BOTM 61 -- Final Spoiler

[mr_jigs]

This is the first time I've submitted a Game of the Month.
I used the Adventurer save and got the freebie fisherman.

In games I've played before I have not hesitated to save/reload when something didn't go how I liked. I decided I would just play this game through, win or lose, and I did.

Events from my game:
2880 BC - found 2nd city
2120 BC - adopt slavery - I used it frequently for nearly 4000 years until I adopted emancipation in 1795.
1880 BC - found 3rd city
1760 BC - complete Stonehenge
1600 BC - convert to hinduism when it spreads to one of my cities. It seemed that every civ had picked a different religion in this game...
125 AD - built colossus
720 AD - declare war on Saint Nick (portugal) with swords and catas
use first great general as a military advisor
800 AD - capture first city
900 AD - capture second
980 AD - adopt hereditary rule
1210 AD - I make peace with saint nick when he has 1 city left... I get a tech in process
1220 AD - ice queen gets liberalism - this was the turn I was going to start researching it
1250 AD - I declare war on ice queen when requested by ally. I don't really consider attacking with my swords against her maces.
1320 AD - I declare war again on saint nick, 1330 I finish him
1490 AD - I adopt free market
1725 AD - first golden age
1750 AD - declare war on little elf
1765 AD - I complete pentagon
1775 AD - I make peace with ice queen - neither of us attacked the other during our 500 year war
1795 AD - Emancipation and Theocracy
1856 AD - I capture little elf city
1876 AD - I have nearly wiped out the little elf, then I make peace
1878 AD - I complete Cristo Redento
1882 AD - I complete Eiffel Tower
1898 AD - war on russia
1898 AD - little elf declares war on me, blockades paris
1900 AD - I complete rock and roll
1905 AD - russians are destroyed
1917 AD - I sign defensive pac with mongolians
1930 AD - I declare war on ice queen
1947 AD - ice queen is destroyed
1983 AD - launch space ship
1993 AD - ship lands, my score is 5723 and adjusted score is 16207. Time played 32 hours. Wow.

Some observations -
Since I was going to play this game without reloading, I made sure to have overwhelming military superiority when I went to war. I had no struggle in any of the wars and in retro perhaps I should have started some of them sooner.

Taking down Saint Nick helped propel my science forward so that I was able to eventually get ahead of everyone else on tech (trading techs helped too) except the ice queen. I even got ahead of the ice queen in a couple of tech branches. At one point she offered me 1700 gold for a military tech and I took it since that was a lot of gold then.

I went to war with the littlest elf (france... poor napoleon) next, as he was being aggressive and was far behind in tech. Strategically this wasn't the best opponent because his cities (except Paris and the two cities on the NE part of the continent) were swallowed by the ice queens culture. After taking his cities over I gave them to the ice queen since I didn't want to pay the maintenance for cities that would never work any tiles. Unfortunately I had to delete the military units I had in them since I couldn't get them out of the ice queens territory. This was a mistake.

Russia fell very quickly but was on the other side of the board, so that was costly in time, going back and forth. While I was wiping Russia out, napoleon redeclared war and I them moved my army back over to finish him off once and for all.

I was a bit worried going to war against the ice queen. Since the summerian was my friend, I had my entire army parked in his capital city and could reach 4 different english cities from that city with my bombers. I had tanks, marines, carriers and bombers. She had mechanized infantry. After I declared war, I captured the first city easily. My fear was that my bombers would be negated by the sam infantry, mechanized infantry, and fighters. Despite the ice queen's advantadge in military power, my tactics must have been superior as I lost almost no units in my rapid war on the ice queen. It seems she lost all her bombers attacking the first city I captured with all the destroyers and 2 loaded carriers I had parked in the city. I got modern armor a couple turns after taking the ice queens first city and upgraded several tanks into fully unstoppable units. Wow. York. Wow.

After wiping the ice queen out I decided the fastest way to win (playing time wise) would just be to win the space race. By the time I landed on Alpha Centauri I had 5 future techs.

One advantage of naval wars - being able to keep units loaded on transport and with the amphibious upgrade, attack from transports, and use destroyers to knock down city defenses. Even tanks with the city 3 upgrade were pretty effective without the amphibious upgrade. It seems my units healed themselves parked on transports even while I moved the transports around. Even with the AI improvements for naval battles in BTS, I think the AI is still easily outmatched here as long as you have same era ships.

