nuke the living bejesus out of all these advanced AIs. I had it all worked out, Kremlin, etc. My whole attack force. Then Ragnar passed the non-nulcear proliferation treaty.

I submitted my resignation...

 

[Rusten]

500 AD -> finish.

Short version:

The headache in my game was due to all the relevant civs (Mongolia, Viking, Persia) on the other continent being Buddhists. It can be a blessing or a problem. It will make it very hard for me to interfere with the block, but OTOH I am completely safe in regards to diplomacy. Shortly after 500 AD GK started trimming down Hannibal. I decided to let him take some cities accepting a dominant aggressive AI. The reason was that I needed him to get more population than Ragnar. I calculated that I'd be able to get Ragnar to vote for me rather than GK so as long as I constructed the UN I should be OK. Shaka had adopted Buddhism as well, so I decided to attack Saladin while eyeing diplomatic victory.

I made 1 critical mistake this game. 1130 AD I bribed GK into a war on Cyrus to make sure I’d get the votes, but it backfired big time. Cyrus capitulated almost immediately and suddenly the Persian votes were no more. This pushed my victory back significantly, easily as much as +/- 200 years. Now I was suddenly forced to go to war against Saladin again and meet the war weariness from the last war while taking out Egypt at the same time. Foolish.

Eventually Egypt and Saladin is destroyed, and with the help of biology+farms I get enough votes to win a diplomatic vitory.

Pictorial report:

Spoiler :

Education -> Nationalism (Ragnar beat me to the Taj) -> Military Tradition -> Constitution. I successfully traded for gunpowder.

OU up 780 AD. Much too late for my taste, but I’ll blame this on the unlucky GPP RNG.

I get Shaka to DoW on Saladin 860 AD as a diversion, but also for diplo points for the upcoming UN votes, I’m planning to join in shortly.

1010 AD: I DoW on Hannibal (phony).

1040 AD: Saladin gets rifles. I’m forced to stop my attack. I use one of my artists from earlier and culture bomb the city closest to him on capture. Now I don’t have to wait 9 turns for it to be productive.

1130 AD: The bribe resulting in Cyrus’ vassalage.

1440 AD: UN built in Berlin. The victory is far away though because of the mentioned mistake.

But I’m not going to beat myself up about it. I enjoyed the map and hadn’t played warlords in years so this was a very fun game to play.

70 unhappiness.....

Is the next WOTM (contender) deity? Or is it classified?

 

[leif erikson]

Is the next WOTM (contender) deity? Or is it classified?

Sorry, next WOTM will begin 27 Dec and it is scheduled to be Noble.

 

[ianw1610]

I found this one quite tough. I usually win around 50% of Immortal games, but not this time...

At the start, Barbs caused a few problems, with general pillaging, impeding my REx - indeed at one point, it was nearly far worse... my last defender in Berlin had just 0.1 strength left when he killed one of the Barbs - I breathed a big sigh of relief at that moment!

Then, Shaka made a very early DoW on me... he didn't threaten to take any cities, but again, there was lots of pillaging, impeding my REx yet further.

Eventually I got up to 6 cities, and was close to technological parity, but yet again Shaka DoW'd me (this time from Pleased), and after a long, long war, my defences finally caved in to his sheer weight of numbers. Shaka took 3 of my cities, leaving me with just 3 of my own.

From then on I was in last place technologically, with no hope of recovery, either via military or peaceful means. So I simply pressed enter lots and lots of times, and waited for a victory screen to pop up. As it was, Ragnar won via Space Race in 1848AD.

Interesting to note that Ramesses was apparently in the game - he was killed before I ever got the chance to meet him... my exploring Workboat met all other AIs relatively early.

Also interesting to note that the Industrious trait was totally wasted in my game, as I didn't contribute a single hammer to a single World Wonder the whole game! Typically, when I was interested in a wonder, it would be built before I had so much as completed research of the necessary technology!

Well done to all those who won - some impressive write-ups submitted already, and hopefully lots more to come. I'd say Warlords Immortal is far tougher than BTS Immortal...

 

[DynamicSpirit]

This game was unwinnable. I mean, immortal level on Warlords – intelligent AI with vanilla bonuses. No way. So, because all my efforts were going to be in vain, I played fairly quickly and carelessly. I moved the scout round the eastern hills as debated in the pregame discussion. But then I settled in-place, even though I knew this was a crap science site and would kill my normal strategy. But leif eriksson was kind with our land, and I slowly expanded to take the entire landmass on our side of that desert linkage to Arabia.

