WOTM28 - Final Spoiler

[leif erikson]

WOTM 28 Final Spoiler

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in WOTM 28, then you MUST NOT read this thread unless

• You have submitted your entry

Feedback on the game concept and map are welcome. Hope you enjoyed your game.

 

[Meister Maggi]

First...at least in the final spoiler...

Space Race Victory in 1842, vasalized 2 of my neighbours and then clicked the game to the end (including two lousy attempts of an attack from other AIs).

I guess it can be done faster, if one focuses more on early expansion (and likewise later on when having the military adavantage on conquering more land) - most of the time I was way ahead of any AI and kept selling techs.

While moving the first settler to 7 revealed a great spot, the rest of our island was not that great in terms of food ressources which in my case meant having rather few GP (the capital got Oxford and Iron Works); nevertheless a very nice game!

 

[Grifftavian]

Contender Save/Prince Difficulty

First Spoiler Post

Cultural Victory in 1968 AD. Too slow but a victory none the less. Made a few mistakes, including building a Cathedral in a city that turn out to be not on of the three LC cities I started the culture slider at 10% as soon as I had learned Drama, bumped it up to 30% - 40% after I was first to Liberalism, but didn't shut down science and go max culture until after I had Constitution (for Representation Civic) and Rifling/Chemistry for defense.

I had a pretty fair early tech lead, and built a lot of goodwill by trading and selling techs. Used the surplus cash to upgrade my small military. I was last in number of soldiers for most of the game, which was OK since I ran Pacificism Civic until forced to change by UN vote. The early goodwill build-up helped, only 2 wars against my Carthaginian Empire IIRC, both short lived affairs against England and Germany, with no exchange of territories in either case.

Very little expansion after the initial 6 cities on the home island. Build one city on the small 5-tile island to the south, and another on the larger tropical island further south, which had 3 Gems plus Horses & Sugar. I captured a Barbarian city on that tropical island for a total of 9 cities, and culture flipped a small German city very late in my game.

 

[adrianj]

First spoiler is here.

*** 500 AD -> 1000 AD ***

In 590 AD THe Great Library is complete in the capital. Strange, Pyramids haven't been built yet. I'll give it a go.

In 635 AD I have all of Civil Service, Machinery and Construction. Lizzy's days are numbered. Production is so slow though... My slowness is costly, Lizzy has longbows now. In 725 I missed out on the Pyramids - oh well, capital can build maces and cats.

I declare in 950 AD. By 1000 AD things are looking swell. I'm aiming for Liberalism now, hopefully take something on the way to Steel.

*** 1000 AD -> 1280 AD ***

In 1148 Lizzy is wiped off her starting continent, and I have all but one of her cities. I notice Stalin doesn't yet have Feudalism, and I have all these maces and cats just lying around...

I try not to muck around too much. In 1178 I declare on Stalin. Strangely, HC declares war on me the following turn. Bribed in by Stalin I'm guessing. I turn around and bribe Bismarck against HC.

I kind of accidently learnt Liberalism, so I took Nationalism for the free tech. Might as well go for the Cavalry route - so gunpowder and Mil.Trad are next.

By 1256 Stalin has been kicked off his starting landmass, and he is my vassal. Time to finish off Lizzy I think. She is dead in 1280 AD. HC pays me for peace - but I won't forget that insult. He is next.

*** 1280 AD -> 1562 AD ***

1328 sees the completion of the Taj Mahal, and a golden age begins. I'm hoping It'll see me through to amassing an army of cavalry borne on galleys. Astro? Pff.

In 1412 I declare on HC, mostly with left over catapults and maces, with one or two cavalry. With chemistry, the maces get upgraded to grenadiers, and those CR3 maces are fearsome! I own HC's starting island and he is my vassal in 1496 AD.

I have a pretty massive empire - I think Communism would be useful about now. I have the Music Great Artist and a Great Merchant lying around, now might be a good time for a golden age.

Bismarck is next. After declaring in 1529, I own his island and make him my vassal in 1562. Now... what to do with all these cities. The warring is getting tiring, so I'm thinking, go to space?

*** 1562 AD -> 1664 AD ***

I've been very lax with my civic switching. Still this mental block of "Oh No, can't waste 3 turns for only one civic!" So when Communism is discovered in 1571 I make 3 changes: State Property, Free Religion and Free Speech.

