[GEM] Kaitzilla vs. The World

[elitetroops]

Since this mod includes a lot of new features, it would be interesting to see the game progress through the tech tree and see how those features work out. While the religious influence victory might be a novelty, we could get to see a lot more novelty features in a space game. Or modern era conquest. And I wouldn't mind if this story continued still for a long time either.

 

[Drakarska]

I'm with Elite on this one. SV would indeed be a rather interesting story to tell, especially since most players like to finish their games early if they think they have an early win.
Might be a pleasant surprise to advance through the TT and see what kind of tricks the AI might pull out of the bag... Especially on Deity

 

[Noyyau]

Nukes?
NUKES!!

 

[Kaitzilla]

Conquering the world might not get to the modern age since teching is so slow.

Ok, Space Race it is.
We're going to Space.

 

[Noyyau]

Could you nuke the world while your spaceship is leaving?
"We're going to space, and the rest of you is screwed!" kinda thing.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Could you nuke the world while your spaceship is leaving?
"We're going to space, and the rest of you is screwed!" kinda thing.

Sure thing.

 

[Niccolo Edwards]

Conquering the world might not get to the modern age since teching is so slow.

Ok, Space Race it is.
We're going to Space.

Yay. Space Victory! I actually haven't gotten one of those on anything past Warlords (No BTS, no mods).
An idea for a modern military victory would be to build defensive stacks at choke points (and maybe a city to prevent the tile from being taken by culture) then building up your army as you race to the modern age. Once you get air power you could even just have the defensive stack hold its position while you bomb the enemy cities and armies. The only problem with this strategy is that it leads to an arms race, both in the tech tree where you are forced to favour military techs over non-military techs and in production where you are forced to have a number of your cities constantly producing defensive units to keep up with the enemy's (or enemies') offensive capabilities).
With your space victory attempt I would probably recommend this anyway;
1. You are sandwiched between a number of nations
2. You have a large number of mountains on your borders which leads to natural choke points
3. As you get closer to your space ship your enemies will attack you which means you should probably have an advanced defence so they don't move across your countryside and pillage your improvements.

With that being said you play on deity and probably know that already.

Could you nuke the world while your spaceship is leaving?
"We're going to space, and the rest of you is screwed!" kinda thing.

And here I thought I was evil. Oh well, I guess I'll just watch the world burn.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Yay. Space Victory! I actually haven't gotten one of those on anything past Warlords (No BTS, no mods).
An idea for a modern military victory would be to build defensive stacks at choke points (and maybe a city to prevent the tile from being taken by culture) then building up your army as you race to the modern age. Once you get air power you could even just have the defensive stack hold its position while you bomb the enemy cities and armies. The only problem with this strategy is that it leads to an arms race, both in the tech tree where you are forced to favour military techs over non-military techs and in production where you are forced to have a number of your cities constantly producing defensive units to keep up with the enemy's (or enemies') offensive capabilities).
With your space victory attempt I would probably recommend this anyway;
1. You are sandwiched between a number of nations
2. You have a large number of mountains on your borders which leads to natural choke points
3. As you get closer to your space ship your enemies will attack you which means you should probably have an advanced defence so they don't move across your countryside and pillage your improvements.

With that being said you play on deity and probably know that already.

And here I thought I was evil. Oh well, I guess I'll just watch the world burn.

Thanks for the tips Niccolo.
The best way to get to Space quickly is to conquer a whole lot of good land, so there will be plenty of war!
Once the Space Ship launches, only capturing my capital can stop it. (30 turns to Victory on Marathon Speed after launch)

 

[Kaitzilla]

Turnset 99 (T337 to T338)

T337 Continued - The defenses of Angkor Wat were reduced to 6%.

Spoiler :

Suryavarmen is reaching the end of his days.
The area south of Angkor Thom is so safe, I can afford to move every defender north.

Spoiler :

I'm also starting to move the wall of Axes guarding my northern flank towards Banteay Kdei and Isvarapura.
There's no point in defending against a Khmer breakout towards Biskek/Khotan any longer.

Spoiler :

.

France and Poland's armies have entered the western part of my empire.
No way Khmer is still alive before they arrive to attack.
Still no sign of any Japanese attack force approaching Khmer.

Spoiler :

Switched over to the Yue Empire.
Goujian has wonderful land and his army is exhausted from fighting the Khmer.
It is worth a look to see if he's weak.

