BOTM 07 Final Spoiler

[kcd_swede]

Dikes rule!, being able to build them with any water source is a big advantage in the late game, much more effective the the standard levee on the river.


A fun game to play, thanks DS, and a very strong leader IMO.

I agree on both counts! Dikes are like a very cheap Maoui Statues in every coastal city... and if you have towns on a river and running USuff,they are a real turbocharge. I love a hammer-heavy economy, so the Dutch are awesome.

I am curious if anyone was successful using a cottage-spam economy in this game, and if so how?

 

[Ronnie1]

I actually cottaged all of the floodplains in the capitol. I also cottaged as many more as I could, but need to spread some irrigation through a few tiles IIRC. Most of my hammers came from the city NE of the Capitol in the center of the island. I probably squeezed in too many cities, but didn't want to waste any of the floodplains.

 

[torsteinvh]

My first submitted BOTM, rather comfortable Space win in 1975. 15K points or thereabout. Never really threatened, a couple of rather half hearted invasion attempts from the AI. Took all but three of Mansa's cities when I got infantry, and kept him as a vassal for the remainder of the game. On good terms with most of the others most of the time
Cottages all over the place, I don't think I built a single farm. Founded Sid's and Mining Inc.

Didn't chop a single tree, but totally forgot about the National Park wonder, so I built two other national wonders in a city surrounded by trees. Not a smart decision.

Didn't build National Epic either, preferred Oxford and Wall Street in the capital instead.

But all in all satisfied with the win, the first BtS I have played to the end actually, and looking forward to BOTM 9

 

[Caesar of Rome]

An enjoyable game, but not a happy ending. Liz gets a cultural victory with my rocket in the air. I wasted maybe six turns to build a second engine only for it to reduce the arrival time from twelve to ten turns.

I particularly felt cheated when the year I completed Docking Bay in Amsterdam, Enemy infiltrators destroyed Docking Bay in Andahuaylas. ( I had captured Andahuaylas a few turns before and the cultural border had just expanded after the end of resistance.) At the start of that turn we moved on to the space ship and fitted the docking bay only to find I must build it again.

 

[Mundungu]

First Post, first submitted BOTM.

Target : simply win the game if possible, as Monarch is my current difficulty level.

First of all, my apologies for sending my game under the wrong user name (Mundungu instead of alsadoine) so if there is anybody of the name Mundungu out there, sorry 'bout that. I had registered eons ago, and forgot the details, and did not know how to change it afterward.

To the game : a slow but safe path to victory with early game made mostly out of cottages and reasonable expansion. Took Mansa toward the middle game. I was pretty peaceful until HC decided to take a bite on me in to his regret ending me in taking one key city, blocking his path to the english side of the continent.

A late war with the Koreans is probably what cost me the game. I had to do some military build up, lost temporarilly one city and my access to Oil, but once I took control of the seas, it was not very threatening. Still, too many rounds on unhappyness which must have made the difference in the end.

We made piece around 1950. Ragnar declared a stupid war in the late 20th century, having my modern armors tearing through his riflemen (why did he attack at all in the first place ?). He capitulated after me taking only 2 cities.

I launched my spaceship in 2007 with fully completed spaceship and first in the points .... and the Persians won Cultural in 2010 ... ARRGGH.

Since The persians did not have all the Cultural wonders (english had 1 opr 2) I thought I was safe from a cultural loss, and did not go to check ...

Anyhow, bottom line, a loss on the finish line, but a game fun to play overall.

Again Admin : if any solution to recorrect my entry, let me know.

Thanks for a great game experience...

 

[Thrallia]

I think I beat Ronnie1 in terms of quickest game...I guess my rustiness shows.

Founded in place, built worker first. I explored East first and quickly found Mansa. I parked my warrior next to his cows while I waited for a worker to show up. I finished my worker, started building cottages(teched Wheel>Pottery>AH>Mining), and began a warrior again until I reached size 3.

I had a random event when I was 1 turn from size 3, something about herbal medicines and gave me 3 choices...I chose the choice that gave me a 20% chance of losing 1 pop and 35% chance of gaining +2 health...I of course, lost 1 pop and didn't get the +2 health.

