BOTM 61 -- Final Spoiler

[kcd_swede]

BOTM 61 Final Spoiler

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in BOTM 61 (Mary Chrismiss and the Ice Queen), then you MUST NOT read this thread unless

• you have submitted your entry OR
• you will not submit your game

Posting Restrictions

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

..........................................

How'd it go for you? (Please remember this is a family-friendly forum)
Any freaky unexpected shtuff happen???

Did you enjoy?

Are you really ticked off at the mapmaker for something or other (that is surely your own fault anyhow )?

 

[MeowZeDung]

1892 Conquest, Contender class

Well, that was interesting. I thought I would do much better, and I didn't have any real problems per se. The factors that slowed me way down (apart from my own lack of skill) were the mapscript and no vassal states option. I probably should have expanded and teched more after my first war instead of sloooooooooowly crossing the map with galleys. Went something like this:

-Killed Joao with galleys, axes, and cats
-Partially killed Gilgamesh with the same
-Then Victoria with maces, trebs, and knights. Oddly enough, the Ice Queen was my easiest conquest other than Stalin near the end.
-Removed Kublai from the Ice Queen continent with the same, then took peace
-Finished Gilgamesh with the same
-Napoleon killed with Currs -> Rifles/Cavs/Frigates
-Stalin with the same, except now I had destroyers and cannon
-Kublai with the same

Takeaways and strange occurrences:

-I need to be more focused with my war mongering. I should not have crossed the map such great distances with galleys and instead focused on the closer enemy as the galley sails (ie: Stalin instead of Gilgamesh) As a result the early wars were far too long.
-I profoundly dislike naval games like this It becomes more bearable once you have frigates and seige from the coast.
-London had about 12323058450982148 wonders when I took it.
-York had four shrines, and I built a fifth there later. A holy, holy, holy, holy, holy city! A different English city was the Islam HC, so all except Tao were English
-Stalin only settled one city besides his capital until I was a turn away from killing him and he panic settled an island town. Weird.
-Probably couldn't have handled this on Emperor

Thanks to the mapmaker! Fun and insightful game.

 

[SilentWatcher]

Well.. First off, Much love KCD you do it differently and put a bit more effort in . But sometimes your a git. Monarch is about my favourite level, I can normally beat it, emperor sometimes. Wont be submitting this time tho. By 1 ad was doing OK, had tech lead on most had a few galleys out exploring but couldnt find anywhere I really wanted to settle. Found the iron and put a dead city in the desert to mine it figuring "Oh well maoi will sort that out" Built an army of gallic warriors and cats and enough galleys to move them in one hit to launch a shock and awe attack on tomte of sumeria. The cheeky bugger had settled on MY land mass and had quite a nice city (Eridu) that would fit nicely within my cultural borders. walked to first city and took it easily. Sat back and had a smoke while I plotted his downfall. loaded cats into galleys and waited for my infantry to heal. Loaded them into galleys and then sent out the task force. Forgot one important thing though. After loading troops onto transports their turn ends. So I directed my galleys to land and the cats got off the boats but the infantry didnt. Hi Tomte have some fish in a barrel. After that came slaughter and a reload. (obviously your fault and nothing to do with my tobacco). continued with game despite and eventually took out most of tomte. Next place to expand was into Saint Nick (ooh Err!) By this point I had a massive tech lead (apart from the ice queen) and felt good about the future. Space race would probably be mine (I like the late game). With only two properly productive cities that could turn out troops in 2-3 turns I waited patiently to build an unbeatable army. Attacked St Nick and walked the land battle but struggled with his ship o the lines against my frigates, but still took what I wanted until he bought in the Russians against me, I was struggling against -6 "we want emancipation" when his destroyers laughed in the general direction of my frigates. Kinda game over from that point. I will play it to the death when Ive stopped crying. Just not right now. Still love you but, Actually no I don't your cruel.

 

[SilentWatcher]

PS. here is my favourite civ mod. Blue marble was the nasa photograph of the earth taken from the moon. this mod updates the graphics massively to reflect the way the earth looks from orbit. And it makes the menus look like liquid gold rather than boring blue. Obviously a whole new game!
http://www.civfanatics.net/bluemarble/content/index.php

 

[MarleysGh0st]

The Ice Queen founded all of the religions, but they spread pretty quickly and most of the AI soon converted to Hinduism, as did I. In 600 AD, the Ice Queen elects herself to head the AP with 112 votes, while everyone else votes for me, with a total of 96 votes. Hmmm, with some more peaceful expansion, I might win a religious victory!

