King of the World #16: Julius Caesar

Neal said:

re: The Quest- Yeah, Sentry's far from ideal. But I'm pretty bad about fogbusting, anyway, so the prospect of a fleet of supervisionary horses roaming through Russia makes me giddy. Though +1 Food per city also sounds nice. And, well, if I can upgrade the Horse Archers to Knights, that might be worth it, too.

re: The big plan- I'm feeling Guilds-Engineering-Gunpowder in terms of techs, and maybe vassalize Russia-head south into Africa for a military strategy?

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1-Dude, no way, sentry promotion is a bad idea go for the food.

2-Cool.

Sentry would be good if you plan on using knights to pillage alot to boost your economy.

I honestly don't see how +1 food to every city with a stable is going to help a lot.

Longterm plan:

1. Attack Russia, take her good flatland cities (basically anything west of Moscow) and leave her to populate Siberia and Central Asia as a vassal, gift her techs and spare resources to keep her military cutting edge, she is a very useful vassal.

2. March south into Egypt, conquer it. She never seems to build any metal units and her production is awful so it's never that difficult.

3. Send a small stack south from your North African colonies, kill Mansa or vassal him, does not matter one bit. When I play half of the time he never expands from Timbuktu during the BCs, if he's doing the same in yours just kill him, Timbuktu isn't a bad city and there are gems to the south of it.

4. Attack Saladin, lightning war on Arabia. Conquer all of his Asian holdings then vassalize him. He should be colonizing Africa by this point anyways, and most of the land down there is trash, better to have him hold it.

5. Fight straight east, Persia>India>China>Japan>Mongolia. Eliminate all but Mongolia, their land is garbage so you might as well vassal them up.

6. Invade the Aztecs for glory and honor, not that you need the land because the continental old world alone contains more than enough landmass for domination.

Honestly European games are a bit boring, you can almost condense how to win from Europe into a mathematical equation, you just knock off a ton of rivals in quick succession then proceed to roll your face on the keyboard and completely dominate everyone afterwords. For more challenging games I personally cut Europe down to three civs (usually Rome, Germany, and Russia, sometimes just Rome and Russia) and spread the rest into less populated areas, such as the Buenos Aires site in South America, Indonesia, Indochina (turn the jungles to forests), and Australia (I put some more seafood around it so they have a chance at being semi-competitive).

In fact, in the future I'd like to see you try to pull a win out of an unmodded Australian start. That one is a pain in the ass, believe me. I barely pulled off a space race at monarch. I play most of my games on the earth18 map so I've been creative with civ placement to keep things interesting.

Kietharr said:

Longterm plan:


In fact, in the future I'd like to see you try to pull a win out of an unmodded Australian start. That one is a pain in the ass, believe me. I barely pulled off a space race at monarch. I play most of my games on the earth18 map so I've been creative with civ placement to keep things interesting.

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can you give me the starting coordinates you used for the civ you play with?


This game is already won, unless maybe all ai declare on Neal (maybe you can give yourself a challenge).

I did a little bit of playing with the save (expect the proper round sometime tomorrow), and I found that, for 2200 gold, I can upgrade the Horse Whisperer's 11 Horse Archers to 11 Knights. They'd be unpromoted, but I could give 10 of them a single promotion with that Great General I have tooling around. Would this be a good investment? It would cost us a lot in the way of resources (2200 gold isn't exactly cheap, and we'd be tacking on a Great General besides), but 11 Knights in the B.C. era (plus a few more home-grown reinforcements) could be just what we need to roll over Catherine. Then we could focus our slower infantry forces down in Arabia. Thoughts?

That's a lot of gold and we already have Prats. We are going to need those gold reserves for the campaigns.

2200 is a lot to pay. I wouldn't use the GG - it's not worth it for just one promotion.

Sure, it'd help you roll over Cathy, but not sure if it's really worth it to pay all that to upgrade. I'd take the free UB (+1 is just what the Baray does...) instead. Not as immediate a help, but it's half a specialist in each town, which isn't bad.

Upgrading unpromoted HAs to Knights is a very very bad idea if you're looking for resource efficiency. Ditto for burning the GG.

I would have thought it's a no-brainer to take the food from the quest - very useful and doesn't expire before the Future era. Masses of outdated unpromoted units or a useless-when-massed promotion for mounted units don't come even close.

