ALC Game 28: Ethiopia/Zara

Congratulations on finishing your finals, enjoy your vacation.

More about the game later . . .

As promised, a few quick comments.

You call 21 units is a small stack? I think I need to increase my stack size. Shouldn't be too hard, I think I got an email about how to do that recently.

Interesting tech trades, they worked out very well for you. The two-step plan to get Pacal to declare war was particularly effective. Nice technique.

I would want to take Canterbury from the English at least to give London room to breathe, but why not just finish what you started with her? Oh wait, it's not necessary as you always get the tiles in your fat cross from a vassal I just read. Still, I would want it anyway. Any chance she makes that offer to someone else though? Time might be an issue there.

I like your way of organizing the tech path priorities, starting with the desired result and then detailing what it will take to get there. Very clear, very enlightening. That’s the same approach you used with the tech trades, focus on result more that process or procedural rules. I like it.

The plan to attack Willem next looks promising, good idea.

Double post

Double post

Sorry

Sorry

Mec AntiKythera said:

As promised, a few quick comments.

You call 21 units is a small stack? I think I need to increase my stack size. Shouldn't be too hard, I think I got an email about how to do that recently.

Interesting tech trades, they worked out very well for you. The two-step plan to get Pacal to declare war was particularly effective. Nice technique.

I would want to take Canterbury from the English at least to give London room to breathe, but why not just finish what you started with her? Oh wait, it's not necessary as you always get the tiles in your fat cross from a vassal I just read. Still, I would want it anyway. Any chance she makes that offer to someone else though? Time might be an issue there.

I like your way of organizing the tech path priorities, starting with the desired result and then detailing what it will take to get there. Very clear, very enlightening. That’s the same approach you used with the tech trades, focus on result more that process or procedural rules. I like it.

The plan to attack Willem next looks promising, good idea.

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21 units on emperor is so-so even with tech superiority of 1 era, the exception being when the target is already at war and you are sure his SoD is dead.

it's good start with cavalry rush around 25 cavalries against LB's, but you should have steady stream of reinforcements.

I guess I tend to split my stack.

Any tips on producing units that quickly? Is it just a matter of having enough good production cities?

Mec AntiKythera said:

I guess I tend to split my stack.

Any tips on producing units that quickly? Is it just a matter of having enough good production cities?

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you should have at least 1 HE city that usually can produce unit/1-2T on normal, then I have usually capitol producing good number of units because of bureau.

and then there is whipping which you can find in one of kossin's DR's (i think DR 37 was it?). Basically you switch to slavery (preferably at start of GA) let build cuir/cav for 1T, whip it, then next etc. etc. In the matter of 8 turns of GA you could have each city whipped at least 2-3 times. you can make the count yourself.

You can ofc. use Vassalage+Theo for exps since you are in GA, or Nationhood if you want more drafts as defense (then you don't run bureau and cap will produce less ofc).

That's why I personally love lib->nat->cuir+TM (if you can get MT from lib even better, but don't make something like me in NC 64 where I got lib->MT on emperor but forgot that I need gunpowder too and at the start of GA from TM I could switch civics but for no reason, since upgrading HA->cuir is really expensive).

Ah and last thing why it's good to make cuirs is that each cuir->cav costs only 80g.

Well that's how I do it up to emperor in ren. era warfare.

So, build HE, have another good production city, whip, use GA, look for cheap upgrades, maximize EX with civics.

My worry with global whipping is that it would be hard to finance the larger empire that you create when you don't have the population to work cottages or run specialists.

Mec AntiKythera said:

So, build HE, have another good production city, whip, use GA, look for cheap upgrades, maximize EX with civics.

My worry with global whipping is that it would be hard to finance the larger empire that you create when you don't have the population to work cottages or run specialists.

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you turn off slider in war preparation mode. You finally got your tech lead, you should use him when you have it. And when you start steamroll you even get more gold to burn through .
If you placed good cities they will grow back very quickly.

There are rewards for capturing cities, and population will grow back, but expansion is expensive enough without generous whipping. Given that that whipping turns commerce producing citizens into gold devouring troops it is a sort of double whammy, not only decreasing income but also increasing costs. Don't get me wrong, I don't doubt that it works, it is just figuring out how to make it work that I find puzzling. Clearly one could go to far and whip too much.

