BOTM 29 Final Spoiler

[DynamicSpirit]

BOTM 29 Final Spoiler

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in BOTM 29, then you MUST NOT read this thread unless

• You have submitted your entry

Posting Restrictions

• Please do not reveal locations of modern resources (coal and later)

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Well, I can't reveal the location of coal anyway. Unless I look at someone else's final save, I will never see it on this map.

This one turned out interesting for me, and I doubt I will get a winning finish. AP just BARELY didn't pan out, SB just wouldn't get up to +8 in time before they started civic switching.

I lost lib by 1 turn (heavy expansion + blocking + capturing barb cities before the AI could get them with 1 exception cost me some short term tech power and I wasn't paying enough attention), but just traded heavily while teching democracy. Nobody was really threatening so it was easy. After democracy, I teched steel and rifling.

I promptly turned off my slider after doing so.

thanks to AP religion spreading, I was already set up for theocracy. While teching democracy I build market/grocer/bank (banks 1st, generally) in all my cottage-spammed empire, meaning well over 1000 /turn. It took a little time to set this up, such that ~1400 AD I was ready. Unfortunately, the rest of the world had rifles except culture whore Asoka...

So the logical course of action was to attack liz and her redcoats . After taking 2 cities and nearly her capitol and having ~5:1 kill/death because CR II cannons pwn, she capitulated. Next!

Asoka was the only person I fought who didn't have rifles. I took 3 cities and then he capped. I did not take any legendary-to-be cities because that would have taken longer and I didn't want to risk peacevassal garbage. His #3 was >100 turns out anyway...if I can't win by then, the finish wouldn't be remotely competitive.

Next was Sitting Bull. He had a stack of ~30 rifles, and retook a city (cahokia actually) I stuck 3 rifles in using that stack. This split his stack in 2, and I promptly shredded 15+ rifles with minimal losses and took capitulation.

Hatty was next, because she was running away in tech and had considerable holdings abroad, but unlike Willem was not a master of a colony yet (willem created Washington). Hatty had tanks, infantry, arty, and full metal navy. I...was still running 0% science and spamming rifles/cannons. Despite her tech prowess, she didn't have a large standing army. I killed tanks, machine guns, etc with over a 2:1 kill ratio, taking her capitol and most of the rest of her core. She capitulated.

Hammy was next, since he was not a master of a vassal. He "only" had rifles despite being very far ahead in tech. At this point my power was getting pretty stupid so he capped after losing 1 city.

Finally, Willem. I wanted to make him a "land target" of as many civs as possible (new world gave extra opportunities for this), to drop his capitulation threshold since having washington as a colony (in the NEARBY islands!) inflates his opinion of himself. My planning worked. This war was over in <5 turns, mostly because his stack was situated in a city bordering hatty directly (as in, could be reached on turn of DoW). This meant that despite the 30+ infantry and large assortment of other defenders, he got absolutely raped by my cannons. Well, I guess 30-50 units don't do very well vs >100 cannons and >100 rifles (I had over 160 of each at the end of the game, but not all located there, I split my stack to cover more ground). A few turns later he capped. The instant he capped, washington was also willing. Game over.

So yes, this game was a boring but effective "tech to renaissance then rape the AI" exercise for me. Tanks vs rifles, while having the rifles, was interesting but not new for me...and it was an easy win . HATTY knew where oil/coal was, but I could care less. In 1754 AD, the world was finished by way of conquest.

 

[Silu]

By the way, why can't you reveal modern resources if only people who have already submitted can read this?

This game was both fun and filled with ridiculous play errors for me When I was blocking land for myself, I get a nasty streak of Barb axes through terrain... Who razed a city of mine. When I finally got to rebuild it near the Pigs, Jungle grew on the Pig tile! Curses.

After my initial expansion, I thought "too bad I didn't have time to focus on GLH, would be killer on this map". Then at 500AD(!) I notice it was built. I just assumed it was already gone by ~500BC and didn't even bother to check, could easily have taken it Kind of annoying, seeing how it's insanely huge on this map - I don't think anyone'll reach the top spots without it (at least, anyone who's contending for the top spots wouldn't make a stupid error like this ).

