BOTM 04 First Spoiler

Htadus · Apr 2, 2008

jesusin said:
jesusin, challenger. Goal: fastest cultural.

BANKRUPT: At 1AD I was bankrupted. I don't understand why. This is so different from Vanilla! 7 cities doesn't look like too much, does it? It is true that I had no cottages going. Maybe not having foreign trade routes has an influence too. Anyway, I didn't expect it.
Please help me, has city maintenance changed in BTS compared to Vanilla?

So here I am. +12gpt at 0%. I would like to beeline Music, I'd like to beeline Philo, I'd like to beeline Monot in order to bulb Theo. My chosen third Legendary city has zero cottages, lots of jungle and will take a lot of time to be in shape. There are a lot of 2-food-resource ioty sites available, but I won't dare to settle any more cities. Oh, and there is that Barb Galley pillaging my nets, too.
What am I doing? I am out of the competition for the fastest finish.

I think first is obvious as you stated; No cottages = no gold unless you are running priests(?) or merchants. But I would guess you of all people will run artists.
Second is we had no international trade. I was glad to have ToA chopped and learing currency immidiately after the CS sling. Then I learned alpha so I can get gold from SB.
Third was the hidden pain in the you know what. The map forced us to build cities in a broad area of the map. When I settled the stone city, I went from -1gpt to -9gpt and I almost had a heart attack. I built a markets or CHouses as best suited to come out of it. The capitals market alone got me out of red.

Sorry you had trouble with the barb galleys. In my game they only did that once but it killed my brand spanking new trireme. It took another to kill the galley and setup new net.

BTW trickster

, I am still expecting you to come out and say all you posted in the thread is a lie (GOTM28 :lol:

) and you have reached liberalism by 500AD.

jesusin · Apr 2, 2008

jesusin said:
BANKRUPT: At 1AD I was bankrupted. I don't understand why. This is so different from Vanilla! 7 cities doesn't look like too much, does it? It is true that I had no cottages going. Maybe not having foreign trade routes has an influence too. Anyway, I didn't expect it.
Please help me, has city maintenance changed in BTS compared to Vanilla?

Thanks everbody for your answers regarding this subject. Yes, I would have liked to have Liberalism by 500AD, but I didn't. Yes, no merchants, the plan before bankrupcy was to get 1 single GS and then some 15 GA.

I think I have found the reason for this to happen to me so surprisingly. It is not a BTS-Vanilla thing, but a Prince-Deity thing. In the couple of Deity BTS games I have played I have had no problems of this short. Appart from earlier cottages and foreign trade routes, which explain part of the matter, the key factor is the AI wealth. From 1000BC the AI had Currency and insane amounts of gold. When 2 AI had CoL, I would sell CoL to the rest of them, getting a tech and 100g or directly 500g from every one of them. Then I didn't have the need to go bellow 100% research, no matter how much gpt I was losing.

So basically I would say that Deity AI finance my cultural victories. In that sense, Prince is much more difficult than Deity.

Capt Buttkick · Apr 2, 2008

Ronnie1 said:
But why abandon? That had to be very early, and not that difficult to recover from.

Ah, but I'm a sore loser and can't be bothered, that's why

Capt Buttkick · Apr 2, 2008

Ribannah said:
If the first doesn't do any damage: stop. The RNG is against you this turn, but most likely the defending Warrior won't be promoted yet from this one kill. Try again when you have a new fourth Warrior present, or six against two, or revert to repeated Worker stealing. Meanwhile, don't forget to defend your own capital.

I was getting towards the point when Gilly would get archers and I didn't want to wait for that. I also knew there was a Sum warrior running around in the fog and had left my capitol undefended so I felt like it was now or never (of course, it never is, but like I said I can't be bothered playing through gotms if I run into hassle with the RNG from the start (my results are mediocre without that :lol:

).

Balbes · Apr 2, 2008

Am I happy when I get Bronze Working from a tribal hut? Most definitely not! On the positive side, I know it almost guarantees myself a medal; on the other side, there bound to be people who are going to say that blind luck like this trumped any advantage in skill that the competing players might have had. Why not do away with huts in xOTMs altogether? And random events too - for example, the 'Herbalists' event makes a huge difference in this BOTM because there are very few health resources.

Vynd · Apr 2, 2008

Balbes said:
Am I happy when I get Bronze Working from a tribal hut? Most definitely not! On the positive side, I know it almost guarantees myself a medal; on the other side, there bound to be people who are going to say that blind luck like this trumped any advantage in skill that the competing players might have had. Why not do away with huts in xOTMs altogether? And random events too - for example, the 'Herbalists' event makes a huge difference in this BOTM because there are very few health resources.