Spoiler :

African scout reports far more desert than I thought existed in Southern Africa.
Siberian scout reports the barb city is named Yue-Chi and is guarded by 3 Axes.
Not really sure how it spawned without any good resources nearby.

Spoiler :

Forge 3-pop whipped in Khotan.
Granary 2-pop cold whipped in Nagara Jayasri, switched build to Library. (Libraries are the best way to pop borders without Caste or Music being available)

T338 - Barbarians: No deaths.

Mongolia made peace with Ethiopia. (Hah, he asked me to join the war last turn)
Ethiopia DOW'd Germany.
Carthage Peace Vassaled to Ethiopia.
Mongolia DOW'd Khmer.

Spoiler :

Wow, crazy events!
I'm sure glad I traded Feudalism to Ethiopia for Theology last turn.
Now Shaka is isolated in Africa since he already ate Mansa.
Hopefully he is dumb enough to pick a fight with Ethiopia+Carthage some day.

Angkor Wat has 9 defenders this turn, but it won't be enough to save the grassland city.
Angkor Wat's defenses were reduced to 0%.
Catapult won against Archer in Angkor Wat at 76.3% odds.
Catapult lost against Sword in Angkor Wat at 78.6% odds.
Catapult lost against Archer in Angkor Wat at 79.3% odds. Bah!
Catapult lost against Axe in Angkor Wat at 91.6% odds. OH COME ON!!!
Catapult won against Axe in Angkor Wat at 95.1% odds.
Sword won against Sword in Angkor Wat at 99.9% odds.
Sword won against Sword in Angkor Wat at 99.9% odds.
Sword won against Axe in Angkor Wat at 99.8% odds.
Shock Elephant won against Spear in Angkor Wat at 98.7% odds.
War Elephant won against Spear in Angkor Wat at 97.5% odds.
War Elephant won against Archer in Angkor Wat at 100% odds.
Axe won against Chariot in Angkor Wat at 99.5% odds.
Axe won against Archer in Angkor Wat at 100% odds.
Chariot won against Axe in Angkor Wat at 100% odds.
Angkor Wat Captured!
1 Worker captured.
The city yielded 167, 8 population, and a Granary + Hammam.

Spoiler :

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Traded Banana to Willem for 3 per turn.

Hinduism spread in Hariharalaya with Missionary.
Granary whipped in Vimayapura. (1st Khmer island city taken)
Library 3-pop whipped in Nagara Jayasri. (Overflow into Hindu Missionary)
Library 3-pop whipped in Hariharalaya. (Overflow into Granary)
Forge 3-pop whipped in Dariush Kabir.
Forge 3-pop whipped in Invincible City.

There is a good method to improving lots of Calendar resources.
Food is more valuable than gold, so after I have one of each for the empire happiness/health bonuses, I focus on the creating plantations with this priority:
1) Banana +2
2) Spice +1 +2
3) Sugar +1 +1
4) Dye +4
5) Silk +3
6) Incense +5 (Becomes #4 if on grassland, but usually found on desert tiles)

 

[Niccolo Edwards]

Thanks for the tips Niccolo.
The best way to get to Space quickly is to conquer a whole lot of good land, so there will be plenty of war!
Once the Space Ship launches, only capturing my capital can stop it. (30 turns to Victory on Marathon Speed after launch)

Excellent...
Brace yourselves; war is coming.


I actually don't know how much experience you have in modern wars but I'll try to contribute a little here and there to your current strategy in preparation for them if you want my help. ...And maybe teach someone somewhere something about modern wars in Civ. There are probably people out there who are much more knowledgeable than me, Kaitzilla may be one of them, but I've fought a few my self and may have some insights; with that enjoy (or don't - it's your choice):

Thirty turns might be a long while to hold off an enemy assault by every nation (though deity consists of basically doing that the entire game). The only problem I see there is that because you are playing on marathon the time you spend building the space ship may be quite long (side bar: do you have time victory enabled?) which will allow for the enemy civs to have more units than you; this is especially worrying if they have any projectable air power or even worse; nukes (especially ICBMs). Because you are playing on marathon each unit is precious, much more so than on normal or even epic. So the time they have to manoeuvre and build them (building of space ship, plus thirty turns) will compound the issue.

