The Power of Stone

[budweiser]

...or Spain on a Rock.

This might be boring, but there are some important machinations at work in this game.

Now that Civ V is coming out, I am trying to get wins with more leaders that I havent tried yet. Here is a game that I started yesterday: random: standard, continents, emperor. Spain came up. Inland start, corn and cows in BFC, some bare hills, riverside. Nice.

I research AG>AH, set a build on worker and I have a look around. Downstream my warrior sees stone on the river 3 or 4 tiles away. I want that fast! After AG/AH set research to mining for the hills at the cap, then masonry for the quary.

City 1 gets out a settler, and makes Stone Henge with very little effort due to the cows, the hills and the stone.

My general location is south of the green belt on the east side, one ring away from the coast on the east and south, 2 rings away to the west. There are flood plains to the west, then there is coast. There is lots of land. To my north is Mansa Musa. This is a duel situation. He already has founded Poly. My surrounding area is rich in food, but little else besides a few calendar resources.

Copper is revealed in range of a coastal city 3 to my immediate SE. I take that site for city three and once the stone road goes in, I start the Mids. The Great Wall is up in city 2 with little problem. I am fog busting with dug in warriors and suffer no issues with barbs. Now Mansa has to deal with all of them. My borders are popping steadily due to SH.

Beyond all odds, the Mids get finished in city 3. I had to use a few chops. So now, I have the first 3 stone wonders complete in 3 diferrent cities. Outrageous. I can now enjoy SE research under rep with no anarchy. I've said it before and I will say it again, build the pryamids, win the game.

Do you want to know what happened next?

[hou jing]

Thanks for posting the save!

[Balnor]

Originally Posted by budweiser

Do you want to know what happened next?

You were now crowded in with no further way to expand because of your wonder-hugging and found out that 3 cities isnt enough to win the game after all ?

[Shurdus]

Originally Posted by budweiser

<snip>
Do you want to know what happened next?

What I want most is for you to get to the point.

[budweiser]

In the next phase I stumbled and bumbled my way through Alpha, currency, Col and generally expanded until I had 9 cities. Mansa’s norhtern half of the island was bigger than mine and he was starting to get it all filled in. I was definitely preparing a strike.

About this time (1000AD) J Ceasar and his eternal lacky Hannibal showed up in boats. I had some boats too that I had just launched. I had some techs that they didnt have, so I wasnt too worried there. Hannibal had about 6 techs more than me though. At some point in the past, Theology was founded by somebody and I was a little worried. I’ve been reading here and thinking that you want to be on the side that has the AP, even if you dont control it directly yourself. Some trading got me Theology and I passed it to Mansa. By some stroke of luck, he popped a Great Engineer right at that time and he put up the AP in 1 turn!

I priorotize Banking so I can run Merc/Rep and I research toward nationalism.

I traded somebody for paper. The rest of the world was free Sury, vassal Ramesses to JC and free Sitting Bull with about 12 cities! I got a world map from SB, 3 or 4 turns later it was an easy win to circumnavigate. The other nationas are relatively small. Hannibal has a 3CC, so does Rammy. JC only has 6. SB is huge though.

With Knights, UB trebs, Nationalism unlocked, Gunpowder, and 10 research turns to Military Tradition and my UU, I set upon Mansa Musa around 1300AD. My army was Knights, trebs, and age old axemen with only a few drafted muskets and a few pikes. I popped a 1GP GA, went to Police State, Nat, Caste, Theo. I declared war on Mansa and went to work for 10 turns while I finished researching my UU. If you are wondering why I didnt wait, the reason is I wanted to start cutting into him before he ever got to Gun Powder. My units were the superior anyway. They were highly promoted because they were build under vassalage/Theo and my trebs were build in citiadel cities.

A Great Spy came and I used it to infiltrate Mansa. My spy gave me over 4000 espionage points vs him.

[budweiser]

The Mansa Musa War

I’ll try to make this short. Mansa’s empire was like mine. The core was on the east side. On the west side were his newer cities. I struck for the east, taking out his coastal cities until I got to the capital. A CRIII treb will absolutely destroy a Longbowman inside a city with about a 70% chance to survive so you dont need very many. My attack was aided by all those spy points, I could cause 1 turn revolts almost at will. I had lots of trebs and plenty of knights. After I captured his cap, my Conquistadors were online. Those units can also straight up charge a city guarded by longbows or pikes and win with 60 or 70% odds.

