[BTS] BOTM 270: Charlemagne, Monarch - Final Spoiler (game submitted)

[kcd_swede]

BOTM 270: Charlemagne, Monarch - Final Spoiler - Game Submitted



How'd it go? Did you earn the moniker "Charlemagne the God"?

Use this thread to tell us what happened in your game, particularly anything after 1AD

Did you win?

Reading Requirements
If you are participating in BOTM 270 then you MUST NOT read this thread unless

• You have submitted your entry

Posting Restrictions

• Do not post any savegame file from the game. Discussions and screenshots are fine but not actual games.

 

[Conquistador 63]

This was a very interesting game, I enjoyed the unusual settings (OCC/PA) which I hadn't played for ages.

Religion played a strong role here, creating opportunities for building up friendly relations and causing tensions leading to early wars that could be shared (speeding our way to the PA).
In our game, it only took us a refusal to a demand from Pericles (weak and distant) for him to declare on us @t106 (GK also declared on us on the same turn and Toku on the next one), and on the next turn we were able to bribe 3 AIs (Napoleon, Hannibal and Victoria) to enter the wars on our side.

Exactly 40 turns later we learned Liberalism and could get Communism to unlock the PA, but we chose the more expensive Biology instead (mainly for the NP) and self-researched Comm for another 7 turns.
Then at t155 (900AD) we had Napoleon as our PA partner, and were able to start our wars of conquest, chain vassaling everyone else.

I thought Nappy could be a decent partner as he is known to spam units, but actually some of our vassals helped much more on the wars along the way, especially GK who did a decent job on the russian war, capturing a few cities. What Nappy did was spam wonders which actually helped us (MoM was one I remember). At some point I stopped trying to keep cities and just plain razed them (13 total).

Pericles/GK/Stalin/Hannibal/WvO/Sury/Vicky/Monty was the order of capitulations.

Special mention goes to Toku, who refused to bend the knee to us (although he had previously served as a vassal to Stalin, Sury and Monty ) and was completely eliminated at some point along the way.

 

[nocho]

It was a fun game and I won, but it was far more intense than anticipated!

Also, after all these years I had never had a game with permanent alliances, and for now we'll keep a clean sheet regarding PAs as I didn't manage to get one in this game either. Everything had gone quite smoothly and then I got communism and MT around the same time. So I signed a defensive pact with Sury waiting for the PA to be possible. From @Conquistador 63 's post I understand that that takes 40 turns, I had no idea. I specifically anticipated the diplo situation after 10 and 20 turns, not knowing this number, and was disappointed I couldn't get the PA. Then also I got a bit confused with the DP rules. Sure enough when Genghis declared (again) with his Greek and English vassals, Sury declared on them, but I wasn't really aware that after the war the DP had to be signed again. Also not sure if after re-signing the DP after some turns, the PA-counter continues or if it's reset.

In any case, in hindsight probably a big mistake was to take GK as a vassal, after burning down all but 1 of his cities. It at least felt like fun to have a vassal under OCC. I actually did the same to England, so I got my 2 vassals. Meanwhile, Greece had unvassaled from Mongolia and bent the knee to Napoleon. The thing was that I guess both Sury and Nappy really hated Genghis and I got to pay for that diplo wise. At one point Nappy was still pleased, but somehow I was his worst enemy anyway, don't think I ever saw that before. Worse, Sury while being friendly, didn't want to trade techs anymore (never saw that either at friendly) and I suspect never again considered the DP (which was broken again after the Aztecs declared and not available anymore after the French jumped in and vassaled Monty) nor a PA, so that route to victory slowly went out the window. As I still had a decent tech lead, my alternate VC became the new goal, which was space.

However, it became quite the nailbiter! Napoleon started raking up vassals and ended up controlling Greece, Japan, Russia and the Aztecs, though near the end Japan set itself free again. Relations with Sury gradually soured, especially after I took FR, although apparently he was still at pleased (not counting his attitudes to my vassals) when he suddenly declared. I had about 10 infantry and 5 marines, but he showed up with a wide variety of units I seldom see, such as gunships, paratroopers and SAM infantry. I took the battle to the field which was a mistake, as I was just outnumbered, should have stayed fortified in the city probably. Now nearly my whole little stack was wiped out on the counter-counter. I really barely held on and probably was lucky that Sury seemed to wait for reinforcements to come before the final assault. Of course I stalled my spaceship parts to build a unit a turn which in the end was just enough to hold on to my city, when he was willing to talk. He could be bought of with a bunch of cash which I had laying around rather abundantly. He did capture England during this war, so I lost one of my vassals. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise I had taken England so part of Sury's army went east rather than west to me.

