BOTM 22 Final Spoiler

[Niklas]

BOTM 22 Final Spoiler

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in BOTM 22, then you MUST NOT read this thread unless

• You have submitted your entry

Posting Restrictions

• Please do not reveal locations of modern resources (coal and later)

So how did you fare? Did you survive to to see the end? Did you even win? Do you still want to lynch the map maker?

 

[beestar]

That map was a gift! Two cities in the right place could have easily blocked off a secure 8 cities, and religion never spread so peace with Churchill and Frederick was easy to obtain.

Unfortunately, I only blocked the eastern mountain pass, and failed to block Churchill from settling two western cities on my side of the mountains. With only 4 decent cities, I was doomed. The only chance seemed to be to throw everything into a desperate attempt to conquer the western mountain pass city, which succeeded, but Churchill's counterattack a few turns later was way too large and advanced to fend off.

In the end, I retired in 760AD with Churchill's stack of macemen and crossbowmen rampaging through my Gallic Warriors and Horse Archers. I could have sued for peace by giving up the gems city, but I didn't feel like grinding out another 100 turns of inevitable decline.

The second gift? Well, you know you're in trouble when Frederick gifts you Construction in 50BC out of sheer pity.

Thanks again to the mapmakers and GOTM team - it was a learning experience.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I haven't submitted and can't submit this one - decided instead to replay and try different strategies.

On my actual (first) play, I settled 1SW to get the pigs and additional production. I put the 2nd city SE of the corn that was some distance SW of the starting area, and then managed to build the pyramids thanks to extensive chopping. Unfortunately, although I then discovered and settled the 2gems/fish site on the east coast, there were no more sufficiently good sites, so I was stuck with 3 good cities. I settled 3 more locations:

• My production city by the clams/iron on the west coast
• A spot north of the capital to pick up the starting area clams
• A rather mediocre spot on the east coast to pick up the clams a bit north of the gems (only settled really because by then it was the only half-decent spot left and I didn't want Churchill with his 10+ cities to nab that too).

But the trouble was - most cities were too food-poor to take advantage of my having early representation (no food for the scientists). Even worse - although representation+gems+gold+monuments+forges + 3 calendar resources (2 from the 2nd city, 1 from Churchill) gave me a very nice maximum city sizes, there wasn't even the food in most cities to allow them to grow that big in any reasonable time. Both Churchill and Bismarck were approaching 3* my score and although they were both pleased with me so I was hopefully safe from wars, I had no obvious way to grow beyond my 6 cities. The situation seemed hopeless.

That was around 600 AD I think - at that point I decided it'd be more interesting to abandon that game, and forego submitting in favour of replaying to 500ADish using a variety of strategies to see if I could make anything work.

I couldn't.

• Axe-rushing failed because Churchill was too far away (and protective).
• Settler-spamming failed because there was insufficient good land near the starting position, and most of the land further away was hilly - favourable to production but not to commerce, which made it very difficult to have cities generate enough commerce to offset their high maintenance costs. By massively chopping settlers I could just about get 8 cities before Churchill nabbed the sites, but - bye bye science …
• I tried Snaaty's technique of settling 4 cities initially (why 4 btw? Is there something in maintenance costs that means costs suddenly jump on the 5th city?) and attempting to beeline for rifling, but the lack of commerce/high food sites seemed to doom that tactic.
• Beelining for construction before declaring on Churchill failed because he had longbows (protective ones, remember&#8230 before 0AD!
• Beelining for iron working and trying to rush him earlier, without worrying about catapults, failed for basically the same reason. By the time I'd amassed sufficient Gallic warriors (I hoped 10 was enough for an initial attack force) I was able to take one city before the dreaded longbows appeared.

I'll be curious to see if anyone does manage to win the deity save

 

[DynamicSpirit]

That map was a gift! Two cities in the right place could have easily blocked off a secure 8 cities

A nice thought - and one that crossed my mind too, though I'm not sure 8 cities is a bit ambitious without compromising quite a bit on city site quality. I wonder if that was Niklas' intention.

