beestar
subdeity
Darn, I wish you ain't there with Domination Ronnie1, or at least were there 15 years slower 
BOTM 41 Final Spoiler - Game submitted or abandoned
- Thread starter AlanH
- Start date
I wanted an easy game after my adventure with deity and targeted cultural from the start. On Noble I wasn’t very concerned about achieving the victory so I was free to focus on getting as early a win as possible. Or at least, do what passes for focusing on my part.
Settled on the plains hill to get the Gems and run cottages for research/culture. Humbaba passed me by. Initial scouting showed that there weren’t any genuinely good city sites anywhere nearby. Especially not for the cottage-based cultural cities or a high food GPP that I wanted. So I decided to stay small to begin with and concentrate on building the Pyramids. My one settler before embarking on that went northeast, with Deer OK cottage territory (by this maps standards) and eventual intentions of building the Moai Statues.
I didn’t try for Hinduism or Buddhism, instead targeting Judaism as my first religion. After getting Mining, AH, and BW I worked up to Monotheism and established that religion in Eridu in 2250 BC.
By now I’d scouted even more and knew if I wanted a good GPP farm site and another cottageable city I’d have to either take them from Monty or build them way the heck to the east. I opted for the later and whipped out some Vultures. They captured Teotihuacan in 1825 BC. It has a lot of Lakes and some nifty Plains Oases, and will be my third cultural site. I want Tenochtitlan for its seafood to be my GPP, but I don’t have quite enough men and make peace in 1725 BC. My second war finds Tenochtitlan surprisingly well defended again and I give up and make peace again (950 BC) after pillaging everything.
Had I gone all out for war I’m sure I could have beaten Monty that time around but I was more interested in doing the Oracle slingshot for Civil Service in 850 BC and finally finishing off the Pyramids in 440 BC, both in Uruk. Eridu was concentrating largely on culture buildings. With that stuff out of the way I built up my army some more, including some Catapults, and fought a third war with Monty, capturing Tenochtitlan and a minor city along the northern sea, leaving him with some utterly worthless land well to the southwest of my captured territory. That was in 490 AD. After that I captured three barbarian cities. Zhou was across the water from the starting area, with seafood and grain. Carib was near the heavenly lake and Saxon in the sweet spot in the far east. I needed a ninth city for my cathedral production, and established that SE of Uruk with Sugar and a lot of farmland and hills, in 1030 AD.
Of course I was doing a lot of research, building temples, etc., during this timeframe, but there’s little of interest to relate about all that. Uruk generated a Great prophet in 5 BC, I used him to bulb Theology and establish Christianity. Without even really trying I also established Confucianism and Taoism. I also controlled the Hindu holy city in Tenochtitlan, and in fact converted to Hinduism for better relations with the rest of the world. With five religions available I figured it would be fun to go cathedral crazy, and was running Slavery and Organized Religion to help with all the construction (plus Representation and Bureaucracy).
I easily made it to Music (490 AD) and Liberalism (1150 AD) before anyone else. I took Nationalism as a free tech. I should have shut off research at this point but for some reason thought it’d be a good idea to continue until getting Printing Press 15 turns later. After that the best I could manage for a long time was 70% culture.
Uruk generated a Great Engineer before I could get Tenochtitlan going as a proper GPP. I used that to rush the Mausoleum in Eridu. Other wonders not already mentioned: the Parthenon (685 AD in Teotihuacan, I’d deliberately put it off until I was ready to run Artists); Sistine (Uruk, 850 AD); Sankore (1335, Teotihuacan); Taj Mahal (1415, Teotihucan); Notre Dame (1650, Uruk)
I didn’t quite realize that Stonehenge was in Tenochtitlan. Naturally my first Great Person from there was a Prophet. I ended up using him for a Golden Age later. Uruk generated a second Great Engineer in 1280 AD, who was saved for a long time in case I popped another non-Artist. He eventually rushed Notre Dame.
I managed 8 Great Artists: 4 from Tenochtitlan, 2 from Uruk, 1 from Teotihuacan, 1 free from Music. The first was settled in Teotihuacan, the next two settled in Eridu. Out of the remaining five I only had effective use for four. Two each bombed Eridu and Teotihucan, putting Eridu six turns ahead of Uruk and Teotihucan which reached Legendary on the same turn: 1756 AD.
