BOTM03 Final Spoiler

[DynamicSpirit]

BOTM03 Final Spoiler

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Stop! If you are participating in BOTM03, then you MUST NOT read this thread unless

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The thread in which you are finally allowed to discuss what you did with those lovely carracks of yours. But anyone who tells me they used them to ferry units along the coast to the nearest AI and duff him/her up - I'll be round with the boys to 'visit' you in the middle of the night so watch it... Oh and if you ate them for dinner ... I said 'carracks' not 'carrots'. Wash your ears out!

 

[Conquistador 63]

As I mentioned in the pre-game thread, this was my 1st BTS game. In my first spoiler I told I had eliminated Toku and Liz, bulbed Theo ca.200AD but began building the christian AP in London shortly after 500AD. It was built in 970AD. By 1170AD all AIs had the religion in at least one city.

However, except for the "resident" vote which was up but whose results never came out, no other voting option showed up from then on, even if I had switched out of the religion and was under the 75% pop threshold. There were even 2 other full members for a while. I've seen screenshots of the "members" screen for other ppl's games where it shows the number of votes for each member, but that info wasn't available in my game.

Anyway, I swallowed my frustration and proceeded to clean out my continent. Starting in 1270AD, I captured and kept each one of Monty's cities until he was out in 1445AD. Meanwhile Mass Media was learned in 1450AD. UN was built the hard way and finished 1595AD.

I had over 45% pop IIRC, but Wang and Ragnar also supported me and I eventually won the game in 1685AD.

My carracks? Well, they ferried a few (useless) christian missionaries around, that's all.

I had also promised to build my "RL next-door" WW. But Cristo Redentor is too expensive and comes too late in the game. Maybe next time.

 

[blastoidstalker]

Shouldn't this thread be Sticky'd

I will post my results in a bit after I write them.

 

[whb]

Challenger save, as mentioned in the previous spoiler.

When we left the story, Portugal had settled their rubbish lands, the green but productionless islands, and nabbed the Iron in the desert on the bulge north-west of Japan. The winds of war were brewing.

But, the King of Portugal was a moron and made a pig's breakfast of things.

The initial invasion of Japan got as far as capturing Kyoto. As this happened, we noticed a large number of Aztec troops -- horses and cats -- heading our way. A little negotiation ensured the peace continued for 10 more turns (I forget what the deal Monty asked for was) during which time the Aztecs wandered peacefully throughout Portugal. But then Joao the Mad forgot to sort things out to ensure peace continued. Rather than dogpiling on weak Japan as we hoped, Monty stepped his troops peacefully back into Japan and declared war on Portugal.

Fortunately for dumass-Joao, Monty was just as stupid as the Portuguese. The Portguese abandoned Kyoto to protect the troop-producing heartland, and Monty moved in, defending just with cats and horses. Dumber still, he'd occasionally send a couple of horses into Portugal where they would stand around in indecision not doing anything until they were stabbed to death by a passing pike. Not too much later, Kyoto was back in Portugese hands and Monty agreed to peace.

Not contented with his first foolish gaffe, however, Joao misjudged the size of the Aztec empire. The Aztecs had founded Judaism, which had spread throughout the continent. They had then had a war with England, which Joao stupidly assumed England might have done well in. So Joao built the Apostolic palace thinking that England's and Portugal's votes would be greater than the Aztecs' and Japan's, and that the extra production would really come in handy. How wrong could he be! England only had the one Jewish city after all, and Monty was voted in by a large margin. Jaoa determined to hire some more explorers next time rather than making dumb guesses!

The next thing to happen was Japan vassalled voluntarily to the Aztecs. Now Joao was stuffed. Just to prove things, England declared war on the Aztecs -- a war that lasted precisely one turn before Monty, Toku, and Huayuna voted it back to peace. Joao felt very lucky that Kyoto was still a city of gentiles with no Jewish presence, and couldn't be voted to be reassigned to Japan!

There followed a lot of years of growing and spreading Judaism throughout England until I was confident that we had enough votes not necessarily to become resident, but at least to block any war-ending or city-reassigning resolutions. In the late 16th century(!), England went to war with the Aztecs and Japan again and asked Portugal to Join, and we duly did.