I get the feeling though that only the Eastern pass is easy to block using the gems site. The Western pass is too far away, gets settled by Churchill pretty quickly, and the requirement for iron working (and possibly calendar) to make a city viable there makes it hard to get there early unless you have a lot of luck.

Maybe if we'd started in the central area where the corn and dye is (but with a couple more early resources there), then that sort of blocking would be doable.

One other interesting thing I noticed about the map: If you settle the 1-tile island just east of the starting area, you get access to the other continent because your culture can bridge the ocean. I wonder if Niklas put that in deliberately...? But you do need to settle it early, otherwise it'll be taken by an AI from the other side - then they gain access to the starting continent but you don't gain access to theirs prior to optics, because of the BtS thing that galleys etc. can only sail in ocean tiles in their own cultural borders. Settling it early requires quite a bit of luck because you don't even get to see the island is there unless you have a city in the right spot on the mainland, and when you do see it, there isn't really any compelling reason to settle it unless you're out of space on the mainland.

 

[mc-red]

Interesting map . I played the Immortal save just not ready for diety.
My plans were to block of Churchill, never run slavery due to lack of food , win lib and then beeline Medicine. Also, planned the corps - sushi and mining which I got.

Try to get to space with fully pimped windmills as cottages were not on.
I ended up with 9 cities peacefully settled and culture stole Churchills gems to his annoyance .

I took astro from lib and stayed out of the many wars as my approval with Freddie and Churchill plummeted from all their requests. They also had the apostalic palace and made things very difficult.
Would have made it too, but right at the end was declared on by both Churchill and Freddie with gunships, tanks, panzers, battleships, jet fighters. I just quit in disgust.

Will look forward to seeing how it should be done in the diety writeups

 

[Sleepless]

Another failure to report.

It started off well when I managed to build the GLh and went totally downhill from then, sort of. I managed to build blocking cities by the gems and on the West coast. Not to sure what I was blocking over there though. Had some bad luck as Han beat me to the little island. If I had noticed earlier I definitely would have settled it. Of course this meant Hannibal could attack me and not the other way around. Would have been much better to let him attack the island and lose his troops there instead. I've played enough deity games now to know I need to kill his siege before hand. Flanking horses would have been good if I had built any and by the time I remembered it was to late. So although I had plenty of units they couldn't survive the collateral damage so one city was lost. Of course it was the one which game me access to horses as well.

Second mistake. I captured a coastal barb city South of the gems which I kept. I should have razed or gifted it to Churchill. Instead I kept it which gave me close border conflict and ultimately a war with Churchill at the same time as with Hannibal. Same problem with the siege again only this time I didn't have horses.

Another unfortunate thing was lack of religion spread. Both Fred and Church were conf and it never spread to me until to late. Perhaps that could have saved me in the war with Churchill.

Time to give up and replay.

Second attempt.

Still a very long way to go. Its amazing what a little bit of preknowledge can do. I managed to get the Glh again. Definitely I would say the way to go on this map. Settled the little island which enabled me to trade with Wil and Han. Hadn't met Wil in the first game. Settled the sugar/banana/fish site on the West Coast and the gem city on the East coast. This has given me a lot stronger base to work with. Main problem is Fred with his 20+ cities could be hard to stop although a domination attempt attacking the other AI is a possibility.

 

[adrianj]

See my first spoiler here.

Beware, this writeup is long, since I was writing it as I was playing. Skip to the bottom if you want to see the result.

*** Session 6: 1 AD -> 500 AD ***

I learn maths and realise Fred doesn't have it. So another desperate attempt to trade him it for Monarchy (researching Monarchy at 0%, hoping the gold will tempt him). Finally in 150 AD he relents, giving it to me for the cost of 90g + maths. I revolt to Organised Religion + HeredRule, immediately enjoying the reduced cost compare to Pacifism.

The palace is also moved to Vienne, which helps improve the economy. I can now sustain the slider at 50%.

next tech is Calendar, since Fred doesn't already have that one. I complete it in 250 AD and trade it +125g to Fred for Currency. It really helps my economy, I can get u pto 80% now. Must be time for another city.

