BOTM 22 Final Spoiler

[ianw1610]

What happens if nobody gets a victory?

If that were to happen, I'd kick myself verrrrrrrrrry hard, for not aiming at Religious on my first attempt !!

Bug found: I know that Joao is in the game not in F4 diplo screen, but yes in F8-members screen.

Also, F4 can state someone as being the "Worst Enemy of X"... where X = an AI that has not yet been met. AFAIK, this has always been the case in previous Mods, as well as in BUFFY...

 

[BLubmuz]

I'm not playing much for RL reasons, but i find some time to follow the threads.
Very few XotM during the last year, but very few of anything.
I'm astonished from the reports on this one. Some top player failed miserably, the others didn't do better.
How is possible that the map maker failed to consider what a monster a Deity AI with an enormous land can be?
Why he put the human in a so miserable position? And with one of the worst Civ/leaders, to increase the difficulty.

Sincerely, XotMs like this one do not invite to play. And it's not the only one.

When you set up a game, you must remember that the competition is between humans, and most of them like to win a game, then compare why someone has won faster or with an higher score.

As i already said months ago, too difficult games, intentionally, often sadistically difficult, do add nothing to the competition.

 

[Lexad]

Well, I think human can win even aggressively this game. But it takes time and effort - especially with thorough pregame and in-game testing - one doesn't have.
As for me, I did an in-game test on whether 20GW can eat through hill cities defended by axes and protective archers. Outcome - they cannot. The map change I woud've advised here was denying Churchill metals - which could not be done, unfortunately, as he had island iron. Axes on top of archers is too much.

 

[jesusin]

I'm not playing much for RL reasons, but i find some time to follow the threads.
Very few XotM during the last year, but very few of anything.
I'm astonished from the reports on this one. Some top player failed miserably, the others didn't do better.
How is possible that the map maker failed to consider what a monster a Deity AI with an enormous land can be?
Why he put the human in a so miserable position? And with one of the worst Civ/leaders, to increase the difficulty.

Sincerely, XotMs like this one do not invite to play. And it's not the only one.

When you set up a game, you must remember that the competition is between humans, and most of them like to win a game, then compare why someone has won faster or with an higher score.

As i already said months ago, too difficult games, intentionally, often sadistically difficult, do add nothing to the competition.

I guess it all depends on the player's personallity.

For me, winning an easy Warlords level game adds nothing to the competition or to my interest in the game in general, no matter if I get an award or not.

On the other hand, losing a game like this spurs my interest in the game and in learning new ways to play. Specially so if someone wins the game and thus makes it clear that it was not the map but my lack of ability what made me perish.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Retired 800AD after Churchill captured my silks/dyes city. He came at me with a 50+ unit stack of doom. I quit.

At that point I had tech superiority over all AIs and was planning to attack Hannibal with galleons. My mistake probably was allowing Churchill to settle up the west coast to the iron and beyond. I wasn't interested in that area because of the maintenance. If I had had at least one more city between the silks and him, he might have taken that for DoP and I could have merrily cruised along. He offered peace, but wanted my silks city and I told him he was a grungy pimp.

I researched pottery immediately and built cottages everywhere I could. Then I researched straight up MC/Machinery (suitable for the gold and gems), got some techs, including Alpha in trade and bulbed Astro for tech superiority. This game is surely winnable with that strategy. Someone in the pre-game thread said to settle the choke points. I just didn't settle the western one. My bad.

 

[Harbourboy]

Then nobody gets any awards. Same as in these deity WOTM 18 results

Oh yeah. I came 11th in that one - my best ever xOTM placing! Bring on more Deity level slaughter!

 

[Dynamic]

I guess it all depends on the player's personallity.

For me, winning an easy Warlords level game adds nothing to the competition or to my interest in the game in general, no matter if I get an award or not.

On the other hand, losing a game like this spurs my interest in the game and in learning new ways to play. Specially so if someone wins the game and thus makes it clear that it was not the map but my lack of ability what made me perish.

Otherwise, I don't like high levels because of stronger influence of random for it.
I haven't played this BOTM (time and interest) but as I see now such game has some other type of competition - "who can win"?

 

[civ_steve]

It's a tough combination - the local AI are fairly far away, so they're hard to take on. At the same time, the amount and quality of the available land isn't great. And a couple of the AI were real monsters! (Frederick's huge empire was impossibly large, but Joao was the toughest opponent in my game.)