Japan fell in relatively short order -- when they momentarily unvassalled from the Aztecs, they were willing to capitulate to Portugal, and so they turned on their former Aztec masters. Portugal was given a holy quest to take Tenochtitlan, which duly happened, and the Aztecs capitulated too. The English voluntarily vassalled to Portugal somewhere during this process.

There followed a little rebuilding, and some worry that the other continent was becoming advanced. And then it was war again. First the Vikings were crushed, then the Inca, then the Maya, and then the Persians.

Sadly, however, Joao the Stupid still couldn't count, and the capitulation of the Persians took Portugal way over the domination limit, and despite liberating nearly a dozen cities around the place, it just wasn't going to be prevented. So Portugal accidentally fell out of the Obormot gauntlet!

Domination victory for Portugal, hideously late in 1925AD.

 

[Duin]

Contender save, cultural victory in 1852.

My late game was fairly uneventful. I had 5 religions in my lands that I spread around to every city. Built lots of temples and 5 cathedrals in each of my legendary cities. Monty declared on me a couple times but didn't really do any damage. Eventually I razed his closest city and he left me alone after that. I turned the research slider down after mass media. This let me get the eiffel tower and civilized jewelers. In hindsight I should have done this much earlier, probably after rifling or maybe biology. Generated several more late game artists to speed things along. The three cities finished within three turns of each other.

It was a fun game, I liked the weak start and it was interesting to see how different people handled it. I was fortunate that my warrior rush was successful. It was also my first culture victory since vanilla civ which felt pretty good.

 

[jesusin]

However, except for the "resident" vote which was up but whose results never came out, no other voting option showed up from then on, even if I had switched out of the religion and was under the 75% pop threshold. There were even 2 other full members for a while. I've seen screenshots of the "members" screen for other ppl's games where it shows the number of votes for each member, but that info wasn't available in my game.

You have that info on F8-Members screen.

The results of the votings are seen on that page, where you go from Full member to AP resident. They are also shown in a pop up the following turn of your who-do-you-vote-for pop-up. Didn't this appear in your game???

Once you are under 75% you have to wait for the votings to come. They come every 10 turns after the AP building. Did more than 10 turns pass being under 75%?

 

[jesusin]

Joao felt very lucky that Kyoto was still a city of gentiles with no Jewish presence, and couldn't be voted to be reassigned to Japan!

I don't think that is required, the city doesn't need to have the religion, as long as both AI have the religion it can be given back.

Or does it?

 

[oncable]

Contender start. Domination victory 1545. After unloading the army on the Incas, one of the carracks sailed east, found the other continent and proved the world is round, thereby gaining an extra movement per turn. From then on it was simply ferrying troops to the other continent and capturing cities. I set up a colony (Washington) to reduce maintenance. Learned an interesting point - if you gift a city to your colony immediately, it does not get any defenders, whereas if you occupy it yourself then wait till next turn to gift it, it will automatically get 2 defenders at your current tech level. This is much better because it frees up your troops to move on and you don't need to leave any behind as defenders. It also lets you check over the city first to see if it has a lot of wonders, in which case you might want to keep it yourself rather than give it to your colony.

The other interesting point is to try to balance growth by settling on the home continent and growth by capturing. I met the population requirement for domination win quite early on but to get to the 58% of land area required took a lot longer. I guess I should have whipped more earlier on, it would have made for an earlier victory.

Another interesting point was the tech lead throughout. Not a single tech or resource trade in the whole game. I guess I played too conservatively.

 

[Conquistador 63]

jesusin, thanks for the reply.

You have that info on F8-Members screen. I know where the info is supposed to be - but it just wasn't there.

The results of the votings are seen on that page, where you go from Full member to AP resident. I checked there but there was never an AP resident. I just appeared as full or voting member, depending on my religion at any given point.They are also shown in a pop up the following turn of your who-do-you-vote-for pop-up. Didn't this appear in your game??? Nope.

Once you are under 75% you have to wait for the votings to come. They come every 10 turns after the AP building. Did more than 10 turns pass being under 75%?

