BOTM 33 Final Spoiler - Game Submitted or Abandoned

[Mitchum]

Domination win - 1912ad. It's late, but I'm happy

Great game, simplethink. Welcome to the GOTM community!!

 

[kcd_swede]

I really should try this again with a rush of some kind (how did you feel the Feud/knights rush worked, kcd, and do you think it would have worked on Emperor?) but with CivV so close it ain't gonna happen.

For me it worked great, but I wouldn't call it a rush, really, since it occurs so far in to the game. I hate warring with numerically superior but quality inferior units, so I usually go through several war phases at different era's. Mounted units are always an advantage, especially on a wide open big map where the mobility is priceless. So I did chariots>HA>knights as my main attacking units.

I think this would work on Emperor just as well, but that the effective time for each to be useful would be reduced. Cavs would surely come into play, and if I mess that up then we're talking tanks. I think a better war-mongerer than me should be able to prevent the AI from advancing in the tech tree so rapidly and should therefore be able to win this with knights. But not me.

I'm also looking forward to new challenges in CivV, but won't get my copy until first week in October. I'll still be playing CivIV a long time, though.

 

[Arnold_T]

Interesting game, I thought I was in over my head on this one and was going to die early, but managed to do OK. by 1250 AD I was in third place. Too bad I had to retire since I won't have time to finish it by the deadline.
In the early game I managed to hold off the Barbs with Archers. I saw stone to the east, so decided that I'd make that my first expansion city, and then go for the GW with stone to help. I wasn't sure this would be a fast enough path to the GW, but it was. I got the GW built by turn 65, 1440BC. Figured I may as well put the stone to good use and also built the Pyramids.
I got attacked early by Alex, who was coveting my City-of-Wonders, but he only brought nine units in two seperate stacks. I think wiped out his attacking force without him even losing a unit. Pretty dumb AI attack if you ask me. Later in the game the Khmer guy did about the same thing. I wonder if it's because I wasn't having Open Borders with anyone, so they couldn't accurately get a handle on how much they needed to bring to the fight?
Other than that the game was pretty peaceful, I shared Hinduism with all my immediate neighbours and was not the worst enemy of anybody. I guess that's cuz I didn't attack anyone!
I was thinking I would try for a Culture Victory, having got a good start on the Wonders, and I was in the lead as far as that goes. Don't know if I would have been able to keep up with the tech and military races to defend against the rest of them though.

 

[lymond]

Well, I already mentioned losing the GW by 1 turn in the early spoiler. However, I handled the barbs just fine and it was fun jacking up the experience on units. Still the constant barbs do slow things down and distract you from your goals. So I slowly expand by settling and taking out a few barbs cities, blocking off a nice empire N-to-S near SB and all the west.

Alex surprise attacks me in the early ADs and actually takes my eastern most city at the time which I take back shortly after. We fight for a while and I get peace. He would attack unsuccessfully again later. In the meantime, I'm fostering great relations with Sully and decent with SB with the intent of using them as buffers or bribing into war. So around the late ADs it gets real interesting:

First, I win LIb of course and generally have a very nice tech lead - Ox is about in. My goal being to get to Curs and then let everyone have it. I had the opportunity to bribe the Otts into war but I decided to delay this until I was fully prepared. So this is where the dominos fall. Not really paying close attention to the eastern AIs, I suddenly realize VERY quickly that Sury has turned into and absolute monster. I knew he had a war or two with Wash and HC, but all of a sudden in a matter of a very few turns he caps by Wash and HC and then for some ungodly reason Sillyman peace vassals too him.

Sury has a tremendous amount of land. My tech lead is still strong but I'm still a ways from steel and MT when Sury DOWs. I'm talking massive waves of stacks from Khmer, one after the other and, of course, occasional SoDs from HC, America and the Otts. Tech is at a standstill and this war literally lasts more than a milenium with absolutely nothing I could do about it. Sury always demands my HE city. Well, despite the massive amount of units and the fact that I had to virtually turn of research, I don't lose a city and kill off tons of his units. The fact that I got to steel way ahead helped, but I could never climb out of this huge hole.

Later on, combined efforts with SB allowed me to cap the Otts, after Silly broke away when I dropped SUry's power and then I slowly push my borders east. Sury and I must of Dow'd on each other like 10 times at least. However, this just turned into a very long drawn out war and peace of attrition and I just feel further behind in techs. I was even setting up nukes and did nuke away some Khmer/Incan cites, but Sury built the SDI and that just became a waste.

I retired in the mid to late 1900s leading in score after what at first was a fun game but gradually grew extremely frustrating. I just didn't feel like dragging this thing out further although I still probably could have won the game.

 

[Earthling]

I never wrote a spoiler iirc but had a very bland backdoor diplo (dom).

Played horribly at the start, not using a mouse and only my laptop and some terrible damage from barbs - lost my third settler I think which I KNOW I only sent one square, with MP left to run away. After that I was just playing the game with reckless abandon - total time spent wasn't very much and I didn't uber micro anything out, just played through to a win.

Emperor AI I guess were a bit more capable in war but I eventually went through the standard eternal golden ages in the middle ages, was doing well enough in tech, and then just got rifles/cannons all the way to war it out. Ended up fighting inf/artillery in the end and swamping them by pure numbers - I have to say I really felt like Montezuma this game. Finally got enough vassals/land to make the diplo win easy.

My score was middling, I should be I dunno around 20th place this one, nothing impressive. Not my map nor my leader and I played poorly.

 

[Xcalibrator]

I tried the Emperor game again, this time settling 1E of the starting position (instead of nestled up against the mountains as in my submitted game), and skipped the Great Wall to concentrate on units and possible rushing. Big mistake. I just couldn't keep the barbs off me and quit around T100. In my 3rd attempt, I again settled 1E but built the Great Wall. Yessss, much better. The barbs entered my borders on T41 and I even had to whip the last couple turns to avoid trouble. Settling farther east put the stone/cows/gems site within easy reach this time and I settled that next. The stone made a huge difference. Although I lost the Oracle this time (T65 ) I easily got the Pyramids. I still got a Great Spy and Great Prophet as my first 2 GPs but the Pyramids-enabled Representation made GP-settling much more helpful, and the floodplains cottages fueled my teching, too. My tech lead was significantly better in the early game than before and I think I can probably sustain it, unlike last time. Horse archers are making easy work of taking barb cities so I'm expanding faster. Settling east really was the way to go on this, although a large part of its advantage was the access to stone. My western mountain fastness protected me well in the real game but definitely slowed things down.