Awilder's 2nd Deity Game (Mansa/fractal/standard)

awilder

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Jan 18, 2009
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Wow... it isn't so obvious where to move the warrior. 2N and 2N1W of the settler all look like floodplains to me, and you probably can't reveal anything to the south that the settler cannot see. So maybe to the north on one of the hills or to the east towards the coast to look for seafood?

By the way, are you running the BAT mod?

Too bad you couldn't use the Frankie map, with it being isolated and all.
 
Or 1NE to the GH to see further along the coast & the hills.

Having said that moving the warrior 1NW to see what's beyond the FP might also be an option, because you could always moved the Settler and keep the rice if moving gives you a nice resource to the N
 
Doh, you can't really go wrong (or right :crazyeye:) here.

1. 1NE would reveal more coast but will probably not help you with capital location (coast is too far). This choice could pinpoint your second/third city location though, so you can prepare your capital accordingly.

2. 1NW might reveal enough to make you move capital to the north, so it has more merit.

3. 1N or 1S would probably not help you.

NW is probably best - there could be hidden resources 1S2W, 2S and 2S1E of the settler but even so, if the warrior reveals more green tiles to the north, the move would be justified. The current location is production poor too.
 
Yeah I went NW. I moved, and as usual it was the wrong call :p

I played some, got horribly boxed in by George Washington, so went for elepult. I played until 200AD. War is going well, but I'm not sure how far to take it. Will post update as soon as I can, but it might take a couple of days.

Here is the save anyway
 

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BAT needed to play :(
Restart civ every time, to play it.
I use BUG mod + BULL (dll) which is actually BAT without blue marble and does not require restarting.
 
I moved the warrior NW since that seemed like it would reveal the most information it could. I saw a huge swath of floodplains. I decided to move 1N to get more FPs and also more hill in my BFC. I settled there:

Spoiler :




That ended up being somewhat unlucky, since I missed out on marble, gold, AND grassland cow in my BFC that way. At least I was able to get a good settler pump out of the deal.

As usual I start Worker>*warrior. Tech was AG>Pottery (get those cottages cooking asap) > BW>Hunting>Archery.

In the mean time I meet my first neighbor

Spoiler :




This guy ended up throwing a wrench in my usual tech 'til Renaissance, mounted warfare strat.

Next up I met neighbor #2:

Spoiler :




Unfortunately the detour to BW proved to be somewhat risky. I found myself in this position:

Spoiler :




The archer was at 2.0 str from killing a hannibal scout. My warrior popped out and survived the onslaught. Phew!

Soon after this screenshot, Hannibal went into WHEOOHRN mode. I thought he was going to attack washington, but later I found out the real reason.

First though, Washington goes absolutely apehorsehocky on REXing:

Spoiler :




Yes, you read that right: 6 cities by 1520BC :crazyeye:. What's more, he has a settler in that screenshot about to settle the ivory. When I saw what was happening, I hatched my plan (which made me play a super long round, bc I really wanted to see where it would go). I felt I needed to bust up Washington before he ran away with the lead, so I wanted to settle that Ivory. I had a feeling he would be trying to settle the ivory sooner rather than later, so I had all available workers chop out that settler asap, and road up to the ivory spot. I got there with 0 turns to spare :D.

I wasn't sure if I could keep the cows, but the main objective was the ivory. Washington of course sends the deflected settler to grab even more land:

Spoiler :




Two other things of note in this screenshot: there was a GG born, which means someone is fighting. I had a feeling by this point that Hannibal was already fighting a war with an as yet unmet AI on this landmass (based on EP, I knew there was at least one more). The other thing you can barely see in the south is my city #2 "worker/settler" pump. I settled it one off the coast because that was the only spot where at size 3 it could work cows/borrowed rice/gold. The capital had more than enough food surplus at this stage from working cottaged FPs to I wanted another city to take the rice.