From autolog:
Turn 242/750 (970 AD) London finishes: The Apostolic Palace
Turn 253/750 (1080 AD) IBT: State Religion Change: Joao II(Portugal) from 'Christianity' to 'no State Religion'
Turn 264/750 (1190 AD) IBT: State Religion Change: Joao II(Portugal) from 'no State Religion' to 'Christianity'
Turn 311/750 (1455 AD) IBT: State Religion Change: Joao II(Portugal) from 'Christianity' to 'no State Religion'
Civics Change: Joao II(Portugal) from 'Pacifism' to 'Free Religion'

Also, as I was at war with another Christian nation (Monty) for centuries, I suppose a vote for stop war should have appeared also. But as the AP had no resident at all...that didn't come as a surprise.

I was also wondering, do we need to have infected every AI by the time the AP is built?

 

[jesusin]

jesusin, thanks for the reply.


From autolog:
Turn 242/750 (970 AD) London finishes: The Apostolic Palace
Turn 253/750 (1080 AD) IBT: State Religion Change: Joao II(Portugal) from 'Christianity' to 'no State Religion'
Turn 264/750 (1190 AD) IBT: State Religion Change: Joao II(Portugal) from 'no State Religion' to 'Christianity'
Turn 311/750 (1455 AD) IBT: State Religion Change: Joao II(Portugal) from 'Christianity' to 'no State Religion'
Civics Change: Joao II(Portugal) from 'Pacifism' to 'Free Religion'

Also, as I was at war with another Christian nation (Monty) for centuries, I suppose a vote for stop war should have appeared also. But as the AP had no resident at all...that didn't come as a surprise.

I was also wondering, do we need to have infected every AI by the time the AP is built?

All that looks like a bug. I also felt strange things in BOTM02, where I could vote for victory but no for OB, for example.

Answering your last question, no, I have won religious victories in GMinor37 by building the AP first, infecting the last AIs later.

 

[orb]

Another loss.*?!*. - I'm sh**.

It was all going so well.

Decided to try for Religious win. -Lightbulbed Theo from my Stonehenge Prophet in 700BC, built the AP in 445AD - Pleased with this date.- It was looking good.

- Spent the next 1000 years spreading the good word. - Trouble was I couldn't get the balance quite right. - The other full members (Toku, Monte, HC and Liz) were voting for each other. - It wasn't until 1806 that Joao got control of the vote....But by this point the rest of the world was teching towards the end game.

- Joao decided to build the UN as well to continue the attempt to get voted into the winners enclosure. - UN built in 1881.

...But again either Monte or Toku would vote for me, but never both at the same time.. - Best vote...Came within about 300 of the win...Could never get the rest of the needed vote.

...Looking bad for a voted victory so the space race started.(after me saying that I never attempt space wins.).

..Anyway, this also failed. Darius won the space race in 2012. - Joao was 6 parts short. (About 22 turns more would have done it)....Lack of experience in space part production here.

So it transpires that I was close but no cigar on 3 different victory types in this game. - Good experience....I'm not getting dogpiled like in previous games, but a near win is still a loss. - The school report says "Must try Harder".

 

[Rashiminos]

Vassalized everyone except Darius and HC, diplomatic victory in January 1960 (turn 570)

 

[jesusin]

jesusin, challenger. Goal: fastest conquest. Result: 910AD conquest.

At 1AD I had killed Eliz and Monte. My exploring ships had mapped out the whole world, discovering the way to HC and no connection to the other continent. Bad GL luck had me getting Optics in 310AD. I quickly whipped 9 Carracks, 8 turns later I had met all AIs, 6 turns later I had circumnavigated. By then I had killed Toku and HC, but all my units where in Cuzco when I discovered that the W route was the shortest.

Also built GLH in 265AD, which greatly helped my economy. I prepared for a long logistics phase. I decided to Work developped cottages in 3 cities, mines and resources in all cities, whip all the rest. Too much whipping lead to some unhappiness, but units where necessary.

Got CoL but didn't build many CH, preferred units. Got CS for Maces, but they weren't really needed. Then Feudalism, which should have been much sooner, to allow them to capitulate. Kept a single Ragnar city, razed the rest (shouldn't have been so conservative with maintenance, +60gpt at 0%). Started a GAge, revolted to Vass and dowed Wang(with Feud) and Pacal(with eleph). It was surprisingly easy, since my units came fast now (2 at a turn on the W front). The E front was my bigger success, attacked directly the 2 biggest Korean cities and they became vassals without any more fight! Having learnt this, made Pacal my vassal and dowed Darius going for his best cities first.

