[BtS] Immortal Sury Game

[shyuhe]

Combat 2. Flanking 2 is only useful for taking out siege protected by pikes, and even then, it's questionable.

And yes, protective LB on hills are just as bad, if not worse, than pikes on hills. I would go after the non-hill cities first in hopes of the AI re-distributing its troops away from the hill cities.

 

[awilder]

Thanks, shyuhe. I was alway pretty sure flanking<<<combat, but someone was talking it up in the cossack thread. I'm gonna hit the LBs with cavs anyway, but iirc that's sometimes a ~65% fight depending on promotions!

 

[awilder]

Alright, so we left off at Lib>Military Tradition. Something I realized recently: I could likely have gotten away w/ a rifling slingshot, but rifling is only 600ish beakers more expensive, plus that way I couldn't prebuild a cuirassier army. Sometimes the classy slingshots are not worth it imo.

Anyway, after lib, I thought I had a pretty sure shot at economics too, so I did this trade:



gunpowder is a little dodgy to give to likely war-targets, but I wanted to waste minimum time getting on to the rifling path. In retrospect, maybe I should've just beelined it. I dunno, banking+econ didn't take all that long. It was build cavs earlier vs build more cuirs and get some cash to upgrade.

I got econ first, sent off the GM on a long journey, and then moved on to PP>RP>Rifling. Meanwhile:



Looks classy to chain the GAs like that end to end, but since the turns just stack on the end anyway, it doesn't really matter. After I had the Taj built, I canceled this trade:



and had Angkor Wat build university #6. It didn't take long with the help of a whip, but it was awkward to wait for that straggler. I probably could've managed the timing of the 6 unis better somehow, but my other two cities were pretty low hammer/low pop at this point. I now had my domestic stone instead of the imported dutch marble; I made some stone wonders:



Don't worry, that forest grassland will get workshopped soon.



Like I said, not lightning-quick on the oxford. Chain reaction mediocre planning on the teching/bulbing of education, and timing of 6 unis. In fact, if I had gotten edu much before nat, Angkor Wat could have finished the uni FIRST, then built the Taj while the cap and Hari got starved for GPP.

Anyway, at some point in here, I traded for optics, upgraded my trireme to a caravel (only 50 gold! building a trireme early for barb galleys, then upgrading it to explore overseas when optics comes in is quite the deal). He soon met the other neighbors



Bismark, and then soon after, Pacal. They are both quite backwards. You'll notice in this picture that I'm running 0% to accumulate even more gold on top of this:



For oxford to come in, and later to upgrade cuir->cav

Stopped at 1010AD with Rifling queued up. I think I will be able to declare within a turn or two of Rifling's arrival. Say a round 1100AD as an estimate. I could've altered my tech/build order earlier as shyuhe suggested which would have been better probably. Truth is I'm not as confident at wars that are potentially as bloody as cuir vs protective longbow (some on hills). I can revolt maybe one city total, and Qin has 11.

Here's some shots of the world situation, 1010AD, turn

The land:



The cap--not the greatest tech cap in the world, but quite the production powerhouse.



As I have RP in, I'm windmilling over the mines. I tend to do this completely in the capital, and selectively elsewhere. I do it almost completely for captured cities.
I feel short workers! Looks like closer to 2 per city is the order of business for me in future games. (actually just rechecked and I have 11 for 8 cities, d'oh!)

Tech situation



And finally my civics



My plan: I have a GS and a GA ready. Next turn, I will trigger a third golden age, whip away crappy citizens into cuirs, trade for constitution from mansa, switch to rep, caste, maybe merc? probably not but need to look at trade income etc, maybe philo during GA? Not all my army needs the Theo exp bonus, cause some of Qin's garrison is going to be axemen and the like. Hopefully with the GA going I can get rifling in 5-6 turns, build a sweet army and sweep the continent. Likely eliminate Qin entirely, maybe Willem, then vassal Mansa for a teching buddy (not necessarily in this order for Willem and Mansa)

After that, I am toying with going for a space race; I think my last three games in a row have all been domination. Plus this game has been so cookie-cutter so far (sorry!) I'd like to try something a little different.

