BOTM 41 Final Spoiler - Game submitted or abandoned

[Deckhand]

1720 Conquest. I decided to do something new (for me):
Get conquest by vassalizing all the AIs. Keep them all alive to the end of the game and capture all their capitals.

Spoiler :

Lack of good city sites changed my mind about trying for a quick space or diplomacy victory. I just did a culture game in last WOTM and may do one again in current WOTM.

I kept Monte as by bestest buddy thru the whole game (except for the last 4 turns). I don't know why everyone else doesn't like him. Stay in his religion, do what he asks, and make sure he attacks someone else. Monte and Sitting Bull spent much of the game at war along the SW shore of the center "ocean", with neither making any progress.

I marched vultures and catapults all the way to the SW to attack Pacal. Where they stalled after capturing one city.
Conquest didn't begin in earnest until I got Cuirassiers. Took Military Science from Liberalism and Feudalism from the Oracle (for longbows because I was afraid of the barbarians).
Going for enemy capitals works well to get the civ to capitulate, but keeping them alive kept the cities from being productive. Mutal and Thebes each had 4 World Wonders and a Shrine. But Mutal (and Babylon and Athens) were in rebellion most of the time. I also learned that you can't give cities to a Vassal.

 

[jesusin]

jesusin, contender. Goal: fastest cultural victory. Result: 1445AD cultural victory.

Starting moves

War NE, Settler NE-NE. Settle there after long thinking, because of the longterm benefits of two additional FPs.

Pottery first for ultra-early cottages that lead me to CS sling. Worker first. Humbaba retired, I was lucky to attack it when it was 1HP and not to decide to play conservatively and protect every worker and every improvement witha a warrior.


Erratic research path:

Pottery-Mining-Writing-a bit of Alpha-Fishing-Half of Sailing-BW-Alpha.

Nonsense, right? The thing is I wanted Alpha fast for trading. But the lay of the sea looked like we were isolated. So I started to beeline Sailing to get out of "our island" by means of a galley. Then discovered the pass East and Endiku behind it and my pants got dirty, so I changed immediately to BW to save the game.

Had I known that I could leave my capital undefended after dealing with Humbaba or that Endiku wouldn't come to my capital, my tech path would have been very different.


More bad luck:

My production was Worker-3xWarrior-Settler. Why? I wanted to grow to max health in order to work as many cottages as possible while building the settler.
The problem was that, while building the first settler, jungle spread oto another tile giving me 1 more unhealthyness and depriving me of 1hpt. The intended delay of the settler together with this unintended delay meant I was very late to settle the deer city.


Progress:

2nd city: W, with deer, oasis and 2 hills. It was connected to capital even though I didn't have sailing (?).
This was a mistake, I should have been settling East, to get the gems and the great sites beyond Endiku, but having seen him around the istmus I never explored East.
3rd city: 2sheep, gems, corn.
First Monty worker steal 1950BC.
Second Monty worker steal 1450BC.
4th city: second city of Monte, with cow and horses. Taht gives me my first religion.
First to CoL, second religion, start producing research to get CS sling sooner.
Raze new second Monte city, it was ugly.
CS sling 1025BC.
1000 BC Stats: 4 cities, 15 pop, 5 workers, 10units(5Vult), 1 strategic resources, 1 luxury resources, 2 health resources, 0 great persons, 1 world wonders, 0 national wonders, food/production/commerce=43-33-83, 48 sustainable beakers per turn, 7 culture per turn, 2 great person points per turn, 44 gold, no buildings. 2 religions, 3/4 cottages used, 20 Techs: CS, IW, Alpha. 0 civs killed. 7 hours played.

5th city: Monty capital taken and Monte dead by 700BC. Time to explore further and to use taht marble and Stone for WW for base culture and artist GPP.
6th city: At long last the barb city accross the sea with lake and sow much food grows to pop2, so I can take it. It will be my GPFarm and 3rd Legendary, together with Monty's capital.
7th city: West, with fish and cow.

Pyramids and Representation 245BC.
Parthenon 170BC.
Academy 140BC. No plans for more GS since I have so good a tech rate.
Marred 8th city: 2 Vultures dead at 70% odds against a barb archer, duh!
First to Philo, 3rd religion, 35BC.
HG 10AD. Gift MAths around in the hopes of trading for some of the post Maths techs.

