Congratulations on your victory. Nice write-up, too.
Sounds like you had a very exciting game!
BOTM 34 Final Spoiler - Game Submitted or Abandoned
- Thread starter Erkon
- Start date
Congratulations on your victory. Nice write-up, too.
Sounds like you had a very exciting game!
Conquistador 63
Deity
At 1AD I had a solid position after having taken Victoria out early, and had met all AI but Hattie (met her after 600AD), as my exploring WB couldn’t get past japanese borders. The original plan I mentioned at the first spoiler was get something like Steam Power from Lib for the dikes, then expand over another AI or 2 then cruise to space.
The first part did work out properly. The rush to Lib was fueled by gold from failed ToA, then a Mausoleum-boosted golden age (GArtist from Music). The odd choice of free tech
(got it in 960AD) made me research stuff I usually pick up from trade, like engineering, guilds, banking, rep parts – but the AI was teching too slow.
As a side effect of this path, Rifling was like 5 turns of research away. I had a bunch of idle swords/axes hanging near Monty’s lands, and a pile of cash from the GM (Economics) trade mission… I had read a number of stories from Deity players about the instant rifle army, but can’t recall about trying this trick myself before. You know what, it can be fun indeed.
A nice touch, he had more than 2x my power but was already at war with Hattie. I declared in 1080AD, and bribed Hanni (and his voluntary vassal Toku) to help me. Monty’s SOD got trapped somewhere in Egypt, and only made its way back after he had capitulated in 1295AD. By that time I had Communism for SP, Bio, Steel.
Then I had the stupid idea of switching victory conditions, thinking I maybe could get away with a fastest conquest, which I never had in BOTM’s. Well, how could I imagine Srad had already finished his game at that point?
I then proceeded to next wars, vassalizing Hanni (1460AD), Toku (1480AD), Hatty (1500AD) and finally Joao (1545AD). Of course, the randomly chosen victory was… Domination.
Initially I was somewhat pissed off by the bad luck in the coin flip, but after reading about Srad’s win I would feel very ashamed if I had otherwise robbed him from that award. Hopefully he’ll get the Gold (btw my score was 313K), and I’ll try to learn from the mistake of changing goals in the middle of a game. 
Gee, I had tanks by 1500AD, a space win in the 1600’s could be very possible!
Nevertheless, a very entertaining game, thanks for sharing it with us, Erkon!
The first part did work out properly. The rush to Lib was fueled by gold from failed ToA, then a Mausoleum-boosted golden age (GArtist from Music). The odd choice of free tech
(got it in 960AD) made me research stuff I usually pick up from trade, like engineering, guilds, banking, rep parts – but the AI was teching too slow. As a side effect of this path, Rifling was like 5 turns of research away. I had a bunch of idle swords/axes hanging near Monty’s lands, and a pile of cash from the GM (Economics) trade mission… I had read a number of stories from Deity players about the instant rifle army, but can’t recall about trying this trick myself before. You know what, it can be fun indeed.
A nice touch, he had more than 2x my power but was already at war with Hattie. I declared in 1080AD, and bribed Hanni (and his voluntary vassal Toku) to help me. Monty’s SOD got trapped somewhere in Egypt, and only made its way back after he had capitulated in 1295AD. By that time I had Communism for SP, Bio, Steel.
Then I had the stupid idea of switching victory conditions, thinking I maybe could get away with a fastest conquest, which I never had in BOTM’s. Well, how could I imagine Srad had already finished his game at that point?
I then proceeded to next wars, vassalizing Hanni (1460AD), Toku (1480AD), Hatty (1500AD) and finally Joao (1545AD). Of course, the randomly chosen victory was… Domination.
Initially I was somewhat pissed off by the bad luck in the coin flip, but after reading about Srad’s win I would feel very ashamed if I had otherwise robbed him from that award. Hopefully he’ll get the Gold (btw my score was 313K), and I’ll try to learn from the mistake of changing goals in the middle of a game. Gee, I had tanks by 1500AD, a space win in the 1600’s could be very possible!Nevertheless, a very entertaining game, thanks for sharing it with us, Erkon!
srad
King
Then I had the stupid idea of switching victory conditions, thinking I maybe could get away with a fastest conquest, which I never had in BOTMs. Well, how could I imagine Srad had already finished his game at that point?
