[BTS] BOTM 124 - Final Spoiler (game over or abandoned)

[kcd_swede]

BOTM 124 - Final Spoiler

Please do not discuss politics in this thread.

So how did your game after 1AD go?



Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in BOTM 124 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.

 

[nocho]

In the end I decided to go for culture, just to get some use out of the corporations. I got there in 1580AD, which I think can be done quite a bit quicker, but I played it rather sloppy from 1AD until about 1100AD. I quickly acquired Greece and then shipped over units to take Jerusalem. Then somehow made the dire mistake of not taking the marble the Ottomans had on offer, so by the time they traded it to someone else, decided to declare on them. However, that didn't quite work out. I took the central Anatolian city of Edirne with the marbles, but failed miserably at the gates of Istanbul and then also lost Edirne back to the Ottomans. I was about to throw the towel, although still in a comfortable position of course. Reconsidered and got to cavalry and warmed up against the Portuguese to capture the Sushi cities of Lisbon and Oporto and then vassaled Joao who was now living in western Africa. With cavs the Ottomans were easily dispatched, but the marble came quite late for the Mosques and the Mandirs, previously building Sistine's without it was quite a pain and lost MoM for the lack of it earlier to Stalin. Meanwhile the Arabs offered to be a voluntary vassal, which being Trump I found rather amusing. Also in the mean time I had been spreading 5 religions all over the place (christ, islam, bud, hindu and confu) and in the end got the 5 corresponding cathedrals in my 3 LCs. From London I spread creative constructions to my LCs and from Portugal Sushi for significant extra culture. I did manage to time the three cities to reach legendary on the same turn. Near the end Monty popped up, he was Mao's colony in Japan. Thanks for the game, kcd!

 

[neilmeister]

I noticed at about 200 ad that Domination was disabled, so from that point on I decided to go for max score. Joao, Churchill, Alex & Fred went first, in that order IIRC. Hatty, Stalin, Mehmed, Saladin next.

The 'dead' list was quite long, but Hatty, Darius & Gandhi survived as vassals, with most having just 1 far flung city. GK was the only surviving non vassal, with just 1 city left. I launched the spaceship a little early as when it landed my score was still going up by 2-3K per turn. The raw score was ludicrous: almost 21k. Adjusted score was 610k+

Crazy game! So many resources!

 

[Zhary]

~1690 space win.

Decided to go for space from the start. With the odd corporation spread over AI cities I placed my bet on SP/CS workshops to be the best way to the stars. Even if I checked that dom was from the start I didnt do so much warring due to the rich homeland. The iron curtain against Stalin was a big help. My power ratio against him was 0.5 even thou I could build mechs while he defended his cities with LBows.
I did use my technological advantage against the Islam world after I conqured western world in the medieval times.
Lets hope that the real Trump doesn't got the same idea...

 

[kcd_swede]

I noticed at about 200 ad that Domination was disabled, so from that point on I decided to go for max score. Joao, Churchill, Alex & Fred went first, in that order IIRC. Hatty, Stalin, Mehmed, Saladin next.

The 'dead' list was quite long, but Hatty, Darius & Gandhi survived as vassals, with most having just 1 far flung city. GK was the only surviving non vassal, with just 1 city left. I launched the spaceship a little early as when it landed my score was still going up by 2-3K per turn. The raw score was ludicrous: almost 21k. Adjusted score was 610k+

Crazy game! So many resources!

Quirks!

 

[MarleysGh0st]

With domination not being an option, I decided to take the path of conquest.

I attacked Germany in 50 AD and conquered it in 500. Along the way, I thought I would get the Colossus, but China completed it on the very turn I tried to whip it to completion.

My tech was superior to England's, and I was annoyed by its spreading culture, so Churchill was my next target with a DOW in 540, but the English land bridge turned out to be a bridge too far. He sacrificed some catapults to destroy my invasion stacks, so I had to content myself with capturing the city he had dared to build across the channel in Normandy.

I attacked Mehmed in 880. Hatty had been elected to the AP; I defied one vote to stop the war, then I managed to get the second such vote cancelled by capturing the last of Mehmed's two cities in 1080.

I declared war on Saladin in 1300, captured his northern cities, and made him a vassal in 1450. In the meantime, Boudica entered the game as a Stalin's vassal on the Arctic continent.

I turned my attention back to Churchill. This time, he couldn't stop my invasion stack, and I conquered the last of his cities in 1550. Joao voluntarily became my vassal, while Kublai Khan volunteered to be Stalin's vassal and their war forced Darius to join the Soviet Pact.

