News: BOTM 09 Final Spoiler

[Erkon]

My first spoiler ended with Cyrus declaring, and I had to take a tech detour (Guilds/Engineering). I managed to kill off his attack-stack, and slowly work through his cities. Then Wang Kon declared, so I continued to capture his cities as well. Gilgamesh had wiped out JC, and had a 50-unit stack with Cavalry, Infantry and Cannons, and "Enough on my hands". Lucky for me, he had been friendly with me thousands of years. Saladin was not that lucky

I got me a Great Engineer to found Mining Inc, and with the extra metals gained from Cyrus/Kon land, I had great production (and research). The Levee's, Mining Inc and Universal Suffrage towns provided insane production. Unfortunately I failed the gauntlet . Just as I was about to complete the UN, I won a religious victory . So instead of a mediocre diplomatic victory date, I got an abysmally late religious victory date Actually, I wanted to finish the game asap and did not target any award.

I was very generous with gifting tech (selling very cheap) to speed up my own tech pace. I am not convinced that it really helped me at the end, so I will try to be less generous next game (ok, the game after the Deity )

In this game I managed to fight a war and still advance pretty quick through the tech tree. One reason was that I built most of my units in one city, while the others could build infrastructure and missionaries/businessmen.

Anyway, thanks for a nice map and the early/mid game was great fun!

 

[Harbourboy]

Because you're tough, Orry, that's why you stuck it out to the end!

 

[Gosha190]

contender 960AD diplo 166K

it's my first xOTM finished immortal game so I'm happy to win!

10 cities, 126 pop. SE economy gives me 9XX bulb per turn at the end of my game.

10 GS were born:
1 Math
2 Education
3 Academy
4 PPress
5 Phisics
6,7,8,9 Electricity (was researched for one turn)
10 GoldenAge 2 turns before MM was finished

PS (for Bugg123): 860AD MM, 870AD UN

Votes:
Gil 73 + WK 91 -> WK
Bis 62 + Sal 82 + JC 78 + St 126 -> Stalin.

Cirys did't participate because of deaf in 2475BC. I settled in the start position.

 

[Bugg123]

contender 960AD diplo

it's my first xOTM finished immortal game so I'm happy to win!

That's like sick good, right? HOF diplo is close to 200 years slower than that

Unless you mean religious.. which is still pretty d*** good.

Congrats

 

[kaizer]

Congratulations Gosha190, but also the ability diplo, but religious. The fifth century AD. This is also my first game in the BTS on immortal.

 

[PutCashIn]

I too had my first immortal win, albiet on adventurer, getting a culture win in the 1900's, the same turn saladin launched his SS.

Crazy numbers for the game: I had 9 (count em) boughts of Global Warming. unless the message isn't shown to all players, I was the only one struck by this. Which would make things not very global.

Cyrus had all his 8 Great Generals settled in some tundra city - 1 tile from the edge too - up in the north east.

 

[oncable]

Contender start.
Not even one worker was built! Complete reliance on foreign labor from start to

end. But it worked out well. They seemed to take to Russian ways just fine. No

integration or language problems at all .

After Persia and Germany, moved on to the Arabs with maces, trebs and later

elephants. Lots of nice wonders including AP, Colossus and Kashi. The battle

strategy was quite simple - reduce defenses to near zero then use the highest

promoted CR siege weapons (arguably the most important battle move is that first

siege suicide attack - what a strange thing to have to do). It becomes very

important to protect and promote your main siege units. The siege stack is

actually in reverse order to the way it should be so they have to be used

manually.

After the Arabs it was big decision time; who next? Gilg or Korea? I had the AP

so I could also go for an AP win. But Gilg had more votes than me and I would

have to try to get him to vote for me, which seemed unlikely, even though we were

good friends. So it was on to Korea, they looked to be easier.

This was the longest stretch of peace in the game. The time it took to move

everything from way down southeast over to Korea in the NW (22 turns!). But I was

busy beelining to rifles at the time so it worked out fine. By the time the army

got there I had rifling and Korea was toast. Even with all of Korea I still

didn't have quite the 64 percent of land needed so I chewed off a bit of the

Roman empire, by now with cannons. Dom vic 1550.


Points learned:
1) The Great Wall.
Once you have the Great Wall the barbs don't bother you at all, even way beyond

the wall itself. It was strange to see an undefended worker right next to the

streams of barbs way out on the fringes.

2) Don't need religion.
war-weariness was never a problem despite almost constant warfare. Ran no

religion, built no temples the whole game, happy resources were enough.

