BOTM 43 Final Spoiler - Game submitted or abandoned

[kcd_swede]

BOTM 43 Final Spoiler

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in BOTM 43 (Charlemagne), then you MUST NOT read this thread unless

• you have submitted your entry

Posting Restrictions

• Do not post any savegame file from the game. Discussions and screenshots are fine but not actual games.

..........................................

If you haven't already done so in the first spoiler, I would encourage you to tell us about your early game (up to about 3000BC) first:
Where did you settle? Why?
What were your first 3 techs? Why?
What were your first 4 builds? Why?
Did you prioritize any tile improvements? Which ones?

Then go ahead and tell us how you handled the Seers of Uruk. Did you just ignore them and play a regular game? Did you steal their workers? Extort them for their techs? Befriend them for trading? Make use of espionage against them? Anything else?

Did you have fun????

[img=right]http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/botm43civ.jpg[/img]

 

[azzaman333]

That is definitely a worthwhile goal... but you might benefit some by narrowing it down to something more specific. For example, will you plan a war (if so when?), or will you look for peaceful victory? Answer that, and the planning gets a lot simpler.

Don'y forget about the Seers... they might be a good source of ideas which guide you to wisdom.

Eventually (by which I mean after founding CreativeCons and Sushi) I decided that I could win culturally.

Shaka decided he wanted to push me off Cathy's island, which I was powerless to stop since I hadn't quite researched Rifles, so turning it into a colony for the free defenders didn't quite work out. Bismark didn't survive very long, to say the least. Had Rifles and Grenadiers by the time Shaka was landing units on the mainland though, so fought him off eventually and signed peace.

I built Taj Mahal in there somewhere, and settled 3 cities on Boudica's island since Ragnar failed to expand beyond his island for a long period of time. Zara and Joao claimed almost all the small islands though. I think around this point I decided that I wanted to abuse corporations with the Rathaus, so I kept a GE and picked up Econ for the GM. In hindsight I should've beelined Sushi and settled a lot of the tiny islands so I wouldn't have had to trade for all the seafood, and it would've really quickened my finish date.

Decided that with the AIs we had, it wasn't safe to stop researching too early, so I worked my way to Computers to build the Internet. No one attacked me for some reason, despite denying a lot of demands and generally being unhelpful to the AIs.

My 3 legendary cities were Aachen (on the stone), Prague (on the ph ivory that got fish) and Ulm (on the western island 1NE of the copper), chosen because they each had a few wonders in them giving them a decent base culture per turn. Ulm went legendary 10 turns after Prague, in 1976AD.

Then go ahead and tell us how you handled the Seers of Uruk. Did you just ignore them and play a regular game? Did you steal their workers? Extort them for their techs? Befriend them for trading? Make use of espionage against them? Anything else?

I stole Mansa's workers and traded with him frequently. I intended to steal Cathy's workers but screwed it up somehow, and pretty much ignored her because she refused to talk for 1000 years thanks to the AP. Couldn't bothered stealing Boudica's, and probably gifted her more techs than I got from her. :crazyeyes:

Did you have fun????

Personally, I'm not a big fan of maps with multiple smallish islands/continents, especially with vassal states on. It was still enjoyable though.

 

[kcd_swede]

Personally, I'm not a big fan of maps with multiple smallish islands/continents, especially with vassal states on.

We try to provide some variety because everyone has their own preferences, so if you think we've been falling into habits with the map designs please let us know!

Congrats on the victory, and thanks for sharing your game in the spoilers!

 

[vranasm]

We try to provide some variety because everyone has their own preferences, so if you think we've been falling into habits with the map designs please let us know!

Congrats on the victory, and thanks for sharing your game in the spoilers!

Don't take it as critique, just a remark from player who doesn't play GOTM's much.

I took on the game too (after the success with the botm 42) and I didn't finish. I don't have enough willpower for island maps, they (to me) add too much more MM then usual maps and don't provide me with fun.

Sooo I will check of course next games and if there will be some that catches me, I will surely try to finish that instead.

 

[Alamankarazieff]

Ugh, Space Race in 1972 and a lot of self hate.

