BOTM 54 Final Spoiler - Game Finished or Abandoned

[DynamicSpirit]

BOTM 55 Final Spoiler

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Stop! If you are participating in BOTM 54 then you MUST NOT read this thread until you have submitted your game.

Posting Restrictions

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

 

[Solyaris]

1708 conquest victory @119 000 points. Was a good map, and I enjoyed the game (first time with raging barbarians^^). All the great wonders went extremely late (or? not used to prince) and I got all the once I wanted without problems! Note the 1395 AD pyramids

Thank god for that horse resource when settling 2NE, made everything much easier!

 

[drizzt.titan]

Two things about rain forest maps:
- it really helps to be India & have fast workers
- it really helps to be religious to go between caste system & slavery

I was neither decided not to play thru a space victory and instead use the religion Isabella had founded (Buddhism) and "gave" to me in the early parts of the game to get a religious victory since nobody was running it. Because of my long absence from the game I had a little difficulty with the mechanics of religious victory but I finally got the election in 1595 AD.

A question if someone cold answer about the HoF mod, I have completely forgotten how to work many of the features & I have tried looking several things up, but how do you use that thing that lets you plot city placement?

 

[lymond]

^^^ALT-X = On

CTL-X = Display ON/OFF


I wanted to try Religious for kicks since I"d been playing around with it recently and haven't won GOTM Religious medal before, I think. Ended up with a very poor 1250AD victory. Settled 1SE for a decent city really and expanded fairly rapidly. Oracled > Theo but AP took ages to get up which was one problem. Another was not prepping for the AP win sooner. It resulted in missing the first vote by just a few votes because Monty the 5th (where's Monty the 1st and 4th?) dropped 2 points when I gifted Izzy a Jewish (AP) city, which I'd been delaying so I could start a holy war on her earlier. The Torriodial/Vertical waterway makes things a bit more challenging as well due to the distance to some of the AIs for spreading mishes and gifting cities. Really, if I had played this better though, I could have want at least 600 years earlier, which I expect some to do if any other experienced players go religious.

As for expansion, I settled a coastal city just south next to Iz and then spread upwards all the way North until I hit the canal south of Iz, as well as some cities just to the East (north and south). Not bad cites, but obviously the jungle slowed things down. The city North of the corn, which I expect many settled 1st, made for a very good city and settler whip city. Other than a push for Theo, I did not focus much on teching. Got to CS/Mach/Paper and close to Engineering at the end, but the goal was to get fast RL DV so tech was not a concern - still blew the AIs away and gifted them lots of techs. Joao and the Monties were constantly at war with one another - as well as Iz by my design, but never with me. Although I did DOW the 3rd at the end for a little boost with the 5th since they were at war. Capac and the 5th voted for me at Friendly. I massaged Joao to Friendly as well, but he surprisingly somehow flipped Jewish pop with the 3rd and became my rival. (Joao and 3rd unfortunately switch to Judaism almost as soon as I spread it to them, which was not my plan, although ultimately not an issue. Actually Joao had no religion at all when I spread Jud to him, probably due to late trade route setup across the map and early wars with the 3rd).

Actually auto-religion spread was ridiculously slow this game.

Ultimately, I need to do a better job of sending out People in such a way that I send the first group to the farthest AIs instead of spreading/settling to the closer AIs.

Good map. Bad player

 

[MangeTonChapeau]

1910AD domination + conquest victory, overall a much tougher game than I expected, despite test games with the same exact settings.

Settled first city 1S, then second city in 2300BC (should have whipped more I think) in the north east GPP farm. Prioritized great wall after second city to allow for fast expand (my test game showed this was a huge factor, and AI could get GW as soon as T80). Got it in 1500BC, but the lack of hammer and my lack of whipping throughout the game proved to hamper my expansion significantly, as the south was blocked by Isabel and I thought I didn't have enough production for military.
Also, I had an incredible number of bad luck events early on in the game (2 slave revolts, 1 volcano, 1 crow destroying buildings, all that before 1AD), which have a very significant impact in the game (had my 2 libraries destroyed for example...).
At 1AD, I had only 3 cities, but planned to expand north fast, which I did. Teched for liberalism + workshop yield improvement, played an OK diplomacy game though I couldn't get the main religion to spread to my cities (never did in the whole game).

