Challenge-VI-02

Nope not really or atleast I haven't noticed it against Pacal.
You lose quite a few of them but they are rather easely replaced.
You can easely outproduce an AI with like 5 cities with your continent spanning empire.
So unless the AI hits rifles or has a huge empire you can just run them over with your mass numbers.

I guess that makes sense. It also suggests room for considerable improvement because I *did* use cavalry .

With the better players like yourself, yeah it could potentially mean a lot of improvement in time.
For me, I'm not sure I can do much better at this point. Need a lot more practice for that.

Ric said:

With the better players like yourself, yeah it could potentially mean a lot of improvement in time.
For me, I'm not sure I can do much better at this point. Need a lot more practice for that.

Click to expand...

I'm rarely competitive for top finishes though .

Still you're a lot better then me, you were able to get to cav and get a much better date.
I'm probably not even going to get any competitive date/score for any game.
I'm just going to enjoy the games and try to finish all of them.

all of this written suppose the save will be accepted (want to write it as I have it in mind).

Was thinking that I am aiming for sub-1650 victory, didn't happen :-(, 1735 was it.

I wanted to share interesting strategy for early game (not sure if someone will find it interesting because the end date was bad).

I remembered that vicawoo in S&T sub forum experienced with early caste and expansive granaries, so I gave it a go.
It is essential to get Oracle->CoL, which on Emperor isn't that dangerous, so I looked for start with enough trees with agri resources.
It is important/good to have at least 1-2 high food spots (well that didn't happen).

This strategy of course implied bulbing BC Eng.

Well there came first very very very bad mistake. I went to Oracle through Meditation, that basically delayed getting Cho-Kos by 17 turns, since first GS was used on Philo (oh yeah).

The map turned out that my east neighbor was Ragnar and Charlemagne, northern Hammi, with MM and Darius behind them (pretty crowded I tell you).
I inflitrated Ragnar with Confu and Budh Charle didn't like it. We formed strong block with Ragnar (well Ragnar was doing that dirty work) and once i got to Cho-Kos I basically whipped the floor with Charle.
Since every good deed has to be punished then I wiped Ragnar. I was around 400 AD sitting with Cho-Kos and finally some cats and was thinking what now?

Every other AI had LB's, but I remembered that protective Cho-Kos are actually great attack unit even with LB's only, so the decision was made (after 2 days of pause) and attacked Hammi.

The bad news from this all warring is obvious -> tech rate. I lost lib race (I admit it was on purpose, since I thought I won't be able to compete and I think I was right).

The endgame was decided to go with cannons+muskets. I think this was maybe mistake 2 and would love to hear if I should have attacked MM with prot Cho's and cats. The cannons were reached by 1390 AD without lib.
Our initial continent had around 50% of land area so I had to basically take a lot of land from other AI - Sitting Bull.

I think it could be maybe a bit more competitive end date if I didn't the basic total mistake with meditation.
That delayed the early game by 17 turns. even if I would assume that it will spare the same number of turns in the end it is ~90 years spared (basically would get into the sub-1650 range).
The other "mistake" around 800 AD where I was sitting around 23 cities with really ripped army after Hammi (had like ~10 troops left) is questionable. problem was that with that amount of cities I got to cannons pretty late, started whipping them at 1390 AD.

No way I would replay this, this was actually 5th attempt after 1 which was around 1800, 2nd with cavs abandoned and some BC saves abandoned.

let me hear if you found this strategy interesting.

The five steps to being driven mad:

1. Set up 2 snaky continents with high sea level.
2. Get a ridiculous start with triple gems and wet corn.
3. Friggin' oracle Machinery.
4. Stomp Charlemagne with Cho-ku-nus...
5. ...only to find out you are somehow on a small continent with only Burger King's ghost to keep you company and the other bloody 9 AIs are somewhere else, presumably on the lone other continent.

1660 for me.

