BOTM 14 Final Spoiler - Game Submitted or Abandoned

Got space 18th century.

That seems pretty solid to me. I was disappointed with my 1860ish space race victory, but then again, this is the first time trying for this condition in BOTS, so I had a lot of learning to do and surprises down the line, like the new position of labs in the tech tree. I also neglected to save some wood for space parts.
 
And what does it mean?

Well, I'd expect there to be quite a few different victories being achieved. That so many seem to have achieved space suggests to me that the other continent was hard to please for a diplo victory, and difficult to conquer for domination or conquest, compared to building the spaceship.

I think it might've had quite a bit to do with Sitting Bull being the first target along the archipelago, and (in my game at least) every AI civ founded its own religion straining relations on the other continent(s).
 
That seems pretty solid to me. I was disappointed with my 1860ish space race victory, but then again, this is the first time trying for this condition in BOTS, so I had a lot of learning to do and surprises down the line, like the new position of labs in the tech tree. I also neglected to save some wood for space parts.
Dynamic said my start sucks :( The worst part is that I'm perfectly aware of it :D
 
Domination victory in 1864 for me. First G/W/BOTM submission for me in something like 6-8 months and a wholly unremarkable victory (although meaningful for me in that Monarch difficulty games on BTS are still something of a challenge, because I'm, well, not very good). Could have been much faster, but I had the delusional idea that I was going for Space Race until I realized somewhere along the line that I had almost no chance to launch before 2000.

Moved my capital to the West in opposite of what seemed correct, but had lots of seafood and Moai statues made it a decent production city. Took out Pacal post-construction: he was nice enough to build some nice cities and leave them more or less undefended. Kicked Sitting Bull off my land despite his annoying mega-promoted archers on hills, then finished the job over the sea. Built up a large tech lead, and eventually used Liberalism to pop (I believe) Rifling, leading to CR-promoted rifles taking on longbows. Lazily crushed the remainder of my opposition on the other continent, with an inefficiency that would make most seasoned players' eyes roll back in their head, eventually finishing the job with Infantry, which was still going up against France's musketeers. Making vassals finished the job in 1864 for 86,248 points.
 
GOAL: While planning this game, I realized that I had never won an xOTM Contender Class save above Warlord level. This was my fourth BtS Civ game {ever} and my third BoTM. As you can tell, xOTM games are about all that I have time for in Real Life (RL), … actually more than I have time for according to my wife…. My goals were to win a Domination or Conquest victory on Monarch Contender Class save, and improve my early warring skills.

STRATEGY: Since I thought this to be a ‘waterworld,’ I decided to make my priority a beeline to Astronomy, bulbing it with a Scientist. To do this I had to skip researching Meditation (to avoid the GS bulbing for Philo), and skip early COLaws and CivSvc, as well as Theology.

By 500AD I was questioning the wisdom of my strategy. I didn’t even know for sure if Astronomy would be needed on this map (would Galleys do the trick?). I couldn’t build monasteries or utilize the Bureaucracy civic. And my research rate was dropping rapidly. But even a bad plan is better than no plan at all, and since no plan is going to survive first contact with the enemy anyway …

I wiped out the last of Pacal in 775AD. I was able to use my GS toward Astronomy and finished researching it in 105oAD. I achieved circumnavigation in 115oAD.

I started to deviate from my plans along about here. I suffered through a horrible, unsuccessful battle for Sitting Bull’s Capital in which he wiped out my entire Stack Of Doom army (SOD). My plans didn’t include a run for Liberalism, but that little teching fool, Mansa Munsa (M&Ms) helped me change my mind with tech trades. I guess he thought he had me beat to Liberalism, but utilizing a Great Spy for a Golden Age (what else are they good for?) I won the race and chose Nationalism free.

“MEET MY LITTLE FRIEND…”

This was the first time I have built Privateers. What a wonderful addition to the game! Being able to attack those annoying AI caravels (possibly carrying spies) and Galleys/Galleons (possibly carrying Settlers), without declaring war, was way too cool! And they get tremendous experience for later upgrading to Destroyers! I think that my four Privateers killed about 80 caravels and other ships. I even knocked off one or two nosey caravels from Sitting Bull {who by now I had forced to capitulate and had become my Vassal}.