As far as the stables go +1 food is a pretty solid benefit considering you have until advanced flight to build them and with Europe under your dominion you will have more production than you know what to do with. I think you overestimate the power of Cathy, with praets you are pretty much unstoppable on the offensive until they get crossbows.

If you were going for a complete conquest of Russia maybe, but that would be needless for reasons I've already stated, most of the land east of Moscow isn't worth the maint costs until state property and/or biology, by which point the game should be over. Just praet down everything on the European side and vassal whatever is left of Russia, you can afford to take a bit of time here, not like Saladin or Hap or even Cyrus are going to run away and become unassailable if you give them a few more years, they don't have a fraction of the production or commerce of Europe.

Oh, and for my Australian start I used Alexander and I started in the north part of Australia, with the river, fish, and iron. I added one extra seafood to the start. I also moved Spain to Greece. As for strategy, my suggestion is ignore Australia when it comes to your first few settlers, use them to claim Indochina before Qin and Asoka set up there, get IW fast and spam workers to clear the jungles and set up shop. Move capital to mainland, then invade China or India.

Neal said:

I did a little bit of playing with the save (expect the proper round sometime tomorrow), and I found that, for 2200 gold, I can upgrade the Horse Whisperer's 11 Horse Archers to 11 Knights. They'd be unpromoted, but I could give 10 of them a single promotion with that Great General I have tooling around. Would this be a good investment? It would cost us a lot in the way of resources (2200 gold isn't exactly cheap, and we'd be tacking on a Great General besides), but 11 Knights in the B.C. era (plus a few more home-grown reinforcements) could be just what we need to roll over Catherine. Then we could focus our slower infantry forces down in Arabia. Thoughts?

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Yeah I agree that being unprompted is a deal breaker. It makes more sense to use the gold to push towards gunpowder units, and use those 20 praets to push through Russia.

Think of all the experienced knights you could make with all the stables you built, go for the food

it just seems like a waste to build all those stables for inexperienced obsolete units

Probably because it is. Stable+Barracks will get you a sentry AND flank 1 knight, and like I said Europe has massive production potential. If you're dead set on sentry knights it wouldn't take much effort to crank a bunch out of those stables (which will also add food to production cities that you capture in Russia!) and use those slightly superior knights alongside a stack of praets/catas. Lay the smackdown with your ponderous stack of slow movers and mop up with sentry/flank knights.

I agree with the 1 Also, I didn't look at the save, but in my game on emperor both hatty and saladin had religious shrined cities which really helped my economy. You may think about that option and hit cathrine a little later. Hatty's capitol is an awesome cottaged up city, something to consider on this map where it's harder than normal, at least for me, to find the land to do so.

Get the food, seriously ....sentry is one of those promos that you only want one or two units with it, not all the mounted

I still have to on you about your lack of explore, Neal. For heavens sake, you have OB with most of the people around you and you are planning to attack all of them sooner or later, so your lack of intel is really Ok, you know where the capitals are and as you already played this map a lot of times you know where the cities should be, but even then you don't know the roading or the forests that are still there or even the garrisons and that intel is vital for deciding a attack strategy.

I'm still divided about going to war with cathy now. Your army is in the balkans and in much better position to go to the Middle east than to going to good ol'deep Russia. A quick war to cap saladin ( before cyrus starts vassaling left and right , as he normally does ) while you build a army to attack catherine would probably be a much better investement atleast in the short term ( again, without more intel due to lack of recon, it is impossible to be less vague ). Cathy will probably not expand more ( her and Cyrus already have border strain, so I bet that cyrus already penned her ), so she probably won't grow as much of a menace as it can be. And that would put you in face with hatty fast... she already is below the average power as it is, so you would only need to get enough war sucess to cap her fast ( and with a vassal bordering her, it would be even easier )

Anyway, consider this: as I see things there are only two civs that can gripe your way to victory as it is now : Cyrus and Monty . Cyrus can start vassaling left and right as he normally does and make a huge Afro-Asian block that would be hard to crack ( remember Frederick game ? )... well, what QSH uses to do, but in this game he is clearly gimped ( those deity extra settlers of Mongolia and japan really had a toll on him ), so I would be very surprised to see him being more than a average power ( well, he is gearing to war and mansa is his worst enemy and clearly the weakest Old world civ, so he even might get a vassal ). Monty ... well, besides being the maniac we all love to hate, you gave both him and HC ( that I don't expect to see him doing more than being monty's pet, vassaled or not ) acess to S. America proper. As far as we know he might being fed with techs by the other two stooges in the new world world and become a proper threat. And in BtS deity ( that would be probably in par with Warlords Immortal, the level where Snaaty played his Persian game ) I expect Monty to think on invading the old world ( as monty did in Snaaty game ). Well, what I know is that there are two civs with more power than you and one is not in the old world

Well, one last piece of advice: make the Moai in Rome . It is not the perfect site for it in this map, but it is clearly one of the best .

