BNW Deity Pangea Babylon warfare (No commentaries)

Hello,

Due to a request on a thread I decided to make a video of Babylon deity warfare on pangea.

Details:
Map: Pangea, 5B, arid, hot, low sea level, standard size
Opponents: Selected (no early UU, non agressive behaviour)
Civ played: Babylon
Options: Disabled start bias, quick combat quick movements

Disclaimer: The map is biased in my favor: couple salts, mount Killimanjaro not far and opponents were picked to have no hard early UU. Most of what is used is still usable on a normal random map but it will likely take longer to reach the end (and you'd probably avoid difficult AI until artilleries) (see below).

The video isn't commented. Maybe I'll do some later (for other videos) if I go over my fear of speaking in heavily accented english
I apologize for part 1 the audio is messy, mic was on so there is a lot of annoying ambient sounds

The videos are also not edited, so sometimes I go afk to do stuff but the recording wasn't stopped (feed cats, hug gf, or the other way around ). Parts are also of variable lengths, part 1 is 1hour while part 3 is 20minutes. Total play length was 4h30.

This is mostly 4 hours of range warfare, little macro but a lot of micro. While I think it may be boring you'll probably catch some tips if you have trouble to do good in wars against the AI (do not try these tricks against humans ).
Game is far from perfect, since playing perfect would probably make the game way longer, I prefer it that way but beware of the imperfections that you shouldn't copy .

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Strategy:
Tradition + Honor
2 cities quick bowman/CB rush into XB
Kill 2-3 with CB, rest with XB. Gatlings/artillery upgrades for last ones if necessary.

This strategy is always viable on a Pangea as Babylon. If your map contains some hard to reach AI, you will need those artilleries. Therefore simply spend a little more time macroing well to help reach artillery in your game if that happens.


Part1:

Link to video.
Part2:

Link to video.
Part3:

Link to video.
Part4:

Link to video.
Part5:

Link to video.

Acken said:

Hello,

Due to a request on a thread I decided to make a video of Babylon deity warfare on pangea.

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Thank you so much. I shall watch them avidly today

The video isn't commented. Maybe I'll do some later (for other videos) if I go over my fear of speaking in heavily accented english

Click to expand...

Please, don't be nervous about speaking with an accent or imperfect grammar, etc. I am sure we will understand you, since your written English on the forum is great.

I teach English as a foreign language, and I have to say that I LOVE the various accents of the people whose LPs I watch - peddroelm, Moriarte, Marbozir, even MadDjinn

[EDIT: Am watching as we speak. Great fast-paced action so far. Je pense vous ete Francais ou Belgique ou Swisse, n'est pas?]

I'm french yes. All videos are now uploaded and available.

A fantastic play through! Thank you so much!

From the moment you launch your first attack on Portugal, it's pretty much non-stop action. I felt the same way I did when I first saw the Quake Done Quick Speed Run about 12 years ago!

I certainly have a lot to learn about domination, judging by how well you did in that game compared with what I would do. For example, I'd never used the workers on the front line as bait before. Lots of tips in this game. I will rewatch many times I know.

Thanks again!

wow, talk about favorable terrain! flat and clear for your neighbors is of course great but picking opponents is even better. and you found everyone by t37 or so. wow. i think the 3rd scout certainly helped after one became a bowmen but the terrain really helped all of the neighbors scour the land too. i did see the first 2 or 3 ruins stolen from you but the next few were quite nice (90 gold, culture, bowmen, and something else).

if the settings hadnt been adjusted I think you could only have gotten one AI with compbows. 2-3 is ambitious without such favorable land, imo. im only on the first video. i'll get to the others later. im curious about the mid-game, where my strategies really fall apart. thanks for posting these!

Well the terrain was selected, 5 billions years hot and arid and low sea levels certainly favors CB/XB. That type of map with these settings is rather common to obtain. However if one were to try it on a harder map, the solution would be to simply carefully plan who is killable with CB/XB and let the other ones for artilleries.
You'll see that even with a LOT of production going into armies I manage a good enough science pace, because Babylon). Someone planning to win with artilleries would invest less than I do in military (since he is less in a hurry to kill everyone with XB) and take care of his economy more to complete the game with artilleries.

I only kill 2 with compbows by the way, not 3. But Babylon reaches machinery so fast that even if you can just kill 1 with CB, just wait for upgrade to XB and you will be fine. If you can kill nobody with CB just build 3 cities and rush for machinery.

The secret is that you must know in advance who can be killed with what (or from where, sometimes cities are flat only on one side, planning to arrive by this side is important). Because if you invest in an attack that doesn't succeed this is when you will start to fall apart.

I may not understand HOF rules and the reasoning behind your map selections, but if you are going for fast domination, wouldn't less land mass/high sea level be better since capitals will be closer? Or does that selection make a terrain with more hills?

The less terrain you have the more likely you are to have 1 or 2 AI on a Peninsula, hard to reach.

Acken said:

The less terrain you have the more likely you are to have 1 or 2 AI on a Peninsula, hard to reach.