Just before 17ooAD, I began planning an invasion ‘over there’ in France (they were number 2, just behind me in score). Jungles cut his nation into, providing what I thought would be some limitation on his maneuverability for reinforcements. And, there was a little three tile jungle island right there to allow me to stage additional assault troops to reinforce my first three Galleons within one turn after my initial beach assault. I was going to raze more cities, but I kept two on the coast. Then, circa (ca.) 1714AD, he counter-attacked. I managed to hang on, and achieve peace. But the sheer number of his troops made me rethink my entire war-mongering plan. Easily dissuaded, I realized that what I did have was a tech lead, a relatively secure homeland (after realizing how difficult an assault over the water was for me), and that I could go to Space!

I had delayed my warring way too long to be called early warmongering, at any rate. I was building way too much infrastructure, happy/health buildings, instead of just theatres for war weariness control with the cultural slider. I was always the bridesmaid (getting ready for war) and never the bride (actually DOWing someone).

Monty, who’d been making me happy warring on the other side of the world, became a Vassal of France ca. 1786AD. I was utilizing the old Pacal capital as my GP Farm (although under Mercantilism and with some food resources, several other cities contributed Great People), and the old Sitting Bull capital as my military/production city. Babylon, my capital, was my sorta’ Science City (although I did build the Moai Statues there to add hammers to the water tiles – seemed logical with Bureacracy-- perhaps forgetting that I could only build two nat’l wonders in any one city). I utilized Hereditary Rule (HR) throughout the game for happiness- needing the military presence in each city either way. Only late in the game did I disband a few warriors, bowmen and axes to reduce unit support $$$ and help the economy. They had provided cheap, portable happiness.

My two cities on the French continent were under constant soft threats of French spies – stealing everything that was not nailed down, and destroying everything in their path. They even took a SpaceShip Casing – now what the HeQ are they going to do with that? Originally, I conducted counterespionage operations against France, but once I gave up on the continent, I quit transporting spies there. I suppose, with BtS, that there was a way to simply make them a separate Colony {as opposed to returning them to De Gaulle}? QUESTION: Is there anything else I should have done to thwart spies other than building the Security Bureau in each city, and having one or two spies present in each city? Are three spies present better than one, or two? Lastly, does having a circle of spies around a city surrounding it, actually help {any at all}, or should they be stacked inside the city? I do understand that having a spy on top of a resource, or a tile improvement, might help with enemy espionage against that particular tile. But, in this latter case, you would need dozens of spies around your empire.

I think I grew about 26 Great People (not counting the ‘free’ ones I received with Economics, Physics & Fusion.), which I thought was very good (for me). Some people seem to discount that last free Engineer from Fusion, because you can’t use him on spaceship parts- except the space elevator which should be finished by then, but because you probably aren’t producing any GEs now, he may be the third or fourth different GP to start a nice late game Golden Age (GA). By the way, QUESTION: with respect to specialists, what is the little golden circle/square that sometimes appears around a certain class of specialist? How do you turn it on/off and what does it do?

The French DOWed me and took back their two cities on their Continent, as I had pretty much given them up. Then I had a long period of peace to build, and start on my journey into space. I had previously revolted to Organized Religion (OR), and spread Buddhism to every city, helping with building almost every building in every city where it would help. With Barbs founding cities to the North/Northeast and Northwest, I concentrated my navy near the “Aluminum Island” in the west-central/southwest, and controlled the Western & Southern seas, supported by my
not inconsiderable air force.

France DOW’ed me again ca. the 1940s or 1950s, with a multitude of Battleship and Destroyer escorted transports. This time, however, I was prepared, and I destroyed their entire SOD, thanks in no small part to Cannons and those wonderful blitz promotions that come standard in those nice new shiny armored vehicles! [I should also give honorable mentions to a couple of those old outdated and nearly abandoned catapults and trebuchets that actually came in quite handy here!]. My air force and navy also sank a few marauding, pillaging Battleships and Destroyers. When I offered peace, this time De Gaulle was quite ready enough to pay for it.

I tried to build the U.N., but lost by a couple of turns. I was still elected first UN secretary! I also built the Internet, just to try and help ensure my small tech lead.

Now I began to feel like the blind husband whose wife caught him “Braille reading” the lady next door. The wife moved the furniture around to get back at him…. Ha! As I started up the tech tree toward space, I realized that my notes were all wrong… at least unless someone had moved the tech tree around… LOL! Obviously, the BtS space techs are different than the prior CIV versions’ ones, but I finally bungled my way through it.

