COTM 10 - spoiler 2: The Industrial Revolution!

COTM 10: Spoiler 2:

This is the second spoiler for COTM 10.

To qualify to participate (read or post) in this thread, you must have:

1. Reached the industrial age (be capable of researching an industrail-age tech)
2. Have a full world map and all contacts.
3. Alternatively, have finished and submitted your game.

Did you make good use of your keshiks, or were they a bit of a disappointment?

The Keshiks were soooo disappointing. Here's why. Mongolia is very hilly. But since I'm the Mongols, I didn't spend much time fighting in Mongolia. I was fighting in Korea, China and Japan.

I mentioned in my last spoiler post that I made a huge MA/early IA boo-boo...I didn't recognize that China had lost its horses! I was so paranoid of riders coming along and obliterating my northern front that I (1) kept a bunch of Keshiks at my northern border as a deterrent/show of force; (2) went after the Koreans to the south instead. I probably was fooled into thinking the Chinese had horses by the fact that there were a bunch of SoZ ancient cavalry roaming the northern front. But with my cities having pikemen/musketmen, these wouldn't have been a threat. I could have taken out the Chinese territory west of the Wall quickly - probably 4-5 turns, and have had an easier time with the Koreans in the south based on the extra cities producing Keshiks, tribuchets, etc. I would have had a much faster science pace, too, to get to Cavalry and take on the Japanese. Damn.

I went south in the late MA/early IA to take out Korea, which I did in 3 wars. I wish I had gone against China first b/c I would have added furs and more spices and not lost production back home from WW while I was in Republic. I would have also gained some pretty good cities north of Karakorum from a low corruption/waste perspective. Sigh.

I've attached my 1280 AD, late medieval world map. I'm not sure how much we can talk about the industrial age, but by the middle of the industrial era, the map had changed radically. The Japanese had totally overrun the Chinese, and the Celts had overrun the Vikings and Portguese. All three were left to rot on worthless islands in the great South Sea. The Celts were impressive inasmuch as they pushed the Portuguese and Vikings out essentially simultaneously and there was nothing either the P's or the V's could do about it. I've never seen the AI run an effective two-front campaign like that.

I do think the Chinese loss to the Japanese and the Celtic victory over the Vikings and Portuguese revealed some limitations to the map. The Chinese were really in a bind - they started very close to the Japanese on one side and had a human opponent on the other. The Chinese empire was spread very thinly, had only about a 4-city core and then stretched north of Mongolia outside the Wall. Being unable to control their supply of horses, and without the Rider, China was doomed, doomed to fall before the Japanese Samurai (which, quite frankly, scared the crap out of me) while I was mopping up the Koreans (who managed to build exactly 1 H'Wacha before I wiped them out). Meanwhile, the Celts, having access to two sub-continents in their territory, had too good of a position and too big of an empire for the overmatched Portuguese and Vikings. I'm not sure about y'all, but I just don't see the Celts getting pushed around given their starting position.

By the way, Entremont was the best AI city I've ever seen. Cranking out 44 culture per turn very early in the game...built Pyramids, ToA, Sistine and Copernicus.

I found the keshiks pretty useful, actually. They were primarily used in the wars against the Russians (who had enough mountians in their holdings for the keshik ability to come to the fore) and the Koreans. Having said that, I certainly didn't hesitate to move to cavalry when the time came - move three and attack six is definitely better! I kept the elite keshiks for leader fishing, and that proved worthwhile.

Spoiler #1

I never got into the IA. I got close, but it was never necessary. I almost did not need Cavalry, but it did help. It made things faster. See the timeline.