The biggest issue in modern age warfare for any army is air power. If you can negate the effect of the enemy nukes (SDI) and their air power (fighters/fighter jets on intercept) you should be able to exploit your own projectable air power (bombers [in your core for added protection]) inside/just outside your territory against the enemy armies to slow their advance by removing much of their health. In order to build the best possible situation for the use of air power defensively the strategy actually needs to begin long before aircraft are discovered. The more your enemies are forced into stacks the greater the "collateral-damage" will be effective.
Stocking up on air power and defensive stacks rather than attacking might be your best strategy in the times immediately before discovering the necessary techs for a space victory. I would actually recommend against attacking and instead focus on your defence once you hit infantry/combustion as newly conquered territories are harder to hold and you need every advantage in the coming war. The other thing I would recommend for the modern age would be to build air craft carriers with defensive naval stacks (battleships/missile cruisers, destroyers, etc.). You can then use this air power as a strike against the enemies core cities and their economies (towns and farms especially)/nearby resources to reduce their capability to fund the war/build armies.
With the world map there are lots of opportunities to use carriers to their full potential (two major landmasses, various islands and gulfs abound). I think you can send planes across the entire Middle East and probably most of the Baltics if you stick them in the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean. This would let you strike at the nearby countries economies while using your home air power to defend yourself thus delaying the invasion long enough for you to recover from the time spent building the space ship. Asia might be more difficult to defensively attack with air power but the limited land means that each improvement is important and therefore if you eliminate even one the enemy economy will suffer for it. The further away you keep the enemy air craft the better (you need all the improvements you can get) and the further you can project your offensive air power (even if it is just fighters on a carrier) the better.

As it stands the further you can push your lines east into Asia the better. Fighting a late war in Asia when you're trying to go for a space victory would probably be a mistake. If you can land in the pre-gunpowder age you could probably take the islands without too much of a fight, but modern wars are, again, all about air superiority and would lead to crippled fleets that could be sunk (4 units on a transport is a costly loss). Plus the more islands you claim/conquer now the fewer you have to fight over later.

Edit:
Shaka may be a valuable asset to have. Ethiopia is a powerful nation (most of Africa will likely be controlled by them), if you have to fight him Shaka may be useful as a staging area so that you're not trying to insert your army into the middle of a powerful empire and rather have an actual front line. Even if you just pay him off to attack Ethiopia to cause chaos in his lands (before or during your attack) it may be worth it.
Also; those plantations' numbers look beautiful.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Modern warfare is super scary.
There is no real defense, either in depth, troops, or defensive values.

I'd say it is mainly about who attacks first, and who controls the Oil and Uranium.

 

[Niccolo Edwards]

That's why I've always enjoyed modern warfare.
Basically until you get catapults you have to just brute force your way through wars. Once catapults come into play the stacks need to be spread out but the strategy is more one of your most powerful attacking unit backed up by catapults to weaken city defences (later this turns into cannons and calvary)
What's always enthralled me about modern warfare is that you can have a combined arms doctrine (infantry won't stop a tank, but an anti-tank will; while an anti-tank won't stop an infantry).
This of course means that you need to have infantry, tanks and anti-tanks but it allows a far greater and more varied strategy.

Modern war can be scary because there is little you can do in terms of defence; all your units are intended for attacking (tanks) or are neutral (infantry). To me (as you may have guessed) air power is a major part of my strategy. The other part of my strategy is naval power. With both of these you can attack and move with almost complete impunity because the AI will never be able to match you if you concentrate your production on them and the AI seems to place a greater emphasis on being able to beat you with land stacks than on building naval stacks.
A general rule for me is to have one city building nothing but ships (2 battleships then 1 carrier then 1 destroyer) while another two or three focus on aircraft (2 fighters to every 1 bomber - with two cities have one alternate). The rest of the empire can focus on other projects but two high production cities are taken out of rotation and used for nothing but aircraft production. This may be too much production taken out of rotation for a space victory though.

As you approach space flight technologies I would recommend figuring out who is likely to attack you and setting up carrier fleets in international waters near them. When they declare war you can get a first strike in by your aircraft without suffering diplomatic fallout for starting the war or starting one prematurely.

