WOTM30 - Final Spoiler

[leif erikson]

WOTM 30 Final Spoiler

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in WOTM 30, then you MUST NOT read this thread unless

• You have submitted your entry
• Please do not reveal the locations of modern era resources (Coal or later).

Feedback on the game concept and map are always welcome. Hope you enjoyed your game.

 

[Lexad]

Lost my 2nd city to barb warrior, I adore low-probability outcomes. Played without great plan, but almost reached tanks in the end.

 

[Markus5]

Spaceship loss (by 6 turns) to Russia. Nothing special.

 

[adrianj]

Spaceship Victory in 1811 AD.

Was actually a failed attempt at a Diplo victory - but Augustus and his Vassal Genghis had too many votes for me to overcome. At one stage Augustus controlled the UN that I had built, and passed the Free Religion resolution. This stuffed up my plans for getting Churchill and Peter happy through shared religion.

I was pretty peaceful up till 1000 AD, although Hannibal asked me join in wars vs Saladin, and I had no great love for Saladin so joined in. Never actually saw combat. I only had 6 cities all the way through here - pretty nice locations though.

Built Oxford in the capital somewhere around 500 AD. Liberalism shortly thereafter, taking Astronomy. With Astro (galleons) and later Steel (Cannon), I went to actual war with Saladin - keeping all the cities I captured, and eventually capitulating him. Hannibal followed shortly after as he was weak, and the only christian, so had no friends. Capitulate him also.

Just as I was sending my troops over to Genghis (the next weakest) Augustus declared on him. We were both trying to kill him ASAP, but Augustus got the capitulation, despite me claiming his capital.

My empire was big enough that switching strategy to space race went reasonably well. I beelined Fibre Optics and built the internet, which brought in a big bunch of techs for me. My production was pretty rubbish for the SS parts though, and this was the limiting factor. I was kicking myself when I realised 2 turns from the end that the last city to build a part was short by 1! So... kind of an 1810 AD victory + 1

 

[MarleysGh0st]

I went with the Adventurer save for Monarch level. Settled 2S, then built Edirne north of that one the river and Ankara on the north coast, next to the copper. Did well enough fog busting, but took too long before deciding on a cultural objective.

During that time, I made what might have been a fatal error, in agreeing to join Caesar in a war (phony on my part) against Genghis, with the intent of boosting Caesar's opinion of me. Those two made peace, then when Genghis wouldn't make peace with me, I bribed Peter to join the war. That left Genghis with a major grudge, but he was never able to get his revenge.

After researching Democracy and switching to that and Universal Sufferage, I switched to 90% culture in 1220. Caesar waged another war with Genghis, joined by Churchill (and his voluntary vassal, Hannibal) but Genghis was able to hold his ground and even capture an outpost or two on his continent. Churchill and Saladin then began building space ships, but I was able to get three cities to legendary status in 1798. I only had three GAs to culture bomb them, with an unwanted GS and GE being used for a Golden Age along the way. But what I lacked in Great Artists was made up for in religions; I had five of them (all but Islam) spread to nearly all my cities, with four or five cathedrals built in each of the legendary cities, by the end.

 

[kcd_swede]

I switched to culture when it looked like I'd never get enough tech lead to build the UN. From the way those cottages finally kicked in, I probably could have stuck with the UN plan and done fine in my nice cozy Bhudist block. But I got a 4th religion and went cultural (9 city variant). Legendaries were the northern Wheat/Fish/deer and the southern clam/wheat that shared floodplains with legendary capitol (in place).

My GPFarm was the 3xclam+Gem+Iron city captured from, barbs. I didn't manage a lot of GA, maybe 5 total. Ended up getting an academy in every Legend, and burned a GSci + GM on a golden age that had a few turns left at game's end.

However, there was a great deal of excitement in the final 15 turns, as Ghenghis DoW'd me. He landed next to my GPFarm with 3cavs, 2 cannon, and 1 rifle. It was defended by a lone Longbow, just like all of my better defended cities were. It was razed next turn.

