[BTS] BOTM 229: Ragnar, Deity - Final Spoiler - Game Submitted

[DynamicSpirit]

BOTM 229: Ragnar, Deity - Final Spoiler - Game Submitted



Use this thread to tell us what happened in your game, particularly anything after 1AD

Did you win?

Reading Requirements
If you are participating in BOTM 229 then you MUST NOT read this thread unless

• You have submitted your entry

Posting Restrictions

• Do not post any savegame file from the game. Discussions and screenshots are fine but not actual games.

 

[MarleysGh0st]

Continuing my Adventurer/Emperor report...

With the BC passing peacefully, Shaka started plotting again in 250. Still nothing happened, as I completed Notre Dame and was contacted by HC (in first place, with 10 cities) and Genghis. Finally, I declared war on Shaka in 800, giving Hammy some tech to join the war as my ally. I captured five cities, with Hammy capturing one, before making Shaka my vassal in 1100.

In 1340, having researched Military Tradition, I declared on Darius. He bent the knee in 1450. He only had two cities left at that point, but I wanted to trade for some of his tech.

Then in 1460, on the other continent, Genghis attacked HC, who was far ahead of him in power and tech. What was he thinking? I sailed over and joined the war against Genghis in 1525. I captured three cities, while HC captured one. Then I took Karakorum, but made a stupid mistake and failed to move any extra defenders into the city, aside from the cuir that had captured it. Genghis recaptures and I have to take it again. Genghis won't capitulate to me, but he does so to HC in 1555.

I'll have to fight both of them, but HC has enough of a tech lead to make that a daunting prospect. As I try to make up that research gap, I'm elected to lead the AP. I hoped to use that position to start a holy war, but Buddhism has spread to a couple Mongol cities. Because Genghis is HC's vassal, that option isn't available. Hammy has switched to his own religion, so his diplomatic relations have slipped, and Justinian attacks him in 1700. I debate whether I can risk shifting my army back to the home continent to join that war, when HC/Genghis make the decision to attack me in 1710. I capture one city, then sign a ceasefire to give me time to build some tanks to match the enemy's. Justinian and Hammy make peace and focus on their space race.

I resume the war in 1804. After gaining some ground to the south, I concentrate on eliminating Genghis. Ultimately he loses enough territory to renounce his vassalage to HC...and immediately peace-vassals to HC. I finish the conquest of the Mongols in 1856. Now the vote for a holy war is possible, but Justinian and Hammy reject the motion. HC is finally willing to capitulate in 1870, but as I try negotiating for some tech as well (and he refuses to give me all I want), I flub the negotiation screen and get Fascism and some gold...without the capitulation.

I build up my forces waiting for the peace treat to expire, and I attack again in 1890. I capture the bulk of his cities, and HC finally bends the knee in 1901 (still refusing to give me any of his tech as part of the deal).

I transport my army back to my home continent, meanwhile researching Laser so that all of my land units can be given their ultimate upgrade, and I declare on Hammy in 1910, immediately capturing a border city. A UN vote comes up on the next turn (I've been Sec. Gen since 1838) and as my army surges forward, I finally have enough votes from myself and my vassals to win a Diplomatic Victory in 1912.

OK, now everyone else can submit their reports and show me how I was at least a millennium too slow.

 

[WastinTime]

At 1AD I was pushing thru Shaka's land. Justin and I get along great, open borders, etc., cus remember, he was bribed to attack me, so not much negative diplo.
But then my hopes get crushed!
Justin takes Shaka as a vassal, and auto-declares war on me, again!
Hoping J is not mobilized, I'm planning to split my army and lunge at 2 more big Shaka cities in an attempt to throw everything I have at them and capture before the AP vote comes up in 3 turns (and likely forces 10t peace on us)
But before I can heal and move out, Justy shows up with this:

Spoiler Stack :

Mace
Mace
Mace
Mace
Mace
HorseArch
Chariot
Chariot
Chariot
Chariot
Chariot
Axe
Axe
Sword
Spear
Cat
Cat
Cat

T124 They're only 2 turns from taking Shaka's capital I recently captured. Still has 0% defense.
With inferior metal units and a couple cats against those maces, it's game over.

...or, maybe I can survive until the forced AP peace? and only lose one city.

T125 I burn most of my cats and wipe out most of that stack. At the same time this shows up

Spoiler Stack :

Cataphract 12 power!
Cataphract 12 power!
Crossbow
Mace
Mace
Mace
Sword
Sword
Sword

Now the city is lost for sure.

T126 Instead of moving in, the stack consolidates by adding spear, chariot, mace and five more Cataphracts! The vote is next turn, but that massive stack can still attack me between 127 and T128, before the votes are counted.

T127 We vote for peace and the stack is next to the city. However, I have 20 units in there (1 berserker), so I should survive it as long as a bunch of horses don't come out of the fog.