Anyhow, my plan was to expand peacefully and aim for Sushi and Mining Inc by taking the minimal possible spots in the new world, only to grab resources I'm possibly missing, and focusing on settling the seafood in the old world archipelago. Turned out great, but because the empire was sorta big and I wanted to get all infra in place before going on a spree (not optimal for score purposes, but felt better!), when I already had Factorization and Corporatization and Wonderization (Broadway, Radio-trio, 3GD), I already had all the military techs in the game except Advanced Flight and Stealth.

So I'm going to one-up and invert TMIT's matchup () and from this point on finally went for a conquest spree with Modern Armors against Rifles (just the more backwards Civs though like culture-Asoka, the majority had Infantry at least) - begun my first war at ~1750AD and triggered Domination-Conquest at 1824AD, having vassalized 7 Civs and eliminated one, 2 techs left in the tree. More ex-rivals as vassals as what the game started with Was a fun romp - I had the biggest corpos I've ever had in a Standard map, and also the first time ever in Civ4 I've used Stealth Bombers for example.

I thought the massive Sushi would give tons of score, but since my finish was delayed a lot it was kinda disappointing. The game itself was tons of fun though, can't remember the last time I went MA vs Rifles on Immortal. I could have pushed for a much earlier finish by starting earlier wars, but didn't bother. Had way enough micro with that damn archipelago+corpo business, I think my game time was sth like 7 hours!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

So I'm going to one-up and invert TMIT's matchup ()

. I've been playing too much CoD MW2. I like the foot troops with guns ! Well, actually what I like in civ is mindless gobs of whatever + siege mowing down cities. Far less planning goes into that vs air raids, nukes, tanks, etc.

I didn't mention my civics. For much of the game, I used rep/bur/slavery/merc/pacifism (IIRC), but my end-game war civics were US/FS/Eman/Merc/Theo. Yes, no-corp (or rep!) mercantilism. Since I was #1 land and #1 in cities, and I was planning on vassal spam and wanted to slow everyone else down, I opted to remain in merc. That, and doing that meant no more need to tech .

I'll probably not even make top 5 in score, maybe in conquest finish date 2-3 people will beat me lol. That's what I get for doing 2 hr 40 min games.

 

[kcd_swede]

Hi, you can read through my first spoiler here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9144739&postcount=3

I ran out of steam writing up this final part (hope that doesn't spoil the coal thingy).

Post 1AD spoiler:
Recap…
As mentioned, Hatty, Sitting Bull, Asoka, Orange, Hammarabi and myself are Jewish, and Liz is Bhudist. Sitting bull extorted gems from me in early BC era, and I let him keep having them for free after the 10 turns – for the rest of the game. Everyone else just wants me to stop trading with Liz, and I am happy to oblige. Its weird that Liz hates me most, except when she hates everyone else even more for trading with me – but then goes back to hating me most for trading with them. I have lots of excess resources to trade/sell, so I mostly sell them at bargain prices (ivory to Babylon for 5 gold per turn, I must be mad! ).

In the capitol, I have gotten Black Pearls, and an ordinary PH mine popped gems-this is a commerce crazy place now with Maoa Statues, GLH trade route, and Collosus seafood with black pearls. Had a hurricane take out a barracks in a former Egypt former barb city. Otherwise events have been not noticeable.

I also start this session dead last in score, and at least 6 or 7 techs behind every civ, with no tech trading opportunities yet. Not a single tech gained in trade. So at least my WFYBTA limits have lots of room left on them. (But almost everyone is friendly so wfybta doesn’t even matter).

At 20AD I get Currency, which is a tech that Sitting Bull and Willem both lack. My first trading opportunity!!! Its amazing how low value all those worker techs and precursor stuff have gotten (since they are known by everyone except me). I am able to pick up quite a few low level techs that I need. Only to be able to see there is no end to the tech deficit… every tech I get just shows two more that they have and I don’t. Ugh.

