ALC Game #24: Hammurabi/Babylon
- Thread starter Sisiutil
- Start date
schlaufuchs
Break My Heart
Now go and do that axe-rush voodoo that you do.
lol, nice Blazing Saddles reference.
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
Cole Porter, actually. Mel Brooks is a fan.
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
"It's good to be the king!"
I just played the round. I'll try to post the results tonight, but it may have to wait until tomorrow...
I just played the round. I'll try to post the results tonight, but it may have to wait until tomorrow...
Joshua368
Warmongering builder
- Joined
- Jun 12, 2008
- Messages
- 3,072
Wait, what? Patch or difficulty level?
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
I don't know for sure--I think it was changed quite a while back, possibly as long ago as Warlords...
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
Round 3: 2025 BC to 455 BC (64 turns) - Part 1
Once again, I changed tech targets at the beginning of the round. I went after Pottery first, to be followed by Writing.
I also changed civics so I could start whipping.
To that end, here's how I handled things in the first few turns in the capital.
I began, as soon as my civ emerged from anarchy, by putting the city into stagnation temporarily.
Just to keep it from growing and having to put up with an unhappy citizen for more turns than was necessary. I also managed the hammer overflow carefully. I wanted to whip two population away in two turns to maximize the whipping overflow; that way I'd ensure maximum overflow and avoid the empty build queue whipping penalty. If too many hammers overflowed from the Axe build, however, I'd wind up only being able to whip away one pop. Which would compound my problems by leaving me with an angry citizen left over as well.
Once the Axeman was complete I started work on a Spearman.
This time I wanted the city to grow; I wanted one extra, useless citizen to whip away on the following turn. Notice I also reduced the base hammers, again to avoid so much of them in the build queue that I wouldn't be able to whip 2 pop.
On the next turn, it was time to whip.
I put the overflow into an Axeman, who took 2 turns to build (I shifted citizens back to some of the 3-hammer hill tiles). After that I built a Work Boat for the 3rd seafood tile, then an other Worker. I continued to gather a food surplus until the city was within 1 turn of growing again, then I swapped tile assignments so that the city was in stagnation until the whip unhappiness went away. When it did, I pretty much repeated the process I just illustrated, mostly whipping Axemen, but also some Bowmen, Chariots, and Spearmen.
Pottery didn't take too long:
Before the round was over, I was able to start laying down cottages as well as building granaries in most of my cities, so I was glad to have researched it. After that, I went to work researching Writing.
I met another neighbour, too.
I can't recall if we've had Darius in an ALC game before. You can see his Work Boat off to the left. I'd gather that Darius is on that landmass I mentioned to my northwest. He also founded a religion, Hinduism, and has adopted it, which is doing him no favours in terms of diplomatic relations with everyone else.
As the round continued and I worked on my army, my power rating rose:
Good, two spots above Zara and Ragnar is way down the list. The power chart also indicated that there was a nice-sized power gap between Babylon and Ethiopia (in contrast, Saladin and I were neck-and-neck in power for pretty much the whole round).
In 1450 BC, I finished my last tech of the round.
Shortly after this, I decided to try out the recommended tactic of dropping the science slider to 0% to build up a store of cash to ensure none of my units went on strike, and to fund deficit research later on. I researched Horseback Riding next, following CivCorpse's suggestion to keep my power rating high. With Saladin breathing down my neck (and no, Islam did not spread to any of my cities), it seemed like a good idea. My research was so low for the rest of the round that it hardly mattered what I researched next.
I signed Open Borders agreements with pretty much everybody and sent a Chariot to snoop around Zara's territory. I found his cities weakly defended... and also caught sight of a Settling stack.
Hmmm... I decided to keep an eye on them with the Chariot to see where they were headed. I was nearly ready to declare war and had my stack waiting in Akkad. If Zara sent the Settler and its protector(s) my way, it seemed like a good way to start the war--kill the units on open ground rather than within the defenses of a city, and gain a free Worker in the process.
Sure enough, the Settling stack was heading north. I sent my stack to intercept them.
Before declaring war, I did a quick check of the diplomatic situation. Would the declaration cost me diplomatic demerits?
Evidently not. That's what you get for founding and adopting your own religion, and that's why I almost never do it.
So... time to die, Zara.
Now, I thought I would include a little bit of detail about the conduct of the war. Sometimes I just show a series of screenshots of cities being captured, but I think it can be informative to look at such details as the units used and their promotions, especially in the case of an early rush like this where I'm conquering without the benefit of having Catapults to remove cultural defenses and cause collateral damage to several defenders.
There were two units protecting the Settler: a Chariot and an Archer. I had a Spearman in my stack, but if I chose him, he drew the Archer as the defender. An Axeman drew the Chariot and had better odds. I increased the odds a bit by giving the Axe the best promotion under the circumstances--Combat 2.
He won his battle and earned several XPs for those relatively long odds.
Sidebar: you might also note that my Chariot got bumped from the forested hill to that plains tile. That was on purpose--I didn't want him trapped in a weird spot behind enemy lines. He had Combat I and the Medic I promotion, so he was my Medic unit (he'd won a battle earlier versus a barb Archer, you see).