In 1200, I nearly do it, with 250 of 339 votes, only 4 short of a victory! Russia and France abstained in that vote; either currying more favor with them or expanding my own cities more rapidly would have given me this early victory. But in the meantime, I've closed the tech gap with the Ice Queen--even leading her in some techs--and she's still been completely peaceful.

The Littlest Elf attacks Saint Nick in 1330, then ends the war in 1440 with no cities changing hands. Then the Littlest Elf goes to war against the Ice Queen in 1515, even managing to raze a city without being crushed in return! Why is the Ice Queen holding back???

But the Ice Queen is expanding. The AP vote in 1550 only gives me 342 of 516 votes; even with the votes of Russia and France (who still abstain) I won't be able to win. I decide I have to capture some English cities if I want a religious victory.

In 1605 I declare war against the Ice Queen, bribing Kris Kringle to join me (and the Elf, whose ongoing war seems to have become a stalemate). I capture York (on the rich little island to the west of London) in 1615 and, oh, how rich it is! 18 wonders!!!

The war continues fairly smoothly from there. The Ice Queen had a lot of frigates, at first, but I can match them, and later outmatch them with destroyers. Russia joins the war and captures Dover, I capture all the rest and destroy the Ice Queen in 1822.

But what of my goal? Since York had the AP, other candidates were now up against me in the votes, first St. Nick and then "Your head would look good on a pike". And only the Elf is voting for me!

All of the remaining AI except "Your head" have switched to Free Religion, so I decide he needs to lose some votes. I declare war against Russia in 1830 and capture two of his Hindu cities, Dover and Yakutsk. The next AP vote comes up and this time I have enough: Religious victory in 1842 with 510 out of 675 votes, 5 more than I needed for victory. 504 of those were my own votes, 6 came from my new best friend, the Littlest Elf.

I'm still shocked at the course that the game took. Did you adjust some game setting, kcd, that stunted the Ice Queen's research (after her initial gifts) and gave her all the aggressiveness of Gandhi? Or was this a natural result of five friendly countries being able to catch up to one unfriendly one, which was busy becoming a textbook example of the dangers of going wonder-crazy?

 

[srad]

Oh boy, was I reliefed when I saw the victory screen .... please, please never ever again tick this 'no vassals' checkbox when setting up a game ... it was sooooo tedious.

Ok, the game:

Astronomy in 740.
Military Tradition in 1140.

Around 425AD I attacked Joao with Maces/Cats and took three of his cities. After I got Astro/MT I whipped an army and crushed The Ice Queen.
From then on it was one error after the other. What a bloody war - lost so many Curiassiers and instead of teching directly to steel (Frigates, Cannons) I went for other not so useful techs.

In 1640 I found the Mongols last city in the Southeast corner of the map. Game over.

Spoiler :

 

[MeowZeDung]

Astronomy in 740.

I... I don't even... wha... how?

edit: I'll be more specific. I think my personal best lib date is like 900AD. I find it so nuts that you guys get this super early lib dates. Of course I'm assuming that you could only get astro this early from lib... right?

 

[srad]

Here is my tech tree at 760AD:

Spoiler :

I did not lib it because this would take way more time - Paper, Education would be necessary.
I wanted to have Astro early for faster shipments so I decided not to take the Paper, Education route that might make sense as I also wanted to have Military Tradition - but to reach Gunpowder I went via Guilds.

Actually I wasn't the first to Liberalism ... but I didn't care ... the game was won long before.


One additional comment: I normally don't research Education nor Paper if I go for a military victory using Cuirassiers because I think the investment in Oxford will not pay pack in the 'short' time.

 

[MeowZeDung]

I am just unsure of how you and some HoFers on this site manage that kind of tech rate so early in the game. I am nowhere near the point where I could get astro in 740AD... with Boudica... on an Archipelago map. It just seems so crazy to me Maybe I'm just terrible at tech trades? It seems that trading is where you get the most return on investment in Civ IV beaker wise.

 

[nocho]

Conquest in 1695. Fun game, if a bit tedious at the end.

My first real target was the Ice Queen, after I managed to have a look at York and noticed its awesomeness. Got OB after the Ice Queen urged me to become jew which I did, when I got a fair trade bonus and voted for her in the AP. That was enough to offset the initial -9 diplo.

However, I needed iron so I had to declare on Joao who had settled the iron just west of us. Used the ocasion to get a level 4 unit for HE. It took a while to get a decent army together of maces and trebs, but they went rather smoothly through England, if a bit late (didn't declare until 1100AD). Meanwhile had gotten astro in 880 AD and MT wasn't far off after I declared. Anyway, York was a tremendous prize, home to 4 religions with its 3 shrines, 4 settled great people and no less than 11 world wonders! Bank, market and grocer survived so when it came out of revolt it was an instant whopping +135 gold per turn.