If anyone has general spacerace advice like tech order and such, I'd like to hear it. I have a lot of seafood so sid's sushi prob? Maybe with mansa my vassal, I can stay in caste system the whole rest of the game!

 

[awilder]

We left off last time with the second golden age expiring, and on the way to rifling while building cuirassier* There was some question of whether or not to pop the GS+GA for another golden age to help war prep+civic switch. I decided to do it because
1) If I go for domination, it's unlikely I will need another golden age (next one would be expensive at 3 GPeeps)
2) I'd like to get a GM before I get medicine, and he will cost 800 GPP, so another philo+GA boost will help.
3) war prep etc, and
4) This trade + other civic changes.



I waited one turn between golden ages to trigger the third one, so that I could take more advantage of the whip before revolting back to caste. I went into rep+caste+philo, and also:



this situation made me go into merc as well. Since Willem is in Mercantilism, I will lose basically all my foreign trade routes when I declare on Qin anyway. Merc will also help my war prep (Engineers) and also my GP popping.

I get rifling at somewhere around 1050 AD and have enough cash around to upgrade all my cavalry. I send a stack of 12 to the opposite side of Qin's land in order to set up a pincer war.

Here's a shot of some standard cav* action. Ho hum, how often do we see this in Imm games?



Note: Hari is starving itself for a GM (took something like 8-9 turns of 9ish merchants top pop him, and the odds were around 85% phew that woulda sucked). This probably lost me 5-6 cavalry. Definitely not something I would have done if I was concerned about being in a good spot for the war--the GM is a strictly postwar guy (likely post multiple wars). Also worth mentioning is that my techrate has ceased to be great (in comparison to myself in other games at similar dates) since I am mainly using constant-beaker teching stuff (not cottages). The goal of a strategy like this is to get the techs you need when it counts (mili trad + rifling, obv) and then conquer to up the GNP more. From what I've seen, this to some degree is the ubiquitous strat on deity maps. The way I think of it is, higher difficulty levels have a MUCH higher discounting rate on beakers (a beaker today on noble? similar in value to a beaker tomorrow. On deity? beaker today>>>beaker tomorrow) and this is why snowballing strategies like "cottage everything" are less optimal.

The staying power of the SME--"sell map economy":



And from a future war target! How is knowing geography going to help you defend against may cavs Qin??

Gilgamesh also comes through again to provide me some tech:



So Merc at this point might have been less than optimal, but hindsight is 20/20. This shot makes me realize actually that I should probably revolt back to whatever it's called - the+1 trade route civic. I should have done it long ago actually. Man, reporting on a turnset after you play it is an eye-opener.

I pop the GM and am able to ramp up the cavs effort in Hari.




Note that chemistry is in, and we are still in caste (MM has dem at this point but has not revolted to emancipation thankfully - I want to vassal him and get him out of it before I ever go in if I can).



Some more trades. My GNP is falling rapidly relative the rest of the world, but I am managing to trade away mostly nonmilitary stuff to stay in it. Willem doesn't have RP or Gunpowder so he's still in Cav range.

At the end of my golden age, I am ready to declare war on Qin. I have ~35 cavs at this point so it should be a Blitzkrieg. Here's are the stacks:




I revolted Nanjing here. There were only 3 defenders, and I only had one city to revolt, but here was my logic:
1) This is my stack coming from the opposite side - it will not get reinforcements so I wnt to minimize casualties
2) Want to minimize early casualties/damage in the war as well so my stack can move on to take at least one more city.
3) It was on a hill, hill+protective LBs give <50% odds against cavs sometimes depending on promotions... ridiculous.

I also had a "stack" of two cuirassiers to take Qin's island city that has been such a debaucle this game (galley w/ settler eaten - see above). It is defended by a LB and a knight so that should be enough.

