A Place in History - God Mode

I mentioned at the end of my last game that I thought BtS was quite a different game from Warlords. Although I'm not sure whether that is good or bad yet, I do think that it presents a good opportunity to see how the strategies that worked on Warlords carry over, or do not, to BtS.

That being said, I rolled up another new leader (again using a random number generator), and a new map (Hemispheres, which I have read some good things about), and a new difficulty.



Cheap courthouses and an upgraded Axeman? Sounds like a plan to me. Of the traits, I do like creative, but I don't like protective so much. We'll see if it will come into play this game.

Here's the start:

Plains hill start, cows in sight, and a river runs through it? Sign me up!

The hut popped for what I believe is the best possible thing I could have gotten at this point (besides AH), a scout! I sent the warrior to the northeast and the scout to the southwest. I do manage to snag one more hut with the scout, for the semi-useful fishing.


After some deliberation, I set research to Animal Husbandry. I decided working the cows would be a deal faster than going mining -> BW. Having wheel at the beginning was also a factor, both in that horses enable chariots, and it gives my worker something to do.

We meet some neighbors.


As soon as Charlemagne showed up, I breathed a sigh of relief. I was really glad to see him, even if he looks like the Burger King. Honestly, I don't know what I would do if I was stuck on an island alone with Shaka. After I saw Churchill, a little voice started to whisper in the back of my head. I think it was repeating something like "Chill Chaka". I decided to ignore it for now.

Meanwhile, for some reason there were barbarian archers out rather early.

Maybe because all the AIs have archery? At any rate, The archers put paid to two of my warriors, my initial one, and also this replacement sent to scout Shaka's lands, and possibly give an opinion survey to any undefended workers he had.


I stopped playing when my settler came out (I built it after a worker and two warriors to size 2).


I stopped because I am at a bit of a crossroads. The city indicated by the blue circle is quite good, picking up cows, rice, and most importantly horses in seven turns (2 to move the settler, 5 for creative culture to pop). It also has good hammer potential.

On the other hand, I am five turns away from bronze working. Claiming bronze would open up the incredible (seeming) Vulture UU. Furthermore, if I don't grab the copper, there might be a chance that Shaka will (he already adopted slavery a few turns back), and get his impis up.

Other advantages of the horses: Earlier barb protection, perfect aggressive position vis-a-vis Shaka, it's a great early and late city, prevents Shaka from getting two sources of horses (he already has one south of his capital, and above all that, it is a guaranteed military resource.

At any rate, I am fairly convinced that the horse city is the way to go, but perhaps the vulture is worth a five turn delay? One more option is to move the settler to the horse city, park him for three turns until BW comes in, and see if there is a convenient source of bronze nearby. If Shaka tries to poach the spot, we can always put down the city immediately. I am loathe to waste turns in the crucial early game, but could this gambit be worth it?

I am going to play shorter rounds for this game, in an attempt to invite more discussion. BtS as it might be, this is my first game above Emperor (and my second game above Monarch), so slow and steady it will be!

The Save at 4000BC
The Save at 2760BC

I'd move settler to the blue circle, but wait for copper appear, it's only two turns wait. You have a decent change to have bronze inside your borders: I counted 30 possible squares where it could appear. Shaka is going to get hurt!

Yay, another one ! =)

I agree park the settler in the circle and see where copper is first.

I agree with the gambit, park the settler and wait until the copper location is known. By the way, I would not be surprised if the copper shows up on one of the hills north-east of your capital.

I think waiting will be worth it. You need to take out CHaka-khan sooooon. Get them UUs up and hammer his ass

First decision came two turns into this round, where I decided against waiting on copper to settle.

I put the Horse City down for three reasons. First, if Shaka gets it instead of me, it would be quite a blow. This city is actually marginally better than my capital. Secondly, I didn't think waiting would significantly increase my chance of grabbing copper. If copper showed up near my cities, I would grab it with my third settler in ~10 turns. If copper shows up near Shaka's cities, I would be faced with the tough call of making a marginal city just to claim copper. Finally, there were at least three barbarian archers patrolling in the north. I didn't think I had a good chance of grabbing a decent copper city there with warriors and settlers. This later turns out to be the correct decision, as barbarian archers started entering my borders in 2200 BC , and I barely got my first chariot out in time to counter.


