News: BOTM 16 Final Spoiler: Game Submitted or Abandoned

[oncable]

This was an interesting game, but slow, as others have said. All the tiny islands and all the boat logistics.

There were a few odd AI blunders. I don't recall seeing a completely undefended city before.


Another odd thing was the AI moved a settler and archer onto an island just after I had founded a city. So they sat there and didn't move. After some time my cities expanded to engulf them and they sat in the same spot the whole game.


Unremarkable space victory mid 1800's. The AI seemed extremely non-aggressive for this level.

 

[Lexad]

There were a few odd AI blunders. I don't recall seeing a completely undefended city before

Yep, seen too couple of times - AI bring on boat settler and worker. Got 1 such city from Perry with my hut-hunting Galley+warrior.

 

[Mundungu]

DEfeintly Key to success was to DOW on one or two neighbours early in the game.

I replayed the game a second time, for the learning factor, DOWing on Vicious then the protuguese early and after that the game was actually pretty easy ....

Map was interesting, because different ... so I'd rate this as a very Good BOTM ,,, Kudos !

 

[oldcivaddict]

Oncable - the abandoned settler is a programming prob that could be shown to Firaxis?

It would be interesting to have the program keep track of mouse-click count. This one would be quite high I think. Probably the VC with the lowest click-count would be space?

This game also had the potential for a ton of hammer production. Here's one city making 270 hammers per turn!

 

[ShannonCT]

This game also had the potential for a ton of hammer production. Here's one city making 270 hammers per turn!
View attachment 208350

But replace all of those water tiles with grass workshops, and you'd be getting 2 more hammers per tile. And Maoi can only be built in 1 city. Dikes are great if you're stuck on a watery map, but dry land rules for production.

 

[Lanstro]

At 500 AD, I have about 8 fairly good cities and the tech lead. Half the AIs are busy killing each other so I was in no diplomatic danger. I have GLH and GLib.

I build the Mausoleum in about 1000 AD. Liberalism is used to get Nationhood soon after, and the Taj is built. I'm steadily expanding and have about 12 cities now. At this stage I realise that I've been far too passive early on to get one of the awards (ie I didn't rush England and Hannibal like everyone else), so I just take a chilled approach to the rest of the game. I decide to get a bunch of pretty dike'd up towns and destroy my backward neighbours in the industrial age. The Greeks are catching me in tech, but I don't feel they're any real threat. I get steam power and rifling, and begin killing my neighbours in 1750 or so.

With a comfortable tech lead, riflemen, frigates and cannons obliterate Elizabeth and Hannibal by 1820. The Koreans build the UN around that time. I move my forces on and obliterate the Vikings. The vote comes up for me to be UN leader and I vote for myself, and capture just enough votes to be successful, saving me the bother of micromanaging my army to destroy the rest of them.

War-assisted diplomatic victory in 1842 for 87k or so.

 

[civilizer]

Oldcivaddict - A keystoke/mouse click counter is not a bad idea. A whole new contest - most "efficient" victory.

It could also be used as a civ teaching tool. A report page could tell you how many keystrokes could have been saved by using the various shortcuts available.

 

[kowalski37]

As in most BOTM games, I was playing way above my normal difficulty level, and my goal was just to survive as long as possible. I settled 6 cities and captured 1 barb city by 1000AD, and amazingly I wasn't in last place - partly because I built the GLH. After that however, my tech rate fell and I began to suffer from Vickys culture, eventually losing The Hague and Utrecht in 1570 and 1870. Captured another barb city around 1750, but didn't compensate for my 2 lost cities. All the AI were fighting each other whilst leaving me alone, which probably slowed the eventual win by Perry - space race 1974.

Despite losing (again), I think this was my best BOTM game yet, and I might try replaying it to see if I can do better.

 

[mtt9999]

Well it seems that I took a completely different approach to everyone else in this game, and still ended up with a victory

I have no 500AD post, because I started the game late last week, and noone would probably be reading the thread anymore.... hopefully someone is here to read this one.

