Nobles' Club CII: Gilgamesh of Sumeria

Boy, I'm rusty at Civ.

Stalin left Moscow undefended, so I walked right in and took it. I followed up by Vulture rushing Rome, killing a Settler in the process. I then turned my attention to Hatty. We had a couple of drawn out wars that both ended in stalemates, so I left her alone to focus on my economy and military. I teched toward Construction for Cats, and Feudalism for Longbows.

In the meantime, I bribed Vicky into attacking Toku. I watched as the bulk of her army travelled happily through my territory, only to get slaughtered. I split my forces in half and lined them up on my Eastern and Western borders, with a small invasion force to the south to take care of Hatty if she got frisky. I attacked Japan and took two cities. Toku immediately capitulated. I did the same with Hatty and Darius in very short order, and it was only Vicky and I left. I build a stack of Cats, Knights, and Musketmen (She didn't have Gunpowder yet.), and went shopping for cities. I had to take three from her to get my Conquest win.

Thoroughly enjoyable, and one of the better scores that I have had.

Summeria added Ur in 500 BC 1S of the northern clam and virtually walked into the barbarian city of Carib 2N1W of the southern fish. Uruk has the Pyramids and the Hanging Gardens; Eridu the Colossus.

Team Summeria is a close second in land and leads in soldiers, population and tech. War is the agenda and Japan is the target. The western defence is solid; Russia is low-hanging fruit that can wait; Tokugawa has just hooked-up iron and has no enemy at his back.

I was consolidating, recovering my economy, and building up an invasion stack for Japan when in 1060 AD one of Egypt's island cities expanded to steal critical tiles from Memphis:

As quickly as possible I built 2 galleys in Helopolis (the southwest city that was the only coastal one near enough and productive enough to do so) and invaded. I first took his chariot on the one-city tile with an amphibious elephant, then moved in a couple of Accuracy cats to take down his small cultural defence, then conquered the city with my 9-XP combat II elephant to make a 6th amphibious elephant. I then had to sail my 2 galleys around to the east while making a 3rd in Novogorod (the only suitable east-cost city for it).

I lost one elephant against one of his two archers; if I'd sent a spy to take down the 40% cultural defence I'd likely not have lost anything.

Now in 1355 AD Egypt is gone and after they heal (see the supermedic chariot on the eastern end of the southern peninsula) the remaining 5 will be poised for an amphibious takedown of Izumo after a spy puts it in revolt (I have a lot of EP vs Toku). I'm still working out the right invasion path.

With the spy-augmented elephants in the south, a small army and spy outside Nara, and the main army outside Kagoshima, I could the whole of southern Japan on the 2nd turn of the war, and be well placed to sweep northeast through the rest of Toku territory. Not sure if I can also manage to take out Nagoya offscreen in the north on the first turn since I don't think I have quite enough troops to spare. I'd raze Nara and eventually replace it with two cities.

I'm ahead in most measures:

except tech:

Two AI have guilds and one has gunpowder. I've more production than them, but it looks like my medieval mace/ellie/treb army might be a little pressed to conquer Persia and England once I finish with Japan.

I still think I need to take out Japan first, but maybe I need cuirassier first. That requires 1 turn for Philosophy, 12 turns for Liberalism (which nobody else has prereqs for yet: philosophy for most, paper for Cyrus), 0 for Nationalism, 10 for gunpowder, and 21 for military tradition at 40% slider. However if I conquer Japan I can run the slider higher and get done faster.

Does that seem like the right way to go?

PS: JC has 150 gold for trade - hard to tell how your economy is doing but that may be worth Lit.

Can you persuade one of the AI to attack Japan? It might weaken them both, whilst you continue your suggested tech path and build units, then attack on two fronts...

The first time on this map I was DOWed by Julius after not giving in to a huge money demand (At least I learned that binary research mid game + wonder failgold might make decent and dangerous amount of money). It was around Education. He had a bigger army, but I could have survived, if Tokugawa hadn't DoWed me. My cities started to fall, and I had no chance.

