News: BOTM 197 - Genghis Khan - Results and Congratulations

[Noble Zarkon]

Well this turned out to be very tough indeed with only 9 entries and 6 victories! Congratulations to @Pangaea for a gold medal with a Domination victory 30 years ahead of @Powerfaker who also got Domination. @Conquistador 63 ignored the fighting and got the fastest finish award with a Cultural victory 2(!) years before Pangaea.

Summary of Medal Winners:

Pangaea: 1856 AD Domination Victory, 126,701 points.

Powerfaker: 1886 AD Domination Victory, 97,462 points.

ZPV: 1911 AD Conquest Victory, 73,078 points.


Fastest Finish Award Winners:

Conquistador 63: 1854 AD Cultural Victory, 26,505 points.


Other Award Winners:

@MarleysGh0st: 1985 AD Domination Victory, 29,145 points.


>> See the full results here.
>> See the updated global rankings here.
>> See the latest Pantheon of Heroes here.
>> You can see and compare graphic replays of all the submissions here.
>> Award symbols are listed here.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Here's where everyone settled, all in the same place although donsig went looking for something first and didn't find it!



The Small Print:
The numbers by each player's name indicate the turn settled on (starting turn is 0). Players are colour coded by game class (challenger=red, adventurer=blue). Symbols indicate victory condition, if there's no symbol then the player either retired or was defeated. The yellow border indicates the land that was visible at the start of the game.

 

[Pangaea]

Yay, gold and cow

Really fun map and scenario

 

[Mitchum]

Well done, everyone. I started the game and played to 1 AD but then saw that this would be a long slog and didn't have the motivation or time in RL to finish.

 

[Powerfaker]

Well this turned out to be very tough indeed with only 9 entries and 6 victories!

So few submissions for such a nice game. So many failed attempts here??
The challenge of beating a monster AI was exciting. I liked that the game took a long way for a change. (could start a game where we are boxed in by a mountain range, so warfare starts with air + para's and onwards from there )

..... And I just had to go for complete elimination at the expense of my vic date. I would have been much closer to Pangaea otherwise (on which side I wouldn't know.... )

 

[MarleysGh0st]

..... And I just had to go for complete elimination at the expense of my vic date. I would have been much closer to Pangaea otherwise (on which side I wouldn't know.... )

Yeah, well, I dawdled along for a century longer than you did. Longer than anybody, as it turns out. You'd think that extra time would have helped me get a little closer to the cow.

 

[Fine_Distinction]

Thank you @NobleZarkon for a very interesting game! And a bit scary at first, but later was much easier (still remember the relief when I realized that the scout was not coming from a True Mongols city ).

Congrats to all the winners!

So few submissions for such a nice game. So many failed attempts here??

In my case it is just an accident, was planning to submit. But was playing late at night, back-to-back with the test game, lost an (completely unnecessary) fight at odds I shouldn't - and before I realized what was going on I reloaded . I liked the game so much I continued playing, I was hoping for conquest without killing Senggum, would probably end up like @Pangea going for domination. I killed first two civs in BC, now I am ~1400AD, planning to finish when I have more time and will definitely watch replays.

 

[Pangaea]

But was playing late at night, back-to-back with the test game, lost an (completely unnecessary) fight at odds I shouldn't - and before I realized what was going on I reloaded .

Ouch, sorry about that. Consider it a lesson to not use test games

Don't know when I could have won had I known that killing all the AIs wouldn't lead to Conquest (Senggum just had the fortress left), but I could ofc have spammed cities on the central continent instead of avoiding it like the plague because I was worried about tripping domination There were a couple of nice spots, like the silver one, but I didn't settle anything over there, despite double-bulbing Astro. May not have had to deal with Hannibal at all. But overall I'd say the game went quite well. Fortunate to have conquered west first, given the lay of the land (which I didn't know at the time ofc), and glad I manage to haul ass towards cannons before Senggum's rifles showed up. Spotting those first rifles in cities (with the SoL) and seeing his power graph spike up and up and up was worrying to say the least.