In 2520 Copper appears at a pretty convenient location! Not exactly in my borders, but near where a decent city could be founded.


Shaka wants some Open Borders. Although I'm not too happy with him having writing already, I happily accept to get some scouting on. Ulundi is rather lightly defended, but it would be difficult to reach quickly with vultures. Although chariots could reach the city in 2 moves, I didn't have confidence in chariots being able to take and hold the 50% defense city without overwhelming numbers.


In 1080, I felt like I was ready for war. I had 4 chariots, 4 vultures, and a spearman at the front line, with 2 more vultures moving in from behind. I decided my first move would be to do some worker grabs with the chariots, while the vultures razed kwaDukuza.

It turns out CR1 vultures have about 67% chance against CG1 archers. This is about the same odds that CR1 axemen have against scrubby archers, so the strength upgrade is definitely quite significant. kwaDukuza was razed with the loss of one vulture, and the infantry force moved up towards uMgungundlovu. They found a pretty well assembled enemy force up there. It was definitely a coinflip whether or not our 4 vultures and 3 chariots could take this city, and even if we could, our forces would be exhausted.

Fortunately, one of my chariots had been keeping an eye on Ulundi, and noticed that it was still lightly defended. I ordered him to cut all roads between uMgungundlovu and Ulundi, and beelined my entire army towards the Zulu capital as quickly as possible, hoping to steal a march on Shaka.
You can see the roads the chariot had cut in the hills and forests to the North. Unfortunately, he was slain by a pair of Zulu chariots afterwards, but he had earned his honor, and Ulundi was defended by the same two archers and a hastily whipped axe and catapult (in 850 BC ). The archers were tenacious, 4 vultures and 2 chariots and a spear were barely enough to take the city, but the last chariot (medic 1) managed to finish off the final redlined archer and take the city.


I thought it was safe to have only one unit in the city surrounded by forests and hills, but apparently the Zulu have a unit that doesn't give a damn about forests and hills.

Fortunately, a resting CRII vulture was more than enough to retake the city next turn. I left a chariot and two vultures to garrison the city, and moved the remants of my army towards Umgungunlovu to meet with fresh troops there.

Churchill makes a rather vexing demand.

I couldn't give in. Although I really wanted good diplomatic relations with Churchill in the short to medium term, 100 gold is equivalent to researching 1/4 of a tech like mathematics, and I needed every cent.

After another of Shaka's catapults suicided against my stack outside uMungunlovu, I had earned enough points for a Great General. I though about what to do with him, and finally decided on something I've never done before: distributed experience.

There were two vultures in the group with 6/10 experience, so the GG would be enough to push them all to 10/10 for the all important CRIII, and just as importantly, a nearly full heal.

CRIII vultures easily mowed through defenders (85%+ or better on all battles, even with some vultures being slightly injured), and took down uMgungunlovu in a two turn siege (not enough troops to hold after first turn).

625, IBT my horses are pillaged by spies. It has to be Churchill, since Shaka doesn't seem to have alphabet yet. This turns out to be somewhat good news, as EPs that Churchill is wasting on sabotage has to come from his research. On the other hand it shows that Churchill is somewhat hostile towards me.


I take one more nice riverside city with pigs and floodplains, then decide to pause for breath.


The Dom Advisor at 575 BC

Here is the remains of Shaka in the north. He also has three cities in the south, which means that even after a long war, he had already settled 9 cities.

Here is the tech screen.

I'm behind at least three substantial techs on Churchill (Alphabet, Currency, and Monarchy - he's trading me wines). I am not sure how Charlemange is doing techwise, but he appears to be a bit behind Churchill, judging by his score and cramped position south of Churchill.

The first question is whether or not to make peace with Shaka at this moment. The arguments against are to wait till Alphabet to beat some techs out of him, and to possibly take/raze a few more cities for some money. The arguments for making peace is this somewhat worrisome Churchill stack to the south, which I'm hoping is just a city garrison. Also I'm getting 1 WW in all cities, which is a pretty significant hit to productivity at this stage.


Another big decision is where to go in the tech tree.