I played this game wanting to do it seriously, but I really lined up mistakes after mistakes. Wanted to try a CS slingshot, or at least a COL bulb, and forgot to stop the Oracle in time : i finished without even having completed writing ! Ended up getting monarchy. The next big blunder that came to mind, was finishing Statue of Liberty on the fish and copper island, forgetting that it affects the city on the continent...
I got Stonehenge and Great Lighthouse and decided to expand a lot. Still was a bit slow at it and my exploration was suboptimal.
I put a lot of effort to get circumnavigation, until I realized that one of the seers probably already had it...
Ultimately, I decided to kick Sitting Bull to complete my expansion, but damn his super hero archers, it took me a while to vassalize him. After that, I did a typical mistake : I wanted to join the space race, but still had a nice army, and decided I would continue warring a bit, just using the capital to produce units.
Accordingly my warring was so so and my tech couldn't get the full leverage of my capital.
Kicked a bit of Ragnar, when Shaka sneak attacked me. Vassalized the viking quickly, and did lots of back and forth in zulu territory. Then assaulted the korean for the fun of it.
Anyway, ineffective warfare and slow teching. There was never any doubt that I was going to win, but I could have done so much better.

I also misjdudged the map : many of the cities were very so so, and would have needed careful planning.

The trading with the seers was fun, leading to some really crazy trades... I put all my spy points on Musa, which is a shame since Boudica and Catherine where often not willing to trade.
Overall, fun but frustrating because of my lack of focus !

 

[cabert]

late late diplo for me.
I was going for domination, but the Ethiopians were giving me too much work and I got tired of it.

Lesson learned : when you play islands, you'd better build ships
Of course I knew it, but I thought I could get away with transports and 1 destroyer providing cover. Except the seers have helped the AIs tech faster and they got combustion earlier than I expected. Hard to bring troops without boats...

 

[Jouzou]

Shoot, a cultural loss to Korea at the very end of the game. I was about to discover fusion and my SS only needed a stasis chamber and an engine.

My biggest mistake was that I failed to settle the big island to the east until 1000AD or so. Shaka found it around the same time and I didn't have the time, energy or willpower to kick him out. I did manage to lay claims to the oil, though. Besides, that city pretty much single-handedly kept me in the space race. To think what I could have done, if I had had the whole island to myself.

Another hindrance was that the AI's were DOWing on me like mad. My own fault for neglecting my diplomacy and military, of course. Fortunately, the AI is not exactly competent on intercontinental warfare. It was annoying, nevertheless.

Edit: Oh, and it wasn't just me, either. It was crazy; There were wars going on all over the planet. Even two of the seers (Mansa and Catharina IIRC) were having one at some point. Anything like this in your game guys?

Oh yeah, and then there was this:

Spoiler :

I mean, I had to. I literally laughed out loud when I saw what I got. Totally worth it! Now I also understand why they say "Never trust a map maker"

Then go ahead and tell us how you handled the Seers of Uruk. Did you just ignore them and play a regular game? Did you steal their workers? Extort them for their techs? Befriend them for trading? Make use of espionage against them? Anything else?

Did you have fun????

I befriended them and traded techs whenever they had something available. Maybe I should have considered a different approach because the techs they were willing to trade didn't really make a game-making (or breaking) difference.

As I stated in the first spoiler thread, I don't usually enjoy water maps, and that's why this game's setting was a good thing. I got some well-needed practice and had an extra incentive to play well. Unfortunately, I lost yet again, but I have to say that overall, I did enjoy the ride.

Also, because this scenario was made by a human, I figured the start would be fair (not on a 10-tile flat island completely surrounded by ocean, for example). Not only was it fair, but generous. As per usual, it was my own incompetence that cost me the game. Thanks a bunch, KCD!

 

[MangeTonChapeau]

Late diplo for me as well - I was aiming for conquest or domination with milking (experimenting with sushi + mining, settling on all one point islands), but the end got too tedious as usual, despite me coming at a few squares of the domination victory, at which point the hopeless portuguese which I had vassalized earlier declared on me when I asked them to give me all their seafood.

