BOTM 51 Final Spoiler - Game submitted or abandoned

[RD-BH]

LOL -
... I've tried this map three times now.
... I am just not a water map kinda guy.

Each attempt ended with a different AI (Maya,Greek,Mongol) pretty much owning the world.

But -
... I had lotsa FUN 8)

 

[WastinTime]

Went for the fast Diplo again, and since the Sampo was right along that path, I delayed my victory a few turns to get it.

I had no wars. Well, Alex was fighting for a few turns, but I made them make peace so they wouldn't ask me to join. Everyone was Friendly to me, or at least could have been. I didn't switch Alex to my religion so no one would vote for him, but he still loved me.

I'm a little sad that I didn't get to use the fish/rice. I almost didn't know it was there. I forget that these games can have non-standard maps. I guess Space colony is the best way to enjoy/appreciate the effort that was put into the scenario. Maybe I should switch. There seems to be more competition there too.

 

[srad]

Domination 1655AD, 445k

Goal was score milking with Sushi and I think I was not really sucessful. At least something over 500k should not be to hard to achieve.
Because Sushi was with that insane amount of Rice, Fish, Crap and Calm so expensive I was only able to spread it to half of my cities. I actually lost some units due to strike.


Looking back the following things would have improved the score:

1. Faster war -> earlier finish date (use more troops or use mounted units instead of cannons)
2. Less food resources -> Spread Sushi to all cities (spread Sushi to the vassals and gift food resources (as Tachywaxon proposed) -> bigger vassal cities)
3. More and earlier wealth buildings -> Markets, Banks, Wall Street (built it very late)

 

[raistlin1967]

Disappointingly lost the Space Race to Pacal. Where was the Permanant Alliance option in this game? The main thing that sunk me was Alex and Genghis becoming best friends throughout the game, sinking my chances to Diplo win after working very hard to maintain peace and concentrate on staying the tech leader pretty late into the game. Missed the chance at the super islands by not paying attention to the auto exploring carracks. Oh, well. may be good for highest scoring loss.

 

[MangeTonChapeau]

1981 diplo + space victory (registered as diplo victory - do different victories yiedl different scores at the end by the way ?), with 1888 Sampo.

Great game, my first win on immortal - getting the great lighthouse was key for me not to get left in the dust technologically by the AI. I was a bit lucky that the Celts stuck to their island, I could grab the iron rather fast.

Saw the incredible fish islands rather late, planted a city there and installed both sushi and creative constructions to take over most of the islands slowly from the mayas.

Got sneak-attacked by the Celts late in the game (who significantly delayed my victory by pillaging all my fish / clams resources) while I had a great tech lead, but nearly no units. Overall played the diplo game very well, delaying my religious choice until very late as the picture was not clear until greeks and mayas started a war together.

I still could learn about late game space victory, especially with a better timing of production / research choices. Also, any guide on what the impact is of launching an incomplete ship ? (timing to reach destination, probability of success ?)

 

[neilmeister]

Congrats on your first Immortal win

Different VC's are scored exactly the same, you can tell by hovering the mouse over the base score, next to your leaders name. It will tell you the score you get from winning that turn, and it also breaks down what makes your score. Its mostly about population, with territory, wonders and tech counting for less.

There are some excellent articles regarding the best Space tech plan, but you will have to search for them.

Probability of success is due to the number of casings you build: 20% for each casing.
Speed is determined by the number of engines and thrusters you have: 2 turns less (at normal) for each thruster, and I think it is also 2 turns for the second engine.

 

[Orion071]

1981 diplo + space victory (registered as diplo victory - do different victories yiedl different scores at the end by the way ?), with 1888 Sampo.

Great game, my first win on immortal - getting the great lighthouse was key for me not to get left in the dust technologically by the AI. I was a bit lucky that the Celts stuck to their island, I could grab the iron rather fast.

Saw the incredible fish islands rather late, planted a city there and installed both sushi and creative constructions to take over most of the islands slowly from the mayas.

Got sneak-attacked by the Celts late in the game (who significantly delayed my victory by pillaging all my fish / clams resources) while I had a great tech lead, but nearly no units. Overall played the diplo game very well, delaying my religious choice until very late as the picture was not clear until greeks and mayas started a war together.

I still could learn about late game space victory, especially with a better timing of production / research choices. Also, any guide on what the impact is of launching an incomplete ship ? (timing to reach destination, probability of success ?)

If you want a good research path for space, with tips on how to build the spaceship, see my sig for my Space Victory article. I wrote it for vanilla, but the BTS path is in there too.

You don't want to launch an incomplete ship. The "optional" pieces are the 5 Casings and the 5 Thrusters. Each one you leave off of the ship give a 20% chance of failure. But they're so easy to build that you have no excuse for leaving them off.

