BOTM 53 -- Final Spoiler Game submitted or abandoned

[ferretgr]

Hi folks! First time GOTM for me as well. I recently went back to Civ 4 after getting a new machine... had to try out all those big, fancy mods that would just refuse to run on my old junker, you know. Anyhow, the Civ bug has definitely rebitten me as I've been playing nonstop for about two weeks. I'm so addicted that I figured I'd reinstall on my old laptop and play some vanilla BTS while I'm away from my PC (BUFFY mod doesn't slow things down at all). This was a great game to get started on with that!

I'll begin by saying that I'm not a Civ 4 expert. I'm a casual player. I rarely finish games; I like long games but I get tired of them or something comes up before I actually get the win in many (most?) cases: when it becomes obvious that I'm going to win or when it becomes hopeless, I usually move on. I knew this one was going to be a challenge for be because I rarely play with barbs and never with aggressive AIs, but we have to challenge ourselves occasionally, right?

Anyhow, I went with door 2. I saw the gold and the hint of rivers and figured that combo was better than any one food resource. My plan was to try to expand into my space quickly and to keep the peace... that's my general style of play, I'm not much of a war guy, I see them as getting in the way of my exploration and colonization But I knew that was going to be a challenge with Aggressive AI so I focused on military techs for the first while, and expanded north after my first westward expansion stumbled on Toku. When I ran out of space, my next move was to door 3, and I got to that location just before Toku. I figured I had to get aggressive with my colonization or I'd be left behind, so I took the area just below and to the left of door 3 (a long way away from my starting position but I was starting to run out of options). This was fortuitous, because I could see at the edge of my view a Barb city that I easily took, letting me expand into the area of the map below the desert, which I held without issue for most of the game.

I went with Confucianism when it became obvious that everyone on my continent was going to do the same, and so I went a really long time without any significant wars given this, had all four civs on my continent pleased/friendly with me despite fighting amongst themselves for most of the game. I got into a minor war with Stalin in 1160 AD based on the closeness of our Northern borders, but he didn't have a navy ready and so had a long trek to get me. I brought in Toku to keep him distracted and didn't gain or lose any ground. GK saw the opportunity to get involved, and ended up vassaling Stalin.

I saw 700+ years of expansion and cultural rather than military growth at point, and surrounded by happy faces from the civs on my continent, I started to expand, off-continent given that we had gobbled it all up. I found the northwestern corner of MM and HC's continent empty when I arrived with my explorers, so I put down some roots there, and had a nice little staging ground for my eventual move up north. It wasn't until this point that I met Elizabeth... she was kind of stunted and didn't make it off the arctic circle. I spent the next while sending religious units to MM (who had vassaled HC), and managed to convert him to Confucianism, thinking this was my endgame... I'd keep the peace everywhere using religion. Sent my settlers off to the northern island that Elizabeth was on, and found empty space at both ends of the island, settled them. Toku went to war with Liz and vassaled her pretty quickly.

This was when it all fell apart. I had a pretty good thing going... a significant chunk of the original continent was mine, I got along well with my neighbors, and I was claiming the rest of the unoccupied space in the world, which I thought might give me a shot. When I bumped up against Liz, though, she didn't like it. I was going to try to convert her too and use that but didn't get a chance. Not long after putting down roots near her, she and Toku declared. I guess Toku was just waiting for the opportunity because he had taken my big production city before I even knew he had crossed the border (bad placement relative to his culture and capital), but he totally took me by surprise given the "pleased" happy face on my scoreboard. Bastard. Anyhow, I was soft from far too many years of expansion and peace, and was about two steps behind on the military techs (Toku plowed through me with his damn cavalry and rifleman, and I had just researched gunpowder, so I was screwed). I lost my entire standing army in the opening salvos, and retired with Toku steamrolling my best cities... I wasn't even close to a position where I could respond.

Anyhow, it was a really fun game! I loved the map (really awesome job!) and the challenge of trying something new, and the pace seemed REALLY FAST after playing some snail-paced Rise of Mankind games That said, noble is about as high a difficulty level as I think I could handle, so most of the other BOTMs are intimidating to me! I'll try the next one to be sure!

-G

 

[zamint3]

After eliminating the AI on my continent before 1AD and not finding a galley route to the other continents I slowed down and tried to milk domination.

I also took Biology from Liberalism and build Sushi.