I cleaned up the Koreans and Russians just after AD. I met the rest of the world slowly. It was more like, I met them just before starting war with them. I did not even meet the Japanese until after starting work on the Chinese. The one boat I sent out to search with was destroyed by barbarians. I did meet a Scandinavian boat, and the Portuguese I met a little bit before I was done with the Japanese. But, without contact and map trading, discoveries came from advancing conquest forces. After Japanese it was the Portuguese kinda in parallel with the Celts. I allied with the Scandinavians because they were smaller than the Celts. I got many leaders and made many armies, three I saved until Cavalry. It made conquest of the Scandinavians easier. One army got stuck on my home continent. I never built a single great wonder. I did want to build the Statue of Zues (but the Chinese built it first and I took it from them that very turn).

The UU came in handy for cities surrounded by hills. This happend for maybe two or three cities. The real difference was defense. I lost a lot on the AI's turn. Especially when I was searching and did not know where cities were. I stopped too many right next to enemy cities with Longbowmen.

On the last turn, I took out two Civs and three cities on opposite ends of the world. See the timeline again.

1.22f - Open Class

Ancient Age spoiler

I began the Middle Ages in Anarchy. With all the barbs it was literally anarchy, too. Sort of anarchy squared. I think the most important take away is that I didn't panic and rush my units back home to deal with them. I used what units I had to protect my workers and spent what cash I could.

I gifted Russia into the MA and tried to trade for her tech (Engineering). I couldn't get it from her for anything. The plan was to trade with her and then capture her last city. I had to gift Korea into the MA and get Engineering from them. I went ahead and took out Russia.

Mongolia became a Monarchy in 110BC after a 6 turn anarchy.

In 30AD, my stack of units (2 Archers and 10 Horsemen) began the attack on Korea. I got China and Japan to ally with me. Both had cities on my side of the great wall. (China 6 and Japan 1). This campaign conducted with horsemen was to take way too long. I had most of my productive cities producing horsemen but my loses were high. Especially after I came up a unit short in taking Seoul. I gave peace with them in 390AD for a city and some gold. The same turn I discovered Chivalry and wanted to convert my horses to Kehiks. I had captured 4 other cities including Seoul. Korea had only three cities remaining at that point.

I got a MGL in 150AD. I rushed him north and built the FP in a city next to my capitol. I had thought about jumping my place south but I decided against as I was concerned with the loss of productivity while building up a new core.



There follow a period of expansion and building. In 600AD, I had 33 Kehiks. China had been encroaching on the furs in the north and the Korean desert in the south. I felt I was ready to begin the attack on China. The Kehiks were great. I grabbed 3 of the 4 closest cities the first turn. After that I make steady progress until they were exiled to a single island city to the SE of the continent. The Keriks went through the Wall Guards like they weren't there. (I left the southern most one there for the rest of the game.) Japan was happy to join in and grabbed cities up north. The first city I captured on the north side of the wall had ToA which really got my territory expanding. I made peace with China in 740AD.

As the war in the north was winding down I diverted new production to the Southeast, taking the 2 Chinese cities there. The additional units continued to arrive, so in 770AD I decide to finish off the Koreans. The were gone by 790AD.



IBT 850AD Japan must have declared war on me. I had just discovered MT a couple turns before and was more interested in upgrading to cavalry as quickly as possible, so I don't think I started that one. It was pretty static while I upgraded but I was able to finish them off by 940AD. I was surprised that the whole continent was only 47% of the land mass. I had a long way to go.



During the war with China, Korean and Japan I picked up 5 MGLs, 4 were made into empty armies while fifth rushed the Pentagon. As the Japanese war began to run down, I started galleys in most of the east coast cities. I began cash rushing them the last turn of the war. The empty armies and Cavalry began to arriving at the ports cities soon after.

By 990AD, enough Cavalry had arrived in a coastal marsh square outside Portugal's territory that I was ready to begin the final push for domination. IBT 1060AD, after taking the last of Portugals' core cities, the Celts, who had moved a handful of Knights into the area, tried to sneak attack. This was nice as I was able to continue up the pennisula without pause. I made peace with Portugal the next turn for two island cities.

