BTS Roleplaying Challenge: Stalin

[seizer]

Thought I'd give this a go. Not sure if we were allowed to build religious buildings? Well, I decided not to build any. Also I'm new at this so if I'm doing anything wrong please tell me.

Spoiler :

Well, here goes:

I settled in place, built a worker while researching BW, chopped second worker. By then I had found Gandhi and decided to archer-rush him:

Soon after I found Churchill who had settled his second city near bronze. I figured I'd keep it out of his hands:

With no bronze, it would come down to his archers vs my axemen (and, later, swordsmen). In other words, just a matter of time:

By this time, the game was already "won". Normally I would've kept on expanding and going for an early conquest win by this point, but since that was out I decided to start teching instead. Pyramids completed by 325 (I think it was the first wonder I tried to build...), so I went with a SE, well, I tried but since I suck with it it ended up more like a hybrid, or CE with GP farms.

The USSR by 1370 AD:

Switched to state property in 1545 (think I missed one turn unfortunately )and completed the kremlin by 1570. Then it was just teching, with a few wars, going from swordsmen (them) vs xbows (me) to longbows (them) vs modern armor (me). Needless to say the AIs were teching really badly.

Spaceship launched in 1917, arrived in 1928:

 

[slobberinbear]

Winston:

Spoiler :

OUCH!

Sorry that my screenshot gave you cause to change things. I built a few temples throughout the course of my game but never a monastery or cathedral.

I think the AP victory never happened for several reasons in my game. First, all of my cities got a religion naturally fairly early, so there was no "natural" spread of the AP religion later. I also think Mao, who is a bit isolated, probably didn't get much of the religious spread. Finally, I only attacked Gandhi and Mao -- I never took a single Western city in the whole game, so I never accidentally picked up the AP religion. I was never asked to vote on anything.

None of this was intentional on my part -- I was just lucky, and I sympathize with your pain. And I think you're right -- the only thing you could have done was identify the AP builder, determine if you have the AP religion, and then conquer AI cities with that religion to block an AI Diplomatic win.

Seizer: well done on the earliest victory to date! Personally, I am horrible at managing state property and could use some pointers, if you can share.

 

[TRJS]

Great idea Cam. Unable to post my saves for various reason. Main one being my completely useless start where I let the AI get the Copper city and did not attack Ghandi. Needless to say Ghandi and Mao started bickering I dithered and didn't take sides, lost my tech buddies. Had my 3 year old asking to see the elephants, cows, horses, horses in the pen, horses out of the pen, pigs. Couldn't find any bloody pigs. Hit esc and decided to play an easier game....with pigs.

 

[shyuhe]

I've played along as well and had a very funny situation come up.

Spoiler :

Gandhi declared war on me with the following power graph in play. Yes, he's much less in power than me as I had killed off both England and France and was in a defensive war against Germany.



The strange things that happen when you block AI expansion It decides it has no other choice but to declare on the nearest civ. Poor Gandhi was wiped out about 50 turns after this once I started spamming catapults.

I had a little too much fun on the conquest and actually hit 0% strike at one point. I recovered after that and am currently on my way to a space victory after having diminished India and America in size. Germany is suffering WW by trying to attack me and Mao has had too much on his hands for the past 1500 years or so. Yes, he's trying to attack me but his army isn't nearly big enough to declare yet.

 

[Winston Hughes]

@ s-bear

Spoiler :

hehe, the real kick in the teeth was that it was my super-awesome 500 beaker-per-turn capital that had the AP religion and so cost me the game.

It was the first religion founded (iirc), and spread to myself and Roosevelt very early on, but neither Gandhi nor WC got it. So, if I hadn't killed them (I actually contemplated leaving Gandhi alive on a one-tile island), then Bizzy could not have won the game nearly so easily.

Surprisingly, I'm not all bothered by my loss (bar a touch of mild embarrassment) despite the fact that I'd spent so long building a powerful empire.

At the time the election notice came up, I was beginning to see that this game was going to go much the same way as most of my previous BtS efforts - me leaving the AI for dead and just ticking the boxes for an anticlimactic win. So to have it end in such a dramatic manner was almost a relief.

