[BTS] BOTM 301: Santa Victoria, Monarch - Final Spoiler - Game Submitted

[DynamicSpirit]

BOTM 301: Santa Victoria, Monarch - Final Spoiler - Game Submitted

***TODO: MODIFY NEXT SENTENCE IF YOU WANT TO INSERT ANY GAME-SPECIFIC TEXT***
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 301 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]

In the early ADs as I was building up my invasion force for Ragnar, I lost cultural control over my iron source across the channel to the Celts. By then I had assembled enough units for the Viking campaign, but the iron on our shared island after Ragnar's elimination fell prey to Zulu culture, so that sealed the deal for Brennus, as his was the easier iron to get back. By now I had engineering, so by 660AD I invaded the Celts with longbows, trebs and chariots, with a few left over veteran melee units from the Santa reunification campaign. Brennus was quite small in my game, he seemed to have lost a city culturally to Pericles' creativity, so the Celts didn't pose much of a problem. With the first city capture I got my iron back, so now I could pump out knights, which became all the more useful when Brennus with one city left vassaled to the Zulu, who were the most powerful AI across the pond. However, he couldn't quite cope either with the steady stream of mounted units, less so when knights became cuirs. Brennus was no more exactly in 1000AD and meanwhile I could bribe the Romans against the Zulu. Pacal was silly enough to take Shaka as his vassal 20 years before his demise in 1130AD, and in 4 swift turns he kissed the ring and became my first vassal.
I had to do some regrouping and declared on Pericles by 1210AD. He was quite behind technologically though relatively big. The plan was to vassal him as soon as he would talk, but when he did talk I misclicked and cease fired instead.

At least with a cease fire rather than a peace deal I could re-declare inmediately, but then of course he wouldn't talk anymore, and to add to the fun he vassaled to my former friend Julius, which was not inconvenient, although now of course I had to eliminate the whole of Greece to get Julius to the bargaining table. By now with rather overwhelming forces including cavs, that didn't happen until Rome was down to just one city on the very southern tip of the continent in 1340AD. In that year I vassaled Julius and could have gotten either domination or conquest on the interturn, it was the former for a reasonable score of 296k.

Fun game for these holidays, so thanks go out to staff and happy new year to all!

 

[kcd_swede]

I finally conquered the world in 1800AD (t 270). I did Ragnar before 1AD as reported using HA/cat army. I had two cities on the south land mass just by expansion (REX) early on. Every floodplain was cottaged so I had GNP about twice that of the next best of the Hindu coalition on the continent. So the Celtics were my planned next target, just by proximity. However, Shaka declared war on me (Bribed by Ragnar, in 225BC) before so army re-tasked eastward. I accept peace (I think I gave him some cheap tech) after taking 1 Zulu city and firming up my bridgehead. Celtics were first to capitulate, as they were building wonders. But I was building Trebs/Knights and he had all his metal pillaged, so it was very quick work taking 3 cities. The first had its culture defense destroyed in one turn by espionage, and simultaneous the second by siege. I think I should have taken the capitol Bibracte too, as I had it down to one LB but it was a less than 50% chance I had left, and I was afraid that losing zero units so far was the only reason he's already willing to capitulate (or rather, I would no longer threaten his capitol). So peace without the biggest bounty prize, but having the next strongest military as vassals gives me confidence.

Shaka next, but no matter what he will not capitulate until I first eradicate his vassal the Mayans. Without further capture of Zulu cities, Shaka is suddenly ready to capitulate. Now only Rome and Greek left to take. I used Liberalism for Rifling and self-teched MilTrad and upgraded all my highest promoted. Redcoats and Cavalry with a few Trebs was more than enough technology advantage to take it all. Rome made a Holy Roman Empire colony of the silver island (I settled the Gold island). So it took me a little time to get the two HRE cities captured so Rome would finally capitulate. Could have been Dom, but the game says Conquest.

Fun game, and thank you for the in-map greetings. I hope everyone had one

 

[Teneight]

I settled on stone. Ragnar was generous this Christmas 'gifting' me his first worker which sped up my development a lot on these tiles. Settled 4 cities more cities and after BW/Pottery/AH went right for Horseback riding (1840BC). Rushed out several HAs and captured both of Rags cities (650BC). Founded 2 more on this continent and then one more on the bottom continent to grab a 2nd iron as the iron on my continent was in danger of culture pressure from Pacal. Went for CS (200BC), then Monarchy for HR (100BC) (did not make a serious attempt at the mids due to low hammers in most cities, ended up getting ~400 fail gold when it went). Next was music for the free GA then Philosophy (225AD) and started a golden age. First GP was a merchant who was sent to Athens where the ToA was completed for 1900g. Made 2 scientists, one went into Education and one went into Lib. Libbed MT (600AD). Right at this time JC declared on Brennus so I sent my cuir army to capitulate Shaka and Pacal first. After them, capitulated Brennus then declared on both Pericles and JC. Both would end up being able to capitulate on the same turn but I only capped Pericles and farmed score for 3 more turns before capping JC and winning by conquest in 1090.