Thanks for the kind words! I also recognized that there is some kind of curse on the 'fastest conquest' victory condition
. Tried it already several times but got beaten by someone who did it better so I'm looking forward to try again (beside space race this is my favorite victory condition).WelshGandalf
King
- Joined
- Sep 6, 2010
- Messages
- 743
1455AD culture victory, and I felt much better this time. Again I used Sushi, which was not very powerful in this map, but it did help on GA production and score as well.
Spoiler :
Can someone ease my confusion?
The second screenshot appears to show 1 specialist, earning 60 culture a turn. The third appears to show 3 specialists (2 + 1 settled), earning 80 culture a turn. When your standard artist earns, what, 4 culture a turn, how is this possible? I know the Sistine Chapel gets you an extra 2 but this doesn't even begin to get close.
I'm at 1500AD in my re-played game and one of my 3 culture cities isn't even at 100 a turn yet! Hmmm.
Conquistador 63
Deity
The image definition is not the best but in the 2nd screenie there are 10 artists - size 23 city with 13 worked tiles. The 3rd one has 11 artists (12 tiles worked out of 23 pop). There should be a small triangle or something next to the upper left of the specialist indicating that represents not 1 but 10 (Buffy mod stuff?).
WelshGandalf
King
- Joined
- Sep 6, 2010
- Messages
- 743
Ahaaa that makes sense
I've never had over 5 of one sort of specialist before so never seen that "shorthand" for 10 of them before.So the 2nd screenshot is 10 artists at 4 (+2 for sistine) = 60, the third one is 11 artists at 4(+2) = 66, plus 12(+2) for the settled artist = 80.
Thanks for the clarification
The other crazy thing I see is the 144 turns of whipped unhappiness in the 2nd screenie, a mere 90 in the 3rd one
beestar
subdeity
I followed my own advice in the pre-game thread and axe-rushed Vicky, but got scared of her archers in London so instead I conquered her 4 peripheral cities (razing one of them). I was sure I could contain Vicky and finish her off soon, so I called a cease fire instead of a peace treaty.
A few turns later, two English workers returning to London proved too juicy to pass up, so I redeclared to grab them. Unfortunately, her vengeance stack of a sword, two axes, and two archers recaptured one of her cities (the one opening up access to the rest of the continent to the southwest), and she was going to quickly recapture her other cities.
I threw in the towel, victim of my own greed, but uploaded my game anyway to help AlanH generate more realistic statistics.
Oh well, more time for Civ V
A few turns later, two English workers returning to London proved too juicy to pass up, so I redeclared to grab them. Unfortunately, her vengeance stack of a sword, two axes, and two archers recaptured one of her cities (the one opening up access to the rest of the continent to the southwest), and she was going to quickly recapture her other cities.
I threw in the towel, victim of my own greed, but uploaded my game anyway to help AlanH generate more realistic statistics.
Oh well, more time for Civ V
Xcalibrator
Ultraviolet Catastrophe
You're just trying to make me feel better about being a coward, bee! 
Since my first attempt did not go so well, I restarted from 10AD. This time I paid attention to the angry orange WHEOOHRN fist by Monty and fortified more units in the jungle pass NW of the gems site. He still broke through but it cost him and I was able to hold my cities and eventually wipe out his invading stack. And in the meantime, I did not start a 2-front war by attacking Vicky like last time. Uh yeah, that worked better. I've played to 1670 so far and have taken out Monty and Hanni, about to start on Toku and Hattie, both of whom are way behind me and my cannon + CR3 rifles and Mguns. I held off on Astro to keep the Colossus bonus, building up a pile of cash, but am now teching like crazy with a Golden Age to get to Artillery and take out Vicky and Joao, who have a significant lead on me in techs. I usually play Small maps, though, and am becoming bored. Might start over and try a rush on Vicky for the thrill (likely followed by great sadness) 
So, Erkon, tell us about your map design! What did you do to make it especially evil? Resources seemed a bit stingy. And what's with the mountain range separating Toku from Hanni? Was it generated that way, or did you tweak it? Any insight into your devious thinking would be very interesting.
Since my first attempt did not go so well, I restarted from 10AD. This time I paid attention to the angry orange WHEOOHRN fist by Monty and fortified more units in the jungle pass NW of the gems site. He still broke through but it cost him and I was able to hold my cities and eventually wipe out his invading stack. And in the meantime, I did not start a 2-front war by attacking Vicky like last time.
