ALC Game #10: India/Asoka

Sisiutil said:

Somehow I think the first one is decidedly unlikely.

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Cute. I was speaking generally. My guess is it's Elizabeth with Philo and Financial, if that's the GNP leader as well. Or it could be an industrious Egypt.

Otherwise, you simply have a really tough Toku. I've never had a game where he was the tech leader, but I've fought wars against his Samurai with roughly even military techs. You're right, in our hands, the UU is awesome, but the AI isn't quite as adept. Still, they are a pain and the protective Longbows are murder if you don't have a military tech lead.

Good luck with this one. The next round should answer a lot of questions.

I agree with the consensus.

Bribe Toku if possible, attack Ragnar, keep building trebuchets, and do what you can to keep Ragnar from vassalizing to Toku. If that happens, your next war will be against all three neighbors.

Peaceful coexistence with Toku is unlikely to succeed in the long run. He must go to create the land and economy you need for domination, space, or diplomatic victories The battle with Ragnar should be fought with a view to how best to position yourself to take out Toku next.

Sisiutil said:

If they're substantially ahead in that regard, we may have to try for a diplomatic victory, so I'll do my best to keep relations with the other continent as good as possible until we have to make our final decision on a victory condition.

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I'd say make your final decision on what victory type to go for before you decide whether you're going to be warring with Toku later on (before the end of the next turnset, in other words). If domination or conquest is your cup of tea, then he needs to be taken down and you should start to plan accordingly now. Personally, I'm inclined to shy away from this option as it seems the trickiest of the two.

If it's diplomacy or space you're seeking, then he can stick around and be used as your attack dog to set on the designated whipping boy across the ocean, since you know religious differences and his natural sunny disposition aren't going to win him too many friends. Mutual military struggle and favourite civic bonuses (if you go with mercantilism) can turn Japan into a strong and valuable ally without worrying about having to wage war against them provided you keep your power graph vaguely respectable.

With Ragnar's lands under control you'll be at least twice as big as Japan in terms of land area and there's no way they can keep pace in the late game with that kind of deficit, so you needn't worry about Toku beating you to the stars.

patagonia said:

I'd say make your final decision on what victory type to go for before you decide whether you're going to be warring with Toku later on (before the end of the next turnset, in other words). If domination or conquest is your cup of tea, then he needs to be taken down and you should start to plan accordingly now. Personally, I'm inclined to shy away from this option as it seems the trickiest of the two.

If it's diplomacy or space you're seeking, then he can stick around and be used as your attack dog to set on the designated whipping boy across the ocean, since you know religious differences and his natural sunny disposition aren't going to win him too many friends. Mutual military struggle and favourite civic bonuses (if you go with mercantilism) can turn Japan into a strong and valuable ally without worrying about having to wage war against them provided you keep your power graph vaguely respectable.

With Ragnar's lands under control you'll be at least twice as big as Japan in terms of land area and there's no way they can keep pace in the late game with that kind of deficit, so you needn't worry about Toku beating you to the stars.

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An interesting approach. I may focus, then, on keeping Toku Buddhist by sending a few more missionaries his way. I was pondering switching to Mercantilism when it was available if it would benefit relations with him, and it sounds like it will if I follow this.

I still think I could postpone a final decision until a little later, assuming Toku stays out of my fight with Ragnar. If Toku looks too hard or troublesome to beat, I can go the peaceful path with him, but if my war machine is rolling along, it may be worth a go. The only problem there will be defending the massively long border I'll share with him by then, which is why the peaceful route is tempting.

But Tokugawa can be notoriously mercurial...

Toku as attack dog... tricky. If it was Alex or even Napoleon, I would agree. But Toku just gives me doubts. Deep down, he doesn't care about anyone but himself.

One thing to consider about bribing Toku with Optics, if he won't give you the whole pie, ask if he'll just share a slice or two. I mean to say that if he won't go to war against Ragnar, see if the Emperor will stop trading with the Norseman. At least they won't be talking about things like sports, the weather, all that nice territory to their north....

I would bribe Toku to attack Ragnar, and then with his hands busy, attack Mehmad. You'll have to clear them both eventually, but Toku is less of a late-game power.

