WOTM 49 - Final Spoiler

[neilmeister]

WOTM 49 Final Spoiler

So how did your game after 1AD go? Tell everyone and discuss in this thread, subject to...

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Did you win?

 

[Sleepless]

Another try at a diplo achieved in 1700 this time... Made sure I had the GWall. Great when you have alot of room to expand and engineer points. Conquered Hannibal then Asoka. Capitulated Monte using cavalry. With his and Qin's votes managed a diplo win.

 

[MarleysGh0st]

After settling the northern half of my continent, I went to war against Hannibal in 940, wiping him out by 1280. (He built one city on the island to the northeast, which gave him a final refuge I didn't expect.)

War with Asoka ran from 1440 to 1590, ending with India's destruction.

After building a fleet of galleons to carry my invasion force across the ocean, I declared war on Monty in 1700. Bismarck, who was struggling to survive a war with Monty (and had just made peace with QSH) volunteered to become my vassal in 1715. Monty capitulated in 1760.

In 1770, I went to war with Mehmed. He apparently had his hands full with a barb problem; among the Ottoman cities I captured or razed, Edirne was still in barb hands when I took it in 1804.

In 1808, with Mehmed down to one city and while I'm positioning troops for my next war against China, Bismarck suddenly decided to stop being my vassal because I'm now "too weak" to protect him. What am I going to do about it, he asks. Well, I'm going to war! (This was a tactical mistake. I should have gone against China first, and then turned around to teach Bismarck a lesson.)

The Ottomans are destroyed in 1808. I go to war against China in 1816. Germany is destroyed in 1818. And then China capitulates, giving me a Conquest Victory in 1834, with 47,931 points.



Incidentally, because of the ice blocking the polar ends of the other continent, I failed to get the Circumnavigation bonus before Monty took advantage of the peculiar shape of our home continent to grab that bonus in 1625. I should have loaded a scout on one of my caravels to explore that last bit of mysterious land--the extra movement point would have handy for my invasion fleets!

 

[Chris1229]

1972 cultural victory

Didn't figure out until much too late, just how much of an advantage having multiple religions for their academy type structures until early 1300's when i started purposefully spreading around religions for the 50% bonuses i could get in my legendary cities.

1840 Hannibal declares war on me upset because of the cultural pressure my cities are putting on his. He captured two of my coastal cities on the southern part of the continent, one of which i retook later by upgrading my spawn-busting chariots and keshiks to cavalry i was able to keep him away from my legendary cities. I took adavantage of the 6+ tile distance between my culture cities and my culturally borders by waiting until his grenadiers had moved into open land that was close enough to my cities for my calvary to sally forth attack and return the same turn. This also kept my tile improvements from being pillaged.

1868 Monty declared war on me. I lost my northernmost city to him but was able to keep him away from my culture cities the same way i had Hannibal, just with more difficulty since he had cavalry.

1908 Hannibal declares on my again after discovering rifling. this time he only sent a few units after me since his empire had been mostly gutted by Asoka.

I had 12 great Artist which is more than i built of any other single unit in the game. I almost succeeded in keeping my resolution not to dow anyone but had to dow bismark for a demand from i forgot who?

This was just my second ever cultural victory and I think i am starting to get the hang of how to play for that victory condition.

 

[Jastrow]

Space in 1820... A pretty poor effort overall. Indeed, the endgame was a comedy of errors, and I could probably have taken 20 years of the date just by setting the tech order correctly. I ended up researching the tech for Appolo much to late, as a result of which I finished all my research before I had time to build the parts... :=(

I also messed up the warring a, and lost a few more turns then necesarry taking the southern half of the continent. More importantly, once I had taken it, I did not properlly specialize any of its cities, leading to them not being all that useful in the end.

I guess the low food level of the map is the main cause of all of this. It upset the "normal" timing of the production to research ratio, and I never adapted properlly.

 

[neilmeister]

@ Chris1229, congrats on the win.

There are some excellent Cultural guides in the strategy section, and probably the best was written by jesusin, linked here

 

[Chris1229]

@ Chris1229, congrats on the win.

There are some excellent Cultural guides in the strategy section, and probably the best was written by jesusin, linked here

Thanks Neil,
For the link and the congrats.

Will be checking out that guide shortly.

 

[Mitchum]

I'm away from my Civ computer so I don't have all of the details, but I got a Diplo victory in 1380 AD (T198) for a score of 51,631.

Rather than going for Diplomination (or Diplomation), I actually played a "real" Diplo game. I left Hannibal and Asoka alive and only had units on MP duty until about 1100 AD. By the time I met every AI on the other continent and could assess the situation there, I only had 25 turns to get them to Friendly. So I researched Guilds, cranked out a stack of Knights, and started a war with Monty and took all but two iceballs that he had. I got Qin and Bismark (both converted to my Confused ways) to join in on the fun for some shared-war love.

