BOTM 17 Final Spoiler

[TheMeInTeam]

I burned through this really fast.

Unfortunately, I had the game lock up on me in the BCs, but since it was quick and easy I played it out to see how I'd finish anyways.

I won an AP game @ 1240 AD, and now looking in here I don't feel bad - I'd have no laurels regardless.

I got henge early, then mansa completed some wonders and pissed me off. He founded hinduism too so I had to kill him or he'd culture press one of my cities. I bribed Sury on him (OR got sury to friendly w/o his religion even), and eventually bothered to polish him off since sury never took peace and I wanted to accrue shared war.

Other world was all buddhist and they liked me. I actually got ram to vote me too (NSR OR after all), but all I needed was sury. Overall it was a sloppy but easy effort due to this being on noble and the 3CC.

I was well ahead of everyone in tech and would have stayed there.

I briefly entertained going for domination, a la PA with Sury . I might have been "fastest". I'd probably have done it if my system didn't freeze.

Basically you'd just get a suped up tech lead, PA with sury, and clear the other continent. Then let him settle it until you win domination. It would take...FOREVER, but it could be done.

 

[kcd_swede]

I briefly entertained going for domination, a la PA with Sury . I might have been "fastest". I'd probably have done it if my system didn't freeze.
.

If you have edited your .ini file to have autosave interval=1, (autosave after every turn) then you have a game save you can reload from any time your system crashes or freezes... just replay the moves made exactly the same on reload. If it happens a lot in one game it probably will be rejected, but a single (or maybe even a couple) freeze shouldn't disqualify you if you have a save from the previous turn. PM the game admin when it happens and they'll let you know if its a problem for rejection or not.

 

[nokem]

1938 Spaceship victory

I screwed up. I'd never played OCC before and I thought vassal states were disabled. Consequently I rushed Mansa with chariots then turtled till the end. I should have vassalised my continent - at least I might have picked up a few tech trades.

Second mistake was with city specialisation. I cottaged Sevilla and built Wall St, farmed Madrid and build National Epic, and farmed Barca for production. My research rate was too slow and my GP gene pool was too polluted by wonders in Barca.

I ignored espionage with the result that many spaceship parts were sabotaged in the end game. However it didn't really delay my launch.

Do I hear the faint siren of an ambulance approaching?

 

[dalamb]

Adventurer, cultural victory, 1730 AD.

I certainly made a lot of mistakes, but managed to pull off a win despite a very scary DoW by Surya and Mansa in 1580, about 25 turns before my last city was going to reach Legendary status. As jesusin pointed out in the first spoiler, I should have stopped researching in 350 AD and gone 100% culture when I won the liberalism race and took Nationalism; I kept on going to get more techs like Astronomy, which turned out to be stupid -- I probably could have won long before 1730, and might have prevented a DoW if I'd just kept building defensive units. As it was, my power at the time of the DoW was so low an attack was pretty much inevitable:

I'm not real good with stress, and in the past I usually quit when attacked. This time I hung in there, but floundered ineffectively for several turns, losing Seville's pigs and the village closest to Surya. Many minutes later, in 1605, I saved the game and went away to think for a while. I put together a spreadsheet to calculate when I might achieve a cultural victory under various conditions; the game will tell you that on the screen for each city but I needed to figure out where to send the Great Artists. I realized that I only had to hang in for about 22 more turns to win, so I kept on going.

Surya had a lot of territory, and he had horses, ivory, and iron far away from my spies.

I didn't even think of sending spies to take out their resources until 1635. I eliminated Mansa's iron soon thereafter, but Surya's resources were all further away and I didn't reach them until very close to the end of the game.

I think I handled the military situation reasonably OK. Seville had just started the Hermitage (far later than it should have), which it desperately needed to be able to get enough of a cultural modifier to finish in sync with the other two cities, so I had to go back to building it after building and drafting a few defensive units. I went 100% gold for a while so I could upgrade units. Mansa attacked Madrid with small stacks from the south, but I judged I only needed a few more defenders there before sending new units north to Seville, where Surya's attacks were much more serious. My mistake of continuing research at least meant that I was creating musketmen instead of longbows for defence. My first GG went to a Medic III and the second to an academy in Seville. Seville rapidly built the Heroic Epic as soon as I got a unit with enough experience; if I'd been thinking ahead, I'd have built a single citadel-enhanced catapult long ago to qualify, so Seville would have been cranking out units for a long time. I built a mix of musketmen, knights, and war elephants -- it took me a while to figure out they were better than pikemen vs mounted units and could survive against a stack's pikemen better than pikemen would have survived against the same stack's knights.