And yeah, getting Astromony in 740 AD sounds pretty amazing. I checked that point in my game and I was researching Horseback Riding. Clicking on Astronomy, it shows my research path at that point is: Calendar, Machinery, Compass, Optics, Astronomy, all with many turns. I was only at 40% research, paying a penalty at that point for my army with is about to descend on Saint Nick. I do have the colossus helping a little... but my research beakers were really sad in this game, especially early game. So hearing about what strategy was pursued to get Astronomy so soon would be cool.

I would have loved to build the great lighthouse, I don't recall if I didn't make it a priority or just got beat to it. When I finally found moscow (where it was built) I think it was the best city in the game for production, which is where the great lighthouse was built.

 

[kcd_swede]

This is the first time I've submitted a Game of the Month.

Welcome to the club! Congratulations on the victory and thank you for the write-up.

I haven't checked how it was done here, but the most usual way to get to astronomy as soon as possible is to use great scientists to bulb it. That takes some planning to make sure the great scientist won't be able to bulb philo/edu line before you enable astronomy.

Like most things in the ame, the earlier you establish your goals the better.

 

[neilmeister]

I was chasing gold on this game.

Sushi domination, for just over 200k. Score was still growing, but I miscalculated and just tripped domination. York got Wall St, sushi & mining inc, along with all the shrines, and was contributing ~1500 gpt at the end.

Micro managing 100 cities to stop going into strike was annoying in the extreme, especially as everytime they grew, all my sea tiles would be reassigned to 'citizens', not even specialists.

 

[Ronnie1]

I was chasing gold on this game.

Sushi domination, for just over 200k. Score was still growing, but I miscalculated and just tripped domination. York got Wall St, sushi & mining inc, along with all the shrines, and was contributing ~1500 gpt at the end.

Micro managing 100 cities to stop going into strike was annoying in the extreme, especially as everytime they grew, all my sea tiles would be reassigned to 'citizens', not even specialists.

Thank you BUFFY creators for the "City Detail" screen!

 

[jesusin]

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.

I couldn't find information about your own game. Here is my wild guess:

Your game and srad's game had different decisions taken in the first 10-20 turns of the game. These differences looked small back then, but they went a long way to get very different results.

 

[MeowZeDung]

I couldn't find information about your own game. Here is my wild guess:

Your game and srad's game had different decisions taken in the first 10-20 turns of the game. These differences looked small back then, but they went a long way to get very different results.

Would you be willing to elaborate? My first 10-20 turns in a typical game consist of building a worker and scouting around the capital for city sites.

 

[jesusin]

Would you be willing to elaborate? My first 10-20 turns in a typical game consist of building a worker and scouting around the capital for city sites.

Well, I can't elaborate much more without knowing your decisions in those critical turns.

In this particular game I didn't find my decisions in the first turns were obvious at all.

What about ignoring the Corn, building Workboats and so not building a Worker for a long time? Is there a beeline I'd like to do, in which skipping Agriculture would be of use?

What about building a Warrior for extra exploration while waiting for Fishing to be researched? Or is it better to do half a Worker those turns?

What size should I start working on a Settler? There are many good tiles in this start, so it is not clear at all when it is more beneficial to grow and work one additional improved tile or when it is better to settle a new city.

If building a Worker... Agriculture before BW or the opposite?

And above all, why am I taking each decision, is it all coherent with my longterm plans?

 

[vranasm]

actually i settled on the corn because I felt the dry corn is kinda meh tile.

when you discuss difference by 200 years though I feel that there were many more mistakes on the way then just first 20 turns.

In my example I would say the decision to wait too long to attack Ice Queen as the main one, which is closely tied to very bad scouting even if I knew I met almost all AI's (and the queen specially) in first like 50 turns...

I wared in this sense in wrong direction since main number of AI's was east and I went west/north west.

I really hesitate too much with waring even if from the description it seemed like I warred nonstop, it's only partially true... I did all the wars, but should have milked the military more probably... and what is even worse except for the first war which I think I did very optimal whip cycles I did very bad with organizing galleys, axes and whipping them...

that costed me better finish for sure.

edit:
and to add insult to injury I thought for first 120 turns I have to hunt the circumnavigation bonus on flat map type... yeah ;-)

 

[jesusin]

jesusin, contender. Goal: Fastest Cultural victory. Result: 1570AD cultural victory.

