Conquests 01: Spoiler 2 (End of middle ages)

Quite enjoyable early on. Didn't really appreciate how slow the research pace was. Traded a lot for tech and managed to get the great library. Then it went down hill rapidly.Anyway after a couple of extremely ill judged wars against the others on the islland I was almost completely wiped out.

I now have only 2 towns left and one of those is size 1 in the middle of the desert but I am going to try to keep everyone happy and see if I can post my first ever GOTM score

Have no money, am researching Banking with a single scientist (about 20 turns to go) and the year is 1858AD.

It's a bit boring hitting enter every go and occasionally changing a build queue but I will see how far I get as I am determined to post a score!

Bob_the_Silent said:

Open Class
btw, anyone knows a good freeware prog to minimize and edit screenshots? So I'd like to describe my game with pics
my screenshots are 1024*768 and I think they're too big

Click to expand...

Silent Bob, I just use the regular Paint program in Windows. You can resize (ie shrink) the image, than saving it as a jpg file, which will make it smaller in size than the bitmap file.

There also an Imaging program that comes with windows that will let you crop a picture.

DJMGator13 said:

Silent Bob, I just use the regular Paint program in Windows. You can resize (ie shrink) the image, than saving it as a jpg file, which will make it smaller in size than the bitmap file.

Click to expand...

In paint, you can also go into the 'image' menu, and choose 'stretch/skew' to resize it.

I finished my ancient era in 90AD. Taking the Arabs was quite effortless and made me feel quite sure of myself in this Regent world. I conquered them in 360AD.

As I loaded up my game in the middle ages I made one error after the other. First I researced monotheism before I gifted Sumeria and Babylon to the MA. And the irritating result was that both of them got monotheims as a free tech, now. Instead of taking a deep breath and taking a break I decided to roll on. Initially I planned for an early navigation research. I teched all the way up to astronomy. Sumeria kept pumping out wonders while I built my financial, religious and scientific infrastructure. In 460 I made it across the ocean in the east with a suicide galley, it sunk before I could make landfall. But luckily a Korean galley entered my galleys vision before it sunk.

I actually started fearing that sumeria would reach gunpowder before I could start attacking him, and I backteched to chivalry - getting it in 590AD. In 690 I decided to attack Sumeria, and was thinking about splitting down into his middle to go straight for the hanging gardens and his capitol. Babylon gave me an alliance and ROP for a few lower tier techs. My military was very weak in numbers, but I thought that my ME inf and knights would wipe his silly little UU easily. It was anything but easy. Sumeria had somehow managed to have lotsa swamps that clogged down my knights all around the place. And at the same time he had many size 12 cities - giving them an extra edge over my knights. I kept loosing and resupplying units. And discovered that Sumerias sick culture after getting wonders all over the place flipped my newly captured cities(yes, I rushed temples to combat it - but to no use) - effectively trapping my wounded knights deep in their jungles. And on top of this they managed to pump out an obscene ammount of Longbowmen as a result of their GA after beating my knights with their UU. And on top of that, he managed to beat me to the Cistine Chappel by one turn!! I was forced to make Leos workshop in instead, and found that my expeditionary force was all but wiped out deep behing his backflipping cities...

My knights in jungle-hell:



To make a long story short, I had to do the unthinkable. Stop my offencive and go full throttle for Cavalry. When my cavalry arrived on the scene I started taking some easy revenge, around 980AD. His once mighty longbowmen where wiped away as soon as I spotted them in the jungleroads. I easily split his lands into pieces and took all his wonders as a nice little loot.

I only got one leader after all my elite battles... And stupidly used him to build FP down there. I got some nice effect of this on my research rate of course. But in hindsight I would've done a much better investent by going for armies at first chance.

Pyramids, Hanging Gardens, Sun Tzu, Temple of Artemis, Sistine Chapel and Mausoleum of Mollos where all taken from the Sumerians after my war was over in 1100AD and the last irritating little Sumerian was removed from the present and put firmly into the annuals of history. I got to the MA in 1160 with a civscore of 1219 points. 29%terrritory and 40% of world population. I had contact with all civs, but very little maps - since I'm ignoriing all the unnecesary techs - and going straight for a diplo win as soon as possible. I haven't done the UN in ages, and felt sick about warfare after my fiasco in Sumeria...

---
Edit:
I gifted Sumeria Engineering to get his Feudalism after I teched to astronomy. Thus giving him Longbowmen that would mow down my knights. And my 'strong army was 8-10 knights, 10 ME inf, 3 pikes and a longbowman. I didn't even calculate the effect of having to battle his GA after his defenders where victorious... And the sumerian culture just skyrocketed after they entered their golden age. I think I did at least 5 gross mistakes in this era, that I honestly can't say I would've done a year ago when I played this game regularly.

