Replay #4 Slow and steady wins the race

Hi everybody

(tl;dr = read bold parts again)

It's been a long time since I wrote the last "Replay" . Those of you who've followed me know, that it was a really difficult time for me (gamewise) . I struggled hard, still having my old goal of beating WastinTimes (insane) score of 3.2M but having grown sick of all the Inca-rushes. There is one thread, which describes the problems that I had perfectly, it is / was called Problems on Marathon Deity with normal leaders .

Let me tell you one thing about Incans: Incans are strong, you know that, Incans are superb to learn and master Deity, they're really fun, but they aren't good for learning the game. Incan games go like this:

1. Build "Checkers".
2. Conquer Civ 1.
3. Proceed to Civ 2.
4. Pray that Civ 3 has no Strategic Ressources (scouting is nearly impossible imo because one always needs all Checkers.

-> 50% Chance one has luck, 50% chance one doesn't have luck and they have Axes (Chariots can still be beaten with Checkers in some cases, basically if one has the numbers because of few losses at the first two Civs) .

After that:

-> Hmm, I have to beat WastinTime, I'm going to try and conquer a 4th Civ. This time: 70% chance of failure, 30% chance of luck again.

After that:

-> Overall 10% chance that one gets beaten to Oracle because it's constructed stupidly early at something like funking 2500 BC, always 20% chance that one has really bad luck with the Checkers and looses too many, at least 40% chance that the map simply is not good enough, then my personal chance of screwing up because I forgot something or just couldn't do otherwise (I rank that one pretty low already, I'd say maybe also 10%) ...

You can continue that list, the result of this was:

10 games played.
7 lost to various reasons, most times daring simply too much.
Out of the 3 remaining, in 2 times the map simply wasn't good enough to continue playing it further.
1 game that made it if lucky, other than that, no maps left .

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Maybe after reading this, you'll understand, that I really "needed" something different. Playing 10 maps and loosing (or having to give up) 9 out of them, while learning nothing is and will never be fun for me. I needed a game that's not decided in an hour, again, I love long epic games (the reason why I play Huge Marathon) and I needed a game with less pressure, that was sure for me, so I decided:

"Instead of beating WastinTimes Incan score, I'm going to beat the highest score for Huge maps that was not achieved by playing the Incans! I'm gonna really learn the game and free myself from the super-exclusive Inca-rush-style, develop my own style using the things I've learned on my way, and not give up until I've made it!"

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The title of this Replay is chosen from a german saying, "Was lange währt wird endlich gut" which means "what took a long time, finally ends well" or as online-dictionary told me, "The slow and steady wins the race" which is even more fitting . Now you already got the 1st clue to the game .

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Special thanks this time go to:

• WastinTime (as always, he is something like my mentor on the road to the highest score, he's always helpful which I appreciate a lot, just to say. )
• Tachywaxon (again, as always, he is the one I have most contact with, he always reads everything I write, even though it's sometimes very much, and this again, is appreciated very much by me because mastring Deity needs a lot of help, scoring #1 in HoF even more. )
• DanF (his work on the XML files combined with the help of Tachy greatly improved my game. )
• Um the Muse (another Huge Marathon player like me who makes me not feel totally alone in this Normal / Standard Facism ) .
• Silverbow (he also helped me a lot, especially with the leader-picks. While Tachy is always very busy with its own games, Silverbow simply had the time) .
• Habitus (he listened the longest in my "problems-thread" and still answered when everybody else had enough of complaints and questions) .
• Zx Zero Zx (he always makes me laugh ) .
• Civvver (always giving good tips and sorting out my mistakes) .
• Vranasm (he plays a lot of shadows and was one of the 1st people I saw as "a friend" and he even played Marathon (which he hates) just to help me learn play other leaders) .
• Kaitzilla (I like how euphoric he is, reminds me of myself, and he's also a good play, just like my... *cough* )
• Kid R (I know he also often until always reads what I write and he helped me a good amount of times, but often, he simply motivated me go further. )
• T-Hawk (thx for the score calculator and for the Writeup) .
• Keilah (he followed the whole Replay #3, is helpful and motivating) .

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For those of you who thought that this was long, this was long:





Make sure to follow the next Episode of "Replay #4" which is titled "Truth or Dare? Truth and Dare!"

Seraiel

even my longer hof games don't come close to that length, thou some of them should be closer as i have a habit of rushing turns at times lol

Welcome back to the 1st episode of "Replay #4 Slow and steady wins the race" .


This is the setup:
Map type: Big & Small with the options tiny islands and mixed in ("Sushi map")
Climate: Temperate (!) . I've chosen this climate, because it has more trees and less jungles than the tropical map setup. This has advantages aswell as disadvantages, the main advantage is the higher production due to all the forrests, the main disadvantage of course the lower population cap. I'll draw comparisons every now and then between Replay #3 which had a tropical map to see what's better, in this game I was just testing, I picked temperate because I had problems to successfully Rex / get Wonders on tropical.
Map size: Huge
Game speed: Marathon
Number of opponents: 17


Opponents in Detail:

