Emperor Sury - Pangea
- Thread starter M60A3TTS
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M60A3TTS
Ex-treadhead
Well the Zulu war is on. Turn 158. He hadn't plotted but we kicked it off anyways.
The Zulu stack in the west took a roundabout route to the north. I was hoping to catch it in the open but it took more time than I wanted so just declared and hoped he would suicide the stack. Two turns later true to Shaka form he did, so the western army can now all be sent east.
In the east Nodwengu is about to fall, but leaving it here for now. Unit losses Zulu 19 vs our 8, mostly cats.
The Zulu stack in the west took a roundabout route to the north. I was hoping to catch it in the open but it took more time than I wanted so just declared and hoped he would suicide the stack. Two turns later true to Shaka form he did, so the western army can now all be sent east.
In the east Nodwengu is about to fall, but leaving it here for now. Unit losses Zulu 19 vs our 8, mostly cats.
M60A3TTS
Ex-treadhead
What did you mean by 25 turns?
25T to win. They will capitulate as soon as they are willing to talk, usually.
M60A3TTS
Ex-treadhead
sampsa, how many times do I have to tell you to stop overestimating me. It took 60.
29t to vassal Shaka, 6t for Pacal and 8t for Charlie.
Unfortunately I have no time for a review of what happened right now, but will get to it a little later.
M60A3TTS
Ex-treadhead
25t...
25t
I was finished vassalizing Shaka when I got to thinking that 29 turns wasn't too far from 25. So not that bad. Really...
Hey
Wait a minute...
He doesn't mean win the game, does he???
I had to ask...
When the answer came, I could only ask myself What game is he watching?
Now why would I think that?
Well, the army that had just defeated Saladin now had to march all the way back east and help bring the Zulu down. I just did not have enough military to do the job with the stuff local to the eastern cities. And a 1MP unit needs about 15-16 turns to get from Snaketown to Eridu or thereabouts. So the Zulu were not going to be quick, and that is pretty much why they took 19 turns to vassal. I had made decent progress in the latter part of the campaign but it snowballed once the western army arrived on the scene. Again, latter day Roman Empire.
Had I had the desire to do a war with two AI at the same time, it might have gone faster. And Pacal wasn't going to be hard to deal with. He really is one of the most under-performing AI in the game. The financial trait gets wasted as he never builds an army adequate to defend himself. But I chose to stick to the one at a time approach as it was a pretty safe bet that Pacal and Charlie would stay on the sidelines while two of the Buddhist Brotherhood had it out.
Pacal and Charlie as you would expect instead confined their efforts to expanding into the great void I had helped create, and populated the map with a lot of weakly defended cities that would clearly make a great buffet later.
But, the Zulu were de-clawed and now at long last I could stop shlepping this damned army from west to east, then east to west, then back again. It was like a pendulum that was driving me freaking crazy, spending all these turns just to get reset.
It was at this time that I decided that for peace of mind, I had to go off-script.
It is better to ask forgiveness than get permission.
I finished the tech on Code of Laws and immediately switched every city from cats to courthouses, except the capital which got a market. All of them would get a 3-pop whip to complete the task.
The economy at this time made no sense to me with nothing but unit builds and City Maintenance costs at a ridiculous 166gpt. Cities Spiro and Snaketown were each 16gpt by themselves.
This all took about 6 turns to finish COL (1 turn) and complete all buildings. City Maintenance fell to 91 gpt. So with costs down by 75gpt, things finally made sense once again. I felt that now I could keep captured cities instead of razing them. That would help the cap speed and keep Shaka from settling his way out of vassalage. And yes, I have Shaka fixation.
The war against Pacal was a breeze. Multiple stacks came at him at the same time and after carving up his newest holdings, he decided fairly quickly that he had enough.
That left only Charlie who Pacal provided an eastern buffer for. So now, we pack up the army one final time, Thank God, and it's off to the luxury resort of Snaketown.
We arrived in grand style, gave Charlie the bad news, and sending four or so stacks at him, including two into his core, wrapped up the entire affair.
So what did I learn from all this?
Well, it wasn't so much learning new things as much as helping bring to light significant holes in my play.
One new thing was all espionage points on one AI. Never occurred to me.
Another...the importance of wealth over research. Before I thought of them as roughly the same value. Here we did not have a lot of libraries to leverage.
The holes are more numerous. Building the stable was not one of them.
Trading resources for gpt. Almost never do it. Actually forget the almost, I never do it. I need to do it.
Getting roads built to neighbors in the early part of the game. I've seen Henrik do it all the time. I need to do it faster.
I knew the horse archer was good, but not this good. I think though at least at my speed I still need that elepult help get me over the finish line.
We can debate the merits of the courthouse moves at the end, but I really feel it was worth it. Really after the western army arrived to help finish Shaka, unit count was no longer an issue. I even built a few settlers in case more land was needed to incentivize the AI to capitulate.
Finally to the whipping...
I could be more aggressive. I have run through a practice where I ran a city up to about 94 turns of unhappiness, so it's not like I don't know how to do it. But I have not done it much at all in game. It's usually no more than high teens of unhappiness. Whipping marginalized tiles is still a hard thing for me to get a handle on. Unimproved tiles, yes, 100%. But as long as it's a 2-pop whip, that is usually what I target over running cities into 40-50-60 turns of unhappiness. In this game, the economy again made me reluctant to whip anything that might include a commerce tile.
So what's next?
I probably need to go through another emperor game with training wheels on to see if I can avoid some of the bad habits the second time through. I am rather fond of the creative trait, so my lands aren't getting squeezed by my neighbors. But we'll see.