After that I looked at Benginal's spoiler, and it obviously a better approach. The second time I was running a heavy SE. Got mids, Great Library and Taj in my capital, which was settled in place, and turned out to be a great GP farm with those corns. The AIs were teching slowly due to wars. (Victoria vs Julius and Stalin).

I got DOWed by Toku again around Education, and I was slightly unprepared, and on the way for libbing MT, so he took a weak city and a size one tundra city which got resettled. Cyrus saved me from getting owned, as he DoWed Toku next trun without any bribes, and took a city from Toku. Later we all signed peace, just for me to declare again a few turns later. I was able to wipe out Toku with ~10 cuirs because he didn't even have Lbs )

In the meantime, Julius vassaled the english and started to become too dangerous. I declared him after healing up and adding 20 cuirs to my stack. I grabbed 2 of his cities and two cities from stalin. Then his SoD arrived, just about the same size as mine, and full of cuirs. What did I do? I ran.

Luckily I didn't whip my cities down (only a few whips here and there) because I knew that I will need cavs to finish off Julius. So I could start upgrading to cavs around the time that Julius arrived at my borders. His stack got annihilated with minimal losses. In the meanwhile I wiped out Stalin.

Well it's great, time to strike back and vassal Julius, right? wrong. I arrive at his cities, and those ***** rifles appeared immediately. It was time for a peace treaty, I will nead at least cannons now.

I looked around, and Hatty didn't even have replaceable parts, so I declared and 6 of her cities were mine in a ~10 turn war. With the conquest money and my third golden age (triggered with 2 GP) I could tech to steel, and the rest was long but easy and straightforward.

Sorry for no screenies, but I'm at a different computer.

This map was fun, although at one point I had given up on it and left it aside for almost a week.

I began with a tough decision. I haven't played Gilgamesh much, and I wanted to try one of two things: A Great Wall -sparked Spy economy, or a Vulture rush.

When copper was discovered within Uruk's city limits, I chose to go for the rush. It worked very well, especially because Stalin had no copper to counter. It went so well, in fact, that I had a lot of leftover Vultures standing around, and nothing to do. A quick scout of Julius Caesar's nearby town told me he had no copper either, and I was sure he hadn't hit iron working yet. The Vultures swept over Roman lands almost as quick as Russian, except I had to hunt down a few cities that had been snuck off the beaten path.

At this point I got my first nasty Monarch surprise since moving up from Noble. I know Monarch-difficulty maintenance is nothing compared to top tier levels, but compared to Noble it sure seems significant. I wasn't paying much attention to my deficit, since pillage money was keeping me well in the black, but I had completely trashed my economy and I wasn't even through Mathematics, let alone Currency.

I had about 50 gold in the coffers, losing about 20 a turn at max tax rate. At this point I saved the game, with the full intent of starting over again and paying more attention to my finances. I came back after nearly a week though, mostly because it's something I never do and by golly I'm going to learn something this game.

Luckily I had Writing and Priesthood (hooray Ziggurats!), so after disbanding my entire army (seriously, some cities had to go without a garrison), whipping out Libraries and Ziggurats almost consecutively in every city, emergency-building cottages where I could, and running as many Scientists as possible, I was able to drag my tech up to Currency.

From here I was okay. I spent a good long time building nothing but wealth and The Pyramids (Representation really helped), I was able to balance the budget and begin filling in some of the empty land around me. I expanded east until Tokugawa's borders were in sight, and made a beeline for Construction.

With Elepults aplenty, I began a war with Japan. I saw that Tokugawa was the eastern limit, so I wanted to get rid of one flank. Cyrus and Victoria were at war, and Hatshepsut was Pleased so I wasn't super worried about my back. The war went well, as Tokugawa was fairly backward.

Midway through the war, I discovered Feudalism, and immediately Hatshepsut offers to become my vassal! This almost never happens to me for whatever reason, so I was pleasantly surprised. That same turn, I take another Japanese city and Tokugawa capitulates. My position got a lot better in one turn!

