WOTM 72 Results and Questions

[Deckhand]

Where have all the players gone?
When will they ever learn?

Only four submissions. Yet Dhoomstriker posted in 1st spoiler thread and Minou posted in both spoiler threads. Was there a problem with submissions being received? Minou claimed a 1440 conquest, but submission wasn't received. Definitely would have earned a medal.
Did anyone else submit but not get received? Did anyone else play but not submit? (38 downloads)

Ronald - Gold, Cow only Domination.
ub40 - Silver, only Diplomatic
kcd_swede - only Spaceship (loss)
MarleysGh0st - only Retirement

If only there were more players...


Summary of Medal Winners:

Ronald: 1880 AD Domination Victory, 62,968 points.

ub40: 1936 AD Diplomatic Victory, 30,791 points.


Other Award Winners:

kcd_swede: 1944 AD Spaceship Loss, 4,884 points.

Here is where they 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.

>> 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.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

First off, congrats to the victors and thanks to the staff for a challenging map! It was certainly not an easy game, so kudos to those who finished!

I played but ran out of time to finish my desired Victory Condition (Space). I suppose that I could have captured back a couple of gifted Cities to have received an early 1700 ADs Domination Victory, but real life got in the way for the last few days before submission time, so I didn't even have time to trigger a different Victory Condition.

As for my game, it went well enough. I captured the multiple-Ivory City from the Romans but stalled in being unable to take his capital, so I stayed at war with him (it's not as easy to repair your relationships with AIs in Warlords as in BtS and they will also Close Borders if they start to dislike you, which doesn't happen in BtS, so you can't just abuse the AIs as easily as you can in BtS) while I took on Kublai.

The Romans ended up getting Longbowmen before I could take most of his Cities and I had to fight Longbowmen to take the American territory, as well.

I moved my Palace to Kublai's Flood-Plains, heavily-Cottaged previous capital and settled in for a Space game. But, I hadn't gotten enough of the Wonders, so I took the fight overseas, taking most of France's land, then most of the Russians' land. I had to gift back some Cities to avoid tripping Domination and had reached Rocketry plus a couple of other techs in the early 1700s in my last gaming session.

I had had my eyes on some of Hatty's Holy Shrines and Wonders and was deciding whether to go to war with her and gift some of the AIs some of my other Cities to avoid going over the Domination Land Limit, or to just let her keep her treasures. I'd slept on the decision, but didn't get time to go back to the game before the submission deadline.

Jaguars were a lot of fun to play with, but it was the Sacrifical Altars that were the real joy, especially when combined with The Kremlin. Let's just say that it was a Builder's Dream to be able to spam so many Buildings and not really have to worry about the Unhappiness of doing so.


As for participation, it's hard to say; we have a lot of active games going on and people seem to enjoy playing both the "Easy" and "Hard" BtS games, meaning that people may be playing twice as many BtS games as before, leaving less time for the earlier expansions.

This map also wasn't easy... there was space for a second City and then I felt the need to go to war just to get additional decent City locations, but instead I built a third mediocre City as Whipping Unhappiness was getting out of control with just 2 Cities. The Food-heavy capital with no early Happiness Resources (besides the multiple Ivories that got scooped up by an AI early on) made for a tough challenge to break out, and it also didn't help that waiting for Iron Working to come in with Rome as a neighbour might not have been wise, so I self-teched Iron Working, which is a move that generally does (and did for me) mess with one's economy.

Rome with Iron, Americans with Copper, and Khan with Horses all next to their capitals didn't help. Multiple AIs with Wine Resources also didn't help, which leads them to go for Monarchy and then Feudalism for Longbowmen early also didn't help. Add to that the AIs having Ivory and us having very little area to expand to peacefully made it quite a tough map.

I'm not complaining; tough maps are good to have. But, it wasn't an easy game to complete, either, and some might have started, done poorly, then moved on to playing some of the frequently-arriving BOTM games.

 

[Ronald]

Wow, I got a gold medal
The fact, that only 2 players won helped just bit Some more like that and I might even get an epthatlon
Thanks for the tougher than expected game

 

[nocho]

Good job on the gold, Ronald!

As for participation, it's hard to say; we have a lot of active games going on and people seem to enjoy playing both the "Easy" and "Hard" BtS games, meaning that people may be playing twice as many BtS games as before, leaving less time for the earlier expansions.

This map also wasn't easy... there was space for a second City and then I felt the need to go to war just to get additional decent City locations, but instead I built a third mediocre City as Whipping Unhappiness was getting out of control with just 2 Cities. The Food-heavy capital with no early Happiness Resources (besides the multiple Ivories that got scooped up by an AI early on) made for a tough challenge to break out, and it also didn't help that waiting for Iron Working to come in with Rome as a neighbour might not have been wise, so I self-teched Iron Working, which is a move that generally does (and did for me) mess with one's economy.

Rome with Iron, Americans with Copper, and Khan with Horses all next to their capitals didn't help. Multiple AIs with Wine Resources also didn't help, which leads them to go for Monarchy and then Feudalism for Longbowmen early also didn't help. Add to that the AIs having Ivory and us having very little area to expand to peacefully made it quite a tough map.

I'm not complaining; tough maps are good to have. But, it wasn't an easy game to complete, either, and some might have started, done poorly, then moved on to playing some of the frequently-arriving BOTM games.

A bit of all of this was why I didn't finish the game. I always enjoyed BtS more than the earlier expansions, so with 2 BOTMs a month now I'll concentrate on those first and will play the W/G-OTM if enough time and/or if the game proves particularly inspiring. Not that much time lately and this was a pretty tough start, so when I left it didn't get back to it. Sorry. As Dhoom says, tough is good to have, but I'll probably bite through a tough one more willingly if it's BtS. In any case, keep up the good work and thanks for hosting.