OPEN

As mentioned in my first spoiler, fast tech development is my goal for this game.

After I reached the middle ages in 340 BC I continued to build up my infrastructure with marketplaces. I had contact with all civs, but nobody researched literature so far. I want it to build lots of libraries to get down to a 4 turn research as soon as possible.

My military was relatively small, I did not want to spend extra gold for the upkeep, so I stayed more or less within the limits my republic allowed.

After getting feudalism (I gifted the scientific civs and got all three starting techs of the middle age), I upgraded my warriors to medeval infantry and destroyed the Arabs quickly (after their desaster in the ancient age they only had 4 cities).
About at the same time I got the horses from the Arabs, I connected the horses to the far west and built slowly some 3men chariots (Again, I didn't want to overspend in military.

Since still nobody had researched literature, I had to do it myself, because I wanted to use my soon to come GA to build libraries everywhere, but it means 4 lost turns.

The next cosen opponent were the babylonians and my stack of about 10 ME infantry captured slowly but surely the babylonian cities. The war gave me my first GL and I immediately formed an army with ME infantry. At the same time I used one of my chariots to trigger my golden age to improve scientific advance even further.
With the Babylonians gone, I concentrated fully on research:
First I did the bottom half of the tech tree and researched military tradition (another 4 lost turns, but I needed cavalry for the next wars).

The sumerians were no match and the war gave me 3 more GL's which formed all armies. As some other players already stated, these armies are extremely powerful, I think too powerful, they unbalance the game, but nevertheless I liked them I lot, it made my war soooo much easier.

After finishing ht e sumerians, my researched progressed ennough to have astronomy and shortly after magnetism available, so I started the war immediately on the other continent. The first targets were China and Korea. Both defended most cities with one pikeman and the rest where mainly spearmen, so it was really a walkover with my cavary and the 3 armies. I got one more GL, so I had 4 armies and that was more then enough.

My scientific adviser told me that due to generous funding our resaerch does well and in 950 AD I entered the industrial age.

Some pictures about the development of my civ:



I will continue to concentrate on research and plan a space race victory since I have not done one in ages.

Ronald

Do you think suicide galleys are worth it? And when is the best time to use them?

Once you've scouted your entire coastline and made safe forays into the sea and back to ensure there are no nearby island that can be reached safely, galleys only have 3 uses: 1) ferry settlers & troops quickly to distant points on the island 2) find the other tribes by making suicide runs hoping to get lucky and establish first contact 3) Sit around and wait to be upgraded to caravel.

#1 is the best if you've got a large unsettled area with valuable resources and no quick path to
#2 is the next best and if you get lucky is easily worth the 3-4 galleys you might lose
#3 is not cost effective unless you have a small army

Thanks for the tip denyd.

Link to my Ancient Age Spoiler

Map Recap from 1000BC & 520BC



MIDDLE AGES

As we pick up the action in the Middle Ages I have already eliminated ARB and I am currently at war with SUM, who is the largest both in size and in culture. So it is important in planning an attack to limit the cultural flips. I start with the furthest cities from their capital and work my way towards UR.

Here is a map of how the plan actually played out. The red forces were my main attack group and the green units were my reinforcements during the middle of the campaign. I did not learn Chivalry until 720AD so most of the fighting was done with Swords and Med. Infantry. (I aslo had 2 sword armies from the end of the Ancient Age.)



540AD captured KISURRA (S)
570AD captured KUA (S)
610AD captured ISIN (S)
640AD Trade BAB Feudalism for MONO
650AD suicide galley is one tile short of coast, he died but contact was established

660AD Meet China – Cautious – 1 gold, Wines & Ivory, 15 cities, no Iron currently, down REP, MON, FEUD
660AD capture AKSHAK (S)
IBT to 710AD – SUM retake KUA
710AD 2nd suicide galley sees dark blue border
710AD captured BAD-TIBIRA (S)

720AD learned Chivalry set to ENGINEERING - AKSHAK flips to SUM – galley survives meet KOREA cautious, 15 gold, silks, 16 cities, Up ENG, down MONO & FEUD – trade KOREA FEUD & MON & 40g for ENG
720AD destroyed KUA in recapture (autorazed) / Found HUBISHNA
730AD recapture AKSHAK

