BOTM36 Final Spoiler – Game Submitted or Abandoned

[mikeocarroll]

Domination Win 1838AD - 65k.

This was a really fun game although the final movement of stacks of doom around the map got a little tedious, as always with domination especially against aggressive AI who have so many units of there own. I'm happy with the date, though as always there are plenty of things I could've done much better.

1AD saw me with 4 cities about to launch at attack on the Romans using Axes and some Cats. I captured a couple of cities and razed Rome itself, but with only 4 cities of my own wasn't able to replenish my forces quick enough to press home the advantage against a determined enemy with Praets. So I made peace and teched towards Machinery and CS to get Maces.

I'd previously said that I'd lost focus betweend 2000BC-1AD and unfortunately this continued up to 1000AD. I always find the mid game the most difficult, having to balance competing short, medium and long-term goals. I teched with less focus than I could/should have done, and built more infrastructure than was strictly necessary (its always hard to judge the long term benefit of say a temple that raises the happiness cap so that an extra tile could be worked, against the value of the specialist you could have hired instead of producing hammers for the temple, which may get you to a tech quicker which means you can conquer faster etc).

Also I had a very odd hybrid economy, I built plenty of cottages (though not in the capital) and didn't really have a thought as to why (just saw lots of flood plains and got excited). I suddenly realised around 200AD that a specialist economy was going to be better for the sort of game I had in mind and fortunately no one had built the Mids yet so I chopped it in Berlin.

After 1000AD my game came together a bit better as I focused on tech to Mach-CS-Eng (getting the latter in about 1100AD) and then switched off tech and built an army. Rome DOWed me the turn before I was about the attack them and wasted their stack attacking one of their ex-cities. Then as I was still finishing of the Romans, Askold/Shaka DOWed me but wasted his stack on a choke point. I took a few of his cities (including Moscow) and he capitulated around 1400AD.

By this time some of the AI were starting to get ahead of me in tech so I revolted back to CS/Rep, shut down production and hired lots of specialists. Teched Edu-Lib-Nationalism (free) while also going to war with France using a couple of stacks I had left over from the war against Russia. Took a couple of cities including Paris then made peace. Traded for varies techs inc Gunpowder and then teched Mil Trad-Printing Press-Replaceable Parts-Rifling-Chemistry-Steel. Closed down tech, started producing big again (in PS-Vassalage-Slavery-Mercantilism-Theocracy) and built some stacks in finish off conquering the tiles I needed.

Sweyn/Togu/England DOWed me just before I was about to do the same to him, and I quickly advanced through his cities. Meanwhile I DOWed again on France after upgraded my stacks that were still down south, and she capitulated before I even captured any more cities. I took most English cities before accepting Sweyn/Togu's capitulation, Byzantium capitulated without a shot being fired and then it was a case of ramping up culture, settling a few isloated spots and capturing a few Spanish cities to take me over the limit.

Overall a great game so thanks to all involved with GOTM and thanks to KCD Swede for the map.

PS how do I find the autolog?

 

[Mitchum]

@mikeocarroll

It looks like we had very similar results with a slightly different strategies.

PS how do I find the autolog?

Look in your Buffy Mod folder. Mine is saved in: C:\Program Files\2K Games\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4 Complete\Beyond the Sword\Mods\BUFFY-3.19.003\Autolog.

 

[mikeocarroll]

@mikeocarroll
Look in your Buffy Mod folder. Mine is saved in: C:\Program Files\2K Games\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4 Complete\Beyond the Sword\Mods\BUFFY-3.19.003\Autolog.

Thanks!

 

[kcd_swede]

@mikeocarroll

It looks like we had very similar results with a slightly different strategies.



Look in your Buffy Mod folder. Mine is saved in: C:\Program Files\2K Games\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4 Complete\Beyond the Sword\Mods\BUFFY-3.19.003\Autolog.

BTW: You can change the autolog save path in the BUFFY options (Alt+Ctrl+o).


@mikeocarroll
Congrats on your viking domination. I'm glad you enjoyed the game, too. I enjoyed your write-up.

