BOTM 63 -- Final Spoiler

[kcd_swede]

BOTM 63 Final Spoiler

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in BOTM 63 (Ragnar/Vikings), 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 your opponents?

Did you have fun?

Deity (Challenger level) winners are encouraged to BRAG.


[img=left]http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/botm63civ.jpg[/img]

 

[petersc]

Well.. first to post in this thread anyway.

I suck... can someone please help?

Managed only 5 cities, deciding to be peaceful. Had some delusion of going for space, and being completely peaceful. Then just sat there and watched the world pass me by. Fell further and further behind, even though I never had to invest in a military.

Pretty much just waiting to lose. Endured turn after turn, until someone launched their ship. Then retired. I had completed Apollo, but no parts.

Don't judge me, help me!

 

[SilentWatcher]

Dont be too downhearted Peter. Im a fairly experienced player and got the same results. Dont forget its immortal difficulty and the AI gets big production/tech bonuses. I think my main mistake was not taking in to account the scarcity of land and resources. I should have expanded a LOT quicker early on and at least got a presence on the nearby land masses. as it was I didnt even get to settle the whole of my own island, and had to build an army of beserkers/ cats to capture the two cities that had been founded by other ghandies. My next plan was to invade the ghandie to my left and capture his island. Fat chance. Was behind in tech massively, and when I got my army to his island I was massively outnumbered and had to accept peace. I waited patiently.. forgoing luxuries like universities as I didnt have the number of cities to catch up tech wise anyway and concentrated on siege weapons and musketes to convert into riflles when I got the tech. My spys told me that while I had a fair number of rifles/cannons my enemy had infantry tanks and arty. Decided to due a death or glory run on his capital anyway but the turn before I was going to DOW one of the Asokas got a diplo victory, so it wasnt just you!

 

[kcd_swede]

Well.. first to post in this thread anyway.

I suck... can someone please help?

Managed only 5 cities, deciding to be peaceful. Had some delusion of going for space, and being completely peaceful. Then just sat there and watched the world pass me by. Fell further and further behind, even though I never had to invest in a military.

Pretty much just waiting to lose. Endured turn after turn, until someone launched their ship. Then retired. I had completed Apollo, but no parts.

Don't judge me, help me!

I find that one of the best things to do if you start falling behind everyone in technology is to invest heavily in espionage. Steal a tech from one that the others don't have, and trade it to the others for the stuff everyone but you has. And sabotage the heck out of the leaders... especially SS parts as you race to build your own.

That said, its best to beeline trade-bait techs and trade your way to parity early and often on this level. You need to be about twice as big as the next AI if you want to go for space, so an early war of elimination is to be recommended, as well. If you only have a few really good cities, you MUST have them specialized each to a specific purpose at this level... i.e. commerce, science, production. You can't build everything everywhere! I'm only about 50% successful on Immortal level, though, so take with a grain of salt.

 

[petersc]

Thanks for the pointers and the feedback guys. I'm sure they will help!

Oh! And I did take the adventurer course of course, so it was only at Emperor difficulty.

 

[nocho]

1420AD Diplo victory. Extremely straightforward with just Indians around, be it in 2 flavours. FR for the Asokas and US for the Gandhis. Expanded to 12 cities, saved a lucky GE for the UN. I'm sure diplo can be done much faster, but still, not unhappy with the result.

 

[Sleepless]

Continuing on from the first spoiler. Relying on the Glh for your commerce is OK until the AI get merc. In this game it seemed quite quick as well..

Plan was to bulb through Astro which I managed to get the trade routes with the other AI (2xAsoka and 1 Ghandi wasn't expecting that) . Then I could start on the Ghandi's/Asoka close to me and plan on chain vassaling.

First problem was when I realised my lack of production and hadn't been building any troops early. So heavy use of the whip (most of my cities were carrying 50 turns+ of whip unhappy) before I set off on my first war. Ghandi on the island to the West. I left him with 5 cities before he became my first vassal. Subsequent vassals fell alot easier though did take alot of time to move troops around and I probably should have split them a bit more. The last Ghandi still had 16 cities when he made the wise decision to give up.

Only one real blip when I thought I was declaring on one AI and turned out I declared on a different one. Bit surprised when my cannon moved into the city rather than attack it!! Decided to declare on the right one anyway which put me at war with 3 AI. Made peace with one before vassaling the other 2.