3) Slavery.
This was the first game I played in slavery the whole time. I was trying to

balance the growth of population with expansion of land. It seemed to work ok.

whenever the pop got a little too far ahead I would whip some more units. It is

also very handy to use up excess pop in newly captured cities rather than have

them starve to death as they would in any other civic.

4) The Kashi.
What a money-maker!

 

[blastoidstalker]

Dom vic 1550.

Good game..... but I got you by 6 turns I think having to swing around may have cost you there.

1) The Great Wall.
Once you have the Great Wall the barbs don't bother you at all, even way beyond the wall itself. It was strange to see an undefended worker right next to the streams of barbs way out on the fringes.

I was attacked by barbs once. It was a rifle or mace that got ambushed on its way through the smoking ruins of Korea. It is not the wall that sets the borders but your cultural boundaries. You can sometimes push barbs into enemy terriotory when a city comes out of rebellion, which is fun

 

[Mundungu]

I was still quite happy with the start as itwas my first game at this level, but I think I lost focus in the mid game.

I think also there was very little wars among the other AIs, with every building up HUGE armies, and me being too isolated.

Anyhow, I tried to beeline to Rifling for the cossacks with good success (around 1500 I think) and DOW'd Bismark.

However the other AI's where on speed with it (I think rifling was stolen from me a couple of turns after I got it).

I thought I could still fare quite well and look for a cultural victory, feeling quite confident with a big (what I thought big) stack of cossacks and infantry, until Saladin DOWd on my with SAM and Artillery, negating all my defensive stack in one or 2 turns.

Knowing that I could not stand the onslaught, I just gave up.

To learn for next game : did not expend enough at the beginning.

Test games I had played only until around 500 AD, should ha played them until later to know the dev until mid and late game.

Keep focus on the mid / late game !!!

I also need to work on my diplomacy skills, I replayed the game a few times later and a big difference is that in that particular game, no big war between the other civs happened, everybody was friendly with each other, within its original boundaries. In all other games sooner or later was some big war between AIs helping along the way. Some luck factor here ? or skill?

Still need to learn. At least the forums and BOTM brought me from Prince to Monarch level...

 

[oncable]

Blastoid
Yeah, I guess you're right about the long delay moving the army. It slowed things down quite a bit. I guess I could have carried on going south and simply taken on Gilgamesh. It might have been faster. I also made a mistake in waiting for a golden age to change civics out of Bureaucracy. The civic upkeep dropped from 136 to 119 when I finally switched to free speech and free religion. This would have sped up research somewhat. I also ran into a sizable Roman army that didn't take too kindly to my land grab, even though they were at war on and off the whole game with Gilg. Cossacks sooner would have helped, might even have made it to artillery.

Mundungu:
Sometimes it works well to "encourage" the civs to go to war by bribing them with a tech or two. I used that in this game to keep Gilg and JC occupied with each other. I couldn't leave much of my army to defend against Gilg if he wanted to attack when I went off to attack Korea but he was easy to persuade to attack Caesar.

 

[mart777]

Lost in 1934, conquered by both Saladin and Cyrus.

Strange thing though, my game says ver. 3.17, save I submitted 3.13. Hof reads ok 3.17. Is it possible? or my patch is corrupted?
-----
I reinstalled the patch. Is there a way to check if the Hof mod records it correctly now?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Whereabouts did your save say 3.13? That sounds unlikely since the HOF mod will only load if the game is running on the 3.17 patch. I'm pretty sure your save will be fine, at least as far as patch version is concerned.

 

[mart777]

On the game submission page I got:
Software Version: BtS 3.13 for Windows
Mod: Mods/HOF-3.17.001/

However, the exe file version is 3.1.3.1 - maybe this is it.

 

[AlanH]

On the game submission page I got:
Software Version: BtS 3.13 for Windows
Mod: Mods/HOF-3.17.001/

However, the exe file version is 3.1.3.1 - maybe this is it.

You got it. The script has to use the build number to determine the true version, as 2KGames' version numbers seem to live in a little world of their own. I hadn't updated the script to know about version 3.17's build number.

 

[jesusin]

The starting location and surrounding region did not favor a culture win, there was no great GP location, and no great spot for the 3rd legendary city. So, I decided to try for culture.

This sentence makes no sense. Who would be so crazy as to play for culture in this conditions...p please, don't miss my spoiler, coming soon).

Well into the game Gilgamesh was Friendly with me. All of a sudden, he DOWs and sends a massive stack into my land. My one-warrior-per-city defense was going to get rolled up, but I decided to play on with the hope I could sue for peace before he hit my legendary cities. However, the whole time I'm thinking "what is the RNG probability a friendly civ DOWs, what terrible luck" .

