BOTM 40 Final Spoiler - Game Submitted or Abandoned

[WelshGandalf]

1905AD cultural victory. My first on deity!

In the whole game I killed.... 2 privateers, that's it. I was at war with the English briefly to keep someone happy. The privateers easily knocked 10 turns of my win, though, blocking loads of my water tiles and starving the spice island from 13 pop to 5 pop (and this was my GP farm...). I had to tech astronomy and chemistry to get frigates out to get rid of them.

Tried to stay buddies with everyone, it just about worked. There was enough hatred around in the rest of the world for me to slip by. Toku, Saladin & myself were buddists and I had open borders with them both. Always a novelty to get open borders with Toku. Managed to get 4 religions. Founded 7 cities on the mainland (1 awful one), also got one on the 2-square island in the middle of the Arabian ones to be my 9th. Eventually that city had about 12 water tiles under its control thanks to all my culture

2 oddities I found this game....
- my arabian island never resulted in negative "close borders" diplo with Saladin - I guess because there was no land border.
- When I was asked to declare war on England (by Mehmet I think), and accepted, "Victoria refuses to speak to you" came up in the bar at the top. However the very next thing to happen was Victoria asking me if I wanted to declare on Mehmet! I said no - but I wonder what would've happened had I said yes? I also then clicked on the trade button, this bought up the trade screen minus everything to the left & right of the picture of Victoria. SO no trade was possible as she wasn't talking to me, even though she was at that moment

 

[kcd_swede]

- When I was asked to declare war on England (by Mehmet I think), and accepted, "Victoria refuses to speak to you" came up in the bar at the top. However the very next thing to happen was Victoria asking me if I wanted to declare on Mehmet! I said no - but I wonder what would've happened had I said yes?

You would be at war with both Mehmed and Victoria. It is not that uncommon for two AI who are at war to both contact you in between turns. I guess they hadn't finished translating your last missive yet. So she didn't know you declared war with her yet... but you knew, thus the trades are blacked out.

Congrats on the victory!

 

[urbis]

Domination win in 1908AD.

Played Immortal level as I took the Adventurer start.
Settled on plains hill to the west.
Initial builds workboat, worker, workboat (explorer), settler, workboat (explorer), worker, settler, warrior.
Initial techs mining, agri, BW, mysticysm, wheel.
2400BC exploring workboat met Arabians (just in time to get visibility of Mecca before their borders expanded pushing my boat away).
2160BC beaten to Stonehenge in city 2.
Around 0AD very lucky to have 2 existing mines discover silver!

Used beserkers to excellent effect for suprise raids, taking coastal cities. Took most Japanese cities first, then all the others, one by one, except the Arabs.

Looks like a pretty slow and late victory compared to some of the other reports... ah well.

 

[evil_spock]

Cultural victory 1765.

I've tried a few deity games before and this certainly did not feel like one. The archipelago setting seems to slow down the ai, because for a good part of the game I managed to keep up with techs quite easily. Even getting liberalism first was easy. That said, the game was still scary. You'll never know when some massive SOD ends up in your shores so you live in a constant fear and stress. I'm sure this game hasn't been very healthy for me.

I basically beelined to music (got it first), built sistine/national epic/hermitage in my production/"gp-farm" city near the bananas. Capital and the other culture city in south were almost filled with cottages. The main island had two other (very poor) cities and the nice spice island produced the most of my life saving defense forces.

In diplomacy my primary goal was to keep Toku as happy as possible, so basically it meant lots of bribes and sharing the same religion. Eventually I, Toku, Mehmed, Vicky and Sitting Bull shared Judaism. Napoleon was Buddhist and ended up fighting Sitting Bull for most of the time. That leaves Saladin, who was pretty much isolated with his Hinduism and thanks to my generous technological gifts, Toku pretty much kept him in line. Unluckily though I caught only 2 religions, so no bigger than 100% bonuses from those nice religion buildings.

Sharing Judaism didn't stop Mehmed for attacking me in the late game. Aside from the few turns after meeting him, he was pleased with me the whole game. Because Mehmed won't declare war when pleased, it seems like he started to plan his attack during those early years. Talk about planning a war, it took him about 3000 years to launch his attack! Good thing I had a bunch of berserkers and rifles at that point, so destroying Mehmed's pitiful attack force (a couple of trebuchets, musketmen, a pikeman and a knight) was no challenge. Soon after that I the war ended and we were the best buddies again.