I was thinking along Vanilla terms, where you have to take lots of losses due to taking every little town. I had 120 units at the end, a third of them would have been enough. And I was on the green yet. So too much preparation, this is not the way to play a fast conquest.


Mistakes and questions;

- Not a single spy (again). Please tell me, do spy missions cost money or only spy-points? (?1) In the latter case, I should have used spys because I already had a lot of those due to CHs.

- Don't know how to use a GG. I have read about super-medics, but I am unconvinced; they seem no better than a normal medic in the same tile. In this game I used 2 of the as instructors in my best 2 cities. But I was producing units everywhere, so this was not the case for Instructors. Some others I added, once to 4 Swords, once to a single Sword. It wasn't very effective, other than giving a CR3 sword a 30% chance of retreat. What should I have done with my GG? (?2)

- I basically played a Vanilla game. If only I had the time to practice BTS...

- Unit movement: in the continent I had a truly national Wonder: the Tokkaido, a road connecting the South pole and Lisbon to Tokyo, to Kyoto and as far North as Tenochtitlan. In the seas I never did a proper ship chaining. There were units coming from different points in the West and the route wasn't long, so I never felt the need, just bringing 2 units per carrack and some units hops when opportune seemed correct to me. Was there a reason to ship-chain?(?3) In the East, all units were transferred in 2 waves.

- What is a Vassal? I took the opportunity to observe them. They were angry at me. I asked for their money and they gave it to me, but became angrier. They were so angry I couldn't ask for their resources and techs(?). The next AI I asked not only capitulation but capitulation plus techs and I got it all. Also, the turn before dowing Darius I asked Pacal to stop trading with him and he refused. The following turn I dowed Darius and Pacal dowed him too, accordingly. Then why not stop trading at my order? It all felt a bit stupid. What can I expect form a Vassal? (?4)

- 42 turns from Optics to conquest victory. How much did it take you? (?5)

- I never new how close I was to victory. Feudalism should have come sooner, saving me the time to raze every little Viking outpost.

- Only 19 turns since Feudalism and 3 AI to go till victory.

- Are half built trirremes transformed into Carracks when you discover Optics? Is there a way for me to know that without trying? (?6)

Any help on questions (?#) would be appreciated.

 

[Obormot]

Challenger, BOTM Gauntlet.

First spoiler (4000BC-1000BC) is here.

In vanilla/warlords reaching optics is usually done by lightbulbing compass & optics. But it seems that it is not always the best route any more. First the tech order is changed, and alphabet has a higher priority then compass/optics. So using GSs for lightbulbing requires reseraching math & alphabet. The total benefit is only ~1000 beakers. Second the GA costs only one GP.

So I ignored math & alphabet and went straight for Optics. I used my first GS for academy in London and the second one to launch a GA.

London became my top research city (gold, 2 scientists, academy), Kyoto & Osaka helped too working the gems & river cottages. Here is the tech progress:

1100BC - Metal Casting (Oracle)
800BC - Academy built in London, some libraries whipped in other cities. Switch from 0% science to 100% science.
750BC - Iron Working
550BC - Compass
260BC - Machinery
125BC - GA starts
80BC - Optics
25AD - GA ends. It didn't speed up research much, but helped producing troops for the invasion a lot.

While London, Kyoto and Osaka were pulling me to Optics, my other city Oporto, founded in the great production spot near the copper (the only city I founded in this game, except the capital), produced axemen for conquering the aztecs & the inca:

800BC - decalre war on the aztecs.
470BC - aztecs destroyed (Monty had 3 cities, I kept 2).
305BC - declare war on the inca.
230BC - inca destroyed (Capac had two cities, I kept his capital).