I've reached 500 AD! CoL is just complete, so time for some courthouse builds. Next tech - Civil Service.

Situation at 500 AD: 6 cities (pop 12,11,8,8,4,5). Just starting Civil Service at ~100 per turn comfortably.

*** Session 7: 500 AD -> 1010 AD ***

This isn't going too badly. I figure I'll just press on and see how things go for me. A war with Churchill doesn't sound too great in the near future - he is well ahead of me in tech and has 5 times my power. But my diplo relations are good - maybe a shot at the UN, or culture, although I don't really have a very good 3rd legendary city site... Nevertheless, I'll definitely submit the game with whatever score I have at the end.

In 520 AD I meet Hannibal. We have good relations straight away (I gift 20g) and I manage to pick up MC and Mono from him in trade. I realise now that the 1 tile island Hannibal settled on would have made a nice bridge for me to meet other AI perhaps. I do manage to meet Willem, and trade him Calendar for Construction.

Civil Service comes in at 700 AD. Fred is the only one who doesn't have it but he's only 2 turns from finishing it. So I trade it out to him for Literature and Archery. Next tech is paper, which even Churchill doesn't have yet. Revolution to Bureau.

790 AD I'm the first to paper (I assume... there are still AI I haven't met yet). How shall I play this... obviously I want to be first to Liberalism. For now I'm going to hold on to this tech - I'll consider giving it out once somebody researches it.

In 940 AD I see that Churchill hsa Paper. I have Philo now, so I'll make some trades... *IF* I do get Liberalism, I'd like to take Astro. So trades are:
Philo+65g to Hannibal for Machinery.
Philo+15g to Fred for COmpass+HBR+world map (Fred hasn't even finished exploring his own continent!) Bah, somehow I become Willem's worst enemy - he would have traded me Optics. Oh well, Fred has it, and I'll get it once I'm almost there...

Willem is WHEOOHRN, and I'm likely the target. Time to put a few unit builds into the queues just in case.

Now at 1010 AD everyone can research Education. I've been banking gold for a while and I'm about ready to release the slider to 100%. I'm picking I'll be at Liberalism in about 18 turns, but will it be fast enough?

*** Session 8: 1000 AD -> 1200 AD ***

I throw in a revolution to Caste+Pacifism, realising I'm not far from a GS that could shave a bunch of turns off Education.

Willem has declared on Hannibal - that puts me in the clear, so I'll scale back my unit builds and put more into wealth/research. I generate a GS which saves me 5 turns on Education.

1050 AD Hannibal can research Liberalism... this will be close.

Awww.... 1080 AD A distant civilization has discovered Liberalism, I was 3 turns away. Not even by anyone I have met. Oh well... I'll carry on with it and hopefully pick up Astro from Fred in trade, since he just learnt it.

Trading out Education gets me: Feudalism+Theology+155g+world map from Willem, and Engineering+380g+world map from Churchill. I circumnavigate the globe through these map trades

After not too long I meet the very backward Joao, and the very advanced Lincoln. Joao doesn't have religion, so I figure I might caravel a missionary over to him.

Now at 1180 AD I'm still alive, and I've just generated a GProphet = golden age! My short term goals now are to colonise the island to the W and shoot for Biology + Sid's Sushi. Build Oxford is also high on the priority list

*** Session 9: 1200 AD -> 1510 AD ***

My biggest concern at this point is Frederick, who appears to be running away with the game with 23 cities. Joao has 16, Churchill 12, Lincoln 13, Willem 10 and Hannibal 9, myself 8. Frederick also has a powerful friend in Churchill who I don't want to annoy just yet. So I think my plan is to expand on to Hannibal and Willem's continent so that I might rival Frederick in the end game.

