BOTM 60 Final Spoiler

[DynamicSpirit]

BOTM 60 Final Spoiler

So how did your game after 1AD go? Tell everyone and discuss in this thread, subject to...

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[nocho]

Finished this nearly a week ago so don't quite remember the details.

Anyway, my cats and LBs kind of quickly killed off the Chinese. Half his cities were so awful I had to raze them though. So when he was dead I had 8 more or less okay cities. Doubted a bit what VC to pursue, but settled for domination. Of course the thought of camel archers never even crossed my mind. So inevitably went towards cuirs. Found and settled the nice island to the west for the needed iron. Somehow thought astro was a better thing to take from lib than MT and didn't get MT until rather late (1350AD), even got beaten to Taj by Fred. Meanwhile Ragnar declared on Hatty and made her his vassal. Finally declared on both in 1520AD and had both killed by 1600AD. It occurred to me that I might milk the score with Sushi so got there and started spreading it. Declared on Napoleon who by far was the weakest link on the other continent. Tripped domination in 1685AD without Sushi having delivered it's full miliking potential. A modest 96k score IIRC. In conclusion, I'm way too slow to win quickly in xOTMs and too hasty for milking. Still had fun with it though, which obviously is the most important thing.

 

[Quintillus]

Prince is a bit above my difficulty level, so I wasn't surprised to lose. But it was fun.

I found Egypt early on and noticed the chokepoint. So I settled there and bottled Egypt up. However, as often happens for me in Civ4, I overexpanded, and my economy went belly-up. Cottage industries helped with time, but by 1795, I was still essentially a medieval country surrounded by industrial ones. Around 1500, the whole continent declared war on Egypt - China took Thebes, and the Vikings the one city past there. I culture-flipped Thebes from Egypt, gaining the Masoleum and Temple of Solomon, and thereby succeeding at securing Copper, the original objective.

I managed to pretty much catch up technologically by beelining Mass Media and then Fission, and trading, primarily with France and Germany. My one hope for victory, a Diplomatic one, was dashed when the Vikings finished the UN about 10 turns before I was due to finish it. I later got my only Wonder that I built myself, the Manhattan Project. This let me get nukes while otherwise being a second-world country with primarily muskets in my army. But the Vikings were on a clear path to Cultural Victory if someone didn't UN them first.

So in 1985 I declared a hopeless war on them, and nuked their 3rd Legendary city twice. This staved off defeat for two more turns (until 1988). W's suspicions also proved correct this time around as Baghdad's nuclear programme gave me a third nuke, used to assuage their flurry of nukes that hit nearly every city of mine except Baghdad.

The Byzantines vassalized Germany, and the Vikings liberated America on that island to the west after Egypt was defeated.

 

[Sleepless]

After getting my phants online was time to take out Qin who fell quite easily. I teched towards feudalism with Hattie in my sights as the next target For once the AI was clever and she peace vassaled to me. Mmm next target Ragnar. Must admit he turned out to be more of a problem than I was expecting though after 2 wars he become my second vassal. Realised after I still didn't have a source of iron so should have taken more of his cities.

Time to head overseas. Self teched astro had Hattie tech a few things for me like compass. As all I'd been doing for a long while was building units Fred and nap who only had a few cities fell easily before vassaling. Justinian had 12 cities. I'd just finished rifling and traded for MT with Fred whi I'd got to tech for me. Took one of justinians cities, threatened another before he capitulated as well. Was expecting a conquest victory but with justinians lands added to mine ended with a domination victory instead circa 1640ish. Edit. 1645

Thanks for the game.

 

[WelshGandalf]

Similar game to the wins so far. Crushed the Chinese and they capitulated. Their capital was an awesome site and became my heroic epic city. Took a while to get the war with the Egyptians going but go it did. I razed a jungle city and took their 2 peninsula cities and they gave up (I got a shrine and the great lighthouse out of it). Next, the Vikings. Man. That Ragnar does not give up easily. Their elephants and pikemen were a real hassle too vs my camel archers. I took over half his cities and my army was threadbare. I was about to throw everything I had at their capital, when he FINALLY capitulated. Jerk.

All this time my tech was pretty awful; I was rarely above 20% and spent a lot of time at 0% - representation from the Pyramids kept me teching to some degree. I was also lucky in that every single great person I had was a scientist, so I bulbed maths, astronomy x 2, Education, Chemistry, Physics & Biology.

So anyway, with that bulbed astronomy I began my overseas adventures. I decided to go for Justantin, as he was the biggest. Really, a smaller target would've been better. Their UU proved a bit of hassle (a str 12 knight) but numbers won the day - again he took an absolute age to capitulate despite being smashed around the place and I took two thirds of his cities before he gave up - he even there a city in as well, in 1620AD. In the 1500's a libbed communism, which really sorted out my economy and rifling was out in double-quick time.