So I went back down to pop two, finished the warrior, sent him off exploring west. I got I started a third warrior while waiting to reach size 3 again, and finally mansa showed his worker...so I nabbed it. Unfortunately, there was a skirmisher in the next tile. It killed my warrior and took back the worker. Then another skirmisher showed up next to Amsterdam...I sent back my western warrior to defend, and he made it the turn the skirmisher reached Amsterdam...a pointless fight followed and I lost a conquest defeat.

Total time: 7 minutes lol

 

[Orry]

I've just finished playing it, I went with the adventurer save, settled on the southern coast and expanded to fill up the continent, I didn't expand as much as I could have done early on which was a bit sloppy. I filled most of the countryside around my cities with cottages which worked out pretty well.

I went to war at some point with Mansa Musa with swordsmen and catapults, and took 3 cities, one of which was pretty close to Timbuktu and caused me pains with revolting enough times during the game. After peace was declared he later vassalized to me and remained so for the rest of the game. I'm not sure whether it was good to accept though, I think I would have been better building up my military again to take the rest of his lands.

I was about average in tech when I discovered the other civs, and I became the first to circumnavigate the world, which was nice. I powered into the tech lead when the nice civics for towns were available, but I was always behind Wang Kon and Darius on score.

I had a minor war with Ragnar just because someone asked me too, razed his two cities on the continent with the Incans, this was totally pointless.

Earlier on I'd been thinking of a cultural victory, but I realised that I had little idea how to achieve such, so I defaulted to the next available, the diplomatic. I managed to build the UN and became secretary general, but the bribery I gave Huayna to get me the votes which would have seen me win seemingly backfired and he declared war on me, fortunately I had DP with Darius and he never really threatened me. Peace was declared quite quickly.

I then gave up on that and went for space race. This went much better and with the Three Gorges Dam, plenty of Dikes, Labs and the Space Elevator I churned out spaceship components pretty quickly once I had the Apollo Program built, which was about 30 turns after Wang Kon had his. Noone else really had many built so it was looking pretty good.

However 2 turns before the final components were finished I saw Persepolis and Pasagardae hit legendary culture. I had completely forgotten that Cultural existed.
So my spaceship was finished with all components in 1960, and Persia won a cultural victory the turn after. It looks like my game end was pretty similar to yours alsadoine. Oh well, I should have kept a better eye on the VC screen. I think I might have been able to launch a credible assault on Persia if I'd been paying attention.

All in all it was a very fun game, my first BtS and really the first time I'd ever got to grips with many of the mechanics of Civ 4. I made a load of mistakes but learnt a lot about the game in the process. Also its the closest I've ever come to winning a GOTM, hopefully that'll happen at some point soon.

And I've just noticed its the longest writeup I've given one, that figures I guess.

 

[srad]

Short summary:

Settled my first two towns toward Mansa; traded a few techs with him; attacked him later with maces and cats to grap the whole continent.
From liberalism I took Astro and sailed with a settler to a big island with a stone resource. This was the only city which was not on my continent. From there on I just teched as fast as possible through the tree to build the space ship.

I was always the techleader after liberalism and could not trade a single tech. So I sold them to support my teching a little bit.


I have no experience with colonies and I feared the maintenance, so I build just one city on an other continent. But I do not know if this was a good decision. Maybe I should have settled more aggressive after Astro, maybe I should take some more land by force.


So I am curious if there are some space colonies were founded before 1850 and if yes, how you did it.

Nice leader and I really enjoyed the game! Thanks to the xOTM staff!

 

[da_Vinci]

I missed the Kremlin by 4 turns to Liz. I could keep up in tech almost, but couldn't win a space race since crappy production. I figured I muffed up the cottage spam strategy early with a war early and some other things mentioned in other spoiler. So I lost despite having great economy... just too small and too little production capacity. Tried a few incursions into neighbor lands, but had trouble making sufficiently large army with only 7 cities to build them (and having to pay cash for each due to crappy production).

Hmm ... I think I produced my military in only four or five cites at games end ... and perhaps three at the start. Which leads me to think that you may need to focus on city specialization a bit more?

It took me a while to really get focused on that ... but now when I look for city sites I ask "where is food + hills for a hammer city?" "Where is food and forest to chop the G Lib for a GP farm?" "Where is there lots of grassland for a commerce city?" Then really limit the buildings to those that kind of city needs, and use the appropriate national wonders in the specialized cities.

