King of the World #10: Charles de Gaulle

capnvonbaron said:

Deep in the middle ages, the little-known Celtic town of Bibracte, located in the hilly French countryside, mysteriously disappeared off the map. It is fabled that Boudica, enraged by her children speaking with thick french accents and greedily consuming croissants, goat cheese, and copious quantities of wine, ordered her bastard populace to return to the Celtic ways or else remove themselves from the town of Bibracte. The unhappy children, while sneering and laughing at her in a very frog-like manner, tore the town apart brick by brick and headed north toward the shining lights of Paris.

Boudica, alone and distraught by the betrayal by her children, for whom she loved and cared since the dawn of time, then took her own life. The jilted matriarch climbed the sacred North Peaks that the Celtic elders worshipped in the generations before, to the Cliff of Echos, where she slit her own neck and threw herself over the edge to the valley floor over 1000 feet below. It is rumored that citizens in the valley below heard a faint but clear voice resonate from the mountains; it is believed that as Boudica held the knife to her throat, she shouted to the gods: "RI-CO-LAA!" -- a phrase from the ancient Celtic tongue that loosely translates to "ease my pain"

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Creepy, dude. Are you going to write stories like that for all cities that flip, or just about random events?

Wah why did you finish liberalism no one was close you could have gotten so many more free beakers oh well.

Tech path... well if you need "direction" as I said Biology is the last major tech to really shoot for. Though if you can handle the unhealthiness through trades you might want to forgo the National Park, because you didn't leave any forests. (Remember you still have a grocer to build soon, it'll give you some more health expecially if you trade the dye for sugar or something.) Not sure if stuff like hospitals and supermarkets can hold off factory unhealthiness though. Printing Press is on the right track... Chemistry, Scientific Method...

Oh and you should probably take a quick jump over to Economics for the delicious Great Merchant to settle.

Is Angkor Wat still available? Probably not, but if it is I would recommend quickly grabbing it as it is very helpful in an OCC. Let you run some good priests...

I agree, time the Taj Mahal with a civic swap. It'll be the golden age's main benefit. Pacifism is once again a great civic if religious diplo allows it and you aren't building much. You may have to take Free Religion though, if things get rough.

You are sort of floundering around without much purpose at this point, and the space race is still quite a ways away. Maybe you should start bonking some heads, for the heck of it? Run merchants (build a grocer/bank) while building maces and trebuchets. Tech Steel and then Rifles/MS and mass upgrade, then go out and kill someone. If you want to have a taste of OCC conquest.

The big problem with Biology is that it necessitates Sci Method, which means abolishing the GL, Parthenon and Monasteries. The National Park means such a big production hit that I'm not convinced it's worth it (certainly not if you're going for a space race), and the extra food is nice but not as important as what you give up. I tend to leave Sci Method as late as possible to maximise research potential.

Incidentally, I'm surprised there's so much hate for great spies. Being able to see an entire world's demographics, track the research of all the top civs (so you can prioritise what you need to get those great people/wonders first), stop your rivals trying to spy on you, steal techs and ferment revolt are really powerful tools imo.

Rather than having biology powered farms, I think SP/RepParts/Chem/Caste/guilds/levee powered water mills and workshops would be better. Since Paris won't have any help building spaceship parts, we'll need all the production we can get. If we build NP, we'll still have enough food left over to feed a few specs after size 20

Gwynnja said:

Rather than having biology powered farms, I think SP/RepParts/Chem/Caste/guilds/levee powered water mills and workshops would be better. Since Paris won't have any help building spaceship parts, we'll need all the production we can get. If we build NP, we'll still have enough food left over to feed a few specs after size 20

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In good time. But Biology for farms should be the nearer term priority as they are better for tech, and there is quite a ways to go before production becomes the space ship bottleneck. There will also be time to build extra workers, so when it's time to convert to production-oriented improvements that can be done quickly.

In my own experience, research is usually the main limiting factor rather than production. The late techs are expensive and the OCC's release power eventually peaks out. Both are important though... one of the nice things about farms and specialists though is lets you switch between a dozen scientists and a dozen engineers/angkor priests at will. (unless he misses angkor wat in which case specialist-based production is more limited)

Sciguy001 said:

Creepy, dude. Are you going to write stories like that for all cities that flip, or just about random events?

