[BTS] BOTM 153 Final Spoiler - game over

[DynamicSpirit]

BOTM 153 - Mansa: Final Spoiler

So how did your game after 1AD go? Did you win?

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in BOTM 153 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.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Lost, officially a retirement but effectively a conquest defeat to Shaka. Had built the AP in Christianity and spread to one city of every Civ apart from Toku who had it in a few big cities. Toku loved me due to shared religion (Confu), liberation bonus for a gift city and fair trade dealings. His and my votes were not quite enough and I fell short in two votes before Shaka came calling - once he took my Capital with the AP I knew it was all over

Fun map, Toku is always an interesting neighbour. If I had played a bit more carefully probably could have pulled out a win but never mind.

 

[MarleysGh0st]

Continuing the war with Tokugawa, I captured Kyoto in 25 AD, but it still took until 820 to eliminate Japan from the game.

After that, I was hoping to peacefully build my economy, but Shaka and Peter attacked me in 1090. I bribed Hammurabi with a couple techs to go to war against Shaka (although I don't think he could actually cross the ocean to join the fight). I repulsed the invasion forces and signed peace treaties in 1250. I go back to economic expansion with an eye on the space race, while Hammurabi and Gilgamesh fight a war.

In 1795 Shaka attacks Hammurabi, and QSH attacks Shaka. Gilgamesh attacks Hammurabi again and I see this as my opportunity to attack Shaka in 1814. He capitulates to me in 1828. I then turn on Peter in 1842 and make him my vassal in 1856. Meanwhile, Hammurabi has become QSH's peace vassal and they've made peace with Gilgamesh.

It's now a full-scale space race, but I've secured a tech lead, and protect it with the Internet in 1905 and the Space Elevator in 1910. My completed spaceship launches in 1935.

Hammurabi had broken free of QSH in 1870. My space victory is guaranteed, but I decide to see what a modern invasion force can do against my chief rival, QSH. A massive invasion fleet takes the closest city across the ocean (while Gilgamesh goes back to war against Hammurabi), but then it turns into a stalemate, and I can't capture anything else before my spaceship give me a victory in a war-torn world in 1945.

 

[Pangaea]

Tried to finish with a Diplo win. Just missed out on the first vote, and things seemed to be going well for the second. But then the opponent flipped to one of my allies. The percentage was the same, so it must have been very close between Qin and Gilgamesh. Already stayed up longer than I should have, so had to send in an incomplete game. Pretty frustrating when I have played so much, but it is what it is

Could have settled those islands a thousand years ago (give or take), but I just couldn't be arsed. Maybe it would have been enough in the first vote.

 

[babybluepants]

Whew! Finished just in the nick of time.

I decided to play around with the colony espionage culture approach that our team developed in SGOTM 25. Decided on it very early after surveying the starting continent. I'll write a detailed spoiler later on. Zonked right now.

Unfortunately, I didn't have time this week to play the last 70-80t of this game very carefully, after taking a long time with the opening. I finished in 1080AD. That may sound fast, but believe me it is not with this strategy. I can see now that the fastest BOTM culture was 1050AD by Grey Cardinal in the 3CC Isabella game. Much better player than me playing a traditional culture game, so I'm really glad that I didn't beat his result with this mega-espionage strategy.

Edit (full spoiler - wall of text):

Spoiler :

After seeing Toku, I sent a WB exploring to see if there were any nearby islands. The peninsula in the north was perfect, so I decided to go with an espionage game as soon as spotted that. I figured that I would only need the following: COL (for Caste for Artists), Alphabet (for spies), Sailing (to settle a city on that peninsula), 3 GA, a pile of spies, and maybe, time-permitting, a GSpy. Peter obliged by teching Alphabet very early, so I didn't even need that, but I realized that I would need to finish Currency. Aside from all that, I had to beat down Toku, give him a city on the north continent, have him spawn Korea, kill Toku, move Korea off-continent.

Beating down Toku involved only chariots. I would capture a worker, capture a city, then CF, rinse and repeat. His refusal to talk with these wars is quite something! After taking his 3 original cities, I had to give him a couple of mine to keep him alive, while I settle the off-continent city. One of them was a Confu-holy-city future LC. Allowing him to accumulate culture there created a real nuisance later on.

Things I did wrong:

- Horrific to conversion rate... I probably averaged about 1.7-1.8x. The biggest thing missing was the stationary bonus, but there are probably other issues that I still need to figure out.

- With zero espionage-victory experience, I seriously underestimated the effort in building up an army of spies. I stayed in Caste for a long time trying to get my 100% GA's. Getting a cheap GP for a golden age and running everything off in 8t+ would have been better, I'm sure. As it is, I couldn't be in Slavery much at the time when I really needed production.

- I also under-expanded. The entire eastern part of my continent was unsettled. More cities would have really helped with the production effort.

After settling Seoul on the southern tip of the north continent (hereafter referred to as Korea), I also captured a nice barb city right next to it, with fish, cow and rice. Renamed it Pyongyang. Peter had been in WHEOOHRN for a while - I assumed with Shaka, but a sword stack showed up on Pyongyang's doorstep, right around the time I was ready to start the espionage shenanigans. I had to gift that city to Korea. Since WK and Peter were WE's, they couldn't sign OB and Peter couldn't get around Korea to invade. I'm sure it would have taken him forever to build up a galley-based SOD anyway.