 

[mikeocarroll]

BTW: You can change the autolog save path in the BUFFY options (Alt+Ctrl+o).

:

Thanks also!

 

[mabraham]

Conquest 1832AD.

I killed the Romans very fast with about 3 axes, a spear, some archers and some warriors. I needed all of it. The English picked off a city on the west at some point, but I took it back without a big hassle. Then I vassalized the Russians, French, killed the Spanish, and finally munched out the English just after he got redcoats for his last few cities. That took forever and was so boring.

I could have been much faster, but I lost a stack to the French. I lost several woodsman-III medics or candidates for that at 98%+. Go figure.

 

[Ronnie1]

I lost several woodsman-III medics or candidates for that at 98%+.

Join the club! I still think there is some hidden code that alters odds with aggressive AI settings. How can that many different people experience similar circumstances and it all be coincidence?

 

[Greeder]

My first GOTM lost in 2007 by diplomatic (all AI's were in one camp). 80% of time in war with Romans, English or both (mostly both).
Before GOTM I was winning on Monarch regulary. But with "save/load" cheat and GOTM is VERY different because of it.
I'm ashamed how stupid things I did, like declaring on Romans when my Spanish friend asked me. I lost a city, defended second by sheer luck and then had been DOWed by English. I lost 4 of my 8 cities then. But I'm stubborn, get to Rifles and get them back, well most of them.
When I was finishing Romans they get vassalized by English and I was suddenly in war with Redcoats. Lost capital, main unit production city and most of good troops. Get Assembly Line and was able to defend rest. Then Boudica, who vassalized rest of AI's joined war. I gave a passage of one Shaka's SoD to Berlin and canceled open borders. He killed most of Redcoats and I got Berlin back
English capitulated to Boudica, I've got at last few dozens years of peace and Boudica won.
All in all I'm proud I survived, but not at all proud of my style.
And next time I will play on lower level. I'm too inexperienced for GOTMs.

And of course I lost many combats at favourable odds. While conquering Romans I tried not to attack below 85% and still lost too many times.

 

[nmindos]

I had a difficult time with this map. Very well-created and balanced to present challenges even at the Prince level.

The whole game I just seemed a step or two behind the rivals. Lost (at least) the Oracle, Parthenon, Stonehenge, and Great Library by a turn or two. Second in score the entire game, behind the French (who started in the geographically comparable spot on the south side of the map). I thought I had Tokugawa held off by the city placement in the northeast and along the isthmus south of Berlin, giving me two good defensive points. He never appeared to have a huge military, though due to lack of OB's, I guess he kept these hidden in the rear. All was going okay until...

Simultaneous DoW's by England and Rome in around 1200AD (despite the shared religion and happy relationship with England... never trust a Khan).

Held off the first wave of attacks, but saw the writing on the wall as Toku continued to send troops to the front. Tough game, but very enjoyable and enlightening.

In retrospect? Not a lot of experience with Spiritual/Charismatic, so probably didn't maximize these traits. Also should have attacked Tokugawa much earlier. The best defense is a good offense, especially when you know they're going to attack you at some point. Probably with a large stack.

 

[jesusin]

My spoiler will come soon, but I can't wait to comment on Ronnie's game. srad has done a great job too, pity he didn't fight a couple of wars too to put his deed even more in value.

Once I discovered the floodplain/pig/horse site west of Berlin, and figured out that I was on a map with a bunch of LUNATICS, I figured Cultural would give a shot at an award if I could pull it off with a decent date. I'm not sure if this date is good or not, but I am mostly satisfied with how I played it given the circumstances.

Don't hold your breath, someone else might have thought the same.

The reason the floodplain site was important is that you need 3 decent cottage sites to go for a decent date.

That's it, 6 cities, no more, with the last founded in 225AD.

I can't agree with these two sentences put together.

Disclaimer: You have written a great spoiler and I think you deserve the prize of someone commenting on it to try to improve your game-play. I hope you welcome my constructive criticism. The main reason behind doing so is I might be wrong and then you or someone else will come and teach me something new.


Playing with 3 cottage cities and 9 cities is great, because you can build cathedrals in all of them (1 per religion) and you get good multiplier on top of good base culture.