There was a Tribal Village? Where?

I think your blind luck trumped any skills you reputedly have.

oncable · Apr 2, 2008

Challenger start.
I enjoyed this game quite a lot. It was a great opportunity to focus on the technicalities of the cultural game without much interference or even effect from other civs (assuming, of course, a successful early warrior rush on Gilgamesh). Even Sitting Bull had only a small benefit because I chose to research Alphabet somewhat later than possible, when it only took 5 turns.

The early focus was on getting the CS sling and along the way, once math was researched, to chop some wonders. At 505 AD in the 3 legendary-designated cities I had 3,4, and 5 wonders.

Some of the interesting questions that have to be answered for the "optimum" strategy?
1) how many religions is best? I chose 4 but 5 was easily possible. It seems to me that the mind-numbing tediousness of getting each religion spread to the right number of cities and building temples, then cathedrals in the "big 3", is daunting enough with 4 religions.
2) how many cities is best? I suppose some would say 9 cities is the optimum. It seems to me that if you have one or two more cities you can get the required temples built sooner, thus enabling the all-important cathedral multipliers.
3) How much whipping is optimal? Since there was a severe health cap rather than the usual happy cap, I chose to whip almost whenever a city went into a state of unhealth. This enabled temples and missionaries much sooner than waiting for completion.
4) Which wonders are best? Besides the basic essentials (Parthenon, Stonehenge) I thought Hanging Gardens was very important to get because of the health benefit.
5) When to turn off research and switch to culture?
6) Which civics are best to use at the different stages? I usually avoid Organized Religion because of the high maintenance but when trying to spread so many religions it becomes essential, because it eliminates building all the required monasteries which would add another whole level of complexity.

In the quest for the "optimal strategy" it will be very interesting to see the final spoilers to see which choices the cultural winners made for each of these questions.

Thanks to the Civ Fanatics staff for a great game!

Ribannah · Apr 2, 2008

Vynd said:
There was a Tribal Village? Where?

Southwest in the jungle. It gave me a puny Warrior.

Ribannah · Apr 2, 2008

oncable said:
4) Which wonders are best? Besides the basic essentials (Parthenon, Stonehenge) I thought Hanging Gardens was very important to get because of the health benefit.

To consider is the Shwedagon Paya which allows you to switch to Pacifism before researching Philosophy. Not sure that switching to Pacifism asap is the best thing to do though. I don't think I need 15 Great Artists.

5) When to turn off research and switch to culture?

The big question for me is: do I want Astronomy? I'm considering staying in Representation so research will never stop completely, thanks to the Pyramids.

jesusin · Apr 3, 2008

oncable said:
Some of the interesting questions that have to be answered for the "optimum" strategy?
1) how many religions is best? I chose 4 but 5 was easily possible. It seems to me that the mind-numbing tediousness of getting each religion spread to the right number of cities and building temples, then cathedrals in the "big 3", is daunting enough with 4 religions.
2) how many cities is best? I suppose some would say 9 cities is the optimum. It seems to me that if you have one or two more cities you can get the required temples built sooner, thus enabling the all-important cathedral multipliers.
3) How much whipping is optimal? Since there was a severe health cap rather than the usual happy cap, I chose to whip almost whenever a city went into a state of unhealth. This enabled temples and missionaries much sooner than waiting for completion.
4) Which wonders are best? Besides the basic essentials (Parthenon, Stonehenge) I thought Hanging Gardens was very important to get because of the health benefit.
5) When to turn off research and switch to culture?
6) Which civics are best to use at the different stages? I usually avoid Organized Religion because of the high maintenance but when trying to spread so many religions it becomes essential, because it eliminates building all the required monasteries which would add another whole level of complexity.

In the quest for the "optimal strategy" it will be very interesting to see the final spoilers to see which choices the cultural winners made for each of these questions.

Good questions. Your strategy is very different to mine or to Ribannah's, so maybe there are different answers for different situations.

IMO:

1.- 4 >> 3 >> 5. If you are planning to build cathedrals in only 2 cities, then 4 or 5 is ok. As you said, the cost of spreading yet another religion and then building temples and cathedrals is too much.

2.- 7 or 10 cities are my favourites. More is possible, as long as there are more 2food-resource sites available. I try to get a GA in every city (15 GP is almost the minimum). The addicional city allows one city (generally the GPFarm) to avoid building a temple.

3.- You are probably going to be in slavery some time, then you'll like to revolt to CS+Pacif. While you are in slavery, whip hard.

