BOTM 94: The Great Rift, Final Spoiler

[Deckhand]

BOTM 94 - Final Spoiler

So how did your game after 1AD go? Tell everyone about your amazing victory (or your embarrassing defeat)!

Were you able to keep up in tech?
How vicious was the fighting on the other side?
Did you launch an invasion or just go for culture?


Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in BOTM 94 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.

 

[yyeah]

GG
Good to know taht i cant found and have more then 2 corps in 1 city .

 

[Jastrow]

You can in princple have more than 2 corps... You cannot have two which use the same resource however.

 

[yyeah]

Thanks didnt know that

 

[Cat Behemoth]

I've lost at 1705 AD.
A very often thing appears, when in the turn of a final decisive strike all enemy archers upgrades to longbowmans. And the war became very long. Beginning at the start of AD's I've finished Quin Shi just at 1300-s. So the single remained way to win is to sign an alliance. There were two option - powerful Shaka and advanced Ghandi. I also miss the moment that in the turn of tech exchange Shaka and Ghandi became the worst enemy of each other. Just for 1 turn and in that turn when I've discover. Just -1 for Ghandi, but it costs a very valuable time. I've choose Ghandi, but there was not enough time to share a war against Shaka to sign the alliance. Ghandi was very fast in culture and I found it too late, thinking that 100K culture needed instead 50K. 4 turns earlier Shaka seriously attacked one of Ghandi's legendary city (his success gives me all chances to made an alliance later and reclaim that city by myself presenting it to Ghandi) but unfortunately fails despite he had more than enough power to conquer.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I played adventurer - didn't fancy battling deity AI

Picture the scene. It's 1858AD. My empire stretches right across the map - 59% of the land area. It covers our entire 'Great Rift' starting continent, spans the entire North Coast of the World, and then stretches down until it meets the rather tiny 3-city Babylonian empire in the SouthWest. I am researching Future Tech 5. My vassals number three: Tokugawa, Alexander and Shaka all succumbed to my mighty forces. I've also destroyed Zara Yaqob. Mongolia too no longer exists - I'm not sure what happened there, they were apparently wiped out, presumably by another AI, long ago at a time when the German empire was somewhat smaller. I can't remember whether I even met them. The only powerful AI left is Gandhi, who is friendly to me, so that's good.

My spaceship is on its way. It got delayed by 3 or 4 turns due to my absent mindedness a while back (I was so caught up in the war with Shaka that I actually forgot to start cities building spaceship parts for a few turns. Ooops! But no matter. I'm playing adventurer so I can't win any awards anyway. And the countdown is going. 3 turns to victory. 2 turns to victory.

And then the final message appears across the bottom of the screen. It reads: Gandhi wins a cultural victory.

Oh.

Oh.

It hadn't even occurred to me to check his culture.

Well with a base scoreof 7397 and a final score of 12156, is this going to be one of the highest-scoring defeats in the history of GOTMs? Hmm. Can you win a cow if you're defeated? I guess not if you're playing adventurer.

*Sulk*

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I've choose Ghandi, but there was not enough time to share a war against Shaka to sign the alliance. Ghandi was very fast in culture and I found it too late, thinking that 100K culture needed instead 50K. 4 turns earlier Shaka seriously attacked one of Ghandi's legendary city (his success gives me all chances to made an alliance later and reclaim that city by myself presenting it to Ghandi) but unfortunately fails despite he had more than enough power to conquer.

Welcome back to the GOTMs Sounds like you and I had somewhat similar fates

 

[Jastrow]

I went to space in this one.... Only war was the one form the first spoiler to evict Zara from my side of the rift. After that, used my 14 (+1.... see later) cities and all those metals to play a MineInc powered space race.

I made one blunder from not understanding a rule... I tried to get AL by founding a 15th city, and burning a GS on Alu-corp. I expected this to give me EMPIRE access to Aluminum. Instead it gave my stupid-size-one-no-food-desert-city access to Alu. Bloody good that will do me. This corp is just stupid!!

Anyway, other than this blunder (which cost me a turn because it wasted the GS bulb, but nothing more serious than that), I think I played a pretty good space game. I dont remember the date but it was pretty decent. The small map really slowed the AI tech-rate. Usually on Emperor or above, you can at least trade for Rifling, and maybe one or two other late techs. This time, even the AI deity were not close to being able to help.