My research path from here is pretty erratic. I’m basically aiming for Astro through education. My tech choice process is thus: (a) look at tech tree to see what techs I needs. (b) Look at Diplo tech trade screen to see what techs that I can research that SB or Willem lack (c) if an a-tech is also a b-tech, that’s what I select to research, if not (d) select a b-tech to research that will have enough value to trade for at least one a-tech, if none exists, (e) select an a-tech to research. So now you know how I think, and why I prefer not to.
This tech path, plus using a GM to bulb banking, starts making me competitive, and my score is now in the middle somewhere (4th place?). It also improves relations since the AI are always happy when they rip you off, and they only trade if they can rip you off.


Education is the first tech I beat anyone other than SB and Willem to. (Note, Liberalism went to Asoka like 500BC or something ridiculous like that). It’s a biggie, and when trading is done I am in first place. Note, as a noob I used to trade it to everyone in one turn. Now, I trade it to one or maybe two depending on how many techs I need, then wait a turn and trade it for the techs that were unlocked by the pre-reqs I just traded for. Smart eh? (So I guess I stopped being a noob about 3 weeks ago…). I have Oxford built about 1200AD.

Frigates are flying around (I used to wet myself when I saw that before Optics, but now I am only happy that this should keeps pirates at bay in pirates bay). I sign a Defense Pact with Sitting Bull (OMG… I don’t even want to think about the implications of that on my tech deficit right now).


I am last to have Optics. Yet, I wasn’t so far behind… I was able to get the circumnav bonus! And my caravel brings Kalem to the new world, where he proceeds to pop 5 huts filled with hostile villagers (he needs to work on his manners, I guess). At least he maps the place for my wave of Wicken Knights (who say Nee!).

1360AD I get yet another in a long series of AP diplo victory votes between Hatty and Asoka and I abstain. When I see the results screen showing that Huayna Capac leads the voting… even though Huayna Capac abstained… it was a real DOH! Moment. As it turns out (checking the screenshot called stupid.jpg)

Spoiler :

I would have fallen short a few votes even if I had voted for myself. But I figure a couple missionaries and this games won in 10 turns when the next vote comes up. Except that now Free Religion is stepping up and starting to mess with all my happy Jewish neighbors, not to mention close borders negative modifiers in the new world, and on the archipelago... and not to mention new civ colonies being spawned (Washington, vassal to Willem).

So I play it like it’s a UN game anyhow. Electricity is the very first tech I get that is a monopoly tech. I am first to electricity. Can you friggin believe it??? I can’t. Anyhow, I trade it to two civs and will trade it to two more next turn and then I will be all caught up in the tech race (and will watch the rest of it in my rear view mirror). Space almost seems tempting… despite the slow tech start I’m actually moving along fairly well now, and have 5 new cities in the new world with one more to fall next turn, when…

Spoiler :

Huayna Capac has won a diplomatic (AP) victory. 1460AD, score 102k +.

I am 25 turns from having Mass Media, and my shaved knuckle in the hole is still sitting there doing nothing. 1 GE wasted.

Although this is unlikely to be the fastest AP victory (unless the “hit’em where they ain’t” factor plays in), it ought to be the highest scoring one. It is certainly my highest scoring AP victory ever, so not so bad. Almost disappointed that I didn’t play this one through to a space finish… it was exciting from start to finish and I was disappointed to see it end just as the new world barb-crushing conquest was at its most exciting. But the longer I let it go on, the more ways there is for me to lose – nothing is a given on this level, even if things were going my way for the moment.

And the bottom line, I set a goal to win this game any way I could, and that’s what I did. From last place to first place in a span of about 50 turns, without firing a shot. Happy happy fun fun!

 

[Silu]

. I've been playing too much CoD MW2. I like the foot troops with guns ! Well, actually what I like in civ is mindless gobs of whatever + siege mowing down cities. Far less planning goes into that vs air raids, nukes, tanks, etc.