How? Boost my military. Research my way to Rifling, meanwhile building crossbows in cities with duns for the free guerilla1 promo. (In hindsight, Muskets were better since they got the Combat1 promo for free) With a switch to Theocracy I'll have enough XP to promote each to Guerilla3. Once I hit Rifling I switch off the research and accumulate gold for a mass upgrade (a GreatMerchant would help here too).

Turns out Lincoln has beaten me to the island in the NW. Should I still settle there? Yeah, I think I will.

I'm having some issues with privateers pillaging my fishing boats. So I'll deviate through Gunpowder->Chemistry before going at Rifling. Also gives me more time to amass guerilla1 longbows.

1340 AD the long war between Hannibal and Willem has ended... will they still be weak when I get there?

In 1510 AD I learn Rifling, obsoleting my duns. Time to start upgrading and plan the attack.

*** Session 10: 1510 AD -> 1585 AD ***

The target is Hannibal. He is quite low in score, only 9 cities, and doesn't even have gunpowder yet.

1530 AD I'm feeling a little nervous - my first war with the Diety AI this game. I have 15 Rifles loaded on Galleons about to pounce on Hannibal's capital city. I take the city with 4 losses, and I'm waiting for the counterattack while reinforcements are shipped over...

The counter attack isn't really there. After about 12 turns of war I claim 2 more of Hannibal's mainland cities and 1 city on the NW island. He is ready to capitulate... hmmm... do I take it? I presently have 10 turns guaranteed peace with all the other powers except for Willem (thanks to them giving me a small gift) and I would like to at least take that annoying island city just off my E coast. So I think for now I will press on.

*** Session 11: 1585 AD -> 1800 AD ***

I mount an assault on the one tile island city to the east, taking it with not too many losses. At this point I'm satisfied with my war and take Hannibal's capitulation along with Economics tech.

my next target will be Willem. This should be a more interesting fight, since he has Rifling and Steel. It's also time to review my civics. I'd like to take Free Religion, but Churchill is sharing Confu with me, and he loves me for it. So I'll just take Bureaucracy+Free Market for now.

At 1620 AD Willem has infantry now. I'm going to need a very large stack of cannon for that job. Meanwhile I feel like I'm falling yet further behind the tech leaders Fredreick and Lincoln.

I have a half baked plan to found Sid's Sushi Co. All I need is Biology, Consitution and Corporation - is that such a big ask? Getting nationalism and later Constitution from Hannibal through trade certainly helps.

1650 AD Willem and Joao are WHEOOHRN. Joao I'm not too concerned about, since he has been friends with me for many centures, but Willem really has only one place to go with his infantry - to me. I don't feel very well prepared for it yet either.

Oops, turns out I need Medicine for Sid's Sushi... that's a few turns more. I trade out Biology which I had a semi monopoly on, and I'm 6 turns from Medicine, with the GM waiting in my GPFarm...

1695 AD, Churchill has completed Apollo program. Willem has some good culture, but doesn't seem to be really pursuing it.

In 1715 AD I found Sid's Sushi Co! Yay for me! I feel like I'm teching fairly well now, maybe I can shoot for the stars myself...

I've now got airships, and I'm running some recon over Willem's cities... they're actually quite poorly defended. Hmmm...

Holy Crap! 1730 AD Willem has declared war on me. And who joins in? Frederick! Noooo. I want to live!! Luckily Joao joined in against Willem a few turns later. So far I've lost one of the former Carthaginian cities... my biggest concern here is what Fred has to offer, coming up through Churchill's lands I assume. At first it is only a few knights and cavalry, but soon enough I start to see Panzers and marines. Shortly after that the trickle becomes a flood, and I have 15+ panzers 2 turns away from my HeroicEpic/Moai city. Lo and behold - he will take peace for 400 odd gold. Hah! What a bargain!

Willem won't take peace, although he doesn't seem to be gaining any more than that first city. My tech progress is slow, but soon I'll have Infantry and factories.

*** Session 12: 1800 AD -> 1862 AD ***

Eventually I pay Willem for peace - quite expensive too... 900g + 50gpt. Still, I think peace is probably worth that much, and the war wasn't getting me anywhere. Honestly, I definitely feel like the game has truly gotten away from me. Lincoln has built LifeSUpport and DockingBay SS parts, Fred has the internet, and I'm still researching Artillery. I hope the end is swift, but not violent.