10AD Stats: 8 cities, 54 pop, 7workers, 16units (10Vult), 5 strategic resources, 2 luxury resources, 7 health resources, 1 great persons, 4 world wonders, 0 national wonders, food/production/commerce=142-84-180, 71 sustainable beakers per turn, 83 culture per turn, 20 great person points per turn, 350 gold. 3 religions. 7/7 cottages used, 27 Techs: CS, Philo, no Music, nothing after Maths. 1 civs killed. 12.5 hours played. 11rel*city, 1temples, 0cath

First to Music 70AD.
Moai in Monty's capital, 160AD. It's my hammers city.
9th city in the wondelful lake East, should have been my GPFarm but now it's too late. Endiku killed.
My second GP is a Prophet, it's ok if I have no more bad luck, as I need one for a GoldenAge to make all my civic changes.

Sistine's 355AD. Take the further East city. I now realise my tech rate could have been sooo much better, had I come East earlier.
NE 550AD, ugh, I wish that barb city would have grown to pop2 sooner.
SoZ 595AD.
Trade for calendar 745AD. No currency yet, I should have researched it myself even before Music.
850AD: All my 10 cities have all 3 religions.
890AD: MoM, Liberalism (free Nationalism), Gpro used in GAge to revolt to FS+slavery now and Castes+Pacifism 5 turns later. I purposely delayed Liberalism for 4 turns to get MoM before launching the GoldenAge. I have only 5 cathedrals.
Before I had been using Castes and OR in order to have my auxiliary cities busy with artists while not needing monasteries for missionaries.

960AD: go 100% culture having 2000g in treasury and 8 cathedrals.

1000AD Stats: in GAge, 10 cities, 113 pop, 9 workers, 14 units (7Vult), 5 strategic resources, 6 luxury resources, 9 health resources, 7 great persons, 7 world wonders, 2 national wonders, food/production/commerce=257-104-2052, 140 sustainable beakers per turn, 1950(useful 1225) culture per turn, 400 great person points per turn, 1700 gold. 3 religions. 7/7 cottages used, 38 Techs: Liber, no Machi. 1 civs killed. 20 hours played.

1030AD: Hermitage in my best city, the capital.
1120AD: TajMaj, it was delayed for 8 turns in order to make the civic change to Merchantilism while in the GoldenAge.

1130AD stats: 1650cpt, 575GPPpt in GoldenAge
1140AD: 9 cathedrals.
1200AD: Merchantilism
1240AD: I finish my road to another civ. First traderoutes. I trade resources around and get 3 health and 25gpt!!!

1250AD: 2000cpt while in GoldenAge, 1825cpt out of GoldenAge.
1300AD: free GM, no chance to use it at all. Last GA are popped in many cities, that start hiring merchants.

1365AD: Alex stack is coming. Everybody is sent to the mines. No panic, so no revolt to Nationhood. Next turn he dows. I'm a dozen turns away from victory.

1385AD. Pacal has full hands. I want no more risks, I give him a tech in exchange for 2 civic changes of him (out of military ones).

War action distracts me and I start starvation 1 turn late, ugh, that will delay my last GA and my victory 1 turn.


Key data:

3Religions, 9Cathedrals, 19GP (2free), 1Acad, GM unused, 1GAge, 16 bombed. Base cpt 210-168-110, multipliers 4.5 3.5 3.5 ; bombs 2-6-8

 

[Htadus]

I was runing out of time due to having to go out of town. So I ended up with a cheesey domination victory in 1335 AD. Got rid of Monty and vassalled all but SB.

This game could have been finished even early if I had chosen to go full-on-cheesy domination. I guess I should explain what I mean by cheesy domination. When I was running out of time, had 1 hour of playtime left, I built about 8 settlers and settled them stretigically. Then I switch civics to run castsystem and hired 1 artist in each city. In few turns I had tripped the domination limit. I would not be surprise to see a pre 500AD domination game. Build about 30 settlers and settle in the right spots would do it just as easily as taking AI out in this game. But where is the fun in that?

BTW I tried to lure the water beast away from my sushi Kingdom by building 2 WB's and sending them two tiles away thinking it will kill one the first turn and then I would send the remaining boat to the far northwest corner. What I did not think was that it would kill both of them on the same turn because these were not fighting units oh well live and learn.

 

[jesusin]

Played a second time, trying for conquest with only Vultures now.

Used a bit of preknoledge, of course:
- My warrior attacked Humbaba instead of waiting for its attack.
- My exsploration casually started West

Won before 1000BC. Had economic problems around 1500BC, till I completed Currency. I probably should have closed research after BW. Zero cottages and zero Settlers built.

 

[Htadus]

Played a second time, trying for conquest with only Vultures now.

Used a bit of preknoledge, of course:
- My warrior attacked Humbaba instead of waiting for its attack.
- My exsploration casually started West

Won before 1000BC. Had economic problems around 1500BC, till I completed Currency. I probably should have closed research after BW. Zero cottages and zero Settlers built.

Sounds about right with map knowledge. But without the map knowledge this is not possible since you won't catch them all in their expansion mode.

Great Job Zamint3, excellent time.