The first waves of air strikes should take out strategic resources (oil, aluminium and uranium to prevent the enemy from building anything useful for their army). Then follow up with strikes against food resources to kill off a few population. Then turn to the economy and take out economic resources (gold, silver, etc.), follow with with the targeting of towns. Air strikes against towns should reduce them to cottages instead of destroying them fully (until you have no more targets) so the enemy is forced to either destroy them themselves or keep the horrible gold production of 1/turn. Finally destroy any remaining farms and cottages.
As soon as you destroy strategic resources (first wave) the enemy will deploy workers (usually in large groups that are poorly guarded). If you have paratroopers with the commando promotion this is a great time to deploy them. The workers will be vulnerable. A group of 4-6 paratroopers should be able to take out the guards and capture the workers, they can then be escorted to their new "homes" in your nation or deleted to prevent the enemy from recapturing them. If you intend to delete the workers you could probably get away with fewer paratroopers as you won't need to guard them from enemy counterattacks. By the third wave the enemy should have very few workers left and will have to turn at least one city's attention to building more.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Turnset 100 (T338 to T339)

T338 Continued - With Angkor Wat captured causing its borders to collapse, I can continue wiping out Khmer's army.

Axe won against Sword 1W of Angkor Wat at 88.2% odds.
War Elephant won against Chariot 1W of Angkor Wat at 100% odds.
Axe won against Spear 2N2W of Angkor Wat at 88.6% odds.

Spoiler :

My 3 ship fleet advanced towards Lingapura Island.
Everyone else advanced towards the marble hill 1S1E of Banteay Kdei.
From that hilltop I can attack either Banteay Kdei or Isvarapura.

Spoiler :

All the forces in Angkor Thom are earmarked to destroy Lingapura.
The Super Medic Axe and the rest will temporarily move up to Angkor Wat to defend it while the Galley moves 2 troops to the island per turn.
Every remaining troop has been moved north since Southern Khmer has been cleared of enemy forces.

Spoiler :

City Maintenance costs are now 43.4% of my income even though my empire has tons of Courthouses.
All my cities have now reached -8 Number of Cities Maintenance costs (the maximum), so every new city with a Courthouse will cost -4 per turn + 1/2 City distance maintenance costs.
Checking some older saves, I see that # of Cities Maintenance maxed at -8 on T333 when I captured my 34th and 35th cities. (Rajavihara and Yasodharapura)
If I am intent on conquering the rest of Asia to go to space, then Angkor Wat looks like a great city to place Forbidden Palace.
It is 25 tiles from my future Lahore capital, and would really help reduce distance maintenance costs.

Spoiler :

T339 - Barbarians: No deaths.

Babylon DOW'd Mongolia.

Istanbul popped borders.
Rajavihara came out of revolt and laid down borders.

Silk connected to my Empire for +1

Started gaining city vision on the Yue Empire.
The Yue are a 14-city civilization with a very large fleet of Triremes+Galleys and plenty of cities down in the Indonesian islands.
Any naval conflict would annihilate my 3 Ship Fleet in short order.
Will move all 3 of my spies into position in Yue's 50% defense border cities in case I decide to start a new war after Khmer dies.
There's nothing better than a city revolt with the full -50% waiting bonus.

Spoiler :

The advance towards Banteay Kdei continues unopposed.

Spoiler :

And reinforcements continue streaming north.

Spoiler :

.
.

Hinduism spread to Yasodharapura with Missionary.
Hindu Missionary whipped in Ergili. (Overflow into Spy)
Hindu Missionary whipped in Dhaka. (Overflow into Moai Statues for fail gold)
Courthouse 3-pop cold whipped in Rajavihara.

I probably should have left a defender in Rajavihara to fix the unhappiness issues and save 1 population, but I forgot the -4 "We yearn to join our Motherland" could be so high.
Note that Rajavihara's distance costs are -9.74 per turn, a large amount of gold!

Spoiler :

 

[Kaitzilla]

Turnset 101 (T339 to T340)

T339 Continued - My strongest Axe and Catapult loaded up onto the Galley for Lingapura.

Angkor Wat is now my healing area for the Super Medic and all injured units.

Spoiler :

The BUG Mod in Giant Earth Mod helpfully reminds me that the next AP vote is in 25 turns. (The vote comes after 0 turns left)
It also lets me know that I'd have enough votes for a Diplomatic Victory based on my current diplomacy values. (If every civ had Hindu)
Note at the bottom of the screen both Diplomatic Victory and Apostolic Palace Resident tabs.

