BOTM 59 Final Spoiler - game submitted or abandoned

[WastinTime]

450 BC religious victory!

The scouts were a fun little puzzle that needed to be solved for religious victory.
Luckily kcd_swede left us some nice clues.
1. He admitted to devilry to try to prevent conquest without getting a city.
2. The water in the corner of a Great Plains map is not normally that large (at least it seemed large to me). I originally thought for sure the final civ was out there on an island, but then I found Cyrus up in the corner.
3. The mongol scout was visible from shore. Hinting there were more scouts out there.

As I said in the other thread, I made peace with Mongolia turn10. They never got a city. I never saw their units again, but they're still in the vote.
So I killed everyone except Cyrus. (Sailed out to clean up the scouts)
Kissed Cyrus' butt. Gifted a christian city to Mongolia. Done.

 

[KalKraken]

I lost in a manner similar to Revent. I took Babylon, then Athens, then Persepolis, then Shaka's two cities, then Pacal's two cities. Only Asoka was left, I still had all 4 keshik and Asoka only had archers. But I had run out of money.

It took me a long time to get out of strike (I had wasted my plunder gold researching something other than writing), once I had writing I teched to currency, but Asoka had 14 cities to my 7 and had a tech lead.

I spammed horse archers while teching to guilds, upgraded to knights, and declared war. But I did a terrible job conducting the war and took only a few unimportant cities. When Asoka's grenadiers showed up I resigned.

Great game, very different. Please keep these sorts of interesting scenarios coming.

 

[vranasm]

Great game, very different. Please keep these sorts of interesting scenarios coming.

I would agree that for lower levels difficulty it is very refreshing.
The only "problem" I see here .... what we will do next 3 weeks waiting for next BOTM?

 

[Greeder]

275 BC I founded my 3rd and last (I thought) city - Novogorod, between Mutal and Ulundi, on Marble.
125 BC I completed Buddist shrine which rescued my economy. The same turn I discovered Alpha. I traded Currency from Pericles. To boost economy 75 AD CoL was discovered. BTW, Pericles built Oracle 25 AD. Meditation, Math, Priesthood, Monarchy, Aesthetics, Poly and finally Lit 475 AD.
During that time I was slowly building HAs army, infrastructure in my 9 cities (I mean, up to Stables ) and some wonders. And road system between cities and to Greek border.
Seeing that Pericles went for Feudalism I declared on him 500 AD. 560 AD I captured Sparta. I lost most of HAs in this attack so I've sent mobile forces - Keshiks and remaining HA for siege of Athens - and waited for reinforcements.
720 AD I had one or 2 Axes and more HAs. I captured Athens, but Pericles was just 2 or 3 turns to Feudalism and I had no chances of capturing his 2 remaining cties before it.
860 AD I captured Thebes weakly defended (Archer or two, Greek Ax and Spearman).
So Pericles got Longs and I lost one army against them. Fortunately he lost 3 of 6 Longs then. All my cities were pumping HAs. It was just a matter of time.
1040 AD I built a city near coast SE, thinking I have to kill all units in order to win.
1090 AD I captured Corinth - last Greek city and won conquest.

It was my fastest conquest ever. I was lucky with fights, Stalin two times win with 'barely' 70% odds. I lost just one GG late in game to Greek Spearman.
Yes it was easy game, but I made it harder by leaving Pacal for too long; then I had Holkans to fight and I had to use Axes=built city near Copper, built roads, produce Axes... I lost much time then.

It was definitely fun!

 

[nocho]

I had a heck of a minute playing this! Didn't read the game setup very well, took unnecessary chances against the mongol units, had my last unit killed on turn 3. Conquest loss 3880BC. Somehow don't feel like uploading.

 

[kcd_swede]

I had a heck of a minute playing this! Didn't read the game setup very well, took unnecessary chances against the mongol units, had my last unit killed on turn 3. Conquest loss 3880BC. Somehow don't feel like uploading.

Aw... c'mon... you want an ambulance, don'tyou?

 

[kcd_swede]

450 BC religious victory!

The scouts were a fun little puzzle that needed to be solved for religious victory.
Luckily kcd_swede left us some nice clues.
1. He admitted to devilry to try to prevent conquest without getting a city.
2. The water in the corner of a Great Plains map is not normally that large (at least it seemed large to me). I originally thought for sure the final civ was out there on an island, but then I found Cyrus up in the corner.
3. The mongol scout was visible from shore. Hinting there were more scouts out there.

As I said in the other thread, I made peace with Mongolia turn10. They never got a city. I never saw their units again, but they're still in the vote.
So I killed everyone except Cyrus. (Sailed out to clean up the scouts)
Kissed Cyrus' butt. Gifted a christian city to Mongolia. Done.

Nice Game! Very clever strategy.

 

[Orel]

Just like Revent, I suffered a loss when my last keshiks was disbanded with 2capitals still to capture...

As the scenario looked very interesting I re-tried with a different strategy, exploring, capturing two capitals and start a great civ. As I am a very poor warmonger, I suffered an almost conquest defeat by 1600 while being very ahead in tech race...