The Great War against Stalin and his vassals lasted from 1595 until 1695, when my war weariness had become intolerable. By then, I had the western half of Russian in French hands. KK broke free of Stalin and joined Mao in a war against Gandhi. Gandhi offered to become my vassal, but I had easy path to reinforce him, so I declined the offer. Gandhi became Mao's vassal, instead.

I turned my forces to the southwest, taking all of Hatty's African cities, from 1705 to 1745. She still had two cities in the Arctic, north of China, so I let her be my vassal in those.

I then attacked Mao and Gandhi in 1760. India was conquered in 1780. With all of the mainland Chinese cities captured, Mao became my vassal in the Far Eastern and Siberian continents in 1804. Immediately, it was time for the "Last War" against Stalin/Boudica/Darius and KK. The Celts were conquered in 1810, Stalin, KK and Darius all capitulated, and a Conquest Victory was mine in 1812, with 183,413 points.

Incidentally, while I captured a good number of corporate branch cities and expanded some of them (Std. Oil was particularly useful, before I researched the tech for offshore oil rigs), I never did let my starting executive found Cereal Mills. When I saw his starting promotions, I decided he'd serve better as a medic for my armies.

Thanks for an interesting game, kcd_swede!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Space win in 1884 AD, for a final score of 101994.

After 1AD most of the game was a slow slog of continual wars. I took Germany out, then prepared to attack England, but the Ottomans declared. Not sure if Churchill bribed them, but if so, it was a very clever ploy as it tied my troops up for ages. I don't think I finally managed to get rid of the curse of London's culture until well beyond 1000AD.

At some point while dealing with the Ottomans, I became curious by Jerusalem's culture and tried attacking it in case it had a shrine there. Sadly, no shrine, and the city was in a silly location so I ended up razing Jerusalem. And lost a ton of troops in the process too (not sure what the mapmaker did to it, but trebs couldn't bombard its culture down).

Russia also declared war - in the frigate age, and that dominated much of the rest of the game. The trouble was, Russia had so many ships that it seemed an impossible task building enough sea defences to cope with them. So for ages, I just sat out the war, tolerating most of my fishing boats being destroyed, and repelling Russian troops whenever they actually invaded the European mainland. All the while trying to beeline combustion and oil so I could regain control of the seas once I had destroyers.

That's where things got odd. I'd declared on Arabia and deliberately captured a couple of cities that he had Standard Ethanol in, in the hope that would give me early oil. But it turned out, even when I had the cities, I still didn't have oil. I spent ages trying to figure out why, and eventually concluded it had to be because Standard Ethanol required knowledge of plastics - and presumably wouldn't therefore give me oil until I knew plastics. So much for early oil. In the end, I got oil the old fashioned way, by capturing Arabian oil tiles so I only needed combustion. That gave me destroyers, and all I needed to take back the seas and start later invading Russia.

Overall, I ended up not using corporations much at all. I kept a few captured cities with corps in, but in the end - especially as I started expanding off the European continent, I figured the cost wasn't worth it and just ran state property instead.

Since there was no domination limit to trigger, towards the end of the game I just started capturing everywhere I could. In the end, the only AIs left were Persia, India and Egypt. I'm not sure how much land I owned, but I'm fairly sure it was well above what the domination limit would've been!

 

[MarleysGh0st]

That's where things got odd. I'd declared on Arabia and deliberately captured a couple of cities that he had Standard Ethanol in, in the hope that would give me early oil. But it turned out, even when I had the cities, I still didn't have oil. I spent ages trying to figure out why, and eventually concluded it had to be because Standard Ethanol required knowledge of plastics - and presumably wouldn't therefore give me oil until I knew plastics. So much for early oil.

Standard Ethanol does give you oil without needing plastics, but only in those cities that have a branch office in them. Russia had a huge fleet of frigates in my game, too, but by spreading this corporation to a few key cities, I was able to make quick work of them by either building new destroyers in them, or sending my older ships into their fat cross to be upgraded. In fact, I went overboard on those--I soon had nothing left to sink or bombard in the Russian war.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Standard Ethanol does give you oil without needing plastics, but only in those cities that have a branch office in them. Russia had a huge fleet of frigates in my game, too, but by spreading this corporation to a few key cities, I was able to make quick work of them by either building new destroyers in them, or sending my older ships into their fat cross to be upgraded. In fact, I went overboard on those--I soon had nothing left to sink or bombard in the Russian war.

Ah, I see, thanks! So presumably once I had combustion, I'd have been able to build destroyers but only in the captured Arabian cities with standard ethanol (or any cities I'd deliberately spread offices too). Is that the same once you have plastics (you still only get oil in the cities that have branch offices?)