The only depressing thing is that I still haven't played through to the later reaches of the BtS tech-tree (the furthest I've been was in a hardcore beeline to an early UN victory). I've had the game more than a month and I've yet to see a paratrooper or a tactical nuke or half of the other new features.

Looks like my next game will have to be another Space-Race-only variant, but this time on Emperor.

And you can guarantee I'll be aiming for the AP from the very first turn.

 

[Cam_H]

Thought I'd give this a go. Not sure if we were allowed to build religious buildings? Well, I decided not to build any.

Seizer,

'Yes' you can/could build Temples, Monasteries, and Cathedrals if you wish, but Russia is not to adopt a State Religion nor take up any Religious civic (other than Paganism) unless forced into Free Religion by The United Nations.

 

[LlamaCat]

I am astounded how some people get through the tech tree so quickly -- seizure you did not build religious buildings and wiped out the best trading partner in this game, and you have few cities that are not very big, yet somehow you win and are in future tech by 1920s?? I would love to see how your cities are configured and what is bringing in all that research -- 3,000+ beakers per turn? and you are not running the later civics of course...

I am in 1911 and only about 600+ beakers per turn with specialist/hybrid economy...

 

[seizer]

Seizer: well done on the earliest victory to date! Personally, I am horrible at managing state property and could use some pointers, if you can share.

Well, I did a comparison between cottages, farms, workshops and watermills, maybe it'll help.

Spoiler :

Comparison of science produced:

Civics: representation, not free speech, caste system, state property
Buildings: Library, observatory, university, forge, factory, power plant.

Plains:
workshop 4*2.1 = 8.4
town 5*1.75 = 8.75
farm 6*1.75 = 10.5

Plains river:
workshop 5*2.1 + 1*1.75 = 12.25
town 6*1.75 + 1*2.1 = 12.6
farm 6*1.75 + 1*1.75 + 1*2.1 = 14.35
watermill 3*2.1 + 3*1.75 + 3*1.75 = 16.8
free speech town 8*1.75 + 1*2.1 = 16.1

As you can see workshops hold up fairly well to cottages and farms, while state property watermills beat even free speech towns(!). And obviously the bring far greater flexibility.

 

[Ozbenno]

Otherwise known as the madcap adventures of Uncle Joe until 1430AD.

Spoiler :

Greetings comrades it is I, Joe, back again.

Remember the previous lesson.



Before working, check isolator . Michaela, are you sure that's right.

It's good advise Joey bunny.

OK, I suppose.

Anyway, we had taken 2 cities from the American imperialists when the German gosnik declared war on us. But what will we do, read on and find out...

Well firstly, I have no idea where the hun is based, somewhere west I assume. We'll see how it pans out.

First turn of our new five year plan is momentous.



Bureaucracy is a very Soviet ideal. We will have an army of desk soldiers and an army of maces. I will have the imperialists filling out forms in triplicate while I destroy their means of production.

OOh, how you scare me, German pig.



Eventually he sees sense.



Another great worker's monument.



We can store all our propoganda here. I have just written one myself, "How to raise a child like Lenin."

Ha ha, the silly imperialist squable amongst themselves.



Time to take advantage and start a new workers revolution.

<missing piccie of us declaring on de Gaulle.>

Eat this capitalist scum!



This too.



The French crumble like the soft cheese they smell of.



Ha, I stop the imperialists and that weird pacifist from getting this.



Our newly conquered French cities start worshiping strange idols.



To set an example to these misguided fools, we torch the last French city and the workers have one less opressor in this world to worry about.



Mmmmm, scorched earth smells of toasted earthworms and empires.

Only question now is which flavour of capitalist pig is next on the menu?







To find out, tune in next time...

 

[shyuhe]

I played this game and ran into an annoying change that they made in BTS. You can no longer trigger both domination and space on the same turn I tried to, but domination overrode the space victory and I got the domination victory. When I checked my game on F8, it had moved my estimated time of arrival by a year. I reloaded my game and did just the space and my ship landed when it was expected. Now as for my adventures:

Spoiler :

I had quite a lot of fun sharpening my axes in this game. I first starte with an early axe rush of Churchill. I took two of his cities - London turned out to be a very good cottage city. My axes then went westward (since Gandhi and Mao were supposed to be my allies). I encountered the French and the Americans and declared war on them shortly thereafter. I took the French capital (eliminating the French as well). Paris soon became my military factory with its hills and proximity to Germany/America. I then took one of the American cities that was next to gold and then I sued for peace. Shortly thereafter, Gandhi declared war on me as I had blocked in his expansion. I beat back his axe/sword stack (of 2 units) and then waited until catapults before I took his capital as well. My economy was straining during the war as I was at 0% for a turn (and on strike) before I started to recover using caste system.