My first target was Shaka / the British - Shaka colonized the eastern continent but let them free as the British before I event started any aggression - he was way backwards in tech, I guess the maintenance cost was killing him. Tried to use the nationalism + rifles, turns out it is not as effective as nationalism + infantry : you get -3 unhappy for each unit, but rifles don't make enough of a difference vs longbows to warrant the long term investment. Really tore the British and the Zulus when I got drafted infantry.

Then went for the Koreans, who where 50 turns away from a cultural victory - got them with a steady flow of modern armors from the south east island, which proved to be one of the only production-rich area in this map. Learned lesson from previous island games to build a respectable navy, and actually used a stack of doom of destroyers + transport + tanks, using the destroyers to protect the transport as well as bombard the cities - no city happened to be inlands in this map. This allowed for fast island captures.

Went for the Portuguese with the left over of my army used against the Koreans, then vassalized the vikings a few turns afterwards.

The Ethiopians were the only vaguely menacing presence at that point - when the portuguese devassalized, I decided to go for a very late diplomatic victory, thanks to my sushi milk.

 

[Zechnophobe]

I had 'diddle around and not try to win' disease. The map seemed so perfectly setup, begging for Sid's Sushi, that I got overly focused on it, or maybe not aggressive enough with it, and ended up doing... basically nothing for a hundred turns while trying to cultivate the perfect empire. In reality, I could have won many times over by then. Ended up abandoning in 1800 or so with 2x the score of second place.

 

[kcd_swede]

I had 'diddle around and not try to win' disease. The map seemed so perfectly setup, begging for Sid's Sushi, that I got overly focused on it, or maybe not aggressive enough with it, and ended up doing... basically nothing for a hundred turns while trying to cultivate the perfect empire. In reality, I could have won many times over by then. Ended up abandoning in 1800 or so with 2x the score of second place.

Sorry to hear you abandoned the game. I would encourage you to submit anyhow, since there are people who could benefit from comparing with your game, particaularly the impact you got from sushi. But thanks for sharing in the spoiler thread (more important than submitting, in my opinion).

 

[srad]

Space Colony 1795

Spoiler :

24 cities / final beaker output while teching Fusion: ~3200


Key dates:

1000 17 cities
1050 Oxford University
1330 Sushi
1430 Assembly Line
1605 Mining Inc

Not much happened from 1AD on. I focused only on infrastructure and did not expand via war -> my biggest mistake!
Very late SB became my vassal but this was probably contra productive due to the war weariness and the defied apo vote.

I'm disappointed about my game because I made two really big mistakes which lead to this suboptimal date / beaker output:

1. I did not expand further during mid-game (1 - 1000AD).
2. I should have focused a bit more on an earlier Oxford date. This means less expansion during the BC area.

Nevertheless an entertaining game, thanks kcd_swede!

 

[Zechnophobe]

Sorry to hear you abandoned the game. I would encourage you to submit anyhow, since there are people who could benefit from comparing with your game, particaularly the impact you got from sushi. But thanks for sharing in the spoiler thread (more important than submitting, in my opinion).

I don't think I *can* submit, the buffy mod gives me an error when I run it telling me it has problems. So I've never really worried about submitting, just enjoy playing along from home (as it were).

I think maybe next month I'll make a more serious attempt at whatever we have. Hopefully it won't be out of my league!

 

[Greeder]

Late Domination (1935 as I recall). It was just one turn before Diplo victory.
My REXing sucks as ever. Around 1AD I had 5 cities and 1 settler in his way. I built only 8 of them overall. Wan Kong was close with tech from 1000 AD. Around 1400 AD I attacked Shaka who had about dozen cities. It took me about 400 years to finish him. I had war in mind, so when one of Seere asked me to attack Rangar, I did so. I had Combustion then and he hadn't. I vassalized him and attacked Bull. During first 2 turns I captured his 3 cities on the west island, then conquered his main land and he capitulated. I regrouped and attacked Jao. 10-30 turns and his main island was conquered and he capitulated. Borders popped and I won 1 turn before diplo win.
On the plus side I was never threatened. I knew I'll win. But the way I did it is not elegant at all. And not effective. Wonder spaming slowed me down. I built Pyramids just because I could. Missed Colossus entirely. Good for me I didn't try to built Oracle 500BC. It would be waste of breakers and hammers. I got Steel from Liberalism. I didn't trade with seers effectively. First tech was probably Feudalism. I started game once again after submitting and found them earlier. That was big leverage.
Minus side? Rexing, rexing, rexig. Luckily I settled two cities on west island including one with Iron. I suppose several Landsknechts were reason I wasn't attacked by AIs in midgame.