I had one bad spot near the end game. Alex was Buddhist and had disliked me all game. In 1560 AD he finally went to war with me. I had Muskets to his Maces but not enough of them to defend Zhou, which was close to his empire than the rest of mine. So I abandoned it and pulled back to Teotihuacan. Alex obliged me by sending a stack of 10 or so unescorted siege units into my territory, and after killing those and a few more of his men we made peace.
Had that war come say, 10 turns later, I’d have completed the last of my cathedrals in Uruk and not cared about the loss of Zhou. As it was, I built a new night city in the NE corner of the map just to get the one temple I needed there. And because I did it hastily it was poorly sited and took a long time to accomplish this.
I have to wonder if building five cathedrals per city was really wise. I could have gone over to wealth generation a lot earlier had I stopped at 4 or even 3 of them, which in turn would have let me go 100% culture earlier on. Then I also could have switched to Caste System and Pacifism during one of my Golden Ages and generated more Great Artists. As it was I never left Organized Religion and Slavery.
Settled on the plains hill to get the Gems and run cottages for research/culture. Humbaba passed me by. Initial scouting showed that there weren’t any genuinely good city sites anywhere nearby. Especially not for the cottage-based cultural cities or a high food GPP that I wanted. So I decided to stay small to begin with and concentrate on building the Pyramids. My one settler before embarking on that went northeast, with Deer OK cottage territory (by this maps standards) and eventual intentions of building the Moai Statues.
I didn’t try for Hinduism or Buddhism, instead targeting Judaism as my first religion. After getting Mining, AH, and BW I worked up to Monotheism and established that religion in Eridu in 2250 BC.
By now I’d scouted even more and knew if I wanted a good GPP farm site and another cottageable city I’d have to either take them from Monty or build them way the heck to the east. I opted for the later and whipped out some Vultures. They captured Teotihuacan in 1825 BC. It has a lot of Lakes and some nifty Plains Oases, and will be my third cultural site. I want Tenochtitlan for its seafood to be my GPP, but I don’t have quite enough men and make peace in 1725 BC. My second war finds Tenochtitlan surprisingly well defended again and I give up and make peace again (950 BC) after pillaging everything.
Had I gone all out for war I’m sure I could have beaten Monty that time around but I was more interested in doing the Oracle slingshot for Civil Service in 850 BC and finally finishing off the Pyramids in 440 BC, both in Uruk. Eridu was concentrating largely on culture buildings. With that stuff out of the way I built up my army some more, including some Catapults, and fought a third war with Monty, capturing Tenochtitlan and a minor city along the northern sea, leaving him with some utterly worthless land well to the southwest of my captured territory. That was in 490 AD. After that I captured three barbarian cities. Zhou was across the water from the starting area, with seafood and grain. Carib was near the heavenly lake and Saxon in the sweet spot in the far east. I needed a ninth city for my cathedral production, and established that SE of Uruk with Sugar and a lot of farmland and hills, in 1030 AD.
Of course I was doing a lot of research, building temples, etc., during this timeframe, but there’s little of interest to relate about all that. Uruk generated a Great prophet in 5 BC, I used him to bulb Theology and establish Christianity. Without even really trying I also established Confucianism and Taoism. I also controlled the Hindu holy city in Tenochtitlan, and in fact converted to Hinduism for better relations with the rest of the world. With five religions available I figured it would be fun to go cathedral crazy, and was running Slavery and Organized Religion to help with all the construction (plus Representation and Bureaucracy).
I easily made it to Music (490 AD) and Liberalism (1150 AD) before anyone else. I took Nationalism as a free tech. I should have shut off research at this point but for some reason thought it’d be a good idea to continue until getting Printing Press 15 turns later. After that the best I could manage for a long time was 70% culture.
Uruk generated a Great Engineer before I could get Tenochtitlan going as a proper GPP. I used that to rush the Mausoleum in Eridu. Other wonders not already mentioned: the Parthenon (685 AD in Teotihuacan, I’d deliberately put it off until I was ready to run Artists); Sistine (Uruk, 850 AD); Sankore (1335, Teotihuacan); Taj Mahal (1415, Teotihucan); Notre Dame (1650, Uruk)
I didn’t quite realize that Stonehenge was in Tenochtitlan. Naturally my first Great Person from there was a Prophet. I ended up using him for a Golden Age later. Uruk generated a second Great Engineer in 1280 AD, who was saved for a long time in case I popped another non-Artist. He eventually rushed Notre Dame.
