News: BOTM 16 Final Spoiler: Game Submitted or Abandoned

[jesusin]

I managed to wipe out the Vikings in 1971 IIRC and the game was over in '81 to Joao via Spaceship with a final defeated score of around 2,500! Which I think all in all is still pretty terrible even for a complete n00b 8D

Hey, you died with honour and with your boots on! Well done!

Welcome to Civfanatics . When I started I thought I'd never be able to win an Emperor game without replaying. Compare what others did in the first 25 turns with what you did. Keep on reading and learning! I can now beat Immortal with any victory condition I set at the very beginning. Good luck.

 

[Niklas]

b) The trick I use is this: look at the moment a civ goes from Cautious to Pleased with you. Say it is Pleased only at +5. He should have been at +3 normally, so the hidden factor for that civ is -2. You need him at +10 in order for him to vote for you.

This almost works. The problem is that two of the hidden factors - "losers unite" and "envious/magnanimous" change throughout the game due to your respective places on the score board.

 

[nokem]

Didn't your 3rd city have cathedrals?

No cathedrals in the 3rd city as it wasn't intended to be a legendary candidate. I had originally selected my third founded city, at the southern end of the starting island. The idea was to use 3 water tiles instead of cottages to power the . However as I progressed it became clear it was amassing culture too slowly. I think artists > commerce on this map.

Unfortunately I'd already built my cathedrals. Luckily I had kept a great merchant in reserve (courtesy of the Great Lighthouse) just in case this happened. So I beelined Medicine and built Sushi.

I screwed up though. I read you could only build Sushi outlets in cities which had access to seafood. I thought this meant it had to have seafood *in the BFC*. So I swapped legendary city #3 to another site which had multiple seafood. It was also able to run a stack of artists. By the time I realised my mistake it was too late .

Was your GPFarm one of the 3?

Yes. I was running specialists in a few cities, but my capital was the primary GP farm and legendary city #1.

Which year did you get Liberalism? And sushi?

1170 Liberalism (I said I took Gunpowder in my previous post, but in fact it was Printing Press for trade bait).
1675 Sushi (incorporated in the capital)

Could you run 100% after you spread sushi to your 3 cities?
How much food/culture was sushi adding with so smal an empire?

These figures from my 1868 autosave:

City #1 (capital)
9 artists, 45 sushi. Total 763/turn

City #2 (production)
8 artists, 45 sushi. Total 775/turn

City #3
3 x towns, 7 artists, 45 sushi. Total 377/turn

#2 was making more than #1 thanks to the Sistine Chapel. I was running 100% at -264 /turn, funded by an expedition from a random extra great merchant I had picked up at low odds. I could only break even at 50% - subtract about 80-100 from each city.

Sushi was adding 12 . It was founded in 8/9 cities.

nokem

 

[jesusin]

Thank you for the data, nokem. So the slider didn't matter at all... culture wasn't coming from commerce but from buildings, specialists and sushi. Very interesting.

 

[jesusin]

jesusin, contender. Goal: Gold medal (score). Result: 431K domination victory in 1785AD.

At 500AD I had 11 cities (3 taken from Vic), GLH and circumnavigation. Also an army of maces that disembarked around Han capital only to found newly built lbs and to be whipped out in 2 turns.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7916390&postcount=68

What to do now?




*** Make the most of a lost war

Build Maces everywhere, delaying NE, Moai and everything else, including libraries. Send reinforcements not to the capital, but to the newest Han's outposts.

Take 1 city from Han. settlers keep settling.

Education is in, I am too far away from being able to whip 6 Univs, set research at 0% while I prepare... it would have been much quicker if I had known only 5 Univs were needed .

Redow Vic and leave her OCC in a no food island. Seeeing how little land percentage I've got with
14 cities, my plan includes taking every city in the world but last Vic's one and abusing sushi.

I am CS and Paper ahead of everyone elses, Han is after Astro, like me.

Take the second outpost of Han, get peace. His got 4 cities now, I haven't crippled his core cities, so he'll keep on researching at almost my pace. But he won't be expanding anymore easily now, he's more or less surrounded.

Build NE, Oxford and HE. Didn't build Moai, cause Lisbon has it and Joao is my next victim.



*** Some more REXing

The 12th city I settled cost 22gpt, it was a bit too far. Keep building settlers here and there anyway.

At 1000AD I had 18 cities. The typical buildings in my cities were:
granary (15)
lighthouse (12)
forge (9)
courthouse(8)
I was working seafood and whipping everywere.

1000AD stats: 18cities, 99pop, 7wor, 31units(Mace),10ships. Stone, Marble, Copper, iron, horses. 6Lux, 8health. 2GP,1WW, 3NW, 1GG. FPG: 294-131-404. 221sust bpt, cpt, 40GPPpt, 1100g. 3Relig, 0mine. 12cottages used. 38Techs: Educ, no Philo, Astro, no PP,Feud, Constr, Music, Machi. 20hours.