My game consisted on 4 definite stages.

Development (described on the first spoiler, with a mistake in city placing and a very good return from Alphabet).

War: I dowed IceQueen 75AD with Garlic Warriors and Cats. She had longbows. I took York and all of its wonders 3 turns later. I could have taken it sooner, but I judged that another unit wouldn't be of much use since it was going to be very much harmed after my Cats assault, so I bombarded down the defenses before attacking.
Then took another city, and London. My 3 Legendary would be my capital, York and London.
Seeing the war was won, I started on Parthenon, but failed. That hurt.

Whipping: Having concentrated on the war effort, I had not worked on infrastructure, missionaries, temples or cathedrals. I stayed in slavery and OR up to 1130AD.
I whipped missionaries and temples non-stop.
Liberalism for Nationalism 820AD (my second GP was a merchant from York, it was burnt in a GoldanAge to revolt to FS and a religion). The capital took forever to build Sistine's without Marble. NE in capital. Hermitage in capital.

Nurturing GPs: With TajMahal I finally revolted to Castes+Pacifism+Mercantilism. My 3 Legendary cities were a sad thing to see, with pop4, pop5 and pop5. But hey!, they had 5 cathedrals each and were working on the sixth.
Careful planning demonstrates that no single-fish city (and I have 6 of those) is going to be able to pop a GA
I starve one of them and delay other cities, to get an additional GA. A Merchant joins the capital, another useless GP from York launchs my third GoldenAge together with Economy's GM.
AP built in Moai city.


Cultural victory 1570AD. Multipliers 6-5-5, bombs 1-4-5, total GPS:15. Total culture in around 1500AD: 1000cpt-800cpt-700cpt.





A rule I'd like to change.
When a tech (say Scientific Method) obsoletes a building (say Monastery), the building loses its properties (no more 10% extra research) but keeps its culture. Right?
Wrong. When I traded for Scientific Method my monasteries kept their base 2cpt, but they lost the 5cpt from Sistine's. This cost me one turn. The way it works doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

 

[jesusin]

I hated to see what poor AI was doing this game.

Several AIs had a Settler on a convenient spot but took centuries to actually settle the city. I guess there is a glitch in the code. It might be related to the no-barbs setting.

The fact is that AI was wise enough to get the Settler there without military escort. But then, something kept it from actually settling the city.

It's obviously the fault of kcd_swede


I loved the difficult start, thank you for another very fun game!

 

[greatbeyond]

Diplomatic victory 1949AD

A very interesting setup. Once the entire map was revealed I couldn't believe how many small islands there were. It seemed unusual after having done a lot of map testing.

Mining, BW, Fishing, Sailing, look at the chance for an Oracle slingshot only to find it was built very early, so I go for the Colossus and then try to sprint to Optics. After that it is a sprint to Chemistry to get Privateers who turn out to be too little too late, as it seems everyone has Frigates. Then it is the direct route to Mass Media.

Anyway, 3 cities on the main island and as soon as I could get Galleys and Axeman built it was off to the races. The first Civ I spotted was Russia, a city about halfway between his capitol and mine. I politely took the city they built. However when I looked around for his capitol and second city I couldn't find them until much later. SO I settled for peace for the time being. It seemed unusual that he traveled that far to settle his third city.

So I looked around some more and located Portugal right in my own back yard. I do believe that my exploration boats were continually operating in the fog! I had just gotten Gallic warriors and used them to take two cities on their main island. Just as I was about to take the capitol, The ICE Queen intervened with an AP vote to stop the war. B*#%H! I was afraid of the hit for Defying the resolution and decided I would just wait 10 turns and be back. Just before I was ready another AP Vote is set to give one of the cities I took, back to Portugal. NOT ON MY WATCH! I voted to defy and eliminated Portugal not much later. It seemed that defying the resolution was not as bad as it normally is.