@Srad: you are a monster! In second game, knowing the map I was able to settle 10 cities till early ADs. 13? Not possible for me.

 

[MarleysGh0st]

Domination Victory in 1935

The early game was peaceful, but I saw a strategic problem developing. Sitting Bull was the first to settle on the big island to my west and he had the only iron resource that would be in reach, until after astronomy. Despite our good relations, he had to be a target! I declared war in 1000 AD, captured his two cities and made peace in 1150. But, by then, Wang Kon had built the AP and he started making demands that I return those cities. Constant refusals were making some of my cities very unhappy.

Well, I'll have to try eliminating Sitting Bull, then! I start another war in 1440 and get one city on his home island, but then the war bogs down (and, incidentally, the Portuguese beat me to the Taj Mahal by a couple turns). I accept an AP vote for peace in 1560, to mollify my people.

In 1640, I start my third war against Sitting Bull. I capture his capital, when suddenly Shaka declares war on me, immediately captures a city on the western island, and sends a massive (if obsolete) fleet of caravels and galleons towards my capital!

I take two more of Sitting Bull's cities, then leave him with the two or three he has left as I vasselize him and turn my forces around. Saving my cities is a close-run thing, but I manage it. Slowly my counterattack succeeds, with the Zulus being conquered by 1856. Meanwhile, I've founded Mining, Inc in 1836. (I never did get a GM to create Sid's Sushi.)

Up to this point, I've been staying roughly even in GNP and production with the Portuguese and Ethiopians, who have a defensive pact. But as I spread Mining, Inc to more cities, the balance begins to shift in my favor. The Ethiopians are first to complete Apollo. I follow in 1904 and the Portuguese in 1920, but beyond that there's never any space race, because my armies are becoming unstoppable.

I go to war against the Koreans in 1901 and conquer them in 1916. The Viking war goes the same way, 1917 to 1930. I take the Celts only city in 1932 and then declare war on the Portuguese and Ethiopians. By 1935, I've taken six of their cities and reached the domination limit, with 62.30% of population and 59.02% of land (and, incidentally, something like 80% of production). Final score = 45,072 points.

At the end of the game, I had just take a city near Humbaba's Hut. After saving the game, I attacked Humbaba, just to see what the mapmaker might have hidden in that hut. And the grateful tribesmen gave me a warrior!

One incidental question: I think I should have received the circumnavigation bonus, but I never did. Had that been given away at the start to one of the Seers?

Although I never did anything creative with the seers or the other unique aspects of this scenario, I did enjoy the game. Real life has been worse than Humbaba, for the the past couple months, so getting to complete a couple BOTMs this month was a welcome relief!

 

[azzaman333]

One incidental question: I think I should have received the circumnavigation bonus, but I never did. Had that been given away at the start to one of the Seers?

I think Boudica had the tech that revealed the entire map, and thus would've had the circumnavigation bonus.

 

[srad]

I made the same experience - Boudica had Satellites - as far as I know that reveals the entire map.

 

[bcool]

Space Colony 1740 AD

Seers
I definitely enjoyed the twist the seers provided.

I stole Mansa's workers and then made peace with him. He eventually volunteered to be my vassal later on in the game. I traded with him for Scientific Method, steam power and Computers I believe. (Can't remember if I traded for paper too).

I tried to steal Guilds from Cathy's capital but my spy was caught and it didn't make sense to wait for another attempt. (This was before I remembered that I could gift them cities) Traded for Replaceable Parts from her.

I stole Medicine from Boudica foolishly from her capital (with several turns of 100% espionage)
When I saw she had medicine I changed my plans and aimed for railroads with liberalism. I'm not sure that it made sense since this delayed sushi by ~13 turns? But of course accelerated Mining Inc a bit.

After I stole medicine from Boudica's capital I finally remembered I could gift them cities closer to my capital and get massive espionage discounts not only from being closer but by having my culture in the cities I gifted them.