I got 2 more MGL. One against Portugal and later one against the Celts. I made them into Cavalry Armies, as I had with the 4 empty armies as each arrived on the continent. (I like to fill them up with wounded vetern or elite* units as they heal up faster and don't pull heathly units out of the fight.)

One tactic I used to speed up my expansion was to use a few galleys to ferry units across the large bay while the armies moved up the pennisula. I also allied the Vikings against the Celts, but they were never much help. They were more of a threat to capture flipped cities then anything.

The Celts had high culture and musketmen. Taking their core was a difficult proposition until I was able to push the capitol out of his core area. Just about every city flipped once and several flipped 2 or 3 times. I didn't really lose many units in the flips but I was having trouble keeping enough healthy units on the offensive plus re-capturing those cities.

Having 5 and then 6 armies with over half of my surviving 44 Cavalries was limiting my flexibility. I was knocking a couple armies down to half strength every time I took a new city and I couldn't heal them in a city. Before I had to resort to abandoning or razing the cities, I began to get the upper hand. In 1150AD, I pushed the Celts down through the chokepoint into the southern section of the continent. About that time, settlers rushed in the Portugese cities and from the home continent began to arrive to fill in the some of the blank areas. In 1190AD, I captured or built enough to pass the domination limit.



Overall, I just didn't move fast enough to get a high score. I finished with a Jason below 9K, taking nearly 20 hours to complete.

Research:
170 BC - Currency (trade); The Republic (trade); Engineering (Trade)
150 BC - Literature
130 AD - Feudalism
310 AD - Invention
320 AD - Monotheism (Trade)
390 AD - Chivalry
590 AD - Gunpowder
660 AD - Chemistry
730 AD - Metallurgy
830 AD - Military Tradition
1100 AD - Theology; Education (trade)

Ugh. You guys are too good. I am clearly too passive in acquiring territory. There's no reason I couldn't have wiped out the Russians in the AA and had the Koreans on the ropes. My own fear of losing even one city makes me too defensive, I guess.

Cheers to you both for your early victories.

The only thing i used keshiks for was to start my golden age and upgrade to calvary.

Predator, fixed barbarians

I entered the MA in 750 BC.
I gifted Russia and Korea in as well. They got engineering and theology respectively, but they didn't want to trade those techs for republic and literature.
I set research to Feudalism. After I got it they still didn't want to trade.
Around 650 BC one of my exploring curraghs reached the other continent and I met the Celts, the Portuguese and Scandinavia in quick succession.
Next I discovered Theology, and after that Chivalry, while I was building a total of around 20 veteran horseman. I got Chivalry in 150 AD (I think). Very late but those annoying AI didn't want to trade with me... Then I shut off research for the rest of the game, to get as much gold as possible for rushing and upgrading Keshiks.
I upgraded my horsies to Keshiks (they seriously rock BTW), and I declared war on Russia in 250 AD, getting me a GA, which was spent building more Keshiks, short-rushing where possible. Russia was my first target, because 1) China had the Great Wall (both of them ) and I needed to build up my forces to take them, and 2) Moscow had ToA and I wanted free temples for my quest for domination.
Russia died somewhere between 350 and 400 AD. Korea (Pyramids) died in 440 AD.
I attacked China in 420 AD, and they were eliminated from our continent in 480 AD (the Celts took their last city, on the other continent, in 520 AD or so). Japan was targeted in 500 AD, and they were gone by 550 AD, IIRC.
At that time I was already rushing galleys on the southern coast of what had been China, so I invaded Portugal in 520 AD. They were very weak and died in 590 AD. I was shipping all my units to the other continent. I attacked the Celts in 580 AD and the Vikings in 590 AD, making quick progress through both their lands, while rushing culture in the conquered Portuguese towns.
I made peace with the Celts and the Vikings in 650 AD for three additional cities, which got me over the domination limit, resulting in a domination win in 660 AD.

Nice game. Loved them Keshiks.

