COTM 123 Babylon Warlord - Final Spoiler - Game Submitted

[Più Freddo]

This is the thread where you tell us how you did - win, lose or retire.

Only read or post in this thread when your game is ended and successfully submitted.

 

[Cotta]

At least 15 turns to find and destroy the last AI (Romans). My results are getting worse...

Game status: Conquest Victory for Babylon
Game date: 1330 AD
Firaxis score: 2476
Jason score: 8966

 

[Lanzelot]

Hmm, the Romans were the first ones I discovered...

I also went for Conquest, but I guess I got a bit "carried away" by my builder addiction again: when I was sure that we are on a separate island, I started a pre-build for the Lighthouse, and when I did not have any contacts for a long time, I tried to avoid drowning in unit upkeep by investing my shields into "unnecessary things" like Colossus, Forbidden Palace and Hanging Gardens ("invest shields now, get them back via gold-rushes later"). I even researched Construction so I could bring my entire first ring to size 12...

Consequently my Conquest date was also a bit later than I first expected.
Not getting any leaders until like 5 turns before the end didn't help too much either. (But at least I had two leaders in the end, just in time for my invasion of Greece. )

After all the infrastructure build-up, the Golden Age was triggered with a Bowman, and then the capital was running at 30spt (one horseman per turn), 4 more cities at 20spt (rush worker for 80g, then one horseman or galley per turn, or, if gold was lacking, one Bowman per turn) and 2 more cities at 15spt for a horseman or galley every two turns.

After another tedious exercise in ship-chaining, Conquest was finally achieved in 310 AD.

 

[templar_x]

did you see any difference in the strength of single AIs, compared to what is normal for C3C-Warlord-AIs on such a map? I tried to give them some advantages so that they may be able to give you *some* resistance by the time you get there... did any of them reach the MA?
t_x

 

[greatbeyond]

100K victory in 1987ad

I moved 1 north after mistaking the tundra for coastline. At that point I took some time to consider if I should I continue moving to the NE coast or not. I decided to settle there which worked out well for city placement.

It was quickly apparent we were on an island with an isolated start. I considered some of the gambits for getting off the island that I have seen in the SGOTM series. After doing some exploring I came to the conclusion that they weren't necessary and wouldn't have worked out so well given the small size of most of the land masses. I decided to go for a 100K win and knew that it wouldn't be a very good finish date versus the tactic of spamming a 100 cities on a map with large landmasses.

I placed 8 cities on the main island and two more on the island to the East. I probably could have fit in another city or two but decided against it. I went for the Philo sling then went on to Mapmaking, which I got well before the AI and cleared most of the fog off the map early. It also helped in settling the smaller uninhabited islands. It was rather disappointing the mapmaker didn't give us iron or saltpeter, but pretty much what I expected for a warlord level game. I had a galley with a settler in it as soon as I reached MM and circled the world before I finally found some iron near the coast, south of the French borders. I quickly purchased a Temple and Library to ensure it wouldn't flip to the AI, and then purchased several strong defenders to deter the AI.

One thing I noticed when my galleys started exploring was the AI had pretty much settled all of the available land. Of course by this time I had already settled on going for 100k, so I wasn't to disappointed. I got all but 4 of the early wonders, (Pyramids, The Great Wall, The Colossus, and the Statue of Zeus) and every wonder after that. The 20K date for Babylon was 2036AD. There was a point early on where I considered going for 20K but wasn't sure I would be able to finish it in time.

The last half of the game was a little closer as I was warring with the AIs, making and breaking alliances, and they were rapidly researching and trading techs with their bigger and more numerous cities. However, I was at least a generation ahead of their units. The AI that was the most advanced and gave the most trouble was England, At the end, Scandanavia, France, and Rome were dead. England had one city and I was working on cutting Egypt down in size as they were the only AI of any size left.

I had no warmongering intentions until England started the world wars when they decided to try and invade my island. I made a few quick MPPs and then asked English Troops to vacate the premises. They DOWd me and I quickly sank their invasion force before any troops could even land. It was their fault that the rest of the world suffered too!

I think for a warlord level game the mapmaker gave us more than enough island to start on as well as a few resources such as Horses, Rubber, and fur. It could have been much worse, a 3 tile island with no resources and nothing of value nearby.

My GA was triggered by building one of the early wonders and the 20 turns carried me through the medieval early wonders.

Perhaps a quick replay going for conquest would be in order. Can Lanzelot's 310ad finish be beaten?

 

[Lord AJ]

Diplomatic victory in 1310 AD.

This game went on for way too long for a warlord game and turned out to be much more challenging than I had expected. I first planned to go for conquest but the loss of a few horse loaded galleys made me change my mind. It must be handed to t_x, he actually made this game much more challenging than I had expected. There was no way I could reach the other landmass without leaving at least one galley in the ocean. Or was there???
Well, anyways, my military ambitions all sunk with my galleys and I decided to go for a peaceful victory. Diplomatic or space were my only options considering that I had no preparations needed for any cultural victory and it already was 200 BC. It was difficult getting the constant 4 turns per tech, partly due to my misplacement of cities (a couple of my first ring towns didn't even hit size 6 due to lack of food and only 3 had enough tiles for size 12) and partly due to the small island. The Oracle triggered the GA that helped me get from monotheism to Astronomy. I got 4 turn techs in the IA and then it was all good.

Now, I have a few questions :
1. While placing cities, is there a particular placement type (CxxxC? ) that ensures every city has 12 workable tiles or do we have to manually count it?
2. This one's for Lanzelot (or anyone who finishes/could've finished with Conquest before 500AD) : How did you manage to get your military to all the other islands? And even if, let's say you get the first set of units there, did it happen while sending reinforcements that the ships carrying them sank? That is quite a lot of Shields lost in the AA. How did you counter this?

 

[templar_x]

you needed to build the Great Lighthouse for an early victory
t_x

 

[Lord AJ]

you needed to build the Great Lighthouse for an early victory
t_x

Oh I did build the GL. Without that, I dare not set any galleys with units in them to the task of transporting them to enemy grounds. But even with four movement points it was impossible to get across the 6 ocean tiles without leaving at least one galley in danger.

 

[Lanzelot]

There were actually two passages where the ocean was only 3 tiles wide, one in the east and one in the west. I used both of them in a pincer movement.

Regarding city placement: usually I'm too lazy to make a detailed map. I just place them by gut feeling and hope it will work out...

 

[supersova_SU]

1 hour later DeadLine finish...

770 ad Dom...

 

[AlanH]

Your submission is included …