[BTS] BOTM 295: Mehmed, Noble - final spoiler (game submitted or abandoned)

[kcd_swede]

Go ahead... make my day.

Tell me your thoughts about the map/scenario. Also, tell us how you adapted and made best use of what you had to work with. Don't read this thread until you submit (by PM to me unless the server is up and running without glitches).

 

[nocho]

After killing the orange Russians in the BCs, I continued the campaigns against their brothers in the ADs until both were completely annexed and killed around 1080AD. Meanwhile Ragnar offered to be my peace vassal which was graciously accpeted. Here I decided to go diplo, so for the fun of it and to be sure I made use of the army being in the vicinity to also add America and Germany to the empire, both were vassaled as soon as they would talk, which in Germany's case was after getting just 1 city (with the mids).

I libbed radio and got a low-odds GE at some point which was convenient to build the UN (although having various 20% odds possibilities made it more likely to get one in the end obviously). To my surprise Bismarck was my opponent for UN Leader, didn't really know vassals could be up for that, but he had 1 pop more than the English. By the time the victory vote came around , England actually must have grown a tad bit more, so Liz became the opponent for that. Unsurprisingly, I was happily voted a diplo victory by all but her in 1340AD.

Thanks for the game! Fun scenario with the initial relations, of course it made diplo easier, but on a low difficulty setting it probably wasn't all too consequential.

 

[Mitchum]

At 1 AD, I had 7 cities and hadn't started cranking up the war machine yet. I did have quite a tech advantage which is normal on Noble.

I decided to start with our friends because they were a bit more advanced due to the liberal tech trading we had been doing. The Russians were all still cavemen! I attacked Ragnar in 225 AD with macemen and cats/trebs. I capitulated him in 475 AD with one city in the tundra. Starting at 11 o'clock with Ragnar, I then went counter-clockwise around the sea with Bismarck (640 AD to 780 AD since he had planted cities north of Liz), Elizabeth (800 AD to 1010 AD) and Bismarck Part Deux (1030 AD to 1080 AD). Both were capped with one or two crappy cities.

I mixed in Knights (680 AD) and Cuirassiers (1010 AD) to speed up troop movement. I also started to take out the Russians with a two front war, one counter clockwise and the other clockwise, with the goal of meeting up at 5 o'clock at the American/Russian border. The progression went Catherine (1080 AD to 1140 AD), Washington (1120 AD to 1240 AD), Peter (1130 AD to 1180) and Stalin (1180 AD to 1250 AD). From there, it was a matter of waiting for cities to come out of revolt to trigger domination in 1290 AD.

I found it interesting that one of our allies (Elizabeth, I think) wouldn't trade me her map because she "Didn't like me enough" even though she was at +32 Friendly. Yes, I had just attacked her friend but she still loved me. Modifying the diplo values to this extreme must cause some corner cases in the code that were not anticipated.

Thanks for the fun game, @kcd_swede!

 

[Conquistador 63]

Cool game.

My original plan was a space race victory.

In the early 1200's, I had already eliminated Peter and was a turn away from finishing Cathy, had just captured her capital (her last hindu city).
Meanwhile, I had noticed a rather large (for Noble level) American stack traversing our land, clearly going for Ragnar. But then, the following happened (from Autolog):

Other Player Actions:​

State Religion Change: Catherine (Russia) from 'Hinduism' to 'Buddhism'​

Attitude Change: Ragnar (Vikings) towards Catherine (Russia), from 'Friendly' to 'Pleased'​

Civics Change: Washington(America) from 'Paganism' to 'Theocracy'​

​

Turn 182/500 (1220 AD) [05-Sep-2025 11:50:58]​

Diplomacy: Ragnar (Vikings) offers to become a vassal of Mehmed II (Ottomans)​

Diplomacy: Mehmed II (Ottomans) accepts gift of from Ragnar (Vikings)​

One could imagine the "smart" AI saw the enemy coming and asked for a global power's protection, but indeed this was only due to a change in Ragnar's attitude towards Cathy, which allowed him to become our vassal, thus declaring war on her (and saving his butt from an imminent attack).

Having acquired a vassal made me change gears and pursuit a quicker (in real life time) diplo victory.
I had already teched a lot of stuff ouside the Mass Media beeline (I had been spamming workshops and was planning to spam those cheap factories later), so obviously could not compete with @nocho 's fine game.

But on the bright side I was free to start the current Emperor level BOTM. Maybe the Russians will get their revenge next time?

 

[Frederiksberg]

Because of the low difficulty level the diplomatic changes didn't matter too much. I tried to take advantage of the setup by attacking the unfriendly Russian civs first hoping that some of the friendly civs would become peace vassals. The lack of hills didn't matter much either. Grassland and slavery works fine and expanding outside of the starting peninsula gave access to hills.

Continuing from the first spoiler, the elepult war against Cathy was wrapped up in the early ADs, and the fighting continued against Peter, this time with knights. During this war, Liz became a peace vassal. The knight army continued on to Stalin and, despite keeping most of the Russian cities, the heavily cottaged starting peninsula supported a roaring economy. Thus, research was directed towards cuirassiers, and the first of them appeared at the beginning of the war against Stalin, but none of them ever saw any combat because Stalin folded quickly under the weight of approximately 30 knights and Washington and Bismarck both became vassals after loosing only 2 cities each. Since Ragnar had already become a peace vassal, this ended the game with a conquest victory slightly after 1000 AD.