4.- I'd never build SH. I only build artist related WW. Now, I said in the spoiler that it would have been useful in this map. I don't want my artist pool contaminated. However, artist purity seems more important in Vanilla than in BTS. Also I try to build a single WW (Parthenon generally) but that's because of Deity. Parthenon is not an early WW anymore in BTS.

5.- As soon as you get Liberalism if you want to win as fast as possible. And revolt immediately to FS. If you are scared, it may be wise to research GunPowder or Rifling.

6.- I've seen CS as the first civic in order to pop borders and get a ultraearly Academy or GA. But normally it is slavery (with or without OR), then HR+Bureau, then CS+Pacif, then FS. Much later, Merc or FM.

See you in the final spooiler!

Balbes · Apr 4, 2008

Challenger - Cultural

I am in the exact same situation as you at 0AD, jesusin. I have just settled four cities to colonize the southern jungle, each city costing ca. -10 gpt in maintenance at size 1, and probably more than -15 at size 10 and upwards. This has dropped me to 0% science, and I may consider commissioning a few courthouses, something I very rarely build.

I have exactly one religion, Confucianism, taken when I did the CS slingshot, and I am starting to get quite concerned about losing Christianity. I do have some cottages going, but none of them are above 'hamlet' status.

Capital - settled NE,NE; built the Pyramids and Hanging Gardens.
2nd city - Uruk, taken with a warrior rush, renamed York. The main GP farm in the future.
3rd - on the river west of London; copper and hilly pigs. Most of my cottages are there.
4th - NE of London; marble and clams; built the Oracle.
5th - far W; stone, crabs (health), pigs.
6, 7, 8, 9 - the southern peninsula.

I killed off Gilgamesh very early, 3300BC or so. Sitting Bull was left as the only trading partner. I noticed he was investing less than 4 espionage points per turn against me, so I knew he was in contact with other civs, and would trade. It is only a Prince AI, of course, but I got Animal Husbandry, Iron Working and Calendar from him.

Tech-wise, I am at Writing - Mathematics - Calenar - Civil Service - Iron Working, and stalled. No Currency or Metal Casting. Getting the economy in shape is the most pressing task.

Balbes · Apr 4, 2008

edit: At the russian site, reports have appeared from challenger cultural players who are doing significantly better. Uh-oh! No specifics are yet available on how they managed to achieve it, though.

jadex · Apr 5, 2008

Challenger-Cultural

Settled 2NE, went for agri, mining and BW as first techs (for obvious reasons I guess). Decided on a warrior rush, but was very sloppy and unattentious on MM, so I got my third warrior out much later then possible and hitted myself on the head a few times (I'm fine now btw!). In the end this stall of the attack was rather favorable since after the turn of my DOW, Uruk had build a worker: Hurray!

Got Uruk+worker with 3 warriors (2 dead) in 3250BC.

Founded York (3rd legendary) SE of Uruk at pigs+copper+corn. I realised getting nine cities up fast would ruin the ecenomy and research and would result in 0% slider around 1AD

. So fourth city (Nottingham) became almost pure cottage city West of Capitol, at copper+pigs+river. Around 850BC a barb warrior had sneaked past my hill fortified warrior west of nottingham and I hadn't noticed it until it was right in front of the empty city, in between my warrior and the city. Since it was size 1, it'd get destroyed... My warrior attacks the barb at 65% odds and loses: aaargh! :cry:

My capitol was 4 squares away and the warrior there came for help, which would come to late if it hadn't been for the fact that IBT my city grew to size 2, got captured by barb and reduced to size one instead of being destroyed. My capitol warrior became hero of the game when he recaptured it the turn after that. Woohoo! A feasable loss of 1pop and some hammers, but some 'civ-action' richer! :cool:

Got oracle in 1425BC (chose mathematics...)
Temple of artemis in 140BC (just for culture and priest)
shwedagon Paya 100AD (early philosophy)
Parthenon 115AD
Great Library 175AD (gave me to much GS and was les usefull without pyramids)
Hanging gardens 415AD
...

I had settled a city to grab the stone in the west and build the pyramids much more efficiënt, but ended up playing to sloppy and missed it in 20BC... At least it gave me some gold and luckily I had already build cottages...