• Asoka: He's a backstabber in theory, but one can deal with that. In reality, he builds only very few units, often he gets a Religion and plays the "missionary strategy" which prevents all wars from him if I understood that correctly from DanF. In my experience, he's a strong techer and he trades techs early, not as "whoring" as Mansa or Willem, but always before others are willing to trade.
• Brennus: In this game, he plays the role as "the Hateguy" or "the Meatshield" . He's a "bad boy" and because I will play with mostly "good guys" , he's gonna be hated by everybody, having the lowest peaceweight. Because of that, he's not really dangerous, he always ends up as a vassal after having been gangbanged by all others and after that, the one who vassaled him becomes hated and so the warmachine goes on, this is an approved concept. Good thing about him is also that his favourite Civic is Organized Religion, which I plan on running for 90% of the game as it's so powerful, especially in a Sush-highscore-game where one has to build really many buildings. This will give some nice Diplo-bonuses which will make getting ressources from him easier, and also again removes "the Fear-Factor" from him.
• Darius: He's in the game because he's not only a strong techer, but also a Gold-builder, meaning he saves large amounts of gold which I'll be able to trade from him, fueling my own deficit research again letting me reach Sushi faster. He's also quite peaceful and therefor is no threat at all. Know, that he always researches Animal Husbandary first, and therefor often continues with Writing follwed by very early Alpha, which again is good in every way, he's one of the opponents I like most.
• Elizabeth: She's one I don't really like, but don't really hate either. What I don't like about her is that she always begs for help, "give me this tech" , "oh, that is so mean of you" . This makes getting her on friendly a little difficult, something which is very desirable because she's probably the strongest techer together with Victoria after Zara, who's not in this game because I fear him . Lizzy btw also has a tendency to build gold, just like Darius.
• Frederick: Overall wimp. Don't know much about him other than that he's weak and vassals often.
• Ghandi: "Mr. I build no Units, I willi spread my Religion to the player so that he likes me = FAILBOB" . An obvious choice as he's the weakest of the wimps, he does not even care if one demands the hell out of him or negotiates one trade embargo after the other, iirc he even opens borders at any status.
• Hammurabi: Don't get fooled by the fact that he's Aggressive, he's actually a peaceful guy. He techs slowly, but it's easy to get him to friendly because his favourite Civic is Burocracy, therefor, he's a decent tradepartner.
• Hatshepsud: "Sabrina" is one of the best tradepartners one can wish for, she loves Organized Religion and when sharing her Religion, she's already friendly, not even having taken open Borders + lasting peace into account. She also often goes the weak Monotheism-route, what's even better about her. She's only dangerous if she starts with horses because than she can declare war very early sometimes.
• Lincoln:He's like Frederick, a wimp.
• Mansa Musa: "The whore" . He seems like a strong techer, but he's generally weak and only so fast in tech because he trades everything with everyone. That has a good side if one can isolate him and keep him under control, don't give this guy your monopoly tech, he'll trade it arount and everybody will have it in no time. He is one of the protagonists in the early game though, because he's like a vassal from the start with the difference that one has to spy on him to see what one will get next and when. He also is a huge Gold-builder, which again will be very important in this game where I want a maximum global tech-speed which also means that I'll get my techs earlier. To score high, one has to reach Sushi / finish early, we'll see how well I'll manage...
• Pericles: He's also normally a decent techer, but what's better about him is, that he also trades techs while only few Civs know them which again translates into a higher tech-rate because of more trade-possibilities. Of course he's a wimp, like all opponents except the few bad-guys which serve as meat-shields.
• Peter: He's a bad-guy and a warmonger, be careful with him. If you can make him your friend, which again is easy because he loves Burocracy, you'll have a perfect "human-shield" , you can bribe him against the ones you want to weaken because he's gonna be strong, he follows the same principles as Brennus does, with the difference that he isn't that much hated as he is, but it's nearly as much. Good again: He also trades techs while few Civs know them -> good tradepartner.
• Tokugawa: WastinTime won't understand why I took him again, but it's easy, he's simply the weakest AI there is in the game, because he doesn't trade at all. If one can get him to pleased somehow (by religion i. e. or by gifting him a crap-city) he makes an awesome puppet that one can bribe against anyone while one doesn't have to fear him at all.
• Victoria: She's another very strong AI, she techs fast and once she has Rifling, she becomes really strong for quite some time, but, she loves REP and she saves up a lot of gold. She can declare war at pleased which is dangerous on the one hand, but also good otoh because like that, one can slow her down, always bribing her against the powerful Civs.
• Wangkon: Another Gool-builder that also is a decent trade-partner, supported by his favourite Civic Caste system. You already know that I'm going to play Ramesses, so switching to the right Civic to get bonuses won't be any problem. That also counts for all the Free Religion and later the Representation, Universal Suffrage and whatever Civs, of which there are a lot already.
• Washington: He's only dangerous when it comes to demands, when he demands, one has to give in because he will DoW if one doesn't, but once one has him on pleased, he's again no threat at all. He's the 2nd weakest of the american AIs who're weak in general, the weakest one Lincoln.
• Willem van Oranje: A Gold-builder, a wimp, a tech-trader (almost) like Mansa. He's an overall good choice besides the fact that he likes to backstab in theory like Asoka, but that happens only if one is not careful or once every 50 games, because he actually doesn't build units .

So you see, that the opponents have been very well chosen this time! We have mostly wimps and religious fanatics combined with some strong techers and some meatshields, be excited about how well this setup will function

For those of you who have extreme tl;dr syndrome, I've made a picture of the round:




To be continued.

Woo - If the first couple of tracks are anything to go by we could be looking at a CFC game write-up Sgt Pepper's here! ...

On a practical note it'll be interesting to see how you handle SPI in one of your huge sushi empires. I always find civic switches awkward to time the more cities I have.

Great to see another one, Seraiel!
Also, 123 cities... built? That's not counting the conquered ones.

So much of the pre-talk, let's get this game started! Here are the years 4000 BC to 1880 BC or the turns 1 - 163!


First we got the starting scene:



I though about SIPing or settling 1 NE. 1 NE would give a 2 Hammers plains-hill as a center-tile, which is a bigger bonus than most of you would imagine. 1 Hammers more or less can be 5 turns on a Settler on Marathon. I couldn't decide, therefor, I asked my girlfriend. "Get all the gold which is better as a mid to late game perspective or get a faster start?" You have to know, that my girlfriend is the goddess of Civ. No kidding, when I tell her "I need to win that fight or the game is over" I win it, when she's away I don't get any maps, the moment she comes through the door, 7 Gems or quintuple Gold. She's a very good gamer herself, she always goes by intuition. Don't believe me? I'm really not kidding, she was one of the best Ministrels in DAoC, and she told me "get all the gold, throw away the game if the early game fails, if it doesn't, it's gonna be awesome :> " .

Having also little to zero experience with Egypts War Chariot rushes, I didn't question that. (This was the 3rd or 4th game I played with Ramesses, the 1st one was the 7 Gems start which can be found in The Awesome Starts Collection's thread. I screwed up that one, but this start equal at least. 2 times wet Corn turns the city into a Worker / Settler powerhouse, and with the Hammers from the 3 Golds, the city would also be able to produce a ton of Chariots very early.

That was basically the problem I had with the 7 Gems start, it just had too little production to rush successfully.

With this start though, I'd find out, that my girlfriend, the goddess of Civ, was totally right with grabbing all the Gold, because 2 cities would be all I'd be wanting for the beginning. This is a mistake I often made in my earlier games, too much REX leading to too late rushes. It works with Rome, because Rome is IMP and because IW comes later than AH and because Praets even beat Longbows, but for Egypt, Settlers are enormously expensive while War Chariots are extremely cheap and effective. It's much better to let the AI settle the land and only grab some horses and after that build WCs. I would not be able to grab that third Gold with a 3rd city (2nd city grabbing some Horses) and still produce a decent amount of War Chariots, that's why I SIPed.


The Research went to Mining followed by BW! Why BW and not AH as a followup? Researching BW gives a production bonus due to early chops, researching AH makes sure you get some Horses. I'm a gambler so I decided for the more powerful less safer tactic, get 2 Workers, chop out a Settlelr, settle Horses, chop out a dozen of War Chariots, finish the War Chariot quest that one gets in 90% of the cases with Egypt, and produce tripple promoted War Chariots with the power of Vassalage!

Oh, I'm spoiling too much already, but this is actually the Truth and Dare tile of this Episode. Having such a tremendous start I decided for both, for the truth (Oracle -> Feudalism) and the daring part (getting 12 WCs before finishing Oracle! ) .

Most of you would call this a really crazy gambit, and I tell you, it is, but that's the great thing in a HoF game, there's no pressure to beat that specific map, if it fails, one can let Mapfinder run over night and one will get another great start and can try again! Just to make sure, for Oracling Feudalism, one needs to research Monarchy. One needs Writing and one needs Oracle + Monarchy and that all before T150 which is at 2000 BC, because on Marathon Deity, Oracle gets built at a latest of 1800 BC! I've already left out the Industrious Civs to create greater chances for myself, but let's do this step by step:


T1: The Capital after the SIP



Buildorder Worker -> Worker. Why Worker -> Worker? Because I have 2 Corns to improve from the start, I have 3 Golds to mine, and I'm going to have lots of Forrests which must be chopped as fast as possible to get the 12 WCs! Therefor Worker -> Worker = logical. Of course, I also want to Oracle Feudalism, meaning I should focus Research and let the city grow between the Workers to get the Golds online asap, but getting a huge production was the greater good I thought!


