BOTM03 Final Spoiler

[BLubmuz]

continued from here
around 700 AD i has some 7 cities, maces and my carracks started exploring the world.
This can sound pitiful, compared to some posts here, but i prefer to say "average".
Anyway, i was ready to DoW Monty, when i noticed some starnge movements of troops. So, i stopped, right on his borders.
Well done, he DoWed me in 750 AD, so less WW for me.
But it wasn't easy, he has a lot of HA, cats, jaguars ... lots of troops.
To make it short, the war lasted for centuries, until its complete destruction in 1550 AD, one of the longest wars i ever fought.
Then i has to rebuild my economy, a conquest was too long at this point, aiming for a SR.

I've lost the Economics race to Pacal, barely won the Physics one and used Lib for Astro, since the AI was dangerously close.

Just a short war to eliminate HC (1762-1808) to finish the job in 1844-1847 to raze his crappy island cities.

Then, built all late wonders, founded Mining Inc and Std Ethanol, launched the SS in 1913, while studying my first FT, and i could research 1 Ft in 2 turns, while building a good army to avoid surprises.

But:
at a certain point i settled a city to grab incense W of the former Incan capital. Judaism auto spreaded in that city, and Wang Kon was the AP owner and judaism founder.

I made the mistake to not care the AP elections, only WK voted for himself.
The only care i gave was to research MM (1 turn) and to build the UN, thinking this obsoletes the AP: not true, the 2 elections can coexist.
I was SG, and tried even a diplo, loosing for a handful of votes.

The turn i launched there was an AP election for diplo victory, so i learned that the 2 elections can coexist and the turn after i've seen this:

Wang Kon has won a diplomatic victory

game over, submitted a loss with over 5k points, and the sensation was of a cold shower in full winter.

Sometime after the conquest of my continent and its satellite, i thought to a remote chance of an AP loss, and figure to launch a short war against WK just to raze his capitol.
The fact is that i could have done it easily, seen my military superiority, but i thought it doesn't worth the effort.

Another thing i could have done (verify by reloading some 8 turns before the loss after i submitted) was gave him MM (electricity first, then radio, 1 tech/turn). He could NOT refuse a gift, and ONLY this can obsolete the AP: when the OWNER learns MM.

I think i'll remember this game for a long time and perhaps i'll win my first prize: the green ambulance, i suppose that not many losses are with a score of over 5k.

OK, DS, now you know because i was a bit angry for this map and for the "choose religion" thing.

 

[kcd_swede]

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.

Hi, good game! Was it a diplo victory or domination, I missed that in your post. BTW- myself adventurer class, domination victory in 1852.

I only conquered Toku and Liz, in that order. Vassalized everyone else (except I won before it was Ragnars or Maya's turn). For a Noble level game, I did worse than avg for me. My first epic speed, and crossing water always bites.

My question for the xOTM community is this: when going for a domination victory, is it faster to just conquer everybody or to vassalize? I tend to have difficulty with war weariness if I let the wardrag on, and I've had bad experiences where someone else vassalizes my target first... so generally I vassalize as soon as "capitulation" shows in white. (OK, sometimes I wait a few turns to get one or two cities more, or until he/she has cash to sweeten the deal, but generally asap).

Is my domin. strategy destined to be slow? Or do I just suck (I know the MP community has a decided opinion on that)
BTW: Carrack are a wothless UU, and now I know why I am glad I have never played as Jaoa b4.

 

[kcd_swede]

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

I thought by vassalizing Inca's (having taken their AP city, and having vassalized monte already) I was a certainty to win a reigion victory. However, ittook ages before I even got toinstall myself as resident, and all the vote screens only offerd "stop trading with X". I guess I don't understand this 75% sh*t well enough. Anyhow, taking the religion was mostly defense against Inca sneaking a religion win (which maybe I didn't need to worry since he never got to propose any resolutions, only votes to install himself as resident). Weird stuff with religion. That's why I avoid it unless spiritiual with mysticism start tech. Mightexplain why I never getculture victories either.

