NC XXXI: Charlemagne

Me and my pal Monty have not been very nice to poor Mansa. He's dead.. I grabbed all 5 of his cities. The funny thing is that Monty did all the work removing def and suiciding with his cats so my Landsknechts could kill off the rests. Very poor play by monty... Anyways, now that Mansa is dead I am once again the biggest on the Island. My army has been built and I'm preparing to take on Monty which will happen in a few turns once I get 2 SoDs built. I would like him to be dead once I meet the other AIs.



Oh! I was the first to get lib even though I researched Metal Casting, Maschinery, Construction and Engineering by myself before starting on the Lib-line. I chose Nationalism as my free tech. Lib date 1380 - late! - but what can you do when you have to research the whole tree yourself? The AIs on the other continent are obvious far behind and it leads me to wonder if Shaka, Ragnar, Monty and Ghengis are having a tea party over there? Surely some of these leaders must be in the game considering their slow teching...



So the plan now is to swarm Monty with trebs, Landsknechts, Macemen and Crossbowmen and propably go for a dom victory.

Nuts, lost a pig. Oh well. Techpath: AH/Mining/BW/Wheel/Fishing/Pottery/Iron Working/Writing/Sailing/Polytheism/Agriculture/Priesthood/Alphabet/Monarchy/Currency/Code of Laws.

Scout brought in 174 gold and Archery! I see very early copper upstream, and an awesome city to the north with a pig, horse, and three gems.

It seems like only Monty, Mansa, and me on this continent. Definitely rush Monty, vassalize Mansa later.

I built Stonehenge before Settlers, probably a bad idea since the Copper is so accessible. Mansa founded Judaism and has spread it to me, I adopted it for happy faces in Aachen. After teching Alphabet I see I'm way ahead of Mansa, and trade Writing/Priesthood for Meditation/Masonry, then Hunting/Sailing for Monotheism.

Could have gotten the Oracle, built Swords instead. A GP was born in Aachen, leading to...



St. Paul in a Jewish city! Revolt to Slavery and Theocracy for ready-whipped CRII Swords. Monty declares on Mansa.

Didn't think there was a chance of getting this; just goes to show what I know about Civ.


I start the Oracle in Aachen for the gold, and bring my army near Aztec...and declare. Unfortunately Monty makes peace with Mansa and brings a lot of troops to Tenchotitlan, but I capture it (with heavy losses).



After teching CoL (in 50AD), the Oracle still hasn't gone. The other leaders must be terrible. Anyway,


CIVIL SERVICE FROM ORACLE IN 75 AD. Yes, this is Monarch. Probably should have been Emperor.

I got an event for peace with Monty and took it. I should go for a re-match soon. For techs I think Construction/Metal Casting/Machinery. I think the Pyramids are still free as well.

Techpath Construction/trade Metal Casting/Machinery/ask for Aesthetics (I'm Friendly with Mansa)/Literature/Music/Paper/Engineering/Divine Right (founded Islam)/Compass/bulb Philosophy/trade for Feudalism and Horseback Riding/trade for Guilds/Optics/Nationalism (mostly bulbed by a Great Artist)/Astronomy (from Mansa)/Gunpowder/Education/Banking (from Mansa)/Liberalism/took Printing Press/Replaceable Parts.

Mansa Musa built every wonder that hadn't been built already except SoZ and Shwedagon Paya. I lost Spiral Minaret and Great Library to him. Met Shaka (who doesn't have Polytheism, Metal Casting, Alphabet, Calendar or Code of Laws in 1190 AD) and Darius (not much better). Surprise! They're at war. Darius founded Buddhism, Shaka has no religion! I declared on Monty again; he's VERY behind. I took two cities with ease and he capitulated.

Later I met Hatshepsut, who founded Confucianism, and Suleiman, who founded Hinduism. Both were pretty backward, though not nearly as much as Darius and Shaka. Shaka converted to, um, Islam. Right.

Mansa beat me to the Taj Mahal even though I got Nationalism five turns before he did, and also got the GM from Economics, but really, who cares when you've got



Took Printing Press. St. Patrick starts a Golden Age and I revolt to Free Religion. Mansa only took five turns to research Constitution and he didn't bulb it (I know because I killed the Great Merchant. ), so I attack him after completing Liberalism. I bribe Suleiman to declare on Mansa for diplomatic reasons (Suleiman goes to Pleased). Maybe I should try for AP Diplo?