70BC chivalry and stop research.
30AD war on Russia. Alliance with Korea and GA.
90AD GL
190AD war on China. Korea and Japan are allies.
280AD war on Celts. Portugal and Scandinavia allies.
320AD fall of Russia.
330AD war on Korea
350AD The same unit generated a second GL. Chinese escaped with a settler.
380AD Japanese broke the wall.
400AD Peace with China. The wall is broken, there is no use to try killing all the guards.
410AD war on Japan
470AD Peace with Korea. They managed to build a city on an island which is not known to me.
540AD ROP with Portugal and Scandinavia.
How I got in war with China again, I do not even know. I noticed it in 560AD.
580AD Peace with Japan. Chinese were destroyed by Celts.
620AD War on Portugal
640AD war on Celts
660AD peace with Portugal
680AD Japan built its capital:

720AD war on Japan. The only Japanese city was destroyed, but as always in this game it was not the end of Japan.
730AD war on Portugal (Oporto flipped)
740AD war on Scandinavia
780AD Domination

Here is my progress:


There are three points that I would like to highlight.

The wall

eldar said:

Take out China, but leave them an OCC somewhere. The Wall Guards will remain in place, apart from (presumably) the single section you took out to get through. Fortify your bit heavily, and now a Japanese land invasion will have to involve going through your artificial "choke" - and almost certain suicide - or declaring on China

Click to expand...

I was invading China going around the wall using galleys. After all Chinese cities were destroyed they escaped with a settler and they were still in war with Japan. Japanese broke the wall for me destroying a lot their own units before I start war on Japan.

Settler escapes.
It is somewhat rare when AI civ escapes with a settler. At least according to my experience. But here it was a rule. Japan escaped with settlers twice! The only civ I managed to destroy was Russia.
I am wondering if this was unique to my game or others experienced similar AI behaviour.

Keshiks
Keshiks are way too powerful units. I was expending almost with a speed of their movement, I wish they were running 3 instead of 2, then my victory would be much more faster. I did not even new the map it was revealing as I was expanding. Here is what I knew about it after victory:

solenoozerec said:

The wall
I was invading China going around the wall using galleys. After all Chinese cities were destroyed they escaped with a settler and they were still in war with Japan. Japanese broke the wall for me destroying a lot their own units before I start war on Japan.

Click to expand...

Just when I considered attacking China with a galley transportation, I saw that they had disbanded half of the wall. I therefore could send a few defensive units on it to attract China's attacking units. It worked well, but I have been rather unlucky with the RNG, so the effect wasn't decisive.

solenoozerec said:

Settler escapes.
It is somewhat rare when AI civ escapes with a settler. At least according to my experience. But here it was a rule. Japan escaped with settlers twice! The only civ I managed to destroy was Russia.
I am wondering if this was unique to my game or others experienced similar AI behaviour.

Click to expand...

In my game, Russia and China both tried to escapewith a settler. I managed to kill the Russian galley, but couldn't see the Chinese one.

MangeTonChapeau said:

Just when I considered attacking China with a galley transportation, I saw that they had disbanded half of the wall.

Click to expand...

Disbanded? I am wondering why I thought they do not pay money to keep them. I was somewhat funny in my game when Chinese disapeared for a while, but their guards were still staying at their positions for quite a long time.

MangeTonChapeau said:

In my game, Russia and China both tried to escapewith a settler. I managed to kill the Russian galley, but couldn't see the Chinese one.

Click to expand...

Chinese were destroyed by Celts at some point, but I did not even know where they are.

Damn. I definitely have to get more aggresive in these Emporer and below games. All these people with ~600AD wins.
My problem is that I'm a Builder. I have to learn to forgo the improvements and Wonders and just build military. Would I then want to go to a Monarchy instead of Republic? And then maybe to Fascism (if it gets that far)?

Darkness:
What government were you in (being the aggressor in war after war)?

