[GEM] Kaitzilla vs. The World

I await in trepidation your next set.

When you capture an enemy Worker, the enemy unit is destroyed (exactly as when you kill a military unit) and a Worker of your nationality spawned in its place. The catch is that the game does not check if the enemy's Worker was a UU or not, it just spawns the default Worker.

Those unit upgrade costs are way too high. It will be faster to just build new axes, but the situation being what it is... However, can you really afford even one upgrade, if you're in deficit even at 0% research?

Edit: hadn't noticed you had updated the previous post.
Hopefully it'll work!

Kaitzilla said:

I've thought about Archers, but the crazy costs for techs make that impossible right now.
I just don't have enough to tech Hunting (468) and Archery (702) unless I disband my army, and if I do that the barbs will take everything.

Spoiler :

Either I get Bronze, or my first few cities melt under the barbarian blowtorch as they pillage everything and I go bankrupt working crappy tiles and paying huge to maintain Warriors in my cities.


There are no 1 units.
Workers and Settlers are still 2
All the rest of the 1 units are now 2
All the rest of the 2 units are now 3

The insane unit maintenance costs and high unit make pillaging much more important than regular BTS.

Mounted units don't feel nerfed to me, but you right that they only move 50% more than axe/spear/sword/war_elephants now instead of 100%.

Click to expand...

Did not pay attention to your economy before. Now I see that you are also facing serious economical problem besides barbarians.

I don't have experience on such huge map. In standard map, there is a huge maintenance jump on 5th city till ~10 cities. After that settling an extra city costs almost the same as the cost of number of cities reaches the maximum. Your empire are over-expanding before getting the critical ancient era tech -- Pottery. You have to pick sites with strong economical tiles (Not food tiles) when you expand to 5th city (or other numbers in huge map), so that you don't slow down to learn Pottery and other necessary techs. Usually 1 strong economical tiles (Gold/Gem/Silver/Fur) means 1 extra city that you can settle after 4. I can see that Food tiles are too abundant in this map, but the temptation to over-expansion are actually poison!

Usually in deity game you can only discover either horse or copper before Barbarian invasion, otherwise, archers is the choice. It seems that in this mode barbarian spearmans have very high odd to spam, which makes copper become more important than horse.

Regarding the unit movement, I should rather say that non-mounted units are greatly powered. Culture defense is greatly nerfed.

Noyyau said:

I await in trepidation your next set.

When you capture an enemy Worker, the enemy unit is destroyed (exactly as when you kill a military unit) and a Worker of your nationality spawned in its place. The catch is that the game does not check if the enemy's Worker was a UU or not, it just spawns the default Worker.

Those unit upgrade costs are way too high. It will be faster to just build new axes, but the situation being what it is... However, can you really afford even one upgrade, if you're in deficit even at 0% research?

Edit: hadn't noticed you had updated the previous post.
Hopefully it'll work!

Click to expand...

Ah, that explains it.
Thanks Noyyau

I can't really afford a 110 upgrade, but I'm doing it anyway.

I'll turn the economy around whipping+chopping nearly complete Warriors and getting Gold and Silver back online.
Now that I have Pottery and Axes, I'm sure things will swing in my favor.

Duckweed said:

Did not pay attention to your economy before. Now I see that you are also facing serious economical problem besides barbarians.

I don't have experience on such huge map. In standard map, there is a huge maintenance jump on 5th city till ~10 cities. After that settling an extra city costs almost the same as the cost of number of cities reaches the maximum. Your empire are over-expanding before getting the critical ancient era tech -- Pottery. You have to pick sites with strong economical tiles (Not food tiles) when you expand to 5th city (or other numbers in huge map), so that you don't slow down to learn Pottery and other necessary techs. Usually 1 strong economical tiles (Gold/Gem/Silver/Fur) means 1 extra city that you can settle after 4. I can see that Food tiles are too abundant in this map, but the temptation to over-expansion are actually poison!

Usually in deity game you can only discover either horse or copper before Barbarian invasion, otherwise, archers is the choice. It seems that in this mode barbarian spearmans have very high odd to spam, which makes copper become more important than horse.

