Crossing the Alps - Hannibal on Emperor, #1

Welcome to this demo! This is going to be the first demo of the strategy guide found here for Hannibal:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=461289

The aim of this demo is to get a feel for how Hannibal's qualities can be leveraged on large, continental/fractal Emperor maps. This is the author's first stab at writing these demos, so feel free to be generous with constructive criticism.

I'll separate this demo into the following sections (identical with the guide) with save points accompanying:

1) Start Save
1) Ancient Era -> Alphabet
2) Classical Era -> Education
3) End game

It seems to be etiquette to hide alternate game progress in spoilers, so I'll ask for the same here for anyone playing along that has commentary outside of the "official" demo. I intend to finish this game within a week, maybe just a couple days. I'll wait several hours before beginning to get feedback on the start.

My personal goals:



Let's begin!

This is Hannibal:




Numidian Cavalry

Unique unit for Carthage; Replaces Horse Archer
Requires Horseback Riding and Archery
Strength 5 instead of 6
Immune to first strikes
Doesn't receive defensive bonuses
Can withdraw from combat (20% chance)
Flank attack against Catapults and Trebuchets
Starts with Flanking I
+50% attack vs. Catapults and Trebuchets
+50% vs. Melee Units


Cothon

Unique building for Carthage; Replaces Harbor
Requires Compass
Can only be built in a coastal city
+1 trade route
+1 from Fish, Crab, Clams
+50% commerce from trade routes
Requires 100 hammers instead of 80 on standard speed


Here are the game specs:



There are the standard 8 AIs on this size map, speed is epic, fractal, and everything else standard, with no barbs being the only extra option selected. All victory conditions are enabled.


Here is the starting location:




Let's put this all together.

First off, Hannibal is Financial/Charismatic, heavily favoring larger early cities with cottage spam. Charismatic also doubles as a strong military trait, which brings us to the UU:

Numidian Cavalry (NC) are not suited for ancient rushes like the Quechua or the Immortal. Nevertheless it is an effective early unit and something worth considering after Alphabet, perhaps earlier if not for the larger map settings. Indeed, the NC seems to be the perfect "rush" unit for this kind of map - a great combination of the Praetorian's strength and the Keshik's speed, with a slight penalty on taking cities. Regardless, it is not worth focusing on NCs just yet, even less so on the Cothon.

Therefore, more than likely I'll be pursuing a solid REX strat initially. Once the start is established I will spam worker/settlers probably from the capitol in the hope of establishing starting territory and then filling the gaps.

Hannibal's starting techs are great - mining for faster BW, and fishing, which in this particular start is perfect.

Looking at the start...wow, seafood! 2 clams, and one fish in the BFC. Fresh water and wheat as well...this city will definitely be cranking out worker/settlers asap, probably at size 4-5. Moving 1E will still retain all of these advantages, while getting two additional grass hills and more land tiles to work. Also, the hill/plain central tile will produce one extra hammer automatically, great for the early work boats. This looks like the optimal start to me. Will probably develop seafood first while teching towards BW, agriculture, wheel, pottery, AH.

Suggestions for early build? Unless moving 1E reveals something better, I'm looking at utilizing hill/forest to crank out the first work boat, then shift to worked clams to grow to size two while building two more boats, utilizing each subsequent worked boat to further grow the city. Once all three boats are finished, worker, then settler.

Ancient Era

Highlights:

- Met Ragnar Turn 35. Hopefully there are others here so that he can attack someone else. Unfortunately not, so I will have to deal with him.
- Seems I'm at the north end of a vast jungle southward...not good, means very worker intensive, no real cottaging until I research IW.
- Around turn 75, I discover a choke south of the jungle, which is prob where Ragnar is at...after making 3 workers, I aim to make a settler to settle this choke to claim everything north for myself. Turn 85 I discover Ragnar's capitol. Settler pops and will take 11 turns to get there. He's Jewish, which means I will become Jewish once the city settles and receives the religion.
- I decide to aim straight for an oracle -> CoL, although I won't be using Confucianism in any meaningful way.
- Carthage finishes a granary, chops up a monument and warrior while developing 2 mines, and immediately begins oracle. Oracle complete 1550 BC, although I whip it out bc I get the feeling there's an ind leader out there about done with it given that stonehenge finished way early.
- Settler succeeds in his mission, but incurs a -7 maintenance penalty. Ouch! I prioritize sailing over alphabet to get the trade route up asap with this city, and also bc there's simply no one else besides our friendly but not tech-savvy Norseman. I send 2 workers on a mission to road these two areas together...these two will (eventually) develop the city as well. There is gold there which will not only pay for the city, but also increase happy cap to 7-8 everywhere.