Sad that the SoL didn't survive to the very end, but it was a close one. Not that long after it died, I was able to upgrade a select few frigates to destroyers, and I think SoL can do that too. Would have been fun with such a beastly destroyer. The SoL died with 50XP in my game.

Very fun game, and difficult too. I like that it took much longer to play out. Nice theme with all the horse UUs too. I only built something like 1-2 Keshiks for scouting purposes, but sounds like @Fine_Distinction killed one or two AIs with them. The extra speed (compared with elepults) would have helped a great deal, but I saw quite early that the AIs had HAs, so figured a like-on-like war wouldn't necessarily be that successful. Glad I prioritised Engineering and got out a bunch of Trebs, though. Very useful against Darius' castles and ofc later when I could upgrade them to Cannons, which were able to deal with Sunggum's rifles despite having mostly elephants (and eventually some muskets) as cleanup.

 

[Fine_Distinction]

Ouch, sorry about that. Consider it a lesson to not use test games

Thanks, still hurts. Test games are the only reason I am doing well at BOTM . It is playing late at night that causes most disasters ... but during the day RL interferes

Very fun game, and difficult too. I like that it took much longer to play out. Nice theme with all the horse UUs too. I only built something like 1-2 Keshiks for scouting purposes, but sounds like @Fine_Distinction killed one or two AIs with them. The extra speed (compared with elepults) would have helped a great deal, but I saw quite early that the AIs had HAs, so figured a like-on-like war wouldn't necessarily be that successful..

LOL, keshiks are pretty much all I build, I like to use UUs. They were awesome, killed Darius and easily. They technically had HA but not many - like 1-2, maybe 3? don't remember exactly. The real problem was that since everybody had HA so early barbs also got them and were randomly attacking cities in the middle of my empire, got so pissed off that at some point produced a ton of spearmans, way too many. HA speed did, especially since keshiks ignore terrain. But not to lose too many of them, I also used cats.

 

[Pangaea]

Yeah, I saw barb HAs attacking Justinian, and freaked out. Thank goodness my spawnbusting game was good, otherwise I could have easily lost cities to them. Many were "defended" by warriors. Assumed barbs started with HBR too, but probably more likely it went like you said, that barbs got it pretty early due to all AIs starting with HBR.

A barb city spawned on the central land in my game, on the east side, and I never did anything with it. Towards the end I noticed what was once archers had been promoted to rifles. Not that often you see barb rifles

 

[Fine_Distinction]

Yeah, I saw barb HAs attacking Justinian, and freaked out. Thank goodness my spawnbusting game was good, otherwise I could have easily lost cities to them. Many were "defended" by warriors. Assumed barbs started with HBR too, but probably more likely it went like you said, that barbs got it pretty early due to all AIs starting with HBR.

A barb city spawned on the central land in my game, on the east side, and I never did anything with it. Towards the end I noticed what was once archers had been promoted to rifles. Not that often you see barb rifles

Before I started to play BOTM I was not a good player, my way of dealing with barb was to turn them off and I still forget to fogbust. This game, I have stretches of empty, crappy land in the middle of my empire, I missed "enemy near" messages because I was warring constantly - and then I saw a barb HA threatening my warrior-defended city(ies). Remember spending big % of my money on emergency spear upgrade ...

Only NZ knows for sure how barbs got HAs, I only saw them after I bee-lined HA, so back then they would get them anyway since all civs had them. Remember facepalming that I did not realize it would surely happen (knew all AIs started with HBR).

 

[Powerfaker]

Don't know when I could have won had I known that killing all the AIs wouldn't lead to Conquest (Senggum just had the fortress left), but I could ofc have spammed cities on the central continent instead of avoiding it like the plague because I was worried about tripping domination There were a couple of nice spots, like the silver one, but I didn't settle anything over there, despite double-bulbing Astro. May not have had to deal with Hannibal at all. But overall I'd say the game went quite well. Fortunate to have conquered west first, given the lay of the land (which I didn't know at the time ofc), and glad I manage to haul ass towards cannons before Senggum's rifles showed up. Spotting those first rifles in cities (with the SoL) and seeing his power graph spike up and up and up was worrying to say the least.