Next up was the Archer. Again, Axemen drew better odds here, especially when given the Cover promotion on top of Aggressive's default Combat I.
With the Settler captured and converted to a worker by the Axe, I now moved my Spearman onto the same tile to protect the Axe from potential reprisal by enemy Chariots.
My other units were far back enough to ensure they were safe from counter-attack.
With that initial attack accomplished, I then marched on Zara's capital, which was the fastest city of his to reach--and had the benefit of providing me with a forested hill from which to attack. Opposition was weak, since I'd obviously caught Zara very much by surprise:
Once again, it serves him right for going after an early religion. Going after Meditation or Polytheism if you start with Mysticism is one thing. But Zara not only doesn't start with Mysticism, he took a long detour to Monotheism to get his religion. I'm pretty sure he never managed to research Bronze Working as a result (it certainly doesn't look like he chopped any forests). He has no copper in his territory anyway.
I won't post every screenshot, but I'll provide some additional details about the battle here in the text.
You might notice that several units in the stack still have unassigned promotions. This was on purpose. Rather than assigning the promotions immediately, I wanted to examine the opposition I'd be facing first. If there'd been Chariots opposing me, I would have made more use of Combat II as in the previous battle. As things stood, with two Archers defending, I decided to make use of the marginal benefit that the Cover promotion has over City Raider (an additional 5% versus archery units). This is a promotion I rarely use, but Aggressive, thanks to the trait's cheap barracks and free Combat I, makes it available to melee units immediately. In addition, I realized that I'm facing mostly archery units for the first half of the game. I often give units Shock promotions, and they usually wind up getting deleted when gunpowder units come along, so why was I being so reluctant to use Cover, another eventually-obsolete promotion? Especially when I wind up fighting far more archery units than melee units when playing versus the AI.
My first two Combat I/Cover Axemen wound up dying, but they served their purpose, weakening the two defenders considerably, so my next units received much better odds. And a good thing, too, because I was low on attackers (I actually had more, but they had attacked the Settling stack and were healing in Akkad).
So, at the cost of two Axemen, the Ethiopian capital was mine.
Another 133 gold to put into my eventual deficit research fund, too. I kept the capital--I mean, there's horses, wheat, marble, two riverside tiles for cottages, etc. It's not the most stellar capital I've every had, but it's pretty darned decent.
My concern at this point was that I'd now lost the element of surprise. In addition, I later discovered that he had another source of horses available. Would Zara now stock up on city defenders? Would he launch a counter-attack?
To be continued...
Once again, I changed tech targets at the beginning of the round. I went after Pottery first, to be followed by Writing.
I also changed civics so I could start whipping.
To that end, here's how I handled things in the first few turns in the capital.
I began, as soon as my civ emerged from anarchy, by putting the city into stagnation temporarily.
Just to keep it from growing and having to put up with an unhappy citizen for more turns than was necessary. I also managed the hammer overflow carefully. I wanted to whip two population away in two turns to maximize the whipping overflow; that way I'd ensure maximum overflow and avoid the empty build queue whipping penalty. If too many hammers overflowed from the Axe build, however, I'd wind up only being able to whip away one pop. Which would compound my problems by leaving me with an angry citizen left over as well.
Once the Axeman was complete I started work on a Spearman.
This time I wanted the city to grow; I wanted one extra, useless citizen to whip away on the following turn. Notice I also reduced the base hammers, again to avoid so much of them in the build queue that I wouldn't be able to whip 2 pop.
On the next turn, it was time to whip.
I put the overflow into an Axeman, who took 2 turns to build (I shifted citizens back to some of the 3-hammer hill tiles). After that I built a Work Boat for the 3rd seafood tile, then an other Worker. I continued to gather a food surplus until the city was within 1 turn of growing again, then I swapped tile assignments so that the city was in stagnation until the whip unhappiness went away. When it did, I pretty much repeated the process I just illustrated, mostly whipping Axemen, but also some Bowmen, Chariots, and Spearmen.
Pottery didn't take too long:
Before the round was over, I was able to start laying down cottages as well as building granaries in most of my cities, so I was glad to have researched it. After that, I went to work researching Writing.
I met another neighbour, too.
I can't recall if we've had Darius in an ALC game before. You can see his Work Boat off to the left. I'd gather that Darius is on that landmass I mentioned to my northwest. He also founded a religion, Hinduism, and has adopted it, which is doing him no favours in terms of diplomatic relations with everyone else.
As the round continued and I worked on my army, my power rating rose:
Good, two spots above Zara and Ragnar is way down the list. The power chart also indicated that there was a nice-sized power gap between Babylon and Ethiopia (in contrast, Saladin and I were neck-and-neck in power for pretty much the whole round).
In 1450 BC, I finished my last tech of the round.