So when things just started to look up again, ze maitie French declared. With my depleted forces and with overwhelming armies pouring in, I was about to throw the towel, when I noticed that all of a sudden I could build nukes. I never checked who had built the Manhattan until after the game (Carthago), but it really saved the day! I dropped two tactical nukes on two consecutive turns on the incoming French stacks and Napoleon was willing to talk just after that and was bought off very cheaply. If you think Russian winter is bad, wait for Nuclear winter. Afterwards, it was even fun to clean up the fallout in my territory, I think that was also a first apart from a famous SGOTM (12?) years ago.

And then when you think all is quiet, Hannibal decided he wanted some action too. As I had some tactical nukes now for exactly this eventuallity, I showed him how his invention worked. I had become death, destroyer of units. He also backed off quite soon. My workers cleaned up the mess quickly enough and restored the improvements.

Now I could finally get to the rest of my space parts. Of course the biggest techs cost like 10 turns each this being OCC and without PA partners, the wars in between didn't help much of course either, so I quickly approached and reached the 20th century. I wasn't quite sure if under OCC you have to build all parts, or it's just 1 per type. I ended building all thrusters, but just 1 engine and 1 casing. With the first casing built, and with the rest completed (but for 1 engine), I was looking if the screen said anything about the chance of reaching alpha centaury. I didn't see anything, so I pressed launch finally in 1980, with a travel time of 12 turns only to see the message "20% chance" appear after launch. I couldn't do much more than wait, see the Dutch get eliminated by Sury, built modern armour like crazy for last minute eventuallities and pray my ship wouldn't crash. It landed safely in 1992, I'm still not sure if that was sheer luck or an OCC-thing. It must be one of my latest wins ever, for sure it's also the only win were my score is expressed with just 4 digits.

Anyways, it's a game I'll remember, thx kcd!

 

[Xcalibrator]

Yeah, thanks, kcd, this was a fun one! My cluelessness regarding Permanent Alliances is unsurpassed, but I did recall it was in some way helpful to share a war with your prospective partner. Anyway, I started off thinking that Sury would be a good pal, and traded him a couple techs and let him capture an English city after I'd reduced it to one barely alive defender. I couldn't induce him to attack anybody else with me, though, and then he had the nerve to stab me in the back when I had Toku down to two cities and he must have bribed Sury to take him as a vassal. Well fine, I'll fight both of you! I got both Sury and Toku down to one city apiece but they wouldn't capitulate. "You can have my subservience when you pry it from my cold dead fingers!" they cried. "Your proposal is acceptable," said I. And so they joined Pericles, who had already been wiped out by his fellow AIs before I could even get a unit down to the far SW to join in the fun.

I'd already vassalized Genghis early on, and after Sury had betrayed me I figured it was easier to just conquer everyone myself. Stalin and then Monte yielded without too much trouble. Nappy was next, and Willem had meanwhile capitulated to Hannibal. The latter had rifles but no cannon vs my grens and cannon, but I'd just gotten Railroad and Mguns so I still had a decent advantage (plus a LOT more units). Willem went the way of Pericles, Sury, and Toku, while Hanny finally capitulated in 1800 with two cities left (one of which he'd just refounded on the ruins of a former city).

I got four Great Artists, which were of no particular help, and I think three Great Engineers, which weren't worth all that much either, as they came too late to build Wonders that I could really use. I think I ended up using them to build Wall Street and found Mining near the very end, for points. One went for MoM, I think. Gt Priests were settled for hammers and gold. One Gt Sci made an academy, and I think I got one other to settle. Ran one golden age with the Music Gt Artist, but GAs aren't worth a whole lot with only one city. I'm anxious to read about how other players played much smarter games!

 

[Powerfaker]

I thought I was doing the smart thing minimizing war efforts and develop fast research .
From the point I had access to maces I was always an era ahead and could defend easily. But I made myself impopular adopting self found Confu.,Almost everybody did DoW me frequently, so I had to invest more in defence than I anticipated. They all fought amongst themselves too though. Gladly nobody got the upper hand for a very long time.

You would think with Lib => Bio 900AD and having all the industrialist stuff (powerplant / Iron works / full power watermills / workshops) early 1500's you could get a decent space date. But then the turn devouring stage starts where every single tech is still 7-10 turns. What didn't help is that I got 4 or 5 GArtists at 10% chance (due to Taj + NEpic). Anyway I couldn't keep the finish date in the 1800's.