T8 (3880 BC) : Mysticism from a Goody Hut

T16 (3760 BC) : Scout from GH

Picture of the initial scouting:



On the screen, you can also see that I've met Lizzy, Ghandi, Toku and Hatty. That's a good thing I think, I can kill Ghandi first because he builds the fewest troops, after that, I can continue with the harder, because being Protective, Tokugawa, and Hatty should be my techtrade-friend. I met Lizzy later than those three, so I knew that she'd be farther away. I had no idea yet about their ressources, and I wouldn't even know that later, because Ghandi is always the Worst Enemy of the bad guys, so I could not open Borders with him fearing to piss them off.

Regarding Good Huts, I got Mysticism which is ok. If I had gotten it in the 1st two turns I could have made a try at getting a religion, but like that, it's only some Beakers I don't have to research on the path towards Oracle which again is, ok, not op, it's ok. It's also not bad, because reaching Priesthood asap is one of the most important goals early after BW + AH, the earlier one has Priesthood, the less likely the AI is to tech it, thus greater chances at a successful Oracle. I also got a Scout from a Hut, which is something I like very much as I never research Hunting and getting a clearview early is very nice.


T54 (3190 BC) , big jump: The 2nd Worker finishes.

Nothing in between also means that I got no further Goody Hut, so I have 0 Gold . This is not good, I have to keep research at 100% and I also need some if a bad random event comes along, so I decide to build SH for the moment. Ramesses is IND so it's actually better than building Wealth.
While the 1st Worker improves the 2nd Corn, the 2nd one already begins at improving one of the Golds. Here are 2 pictures, one of the city and one of the surrounding land, I've scouting huge parts:





On this map I'm glad that I'm playing Egypt and not Spain, Rome or whomever, there's nearly no room to expand except some jungle. 3300 BC to 3000 BC is the time where Deity AI settles their 3rd cities, so let's look a little further:


T 65 (3025 BC) : Thebes grows to size 2.



Espionage has been directed to Hatty for the moment because I haven't met Mansa yet. I hope this changes soon, Hatty is a decent techtrade-partner but in the early game, there's nothing that's better than Mansa. Hatty started with Marble and researches Masonry so as (almost) always, she goes the Monotheism route. Ghandi has founded Hinduism (which was Meditation, I play with choose Religions to have a bit more of diversity in the game) , he's another candidate at scoring Oracle but he doesn't seem to have Marble, and as I plan on annihilating him early, I don't wanna direct any espionage to him. Mansa, Asoka and WK are the other ones which might research Priesthood early, I have no influence on that, I'm gambling, the tension grows.


Only 8 turns later (T73 = 2905 BC) , Thebes grows to size 3 and the 1st Gold goes online: The power of the 2 wet Corns is really amazing.




T76 (2860 BC) , Darius is the first to Writing:



This develops just like I've told you, Darius always goes AH first for his Immortals, therefor has Writing very early, and getting Writing leads the AIs on the Alphabet-path, which leads me to getting Writing through trade, which is a big part of the Gambit. From experience I know, that the AIs normally need between 30 and 40 turns from Writing to Alpha. This could already be a litte bit early, but from the log I know, that Darius hasn't switched to Slavery yet, so there's a good chance that I'll be able to trade BW + something for it.


T 82 (2770 BC) : Only 9 turns after having grown to size 3, Thebes grows to size 4 and works 2 Golds now.



In addition: All Golds have been improved, just 2 turns before BW finishes, so the Workers will only be idle for 1 turn as they need also 1 turn to move into the Forrests, this is perfect timing, going Worker -> Worker really was the right move. I have to make a decision though: Shall I continue on building Stonehenge now that Thebes has grown to size 4, or shall I produce a Settler?

Normally, I'd always decide for the safe route, but I'm playing Egypt: SH is too nice of a Wonder for Egypt who can run 2 Priest-Specialists with the Unique Monument, this might allow me to do something really crazy like Oracling Paper after bulbing Theo! I'm beginning to dream.


Those dreams get disturbed very fast though, because in T89 (2665 BC) Hammurabi builds SH so I get 152 Failgold .



Too bad, but actually as expected. SH in 2665 BC is already late for Marathon Deity, I've seen 2400 BC as a latest. I'd have loved to score that Wonder too and run a Priest-heavy Economy early, but in hindsight, this was good too, because without Failgold and 3 Golds online, I wouldn't have reached Monarchy in time. Of course I let the city grow to size 5 now, as its Foodbar is already half full, the turns I need for growing will be only little more than the turns I save on the Settler because of that.

Notice though, I'd never do this if I wasn't playing a HoF game, not Worker -> Worker (I'd go Worker -> grow to size 2 because the city has two 3 Food tiles -> 2nd Worker) , neither the BW after Mining (I'd prefer AH to make sure to get Horses if playing normally, you can see that Hatty and Toku already have settled towards my position and that I have very little space to expand) , nor trying to score Stonehenge, nor trying something as crazy as fulfilling the WC-Quest before Oracling something of that size, but this is the fun part of a HoF game in the beginning, one can go enormous risks :> Let's have a look though at the time I needed to play the first 100 turns, I'm a very slow player, and I hate it when I'm not successful:



Nearly one hour played already. I'm sure AbsoluteZero would already be long into the medievil era, researching something like Civil Service, but I'm especially inexperienced with normal leaders, I really need to think about every move twice, I'm sure the decision with SH alone took me at least 5 minutes. Deciding which Forrests I have to chop took me 5 minutes, because I like to have every chopped tile to be surrounded by 3 Forrests because then there is a good chance, that a Forrest will regrow in the time where I chop other Forrests.


Anyway: Viccy has also reached Writing, just like Ghandi, but more important: In T95 (2575 BC) I finally finish Animal Husbandary and now can see if there are some Horses in range: It's time to look around again:



Good news, bad news. Good news is, there are Horses which haven't been settled yet, bad news is, they are over 10 tiles away from the Capital O_O . It's gonna take forever to build a road there. The site is decent with a source a Food and some Gems, but I need at least 2 more Workers. Too bad I didn't steal any, but I really screwed up some beautiful starts doing that, maybe I have to learn from Tachywaxon again.

I know for sure that some would give up the start now, but I somehow feel that this start still can make it, maybe I'm just not willing to give up because I don't get dual Wet Corn + Tripple Gold every day and I've got a good feeling about this. The good thing is, that I went Worker -> Worker in the beginning, that I went for early BW and that I had the city fully improved and the Workers rdy to powerchop from the moment BW was there. I let 2 chops go into the Settler, then switch to the Barracks again so the city can grow to size 5 which it does in T97 (2545 BC) :



The city produces the Settler with lightspeed of 14 and because the 2 Workers are still chopping, the Settler finishes in T 104 (2460 BC) :



It's not new to you, that my Research went Meditation . What's new is, that I finally got the War Chariot Quest! I already was afraid that it might not trigger. About 50 turns left until I want to Oracle Feudalism to produce those leet tripple promoted Chariots...

In T 108 (2420 BC) "Eastern Rice Horses Gems" or "Alexandria" is founded. The same turn, Viccy is the first to Alpha!