Hmmm. I don't recall what exactly happened
I only have a couple losses and the war is over! My stack of 20 must have deterred the full attack.

Justin likes me again, but now has Engineering and gave his tech to Shaka who now has Maces, longbows, etc. I'm stopped. Looks like I might have to live with eternal peace. Maybe everyone will go after Darius and I can get some of that land. I'm under horrible culture pressure from Zulu and Babylon.
That damn AP will keep voting to return cities to Shaka
I defy each time and get -5 anger then -10 the world considers me a villain (in Hindu cities only.) At least it doesn't hurt my diplo. Since I can't attack anyone, I use my army and Hereditary Rule to keep my cities happy.

I need a plan.
I want to do something with Ragnar flavor, so I go for Astro and maybe I can Berserk the other continent.

There's another giant religious love-fest over there, and I have flashbacks of the whole Shaka-Justin thing (the drama there is not over.) Genghis was pretty far back in tech, but I don't want to have to fight Inca too.

I need a plan to win now. Diplo seems lame, so Space I suppose.
I used to do one-city Deity space, so I should be able to do it with 8 cities.

Step 1: I'll need to beeline Computers (and the Internet)
Step 2 : stop research and run 100% culture slider yeah, never done that in a non-culture game. But I need to expand borders so I can build space parts.

The culture slider will give me happiness when everyone emanciaptes and so I can defy UN resolutions and keep the civics I want. And maintain my 'world villain' status

So I bulb to barely get to Physics before Inca, then research only Electricity, Radio, Industrialism, Plastics and Computers.
Yes, I traded for everything else including RepParts, Steam, Steel, Railroad, Combustion, Assembly Line, etc. Gotta love Deity research speed. But of course, to get all that, I had to give away my best stuff (but not Plastics yet, cus I need to be first to Computers)

1560 AD Justin completes Apollo and a few turns later Inca does too
(thrusters and docking bays start coming out)

Justin got Plastics on his own and I barely beat him to Computers.
1665 AD The Internet is complete, I get Rocketry and start Apollo.

I'm able to trade for coal (first time I ever didn't have my own)
I can't get Aluminum, so -- first time ever -- I build Aluminum Corp! But that means I can't use State Property.

...and then it gets Crazy.... To be continued....

 

[MirrorGuard]

then it gets Crazy.

Environmentalism is not a problem for a small country. Was it that your spaceship parts got destroyed by spies?

 

[WastinTime]

Environmentalism is not a problem for a small country.

Yeah, I defied it once and then realized I didn't have many workshops and didn't need them yet. What I really needed was to defy emancipation and strangely free religion-- for reasons I will explain.
'Crazy' refers to the wars that have been going on all this time and ones that will start soon.

 

[WastinTime]

World war during my peaceful game

So, while I'm going for the Internet. Justin/Shaka attack Hammy. Justin frees Shaka so they're working independently again. I was kinda hoping for that, so I could resume killing Shaka, but he is far too powerful now. So I get a defensive pact with Justin, ya know, cus we're 'friendly' now. Will that prevent Shaka from attacking me? I don't think so. So, I broker peace between Justin/Hamm before Hamm becomes a vassal of Justin. This leaves Hamm at war with Shaka! I'm hoping Hamm will win and clear out the Zulu threat and culture pressure from the East.

Meanwhile, Justin attacks Darius (our pact is dissolved) He captures the gems-west city I wasn't able to secure early on. So now my culture takes the gems. And my city gets to work its full BFC. (btw, I've had 1 gold and 2 more gems magically appear in my mines)

Then everyone signs peace deals. Shaka and Justin get a defensive pact, so I couldn't attack Shaka even if he was weakened.
Shaka starts plotting war! Noooo! I hope it's Darius.
I leave Free Religion for Theocracy and back to Hindu. This gets me friendly again and I sign defensive pact with Justin.

I ignore the possible wars and keep on the space race. Shaka attacks and immediately takes the city north of his original capital, and brings a giant stack for Ulundi. Now I'm sure the game is over.

Hmm, but wait. Justin is forced to DoW Shaka due to our pact.
So I complete some railroads that connect the captured Darius city to Ulundi. Justin's stack of Tanks, mobile artill, etc. quickly move back thru my land.

Sadly, Shaka's turn comes before Justin, so I spend a couple thousand upgrading some spears/swords/axes to Machine Guns. I even whip multiple MachineGuns and build 1 Infantry. I get pounded by Shaka, but hold Ulundi! Move more machine guns into Ulundi via railroad and hold one more turn. It's a thing of beauty to then see all of the yellow units disappear, replaced by gray Justin tanks. Then sweet, sweet revenge to see Zulu cities fall one after the other. J easily takes the NE city I just lost. I'm putting 100's of culture/turn pressure on it, so hoping it will flip back to me and I'm right where I left off before Shaka attacked. Better, because all Zulu culture is gone .
Justin takes Shaka back as a vassal. Then, after about 10 turns and 1 revolt the in city, friendly Justin, simply gives me back the city I lost . I asked for it, and he said 'no' earlier. Surprised he didn't give it to Shaka.