 

[Nick Danger]

Well, I think human can win even aggressively this game. But it takes time and effort - especially with thorough pregame and in-game testing - one doesn't have.
As for me, I did an in-game test on whether 20GW can eat through hill cities defended by axes and protective archers. Outcome - they cannot. The map change I woud've advised here was denying Churchill metals - which could not be done, unfortunately, as he had island iron. Axes on top of archers is too much.

I tried that on my umpteenth attempt (where I made use of knowing the map/etc.). I'm only an average player and expect the big guns could make this work, but not me.

My goal was to try a military victory (all other V conditions bore me), using the GWs. I raced down the east coast, not even building a second city, trying to deny Churchy the copper -- thinking I could use the great production of the starting location and UI and hit Churchy before he could build other than archers (Previous attempts showed I had to hit him before he got LBs or Crossbows, which he did get if I delayed to get Cats). I even had 2 workers roading this path -- and with roads it still took 13 turns to reach his copper.

Before I could take a city I ran into Swords/axes -- Churchy settled on the iron.

So, next attempt added in a few units veering off to prevent Churchy settling on the iron -- Fred got it instead. Still, Churchy had 5+ archers in each city I approached, so I spent a few turns pillaging all his land improvements. He still acquired Swords/axes -- he must have traded a sea resource for it from Fred(?).

So denying him copper/iron directly didn't work.

At that point I would have had to commission a few galleys to pillage his sea resources to prevent this trade. Churchy had at least 2 galleys near London, so just 1 or 2 galleys would likely not have sufficed. I'm thinking that that would have diverted too many resources from GS/Axes. As it was, research suffered from the size of my army (and yes I built cottages in the capital's FC).

My last attempt did finally take London (it had no buildings! grrrrr....), but he still had 4-5 cities left and was building swords/axes/archers, and I had very few troops left.

I'd be interested to see if any of the top tier players were able to succeed militarily against Churchy. I'm sure there's a way, but I ran outta ideas...

Problems with my 'strategy':
-distance
-Churchy's protective, hilltop, and walled cities made even archers formidable
-great starting location, but only 1 decent nearby location (dye/corn/sugars). The next best locations (banana/sugar/seafood on west coast, and gems on east coast) were fairly distant. The horses/pigs were ok, and maybe I should have delayed my rush to make use of chariots (hmmm... test that?) -- but would that have increased costs in the short term, and delayed the rush enough, that Churchy would have gotten LB and/or CBs too soo?.

All in all a frustrating game -- which is what I like, as it's not boring, and it keeps me coming back to try a different strategy!

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Well, I certainly enjoyed this game!

Wonders
I finally gave up my Wonder addiction. Thank you kindly, Niklas. I owe you one. I tried to build a total of 0 World Wonders and I achieved that goal successfully!

Early Rush?
Gallic-Warrior-rushing Churchill wasn't going to happen because I had had the brainwave of trading a lot of religious techs to him, as he was the first to pick up Alphabet--this tech trading included giving him Priesthood. Churchill was more than happy to build The Oracle, grab Monarchy, and then immediately tech to Feudalism. Sigh, there went any reasonable hope of an early rush.

Chosen Victory Condition
Having to play without Stone and Marble was indeed a challenge.

Cultural Victory in 1878 AD. Sort of. Let's step back about 15 turns, to around 1850 AD.

Cultural Competition
My closest Cultural competition came from Willem, who had spammed 3 religions early on. He was due to win in about 1910 AD.

Spaceship Competition
My closest Spaceship competition came from Joao II, who had all parts except for Engine parts. Joao II was scheduled to complete the first Engine part in 1860 AD and would launch immediately. Most of the other AI were building Casing and Thruster components, so they weren't even close to finishing anytime soon, but Frederick tried to one-up Joao II by launching a Spaceship with all parts (including both Engine parts) being completed in 1866 AD.

Diplomatic Competition
Diplomatically, Hannibal had built The Apostolic Palace with Judaism, but hadn't been able to make a go of it as Churchill spammed Taoism across the world and eventually converted everyone (other than Hannibal with his Judaism)--that is, everyone who wasn't going to stick it out in Free Religion (which Willem did). A few turns before The United Nations was built, Hannibal gave up on Judaism (founded by nearby neighbour Willem) and switched to Christianity, which Hannibal had founded.

