[BTS] News: BOTM 154 Results and Congratulations

[Deckhand]

BtS BOTM 154 Results:

This peaceful game had six Spaceship victories, including the three medalists;
Two Religious, including Jovan Kukic's second epahathlon;
Two Diplomatic; one Cultural; and two Time victories, featuring a close fought battle for the map maker's Cow challenge.

There were no losers. Congratulations to all.

Summary of Medal Winners:

neilmeister: 1826 AD Spaceship Victory, 279,305 points.

lymond: 1705 AD Spaceship Victory, 226,395 points.

Xcalibrator: 1822 AD Spaceship Victory, 169,379 points.


Fastest Finish Award Winners:

Fine_Distinction: 1720 AD Diplomatic Victory, 135,372 points.

Jovan Kukic: 1160 AD Religious Victory, 121,878 points.

nocho: 2050 AD Time Victory, 41,335 points. edit: a new record for highest all time score in a bts time victory.

greatbeyond: 2045 AD Cultural Victory, 20,508 points.


Other Award Winners:

MarleysGh0st: 1866 AD Religious Victory, 64,735 points.

HassiSan: 1913 AD Diplomatic Victory, 40,403 points.

Pious_Pete: 2041 AD Spaceship Victory, 8,573 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.


Here's where everyone settled.

 

[Deckhand]

Welcome to Fine_Distinction who had fastest Diplomatic victory in his very first gotm submission.

 

[Fine_Distinction]

Welcome to Fine_Distinction who had fastest Diplomatic victory in his very first gotm submission.

Wow, wasn't expecting it. Feeling accomplished now and motivated to play more GOTM .

Thank you all for such a fun game! I'm reading replays now, very interesting.

 

[Fine_Distinction]

Welcome to Fine_Distinction who had fastest Diplomatic victory in his very first gotm submission.

It is indeed my first GOTM, have been playing civ - and lurking Strategy & Tips section here - for years, but have been a casual player, playing low-difficulty games and abandoning them long before the end, when I was clearly in a dominating position. That is why I started to play gotm, to be motivated to finish and be able to discuss and improve my game.

Would anybody be interested in discussing my game play and giving me tips how to improve? I think I especially need to learn how to fight more efficiently, I am definitely a builder at heart.

I just discovered a civ replay tool - it is supercool, thank a lot to people who did it!. I compared my game with several top players, and initially I was doing very well, even expanding faster, but eventually I ended up with much smaller civ. I made some mistakes that I knew immediately were bad decisions, razed Barcelona, which would be my city #4, due to bad placement, but kept a very far away Ragnar city I conquer on a whim while scouting. I also did "incomplete kills", I could not conquer Madrid (archers on the hill) for years and finally vassalized Isabella, etc. Anyway, I was teching fast, e.g. getting Mining even 10t earlier than neilmeister (but rifling 7t later). I am generally thinking that not going for civ/cuirassier was a mistake, and generally lack of experience warring and tech choices >150T, plus teching alpha late. Thoughts?

tech paths attached

 

[lymond]

@Fine_Distinction If you really want to improve certain aspects of the game, then probably better to post a game over in S&T. I will point out that one should not be afraid to use ceasefires during wars if you hit a roadblock like Madrid. Either that, or just make sure you are focused on that war initially. A ceasefire will stop her building units and she will start moving units around and building settlers/workers. Izzy was one of my first targets. I swooped in a nabbed a couple of cities including Madrid, but she had one other city to the W that I was not ready to take, so I took a ceasefire and hit her casually later when ready. In ohter words - take stuff > peace > regroup > take more stuff. Izzy probably was not worth it as a vassal. In fact, that was probably my biggest mistake was taking vassals at all. Ideally I should have cleaned the map like Neil and as early as possible, but I reached a point in my game where pushing toward Space took precedent over war.

Also, tech dates can be relative, especially on lower levels. Do you even go for Alpha yourself or wait and trade for it? Depends. Monarch level can be unpredictable with Alpha dates, and one may have to tech Alpha themselves to push the overall tech pace in general. Lib dates even more so. What do you take and when do you take it? In my case, I held out for Communism and could have waited later to take a more expensive tech, but Communism is a very powerful thing to grab earlier for SP. I held on to Lib for many years. Conversely, you may want to get a much faster Lib for something like MT and just go Cur stomping as soon as possible.

Your Diplo date is not bad by the way. I'd say winning by that date means you are doing some things quite well and have a good basic understanding of the game. Improving on that date is just more about making better decisions early on in several areas. If going UN - in a GOTM, Diplomation is a good way to do it, so it is about balancing war with research, golden ages, and great people. You want a lot of GSs, Lib something like Physics (relative to difficulty - anything on the path is good but obviously a couple of expensive techs toward the end), and ideally one or two GEs.