 

[Deckhand]

...

Picture the scene. ...

... And the countdown is going. 3 turns to victory. 2 turns to victory.

And then the final message appears across the bottom of the screen. It reads: Gandhi wins a cultural victory.

Nicely written, thanks. We wouldn't have been able to enjoy your writeup if you had won.

Quite a close finish. Imagine the tension if you had been watching Gandhi's culture.

 

[High King J.J.]

Nicely written, thanks. We wouldn't have been able to enjoy your writeup if you had won.

Quite a close finish. Imagine the tension if you had been watching Gandhi's culture.

I had a (sort of) similar experience, except that it was Alex, not Gandhi who had 2 legendary cities and 3rd was due to reach legendary befor my SS arrived anywhere. However I was able to send spies to incite revolts (at least 3 were succesful I think) and civic changes also give a nice little anarchy during which no culture is accumulated.

In the end it was not even close, Thebes had 46K culture and had 7 turns to legendary.
SS victory 1888.
I had only one war, GK had captured a coastal city from Gandhi after AP holy war got everyone but me to declare on Gandhi. (I had no AP religion Butt-ism, almost every other faith spread my way but never that.) Anyway that coastal size 1 city between Kenyan and Indian cultures received a lot of galleys and caravels over the years. Then suddenly 5 galleys and a dozen caravels cross the rift! Fortunately I was able to block the first landing site and surrounded the invasion fleet with my privateers (And Mongols took forever to research astronomy). It took a few turns but in the end I had sunk 4 cannons and 6 cavalry, 5 galleys and a LOT of caravels. (The final statistics read 185 caravels killed. I got my many GGenerals from privateering experience. Of course most of those sunk caravels were not Mongolian.)

I had some fun spreading my worse corporations overseas while keeping Mining and Sushi to myself. Zara managed to found Creative Constructions and spammed it everywhere causing the close call with Greek culture.
The major players were Shaka and Alex, with GK and occasionally Zara being not vassalized. Both Shaka and Alex were by themselves landlocked so they had no direct way to invade me and concentrated their conquests on others.

 

[Kennigit]

I got wrecked. Pretty simple.

Didn't post in the 1 AD thread but same story as others. Zara spilled out over to my continent (founding 1880 BC), I went to war with him, and took a long time to clean his 3 cities off my continent (he founded a fourth but that was like 1 turn to clear out). Probably like 400 AD - 500 AD to get them all down, keeping 1. Really, the game--for me--was already lost at that point. I was probably fine tech wise going into 1 AD but then fell behind the pace, and only had 3 cities when I began war with Zara somewhere in the BCs. Did the classic upgrade of archers to longbowmen right when I approached, so had to wait for more catapults to clean things up. Was hoping to have just gotten in there with swordsmen earlier. EDIT: actually yea that is definitely wrong. It was just axemen showed up iirc. Sword vs axemen is not a good spot.

For good measure, he at least got killed on his continent down to 1 city and vassal'd to somebody.

Ghandi snuck 1 city down on the south end of the continenet while I warred with Zara. I wanted that spot down so I declared war with Ghandi. Right in the turn I was going to attack (was iffy--probably wouldn't take his longbow/maceman stack with the stack I had) he of course vassal'd to somebody.

So I retired in like 1100 AD already falling well behind in tech.

Not surprised deity just beat me.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

One I noticed about this game - it looked at first like the land would make the game easier than usual because we had so many gold and silver tiles. But I found in practice, those tiles didn't make much difference for me (beyond the +1 happiness from the first occurrence of each resource) because I didn't really use them until quite late in the game. It always seemed to make more sense to work flood plains with cottages on them so my cities could grow quicker. It wasn't until the cities hit their happiness caps that I felt it was worthwhile working zero-food tiles.