In 1862 AD I am witness to Frederick launching his spaceship. The most I can hope for now is the Green Ambulance - so I'll try to grow the population of my cities as much as possible for some extra score.

Two turns later Fred and Willem both declare war on me! That's just nasty! Why Fred, why?! His stack is absolutely massive! Something like 20 Modern Armour, 27 marines, 20+ panzers and assorted gunships, mobile artillery, mobiles SAMs... I am a very unhappy camper

I'm not sure whether to retire right now while I still have cities, or play it to the bitter end. And it will be bitter I'm sure.

*** Session 13: 1862 -> 1880 AD ***

I carry on, simply because having most of my empire captured or razed by the AI is a new experience for me. In 1878 AD my scout who has survived since 4000 BC is killed defending the capital of Vienne. A quiet prayer was said for him as the city fell, and news returned to earth of Frederick's space shuttle reaching Alpha Centauri.

Final result: Spaceship loss in 1880 AD. Final in-game score of 2711, which equated to a score 5422. Just out of interest I loaded my save from when Fred declared on me and I still had my other two cities - retirement then would have given me a score of 5940. Go figure.

*** Summary ***

My initial goals were to:
survive to the first spoiler: check!
play with my military: check! initially on my own terms, later definitely not!
victory condition...: Ummm, no. It was never going to be military really. Diplo might have been possible but my tech wasn't up to speed to build the UN myself, and my population was far too low to be considered a candidate. Culture... maybe, but I was too scared to stop teching. Space seemed my only option, but with those late wars I never really recovered my economy.

I think it was great that I managed to get Sid's Sushi - it was excellent for making maximum use of all the hills around my cities. I was also very pleased to wage a successful war against a Diety AI (Hannibal).

Questionable was taking Hannibal as a vassal. He was worth at least 4 or 5 techs - since I could research what he wasn't, and then we trade after I'd complete mine, effectively doubling my research. But it did mean that all bets were off as far as staying peaceful with Willem and Fred, and the wars I had with them cost me far more than the few techs I got from Hannibal.

Questions:
Lets say the game isn't going my way - and I want to win the green ambulance. Am I better off retiring while I have a good score, or patiently waiting until the game is properly ended by an AI?
Also, if I am the master of a colony, is that the equivalent of having a capitulated AI as my vassal in terms of the other AIs attitudes towards me and me factoring into their war plans?

The screenshots are: 1 - Fred's stack in our first war, just before he 2. signed peace with me. 3 - Fred's stack a few turns before the end, at which point I was counting the days before his spaceship ended the game.

All said, I'm quite proud of my diety attempt

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Questions:
Lets say the game isn't going my way - and I want to win the green ambulance. Am I better off retiring while I have a good score, or patiently waiting until the game is properly ended by an AI?

Awards (including the green ambulance) are only given to completed (contender or challenger) games, so if you retired you'd automatically exclude yourself from eligibility.

Nice write-up and game btw - well done for getting that far through the game on what I thought was a difficult map.

 

[orb]

Another loss to report.

Interesting learner for me trying to keep pace with the Diety AI's.

Ran capital as science city for the whole game with Oxford/NE/Pacifism/Caste (Until the UN vote changed things)...I had 8 other cities from peaceful settling. - In the end I was building Apollo in 1874AD (?) when Lincoln got a cultural vic. - Which was odd as I was expecting the German spaceship that had been launched 10 years earlier to win it - Fred must have been really annoyed!! The Germans had completed their ship very quickly...So much so that my 5th column who had been busy over in Joao's territory pillaging his space build effort didn't have time to get back and stop Fred's ship. - The AI were all very close towards the end.

I never reached tech parity. - Not sure what else I could have done to do any better in this game.

