BOTM 290: Queen Isabella 290, Emperor - Final Spoiler - Game Submitted

[Noble Zarkon]

BOTM 290: Queen Isabella 290, 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 290 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.

 

[nocho]

Thanks to Spain's mayor power outage yesterday, I had the chance to finish this game. No electricity at the office, but at home I was lucky to have it reestablished relatively quickly so I had the afternoon and early evening to guide Isabela to a domination victory. It took quite a while to start the hostilities, but finally in 1400AD Egypt was invaded with knights. Ramesses and Genghis had had their previous fights already, so that left them both weakened. The last Egypian city fell in 1555AD, most noteworthy in Egypt's equally miserable lands was a nice buddhist shrine in Thebes. Also it got me a stone resource up north, but it wasn't all that essential anymore as I got both stone and marble in trade from Bismarck from the time I got to Astronomy. Genghis was even weaker than Ramesses and his lands were absorbed by 1615AD. I assembled an invasion force, comprising of conquistadors now, for Mansa who was by far the weakest on the other continent and invaded in 1680AD. He was at war with Japan already, but I got to all his cities but one before Toku did. Conveniently Mansa dragged Suleiman into it against Japan, so they were both weakened when Mansa was no more in 1715AD. After some minor healing I declared on Japan and the sun didn't rise for Toku anymore by 1775AD. In 1785AD I declared on Suleiman and got my German pal into it too. I conquered 3 cities and on the dawn of a bright new century, I hit domination in 1800AD.

Under normal circumstances of course nothing to write home about, but given the scenario and the brownest map I ever saw (I think there wasn't a single grass tile on the map?), the severe lack of health resources (no grains nor cattle, not even fish!), and also the no-vassals setting, it didn't feel all that bad. In any case, I quite enjoyed this game, especially earlier on, to make most of the barren wasteland. Also getting finally to biology and all the watered brown finally giving some extra food for growth somehow felt quite good!

 

[Mitchum]

I decided to play a peaceful game after the conquest slog from the last BOTM. There were no religions on my continent pre Astronomy so Culture and Religious were out. There was a massive lack of production so Space would have been painful. So I decided to go for Diplo. I got two GEs so that I could one-turn the UN. The first one was at 95%+ odds and the second one was at ~50% odds.

On my continent, Ramesses and Genghis were constantly warring and trying to drag me into the war which I refused because I didn't want to build an army... I had a warrior/archer as MP in each city and about 4 maces and one catapult that I used to take out a barb city in the SW area of my continent. I had a lot of negative diplo from both of them for refusing their demands.

On the other continent, Suleiman and Bismarck were Buddhist buddies and Toku and Mansa were Jewish brothers. Suleiman and Bismarck were tag teaming on Toku and I let myself get dragged into the war. This quickly got Suleiman and Bismarck to Friendly but Mansa was not happy. So I bribed Mansa into the war against his brother so that I could get some shared-war love.

My plan at this point was to get Suleiman (second in population by a long way), Bismarck and Mansa all to vote for me and I was going to gift the UN to Ramesses so that he would be my opponent. However, once I was Secretary General, I noticed that it would be VERY close if I could get just Bismarck and Mansa to vote for me and Suleiman could vote for himself (even though he would have voted for me in a landslide against Ramesses). There was no way Toku, Ramesses or Genghis were going to vote for anyone... Ramesses and Genghis hadn't even met the other continent until I built the UN.

At this point, I had to run a test game because I forgot the mechanics of how the UN works. I was going to leave it until the final turn to decide where I would go up against Suleiman or gift the UN to Ramesses so that he would be my opponent.

In order to get Bismarck to like me more than Suleiman, I bribed Bismarck into Free Religion and I also got him to stop his war with Toku. Losing the shared religion bonus was enough but I wanted the extra -1 diplo for Suleiman and Bismarck not having a current shared war.

At this point, I was assured Mansa's and Bismarck's vote (and Suleiman's if I needed it). I grew all of my cities as much as possible in the next 5 turns. I decided on the final turn to try my luck against Suleiman and I won with only 2 votes to spare (I needed 295 votes and I got 297)!

Diplo victory in 1730 AD.

Overall, it was a fun game. The absence of forests, grassland, and several resources made production much slower than normal. It will be interesting to see the Space dates if anyone chose that option.