As you can see, I started researching Aesthetics. The idea is to trade Aesthetics for Alphabet with Churchill, then trade the pair with Charlemagne to backfill some old techs. However, I have only put one turn into it, and there are some other tempting options.

1. CoL through Currency: This gets me few trading options with Churchill (he already has Currency), but gets me the two important economy techs together.
2. CoL through Myst->Med->PH: This is actually a few turns faster than Currency route. It also opens up Monarchy, and the Philosophy lightbulb (I'm running 2 scientists in three cities).
3. Construction through Masonry: Construction is a slightly more substantial trading chip, and a valuable military tech. Masonry possibly gives us a flyer on the Pyramids, as desperately unlikely as that is.

Those are a few choices which I am pondering. However, the arguments for grabbing Aesthetics and trading for Alphabet are strong as well. The sooner we get Alphabet, the sooner we can finish this war profitably and get down to serious building. Also, I am running on the border of a strike (-6 gold at 0% research), so I might not even make it to the end of those ambitious alternate research paths.

By the way, does anyone know Churchill's WFYABTA limit?

The Save at 575BC

I would make peace now. Shaka is already crippled, I wouldn't worry about him anymore. And that does look like a Charlemagne invasion stack to me.

Getting priesthood asap seems like first priority since it opens up your corthouses(at priesthood!!). I am suprised you havent gotten a significant number of them allready(they are only 90 hammers after all. So much better than for example math).. Also let you start accumulating ep points ofc.. You didnt read about the ub which is half the reason for playing him(the other half beeing the UU) before starting the game on diety?! priesthood fierst priority, techs second.

Peace definately. A nearly Status Quo war against a crippled enemy you can't take out lightningfast seems stupid when those churchillians are hostile and so close

At deity level, it is next to impossible to get a tech in peace treaty. AI would rather give up a city then a tech. If war weariness is getting to you and you can't finish him out, my suggestion is end the war, chance of getting a tech after you got alphabet is too slim to risk it.

After reading some of the helpful comments, especially about the Ziggurat (available at Priesthood . I thought they were just cheaper!), I switched research over to Myst-Med-Priesthood. Since Shaka was not taking much offensive action during the war, I decided to raze two more cities for money before signing peace in 425BC.


As soon as peace rolled in, I ordered a mass construction project across the empire.


Which was interrupted 2 turns later by Churchill declaring war!


IBT, I lost an exposed medic chariot and a CR3 vulture, and Churchill's stack revealed itself. The reason for his belligerence was soon revealed by Tacitus. I was the least powerful civilization, below Shaka but to be honest I don't know what more I could have done to increase my power rating. My cities were at their happy cap, so I couldn't boost population any more, and I was already paying 9 gold per turn on unit upkeep, so spamming units wasn't really any option. At any rate, after cursing the power system some more, I got down to seeing what I could do about it.


I could ill afford to spare any gold (+0 gpt at 0% research), but I had to make this upgrade as this city was already in striking distance of Church's cavalry:


I switched all of my cities with decent production over to military:


At this point, I stopped to consider my position. Churchill's initial stack is formidable, but fortunately still reasonable. I cannot stop him pillaging, but if he assaults the capital directly, he might not be guaranteed to take it. His staging point is Oxford. I have several CR Vultures who were moving south from the Shaka campaign. If there's a chance I could assault Oxford in the next 8 turns (when Churchill's feudalism comes in), I might be able to make peace without having to give up a city. Otherwise, I doubt killing the initial wave will dent Churchill's power graph (especially with longbow upgrades) enough for him to consider making peace.

At this point, I don't know whether or not I will survive, let alone win. However, worst comes to worst, I resolved to put up a better fight than an AI would.

In the future, I might have to consider giving tributes more carefully. 100 gold to Churchill might have saved the game back then!

The save at 350 BC

Your advice would be greatly appreciated at this difficult time for the Babylonian Empire!

Shoot the Moon said:

And that does look like a Charlemagne invasion stack to me.

Click to expand...

Oh, well.


And for some actually helpful comments, I would recommend whipping a unit or two in you cities especially the unhappy ones. In this dire time, that unhappy pop isn't helping you at all, so you might as well put them to good use.

Haika said:

Babylonian Empire!

Click to expand...

Sumerian