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Okay, that makes sense. I'm about half way through ep4 right now and it's pretty fun watching the constant war. I often forget how powerful Mt K can be in domination games. Also, any chance you want to record yourself in the next deity lineup game? The lack of commentary doesn't bother me either as I'm able to watch the game at 2x speed and not miss anything. Anyway, thanks for posting your play-through.

im in the second video. i can tell you were playing in a hurry like you said. as you were taking Marrakech i kept saying "pillage, man, pillage!" so much gold to be had in those farms, haha. pillage is the kind of micro i always forget about if they arent injured.

i recently decided to try the new Landsnechts and their pillages cost no movement. so of course i combo'd that with Pyramids/free worker bonus (on Emperor) to pillage twice in a turn before attacking a city with melee. stacking a worker under a unit for repairs is silly when it is an instant repair. it was quite fun, haha. I also had full honor so they only cost 220g each. I could take a city, annex, and rush buy a couple of them once out of resistance.

edit: finally made it to the end. something i learned was how to operate well over the unit limit. i always was right at the limit or just over by a couple units for a minor penalty. (i have a hard time dealing with penalties. in the past i watched several pros operate with -40+ gpt while extending the loans for so many turns.) i never tried to be persistent in dealing with the negatives. i generally made active plans to remove them rather than let them be. very interesting playthrough. thanks for the uploads.

edit: back when you were on your way to taking Rio you went thru one of his cities that had iron. and you were still trying to trade for it just to upgrade that 1 warrior. one of the workers could have improved it, upgrade him, then Raze it. he'd get a combat penalty with the iron loss but he'd be upgraded, haha. you play very fast. id have to slow it down just to make those decisions.

Yes I make lot of small mistakes like these because I play fast. I don't have the patience to spend 10hours on a game.
I also often forget to pillage unless to heal yes. Heh still things to improve you see

I sometimes play Liberty for better pillage too yes, but it's a bit slow with tradition.

Acken,

I watched with interest and attempted to duplicate precisely the same without the same map(followed your advice about the arid/low sea level/normal Pangea) but I noticed severe differences between my play and yours. Though I'm not sure why. By the late 40 turns in my games, the AI on Deity has about 2-3 Xs that amount of units and usually settling their 3rd and 4th/5th possible city. Also within another 10-20 turns Medieval Units/Medieval Age. If not the old Classic units are going to be upgraded extremely soon close to turn 50ish... I could upload the video when I have the time and show you because this looks much more like Immortal Bowmen Babylon Rush than Deity. Then again I could be off but in my 5-10 attempts at a Deity Babylon Rush I notice that I am behind you no matter what the circumstance...

What gives and do not be afraid to Speak French. Spent time in Montreal and my ex was from there and all language is good : )

Hello,

I can't really pinpoint what you're really saying. Do you mean that you are slower than me or that the AI are faster than in my game ? Like I said in the introduction the AI I picked were specifics for being usually not very agressive and not prioritizing military techs. For example, someone like Shaka or Attila will give you more trouble to kill than someone like Pedro (usually).
An option to diminish the number of units the AI has is to bribe them before fighting them, when their forces are attacked from multiple fronts it should help in diminishing their numbers.

As far as benchmarks goes you want to start killing with CB at T55-T60 and by T80-T90 they should become obsolete. At that point you will upgrade to XB which can be used for conquest up to T150-T170 with promotions (very important, without those promotions you won't be able to take capitals defended by muskets/crossbows). At that point with babylon you can reach Artillery to finish off the lasts cities if necessary. Finally note that this type of game is more about "can it be done" than "do this, it always work". What I mean is that it's a type of fast conquest which is good to get good finish times but can crumble easily if the situation isn't right. There are safer ways to play domination deity if your purpose is to simply win one.

For commentaries, my next videos (on this forum) are commented in English and apparently my accent is good enough to be understandable

I have loaded some 5 million year old worlds, with Deity settings and passive Civs.(the kind that tend usually to be less likely to DOW one another, but they usually have 10-15 units waiting for my 6-8 Bowmen and several mixed other units) I have managed to get them to DOW each other by miracle but rarely do passive Civs want to DOW unless somebody did something bad early like got in a conquest over a CS. Here are a few examples and within a few turns Long Swordsmen will come out of these impossible cities to bust with Bowmen. Unless I'm doing something wrong?

(first was Songhai and I took 1 city but he got a UU I couldn't fight in Medieval, terrain was not soo soo great but he was easy enough)
http://i.imgur.com/Tawhgux.jpg

(Pedro just kept pumping out units, killed of 2 of his Settlers)
http://i.imgur.com/xIWMZZK.jpg

Refine my strategy if you can, or is the bow rush impossible on that terrain? Those cities would never fall to that handful of units and vs Brazil I wiped out 50% of his units at the cost of 1 of mine but it was too late.

Well Askia isn't a very good choice for this strategy, he rushes horses and his UU is very strong. You'd have to approach him later with XB or with more spears/horses yourself.

For Pedro, you will have trouble knocking down a walled city with a CB with bowmen. You need to worker bait for this and probably you will have to wait for CB tech around T60 to finish him. I don't really see what poses such a threat though, his cap is on flat and I only see this single CB. Maybe concentrate on Rio.

Don't expect to do too much with bowmen, I mostly use them to weaken an AI and start the experience farm and get a general. The real game begins with CB.

I'll take your advice, I thought I could do more but the rear Guard units came up from fighting India later and they were a lot more than I anticipated. I baited him into attacking my city there and basically dying.. Just the AI is teching on me so fast, they had CrossBows before me. I will try to adjust my strategy for a little bit more delayed rush unless 'perfect opportunity presents itself' I never bait usually with workers unless I have spare ones or spare scouts...Perhaps I can rack your brain later and merci beacoup