Next it was back to Russia who appeared weakest. I landed a large stack just out of sight of his capitol and only then moved a Trireme in to see that he had a huge stack of units there. I pillaged and started backtracking, bringing my galleys back to load up and conquer his outlying island cities first. I took the Gems city just south of Moscow and went for the city to the SW and here is where IVAN the undefeatable axe man turned the tide of battle for Russia. Two longbows take out several of my units but I'm still in a good position...One Axeman left in the city, I have a full strength Axe, 4 Spears, and an injured Mace and Axe. Ivan kills them all despite favorable odds on each attack. I have to sue for peace as I have no more army.... It takes a long time to rebuild and get back to war.

Russia is gone, but the IQ is expanding and has Infantry and Destroyers, versus Knights and Frigates, then quickly Mech Inf and tanks before I even have Infantry.

I don't think there is any chance of conquering IQ so I decide a Diplo victory is a good choice as I have been most generous to the AI, just avoiding wars. I beeline for the UN. IQ is going for a culture win while warring with everyone but Nappy and me. I realize with horror that She already has Legendary culture in two cities so it is a race. I complete the UN, and get elected the SecGen with everyone but IQ voting for me. Cakewalk here I come!.....and lose the first vote by ~30 votes. Tomte has enough votes to have put me over the top but stays at a -4 through the whole game despite everything I try and always abstains. I start growing my population as quick as I can hoping to get the necessary votes without relying on Tomte. 2nd vote short by ~20, 3rd vote Short by a dozen, but IQ is also growing her pop. 4th vote short by 2 votes, 5th vote the Mongols decide to play a practical joke on me and abstain, short by a lot of votes. I change civics which looks like it will do the trick with the French and Mongols voting with me. 6th vote I win by quite a few votes. It seems like this UN fiasco lasted for a 100 years before I won. I played a little longer and the IQ got her 3rd city to Legendary culture a dozen turns later.

I had hoped for a chance at an AP win but was never a candidate for the AP resident, which I thought was most unusual, but then again, I've never fully grasped the AP win tactics. The IQ had a huge advantage early and kept it until I managed to pull ahead in techs around the time of my UN win.

THE IQ never lost her -9 against me the whole game even though we traded freely, shared religions, and I never gave in to any requests from the other AIs to go against her.
ICE QUEEN indeed!

 

[unclethrill]

I also enjoyed the game. I invested 33 hours in a failed attempt at a Time game and ended up with a lousy culture victory with 50 turns left. I was giving cities away as fast as Icould at the end but alas, no one would take that city that put me over the top.

 

[kcd_swede]

I hated to see what poor AI was doing this game.

Several AIs had a Settler on a convenient spot but took centuries to actually settle the city. I guess there is a glitch in the code. It might be related to the no-barbs setting.

The fact is that AI was wise enough to get the Settler there without military escort. But then, something kept it from actually settling the city.

It's obviously the fault of kcd_swede


I loved the difficult start, thank you for another very fun game!

Well, I was determined to avoid my most common mistake of thinking the barbs will do what I plan for the to do... so no barbs seemed foolproof. Alas, I got fooled again.

 

[Xcalibrator]

Wow, some nice scores there on those military wins! I got Space in 1908 wtih around 53k. I tried to play peacefully (apart from the IQ), handing out techs left and right to boost the AIs' economy but Russia DoW'd me in 1828 (with like a +10!) so I had to kill him. I didn't DoW the IQ until 1525 and then didn't finish wiping her out until 1685--probably waited too long. I think it took 3 DoWs and around 21 cities, but I took the best ones first--wow, York! Nappy had only 1 city all game until I gave him 2 crappy English cities. I wiped him out after launching to boost the score a bit.

A few dates:
Taj 1070
Steel 1450
Sushi 1785
Mining, Inc 1810

Lost the races to Music and Lib'ism, but did get Econ and Physics. I'm sure a Space pro will trounce me by a hundred years, but I had a fun time. Entertaining, as always, kcd. Thanks!

 

[RD-BH]

How'd it go for you? (Please remember this is a family-friendly forum)
@#$%& ... that's all I got to say about that

Any freaky unexpected shtuff happen???
... yes, in RL, ingame? Nah.

Did you enjoy?
Absofragginlutely!

Are you really ticked off at the mapmaker for something or other (that is surely your own fault anyhow )?
No, but I'm willing to learn.