So I continue teching the construction/HBR path, meanwhile settling some fish cities. And finally I meet the mystery neighbor:

Spoiler :




It's monte himself :lol:. No surprises there really. You can see he has a peace treaty with Hannibal, so he apparently was at war with him for 1k years or so, made peace, and then promptly declared on Washington. Guess I got super lucky not meeting him yet :p

Re: settling 5 cities before elepulting. I know this slows the teching and therefore the DOW time down substantially, but my logic was:

1) My target is washington, who has NINE cities already (600BC). Since he overexpanded, he will be slow to get feudalism.
2) He will also have a huge empire, and because of the war with Monte, probably large garrisons as well. With five cities, all with reasonable food, I can really pump out the many units necessary to attack Washington effectively.
3) For the SW fish city (can be seen on minimap), Washington would soon have settled it if I hadn't, making me have a huge border with him, and give him yet another city.

After HBR came in: I used it to get into the tech trading game. A couple of turns into alpha->trade HBR to monte for alpha set up this tech situation:

Spoiler :




This is circa 550BC.

A while later with much whipping and chopping, I feel ready to declare on Washington. My stack is not huge at this point but scouting and logic tells me that most of Washington's mobile army will be in Monte's territory. I make a telephone call:

Spoiler :




My main stack cuts directly north toward Washington. As more elephants come in, they make some satellite stacks which take out some cities in my backyard and such.

A few turns into the war, I am pleased to see this:

Spoiler :




Does that icon mean he razed the city? At any rate, his army is pretty far away. I would first glimpse what's left of his main stack in 200AD, which is where I stopped.

Successfully took Washington, D.C.:

Spoiler :




MoM could be the key to getting my economy stabilized after the warring is over.

As I mentioned, I stopped at 200AD with Washington still at war with Monte, and the first sizeable stack appearing to my West. Here are some world-state screenshots:

Spoiler :







The save is attached a couple of posts back. First up--disclaimer: I got pretty caught up in the war and messed up a couple of things. I should have whipped the first two cities to come out of revolt from Washington immediately, but I forgot. They had huge amounts of population and many many angry citizens. Probably courthouses, but maybe just barracks>catapults. That was the main problem but there are a couple of other mistakes.

Now, the big question is, what to do?

Here is my tentative plan:
1) I likely can't withstand Washington's stack if it heads for Atlanta, which I assume it will. So I think what makes the most sense is to get peace+200gold (or maybe a tech if he'll give me one) at the moment.
2) I don't have feudalism, so I can't cap Washington. In the 10 turns of peace, my plan is to tech priesthood, trade for monarchy+hannibal's map with CoL, tech CS (I think I have barely enough gold for that, and I hope that once I get it my cap can pretty much singlehandedly support my empire+army at 0% research) and trade it to Hannibal for feudalism (he is the only one who has it).
3) Once 10 turns is up, I will redeclare on Washington. I hope he doesn't get feudalism in the meantime, but I should pack enough punch to cap him even if he does. At 6 cities, I think he is unlikely to cap to Monte before I can get him (Monte also has no feudalism). I probably won't have time to eliminate him totally, because his cities are all over the place.
4) Notice that Hannibal, although armed with feudalism, has only 5 cities! I hope to declare on him soon after Washington is capped. Goal is to capitulate him, and likely gift all cities back so that I have a strong teching vassal.
5) At that point I will play it by ear, but best case scenario I can then go after Monte. I have 11 cities already, and many of the american ones have large population=whipping fodder. I will likely have the american cities whip catapults, while my original cities (which all have barracks and stables up) continue with the elephants.

Odd note: Djenne has taoism, but it was not anyone on my continent who has philo. Can religion spread accross oceans pre-astro?

What do y'all think of the plan? doable? suicide? What would you do??
 
Totally off-topic, but what's with the "The first impression is a lasting one" modifier? I've never seen that before.
 
@Gkey

Yeah I use BAT mod, cause I like the pretty landscape :p

Maybe it's better to use BUG+BULL only for forum games, so more people are able to view the save.

I think there is a way to install Blue Marble in custom assets folder, making it compatible.
 
So we left off with a stack approaching from Washington that I would be unable to stop from retaking a city in time.