I managed 8 Great Artists: 4 from Tenochtitlan, 2 from Uruk, 1 from Teotihuacan, 1 free from Music. The first was settled in Teotihuacan, the next two settled in Eridu. Out of the remaining five I only had effective use for four. Two each bombed Eridu and Teotihucan, putting Eridu six turns ahead of Uruk and Teotihucan which reached Legendary on the same turn: 1756 AD.
I had one bad spot near the end game. Alex was Buddhist and had disliked me all game. In 1560 AD he finally went to war with me. I had Muskets to his Maces but not enough of them to defend Zhou, which was close to his empire than the rest of mine. So I abandoned it and pulled back to Teotihuacan. Alex obliged me by sending a stack of 10 or so unescorted siege units into my territory, and after killing those and a few more of his men we made peace.
Had that war come say, 10 turns later, I’d have completed the last of my cathedrals in Uruk and not cared about the loss of Zhou. As it was, I built a new night city in the NE corner of the map just to get the one temple I needed there. And because I did it hastily it was poorly sited and took a long time to accomplish this.
I have to wonder if building five cathedrals per city was really wise. I could have gone over to wealth generation a lot earlier had I stopped at 4 or even 3 of them, which in turn would have let me go 100% culture earlier on. Then I also could have switched to Caste System and Pacifism during one of my Golden Ages and generated more Great Artists. As it was I never left Organized Religion and Slavery.
Bebekija
King
Conquest win in 1350 AD ; score 103k
First BOTM ever, but sadly I won't submit because of a mixup in my saves, which made me replay 5-6 turns.
I only realized it when I ended up building the MoM a second time.....
Anyway, it's been a very interesting game, especially the early game with the Super barbs and the lack of obvious city sites.
Funny thing about this : I settled the seafood lake without knowing that utnapishtan was there!!! Only realized when the city was founded. You can imagine my "surprise". Yet it turned out OK because it must have been set to an usual AI setting, since it never pillaged my nets.
The thing I liked about my play this time, is that I managed to achieve a relatively early conquest win even though i didn't rush. My first war with monty was in 950AD, using maces +cats, and when Sitting Bull finally capitulated, I was using maces+muskets+trbs, plus some knights that I was planning to upgrade to cuirs later.
Well later never came, because when I won I was still 2 turns away from Mil. Trad, even though I had beelined to it. And that's the weak spot of this game ; my tech rate was horrible. Lack of grassland prevented me from laying down cottages and lack of food from using specialists. I just couldn't figure out a satisfying way to bring in some cash. In the end it was a weird mix of bulbing, fail gold and building wealth.
Very fun game overall, kudos to the mapmaker, looking forward to playing the next one, and this time I hope I'll be able to submit....
First BOTM ever, but sadly I won't submit because of a mixup in my saves, which made me replay 5-6 turns.
I only realized it when I ended up building the MoM a second time.....
Anyway, it's been a very interesting game, especially the early game with the Super barbs and the lack of obvious city sites.
Funny thing about this : I settled the seafood lake without knowing that utnapishtan was there!!! Only realized when the city was founded. You can imagine my "surprise". Yet it turned out OK because it must have been set to an usual AI setting, since it never pillaged my nets.
The thing I liked about my play this time, is that I managed to achieve a relatively early conquest win even though i didn't rush. My first war with monty was in 950AD, using maces +cats, and when Sitting Bull finally capitulated, I was using maces+muskets+trbs, plus some knights that I was planning to upgrade to cuirs later.
Well later never came, because when I won I was still 2 turns away from Mil. Trad, even though I had beelined to it. And that's the weak spot of this game ; my tech rate was horrible. Lack of grassland prevented me from laying down cottages and lack of food from using specialists. I just couldn't figure out a satisfying way to bring in some cash. In the end it was a weird mix of bulbing, fail gold and building wealth.
Very fun game overall, kudos to the mapmaker, looking forward to playing the next one, and this time I hope I'll be able to submit....
Ronnie1
Deity
Darn, I wish you ain't there with Domination Ronnie1, or at least were there 15 years slower
Sorry beestar, especially given you took the challenger save! I should have been faster really, the miscalculation on how long it would take for SB cities to come out of revolt cost me probably 5-6 turns, maybe even more.
I was quite puzzled about his behaviour. Tell me, did you put any fishing nets next to him?
My current theory is that the barbarians don't have knowledge of optics, which means he can only see one tile around him. So as long as you don't put any fishing boats or nets right next to him (and there are no other barbs in the vicinity), he doesn't see any targets and so sees no reason to move. If that theory is right, then put something next to him and he'll immediately move to pillage it. Then because moved, he's likely to see any other fishing nets that you have on the next tile(s), and so will pillage those too.
