BOTM 12: Americahttp://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/botm12civ.jpg

Game Details:

Game settings:
Civilization: America (Leader: Washington; Traits: Expansive and Charismatic)
Rivals: 6 AIs
Difficulty: Noble
Map: Donut (centre is sea)
Mapsize: Standard
Climate: Temperate
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: Normal
Options: None.
World wrap: Toroidal.
Victory Conditions: all enabled
Other information I decided to do this month on a completely unedited map. So what you encounter in this game is exactly what the map generator gave me, with the one exception that nearby goody huts have been removed.

Washington:
Washington is Expansive and Charismatic, and the Americans start with fishing and agriculture. Expansive gives +2 health per city, 25% faster worker production, and double production speed of granaries and harbours. So between all that you have no excuses for health problems in your cities :), Charismatic gives +1 happiness per city, -25% experience required for unit promotions, and +1 happiness from monuments and broadcast towers.

Unique unit: Navy Seal (replaces marine)
Like the marine, the navy seal has base strength of 24, starts with amphibious, and has +50% attack versus artillery and machine gun. The additional bonus of the navy seal is 1-2 first strikes, and it also starts with march.

Unique building: Mall(replaces supermarket)
Like the Supermarket, the Mall gives +1 food to a city as well as +1 health from cow, deer, pig and sheep. The additional bonuses of a Mall is that it gives +20% wealth and +1 happiness from hit musicals, hit singles and hit movies. The mall requires a grocer in the city, plus knowledge of refridgeration.

Starting screenshot
This is the start of the game (click for a bigger image):

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/botm12small.jpg (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/botm12large.jpg)

Challenger Class Equalisers:

No warrior The warrior wanted Sarah Palin for president. He's feeling a bit upset at the moment and noone knows where he's gone.
No techs: There was this big party y'see, and all the wise men got drunk celebrating Obama's victory and - well, noone knows where they are either.


Adventurer Class bonuses:

Hunting: You start knowing hunting, Yeah, the Sarah Palin effect again... If only Civ had a tech called 'shooting'...
Worker The credit crunch has hit hard, and as a result you have an extra worker hoping you'll give him a job.


To Enter the Competition:

This competition will open on 15 November 2008. From that date, you'll be able to get the starting saves here (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/index.php?month=70012). Use the same URL to submit your completed entry, which you must do by 15 December 2008.

Civ version

This game MUST be played in Beyond the Sword (NOT Warlords or vanilla Civ), patched to version 3.17. It must also be played with the HOF mod version 3.17.001. Note that for game security reasons this HOF mod version requires you to be logged in with an account that has admin privileges when you start each session; this is to ensure that the HOF mod can record your session data correctly - failure to do this may result in your game being rejected. If you attempt to start a session without appropriate privileges, you'll see a warning dialog with instructions on fixing the problem.

While playing...

Remember - for your entry to be accepted, it MUST be your first attempt to play this game, and you MUST NOT replay any turns. If you make a mistake while playing, you have to live with it, learn from it, and carry on the game without replaying.

We will open 'spoiler' threads during the month for players to discuss what happens in their games. Do not discuss any details of your game outside those threads.

Looks interesting. Two good food sources visible, but the start position is poor in hammers. To improve production capability, I think I will settle 1 SE. With luck there could be some seafood hidden in the fog that the capital could use. My initial production would be a worker, then something like warrior, warrior, worker, warrior, settler, settler. As for research I think AH, Mining, BW would be favourite.

I have put together a contender level test game if anybody would like to try it

Nice starting position. The warrior is not going to help much to decide where to settle.

I think this is an example where you have to have decided what victory condition you will be pursuing before even settling the first city. Warmongers will love 1SE to maximize hills. Peacemongers will love 1NE or 2N to maximize cottages.

remind me what torodial world wrap means

It means not only the standard East-West wrap, but also North-South wrap.

Noble is still a level where workers can be stolen not built. The circle map is golden for worker stealing. You know exactly where to send the warrior. Just need to flip the coin to decide either clockwise or counter-clockwise.

I more often than not regret not moving my settler, so he'll be popping the hut 1N2W on turn 1, while the warrior moves 2E1S to reveal more land east, and I'll decide from there. Such a delay is affordable IMO at Noble.

