[BTS] BOTM 291: Louis XIV, Prince - Final Spoiler - Game Submitted

[kcd_swede]

BOTM 291: Louis XIV, Prince - Final Spoiler - Game Submitted

How di your game go?
Use this thread to tell us what happened in your game, particularly anything after 1AD

NOTE: if you finish your game before the server is back online and thus you cannot upload your "game over" save in the usual fashion,
please submit it to me (kcd_swede) as an attachment to a PM, and I will upload it when the server becomes available again.

Reading Requirements
If you are participating in BOTM 291 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.

 

[Mitchum]

Game submitted via PM to kcd_swede

Like C63, I went for a Culture victory, not because it was the fastest in number of turns, but because the game setup seemed ideal for it (i.e., no early access to metals, no early access to a rival, etc.).

This was definitely an interesting game. I did notice that Peter and Sury were a team BUT neither one was a minor civ (i.e. we could enter diplo conversations with both of them). I guess that means that they were able to trade with each other. I'm not sure if that is a bonus or if it was a negative because they may have had to pay the double the price to research a tech (team game) with only half the beakers of a normal team. In any event, when I met them, they seemed to be on par tech wise with the other AI so the effect must have been minor.

For a Culture victory, I had a bit of bad luck. As soon as I met the AI, they all hated me due to running a different religion. Three of them went WEHORN and Peter + Sury declared war about 15 turns from my planned finish date. Each city was still being guarded by a caveman; the extent of my army was 9 warriors, all on MP duty. Peter's 3 galleons were right outside one of my auxiliary cities but he hadn't unloaded the troops yet. I switched all builds to archers (which I could upgrade) or redcoats. I then played games with leaving one city or another undefended which caused his galleons to sail back and forth a couple of turns without unloading. This gave me time to move all of my cavemen to the vulnerable cities, build a few new units and to upgrade all that I could afford. By the time he finally unloaded, I was able to wipe out his stack without much trouble. He did bombard city walls for a turn which gave me even more time to prepare. Luckily, the AI don't know how to fight amphibious wars.

Another bit of bad luck was getting a non great artist at low odds with about 12 turns to go. I had to rejigger my cities to crank out 3 Great Artists in the last 5 turns. Had I gotten the great artist I planned on, I could have finished 3 turns sooner.

Lastly, I was only ever able to get 2 religions in my cities. "We" founded Islam but Charly got it and of course, he never spread it to me because it wasn't his state religion. So I wasn't able to build as many cathedrals as I had hoped.

Other than that, the game went about as expected. I cultured bombed my legendary cities 1 - 5 - 8. They were doing 797, 560, 356 culture/turn respectively. The last city was my GP farm so almost all of its culture came from the artist specialists.

All cities were bombed to legendary status in 1655 AD and I got the victory screen in 1660 AD. Not that great a date but not horrible considering the DoW and the lack of religion due to the challenges faced with trying to get a minor civ to cooperate.

Thanks for the great game, kcd_swede! It was indeed a nice change from a normal game even though it was frustrating at times.

 

[nocho]

Enjoyable game! I had reached 1AD with 13 cities and proceeded to expand to 18 cities on our team's quarter of the map, Charlemagne eventually managed to squeeze in 8 cities on our initial turf. When I finally got Astronomy, city 19 was obviously settled on the little strategic island in the middle of the map. I got to Astro by libbing it in 1030AD, which felt a bit late. Maybe I should've tried the bulb route, but I never think of that before getting to CS so that was out of the window. Anyway, with iron and horses I built my invading forces initially with knights but soon substituted by cuirs and later cavs. I finally declared in 1280AD, but of course the horse army cut even better than usual through our largely resourceless competition, although the Indians had two iron sources, maybe popped or not substituted by the mapmaker. I took out Japan/Maya first, left Toku with 3 cities when they capped. Next came the German/Indian combo. I had to take 11 German cities and 3 Indian ones before they would talk and accept being our underlords. Lastly the Russian/Khmer team folded quite soon, just after taking 4 and 2 cities respectively. I ended up with 50 cities and a 1505AD conquest victory.