Accidentally triggered domination while still growing by 2000 points per turn.
Damn auto governor gave my a non-working citizen on growth and with Sistine it produced enough culture to expand a city before I noticed. With 92 cities you get tired of checking every turn.

 

[-Asterix-]

After eliminating the AI on my continent before 1AD and not finding a galley route to the other continents I slowed down and tried to milk domination.

I also took Biology from Liberalism and build Sushi.

Accidentally triggered domination while still growing by 2000 points per turn.
Damn auto governor gave my a non-working citizen on growth and with Sistine it produced enough culture to expand a city before I noticed. With 92 cities you get tired of checking every turn.

Sounds much like my game, except my pre 1000AD wars were disasters and I had only some 60 cities.

 

[cas]

one city 2024AD dom. ~5K score.

Not a true 'one city' since I captured/gifted rather than raze, but close enough.

Took door#3 (obvious). Made Giggles my PA partner.

Played sloppy and made several mistakes, but learned quite a bit since I rarely go for dom or use PA. Going off memory here, so might be slightly off...

Cut down part of Japan to give Giggles more room, didn't vassal. Cut down GK and Stalin, gifted some cities to Giggles, capitulate both of them. In the peace deal with Stalin, I made him give me an island city near Elizabeth...gifted that city to Giggles, but used it to airlift paratroopers. Nuked Elizabeth, used paratroopers on the first couple of cities, then airlifted additional troops. Eliminated all of Elizabeth's cities and gifted to Giggles, but when I was <1% away from dom, he created Hammurabi as a Colony. On to plan B.

Toku was Mansa's vassal. Tossed about 20 nukes at Mansa while my allies and I eliminated Japan. MM capitulated once he had a nice radioactive glow even though I didn't take any of his cities. Built more nukes, took some Incan cities and some of Hammy's cities (again)...gifted to Giggles. Capitulated HC and finally broke the dom limit with some Giggles border pops.



cas

 

[kcd_swede]

That's an impressive game, CAS. You are the when it comes to self-imposed OCC.

 

[cas]

That's an impressive game, CAS. You are the when it comes to self-imposed OCC.

Eh, can't compete with the truly good players on high score/fastest dates so not much point in that. Nooble difficulty...one city...PA enabled...wanted the dom shield to add to my collection.

I think this is the first game of Civ4 where I used paratroopers. And I only go dom VC in <5% of my games because I consider it an unfinished game more than a win.

This one took longer and was more tedious than a normal nooble OCC, but I enjoyed the different strategy and learned some things. Learning stuff is always good.

cas

 

[evil_spock]

Diplomatic victory 1230 AD.

-Took door #3. Built worker-warrior-settler.
-Stole a worker from Toku, and harassed him with a upgraded warrior effectively halting his progress for a while.
-Second city next to the gold.
-Oracled CS 975 AD, if I remember correctly.
-By the end of BCs. 10 cities, education on the way.
-Gil DOWed me twice but he didn't actually attack me at any point. Got peace after killing some of his forces/capturing workers/city.
-Teched to military tradition. Built ~30 cuirassiers and that was enough to vassalize all but Mansa.
-Bulbed/libbed my way through to mass media.

I see that WastinTime has the same date as me. I could have got UN 1 turn earlier had I not fumbled with chopping a forest.

Thanks for the game. Once again a creative setup.

 

[PattonTwo]

Thanks for the map and the game. It was great fun even though it took me until 1975 to win via space. Tried for the UN a century earlier but I'm no good at it and couldn't get anyone else to vote for me.

I took door #3 and also sent a settler up to door #2 to grab a foothold there. I really need to learn how to have an earlier war. Didn't get around to my first war (vs Japan) until 400 bc and it took me until almost 1250 AD to finish him off. I was in the tech lead almost the entire game (though behind MM and the Inca for most) and went for alphabet instead of aesthetics (russia got Alph first but I still gained some decent trades).

From 1500 to 1800 to kill gilgamesh and then the mongols from 1850 to 1900 when I finished off both Russia and the Mongols at the same time. Those wars were very simple due to tech lead except the one where I lost the first city I took from the Mongols (I'd moved on and taken a second city). They attacked my Infantry, Cavalry and Knight with a War elephant a knight and a pikeman. I lost all three battles and the city. worst city battle I've ever seen though thankfully my tech lead was so good by then it did nothing more than delay the inevitable by 5-7 turns.

