G-Minor 71

[mc-red]

Gifting cities is all you can do to prevent a dom win normally.

Yes I should have just done that with a good city. Instead I built two cities bordering the city about to pop and gifted them.
Dom limit was 68% and I had exactly 68.00% after the gifts and the pop.
I was trying to be too cute.

 

[Obormot]

Did you settle your GS or bulb them?
1000bpt in capital usually means a few settled GS at least, but how many?

I settled most of them them, IIRC my capital had 11 GS settled. I also had IW in my capital and was running bureaucracy, so a lot of beakers came from building research.

 

[Darvon]

There is an option to do that automatically on the HOF3 tab of the game options, if that helps.

It does, cheers

 

[billybgame]

Ok...this BTS is really, really, starting to frig my off

I can live with the fact that I wasn't familiar enough with some changes, and screwed up with an Apopolistic Palace vote, and mistakenly voted for Catherine and gave her a Domination victory in my first attempt, when I would have easily won a Space Colony, albeit a late one.

But, this time, set up quite well again, except no horses, I get declared on by Julius. Ok....fine. By the time he got to the city, I had a archer, two axemen, and 4 spearmen, with more coming.

One problem: his 2 catapults attacked me 4 consecutive times and withdrew each time! Someone please explain how these, with their miniscule withdraw % can do this! I just lost my city, and I would say it was solely due to this. My guys got whittled down to nothing, and his few remaining Praetorians had little problem, when they should have been no problem to me.

Is this a bug of BTS? Or, just an AI bug. I'd say the latter, because my first game, even my new-fangled catapult things, trebulchets, or whatever, with more chance of withdrawal and 100% city attack, mine died EVERY SINGLE TIME! And, the AI had numerous withdrawals of theirs.

This must be some AI advantage bug. I'm getting very frustrated with my war/defense efforts in Warlord difficulty in BTS. I can only imagine higher difficulties.

Some expert please explain this. There is NO WAY 2 catapults can attack 8 times and withdraw each time.

If the game cheats, I should be able to go back to a prior save and cheat myself!

 

[Rain]

There are a lot of factors that figure into combat - city defense bonus from culture & fortifications - unit raider promotions - unit healing due to promotions etc. Also are you sure they were attacking and not bombarding the defenses down. A city under assault by praetorians and cats wont survive with defenses you describe. The result is about what you would expect. Life is a lot simpler if you dont use Rome as an opponent The BTS AI is a bit brighter than the previous versions when it comes to war as well.

 

[billybgame]

I'm figuring that out. I just gave up on the game. Back to the drawing board.

I retook my city as even though I had that terrible luck, and held it for quite some time, and rebuilt things, and got crossbowmen, longbowmen, and pikemen. Here comes Julius again with a mighty stack of 4 praets, a bunch of horse archers and 5(!) catapults.

And, next turn, my closest neighbor, Victoria, declares on me! My city survived only one turn after attack. And, even before this, Julius refused to make a ceasefire. I give up.

This is both games where I had two civs gang up on me at once. Seems the AI is much more aggresive, not too mention, smarter.

And, yes, they were bombarding, when he got 8 straight withdrawals. Things went back to normal the next two attacks, with only like one out of 7 withdrawals.

If things had worked right with the catapults the first time, I'd have had great leveled up units, and may have held on.

I'm going to give it one more shot, but this is crazy that I'm having this kind of difficulty at Warlord. I'm a Prince or Monarch player, at this point. Did the AI get a huge boost in BTS?

 

[GoodGame]

Boreal is very bad map for Space. I think the key of strategy is National Park because Forests are the only benefit of this map...

That's a good a point. I was thinking maybe a workshop hammer economy with IND, EXP.

But my first try, I've decided on Darius vs. minimum number of civs (4) all with Philosophy, no combat traits, and weak/late UUs. Lets see if vassalizing great people makers will work out well.

 

[ssjos]

Hmm, I cant seem to build the space elevator in any of my cities , even though I control the left half of the map.

Is it just me or cant u build it on boreal?

Kinda sux :\ wasted research for me then

 

[PaulisKhan]

Hmm, I cant seem to build the space elevator in any of my cities , even though I control the left half of the map.

Is it just me or cant u build it on boreal?

Kinda sux :\ wasted research for me then

Interesting observation, but on the face of it, makes sense.
We're nowhere near the equator

Thanks for pointing it out though, might save some other people some wasted turns =)

 

[Dynamic]

Boreal has Latitude [90;70] but Space Elevator requires [30;-30] range.

 

[ssjos]

First try with Peter finished in 1550 - kinda regretted not being financial though

Second try now I got 1445 with Darius - better time but still not optimal starting loc, my captial was not as good as I would have wanted and I had so much trouble with health I had to run enviromentalism

 

[Obormot]

I also had health problems in my game after building factories & coal plants. The map has only five health bonuses: deer, wheat, sheep, fish and crabs, so even having lots of forests doesn't help much.