Right at the time I reached gunpowder (1450AD), got attacked by Monty 5, managed to involve 2 other AI against him, but he was too strong for us and I didn't yet have totally finished my military pump. After a few turns, I had lost my capital + biggest science city, on the verge of a big show down for my GPP city, I gave a few techs (incl. education) for peace, and planned my revenge as my military pump got on line and workshops populated what remained of my land.
1 catapult per turn, 1 gunpowder guy per turn, 100 years and I was ready for vengeance : redeclared against Monty 5, took back all my cities plus some of the spanish in 2 turns (they were still in revolt). Then I rode my tech and soon production advantage (ran caste system the whole game once I got guilds) to the end, peacefully vassaling Isabel first, then wiping the Incas of the surface fast (they never were a true menace), then the rest. The Portuguese managed to get nearly all the wonders while fighting nearly continuously and having 5-6 cities, may have proved a contender in the space race had I left them alive.

In hindsight, this game showed me the power of the catapult as a defending unit, eliminating the whole Aztec 5 stack for a cheap cost. In terms of promotions, is barrage the one you use in general ? I had the tendancy to always use city raider. Also, how is collateral damage calculated ? Does this depend on the success of the "main" attack ?

All in all, a truly excellent game, on which I spent twice as much time as usual (7 hours). Thanks DS !
P.S. : what was the mid-game surprise ? Multiple Monty ?

 

[SilentWatcher]

Whats goin on! just attacked monty the 5ths longbows with macemen.. long odds.. 17%.. But had weight of numbers so was willing to lose a couple. First of the 3 (graphics) attacks and dies, second runs round the city and buggers off up the map! Deserter! 3rd of the unit attacks and dies. Send in second maceman unit and the same thing happens again with the 2nd of the 3 doing a circuit of the city and then deserting? played well over a hundred games.. sent men in on short odds before but never seen that! Is that you DynamicSpirit?

Moderator Action - Moved to Final Spiler (see post #9 below)

 

[Manco Capac]

Spoiler :

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.

Went straight the easiest and fastest win despite Jovan will likely beat me by 200 years...

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Whats goin on! just attacked monty the 5ths longbows with macemen.. long odds.. 17%.. But had weight of numbers so was willing to lose a couple. First of the 3 (graphics) attacks and dies, second runs round the city and buggers off up the map! Deserter! 3rd of the unit attacks and dies. Send in second maceman unit and the same thing happens again with the 2nd of the 3 doing a circuit of the city and then deserting? played well over a hundred games.. sent men in on short odds before but never seen that! Is that you DynamicSpirit?

lol. But no that's not me. What happens in individual battles is (rightly) beyond the ability of the mapmaker to control. Seeing the losing unit apparently running away is something I've seen quite a few times in my games (especially funny if it happens across the sea). I've no idea whether the graphic is a bug or an intended easter egg.

 

[WelshGandalf]

Whats goin on! just attacked monty the 5ths longbows with macemen.. long odds.. 17%.. But had weight of numbers so was willing to lose a couple. First of the 3 (graphics) attacks and dies, second runs round the city and buggers off up the map! Deserter! 3rd of the unit attacks and dies. Send in second maceman unit and the same thing happens again with the 2nd of the 3 doing a circuit of the city and then deserting? played well over a hundred games.. sent men in on short odds before but never seen that! Is that you DynamicSpirit?

Did this really happen before 1AD? That's one heck of a tech pace...

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Did this really happen before 1AD? That's one heck of a tech pace...

Coo, well caught, WelshGandalf. And to think I even replied to SilentWatcher's post without noticing that issue.

I think I can believe that a very good player might have macemen before 1AD, but I find it very hard to believe that a prince-level AI (especially a slow-techer like Montezuma) could have longbows before 1AD. So as a precaution I've moved these posts to the final spoiler thread.