Ah yeah, you delayed your vic somewhat too. I did a small settler burst to avoid the need to attack Hannibal, so I would have a calm last stage of the game. .... So I missed some valuable pop points for score too.
Cannons saved my day game too.
Congrats on doing a better job and well deserved Gold.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Assumed barbs started with HBR too, but probably more likely it went like you said, that barbs got it pretty early due to all AIs starting with HBR.

All the AIs had HBR, I never clicked that this meant the Barbs would pick it up so early!!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I'm impressed at those who managed to win this game! I started the game but didn't get very far. As I recall, settled in-place (after a lot of agonising about the poor choices). I also by the way guessed from the starting screenshot that this was probably an islands map, so was quite surprised when I discovered the land stretched off far to East and West - so presumably actually a modified ring map, not islands at all.

2nd city by the flood-plains to the East, which I'd earmarked as the future capital. 3rd city between the rice and copper to the West. I didn't explore much with the ship-of-the-line. Partly because I was using it and the great general to fog-bust, to help get my settlers safely to their city sites. But mostly because, after realising that the minor civ had multiple frigates, I eyed up my extremely-seafood-dependent cities, and figured if any enemy frigates turned up to pillage and my SOL wasn't around, then my civ was basically doomed, so I stayed defensive. Built Stonehenge in the capital early on, but failed to build the Great Lighthouse quick enough. Settled more cities West (ivory and gold) and East (more floodplains and stone). But realised sometime around 1000BC that I was now far behind most of the AIs in tech rate, while the rebels were clearly storming ahead - as measured by that they'd been snapping up just about every wonder, including ones that I was nowhere near even teching to! So I paused playing to have a think about how I might catch up - and then real life got in the way and I never re-started, so never submitted (Sorry @Noble Zarkon). To be honest, I still have no idea how I could have reasonably rescued the situation. Definitely looks a tough game to me.

 

[Fine_Distinction]

I'm impressed at those who managed to win this game! I started the game but didn't get very far. As I recall, settled in-place (after a lot of agonising about the poor choices). I also by the way guessed from the starting screenshot that this was probably an islands map, so was quite surprised when I discovered the land stretched off far to East and West - so presumably actually a modified ring map, not islands at all.

2nd city by the flood-plains to the East, which I'd earmarked as the future capital. 3rd city between the rice and copper to the West. I didn't explore much with the ship-of-the-line. Partly because I was using it and the great general to fog-bust, to help get my settlers safely to their city sites. But mostly because, after realising that the minor civ had multiple frigates, I eyed up my extremely-seafood-dependent cities, and figured if any enemy frigates turned up to pillage and my SOL wasn't around, then my civ was basically doomed, so I stayed defensive. Built Stonehenge in the capital early on, but failed to build the Great Lighthouse quick enough. Settled more cities West (ivory and gold) and East (more floodplains and stone). But realised sometime around 1000BC that I was now far behind most of the AIs in tech rate, while the rebels were clearly storming ahead - as measured by that they'd been snapping up just about every wonder, including ones that I was nowhere near even teching to! So I paused playing to have a think about how I might catch up - and then real life got in the way and I never re-started, so never submitted (Sorry @Noble Zarkon). To be honest, I still have no idea how I could have reasonably rescued the situation. Definitely looks a tough game to me.

I also settled 2nd city by floodplains, initially thought I should go for copper, but that was the only location in testing that allowed keshia rush without completely collapsing economy.

Yeah, it was a very interesting game, and quite tough. Initially I thought it was completely hopeless, especially after seeing True Mongols scout, I thought we spawned next to them.

I am amazed you got SH, I abandoned the idea in the original game as too risky, I had no idea how you managed it, in my game it was turn 39! I did eventually got it from Darius anyway

That is definitely a long and challenging game - @NobleZarkon succeeded in creating a monster AI opponent, and regular AIs are tough, too. On the other hand, when you play longer, it becomes easier.