Funny you should mention that, for me this game was also noteworthy as being the least warplanned/microed war ever. I just altbuilt MA/MArty(/MSam) with the odd flying unit here and there, and just a-moved (toss-style! ), not stopping for anything for the most part (didn't have a supermedic - heck, I didn't even have a medic, promotions do just fine ).

 

[Sleepless]

Cleared out all my saves and not taking any notes but as a personal thing this game stands out.

Yay for me a first pre 1800AD space victory. Landed approx 1786 (give or take a couple of years).

No early wars although I capped both Asoka/Liz with Currassiers. Lots of unhappiness in my cites from overwhipping to get those very quickly.

First to Astro and settled/captured barb cities to take a lot of the land. Ham/Wil got most of the rest. Can be quite expensive so made sure I got SP as my expenses were quite high.

Other than that just used Liz/Asoka to tech a few techs for me and with a very high (for me) sustainable 5000 + beakers per turn around 1700 was able to speed through the later ones and just to say again lead to my earliest space victory.

 

[beestar]

It all started so well. Asoka was too far away to Q-rush so I blocked him off with a line of 4 cities running W to E across the continent, leaving room to backfill at least 13 cities on the mainland. That's enough to win right there, really.

Then, I founded GLH and Colossus and proceeded to settle the northern archipelago. Each island got 1 or 2 cities to avoid colonial maintenance, and each city was pulling in tons of commerce from trade routes, fast. I only had 2 cottages until about 800AD!

Harbors, Free Market, intercontinental trade, massively profitable sea tiles ... it was all going great.

That's when I decided to get to the New World and found two colonies to create good trade routes and trading partners. I spawned Lincoln in northern continent by settling 4 cities and capturing 3 barb cities (he eventually grew to 11 cities). I spawned Toku in the south with 4 tightly packed cities, but he was boxed in by Willem and he never did anything.

Unfortunately Lincoln's first act as President of America was to trade away my monopoly techs like Steam Power, for crap like Military Science and Democracy. Not only did it help the AIs, now I had no techs to trade to them for diplo or trade bait! What a knob.

I ended up successfully founding Sushi and growing enormous cities, but I lost Mining Inc. to SB by three turns. (I was waiting for a GE to pop from my 5 engineer specialists in Ironworks city - next time I'll tech Assembly Line before Railroad, so that I can build a factory and then run 7 engineers at a time). Instead, I founded Creative Constructions (actually not a bad idea as my border cities were being heavily pressed by Indian culture)

Never fought any wars thanks to the Buddhist love fest.

Result: Space race in 1860. I could have done a LOT better if I had just kept the New World to myself and had a 32 city empire.

 

[srad]

Conquest 920AD

Settled in place, worker first, then Quechua. Mining, Fishing.

Practical the game was won 2750BC.

My Quechua was looking at the borders of Dehli for a worker. The second Quechua arrived and saw a worker farming the corn of Bombay (east of Dehli). Waited a few turns looking for a second worker but didn't see one. DOW! First Quechua is heading to Dehli to have a look. One Archer in Dehli! Second Quechua is two turns away. Two turns later still one Archer in Dehli. Attack odds are really low (below 10%). Will I loose two Quechuas or ...
Attacked. Archer has strength 2 after the fight. Attack odds are something like 53% for the second Quechua...I watched the longest fight of my life, must be something like 10 minutes... he wins the fight with 0.2 strength left. There is an Asoka Archer around but Asoka signs peace!

Spoiler :

This was probalby the greatest 'luck' I ever had in a civ game and now it was not the question if I win the game but more how fast and how high (ok, I'm confident that I could mess up this situation).

Grapped a lot of land and built all those nice wonders (Oracle, GW, Great Lighthouse, Colossus, Great Lib, SoZ). Killed Asoka later with Quechuas and tried to stoneage Liz (the first DOW was also a big risk because I didn't scouted her land and did not know if she had copper or horses). But later I made a mistake and saw to late the iron spot. She was able to squeeze out an axe, did a misclick and my Quechua was dead. So I left her alone for a while.