Shortly after this, I decided to try out the recommended tactic of dropping the science slider to 0% to build up a store of cash to ensure none of my units went on strike, and to fund deficit research later on. I researched Horseback Riding next, following CivCorpse's suggestion to keep my power rating high. With Saladin breathing down my neck (and no, Islam did not spread to any of my cities), it seemed like a good idea. My research was so low for the rest of the round that it hardly mattered what I researched next.
I signed Open Borders agreements with pretty much everybody and sent a Chariot to snoop around Zara's territory. I found his cities weakly defended... and also caught sight of a Settling stack.
Hmmm... I decided to keep an eye on them with the Chariot to see where they were headed. I was nearly ready to declare war and had my stack waiting in Akkad. If Zara sent the Settler and its protector(s) my way, it seemed like a good way to start the war--kill the units on open ground rather than within the defenses of a city, and gain a free Worker in the process.
Sure enough, the Settling stack was heading north. I sent my stack to intercept them.
Before declaring war, I did a quick check of the diplomatic situation. Would the declaration cost me diplomatic demerits?
Evidently not. That's what you get for founding and adopting your own religion, and that's why I almost never do it.
So... time to die, Zara.
Now, I thought I would include a little bit of detail about the conduct of the war. Sometimes I just show a series of screenshots of cities being captured, but I think it can be informative to look at such details as the units used and their promotions, especially in the case of an early rush like this where I'm conquering without the benefit of having Catapults to remove cultural defenses and cause collateral damage to several defenders.
There were two units protecting the Settler: a Chariot and an Archer. I had a Spearman in my stack, but if I chose him, he drew the Archer as the defender. An Axeman drew the Chariot and had better odds. I increased the odds a bit by giving the Axe the best promotion under the circumstances--Combat 2.
He won his battle and earned several XPs for those relatively long odds.
Sidebar: you might also note that my Chariot got bumped from the forested hill to that plains tile. That was on purpose--I didn't want him trapped in a weird spot behind enemy lines. He had Combat I and the Medic I promotion, so he was my Medic unit (he'd won a battle earlier versus a barb Archer, you see).
Next up was the Archer. Again, Axemen drew better odds here, especially when given the Cover promotion on top of Aggressive's default Combat I.
With the Settler captured and converted to a worker by the Axe, I now moved my Spearman onto the same tile to protect the Axe from potential reprisal by enemy Chariots.
My other units were far back enough to ensure they were safe from counter-attack.
With that initial attack accomplished, I then marched on Zara's capital, which was the fastest city of his to reach--and had the benefit of providing me with a forested hill from which to attack. Opposition was weak, since I'd obviously caught Zara very much by surprise:
Once again, it serves him right for going after an early religion. Going after Meditation or Polytheism if you start with Mysticism is one thing. But Zara not only doesn't start with Mysticism, he took a long detour to Monotheism to get his religion. I'm pretty sure he never managed to research Bronze Working as a result (it certainly doesn't look like he chopped any forests). He has no copper in his territory anyway.
I won't post every screenshot, but I'll provide some additional details about the battle here in the text.
You might notice that several units in the stack still have unassigned promotions. This was on purpose. Rather than assigning the promotions immediately, I wanted to examine the opposition I'd be facing first. If there'd been Chariots opposing me, I would have made more use of Combat II as in the previous battle. As things stood, with two Archers defending, I decided to make use of the marginal benefit that the Cover promotion has over City Raider (an additional 5% versus archery units). This is a promotion I rarely use, but Aggressive, thanks to the trait's cheap barracks and free Combat I, makes it available to melee units immediately. In addition, I realized that I'm facing mostly archery units for the first half of the game. I often give units Shock promotions, and they usually wind up getting deleted when gunpowder units come along, so why was I being so reluctant to use Cover, another eventually-obsolete promotion? Especially when I wind up fighting far more archery units than melee units when playing versus the AI.
My first two Combat I/Cover Axemen wound up dying, but they served their purpose, weakening the two defenders considerably, so my next units received much better odds. And a good thing, too, because I was low on attackers (I actually had more, but they had attacked the Settling stack and were healing in Akkad).
So, at the cost of two Axemen, the Ethiopian capital was mine.
Another 133 gold to put into my eventual deficit research fund, too. I kept the capital--I mean, there's horses, wheat, marble, two riverside tiles for cottages, etc. It's not the most stellar capital I've every had, but it's pretty darned decent.
My concern at this point was that I'd now lost the element of surprise. In addition, I later discovered that he had another source of horses available. Would Zara now stock up on city defenders? Would he launch a counter-attack?
To be continued...
slobberinbear
Ursine Skald
Thank you for posting the whip/overflow stuff ... it's one of the finer MM points that I almost always fail to utilize, and as a result I don't whip enough, for fear of making things worse than when I started.
I totally agree with you about Aggressive ... its main benefit isn't just the 10% Combat I bonus, it's the flexibility to promote from the very beginning of the game. It's not bad in mid-game either, when producing 5xp units is Q.E.D. -- whereas a non-Aggressive civ might give his 5xp units CR II, the Aggressive civ can go Combat III, Combat II + Shock, etc. In other words, you get a lot of flexibility and power from just that little freebie Combat I.
