Wainy's Deity LP - Bab2lon: Revenge of the Babylon

After my epic fail at exploration during the last video, I revisit the Babylonian Bowman rush with some new tactics... and take out two capitals by 0 AD! (a date which, notably, does not exist in real life)

First video: http://www.youtube.com/user/Wainyciv#p/u/3/88KoX_zjAS4
Youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/Wainyciv

i cringe every time i see you rush buy a bowmen while you're over the production limit =(

could you post that initial autosave if you still have it?

vexing said:

i cringe every time i see you rush buy a bowmen while you're over the production limit =(

could you post that initial autosave if you still have it?

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Sorry, I only autosave going back 20 turns. I'll remember to post a manual starting save for any future ones that you do.
About the production limit: it's still worth it to rushbuy those bowmen. You really need volume when you're using low-strength units, and even if it screws up your economy temporarily, the limit goes away once you capture enough cities.

Very enjoyable thus far. Look forward to the rest of the vids

EDIT: I do something similar but with a slightly different touch. Instead of teching towards iron working as you did, I tend to aim for Civil Service. Those pikemen are pretty good, will protect you in case some AI got horsemen to rip apart your bowmen and you'll have an easier time taking down cities as well with them. Just a different approach

EDIT2: Also if you take the tradition opener initially (before honor), you'd have had +3 / turn. Which would have been a +50% increase in culture for like 75 turns or so.

ArcaneSeraph said:

EDIT: I do something similar but with a slightly different touch. Instead of teching towards iron working as you did, I tend to aim for Civil Service. Those pikemen are pretty good, will protect you in case some AI got horsemen to rip apart your bowmen and you'll have an easier time taking down cities as well with them. Just a different approach

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That's an interesting idea. I think it's sub-optimal though, since if you have sufficient iron to build swords in addition to your siege units, they're stronger than pikes, plus it's much cheaper to tech to iron working than to civil service, and you get the potential benefit of mining the iron and selling some extra, which might help with your rush. In any case, taking civil service before machinery would be a bad call since the benefit from having (in my case) 12 cheaply-upgraded crossbows far outweighs the benefit of a few pikes. Horsemen are more versatile at taking down cities anyways, and are the same strength as pikemen in open ground.

ArcaneSeraph said:

EDIT2: Also if you take the tradition opener initially (before honor), you'd have had +3 / turn. Which would have been a +50% increase in culture for like 75 turns or so.

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Yes, but I don't really care about quick early-game policies, and taking an extra would substantially increase my late-game policy costs. Tradition opener is nice, but I'd rather get through Piety/Commerce/Patronage/Rationalism (depending) a bit faster.

w a i n y said:

About the production limit: it's still worth it to rushbuy those bowmen. You really need volume when you're using low-strength units, and even if it screws up your economy temporarily, the limit goes away once you capture enough cities.

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i understand - i'd have just aimed for a higher population capital via a granary and possibly watermill. that start is crying out for high population and a stables... there were at least 4 stable tiles? i only watched two videos, but i was interested in the autosave to see how a beeline for hanging gardens would work out.

I'm not sure you even need the Hanging Gardens there. With all those Sheep, it's going to grow. Early on, you've got five food-neutral tiles (3x Sheep, Stone, Sugar) that will get worked, three food-negative tiles (Gold x2, Gems) to cover, and a bunch of trash tiles. A Granary and either a Maritime or a Water Mill will sort that out. The Deer will be nice later, but that tile isn't worth spending premium on.

I don't think that you can make a play on the GL if the ruins are on, but I think that you can if they're off. You only need one Worker for chops due to the Academy trick (settling the GS 1 tile SW will insta-chop post-Mining), so you can go Scout -> Scout -> Granary with ruins on or Monument -> Granary with them off, using Citizenship for the Worker. (Grabbing a ruin with a Scout is highly likely, and getting Bowmen with upgrade ruins just isn't fair.)

Either way, for a peaceful game you want to go Pottery -> Writing -> Mining -> Philosophy out of the gate and slap up the NC. That capital will be nearly impossible to take, so you don't have to bother with much in the way of units.

vexing said:

i understand - i'd have just aimed for a higher population capital via a granary and possibly watermill. that start is crying out for high population and a stables... there were at least 4 stable tiles? i only watched two videos, but i was interested in the autosave to see how a beeline for hanging gardens would work out.

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I actually bought a stable to speed up the NC and then went for a water mill immediately afterwards. I personally think water mills are better than granaries when no wheat, bananas or deer are around, despite their slightly higher production and maintenance costs, because of the single production point, which pays huge dividends over the course of an entire game. (Of course, I had the deer, but I still haven't got it after 120 turns). I still went for a granary fairly soon after.
It's a very good start, but the lack of any food resources nearby (cattle, wheat, bananas, deer) is a negative.
@ Martin Alvito: Ruins are on, but GL is so hard to get - and has such a high opportunity cost when bowman rushing - that it's not an option for this kind of game. As for not building a worker and settling the academy on the plains forest, why bother? I had so many tiles to improve with the worker that he wasn't a waste and putting the academy there rather than on the sheep would mean forgoing 1 production per turn for the first little while. Admittedly, I could have used an early second scout or granary though.

Any particular reason you don't rushbuy a barracks in your capital? Buying all those bowmen and later on horsemen and knights would become stronger for a price of 1g maintenance. Doesn't look like your finances would suffer all that much.

