Botm 12 Final Spoiler - Game Submitted

[TheMeInTeam]

Units can lose experience points when you upgrade? I'd never heard of that before. Are you certain that's what happens?

It absolutely can. You don't lose promotions already given, but XP > 10 will be reset to 10 upon upgrade. The only exception is attached GG units, which retain their XP when upgraded no matter how much they have.

It's been that way since warlords at least, possibly longer (I've only had the game less than a year, and BTS about 9 months).

 

[jesusin]

Units can lose experience points when you upgrade? I'd never heard of that before. Are you certain that's what happens?

It's always been so in Civ4

 

[ElWanderer]

Mmmm, donut maps are fun.

Alexander built some nice wonders (Pyramids, Hanging Gardens) then declared war on me just as I was about to get macemen... big mistake! I counter-attacked, made him a vassal and switched to universal suffrage for the rest of the game. There was so much grassland that I had loads of cottages and it seemed to make sense.

Eventually, I decided to drop the "no first-strike" policy and added Boudica as a vassal. Then with modern units I tore through first Willem, then Elizabeth. Pacal and Saladin had a defensive pact and infantry by this point, so I left them alone. Diplomatic victory in 1917 for 39k points. According to the scoreboard I had 59% of the population, but with 4 vassals voting for me, I couldn't lose.

I really enjoyed this map, and not just because I got to give my cities names like Hanging Chad!

>Please do not reveal locations of modern resources (coal and later)

Pity. I thought the availability/location of some of the important late-game resources was quite interesting!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Mmmm, donut maps are fun.

Alexander built some nice wonders (Pyramids, Hanging Gardens) then declared war on me just as I was about to get macemen... big mistake! I counter-attacked, made him a vassal and switched to universal suffrage for the rest of the game. There was so much grassland that I had loads of cottages and it seemed to make sense.

Eventually, I decided to drop the "no first-strike" policy and added Boudica as a vassal. Then with modern units I tore through first Willem, then Elizabeth. Pacal and Saladin had a defensive pact and infantry by this point, so I left them alone. Diplomatic victory in 1917 for 39k points. According to the scoreboard I had 59% of the population, but with 4 vassals voting for me, I couldn't lose.

I really enjoyed this map, and not just because I got to give my cities names like Hanging Chad!

>Please do not reveal locations of modern resources (coal and later)

Pity. I thought the availability/location of some of the important late-game resources was quite interesting!

. If it can't be revealed I'll never know unless I go back into it and load worldbuilder or something. I never breathed near anything like Sci method, steam power, etc . Hell, I didn't even win liberalism. Nobody did.

 

[Harbourboy]

I forgot that in BtS, the AI goes for culture, so I was blindsided when I suffered a cultural loss to Elizabeth in 1985.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

. If it can't be revealed I'll never know unless I go back into it and load worldbuilder or something.

You can do that. Or maybe someone will be nice and reveal the locations of the resources as soon as submissions for the game close, at which point all spoiler restrictions cease anyway.

 

[whizkid]

Not used to donut games, and not being a war-monger; alexander declared war on me and slowly wiped me out. I was doomed, once I lost my metals. Of course, while I wouldn't call myself a 'civ newbie'; I am certainly not as experienced as you all - but gave it a shot. My significant other has played this game about eight times now! Has been killed by Alexander every time. I thought I'd check out the spoilers and give her some tips. I'll have to post my win on the next one.

 

[PutCashIn]

I agree, the easier the difficulty, the slacker I get at hitting the end turn button 'prematurerly'

PS: Harbourboy, I love it, I think 'about time' every time I go from Vanilla to BTS!

 

[Lehm]

Units can lose experience points when you upgrade? I'd never heard of that before. Are you certain that's what happens?

I can´t believe it´s you who didn´t know that.
*rofl*

 

[Trynthlas]

Not used to donut games, and not being a war-monger; alexander declared war on me and slowly wiped me out. I was doomed, once I lost my metals. Of course, while I wouldn't call myself a 'civ newbie'; I am certainly not as experienced as you all - but gave it a shot. My significant other has played this game about eight times now! Has been killed by Alexander every time. I thought I'd check out the spoilers and give her some tips. I'll have to post my win on the next one.