 

[IvanTheFearsome]

Well that was fun! Thank you DS.

Never played Rainforest or Toroidal before - and rarely play Epic - so set up one test game to get my head round it, then played the Adventurer... it is only my 2nd BOTM after all.

Settled 3N2E for the obscene amounts of food!

Very unusual opening I think:

Warrior - settler (whipped!) - warrior (can you tell I was scared of raging barbs?) - worker (once agriculture teched)

Techs: BW (for slavery) - Agr (food) - Hunting (Holkans for barbs!) - Wheel - Pottery (granary) - Iron Working (jungles)

Ran Slavery ASAP and for as long as possible and whipped and whipped and whipped.

Oracled CoL in 200BC for Confucianism (for the happy) but waited to move to CS.

Peaceful for a long time despite Monty the 5th declaring on me, suiciding his stack then giving me archery and converting to Confucianism in exchance for peace and becoming my lifelong buddy (well, almost... see later)

Eventually ran out of settling space sometime around the 12th century AD (having mainly gone North, probably controversially) so ploughed my way through the Spanish, wiping them out 300 years later, then moving on and doing the same to the Incans. No South American loyalty here!

Ended up in Caste System and Pacifism for most of the game, getting to State Property ASAP and with shedloads of workshops decided on a SPACE VICTORY. Tech lead and production lead meant that I also built most of the wonders just for fun.

Health was such an issue towards the end that I decided to do it without building ANY factories!

Comedy moments came in the 1860s when I had to start gifting cities to Monty the 5th (remember him) - who had by now vassaled both remaining civs (Portugal and the 3rd Aztecs, so much for history ) - in order to stay below the domination limit, and then in the 1870s, despite being Friendly towards me (+12) he declared war .

Unlucky for him I was in a Golden Age so on that very same turn I revolted into Nationalism, drafted a few Mech Infs, upgraded a load of old muskets to Mech Infs too (yes, I was rich) and he immediately suicided his macemen and cuirassiers against them . As soon as he would speak to me he was grovelling and ready to give me everything for peace, so I just took Madrid (the only Spanish city he'd captured, and my culture had by now reduced its territory to three tiles) and stayed below the dom limit.

And I didn't even have to stop building spaceship parts to repel him

Spaceship launched in 1891, victory in 1906.

I'd run out of wonders to build (although I'd wilfully ignored the 3 Gorges Dam), was 1 turn away from completing SDI (not sure why!) and Future Tech 3, and still 0.82% away from the domination limit.

As it turned out I'd have had a higher score by winning domination back in the 1860s, but the space-and-wonders-race-without-factories was fun!

As a regular Prince player maybe I should move up from Adventurer next time (Except it will probably be a Deity game and I'll die horribly in the BCs )

Thanks again DS, a great map.

 

[Sleepless]

Settled as planned to pick up the corn and 2 rice but no river. Pleased to note iron pop up in the BFC. Much needed hammers there. Second city went South for the three pig/river and hills. I cottaged this site and eventually moved the palace there. Trouble was when I got around to finishing it I went from Bureau to Free Speech on the same turn. Still I had been thinking of delaying Lib for a high value tech but decided having free speech/religion was more important so might have had some use for it.

For once I managed the Civil Service slingshot. Of course building the Oracle circa 350AD helped.. Not long after I finished machinery and headed for engineering and my first war with Isabella. Plenty of maces/cats finished her off easily apart from one city up near the Inca so took her as a vassal.

Meanwhile HC came asking to be my vassal which I accepted. He proved his uses by teching drama and compass for me and not alot else. Still better than Isabella. Second war against Monty the fifth followed shortly after. He did have LBs by the very end but as I was running around with knights didn't put up any fight at all and by giving me a city became vassal number 3.

Knowing I wouldn't be getting a fast military victory I changed route for space and managed to land in AC in 1802AD. 2 years better than last game so slowly improving..

Thanks for hosting and the fun game.

 

[SilentWatcher]

Im done! one of my best scores!! will give a write up when its not 9 in the morning from the wrong side.. Where is the submission screen I cant find it?

 

[SilentWatcher]

sorry found it!