I decided to try to kill 'em all using keshiks, before my gold runs out and army becoming obsolete. Still not sure if I would win. I killed Darius in the BC era, then Ramzess. Now I have border with Senggum, I left him alone after a bit of scouting, he tried to capture one of my cities, so far unsuccessfully.

Fortunately for me, Darius had two shrines, which save my economy, I turtled to cast to run merchants and bulb key technologies. IIrc, it is ~1400-1500, I have knights, and beginning to conquer Justinian, who DoW me out of the blue, but he was on my to-do list anyway.

I thought this game may be similar to 195 AW, when I essentially used the same strategy as Mitchum (just not as well executed) to try to kill AI faster than you are using money. But here, it is much more difficult, AIs are much further from each other, so moving your army takes forever, and most importantly, they can tech really well. So it is not only the race to not become bankrupt but also not to become obsolete and it seems very close. Would be really interesting to replay, but will probably take forever ...

Anyway, thanks @NobleZarkon again for a very memorable - and to everybody who posted reports, that is what makes BOTM worth playing

 

[Pangaea]

AIs are much further from each other, so moving your army takes forever, and most importantly, they can tech really well.

Another problem with the huge distances, is that maintenance becomes a killer. I was lucky enough to get the GLH, and maintenance still brought the economy to a standstill. Getting out courthouses became very important, before Communism finally saved everything.

Excellent map, and one I will remember for a good while.

 

[damnrunner]

Super fun game. After a 1st game in which I presumed Persia would be friendly (and built no defense and got rolled by Persia early) I had a very interesting 2nd game. Learned a lot about how to effectively fight from a pretty significant tech disadvantage. It ended up being a culture loss to Carthage, but I kept playing to see if I could defeat the Mongol's militarily (which I did!).

Things got interesting in my game when the True Mongols took the Egyptian capital. Not long after that the Persians captured the city and the True Mongol's looked to be on the defensive. Thinking some of the unsettled Egyptian landmass now looked safer I sent settlers to grab gold in the SE and gems at the isthmus leading into True Mongol territory. My hope was that I could then piggyback onto a Persian invasion of True Mongol territory and capture some cities.

However, the True Mongols were not on the defensive for very long and kept sending increasingly large and technologically advanced stacks across the isthmus. I got very good at killing these and without my stoic defense I am sure they would have captured all the cities in the Egyptian land mass and become an even stronger juggernaut. I prioritized teching to communism to keep my economy afloat as I kept sending catapults (and later cannon and then artillery) to the isthmus.

I had some very notable battles, the most memorable was killing 37 tanks plus around 20 other units. I had just teched artillery but had only been able to upgrade a handful of cannons. But with lots of collateral from the artillery, and using cavalry with withdraw promotions to weaken more units (most notable their artillery) I was able to severely weaken all the other units with cannons and then follow up for easy kills with everything from grenadiers to longbows.

I eventually (around 1990) went on the offensive when I had rocket inf, anti-tank inf, and machine guns (plus artillery/cavalry) with a stack of just under 100 units. These gave me decent survivablity against modern armor, infantry, gunships, and mobile artillery and I was able to capture the True Mongols' super powered capital (many wonders, lots of settled Great People, something like 10 great generals!) and the rest of the cities on that land mass. By the time I did this, the True Mongols had mech inf which made further advances pretty costly. So I just played defense against True Mongol units coming across the isthmus from the former Russian landmass. During the invasion I also got quite good at using airships to weaken units where the True Mongols did not have any air defenses.

As I rebuilt my armies I began teching a lot faster with fabulous mongol cities and got closer to tech parity. At this point the game was already well past 2050 but I wanted to see how capturing the True Mongol mountain isolated city would work. Many bombing runs and parachuters later I killed off the 40 some units in the city and then decided to call the game quits.

 

[Seraiel]

Congratiulations from I/Me/Seraiel towards:

@ZPV
@Pangaea
@Conquistador 63