Let's see...Inca also attacked Darius and he is now a vassal. Then they both attacked Hamm. Justin/Shaka also attack Hamm. Great, I guess. That should take Babylon culture pressure away. Hamm was going for culture victory. The pressure from him was strong. He was flipping tiles in my cities 5 tiles away.

I think that wraps up the wars. I survived! With all my core cities intact. With virtually no army. Machine guns can't even attack.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Wherefrom comes the modern American logic that AK-47s should be legal for defense purposes.

 

[MarleysGh0st]

Justin/Shaka attack Hammy. Justin frees Shaka so they're working independently again.

Is that even possible? I thought vassals could break free if the right conditions were met, but overlords were stuck with their pledge.

I can't wait to read the finale to this epic game!

 

[WastinTime]

Yeah, they peace-vassalled, so I think they can break that easily. I was expecting/waiting for it.

 

[Powerfaker]

Only 1 deity write-up ??? ........ an interesting extensive one, that isn't finished yet

Unfortunately I ran into a runtime error, so nu submission. But I had such a nice game, I kept playing to victory after I had to redo my first war against Darius partially.
The nice thing I got going here was being on good terms with Shaka, who was big and strong, but not super advanced. So I could send him like an attack dog on anyone I liked with a tech(s) bribe.

As mentioned I went against Darius first. Fought this one on my own, a trebs/berserker war on military parity, but I had the better numbers.
Next, I sent in Shaka on Hammurabi, then invaded myself a bit later with cannons/grenadiers, units that Hammi had too. He did a good job defending his holy city, until I arrived after taking most other cities first.

Took a break next, to run 2 golden ages and develop towards infantry/plants and head on to artillery. Meanwhile I bribed Shaka on tech leader Justinian who had infantry/artillery, while; Shaka had cannons/rifles/knights.
The idea was to backstab Shaka at a good moment. I witnessed a pretty good clean up that I didn't have to do myself:

Spoiler :

T2 after the bribe Shaka marches in with 60 units. A stack above my power at that point. Justi oth attacked it right away, killed a third and forced the rest to turn back. Of course there was much more coming, so Shaka managed to carve into the Byzantine empire a bit before he ran out of steam and started falling apart because of the more advanced and numerous enough Byzantine troops.

That was the moment for me. Shaka was very easy to conquer now.
I immediately moved on against Justi, both deploying infantry/artillery. My unit count was simply exploding, being fully industrialized and all. So after a steady grind the continent was mine, victory nearby.

Laslty I took most of Genghis, adding tanks and even got Inca capping after taking only 1 city. (these guys still relied on rifles). So a nice conquest vic:

Spoiler :

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Only 1 deity write-up ??? ........ an interesting extensive one, that isn't finished yet

Unfortunately I ran into a runtime error, so nu submission. But I had such a nice game, I kept playing to victory after I had to redo my first war against Darius partially.

Well done for playing as far as you did.

For future reference - a runtime error shouldn't stop submission (assuming it just caused a plain crash and didn't do something else like delete all your saved game files ) - it just means you have to play from the autosave and let us know what happened.

 

[Tonny]

I could not finish the game in time unfortunately.
Submitted my incomplete game at 1470AD. I did not have the courage to continue this game (my first ever deity game into the AD era). Later I will ask for advice if my game is salvageable or even slightly going ok-ish.
Already facing some infantry here .
My current stack is 48 rifles and 37 cannons and 15 berserkers to be upgraded. Shaka just declared war on HC. I could snipe him...
I'll wait until submissions are closed.

Thanks @DynamicSpirit for the map and even getting me to play deity!

 

[Pangaea]

Didn't finish this one, I got a bit tired of Civ4 and looked elsewhere. But looking at savegame names, I played this one to 575BC. Shortly before that I founded a 6th city, which I recall was squeezed into the west somewhere. In 625BC, Shaka DOWed Hammurabi, so diplo wise the game might have been possible to get to the end of. Definitely a tough map, though, and now I'll read the posts above and see how many of you beat the bejeezes out of it

 

[Tonny]

just to make sure, am I allowed to post a savegame at the S&T now for advice? @DynamicSpirit

 

[DynamicSpirit]

just to make sure, am I allowed to post a savegame at the S&T now for advice? @DynamicSpirit

Yes, now the results have been published, it's fine to share anything you want about the game. Thanks for checking!

 

[WastinTime]

Oh yeah, I forgot to finish my writeup. I got the Internet as planned, but Bablyon was getting crushed and no longer researching. Justin also seemed distracted from science. So Inca raced thru the tech tree alone, they got mining inc and sushi and beat me easily to space. The internet doesn't work if there is only one AI far ahead Still, surviving with my core empire intact was satisfying. I'll have to try the internet again some day.