 

[billybgame]

First try with Peter finished in 1550 - kinda regretted not being financial though

Second try now I got 1445 with Darius - better time but still not optimal starting loc, my captial was not as good as I would have wanted and I had so much trouble with health I had to run enviromentalism

I've got to figure out how you guys get these 1400s and 1500s space victories.

I'm also playing Darius, on this third effort and third time playing BTS, it's already nearing the 1600s and I'm nowhere near. I've got VERY large cities. I've been way ahead in tech, and had no slowing wars. Cottages wherever I can.

Without warring, yes I do have only 10 cities. Is that the difference?

Also, my starting city location was terrible. Few deer, and one gem, and the rest tundra. I had so many other nice spots, I stuck with it. My capitol is stuck forever at size 10.

 

[ShannonCT]

I'm also playing Darius, on this third effort and third time playing BTS, it's already nearing the 1600s and I'm nowhere near. I've got VERY large cities. I've been way ahead in tech, and had no slowing wars. Cottages wherever I can.

Without warring, yes I do have only 10 cities. Is that the difference?

The AI research so slowly at Warlords level, their cities are much better in your hands than theirs. You might be able to grab the first capital with 2-3 warriors. The second might take axemen. Don't fear a large empire. Darius gets half-priced courthouses that can be whipped cheaply. Target Code of Laws (prereq for CS-sling) and Currency. In BtS, wealth can be built with hammers at a 1-1 ratio, once you get Currency.

Also, my starting city location was terrible. Few deer, and one gem, and the rest tundra. I had so many other nice spots, I stuck with it. My capitol is stuck forever at size 10.

A good capital is so important. If you're playing a financial civ, you want a capital with maximum cottage spam + bureaucracy + academy. I wouldn't start a game with a mediocre capital. On Boreal, there is always some good cottageable land near the north or south edge of the map. Look for rivers with mostly plains and grass, with enough deer/wheat to support 10+ cottages.

 

[Obormot]

You need a strong capital. Idealy you want at least one gem mine for the early boost, enough food (5 deer or 4 wheat) and 10 tiles for cottages/farms. You also need to pop a settler or a worker from GH (ideally 2 or more).

In my game I did have the gem mine, and I also popped silver from a random event early (both on tundra/ice hills though). But I only had 3 deer (all on tundra forests), so I wasn't quite happy with my location. I just got bored regenerating maps, and took the first decent start with a free settler.

The first thing to do after finding a good start is to warrior-rush a neighbour. Build a couple of warriors before workers + take your starting warrior, and attack them with a stack of 3 warriors. They will most likely only have one warrior in defense and you should take their capital. So by 3000BC you already have 3 cities (your starting settler, free settler from GH and AI capital). If you have more AI close to you, you cat try to warrior rush them too, but if you don't attak in the first 25 turns or so you are likely to find more then 1 warrior in defense.

After that it is usual stuff: REX as fast as you can, but don't forget the library & academy in your capital. Beeline CS, then Oxford, then Biology. In my game I had 8 cities at 1000BC, Oxford 470BC (Oracled Education), Biology 175AD.

Wars at warlords level & epic speed are very easy and maintenance costs very low. So I don't see a reason not to expand close to the domination limit. According to the statistics I built 9 maces & 6 trebs, and that was enough to conquer 3 civs. Basicly I doubled the size of my empire for nothing.

 

[ShannonCT]

I just submitted a game under 1400AD with Elizabeth.

 

[Dynamic]

Well done!

 

[billybgame]

Thanks for the tips....yeah, sometimes I just like completely peaceful games. I do know I could have easily taken some neighbors out. Ah, well, we'll do better another time.....getting my first BTS Quatro stuff scratched off is my biggest goal.

As far as the capitol goes, after two aborted games, I was not in the mood to goof around anymore.

 

[ShannonCT]

Some stats from my 13xx win with Lizzy:

85AD:
13 cities
108 population
900bpt sustained (in golden age)
333 GPPs per turn
2 AI dead
Working 8 cottages, 15 hamlets, 11 villages, 2 towns
Top techs: Education, Guilds, Music, Democracy (1 turn from Banking)
Wonders: Solomon, Mids, Henge, Oxford, GLib, HG, Oracle, Taj, MoM, Parth, NE
Civics: Representation, Bureaucracy, Caste, Pacifism (getting ready to switch to Merc and Emancipation)

1000AD:
20 cities
211 population
3287bpt sustained (in golden age)
779 GPPs
3 AI dead
Working 1 cottage, 1 hamlet, 13 villages, 37 towns
Top techs: Rocketry, Industrialism, Railroad (w/ Liberalism), Refrigeration
Additional Wonders: Notre Dame, Sankore, Ankor, Liberty, NatPark, Ironworks, Colossus, Moai, GWall, Cereal Mills, Mining Inc.
Civics: Representation, Free Speech, Caste, Free Market, Pacifism

 

[Darvon]

1000AD:

3287bpt sustained (in golden age)

Man... that's out of control. lol