IBT to 740AD = Great News the Sumerian completed the Great Lighthouse too bad they want get to keep it for long – SUMs are still building the GLib & Sun Tzu
740AD capture DER (S) – created 3rd GL convert to ARMY

760AD met Portugal , 16 cities, 0 gold, down MONO & FEUD
780AD capture LAGASH & the Great Lighthouse
800AD built the Knight Templar (triggered my GA)
810AD capture AGADE & UMMA
820AD completed FP

830AD LAGASH flips back to SUM – we loss all three galleys in sea tiles – recapture LAGASH down to size 4 (will starve & build a worker)
840AD UMMA flips back to SUM – recapture UMMA – met the ZUL (they are still in AA) 12 cities down Iron, CUR & MON

850AD A cultural flip to us Must be an error in the game SAMARRA (B) flips to us / capture KISH (S)
870AD captured SUMER (S)

900AD capture UR, The Pyramids and The Great Wall & destroy the Sumerians




I’m 10 turns into my GA
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reassess Competition
China (Annoyed) (Rep)– 17 cities, 1gold, Wines & Ivory, down MONO & ENGIN, have iron & horses
Portugal (Cautious) (Rep)– 17 cities, Ivory & Silks, down MONO & INVEN, have iron & horses
Babylon (Polite) (Mon)– 8 cities (on my continent), no lux, down ENGIN & CHIV, no iron or horses
Korea (Cautious) (Rep)– 15 cities, 20gold, silks, down CHIV & INVEN, no iron or horses
Zululand (Annoyed) (Rep)– 11 cities, 8 gold, down CURR & MONAR (still in AA), no iron

China & Port are my 2 strongest threats. However China is where my ocean crossing is the closest. Port is on the southern end of that continent while China is in the north. Rules out any usefulness in signing a MA with Port against China, they would send limited troops into action.

First move is to build more galleys, knights & muskets.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
910AD found ALACA HUYUK
960AD after reposition some troops I declare war on BAB
970AD capture ASHUR (B) & URUK (B) & EULBAR (B) & destroyed (autorazed) NIPPUR (B)
1010AD captured BABYLON (B)
1030AD found EMAR
1050AD capture NINEVEH (B)

1060AD loaded my galleys (including an unloaded army unit)



1080AD captured ELIPI (B)
1090AD Completed Sun Tzu / captured ERIDU (B) & my first city on another continent KAIFENG (C)
1100AD captured AKKAD (B) destroying the BABs / found ALALAH



--------------------------------------------------------------------------
1140AD Interesting development: PORT has moved a stack of AC & Horsemen in range of both China and KAIFENG, who are they going to attack? Or should I offer a MA vrs China – would be cheaper next turn if they attack China. But do I want to take the chance of fighting the two big dogs at one time?



I do not take the chance and go ahead and sign a MA w/ PORT vrs CHN. Any cities they take are away from their homeland and would be easy for me to take later.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

1160AD captured NINGPO (C)

IBT to 1170AD – after 3 turns of Alliance w/ PORT they declare war on me – they are still in a MA w/ ZUL vrs CHN, but broke the MA with me & attacked – very weird



--------------------------------------------------------------------------
1190AD found IVRIZ / captured PAOTING (C)
1200AD captured PUSAN (C)
1210AD captured CHENGDU (C)
1220AD learned MILITARY TRADITION set to THEO in 6 @50%
1240AD found KANESH & built the Military Academy
1255AD captured CHINAN
1260AD created a Gleader used to build The Pentagon in CHINAN / captured HANGCHOW / autorazed a CHN city
1265AD sign ROP with Korea / captured TSINGTAO
1270AD Learned Theology set to Printing Press (4turns) / captured Nanking
1275AD Found KARHUYUK / captured ANYANG

1285AD captured MACAO / generated a Gleader converted to army / generated another Gleader convert to army / captured BEIJING & the Temple of Artemis

1290AD learned Printing Press set to Education 5 turns / captured TATUNG (China is eliminated) / found KARATEPE / set sci to 0% no need for anymore book learning - This game is about to become very BLOODY.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
1300AD Declare war on Korea – raze 3 towns

Decide I want to end game before 1400AD so I start razing cities. I have never won a GOTM via Conquest so that is now my goal. I also had decided that PORT must pay for their earlier treachery. I vowed to eliminated them from the game.

1310AD capture Leo Workshop
1355AD Eliminated Korea from island & game
1360AD a BARB warrior appears in some of the razed territory
1380AD eliminated ZUL



In order to acheive a conquest victory, I actually have to abandon a few cities to keep the domination limit from kicking in. At one point I was down to 21 tiles from a DOM victory.