Spoiler :

Diplomatic Victory requires higher diplomacy to get votes (+8 diplo) compared to AP Resident voting (Pleased).
(Note that Toku is +8 and won't give me Diplomatic Victory votes due to hidden -diplo modifiers -_-)
Just like regular BTS, voting comes every 28 turns on Marathon Speed, every 14 turns on Epic, and every 10 turns on Normal Speed.

==============================================
Now is also a good time to study War Weariness.
BTS designers realized that conquering everyone is a great way to play Civ, so they put in Maintenance costs to slow down big empires and War Weariness to make foreign wars hurt.
I've only been able to find 1 good War Weariness guide by KrikkitTwo (Now a Civ: Beyond Earth brain) and it's for Vanilla Civ, so I don't know how accurate it is for BTS or GEM.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=181512

Currently I have 181 War Weariness with Khmer and 0 with Germany.
My largest city Pataliputra has 13 population and has +2 from War Weariness.

Spoiler :

From the KrikkitTwo's guide, we can calculate why this is so:

So the "simple" formula seems to be:

WW Unhappiness in a City=
Pop x Active WW/200
x (100% -25%(Jail)-25%(Rushmore)-50%(Police State) )
x World Size Modifier
__Duel=150%
__Tiny=130%
__Small=110%
__Standard=90%
__Large=70%
__Huge=50%
x 50% if Multiplayer game
x 50% if Always War or Permanent War/Peace Options
x AIs Modifier (100% at Settler..10% lower for each level up)
x (100+AI Per Era Modifier * Era)% [-1 for everly Level above Noble]
0 if you are a Barbarian


Active WW= sum of all WW from all living teams that you are at war with

With Giant Earth Mod, the World Size Modifier is probably smaller than 50%

WW Unhappiness for Pataliputra should be:
13 x 181/200
40% World Size Modifier? (Giant World Map)
Not a multiplayer game.
Not Always War or Permanent War/Peace.
I don't get an AI modifier to reduce War Weariness like the cheap stupid dumb Deity AI.

x (100+AI Per Era Modifier * Era)% [-1 for everly Level above Noble]

x (100 + AI Per Era Modifier (WTF is this? lol) * 3 (I'm in Medieval era. Should it be 2? Do the eras go from 0 to 5 or 1 to 6?))%
I'm playing Deity, so that's -5 since I am 5 levels above Noble?
Does that mean (100 + -5*3)% = 85%?
The guide is a 9 page thread, but no one seems to have puzzled out what it means
I'll just skip it.
WW isn't 0 because I'm not a barb.

So in the end, I should get 13*(181/200)*0.4?*?? unhappy faces in Pataliputra.
= 4.7*??
I've got 2
Maybe if Giant Earth Map was 25% world size modifier, I'd have 2.9*?? unhappiness in Pataliputra which rounds down to 2.

Well!
Even if I don't know how precisely to calculate War Weariness unhappiness, I can see what causes it to go up!

Your unit attacks their unit=+3 if you lose, +1 if you win
Their unit attacks your unit =+2 (win or lose)
You capture a unit=+1
Your unit is captured=+2
You capture a city=+6
You launch a nuke=+12 (WW regardless of culture)
You are hit with a Nuke=+3 (WW regardless of culture... this is for All players hit by the nuke)


2. Time events
Each turn =-1
Each turn at Peace= x 99% (rounded down)
(so if it started at 102, and you were at peace, it would drop to 99)
102-1=101
101*0.99=99.99 (round down)=99
This is NOT Scaled with Game Speed, so on ALL game speeds you can do ~1 Combat every 1-3 turns and not increase your WW.

BTS apparently modified this part to allow actions that occur on tiles that are 66% your culture to give 34% of the Raw War Weariness. (WW varies with your Culture % owernship)
So recapturing a city you founded that has no foreign culture or fighting in your lands gives no War Weariness.

Attacking in foreign lands and losing fights causes the most WW (+3)
Capturing foreign cities also gives big WW (+6)
Launching Nukes gives the most WW of all! (+12)

I'll try to keep an eye on War Weariness in this game since I've never paid much attention to it before.
==============================================

T340 - Barbarians: No deaths.

War Weariness with Khmer is 180.

