BOTM03 Final Spoiler

[Ribannah]

Ribannah
Congrats! Interesting and good planned game! I lost 3-4 turns at the finish due to bad random: 2 mace lost battle to 2 archers and I sent there additional troops.

Your plan (after the opening conquests) was the opposite of mine and worked quite well, too.
I had bad luck initially against the Vikings which cost me 3 maces and slowed me down considerably in the south, but this was compensated somewhat with good battle outcomes with less troops than intended against Korea.

Knowing the map, settling Braga early on the farthest island was suboptimal, and also I didn't realize until later that I could have had more than 12 cities anyway since during GA there is no anarchy in BtS. But, no game of civ is ever perfect.

 

[Gosha190]

I had bad luck initially against the Vikings

I got exactly the same!

My mistakes:
1.I did not play enough strong after Optic. I was very glad that my race to optic was finished successfully. So I began to play slopely.
2.I did not use vassal and it costs me (- it's answer to Jesusin question!)

Congrats once more! You beat all: challengers and contenders!

ps it seems I must play adventure BTS saves for a while... Contender is too difficult to me to compete with challengers

 

[jesusin]

18, if I counted right.

This number is quite misleading, since your "detours" purposely delayed Optics. It is impressive, nontheless.


When I read the end of your first spoiler I thought you were losing focus, going for too many WW. I am glad to discover that I was wrong. Congratulations!

 

[DRJ]

This was the first GOTM I competed in and have to say it was quite an experience.

I usually do try to avoid domination and diplomatic wins as well as cultural ones in my custom games by turning them off, so thrown into this harsh starting landscape, faced with all the disliked possible wins out there, at least the noble difficulty let me smile a bit - cause I play prince and monarch usually.


My strategy in early game went towards expansion to 5 cities and connecting iron, and then pretty soon after having it, my first swordsman killed 2 japanese warriors just in time (the next japanese city I took had allready an archer in it)

After successfully whiping out the rest of Japan I killed England by combining a blitz war on their border, a short peace, a pillaging war and a final strike on the heavily defended city by elite swordsmen (because a catapult left london for one of my single pillaging (baiting?) axes outside the city, switching the combat odds to my side - stupid AI...

Soon after England was down I was confronted with a thin military, a fast growing green atztec jungle...full of jaguars...

I was ahead in tech and had maces by the time but it was a coastal based economy (great lighthouse) and so i left lot of the inland to monty, setting dug-in-parameters in my established locations (in my normal games I avoid to have many cities)

A screen from 625 AD, rebuilding phase

Spoiler :

I visited Vikings with my carracks and somehow 2 of their cities were razed, before peace was restored; then a bloody, long war, with Monty followed, involving the creation of some risky jungle supply routes:

Spoiler :

One of the reasons I could tech on during the war was my golden age slingshot: first I snatched the mausoleum for long golden ages, then I built taj mahal for first golden age, next one cost me one gp, then 2, 3 and so on.
- maybe its even not very good to have so many golden ages in a row,
but I figured out, as I had no chance to get any award, maybe trying something like a "never ending golden age" would be compensating that a bit...^^

I ran representation (thx to pyramids i chopped with lissabons forrests early on) and had lot of specialists beakers- as a nice synergy to my "regrow gps for never ending golden-age-strategy"-farms, who were very effective as I also ran pacifism (+100% birth rate), chopped parthenon before (+50%), had golden age (+100%) and some other gp +% modifier I just dont recall now..

So I had a very very very very very long golden age time (adjusting my cities to grow different gps, which worked increadibly good (f.e. something like a 71% great priest chance never failed)

I went for no straight winning goal, but I estimated, although having nice 20+ pop cities with bombers and machine guns in endgame around 1750 and laboratories in the making I didnt want space race, so hitting the 60% landmass domination victory with a ~80 k score finished this interesting game for me.

