BOTM 55 - Final Spoiler, game submitted or abandoned

Great game but I struggled with this one! Decided from the outset to go space race as that was alluded too in the description, After all its only monarch right? didn't explore quickly enough after losing scouts to animals..Plonked a city next to the horses but got out cultured by Hanni.. Saw his low troop numbers and decided that a large SoD of cats and dogs would sort him out. Captured the first city I attacked with heavy losses. Hanny was refusing to talk still. Healed up and marched into a stack of numidian cavalry... No more army.. OH $&* ! :hide: I knew that for any chance at a win I had to control my side of the continent and that wasn't doable anymore so I quit.. Had to have a re-run and even with prior knowledge I still only pulled off a space race after 2000 and by 1 turn! Had to put a halt to a culture win by pacal by dumping 12 transports full of infantry and cannons on a near legendary coastal city and razing it, which didn't improve my popularity and left my army stood north of the river in russian territory with no route back because I sued for peace without re loading my troops back on the transports.. They sat there for the rest of the game as I didnt want to delete them in case they were stopping a dow. Pacal wouldn't give me open borders after my previous behavior.. Any how I beat Peter to launch by less than a turn on my second play but obviously cant submit. Good fun though! keep the swerve balls coming KCD!
 
@Thanks for the game, kcd, it was fun! Having to schlep around so many units on galleys was a bit of a pain, though. Horsies need to run free!

With all those trees in the way, horsies moved faster on galleys in my testing.:lol:

@I'm just curious about how the HOF can tell the difference between replaying and loading. I always play without s/l but I'm always questioned why there are so many sessions. I sincerely hope that HOF can help on this.

To avoid tempting folks to mischeif, we do not divulge how the BUFFY Mod detects replaying of turns. Be assured that it does, however.:nono:

A lot of very short sessions can appear suspicious, so we ask (but do not demand) that you try to play sessions of 30 minutes or longer.
 
Long, slow space victory, in the 1900's!

Barbs were very annoying.
I settled cities to flip the barb cities in the middle, and after seeing the hordes of maces and longbows, I built several galleys with archers for instant defenders.

This plan was goin rather well, until the barbs founded Islam in Despair!!!!! The barbs actually started putting some cultural pressure on me.

So it was that I had to wait for Rifle's and Cav's. Took a few of Hannibals cities with drafted Rifles, just so I could get the horsies, before he capitulated. Mining Inc was quite a useful corp for this game.
 
Well, reading more spoilers I'm starting feeling good about my result. This game appears to be very demanding on many serious folks. I definitely handled Hann smoothly compared to many other games.
 
jesusin, contender. Goal: fastest cultural victory. Result: 1460AD cultural victory.


Warrior SW to look for more seafood, to use that fish I'd have to settle on deer so no, thank you. Settle in place.

Carefully studied the 2 plans: Worker first then WB or WB first then Worker. The former is better, even if the Worker has to stay idle a few turns.

Produced: Worker-WB-Warrior-Settler
Researched: Hunting-BW-AH-Myst-Pott-Alpha

I stoled Worker after Worker from Hannibal, I didn't want to face his Numidians later on.

02 built just S, connected, with fish and deer, for a quick REX. For a long time I wondered if I should use it as a Legendary, finally it was just working 3 of the capital cottages to mature them.
03 had 2 deers, gems and wheat.
04 in the East was to be my GPFarm and Legendary, with deers and Furs.
By then my daughter is born. I am a father now! Oh how life has changed! I'm very happy.
05 SE with deer, 2silk, horses and wine. As it had a lot of hills, it became my 3rd Legendary.

1000 BC Stats: 5 cities, 19pop, set, 6workers, 13units(7Dog), 0 strategic resources, 1 luxury resources, 3 health resources, 0 great persons, 0 world wonders, 0 national wonders, food/production/commerce=67-19-40, 21 bpt at breakeven, 12 culture per turn, 24 great person points per turn, 25 gold, 5Gra, 4Monu, 2Lib. 0 religions, 1/1 cottages used, 10 Techs: BW, Pott, AH, Wri. 0 civs killed. 4.5 hours played.

As I am doing negative money at 0% research, I attack Carthage and take it with 10Dogs, losing 7 on the process. I won't need an army anymore since this "continent" is mine.

2GS are used as Academy and settled in capital (this was a big mistake). All cities producing research till I get to Currency.

1 religion spreads, I am first to CoL and I bulb Philo. Moai in capital. Pyramids got. Bureaucracy.

