[BTS] BOTM 129 Final Spoiler: Game submitted or abandoned

[DynamicSpirit]

BOTM 129 - Final Spoiler

So how did your game after 1AD go?


Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in BOTM 129 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.

 

[Minou]

AP Victory in 720AD

I completed the AP in 150AD. Initially I was hoping that the map was a giant doughnut cut in half and I might be able to get Galleys across after coastal city border pops, but that was not the case. So, instead it was a slow march towards Optics.

At some point Isabella got a pile of fail gold which allowed me to sell a tech for ~100 gold. I did manage to pop a GS for Optics which saved about 4 turns. The Caravels were whipped out soon after and loaded with pre-built Confucian Missionaries. I found Brennus and Montezuma around 500 AD and Catherine around 600AD. I spread Confucianism to a size 9 Russian city, size 8 Celtic city, and size 2 Aztec city. Luckily all three missionaries succeeded.

With the only Spanish city with Confucianism at size 6 (had to use a Spy to swap them out of Theocracy to spread) and my own Empire at about 20, I calculated I should be able to win the vote easily by setting Catherine up as my opponent and getting Isabella to vote for me (at +15 diplomacy!), with an extra boost for swapping into Confucianism on the turn of the vote.

Sure enough things worked out, and the AP vote popped up in 700AD. Actually, I had no opponent because no one swapped into Confucianism so my spreading based on city size did not matter. I had 33 votes (doubled to 66 with religion swap) and Isabella voted for me now at +18 diplomacy (8 votes, doubled to 16 when I swapped her religion with a Spy). The other AIs had 18 combined votes, so it was actually a pretty close finish. Had I been one turn faster I could have popped another missionary to get more votes from Isabella - I could have cold-whipped it but the odds of losing 2 pop of my own votes and then having the spread fail seemed riskier than just proceeding.If the game had dragged on a little more I may have actually been able to get Catherine’s votes too since she had only a -2 religion penalty but had begged a tech and had a shared civic bonus. Since she was at war with Monte I could probably piled on and got her to +11 by the next vote. Not the fastest time, but good to get in some AP practice again.

 

[Pangaea]

Yay, I beat the clock - by a mere six hours. Phew. Now off to bed, way, way too late.

Won domination. Could have won a few turns before through cap, but didn't want to risk the coinflip, and assumed people would beat me on conquest by a large margin. Here's hoping I'm competitive

 

[Pangaea]

Not as preposterously tired now

Didn't wage war on Isabella early on, because I wanted her as trade partner and for trade routes. Later on I wanted to peace vassal her. Sadly that never materialised. Everything looked good, I thought, but she kept saying "we're fine on our own" or some such line. Turns out I probably didn't have enough pop, as she got some pretty big cities in the mid game. She didn't even get me Alpha by 1AD, so everything there kind of backfired. Actually got Alpha from the other continent

Wars occurred on the other continent, which I located somewhat early (I hope, at least), as I went for bulbing Astro. The AIs over there looked fairly backwards. So the idea was to spam Knights and smack them good and bloody. Took longer than I thought to get out the needed galleons and knights, so by the time I was almost ready, there were longbows and other nasties. Even Monty got them. So then I decided to wait a little longer, Lib MT, upgrade a bunch of Knights to Cuirs, and smack them with that. Worked much better.

But of course, there was another problem. Cathy peace vassaled to Brennus, which catapulted his tech pace. First target was Monty, though, and I shipped units across from the east coast. Later I set up a galleon chain for reinforcements. Took two cities the turn after landing 14 Cuirs, and bribed Brennus-Cathy to war on Monty. That turned out to be a fine choice, as Monty had a 30-unit stack next to Brennus' border, due to plotting on him upon my DOW. Monty actually took a culture-bombed city from Brennus with the stack o'death, so that turned out well. I took some more cities in the north. At some point Brennus-Cathy peaced out with Monty, and with the help of a far-sighted Cuir, I spotted his stack moving towards a recently captured city. Busted a rice and cut the single road with two 3-movers (so I could get them back into safety), and next turn his stack was caught in no-man's land, instead of slamming into the still-in-revolt city with his 10+ siege. That could have been nasty (hmm, actually, I think this manoeuvre might have been with Brennus' stack - one of them anyway ).

Logistics after that. Killed off Monty, declared on Brennus+Cathy. Wiped some stacks, took several cities. Cathy broke free, capped Brennus (which finally ruined any ideas of peace vassaling Isabella, as she dropped from friendly due to religious anger with Brennus). Took 2-3 cities from Cathy and capped her. Meanwhile I had stopped shipping over units, and declared on Isabella. Took a city on T0, and another the turn after. Shipped some Cavalry back across the strait to help out, and a few turns later she was willing to cap.

Thought about that, but since land was pretty high, and I had a bunch of cities coming out of revolt a few turns later, I decided to hold out for domination. That also gave me time to grab Madrid, another big city. Had a bunch of Cavs in position to take 2-3 more cities upon the victory screen. A good amount of units in one of them, but think we could have pulled it off. Cavs are strong. Lost some early on due to Spanish Itza, but once that went down odds and results improved.

With all that, a domination win was secured in 1420AD. Certainly not super-early, and could have been by maybe 1350AD had I declared on Isabella sooner and been more focused.

A fun little game, though, and the small map was a good idea