BOTM 38 Final Spoiler -Game Submitted or Abandoned

[urbis]

Damn.

Conquered my continent and recovered from being dangerously behind in tech. Decided to try for a space victory rather than my usual warmongering win. Launched my ship 1 turn before Ramses II with all parts complete except 1 engine (knowing he was close). His ship beat mine by 2 turns.

If I'd had more real time to devote I might have tried throwing my massive military at Ramses to try to take his capital while his spaceship was in flight (think that prevents his win?), but was rushing to complete.

Damn.

 

[kcd_swede]

Damn.

Conquered my continent and recovered from being dangerously behind in tech. Decided to try for a space victory rather than my usual warmongering win. Launched my ship 1 turn before Ramses II with all parts complete except 1 engine (knowing he was close). His ship beat mine by 2 turns.

If I'd had more real time to devote I might have tried throwing my massive military at Ramses to try to take his capital while his spaceship was in flight (think that prevents his win?), but was rushing to complete.

Damn.

Sorry for your loss.

Yes, capturing the capitol would have caused the mission to fail. On another note, if any AI launch their spaceship AFTER you have launched yours, you can be certain that you will lose if you don't take their capitol.

Better luck next time!

 

[jesusin]

On another note, if any AI launch their spaceship AFTER you have launched yours, you can be certain that you will lose if you don't take their capitol.

Really? Why is that so?
I mean, will I lose even if I launched 7 turns ago and with 2 engines?

 

[Skurn]

After failing to build the pyramids, I used the gold to quickly get currency and COL, and then bulbed philo with a GS, founding taoism in Thebes (175AD).
I managed to build several wonders : Glib (200AD) and NE (520AD) in Eleph , Parth (250AD) and Schweda (450AD) in Athens. I got some gold from failed HG and AW, which financed my research.
I founded cities in the southern corners of my continent in 200AD, and a 9th south of Thebes in 250AD. Roose managed to grab the iron spot on the east coast though.
I adopted HR and FR in 475AD

Situation in 500AD : 9 cities / 42 pop / 9 workers / 14 military units / 332g in bank, 183bpt -101gpt @100%, 46bpt 3gpt @20%

My tech rate was improving steadily now, I got CS in 620AD (switched to Bureaucracy), then bulbed paper and partially bulbed educ that I finished in 820AD. I got feudalism, MC, construction and machinery from trade.
I built the HE in Athens in 1010AD, and Oxford in Eleph in 1100AD

Situation in 1050AD : 9 cities / 67 pop / 13 workers / 16 military units / 473g in bank, 294bpt -64gpt @100%, 211bpt -8gpt @70%

In 1110AD I launched a GA, switched to vassalage and started producing maces and trebs to invade Gandhi and Roose. Gandhi though offered vassalization in 1160AD, so I had only Roosevelt to fight. On the last turn of my GA, I took constitution from lib and switched to rep.

I dowed Roosevelt in 1240AD, and conquered him slowly, losing a bunch of trebs. In 1460Ad, he was down to 2 crappy cities and I vassalized him.
In the meantime, I was preparing the next wave for the other continent. I researched gunpowder and chem, got astro and econ from trade with Gandhi, rep parts in 1460AD, steel in 1505AD, rifling in 1545AD.

Situation in 1500AD : 16 cities / 164 pop / 20 workers / 85 military units (23 maces, 14 trebs) / 1088g in bank, 907bpt -338gpt @100%, 460bpt 18gpt @30%

I first invaded Asoka, declaring in 1555AD; I took two cities including his capital with maces and cannons, supported with frigates, and he capitulated in 1575AD. I upgraded my maces to riflemen, loaded 7 galleons and went directly for Lincoln coastal capital. I dowed him in 1605AD, captured Washington the next turn and he bent the knee.
The troops in Washington were sent toward Pericles borders, while I reinforced my army in Asoka's land to go for Ramses. Egypt had cultural supremacy though, and his main cities weren't easy to get to. I dowed both Peri and Ramses in 1625AD and took one major city from each the next turn. In 1640 I took back an indian city that Ramses had invaded, killing enough troops to make Egypt willing to capitulate. Pericles was already asking for mercy, and thus I achieved world conquest in 1645AD.

---

Thanks for these interesting settings. I found the map easier than a standard emperor, mostly because the AI were peacemongers. The start was a bit tricky though, the land was so-so without a lot of food, and the maintenance costs were rather high!

 

[ElWanderer]

After trashing my economy by 1A.D. I was trailing for most of the game, but I slowly recovered.

The dumbest thing I did was to note that two of Hatshepsut's war chariots were headed to a barbarian city (with three archers defending, on a hill), prepare a bunch of phalanxes to take the city after she'd weakened the defences... then forget to move them Both her chariots survived and she took the city the next turn, before I could get there. That city turned out to be next to iron and oil and was really annoying culturally...