Was unsure how to approach this as warring isn't really my thing. I guess horse archers are the quickest way to go but I never seem to have any luck using them, so I Oracled CS and researched Machinery and warred with maces and then trebuchets. Built up 5 good cities of my own and whippep/chopped/built a nice army and quickly took down Khmer/Maya/Greece while researching Currency and then to Military Tradition/Gunpoweder to use Curassiers in my Viking and Persia conquests.

I needed another 6% land on the other continent, which I realised early so was able to trade for Astronomy and then researched Rifling to take down Mali and Native Americans for the win.

1675AD

First game i am quite pleased with my performance, mostly because i did well in areas of the game where i struggled before like HA-rushes and post-war-recovery.

Quick summary: HA rushed most of my continent and finished with cuirs and cav.

Spawned in the middle of my continent with Darius, SB, Caesar, Pacal and Alex. (clockwise)
Started with wet corn, double gems, double ivory and dye. Was able to secure horses with the 2nd city.
Couldn't find another good site so went straight for the praet-man who was the closest opponent and had the best land. Then took the opportunity to attack alex when he had some "border disagreements" with pacal. The latter founded hinduism and spreaded it to everybody on the continent. He got a little unlucky with the map-generator and managed to squeeze 3 cities on his tiny peninsula. The small size of his empire and his 30+ gold shrine made him a excellent tradepartner for the whole game.
Next target was either darius or sb. Chose the former because he was running away in tech and had the most cities. This decision had its drawbacks of course. SB used the time to build lots of spears, cats and "pole-archers". I wasn't sure if i could win against him at this point so i stopped the military expansion and focused on recovering my economy. The plan was to lib MT as fast as possible, roll over sb with cuirs while teching to astro and preparing the invasion of the other continent. Upgraded the rest of my HAs with a GM and conquered my continent. There were some islands with cities of SB but i left them alone and focused on the intercontinental war.

On the other landmass, hammurabi, ragnar, burger king and mansa, sury were the two blocks.
Sury already lost some cities to holy rome, and mansa wasn't big either so i decided to attack sury, mansa first and then reevaluate my postion. At this point i started to get a little greedy and made some mistakes. I attacked hammurabi, who was going for culture and overextended too much. I relied on my power rating and the fact that hammy wasn't really up to date techwise to keep charly and ragnar out of the last crucial landgrab. Didn't work out. Charly declared/was bribed in (not quite sure which) and because he had a lot of troops from his past wars with sury he immediately threatened my former khmer cities with their one-troop-garrison. This delayed the invasion of the babylonian empire, and consequently the win.

Mistakes:
1. Not bringing enough troops/ships to the other continent the first time around.
2. Not whipping enough at the end.
3. Overextending my army
4. Losing captured cities because of insufficient garrison
5. Not razing/resettling enough of the bigger enemy cities and then using the culture slider

Like i said in the beginning, still happy with the result overall. I don't do intercontinental warfare that often and early so it was a nice change for me.

I was also experimenting with the crossbow-treb-rush. While i managed to get engineering pretty fast i think that HAs will produce a better finish. The "No-Vassals" requirement really slows the overall progress down. Thats only from my own experience though and i could be wrong.
Still these crossbow-rushes are alot of fun and everybody should try them out.

1882, really bleh time but at least I finished it.

I spawned on the smaller continent, and one with island chain to the south to boot. Wet corn + 2x gems start made oracling machinery easy. I haven't settled my second city until late in the game (in fact, not until I had the whole continent...). I built SH and GW while waiting for Oracle, probably stupid but it gave me quick land grab after conquests and kept me safe from barbs early. I stole worker from Sury, then after I got first few Cho-Ku-Nus I took him out, then regrouped and took out Alex, regrouped and took out all SB's cities on the mainland. Made peace with SB, and even though the other two AIs on the continent (Mansa and Darius) were friendly, I thought screw it and declared on Darius. He had cuirassiers, and it was quite costly for Cho-Ku-Nus, but I relegated him to a one-tile island. Then I immediately went for Mali, who had grenadiers. War weariness was crippling (over -15 in some cities), but by 1610 Mali was no more. I conquered the whole continent with Cho-Ku-Nus exclusively (well, I think I built some three war elephants too at some point), losing 200 of them...

