BOTM 58 Final Spoiler

[DynamicSpirit]

BOTM 58 Final Spoiler

So how did your game go after 1AD? Did you manage to defeat deity?

I'd also be interested to know what you thought about the idea of revealing quite a bit of the starting map. Now you've played a game with that advanced knowledge, would you like some future GOTMs to do the same thing?

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in BOTM 58, then you MUST NOT read this thread unless

• You have submitted your entry

Posting Restrictions

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

What was your path to victory?

 

[Mastiff_of_Ar]

The good: I won! I actually won on Deity! It was a 1949 cultural win, with Nappy and Cy having already launched, but I did it. I'm sure someone more talented beat the score, but I'm really happy with just winning. Beat the AI to the GL, barbs weren't a big issue, and the threads in the pre-game helped a lot. Thanks to the upper level players who participated!

The bad: Nappy settled the NW copper. And even though he was always happy with me, he still attacked! I fought him off, and he went right back to being my pal!

The ugly: Toku was a constant pain even though he was the only one I out teched. He attacked three times, bringing another AI twice. He took a city, but I got it right back. I was lucky to have defensive pacts, but I had my seafood plundered often. I was so behind in techs that Cyrus gave me medicine near the end of the game.

But hey, never won on this level, and I'm proud!

EDIT: Knowing the whole island led to some very good discussion. I wouldn't mind seeing it again some time.

 

[Sleepless]

Well apart from a couple of oops moments managed a cultural victory.

First oops seeing my GM in a galley sunk by a privateer (second oops might have come first).

Second oops declaring war on Stalin when my garrison army consisted of a couple of muskets, quechas and one rifle. Trouble with rushing a game and not concentrating. Noticed a lot of ships going through my lands obviously he was going to attack someone but ended up being my DP partner Toku. Hence me declaring on Stalin. Luckily I had a couple of GPs to run an instant Golden Age and changed to nationhood and drafted a few rifles around. Enough to keep all my cities though lost a lot of seafood and eventually managed to get peace for 95 gold.

Highlights managed to build Sistines in 75AD and even though I missed out on Lib to Toku by a few turns still managed to self tech Nationalism and build the Taj as well before anyone else.

So apart from the blip with Stalin the rest/whole of the game was peaceful for me and managed a cultural victory in 1735.

 

[Xcalibrator]

I've been waiting for someone to post saying they lost so I wouldn't feel so bad about my sad story, but I'm out of patience. Retired at 1775 after quite a few turns of trying to fend off Nappy, Alex, and Stalin. Majorly bummed, as I think I mighta coulda won this if Stalin hadn't been such a jerk. He built the AP and then used every vote to cut off trade or otherwise offend someone. I didn't have a blocking vote so everyone got angry at me. Lost a lot of trade connections and resource trades as a result.

I was (nearly) first to Steel and tried to make the most of it. I DoW'd Nappy (hey, he'd DoW'd me earlier!) and was making decent progress with my rifles and cannon vs his rifles (then infantry), cavs, and cannon--captured 3 cities before he got marines. Figured I'd have to wait for artillery to make more progress so I took peace. WW was also getting pretty bad--I managed that pretty well with Hered Rule and lots of old quechuas--I'd delayed hooking up iron and copper until very late to keep the ability to build those on the cheap. Anyway, Stalin and his AP mischief got Alex mad at me and his destroyers started pillaging and blockading me back to the stone age. Then Nappy DoW'd. Then Stalin. I beat off all their invasions with minimal losses, but the combination of WW, blockades, and pillaging was brutal. The crowning event was when Cyrus build the UN and everyone voted for Emancipation. Bye bye HR and all my happiness! Still, I would not yield!!! I managed to beat up Nappy enough to get peace, then gave Alex 200 gold and 60 gpt. Other than his destroyers, Stalin was no threat but my tech rate was near zero and Artillery was very far off. I faced reality and retired. Tsk, how might things have gone if I'd been 2 turns sooner to the GLH?

Fun game. If I can find the time I'd like to try again. Although a peaceful approach might be the smart way to play this game, it is not my way. Must kill. All of them.

Congrats to Sleepless, Mastiff, and anyone else who pulls this off!

Oh, BTW, there were some "funny" stories about border pops and teleportation in the 1 AD spoilers. I might have a better one. During an early (abortive) invasion of Russia (in which he suddenly upgraded his longbows to rifles) I killed off a stack, using my warlord knight to finish off the last unit and then pillage the tile before taking peace. Well, since the knight (a supermedic) wasn't on the same tile as my other units, he popped to a 1-tile island north of Moscow (and spent the rest of the game there) while all my other units teleported SW to another (intended) island. D'oooooooh!