Anyway, I capture Kumbi Saleh first, which has the Spiral Minaret. For some reason Hatty declares on us. I capture Timbuktu which has 11 (!) wonders: the AP, University of Sankore, Sistine Chapel, Angkor Wat, Great Library, Pyramids, MoM, Parthenon, Hagia Sophia, Notre Dame and Taj Mahal. Surprisingly Mansa won't capitulate until next turn, but he does and I trade PP and Liberalism for Economics and Constitution. Shaka capped to Darius on the same move.

With Mansa vassaled there's no longer any serious competition for Space. I won't commit to it, but....

Got Mansa to rebel and kicked him off the continent (he colonized the island to the north very thoroughly) to stop the constant rebellions in Timbuktu. So far it's been smooth sailing; the other continents are just so far behind. I beelined Combustion after Rifling, then beelined Industrialism. Traded Fission from Mansa (my last trade with him, as he fell behind after the war). Completed all the Radio and Electricity wonders (except Broadway, which I captured from Mansa), the Manhattan Project, and Mining Inc. Started a very fun nuclear war with Suleiman. Took six cities on the second turn after taking two the first turn, though he hasn't capitulated yet. He's also at war with Darius and Shaka. I've committed to Space (I'm almost there, actually; just teched Laser), I just declared on Suleiman for his Aluminum resource.

Space is boring. Went for Domination instead, but the war with Darius and Shaka took too long (Darius had Tactical Nukes.) Won diplomation in 1923 with 42615 points. Should have done much better.

I admit I lollygagged a lil bit cuz I spent some time prettying up my cities a lil instead of 100% all out focus on building a stack but I EVENTUALLY get one and:



And they go say hi to shaka.

War goes pretty well and I start taking his cities. I notice he is willing to cap after a lil while BUT unfortuantely for him I am NOT in the mood to mess with Vassals this game so I keep going with plans to take him out completely.

The big weenie goes running to darius and caps to him. But since Dari was next on the list anyways:



I redeclare and keep on going.

Eventually SHaka is killed off and now my guys are working on wiping out darius. Since I have enuff units in the current war back home my cities mostly focusing on ifra structure and getting pretty We've got mining and sushi running now too so all the cities starting to get nice and productive, even the little ones.

My empire at this point:



Shaka and daris continent:



The tech sitch:



and the demos:



I think I have pretty comfy leads in tech and the important demo categories so I am counting on this game to be kind of cakewalk from this point on.

Dari is down to just 4 cities and if you noticed I am 5 turns away from tanks and marines and Hattie is STILL building longbows so I figure if I can get a semidecent stack of tanks going after I finish off Dari she shouldnt be TOO much trbl hehe. I am thinking I SHOULD have enuff for dom win once I take enuff of her cities and they come out of revolt and start border popping.

Thats the plan anyways. I dont anticipate any problems at this point but you NEVER know so wish me luck

When I was done with Mansa, I switched to Free Religion and the same turn Monty came up with a demand of 810 gold... Ofcourse I refused which meant the end to our good relations...
I few turns later this happened:


It wasn't too bad.. My army was in pretty good shape so should be able to defeat him.. I sent in my SoD, but so did he the next turn.


I lost Djenne, took one of his cities, lost it again and took back Djenne.. But eventually:

He wanted to cap, but the continent wasn't big enough to both of us.


Then I met the first of my other enemies: Hath


Actually for 1 sec I was a bit nervous as she spread Judaism to 1! of my cities and tried to pull of a religius win. But it failed, and I spread judaism to all my cities. The tech situation when I met all the leaders:


Slow teching speed, but Silly is catching up and he's big! I descided to befriend Darius and trade techs with him and that meant declaring war on Shaka


Hath was trying for a cultural win as well as religius so she was my first target. And when this bad boy hit her she was no match:


Together with her land I also got hold on the AP, so I staretd spreading Judaism in Darius land.
When I got tanks Shakas number was up.


Luckily for him I was voted Religious Leader before he got annihilated..


Final empire:


Stats, graphs and score:

Brief summary: I expanded peacefully but now am about to take on Monty.

Tech path was roughly: AH (seemed obvious given the pigs) > Mining (Archery from a hut in the middle) > Bronze Working > Wheel > Pottery. I then decided to go for the marble and the oracle: Masonry > Writing (should have come before Masonry) > Math (for better chopping of the Oracle) > Meditation > Priesthood. At this point I shut off research while building a library in Aachen. When it finished I delayed running science specialists to build more settlers and defenders, but eventually built an academy in 800 BC. Next few techs were Monarchy, in prep for taking Feudalism from the Oracle, then CoL; unfortunately war prep has precluded building Rathauses so far. Next was Alphabet and trading for Fishing, Iron Working, Polytheism, and Sailing from Monty and Mansa. I'm now working on Currency, which I can do in 3 turns at 100% , which I just manage to do with a little gold left over at the end.