My 100% GE, nurtured from 500 BC or so, came 1 turn after learning MM (could have sped him up but I fired the engineer in favor of cranking out units for the Monty war). I built the UN in the capital in 4 turns with the help of Imhotep (or whatever his name was).

As it was coming down to the wire, it was going to be me against Asoka. But Asoka loved me so much and I wanted his vote... so I gave two of ex-Monty's largest cities to Mehmed so that I could go up against him. This gave him about 10 pop points more than Asoka... a safe margin... so I thought.

I destroyed Mehmed in the vote for Secretary General. One turn before the vote for the UN victory, I noticed that Asoka was listed as the largest Civ on the F8 Victories screen. What? I checked out the large ex-Monty cities and noticed that Mehmed had whipped them down to size 4 or 5 while Asoka had grown a couple of his cities. A perfect plan gone wrong in the course of 2 turns.

With fingers crossed, I pressed enter... and won! I got the nod from Hannibal, Qin and Bismarck with Mehmed and Iceball Monty abstaining. Along with my 30% of the votes, it was enough for a victory with a margin of about 20 votes.

I have to agree with Jastrow. The lack of food on this map made this a lot different than a typical one... but it was fun.

Thanks Neil!!

 

[Chris1229]

I too was surprised by the low food level of the map. I searched the forum and couldn't find much. Perhaps someone who has played the mapscript more than I have can shed some light. Is the lack of food a feature of "Ice Age" mapscipt? It seems logical.

 

[Mitchum]

Neil generated this map without any tinkering, so I assume that the Ice Age map script is low on food by default. This makes sense, as you said. I had never played this map type before and wasn't fully prepared for the consequences of so little available food.

 

[keiselhorn13]

I've been busy lately but managed to finish this one. The only of the February GOTMs I didn't lose.

I wanted to build a good base before start warring, because on BOTM62 (Japan) I went too fast on the rush and ended up getting beaten. The difficulty was much easier, but still I chose to play more cautiosly, and not worry too much about the final result.

Expanded to a few cities on my northern half, and built a number of wonders in Karakorum. Lost GLH but got Colossus which helped a bit. Also missed the right spot to make 2 canal cities to connect the the four shores around the lake in the middle of the continent.

Destroyed Hannibal and took Asoka's mainland territory, he remained on the NE island and become vassal. Then I sorted out money issues (a few turns in strike), and was undecided what to do next: conq/domination was the obvious choice, but baulked on that and decided to go culture.

I had 4 religions of my own and worked the way up, but I could have done it faster. Maybe should have prioritised Astro. Libbed Rifling. I set up 2 or 3 GP farms but they were lame, mainly because I had already built NE in Karakorum, which had a very polluted GP pool. Had I waited and built it in Carthage (legendary #2 and clean GA farm) my result would've been better.

My culture generation amongst the legendary cities was also very unbalanced. Karakorum had heaps of wonders and therefore reached L status much earlier, finished the game at 75k culture. The dirty GP pool in high-GPP Karakorum also didn't allow Carthage and Hippo (another promising farm) to generate as much GAs as they should.

After continent conquest, no further wars or annoyances. GW very helpful against barbs. Took me ages for Carthage and Delhi to reach legendary though.

Cultural victory 1932ad, score 19108. But I had fun. Thanks for the game, neil.

 

[undead]

(Got Warlords and BTS recently. Tried a similar map: the great wall helps, maybe not essential, but very comfortable.)

So, didn't want to miss the great wall: second city founded on the stone to the W in 2160 BC, sailing researched in 2120 BC for the connection, chopped some trees and hurried with 2 pops, just when the first barbarian warrior appeared, in 1960 BC. Then watched the barbarians pass by, moving to the neighbours.

Conquered the continent (no vassal surprise) but didn't go farther. Played quickly (for me). Circumnavigated first without even trying, with the help of a map trade and a late exploration of the western sea. Didn't stay first in power, but nobody attacked me.

Spaceship victory in 1967 AD. I'll check some savegames when the results are available to see how to use all these plains...

 

[Jastrow]

. Circumnavigated first without even trying, with the help of a map trade.

Same thing happened to me. Since I was never even thinking of leaving my continent, I did not care at all one way or the other, but it was a complete shock when I got the bing, and the reward message.

 

[keiselhorn13]

Circumnavigated first without even trying, with the help of a map trade and a late exploration of the western sea.

I didn't even know whether the map could be circumnavigated or not. My "circumnavigation" came out of a trade mission to Berlin

how to use all these plains...