 

[shulec]

I had a pathetic finish to this one. I was cruising along in very good shape for a solid victory, then I seriously screwed the pooch. I was hoping to pull of a conquest victory. Instead, my dog had to drag my nearly lifeless body across the finish line for a religious "ending" (is it really fair to call it a victory???)

I basically used the Snaaty CRII Rifleman strategy to take out Toku, who was the strongest at the time. I took replaceable parts in 880 AD with Liberalism, and got Rifling in 1090 AD. Toku's Samurai's were tougher than expected and he also had some Protective/aggressive muskets that were quite tough too. I vassalized him after grabbing his best cities. When I declared on him, he bribed Napoleon and Stalin into war. I made peace with Napoleon after a relatively "cold" war. Stalin was backwards, so I took him down next. I took his home "island" and left him the scraps. As always, Wang Kon was the pariah, and he quickly fell next. Along with his mainland, he had only two island cities, so I wiped him out all together.

At this point I am in control of the game and have several choices potential victory (not culture). I want to go Domination or Conquest which will be most difficult, but still consider Space, which will be easier. I don't consider diplomatic (or religious).

I have Mining Inc. and Sid Sushi, so I start to Corp up in prep to milk. (Hee, hee, hee at me!) Tech wise, Napoleon and Alexander are pulling a bit ahead. Cyrus is still a bit behind me. So I upgrade cannons and rifles to artillery and infantry. I expected to vassalize Cyrus with about 8 turns of war.

But, wait... what was that??? Did you forget that even though he doesn't have tanks, marines or artillery that he built the Manhatten Project 15 turns ago???? So I attacked him in 1860 AD. I got worked over by two tactical nukes. This killed my superstack. I had a secondary stack that took out a city with a nuke in it. I sent this stack for his uranium, but it was too late and the damage was done. Not to mention that Alexander dogpiled two turns later when the second nuke knocked my power rating down a bunch.

Anyway, I rallied and copped out with a religious victory. This required taking one of Cyrus's top cities, spreading the AP religion and liberating it.

Ego kept me from taking the sensible Space Colony route, but I did manage to put up an non-retire.

Fun game. I have to say, I never play with modern era wars. This is the first time I have ever been nuked!!! Ouch, I didn't like it!!!

 

[kcd_swede]

Game: BtS BOTM 58
Date submitted: 2012-09-27
Reference number: 27311
Your name: kcd_swede
Software Version: BtS 3.19 for Windows
Mod: Mods/BUFFY-3.19.003/
Entry class: Challenger Game status:
Religious Victory for Inca
Game date: 1520AD
Turns played: 214
Base score: 1167
Final score: 59293
Time played: 3:53:54

Just thought I'd show off. Deity Challenger cheese!

Went for AP victory from the start, figuring this was my best chance at deity. Culture as a back-up. Could have speeded up victory perhaps if I didn't go for culture too, but it looked pretty hard to accomplish the religion win the way the religions were mixed up. I founded Christianity and chopped out the AP pretty quickly, but did not dare run a religion after that (except at the end when I calculated a switch to Christianity after the voting would give me 287.25 votes, and I would need 287 votes).

Had a big scare from Nappy. He landed a large force next to my AP city, but it was medieval and I wasn't so far behind in tech at that point, and was able to dispense with it. Long time he won't talk, but there's no action. Then he lands a humongous force that would have taken all of my cities, and he will talk, and takes peace for Music. If not, its game over for me.

The favorite civics were perfect for keeping every civ happy... except for one thing: Toku won't go into Merc and Nappy won't go into Repr and I won't ever get to communism to make Stalin happier with State Prop.

I DOW'd my pleased buddy Wang at Alex request because I did not want to die, and wang was farther. This got me friendly with Alex, Wang was everyone's worst enemy.

That war with Wang never ended.

Lost some caravels to privateers, but so what, I can build everything I want in 1-2 turns by now, and travel to Cyrus (who votes for me at +7 Pleased) was very short distance. Alex was farther, but as long as I get some missionaries there before I'm attacked its inevitable I will win.

Conversely, I still had a long way to go for culture, but with these opponents it was probably do-able even with my 3 religions and 7 cities.

Fun game! Of course, winning at deity is always fun, even with plenty of fromage.
Thanks DS!

