BOTM02 Final Spoiler

[ShannonCT]

But there seemed to be a glitch in the game (or a game “feature”) that ruined my attempt for fast victory.

I also had problems with Diplomatic Victory that I can't quite understand. I had to wait for the 4th or 5th resolution cycle before the Diplo Victory option even came up. I only had about 20% of the world population, so it should have been available immediately.

In the end, I got my diplo victory in 1580AD.

 

[Markus5]

Besides the glitches in BTS, there is also feature-overload that makes it hard (for me) to really enjoy the game, yet. I still don't grok spies. For example, the description of a spy says that it can help protect against rival spies. How? Nothing says how to do that. Fortify my spies on important tiles in my territory?

But, that is why I'm so happy that we have a BOTM. Maybe I'll learn something.

 

[Jimmy Thunder]

In the end, I got my diplo victory in 1580AD.

Good stuff ShannonCT! Tied Harok's date.

4 or 5 resolution cycles, that must have been ages? When did you get the UN built?

 

[ShannonCT]

4 or 5 resolution cycles, that must have been ages? When did you get the UN built?

I completed the UN in 1400AD. I wasn't able to grow any GEs besides the first one (with the Oracle-MC-forge gambit) so I had to rely on forests, workshops, and cash. I ended up using Liberalism for Physics. I probably should have risked it and tried for Electricity or Radio (I was the only one with Education at the time) but I had read too many horror stories about waiting too long.

 

[dfi]

@Markus5 and dfi666: Wow! I'm sure gonna be interested to see your saves - first time I've heard of the AI actually winning a cultural victory (though I'd heard it was possible in BtS).

Out of interest, was it totally out of the blue? Did the victory conditions screen warn you that a Mansa cultural victory was imminent (by listing the top 3 cultural cities)?

Out of the blue. I wasn't even watching the victory conditions. I figured everything was ok actually. No spaceship stuff going on. No domination problems... blam, lose =P

 

[Harok]

I would prefer you didn't write this kind of posts.

I don't think there is a reason for you to justify your map-making decisions. The game setup was fantastic and we had a great time playing.

And more importantly, I don't want a BOTM03 pregame thread guessing the reasoning and the personal preferences of the mapmaker. I want people talking about objective facts and reasoned decisions.

Personally I enjoy hearing about what the map maker was thinking when they designed it afterwards. Good luck figuring out if what they did last time will help you next game, never underestimate the evilness of the admins to use that against you.

Is it possible to launch your second GAge with 2 GL of the same type?

Not that I know of, I haven't tried it in BTS though, just assumed it wouldn't work, that is why I farmed an artist and merchant.

You beat me by 5 turns.

A solid game there Harok, and a good story to go with it. Mansa was a slippery fella wasn't he?

I wonder what early strategy was best? Your CS slingshot or my early Pyramids/Representation?

I think my game was more streamlined towards getting Mass Media (what date did you build UN?), shame it got ruined by the unexpected disappearing resolution twist. Perhaps in BTS you can't simply gift the UN away without that long time penalty, or maybe I just have to figure out a good work-around method.

I think they worked out about the same, I had more early research, you had more at the end. I think where you pulled ahead was with your smoother, I'm assuming, expansion of Hatty and with your guts to use Liberalism on Radio which is a MASSIVE time saver but risky.

I completed the UN in 1540, winning on the first vote, which came up for me when I expected it would.

I completed the UN in 1400AD. I wasn't able to grow any GEs besides the first one (with the Oracle-MC-forge gambit) so I had to rely on forests, workshops, and cash. I ended up using Liberalism for Physics. I probably should have risked it and tried for Electricity or Radio (I was the only one with Education at the time) but I had read to many horror stories about waiting to long.

Great game Shannon. I wonder what the tie breaker is if we end up with the fastest time, hopefully it isn't something cheesy like score, but something fun like longer spoiler.

So you also used a GE on the Pyramids? Maybe it is faster your and JT's way as you also got to the UN well before me. Did you gift it away? Did you take over AI lands? How early? How much? How many Great People did you get? What kinds? How did you use them?

Didn't someone win last month's diplomatic game in the 1800s?

 

[ShannonCT]

Great game Shannon. I wonder what the tie breaker is if we end up with the fastest time, hopefully it isn't something cheesy like score, but something fun like longer spoiler.

So you also used a GE on the Pyramids? Maybe it is faster your and JT's way as you also got to the UN well before me. Did you gift it away? Did you take over AI lands? How early? How much? How many Great People did you get? What kinds? How did you use them?