Anybody can explain it simply?

 

[JerichoHill]

I started out strong, knocking off 4 rivals by 1AD.

Then I struggled to get across the coast. My goal of conquest went to a goal of domination.

I vassalized the entire world in 1750AD, earning a domination win with 43K points.

Sadly, my computer messed up thrice, and led me to restart (once 5 turns back). So I will not submit

 

[jesusin]

Another thing i could have done (verify by reloading some 8 turns before the loss after i submitted) was gave him MM (electricity first, then radio, 1 tech/turn). He could NOT refuse a gift, and ONLY this can obsolete the AP: when the OWNER learns MM.

I'll try not to forget, I also thought it was enough building the UN yourself.

 

[kolos]

Hi all!

This was my first GOTM, I thought it will be a nice change of gameplay, and also the tactics I see here will help me increase the difficulty level slowly.

Before this game I have just finished my first Civ4 game (Noble). That was quite good, I won a cultural civtory (that was the aim) and after I also killed everyone, and build the space ship, just to see the techs, wonders, units etc.

Still I was chicken and started an adventurer game

I rushed Toku without any problem (2 war on his initial war, guess I got lucky there)

Next target was Elizabeth, dead not too late after 1000 AD. Already on tech lead here. Continent was mine after a short while and the closest island (Incas) also fell by 1760 AD. Here I was rushing them with Infantry, they only had Riflemen - easy going.

Probably I should have started this war earlier, but WW was really got me during the war for the continent and I spent some time to build up my empire to a decent level (with some bad national wonder locations - I still mess up the world wonder vs. national wonder (2 per city) thing).

Anyway, strong and thirsty for blood (domination seemed the best choice as I already got 50%+ area and population as well) I headed to the other continent. Persia asked me to join a fight with the Vikings (made a mistake, thought he asked me about the Koreans, where my forces was lining up to create a first beachhead.) I said yes, then I had to declare war on the Perisa-Korean duo as well (I really wanted to reload here, but that is not allowed )

So I ended up in war with almost everyone on that continent ... oh well, my tanks will cope with some extra riflemen, and my Battleships will show them who is boss on the see - no probs.

I made the landing to Korea, my stack is standing in front of Soul.

Oops: Pop-up: AP election, abstain - just to make sure - did not really got this part yet, always push abstain

Next round: Korea won a diplomatic victory???

Ok, after this post I have to start reading AP victory guidelines.
With 50% or so population I got less then 10 votes. Korea was the vassal of Persia, only the 2 of them voted, rest abstain (everyone else in war with them). Still got the diplomatic victory with 167/220 votes (or something like that).

The AP was in Soul, 1 turn and I capture it (from now on I will raze it, just to make sure there is no stupid voting going on).

Is diplomatic victory really that crazy easy? You are a vassal, everyone is in war with you, but you win? Or ...?

Looking forward to the next round, hope I will have better luck!

 

[PutCashIn]

Abandoned Time Win.

Im part of the rush tokey club, except I toyed england for too long, so just after monty and I eliminated her, monty had half the continent up and running, thus with no other target, he attack us dark greenies.
It didnt go well for him, losing his SOD in an unfortunate incident with a river and a mountain.
I met hyana early, but didnt attack him untill I had failed the settle 10 nations quest by changing to free religon 2 turns befor founding the 10th landmass.
I suck horribly with boats (in 2 player my partner has to play 'team boatswain'), so I didnt meet the overseas nations, they met me.

I had 5 GG's in my armies, strangly I think IMP is more suited to my style of attacking play than AGG. (although Hammurabi is mean)
I find a GG medic on a 2 move unit to be much more useful than on a plodder, you actually have to click the heal button (or ZZZ) to get the action, right?
They fought so many battles Subutai died on a 98.2% win chance as an old man, but the generals had prolly fought a hundred battles, so I thought it was fair.