But necessity is the father of invention... I had 8 or 9 idle workers. I calculated that only the cavs could capture either the capitol or the south legend city before it went cultural in about 8 turns. So I send my human shield into all the flat spaces between the cavs and my 2 undefended legends. This forced them to move only 1 space per turn, which was enough time for all remaining city garrisons (leaving all cities undefended) to get to the necessary cities. I built explorers in the distant cities (2 move unit) and warriors in the closest cities. Let him kill my human shield instead of take my legend cities. I think I built a jannissary that was in the queue to fill an ungarrisoned city when invaded, and he killed a cav in defense. By then though, the numbers of units in the cities were enough to ensure he could not take them before I win.

Result: Culture victory in 1784AD.

Note: Missed Sistines by 6 turns. ONly wonders buiilt were Taj and Parth. But it was enough.

human shield

Spoiler :

View attachment 257601

 

[Jbourne]

I switched to culture when it looked like I'd never get enough tech lead to build the UN. From the way those cottages finally kicked in, I probably could have stuck with the UN plan and done fine in my nice cozy Bhudist block. .............

....However, there was a great deal of excitement in the final 15 turns, as Ghenghis DoW'd me. He landed next to my GPFarm with 3cavs, 2 cannon, and 1 rifle. It was defended by a lone Longbow, just like all of my better defended cities were. It was razed next turn.

But necessity is the father of invention... I had 8 or 9 idle workers. .....................................
.... By then though, the numbers of units in the cities were enough to ensure he could not take them before I win.

Result: Culture victory in 1784AD.

It is a good thing you changed to Culture KCD, otherwise you may have missed the fun and would not have gotton the opportnity to be creative.

 

[kcd_swede]

It is a good thing you changed to Culture KCD, otherwise you may have missed the fun and would not have gotton the opportnity to be creative.

Yeah... I'm pretty proud of coming up with a successful plan... when he landed, my first thought was "game over". Quite a change in pace from the "hit enter until you win" victory that I was expecting by then.

Question: Do enemy units get a heal bonus? I noticed the cavs were healing while moving even though they didn't have the "heal while move" promotions, and none of his units had even medic1. Was I hallucinating, or is this normal for the difficulty level (contender)?

 

[Mitchum]

Question: Do enemy units get a heal bonus? I noticed the cavs were healing while moving even though they didn't have the "heal while move" promotions, and none of his units had even medic1. Was I hallucinating, or is this normal for the difficulty level (contender)?

Is it possible that the enemy unit had just received enough experience points to receive a promotion and in taking said promotion, the unit's hit points went up?

 

[Lexad]

The fact is that after being hit (in my test - by fighters) barbs move first turn AND heal. For the latter turns, they don't move and heal simultaneously. Might be same glitch?

 

[shyuhe]

I played to a totally uninspired domination win on the challenger save. I forgot how much it takes to capitulate the AI on warlords, and ended up triggering domination when I was going for conquest

About the only thing I did well in this game was managing my cash flow. I ran 100% slider from around 1AD until 1600 AD or so courtesy of two trade missions (each cashed in for over 4000 gold). That combined with state property and a well spread Confucian shrine put me at about -100 to -200 gpt for most of the mid-late game. And by the time the cash ran out, I was close to shutting down research anyways.

None of the AI put up much resistance during war. I capitulated Hannibal and Saladin with cavalry. Augustus went down to a combination of cavalry and cannons. GK went down to the same troop mixture (some infantry). Churchill was artillery and infantry. And Peter was with bombers + tanks + whatever other troops I had left over. When I declared on Peter, he had almost twice my power but he got whittled down pretty quickly. I'm guessing it was naval power but I'm not exactly sure since I never saw a stack with more than 20 units.

 

[kcd_swede]

Is it possible that the enemy unit had just received enough experience points to receive a promotion and in taking said promotion, the unit's hit points went up?