Looking at this game, I didn't see that he whipped that stack. Is that the case?

Sometimes what I'll do in war prep mode is get every city producing units to within one turn of completion, then put a different unit ahead in the stack. I'll usually emphasize production over growth, commerce, etc. while doing this. When I have several units near completion and several about to lose a production turn because of hammer decay, I'll change to the war civics and pump out those units--sometimes as part of a golden age to evade turns of anarchy (and boost production even more).

Round 8: 1530 AD to 1790 AD (52 turns)

I picked up this series was not only to teach more rookie players but also to learn. To learn not only from the advice and comments of others but also from watching, recording, and playing through my mistakes. I thought the game had been going pretty well and was at the stage where it was going to be impossible to lose. This overconfidence lead to lazy play and some major mistakes early in the round. Fortunately, the first 200 turns of this game were good enough that I still think the game will be easily winnable, but certainly not optimally.

As discussed, I continued the war against the English. This was the mistake. Not the continuing, per se, but the unpreparedness with which I attacked. I made a battle plan, as I like to do, but didn't have the troops to pull it off. My laziness caused several mistakes. One, to not properly scout the rest of the English lands before pushing forward. Two, to not use my spy to cause a revolt (because I forgot about the spy being there). Three, to underestimate the power of redcoats. They weren't that bad defending, but using the English road network they were able to decimate my already small stacks.

While I was fighting poorly, I teched as planned -- straight for assembly line. Here are some screen shots from the war and my eventual defeat.





Apparently, I didn't take any screen shots of my weakened armies. Just trust that my stacks were useless and I couldn't progress further. I decided that ending this war was the best way to salvage my failed war.



Elizabeth would prove to be valuable trading partner. For techs and resources.



Now for major mistake number two. My inexperience with vassals led to some problems with revolts. I'm not quite sure how this works. So I just gave both cities back to Elizabeth. But I still don't know what I should have done. The question I found myself asking was: Is it possible for cities of a vassal to flip back to them or just revolt over and over again? Not wanting this to be a problem, I sent a sizable stack to York, which had a 6.25% of chance of revolting. This seems to have solved the problem. But I'd appreciate any advice you guys have.



Another mistake coming up. I noticed this island up to the north earlier. But was focusing on my war against the Mayans and decided not to pursue it. I probably should have shuffled some settlers up there earlier since I had decided that I was pursuing a domination victory and the "free" land would be useful. Unfortunately, I found this when I got up there:



Screw it! I'll bring the settler back home for if I ever need one later.

I decided to make Mutal my super-powered troop pump. Notice the two settled great generals (only one GG at the moment, but another one was on the way) and the two settled great engineer. I added the ironworks, just for fun. And this city can now produce one of anything I want a turn for the rest of the game.



As techs came in I began to industrialize my cities. I continued my earlier tech path, this time shooting for Communism and State Property.



Check out this awesome build time on the Pentagon.



It was a foregone conclusion.



A study on the power (or lack thereof) of State Property. This aren't the screen shots I was expecting, but maybe there's something I'm missing?







Maybe it's the high cost of Police State, I'm not sure. Anyway, these are going to be my final civics for the game which will allow us to build up and maintain a massive and powerful army.

I was very excited to start yet another Golden Age with my soon to be born Great Artist. Unfortunately, the 9% GS beat out the 91% GA. I stowed the new GS away for future use. The Golden Age will also be useful later, so I'm not too concerned.



And here's the last tech I think I'm going to research in this game. Notice the awesome boats it allows.



So now I have everything in place for a quick and easy finish. I can build cannon, infantry, destroyers, and transports. My cities are almost fully industrialized with factories and coal plants. I'm excited for some AI steam rolling in the next segment. In fact, Charlemagne read my mind:



And here ends this segment. I'll post a state of the world some time later. In the meantime, explore the save, ask questions, and give suggestions.

Merry Christmas!

yep the perpetual revolt in cities is one of the things why I take vassals only in late game when going for quick domination snowball where you take 1-3 cities and they want to vassal.