And I use Cover as well. Not only a 5% boost above City Raider, but it's also useful in non-city battles (as you described) and on defense.
I also wanted to commend your patience on waiting for Zara's settlers to emerge. Waiting an extra turn probably saved you from losing 1 or 2 units (by having to attack them in the city) and got you his settler sooner.
I totally agree with you about Aggressive ... its main benefit isn't just the 10% Combat I bonus, it's the flexibility to promote from the very beginning of the game. It's not bad in mid-game either, when producing 5xp units is Q.E.D. -- whereas a non-Aggressive civ might give his 5xp units CR II, the Aggressive civ can go Combat III, Combat II + Shock, etc. In other words, you get a lot of flexibility and power from just that little freebie Combat I.
And I use Cover as well. Not only a 5% boost above City Raider, but it's also useful in non-city battles (as you described) and on defense.
I also wanted to commend your patience on waiting for Zara's settlers to emerge. Waiting an extra turn probably saved you from losing 1 or 2 units (by having to attack them in the city) and got you his settler sooner.
I'm suprised you didn't found the gold city however (3 moves northeast from Akkad), it seemed like an evident move (good production city, it actually pays back the settler hammers before rush starts and nets 1 happy and tons of commerce). Why is that? Didn't you find the gold just one turn after the round started?
Note that the one in the tag is not a real spoiler at all, but I'd like to stay on the safe side just in case (not sure if it's okay to post about things that are surpassed in the game already).
Note that the one in the tag is not a real spoiler at all, but I'd like to stay on the safe side just in case (not sure if it's okay to post about things that are surpassed in the game already).
Spoiler :
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
Round 3: 2025 BC to 455 BC (64 turns) - Part 2
The diplomatic situation began to get a little complicated. Remember that Darius is Hindu? Yeah, Saladin doesn't care for him much as a result.
I normally don't like to cave to demands like this before Alphabet, as it can limit my tech trading options. But I share a long border with Saladin, he was equal in power to me, I still didn't have Islam anywhere to improve relations, and most of my units were in the south fighting a war rather than in the north where they could have defended against an Arab invasion. So I agreed to his demand.
Meanwhile, my stack, now fleshed out by several healed units, marched on the Christian holy city.
While the city has walls, it lacks adequate defenders. This surprised me, since Gondar certainly had enough citizens to whip a couple more defenders as my stack approached. Evidently the AI calculated that the odds of my taking the city would be too high.
Nonsense! I lost another Combat I/Cover Axe, but my second attacker with the same promotions got luck against 68% odds or thereabouts. (You may have noticed that the second Archer lacked both promotions and a fortify bonus.) So I had a City Raider capture the city in the third attack.
If I can manage to generate a Great Prophet for the shrine, it will make a decent commerce city. I plan on cottaging it as much as possible--fortunately it has several grassland tiles suitable for that purpose. A pity they're not next to rivers for the additional commerce, but I've noticed that the tectonics map is very stingy with its river tiles--which is the only thing that makes it un-earthlike, since rivers are so common on our planet. But I digress.
While all this was going on, a barb city popped up in a truly serendipitous spot.
This was exactly the location some of you had mentioned: two fish, one pig, one incense. With 12 water tiles, 7 of them coastal, I also think it's an obvious choice for the Moai Statues. With all that food and that wonder, this city could generate that Great Prophet I need for the shrine. The only problem is it sucks for production until Metal Casting and workshops. I have marble, but not stone, so the Moai Statues could take quite a while to build there.
Nevertheless, with all that food, it's a darn good city site. I'd been worried about Saladin beating me to it while I was busy with Zara, but I now hoped that the barbs would hang onto it until my city-busting stack was free to head up there. It's always nice when the barbarians save you a Settler.
After capturing Gondar, my stack moved onto Lalibela--and there, they stopped short.
Creative cultural defense, walls, and four Archers, including one with City Garrison II. Ouch! And me with only six Axemen, 1 Spear, and two Chariots, one of whom I wanted to preserve. It seems Zara was starting to smarten up and defend his cities better.
Well, I had more units on the way, so I decided to give Lalibela a pass for now. I moved my stack onto other, smaller, less well-defended cities Zara had founded further east. Lalibela wasn't going anywhere; it could wait until I had more units, and some with additional promotions.
Meanwhile, Darius had gotten over my giving him the cold shoulder at Saladin's behest.
That's nice; it seems like both Persian leaders are the forgiving type. I usually find Cyrus relatively easy to get along with as well. I want to try to repair relations with Darius--he's Financial and a decent techer and therefore potentially a good trading partner. As confirmation, notice that he's already running Hereditary Rule. Plus I'm pretty sure he's not on this continent, so that reduces tensions right there.
So, on with the war, with a little less detail as I cut to the chase. Zara had founded what I consider a typically-tectonic marginal city on the southeast coast, right on top of another source of horses.
I razed it. It has very little to recommend it, and as you may have noticed my economy was now in the tank. (It was a very good thing that I had put money in the kitty, and was gaining war booty, too.) So I only wanted cities that had a lot to offer and would be able to pay for themselves, one way or another, very quickly.
