[BTS] BOTM 231: Sitting Bull, Emperor - Final Spoiler - Game Submitted

[DynamicSpirit]

BOTM 231: Sitting Bull, Emperor - 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 231 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.

 

[MarleysGh0st]

Continuing my report on my Contender/Emperor game:

So, after reading my comments to WastinTime in the first spoiler thread, did anyone hear the ominous music of foreshadowing? Well...

In 250, I capture a barb city in the SE (beating Napoleon in a race to grab it), making that my sixth city. In 275, Washington declared war on Napoleon. Good, I thought. I'll build up an army and join that war, later. In 350, Napoleon demanded that I give him Construction.

Now, I had already read WastinTime's first spoiler by this point, so I knew what an aggressive bastard Napoleon was. But that was from a Deity game, and this one was only Emperor. Surely, that would make a difference? And I certainly didn't want to help a future enemy. So, I refused his demand. And Napoleon immediately declared war on me.

I fended off his initial attack and built up my forces. Sacrificing a bunch of cats, I captured Rheims in 900. I give some tech to Roosevelt, to bring him into the war as an ally. After whipping some reinforcements, I managed to capture Orleans in 1060. This is where I ended my second playing session, and overall things were looking pretty grim. Although I had made slow progress, the unhappiness had really mounted in all of my cities. Napoleon wouldn't sign a ceasefire or a peace treaty, unless I gave him back the city I had just captured. Even if I could continue an offensive, the drag on my economy would let the other AI build a lead on me.

Spoiler :

Luckily, Napoleon does agree to a ceasefire in in 1070. That gives me time to rebuild my economy, and research/trade for techs that will give me some more happiness, through HR and Judaism (incidentally, Orleans was the Holy City). Napoleon and Washington make peace in 1160. Napoleon demands some gold from me in 1190, but this time when I refuse, he refrains from taking action. Washington resumes the war in 1270, and I do so in 1290. This time, Napoleon can't withstand the tide against him, although Vicky helps him by attacking Washington in 1460. In the end, the French empire is destroyed in 1600. Washington has taken one city. Roosevelt has only managed to liberate one city Napoleon had captured, early in the war. And I've captured all the rest!

Eliminating Napoleon opens the way to capturing three more barb cities, with more land open for my settlers. And since Paris had the Great Lighthouse, coastal cities were very profitable. Roosevelt fights a war with HC, taking one city which is later taken back. Washington had built the AP, which I had been elected to lead. With Washington slowly gaining ground on Vicky, I call one vote to end that war, then one more to return a city to her. How nice to see the AP used like that against an AI instead of against me, for a change!

I spread Judaism to Lincoln, leaving HC as the only infidel. I declare war against HC in 1785, then I call an AP vote to bring in the rest of the world. It passes!

Spoiler :

Although HC has a tech advantage in some areas, the war proceeds nicely. After spreading Judaism to a smaller one of the captured cities, I make peace and give the city back to him, thereby enabling a vote for religious victory. That comes in 1852.

Spoiler :

I'm glad Vicky liked me (and disliked Washington) enough to give me that margin of victory. I could have pushed on militarily, but it would have been a long slog on this map. If anyone manages a Conquest victory in this game, they'll deserve a special commendation. Either they'll have done so extremely early, to prevent the AI from expanding into all of that empty land, or they'll have gone on a massive campaign of razing cities, to prevent tripping the domination limits.

 

[WastinTime]

After almost giving up, I managed to come back and win this one!
Napoleon had a stack with cats, swords, chariots, and longbows. Yes, his scariest attacker was the longbow cus my Dogs could handle swords. But not really cus his cats were going to soften up my archer/dogs/spears too much. The stack was standing right next to my (empty) city on the turn the war began. Hopeless right? No! I did not allow him to capture that city Lincoln only had 3 cities, so even tho he was on another continent, he would take the city as a gift. They hate each other and don't have open borders so Nappy's stack was teleported backwards and would take a while to get back to my other cities. I whipped like crazy and tried to hold the next target city, but couldn't. I should have given it to Lincoln before it fell, but I thought I could hold on one more turn.
In the end, Nappy only got that one city. He would have gotten another, but I gifted it to Lincoln. I finally got peace by giving him Civil Service.
I thought I was gonna have to give another city.

I bulbed some of the way up thru to MassMedia and easily got the UN before anyone even had radio.
Trading for everything else got me Infantry and I was tempted to punish Napoleon who was #1 in size. (He attacked Lincoln and got all the cities I gave away) Also got a few from the Democrats. But he had railroad (machine guns) and the finish line was in sight.

I was actually cheering for Nappy to get more cities so he would be my opponent for the Diplo Victory.

 

[Conquistador 63]

Nice and challenging map and settings, @DynamicSpirit ! I forgot to count tiles, but it definitely seemed larger than a standard Great Plains map.

