BOTM 240: King Arthur - Noble - Final Spoiler

[MarleysGh0st]

BOTM 240: Arthur, Noble - Final Spoiler - Game Submitted



Use this thread to tell us what happened in your game, particularly anything after 1AD. Will King Arthur live on in legend? Or will he just be remembered as that guy who used to live here before we moved in? Please include reports of any monster encounters. Did you notice anything else that was unexpected*?

*Or very expected, by at least one of you in the pregame discussion.


Reading Requirements
If you are participating in BOTM 240 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.

 

[NickTrofimuk]

Really fun game, thanks mapmaker. It was quite an adventure finding the Faerie Realms lands (I avoided the monster traps at sea so never actually found out what was in them), but luckily my finally finding them lined up with my takeover of the last local opponents in Scandinavia (after already defeating the Welsh, Scots, Irish, French and then Germans), securing a conquest victory at 1450.

 

[NickTrofimuk]

I should add, I started playing last night to see what it was like, but got so invested that I just kept playing until completion this morning.

 

[nocho]

Mmm, I get an error trying to upload the file. Got a space win in 1520AD.

ERROR !!

There was a problem with your submission.

Your entry has not been recorded for the following reasons:

• Sorry! Your file does not appear to be for a known Game.
• If you selected an incorrect file then please resubmit using the correct file.

EDIT: Must've been a temporary glitch, could upload just now.

 

[Powerfaker]

Like @NickTrofimuk kept playing till finished, once I got to 1AD, so straight to the end report.
Contender. The map looked nice enough for a challenge, but I avoid the Deity level ones. I'm confident that I could survive, but just don't like that level.

With the easier levels I tend to go for different vic types than I usually go for, with this one Culture. I did spread to more cities than typically optimal for culture. By 1AD 15 cities, of which 1 barb conquered and 2 from Wales, one more to go of both at that point (conquest by maces).
I should have built more wonders in my to be legend cities, ended up building some in helper cities (Mids/MoM/Taj) A minor blow when Scotland snatched HGardens, raising pop and healthcap is a big thing here.
Reached Lib=>Nationalism around 600AD. 5T later first golden age, the start of all out culture mode and artist pumping.
Was able to set up a few more cities (while keeping slider 100%) till I reached 22 and held all of Southern England up to and included Anthrax Castle. Reached 3 legendary simultaneously with the help of 16 artist bombs.

Nice job on the city (and unit/leader) naming. Looked all very authentic to me. I've always wondered if Camelot = Camulodunum, but never seen that being mentioned.
Should have known ''old woman'' defending Anthrax Castle could never deal a punch, and have attacked earlier ...

 

[MirrorGuard]

AD1590 domination victory. Got 9 great generals and 5 g ages. Thanks for the game~

Spoiler statistics :

 

[ZPV]

Challenger save

I roleplayed a little on this one, given the theme and real-world (ish) map. I wanted complete control of Great Britain - and probably Ireland too.
The early game saw peaceful expansion to 12 cities, including the Isle of Wight and both premade Barbarian cities. I got the Great Lighthouse but narrowly missed the Oracle.
Scotland built the Pyramids so he was my first target - in 200AD with Classical/Medieval units, finishing the war with the capture of the Shetland Isles to the northeast in 1000AD.
Wales was next, with Cuirassiers and Cavalry - from 1080AD to 1380AD.

By this time, everyone generally caught up in tech, and had Rifling in particular.
My goal was to tech up again, and generally outproduce everyone.
With the scarcity of luxury resources, but abundance of mining resources, this pointed me towards a one-corporation play with just Mining Inc (1605 - as soon as I finally popped the GE).
Building all the radio wonders also helped - cities could generally get to size 12-13 after Emancipation unhappiness.

While I was doing this, Hengist (Saxony/Germany) absorbed and then vassaled William (500AD), Harald (1180AD) and Canute (1520AD) to wind up on 23 cities. Brian Boru also took Morgan le Fay as a vassal.

This all meant that I couldn't be sure of winning the space race - especially since the small city size would dampen tech rate significantly when building anything (e.g. space parts!)
Instead, I would use my production advantage, and conquer the world!