Mehmed is Tokugawa's vassal. If you attack Mehmed, you're attacking Tokugawa too.

Attack Ragnar and take him out if possible. If smaller Ragnar vassalizes himself with Toku and you have to war with all three, I would concentrate on reducing Toku and killing Mehmed to shorten that long border. That should keep Toku from being worrisome later on. Once you get banking and education, empire size won't kill your finances anymore. You can always sweep up the continent in a second war if the three of them are weakened. I can see this continent shaping up to be yours already.

I don't think the "Death to Ragnar" theme needs repeating. I just wanted to add one thing regarding vassalizing Raggie. I've played 3 post-patch games with him in all 3.

In one game, he fought to the bitter end.

In the other two, he offered to capitulate fairly quickly. In one game I agreed, and ironically enough, the two of us had to go after Toki (Wartooth) the same way you're about to need to. I gifted Raggie all kinds of techs and some extra resources so he could actually defend himself, thus tying up a lot more of Toki's troops and making it a bit easier to capture cities without threat of retal.

In the other game, I refused to vassalize Raggie because he was still fairly large, and the next turn he was Monty's b*tch and I was fighting on two fronts. Lost that game to an AI spaceship after all the warring put me behind in tech enough to keep me from a domination vic fast enough.

So what I'm getting at here, is if Raggie offers to capitulate, which he sometimes seems to do a bit earlier than I would have expected, I'd accept the offer. Better to have your own Prison Girlfriend than to hand him over to Toki for a pack of smokes.

Anyway, keep up the good work and let's see you pull this game out!

A few things to consider before accepting capitulation ...

If you leave him strong enough to eventually build a wonder, you'll never be able to capture it from him, since you can never declare war on your vassal.

If you leave him with enough territory that he owns a useful resource (either currently or eventually after its discovery), you'll never be able to capture it from him, since you can never declare war on your vassal. This is partially mitigated by the ability to demand a resource from your vassal, but as far as I know that's limited to a single resource at a time. So if he gets two important resources, then you're out of luck.

If you leave him strong enough to eventually found a religion, you'll never be able to capture the holy city from him, since you can never declare war on your vassal.

There are probably some weird tricks you can play to work around some of these issues (ex. declare war on someone, let them take the city you want, then recapture it later), but basically you don't want to vassalize someone unless you've completely broken them and taken everything you can imagine ever needing from them. If you've done that, then a vassal agreement is a fun variation on the game and a good way to save yourself some hassle.

but dont completely destroy them, leave them with enough militairistic strength so he can help you in wars

Dr Elmer Jiggle said:

If you leave him strong enough to eventually build a wonder...
If you leave him with enough territory that he owns a useful resource...
If you leave him strong enough to eventually found a religion...

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I think you can get around all three, although the first is iffier. You can control their research, so you can just keep them from researching wonder-giving technology if you want it. That also keeps them from possibly getting a religion. If they have resources that you want, unless the patch changed things, you can always trade for anything they have. So you may only be able to demand one (I don't know) but you'll always be able to trade for it. And since they probably have very little territory, you probably would have plenty of resources you can trade.

Phrederick said:

So you may only be able to demand one (I don't know) but you'll always be able to trade for it.

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If they hate you enough (which they might if you raze enough of their cities), they might refuse to trade, but otherwise, yeah, that's an option.

Syndrome Zed said:

SNIP

So what I'm getting at here, is if Raggie offers to capitulate, which he sometimes seems to do a bit earlier than I would have expected, I'd accept the offer. Better to have your own Prison Girlfriend than to hand him over to Toki for a pack of smokes.

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Exactly what I have experienced also twice so far. Ragnar capitulating and bringing some other guy into the fray. And I doubt your relations with Toku are so good that he will not attack you if Ragnar offers to be his *****.

Dr Elmer Jiggle said:

If they hate you enough (which they might if you raze enough of their cities), they might refuse to trade, but otherwise, yeah, that's an option.

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Are you sure? I've had vassals with something like a -15 attitude who were still willing to trade all their resources, even their only supply. Technology was red, but resources weren't. I think they always have to be willing to trade resources.