I used my GE for Machinery because I wanted to go to war with Sitting Bull's high-powered crossbows, and because Machinery was on the path to Mass Media anyway. I probably could have got an earlier victory if I had used it for the Pyramids. Besides 1 GE, I got 1 GP, 1 GA, 1 GM, and 9 GSs. My first GS bulbed Philosophy. The GP went for a golden age, and all the others except the late GM went for techs along the main path to Mass Media.

I went to war with Hatty 3 times: first to steal a worker, second to rush her with dogmen and capture her capital, and third to finish her off with Xbows/maces/cats. I took most of Persia's cities with xbows/maces/cats.

Fairly early, I noticed a Jewish block developing so I joined as soon as Judaism spread to one of my cities. In the end, my relations with Pacal, Hammy, and Charlie were +24, +20, and +20. I kept the Hindu Mansa as my UN competitor by feeding him lots of free health and happiness resources and saving him some juicy Persian cities. No need for any back door diplomatic shenanigans. I was very frustrated with Diplo Victory not coming up as an option the first several voting cycles because I was a lock for victory.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I spoke to the HOF mod people and it seems there is a known issue about the apostolic palace not working properly. The HOF mod hasn't changed anything to do with AP or UN resolutions so the belief is that it's a bug introduced by the 3.13 patch. My guess is that the UN probably uses similar (or the same) code as the apostolic palace for resolutions so I wouldn't be surprised if it suffered the same bugs.

For now there doesn't seem to be a lot we can do . It is going to be a case that if you want to use the UN or the AP in BtS, you're going to be taking a chance that the game will offer you the resolutions it's supposed to. That's obviously not ideal, especially in the context of GOTM competitions, but it's how it is until (presumably) Firaxis fix the bugs in a future patch (Though if they don't there's a possibility a future HOF mod may attempt to fix them anyway).

Thanks to everyone who pointed out the issues.

 

[Jabah]

Challenger.
AP victory in 1230AD

Egpyt spamed buddhist missionaries to everyone around, including me. Convert to it, make friend with the 3 other buddhist (relation +10) which happen to be the direct naighbours.
Start AP quickly with Buddhism, convert on the last turn to my own religion (confuscianism or theology, can't remember) for 5t only, then send a misionnary to everyone who is missing it.
Being the only valid candidat (with around 50% votes), all my friends voted for me (surprisingly I sent missionary to a bigger city than one the hinddhuist AI) and bingo.
Only trouble was getting Open Border with Charlemagne to convert one of his city.

Jabah

 

[Niklas]

Challenger, space victory in 1868 AD. Much slower than I expected - did I just play poorly, or are the dates later in BtS by "natural causes"? I had a lot of problems in the game though, so maybe I did play poorly. Thorough spoiler to come later on.

 

[SpeedyKQ]

Cultural defeat to Mansa 1930.

That isn't too unusual in BTS. The AI has been modified to sometimes actively pursue a cultural victory. The victory screen does show you who is ahead on culture, and how much culture their three cities have. In my game, when I noticed Mansa was close, I calculated I had 14 turns to take one of his three cities. I was in a tight space race, with very little military. I could have tried to raise a horde to capture one of the cities, but I thought my chances of success were pretty low, and even if I managed, I'd fall even further behind in the space race. So I chickened out and let him cruise to victory.

A summary of my game, continued:

As I describe in the first spoiler thread, I start out with a mostly failed dogrush, but am OK on techs, and there is still land to grab, so I soldier on.

I expand peacefully for awhile, and end up with 5 good cities before the land runs out. This seems like a paltry patch of land compared to what most AI's have, so I'm itching for a good war against either Persia or Egypt. I'm good buddies with Pacal and Hammurabi on team Hindu so I'd rather not go after them. Darius becomes vassal to the huge and powerful Mali, so I start building for war against Hatty. I consider using protective-totem-poled crossbows, but war chariots are immune to first strikes so I decide to hold out for macemen. When my starting stack is almost complete, hooray, wimpy Darius renounces Mali and becomes a free state! A few turns later I march my troops to the border and alt-click on Darius' name.

Then comes my first moment of horror, where, if I weren't playing a GoTM I would immediately reload. Darius had again become Mansa's vassal, and I apparently missed it. Fighting them both at the same time could be tough.

Moment of horror number two comes next turn, when Hatty - cute, sweet, innocent little Hatty - dogpiles me! I had no idea she was capable of such a thing! The only thing that probably saved me from conquest defeat is that I managed to bribe my man Charlie, who was quite powerful, into war against Mansa and Darius. Charlie sends lots of very mean stacks against my enemies, and thankfully keeps them fairly occupied.

