BOTM 54 Final Spoiler - Game Finished or Abandoned

[nocho]

Conquest 1200AD. Could've been quicker of course, but lazily waited for knights to conquer the east.

Fun game!

 

[Falabello]

- Despite disastrous beginning, still had game . But I had no time and no idea how to finish it . It's another difficulty that I have: when the Empire begins to increase ...
- After two Empires capitulated, I had about 25 cities ( at least I think it is great)... So the problem: how to manage growth and at the same time a good army ? Really I don't know how to do this ...
- By 1800 AD there were three empires equal in size and strength , and the game would not end, and I need to sleep ... So retired game and wait for the next.
- I didn't upload the save file (I lost it). It's just to participate.

 

[Alamankarazieff]

Weird game, full of lessons.

After a couple test games, I built the Great Wall for peace of mind value, with only settlers/workers overflow. It was a great lesson in whipping, even though not probably the best call on the grand scheme of things. I settled extremely south, I suspect I'm going to be the only one on the "who settled where" map, in the middle of the three pigs, really close to Madrid.
Tried to rex under the shelter of the Great Wall, and pretty much finished the north south stretch. But for crying out loud, the tech rate was slow, the maintenance was brutal, and the production was inexistant.
I placed a lot of hope on watermill, but I should have waited for replacement parts before putting them everywhere. They were mostly a drag until then (2nd lesson, don't put up improvements "waiting for them to be good", only put them up once they're good.)
Built up a semblance of army, just in time when the spanish and the 5th aztec declared. I conquered the spanish thanks to a great spy, made peace with the aztec, and the incans spontaneously vassalized. 5th aztec declared again, suicided his first stack, I took his capital, then he suicided his second stack, and capitulated.
At that point, I had no neighbours, except to the west through the sea, and my vassals were a comfortable buffer. I decided a spaceship would be a good thing, and once levees, state property and a libbed assembly line kicked in the tech rate and production exploded quickly. Still, I finished the spaceship in the late 1800, hogged most wonders but ended up with a crappy 49k score. Disappointing, but a fun game, learning to juggle with so little production.

 

[Mitchum]

Didn't want to go through the hassle of the most obvious victory for easy medal : domination. My guess is few will attempt this one.

I'll second that. I went for Domination this game and it was very painful with all of the jungle, high maintenance costs and low production. I finished a week ago so I don't remember the details but my victory date was 1455 AD. I don't play for high scores but rather fastest finishes, so I doubt I'll get a medal since I didn't focus on it. I also assume that one of the better war mongers will easily beat this date since my warring got started rather late.

 

[jesusin]

jesusin, contender. Goal: fastest cultural victory. Result: 1530AD cultural victory.

Settled on warrior's initial tile. It looks so obvious to me I can't believe anyone would chose other tile. With sea I can build a lh for even more food on the lake tiles. Incredible food city, it was to become my GPFarm.

Worker-Warrior-Settler-Warrior.
Agic-BW(for whip)-AH(for 2nd city 3 pigs).

2nd city S, with 3 pigs and 3FP.
3rd city SE, 8FP, fur.
Lots of cottages in both of them, they were to be my other 2 Legendaries, although I am not sure that was the right decision.

I went crazy about settling more and more cities, as I always do when there are tons of 2-food-resource-sites available.

1000 BC Stats: 7 cities, 14 pop, 7workers, 10units(2Cha), 1 strategic resources, 0 luxury resources, 4 health resources, 0 great persons, 0 world wonders, 0 national wonders, food/production/commerce=51-14-23, 7 sustainable beakers per turn, 10 culture per turn, 6 great person points per turn, 10 gold, 1Lib, 3Gra,4monu. 1 religions, 2/6 cottages used, 9 Techs: Wri, BW. 0 civs killed. 5.5 hours played.

With 7 cities at 1000BC I was on red numbers. All cities worked cottages, that were later turned into Farms.

The real problem was happiness, 7 cities with tons of cottages are very good, even on a toroidal map, if you can work those cottages. But the happy cap was too low and all I could work were my 2 or 3 food tiles and then unhappy citizens from all the whipping. Trading for Monarchy just before the ADs saved the situation.