Don't let alex get copper, if you're doing a replay just to try it. Build/chop two settlers quick-like to nab the two copper spots to the north/northwest and you won't have to deal with his Phalanx, which pretty much slaughters anything you can throw out early (unless you grab horses and have chariots or horse archers)

Alternatively, you could be a complete bugger and swarm him with 4-5 early warriors RIGHT AWAY (well, after you build a worker) and if you move quick enough he won't have archery...so you'll just kill 'im easy

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I can´t believe it´s you who didn´t know that.
*rofl*

Well y'know I am a normal human being.

Sometimes.

 

[cammell]

Wellcome to civfanatics, cammell

...

Next month (alternatively, did you know a Vanilla game started yesterday?), resist the temptation to go back. You won't regret it!

Thanks for a party Jesusin
Dont know anything about Vanilla, but not too eager to see that mod. Ill better stick with BtS. So definately next game, will have nice time on Christmas.

BTW, still playing my 3rd restart, have killed Boe, cannons are upgraded to artillery and massed on Salladin border. We re friends, but will be no mercy, just walk as he has bows agains my artillery and machine guns.
I like it, like this

 

[ElWanderer]

. If it can't be revealed I'll never know unless I go back into it and load worldbuilder or something. I never breathed near anything like Sci method, steam power, etc . Hell, I didn't even win liberalism. Nobody did.

Yeah, I'll try to remember what intrigued me about the map and post in the score thread.

I have to admit I am at heart a builder and techer... if I go wandering with a pointy stick early on, it's in order to give myself plenty of room and decent land to build things in. That said, I've just forced myself to play an aggressive game (not this map, mind) and for the first time won without reaching liberalism or riflemen, yay.

 

[oncable]

Goal: earliest space victory.

Plan: Get Great Lighthouse early, expand as much as possible on coast, then fill in later inland cities under State Property for big production.

Execution:
Met Alex almost right away. Must get rid of him early. Warrior rush on Athens, no more Greek threat. Along the way got a double woody warrior.
Next met Boudica. Determined she must go the way of Alex or she will be trouble later. With double woody warrior (aka worker harvester) managed to put serious crimp in Boudica's expansion plans. Pillaged food south of Bibrace then parked warrior behind forest tile. Every couple of turns check for worker. Got 4 of her workers while waiting for my axe army to arrive. By the time I had 6 axmen down there Boudica had 2 cities on hills with double promotion archers. Need bigger guns. So now what to do...

Hey, I have this army down here and maybe the Arabs are easier targets. So it wasn't too long, no Arabs and had Mecca with a nice religion generating good cash. Meanwhile my double woody is still stealing Boudica's workers but by now I have maces and she is very very crippled. It's really surprising how much damage one warrior can do with the double woody promotion. It was fairly easy for the maces to take out her archers so it was about 700 AD and I had this huge area to settle. No Greeks, no Celts and no Arabs.

The rest is fairly straightforward. Athens was perfect as GP farm (4! food). Built Oxford in Washington asap.

Tech path:
1655 Industrialism for Aluminum
1675 Plastics for hydro plants
1710 Biology for health
1720 Refrigeration for health
1735 Supercond for Labs
1765 Rocketry for Apollo
1770 Radio
1780 Satellites
1800 Composites
1806 Computers
1814 Fiber Optics
1816 Fission
1822 Fusion
1826 Medicine
1830 Genetics
1834 Ecology
turn off research, switch to all culture

1868 Space Victory

I would really appreciate any comments on the tech path. Would anyone have any advice on the optimum order?

 

[ZPV]

I played a fairly nondescript spaceship (contender) game resulting in an 1856 victory.

Washington was founded 1SE to get all the hills.
I found Athens too late to Warrior rush, so I Axe rushed it in 1440BC.
4 cities at 975BC
CS slingshot 650BC
Academy 350BC
Pyramids 250BC
7 cities at 1AD
Nat. Epic in Athens 100AD
Educ->0% research 560AD
12 cities at 560AD
Oxford 1030AD
Liberalism->Assembly Line 1400AD
Sid's Sushi 1585AD
Invaded Willem van Oranje~1600AD
Mining, Inc. 1675AD
Apollo Program 1802AD

I was sloppy and didn't MM very much (I even popped a GSpy out of my GP farm ), and I didn't focus enough on production in the early game (or else I built too many wonders ).

 

[ZPV]

+1 "I am tired of receiving so many of your techs".

Shouldn't this be +1 "We are so happy that you are giving us so many WFYABTA points"?