By the end of the game I was still weaker than Surya but much better than when the war started, and I'd nearly caught up with the 2nd-rank AIs.

Spoiler 1730 power :

Surya was ahead in score, too, but I was a little better than anyone else.

Spoiler 1730 score :

And, of course, my culture was vastly superior.

Spoiler 1730 culture :

If I have the energy I may eventually replay from 350 AD to see how much sooner I could have finished -- but that won't be for several days at least!

 

[dalamb]

Quickly chopping the Pyramids is probably the best path to early Optics.

Why is this? Representation?

The idea was to get superfast research in order to get
Nationalism from the Oracle, ...
950BC Euclid (GS) is Born
925BC Bulbed Philo, adopted pasifism
800BC Oracle for Nationalism

Wow! It would never have occurred to me that the Oracle could give such a "late" tech!

Maybe not research to Democracy, but take printing press from Liberalism and then switch science to 0%.

I think that's what I would have done; did anybody actually have trouble with Emancipation in their games?

My first BOTM victory!

Congratulations!

My choice was to cottage Madrid (M) and Seville (S) and have Barcelona (B) as GPfarm.

I'm glad at least one other person did this, like I did, 'cause I was feeling kinda stupid after seeing so many people pick Seville for the GP farm.

The thing that really bugged me about this game was that I had to take units home to upgrade them, although pillaging everything was fun.

It seems to me that OCC is such a big challenge anyway that it could make sense in anything with more than one landmass to either

• Allow upgrades in neutral territory when the option is checked, or
• Give some promotion available only to GG units that allows such upgrades for units in the same tile.

So I built a worker in Seville and sent him south to mine the gems for Madrid, while Madrid produced two workboats to improve both fish resources. ... A cottage city only needs to grow to size 20 to maximise tile usage, while a farm city needs 30+ population. So I decided to build Globe, NEpic and NPark in Seville, while Madrid got Oxford, Ironworks and the 50% capital bonus. I saved forests inside the FC of Seville to get specialists with National Park.

I wish I could find a :lightbulb: smiley because I feel enlightened; I never thought of these. So I'll settle for a

To note: Spent most of mid game sending Izzy's little worker minions to the cold south to cut down some trees... the wood was useful in my building of cathedrals and temples.

I never thought of those trees -- I guess I was operating in the usual game mindset where they're not so useful because of lower hammers. I suppose I was subconsciously saving them for my later cities.

 

[babybluepants]

I never thought of those trees -- I guess I was operating in the usual game mindset where they're not so useful because of lower hammers. I suppose I was subconsciously saving them for my later cities.

It took a moment to think of it, for the same reasons as you, but then I went chop crazy. It helped that my workers had basically nothing to do anymore by 0 AD in this game. I think I had something like 5 hammers from a chop with Maths, I was so far away at one point.

 

[MarleysGh0st]

Thanks for an interesting game!

One of my problems in playing GOTMs is not selecting my victory objective early enough. Since I've never played an OCC (or a 3CC) before, that was true again here, as I wanted to see just what I could do with this.

I founded Hinduism, which spread to the Cambodians, but Mansu Musu had a different religion and was impinging on my territory too much, so I went to war in 950 BC and had him destroyed by 650 BC. Oh, what agony it was to leave all that territory for Surya to settle!

I was getting a variety of great leaders and settling them in Madrid as super specialists, to see how much of a powerhouse I could make the city. I finally made the decision to go for a cultural victory instead of a space race victory in 1410, switching to 100% culture. I was only able to create two Great Artists after this to culture bomb Barcelona, after Madrid and Seville has reached legendary status. I achieved my cultural victory in 1715. If I had concentrated on this goal earlier--and on generating more GAs, I'm sure I could have improved on that. But all in all, not bad for only three cities!