By the way, I noticed that the 3 minor civ team mates, HRE, Maya and India, had non-standard city naming or order. Do minor civs go inversely through the city-name lists or something?

 

[kcd_swede]

@nocho
Mapmaker is not infallible. Ghandi (or Sury) was meant to be a minor civ. I had trouble getting the game to recognize the text-edited worldbuilder file, went through 4 versions before figuring out some glitch in the file naming that I was doing... so that somehow was overlooked in the final version. But heck... it was the same for everyone so just an unexpected challenge for you to adjust to, perhaps.

However, I did recheck the world builder save and there were no iron on the Indian start continent. So I guess they must have popped it.

I don't know about the city naming order... my guess perhaps is that city names are chosen from a list from the founding civs' city list but based on a number of the team totals?

Glad you enjoyed the game!

 

[Mitchum]

@nocho
However, I did recheck the world builder save and there were no iron on the Indian start continent. So I guess they must have popped it.

I actually popped Iron (or maybe Copper) with 10ish turns to play in my Cultural victory. It wasn't useful for me since it popped after the Peter/Sury DoW and I was building city defender units that don't need metal anyway.

I'm actually glad the AI didn't have any strategic resources. If they did, I would have been dead with the late-game DoW. As it was, the stack that landed was easier to manage.

 

[Conquistador 63]

All cities were bombed to legendary status in 1655 AD and I got the victory screen in 1660 AD. Not that great a date but not horrible considering the DoW and the lack of religion due to the challenges faced with trying to get a minor civ to cooperate.

Well done!
I finished some turns later (1695AD).
I got 20GPs total, but only 13 Artists (1 on the last turn that did not matter), 5 GSci and 2 GPro. Bombed all of the GAs on the 2nd and 3rd city (mostly on the 3rd, our GPFarm with 2 fish and +2 food tiles to the NW).
With some better luck on GPP I could have shaved a few turns, but still not enough to beat your game. On hindsight there were better city sites for legendary cities than those I chose.
One game mechanic I couldn't figure out was when a tile was shared by one of our cities BFC and one of our allies' cities BFC, even at 80% of our culture on the plot vs 20% of their culture, I still wasn't able to work it. Too bad that happened with a couple of riverside towns of our legendary city #2.

Anyways, thanks to @kcd_swede for yet another creative setup! Please keep them coming!

 

[Mitchum]

Well done!
I finished some turns later (1695AD).
I got 20GPs total, but only 13 Artists (1 on the last turn that did not matter), 5 GSci and 2 GPro. Bombed all of the GAs on the 2nd and 3rd city (mostly on the 3rd, our GPFarm with 2 fish and +2 food tiles to the NW).
With some better luck on GPP I could have shaved a few turns, but still not enough to beat your game. On hindsight there were better city sites for legendary cities than those I chose.
One game mechanic I couldn't figure out was when a tile was shared by one of our cities BFC and one of our allies' cities BFC, even at 80% of our culture on the plot vs 20% of their culture, I still wasn't able to work it. Too bad that happened with a couple of riverside towns of our legendary city #2.

That was very close. I assumed that my lack of religions (especially 0 by 1 AD) had me way behind. My culture multipliers were 300%, 200%, 200% while running Free Speech so I only had 2 cathedrals in each city. Maybe my base culture was higher??? (189, 178, 99)

I got 22 great people (14 Great Artists, 3 Great Scientists, 2 Great Prophets, 2 Great Engineers and 1 Great Merchant); 21 of them were self-spawned and the GM was from Economics (I teched that by myself while Charly was teching something else otherwise he would have gotten it). All 14 GAs were bombed (1-5-8). 2 of the GSs were used to bulb Philosophy and part of Education. 1 of the GEs was used to build the Sistine Chapel. One of the GEs and one of the GPros came late so I settled them in the capital for a tiny boost. 1 GS, 1 GE and 1 GM were used to trigger two Golden Ages.