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Was meant to be a bit of a joke. I take it you've never seen a Riccola cough drop commercial... perhaps many here haven't, I tend to forget how international these forums can get

Anyways I like the idea of prebuilding some units, finish up the Taj, make the civics switch to vassallage, and finish up the troops in the first few golden age turns. Hopefully Rags doesn't do any international recruiting...

Just finish the Maj Tahol ( A joke. ) and shoot for a cultural victory. It's too risky to do a space race. Very little time to do so.

Civman33 said:

Just finish the Maj Tahol ( A joke. ) and shoot for a cultural victory. It's too risky to do a space race. Very little time to do so.

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Yep, your three cities should be able to reach legendary culture in no time.

Joshua368 said:

Yep, your three cities should be able to reach legendary culture in no time.

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But he already has all of those wonders, and it's an OCC game. It's still possible to win a cultural victory. You just need alot of culture in your only city.

Civman33 said:

But he already has all of those wonders, and it's an OCC game. It's still possible to win a cultural victory. You just need alot of culture in your only city.

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No, culture victory requires three cities of legendary culture. Even in an OCC. (Meaning it is impossible unless you want to go nuts with permament alliances, which sort of kills the whole "one city" thing)

I like the OCC conquest victory. Seriously, Neal. How are you planning on winning?

Only space is possible without permanent alliances, at least on a map as large as this.
Conquest is impossible... AIs will resettle the land faster then you can raze the cities.
Dipolmacy: The biggest AI + vassals will get too many votes to win.

Space seems like the best bet. Beeline Internet, then Space Elevator and laboratory?

Feyaria said:

Only space is possible without permanent alliances, at least on a map as large as this.
Conquest is impossible... AIs will resettle the land faster then you can raze the cities.
Dipolmacy: The biggest AI + vassals will get too many votes to win.

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I don't think conquest or diplomatic victories are impossible. Although, you probably want to be playing on marathon, so that you can start pumping cavalry/infantry/tanks/mech infantry/mod armors out every turn.

Umm... Can you please post the state of asia and africa? Neal?

Tough, interesting round. I'm trying to take steps to ensure that this round (along with the one before it) isn't a harbinger of things to come.

Things started with a sobering shock:



Exit: Mansa Musa. He's a fixture on the Earth Map! Now who am I gonna trade for backfill techs with? You'll also note that I switched research from Printing Press to Guilds. I decided to make a beeline for Economics with its sweet Great Merchant and the opportunity to adopt Free Market. With a Golden Age on the way with the Taj Mahal, I may as well unlock as many valuable Civics as I can.

By 940, Ragnar was finally willing to listen to reason, and called off the dogs in exchange for a 160-gold tribute. I hate grovelling like this, but I'm kind of stuck.

The next turn, The Taj completed and we got a Great Scientist to commemorate the occasion:



I immediately revolted into Free Religion to ameliorate some of the theological disputes between our scholars and the rest of the world's soldiers. Hinduism is just getting too big, and the Buddhists are becoming a persecuted minority.

With Guilds available, I also decided that enough was enough. It was time to overcome our national fear of the Horse:



With a little help from our German friends, of course. I certainly wasn't going to waste precious turns researching it, and it was no longer remotely worth trading for. And now we can build Knights!

Engineering, on the other hand, warranted swapping some older techs for:



So things were looking good. Economics was on the way, my stash of great people was growing every 10 turns or so, and the people of Paris were, well, happy.

Then 1000 A.D. happened. Maybe it was the millenial jitters, maybe it was a massive network of bribes, maybe it was just some obscure A.I. trigger. Everything went to hell in a handbasket:





Well, we saw way back in the Frederick game that a declaration from England doesn't mean very much, even if she has the boats to back up her threats. Zara Yaqob is a joke on this map with his crappy territory (though he's expanded into what I consider "Shaka's lands"). Suleiman is a player, but he's always been pretty friendly with me, so he was probably just bribed in and will send a token force, if anything. Darius, though, scares me. He's probably the mastermind behind the whole mess.