Now, if you are going to stay at 6 cities (something I love to do, by the way), then what's the point of the 3rd cottage city?
- if you distribute your cathedrals between all 3 cities, you are damaging the other two
- if you don't distribute them, then the 3rd cottage city doesn't get all that much culture
- you have your GPFarm accumulating a bit of culture, even without any cathedral on it; it can easily be doing more culture than your 3rd cottage city without cathedrals

So, put it all together and the answer is you want to have 2 cottage cities and you want your GPFarm as Legendary city too without any cathedral on it.

And then, what are you going to do with the city that could have been the 3rd cottage city?
- my advise is to farm it all and use it as a secondary GPFarm
- or you can cottage it first, to help with research; and when you revolt to FS then you farm over the cottages to have a secondary GPFarm.

Does it make sense?

 

[Ronnie1]

@ Jesusin....

1st, thanks for commenting!

Does it make sense?

Yes it does in most respects. I was originally thinking 9 city empire.That is how I would normally go for a culture game. But I could tell that good defensible positions might be hard to come by here. I actually had a Town burned down in my south eastern border city (culture#3) once. Rome had been sending stacks at the northern city for centuries, and I missed the raiding party in the south when it was close to the border.

- you have your GPFarm accumulating a bit of culture, even without any cathedral on it; it can easily be doing more culture than your 3rd cottage city without cathedrals

So, put it all together and the answer is you want to have 2 cottage cities and you want your GPFarm as Legendary city too without any cathedral on it.

So you are saying to make the GP Farm Legendary WITHOUT any Cathedrals? How do you accumulate enough culture there? I know the artists generate a lot, but not nearly as much as Towns running 100% culture. I suppose if the city could/would build a number of wonders and/or other culture producing buildings it is possible.

I know I have played it this way in the past (GP Farm going Legendary), but for some reason it didn't feel right here. In all honesty, I play a lot by feel, I hardly ever break out a calculator, and was completely blown away once when I saw a spreadsheet used to calculate when cities would go legendary (might have been yours I believe).

I actually thought I was going to lose my GP Farm at one point also. It was on the coast, and guarded by a single warrior (archer maybe), when the Roman galley sailed into view. But for some reason, before I could even reinforce, it turned and sailed back.

I'll have to go look and see how much culture I accumulated in the GP Farm city, because I don't remember. I was also late getting that city up as I was making sure I had enough defensive units. Rome had a stack of Praets on the border for a long time before he actually declared.

I am definitely not that proficient at the Cultural game, probably less than a handful played over all 3 versions in the last 4 years, but they are fun sometimes, especially here in this instance. Maybe I'll have to try it more often, and try to improve my thinking early.

 

[Alamankarazieff]

Abandoned in frustration.

After butting my head against huge maps at emperor difficulties, I was lulled away in a false sense of safety. Playing at Prince level seemed like holidays. My economy was looking nice, my cities were happy. I expanded like a horny bunny, spawning tons of cities, without noticing that my neighbours were a bunch of drooling maniacs.
I wanted to go for the great lighthouse, but discovered that the lake by which we settled was not big enough to allow for a lighthouse build. Construction regulations and housing permit are such a drag...
I grabbed the oracle, and by putting a girl on drugs, discovered that Odin was the one true god, and Assur was his prophet. Seriously, what's not to love about muslim viking jumping from their drakkar screaming "Odin akbar !" ?
Then came the fatal mistake. Figured out that a serious expansion like that required a specialist economy, and started going for the pyramids in Berlin, which was really the only city with a decent production.
And I not only failed at putting these big rocks on top of each other in time (missed it by 4 turns), but if all these hammers had been turned into troops, I'd have had a decent stack to face the inevitable praetorians neighbour attack.
I was totally caught with my pants down, and rather than jumping and fumbling to button up, I decided to go back to my writing desk and copy a hundred times "I will not neglect my military."
Just because your neighbours are stupid barbarians, backwards in technology, you shouldn't treat them with contempt. In fact, it's precisely BECAUSE they are stupid barbarians that you shouldn't ignore them.
Ah well, It was my first attempt at a game of the month, I'll go for the next one assessing the odds more seriously.

