COTM98 Byzantines final spoiler - Game submitted

[mad-bax]

Welcome to the final spoiler thread for

COTM98 - Byzantines

Do not read or post in this thread unless you have submitted your game.

Well, did your skull end up as a drinking cup, or did you rule the Bosphorous with an iron fist?

There were a few little tweaks in this game, which I hope some of you found, such as the gateway through the mountain range and one or two other things.

How did it go?

 

[Memento]

few stats
800bc 1st leader->horseman Army
410bc Persian say goodbye, 290bc Bulgars follow
210bc TGL
190bc Golden Age
150bc war against the Celts and 1st town on the other continent
???ad Rome is history
???ad Greece too
???ad take the last French town, but somewhere is a settler
???ad found the new french town and destroy it
???ad Russia gone, take the last Celtic town, but they have a settler on Galley
???ad Arabia gone
???ad only 2 Ottomans town and 1 town flips back
???ad Ottomans gone
???ad Celts gone, last town far away.
ConDom

very nice game with an interesting map
only the startposition is very bad. "who have more luck with walking and scouting?" is not the best requirement (?) for a C/Gotm.


Edit: 1 Post and 93 Views?

 

[templar_x]

1020ad Spaceship victory

This is a final Picture:

These are my notes:
Move several times as i hate pure FP starts. Find the possible 4-turner site. Decide i will play.

AS quite helpful with some techs, but Con+Curr will be self-researched. Early AS development suprisingly strong.

No military for a long time. Sling around 1500bc, not too bad for such a start. Reach MA shortly after 1000bc, trade everyone up, end up with Theo but not Feud! Try to have anyone of the others research Feud for me and continue with Edu.

I go the whole upper branch so to keep hopes up that any of the less clever citizens of the planet may research Feud for me. And suprise surprise, Russia manages it 1 turn before i make Banking. Go figure!

The bad news, i can manage Inv in 5 turns only  only at this time i had improved my military from absolutely zero to an impressive stack of 4 reg horses (370bc). FP finishes.

310bc sees my first military action, taking a Roman border town. 210 this little conflict nets me Rome. Now for something completely different…

110bc it really takes all my funds, 2 turns and another dromon to sink that stupid Persian galley, which was the only ship i could find anywhere around. MY GA STARTS. And of course finally brings me down to 4 turn research.

90ad i see the Bulgarian UU for the first time.

190ad enter IA, geht Electricity as freebie. Nice! But there is no coal on the whole continent!!!! Not so nice 
No need to mention that none of the AS` has yet built a single harbour…
Coal and luxes are a big problem. My first assault with superior forces on a Celtic town on the middle strip with coal fails . another shipload can take it finally and has to fend off a dozen or so barbs now.
Luxes similar. At the beginning of the IA even silks of my home continent are not connected. Only in a peace deal i can get a town in the very south, disband it for a settler and refound next to the silks to rush a harbour. The turn before a worker had found a colony on the silks… finally 4 luxes from after 300ad on, and thus i can reduce lux tax to 10%.

After few 4-t Techs in the GA i need 5 or 6 for RP, when my GA ends. Hm. Maybe i lost a turn here, but i am not sure.

310ad finally connect coal and silks via harbours.
350ad my „easy“ war against Persia for land results in a SOUR and the attack stalls.

Only in 540ad i finally gift a town with a harbour in it to a nation on the other continent so that trades become possible… get furs and wine from Celts and finally can go down to 0% lux tax!

Around 600ad two of my towns caught the Black Death, with 2 turns in between. Never seen that feature before! nice animation 
640ad – a third town!!!
680ad – a fourth town!!!
690ad – 3 more towns get the pest!!!!
700ad – 2 more
710ad – 3 more
720ad – all of a sudden, all black birds vanished!

730ad reach MA: 3 of the buggers draw Fission  it takes some effort to get their 2 techs, and i pick my two from ToE plus get my free one. This time i have all the ressources connected. At least that. And i can make 4-turn research…
950ad – by mistake i switch the wrong prebuild when one of the last techs pops in. It then takes quite some effort to still make SS Exterior possible in only 7 more turns… the solution involves the only manufacturing and power plant in this game. 
1010ad last SS part built and off to the stars next turn!

In many elite victories (forgot to count this time), I did not get one single MGL.
In this game, I honored nearly all of my deals.
In all of my civ career, i cannot remember that I would have seen that Black Death Feature. It does not harm you a whole lot, so I personally find it quite useless.
My game finished miles behind Drazeks SS masterpiece. Of course.

As for the map, I agree with Memento. I found it absolutely awesome, just an experience. however, i am never a big fan of these wandering starts. had i taken the start more seriously, i most probably would have not settled where i did, and would have enjoyed the game so much less...

t_x

 

[Memento]

Nice date on this level.

In all of my civ career, i cannot remember that I would have seen that Black Death Feature.

Is the mad-bax effect.

 

[mad-bax]

I cannot take the credit. I'm really not that clever.

Plagues are actually built into C3C, but disabled by default. I just turned it on and played with the dials a bit to set the severity. I did warn you about it in the pre-game blurb actually.

I'm glad you liked the map. It is obviously quite stylised (and even predictable), and not to everyones taste, so going forwards, I will mix maps like this with others that appear more random.

My regret with this map is that I was unable to add the Hagia Sophia as a Wonder. I just didn't get the time to test it.

@Templar_x
Very nice game description and very rewarding for me to see the game played so well and which of the tweaks worked (or not). The resources issue and the struggle you had to secure them - particularly coal actually took quite a lot of effort to set up - and difficult to test as it is far into the game and so time consuming to play multiple times. So thank you for taking the time to post in such detail.