After that the game was pretty much trading some odd techs for money and hoping that none of the bigger boys wouldn't take me as their target. This was the most nerve wrecking time of the game. Actually so nerve wrecking that I won't try this anytime soon again.

 

[2metraninja]

Spaceship loss in 1903 or so to the English. She was sooo far away with techs and all the other ba$tards stopped trading techs with me around Rifling. Still had tech lead over them in the end though.

Vassalized Tokugawa, got the Sushi and had second score in the game. Thats all I managed to achieve without oil, but more without clear plan which VC to pursue.

 

[jesusin]

Last minute submission... I was lucky, when it reads "1 hour left" it really means almost 2 hours left.

1780AD cultural victory. I need to rest... NO, I need to eat first, 16 hours in a row without feeding! That must be my personal record.

 

[babybluepants]

1924 AD space win. Just about finished on time... Spoiler when I feel up to it.
Fun game. DS

 

[mikeocarroll]

Retired 1040AD (and forgot to submit - thought I'd do it later and only just remembered, too late!)

Wasn't going too well at 1AD and decided to beeline Beserkers/Trebs and attack Togu. Attacked in 1000AD with a stack of 10 Berserkers, 10 Trebs, & a couple of Pikemen and Longbows. My stack was completely wiped out before I'd even attacked a city... a harsh lesson in deity. Oh well, better luck next time.

 

[zamint3]

Ran out of time, handling those large stacks takes a lot of your time....

Submitted an incomplete game, but I'm still alive at 1480AD, last but alive!

I did take 5 of Toku's cities including all the islands with horses and spices, when Napoleon DOW on me in spite of him having SB as worst enemy all game.

I was prepared and a naval invasion from an AI is not that bad , so I transported all my nearby units to that western most island and retreated my navy to the spices island. It turns out he landed all his troops except one WE who then defeats my lonely beserker on spice island and destroys my navy, not as big as Duckweeds but .....

@ Duckweed: Nice write up

 

[babybluepants]

1924 AD Space Race, 29k

I wasn't in a very strong position at 1 AD, as described in the first spoiler. The path from there was fairly straightforward. I settled the remaining city spots (ending up with 7 on the main island and 3 on horse/incense islands), while teching CS-Edu-Lib. Had some ideas about trying for either Scientific Method or Steel, but I could have likely only had Chem, and decided on Nat. I could trade for SB's marble and this gave me some quick tech trades. Not sure it was the right decision, but whatever. After that, it was Chem / PP / SM, which was all done circa 1100-1200 AD. I decided to go Steel ahead of Bio-Medicine, so I could get a head start on taking Japan.

Diplomacy: Tricky. Lots of WE land mines, and quick WFYABTA with quite a few AIs. I waited on the SB/Mehmed religion 'till about 700 AD. When it finally spread, I had all 7 religions with pretty decent auto-spread. This made me seriously consider just getting to Sushi and going culture, but I decided against it. Anyway, I joined the SB/Mehmed block. Saladin was still willing to trade around this time, as well.

AP: Napoleon built the Buddhist AP. Vicky and her spawned vassal Washington were the only AIs in this religion, but Napoleon had enough votes to pass resolutions himself (he had 25 cities in my game). Around the time I started researching Steel, he starts by passing a stop trading with Mehmed - killing my one set of potential trades. He then DOWs Saladin, who in turn asks me to join - had to deny at that stage. This drops Saladin out of trading mood, at least temporarily. Then Napoleon passes a world war against Saladin before backstabbing me with a big (20-30 units) stack at my easternmost city on the same turn. This is still 1-2t before Steel, and I've only just started producing berserkers and muskets. Luckily, he waits in the east city for some turns and splits the stack before advancing towards my main production center in banana/iron. By this point, I have 2-3 cannons there, and 10-15 units (at the cost of some really awful whipping). I crush his stack on the banana tile, but have to wait some turns to regroup and recapture my city. He won't take peace for quite a while, though.