The probability of Gilgamesh deciding to dow at Friendly is 0%. He decided to dow when he was pleased, and effectively dowed later on. You can verify this by checking that "he had too much on his hands" for some time before he dowed. In fact, you should have checked this while playing in order to have had time to build another warrior before he dowed


7 GA are too few. I am glad to see that fanaticly incontaminated generation pool is still useful.

Please, how many cities did you have? How many where dedicated to cottages?

And of course, congratulations on your win. It is not easy to addapt from HOF to GOTM, is it?

 

[jesusin]

jesusin, contender. Primary goal: finish the game in time to submit. As a consequence of this, I decided beforehand that I would go for culture, the way of playing that I am more comfortable with. So secondary goal: fastest cultural victory.
Result: 1590AD cultural victory.

*Foundations

Settled in place crossing my fingers for some food. Of course this is an irrational way of playing. I should have moved to the visible food. But I found too hard to abandon the gems and the PH.

Built Wor, 3xWar, Set.
Researched BW-Agri-Alpha-Music-Liberalism.

Barbs were a nuisance and kept my exploration limited. In addtion, I sent the first Scout to go round the world to meet and connect everyone, so I had little info of my surroundings.

If I had explored better I might have dowed Cyrus instead of Bismark, since his lands were nothing to covet. I wanted to dow someone with Axes in 2000BC because my lands were so bad I needed more space.

I razed and replaced a city, took another, pillaged everything and leisurely built more and more Axes for the final assault on the capital in 800BC.

GS for Academy int he capital in 1150BC.

Finding myself with 6 cities in 700BC, I decided to shoot for late Pyramids, which I got 410BC. I failed to realise that I should detour from my beeline to Music to CoL. The problem being that I had been at 0% research since I started to build Axes, 2000 years before. And I was to stay so for another 1000 years!

CS+Repre allowed for a decent research.

2 problems in this time: A) Cyr got his hands full 2 turns before he got to pleased. I prepared for the war, killed his first stack and payed for peace when the second was arriving. B) 1 turn before I pop my second GS someone gets Philo and Tao. That let me with 3 religions. I could have got a fast cultural victory with a 4th religion.

My worst mistake was razing a pigs-horses pop4 barb city that could have been my 9th. I was on the verge of going to 10% research, so I didn't dare. I should have.


* Cultural strategy:

Capital was to be a cottage and wonder city, with Hermitage in it.
The second cottage city was SE. It was settled so late that it really didn't have the time to get to towns, so I changed my mind and didn't build any cathedral in it. On hindsight, it should have been all farmed to help with GAs, and another seaside GPFarm should have been Legendary.

No real place for a GPFarm, so I used the stone city. It also built a couple of wonder to relieve the capital. It got 3 cathedrals, which is obviously a mistake since working the copper and the stone loses at least 1 artist specialist. But the base culture output of the cottage city was never to reach that of the GPFarm, so no option here...

Cities: 8
Culture multipliers: 4.5 3.5 2
Settled GAs: 1 2 0
(the 2 GAs settled in the GPFarm gave 5kc each, plus some 400b and 400g, you should only settle GAs in the Hermitage city)
Bombed GAs: 0 9 3
Total cottages at the end of the game: 20
Total GP at the end of the game: 17, GS(Academy), GS(Educ), 3 settled GA, 12 bombed GA.
Liberalism date: 890AD
Number of temples at 1AD: zero! (no food map--> no slavery).
6th cathedral date: 1140AD
Did I run 60% culture for some turns to save money, and then found myself swimming in money at the end of the game? Yes, once again!
Did I play it save? Yes, I saw some hands full and built me 50 units just in case.
Did I try new things like NAtional Park or Corporations? No, no time for that, plain old stop researching at Drama+Liber+Natio.





* A question:
Does a war reset war plans? I mean, civ A had hands full. Civ B dowed civ A. At the end of the war, no hands full. Was it because the intended objective was civ B? Or if the intended objective had been the human player, would hands have become empty anyway?

*An answer:
@Erkon has asked if trading every 10 turns with someone who has his hands full against you will delay the war forever. I think the answer is yes. What I am not so sure is what kind of trades set up a 10 turns grace period. In my limited experience:
Trading your resources for money -> no 10 turns of peace
Trading your techs for money -> no 10 turns of peace
Trading techs for techs -> yes, 10 turns of peace
Can anyone add more info, please?

 

[The-Hawk]

This sentence makes no sense. Who would be so crazy as to play for culture in this conditions...p please, don't miss my spoiler, coming soon).

