BOTM 99 (Louis) Final Spoiler - Game Submitted or Abandoned

[BornInCantaloup]

1380 AD, border city of Munich, wednesday.
Sitting 'round a table, the assembled leaders of the Russian, Roman and French Empire agree that Louis will rule this world for years to come, until the end of history.

Spoiler :

From 1 AD...

Spoiler :

Research was minimal until 640 AD. During that time, I only researched Litterature, Paper and Education (part-bulbed).
Germany's last city fell that turn.

Spoiler :

Although I did not research much, I accumulated a lot of gold and set up infrastructure, having 9 Libraries and 5 Universities completing this turn (and on to start on Oxford).
The GP in 3 turns would trigger the first 12 turns golden age in 700 AD.
In preparation, I'd research Philosophy (680 AD).
720 AD, we'd break the 1000 bpt treshold.
From there on, it'd be a matter of running 3 trade missions and researching 1 tech per turn or 2 until 1020 AD :

Spoiler :

The thought to bulb Medicine with Liberalism hypnotized me in such a manner that I forgot I'd actually need the tech Corporation to found the Sushi Corp.
So I had to run another trade mission and founded Sushi in 1060 AD.

This cost a bit in terms of delayed Wall Street and Taj Mahal.
Cathy had DoWed in 840 AD, which cost about 1000 gold over the 3 trade missions I ran in Rome.

From there on, it was all a matter of settling/conquering island cities, spreading Sushi and launching a 3 GPs Golden Age.
I made several late game mistakes, such as spreading Sushi to border cities too soon (Berlin pressured 10+ Roman tiles) or mindlessly whipping 5pop executives when I didn't have a Galleon at hand, or gifting back a 2 tiles city to Catherine, or some other mistakes I don't remember.
Eventually, I decided not to get fancy and declined gifting cities to Julius Caesar to remain below the Domination limit and ended the game, right there :

Spoiler :

Was fun, thanks for hosting.

 

[Pangaea]

Looks like a very good game with such an early Oxford date and libbing so deep around 1000AD. A lot of cities too, so I assume you went for high score to win the thing.

Did you run caste very early on to get all those GMerchants?

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Thanks ! I, too, think this has been a good game, even though it certainly hasn't been flawless.
Yes, I suppose I went for Score all along, in hopes for the Golden Spoon.

For some details about management...

Spoiler :

I've been mostly happy with my use of binary research.
Research was stopped twice for close to 20 turns :
- After Oracle --> Alpha, to set up the first Libraries and the Academy. This allowed to tech up to Civil Service.
- After Civil Service / Education bulb / German conquest, to set up more Libraries, 5 Universities, Oxford and the Golden Ages. This allowed to tech up to Lib --> Medicine.

Then there was a third time research was stopped, after Sushi, but that didn't escalate into tremendous amounts of beakers.


Yes, I did switch into Caste + Pacifism + Representation during the first Golden Age (captured the Pyramids in Berlin) because :
a) I wanted to maximize research. Having already 40% land and going for Sushi meant I had no business invading Caesar/Catherine and, thereby, little use for production.
b) I wanted a steady stream of GPs to chain Golden Ages. I somewhat failed, there, when I delayed Nationalism until after Liberalism. Lost a little less than 10 turns of GA in the process.


But before that, the 4th GP the Empire produced came from Paris, having 60+% Oracle gpp and 30+% Colossus gpp. So that was a 1st Great Merchant (1st 3 GPs came from Orleans, Orleans and Thebes, I believe).
Here he is, only Merchant able to reach Moscow :

Spoiler :

Then I got the Merchant from Economics on the 4th turn of the Golden Age. That one will have to settle in Rome. 780 AD :

Spoiler :

Then there were those cities, sorted in chronological order. 1st city pops its GP first, etc. :

Spoiler :

GPs pop on 820, 840, 880, 900 AD.
Next GPs all came from Thebes/Paris.
I had to revolt back into Slavery before the end of that GA because of Cathy's DoW.
Never switched back into Caste because, from that point, I needed the production (units, galleons, settlers, and then Sushi execs and infrastructure).

