BOTM 25 Final Spoiler

[ZPV]

Apostolic Palace votes will happen until its owner learns Mass Media. So you could quite easily have AP and UN votes on the same turn.

 

[old_civver]

I wonder what slowed down your achievement (if indeed you felt slowed down).

I had to change paths completely from the military. Not enough cottages I suppose. The culture path should be chosen almost from the start in order to get early victory.

 

[old_civver]

On another subject
I was surprised at how effective the amphibious assault is. Land-based invasions have higher costs than sea-based (troops on foreign territory). Terrific speed advantage for surprise attacks give no time for the AI to whip defenders. Also not vulnerable to siege weapons. I hate it when most of a stack gets weakened by a catapult. Significant advantages all, but at a higher risk, I suppose, if the enemy has a strong navy.

 

[adrianj]

Challenger save. Cultural win 1875. Took London very early with one lone axeman in 2125 BC, even though the game says I'm a user. Maybe they were performance-enhancing or maybe I'm Leif the Lucky. Built a gp farm on peninsula to the east. Built GLH, Colossus and Great Lib. Now the mighty Vikings roared out of the north and started swingin those axes. 610 AD no Mongols and the Kashi and the mids have new owners. The bloodlust continued. 850 AD no Persians. 890 AD the longboats got turbos.
The Japanese were the next to fall to the axes. While Leif and his battle-hardened veterans were in far-off Japan doing what Vikings do, things were changing at home. Religion was spreading like wildfire. Leif came home from Japan triumphant, but to a changed land. Religion was everywhere!
What to do now? He consulted his advisors, they checked the reindeer gizzards for omens, he talked to the manar on the street. Then he went up into the mountains on retreat and came back a changed man. He had seen the light. He ordered the axes to be melted down and temples to be built throughout the kingdom. He was sick of all the killing. The longboats were cleansed of blood. Now they had a higher purpose. Missionary work! Conversions were often resisted but Leif would try and try again. Religious fervour gripped the vast nation. A mighty engineer volunteered to help the noble cause and constructed a great wonder in a fit of religious ecstasy, the Sistine Stave Church. Other great structures were soon reaching the sky. Mom and the Taj made the entire population proud. The golden age of Viking hegemony would last for decades.

But dark clouds were gathering. Unbeknownst to the Vikings there were others who were envious of the tremendous Viking achievements. With all this religious work Leif had neglected to pay proper attention to events on the far side of the earth. Suddenly there was a vast Armada of Spanish warships right in the heart of the Holy North, plundering and pillaging. Luckily some of the Vikings had hidden their axes under the floorboards, and they went absolutely berserk. The old Viking ways were soon remembered and they made quick work of these Spanish fools. Peace was soon restored and it was back to the temples and cathedrals. Foreigners never dared to come again except as tourists with glass-bottom boats, to see the remains of their "mighty" Armada.

Relations eventually improved enough that the Spanish managed to convert some of our country folk in a backwater town to their religion. This only served to hasten the inevitable victory by adding a 4th group of temples and cathedrals to the cultural powerhouse cities, who one by one became engraved on the runestones of Viking Legends. Viking cultural victory 1875.

I love your write up old_civver!

And killing the English with a single axe was awesome. Perhaps you felt you owed all the temples for worshipping the gods of RNG? But as they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained!

 

[adrianj]

Why did the Religious vote taking place after the UN was built? Was it because I did not own the Palace?

Mass Media obsoletes the AP. So I believe that the holder of the AP needs Mass Media to obsolete it, not necessarily the UN being built anywhere by anyone else.

Eg, some backward civ builds the AP, but never learns Mass Media - so the AP nevers becomes obsolete, despite someone else, eg, you, building the UN.

I think that's how it works...

 

[Jbourne]

Apostolic Palace votes will happen until its owner learns Mass Media. So you could quite easily have AP and UN votes on the same turn.

Mass Media obsoletes the AP. So I believe that the holder of the AP needs Mass Media to obsolete it, not necessarily the UN being built anywhere by anyone else.

Eg, some backward civ builds the AP, but never learns Mass Media - so the AP nevers becomes obsolete, despite someone else, eg, you, building the UN.

I think that's how it works...

Thank you and that was what happened.

 

[jancarly]

If I see all those fast end dates, I think I'm shooting for the slowest space race victory. Though still a victory and I'm proud of it.
End date Jan 1975Ad, modest scoring of 17325. Base score 4376.
Not my kind of map type but I enjoyed the game and the random activities. The only ones I got were allways in my favour.
Think that next level will be to tough for me but I'll give it a try.