@al_thor:
I used Monarchy in the Germany GOTM39, and it worked well. However, since then I have used Republic. Most posts I read said that the downsides of Republic can be avoided through luxury resources, the luxury slider(which is more effective with added trade), and quick conquest of individual civs (so that the War Weariness and cultural flips don't hurt you). In the last 3 games, I tend to agree. Also, the new Republic does have troop support. Getting cities (size 7), and adding towns are a big part of reducing support cost in Republic. I have never been in a government type 'cept Anarchy, Despotism, Monarchy, and Republic. I used Democracy and Communism in Civ2, but never in Civ3. As for improvements (this is only on continents, for isolated islands *cough* rules change), I find myself only building a few graneries early on. Then barracks, temples to expand borders and/or libraries for expanded borders and science, and marketplaces for more gold and added usefulness of luxury resources. (If I am a scientific Civ, libraries are awesome!). Some special case cities I build harbors in. Much later on, if a city is productive but has 1/2 waste I will think about a courthouse. Those are the only improvements I build. Usually, I do not build back-to-back improvements in a city. I want my productive cities churning out veteran troops. The improvements only support that cause.

@BlackBetsy
Thanks. I did have an aggressive and successful AA to get me started. Although I did not get a victory until almost 1000AD, I do agree with you a little bit. I usually prefer a conquest victory to any other, and I quickly discovered that all high scoring games in GOTM/COTM involved fast conquest, no matter if they were: domination, cultural, diplomatic, etc. Sometimes the faster finishes were not atop the score list, especially 20k cultural. Right now I am trying to do a conquest or domination victory every time until I get good and can do it consistantly. Conquering others quickly is necessary for any high score game. Then I will adjust my strategy a bit to try for other victory types. I've played 5 GOTM/COTM games so far. Two results are up. My first was a loss, but my second was a victory. The other funny thing is that I though (after the Sumerian COTM8) that I needed to play the Conquest-handicapped games to start out with. Then I played the German GOTM39. I did very well, but the 15% deduction hurt me a lot on score, so I went back to Open. I am still improving my skills and trying to figure out the GOTM/COTM system so that I can get higher scores, and someday I may even get an award.

SpiffyKeen7744 said:

I am still improving my skills and trying to figure out the GOTM/COTM system so that I can get higher scores, and someday I may even get an award.

Click to expand...

Oh, I'm sure I'll get an award for lowest score in a victory in GOTM 40 with my pathetic behind-in-culture, behind-in-tech, handful-of-cities, lucky-the-AI builds-the-SS-slow-and-doesnt-prebuild 1971 SS victory.

Predator
Ancient Age

I entered MA in 510BC.
The barb uprise was no big problem. I had removed most camps already.
Only one small town was sacked maybe 10 times for a few gold and shields.

When I gifted Russia they got Mono, which I could trade for republic and literature.
Korea got feudalism, but didn't want to part with it. So I researched engineering.
But in 370BC I was able to buy feudalism, because I could add also monarchy bought from then Japs.
So I gave up some beakers and switched to chivalry.
I built horses and settled some more land, until I got a bit bored and thought it time to start a little war.
Russia was the target. I declared in 270BC, started with horses and archers and took their iron city in 250BC.
In the same year the Statue of Zeus completed in Karakorum. I had traded ivory from China to make it possible.
So now some ancient cavs joined the forces.

In 110BC keshiks entered the fight and we got a golden age.

In 90BC a japanese settler appeared in my backyard. I took the free slaves and allied China.
It would take some time till I would get to them, but Kyoto had the pyramids and was anyways next on the list.

In 110AD Russia was reduced to one distant city and the map looked like this:


Keshiks and ancient cavs were already going to China for the assault on Japan at that time.
Russia was eliminated in 270AD.
Japan was no big problem. They were out by 310AD.



Note that I still hadn't met the Vikings.
The curragh that met Portugese and Celts was sunk by Barbs and I waited to get some Japanese coastal cities.