When I chose to settle on the deer, and looked at what I had just done, I knew this game was pretty much already lost.

In my usual style I wandered aimlessly trying to figure out how anyone plays flat archiepeeslager maps ... what exactly is this ... this ... 'thing'?
Sure looks wet ... Bad Archie!

I quickly setup 5x cities. From this strong start I proceeded to procrastinate and dismiss offshore sites as 'not good enough'. The AI on the other hand (the Troll) thought the whole of archie-land look great for settlin' ... and I watched him settle pretty much all of it.

Since the IQ had been nice,
... I became her bestest buddy
... I adopted her religion (at gunpoint)
... I gifted her all my monies (at gunpoint)
... I declared war on all her enemies (at gunpoint)
... ... she had a HUGE list of enemies (she checked it twice)
... I voted her into office (both AP and UN)
... ... I hoped the whole time for a chance to vote her to victory (such was MY loyalty)

When privateers showed up to harass me, I realized I hadn't any IRON
... I should really keep a list at hand (and check it twice)

I found IRON in my buddy's backyard.
She didn't want me trackin' mud through her place, sose I wiggled around to the east, then all the way north, a ways back west, and finally south to the IRON.
After building a fleet, I decided to gift her that thar city (at gunpoint)

I may not have done much to win, but I sure as heck served my ICE QUEEN.

I'll miss IQ, she's just sooo much nicer than my RL IQ

That is the end of my tale. (Contender: AD1948 cultural loss to IQ)

 

[jesusin]

I may not have done much to win, but I sure as heck served my ICE QUEEN.

lol

 

[Falabello]

After 1 AD my Empire decided it was time to increase the lands. So I declared against Saint Nick (450 AD). But that war was during an eternity. I still fell like a beginner in this game . I don’t know how to balance the number of units, the number of ships and the gold to avoid strike . I prepared an Army of 7 Gallics and 7 Cats with 7 Galleys. I did not see all the Portuguese territory and thought it was equal mine by our scores. The problem in this war was the number of cities with the feature No Vassal Estate. I took 3 in one Island. The #4 auto razed in another Island. So one more Island and more 3 cities. I guessed it was finished, but there were still three I even saw. I had to stop the war to rebalance finances. Made peace (950 AD) with Lit and MC.

I was #3 in score and almost prepared to declared again. Next target would be Your head… (Russian), but I did the wrong thing . Ice Queen gave up Hinduism and our Diplomacy returned to -8. To improve this I mistakenly voted for her in all innocence :suicide:, while my main mission was the Russian territory. So, end of the game: Ice Queen won by Diplo ! I think this game would go near 2000 AD, but at least it would have a different upshot .

I’m upset and disappointed with this result (is there another candidate to Red Ambulance? ), but what really stimulates me to continue participating is the real spirit of friendship . If it were merely win the tournament I would have given up long ago, because I have absolutely no idea of how to achieve the impressive scores and dates of some well-known members !!! Meanwhile I pursue my target of being amongst the Top Ten . My better results are three times in nineteenth place (this number is persecuting me …).
Congrats to all the winners and I’m trying, I’m trying …

 

[WastinTime]

I couldn't wait for the IQ to build the AP for the religious win as planned.
So I finally built it in buddhism which had already spread everywhere.

Won the first vote in 1070 AD.

Fun game. I really wanted to go for sushi/wall street once I saw York, but I was already commited to religious.

 

[Sleepless]

Was going to struggle to finish this game in time so when the Diplo vote for religious came up I took that option and won the first vote in 1490.

High points. Built the Glh and Mids. Killed off Joao/Stalin. Taking York. As for most people a very shiny city.

 

[socralynnek]

Cultural loss to the Ice Queen in 1921 AD

I guess, I should have tried earlier for military expansion.

I was able to found Islam, but was unlucky and got a Great prophet quite late.

I thought, I'd keep the friendly AIs to be able to catch up tech wise.

First war against Stalin, I captured two cities but then it was a stalemate. I waited for Infantries to start the second war and was doing well. The Ice Queen had some techs I didn't have, but she didn't bother to go for Biology, so I even had some techs that she didn't have. So I was on a good path to winning the game when she got the cultural victory.

As said earlier, I guess rushing Portugal would probably have been better instead of peacefully expanding non-optimal cities.