Here a screenie of the final map:

P.S. inspite of oversea diplomacy I made friends with Korea, traded a few techs and gifted ressources, made him adopt free religion and seperated him from Persia and Maya, who dow'ed 3 times on me, landing at my shores in endgame, but where driven back into the waters soon. As I had a long coastline, my defense strategy was during the golden ages a draft-by-need military production, as I could quickly switch to nationhood once I needed troops. I stacked them then either in the bigger cities or a bit inland between 3-or-so minor cities, which I could afford to be occupied by the invaders for one or two turns, before recapturing them.

 

[da_Vinci]

Since this was noble, I figured I would try the challenger gauntlet ... oops!

Lessons learned:

1. I am not ready for prime time yet (challenger)

2. I fight way too slow, (and start way too late), and it seems worse in BtS

3. I still keep too many cities ...

I went west to settle on the plains hill, nothing too remarkable.

Once I had cats I took out the Japanese roadblock to the land NE. Handled Japan easily, but then got bogged down with Monte.

Japan war 610 - 1090

Monte delcared on me 1120 ... 1510 he was dead

1510 !!! and nowhere near a conquest, and it is March 15 Hmm ... conquering every city at this point will take more time than I have got ... so lets see if I can squeeze out a dom before the deadline ...

1540 Carracks ferry troops to Incaland and we take a few cities, including the capital. Peace in 1680.

1730 to 1794 was the destruction of England.

Ragnar had declared in 1750 ... Carracks ferried an assault force there and took all but one city by the end.

Hovering around 50% land, finished off Capac and picked of Persian colonies east of former Mexico to cross the land limit ... with six hours to spare on the deadline!

Domination 1851 for 4065 base, 47,225 final.

Rather dissappointing for noble level ... the combination of challenger start and the resource poor location meant I was quite slow getting started.

Well, at least I was able to salvage some victory out of it ...

My map looks strikingly like DRJ's ... see attached

dV

 

[MarkM]

Was 2x ahead of next civ and on an easy roll to domination win, at ~54% level for both territory and pop, had wiped out all the rivals on my half the world, just the 3 left on the other side, but ... ran out of RL time. Just couldn't get it done in time, to organize a cross-ocean invasion

Wasn't going to be in the running for anything (except for maybe another cow, lol, was in 1600s and adjusted score was about 90k), but I hate not finishing

 

[Ronnie1]

I fall into MarkM's category.

I started what I thought was fairly strong, see spoiler #1,

But hind site being crystal clear, I now see that I had a very weak plan, maybe even no plan is more accurate. After finding the galley route to the Incas, I took Cuzco which had The Great Library, and eventually built NE here for the GPers bonus.

The end of the story looks something like this.

My Carracks came way to late. They were early enough to gain the circumnav bonus, and to take most of the Vikings. But they would not Capitulate (I may not have had Feudalism yet now that I think about it). Eventually I freed their former cities and Roosevelt became my ultra happy vassal. The cost of the over seas operations and war weariness was killing me. I eventually vassaled Pacal, kept giving captured cities to Roosevelt, but ran out of RL time to complete. So I retired and submitted.

Main lesson learned, I'm not ready for prime time either!

 

[da_Vinci]

Now that I have had time to think about it, and see others' experiences as well, I have an observation about my limited success in the BOTM 03 on challenger: It may be the "sporting" thing to do to play challenger on any XOTM that is two levels below your usual success level in that game version. Since monarch is my usual success level, playing challenger on noble made sense by that "rule"

And, although I had greater expectations than I achieved, the domination date is not that different than I often achieve on monarch with contender, so maybe the poor start and the challenger handicaps was about the right equalizer. At least for me.

dV

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Now that I have had time to think about it, and see others' experiences as well, I have an observation about my limited success in the BOTM 03 on challenger: It may be the "sporting" thing to do to play challenger on any XOTM that is two levels below your usual success level in that game version.

While some people may see it like that and I understand your point, it is perhaps worth remembering that challenger is supposed to be an optional thing that people who want an additional challenge can do if they wish to. We certainly don't want anyone to feel obliged or peer-pressured into taking challenger; for that reason I'd personally prefer not to see challenger described in terms such as "the sporting thing to do" - since that could carry connotations of it being bad (unsporting) not to play challenger.