That's certainly consistent with his behaviour in my game.
Ronnie1
Deity
I put nets right next to him and he did not pillage until I tried to net the last resource. This left a WB exposed for a turn. He killed the WB, pillaged all the nets and then just sat there. So I led him back to his starting location with another sacrificial WB, and then rebuilt all the other nets excepting of course the 1 that got the pillage party started.
Interesting. So that blows my theory and suggests that what provokes him out of idle mode is seeing an actual workboat.
Bebekija
King
It's true that I never put a WB on the last clams up north and I'm glad I didn't, because I probably wouldn't have had the idea of "walking" the beast back to its lair then rebuilding the WBs and that would have ruined my GP farm.
This city was very hammer poor anyway, that's why I didn't bother to build the last WB, I had enough food for 6-7 specialists already.
This city was very hammer poor anyway, that's why I didn't bother to build the last WB, I had enough food for 6-7 specialists already.
At 70AD Pacal was gone, I kept all of his 5 cities, which was a mistake, maintenance was killing my econmy. 
I moved on to Sitting Bull, going a little slowly waiting for Vassalage, but the economy was so bad I couldn't wait and had to raze his cities and pillage his land to fund my research. When I finally got Vassalage, he was no where near a capitulation, not until he was down to one city would he accept to become my vassal. (565AD)
So far cats and HAs and a few remaining vultures were doing all the work.
But meanwhile I had build a city on the ivory east of the Mayans and my Mayan cities were busy building cats and WEs for Egypt and my workers were busy building a road from my Aztec cities through the ice towards The Greek - and that does take some time...
Had short wars against Hammu (Vassal 760AD) and Egypt (Vassal 775AD)
Tried to work on logistics to attack Alex on several fronts simultaneously, took a bit long
, but I did quite well I think - didn't work though 
I had to take all his cities but two before he capitulated.
At the the end I had 18 HAs, 15 WEs, 8 Cats and 6 Vultures and had just got my 3rd Great General
930AD Conquest for about 84k points
I moved on to Sitting Bull, going a little slowly waiting for Vassalage, but the economy was so bad I couldn't wait and had to raze his cities and pillage his land to fund my research. When I finally got Vassalage, he was no where near a capitulation, not until he was down to one city would he accept to become my vassal. (565AD)
So far cats and HAs and a few remaining vultures were doing all the work.
But meanwhile I had build a city on the ivory east of the Mayans and my Mayan cities were busy building cats and WEs for Egypt and my workers were busy building a road from my Aztec cities through the ice towards The Greek - and that does take some time...
Had short wars against Hammu (Vassal 760AD) and Egypt (Vassal 775AD)
Tried to work on logistics to attack Alex on several fronts simultaneously, took a bit long
, but I did quite well I think - didn't work though I had to take all his cities but two before he capitulated.
At the the end I had 18 HAs, 15 WEs, 8 Cats and 6 Vultures and had just got my 3rd Great General
930AD Conquest for about 84k points
Conquistador 63
Deity
I went for space and this time relied on a big and fat empire. Maybe due to the fact that was a lot of room for peaceful expansion, I started warring very late, judging from other posts. The targets were:
1. Alex: a series of short wars/tactical cease fires starting 640AD and eliminating him in1120AD. Macemen vs swords/archers/cats. My war ally Ramesses becomes my voluntary vassal in one of the cease fires.
2. Monty: one single war from 1120AD to 1320AD. Removed him with mostly cuirassiers vs LB's.
3. Hammurabi: DoW 1345AD, finished him in 1405. Veteran Cuirassiers vs LB's.
4. Pacal: DoW 1430AD, I accept his capitulation in 1515AD as I was dangerously approaching the domination land threshold.
By then I was close to the 40-city mark, but thanks to the lower maintenance costs of noble level and cheap ziggurats I had decided to skip communism and went the corporate route. Cereal Mills and Mining Inc. were founded in the capital (home to OxU and Wall Street) in the late 1400's and yielded 12
and 23 
per city in the late game.
Spamming corp.exec's in such a huge land map means a lot of micromanaging - state property is so much easier! But I guess the effort eventually paid off. I went from a sustainable 1300bpt rate pre-corp (1470AD) to above 6000bpt (peaking at 7600bpt) after 1670AD. Last space tech was Ecology in 1712AD. Finished last 5 parts in 1722AD and reached the stars in 1754AD.