 

[Greeder]

Domination 1810 AD, 75k.
Maybe more later.
Map was different, interesting.

So, few more words:
25AD Isabell declared on me. She sent pitfull stack on my Iron city, I managed to destroy it easily. I wasn't prepare to war so agreed on peace soon. Then declared on her again 280 AD. My chariots and stack of Swords + Axes pillaged like crazy. I left empty land near her 2 northern cities and capitol.
This sent her to the stone age for good.

415 AD I founded 7th city in great spot claimed earlier by barbs, NE from capitol, behind mountains. 2xBananas, 2xPigs, Rice, Iron and 2 hills.
In the meantime Monty3rd had a short war with Jao.

It was worst part of the game. Lots of jungle tiles+Epic speed made developing painfully slow. My Hindu friends weren't yet friends, so no one wanted to trade with me. 565AD Construction and 700 AD Currency. Hell, it was slooooooooow.
I used my first GS to start GA 790AD, to speed things up. 790 AD CoL, then Aesthetics and Lit. I joined 3rd's war against Jao, got 'military struggle' bonuses and finally could trade some more = Meditation and HR.
Around 1000 AD I discovered MAchinery and CS. I still wasn't in the lead but was around second to them and managed to trade it for Philo.
1120 AD GLib in capitol. It took me about 40 turns to construct it. Sloooooow.
But from now on I was tech leader. First to Guilds 1200 AD, first to Music 1250 AD, first to Banking 1275 AD.
Monty2nd declared on Jao, then bribed HC to join. I also declared to get diplo bonuses, but I started my first real war 1265 AD attacking Isabella. Bribed HC to join. 3rd joined 2nd against Jao. Nice bloodbath! Later I bribed 5th to join me against Isabella.

To be continued...

 

[Jester Fool]

1756 AD conquest win...which quite frankly blows. I choked Izzy since I started next to her (which was the right move I think) and killed her off early. However, I don't play epic (or rainforest for that matter) so really didn't have a good feel (or plan) on how best to win the map (which in the case of a competition means fastest victory). I adjusted ofc and have new found respect for workshops (normally run slave economy).

I learned a lot from playing the map. I thought the scenario was excellently designed and although at times (due to lack of hammers), a grind, I really had a good time while playing. The map...was freaking beautiful (after removing the nasty jungle) if you made the right improvements (and built enough workers too ).

Thank you for the map. I congratulate you on a job well done! Maybe next time, I might get a good score.

 

[kcd_swede]

Finished like I started. Total lack of focus... this one was a sandbox game.

I was originally going for space, but after killing Spanish and Inca completely, and everyone else is war-vassalled to Monte the 5th, and the fist is showing... well, lets just get tanks and roll.

So that's what I did. Just capture everything. Maybe I faced a couple rifles... but mostly its LB's, muskets, and cuirs that need killin'. Vassaled 2 monte's, had forced peace treaty with monte the 2nd, and killed Portugal.

Then I decided that nahhhh... for a domination game this would really be slow (post 1900AD). So I'd milk it and go for a cow. Probably trip domination before I could do a lame/late spaceship, and too much hassle in a long war-weary epic-game to be bothered with gifting/stopping culture... all that crud. But I figured that the UN would not be a popular choice on this map, so I built that in 3t (using Kremlin-enhanced USuff buying-power). Maybe that elusive uncow award.

I gave some cities back, but apparently I miscalculated and tripped domination the same turn the UN was built. So I don't get an uncow, hurt my chances at getting a cow, and really am not happy with my indecision.

Oh well. I played a lot with city specialization (something I usually do haphazardly) and got some practise in how to really make some great hammer, commerce, science, and GP focused cities, which will be useful if I ever get the gumption get out of the sandbox and to put it to use.

Lame lame lame, but probably not even lame enough to earn a sheild.

I used to be indecisive, but I'm not so sure anymore.

 

[Greeder]

continuation...

Well, my first intended target was HC, but he was wise enough to vassal peacefully several turns after I discovered Feudalism.