Also - Simple mistake, but I didn't know where the Dutch were for half the game...I had mistaken Carthaginian orange for Dutch orange and assumed Carthage was much larger. - Had I spotted that they only had 6 cities I might have taken a punt at them.

 

[Capt Buttkick]

Orb: in the mod, the number of cities each AI has is posted in the standings (far right of the screen)

 

[kcd_swede]

As from my 1AD spoiler, I had blockked both east and west, got about 9 cities totally peaceful, Pyramids and Parthenon boosted SE allowing the REX at about 10% science most of the early game. Confu love-fest with Fred and Winston.

But at about 1AD I had to start thinking of a way to win the game, and the only viable option I could see was Diplo. So I start beelining Mass Media very early on. I was able to be first to a tech and trade it for 5 or 6 each time, keeping sort of tech parity for a while. But around 1500AD I was only able to trade with the most backward civs for anything, so tech parity was slipping away quickly.

While teching Electricity, I realized I would need a GE to build the UN if I get that far, so I turned off scientists and hired an engineer, who with the Pyramids gave me 60% chance of a GE. I got an artist. So he bulbs one turn off Radio... and if I re-hire some scientists I can get another GPerson before Mass Media is done, with >30% chance of a GE. I got an artist. The odds of BOTH GP's being something other than a GE were 28%. That is to say, I had a 72% chance of one of these two being a GE.

Why do I mention this? Because... I had exactly 4 turns left on building the UN when Joao built it.

I had only Fred and Winston at Friendly, and Fred would have been my UN opponent, so by no means would victory be assured... but at least hope would have lasted beyond 1660AD. Joao won the UN seat and proposed single currency 5 times in a row even though it passed every time -- and he even voted for it himself. What's the point Joao???

Oh well... Fred was way ahead... he just had too much land obtained peacefully... I bet there are very few who played peacefully and beat Fred. I was just stunned how fast Fred could build space parts too... like three per turn. Amazing.

Oh well... space loss 1800 or so, score... who cares about score in a losing effort? My GOTM or WOTM score is sure to make this score totally irrelevant. But it was just shy of 5000 iirc.


But while he was building spaceship... I was building Tactical Nukes. I've never nuked a Deity before, and thought it might be fun to try it out. I was going to wait to the last turn before spaceship reaches Alpha Centauri and nuke the only civ I could take a city from -- my DP partner Churchill's Dover, dye city just north of the mountains. (I had already neutralized it with culture, and could have flipped it if the game was longer, so this was a really pointless gesture as well).

But alas, I could not find anywhere on this forum how many turns from launch a fully outfitted spaceship takes at this game speed, and guessed 10. It was 8. Game over. So after the "just one more turn" and saved for submission, I played that last turn...

1st nuke shot down by SDI. 2nd nuke does very little damage (must be a bunker), third nuke does reasonable damage, and now I've shot my wad. I have a few SAM infantry, one dies, one wins, then a whole bunch of Gallic warriors (finally that unique unit comes in handy ). I had to remove last garrison units from 3 cities... and was able to take Dover with a Longbow on the last battle with like 60% odds.

Whew!

But you don't wanna know what happens when I hit "end turn".

The good news: Churchill cannot get land units there in time to take any cities. The bad news: Churchill launches 19 nukes at me. That was the longest in-between-turns I ever have seen (outside of multiplayer games, anyhow). Lots of shaking on the map.
Well now I know what happens.

 

[Orel]

Conquered in 700AD by a pleased Churchill sharing the same religion but constantly refusing to talk...
Wasn't doing too bad in science thus far, but the army he sent was way too much for me...
I still have a lot to learn with bts: too many wonders, can't decide what is really usefull, no idea how to use spying and more...
And my UU allowed me to raze a fantastic total of 0 cities...

 

[TrailblazingScot]

I actually tried a BOTM because the challenge seemed interesting.

I am not submitting (didn't win) as I decided to end things when it was clear I couldn't win.

The first game was pretty decent in that I setup a decent civ and terrorised the English with Gallic Swordsmen...the diplomacy thing said Churchill would sign a truce and as he now had catapults and I had lost alot of decent units (only gained one city and tonnes of XP and workers) I decided to pillage and kill all I could before asking for that truce that turn.