While the ship was travelling, I put all cities on max food governor and built some useless cities and wonders in a futile attempt for a higher final score - below 160k, let's see where that puts me.
Amusing side notes:
. Gave away some 20 techs (from Guilds to Industrialism) to Ramesses over 6 turns so he could mine and trade me his aluminum.
. My vassal Pacal captured an iceball barb city next to my borders, and I was prompted with the message "raze or keep?"!
. After reading a post in the 1st spoiler suggesting to avoid the barbarian ship by not putting a fish net next to it, I tried that route but eventually it woke up and moved to pillage fish nets 2 tiles away.
Much later on (1600AD?), 2 airships and a single battleship took care of him. To Dynamic Spirit: it was possible to build a fort to the south of the lake to allow a ship built outside of it to get there. 
1. Alex: a series of short wars/tactical cease fires starting 640AD and eliminating him in1120AD. Macemen vs swords/archers/cats. My war ally Ramesses becomes my voluntary vassal in one of the cease fires.
2. Monty: one single war from 1120AD to 1320AD. Removed him with mostly cuirassiers vs LB's.
3. Hammurabi: DoW 1345AD, finished him in 1405. Veteran Cuirassiers vs LB's.
4. Pacal: DoW 1430AD, I accept his capitulation in 1515AD as I was dangerously approaching the domination land threshold.
By then I was close to the 40-city mark, but thanks to the lower maintenance costs of noble level and cheap ziggurats I had decided to skip communism and went the corporate route. Cereal Mills and Mining Inc. were founded in the capital (home to OxU and Wall Street) in the late 1400's and yielded 12
and 23 per city in the late game. Spamming corp.exec's in such a huge land map means a lot of micromanaging - state property is so much easier! But I guess the effort eventually paid off. I went from a sustainable 1300bpt rate pre-corp (1470AD) to above 6000bpt (peaking at 7600bpt) after 1670AD. Last space tech was Ecology in 1712AD. Finished last 5 parts in 1722AD and reached the stars in 1754AD.
While the ship was travelling, I put all cities on max food governor and built some useless cities and wonders in a futile attempt for a higher final score - below 160k, let's see where that puts me.
Amusing side notes:
. Gave away some 20 techs (from Guilds to Industrialism) to Ramesses over 6 turns so he could mine and trade me his aluminum.
. My vassal Pacal captured an iceball barb city next to my borders, and I was prompted with the message "raze or keep?"!
. After reading a post in the 1st spoiler suggesting to avoid the barbarian ship by not putting a fish net next to it, I tried that route but eventually it woke up and moved to pillage fish nets 2 tiles away.
Much later on (1600AD?), 2 airships and a single battleship took care of him. To Dynamic Spirit: it was possible to build a fort to the south of the lake to allow a ship built outside of it to get there. 
Does anyone know how free wins against barbs work? Is this documented anywhere?
After finishing my game I tried the map again, now going for the perfect-full-of-foreknowledge-game. I immediately sent my warrior East, found Humbaba and attacked him. The plan was to avoid wolfs and save the second free win for killing Endiku. And you know what, I lost the battle and the warrior.
So I thought "ah, I must work only for defensive battles", I reloaded, put my warrior on the pass and waited for Humbaba to attack... He won the battle, unharmed, while my warrior was left read-lined.
The only successful test I've come up with was this: waiting for the beast inside my borders and attacking it as soon as it came in. Victory all the times. So, is it only free wins inside your borders????
After finishing my game I tried the map again, now going for the perfect-full-of-foreknowledge-game. I immediately sent my warrior East, found Humbaba and attacked him. The plan was to avoid wolfs and save the second free win for killing Endiku. And you know what, I lost the battle and the warrior.
So I thought "ah, I must work only for defensive battles", I reloaded, put my warrior on the pass and waited for Humbaba to attack... He won the battle, unharmed, while my warrior was left read-lined.
The only successful test I've come up with was this: waiting for the beast inside my borders and attacking it as soon as it came in. Victory all the times. So, is it only free wins inside your borders????
Does anyone know how free wins against barbs work? Is this documented anywhere?
After finishing my game I tried the map again, now going for the perfect-full-of-foreknowledge-game. I immediately sent my warrior East, found Humbaba and attacked him. The plan was to avoid wolfs and save the second free win for killing Endiku. And you know what, I lost the battle and the warrior.
So I thought "ah, I must work only for defensive battles", I reloaded, put my warrior on the pass and waited for Humbaba to attack... He won the battle, unharmed, while my warrior was left read-lined.