Regarding the unit movement, I should rather say that non-mounted units are greatly powered. Culture defense is greatly nerfed.

Click to expand...

Yes, the economic problem is quite serious.
My 11 Workers are taking up all 8 of my free unit slots, so every Axe, Warrior, and Chariot is costing me 2.6 per turn to maintain.


I'll make sure not to expand much more until I get my finances under control.
Thank the heavens my civ is Organized and I get half-price Civic Upkeep!

Kaitzilla said:

Thank the heavens my civ is Organized and I get half-price Civic Upkeep!

Click to expand...

Agriculture + The Wheel > Organized

Turnset 22 (T166 to T169)

T166 - Barbarians Attack
Chariot defending Bronze City won against Warrior at 99.8% odds.
Axe defending Samarkand won against Spear at 100% odds.
Axe defending Samarkand won against Spear at 100% odds.
Axe defending Invincible City won against Spear at 100% odds.
==============================

That fresh Axe smell, it smells like .. victory

The game then immediately kicked me with the notification "Pyramids built in a faraway land".
Nope, no idea who built it or where.

My units are on STRIKE!
It is not a big deal this one time, but the next time I dip into STRIKE I will randomly lose a unit.
I need to use the cushion my whip+chop in Delhi gave me wisely.
Went ahead and deleted the Delhi Warrior to save money.

Qin of the Chinese Empire is plotting war!
He's got the fist icon on the scoreboard and has obviously built enough Axes or Spears to start rolling the war dice.
Is he targeting me?
I'm pretty far away and am Cautious with Qin.
We don't share borders.

Thankfully, according to Civ Illustrated Qin can plot war at Pleased, so he could really be targeting anyone at this point, but most likely a neighbor he is touching borders with.


My major priority is getting an Axe up to protect Bronze City.
Just needed to kill off a few barbs first.

Axe from Invincible City won against Warrior at 100% odds.
Chariot from Bronze City won against Warrior at 100% odds.

Next, I moved Axes from Samarkand and Tashkent to protect Silver and a farm.

Finally, I paired my Settler up with an Axe 2-North of Lahore to go settle Bactra for a 3rd time. (hopefully the last! )

T167 - Barbarians Attack
3 Workers improving a cottage down by Dhaka were captured and deleted by a barb Warrior.
These barbs are starting to make me angry!
It snuck up into the one tile I wasn't watching and then attacked from there.
The 270 loss sets me back to 8 Workers.

==============================

Oh, this is rich!
A 2nd barb Spear has appeared from the fog to threaten Bronze City.
My axe will be 1 tile short, and my 2 Chariots are going to get shredded.
Bronze City is going to burn.
300 Settlers are not cheap!

I vented some anger on barbs elsewhere, but they are endless.
Will whip Axes complete where I can afford the anger and play conservatively until I can resettle bronze with 2 Axes to protect it.

Axe won against Spear near Samarkand at 99.2% odds.
Chariot won against Warrior down near Dhaka at 99.4% odds.
Axe won against Warrior west of Invincible City at 99% odds.
Axe won against Warrior west of Invincible City at 100% odds.

Deleted the Warriors in Tashkent, Invincible City, and Samarkand to save money.

T168 - Barbarians Attack
Chariot defending Bronze City lost against Spear at 2.6% odds.
Chariot defending Bronze City lost against Spear at 3.9% odds.
Bronze City was razed by Barbarians!
As a final insult, they pillaged the road leading the city, so now I will have to send Workers up there to build a desert road if I want bronze again.

==============================

Silver connected in the empire again.

Axe got some revenge and won against Spear on the Bronze City ruins at 99% odds.

T169 - Barbarians Attack
Axe defending on ruins of Bronze City won against Spear at 82.3% odds.
==============================

Horses connected in the empire again from down near Delhi.
Warrior guarding east of India deleted and replaced with Axe.

Kashgar is defended by 2 Spears.
My Axe is staring at them.

Now that I have Axes, I can go back to treating barbs as a minor nuisance instead of a civilization threatening menace.
That is, unless they kill a few of my non-replaceable Axes somehow.