1SE looks like the way to go. Gives you better production while still having plenty of river grass for cottages or farms depending on need.

I more often than not regret not moving my settler, so he'll be popping the hut 1N2W on turn 1, while the warrior moves 2E1S to reveal more land east, and I'll decide from there. Such a delay is affordable IMO at Noble.You're right, there's a GH there!
But DS says GHs have been removed nearby the start, maybe this is a SS before that?
Anyway, noble or not, it's normal speed and you delay too much to settle 1SE from start, which seems the best choice for a capital, for any VC you pursue.
Also, despite the level a CS sling seems very difficult... maybe MC?

You're right, there's a GH there!
But DS says GHs have been removed nearby the start, maybe this is a SS before that?
Anyway, noble or not, it's normal speed and you delay too much to settle 1SE from start, which seems the best choice for a capital, for any VC you pursue.
Also, despite the level a CS sling seems very difficult... maybe MC?

Other information I decided to do this month on a completely unedited map. So what you encounter in this game is exactly what the map generator gave me, with the one exception that nearby goody huts have been removed.

I totally missed that entire line.

Considering it's unedited, it's unlikely to find some goodies just outside of view, so 1SE does sound good.

A decent start location. Americans are going to space. Settler will move to warriors spot after warrior move SE. On turn 1, warrier will go SE again and then decide to settle on the original spot warrior was sitting on or settle east of hill if warrior find some thing usefull that will justify loosing rice. Likely not.

Since I have never built a super science city before, this will be the time to do that and a wall street city. After AH and pottary, will head to CoL. Worker and several warriors may be a good idea unless there is some one nearby. Actually letting the city grow first may be better to get the 25% bonus. Will have to do a test.

I'm abysmal at space races, and on a low difficulty level like this without much AI teching help I'm expecting it to be a late, and relatively uncompetitive, finish date. Which is the perfect excuse to have when I inevitably screw it up.

If anyone wants to criticise my planned strategy I'd appreciate the input.

Move NE to the hill (which probably has a metal resource but oh well).
I'm thinking an early HR/Cha happiness boosted bureaucratic cottage spammed capital to drive mid game research (with as early Academy/Oxford as I can manage). Which can later be workshopped to hell and back for the space race.

Is an oracle->CS slingshot possible/likely on this map without gem(or financial) driven research? Given that a cottage spam capital will be a late bloomer.


-edit- and after all that I just realised that donut is NOT the same as inland sea when it's a toroidal map. That means there's possibly another civ directly to our east instead of an unpassable black void. Going to run a few WB maps to recheck the civ placement distribution when I get home. /facepalm

-2nd edit with updated info- ok, donut is a wierd map. Not what I was expecting at all.
Deleted most of post until I have revise my strategy >.<

In honor of Obama's campaign and DS's cool write up of this BOTM, I will be going for a diplomatic victory.

Same...However, mine will be aiming to shout Obama-lujah before you get voted in by the Electoral College...

I think some people are forgetting that for the duration of this game, Obama has all the power of an ordinary citizen, whereas W is still The Decider.

So in this game... Look for USA to use a huge tech lead to bully her friends and kill everybody within reach (who happens to have oil) as she aims for global hegemony.:mischief:

1SE it is.;)

I'm abysmal at space races, and on a low difficulty level like this without much AI teching help I'm expecting it to be a late, and relatively uncompetitive, finish date. Which is the perfect excuse to have when I inevitably screw it up.

If anyone wants to criticise my planned strategy I'd appreciate the input.

Move NE to the hill (which probably has a metal resource but oh well).
I'm thinking an early HR/Cha happiness boosted bureaucratic cottage spammed capital to drive mid game research (with as early Academy/Oxford as I can manage). Which can later be workshopped to hell and back for the space race.

Is an oracle->CS slingshot possible/likely on this map without gem(or financial) driven research? Given that a cottage spam capital will be a late bloomer.


-edit- and after all that I just realised that donut is NOT the same as inland sea when it's a toroidal map. That means there's possibly another civ directly to our east instead of an unpassable black void. Going to run a few WB maps to recheck the civ placement distribution when I get home. /facepalm

-2nd edit with updated info- ok, donut is a wierd map. Not what I was expecting at all.
Deleted most of post until I have revise my strategy >.<


Welcome PaulisKhan!
Your strategy is very sound :goodjob: and it is what I would do if going for space. Only a minor detail: I'd never workshop my capital's cottages, at least not until after I've finished researching.
The space race is research limited, not hammer limited. While you research the last techs, mainly from the capital, other cities slowly build the available parts. Building the last parts takes just a few turns.