I do want to mention something that occurred in my game that I don't think I've ever seen in my 15+ years of playing this game.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

As mentioned, Brennus and JC were at war. Brennus had built the AP (Buddhism). The previous turn was an election, but rather than the results the following turn this message popped up. At first I thought JC must have captured the city the AP was in, but upon inspection Brennus still had control. I was perplexed until I realized what had happened. Also on the previous turn, I was at war with Pacal and captured his only city with Buddhism. Pacal had founded Judaism and only had one outskirt city which Buddhism had spread to. Since Pacal now no longer had any city with Buddhism, Diplomatic victory was no longer possible since all civs must have the religion present.

 

[kcd_swede]

I do want to mention something that occurred in my game that I don't think I've ever seen in my 15+ years of playing this game.
View attachment 753030

I also experienced something new with the AP (OK, not new new, but new to me). At one point, Greece became peace-vassal to Rome, and the AP forced peace on Rome (and thus Greece by proxy). I thought I would have to wait 10 turns to go after those badly defended juicy Greek cities. But then just one or two turns later, the AP forced peace on Shaka (and vassal Maya) and thus the previous 10t peace with Rome/Greece became null and void! Perhaps various cities changed hand invalidating the first resolution? I thought it would just be forced peace everywhere. Now... something else happened on the same turn - Greece stopped being vassal to Rome. So I could again attack either Rome or Greece separately without waiting the full 10t. I did not know a second AP "Stop the war against..." resolution would terminate the earlier one early. Is that what happened, or was it the breaking of the vassal agreement, or a weird combination of both? It probably saved me 6t.

I applaud your conquest which you managed 800 years faster than me. I made the early strategic error thinking that after my HA/Cat war was so fast and easy, that promoting to Knights/Trebs would be enough to prevail. However, by the time I figured out that Cavalry would be needed, I had passed up any chance of getting to that tech level as quickly as you. Also, I tend to underestimate how many units will be needed, and thus lost a few captured cities on the next turn after capture, only to capture them again. I think those AI "victories" really delayed how long it would take for them to offer surrender. Just goes to show... well-executed tactics can never make up for bad strategic decisions (but badly-executed tactics can really wreck a strategy).
20 years on and this game is still teaching.

 

[Teneight]

How was there a vote less than 10 turns after the previous vote? Or am I misunderstanding something?

 

[Conquistador 63]

This was an intense and fun game for me.

After getting DoW'ed by Brennus in 250 BC, and losing (or giving away) our 2 cities on the mainland, we managed to eliminate Ragnar in 325 AD (this war lasted 6 turns), while amassing an army to get our revenge on the Celts.

In 400 AD we resumed the fighting across the channel. In 860 AD we had captured 4 cities from them, and shouldn't be too far from getting his capitulation, when Julius (who was at war with Pericles) declared on us, immediately followed by Shaka. Not sure how that was possible, if the Roman were busy with another war. I did lose a recently captured city to Shaka in the interturn, just to recapture it in the following turn. Had to take a peace deal from Brennus, receiving one of his cities as the price for peace.

Oddly enough, aside from an attack from a single praetorian, we did not see more combat with Roman troops during this "war". We eventually accepted peace with JC in 1020AD, as we had to deal with a lot of invading zulu troops, luckily with a high success rate (like 20 kills to each loss). I could not invade the Zulu as I had no OB with Brennus (who had peace vassaled to JC meanwhile), so we accepted peace in 1060 AD. Pacal peace vassaled to Shaka shortly thereafter.

We then took some time focusing on research to make a run for Lib/ Communism (for SP) when in 1140 AD Julius, Shaka (and of course their vassals) declared war on...Pericles! I had no intention of going to war against our Greek friends, but obviously couldn't allow the bad guys to expand, so I joined the bandwagon as soon as I had my troops in place.

After capturing 5 Greek cities, and before the baddies could capture a single one, I accepted Pericles' capitulation in 1350 AD.

It didn't take long for our former "ally" JC to declare war on us again, in 1380 AD. After I had captured a handful of Roman cities, in 1525 AD Brennus revolted and changed his status from a Roman vassal to a Zulu vassal, of course causing Shaka and his other vassal Pacal to declare on us once more. In the following turn we made peace with JC, getting a city in the deal.

At that point our army had Cavalry, Redcoats and Cannons vs medieval units. Most of the battles in this war were fought on Celt lands, until 1600 AD, when Brennus lost his last city. In the same year we captured Pacal's capital. Then we took the fight to Zulu grounds. After we captured a few cities, we took peace for another city in 1630 AD, just to turn again to JC, who capitulated after losing a couple of cities in a couple of turns (1640 AD). After that, it was just a question of waiting for the captured cities to get out of revolt and expand their borders for a 1670 AD Domination victory.

 

[kcd_swede]

How was there a vote less than 10 turns after the previous vote? Or am I misunderstanding something?