Although I did use alot of siege meaning most of my units were mopping up I enjoyed using my CR3 Maces - upgraded toGren/Rifles - Inf (though not much use from the Inf).

Eventually won a conquest victory in 1715AD.

Fun game and scenario.. Thanks

 

[Sleepless]

Well.. first to post in this thread anyway.

I suck... can someone please help?

Managed only 5 cities, deciding to be peaceful. Had some delusion of going for space, and being completely peaceful. Then just sat there and watched the world pass me by. Fell further and further behind, even though I never had to invest in a military.

Pretty much just waiting to lose. Endured turn after turn, until someone launched their ship. Then retired. I had completed Apollo, but no parts.

Don't judge me, help me!

A few things especially on the higher levels (and things I'm guilty of not doing myself).

Enough workers to do the job needed. Not much point settling a city with no-one to improve it. To help keep up with the AI use your early forests to chop out workers/settlers. Over expansion early stifles your economy so you need a plan to improve things so always good to have pottery or writing/foreign trade routes to help.

Efficient tech trading which is why aesthetics/drama/philo/compass/edu etc are good techs to aim for as the AI don't tend to beeline them and you can trade them around to good effect thus keeping up with the AI (or usually)exceeding the AI tech rate.

Lastly early wars where you can grab an AI capital can give you a big boost as well. Actually war is always a good way to expand as the AI isn't very good at it (nor am I for that fact ).

 

[kcd_swede]

Only one real blip when I thought I was declaring on one AI and turned out I declared on a different one. Bit surprised when my cannon moved into the city rather than attack it!! Decided to declare on the right one anyway which put me at war with 3 AI. Made peace with one befoer vassaling the other 2.

Fun game and scenario.. Thanks

Glad you liked it. I had fun making it too. I am sure you aren't the only one who dissed someone you were trying to befriend and vice versa. What a mess.

 

[undead]

(successful update of BTS and installation of BUFFY in 2013 AD; won once on emperor level at quick speed on a duel pangea map)

Oracle in 1360 BC (chose Metal Casting). Colossus in 600 BC.

Forgot that there wasn't any barbarian, so didn't expand quickly enough and saw India settle near the horses and probably the stone too... Saw the iron late but could settle near enough, in spite of even more new Indian cities on "my" island. So, my military units appeared a bit late. Maybe that's why I never attacked any city...

This couldn't end well, so I played quickly: India won a diplomatic victory (I even voted for one of the candidates but it was the other one who won; hope he didn't mind). Strange nice world: everybody was pleased or friendly with everybody (and the only fights came from some privateers). They gifted so many techs, even artillery!

 

[euripides]

Well my plans from 1AD worked well. Except Warring and moving troops took quite some time still... So it went on to 1540AD conquest with 289k points instead of 1400AD.
Most problematic with this crowd was the first few AIs. After vassaling 3 or 4 the other ones give in just after 3-4 cities. Ofc conquering the capital always helps big time. I went for the orange Asoka first and then continued with the backwards AIs. First all Asokas interestingly and finally the Gandhis. Final AIs where green/white and teal which where the most advanced (assembly line but no rifling, lol).
Whipping was main point of production for me as well, but there where lots of happy resources available. Multiple Gem silver gold ivory for lots of trades. I even had more health probs than happy.
Also with those coastal towns mass whipping is to be expected, and in the end even unhappy pop gives points, no? And whipped units win the war. All techs after berserkers, trebs and frigates where a bonus for me, though cannons and grens surely help a lot. but crIII berserkers and bombardment from frigates can crush anything. They did for my first 3 wars anyway.

Thanks for the game

wow @ nocho, 1420 diplo, I´m quite impressed. It takes quite some tech plus you need time to get good relations with the faraway AIs!? Also the AIs will love each other a lot, I can imagine. Did you go for early optics to get contact?

 

[zbgayumn]

Well, I finished my long, limping effort tonight when Ghandi (original India purple) won a cultural victory in 1924. Watching the video replay, it's obvious that I expanded too slowly, but this is a riddle I just can't solve. Every time I expand wildly my economy goes to crap in the medieval era. This time I only put down 5 cities, and went far enough to get the ivory. I had already started an ele-pult army when I finally got IW and realized I had Iron. I DOW'd the orange Asoka and took two outlying cities, but even that early his empire was much larger and so was his army pretty soon. I stalled outside the third city. Not long after that, I was about to lose the second city, so instead I traded it to him for peace.