Meditation has finished in the meantime and Research has gone to Priesthood to block the AI from researching it, because it's already a "known tech" . Let's have a look if I can trade anything from Viccy:



Too bad, she has BW already, otherwise this would have been my first chance to get Writing. I don't wanna trade Mysticism or Meditation against anything with her, because it's still too early for that, as it could lead her on the path to Priesthood and therefor Oracle.

Important decision: If I still want to finish that Quest and also Oracle in time, I decide that I have to stay at 2 cities, and that I need 5 Workers for them! Plan is that 3 Workers build the road to Alexandria while 2 Workers pre-chop Forrests, so that I can Chopwhip the 12 Chariots in only a few turns. After the road is built, the Horses and the rice have to be improved and new Forrests will become available by the 2nd Borderpop of the Capital, so enough to do for 5 Workers.


Small jump, in T125 (2250 BC) Wang Kon is the 2nd to reach Alpha. I'm lucky, he didn't research Animal Husbandary so I got something I can trade to him. What makes me nervous is that he has Meditation. He could research Priesthood and still get Oracle before me, even without Marble, because I still need 32 turns to Monarchy. Therefor, I trade AH vs Fishing because I hope to get Sailing somehow which would give me foreigh Traderoutes which again would mean some Commerce fastening up my Research.



Production won't be a Problem with so many Workers, early BW and so many Forrests. Thebes is shortly before finishing the Barracks and hasn't even started on producing the Oracle yet, because its production is so high, that it can produce it from the scratch in 30 turns!



On the Screen, you can also see the X-pattern in which I chopped the Forrests to give them a greater chance to regrow while others are being chopped, what I described further above, you'll remember, what takes me so long.
You can also see, that I've met all Civs, so this map is one big isle and not multiple ones, which is good for trade reasons.


2170 BC or T133 is the important turn:

1. The Horses go online!



The Workers have chops rdy in just that round. What's bad about that timing, is, that both of them got the chop rdy on the same turn. It wouldn't have been too wrong if I'd had chopped both Forrests at once converting some Overflow that's too much into Gold , but I didn't think of that at that time. Notice now how important that Failgold and growing to size 5 would become?

2. Darius gets Alpha and he lacks a lot basic techs!



Notice that I don't trade for Writing yet, as I know, that I'll get that for Meditation + BW on the next turn. Getting Pottery, especially for AH + Fishing is the best move this turn, because it allows Darius to maybe get Sailing and not every AI researches Pottery so maybe I trade for some further tradegood here. It's important that I don't trade Mining, because AI always get's Mining from someone else, if I'd trade it, Darius would get BW from someone else denying a big trade in the followup turn.


Things develop as planned and even better: Here are the trades 2 turns later in 2150 BC:



Darius has traded for Sailing and he has got Mining so I can trade Meditation + BW vs Sailing + Hunting!

Same turn, Lizzy has reached Alpha and she also lacks some basic techs:



Ok, I admit, this was lucky somehow, getting all basic techs for just BW and AH, but hey, "fortune favors the bold" :>


In the meantime, the War Chariot production is running on high speed:

2130 BC: I whip the 1st Chariot 1 turn before Thebes would have grown to size 6! Like that, it can regrow and only looses working 1 Gold for 1 turn.
2120 BC: The first Chariot is rdy!
2110 BC: The next Chariot finishes from the OF of the first one!
2100 BC: I whip the next Chariot in Alexandria!
2090 BC: The 4th Chariot finishes from the OF of the 3rd one in Alexandria!
2060 BC: I chop out the 5th Chariot!
2050 BC: The 2nd Worker has finished another chop for the 6th Chariot!
2040 BC: The 2 chops combined with normal production give the 7th Chariot!!
2000 BC: The 8th Chariot finishes through normal production in the Capital!
1990 BC: The 9th Chariot finishes through normal production in Alexandria!
1970 BC: Another chop brings in the 10th Chariot!
1940 BC: The 11th Chariot again is through normal production!
1930 BC: I whip the last Chariot that's needed for that quest!





!111

That were 12 War Chariots produced in 20 turns! It was perfect (by circumstances) that they were produced so late and in such a short time, because those troops already cost a decent amount of maintenance lowering my Research noticable:



Down to 50% research! O_O

But it's enough! In 1880 BC I finish Monarchy and the Oracle on the same turn and jump from ancient to medievil times in 1 turn!









!111


Running Vassalage would save myself 6 GPT, that's more than Currency would have brought, but more on that later in the 2nd episode of Replay which is titled "Ghandi says: You can avoid conflicts if you simply aren't there XD. "

Seraiel

That's some crazy stuff already...I'm waiting how far you can take that Chariot rush, I originally thought you wanted Vassalage for the first wave of Chariots. I'm just glad you spend all those hours playing and writing so I don't have to myself it sounds like a lot of hard work.

Everybody likes a winner. Going to be a very entertaining write-up.

Great picture and write up. Would someone point out to me why Sushi is so powerful? I hear it mentioned a lot but I don't understand the strategy or other things that go along with it.

Kid R said:

Woo - If the first couple of tracks are anything to go by we could be looking at a CFC game write-up Sgt Pepper's here! ...

On a practical note it'll be interesting to see how you handle SPI in one of your huge sushi empires. I always find civic switches awkward to time the more cities I have.

Click to expand...

I'll report about all the civic-switches, which were a lot in this round, but not as many as maybe would have been possible because I'm still new to playing with the SPI trait. Let's be honest: The theory of relativity Einstein developed, is also alive in Civ, everything can be transformed in anything.

Looking at the traits this means, SPI is an overal increase in effectivity of the empire, because one can always switch to the civic that's best suited for the moment. I. e. you researched Civil Service, do you want to switch to Buro instantanously? With SPI one doesn't have to ask that question, with non-SPI civs, one has to do math and see the bigger picture, or, one needs supreme experience and a plan.

Talking about increased efficiency, this is basically what all traits are about, they're the "skills" a leader has, and the biggest difference between i. e. SPI and FIN is that the one is active, and the other one is passive. It's like in an MMO, the melee-classes normally have the passive skills which are easier too play, but they need good movement, the caster-classes have the active skills and are more static. Strong are both but stronger is none in general, only in certain scenarios. Of course, being able to switch to Buro as soon as it's available seems strong, running caste for most of the time allows for a completely different style of play, but what's that if looking at the worst case scenario which is this game:

A Huge (= enormous number of cities and thousands of worked tiles) Sushi map (= ridiculous amount of maintenance caused by the Coorperation) when about 50% of the tiles that are worked, are coast, the tiles where FIN makes the biggest difference! = 50%!

Vranasm said to me once "FIN coast can tank a lot of cities", T-Hawk said "one has to get a Grocer and a Market in every city", looking at it from the mathematic side, "not being FIN" means "one has to get a bank in every city on plus" ! If I'd had played BurgerKing or Shaka, it would have ment "I could have spared a Market and a Bank in almost all cities, which again translates to saved Hammers which again translates to larger pop which again translates to a larger score, but, will that saved pop make up for the "Landcrap" in contrast the ueber-awesome War-Chariot or even the broken Checker?

It's too early to answer those questions already, my feeling says that HC still is the stronges followed by Shaka, Burgerking, Ramesses, Hatty, Julius and then Augustus just in that order. I'm gonna do something very mean, I'm gonna post another spoiler which may astonish you or any others reading this:



This is a screenshot of the final finances from the turn where I win the round. Looks good on the first view, doesn't it? a surplus of 15000 , I must have done something totally wrong one would think ...