1AD Stats: 9 cities, 36 pop, 9workers, 26units (1Axe), 1strategic resources, 1luxury resources, 5health resources, 1 great persons, 0 world wonders, 0 national wonders, food/production/commerce=129-24-67, 21 sustainable beakers per turn, 21 useful culture per turn, 6 great person points per turn, 0 gold. 3 religions. 11/24 cottages used, 22 Techs: CoL, Curr, IW, Monar, no Aest. 0 civs killed. 12 hours played. 6rel*city, 1temples, 0cath

Killed "5th" soon after that, I had been stupid enough to dow with just a single chariot.

12 cities by 500AD.

Got 1 religion from Isabel infection, 1 from 5th conquest, founded Confu and Tao.
Capital was always busy trying to get Parthenon done with Settler and Worker overflow. I wonder if going for Moai first would have been much better. On the negative side, that would have brought GPro probabilities to my GPFarm...

Pyramids in auxiliary city, Parthenon in capital, MoM in auxiliary, NE in capital, Sistine's in auxiliary.

1000AD Stats: 12 cities, 126 pop, 16 workers, 13 units (1Mace), 5 strategic resources, 8 luxury resources, 8 health resources, 3 great persons, 3 world wonders, 0 national wonders, food/production/commerce=403-66-486, 247 sustainable beakers per turn, 110 useful culture per turn, 9 great person points per turn, 200 gold. 4 religions. 20/26 cottages used, 31 Techs: Educ, IW. 1 civs killed. 19 hours played. 38rel*city, 32temples, 6cath

Liberalism 1070AD, 12 catherals 1090AD. Revolt to Repr+Cast+Pacif 5 turns after Liberalism, used a GA to save all those turns of anarchy.
Merchantilism 1335AD.
3rd nurtured GP in 1230AD, 10th 1375AD, 20th 1525AD. That's what you want 12 cities for!


Key data:
Multipliers 4-5-4, bombs 5-5-7, base cpt 200-200-125, 1GS Acad, 1GM money, GPro+GE for GAge, 1GA for GAge, 17GA bombed. Total 22GP.

 

[evil_spock]

Conquest with horse archers 260BC! Lousy score, but due to other time consuming things (...mainly watching football) I just wanted to play this quickly through.

I'm kinda surprised over the late conquests here. There wasn't much resistance from anyone (usually just a couple of archers in a city). Don't have time to write much now, but if anyone is interested I might whip something up (pun intended) tomorrow.

 

[Manco Capac]

This...this...this...

I pluck my sword out of the burnt lands and leave quietly the scenery, admitting stronger forces can't be tamed.

 

[zamint3]

Conquest with horse archers 260BC!

Lousy score,

but due to other time consuming things (...mainly watching football) I just wanted to play this quickly through.

Yes it's not easy to concentrate on playing Civ while your country is beating up Holland . What kind of football are you watching?

Don't have time to write much now, but if anyone is interested I might whip something up (pun intended) tomorrow.

Please do! Number of founded cities, tech order, HBR date, feudalism, elimination order?

 

[evil_spock]

What kind of football are you watching?

Japanese robot football where robots control the humans...no wait that was just a dream. European championship games of course. Holy cow that Denmark-Portugal game was exciting, too bad about the result.

Please do! Number of founded cities, tech order, HBR date, feudalism, elimination order?

Here goes...

Cities:
-I ended up exploring a bit hoping to find some production. Epic speed allows that.
-Settled near the pigs/hill/forests. I like pigs. Oink oink.
-Second city near the horses, specifically settled on jungle pigs (3f is better than 2).
-Third (and final settled) between the two next to wet corn/rice.

Techs:
Hunting-AH-BW-Wheel-Agri-HBR(1600)-Archery(1525)-Pottery->tech 0%

Pretty obvious tech path i guess. Only thing I regret is not teching fishing, commerce from coastal tiles with financial trait would have been nice to have. Oh and zamint, feudalism...good joke.

Wars:
Elimination order: Monty the 5th, Izzy, Huyana, Joao, Monty the 3rd, Monty the 2nd.