The only successful test I've come up with was this: waiting for the beast inside my borders and attacking it as soon as it came in. Victory all the times. So, is it only free wins inside your borders????
I do not know the answers to all of these questions. But if you asked me a month ago, I would have said: On Noble Level you get 2 free wins when defending only. By Free Win, we mean that your unit cannot die - but can suffer damage. If attacked by a unit that can withdraw (not something the game designers really planned for), both units can survive.
I think now that there may be turn limits when your free wins expire. I also think that attacking inside your borders is treated like defensive battle for purpose of free win calculation (probably very rare situation unless you are NOOB --or are playing one of the games I made
). My observations also make me think that you get 3 free wins at Noble level, not 2. Maybe one of the code-diggers can figure it out, but it certainly is more complex than I thought when I developed the game.Don't worry though... I'll have Humbaba perfected before the next one.
WelshGandalf
King
- Joined
- Sep 6, 2010
- Messages
- 743
It was fun to play an easier game.
Just about got my game in before the deadline. Old-school domination win - none of this vassal nonsense! Finished with 45 cities, consisting of Mine, Aztec's (BC's), Pacal's (gone by 1000AD), Egyptians (1250AD or thereabouts - capital was a TRIPLE shrine
) then finally the Native Americans. Also I took one city from the greeks & settled 2 cities on the ice at the end to help my %age of land get high enough.
I had cuirs at the end too, also a 45-turn golden age that I never quite got to the end of Was fun to go into nationhood for about 8 turns and drafting once per city (happy cap was insane so not an issue). Lots of musketeers I never built more than I think 17 of any one troop type so it was a right mixture. Lots of wilful neglect of my economy (never even got to 1000bpt) but warring continuously was fun for a change, albeit not much of a challenge.
As the game went on I wanted to finish pre-1600AD and with over 100,000 points. I achieved both, just
Game status: Domination Victory for Sumeria
Game date: 1590AD
Turns played: 338
Base score: 4420
Final score: 106097
Time played: 12:56:19
Just about got my game in before the deadline. Old-school domination win - none of this vassal nonsense! Finished with 45 cities, consisting of Mine, Aztec's (BC's), Pacal's (gone by 1000AD), Egyptians (1250AD or thereabouts - capital was a TRIPLE shrine
) then finally the Native Americans. Also I took one city from the greeks & settled 2 cities on the ice at the end to help my %age of land get high enough.I had cuirs at the end too, also a 45-turn golden age that I never quite got to the end of
Was fun to go into nationhood for about 8 turns and drafting once per city (happy cap was insane so not an issue). Lots of musketeers I never built more than I think 17 of any one troop type so it was a right mixture. Lots of wilful neglect of my economy (never even got to 1000bpt) but warring continuously was fun for a change, albeit not much of a challenge.As the game went on I wanted to finish pre-1600AD and with over 100,000 points. I achieved both, just
Game status: Domination Victory for Sumeria
Game date: 1590AD
Turns played: 338
Base score: 4420
Final score: 106097
Time played: 12:56:19
Dhoomstriker
Girlie Builder
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2006
- Messages
- 13,474
The submission server seems to be down so I submitted via the gotm submission email address. Hopefully, doing so qualifies me for reading the final spoiler.
I managed to claim a Challenger Cultural Victory in the mid-1500s AD.
My second Religion came via conquest in 940 AD, but it wasn't until after 1000 AD that I was able to build a Missionary.
By the end of the game, I had 7 Cathedrals in each of my Legendary Cities.
So, there you have the power of Noble Difficulty Level: if you don't found the Religions yourself, you can take them by force, even with a Victory Condition where you shut down your Research early on.
As I have said in the past, I much prefer these Challenger games where the Difficulty Level is the same as everyone else's but with additional challenges that need to be overcome in the early game.
I found the two ready-made Legendary City locations out in the east relatively early on but it took me a while to get out there... I went with multiple Warriors and Archers because Enkidu and a highly-promoted Bear had been spotted... and I wasn't sure how much else would be out there. Over time, I shipped most of the defending units away, but the Archer that killed Enkidu got the honour of living life out in one of my Legendary-to-be Cities, the one nearest where Enkidu was defeated.
Of course, defeating Enkidu had taken the sacrifice of two of Monte's Horse Archers as well as other sacrificial units from the other AIs before Enkidu was weak enough to be killed by a defending Archer, but I still got the kill!