Darn, one of the reasons I picked culture is I figured you'd be chasing after Lexad's challenge. If I'd known you were after culture I wouldn't have wasted my time!

In fact, you should have checked this while playing in order to have had time to build another warrior before he dowed

Please, how many cities did you have? How many where dedicated to cottages?

I finished with 6 cities. Capital and third city (SE of capital) had cottages, the 2nd city (by stone) was my "GP farm". The 4th city (NW of capital) had cottages to help research, the 5th and 6th were crappy nothing cities.

In hindsight (reading your spoiler), I probably should have gone after a neighbor to get more food rich cities for GPs. I played a 100% peaceful game.

And of course, congratulations on your win. It is not easy to addapt from HOF to GOTM, is it?

I fing SGOTM to be the bigger adjustment. In a SG, you need to worry about killing your whole team with risk-taking play style of HOF. In a GOTM, I don't care if I kill myself (evident by 1 warrior per city). Of course, in HOF you will be playing from much better start locations.

 

[Lexad]

Well, it was fast. Persia declared on me in 1st millenium BC, took out border city with the first attack and going towards Moscow. I pop-rushed a spear, brough 1 axe and pop-rushed another spear to pop the turn they attack. And then I get the slavery-revolt event and no spear produced, naturally. Moscow lost, fin.

 

[Digger532]

Spaceship Loss in 1943 AD

This was my first immortal game in which I survived. I took adventurer and manged to kill Bismarck quite early after a few early worker steals. I then spent most of my time engaging in diplomacy, tech trading and fending off spies. I didn't fare too well the the espionage stakes as I am unfamiliar with the mechanisms. I built the UN but Gilgamesh gained control of it and then pretty much controlled the game. I had a defensive pact with the Persians for alot of the time and that seemed to balance out diplomacy. The Romans and the Koreans were wiped out by Gilgamesh, but it seemed to stop there. I had a very healthly tech lead and figured I had it in the bag. I I had great relations with Persia and Sumeria and kept trading techs with them, whereas Saladin and Wang Kon didn't really like me. was behind on points but that was only by 800 or so and I figured I just needed more territory. I was the First to get infantry and massed a huge army of 20infantry, 10 cossacks and 6 Artillery in Berlin ready to wipe out Saladin and push up to Gilgamesh's lead. I kept defenses facing Persia just in case and 2 turns before I was set to invade. Saladin and Persia signed a defensive pact. I was trumped I, couldn't fight a two front war and I needed Persia for tech trades. So I changed tact and focused on tech research and hopefully getting a spaceship win. Gilgamesh wiped out Wang Kong and the population boost got him further ahead in points. I was still ahead in tech though until...Saladin declared war on me and the hoards of Cavalry launched at Berlin. This single moved was doomed to failure as I had a large infantry and cossack army and easily countered his attack and with the help of the Persians began wiping Saladin off the map.

I had hoped to capture Saladins lands and catch up to Gilgamesh on points, but I spent too long warring and I handed Gilgamesh the game as the constant warring lost me the tech lead.

I had only intended to capture a couple of Saladins cities as punishment, but I got carried away as Gilgamesh was pulling ahead on points. The Sumerian master stroke came suddenly when the entire Persian army was down with me helping me subjugate the Arabs Gilgamesh launched a huge number of TAC nukes into the Persian lands and then began rolling them up. Global warming became severe.

With the acquistion of the Persian empire, Gilgamesh became unassailable. On the turn I captured the last Arab city Gilgamesh launched his spaceship, while mine was still a few turns from being built. I weighed up the options and realised I had no chance of capturing his capital so I just copped it on the chin.

I really need to check espionage more I should have tried to steal more techs and I played the late game badly, didn't build the space elevator which I could have light bulbed, but did the UN instead, which I lost control of anyway

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Well, it was fast. Persia declared on me in 1st millenium BC, took out border city with the first attack and going towards Moscow. I pop-rushed a spear, brough 1 axe and pop-rushed another spear to pop the turn they attack. And then I get the slavery-revolt event and no spear produced, naturally. Moscow lost, fin.

Thanks for that Lexad! I'm sure every real human being, no matter how good a civ player, has bad games or bad luck occasionally. And I for one am impressed when someone whose results are normally up at the top of the scoreboard is honest enough to also tell us when they have a not-so-good game. I'm sure there are a few people who, when that happens, just don't bother or even pretend they didn't have time to play that game

(Of course I'd be even more impressed if your game featured in the list of people who've submitted but it appears not to be there ...)