 

[nmindos]

Abandoned in frustration.

After butting my head against huge maps at emperor difficulties, I was lulled away in a false sense of safety. Playing at Prince level seemed like holidays. My economy was looking nice, my cities were happy. I expanded like a horny bunny, spawning tons of cities, without noticing that my neighbours were a bunch of drooling maniacs.

Yes...

I wanted to go for the great lighthouse, but discovered that the lake by which we settled was not big enough to allow for a lighthouse build. Construction regulations and housing permit are such a drag...

Yes...

I was totally caught with my pants down, and rather than jumping and fumbling to button up, I decided to go back to my writing desk and copy a hundred times "I will not neglect my military."
Just because your neighbours are stupid barbarians, backwards in technology, you shouldn't treat them with contempt. In fact, it's precisely BECAUSE they are stupid barbarians that you shouldn't ignore them.
Ah well, It was my first attempt at a game of the month, I'll go for the next one assessing the odds more seriously.

And yes.

 

[jesusin]

So you are saying to make the GP Farm Legendary WITHOUT any Cathedrals? How do you accumulate enough culture there? I know the artists generate a lot, but not nearly as much as Towns running 100% culture. I suppose if the city could/would build a number of wonders and/or other culture producing buildings it is possible.

You accumulate culture in the non-cathedralled city by bombing 10 Great Works there.
Note: You never ever waste the precious time of your GPFarm building wonders or buildings, all people must stay as artist as long as possible, that's the key of city specialization.

Look at it this way:
Suppose you have 3 cottage cities as Legendaries. You have 6 cathedrals to use (6 cities and 3 religions, 2 cathedrals per religion) and you have 10 Great Artists. You can distrtibute your cathedrals among your cities evenly and then distribute your culture bombs more or less evenly too. But you can concentrate the cathedrals in the 2 cities with the most raw culture output and put all the culture bombs in the non cathedralled city: this way is more efficient, because the cathedrals are having a bigger effect now.

If you agree so far, then it is easy to understand that in that situation, changing the 3rd non-cathedralled cottage city for the GPFarm as Legendary hasn't got any big impact on the outcome: they are both generating more or less the same culture (200cpt under FS) and in fact the culture they generate isn't even important, as it is not to get multipliers anyway. Now, farming over the FP cottages of the 3rd city can have a big impact on the game, aproximately 2 free additional Great Artists in the end of the game, depending on the strenght of your GPFarm. Also there's the minor factor that the artists of the 3rd city can be moved to the hills in case of emergency or even whipped, for additional security.

 

[jesusin]

My first GOTM lost in 2007 by diplomatic (all AI's were in one camp). 80% of time in war with Romans, English or both (mostly both).
Before GOTM I was winning on Monarch regulary. But with "save/load" cheat and GOTM is VERY different because of it.
I'm ashamed how stupid things I did, like declaring on Romans when my Spanish friend asked me. I lost a city, defended second by sheer luck and then had been DOWed by English. I lost 4 of my 8 cities then. But I'm stubborn, get to Rifles and get them back, well most of them.
When I was finishing Romans they get vassalized by English and I was suddenly in war with Redcoats. Lost capital, main unit production city and most of good troops. Get Assembly Line and was able to defend rest. Then Boudica, who vassalized rest of AI's joined war. I gave a passage of one Shaka's SoD to Berlin and canceled open borders. He killed most of Redcoats and I got Berlin back
English capitulated to Boudica, I've got at last few dozens years of peace and Boudica won.

Wow, that sounds like the most fun game so far!
You are right, the no reload rule makes GOTM games very different from any private game: the thrill, the excitement, the concentration are simply unique.

All in all I'm proud I survived, but not at all proud of my style.
And next time I will play on lower level. I'm too inexperienced for GOTMs.

IMO this game's perceived difficulty level was around Immortal. The aggresive AI setting and the crazy bunch of leaders made this one a very difficult game.

