BOTM 75 Final Spoiler

[Deckhand]

BOTM 75 Final Spoiler

,

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

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in BOTM 75, then you MUST NOT read this thread unless

• You have submitted your entry

Posting Restrictions

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

 

[nocho]

I landed a spaceship in 1828 for some 150k points. I didn't feel the urge to kill poor Spaniards for some reason.

I expanded to 8 cities by 1AD. Naturally built a ton of workers to cut down the endless amazones. Free IW was certainly a blessing. Went relatively early for monarchy to grow cities big on HR. Didn't go for early wonders, but when I got the stone and didn't have much better things to build, went for fail gold but actually got the Pyramids quite late, 225 AD. However, didn't switch to representation until quite a bit later as I really needed the HR happies. Also got GLib and MoM.

Eventually got to 14 cities peacefully. Managed to lib Steam Power, which looked rather useful for quicker workers and levees. AIs teched quite slowly for immortal and maybe could have gotten an even more expensive tech, but this one felt good enough.

Had set my mind on space, so communism was a logic choice with endless workshops to build, ended up with 177 of them. Once we we're in SP it was time to expand by force. Amassed cavalry and cut easily through 20-city America and a nearly equally big Portugal. They still had only longbows. Ended up with 37 cities and over 50% of the map, leaving Portugal and America with 4-5 cities, but didn't vassal them to keep the options open to kill them off if needed. The Netherlands just before the wars with the other two actually did peace vassal to me. WvO proved to be a reasonable trading partner and teched some useful things for me on the path to space (radio, fission, ecology). Then just turtled to space and in the end arrived yet again later than I had hoped, in 1828. I just can't seem to get space dates under the 1800's somehow.

Anyway, yet another enjoyable game you created, Deckhand! Still need to struggle my way through GOTM99 yet, however.

 

[zbgayumn]

I didn't expect to get far on Immortal, and indeed I only hung on until 1610 AD. It was obvious long before that that I wasn't going to catch up in tech. So I'm wondering, what do you usually do when you find yourself so far behind in tech that it's hard to figure out how far that is?

I set out with my Jags, but it took so long to find other civs that I felt like I lost most of the opportunity. I ended harassing Lincoln to the point where I burned 4 of his cities, but by that time the cost of the units was driving my science down to 10-20%. I eventually got a group of veterans that were fairly dangerous, but when I went after Portugal they had already got maces online and that was almost the end of me. I gave away a city to stay afloat. I beat up on barbs to get some more cities and settled a few more. I had 8 cities for most of the Dark Ages. I eventually got my tech rate back up to about 60%. It was all in vain though, because once Portugal decided to DoW me there was nothing I could do to stop him.

 

[Sleepless]

Disaster struck in this game. Planned all along for conquest by vassals and mostly worked. Didn't realise when I capitulated Isabella it took me over the domination limit (just) and ended up with a domination victory.

Highlights..

Oracle for CoL. GLib and MoM. Late Pyramids which like others have mentioned I wasn't expecting to get. Only other wonder I built was the Taj which enabled me to run 3 consecutive Golden Ages powered by the MoM. Was hoping to run 4 but kept on getting scientists. Ok probably just being greedy.

Managed to Lib Nationalism. had a couple of early unplanned wars when both Joao and Isabella a bit later declared on me. Joao actually razed a city I had just built which I wasn't able to re-inforce in time. Managed a quick peace deal without anymore losses. The Isabella war wasn't any problems as by the time she had marched her small stack of a few chariots and spears she met maces and long bows. needless to say that war didn't last very long either.

First main war was against Lincoln (muskets). An assorted medieval stack and cuirassiers soon bought him to heel. Then Liz decided she would like my protection so became my peace vassal. Next target was Joao and his peace vassal Louis. I enjoyed this bit. His SoD was near one of Lincoln's cities. So I waited a couple of turns whilst one of Lincolns workers removed jungle from the likely tile they would land on. Plan worked a treat and no more SoD. Louis broke away quite quickly so after taking most of Joao's core he became vassal number 3.

I had learnt steel by now and getting Liz to tech rifling gave me some nice units to declare against Wilem and after taking a couple of his cities and ditto with Loius they both threw in the towel. Then it was just a case of throwing all my experienced cavalry against Isabella who had rifles by now. Take Madrid (sorry Nocho.. though didn't need to take Barcelona.. ) and she capitulated giving me a domination victory 1610AD.