Brief Synopsis: I wanted a cultural victory this time, which based on the posts I may be one of the few. Another difference, I didn't go for the GLH, as I needed to found 3 religions I choose the Col sling with Oracle. Based on test games I found I could achieve 1 3 quick cities, 2 the Oracle, and 3 the Parthenon (which I never go for, except in this case I needed it for the Great Artists). After getting these three objectives I moved for 3 more cities to get my final count of 6 (appropriate amount for cultural vicotry on this map and speed - only 2 temples required to get 'cathedral'. Thus 3 cities, with 3 religions, with 3 'cathedrals'.)

Got Col - Beelined for Philosophy (not simply for the third religion of Tao, but also for pacisfism to start mass-producing GA.) Was able to get it, but at a cost... my military was almost non-existant, I hadn't researched key techs to increase my economy, and was falling behind in tech really fast. At this point I thought the match was almsot over for me even though I had acheived my primary objectives, possibly because I was so behind in tech even if I didn't get smashed by an AI on any turn, I would never get RocknRoll, Hollywood, Eiffel Tower, or Broadway (4 Wonders that are extremely valueable for culture)

Went striaght for military techs while building missionaries and temples, cost me the liberalism race... another reason why I thought I had not chance. Went for Dikes and then the game really took off for me... wrapped it up pretty quickly after that (also got infantry for defense, although I still could have been crushed by any AI's modern armor... but to my luck, and creative diplomacy, I was never once attacked (again weird for my extremely low power and this difficulty!!) I must be a good bum-kisser

Contender Cultural Victory in 1962 While the AIs are wasting time building spaceships... I snuck in with a surprise. This, I beleive, is my first victory on Immortal, quite happy with that. Although, I am still convinced that I couldn't win on this level militarily.

Things I learned:

AP gives 2 hammers for same religion builing (really helped out early game on this type of map) even though I didn't build it

The 4 late-game cultural wonders are not neccesary for victory. I even didn't get the sistine Chapel (missed it by 4 turns)

Great Phophets are underrated in the early games. I know the bulb techs suck, but the finances from the Religious Buildings they build is really helpful to keep the tech rate up. I was upset that my first 3 Great People were all prophets, as I really wanted early game artists, but it worked out ok... got another prophet later that was used for a Golden age that helped to expedite the building of all my Broadcast towers

Again, want to emphasise not only how much fun (and different) this GOTM was, and how fun cultural victories actually are (try it if you haven't yet) ... I was looking forward to this one and it definately delivered

 

[kcd_swede]

Well it seems that I took a completely different approach to everyone else in this game, and still ended up with a victory

You aslo took a different approach than most people who aim for culture victories would usually do. A more typical strategy is to only research as far as Nationalism (for Hermitage), try to get a whole bunch of Great Artists to culture bomb at the end, cottage spam and set slider to 100% culture for the win. Cottage spam would have been hard on this map, though. There are some good strategy articles to help you refine our strategies that I could recommend.

Congrats on you win!

 

[Skurn]

Goal : Cultural victory

I built the GLH in the capital which was good in term of commerce, but polluted badly my GP pool. Moreover I wasn't very lucky, and total I got 4 GM and 9 GA.
1 GM was used for golden age
2 GM sent to Seoul to get some cash
Last one I settled in capital because, well, I had no other use for him
I bombed the GA 0-4-5

My Legendary cities were :
- capital with NE and Hermitage
- 2nd city on the pig/copper/elephants island, production city with GA wonders
- 4th city on the marble island

Since I had all cathedral ressources (copper, stone, marble), I was hoping to get more religions, but only got 3 : taoism, hiduism (AP religion) and christianism. I never adopted one to avoid diplomatic problems, so pacifism was out of question.

I settled 7 cities total, the non legendary ones building units then wealth. I only really needed 6, but I built a seventh in hope to catch another religion.. which happened but too late to be useful
I stopped my research after Liberalism (took nationalism). I'm not sure, but maybe going to economics to get Free Market civic and customs house would have been better.

Victory in 1852. Could have been 1838 if one of the GM had been a GA.

Overall:
- my city placement could have been better. It was hard to find good cottage-able land. So I turned my production city into a wonder city, which wasn't my plan in the beginning.
- The AI behaved very strangely. They were for a very long time (50+ turns) in WHEOOHRN before declaring war.. when they even declared. For example, Joao never went into war. He had a lot of boats, but very few land troops.
- Not many wars, considering that almost everybody was in a different religion. I'm not very used to archipelago map, but it seems that AI has difficulties with the logistics of a naval invasion which leads to very long preparations.. I had no particular difficulties to avoid war myself. I was tech leader with Pericles until I stopped my research, and then I was pleased with most, friendly with Joao. Vicious Vicky was the only possible threat, but she was busy with the cannibal.