Well, that’s about it. Oh, wait. I finished my space ship ca. 1973 and my astronauts arrived ca. July, 198o. It won’t win any medals, but it was my first Monarch Contender Class save victory, and I was quite satisfied with myself [pats self on back]. :pat:

Adama
 
Space late 19th century. I settled my capital in a horrendous place but ended up with copper in the bfc instead. Axe rushed Pacal before he got BW. I could have gone domination at that point (my WB had made lots of contact) but I got lazy. And hunkered down for space...
 
Ham is aggressive, so plan is for domination. Let’s see if I can win on Monarch.

Until 400 AD (not posted on 500 AD Thread)
Spoiler :

Map was nothing like my test maps.
Test islands were skinny with generally no co-habitants and 1 neighbor reachable by galley. Game islands were fat with two civs per island and all reachable by galley.

One thing was the same - moving settler did not find a better spot. I settled on turn 4 – panicking that I had wasted too much time. Not happy with my capital city location by lake, next to wine, access to corn.

City 2 Akkad founded to get copper
City 3 On coast: horses, stone, wheat (&iron)

Have copper, so try to axe rush Pacal. Raze a couple cities. Economy tanks and I throw away some troops on long odds attempt to capture Mutal to avoid them striking (bad decision).

Finally, complete building Great Lighthouse and Pyramids and researching literacy. Now economy starts to recover.

Capture Goth from barbarians at the nice warrior starting location between the sheep.

Make peace with Pacal.

So, here I am in 400 AD: 4 OK cities, peace with everyone.
The Plan: REX out four more cities to grab corners and keep others off island.
Research construction and assimilate Mayan lands via catapults.

I haven’t played against Sitting Bull, but from what I’ve read, I will leave him alone until rifles or infantry.

Great Merchant just arrived, what to do with him? (Bulbed Currency).


Regarding random events
Spoiler :

Only two huts: map and experience. So, I had no gold when a forest was burnt down on turn 71 and when bandits stole my food on turn 84. Some favorable later events. Generally not a game changer.

The rest of the story
Spoiler :

Capture Mayan lands. Where to go next?
Sitting Bull settles on the SE corner of my island. He eventually releases those four cities to a Lincoln colony. Never fight Lincoln or Sitting Bull.

Mansa DoW's. Ok so much for Sitting Bull.
I capture all of Mansa Musa’s land except four tile island near Azteca; and vassalize him. Laugh at Monte’s stacks of caravels and attack him. He recaptures his capital (oh, he has troops too!). Rollling over him when he vassalizes to France. That’s ok, France is next target. Bring Sulieman in as ally and DeGaule’s stacks go east. :D

Cruising along capturing France with artillery and tanks vs tanks.

And then the surprise ending
Spoiler :

What’s that? Edirne has legendary culture! Oh no! Instanbul does too and Ankara is less than 1K away! I may have two turns to stop him. Move forces into place and I can’t DoW because I had accepted a demand five turns ago.
So, that’s why Sulieman’s science research had tanked! He wasn’t in a long anarchy, he was going culture.
Culture Loss. Instanbul 106257 Edirne 76577 Ankara 75400 1932 AD

Laugh with me or laugh at me.
Spoiler :
Just don’t tell me how stupid I was.
I won't let this happen again. And I was so close 65/42% population and 56/64% land. I could have won easily several ways.
 
Cultural victory in 1585

I tried out a piece of advice from Jesusin in this game, that went against my own intuition. Jesusin said (or I read him to mean) that you should always build the Hermitage in your best performing city.

But I think it was wrong for my game. My capital went legendary 10 turns before the other two, even while the other two were heavily bombed.
 
Diplomatic victory in 1896 for 52099 points.

As far as I remember I settled in place. I was able to successfully expand early and sealed Pacal off on his little peninsula. Pacal and I shared Buddhism, Hereditary Rule, and about +7 in random events. Since he was +22 or so I didn't take him out. He built the AP and I was elected its head.

I got astronomy from liberalism and started expanding. I figured that if I beat everyone to all of the little islands I might have enough votes for a religious victory. Since I was going to be running against Pacal I would have to split off a colony so that all of the votes for me would not be mine. On the way to this I was distracted by Monty not opening borders so I couldn't convert one of his cities to buddhism. I ended up taking on off his cities, converting it to buddhism, giving it back and making peace. But I should have done this later as I lost the race to all of the islands except one. I should have spread to the islands first.