After capturing Cuzco, I found it contained: Academy, Scotland Yard, GLH, GL, Collosus, The Pathenon, Hagia, Sprial, Uni, Sweddonggy and the Apostolic Palace. +1 GS.

Seoul had: Academy, Scotland Yard, Kong, HG, Angkor, Chicken, Notre, Eiffel, ROCK!, Temple OF A, Statue of Liberty, Mausoleum. + 2GG, 1GE, 1GS, 1GP.
The AI had nice starts indeed!

Sometime in the 1950's I got tired of clicking and bashed Wangkers for a domniation win of 30K ish, having vassalized ragnar, monty and hyana.

 

[kcd_swede]

The number of AP votes is determined by the population in each civilization that hold to the AP religion. I think there is a 75% rule, where the AP resident cannot propose a diplomatic victory if they control 75% of the votes (this would be too easy to build AP, hoard your religion, and vote yourself a win). If one civ has 75% of the votes, there will not be a chance for religion victory, which is why some folks have a strategy that if they have the AP, they gift that city to a neighbor, and be sure to spread enough religion to friendlies. I don't know how the 75% rule works with vassals -- but I am confident vassals always vote the same way as the civ they are vassaled to. Also, for all diplo/relig victories, a civ will never vote for someone it is in war with. So if the two biggest holders of a religion have enough votes between them to win, but neither crosses the 75% boundary, you are in trouble. Obsolete the AP by granting Mass Media to the holder of the AP, or like you said, raze the AP city.

As for a vassal winning diplo victory... Which of them wins (the vassaler or the vasselee) is determined by who is resident in the AP at the time. They will both vote for the same person either way. I've found the AI don't mind losing to each other half as much as they mind losing to you.

But as you see from my post, I am a little baffled by the AP voting myself. I was resident, had less than 75%, had vassalized everyone, and still never got to propose a religion victory. So maybe someone else can explain the intricacies for both of us... or correct any of my misperceptions here.

Edit for afterthought: Now that I think on it, I was maybe using Free Religion civic, and/or had no state religion at the time... maybe these affect what you can propose, too?

 

[kcd_swede]

Abandoned Time Win.

Sometime in the 1950's I got tired of clicking and bashed Wangkers for a domniation win of 30K ish, having vassalized ragnar, monty and hyana.

I fnd Time victories to be very risky, unless you really have kept all the other civs so far behind that they can't get UN or Space Race. In which case, a domination victory is easily within grasp, and faster, it will lead to higher scores. If you are ina Gauntlet and must go for Time, thats a different story... I find it hard to win by time, because usually one AI civ starts making permanent alliances with its neighbors just before the clock runs out and they get a combined score.

Interesting that on this thread there are a dom vics reported that occured earlier than mine (mine was 1852), but lower score. I had a score of 57000 or so, then discounted by 15% for Adventurer class is 49000. I guess having built all but a few of the wonders myself, and having captured the rest (maybe one or two I didn't have), helped my score. I always thought earlier is always better, but I see that isn't always true.

 

[kolos]

I looked into the save and Soul build the AP 500 years before (1250AD)
The AP election just come up when I staged a war on them? (2-3 round before it I captured 2 conf city, did not have any conf religion before. - is that important?)

Either it was extremely unlucky, that exactly at those turns Korea managed to spread conf enough to the Persians to go under the 75% treshold? (but Persia had more votes then Korea, so that could not be the case).

Or there is a build in requirement, that 5 civ has to have the religion to have a AP vote for Dipl victory ??? could not find anything like that in the forums.

Or? Before the capture of 2 conf city, I did not see the vote, as I did not have any conf? And Persia just vassalized Korea not long before the vote and that changed their voting preference? I will check this theory in the save file.

My questions:
What triggers the vote for diplomacy victory? Is it every x turn? Or AP resident can initiate?
If I do not have the AP religion at all, do I see the vote/resultl? (probably in the tiny event log?)

