NC XXXI: Charlemagne

Nurgle84 said:

They are probably the best stack defenders in the game. Neither cavalry nor melee units can touch them, but they have a weakness vs. archery units. The good thing is, that thanks to protective, your archery units are probably better then the opponents. Another point is, that a Landsknecht will target siege units if attacking a stack of cavalry, melee and siege. They make a great all-around defensive unit.

Favorite stack composition: Drill Crossbows, Combat Landsknechte and City Raider Trebuchets

Click to expand...

Really, I didn't edit in any of that stuff -- I just swapped Charlie with another leader to get a nice river start, and put the scout in the same relative position to the settler as he started with in the original location. We deserve it more than --- that other guy.

Three continents, with a mix of nasty and nice AIs.

I opted to settle in place and use the three hammer tile to go settler first. Charlie typically gets off to slow starts, but I used the settler first to get a couple worker techs before building a worker.

Met Monty and Mansa, got 75 gold, a scout and two maps from my 5 huts. Could have been better considering how many huts I found. City 1 went here.



Not a great site, but I wanted to block land - I got really lucky when I hit BW, as there was copper in that city's BFC. I then started on my first worker. Since I had ocean to one side, I wanted to block land on the other side and backfill. Vienna was next, then Nuremberg.



I forgot screens initially, so here's a later screen. Neither great sites, but I think this blocked me a lot of land. Used warriors to fogbust, and watched two barb cities form, which is fine, I should be able to take them myself. One is near the gems too for some benefit later.

Seems like Monty and Mansa hate each other, which is great early to keep the focus on me, but I can’t let Monty vassal Mansa later on. Aachen became a worker/settler pump early, and will then get cottaged up for a power bureau capital. Not much to report otherwise. I used my workers to start heavily cottaging and improving resources, and started building an axe army to take out the barbs. Then I saw this:



Ok – barbs don’t get their immortal tech, so the barb cities will be easier than I thought! I’ll take the break. That obviously led to this:





Both barb cities were taken and kept. Now starts the limping phase – I put off alphabet thinking one of the AI would get it and I could trade aesthetics for it…but neither have it at 1 AD. This will help me limp there:



With 8 cities, and no tech rate, I am struggling - need alpha, currency and COL, in that order, and need to get monarchy via trade for happiness. Will take off at CS with that capital. Also have to develop the gem site ASAP - which means I need Alpha to trade for IW. Monty is again in WHEOOHRN mode, but I think Mansa is his target again. If he DOWs me pre-feudalism, I'm in big trouble, I think. Cities:



Also, Monty, could you perhaps send a missionary my way? I could use some religion for happiness please...

Settled in place, researched Agri, AH, Mining, Horseback Riding (don't remember if it was here or later), Fishing, Writing, BW, IW, Code of Laws and saved. Founded Confu by accident.

Only settled two more cities: one on the coast to the east to claim horses/gems/fish and another on the coast to the south to claim the sheep (turns out there was iron in its BFC). Monte founded Judaism. DOWed him and took two cities: the holy city and another one south of his capital. I was lucky to declare because there were three Jaguars really close to my borders when I did and he was in war mode. I pillaged his iron in the first turn of the war, but then I remembered Jaguars are resourceless. Already had a GG that I settled in Aachen. Will make peace now, settle copper/FP city and build some Swords to take his capital and two more cities. Think I'll let him alive for a while, so that I don't become MM's WE by accident. BTW, can anyone tell me if MM will trade monopoly techs on pleased?

I forgot to take screenies, just remembered in the end.







PS. I might attack MM later, don't know yet.

of stupid Monty. All these wars with him mean way too much micro.

I get just enough commerce to limp to alpha after 15 painful turns. And of course, the turn I hit Alpha, this request:



I need to be able to trade with both Mansa and Monty, so I refuse. I’ll potentially pay for that later, but the way these guys are teching, it may not matter. Neither has alpha in 250 AD??? On immortal? They really must hate each other. Fine by me, because once I get rathauses, I’ll take off. I'm more used to playing epic than normal, so maybe alpha comes later on normal, but this seems way slow overall.

Anyway, alpha leads to this:



I figured Mansa is at war with Monty, so maybe I can get monarchy from Monty for aesthetics next turn. Pop this guy:



Debate settling or philo bulb, but I’m desperate for beakers, so I settled – definitely not optimal, but I figure my continent is dead once I get COL and rathauses with all my land. Monarchy from Monty….



No. This does not feel like an immortal game. No monarchy in 325 AD?? Oh, and I wasn’t supposed to build this!



What is going on? Why on earth hasn’t Parthenon been built by now? I wanted the damn failgold for this. Ugh. Thankfully, this:



Mansa has like two cities, so I can afford to overpay for hereditary rule. Yes, and I did just get Agriculture in 425 AD. I didn’t have any farm sites or real need for farms. Strange I know. But the happy cap increases heavily from the gems and HR. Now it’s time to take off. Currency leads to this:



And flying to COL and rathauses. Oh, another wonder I wasn’t supposed to build:



Well, might as well build national epic in my wonderspam city. COL leads to rathauses everywhere. And tech is good again – hopefully not too late. And not shockingly:



I was somewhat ready, but my units were a bit dispersed because of HR needs. So I whipped archers in a bunch of places, which made him retreat a turn. I also hit all-important CS, and traded to Mansa for calendar and gold. That allowed for the bulb to discover Taoism in 840 AD??