(if one wouldn't know that this screen is taken with the complete empire focusing on building Wealth, with 3 Shrines, 2 widely spread Corps, after the Inflation event and already with the extra Traderoutes from Single Currency by the UN. )

Take a closer look and notice, that the total Commerce is 1:2.5 worked tiles to Traderoutes, now imagine 20% of those Traderoutes. Then look at the absolute total Commerce value and notice that it isn't that much higher than the absolute total expenses, just substract the building Wealth, and notice, that I had to build more than 400 Gold-multiplier buildings like Grocers, Markets and Banks to just get even! Still remember the 17k of expenses from the last Incans-game, the value that people called insane?

Well, this time it's 37k of expenses!

strijder20 said:

Great to see another one, Seraiel!
Also, 123 cities... built? That's not counting the conquered ones.

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Hi strijder20

Yer, 123 cities built! This is the biggest difference from this game to the last one, in this one, I took settling those islands for real as I really learned the endgame from the round T-Hawk played. One can never have enough cities, in the end, it's gonna be over 200 this time!

I'm not gonna lie and say that this was "the craziest round I've ever plyed", "Micromanaging those cities was not a pain, it was like having to go on holidays with your Mother in law while your girlfriend is on the Bahamas " . Anyhow, I really enjoyed it (after it was over ) .

Hope for more of the "old readers" aswell as "the new ones" to join in on this I promise that after each tedious hard part, I'm gonna write one which is interessting and funny, and really hope for some critique I'm not kidding when I say that this game was "really insane" and that "I'm glad that it's over but look forward to the next one"

Sera

Also.... who is BurgerKing?

georgjorge said:

That's some crazy stuff already...I'm waiting how far you can take that Chariot rush, I originally thought you wanted Vassalage for the first wave of Chariots. I'm just glad you spend all those hours playing and writing so I don't have to myself it sounds like a lot of hard work.

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I'll take that as a compliment, so TY

Concerning Vassalage for the 1st wave of Chariots: I would have waited for Vassalage if I wouldn't have got the War Chariot Quest! Getting free Combat 1 Promotion seemed something I wanted to have. In hindsight, it proved to be less powerful than thought, but there will be some moments when i. e. "Formation promoted Chariots" , or a lot crazier, "Commando + Blitz promoted Cuirrassiers" (!) will play a role :>

And I'll be honest: Some part of the game was plain work. There were times when I fought my way from turn to turn, always on the edge of going broke and having to assign every specialist manually for all the 200 cities, because the advisor is just plain useless for these kind of game. The main problem of him is, that he tries to stifle growth once the city is reaching cap, even with focus on and nothing else.

Most of the game was really really exciting though and the "epicness-factor" of it was great. I still remember a lot of moments from that game, the inital war against Ghandi, the DoW of [...] , the vassalization of [...] , the foundation of Sushi and [...] , the construction of the Worldwonders [...]

Jester Fool said:

Everybody likes a winner. Going to be a very entertaining write-up.

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Thx too I plan to spend as much time on the writeup as playtime on the game. Doing the Writeup is a lot of work, but it's fun too as I can re-experience the moments of the game again, I can learn from my mistakes, and create even greater moments in the next game . I also have definate plans of making a Strategy Article out of this, I just have to find out what it's going to be about and hope that people can help me with that. T-Hawk already posted a great Sushi-Writeup with a non-Incan leader and he posted the basic principles of the Sushi-tactic. The difference with my game is, that it's played under HoF rules, it's on Deity lvl and it's on a Huge map, maybe something in the direction of those 3 things, maybe also something on "Trading and Diplomacy" as a still think those 2 topics are my specialty. We'll see

Quibblesome said:

Great picture and write up. Would someone point out to me why Sushi is so powerful? I hear it mentioned a lot but I don't understand the strategy or other things that go along with it.

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The power of Sushi basically comes with the mapscript "Big & Small" . If selecting the option "tiny islands", the map will spawn an enormous amount of very small islands (sometimes only 1 tile) that have a very large amount of Seafood-Ressources (about 180-240 Ressources are possible on a Huge map) . 4 Ressources translate to 1 , so if you have i. e. 160 Sushi-Ressources, your cities will have +40 !

That amount of allows for some crazy highscores, because the highscore is calculated by the total population your empire has (Wonders, Techs and land also count towards the highscore, but those are linear while the population score goes up exponentially) . Besides that, Sushi is just extremely strong while Slavery is still possible, especially with Worldwonders like the Kremlin which increase whip-efficiency. It's perfectly possible to whip Banks in all cities and regrow the lost 3-4 population points in less than 15 turns (Marathon speed, on normal that would be 5 turns of growth!) , Settlers are produced in no time allowing some REX like you'll see if you follow the Writeup, and, Sushi generates tremendous amounts of (like 150+ in a newly founded city) .

Problem of Sushi cultures of that dimension is the amount of maintenance caused, because unlike a Corporation like Mining Inc, which can pay for itself if producing Wealth, Sushi's only advantage is that one can work Specialists with it, but Sushi never makes up for the amount it costs, that's why State Property is widely prefered as a Civic for Domination / Conquest games. Corps are the route to highest score, fastest SpaceColony and exotic forms of Cultural Victory.

Quibblesome said:

Also.... who is BurgerKing?

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To know who's BurgerKing, have a look at This thread .

I never got how you could write up all your moves that you do. I can't even remember to screen cap empires at set turns for shadow games. When I play my mind goes ok now to press end turn 30 times then BATTLE KILL ALL MUST BATTLE!!!

Wow! Look at that time! You played really freaking fast man! 224 hours?!@?! It takes me like 1000! Did you battle the infidels to death and win ze scores for this one?

My hats off to you. That is AMAZING stuff! I can not believe you played a single game that long! I've started on Monarch and after sword rushing all four civ's on my continent, I just give up the game because it's probably won

Zx Zero Zx said:

I never got how you could write up all your moves that you do. I can't even remember to screen cap empires at set turns for shadow games. When I play my mind goes ok now to press end turn 30 times then BATTLE KILL ALL MUST BATTLE!!!

Wow! Look at that time! You played really freaking fast man! 224 hours?!@?! It takes me like 1000! Did you battle the infidels to death and win ze scores for this one?

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Key to remembering the moves is to make notes, everytime I think / decide something, I take a savegame having a descriptive title. This also helps me play because I myself can look back by that, i. e. I can see "ah, Darius got Writing 400y ago and hasn't revoluted to Slavery, he's gonna have Alpha soon and I'm going to get at least Writing from him" or small Details, like when the city grew to size 2, 3, 4 and 5, what Micro I did, I always take saves to remember, and, because my understanding of the game gets better and better, the number of saves taken increases:
The game to Replay #3 had 1000 saves when I finished it, this time, I have over 2000 savegames which protocolled my process. It's like a big list of catchwords and guidelines out of which I create the story then.

I don't like making errors because it means I've lost time, and I long for that a perfect game from T1 to victory, that's why I'll be participating in the next SGOTM because alone, it's impossible to bring up so much focus. "Pressing end turn 30 times?" Impossible for me, I think 30 times before pressing it once .

