News: BOTM 97 Results and Congratulations

[DynamicSpirit]

In this game, first congratulations go to Seraiel - who picks up the gold medal on his first ever GOTM submission! Well done Seraiel - especially since winning gold for a space win is quite unusual in itself. Writing a poem for the game is also somewhat unusual I guess this explains why you were so keen in the final spoiler thread for the results to be published The date - 1700 AD - was impressively early for a space win. But not early enough to win fastest space: Jastrow managed 1680AD! I'm still struggling to figure out how you guys pull off such early launches!

Unusually, space was a very popular victory condition this time - accounting for almost half the winning submissions, and surprisingly, none of the medals went to domination victories. Silver went to lymond, who also achieved fastest conquest in 1440AD, and bronze to nocho for his 1790AD space win, which also earned him the cow.

Summary of Medal Winners:

Seraiel: 1700 AD Spaceship Victory, 284,053 points.

lymond: 1440 AD Conquest Victory, 257,646 points.

nocho: 1790 AD Spaceship Victory, 247,987 points.



Fastest Finish Award Winners:

Jastrow: 1680 AD Spaceship Victory, 161,287 points.

Ronnie1: 1750 AD Domination Victory, 118,180 points.

Alamankarazieff: 1929 AD Diplomatic Victory, 37,683 points.

Kennigit: 1892 AD Cultural Victory, 15,022 points.



Other Award Winners:

Xcalibrator: 1640 AD Conquest Victory, 177,218 points.

sevnhuts: 1909 AD Domination Victory, 59,655 points.

greatbeyond: 2007 AD Spaceship Victory, 9,829 points.

marbe166: 2001 AD Spaceship Loss, 3,601 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.



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.

 

[nocho]

Hey, my first BTS cow ever!

Nice game every one, good discussion in the spoilers too. Congrats to Seraiel for his gold and to Jastrow for the quickest space game.

Hope you had good value for money with those 207 hours invested Seraiel!

 

[lymond]

Moo, Nocho! or is that el moo! ....oh, and you are now the combined BOTM master!

funny, I thought I might not even finish this game at one point

Welcome to BOTM, Cereal!

 

[Falabello]

Wow, a very competitive Space game. Congrats to the winners, medallists and all participants !

Yep, DynamicSpirit, thanks for another game (and effort) !!!

 

[Pangaea]

Congratulations with the win, Seraiel. Not a bad way to start with GOTM games

Many other really good games too, so tough competition for this game. Well done lads and lasses

 

[Seraiel]

Thx for the game Dynamicspirit and thx for the congratiulations aswell (@all) .

I realized only now, that Jastrow only surpassed me by 2T (or are it 4? Anyhow, not much. ) . Would I have known that, then I'd invested 300h into this game @ nocho . I idled in some sessions, but 150h+ really were playtime. Getting a Gold Medal is not really what I expected, I thought I'd simply rank 2nd in the space competition but now I'm really very pleasantly surprised . I hope all others had a lot of fun with this game too, and thx especially to everybody that actively took part in the aftergame discussion, I really learned something and appreciate that always very much .

 

[Jastrow]

From 1500 to 1800 is the 5 year per turn era at normal speed, so it is 4 turns, but yes, it was very close. As I said in the spoiler, if I had had an extra 10 hours of real-life playing time, I could have taken another 5 or so turns off, so I think 1650 was quite possible on this map. (my 19 hours of play also includes some idling during meals, so it probably about 10 of actually play time.)