I took pretty decent notes on the war, so here goes

Turn 175 DOW on Qin (T1 of war)
Nanjing is revolted before DOW---> take it with 0 losses (iirc the first battle was ~75% odds?)



Macau---> take with no losses (similar odds ~80% on first hit)



Xian, 3N of Macau, with one of the larger garrisons ---> hit it with ~8 guys. One withdraws, no losses, but not enough guys to take it.

Turn 176 (T2 of war)

SOD appears near Xian:



anyone know how to get it so the unit descriptions don't shoot off the top of the screen like that? It drives me crazy!!! Since the stack that attacked Xian is small and heavily damaged, I have it retreat into my city to await his SOD while healing a bit.

Take Hangzhou with one loss (no screenshot but this was with my main stack. I put a decent garrison in Hangzhou and sent a bunch more cavs through to threaten Shanhai next turn - see below.

Take the island city of Shandong



finally those crabs are miiiine!

At some point around here I pot my first GG and have him teach a cav in the stack that will be facing the SOD in the art of field surgery.

Turn 177 (T3 of war)

unhappiness is already a problem! Damn SoZ!



Shanghai ---> take with one loss. Runnin' hot!



Qin moves his SOD into my lands and starts bombarding defenses with his cats+trebs--err I only have one defender who actually benefits from city defenses... and he's a warrior! OKOK to be fair I upgraded him to a rifle for insurance. This "SOD" is not exactly diety-like, but I still fear it! Baby steps...



He gives me the time to amputate some limbs and such with my GG and have the cavs start shooting with their left hands next turn to wipe out the SOD.

Turn 178 (T4 of war)

take out SOD --- two losses (one at 95%, so now that double zero has come up it should be smooth sailing! harhar)

heal troops - move troops

Turn 179 (T5 of war)

events ftw, baby



Scrolls and tablets with explanations of Lagrangian mechanics or something? I think it would make more sense if it said "Scientists unearth a dinosaur in a lab coat - receive +975 beakers for physics". The other option was +1 modifier from all leaders for a bunch of cash. But, I don't think I'll be very diplomatic in this game from here on...

Etruscan --- take with one loss. no picture, but it's up north, taken by my stack that started from the other side. That splinter stack essentially took only those two cities, so maybe it would have been better just to have it start from home---> take out SOD earlier.

I think Qin long sice would have capped, but I want him gone.

Turn 180 (T6 of war)

MM gets physics first I switch to bio for some reason. Probably thinking bio will come in postwar at this point so I can handle the extra pop without getting unhappy citizens. Researching at a snails pace anyway.

Xian --- looks like he left half his SOD in the city. 1 cav withdraws, I kill a bunch of dudes, but there's still a treb hanging on by a thread in there.

more healing + moving elsewhere

Turn 181 (T7 of war)

Take Tianjin with no losses. This was the city in the former jungles East of my northern most city.



Give into this demand *shrug*



182 (T8 of war)

Two cities left, cap (Beijing) and crap on SW corner bordering MM (can't remember name)
F*ck up and misclick and move a big stack that was forking Beijing and crapo city, so that it can only attack crapo. Prolong war by one turn because I don't have enough attackers for Beijing anymore . Anyway, I overkill crappo city (which had all the workers + some navy hiding in it) and also throw everything at Beijing to no avail (3 losses, ~1 treb left defending).

183 (T9 of war, the end)

Take Beijing, end of war. Slapped Qin right in the copious jowl.

here's a shot of the effects of SoZ in a 9 turn war:



It's annoying how the anger stays there even when the guy you are fighting dies mid-turn.

I will stop the update on turn 184 when my cities are back to normal. Here's some state of the world posts.

Tech:



I had a before-war tech shot somewhere. It went from great to meh. That's a crucial measure of war effectiveness. In this game I didn't get a thing researched during the war (even with that event!) since I was at - gold even at 0 slider. During the 9 turn war, MM got like 3-4 expensive techs - Sci Meth, Communism, Physics, something else. Lucky for me he decided to stay off the rifling path. Don't get me wrong airships are amazing (I've really come around to them recently) but they only help on even-ish battles numbers-wise and str-wise. I think I can cap MM before he can get too many rifles.