A few others attemptsat the very first turns saw some weird things happening, including a loss of 4 keshiks in 4 fights after 2 turns...

KCD, thanks for the very original scenario! (even if i don't have anything to submit...)

 

[unclethrill]

I went the conquest route. I took over 3 cities, razed the rest, got peace with Khan on T10 and got a Conquest VC on T28 (2880BC) for 30K points. It was a bit of a surprise that it was over so fast. Now I guess I need to get back to the SGOTM!

 

[jesusin]

I thought this would be a nice map for a cultural victory. I saw the Scout. I trusted the mapmaker. I won an unwanted conquest victory. I felt stupid. I didn't have much fun.

Anyway, I encourage this kind of special games. My bad experience was my fault. Thank you for your creativity kcd_swede. Keep up the good work!

 

[kcd_swede]

I went the conquest route. I took over 3 cities, razed the rest, got peace with Khan on T10 and got a Conquest VC on T28 (2880BC) for 30K points. It was a bit of a surprise that it was over so fast. Now I guess I need to get back to the SGOTM!

Well, 28 turns is might fast indeed! Of course, I understand that stomping on warrior-guarded AI cities using Keshiks is perhaps unsatisfying for a player of your skill. If you want, I'll use the map and generate a Deity-level version of the save for you to have some fun with while you wait for the next BOTM.

 

[kcd_swede]

I thought this would be a nice map for a cultural victory. I saw the Scout. I trusted the mapmaker. I won an unwanted conquest victory. I felt stupid. I didn't have much fun.

Anyway, I encourage this kind of special games. My bad experience was my fault. Thank you for your creativity kcd_swede. Keep up the good work!

Oh no... the Jesusin culture victory streak is broken by my crazy scenario!

Really, I tried to make such rapid victories impossible, but clearly did not understand the game mechanics sufficiently, nor did I test it enough because I THOUGHT I did understand the game mechanics. So you may place some of the blame on me, since I wanted to avoid that sort of thing happening but failed.

It goes to show that its not the stuff I don't know that causes problems, but the stuff that I think I know but is WRONG that causes problems.

 

[JungleIII]

Huh....

I had read the premise of the game, but didn't really get it in full... game over at 2760BC. Yes, the Kesheiks are kick but powerful and I LOVED it. My plan was to kill all the capitals and I was working my way through... without losing a single unit. Kept my first city over pop 1, which was Athens because it was a pop 3, and kept India also because it was 3, when I killed Pacal.... ...Game over.

I was assuming the Mongols had a city I hadn't yet found, and I was going to play the rest of the game out against them to build my empire with the three cities as my base. I didn't understand they didn't have a city

Good set up and a win is a win, especially compared to my crappy playing lately and my time restrictions... I have to often rush through games and this one just happened to work out for a win

 

[DynamicSpirit]

3. The mongol scout was visible from shore. Hinting there were more scouts out there.

When I explored, quite a few of the scouts were visible. But I suspect I was using a keshik with the +1 visibility promotion.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Mine was a space win around 1814AD.

I definitely enjoyed the unusual start. But after I'd captured Babylon and Athens and pillaged the Japanese and Persians, life settled down to a fairly normal game. Expanded east along the river to try to get from my capital Babylon into the lush lands at the east without hurting my economy that much. Around 500ADish took my macemen to war with Asoka because his culture was threatening a city and because he had the very lucrative Hindu shrine. He only had three cities so died rather quickly. I had been intending to conquer Shaka next. But I did an audit of happy resources (which I was rather short of) and realised that (1) I lacked gems, gold, wine and dyes, and (2) the only AI I could take all of them off was Cyrus. That was going to hurt quite a bit because Cyrus was responsible for most of my trade routes - he was the only large civ willing to give me open borders. But it had to be. The war went on quite a while because Cyrus's empire was large. By the end of it I had cannons and he was still only defending with archers. I like those kinds of odds .

With Cyrus reduced to a couple of cities and my happiness problems solved, I turned my attention to Tokugawa. I really didn't need more cities, but it was annoying looking at the globe-view map and not being able to tell my land from his because we were both different shades of red. What better reason do you need to go to war (plus he still only had archers and axemen. Did I mention I like cannon/archer odds....?) Then I discovered a great oddity of the Complete Kills setting: After I'd taken all his cities and he was only alive because of some unit somewhere that I couldn't be bothered to track down (turned out to be a worker), he was willing to capitulate! I got myself a vassal without any land! To celebrate I gifted Pericles (still alive despite my taking Athens back in the BC years) a technology. I think it was polytheism, might have been pottery

And Oh for AI stupidity. What was left of Cyrus was now basically completely surrounded by my culture. Without open borders he was trapped. I would gladly have given him open borders, not least because there was a lot of empty land in the mountains to the west only reachable via my land, and which I had no intention of colonizing so it would have been nice if someone else could remove barb annoyances by colonizing it. But no, Cyrus was furious with me so no open borders. Well, hurt him more than me...