You get unhappinness (we yearn to return to our motherland) and there is the revolt chance which slowly fades away while you pick up new culture (which is slow)

The cities cannot flip back to your vassal, only revolt over and over, unless you have checked the box to allow flipping back after capture in the Custom Game options.

As to the island, I always colonize nice sized islands as a priority as soon as I can access them. I also take over any barbarian cities that I find, unless they are so badly placed as to interfere with me settling the ones that I plan. Both moves give you fast, cheap territorial expansion.

Although I almost always use multiple stacks for attacks on multiple cities at once, I make sure that they are all decent sized stacks that could have been sole invasion stacks. Only after the target civ is crippled militarily do I spin off smaller stacks from the big ones for mop up.

I finished the game from your previous save (1505AD), using the advice that I gave earlier:
- capitulate Elizabeth immediately and give back her cities
- tech communism, using trades from Elizabeth
- declare on Hammi, WvO, Stalin, and Charlemagne to wrap it up

There aren't really any map or AI spoilers, but here it is:


Also, getting your state religion in captured cities will help with revolts.

vranasm said:

yep the perpetual revolt in cities is one of the things why I take vassals only in late game when going for quick domination snowball where you take 1-3 cities and they want to vassal.

You get unhappiness (we yearn to return to our motherland) and there is the revolt chance which slowly fades away while you pick up new culture (which is slow)

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Thanks for the lesson. I usually turn off vassals, so this is good practice for me.

s.bernbaum said:

The cities cannot flip back to your vassal, only revolt over and over, unless you have checked the box to allow flipping back after capture in the Custom Game options.

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This is good to know. The perpetual revolts is annoying, but maybe it's worth it to keep the cities for the land and just let them revolt.

s.bernbaum said:

As to the island, I always colonize nice sized islands as a priority as soon as I can access them. I also take over any barbarian cities that I find, unless they are so badly placed as to interfere with me settling the ones that I plan. Both moves give you fast, cheap territorial expansion.

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Yeah, I wish I'd made settling the island more of a priority now. I was going to say that civ is a game of choices and this is an example of me making a less than ideal one. But I don't think it's true here. I definitely could have gotten that island settled, ah well.

huerfanista said:

I finished the game from your previous save (1505AD), using the advice that I gave earlier:
- capitulate Elizabeth immediately and give back her cities
- tech communism, using trades from Elizabeth
- declare on Hammi, WvO, Stalin, and Charlemagne to wrap it up

Click to expand...

Excellent game! I went ahead and read your summary and it looked good. You took it to them. I probably should have done just this, but I decided to go to the next era when it probably wasn't necessary. Thanks for the shadow. It makes the learning experience that much better.

huerfanista said:

Also, getting your state religion in captured cities will help with revolts.

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This seems so obvious now. I can't believe I didn't think of it. I think that I usually just start ignoring religion later in the game, even when it's still useful. Shame on me.

State of the World, 1790 AD

Our Empire





Our lame capital.



Heroic Epic city.



Other cool city.



Ironworks city. Those are some nice hammers.



Our Rivals' Empires







Pretty straightforward here. I'm going to hit the Netherlands hard in the northwest hopefully taking its capital and other major cities quickly and forcing him to capitulate. Then I'll head south and do the same thing to Charlemagne. If I still need land I can go hit Stalin and then Hammurabi next.

Some Info















I think there's not really much left to talk about. Your questions, comments, and thoughts are welcome.

Round 9: 1790 AD to 1860 AD (32 turns)

You'll remember that I had just declared war on Willem at the end of the last so I sent over this medium sized stack of troops to get things going.



Willem had huge numbers of troops. He outnumbered my original stack probably 4 to 1, but he was so technologically backwards that my drill 4 combat 2 infantry just hung around taking out a unit every turn until Willem eventually capitulated. My cities kept churning out troops and I took enough cities to eventually get Willem to capitulate.



Now check out this awesome captured capital. One of the better cities I've ever captured.







After the Dutch capitulation we found ourselves in this situation.



More civilizations would need to be conquered.



Whoops. This war was over so fast that I apparently forgot to take screen shots. But I sent a stack down the middle of the continent that ended up facing nearly 70 troops. This left the coastal cities incredibly vulnerable to the rest of my forces. Charlemagne surrendered after his stack had been destroyed.