 

[shulec]

Went for AP victory from the start, figuring this was my best chance at deity

Please forgive my disparaging remarks made above about religious victory. A victory is not a loss!

 

[Xcalibrator]

Cheese or not, that counts as a win, kcd! You guys are making me feel so inadequate... Shulec, since you didn't post in the 1AD thread (and your play style for this game sounds closest to mine ), could you tell more about your approach? Did you focus more on Wonders or expansion early on? Did you beeline Lib'ism, etc? When was your first war? Any and all advice would be much appreciated.

 

[Jastrow]

More details when I have more time, but for now...

Finished the ship on turn 255, leading to a late 18th century (1785, I think) space colony and a score of around 120K.

I dont know if I got really lucky or what, but for whatever reason the warmongers all left me along the entire game. Indeed, the overall game was very peaceful. At some point, someone (Maybe Nappy or Alex, I dont remember) decided to declare on Wang, and I joined in and bribed in a couple of others (for mutually struggles). I never even saw a single unit for Wang, and that is the only hostilities I was involved with. Indeed, it was the only war at all until a few turns from the end, when Wang (now a vassel of Alex) was declared on again. This time I stayed out of it.

With no war action, I was left to tech, build and trade at my leisure, and this resulted into a trade economy powered run to space. The race was suprisingly not close, and I was rather surprised how slow the AI was techning. Maybe the island maps really slows them down??

 

[kcd_swede]

Maybe the island maps really slows them down??

Yes, that and the fact they didn't really like each other, so less trading than normal. But mostly the map.. they are so bad at amphibious war that no single AI gets a huge empire and runs away with things, like always seems to hapen in my non-cheese deity games.

 

[Jastrow]

Indeed.... I actually took Astronomy (could, and probably should have chosen Nationalism instead) from Lib in 580 AD, because I was scared that if I waited any longer, I would loose lib. (I had not met two of the AI at the time, and fear one was about to get it himself). As it turns out, I was way ahead, and could have waited for a better tech.

In any event, in hindsight, even knowing how far ahead I was, I would now take Nationalism, since I ended up loosing the Taj by about 5 turns, and the extra Golden age (allowing a free swap into Free-religion and free market) could have cut 2 or 3 years of my spaceship time (Astro was of little use other than for its beaker count.)

 

[shulec]

Shulec, since you didn't post in the 1AD thread (and your play style for this game sounds closest to mine ), could you tell more about your approach? Did you focus more on Wonders or expansion early on? Did you beeline Lib'ism, etc? When was your first war? Any and all advice would be much appreciated.

See 1 AD spoiler...

As stated above, I "bee-lined" rifles via liberalizing Replaceable Parts in 880 AD. I got Rifling in 1090 AD. I had built a lot of CRII Maces, and quickly upgraded them.

As of 1270 AD (one of a few save I actually have, all autosaves long gone.)
Great people. I had 4 GS, Academy, Edu, Edu, Lib. I had two low odds GE. Saved one for Mining Inc., used one for Taj Mahal one turn after getting Nationalism. I got two GM, one from economics. GMs went to trade missions to finance Rifling and CRII mace upgrades. Most of my troops came from heavy whipping and some drafting.

As of my 1270 AD save, I had declared on the Japanese on 1220 AD. I had take the Japanese city at the most western aspect of my home island, the northeastern-most and southeastern-most cities on the Japanese island. I kept two and razed the city at the far southeast of Toku's island. Toku had cannons and did me some serious collateral damage. I fell short on taking Kyoto because my stack was already promoted and I wasn't able to heal with promotions. I also didn't have a good medic in my CRII rifle stack. I took a Cease fire and teleported/regrouped my army to the city I had on his island to heal.

At 1270 AD I had 55 Rifles, 24 CRII rifles with 6 dead Rifles, probably all CRII rifles. This is my army on 1270 AD. I split the force and sent part of it Tokyo and the rest to Kyoto. I sent reinforcements to both attack sites. I pretty much rolled Toku after taking his biggest cities.

Spoiler :

Toku capitulated in 1450 AD. I set my sights on Stalin. I declared in 1590 AD. I took two cities, Moscow and another on T1595 and he was ready to capitulate. I wanted all of his island cities, so I pushed onward.
My military consisted of:
78 Rifles (30 dead rifles at this point)
15 cannons (I had gotten steel in 1515 AD)

In 1680 AD, I attacked Wang Kon who had Muskets, longbow and a few knights.
I started the war with:
82 Rifles (Spread across empire, not all in attacking stacks)
26 Cannons

Here is my empire at 1842. I am starting to fall behind Napoleon and Alexander. I have 40 cities, then have 23 and 26 respectively.

