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Ok, well here are my thoughts for anyone who cares to read them:
I really shouldn't have won this game. I had the smallest and narrowest land mass, with a mere one river and virtually no food bonuses and only 2 luxuries. I had no coal (the most important Industrial Age resource) and relied on Kloreep's benevolence to build my rail network. I was only able to build 5 cities beyond size 12 - reason being I had to pack them so close together to use every single tile of available space as early as I possibly could.
My military sucked big time and I relied on the fact that an archipelago is way easier to defend than it is to attack. Because of my diminutive size and narrow island (many city tiles being ocean and so no shields), I trailed badly in shield production and as a result never had a chance to build as decent a military as you both, particularly since my main focus was city improvements.
The single advantage I had over you guys was my research power, painstakingly accumulated over the ages by masses of diligent workers and by building the right improvements as early as possible. My corruption was also lower, since I built my cities closer together (ie, lower distance corruption), though this advantage reduced later in the game when you both built your Police Stations which I could not build, not having researched Communism.
Because I essentially maintained a tech lead for almost all of the last 2 ages (except for a brief period at the end of the Industrial Age when you cooperated to block me out of trade and catch up), I was able to pre-build and complete the most important wonders before you had a chance to build them. This gave me critical research power as I built Copernicus, Newtons, SETI and the Internet.
As a result, I managed to build an almost unassailable advantage in commerce....which translated into superior research power. At above 70% research neither of you could hope to keep pace with me, which is essentially why I powered away towards the end with the last few Spaceship techs. I can only surmise that neither of you realised how powerful my research capability really was and wrote me off as being in front due to a bit of good luck (perhaps from building Darwins?). I can understand that misconception, given the small size of my civ compared to both of you.
What I could never understand though is why either one or both of you never cut off my supply of luxuries. That was my one major achilles heel, as reducing me to my own 2 domestic luxuries would have necessitated the use of my luxury slider, probably to 20% or 30%. This would have seriously cut into my ability to research and I almost certainly would have fallen behind.
My strategy then was to gamble everything on my ability to build the spaceship first by researching the required techs first. Your cooperative position on tech trading in the modern age certainly helped, but towards the end I could have done it on my own anyway.
Your other option was war, and you both left this too late. I was expecting to be attacked by either one of you for a long long time, and again could not understand why you didn't. Granted, I built an impressive navy to give me early warning of an attack, but I neglected to build an airforce. I suspect it was Dauphin's massive fleet of Bombers that crippled my navy towards the end of the game, but it was too late by then.
At various times during the game I began to devise my own retaliatory military strategies in response to either a military strike or a trade embargo (of either luxuries or coal). I even started planning to take Kloreep's coal island around Industrialisation. I also had a contingency plan to research Amphibious Warfare, build an army of Marines and conduct suicide raids on your major coastal cities (especially Dauphin's) from afar, as I could keep my transports just outside vieiwing reach but still get to the coast in one turn. But this never proved necessary.
All in all a very interesting and satisfying (for me) game. But it also shows that after about 320 turns of Civ, with fully developed civilisations, it's still going to be reasonably close. I would guess you both would have been in a winning position in less than 6 turns, assuming war had not broken out.
Well those are my thoughts. Happy to debate any aspect, and would very much like to hear your respective strategies to fill in the gaps in my thinking.
Thanks to you both for a very enjoyable game over a long period.....3 years and 4 months I believe
I really shouldn't have won this game. I had the smallest and narrowest land mass, with a mere one river and virtually no food bonuses and only 2 luxuries. I had no coal (the most important Industrial Age resource) and relied on Kloreep's benevolence to build my rail network. I was only able to build 5 cities beyond size 12 - reason being I had to pack them so close together to use every single tile of available space as early as I possibly could.
My military sucked big time and I relied on the fact that an archipelago is way easier to defend than it is to attack. Because of my diminutive size and narrow island (many city tiles being ocean and so no shields), I trailed badly in shield production and as a result never had a chance to build as decent a military as you both, particularly since my main focus was city improvements.
The single advantage I had over you guys was my research power, painstakingly accumulated over the ages by masses of diligent workers and by building the right improvements as early as possible. My corruption was also lower, since I built my cities closer together (ie, lower distance corruption), though this advantage reduced later in the game when you both built your Police Stations which I could not build, not having researched Communism.
Because I essentially maintained a tech lead for almost all of the last 2 ages (except for a brief period at the end of the Industrial Age when you cooperated to block me out of trade and catch up), I was able to pre-build and complete the most important wonders before you had a chance to build them. This gave me critical research power as I built Copernicus, Newtons, SETI and the Internet.
As a result, I managed to build an almost unassailable advantage in commerce....which translated into superior research power. At above 70% research neither of you could hope to keep pace with me, which is essentially why I powered away towards the end with the last few Spaceship techs. I can only surmise that neither of you realised how powerful my research capability really was and wrote me off as being in front due to a bit of good luck (perhaps from building Darwins?). I can understand that misconception, given the small size of my civ compared to both of you.
What I could never understand though is why either one or both of you never cut off my supply of luxuries. That was my one major achilles heel, as reducing me to my own 2 domestic luxuries would have necessitated the use of my luxury slider, probably to 20% or 30%. This would have seriously cut into my ability to research and I almost certainly would have fallen behind.
My strategy then was to gamble everything on my ability to build the spaceship first by researching the required techs first. Your cooperative position on tech trading in the modern age certainly helped, but towards the end I could have done it on my own anyway.
Your other option was war, and you both left this too late. I was expecting to be attacked by either one of you for a long long time, and again could not understand why you didn't. Granted, I built an impressive navy to give me early warning of an attack, but I neglected to build an airforce. I suspect it was Dauphin's massive fleet of Bombers that crippled my navy towards the end of the game, but it was too late by then.
At various times during the game I began to devise my own retaliatory military strategies in response to either a military strike or a trade embargo (of either luxuries or coal). I even started planning to take Kloreep's coal island around Industrialisation. I also had a contingency plan to research Amphibious Warfare, build an army of Marines and conduct suicide raids on your major coastal cities (especially Dauphin's) from afar, as I could keep my transports just outside vieiwing reach but still get to the coast in one turn. But this never proved necessary.
All in all a very interesting and satisfying (for me) game. But it also shows that after about 320 turns of Civ, with fully developed civilisations, it's still going to be reasonably close. I would guess you both would have been in a winning position in less than 6 turns, assuming war had not broken out.
Well those are my thoughts. Happy to debate any aspect, and would very much like to hear your respective strategies to fill in the gaps in my thinking.
Thanks to you both for a very enjoyable game over a long period.....3 years and 4 months I believe
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