Not sure if that was due to my sloppy play or the game settings, but everything happened in a much slower pace than usual in my game.

My 1st real war vs Nappy (not counting an early worker steal) ran from 760AD to 1030AD.

Then I continued to collect the lowest hanging fruits, that is Lincoln and his 2-city empire (1320AD to 1400AD), and finally Capac (1430AD to 1560AD - his mainland, then 1650AD to 1660AD (3 city island). Unfortunately, Capac had the Buddhist AP and I had to defy peace proposals twice, giving me 10 for what seemed like forever in my several buddhist cities.

Anyway, that was enough to secure me 40+ cities and cruise towards an undisputed tech lead and space colony victory in the mid-1800s.

I got a few GSpies, from which I was able to incite some city revolts during the wars and steal a few techs along the way: Compass, Engineering, Philo, HBR, Lit, Drama, Rifling.

 

[kcd_swede]

I am submitting today. I had a decent chance at a UN Victory... if only Inca were bigger than France. I built the UN, and my good buddy Napolean was the opponent. Inca had DOW'd me and still wouldn't talk. I counted city populations, and even if I let Inca capture all of my cities, France was bigger, having captured all of the different America's, except the Republicans which I got about half of. Since a new game with more chance of success is out there, I quit. Booooo, I suck.

 

[Powerfaker]

Revenge for the Native Americans. I went all the way for conquest and kicked everybody out to the last soul.
Funny enough this map was so big, it didn't get settled completely, and I could keep 80-90% of the cities I conquered.

First Napoleon DoWed me 500AD while I was heading for Engineering. I had started some troop build up but was too late for 1 city and lost it. Then gradually I turned it around and conquered most, ending with my army in the northeast. Then realized no vassals this game, didn't want to head west again and signed peace.
Next it's Roosevelt's turn. Forgot about AP that he owned. 2T later a vote for peace of course. I captured 1 city, which held the AP by the way. And also MoM which was perfect. I just got a GE that could hurry Taj and another GP to start a golden age. Another thing I didn't realize was that after 10 turns with the next vote returning this city back that would start another peace treaty. So 20 turns peace for Roosevelt.

My unit build up kept going meanwhile (HA's) and I reached Cuirs. So I decided to do a 2-front war from here on. My first targets in the west were weakened Napoleon and pathetic Lincoln, so this didn't require much I also spread the AP religion around in my cities to stop it from bothering me.

Napoleon was eliminated first. DoWed Roosevelt before Lincoln, but Lincoln was eliminated next. Victoria and Huayana were eliminated almost simultaneously (cavalry upgrades halfway), Lastly Washington gets highspeed sandwiched from 2 sides. That was necessary to stay ahead of cities coming out of revolt and passing the dom limit.
Not one of them made it to anything better than longbows. Only Roosevelt had knights..

 

[Xcalibrator]

Dom win 1866 after a long slog. Eliminated Nappy, then HC, Roosey, and finally Washington on the last (full) turn. I could see that would put me over the Dom limit so I attacked Vicky too and took 3 of her cities on the last turn. Getting coal for RRs was more difficult than expected--good thing Washington left a little room for me on the southern end of his domain--I originally settled it for the stone, and my culture only expanded over the coal tile shortly before I needed it. There was another coal in (what used to be) HC's land that I could have used, but geez. And there was *one single dye* in the whole game?! Yes, I grabbed that when I could, along with its nearby silver--it was a pretty useless city other than for those resources, but it was very good to have. Tanks were really awesome to have in the late game, vs rifles at best. Thanks for the game, DS.

 

[LincolnOfRome]

After 1 AD, I conquered the last of French, built the Pyramids, and settled the western part of the continent. I took Scientific Method as a Liberalism reward. I crossed the channel to the west and attacked HC's longbows with cavalry and spies. I was stalled by AP resolutions. Because I had only one Hindu monastery, I switched to Organized Religion, so I would have the most Hindus and be able to block resolutions. It worked. I did eventually simultaneously war the Dems and Inca. I should have attacked the Dems earlier. the Dems were on the top of the power graph, but were behind me in military tech. They put up a little fight when they got rifling, but I had tanks.

After I conquered the Inca and Dems, I had a little over half of world conquered. I gave a Hindu city to both Lincoln and Victoria, but no AP vote came up. So I teched Mass Media and built the UN. Washington had a quarter of the land and was at friendly, but I decided to conquer Victoria instead of wait for the UN vote. I rolled through her backwards cities with tanks and mech infantry in three turns. I won by domination in 1908.

 

[High King J.J.]

Was out of my league, didn't have time to play and didn't submit. Still interesting. Any idea when the next Botm is threatening our time with Real Life? No, I'm not trying to rush, just curious. I can't win these harder games anymore anyway.

EDIT: Removed because my comment referenced a seppuku implement (wakizashi).