 

[kcd_swede]

It was a fun game and I won, but it was far more intense than anticipated!

Also, after all these years I had never had a game with permanent alliances, and for now we'll keep a clean sheet regarding PAs as I didn't manage to get one in this game either. Everything had gone quite smoothly and then I got communism and MT around the same time. So I signed a defensive pact with Sury waiting for the PA to be possible. From @Conquistador 63 's post I understand that that takes 40 turns, I had no idea. I specifically anticipated the diplo situation after 10 and 20 turns, not knowing this number, and was disappointed I couldn't get the PA. Then also I got a bit confused with the DP rules. Sure enough when Genghis declared (again) with his Greek and English vassals, Sury declared on them, but I wasn't really aware that after the war the DP had to be signed again. Also not sure if after re-signing the DP after some turns, the PA-counter continues or if it's reset.

In any case, in hindsight probably a big mistake was to take GK as a vassal, after burning down all but 1 of his cities. It at least felt like fun to have a vassal under OCC. I actually did the same to England, so I got my 2 vassals. Meanwhile, Greece had unvassaled from Mongolia and bent the knee to Napoleon. The thing was that I guess both Sury and Nappy really hated Genghis and I got to pay for that diplo wise. At one point Nappy was still pleased, but somehow I was his worst enemy anyway, don't think I ever saw that before. Worse, Sury while being friendly, didn't want to trade techs anymore (never saw that either at friendly) and I suspect never again considered the DP (which was broken again after the Aztecs declared and not available anymore after the French jumped in and vassaled Monty) nor a PA, so that route to victory slowly went out the window. As I still had a decent tech lead, my alternate VC became the new goal, which was space.

However, it became quite the nailbiter! Napoleon started raking up vassals and ended up controlling Greece, Japan, Russia and the Aztecs, though near the end Japan set itself free again. Relations with Sury gradually soured, especially after I took FR, although apparently he was still at pleased (not counting his attitudes to my vassals) when he suddenly declared. I had about 10 infantry and 5 marines, but he showed up with a wide variety of units I seldom see, such as gunships, paratroopers and SAM infantry. I took the battle to the field which was a mistake, as I was just outnumbered, should have stayed fortified in the city probably. Now nearly my whole little stack was wiped out on the counter-counter. I really barely held on and probably was lucky that Sury seemed to wait for reinforcements to come before the final assault. Of course I stalled my spaceship parts to build a unit a turn which in the end was just enough to hold on to my city, when he was willing to talk. He could be bought of with a bunch of cash which I had laying around rather abundantly. He did capture England during this war, so I lost one of my vassals. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise I had taken England so part of Sury's army went east rather than west to me.

So when things just started to look up again, ze maitie French declared. With my depleted forces and with overwhelming armies pouring in, I was about to throw the towel, when I noticed that all of a sudden I could build nukes. I never checked who had built the Manhattan until after the game (Carthago), but it really saved the day! I dropped two tactical nukes on two consecutive turns on the incoming French stacks and Napoleon was willing to talk just after that and was bought off very cheaply. If you think Russian winter is bad, wait for Nuclear winter. Afterwards, it was even fun to clean up the fallout in my territory, I think that was also a first apart from a famous SGOTM (12?) years ago.

And then when you think all is quiet, Hannibal decided he wanted some action too. As I had some tactical nukes now for exactly this eventuallity, I showed him how his invention worked. I had become death, destroyer of units. He also backed off quite soon. My workers cleaned up the mess quickly enough and restored the improvements.

Now I could finally get to the rest of my space parts. Of course the biggest techs cost like 10 turns each this being OCC and without PA partners, the wars in between didn't help much of course either, so I quickly approached and reached the 20th century. I wasn't quite sure if under OCC you have to build all parts, or it's just 1 per type. I ended building all thrusters, but just 1 engine and 1 casing. With the first casing built, and with the rest completed (but for 1 engine), I was looking if the screen said anything about the chance of reaching alpha centaury. I didn't see anything, so I pressed launch finally in 1980, with a travel time of 12 turns only to see the message "20% chance" appear after launch. I couldn't do much more than wait, see the Dutch get eliminated by Sury, built modern armour like crazy for last minute eventuallities and pray my ship wouldn't crash. It landed safely in 1992, I'm still not sure if that was sheer luck or an OCC-thing. It must be one of my latest wins ever, for sure it's also the only win were my score is expressed with just 4 digits.

