Without A Kiss I: Sitting Bull

BFC = big fat cross , the area that you can work from a city ( this doesn't need spoiler )

Yeah, BFC generally means the 20 tiles the city can work, not the 8 in the original pack.

Via:

@ rolo
Thanks for clearing that up

@ jerrymander
K.

@ TMIT
Looked at your second update. Nice work

Round III (900BC - 1180 AD):

To 1718 AD. Some interesting stuff happened, but most of it was just building up infrastructure and stuff.



Edit: Some thoughts:

@ everyone:

1. Round III update is now complete. Analysis, criticisms, comments, etc. are welcome.

2. It seems like there aren't any other shadow-games going on right now. Would anyone mind if I took my walkthrough out of spoilers?

3. At this point, is there anyone following the thread for their edification? I started this thread for the benefit of those who, along with me, wanted to get past Noble and start succeeding at Prince. If it's accomplishing that goal, I'll be happy to keep the series going. However, there's a lot of work that goes into these walkthroughs (about 2hrs. per full update, estimate), so if I'm the only one learning, I can keep it to myself .

Depending on responses to these questions, I'll create a bullpen thread after this one is complete. I'll be looking for suggestions to improve the benefit of the series, as well as leader/map/other recommendations for following games.

Round IV update should be up in a couple days.

I already play at a Prince level, so I'm not really using this for edification, rather, as a different approach than the oft-taken path.

@Via: I don't think you attacked early enough P) since...

@ Jerrymander:

ViaArete said:

3. At this point, is there anyone following the thread for their edification?

Click to expand...

Yep. I've found threads like these invaluable in trying to improve my game. Thanks for doing it.

ViaArete said:

@ everyone:2. It seems like there aren't any other shadow-games going on right now. Would anyone mind if I took my walkthrough out of spoilers?

Click to expand...

It's your game, you could have taken them out of spoilers to begin with.

Round IV 1160 AD - 1600 AD:

A few notes:

- Apologies for the delay in posting this round. RL has been eating into my civ time. Unfortunately, the semester hasn't even started yet and already I feel like I'm losing my grip on the summer... Furthermore, the game is basically in my control now, so it's pretty much just a matter of how and when I win. This actually makes playing less enticing for me since most of the challenge is gone. Nonetheless, I'm going to try and get this game and the next one done before I have to start the whole university thing.

- ITT, all prior (and proceeding) rounds will be taken out of spoilers.

- At the end of this post, I'll be asking for input on how to proceed. Feel free to chip in even if you haven't read the preceding posts (or have just been scanning).

- Sorry if the walk-through is sort of choppy, it's been over a week since I played this round.

Onward:

1160: (from previous round) Incans are destroyed, Guilds has been researched. I decide that I'm going to move forward and start a new war relatively quickly, this one against the Vikings.

1190: HBR is researched (yay knights!)
1240: Monty and Sury gang up and DoW on AC. The war seems to be relatively eventful, as AC winds up taking a couple of Sury's cities and IIRC 4 GGs were born.
1275: I'm ready for war against Ragnar, and DoW on him. AC also asks me to join the war against Monty. Considering the distance between Monty and I (and the substantial buffer provided by AC) I accept for the diplo bonus.

1290: Birka is captured.

After the cats were sacrificed:



and victory:



1300: Paper researched; finally get to see the eastern portion of the continent.
1325: Research Aesthetics; trade for Engineering. At this point, the +1 road movement is almost more helpful than the trebs, so I can replace my front-line units from across my empire.
1335: Ragnar gets a Golden Age from building the Taj Mahal. I'm not worried...
1345: Bjørgin captured.



1350: Sign a PT w/ Monty. As suspected, the war with him resulted in nothing more than the diplo bonus with AC (and, I suppose, mere icing on the cake with Monty's hatred toward me).

1365: Great Prophet born in Cuzco, he will be used for a GA soon...
1380: Sue for peace with Ragnar, receive Philosophy and Banking



1380: (continued) Use GP to start a GA and pump up the stack to finish off the Vikes.
1385: Research Education (on the way to Lib)
1430: Re-DoW on Ragnar. Monty DoWs me (not sure if there was a Defensive Pact or if I just pushed him to it)
1435: DoW on Sury (again, since this was over a week ago, I can't remember if I did this of my own volition to keep Caeser at pleased, or if he asked me to join).
1450: Liberalism is complete; get Gunpowder. Looking back, this was probably a mistake. I had planned on fortifying the newly-conquered Viking cities with Muskets, but that was under the assumption that Ragnar would put up more of a fight, which he did not.
1455: Uppsala captured. Although the city was fairly well-defended, my stack of cats weakened the city far enough to be easily captured by my remaining units.



and victory there:



1495: GG born while attacking Viking capitol of Nidaros. Nidaros is captured, and great loot obtained:

Here's my stack (sorry there's no accompanying info. of Ragnar's defense. Suffice to say it was no match for my mass of siege, two GG CRIII (and more) macemen, etc.)