 

[hellwitch]

Hum... conquest at ~1500 AD
Well i had at lest 5 times more troops that i really need and too many towns but it was fun. I didn't know that vasalizing everyone is enough for conquest so i raze most cities on the other continent.

 

[OctavianFlu]

Thank you very much GOTM staff for a wonderful game. This was my first submission. I won a space race victory in July 1996 although it was not my planned victory condition.

My plan was a domination victory. I first capsulized Japan as my conquest to their final outreached cities would have cost me more in military, time, and happiness. I continued my path to war after getting guilds to then capsulize Monty as he was raking in lots gc. I continued to expand on all the islands between the two major continents. By the time I had infantry I capsulized England.

I at this point sat back and started to build my invasion force against Cyrus. My only true opponent at this point. I build a massive stack of doom. Meanwhile Cyrus is building spaceship parts for probably a spaceship victory ... I had this comming his way:

2 - Aircraft w/ 6 planes
5 - Attack subs w/ tatical missiles
20 - Marines
15 - Tanks
10 - Artilery
5 - Battleships
5 - normal subs to protect other ships
4 - spies for sabotages

......... I landed and declared and 10 turns later he recaptured the two cites I took, and drove me to peace. At this point only four letter words came out of my mouth. I went to look at the power graph. That stack of doom was a ripple in an ocean in comparison to Cyrus' power.

Needless to say I knew at this point I was in a space race, because cyrus kept on building space parts, but I had a technological advantage and was able to beat him to it.

I really had fun -- Thanks for the game guys

 

[jesusin]

The number of AP votes is determined by the population in each civilization that hold to the AP religion. I think there is a 75% rule, where the AP resident cannot propose a diplomatic victory if they control 75% of the votes (this would be too easy to build AP, hoard your religion, and vote yourself a win). If one civ has 75% of the votes, there will not be a chance for religion victory, which is why some folks have a strategy that if they have the AP, they gift that city to a neighbor, and be sure to spread enough religion to friendlies. I don't know how the 75% rule works with vassals -- but I am confident vassals always vote the same way as the civ they are vassaled to. Also, for all diplo/relig victories, a civ will never vote for someone it is in war with. So if the two biggest holders of a religion have enough votes between them to win, but neither crosses the 75% boundary, you are in trouble. Obsolete the AP by granting Mass Media to the holder of the AP, or like you said, raze the AP city.

As for a vassal winning diplo victory... Which of them wins (the vassaler or the vasselee) is determined by who is resident in the AP at the time. They will both vote for the same person either way. I've found the AI don't mind losing to each other half as much as they mind losing to you.

But as you see from my post, I am a little baffled by the AP voting myself. I was resident, had less than 75%, had vassalized everyone, and still never got to propose a religion victory. So maybe someone else can explain the intricacies for both of us... or correct any of my misperceptions here.

Edit for afterthought: Now that I think on it, I was maybe using Free Religion civic, and/or had no state religion at the time... maybe these affect what you can propose, too?

In addition to what you said, every AI in the game has to have the AP religion in at least one of their cities.

 

[jesusin]

I looked into the save and Soul build the AP 500 years before (1250AD)
The AP election just come up when I staged a war on them? (2-3 round before it I captured 2 conf city, did not have any conf religion before. - is that important?)

Either it was extremely unlucky, that exactly at those turns Korea managed to spread conf enough to the Persians to go under the 75% treshold? (but Persia had more votes then Korea, so that could not be the case).

Or there is a build in requirement, that 5 civ has to have the religion to have a AP vote for Dipl victory ??? could not find anything like that in the forums.

Or? Before the capture of 2 conf city, I did not see the vote, as I did not have any conf? And Persia just vassalized Korea not long before the vote and that changed their voting preference? I will check this theory in the save file.