With this strategy I stole Satellites, Radio, Flight, and Fiber Optics at a significant discount from researching them directly. By the time I would have been researching these techs however I was producing significant research with numerous research multiplying buildings. I had to build a few jails and Intel Agencies and use the espionage slider a bit to steal these techs in rapid succession even with the massive discounts. So I think I might have only saved about 5-6 turns from stealing these at significant discounts.

If I had remembered this strategy of city gifts earlier on for the medicine steal especially I think that would have a much more dramatic impact on the game.

Some stats for comparison with other space games...
1000 AD
9 cities 68 pop (war in progress with Shaka however, so several more developed cities would be mine in the next 15-20 turns)

Wonders built
Great Lighthouse 975 BC
Oracle 800 BC (code of laws)
Pyramids 275 BC
Hanging Gardens 275 AD
Hagia Sophia 680 AD (mostly for GE gpp but the wonder is underrated I believe)
AP 700 AD (you can't beat the bonus hammers from religious buildings built by whipping them under Organized Religion)
MoM 720 AD
U of S 900 AD (combination with AP and numerous religious buildings is very nice)
Spiral Minaret 1280AD
Taj Mahal 1400 AD
Rock & Roll
Broadway
Eiffel Tower
The Statue of Liberry (overestimating its value since it only helps the cities on its continent, but I ended up trading for ~600 gold from an AI who obviously had been building it as well. So his failure gold became mine and I didn't feel as bad about the hammer investment.)
several late wonders for score basically (I think I built the Space Elevator the turn the spaceship launched for fun)

Teching Engineering at 1000 AD (with a ~1200 gold reserve after finishing education and building Oxford by 940 AD)

I moved the capital to the western island site with 2 gems, iron and rice. Not ideal bureau capital but better than starting island for sure. This is where I built Oxford.

Corporations
Mining Inc 1380 AD (eventually +22 hammers)
Sushi 1510 AD (eventually +23 food) (delayed as I mentioned above when I saw Boudica had medicine that I could steal)

Wars
Shaka (who even without initially longbows put up a very annoying resistance even to my macemen & cats army and eventually muskets/treb. I vassalized him with 1 city left by 1340 AD )

1500 AD war with Joao started, vassal by 1545 AD after I took 4 cities from him. (with mostly left over units from zulu war and cannons built by my HE city)
1565 AD war with Zara started, vassal by 1615 AD after I took 6? cities from him. (again mostly just cannons and left over muskets and macemen)

I left the protective AI's alone and it was time to focus on researching

I settled several island cities just for the seafood. This was one of the reasons I went to war with zara he had just settled what I thought was a 4-5 seafood spot and I was upset he beat me by 1 turn to it.
final research push
Teching Fusion ~1650 AD I had 40 cities and ~5529 science at 100%. (research was a bit higher at it peak since by this time I was building some spaceship parts)

 

[srad]

Very well done bcool!

 

[adrianj]

1804 AD Domination

I felt like I was off to a pretty good start, but my stupid computer decided to apply windows updates and auto restart while I was playing. I'm pretty sure I played my moves exactly the same after playing from the latest autosave, but it's in the hands of the Staff now.

I stole mansa's workers, which helped me get a foothold on the western landmass. Eventually I killed all 3 seers as I didn't want them trading out techs to anyone.

I can't recall exact dates, but I was in a pretty inefficient constant war from axes+cats+galleys right up to cannon+rifles+galleons+frigates. First ai gone was Shaka (vassaled), sitting bull (eliminated), zara (vassal), Joao (vassal), Wang Kon (vassal). I enjoyed most of the game, but the end game became quite tedious moving all the units around.

Thanks for the map kcd!

 

[Rajaat]

Diplo loss in 1964 of all things. I thought I was throwing the vote for secretary general, but no, it was a call for the diplo win. (I payed about 0.5s attention to the vote) I wasn't a candidate since Korea had built it, and Zara was slightly more numerous. I threw my vote for Zara for the diplo advantage (to avoid a delaying war on my way to space). He won due to my votes...

Apart from that it was a fun game. I ended up with multiple naval wars with Shaka, as well as a long war with Joao. Definately not my best game, and quite sloppy.