I decided to go for peace for 10 turns and regroup, during which time I would get feudalism so I could vassal Washington on the re-declare. I got a pretty sweet deal for peace:

Spoiler :




I was just messing around and assuming he wouldn't take this, but he did. Maybe I should have tried for a city as well and then work my way down. :p

I also lucked out and begged priesthood off of Hannibal, meaning I didn't need to spend a turn teching it. This set up the following trade next turn:

Spoiler :




I also bought Hannibal's map (he has paper) and saw this landmass:

Spoiler :




Sooo, this probably calls for a change of plan. Hannibal may be too far away to touch, so perhaps Monte next?

Hannibal's land is utter crap, and he's still out-teching everyone. OK well I guess Monte, Washington, and myself are not much competition :crazyeye:

So I teched to civil service (while whipping courthouses in the 10+ pop american cities as they came out of revolt), and noted that Hannibal would not trade feudalism due to monopoly. I still wanted CS so I could support my army/cities coming out of revolt so I stayed on target. Looks like I am now aiming to wipe out Washington outright. Something strange happened in the 10 turn peace treaty: Washington went from 6 cities to 4, (what does lightblue mean on the cities number?) but I didn't see any notices of Monte taking cities. Anyway Monte and Washington made peace, and I continued whipping a frothy army of cataphants.

I declared again on 450AD, and all was going according to plan (lost a few more guys than I thought I would is all) until...

Spoiler :




Washington gets feudalism and vassals to Hannibal in the same turn. Not sure why Hannibal would want to do that, since Washington only has one city left.

Also in that pic, and maybe more important, I met the other three AIs. Charlemange is backwards (I traded CS to him for feudalism and he didn't have currency at 600 AD!) and HC has only one city!? He is the one who founded taoism. Isabella seems to be the only potential threat of the three. There seems to be a real shortage of land on this planet... only 52 cities? Isn't that pretty low?

Finally the last thing to notice in the picture is Monte being at WHEOOHRN. He demanded 390 gold a few turns back which I really thought about, and ultimately gave in to. It really hurt, but he really could have hamstrung me. He has ivory as well and as usual has huge stacks running around. I think he has eyes for Hannibal.

Anyway, I take Washington's last city soon after, and keep them all. I screwed up my maneuvers and didn't have many catas in range for the last assault so I lost like 4 phants which hurts.

Here are some state of the world shots:

Spoiler :






Tech is not that bad considering. Notice for example that Hannibal is the ONLY one with paper, and HC is the ONLY one with philo. I am currently teching philo for two reasons
-possible trade chip
but mainly
-I have popped a grand total of zero GP! I just may be able to snag liberalism bizarrely.

So the way I see it I have one big question:
Do I send all my guys (24 phants and 8 cats with several more coming out next turn) at Hannibal in the hopes of vassaling him? It would cost a pretty penny to support an army that far away, and I will have a hard time as it is recovering the economy. The closest units I have will take 10 turns to be within attack range of Hannibal, so roughly 13-15 turns until I can bring a good force to bear. That said, if Monte attacks, I may be arriving at just the right time. I can also keep my fingers crossed that Hannibal does not go for engineering in the time being.

I think I will stop building military after next turn either way and then the plan is:
Get a GP of any kind asap while growing cities and finishing up philo. Bust a 12 turn golden age (thanks Washy!) and try to pop as many GSs as possible. I think I will try to bulb to astronomy, to get overseas traderoutes, and also under the suspicion that there are as yet unsettled landmasses.

What do you guys think? I will be mulling this one over before continuing, and I would really appreciate some input. This game is so unlike my usual ones that I am not totally sure how to continue.

p.s. if you can't open my saves due to BAT mod but you are interested in following my game(s) let me know. I'm thinking of just going bug/bull next time...
 

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Another option I considered is backstabbing Monte after he goes for Hannibal. I'm not sure this is a great idea since he would be a lousy vassal (everyone hates him and he sucks at teching), so I would only be going for landgrab and it might be hard to get peace off of him.