During this first war Isabella got Longbows so I had little problems with capturing Madrid, it has been retaken. Finnally at 1440 AD I captured 3rd city near my border and vassalized her.

Then started developing phase. First to Economics so GM+Artist from Music fueled GA. I went for Lib, then paused, beelined Chemistry and took Steam Power from Lib. I built Leeves in almost every river city (not in Uxmal, hopeless). In the meantime built Taj Mahal in capitol, without Marble it took looooong time. Leeves have been built during GA, then I was just few turns from Rifling so I started pumping Knights, later Cavs.
I was elected as Hindu leader and sent everyone for Jao's throat. He capitulated to 5th and then all Montys started their wars. Before I was ready with SP and Cavs 5th vassalized them all.
I discovered Steel, upgraded my few Trebs and at 1708 AD I declared on Montys Block. I took easily border city and was about to took another when 5th's SoD appeared. It decimated my 7-units attack stack and killed few nearby Cavs.
I postponed my offensive. It cost me a lot as 5th had Statue of Zeus. I was force to whip extensively, each of my cities lost about 8 pops. When half of his SoD tried to recapture border city I annihileted it by Cavs, second stack of Cavs took this bloody city where my infantry stack was destroyed and I could resume my attack.
I pumped Cavs like crazy Leeves were a huge advantage. During war I beelined Democracy, switched to US and set teching to 30% for Railroads. I was willing to pause this bloody war, but when I taken last city from planned list it was just enough for Jao to broke free. 5th capitulated.
Few turns for healing and I attacked 2nd. After 5th, the rest were just an easy meat. I postponed 3rd capitulation to got Domination instead of late conquest.

 

[Jastrow]

I dont know why Monty gets such a bad rap... He is (they are) a cat!

As I was saying in the first spoiler, around 1AD I was busy removing Izzy from my strip of land. Once this was finished, I expanded to the 15 cities which fit on the left edge of the continent, seperated from the rest by the natural mountain range.

From there, I went with a full cottage economy. By the end I had 90 towns, most of which where on levy enhanced river squares. These make for nice tiles with Demo and free speech. I never set up a traditional GP-farm, but instead used the extreme upper jungle to set up a 16 preserve national park, which generated my great people.

On the foreign relationship front, I adopted the majority religion, sharedt by two of the monties, and started befriending them. I set up a couple of wars with the POrtuguese. They were much to far away for my units to ever see theirs, but they kept Monty busy, and our mutual enemy made us friends. I also included the Inca in our war...

With the mutual war, and generouse trading, I was able to get both Monty the 5th and HC to pleased quick quickly, and eventually to friendly. They provided a nice buffer to the rest, as they fully isolated me from the other Monties and Portugal.

I snaged a late pyramid, which I used to switch to Democracy very early. This provided some production, but the majority of the infrastructure was built using the whip. This remained true until I got Levees up in all major cities, at which point they could produce their own buildings.

In the end, I had a decent but not spectacular run to space. The ship landed in 1814 (so about 5 turns after Sleepless). My end game was very efficient, so I dont think I could have shaved anything off their. To improove, I probably would have needed to be a bit faster during the peaceful expansion phase. I did OK at it, but in retrospect, I probably should have gotten cities 10-15 out quite a bit early than I did.

On events and Quests??? First of all, where somehow quests not on? I thought they always went with events, but I did not see any.

Events... Nothing remotely game-breaking. Overall, I felt a bit lucky with them. I got a few of the +1C type positive events, but nothing special. I also did get a couple of slave revolts... The reason I feel a bit lucky is that I only got very few of these, and that quite late. They were my biggest fear with events, but did not cause me any problems.

 

[WelshGandalf]

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

Brief summary of my game to 1AD (from other thread...) Expanded to 3 cities, Monty 5th declares on me 975BC, had some bad luck on RNG and was stuck on 2 cities. However I still managed to Oracle fuedalism.