There is a lot of back and forth capturing of border cities on both sides. I ended the war ahead one Persian city and one Egyptian city, but they were in sorry shape, mostly stuck behind cultural boundaries and only able to work a couple of tiles each. I decide to hold onto them to make production of Ironworks and Oxford possible. Also, two of my own best cities were hurting for being captured and then taken back.

At this point I am disgusted with war, and decide to try to turtle into space using what I've got. I'm surprised by how well a small empire like mine can keep up. I leverage bureaucracy, philosophical GP farms, and shrine income into a pretty nice economy. But not nice enough to land a spaceship before Mansa's cultural victory in 1930.

Oh, well. My wife always chastises me for quitting Civ games when I'm losing, so at least maybe she is happy. I assure her that the AI's don't have real feelings and don't mind if I quit...

Congrats to those who beat it. Very nice job. And thanks to the staff for running the game. So what's next for BoTM3, we dropping down to Noble or up to Emp?

 

[Harok]

I used my GE for Machinery because I wanted to go to war with Sitting Bull's high-powered crossbows, and because Machinery was on the path to Mass Media anyway. I probably could have got an earlier victory if I had used it for the Pyramids. Besides 1 GE, I got 1 GP, 1 GA, 1 GM, and 9 GSs. My first GS bulbed Philosophy. The GP went for a golden age, and all the others except the late GM went for techs along the main path to Mass Media.

I went to war with Hatty 3 times: first to steal a worker, second to rush her with dogmen and capture her capital, and third to finish her off with Xbows/maces/cats. I took most of Persia's cities with xbows/maces/cats.

Fairly early, I noticed a Jewish block developing so I joined as soon as Judaism spread to one of my cities. In the end, my relations with Pacal, Hammy, and Charlie were +24, +20, and +20. I kept the Hindu Mansa as my UN competitor by feeding him lots of free health and happiness resources and saving him some juicy Persian cities. No need for any back door diplomatic shenanigans. I was very frustrated with Diplo Victory not coming up as an option the first several voting cycles because I was a lock for victory.

Further confirmation I think of why my game took longer for me to get to Mass Media and the UN than yours and JT. You both outplayed me in the war expansion phase.

 

[da_Vinci]

Cultural loss to Mali.

..... mansa won a cultural victory. ARGH!

Cultural Loss to Hatty.

Cultural defeat to Mansa 1930.

Let's add another to the AI cultural hall of victory ... cultural loss to Musa in 1972.

Saw an announcent that Hatty had Thebes go legendary, so that works. Saw that Memphis was at 44,521 and next turn at 45,055 with two cities already legendary (victory screen). Memphis was near my border, so I massed all my tanks, troops and art for a desparate push to kill it (Battle of the Bulge, anyone?). At this time I was a few techs behind the AI, but much behind in army size. I knew the move on Memphis would leave the homeland poorly defended.

Managed to kill Memphis with 3 turns to go to legendary, but lost two border towns and my capital in the process to Hatty, and a northern border city to Musa who joined her in the war. Checked the victory screen, "does she have a fouth city near legendary?" No ... but now Musa is 9 turns away from third city going legendary! I can't get to those in time, so I settle for retaking my capital with my main stack before the enevitable cultural win come in for Musa.

So two AI were racing for cultural !!

Got a reasonable start, stole a worker from Darius, but did not think the dogtroops would be strong enough so waited until cats to take him out. By then Pacal has settled the iron in the west, so war with him next, and I got bogged down in that one.

This left me with Hatty, Musa, Hamu, and Charlie about equal with me in techs entering the late game. Which is about my typical emperor scenario in the other versions (some say this plays one version harder ... it felt like that this game). Which means there are too many threats to counter (all AI were chummy) ... Charlie pushing for space, invasion always a risk, two going for culture and pushing on my borders. I was pushing to get a ship up and launched when the AI got the cultural win. I actually had the score lead before the desparate final war to kill Memphis.

Founded my first corporation, and did a lot of counterespionage (do AI send spies to each other or just to me ???). Still a lot of poisoned water supplies and a few buildings destroyed by the AI against me.

It was fun and a learning experience, so all in all not so bad ...

dV

 

[Jastrow]

This was almost painful...
End result was a domination win sometime around 1550, but it was uuuuuugly

Were to begin...