 

[Fine_Distinction]

Hi @lymond, thank you for your answer, really helpful! I looked at your game, you expanded initially even faster than Neilmeister, and took Madrid by turn 72, very early, from my perspective. Would you mind sharing what units you used? I tried war chariot rush, but got impatient and tried w/o enough units to prevail for sure, which ended up with Izzy getting like triple promoted garrison archers in Madrid from fighting me Plus a ton of culture.

Izzy was one of my first targets. I swooped in a nabbed a couple of cities including Madrid, but she had one other city to the W that I was not ready to take, so I took a ceasefire and hit her casually later when ready. In ohter words - take stuff > peace > regroup > take more stuff. Izzy probably was not worth it as a vassal. In fact, that was probably my biggest mistake was taking vassals at all.

I took her as a vassal since Shaka was also fighting her and seemed closer to conquering or vassalizing her. Since I normally playing on Noble, I was afraid Shaka may become too strong for me to fight later. In hindsigth, was not a problem, I was playing very thoughtfully and had a strong start. I also read only later that vassal cities count for city maintenance, so me taking vassals early and liberally probably contributed to exorbitant maintenance costs.

Your Diplo date is not bad by the way. I'd say winning by that date means you are doing some things quite well and have a good basic understanding of the game. Improving on that date is just more about making better decisions early on in several areas. If going UN - in a GOTM, Diplomation is a good way to do it, so it is about balancing war with research, golden ages, and great people. You want a lot of GSs, Lib something like Physics (relative to difficulty - anything on the path is good but obviously a couple of expensive techs toward the end), and ideally one or two GEs.

Thanks. I was going initially for space, switched to diplo later as I was going out of time, so could do even a better date I was reading a lot on S&T forum about an early game, and this GOTM, I was playing initially very slowly, micromanaging things. I know more or less what to do in an early game, e.g. on normal speed I am aiming at 3 cities at turn 50+, here I also prioritized Mids due to SPI and managed to squeeze Oracle CS-slinghot thanks to high-commerce start. I got Mids at T94 while expanding well and was in quite a strong position, but later I had less clarity what to do I understand it is map dependent, but I am also less familiar with standard warmonger strategies, beyond getting maces/rifles and siege. Back then I was aiming at space, so I tried to keep conquering, but not falling too much behind in tech, and I decided to do Mining->Cereal, since it was better for the map. I did not prioritized cav/cuir, which would probably help me conquer faster, and having vassals prolly costed me more than I realized (city maintenance) ... I also did couple mistakes, like trading Nationalism (which I got from Lib) to Lizzy to early and as a result, she got Taj .

 

[lymond]

I took out Iz, Chuck, and Vicky (mainly) with war chariots, using ceasefires when needed. Harassed Sal with woody warrior for workers. It's not just about number of units but about timing and tactics two. 2 move units have some advantages there. Don't be afraid to 1 pop some chariots as well early. That, plus chops, can get you up a quick army fast. I think I had about 6 initially with more coming.

Well, better Iz your vassal than Shaka's.

Corps not great idea here if going UN, although at that point you may have been thinking more Space. But even with Space, I'd probably stick with State Property on a map like this.

 

[Fine_Distinction]

I took out Iz, Chuck, and Vicky (mainly) with war chariots, using ceasefires when needed. Harassed Sal with woody warrior for workers. It's not just about number of units but about timing and tactics two. 2 move units have some advantages there. Don't be afraid to 1 pop some chariots as well early. That, plus chops, can get you up a quick army fast. I think I had about 6 initially with more coming.

Well, better Iz your vassal than Shaka's.

Corps not great idea here if going UN, although at that point you may have been thinking more Space. But even with Space, I'd probably stick with State Property on a map like this.

Thanks, @lymond, I did not have that many WC at Madrid, 4-5 iirc, i even took Barcelona with 1-2 WCs supported by a bunch of warriors. You are right, I tried to reply that game, when I whipped 6 WCs quickly Madrid was a piece of cake. But replays always are easier.

What do you mean by the map not being good for corps? I thought Mining was a no-brainer for space, I decided to go UN near the end. You mean maintenance costs? On the other hand, on smaller maps, much less resources. I never used State Property, will give a try. I started to profit from Mining near the end and got couple GEs that game without trying hard, but indeed for UN victory Mining was probably not needed, and costed me time and resources.

 

[lymond]

Thanks, @lymond,

What do you mean by the map not being good for corps?

Map makes a huge difference on whether to go Corps vs. SP. When one thinks of corps, one thinks of Sushi and Mining, both of which - in combination - are great for space. But corps don't do you much good without resources. Cereal Mills is an alternative to Sushi, but comes later so is iffy.. SP is very strong on land maps like this one, but you want a lot of land. Honestly, I did not pay much attention to corp resources here since I wasn't even thinking about corps, but did not recall the map having a plethora of Sushi resources.