Time to focus on Granaries, cottages, and avoiding whipping where possible to cool off some major whip anger.

Turnset 23 (T170 to T176)

T170 - Axe defending on Fury Road lost to Spear at 0% odds.
Looks like 3 Spears in back-to-back turns is too much for even a Shock Axe.

I considered attacking the 2 Spears guarding Kashgar with my Axe, but a Warrior appeared on the Bactra ruins to threaten Samarkand once again.
I'll let the barbs keep Kashgar for 20 turns until it gets to 3 population or my Workers can road up there and I can quickly improve Wheat+Horses after capture.

I've also decided to resettle Bactra before Bronze City.
I'd rather have Gold now and Bronze 10 turns later than the other way around.

Worker completed in Pataliputra.

T171 - Axe won against Warrior 1N1E of Samarkand at 99.9% odds.
Axe won against Spear 3N of Invincible City at 99.6% odds.
Axe won against Warrior west of Invincible City at 100% odds.
Axe won against Spear 1N1W of Tashkent at 99.9% odds.

Also, the barbs founded a new city southwest of Dhaka.

T172 - The barb slaughter continues as my empire slowly rebuilds from the devastation.
Invincible City once again has a Wheat Farm.

Bactra 3 has been founded!
Gold connected in the empire again.
I now have 9 cities once more.

Immediately my treasury goes from -2 per turn to +7 per turn thanks to the gold mine.
Both Silver and Gold are back giving all cities +2 happiness.

Note my previous math error.
+30% handicap costs added to a 2 per unit is 2.6 per turn, not 2.3 per turn.
I will go back and correct my earlier posts to reflect the even more insane Unit Maintenance costs that this mod inflicts.

Axe won against the Warrior at Samarkand at 100% odds.

T173 - A furious assault came down Fury Road trying to kill my Axe.
Thankfully it wasn't all Spears!
Axe won against Spear from Fury Road at 97.2% odds.
Axe won against Warrior from Fury Road at 98.8% odds.
Axe won against Warrior from Fury Road at 67.8% odds.

Got some easier kills elsewhere in the empire.
Axe won against injured Spear near Bactra at 99.9% odds.
Axe won against Warrior west of Invincible City at 100% odds.

Worker produced in Varanasi.
I now have 10 Workers.

T174 - A Spear is threatening India once again.
Moved 2 Axes to intercept.
Hopefully the barb suicides against Pataliputra because 75% odds attacking it in the jungle isn't good enough odds for me without bronze.
Will be really annoyed if it pillages the 9 rice farm.

Easy fights elsewhere.
Axe won against Warrior north of Invincible City at 100% odds.
Axe won against Warrior west of Invincible City at 100% odds.

T175 - India Spear killed itself attacking Stephen's jungle Warrior.
I'm jealous of the huge bonus against barbs that Deity AI have.

Axe won against a Spear north of Invincible City at 99.2% odds.

Settler produced in Dhaka.
It will head north and found Bronze City again around T185.

Tashkent has a Wheat Farm once again.

T176 - Axe won against puny Warrior down near Dhaka at 100% odds.
Even went 1N1E before attacking 1N1W to check for hidden barbs.
Not going to let my Workers get stolen again from laziness.

Turnset 24 (T177 to T180)

T177 - Hurk! 7 Barbs are invading from every direction.
How can there be so many barbs in the world!?

The Warrior down by Lahore is the most dangerous.
If it pillages the road 1N1W of Lahore, it will cut 4 cities off from Silver and Gold and I have no Workers nearby.
A good amount of economic damage.
The Chariot didn't get great odds attacking the Warrior in the forest, so I moved the Chariot 1N1W and dared the Warrior to attack next turn.

Up north the other 4 barbs faced a massacre from 4 well placed axes.

Axe won against Warrior west of Invincible City at 100% odds and moved back south for Warrior next turn.
Axe won against Spear north of Invincible City at 99.9% odds.
Axe won against Warrior north of Invincible City at 100% odds.

T178 - Axe north of Invincible City defended (won) against Spear from Fury Road at 93.6% odds.
Chariot near Lahore defended (won) against Warrior at 100% odds.