 

[Melofeign]

I took a closer look at the top scores from last BotM and saw a pattern for quick writing, quick GS, Oracle being build, Glib built, and then buttkicking. So I tried to do that here. Writing _ scientist, check. Oracle, check, and CS with it! GLib, check, no onto the...

Why are there 6 HAs at my doorstep? Ach, what the review tool for XotMs don't show you is unit creation and distrbution. I believe I missed that. Khan took my capitol, and I only had 2 cities at the time.

Got that city back, but I played from behind the whole game. Came to within 6 votes of a diplo vistory only to have some folk's worst enemy change as I trade a bunch with the new enemy. Then space I was just a little too late. Darius wins space. Boo!

I learned quite a bit playing from behind and not simply giving this game up. But didn't learn enough to win. I enjoyed it though!

 

[Lexad]

Educating myself in BtS milking - contender, Sushi, some 390+K, forced finish due to strike.

Chopped GLhouse and Oracle (Confu), lost 3rd city (deer+furs+seafood to prevent England from settling copper) to barbs at 2.7% prob - Vicky settled my wannabe GP farm at food-rich peninsula. Shifted settling to the SW island. My research was much faster than my production, with all the warfare managed to get Oxford only after Sushi. All production based on Slavery - that played a foul joke on me in the end, when at 30% culture to keep population marginally happy my balance was -1000gpt and growing, and I made no hammer-rich cities and built no factories and power plants to produce gold. Finished at the first turn of strike which sent my happiness into -8 to -12 and killed all growth.

With all the GMs and losing my GP farm to be, got Academy in deep ADs.

Delayed a bit on the way to Edu to get Classic Literature quest - not worth it.

 

[Htadus]

Goal Achieved but I think I aimed too low for a goal.

Educating myself in BtS milking - contender, Sushi, some 390+K, forced finish due to strike.

Chopped GLhouse and Oracle (Confu), lost 3rd city (deer+furs+seafood to prevent England from settling copper) to barbs at 2.7% prob - Vicky settled my wannabe GP farm at food-rich peninsula. Shifted settling to the SW island. My research was much faster than my production, with all the warfare managed to get Oxford only after Sushi. All production based on Slavery - that played a foul joke on me in the end, when at 30% culture to keep population marginally happy my balance was -1000gpt and growing, and I made no hammer-rich cities and built no factories and power plants to produce gold. Finished at the first turn of strike which sent my happiness into -8 to -12 and killed all growth.

With all the GMs and losing my GP farm to be, got Academy in deep ADs.

Delayed a bit on the way to Edu to get Classic Literature quest - not worth it.

Nice job Lexad it seem you did a hell of a job of educating yourself. I too had a very eye opening game.

This was my first really focused game to achieve a high score ever and I like it. By the 18th century I had 52 cities from departed Mongol, Pesian+Arabian, Japanese+Korean and Spanish civs. I did not like English lands so did not take them untill last 2 turns to finish the game.

Only real mistake I did was loosing my Sushie GM to a GA. I had an Artist, Merchant and a Scientist. I thought I selected the Artist and the Scientist and selected the GA and it consumed the artist and the merchant. Only thing I may have done wrong is to have selected all three by mistake. Anyways I ended up waiting another 40+ turns to naturally get a merchant. I should have switched to casts and run as many merchants in my GP farm near england.

With just an hour left for submittal, I attacked england and vasselized Vicky to get domination in 1864AD. My score was just 130k but was going up - about 4k each turn.

I am very impressed by Sushie. Never saw a city go from 1 to 15 in just as many turns. So I may have to play for the gold one of these days when I have time. I think having time to do this is the key. Anyways, Thanks for an awsome experiance game designer.

 

[Lexad]

Only real mistake I did was loosing my Sushie GM to a GA. I had an Artist, Merchant and a Scientist. I thought I selected the Artist and the Scientist and selected the GA and it consumed the artist and the merchant. Only thing I may have done wrong is to have selected all three by mistake.

To limit the odds, select the GPs for GA, move them on a tile without any other GP and select GA for the mini-stack.

 

[jesusin]

jesusin, contender. Goal: Gold Medal (points). Result: 1732AD domination victory for half a million points.