Somehow Churchill didn't want peace anymore...and as I had exposed myself to do as much damage, I lost my lovely Great General and a few other units and quit out of frustration - silly! Should have continued as things weren't so bad.


Right, decided to try again and just see if it was doable.

Well, I oracled metal casting and got colossus and hoped to use that to get enough commerce going to be somewhat effective. My teching wasn't too bad, and I saw the Churchill still had longbows, no iron (unless I traded it, which I foolishly did for abit) and I thought I could get cannons and go on a rampage.

Well, that wasn't to be. We soon met the World and the tech trading was good and I was starting my military buildup. But Churchill is a git and gets Taj from Liberalising Nationhood and then in two seconds has Redcoats.

Since I was dead friendly with Churchill I decided on a new tactic. Lets kick in Carthage and then take on Holland and start to dominate the World. Well, Churchill helped out with that War (jumped in more like) and started rocking things too. Carthage got Cannons, making it more difficult, but I still took Carthage along with its huge number of great generals and great people (awesome).

But then, THEN, Carthage vassals to England!!! England who have a billion units stationed on my borders and could crush me like an ant.


I couldn't face continuing...

So, no danger of dying, just no danger of winning either.

 

[Bally]

I played a love fest game with nearly no military for most of the game. Blocked off both west and east areas of the map. I initially missed the gems in the south east with my blocking city. However, my sole intention was to play for either a diplo or cultural win. Things were going well up to 1000AD when I began to slowly but surely lose out on the tech race. There were very few wars in the game (Hannibal being the most agressive, but Jao and Lincloln in the mix). Churchill was my initial white knight (defenisve pact signed with him) and then Frederick. However, Frederick really stole the run of the map with over 27 cities comapred to my 8. By 1500 AD I knew I was in trouble and (in hindsight) tried to culture bomb too early. I had 4 religions in my civ, but with only 8 cities I couldn't built enough temples for cathedrals (I needed 9 temples to get 3 cathedrals per civ). I couldn't even build the forbidden palace of all things.

Falling behind tech so early also meant NO world wonders to boost my culture. In the end, it was a tight race between Churchill's space race and Frederick cultural win. Frederick won the race by two turns with a cultural victory in 1882 AD. I was so far behind for a cultural win that my capital city was still 35 tunrs away from legendary status and my third city was 106 turns away!

C'est la vie!

I will admit that it was a 'gentle way' to be introduced into the deity level (I had never played this level - normally at Monarch) and inherently a lover (not a fighter). I honestly didn't expect to last as long as I did. I'd say that this was the map maker's intention.

Good game!

 

[lroumen]

I guess I did okay all considering.
I scouted the island thoroughly enough to find out that it is basically going to be an early blockfest to keep Churchill from grabbing too much land. I was lucky in that regard. I noticed that I would not do very well on expansion and facing off the barbs and as such I chopped stonehenge to help me expand my borders without having to worry about it (only wonder I managed to get).
I got to axemen pretty fast and used them to go south west and south east. I spotted a barbarian city to the south west that with a little border expansion could block churchill pretty well, so I go my axes over there and took over the city. It was not optimally placed, but because Churchill was already in the neighbourhood I decided to keep it.
Then I quickly settled the eastern shore and got pretty far down into churchill's land before he blocked me off. Since I had not signed open borders with him yet I was able to fill the rest of my land pretty well despite the deity AI expansion drift. I think in all 8 cities because I could not make 3 cathedrals by lack of 1 temple.

Everything went okay except that no victory condition was in sight. I did get a religion spread to me and I adopted it since it was the one that my direct neighbours (churchill and hannibal) shared. I noticed that I could never tech up the pace so I decided to lay back and try to spawn my culture. Politics was impossible eventhough I did keep both of them happy and all other far-away civs at cautious or pleased. I had to do culture.... there was no other victory even remotely in sight.

