King of the World #9: Genghis Khan

If its not too late, I agree with conquest...

It should be Casablanca, if the AI named cities like we do. Anyway, why would Germany bother marching a bunch of units over Africa and Greek land just to take a lousy city, instead of the going to mainland Spain. It makes no sense.

Conquest if you haven't played the next round (please do!)

Things've been kind of hectic lately. Next round should be up tomorrow night or Monday afternoon.

In this round, I decided to take everyone's advice and do away with Asoka.

As Galleons bristling with Riflemen and Cannon (sorry, no Amphibious Elephants this game) headed slowly southward, my Australian workers popped what could quite possibly be the map's final goody hut:



They managed to extract some gold out of the natives. What's that, you say? Workers are a noncombat unit? Well, if a modern day construction crew got into a fight with a band of cavemen, my money'd be on the construction workers.

Various troops lined up on the Indian coast, each wanting a shot at Lahore. Sadly, I only had one Galleon there, but I could cycle out the wounded:



Amazingly, those initial landers were all that I needed. The city fell easily, confining Asoka entirely to Australia.

At this point I began a Democracy beeline, and started a Golden Age to spur it along:



This also gave a needed boost to the Production lines, getting Cannon and Riflemen out in preparation for war with Persia.

In 1450, Asoka stooped to sending a mediator to do the dirty business of begging for his life:



No such luck, pal. The northern coastal cities of Australia quickly fell to my Frigate-aided assaults.

With the Golden Age in full swing, and with Democracy (and Economics off of a trade with England) in hand, I figured it was time to make a Civics change:



This has, of course, made the acquisition of Great People a little more scattershot, but I figured that our empire was growing large enough that a bit of modernization would do it some good.

At this point, Asoka was on the ropes:



The Riflemen walked in, looked around, announced that they were in charge, and renamed the city Tasmania.

Pataliputra at least put up a nominal fight:



But that was it. As the city burned, Asoka burned with it. The Indian empire was no more.

So I kicked back, turtled up, and won a Space Race Victory:



Just kidding. I'm Genghis Freakin' Khan! Of course I'm not going to turtle up and play nice like Mansa Musa or Gandhi! With Cyrus came his vassal Saladin. Of course, Saladin has that juicy shrine, so I'd just be killing two birds with one stone.

In the east, Persian cities dropped (and burned) like gasoline-soaked flies:



Mostly, this was just Spring Cleaning.

The real action was in the west:





Huh. I'd've thought there would be something fun in there. A city that old, and that big...

Ah, well. Maybe Persepolis has something cool in it:





Now we're talkin'. Not amazing, but a worthy little conquest. Needless to say, at the war's beginning, Arabia and Persia were pretty close, so at around this point, Saladin decided that being Cyrus' lackey wasn't his cup of tea. And as Persian cities fell, Cyrus came closer and closer to kissing my ring. Or so I'd thought.

In the interests of upgrading some of those Macemen and Knights that were still tagging along with my Persian army, I sent a Great Merchant (another double- I feel like I'm collecting baseball cards!) off to Mexico to bring back something cool. He didn't net quite as much as I thought he would, but he did help:



That little bundle of cash would definitely help to modernize the troops, and then I would move on to the Mesopotamian city and then on to Arabia and...

And then Saladin showed up:





And, just like that, our Western front went from being offensive to defensive. The only advantage I have on Saladin is Steel for Cannons. He has proximity (my production cities are quite a ways away) and Physics for Airships which can plink away at my forces with impunity.

In the east, meanwhile, things were moving along more smoothly. I razed Tartar...



And refounded it 1SW:



I also burned Cyrus' useless desert cities:



For gold and kicks, mostly.

So, in 1585, that's where we stand. Cyrus is willing to give up quite a bit for peace:



But he's not willing to capitulate. Saladin, meanwhile, refuses to even acknowledge my diplomats, and his forces just KEEP COMING. I suspect that the two problems are intertwined. If Cyrus becomes my vassal, he'll be forced into a war with Saladin, and those Cavalry and Protective Riflemen will come for HIS cities. Saladin, meanwhile, is having a field day sending troops along with the help of Cyrus' roads.

I mean, here's a current look at Persia:



My once-proud army has been reduced to tatters. And two or three fresh Cavalry with those accursed green banners seem to show up every turn. I don't know how much longer we can hold out.

So yes. For the first time in a long time, I'm experiencing some real adversity in a game, and I'd like some advice. Here's a look at the relevant Info screens to give you an idea of the global situation:









So what should the plan be? I fear that I may not be able to hold Persepolis. Should I pull back and cede it to Saladin? Should I take peace with Cyrus and see if he'll close his borders? Should I just hang on by my thumbs and hope that I Saladin will talk soon? As you can see by my power graph, this war has not been going well for me in the last few turns, so I could use a hand.

The save:

Can you make "peace" with Saladin? That'd give you time to finish off Cyrus.

It seems your building a lot of infrastructure as opposed to military units. I realize your economy is crashing, but there might be an alternative if your cottages aren't too dependent. If you build the SoL, change civics to Representation and Mercantilism, might you be able to hold out? Thus, you could focus on military more.

Hmm.

This is a doozy. I'd suggest pulling out of Persepolis and running. The AI will head for the city instead of the troops, letting you rush back to India to heal. Make peace with Cyrus and re-build your military. Let the close border tensions demerits build between Saladin and Cyrus, then re-declare on Cyrus.

