[BTS] BOTM 169 - Garden of Eden - Final Spoiler

[Noble Zarkon]

Did you win?

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in BOTM 169 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.

 

[krikav]

This was certainly garden of eden!
What a beautiful map!

I mostly just toyed around, founded a bunch of religions, then started a beeline toward sattelites to gain vision of what was behind the deserts.
Automated workers and city production quite early, ramped up espionage to gain vision of the AIs and watched them go at each other for a while.

I did a brief try snagging a ciy on their ring, with the intent of airlifting in a bunch of tanks, but I had a few unlucky rolls against the defending riflemens. Got annoyed at this so I built a whole bunch of ICBM which I saved untill I had launched my spaceship, and then had a BBQ party.

 

[Frederiksberg]

At 1AD I had just started scouting the wasteland with spies and I also realized around then that I needed some war elephants to hold a city in the wasteland. Using my 1600 gold savings I researched fast to Construction and HBR and started building some units. Simultaneously my spies found two places on the wasteland ring where a city would connect the inner ocean and the shallow ocean between the wasteland and the outer jungle ring. I settled the south-east canal first and filled it with ~8 WE's. Immediately my spies saw the cataphracts start homing in on the city and counting tiles revealed that three of them would reach the canal city at the exact same time. For that reason I left most of my WE's in the city and sent only a few units to capture a nearby barb city on the jungle ring. The cataphracts killed only 3-4 of my WE's before they died so I had a WE army reinforced with HA's that I could throw at Enbilulu and Ninazu. Ninazu had an iron city that was captured first while the forces attacking Enbilulu were building up. Ninazu only had 4 cities at the time of attack and capitulated after loosing two. I had researched Guild long before I got the iron so it was time to build a bunch of knights. Still, the Garden of Eden was producing a lot of gold so I decided to go for Astronomy assisted by a 12 turn golden age (Built MoM) . The massive build up of knights and galleon caused Nanna to become a peace vassal before I even considered going for him. In the mean time the attack on Enbilulu had started with WE's and I even managed to bring a galleon with 3 knights to assist in the attack on his capital. Enbilulu had 7 cities at the time of attack and capitulated after loosing his 3 major ones. Last on the agenda was Nergal and he was attacked by a fierce army of almost 30 knights bearing down on his tiny kingdom of 5 cities, each defended by 2-3 units. It was game over after taking two cities and threatening his capital with 20 knights against a swordsman and an archer . Conquest was completed around 1000 AD.

Thanks to NZ for an interesting map. Perhaps the AI should have been given better lands (less jungle). They did seem to be underdeveloped even for Prince difficulty. The number of wasteland cataphracts could also have been increased to make it even scarier but still solvable, but that would, of course, have ruined the nice geometric features of the game (4 cataphracts and four civilizations, one in each corner of the ring world. Ring World, btw. is a really good sci-fi by Larry Niven )

 

[MarleysGh0st]

I usually avoid trying for Cultural victories, because the idea of letting my science stagnate while the AI surpass me seems far too dangerous. With this map I couldn't pass up the opportunity to try. I still hadn't met any of the AI at 1 AD, but the status report said they were far behind me, while the terrain offered an incredible defensive ring.

I ended up researching more techs than were necessary for the classic cultural victory strategy. I finally switched over to producing culture (at 80-90%) in 1170, when I could run Representation and Mercantilism (along with Free Speech, and a bit later, Pacifism and Caste System). That let my Artist specialists continue to research enough science to keep me ahead of these AI. I founded Christianity, Taoism and Islam, in addition to the Buddhism and Confucianism I already had.

I finally made contact with two of the AI in 1170. I'm not quite certain how that happened, since I didn't have any units exploring the desert (I never even thought of using spies!) and I didn't see any AI units. Perhaps the AI's cultural borders had expanded into a desert hill from which my own territory could be seen?

As I approached my victory threshold, I finally settled a city on the desert ring in 1645 to build a fort-canal, after which my rifles destroyed War, Conquest and Death. I never saw what happened to Famine. Enbilulu and Ninanzu were at war. I joined in and captured one of Ninanzu's cities, but then he capitulated to Enbilulu. I declared war on both of them, but there was no time to push my conquest further, as my 11th GA culture bomb raised my third city to legendary status, giving me a Cultural Victory in 1765.

Too slow in these circumstances, I know. I'm hoping those who usually excel at this path decided it would be too easy, and went for an early conquest, instead.



P.S. While every detail of this map was a work of beauty, from its symmetry to its formidable obstacles to the subtle way the rivers made the desert ring porous for trade purposes, choosing to give all of the AI the same nationalities was spitefully nasty. What's wrong with letting our diplomats distinguish who they're talking about?

 

[socralynnek]

Needed a test game to see whether I can still play this game after having it uninstalled like 5 years ago or so...

So, well why not play the GOTM in prince...

Failed the Oracle GS slingshot that I somehow remembered... actually I built the Oracle but missed that I didn't have a tech prereq for CS (the one without arrow...)

Went for the obvious choice (especially after founding 3 religions), went for the cultural victory.
Focused a little too late and probably teched more than I should.
Cultural victory in 1860 AD (or so)

Thanks for the nice map!

 

[nocho]

I went to the trouble of going for domination which I got in 1330AD. I settled the whole dessert ring with beautiful size 1 beach resorts and started filling the quadrants that the 4 AI left between them in the SE, NE, NW and SW (roughly in that order). Sumerian Mansa peace vassaled soon after contact. Filling everything out still wouldn't give the 68% land needed for domination, so ended up declaring on Sumerian Shaka who was by far the biggest AI. After some skirmishes he kissed the ring which was sufficient for the win. Fun game, nice map!