As far as the UN went, the vote was for Willem (the builder of it) vs Frederick (who had settled the Iron to the west near the English all the way to the eastern lands of the continent, minus a couple of Barb cities that I'd managed to grab at the far east end of the continent). Eventually, his culture from the many surrounding cities he had placed managed to take all but one of my cities out there.

Frederick, had he played his cards right, would have had enough votes to win diplomatically, had I voted for him. In fact, with Joao II and Lincoln voting for him, he would have had enough if Churchill had helped to sway the vote; however, strangely, Frederick kept throwing spies at Churchill and had a -5 relations-modifier from caught spies, leaving Churchill only Pleased with Frederick instead of the previous Friendly opinion... later this number swelled to a -8 relations-modifier with Churchill from all of the spies that had been caught. Oh well, at least you can count on some AI stupidity or at least lack of a clear victory condition.

Wars
Stepping back several centuries, Hannibal and Willem had fought to a standstill for many turns, until finally Willem swayed the battle and captured two cities. After that point, Hannibal was getting small and became that which I feared he would become--a "target" for those looking to pick up a vassal.

Willem wasn't interested in further war with Hannibal, but Frederick declared, bringing Churchill in. Churchill brought me in, but then two turns later a vote stopped all wars against Churchill! My seashores got ransacked when Hannibal's ships suddenly didn't have to put up with Churchill's own navy. Still, I hung in there, ending up with only one less Great Artist being able to pop as a result (which would not have been enough to sway victory by more than two turns).

Lincoln, with his vassal Tokugawa (founded from the island to the east of Joao's capital)--who knows why Joao wouldn't touch the island so close to his starting point--decided he'd join in on the fun and fought against Hannibal as well. We fought to a standstill, with typical AI-stupidity for inter-continental wars leading to no city trades, just a lot of naval battles, the result of which being mine and Hannibal's fisheries being pillaged.

The Island to the East
Speaking of islands, I'd managed to miss out on the one to the east of us, thinking that a city with one Fish resource wasn't worth settling. On this map, it would have been, but normally I leave such Resource-poor locations to the AI. I'd had the time to settle there, thanks to culture from early religion getting my borders out far enough to the island, in order for my Galley to see orange-borders (but not meet Hannibal) a bit to the east of the island. So, I'd had opportunity to settle it, but I had assumed (incorrectly) that if the AI settled it, I would obtain access to trade routes from their cities.

As DynamicSpirit had pointed out, that little island was pretty important to get. It may have made a big difference in my game, as for a few centuries, I'd been stuck with that one island of Hannibal's being my only foreign trade route, as Churchill and Frederick were happy to stick it out in Mercantilism for ages. Just that one city being settled by me could have meant a difference of 80 or more raw commerce a turn for a good 50 turns--a major, major potential difference in my game.

Back to the Present
Back to the 1800 ADs, Frederick was simply short of one AI to help him get voted in as leader of the UN. Churchill was out, thanks to the increasing use of spies on Frederick's part. That left me (haha, no way), Tokugawa (who did not much like Frederick but had he liked him, would have put Frederick about 5 votes short of victory--enough, probably, with a time factor randomly growing the size of cities allowing for a random win if Frederick had tried to win enough times), or Hannibal (who hated Frederick's guts).

Unfortunately, Willem never picked up the sword again against Hannibal and although Lincoln and I tired of the fighting, Frederick kept up the war and eventually dragged Churchill back into it, once the "no one is allowed to declare war on Churchill and vice versa" UN resolution wore off. Unfortunately, the combined pressure on Hannibal let Frederick take one city--and Hannibal immediately capitulated. What a softy!

So, with an impending Diplomatic Victory vote called in 1850 AD, I abstained and quickly queried Hannibal on what he thought of Frederick. Slanderous words such as "Frederick is a dirty, rotten scoundrel!" and "Frederick? A treacherous cowardly baboon," were not enough to pacify my worries. Sure enough, the next turn, Hannibal showed us who the true coward was by tipping the balance of the votes in Frederick's favour.