Corps very powerful, but so is SP, and SP requires far less setup.

 

[neilmeister]

Hi Fine_Distinction,

It is interesting having a game of mine compared to. I looked through the tech comparisons you posted and the game replay, it would seem to me that 'maybe' (I cant really tell for sure) that your warring could do with a little fine tuning.

As I understand it (and I am far, far from the best player of Civ4), the best way to war is to"
- target key units depending on the game/difficulty (Cats, Elephants, Maces, Trebs, Cuirs, Cavs)
- literally whip a large army immediately before/after the key unit techs
- smash an AI, then maybe another. This is key, once you get a roll on, you can clean up an AI easily as long as you do it fast!

If you are going for a 'peaceful' victory (trust me, most peaceful victories are quicker if you conquer at least one AI), then build... get to a key tech, whip the army, conquer the neighbour(s), then settle in for builder heaven in a large empire.

If you want a 'warlike' victory, then get to a key tech fast and NEVER stop building units

 

[Fine_Distinction]

Hi Fine_Distinction,

It is interesting having a game of mine compared to. I looked through the tech comparisons you posted and the game replay, it would seem to me that 'maybe' (I cant really tell for sure) that your warring could do with a little fine tuning.

As I understand it (and I am far, far from the best player of Civ4), the best way to war is to"
- target key units depending on the game/difficulty (Cats, Elephants, Maces, Trebs, Cuirs, Cavs)
- literally whip a large army immediately before/after the key unit techs
- smash an AI, then maybe another. This is key, once you get a roll on, you can clean up an AI easily as long as you do it fast!

If you are going for a 'peaceful' victory (trust me, most peaceful victories are quicker if you conquer at least one AI), then build... get to a key tech, whip the army, conquer the neighbour(s), then settle in for builder heaven in a large empire.

If you want a 'warlike' victory, then get to a key tech fast and NEVER stop building units

Hi @neilmester,

Thank you for your answer, only saw it now.

You are right that part of the problem was I was not going after a key military tech (Cuirs here), I did not even understand first, why you took MT from Liberalism, have to look it up, LOL.

Another problem, as @lymond pointed out, was execution. Early on, I actually went after a key military tech (AH), gambling - correctly! - on having horses in BFC or nearby. Indeed, horses were close, and I was prepared to settle a 2nd city to grab them, and I did, quite early (T33) settled my 2nd city very aggressively, directly on the Horses. So I had access to War Chariots very early on - turn 33 - which put me in a great position for conquest, but unfortunately I did not fully leveraged it. I initially only built 2 WCs, even conquered 2 cities with them, but one very poor, that I razed, and another very far away, that was killing my economy. So basically I could as well got WCs much later, and had a better placed city.

Later, in addition to other goals (Oracling CS, getting Mids for representation) I was still trying to target what I thought were key military techs (Maces, Cats, later Trebs, Rifles, Cannons), but looks like that especially on this map, 2-movers like cuirs would be much better. I'm tempted to reply my early position, going like you for a cuir rush. How many cuirs have you had, approximately? You whipped them in every city, repeatedly, until you dominated the map?

I did more aggressive whipping of War Chariots that @lymond suggested - and it was like a day and night. When I whipped 6 WCs immediately after getting an access to horses, I did run my cities into ground temporarily, but conquest Madrid and more easily within next turns. In my original game, I built both Oracle and Mids in my capitol quickly, iirc Mids were from forge GE. This time, capitol was not able to do it due to frequent whips, but I easily chopped Mids - and GLH - in Madrid instead, like @lymond, so was even better.

I understand that the cuirassier rush is more complicated, since it happens later in game, I was not able to find a good and recent tutorial anywhere on CFC, I will try to do a couple of replays here, when I have time.

I wondered how you deal with city defenses for a cuirassier rush? I mean, I guess it is situational, what you do:
1) built so many cuirs you can just take a city anyway
2) use siege, but sent it earlier not to slow down curios
3) use spys and city revolt?
My preference would probably be spys (3), have to try it. Or are there other tricks? Playing Zara game now, which takes a lot of time, as it is outside of my comfort zone (Emperor).

Anyway, @neilmeister and @lymond, thanks for all the input, it is a pleasure to learn from such good players

 

[Deckhand]

nocho set a new record for highest score in a time victory with this game.

didn't realize it until now. results above edited.

 

[nocho]

nocho set a new record for highest score in a time victory with this game.

didn't realize it until now. results above edited.

I'm glad pressing enter all the way to Future Tech 239 served a purpose!