Shortly after razing that city, I noticed Zara sending another small settling stack that way to reclaim it.
I sent a couple of units out that way to threaten the Settler. As I expected, the AI sent the Settler scurrying back to the safety of a city once it saw an enemy unit or two lurking about. I was near the end of the war now, and didn't want to play whack-a-mole with stupid, marginal AI cities all over the map.
You may have noticed another marginal Ethiopian city off to the northeast. That was my next target. It was only protected by a couple of Archers, was also on flat terrain, and fell quickly.
Remarkably, every single one of Zara's cities was founded on flat terrain. Not that I'm complaining, of course. It just was surprising, given the AI's usual preference for setting on hills, and there's obviously not a dearth of them on this map.
Saladin came by making the same demand, to end relations with Darius again.
This time I checked my power rating first, which I knew was much improved from last time.
Yep, Sally and I are neck and neck. I also had a couple more units guarding my two northernmost cities, so I felt a little more confident about holding off Saladin should he get belligerent. So I turned him down.
The only problem here, of course, is the resulting inconsistency in diplomatic relations I've now incurred with both Saladin and Darius. Mind you, that's easily overcome if one of them spreads his religion to me. The main point, however, is that I don't think diplomacy is going to be the relative walk in the park it was in the Lincoln game.
All that fighting earned me my first Great General:
I haven't used him yet. We need to discuss what my next overall moves are going to be, which may well determine if he'd be better used as a military instructor or a super-medic.
I had several more units now, including several Chariots who, as I discussed previously in the thread, could serve as ersatz Catapults. So it was time to move on to the last Ethiopian city, the only well-defended one, the one I'd passed on earlier: Lalibela.
Four archers, including that CG II unit. But also, two more Workers to be captured.
I attacked with the Chariots first, all but the medic unit. I gave them all Flanking I. The first two survived, the last two died. And they did some damage to all the defenders but one.
I then attacked, as you can see, with my freshest troops, using the potent Combat I/Cover combination. I lost this fellow, but all my other Axes survived. I left the honour of removing the extremely weak final defender to my Medic unit, so he could earn one more XP and be ready to become a level 6 unit when combined with a Great General.
Someone stick a fork in Zara, 'cause he's done like dinner.
I kept Lalibela, which I hope I won't come to regret. I does have several tundra tiles, yes, but it also has corn and deer and shares sheep with Gondar. There are also several grasslands within its fat cross to the north. I could either cottage it up or I could farm it and use it as a second GP farm. It can share/swap the sheep with Gondar to allow each city to grow to its happy/healthy caps. The other consideration, of course, is barbarians emerging from the frozen south; I'll have to leave the city well-garrisoned. Then again, the Bowmen have not really been tested thus far in the game; it might be an idea to post a few in the frozen wastes to fog-bust.
And there endeth the round. Besides a good-sized now-veteran army, I managed also build granaries in most of my cities, and a library in the capital, where I'm running two scientists to help with my moribund research. Zara is gone, but Saladin definitely is not.
The saved game file is below; a state-of-the-world post will follow.
The diplomatic situation began to get a little complicated. Remember that Darius is Hindu? Yeah, Saladin doesn't care for him much as a result.
I normally don't like to cave to demands like this before Alphabet, as it can limit my tech trading options. But I share a long border with Saladin, he was equal in power to me, I still didn't have Islam anywhere to improve relations, and most of my units were in the south fighting a war rather than in the north where they could have defended against an Arab invasion. So I agreed to his demand.
Meanwhile, my stack, now fleshed out by several healed units, marched on the Christian holy city.
While the city has walls, it lacks adequate defenders. This surprised me, since Gondar certainly had enough citizens to whip a couple more defenders as my stack approached. Evidently the AI calculated that the odds of my taking the city would be too high.
Nonsense! I lost another Combat I/Cover Axe, but my second attacker with the same promotions got luck against 68% odds or thereabouts. (You may have noticed that the second Archer lacked both promotions and a fortify bonus.) So I had a City Raider capture the city in the third attack.
If I can manage to generate a Great Prophet for the shrine, it will make a decent commerce city. I plan on cottaging it as much as possible--fortunately it has several grassland tiles suitable for that purpose. A pity they're not next to rivers for the additional commerce, but I've noticed that the tectonics map is very stingy with its river tiles--which is the only thing that makes it un-earthlike, since rivers are so common on our planet. But I digress.
While all this was going on, a barb city popped up in a truly serendipitous spot.
This was exactly the location some of you had mentioned: two fish, one pig, one incense. With 12 water tiles, 7 of them coastal, I also think it's an obvious choice for the Moai Statues. With all that food and that wonder, this city could generate that Great Prophet I need for the shrine. The only problem is it sucks for production until Metal Casting and workshops. I have marble, but not stone, so the Moai Statues could take quite a while to build there.
Nevertheless, with all that food, it's a darn good city site. I'd been worried about Saladin beating me to it while I was busy with Zara, but I now hoped that the barbs would hang onto it until my city-busting stack was free to head up there. It's always nice when the barbarians save you a Settler.