 

[Frederiksberg]

In the early AD's I concentrated on expanding the empire. The gems city was settled and served as a bottleneck that any attack would have to come through. Genghis never made any move despite showing a red fist for thousands of years. I made contact with the other continent around 1100AD and noted that it was peaceful as well with no wars at all. But the peace ended when an army of Spanish knights attacked Ramesses around 1200 AD. Ramesses didn't have feudalism yet, so the attack went smoothly. After Ramesses was gone, the knights headed east and attacked Genghis. He got to Engineering but didn't have any iron for pikes and was easily eliminated. At this point I had explored the other continent and noted that both Toku and Suleiman had war elephants so I decide to wait for conquistadors before I attacked. Around 1550 AD the Spanish Armada landed on Toku's peninsula, where he had a 3 seafood city that was captured. Then another city at the base of the peninsula, but unfortunately I had not noticed that it had the AP Hindu religion in it and this made the religious victory viable since Hinduism had spread even to the far reaches of the German empire. I "survived" the first vote for religious victory, but decided to change my plans and loaded most of my army back onto the armada and sailed for Timbuktu, where the AP had been built. By this time I had gotten Communism from Liberalism and changed civics to State Property, so I was able to keep all the captured cities. When I had taken all of Mansas mainland cities I resumed the war against Toku. Got to Rifling and Chemistry for cavalry and frigates and since it made little sense to do more research, I upgraded all my units to cavalry. Toku folded fast and I left him with a small island. I was very close to domination but had to push into Suleiman's territory and raze a couple of border cities to get above the 64% land. Domination in the mid-18th century. Sort of underwhelming, but with the land we were given, I guess that all victory dates are going to be late.

I liked the map. The poor land called for a non-standard strategy with more emphasis on sea food and working coast tiles. And the concept of rebuilding a civilization in a post apocalyptic world is pretty cool. I was thinking of Queen Isabella as Imperator Furiosa and the pre-settled barb cities added to the Mad Max flavor.

 

[Xcalibrator]

Psychically sensing Mitchum's desire for someone to go for Space, I did so, with a highly underwhelming date of 2020. I did nab the isthmus gems site, but didn't attack anyone until 1400 or so, starting with Egypt, which fell quickly. A nice Buddhist shrine helped the budget, and I finished spreading The Word to all my cities. Mongolia didn't look very attractive so I didn't seriously attack them for awhile--it may have been as late as Sushi before I wiped them out. Food was, of course, our big problem, and Sushi provided a welcome solution. I thought about incorporating Mining, but it seemed like a lot of work, and I only had 7 or so resources for it to call upon until late in the game (ultimately 10), when I founded it and then spread to 3 more cities to help with spaceship production. Madrid was the big dog on production, with Iron Works and all the hills mined and plains workshopped, supported by seafood and Sushi. I ran a ton of Great Merchants to the other continent to get gold--my GPP requirement was up to 3300 at the end, and almost all cities had been building gold for a long time to support research. I ran three Golden Ages along the way, but lost the Music race, and MoM by one turn.

Thanks very much for the game, NZ! Glad I was able to finish one.

 

[kcd_swede]

I tried for space, but knew something was wrong when I got Liberalism (took Astronomy iirc) in 1640AD. Not a typo.
So even though I had one legendary city and an almost complete spaceship (sans engines), I had to settle for a valiant attempt at the Fastest Time victory medal. That's a thing, right?

 

[Mitchum]

I had to settle for a valiant attempt at the Fastest Time victory medal. That's a thing, right?

What a great idea for a new medal!

 

[zbgayumn]

Well, seeing the dates, I don't feel too bad. Culture victory in 1975. I went for it right from the beginning - founded 5 of the 7 religions. I got GLH early on, which was super helpful since I only built coastal cities. The lack of production killed me on the Wonders. Eventually, Bismarck started taking everything before I could finish it. Versailles, Taj Mahal, Notre Dame, and most painfully of all Sistine Chapel. So, I did it the hard way: Spread 5 religions to at least 9 cities, build 45 temples, and then 15 cathedrals. I did get the G. Art. from Music, and I generated maybe 10 overall. Unfortunately, it took me a long time to settle the two-tile island that had 3 seafood around it. I finally got National Epic running there in the later 1800's, I think. I could get 5 artists going there, 6 temporarily, if I went -1 on food.

Btw, is civfanatics.net down? It times out when I try to go to the Submit page.

 

[zbgayumn]

Btw, is civfanatics.net down? It times out when I try to go to the Submit page.

Ok, the page will load today, but it still crashes when I submit my game. I tried it in two different browsers. Unless it actually went through and didn't tell me, I guess won't have a submission. I'll be away from my computer for the next two days.

 

[Xcalibrator]

Ok, the page will load today, but it still crashes when I submit my game. I tried it in two different browsers. Unless it actually went through and didn't tell me, I guess won't have a submission. I'll be away from my computer for the next two days.

I just tried loading the submission page and it took about 10 seconds, so yeah, somethin' ain't right. Try PM'ing NZ with your game save attached (I think that works?).