Unfortunately, almost at the same time, Victoria became a vassal of Cyrus. I had to hurry my Elepults back across the country just in case something happened. Cyrus was very annoyed with me, and had been for a while. I decided to bide my time and, with the help of my vassals, tech my way to Gunpowder and Cannons (if necessary).

Very soon after my army had arrived on my western border, I was greeted with another pleasant surprise. Victoria had broken free of Cyrus! I pounced on the opportunity, grabbed two cities in two or three turns, and she was quickly ready to become a vassal of Sumeria. All that remained was Cyrus.

It was now about 1100 AD, and I could smell victory. I got a little greedy though, and attacked Cyrus once my army was healed. I had initial success, burning through three cities. Unfortunately I did so quick enough that Cyrus hadn't yet come out of "Refuses to Talk" mode. I had spread myself way too thin trying to slingshot a victory that I hadn't much left for defense, and I paid for it when Cyrus took back two of the cities and had the third under siege.

I had just arrived at Gunpowder and had taken Nationalism with my free Lib tech, so I hunkered down as best I could at the border and started drafting muskets like a madman. It got a little hairy, but I was able to eventually turn the tide at the third Persian city after a lot of attrition. I grouped up a fair amount of Musketmen and, along with a handful of Catapults (yeah, apparently I forgot about Trebuchets somewhere along the line), I managed to knock down the doors on another Persian city. After that, Cyrus had finally had enough, and capitulated.

And so the game ends. A new high score for me, yay! And my first Monarch conquest/domination!

A fun game, thanks!

I didn't really get any screenshots besides the victory turn and the aftermath. You can see 'em below!

I wiped out Japan pretty much as planned but my economy tanked again. I have gunpowder, got Nationalism with Liberalism, and am researching Military Tradition. A lot of cities are building and more will do so when they finish some important infrastructure.

I'm running with +5 since I had to defy an AP resolution to end the war against Toku. Actually maybe I goofed; could I have accepted the resolution and started a war sometime later, or am I forbidden to attack Toku for a long time? In any case right now I'm hoping the next AP resolution is fairly soon so I can vote in favour. Meanwhile my best cities might need theatres when I can afford to build them.

I lost all the mid-round screenshots because they silently fail when you aren't running in full screen (or with your window maximized). So, here's just the current status:

• My northern territory, including the former Japan.
  Spoiler :

  
• My southern territory, including the former Russia and Egypt.
  Spoiler :

  
• Charts. I'm ahead, but can't ignore Roman power forever. Fortunately he's a bit backwards in tech.
  
  
• Techs:
  
  
  
  Cyrus will be harder than Vicky because he has gunpowder and, by now, a moderate number of mustketmen. I hope cuirassiers will be enough to take him down. I hope I can keep enough money to upgrade some war elephants but I'm running negative gpt to get MilTrad ASAP.
• Diplomacy: Vicky dislikes me a lot, Cyrus a little, and JC remains Pleased.
  Spoiler :

  
• The rest of the world world:
  Spoiler :

  
  Julius has all of Vicky's best cities so she should be a pushover. I want to have her capitulate, and was somewhat worried about whether that would spoil relations with Rome -- but she's not his worse enemy despite him being hers. So I presume it's fairly safe to go after her. I can't get Rome to go after Cyrus, though, since he wants a huge price -- all those techs, plus 210
  
  

If I have long enough time and money to develop more cities, here's my plan for the southeast. It's what I'd have done if Toku hadnt expanded there before I could afford to.

Some things you might wanna dbl check. Some cities are building walls/castles even though they not anywhere near bordering other civs. If its for the castle trade routes rinky dink cities like those really wont offer much of a boost with a xtra trade route. If they dont have em yet then build courthouses to red maintainance, granaries so they get bigger faster which would boost what routes they do have already. Or something, Im sure they a whole list of stuff they could be building that would be better use at this point in game--hack even building wealth so your bigger cites dont have to and can build troops or whatever might be better.

