Always War Deity on Standard Pangaea

[Mumpulus]

Founded in 2710BC, Hamburg is the largest city in the Kingdom in terms of population. The population was grown this large to construct the Great Library, to which it is home. Hamburg has a regular library as well, and barracks.

At 14spt after corruption, it has been our best knight producer for a long time. Right now, it is running at 13spt only and there is a slight food deficit. This is to allow Berlin to grow faster. I'll invest some gold to get the extra shields required to still finish the current knight within the regular 5 turn schedule. Once Berlin has grown, Hamburg will get the floodplains with wheat back.

 

[Mumpulus]

Konigsberg was the fourth city we founded, in 2310BC. It will become a true city in two turns, when it grows to size 7. It is building 10 turn knights now, going towards 9 turns after growth. This city is slightly hampered right now because of the lack of improved tiles, both in its own radius, and because other towns (Köln and Nürnberg) are using some tiles for lack of better alternatives. We have six workers in the vicinity, working hard to remedy that.

Konigsberg has a library and barracks.

 

[Mumpulus]

Frankfurt was founded in 1990BC to become a shield powerhouse. With furs underneath, the center city tile produces an extra shield. There's an additional bonus grassland currently used by Bremen, to the north. Frankfurt is building 6 turn knights for now. I'll try to schedule the construction of an aqueduct as soon as possible. Once the aqueduct is completed, a grassland tile will be irrigated to bring the northern mountain into play.

Frankfurt has a courthouse, library and barracks.

 

[Mumpulus]

Central Cities

The central cities lie between Berlin to the west and Verbotene Stadt to the east.

München - founded 1625BC
Heidelburg - founded 1275BC
Nürnberg - founded 1150BC
Stuttgart - founded 800BC

Except Stuttgart, they were founded very early for very specific reasons: to acquire iron, to acquire silks and to serve as a gateway to the north.

München has always been a very small town. Its growth was hampered early on, not only by incessant incursions by enemy troops, but also by conscious choice to emphasize production. München is our most important pikeman producer. It is well behind our lines now, so it should start to see some improvement soon, when our workers are done around Konigsberg.

Heidelburg is our fastest growing city. It will reach size 7 next turn. It has a granary and will produce the many settlers we'll need in the near future. There are still 6 jungle tiles surrounding Heidelburg. Our second worker crew is focusing on clearing some of that jungle soon.

Nürnberg has a nice mix of surrounding lands, with excellent commerce and production. It is unfortunate that it lost some population during the anarchy. It will grow back to size 7 in 6 turns. There is a mountain being mined, which should allow some decent production. Knight production is on a 10 turn cycle for now, but it should be possible to get that down to 8 turns without a courthouse.

North-Central

Three towns just to the north of our core are about 50% corrupt, but are still becoming very good producers because of the ample bonus grasslands available.

Köln - founded 1075BC
Hannover - founded 900BC
Bremen - founded 850BC

Köln and Hannover will require an aqueduct at some point in the near future. They are both finishing barracks now, to aid in knight production. They are currently at 5spt, but that will improve a bit to 6 or 7spt, so together they should be able to help a lot.

Bremen is constructing a courthouse. It is size 5 only and growing slowly. It is on a river however, so I'll probably increase its rate of growth or possibly merge a worker.

The Northern Coast

Bonn - founded 670BC
Salzburg - founded 530BC
Dortmund - founded 510BC
Brandenburg - founded 430BC
Essen - founded 310BC

These towns, all along the northern coast, are producing only 1 to 2spt. They're our trebuchet producers. Via Bremen, it will be possible to easily bring irrigation to three of them, and turn them into science farms.

Verbotene Stadt Ring

Four relatively new towns are placed in a perfect CxxC pattern around our Forbidden Palace town, Verbotene Stadt.

Düsseldorf - founded 210BC
Verbotene Stadt - founded 90BC
Karlsruhe - founded 150AD
Augsburg - founded 270AD
Freiburg - founded 300AD

These five towns have one thing in common: jungle, lots of jungle. It will take a while to clear all that, and to get these towns off the front, but once that's done, they'll form a powerful new source of both commerce and production. Three of these towns are on a river too.