 

[Xcalibrator]

Congrats Jastrow, and I consider DS's Adventurer game a win, too. I didn't finish this one because my Civ computer is now out of commission because of some house renovation work and general lack of time. Zara snuck 2 cities on my side but I left him alone because he'd been vassalled by Alex and Toku was a more tempting target. In retrospect I should have gone for Gandhi first, but I left him alone hoping for trades. As it turned out, everyone DoW'd him and he got wiped out. Anyway, I DoW'd Toku around 1200 and the first turn went well and then Alex/Zara DoW me. Oops. I was attacking from Greek territory so that teleported my stack way south. My galleons eventually made it down there and ferried my troops across the Rift to take Zara's cities on my side, but it took time to shift everything around. I then transported my troops back across the Rift up north to take Zara's easternmost city (of 2 remaining), but Alex had a freeakin' huge stack that took it back. I landed more troops on the river-defended hill tile outside Zara's capital to let Alex suicide against my Guerilla-promoted units. A good plan, unless of course he had SO many units that he'd wipe me out completely, which he did.

I've forgotten much of the rest. All the AI shared Buddhism, which never spread to me, and there was a lot of tech swapping over there and I fell behind overall. I concentrated on production and military techs, though, and got Mining Inc which was a huge boost. After a spell of peace I attacked Toku again with panzers and was doing OKish but I kinda doubt I'd could have pulled this one out, and it would have taken a long time. The only Wonder I got was MoM, which was handy for the 3 Golden Ages I ran. Missed the Taj by a couple turns to Alex. Took Steel with Liberalism. Happiness was a big problem throughout, and I had to spend a lot of hammers on units (with Hered Rule) and happiness buildings, and generally had to run 10% or 20% culture during the later stages to keep war weariness and Emancipation demands under control. How did others deal with this? I used Free Religion, too. Oh, and the UN forced me into Environmentalism, which made Mining Inc more expensive while not really helping me with health.

 

[nocho]

Very enjoyable game, with a happy ending being domination in 1440 AD for 332k points. Of course the generous start and the possibility of grabbing all the land greatly helped in tackling Deity, which is not a very common occurrence to me. Happy to have finished on time, hardly had any time the past few weeks.

Had a reasonable start with 11 cities on our side of the pond. In the early ADs landed the MoM, which was very beneficial with the 4 GAs I eventually had, including the one from Taj. Beside a late game Kremlin those were the only wonders I built myself. Oxford came around 560 AD, libbed constitution for rep in 640. From there went straight to MT and rifling and finally invaded Gandhi around 1000AD. Captured 2 cities including Delhi and got him as a vassal who did some useful teching for me. Meanwhile Toku had vassaled Zara and Alex, so he had to go next. Absorbed the three Ethiopian cities and then some Japanese cities until Alex unvassaled and got Toku as second vassal. Then captured the rest of Greece.

While at war with Toku, Shaka had joined the bandwagon against united Germany+India. He was basically busy with some Indian cities so no real hassle. However, he had to be reprimanded after the northern campaign so took 3 of his 5 cities until he too kissed the ring. He had quite a number of rifles by then, but they were lured into the open and slaughtered by cannons.

Last up was Hammurabi, who still had no rifles. When approaching Babylon hit domination. The Khan remained untouched in his NW corner.

Thanks for the game and making it doable!

 

[lymond]

Rather poor Culture victory here. Wasn't sure what I was going to do at first so I really didn't get things moving in that direction until a bit later than usual.

I was quite distracted and focused early on in beating Zara to all the sites and blocking him out, including settling a not so hot city due W on the coast, but rather settling one off the coast - missing a clam, as Zara just popped a settler on the coast. Also, closed borders with him to block in to the north, holding is galley between to coastal cities I'd' settled earlier to the NW.

So in all I did keep the AI off my side of the rift, but probably sacrificed some optimal play in the process. If I'd decided to go culture at that point I might have just ignored his flagrant attempts to tresspass on my land.

Other two issues were missing out on Sistine, which I could have had just as easily as I did with MoM, but got cocky and figured since I was first to Music I should have no issue. Ofc, Gandhi still goes for Music regardless. Second was not really setting up my 2nd and 3rd cities properly, well at least one of them. Better sites existed then at least 1 I used. And going back to the Zara diversion, focusing so many resources on blocking hindered me from settling good sites early and getting the culture train rolling.

Anyway, settled for wheat as I'm sure many did. Teching early on was quite brisk. I even was first to CoL. Settled N of Berlin first just to get the cottages going strong, then settled fish/silver to the N to get trade routes asap and send out WB for scouting to meet AIs.