1385AD Captured last PORT city however they have a settler alive
1390AD PORT recaptures one of my cities – I retake it and kill their settler - eliminated PORT – Achieved a CONQUEST victory

Armies were the key to the final elimination of the last 3 Civs. For the game I generated 11 Great Leaders, used one to build The Pentagon and ended the game with 9 armies (all from GL). I lost tract of the 10th must have been killed in the same battle that generated it (ie created during IBT defense and killed).

Wow! I still dont see how i ever could be able to do that on Regent level. Nice job.

Open

MA lasted from 300 AD to 1445 AD. I was the tech leader the whole time, allocating 90-100% research throughout. I was a Monarchy throughout the MA.

Like a lot of people I went against the Arabs first. Unfortunately my war instinct isn't good, and it took an awful lot longer than it should have done to get rid of them. I even lost a Medieval Infantry Army against a city (killed first Spearman, and stupidly I decided to go again - bye, bye army). That was the only GL I got throughout the MA. It was made worse by the Arabs building The Great Wall just after I attacked. The war lasted from 570 AD to 1170 AD. Trebuchets were used, but proved ineffectual against Spearmen behind city walls. It wasn't until I got Cannons (Metallurgy) that I was able to take out the Arab cities.

Whilst warring the Arabs, I built ONE 3-man chariot, and in 1080 AD he managed to give me a Golden Age.

After doing in the Arabs, I turned my attention to Babylon. I set up three main groups. Two near two outlying cities, and one near the main set (in the South East). I go my proportions wrong, and had far too many troops for the outlying cities, taking them easily in 1270 AD. The tropps then took 6 turns to reach the fight in the South. Babylon did not take too long to kill, finishing in 1355 AD, but it would have een a lot quicker if I'd got the proportions right. Interestingly, babylon seemed to die far more easily than the Arabs - their units died more easily, or at least appeared to.

After this point, I had the lions share of the continent, with a VERY cultural Sumeria (nearly double mine). Thankfully I have only lost one city to Sumeria through culture flip (an ex-Babylonian city). Sumeria does not want to fight because I keep selling it the higher techs, and because I have a large military.

In 1380 AD met the other three civs (Zulu were destroyed in 1330 AD). They are all far below myself & Sumeria in tech. So continuing to keep atech lead, and going for a Diplomatic victory looks on the cards. I am not sure about attacking Sumeria, because I'm not too experienced, and the culture flipping of cities after being captured looks like it might be a problem. So I'm going to stay peaceful and build the UN, whilst everyone loves me.

I have only built no Great Wonders yet, whilst Sumeria has built most of the Wonders (leading to its commanding culture lead). Smith's Trading Company has been started to reduce my maintenance bill, but that's all. So long as I can stay at least half of its culture, I should be safe from them winning by culture, and from losing too many cities in a flip.

Industrial Age will be staying peaceful and as much research as possible.

Spoiler #3 should be opening pretty soon right?

ya i thought they came out every 5 days?

Ancient Age mini write-up

This turned out to be my best *OTM score ever (okay, so I've only done three), but I think that this has been a great tool for me improving my game. I became a republic shortly before entering the MA and stayed in that government for the rest of the game. I went to war in the early middle ages, securing my home continent, waited for astronomy, and then found the other continent; I didn't turn off research until Military Tradition, just for the extra (unneeded) firepower, but in reality it was because I had never been so goal oriented on domination to turn off research before. When I reached the second continent, they had beaten each other down so much with their constant infighting that I had virtually no resisitance and wrapped up the win within 15 turns of landing. I finished before exiting the Middle Ages in 1290AD with my earliest domination win yet.

As I don't have too much time to devote to a full write-up at any one time, I will bring this in a four-part story-book telling the successes of the Hittite empire as they ravaged from countryside to countryside, bringing unity under an iron thumb to the world of COTM1.

The Middle Ages -
Part One: The Arab War


World Map - Beginning of Middle Ages

Well before researching myself into the Middle Ages in 130BC, Arabia had been my primary target. Although leading the tech race, my military had been weak early on and I was the target of several threats by the shrouded ones; that in combination with their rich and fertile lands made their doom complete. In the year 30AD war was declared, and jewels and treasure was promised to any man who helped sack an Arab city. A battle plan was formed, with the founding of the town of Kanesh as a military outpost to springboard an attack in the east (blue), moving up the coast, while in the west (red) our forces came from Tyrana, moving up the other coast, and a final group (green) mopped up the middle towards the end of the war.