Axe won against Warrior south of Lahore at 100% odds.
Chariot won against Warrior south of Lahore at 97.6% odds.
Axe near Tashkent won against Warrior at 100% odds.

T179 - Axe west of Tashkent won against Spear at 99.6% odds.
Axe north of Invincible City won against Warrior at 100% odds.

T180 - Oracle built in a faraway land!
Looks like it is no wonders for me this game.
The Great Wall, Pyramids, and The Oracle were the only ones I really wanted.
No one has Alphabet in the trade window, and I have no idea who built The Oracle.

Axe north of Invincible City defended (won) against Warrior from Fury Road at 100% odds.
Axe north of Invincible City defended (won) against Warrior from Fury Road at 100% odds.


Cyrus built another city just south of Varansi.
He seems to be settling my Indus river valley for me.

Finances are still not positive, but I've added units and Workers to stay safe until I get bronze again.
Once I've got bronze I can delete some stuff since I can whip axes in an emergency and go positive.

5 AI have Slavery now. (Not Cyrus )

My Workers are making great progress fixing barb pillage damage with 8 Workers up north constructing improvements.
The other 2 are down east of India getting a 4th city ready to settle the valuable rivers before the Khmer Empire does.
Khmer is #1 in score by a lot!



This is probably a good time to pause and go over the status of my Empire real quick.
Barbarian Kashgar just reached 2 population, so it should be ripe for takeover when it reaches 3 pop on Ceil(72*0.6)=44/3 per turn = 14 or 15 turns = on Turn 195.
T180 Empire Screenshots:

Units: 10 Workers, 1 Settler, 3 Chariots, 2 Warriors, 7 Axemen

Bactra: 1pop, 0forests, 0T Whip Anger, No Granary
Samarkand: 1pop, 3forests, 25T Whip Anger, Granary
Invincible City: 4pop, 2forests, 32T Whip Anger, Granary
Tashkent: 2pop, 1forests, 13T Whip Anger, Granary
Delhi: 1pop, 1forests, 5T Whip Anger, Granary
Lahore: 4pop, 3forests, 26T Whip Anger, Granary
Varanasi: 3pop, 3forests, 23T Whip Anger, Granary
Pataliputra: 6pop, 0forests, 23T Whip Anger, Granary
Dhaka: 2pop, 0forests, 27T Whip Anger, Granary

All the cities that are growing have Granaries.
Just need to whip some 21/22 Warriors and chop some forests to get gold now that Whip Anger is wearing off.
Build some more cottages too.

**Edit**
T180 Game Save included for the curious lurkers.
Almost 1MB

This new barb city surprisingly spawned in great location. Awsome city. And yea this map have such a great tiles like this +8 wet Rice, or Corn elsewhere offcourse.

I c taht you have vision on some of my Capitol's land .
Wanted to check how i was doing in T180 but unfortunatly i have only 1 save .

Whats you plan for economy, since i c that you are working food everywhere, not too many cottages. Didnt check... do you have enough workers to 1 turn cottage ?
To tech writing you probably need 1-2k .

Delurking to bow to your superior barb-fighting skills. For a while there, I was sure every turn would be the last one.

yyeah said:

This new barb city surprisingly spawned in great location. Awsome city. And yea this map have such a great tiles like this +8 wet Rice, or Corn elsewhere offcourse.

I c taht you have vision on some of my Capitol's land .
Wanted to check how i was doing in T180 but unfortunatly i have only 1 save .

Whats you plan for economy, since i c that you are working food everywhere, not too many cottages. Didnt check... do you have enough workers to 1 turn cottage ?
To tech writing you probably need 1-2k .

Click to expand...

Right, the economic plan.

First, these are my goals:
1) Mysticism (small % bonus since a few AI know it, cost 585, need 504 to research it)
2) Writing (40% research bonus because I know Pottery+Animal Husbandry, need 980 to reasearch it)
[If I also knew Priesthood, I'd get 60% research bonus for Writing. If I only knew Pottery, I'd get a 20% research bonus for Writing.)
3) Hunting (small % bonus since a few AI know it, cost 468, need 420 to research it)

I will generate 70 by T184 when I 3pop whip a Settler in Pataliputra and overflow into a Warrior.
I will generate 250 by T195 when I whip a Warrior + 3 chops in Lahore.