 

[Greeder]

Immortal huh? That makes me feel better

BTW during last war I had a situation. English SoD was about to attack my capital. I bombarded them with catapults and few cannons I had and was about to attack it with Cavalary. But I accidentally pushed button and my cavalary stack missed intended spot.
Then I lost my capitol. Yeah, it's really stupid, but am I still not allowed to reload?

After submitting I've checked and yup, I was able to destroy most of English cannons by flancking attack. And was able to defend my capitol.

Yes, this game was fun, even if I lost it. Few times I thought I was doomed. It was really close, but I survived! In my opinion the most brilliant moment was after my stupid DoW on Romans. I lost Munich and was defending Hamburg, then English attacked me. They took Essen on my west. I had almost nothing there. They could take my 3 cities on peninsula and/or go for Berlin. So I made peace with Romans, I gave them city in the middle of peninsula. I couldn't defend it anyway. Then my 3rd city on peninsula was safe and I could withdraw my forces from Hamburg. I defended Berlin and regained all peninsula cities. In fact this one move allowed me to keep half of my cities! That way I lost only 25% of them instead of loosing the game.
Then Romans attacked me again, I bribed English to make peace (they had only Essen then), retaken Munich and took almost all Roman cities.
Revenge is sweet

 

[jesusin]

jesusin, contender. Goal: fastest cultural victory. Result: 1575AD cultural victory.

My first spoiler is here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9954603&postcount=13



1AD-1000AD

My stack of doom takes all of Toku's cities, with severe loses. No wonder, warring with Axes against Praetorians is not such a good idea.

Getting Currency and Pyramids (chopped all, whipped 3pop to just save 1 turn) saves my economy. My research is so bad that I decide to get a second GS (losing 4000 culture from the alternative GA) to pop Philosophy and its religion.
Currency serves to trade for HR: HR first and then Representation serves to solve my happiness problems.
Currency serves to pay for peace with the English. At long last, peace in the empire. (By the way, he got full hands the very next turn, but later I knew it wasn't against me; do you know if it could have been me while the 10 turns of peace lasted?).


Settle my 11th city West, with wheat and pigs.
Conquest my 12th from barbs.
Settle my 13th and last in the peninsula, with clams, copper and 4 FP, non riversde.

I get Aesthetics before CS because I want to secure Parthenon. My capital has just started working cottages, anyway.
I adopt a religion, why not, all of them are full-handed anyway.

I have 3 religions, the third came late (600AD) with Philo. The first 3 missionaries failed to take it to a second city . My 8 no-religion cities never get a new religion spread to them. I never see any foreign missionary in my lands, the religious zealots are far from me. That forces me to try and get my 4th religion with DivRig, even when Theology has been known long ago.

Revolt to OR and slavery for 5 turns to get:
-very late NE: 800AD.
-3 cathedrals
-a bunch of (unlucky) missionaries

My three Legendary cities are the capital (cottages and WW) , the FPs city West (cottages and WW) and the FPs city SE (GPFarm). I have 13 cities, one of them builds only units, the others are secondary GPFarms and build temples, missionaries, wealth and units.
Building SoZ in the W Legendary city delays my cathedrals there a lot. Anyway, my research is so bad that I won't need those cathedrasl for a long time.

AP in my spreaded religion makes me happy, those 2 hammers per building are useful.

Key dates:
Toku's gone: 225AD
Pyramids: 225AD
13th city founded 520AD
CS: 560AD
Parthenon: 580AD
Third religion: 600AD
Music: 720AD
NE: 800AD
Sistine's: 1020AD
I failed to get MoM.

1000AD Stats: 13 cities, 121 pop, 17 workers, 24 units (2Swo), 5 strategic resources, 6 luxury resources, 9 health resources, 4 great persons, 4+ world wonders, 1 national wonders, food/production/commerce=283-142-500, 226 sustainable beakers per turn, 226(141 useful) culture per turn, 245 great person points per turn, 600 gold. 3 religions. 15/15 cottages used, 32 Techs: Music, no MC, Theo, Philo, no Paper. 1 civs killed. 18 hours played. reli/city, temples, caths== 33,24,3+



1000AD-1400AD

Found my 4th religion 1040AD (geee, around the time you should be winning an ideal cultural game). Since I've had so few workers, I can chop monasteries and missionaries in 1 turn each, that saves me from revolting out of CS+Pacifism.