I shipped some riflemen over but they really weren't needed - France and Germany both gave up after I took 1 city. Such weaklings compared to Ragnar/Justantin. If I knew they were going to give up so easily, I would've preapred an amphibious assuault on Germany rather than marching my troops through France.

I achieved my aim and got a 1690AD domination win (tripped same turn as conquest). Amused to find I got 20k more points than nocho's attempt at score-milking My base score was just over 5000 with a final score of 111k.

Much fun was had, apart from the Vikings and Justantin taking an AGE to capitulate grr. Also I was really unimpressed with the camel archers. the 15% withdrawal very rarely came in useful, and I had horses from the Chinese. Still, it was fun to tech a different way for a change. Bulbing Astronomy was very useful.

 

[Ambiorix]

A really nice game that seemed to be tailored towards Saladin, so I played it that way. I started with fishing and went as fast as possible for writing and alphabet. Then exchanged as many techs as possible and beelined for Optics to find the other civs.
I tried to grab as many land as possible before the Chinese did, which meant I had 4 cities at 25BC, three of them along the river that separated us from the Chinese.
Took down the Chinese with camel archers, which were surprisingly strong against the protective Chineze. Meanwhile Egypt had peace vasalised to me. Waited till cavalry to take the rest of the continent. Finally shipped infantry and tanks over to Justinian, who quickly capitulated too. Domination victory in 1880AD.
Just a few terms earlier, I had missed a diplomatic victory by about 30 votes (Egypt and Germany voted for me, France and Byzantine abstained).

I loved the opportunity to play a Camel gambit.

 

[LincolnOfRome]

It was a fun game. I research polytheism while I built warriors. I found the Chinese nearby and rushed them with six. It was much more than I needed. I converted my continent to Buddhism and went on to found all religions except for Hinduism. I left much room for Ragnar to expand. He overexpanded and fell behind technologically, although he was second to me in score. I built twelve cities and won a cultural victory in 1902. My three main cities had the largest religious building of five religions in them.

I wasted too much time building wonders and I could have turned up the cultural slider much sooner. I had copper and horses, but I never did get iron. The Hindus never did like me much and kept attacking me from overseas with frigates, cavalry, and cannon. My cities were all well defended with rifles by this time so they didn't take any cities.

 

[MarleysGh0st]

It was slow progress for me, following my 1 AD report. Hatty beat me to the GLH, but I built the Colossus, as I took the research path towards Guilds and my Camel Archers. I was getting ready to attack Mao, when in 1000 AD, Hatty volunteered to be his vassal! That worried me, but it shouldn't have. When I declared war in 1070 (bribing Ragnar to join my fight), China fell fairly quickly, being eliminated in 1515. Hatty immediately become my vassal after that.

I attacked Ragnar in 1705 and destroyed his empire by 1824. Frederik was next, attacked in 1836 and destroyed in 1866. War against Napoleon started in 1868 and ended with his capitulation in 1872. I was about to attack Justinian, but border pops pushed me over the limit for a Domination Victory and 64,735 points, in 1878.



To see what the difference would be between a Domination and Conquest victory score, I tried an unofficial replay from my attack on Frederick. This time, I accepted his capitulation as soon as he offered it, in 1844. That let me attack Napoleon in 1850 and vassalize him in 1860, then attack Justinian in 1864 and vassalize him in 1870 for an 1872 Conquest Victory and 74,306 points. It doesn't pay to crush each and every city when there are other targets for a blitzkrieg!

 

[keiselhorn13]

From 1ad, I continue spamming wonders... and thanks to popped copper I decided to build an army of axpults in 850ad attacked in 2 fronts, Beijing and northeast. Qin had just built Chichen Itza and Beijing was slow to bomb (7 catapults)... took 3 cities and made peace, lost too many axes and the war was draining my tech rate.

More wonder-building in-between, continent all buddha, about 1200ad declared a silly, unprepared 2nd war against Qin. I was tempted, he was weak, mostly archers and a few LBs... objective the tao holy city of Xian (near sugar+rice)... needed more religions for cultural and the AI was not spreading them. I was well prepared with cats+trebs, but weak on the muscle, and the war lingered, a waste of time... took 1 new founded city near gold+banana river and stopped that war...