That's possible. Also could have saved XP from before like a human player might do. Perhaps I should go back to one of the saves and see if promotions are increasing. ...And good thing they don't get XP for killing workers.

 

[kcd_swede]

The fact is that after being hit (in my test - by fighters) barbs move first turn AND heal. For the latter turns, they don't move and heal simultaneously. Might be same glitch?

I have noticed this phenomenon with barb archers and warriors before, and that's why I was wondering if it was part of the game mechanics or not. I think glitch is the right word.

 

[Fluroscent]

After a rough start with bad barb luck (only lost warriors and improvements though), I leveraged the above average lands we were graciously given to reach natio+gunpowder in time to use janissaries against the medieval units they love to fight.
Attacked Saladin first with jans+cats, and capped him leaving his useless west coast cities. Then captured all of Carthage, mostly by damage of trebs, since he had tons of matured cottages everywhere. Got rifles during that war.

Moved across the landbridge to attack Churchill. He was a lot tougher, with large amounts of redcoats. Initiated with rifles+cannons, but had to get infantry to make real progress. Got combustion next to deal with quite advanced Augustus' navy. Production was going through the roof at this point, so I invaded Rome as I was trying to get Churchill to capitulate. 15+artillery and 30+infantry landed next to Rome. He had tanks, but sheer numbers won through, and just when my own tanks started to pour in, he capitulated. Double attacked the remaining two, backwards Genghis and large Peter. Added bombers which helped greatly with war success against Peter, allowing a rather quick capitulation after taking only three cities.

Tons of little things could have gone better, but it is hard to keep focus in these kind of games

Conquest victory 1752AD.

 

[Ronnie1]

I played a real solid start. I circumnavigated the globe, was first to Education and Liberalism, and got OxU up by about 1000AD. But somewhere in there I stopped settling fast enough, and Rome got a city on my continent by the horses. This wasn't really a problem, and when GKahn asked me to join in his war on Augustus, I was happy to oblige. I took the city very easily and it was never threatened again. But then I got distracted by Augustus. I took a city on his mainland, but didn't have enough to hold it and lost it back to him. So I reloaded and took a different city and culture bombed it so it would be easier to hold. This was working out as I was sending over fresh troops, but then GK stabbed me and razed my south coast city, which also happened to be my NE city. Now I was **** off. I ejected GK from my lands, eventually took all of the Roman cities, but fell behind in the tech race and eventually lost to a Russian Spaceship. All in all a pretty woeful effort.

 

[neilmeister]

Spaceship victory 1752.

All but conquered the romans in about 1100ad, I got the Mongols to help, which was a mistake in the end, as he vassalized him when he had only 2 very weak cities left. Grrrrr, this caused Rome to 'yearn' for the rest of the game.

Just the the kcd_swede, my GP farm was razed, Churchill did it for me. What really annoyed me was that I was putting 2 rifles in all of my 'border' cities, but of course I forgot the GP farm. A bunch of Redshirts conquered my lone longbow, which I upgraded to a Grenadier the turn before.
I'm not sure if this cost me too much, I used the last 7 GP for golden ages or settling anyway.
Bribed everyone except Hana & Sallly to go to war with Churchill as payback.

 

[Jove]

Culture victory 1637.

Settled the capitol 2 south. Built a worker and eventually Stonehenge in 2020. It seemed expanding borders would be especially useful on this map for a culture game.

Settled or claimed from barbs all the highest density resource spots, started growing some artist farms. One prophet got us Theocracy, another helped with Civil Service I think.

In 560 we got kind of lucky with an engineer, learned engineering and turned trebs against Saladin. Took his best lands, increasing our total number of towns to 12, and settled in to pop some great artists.

In all we built 7 wonders, 4 in the capitol. After the first three great people, all I got were artists, 15 in all. That was a little lucky. My best culture game so far.

 

[Grifftavian]

Adventurer save. First Spoiler post here.