As for CS sling, I wonder myself. Maybe test games are needed.

Noble is still a level where workers can be stolen not built. The circle map is golden for worker stealing. You know exactly where to send the warrior. Just need to flip the coin to decide either clockwise or counter-clockwise.

Do we know if we are on the inside of the donut or on the outside?


In honor of Obama's campaign and DS's cool write up of this BOTM, I will be going for a diplomatic victory.

Diplo requires both military and research. Where do you plan to settle?

Do we know if we are on the inside of the donut or on the outside?

Since DS says he didn't alter the map, I think its pretty sure from curvature of sea that we are on the inside of the donut (at about 2 o'clock). Some fog-busting says those dark tiles are land. However, it's still conceivable we are on outside at 8 o'clock...

How do you see this changing strategy, other than choosing initial scouting direction?

Any ideas for the Gauntlet? I'm out of them. Religious (or military) on a single-mass land low-level is cheesy, diplo is straightforward, culture was the previous time; Space Race?

I think this is an example where you have to have decided what victory condition you will be pursuing before even settling the first city. Warmongers will love 1SE to maximize hills. Peacemongers will love 1NE or 2N to maximize cottages.

I am not much of a warmonger, but I still favour 1SE to maximise hills. I think the hammers will still be essential, even when peacefully wonder building or when building spaceship parts.

After running a few map tests and one full test game [for space race only]; a couple of things I noticed:

High probability of a civ directly to our east (I'll be running E-SE with my warrior to try and make contact), close enough for convenient worker steals (this is based on multiple map regens and comparing relative positions of civs).

This map type is grassland rich but only a moderate amount of food resources. It's definitely a cottage spam map. Almost every single city is grassland (with multiple long rivers).

Traditional (at least my version of traditional) production rich cities are few and far between. Definitely worth keeping a few heavily forested cities for mid/late-game lumbermills/national park.
The best early game production cities look to be multiple mined grassland hills cities with a couple of food resources. Very very few plains hills. The coolest thing I noticed about working grassland hills (rather than a few plains hills) is that you can work twice as many, which means twice as many random resource pops!!! fun stuff =D (clearly I'm new to this map type, so I'm easily amused).
My main production city was working 9 grassland hills, a few map regens shows that this should be pretty typical.

There is potential for a large variation in civ density across the map. Knowing our luck this will be one of the oddly generated maps with us jammed in between civs, while two rex happys civs on the far side have all the time and room in the world to expand >.<

The donut width allows for two well spaced inland cities, or three cities across with 2 of them being coastal on opposite sides.

Space race games will probably be entirely self researched. The AI just can't keep up.

Rexing will pay for itself pretty quickly if you get those cottages down early. There's usually plenty of room on this map and it's all good land. As long as you get pottery before your economy crashes you should be able to recover from anything >.> I think I was too cautious in my test game.

Something that worked well for me was to grab Confusionism from COL and spread it to the nearest neighbour without a religion and make him my BFF. It's a nice map to have a friend blocking off one entire border. Not because you're afraid of him, but because it saves hammers being "wasted" on defensive units. Latter on I just used him as a Hammer to solve my problems for me, If I saw him getting in trouble I'd gift a couple of military techs and some gold in order to help him keep the rabble in check. This leaves you free to focus on teching and saves your precious cottages from being pillaged. Just don't let him get out of control!!!!

I was able to pick up enough seafood resources to make Sids Sushi a better (ok, equal) alternative to State Property for working multiple workshops. If you regenerate a few maps you'll notice that everyone is on the coast which almost always means a high density of seafood around start locations. Grab a couple of capitals and you'll be set for later.

The mall is overpowered in late game >.< First time I've ever built one. Looked average on paper, I boggled at the uberness in practice. Every city got one.

The civil service (Bureau) slingshot proved to be well worth it. I'm now tempted to position my capital to get all 5 grassland hills, especially if I can find a food resource on the other side of that row of hills. I might spend a turn or two peeking over the other side to see, then again I might chicken out.
I ended up wonderspamming with my test game capital once I had my support cities established, it probably cost me quite a few more turns than if I'd built research instead, but wonders are soooo pretty.