So, about 15 turns from a Cultural Victory and bam, Frederick the dirty, rotten baboon steals victory from my clutches. Still, it would have been a tight race against that Spaceship of Joao's and even likely Frederick's Spaceship--I was able to keep playing to see exactly when they launched and when I would have won, but I don't know when their Spaceships would have "arrived," as that detail does not seem to be reported once a player (or an AI) has already won a victory condition.

 

[Airny]

Oh my goddess,
after reading this thread I almost don't dare to tell you, that I won the game! You might want a detailed review. ;-)
This was my first game after over one year being almost inactive, so I picked the Immortal savegame.
My goal was a religious victory, because I had practice with it from some fun games.
Details will follow tomorrow, lol it's 4am already here.

 

[Htadus]

Started with a solid plan to go for a Religious victory.

Idea was to found an early religion spread it around, build oracle for any free tech (hoping for MC) and use the Great Prophet to bulb theo. Build AP. and you know to win AP victory without any competition.

Got Hinduism, saw the two blocking areas and build two settlers plus about 6 axes for protection and escort, Blocked both sides getting 2 gems in east and banana(?) in the west coast. Never had a shot at Oracle and forgot to use a priest to get a GP. The religious building did rake in about 40 gpt well before AD times.

OK plan B. Just try to hang in there with them and see if we can get a PA....I was not sure if it was even available. Stayed some what close to my hindu bretherens up untill th AD's and felt badly behind. Even DoWed Joaa upon Freds request. Ended with 11 Cities. After the war had a DP with both Fred and Will. With only may be a handfull of turns left of our mandatory 40 turns of shared war/DP, damn Fred DoWed Hanny in 17th century. We still did not have gunpowder. Just as we were getting redy to DoW Hanny, Churchhill back stabbed us and Will DoWed Churchill. He was pleased until he went to free religion and later when our spy was caught, I guess he got pissed off.

Anyways I can see the end very clearly as SoD's of tanks, infantry and knights approached our Mace defended cities. He was a poor monger. Took his sweet time taking two of my cities and finally gave peace for another city.

Kudo's to anyone who pull a non AP victory.

And now for a complaint or two

1. The mountanous blockade was more of a hinderance than help. Churchy had no room to expand and he could have settled several cities in those mountain areas before looking in our direction. This also reduce many approaches to attack weak cities.

2. Since this is Deity, the human player do not really need extra help to loose the game due to crappy land around the capital. The lobsided land distribution was plain cruel. Fred had 24 cities before breakfast.

3. Why could not we have Freds spot? Why?

And of course I did not submit since I restarted several handfulls of autosaves before Churchill DoWed to see what his mood was and why he dowed. My power was horizontal on the chart.....very close to 0.

 

[MacBalt]

Retired in about 1565 when Joao and Churchill DOWed me. I just couldn't get my rifleman army up an running fast enough to beat Churchill or Frederick to the punch. By the time I figured that out I'd burned most of my diplomatic bridges, so even if surviving the war turned out to be possible and I was somehow able to build the UN I doubt I could have won. Plus I was certain I didn't want to sink any more time into this game! Real life is time-consuming enough right now!

 

[Harbourboy]

So, is it correct that nobody has owned up to achieving a Contender or Challenger victory yet?

 

[urbis]

Contender save.

Retired at 600AD staring at a long decline towards loss.

I’d carved out a solid little empire in the top half of the peninsula, including a couple of English cities and a Barbarian city I took, but was painfully far behind (half the score of 2 rivals and just over a third the score of another), and can’t see any way to catch up.

On the bright side, did better than I expected at diety level, which I don't think I've ever played before.

 

[Airny]

I played the main part (until 1250AD) quite early and finished it yesterday, so I don't exactly remember what I did the first turns.