Arab War Battle Plan

As war was being declared in the north, in the south the Sumerians and Babylonians spat back and forth at each other in a cold war over settling lands. The desert served as a buffer between Sumeria and the Hittites and the Hittites felt confident that they would be left untroubled. However, in 90AD, the Sumerians threatened incursion lest we give them the secrets of Literature. With the armies in the north, the Hittites had no choice but to give into the Sumerian greed, however their wrath had been kindled, and let it be known that Hittite wrath lasts throughout the ages.

The Arabs fought valiently, however ineptly, and in 350AD the last Arab town of Medina was captured and riots quelled throughout the land. A golden age was triggered in 260AD when our first 3-manned Chariots defeated an Arab archer, and the resulting boom in production built many fine marketplaces and libraries throughout the land. Peace came to the northern lands, and thoughts wandered from military conquest to the building of markets, barracks, and libraries to supply the necessities of our people.


World Map - End of Arab War

Yet Sumeria had not been forgotten. As the most powerful nation in the world, they were all that stood between the Hittites and domination over the continent, and soon the tendencies of the warlike Hittites came to be. Feudalism had been learned, and the maces of the newly formed ranks of Medieval Infantry longed to try their military process against a foe, however unworthy they might be. Now the Hittites bided their time, waiting until they were ready to make the first strike.

Edit: Images added.

Well... I hope this post isn't out of line... I'm in the industrial age, and will probably never see the modern age. I have decided to try milking one. I've never actually pursued a histographic victory before, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

Many, many thanks to SirPleb for his article on milking. A plain-text version of that article now resides on my hard drive.

@SirPleb: I only wish I had taken all of your advice, and not built hospitals....

Enough of that. I noticed something that borders on an exploit, and thought I'd post it to see if anybody has noticed this before. We'll start with a screencap... we'll call this one:

"Funny things can happen when scout gets bored with the AI", or "Privateer Amusement Park":



As I took that screencap, I could have sworn that city was size 4 the last time I looked at it. Suspecting the Koreans were trying to slip a settler pair past my gauntlet, I did a little investigating.



Now - bear in mind - I'm at..."peace' with Korea at this point. Better yet, he dialed me up between turns to ask for a Mutual Protection Pact! But it still appeared that I was starving "Korea" into oblivion.

Soooo.... I decided to do a little experiment:



For all you RBCiv'ers tracking this thread, here's something else for you to label an "exploit".

That is a siege. But, if you were friendly, not at war, Korea's workers should have still been able to work the coastal tiles even w/ your ships there. But, since they're privatees (freelance pirates) then they act as hostiles on tiles.

@dojoboy: You're right, it's nothing short of a peacetime siege.

The rationale for the blockade: By putting privateers inside his borders, I keep him bottled up on the one-tile island. (Note that Korea's borders enclose part of an island to the SW.)

Korea cannot open diplomacy and boot the Privateers out. This alone is not an exploit, but combined with the fact that the Privateers can deny Korea the use of all those tiles...I could keep his city at size 2 if I so choose. He has no choice but to build Galleons to try to run the blockade, which provides for some amusement once every few dozen turns ...

This little thing has started me wondering if Privateers would be effective in messing up trade routes as well...

The Ancient Age ended with the much larger and culturally superior Sumerians(no doubt due to a better starting location) preparing to kick my butt. I used all my gold to get the Babylonians to side with me, and it got ugly for a long time. The Babs were wiped out way too quickly, and the only thing keeping me alive was the slow pace that the Sumerian troops were moving through the desert toward me. My knights kept me from losing any cities, but I kept burning through units at an alarming rate. I kept trying to do diplomacy with them, but they mostly refused to meet me. Finally, I was able to get a peace treaty.

Then I got a lucky break from the Chinese. I came into contact with them, and was able to gain contacts with all the other civs. The Chinese declared war on the Sumerians (without any prompting from me), and I watched most of the Sumerian troops leave my border and head for the coast where China was attacking. I patiently watched the counter of the peace treaty tick down, while I built up lots of knights. As soon as I could, I declared war on Sumeria and attacked with lots of knights. This gave me the hope that I could actually win, since I was able to get gunpowder finally and made a beeline toward cavalry/military tradition. The Sumerians and Chinese were at war for a very long time. I would attack Sumeria and then go for peace when the war weariness got to be a problem (I was a Republic, then Democracy). After waiting 20 turns, I'd go back at it. Since I was steadily carving them up, whenever I met with the leader, I could always get peace. Soon, the Sumerians were no more.