Japan: this all caused a major delay in attacking Toku. I decide to push forward there with limited troops, so as not to completely lose the Steel window. Without enough troops to commit initially, I figure I'd take the southernmost city at corn/pig, ceasefire if needed and regroup for Kyoto. That's what I do, except I wait too long in re-attacking him, and he get Chem - and upgrades something like 20 caravels all of a sudden. I decide to push forward anyway - at the cost of pillaged seafood and probably some significant ship (I have just gotten Sushi and spread it to a few cities at this point, so the seafood loss really sucks). Take Kyoto, spice island city and one more right away, but during that time Toku suddenly gains RP and Rifling in the space of 2t and instantly upgrades. Meanwhile, Napoleon has vassaled Saladin (without taking a single bloody city ) and is back in WHEEOHRN. I have to stop my Japan invasion now, and brace for Napoleon. I'm also spreading Sushi and nearing AL, so there's some building to do anyway.

Around this time, Mehmed comes out of refusal to talk only about long enough for Napoleon to pass another stop trading. After AL, I go for Artillery and decide to go after Vicky this time - she seems weaker than Toku and has better cities left. This war takes place in the 1700's and I take 5 main island cities + 1 small island. Happiness is becoming a problem now with Sushi, Emancipation and WW, so I stop warring, having made very little progress for much effort (I'm up to 20 cities now).

Focus on the space race now. Napoleon's been at war with SB, then out for a few turns before another WHEEOHRN. He attacks Vicky, then passes a stop war against Napoleon on THE SAME TURN then goes into WHEEOHRN again the next turn. Anyway, I'm keeping a heavy garrison throughout, at a big cost with Pacifism, but he eventually attacks SB again. In fact, everyone attacks everyone around 1820 AD, and they all stay at war to the end.

I struggle to get my 3GP GA going, popping 3 straight GS at less than 30% odds. When I finally get it, I make a stupid mistake and switch to FR ahead of making two more trades with SB (Ecology and something else good - forget now). Otherwise, I do a 5t Slavery kick during this GA for labs and some trailing factories/plants, and then complete the tech tree at a rather pathetic rate of about 1800-2000 bpt. My first 3 space parts get sabotaged in Japan, so I have to delay for a good 10t in the end to get all the parts on the same turn.

That's about it. The game was very fun for a long time, since my slow opening made it a real uphill struggle, but I had to play the last 100t a few hours before the deadline, so I didn't even really do anything in the space race portion except smack Enter repeatedly. Probably could have finished much better. Not that it matters, as the date is quite poor either way.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Was on my way to a Diplo (UN) Victory but ran out of time. I'd vassalled Toku, taken most of Saladin's lands, vassalled Mehmed, and owned most of England's lands.

England had built The UN, so I was planning on leaving England with the City that contained it.

Napoleon was Friendly with me and all of my Vassals. Napoleon was also locked into war with Sitting Bull (the third or fourth War Declaration between the two of them), leaving me free to finish off England.

It was just rounding the 1900 AD mark and the most recent Diplo Victory Vote (called by England) left me just short of winning... a bit more time and a randomly-chosen Diplo Victory Vote (or else me getting elected Secretary General and then manually calling for a Diplo Victory Vote) would have likely been enough for a win... but the game turns just went by too slowly on my aging computer near the end of the game for me to be able finish on time.

The Vikings were well used in that I did indeed leverage a ton of upgraded Berserkers. That said, I do not recall using their Amphibious Attack ability and just ended up landing my stacks before attacking.


The toughest part was using wooden ships to take down Saladin while he was fielding Destroyers... fortunately, our Unique Building plus Circumnavigation allowed me to "run the gauntlet" from island to island, dropping off a stack and losing a few Frigates/Ships of the Line while allowing my Galleons to run away and hide in a City on the following turn...

I did lose a stack of City Raider III Grenadiers and Cannons before I was able to add Riflemen to my stacks, but otherwise, warring was pretty straight-forward.


Early on, I built The Great Lighthouse and The Oracle (for Alphabet) in my first two Cities. The Oracle was a mistake, as my expansion was greatly delayed and I had to fight Toku and Saladin for all off-of-the-mainland settling locations except for 1 City that I'd managed to squeeze in on another island.

I ended up beelining Astronomy and waiting until it came in before attacking Toku, so as to keep my lucrative Foreign Trade Routes.


It was a fun game, thanks!

 

[jesusin]

jesusin, contender. Goal: fastest cultural game. Result: 1780AD cultural victory.