Anyways, it's a game I'll remember, thx kcd!

Wow... thanks for the write-up. As mapmaker, I can't play it, but enjoy the thrills vicariously. That was some game, congrats on the victory!

 

[kcd_swede]

Yeah, thanks, kcd, this was a fun one! My cluelessness regarding Permanent Alliances is unsurpassed, but I did recall it was in some way helpful to share a war with your prospective partner. Anyway, I started off thinking that Sury would be a good pal, and traded him a couple techs and let him capture an English city after I'd reduced it to one barely alive defender. I couldn't induce him to attack anybody else with me, though, and then he had the nerve to stab me in the back when I had Toku down to two cities and he must have bribed Sury to take him as a vassal. Well fine, I'll fight both of you! I got both Sury and Toku down to one city apiece but they wouldn't capitulate. "You can have my subservience when you pry it from my cold dead fingers!" they cried. "Your proposal is acceptable," said I. And so they joined Pericles, who had already been wiped out by his fellow AIs before I could even get a unit down to the far SW to join in the fun.

I'd already vassalized Genghis early on, and after Sury had betrayed me I figured it was easier to just conquer everyone myself. Stalin and then Monte yielded without too much trouble. Nappy was next, and Willem had meanwhile capitulated to Hannibal. The latter had rifles but no cannon vs my grens and cannon, but I'd just gotten Railroad and Mguns so I still had a decent advantage (plus a LOT more units). Willem went the way of Pericles, Sury, and Toku, while Hanny finally capitulated in 1800 with two cities left (one of which he'd just refounded on the ruins of a former city).

I got four Great Artists, which were of no particular help, and I think three Great Engineers, which weren't worth all that much either, as they came too late to build Wonders that I could really use. I think I ended up using them to build Wall Street and found Mining near the very end, for points. One went for MoM, I think. Gt Priests were settled for hammers and gold. One Gt Sci made an academy, and I think I got one other to settle. Ran one golden age with the Music Gt Artist, but GAs aren't worth a whole lot with only one city. I'm anxious to read about how other players played much smarter games!

Sounds like this game got some rusty players to shake off the rust. I love it! Thanks for sharing!

 

[kcd_swede]

I thought I was doing the smart thing minimizing war efforts and develop fast research .
From the point I had access to maces I was always an era ahead and could defend easily. But I made myself impopular adopting self found Confu.,Almost everybody did DoW me frequently, so I had to invest more in defence than I anticipated. They all fought amongst themselves too though. Gladly nobody got the upper hand for a very long time.

You would think with Lib => Bio 900AD and having all the industrialist stuff (powerplant / Iron works / full power watermills / workshops) early 1500's you could get a decent space date. But then the turn devouring stage starts where every single tech is still 7-10 turns. What didn't help is that I got 4 or 5 GArtists at 10% chance (due to Taj + NEpic). Anyway I couldn't keep the finish date in the 1800's.

Hey, a win is a win, and OCC is a unique challenge, so kudos to your ability to adapt to the conditions and make it work!

 

[Jimmy Thunder]

I had a similar idea to @Conquistador 63 to try for Lib -> Biology for National Park, but not quite as good on the execution. I got Biology 1030 AD and hadn't felled a single forest in my BFC so had a nice extra 7 specialists.

I got Communism in 1300 AD and immediate had a choice of Napoleon, Suryavarman II, Stalin or Ghengis Khan as PA partners, all friendly with Judaism and the shared wars.

Chose to go with the biggest guy Suryavarman II. He was super slow capturing cities in the wake of my cannons, but we eventually got Domination in late 17th century with a few artillery helping the cause.

Got my city to 27 pop with a good number of specialists inside.

Spoiler Capital :

 

[Bemep42]

Before the game, I planned to test what a permanent alliance is, but in the end I decided to study it during the game, which probably turned out to be my biggest mistake in this game .

I initially decided to play for space, ignoring AI, but aggressive neighbors and a very weak army led to Stalin and Napoleon attacking me very early almost simultaneously. I had only warriors, I had to cut down a couple of axes and a couple of archers, and most importantly, I immediately connected Genghis to the war against Stalin. This joint war continued with a short break until communism itself, which I discovered in 1220, just to find out what a permanent alliance is. (Communism is not necessary for the space race at all). Permanent alliance with Genghis it turned out to be available immediately (I did not teach military tradition). After a little hesitation, I decided to conclude it.... It occurred to me that the cost of technology might increase, but I dismissed it. After seeing that it increased by 1.5 times. And the GNP of Genghis 10% of my, I was a little upset.......

