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**Theseus** · November 18, 2007, 15:56

What a warmonger.... 1914??!!

**Nugog** · November 18, 2007, 16:01

Well done to all of our winners!

**JungleIII** · November 19, 2007, 02:28

It is taking me a while to adjust to BtS...

The game just plays differently then CIV4 and Warlords, and it seems you can't advance technologically as fast or warmonger as fast. I'll have to learn a whole new set of tricks as the old ones aren't working here...

I'm glad we have this forum as this is the first opportunity to competitively play and compare with BtS...

It looks like I'm not the only one adjusting slowly and the scores certainly reflect my thoughts...

**MikeH** · November 19, 2007, 05:01

Yeah, this is only the second game of BtS I've actually finished (Intermediate Game 2 was the first...), and it's my first win. It's definitely very different. I'd be very happy with your score though!

I had a lot of firsts in this game.

First time I got to use the new spaceship builder, which is cool. I like it a lot. Is it documented anywhere what parts you need to build to get what number of turns for the space ship to travel? I know you can see how many turns it'll take on the builder screen. The manual says something really unhelpful like it gets faster the more you build.
First corporation built (just to experiment really...).
First archipelago map (in any version).

A few things happened that I wasn't expecting. Early on I got forced out of a very promising war against Napoleon by the Pope, and then again later against Portugal. I think either of those could have set me up for a domination win.

Towards the end I had a terrible blunder where I conquered half of Sitting Bull's territory to get his Aluminium, then 'cause it was costing me so much money I spun those cities off as a colony and ended the war to focus on building. Stupid Hatsheput arrived as the new colony, I demanded the aluminium from her and she obliged, but then cancelled the deal the next turn. WHAT?! She had immediately given Sitting Bull the Aluminium city back in a gesture of kindness! ARGH! I didn't realise colonies would be so generous. God knows how many turns wasted that was.

It was a relatively easy game in the end. Winning was never in doubt, despite me getting the space race so late, but I made too many mistakes to get a good score.

**MikeH** · November 19, 2007, 05:03

Getting to play different game types and scenarios is the best thing about this BtS tournament, I never really expect to be near the top of the scoreboard.

**DirtyMartini** · November 19, 2007, 10:54

Sorry about the VOID/reload.

I almost never play archipelago, and I loaded up the game, played a while, then got bored and quit. When I decided to go back and play again, I had deleted my original game and had to start over.

I tried to play it as closely as possible to my first game, which had been played up until about 1000BC or so.

I figured with Archipelago, GL would be huge. I decided to go for that as a primary goal. I knew I'd be hammer poor up until dikes, so I concentrated on cash -- keeping open borders and maximizing trade routes. Diplomatically, everyone hated Louis and Ragnar and we all shared religion, so shortly after Optics I decided to go Diplo (which I rarely do). Concentrated on navy and fought many wars (many without actual combat) against Louis and Ragnar. Beelined Mass Media. Ragnar was my opponent. He'd declared on nearly everyone, while I had all but he and Louis at Pleased or better. Vote was close, but I got it. Fun game in all. Wish I hadn't voided my efforts, but I mostly played for the comparison with other players anyway.

Which AI did others take on? I took only one city from Louis the entire game and otherwise expanded actively but peacefully. Other Diplo victors -- how much warmongering did you do?

**jbp26** · November 19, 2007, 11:31

-i considered settling on the hill to grab the stone resource, but i didnt want to waste a single source of hammers. i knew i would be starved for production, aside from whipping, for a long time. i expanded as fast as i could afford, and sent out workboats to try to circumnavigate the globe (missed by 2 turns, meh). i didnt build many wonders due to the pressing need for infrastructure and the huge time commitment, but i did score the pyramids. this would prove to be very helpful, since i was running lots of specialist (excess population would grow back faster than i could whip it).

i didnt get any religion until i founded christianity. i was consdering building the apostolic palace to avoid any religious unpleasentness, but the time commitment was too much, but then i popped a great engineer. i wanted to add him for that +3 hammers which i was dying for, but instead i rushed the apostolic palace. i was the only one with christianity so there were no diplomatic bonuses at the moment, but it did mean i could whip a temple and monastery into each city (for +4 hammers). this was somewhat helpful in building up a modest army.

there was still room to peacefully expand, but why bother when you can steal cities and infrastructure? so i stealthy landed a slew of troops in an unpopulated part of france, and then dove in. this war went back and forth but eventually i managed to wipe them out. still the commitment of time and resources was too much, and i knew i wouldn't be winning a domination victory. i spent the rest of the time settling the rest of my land and fending off a few minor invasions before launching the spaceship.

in retrospect this game suffered from a lack of planning. conquering the french was a big time and resource commitment for only modest gains. i should have focused on develiping my continent and going for a cultural victory. alas.