From there it was just cleaning up, first the rest of the Ice Queen, who hardly expanded by the way. She had just 6 cties IIRC. France was quickly dispatched with. Meanwhile Portugal had grown to no less than 15 cities and was still pissed with me after our earlier little war. However, he was also a paper threat. Halfway Portugal also started on Sumeria with a second invasion force and finally also cleared Russia and Mongolia by the end of the 17th century.

Interesting what srad mentiones about not going paper and edu. I did and all in all came 11 turns later, so that might have to do with it, apart from innate qualities of course. Maybe I could've declared on somebody sooner as well, but I got obsessed with getting the Ice Queen out of the way first.

 

[Nicol.Bolas]

Time Loss to ice queen

I did all the wrong decisions at start - I went at Stalin first with galleys, cats and swords.
After eliminating him, I have fallen behind in tech horribly.
I have started against Jao´s main island with leftover cats and swords and took the three cities, however the last city I was fighting with swords against rifles.
I would have been able to conquer him, but by then my galley supply lines were rampaged by frigates.
I tried to re consolidate a bit, but when I got frigates, Jao got destroyers...

I should have lost by conquest, but I wasn´t navally invaded even once, how is that possible?, although Jao send naval blockades and even operation carriers against me?

 

[Fluffy_Rabbit]

Wow very tough and fun map, quite unlike what I am used to - thank you kcd

Anyway, took the Challenger variant - like other players rushed Portugal first, eliminated Saint Nick after two brief wars - using a stack of just Gallic Swordsmen with one spear, I think it was pre-construction so no catapults. Razed the horrible city on the corn (later settled on the coastal desert to catch it), kept the rest, though I might have razed Evora (in far SW) had I noticed it was on iron. Got a bunch of 3CR units which eventually became my core infantry in the late game.

Sumeria declared a couple of time - I gained the two cities on the thin Easterly island and in the second war I gained the iron desert island to NW. However I had no ambitions towards that AI, because England was obviously going to win in the absence of some aggression . . .

Russia and England were at war and I joined in, took York first - war continued almost to end of games when all English mainland cities had been captured by me. I was horribly behind in tech - England had mech infantry, radar artillery, modern armour, even stealth bombers. I was attacking with a big stack of cannon, infantry, machine guns, anti-tanks. As the war progressed and my tech advanced, my new units were mainly paratroopers and artillery - more than enough to finish the job.

One thing I noticed for the first time: having a stack of units with at least four promotions each is worth an era of technology. All of my WWII units had loads of XP and were eating the advanced English units. I had stacked York with SAM infantry (I had quite a few airports) which ate the entire English air-force - also the eight or ten fortified destroyers helped - the SAMs ended up with at least seven promotions each and I got a bunch of Generals.

I was careful to keep 1 GE and 1 GM and founded Mining Inc and Sid's Sushi. Because of the low production, most GGs made Military Academies - had at least 6 in the end. Had one GG unit, 3CR infantry. UN vote went Environmentalism (and no amount of re-votes would change it) and having MI and SS everwhere was terrible for my economy - improved after expanding abroad to Russia.

In late game I completely ignored the Space Race, reckoning no-one would have enough production to win it - pretty much put everything into military effort v England and keeping my economy going.

With MI and Mil Academies everywhere I could have invaded everyone - too much like hard work though

Final result: time victory at 2050, score 6205 for a Louis XVI - pretty lame compared with the better players, however I was very happy to win

 

[kcd_swede]

Well.. First off, Much love KCD you do it differently and put a bit more effort in . But sometimes your a git. Still love you but, Actually no I don't your cruel.

Meryy Christmas. And yes, sometimes I am a git... can't help myself.

 

[kcd_swede]

I'm still shocked at the course that the game took. Did you adjust some game setting, kcd, that stunted the Ice Queen's research (after her initial gifts) and gave her all the aggressiveness of Gandhi? Or was this a natural result of five friendly countries being able to catch up to one unfriendly one, which was busy becoming a textbook example of the dangers of going wonder-crazy?

The latter. It kind of shocked me during testing as well. But since its the holidays, I thought that for the fans of BOTM's a scare would be better than a slaughter. Unless they were doing the slaughtering.

 

[Ronnie1]

I accidentally voted for someone else to win Religious Victory. Ooops....

 

[keiselhorn13]

I also thought this one was a tough game, but I enjoyed the challenge of the archipelago... good city placement was crucial for success though. After coming from a resource-rich start at GOTM85, it was a shock to system, but I guess different scenarios and how to manage them is one of the great things of the xOTMs, so thanks for the game, kcd.