I kept producing units after killing Monty & Capac, maybe it delayed Optics by 1-2 turns, but when I got it, I already had some 30 units, mostly axes, but also some swords and crossbows which I could build after grabbing Cuzco's iron. I also had 8 cities under GA producing more units. At first all my coastal cities built carracks, then switched to swords. Inland cities produced swords all the time. Invasion timeline:

80BC - discover Optics
115AD - circumnavigation
145AD - declare war on Persia
220AD - declare war on Korea
250AD - declare war on Maya
295AD - Persia destroyed
430AD - Korea destroyed
475AD - Maya destroyed
490AD - declare war on the Vikings
595AD - Vikings destroyed
610AD - conquest victory

 

[DynamicSpirit]

(Delete: I wrote something then realized I'd misread what I was replying to)

 

[Obormot]

- Don't know how to use a GG. I have read about super-medics, but I am unconvinced; they seem no better than a normal medic in the same tile. In this game I used 2 of the as instructors in my best 2 cities. But I was producing units everywhere, so this was not the case for Instructors. Some others I added, once to 4 Swords, once to a single Sword. It wasn't very effective, other than giving a CR3 sword a 30% chance of retreat. What should I have done with my GG? (?2)

I think the most effective way is either settling, or distributing the points between 10 units, so that every one gains a promotion, depending on how much time is left. I settled my first GG and used the second one to promote my stack. Of course it doesn't make that much difference when you have a huge number of units.

- What is a Vassal? I took the opportunity to observe them. They were angry at me. I asked for their money and they gave it to me, but became angrier. They were so angry I couldn't ask for their resources and techs(?). The next AI I asked not only capitulation but capitulation plus techs and I got it all. Also, the turn before dowing Darius I asked Pacal to stop trading with him and he refused. The following turn I dowed Darius and Pacal dowed him too, accordingly. Then why not stop trading at my order? It all felt a bit stupid. What can I expect form a Vassal? (?4)

The only use I found for vassals is speeding up a conquest win.

- 42 turns from Optics to conquest victory. How much did it take you? (?5)

46 turns.

- Are half built trirremes transformed into Carracks when you discover Optics? Is there a way for me to know that without trying? (?6)

No, they won't switch to carracks, because you can still build triremes even if you know optics. You can get this info from the civilopedia: it sais there that a trireme upgrades to carrack AND frigate. So it only gets obsolete once you can build caravells and frigates. I don't know how to find out whether it is going to switch to a carrack or a frigate in that case.

 

[blastoidstalker]

Pushing for a fast diplomatic win
This was my first time trying to win a diplomatic victory so I made some mistakes cut overall I think it went pretty well. Biggest mistake I made was not generating Great engineers as they would have sped up the process immensely.

Age of discovery and the plan 500-1000AD

In 670 AD I finally started to make contact with the other Civs. In 700 AD I learned astronomy and my commerce started to rise dramatically with the great lighthouse boost. I tried to generate a hybrid economy that focused one trade in small cities, then 1 Great person city (the five food resources), one cottage city (Kyoto) and 2-3 production centers. Resource acquisition was the focus for cities as it allowed for high population and lots of goodies to lavish on the AI’s. This seemed to work pretty well. For civics I was ran hereditary rule (eventaly for diplomatic reasons), caste system, free market when I got to it and free religion early on from the S.P. I did not fight anyone, choosing instead to fill in the space available and keep my economy smoothly running.


Once all of the other 4 civs were found it became apparent that they were in a bit of a love fest. This is because HC, Liz and I founded all but 1 religion, making the other island completely Taoist. This eventually worked to my advantage because I could trade will all of them with no fear of the "you traded with my worst enemy" modifiers. In looking at the leaders and their preferred traits it became apparent that I needed to stay in hereditary rule (for HC, and Pacal and one other leader (I forget who), caste system and free religion (Darius). Darius was the population leader over there but Pacal was very close. I decided that I would need to make sure Darius got to liberalism, so he would switch to free religion and lose his big + modifiers, I also planned on making sure he had bio (and the others did not) so that he would remain my future opponent. Being in free religion I was able to stay on the good side of everybody and broker techs and resources. I also needed to get Darius biology and keep it from the others so he would become the 2nd population leader. Besides this I gifted all the civs my extra resources to improve relations and did tech trading to back fill my tree.