As for the 6 turn UN vote delay, that's just the way it is in BTS.

Tech path:
1655 Industrialism for Aluminum
1675 Plastics for hydro plants
1710 Biology for health
1720 Refrigeration for health
1735 Supercond for Labs
1765 Rocketry for Apollo
1770 Radio
1780 Satellites
1800 Composites
1806 Computers
1814 Fiber Optics
1816 Fission
1822 Fusion
1826 Medicine
1830 Genetics
1834 Ecology
turn off research, switch to all culture

1868 Space Victory

I would really appreciate any comments on the tech path. Would anyone have any advice on the optimum order?

After Assembly Line, I would recommend
* Biology if you have any farms (likely)
* Beeline towards your corporation tech if you are using a corp (Medicine for Sid's Sushi or Refrigeration for Cereal Mills)
* Beeline Superconductors for Labs
* Industrialism for Aluminium. You may want this earlier if going to war.
* Beeline Rocketry-Satellites
After that you have two options
- Composites first, then beeline Fusion if you have just a couple of good production cities and lots of mediocre ones.
- Beeline Fusion, and then backfill Composites if you have several good production cities.
* Ecology and Genetics

 

[bcool]

Challenger save.
1862 victory

Here is my attempt for earliest space colony victory. I went into the game thinking I would use the oracle to slingshot to civil service and use liberalism to get biology. Use all the extra food early on to run lots of scientists, and to get the conquered cities up to big populations quickly. Switching to state property with caste system also allowed me to build up the population and cities quickly. Near the end I had many production cities just building research.

It is interesting to see how different my game was compared with the previous posts, but we still got similar outcomes.

Just looking over the log file I can see several areas where I could improve. For example the mausoleum was never built in my game, but with 4 golden ages I would have had at least the equivalent of 1.5 golden ages more if I had built it. And I have no idea why I waited so long to build the national epic, the pyramids, and oxford. Did my early lack of expansion and no early war limit my game?

Any other observations would be welcomed.

Settled 1SE.
Built oracle for civil service in 625 BC.
525 BC switched to caste system and never left it until the end of the game.
At 1 AD only 3 cities with total of 19 population
600 AD first golden age from free artist with music
660 AD pyramids built
720 AD Education
1170 AD adopt pacifism would stay with this except for golden age dips into organized religion
1220 AD National Epic
1330 AD Biology free with liberalism
1340 Golden age #2
1480 Golden age #3
1480 state property adopted
1525 oxford built
1535 Astronomy researched
1635 assembly line researched
1640 golden age #4 with taj mahal
1670 electricity researched
1685 refrigeration (for mall)
1760 superconductors researched
1775 radio researched
1785 three gorges dam built
1800 rocketry researched
1804 computers and satellites researched (must have used great scientists)
1808 robotics researched
1812 fiber optics researched
1812 finished Apollo Project
1814 fission researched
1814 finished Space elevator
1820 fusion researched
1822 medicine researched
1826 genetics researched
1830 composites researched
1832 ecology researched

 

[jesusin]

Challenger save.
1862 victory
...
It is interesting to see how different my game was compared with the previous posts, but we still got similar outcomes.

Similar indeed!

Any other observations would be welcomed.
...

Settled 1SE.

At 1 AD only 3 cities with total of 19 population

1525 oxford built

1535 Astronomy researched

Thanks for the opportunity to jump in!

Why settle 1SE for a space victory? 1NE is much much better in my eyes. Space race only depends on research. 40% of your beakers will come from your bureaucratic-Oxfored-capital (I guess than more than 50% in your citiless game). Maximizing the number of cottages you are able to build in the capital looks important to me.

Low number of cities: for a space race you want to maximize total number of cottages, so you want some 10-20 cities. 7 at 1AD would be very reasonable at this level.

You got so late an Oxford! You say you had 4 GAges and never went out of CS. Wouldn't revolting to slavery at the beggining of a GAge (no anarchy), then whipping 6 universities, then revolting back to CS (no anarchy) have been a good idea?

Finally, why delay Astro so much? Observatories are good for you!


If someone disagrees I am willing to know about it. How else could I learn?

 

[bcool]

Jesusin,

Thanks for the feedback.

1 NE does look better for a space race start. I definitely believe in cottage spamming the capital and that would have been better.