Well, I started off OK, with the idea of a feudalism sling, taking out a few neighbors with longbow, and settling in for a space ship victory. Things went well at first. I did the sling, and took out Hatty quickly enough (except that with complete kills on, I had to vasilise here with no cities)....

I then turned on Darius, and took his capital. Then took a 10 year peace treaty to regroup before finishing him off. PROBLEM is that during those 10 years, he vacilised to MM, and I did not notice that, so when I redeclared, I was all of a sudden in a war with Mansa as well. The thing wore on, and killed my devellopement. Space was out, so I decided to switch to domination.

This was a royal pain, because I had to have a very long war with Mansa... I HATE fighting a war with a civ whose units are virtually the identical colour to mine... GRRRRR.

To make things worst, I was getting completly killed by war waeriness... Up to 15+ unhappy in several cities (plus year to join mother land from civs that had ZERO cities, but which I could not kill, prsumably because of a damn spy running around)... And, when I get Mansa down to zero cities, he spontaneously vasilized to Hammurai, who I am also in war with, and refuses to talk (At one point, I was at war simultaneously with all civs in the game.. they all pilled on to me when I declared on MM (I assume because of the AP)).... GRRRRRR...

When the game ended, I was runnign 70% culture, and still had cities with some 10 unhappy guys...

 

[Capt Buttkick]

In my first spoiler, I felt I got off to a decent start. I had to edit-lie a little when I realized I didn't get horses from Hatty until some time after 500AD...
However, I think I should have fought at least one AI a bit earlier than I did. The 5 cities I had in the south didn't give me enough oomph for space race research. Having said that, I still out-teched the AI (except for Mansa, who kept up for a while). When I got bombers centuries before anyone else except Darius (who was friendly at the time due to sharing Free Religion), I decided on ending the game with an abysmal domination date instead of a merely awful space race date

I noticed Mansa (whom i had relied on to supply me with tech trades), didn't want to go to space, but instead cut research and grew kulcher

He had around 35K in his top 3 cities and growing around 500 kulcher every turn when he vasalized Pacal and auto-declared on me. Stupid move, cause he was out'teched and had almost no army. I had started moving my forces to his border so I wasn't many turn off declaring myself, to avoid the kulcher defeat that others suffered from.
In the end, Charlie and Pacal's land and vasalization of Hatty (took her 4 best cities in the south) brought me clase to domination with Mansa's land tipping me over.

I find it kinda that the AI will go for kulcher victories. It will make continent high-level maps with peaceful AIs crazy hard, though...

Oh, forgot the date: 1923 domination victory. Started with cannons and rifles/infantry and ended up with bombers and paratroopers/tanks/gunships.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I would prefer you didn't write this kind of posts.

I don't think there is a reason for you to justify your map-making decisions. The game setup was fantastic and we had a great time playing.

And more importantly, I don't want a BOTM03 pregame thread guessing the reasoning and the personal preferences of the mapmaker. I want people talking about objective facts and reasoned decisions.

Understood. However people trying to guess what the map designer might have been thinking/planning has been going on for a long time anyway. And I'm not sure why that should be a bad thing - after all, if you generate a map yourself, you're always going to be using a lot of knowledge of what the map generator tends to do in order to guess things about the likely landscape; is that any different in principle from doing the same thing for a map that you know a staff person has tweaked, and which you know they've almost certainly done partly in order to make sure the game is likely to be fun and playable at some level. Of course it would be bad if you could tell with certainty that there was going to be a eg. iron on a certain square etc. but there's no chance of that happening.

In the case of this game, the unusual start did cause a lot of speculation in the pre-game discussion, and some of it lead to guesses about my motivation that weren't entirely complimentary That alone is I think enough to justify my posting some explanation of what I was trying to do. In the end, people are going to try and second-guess what I might do with future maps anyway - given that they are, I'd rather they did so based on some understanding of the factors that I'm likely to be considering.

 

[jesusin]

Understood. However people trying to guess what the map designer might have been thinking/planning has been going on for a long time anyway. And I'm not sure why that should be a bad thing - after all, if you generate a map yourself, you're always going to be using a lot of knowledge of what the map generator tends to do in order to guess things about the likely landscape; is that any different in principle from doing the same thing for a map that you know a staff person has tweaked, and which you know they've almost certainly done partly in order to make sure the game is likely to be fun and playable at some level. Of course it would be bad if you could tell with certainty that there was going to be a eg. iron on a certain square etc. but there's no chance of that happening.