Going to add cottages to Invincible City and Pataliputra in the short term.
Maybe a silver mine in Bronze City and cottages in Lahore and Varanasi in the medium term.

Cottages take 12 turns (15 on floodplain), so I don't have enough Workers to make one in a single turn.

GHalfrunt said:

Delurking to bow to your superior barb-fighting skills. For a while there, I was sure every turn would be the last one.

Click to expand...

Me too!
Looking back I should have settled Bronze City instead of dumb Kashgar, but I didn't want to build that long road and decided I could do it 20 turns later.
Nearly cost me everything.

I lost Kashgar, Bronze City, and Bactra burned to the ground twice, but it could have been a lot worse.
With all the pillaged tiles I pray that I can keep up with the Deity AI.

And without the Great Wall, barbs will be streaming down from Siberia forever.
Hopefully they don't get Horse Archers or Longbows or anything like that for a long, long time.
The next upgrade I want to face is Axes only.

I decided to play Civ 4. But then I started to read this thread and couldnt stop It is good that it has only 5 pages. Very nice writeup coupled with great skills!

BtW, is it bronze to the north (2N1W) of Kashgar?It looks closer than Fury road.

Also, the balance in this setup something special. The Great Wall is superior for human, Creative trait is very useful.

And a lot of good luck! Need to finish those barbs and to start bloody wars agains AIs.

RedKirrHelper said:

I decided to play Civ 4. But then I started to read this thread and couldnt stop It is good that it has only 5 pages. Very nice writeup coupled with great skills!

BtW, is it bronze to the north (2N1W) of Kashgar?It looks closer than Fury road.

Also, the balance in this setup something special. The Great Wall is superior for human, Creative trait is very useful.

And a lot of good luck! Need to finish those barbs and to start bloody wars agains AIs.

Click to expand...

Thanks

Yes, there is bronze 2N1W of Kashgar.
I didn't want to settle it because cities can't be placed within 2 tiles of another city (unless it's an island), so putting one there would mean that I couldn't settle the Kashgar spot.


70 turns ago back on Turn 110 is when Bronze Working was discovered.

I was so sure Chariots would be enough protection that I had no desperation to go get some bronze as soon as possible.
Settling Kashgar on T128 when I could have used the Settler to found Bronze City instead was a mistake as soon as the 1st barbarian Spear appeared on Turn 135.

I'm not sure I can ever finish the barbs completely.
There aren't enough units in the world to spawnbust Siberia until at least well into the AD era.
Even then, there aren't enough good tiles up there to encourage barb cities to form and allow them to calm down.
Best I can do is push them north with my own cities and keep them away using force.

Next war will likely be against Cyrus some day.
Conquering him will give me total control of the Indian sub-continent and put me on the doorstep to the middle east.
It will be a while before that happens though because I'm starting to reach the limit of cities I can support unless they are very close to my capital.

Turnset 25 (T181 to T185)

T181 - Axe won 2N of Invincible City against Spear at 99.6% odds.

After looking things over, I can fit a lot more cottages down south than I thought by redoing some farms that I don't really need.

T182 - Time to send 2 Workers up Fury Road to fix the road before the Settler gets there.
The hard part is protecting the Workers from capture while not leaving Samarkand undefended since it can't whip a defender at 1 population.

After a bit of scouting, my Axe won against a Warrior north of Fury Road at 100% odds.
Then I was able to safely move my Workers up without fear that my lone Axe on Fury Road would be overwhelmed by 2 Warriors + hidden Spears.

T183 - The Fury Road Workers and the Axe protecting them weren't attacked at all.
In fact, the Warrior just to the southwest vanished into the fog somewhere.
The 3 units moved up Fury Road to do repair work while the 2nd Axe went back to protect the Settler for the new Bronze City.

Elsewhere, my Axe won against a Warrior 1S1E of Bactra at 99.9% odds.