By 1100AD I have 8 cathedrals and 4 saved GreatArtists.

1180AD: Take Nationalism from Liberalism, revolt to FS, start Hermitage in the capital, the city with the biggest raw culture output cause I calculate that I'll have to bomb my GA something like 1, 7, 7.
Representation beakers from artists give me PP, Guilds and Banking, revolt to Mercantilism.

I build many a maceman just to look strong. Before that, I was buidling barracks and stables just to look strong while not having to pay for unit maintenace. Now the wars amoing themselves end and all have hands again. Russia puts a big stack near my border, are they just trying to avoid the culture flipping? No, of course they dow. When I am really busy in the East, England dows again in the West, now with its vassal too.

12th and last cathedral built 1320AD.



War tactics

I was faced with 2 stacks in the East, 2 in the West. Each first stack had 12 Catapults and 15 units (with WE in the West), while each second stack had 14 units without siege units.

I wish I had read Ronnie1's spoiler before playing (ooops, that would have been cheating). I am not used to play defensive wars, but I came up with a bunch of new tricks by myself, and I learned a lot:

a) In the first spoiler I already talked about luring the decisive Praetorian out of the action by sacrificing a Scout and a Worker.

b) The dangerous man-on-a-hill trick
There is a hill situated 2 tiles from mine and his cities. Every time his stack is next to my city I send a Maceman to the hill. Since the Maceman is in the BFC of his city, he feels threatened, and attack the Maceman instead of my city... Macemen have no good counteer, he loses around 4 units per Maceman lost... and still more important, he loses time I use to reinforce.
Used in the East till I could use trick d).

c) The man-in-the-middle trick
I want to use trick d) in the West. But there are 5 WE in that stack and most of my attackers are knights. What shall I do? Well, enemy stacks always use the same path to attack the same city. There is a hill next to my city, in their path. I prefer to use d) on a plains tile, but I have no option... and WE don't get defensive bonuses anyway. So I put 2 Macemen on the hill. What is the best unit they can use to clear the hill? WE So they kill my Macemen while sacrificing most of their WE... next turn, everything is ready for trick d)

d) Attack their siege stack in the open trick
If I allow the first stack to attack my city, I am doomed, no matter how many defensing units I have or their strenght. They'll suicide 6 cats and then they'll easily mop up with any unit.
So, I have delayed them till I've gathered 5Cats and 12 attacking units in my cities, half of them knights. I select my knight and hover over their stack. The WE is defending... hey, didn't knights have the flank ability? Read civilopedia, flanking doesn't allow to choose the cats as objectives, but causes collateral damage in Cats if the knight survives the battle.
Ok, I suicide my 5 Cats on the stack, softening up all normal units. Then attack whit Mace if a WE is defending. Then attack and win with my knights... I thought that you could kill a maximum of one unit per attack... but a knight can kill one defender and several severely wounded Cats in a single strike, thanks to flanking ability. So the stack is gone.
That's how I finished both first stacks.

e) It's nice to be behind the walls against stacks with no siege units
The second stack approached, both in the East and West. I just let them attack. Without Cats, the odds where in my favour. The following turn I cleaned up the few survivors.
That's how I finished both second stacks.


Allegedly I first used trick e) on the no-siege-units-stack in the West, losing terribly because of insuficient Cats on my side. So not everything were success stories. That, and the two fronts in paralel, forced me to build units in every single city (I am glad I had grown to 13 cities), which delayed my 3 Legendary quite a bit. Also some town got pillaged. But I am proud I assessed the situation right and didn't resort to Nationalism and slavery, as I could have done. With Spiritual that was always an option, so I could be safe and at the same time continue with my impressive GPPoints amassing.



End game

Two GAges, from TajMaj and from the GM got with Economy.

For the first time in my games, my initial estimation of victory date is optimistic: I am not able to sustain 100% culture with 13 cities and so much unit maintenance. AI's unit maintennace is bitting them too, so they don't have much gold to trade, either.