• 4000BC Settled in place, Researched Agriculture, Mining, BW, Wheel. My early worker built a farm and then build a gold mine, so I could grow AND mine gold asap. After seeing the copper, I wanted access to it for protection against barbs and to be able then to skip archery and go directly for Alphabet via Pottery and Writing.
• 2320BC I went for Stonehenge quite late, but with prechopping and Slavery, I got it! The prophet should give me Theology and therefore the Apostolic Palace.
• 1360BC Alphabet
• 1280BC Iron Working
• 1160BC built 2nd city S of capitol with access to pigs.
• 825BC built 3rd city. After this city, I didn't go for more but instead built some units to conquer the barbarian city south between Silk and Corn.
• 875BC captured Sarmakand at the sweet spot mentioned above.
• 800BC popped a Great Prophet from Stonehenge.
• 725BC the prophet was used to get Theology, switched to Organized Religion to be able to build missionaries asap. From now on I focused on getting a missionary to every civ.
• 350BC built Apostolic Palace
• 100BC built "Gem City". There was a barb city south of the gems and I had an axeman there. I knew Churchill would send units there to grab it, so I hoped to get the last hit and steal it, but the axeman failed.
• 540AD built Shwedagon Paya, which allowed me to go for Free Religion next turn. You don't want anyone to get pissed because he has another religion!
• 740AD researched Optics and rushed some caravels to find the two other civs and spread christianity.
• in the 13th century Frederick and Willem spread christianity themselves. If they would use it as state religion, it would compromise my position as leader of the AP.
• 1280AD I wondered why still no option for religious victory voting popped out and realized that I forgot to spread christianity to Churchill! Could've be able to vote in 1120AD already.
• 1470AD After a long time of unsuccessful voting and checking for relation status, they realized my supremacy or gave in to my stubbornness.

The situation at the end was the following:
I switched civics the turn before the voting happened, so it was just in time to get some bonuses. The most "charming" civics were just available to me: Universal Suffrage, Nationhood, Emancipation, Free Market and Free Religion. You can see how happy they were at the screenshot. The status of my civilization was quite good at the end and I already had some things planned in case religious victory would not occur: A galleon sent some units and a settler over to the small western island, which would suit for three nice cities. Researchwise I was still competing, in the last turn I would've been able to trade Scientific Method to Frederick and Churchill. In this game I was attacked with Privateers, rushing into my territory and blocking the trade routes in the north, but two frigates were able to take care of that.
Within the next 30 turns, I would've attacked Lincoln with modern warfare. Nobody traded with him for a long time and I didn't too, so the gap techwise was getting larger. He didn't even have access to iron! Instead of selling it to him you should generally abuse the situation and attack him when he is weak.

The map was quite difficult to play and sometimes just strange. Why would you put three Dye into an unpassable territory? The gem spot was a nice idea, to grab it a must. I also liked the one tile island to the east. Building a city there allowed ships to pass over before Optics. Why did Frederick get such a large backyard? There is no way to win a late victory like spaceship against him even on emperor I think.

 

[adrianj]

Great stuff Airny!
I didn't realise you could be a candidate for the AP vote if you were in Free Religion? Would this have been ruined if any of the other AI switched to Christianity?

 

[fizikis]

My first Deity attempt ever. I was hoping to survive to AD's, but surprisingly lived to see Churchill launch a space ship. Didn't see it arrive though My riflemen and musketmen got crushed under the Portuguese tanks around 1904. I was gong to stick it out till the bitter end, but computer crashed conveniently. Can't see a point in submitting.

 

[Airny]

Great stuff Airny!
I didn't realise you could be a candidate for the AP vote if you were in Free Religion? Would this have been ruined if any of the other AI switched to Christianity?

No it would not, but the civ would qualify for the next leader elections.
With his votes being doubled, you would loose for sure or you would have to switch to a state religion too. But then most people won't like you any more. So I figured out it works best if you don't spread it too much, just one small sity per civ. In a best case scenario you would then pick a good friend and spread the religion a bit there, so you can win the election with his votes only.

 

[adrianj]

No it would not, but the civ would qualify for the next leader elections.
With his votes being doubled, you would loose for sure or you would have to switch to a state religion too. But then most people won't like you any more. So I figured out it works best if you don't spread it too much, just one small sity per civ. In a best case scenario you would then pick a good friend and spread the religion a bit there, so you can win the election with his votes only.

Some more questions, since religions VC is something I have never done before:

1. You cannot vote yourself in correct? Ie, if you have more than 75% of the vote all to yourself, diplo victory is not an option?

2. The rival candidates are either whoever built the AP, or whoever is in the correct state religion with the most votes? Or does the second person not need to be in the correct state religion either?

3. Following from 3, if your friend that you have spread the religion to converts to that religion, they would then become your rival?

So the trick is to make sure every player has at least one city with the religion, preferably a single small city. Then make sure you don't have >75% of the vote. Then make sure you have a friend with some votes who is NOT your rival, ie, not in the correct religion. Does that sound about right?