One of the drawbacks of building so many wonders was the occasional unplanned non-Great Artist. I was able to find a good use for all of them other than the last two.

My second city ended up being pretty crappy; it was 3 tiles south of the capital getting marble and helping grow the only cottage in any of my legendary cities (I only built 4 cottages the whole game). I decided for an early "filler" city to keep my expenses down and to save on early worker turns since one worker could support both cities. The majority of the base culture in my Legendary Cities came from wonders and artists. Only 10 to 15% came from commerce (e.g., trade routes, riverside tiles, water tiles, etc.).

I settled one city right next to Charly after his second city settled my way. I wanted to block him off. We culturally fought over the grassland deer tile. I was up around 60% and never got control of the tile. By the end of the game, there were two other tiles at 80% my culture but he held onto them. I'm sure it was some game mechanic related to teams like you suggested. Luckily, it didn't happen in one of my legendary cities but it was still a surprise. I'm guessing that cost you a handful of turns in the end not having 2 towns!!

I'd be interested to know where your Legendary Cities were. Mine were the capital (SIP), the best hammer city I could find which was my third city in the SE with corn, a few flood plains and several hills. Everything was farmed, mined and later workshopped. All of the Great Artist producing wonders went in this city. The last one was likely the same GP farm you had in the NW with fish, deer, corn and sheep. If you settled it to capture 2 fish, 1 corn and 1 sheep, then it had very poor production and everything had to be whipped. I considered that spot too but opted for the production instead.

 

[Conquistador 63]

I'd be interested to know where your Legendary Cities were.

Capital (SIP), #2 a coastal city to the SE near wine, deer, corn and a bunch of cottageable riverside tiles, #3 as you guessed, really hammer poor.

 

[IllustriousWahoo]

I had a great time on this map! I learned a lot from a more builder-heavy game, and it wasn't until much later that I realized how much more I could have optimized to generate more artists for a much faster game. My game ended in 1836 on turn 288 with a Cultural Victory, my three legendaries were Capital (SIP), #3 Coastal directly south that was my holy city, and #4 that was NW. I rushed Monotheism early, but Charlie got the religion, so I took a huge risk early and built Oracle to get Theology. Luckily for me, I was able to found that religion . I stopped teching around Gunpowder, so early-ish Renaissance, not sure if this was a mistake, but I maxed the Culture Slider at that point. I reached 3 Golden Ages total, 2 via Great People and 1 with Taj Wonder, along with MoM.

 

[Mitchum]

Nice job, @IllustriousWahoo. Based on my understanding, the conventional thinking on Culture victories (non-Sushi and non-Espionage) is to research Liberalism, take Nationalism as your free tech (so you can build the Hermitage) and at that point, revolt to Free Speech immediately and raise your slider to 100% culture. It sounds like you teched a bit further than you needed. Of course, you will continue to learn new techs even at 0% science slider, especially if you're running Representation and all of your artists are generating a fair amount of science.

 

[kcd_swede]

Still no joy on uploading saves as far as I can see, so just attach your final save to a PM to me and I will upload all the saves as soon as I can. I will also post a BOTM 292 announcement within a week... maybe you'll need to download from the announcement thread, and also wait for any results to be tabulated. My aim is to give all players new and old to have time from the announcement until submissions are closed, which will depend on when the system is up to full speed again. It looks like progress is being made, so hopefully our dedication to the game lasts longer than any delays.

 

[kcd_swede]

Just a quick note to let everyone know that I will be extending the deadline for accepting submissions until the system lets me upload the saves already submitted by attaching PM or message in my Profile, I'll let you know and be sure you have a few days thereafter to upload yourself if you prefer.