**DirtyMartini** · November 19, 2007, 13:47

Originally posted by MikeH
Getting to play different game types and scenarios is the best thing about this BtS tournament, I never really expect to be near the top of the scoreboard.

Ditto

**Shalkai** · November 19, 2007, 15:49

Could some kindly admin please stuff a vote for "Played, but did not finish" in the poll for me, please?

I did finish, but too late by ~8 hours or so. No big deal, since I knew I'd be tight on time to finish this one with my late start. 6 hours of overtime on Friday, plus a late war with Ragnar, just blew my schedule (though the stuff from helmet-head helped my eventual score

) I pulled an all-nighter Sat trying to finish, but after 9 straight hours I was falling asleep in my chair, past the 07:00 gmt deadline, and STILL not quite done. So, I took a nap.

The game itself turned out to be great, and I was mainly playing to see how I'd do compared to others and be able to talk about it afterwards. I've got about a page and a half of notes I took during play, so I'll be able to give a good AAR. I'll try to write that up tomorrow.

Thanks once again to the admins for making this all possible!

Shalkai

**Anakha** · November 19, 2007, 15:57

My problem this game was not doing anything convincingly enough. I started lots of things, and then decided maybe it was the wrong choice (specialist economy), I wasn't ready for it (invasion of first France and later Portugal), or it would take too much time (going for a domination victory). In hindsight, I think most of those things would have actually worked out quite well, if I'd gone for them 100%.

Basically, I went almost without an army or even a decent garrison for far too long, but managed to get away with it since no AI happened to put together a determined enough force for a naval invasion (and I was ahead in (military) tech almost all the time). When Native America and Germany (a colony of the Native Americans) declared on me, I razed a single German city and got peace. When France declared war on me, I captured 2 French cities with a tiny army and got peace. Then I thought my time had come when on the same turn all AI's except for Portugal declared war on me, but in the end, nobody but the Vikings actually came to have a look at my beautiful Dutch island, and the Vikings I managed to fend off without too many problems.

Then when I was just about to get infantry, Portugal declared, while he was still defending his cities with longbowmen. I decided to upgrade some riflemen and go play with the Portuguese. That went quite well, until I refused his offer to become my vassal, and the next turn he became Ragnar's vassal. Took a bit more effort after that to still conquer Portugal, but I did.

A short time later, I noticed my lack of Aluminium. I therefore decided to invade Germany with some tanks, and took it within a few turns. With modern armor, I finally took on France (which I should've done a long time before), and conquered it. Now, I had the technological advantage and the army to go on invading some more countries, but I was also building a spaceship, and was too lazy to go on fighting, knowing that I already couldn't lose anymore.

This last thing is something I run into more often; no real drive to finish the game once it's clear that I'm going to win. So then I no longer maximize score, and just choose the fastest way to get the victory screen. Not that in this case it would've made much of a difference, I already made too many mistakes before that.

Many thanks to Nugog and RobWorham, your efforts are very much appreciated!

**Shalkai** · November 20, 2007, 16:51

After Action Report, Part One

Here's a look at how I developed. Stuff in the early years is noted in greater detail, as that's when I'm making concrete decisions.

NIGHT ONE:
Pre-start Analysis: First, a look at the game settings.
1. Archipelago - haven't played one for years, but should favor the Dutch, especially late-game. Will need a strong navy.
2. Raging Barbarians: Another setting I hardly ever use. Will want Archery early, also want to get Great Wall.
3. General early goals - FAST expansion, I tend to plod. Islands will require sailing early, maybe try for Great Lighthouse.
4. Note to self - Keep Military score high! Avoid DoW, keep good garrisons, etc. Always a weak spot in my game - I tend to not build enough troops. (Did I follow my advice? We'll see....)

Starting Position Analysis: NICE starting area. Now, should we move south and get that stone in the fat cross? Tough decision. Move warrior, then peek at all the corners of the fogged tiles for hints. Move south gains 2 coast, 1 stone, 1 grass, 1 ?; loses 3 coast, 1 ocean, 1 ?coast?. I decide to stay put - a move would cost me a turn, and a forest for future chopping. 2nd city will get that stone. Research plan: building workboat while city grows, so go for Polytheism, Hunting, then Mining. I might as well try and get one of the first two religions so I can make a few friends, and I like to get to Organized Religion early as well.

1st turn build: workboat. Research: Meditation.
3950 - Warriors spie a village to the west.
3900 - Warriors collect 25g from the villagers. Not surprising, considering all the shiny stuff they see on that hill over there.
3750 - Warriors get themselves lionskin cloaks, head north. The people learn Mysticism, start Hunting (I want to build a scout after workboat).
~3500 - send out workboat to harvest more clams. Learn hunting, start Polytheism
3275 - (after some production juggling) Amsterdam size 3, finish scout, start worker. Scouts head off south.
3150 - Found Hinduism. Great rejoicing (and conversion), start Mining.
3075 - Lions get revenge, eat scouts. Warriors swear blood oath against all lions, head south.
2925 - People learn Mining, start Archery. Finish worker, start settler.
2850 - Lose warriors to bear! (#@%$ - now I have NO units, not even a scout. Just the thing for raging barbarians.