A Settler was whipped in Pataliputra to go settle a great spot east of India that will also virtually eliminate barb troubles from that direction.
It will also serve as my Indian fortress city in case Suryavarmen of the Khmer Empire or one of the other eastern empires attacks me in the future.
Did some fancy queue juggling to squeeze out some extra overflow by whipping the Settler, selecting a Warrior to let me grow to Size 4, then completing the Settler the following turn working an extra +5 farm.
The overflow hammers will land around 80 in my bank on T186.

Just click on the name of a unit in the queue in the bottom left of the screen to take things off the queue and move them around.
Took me years to learn that.

T184 - 2 Axes, 2 Workers, and 1 Settler have reached 1S1E of the ruins of Bronze City.
They are opposed by 1 Spear standing on the Bronze tile.

Axe won north of Invincible City against a Warrior at 100% odds.

North of Lahore, a Spear appeared threatening to punch through my forest Warrior and mess up my Lahore triple-chop project (around +250 on T195)
Bringing up the garrison Axe from Varanasi in case the Spear kills its way through.

T185 - Bactra is being threatened by a Spear, so I moved my Axe to protect the city.
Axe won against Spear 2S of Bronze City ruins at 98.6% odds.
Warrior won against Spear northeast of Lahore at 24.9% odds!

The ungrateful citizens of Dhaka expressed a desire to join the world's strongest civ Khmer to the east.
I of course told them no!

Your juggling of mobile defensive units against numerically vastly superior invaders is a work of art. That's actually true for how you do things in general, in such a situation I would've been long destroyed.

Kaitzilla said:

Just click on the name of a unit in the queue in the bottom left of the screen to take things off the queue and move them around.
Took me years to learn that.

Click to expand...

Though I myself am still ignorant of too many of the fine points of rules and maths behind the game.

Kaitzilla said:

After looking things over, I can fit a lot more cottages down south than I thought by redoing some farms that I don't really need.

Click to expand...

I think that in India with the absurd amount of Flood Plains (on any tile, apparently, not just on riverside Deserts) you can Cottage every tile that does not have a resource, and still get ridiculous amounts of extra food.

Edit: do you write the forum posts while (or rather, immediately after) playing each single turn? (Alt-tabbing back and forth constantly)

Noyyau said:

Your juggling of mobile defensive units against numerically vastly superior invaders is a work of art. That's actually true for how you do things in general, in such a situation I would've been long destroyed.



Though I myself am still ignorant of too many of the fine points of rules and maths behind the game.



I think that in India with the absurd amount of Flood Plains (on any tile, apparently, not just on riverside Deserts) you can Cottage every tile that does not have a resource, and still get ridiculous amounts of extra food.

Edit: do you write the forum posts while (or rather, immediately after) playing each single turn? (Alt-tabbing back and forth constantly)

Click to expand...

Thanks!
My empire was on the brink a couple of times even though it might not have appeared that way.
Spear instead of a Warrior, one more attacker than I could handle appearing, running out of money and STRIKING etc. etc.


I usually play about 10 turns and then write two turnset posts based off the notes I write down and the feelings I just had and went through.

I tried updating every turn with alt+tabbing and such in the past, but it broke the flow of game for me and I kept losing track of what I was doing.
The notebook I write in and screenshots of every interesting thing I see and action I take (most don't get used) forms the words and pictures of the story forum posts.

Every post gets edited 10 or 20 times to fix errors and tweak things to read better.
Also, I like the feel of progress so I'll save my updates/changes constantly.


Writing about a game that is already complete is no fun for me.
I like to wonder what will happen next too

Once you've learned enough things about Civ 4, you'd be shocked at how much of a strategy game it really is.
Things can be planned out quite far into the future.
Unless the RNG (random number generator) gods hate you of course.

Turnset 26 (T186 to T188)

T186 - Axe won on Bronze City ruins against Warrior at 100% odds.
Bronze City 2 founded!
I now have Bronze again.
Axe won 2E of Bronze City against Warrior at 100% odds.

Don't forget, if you complete the road before you settle the city you get the trade route immediately.
If you complete the road after you settle the city, you don't get the trade route until the next turn.