 

[MarleysGh0st]

The corporation still works the same way. (Likewise for Aluminum Corp.) Once I got plastics, I was able to build a offshore platform on my North Sea oil, and that finally gave me oil in all of my cities.

 

[Minou]

Conquest Victory in 820AD

In 100AD I finally captured London which caused Churchill to capitulate. By this this time city maintenance was starting to cripple my economy (in part because I kept good cities without fully considering the expensive corps in them). So, I decided to liberate a bunch of cities back to Saladin. A big goof here - I didn’t pay attention and one was a holy city bringing in 20 gpt! In the end the this barely mattered as I stopped teching after reaching Knights.

With England finally handled, I knocked Egypt off with two Horse Archers in 175AD while preparing a small fleet to invade Russia with my first round of Knights. A coordinated assault knocked off 3 Russian cities in 275AD. My Spy deep behind the lines had revealed the main Russian army of about 20 units was past the mountain range. A few turns later it walked onto flat land near Moscow and I wiped it out. One more city capture was enough to get Stalin to capitulate in 450AD.

None of the other AIs presented much of a military challenge other than shipping logistics. Only China ever got Pikes, by which time it was too late as they had 2 against 10 Knights in their capital. I did keep way too many cities and at one point got into negative gpt at 0% research, but having one of my vassals research CoL for me and then cold-whipping Organized Courthouses in most cities instantly handled that. Persia was wiped out in 560AD, Mongolia capitulated in 660AD, India capitulated in 680AD and China was wiped out in 820AD. There was a tense moment of checking the game introduction and counting put the AIs to make sure Japan wasn't still waiting!

 

[lymond]

I too did not realize that Dom was not an option, but I wasn't planning on that anyway. However, it actually works out great for space games. I assume Neil beat my space game, or others that haven't reported, but it was one of my better standard format space games. Just so much good land. I could see some early space games here with this setup with no Dom limitation.

Despite taking the main continent as quick as possible I really had no urgent plans at conquest other than to hopefully peace vassal Hatty at some point and then start conquering overseas at my leisure for fun.

Well, interestingly, Stalin apparently stuck the dagger in me around - i don't remember - 500 ad or so. I was far more advanced but he did have Astro and actually took one of my cities way up North (England..um..Scotland) . I was producing Marines at 1pt in nearby city so took it back pronto, but as for the war I had to totally redirect and build up for it as I had focused an attack far away on someone else. Despite my advantage, Russia took some time. I think he just sat there with lots of land and Mongol vassal stockpiling units then the dagger fired regardless of good relations. Definitely pays to pay attention..bit rusty. I honestly did not think anyone would plot or declare on me as I was far from weak and far superior in tech.

Backtracking...I took Portugal, England, Greece and Germany in that order with Horse Archers and some Muskets (for Germany). Then Ottos and Arabia with Curs and whatever. I wiped Stalin off the map as he did not deserve to exist, then vassaled Mongols (Mongols actually flipped to master of Stalin during war..never seen that happen). Then quickly capped China. Dow'd Gandhi right a end to nab a city.

Hatty peace vassaled the exact turn Stalin declared on me. Interestingly, Hatty was absolutely blazing techs early game. I know she has TGL and whatever, but man, it almost seemed like she was spotted some techs.

Anyway, fun map.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I lived and breathed this map for a few months as an SGOTM game, and was pleased to see some of my predictions coming true:
Churchill being on our continent and having Creative Constructions
Joao having Sid's Sushi

I wasn't sure whether the pre-placed Wonders and Religions would be the same, but they appear to have been the same.


Some notable differences from how the SGOTM played out are:
Hatty got to Feudalism quite early
Joao actually expanded overseas into Egypt; I wonder if Egypt being a different landmass played a role, with Joao going for overseas Trade Routes
I didn't micro hardcore, so I totally missed getting The Great Lighthouse and Mao built it--I did not capture it until after I'd obsoleted it


Wow, were Resources ever plentiful in this game. Delaying getting Iron Working didn't pay off, seeing as how Iron popped up in many locations!


I decided to alter the theme as played as Gru (Despicable Me), spreading evil, unchecked Corporations everywhere.

Actually, I delayed using our Executive for Cereal Mills and it was a while before I captured any Corporations. When I did use the Cereal Mills Executive, my heart jumped a beat--what do you mean that I just founded the Corporation? I immediately saved the game and checked out a test game--sure enough, I would no longer be able to create the Corporation's Headquarters Building. By that time, four other Corporations had been founded, but I now suspect that since no AI had Cereal Mills, we might have been the only player to have the Corporation, meaning that if we didn't use our Executive, we might have actually been able to found Cereal Mills "officially," while using captured Sid's Sushi and captured Creative Constructions on the way to unlocking Cereal Mills. If I'm right, kcd_swede gave us that hint about deleting the Executive, but I didn't understand the implications until too late.