From that debacle, I tried to recover by doubling down. I beelined MilSci to upgrade to Grens. I took Cochin (that second city) again, but once again orange Asoka overwhelmed my meager army. I lost the city again, and eventually I had to give MilSci to Asoka just to hang on to my foothold on his continent.

I pretty much gave up on war at that point, and backfilled two more cities into my territory giving me a total of 8. The next smallest civ had 12, and the largest had 19. I was rather surprised how little progress the Indias had made on spaceships, when I looked right above that and saw that it was only 2 turns until a cultural victory.

 

[nocho]

wow @ nocho, 1420 diplo, I´m quite impressed. It takes quite some tech plus you need time to get good relations with the faraway AIs!? Also the AIs will love each other a lot, I can imagine. Did you go for early optics to get contact?

I didn't get optics particularly early, 500AD. I managed to lib astro 580 AD though. I guess that helped the economy even more with the GLH, at least that was the idea. The map really helped to tech quickly. Watery map for great GLH value, great starting spot, island for ourselves with very cottageable land being financial. No barbs to worry about, easy expansion, easy neighbours. The whole game all my units were just 8 warriors, 3 chariots and a knight (chariot build that got changed on guilds...) and some boats obviously. I mean, I got education in 75AD, I never managed that before!

Before going towards mass media I decided to tech constitution and democracy, basically for the US civic, which is the favourite of all Gandhis. While being in representation would have gotten me earlier to Mass Media, US gave me enough diplo points to get all Gandhis to friendly, just like all Asokas thanks to FR. With all AIs also +4 for fair trade, +1 or 2 for open borders, +1 or 2 for resources and some help modifiers and the AP "you voted for us" plus. Basically thanks to the fair trade bonus all AIs liked me even more than their alter egos. The whole world was friendly towards the bearded swede.

I hardly ever go for diplo though, so I'm hardly an expert. Given the possible tech pace, I'd expect diplo should be doable not long after 1000AD.

 

[Solyaris]

1650 conquest victory

Was fairly lucky, none of the AI's went for rifling, so even tho they had a LARGE tech advantage, my currsiers did the job far into the 1400's. The 2 large AI's on the other continent got machine-guns the turn they capitulated. Aimed for late 1400 victory, but moving troops took surprisingly long time (not used to this map-type), and some minor mistakes (giving back some cities I should have kept) delayed the victory. All in all Im happy enough with the date.

256k points

 

[Jastrow]

After a promissing start to the game, the AD's turned into a comefy of errors. Some of the lowlights:

-I take a cease fire against cyan Gandi, just before taking his capital city, and he uses the respite to peace-vassle to White Gandi.

-After avoiding useless techs all game, I mistakenly take theocracy in a trade, putting me over my WFYABTA limit with one of the Asoka the turn before I could have trated to him for Artillary.

-I mistakenly trated away BOTH my coal sources at a time I wanted to build railroads and needed it to power about 5 coal plants, causing a 10 turn delay in getting power and some rails.

-I forgot to build lumbermiles to speed up the production of the national park before converting them back to preserves.

-I forgot to garrison a couple of my cities with millitary police, causing unexpected unhappies. One of these delayed Oxford Uni by about 3 or so turns.

-I panicked about Orange Asoka's tech pace at one point, and send privateers to destroy all his sea food. In the end I realized that he was actually not a real danger, so all I did was waste the resources to build the privateers, and slow down a trading partner.

-I delayed building Iron Works to put it in Cyan-Gandi's cities, and then realized they would not be up in time to make use of it, so eventually built it in a city near my capital. I wasted tons of production not building it earlier.

-I traded away Sci-Met too quickly, and actually got beat to Physics, loosing the free great scientist.

-I forgot to revolt to free religion (from paganism) for several turns after reasearching liberalism.

In the end, my space ship landed around 1825, but I might have made it in the 18th century if I had gotten rid of all the above errors.

 

[Jastrow]

I would also like to echo the comment from Kenwyn in the first spoiler...

I really think having multiple civ's with the same name is a bad idea. It is an extra challenge that does nothing but at a lot of tedious micro to figure out who is who in the various interfaces without adding any fun at all. I really hope it is an idea which will not return in futue XOTM.