I really needed to go to war here though; was maxing at 500-600 bpt, while the AI were shooting up to ~1500 GNP! (MM in golden age I think). Anyone know roughly how to convert GNP to bpt? I would guess 1500 GNP for MM (who has a lot of island cities) is probably around 1k bpt.

Sooo, all this talk about MM because he is the clear next target. I could easily take out Willem (9 cities, doesn't have RP, at war with Gilgamesh). BTW I sold Willem Gunpowder for like 700 gold. I need some reserves to get research back online after wars -- I'm still at - gold when at 0% slider. Gunpowder on its own doesn't change the odds vs cavs all that much -- a pinch cav does better against a musket than a LB, and much better when LB is on hill, and even if Willem gets to rifling by the time his number comes up, I should have a huge number of airships and a huge number of cities on his borders to hold them.

As for Mansa, he's researching fast, yes, but let's see what defenses he's packing



All the garrisons are like this - I can't even find what I'd call a SoD. Maybe there's one out on his islands just in case? I think a Cav war can cap him. He could get rifling in ~4-5 turns probably, but who knows if he'll do that. Depending on what happens, I might try to sweep him off the continent so I don't need to worry about cultural pressure. Like so:



Some questions for me:

1) trade mili trad to MM for physics before the war? I'm thinking not:

Reason for:
- Airship reinforcements come super quick
Reasons against:
- MM will get cuirassiers (maybe this is actually a reason for, because he will build them instead of muskets to upgrade)
- Cavs actually reinforce essentially instantly too. All my city garrisons in chinese lands are cavs, so I can 'chain' one cav at a time like water through a hose and pop a fresh attacker out the other side on MM's border ASAP.
- Airships may be somewhat useless until he gets to rifling - if a battles odds are high anyway, Airship is not gonna do much.

I have to consider this carefully bc it's going to be crucial in war success. I am confident in capping MM, but unsure of wiping him off my continent. This leads to

2) Try to kick MM off continent, or cap him asap, then cap Willem asap, then sail overseas and cap until victory?

For anyone who is still reading I would like some input. I think the game is a lock, but does anyone have a preference for VC? Since it has been pretty cookie-cutter so far, I am (like I mentioned) thinking of trying to go for a non-sloppy space race. Typically space race is a slipshod "I failed domination" affair for me and I'd like to try to get an early launch for once.

If no interest, probably domination/conquest to get it over with is in order. If interest, I really need help in spacerace tactics.

Finally,

Land:



Demographics:



If you look at save/empire pics: I need to make some major changes probably to builds etc. Don't consider my current configuration me ready to end turn. Suggestions are welcome!

P.S. how did Bismark come out of nowhere to get steel on the world!?

P.P.S. I really botched civics this round. Forgot to get out of philo at the end of the GA, forgot to get out of merc after astro. During war revolt would ahve been alright bc reinforcements were not crucial.

 

[Vaidd]

If anyone has general spacerace advice like tech order and such, I'd like to hear it. I have a lot of seafood so sid's sushi prob? Maybe with mansa my vassal, I can stay in caste system the whole rest of the game!

For space races, I usually beeline fusion after I build Apollo; those engines take a while to build. Don't bother with the space elevator--it'll actually slow you down. You need Robotics for it, which doesn't otherwise help you with the SS parts. Laboratories, however, can be useful in your production cities, but only build them if you're waiting for your next tech before building the next round of parts.

You might want to get counterespionage or even security bureaus up. The AIs like to sabotage your SS parts. In a game I finished last night, I was one turn from launching and the AI destroyed my Docking Bay. (And then turned around and offered to trade cash for Fusion. No, I don't think so...)

If you can get Sid's Sushi and Mining Inc, you can really turbocharge your late-game production. Just hope you don't get forced into environmentalism by the UN (+25% maintenance from corps).

 

[awilder]

Thanks for the advice Vaidd. Definitely the kind of stuff I need.