Round 10: to 1290 AD

We may have to change targets.

For starters, 3 turns into the round I got my next tech:



Tokugawa, however, refused to consider attacking OR halting trade with Ragnar in exchange for it. Since he finished researching Optics himself a turn or so later, I guess I can see why he as so truculent. It turned out he had another trick up his sleeve as well, as we'll see.

Meanwhile, Ragnar was keeping himself busy. He finished the Hagia Sophia:



No word on whether the Pope paid a visit or not. A couple of turns later, Toku finished Angkor Wat. At least that means neither of them have built as many units as they could have.

With Optics in place, I upgraded my Triremes and sent two of them off in opposite directions to see the world:



One went northwest, the other went southeast.

I had another bit of happiness luck. I discovered a source of gems outside of Bursa!



Several of my cities still don't have forges--when they do, they'll now get the triple happy benefit from gems, gold, and silver. Aces!

My Caravels found the other continent and started meeting the other civs. First off, whoever guessed our mystery builder was England, give yourself a pat on the back. I think we were all wrong about the English leader, however:



Who figured that Churchill would be so wonder-crazy?

Anyway, back home, I had built up several units in my cities and figured it was time to start churning them out before their hammers began to deteriorate. So I switched civics:



Vassalage and Theocracy were considerably cheaper to run that Bureaucracy and Organized Religion--by about 12 GPT.

On the very next turn, Toku pulled this on me:



Why did he cancel the OB? Check his religion. That's right, he converted and dropped to "Cautious" with me. Ragnar is now "Friendly" with me and "Pleased with him (he's "Cautious" with Raggy).

This is why I said we may need to change targets. Tokugawa will no longer tech trade with me, of course. We still have some resource trades in place, but he's now in I-trust-him-about-as-far-as-I-can-throw-him territory (from which, to be fair, he never strayed far even when he was Buddhist, but he's back to being the recalcitrant Toku we all know and hate).

Meanwhile, I kept meeting the civs on the other continent. Aside from Churchill, it was like old home week over there:





Hmmm... neither Isabella, Alexander, nor Churchill have any techs on offer. It seems all the tech leaders are on my continent. Go figure. Around the same time I met Isabella, I won the circumnavigation race. Yay me. My two far-flung Caravels are now making a counter-clockwise circuit around the other continent. As you can see, I have Open Borders agreements with Alexander and Churchill, but not with the religious nut with the fetching pout and heaving bosom. Women!

Bjorgvin experienced a revolt:



It did not flip, however, and you know we can't rely upon that. The bulk of my forces (including about 8 Trebuchets--I don't mess around) are in Madras, waiting for us to decide who to attack.

As you may have noticed, I was teching along the Liberalism race. I did not do any tech trades this round, but not for lack of trying:



He wouldn't give it to me for free either, so I'm researching Philosophy on my own. Tokugawa doesn't have Education--yet--and the AI often undervalues that tech, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I can finish Philosophy before anyone else gets Education and still snag Liberalism.

But look at all those techs Ragnar has on me! Toku is keeping pace with him:



Here's a look at the map:



And my favourite screen shot from this round, the power chart for the last 50 years:



Whee! Look at that dramatic rise. I love pulling this stunt in the game--building up units in the city queues, switching to the war civics, and going from an also-ran to a world power in a few turns. I'm mingling a few cheap civilian builds like lighthouses in with the units now, but I figure I'll keep to mostly military builds until I switch civics again.

The relations screen:



Again, I think you can see why I'm hesitating to attack Ragnar and thinking of taking on Tokugawa (and Mehmed, of course) instead. Ragnar is my only friend, and the only one who both has desirable techs and is willing to trade them to me. This assumes that if I attack Toku, Ragnar will, at worst, stay out of it, or even join me in a Buddhist crusade. If he joins with Toku, however, it's gonna get ugly real fast.

Most troublesome is that they both have Gunpowder! Both of them have Guilds too, for Knights--I can handle those, I have Pikemen and War Elephants, but even Musketmen (in sufficient numbers) could be troublesome. And you just know they're bee-lining to Rifling!