I REXed more than I usually do:

• 2360 BC: Prague, S of copper
• 2000 BC: Vienna, near the marble. I debated this but decided it was worth a risk of attack and the slow growth to be able to chop out the Oracle quickly. Shortly thereafter:
  
• 1680 BC: Nuremburg, east coast at the river mouth.
• 800 BC: Augsburg, coastal 2S of sheep; it later turned out to have iron in its BFC.
• 550 BC: conquered the coastal barbarian city of Avar SE of the bananas.

I finished the Oracle in 725 BC:

and immediately switched civics:

I figured Mansa will eventually vassalize, perhaps shortly after I take out the Aztecs.

Here's the continent map at 325 BC, just after I acquired Iron Working from Mansa:

I've been planning on taking out Monty from the beginning, but have been very slow to do so. Now seems like an opportune moment, since:

His troops will be up north attacking Mansa, though his jaguars could be back quickly. I made sure to trade with him for Monotheism before pausing. My SoD has 6 CR II axemen, one CR I, five CG III longbows and two CG III archers; I figure I'll have to heal a bunch after taking Tenochtitlan, but the defenders should break his counterattack while the axemen heal. Belatedly, I'm starting a Medic I chariot, and may hold off a couple of turns until it's ready.

Current status:I'm a very timid warmonger, but should be far enough ahead both in power and in manufacturing capability to win a brief war against the Aztecs.

Somewhere out there is a wonderspammer:

1. Is it worth waiting 3 turns for the medic?
2. Is it worth waiting to see if Mansa invites me to help him in the war? He currently won't vassalize, saying he's "Doing well enough on our own".

Nothing really exciting happening from last report. I finished off Dari then took my time teching and building a few more units then went and attackked Hattie. I had to take 3 of her cities before she was willing to cap but she did and that was enuff for the dome win

My final score:



Prety nice score I think . After struggling on 2 LHC games in a rwo it was NICE to have a game where I things well in hand by end and didnt have to worry bout getting whomped

SO thanks Dalamb and everybody

Im not sure what speed your on but it looked like Monty only has like 3 cities. You really shouldnt need a medic I dont think if you have a ton of troops going. As for mansa. I wouldnt look to vassalizing him just yet. He is REALLY easy to keep friendly and he is willing to trade monopoly techs. So if it were me and you dont want to kill him off then just block him in and use him as trading partner.

If you vassalize him THIS early you could have two problems 1) it means extra diplo hit with ALL the other AI's you havent met yet. So you might want to wait and see how things are like in rest of world first.

and 2) Mansa can be a wonderwhore so you might wanna let him build wonders for you then take him out later. Or any number of other reasons could come up during game where you might find it better to go ahead and take him out. But vassalizing him now means you wont get that option.

And another advantage to keeping him free is as long as he is free since he has a heavy peace weight the more warlike ai's will tend to hate him more than you so you can use that to keep them off your back and on his if you have to (at very least they will hate you LESS than if you had diplo hit for having a vassal AND the hidden hit that comes from averaging their attitude toward mansa and you)

SO if you dont want to kill him off right after Monty. I would just block him in and keep him friendly and keep open option of killing him later.

Don't wait for the medic. Declare war, capture a city, and while your troops heal, bring the medic.

Decided to build up for a war with Monty since I can never trust him. Here is a pic of my death stack at his borders:


I managed to rope Mansa into the war with me for my good grace and have managed to capture three of monty's cities including his capital (with GW and ToA) and his other two eastern most cities. I realise however that in the meantime Mansa has founded christianity and taoism and will not trade philo with me. I take it this means he is going for liberalism. That bastard beat me to the gem city too as he took it from barbs. I think I will turn on him as soon as monty is subdued.

Hopefully that doesn't give him too much time to tech up.

I also scored the master smith quest, and I used it to put an engineer in the cap as the other choices were free shock for swordsman and cu in a useless tile south of the cap (out of its BFC). Should I have gone with one of the other options?