1AD Stats: 9cities, 47pop, 9workers, 14units (4Dog), 2 strategic resources, 3 luxury resources, 5 health resources, 3 great persons, 1 world wonders, 1 national wonders, food/production/commerce=162-57-190, 103bpt at breakeven , 37 culture per turn, 15 great person points per turn, 100 gold. 3 religions. 3/5 cottages used, 26 Techs: IW, Aest, CS. 1 civs killed. 9.5 hours played. reli/city, temples, caths== 16,0,0

Music and MoM 300AD. Liberalism and 2 cathedrals 760AD, use a GA for a GAge to save all those Anarchy turns, this way I can have 5 truns of slavery (whipped some 30 pop). Hermitage and 7 cathedrals by 1000AD.

1000AD Stats: 10 cities, 119 pop, 8 workers, 18units (3lb), 3 strategic resources, 5 luxury resources, 7 health resources, 8 great persons, 4 world wonders, 3 national wonders, food/production/commerce=279-63-1714, 176 sustainable beakers per turn, 825 culture per turn(useful), 406 great person points per turn, 1000 gold. 4 religions. 5/8 cottages used, xx Techs: Music, liber, Natio, Drama, no PP, no Guilds. 1 civs killed. 14 hours played. reli/city, temples, caths== 27,27,6

Mercantilism soon after, while in TajMaj Golden Age. A third Golden Age with a bad luck GE and Economi'es GM.
4th religion and a couple of cathedrals rather late.

Careful ordering of the cities spitting out a GA, so that they all came together at more or less the same time.
Monarch AI is just good enough to keep your slider at 100% if you are ready to sell every tech at 100g.


Cult 1460AD. Multipliers 5-3.5-4, bombs 4-7-7, base culture 190-150-130.
3GS Acad+bulb Philo+settled, GM+GE+GA for 2 GAges, 18 GA bombed, total 24GP.
 
By then my daughter is born. I am a father now! Oh how life has changed! I'm very happy.

Hacked from jesusin's Autolog:
Turn 432/500 (2012 AD) [??-Jun-2012 ??:??:??]
After End Turn:
Whip anger has decreased in Madrid
(Great Artist) born in Madrid


Congrats!!!

:beer::bday::cheers::queen:
 
This plan was goin rather well, until the barbs founded Islam in Despair!!!!! The barbs actually started putting some cultural pressure on me.

Wha? :confused: I thought barbs only got techs after a certain number of other civs got them first. They actually researched something by themselves, and first?!! Wow, bad luck there. But I'm sure it made crushing them all the sweeter.
 
Thank you, Conquistador 63, I knew someone sensitive would notice the Eastern Egg hidden in my spoiler. :) Thank you sossos
 
Good game, Jouzou! Good game, bcool!

With a cultural victory I decided against rushing Hannibal. I guess I could have done so with the dog soldiers. Not sure if I made the right call there. I did steal a worker from him so he did pose somewhat of a threat to me for a long time until I got him into the same religion as I had.

I decided to stone-age him through repeated Worker-stealing and then, when I was ready, I took his city with a lot of Dogs. The main reason was I didn't want to face his Numidian cavalry later on. Also, no space on the "continent" for both of us.

The expected difference in our games should be:
- jesusin gets to Liberalism later, due to war distractions
- jesusin gets more GAs in the end, due to more cities


Research was painful in this game so I ended up using great scientists to accelerate getting liberalism. I dipped into caste system and got 4 great scientists to bulb philosophy, paper, and I used 2 for education. I'm not sure if this was better than getting 4 artists instead to use as cultural bombs or early settled artists.

I used 1GS to bulb Philo, 1 for an Academy (ok if you consider also de 4cpt), 1 was settled in the capital (that was a blunder, I should have bulbed part of Educ; it only got to produce 600b and some 50h).

4GS instead of 4GA is a big investement. 1 or 2 is always worth it. It is probably ok on this map. Now, with 4, I would have expected you to get to Liberalism by 100AD.

Note: settled artists are very rarely better than culture bombs.






I used the oracle to bulb caste system and founded Confucianism. (...) I didn't get the pyramids since I didn't have stone. So I didn't have the option to accelerate the cathedrals with gold. I ended whipped and chopping out the cathedrals mostly under organized religion, but it was still quite painful without the resources.