As of June 28 the following player's submissions have been received for BOTM 291:
Conquistador 63
Mitchum
nocho
The BMC
Donsig
Smiregal
zbgayumn
Jovan Kukic
Falabello

 

[Bemep42]

After 1 A.D., I continued to spam cities. Sometime around 700 A.D., I settled the entire continent. I got 30 cities. Charlie had 5 of them. And not a single coastal one, which precluded the possibility of him interfering with me in the future. In 1000 A.D., I learned optics, and the next turn I launched the first 12-turns GA to accelerate the study of astronomy and beyond. One turn before the end GA, I connected the horses (a new city on iron) and learned the guilds. After that, mass production of knights in 15-16 cities with barracks and stables. Sometime before 1250 A.D. I built about 70 knights and 23 galleons. In 1180 A.D., I attacked Japan/Maya came from two sides and completely took over their continent by about 1280 AD. 1-2 turns later, I attacked Russia/Khmer. The very next turn, they were ready to capitulate, but my plans were for dominance, not conquest, so I continued the war. By 1350 A.D., I had captured 8/12 of the Khmer cities and 4/12 of the cities of Russia, but at that moment I decided to take a little risk and eventually suffered a crushing defeat near Moscow. I lost 10 knights and couldn't take the city. On the next turn, I lost 5 knights out of 6 and could not take Vladivostok, which had only 2 longbow (at the same time, I took the Khmer capital with 3 longbow without a single loss). These failures delayed the capture of the continent by 7-10 turns. I had to do several siege units, a few new knights and wait for the arrival of the "Khmer" army to the cities of Russia west of Moscow. In 1500 A.D., I accepted the surrender, leaving Khmer and Russia have 1 city each. In 1520 A.D., the last 3 cities stopped striking, and by expanding their borders in 1525, I won by dominating. I have 93 cities in total at the end.
At the same time, by 1300 A.D., I had serious problems with the economy. Due to the colonial expenses, at 0% for science, I had more than -300 coins/turn. Due to the fact that I got 2 artists, I couldn't launch GA (after all, I had to save the prophet at the beginning of the game). With the "last money" I learned nationalism and started building the Taj Mahal (11-12 turns), then I tried to learn economics by 0% with Charlie's help (5-6 turns), but he got the merchant. By some miracle, thanks to the pillage, I was able to hold out until the completion of the Taj Mahal.

 

[kcd_swede]

After 1 A.D., I continued to spam cities. Sometime around 700 A.D., I settled the entire continent. I got 30 cities. Charlie had 5 of them. And not a single coastal one, which precluded the possibility of him interfering with me in the future. In 1000 A.D., I learned optics, and the next turn I launched the first 12-turns GA to accelerate the study of astronomy and beyond. One turn before the end GA, I connected the horses (a new city on iron) and learned the guilds. After that, mass production of knights in 15-16 cities with barracks and stables. Sometime before 1250 A.D. I built about 70 knights and 23 galleons. In 1180 A.D., I attacked Japan/Maya came from two sides and completely took over their continent by about 1280 AD. 1-2 turns later, I attacked Russia/Khmer. The very next turn, they were ready to capitulate, but my plans were for dominance, not conquest, so I continued the war. By 1350 A.D., I had captured 8/12 of the Khmer cities and 4/12 of the cities of Russia, but at that moment I decided to take a little risk and eventually suffered a crushing defeat near Moscow. I lost 10 knights and couldn't take the city. On the next turn, I lost 5 knights out of 6 and could not take Vladivostok, which had only 2 longbow (at the same time, I took the Khmer capital with 3 longbow without a single loss). These failures delayed the capture of the continent by 7-10 turns. I had to do several siege units, a few new knights and wait for the arrival of the "Khmer" army to the cities of Russia west of Moscow. In 1500 A.D., I accepted the surrender, leaving Khmer and Russia have 1 city each. In 1520 A.D., the last 3 cities stopped striking, and by expanding their borders in 1525, I won by dominating. I have 93 cities in total at the end.
At the same time, by 1300 A.D., I had serious problems with the economy. Due to the colonial expenses, at 0% for science, I had more than -300 coins/turn. Due to the fact that I got 2 artists, I couldn't launch GA (after all, I had to save the prophet at the beginning of the game). With the "last money" I learned nationalism and started building the Taj Mahal (11-12 turns), then I tried to learn economics by 0% with Charlie's help (5-6 turns), but he got the merchant. By some miracle, thanks to the pillage, I was able to hold out until the completion of the Taj Mahal.