Uh yeah, that worked better. I've played to 1670 so far and have taken out Monty and Hanni, about to start on Toku and Hattie, both of whom are way behind me and my cannon + CR3 rifles and Mguns. I held off on Astro to keep the Colossus bonus, building up a pile of cash, but am now teching like crazy with a Golden Age to get to Artillery and take out Vicky and Joao, who have a significant lead on me in techs. I usually play Small maps, though, and am becoming bored. Might start over and try a rush on Vicky for the thrill (likely followed by great sadness) So, Erkon, tell us about your map design! What did you do to make it especially evil? Resources seemed a bit stingy. And what's with the mountain range separating Toku from Hanni? Was it generated that way, or did you tweak it? Any insight into your devious thinking would be very interesting.
Sure, I'd love to hear about the mapmaker design process too.
I still wish there had been a challenger save, and the challenger save swapped the spawn locations of Joao with Monty, and Toku with Vicky
It would have been both fun, and really interesting to compare that sort of difference instead of the average "challenger save just differs in game difficulty level)
I still wish there had been a challenger save, and the challenger save swapped the spawn locations of Joao with Monty, and Toku with Vicky
It would have been both fun, and really interesting to compare that sort of difference instead of the average "challenger save just differs in game difficulty level)
1550 AD Conquest, 276k
I was gonna go for space here, as practice for SGOTM, but changed my mind yesterday in the interest of finishing on time...
Really fun game initially, anti-climactic in the end. I've never had a more difficult economic recovery, I think (see first spoiler). Basically 0% just breaking even from about 1800 BC to about 700 AD, and most of that time MM-ing every city heavily every turn to stay afloat. I had 16-17 cities in this period (half each continent). Monte DOW'd once, but only sent 1LB and 1 axe, as he was busy elsewhere. Otherwise, just building up and massively cash trading. The AIs were painfully slow in tech and quite easy to exploit through trade in this game. I ended up with Lib-Steel, and just started spamming cannons.
Monte and Hanni were a joke. I smoked them with no losses, IIRC. Made a huge blunder with Toku, failing to spy out his SOD hiding in some random corner and splitting mine. He butchered my smaller stack and recaptured a couple of cities, while I was already sending troops back to Portugal. So, it turned out to be a somewhat painful war.
The conquest was done with a pile of cannons and muskets. I used knights pretty extensively, as well, because of the distances between my core and Carthage/Japan. Mass upgrade to rifles ahead of the Portuguese war, but it wasn't necessary. I just had lots of cash to burn.
Stayed under dom limit by gifting Aztec and Japanese cities. Had to do it repeatedly, as I crossed the limit about 5 times in the last 15t. Joao was quite large, so I had the idea of just 5pop whipping something in all of my cities and getting under pop limit here, assuming I could cap him quickly. He turned out to be very stubborn, and city-gifting was much simpler in the end.
srad and Duckweed, great games as usual!
I was gonna go for space here, as practice for SGOTM, but changed my mind yesterday in the interest of finishing on time...
Really fun game initially, anti-climactic in the end. I've never had a more difficult economic recovery, I think (see first spoiler). Basically 0% just breaking even from about 1800 BC to about 700 AD, and most of that time MM-ing every city heavily every turn to stay afloat. I had 16-17 cities in this period (half each continent). Monte DOW'd once, but only sent 1LB and 1 axe, as he was busy elsewhere.
Otherwise, just building up and massively cash trading. The AIs were painfully slow in tech and quite easy to exploit through trade in this game. I ended up with Lib-Steel, and just started spamming cannons.Monte and Hanni were a joke. I smoked them with no losses, IIRC. Made a huge blunder with Toku, failing to spy out his SOD hiding in some random corner and splitting mine. He butchered my smaller stack and recaptured a couple of cities, while I was already sending troops back to Portugal. So, it turned out to be a somewhat painful war.
The conquest was done with a pile of cannons and muskets. I used knights pretty extensively, as well, because of the distances between my core and Carthage/Japan. Mass upgrade to rifles ahead of the Portuguese war, but it wasn't necessary. I just had lots of cash to burn.
Stayed under dom limit by gifting Aztec and Japanese cities. Had to do it repeatedly, as I crossed the limit about 5 times in the last 15t. Joao was quite large, so I had the idea of just 5pop whipping something in all of my cities and getting under pop limit here, assuming I could cap him quickly. He turned out to be very stubborn, and city-gifting was much simpler in the end.
srad and Duckweed, great games as usual!