There was a bit of fighting elsewhere.
Axe won on Gold tile against Spear at 96.6% odds.
Axe won 3N of Invincible City against Warrior at 100% odds.

The triple chop project has started in Lahore.
Workers are chopping forests 1W, 1N, and 1N1E of Lahore in 9 turns.
Once chopped, a 21/22 Warrior will be whipped at the same time and the massive overflow will turn into the I need to tech Mysticism.

T187 - Here come the barbs gunning for Bronze City again.
This time the results will be much more one sided!

Some extra screenshots showing the quiet south, finances, zoomed out world, and eastern desert.

T188 - Axe defending Horse tile won against Spear at 99.3% odds.
Axe defending Horse tile won against Warrior at 91.7% odds.
Axe defending Bronze City won against Warrior at 100% odds.
Axe defending Bronze City won against Warrior at 100% odds.
Axe defending Bronze City won against Warrior at 100% odds.
Axe defending Bronze City won against Warrior at 100% odds.
Axe defending Gold tile won against injured Spear at 100% odds.
Axe won against Warrior 1S1E of Bactra at 100% odds.

What a slaughter!
The Axe guarding my 3 Workers on the Horse tile nearly died , so I brought my 2nd Axe down from Bronze City to block Fury Road against barb usage for one turn.

Founded my 11th city, a lush tropical community in eastern India named Biskek.
Even with a good tile and a trade route, it caused a bit of economic damage as I went from +10 per turn to +8.
The economic damage is worse than it looks because getting rid of the Settler and getting the axe inside my borders alone would have taken me to +13 per turn if a city hadn't been founded.
I still believe Biskek pays for itself by fixing most of the barb trouble in India and securing a strong city spot in front of Suryavarmen.

Oh, a Civ4 story by Kaitzilla! Can't believe I almost missed it. Great read so far!

It's a bit weird that unit production cost is much cheaper, while unit maintenance seems to be higher than in unmodded Civ4. Kinda counterintuitive. Given increased tech costs, I wonder how GP bulbs, espionage cost, anarchy turns, etc. scale in this mod.

Anyway, good luck with the game. Looks like you'll need it. I'm looking forward to some Kaitzilla style .

Pollina said:

Oh, a Civ4 story by Kaitzilla! Can't believe I almost missed it. Great read so far!

It's a bit weird that unit production cost is much cheaper, while unit maintenance seems to be higher than in unmodded Civ4. Kinda counterintuitive. Given increased tech costs, I wonder how GP bulbs, espionage cost, anarchy turns, etc. scale in this mod.

Anyway, good luck with the game. Looks like you'll need it. I'm looking forward to some Kaitzilla style .

Click to expand...

Yup, it's my first Civ 4 story.
I have high hopes for it.

This mod changes a lot of things and is a bit hard to describe.
Barb animals last a long time.
It takes ages to tech things, and it is hard to afford too many units until cities grow very large.
Size 4 city can maintain for free 1 Worker.
Size 8 city can maintain for free 1 Worker and 1 Garrison troop.
Size 12 city can maintain for free 1 Worker, 1 Garrison troop, and 1 troop to conquer AI with.

Serfdom and Hagia Sophia are possibly more important to help reduce the number of expensive Workers to maintain.
I can only imagine drafting 7 units per turn. Does the draft anger only last 20 turns like whip anger?
The description for Vassalage says 8 free units which would be a hefty +21 per turn for me.

Pillaging and roads to help prevent pillaging are suddenly very important.
I'm already paying a few Workers 2.6 per turn to repair pillaged stuff like 8 turn desert roads
If everything was cozy I could delete all 10 Workers right now and gain +26 per turn and just have garrison troops to fight off barbs.
It's not like building new Workers (90) is hard with my (+25% for Workers) Expansionist trait.
Units are so cheap to create and are so expensive to maintain that most of my cities have multiple units 1 turn from completion because there isn't anything else to build.

Archers and Horse Archers have ranged attack whatever that means.
I assume it is some kind of weak ranged bombard.