 

[MarleysGh0st]

No award for the only retirement? I guess my record of mediocre games continues.

And yet, I've somehow climbed up to 8th place in the global rankings--yet another sign of declining participation in the GOTMs, I guess.

I was eager to give this game a try, putting the sacrificial altars to use. But, after all these years, I'm still a builder who doesn't engage in wars early enough, and this map wasn't conducive to that strategy. By 1 AD, when I was finally building my altars, I had only four cities and I was well behind the AI in every respect. And so I got discouraged and put the game aside until a couple days before the submission deadline.

When I did pick up the game, I was able to eliminate the Americans and I was holding off some half-hearted attacks from Augustus, but it was clear there was still no hope of victory. I guess I had a guaranteed ambulance waiting for me, but I just didn't have any more time to play.

Thanks for administering this game, despite its meager participation!

 

[Deckhand]

Apologies for the tough map.
As I recall, I regenerated until had a start with lots of food for whipping. Unfortunately only the starting city was nice and nearby neighbors were tough to handle.

 

[Falabello]

I was fighting with my PC to fix Vanilla and Warlords. I wanted to play this one, but when finally got Warlords, left hours to deadline. I started the game, took the Romans (except one city for peace and techs). And tried a peace-game till the final for Cultural Victory. So, it was enter, enter, enter, with no Army. I think ten more turns to victory (Capital already Legendary) and the blue AI (from another continent) went for war against me ... End of the game !

Well, after that, I had no desire to submit.

Very hard game for Monarchy . Next WOTM will be Immortal... Ha, peace of cake !

 

[Deckhand]

Very hard game for Monarchy . Next WOTM will be Immortal... Ha, peace of cake !

yup, if I were making it;
but it's going to be kcd's turn

I'm hoping to play it. With this level of participation I might be able to get an Epathalon.
Then we can stop Warlords games.

 

[Falabello]

yup, if I were making it;
but it's going to be kcd's turn

I'm hoping to play it. With this level of participation I might be able to get an Epathalon.
Then we can stop Warlords games.

Agree! BTW my name is just below your in the Eptathlon list - we're 4/6.

BUT: kcd's game, Immortal Warlords=BTS Deity, it's too much for me. Who knows kcd is inspired for an easy one this time?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Also, what's with the story with the Fish Resource that is NE + N + N of the Settler's starting location and which is out of reach of any possible City's big fat cross? Can seafood Resources which are not within any City's big fat cross occur naturally or are they an indication that World-Buildering of the terrain was performed?

 

[Deckhand]

Also, what's with the story with the Fish Resource that is NE + N + N of the Settler's starting location and which is out of reach of any possible City's big fat cross? Can seafood Resources which are not within any City's big fat cross occur naturally or are they an indication that World-Buildering of the terrain was performed?

Yes, they must be able to occur naturally. At least in Warlords. I didn't worldbuilder any resources or terrain (iirc) this game.

I agree, I hate fish resources that can't be used. Or a pair of them, of which only one can be used, depending where you settle. I don't usually do anything about it though.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Also, what's with the story with the Fish Resource that is NE + N + N of the Settler's starting location and which is out of reach of any possible City's big fat cross?

There's a land tile N+NW of that fish. A city on that tile would be able to work the fish.

Can seafood Resources which are not within any City's big fat cross occur naturally or are they an indication that World-Buildering of the terrain was performed?

In my experience, the map scripts never put seafood on tiles that are out of reach of the potential BFC of all nearby land tiles - so usually such a seafood would indicate World-Buildering by the mapmaker.

The one exception is that the map script doesn't seem to be aware that you can't normally found cities on mountains, so I have on occasions seen it put seafood in locations that can't ever be worked because the only land tile within range is a mountain.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

There's a land tile N+NW of that fish. A city on that tile would be able to work the fish.

Having admin access to the entire auto-generated map does have its perks. ^.^ Thanks for checking.

Now that I look closer, it seems that the auto-generated map doesn't appear to distinguish between Ocean squares that are 2 squares away from land and Ocean squares that are further away from land, although the game gives this distinction, both in terms of the spreading of Culture and in terms of visually indicating adjacent Coast squares.

In my experience, the map scripts never put seafood on tiles that are out of reach of the potential BFC of all nearby land tiles

Thanks for clarifying!

 

[Seraiel]

As for my game, it went well enough. I captured the multiple-Ivory City from the Romans but stalled in being unable to take his capital, so I stayed at war with him (it's not as easy to repair your relationships with AIs in Warlords as in BtS and they will also Close Borders if they start to dislike you, which doesn't happen in BtS, so you can't just abuse the AIs as easily as you can in BtS) while I took on Kublai.

I once had Frederick close his borders with me in a time game when I became his worst enemy. Happens really very seldomly though.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

That's an interesting case to hear about; thanks for sharing it! I wonder if it's specific to becoming an AI's Worst Enemy.

In Vanilla and Warlords, assuming that enough time has passed for an AI to check whether an agreement should be up, it seems as though as soon as you dip below the AI's threshold Diplo Attitude level for starting an agreement (Open Borders or a Resource being traded to you), the AI tells you that the deal isn't working for them anymore.

That's quite different from BtS where you can essentially maintain an Open Borders agreement well past the point of the AI disliking you sufficiently that they would not renew such an agreement if given the choice... but, if there's a special case about becoming a Worst Enemy, then it will be wise to ensure that another AI player is hated more than you are hated.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Having admin access to the entire auto-generated map does have its perks. ^.^ Thanks for checking.

He he. No problem, No admin access involved though. When the results of games are published, the original WorldBuilder gets published at the same time - there's always a link to download it just above the list of results, so anyone can get it and see what the map looked like!