I use the signs function to label each city with its mission, to keep me on track.

With two or three cities specialized for hammers and producing troops almost non-stop, with HE in one, and military academies in them, I think you will find no problem having enough military.

dV

 

[kcd_swede]

Hmm ... I think I produced my military in only four or five cites at games end ... and perhaps three at the start. Which leads me to think that you may need to focus on city specialization a bit more?

Yes. That is probably the #1 reason I struggle on emperor level. On lower levels I seem to get by with lots of hybrid cities. I really do need to focus more on specialized cities and try not to get sidetracked.

It took me a while to really get focused on that ... but now when I look for city sites I ask "where is food + hills for a hammer city?" "Where is food and forest to chop the G Lib for a GP farm?" "Where is there lots of grassland for a commerce city?" Then really limit the buildings to those that kind of city needs, and use the appropriate national wonders in the specialized cities.

I guess it all really starts there with city site selection, doesn't it? Often I find myself rushing just to get any kind of viable good sites before they are all gone. I do tend to fare better in isolated starts and archipelago maps, so maybe I just need to focus more on REX and forget about the early wonders.

I use the signs fuction to label each city with its mission, to keep me on track.

Good tip! I used to name the cities things like "commerce 1" or "production2" etc... but found that the cities didn't alwayds turn out to be what I had originally thought or intended.

With two or three cities specialized for hammers and producing troops almost non-stop, with HE in one, and military academies in them, I think you will find no problem having enough military.

Well, ok, I think I understand the theory. Execution is what I need to work on. I think I need some practise games where I forget about the distractions and not concern myself with winning/losing, but just making a couple of each kind of specialized city. In fact, you have inspired me to do that. Thanks... I'll let you know if this helps me in BOTM08.

 

[karmina]

So I am curious if there are some space colonies were founded before 1850 and if yes, how you did it.

Well I missed that date, but only by a couple of turns. Space colony pre 1850 was definitely possible considering my mistakes, which I try to outline below...

Settled in place, never met a barb (were they disabled?), and never attacked Mansa. That might have cost me a lot of points in the final score, but I think it was a wise decision nonetheless - because

1. I got tons of techs from him, namely the whole "upper" tree from Philosophy to Democracy, Feudalism, Theology, Guilds, Banking, Corporation, Milit.Science, Milit.Trad., Rifling, Artillery, Flight and even Rocketry. One or two of these techs I might have gotten from Liz, but everything else from Mansa.
2. There was enough land for what I call a healthy empire: 8-10 cities before Astro, 16 in the end.
3. After the early wonder rush there was no need for Mansa's Marble anymore.
4. He did found 3 religions, but, strangely enough, built the first and only shrine after I founded Mining Inc.
5. He begged for protection around 1600, I accepted and gained Incense (his only resource I didn't have), as well as automatic full FCs in the border cities (his culture was pressing really hard before, Mansa was cultural leader until the end...btw can a vassal get a cultural win?)

Science was heavily concentrated in Amsterdam: Fully cottaged with the exception of a copper mine and 5 forests; early Oxford and quite early National Park; Bureaucracy and Caste System until the end.

Tech path:
1. Caravels
2. Education
3. Workshop path to Chemistry, then early Dikes (liberated Steam Power in 1230 AD)
4. Astronomy
5. Juggling between hammer and health techs
6. Fusion...and this time on a different space race path: First I built labs and Apollo simultaneously, then got genetics and rushed directly to fusion - no need for the space elevator considering my 6 or 7 hammer-heavy cities. Nonetheless I managed to squeeze out all remaining wonders, the Internet, 2 additional corporations and 1 future tech during the 10 turns between launch and win.

1230 AD Steam Power
1834 AD Fusion
1848 AD Launch
1868 AD Victory (~49k points)

Now for the rather...mediocre parts of my game:

- Only one single pre-industrial wonder (Hanging Gardens). Yep, lost every other wonder race, up to but not including Taj Mahal.

- Once again I failed to properly specialize my cities. Basically Amsterdam was best in every category for most of the game. Most other cities were strong production centers, but weak in both science and GP. Heck I think I built only 3 cottages outside of Amsterdam's FC...