All my leftover Grenadiers and Cavalry are looking for a soft target. I declare on Ramesses in 1613, and effect the same result - his main island plus vassal by 1628. Wang Kon does not yet have Grenadiers, so he can accommodate my soldiers next. Ramesses had the Pyramids, so I think a switch to Universal Suffrage would really boost my production.

I declare on Wang in 1837. It's progress as usual, until he gets Grenadiers when I'm half way through his island. My well promoted Cavalry can take them out pretty well out in the open, but I take a few more losses than usual since I haven't really been using my cannon very well. I take his island and capitulation in 1664.

The only free AI left are Cyrus and Ceasar. I'll keep my troops near their borders, but I don't think I'll attack - they have Rifles now.

*** 1664 AD -> 1772 AD ***

Things are pretty quiet through here. I notice that Cyrus, who is pleased with me becomes WHEOOHRN, and ends up declaring on Ceasar. This gives me the idea to upgrade my forces, especially all the cavalry I have lying around to Gunships, and pillaging Ceasar back to the stone age. Just for fun really Oh, plus I've decided I want the middle island with the sugar, dyes and pigs. By 1772 the island is mine, and I take Rome - except the land around it is crap (ie, pillaged), so I take peace and gift the city back.

*** 1772 AD -> 1832 AD ***

Not much really to report here. My massive empire is churning through the techs at 3 or 4 turns per tech. I reach the final tech, Ecology, in 1814. The Engine took a while, poor organisation I guess. Final date of 1832.

Meh, nothing special. It was fun beating up the AI in this one though - I think my warring has at least improved.

 

[Fluroscent]

My game looks quite similar to adrianj's, with the same wonders in the capital, killing off the same civs etc.
I decided against space though, and went for domination, since It seemed more straightforward at this point. Domination turned out to be a bigger task than expected, due to the sheer number of islands needed to cover enough land. Relied mainly on maces/trebs for the first 3-4 wars, but later on it was all cavalry.
Finally got domination in the late 1600's. Counted my cities from the city screen - 77 of them! spanning all the northern islands, all the equatorial ones, and the Egyptian lands+a few random cities. the F1 screen took several seconds to load

I also experienced some reluctance in civic changes due to the length of revolutions. Not being able to rely on golden ages is quite frustrating

 

[Ronnie1]

I got a Domination victory in 1770AD.

I killed off in order, Stalin, Cyrus, and Wang. I settled 3 of the "center strip" islands pretty heavily and captured a few barb cities there also. I captured Egypt's main island and then sued for peace, while at the same time conquering most of England and culture bombing the center city.

A very comfortable and FUN war filled game!

 

[PutCashIn]

I went for a time win, just coz there was a lull (or lol, lol) in between gotm's.

Everyone not a vassal was furious with me as I declared war and razed all the coastal cities I could, some AI's I worked over twice.

Total bully game, but hey its warlords, deal the pain out.

 

[kcd_swede]

Contender save, goal to score more than 100,000 with Domination victory.
Basically everything important is already described in the first spoiler.

Captured all Stalin cities first war, basically using sword and cats against archers. The rest of wars are mace/seige versus LB's. After Stalin I attack England and Inca simultaneously - capturing and keeping all. This leads to a perfect storm on German shores, and all Bismark cities captured. Was there someone else on the top row of islands? I guess there must have been... I recall the map was a 5x3 matrix of islands (obviously not a random map). Anyhow, I took the top row of islands first and put my FP in the west of Inca-land.

While fighting the final top row contestant, I was simultaneously mopping up warrior-defended barb cities in the middle row of islands, using trebs and knights for laughable overkill.

Last German city falls it is only one war at a time now, while I focus more on growing populations (already well over DOM limit in pop). Persia is next, but my biggest error was taking his second island (immature cities) first -- I should have left those to him as a vassal because all the good stuff was on the older island. But it still won't threaten DOM land limit, so I capture all but a 1-tile island from Cyrus then let him buy capitulation. Good population growth potential everywhere. Cyrus gets to see a few Grens. Wang gets to see many more, as he is next victim.

I teched to biology, never had slider above about 40% though. Slavery used almost exclusively, as I whipped mercilessly in all small cities, at least until I started milking. At like 1400AD, I could build a galleon and three trebs or knights (four units) in four turns in just the capitol (bur/HE). Then waiting 7-8 turns to get to the front lines is very frustrating. It is very expensive to have so much WIP in your processes. I did not build any wonders after the GLib, just captured lots of them (most useful ones already obsoleted).