The Germans also declared war on me about this point but I just let them bring troops into Russian territory before I demolished them. I had no intention of taking their cities (yet) since I didn't want to worry about domination (I was already around 30%). I also had the Statue of Zeus and decided to see how much WW I could give to Germany.

I let my war with Germany run all game. Asides from that, I basically peacefully expanded out my borders and took all the nice wonders. I think I missed 3 (lighthouse, stonehenge, and hanging gardens). Towards the end of the game, I sent some spies into German territory along with some stacks of cossacks (he was nowhere near rifling). The poor guy started to whip his cities silly - Berlin had -7 at its peak along with -7 WW, which shrank the city to size 2.

I tried to trigger domination/space dual win at the end so I went to war against all the remaining civs (India, China, Germany, and America). Unfortunately as noted above, it didn't work and I had to reload to actually get the proper space victory

And the Cosmonauts made a safe landing at Alpha Centauri in 1911 AD.

 

[Winston Hughes]

Spoiler :

I reloaded to a few turns before my defeat, built some missionaries, and reached Alpha Centauri in 1934.

A hollow victory, but enjoyable nonetheless.

 

[Ozbenno]

Spoiler :

To start the new 5-year plan we held a celebration.



We call it The First All-Russian Sheep Breeding Exhibition and Congress



Of course, no real Soviet celebration is complete without a good war to go with it.



Plenty of vodka too.

Our information workers tell us the Indians have some secret technology.



Not so secret now, peacenik!



We discover a free technology with many imperialistic ideas. I'm sold by the Security Bureaus though.



And this...



Let's have The Second All-Russian Sheep Breeding Exhibition and Congress. I can never have too much sheep breeding.

The oppressed Buddhist workers of the world elect me their leader ask me to unite all the buddhist lands of the world.



Oh yes, the war, how did it go? let me tell you a joke about that.

* Knock-knock

*Who's there?

*The Germans

*The Germans, who?

*That's right.

Ha ha, is funny no?



Only one more oppressor of the workers to go.

 

[LlamaCat]

Well Comrades, the Soviets have entered space victorious. This is probably the worst result so far, but I sure had fun. Some highlights and pictures:

victory in 2024

- popped fishing and animal husbandry from huts
- Great Wall and Pyramids built
- espionage-focused game... stole about 8-9 techs from Gandhi.
- wiped off the English
- later wiped off the Indians (in late 1900s) because they were dangerously close to a cultural win
- specialist economy with caste system almost the entire game
- 36 turns in Golden Ages (nice!)
- 166 German and French Grenadiers die to Soviet Cavalry and later Soviet tanks
- 11 Coliseums built... don't think I've ever built more than 2 in a game before (Emancipation's a ?!&*! when you can't have it!)
- speaking of Emancipation unhappiness... Nationhood was my other locked-in civic because of the +2 happy for cheap Barracks and the 25% espionage bonus (I never drafted a single unit!)
-historians liken me to Charlemagne

 

[iamnleth]

Llamacat, you should probably put spoiler tags around your post.

Interesting challenge, but I'd enjoy it more if...

Spoiler :

...it was on a larger map -- perhaps hemispheres?

 

[mice]

I didnt actually play, but it would have gone something like this.

Spoiler :

Soviet practises brought prosperity and abundance to the land.

Capitalist aggressors envious of our success attacked, but were vanquished.

Our space development lead the world

And final success ! Looks about , early sixties.

Score probably around 23,000

And, gratuitous image of slavic women in rompers.

 

[Ozbenno]

The final chapter of Uncle Joe the Imperialist Crusher.

Spoiler :

Hi all, glad you could join us for the last time. Remember the last lesson. "If you do a pointless chat, you are helping spying rat."



So lets continue our story.

Firstly, we nationalise the forests of Yakutsk, even the trees need to be freed from the imperialists.



Then we cleanse earth of the last imperialists.