- I probably could have founded a dozen or more oversea cities on various islands and unclaimed territory near Darius, Wang Kong and Ragnar. Too lazy and too happy with my dikes, I ended up with 3

- No GP farm. National Epic was built after spaceship launch
(The few great people, most of which came late and for free with techs, were spent on 3 golden ages, 2 academies, 2 merchant missions and 3 corporations)

- 1635 AD Huayna Capac launched a surprise attack, taking one of my coastal, core cities in a single turn. He attacked with 4 Cuirassiers directly from galleon. I should have had an Infantry fortified in Njimwegen several turns ago...what I did have there was a single Horse Archer
Well, not too much harm done. I got a handful of Infantry and Cavallery two turns later and reclaimed the city. My friends Liz, Mansa & Wang Kong happily joined the war. Soon afterwards Dutch Infantry conquered the Incan gold outpost, Pig Island and one further city, before signing the peace treaty.

All said and done, BOTM07 was a fun game with room for experiments, but a bit too easy for me, and thus a little boring

 

[ssjos]

Cultural victory around 1600 AD if i remember correctly.

Startup was nice with all flood plains but I had terrible issues with health. Also, I expanded to much early on(to take land from mansa) which somewhat crippled my economy.

Anyhow, I guess the other AI discored me around 1400 AD but as I had stopped teching they played no major role.

 

[civ_steve]

My first completed BTS game! I thought it was very fun, and very relaxing (compared to WOTM18, which was still very interesting.)

I settled my part of the continent - built for Food where it made sense, cottaged most everything else, except for production squares which I mined. So no extreme path - just overall strong cities (especially Amsterdam). Traded Tech early and often with Mansa Musa (but still pretty much kept a slight Tech lead). First to Optics, shortly after 500 AD, I made the early contacts and circumnavigated first.

Decided that MM didn't really need to know the rest of the World. I pushed through Gunpowder, Chem, MilSci, and took him out mostly with Grenadiers and Cats. Towards the end, Steel and Cannons made the combat much easier (against mostly LongBows).

One thing I decided to explore was more advanced combat. So my Grenadiers and Cannon were healed up, but who first? Darius and England had a slight Tech lead vs the others (still nothing worse than LongBows), so they'd be first. I quickly captured 4 Persian cities, and was in a hurry to get cracking against England (who now had Rifling), so I accepted his Capitulation at that point.

For England I had researched up to Infantry, and decided I needed more advanced ships (to counter his airships). So Combustion, and Oil - where to get Oil from? I need offshore platform to develop the Oil to the North, and that wasn't going to happen quickly. Ah-ha - a little island just East of Persia, had Oil, and the English had settled it. Perfect - I started the war there, and pushed over a couple of Workers from my Persian holdings to put a Well on the Oil, and I was in business.

So I had a huge Stack of Infantry and Cannons for the English invasion; I went ahead and learned Artillery while getting the Oil and upgrading my ships. I started the big invasion with Infantry and Artillery. England had Redcoats, and just started to get Infantry towards the end. I got to experience the power of a huge stack of Artillery as my forces focused on London - 15 Infantry and 15 Artillery against a stack of 14 defenders, mostly Redcoats and a handful of Infantry. After 6 of my bombards, London's defense is down to 0%, and the remaining 9 shredded the defenders with collateral damage attacks! I only lost 2 Artillery, and with most defenders down to 3 or less strength, my Infantry took London without a loss. Wow! I now had 2 Vassals through Capitulation.

Incas were slightly ahead of the Koreans in Tech (and the Vikings way behind), so they were next. Incas had Infantry, some Marines, and the occassional Machine Gun, so I had to make Marines and Tanks a part of my forces. I took 5 cities including the capital, and that wasn't enough. The 6th city got me their Capitulation - 3 Vassals.

I decided to go after the Vikings, then use them as a base against Korea. The conquering was going reasonably well, then... well Ragnor and Korea had been at war for centuries; I'd just landed the killer force adjacent to Nidaros to take the capital (after capturing the cities to the North), and all of a sudden Ragnor capitulates to Korea! Hey, I'm the one taking your cities! My stack got popped back to the nearest recently captured city, and my navy got popped over an island into Incan territory, 2 or 3 moves away! OK, declare on Ragnor again, and a true World War started, as Korea declared, and my 3 Vassals declared on them.