Many thanks to everyone who provided the extremely valuable feedback and special thanks of course to sampsa who apparently doesn't sleep more than a couple hours a night based on the frequent commentary.
25t
I was finished vassalizing Shaka when I got to thinking that 29 turns wasn't too far from 25. So not that bad. Really...
Hey
Wait a minute...
He doesn't mean win the game, does he???
I had to ask...
When the answer came, I could only ask myself What game is he watching?
Now why would I think that?
Well, the army that had just defeated Saladin now had to march all the way back east and help bring the Zulu down. I just did not have enough military to do the job with the stuff local to the eastern cities. And a 1MP unit needs about 15-16 turns to get from Snaketown to Eridu or thereabouts. So the Zulu were not going to be quick, and that is pretty much why they took 19 turns to vassal. I had made decent progress in the latter part of the campaign but it snowballed once the western army arrived on the scene. Again, latter day Roman Empire.
Had I had the desire to do a war with two AI at the same time, it might have gone faster. And Pacal wasn't going to be hard to deal with. He really is one of the most under-performing AI in the game. The financial trait gets wasted as he never builds an army adequate to defend himself. But I chose to stick to the one at a time approach as it was a pretty safe bet that Pacal and Charlie would stay on the sidelines while two of the Buddhist Brotherhood had it out.
Pacal and Charlie as you would expect instead confined their efforts to expanding into the great void I had helped create, and populated the map with a lot of weakly defended cities that would clearly make a great buffet later.
But, the Zulu were de-clawed and now at long last I could stop shlepping this damned army from west to east, then east to west, then back again. It was like a pendulum that was driving me freaking crazy, spending all these turns just to get reset.
It was at this time that I decided that for peace of mind, I had to go off-script.
It is better to ask forgiveness than get permission.
I finished the tech on Code of Laws and immediately switched every city from cats to courthouses, except the capital which got a market. All of them would get a 3-pop whip to complete the task.
The economy at this time made no sense to me with nothing but unit builds and City Maintenance costs at a ridiculous 166gpt. Cities Spiro and Snaketown were each 16gpt by themselves.
This all took about 6 turns to finish COL (1 turn) and complete all buildings. City Maintenance fell to 91 gpt. So with costs down by 75gpt, things finally made sense once again. I felt that now I could keep captured cities instead of razing them. That would help the cap speed and keep Shaka from settling his way out of vassalage. And yes, I have Shaka fixation.
The war against Pacal was a breeze. Multiple stacks came at him at the same time and after carving up his newest holdings, he decided fairly quickly that he had enough.
That left only Charlie who Pacal provided an eastern buffer for. So now, we pack up the army one final time, Thank God, and it's off to the luxury resort of Snaketown.
We arrived in grand style, gave Charlie the bad news, and sending four or so stacks at him, including two into his core, wrapped up the entire affair.
So what did I learn from all this?
Well, it wasn't so much learning new things as much as helping bring to light significant holes in my play.
One new thing was all espionage points on one AI. Never occurred to me.
Another...the importance of wealth over research. Before I thought of them as roughly the same value. Here we did not have a lot of libraries to leverage.
The holes are more numerous. Building the stable was not one of them.
Trading resources for gpt. Almost never do it. Actually forget the almost, I never do it. I need to do it.
Getting roads built to neighbors in the early part of the game. I've seen Henrik do it all the time. I need to do it faster.
I knew the horse archer was good, but not this good. I think though at least at my speed I still need that elepult help get me over the finish line.
We can debate the merits of the courthouse moves at the end, but I really feel it was worth it. Really after the western army arrived to help finish Shaka, unit count was no longer an issue. I even built a few settlers in case more land was needed to incentivize the AI to capitulate.
Finally to the whipping...
I could be more aggressive. I have run through a practice where I ran a city up to about 94 turns of unhappiness, so it's not like I don't know how to do it. But I have not done it much at all in game. It's usually no more than high teens of unhappiness. Whipping marginalized tiles is still a hard thing for me to get a handle on. Unimproved tiles, yes, 100%. But as long as it's a 2-pop whip, that is usually what I target over running cities into 40-50-60 turns of unhappiness. In this game, the economy again made me reluctant to whip anything that might include a commerce tile.
So what's next?
I probably need to go through another emperor game with training wheels on to see if I can avoid some of the bad habits the second time through. I am rather fond of the creative trait, so my lands aren't getting squeezed by my neighbors. But we'll see.
Many thanks to everyone who provided the extremely valuable feedback and special thanks of course to sampsa who apparently doesn't sleep more than a couple hours a night based on the frequent commentary.
NOOOOOO... 
The reason you didn't win in 25T is because you whipped useless buildings instead of units. At that point of the game you don't need to tech (teching CoL was useless) so just stay at 0% slider and whip units non-stop. Since you don't need to tech anymore, "economy" doesn't need to exist anymore. Even STRIKE!! doesn't really matter. You'll lose some units, but so what.
Just don't go there then. Your ex-Sumerian cities failed to produce enough troops, because you didn't whip them hard enough. All those non-river cottages and mines could've been whipped. Capital area is also very close to the Shaka lands. Whip ruthlessly starting from the point you got feudalism.
Well, at least you got a glimpse of what you can do on emperor. You probably now realize why xp isn't that important? 0xp guys can do stuff and they will gain experience. The amount of units is the important thing, once you can somehow support them.
May I suggest something peaceful, maybe even isolation? You need to learn some empire-management skills.
Anyway, congrats on the well played game!
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