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I've moved a number of posts that were about how we should run GOTMs generally, and not about BOTM 97, to the what changes would you like... thread (and temporarily re-stickied that thread)

 

[Seraiel]

I just re-read this thread and the initial post of DynamicSpirit:

@ DS:

I cannot tell you how Jastrow or nocho do those early launches but I know very well about the strategy that I developed in the 2-3y (or were it 4? ) in which I aquired the Deity EQM title. I follow a strategy of trying to reach the most important goal, get the maximum out of every situation and I use some strategies I developed myself out of intuition and also because of the advice of other CIV players (the #1 contributor being WastinTime but several others, especially also Kaitzilla and Sun Tzu Wu also played great roles) :

1. Conquer as much of the map as possible as early as adviseable. More cities means more research potential and later on simply plain additional research, more cities is simply one of the main goals in fast Spaceship victories. Remember to not conquer too much, Sushi does crazy things with , if 60% i. e. is the land limit I usually stop at 45% at latest. I ofc. try to finish killing of any civs because of WYTJOML but then raze cities. With Sushi-cities growing so fast, this may not be possible because WW causing can play a huge role.
2. Focus on , and . This means early Currency (i. e. oracled) followed by CS (because of Buro) followed by Education (for Oxford) . Then (attention, self-developed strategy) : Start a GA with the 3rd GP. 1st creates an Academy or even bulbs Education , 3rd (sometimes also 2nd) should be a GE for Mining . (Earlier Oxford may be better than an Academy if founding an Academy later or if the game is very short and getting a 100% GE is only adviseable as the 3rd GP at latest because generating GE- is so difficult. Try to use a Forge + the Mids or the HGs for this) . During that GA, try to generate as many GSs and GM's as possible to bulb (Chemistry, PP, Scientific Method) and run Trade Missions.
3. Try to gain access to the MoM. Either self-build it or if you fail at that, conquer it if possible by any means, because the 1st GA is only the 1st of a whole chain of GAs. Possibilities: Chain the 2nd GA via building the TM or take 1 Merchant (or Artist if you're unlucky because of the NE) and 1 Scientist and directly chain the next GA to fuel the research and get towards the greatest goal of the whole round: The corporations. Ideally you'll Lib -> Biology (better than Medicine because of Biology Farms and because an earlier NP results in an additional GP) or you Lib -> Railroad (don't have exact information on that yet, but on Normal and especially Quick speed getting Mining first seems to be better or at least competetive than Sushi first) .
4. Spread the Corporations as fast as possible. (try to get towards the 5 Exec / turn limit as soon as possible, do this very well because Corporations are the biggest game-changer, +30 or in every city is incredible, just take a look at your graphs from Corporations onwards. Don't forget to get up Courthouses before that. ) Going Communism before Sushi is adviseable to be able to cold-whip the Execs efficiently. Well timed OF with Factories can also result in 1T Execs.
5. Research Assembly Line after Mining, get up Factories + Coal Plants in all cities. End the 2-4 GA-chain after this. To reach AL (or even Mining if Sushi 1st) you may need to hire a lot of Specialists, but Specialists are also generally very adviseable with Sushi.
6. Grow the empire and recover the economy which got a huge hit by Sushi-cold-whips or Corporations in general. (This goes very fast but is a lot of work in terms of micro. )
7. Once recovered, improve the tech rate until you get towards 1 tech / turn. Plan some Spaceship Hammer-focussed cities at that time at latest, you need about 14-15 cities because with 1 tech / turn only the IW city will likely be able to build more than one part.
8. Start the last GA so it ends with the build of the SS (4-GP or even 5-GP-GA) . Having extra from the GA greatly helps with needing to produce the Engines in as little as 4T, the Docking Bay in as little as 3T or the Stasis in as little as 2T. The Life-Support I usually chop out in the NP-city so it's one turn.
9. Win.

Things that can greatly help in this are all the things that generally are good for certain difficulties (like i. e. being a good tech-trader or knowing exactly which wonders to aim for or when they're likely to be built by the AI) or the things that make generally strong in CIV (like i. e. strong micro) . If you have any questions towards this or the strategy itself feel free to ask, I'll answer everything honestly and by the best of my knowledge.

Thx for hosting this game again .