By the time I had riflemen and cavalry, Roosevelt had neither so I decided to attack (naturally he had both and machine guns shortly after I declared). The first city I targeted had the Islamic shrine and Versailles, so it was well worth it. I left him two dirt poor cities and made him a vassal. During the war, Rameses decided to join in and tore up my fishing nets with his destroyers (against which I had nothing more powerful than privateers!) - he didn't try to come over with any land units and he was even prepared to pay me gold for peace after a few turns.

Roosevelt become the bogeyman of world politics - he kept preventing UN resolution votes by choosing to defy them, which left his cities stuck at 1-pop and -15 unhappiness

With a better looking set of cities, I then set about taking a tech lead. I beelined computers, built The Internet and scooped in multiple techs - that helped a lot!

Hatshepsut clearly switched on to a cultural victory (despite being the first city to become legendary in the game, my second city couldn't work half the squares in its BFC and was down to 47% Greek culture by the end of the game!) and was only about 10 turns away from achieving it by the end. I did plan an Operation Nuke and Raze, but fortunately didn't need to enact it. I launched my spaceship in 1942 for a 1952 win.

I remember reading somewhere on here that distance from palace maintenance costs are doubled for each axis that wraps, but I've not been able to find that post by searching the forum/Google. I may have got the detail wrong...

 

[kcd_swede]

Really? Why is that so?
I mean, will I lose even if I launched 7 turns ago and with 2 engines?

Have you ever seen that occur? I'm just speaking from my own observations, so its not hard-coded or anything. But if I launch a spaceship, only 2 things ever occur: (1) The AI never bothers to comlete their spaceship and I win, or (2) the AI launches in a time window that beats my spaceship.

That is to say, I've never won a space victory while the AI spaceship was in flight, unless it is recalled after capturing the capitol.

So I guess my advice is that if the AI launches you should assume that it will land before yours does, even if it launched a few turns after. Pretend that it is "certain" because its better safe than sorry.

 

[jesusin]

I see. Can I assume that you always launch with a single engine?

 

[kcd_swede]

I see. Can I assume that you always launch with a single engine?

No, I sometimes launch with 2, depending whether it saves time or not (usually 1 engine is faster for me). But maybe only 25% of the space races are close enough to judge whether my assumption about AI behavior is valid or not. So its not based on a huge wealth of experience.

I have launched a fully completed SS, then click enter, and see an AI launch IBT... and the AI won the race. I assume that means that IBT is the "same turn" and ties go to the AI.

Of course... I make a lot of dubious assumptions... so always take my declarations with a bit of salt.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

On another note, if any AI launch their spaceship AFTER you have launched yours, you can be certain that you will lose if you don't take their capitol.

One possible way in which this point COULD be true is if an AI who has completed its Spaceship sees that you will beat the AI to winning, and the AI then uses this fact to refuse to launch its Spaceship, sitting around and doing nothing to get into Space.

It would be a silly approach, since if you happen to lose your capital, it could still win.

But, if that's how the AI is coded, then that's how it is coded.

Of course, if an AI will launch a Spaceship even if it cannot win, then I do not think that you can draw a general rule in this manner.

I don't have enough experience with BtS Space games to know when an AI will launch and whether or not they will ever "sit" on a completed Spaceship and just choose not to launch it, but it should be pretty simple for someone to come in with a counter-argument to your claim and say that they have seen an AI launch a Spaceship sometime after the human player has launched their own Spaceship and the human player won the game.

 

[jesusin]

I have completed my write-up now, it's here
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=10216979&postcount=40

Sorry for the delay.

 

[Jovan Kukic]

Conquest win, 880AD
I played this GOTM a month ago, so my memories are quite foggy.
In ancient times I noticed that I have much around. That fact encouraged me to make first war earlier than I used to do. I needed more working force for doing hard work (chopping forests and digging mines), so I decided to capture some Egyptians for that purpose. That triggered the war. I had 2 own cities, and made army to get more cities. After some turns, weakened Egyptians were ideal target to my mighty phalanx, so I crushed them. My war campaigns against 2 other neighbours were much more barbaric. I usually don't like to raze AI cities in GOTMs in order to gain more points, but this time I noticed that maintenance costs are unusually high, so I was forced to commit those anti-civilization acts. Maybe I only decided to keep New York. And I made about 2 cities more, one to get most of resources from ruins of Indian empire, and second as my port where I made galleys in order to start the invasion of another continent (they deserved to die, they had at least 2 corn more than my continent).
As my power was groving, I started to use mounted units to rush on the enemies as fast as I can (that strategy only pays off if enemies are vastly outnumbered). I captured or razed many AI cities on 2nd continent, depending on their location. I made forbidden palace there. That helped me with my economy, so I was able to keep newly conquered cities without need to raze them