I got a mongrel GSpy from my Oracle city, and generated about 1500 myself by the time I started the colony cycle. The total went up to just under 6000 by the end. In total I generated 18 colonies.

Interesting bits about colonies:

- I could sign OB with probably about 40-50% of them, but I couldn't get the OB bonus. They always had 3 TR's with Korea.

- After generating the 10th colony, I broke the game and it started only generating Japan, alternating between Toku and random unrestricted leaders! This was nice, as it meant I couldn't get Maya late in the game. Appropriately, Toku's 4th or 5th clone was still alive when the game ended.

- Each colony city gets 2 warriors. If they have somewhere to walk (i.e. if our borders are not completely enveloping the city), one warrior does tend to wander. I could avoid killing 2-3 warriors consistently in the first 10 colonies or so. Afterwards, they tended to stay in, as the cities were consistently in revolt after colony spawn. I was playing very fast and couldn't quite analyze why that is or how I could fix it.

- Colonies inherit the parent civ city culture and even motherland ! This one was a real nuisance.

- generated against the parent civ on the same IBT that the colony forms does go to the clone, as well. The colony spawn is the last thing to happen, at the beginning of turn.

- I couldn't figure out any logic as to which city ends up being the colony capital. I know that Kaitzilla was trying to figure this out in the SG.

Game stats: 12 total cities (2 Korea, 4 colony-generating gifts, 2 Korean war success gifts, 4 permanently owned), 7 workers 84 spies, 28 chariots, 10 axes built, 136 warriors and 17 archers killed. 0 libraries, 4 courthouses. 24 out of 84 spies were still alive at the end.

I'll edit in other tidbits if remember them.

Shout out to @WastinTime @Kaitzilla & @LowtherCastle

 

[kcd_swede]

I had to submit incomplete as I didn't even get out of the BC era.

 

[lymond]

Shoulda been in bed a coupla hours ago, but nooooo..I instead had to try to finish this game. In typical fashion, I played some BC turns shortly after the game was released, only to not bother finishing until the last day or two. I went with a UN DV, but honestly when first playing I was not sure what I would go for. I just knew it would probably not be my usually conq/dom game. I really thought I might go for space in this one but time did not permit. So next best thing was a slow diplo-mation game.

Can't recall full details of early turns (and really should record that stuff in the other thread). I do recall the following:

1) Settled on PH and built GLH
2) Expanded SW and NE while teching toward HBR for HAs (includnig sending 3 settlers up to the peninsula area below Russia for some nice trade routes.
3) Harassed Toku non-stop for free workers while waiting for HAs
4) Used said HAs to destroy the civ formally known as Japan (although I peaced him out for a bountiful bit of tech/gold leaving him 2 crap cities in the far E which I took later in 1 turn)
5) Bureau cap eventually switched to FP city due E of Tim

After Toku fell, I had to sit back and think how I wanted to approach the game. Land was okay, but not spectacular - GLH aside. I got Construction and started pumping some elies/cats and went up to see if Peter would not mind giving me his land. He was quite willing. At this point I started thinking Diplo, so decided to leave him 2 or 3 cities as a vassal for votes later. But took the glorious city of Moscow and future home of the UN.

Dreaded taking on Shaka, but if I recall he never even went into fist mode. Maybe once but toward Toku who was eliminated. Shaka was teching quite well this game (built Mids and Ulundi was sweet - especially after I owned it). Threw in some Maces and attacked him, taking a city on the way to Ulundi. Shaka capped after that. He surprisingly did not have that many units...well, I killed a lot, but not typical doom stacks. Shaka was quite the wonder whore (ugh ..I remember he finished Chicken Pizza the turn after I DOW'd..ha...that was special) Ulundi game me Pizza, Mids (switched to Rep immediately), Shweggie I think, and several others.

Pretty much all these units I left in Ulundi for revolt as Curs were soon coming online for trip overseas.

Meanwhile, with Astro in (part bulb) I sent 2 settlers and a small stack to take barb city on that big island. Settled 2 cities (and a 3rd later that I gifted to colony) and took barb cities, then liberated my sweet new vassal colony Lincoln.

Attacked Hammy first, who oddly would never open borders with me cause of vassals. So I did not have a view of his land before attack. Landed at city just NE of Babylon, with Curs/Cavs and stuff only to find that his doom stack was sitting right there in the city...ugh...but mainly older units, so took some hits but not much lost. Took that and Babs for Hammy cappage.

Used airships which had come online (double bulbed and 1 turned Physics ), to scout Gilgs main stack, which was nicely placed in a coastal city next to Hammy so I could hit that stack in one turn. Took that city and killed his stack and waited for him to cap in a couple of turns.

Used Lib on Radio. (lol..I seriously almost forgot to do this..)

Moscow built Taj earlier.

Left Qin to his own devices and no one to trade with since I would not let the rest of the world communicate with him, since they all were my bee--awtches.

Pressed end turn until UN DV.

Nothing special about the date. A little luck on a second GE would have saved me 5 or 6 turns, and much more optimal play and not being in a rush as well.

Fun game. Thanks you for our neighbor Toku.

Okay...off to bed ...tomorrow will be hurting

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I decided to play around with the colony espionage culture approach that our team developed in SGOTM 25.

Interesting read!