[BTS] News: BOTM 205 Results and Congratulations

[DynamicSpirit]

This game produced a surprise: Two of the top-scoring games were played on challenger - @LowtherCastle (gold, fastest domination in 1802 AD) and @bcool (bronze for a 1700 AD space win). Considering the challenger would've been significantly harder than contender (immortal vs noble, albeit with the same AI starting units) I think that's quite a feat!

@Frederiksberg beat @bcool to fastest space (1625 AD) and the silver medal, but on the contender save. The only other challenger entry was from @Seraiel - which produced a later space win in 1864 AD.

Special mention to @donsig who played through to a diplo loss in 2020AD - that must have involved some serious bad luck to have the AI pal up sufficiently for one of them to win! And I think it's great when people who don't win or don't manage to finish go to the trouble of submitting anyway, but another special mention to @Noble Zarkon for retiring as early as 400 BC - I think that proves busy he must be in real life!

Summary of Medal Winners:

LowtherCastle: 1802 AD Domination Victory, 265,003 points.

frederiksberg: 1625 AD Spaceship Victory, 186,253 points.

bcool: 1700 AD Spaceship Victory, 163,563 points.


Fastest Finish Award Winners:

zhary: 1515 AD Domination Victory, 139,359 points.

MarleysGh0st: 1655 AD Conquest Victory, 91,503 points.

Lawrence: 1230 AD Diplomatic Victory, 63,012 points.

nocho: 1585 AD Cultural Victory, 62,788 points.


Other Award Winners:

Jovan Kukic: 1680 AD Domination Victory, 84,083 points.

kcd_swede: 1710 AD Conquest Victory, 67,073 points.

Seraiel: 1864 AD Spaceship Victory, 58,491 points.

zbgayumn: 1710 AD Cultural Victory, 34,611 points.

donsig: 2020 AD Diplomatic Loss, 3,044 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.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Here's where everyone settled. A few different choices here. Most people opted for the nearest coastal/riverside tile, at a cost of settling on a floodplain, with a smaller number opting to settle in place, while @Seraiel and @greatbeyond opted to look a bit further afield

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.

 

[WastinTime]

@LowtherCastle , congrats on gold! When was the last time you completed a Botm?

 

[MarleysGh0st]

Oh, wow, I won another Conquest medal! Good things come to those who don't play "nice" at Christmas.

Congratulations to greatbeyond for getting a Time victory. That's one we don't see too often!

 

[LowtherCastle]

@LowtherCastle , congrats on gold! When was the last time you completed a Botm?

Been a while. I’ve been trying the dieties and blundering. This game was fun with all the resources. I couldn’t resist going for Sushi + Mining after I accidentally spawned a GE.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Speaking of scores being off, my final score in the game was I think 470,000 or something like that.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

another special mention to @Noble Zarkon for retiring as early as 400 BC - I think that proves busy he must be in real life!

I started playing on Sunday night hoping to get it done in one sitting but forgot Barbs were on oops.

 

[Lawrence]

Congratulations everyone! LowtherCastle's 155 hours gold medal is surely a wonder to behold!

 

[WastinTime]

Speaking of scores being off, my final score in the game was I think 470,000 or something like that.

XotM always re-scores you at the Contender difficulty.

 

[WastinTime]

Did the people who SIP get screwed by (of course missing the fish) but also could not build a lighthouse?

 

[Lawrence]

Did the people who SIP get screwed by (of course missing the fish) but also could not build a lighthouse?

There's more than plenty of food so missing the fish was not a problem. It definitely delayed GLH, which I built really late, close to AD. But probably not a big deal.

 

[Pangaea]

Did the people who SIP get screwed by (of course missing the fish) but also could not build a lighthouse?

Not really. The capital could still work the clam (like a LHed non-lake clam, in terms of yield), and there is plenty of food from all the ice-plains. The bigger issue throughout the area is a lack of hammers. I was happy to SIP. A city further east could get a LH for all the other lake tiles. The wheat alone is 7.