 

[Jastrow]

After a reasonable start, I somehow lost all focus in this game and began a series of bluners, the most obvious of which include:

-forgetting about oxford and not building it until late
-Miscalculating land are, and stoping at just under 54% instead of 64%
-Taking a peace treaty due to a miss-click

Anyway, I was heading towards space, projecting to a very mediocre launch just before T260 (meaning landing on A.C. around 1800), which obviously was not going to be remotly competitive. I got bored with the game (and at the same time, BOTM100 peaked my interst and I started thinking about it), so I bassically just hit return until I could win a late diplo victory in 1620.

Obviously no awards this time, but I will try to do better in the centenial anaversary game.

 

[Rusten]

Decided to pursue my first ever cultural victory (regular games included). I won in the early 1500s.
Been so long since I played these that any game would be a learning experience, so why not go all out? Hopefully Jesusin will make a late entry and show me how it's really done.
I did enjoy it quite a bit though -- it was refreshing. Maybe I will try to get better at this VC and play it often.

Obvious things I learned to take note of for the future (for my own benefit and maybe others):

-Think before I settle GAs.
I settled 2 GAs in my capital in the BCs, but they would've been better off elsewhere. At the end of the game my capital had 62k culture, which is way too much, and settling these GAs were one of my errors.

-Be more decisive.
I could'n't decide whether to get my 3rd city to legendary through specialists or cottages. In the end it turned out to be a very suboptimal mix. I ended up using cottages in the end, but as a result I started working them way too late and they were only villages.

General map mistakes:
-Forgot to send out a scouting work boat. ALWAYS do this on fractal maps! It used to be one my rules, I can't believe I forgot. You can miss out on so much important map knowledge. You can find another tech partner or lucrative trade routes. I didn't find Cathy until the end of the game almost.

Be more decisive (part 2). I DoW on Egypt 6-7 times this game because I couldn't commit. I should've committed fully to one attack to wipe her out. I was going to leave her alone, but the problem was that I stole a worker and saw her 2nd city with only 1 (one!) archer in it! And it was not even on a hill. I couldn't help myself and made a force of 6 chariots to try to take it almost for free.
This failed miserably. I didn't make enough chariots and I also had bad luck attacking the city. When I got there she had 2 archers and then moved in or whipped a 3rd. I tried attacking anyway (no other use for these bloody chariots!) and lost the first 4 without inflicting almost any damage on the archers. I give up and pillage her territory before signing a cease fire.
Later I try again with some swordsmen but only get 1 city as I didn't commit enough. I eventually take Thebes sometime in the ADs. I'll need to commit more heavily if I try this again -- I was way too greedy.

The lack of decisiveness against Egypt I will simply put on not playing any SP games for a long time. Not sure what I can get away with anymore.

All I can think of right away. Some stats Jesusin style soon (probably in the first spoiler thread).

 

[Xcalibrator]

Hey Rusten, good to have you back in the gOTMs! And the Feb 10 Immortal BOTM is just a few days away! <cough, announcement thread, cough>

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Game status: Cultural Victory for France
Game date: 1924AD
Turns played: 344
Base score: 1510
Final score: 10663

I didn't feel up to anything demanding, so knocked out cultural victories in BOTM 98 & 99, dates not competitive but a nice relaxing evening

 

[-Zulan-]

I got an accidental Domination Victory quite late. I was going for Conquest - and just loaded the first Galleons with upgraded CR3-Rifles (pick rifling with lib), when it turned out that vassalling Rome actually provided enough land-mass. I was totally not expecting that, could have won much earlier. I also just built Taj with 19 turns left on the GA - total overkill.

This time I was very cautious - I wanted to avoid over-expanding with HAs running into financial trouble and ending up broke against a wall of Longbows. If I only knew/had properly scouted and calculated that the mainland + northern isles was enough land for domi... Anyway, was an interesting game - especially the quite demanding start. Fortunately Egypt donated 1+2 workers early on and founded Buddah for me and even build the shrine without proper protection .

Edit: Quite impressive game BornInCantaloup and also the pre-1000 victories .