1-Retreat from persepolis
2-See Sal garrisoning it with cavs
3-Use CR cannons
4-Profit

r_rolo1 said:

1-Retreat from persepolis
2-See Sal garrisoning it with cavs
3-Use CR cannons
4-Profit

Click to expand...

Unless he can get magic Riflemen reinforcements to Persepolis, I'm not seeing this work. The last screenie shows only 1 Riflemen left.

Make fake peace with cyrus and stick in a stop trading with sal treaty, and use some Monglian diplo-magic to get open borders for yourself.
You get through, sal doesnt.

You have some fairly nice techs, so perhaps you might be able to bribe Cathy and Hattie (though she's at war with Alex) into war. They might not hold up as well, but if it can at least be a distraction it would help things.

I'm afraid if you make peace with Persia you might get stuck with the OPPOSITE of the open borders thing - he'd allow Saladin to cross with impunity and not allow you to do so at all.

Well, I cracked open the save and made a few observations on the first turn:
1) r_rolo1 was right. Pull your troops from Persepolis, let Saladin take it, then recapture the city.
2) Your builds are crazy. Stop building infrastructure on the mainland. Start building troops. Due to the tech parity of your enemies on the southern front, you'll be faced with high troop losses; finish the SoL in Beijing and then spam Cavalry. Switch Karakorum and Chengdu to Cavalry as well.
3) Don't take Cyrus's capitulation offer if it comes up. His empire is roughly half yours, meaning his independence will be happening on the second turn of vassalage.

Aww, did Neal get a boo-boo?

Anyway, I'd say weather it out. It looks like you got some green troops coming in to the east. That should be enough to weather anymore opposition. It looks like Saladin had been hoarding Calvary for quite a while - he has two cities with any production at all - and has only now had a chance to use them. If you can get enough rifles on the southern front, I'd say go straight for Baghdad and Mecca, then you can say good bye to any more raids. I wouldn't be surprised if he's almost out after a stack like that.

I don't really see why a stack of 4 units is worth sacrificing a city for. You could probably take it out with cannons if you wish.

r_rolo1 said:

1-Retreat from persepolis
2-See Sal garrisoning it with cavs
3-Use CR cannons
4-Profit

Click to expand...

I believe step 2 is actually "collect underpants".

Just a few notes, the pedantic Australian says Tasmania is the island, Hobart is the city (it may be full of people married to their sisters, but its a city nonetheless) also, drop back out of airship range, regroup, then attack, remember the best defence is always offense. Also you would benefit greatly from railroad next, get those troops across quicker, and gain access to machine guns for defense and airship cover.

re: Peace with Saladin- That's precisely the problem- Old, mean and beardy won't answer my calls.

re: Infrastructure vs. Military- Yeah, you all are right. I'm a builder at heart, even when I'm playing a vicious throat-ripper like Genghis Khan. And then I wonder why I don't have enough troops to play with when it's time to go to war. I'll change up some builds. I also need to quit worrying about tech rate and start using my gold to rush buy things. I mean, I'm in Universal Suffrage for a reason, right?

re: The fate of Persepolis- Yeah, now that I'm away from the situation a little bit, I'm starting to think that I should stay the course. I've played as Saladin before- He doesn't have a ton of great production cities. How many Cavalry could he honestly have? I mean, admittedly, he probably has an overflow of Camel Archers to upgrade... And I do have some rookies that have been trickling in. I was just panicking because I felt like I was feeding them to a meat grinder. But if this is gonna be a war of attrition,even with his Emperor bonuses, I'll win.

re: Borders- Yeah, I'm thinking that taking peace with Cyrus and trying to get him to close borders with Saladin would be a fool's errand. The Persians and Arabs have millennia of religious camaraderie under their belts. And I've been kind of a jerk.

re: Capitulation- If Cyrus offers, I'm taking it. My empire is growing; his is shrinking. And if he capitulates and reneges, well, then, that's just an excuse to finish him off next time, right? And I think it's time to start wrapping this game up.

re: Tasmania- I was wondering whether I'd get called on that I just figured that if a build completed in Tasmania, I'd instantly know where that was. But if something happened in "Hobart," I'd just be like, "huh?" Oh, and a Settler for Melbourne (or maybe Sydney) is in the works...

If you're tired of dominating the massive earth world again, you can try to quicken it up with a diplomination. Beeline the U.N., vassal's votes cout 100% for you as opposed to 50% land area and pop.

Also your stacks usually seem really small in all the screenshots I see... I guess I'm used to having 20-30 units in a stack rampaging across the land. I mean, 3 cavs, 2 rifles and handful of trebs constitute a frightening stack? Those numbers are barely scary in a classical era war. You don't know fear until you see Napoleon transport an army of 20 knights, 15 macemen and 30 catapults across your lands around 800 AD.

Just keep reinforcements coming and your supermedic handy to keep your stack strong.

Neal said:

Oh, and a Settler for Melbourne (or maybe Sydney) is in the works...

Click to expand...

Me thinks Adelaide is much better. 1 SE of that city you razed.

Gotta love it when a comp player puts up a fight

I agree with what everyone else is saying.. so nothing else to add here.


And not sure if you guys' have noticed.. Alexander is kickin' Hatty's butt over there in Egypt. Who'da thunk he had it in 'em eh?

Just get peace for now and build up those troops. You can get peace with Saladin and Cyrus and give you some time to get those reinforcements in. I agree with Josh, your stacks always seemed a bit small to me. In my last game is Freddy in World Map i was rampaging through Persia with a stack of roughly 30 rifles and trebs
Btw, why are you in US? Rep would help your economy a lot