I cottaged well around the rivers... later on I irrigated many plains to help with GP generation (particularly in the capital)... but once again I forgot about Biology Anyway... I'm no expert so take my words with a pinch of salt.

 

[greatbeyond]

Space victory 1963AD 16294 points

Testing, testing, testing...to me there were 3 choices of where to settle:
In place - gives the capitol more food and better hammer production , however it would have meant sharing the 2 sugars to the west with a second city planned for the PH that was indicated to be a good spot to settle. Settler in 25T
1S - This meant settling on the Sugar for an immediate boost in growth and keeping the PH 1E for more hammers, downside was again, sharing the sugar. Settler in 17T
1E - Settle on the PH for increased Hammers from the start. I was worried about giving up the 2 sugars but once I moved and saw the second seafood it made even more sense, so...
Settled 1E on the plains hill for the extra production. First Settler in 15 turns

Second settler born in 3240bc and settled on the PH to get both the sugars and gems in the BFC. Third Settler born 2400AD and settled 2N of the stone to allow a speedy finish to get TGW, a necessity if you ask me. Getting TGW didn't end up having as much effect on Han and Asoka as I would like because of the land shape, area, and their location, the barbs kept out by TGW didn't put extra pressure on them.

I was surprised when copper revealed itself under the second city, but it did give a boost to the early war. I started building Axemen there while building TGW in the Capitol completing it in 950BC and Pyramids in 300BC. The third city completed SH in 900BC. This was built to put hammers to use as it was growing very slowly with not much in the way of food and I didn't want more Warriors.

I had already met both Han (2 cities) and Asoka (4 cities) and decided that Han would be the first to go. I razed a city he just settled then took Carthage and settled for some techs because he had Alpha. On to Asoka and take 5 cities, leaving one just settled on the NE tip of his landmass. Take some techs and then it's back to Hannibal for another fake war for another tech. Wait 10 turns eliminate Han 1050AD, and Asoka 1160AD. I consider trying to tech farm them but I was far enough ahead I thought it was more trouble than it was worth.

This was the decision point for victory type. I thought culture would not be as quick because I hadn't really started out with it in mind and the other continent had 3 of the early religions. (Not to mention the thought of how badly I'd get beaten by Jesusin!) I wanted to see if the fearsome war machine that is the Mongols could be directed in a more peaceful direction and chose Space. This was further reinforced when I met the other continent a few turns later (getting the movement bonus)and found them all enjoying a Buddhist love fest, which would make the UN a tough sell. I was ahead of them by 3 or 4 techs and continually widened the lead.

I continued to fill in cities as I could afford to, eventually using up all the useable land on my continents.
I'm sure I didn't optimize things as well as I could have as things seemed to go very slowly. I ignored demands from Monty (what a shock!) as I was a generation ahead in units and he didn't even have Astro for a long while. I did some minor trading to backfill a few techs but basically everything had to be self researched. Liberalism was used for Astro. I did delay getting SM as I wanted the research boost from TGL (combined with Oxford) as long as I could. I researched most of the techs around SM and then rushed it with Scientists. Followed by rushing Physics, then Biology

Overall I had 11GS, 1GP, 3GM, and 3GE. one GS built an Academy in Karakorum, but the rest were used to speed up later techs. GE's were used to speed up 3 Gorges and the Space elevator. GP was used for Theo and the 3 GMs were used for trade missions.

Towards the end I was generating about 3300bpt in research and was 2 turns shy of finishing flight which was the last tech other than Future Tech.

It was an interesting map challenge and I think it would have been very difficult just one or two levels higher. I don't quite understand why Han didn't try to expand quicker. Asoka on the other hand was starting to get out of control and had to go.

 

[Manco Capac]

I'm myself impressed of my own improvements in culture games. I can't wait to confront Jesusin with my new skills.

Spoiler :

1790 AD! Lo!

 

[Htadus]

^^
I am definately going for a culture game as Mansa. So may be I will get to see a culture game entry from you for that game too.

For this game I sped through to the end when I realized it was over last night. Another unintended domination game with just 1 indipendent AI left.

I settled in place and grew to 10 cities while building a bunch of World Wonders. Skipped TGW and in its place used 3 chariots to fog bust the north.

Got CS from the Oracle and during early AD's attacked the locals. Each of them had a city in the island to east and I managed to get a few techs for peace.

Arounf 1200AD attacked the 2 locals and eliminated them from the game. Next it was Monti's turn and got rid of him. Seven turns after Declaring on Monty, 6 solo calvary units attacked Ottoman and captured 2 cities from galleons. Both Monti and Suli was gone about the same turn.

The same turn I attacked Suli, my calvary units also attacked Bizmark. With three war fronts the war unhappiness was about 25 in some cities and I needed to crank the culture slide. I accidentlally took Bizmark as a Vassel and that is what actually screwed me up. Once the units were healed I went after China and with just 2 cities left to go I triggered domination. Oh well, another day.