Three wars after the first spoiler point. Gus was at war with Genghis, and asked me to join in. The Mongols looked fairly weak, were in last place in game score, and Genghis didn't like me very much anyway, so I agreed, mainly to get the +diplo points with Gus. I never attacked Genghis during this war, and made peace with him the turn after Gus did. I guess Gus didn't like that too much, as he declared on me a short time later. He landed some troops near the 3 Fish/Gems city in the south, but I managed to kill off his invasion force. I then captured one of his cities, but couldn't hold it. We made peace after that, and remained on good terms through the rest of the game. A big factor in that was Gus asking me to join him in a second war against Genghis. I agreed again, and by this time I had founded a city in the far south, below the Mongol empire. I managed to defend that city, and captured a small Mongol city near there that was in a poor desert region, but did have access to Oil. Made peace with Genghis after that.

Nobody had any Vassals in my game.

I built the UN in mid 1700's, but it took longer than I had hoped to get enough votes. Canceling a Defensive Pact with Gus took away some negative diplo points I had with Hannibal & Churchill, and didn't hurt my standing with Gus too much, thanks to the two shared wars. Gifted and sold a lot of techs and resources to Churchill, Hannibal & Sal to get their attitudes higher. A final gift of 500 to Hannibal put me over the top, winning UN Diplomatic vote over Peter in 1836 AD.

Everyone except Genghis had built Apollo Program and were building spaceship parts. I had built a few also, but Churchill had his spaceship a little more than halfway built when I won the diplo vote, and I don't think I could have caught him if I hadn't won the UN.

Very enjoyable game. I liked the unique starting position! I settled in place, attached are some screen shots of how that city turned out.

 

[Monnet]

Although I lost this game (spaceship loss in 1855, I was 1 part/10 turns from launching my own ship), I was quite pleased with how I played, apart from at the beginning. Had I had a bit more luck with barbarians in the early stages, I would have been able to get going quicker, fend off Saladin from 'my' continent and most probably manage a late win. Considering Emperor is above my usual level of play and I have never won (I only manage a Monarch win from time to time), that would have been quite an achievement. Maybe next time

Having said that, I also realise the map designer was very generous, so this was probably not a normal Emperor game. I also had a lot of luck with random resources appearing in my mines.

Things I learnt in this game:

- Much better trading of techs than usual, which allowed me to get back into play despite being quite behind at one stage. I always feel ripped off by the AIs if the tech I'm trading cost more beakers than what they offer, but I have started to realise that, if it can then be traded to someone else, it might be worth doing the deal anyway.
- Also in relation to diplomacy, a little gift can sometimes go a long way. I used to be too stingy!
- I am increasingly realising the great importance of workers in the game. I used to not build enough and more or less let them do what they wanted. Micro-managing them properly can be very advantageous.
- Deleting obsolete units with little EXP can save a lot of gold in the long run.

Things which I could have done better:

- Being alone in the continent does not mean one can neglect one's military and hooking up critical early resources.
- You cannot please everybody, unfortunately sooner or later you have to take sides and blocks form.
- The generation of great people was completely out of control.

In any case, a very enjoyable game and a thoughtful design. Thanks, Leif!

 

[The-Hawk]

I went the slow-mination route .

I thought tech'ing to cannons would be sufficient so I did not prioritize research (for example, did not build Oxford). Turns out I was wrong... cannons did not provide decisive advantage so I ended up getting into some slugfests with Churchill. To make it worse, after finishing off everyone but Augustus and Peter (in 1730 AD) I was 7 tiles short from domination. Since they were technically superior, it took me 16 more turns to finally tip the domination. At one point, I exceeded 64%, but Augustus managed to send a lone cav into my lands and take a city with one defender. This loss left me over 63.9% (1 tile?) which is where I stayed for another 9 turns.

Not happy with my effort, felt like I was slogging along. Lots of little mistakes, but the big one was de-emphasizing research after cannons. Final dom in 1762 AD for about 100K points. Would have been 1744 AD if Augustus had not stolen that city leaving me a tile short, 1730 AD if I had 7 more tiles after vassalizing Ghengis.