Again it was great fun even though I'll end up near the bottom of the pack. I'm learning something each time.

 

[neilmeister]

Only started this today, and I figured I wouldn't have time for a full blooded game. Took door with pigs and deer's. Went for AP out of the gate, even to the point of learning Buddhism first (meant to do Poly, but was not paying enough attention), just to make sure I could share a religion with my near neighbours to gaurantee the votes.

Oracled CoL, because I had settled too many cities to get the pre-reqs for Theology. Bulbed Theology about 10 turns later.

Giggles, Stalin, Khan and I were Buddhists, Toku was Confused. Built AP in Confused as it was already spread to Toku, big mistake as he became resident, and I had to conquer half of his cities before he switched to Buddhism, thus causing a new election soon after. Won on the first vote after, in 1160ad.

Took me ages to find Lizzie, which is kind of embaressing.

Nice game kcd.

 

[Manco Capac]

As far I remember, I lost my chariot rush at <5% chance (the whole stack odd I mean) and I ragequitted.
You know, I wanted that stone for Mids. That STONE!

I'm stoned.

 

[Jastrow]

Hi folks! First time GOTM...

My plan was to try to expand into my space quickly and to keep the peace...

I saw 700+ years of expansion and cultural rather than military growth at point, and surrounded by happy faces from the civs on my continent, I started to expand, off-continent given that we had gobbled it all up.

@Ferretgr:

How many cities did you have on continent? From your description, it sounds like you had cordened off a fair bit. If you started at Door two, and then move east up to Toku's capital (2), then to the north (another 2 or 3), and got Door 3 (1 more), and the area to the south west (another 4). That sounds like about 10 cities, and should leave some filler room for another 2 or 3. So you probably should have had 12+ on your section of the continent.

If so, and if your plan is to go to space, then why expand off continent at all? Cities far off continent have very high maintanence, and because they are starting so late, and so far behind in devellopement, they are not going to help much in researching or in building the ship.

Sure if you find some amazing spot, or need to go out to grab a key resource (Al) then by all means do it, but for peaceful space, if you get to ~12 on your starting land mass, then, it often makes sense to just stay where you are. 12 healty cities is more than enough to get you to space. I got to space just before 1800 using only 15.

Also, to prevent the Toko thing, it is important to set up one millitary city, even if you are going the way of peace. This is one of my biggest weaknesses, as I often "forget" to do this, getting distracted by other things, but it is really essential.

Just pick one city... NOT one of your great cities. Just an OK one, with say 3 or 4 hills and enough food to work them. In this city, do NOT build the usual stuff like libraries and markets. Only build a barrack, forge, and enough to keep it miniminally happy at a size where it can work the hills. (Add in the Epic if you have access to it). Then build ONLY millitary for the rest of the game (putting in a factory+power when it becomes available). This one city will provide enough troops to make a defensive stance against almost all attacks (at least up to emporer level), so you can focus the rest of your empire on space, culture, exploration, etc...

Hope that is helpful.

 

[Chris1229]

This was a very fun game.

It did not however go according to my plan from the first spoiler. I was just about done building up my army to invade Gilgamesh, when GK asked me to join him beating up Stalin. to keep on his good side i agreed. If i remember right that was what caused both Taku and Gilgamesh to declare war on me in 1240. I split my stack and tried with march on both of them at once. GK was keeping Stalin plenty busy so i didn't have to worry about either of them. It was a bloody war I was never able to get my stack close to either of them.
Eventually when GK made peace with Stalin, He marched an army over and they made peace with both of us. During this time of peaceful rebuilding i got to were i could research lib. but opted for some military techs since i figured somebody from the other continent already had it. that was not the case and Taku got it.

Stalin DOW again i finally got my army over to him and had used galleys to take a small army across the channel. In 1690 when GK took one of his cities and Stalin decided to capitulate to me even though i had not actually done anything yet. That same turn finally built a caravel and met Eliz.

I some how had only built one city on the water, it was all the way north just below gems island, not much production so it took me a while to whip out 4 galleons. In 1745 my caravel proved the world was round, and that bonus movement was very helpful for the rest of the game.

In 1760, my "Mexican Armada" of 4 galleons made a surprise attack on London and captured it in one turn I found London to be filled with wonders and after building a Levee and later a drydock i used it to build ships for the rest of the game. I got another batch of troops from the mainland and landed farther west in Liz's land and razed one of her cities. I accepted the capitulation since i didn't want any more of her icy land.