 

[shyuhe]

Check F8 and try to estimate if your starting continent is enough to win domination. Looking at the mini-map, I'd say no. In which case you'll need to research a few more techs so I'd just go for a quick capitulation of MM and use him as your guided researching vassal. Willem is probably better off dead. Then you might be able to finish the game by just taking out one more civ. So I'd go ahead and pick up physics from MM so that you can use airships. Cavs on rifles isn't very fun without airship support.

GNP is the total commerce generated from gold, beakers, and culture. So a civ going for a culture victory will post an astronomically high GNP. I sort of miss the old GNP measure which was calculated off of base commerce (I think).

 

[PaulusIII]

I doubt Mansa's going to put up much resistance whether he gets better techs or not. He's not much of an unit builder. To be certain you still need to hit him fast (before he shows up with, say, Infantry) but I'd say once Mansa is down and his research empire is absorbed the game is won.

How long do you intend the war to be? I think Mansa's going to cap pretty quickly.

 

[awilder]

@shyuhe

don't think the continent is enough - there are 3.5 cramped civs off of it out of 7 original. I agree for sure re: capping Mansa + eliminating Willem. I'm leaning toward taking physics now too + giving him access to cuir.
Haven't checked if he's willing w.out more research in phys. Thanks for the info on GNP; didn't realize it included culture!

@Paulus
Yeah, Mansa's defences are pitiful. Looking at my map above I think well under 10 is doable to get to his capital, and within 15 for kicking him off the continent. Biggest concern is probably RR -> machine gun. He could def get them within 15 turns.

I agree the game is almost surely won; just wanted to check if I had any viewers lurking who had a preference for space race over me marching over to Gilgamesh with cavs + frigates + airships + frigates. That seems kinda boring I also need practice with space race micro.

EDIT: It'll take me, say, 3 more turns to assemble stacks on MM's border where marked, so we're looking at 16-18 turns max imo. If it drags on I'll just deal with the culture problems.

 

[awilder]

I'll be a bit briefer in this next update since all the really important decisions have been made (except maybe one more big one).

It used to drive me crazy how every game report/walkthrough would get much less detailed at the exact point my games were derailed and theirs rolled easily to victory. This for me was always after the first renaissance draft/cannon or whatever war, which I would win, only to find everyone with infantry or worse in their garrisons afterward.

Disclaimer: I promise I'm not doing anything tricky in these turns; mainly right-clicking on enemy cities and advancing troops. It's the stuff that happened 60 turns ago that sets this up. I used to think I managed wars badly, but it was the teching and building prep that I was messing up. I think I'm still not great at wars; I've never managed any crazy catapult+axe vs musketman shenanigans using war allies/tricky war tactics like others on these forums can. I also have real trouble gauging when my war machine will sputter to a spot, or cruise all the way.

 

[awilder]

We left of maneuvering cavs to mansa's border while healing and building more cavs. In the intervening turns I reorganized my resource trades due to
1) I will lose my trades with MM shortly
2) I gained resources from former Chinese land.
This sort of stuff is key to combat unhappiness/economy woes for war.

Also I mentioned in my report above I should have switched back to free market upon getting Astro. I double-checked at the beginning of this round, and both Bismark and Pacal were in Mercantilism, which I half remember seeing, so I think it was actually right to remain in Merc for the time being.

Last thing to mention: I decided against space race as it would only be for practice, and there was no response really. So, I wouldn't need sid's sushi really, and therefore sent my Great Merchant overseas to Pacal's cap which was 21 pop!

I was still short workers because of Qin's terrible improvement management. Take for example:



Most cities had 3-4 tiles that were unimproved and more that I wanted to change. Anyone know why those farms on the West side are not irrigated? Shouldn't city tile have irrigation? They became irrigated after border pop.

I decide not to trade for phys from MM before attacking, mainly because I am half way there+ GS about to pop, which will get me almost all the way.
I declare on MM on 1270AD, turn 187 with two stacks:



Other stack is a little larger, as I scouted MM's largest garrison up there in Walata.