Thanks to @kcd_swede for the game and for keeping the games going. I think this setup would have been more interesting on emperor or immortal level where the diplomatic changes would be of significance. It might even be playable on Deity because you could block access from the Russian civs to the peninsula by building a city on a hill on the connecting strip of land and fill it with defensive units behind walls.

 

[Bemep42]

I founded the capital on 1N in order to immediately use corn. Obviously, this was not the best decision, due to the loss of the deer. The ideal place for capital is 1E not only because of the extra food, but most importantly because it allowed us to place an additional city between the capital and the western city of our peninsula, at the same time evenly distribute food between the cities. As a result, I had 7 cities on our peninsula, of which 4 had an overabundance of food, and 3 had none at all. In the 4th (copper) city, I tried to build Stonehenge (with stone), but Ragnar beat me by 2-3 turns, after which I switched to the Oracle (with marble from Ragnar) and finished it in 775 BC. I planned to take MC, but after the construction I changed my mind and took a more expensive feudalism. I also cut down the Great Lighthouse in the capital in 350 BC and the Moai in the stone city.
Since there was very little space on our island, I had to start an early war. The obvious first target was Ragnar, because of Stonehenge, because of more convenient logistics, and most importantly, he took my horses with his 2 city. Before the war, I managed to make 3 more cities, 2 on the territory Ragnar - elephants + fish and gold + clam and between Ragnar and Katerina near crabs. In 300 BC, my army of 11 swords, 6 longbows, and 1 axe invaded Scandinavia. By 50 BC, all 4 of their cities had become mine.
According to science, by 1 AD, in addition to feudalism, I had learned/exchanged MC, currency, CoL, and in 50 AD - CS. There were constructions and theology available for exchange, which, like the HR and calendar, I exchanged later.

In 475 AD, I learned guilds (also engineering at 620 ad) and started building knights, in some cities without stables or even barracks - at a noble level, this is superfluous. Before that, I build a road to the English border and spammed the land between Ragnar and Elizabeth with cities. After the first 24 knights started conquering counterclockwise, I made another 20 who went to meet them clockwise.
England (620-720, captured 5 of the 6 cities, took paper for peace), (traded philosophy as soon as they learned it and finished off , 980-1000)
Germany (700-860, captured all 9 cities)
Catherine (700-860, captured all 6 cities)
Peter (880-940, captured all 4 cities)
Washington (900-1030, captured all 7 cities)
Stalin (940-1050, captured 8 of the 9 cities).
I hadn't planned on this, but since there was only 1 unit in Stalin's last city, I could capture it with a 3-way knight (88%). I didn't check my luck (or vassaled him), so as not to accidentally get a conquest instead of a domination.

The only AI that started learning feudalism (but didn't finish it) there was Washington, the rest had aggressive swords at the most. There was an amazing situation in this game - just before the attack, all the friendly AI (Ragnar in 1 turn, the rest in 2-3 turns) asked to be my peaceful vassals. But it didn't save them In total, I lost 22 knights out of 44.
In 600 A.D., I built a MoM and ran the GA until the end of the game. In 1010, I learned liberalism and took biology with it. I thought I would finish the game around 1100, but I underestimated the size of the captured territory. At 1050, 0.01% was not enough for me to win, because I held back the expansion of several cities, but it was no longer possible to delay the dominance.

 

[Mitchum]

Thanks for the writeup, @Bemep42. It is a great way to compare games. Since you didn't post in the first spoiler thread, do you have a 1AD save where you can look up how many cities you had and what your beaker rate was. It sounds like you a) expand (via settlers) a lot more aggressively than I do and b) start your warring expansion a lot earlier than I do as well. I'm amazed that you're able to do both at the same time so I have a lot to learn by studying your games. One of these days, you won't blow me out by 20+ turns... maybe just 10!!

 

[Bemep42]

In 1 ad i have 14 cities, 53 pop. Science breaks even by 40% (about 60). But the courthouses will fix the situation soon. In 10 of my own cities : 10 lighthouses, 9+1 granary, 5 barracks, 4+1 forge, 3 hammam. I got Uppsala with granary, Nidaros with granary, Stonehenge and ToA.
I usually study the upper branch, but this time I decided that I needed an early monarchy. England learned the alphabet very early, and I was able to trade for writing, alphabet, and later CoL. I also traded AH, archery, IW, meditation. I was hoping to trade mathematics, but in the end I couldn't stand it and started teaching myself. A turn before studying, it appeared for exchange, but due to the game settings, I completed it.

 

[Mitchum]

Thanks for the detailed information! I'm always amazed how quickly some people are able to expand both organically with settlers or forcefully with troops. The fact that you were able to to do both and keep your science up at the same time is very impressive. This map was a challenge with very little production other than food converted to hammers via Slavery. I'm impressed how far you are at 1 AD!