Sad I wasn't able to complete this game, and do wonder how I fared compared with the other space explorers (I had space plans in mind, despite the warring).

Edit: Case in point: Here I'm working hammers and specialists (and lucky with the copper in fairness), and still the city has +8.

Spoiler :

PS: The settled GM is from a random event. I hoped we would get him for proper, but apparently the choice was between what great person to get auto-settled in the city.

 

[WastinTime]

fun. did the whole map have food like that? Wishing I had played some.

 

[Pangaea]

From what I recall it was only in our area, due to all those ice-floodplains. The rest of the map looked normal. We didn't have horses anywhere from what I remember either, so HA rushing, to counter the large distances, wasn't an option.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Some impressive games and as expected several good space games. I remember @bcool winning a space gauntlet in a BOTM many moons ago where I also took part. Playing the game, I was actually wondering if it would have been better to play the challenger save because I got almost nothing in tech trades and got several GSpies that were completely useless. But I guess the advantage of getting the wonders you need without compromising REX and waging war with smaller armies more than compensate for this (not to mention the reduced maintenance cost that also support REX).

The map was very generous (thanks to the mapmaker) but still very interesting because the land was very diverse, with the icy center having a lot of food from icy floodplains and the hubs having lots of hammers from forests. I think it was critical to get a GE in this game because the core cities were so hammer poor that a traditional hammer economy using State Property and workshops wouldn't work well.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Not really. The capital could still work the clam (like a LHed non-lake clam, in terms of yield), and there is plenty of food from all the ice-plains. The bigger issue throughout the area is a lack of hammers. I was happy to SIP. A city further east could get a LH for all the other lake tiles. The wheat alone is 7.

Sad I wasn't able to complete this game, and do wonder how I fared compared with the other space explorers (I had space plans in mind, despite the warring).

Edit: Case in point: Here I'm working hammers and specialists (and lucky with the copper in fairness), and still the city has +8.

Spoiler :

View attachment 584700

PS: The settled GM is from a random event. I hoped we would get him for proper, but apparently the choice was between what great person to get auto-settled in the city.

I’m confused. How does that clam get five food without a lighthouse?


Edit: lake. Never mind.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Some impressive games and as expected several good space games. I remember @bcool winning a space gauntlet in a BOTM many moons ago where I also took part. Playing the game, I was actually wondering if it would have been better to play the challenger save because I got almost nothing in tech trades and got several GSpies that were completely useless. But I guess the advantage of getting the wonders you need without compromising REX and waging war with smaller armies more than compensate for this (not to mention the reduced maintenance cost that also support REX).

The map was very generous (thanks to the mapmaker) but still very interesting because the land was very diverse, with the icy center having a lot of food from icy floodplains and the hubs having lots of hammers from forests. I think it was critical to get a GE in this game because the core cities were so hammer poor that a traditional hammer economy using State Property and workshops wouldn't work well.

That’s a really interesting point on the hammer economy. I hadn’t thought of that. Thanks.

 

[LowtherCastle]

XotM always re-scores you at the Contender difficulty.

Hm! Didn’t know that.

 

[LowtherCastle]

From what I recall it was only in our area, due to all those ice-floodplains. The rest of the map looked normal. We didn't have horses anywhere from what I remember either, so HA rushing, to counter the large distances, wasn't an option.

Funny thing in my game was I attacked Shaka first, not because he had horses but because he was close, and I got horses with it. Then I was really glad. I was kind of going on auto pilot at the beginning. Somehow when I play these games by myself I just can’t get motivated to think deeply the way I do when we play the succession games.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Congratulations everyone! LowtherCastle's 155 hours gold medal is surely a wonder to behold!

155 hours? (blush)

Let’s see how long it takes you to spam about 80 mining and sushi execs, along with missionaries.

Incidentally, in trying to not trip the domination limit, I realized I should be spamming Cereal Mills to the cities I couldn’t put Sushi in because of the culture bonus. New idea for me. I had an abundance of GMs by then.