Welcome PaulisKhan!
Your strategy is very sound :goodjob: and it is what I would do if going for space. Only a minor detail: I'd never workshop my capital's cottages, at least not until after I've finished researching.
The space race is research limited, not hammer limited. While you research the last techs, mainly from the capital, other cities slowly build the available parts. Building the last parts takes just a few turns.

As for CS sling, I wonder myself. Maybe test games are needed.


Thank you for the welcome =)
Although I tend to shy away from non conquest/dom victory conditions I've still paid close attention to your advice and guides. And naturally Murky Waters is mandatory reading for me.
You've taught me a lot, so thank you!

I just observed exactly what you advised in my testgame. It would be pointless to workshop the capital. Definitely research limited.

And as I mentioned earlier, I found the CS sling to be well worth it, even if I then wasted much of the hammer production on silly wonders, I got distracted by splicing a religious economy onto my cottage economy which was what got me started on the wonders in the first place :crazyeye:

My finish date was a 1936 Space victory (avoided an accidental diplo victory along the way) but the land is so good for research I'm expecting to see people knock 150 years off that without breaking much of a sweat.
I can't remember the last time I did a space race either, so my experience with getting the proper tech path is essentially zero.
Then again, as far as I could tell it's just a case of "research everything nub".

-edit- I almost forgot, given the relative paucity of hammers I found the AP to be invaluable. A guaranteed +4 base hammers in every city (and then of course you just have to go and get the SC, SM and US >.< to complete the set)

Any ideas for the Gauntlet? I'm out of them. Religious (or military) on a single-mass land low-level is cheesy, diplo is straightforward, culture was the previous time; Space Race?

I could learn a lot about doing a space race properly by watching this round closely, so if you have nothing better in mind....

I'd be your best friend forever!

ps. I appreciate the CRC updates, please keep them coming, although I sympathise that language is a barrier for many of the team. =)

This type of map is perfect for domination. you only have to worry about the east and west as long as you create a dividing line with cities. The low level means if there is another civ even remotely close, he/she can be eliminated early. The late UU/UB means you are perfectly suited to a late game push for domination. If there are no close civs, REXing six cities will be my first priority. If there is one, three cities and DoW.

Again due to the low level, a WE is reasonable even without the industrious trait, and founding a religion should be a relatively easy business.

Now that I think about it, domination or conquest shouldn't be difficult.

This one should be fun. ;)

I could learn a lot about doing a space race properly by watching this round closely, so if you have nothing better in mind....

I'd be your best friend forever!

ps. I appreciate the CRC updates, please keep them coming, although I sympathise that language is a barrier for many of the team. =)
Well, we have it then - straight from the new player's mouth. This month Gauntlet is Space Colony, played on Challenger.

Thanx, will try to keep posted. I sympathise that language is a barrier for you ;)

You're right, there's a GH there!
But DS says GHs have been removed nearby the start, maybe this is a SS before that?


Yep there was a goody hut there, it was hiding from me under the trees :). Rest assured that it will not be there when the game is released. I'll try and update the screenshot in the next day or so. Thanks azzaman333 for spotting it :goodjob:. You will now have the distinction of being universally loved by those people who dislike goody huts in games, and universally despised by those who like them :lol:

Damn, I have to despise myself.

Don't worry, mate, you're not alone.

Any ideas for the Gauntlet? I'm out of them. Religious (or military) on a single-mass land low-level is cheesy, diplo is straightforward, culture was the previous time; Space Race?

what do you think about COW? :p

Or Spaceship/Cow Combo...really spice it up!:lol:

Diplo requires both military and research. Where do you plan to settle?

Research, more than military, is surely the more important factor in determining an early diplo finish, especially on low levels.

I will be going one NE onto the hill with my settler. We'll see what my warrior discovers heading NE and then probably North, before deciding where to settle.

@Lexad, why is diplo any more straightforward than SS? I would think the opposite.

what do you think about COW? :p:hammer2::wallbash::deadhorse:

@Lexad, why is diplo any more straightforward than SS?Well, you can go by industrial way first or by scientific (therefore use Liber for Assembly or Radio - or Indu if you manage both). You also can try it with 10 cities or 30 - hence the different amount of warfare. State Property or Corporations. Mcromanaging the distribution of SS parts, picking at what stage to launch. While fast Diplo is just move along the CS-Edu line, get loads of GS for lightbulbing scientific techs and 1-2 GE for UN, while trading with the guys, accepting civics and spreading religion - if required.