Started prep for camel archer war (ultra late)... Ragnar who had already vassalised Hatty DOW'd Qin. I allied him, joined in the fray, still wanted Xian. Took 2 cities, was going for more, then it was over... new vassal for Ragnar... at least I got Xian

12 cities at this point, enough room, so I switched to cultural mode... original plan was Mecca (wonder-rich), Medina (near corn, good production) and Damascus (planned GP farm) to be legendary three. But Beijing's terrain was sooo nice and Qin was kind to leave all those untouched forests for me, so Beijing became #3.

Took ages to setup proper GP production... in the whole I reckon I produced only 6 GAs (music included)... the positive note: got instant Statue of Liberty in Beijing with 2 GEs...

No more wars, upgraded 25 camels to cavalry with fail gold, plus many rifles... oops, except for Napoleon who declared on me towards the end with a very "scary" invasion of 3 longbowmen against my rifles nothing else, bloody ridiculous... final result: 110gp + 4gpt and WM for telling me a bad joke.

Cultural victory 1862ad, around 30k score. I feel I could have done better. The unprepared war against Qin was a waste of time and teching... and gotta setup these artists farms faster... still learing the ropes on culture

I wasted too much time building wonders and I could have turned up the cultural slider much sooner.

In my game I felt 100% cultural slider make a small impact... when I turned it on, legendary #3 Beijing was making about 600 cpt, the slider barely added 100... I felt the GP farming artists had a better impact (with Sistine's).

 

[jesusin]

jesusin, contender. Goal: Fastest Cultural Victory. Result: Cultural Victory 1570AD.

After the failed Warrior rush, my game was a bad one.
At 1AD I had decided to take Hatty with HAs against her warriors, but when I arrived with 4 HA, she had Axe and 2 Archers in the capital. I failed and had to come back with a dozen units, to take her cities.

I used the Spiritual trait well, staying in Castes most of the time. With only 3 religions I didn't feel the urge to whip all my cathedrals, and I think that was good.

My Copper city up North failed to flip Ragnar's city on the Marble. So I used 2 of the three GE bad luck assigned me at low odds for Sistine's and Taj Mahal. This also took pressure off the hammer needs and helped staying more time under Castes.

1000AD Stats: 10 cities, 95 pop, 12 workers, 20units (8HA), 3 strategic resources, 5 luxury resources, 9 health resources, 6 great people, 4 world wonders, 2 national wonders, food/production/commerce=250-88-533, 174 sustainable beakers per turn, 201 culture per turn(useful), 190 great person points per turn, 0 gold. 3 religions. 0/0 cottages used, 32 Techs: Educ, Music, no MC, no Drama, no Feud. 1 civs killed. 11 hours played. reli/city, temples, caths== 25,12,1

Liberalism 1060AD, without a single cottage. Mercantilism 1240AD.
Sacrificed a GA in a 2-GP Golden Age; it served not only to recover the invested GA but to pop yet another one.


Victory 1570AD. Multipliers 3.5-4.5-3.5, Artist bombs 5-4-7, base cpt 150-150-130, 2GS Acad&Philo, 2GE Sistine's and TajMah, GM,GA & GE GoldenAge, GA unused, 16 GA bombed, total 24GP, 2 of them for free.

 

[LincolnOfRome]

Nice Job! 1570 is quite early!

 

[Jaybone]

well, I crushed the world under the weight of my camel archers, as I promised to do. Don't remember the exact date, mid 1600s I think. But I took out every civ with camel archers. I got dom and conquest on same turn, not sure which I triggered.

Nice UU.

 

[jesusin]

It's turn T37. I have 5 Warriors at distance2 from his capital, one at distance3. A Worker is offered, situated at distance2 of the capital. What would you do?

The obvious answer is: leave the Worker alone, move the furthest Warrior closer. Next turn, dow and move 6 Warriors in. The Worker, scared, will enter the capital. Next turn, attack with 6 Warriors, take the capital and the Worker.

However I thought taking the Worker couldn't hurt. So on the first turn I moved the furthest Warrior closer, I dowed and I took the Worker. Qin whipped the Worker he was building. Next turn, I approached the capital with all Warriors... and Qin finished an Axe with the overflow from the Worker. Next turn I couldn't attack and my game was crippled.

That's how my warrior rush failed. My game, form then on was a miserable one.

Oh how I wish I had been smarter in my Warrior rush. Qin's gold would have allowed a good sling. Also, the surviving warriors would have found Hatty, and I could have taken her with one or two Axes, instead of having to wait for HAs. My game would have been really different indeed!

I tried a second game, this one ignoring the Worker and attacking with all forces. I took Qin's capital and made it one of the Legendary cities.

Played with much interest or attention to detail. For example, waited for Ragnar to trade IW at friendly... and that happened 1000AD! I never worked the gems!

Won a cultural victory 1350AD, a good 30 turns better than the official game.