Well, everything had gone wrong up to 500AD. Very slow REX, failed CS sling, Worker scarcity, slow Victoria war, late Colossus, I became timid after taking Vicky (I should immediately have gone after Kublai instead of concentrating on peaceful development).
Am I on my way for another silver medal? No way!
If I can't compete on speed this game, my cities will have less turns to grow their pop and I'll get less points... unless I have more cities or unless I spread Sushi faster... hmmmm.
Ok, here is my new plan: I won't stay at 12 or 20 cities till Sushi is founded, as I normally would. I have GLH and Colossus, I will avoid Astronomy and this way I won't kill my economy by overexpanding. When Sushi is founded I will have to concentrate on executives, yes, but I won't need to settle so many cities at the same time, since I will have already settled them and whipped a granary in them too. I cross my fingers.

I settle meany cities, the first of which is a shortcut-culture-bridge to Japan. I get MoM and Moai (in the W tip of the SW island. I get a GE, used in a GAge to revolt to Mercantilism and OR, then whip Universities.
Preparation of Kublai war takes too long. I am micromanaging the timing of my whips, so I am waiting for the perfect time in each city instead of whipping Berseckers everywhere at the same time to use all of them together, as I should be doing.

1000AD Stats: 15 cities, 90 pop, 8 workers, 28 units (2kni),6 ships, 3 strategic resources, 4 luxury resources, 6 health resources, 2 great persons, 4 world wonders, 1 national wonders, food/production/commerce=279-156-667, 473 sustainable beakers per turn, 103 culture per turn, 84 great person points per turn, 800 gold. 2 religions. 6/6 cottages used, 37 Techs: Optics, almost Econo, no Liber. 1 civs killed. 13 hours played.


I get Oxford 1030AD. I take 2 Kublai cities with Pyramids in them and make his last city in the pole to my NW my vassal, so that his culture reduces my tiles count.
I whip many a knight and attack Toku. I take his 4 cities in 5 turns. I get HE, NE and FP. By 1335AD I've built 19 cities and stolen 10, by 1360AD I've settled another 8 cities.
All my cities are set to build (whip) granary-lh-forge-ch in that order.
I delay TajMahal in order to use its GAge for the revolt to FR. I get Biology 1385AD and Liberalism with free Medicine 1390AD. Then research Constitution and Corporration to found Sushi 1410AD. So late!
Revolt to FR, FM and Natio. Research at 0% forever.

Year - Sushied cities - courthouses - cities - gpt - Points
1410 - 1 - 16 - 42 - 725 - 118K
1445 - 15 - 22 - 48 - 160 - 121K Capital not needed for executives anymore, start WallStreet
1465 - 22 - 23 - 49 - 0 - 128K
1500 - 34 - 29 - 56 - 450 - 162K
1520 - 43 - 34 - 61 - 300 - 177K
1545 - 53 - 40 - 64 - 200 - 205K Wallstreet takes me out of red numbers
1575 - 64 - 47 - 67 - 150 - 235K
1605 - 71 - 57 - 72 - 0 - 269K
...
1660 - 87 - 69 - 87 - 300 - 345K
1732 - 93 - xx - 92 - 1500 - 510K

I started with Sushi giving 17fpt. I didn't dare to trade for more sushi resources, since each new one would reduce my gpt by -50.
At the very end Sushi was giving 33fpt, although some of the AI wouldn't trade their excess resources(?).

Economic notes:
CS+Merc -> Natio+FM = +200gpt
Colossus = +150gpt midgame
GAge = +250gpt
Wall Street = +400gpt
1 more sushi resource = -50gpt
Making peace after a long war = +1500gpt


Drafted a lot of Rifles around 1500AD. Traded for a lot of sushi resources 1550AD. Whipped a lot of forges, markets and grocers around 1620AD; Important lesson: I should have fogotten about happiness and concentrated on healt; each new happy face providaed some 6bpt and 0 food while each health point gave 1fpt. Since score is (practically) only based on pop, health it's much better.
Took some barb cities (mistake) to train my rifles before taking Spain. Found myself at 1630AD at 30 tiles from domination and still doing 8000 points a turn. Two turns later I was at 15 tiles from victory, so I started gifting cities.
The second barb city I wanted to gift was not desirable for anyone. So I razed many Spanish cities in a long war to leave Isabella bellow 5 cities so she would accept any city I gave her... but didn't work, it seems to work only if the civ has never had a bunch of cities. My vassal wouldn't take it either.