Moai in Rome or Athens make very strong sites. Both very good cities normally, and making the 10 or 11 water tiles useful is always nice.

Athens will not make a good spot until Hatty is gone or vassalized . What I meant is that there are some other 3 or 4 sites that make a very strong Moai city , and neal has a clear preference on getting those sites and make the moai far later ( say, the Philipines or that spot near Malawi lake ). Rome is clearly a strong site as well and it would give Neal the Moai benefits far sooner ( Rome is already working 5 or 6 water tiles ... ), and currently would take 10 turns to make ( less if neal had mined that plains hill in Corsica/Sardinia ), so the potential benefit for the nat wonder there would be quite large both in the short as in the long run.

The only issue is that Rome would get two priest GPP wonders and I'm not sure if Neal would like that

Hey, all, sorry I'm late. That round took a bit longer to play out than I'd expected. I'm gonna try to get it written up tonight or tomorrow. Until then, here's the save:

It is surprising how can a person can be ahead in the tech race without even a library in the capital

On game:

The number one threat to Roman Hegemony? BEARS! You guessed it, in this round we wrassled with the fetching Catherine and her borsht-loving comrades. It was a difficult decision, choosing between Russia and Arabia as the next focus of our attentions, but I ultimately decided that Catherine was a much bigger late-game threat than Saladin, and the red borders were being much more irritating in eastern Germania than the green ones were down in Turkey. And besides, if we declared war on Arabia, then it would be just like Catherine to jump in and send a whole mess of troops across our massive shared border.

The round began with the rest of the world rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's:



A few resources-for-gold trades slowed the bleeding of Rome's treasury, while spreading Horseback Riding around a bit shored it up nicely.

Cornelius Vanderbilt was sent eastward into far-off Asia to bring back riches, while Geronimo lent his Woodland lore to the Roman war machine:



Maybe making a Praetorian super-medic wasn't the smartest move in the world, but he was able to contribute with his sword as well as his stethoscope, and the Gunpowder era isn't all that far off, anyway.

By 65 B.C., global tensions were beginning to heat up. The Mali had become more and more threatening in their diplomatic correspondence, and India had become a full-on warzone. Vanderbilt eventually decided that, y'know, Pasagardae, at the mouths of the Tigris and Euphrates, was far-off and exotic enough for his purposes:



The heart of a Praetorian does not beat in every Roman breast. Nevertheless, he was a profitable enough emissary, netting us a substantial purse of gold (honestly, I'd have to march him a long way unescorted through potentially hostile territory to nab a few extra hundred gold, so I decided to just get what I could without an opportunist slitting Cornelius' throat on the road).

By 50 B.C., the Romans were masters of Cavalry as well as Infantry. Caesar decided that an army marches on its stomach, and that the best way to leverage this edge was on the farm:



The hard-line hawks in the Senate argued against such a bucolic measure, but the prospect of getting more troops in the field long-term trumped the rather limited short-term benefits of a small influx of obsolete Horse Archers.

Meanwhile, quiet preparations for war continued across the empire. Troops built up along the border, the Helenopontus garrison relocated to Odessus, and Spies infiltrated the Russian bastion of Novgorod:



Hanging Gardens, Chichen Itza, and a few short turns away from the Apostolic Palace. Chichen Itza and the city's proximity to Arx Regem alone make it our primary target; the other Wonders will just make it worth our while.

Of course, claiming the Holy See wasn't strictly necessarily- Despite Catherine building the Palace, Caesar elected himself pontiff unilaterally, thanks to the large numbers of Buddhist faithful in Europe. Well, Asoka decided to give us the nod, but his votes were completely unnecessary.

By the turn of the Calendar, it was time to make official what should have been blindingly obvious to the casual observer:



Russia was Pleased with us, so it pained Caesar to strike at an ally, but Catherine is a dangerous wild card, and Rome could not comfortably pursue its ambitions with the Slavic dagger poised at its back.