After capturing Gondar, my stack moved onto Lalibela--and there, they stopped short.
Creative cultural defense, walls, and four Archers, including one with City Garrison II. Ouch! And me with only six Axemen, 1 Spear, and two Chariots, one of whom I wanted to preserve. It seems Zara was starting to smarten up and defend his cities better.
Well, I had more units on the way, so I decided to give Lalibela a pass for now. I moved my stack onto other, smaller, less well-defended cities Zara had founded further east. Lalibela wasn't going anywhere; it could wait until I had more units, and some with additional promotions.
Meanwhile, Darius had gotten over my giving him the cold shoulder at Saladin's behest.
That's nice; it seems like both Persian leaders are the forgiving type. I usually find Cyrus relatively easy to get along with as well. I want to try to repair relations with Darius--he's Financial and a decent techer and therefore potentially a good trading partner. As confirmation, notice that he's already running Hereditary Rule. Plus I'm pretty sure he's not on this continent, so that reduces tensions right there.
So, on with the war, with a little less detail as I cut to the chase. Zara had founded what I consider a typically-tectonic marginal city on the southeast coast, right on top of another source of horses.
I razed it. It has very little to recommend it, and as you may have noticed my economy was now in the tank. (It was a very good thing that I had put money in the kitty, and was gaining war booty, too.) So I only wanted cities that had a lot to offer and would be able to pay for themselves, one way or another, very quickly.
Shortly after razing that city, I noticed Zara sending another small settling stack that way to reclaim it.
I sent a couple of units out that way to threaten the Settler. As I expected, the AI sent the Settler scurrying back to the safety of a city once it saw an enemy unit or two lurking about. I was near the end of the war now, and didn't want to play whack-a-mole with stupid, marginal AI cities all over the map.
You may have noticed another marginal Ethiopian city off to the northeast. That was my next target. It was only protected by a couple of Archers, was also on flat terrain, and fell quickly.
Remarkably, every single one of Zara's cities was founded on flat terrain. Not that I'm complaining, of course. It just was surprising, given the AI's usual preference for setting on hills, and there's obviously not a dearth of them on this map.
Saladin came by making the same demand, to end relations with Darius again.
This time I checked my power rating first, which I knew was much improved from last time.
Yep, Sally and I are neck and neck. I also had a couple more units guarding my two northernmost cities, so I felt a little more confident about holding off Saladin should he get belligerent. So I turned him down.
The only problem here, of course, is the resulting inconsistency in diplomatic relations I've now incurred with both Saladin and Darius. Mind you, that's easily overcome if one of them spreads his religion to me. The main point, however, is that I don't think diplomacy is going to be the relative walk in the park it was in the Lincoln game.
All that fighting earned me my first Great General:
I haven't used him yet. We need to discuss what my next overall moves are going to be, which may well determine if he'd be better used as a military instructor or a super-medic.
I had several more units now, including several Chariots who, as I discussed previously in the thread, could serve as ersatz Catapults. So it was time to move on to the last Ethiopian city, the only well-defended one, the one I'd passed on earlier: Lalibela.
Four archers, including that CG II unit. But also, two more Workers to be captured.
I attacked with the Chariots first, all but the medic unit. I gave them all Flanking I. The first two survived, the last two died. And they did some damage to all the defenders but one.
I then attacked, as you can see, with my freshest troops, using the potent Combat I/Cover combination. I lost this fellow, but all my other Axes survived. I left the honour of removing the extremely weak final defender to my Medic unit, so he could earn one more XP and be ready to become a level 6 unit when combined with a Great General.
Someone stick a fork in Zara, 'cause he's done like dinner.
I kept Lalibela, which I hope I won't come to regret. I does have several tundra tiles, yes, but it also has corn and deer and shares sheep with Gondar. There are also several grasslands within its fat cross to the north. I could either cottage it up or I could farm it and use it as a second GP farm. It can share/swap the sheep with Gondar to allow each city to grow to its happy/healthy caps. The other consideration, of course, is barbarians emerging from the frozen south; I'll have to leave the city well-garrisoned. Then again, the Bowmen have not really been tested thus far in the game; it might be an idea to post a few in the frozen wastes to fog-bust.
And there endeth the round. Besides a good-sized now-veteran army, I managed also build granaries in most of my cities, and a library in the capital, where I'm running two scientists to help with my moribund research. Zara is gone, but Saladin definitely is not.
The saved game file is below; a state-of-the-world post will follow.
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
As I recall, Saladin beat me there pretty darned quickly. But there's another potential gold site out the east, as you'll see, which we should discuss.