Second dealio, Im assuming ap religion is jewish. if so or whatever religion it is u should be spamming it asap. If its jweish then that one jewish city that building a theater should be building missionaries and sending em to ur capitol and evry other big pop city u have. Do it quick enough ad you should be in control of ap by next vote/election and ownt have to worry about it. Heck you might even be able to get a diplo win if JC not ap pwner and you can convert him he should vote ur way. He definitely will ap owner is Vicky. Not to metnion xtra hammer boost in ur bigger cities could be handy.

Finally I hope despite economy woes ur getting rdy to send settler down to that spot north of Izumo. It has over half dozen premade cottages plus banannas so should go pretty quick which could help money wize onse u make currisor push.

As for all currisor army yeah combo of flankingI and II for when odds are low then combat1 and 2 ones once odds swing in ur favor. Remember dont promote most of em so u can prmote em as needed once ur actually at the city gates. That prolly best way. Lazy way meaning the way I usually go is just all flanking 1 and 2 before anything else. After the first few used as suicide then next ones should still have winning odds and the they can start going down combat line once they start winning. I tend to do it that way since a) it means even the ones with winning odds still have nice withdrawl odss just in case rng wants to mess with you and also just cuz I find that lil blue glow annoying Only time I wouldnt go flanking first would be if the other ai's started getting gunpowder then I would mix in a few combat1,pinch.

Anyways good luck but it looks like u wont need it since with all that land game should be in bag

Well, with construction I had a choice of going after Hatty or Toku first. decided Hatty because she was behind me in military techs, while Toku was on par (neglecting his economic ones) and was friends with JC, who was the only one I really worried about on this map. That was because Vicky and Cyrus were so far away, or so I thought. With my elepult army assembling in a former Russian city near the border with both Hatty and JC, guess who DoW's on me out of the blue but Cyrus. He's stupidly stepping his small stacks one at a time into my territory right next to this city, so I get to build up experience on my elephants by mowing them down, and then he even gives me money to take peace Then I cruise through Hatty's territory, though the war got a little slow and drawn out at the end when going for the islands. I didn't want capitulation from her because she had a lot of culture built up, even pressing the continent from the islands.

Then I paused warring to improve my tech and get Hatty's cities back online, build Forbidden Palace in Thebes, and so on. Like I said before, kind of a weird situation where almost no one was trading techs with each other, we were all going alone mostly. I was winning the lib race, and was waiting one turn away trying to get steel with it, but once Cyrus got education I figured I shouldn't risk it, so I lib'ed chemistry and teched steel in the next few turns, then invaded Toku with spammed cannons and the leftover elephants. Built some musketmen slowly which helped out.

Toku capped after losing 3 cities, then I took my army back to the west. Here I squeezed in Oxford in the capital and Ironworks in the 2nd city (horse/cow/corn site), though this stuff might have been overkill at this point. I was in a fake war against Vicky to join JC in our mutual struggle, but I got my stuff in position around several of his border cities. Backstabbed him pretty fiercely, I felt bad about it, lol, taking peace with Vicky and declaring on him in the same turn. Took 5 cities, including Rome, within 6 turns with cannons and muskets and he capped. Kept marching the army west toward Vicky but had to wait on her border while the 10 turn peace deal expired, which just meant my new cavalry had time to arrive. After I Dow'd, by the time she was willing to talk again she capped.

Had a quick look at your latest save. Few things I noticed. You've got quite a few forests waiting to be chopped. Some of your cities might benefit from chain irrigation. You're running rep for a 'specialist economy' but not running as many scientists as you could so libraries and food are worth considering. You could probably save some cash by deleting older units, you only need 1 mp unit per city under rep, if you want to keep promoted units then combine them into a 1 move stack seperate to your cuirassiers.

On the subject of war Jules is the obvious target, combining your empire with his will trip domination. I personally don't bother with flanking on cuirassiers and just go straight combat.

On the other hand you're in a strong position so you could ignore all the above and still win .

England is Vassal of Rome.