Good:
- I've secured almost this entire island by choking Ragnar off.
- Tech is decent, given that I got oracle out quite early.
- There is gold.
- There are two major river systems, one of which has floodplains, within my borders - great for cottaging.
- Horses in the capitol's BFC.
- Confucianism is founded at the choke city, perfect for building culture there.

Bad:
- Maintenance is killing me right now.
- River systems are relatively far from capital - more maintenance.
- No good tech traders to make deals with. Very bad, but on Emperor, I can still win the Liberalism race under these conditions.
- I smell an imminent war with Ragnar given his tendencies and how much I stifled him. Our "borders" are almost already running into each other. The choke city will make monument, granary, barracks, archers, meaning that I will be researching archery very soon as well. I placed this city on the plains/hill over the desert even though this would create a dead tile - I considered the potential defense advantage to be more important in this particular case. Will adopt Judaism asap as soon as his missionary gets to wherever he is going.


Plan going forward:
- Capitol will put two scientists in for first GS to pop philosophy, while continually producing workers/settlers
- 2nd city will probably do the same.
- Minimal whipping due to abundance of food resources and the ease of getting all cities running at full production.
- More than likely I will not immortal rush and instead just focus on aggressive REX - there is simply too much land to develop. I'll start closer to the capital to minimize maintenance issues. Will deal with Ragnar at the advent of gunpowder, with the expectation that he may still not have feudalism yet at that point.
- tech-wise, I will probably start iron after sailing and archery, then alphabet, currency, civil service. Main goals will be to get the economy back under control to prioritize teching, and to properly defend the choke city.

Question: Should I try for TGLH in the 2nd city? Still lots of woods around there...

Turn 104:

Classical Era:

Highlights:
- So, Ragnar shows his chutzpah and demands tribute 3 turns later. Free clams for him! These demands are constant from both of them, but given this is emperor and I am very aggressively REXing, I acquiesce to everything, mainly clams and cows which I end up canceling repeatedly.
- I decide to try TGLH. I never build this wonder, but seems the forums are partial to it, and I can certainly use the trade. Furthermore, my immediate expansion plans are eastward along the coast, so let's give it a go. Capitol cranks out workers after the library, 2nd city prepares to chop/whip.
- Convert to Judaism on turn 111.
- Oh man, TGLH requires masonry!! :/ Well that slows it down by 9 turns. I decide to build it at the capitol then, since it has 3 mines whereas the 2nd city has nothing but woods. My gut feeling tells me this is not going to work, but apparently I am pleasantly surprised - after another whip, it's out on turn 131, and boosts my commerce by about 50%! Research is still abysmal though. 2nd city needs another 20 turns for a GS, so the philosophy lightbulb will take some time.
- Not sure what to do about my capitol...it looks great for everything BUT a commerce-hub bureaucracy. :/
- Met Napoleon turn 135. He's Hindu but who cares, he's on another continent. Actually this is great news bc Ragnar is gonna start blowing some smoke soon, probably in his direction with a bit of prodding from me. Plan to make a galley and send a scout whenever feasible. My workers now have nothing better to do so they road to future city sites.
- Alphabet turn 147. Surprisingly Ragnar is quite advanced...he is only missing CoL and alphabet. And ofc Napoleon hates me. I refrain from trading to see if my scout can find a less advanced civ.
- Copper pops in Carthage's BFC. I don't connect it so that I can continue to make warriors for my cities...
- WTH...capital produces a GS!! This given that most of its GPP came from the non-science wonders. Gonna save this one to lightbulb philo, and use the one after to help with education.
- My god, Napoleon is on an island too...:/
- I begin research IW until Napoleon is willing to trade it for Meditation and Priesthood, and then research mathematics until Ragnar is willing to trade it along with Monarchy for Currency. This occurs at 80BC, which is when I also lightbulb philo and found Taoism.
- Ragnar has feudalism by turn 175. I suppose Financial is working well for him too.
- Islam founded by someone turn 192. Not good.
- Apparently I can use some work on awareness, Napoleon pulls this on me:
- Second GS pops at turn 193, save for education.
- Gold strike turn 200, nice treasury boost. I am also the 2nd most cultured civ at this time. Not sure if that's good or not.
- There is a third island to the west, and incidentally there's another civ south of it (I think isabella, maybe and hopefully HC instead) just beyond galley range from making contact. Prioritize settling someone there and getting a culture pop there asap to establish contact.
- Apostolic palace built turn 215, Buddhist apparently.
- Education turn 235, 850AD. A bit late, but I guess given I only had two trading partners, not too bad. Also my capitol is not really a commerce hub in any sense.