This is not meant as a complaint, but as constructive criticism. I really appreciate all the work but into organizing this competition, and I think the vast majority of the ideas and challenges thought up by the scenario creaters are great. This just happens to have been, in my opinion, one bad one.

 

[petersc]

Yeah, just some distinction would be nice. Like Asoka 1, Asoka 2.

 

[kcd_swede]

I would also like to echo the comment from Kenwyn in the first spoiler...

I really think having multiple civ's with the same name is a bad idea. It is an extra challenge that does nothing but at a lot of tedious micro to figure out who is who in the various interfaces without adding any fun at all. I really hope it is an idea which will not return in futue XOTM.

This is not meant as a complaint, but as constructive criticism. I really appreciate all the work but into organizing this competition, and I think the vast majority of the ideas and challenges thought up by the scenario creaters are great. This just happens to have been, in my opinion, one bad one.

I appreciate the feedback. I agree with your assessment, and vow not to repeat the multiple civs with same names thing again.

 

[greatbeyond]

Multiple Civs different name then?

Diplo Loss in 1775AD. Contender Save.

I expanded just a little slower than the AI but I was close. Due to not recognizing the land layout for what it was until later, I never adjusted my initial plans until too late.
The only war I had was with Orange Asoka, twice.. took 4 of his cities including Bombay and then switched over to peacenik, but I was not able to catch up to the other AIs.
In retrospect, the Gandhi to the west should have been the first target.

I can't see anyone winning a culture victory. I was like many others who saw all the Great Wonders go super early.

It probably deserves a replay

 

[jesusin]

jesusin, contender. Goal: fastest cultural victory. Result: 1525AD cultural victory.

Early game

Settling in place would kill seafood in the W, so moved my Scout N-NW. No seafood, marble and hills... I settled on Corn for a supercapital. First worker came in ultra-early.

High commerce map. Lots of happy resources too.

Produced Worker-Warrior-WB-Warrior-Settler. The WB went away exploring.
It should have been Worker-WB-Warrior-Warrior-Settler

Researched Mining-TW-Myst-MAson-Pott-PH-Writing-CoL-Alpha-Currency

Failed CS sling 1600BC. I should have used Oracle for CoL.

1000 BC Stats: 3 cities, 15pop, Set, 2workers, 3units(3War), 1 strategic resources, 2 luxury resources, 3 health resources, 0 great persons, 0 world wonders, 0 national wonders, food/production/commerce=40-18-96, 71 bpt at breakeven, 9 culture per turn, 3 great person points per turn, 20 gold, Gra, Lib. 1 religions, 5/6 cottages used, 15 Techs: Alpha, CoL, Mason, no BW. 0 civs killed. 3 hours played.

3 cities + 1 Settler at 1000BC in this map is too few. I should have expanded faster. This is the biggest mistake in my game.


Cities

Capital on Corn, Legendary through cottages and a few selected WW (Parthenon, Sistine's, MoM).
02 1N of Gold, Legendary through cottages.
03 E with fish and sheep, auxiliary that worked the capital cottages for most of the game.
04 far N, with Fish, Sheep and Stone. Moai. Legendary through sea-tiles and 1 WW (Taj Mah).
9 cities in all.
GPFarm in the Western island with Fish, Sheep and 2 farmed FP.
Single-tile double -seafood-resource in the East.


Medium sized mistakes

03 started a Library for Academy, but capital run faster and finially got a late GS in the capital instead (500AD ).

I missed the Gold site in the Eastern continent.

Music raze lost by 1 turn.

I went for Islam in the end for a 3rd religion. Should have gone for Theocracy much sooner. A 4th religion would have come in handy.


Key data

Liberalism 780AD. Too late for the map.
Revolution to Castes+Pacif 880AD. Late religions meant slow cathedrals and a delay on GA generation.

Culture 1525AD. 3 religions, Multipliers 4.5-3.5-3.5, bombs 1-5-7, base cpt 220-160-130, 1GS Acad, 1GA GAge, 13GA bombed, total 15GP, none of them for free.


Curiosities

Privateers started to appear around 1500AD, so I decided to win the game soon after that
Peaceful game.
5 Workers.
Less military units than cities.
All GP were obtained at 100% probability.
Your last GA shouldn't be born in another island, or travel time will delay your victory.




EDIT: Without Pottery, Masonry and The Wheel, I could have completed the CS sling. Not sure if that would have been better than the game.