Spoiler :

I declared on Cyrus, who I stated above had Nukes, which I totally forgot about. I did have four cavalry strategically placed on his island to show all his military. I was not monitoring the cities while I upgraded to Infantry and Artillery. Either Alex or Nappy asked me to cancel deals with Cyrus. I agreed since was about to attack. Because of this I lost vision of his cities. That hurt. So I attacked in 1860. I have the 1864 save after he nuked the crap out of me.
Here are the casualty stats from the 1864 nuking:
32 Infantry dead
26 Artillery dead
15 Transports dead
4 destroyers dead

Time to scramble into religious victory mode!

Conclusions:
I was really foolish with Cyrus. Attacking when he had nukes is not smart.
I should have tried to square Napoleon and Alexander of in war. I probably couldn't do it, but I could have tried to drive a wedge between them.
Based on the AI advancing beyond me, I should have turn into research mode and pursued a space victory. With my monster empire and corps, I believe I could have pulled it out.
I chose one Movement point troops because I could land and kill. Cuirassiers' 2 movement points would have been wasted on these little islands. It think this was best.
In my first war, I underestimated Toku's cannons, muskets and samuri's and was not as efficient as I would have been with more seige and a good medic per stack.

 

[keiselhorn13]

This game was blood, sweat and tears for me, but I fared better than I expected on Immortal (Adventurer)... congratulations guys for these impressive victories

In 25ad I realised I neglected expansion in favour of wonders, realized I was going too wonder-crazy, decided to halt Hagia Sophia in Tiwanaku (horse city) and produce 2 or 3 settlers to quickly colonise the rest of the island.

I did it just in time because when my settler is close to reach the west edge, surprise, Tokugawa is there with a swordsman and settler, ready to settle... they landed in the tundra though and hesitated, which gave me the turn or two to settle 2N of tundra forests... There was still empty room in the middle of the continent where Toku's settler could build their town... I couldn't attack because I still had minimal army of quechuas and didn't really want war... they hanged around for a while and then suddenly Toku spits the dummy... disbanded the settler and DoW on me... with the lonely swordsman in the middle of my island

I waited for galley invasion but never came... Tried peace Toku didn't want... I linked the copper and build 4 ax to make sure the sword (now fortified in hill) was gone for good... job done, after a few turns I paid Toku a bribe (90gp I reckon) to end war...

Even with production halted, managed to finish Hagia Sophia in 560ad... Parthenon in Cuzco in the same turn... the HG was a crazy decision, but was still useful because I needed to pick up on cottage building that I also neglected...

I didnt build any more wonders and focused on money and techs when possible, kept military to a minimum, went too far on that though... missed Islam but soon 3 religions came to the island, I chose to not have official religion but still took Organised Religion in a GA because I wanted to spread the religions so I could build cathedrals later... also because I didn't want diplo penalty for heathen religion...

Later Napoleon DoW but I managed to keep him out of my towns, had to pay for peace though... I got Lib and Rifling and then halted research by the 1500s-1600s, didn't take Astro due to GLH (guess it was a noob decision like many others )... defense by rifles, was counting on culture defensive bonus to hold out...

Tried to keep balance between bribe money and culture tax, building cathedrals and other culture meanwhile, few GAs because I didn't setup proper GP farms, was wary of substituting villages and towns for farms... nobody seem to care about building Statue of Liberty, so hands-free Cuzco tried... missed it to Alex by 2 turns needed only another 500gp to hurry it

Then Toku again... declared 2 wars on me, in the first took westernmost town with marines, inf, etc... took it back with rifles only (suicidal of course), held enough to bribe for peace... second war they took that same town + copper town... took the 1st back again, but the island was well guarded with SAM, inf, planes, etc. and would be tough... thanks to Alex's AP I got peace...

In between, 2 tributes demanded by Nappy... first only 300gp the second he took the lot I had, 3500+gp... but that kept him quiet... by this point I was running Pacifism, Free Speech and trying to keep at 90-100% culture tax as often as possible... Alex and Stalin left me alone, but Alex had an agressive game, vassalised Wang Kon, Cyrus and created Byzantine vassal, if the AI was cleverer could have tried Domination...