Settling:

Scout W-SE, see another wheat. Think long. Settle 1S, not on the coast, to keep 2food and 1 shared, while having 2 hills and 5 riverside cottages.

Research Agri-AH-Mining.
Builds: Worker, Warrior, Settler.

Second city settled 1N of sugar, making the S clams unusable. My decision was: I prefer a great city better than several so-so cities, in order to get a better cultural date. It will get Moai.

Third city in the E tip.

Fourth built SE, on PH, shared wheat, banana, gems. I should have settled on the gems, killing them but getting a fish instead. Happiness was a big problem.

Fifth on spices island.

Sixth on the North part of Toku's horses island.

All in all: neither copper nor iron in any BFC, as I discovered later.


Exploring:

WB sent East. Turns around Saladin, finding no one else. By the time I dow Toku and it can pass West, it decides to go North and finds no one.

All in all: Met the 3 last AIs post 1000AD!!!


Warring:

Toku has food and GLH. And he has dared to be my neighbour. This won't be a peaceful game.

My bad luck with metal placing after having settled all of my island forced me to dalay my attack on Toku and to build another settler and to settle my seventh city in a useless spot close to Iron.

When enough Sword are gathered, Toku gets Feudalism. No other AI has even Monarchy. Ugh. All war plans cancelled. Toku gets Parthenon in the GLH city to raise my spirits. Time to research up to Construction. The BCs are over.

Dow Toku 400AD with 10Cats and 10Swords and Spear and Axe. Take food city. Reinforcements arrive. Get capital with GLH and Parthenon. No more reinforcements are to come, since Ive lsot most of my galleys. Third city is taken and razed since it has not a single resource. This is the biggest mistake of my game. The city woudl get rebuild and it would flip back Tiku's capital... but that is much later on.


Progress

1000 BC Stats: 4 cities, 13 pop, 2workers, settler, 6units(3War, Gal), 0 strategic resources, 0 luxury resources, 3 health resources, 0 great persons, 0 world wonders, 0 national wonders, food/production/commerce=34-26-36, 24 sustainable beakers per turn, 5 culture per turn, 6 great person points per turn, 144 gold, 1monu, 1Barr, 1Lib. 0 religions, 0/0 cottages used, 8 Techs: AH, Wri, Sail. 0 civs killed. 4 hours played.

Alphabet 775BC.
Academy 550BC.

1AD Stats: 7 cities, 31 pop, 4workers, 13units (5Swo), 1 strategic resources, 3 luxury resources, 4 health resources, 1 great persons, 0 world wonders, 0 national wonders, food/production/commerce=91-45-77, 49 sustainable beakers per turn, 18 culture per turn, 6 great person points per turn, 350 gold. 2 religions. 1/2 cottages used, 18 Techs: IW, Alpha, Aest, PH. 0 civs killed. 9 hours played. reli/city, temples, caths== 2,0,0

Moai 75AD.

Toku's war 400AD-700AD. When it's over, I am in a tech-trading hole. Why? Three reasons:
- So many units for so long.
- Unhappiness.
- Sala has monpolies, SB thinks I've traded too much and Toku would never trade. I know no one else.

I fail to be first to Music, but close enough to get Sistine's.

Then luck comes in my help. Toku liberates his initial continent as his vassal Wang, who is glad to trade techs with me. Getting Monarchy (as late as 740AD!!!) saves the day since now my cities can grow past size 5.

Economy ok. Met new AIs. Trade.

1000AD Stats: 9 cities, 66 pop, 5 workers, 34units (10Cat,2Gal), 2 strategic resources, 6 luxury resources, 8 health resources, 2 great persons, 3 world wonders, 0 national wonders, food/production/commerce=176-71-452, 250 sustainable beakers per turn, 75 culture per turn, 28 great person points per turn, 600 gold. 3 religions. 7/23 useful cottages used, 34 Techs: Music, Machi, no Feud, Paper, Philo. 0 civs killed. 21 hours played. reli/city, temples, caths== 10,5,0

Get to Liberalism first in 11090AD, taking Nationalism. fail to get TajMAj though. Usa a GA for a GAge that allows many civic changes without anarchy.

First cathedral 1140AD, ugh.

1490AD, Toku's ex-capital revolts to Wang. Double ugh.