I had intentionally captured the core of Persia (and actually given it back) and England, giving me buffers against Korea. That worked pretty well, as they soaked up the Korean assaults and I finished off the Vikings - 2nd civ totally gone.

So I started loading up the transports and headed off to Korea. 14 transports supported 2 landings, to the NE and SE of Seoul. I captured 2 cities, lost 1 back to Korea, razed 1, and had just taken Seoul, when the 2nd round of UN votes came up. My alliance got me the SG, and then I decided to put the Diplo Victory up to a vote, and won in 1918. (Korea is nearly a done deal, but I might not have time to finish!)

A few observations:
Dikes are awesome!
I liked the customs house building - really ramped up the foreign trade a city could get.
Massed stacks of bombard units are really fun - but not for your enemy!
I ran UnivSuff for most of the end game part. Being able to cash rush units at the end really ramped up the military part of my game.
I got 5 Great Generals (IIRC); built some fast healing units, and MilAcad in the capital (1 turn Tanks, for the most part!)

Overall, a very enjoyable game!

 

[srad]

....and never attacked Mansa.

Maybe that is the point. I couldn't trade that much techs with him and I really thought a long time about attacking him.

Thanks for your writeup!

 

[jm4civ4]

....as well as automatic full FCs in the border cities (his culture was pressing really hard before.......

what are FCs?

 

[Welnic]

When someone is your vassal then you get a full BFC for your cities even if their culture is dominant. I guess FC means Fat Cross.

 

[Nioco]

This game finished very similarly as my previous one with gilgamesh. I first aimed for a quick conquest and dispatch Mansa only after having rifling near 1300 AD, then went for ragnar and decided to attack the other continent by one end. Ragnar went fast, but Incans refused to capitulate efore I took almost half of their cities...thus I thought domination would be faster as Darius was first in tech and as he was at the other end of the continent would be the last to fall...

It took way too much time to my taste (I need to go faster with fights and not manage my units so much)...After taking whole incans cities, I went for elizabeth that I vassalize with 2 cities left under Persian culture pressure...and finally the koreans and this damned protective traits. I was too tired and did not used well tanks and mechanized infantry (first time for me )...I realized only at the end that I should have focused on them faster as they are very very powerful vs rifleman. First time also with guided missile...which are real crap (or maybe i missed something here !)

Again at the end with state property, my science was near 2500 beakers and I was producing like 4/5 tanks every rounds...way overkill

 

[jesusin]

jesusin, challenger. Goal: fastest religious victory (Gauntlet). Result: 1230AD religious victory.

The plan was not very elaborate:
1.-Spread a religion 2.-Build AP 3.-Get 75% pop somehow. 4.-Cheat around the 75% rule.

The loss of the warrior for challenger’s was not so bad this game, since we were on a small landmass. But the 10 turns of delay… uff!

Settled 1E, researched Wheel-Pott-Wri-Alpha. Built Worker – Warrior - Half of a Granary till pop4 – Settler.

I still have problems adapting to BTS: I delayed Alpha 1 turn in order to have gold in the treasury from very early, just in case RE appeared. They didn’t. And I revolted to slavery while my first Settler was travelling. That was a very wise thing to do in Vanilla. But it is a mistake in BTS, since you risk slave revolts. In BTS one should revolt to slavery just before you start whipping.

Another problem of mine is not taking advantage of the specificities of each civ. I always play as if I was leading a Trait-less civ. I kept delaying the building of my Library because “I had not pop enough” not realizing that it was half-priced.
This lead to a very late Academy: 1AD.

After Alpha I went for Theo and founded Christianity in 450BC. After that, I decided I would go for Optics without taking CS first. Big mistake. Both paths are more or less the same, if you take the Bureaucracy bonus into account. To make things worst, Musa went for MC too…

Since my religion spread to Musa and he spread it further to every one of his cities, my plan to spread the religion to a single city of every AI failed. Musa was going to be my friend, and would vote for me unless he was my rival in the elections, which was a sure thing… So I was forced to take “a bit” of his pop in the future. To make things worst, even if vassalized he would still be my rival.