I was building up my army's again on Gilgamesh's borders with troops in my Galleon's in position to take his seaside cities, when GK decided he wanted more of Stalin's land and so DOW on me and my to vassal's. Almost 15 turns after the DOW i finally had marched my army back across my empire and sailed my galleons around to the softer seaside cities of GK empire. It didn't take long for my army of Curis, Muskets, and Trebs to cut through GK army of Keshiks, Catas, and War Elephants and capture a series of 4 cities that cut GK empire in half. He Capitulated in 1854.

Once again i marched my army across my empire this time aiming for Taku's empire and all his coastal cities so that i could build up my navy. I DOW on him in 1880 and took his last city in 1908.

I turned my attention to Gilgamesh only to find he had beelined to Infantry while i was dealing with Taku. I researched Mass Production a few turns before i DOW war on him but only had enough money to upgrade a few of my rifles and muskets. Still numbers were on my side and i knew it. I was a to split my forces and thanks to my trusty Galleons coming from the other side and with the "Judicious use of cannons" (read suicide) I was able to take 3 of his cities on the first turn of combat. Shortly after the beginning of this war i brought both tanks and fighters on line. In 1926, he capitulated with only one city left in the tundra.

I realized that it would take to long to cap Mansa and Hyuna so i went ahead and built the UN. Still i couldn't resist the fun so i sailed my two carriers full of fighters, four troop ships full of tanks and infantry over to the other continent. In 1931 I DOW. After my subs and destroyers had taken out Mansa's mixture of Galleys, Caravels, and a few Galleons. I landed my troops and started slicing through his Longbowmen and Curis. In 1936, I won a diplo Victory on first election, i had already captured 4 of Mansa's cities without losing a single troop.

This was a really fun setup thanks the Mapmaker for that, and my first ever GOTM victory so i am a very happy camper. This is also the first time i have ever had any success with naval warfare and it was a lot of fun to set ships up just off the coast of someones poorly defended city and take it on the first turn of the war. (sorry i guess everywhere i said first turn it was actually 2nd since it take a whole turn to unload) Instead of trying to either take the well defended city that is on your border or march past it to on of the less defended cities and have to worry about what those troops are going to do behind my stack.

 

[kcd_swede]

Good job! Congrats on your first BOTM victory! Glad you had fun.

One thing you said:

During this time of peaceful rebuilding i got to were i could research lib. but opted for some military techs since i figured somebody from the other continent already had it.

There is no need for any guess-work there. On all the techs that give a bonus for being first to reach that tech (including Liberalism), when you hover the cursor over the tech in the tech tree the BUFFY mod will show the bonus in yellow text if its still available for you to get, but not if its already gone. Just one of those little finesses that you gain with experience.

I enjoyed reading about your game, thanks for sharing!

 

[WelshGandalf]

After hearbreakingly missing out on the oracle CS by 1 turn as per my first post, I knew I had no chance of any medal so I just cruised to space. Also I took over my continent (quite slowly) as this is Noble and doing so is easy. Libbed miltrad in, err, 1340AD. No-one even got to riflemen and they all got squished. Finished with about 41 cities, in the middle of my 5th golden age, over 6000 beakers coming in a turn, around 1888AD I think. I even built the space elevator as I thought that production not science would be the limitting factor in building my spaceship. I think I got the enginers built in 4 and 5 turns respectively

 

[Jastrow]

There is no need for any guess-work there. On all the techs that give a bonus for being first to reach that tech (including Liberalism), when you hover the cursor over the tech in the tech tree the BUFFY mod will show the bonus in yellow text if its still available for you to get, but not if its already gone...

It should be noted however that this does not tell you if someone else is researching it right now. Without vision of all AI, it is always a risk to delay lib, as someone can always steal it from you without any advanced warning.

 

[Chris1229]

There is no need for any guess-work there. On all the techs that give a bonus for being first to reach that tech (including Liberalism), when you hover the cursor over the tech in the tech tree the BUFFY mod will show the bonus in yellow text if its still available for you to get, but not if its already gone. Just one of those little finesses that you gain with experience.

That would have been very helpful if i had known that at the moment!

It should be noted however that this does not tell you if someone else is researching it right now. Without vision of all AI, it is always a risk to delay lib, as someone can always steal it from you without any advanced warning.