Inquisition in Hazor removed all non-Hindu Religions. (Israel)
Enemy Spy was captured and killed near Ecbatana.

Traded Construction to Japan for 165 out of 310
(Be careful not to accidentally gift a tech away when asking what civs will give you for the tech in the trade screen)
Decided not to sell Ivory to Japan because the warmonger doesn't need War Elephants.

Spoiler :

Banteay Kdei's defenses were reduced to 11%.
Reinforcements moved up to capture Banteay Kdei and possibly Isvarapura next turn.
8 Catapults and 34 Killers is a big attack force! ^_^

Spoiler :

Lingapura wisely moved an Axe + Worker onto the jungle hilltop 1W of the city, so I was forced to land on a plains tile.
Lingapura doesn't have a Chariot to get a lucky kill on my Catapult, so I probably won't be attacked since my Axe is stronger than all 4 Lingapura defenders.

Spoiler :

Reinforcements continue to pour north as units around Angkor Thom quickly heal to full hp.

Spoiler :

Spies penetrating the Yue borders finally spotted a Japanese attack stack 1N2W of Linzi.
It has 4 Swords and 2 Chariots.
The 3 Spies continued onwards to set up City Revolts in Xuzhou, Ying, and Hangzhou in case I decide to invade Yue from the Chinese city of Linzi.

Spoiler :

Chopped a forest into a Forge in Sardis.
Library completed in Susa.

Siberian scout reports that the mapmaker is still evil and there is no way to sail a Galley to Alaska with worldbuilder'd Ocean tiles.

Spoiler :

 

[Kaitzilla]

Turnset 102 (T341)

T341 - Barbarians: No deaths.

War Weariness with Khmer still 180.
I thought it was supposed to decay at least -1 every turn?

Egypt is finally speaking to me again and is offering Open Borders.
I'll do the smart thing and wait until they are no longer Japan's Worst Enemy before making deals with them again.

Great Merchant born in Rome.

Angkor Thom + Jayendranagari came out of revolt and set down borders.

Incense traded to Japan for 3 per turn.

Hinduism spread into Rajavihara with Missionary.

Lingapura defenses reduced to 12%.
The 4 troops on the island will soon be joined by 2 more War Elephants and even more troops afterwards!

Spoiler :

Banteay Kdei's defenses reduced to 3%.
The 5 defenders have no chance of winning this battle, even though they are on a hilltop.
Catapult won against Archer in Banteay Kdei at 19.8% odds.
Catapult lost against Archer in Banteay Kdei at 46.3% odds.
Catapult won against Sword in Banteay Kdei at 53% odds.
Sword won against Archer in Banteay Kdei at 93.9% odds.
Sword won against Spear in Banteay Kdei at 91.2% odds.
Axe won against Archer in Banteay Kdei at 99.6% odds.
Axe won against Spear in Banteay Kdei at 99.8% odds.
Axe won against Sword in Banteay Kdei at 100% odds.
Banteay Kdei captured!
The city yielded 144, 7 population, and a Hammam.

Spoiler :

It's very tempting to bombard Isvarapura down from 50% with my remaining 4 Catapults and attack next turn.
Maybe those Yue Elephants will suicide themselves and weaken the defenders.

After giving it some thought, I moved my Vision Chariot to 1S of Isvarapura to see if I could spot that stack of 6 Japanese units.

Spoiler :

There it is!, ready to ninja my fat 11-pop Khmer city after Yue weakens it.
No way am I letting Japan take Isvarapura from me.
I must attack no matter the losses.

Isvarapura's defenses reduced to 42%.
Catapult lost against Archer in Isvarapura at 28% odds.
Catapult lost against Archer in Isvarapura at 28% odds.
Catapult won against Axe in Isvarapura at 56.7% odds.
War Elephant won against Spear in Isvarapura at 89.8% odds.
War Elephant won against Axe in Isvarapura at 98.7% odds.
War Elephant won against Archer in Isvarapura at 99.3% odds.
Sword won against Archer in Isvarapura at 94.7% odds.
War Elephant won against Axe in Isvarapura at 100% odds.
Isvarapura captured!
The city yielded 166, 10 population, and a Granary + Hammam.

Spoiler :

Khmer is down to 1 Island City mwahahahaha
I'll bombard it down to 0% defenses next turn, and capture it on T343 with 2 Catapults, 4 killers, and 2 more killers doing an Amphibious Assault off the Galley if needed.

