White founts falling in the courts of the sun,
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;
There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard,
It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips,
For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships. Lepanto - G.K. Chesterton - 1915 Full Poem
(Since I couldn't find any quotes for Sulieman the Magnificient, there will not be historical color text this time.)
First, thanks to Dalamb for hosting the series and Capellan for providing Hutless saves. Also thanks to Capellan for the Noble-level walkthrough in the NC 69 Bismarck game.
(The save is BtS 3.19 with BUG 4.4.)
SpoilerState of the Sultanate-875 BC :
Trying to apply the various things learned previously, but it looks like I made some bad calls. This game is not a disaster yet, but it has the potential to go like my Zara game where the economy was in a hole for most of the game. I'll try to explain my reasons for my chosen course of action.
T3: Moved to the NE-N position suggested by Dalamb, founded Istambul. Worker-Warrior-Warrior-Worker. Initial tech path: Mining->BW.
My reasoning was I want the long-term potential of the Gems even if I can't use them immediately, and the three food and Oasis still makes for a strong early capital site. Losing two turns though ... not something I liked.
Since this is a Large map, high sea with 12 AIs, land will be at a premium, thus a Axe rush may be necessary, so I will want to found my 2nd city to get Copper. The 2 early Warriors in the queue are for exploration and defense respectively.
T9: Meet the Khmer - Close, but not close enough to rush.
T21: BW, start AH, Revolt to Slavery.
T23: Meet Zara's Scout roughly to the SE of the Khmer.
T33: AH completed, start Pottery.
T34: Meet Cathy to my SE! She's too close, and she's an AI I prefer to destroy early. So much for REXing.
T42: Cathy founds St Petersburg, Zara founds Gondar.
T44: Pottery done, start Masonry since I want the Hammers for Istambul.
T46: Edirne founded to the south of Istambul to claim copper. It starts a Worker.
Spoiler:
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T52: Masonry done, start Myst.
T53: Meet Alex SSE of Cathy. Lovely, just lovely. Not used to playing against him, since I usually play as him, but he's usually been a troublemaker.
T55: Zara founds Lalibela and Alex founds Piraeus.
T57: Judaism founded in ADL. Myst done, start IW. I want the gems and if there's nearby Iron, the rush will go better. However, I did consider Writing to Alphabet and I think this is an important decision point in my game as later developments shall show.
T58: Suri founds Hariharalaya.
T59: Cathy founds Novogorod. I'm beginning to worry: she has three cities, I have two, and only the capital is productive. And there is no Axe SoD yet.
T67: Alex founds Marathon.
T68: Zara founds Addis Abba, and the GW is built. (Later I'll find it is Suri.)
T70: IW done, start Hunting for Spears since I see Cathy has Chariots. Now where is the Iron? Blast! Nothing close! Writing to Alpha would have been the better choice.
Spoiler:
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T73: Hunting done, start Writing.
T74: ToA built in ADL, Suri opens borders with me. (This seemed reasonable, since neither Alex or Cathy hate him, although Zara considers him "worst enemy".)
T75: Zara founds Yeha. The AIs are expanding rapidly, but I am not. I do have five Axes, who I send off to the NE to capture a barb city and get exp. Unfortunately, it autorazes on T78. It is a decent site, now that I have IW.
T76: I find Iron nearby. This is my bad since I did not explore effectively in the early game and there are still black spots in the west. The good news is that so far, nothing has come out of the darkness.
Spoiler:
Although I want to settle there, I think I need to go with the rush before Cathy gets any bigger.
T79: Writing done, start Alphabet.
T80: 875 BC - Top of the turn.
Spoiler:
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Right now I am more powerful than Cathy. I will ask for OB with Cathy so I can discover what the garrison is like, then barring any nasty surprises whip another Axe and go for Moscow. Alternately, hit St Petersburg first and raze it, then head for Moscow. I don't like that one since Moscow will add several garrison units while the SoD advances on it. There are very potential sites marked since my focus was on the rush, but I'll want to expand soon. One city to Site B to block Suri, and one to Site C for Iron, but there's better sites to the west. Site A was only marked since that was the first Iron I found, and is now low priority. My slider is set too low, but Writing just finished and I haven't reset it yet for Alpha.