-Stole a worker with a warrior twice from 5th Monty (the nearest one). War-peace-war-peace...I'm a douche, I know but I needed that slave labor.
-Chariot rushed Izzy's capital. Only one archer and a warrior there. Madrid was a fine city with the hills, farms, copper and Buddhism.
-After getting the gold from Madrid I could afford to tech HBR quickly, then it was just spamming horse archers.
-Crushed Izzy and Monty quicky, especially when Monty was kind enough to have the dreaded cg3 archer as an escort for a settler. After getting more slaves, HAs marched to the capital and I think it only had a single low xp archer defending. Not sure though. Second was next to copper and gems.
-Crushed Huyana. He only had 2 cities. One of them had just two Quechuas and the other two archers. No big deal.
-Joao was definitely the strongest of the bunch as he had GW. He had to go next before he could get bigger. Took Lisbon and Oporto, other cities were pretty poor, BURN.
-3rd Monty and 2nd Monty had 3 cities each at the time of DOW, half of those had just one poor defender. No problem.

Barbs:
-Noticed a couple of ruins in the map. I guess the barbs had their fun or were they pre-placed ruins?
-For me the barbs were mostly xp-givers, nice to have 5xp horse archers before wars. Bit annoying though to always check if there was some ninja warrior sneaking to pillage the improvements (out of those gazillion enemy warnings).
-Chariots, holkans and HAs were enough to keep them in control.
-Seems like barbs slayed some of those cg3 archers. Good.

Other things:
-Woodsman 2 (eventually wm3) warrior was veeeeeery nice (as a scout and a healer).
-Great general became naturally a super-medic with high morale.
-Jungles didn't bother me too much. Slowed a bit with Huyana which could have been solved with pre-built roads, but I built cottages instead.
-Built a massive road all the way from Mutal to the other edge of the map through jungles and deserts. Roads are a key to a fast victory even if you have horses.
-Economy was a problem of course, but probably would have been manageable if really necessary. Had to raze cities of course.
-Unhappiness, nothing really could be done. Only things that helped were gems and Buddhism.
-Tech pace was pathetic with AIs, only Joao managed to tech writing. No complaints though.
-12 cities at the end.
-Ridiculously low amount of defenders in enemy cities. Fun for me, not for them.

Mistakes:
-Not teching fishing.
-Didn't think the road building completely through. For example built roads on flood plains even though there were plains just above me. Road to incas.
-Didn't micromanage much.

 

[zamint3]

Bit annoying though to always check if there was some ninja warrior sneaking to pillage the improvements

You can say that again, it was a big relief to finally take the city with the GW.

Domination for me, about 230 k points.

 

[Manco Capac]

Once I forbade feudalism, I got beaten by someone who went that route. Now, I choose that path and got beaten by someone who forbade feudalism.

Seriously, it's obvious I didn't catch the game. Rainforest+prince is more soft than I imagined.
And the earlier you strike, the stronger the blow is. Pretty different than EMP+.

Htadus, it is not people like me who lock some victories award, but people like Jesusin, WastinTime, Jovan_Kukic and evil_spock.

 

[Mitchum]

Domination for me, about 230 k points.

That's a good score on this map. You must have finished about 1000 AD...

 

[Chris1229]

Well, like i mentioned earlier my game took a turn for the worse. I think that the uniqueness of this map exposed some of the flaws in my game play. I had an immense amount of trouble get production on this map. Until after water mills but then it was to late.

Continuing were I left of in my first thread. My plans were quickly thrown out the window.

My first target was Isabella since she decided to convert from Hinduism to Judaism and started trying to spread it around. She was no match for my catapults and crossbowmen and I started to march through her land almost unchecked, and she began to beg to be my vassal. I was determined to eliminate her and so i continued to methodically take her cities.
Then she mounted a counter attack sneaking a chariot back into on of her cities i had captured and left undefended to continue my push to take all her cities before she peace vassalized to someone else or was dog piled and vassalized to one of those opportunistic chumps.

Turning my army around and retake that city after she managed to reinforce it with several longbowmen cost me at least 5 turns, and just as i had feared she vassalized to Hyuna Capac.

I was not yet prepared to begin salvaging my game and stop shooting my self in the foot.

Having a slight tech advantage i thought through strategy and tactics i could still take on the big guys and was focusing in science buildings will i slowly built up and army to go to war with Jao and Monty 2. and get a diplomatic victory when Hyuna Capac and Monty 5 and 3 voted for me because of shared religion.