My questions:
What triggers the vote for diplomacy victory? Is it every x turn? Or AP resident can initiate?
If I do not have the AP religion at all, do I see the vote/resultl? (probably in the tiny event log?)

Must be your capture of confu cities.

The turn the AP is built, an election for the AP resident is hold. Then every 10 turns (normal speed) the AP resident is given the opportunity to pass a resolution. After three of those opportunities, new AP resident elections and so on.

 

[kolos]

Thanks Jesusin!
It is quite annoying that I lost because I did not raze two cities with pop2 - next time ...

 

[DuncanIdaho v.1]

Adventurer, Spaceship victory 1945AD

I tend to play the Adventurer saves because, quite frankly, I'm not a very detail-oriented player and this always comes back to bite me in the behind. That being said, I think I'll start playing the contender saves just to keep up with the Joneses.

No warrior rush for me into Kyoto - I waited until I had the ice iron hooked up and three other cities pumping out swords and axes. By then he had two (and when my stack of six or seven knocked on Kyoto's gates, three) archers all decked out in promotions. I barely made it, with two swords left and a few following up fresh off the production line. I kept pumping, and took out the other two cities he founded. Killed him off around 500AD?

I waited until I had maces before I dowed Monty, and this war took its toll. I carved out a swath of destruction over the next thousand years, eventually moving my empire to the northern coast and pushing Monty to the eastern peninsula, where he finally became my vassal. Thankfully, all of the other AI's were his enemy too, except for the Incas (who got stomped later by Wang and Co., my only real competition in the game - but we were friendly). Liz was my buddy throughout the game, and she was the one who built the AP; she didn't bother to spread her religion around that much, and there was no danger of a religious victory from her.

I played a spy-heavy game, just to test the waters, and a relatively defensive game. I built the Great Wall to augment the Great General production, and birthed four GG's, the first of which had over fifty points by the end of the game. I found their ability to auto-promote really useful, but their other unique promotions not so much. I produced three or four Great Spies - the first started a GA, the second I dumped into England for spy points, and I can't remember what I did with the other two. The city I founded on the ice iron was dedicated to pumping out spies (it wasn't much good for anything else) and I experimented with them, keeping some in my cities as counterespionage, and letting some of them be naughty in Monty's realm. In the late game, the spies were great at keeping the other AI's from completing spaceship parts - which was the only use I had for spies in Vanilla civ. Not that there was any real threat of the Ai's beating me to Alpha Centauri, I was just having fun with them.

The RNG hated me throughout the game; I got few, if any, positive random events, and the battles I fought didn't reflect the odds I had. Oh well, it was still a blast and I'm really looking forward to the next one. Thanks, admins!

 

[AluminumKnight]

I know, I know, call me a quitter.

At 505AD I had just declared war on Monty after taking London. I easily destroyed his army and moves towards his lands. I razed a couple of cities and he was ready to Capitulate. I accepted and turned my attention to the Inca, who were a bit backwards. Took me 3 different DoWs and peace periods as WW was killing me, but I capitulated Huayna when he only had a useless island city way up north.

At this point I was looking good for a Domination win. I figured, take a bit to consolidate and fill out the rest of the empty land, then go overseas. "A bit" turned into forever, and although I maintained a large point lead and tech parity despite nobody, even friendly Darius, wanting to trade with me. Finally, I thought I was ready to invade with a bunch of riflemen, cannon, and cavalry. I chose Ragnar as my target for a few reasons: He was closest and he was weakest. However, dumb old me forgot to check relations and to my surprise, I also DoW'd on the Maya, who were the only nation very close to me in score. I landed my troops after sustaining heavy airship damage on my Galleons and Frigates, and successfully took a Viking city. At this point I started to feel optimistic. However, before I could even finish healing, a humungous Mayan stack of Grenadiers came and wiped out my pathetic army. I tried and failed to bribe Darius into the war.