 

[da_Vinci]

While some people may see it like that and I understand your point, it is perhaps worth remembering that challenger is supposed to be an optional thing that people who want an additional challenge can do if they wish to. We certainly don't want anyone to feel obliged or peer-pressured into taking challenger; for that reason I'd personally prefer not to see challenger described in terms such as "the sporting thing to do" - since that could carry connotations of it being bad (unsporting) not to play challenger.

I see your point ... the use of "sporting thing to do" was was mostly to allow me to tweak you Brits with your own idiom ... .

I was mostly making the observation that for me, the combination of the resource poor start and the challenger save produce a result on noble that resembles my results on monarch at contender and a typical resourced start.

So IF (why does that make me think of LC? ) someone was asking themselves "For games at levels below my usual success level, when should I consider challenger as a way to produce a simlar challenge to my usual success level (not that anyone is asking that convoluted question, I suppose ... )?", I could say that in my limited experience, challenger might approximately equalize a two level drop (but it might have been one level for challenger, and one for resource deprivation).

Now if you are not asking that question, then nevermind ...

dV

 

[MarkM]

This compulsion to play challenger saves puzzles me. dV's post is not the first time I've seen in this forum the attitude that to be "sporting" or whatever you should play challenger, at least at lower levels, that somehow playing the contender save is inappropriate or something if you're at all a competent player (?) ... no, that is how adventurer is supposed to be regarded, not contender.

I always thought the point of xOTM was for everyone to play the same game so they were comparable, so you could measure yourself against the field in all different kinds of circumstances. Adventurer is to accommodate noobs, and challenger is to accommodate people who are looking to push themselves, giving up measuring themselves against the masses, for whatever reason. i.e they unilaterally give themselves a handicap, like in golf (except in reverse obviously).

I just hope this "pressure" to play challenger doesn't 1) defeat the main point of xOTM (everyone playing the same game so you can compare strategies & results easily), and 2) make some players do things they don't seem to really want to do (unilaterally handicap themselves in the competition). Of course lower level games are (usually) easier, but IMO this just means how you show your competence is by adjusting your play style & aggressiveness accordingly; You play a different game. IMO the variety of difficulty levels actually give the games more variety & push you to develop a playing style that must adapt to circumstances, and you needn't at all feel compelled to try to "normalize" them as much as you can to the same level! The "equalizer" doesn't need to be giving yourself a "handicap." The "equalizer" can be to just get a better score/finish date! Personally, this is something I'm struggling with right now, I played pretty much on Emperor for 6 months before BTS started, and frankly I have not really successfully adjusted my game for the lower difficulty levels of BOTM so far (my resolution going into #4). So ironically, relatively speaking, I struggle more at optimally playing the prince and noble difficulty levels! It's seems odd that some players who seem to most have the "pro golfer" attitude (going for absolute measures of ability like medals, awards, etc), instead of just comparing unadjusted raw scores like pro golfers do, want to user the "social" and uncompetitive system of handicaps that amateur golf has (allowing one player to play worse than his competitor and still win because of handicap).

Everyone is free to do whatever they want of course, but I really hope people don't lose sight of what (IMO) the whole point of xOTM & submitting games & publishing results is supposed to be -- to measure yourself with a standard yardstick! If you just want consistent challenge to win or lose, well then the "Play New Game" pick is there anytime you want it. The yardstick might change every game (a long one at deity, a short one at prince), but I personally think it'd be best if people would just accept the standard yardstick measure the staff decides on & adapts. Like I said, everyone can of course do whatever they want. But it does effect other players, they should realize, by diminishing the accuracy of that month's yardstick for them!

I'll probably regret saying that but ... there, it's done. Soapbox off.

 

[kcd_swede]

But it does effect other players, they should realize, by diminishing the accuracy of that month's yardstick for them!

I suppose everyone has their own reasons for participating in xOTM, too. I am usually pleased with any victory at any level. Comparative scores show me my potential for improvement. That's why I'm here. Looking at the scores from a few matches, I don't think Challenger skews the results so much. I see loys of room for improving my game anyhow.