Brian Boru declared war on me in 1720, after I had started building an invasion fleet.
No AI can cope with marines, jet fighters, battleships and carriers in sufficient numbers - I decided to annex all of Ireland and the Faroes for the Mining and luxury resources - this was complete by 1795, at which point they all sailed back home to Dover for the big showdown.
(Note - a cheesy Diplo victory was available at this point, by leaving Morgan le Fay in control of the UN-city so she'd be my opponent... but that's no fun!)

By 1814, we had rough parity in power rating, and my 370-unit flotilla set sail. Well, technically not all of it - some of the land units stayed behind due to lack of transport capacity and would be ferried over later.
Two large fleets were ambushed in their harbours, Oil was disconnected, and every single defending fighter was shot down on the first turn of war. From there it was just a case of draining him of excess units, and then pummelling everything from above (including a spaceship - launched 1822, aborted 1830).

The last AI capitulated in 1838 for an 1840 Conquest Victory.

Stats:

Spoiler :

Thoughts on the map:

• The thematic map was a fun way to go. Cornwall felt a million miles away which was very true to life!
• The barb cities were briefly fun, and then behaved like every other barb city.
• The low number of happiness resources was an interesting challenge - if you wanted them you had to explore and conquer them because nobody had duplicates!
• There were loads of Mining inc resources.
• It was a very land-heavy map - and my mouse-hand certainly appreciates why people use nukes instead of air-power to fight these modern age wars!
• The mixed-up place names were funny. Why couldn't they anticipate this and teach the AIs geography when they made the game?

 

[Noble Zarkon]

British culture conquered the world in 1814AD.

Was pretty peaceful, apart from a single war when a Nordic alliance declared on me. Popped a GE on the first turn of the war, revolted to Nationalism and had a couple of rounds of drafting. Lost one city but soon managed to stop the war via the AP and the next vote saw me win a vote to assign the city back to me

Never properly met Morgan le Fay, in fact the only boats I built were work boats lol, I did find out where she was when I bought a map from King Canute.

Actually there was a second war - William declared on me the turn I won lol.

Really cool concept and fun game.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Giving the Fae a barb city at the start for Peace Treaty really helped out later.
I beat on her city next to my main empire to get a 10xp unit and got a peace treaty that gave me her world map.

Spoiler :

Whoa, jackpot!

I sent 3 Settlers and 6 Cuirassiers up to settle and conquer the place as fast as possible.
Figured I'd just grab some Workers.
Sailed right on past the "Look at the bones" sign and started taking care of business.

Then I noticed my Galleon was missing some health.
Then my other Galleon too.
I eventually realized it was a Bomber named Fafnir (a dragon who burns you from a thousand feet >_<) which was quickly followed by a Frigate named the Kraken who sank my Galleon with 2 Settlers.
Later I grabbed one city and limped my fleet into it to hide.

Spoiler :

A nice trick!
So I gifted Morgan back her old city near my capital and then 3 more runt cities I conquered from the Welsh.
The next war plus 40 war success and with no chance to lose any battles against a rampaging Bomber+Frigate, I was able to get her to capitulate.

A few mistakes this time, but at least there was no accidental war with my hair-trigger mouse.
My 3rd city with Maoi had no 3rd seafood improved for the entire game.
My 1st vassal meant I couldn't trade for Replaceable Parts with a Friendly AI.
Lost a galleon full of Cavalry to a Privateer.

Used the Great Spy from Communism to steal Replaceable Parts + Rifling.

Spoiler :

It was delightful when I realized the French were down there.
I thought they had a world-buildered Scout to the east and an empire somewhere else, but no the whole empire was tucked in at the south pole.

The map being stretched vertically and all the happiness resources being in the top left and bottom left corner of a flat map was great too.
It was quite the unexpected wars with the Fae up there and hordes of barb galleys down there which do pretty good against a lone Galleon.
Naval movement felt so slow!

The Crossbow at the start of the game was all kinds of fun playing cat and mouse with.
It made the Horse resource very attractive which usually is not very urgent.
So much seafood and so little forests and happiness.
Altogether it was quite the puzzle to get everything humming.

Thanks for the map!

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Gifting the Fae a barb city at the start really helped out later.

Very clever!!