Of course, any war against a Deity AI involves a hostile stack intruding on friendly territory:



We were a bit late getting Pikemen to the front, so Russian war elephants inflicted heavier losses than they should have (Soviet Mammoth Cavalry... *shudder*) throughout the war, but that particular stack was dismantled without much difficulty. On the lower right, you can see our Odessa stack pressing northward to Novgorod.

Russian Macemen also proved difficult for our now-aging Praetorians, but collateral damage cures all ills. As a result (and with our Spies' help in bringing down the city's defenses), Novgorod and all its Wonders passed under Roman control:





Geronimo and his soldiers holed up for the winter inside the city, licking their wounds and being reinforced by veteran Knights from the Battle of Arx Regem. But already Caesar's greedy eyes were on the next prize: Moscow, the shining jewel of the Russian crown.

In the south, meanwhile, Rome's campaigns against the vicious Mali (who had declared themselves Russian vassals shortly before our declaration of war) were decidedly less successful, due largely to Caesar's comparative neglect of that particular front. While Russia contended with the combined production of Europe and England, the African campaigns were waged almost entirely from Icosium and Tingis. A few harrying raids by Roman Knights were quickly cowed into submission by lumbering African Elephants.

Not all was gloom, though. The horticultural efforts of a young lad in Germania brought him much fame and glory:



Rome's investment in his studies paid off, too, as he became a famous educator in the city's Library.

As Rome's armies marched up to the gates of Moscow and began the protracted siege of the city, the clerics of Parisiorum, led by one Father Weis, sought to assuage the war-weary hearts on the home front:



The massive nature of the supercontinent meant that only the British Isles would be exempt from Notre Dame's soothing effects. Sadly, shortly thereafter, Father Weis was exiled in disgrace. In his stead, the cathedral is now ruled by Father Kelly, who promises victory at any cost. Many remain unconvinced.

As Caesar moved a few things into the Apostolic Palace (he had a feeling he'd be staying there for a while), a young acolyte came forth with a selection of possible edicts:



Six of one, half dozen of the other. Caesar sent the boy away with a snort and continued to order about his interior decorators. The war with Russia would not end so easily.

Moscow fell in 205 A.D.:



And was found to be outfitted well. The Roman siege had been sparing, leaving many of the city's more valuable structures intact. Moscow promised to contribute greatly in the many wars ahead.

As the main army rested up in Moscow, preparing for an assault on St. Petersburg, reinforcements made a quick detour to Yekaterinburg, where they faced limited opposition:



The city was unremarkable, but it had the potential to at least pay for its own upkeep.

Catherine was at her wits' end. Her offensive capability was smashed, and what little troop strength she had left spent their days huddled in her cities, fearing the oncoming march of the obsolete but still maddeningly efficient Praetorians or the hoofbeats of the dreaded Equites. Even the loyal Mansa Musa determined that hers was not the winning team:



Catherine sent diplomats to embassies across Eurasia, seeking war allies, even at the cost of her people's independence, but she received no such offers of salvation. All she could do was hunker down with her troops and wait for the inevitable.

In Rome, meanwhile, things continued to snowball as the rich got richer:



St. John established the Temple of Solomon in Caledonia, pleasing the faithful and finally tapping the lucrative Jewish market.

Catherine's last major bastion was St. Petersburg, which formed Russia's final connection to the Black Sea:



The siege was successful, and Russia was reduced to the Siberian villages which were naked to Persian predation. Caesar had little interest in chasing Catherine through the snowy wastes.

It was time to see what she would give up for the chance to live another day:



Orenburg wasn't on the maps that Asoka had given us (along with Aesthetics) for the secrets of Philosophy, but it was doubtless a polar hell not worth having. And Russia is on the ropes right now. Finishing Catherine off would be time-consuming, perhaps, but not difficult. I come to you now wondering whether we are better served with Russia as a beaten vassal, or erased from the map entirely. For the record, our bride Isabella does not favor clemency.

Here's a look at Asoka's map of the world:



Russia could be a reasonable buffer from which we could strike out at the Jewish outcast, Cyrus. I'm thinking we should probably swing south through Arabia and Egypt first, though, to eliminate the prospect of a two-front war.

The tech situation:



I'm currently researching Chemistry, in hopes of nabbing Steel with Liberalism. I think we're pretty secure in getting the free tech at this point, so we may as well make it count. Hattie could have been stiff competition, but she decided to go down the Nationalism route for whatever reason.

Finally, the Diplomatic Relations screen:



Yes, China is starting to beef up. I think Qin's finally starting to get southeast Asia cleared of all that jungle. So, what do you all think?