1500AD Stats: 13 cities, 185 pop, 13 workers, 61units(musk), 5 strategic resources, 8 luxury resources, 10 health resources, 15 great persons, 6 world wonders, 3 national wonders, food/production/commerce=377-133-3173, 650 sustainable beakers per turn, 2780 (2000useful) culture per turn, 649 great person points per turn, 500 gold. 4 religions. 15/19 cottages used, 46 Techs:Liber, ReePar, GunP. 1 civs killed. 30 hours played.

There are 3 cities that might pop a last GA, the GPFarm, with huge GPP output, an auxiliary city and the capital, with 50% non artist odds. The initial plan was GPFarm, then auxiliary, for a total of 2GA in 5 turns, the GP from the capital would come in 13 turns, after victory. So I unhire artists in GPFarm, starve both auxiliary and capital and get the following result: auxiliary, then capital then GPFarm, for a total of 2.5 GA in 9 turns. The capital (an d the auxiliary city too) had to get to 200GPP less, so it was able to do it and since the GPFarm was so good, it could pop its GA the very next turn, even having to account for 400 extra GPP.

Of course in a game of bad luck, all that effort was in vain and I got a GProphet from the capital. That was supposed to cost me 2 turns, but serious starvation of the GPFarm gave me extra culture and it was only 1 turn in the end.



In short:

Cultural victory 1575AD. Multipliers 5-4-4, bombs 3-6-7, base cpt 190-120-140, 2GS for Acad, useless Gpro in the end, total 19GP. One started war and 2 simultaneous "unexpected" wars.



Thank you very much, kcd_swede. Playing my cultural games with only warriors felt a bit like cheating. Your viking settings created a singular game, plenty of difficulty, especially for a builder's victory. I have enjoyed a lot and I have been forced to learn a lot about defensive wars.




EDIT: Settling a GreatArtist analysis

Spoiler :

I bombed all my GA. When I got my first one 720AD, it was so late that I didn't even consider settling it.

I've done the calculations. If settled in the best multipliers city, the capital, turn by turn it would have given an output ranging from 18cpt (no Sistine, 1 cathedral) to 70cpt (4 cathedrals, Hermitage, FS, Sistine). All together, according to my cathedrals dates, 3893 culture. Apart from 300 gold that would have allowed 1 turn at 100% culture instead of 0%.

So I should have settled it. In my defense I can say that:
- At the time, I didn't know where I was going to build the Hermitage, so didn't know where to settle it. I had just built my last city and wasn't sure if it would have the time to pop a GA or not. So I couldn't know if I would have enough GA for an Hermitage in the best city or not.
- At the time, the expected victory date was too fuzzy, since unexpected wars could change things so easily.
- In a war cultural game, you'd better keep all of your GA as unused cultural bombs. That way you don't risk losing a city with a used GA in it. In case you lose a Legendary city, you just can bomb the GAs in another one.


Anyway, I have to be more attentive and always ask myself if I should be settling my first GA in every cultural game. Not doing so is just irresponsible lazyness.

 

[Greeder]

a, b, c defensife tricks are very valuable, but I had BIG problem when English came with SoD and several 2-units cavalary stacks. Cavalary mopped my workers, etc, and SoD was coming steady. But they are always joining their forces just before attack and then you can work with those tricks.

 

[kcd_swede]

Immortal huh? That makes me feel better

BTW during last war I had a situation. English SoD was about to attack my capital. I bombarded them with catapults and few cannons I had and was about to attack it with Cavalary. But I accidentally pushed button and my cavalary stack missed intended spot.
Then I lost my capitol. Yeah, it's really stupid, but am I still not allowed to reload?

Sorry, misclicks are part of the stuff you have to learn from, live with, and soldier on. Of course, if General Custer could similarly reload his misclicked placement of his cavalry, history might remember him a bit differently.

As for the difficulty level, I would agree with jesusin that the contender game plays more like an Immortal level game if you are going for a builder victory... but perhaps like an emperor level game if you planned for war early, at least in my own totally objective and unbaised opinion.