And the loot :



1500: Sign PT with Sury (pointless war, again. Peace Treaty was signed as soon as he would talk.)
1530: PT with Monty (see above)
1535: AC signs PT with Sury. The AIs are now all at peace (except Ragnar, who will soon......)
1545: Die. Haituba captured, and the Vikings are destroyed. I [thought I] had some fun screens showing combat odds before/after siege and that, but I'm real disappointed that Shift+Print Screen doesn't keep the combat odds well. Life goes on... For everyone but Ragnar:



1550: Adopt Free Speech and Free Religion for science and commerce bonuses.
1585: Printing Press is researched allowing me push the science slider back up to 70%.
1600: A nice date to pause and end the round.

Here are some screens of the status of my empire (spoilers used because these aren't really part of the walk-through, and because I prefer not to have to scroll for half an hour to get to the bottom of a page):

My stack after the war with Ragnar:


Here's the land I took from the Vikings:


Domestic Advisor (Notice the lack of production in these cities. This is what happens on a mostly flat, grassland map. The only viable option for an IW city is my capitol, Cuzco, but even that city isn't exactly a power-house. For this reason, I've been relying really heavily on the whip.) :


Glance Screen:



Techs-trade screen:


Power Graph:



Monty's Land (more anon):


Some analysis:

As I said at the beginning of this post, the game appears to be essentially won. Monty and Sury are becoming more and more backwards, AC is not really a threat (unless I make him one), and my economy is in pretty great shape. The Viking conquest was fairly easily won, and provided an excellent city in Nidaros, which is serving handily as both a GP farm and my strongest commerce city. The Foreign Palace was placed in Ankara (which is in a culture war with Rome over a Corn tile ) to reduce maintenance cost and win back that corn.

Moving forward, I see a few options, and I'd like to solicit your opinion about which I should pursue. I'm particularly interested in choosing a path that would provide the most educational benefit, so if there's something you'd like to see me try to do (particularly if you've had trouble with that sort of thing at this level) please post your idea. Feel no need to strictly follow the possibilities listed here.

Peace path: Satisfy myself with the land currently in my possession, do not actively pursue any further military conquest.
- Short-term plan: Build up infrastructure recently unlocked from techs (e.g., universities, grocers, markets, etc.).
Mid-term plan: Gain a substantial tech lead over the AI, maintain only enough military to dissuade aggression.
Long-term plan: Win via space race (it's a little late to start on Culture, and the "worst enemy" status from Monty and Sury pretty much moot a Diplomatic Victory.)

War path: Engage in military conflict until either Domination or Conquest victory is obtained.

- Domination Line 1​

: Use Open Borders with AC to stage wars against Monty and Sury. Destroy both of those empires and capture their cities. Following the war's completion, I will probably have enough land for a Domination victory. (this is the most obvious option to me, and is why I included the screen of Monty's land; he's an obvious first target.)

- Domination Line 2​

: Aggressively pursue military techs and a huge number of units to take on AC, who currently ranks twice as high as me on the Power graph. If I conquer a large majority of the Roman Empire, I will have enough for a Domination Victory.

- Conquest​

: Start on the AI's Western border (Caeser) and push east, razing almost every city along the way, propelling myself to a conquest victory. (Alternatively, a navel attack could be staged at the AI's eastern border [Monty or Sury]. This attack could be either in favor of, or concurrent with, the previous method.)

Alright. I open it up to you; a simple majority wins (I hold the tie-breaker, in that event, I guess) if there's enough participation. All commentary is welcome, as usual.

Good job, looking forward to the next segment. I would suggest taking on Augustus Caesar and then Montezuma or Sury to win the game.

Just curious, but how did you sign a defensive pact with Ragnar in 1080 AD?

DMOC said:

Just curious, but how did you sign a defensive pact with Ragnar in 1080 AD?

Click to expand...

Ho ho. Good question

I wrote it down in my notes but never thought about how (practically) impossible that was. I must have signed open borders or something, but I swear I remember seeing Defensive Pact in the trade menu .

When I actually go through and clean-up this thread, I'll make sure to take care of that. Thanks.

I vote conquest via mass vassals.