Initially, I felt disappointed that I hadn't predicted the possibility of founding the Corporate HQ with some patience, but I just made the best of the situation and spread Cereal Mills selectively to my capital, my Great Person Farm City, and a few other Cities. Later, once Courthouses were in place, I got pretty aggressive and started spamming Corporations everywhere.


Churchill was the first to be assimilated and next was Mehmed. Prior SGOTM knowledge definitely helped here, as I felt that it was important to grab Marble from Mehmed. Unlike in the SGOTM, Mehmed had expanded while Darius hadn't, so I didn't lose the Marble to Darius' Culture upon capturing Mehmed's nearby City.

Of course, maybe prior knowledge didn't help out, as Darius ended up being on another continent, so Mehmed might have just as easily traded Marble to me, had I waited long enough.


Frederick doesn't appear to have founded a Corp and I couldn't see any Executives of his, so I'm a bit confused as to what happened there, as I thought that all AIs were supposed to have started with an Executive.

It would be nice to hear the complete mapping of AIs to Corporate Executives, although I suppose that we can just wait to see the World Builder saved game to find out.

That said, later on, I managed to get 2 Holy Shrines up in Jerusalem and I founded Mining Inc there, allowing me to pay for all of this madness.


Without time spent microing hardcore, with Churchill on our continent, and with Hatty getting to Longbowmen early, it took me a very long time to build any sort of a navy. As such, there wasn't an amphibious assault on Stalin's lands and thus by the First Spoilter timeframe, he had expanded to something ridiculous like 13 Cities.

Knowing some of the AIs like Stalin from the start was annoying, as it wasn't easy to get him sufficiently happy to trade techs, due to him knowing us for so long.


Joao over-expanded in Egypt; remembering the SGOTM where Joao settled his second City in a poor location, I beat him to the area and settled in the "right spot," which is where he'd settled in some other SGOTM teams' games. I wasn't about to take any chances, though, as I didn't want a repeat of Joao settling on top of an Iron Hills square. Due to his over-expansion, Joao created Roosevelt as a Colony. BOOM, headshot to Lisbon and Joao was suddenly eliminated. Using one turn to eliminate a 5-City AI relatively early on in the game was a pretty fun thing to do.


Over time, I created two Colonies and Vassalled 5 other AIs (including Roosevelt).


Kublai Vassalled to Mao, creating a super power that I avoided attacking for quite some time, until Kublai grew bold enough to set out on his own. After that point, it was easy to take them on one-at-a-time.


The toughest AI was Stalin. He had LARGE stacks early on. I mean 3 stacks of 20+ Military Units.


I was going for a high Final Score and rather late, I decided to try for a Cultural Victory. I realised that if I was going to expand everywhere, it would be pretty hard to get less than 75% of the population for Diplo, I wasn't sure if I had the economy to make it into Space (I did end up being able to do so, if I'd chosen to, but I wasn't certain at the time), and Religious would be off of the table for the same reason as UN Diplo--I'd over-spread the Apostolic Palace Religion to too many of my Cities (having well over 75% of the votes). I kept Conquest as a backup option.

Two Cities made it to Legendary status the "traditional" way (although I used a 0% Cultural Slider the entire game, with Corporations providing most of the base Culture Points) and used Espionage on the 3rd City. My approach wasn't well-timed at all, and the time of triggering Victory was mostly because of the impending submission deadline.

I was making 20000+ Final Score per turn just by hitting End Turn and certainly could have milked the game for an insane amount of Final Score points, given enough real-life time. Still, ending up with 850000+ should be enough to make the history books.


It seems that nocho once again beat me to a Fastest Award (it's good to have some competition to keep people on their toes), so congrats to you once again! Victory for me was in 1590 AD.


Let's just say that Corporations can be quite ridiculous--looking at some of my "filler Cities," which I settled rather late, it appears that they grew to City Sizes such as 23 and 27.

Sid's Sushi provided +46 Food and +182 Culture
Cereal Mills provided +22 Food
Creative Constructions provided +18 Hammers and +105 Culture
Mining Inc provided +48 Hammers


I'd missed a couple of Resources due to ending the game quickly, but those numbers were close to the maximum amount that the map could provide.


Thanks go out to the staff for the fun game and for the nostalgic blast from the past!