There were two things I did in this war that did not amount to attacking obsolete units with cavalry ftw.
1) March past Mansa's stack in Walata rather than attacking it in city. I wanted him to chase me and take it out in the flat. It would have damaged my northern stack heavily if I had tried to ram into it in the city. What happened was even better: MM got to "hide in cities only" mode immediately, so the stack just stayed there until I saved that city for last. I recommend this tactic, as long as there is no danger of their stack just marching past YOURS and wreaking havoc on your ancient garrisons back home. His SOD happened to border Willem, so even better.
2) I "chained" up reinforcements as I mentioned earlier. Make a cav back home, move it to a city with a cav garrison, wake up garrison, move to next city, etc. This is kind of a pain to micromanage, but man does it speed up reinforcements.

OK so the war:
-Mansa was willing to negotiate after 2 turns are over
-He will cap on turn five (after 3 cities out of his 14, what a pushover!)
-Instead of teching, say, RP>Rifling, then turning off research to upgrade all garrisons, he decides to tech electricity>fusion
-he never sends a counterattack, but tries to retake a city once. I had been leaving reasonable garrisons, mostly with reinforcements.

Here are the number of cities I took on each turn
0,1,1,1,1,2,2,1

And I lost 6 cavalry total. The 6th was my great general healer, who attempted (at full health, combat 2) to shoot a swordsman and got stabbed right in the heart. That swordsman was the last defender on the continent for mansa, and the GG was my last attacker. Oh well, live and learn!

I managed to boot MM right off the continent, which will be sweet for cultural issues.

I capped him for 340 gold+corporations (he wouldn't give electricity), and then made this deal



which puts my economy back in business!

Some other stuff that happened during these turns, unrelated to war:

1290AD, I cash in my great merchant:



Also in 1290AD, I can revolt civics again, so I do this



and revolt to state property. As an added bonus Mansa was the only one in emancipation, and I can get him out the turn after this turnset is over (he wants 1k gold to do it now, but I prefer to give him rifling for the switch). So I can continue spamming the uber workshops!

As soon as MM is a lock, I start sizing up Willem:



Now THAT is a SOD. 40 guys + a few more cuirassiers rambling around the area. You can see a Gilgamesh frigate north of the city bombarding it--they are still at war although Gil wants out.

Willem has basically no other scary stacks. Note: also as soon as I see I can boot Mansa, I start building some navy in preparation for overseas warfare.

OK that's everything that happened this round. So some state of world pics, and then a question of what to do next.

Empire:



VCs:



pretty pitiful land %. I will get more from MM's land coming out of revolt in 10ish turns, but maybe conquest could be faster than domination here?

Tech



So here's the thing about conquest--no one is really all that soft a target tech-wise. Gilgamesh is definitely the easiest in that category. That said, I have maybe a 25% power lead on the world.

Question:

Should I go for Willem next? If so, what is the best way to deal with that stack? I think the obvious choices are lure it out to my territory and kill it with cavs, or revolt it and kill it on the DOW turn. It's hard to predict how Willem will act considering he's at war already.

I guess I'm leaning towards having a stack of 15ish cavs and riflemen just babysit that stack while another guts Willem from the West, and then cap him asap.

I have a small-but-growing navy, and I can go for the overseas targets one by one. Gilgamesh first I think. I'm teching for combustion for that purpose now; unfortunately MM is no help with his island empire anymore. All he can get is Fusion in 5 turns, so I'll just switch him back to that (for example, he's 52 turns to radio).

Also, I just got the Kremlin (thanks, Mansa!) and only have 4-5 cities building a navy, so maybe I will switch to rushbuying it asap. If I do that, maybe I should just sail to war immediately, and forget Willem. Meh, probably not.


Last Question: do people cap faster to you if you have 2-3 vassals already?

So much for the 'brief' post. Having too much fun rambling . I hope someone is still enjoying these...