The continent under Ethiopian rule.



We're close, but as expected short of the domination requirements in territory.



The armies prepared for war with Stalin. Here's the stack that was working on the Central European continent.



And the stack that was being built in the home country.



You know you have a big army when ... Stalin has been furious at you for a while, but hasn't declared war. But that was getting boring. Let's sock it to him shall we?



I sent some haphazard armies over to Russia as transports allowed. I was doing quite well with the war when this turn of events transpired.





Just to add to the suspense Stalin capitulated. What victory condition would I win first? Are you guys excited? I know I was!



Ah well, apparently a domination win was not to be. I would have won in a couple of turns when some more borders popped though.



But luckily my safety victory condition mailed its acceptance letter soon after.







And a pretty legitimate final score. Definitely not as good a finish as huerfanista's, but not one that I'm disappointed with.



Thanks for following! I'll write a Post Mortem shortly.

Post Mortem

Screen Shots

The following screen shot shows that is where it's at. I never had an extraordinary tech pace. But by prioritizing a very useful technology, Steel, and my having a strong production base I was able to power my way to a victory. At the end of the game, just to rack up the score a little bit, I turned the slider on full and was making more than 2000 a turn. A civilization that can produce is a very good thing to have.



I built a lot of troops in this one. Cannons, oromos, and infantry are all useful little gadgets.



This next screen shot backs up my earlier claim.



You'll notice that I lost 50 units and killed more than 200. A 4 to 1 kill ratio is pretty awesome. This is not indicative of my warring prowess, which is limited, but the strength of early oromos and city raider 3 cannons.

Lessons Learned

• Explore completely. This game completely changed direction when I realized that I wasn't actually isolated. You might remember that I once thought I was and was therefore considering going for a culturally victory and building lots of wonders. I did an about face when discovering I had neighbors and eventually won a diplomation game and built only one more wonder, the Pentagon.
• Don't war with too few units. Nothing hurts worse than not having enough troops to finish the job, especially when the are up against Redcoats. Elizabeth sniping my troops was painful and not something I want to repeat.
• Capitulation is powerful. If you can use overwhelming numbers to take out an enemy's core you allow yourself the ability to move on to the next opponent before your army become obsolete which saves hammers, beakers, and just about everything else.

Ethiopia's Uniques

To be honest, I don't even remember what the UB was. But seriously, Zara's creative trait makes the Stele a pretty superfluous building. While it might be nice to have when pursuing a cultural victory, in a game where there are no neighbors we have to fight for tiles with and a militaristic style of play, the stele is completely worthless.

The Oromo, on the other hand, is one of the best UUs in the game. I really liked them. If you can get them early and pair them with cannons you can take over the whole world without a lot of problems. With a few buildings and a civic or two you can produce drill 4 oromos right out of the gate which is awesome.

Overall, I liked playing with Zara. His creative trait is one I always undervalue. But when I start playing and realize I don't have to worry about border pops, it's really quite nice. The organized trait allowed me to build cheap factories and industrialize for my final war quickly and efficiently. The UB was silly, but the UU made this game really enjoyable to play and put us in a position where it was going to be really hard to lose. I'm not looking forward to the next time I see oromos in an ALC as I won't be the one using them .

I appreciated all of your comments, suggestions, and words of wisdom throughout this ALC. I've learned a lot!

I plan to start ALC #29 with De Gaulle of the French tomorrow! Maybe I can get going on those wonders again, .

grats to the win.

Yep the domination snowball is really great and really helps.

I thank you for bringing to my eyes Zara since he is my favorite leader in some last Emperor games, the combination of Creative and Org is really strong.
Btw Creative is undervalued a lot, it's not just about the free culture that spares hammers (monuments), but even better you have super cheap libraries, which allows you to get your cities much much more productive and with Org you have usually a little more cities.
For me it's killer combination.
And the UU is super awesome. It comes exactly at the point when I like to bring it to AI's. I even used combination of cuirs+OW without siege last game I played with Zara. Was super interresting.

The stele is extremely powerfull early on if you have close neighbours. If you are fighting over resources culturally the stele will win you your fight.

Good game Benginal. Appreciate it a lot.