Another truly optional piece is a second Engine. If you build a ship with 2 Engines, it will get there 2-4 turns faster, depending on the speed of the game. But the Engine takes way more time than this to build. It's a rare game indeed where I'm able to have a 2nd city build an Engine at the same time as the 1st and actually have it cut a turn or 2 off of my winning time. Most of the time, 1 Engine is fine and you'll still have 100% success rate.

 

[Jbob42]

I was brought back to Civ4 by getting annoyed at Civ5 and finding the RealmsBeyond site. Played a few GoTMs and succession games here back in the day, and also wanted to learn BTS.

Opened this BoTM game as the first game... wow things have changed! I realized I was in far over my head. I actually did ok though - played middle of the road until I tried to take out the Celts (the weakest of the 5) in 1000AD. I failed miserably on the unit micro - not realizing how badly my stack would do amphibiously. Then I also messed up the cat suicide order on their capital. I ended up razing it, but at the cost of my entire army.

Just after the battle, the second AP vote came up. I voted for Alex in hopes of being put out of my misery and got my wish - RELIGIOUS LOSS in 1220AD. Not sure why Ghengis voted for Alex, as everyone abstained the first time around.

Thanks to the organizers!

 

[Jouzou]

1955, space colony. Score somewhere around 20k, but nevermind that because this was my first victory on Immortal! I didn't even play adventurer (and to be honest, I probably wouldn't have put that carrack to very good use). Granted, my success was probably due to the AI not being very good at water maps.

I ran a nice empire of 7 cities (and one iceball in the north just to claim the iron) without ever going to war. I became quite the wonder whore, often by accident (building stuff for fail gold, forgetting to switch production). I was on my toes because the three aggressive leaders were plotting for almost the whole game, but they ended up fighting each other.

I'm telling you one thing, though: Colossus + GLH + Feitoria + Golden age + Moai Statues + Bureaucracy = A monster capital (settled in place, btw).

Sampo challenge: Cristo Redentor at 1560 AD. I expect to be beaten by a few centuries, but not bad. Could have gotten the damn thing 10 or so turns earlier if I hadn't burned my GE on a Golden Age.

 

[DizzKneeLand33]

So, this is my second diplo victory ever in Civ IV in lots of games!

Other irrelevant facts:

First ever Immortal game. First ever Immortal victory. But, had this been a large map with 12 civs... well, my arse woulda been kicked in the BC's probably....

No wars. You know, there have been so many CIV games from 2 to 4 that I have won without wars. Maybe that should be a challenge, similar to OCC? I know I'm not the only one, but it is fun to have such aggressive AI on Immortal show up and never have a war....

I was going for spaceship in the end (I had no plan in the beginning lol). Strangely, the exact turn of the UN vote that I called up was the ONLY turn that I could have won diplo on.... even the turn after (according to Buffy) I wouldn't have won. I probably would have had spaceship in 20 turns give or take....

I built more forts in this game (after reading the "all about forts in BTS" info) than I have in my previous 500-1000 Civ IV games.... I was a fort whore, and I challenge anyone to claim they built more!!

Forgot about the Sampo challenge, but I wouldn't have been close there this game (1886 AD here).

Mining Inc. was mine. I wanted Sushi. I had 50%+ chance for great merchant for about my last 6 great people (or so). No merchant. Apparently my Brazilians did not prefer raw fish....

Thanks for a fun game!! I love being able to compare games with people and view alternate strategies through the GOTM. I have learned more here in 6 months than I did in 6 prior years!

 

[Jastrow]

Space in 1866, 5594 Base score, 88K final.

The space game felt very pedestrian as it was happening, but judging from the thread, the date may not be as bad as I was thinking.

I never fought a war, and had most AI's at please all game. Built the Paga, and went straight to free religion without ever adopting one. Built both Sushi and Mining, but spread both only to about 6 key cities.

Sampo challenge... Not sure the exact date, but built after launching the ship, so certainly not competitive.

 

[Yamps]

Conquest in 1440AD with trebs and galleons. Should have done it some 20 turns earlier, maybe next time. Nice map to get back to some civ playing!

 

[The Dude Esq]

V enjoyable game.

I saw the marble and stone, and thought I might have a go at Culture. Surprisingly got an 1830AD Win. Tis my first Immortal win as well! The small map was useful for picking up a Wonders. School boy error when not hooking up the marble cost me the GLib. (Whether you really need Wonders or not for a CV?) Previous Immortal games I can be beaten to every one.

Got beaten to every single religion, but picked up 4 from trade routes. Did get liberalism tho. And researched up to Sushi (necessary) and destroyers and Creative Construction (not necessary, particularly when I accidentally pressed Mining Ink! Well it prob didn't hurt to have a couple destroyers). I know the AI can't handle a water map v well, but I'm not if the game code is being crunched correctly by my old computers cogs - I didn't get a DOW all game. Pretty unusual, hey?