Sadly, the starting position was not very good for a cultural expansion and whereas I did get some nice artists and spread my culture over 3 decent cities, they were never really 'good' at it. They just ran too slow and eventhough I had 2 cities almost legendary (around 10 turns each), my third was only at 30000 and I had burnt through my artists already.
Instead someone beat me to the cultural victory by a few miles.... though at the moment I cannot remember whom.

Interesting land, though it could have been less desert to the west or a little bit more seafoody... That was the only thing that might have helped me more in my cultural expansions.

 

[dojoboy]

Boy, sure would like to be able to play the next BOTM with my Mac version of BtS.

 

[Ronnie1]

Deity Save

I lost to Joao's spaceship in 1874AD. Fred could have won by culture before that date, but switched out of culture mode for some reason.

I settled in place, founded city #2 so I could get the pigs and horses in the small square knowing it would always be a mediocre city, but hoping the horses could help an early rush that never materialized. It did supply a lot of hammers overall. One really big mistake was founding a city in the wrong spot on the east coast. I had a warrior coming back from exploring south and dropped him on the spot I thought I wanted. So when the settler ran down there, I didn't really pay close attention, and sent him to the warrior location and settled the city. IMMEDIATELY realized I settled to far south and missed the clams, OH, I got both GEMS, but had NO FOOD. I worked 2 gem mines until I could windmill everything else. City #4 was SW and captured from the barbs, it was placed very well to block that passage, #5 was captured from the barbs south of the gems city, but eventually lost half of its tiles to both English and German culture. C#6 was NW of #4 for the Iron and the Clams, #7 was W of the cap with the pigs and windmills only, and #8 was on the NE tip for the Fish and the Iron.

I missed Liberalism by about 4 turns and knew I was basically hosed after that. I traded as much as I could, but the AI's eventually pulled away. I fought 1 war fairly late with Hannibal that I entered on request of England, who of course went to peace a few turns later. Hanni landed 1 stack, but I saw it coming and drafted a few rifles and beat it back.

I kept both Winston and Fred happy early by all of us being Christian. Winston founded it, and I adopted ASAP...I even WON one of the AP votes when Freddie was hacked off at Winston and voted for me.

The coolest part of the whole game was watching Joao's spaceship fly past me from the widest possible earth view. It looked like it flew right up my nose!

 

[nealw]

utter failure
i went agri, mining, bw, fishing, wheel, pottery, writing, alphabet(such a bad idea... i killed all my beakers cuz of REXing)... i didnt get alphabet till like 400 bc... so bad

i popped a GS for mathematic after i got alphabet... hoping i could trade it for some techs...nope

i then got iron working like 150bc

i was so far behind in tech i tried to declare war on churchill... i razed his expansion citie and only got 10 gold for it(i was expecting to get more)

i got 6 cities before 1k BC... there was a barb city and i took it, i whipped like crazy for settlers and workers... when i retired in 100bc i had like 9 workers(1 stolen from churchill) and 6 cities... my science was crap though as noted above... alphabet took like 2000 years toget...

hrmm i should provide a snapshot... how to do this?

yeah been trying to play deity for a while... just keep getting raped repeatedly... either by barbs, by getting out teched/out produced (sucks when your nieghbors SoD is twice urs...)...

heh has anyone tried deity with tiny islands? i wonder if thats doable... i tried doing that just for fun and could never get more than 3 or 4 legitimate cities and then i still get raped

overlal this BOTM is my first and was pretty rape... need to learn more so i dont get raped

the best i've ever done was pull off cultural victories on emporer a few times
oh yea its my bday and i just got my ass kicked look forward to reading everyone else's experience

 

[nealw]

whats WHEOOHRN?

 

[adrianj]

whats WHEOOHRN?

We Have Enough On Our Hands Right Now - it's the reply the AIs give you when you try to bribe them into a war and they are already in one, or planning one.

The BUFFY mod shows a little fist symbol by their name when they are WHEOOHRN. It's especially useful if they aren't at war, and you suspect you might be the target of their 'plans'.