I had promised to play when awake, but then again, nothing I do makes sense. Prince/norm/no events or huts again.
I tried the same thing but faster , and this time I was worse off.
Spoiler:
This time, I took a more organized tech path to get horse archers and attack Catherine a bit earlier. My original game was really late because my tech path meandered around too much for no good reason; wasted a few centuries or two. I also built a stable this time. I've actually never built it before.
I still think it's necessary to kill some of them. Not only do we have 3 creative neighbors that exert massive culture pressure, but all of them can plot at pleased! I'm surrounded by aholes!
So I was ready to crush Catherine's chariots and archers with horse archers. Except this time she decides to be smarter and asks the rest of the continent to attack me. Now I'm the worst enemy of everyone, and I see units coming from every direction. Worst yet, they also have spears to kill my HAs.
So I build a few axes to hold some of them off. Fortunately Sury and Alexander could make peace before they could do any real damage. I quickly grabbed Moscow and St. Petersburg. Called for peace.
Well at least, that helps make up for lost beakers...
All that was left was Zara. I took some crappy city of his to the east and he complied for peace. I didn't really have much of an army anymore, but fortunately nor did they.
So my economy manages to be even in worse shape then before and nobody will trade with me for a while except Sury, who gladly presents me with Iron Working for Aesthetics. At this point I only had 8 cities, I built 4, took 3 from Cathy and 1 from Zara. This wouldn't have happened, if Cathy wasn't a friend of everyone. They don't even share a religion! What has she been doing? One of the cities was pretty lousy, but at least I have enough for oxford and stuff.
Worst yet, I'm now completely surrounded by their cities.
Ran some scientists, built research, and got the Parthenon. I also traded for monarchy to get rid of happiness issues. The Ottoman UB is a godsend too.
I meandered off to music, since hey, Lib is kinda lost; might as well get the GA. Also grabbed the Sistine Chapel; if somehow Zara gets ahold of the thing, I'm totally screwed. Or if someone on the other side is going for culture. At the very least, I can combat the cultural pressure with religion... wait, why is there no religion? I took a shot at Philosophy and founded Taoism. Eventually, everyone adopted it and the island somehow became a religous hugfest, even featuring Zara building the AP. Well, at least AP dogpiles won't happen!
The Parthenon really paid off, being philosophical, I got a bunch of Great scientists, including a critical one to bulb education with. 1400... well I guess I did win lib.
Cathy Pvassaled to Zara as expected. But for some reason she leaves him to Pvassal to me. What? Well, I guess a few hundred years of trying to kill each other is just a minor thing.
I can't trust her to stay with me, but she's still of use because she's friendly to everyone. Which is a bizzare case where Vassal averaging helps!
At this point, I need to replace lost workers, and build more workshops/watermills to the east. It is still horridly underdeveloped. Also the cities are so sparsely placed, but there's no other food around.
I'm not really sure how to dispose of Zara anymore. I'd probably aim for Currisaers/ Cavalry and beat up Alexander. I'd have to beg a peace treaty with the others and act before they vote to stop the war... which they will. Founding Taoism is a double edged sword. Also running priests to get a GP to shrine Moscow. Stop automating stupid spies!
Also I should stop building the Great Wall and more workers instead. Barb phobia always gets to me, but at least I can try to steal some technology if needed.
All went as planned, basically. I invaded Egypt, took 4 cities and capped him. Moved against Byzantium; 3 cities and capitulation. Continued straight on into Shaka, who just managed to get to gunpowder before my modern armor took his last city. Took a couple of cities from Montezuma and he capped too.
Meanwhile, I sent marines to take out Ragnar. I'd taken all but one of his 6 cities when the domination limit ticked over.