I started throwing in the occassional Cat in the Maces crowd.



*** Just another D-day

Disembark 12 Maces next to Lisbon. Joao suicides 2 units. Attack next turn. 2lb and 2 Xbows, easy-busy. Suicide 2 cats first, then lose 8 Maces without result other than scratching the first lb. The music I'm listening reminds me of a civfanatic's local-drinker, I don't know why

Spoiler :

Dire Straits, "So far away from me"

I am useless at war!
I go and take the other 2 Joao cities while rebuilding my army.

Then I go again after Lisbon. Get 3 Maces on a hill in preparation of the real D-day... they are attacked and die. Can it be worst? Yes, mistake movement, Galley loaded with cat+Mace lost.

Pericles is about to get education, no risks, Waste Liberalism on SciMethod 1200AD, even when it is not in the way of Rifling, which is my next strategic goal due to my lack of warring ability. Pericles has 13 cities, Wan 6, Han 4, Rag 3, Joao and Vic 1. I have 25.

So far I've only revolted to slavery and Bureaucracy. Use one of my empteen GM in a GAge, revolt to FR and HR, then FM too.

Did I mention I'd been a long time at 0% while waiting for Oxford? Tiem to use that money! From 1200AD to 1250AD I discover Liber, SciMet, Guilds, Bank, Econ, ReeP, GunP and most of rifling. I've been patiently bringing down Lisbon defenses all this time.

My 18th settled city brings +5gpt! Joao lives no more 1280AD! But, as you guessed, I get no Moai in Lisbon. Start Moai somewhere else. Should have been built loooong ago.

Start spamming banks, they do wonders to my poor economy.



*** Rolling

Rifles against longbows. Even I should be able to manage this war. I target Pericles because of his number of cities (big mistake, I think, see later).

Talking about expansion, why aren't Wan, Ragnar or Han building more cites? Because they have their hands full. Their war plans make them want to keep their ships for units or something so, even if they have settlers around, they don't ship them.

Dow 1340AD with 20 Rifles, some of them upgraded Maces.

On the even turns, I take one city from Pericles. On the odd turns, I settle one city myself.

Build Moai and MoM, launch second GAge to accelerate the arrival of sushi.

1500AD: 1200sus bpt while in GAge, 36 cities, biolo, Natio, Rifling, Phy. 2577 base points -> 148K This is not the research pace I was dreaming about. It's so late!

Revolt to representation, get sushi 1525AD. Since I've been leaving Corporation for the end, in order not to lose the GLH, I can only now start WallStreet in the city where I found sushi. But of course, I don't put any hammer into it, since I'm too busy building executives...

Take everyone of Pericles cities, follow with Ragnar the wonder hoarder. Build TajMaj and FP.

1550AD, there were 12 WW in Nidaros. 141K, +700gpt at 0%, 45 cities, 4 of them have sushi, 36% land. 18 dikes, 35 courthouses. Wan has 8 cities, Han 4, Vic 1, no more rivals left.



*** Too fast!

I take sushi to 5 new cities every 2 turns.
Why so slow? I have to island-jump so it takes 1 turn to load the exec and 1 turn to use it in the destination city.
why so fast? I am whipping them from scratch, without even putting a hammer on them first.

Good things: I have got the courthouses in place previously, even the capital one. I need no more techs. War works on autopilot.

Bad things: I have too many seafood resources. A city having a granary can grow 1 pop a turn at +30fpt. I am at +70fpt. Every additional seafood resource is costing me 50gpt. Soon my cities start having 1000/80 food in the granary.
Too late a Wall Street.
Also SoL is a continental-affecting thing

Revolt to Natio cause it's cheaper. +2 happy from barracks are great too. The list of buildings needed in every city grows: mark,groc,bank, dike, barracks, theater...

1600AD: Han has Emancip, so I kill him. I'm razing some cities now. 55 cities, 24 have sushi, 176K, 125tiles away from domination (this grows fast), -450g at 0%, AIs have 5 cities in the whole world but it doesn't matter, I should have kept more AIs around to limit my land %, I'm going to win too soon. I won't be taking any barb city (there are a dozen), their borders will contain mine...

I keep expanding sushi just the same. I am a bit slow at creating new cities in my inner culture now (mistake).

1680AD, my research capacity is ridiculous, 1200bpt. I am 2 tiles away from victory, no way to stop this. 263K.

Gift 3 cities to Vic, pop 10, 18, 14.
Versailles built, uff, much better now. Each city is costing some 80gpt in maintenance, even with courthouses.