 

[kenwyn]

Interesting, the various approaches & strategies used herein.

I too thot about a Cultural go or Religious but changed when; A) didn't get early wonders due to military needs & B) there is no Religious victory in WL (oops, & UN is so far away).
Thus defaulted to Dom victory.

I went for Carth first just as harassment so Carth wouldn't take any of good spots to the immediate south. I too milked them & India for tech's via wars since we had Kesiks & Combat1 axemen early.

Tried to get there with just the beginning continent; wiped out Carth & India + a row of "iceball" (as someone called them) cities along northern ice edge. Alas, the entire continent maxed out at around 52%. So off to war on the other continent.

Went for Compass once i found there was no way to find other civs. Got circumnavigate (i always go for it & always take along a scout/explorer) so have a 50% & then 33% better range/speed.

Next trips over i started spreading my Hindu religion to Germs & Ottos. Chins had their own & Aztecs shut me out... as usual. Those religious outposts provide very nice intelligence so as to plan out conquest intelligently.

Took out Chin & that still wasn't going to be enuf land for 64%. So had to attack my best friend the Germs, after they had been ground down & made peace with Aztecs. After several turns, got Aztecs to attack them again with a couple of cheap techs. Had Germany on the ropes & tried to get them to become vassal (50% of their land would have ended game), but no deal. So surrounded last 2 northern most cities, pounded down their defenses & was ready to capture them the next turn (1820AD or so). Then could re-grow them over next decade & have the 64%. But NO, they cut a deal with Aztecs just before my turn & instant peace throws me out!

So had to tech & buy machine guns (to first protect myself from stacks of Aztec rifles), then cavalry, & artillery for final attack. Attacked same 2 cities + Berlin from the west via long finger of ocean. Then got my Hindu brothers, the Ottos, to jump in for a tech so they would keep Aztecs' huge stacks from coming my way.
Few turns later around the turn of the century, the Germs were history & victory was mine(!).

Other notes/thots:
It was a 1st for me also with Ice Age. The food thing didn't really bother my game, perhaps because used to playing BTS at higher levels.

The strange 2 fat continents map was a surprise & certainly affected everyone's game. What map creator setting was used, "Islands"? Or...? Neil, can U share?

Thanks for putting this all together for us. And for helping a first timer make it almost thru my first WOTM!

I loved the barbs' continuous supply of "live-fire training"! I rarely build TGW since barbs can be used to get up to 10points of experience. Particularly with an "Imperialistic" leader.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I played this game a while ago, but here are some rough notes:
- I settled a City that ended up joining the two Oceans... but in so doing, missed the Gem Resource that I hadn't seen at that point in time
- I settled a Horse City but lost it to a Barb Warrior! Trollolol!
- After recapturing the Horse City, I placed my next City on top of the Stone and Chopped out The Great Wall. Haha, take that, Barbs!
- Hannibal was slow to expand so I settled a City to the north of his capital, essentially blocking him off from further expansion. I think that he had a total of 3 or 4 Cities at most
- I spammed Confucianism thanks to the City visibility that it provides to the owner of the Holy City, making military logistics quite simple to figure out (or do you also need the Holy Shrine in Warlords? Either way, I had the Shrine, too)
- Astronomy came late but when it came in, little time was lost in spamming an army of Galleons and transporting troops en masse overseas. I threw nearly every spare unit at the AIs, including Longbowmen that didn't really need to defend my mainland Cities (I mean, no overseas AI was close to Astronomy and my neighbours were not a concern)
- I eventually grabbed Cavalry as an after thought, but most of the ones that were built didn't make it overseas to help out in time in the warring
- I picked up a lot of Great Generals--almost too many, you might say, as I almost used one to make a Warlord Galleon just for the fun of it
- I spent a long time before I captured Carthage, but earned The Great Library out of it and plunked down my National Epic there... which I think netted me a whole 2 Great People before the game was over

The apparent lack of Food on the map wasn't much of an issue for me as I didn't bother to settle the icy wastelands to our north and left them to the Barbs (and later to Hannibal, since I'd gifted him a City to keep him alive, mostly for the fun of it, really, but also to get his remaining techs while keeping all of his self-founded Cities).

Domination wasn't in the cards as I didn't feel like settling a bunch of junky Cities on the northern part of our continent, so I systematically wiped out the AIs. As a gesture of mercy, I let the Ottomans live since they'd worked so hard to capture a Barb City just before they were about to be eliminated, and let them be my Vassal for their hard efforts.

 

[kenwyn]

Is there a reason the results have not yet been posted?
When mite we expect them?