This is the best map ever. A continent with Mansa to tech whore with and Monty to keep Mansa in line and to donate land later. To add to that the other 2 continents are at constant war. It's like tech trading has been turned off for everyone but Mansa and me. Highlights so far have been the stunningly slow tech rate, a lot of wonders being built just because I could for once and capitulating Monty in 4 turns (which I only did because his land looked to crappy to bother taking over entirely) with cuirassiers vs archers after he attacked me with a stack of HA's and Jags.
Once that was out of the way I assembled my horses and headed towards Mansa when this came up:

Taking the peaceful vassal would've been the smart move as it would've allowed me to take a couple of Shaka's cities before he got longbows but meh, Mansa had the wonders I hadn't built and I wanted them. Besides I'll have cavalry in 4 turns and they hold up just fine without any help against arrows.
Charley's empire:

This is about the point in my games where I start getting bored and move on to the next game. I have taken all of Monty's lands (probably would have been better off vassalizing that crappy land, oh well...) and then along comes Mali and offers to cap to me - I probably should have taken some of his cities that are on my borders first, oh well.

Its basically just me on to Liberalism right now. I am fairly sure I could win from here so I never want to finish.

I may just move on to the new Louis game and leave this here to maybe come back to. I guess I should consider going up in difficulty level?

Any thoughts on weakness in my play would be appreciated. Thanks!

I couldn't open your save but I understand your position. There is a lot of land to conquer from here and I couldn't be bothered slogging against the northern alliance so I just sent 30 nukes up there and called it a day.

hmm I wonder why my save wouldn't open.

The "nuke the neighbors" approach is often one I employ in games that I can't bring myself to slog through though.

Summary: I took forever to eliminate Monty (1100 AD); I hope reading other peoples' threads after I post this one will give me some clues as to how I could have done better. Mansa is a very research-helpful vassal. I'm sending out caravels hoping to circumnavigate, and have just spotted the yellow border of Shaka to my east.

The details: My goal was to conquer the Aztecs then choose a victory condition, likely cultural or space. From prior history I knew I could get IW from my choice of Monty or Mansa immediately after Alphabet, so I backed up to beeline it and got IW and several other techs in 325 BC. I got iron connected in reasonably short order (Augsburg, whose BFC had iron, took a few turns to pop borders, but that was only a minor delay). After Alphabet I teched Construction, getting it in 40 BC. Despite being able to attack with swordsmen and catapults, I still took forever to conquer the Aztecs:

• 375 AD: Reasonable army available. Mansa vassalizes, starting the war.
• 450 AD: Captured Tenochtitlan. The delay was waiting for my catapults to arrive; I hadn't been quite ready for the war.
• 740 AD: Captured Tlaleco, to the south, after healing old units and replacing dead swordsman
• 840 AD: Captured Tlaxcala, west of Tlaleco
• 960 AD: Razed Burgundian, a poorly-placed coastal city. Mansa takes the northernmost Aztec city, which Monty immediately recaptures, only to have Mansa retake and keep in in 980 AD.
• 1020 AD: Razed Gepid, a barb city southwest of the southwestern copper. It looked to me not to have enough food.
• 1100 AD: Captured Texcoco, NW of Tenochtitlan. Aztecs destroyed.
• 1170 AD: Mansa captures Thracian for me -- a not-great southeastern barbarian city.

The known world:

There don't look to be any good city locations in the south. Not being able to take Teotihuacan denied me the only good west coast city, so I put Gao on the western rivermouth. I should have gone NW instead of S after taking Tenochtitlan.

During the war, Monty never tried to take a city back from me. I suppose I looked too strong, stocking each city with several CG III Drill I longbows, and with Mansa on my side.

Tech path approximately:

• After Alphabet (325 BC) get Iron Working, Polytheism, and Fishing from Mansa and Monotheism from Monty.
• Construction (for cats) > Aesthetics > Philosophy bulb from 2nd Great Scientist > Literature (for Heroic Epic in Nuremburg, my east coast rivermouth production city).
• I had previously decided to settle on the NE stone to get a chance at the Pyramids and Hanging Gardens (managed former, missed latter). I figured I could lose it to Mansa via culture flip, so teched Music for an art bomb. Eventually I may build cathedrals if I go for cultural victory.
• Currency > Drama & Compass from Mansa > Paper > Machinery from Mansa > Theology > Education (partially bulbed with 3rd GS)

I now am researching Liberalism and Mansa is going for Printing Press -- it's nice to have a vassal!

I have the Oracle, Pyramids and Great Library. I built the AP in the Oracle city primarily to deny it to the AIs but also for the hammer bonus. After the 2nd GS I built temples in the oracle city for all 3 religions (Buddhism spread by Monty, Confucianism and Taoism researched by me; missed Christianity) and took a Great Prophet as the 3rd Great Person to build a shrine in Tenochtitlan; it helped my economy significantly.