The other side of the rift was almost in constant war the whole game. No none was destroyed, but several AIs like Toku and Shaka were pretty much vassals for most of the game, sometimes breaking away for a short bit. Alex and Hammy were the strongest. Both had vassals and seemed to fight one very long war with little gains to either side. No one was destroyed. Zara peace vassaled to Alex for a while but broke away for good. Gandhi seemed to remain completely unscathed the entire game.

I went for culture as I really did not have the energy to get warring on this map on Deity, although I think it could have been fun. Especially with the way the AIs were over there. Zara and Gandhi would have fallen easily, while Toku and Shaka were just plain non-factors in the game.

 

[Minou]

Ran out of time, but enjoyed the game and will try to finish it on my own later. By about 1000AD, I was essentially tied for the tech lead with Gandhi, who had vassaled Shaka and was the strongest AI on the mainland. I made my first landing on the mainland by launching two coastal incursions against Zara and conquered all but one of his cities. After a few turns of healing, I sent the veteran units against Toku and captured a few more cities, though unfortunately for me Khan vultured two nice cities in the south.

Gandhi was the next target and the results were mixed. I managed to capture two coastal cities and one further inland, together yielding a nice pile of wonders (Pyramids, Statue of Liberty, Scotland Yard, Colossus, Spiral Minaret) and about 9 settled Great People. On the other hand, my secondary stack attacking from the northwest was unsuccessful. Just as I was a turn away from cracking a large city, a reinforcements from Shaka turned the tide and I had to sign a cease fire. By this time it was 1400AD in the game and near midnight on the deadline day in the real world. Only 1 turn from Artillery, and I think after the cease fire expires off I can Vassal Gandhi.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Ran out of time at 1160 AD. Game was still on course to a domination victory with Zara and Shaka eliminated and 25 cavalry+10 cuirs looking for new targets. Hammurabi and Gandhi still far from rifling but Toku, Alex had rifles and Genghis was close. Ended with 19 cities and one turn to Steel and cannons.

I wanted to try an espionage game but it turned out to be less favorable than expected. I gifted my second city to Alex expecting that the AI couldn't reach my side of the rift. Unfortunately Zara could and managed to settle 4 cities in the north. At a certain point Zara was close to running away in tech with 8 coastal cities AND the GLH. Fortunately I got ivory in a trade from Alex and was able to take his longbow defended cities with elephants. Stole a lot of techs from Alex and Zara using two GSpies I got from the GWall. Self-teched key stuff like MilTrad (and later Steel) and started war on the other side of the rift using cuirs. Astro stolen from Alex.

I liked the small map for a Deity game . A large map would make the game a lot harder and infinitely more tedious battling the giant stacks that Deity AI build. Please make more games with small maps and maybe also quick speed.

 

[Xcalibrator]

The computer I used on my original game is still offline so I submitted my second attempt (also incomplete) from another computer in case DH wants it--if nothing else, I settled in the same place so that'll be valid info.

This one went better. I tried to REX faster but ended up with exactly the same number of cities and pop at 1 AD. I've never been able to match the REXmasters and clearly never will. On the upside, I got more wonders (MoM again, plus Great Lib and Colossus). Zara settled 5 cities (vs 2 before) on my side, which wasn't all bad; they were nicely developed when I captured them. This time I attacked Zara first (instead of Toku, immediately followed by that unfortunate DoW by Alex ), taking peace after capturing those 5 cities. I regrouped and DoW'd again after 10 turns to take his 4 mainland cities. He finally offered to cap when he was down to 1 but wouldn't give any techs so I wiped him out to avoid motherland complaints.

The other big change was I beelined Artillery instead of going up the Industrialism path. I again founded Mining Inc so there was no need to focus so much on hammers. In the first game I really overkilled on those, putting assembly plants (factories) and coal plants in all my cities. Many of the hammers in my biggest cities were useless because I could crank out infantry or whatever in one turn, and extra hammers were wasted, especially in my Heroic Epic and Ironworks cities. (Yes, I could and did build wealth, but overflow hammers don't contribute to that so are still lost.) I also didn't grow the cities as much so I didn't have to waste hammers on happiness and health buildings like I did before. Artillery and Cavs were more than enough to take on Toku next, who capped after 1 city. Shaka then voluntarily vassaled. Mighty Gandhi fell after losing one city in in 1560. I quit there with the game pretty well won. Much more satisfying than my first attempt. Thanks very much for this game, DH.