I never tried for Oracle. It was gone by 1600BC in my game. I got Pyramids, quite late, 1AD. The expected difference between our games should be:
- bcool gets to Liberalism sooner
- jesusin's research after Liberalism is much faster

I never went into US to buy cathedrals, that's a very expensive method. I whipped my cathedrals in a 5 turn interval. I only had 3 cathedrals to build per city and the last one was slow-built, so only 2 whips per city.
Actually, I whipped some 4 times per city, for temples and the like with big overflow. The reasoning was, now my city size is so small, whipping a bit more doesn't matter, as this first pops will regrow fast.


So, you got 4 religions in all?

I did have marble so I chopped several marble wonders for their benefits and cultural. I got the Oracle, MoM, Sistine Chapel and the Parthenon. I also built the statue of zeus wihout ivory since it has a decent hammer/culture ratio.
Same here. SoZ might have been a mistake, it took too long.


I got liberalism (and nationalism) on 640 AD. I switched to 100% culture on 860 AD (I thought finishing divine right was better than an earlier switch to 100% cutlure)
But you changed to FS immediately at 640AD, right?

I built the Taj Mahal in a side city while my 3 legendary cities were busy building cathedrals.
I've done the same in some hammer-poor maps. Here, I switched to slavery for 5 turns immediately after Liberalism and used the overflow from the cathedrals and other whips to accelerate Taj Mahal.


I also built the AP in a side city for the hammer bonuses from all the confu temples and monasteries I had.

Lucky you! I never got Theology and AP was built for a foreign religion.

Going for Theo and a 4th religion would have been a good idea in my game. After my fast REXing my economy was in shreds, so I didn't dare to risk being first to Music. I think I overestimated Monarch AI.


I suspect I end up switching to caste system and pacifism way too late. I end switching 1120 and only then went full out trying to bring great artists into the world. I had 10 great artists 2 prophets 5 scientists. I used one prophet to bulb theology, I used the other to buld the confu holy city. I used 4 scientists to bulb philosophy, paper, and 2 for education, and I used one for an academy (in the capital which was a bad decision I'm sure)

I went for CS+Pacif at 1AD. Then out of it for 5 turns after Liberalism.
There was not much left for whipping at 1AD in my game. As I said, my REXing was fast, son I could use the 500BC-1AD period for missionaries and temples.

The 5th GS for Academy has to be a mistake, I agree. If you bulbed 4 GS and 1 GPro, then there wasn't much to research normally anyway.
The 2nd GPro must have been pernicious too. A GA would have given you much more.
I almost never build Stonehenge.



I'm sure I committed a crime when I used a great artist to trigger a 12 turn GA (I didn't get anything else after the switch to caste system and pacifism and I really thought the increase in great people production and hammers/commerce in all of my cities was about equal to one 4000 culture bomb but I didn't do the numbers)
I settled the free great artist from music in my future Hermitage city, and used the other 8 for cultural bombs.

I also used a GA for a Golden Age :)

In my experience there are several things to comment here:

A GA is not well used as a GAge, the extra yield from the tiles and the extra GPP don't add up to 4000c... unless you save several turns of anarchy during the Golden Age.
If you look at the end of your game, how many turns would an additional GA have saved? 3? 2? If you save 2 or more turns of anarchy through the use of a Golden Age then the GA is well used.

I would say your settled GA didn't add up to 4000c either. Would you please do the numbers for me? It's 12cpt, 14 with Sistine's, 28 with FS, +7 for each additional cathedral...


This is a huge difference between our games. I bombed 18GA, you bombed 8.





The biggest difference between our games is the city placement and city use. I only cottaged my capital and really only worked 5 cottages during the game (3 of them by an auxiliary city). All the rest of the land in all other cities was farmed.






I ended up winning in 1605 AD. I'll be interested in seeing how jesusin does. And would welcome any comments that might help my cultural games.

It is always a pleasure to compare cultural games. Especially when getting into the details.
I hope someone can comment on my comments so that we all can learn even further. :goodjob:




Other info that might help compare our games would be:
- number of cities at 1000BC and 1AD
- number of religions
- date of the building of the 6th cathedral
- base culture per city at 1200AD
 
Jouzou, I'd love to hear more details about your game. It looks like SH caused a lot of harm in your game.
 
quote from jesusin
I also used a GA for a Golden Age

In my experience there are several things to comment here:

A GA is not well used as a GAge, the extra yield from the tiles and the extra GPP don't add up to 4000c... unless you save several turns of anarchy during the Golden Age.
If you look at the end of your game, how many turns would an additional GA have saved? 3? 2? If you save 2 or more turns of anarchy through the use of a Golden Age then the GA is well used.