@Duckweed,
Your screenies are not showing. I'd love to see...
BTW, assuming this one's in the bag, it seems you'd be missing only one award. Does this mean you're going for AP cheese on Noble next game? How would you live with yourself?
@map,
I thought this was an average Immortal game. Not a very generous start, but Epic and weak AI performance more than make up for that. I axed Vicky, but GLH+TGL with 4 cities on mainland and 5-6 on the other landmass should be plenty for a comfortable win.
Your screenies are not showing. I'd love to see...
BTW, assuming this one's in the bag, it seems you'd be missing only one award. Does this mean you're going for AP cheese on Noble next game?
How would you live with yourself?@map,
I thought this was an average Immortal game. Not a very generous start, but Epic and weak AI performance more than make up for that. I axed Vicky, but GLH+TGL with 4 cities on mainland and 5-6 on the other landmass should be plenty for a comfortable win.
@Duckweed,
Your screenies are not showing. I'd love to see...
BTW, assuming this one's in the bag, it seems you'd be missing only one award. Does this mean you're going for AP cheese on Noble next game?
2 posts in CiV used up all the bandwidth from Photobucket site, so those pictures won't get freed until Nov 4th.
Anyway, I have registered an account in Imageshack and will use it now.I have thought the next BOTM would be deity and it'd be good level to try the cheese AP. Now I need to think carefully about how to play the game as this is a brand-new victory type for me and I also don't know how to play well on a noble game. Prepare to be beat in the 1st try!
I feel your pain - 1275ad Domi, 339k score. Also going for conquest - can't call it fast though. Monty put up helluva fight.Domination 1285AD, Score 363k
Goal was fast(est) conquest.!
2 cities, axe-rushed Vicky, settled 2 more cities, took 1 barb city, guilds, 2 wars with Monty, who finally succumbed only with 3 cities left of 12 starting. Liber-ed Cuirassiers, then Cav. No Astro.
Standard wonder set - GLh, Colossus, GLib, Parth, HG, Taj.
Played during last 2 days (nights), so lots of opportunities for improvement. Slept 3 hours, finished 5 hours pre-deadline and 1 before work )
You are more dedicated than me. 3 hours left and I don't think I can play fast enough to finish. Plus I'm tired and want my sleep.
Conquered rest of England with catapults as planned. Nationalism from Liberalism to build Taj Mahal (Hannibal already had nationalism.)
Joao is huge and friendly, Monte is big and pleased. Keeping Monte pleased has meant fake wars with Hannibal, Toku and Hatty. Just invaded Egypt with drafted rifles and trebuchets. Took Thebes - Hindu holy city shrine and 3 wonders.
Posted incomplete game; maybe I will return to it someday and see if I can win it.
srad
King
Uff, this sounds like a though game! I hope you can recover from the short of sleep till tomorrow - the deity WOTM release
And Monty is really not a guy who gives up fast
This game was never intended as a BOTM actually. It was a random map I generated during the spring for my own pleasure, and me, being a bit rusty at Civ4, was under pressure from Victoria since she started to box me in. My impression was that the starting area was a bit poor, and an axe rush on Victoria was more or less mandatory. I didn't tweak the map at all this time - sorry for disappointing you!
EDIT: Nice to see that Lexad is still fighting
EDIT: Nice to see that Lexad is still fighting
PutCashIn
Prince
Yeah I found the start both a squeeze and a bit rez poor, mostly because it was Imoortal and I needed all the help I could get!
It might have been a bit more 'user friendly' to have an adventurer emperor save, but that being said, I did my first (and successful) axe rush on Immortal, so I guess thats the harsh learning curve of GOTM's that I soooo love. Even if I eventually got pasted by Hannible, I still managed to learn a thing or two (or identify a mistake or two)!
It might have been a bit more 'user friendly' to have an adventurer emperor save, but that being said, I did my first (and successful) axe rush on Immortal, so I guess thats the harsh learning curve of GOTM's that I soooo love. Even if I eventually got pasted by Hannible, I still managed to learn a thing or two (or identify a mistake or two)!
srad
King
I smiled when I discovered the initial situation because it appears to me that an axe rush is almost mandatory -> a nice Erkon map.
Mitchum
Deity
Actually, I was initially going for a diplo victory. I settled my first 6 cities peacefully because Victoria and I were on good terms with a shared religion... My finish date wasn't that impressive, but I didn't axe rush anyone...
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