Later on I made some more masterful calculated moves…

• I built the pyramids and then misclicked and revolted to monarchy. So had to waste a turn changing civics again 5 turns later.
• Didn't send any boats to explore the islands NW and so never did discover the civs on the other continent before they found me.
• When a barb city arose in the extreme SW, in the most ideal spot for my GP farm, I consistently failed to build enough units to capture it. I only got round to it later on when Saladin’s massive stack was on its way and I realized if I didn’t take it, he would (OK, so I did get that bit right&#8230. But by then it was too late for a GP farm to make a difference. Though to be fair my super-high-production capital had built so many wonders (because there really wasn’t much else left it could build) that it would’ve been hard for a GP farm to compete anyway.
• I miscounted the civs and thought I'd met all of them when I hadn't met Ramesses. That meant that when Hannibal had enough on his hands right now, I did quick checks of who he liked and who was powerful and realized I was the only plausible target. So I wasted several turns building military before Ramesses' envoy turned up and I realized that actually Hannibal was already at war!
• Later in the game I started building an army in case I got attacked. And cunningly left all the units in the capital in the middle of my landmass where they wouldn’t be needed instead of in the coastal cities where any attack would have to happen. So when Brennus actually did declared war (or was it Hannibal, I get a bit confused) and landed a couple of stacks of cavalry and riflemen … Luckily I did manage to avoid losing any cities, mostly I think because Brennus (or was it Hannibal?) was playing even more stupidly than me.
• When the time came to build my rocket (without aluminium of course, because I didn’t notice until far too late that I didn’t have any and needed to acquire some), I didn’t do anything at all to speed production, just slowly built the thing. After all Cyrus was so far ahead that it’d be pointless me wasting time optimizing. He was going to win. Let's just get this game over so I can go watch telly or summat.

And then all of a sudden there was my spaceship sitting on the launch pad and apparently I’d – ummm – won the game. It was 1892AD. My first ever immortal/Warlords victory. Uh?

Bugger. What had I just done? What result would I have managed if I had actually made an effort?

OK. Mental note. NEVER AGAIN assume that a game is lost.

(I did that in jesusin’s first immortal map a year ago, and lost by such a small margin that I clearly would’ve won if I’d tried).

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I was a bit worried about how this one would play out. Comments on the map are very helpful as I learn how to put these games together. And thank you for the write-ups, it is good feedback for us all.

I liked the map a lot - thought it was quite generous, since it meant we had enough land to expand into a sizeable civ without AIs encroaching early on. And the AIs being so far away meant builders like me could focus on - well, building - without having to keep looking over our shoulders at how big a military we had. Plus Saladin as a neighbour is quite convenient - as long as you keep him happy and don't adopt a different religion from him, he seems quite unlikely to declare war. A rare chance to build a decent peaceful civilization on immortal level.

 

[leif erikson]

I liked the map a lot - thought it was quite generous, since it meant we had enough land to expand into a sizeable civ without AIs encroaching early on. And the AIs being so far away meant builders like me could focus on - well, building - without having to keep looking over our shoulders at how big a military we had. Plus Saladin as a neighbour is quite convenient - as long as you keep him happy and don't adopt a different religion from him, he seems quite unlikely to declare war. A rare chance to build a decent peaceful civilization on immortal level.

Glad you enjoyed it? I wish I could win on Immortal by accident...

When I first started with this map, it was an Immortal Warlords game in which the Germans were isolated on a land mass with hardly any resources. In testing, I got clobbered by the Barbs, never mind the AI civs. So I began adding Copper here and a bit of something else there. Played a bit more and found that I was falling way behind because Caravels were needed to trade. I keep hearing about the difficulty of Warlords and wanted to try to strike a balance by making it a bit more difficult for fast conquest or domination (spread things out a bit) but not too generous for builders. Tested again and thought it was easier, so removed a few elements. In the end, I was concerned about whether it was balanced enough or not.

However, the most important thing for me to read is whether it was fun to play and it sounds like, for the most part, it was.

 

[Ronnie1]

I'll have more of a write up later....

but,

However, the most important thing for me to read is whether it was fun to play and it sounds like, for the most part, it was.

It was a lot of fun! Hannibal WILL trade you Aluminum, making a conquest of of the Zulu capitol unneccessary for faster spacship building. It was a builders game for the taking if you stayed focused DS!

 

[The-Hawk]

Been away from GOTM for a couple of months, came back with this one. Sort of a slow start, wasted time trying for Oracle, then lost Great Lib by three turns. Since I was going slow, decided to try Diplo.

Worked my way up the tech chain, had everyone but the pop leader (Sally) Pleased or Friendly. Even got Ragnar friendly through a civics change. Twelve turns later I started building UN, had a GE almost ready to go. Then Ragnar DOWs and drops a stack on me (was friendly when he DOW'd). I eventually fought him off, but it cost me a ton of turns and he took three cities. His three cities made him pop leader, and completely threw off the diplo picture.

Anyhow, it was game over from there. I lived to see Ragnar launch in 1894. Maybe I can win an ambulence for my trouble.