 

[Mumpulus]

Back in 50 AD, I made a summary of military production output. Let me do that again, about 25 turns later. Numbers between parentheses indicate previous values.

There are 8 cities (5) building knights, yielding an average output of 1.11 knights per turn (0.57). There are 3 cities (2) building pikes, yielding an average output of 0.49 pikes per turn (0.10). There are 5 cities (8) building trebuchets, yielding an average output of 0.27 trebuchets per turn (0.40).

We need more power!

 

[Mumpulus]

IT
The Arabs land a spear by Berlin. Luckily, the Egyptians contact us after that, so I can fix tile assignment. The French pillage a road near Karlsruhe.

Turn 154 - 390AD
The Mongols experience a sudden deterioration in their trading capabilities.

My leader luck continues. The "Reaching Horseman" that gave us Hengest in 260AD was upgraded to a knight, and now yields another leader:

We're still at the army limit, so he rushes a marketplace in Leipzig. A big round of tile reassignments results from that.

IT
The French land a horseman and a longbowman in the forest between Frankfurt and Bremen, a new landing spot.

Turn 155 - 400AD
The Russians will talk now, which allows me to get an overview on the tech situation:

As you can see, chemistry is more widely known now, which allows me to lower research to 20% and hire some tax collectors instead of scientists for a long awaited cash injection.

I move out two more armies towards Karakorum. I spot a French settler pair approaching, I'll keep an eye on it and try to take slaves.

IT
Enemy troop movement is really well under German control now. I should have no problems to defend with the two armies that stayed home. I'm also pinging galleys in the north, and the ones I damaged turn around as expected. The French settler pair turns around too.

The Mongols and Egyptians are the only ones with metallurgy.

Turn 156 - 410AD
The actual ETA on metallurgy is 24 turns right now. That is at 40% science and at -7gpt, with 39 gold in the treasury. In a few turns, I'm hoping to get another cash injection, but not from our own economy this time. The Mongols have a lot of money lying around, just waiting for us to pick up.

The first pikeman in Karakorum dies.

IT
The Hittites start Smith's Trading Company. The Mongols have a whopping 7000 gold now.

Turn 157 - 420AD
First thing's first, let's try to take some of that Mongol gold.

The first battle of Karakorum
14/18 knight army kills 4/4 pikeman, 8/18 hitpoints left
15/17 knight army kills 4/4 pikeman, 13/17 hitpoints left
13/17 knight army kills 4/4 pikeman, 11/17 hitpoints left
11/17 knight army kills 3/3 pikeman, 9/17 hitpoints left
8/18 knight army kills 3/3 pikeman, 8/18 hitpoints left
8/18 knight army kills 3/3 pikeman, 7/18 hitpoints left
19/19 knight army kills 4/4 unfortified spearman, 16/19 hitpoints left

Karakorum still has its barracks, and the Mausoleum of Mausollos and Knights Templar of course. It also has 8 resistors (out of 8 citizens). I put it on wealth, because I don't expect to be able to hold on to it long enough to build a worker.

Metallurgy is due in 13 turns all of a sudden.

After this successful attack, I continue to clear out enemy units in our territory, and I am able to move a roading crew of 9 workers forward.

 

[Mumpulus]

IT
An ePike in the jungle is attacked by an Aztec MDI, but wins. I don't think I have seen an AI attack at these odds before. We immediately get our first crusader.

Turn 158 - 430AD
A most uneventful turn. Just kill a few units, move the army out of Karakorum.

IT
The Mongols attack the Aztecs! And we lose a pike covering a treb stack. Disease strikes Karlsruhe. The French finish Bach's Cathedral in Paris. The Mongols have gone industrial.

Turn 159 - 440AD
We get our trebs back, killing a Keshik in the process. I use them to bomb out a road to increase our security.

IT
We are defeating units on defense now, and the Mongols are still mostly targeting the Aztecs. Excellent.

Heidelburg produces our first settler in a long time.

Turn 160 - 450AD
I have to waste some army hitpoints to kill 4 Aztecs that would capture Karakorum. I'd rather take the Mongol money, thank you.

