ALC Game 32: Holy Roman Empire / Charlemagne

Yeah, I think your plan is probably the way to go. War seems to be the best way to deal with a run-away AI. A slight adjustment, though. Muskets are better than macemen when you have cannon, because they'll both ignore walls and castles and protective muskets are decent defenders. I'd even use pikes or LBs over macemen because if your odds aren't really good, you're not using enough cannon. LBs can get drill promotions (keep them from getting boobos); landsknechts protect you from counter-strikes.

To get there, you might want to consider espionage. If you haven't tried a dedicated espionage campaign (notice it's not really an economy because it's not really sustainable), you should be aware of a couple of things: the esp advisor accounts for all discounts except having a stationary spy (so the true cost is half of the advertised price); spies on ships don't get this stationary bonus, but they don't get caught either; the advisor only tells you the price for the cheapest tech, which may or may not be the one that you're aiming for; and the campaign gets more efficient as you go, but more costly (since you're probably going for more advanced techs). Still, there's definitely a diminishing marginal rate of utility there. It's only useful for playing catch-up games (just like rl )

I'm surprised that you just found the AIs though. I think in the future, you should probably scout more. I have issues with this myself sometimes. And I suppose you took a calculated risk of not exploring so that you could get HE. Whether it was worth it remains to be seen, I guess.

It's good to see that I was right about you needing MC, though I hadn't mentioned triremes (I would have built more fogbusters to keep the barbs from spawning in the first place).

yatta77 said:

But now I'm really curious to read the next update, since I would bet my 2 you'll research Code of Laws.

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Benginal said:

Choosing techs was difficult. In the end I picked the following order: Code of Laws and Civil Service, then Metal Casting, and finally Music.

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Ah ah. I knew it!

(I didn't read the rest of your post yet (and I will, it was an interesting write up so far!), but I'm glad to see from the Screen Shots posted that you are not so isolated after all...)

Greetings,
yatta.

Benginal said:

I made the choice to put Metal Casting in the front.

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Ah ah! Metal Casting! I lost my bet after all! <- self-irony here, of course
(next time I'll better read the whole thing before posting a reply ).

Believe me, it is a really interesting reading, since I play so differently... example Barbarian Galleys:

• you: stop researching Code of Laws >> research Metal Casting >> Chop/Whip 3 Triremes
• me: still researching Code of Laws >> Adopt Caste System >> Run 3 Artists >> Slowly build 3 new WorkBoats

I suppose now my games look so risky to Civ IV experienced players eyes!

And there are many other things: Wonder "ranking" (the importance given to each) is, I might almost say, opposite; settled Scientists are a standard, not an exception as you seem consider them; Cottages are an option I don't give too much weight to.
Nice to see many different concept in action in here!

I had spent considerable time and resources getting beaten to Music. So I decided to get a little something for it.



I don't like giving away gold usually. In this particular case, though, the other option was Music for Monarchy and 30 gold. I thought it was worth trading fifty gold for Civil Service 2 turns faster. With Civil Service and Monarchy in I immediately revolted to Buro and HR.



With my capital as my only real source of beakers, Bureaucracy was a great civic to run. I thought about waiting for the next Great Person and then starting a Golden Age for an anarchy free switch. But the next GP was most likely a scientist who still had things to do.

I got more bang for my musical buck with this trade.



This meant that the next scientist would bulb education. But as I had decided that I was going to go all out for a Liberalism Steel bulb this seemed like a fine result to me. Let's see this world map Roosevelt gave to me.



It's an interesting shaped continent. And it's looking like Qin is the obvious target, especially given his leader position on the scoreboard.

I have no espionage on anybody, but got this handy notification.



What was I saying about Qin just now? Dag nabbit. It might be okay anyway, especially if this Steel bulb pans out.

I was trying to get another city up on the main continent but got beaten to it by the Chinese.



My settler is in such a weird place because the galley that was bringing him over was threatened and then sunk by a barbarian galley, but I landed the settler beforehand. Unfortunately he was landed far away from his target, that grassland square 2S of the fish tile. I thought about squeezing him in where he was but decided in the end it wasn't worth it. The settler came back south and was settled much later to claim the stone.

Paper came in. Next tech was Education.



It only took five turns thanks to my scientist bulbing part of it a few turns earlier. I was still pursuing Steel and the techs I needed for it were Machinery -> Engineering -> Gunpowder -> Chemistry -> Steel. Was it possible to safely trade for any of those?



I thought so.



The next turn saw Qin elected as Supreme Mugwump of the Apostolic Palace. And reminded me to giddyap and spread Buddhism to all my cities. Predictably Isabella sent a missionary to the one city I was fortunate enough to get up on the main continent.

Yet another scientist appeared in the capital. I think I don't give the Parthenon enough credit. It's really been saving me this game.



It's about this time in the game that I start to prefer merchants over scientists and the above screenshot shows why. I don't like bulbing just a few turns of research and usually that's what later game scientists do. So instead of a partial bulb on Printing Press I kicked off a Golden Age.

I revolted peacefully to some new civics.



I was going to try and get a Great Merchant in Aachen. My timing was bad and the other cities were too small and had too many scientist points to try for a merchant. So despite Aachen having two artist wonders and two free scientists I ran five merchants there and hoped for the best.

Now I hadn't converted to Buddhism yet as it wasn't in any of my primary cities. I was planning on doing it at the end of the golden age, but was hoping this might happen.