Jao declared on my a few turns before i was ready to go to war with him but i thought nothing of it and set my half baked plans in motion. Sailing my small army across the channel and easily taking one of his coastal cities easily. Then his stack appeared on my border.

I was not expecting grenadiers. Still i managed to get to infantry and using nationalism kicked him out of my land. then using about a dozen caravel he killed off my galleons and cutting off my expeditionary force in his lands which he later crushed.

Monty the 2nd vassalized monty the 3rd.

For the rest of the game focused on building research trying to get to MM and hoping to somehow for votes. that was a mistake as i fell farther and farther in the power rankings and had slipped into insignificance. Just about the time of the first vote Monty 2, who had vassalized hyauna capac and inherited Isabella, dowed me.

By switching to nationalism is was able to defend my self for a while. and get a peace treaty for a while. During the peace treaty Monty 2 vassaled Jao II. Then DOWed me again. it soon became obvious that i would not be able to defend myself, and in a fit of frustrated rage i started to gift all my cities to Monty 5 just because he was the only friendly person.

I learned a thing or two about diplomacy and keeping up with the AI in power in this game. still have a lot of learning to do!!!

 

[Chris1229]

Reading some of these posts, it seems a had a harder start than most and an easier end.

Your determination to continue after the struggles you chronicled in the first spoiler encouraged me to persevere and continue trying to salvage my game longer than i would have otherwise. Unfortunately i don't have your skills, or 10 years.

 

[zamint3]

That's a good score on this map. You must have finished about 1000 AD...

1440AD

I wanted Biology, but only had it for a few turns before I triggered domination.

 

[Mitchum]

1440AD

I wanted Biology, but only had it for a few turns before I triggered domination.

I finished in 1455 AD with 100K less than your score. My goal has never been high scores but fast finishes... but being that far behind is crazy.

 

[Htadus]

Damn it, I just opened BOTM55 final spoiler. Grrrrr. Exited immidiately. I hope no damage is done.

OK for BOTM54 my goal was to experiment with going for Gold via Culture using Sushi and all the rice on the map. Unfortunately I ended up trigering domination.

Sushi based Culture

Spoiler :

The problem with culture via Sushi is the fact in this low level, there is almost no tech trading. I must admit it should do really well as I believe Duckweed did a year or so ago in an immortal or an emperor game. On this map i was getting 50 culture per turn and 13 food at the end and I found that i did not have all the available sources connected. So a more keen player would have done better.

Settling upto 10AD

Spoiler :

1. I settled 2S1W of starting location with corn, rice, pig, 3 flood plains, plantation resource and eventually iron in BFC.
2. Second city to SE claiming fir, pigs, 3 FP, many river tiles and 3 green hills. Oracle city.
3. Third city was to NW on the coast with horses, 2 hills, fish, pigs and coast. Early production
4. Fourth city was to NE of the original warrior with 2 rice, pigs, Banana and Corn from capital when needed, main GP city. Never built the NE.
5. Fifth city was to east on the lake with 6 floodplains (3 shared with city 2 and help work cottages) a plantation resource and several plains tiles.

Technology and Priorities

Spoiler :

Worker first was the obvious choice with Agriculture as first technology
The worker was followed by 2x warrirors, settler and worker and a Holken.
Tech process followed to Pottary, BW, Hunting and AH. Then toward Oracle with the aim of getting MC or Currency.

Based on the map and the amount of food, the ball court was a priority. So when the Oracle was nearly completed, I had MC, Monarchy, Currency, Construction (nearly complete) and CoL as potential free techs. That is when i realized that had I chosen to head toward CoL, I could have gotton CS from the Oracle. Oh well, not the worst thing in the world to get currency in 6th century BC. After Construction was over Alphabet was learned and make 2-3 trades to get fishing, IW, Sailing, Poly and later Mono and Monarchy.

The original plan was to rush with Holkens but once I realized that the maintanance was spike on this map, I though of waiting until all three recovery techs were known. So the first war will wait. At the same time I wanted Ai to build cities for me, so no worker stealing. This was not a good choice for me since I do not train enough workers to begin with. This map needed about 3-4 workers per city for the first dozen or cities to get the job done. Also, when i was trying to steal workers from my chosen victims(all the Monties), they were protecting their workes with archers. .