 

[neilmeister]

I ended up with a diplo victory, simply as I need one for my next loop. I was sloppy and needed to rex a bit better earlier, place my cities a bit better but in the end I won (not really in any doubt on this map of course)

 

[greatbeyond]

My goal for this game was to have fun. I quickly guessed that it was some variation of a ring world, but was surprised when I found it was a 3 ring ring world.

I pondered going for a culture victory as I built all the non-religious wonders, except TGW, and of course The Oracle. It seemed I had to be far in advance of the other civs, though I was just guessing based on my research rate, but was shocked when the first world survey said I was in 3rd place. I had a major snafu and completed the Pyramids, but then didn't remember to switch to Representation for quite a few turns.

I did realize fairly early on that I could use spies to explore the inner ring, keep tabs on where the 4 Horseman were, and perhaps make contact with the other AIs. I waited until I achieved Gunpowder before settling cities on the middle ring, then used forts to open up an invasion (uh, I mean trade) route to the outer ring.

At this point I was undecided on going for space or culture, then I decided to play to the theme of the game and not win until I had control of all the wonders and time it so that I eliminated the last civ when I did. I even avoided having the UN vote many times, even though I had far more votes than any of the others left. Sometimes I forget that in Civ4 vs Civ3 the overall culture value doesn't really mean much. Especially on a map like this where cultural encroachment isn't much of a factor. As time went on I decided to just let the game end on turns which meant a lot of waiting and micromanaging.

I was only about 20 turns away when I accidentally went over the domination limit. I was just having too much fun and wanted to prolong a game where it seemed most things went right. What did me in was when I gifted the last Sumeria alive, (top) with 4 cities to bring me 3% away from the domination limit. When I declared war I took one of the cities back with the idea of razing it, but wasn't given the option. It was only then I remembered that there was some criteria that had to be met before you could do so, what exactly I don't remember.

The AI was able to build a few later wonders that I didn't prioritize like, Versailles, The Eiffel Tower, and the UN
( which I later captured).

I think the AI would have had a better chance if they were just a difficulty degree or two higher. Congratulations though for the map and scenario.

I think a replay is in order.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Capitulated 1AI without war, 2AI with 4 city gifts, and the final AI battled to the bitter end!
Got a really fast Conquest win sailing a dozen galleys through a fort and hammering the west.

The four 12 Cataphracts were a very nice surprise to my Scout unit.
No damage for the first 3 to 6 rounds of combat (Drill IV) meant I needed War Elephants with 5xp and immunity to First Strikes to really wipe the Cataphracts out easily.

Oracled Civil Service, built TGL + Colossus, and got Feudalism around 1AD.

 

[LinkDinkin]

What a strange game. Somehow I managed to Oracle Education and then I Lib'd Astronomy a few turns later. Went for Space, but got unlucky with great people and only got Mining Inc. after reaching Fusion, so building space parts took forever. Not a great finish date, but entertaining map, thanks!

 

[lymond]

Sloppy Space Victory. AIs were pretty derp this game. Conquest woulda been easy and fast.

Oracled CS. Popped a few GMs early. Although I had my fort city planted (SW near Pacal) in decent time, it took a while for me to eventually ferry the GMs over to Mansa (Kyoto). Surprising that I got 2700g each for 3 GMs that early. From mid-game on I never had to lower slider. Still, I just hurried toward the end and really mismanaged the tech path. Space has never been my strong suite. Honestly, thought I'd finish much earlier but it did not work out that way.

Thanks for the Cataphracts. They were..um..special. Killed my scout too. Eventually they just all died slamming into my canal city. (One did pillage my darn fort..good thing I had a coupla workers still near that city)

Mansa peace capped to me what seemed the instant I got Feud. I was not really that strong yet as I'd just started ramping up Muskets/Trebs for first war (thanks also for no iron). Targeted Pacal for his iron and took most his stuff then capped. Took most of Shaka as well then capped. His war took a bit longer as the path was just slower. Hammy I just whittle down casually to 1 city and peaced out near the end. Only goal really was more land. Only Pacal cities got really landscaped enough to be of use for parts and late wonders. (Oh...Shaka had capped Hammy earlier)

I don't think I bulbed anything all game except I put a GS into Biology as I wanted that boost a bit faster. I was teching so fast at one point that my teching superceded optimal early bulb path, which made me think I was in for a pretty decent Space game.

 

[Pangaea]

As suspected I wasn't able to complete this, so I tossed in the towel, or rather the last save I found.

Thought I had played longer tbh, but here is a screenshot of my situation in 325AD

Spoiler :

Had Oracled Civil Service and built GLH and Pyramids, and working on MoM. Think the idea was to launch a Golden Age after that and push a bit harder techwise. Would probably have gone for diplo or space. If I were going for a military solution, I should have started earlier, so seem to recall my thinking was just to sit back in the Garden and tech up and see where that lead us.

I had only made contact with one AI, but due to map trading I could mostly see what everybody were up to, and how pathetically backwards everybody were (including the numbskull up north with apparently one (!) city). Certainly easy to go for a military solution here, once you get past the barb hard-arses, which I suppose many did. Once you capture iron, you can kill everybody with knights, and would probably often be up against archers and axes/swords.

Heaps of resources, so it was a fun map. And upon submission I see there are a LOT of entries, which is great to see