Noble is a couple of levels below my normal difficulty, so a win was not really in doubt. I'm pretty happy to do it by 1920, though, given it was a large map on normal speed, with intercontinental invasions required.
At 780bc russia and zara r dead. I had 5 cities but the maintenance was very high. So I suffered slowly and just built cottages on those floodplains which dragged me to Monarchy. Then I could afford 1 more city for every few hundred years. Kiiling 2 civs is a bad idea, even if u can do it. Ive been penny pinching since 780bc, its now 500ad. Only good part is sury and alex r at war and we all confucian(I converted Alex) 8 cities now with room for 20 more but if I build another city Ill be pulling my hair out with maintenance again. If they let me get rifles the island is mine... Having about 30 beakers at 1ad is no fun...just built glib in zaras cap.
Started on Deity and pretty soon faced the situation when all barb cities were captured like second turn after been founded.
Have been mentioned many times already, but again, if you play on higher level difficulty(what is difficulty level, where barbs start with archery?), on first turn open WB and give barbs archery.
EDIT: Yes, it was in small font in opening post. Again, on deity I should add to barbs Archery, Hunting and Agriculture? Anything else?
Yeah I believe it is Monarch+. Makes sense, since the all the AI start with archery and barb tech is somehow based on the world tech level, rather than them researching for themselves.
Finished it. I found myself reloading a ton of times because the game kept messing with my specialists. NO SPIES PLZ!
Spoiler:
There wasn't much to say. Sury eventually ending up Pvassaling to Zara, and it was just impossible to keep up anymore. So I decided to just go for a culture victory; shut down research slider after Assembly line and built wealth/research. The Taoist Shrine helped matters a lot. The AP passed a defensive pact, so i could safely not build units. Well, Cyrus attacked for no good reason, and i didn't even have oil to fend his destroyers off, but Zara kept me safe largely. Brennus was going to beat me to a culture win, so I tried to engage in a phony war and got Alexander to attack him too. Sadly, Zara forced peace with the UN. However, this made Brennus very angry at Alexander. About 20 turns later, Alexander attacks Joao for no good reason and Brennus declares on Alexander again. Joao apparently has nukes, so I just leave them to their wars while I just quietly win the game.
the solution is not reloading, but learning to be a better player, managing your governors.
this is nice example of why I am against reloading. it´s a newbie sickness, that prevents you from better play.
then one day you try without reloading and realise, you are really a -3 diff player
The Ethiopians vassalized all the AIs on the continent, Sury through peace and Alex through war. The rest of the world was behind me in tech, and once I figured out Zara had a huge army I just went for science. Kept him happy so he wouldn't declare and teched my way up. Cyrus was a bit of a problem techwise but he was Friendly towards me for most of the game and I even signed a Defensive Pact with him. Towards the end he nuked the crap out of the Celts and took six or so of Brennus' cities.
Overall an interesting map, but my laptop couldn't handle it later in the game - between-turn times got to twelve seconds or so.
Restarted, gave barbs Archery,Hunting and Agriculture. But few turns in game I realize - events are on!!! Oh that nice to have that tin or whatever for +2 hammers in spot, but what's next? Slavery - my favorite civic, I am going to stay in for long time, but then I will need to face these revolts? All these diplomacy/nature disasters?
Is there way to turn events off?
Map looks interesting, would be shame abandon it just because of events.
EDIT: Never mind that, finally found out that events can be turned off through Custom Scenario option.
Very unusual game for me. 2 dead civs @ 800bc. Alex and Sury were puppets on a string(bribes). Used cuirassuirs for first time ever(they r amazing). Libbing MT is my new lib target now. Took out Sury coz Alex was friendly then turned on him with cavalry. Made MY island a bit tasty and headed off to smash kill burn after combustion. Used razing tactic a lot for coastal(it does get a faster cap) Had nearly 5000gnp at end. Might have even got conquest as Joao wanted a kicking too but this win(domination) type popped up. Good map.
For anyone interested: Deity save with huts/events off, normal speed, barbs got their techs.