There was a bunch of people fighting Monty so I went to war against him also. Other people were getting friendly when we were fighting Monty, plus I was growing in size, so I thought that maybe I could get a religious victory again. But the first city that I took from Monty was the only one that was buddhist, since that was the easiest city to take. Doh! Then I thought that once Monty was eliminated I could win a religious vote, but he capitulated to
Suleiman. At that point Suleiman was about +14 with me, so I didn't want to keep attacking Monty.

So I then bee lined to mass media and built the UN. Just before one of the diplomatic votes Pacal insisted that I stop trading with Mansa Musa. They were both at +8, so no matter what I did one of them was going to go from voting for me to not voting for me. DeGaulle was the largest at some point so I would be running against him. I started a war with him and got other people to join in, so soon a diplomatic victory would have worked. But by the time the vote came up I had taken enough cities that I ran against Mansa Musa instead.

Once I wiped out DeGaulle I realized that even if I ran against the friendly Mansa Musa I would win if Pacal voted for me. So I changed to HR from representation and that was enough to make the difference.
 
some details for my game listed below
Spoiler :


4000BC settled in the place, research fish, production worker
3825BC fish
3375BC animal
3150BC mine
2775BC writing
2600BC myst
2450BC Mutal was captured (4 warriors with CR promotion vs 1 archer), Maya killed
2375BC Medi
2275BC REV - BUDD! for happynes
2200BC Priest
1675BC 3-d city was founded (stone,corn, horse, later iron)
1650BC 1-st GS!!!
1625BC Math by GS, CoL, CS from Oracle!!!
1600BC REV - BUREAUCRACY!
1250BC Alpha
1225BC by exchange: BW, Hunt, Pott, Poly, Mason, Sail
1175BC REV - Confu!
1150BC by exch Mono, Arch, REV ORel!
950BC PYRS!
825BC GLhouse! Currency
775BC REV REPR! IW (exch)
700BC Aest (exch)
625BC MCast
600BC +1 movement for my ships
470BC Liter (exch)
410BC COLOSSUS! Machinery
335BC Calend
230BC Paper (map trading for money!)
170BC Compass
155BCMonarch (exch)
95BC Optics
80BC GP -> Kong Miao
65BC HG, NE
50 REV Slavery
20BC Constr (exch)
10AD Philo
70AD Music
85AD Theol (exch)
160AD Engenireeng
220AD Educ
370AD HBR (exch)
385AD Feud (exch)
430AD Astro
460AD Guilds
685AD SM
700AD Comm by LIber, adopted: State Prop+Theocracy (during GA there was no anarchy)
715AD Bank, Drama (exch)
790AD Econom
820AD adopted: Free religion (during GA)

2 GAge was running: in 625AD and 805AD

WAR.
430AD war on SB -> 580AD SB killed, 6 cities captured.

700AD war on Sul -> 775AD Sul capitulated, 6 cities captured.

870AD war on DG -> 940AD DG capitulated, 11 cities captured.

960AD war on Mont, 1 city captured




 
Cultural victory in 1585

I tried out a piece of advice from Jesusin in this game, that went against my own intuition. Jesusin said (or I read him to mean) that you should always build the Hermitage in your best performing city.

But I think it was wrong for my game. My capital went legendary 10 turns before the other two, even while the other two were heavily bombed.
Wow TP! That severely crushed my date for cultural victory!

Do you recall any other details about your game? Eg, how far you teched, which cities went legendary, any early warring?
 
Wow TP! That severely crushed my date for cultural victory!

Do you recall any other details about your game? Eg, how far you teched, which cities went legendary, any early warring?

Sure I do. I was just a little peeved yesterday. Ten turns my capital went legendary early : it may not sound like much in hindsight, but I had been neglecting it already for a long time, since it was clear that it was going much too fast with the Hermitage. It got 1120 cpt during golden ages, when the other two were doing 600-700 cpt.

I'll write a detailed spolier later.
 
an 1878 cultual victory for me.
A learning curve for me also as it was my first pure SE game, with not one cottage built.

Notable mistakes were,
* Not noticing Montie's navy had left port until the war trumpets sounded dispite the fact I was watching the port, and watching him research Astronomy. Good job his military techs were poor, but it still cost me 10 turns + a Great Artist (for a GA) so slowed me down by about 15 turns in total.

* not leaving space in wall st in my (Pascal's :) ) shrine city. And not noticing until *after* I'd established Sid's sushi. Probably slowing me down by about another 5 turns as I couldn't push the slider higher and still keep then money coming in with seafood powered merchants.

