[BTS] BOTM 222: Louis XIV, Noble - Final Spoiler - Game Submitted

[DynamicSpirit]

BOTM 222: Louis XIV, Noble - 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 222 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.

 

[jnebbe]

Retired T162. Economy is non-existent, tried moving palace to the mainland to offset colony city expenses but that barely helped. Other ai have passed me in tech. Got a scientist from GLib but huanya got philo in time, even then he's not trading away his monopoly techs. There's still like 1/3rd of the map that's unclaimed but I just have no economy to settle anything. It's too late to start cottaging new cities anyway.
Only way this would be remotely possible was if I could get to nukes before huanya and still somehow have an army to capture his cities with, which is absolutely not happening

 

[Powerfaker]

Since this is noble difficulty I thought this beeline should be a workable alternative for the lack of horses:

Spoiler :

And it did. I was able to raise a solid enough force and crush Inca before he could really run away. Facing longbows and a few knights was doable. He had transferred his techs to his vassal Pacal, but Pacal was way weaker despite. From there the army kept swelling while one after another Ai was subjected, eventually leading to a conquest victory.
A mistake with regular peace instead of capitulation of the Zulu caused a ±8 turn delay of the victory date. That's not the first time and most annoying, something to be more careful with.......

 

[MarleysGh0st]

Continuing the report on my Contender save...

The early AD passed quickly, without any particular focus on my behalf. One mistake, I didn't push out any roads to connect with an AI for a long time, so I missed out on a lot of commerce. Shaka fought a war with WK, then began one with Brennus in 1180. I joined the war against Brennus in 1410. I captured two cities, but after Brennus and Shaka made peace in 1460, I saw that Brennus still has a large army which was moving back to face me. So, after taking one more city, I signed a ceasefire in 1520.

I was building up for a second round (and hoping to research steel for cannons before that) when Brennus broke the ceasefire in 1545. I captured one more city and Brennus capitulated.

Still researching steel, I thought I'd make Shaka my next target. But then the strategic situation changed. HC had build the (Hindu) AP. I had agreed to his request to convert and I had been busy spreading the religion in my cities, to increase my vote count. Then, inexplicably, in 1590, on the same turn he's calling a vote for religious victory, he converts to Confucianism! I'm now the top candidate, but I'm far short of what I need for victory. But more importantly, I'm now HC's worst enemy, and I suspect he'll attack me soon. So starting another war is out of the question.

He never does attack. I plan to attack him, but I want to wait until I win an election to lead the AP, so I can prevent him from calling votes to end the war and then take back any cities I capture. That election doesn't take place until 1800. In the meantime, Shaka has fought another war with Pacal, Pacal peace-vassaled to Joao, and then Shaka attacked WK. Meanwhile, I've sent a Great Spy to scout HC's land and I notice that he doesn't really have an army anywhere. And he still hasn't researched steel.

I declare war on HC in 1800. His cities fall quickly, and I acquire a bunch of wonders in Cuzco and more (including the AP) in Machu Picchu. HC capitulates in 1840 and Pacal (who had renounced Joao's protection) peace-vassals to me.

I attack Shaka in 1846. By 1854, he's willing to capitulate, but he's still the second candidate for religious victory, so accepting his vassalage won't get me his votes. (Joao and WK each have more votes, but have adopted Free Religion and so aren't full members, any more). So I continue the war. I notice that the only option for an AP vote is to end the war. I still don't notice that the reason for that is that I'd captured HC's last Hindu city and he's no longer a member!

I give a small city back to HC. I get Hannibal to switch to Hinduism, to double his vote as a full member, but now he's the second candidate. I've actually lost votes by my maneuver!

Joao and WK join the war against Shaka, but still won't vote for me. Finally, I figure out the right path forward. I give Machu Picchu, with the AP, back to HC. Now he's the second candidate, and my other vassals must vote for me! I bribe Pacal to switch to Hinduism, and the next election gives me a Religious Victory in 1880 with 854 of 1100 votes (825 needed).

A slow, sloppy victory. But there aren't many other reports, yet, so it might enough for an award.

 

[LinkDinkin]

As I think others did, I found this Noble map harder than expected. I finished with an 1818 domination victory using Rifles and Cannons. Huayna had already vassalled the only 3 remaining AI (Joao, Wang, and Pacal) so it was me vs. the world, not ideal, but got through it with excessive whipping.

Definitely learned a valuable lesson: maintenance costs got bonkers! In retrospective, it's like duh, but capturing all the cities on the mainland ("colony") just broke my economy. Rare case where I've needed to move my Palace.

Anyway, thanks very much to DynamicSpirit for organizing and for the interesting map!

 

[Pangaea]

Reading these other updates, it sounds like Huayna became quite the force. Maybe he bugged out in my game? He was stuck at two cities for an eternity. At some point I gifted him a city, and then he founded a fourth. He had settlers in his two main cities, but they never ventured out. Also had that silly thing of having access to seafood but never bothering to build workboats. Strange fella!

Continuing from 1AD, I was very slow to expand. Quickly noticed settling cities on the main continent was expensive, so I held back. Until libbing Communism. I also decided to have a go with Musketeers. Probably much later than Powerfaker who seemed to clean up the map with them, but I did manage to take out Brennus and Shaka with musketeers. Took quite a few cities off Joao too, but think I had partial air support then from air ships. At least against a few cities.

Other than that, I kept teching up while founding cities all over the place. Went too far again, so had to start gifting away cities to stay below the domination threshold. I had decided to try for space, so didn't want domination to trigger, altho I ofc could have won domination much sooner. Wang peace vassaled in the game. Think it was just before I waged war, so his timing was fortunate. It could have been his neck on the line.

I struggled to find a good Ironworks city, because there weren't much food on this map, and certainly not along the few rivers. The one I decided on turned out okay, but it could have been better with actual food. Timing for space parts wasn't fantastic, but I'm glad I managed to find a way to get out the last parts in a few turns, so I could launch without undue delay.

Because HC had built a thousand wonders, I wanted to try to snag those at the death, although he had upgraded defenders to rifles. I sent in a pack of paratroopers. Apparently they can't attack on the turn they land, but it worked out well anyway because they had to move one turn to get into position. I was very fortunate to grab Cuzco on the mainland. Only had one spy there, and she succeeded to put the city into revolt. And I only had 4 paratroopers against his 4 rifles. Well, I did have one from a boat too, that I kinda forgot about. But all my guys won their fights and took the city. No problem with Tiwanaku on his small island (only city there, for some silly reason). 20 paratroopers or so landed and attacked, after one of the spies put the city into revolt. I built espionage on that last turn just in case. No losses there either, but then they all had 97%-ish percent chances. Some of his defending rifles were also softened up with air ships.

Pretty nice cities he had, that's for sure

Spoiler :

Since I've basically already given away everything, here is the actual win, in 1760AD.

Spoiler :

I am very glad I gifted away Lille the turn before, because I ended up with a domination safety margin of... 1 tile!!! A couple more cities than I expected expanded borders on the last turn (completed Eiffel Tower, fittingly enough in Paris), but the main thing was that Lille instantly went into revolt, which meant I took over several tiles.

Phew!! Would have been infuriating to 'lose' the space win like that on the very last turn. Though I suppose I could have been fortunate if space was flipped by the RNG.