 

[MarleysGh0st]

Then I noticed my Galleon was missing some health.
Then my other Galleon too.
I eventually realized it was a Bomber named Fafnir (a dragon who burns you from a thousand feet >_<) which was quickly followed by a Frigate named the Kraken who sank my Galleon with 2 Settlers.

Congratulations on discovering Morgan's monsters!

In other games, the mapmakers have observed that AI don't know what to do with the advanced units they are given. I was afraid that Morgan would delete these before anyone ran into them. Your innovative play kept them from going to waste.

 

[Conquistador 63]

I had a lot of fun playing this game. It was indeed a great scenario!
It even made me research about English history on the internet, and so I found out that some of our AI rivals had been English kings in RL!
I conquered our island, vassaled France (mainly for the Dyes ), colonized the western islands for the resources, then went for space using Corps.
Unfortunately, I grossly underestimated our Empire's GPP potential and thus started the late game golden ages 12 ou maybe 24 turns later than I should. When I launched the spaceship I had 7 ou 8 idle GPersons, which would be enough for at least 1 or maybe 2 (if properly micromanaged) extra 12t G.Ages. Still, finished 1t later than @nocho.

 

[neilmeister]

I had a really fun time with this map. Even in my prime I always struggled on Deity, so took the super easy Noble option!
Super rusty but remembered that at Noble we get some free victories over the barbs, so after finding the Autonomous Collective (and then I actually go the scenario...that will teach me that I should read the description!!) I took it with a warrior! They saw the violence inherent in the system of course!

Got the scare of my life seeing a crossbow walking around near my undefended cities, but thankfully it never bothered me and the welsh took Castle Arrrgh, despite me farming workers from them before eventually taking all their cities, so I have no idea how they would have defeated it.

Biggest mistake was not immediately rolling my army north for the Scots.....but I did eventually. No calendar resources was an interesting twist, saw some in the last few turns, but way too late obviously.

Got 2 surprise GE's in succession from my GP farm early so at that point decided on Diplo, which I reached in 1090AD.

​

 

[kcd_swede]

Wow! this map was artistry! Glad to have some new fresh ideas from the newcomer mapmaker!

I could have finished a lot earlier than 1635AD, if I was focused, and if I was at my peak familiarity with BtS, and if I was a far better player than I am. But anyhow, I didn't want it to end. I capitulated everyone except Harald Hadrada, because I went over the Dom threshold. If I was focused on a goal, I would have prevented that and waited 1 or 2 more turns to get him as my vassal too. Dang... I guess I felt pressure to actually finish before the deadline. It's been a while... and it was one a most enjoyable Saturday morning. I did not see the bones. I saw bombers defended by macemen when my cavalry arrive. I guess that was the monsters?

Anyhow, thanks for a fun game. An easy level to shake off some dust and a lot of rust... now on to a Deity game that is surely going to be frustrating, but lots of fun.

Thank you BoTM team for keeping this going and making it fresh every time!!!!

 

[donsig]

Very fun game and a great map! Managed a twentieth century UN victory.

 

[Fine_Distinction]

fun game, thanks, did not have time to finish, but enjoyed it.

I kinda knew about free wins on Noble but did not have guts to try it in a got. Barbarian cities nearby became major PITA and slowed my Development and conquest. Map and overall concept was very cool, the only thing I would change in the future is that using clones of the same leader (eg Ragnar) especially with unrestricted leaders and custom names and nations made diplomacy very confusing for me in terms of linking text messages to leader images. But overall great, please keep this special games coming!

 

[Jovan Kukic]

Very fun game and a great map! Managed a twentieth century UN victory.

I also tried to achieve Diplomatic victory, so I focused my research to get Mass media, and build UN with help of ca$h to win faster. But, then I finally realized how Diplomatic victory really works in BtS. I knew that in BtS you can't win only with your own votes. I thought that it means that you need at least one AI to vote for you besides your own votes, in quantity over the threshold in order to win. But, then I realized that if you have population over the voting threshold, Diplomatic victory resolution is not available. So I changed my focus to Conquest victory. If I haven't wasted science and ca$h for Mass media and UN, I would have won faster. Anyway, gold medal is nice, it was really close. Nice map