BOTM 217: Elizabeth, Deity - Final Spoiler - Game Submitted

[DynamicSpirit]

BOTM 217: Elizabeth, Deity - Final Spoiler - Game Submitted



Use this thread to tell us what happened in your game, particularly anything after 1AD

Did you win?

Reading Requirements
If you are participating in BOTM 217 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.

 

[kcd_swede]

Space Race win at t 348 (1930-ish AD).

I was originally aiming for a conquest victory... had capitulated the orange team to the west, then Japan to the south. When it was time to go after Gilgamesh (Cuirs, trebs, etc.), I made a crucial tactical error. Heck, it was a crucial strategic error. I saw his weakly defended cities and went in with too little force. Took one city and when I lost it (and my entire stack of doom) on the next turn, I saved game and left the game for later. MUCH later, since I never felt like starting up that humiliating defeat again. But then, I got bored enough to think about it again... and realized Gilga is still pleased, so I would soon be able to get peace for tech and try some other strategy.

So I was late in going for a space race, but was comfortably in a safe tech lead. yet Brennus had 9 turns to a culture victory when I finally launch my spaceship. I bribed French to war him, and then France bribed me back to join in. I had to lob abouta dozen nuclear weapons at the 3rd legend city, and that did the trick (he had 40t to culture victory when I won by space).

Note, Gilga also launched a desperate war attempt on me with 6 turns left. So after absorbing a half dozen Gilga-nukes, I had to lob about 4 or 5 his way, just to slow his ability to move towards my capitol (aptly named "SIP Capitol").

Not a great win if you need nukes to save the day... but I'll take it.

Note, I played the Adventurer save at Monarch level. Since I barely won, I think that was probably the correct call. Don't you agree?

 

[Conquistador 63]

From my first spoiler report:

However, things got even more complicated, as Toku (t82) and later Gilga (t106) eventually converted to Christianity. Actually, maybe Toku would have won the game by then if all AI were already AP members. Things aren't looking so bright. Might have to wait till Optics and send a missionary on a caravel to Brennus, and get Liberalism to try to convert these AI into Free Religion, also while getting enough friends to vote for me.

I did manage to follow these steps.

I got Optics from trade, and sent a missionary to Brennus.
But Hammy had lost his Christian city to Gilga during a war, so I had to wait until he capitulated to Gilga to sneak a settler/missionary party to plant a city and spread the religion near his borders and gift it to him.

I was also 1st to Lib (took Astro), adopted and bribed Gilga to FR, which was enough to regain control of the AP. The last piece of the jigsaw was that Toku couldn't be convinced to abandon the AP religion, so I sent a spy to influence his civics the turn before the vote.

Religious victory 1010AD.

Spoiler :

Thanks for the game!

 

[Powerfaker]

@Conquistador 63
Very nice win date, and well played......eventually.

I pulled off a cuir rush only against Hannibal, leaving him just 2 cities in the south before capitulation.
All others were defeated by cavalry swarms. I figured against Pro Gilgamesh (or Toku) it was a bit safer to wait for cavalry first.

I had a weird feeling about the later wars though. Against Brennus' rifles and Toku's machine guns protected cities in my perception I had an exorbitant amount of losses. I even had a minor setback when I signed peace with Toku (3rd war) because I misjudged the amount of units I had to deploy.

And to demonstrate, my losses over the course of the game:

Spoiler :

The amount of Rfles/Machine Guns (and others) I killed:

Spoiler :

All cuirs (28) were a loss against Hannibal, who had a formidable army with muskets/WE among.
Gilgamesh had a force likewise. He was the one with Grenadiers. I must have lost a similar amount of cavalry in this war, say ± 30. So far the numbers felt normal, a little in my favour even.
That leaves ± 70 losses against 26 rifles, 6 machine guns and a portion of rabble stuff (muskets being most noticeable). And that seems quite accurate to what happened in the game. Rifles/MG's would hardly get a scratch for 4-5 rounds despite ± 35% (combat) or ± 60% (flanking) opening odds.
Anyway, after the first disaster, I pumped ''100 extra Cavalry'' out to keep things going.

Edit: I was content with my retreat rate, that was at least equal to the loss rate
(Edit2: changed a picture)

 

[krikav]

Oh my, I haven't written in this thread either.

Can't access screenshots now, but I did end up jumping on Hannibal with cuirs and took all of his cities. Toku was way behind so I charged at him after that.
After getting most of his cities (Gilga / Nappy / Hammy where also in war with him and took some cities too) I went east.

Brennus was in a war with Hammurabi, and had his entire doomstack parked outside of one of Hammys core cities, slowly bombarding the defenses down with one catapult, so I bypassed that army and sneaked some (3-5?) of Brennus cities too.
Somewhere there though, Brennus became a vassal of Nappy, and Hammy became a peace-vassal of Gilgamesh...

Instead of teching up alot and getting a pretty late dom/conq I instead changed tactic to culture since I had so many religions and had already spread both Tao and Hindu.
The large empire made it very efficient to run 100% gold and rushbuy all cathedrals for the culture cities too.

 

[MirrorGuard]

The game is harder than I had expected, even though I knew the game would be very hard. The game is still unfinished but it's beyond deadline already…
After taking Carthage, I realized I couldn't defend it as Hannibal got maces elephants and trebs. I abandoned the city and razed it after killing several backup units within. Japan sent a small invading force and lost all of them. I offered 100+ bucks for peace. Toku got busy again before the peace treaty expired. Meanwhile, I took back my fish corn city and captured 5 more cities. Hannibal had 2 cities left when the war came to an end while the queen's empire expanded to 12.
But what's the price? The number of war-weariness red fist is subject to the population of the city. Lower population, less red fist. That's why catapult war supported by slavery is usually sustainable. But this time the casualty is too scary. Towards the end of the war, I had 3 from ww in a 4-population city, not to mention another+3 from slavery. Trees were chopped long ago and there was no room of happiness for whipping. My power only slightly exceeded Hannibal's and therefore no hope for getting a vassal. When Hannibal completed military tradition and used it to bribe Brenus, I knew I had to stop. I asked for all techs and a new city on the ruin of Carthage. In the meantime, Toku joined the Sumail-Babylon war against Sumail. Despite having 8 cities and Japanese UU, Japan quickly succumbed to 10-city Sumail while 6-city Babylon was still standing strong…
In AD1060, I have 12 cities including Hinduism holy city without shrine and 1 great merchant(first great person), at war with Brenus. No other war ongoing. Sumail is on the top of scoreboard, 11 cities+Japan. I'm planning to start a golden age after cease fire with Celts. Nationalism will be the last tech I research. The rest just steal from my neighbors. When I can draft red coats, I will start to attack Sumail and sweep across the land. It seems the game is still winnable.