After this, we realise that to further our worker's crusade, we will need to attack the space imperialists, I'm sure they are there and all worker aliens need our help.

Various things help us to achieve this lofty goal.



Imperialist capitals sure make for great means of production.



Once we get Communism, we swap civics to State Propoerty. I was in slavery, bureaucracy and representation virtually the entire game.

And just like that we win.







Thanks Cam for an enjoyable game. Didn't play for the fastest finish, just played how Joe would have played. Wonder if I will get fastest to eliminate all capitalists?

 

[Cam_H]

1954.

Will do a report with graphics at some stage, however in summary ...

Spoiler :

Medium sized empire

Opted for a medium-sized empire rather than obliterate all ... well aside from Churchill and finishing off De Gaulle ... although had plenty of opportunity to comfortably take out any AI from the two-thirds point. This was a blunder - by the time I got Guilds and Grocers up in my commerce cities for further comfortable expansion, I really should have smashed Roosevelt's core three or four cities if not taken both he and Bismark out of the picture. Even later at a point where I had State Property and a huge military advantage I didn't attack - again compounding the blunder. I was concerned that war would lead to war weariness, which would stifle my research, although with hindsight this is what I needed to do.

Apostolic Palace

Thankfully India never got Buddhism, and Bismark could not vote himself into an Apostolic Palace win. I could have dealt with this looming albeit unfulfilled threat in a few ways - either spread Buddhism myself within Russia to address the voting balance, or invaded Germany (Roosevelt had created a land-buffer between Russia and Germany through an earlier war with France where he captured several French cities and sealed off the possibility of Russian-German borders - if I was going to invade Germany, it would entail either attacking America or churning out Galleons/Transports). I ended up researching Mass Media after the SS tech's and killing it off that way.

Tech' Tree

I can't access my games for the next few days to check, but my research went two-pronged; Rocketry via Artillery for Apollo, and Refrigeration to address the looming problems. I idiotically back-tracked to some of the missed 'industrial'-type tech's before realising that you can get Superconductors from Refrigeration alone and don't need Computers ... it must have been right there on the options list and I didn't even see it. This in itself cost me probably a dozen turns if not more - but the factor that was my undoing I think was the decision not to be aggressive and take more cities than I did post-Guilds and certainly post-Communism.

Useless and costly units

Another point that I should have addressed - I was paying 'good commerce' for a lot of obsolete units - these should have been deleted or maybe gifted to Gandhi if he'd take them.

Ohhh ... Shiney

On the 'plus' side, I got The Mausoleum of Maussollos which was great - I had four Golden Ages (three from s and one from The Taj Mahal). On the other hand - my 'fair share' of daft Wonders were built - The Kremlin (roleplaying), The Great Wall (hardly saw a Barbarian), The University of Sankore (built largely for the Great Scientist influence on the points in Moscow), The Pentagon (no nation could touch me militarily at that stage anyway), Angkor Wat (to give York some culture - I didn't run many Specialist Priests, and the only Great Prophet that I got {from York as it happened} was burned on my last Golden Age), The United Nations (the space ship was in the air already), and Cristo Redentor (never changed civics after that point). Admittedly, many of these were Stone-based and typically took very few turns to build, but largely wasteful nonetheless. I did get the end-game happiness WoWs, but happiness was becoming a bit of a problem at the time. Despite having numerous WoWs and two 'Cathedrals', Delhi pushed back Moscow's cultural borders so it was not running with the full 21 tiles at the end of the game!

Liberalism > Communism

It was also my 'longest' Liberalism slingshot I can recall ... I got Communism, but options included Biology and Electricity having self-researched Physics.

The Saves

For those who care;

At 100 turns
At 200 turns (from this point I played far too defensively - I was to have a frightening lead on the PowerChart that wasn't leveraged)
At 301 turns (oops - forgot to save at 300)
Victory

 

[cheffster]

1725AD Domination Victory.........


edit:
had a big long post till I realized that somehow I skipped and read past the Victory by Space Race part of the original post.

 

[LlamaCat]

cheffster... er, except that the victory condition must be space race. not that I doubt you would have accomplished this in no time as well!

 

[cheffster]

oh lol
I thought it was only civic/trade restrictions lol. (hits forehead)

Maybe I'll replay from my 1500 save or something.