I can't find it in the log so probably I am mistaken.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Lots of aggressive Santas out there, according to the spoilers

In my game, Santa decided to aim for a more peaceful victory and try to reach Alpha Centauri. Unfortunately, none of Santas nine cities in the Arctic nor the four in the Antarctic were suitable for building space ship parts so Santa had to acquire some better real estate on the continent to supplement the four cities already located there, that were under some unfortunate cultural pressure. Using a twelve turn, 3GP golden age, Santa pushed his knowledge to MilTrad and Communism and started building cuirassiers, a kind of elf with a horse and a gun. But who should Santa's elves pay a visit? Brennus became so friendly and impressed with the elves that he decided to become Santa's helper (vassal). Maybe he was just good at reading the political tea leaves because Julius Caesar, who had been plotting for a while stopped showing the fearsome red fist. Clearly, he had been plotting against Santa's newfound helper. In the end, Santa sent his elves to Shaka's land and captured his cities. When Shaka had only one city left, he sought the protection of Caesar, who foolishly accepted. So Santa's elves continued capturing many a Roman city until Caesar himself decided to become a helper for Santa. Now, Santa had a plan: he wanted to build the Spaceship using two golden ages, back to back. But even a single golden age required four wise men of different types so Santa needed one golden age to come from the construction of a mythical monument: the Taj Mahal. But the Mayans had acquired the technology that enabled them to also build said monument, so Santa had to build some upgraded cavalry elves and capture some of the Mayan cities before world peace could finally settle. Santa built the monument, and the world rejoiced for 24 turns while Santa built a huge sleigh with two engines five thrusters, casings and other bells and whistles. Santa was a little angry when he found out that there was no aluminum to be found anywhere, but everyone in Santa's workshops just worked a little harder and the sleigh reached Alpha Centauri shortly before the turn of the 17th century.

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to all you Santas out there

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Lots of aggressive Santas out there, according to the spoilers

In my game, Santa decided to aim for a more peaceful victory and try to reach Alpha Centauri. Unfortunately, none of Santas nine cities in the Arctic nor the four in the Antarctic were suitable for building space ship parts so Santa had to acquire some better real estate on the continent to supplement the four cities already located there, that were under some unfortunate cultural pressure. Using a twelve turn, 3GP golden age, Santa pushed his knowledge to MilTrad and Communism and started building cuirassiers, a kind of elf with a horse and a gun. But who should Santa's elves pay a visit? Brennus became so friendly and impressed with the elves that he decided to become Santa's helper (vassal). Maybe he was just good at reading the political tea leaves because Julius Caesar, who had been plotting for a while stopped showing the fearsome red fist. Clearly, he had been plotting against Santa's newfound helper. In the end, Santa sent his elves to Shaka's land and captured his cities. When Shaka had only one city left, he sought the protection of Caesar, who foolishly accepted. So Santa's elves continued capturing many a Roman city until Caesar himself decided to become a helper for Santa. Now, Santa had a plan: he wanted to build the Spaceship using two golden ages, back to back. But even a single golden age required four wise men of different types so Santa needed one golden age to come from the construction of a mythical monument: the Taj Mahal. But the Mayans had acquired the technology that enabled them to also build said monument, so Santa had to build some upgraded cavalry elves and capture some of the Mayan cities before world peace could finally settle. Santa built the monument, and the world rejoiced for 24 turns while Santa built a huge sleigh with two engines five thrusters, casings and other bells and whistles. Santa was a little angry when he found out that there was no aluminum to be found anywhere, but everyone in Santa's workshops just worked a little harder and the sleigh reached Alpha Centauri shortly before the turn of the 17th century.

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to all you Santas out there

Haha, a very imaginative write-up. I love the idea of a spaceship as a huge sleigh with extra bells and whistles

 

[Powerfaker]

Hi, joined in on this one, and will try to pick up participating more frequently if not too busy otherwise.
Xmas game is always unusual, so that’s great.

Settled 1W and went for Religion. Buddhist was taken but I got Hindu. The culture was very helpful to seal off the island while I settled York north of Ragnar. Also I held his deer power tile briefly around 2000BC and permanently from 800BC onwards. And I went Mono early enough to switch OrgRel and Slavery in 1 turn.

Expanded into 8 cities of which 2 on the main continent. Was surprised one was next to Brennus’ capital.
The usual low diff Oracle=>CS.
Health was more pressing than Happyness so I never chopped anything in the ice.

At 1AD I was halfway Edu (skipping MC / Calender and such) when I started thinking what to do with the game. Realized Edu was actually the wrong way for military, just going Guilds would be the play. So I went for UN diplo by vassal voting abuse. Our land + leader very suitable, high tech rate, high food for GS bulbing support, and I happened to get a GE to hurry UN eventually.

In the early AD’s everybody started to gang up on Pericles eventually Brennus became his master.
While at war with Pericles I did get an unexpected DoW from Rome, over a refused trade deal I think. He invaded with 1 pretorian and achieved nothing. Very annoying however was that I had just sent the Eco GM in his territory. It didn’t hurt my timeline that much though. I had to pile gold anyway to create a window for my GS to appear during the Golden Age I was running.

To prevent Chemistry ruining Electricity bulbs I had to get that before MilTrad + GunP (cuirs).
As a consequence my own conquest started around the turn I Lib=>Radio. The timing turned out very nice. I got everyone but Rome vassaled 3T before the 1st vote, which was immediately successful.