Next were the Chinese, because my keshiks were anyways around.
That didn't take long. In 360AD they were out and I never had fought any of their wall gards.
I then decided to clean out the home continent and fill it.
But I also had started a phony war with the celts and allied Portugal, so they were busy.

By 480AD the home continent was ours except a village the celts had settled were I had bad RNG for several turns.


Note there was never contact between the two continents and the settler party from the celts was the only foreign unit ever entering my continent.
I had already started the hot phase of the celt war and 2 armies (generated in the Jap war already and filled with only one keshik then), were threatening Entremont.
Celts had ToA and Lighthouse so they were the obvious target, even though moving through Portugal was a pain.
I took the celt wonder cities and a few more.
Meanwhile I researched to military tradition and prepared a nice RoP rape on Portugal.
This was executed in 620AD and Portugal was destroyed in 650AD.
I took a few more celt cities and also a couple of viking and had domination in 700AD.


I still had quite a bit FoW so I rather didn't go for conquest, which would have been easy with my far superior forces.
But you never now if there is a one-tile city left over if there is so much fog. And nobody researched navigation in this game.

The keshiks were useful in this game, but I didn't make much use of their mountain climbing ability.
Really nice was that they cost only 60sh. By that I could upgrade the horses quickly and I also had several cities which could build them in a decent time in the GA.

klarius said:

When I gifted Russia they got Mono, which I could trade for republic and literature.

Click to expand...

I'm sorry - I just laughed when I read that! You gifted Russia and they contracted mononucleosis? And then you traded something to get it yourself?

It must be Friday...

As I entered the MA I had already built a substantial force of horsemen, built with the intention of upgrading them to Keshiks. However while researching Chivlary I got bored, and the cost of running the force was getting to high. So I declared on the russians and used the Horsemen to take out their border cities, which also reduced my forces but gave me some elites. I then made peace after discovering Chivlary and decided to spend the 20 turns upgrading my units. Unfortuantly I lost every Russian city to culture flips, but thankfully only a few troops. I then attacked once the 20 turns were up and re-ttok my cities, this time carrying on until Russia had one city left that I couldn't reach due to Korea being in the way, so I made peace and gained a few techs.

A few turns later I declared on Korea, which in hindsight was a mistake as I should have gone for the expanding Chinese. This was a long war as the Koreans were slightly ahead in tech, but they never threatened to defeat me as I used the terrain carefully. I still lost a few to culture flips, which was getting annoying. Moscow, despite being about 30 squares away from their remaining size 3 city, also flipped back and I lost the temple of artemis. I waited until I could leave the Koreans with one city after a peace deal, and then finished off the russians.

I had to then wait 20 turns before finishing off the koreans, all the while I kept producing military - intending to go after china once the koreans were history. This was a good thing because China declared on me when I was in the middle of finishing Korea off, and the bulk of my forces were down south and couldn't defend. If it hadn't been for my newly built units the Chinese attack would have finished me. As it was they came within 3 squares of my capitol and had taken about 9 towns/cities from me. Thankfully my forces had by now returned from the frontline, and some of them had upgraded to Cavlary. I was thus able to fight back and regain my towns before suing for peace. But this was at a price - my forces had suffered heavy losses against the newly arrived riflemen of China. I was far too behind in tech against them to even consider going after them with Cavlary.

al_thor said:

Darkness:
What government were you in (being the aggressor in war after war)?

Click to expand...

Republic.

4 native luxuries, most of my core cities around size 8, except near the floodplains, but there I used some specialists. Conquered some more luxuries later on, and sometimes the lux slider up to 20%

IME republic is always better than monarchy (in SP), except when playing AW.

Thanks Darkness.

Republic is pretty forgiving if you manage to secure another Lux or 2 as spoils of war. Still, I admire your (what seemed like) Always War. I have problems with the micro-mgmt.

Thanks for the write-up. See ya next COTM/GOTM.