Regarding the score Zero: I don't know how much I spoilered that already, but I think I said, that I wanted to beat the highest non-Incan score for Huge maps. That score is only 1.5M points and I can give away that much info, I made it (by far ) . What I accomplished to that in addition though, will be a secret I'll keep . If I made it to beat WastinTimes Incans score that was even on another map size? No . Beating that score is only possible with Incans. I think I would have a chance at it now, that's why I'm already creating new Incan-starts whenever I do something else.

Revent said:

My hats off to you. That is AMAZING stuff! I can not believe you played a single game that long! I've started on Monarch and after sword rushing all four civ's on my continent, I just give up the game because it's probably won

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This is something I learned when playing instruments. One has to be persistent and be concentrated from the beginning to the end, and it's something HoF of course demands. It's not about winning or not, it's about how and how high . That's the part of it I like the most, it is about effeciency, but its also big part about style and perfecting it, and, it's about being perfect from the beginning to the end .

I'm gonna write the next part of the Writeup now, so stay tuned .

Before we come to the next Episode of Replay #4 which is called "Ghandi says: You can avoid conflicts if you aren't there" , we have some catchup to do:


Status of the Egyptian Empire at 1880 BC:

I have only 2 cities. One is the awesome and extremely strong Capital, having dual wet Corn + tripple Gold, the other one is a nice city site far away that secured the horses and has some dry rice. I oracled Feudalism and and built a Strikeforce of 12 War Chariots, which all have the free Combat 1 promotion due to fulfilling the War Chariot Quest. Thebes has a Barracks and the Oracle, all Forrests have been chopped, so it's not likely I'm gonna get many War Chariots besides the 12 I have. The land has been mostly settled by the AI, I'm totally surrounded by Hatty, Toku and Ghandi. Thebes can produce War Chariots every 6 turns, but it's important to get more cities that can take over the production, so that Thebes will have the time to build a Library, being the main source of the empires Commerce with its 3 Golds.

A good thing is, that I built really many Workers, 5 for just 2 cities, and it's good, that AI doesn't chop it's cities down so fast as a player can do, so plan is to conquer some, and fill up the losses with new War Chariots coming from them. It's time for a screen:

Clearview 01:



Ok. Hatty has got 5 cities. She went the Monotheism-route and founded Buddhism with it, and exactly in this turn, she already built her Shrine. She looks like a really good target, if 4 of the 5 cities she has weren't lying on hills, and if 4 of her 5 cities weren't jungle sites. Removing the Jungle wouldn't be a big problem, as I traded Monarchy against IW with Lizzy this turn:



I also traded Monarchy vs Masonry with Pericles:



The 1st trade is to get Alpha by trading Monarchy + IW for it, the 2nd trade is to get Monotheism asap, that's why I'm also researching Polytheism as a follow-up. No need to go the Aesthetics route, as Hatty is already researching it. Conquering her is desirable for the Shrine, but the land is not good, and she can be a strong ally in teching because sharing her Religion + running Organized Religion already gets her to friendly status, therefor, she can't be the 1st target.

Then we have Tokugawa and Ghandi. I expect Toku to be the harder Target because he's Protective and Aggressive, and he's Buddhist, like Hatty and myself. He's not the worst Enemy of anyone because Brennus is sucking up all the hate at the Moment due to his ultimately low peaceweight:



The plan is to get Tokugawa to pleased by gifting him some minor techs after getting Alpha, to share Religion with Hatty and him and like that be safe in the West, the South and the North, and to gangbang the hinduist infidel Ghandi!

3 things before we continue this: I whip a Granary in Thebes (most important, Thebes will become the Buro Capital and has to grow, the Workers are already building Cottages) and I switch to Hereditary Rule + Vassalage, to get some extra Happiness and save some money with free unit support. I also stop the research completely and go binary from this moment on.


The plan to gangbang Ghandi develops like this:

Next turn I get Alpha from Hammurabi in trade for Monarchy + IW just like planned:



This trade also gives me some diplomatic bonuses with Hammu through fair-trade, so I'm able to convince him to become a Buddhist by giving him Masonry in a 2nd trade:



Now that I got Alpha, I gift everyone as many techs as needed to get the +4 bonus for Fairtrade. Of course, I don't trade with Worst Enemies. Here is an overview of the diplomatic situation just 1 turn later:



Looks nice, doesn't it? :> Basically all AIs are pleased towards me, with the exceptions of Ghandi, Peter and Brennus. I didn't trade with those, as I of course don't trade with a target I'm going to invade, and Peter also was WE from many Civs just like Brennus.

Now it's time to use Tokugawa as a meatshield, I bribe him against Ghandi 1 turn before I plan to declare war on him myself, so that he can suck up the bribes Ghandi will make:



Notice that I give him Alpha for the trade, although Meditation would have been enough. I want, that Toku is also able to bribe some people against Ghandi if possible, to plant the Seed of Hate between the AIs.


The troops move into position:



No bribes happen, so it's time to get this war started!

On the screen you can see the main-stack of 11 War Chariots which will attack the holy city of Ghandi first, and a single War-Chariot which shall pillage the Iron he has.



Notice the Workers on the 2nd Screenshot, that are chopping the Forrest outside of the Cultural Borders of Alexandria, before Hatty has her Borderpop and would get it *eg* .


To be continued.

Seraiel said:

Key to remembering the moves is to make notes, everytime I think / decide something, I take a savegame having a descriptive title. This also helps me play because I myself can look back by that, i. e. I can see "ah, Darius got Writing 400y ago and hasn't revoluted to Slavery, he's gonna have Alpha soon and I'm going to get at least Writing from him" or small Details, like when the city grew to size 2, 3, 4 and 5, what Micro I did, I always take saves to remember, and, because my understanding of the game gets better and better, the number of saves taken increases:
The game to Replay #3 had 1000 saves when I finished it, this time, I have over 2000 savegames which protocolled my process. It's like a big list of catchwords and guidelines out of which I create the story then.

I don't like making errors because it means I've lost time, and I long for that a perfect game from T1 to victory, that's why I'll be participating in the next SGOTM because alone, it's impossible to bring up so much focus. "Pressing end turn 30 times?" Impossible for me, I think 30 times before pressing it once .

Regarding the score Zero: I don't know how much I spoilered that already, but I think I said, that I wanted to beat the highest non-Incan score for Huge maps. That score is only 1.5M points and I can give away that much info, I made it (by far ) . What I accomplished to that in addition though, will be a secret I'll keep . If I made it to beat WastinTimes Incans score that was even on another map size? No . Beating that score is only possible with Incans. I think I would have a chance at it now, that's why I'm already creating new Incan-starts whenever I do something else.



This is something I learned when playing instruments. One has to be persistent and be concentrated from the beginning to the end, and it's something HoF of course demands. It's not about winning or not, it's about how and how high . That's the part of it I like the most, it is about effeciency, but its also big part about style and perfecting it, and, it's about being perfect from the beginning to the end .

I'm gonna write the next part of the Writeup now, so stay tuned .

Click to expand...

HULK NO THINK HULK SMASH! Is my Civ motto. But of course I don't bother trying to beat HoF scores, waaaaay to much micro involved there. Hell a lot of my games I don't even save once... 1000? That's pure madness! Like when I was doing part of my LP on youtube I couldn't hardly play well. I was to busy thinking about what the correct play was. All my best games I am just going laaaa di daaa time to fruk the stooofz up, and then at the end I am all like wooooah nice finish date.