My economy is still lousy (40% ); cottages haven't matured much yet, and the furthest cities (most recently conquered) are still building Rathauses. I'm tired of war, and am thinking of beelining destroyers to protect myself from the eventual Zulu invasion. I expect to collaborate with Mansa on getting to Scientific Method (for oil) and Combustion (for destroyers) ASAP. Maybe I should risk delaying Liberalsm so I can take Steel from it instead of the usual Astronomy, but I won't have enough information on the tech progress of the overseas opponents for quite a few turns.

At this point I'm tired of the game but I'm hoping to stick it out because I need to work on my tenacity. I expect to go for a space victory but might try cultural instead. In either case protection from Shaka is a priority.

Settled in place. Research was AH, Mining, BW, The Wheel, Agriculture, Pottery, Writing, IW, Fishing, Sailing, Masonry, Meditation, Priesthood, Code of Laws (Oracle), Monarchy, Alphabet, Currency, Mathematics, Calendar (Trade) and started Civil Service. Montezuma and MM were at each other's throats while I REXed. They eventually made peace and Monty was already in WHEOOHRN mode so I assume he's coming at me, which is making me think of going to Machinery after CS for Maces. As I've been finding out, warmongering doesn't go so well on Quick so I didn't even bother with it here. I've got one city building only military (and an occasional settler) and the rest build some between builds. I have too few workers and have to work on that. I haven't had any scientists yet because I was waiting for the GP from the Oracle to be born. He was born and I built the Confu shrine. Now let's get some scientists.

Right after I restarted Monte declared on me. He didn't send anything meaningful and I destroyed his stack near Vienna. The Aztec people contributed to the Holy Roman war effort when they explained to our spy the secrets of Construction. As a part of the peace treaty, Montezuma agreed to teach us the two techs he had on us. From that moment on, he became ridiculously backwards. He was extorting (I assume) techs from Mansa Musa so, when, MM offered to be my vassal, I accepted. I'm still getting used to the tech pace on Quick so it was a little surprising to see how many turns it would take MM to research certain techs. I was able to stop him from researching Liberalism and I won it. Took Nationalism and built the Taj Mahal. Finished Oxford in the capital. By the end of the GA, I switched to US, FS, Emancipation, [default] and FR. My research is getting good now.

I saw Montezuma had a big stack parked on my borders so I demanded 30g and the idiot accepted. (They shouldn't do that. I mean, he was about to declare war on me and got scared that I threatened to declare war on him? ) The peace treaty let me reposition my troops and he decided to go after MM instead. I've just destroyed his SOD (the meaningful part, anyway).

I have a GS sitting in Aachen because I still don't know what to do with him. I've had three GGs so far that I settled in three different cities. I'm about to research Optics, then it will be Astro and then I don't know. I think I'll go to Rifling because the way things go on Quick, I'd better conquer Monte fast and what's faster than Cavalries and Spies? (At least at this point of the game).

I'll try to win a Diplomatic Victory here. Either Hatshepsut or Suleiman have built the AP. I'm heading to Combustion now and will invade them. Hatty first because she's softer and is close to Culture. Then I'll invade the Ottomans and benefit from the land target rule. I'll keep the AP city to myself and convince my new vassals to go to FR. Meanwhile, I'll gift Missionaries to Darius and Shaka and will win the game. I'll have to have a quick switch to OR to build the missionaries. I already have the GS from Physics and have to wait for another type of GP to start a GA because I started one with the GSpy from Communism. The plan looks good on paper, let's see how hard it is to execute it. I'll have to be fast.

Hatty was getting close to culture. I invaded and capped her. Then I built an invasion force to attack Silly as quick as I could and declared war. I've already taken the 1st city. The problem is MM. He's going to win culture unless I can cap Silly fast enough and call the diplo win. I'm running an espionage campaign against him but I'm not sure if that will do. Payed him to change civics, which bought me some time. In 5 turns, I'll change civics again so that he won't be able to switch to FS and FR. Word to the wise: don't take people as MM as voluntary vassals! All the civs except for Monty already have Buddhism. I haven't spread it to him yet to prevent a backdoor diplo win of Silly.

Had to spend an extra hour just fighting Silly (he wouldn't cap easy) and revolting MM's 3rd culture city. It paid off: I won an AP win, just like I'd planned. Notice the troops I built: nothing fancier than Arties/Paras/Infantries and Fighters. The only different thing here is that every other turn Suleiman got himself a new stack (all post gunpowder units I killed were his). Except for that, after I took his core his research went down and I just had to deal with the same kind of troops I'd have dealt with on Marathon. I take back what I said before. Warmongering on Quick goes well too. You just have to plan a little more. The score was meh, but not bad for my second game on Quick.