I would say your settled GA didn't add up to 4000c either. Would you please do the numbers for me? It's 12cpt, 14 with Sistine's, 28 with FS, +7 for each additional cathedral...


This is a huge difference between our games. I bombed 18GA, you bombed 8.





The biggest difference between our games is the city placement and city use. I only cottaged my capital and really only worked 5 cottages during the game (3 of them by an auxiliary city). All the rest of the land in all other cities was farmed.






Quote:
Originally Posted by bcool
I ended up winning in 1605 AD. I'll be interested in seeing how jesusin does. And would welcome any comments that might help my cultural games.
It is always a pleasure to compare cultural games. Especially when getting into the details.
I hope someone can comment on my comments so that we all can learn even further.




Other info that might help compare our games would be:
- number of cities at 1000BC and 1AD
- number of religions
- date of the building of the 6th cathedral
- base culture per city at 1200AD

Thanks Jesusin for all the feedback.
Unfortunately I didn't keep good records or the autosaves from the game to compare completely.
I will keep the records you listed next time so we can better compare games.

An early settled artist I think is clearly better than a bombed artist later. Although it does depend on your expected victory date which I guess is a bit hard to predict precisely.

Anyways an attempt to do the numbers

Spoiler :
settled artist T122 (from getting music first) gives 3 :gold: 14 :culture:
On T142 I switched to Free Speech giving me a +100% culture bonus
On T150 I finish the Hermitage in the same city as the settled artist

If I finished as quickly as you did T206 (1460 AD)

Then the settled artist would have given me approximately
20 * 14 (for no cultural modifier buildings in the first 20 turns)
8 * 28 (for the time with FS but no hermitage)
56 * 42 (for the time with FS and Hermitage)

for a total of 2856 :culture: without accounting for the cathedrals (and about 282 :gold: + maybe 30 gold since I built a grocer in that city)

looking through the log I built one cathedral T164 and I had one earlier before liberalism so maybe
742 more culture from 2 cathedrals... (I am embarrassed to say that I never built a 3rd cathedral in this city due to overlooking it)

Okay so if my game finished as early as jesusin's did my settled artist would gave me about 3598 :culture: and about 300 :gold: Which is at least approximately as good as 4000 culture. The gold lets you more easily run the slider at 100% culture. So the gold either allowed some flexibility in other city builds or returned to the 3 legendary cities some culture by being able to run the cultural slider at 100% a bit longer.

Since my game went another 25 turns at the maximum cultural modifier, settling the first great artist from music in my Hermitage city seems to make sense. I think it would make sense in most games even if you have a finish date in the 1400s especially if you get the artist before T120 and plan to have liberalism by ~T140. (and you have the Sistine Chapel)


I clearly need to switch to be producing great artists with my side cities much much earlier and only do a dip into slavery. I think this, as jesusin suggests, would make a huge difference.

The 2nd GPro must have been pernicious too. A GA would have given you much more.

Using the 2nd GPro for the Confu holy building in the end gave me 9 :culture: (with the Sistine Chapel) 2 :hammers: and 19 :gold:
I think it might have been competitive with the benefits of a GA, but I could be wrong. It would be much harder to do the numbers because I don't know the average :gold: I produced over its life and I don't know how many useful random spreads I got because of it. (hmm it was born in 1100 AD T170 so you are probably right that it should have been used as a GA)

Well just culture wise I had it for 60 turns at a cultural modifier of 3 so it gave me 1620 :culture: and 120 :hammers: and at least 600 :gold:
Probably worse than a Golden Age but I don't have the details for a full comparison

12 turns of GA. Maybe 15 pop in the 3 future legendary cities. So let's say 15 more commerce and 6 more hammers in each city
about 450 :culture: and 90 :hammers: per city? 1350 :culture: 270 :hammers:
plus the bonuses in the side cities for building temples faster, etc.
 
Anyways an attempt to do the numbers
Thank you! Glad to see you were right!
I would only mention that I wouldn't pay too much attention to the gold. I am assuming that in your game, as in mine, you were able to keep 100% culture slider all the time through trades.

