[BTS] News: BOTM 144 Results and Congratulations

[Deckhand]

BtS BOTM 144 Results:
Three Domination, three Conquests, three Spaceships, one Culture, no Religious, and only the AI managed a Diplomatic victory.
Congratulations to all and Condolences to kcd_swede and c^3 who avoided any awards.
I suppose late dates were due to Classical start and lack of metals? Or you were all teching to Steam Power.
Congratulations to Ronnie1 who had earliest victory with a levee.

Builder Reward for earliest victory that includes a city with a levee.

Summary of Medal Winners:

hhhawk: 1894 AD Domination Victory, 110,573 points.

Ronnie1: 1820 AD Conquest Victory, 96,745 points.

Jovan Kukic: 1848 AD Conquest Victory, 93,297 points.


Fastest Finish Award Winners:

DynamicSpirit: 1927 AD Spaceship Victory, 55,619 points.

neilmeister: 1876 AD Cultural Victory, 24,524 points.


Other Award Winners:

UB40: 1886 AD Conquest Victory, 65,582 points.

MarleysGh0st: 2005 AD Spaceship Victory, 19,538 points.

greatbeyond: 2041 AD Domination Victory, 14,719 points.

donsig: 2000 AD Diplomatic Loss, 2,419 points.


>> See the full results here.
>> See the updated global rankings here.
>> See the latest Pantheon of Heroes here.
>> You can see and compare graphic replays of all the submissions here.
>> Award symbols are listed here.

 

[Deckhand]

Here's where everyone settled.



The Small Print:
The numbers by each player's name indicate the turn settled on (starting turn is 0). Players are colour coded by game class (challenger=red, adventurer=blue). Symbols indicate victory condition, if there's no symbol then the player either retired or was defeated. The yellow border indicates the land that was visible at the start of the game.

 

[kcd_swede]

I had fun with this one, but I am too cowardly to go for Domination without a tech advantage. Could have saved a couple centuries if I had just used overwhelming numbers of same-era units, probably. Still learning after all these years... (or perhaps making the same mistakes over and over mean I am learning nothing!)

Anyhow, thanks for a challenging and fun game, and congratulations to all those who won something!

 

[Jovan Kukic]

Deckhand, who had the earliest victory having city with levee?

 

[Deckhand]

Deckhand, who had the earliest victory having city with levee?

Thanks for asking!
Ronnie1 had the earliest victory and his capital has a levee.

(I've updated the first post.)

 

[Deckhand]

LowtherCastle didn't submit.
Here is a screenshot from Ronnie1's save of the easter egg I made for him.

Spoiler LC :

 

[LowtherCastle]

LowtherCastle didn't submit.
Here is a screenshot from Ronnie1's save of the easter egg I made for him.

Spoiler LC :

View attachment 485476

Thanks, yeah, I got that far, but never managed to finish the game. When I saw the first fish I got all excited, then realized something was amiss.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

LowtherCastle didn't submit.
Here is a screenshot from Ronnie1's save of the easter egg I made for him.

Oh yes! I'd meant to ask about that... I remember discovering it. At the time I'd forgotten you'd mentioned about an LC Easter Egg, so I assumed it must be some Christmas message. But I couldn't figure out what kind of Christmas message 'LC' could be. Now it's clear

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I suppose late dates were due to Classical start and lack of metals? Or you were all teching to Steam Power.

I think the classical start would've had an impact, because it meant we were basically expanding at much later dates than you'd do in an ancient start - and that would make everything later through the whole game. (You also start with free techs, but I suspect the impact of those would keep getting smaller as you progress through the game: Because at the start of the game, the free techs means it takes a long time to research additional techs, and you gradually hit a point where the limitation on how quickly you can research is mainly related to how well developed your civ is, and therefore how many turns you've played for at whatever skill level you're at).

I doubt lack of metals would impact finish dates too much - at least for the peaceful victories. Maybe they would've done for military ones, but to my mind, the AI were quite far away for conquering pre horsies/catapults anyway.