 

[jesusin]

jesusin, contender. Goal: fastest cultural victory. Result: 1555AD cultural victory


*Start

Settle in place.
Production: WB, Warrior, Worker
Research: Agri, AH
I chose to worker the 3 hammers tile from the beginning, that way I got pop2 a Worker the very same turn, but I got 12h+12g instead of 10f.


* 3 cultural cities:

Capital, in place, 2 cottages.
GPFarm, 1W of horses, leaving fish for 3rd city.
Third one, in single tile island NW. Moai.

Total 6 cities, last one single food resource.



* Successes

First exploring WB looks for places to settle instead of going far away for circumnavigation and meeting AIs.
5 cities 1000BC.
Whipping wildly.
GLH (900BC), Pyramids (425BC, the key wonder of this game, as there was a serious happiness problem).
Sistine's, Colossus, HG, MoM, TajMaj.
Diplo management.
GA order birth management. All cities went Legendary the very same turn, while my first estimations put the capital 18 turns ahead of the other too cities.



* Disasters

No copper.
Music GA lost by 1 turn, could have easily had it.
Parthenon lost by 2 turns. This really impacted my victory date.
Academy as late as 100BC. Capital was too busy with WW.
No trees were chopped under Bureaucracy, all earlier or later... a third Worker could have proved useful.
Late Currency from AI trade.
Castes+Pacifism too late: 1000AD.
Too many WW and too late Moai led to not being able to complete all 4 cathedrals per city (9/12).


* Relevant data:

4 religions. Multipliers 4.5-4-3, GA bombs 1-5-6, base cpt 190-140-150, 1GS for Academy, 1GM for GAge, 12 GA bombed, total 14GP.




EDIT: Comments:
- I love small maps.
- I'd like to see more talking about how each player solved the "not enough happiness in this map" problem.

 

[shulec]

Greed got me on this game! I had no idea I would destroy my ecomony with Sushi! I was too greedy to remedy this situation sensibly, and lost 65K because of it.

I had 50 cities running 54 and 24. I was tiptoeing along the domination limit at about 65.6% with projected score of 169K. Instead of doing the sensible thing and tripping the domination, I revolted to slavery tried a mass courthouse/bank/grocer whip. That took me down to 144K, and didn't bail out my economy. I was still striking every turn and couldn't produce any settlers galleons to spread a few more cities to trip the domination.

I was in strike mode for about 35 turns and eventually limped to a Sushi fueled 1925 culture victory at 103,653 and 9839 base score.

Lesson learned with Sushi: consume with moderation!

I think I did build the Cristo Rodentor as an afterthought, but I can't even remember!

 

[Manco Capac]

I think I did build the Cristo Rodentor as an afterthought, but I can't even remember!

Wait rodents ...those pesky rodents *personal past trauma*

Anyways, looks like everyone got trapped by this ultimate island.

- I'd like to see more talking about how each player solved the "not enough happiness in this map" problem.

Given my economy couldn't sustain without Rep, then I had to lift the happy cap far away than normal cap. There I thought about my experience in original Final Frontier mod where happy cap was a serious problem. I remember vassals were the only early path to get higher than usual happy cap.

Thus I decided in this game to create a multitudes of colonies of 2 cities(I ended with 11?).

 

[shulec]

I obviously never thought about what the "redentor" was. I see it is Portuguese for "redeemer". Sorry JC!

 

[Rutseg]

- I'd like to see more talking about how each player solved the "not enough happiness in this map" problem.

In the food rich, poor hammer islands, I just let grow the and then whipped like 3 or 4 POP at the time into whatever usefull or infraestructure.

I was running Representation from 50AD thanks to the pyramids. I built also some minimal infraestructure that worked well with my VC as forges. Early on I claimed the wine island. I controlled the excess population hiring specialist and whipping. At midgame I controlled almost all of the resources in the game, only resisting the silver I would say. At the last phase I was running nationalism and drafting with the sushi, mainly from my globe theater city, but a nice +2 was going to my military productive cities thanks to barraks.

Anyways I only remember having real problems with my main GP farm that was running sushi early on and had around 30 or something POP. I think with all your temples, cathedrals and culture slider you should have had an even easier happiness limit at some point.

 

[jesusin]

- I'd like to see more talking about how each player solved the "not enough happiness in this map" problem.

In particular I am referring to the early game:
How did everyone go beyond the pop5 limit?

My solution to this problem was Representation through Pyramids.

 

[srad]

I used HR (stacking warriors), but I had to wait until 500BC to get Monarchy via trade.