So I immediately talked to my buddy Bismarck and swung a deal with him:



I paid a lot, yes, but that should keep any Persian Stacks of Doom occupied while I scramble for peace.

I trained a few spare troops for the defense of Paris, and started on a Buddhist Stupa:



If I can steamroll London, maybe that'll bring Lizzie to the table. And at the very least, bigger borders means more territory for the enemy to slog through before they can reach the important stuff.

Suleiman's "token force" was a little more trouble than I'd anticipated, but not by a wide enough margin that I'd been tempted to give up hope:



It was almost entirely mounted, though, so I set up some Pikemen on a hill to scare them off.

The plan worked, but that put the Pikemen directly in range of Ethiopia's stack, which managed to sneak up on me through the German corridor:



Agck. If those Turkish Cavalry turn around, I might really have to scramble to keep this game going!

Thankfully, Suleiman is a wise and merciful man, and was willing to make peace:



Well, maybe he's not so wise. Paris is a freakin' gem of a city! If I were any other leader on the map right now, taking out De Gaulle would be priority 1!

So the Ethiopian stack, now isolated from Suleiman's cavalry support, was quickly dismantled. This led to a quick cascade of peace treaties:



And quiet once again settled over the River Seine.

So we now have Military Tradition. Our first Cuirassier is hanging out in Paris, making sure everything is up to spec. More importantly, we can sign a Defensive Pact. I think our two best candidates are Germany and India. India "doesn't like us enough," despite being Pleased, and Germany is still wrapped up in war with Persia. Can anyone outline the basics of Defensive Pact AI acceptance? Or link to a solid strategy guide on it? I don't want to throw techs at people if it won't do any good.

We also need to decide on our next tech:



We have Chemistry, so I figure we can either hit up Scientific Method for Biology (which will kill a lot of our bonuses), or maybe we should go Replacable Parts-Rifling for defense. Or maybe even Steel, to get our Production back in high gear.

Here's Paris:



Yes, we ended up with ANOTHER Great Artist! Gotta say, kind of frustrating.

The Tech screen:



Gandhi kind of wants the world for Astronomy, but he is willing to trade it. Should I take him up on it?

The Diplomacy screen:



Don't even try to make out the webs of alliances on there. In terms of relations, though, you can see that everything is still pretty much drawn up along the old religious lines, though things have softened a bit with FR.

And, for you alternate history buffs, the map:



It would seem that, with Korea impinging on China's normal expansion routes, China hit up Australia. And the Khmer took much of the Pacific Rim islands. These are usually India's province, so Gandhi's kind of hemmed in. Maybe he wouldn't make such a great DP partner after all.

So what do you all think? Where should we go from here? I'm thinking that, even with the sacrifice of the Great Library, Biology is the way to go, right? And where should I go for a "big brother" to help me out in diplomacy and war?

Here's the save:

Priorities are Health and some Military.

If going for DP with india then go ahead and make the Astro Trade, at this point i would worry more about survival than overpowering your ally even if he is a long term threat. Astro would also allow you to make some New World Health trades.

Military wise, I think you allready have a good enough unit to build in your Curisaires. I would want to double may garrison though. Maybe get some forts built and occupied on some Non BFC resources to draw would be attackers onto.

Biology is worth 8 food I think, but since you are at health cap you cant exploit all that food. I would only go to biology if planning to build Nat Park for Health right now or if you can get somemore health resources online from new world.

Maybe astro before Sci Met..... scientist slots + boost in research would not be bad.... and maybe some frigates to bomb London

So we now have Military Tradition. Our first Cuirassier is hanging out in Paris, making sure everything is up to spec. More importantly, we can sign a Defensive Pact. I think our two best candidates are Germany and India. India "doesn't like us enough," despite being Pleased, and Germany is still wrapped up in war with Persia. Can anyone outline the basics of Defensive Pact AI acceptance? Or link to a solid strategy guide on it? I don't want to throw techs at people if it won't do any good.

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There's nothing to a defensive pact besides their base attitude towards you. The majority of AIs won't sign a DP until friendly. Boudica, Cathy, Cyrus, Darius, De Gaulle, Roosevelt, Saladin and Toku will sign at pleased.

In relation to this game, that means start getting some people to friendly if you want some defensive pacts.