Monte and Alex were my friends until the end, partners in wars--with hardly any turns of the game where there was not a war ongoing. In the last few turns, I took on two Vassals, so the two of them had a lesser opinion of my "team," even though they were still Friendly or Pleased with me in terms of our individual relationships.
For once, I seemed to get the balance down right amongst my Legendary Cities... no more of the "capital goes Legendary 25+ turns before the other two Cities" kind of a deal... in fact, my capital was the LAST City to go Legendary, 2 turns after my first City went Legendary.
I got the 2700 GPP Great Person, which I figure is probably, what... 10 Great People for the first 1500, then 300 per Great Person afterwards... 2700 - 1500 = 1200 / 300 = 4, so 14 manually-generated Great People, plus the Great Artist from Music and the Great Merchant from Economics.
I figured that it was not worth the Hammer investment to build The Apostolic Palace and waited for an AI to build it. And waited. And waited some more. Finally, late in the game, I just built it myself in one of my non-Legendary-to-be Cities.
The layout of the map was pretty favourable to us, with a good portion of our land area "blocked off" from the AIs and only really accessible via a choke point or by water... and I did not ever see an AI boat build on said waterway because it was mostly ice-encrusted and far away from their starting locations.
The only downside was that it was a long trek for Military Units going out and Missionaries coming in, but it was a reasonable price to pay for relative security/safety of our isolated starting area.
I managed to claim a Challenger Cultural Victory in the mid-1500s AD.
My second Religion came via conquest in 940 AD, but it wasn't until after 1000 AD that I was able to build a Missionary.
By the end of the game, I had 7 Cathedrals in each of my Legendary Cities.
So, there you have the power of Noble Difficulty Level: if you don't found the Religions yourself, you can take them by force, even with a Victory Condition where you shut down your Research early on.
As I have said in the past, I much prefer these Challenger games where the Difficulty Level is the same as everyone else's but with additional challenges that need to be overcome in the early game.
I found the two ready-made Legendary City locations out in the east relatively early on but it took me a while to get out there... I went with multiple Warriors and Archers because Enkidu and a highly-promoted Bear had been spotted... and I wasn't sure how much else would be out there. Over time, I shipped most of the defending units away, but the Archer that killed Enkidu got the honour of living life out in one of my Legendary-to-be Cities, the one nearest where Enkidu was defeated.
Of course, defeating Enkidu had taken the sacrifice of two of Monte's Horse Archers as well as other sacrificial units from the other AIs before Enkidu was weak enough to be killed by a defending Archer, but I still got the kill!
Monte and Alex were my friends until the end, partners in wars--with hardly any turns of the game where there was not a war ongoing. In the last few turns, I took on two Vassals, so the two of them had a lesser opinion of my "team," even though they were still Friendly or Pleased with me in terms of our individual relationships.
For once, I seemed to get the balance down right amongst my Legendary Cities... no more of the "capital goes Legendary 25+ turns before the other two Cities" kind of a deal... in fact, my capital was the LAST City to go Legendary, 2 turns after my first City went Legendary.
I got the 2700 GPP Great Person, which I figure is probably, what... 10 Great People for the first 1500, then 300 per Great Person afterwards... 2700 - 1500 = 1200 / 300 = 4, so 14 manually-generated Great People, plus the Great Artist from Music and the Great Merchant from Economics.
I figured that it was not worth the Hammer investment to build The Apostolic Palace and waited for an AI to build it. And waited. And waited some more. Finally, late in the game, I just built it myself in one of my non-Legendary-to-be Cities.
The layout of the map was pretty favourable to us, with a good portion of our land area "blocked off" from the AIs and only really accessible via a choke point or by water... and I did not ever see an AI boat build on said waterway because it was mostly ice-encrusted and far away from their starting locations.
The only downside was that it was a long trek for Military Units going out and Missionaries coming in, but it was a reasonable price to pay for relative security/safety of our isolated starting area.
Wow!
I am curious to know more:
Was building your 6th and 7th cathedral worth it?
How did you get the hammers?
When did you go FS?
How many cities did you have in the end?
Late cul;ture, 1874 or so
I managed to get oracle and feudalism quickly, so it was obvious to fortify myself in my peace f land and look for peaceful victory as it was little time left tosubmit. I fortified longbows on marble forest to defend from Monte. I was pretty secure, except Humbaba destroying all my improvements all the time -_-
Later I found out that he will not attack my workers, so I surrounded him on forest tundra (I could figure it out earlier)
Those destroyer stayed in place untill it destroyed on of my workboats (I thought if it is not destroying my improved fishes, i could get crabs also). Unfortunately it started to move everywhere and destroy my water improvements I hoped i could "transport him" via fort to the other lake, but it occued barb ship would not enter the fort) - so my GP farm was vastly devastated for a long time.