 

[awilder]

Oh I probably should have posted the military adviser pic. I have roughly 50 cavalry, but 10 or so are tied up in city garrison duties. I don't have many airships yet (~5) but more are on the way.

Fastest way to victory may be revolt to nationhood (need to wait one turn), draft down the former chinese cities to replace cav garrison with rifles (maybe send a few rifles to the SOD front too), and declare on Willem asap, before he tries for rifling.

 

[Vaidd]

Anyone know why those farms on the West side are not irrigated? Shouldn't city tile have irrigation? They became irrigated after border pop.

I can't open the save to make sure, but it looks like Nanjing is on a hill, so it can't carry irrigation. That catches me all the time, since it's so hard to see what kind of terrain is under a city.

After the border pop, the farms in the southern row of the BFC are now in your territory, and so now they can carry the irrigation to those western farms. You probably know this, but only farms in your territory (or, I believe, neighbors with OB) can be part of an irrigation chain.

 

[awilder]

Thanks, Vaidd. Did know about the culture thing, but not the city-on-hill thing.

 

[DMOC]

I agree - declare war on Willem. Land targets are generally better than overseas targets unless there's a huge discrepancy in military and tech.

 

[awilder]

I agree totally DMOC - even ignoring transportation lag, no reinforcements, and airship problems, it takes so much more micro!

Game is over, update forthcoming.

 

[awilder]

We left off taking out mansa, and not looking forward to grinding down Willem's stack of 40+ units in a city on a hill.

I spent a couple of turns healing+moving troops, and trying to replace cavs with rifles in garrisons. To speed that up, I revolted into nationhood (and police state--lots of war coming)



And drafted a few citizens in chinese lands, which were right on the war front. I probably should have kept this up, but I sorta checked out on the micro a little on this last round

I also kept mansa out of emancipation, so I could stay in caste system longer:



On 1400 AD, (turn 199 I think) I declare on Willem. I attack with a big stack of ~30 cavs from the West, while cautiously picking off stray units around the SOD on the East side. Then a couple of turns into the war, I notice Willem moved his SOD away from Delft, so I take it real quick:



You can see the SOD heading west there (cursor is on it).

The downside was that Willem retook The Hague with it, and set up a pretty bloody last stand there a few turns later. I lost maybe 10 units retaking it. One thing that threw me was that he got his cultural defenses back immediately upon retaking it, so it had 105% defense, and was on a hill, for 130% total. Even after getting airshipped, a maceman was decent defending against a cav. Long story short, I ended up wiping him totally off the map. I mopped up his other cities, and came back around to The Hague at the end. I think the war was over in 1490AD



Now I needed another target. Probably just to cap, not to kill totally. I looked at Gilgamesh, as he was closest, but saw this kind of nonsense



Thanks, but no thanks. Everyone was close to or had rifling, but Bismark still had pretty thin defenses, so I went for him.

I landed next to his SOD (in Munich originally, ~20 knights and such, see pic below) This was probably a bad idea cause he blew up most of his stack, but heavily damaged my smaller cav force.

The bigger one went straight for his cap, taking a coastal city on the way. After one more city (cap+2 total), he was ready to call it quits



in 1555 AD. I check the VC screen, and...



Hooray! So I end the turn, and...



Unfortunately, there's some kind of bug with my BAT video player. No vid of the guy with the flag and the red covering the planet for me



This doesn't happen all game - seems to start in the modern age or something. Anyone know about this??

Post-game shots



My longest game by far. I think it was to my play's benefit.

Score:



Almost sure this is my highest by a good margin, but with all the patching and such, my hall of fame is scattered about. 1560 domination; that's my earliest for sure. First finish in the 16th century for me

 

[awilder]

Thanks for reading! I enjoyed playing and reporting immensely, and I think going back over my play after the fact was a huge benefit for my play. Also stopping and thinking about future play out loud was obviously helpful.

Looking forward to another game soon! Probably not gonna go deity yet, but some day...

 

[vranasm]

great game! I knew you have it in the bag at page 2 ! You really outclassed the poor AI's.

Waiting for next one ;-)