* not spreading Islam while I could post SciMethod, so this victory was off the back of only 2 religions, not 3.


So, I know 1870s is a little slow for cultural. What are the secrets of a fast cultural win ?
 
an 1878 cultual victory for me.
A learning curve for me also as it was my first pure SE game, with not one cottage built.

(..)

So, I know 1870s is a little slow for cultural. What are the secrets of a fast cultural win ?

Building cottages ?
 
Building cottages ?

lol. yeh, maybe.
I guess I should have said, what are the tips for getting a specialist based cultural win earlier.

I ended up with Sushi powered artists in the three main cultural cities with the rest of my cities running scientists or merchants mainly.
I ended up pulling about 700 :science:/turn towards the end, with 0% :science: and without Oxford
 
I don't know much about the specialist economy. I do think it's an interesting idea, but maybe not right for a cultural victory.

With a cultural victory, you can research up to liberalism and then switch your main resources to producing culture in the three cities. Now if you want to do something with Sushi (another thing I know little about) you have a huge handicap compared to someone who has been full gung ho on culture since liberalism.

I imagine you would get many Great Scientists using a specialist economy, even just researching up to liberalism. That's a waste from a cultural standpoint, you want Great Artists. In comparison, the towns can be painlessly switched from science to culture after liberalism. If I remember correctly, a riverside grassland town gets 8 gold and 1 hammer (if you have pyramids, which you need anyway for a specialist economy). That's a hard act to follow for a specialist.
 
I settled Babylon in 3950. I saw the pigs, then settled towards the river, in a little river-pocket in fact. Boom, it turned out to have corn too, and later copper. Lucky.

Akkad went between the stone, pigs and corn (and iron, as it turned out). I had thought this was going to be a secondary city, since there were other locations that had more cottage potential. But then I realized these sites had hardly any production, whereas Akkad had a lot. Besides, Akkad was there and these others were just visions in the jungle.

Mayans eliminated by axe rush in 1325 BC. Kept their two cities. No wonder, no religion. Mutal becomes my GA-farm and third cultural city. It was a little stronger than Akkad for most of the game.

One lone galley of mine sailed all the way to Mansa and got the +1 movement bonus. I made the gamble to let my galley declare war on Montezuma, and was rewarded with Mansa (I didn't, like other people, know he was there from the bug in the relations screen). Of course Montezuma didn't want peace - until my galley snagged a workboat of his, and he was ready to talk. Ah, so predictable.
Traded resources with everybody. No more wars.

I did a conservative Code of Laws-slingshot, and am glad, because I read another spoiler where someone missed his shot. Founded confuc, got taoism and buddhism spread to small lonely cities. So nine cathedrals in all.
In this game I was never in organized religion. That's because of another hint from jesusin, one that I have found to be beneficial : organized religion is dangerous to the culture builder, in so far as it can keep him away from pacifism. Which is simply better. Even when you have all those temples and cathedrals to build. Since I got both OR and Pacifism through Shwedagon Paya, it wasn't worth it to go to OR at all.

I teched all the way to Corporation, not so much out of need, but because I could. The auxiliary cities built research when they were done building granary, temples and courthouse. (I just realize that I should have given them libraries too). I had a great trading partner in Mansa. I had heard about him, but I had never realized what a dedicated scientist that guy really is. He was trading away everything.

I built wonders a bit haphazardly. Very stupidly I built Sistine Chapel in Babylon with a Great Engineer. If building Hermitage in the capital was a mistake, this earlier one compounded it. Sistine Chapel should of course have been great-engineered in Mutal, where it would help to farm GA's.
Mutal got Colossus and Moai Statues ; useful early on, but later on I wasn't working any sea tiles, when it was all about farming the GA.
Of course marble was sorely missed. At least I managed to build Shwedagon Paya with the bonus of traded gold :cool: National Epic of course and Parthenon. Pyramids, Hanging gardens and a few others. Missed out on Mausoleum of Maussollos.

Bearing my haphazard wonder-building in mind, I got the following Great People:
10 GA's (bombed 4 in Mutal, 6 in Akkad) I know I should probaly settle a few, but I can't.
3 GM's (trade mission, golden age and I don't wanna know what I did whith the useless third)
3 GE's (Sistine Chapel, Taj Mahal and a less useful wonder. I was trying so hard to get GE's, I got one too many ;)
 
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