1670AD I'm again at 13 tiles from domination, saladin is the new vassal of Darius, nobody would take my pop25 barb city. 1700AD 3 tiles left, no way to gift it so I gift 2 cities back to Isabella including some seafood, ugh.

Up to 1700AD my score increment per turn has gone up. Now I am getting +12000 points per turn when it was +9500 around 1680AD.
Then, from that point on, my score increment is reduced dramatically (+10000 1704 AD, +8000 1712AD, +5000 1716AD, +3000 1724AD, +1000 1728AD, -1000 1730AD). There are two factors at play here:
- My cities were maturing, so they didn't grow 1 pop per turn anymore but something like 1 pop every 3 turns.
- At 1700AD the finish date multiplier of the score formula changes abruptly.

I don't know which of these two factors is the predominant one. If it was the latter, then I think getting 1 million points this game is feasible. Had the barb galley not appeared so soon, I would have easily saved 10 turns overall. 20 turns at my peak of 12000 points per turn is a quarter of a million points!

57 hours of play, optimizing whipping in almost 100 cities is a timeconsuming task. Stats at the end say I was doing 6000 food per turn.





Now the question is, does this game deserve a gold medal? Does this player deserve an eptathlon?

 

[Dynamic]

Now the question is, does this game deserve a gold medal? Does this player deserve an eptathlon?

I think YES, you deserve eptathlon.
You've reached very nice score from so weak start. Congrats!

 

[jesusin]

Educating myself in BtS milking - contender, Sushi, some 390+K, forced finish due to strike.

Chopped GLhouse and Oracle (Confu), lost 3rd city (deer+furs+seafood to prevent England from settling copper) to barbs at 2.7% prob - Vicky settled my wannabe GP farm at food-rich peninsula. Shifted settling to the SW island. My research was much faster than my production, with all the warfare managed to get Oxford only after Sushi. All production based on Slavery - that played a foul joke on me in the end, when at 30% culture to keep population marginally happy my balance was -1000gpt and growing, and I made no hammer-rich cities and built no factories and power plants to produce gold. Finished at the first turn of strike which sent my happiness into -8 to -12 and killed all growth.

With all the GMs and losing my GP farm to be, got Academy in deep ADs.

Delayed a bit on the way to Edu to get Classic Literature quest - not worth it.

I'd love to know more about your game, in particular:

- When did you get Sushi?
- When did you win?
- How did you win, being at strike? conquest?
- Why 30% culture???? I had 15 unhappy faces in each city at the end. Raising the cultural slider only led to worse gpt. I never tried to get my people happy, it doesn't matter, as long as you are working every food tile. I regret having whipped markets.

 

[kcd_swede]

So far nobody has reported a faster domination than mine. Perhaps my guess that the top players (and Jesusin ) who chose domination VC would try to milk score was correct? I'm still suspecting there are people who didn't write a spoiler that beat it, but for now the dream of a second "fastest" award is still alive (and maybe entry into the "hit'em where they aint" club, too).

Good luck on the gold medal race, Jesusin.... I think you deserve it!

 

[Lexad]

- When did you get Sushi?
- When did you win?
- How did you win, being at strike? conquest?
- Why 30% culture????

- 1450AD
- 1718AD
- domi
- lategame warfare; when I declared on my last turn, I had negative food growth in all cities at 0% culture. I should've not, I guess, but Izzy declared on her own first, and then I was rushing for finish 4am before the submit date, so no time for reconsiderations.

Congratulations (I hope)!

In BUFFY-1, micromanagement takes too much. Hiring merchants and abandoning farms - "prioritise food" my bum!

 

[Niklas]

In BUFFY-1, micromanagement takes too much. Hiring merchants and abandoning farms - "prioritise food" my bum!

I don't think it's to do with BUFFY, the mod doesn't change the governor actions. But the problem is certainly real, going through each city each turn to fire that stupidly hired Spy...

Very enlightening to read about the games by Lexad and jesusin. I see I still have much to learn.

 

[Htadus]

Very enlightening to read about the games by Lexad and jesusin. I see I still have much to learn.

I second that. BTW Jesusin, I hope you get the gold in this game for you have perseveird for a time now. I hope you get your Eptathelon.

 

[Lexad]

Next time I'll change two things: no late (afterSushi) conquest and building several production powerhouses for gold production if need arises.

 

[jesusin]

How many cities did you have in the end, Lexad?