At 1ad no wonders at all and assorted religions in my cities. Behind in tech, but building military.

My choice of first victim was St Nick (aka Joao), I thought was a preety obvious one, he is a very pesky city spammer and was the closest. It was tempting to try something against the Ice Queen but with my poor invasion skills I felt would be a waste of time.

Conquered Portugal in 2 sucessive wars. Lisbon fell 880ad, Joao defeated around the 1200s. Then what to do next... I didn't really know! I considered conquering Stalin (you should have named him "The Grinch" or "Jack Frost" ) but the galley transport was painfully slow and inneficient...

I decided to grow some muscle first. Yes, Stalin and all others were quite weak. But I was behind in tech and losing money (at one point I was forced to tech at 0-10% with small cities and big army) so I expanded and grew around Joao's land, my own area and the west coast of Ice Queen's land. Reached 23 cities by game's end, either my ones or the 5 from Joao.

Noticing the relationship trends in the game, and not in the mood for a looong conquest game I decided to try for religious. Never done it, but thought it would be possible in this situation. Ice Queen was hindu, so I chose to spread hinduism all over my land to score the AP hammer bonus (extremely useful in this map).

First Kris Kringle and later Stalin went hindu by choice, then the Ice Queen did me a great favour: switched to free religion, losing the hindu diplo bonus and giving me an advantage. The AP was obviously controlled by the Ice Queen until the mid-1500ad when I got myself voted to run the elections. By then the Little Elf also converted thus enabling religious victory.

First big election 1560ad. I had Kris Kringle's and Tomte's votes in the bag, but was unsure whether would win... have a look at the result:

Spoiler 1st election :

Same trouble as MarleyGhost, 3 votes away from victory! Less than 1%... I would have screamed NOOOOOO, but at 3am that wouldn't be a wise move with my sleeping, civ-hating wife.

I had 8 turns for the next election, so renewed missionary effort, city growth and conversion of Tomte to hinduism maybe would do the trick:

Spoiler 2nd election :

Diplo games with me a such a thrill!

Religious victory 1615ad, score 60880. Very happy with result because it's my first religious ever.

 

[kcd_swede]

.

Good job! Congrats on your first Religious victory-

 

[euripides]

Got domination at 1660AD 155k points
I decided for dom with settling MANY icelands all over the place for the land. However I think conquest could have been like 100 years faster...

I went for astro first like srad and then straight to engineering. From my 12 cities I conquered a completely unprepared Icequeen (only LBs, maybe 2 or 3 maces 1 knight) with maces trebs crossbows and galleons around 1200AD. However her cities were wonderful I took tech and then killed her off 1370AD. Inbetween I took Paris (the little elf played occ with 1 settler standing around???) and then kris kringle out, then settled the main island.

I nearly missed out on iron, just took the spot SE of saint nicks´ main island. But I think this wouldn´t have changed the game, because for the icequeen I technically didn´t need iron, later I had multiple sources conquered.

All the while I teched to frigates, grens and cannons without libbing. Now with vassals this would be game over in like 10 turns, but here I had to settle or conquer evrything. So I took my idle troops and attacked giggles & stalin at the same time while settling icelands (several galleons with 3 settlers leaving port). Thank god i had the GLH, so the economy was fine all the time.
After Stalins demise i crushed saint nick, who was expanding happily (19 cities, but most with only 2-3 LBs inside).
When crossing the finish line I had 81 cities, saint nick maybe 10, all the others were dead. So had I not bothered with hardcore settling inbetween, my gren + cannon fleets could have secured conquest way earlier.
Still a win is a win, thanks for the game kcd

 

[vranasm]

fantastic game kdc...

but having to finish game with 67 cities for conquest was a bit too tedious, especially on water map

nothing spectacular from me... 1870 conquest, but boy it was such great game.

built GLH and then just wared all the time. first victim was galleys+axes, the next axes+cats etc.

biggest problem was Queen obviously which I used Grenadiers with trebs, finishing with cannons+Grens... actually it was great lesson about Grens, since they proved to be spectacular...especially those CR 3 upgraded maces totally stomped longbows.

around 1500 AD I really had my doubts I will win since Queen had like 14 cities and great tech edge over me... but that somehow motivated me to play further even on water map. luckilly AI's on water maps tend to have big troubles to form stacks.

 

[kcd_swede]

fantastic game kdc...

but having to finish game with 67 cities for conquest was a bit too tedious, especially on water map.

Glad you enjoyed the game! I agree about the games getting tedious when number of cities gets humongous and the outcome becomes certain. I maybe should have joined together more of the islands in the middle of the map than I did.