Post 10AD and First two Wars

Spoiler :

The 5th Astec empire made a big mistake when they built the Great Wall. So when the Iron Was discovered in the capital, Maya built a force of about 5 cats, a few chariots, axes, swords and gathered available Holkens. Captured their Horse city first follwed by the Capital with the GW and a Spy Academy, and the gem city within 10 turns. Auto raced a city near Green Aztecs and captured another toward the Inca land before getting Peace for gpt.

By this time Izzy was still struggling with the barbs badly so I decided to put her out of her misery and captured her 4 city Empire. She was the first out of the game.

Economy in the Ruins and Making Friends

Spoiler :

By about 500 AD the economy was in bad shape. Science was down to 10% and 20% with 14 cities, including a captured barb city. However this is when I realized how long it will take to get to Sushi since the Ai are way behind technologically. I needed more GP's and needed to Run many specialists. So the civics changed to CSystem and started generating GPs' in the main GP city. Already had an Academy in the capital and bulbed all but 3 turns of Education and working one GS for PP.

Also I chose 2 friends, Inca and Portugese, with the hope that they will help in the tech process. Helped them when asked and closed borders declared wars on request.I should have helped them more but that did not matter since i also adopted a religion neither was running so that attempt did not go any where. Also the capital was on the path to finish the Pyramids and we were about to loose HR diplo boost with these 2.

Fighting Friends War and Declaring on a F......

Spoiler :

Portugal and green Monti was in a long war and we joined when Joao asked us. Now we are fielding Maces and Trebs along with the vets. The war went well but Joao quit the war within 5 turns and We settle the war for HBR and a City near our stone city.

Next war was a result of poor gameplay due to not paying attention. After Green Aztecs, I decided to finish off 5th Empire who had 2 cities with the capital near Inca capital. Once the forces are near the border of 5th Aztec, I clicked my stack to enter the border. The game ask me if i want to DoW? I say yes and move to a tile with an Inca scout and start a war. Nooooooo. I misclicked. Oh well he has been pissed at me for going into Representation anyways. We take 2 cities and get peace for Feudalism. At the same time Blue Aztecs Dow 5th. So we join in and Eliminate 5th from the game.

Some where in this time the Green Aztecs peace capitulated to Blue and Inca Peace Capitulated to Portugal.

Golden Ages

Spoiler :

Ran 3 GA's during the game.

First with the Free GA from music after completing both the Pyramids and the MoM. Civic changed ro representation, Castes System and later to Pacifism. Also adopted Buddhism as the state religion. Lost 2 Pleased AI with is change. During this time 2 GS's and a GM for economics were born.

The second GA was from the Taj when the capital completed it. 1GM, 1 GE and 2 GA's were born during this time. Completed Liberalism to get Medicine. But with the birth of the GE, the techs did not shut down, instead headed to RailRoads (?) to open Mining Inc.

The final GA was launched with a GM and the free GSpy from Communism. Six or seven more turns left in the GA when the dame ended.

Poorest decision

Spoiler :

After mostly bulbing SciMeth and when 1 turn to complete it, I realized I only have 1 GS ready to bulb Biology. So I decide to not obsolete the GLib and headed to Corporation until the next GS was born. So all I had to do is to delay 5-6 turns for the next GS(100% chance) and 1 turn for SciMeth, 1 turn for compass(?) and 1Turn for Lib. Total of 8 or 9 turns.
I completely forgot about this until I was done with Corporation. Well more than 9 turns learning Constitution, Banking, Economy(bulbed) and Corportion before remembering Bio and Lib. Oh well, next time i will turn on the reminder

Last War and the End

Spoiler :

I watched Blue Aztecs build 2 forces near my border and I countered by building cannons and knights but to no avail. He Dowed and came into culture with mainly HA army with a few Xbows. This war progressed very quickly. First eliminated the Green Aztecs by killing the last city. In the mean while took a former 5th Aztec City owned by Blue adjacent to our border and killed off all the invaders. Then 3 stacks started to take cities in rapid succession. I started to to give cities back to inca and Portugese as the Domi land limit is approched. I was trying to anticipate land threshhold and giving cities but made a mistake. I should have given most of old green Aztec cities to Joao since they did not have that many rice tiles. Oh well live and learn.