1500AD Stats: 1200cpt, 210GPPpt, 8 cities, preparing for war.

Dow Toku and Wang, surprise take the capital again, next turn Wang is not ready to talk but Toku is (I had ended the first war with a CF) so I take it. All 4 temples have disappeared. I won't be able to build all 12 cathedrals now.

Press enter till the end, in pannic, time is over. Don't use my cultural spreadsheet a single time, no time for that. Don't optimise my GA generation, no time for that. Capital with Hermitage ooes Legendary 4 turns after the others, ugh.

Cultural victory 1780AD. Multipliers 5-4-3.5, bombs 2-4-7, 1GS bulbed, 1GS Acad, 1GA for GAge, total 16GP.



I've just won a Deity game and I have been able to submit on time. Why don't I feel satisfied?

 

[kcd_swede]

Goal: faster cultural game.

Oooh... that's a shocker!

Press enter till the end, in pannic, time is over. Don't use my cultural spreadsheet a single time, no time for that. Don't optimise my GA generation, no time for that.

But this really IS a shocker! It sounds almost like many of my culture attempts.

Cultural victory 1780AD.

Except for that part.

Nice game, you should be very satisfied given this map!

 

[jesusin]

Oooh... that's a shocker!

Oh, yes, faster < fastest; my English is so bad. Edited my post.

But this really IS a shocker! It sounds almost like many of my culture attempts.

Too much real-life going on...

Except for that part.

Nice game, you should be very satisfied given this map!

1780AD is good? I don't think so. I think it's my worst cultural finish date in all my Civ4 career, including the first games where I knew nothing about playing a cultural game.

But there is still hope: I can get an even worst result next GOTM, due to irrational resources option.

 

[Vynd]

As usual I began the game by not turning on the autolog, but as memory serves, I settled on the SW plains hill on turn 3 after a bit of scouting around. My plan was to expand as best I could and see what opportunities arose. Nothing fancy, no risky shots at a wonder. I got a Work Boat out early enough to visit almost everyone, and I quickly saw that Toku would be an unacceptable neighbor *and* that he had no metal. I intended to box him in by settling on the Horse island but somehow fell into a trance and moved too slowly. I arrived after he had already claimed the western end of the island. While I was still able to get the spot I wanted with hills horses and seafood for a Moai production site, I couldn’t expand any further. Still I was up to five good cities and one afterthought (at the far eastern end of the home island).

Initial Skirmishes

Spoiler :

I decided to beeline to Berserkers and kill that border closing bastard, Tokugawa. The beelining went pretty well. I made a Great Engineer with a Forge and used him to pop Machinery to speed things up. The flaw in the plan was that even with Berserkers I needed some Catapults, and by the time I had those Toku had Longbows. If I’d gone for Cats to begin with and had Axes vs. Archers I’d have been better off, I think. My initial attack quickly grabbed Osaka, a nice city, but when I reached heretofore unseen Kyoto, it was on a hill and heavily defended. I opted for a Cease Fire to build up my strength a bit and come back for round 2.

What I failed to notice was that Toku traded for some Iron in the interim. My second offensive was met with disciplined Samurai, the natural enemy of my furious Berserkers! I grabbed Toku’s city at the far end of Horse island and kept building up my forces to try for Kyoto, but then Saladin declares war on me. To meet the new threat I made a lasting peace with Toku.

The war with Saladin is tactically successful but strategically a failure. I crushed his landing force and saw that Basra on the next island east is vulnerable. Therefore I defied his attempt to end the war with the Apostolic Palace. Basra fell in short order, and I made peace. The next vote was to return his city. Once again I defied him! Now my two Hindu cities are really unhappy, and I stopped and actually thought for a minute. He had about 200 votes to the rest of the world’s 25, and will probably keep proposing I return his city indefinitely… Shamefacedly, I gifted the city back.

Successful Expansion

Spoiler :

This marks the beginning of a sustained streak of intelligent play and good luck on my part. I’m on the verge of getting Galleons and decide I should leave Toku alone until he inevitably stagnates. England has better territory, and is currently no stronger than I am, but will likely soar out of reach if I don’t hit them soon. I build up my navy, land a bunch of Berserkers and Trebs, and capture London. Once again my offensive stalls, as I recover from the initial attack and then a powerful counterattack by Vicky. When I finally land my troops next to Hastings, I see my first Redcoats and make peace.