Episode #2: Ghandi says, you can avoid conflicts if you aren't there! - "Ghandi, you're a liar!"​

We're at the beginning of the gangbanging of Ghandi. Tokugawa was bribed against him and I also declared war on him after I had made sure no bribes would happen. War-Ally Toku has been ordererd to attack the crappy coastal northwestern city of Ghandi. It's a hills city, so I expect him to have quite a few losses there, which will be good later on, because, of course you know, there is no happy living with neighbours XD .

The elite Quest-promoted War Chariot Stack has advanced into Ghandis territory and will attack the holy city of Hinduism, Patiliputra, first. Here is a Screen of T2 of the war, it's 1850 BC:



The Iron has been pillaged, but Ghandi was able to whip out a Spearman before that. He has no fortification Bonus yet though, and now, the real power of the Quest-promoted War Chariots starts to show: I can promote to Shock! There are 2 Archers on plus in that city, I have 11 WCs, no way I'm not gonna take that city, but how high will the losses be?

Here are the chances:

Single promoted Combat 1 Chariot against unfortified unpromoted Spearman: 12%
The Shock promoted Chariot, having 25% more strength though, already has a chance of 18%! That's a 50% higher chance with Shock than with only Combat 1!

Anyhow, it's probably gonna take 2 Chariots to tear down that Spearman. Without Shock, it would have probably taken even 2.5 - 3 Chariots. I attack:



As suspected, the 1st Shock-Chariot looses, but it severly damages the Spearman, he won't be surviving a 2nd Attack.

Against the City Garrison 1 Archers, the chances are like followed:

31% and 5 XP for the crappy Combat 1 Chariot and 35% but only 4 XP for the leet Combat 2 Chariot. I suspect to have a loss and maybe even a 2nd loss if unlucky, or a win if lucky, and decide to send in the Combat 1 Chariots, as they could reach the 5 XP mark in only 1 fight, in addition, I don't mind loosing them as much as I would with the others, and I win both fights having 31 and 35% chances! After that, another War Chariot beats the injured Spearman and Patiliputra surrenders to the overmighty force of Egypts War Chariots!



The troops which weren't participating in the attack on the holy hinduist city are moving further, while the 5 XP Chariot get's promoted to Medic 2 and helps the wounded forces heal.


Next turn, Hatty builds the ToA. Mansa is now willing to trade Polytheism, and I get it for Monarchy and a DoW on Ghandi on plus.



Mansa won't play any major part in the war as he's way to far away, but he 1. has a different religion than I have (he gives huge maluses for having the wrong religion, so some bonuses through "mutual military struggle" will be nice) and 2ndly, Ghandi is the friend of many, why should I be the only one getting maluses for that? It's good if Mansa also gets them, isolating Mansa is always something one should try, because otherwise, he simply trades too much.

Again next turn, it's 1820 BC and T4 of the war now, the Chariots are in range to attack Bombay, which is defended by a Swordsman and again some CG1 Archers! The Swordsman is still unpromoted and unfortified, so he must have been whipped just this round, Ghandi must have a 2nd scource of Iron I haven't pillaged yet! The only Scource I see is some moves away in the NE:



Ghandi must have a city there and I have to send a Chariot to pillage that Iron asap, but first things first, it's time to attack Bombay! I have 8 War Chariots and he has 3 defenders, no Spearman this time, so it should be easier than the attack on Patiliputra. The chances are almost the same against the Swordsman as against the Spearman, also the Archers have the same promotions so same chances. This time, I don't have any luck and loose 2 War Chariots, but the city again surrenders to the extreme power of those!





As you can see on the 2nd screen, Bombay has quite a lot unchopped Forrests, and it is unhappy because of the high population, and, what you can't see, is, that it already has a Granary. This is perfect, because I can move some Workers in to chop the Forrests, whip a Barracks and replace all losses I had until now in no time!


The forces need some time to heal now. I move the Medic and all injured Forces to Bombay and send out a single Shock promoted Chariot to Ghandis 2nd Iron city to pillage it.


1780 BC the Forces are back up again and into attacking position for it, the name of the city is "Ahmedabad":



The city doesn't have any cultural defenses yet, so it's a lot easier than against the 40% cities I've attacked up till now. The chances against the 2 Archers and the 1 Chariot varie between 80 and 98%:

Anyhow, I had some luck in the beginning, so this time I have bad luck and loose another Chariot. Total losses until now are up to four, so I've basically lost 1/3 of my Stack until now. Here is another clearview with the conquered Ahmedabad in the northeastern corner:



Notice how Tokugawa has moved in with some Archers, and notice how my Workers have moved in and already begun on chopping the Forrests of the newly conquered cities to replenish the losses.

Ghandi has still 6 cities left, man, this guy really did some REXing... But it's my land he settled, I'm gonna get it back!


1740 BC is another round where I have bad luck: Ghandi still had 1 Chariot left somewhere and it comes out of nowhere and farms my Medic 2 healer, attracted by the wounded Forces in Bombay .



I was just before attacking his northeastern city Calcutta and I need all my Forces for that. In addition, the wounded Chariot in Bombay has 70% chances against Ghandis Chariot and would become "a Hero" (= lvl 4 unlocking the "Heroic" Epic -> Hero) so I decide to attack him with that, and I loose it also! That's another 2 losses, now half of my Stack has disappeared! I still cannot let go and decide to move the guarding Chariot from Patiliputra to Bombay and leave Patiliputra unguarded for the moment (Ghandi won't have another Ninja-Chariot, will he?) and still attack Calcutta, it's 4 against 3 and I have good chances, now if the RNG won't me up completely...

It does! I loose 2 Chariots with high chances and the city doesn't fall!



Well, it doesn't fall this round :> . There is only one heavily damaged Archer left in it. Of course, Ghandi whips another one in between the rounds, but next round, the city surrenders to the mighty Egyptians without any further losses.



I now have 6 cities, Ghandi only 5, so the tides are turning. Thebes is still continuously producing War Chariots as this war is a lot harder than expected! From Ghandis saying, there should have been some Workers for me waiting in unguarded cities, but in all honesty, attacking a 10 cities empire having dual Iron + Horses from only 2 cities? XD This is only possible with Egypt and because of the fulfilled War Chariot Quest and the Oracle Feudalism move.

One little note till we take a little break: In the battle of Calcutta, a "Hero" has been formed (again, Hero = lvl 4 Unit unlocking the Heroic Epic) .


---------------------


What's up with the other empires? Let's have a look at the tech-screen:



You can see a lot of tecch parity. The AIs have generously traded around my Monarchy (AIs are always willing to trade Alpha and Monarchy, so this was expected) , of course, nobody got Feudalism from me yet, quite a lot AIs have got Mathematics already which I'd love to have because of all the chops I'm doing atm. Willem and Victoria are developed best, they already have Currency which I'd love to have. I wasn't able to trade for Monotheism yet, which doesn't matter so much until now, because I'm almost exclusively building War Chariots. Ghandi was so wise to tech Horsebackriding, I hope I can get it from him until I've bashed him down to 1 city + 1 Archer in exchange for peace. Not that I need those stables, it's more that having HBR now would be awesome tradegood in some years. Wang Kon is the only one who has CoL, it's unlikely he's going to trade it before the Chicken Pizza has been constructed, having Courthouses now would also be nice, because:

Let's look at the finances:



Looks still very good. I got a lot of Gold from the conquest so I can run 100% Research (which is going towards Mathematics now because I hope to get it very cheap for Polytheism and therefor have to put a lot of Beakers in it) and at 100%, the Empire has a total rate of 52 BPT at -23 GPT, which would of course be a lot higher with the additional TRs from Currency.