1700AD: 14tiles to victory, 294K. All my 56 cities have sushi.

1735, 2tiles, 356K, I'm doing just 8K per turn now. Vic won't accept jsut any city now... gift a pop32 one so that I am 5 tiles away from victory instead.

By the way, I hate the way culture spreads over sea, I am unable to unticipate how many tiles a border pop will get.
Build the odd WW just to add a few points.


Han gets emancipation. Why would I need happiness anyway? Who cares about research? I'm getting 56pop a turn, that's all that matters. Settle new cities and take sushi to them, even without a courthouse. Why whip a courthouse? Pop is more valuable than anything else.

Bad luck, no 4GP GAge for me, build 3 more corporations instead (they count as WW).
I've researched up to AdvFl and MassM.

1770AD, 2 tiles, 399K. They will only accept interior cities that wouldn't liberate any tiles or that have the FP on them... I'm doing 6K a turn, if I had expanded a bit less I could continue up to 600K.

1780AD, I'll win next turn, dow Vic, retake all gifted cities, her poor management has made them thinner, take her last city too, why not, end the game with 65 cities.

1785AD: Domination victory, 430748 points, 59 hours of suffering.


Too early, only ten more turns and I'd have had half a million points... but the real problem is not that, but my poor way or leading troops. Better wars would have meant less resources for the army, more for research and consequently an earlier sushi.

 

[ShannonCT]

jesusin,

Thanks for the travelog of your tour through milking hell.

I also was frustrated by the unpredictable nature of border expansion across water. I thought borders would not expand onto different landmasses unless in the BFC or unless to claim a resource, but this proved false. I had an extra 4-5 settlers sitting on unclaimed land, thinking I would need them to trip domination, but they ended up going unused.

I just hope hhawk and Jeffa had similar problems.

 

[Jeffa]

I just hope hhawk and Jeffa had similar problems.

1812AD: Domination victory, 432K points. 96! cities(Gift 3 cities to Per, Rag). I'm doing 12-15K a turn ... victory

ShannonCT -

 

[hhhawk]

My game in BOTM16 left a little interesting.
Domination Victory 1934AD
Base score: 8610
Final score: 88822.
It is killed - 104 mechanized infantry and are destroyed 40 cities.
I wished to finish at once all possible victories, but have touched territories.

I have refused from milking under impression of economy crash (has hurried with Sushi).
Plus is not enough cities on start and very late factory of GP.

Then had simply a good time - the first time in any CIV4s was at war modern units,
was not at war yet by nukes.

 

[jesusin]

I've taken the liberty of comparing 2 random games, just to note the differences.

name ShannonCT the great jesusin the puny
research Min-BW-Sail-Mason Min-BW-Sail-Mason
GLH yes yes
First war Axes Maces
AI order Vic-Han-Joao-smallest left Vic-Han*-Joao-biggest left
Wars are so easy yes NO!
500AD cities 15 11
It felt like a Prince/Monarch game Prince/Monarch game
Mids, Colo, GLib Yes, all Nop, none
Liber 1st Sure, free Medicine Sure, free SciMeth
Sushi Sure, 1240AD Sure, 1525AD
Sushi spread Controlled Crazily fast
seafood as much as possible broke some trades to have a few less
unhappy citizens most of them most of them
borders grew too fast! too fast!
score increase 1700AD 7K per turn 10K per turn
endgame score increase 7K per turn 6K per turn
date 1700AD 1785AD
Score 483K 431K
endgame # of cities 80 60
endgame # of sushi cities 61 60

My conclusions are:

The first player was faster, specially due to earlier and more succesful wars. That gave him a great advantage.

The most important factor is sushi date.

Even though the second player got the game to last longer, was quicker at spreading sushi and had many more cities, it was not enough to make up for the difference.

 

[ShannonCT]

jesusin,

I finished with 80 cities, 61 of which had Sushi. You can see how much my plans got cut short.

 

[srad]

The trick I use is this: look at the moment a civ goes from Cautious to Pleased with you. Say it is Pleased only at +5. He should have been at +3 normally, so the hidden factor for that civ is -2. You need him at +10 in order for him to vote for you.

Thanks jesusin, this looks like a nice "rule of thumb" to me (not always 100% valid as I understand from Niklas post).

 

[Lexad]

Wow, benefits of early war! Who could think they are there, now?..

 

[Jove]

This game kind of stalled out after 500AD for me.

We'd captured London and looked forward to whipping an army out of it, but instead it succumbed to York's culture and revolted- twice. So we got bogged down against Carthage, and Perry grew to huge proportions.

Once I got a handle on it the campaigns went well, but the AI should never have been allowed to develop so much. Still, I had to finish- piracy is just wrong!

Conquest in 1665. Ah well.

 

[Earthling]

This game went throught three stages for me.