The interesting thing about this map and cutural victory is that a lot of paths were open. Maybe early expansion through war then Sushi would have been best. I'm curious to see what other people did!

 

[Conquistador 63]

As I mentioned in the 1st spoiler thread, I started this game thinking about a space VC, but a rather unexpected GE born in 250AD made me reconsider my plans. Since the diplomatic environment was already favorable (from running the right civics), and I was fortunate enough to have an unpopular religion spread to a couple of my cities, I decided the use the GE for the AP and go for the religious victory.

As this was just an afterthought, it took me a while to spread the word. I had to endure 3 AP resident elections (each 14 turns), then in 10 turns 1st Diplo vote came in. I gifted a few techs around and had Joao, Kon, Perry and Ragnar with +11 or +12. I've been told +8 is usually enough, so I think game over. But Perry and Ragnar abstain!!! I was like 3 votes short (101 of 104).

So I try to spread religion to the reliable allies in the next 10 turns, but maybe this wouldn't be enough as Vicky spreaded the religion to another of her cities. But when the vote comes this time all 4 pleased/friendly AIs vote for me.



Can someone enlighten me about this? The only answer I could think of is that the AI's votes were casted before I gave them the tech gifts on the voting turn, so those diplo + weren't taken into account.

 

[Lexad]

There are hidden modifiers, which put Perry and Ragnar below total 8.

 

[srad]

a) Is +8 also enough for an UN diplo victory?
b) Are these hidden modifieres somewhere documented or can I extract them from the XML files?

 

[starbolt]

Fundamentally, I played a similar game to what I'm seeing above, but made significantly different choices. I was going for a military victory until I was robbed of my justly deserved destroyer advantage and had to settle for a cultural victory in 1976.

My strategy was GLH / Colossus by way of:

Settled in place, ran the warrior around the island and then went to the pigs to await pickup.
Worker (Mining) - agged up the corn first and then mined the hill
Workboat (Sailing) - for the fish
Galley (BW) - to retrieve the warrior for happiness
3 more workboats, 1 slave rushed and the other chop-rushed (AH) - I chose AH because I planned to settle the copper island... but a funny thing happened.
Settler (Masonry) - for LH.
I settled my 2nd city on the hill next to horses to deny them to Vicky (not knowing she had them too) and because I felt I could get faster production and land grab in doing so. Moved my worker there to build it out.
lighthouse (IW) - to chop out jungle spots and identify the resource. Consequently discovered the iron island. The rest of my neighbors had alphabet, so I traded for that and meditation, pottery, and archery.
Settler (MW) - settled the Iron island directly (couldn't remember the rules about accessing the resource from the copper island and wanted to make sure I had it.
Used 2nd city to
Completed GLH but did not get Colossus. Used the money to keep tech rolling
Using my 2nd city and Amsterdam, I set up a Sword rush and Vicky was toast around 1500.
Used GM for caravan money to upgrade warriors and keep research at 100%
I cleaned up York to the south in 1650 once I traded for Construction and Vicky was out.
---
Vicky had a number of wonders in her key cities. London was the Hupgraded Hindu Holy City. Between Amsterdam, London, and York, I decided to run them for culture. I built Moa Statues in my Iron Island (eventually built Ironworks there and put military advisors there) after hooking up stone through a city on the desert square and later, spammed a city for the marble island too.
---
I preserved my Golden Ages, picked up Univerity of Sankore in Amsterdam (had no chance at GL), popped a GS for Astronomy for my UU, a 2nd GM for money, and hit Liberalism first by a turn for Nationalism (a catchup move since the Greeks and Carthaginians forced me to accept their religion (Hinduism) and we were fast becoming pals). I traded liberalism to take over the tech lead and rushed for military science to take advantage of my free upgrades to triple city raider grenadiers and then made a run through combustion and to assembly line.
---
After reaching Destroyer tech, having no oil and NOT getting access to them through my uranium hookup for some reason, I changed over to a full culture attempt. I switched to caste system and pacifism, seeded Amsterdam with 4 religions that my city spam had picked up, blitzed to flight to seed my cities for the necessary temples, picked up mass media for the radio towers (Eiffel was no longer available) and then ran to Computers.
---
I switched to 100% culture on the 3 main cities, accumulated GAs, Built the Internet in my Iron City (which was a beautiful thing) and never looked back. The Portguese declared war on me, but it was too late. I brought in a couple of war allies, held them off with missile cruisers, attack subs, and guided missiles (did not require oil or uranium).
---