1910ad was the beginning of the end: Cuzco already legendary (53k), Tiwanaku and Machu Picchu (20-25k) about 40-50 turns from Cultural Victory, Alex, Toku and Stalin on the first steps to spaceship... Alex, who was pretty cool to me the entire game, sneak attacks Cuzco, which was very poorly defended (was too worried about Toku in the west)... they took it in the same turn...

I knew it was over but I wanted to fight to the last drop and see what I could do... they tried to take another city near silver with Marine + some 10 cannons (expected better invasion) but after much sweat rifles managed to kill that invasion... then Toku took the opportunity and also DoW me! That was way too much... I didn't really care about the western and other cities, just needed the big 3 intact after war and could still have a chance... managed to take Cuzco back twice with massive suicidal rifles (nothing to lose!) 1926 and 1929ad, and then Nappy decided to play the vulture and also DoW... lost Cuzco again to Greeks, and gave Machu Picchu to Toku, in the last hope that could get all peace, they would Dow on each other and capital Tiwanaku could flip Cuzco and MC back if they happened to change owners (Am I crazy? ), but then Alex's puppet Wang Kon + Nappy came and took Tiwanaku, game over 1934ad... to the last drop...

If you chose to read about my noob game I hope I haven't wasted your time

I would love a red ambulance award for that, c'mon it was a big effort

 

[jesusin]

jesusin, contender. Goal: Fastest cultural victory. Result: 1620AD cultural victory.

First spoiler here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11884071&postcount=21

First GS after 1AD meant that an cademy wouldn't really pay for itself beaker-wise. With a good research capability thanks to financial sea tiles and traderoutes, I was too close to Liberalism. So it was used as a bulb.

Confu spread to my civ, that would be my second.

Dozens of GE were popped by the AI while I was building Sistine's, but only 1 civ had Music. I was lucky to get Sistine's in 03.

09 and 10 cities were built in the South islands, with 2 seafood each.
Second GS for bulb, 3rd GS was unlucky, I kept it for a Golden Age and stopped hiring anything but Artists.

Liberalism gave Nationalism 600AD. Launch Golden Age and revolt to FS, Castes, Pacif.

TajMahal in 03. Use taht Golden Age to revolt to Mercantilism and for another quick round of slavery, much needed in my younger cities.

Missionaries&temples exercise finished, built 6 cathedrals.
Hermitage built in the wrong city, just because the right city was building something else at the time. Huge mistake, I'm bleeding 50cpt just because of this.
Doing 1150cpt and 350gpt at 1000AD. Expected victory date, 1490AD.

Toku dows. I have 10 Quechua to fight him. Security first imposes me to revolt both to Nationhood and slavery. Lose island city, recover island city with Maces and knights. Get peace, my huge army doesn't allow me to go 100% culture, but 60% culture at most. The lost&recovered city won't be able to pop its GA now. Pay for peace.

Napo dows (before Toku's peace!). Revolt to Repre+FS, stay in slavery. My strategy is to wait inside the city with dozens of units. Cats&Trebs decimate my stack, Grenadiers clean up. Island city lost, it was going to pop a GA. My strategy is wrong. Build 2 stacks of 5Cats+10 Knights in my mainland. My new strategy is to kill them on the beaches. Kill some stray caravels, pay for peace.

WanKong dows. 8 Galleons are not to be laugh at. They disembark. Cats soften them up. Maces and Knights mop up. My new strategy works. Pay for peace.

Ain't you being dowed a bit to often, lad?

Spoiler :

There's not much I could have done differently to get a peaceful (an earlier) victory.

All 3 got their hands full shortly after they met me. They just took long to get prepared.

They were all pleased, not bad considering I had to run my own religion for Pacifism.

You can't possibly be "strong enough" in the power chart compared to Deity AI to avoid a dow. I had an oversized army at the end of the game, dragging my economy and I was still last place.

I had no chance to pay other AI to dow the ones with their hands full, in order to empty them. Some need to be Friendly for that.

Some won't do it unless you are at war (I got help that way). Some are too weak to dare.

You can't fight the war on the sea to avoid their arrival. AI scripts are awfully wrong and they always build 20 more ships than they need, even at times of peace.


So all in all I don't think I could have been able to avoid the wars. We were lucky to be on islands, that way it is easy to survive a war, even against several AIs at the same time.

Representation helps through selling techs to AIs.
Tweak my cities so as to get their respective last GA in the right order: weaker city first. Starve. Get 4 GA in the final 7 turns.