Well, you can go by industrial way first or by scientific (therefore use Liber for Assembly or Radio - or Indu if you manage both). You also can try it with 10 cities or 30 - hence the different amount of warfare. State Property or Corporations. Mcromanaging the distribution of SS parts, picking at what stage to launch. While fast Diplo is just move along the CS-Edu line, get loads of GS for lightbulbing scientific techs and 1-2 GE for UN, while trading with the guys, accepting civics and spreading religion - if required.

Yeah, the tech tree decisions are more complex for SS, but don't both victory conditions face similar choices regarding the size of empire and consequent need for and use of military? I don't find micro-managing the distribution of SS parts complicated at all, myself. That's pretty simple math.

But with regard to diplo games, what about, um, diplomacy? Surprised you don't mention this at all. Personally, I find this to be the most interesting aspect of diplo games. But maybe you are assuming Moonsinger style military diplo games ...

Diplo is done by the books, all the diplo turns and twists have been tested there ages ago, provided with numbers, and BtS didn't bring much - unlike Space Ship. However, this is my personal opinion, and I've played SS just once in BtS, so loads of learning for me :)

But maybe you are assuming Moonsinger style military diplo games ...

Take care of the new rules against self-voting!

This is an interesting start position with good spots for both peaceniks and warmongers.

Usually I go for cultural victories, but because there is such a good military start position I am toying with the idea of ringing the changes and going for a domination win instead. I wondered if someone could give me a few pointers.

The key question is how far should I plan on taking research? I normally get my domination wins (on small/tiny maps) with axeman/swordman/chariot rushes. However, I suspect that I will run out of steam on this standard donut map since a) it is bigger and b) there is no way to get at all the opponents quickly. I think someone mentioned that the navy seal was a good unit for finishing off a late game domination win, but would things go that far?

The key thing is do I need to take the research beyond swordmen (or maybe catapults), and if so, how do I get the reseach? The 1SE spot is crying out to run 4 hills; but at the same time, I am tempted to run some scientists there if I need research, though this would dilute the effect of the initial rush.

A second related question is whether to build a second city. The first city looks to be a good powerhouse and I´m tempted to run my campaign solely from this (assuming that there´s bronze or iron in them thar hills); but is this going to be enough?

Thirdly, I am assuming that I shouldn´t be bothering with any wonder building, slingshots etc - just stay focused on the military and pick up wonders from captured cities. Is this correct?

Where is is the worker for the adventurer save?

ISTM Exp/Cha is good for some early REX, with the +2 health and +1/+2 happiness (depending on monuments). Perhaps with a bit of early warmongering to take out a nearby rival?

I'v played some diplo games in vanilla and BTS. What can I say about diplo? To my mind military diplo has no chances to be fastest. As for me it's obvious.

Gosha, it's Noble. You do Quechua rushes w/o Queschua :)
Take care of the new rules against self-voting!
That's what vassals are for, mate.

Saves are up - I'm out of here... :)

I just ran another full space race test game and improved my finish date to 1912 but I'm still a long way from the best HoF dates.

I'm not sure what I can do to improve it and unfortunately the HoF doesn't have many normal speed scores submitted for Noble difficulty for me to compare with.

What sort of date should I be looking for to be competitive with on these settings?
Knowing how far off I am will go a long way to helping me figure out where I'm going wrong.

Any advice before I start for real would be appreicated =)

Diplo is done by the books, all the diplo turns and twists have been tested there ages ago, provided with numbers, and BtS didn't bring much - unlike Space Ship. However, this is my personal opinion, and I've played SS just once in BtS, so loads of learning for me :)

Even more learning for me, as I quit playing Civ for many months and since returning, have only completed a few games, including only two games in BTS, both of which were dismal cultural games. All of my opinions should be taken with a heaping grain of salt and a realization that I'm still really a Vanilla/Warlords player learning the ropes of BTS.

Take care of the new rules against self-voting!