The AI made some progress on their space ships but none launched and I ended the game with Future Tech 2. I've not included the game because my computer is old and shuts down inexplicably from time to time and I believe any replayed turns invalidates the game for submission. Likewise, I've not included a score.

Thanks for the diversion as it's certainly appreciated, but the experience was somewhat unsatisfying due the the bug and the archipelago layout.

 

[mtt9999]

You aslo took a different approach than most people who aim for culture victories would usually do. A more typical strategy is to only research as far as Nationalism (for Hermitage), try to get a whole bunch of Great Artists to culture bomb at the end, cottage spam and set slider to 100% culture for the win. :

Yeh I could use a little help cutting down my time with a cultural victory (have not really tried it that much). However I would normally have stopped after Nationalism as well, but the pending military threat was too high, and my power way too weak. When everyone else has infantry I was struggling to get rifleman... etc. I figured the best approach at that time was to research to Assembly Line for Infantry, have my 4,5,6 cities build loads of units for protection while 1,2,3, were focusing only on culture.

All in all I settled 2 artists early (as for my calculations this was more than 4000points over time with the modifiers), and bombed 4 artists late game.

Maybe next time I will try to be more brave and cut down my time more

 

[Lexad]

a) Is +8 also enough for an UN diplo victory?
b) Are these hidden modifieres somewhere documented or can I extract them from the XML files?

a) Yes, if they do not love another candidate more
b) Here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=204328

 

[srad]

Thanks Lexad! Interesting post this "AI Attitude Explained".

 

[cabert]

I rushed through this game towards a diplo win.

I finally managed one in 1924AD.
I really should have axed vicky, what a pain she was (although she voted for me, thank you vicky)!

It was a game of missed opportunities :
- already mentionned, I didn't axe rush the very close english capital. Big mistake.
- I missed the oracle, the Great Lighthouse, the Great Library, the Colossus.
- I missed Liberalism (darn hannibal)
- Vicky got sid sushi . She put a very hard cultural pressure on my cities, including the capital.
- I stupidly thought hannibal would run his favourite civic and stuck for 100+ turns in free market. stupid AI. I had to use spies to force him into his favourite civic (twice!).
- I stupidly thought vicky would run her favourite civic. No luck there either. We were of the same religion, so no big deal, she kept voting for me.

I had somehow given up hope on my diplo win, and started building parts to be safe.
I still started a war vs a pleased but non friendly kon, and bribed hannibal into the fight. After 10 or so turns, I had most of kon's cities and a big common struggle = diplo win in 1924 AD.

Unimpressive score of 45k (can't remember exactly, could be 48k).

Just a question :
is the religious victory compared to UN diplo victory for this award?
If yes, it's a total non sense to go for the UN, but playing mostly HoF where there are 2 different victory conditions I didn't think about it at first

 

[nokem]

First game at Immortal so took the adventurer save. Won a cultural victory in 1874.

- Circumnavigated with the bonus adventurer workboat.
- Settled 9 cities because I didn't realise you don't need 3 temples per cathedral on a small map.
- Built the Great Lighthouse to fund expansion
Won the Liberalism race and took Gunpowder in order to beeline Medicine without obsoleting the Great Lighthouse
- Total military built: 7 warriors, 2 archers and 2 galleys. Later I upgraded the galleys to East Indiamen. I inherited 2 longbows when I flipped Nottingham but I razed the city and disbanded them.

Legendary cities were:
1. Capital settled in place with National Epic, Globe Theatre, 3 cathedrals and Sid's Sushi
2. Main production city settled on copper island with hermitage, 3 cathedrals and Sid's Sushi. Bombed 2 GAs
3. 3 fish city on another island to the east, with Sids Sushi. Bombed 8 GAs

All cities went legendary within 2 turns. Would have been quicker but I got a couple of Great Merchants along the way.

First ever Immortal level game, so first win