I still somehow managed to be the first to Lib in midst of all the warring, and took PP. Then I got rifling first, upgraded my surviving Cho-ku-nus (some of which were above 60 XP at that point) and went after SB's islands and then Darius' one-tile empire. I was 10% short with only my continent, unfortunately these + a barb island kept me short still. So I upgraded to infantry and went to kill Charlie, who was the weakest on the other continent - Ragnar took out JC and was the biggest there, and he and Pacal were Friendly with me, Pacal actually joined my war on SB and I racked up a lot of diplo off that. Plus there was the Pleased Hammy. Anyway, I wiped Charlie out fast (losing a whole stack of cannons in the process due to idiocy, left them unprotected) and two GAs that I took with me culture bombed all his lands right away... and I was still at just 55.6%. Argh!

So I settled two more 1-2-tile islands to get almost to the limit, and then Pacal finally offered PA for the win.

Atrocious play and absurd Cho-ku-nu nonsense, but at least it's finished (after multiple attempts which led to me finding out that the game is full of crap, and that 2 snaky continents = actually archipelago)...

Just starting to look at this one. bcool's game looks unbeatable, what an outstanding map. Doesn't seem fair that an outstanding player rolls a map like this .

I decided to try low sea level to see if I could get a galley bridge. Had a so-so start (I think 2 gold, but just one food), but decided to play it out. Turns out I did not get a galley bridge, all my settings did was give me honking fat continents to slog through.

I also did an early worker steal. Whoever it was would not make peace, so I ended up building axes. I think I took 4 cities, but it really hurt my early economy.

Once I got to one of the other continents, I discovered I had started on the smallest of the three. By random luck, I also attacked the continent with the most advanced AIs . Took me forever to get to the land limit.

I finally slogged in with 1690. Definitely can do better if I come back for a second try.

1350 AD

Wow, those Cho-Ko-Nu's are POWERFUL! I will share some game details:

War Machine
I went with an all out Cho-Ko-Nu and Treb war. As suggested by Sun Tzu Wu, I used Great Scientists to bulb Machinery, Engineering and Astronomy. I waged some serious Cho-Ko-Nu war! I used only Cho-Ko-Nu's and Trebs the whole game with a few Pikes and Elephants for defense. Below is a "collage" screenshot from the statistics screen(s) showing pertinent units:



Map
I started with a two golds, corn, pigs, 4 FP and a lot forests (and more grew). I had decent food, many commerce resources, horses and copper in my REX zone. Unfortunately, no Iron. I made an impromptu war with a few chariots and axes to get my iron from Alexander:



I rolled him first, then Hammurabi, Charlemagne, Cyrus, and Pacal on my hemisphere. Then I killed Julius Caesar and Sury on the other hemisphere.

Research
I went for worker techs, writing, mathematics, metal casting. I traded for iron and alphabet. I researched aesthetic and then bulbed Machinery, traded for construction, bulbed engineering and it was all over. Well... not really. I should have researched currency early so I could build wealth. I had no research for a while. I researched CoL to get courthouses up across my empire in about 3 turns. I got the AI to trade me fishing, sailing and calender once I got Machinery and Engineering. I then researched currency, then compass and optics. I was on optics a long time at 0% research due to economy. I bulbed Astronomy (about 1/2 the beakers) once I got optics. I got several other techs not taking one last, weak city of the larger opponents by agreeing to peace for techs. Then I killed them off after 10 turns of peace. This was good for tech backfill.

Civics
I used two: Slavery and Vassalage. I got monarchy so late that it didn't matter. I was really harsh with whipping and only kept one unit garrisons, so HR would not have helped much. No CS--whip, whip, whip!