Something weird is going on, but I’ll take it. Insanely slow tech rate – maybe all warmongers on other continents? Anyway, let’s keep Monty’s hands full.



He sends a bunch of crappy units trying to take Vienne, and here’s our standoff:



He’s got 16 units, most chariots and catapults, but against all the archers I have in the city, no way he can take it. I debated sidetracking to feudalism, but since I’ve been feeding techs to Mansa, I need to head to lib first. Took the risk though, sending him education for metal casting and a bunch of gold when I was 8 turns from lib. Allowed me to deficit research faster for lib.

Been at war with Monty forever – he’s suiciding units into my archer city. He’ll pay for that later, as my bureau capital is still fueling tech. And the good old national epic popped a second straight great artist in Aachen on 15% odds. Thanks a lot. Debated whether to settle or use for golden age – went for golden age so I could speed to lib and switch civics anyway.

Lib:



Pretty late, head towards Taj. Finally see Monty sends a big enough stack, about 35 units, so I give him metal casting, which he was 5 turns from, for peace. Big deal, I’ll get him soon enough, since I’m close to gunpowder. And Taj:



I’m headed toward Rep for awhile, and then democracy and statue. I’ll need that later to take out other continent after I deal with Monty. Of course, Monty hits again, while I’m in my golden age. And I get this event:



So a double golden age is nice. Not sure what he's thinking, as I have about a dozen muskets defending now. He suicides another giant stack on me, about 40 units, and then my muskets start marching toward one of his cities, which scares him into this:



Fine with me - I didn't really have enough firepower to take him until cannons Cut off 1 turn from steel, with about 15 trebs built. Figure I'll turn off tech for 2-3 turns, upgrade and destroy Monty. Here's our continent:



My problem has been that I've been stuck at 9 cities. It's ok because Charlie is great at turtling, but I haven't had the opportunity to really destroy Monty yet. Cannons will give me that opportunity though, because he's a mile behind in tech. Figure I can quickly take over the entire island. No idea what's going on in rest of world - no one else has even sent a caravel yet in the 1500s. Fine by me at this point - let me take over my island first.

Settled in place, got 4 or 5 huts with lots of gold and AH from them. Decided on Horse Archers upon discovery of the nearby horses, our enemies and given the fact that I now had lots of surplus gold and the gold in my BFC.

Long story short, I stopped somewhere around 1000 BC and the game is now a LHC, my economy is in the can but I'm just about to finish the mids so I can recover with some scientists without a problem and make my way to rathauses.

Screen is pretty uninformative but atleast it shows that both my enemies are dead. The gem city saved me and I actually striked for 1 turn before they finished

Gee, Monty didn't look that close in the WorldBuilder!

I moved the scout 2SW to the hill with the tribal village:

Given the hills with no food, I figured any city down there would need the sheep, so I settled in place.

With two sets of pigs so close I went AH > mining > BW > wheel and am now working on Pottery; a hut gave me archery, which I'm quite happy with given my neighbour. I expect to backfill Agriculture after that since some possible city sites seem to need it:

I think given the principle of "expand towards the enemy" I need to settle Cyan for the copper immediately and hope I can get Magenta for the marble; I have just whipped one settler and hope my two workers can chop a second in time for that. After that I'll have to re-evaluate and see which other locations the AIs have precluded. I suspect Blue for the gems would be next. That stone to the north would be nice but I expect Mansa will get it.

I built worker > warrior > worker > barracks (1 turn from finishing). I'm pleased remembered to get a second worker quickly this time; I usually build too few of them.

Turn 0 - Scout pops AH from hut.
Turn 9 - I get Buddhism
Turn 18 - I have a worker, AG, AH and Meditation.
That's kinda when I quit. Sorry, I am burned out a little.

Blue Dot: I don't see an advantage to missing the third gems. Either one north (using the bananas for growth, or one east (also picking up the horses) seems more reasonable.

Red Dot: that placement looks too brown. One north, maybe.

Green Dot: looks fine, not a priority, but that's the right location.

Purple: Seymour! Feed me! Pass.

Turquoise: I still haven't found a location there that I like very much.

Probably not that different than Voice's comments. The turqoise dot really is a solid cottage site. I settled that exact same spot and cottaged it up.

I actually really like the green dot, and would settle it the minute you claim/block enough land from the AI. I settled 1S of there - Aachen worked those two FP cottages first, and transferred them to the green dot site to allow it commerce while growing. Great overlap site, and good Moai site too.

1N is great for blue dot. Barbs settled it for me 2N 1E, so I had to accept it, but I prefer 1N of where you have it.

At civil service, you can also put two cities 3-4 S of red & turqoise - with chain farms and mines/workshops they become really solid cities. I'm close to communism/biology, which will make them even better.

I settled purple to block land (on immortal), but I agree, it's mediocre. Marble and dye is nice, but you have to accept it being a slow growing cottage city. If unclaimed after settling the other places, grab it.

I thought I needed to put the dark blue dot there to overlap the Aachen pigs to get enough food, and missed the horses so the light green city could have those; I knew bananas could eventually provide some food but figured Calendar was quite late for that, and that I'd need to settle Blue sooner than Calendar to block Mansa from the gems. I'll think over what you said before I commit.

I gather blocking with the maroon city isn't a priority; perhaps I was too paranoid about losing territory to Monty.

advice for dalamb:



edit: sorry for the lack of spoilers before.