War Weariness with Khmer is now 203.
3 losses and 2 city captures is 3*3+2*6 = 21 WW
Add in 10 kills and 3 Catapult victories to get +13 WW
21+13 = 34 expected WW gain.

The actual gain was 203-180 = 23WW over the course of the turn.
Huh, that's really weird.
Will pay closer attention to War Weariness after every battle.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Rome and Japan have captured some barb cities beyond my frontier and are really soaking up the barb attacks.
I've only gotten 1 barb kill since T329

Therefore, I am suspending the barb reports at the beginning of my turn unless they mount a menacing comeback. (Macemen or Horse Archers or something else terrifying)

 

[elitetroops]

Siberian scout reports that the mapmaker is still evil and there is no way to sail a Galley to Alaska with worldbuilder'd Ocean tiles.

A settler could get you across those... But the land you see could also be St Lawrence Island, then you might need one more settler to get across to Palin-land. Looks like you are not too far off Optics, and I don't see how meeting the 'muricans a bit earlier would help you at this point, so probably not worth it.

 

[Niccolo Edwards]

Over a hundred turns without a barbarian attack. Not bad.

A settler could get you across those... But the land you see could also be St Lawrence Island, then you might need one more settler to get across to Palin-land. Looks like you are not too far off Optics, and I don't see how meeting the 'muricans a bit earlier would help you at this point, so probably not worth it.

His rational might be that he wants the meet the Americans earlier so that he can begin diplomatic relations with them. He's proven himself an excellent diplomat thus far, if he can get them pleased with him now all the better against his enemies who will eventually discover them. Plus, America (especially the Nothern one) is a massive land mass with a ton of resources that are usually poorly cultivated. If he moves settlers and armies across the water he can take out the Americans and the other groups over there (which shouldn't be too hard as the American continents are general technologically less advanced than any of the Old World powers) it would secure an entire land mass for him to use for both protection and the land he needs/wants for a space victory (See the bottom of Kaitzilla's #308 Post; the last line). In addition it would also allow him fewer enemies later in the game.

If neither of those are his plan than I have no idea what he's going to do.

 

[Kaitzilla]

A settler could get you across those... But the land you see could also be St Lawrence Island, then you might need one more settler to get across to Palin-land. Looks like you are not too far off Optics, and I don't see how meeting the 'muricans a bit earlier would help you at this point, so probably not worth it.

That's a good point about the island.
Still, putting a city there might allow for trade routes which can be really good if they are intercontinental.

Over a hundred turns without a barbarian attack. Not bad.

His rational might be that he wants the meet the Americans earlier so that he can begin diplomatic relations with them. He's proven himself an excellent diplomat thus far, if he can get them pleased with him now all the better against his enemies who will eventually discover them. Plus, America (especially the Nothern one) is a massive land mass with a ton of resources that are usually poorly cultivated. If he moves settlers and armies across the water he can take out the Americans and the other groups over there (which shouldn't be too hard as the American continents are general technologically less advanced than any of the Old World powers) it would secure an entire land mass for him to use for both protection and the land he needs/wants for a space victory (See the bottom of Kaitzilla's #308 Post; the last line). In addition it would also allow him fewer enemies later in the game.

If neither of those are his plan than I have no idea what he's going to do.

Conquering America would be quite the undertaking.

Colony Maintenance costs are horrifying.
They are a great deal higher than distance costs or number of city costs.
I'd have to put Forbidden Palace on the American continent to make them disappear.

The city bridge sounds like a good gambit for trade routes, but I'd be much better off conquering Asia than America for space race land I think.

Just have to overpower the Deity AI.

The military windows are quite wide with 2 units.
I've never conquered more than 1 Deity AI with War Elephants crushing Archers.
They always tech 6 Longbows in BTS, but in GEM the techs take twice as long to research, and even when the GEM AI get Longbows, they will only be 5

GEM is a warmonger's dream mod, but I'd have to play it on Normal Speed once to make sure.

 

[elitetroops]

Very good point about the trade routes. Even if you meet the New World at Optics, you wouldn't get trade routes without Astro. That city could be really valuable. Of course, whatever trade routes you get would be lost if you are at war with the Japanese or the Yue/Chinese. But I wouldn't expect them to last very long in a war against you anyway.