Cromagnus
Deity
- Joined
- Sep 11, 2012
- Messages
- 2,272
It must have been a fluke. I think India had gotten lucky with research agreements and the Porcelain Tower. Or *something*. Also, probably had some Wonders that made them harder to kill. It was taking like 3 or 4 *fully upgraded* Keshik to kill one cannon.
Anyway, moot now. I just finally beat it on Deity. (Turn 98, but it counts yay!)
On this run, I didn't get to India until turn 60, and Gandhi was a pushover. So, go figure!
My trek was pretty much like one of igg's, based on the three army idea, except I ignored Japan until the end.
Fleece Jin then DoW him turn 1.
Cap Uighur immediately with first army.
Build Horsemen and upgrade.
Fleece Persia, then Dow him and cap Almaty with first army.
Start attacking Persia while the second army is forming up.
Fleece Wu, then Dow him and cap W Xia with second army.
Persia gives me two cities and two luxuries to relent after Samarkand.
First army goes after Catherine while the second army goes after Jin.
Newly built third army goes back to finish off Persia.
(Throughout this, I was periodically offered treaties which I occasionally took if I was too busy to attack)
After Catherine, first army takes out Byzantium. Both were easy, although indirect fire and range are key for coming at Byzantium the back way.
2nd army finishes off Jin, and starts on Wu.
When Persia falls, third army takes out India from the backside.
When Wu falls, 2nd army caps Korea and takes out Japan.
First and third army gang up on Arabia from both sides.
My second army was assisted in Japan by a purchased/upgraded fleet of Frigates.
I made a ton of mistakes, including misclicks resulting in heavily upgraded keshiks dying, but didn't reload. I got overzealous and mired in -25 happiness too, because I capped CS too aggressively. I bet I could have finished at least 20 turns earlier if I had been more careful about timing my kills. I also mistimed some free techs, which slowed down getting Lancers, which are pretty awesome at capping cities.
The keys to this scenario IMHO are
1) Capping the military CS and taking out Persia and Russia early. That early momentum you get by getting free keshik means you attack civs before they grow or tech up.
2) Doing Russia and Byzantium before attacking Arabia allows you to pincer attack.
3) In order to keep moving quickly, razing most cities and annexing those you don't is critical imho. I annexed to buy coliseums, limit growth, etc. I also pillaged farms and used workers to replace them with something else to limit growth when I didn't annex.
Also, I learned something new in this playthrough. You can sell buildings in cities you're razing. Who knew!
My biggest mistake was not annexing soon enough. I think it's just old habit to worry about long-term cultural loss, but in this scenario, it's better to annex and buy that happiness.
Oh, early on I got open borders and built a road to India from the north thinking I was going to attack from 3 sides, but I never did. However, the ironic/awesome part about that is that eventually Gandhi hated me so much he built an army and used my road to move a ton of troops down the silk road to me. That pretty much handed me the game, because keshiks on roads in neutral territory are ridiculously powerful. My Wu army paused momentarily to wipe out India's entire attack force, and meanwhile the group that had just killed Persia was coming at them from the southwest. There was very little resistance when they got there.
However, I was *really* running behind because of many turns of unhappiness and all the stupid keshik deaths, so I literally didn't attack Arabia and Japan until turn 90!! Seriously!
I had to cap all of Arabia and a few CS in < 10 turns. I pulled it off by rush-buying lancers and basically ignoring troops, and always puppeting. I didn't have time to wait for unhappiness from razing to die down. By ignoring the troops, focusing on the city and clearing a path for a lancer, I could clean up the surrounding army inside my Great Wall afterwards when they were basically helpless. So, I was capping one or two cities each turn in Arabia. Crazy.
I think it helped that Arabia was a wonder-collector. I'm pretty sure I was getting happiness Wonders from the captures. The gold from the maritime CS bought my last frigates and lancers. I think I took 8 cities in 8 turns without going below -10 happiness, which is kind of crazy. The fact that they all had trade routes to my capital really helped though.
Oh, one last thing. Khans make great spotters. You need 2 of your keshik's 5 moves to attack. The khan though, only needs to move, so he can move farther in to sight for them. I also used my armory-produced scouts to sight. That extra vision comes in handy!
!!!