Probably, at this moment I was needing to learn assembly line/rifling (15-16 turns) and play conquest /domination with infantry against Longbows. But I still decided to play for space and see what happens in the end. Therefore, I learned first superconductors, then assembly line and industrialization, and only then rifling (1590), artillery and rocketry. When Genghis had infantry, I began to incite him against other AI, and after Genghis captured 1-2 cities, AI capitulated. In result capitulated Stalin (1250), Pericles (1625), Napoleon (1690), Hannibal (1765), Tokugawa (1785) and Montezuma (1790), which gave me about 53% of the territory. Moreover, I upgraded only 3 units to the infantry and built 1 Marine just in case. All the money that I took from AI and received from robberies, I gave to Genghis so that he would keep science at 80-90% (to make him teach at 100%, if possible, then I do not know how). The rest of the game proceeded peacefully. If I had gone to conquest/domination, I think it would have been possible to finish in the 16-17th century.

Still, there was some benefit from AI - due to the fact that he built several SS parts, I built a research instead and won thisna couple of turns. The problem is that you can't tell AI - "build it". But more importantly, you can't tell him "let me build this". In a normal situation in OCC, you should run the SS on the next turn after studying ecology. But first, Genghis blocked me SS stasis chamber, and then SS Life Support. As a result, my 9 forests in capital remained unused, and AI postponed the launch time by 5 turns... But one turn before the construction SS stasis chamber is completed revolution began in Moscow, where it was being built... after waiting for 3 turns out of 4, Genghis turned off the Stasis Chamber in Moscow and began to build it from scratch in St. Petersburg....... In short, if I had built the Stasis Chamber and the Life Support myself, the game would have ended 15 turns earlier!!!
After the game, I replayed from 1220 AD without making a permanent alliance and saved another 15 turns (30 in total)

A few statistics from the first part of the game : 1080 bc - Oracle -> CS, 500 bc - Great Library, 275 AD - representation, 800 AD - liberalism -> biology, 900 AD - Taj Mahal, 1020 - environmentalism.

 

[antimony]

Got Oxford 450 AD, Constitution for Rep after and then Lib-Bio in 1000 AD. I also didn't plan to use State Property (cottages and rep scientists are still better), instead going for Steam Power for Levee and Assembly Line. Sury had good land and his economy seemed ok, but then diplomacy didn't quite pan out as I planned. As I noted in the 1 AD update there was a pile on war on France but they didn't really attack Napoleon. However around 500 AD Hannibal declared on Sury and successfully bribed 3(!) AIs to join him (GK, Toku and Nappy). Result is my planned PA teammate is now a vassal of France who doesn't like me much due to the previously engineered joint war. Victoria and Pericles got eliminated at some point by Napoleon and GK respectively, leaving 8 AIs with 4 religions (Buddhism for Monty and Toku, Judaism for Willem / Nappy / Sury, Confu for GK / Hannibal (AP owner), Hindu for Stalin even if he's GK's vassal).

I keep Monty and Toku fighting each other but around the time I get Levee it's clear Napoleon is plotting on me, so I pivot to Rifling and Steel and build some units, then switch to Confu and invite GK and Hannibal to the war. Eventually I tech Assembly Line - Fascism for a PA with GK, realize space is going to take too long, so we capitulate France, Khmer, peace-vassal Carthage, and finally capitulate the much behind technologically Japan and Aztec for a 1710 AD domination.

 

[Nicol.Bolas]

I never played the OCC, so I perhaps uselessly selected only Noble. I also missed the fact that the map would be small. Also mised the PA thing.

Some blunders :
missed mids by 1t,
gw = a bit useless?
was considering religious victory, spread my reigion, but then build the AP for the wrong religion :-/

Eventually everyone was warring, including vs me, so I had to build sizeable army.
I wanted to play peacefully, but had to pacify some neighbours with infantries, which was way too slow.

When the 4star tanks started rolling out, I decided to create the HRE for real, and spread the pacifistic values everywhere!
But not everyone wanted to join our Holy Roman Empire...

I didn´t find any use for the spies GW, how would you use them, for stealing early techs?

 

[Bemep42]

I add 2 screenshots - the one closest to 1 AD and second - the moment when the game went in the wrong direction
And add to stats : finish Oxford at 75 bc