In this case i actually delayed because as many wonders as were being built "In a Far Away Land" I figured whoever was over-there probably already had gotten to the tech so the bonus was already gone.

 

[jesusin]

jesusin, contender. Goal fastest cultural victory. Result: 1470AD cultural victory.

I chose #3 and put my first settler on the middle of #2 FP, for maximum food. At the time I didn't know the map was crowded with super-food settling places, so I decided to put my GPFarm there and farmed the FPs.

This, together with the fact that I couldn't stop settling 2-food-resource cities all around the map up to 12 cities, was a big mistake.

My economy halted, losing money at 0% research. As a consequence, all early religions were lost to the other continent. So I had to bulb Philo and research Theo and DivineRight, to get at least 3 religions. This extra techs to research made me finish my research even later.

Pyramids and Representation got me out of the hole.
On the bright side, with 12 food-rich cities and Parthenon I was able to pop quite a number of GPs. all of them GAs except the first GS.

As I had 0 cottages all game long, I didn't have a use for an Academy this time.

My Legendary cities were capital, GPFarm in the FPs N, and the Northermost city, with Moai. The Western peninsula city would have been a good candidate too.



Key stats:

Liberalism date 1040AD
GPs: 24, 2 of them for free. 1GS for bulbing, free GM for GAge, and 22 GA bombs.
Base culture 200-140-160
Multipliers 4.5-3.5-3.5
GA bombed 5-8-9
Popped 12 GA in the las 24 turns.
I managed my diplo: completely peaceful game.


Some other stats:

1000 BC Stats: 6 cities, 19 pop, 7workers, 7units(7War), 2 strategic resources, 0 luxury resources, 2 health resources, 0 great persons, 0 world wonders, 0 national wonders, food/production/commerce=80-18-17, 8 bpt at breakeven, 5 culture per turn, 0 great person points per turn, 45 gold, 4Monu. 0 religions, 0/0 cottages used, 11 Techs: BW, PH, AH, Maso. 0 civs killed. 4 hours played.

1AD Stats: 10cities, 65pop, 12workers, 14units (4Cha), 4 strategic resources, 3 luxury resources, 9 health resources, 1 great persons, 1 world wonders, 0 national wonders, food/production/commerce=172-60-157, 60bpt at breakeven , 39 culture per turn, 41 great person points per turn, 50 gold. 0 religions. 0/0 cottages used, 16 Techs: BW, Aest, CoL. 0 civs killed. 8.5 hours played. reli/city, temples, caths== 0,0,0

1000AD Stats: 12 cities, 153 pop, 12 workers, 22units (3Axe), 5 strategic resources, 7 luxury resources, 10 health resources, 9 great persons, 7 world wonders, 2 national wonders, food/production/commerce=338-146-1007, 358 sustainable beakers per turn, 253 culture per turn(useful), 429 great person points per turn, 0 gold. 3 religions. 0/0 cottages used, 30 Techs: Music, Educ, DivRi, no MC, no Drama. 0 civs killed. 16 hours played. reli/city, temples, caths== 19,10,2

 

[kcd_swede]

Nice game Jesusin! Glad to see the family life isn't keeping you too busy to play, I'm sure anyone else playing for culture VC was happy to hear that you left some room for improvement... but your victory date maybe breaks a few hearts nonetheless.

 

[IvanTheFearsome]

Just played and submitted my first ever BOTM and want to say a big thank you to kcd_swede - I REALLY enjoyed playing it. It's so nice to play on a map that's designed, rather than a random one, and especially a clever and entertaining map like that one!

Only Adventurer Class since it's my first time. Took Door 1 for the seafood, hoping it would allow lots of whipping with the Sacrifical Altar. I've hardly ever played Aztecs though and didn't really make enough use of it.

Forced GK off the continent onto a little island then took out the Russians to secure the West, then Tokugawa and Gilgamesh for the rest of the continent. Finally found and killed the English but way ahead in tech (never played with tech brokering off before - very interesting!) and went into space rather than bother with invading the other continent. And besides, Mansa was by bestest buddy, keeping me pretty sweet (both literally) with all that dye and sugar

It all took rather a long time though... 1936 isn't going to break any records.

Look forward to the next one.

 

[Chris1229]

It all took rather a long time though... 1936 isn't going to break any records.

You got the same date i did. Only you won in space, which to me is much more impressive than my cheesy diplomatic victory. I have yet to win a space game.