Good:
- Tech is progressing smoothly, although slower than I would like. The path to Liberalism is open and it seems I will probably get it first.
- REX is progressing smoothly. Overall 12 cities so far without a single war.
- The two religions helped to grow happy cap in Carthage before calendar resources were available.
- 2 great wonders completed
- Drafting cities are just about set up and good to go. A lot of whipping over time has resulted in these cities being a bit small, but with most of the basic infrastructure (monument, granary, forge, library, lighthouse whenever appropriate), and fading unhappiness.
- Calendar gave me access to a lot of happy resources. Happy cap in Carthage is 16 right now, and with only one warrior in it (running Heriditary rule too). Carthage can crank out settlers in 3 turns right now
- Choke city is holding well. Culture has not been an issue.
- Foreign trade is making 60 commerce, a significant amount of my total commerce output.

Bad:
- I bulbed philo and education and am still discovering liberalism post 1000AD. Given that Islam already came out a while back, there is a distinct possibility someone is also on track to discovering liberalism before me.
- I don't have any production cities outside of the capitol - not even the secondary food cities are currently adequate for making workers/settlers. I was thinking about NCs against Napoleon, but the utter lack of production and the necessity of making a lot of workers for the jungle pretty much nixed this avenue for me.
- I was incurring around -7 gold army maintenance during most of this period for a relatively small standing army that had no offensive capability whatsoever.
- I have only 2 cities larger than size 6.
- Been sitting on undeveloped sugar for ages now. Clearing the jungle has been slow going even with 11 workers.
- I am not running organized religion, yet all of my cities are building infrastructure. Given the lack of hilly sites, I'm almost entirely dependent upon whipping for just about all production needs outside of the capitol.
- Ragnar's population is almost twice mine (although this is mainly due to my whipping, which is now tapering down).
- I am not leading in any demographic category.
- There are a lot of mountains (dead tiles), but almost no hills. Absolutely Terrible.
- Everyone I know has Feudalism. Ragnar has been able to keep up a very decent teching capacity (for emperor AI).
- Napoleon and Ragnar *like* each other, and have liked each other this entire time. Apparently neither care about the differing religion, and both seem to like aggressive types.

Plan and Assessment:
I'm a bit worried. Progress has been slow, and my known rivals are robust, and there is no way to play them off against each other. Ragnar's starting lands beyond the choke were a lot larger than I thought. My unknown rivals are apparently even more robust and even less warlike - I think only one great general has spawned this entire game for anyone. If I do get liberalism first, I will immediately adopt nationhood and start a round of drafting macemen. Next tech will be engineering, which when discovered will be shortly after I am done REXing - the capitol will then make only trebs. With 5 trebs and a second round of drafted macemen, I may think about hitting Napoleon. Next tech after that will be gunpowder, then astronomy. TGLH has been good in that it kept me going relatively strong on commerce despite the absence of cottage spam in my developed cities. It allowed me to profitably REX without worrying too much about the jungle initially.

The state of the known world:

Reserved, for Endgame.

ok I wonder what you want to demonstrate with playing a game without barbarians, with huts and events, but for sure it can be very misleading

vranasm said:

ok I wonder what you want to demonstrate with playing a game without barbarians, with huts and events, but for sure it can be very misleading

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lol, it would be misleading if I was not upfront that this would be a game without barbarians, and with huts and events.

I think folks should play whatever configuration of huts, barbs, etc, they like. But...what if you bulb Masonry or Sailing from a goody hut? It seems tough to work that kinda random chance into a generally applicable strategy for this leader.

ShengWuLien said:

I think folks should play whatever configuration of huts, barbs, etc, they like. But...what if you bulb Masonry or Sailing from a goody hut? It seems tough to work that kinda random chance into a generally applicable strategy for this leader.

Click to expand...

Well, the way I look at it is that the goody huts favor the AI, since they are given so many more scouts on emperor. You raise a good point regardless, which is to note down the goodies...I think in this game I got nothing but gold, and it added up to around 160 gold or so.

colonization said:

Well, the way I look at it is that the goody huts favor the AI, since they are given so many more scouts on emperor. You raise a good point regardless, which is to note down the goodies...I think in this game I got nothing but gold, and it added up to around 160 gold or so.

Click to expand...

ironic enough I got sailing and mysticism + 50 gold...am I better player now?

vranasm said:

ironic enough I got sailing and mysticism + 50 gold...am I better player now?

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No, but you certainly are a better troll now. Congrats.

Let's take your inferred point to its logical extreme. Let's face it, every map has its own randomness, that's why it's called a "random map generator". If you truly wanted to take out as many variables as possible (which I believe is your inferred point), you would only play on carefully designed custom "stock" maps for every game you played, where each starting location was made as uniform as possible to leave nothing to chance. You would also forbid combat, because all combat is based on random probabilities. You would only stick to determinable factors, things that leave nothing to chance, and then and only then measure each player by objective criteria, like "earliest victory" or "highest income" or what not. Such a game would be incredibly boring, I think.