IT
The Mongols recapture Karakorum. They steal 3 gold. Let's see if we can get that gold back with interest.

Turn 161 - 460AD
Find the differences:

That last IT was a good investment, with a return of 12900%.

We are up to 29 knights, so I start another round of infrastructure builds: three universities and an aqueduct.

IT
The others fight.

Turn 162 - 470AD
Münster is founded on red dot 1.1, and starts on another settler. The French settler pair has reappeared, and promptly dies. One army starts pillaging around Baruun-Urt. The northern front is absolutely quiet, there isn't a single unit threatening or even approaching our towns. The south is more busy, but well under control with the many trebuchets we have there.

IT
Well, well, an Ancient Cavalry (Arab) shows up near Karakorum. The Hittites learn metallurgy, and the Aztecs are also catching up with astronomy. We get our second crusader.

Turn 163 - 480AD
Metallurgy has dropped to 5 turns.

An army kills the ACav, and I empty Karakorum again. It is at size 6 now, so this may be the last time.

IT
The financial loss in Karakorum amounts to 4 gold this time. That brings the Mongols to 8790g in total.

We lose a vPike and an eMDI in the Augsburg jungle. It's about time I stop playing, I'm getting sloppy.

Turn 164 - 490AD
One Keshik and one spearman later, and we hold the prize again:

That was fun, but now it's time to move on. I'll not give up Karakorum willingly again.

I'm starting to lose units again; those musketeers in the jungle are formidable, even when redlined.

IT
Our palace gets a new lawn. The Egyptians start Shakespeare's Theater. France acquired metallurgy.

Turn 165 - 500AD
Metallurgy has dropped to 2 turns at 70%.

Armies pillage and explore. Trebuchets bomb. Nothing new really.

 

[Mumpulus]

 

[tubaman]

Excellent work fracturing the Mongol empire! That will make regional dominance much easier to attain.

 

[Mumpulus]

Taking a little break between playing turns has proved to be a good thing more than once in this game. Even though it's been only a couple of days since I played the last turns, I'm beginning to see some things that I missed before. I'll have to rethink my short term game plan a bit before I continue.

Some noteworthy remarks:

1. The Mongols are about to get rifles. As soon as they went industrial I thought of this, and I wanted to speed up my actions against them. However, I'm about to get cavalry, so rifles won't really be an issue. They aren't going to be fielding cavalry, because they clearly lack saltpeter. And I'll have advance warning if they're going for it, because I can see what is probably their only saltpeter source. The Mongols are a good target to get some money, and I should certainly raze the cities that put Karakorum under cultural pressure. But especially with their new war against the Aztecs, they really shouldn't be the main target.
2. Like us, the French are about to learn Military Tradition. They are fielding musketeers and they have had horsemen in the past, hence they will be able to produce cavalry. They should be the main target for now.
3. I've been pillaging around Mongol cities to keep them from reinforcing, but also to keep them from building pikemen. With Karakorum safe now from out-of-the-fog Keshik attacks, I'll stop doing that, and just pillage their visible iron source. If that source is their only one, I should be able to still get some quick city razings before they can train too many riflemen. My pillaging efforts should shift towards the French. I was thinking of going for Hovd next, but instead the army I have between Hovd and Dalandzadgad will go looking for the French saltpeter immediately.
4. We still haven't seen much from the other civs. I'm assuming they're still in a lot of wars among each other. But when those wars end, we might be seeing a lot of new units all of a sudden, and stronger, faster units than we've seen so far too. I'll put every effort into regrouping our forces to be ready when that time comes.

So then, the new game plan:

• Two armies will stay in the Karakorum area; I'll try to take out Choybalsan and Baruun-Urt to alleviate cultural pressure, but I'm not going to overextend our troops here.
• One army will start pillaging the French.
• Two armies will support our settling actions according to the plan I posted earlier, and take out the occasional enemy city.
• Preserve our defensive forces and deploy them well. Don't get sloppy again.

 

[CivRulesAll]

You should really try to do something about the -65 gold per turn.

 

[Mumpulus]

You should really try to do something about the -65 gold per turn.