Now... if I take all Wang's island I will go over DOM limit... so presumably I should just milk this for score. But the logistics and tedious troop movements on this map meant that the game had already taken more than 3 times as much civ-playing time as I normally spend on a game. It was fairly dull play, as well, since I had such overwhelming military superiority (however, if I hadn't been friends with Rome, I could have gotten some interesting battles, as he was several tech ahead of me; Ramses was a couple tech ahead of me.) And I'm thinking that there are 2 civ games I didn't get to play because I'm trying to milk score, a task which may be somewhat challenging is not particularly fun.

So I bagged all Wang's cities (except a 1-tile island that I couldn't find), and took his capitulation the turn before cities come out of revolt giving me domination victory in 1790AD, for a score between 67 and 68 thousand.

So I fell short of my original goal. But not really... my score was continuously growing when I finished the game, so I assume that I could have likely broken the 100K barrier if I hadn't abandoned my original goal as being too dull and time-consuming.

Edit to add: Trebuchets in Warlords expansion are truly devastating. I can see why seige needed a make-over going to BtS!

 

[kcd_swede]

Feedback on the game concept and map are welcome. Hope you enjoyed your game.

Islands with Hannibal is a nice game concept that allows many different types of games depending on what the individual is trying to do. The difficulty level is probably too low for me, so next time I should stop worrying about the competitions (which I rarely contend in anyhow) and aim for more fun by taking challenger saves.

The map I'm not that thrilled with. I still get a thrill out of defogging a virgin map and seeing what's there. I'd like a totally random map type and you don't even tell us what script you used. THAT would test our ability to adapt! But about this particular map... generally islands will be very unpredictable, but once we can galley-meet all the north civs but not the south, we kind of start guessing that the southern hemisphere looks something like the northern one - too predictable. The barbarian equator would have provided interesting challenges/opportunities if we were playing on emperor+ levels, but here... by the time you have astro, those warrior-defended cities are even easier bait than an undefended goody-hut.

I was playing domination with Ren units, so if there was something particular about the distribution of resources, I didn't notice. I never encountered happy/health problems (ended game with LOTS of growth potential left on the shelf), mostly as a result of havng so much territory and the resources that go with it.

Thanks for what was a really fun game (until I started milking -- which is my own fault).

 

[adrianj]

I'd like a totally random map type and you don't even tell us what script you used. THAT would test our ability to adapt!

I love this idea for a GOTM. Give us as little information as possible about the map and have us go at it! And if it were possible to remove the tell-tale information on the Settings screen that could remove peeking on the first turn.
So we get only the minimum info: leader/civilization, game speed, map size, difficulty.

I always liked playing with a random leader, and I've often wished that when starting a custom game that a random map was an option. Or is it? 'Shuffle' perhaps?

 

[leif erikson]

I'd like a totally random map type and you don't even tell us what script you used.

I love this idea for a GOTM.

for the feedback. I will keep it in mind for WOTM29.

I never encountered happy/health problems (ended game with LOTS of growth potential left on the shelf), mostly as a result of havng so much territory and the resources that go with it.

That extra potential is also potential score.
Did I read something about 100K somewhere?

 

[kcd_swede]

Did I read something about 100K somewhere?

Yes, you did. But what I maybe left out was that this month was completing a Marathon deity game for HoF challenge series plus completing my emepror level EQM requirements. So the (civ playing) time to take advantage of that extra growth potential was lacking.

But unknown mapscript would be really nice. If you do it, I promise to take the challenger save.

 

[Deckhand]

Domination 1870.
Finally finished - I'm a slow player.
HC declared on me early and took (razed, it was only one pop) a city with axeman vs warrior. I wasn't paying attention and didn't realize they had landed next to it. A couple chariots took care of the invaders and I was never on defense again. Stalin also DoW's.
Developed my island relatively peacefully while I teched ahead to optics and took Astronomy from Liberalism.
Raced my galleons and settlers and macemen to center islands. Once cleared of jungle, they became quite nice.
First conquered England, then Russia.
Then Egypt as Ramses was the furthest behind in tech. Spent a lot of time getting in position for a 4 turn war.
Could have won sooner by just pushing on (to anywhere) but didn't realize how close to 60% I would be when Egypt was all my culture. Spent time getting ready for a blitz of Rome. Planning to take Rome with its four wonders and the Roman cities on the central islands. Landed my troops on wrong tile (not next to Rome) and won the game without the city of the seven hills.