 

[ainwood]

Well, I wanted to test the HOF mod with Windows 7, so I thought I'd give this game a whirl. I played the entire thing in about 2 hours, to get a cultural victory. I've never actually won (or attempted) a cultural victory, AFAIK, and have never played a 3cc.

As such, it was not a great game score-wise (or date-wise), but it was still a bit of fun. Made two main errors:
1.) Didn't realise that under a OCC, that you can build cathedrals in every city. For quite a while, I only had one of each, until I realised that I could actually build more (or had built more without realising it). This was compounded by me being a bit slow to spread religions as well (I didn't bother to spread them, as I had cultural buildings / wonders to build without building temples & monastries).
2.) Researched the whole game, when I should have turned-off and built culture (slider, and in cities). Should have done this when the wonders dried up.

Anyway - was a 1780 AD culture victory. Balance was good in that I actually got all three cities to legendary culture within 2 turns. I was actually a bit taken by surprise when the first one got there....

 

[Htadus]

Last minute very quick game.

Culture win in 1290 AD.

Got 6 religions- no budhism.

Only christianity refused to go to my GP City - the noncoastal city - which was also the NE and Hermitage City. All others got all the religions on the first attempt. At the end two Cities had 400% multiplier and the GP farm 450%. Got 6 GA's, 2 GS early and 5 GP's: two on purpose and 3 due to bad MM. But that would have only led to completing the game 4 turns early, instead the GP's bulbed DR and PP, and started 2 GA's.

I think the main mistakes I made in this game is not pop rushing after rushing a Library in each city and very little micro managing. The other is not using cast system untill I swiched to Pacifism in around 500AD.

Good Job everyone and thank you to the game designers.

 

[civ_steve]

Wow! I actually finished this one - running only 3 cities gave me a chance!

I was going for SpaceShip, and building just about every wonder I could get my hands on along the way. Unfortunately, too much culture. I launched sometime in the early 1900's, and with 8 turns to go, got a surprise Cultural Victory! (in 1932) Wow! No Great Artist bombs, only 2 religions ... I was playing pretty fast, since this was submitted with only an hour left. Madrid actually had over 100,000 culture, and the others just slightly over 50K. dang.

I learned a LOT in this game, since I rarely finish them. 2 Shrines (both in Seville, which was the Holy City for Confucianism and Islam) (and I don't usually build shrines) and lots of missionaries = lots of money! And the money is multiplied by Market, Grocer, Bank. Later on I formed 3 Corporations; with the huge bankroll built up from the Shrines it was not problem founding lots of Mining Inc out and about. At 4 gpt, the bank account kept growing. Key thing I figured out (after the fact) - if you have a Shrine, establish the Corporations in the same city (hmmm, assuming you can); it would make location of Wall Street much easier.

Also got to play with more GP's than ever. Founded 2 Shrines, 3 Academies, 1 Scotland Yard, and had 6 Golden Ages! (1 Free and 5 additional) Still had a few left over to add as super-specialist and to help research the later Techs. Madrid built so many wonders it had a pretty decent GPP rate, also.

Barcelona was my GPP farm, and got up to size 40. I had founded Sushi Corp, and traded for every fish/crab/clam resource I could. Then I founded General Cereal in Barcelona. OK, bye-bye sushi (see, I learned lots). So I traded for all the grains I could, and did OK.

I played very peaceful, and had pretty good relations, especially with Sury and Mansa once we all became Conf. No wars, and the big Tech lead I had most of the game, along with 2 very productive cities, kept a good defensive stack of advanced units in my cities.

Very fun game; only my 3rd completed BTS game and there's still a lot to learn.

 

[Earthling]

Aw, completely forgot about this a while back. Not trying to dodge submitting or anything, just didn't realize the deadline had approached and been busy this past week.

Anyway, a late-game ~1870 Cultural Victory. By accident of course. I'd known Madrid and Barcelona had gone and didn't realize the third was getting too close until too late. I was about 20 turns from Spaceship so that would have been in the early 1900s.