Using the 2nd GPro for the Confu holy building in the end gave me 9 :culture: (with the Sistine Chapel) 2 :hammers: and 19 :gold:
I think it might have been competitive with the benefits of a GA, but I could be wrong. It would be much harder to do the numbers because I don't know the average :gold: I produced over its life and I don't know how many useful random spreads I got because of it. (hmm it was born in 1100 AD T170 so you are probably right that it should have been used as a GA)

Well just culture wise I had it for 60 turns at a cultural modifier of 3 so it gave me 1620 :culture: and 120 :hammers: and at least 600 :gold:
Probably worse than a Golden Age but I don't have the details for a full comparison

12 turns of GA. Maybe 15 pop in the 3 future legendary cities. So let's say 15 more commerce and 6 more hammers in each city
about 450 :culture: and 90 :hammers: per city? 1350 :culture: 270 :hammers:
plus the bonuses in the side cities for building temples faster, etc.

Oh, I am sorry, I confused you, I shouldn't use so many acronims.
I meant that another GreatArtist would have been much better than a second GreatProphet. I wasn't mentioning any GoldenAge here.







By the way, if you had kept in ice one of the GreatProphets you could have used it instead of a GreatArtist for your GoldanAge, couldn't you?
 
I should have pursued the culture victory also. It can help maximize SB's strength in this map by using his phi trait. UB can still be useful because there are quite a lot good English cities with high food surplus. Can an investment of 5 galley+20 lowbowman/catapult (1250 hammer) be returned by the end of game? To answer this question, I have to consult with the experts about GP generating rate.

@jesusin/bcool

Is there already any discussion to caluculate the function between GP number and GP City numbers?

The question is: Supposing each city can privode x GP points(for example 6 GP + pacifism+ phi trait=54), how many GPs can be generated in n(for example 60) turns by m cities.

No doubt that more cities will generate more GPs but we need to find a marginal break point to justify the investment to get a new GP city.
 
If the game is endless and the n is infinite, it can be simplified to measure the gain of GP points. Maybe it's more realistic. When going back to a finite n, a refilling time (the time length to fill the GP point from 0 to the GP point required by the current GP) can be used as a modifier in the investment return calculation.
I'll test it in the next game, if the leader and the map allows.
 
Nice game Jesusin, and congrats on the fatherhood! :goodjob:
 
@jesusin/bcool

Is there already any discussion to caluculate the function between GP number and GP City numbers?

The question is: Supposing each city can privode x GP points(for example 6 GP + pacifism+ phi trait=54), how many GPs can be generated in n(for example 60) turns by m cities.

No doubt that more cities will generate more GPs but we need to find a marginal break point to justify the investment to get a new GP city.

Hmmm, there is not an easy answer. There are too many things to consider.

- If there is a great GPP city, then getting another city which is able to support just 3 specialists is not a good idea: it will never ever pop a GP.

- The more cities you have, the more "wasted GPP" you will have at the end of the game.

- When a new city pops a GP, it delays all the other cities expected GP, as the price of the next one is increasingly higher.

- But of course, the more cities you have dedicated to pop GP, the more GP you get.


Having said, that, in my cultural games, where I am aiming at a 9 cities empire, I don't care going up to 12 or 13 cities as long as each city has at least 2 food resources.
The limiting factor in my games is not the marginal break point you are looking for. It is the economy and the ability to continue researching while expanding.







As a side note, less related to your question:

I always want to whip the granary in my last city(ies), otherwise it develops too slowly to be worth having. And I want to revolt out of slavery and into Castes+Pacifism asap. As a result:

- I force myself to settle all the cities I want too fast, damaging my economy and getting into red numbers at 0% research.

- I rarely settle any new city long time after the settling of the last one, it wouldn't catch up fast enough.

- Each and every city in my empire ends up popping at least 1 GreatArtist.
 
As mentioned in the first spoiler, this was a disaster... I played a bit furter and was going to submit an incomplete game, but somehow I lost the save in a recent disk clean-up. No big lost really...
 
840AD Domination ~256k points. Vicky got LBs a little bit too early (around 400AD I think) so (fast) conquest was a no-go.

Did you get metals or do without?
Iron had popped out in Incan lands so I had to fight a few spears, axes and swords with horse archers :mad:

Did this help you win faster or slow you down?
Nah. My horses get enough iron from human blood!

Some quick notes:
-Stole 3 early workers from Hannibal. Somebody has to chop those forests.
-Got Oracle 75BC :lol: . Apparently nobody else was interested. Took CoL to save my economy.
-Civs dead: Carthage 725bc, Persia 150AD, Russia 275AD, Incas 375AD
-DoWed Pacal 660AD. Probably would have got earlier victory if I had vassalized him.
-Spammed settlers to fill empty spaces so probably not the most stylish domination. :)
 
One day, I'll grab that frikkin' conquest or dom. For now, I eat grass for dinner.
 
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