END GAME

The end of the game was mainly just pushing toward mass media. . I used liberalism to get radio. I gifted my resources and changed civics early so the modifiers would build. I went a bit overboard on exploring other ideas to help with Diplo win. I built the UN in a city that I could gift to Monty, but I did not need to do this

Monty declared was on Elizabeth in 1130 AD, and when she asked me to declare war on him (1295), I did and took one city. This was not really necessary and I wish I had not, as it would have been nice to think that no other civ would of ever seen me fight a battle if I had not done this. Liz asked to become my vassal and I accepted and then I learned that I got a -1 modifier to all other civs.

I received the build castles quest, and I actually completed it, castles + 1 trade route was useful for my game style. This gave me the option of gaining +3 relation with all other players, which was not necessary but made winning easier

I felt in the game that I was bee lining to mass media but looking back I did wander a bit, costing me time

Mass media in 13000 AD
UN in 1450
Win in 1500 AD, I went a little overboard, with over 100 votes over the threshold. I only had about 30% of the votes myself.

Golden Ages
The biggest thing I learned this game is how powerful Golden Ages are now. Particulary I had not realized that you do not go into anarchy with civics changes when you are in a Golden age. This is very useful in late game as you can be in anarchy for several turns. I had 3 golden ages, 1 of them being a double golden age (1 from great people and the second from the Taj Mahal) that lasted 30 turns and really helped with the push to mass media. I was supposed to have a 4th near the end but I pushed the wrong button and created a super specialist by accident.

Stupid things
I tried some futile measures that were not necessary and only served to slow me down. I spread Islam to Ragnar, to try to pry him away from the Tao block but I could not convert him because I was in free religion. I spent a hundred years trying to figure out why the convert option was not working. I also should have switched some of my production cities to build research near the end rather than building random buildings or units.


Tech

Spoiler :

565 AD Monarchy (trade)
700 Astronomy
775 Construction (trade), Civil Service (trade?)
790 Drama (trade?)
835 Paper
920 Printing Press
970 Horseback Riding (Trade)
980 Engineering (trade?)
1000 Nationalism
1070 Scientific Method
1100 Theology (trade)
1170 Physics
1190 Education
1240 banking(trade)
1260 Electricity
1270 Liberalism
1275 Radio
1290 Divine right (trade)
1300 Mass Media
1315 Economics
1325 Gunpowder
1330 Military tradition (trade?)
1355 Chemistry
1395 Biology
1425 Communism
1450 Constitution
1475 replaceable parts
1490 Corporation

 

[VirusMonster]

Obormot, is there any particular reason you kept Lisbon at size 2 almost entire game?! Could not you have built at least a few farms and grew size 5-6before focusing on unit production?!

nice game btw and nice writeup.

 

[jesusin]

80BC - discover Optics
115AD - circumnavigation
145AD - declare war on Persia
220AD - declare war on Korea
250AD - declare war on Maya
295AD - Persia destroyed
430AD - Korea destroyed
475AD - Maya destroyed
490AD - declare war on the Vikings
595AD - Vikings destroyed
610AD - conquest victory

Ooooh! This means that

1.- I conquered the other continent fastest than Obormot! It is all Feudalism+capitulation fault, I didn't have anything to do with it, I promise!

2.- If I had got the right GLeader AND if I had gone for Feudalism sooner, my finish date would have been competitive Or maybe this time Obormot's date isn't competitive at all???



EDIT: Thank you very much for your answers. I was at a loss with GG, your approach makes a lot of sense: you get more total promotions by giving a single cheap promotion to several units. On the other hand you don't get to use more than one of the "special GG promotions"... which I wasn't doing anyway.

 

[Obormot]

Obormot, is there any particular reason you kept Lisbon at size 2 almost entire game?! Could not you have built at least a few farms and grew size 5-6before focusing on unit production?!

nice game btw and nice writeup.

Well, it didn't have any other hills except the two that were already worked, so I didn't feel it was really necessary. I think I wanted to build some farms for rushing, but in the early game my workers had more important tasks to do and later I was too lazy to bother about that.

2.- If I had got the right GLeader AND if I had gone for Feudalism sooner, my finish date would have been competitive Or maybe this time Obormot's date isn't competitive at all???

Maybe. Ribannah's start looks impressive, she was surely far ahead of me after her initial success with baiting Toku's archers. Later I think she made a mistake though, founding too many extra cities (you don't need that much production to conquer a continent on noble) and researching techs that don't lead directly to Optics.