Thanks for the game Deckhand.. nice scenario

 

[jesusin]

jesusin, contender. Goal: Fastest Cultural Victory. Result: Cultural Victory 1590AD.

Very few entries in this thread... no wonder, this was a very difficult game.

If you haven't read my first spoiler go and do it, it's much more interesting than this one.


Settled as far as the Copper by America.
Barb unit on my long road surprised me and took 2 Workers.
When I found my 8th city I was at -14gpt at 0% even with Currency.

HG built. Barb city captured. First to Music thanks to artist beakers. Parthenon and NE built. 4 religions in all.

Isabel and Louis dow me. Nobody would help. Isabel Sword and Chariot attack, Sword first, guess how defended? My Axe or my Jaguar? Copper city lost!

I'm slow building an army to retake the city. Their Archers become lbs. I have to wait for Cats just to try. Retake the city, kill the other stack. It's 1000AD.

1000AD Stats: 9 cities, 93 pop, 14 workers, 26units (2Mace), 5 strategic resources, 7 luxury resources, 6 health resources, 6 great people, 3 world wonders, 1 national wonders, food/production/commerce=242-64-413, 150 sustainable beakers per turn, 160 culture per turn(useful), 217 great person points per turn, 100 gold. 4 religions. 13/13 cottages used, 35Techs: Paper, Music, Machi, Feud, Theo, Philo, no Drama. 0 civs killed. 16 hours played. reli/city, temples, caths== 33,18,2

Sistine's built. First to Liberalism 1150AD, take Nationalism. Research slider at 0% since Alphabet. Mercantilism 1200AD. TajMah and Hermitage built.

Louis is a vassal. Louis makes an arrogant demand. I say no, but in this very same turn it frees from his master and "has enough in his hands". Oh, no. You learn something new every day, but I'd rather have learnt something else.

Louis dows, Nationhood saves the day, then 5 Cats damage their stack and everybody else mopes up. I'm paying some 30gpt for my army.

1500AD: I'm doing 1750cpt and 600 GA gpppt

I could have saved 1 turn if I had had 500 more culture in a city or if I had popped last GA one turn sooner.

Cultural Victory 1590AD. Multipliers 5-4-4, bombs 4-7-7, base cpt 190-110-120. 2GS bulb Philo & Educ, 1 GM used in Gage, 18 GA bombed, 1 GA unused, total 22GP, two of them for free.

I am not proud at all of my finish date. But I am really proud I won this game, at times I really thought I'd lose.

 

[zamint3]

Tech'ed to Cavs, got Rifling 1280AD, and then the wars started.

Lincoln: 1350AD vassal
Willem: 1410AD vassal
Louis: 1440AD vassal

Spoiler :

Elizabeth: 1470 vassal
Isabella: 1490 vassal
Joao: 1505 vassal

1510AD Conquest victory 247k points.

 

[High King J.J.]

Late SS loss to... anyone guess? Joao of course. He expanded like and when both France and England peace vassalled to him, he was pretty unassailable. Only doubt was what kind of victory he chose. In the end his SS landed before he had conquered America with his modern armor, humbabas etc. Netheril having peace vassalled to him as well. Isabella never attacked me, only Netheril in the earlier times.
Portugal and America nuked each other in the beginning stages, too bad didn't witness the fireworks. Nuclear war is rare on my games, most of the times I manage to ban them before Manhattan project. This time Joao stole the UN vote every time with his vassals and of course never proposed the ban.
Oh, and the Jaguars were useful only for early barb control. Well, like the introduction said, Europeans didn't have any chance in this one. At least I sure didn't.
Enough with my ranting.
Managed to finish, that's a minor victory too. Who lasted longest before losing?
Knew this was too difficult from the beginning, nice that some won though.

Spoiler :

Next stop is seeing how long I can survive on deity Botm before despairquitting. Any bets on the date?

 

[greatbeyond]

IW save
unfinished in the 1800s...

I played several test games to get a feel for rainforest maps. This map had the AIs much further away, fewer hills in our area, and led to slow development. Was beaten to Budhism by 1T then the Oracle was built in 1600BC (beating my completion date by a few turns) which was the earliest of any of 10 test games.

Started by building a Jag to explore and pillage which may have been a mistake in the long run. Then built a Worker. Scout should have been named Moses as he wandered for a long time. I didn't even meet Lincoln until 1520BC and the Dutch a few turns later.