Some techs:
1050BC alpha (got me about the same techs as Balbes refered to)
245BC theology (with GP)
100AD music
265AD Civil Service (with GP)

All in all not astonishing play from my side, but I guess I'm going OK for my first Cultural Victory... :king:

Lexad · Apr 6, 2008

Challenger, culture

Targets
1. CS-slignshot - done circa 1000BC
2. Get 4 religions - by 500 AD founded 3 (Chr, Conf, Tao) and starter Divine Right
3. Get 9 cities and 3 cathedrals of each denomination - luckily we have all resources.
4. Use early wonders as major contributor to the culture output - relatively successful. To prevent GA pool marring, located all non-artist WW in London and Nottingham (pigs and marble North on Uruk, due to large quantities of wood and not-that-hopeless land became my Legendary city), artist WW - in my GP farm Uruk.

Settled on spot, started with worker to get gold up and running ASAP. Techs Agri - AH - Mining - BW, then for Oracle (+ Masonry), then cottages, only then Writing, Maths and CoL.

Found Uruk pretty soon and decided it lacks Union Jack on top. So after worker I get 4 more warriors and attack with 4. I was studying score and power of Gilgamesh and was sure there is only one defensive unit (i.e. warrior on Prince). While approaching the borders I was greeted by a lonely Sumerian worker who wished to join the party. So happily together we approached Uruk. After an attack which left defender @1.7/2 after killing my two warriors, I still managed to hit him hard enough with the 3rd, so that the last guy won @95%. I got pop3 Uruk with the boni of worker, 2 farmed and roaded corns and 2 nets on clams.

Then I started to expand and build up - York was built west from London to work its cottages and copper; Nottingham I've already mentioned, and the next went the stone city. This rather stretched my upkeep, therefore later expansion came only when I was financially stable.

Lexad · Apr 6, 2008

Log, BC

Spoiler :

Lexad · Apr 6, 2008

Log, AD

Spoiler :

jesusin · Apr 7, 2008

Lexad said:
Challenger, culture

Targets
1. CS-slignshot - done circa 1000BC
2. Get 4 religions - by 500 AD founded 3 (Chr, Conf, Tao) and starter Divine Right
3. Get 9 cities and 3 cathedrals of each denomination - luckily we have all resources.
4. Use early wonders as major contributor to the culture output - relatively successful. To prevent GA pool marring, located all non-artist WW in London and Nottingham (pigs and marble North on Uruk, due to large quantities of wood and not-that-hopeless land became my Legendary city), artist WW - in my GP farm Uruk.

Two comments:
- why 4 religions and only 3 cathedrals per city? Or is it a typo?
- Building WW in GPFarm leads to working 2 mines instead of yet another artist. Then, on the other hand, it leads to some GPP from the WW when they are built... I think I will get more GA from my wonderless GPFarm... we shall see in the final spoiler.

Conquistador 63 · Apr 7, 2008

None of my business - but when he said "3 cathedrals of each denomination" he probably meant every1 of his 3 legendary cities would have 4 cathedrals (1 for each religion).

EDIT: No decent first spoiler from me this game. All I can say is that I got a CS sling but was late with the Sumerian conquest. Maces and cats were starting to roll only by this spoiler cut date.

Lexad · Apr 7, 2008

1. Yep, typo - 4 and 4

2. I was more into base culture from wonders than GA number as the first gives linear benefit, while the latter - progressively declining (with GPP required). Having a wonder in your city, even if it hasn't passed millenium age mark, is close to settling a GA in effect. And then they have their own effects, of course

siggboy · Apr 12, 2008

Bleys said:
Gilga decided to start a war with me. He sent half a dozen Vultures supported by a few HAs and took out York, in which I had built the Oracle and Colossus. I tried to take it back, but when I was sending my troops up, he came around to the south with even more Vultures, this time including a couple Cats and Ellies (must have gotten Construction as he started heading to me). London was a goner and I just gave up.

I've tried this game just today and I have not much to add to this account, because my game went quite similar ;-).

Started off nicely, and while figuring out how to make best use of those lands, Gilga declared on me and that war never ended, until I retired the game. Actually I had him suicide a sizeable amount of troops on my stacks (about two and a half Great General's worth of XP), but there was no end in sight. He wanted all my techs (5 of them) for peace and probably would have backstabbed me again sooner or later anyway. Since I was way too far behind the other civs at this point already, I just gave up.

I should have ganked him right in the beginning, when I saw his lone warrior in the capital... Damn.

Edit: In case somebody is wondering, this was my second go at the game since I lost the save from the first attempt, and I had quite forgotten about the map anyway with all the other games in the meantime. So tried it for fun, but my earlier attempt was better than this :-0.

BOTM 04 First Spoiler

A and L's dad

Ant

Emperor

Emperor

Instigator

Prince

Chieftain

Fighter Druid

Fighter Druid

Ant

Instigator

Instigator

Warlord

oldfart

oldfart

oldfart

Ant

Deity

oldfart

Monarch/Epic

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