1 AD - 1000 AD

The plan was to tech to Knights. In the meantime Aztec 5th hung around a bit, but didn't do too much. There was only 1 assault on 1 of my remaining 2 cities, which failed badly. I think the barbs in the jungle north of the starting location were also harassing the Aztecs, who I guess don't know how to spawnbust

Anyway, eventually I raised enough of a force to retake the city the Aztecs had taken from me. The question was, should I try to attack more now, or wait for knights? I decided to wait, and expand relatively peacfully in the meantime. By 1000 AD, I had grown from 3 cities to 8, by going north, then right through the gap in the mountains, and then south again. I settled 2 cities, captured 2 from the barbs and 1 from the Incans (who kept getting bribed in on me despite their pathetic military force, lol). The economy was starting to stutter as a result but I got to knights around 1000AD, and I still hd a tech lead of sorts.

1000AD - 1300 AD - War 1

I got around 10 knights together, along with a few other motley troops and a bit of siege. The turn before I was going to declare war, one of the other Aztecs asked me to declare was on the 5th, so that was nice, a free diplo bonus. The 5th were my targets because of revenge, and also because they were possibly winning in tech. They were first to philo and CoL! Aztecs noramlly build too many troops and tech terribly, and the thought of a technologically advanced Aztec empire was not a pleasant one. Anyhow, they couldn't really stop me and I took 4 of their 8 cities. Now my economy was on its knees, and the 5th Aztecs were no longer a credible threat so I took peace. I was still at war with the Incans (who had been bribed in on me again) so I threw what was left of my troops at him and just managed to take the 2 cities I wanted to, which sealed him back into his starting area. I then went to see what he would offer me for peace and he offered to capitulate! Not something I was aiming for but I took it anyway.

1300AD - 1700 AD... rebuilding economy

I had I think 15 cities at this point, and was losing money at 10% on the science slider.... not a good state. I was doing around 100 beakers a turn for 30-40 turns. Torriodal maintenance is killer, even on Prince. But (very) slowly my economy recovered, with lots of courthourses, maturing cottages and eventually the Forbidden palace in the old 5th Aztec capital (this one building saved around 40 gold a turn). I teched slowly towards cannons, which only needed 4 techs (gunpowder, engineering, chemistry and steel) but man, it was slow going.... Epic speed setting made it feel even longer. I still maintained a tech lead though. I'm not sure how.

The diplo situation was that all the Aztecs were Jewish and everyone else was Buddhist. The Aztecs were generally beating up on the Portugese, who held their own for quite some time, however around 1600 AD they started to lose, and I found they were willing to peacevassal to me, I accepted which put me at war with at least some of the Aztecs. I had by this point quite a lot of musketmen around and a few old catapults. I also altered my tech plan slightly as the Incans had researched paper for me and I decided to research edu-> lib -> take steel rather than go for Steel directly... more stuff for the same beaker investment. I achieved this with the latest Lib date I've ever seen, 1700AD! Oh also around here, something hilarious happened. Aztec 5th declared war on Spain, however Spain & I were the dominant forces in the AP (Aztec 5th the only empire not represented there), so together we pushed through a vote which meant the entire world declared war on them. Haha!!

1700AD onwards

So to recap, I have Incans and portugese as vassals, Spain with a +17 attitude to me and I'm at war (or about to be at war) with the 3 Aztec empires (everyone was at war with the 5th Aztecs ). With quite a few whipped cannons and a large supplamentary force consisting mainly of musketmen, I went forth. The 5th Aztecs gave in very quickly and capitulated. The other 2 Aztec empires both capitualted quickly too, once I had taken 2 cities from them. I guess having half the world at war with you will do that. This just left the Spanish. I just missed out on a religious victory by about 40 votes before I declared on them (having walked my army back halfway across the world and upgrading a ton of musketmen to riflemen). They had bigger forces than the Aztecs did, but not big enough. They capitulated too after I took 2 or 3 cities, and so a conquest victory was mine in around 1766AD (75k points if I remember correctly). I also made everyone convert to Buddhism for the fun of it.

Not bad for only having 2 cities at 1AD eh? Though other people seem to have had a lot more trouble with wars than I did. To be honest I thought the Portugese did a better job against the Aztecs than I thought they would, and the tech pace of the whole world was just really awful.