 

[MeowZeDung]

1850 Domination. Weak, considering this was Prince

 

[WastinTime]

It was a fun game. I research polytheism while I built warriors. I found the Chinese nearby and rushed them with six. It was much more than I needed.

My whole plan from the start was to rush someone, but I could not have done it with only 6. I used 10 warriors. Sure was nice having that 2nd capital!

 

[WastinTime]

540 AD religious victory, challenger.

Pretty easy after killing Qin, and having shared religion/civics w/ Hatty and Ragnar. It was just a race to Optics (used a GS to bulb). Luckily, no one overseas refused to open borders.

 

[cas]

My whole plan from the start was to rush someone, but I could not have done it with only 6. I used 10 warriors. Sure was nice having that 2nd capital!

I rushed Qin with 3 warriors and only needed one promoted with CR1 from barb animals. Tough little bugger.

But then I completely passed by Hatty thinking she was further north or I would have been able to rush her too and make her capital my 3rd legendary.

cas

 

[WastinTime]

I rushed Qin with 3 warriors and only needed one promoted with CR1 from barb animals. Tough little bugger.

But then I completely passed by Hatty thinking she was further north or I would have been able to rush her too and make her capital my 3rd legendary.

cas

Nice. I guess you got him before archery then? I had to spend some time finding a capital location.

 

[cas]

Nice. I guess you got him before archery then? I had to spend some time finding a capital location.

yep, found him fast...which was balanced out by missing Hatty. Qin had one warrior defender, and a worker. He might have researched archery (can't remember) but didn't have time to build an archer.

Timing + luck is everything on the warrior rushes.

cas

 

[Htadus]

I had a quite a typical absent minded game.

Settled closed to China and captured capital by T25. Expanded to 6 more cities while doing the CS sling. After that everything was a blur it seem and with some silly decisions.

Wanted to do a no cap conquest while milking the score. So after two wars to reduce both remaining locals to 2 and 4 cites, expanded to about 14 cities. Delayed Astro until lerning GP and Liberating MT just to work 20 water tiles to keep the Colossus bonus active. Once I got MT I realized my old habit of not building swords had a negative consequence; never secured the second iron on the continent. So no Cuirassier for Arabia. So it was time to finish Ragnar to get Iron and hatty while at it. So right after Liberalism, we finished Astro and built a bunch of Galleons and did a simultaneous navel attack that captured Hatties 3 cities in just as many turns to focus on Rags. Actually did not get to keep her island city since it auto razed. Rags cities fell fast and by this time we had Rifling; my tech path was so atrocious in this game and lacked any true focus. So anyways, 3 down and 3 to go.

Next it was over to other continent for some navel warfare. But there was a little problem. Germany had built the AP under Buddhism and the whole place was in Buddah love fest. So the chance of loosing the game to AP crap was very real. The first thought was to raze the AI city. But the problem is that I am a builder and do not want to raze cities let alone destroy any wonder city. My alternative option was to blitz Germany and then start taking cities from the other two to reduce the voting power and if it seem that things are getting really close, then convert to Buddhism.

So the war started and I used french culture boundary to attack the northern German city with slow units while 2 other armies attack 2 coastal cities. Within 2 turns Fred is redy to cap. But that was not the plan so take 3-4 more turns eliminate Germany. 4 down and 2 to go. Just about then the vote came up and Justy won the AP and the timer is on. 9 turns to reduce the combined AP votes from 330 to something below 306 needed to win the AP for him. Arabia had 78 votes from former German cities.

Again used French cities to launch a war against his friend. Landed Calvary units in 2 french cities and Dowed and captured first Byzantine city. IBT Justy wiped out my unprotected Airships working from a french city. What was I thinking. Next turn took another Byzantine city and DoWed the French. Took the first french city via the troops parked in the first captured Byzantine city . The second french city was mainly defended by the 2 Catephracts that killed the Airships but it fell too. So in 2 turns the Arab forces captured 4 cities. First objective met. AP vote needed to win AP Diplo is 279 voted and the two AI had 260. Phew.

After capturing 4 more cities of each AI, they were both ready to Capitulate and it is getting late. Also the Arab land area was getting too close to 64%. So I chickened out and ended the game in 1710 AD with a conquest. I was hoping to break 200k points without Sushi but missed it y about 19k points. So it was a neither here nor there game. But had fun with it. Oh yeah I ran 5 or 6 GA's and one of them was a Quest. The funny thing is that I almost missed it since I thought the requirement was to build 7 theaters. It turned out I needed Colosseum. Oh well. I am glad this was not a higher level but was nice to get a free GA from random events. It was better than what Rags got early in the game. 4 Spearman.