Either way, this could make for a tougher slog than we're used to. Part of me wants to sing Blake's praises, part of me wants to slug him.

So who do we go after? The war will start almost immediately in the next round. Do we go after our only friend, Ragnar, and risk having Toku backstab us? Or do we change targets and go after Japan and its vassal?

Hehe, interesting change of plans maybe. I can follow your logics, but..... attacking Toku will mean a much longer path to get to the cities you want. Even those 10 turns to get there could mean that Toku will build up his military fast. Expected route you are going to take is taking on Mehmed first and then go on to Toku so it will take about that much time to reach the first Japanese city or do you have an open border agreement with Ragnar. In that case go directly to Tokyo and take his propably biggest city. Kyoto is not found yet but will propably be in the blind spot in the middle of the japanese empire. Tokyo first and then nabbing Kyoto. ANother force could take out Mehmed quick.

Too bad you can not bribe Ragnar to go to war with Toku otherwise it would be an easy choice. Right now however you will have a good chance that Ragnar will not interfere when you go to war with the other 2. If you capture all of Mehmeds and Toku's cities it is just a matter of time before you control the whole continent. Again a very interesting play.

I find it very interesting that Osaka went from pop 17 in the previous screenshot to 11 in this one. What's that rascal been up to, I wonder?

You know what would be tremendously fun? You only just barely have enough units for this, but - take everything you can spare, move it down through Vikingland, then launch simultaneous sneak attacks on Tokyo and Osaka... and raze them both. Don't worry too much about your army, just pillage those scrumptious cottages and survive if you can. With gunpowder units Aggressive/Protective is only going to get worse. Knock the **** out of him, with prejudice. If you want a city, you can probably build a few more trebs and use your defense stacks to take Edirne.

That's it - I'm playing some shadow turns now.

Sisiutil said:

Most troublesome is that they both have Gunpowder! Both of them have Guilds too, for Knights--I can handle those, I have Pikemen and War Elephants, but even Musketmen (in sufficient numbers) could be troublesome. And you just know they're bee-lining to Rifling!

Either way, this could make for a tougher slog than we're used to. Part of me wants to sing Blake's praises, part of me wants to slug him.

So who do we go after? The war will start almost immediately in the next round. Do we go after our only friend, Ragnar, and risk having Toku backstab us? Or do we change targets and go after Japan and its vassal?

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Nice buildup there. It's no surprise the other continent is more backward than yours since they're outnumbered 4-3 and don't have anyone financial. The gulf isn't enormous, but there was no need to panic about a tech-monster out there in the dark.

Having one friend is better than a world full of enemies, so I'd keep Ragnar on side and leave his cities alone. Bjorgvin's finally had its first revolt, so unless he parks a stack there it'll soon be yours, which will be a nice addition.

Ragnar and Toku are both raping the bottom of the tech tree, which means they're more likely to go for Chemistry than Rifling. The new AI's also got a penchant for grabbing Military Tradition early too, so watch out for those knights suddenly becoming Cavalry if you do decide to go for war.

I'd move one stack down to the Viking city between Nidaros and Tokyo and the other across to Calcutta. That way if you do declare you can quickly grab Mehmed's capital to act as a buffer zone on the Eastern front and Tokyo to strike at the Japanese core from the West (don't declare on anyone until you're finished with the Liberalism race though).

The other option is using Liberalism to race to Military Tradition yourself, then signing a defensive pact with Ragnar (he's friendly so he'll say yes). That will make Toku even more antsy with the pair of you, meaning you might be able to provoke him into declaring (or conversely make you safe from attack for the remainder of the game). The AI isn't completely stupid, but it could be worth a shot and even a short-term defensive pact would help to sour Japan/Viking relations further. If Ragnar still doesn't have Education when you're a couple of turns away from Liberalism, trade it to him for Gunpowder and Music (or as close to that deal as he'll accept), then flip him Liberalism for Guilds (or Chemistry if he's reached that) and you'll hopefully be ahead by Nationalism and have wiped out the tech deficit before you need to declare on anyone.