Better religion management should easily bring me victory at least 100 turns earlier, but the score is not so bad
I managed to get oracle and feudalism quickly, so it was obvious to fortify myself in my peace f land and look for peaceful victory as it was little time left tosubmit. I fortified longbows on marble forest to defend from Monte. I was pretty secure, except Humbaba destroying all my improvements all the time -_-
Later I found out that he will not attack my workers, so I surrounded him on forest tundra (I could figure it out earlier)
Those destroyer stayed in place untill it destroyed on of my workboats (I thought if it is not destroying my improved fishes, i could get crabs also). Unfortunately it started to move everywhere and destroy my water improvements
I hoped i could "transport him" via fort to the other lake, but it occued barb ship would not enter the fort) - so my GP farm was vastly devastated for a long time.Better religion management should easily bring me victory at least 100 turns earlier, but the score is not so bad
WelshGandalf
King
- Joined
- Sep 6, 2010
- Messages
- 743
One other thing from my game. Near the end I tried to get a peace-vassal to end the game quicker. However the Babylonians would not do this, saying "you have grown too powerful for us" - I've never seen this before, what does it mean? I would perhaps guess that they won't vassal if doing so will mean you reach the domination limit?
Dhoomstriker
Girlie Builder
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2006
- Messages
- 13,474
Yes, as the alternative was to just build additional Monasteries that I hadn't had a chance to build as the Religions were spread late.
Also, since I'd had nothing better to build earlier on than Wonders for Culture, I had a lot of base Culture in each City but not many multipliers: thus adding more multipliers was a worthwhile endeavour. I think that I would have preferred to have had less Religions but had them earlier in the game.
While the last couple of Cathedrals helped, they maybe helped by only a couple of turns' worth of difference on the finishing date. It's not hard to see, then, that having had a couple of more Cathedrals considerably earlier in the game would have had a larger overall impact than those last couple of Cathedrals had had.
Each Legendary-to-be City had at least 2 Mines. I typically prefer to have 3 or more, so it wasn't a lot of base production.
I also ran an Engineer Specialist in every Legendary-to-be-City most of the game, giving me additional production and multiple Great Engineers.
Great Engineers earned me: Sistine Chapel, Taj Mahal, Notre Dame, and the University of Sankore.
1030 AD
A funnier question is: when did you finally switch into Bureaucracy?
Well, I Oracled Civil Service in 775 BC. However, it wasn't until 520 AD that I remembered to switch Civics to Bureaucracy! I honestly "thought" that my capital was using Bureaucracy all of that time and it wasn't until I completed a late-game Pyramids (because no one else had) that I thought to look at the F3 screen! Hahaha!
What's even better is that I was working a Riverside Cottage for what seemed like 50+ turns. However, it just didn't seem to grow. So, I kept thinking that I must have misremembered how long I had been working it and that I would see it grow soon enough. That square was the Tundra River square that I hadn't settled on, thinking that the Ice River square would have been uncottageable (oops, it was a Flood Plains square, so it would have been--oh well)... but it wasn't until about 15 turns until the end of the game that I realized that I must have interrupted the Worker that was building a Cottage on the Tundra River in order to do something else... and never went back to completing the Cottage!
So, my non-Bureaucracy capital in a Civil-Service-slingshotted Empire was "improving" a non-existent Cottage for a good part of the game! Ridiculous!
If we go by the end date, it will be misleading, since I was keeping many Cities that I captured in the last 20 turns or so because:
a) My economy could handle it
AND
b) I was just trying to increase my score. Actually I had such fun with the warring that I almost forgot to Bomb my Great Artists in time!
So, at the end: 17 Cities
Practically speaking, though, I only used 10 of those Cities effectively.
azzaman333
meh
I believe if you're the most powerful civ, it's impossible to acquire peace vassals.
I had the same experience.
My cities were W of Whale and N of Gold (with parrots).
After Utnapishtan trashed my nets and I sacrificed a wb to put him back in the NE corner, I built a fort on the Isthmus to get a workboat to the last spot (the SE crab) without waking him.
Nibru was GPF with deer, cow, wheat and 5 fishing boats.
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