It’s a temporary setback. I have Frigates by this point and am researching Military Science. Before long I have a powerful navy and boatloads of amphibious Grenadiers (upgraded from Berserkers). When war is resumed I quickly capture everything else worth owning on England’s home island, and Vicky capitulates.

Meanwhile, Sitting Bull has vassalized Mehmed, and managed to get both of them into a war with Napoleon and Tokugawa. I race my forces northward, declare on Tokugawa myself, and just barely manage to capture Kyoto before SB’s stack parked outside can do the same. While SB’s forces absorb most of Toku’s attention, I nab another couple of cities from the Japanese, and they capitulate to me as well.

Struggling to Catch the Leaders

Spoiler :

Now I am sitting pretty with 15 cities of my own and about the same amongst my vassals, comparable to SB and Saladin not far behind Nappy. There are just a few problems: It’s about 1770 in game time and my infrastructure has suffered from centuries of neglect as I’ve focused on unit production. Research has also suffered as I diverted lots of money to upgrades. And the month is about 2/3rds over already. So how can I win? Conquest is out. I’ll never finish in time even if I could get my military in shape. Diplo is no good, almost everyone hates each other and at least dislikes me for not agreeing to cancel trades or join in wars. That leaves the Space Race.

I’d noticed that Saladin was espionage-poor and figured I could swipe techs from him while I was building Universities and whatnot. So I turned off research for 20 turns or so, during which time I nabbed Steam Power, Railroads, and Combustion from Saladin. I turned around and traded those to my vassals for the techs I’d ordered them to research for me. By this point Saladin was running out of interesting techs and my cities were better equipped for research, so I went back to that while continuing to use my vassals research to help me. Toku ends up providing me with Medicine and Fission.

Nappy builds the Apollo Program in the late 1700s, and SB soon after, but they take a long, long, time to actually start putting parts together. Little by little I am closing the gap. Then I make a serious blunder. I want some Oil so I can upgrade my fleet if anyone declares on me. My vassals want loads of strategic resources in trade for their sole sources. I’ve read on the forums that a vassal has to accept the first demand that their master makes of them, I decide to try it on Vicky. She refuses to give me her oil and declares war. The very next turn I hook up my second aluminum and trade that and some other surplus stuff to Toku for his oil. Then I have to shutdown research for four or five turns so I can upgrade my units, and devote a few cities to building more troops. I end up subduing Vicky pretty quickly, and make sure to capture her oil and uranium resources while I am at it, but losing that time and resources basically over nothing was very stupid of me.

With Vicky subdued again I press forward on my space ship. I establish Sid’s Sushi to pump up my strongest cities a bit. I prioritized Genetics to get Labs operating as early as possible, and hold a monopoly on that for a long time. I’m the second civ to develop Fusion. By this point Nappy has his ship half-finished and is all but done researching. SB is not far behind. I’m worried that they’ll launch before I can. I can’t get enough espionage going to see where they are building parts, but throw what I am generating toward Nappy. Had I really understood the espionage system I’d have known that I could just do Sabotage Project in their cities to destroy already finished parts.

Endgame

Spoiler :

Nappy had all but one part finished and was seemingly turns away from launching, when he up and declares war on Saladin. This distracts him for a while, and Sitting Bull surges into the lead with the help of the Space Elevator. I’ve finished my space-related research but am still many turns from finishing my ship when SB launches a fully complete ship. I figure that I have 8 turns to sack his capital. I spent 3 turns finishing research on Robotics, 2 turns upgrading my former Berserkers to Mech Inf, and attacked on turn 6.

Just before I attack, someone sabotages a part I’d already finished, preventing me from launching my partially finished ship as planned. But this wakes me up to the fact that such sabotage missions are possible, and I promptly destroy Nappy’s cockpit and pump all available cash into building more espionage against him.

Cahokia was on a hill and heavily defended by about 18 units, including some vicious City Defender 2 first striking Mechanized Infantry. I had 40 attackers, mostly Mech Inf with amphibious but a smattering of whatever else I had on hand too. I reduced the city’s defenses to nothing with a spy. About 4/5ths of the way through my SoD, I’d killed a lot of his units, but he has too many left for me to be able to win. I fall back to a Japanese city off the coast and wait to see if SB will do something stupid. Lo and behold, two turns later Cahokia is defended by only 6 or 7 units, and many of my troops are fully healed. I sabotage his defenses again and… Cahokia is laid waste by the Viking hordes!