Tips:
1. Take settlers with to the other hemisphere and raze the larger cities and put down a new city to avoid city resistance turns.
2. Once you get Astro, put your commerce toward spy points against overseas AI for city revolts. Those 100% cultural defenses suck!
3. Sue for peace to pick up techs when the AI has one city left. There are no vassals, so there is no harm.
4. Use accuracy upgrade for trebs. Settle first GG and build only trebs in that city for 5XP needed for accuracy. Let your Cho-Ko-Nu's do the collateral damage.

My final screenshot:

shulec said:

1350 AD

Wow, those Cho-Ko-Nu's are POWERFUL! I will share some game details:

...

Click to expand...

Congratulations on your win, shulec!

Sun Tzu Wu

Outstanding shulec, well done!

I appreciate the write-up as well.

A small nitpick, but cata have better hammer-to-bombard efficiency with accuracy than trebs.

Still, very impressive with the medieval victory. It goes to show what you can get away with on a given difficulty if you really sell out on it.

TheMeInTeam said:

A small nitpick, but cata have better hammer-to-bombard efficiency with accuracy than trebs.

Still, very impressive with the medieval victory. It goes to show what you can get away with on a given difficulty if you really sell out on it.

Click to expand...

Good to know! I clearly would have been better off with a few cats. I did use my accuracy trebs for quite a few attacks once my 3XP trebs were used. Most cities had weak defenders and I had few losses.

TheMeInTeam said:

A small nitpick, but cata have better hammer-to-bombard efficiency with accuracy than trebs.

Click to expand...

As you stated, the cats have a slightly better hammer to bombard ratio.

Treb
80
16% Bombard .2% per
24% Bombard with Accuracy .3% per

Cat
50
8% Bombard .16 per
16% Bombard with Accuracy 0.32% per

The downside of this scenario it that takes three cats to do the work of two trebs. This means 1.5 times the maintenance cost for units outside cultural borders.

Accuracy treb's benefit over the cat is the ability to attack and survive against softened defenders. In this scenario, a catapult should strictly be a bombardment unit. The accrucy cat's benefit is as a bailout if an unexpected stack shows up.

For a situation where engineering will be bulbed as soon as construction is completed, I think accuracy trebs are a better offensive unit than accuracy cats even with their higher bombard to hammer cost.

You might be right about that. I guess it depends on the kinds of battles fought, but the kinds of battles ideally fought here would be city attacks.

I did the same calculation in challenge V series, but that was for a renaissance start where grenadiers were available from go. In that case, any siege was strictly for bombardment (we didn't have cannons and teching them took too long) since people all had rifles from the start...and walls were obsoleted at game start so no worries about those. In that context cata made more sense. In these settings I believe you are correct.

Finally started on this challenge.

Playing a sweet map with 2 gold and 1 gem start. Oracled Machinary but was not in a rush to build Chokunu. Our continent had Jules, Hammy, HRE, Rags and SB. Attack Hammy with a stack of cats and elephants. Took 3 of 4 cities and he brought in HRE to the fray. Took 5 of 6 cities and then Ragnar jumped in. Took 2 of his 3 cites and Sued for peace with all.

I stopped the game at 780AD with 1 turn till Engineering. I messed up with my bulb path by opening up Paper path. Bulbed all but 200 of CS with a GP. Got the GA from the Music and will likely launch a GA when restarting game.

Only whipped unhappy faces and a settler so far. Only have 14 cities but does own many villages. City builds where Granary, Forge and Rax/stable. Very little fidhting but that will soon change. I am about to hit SB since he does not have LB's yet. Jules did build the Mids, so maybe he should be next. But he has a few LBs.

All the AI are miles behind in techs. This should be a fun game. There are a few impresive dates so far.

Oh yeah, I had a hard time building chokunu's because I did not have archery. How rude of Sid and Gang.