Obviously I need more scouting, but estimating by the demo screen, Monte has 1.5 times my power. Attempting to cap Hannibal and saving Monte for later just seems better.
 
that blue thingy with city number is usually when you can't check for real number of cities with diplomacy (refuses to talk etc) and the game helps you with pure guess on current visibility (I suppose that's it).

I was thinking mostly about backstabbing Monty too :). If you dogpile on Hannibal you risk capping Hanny to Monty and as usually Monty land is more logical... it's in the way to Hanny
 
@vranasm

It's true that Monte is in the way. But like I said, I have no interest in Hannibal's land, I would just want him vassaled and then I would gift all taken cities back.

Maybe I'm being overly cautious but it just seems risky to attack into a deity AI Monte with 1.5 times my power even if he's distracted. If I manage to take enough cities to get peace, he will re-declare on me asap no doubt.

The thing is if I go after Hannibal and it goes poorly, the price is much lower. I'm at war with him anyway, which he declared. If Monte declares, I will get further diplo bonus with him, and I think peace will be easy to obtain. Otoh if I hit Monte and he turns his stacks around... probably GG.

I dunno, need to scout really.
 
Well, I will make a couple of comments on my own game anyway:

It's been a long time since I've gone to war pre-lib. I think it's generally more of a sure thing to go to war after cavs/cannons/whatever in terms of winning the game, as long as you can secure 6 decent cities. And I think that is basically always possible on Imm or below, so it makes sense to me that I have to start branching out strategies now for deity. That said, I could have gotten 6 cities down here with at least one food resource per, and the capital is pretty sicko, so maybe turtle would have been better. Washington was my only land target after all, so I would have been safe.

I think the success with elepult this game may have been largely due to dumb luck. I declared 150BC which is super late in terms of trying to get in pre-feudalism. There were some factors that helped, like washington's over-expansion, and of course monte declaring on him was a huge factor. The first was known to me when I planned war (that's good--react to known information, not guessed info), but the war with Monte was not (bad).

Some things I could have done to speed it up:
-I have no academy! My in-game thinking: I want the capital to grow a lot, so I want another city to make the GS for academy. later--oh no! I have to bust out of this box-in, so I'll go phants. I don't have time for the second city to make the academy and have it be useful (this is questionable, but it was what I was thinking), so I'll cancel that. I should have then gone back to the capital running the scientists to get the academy up, but I just put the idea out of my mind totally.
-4 cities would have been better. I think 3 would have had a tough time producing enough units to take out Washington.

The game at this point is looking good. 15 cities and the tech rate seems to be slower than a lot of Imm games I've had! Even if the success is dumb luck I'll take it :goodjob:
 
as it seems none of the pro's is interested you are stuck with advice from emperor player ;-).

I read somewhere that fighting war with 0.6-0.7 power of enemy AI "is fine if you have good mixture of units" and especially if it will be dogpile.

The longbows complicate things a lot. But since the fighting seems to be the same on all diffs, I would say that I had some success with cats+8str unit (maces/WE's) against LB's. You just need a lot more siege to make at least some impact into LB's and clearing defense absolutely owns in this scenario.

What will be absolute stop is actually Castles (engineering I think?), because at that point you can't reduce defense with cats in "reasonable time".

I wouldn't let Monty out of hands with him capping Hanny.
 
Yeah it's a bummer no one else seems interested in this game. :(

One thing seems clear: head through monte's land in the next few turns. If he declares and walks off with most of him phants and such, and cities are on flat, hit him. If not, keep walking until I reach Hannibal and try to cap him before Monte does.

I'm basically operating under "game is in bad as long as I don't make a big blunder" which means caution around the lunatic with the big headdress.
 
Oh and Re: going to war against AI with higher power:

What's really important is the size of the AI's mobile army. If the AI has a huge number of cities, but each one has 5 units turtling in it and that stays the same the whole war, you can take that on with like 15 units and modest reinforcements to replace losses/put in garrisons. Warmonger AIs tend to have larger mobile armies (like here-I saw Monte's SoD. it's uhhh big :(). If the AI is smart enough to have 50 units fight you in one spot while the other garrisons are only 1, you're gonna lose that battle and then the war.
 
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