I finally finished my ship around this same time. I’d blundered somewhere along the line and left out a Thruster, and launched with 100% chance of success in 14 turns. If only Nappy wasn’t so close to launching a faster ship. I’m pushing everything I can into espionage hoping to sabotage another one of his parts, but no dice. He launched two turns after me, probably due in Alpha Centauri in eight turns.

OK, time to sack another capital. My warfleet had survived the fighting mostly intact by hiding in port, but I only had a few transports left. I quickly built two more and loaded them up with the troops I’d be stockpiling on the home island. I set sail for Paris with five transports full of troops, sailing through Saladin’s territory but still losing half my warships before SB makes peace. I arrive off Paris with my 20 men to Nappy’s 8. My spy fails to drop the defenses, but my navy proves up to the task. I throw my men onto the beaches and… win remarkably easily. Paris is destroyed! Once again the Viking peoples rejoice!

Of course, Nappy’s ship had already arrived a couple of turns ago. I just wanted to see how close I really was to my first Deity victory. The answer: Close enough that I really should have won. That war with Vicky was very unfortunate, as was my lack of comprehension about how to sabotage spaceship parts until it was almost too late. For that matter, I was sloppy in not sending a fleet Nappy’s way earlier, or running it the faster way straight through SB and Mehmed. But I was up against the deadline at the end there and playing in a rush. In any event it was a very exciting and interesting game.

 

[kcd_swede]

@Vynd: Very entertaining spoiler... almost as exciting to read as I'm sure it was to play. Don't get down that you didn't win, you sure played a great game and should have won.

But I do have one question about your gifting a city back to Toku to prevent him destroying your happiness levels with Apostolic Palace votes. Why???

You obviously did not care about the +diplo with him for liberating a city. If the AP resolution double-defiance was your problem, wouldn't it have been more effective to wait for the next resolution and vote FOR returning the city? That way, you'd no longer be a villain when the resolution passed. You are a villain at least until the next vote anyhow, right?

Or perhaps I just misunderstand what you were trying to accomplish with that move? Maybe something even more clever that I could learn from?

 

[Vynd]

Thanks for the compliment, kcd_swede.

But I do have one question about your gifting a city back to Toku to prevent him destroying your happiness levels with Apostolic Palace votes. Why???

You obviously did not care about the +diplo with him for liberating a city. If the AP resolution double-defiance was your problem, wouldn't it have been more effective to wait for the next resolution and vote FOR returning the city? That way, you'd no longer be a villain when the resolution passed. You are a villain at least until the next vote anyhow, right?

Or perhaps I just misunderstand what you were trying to accomplish with that move? Maybe something even more clever that I could learn from?

It probably would have been better to wait. As I recall, I first check to see if I could release it as a vassal, and when I saw my only option was to give it to Saladin I figured, "why not get it over with?" What with all the unhappiness the city wasn't helping me at all. I did figure the diplo bonus wouldn't hurt. Clearly I had no incentive to fight Saladin again anytime soon.

Also, I wasn't sure at the time exactly what would get me out from under the villain penalty, and in fact I've still bee too lazy to look up all the details. I thought there was a slight chance that gifting it back would end the penalty. If I was incorrect (and I was) I thought that I could just vote in favor of whatever Saladin proposed next and that would resolve matters. If i was right about that then giving the city back was defnitely an error, as it meant there was no longer anything for Saladin to put forward for voting.

So I just had to wait until the penalties expired on their own. It wasn't that bad, really. Once the penalty for defying the attempt to end the war ran out after 10 turns or whatever, the unhappiness from my second defiance was manageable.

The city I gifted back was where I ended up stealing all of my techs from Saladin. The tiny bit of culture I'd accumulated there helped me a bit.

 

[kcd_swede]

The city I gifted back was where I ended up stealing all of my techs from Saladin. The tiny bit of culture I'd accumulated there helped me a bit.