 

[templar_x]

Nice date on this level.

thank you. but i am still not that happy about it, because i know that i have probably lost several turns in the very unlucky warring. of course i had only very limited forces, but slightly different results would have meant quite a bit more land quite a bit earlier. and in the MA, it would have been nice to have that and shave off a few turns...

@ mad-bax:
the coal issue was nice, and i was much more alert when it came to Modern Age, with regard to Alu, Uran, ... and that 3rd ressource i believe you need for some SS part. but everything was there
did you set coal on the other continent so that no one would have 2 sources? i did not check that. since no AS ever built a harbour, securing my own coal by force was much faster.

t_x

 

[mad-bax]

As it was a while ago since I built the map it is difficult to remember exactly what was in my mind.

Coal was removed from the home continent to provide interest and a minor challenge in the middle game. Coal was put on the middle divide to give access if trade was not possible. Barb camps were added to give the player a problem to solve in obtaining coal, thereby hopefully adding interest also.
The overall objective was to delay conquest and domination Jason dates - though there was much more to it than that.

 

[templar_x]

i do not think i ever became industrial for any conquest or domination victory *ever* in my personal XOTM history
so to make the lack of coal matter for me, i *had to* go for a science VC... do not mention it, it is just like me saying thank you for the effort you put into this map.

now that you mention the barbs... they were strange. they had large stacks but actually never attacked my towns on the middle strip. even though their camps and my units/towns were positioned in a way where they usually should.

t_x

 

[r16]

ı really can't play this game without save and reload and seeing that line of mountains in the sea (the middle divide ?) was immensely frustating in search for more AI civs , which in itself was a frustation when the Ottomans built the Great Library even before ı got started .

opps , ı have no submission nor anything worth submitting , should this post be deleted ?

 

[mad-bax]

that line of mountains in the sea (the middle divide ?) was immensely frustating

Your post is fine, and I can take criticism. No problem.

There's a hill in the barrier directly opposite the start position. You can build a canal city on it. I'm sorry you didn't find it.

 

[templar_x]

@r16- in addition to what mad-bax replied, what you are saying tells only very little about the map but a whole lot about your playing style. the building of the GLib on the other continent should not bother you, because on Monarch it is probably the most useless wonder anyway. and i never built that island town either, but you did not even need it in order to get into contact with the other continent... just send your ship wayyy around it.
from how i understand your post, i would recommend to read how the more experienced players did, and go through the very valuable articles in the strategy archive, and for sure you will learn to enjoy the XOTM games as what they are: not designed games to win most easily, but to overcome the obstacles of one specific game in a competition and win better and faster than the others.
t_x

 

[Memento]

There's a hill in the barrier directly opposite the start position. You can build a canal city on it. I'm sorry you didn't find it.

OMG

I didn´t find/see it too. Arrrgh

First i take the long way to the celts with some galleys and use many ferries to bring my units in the middle. Later i build a canal city near France.

lost at least 300 years

 

[templar_x]

i at least *did* see it! some time around 800 ad
t_x

 

[r16]

thanks for the replies . Was running for the Great Library , had to be content with the Lighthouse and let me assure you that ı was quite pleased with getting that . Always play at Monarch and any game starts with a heartbeat . If ı get an early good-going , fine . If not ı have learned to re-start , instead of punching the the PC . ı think a further problem of mine at increased AI levels is that ı try to settle with late game in mind : rivers for getting beyond 6 , max amount of resources per city and so on . AI would outsettle the Human player irregardless , but ı fail right in the beginning . For frustation , the middle divide is nothing compared to the culture flip ı got before some 30 turns before the Persians declared on me , shoudn't have settled right next to them and left the city even without one single unit .

save and reload is my way , at least ı can win wars .

 

[templar_x]

but honestly, it is the way of never getting a better player. no offense intended, just stating the obvious...
t_x

 

[r16]

none can be taken , and even the middle divide becomes a great idea . Once giving up ı liked the "sheer affrontary" of it . Will download the save again actually , to see whether ı can handle it now .

 

[denyd]

Quick summary....

Dromon begins Golden Age in 170 AD
Killed off Bulgars in 590 AD seeing only 1 Mounted Vandal
Greece destroyed in 1430 AD with the birth of 1st MGL
Rome destroyed in 1435 AD
United Nations built in 1490 AD and Vote called ...
Theodora vs Brennus - I vote for Theodora - Brennus votes for Brennus and all others abstain...so there is no verdict...now they all must DIE
France destroys Russia in 1705 AD
Arabs gone in 1772 AD
France gone in 1778 AD
Ottomans gone in 1794 AD
Celts gone in 1820 AD
Persia gone in 1824 AD

 

[templar_x]

so there is no verdict...now they all must DIE

i love your consequence!
t_x

 

[supersova_SU]

Domination 730 AD
Firaxis score: 6960
Jason score: 10171

 

[Lanzelot]

Due to vacation (without computer) I didn't get this one done. But a very challenging map for the 20K VC. So perhaps I'm going to finish it sometime just to see what date I can manage. At the moment I think I can get it down to ~1780 AD.

When the Black Death hit my empire, it of course spread until it reached my 20K city . At first I thought, it would cost me a couple of turns for some middle age wonders, but then I managed to keep up the production by adding workers back in, whenever population died.

Coal was not a problem. When I saw that it was available only on the mountain barrier, I just rushed a settler, a ship and two muskets, filled another ship with 3 workers and managed to connected coal within 5-6 turns. At that time the current wonder was almost finished, so earlier coal would not have sped up that wonder anyway, and then I spent two turns cash-rushing a factory and coal-plant, while the workers finished the necessary rails.