I took a step back to analyze where I was at. Soon, Mayan engineers would start building a spaceship (it was early 1900's at this point), and I was pretty sure I couldn't beat him as I only had a couple of good production cities.

Diplo was likely out of the question, as despite my best efforts and a Friendly rating, Darius still wouldn't trade with me, so what chance was there he'd vote for me? Plus, I'd likely get beaten to the U.N.

I was not going to be able to get my act together anytime in the near future to attempt another invasion, even if I went after Darius or Wang Kon instead, and I would have to conquer both of them to reach Domination limit. Cultural was out of the question at this point.

It was looking more and more like I would have to try and slow down the Mayans from building their spaceship and hold on for a Time Victory or late Domination Victory, which I didn't want to do AT ALL. So, I quit . I learned a lot from this game, however:

1. Attack early and often, it's easier when your enemy has 2 cities rather than 12.
2. I needed more production. When attempting to mobilize for war I produced roughly 1 1/4 riflemen every turn. Not good enough, especially when I needed Galleons to transport them as well, and Frigates to escort.
3. Specialize my cities! I largely left AI infastructure intact in England and Inca. Bad move. London was like a hybrid of everything, running a few specialists, decent to poor production, pretty good science. Bad move. I did a good job with my own cities, but England and Inca were just a mess.
4. Check relations before declaring war!

 

[Gosha190]

"As I mentioned in the pre-game thread, this was my 1st BTS game." it's like me))) I'v played both botm1 and botm2 but did not submit them - too bad games. Here is my 3-d botm game.

contender, conquest 235AD, 139K.
I do not like sea maps. Because of that I did not think long and I settled at the start - the best position for warrior rush. I built 3 warrior and was enough happy to destroy Japan in 35xxBC. I lost 2 warriors but I got worker.
First research - BW. Than I built more warriors. Worker helped me by chopping.
Warriors explored my continent. I fond rest AI at my continent very early. I stole another 2 workers. Both AI capitals got only 1 warrior-defender. So in 2975BC and 2925BC both AI were killed. After that and before 2000BC my capital (size 2) built 3 settlers and 8 workers (mostly by chopping).
2000BC I got 5 cities, 1 settler, 11 workers. All cities except capital built libraries. Capital = 2.

Research:
3525 BW
3225 Agri
2850 Animal
2725 Wheel
2625 Pottery
2525 Writing
2125 Math
2025 Myst
1975 Mason
1475 MC

Forges were finished in all cities before 1000BC .
Wonders: 1850BC StH, 1650BC Pyrs for GE and happiness and science, 925 Oracle, 600BC HangG, 220AD colossus (for score only).

1300 IW
1250 Medi
1225 Priest
1200 Sailing
950 Compass
925 Machinery (by GE)
900 Optic (by Oracle)
550 Construction
350 Currency
335 Alph
290 Aesth
245 CoL
95BC CS

Stats at 1000BC: 6 cities, 41 pop, 108 food, 60 production, 119 GNP, 11 workers.
In 725BC, 620BC I built another 3 cities to produce carraks and troops.

335BC - circumnavigation
320BC - GA was started

Wars by swards+cats+chariots+crossbs:
290BC-230BC HC (2 cities)
125BC-20BC Maya (5 cities)
35BC-115AD Persian (too much cities.. 7 or 8)
Wars by maces:
115AD-175AD Korean (5 cities)
115AD-220AD Viking (6 cities)

Were built/lost:
chariot 14/2
sward 9/4
crossb 13/3
cats 16/12
mace 23/8
carrack 26/0

Revolutions: 1625BC Rep+Slave, 80BC Bureaucracy.

 

[PutCashIn]

Nice Gosha......and lol @ size 2 capital......that start was so bad every start in any game since has seem more 'inspired,' I guess it was good therapy......

 

[Gosha190]

I built new palace in my 3-d city after 1000BC. This way let me save 12-13 gold per turn and got real capital (many hummers and gold after bureaucracy especially).