Hmmm... that's definitely worth considering. Optimizing the value of espionage points is a part of the game I often overlook. I'm guessing you just made the best of a bad situation, rather than had the foresight to consider this windfall... but to have taken advantage of it is anyhow quite clever!

 

[Jovan Kukic]

Space race victory, 1919. AD
I made 7 cities (6 on my island+spice city). My initial plan was to try to make conquest victory by vassalizing all of the AIs. I planned to beat Tokugawa with my berserkers , but he got techs for longbowmen and crossbowmen much faster than I expected, and that war was much longer than I planned. After I vassalized him, I planned to look for a next victim, hoping that I'll be able to vassalize most of AIs using city raider amphibious grenadiers (born as berserkers ) , before AIs get infantry. English cuirassiers in counterattacks killed many of my units, before I conquered their main island. I realized I can defeat Ottomans with my remained army, city by city (bombing by frigates, and attacking with super-grenadiers). I had some problems evading their large fleet of destroyers. Their pillage forced me to make work boats, so work boat was my most times made unit in this game (later wars also forced me to make that civil fleet). At the beginning of Ottoman war I stopped building army, supposing that I can't beat Napoleon and Sitting Bull. Saladin was at long war with Napoleon, so it was good to keep him alive and independent, so no need to attack him. I planned to win by diplomacy or space, because my conquest and religious plans failed (culture and domination were not in my plans). So I was hoping for diplomatic or space victory. It was good that Napoleon made UN, which made possible for me to have Bull on my side...but that "pleased" guy never voted for me at voting for diplomatic victory, although I tried to make him like me by keeping with buddhism, and adopting environmentalism. So, only space remained as option. I refused to give huge tribute to Napoleon, so he attacked me , no matter that he was at war with Saladin. Maybe he did so because he had many times stronger army than me. He took some cities by killing my archers with his modern armies, so I decided to make army after I made buildings. Cities which hadn't been building spaceship components made army, which took back my cities, and invaded main French island, in order to slow down his space race plans. As it always happened in this game, income was opposite to my expectations. Napoleon's armies suffered humiliating defeat, and we made peace turn before my spaceship landed. Oh, well, maybe I should have been tried conquest instead space...but, never mind, space victory is also a victory.
My bad decision making about victories, and changing plans, etc. made one good thing...having many cities caused getting silver medal with space victory. It's a really nice thing to profit on my own noobness

 

[Munro]

Not sure if anyone still remembers this Deity Archipelago game so many months on...

I ran out of time before the deadline and then had to put things on hold for some weeks while we had some visitors. Finally finished things off this weekend.

In the end I had quite a straightforward game.

• Started out by beelining Great Lighthouse and got it in 1720BC while still at one city.
• Focused next on GL +2 trade-route fueled expansion at home, settling 8 cities at home and the small spice / fish island. Toku blocked further expansion but I had WBs out already to meet the other AI and do some trading including overseas routes.
• Reached Liberalism fairly easily and held out for a while, but eventually Mehmed started to research it and I had to settle for Astro in 1010AD when I was just 3 turns away from taking Steel.
• I had self-researched steel 10 turns later and DOW'd and vassalized Toku with Bezerkers and Cannon v muskets.
• Saladin was the next easy target - having also been somewhat isolated and backward in tech. This also gives me access to oil having left Toku with his intact.
• Vicky was my 3rd vassal, as she was on bad relations with the other AI and getting close to rifles.
• Mehmed was 4th - right next door to my stacks and easy target, especially since he has no oil and destroyers are now in play.
• Napoleon is the 5th target I have been building up to. He is the most powerful AI though slightly behind me in techs. However, his sole source of Aluminium is on a distant island near Saladin so I take this first, and then steamroll him with marines, fighters and eventually jets. In the end the Aluminium didn't matter because he never even finished researching Flight before vassalizing.
• Sitting Bull is the easy final target after years of war with Nappy but makes me take 8 cities (all from the sea with jets and marines) before vassalizing in 1828 AD for the conquest win.

Archipelago does seem to lower the difficulty a bit, and having Toku next door helped a lot, as he traded with no-one and fell behind, making him an easy first target. With Saladin also backwards the rest was inevitable.

I did enjoy putting the marines into action though. On this map, and in combination with fighters, there's nothing that can stop them in the pre-Mech Inf / Modern Armor era.

Thanks for the Deity game - look forward to the next one.