Excellent. Free brownie points! I researched Gunpowder after Education and when it came in I made this trade.



This let me keep my monopoly on Education but also get away with not spending any of my own beakers on Machinery or Engineering. And we were now quite close.



Just Chemistry left to research and then Liberalism. Unfortunately Aachen was unable to produce a merchant and instead made another scientist.



He was settled in our super science city. The golden age grew to a close and I switched back to slavery.



Chemistry finished and the situation made me nervous.



If Pacal goes for it I was pretty sure he'd win, I put some cities to building research so that I could get Liberalism in five turns. It was going to be the best I could do.



It looks like it was good enough! . State of the empire overview coming up.





I'd been spreading Buddhism around and my main cities have it now and are working on building the AP buildings for the extra hammers as well as the happiness and research benefits.



Prague is, as expected, having trouble growing. But it's giving the Holy Roman Empire half of its beakers so I can't be too mad with it.



The future addition to my empire is very green, but also very big. I'm worried and excited about this upcoming war.

The tech situation is as follows:



I'm making a half-hearted attempt at Economics so I might yet trade Education with Roosevelt before I declare war on him (he's Qin's vassal).

So that's about the size of it. I have cannons all to myself and should be able to have cannons against a Rifle-less AI for quite some time. This isn't epic speed, but I'm hopeful that I can take out all of China and maybe one other AI with cannon and assorted troops before the AI gets Rifles. We'll find out in the next round.

I've been thinking about this game all week. I had planned to go to war against the Chinese and his American vassal. I was confident that my monopoly on cannon would net me some cities. The more I thought about it, though, the less confident I became. Looking at my cities and making some very rough estimates I determined that it would take me twenty turns to come up with an army of about 15 cannons and 15 melee and gunpowder units but also a limited ability to make more units. Looking at the tech screen I was worried that Qin would have rifles in that time and my army would be too small to take on his larger and by then equally advanced army. Perhaps I was cowardly. I encourage people to take the last save and show us how it can be done.

Not only were there reasons not to go to war, but there were also some reasons to stay peaceful. I was part of the Buddhist lovefest with the most powerful civ in the game and the most advanced civ in the game. I had developed a nice little empire with some decent specialized cities. And I had trade bait enough in the form of steel to keep up in the tech race for at least a little while longer. I decided to stay peaceful for a while longer and re-evaluate at a later date. In keeping with this decision I made some civic changes.



Caste System and Pacifism would go nicely with a peaceful little empire. The idea is that I can use the advantage of having a decent GP farm in Aachen and the Parthenon to get a few more Great Scientists for settling in Prague. Great Scientists are great units to settle for empires that are going to be lasting a while. With an academy, oxford, a university, a library, and an observatory a Great Scientist can add 30 beakers to a city. And I was hoping to get a few more.



The higher the level, the more important trading becomes as the AIs get researching bonuses. I made quite a few trades this round. Because of the limited number of pictures allowed per post I won't be posting all of them, but I'll show the most important ones.





Trading for gold is also really important. With the exception of I think two turns I ran the slider at 100% on the whole time. And much of that gold was gotten by selling technologies that only one or two civs didn't have to those civs. With those tech trades completed the technology screen looks like this.



I'm heading for computers eventually. At this point in the game I can keep up in the technology race by self-teching and trading, but come the late game I won't be able to do that. So the Internet becomes a great option and it's that that I'm aiming for now. But for now I'm doing alright.



Steel is still a monopoly technology and the AIs have some techs I need and some gold I need. Another big trade coming up. Before that trade I had checked if I could cause some trouble.



But the Chinese were having none of it, so I made this trade.



The new technologies made available two more civic changes.



Representation was a great boost as my empire was running about a dozen specialists. Maybe the Pyramids would have been a good build after all.

I met the final AI.



Unfortunately, Pericles is not as good in AI hands as human hands. And all round I abused him by taking his money in exchange for outdated technologies.

I'd been putting off this trade for a while, but it was now time.



Scientific Method obsoletes both the Parthenon and the Great Library as well as all of my monasteries. I made the trade because none of the other AIs still didn't have Gunpowder and Replaceable Parts and I needed Scientific Method eventually and didn't want to self-tech it or trade a monopoly tech for it, even though I now had two of them.



With Steam Power came in I made this decision.



Biology is technically not on the route to Computers, but it's a mandatory technology for any game that's going to the Industrial Era. Also, for my stagnating cities it was important to get early. Not only that, the AIs seem not to research it very readily which makes it great trade bait.

I'd been having some trouble with Chinese culture and also got a Great Artist instead of a Scientist in Aachen.



Note that while culture bombing is attractive settling is better. In this case I really only needed the cows which settling would be sufficient to capture. A settled artist also gives 3 gold and since I'm running Representation it also gives 3 beakers.

Just to make the game more slanted two of the more backwards civs declare war on each other.



Izzy and Catherine can have lots of fun while Qin, Rosy, and I run ahead with this game. Up next is Assembly Line.



Assembly line is great for factories. And with a hammer heavy empire those multipliers are extremely potent. And I do have coal, so coal plants are going to be available to power my factories.

And with Biology my new monopoly tech I start trading Steel and Steam Power around.







And with that I ended the round. Here's the situation now.











The tech situation is as follows:





And here's how Pacal's cultural victory is going.



So that's about the size of it. I'm still planning on heading for computers and the internet. Whether I go for space or a modern era war is yet to be determined. Any opinions?