Order of capitulations:
1. Sitting Bull: Still no longbows ->great! (mix of units + knights)
2. Liz (knights)
3. Hatche (knights)
4. William (knights + curassiers)
5. Hammurabi (curassiers)

Spoiler :

Liz and William capitulated after capturing one single city, this was really surprising for me. I guess I also killed their SOD by capturing this city.

Really nice game for me with a game breaking lucky moment!

 

[InvisibleStalke]

Domination in mid 1500's.

Very fun game. Started with the GLH which was incredible on this map. I was slow to kickoff, but I was able to expand a line of cities going SE that sealed off the penisular to expand into and I grabbed lots of the small islands. I thought Asoka was going to run away with it when nearly everyone went Hindu - including me. I was lucky that my REX kept me with enough Hindu cities to block him from an AP win.

Once I got to Civil Service my economy just exploded and I was first to Liberalism (although I had to burn a GP to make it in time). My capital was size 20 by then and I had lots of small cities scattered everywhere.

Then to Astronomy and grabbing large chunks of the lands to the east. I probably could have won faster without them, but it was fun and my economy could sustain it. Was first to rifling and then just started rolling up the AIs. Hammurabi was the last holdout when I took enough of his cities in the new world to reach the domination threshold - everyone else was my vassal.

 

[-Asterix-]

First of all, hello to everybody!

I’ve been reading the forums for some time now and decided to finally register here, mainly because I wanted to try these BOTM games and also submit them. Actually, I first thought to skip this one too and come along when they dropped the difficulty level, but couldn’t resist. I’ve played only noble games before, so this jump to immortal seemed quite harsh. And I hadn’t even used whipping extensively until this game. That said, I picked the adventurer save on emperor to make things a bit easier and hoped to survive as long as I could.

I made some bad moves at the beginning and didn’t block land soon enough (also bad scouting involved), but instead went to the northern archipelago for copper and the other resources. I seemed to be badly behind in tech and number of cities and had the lowest score almost all the time, though I managed to grab land for 6 cities before Asoka surrounded me, at which point I decided to go for culture victory. I was just too much behind in land and military, and my 6 cities seemed to be good enough for that.

I had managed to build GLH and Colossus which helped a lot along the way. Then I beelined to Liberalism and even managed to be first there, which surprised me a bit. At that point I was probably close to overall tech lead also. Then I shut down my research and switched to culture, putting FS to good use and building all the culture boosters I could. I also turned my capital to some kind of GP farm to get as many Great Artists I could. After that I just waited for culture to come in, kept everybody happy and increased my culture output every way I came up with. All the time I waited for somebody to come and just roll over me, but that never happened and I was able to claim culture victory around 1800AD while holding the last position in scores. I was even behind some colony in the new world.

Winning this game, the first one I’ve ever even played beyond noble, was more than enough for me and I don’t mind about the low score. I was surprised that there were no wars in the whole game, which was great for me with just a bunch of LBs and muskets at the end. For the first half of the game I had enough troops to defend myself if I had to, but after I started to hoard culture anybody could have just crushed me if they wanted.

Barbarians didn’t cause too much trouble in this game, mainly because Asoka surrounded me so early. I thought that they would have made life much harder, but a single chariot was enough to repel those few axemen who came inside my cultural borders. Also needed few triremes to keep barbarian galleys away.

 

[Duckweed]

Terra map is terrible to play with. Game crashed several times, especially during war time. Over 100 cities to deal with. Sigh, more than 30 hours spent.

Sexy capital before end.

Spoiler :

 

[TrailblazingScot]

More than 30 hours spent?

Clearly where I go wrong, I just don't have the patience and rush through my games - guess it is a result of being mainly a multiplayer player on blazing timer.

Where I go wrong on these GOTM games is I can't decide how I want to win and I'm too nice. I find it hard to invade people unless they start it. With the exception of India, they were just asking for quechas nicking their workers...though the panthers saw to that! With human beings I rarely have such compunction because it is a us or them situation. With the AI that isn't the case, the poor little sods.