) (decide to not interrupt settler production. Don't know how Raging works, but hopefully no actual barbarians will show til ~2000BC. Cross fingers and depend on culture borders for the moment)
2700 - Finish Archery, start Masonry.
2475 - Finish Masonry, start Wheel. (hindsight - I should have switched these)
2425 - Settlers ready, start archer. They head south to the coast, between the pigs and the big stones.
2375 - Found Utrecht, which starts making workboat.
2275 - Amsterdam (hereafter Ams.) readies archers, starts workboat. Archers heads south into unexplored desert, looking for lions, and tigers, and bears, with blood in their eyes.
2225 - Learn Wheel, start BronzeWorking.
2100 - Ams. sends out workboat, starts Great Wall (worker just finished quarry).
2075 - Utrecht (henceforth Utr.) sends out workboat, starts building barracks. Workboat from Louis XIV says hello, we wave back peacefully. Archers get revenge on Lions and Bears (in same turn!) and send trophies back home. They pack away cloaks for future use - waaaay too hot in this desert.

*2000BC* - Kill more lions, continue scouting south. f9 status check: GNP 38-#1, Prod 8#4, Crop 19#1, Mil 18k#6, Land 25k#1, Pop 49k #6. Demographics this early don't mean TOO much, but my army of one archer obviously needs help. That's going to be Utrecht's job.
1975 - Great Wall built elsewhere. Razzlefratz. Switch to Stonehenge since I have all these big rocks.
1875 - Learn BW, start Sailing.
1725 - Ams. completes Stonehenge (after chopping a nearby forest). Start outfitting a settler.
1650 - Learn Sailing, start Pottery.
1550 - Utr. completes barracks, starts 2 or 3 archers.
1500 - Learn Pottery, start Animal Husbandry.
1425 - Utr. finishes first archer, which heads to Ams. BIGGEST mistake of the game for me (you'll see why shortly). Start another archer for soon-to-come city.
1400 - Ams. finishes settler, starts granary. Settler heads south, to that big spot near the gems and the wheat south of the desert.
1375 - Settler eaten by lions the instant he sets foot in the desert!

Argh! That first Utr. archer SHOULD have gone south! Now is when I really, really wish I could have a do-over. It's late, I'm tired, I missed that the settler was *almost* ready, and I'm REALLY going to miss that settler now. Sigh.
1350 - Learn AH, start Ironworking (again, should have switched the order on these).
~1000 BC - didn't remember to save and get f9 here. Stopped taking exact notes. Switched to Organized Religion, but missed founding Judaism by ~6 turns.
875 - After re-building that lost settler, finally found The Hague down by the gems. First build in new city is granary. You can look at it as an 18-turn delay in founding this city, or putting my whole expansion behind by one city build. That'll teach me to pay attn. to Raging Barbarians.!
260 BC - I actually complete Oracle in Ams. to my surprise. I do a double-take when I realize the late year - 1200-700BC is normal in most Prince games. I take Theology and found Christianity as the costliest available tech.
~100 BC - Found Rotterdam, west of Ams., over on the coast by the Hill of Gold.
265 AD - I call it a night after taking a look at my whole island for current and future city sites. I currently have 4 cities. There's space for probably 2/3 to the north, 2 on the skinny south part, and 3 on the southwest lump with the iron. That gives me around 12 potential city sites on my "continent". I'll sleep and ponder the future.

(night two and beyond to come..)

**Nugog** · November 20, 2007, 17:03

Nice write ups!

Thanks guys.

**MikeH** · November 21, 2007, 06:22

I haven't played raging barbs before the games in this tournament but I haven't found them to be a problem at all. I still never bother with the great wall.

**Theseus** · November 21, 2007, 22:07

Just looking back at the final saves now.

Totally dominated as a builder... didn't get the Oracle, but Amsterdam was a GW/NW machine, with just about every GW that I'd want. Five GAs, I think, with (again) Dominae's approach to a specialist economy. Way ahead on tech throughout, which, among other things, gave me a tremendous diplo position for sponsoring inter-AI wars. Ended with 5 out of 5 top cities. Monster performance on the graphs.

Kudos to the warmongers... I didn;t have the energy to do IC attacks on this map, given my clearly-expected win building the SS (even without aluminum).

Fun. Very enjoyable builder game, albeit it ended up low on points. Pentagon-for-defense, that's a first for me!

Thanks again to Rob and Nugog; great series so far! (and I frickin' lovelovelove BTS!!)

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