Development was slow and with only four cities maintenance and unit upkeep were killing my research. Took on America, razed a city, took techs to catch up. Back to war with America and this time I stuck with it. Willem joined in but took two cities and backed off. Then unfortunately Portugal, which was a monster in training, declared against Lincoln too. I took all Lincoln's western cities but Joao took two in the east and started the cultural pressure. In retrospect the long time it took just to get an army of Jags to Lincoln's lands made it almost not worth it.

I followed up by taking 3 Barb cities I had left untouched, then filled in the blank spots. Willem took one at the east end of Lincoln's lands which left him in a good position for his later treachery. I was on good terms with Joao but he refused to sign a def pact. I was catching up in research and building Cavalry when Willem and Liz decide to attack. I left it there as the deadline was fast approaching and any date I would get wasn't going to be good.

 

[Ronnie1]

The time demands were too much at the end, and then I forgot to retire and submit, sorry.

I expanded peacefully early and through America with Cats/HA's and Elephants. I never really managed my economy well enough. I was probably looking at a finish in the 1850-1880 range.

 

[Yamps]

1510AD Conquest victory 247k points.

Nice!

Got conquest somewhat later at 1605AD. I'll have to check what I did there exactly. I probably expanded too much in the BCs which hurt my research and I also messed around with bulbing Engineering by avoiding Fishing. The first wave was Treb based against Lincoln and then Cuirassiers did most of the work. In the end, Joao got to Rifling but by then ~100 Cavs were unstoppable so he just surrendered.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Too late to submit, I finally decided how I wanted to win this game. I got a turn 259 (AD 1745) Domination Victory. I really thought I'd finish in time, barely, but game play became geometrically slower (each turn seemed to take twice as long as the one before). I played far from optimal, but did have a lot of fun playing the game.

I could have capitulated Lincoln and Willem van Oranje quite early (after capturing only 1-2 cities). I suspect the other AIs would have fallen like dominoes for a conquest win, but I like domination much better and usually play with the No Vassals option on.

I used espionage to steal a lot of technologies. I didn't build wealth as much as I should have and missed early opportunities for fail wealth. I also built too many buildings and not enough units, but I had fun doing it. I did get over 1000 wealth when I finally built National Epic in my National Park city (had 12 free specialists and getting a 13th). Not sure why I did that as the game ended a few turns later. Perhaps I was playing for a Time Victory? Is that even valid for BOTM?

I wiped out Joao II, except for a trojan city near my capital, for the domination win. I was even considering a Espionage assisted Cultural Victory, but never built up enough seed culture and certainly didn't build enough spies, though with 61 cities at the end and factories, power plants and numerous workshops, I had no shortage of hammers to build stuff. I did build several dozen spies, but not nearly enough for Espionage assisted Cultural Victory. I was generating about 1000 Ept with without using the slider by the end of the game and still had 10000+ Espionage versus Joao II by game end.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[anotherusername]

so.. quite late on this one! just reinstalled civ iv and been playing through the old BOTMs. Really enjoyed this map. First time I've played on immortal and the result was in doubt till the very last turn.

Settled on the plains hill and got taken aback by the number of food resources available nearby. I've never played Rainforest Maps before but i'll think i'll try one again with a philosophical leader now

Rushed the Americans with Jaguars and finished them off quite early on. Crashed my economy with the early expansion and spent the next 2000 years trying to catch up on tech with the monster that is Joao! Near the end it was more or less equal on points and power between me, him and Willie.

Despite having some prime land and 20+ well developed cities, I was always 6 or 7 techs behind Joao and he started to build spaceship parts before I was even close to the Apollo program. My first plan to stop him was to gang up on him with Willie and raze his capital. Before I needed to declare, Willie got there first and dragged all their vassals into the conflict. At this point every civ apart from me was involved in the war There were 7 or 8 tactical nukes dropped but Joao's modern armor and gunships were well on top of Willie's tanks. I declared on Joao and razed 2 of his cities, but he was pumping out units and I had to make peace before I got overrun.

During all this Elizabeth built the UN and I was elected leader. With Wille voting for me, I was about 60 votes off winning, but the other civs were now vassaled to Joao besides Lizzie (she voted for herself obviously) so I couldnt increase my vote share. Then in the chaos of the war, Isabella freed herself from Joao's clutches. I was still at war with her even after I made had made peace with Portugal. The only way I could think of winning once Joao launched his spaceship was to send my armies through what was left of the Netherlands to capture a few spanish cities and get her to capitulate, thus winning her votes

that all worked up until the round of the next un vote ....when joao won a spaceship victory one more round & i have would've won . awesome game though!