Shows how new I am to BTS. I didn't know this at all. So I assume this means there is no self-voting whatsoever, and only opposing teams and vassals can vote you in? Is there anything else I should know about diplo in BTS?

So I assume this means there is no self-voting whatsoever, and only opposing teams and vassals can vote you in? Is there anything else I should know about diplo in BTS?
It just means that there will be no election if you own the number of votes which are required to win (iirc 75% for AP, 60% pop for UN).

1 SE. Hills early for hammers, Cottage rivers later (plus a coastal lake) for bureaucracy after settling nearby land.

I'll probably take challenger again.

Looks like I'll be following the consensus and moving one space SE. However, I'll be doing it for an unmentioned reason. Everyone else focuses on early which is well and good but long term I hate to miss out on the levee potential.

Settling SE looks good to me too.
Being coastal will bring more commerce which will get enhanced under bureaucracy.

On the other hand, moving the settler 2 SE might be interesting too; losing rice to gain a seafood would be a good tradeoff IMO, and if nothing shows up, you will only lose 1 turn..

This map should be perfect for spreading a religion. It's very shape would mean most if not all of the other civs could be quickly reached along the inside coast either by foot or by sea. An early religion (which shouldn't be too difficult) a galley & a few missionaries and your religion could be spread very quickly. Maybe an AP victory or, at the vey least a good source of income. Does an AP victory seem realistic?

I seem to remember reading about new anti-AP victory logic in the latest patch. If you spread the AP religion to a civ they will prioritise spreading it internally to maximise their blocking vote. Can anyone confirm this? Seems to me it makes the AP attractive just for coins and hammers even if you don't pursue a religious victory.

Where is is the worker for the adventurer save?I'd still like to know this, in hopes that a future posting of my initial thoughts about the Adventurer save might get responses from somebody before I start the game (and thus can no longer post here).

The adventurer worker is on the same tile as the settler

The adventurer worker is on the same tile as the settlerThanks! Looks like one useful thing the worker can do is go either 2SE or W-NW to check out a bit more of the coast before the settler decides what to do. I think I'd go 2SE because, if there's ocean food there, it might be a better spot (beside river, still coastal, still has cows, has at least one more hill, though it burns a forest to use it). It would also allow a second city at 2N or N-NW to use both the rice and the wine (as well as claiming a bit of territory further from the coast).

I suppose one might explore with the settler for a turn or two and move IT 2SE with the worker going the other way, to get maximal first-turn information on the starting area (warrior: NE in all cases, I think).

based on info above in this thread this sounds like it should be a good CE map. but I usually play CE with financial civs, and I suck at SE. so, any quick thoughts on how to play CE with a non financial civ ?

I fired up a game for practice using america on donut map with no jungle... and I'm up to 500 AD and only able to run 60% science, whereas with a financial civ I run 80/90 the whole game. yet I really need to plunk down 2 more cities, I only have 8, and I cant really afford them.

of course everyone is probably playing by now, so I am probably too late.

cheers!

Just one thought. Without financial or organized, my preference, a smaller civ would keep costs down. Other than that, not a clue.

well after 3 practice games on same map/civ etc, I conclude I simply lack the skills to win with with America on Noble. so. I'm gonna give this game a go and suck it up.

i'll be playing now, so wont be able to post, but if anyone who hasn't started yet can send any nuggets of wisdom, I'd love to hear it.

I'll submit my game if I am not too embarrassed and can resist the urge to give up.

well after 3 practice games on same map/civ etc, I conclude I simply lack the skills to win with with America on Noble. so. I'm gonna give this game a go and suck it up.

i'll be playing now, so wont be able to post, but if anyone who hasn't started yet can send any nuggets of wisdom, I'd love to hear it.

I'll submit my game if I am not too embarrassed and can resist the urge to give up.

Simplest advice I can give is to set up about 4-5 cities by 1000BC and get about 3 of them to focus on cottages. And use the other 1 or 2 cities to build units and workers. If you are expecting to run into cash problem, build a wonder you DO NOT want to complete and some thing that AI will early such as the GW and Stonehenge. When these get built elsewhere, you will get gold from the hammers.

I usually get to Lit for the Great Library (to build it) and then either go for CS (if I did not get it from the Oracle) and currency. After that beeline to Education.