What might have made a difference was the lack of good additional city sites near to the starting area (at least, without having to cross water first).

It's quite tempting to try editing the WorldBuilder to make it into an ancient start and then try re-playing to test out how much difference the classical start made.

 

[Deckhand]

Oh yes! I'd meant to ask about that... I remember discovering it. At the time I'd forgotten you'd mentioned about an LC Easter Egg, so I assumed it must be some Christmas message. But I couldn't figure out what kind of Christmas message 'LC' could be. Now it's clear

Lotsa Coal

 

[Deckhand]

I think the classical start would've had an impact, ...

That's it, starting 2000 years later results in later finishes.

Lotsa Coal

I put a lot more work into botm85

Spoiler Peace on Earth :

 

[Pangaea]

Is this where we can throw out ideas, good or bad? Would it be an idea to start a game, maybe on the tougher difficulties, with a worker or a great person? On 'normal' ancient starts I mean. I've only played these games now and again, so don't know if it has been tried in the past, and what the consensus was.

 

[Deckhand]

Is this where we can throw out ideas, good or bad? Would it be an idea to start a game, maybe on the tougher difficulties, with a worker or a great person? On 'normal' ancient starts I mean. I've only played these games now and again, so don't know if it has been tried in the past, and what the consensus was.

As good a place as any. There isn't an official place. Sometime ago we had a thread discussing xotm future. I may try to locate it and link it. DynamicSpirit and I are the primary map makers these days. neilmeister creates vanilla and warlords occasionally. Feedback from community is also important.

Yes, there have been several immortal/deity games where player was gifted great people. I generally used to create easy high level games and difficult low level games. Recent community feedback preferred real deity games.

I've always said I played xotm for the variety (level, map, leader, etc). We do try to make some unique games and some standard ones.

 

[Pangaea]

Has a starting worker been tried too? Perhaps it would be too much of a boost though. Basically means a 15 turns headstart.

Have noticed there have been some tough deity games recently. The Cathy game sounded brutal

Also, really like that mountain range above. Would cause some geologists to scratch their heads!

 

[Fippy]

Cathy game was really difficult yep

My feedback for "real" (aka normal or hard) deity games was mostly based on easier games being available on lower difficulties, those are not for me.
I thought it's good having games for everybody, i am not competing on Monarch or so and happily leave those for others.

Thingy is, if we would use "deity light" there would be no top difficulty games in gotm.
While players who like more relaxed games have plenty available.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

There have certainly been games in which there have been additional starting units, although we don't really keep a record of them, so I couldn't be very specific. I certainly remember one game a while back on a high difficulty level, but in which we started with an great scientist and an artillery. And I seem to recall another game more recently on an islands map in which we started with - I think it was a mobile infantry. And I'm sure there'll be more games in the future with different combinations of starting units. (Though need to take care that the game parameters and starting unit don't make the game too easy. I think if I remember rightly the mobile infantry one was well balanced because you couldn't actually get to any AI before astronomy, so it wasn't too over-powerful).

Deity is always tricky - since we want to provide something for everyone, but at the same time the number of players who are actually skilled enough to enjoy and succeed at deity is pretty small (kudos to Fippy for being one of that very select few ), which means that when do pure, unadulterated, deity games, the submission rate tends to fall through the floor!

 

[kcd_swede]

We ambulance chasers have fun even when (especially when) it is so far out of our skill range that a single goal like taking one city from an AI by force at eity level is an accomplishment in itself. I wholly support Fippy and other Deity skilled players in their wishes, because the goal for me is to learn from the best. If they don't find a challenge... I'm left to learning from Deckhand.

 

[neilmeister]

I'm pleased my Culture victory beat 1/3 of the Conquests and all of the Dominations.... starting later is a great leveler it would seem.

 

[neilmeister]

Oh, I remember Dr Befudlov and his Artillery... what a game!!! Immortal, but we were almost isolated on an island and only a culture bridge could get you out.