Victory 1620AD. Multipliers 3-4-3, culture bombs 3-4-6, base culture 200-150-150, 3GS (GoldenAge and bulb Philo and Educ), 2GPro (shrine and unused), 13 GA bombed, total 18GP, none of them for free.

 

[jesusin]

Well apart from a couple of oops moments managed a cultural victory.

Congratulations!

I'm curious to know, aren't you regreting your building the GLib? What's your opinion about it, now that the game is over?

I would appreciate more details about your cultural victory. We chose the same Legendary cities, it seems. How many religions did you get? How many GA did you get? How many total GP?

This game was blood, sweat and tears for me...

Indeed!
Losing and taking back your capital wasn't as bad, as it had already gone over 50Kc. When you recover it, it keeps teh accumulated culture. Now, if it were far under 50Kc, it would be hard, as you lose most of the cultural output of the city when you lose and recover it.
I've long ago learnt not to bomb/settle my GreatArtists, just in case I lose a city. 10GA can put any city over the Legendary limit, so losing and not recovering a destined-to-be-Legendary city is not a fatal blow.

What a pity you didn't get your victory, it would have been an epic one!

 

[keiselhorn13]

Losing and taking back your capital wasn't as bad, as it had already gone over 50Kc. When you recover it, it keeps teh accumulated culture. Now, if it were far under 50Kc, it would be hard, as you lose most of the cultural output of the city when you lose and recover it.

Yeah, losing Cuzco was bad but the fatal blow was losing Machu Pichu to the japs, because it lost cathedrals, FP and heaps of other stuff... but the truth is that Victory would really be nigh impossible cos I lost too many cities + cottages and wouldn't be able to keep 100% culture slider if I got peace... 3 civs building spaceship, maybe 40-odd turns wouldnt be enough...

not to bomb/settle my GreatArtists, just in case I lose a city. 10GA can put any city over the Legendary limit, so losing and not recovering a destined-to-be-Legendary city is not a fatal blow.

Now you nailed it, cos 5 GPs were killed in the sneak attack in Cuzco (shouldnt have kept them there ) ... 3 were GAs waiting for the bomb moment, plus 1 prophet and 1 merchant, needed 1 more "polluted" GP (Cuzco's wonders) to start a Golden Age and speed up victory...

 

[Sleepless]

I'm curious to know, aren't you regreting your building the GLib? What's your opinion about it, now that the game is over?

I would appreciate more details about your cultural victory. We chose the same Legendary cities, it seems. How many religions did you get? How many GA did you get? How many total GP?

Also built the GLh for more gp pollution. Ended up with 9GA, 4GS, (think 1 academy, 1 settled in Cuzco and 2 for GA). 3GMs. 2 for trade missions and one sunk. Had to use a GS and GA on an emergency golden age as well.

Should have done much better with the GPs (always a problem of mine). I ended up building the Nat Epic in my 3rd legendary city really should have gone elsewhere as I didn't make much use of it (possibly). .

Ended up in the end with 4 religions. First religion I had spread was Judaism. Both Tok and Nap were Buddhists which seemed to take ages to spread to me. Adopted as soon as it spread . Christianity and Conf (in 1 city). Built 3 cathederals in each of the legendary cities.

GLib. The added GS pollution didn't help much with the culture victory but it certainly helped me keep up in tech for quite a while so still 50/50 on whether it was worth it. Non deity cultural game probably not.

 

[jesusin]

In the pre-game thread there was some discussion about the best way to use the initial island.

Here's what I did. I'm quite satisfied with my settling pattern.

 

[Falabello]

Well, I did not expect to win, but it was a good game ! My goal was to keep my empire without war through diplomacy. But with a neighbor as Togu (and it was the first Empire in all) ... In my game each AI had one different religion and there was so much "worst enemies". Remain neutral in this context is very complicated . But I was well till first capitulation. So Togu declared against me an it was the end of the game. I had a commitment and so retired. The Conquest loss was inevitable .

I enjoy this game. It was the first Deity that I had some power. Logically the last in score, but not the worst in techs. It was ok !

By the way, I posted some questions in first spoiler about how to improve the Empire till 1AD. If someone wants to help I'll be grateful !

 

[WelshGandalf]

Indeed.... I actually took Astronomy (could, and probably should have chosen Nationalism instead) from Lib in 580 AD, because I was scared that if I waited any longer, I would loose lib. (I had not met two of the AI at the time, and fear one was about to get it himself). As it turns out, I was way ahead, and could have waited for a better tech.

580 AD??! I'm struggling to think of an earlier lib date than that!