That's strange cause when I tried playing the round myself (from your save), I managed to found a city there easily even when I went worker -> granary -> settler, and after that I realized that going for settler first would actually be even better. I think I remember Sally sending a settler somewhere (spotted with the exploring warrior), but I don't know when it was (probably after 3rd city founded tho)
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
The State of the World, 455 BC
First off, a look at the map of the known world:
Obviously, I still have some exploring to do, which I think would be better done by Chariots than by Scouts at this point. As I mentioned to csarmi above, there's a potential city site in the far east, 2E of the gold. It would claim that gold, as well as another pig tile and fish. With that food surplus it could easily work the gold and pay for itself--not to mention, the additional happiness would allow me to have larger cities running more specialists and/or working more cottages (looks like I'm heading for a hybrid economy, which is frankly my favourite type). So... despite my economic sitch, should I rush a Settler over there?
And what of the barb city NW of Babylon? I was thinking of moving my stack to the edge of Babylon's borders while parking one unit outside the city. If Saladin or anyone else looks like they're about to take the city, I'll attack; otherwise, I'll leave it until I can better afford it.
Also later on, I can plunk a city down on the SW coast near that sheep tile. But I think it can wait.
Domestic advisor:
So... one civ eliminated and five cities before the BCs are over. Not too bad, I reckon. Yes, I'm focused now on getting those libraries in place, though to be honest, thanks to stalling research for a good chunk of the round, I don't have many build options, and more units at this point would just drive my economy further into the turf.
Foreign advisor, relations:
Unlike the last game, no one's too happy with me, and that may not change for some time. Read on...
Foreign Advisor, Glance:
Again, nothing too stellar happening here, though Saladin and Ragnar are becoming BFFs thanks to their shared religion. Sigh...
Foreign Advisor/Info, with trade routes and civics.
Of course I still lack Sailing, and it occurs to me that I may not even have a road that connects with one of Saladin's, hence the dismal trade route status. And like I said, look at Darius with Monarchy already! As it turns out, he built the Oracle, so that was no doubt his free tech.
I should also mention that no one has Alphabet yet, so no tech trading... not that I'm likely to be in a position to have anything to offer.
Military Advisor:
So I have a respectable-sized military. Conquering Zara cost me 7 Axemen and 2 Chariots. I gained nearly 700 gold, three cities (including that holy city), a Great General, and five Workers. Worth it? You bet. It's good land, too.
Now, the religious situation:
That's right, Zara's early religion he was so amped on spread to all of my cities. Well, several of his had it already, of course. So now I face a difficult choice. I could convert to Christianity and gain +1
in every single city. But I'd become a pariah to all the known civs and probably to any others that may be lurking in the fog. On the other hand, becoming either Muslim or Hindu depends on either Saladin or Darius sending a missionary to a city that already has a religion. I've noticed the AI is not fond of doing that since the odds of success are lower. This could make the diplomatic situation a bit difficult.
I also need to generate a Great Prophet for the shrine income, so we need to figure out how to do that.
Info Screen - Power:
So far, so good. This is another beneficial result of an early rush--despite the drag on the economy, I have a large enough army that should act as a deterrent to invasion for a while.
Demographics:
#8 in GNP... well, that's no surprise! Well, I did just end a war, and it's early in the game on Immortal level, so I expect my rankings here to be quite low.
And that's it! So, we now have to talk about how to rebuild after the war. What to research, how to get the economy back on track, how to improve diplomatic relations, should I found the cities I mentioned above or wait, should I use my army to go after Saladin or leave him be, etc., etc.
I won the war, but I don't want it to by a Pyhrric victory. Let's get this train back on the tracks, gang!
First off, a look at the map of the known world:
Obviously, I still have some exploring to do, which I think would be better done by Chariots than by Scouts at this point. As I mentioned to csarmi above, there's a potential city site in the far east, 2E of the gold. It would claim that gold, as well as another pig tile and fish. With that food surplus it could easily work the gold and pay for itself--not to mention, the additional happiness would allow me to have larger cities running more specialists and/or working more cottages (looks like I'm heading for a hybrid economy, which is frankly my favourite type). So... despite my economic sitch, should I rush a Settler over there?
And what of the barb city NW of Babylon? I was thinking of moving my stack to the edge of Babylon's borders while parking one unit outside the city. If Saladin or anyone else looks like they're about to take the city, I'll attack; otherwise, I'll leave it until I can better afford it.
Also later on, I can plunk a city down on the SW coast near that sheep tile. But I think it can wait.
Domestic advisor:
So... one civ eliminated and five cities before the BCs are over. Not too bad, I reckon. Yes, I'm focused now on getting those libraries in place, though to be honest, thanks to stalling research for a good chunk of the round, I don't have many build options, and more units at this point would just drive my economy further into the turf.
Foreign advisor, relations:
Unlike the last game, no one's too happy with me, and that may not change for some time. Read on...
Foreign Advisor, Glance:
Again, nothing too stellar happening here, though Saladin and Ragnar are becoming BFFs thanks to their shared religion. Sigh...
Foreign Advisor/Info, with trade routes and civics.
Of course I still lack Sailing, and it occurs to me that I may not even have a road that connects with one of Saladin's, hence the dismal trade route status. And like I said, look at Darius with Monarchy already! As it turns out, he built the Oracle, so that was no doubt his free tech.
I should also mention that no one has Alphabet yet, so no tech trading... not that I'm likely to be in a position to have anything to offer.