1AD stats: 4city, 21pop, 3wor, 2War, Axe, Spe, WB, Set. Copper, horses. 1Lux, 3health. 1GP, 0WW, 0NW. fpc=60,29,125; 69sust bpt, 27cpt, 3GPPpt, 333g. 1Relig mine. 4Gra, 3Lib, Acad. 7/10cottages used. 18Tech: Alpha, no IW, Maths, MC. 0civs killed. 4hours. AP due in 5 turns.
What a bad start!

Then I went for Calendar… and Musa too. No way of trading if we don’t agree what to research!

Since there was no resolutions to pass in the AP, resident elections took place every 14 turns. I think I understand why: normal cycle is 4 resolutions between elections, 10 turns between each of them. So, elections, 10turns, nothing to vote so the computer decides it would be unfair to have to wait another 9 turns if a resolution was available next turn, so instead of wating 10 turns, wait just 1 turn for the following opportunity to pass a resolution. 4 times the same, turn 14 a new election is held. I don’t know if it is a feature or a bug, I sure don’t like it.

Optics in 580AD. 2 turns later, 2 whipped Caravels set sail, carrying a missionary each. Look for AIs E and W, so missed several of them for a long time.

My first experience with spies was disappointing. After infiltrating and waiting 5 turns in a city, I could not steal techs!!!! Later on I have learnt that, although the option of stealing techs has no spy points price, it doesn’t mean you are not able to steal techs: you have to click on it anyway and then the costs of stealing every available tech will appear! What a nb I am!

At 740AD I refrained from building the NE, since I realised the end was nigh. Built Cats instead. Circumnavigation bonus and first 2 infections (to the smallest cities available) around 880AD. Gifting small techs to the backwards overseas AIs allows OB.

1000AD stats: 6city, 55pop, 5wor, 19units(4Mace,4Cat, 3Carav), horses,copper, iron. 4Lux, 6health. 2GP,1WW, 0NW, 0GG. FPG: 147-82-353. 250sust bpt, 14GPPpt, 200g. 1Relig,mine. 25cottages used. 34Techs: CS, no Feud, no Engi, Optics, Constr, theo. 9.5hours. Circumn.AP. 4/6 infected.

1060AD: Darius saw me coming and started spreading my religion to his big cities. I was being too slow finding all AIs! Spy caught just before disconnecting Musa’s Iron while he gets CS! Last AI infected. Get HBR for WE. Dow Musa with just 7Mace+6cat+xbow+swo+cha. I am whipping units like crazy.

1120AD: Take one Musa city, choose victory resolution, all abstain, get 132 out of 179 needed, out of 239 total votes. I should have been quicker setting up my army.

1200AD: 2 more cities have been taken. Stop whipping, I might win next round! Plan to take cities on the turn before the voting!

1210AD: My spy, who was going to take down the city defences, is caught! Darius spreads the religion even faster. If I take some more pop and vassalize Musa, Darius would be my rival and Musa would vote for me! I have 172/190/280.
1220AD: Choose voting for victory. If I wanted Darius to be my rival, I should have taken a Musa’s city the previous turn, not this turn, now Musa is the rival! Dow Eliz to get Ragnar to Friendly. Oh, no, I am stupid, he probably has already decided what to vote, I should have dowed Eliz 1 turn sooner! Take one city from Musa, fail to take a second one. 193 votes needed, 190 had, so I am not breaking the 75% rule. Check if Musa would pay a city for peace. No luck. Accept his capitulation. This takes Ragnar back to Pleased, so I’ll never know if changing his attitude in the last turn was effective or not. Spread my religion to the last of my cities (I was holding this as a way to manipulate the 75% threshold rule). I have 200, I need 201. 1 city will starve due to Musa’s culture. All cities working for food, 3 of them will grow.

1230AD: Musa votes for himself, all the rest abstain, I get 204 votes out of 204 needed, out of 272 total votes. Victory!

What a fun game! I think I have learnt more in the final turn than in a whole regular game! Thank you for this wonderful experience.

 

[jesusin]

By the way, my personal opinion is that starting this game, finding that we are alone with Musa and then deciding not to kill him on the grounds that he is the only AI that trades monopoly techs is simply cheating.

So my vote (if anyone is interested) goes for checking on 'random personalities' in every single XOTM game.

 

[Jimmy Thunder]

So my vote (if anyone is interested) goes for checking on 'random personalities' in every single XOTM game.

To me, the different AI's and their typical behaviour is a great part of civ and should stay in