For the ego-driven types... just remember this community is a tiny fraction of the Civ players worldwide. There is probably some guy in Kazakhstan who routinely gets 300000 score on Deity level, so don't get complacent... everybody has room for improvement.

 

[jesusin]

I'll probably regret saying that but ... there, it's done. Soapbox off.

Hi MarkM. I am one of those who lately play challenger (even though I am still wondering why I do so in BOTM, where I am a complete newb; social preassure, I suppose).

I basically agree with what you say.

I wanted to say that I am not beyond hope. There is a cure for me. Please, take the contender save and get the Award we challengers are looking for. Do that twice (once would do if it is cultural, oh my! that would really hurt) and I'll be cured.

 

[Gosha190]

I am still wondering why I do so in BOTM, where I am a complete newb; social preassure, I suppose).

feel you free and be FREE!

 

[MarkM]

I wanted to say that I am not beyond hope. There is a cure for me. Please, take the contender save and get the Award we challengers are looking for. Do that twice (once would do if it is cultural, oh my! that would really hurt) and I'll be cured.

LOL. No offense jesusin, but ... ahem .. going for culture wins bores me. As does spaceship. I've achieved both exactly once back in vanilla, to see what the victory screen looks like [aside: boy, what a letdown!] and never tried again. Guess I'll never be a heptathlete LOL (like there was any danger of that).

Well, OK ... if I ever do get the gold (maybe a worldwide power surge will fry everyone else's computers one month LOL), then maybe I'll start thinking about it

 

[Thrallia]

hm...I guess I should at least report on my attempts to play this game

I settled in place(after my fruitless attempt to buck the trends and explored E, finding Toku on turn 3), and started mass building warriors...I built 4 of them, then approached Toku to declare war...he had 1 warrior in Kyoto, so I felt I would get an easy second city, and have access to all the land past him....I declare war, he rushes a protective archer. I then waste all 4 warriors on that archer, none of them killing it. So now it is a CG3 archer

The smart thing to do would have been to regroup a couple warriors and wait for Toku to be willing to get peace...so of course that's the last thing on my mind...I already know that there's only room for one more decent city(which I then chop out and found on a plains hill on the coast), and I then start amassing warriors again. At one point I collect 8 warriors for another attack on Toku, which is just as fruitless as the first time around...now he's got 2 CG3 archers in Kyoto, and I watched him send out a settler.

I managed to sneak a warrior past Kyoto without his archers picking it off, and made contact with England in the mid 1000s BC, but that was the extent of my explorations. I founded another city SE of Kyoto, to attempt to distract the archers that Toku was starting to send into my territory. Unfortunately, the lack of any metals or horses doomed my efforts at warfare, as did my horrible decisions(I really need to stop playing my openings at 3 am).

At 800BC, Toku had begun massing his archers for attacking me, and I had no hope of beating him myself, so I stopped playing, and never got around to finishing it.

 

[da_Vinci]

@ Thrallia: Paying your dues to DynamicSpirit? I need to do the same for WOTM 16 (spoiler coming there when I get a chance)... if you substitute archer where you have warrior, and Musa where you have Toku, that is pretty much my WOTM 16 disaster tale!

dV

 

[Ronnie1]

Shame on both of my Gypsy King teammates! You both know better than to try that tactic at those odds. OVERWHELMING numbers if you are under powered is the only way.

 

[Thrallia]

@Ronnie1: I have yet to perform a successful war in BtS, other than on Settler level. It worries me that the AI is smarter than me at warring

 

[jesusin]

LOL. No offense jesusin, but ... ahem .. going for culture wins bores me. As does spaceship. I've achieved both exactly once back in vanilla, to see what the victory screen looks like [aside: boy, what a letdown!] and never tried again. Guess I'll never be a heptathlete LOL (like there was any danger of that).

We are completely opposite (or complimentary?) players. I tried culture once, I have never been able to stop playing cultural games. I am 1 Award away from Heptathlon, but I will never go for the boring cow.