FornaxTorak said:

Any particular reason you don't rushbuy a barracks in your capital? Buying all those bowmen and later on horsemen and knights would become stronger for a price of 1g maintenance. Doesn't look like your finances would suffer all that much.

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I'll address this in the next video.

A couple of things...

1) How do you determine the production limit? Is it city based? Population based? Both? I've never hit it or if I have, haven't noticed it.

2) Which video is the next video where you address the barracks?

3) Not sure why but my browser likes to crash when I'm in your Youtube channel. It seems like its only yours too. I don't mind restarting though. Just saying.

LaminarFlow said:

A couple of things...

1) How do you determine the production limit? Is it city based? Population based? Both? I've never hit it or if I have, haven't noticed it.

2) Which video is the next video where you address the barracks?

3) Not sure why but my browser likes to crash when I'm in your Youtube channel. It seems like its only yours too. I don't mind restarting though. Just saying.

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To use your numbering
1) I think the production limit is based on cities and pop, but I don't know the formula. You generally won't hit it unless you spam lots of units out very early on. I never hit it either until I started playing as Greece and Babylon.
2) The barracks video is #15 - I'll upload it overnight.
3) Does anyone else have this problem? I don't know why this would occur.

I have not had any issues in your YouTube channel. I'm running Chrome 12, by the way.

I'm liking this LP so far, keep it up!

Great LP! I'm amazed at how you don't even break a sweat when your plans change - like when Ghandi attacks you and takes London. No problem, you'll just get it back after your next war with him in a peace deal. Oh wait, Arabia attacks you with a massive arms advantage. Oh well, time to go after them.

A couple of comments - I'm not sure if iron was available through any AI, but would you have bought or traded a horse for Iron to upgrade your warrior if possible?

Also, you were waiting for Washington to get enough gold to sign a RA. Do you ever give out a loan in this situation? I used to hate when the AI I was waiting for would finally get enough cash and then make a RA with someone else or spend it on a city state. I prefer to be the one in control and will loan out the last 31 or 62 gold (even more if I'm rolling in dough).

You inspired me to start a Deity archer rush game last night with China. I've taken out Songhai (whose 2nd city was almost on top of me) and am bee-lining toward Machinery right now to have some REAL fun!

Looking forward to the rest of your vids.

Mazer Rackham said:

A couple of comments - I'm not sure if iron was available through any AI, but would you have bought or traded a horse for Iron to upgrade your warrior if possible?

Also, you were waiting for Washington to get enough gold to sign a RA. Do you ever give out a loan in this situation? I used to hate when the AI I was waiting for would finally get enough cash and then make a RA with someone else or spend it on a city state. I prefer to be the one in control and will loan out the last 31 or 62 gold (even more if I'm rolling in dough).

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I probably would have, but really it's better to just buy a horseman earlier than I did. I was unfortunately a bit strapped for cash due to not having enough luxuries that people actually wanted to buy. I don't think anyone had iron to sell for much of the game (even though Arabia and Egypt had some in their territory).

Don't forget to vote for the civ for my next LP! Place your vote on my Youtube channel page.

Bump.
Well, I finally got my conquest victory at turn 257. If you stopped following the vids part way through, you can get my distilled thoughts on the game strategy in the last two videos (starting here). You might also like to check out the rather awesome nuke strategy I used to take out the very last, strongest civ. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the game, any suggestions to improve the videos, etc. Also, stay posted for my next LP: Songhai!

I'm a bit late but had a question about your war with Arabia. Around videos 26-28 when you got your Riflemen and started crushing him (where I've watched to so far) you kept looking for a peace deal that gave you Medina. But since you were doing a domination game shouldn't you have waited until you got Mecca? Or did you feel that you'd be able to crush him even more easily later on?

Barth said:

I'm a bit late but had a question about your war with Arabia. Around videos 26-28 when you got your Riflemen and started crushing him (where I've watched to so far) you kept looking for a peace deal that gave you Medina. But since you were doing a domination game shouldn't you have waited until you got Mecca? Or did you feel that you'd be able to crush him even more easily later on?

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Mecca was too well-defended, and I thought taking most of his cities would cripple him. I was wrong, but it was still easy enough for him to be taken down eventually, as you'll see.

Wow. Aren't you a gentleman! Not even accepting 50 gold for an open border when you anticipate going to war in 30 turns. This series inspired me to try a gentleman style game next time. Just have to watch the rest of the videos first I'm at bab2lon 27 at the moment.

I learnt something amazing in chapter 27. The logistics promotion works exactly like blitz for riflemen! I was under the impression archer specific promotions didn't have any effect on melee units. Was this changed in the latest patch, or was I just misinformed? When I think of all the highly promoted archers I've put away as city guards in the modern era I almost wanna cry. They could have been an army of uber Mech Infs.

Also, when you get rifling you seem to micromanage the optimal time to upgrade the Crossbowmen, and you seem to prefer to do it just after (or just before?) they get a promotion. What was the rationale behind that?

edit: After unpausing the movie and watching the next 2 minutes of footage, I see that my initial assumption was probably correct. The ranged promotions are indeed worthless for a rifleman. With the exception of a few like Logistics and Siege. And that also explains why you wanted to get more level 4 promotions before you upgraded.