Military Advisor:
So I have a respectable-sized military. Conquering Zara cost me 7 Axemen and 2 Chariots. I gained nearly 700 gold, three cities (including that holy city), a Great General, and five Workers. Worth it? You bet. It's good land, too.
Now, the religious situation:
That's right, Zara's early religion he was so amped on spread to all of my cities. Well, several of his had it already, of course. So now I face a difficult choice. I could convert to Christianity and gain +1
in every single city. But I'd become a pariah to all the known civs and probably to any others that may be lurking in the fog. On the other hand, becoming either Muslim or Hindu depends on either Saladin or Darius sending a missionary to a city that already has a religion. I've noticed the AI is not fond of doing that since the odds of success are lower. This could make the diplomatic situation a bit difficult. I also need to generate a Great Prophet for the shrine income, so we need to figure out how to do that.
Info Screen - Power:
So far, so good. This is another beneficial result of an early rush--despite the drag on the economy, I have a large enough army that should act as a deterrent to invasion for a while.
Demographics:
#8 in GNP... well, that's no surprise! Well, I did just end a war, and it's early in the game on Immortal level, so I expect my rankings here to be quite low.
And that's it! So, we now have to talk about how to rebuild after the war. What to research, how to get the economy back on track, how to improve diplomatic relations, should I found the cities I mentioned above or wait, should I use my army to go after Saladin or leave him be, etc., etc.
I won the war, but I don't want it to by a Pyhrric victory. Let's get this train back on the tracks, gang!
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
It's possible I just didn't notice. I was focused on the war; when I saw the gold, I'm pretty sure I thought that Saladin was going to get there before me and didn't even consider trying to rush a Settler there.
Actually Darius is running Vassalage, so he has Feudalism. That was probably his free tech.
What about trying to convert Ragnar to Christianity? When your scouts get around to finding him you should see how many of his cities have Islam. It may not take that many missionaries.
BTW: I assume you noticed the curious plains mine next to Addis Abbaba. I wonder what you're going to find there.
Whiskey_Lord
Deity
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2008
- Messages
- 2,163
Whip libraries everywhere and go scientists where the food allows it. You should try to get Monarchy soon so that you can use your units laying around to boost happy caps and thus allow for more productive cities. Don't worry about building a shrine just yet. Saladin with his Madrassas will build one for you and you can just take it after you've recovered your economy. Your GPs should be scientists so you can bulb more important techs.
Did you notice that Addis Ababa had as iron mine? I guess Zara wasn't as backward as we all thought...
I'm astonished that you haven't built a road connecting your empire to Saladin's; you have open borders with everyone but NO trade routes with anyone but Zara (until you smooshed him) which is why your economy's tanked and you didn't get any religion except Xtianity. Also, the barb city is preventing any trade via coast.
Pig/Fish/Gold would be an awesome city, unfortunately it's a pipe dream until your economy improves. I'd also recommend a city 1W of the corn near the sheep & horse, and get some culture buildings in there so you'll eventually claim the whales as well.
Why are you researching HBR?? Currency or CoL would make more sense at this point.
I'm astonished that you haven't built a road connecting your empire to Saladin's; you have open borders with everyone but NO trade routes with anyone but Zara (until you smooshed him) which is why your economy's tanked and you didn't get any religion except Xtianity. Also, the barb city is preventing any trade via coast.
Pig/Fish/Gold would be an awesome city, unfortunately it's a pipe dream until your economy improves. I'd also recommend a city 1W of the corn near the sheep & horse, and get some culture buildings in there so you'll eventually claim the whales as well.
Why are you researching HBR?? Currency or CoL would make more sense at this point.
Bandobras Took
Emperor
Woohoo! Way to pulverize Zara!
At any rate, I think Code of Laws through Priesthood should be your next focus. Temples will help somewhat with generating a Great Prophet as well as give you some happiness, and Courthouses go without saying.
Diplomatically, I think upsetting Darius is a safer situation than upsetting Saladin. Especially with Ragnar being Saladin's lapdog. Darius doesn't seem to be connected by land, so any potential invasion will take more time. It's also far more likely that Saladin, sharing your borders, will send a missionary your way.
At any rate, I think Code of Laws through Priesthood should be your next focus. Temples will help somewhat with generating a Great Prophet as well as give you some happiness, and Courthouses go without saying.
Diplomatically, I think upsetting Darius is a safer situation than upsetting Saladin. Especially with Ragnar being Saladin's lapdog. Darius doesn't seem to be connected by land, so any potential invasion will take more time. It's also far more likely that Saladin, sharing your borders, will send a missionary your way.
rupertmonkey
Chieftain
- Joined
- Sep 26, 2007
- Messages
- 35
I never recommend that people become Christian, but I'll make an exception here. Divert to monotheism and get OR to help with your libraries and whatnot. Yeah, the AIs won't like you, but you're smarter and better at war.
Also, save the forests around one of Zara's cities for a National Park. A long way off, but I love the National Park.
Also, save the forests around one of Zara's cities for a National Park. A long way off, but I love the National Park.