By about 500 AD I try to have about 8 Cities and build the Oxford in the Cap as soon as possible. Oh yeah...the non-science cities can help by building commerce. Oh yeah do not forget to set up a GP farm that can speed up the path to Ed and if possible to build the Myds.

Good luck.

I seem to remember reading about new anti-AP victory logic in the latest patch. If you spread the AP religion to a civ they will prioritise spreading it internally to maximise their blocking vote. Can anyone confirm this? Seems to me it makes the AP attractive just for coins and hammers even if you don't pursue a religious victory.Do you have the source of this? I played many religious games in 3.17 and never recognized such a behaviour. You still could use the trick with spreading a false religion to a big opponent city and the next turn spreading your planned AP-religion to a tiny city. The AI will then adopt the 1st religion and very rarely switch to your AP-religion without a need (perhaps if the 2nd religion is the preferred one of this civ)

I can't find the post in question. I remember it was a walkthrough (or maybe a BOTM spoiler) shortly after the patch that reported seeing an AI actively spreading the AP religion although it wasn't their state religion. The poster speculated this was part of the effort to make religious victory more difficult. I don't understand the mechanics of AP voting myself so I'm not sure if this makes sense or not.

(I've started the game now so I won't post further in this thread)

In Nederlands BOTM I spread Christianity (AP religion) to Musa's one city (he himself was the founder of Judaism, and J was our state religion), and he happily distributed it to all his cities. Also saw another instance of such behavoir from Liz - it was 3rd religion in her cities. I'm not sure whether it is the voting strat or the cultural victory strat, though.

In Nederlands BOTM I spread Christianity (AP religion) to Musa's one city (he himself was the founder of Judaism, and J was our state religion), and he happily distributed it to all his cities. Also saw another instance of such behavoir from Liz - it was 3rd religion in her cities. I'm not sure whether it is the voting strat or the cultural victory strat, though.
I should add, that in most of my religious wins I only have one or two cities. And when spreading the AP-religion I am normally in "no/free religion" mode. It is right that some religion-lovers spread several religions to all of their cities, but mostly to either get friends or enemies. The worst thing normally happens is that Christianity loving civs do everything to get it and spread it.

The best advice I have seen for an AP win was Gosha's in IIRC BOTM10.

The key tip was to change to a religion no one else had before getting the AP then switching back to the religion everyone else had for good relations. You then spread the AP religion to just one city of at least three AIs via missionaries, preferably their largest cities that amount to ~26% of Pop. It would be best to send out the missionaries at the same time, so that the AI doesn't have time to spread the AP religion too much before you vote. The only caveat is that you have to let them get to at least 26% to eliminate the "self voting" block on winning. I am not sure what if any changes there are in the latest patch.

Personally, Gosha's quick AP win on Deity in that game made me ill! :wallbash:

I haven't ever been able to get a good result out of this so it might require many practice rounds.

In Nederlands BOTM I spread Christianity (AP religion) to Musa's one city (he himself was the founder of Judaism, and J was our state religion), and he happily distributed it to all his cities. Also saw another instance of such behavoir from Liz - it was 3rd religion in her cities. I'm not sure whether it is the voting strat or the cultural victory strat, though.

I've seen liz hoar religions around in many of my games. I think she tends to aim for cultural victories that way.

I've seen liz hoar religions around in many of my games.

Liz makes religions moldy, grey, old and cold? :crazyeye:

The key tip was to change to a religion no one else had before getting the AP then switching back to the religion everyone else had for good relations. You then spread the AP religion to just one city of at least three AIs via missionaries, preferably their largest cities that amount to ~26% of Pop. It would be best to send out the missionaries at the same time, so that the AI doesn't have time to spread the AP religion too much before you vote. The only caveat is that you have to let them get to at least 26% to eliminate the "self voting" block on winning. I am not sure what if any changes there are in the latest patch.

There is a lot mistakes in your post.
1. ALL AI must have AP religion in at least 1 city!!!
2. You need a frend who will vote for you 26%!!!
...

play test game with WB turned ON.

Liz makes religions moldy, grey, old and cold? :crazyeye:

Oh wow. I learned a very fun new vocab word that's likely to get me in trouble in the very near future :lol:.

It does seem he's misusing it though - it isn't a verb. Nobody cares about that though, nor should they! It's a legitimate word that rhymes with...

More. More civ turns.

I'll probably play this game start to finish tonight.