Based on my reasonable results without cottage spamming any other cities, I think cottage spamming isn't necessarily the best strategy for the fastest space race. Of course I am probably wrong, but as you point out I could have done even better with a different capital placement, earlier Oxford with the poprushed universities, etc.

Re: why delay Astro?

I believe my thinking at the time for delaying astro was to get to biology faster, but I should have gone back and picked it up for the observatories of course.

Edit:

I replayed the game with jesusin's suggestions: settling 1NE instead of 1SE, using a golden age to dip into slavery to whip the universities needed for Oxford (1150 AD instead of 1525 AD, researching Astronomy earlier (1000 AD instead of 1535 AD). And I addressed some of what I thought were my own initial play errors. I built the pyramids earlier (100 AD instead of 660 AD). I built the masoulleum before any of my golden ages. I expanded faster and at 1 AD I had 6 cities with 30 population and I was a few turns from starting a war with swords and catapults with alex.
I also made a point to sell extra resources to the AI for the highest gold I could. I would cancel the deal and increase the amount when it was possible. I didn't do this the first time.

I got biology with liberalism at about the same time (1320 AD instead of 1330 AD)
I also researched superconductors earlier for labs (1550 AD instead of 1760 AD)

Similar end game. I don't think I played significantly differently other than what I detailed above. But of course I had the advantage of hindsight concerning the resource placement, etc. I don't think this made much of a difference since I eventually controlled the right half of the hub in both games.

Result: 1802 space victory. Significant improvement from 1862 space victory.

Let me clarify my use of cottages. I will cottage all the way around the capital not including resources squares and maybe 1 farm. I will also cottage early cities that are not close to the water, and I will leave any developed cottages that my opponents have built in place after I capture their cities. But all other initial cities I found or the cities I take I will farm/mine and eventually workshop/watermill.
I also used the national epic city with the national park. I think I built the globe theater on the last turn of the game.

 

[greatbeyond]

While it is always enjoyable to play the lower difficulty games, I think like someone else commented, it tends to make me play a little looser. I got a UN win in the late 1900s. I was almost to the Domination limit and was very close on the previous AP vote.
I played several tests and had gone for culture or Domination in most of them. I decided finally on initial Worker steals and a HA rush. The problem in most of the tests was running low on money. With the map setup, it took too much time between cities to fund war efforts without having everyone go on strike and lose highly promoted units. So I figured I'd have to cottage more and pay attention to civics. I toyed with different starting strategies and settled on the GW to keep out Barbs (they were far worse in my tests) and Pyramids for Happiness and Research, as well as the GEs for hurrying wonders.
My Warrior went East then South, not finding the Dutch for about 20+ turns. It was even later to meet Alex. As a result I got a Worker from the Dutch and nothing from the Greeks. Greece soon had Phalanxes and there was no hope of taking out Greece early. They had two sources of Copper very close to their cities. They would have to wait.

These setbacks made me lose sight of my plan and objectives. I still built a Military, but started heading toward building infrastructure and aim for a later conquest. I missed the Colossus by 3 turns and even with cottages, started to run short of money. Alex DOWd me early but I was ready and fought him off, capturing his city Ne of Washington. I continued to build HA and when Alex DOWd the Dutch, I joined in. I took all but 4 of the Dutch cities near Pacal and they capitulated. Pacal was my good friend, both of us being Jewish. I continued to build my military then, once I got Macemen, it was time for Alex. I was the 2nd to CS, IIRC it was 1000AD. Things seemed very slow. Alex lost most of his cities to the North and East and then he capitulated. Next up was Boadicea. She refused to capitulate until she had one city left. She was the only other Civ to have Rifles besides me so it took quite awhile. Even with Cannons to soften her cities and Cavalry, it took some time. Saladin was next and capitulated after only losing one city. Too bad they weren't all that easy. It was almost time for the last push. At this point I had several winning options as I stated at the beginning. I built many more units and prepared to take Liz as hopefully the last bit of land for Domination. The problem was Liz had switched from liking Pacal, to me and I needed her vote for the AP and Diplo. I massed my Troops at the border with Pacal and was ready to dash my Calvary, Infantry, and Artillery against his... Mech Infantry, how the @#$% did he get so far ahead in tech! Luckily there was a UN vote and I had everyone but Pacal vote for me. I played a little further just to see what would have happened. Airships softened his cities but even my huge stack could just barely win. I'm glad I didn't need to go through with it.