 

[leif erikson]

Worked my way up the tech chain, had everyone but the pop leader (Sally) Pleased or Friendly. Even got Ragnar friendly through a civics change. Twelve turns later I started building UN, had a GE almost ready to go. Then Ragnar DOWs and drops a stack on me (was friendly when he DOW'd). I eventually fought him off, but it cost me a ton of turns and he took three cities. His three cities made him pop leader, and completely threw off the diplo picture.

One can never trust those Vikings.

Anyhow, it was game over from there. I lived to see Ragnar launch in 1894. Maybe I can win an ambulence for my trouble.

Thanks for sticking with it. Sorry to hear of Ragnar's launch.

 

[Jean_Monnet]

Great builder's game, very enjoyable despite having to rush due to lack of time before submission date and the infuriating ending. I lost the space race by 8 turns, mostly due to lack of aluminium.

I have had two very painful games lost to the fact that other Civs realised I was going to win the space race and sabotaged my production at the last moment by invasion and neclear attack. This time, I tried to shorten the time to build the parts as much as possible by pumping up a few production cities, and building the Three Gorges Dam and the Internet. I even had a GE ready for the Space Elevator and all my production cities had laboratories.

I had also secured a supply of aluminium from Ramessess just before starting construction of my spaceship and, although Hannibal had a good head start, I was confident I would be able to overtake him. Everybody was building parts like mad at this point. Just as I put all parts in the various queues, Gengis Khan declared war on weakling Ramessess and shortly after I lost my aluminium supply. The resulting slowing down of space parts lost me the game.

I am a bit disappointed because I was ever so pleased with my performance, even if I took the Adventurer save and played at Emperor level. For me, coming this close to victory at this level is a real achievement. So I will try to forget about the end result and concentrate on the good bits.

Two lessons learnt: do not take anything for granted, and the other civs do not really love me (despite defensive pacts, pleased and friendly attitudes...), so I must stop going for unrealistic diplomatic wins and for prioritising the UN just because it looks slightly promising.

I loved the map, by the way. The semi-isolated start was perfect for builders and our peninsula just the right size. Shame there was no coal or aluminium in it. I imagine this was premeditated; quite an evil twist.

Edit: I carried on just so I could complete my spaceship after all, and I now feel a little bit better.

 

[babybluepants]

Can't finish by tmr, unfortunately. I think it's quite winnable, but definitely not even close to decided. I'm currently in 1100's AD, just finished MT+GP, few turns from Taj. My infra is largely all built up, so I've started pre-building some trebs. I was planning on taking over Sal with cav/treb and trying for space from there. The diplo is quite tricky and volatile. It seemed I might be able to just beeline Mass Media and win this easily, but it's unclear who the potential opponent will be and some potential votes could disappear on a whim... I might try to finish the game later this week anyway.

 

[Munro]

I had a lot of fun with this map but just ran out of time again. Maybe I have been playing too much pitboss.

Anyway, my game continued mostly as expected.

• I shared a religion with both Shaka and Saladin and got them both to friendly, allowing me to keep up in tech trades and keep things quiet on the home front.
• The other continent was almost entirely Hindu - Hannibal, Genghis, Ramesses, Cyrus - except for Ragnar, who was doing well but was Islamic and had already vassalized Cyrus. So I focused on him.
• I bribed first Ramesses, then Genghis, then Saladin and Shaka and then Ramesses again into war against him. Meanwhile building up my military and tech lead until I could attack and conquer more or less his entire empire.
• I'm now #1 in land, and Hannibal is my main target now. He's cruising towards a space victory, but not nearly fast enough. With Ragnar's and Cyrus' lands now under my control I have the aluminium I need for a late military victory - just need to manipulate the diplo again to get someone (probably Ramesses) into a war with Hannibal to soak up the huge deity gunship and artillery stacks. Then move in and mop up.

The two main mistakes I made in this game were

1. forgetting to bribe Ramesses to switch to my religion before changing civics (and losing the Organized Religion favourite civic bonus). So he still likes Hannibal and won't DOW. I'll have to switch back for a few turns to make him change to my religion and stop being friends with Hannibal. So a couple lost turns of anarchy.

2. I left it too late to bribe Genghis into war with Ragnar, before Ramesses vassalized him... That's a problem because Genghis and Hannibal have a defensive pact which I want to break before declaring (although I can probably get Hannibal to declare on Ramesses at some point since Ramesses took a border city next to Genghis the turn before he vassalized Ragnar).

Not that it matters too much since I ran out of time to finish. Still, I may try to finish sometime since I have still yet to complete a deity game.. (successfully, that is )

Attachments are the screenshots from the turn I retired.

Fun game though - thank you for the map Leif! I enjoyed it. Having Saladin and Shaka appear by surprise out of the desert so late in the early game was a fun surprise. It also allowed some room for early expansion. Cheers.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Can't finish by tmr, unfortunately.

Same here... didn't you play SGOTM10?

To be honnest, I didn't played past 500ad (will try to update my post in the first thread a bit). I will maybe finish to see if I can win despite warlords awesome AIs.