1)Hey, exploring the map, cool pirate names, obvious I should get the GL, etc... Looks like fun.
2)Making my plan to win, engaging in war/empire building (definitely made some mistakes in retrospect, Vicky a better first target than Joao and all, but w/e)
3)*gasp* *pant*SO MANY ISLANDS. soooo long. Can't even stand looking at orange juice now... glad to be done with this and get back to other games!

I won a domination victory, certainly not the top score, at around 60,000 in the end. Obvious we've all finished the game, so nothing to really spoiler:

21,000 Base Score. I finished with a very, very lame and annoying border expansion somewhere with 42 turns left (42 future techs missed, plus other growth). And I had military in position to take almost all the remaining cities on the map; I should have just gone. I don't think it will really matter looking over what everyone else did though, and base score was only rising less than 200 a turn so maybe I saved some time. The short story is a long, long time ago I had decided to go for the cow and I'd never even done anything close to this before. Absolutely monstrous; if anyone wants to check out the save (this is before victory submission) I'd encourage them, see what the map can really be. 54 cities founded, Over 2 Billion pop in empire!

View attachment BotmWillem.CivBeyondSwordSave

Edit at Shannon, jesusin, others who found their victories were too soon - just one more to feel your pain too now

 

[ShannonCT]

Earthling,

In honor of your game, the "cow" award should be renamed the "fish". Too bad you couldn't get the Time victory. I notice you were 17 turns away from a culture victory also.

Those future techs are so nice. All that happiness would have been nice in my game.

 

[Earthling]

Thanks, I saw you had an excellent game too, certainly looks like it will get one of the medals. Early in the game I knew I hadn't made the right choices for the fastest domination; In fact, I didn't even realize vassals were off until I couldn't do it in one of my wars (and then figured it was to avoid colonial maintenance). But again I'd never milked a game like this so it was interesting.

You also had me really, really surprised though with that joke of yours - were you going for something more subtle or did you just mean "fish" as in Sushi? Ceratinly that's how it seems most of these games go nowadays. Cause I thought of Douglas Adams and So Long... certainly with 42 turns left (though it wasn't a space victory...)

One thing I did realize though was that if the game had been on a slower speed the score could have been a lot higher (which I'm sure is same for any warmonger, but even on the building side)- all of my cities were overbuilding everything (and I had ~25k beakers a turn, more than for a future tech). I'll probably never see graphs the likes of my gnp/prod ones in that game again, cool in the end. I think I was in the 7-8000s for new GP's as well; had a bunch sitting around at the end. But it's probably a good thing there weren't more turns, I don't know how I would have handled it (and my time played doesn't really reflect this; I always have forever in machine-time when the AI is playing it's turns that doesn't seem to count), and I had a tough enough time trying to delay dom/culture/etc... (and there isn't any medal/goal for Time anyway is there? I was planning to win something in like 2049 anyway). And one last thing... for those who were upset at the AI not accepting their cities; this killed me too, a couple of Peri's cities were actually once mine and size20-something and I sacrificed them to stay under the threshold (of course they starved). I made a mistake in killing off Ragnar completely, didn't think it would put me as close as it did. On the bright side I think I had every wonder (that was built, not all the shrines) under my control at the end, excpet for Joao's corp (Creative competed with mine anyway).

 

[ShannonCT]

You also had me really, really surprised though with that joke of yours - were you going for something more subtle or did you just mean "fish" as in Sushi?

Yes, refering to Sushi.

(and there isn't any medal/goal for Time anyway is there? I was planning to win something in like 2049 anyway).

There isn't an award, but you would have at least gotten the highest scoring Time victory ever. I think your base score may be the highest ever in a GOTM.

 

[jesusin]

Can't even stand looking at orange juice now...

21,000 Base Score.

Wow. I have 11000 base.

Those future techs are so nice. All that happiness would have been nice in my game.

I thought that milking a game for final score was supposed to get a lot of future techs too. I was wrong. You sacrifice just everything for more pop.

 

[Gosha190]

last minute submission! I'v played all night and finished game just now. So there were a lot of hurry mistakes... But what a game it was!

I need to go... technical result is:
domi 1755AD pop 2203, land 356, tech 237, wonder 170. Final score 519K.

82 cities built, some number of cities was captured.. maybe 20-25.

 

[toller pretzl]

I played this game to 1500 AD. By then I had conquered the English, the Carthaginians and the Portuguese, and was massing my forces against the Greek.

Even though I could hardly wish for better settings to a GOTM -
Even though I really enjoyed this game -
Even though my military campaign went very well -

I couldn't finish this game on time. I think I would need another month to reconcile my need to micromanage everything with playing for a military victory.

So it has become even clearer to me that I shouldn't be playing for a military victory.