My final report will be later. It won't be with 30 hours played!!!

 

[kcd_swede]

First of all, hello to everybody!

Hello, and welcome to the games! Not bad to get a win your first time out.

 

[beestar]

Some additional photos from my game.

I really learned the power of Sailing as an economic tech in a recent Deity University, and BOTM29 was a good chance to implement it. 12 commerce per turn in a newly founded city in 335BC, thanks to GLH trade routes.

Spoiler :

End-game empire, showing my colony Lincoln's 12 cities which did nothing for me. Hatty was huge in this game with 20+ cities.

Spoiler :

Colossus-powered coastal tiles during a Golden Age - love those moneybags

Spoiler :

Elizabeth being a little over the top, in her attempt to conquer a barb city in 1778AD

Spoiler :

Also, Asoka gifted me Alphabet in 825BC. That's what you get for REXing first ...

 

[TrailblazingScot]

LOL at Lizzy!

That is one way to test your nukes

 

[TrailblazingScot]

Quite a late finish date I'm thinking, but the damn AI wouldn't vote for me until I went and made them my vassals. Then the whole hassle of making colonies to avoid winning by domination!

Game: BtS BOTM 29
Date submitted: 2010-05-03
Entry class: Contender
Game status: Diplomatic Victory for Inca
Game date: 1758AD
Turns played: 389
Base score: 5749
Final score: 197080
Time played: 8:27:27

8 hours 27 minutes...ouch.

I started off by sending a quecha south to south west and was lucky to come across India quickly. I stole a worker, but it got eaten by a panther and then I used my quecha to slow India down.

I quickly got galleys and mined the gold and then settled close to the elephants. If I remember properly I sent a settler to the gem island and settled down to getting the Great Wall and the Oracle (metal casting). All this time I put pressure on India.

At some point I got the Great Lighthouse and took a barbarian city just north of Delhi. After which I took Delhi and so I had two religious cities which presented good diplomatic leverage. After which time I made Asoka my vassal.

Having the Great Wall led to Great Spies...and poor Lizzy had tonnes of techs nicked from her...especially as I managed a second Great Spy. Lets just say, for a good part of the game my stealing was quicker than my teching.

Things proceeded well, I colonised the New World and was generally dominating. Eventually I took down Lizzy because her empire was so big and it was so close to my capital - and as it was an easy task until her Redcoats appeared. Lizzy eventually was allowed to be a rather small vassal.

After which I wasn't certain on how I'd win. I messed up big style by using a Great Merchant on a trade route and not keeping him back for Sushi - boo!!!

Later on I also messed up giving Assembly to Egypt to help her defend herself only for her to effectively stop me winning an earlish diplomatic victory. This meant me having to kill infantry rather than just rifles...boo!

Cue the wars to win by diplomatic as I made everyone my vassal apart from the Babylonians who played a very good game. The poor Dutch...I don't think I've ever had a more one sided war as I killed such vast number of units for maybe the loss of a single unit - it was insane. The main difficulty was avoiding the domination limit for land, so I had to create alot of colonies and gifted back alot of cities to avoid it - this included Amsterdam and Rotterdam!

Avoid it I did and I won in 1758AD

 

[PutCashIn]

My shaved knuckle in the hole was whisked off by Shadowthrone to be flung into the path of a raging Icarium, leaving me all alone (*sob*) to fight the hordes of invading Babylonians...I think I've been defeated in all 3 games this month, bugger.

Off to the Deadhouse for me!

 

[kcd_swede]

My shaved knuckle in the hole was whisked off by Shadowthrone to be flung into the path of a raging Icarium, leaving me all alone (*sob*) to fight the hordes of invading Babylonians...I think I've been defeated in all 3 games this month, bugger.

Off to the Deadhouse for me!

Too bad about that. Maybe there's a Myhbe for you, and you can get vengeance next month.

 

[PutCashIn]

I have a knife, cheesegrater, crushing device and after this month, a reason to do it myself.