If I can capture one Mongol city every five turns on average, I will be at about 0gpt net. In other words, the Mongols are funding my research right now . At this point, there's little else I can do with additional gold. I do occasionally short-rush stuff when MM gets messed up by enemy units or when two or more cities just can't agree on what tiles to use, but I don't need that much gold for that.

I'll also be founding more towns, to lower unit support costs (at 54gpt now).

 

[Mumpulus]

I fix some of my own micromanagement before going into the next turn; another benefit of getting some rest in time.

IT
Every single enemy unit seems to be drawn to Karakorum. All in vain, because:

Turn 166 - 510AD
Our crusader and and army attack, and we take Karakorum for the fourth time:

Kill a total of 13 units this turn (2 spearmen, 3 musketeers, 8 longbowmen); lose none.

IT

The Mongols and the Egyptians have MT already.

Turn 167 - 520AD
Berlin is at 18spt for 4 turn knights now. Research goes back up to 80% at -87gpt now (still running 20% lux), which makes MT due in 12 turns. Seems like I'll need some more of that Mongol gold. We'll also be finishing some universities in the upcoming turns.

Kill a total of 8 units this turn (1 spearman, 7 longbowmen), lose none.

IT
We get our third crusader and our third palace expansion.

The Egyptians start Newton's University, so they're probably also in the industrial age.

Turn 168 - 530AD
Wiesbaden is founded on red dot 1.2, close to Karakorum. All our towns are on the road network now. We have three more settlers ready to found within three turns at most. Our roading crews have done well to prepare all necessary roads. It'll be a bit tricky to defend them all though.

Our French army (you can see the path it followed, look for tiles without improvements) strikes goldsaltpeter:

Kill a total of 4 units this turn (4 longbowmen), lose none.

 

[Rodent]

Without your leader luck, you couldnt have defeated the mongols, right?

 

[Mumpulus]

Without your leader luck, you couldnt have defeated the mongols, right?

Hmm, that's an interesting question/statement.

First off, this is Always War Deity, so merely the fact that I'm still alive implies that I've had a lot of luck.

But I don't think that I've been exceptionally lucky with leaders. If I'm counting correctly, I've had 10 so far. It's unfortunate that I didn't count (elite) victories/defeats. The actual fighting has been going on for 88 turns now; the very first combat was on turn 80, and I got my first elite right then. My estimate would be that I've killed somewhere between 5 and 10 units per turn on average, and that about 1/3 to 1/2 of those kills have been by elites. That makes somewhere between 150 and 440 elite victories. I believe that puts me on the low end of the leader generation statistics.

It took 21 turns of fighting to get my first leader. I think that's a rather high number of turns without leader. I remember that I had been expecting a leader much sooner than that, and that the lack of an army was becoming problematic. Getting your first leader sooner is a much more decisive factor than getting more leaders but getting them later.

The second leader came 9 turns after the first. That was actually the first real break I got, because it allowed me to push forward by settling. I don't think I could have founded Verbotene Stadt and later towns without that second army. I was really thin on troops during that time.

The third leader came 14 turns after the second. At that point, the most tense period of fighting in this game so far was just behind me, with a lot of victories, many of them undoubtedly elite victories. Again I had been expecting a leader for a long time. I named the unit that spawned the leader "Break-out Medieval Infantry", because I knew the third army would allow me to finally make real forward progress. I got three leaders in the first half of the fighting turns so far.

It's only after that moment that maybe I got more lucky than average. Leaders four and five came the first and second turn after leader three. Those leaders weren't turned into armies, so they didn't contribute as much in the progress made against the Mongols. My last two leaders became a university and marketplace in Leipzig, so they also didn't do much for our military.

I have five armies now. I used only three armies to take Karakorum, and I could have done it with two armies as well (it would have taken a few more turns, that's all). I think three armies would have sufficed in any case to be where I am now. Having five now has allowed me to make even more headway. The French will be without saltpeter next turn, and I am able to do some fast catching up on territorial expansion because I can keep my settlers and workers safe.

I think that even if I'd gotten only five leaders instead of ten, the Mongols would be in the same trouble they are now. But I would be in more trouble myself, against the French. Had they been able to field cavalry, that would have been a problem.