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Thanks for the info, Seraiel! Interesting to see hear how you manage to do it. A few other players have mentioned in the past that lots of early cities is a key thing. I tend to struggle with that in the early game because I usually find more than 8 cities or so by 0AD kills my science too much.

I have to admit I've never really played with corporations much - That's partly because I quite like state property in the late game, and partly it sounds like setting up the corporations requires so much micromanagement, which I just wouldn't have enough real life time for. Maybe that means I'm forever doomed to have finishes 100+ years later than the fastest ones...

 

[Seraiel]

You're welcome DynamicSpirit .

Regarding economy you may want to read my guide "CIV Illustrated: Hybrid Economy!" when you find the time. I assure you that that guide is very good and it's a short, condensed, easy read if you ask me . It informs you on economical options you'll probably don't know like i. e. to chop-whip into a Warrior to generate more OF than can be stored and by that get huge sums of instantly out of Forests before Currency, or it'll also make sure that you notice the importance of Trade-Routes, because TRs are the best economical source available. There are also options like i. e. to set the espionage towards the target you'll attack next, and once it's down to one city, you can steal his whole gold which not seldomly are many hundreds of or even thousands of , because the AI bunkers a lot of that it doesn't offer via trade etc. . It's about 12-15 points and once you've understood it completely you'll be a master in the economy of CIV . Just in very general why you should really do this: If you i. e. have TRs between all your cities, which is only a question of if you connect them via Roads or Sailing, then you cannot have problems with your economy unless you have only internal TRs and no off-shore island cities. When you have 2 TRs + Currency, every city contributes towards your empire. From that point onwards, every additional city means more research or at least more research potential. The image of having economical problems at a certain number of cities imo. comes from cities missing TRs and also the false belief that an 80% slider is more than a 50% slider, it isn't if those 50% are more because you generally have more because of more cities. Tricks like the one with the OF help you get to Currency if the is really very rare, by Conquest can make you research though you'd be able to only sustain a few % etc. , see players like Pollina or Jastrow have 20 cities at 1 AD in BOTM 100 without problems, that is no mystery, you can learn that by reading the guide easily .

 

[Seraiel]

To help you see what I mean:

Look at this city:



Ignore the two Prophets and if you even subtract the of the Horse-Pasture, then the city costs 6 but gives 6 so it doesn't generate profit then, but the city is research-potential, I can have a higher BPT if I have the to run 100%, if I don't have, the city can sustain itself at 0%. This is because of the foreign TRs, see this city in comparison:



This city is even working a 2 Hamlet, still it'd cost me about 1 at 0%. This is because Roosevelt idiot switched to Mercantilism and because I have many cities there aren't any foreign TRs left. If I anyhow had 2 overseas cities, then the TRs would be 2 and the city would generate benefit.

In both cases and what should not be forgotten: The those cities make count too, because I could produce Wealth, then both cities would generate a benefit, and that benefit is rising. City 1 will probably even get me the Mids and the HGs and it's planned to run as a GE-Farm then, but even the crappy city two can work another Grassland Cottage, then grow onto two Grassland Mines and then stay at size 4 for the rest of the game or until it gets through Sushi, so even a city without that the AI founded and that I could take without losses is already benefiting my empire and while it's bad, it's actually not even bad (2 Grassland Mines = 6 + 2 Grassland Hamlets = 4 + 4 from 2 overseas cities that'll come soon + 1 from the centre tile = 15 and it's already at the maintenance cap by number of cities so won't get much more expensive = 8 :gold / net in the future (+ it has 6 Forests which i. e. could be 4 Workers, Longbows for all conquered cities or some Catapult replacements) .

This is what I mean when I say that "every city with foreign TRs + Currency contributes" . The only question you have to ask yourself is, if you gain more i. e. by building a Library instead of building a Settler, and if you have the GLH (also mentioned in the guide about economy as an own source of economy, because it's so strong) , that answer will almost always be the Settler, except you have a decently developed capital and can get Oxford.

Hth .