Because this inferred point is IMHO rather absurd in the context of civ 4, I fully agree with Shengwulien's point, and see no reason to criticize anyone's map preferences, as long as you are made aware of what you are getting into beforehand -- something I did make quite clear in my introduction.

colonization said:

No, but you certainly are a better troll now. Congrats.

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I got 2 very critical techs for free for Hannibal.

First which allows quicker GLH and second one which allows border pops and 1 free happy person each new city for 30 hammers. i spared there ~20 turns of research!

I doubt you understand how much easier my game got with 2 lucky random rolls.

You can't use this settings if you want to lay out reliable strategy for newer players how to play Hannibal. You just CAN'T.

If your intent was some showing off, be my guest. If you wanted to define reliable strategy for Hannibal, sorry you have to start again without huts.

vranasm said:

I got 2 very critical techs for free for Hannibal.

First which allows quicker GLH and second one which allows border pops and 1 free happy person each new city for 30 hammers. i spared there ~20 turns of research!

I doubt you understand how much easier my game got with 2 lucky random rolls.

You can't use this settings if you want to lay out reliable strategy for newer players how to play Hannibal. You just CAN'T.

If your intent was some showing off, be my guest. If you wanted to define reliable strategy for Hannibal, sorry you have to start again without huts.

Click to expand...

Or, you could have gotten BW in just one hut and have discovered a tech worth more than all three of your huts combined. Or, maybe one AI discovered BW, Sailing, Agriculture, and AH. Or, maybe you started with two gold, hill/plains ivory for your starting loc, 5 flood plains, and a plains cow. Or, maybe you started with absolutely no resources in your BFC.

You made your point clear in your first post that you do not enjoy a certain level of randomness. You're obviously free to your opinion. The fact that you repeatedly make this point unfortunately points to a bit of trolling on your part. You're not forced to play this game...it's supposed to be fun, and if it isn't fun for you, I can't imagine why you are playing it.

You're more than welcome to start your own game with your own criteria. You're also more than welcome to criticize anyone that repeatedly makes comments that point to their distaste with your preferences. After a while, I believe you will conclude such a person has probably worn out their welcome.

As far as "showing off" is concerned, I wrote my guide because I had wanted to read one on Hannibal before playing him on BtS and didn't find one. When I began to win consistently with him on emperor, I decided to write one so that others in my original situation would have something to reference. The main reason I am posting this demo is because I received several comments on my guide that the best way to "guide" someone is by example, so I decided to give this a shot. I make several references to the effect that this is my first demo, I would like constructive criticism in regards to how to go about it, and have repeatedly asked for advice along the way. I'm not sure how you can get the impression that I am doing this to "show off". But, you're certainly free to your opinion. I simply advise that you do not wear out your welcome.

Edit: to make this randomness applicable to this game, the AI built stonehenge very, very early. That made me antsy and I ended up whipping 3 pop in my capitol to rush the oracle 4 turns early. Because of the unknown factor of the AI building the oracle early, which may have been facilitated by a slew of random bonuses the AI may have received, I ended up taking a gamble with my economy, something that will shape how the early game develops.

Basically, my point is that randomness is a very critical aspect of this game, and while you may think goody huts are a glaring example of this, IMHO it's the ones that permeate the game (like say combat rolls) that are a much more egregious example of how randomness can significantly affect outcomes no matter the planned strategy. That's all part of the game. If it makes you feel better to eliminate goody huts, great. It certainly makes me feel better to eliminate barbarian spawns. However, those are IMHO relatively minor instances of randomness compared to what is built into the game, especially things like starting location and combat percentages.

You both bring up good points about randomness but who cares, just write the guide and play a hell of a game. No use fighting over something like semantics. I like huts too because of the randomness.

About the game, this is one hell of a start. Great land, so much food. Good blocking city and a happy resource to boot. BTW if you use advanced messaging you can insert the links of photobucket and get screenshots like voice put up. It makes reading for us much easier. Keep it up.

Killroyan said:

You both bring up good points about randomness but who cares, just write the guide and play a hell of a game. No use fighting over something like semantics. I like huts too because of the randomness.

About the game, this is one hell of a start. Great land, so much food. Good blocking city and a happy resource to boot. BTW if you use advanced messaging you can insert the links of photobucket and get screenshots like voice put up. It makes reading for us much easier. Keep it up.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I wasn't sure how strong of a start this was relatively speaking, but I certainly agree the seafood was great for Hannibal.

Looking around at other demos, I noticed a lot of them made references to images and files that weren't there. I'm guessing the storage limit is a big issue here, and the image files are not that small, so I'll just stick to this since anyone can just open the image in another tab.

(edit: nevermind, figured it out...thanks )

I'm playing a lot slower than I usually play...switching to emperor slowed my game down about 2x to 3x from monarch, and this game is 2x to 3x slower than my normal emperor games, lol.