But to reiterate, I don't think I've been lucky on the leader front. In fact, you can expect to see many more leaders in the future. Then how have I been lucky? I've been extremely lucky on the geography front, and on the AI-wars front. The Egyptians, Russians, Arabs and Hittites have sent virtually nothing to us. The Aztecs have done very little. In fact, what they're doing now is giving the Mongols the final blow.

This game has had its ups and downs. Around turn 120, it felt as if the game could be lost any turn. Around turn 150, it started feeling much easier, and right now I'm thinking the game is in the bag. However, our military is still very light in the homeland, so a strong landing could set me back a lot. The AI wars could also end all of a sudden, and then I could be in even more trouble. So it could be that at turn 180 I feel like throwing in the towel again. Or I could just take out the Mongols and French easily, and then discover that in the mean time the other civs have come to terms and are forming an impregnable block that has jumped ahead in tech. You never know what will happen. That's what makes these games fun, right?

 

[DWetzel]

If I can capture Karakorum every five turns on average, I will be at about 0gpt net.

Fixed your typo.

 

[Mumpulus]

I've been thinking that I should have turned off cultural conversions. But since I didn't, there was nothing I could do but to relinquish/recapture it a few times. It was just a nice "side-effect" to get so much gold every time. The AI shouldn't be so stupid to capture a city they can't hold, and then let money lie around. Again, it's not my fault, it's Civ's.

But now I really want to try and hold on to it, to make sure I don't miss any of those nice crusaders. I'm all set to take Tosontsengel next turn, and Choybalsan soon after.

 

[Mumpulus]

IT
Karakorum always has a flip risk, so it is empty again. The enemy is drawn to it once more.

Well, I've never seen this happening before: a trebuchet dies from disease in the jungle . This of course happens after the unit support cost is taken from our treasury, which is reportedly running low. I'll let my domestic advisor have a little chat with my military advisor. He can help.

Turn 169 - 540AD
Our domestic advisor returns. She tells me she's had a good conversation with our military advisor, who's reassured her. This is what our military advisor said:

That army started at full health and had to kill a veteran and a regular pikeman. It'll be out of circulation for a few turns.

The army in French territory incurs no losses at all to perform its critical mission. After pillaging the saltpeter, it moves further into French territory to explore some more.

The Mongols are without iron, and their current capital has two armies at its doorstep.

Kill a total of 7 units this turn (4 longbowmen, 3 pikemen), 3 with elites, no losses.

IT
An elite pikeman is killed by an Ancient Cavalry.

Turn 170 - 550AD
Saarbrücken is founded on some hills northeast from Hovd. Aachen is founded next to the Mongol iron source, on red dot 3.1.

Our first army at Choybalsan kills 3 pikemen without too much trouble, but the second army goes down from 15 to 3 hitpoints (after an internal promotion) to kill the next regular pikeman. A longbowman stands to hold the city for another turn.

Kill a total of 12 units this turn (1 musketeer, 5 pikemen, 6 longbowmen), 1 with an elite, no losses.

A view of our two new towns, with two more settlers and destinations marked in red:

The French stack northeast of Tabriz consists of a musketeer, a spearman and 4 longbowmen. I have 6 trebuchets near Aachen to take on the musketeer, and a few knights to attack the archers. I can also move an army in if need be. I moved another pike into Münster after I took the picture, just in case.

IT
I lose a knight because I forgot that Keshiks can move across hills fast.

Then some good news:

And some bad news:

The Russians complete Smith's Trading Company in Moscow.

So it appears that we're seeing the end of the medieval era, and the dawn of a new age: cavalry is on the way, and civilizations that have remained dormant so far, are starting to stir. Did I say this game is in the bag? It didn't even take until turn 180 before I had to rephrase that: this game ain't in the bag yet.

 

[CommandoBob]

Turn 170 - 550AD
Saarbrücken is founded on some hills northeast from Hovd. Aachen is founded next to the Mongol iron source, on red dot 3.1.

I don't understand the reference to red dot 3.1. Can you explain that, please?

 

[AkK47]

real cool game

waiting for updates !!


btw first post xD