Spoiler :

Now I need to finish GOTM52 so I can play BOTM28. I'm sure KCD will outscore me in GOMT52.

 

[kcd_swede]

Domination 1870.
Finally finished - I'm a slow player.

Domination VC on this map is a very time-consuming adventure, isn't it.

I'm sure KCD will outscore me in GOMT52.

What about this one? Since you finished a later year I expect you were able to grow more population. You should have had a lot more tech than I did, since I stagnated in the Renaiisance tech, roughly. Was it enough to compensate in score? (If you got 68K or higher... )

 

[Deckhand]

What about this one? Since you finished a later year I expect you were able to grow more population. You should have had a lot more tech than I did, since I stagnated in the Renaiisance tech, roughly. Was it enough to compensate in score? (If you got 68K or higher... )

barely more than half of that
I certainly had more tech: was using stealth bombers and fighters, mobile infantry and advanced tanks the last few turns.

 

[The-Hawk]

Conquest in 1589AD, score about 84K. I have no idea how this will stack up, it sure felt like I was plodding along. I may have waited too long to get after the first AI (first war was against HC in 590 AD using maces and cats). HC was wiped out, all the other AIs were vassalized. At the end, I was using Trebs and Grens, although I really could have turned off research after maces and cats.

This is not a map type I've often played, so I appreciated the chance to try it at a low level. Thanks for a good game Leif .

 

[Cactus Pete]

Had time to milk this game [What is the story with SGOTM?] and did so for several centuries until score gains per turn trended toward zero. Dom'n allowed around 1500AD, score just over 160K.

Enjoyed the game and the map but do have a couple of critical observations:

Because there was so much unsettled land on this map and the low difficulty level, I can't think of how one could get a competitive score without milking. Not sure how that could have been mitigated . . . perhaps very few grassland tiles. Unsettled areas are probably not good for GOTMs, especially easy ones.

Settled in the wrong place for (what I think were) the right reasons. Missed out on the use of the northern fish tiles because I chose to settle where the known resources were best. If I didn't miss something, then I'd fault the mapmaker for setting up this possibility.

 

[Ronnie1]

snip.....

Settled in the wrong place for (what I think were) the right reasons. Missed out on the use of the northern fish tiles because I chose to settle where the known resources were best. If I didn't miss something, then I'd fault the mapmaker for setting up this possibility.

IMO, there always should be resources that may not get used. That is the benefit of there being options/choices throughout the game. I personally would not want the map maker to take so much time to create IDEAL locations. Then we ALL might find these ideal spots, and our games would be to similar. Again, just my opinion, and I bow before the medals hanging around Pete's neck! Are they heavy?

 

[leif erikson]

for the feedback.

Because there was so much unsettled land on this map and the low difficulty level, I can't think of how one could get a competitive score without milking. Not sure how that could have been mitigated . . . perhaps very few grassland tiles. Unsettled areas are probably not good for GOTMs, especially easy ones.

My first Islands map. I attempted to use Raging Barbs to try to help fill some of the empty space. In testing, sometimes it worked a bit and other times, the Barbs didn't spawn well at all? Then I tried adding some small islands to give the AI Galley access to the middle islands. Again, in some games this seemed to work, but it isn't consistent.

Thinking now, I could have added more civs? Not sure what the result of that might have been?

Settled in the wrong place for (what I think were) the right reasons. Missed out on the use of the northern fish tiles because I chose to settle where the known resources were best. If I didn't miss something, then I'd fault the mapmaker for setting up this possibility.

Probably is my fault.

I dislike creating city sites and will generally not change resource locations too much from the random starts used in creating games, unless I have something in mind...
I will keep this kind of thing in mind in future.

 

[Conquistador 63]

I went for space. I took out 3 AI's (Inca, Germany, Russia) to get a decent-sized empire and settled all the tropical islands, workshopping them for late production. Well, maybe too late.

Embarrassingly enough, I finished last space tech in 1706AD (t372), but only finished Apollo Program in 1715AD (t375)! I stupidly built it (after IronWorks) in a jungle city founded as late as 1529AD, just because it seemed to have the highest long-term hammer potential. Can't remember another XOTM where I had such bad planning in what is one of my favorite VC's. Anyways, launched in 1760AD.

Thanks for another well-designed map, leif!