Thoughts on the game: Now I know what a Deity AI must feel like. Free cities at the start, able to at least match the same tech/production costs as everyone else. The only thing that surprised me was Mansa's capital culture but once I fought it off early on it was over for him; he had about three cities just sit revolting the rest of the game. I was gearing from the start towards Space Race so tried to maximize beakers most of the game, I wasn't getting past 1500/turn though. AI were so completely in the dust; my continent was happy enough with religion most of the game, other continent was warmongers! I got almost all the wonders, missed the Pyramids to Mansa by a few turns (I was going HR anyway, in hindsight maybe this was smarter) and some later ones like Chichen Itza, and Notre Dame which I actually wanted to get. But it didn't really matter, I was building research towards the end anyway to get the Spaceship techs. I'm betting the earliest victory is a crazy early AP win since that was easily doable too; nice to have like every resource in the game around your three cities

Edit: One thing that probably was a mistake for Space Race was Challenger game - Prince Difficulty. Never any chance of tech trading so all it did was add whatever % to each tech cost, looking back on it. And a couple more stats - final score was ~19000, I had Christianity, Confucianism, and Islam (only Christian Shrine) and Mining Inc. Late game GP sucked - i got like 3 artists and 3 spies rather than another merchant or scientists (probably could have scientist farmed better overall). But I played straight through in like 2-3 hours like it seems everyone else did so it was still fun enough I guess.

And a blanket congrats to all the good games I'm sure everyone has played, see who ends up getting what I guess. Again I didn't technically get this one submitted, so don't be looking for me anywhere...

Earlier save, never got around to posting in the other 500 AD thread either:
View attachment BOTM Izzy 620 AD.CivBeyondSwordSave

End:
View attachment EarthlingBOTM17Submission.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[Lexad]

A small note on my game. Goal - fastest domi through PA and vassalage.

Starting sequence resembles closely that of Obormot, CS-sling, early Academy. Had several heavy setbacks:
1. Noticed Mansa had only 2 skirmishers in Timbuktu when I was getting Edu, quickly produced several chariots - turned out was one short, no stone for Oxford therefore. Sury wasn't a great helper, neve saw his unit at Mansa's
2. After getting Oxford produced a force of maces and cats, destroyed 2 cities, but then waited for Sury to capture a city close to him - turned out it works better just letting the AI repopulate the ruins.
3. Finished Liber forgetting to finish the pre-researched SciMeth - had to pick Nat-m instead of Communism.

PA through common war and fav. civics with Sury, he always refused to change religion to my saying he does not like me enough (being Friendly) - a bug?
Starting vassalizing only after PA to avoid vassal diplo minuses with Sury. Razed cbig cities with little culture not overlapped by neighbours. Wanted to leave Caesar as the last standing non-vassal, but he vassalized Ramesses, so Rome was vassalized, andEgypt was limited to the last city. Then I waited for vassals to repop the earth hoping Alex will not devassalize due to expanding over half of mine+Sury's size, as Sury was feeding our vassals with military tech, AIdiot. Finally, got over dom limit - good there were no frozen wastelands that would've taken forever - thanks, DynamicSpirit!

 

[ShannonCT]

2. After getting Oxford produced a force of maces and cats, destroyed 2 cities, but then waited for Sury to capture a city close to him - turned out it works better just letting the AI repopulate the ruins.

Or you can gift units to the AI to encourage them to capture cities.

Then I waited for vassals to repop the earth hoping Alex will not devassalize due to expanding over half of mine+Sury's size, as Sury was feeding our vassals with military tech, AIdiot. Finally, got over dom limit - good there were no frozen wastelands that would've taken forever - thanks, DynamicSpirit!

I guess Sury was no help overseas? Did you try gifting Sury any galleons?

 

[Lexad]

@Shannon
I just prefer AI to settle das lebenraum, than wait for them to become assertive - when I arrived they still hadn't settled the centre of their own conitent because of barbs, so I believe my tech bloopers were of no drastic effect. And AI always have a spare settler for the new land and are willing to build more.

Sury was settling the homeland. I prefer to be the commander to my own troops than wait for stupid AI to eat the snack I offer - as with cats, this behaviour just does not pays off.