Nice! I rarely can manage such a dominating military force. I am often constrained by economics, but also by time window if I shut down research to pay for it all. Reading your post gives me hope to learn how to make it all come together. I suppose pillaging and capture gold are integral to your success?

 

[Bemep42]

Yes, pillaging are a necessary part of the conquest, regardless of whether there is a threat of a strike or not. I am completely pillaging all towns,villages, hamlets and cottages, as well as mines. Workshops and water mills are possible, but very little money is paid for them and it is often easier not to waste time on it. Because the speed of conquest is even more important for the economy than pillaging. At the same time, there may be 2 different end goals. The first is to hold out until the end of the game (dominance), after which the inevitability of a strike is no longer scary. 2nd - use money from the pillage for the study of the necessary technologies for the qualitative improvement of the economy. For example, in this game, immediately after construction the Taj Mahal, I embraced nationalism and mercantilism, and in a few turns I learned chemistry, PP, science method, liberalism (biology), and communism. After that, I took over state property, which reduced the maintenance of my empire by 2,000 coins per turn. All this is within the framework of one GA. As a result, in the end, due to the production of money in cities, even with 100% for science, I still had a small plus in coin per turn.

 

[Mitchum]

Is the money you get from pillaging a town or village worth more than simply keeping that tile and working it when the city comes out of revolt? I usually pillage cottages and hamlets but I leave villages and towns as good tiles to work once the city is producing? Maybe you farm everything to increase score???

 

[Bemep42]

In the end, I have the whole area built up with farms - it really increases the points. In addition, a farm + a specialist with a representation gives not less, but even more than a town.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Thank you for your detailed strategy and tactics discussion, Bemep42.

 

[MarleysGh0st]

I filled in my continent, grabbing fur and spices before Charlemagne could take them all, since I couldn't trade with him. After researching to gunpowder and astronomy and settling the strategic resource island, it was time to start my wars of conquest.

Tokugawa was my first target, with war declared in 1340 and with Tokugawa/Pacal capitulating in 1515. Even though I couldn't coordinate attack, Charlemagne did contribute to the conquest by taking a couple Mayan cities.

I attacked Peter in 1530. He apparently popped some iron outside Moscow, so he did have some melee units, but they were no match for musketeers (upgraded to rifles near the end of the war) and cannon. I accepted Peter and Sury's capitulation in 1610, after capturing Moscow.

I went to war with Frederick/Gandhi in 1625, invading Indian territory because it was closer. They capitulated in 1680, giving me a Conquest victory in 1685.

It was fun, but another mediocre game effort, with lots of ways I failed to optimize for a quick victory. For instance, I missed building the Mausoleum because I didn't quarry my marble fast enough. I had some great people that I never used at the end the game; one GE established Mining, Inc. in 1665, at which point it made absolute no difference whatsoever. Razing conquered territory and farming it for population: I've got to try that, Bemep42!

 

[kcd_swede]

I posted the results that were sent to me by PM or other means. In a thread labelled "

News: BOTM 291 (Louis XIV) Preliminary and unofficial results"​

There could still be more games out there as I won't close the submissions until an announcement is made that the normal submission system is working, plus 2 weeks... at which time I'll do the usual checks and report final results. If I recall correctly, everyone earned some recognition in the awards except 2 who should be happy to avoid a shield. Great games, great community of players still dedicated to the BOTM's. No updates to global rankings because the results are as stated preliminary and unofficial. Not sure when (if?) we get it all going, but by now I think we are all confident that our community abides by the first law of robotics Game of the Month's... replay no turns unless there is an explained need, and autosaves are set to 1 turn, and even then show us you replayed any partial turn the same way.