In the case of this game, the unusual start did cause a lot of speculation in the pre-game discussion, and some of it lead to guesses about my motivation that weren't entirely complimentary That alone is I think enough to justify my posting some explanation of what I was trying to do. In the end, people are going to try and second-guess what I might do with future maps anyway - given that they are, I'd rather they did so based on some understanding of the factors that I'm likely to be considering.

So now you give them a reason to make non-complimentary remarks so you unveil more and more of your map-creating reasoning! J/K

Understood. It was just my personal preference, anyway.

 

[JazzTheo]

I got stomped. I was without Iron or Horses, and Charlie could smell blood. My longbows defended honorably, but the herds of Cats, Trebs, and Elephants just kept coming. I was one turn away from getting reinforcement Spears and extra Longbows to the city under siege, but too late. The city fell. Without pikes, my spearmen were still no match, and after healing his invasion forces, Charlie sent then after my floodplains city and then on to my capitol. Finally the AP intervened and kept Charlie from wiping me off the map, but the damage was done. I was mostly stuck in the tundra, still with no Horse or Iron and so far behind in research that I was a laughing stock and posed no threat and was just letting the turns play out. Eventually, MM decides to come after me with tanks against my muskets, but Hatty ran for Diplo Victory, and I put her over the top just so I could say I survived to the end. I've got a lot more learnin' to do before BOTM3. I was no match for Monarch. I think I'm going to change my internet browser homepage to the War Acadeny.

 

[bcool]

Challenger, space victory in 1915 AD. I'm pleased with the result, but clearly need to learn more. Sadly I discovered the log file option after finishing this game, so it is hard to compare my game to others. Looking at my saves I have a few windows back into the past...

Early start
by 150 AD I had 7 cities, leader in score, land and production, the pyramids and stonehedge. screen shot at the end. No early war, perhaps this is where I need to improve?

by 1050 AD I still had 7 cities, maintaining my lead in score, having built the A Palace, Notre Dame, Univ Sankore, Chicken Itza, and the Great Library... still wonder happy. Probably needed to take another civilization over by now. I usually wait unit I have macemen and treb to go to war.

by 1550 AD I had 15 cities, maintaining the lead, vassalized pacal II, as Hammurabi declared on me before I finished him off, Charlemagne got pulled into war against me before I could make a vassal out of Hammurabi as well. Usually, they offer to be my vassal before another civilization, but either I missed it or they never gave me that option. Wars didn't go smoothly needless to say. Spent a long time in nationhood and drafted to end wars earlier.

Charlemagne would come back at me before the end, my peaceful run to space wasn't very smooth.
Mansa volunteered himself to be my vassal before the end.

I never went to emancipation, but relied on the cities producing research and wealth instead. With the production bonuses of the caste system and the hammer bonuses applying to research and wealth building I thought it might be better since I hadn't been cottage spamming with the exception of my science city. Happiness wasn't a problem with my vassals and with most of the happiness resources...
Mining corporation spread to all of my cities, three gorges dam built to give power to all of the cities.

Hard to tell what slowed me down... Or what specifically slowed me down the most. Any thoughts or suggestions for the future?

A screen shot of the early game

 

[Jastrow]

Bcool,

Its hard to be specific without more details of your early game, but some general comments...

7 cities by 150 AD is not bad... I usually like as a rule of thumb about 6 by 0 AD, so that seams right about on par.

Still have 7 by 1000 AD is a problem. Yes, you should have taken someone elses land by now, and maceman and trebs should be well in the past. Why the heck would you build the Chicken Itchy?

Palace? You must mean forbiden, since you didnt move your capital. Too early and a waste. Your empire was not spread out enough to justify that yet. YOu should have waited until you had ~15 cities, and put it at the edge of the empire then.


From your map at 150 AD...It looks to me like your worker optimization was sub-optimum. You probably could have used an extra 1 or two. Also, did you really already have a big enough happyness problem to justify settling the silver camp this yearly? Other than providing the happy from silver, it is never going to grow into anything special, and cost quite a bit in maintanance. Yes, you need to eventually settle it for the happy, but you might have waited a few centuries.

But the bigest problem I see, if you were dreaming of an early trip to space, is your capital... How can you justify putting it there in a space race? Space races are loooong term affairs, and you always need to look at long term city potential... On your first turn, you clearly moved to where you put the capital. From there, you saw the bounty to the north. Settling where you did gives you 60% of a capital. Everything to the south of the city square is essential wasted compared to what you would have gotten moving two squares further north (likely on the plains hill there.) That move along, at turn two, probably would have cut 50 turns off your spaceship time, all other things being equal. It is that crucial.