After that it was basically cruising to a space win. The only blip was just a few turns before I launched my spaceship when I idly checked victory conditions. 60% land area for domination, I had 59.97%. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek! One more tile and it could have been an embarrassing wrong-type-of-victory. Lucky I checked when I did! I quickly gifted Hammurabi my smallest city. Since he hadn't had any city to call his own since about 3000 BC or so when I relieved him of Babylon, I imagine he would have been quite grateful! Besides, he should have been quite proud to see what I'd done with the place...

One thing I did notice. Most of the scouts that kcd_swede had put on the islands appeared to disband themselves over time - I guess the AI correctly figured that they couldn't do anything. The ones that didn't were the ones that belonged to AIs who had no cities and no other units. Which is quite sensible really!

By the way, I took good care of my keshiks and managed to keep all four of them alive right to the end of the game. I think that deserves an extra award, especially judging from all the reports here of keshiks being cruelly killed off

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I turned my attention to Tokugawa. I really didn't need more cities, but it was annoying looking at the globe-view map and not being able to tell my land from his because we were both different shades of red. What better reason do you need to go to war

I have that reaction too sometimes.

 

[greatbeyond]

It was a slight let down when I won by Conquest (I never thought I'd say that!) as I had just finished a Settler to settle across from the Mongol Scout on the Island so I could help him join the rest of the Mongol Horde.
As it was it looks like so far I'm only the 4th fastest. I guess a little bit of bad luck on my part and the Mongols as they didn't take any cities and I didn't even meet Cyrus until ~2680bc despite beating the bushes enthusiastically for him. I didn't raze any cities as I expected (as it appears KCD did) that the game would go much longer.

I only lost one Keshik and that was to Shaka as he decided to settle on a hill with a fortified Archer and a Warrior. Luckily I had moved 3 of my 4 Keshiks to make the assault so the loss of one at ~70% odds wasn't catastrophic.

Order of elimination: 3760 Babylon, 3640 Mutal, 3480 Delhi (I actually found Delhi first but waited for it to get to Pop2), 3320 Athens, 2880 Ulundi, 2840 Kyoto, 2480 Perseopolis.

Conquest win in 2440BC with a score of 55614.

Testing helped fine tune the mechanics of what I thought would be the early game (search and destroy) but I was still working on a strategy for getting the Scout or hidden city on the other islands if there was one. I was already planning the quickest trip to Astro I could get.

One thing testing did reveal was that attacking the Mongol Keshiks was very risky. In testing 8 of 8 attacks on an injured Mongol Keshik in the first two turns at odds of 85% to 90 % resulted in my Keshik losing every time. For that reason I left them alone until I killed one about 10 turns before the end at about 90% to 95% odds.

One oddity that I wonder if anyone else got was between turn 1 and turn 2 A Barb Warrior joined the Barb Spearman on the upper left moving away from the center. Perhaps he was there the whole time but I thought the Barbs were all supposed to be Spears. Later the remaining 4 Barb Spears and Warrior joined forces and roamed the land terrorizing anyone they could find. Luckily they stayed away from my cities.

It was a fantastic premise and a tip of the hat to KCD_Swede I feel bad for him that his evil plan didn't quite work out

 

[kcd_swede]

Testing helped fine tune the mechanics of what I thought would be the early game (search and destroy) but I was still working on a strategy for getting the Scout or hidden city on the other islands if there was one. I was already planning the quickest trip to Astro I could get.

...
It was a fantastic premise and a tip of the hat to KCD_Swede I feel bad for him that his evil plan didn't quite work out

I wish I had enough time to test the settings as much as you apparently did.

I am now determined to be more evil in my next map. This one wasn't even naughty. But it was fun to make, and am glad for the (mostly) pleased players.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I'm looking forward to seeing who manages the fastest conquest victory

 

[greatbeyond]

I went back and played a few times just for fun. With just adjusting the search pattern and Razing all but the last two cities I was able to finish by ~3200bc without just beelining for the known settling points. I didn't test how much time a quick beeline to the "known" AI cities locations would take.

Reading the premise of this contest made me wonder what tricks one could play with scripts or other modifications to the code. I've only used Worldbuilder with the regular settings, so I guess some studying would be in order. I did look in the Worldbuilder file but it doesn't seem to have anything that would have helped alter the game.

Some things that might have helped the game go as designed:
Ability to remove option to make peace with the Mongols. Now you can't make peace and leave your cities unprotected until new Barbs come along.
EDIT - It looks like you can add a line to the WBS file "PermanentMakeWarPeace=(Team number)
Remove option to make peace with any AI you DOW either permanent or a set period of time.
Don't let the AI disband it's units.
Continuing the game even though all other Civs are city less until the last wanderer is destroyed. Perhaps even allow an AI unit to create a city if it stays on one square long enough.
Make it so the AIs can pop Settlers from huts but not the Human.
In my tests I placed a Civ on a larger modified island to make the player build a city on the coast. I also made to variants one that required Astro and one that didn't