Mathematics costs 2925
Alphabet costs 3500
Education costs 21060
Fusion costs 93600

It's hard to imagine a player empire producing that much research since they usually top out around 10,000 per turn in any game I've ever seen.
At least a Great Scientist (4500+9*empire population) ought to bulb Mathematics completely.
Education will take 4 Great Scientists to bulb?

The game will definitely be interesting to watch.


Thanks for the support Pollina.

Turnset 27 (T189 to T192)

T189 - Axe won against the Spear on Gold tile at 97.8% odds.
Also, another Spear has arrived to threaten the forest chop project of Lahore, but a new Axe is moving to end the threat permanently.

Worker produced in Pataliputra.
I now have 11 Workers once again.

Someone finally researched Monotheism and discovered the game's 3rd religion.
I chose Hindu to go along with the previous Buddhism and Islam.

The ungrateful citizens of Biskek are also clamoring for the lash of Khmer.
I believe in one man, one vote.
I am the Man, so I get the vote. (NO)

Two Spears and a Warrior have appeared to threaten Bronze City.
Those 3 barbs can't kill a lone combat 2 shock Axe in a city can they? (no fortify bonus)
I'm withdrawing the 2nd Axe (and Workers) back into Bronze City just in case.

Even more pressure was put on the 2.0hp Axe guarding the Workers on the Horse tile.
Will leave Invincible City undefended and bring up the garrison Axe to help protect the Workers.

T190 - Warrior lost defending forest north of Lahore against Spear at 36% odds.

The Great Lighthouse was completed in a faraway land.
Jeez wonders are going fast in this game!
32 AI with stone+marble everywhere and nothing to build except units tends to do that I suppose.

Also, the barbs severed my connection between Bronze City and Fury Road.
I need to guard against letting them get 1 tile from the road 1S1E of Bronze City since they pillage roads inside my borders.
My empire immediately lost access to Bronze AGAIN, so I'll need to spend 4 turns fixing it instead of making silver mine.
Axe won against the Spear 1S1E of Bronze City at 98.6% odds.

Elsewhere, the 3 barbs north of Samarkand succeeded in completely flanking me, and now I will lose my Wheat farm north of Invincible City AGAIN.
I must do better!

T191 - Axe defending 1S1E of Bronze City won against Warrior at 100% odds.
Axe defending Bronze City won against Spear at 99.9% odds.
Axe defending Bronze City won against Warrior at 100% odds.
Axe defending Bronze City won against Warrior at 100% odds.
Axe defending 1N1W of Horse tile won against Spear at 99.6% odds.
Axe defending forest north of Lahore won against injured Spear at 100% odds.
Wheat Farm pillaged north of Invincible City!

Axe from Invincible City won against Warrior at 98.8% odds.

Amazingly, Delhi has finally been threatened by barbs for the 1st time!
Thankfully my Lahore Chariot won against the Warrior at 99.4% odds.
The Chariot was barely in range, and if it wasn't I'd have been forced to produce the obsolete Warrior kept in the Delhi queue which is a waste of hammers.
Once Delhi is Size 2 again and I have Bronze once more, it will be able to defend itself again.

Qin of the Chinese Empire is no longer plotting war against someone!
AI almost always DOW someone when they say "We Have Enough on our Hands Right Now", so I'm happy to stop worrying about whether I was the target.
The AI seem pretty peaceful so far as the game approaches 1500BC.
Maybe the AdvancedAIMod in Giant Earth Map changed how the AI goes to war?
Not sure why Qin stopped plotting.

My triple chop in Lahore is nearing completion, so I'm starting 100% on Mysticism now.
T192 - Axe defending Workers 1S1E of Bronze City won against Spear at 98.3% odds.
Axe defending 1N1W of Horse tile won against Spear at 99.6% odds.

Bactra's gold mine is under threat.
If both barbs move onto it next turn, I can only kill one of them and then the gold mine will get pillaged.
Hopefully one of those barbs attacks Bactra!

Tashkent whipped a Barracks.
The overflow will go into a nearly complete Warrior and should give around 75 on T194.

South looks quiet with Biskek putting vision on everything between the mountains.