Thank you very much, kcd_swede. Playing my cultural games with only warriors felt a bit like cheating. Your viking settings created a singular game, plenty of difficulty, especially for a builder's victory. I have enjoyed a lot and I have been forced to learn a lot about defensive wars.

Thanks for the kind words, and the excellent analysis of your game! Glad you enjoyed it, and as usual I am both suprised and glad to hear that even some of the most experienced players could learn (or re-learn?) some new tricks.

 

[kcd_swede]

At risk of spamming my own game spoiler thread, I decide to give some background on the map-making for this one. I was going to wait until the game closes, but since I will be travelling, I won't be here to do that.

The theme:

Spoiler :

Assur's Runestone (Assurssten) is currently situated not far from where I live, near the shores of lake Mälaren. The inscription is (as translated from Swedish by me) accurately given in the game announcement thread. Its interpretation over the years has changed, as has the historical view of vikings in general. What we know for sure is that he was an important person at least to a very important family. In the 1940's it was theorized that such a lowly post as coastal guard would not warrant such noteriety as a runestone would suggest, and that it probably signified he held high station as a viking, perhaps son to the Norsk king Håkon Sigurdarson. More modern interpretations are that he was simply a member of a locally important family.

The map:

Spoiler :

The map was roughly based on Mälaren, an inland sea of sorts, which is the historical setting of this particular saga. After adjusting the water to shape, I did the minimum tampering with resources to restore them to the randomly generated numers and locations as best I could.*

I wanted to feature the vikings prominently in my first game, since, well, its the only civilization locally that has a prominant place in Civ4 BtS. However, I didn't want to use Ragnar: real vikings don't wear horny helmets, and its been done before. So that leads me to think.. why limit myself to one viking tribe? With the magic of Unrestricted leaders, I could surely fashion together some very memorable vikings... Besides, historically the vikings were fighting each other more than anyone else.

And lets face it... it was a hard age, where ruthlessness and aggression were considered admirable traits... So of course, I would build my vikings upon leaders who have the Aggressive trait. No point of that, really, if they are going to act like mice anyhow, so I had to add the Aggressive AI setting or else it would be too easy to just get a sizable tech lead and walk over them. The combination ended up being more volatile than anticipated, but hopefully fun nonetheless.

The vikings you met are mostly historical figures, and I tried to match them with the places they had made themselves infamous, with one exception. Freydis Eriksdotter (historical figure) was known for travels to Vinland, which if you google it you will see is nowhere near France... but hej, France has vines, doesn't it? Cut me some slack, ok? Unless you want to face aggressive Dog Soldiers next time.


The rest of the cast:

Spoiler :

Sweyn Forkbeard (Sven Tveskägg): King of Denmark 985-914AD King of England 1013-1014AD, and Ghenghis Kahn actually has a forked beard, so that's an easy call.

Harald Hardrada (Harald Hard Rule, aka Harald Sigurdsson: King of Norway 1047-1066AD, served in the elite Varangian Guard of the Byzantine Empire until 1042AD.

Askold (grandson to Ragnar Lodbruk): Ruled Kiev circa 870AD.

Björn Ironside: Semi-legendary king of Sweden in 9th century. Björn and his brothers pillaged in England, Wales, France, and Italy, until they came to the town Luna in Italy. So he can have Rome, since I just have to get some nasty Aggressive Praets in there somehow...

Röde Orm (Red Snake) Tostesson: Actually a fictional character in historical setting, from books by Fred G. Bengtsson which are modelled from Sagas in Old Norsk. (The Long Ships is the titole of the first book, if you are interested... I enjoyed the books). His adventures led him to prominence under Almanzoor (Al-Mansur Ibn Abi Aamir), potentate in Moorish Iberia (that's Spain today, folks).

Then to round things out for the ladies, I didn't have a lot of choices in either the era or the leader to model upon. So we take whats given.

My intention here is not to give you better fodder to make guesses about my next map. I simply had fun making this one and wanted to share some of that. And if you think you now can predict my tendencies... I've got you right where I want you.

*Never trust a map-maker.