And my position relative to the other empires? Here is the scoreboard!



On the way upwards :>


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With these pictures I'll leave you alone for the moment, the war against Ghandi will be continued soon! Cya,

Seraiel

Ok, it's time to finish episode 2: Ghandi says: You can avoid conflicts if you aren't there - "Ghandi, you're a liar!"


I've conquered 4 of Ghandi's 9 cities. I've had a little luck in the beginning, followed by some bad luck in the end. I've had 6 losses til now, so half of the Stack I had when declaring war (12 Chariots) have vanished. The other half now is well promoted, I've already got "a Hero Chariot" and reinforcements are in production. 1 War Chariot arrives every 6 turns from Thebes and the Workers are chopping extensively near the newly conquered cities.


We make a jump to 1670 BC which is T183 in total or T19 of the war against Ghandi:

I've had a slave revolt in the meantime in Thebes which has cost 1 pop, Mansa already made peace with Ghandi, Tokugawa is a better war ally, he has produced a decent sized stack and moved in on the indian city of Madras:



I expect Madras to fall next turn, but before that, my troops are healed, have regrouped and moved to the city of Bangalore:



You can see that the city is heavily fortified having 4 Archers. The 5 War Chariots that you see are all I could spare atm. because I needed 2 Chariots for the protection of Ahmedabad and Bombay. Notice how the neighbouring cities of Alexandria and Patiliputra are undefended, this is to get enough forces but also to lure out Archers out of the city thinking "Uh, I'm gonna conquer that undefended city and become a Hero"

Sadly, this didn't work, though it works so often, but all 4 Archers in Bangalore have been ordered to defend the city. 5 Chariots against 4 Archers doesn't look too good one might think, but as told, my War Chariots are veteran fighters, some have even Combat 4, and so the chances for the attack are 70% and upwards! Enough to risk it, even if the city won't fall this round, it will in the next one, and maybe I can get Horsebackriding in a Peace Treaty from Ghandi, use the time to build more forces and then annihilate him completely. The attack begins:



The city falls without a single loss!



A Great General emerges from the Battle at Bangalore, his name is Lord of Ultima XD



I haven't decided yet what to do with him. He's most likely going to become a Supermedic, but there are chances that I also might settle him, so I leave him untouched for the moment.

Next turn, Tokugawa conquers Madras as expected. Ghandi is now down to 3 cities. I try to get HBR in a peace-deal from him, but he's stubborn:



My offer is an insult to him? I'm insulted that he has so many troops in his cities and that so many of my War Chariots have died! He has lost 2/3 of his empire and is in a 2 Front war, this is ridiculous from him! Tbh, I never understood how other players always get techs in peace-treaties, I've never gotten anything in those, but who knows, perhaps I just have to maltreat him a little more and he will give in.


In 1640 BC, enough Civs have got Mathematics so that one is willing to trade it. No, this time it's not Mansa the Whore, it's Willem (who's also a whore but not as bad as Mansa XD ) :



In the lower right corner you can btw see, that Hatty and Darius are the first two Civs with whom I have friendly status. Of course I have redirected as many Espionage Points to them as I could spare so I can see what I'm getting next and when, just like with Mansa.

Now that I have Maths but don't have Asthetics yet, it's time to research some turns in Civil Service. 1620 BC is the time for another trade, it's Maths vs Monotheism with Asoka:



I instantly switch to Organized Religion and begin constructing a Library in Thebes. Concerning the trade, I could have gotten Mono earlier from Hatty, but I didn't wanna trade with her as she's the next target on my list. Of course I feel bad, because she's friendly to me. Not XD . There is one guy I have to finish of first though, the war continues.


In T191 (or 1590 BC) , my troops arrive at the indian City of Agra:



The city has 3 defenders while additional reinforcements of me have arrived, so I have 7 War Chariots for the attack. No question if the city will fall or not, only a question of how many losses I'm going to have. It's none again! The Combat 3 and 4 WCs have chances between 70 and 90%. I guess I was still a little lucky if looking at the whole war if I'm critical, but if I wouldn't have been extremely unlucky I would have always won this war. War Chariots just are extremely powerful with their higher base-STR and their Firststrike-Immunity, and as long as one pillages the metals real quick, one won't have to many defenders that could make a difference. Maybe though, I'm a little bit too fond of the War Chariots, I don't know how it would have been if I wouldn't have fulfilled the quest and had Shock-Chariots in the beginning and Combat 4 Chariots in the end, I think the quest and Vassalage make quite a difference, because a Combat 2 Chariot would only have had 40% chances against the Archers in Agra.

On the screen you can also see that I've decided for city specialization. The neighbouring city of Ahmedabad shall be the future Heroic Epic city, having a good amount of Food, lots of Hills and powerful plains-Iron aswell as Marble (which is as good as another green Hill) . This is the main reason, why I raze the city of Agra:



I plan to resettle that land with a chopped Settler from Bombay, but Viccy must have had a Settler on standby, only a handful turns later she's resettled the free land. Doesn't matter, I still got a place between Thebes and Alexandria to settle which has Stone, and there are still the millions of islands on the map. Regarding Stone: 1580 BC, Frederick builds the Mids . Don't ask where he is on the map, I'm not sure if it's even possible to screenshot that properly because it's so far away, so bye bye Mids ...

Next things are funny, Tokugawa wrecks his Stack on the next Hills-city that I ordered him to attack, and just because I had the intuition that he might actually not make it, I had a War Chariot near it. I farm the last wounded defender hard and also raze that city, because it's on the wrong spot, being 1 tile far from the coast.

In T194 (1560 BC) some War Chariots reach Ghandi's last city Hyderabad:



You can still see the ruins of Agra on the screen and how quickly Viccy settled that land. I beat Ghandi down to 1 Archer and try to get HBR in a peacetreaty from him again:



Is he insane? What does he mean with make a reasonable offer? Take him as a Vassal to get stupid HBR from him? "Time to die Ghandi!"



You may have expected that already, but I of course also raze that city. It's far away from the palace and has about 50% unworkable tiles (Deserts, Mountains) .Ghandi is down with 1 additional loss so that makes 7 War Chariots for 5 cities and 3 Workers!



Before I leave the place with my War Chariots, I pillage the Farms and the Mines of the last city, like with the Forrests outside of Hatty's non-popped cities, Viccy shall of course get the land in the worst possible condition *eg* .


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This was the last part of the episode "Ghandi says ..." . Make sure to follow also the next episode of "Replay #4 Slow and steady wins the race" ! Till then, cya

Seraiel

You got maths for poly???!?!?!??!!??!?

Did Toka get any cities or did he just throw away all his units? I also rarely get any tech from AIs. I have a feeling they never give up and give you tech if you raze any of their cities cause they're angry.