I started the war with 9 cities, I ended with 17 cities. I vassalized Mansa and he still has 5 cities left. I just finished researching Navigation. It’s about 1600AD. I now control the AP and I have about 20 Conquistadors and 6 or 8 trebs.

This where I am at right now.

What should I do?

[alhill]

Have your bowels moved today?

[budweiser]

Originally Posted by alhill

Have your bowels moved today?

What? You don't believe me?

I'm not that bad a player you know. Besides, I was aided by the power of Stone. It's not over yet though, I still might mess it up.

[Deathstar]

Screenshots or none of this happened.

[budweiser]

Seriously, i could use some advice. Rammy and Hannibal each have at least 4 religions in their cities. They can win. I am 3 times as big as JC and I have a tech master vassal.

SB has 12 cities. I am sorely temped to Cav/Cannon him into oblivion. I am just not sure how long that would take. Those other could win in the mean time.

I am set to build my galleons now and am researchin towards cannons. I'm not sure which way to strike. I'm not sure if/how SB would win if I let him live, but would love to fight him like this.

[LuCiver]

Spread AP religion to SB and bribe him to convert, then aim to get him into a holy war against the JC block. Once JC's SoD moves against SB, hit either Ram or Han with your invasion fleet. If they only have 3 cities they will either break vassalage or be completely conquered fast. You could probably even split your fleet to hit multiple cities at once, as long as the naval situation is favorable. Get 10 turns of peace with JC and position a million cannons in your new overseas cities. Re-start the war and shred JC's SoD with cannons, then walk all over him. The end.

[budweiser]

I vainly traded with SBs worst enemy, but I will give it a try.

[oranje willem]

Is stonehenge worth a city (or more)? thats the question, it really depends on your land.

[budweiser]

Here are the saves. 1665AD is the turn I finished Steel.

I actually get nervous when my games get like this and tension mounts.

- SB if afraid of JC's military might.

- The JC block all have rifles or soon will have.

- I used the AP to block trade with JC (a brash move). now he wont talk.

[TheMeInTeam]

Force an AP win, tech to space, or get to infantry or better and finish with military. There's no reason you can't do any of that.

I'd recommend CR III on cannons rather than trebs, but whatever.

[budweiser]

AP win - How does that work in a case like this?

If I jam 1 missionary into each Civ, then who would run against me? If they are runningTheo, then it wont spread, right?

I think the dye is cast for me to fight JC. I am 5 turns out from Mil Sci. I will see how his rifles fare aganist my Gernadiers.

[TheMeInTeam]

If they are running theo, just gift the missionary and laugh that fireaxis never corrected that in an official patch...the AI will spread it for you.

Jam 1 missionary to each civ, flip into FR, drag mali into FR, and you have nobody running against you. Only you are eligible, and your vassal will vote for you.

But you already AP'd a stoptrade (a little foolish IMO), so you seem to have chosen the war path. Not a bad path really. Good hunting.

[evoke]

Glanced at the save - you could easily win the space race. Particularly if you built a suitable navy and aggravated the JC block into unit building and lauching wars which you then sink to the murky depths. You can actually 'make an arrogant demand' repeatedly to get a given AI furious if it suits your tactical needs to facilitate keeping the AI focused in that direction.

Sitting Bull, almost no matter how many cities he has, tends to just suck at teching mid/late game. Maybe this will somehow be the magic exception, but I've yet to see it in a game. Think space path would be free and clear under that strat.

It's a very playstyle particular choice though.
Best of luck in whichever way you go.

-evoke

[TheMeInTeam]

Stone isn't everything, and neither is "pyramids = win" true.

Just to showcase, I skipped all early wonders (and all wonders except sankore which was on my way), instead spending early hammers on blocking mansa:



Empire is in rep/FS/eman/FM/FR. Ceasar is at pleased with us, annoyed with mansa (worst enemy). I have closed borders with mansa. Astro is teched also. This setup should allow easy UN (get sitting bull to build it, let JC + hannibal vote for me) or kill MM ----> space.

There's lots of ways to play this game and as you can see pyramids isn't the only approach that is highly effective...it won't even necessarily outperform more cities when constructing them appears obvious.

It should be noted that the only city taken by military force was a single barb city .

[azzaman333]

If Rammy or Hanny look like they can win culturally, raze their best city and sue for peace. The AI is embarrassingly bad at naval warfare, you should have little to worry about as far as JC launching a counter attack.