This is turn 0 save, not initial one. In initial save barbs somehow lose Hunting,Archery,Agriculture techs. (This is clearly a bug - deity AI's get their deity techs, while barbs don't, even if you add these techs manually and save. I wonder, why haven't it been fixed yet in Unofficial Patch?)
Very nice map! With kind permission of authors I would like to use it for Deity Please! #5.
the solution is not reloading, but learning to be a better player, managing your governors.
this is nice example of why I am against reloading. it´s a newbie sickness, that prevents you from better play.
then one day you try without reloading and realise, you are really a -3 diff player
I get your point , and yes I'll admit my play is sloppy as hell since I spend like 5 seconds per move.... Of course, my problem isn't with espionage (In fact, Great spies were helpful, so it's not like I didn't make good use of them-- I pretty much deterred all enemy spies )
However, I am against "no reloading whatsoever".
First off, that just wouldn't be very interesting for banter. In fact, I already wrote this game as a loss up above. This is just a second try anyways, to see if I could do better. I'm not going to bother with the minor details as much.
I'm simply not going to put up with the crappy UI. If the pathing gets ******ed and somehow the units MOVE BACKWARDS and jeopardizing my war effort, I'm not gonna put up with that crap.
Or if I accidentially declare war, or click "yes" to that civic popup window.
I'm also not going to put up with random spy specialists. "Emphasize hammers" Right, that has a lot to do with spies!
This isn't a RTS or FPS where precision clicking is needed, and it's not multiplayer so I'm going to screw around a bit. I'm certainly not cheating anyone but myself, lol.
And no, I don't reload most of the time anyways. But one of these days, when I have the time I'll take some time to master the interface and take some more time. And yes, I don't consider microing each of my cities for the last 50 turns of a game and hitting end turn while nothing much happens to be fun either.
Consider it "newbie play" all you want. And you're right, it's probaly holding me back a lot from higher levels, but for events like these, I will sometimes screw around. Sure I could conquer crap faster had I stuck with the usual strategy, but that's boring. I want to see if x is gonna work under y situation.
Pulled off a late rush, made easier by Cathy's lack of metal, although capturing Novogord cost me six axes (which seemed high considering the weakness of the garrison). That slowed me down as reinforcements had to catch up. Am now trying to expand, since Suri and Zara have taken the sites to the NE of Istanbul that I wanted, and Alex is trying to cut me off in the south. City priority is for Site D for Silver,
Spoiler:
and Site E for Sheep, Clam and river tiles.
Spoiler:
I can probably cram a few filler cities in between my existing ones. Istanbul will build the GL once it is done with a Settler.
The Ottoman Empire is 2nd in power, Ethiopia being first. I'll be going for infrastructure development for now, but am planning to go after Zara, and will keep a wary eye on Alex.
Since many cities are at the Happy cap, Construction will be my next priority (Hammans are a good UB).
prince - normal speed
I have decided to try this on normal speed, even though the map is large, and see if I can at least get a time win.
BC 4000
given I have read the map script spoiler (by which I also started the topic about what should be spoiled), I except extremely though game.
worse case scenario: being stuck at few cities on a large map, with runaway civs on other side of the world.
so since start I will work against this scenario: trying to cover as much land as possible, and start taking out rivals.
imperialistic is helpful in both of this.
philosophical is good for getting the needed GP early, which is likely scientists.
I am really nervous. large map is +1 difficulty in itself
on the other hand, I have yet to lose on prince, with my worst games ending on T400/500 or so
but before I move to monarch, I planed to do large/epic and marathon/huge games as well, so this comes just in time for me.
although I will do this at normal speed, since I might be confused from changing speeds.
I will SIP, I am a player who rarely settles later then T0, and this position isn't bad. especially guven the hurry pressured by map size and number of competitors
I recorded the opening. It took me 3 hours to upload it, so I might as well post it. Didn't finish the game because I had 1-2 major screw ups later on. Difficulty is Immortal.
I'll try to get some better Internet or find a way to upload more stuff in reasonable manner.
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Prince/norm/no events or huts again. 
