NC XIX: Napoleon

[Ai Shizuka]

War goes on, 1742 - 1850

Spoiler :

techs: demo - rep parts - steam power - sci meth and astro (Lincoln) - biology - rifling - rroad - communism (Vicky) - combustion

1760 - Switch to emancipation after millennia of slavery.

1770 - Here we are again, Charlie:



1772 - Florence captured.

1780 - Ulm captured.

1786 - Luxemburg razed. Florence and Ulm are bad, this one is TERRIBLE.

1794 - Pisa captured. 3 more cities left and Bismarck is moving in with one of his monster stacks.

1796 - Bis captures a city:



1806 - Prague captured.

1810 - And Bismarck deals the final blow:



I've tried to make him run around redirecting him between different cities, without success.

Declaring war on JC right away, with Bis' stack still around to help. Isabella has joined the party as well, with a decent stack of knights and cannons.

1816 - Ready for JC:



1820 - Kirkjuvagrl captured:



1838 - Cumae captured. JC talks about peace, but not capitulation.

1843 - Rome captured, statue of liberty inside. Still no capitulation.

1844 - Ragnar breaks free and JC has seen enough:



1848 - Switch to state property, I don't plan to run corporations in this game.
And Ragnar is next:



1848 - I don't even need to capture Nidaros, just killing some defenders:



Family photo now looks like this:



And tech board. Brennus is still way ahead:



Lincoln is very small. I think I'll build 5-6 transports to invite him to the club, waiting for Brennus to build the UN.

 

[Ai Shizuka]

And finally it's over. Monarch/epic, 1850 - 1900:

Spoiler :

1860 - Brennus has Broadway, Rock'n Roll, Eiffel Tower, Cristo, but no UN yet.

1873 - I start sending troops over Lincoln's island.

1880 - And ready:



1882 - Oxford captured.

1884 - Brennus completes Hollywood. I guess UN has the lowest priority for the AIs. Probably they know they are getting abused with it.

1884 - Canterbury captured and finally Lincoln gets his T-shirt of the cool kids' club:



I gift his 2 cities back and board my stuff to take a look at that fabled atlantean city.

1891 - Finally Brennus completes the United Nation and I'm ready at Atlantis:



Wich turns out to have a couple wonders and great people:



1900 - We are a big happy family and the cool kids/girls vote for their magnanimous master:





Demographics. No comment about Brennus' commerce:



I'm slightly behind in power as well



Kill count:



And score:



Tech board. Brennus built his Apollo Program at some point:



Nap's posse:




Fun game. War vs Bismarck was the most intense medieval war I've ever fought. After that, it was just capitulation chain-reaction. Luckily the AI with that huge chunk of free land was a reasonable guy like Brennus. I can't imagine this game with guys like Shaka, Sury or Cathy with that massive empire.
Main lesson learned: never underestimate Bismarck. He's been a huge surprise in this game.

 

[Razzlesnaff]

I hope I'm not annoying anybody by reviving a 3 month old thread, but I've been wanting to try one of these as I'm stuck on Noble.

Anyway, few notes on the custom options I chose. No random events as they usually just make the game harder for me, No barbs for the same reason, Permanent Alliances are always fun. This will also be my first "Epic" game. I normally play on Normal and I figured this is a perfect opportunity to challenge myself a bit. Anyway on to my starting notes.

4000 BC: I like the start, plus Napoleon is my favorite leader. I will settle in place. Cows are a step below pigs in my opinion but food is food. I see clams as well. I'm not sure about my tech path. I'm going to beeline Masonry and go for a specialist economy.


I'm noticing some weirdness with this game. I don't think I selected choose religion, yet someone has founded Islam in 3850BC. Also Atlantis of the Barbarians? Interesting.

1000BC:

Spoiler :

I've met Isabella, Charlemagne, Bismarck, Brennus, and Victoria. Isabella and I are always best buddies in every game, and this one shall be no different. I will start settling towards her and eventually when I can accept her state religion as my own.

I went for Stonehenge as soon as I could because of the synergy with CHR trait. But Germany got it. I however did get The Great Wall and The Pyramids. I tried for The Oracle but Charlemagne beat me too it. I was greedy. Atlantis proved the world was round. Atlantis seems to have a tech advantage as he built the Spiral Minaret

This was my tech path.
Mysticism -> Masonry -> Fishing -> Animal Husbandry -> Mining -> Bronze Working -> Polytheism -> Writing -> Priesthood -> Pottery -> Hunting -> Archery.

I settled my second city near some cows and horses. As you can see.

I forgot to right my tech path again but it was something like this.

500 AD:

Spoiler :

I started rexing a bit (not too hard, only five cities so far) and made one mistake in my opinion. Tours is in between the borders of Isabella and Bismarck. Luckily we're both the same religion and are friendly towards each other.



I've built the Great Library and I'm hoping for The Parthenon soon. Also I've met Julius Caesar and Ragnar.

Anyway my plan is to find someone that Izzy hates and crush him in the name of looooove. If she likes everyone near me I'll make her hate Charlemagne and crush him. Either way I plan to war at least once up to 1200 AD. I might try to go for Domination victory, if that doesn't pan out well I will probably switch to Diplomatic Victory after taking some land and increasing my population.

1200 AD:

Spoiler :

Ragnar declared war on me around 600AD. This was problematic and unexpected as I had no idea where his borders are. My military is weak at the moment. He attacked New Orleans with 2 Spears, 2 Axes and like 4 Archers. But the random number generator was in my favor. I upgraded the two warriors in Orleans to Axeman and ended up crushing his attack.

After that it's pretty peaceful until about 1100 AD. Julius and Brennus have teamed up to try and kill me. Sadly I built too many cities and haven't been able to build an offensive military.

So I got Bismarck and his Vassal Victoria to protect me from Brennus. And for the first time ever I've seen a vassal split from the their master. Anyway my Longbows were enough to protect Orleans again. I was scared cause I had 3 long bows vs. 3 Praetorians, and 5 Horse Archers and 3Catapaults. Luckily for me he just bombarded my city down to 0% which allowed me to build a couple long bows and Warlephants. We declare peace at about 1200AD.

Hopefully when I get Gun Powder I will try and take out Charlemagne.

1600 AD:

Spoiler :

Well, oddly enough I didn't meet Justinan until around 1800AD. But it doesn't matter. I lost. I think it's cause I'm not used to Epic speed. I spent most of the game building just enough units to defend or take back cities I lost. Bismarck had 2/3 of the civs as his Vassals. Diplomatic victory for him. I enjoyed the game though. I had a permanent alliance with Izzy which was fun. A first time thing for me. I should go back to what I'm good at, space race and cultural victories. I've tried to win via war and I can't seem to do it.

Also, Atlantis didn't really do anything... at all. He just sat on his little tiny island and built galleys all day.

Nobles Club was fun, I'll have to play more of these games. Also, I hope I followed the right format for informing people of how my game went.

 

[michmbk]

Razzlesnaff - it's fine to revive some of these old threads - brings back memories for some of us who played the game. I think your report is good - as long as there's a few screenshots, I usually find it interesting to read the reports.

As for the game:

Spoiler :

I remember this one and Bismarck can become a beast if left unchecked, because he's one of the best AI's in terms of proper military build and stack composition. He never amounted to much in my game because I stole a worker from him and stagnated him for awhile. However, that caused Brennus to become obscenely big so I had a massive brawl with Brennus if I recall correctly.

 

[JTMacc99]

Razzlesnaff: I remember this one as well. I had a really good time playing it, but only because I took a look at what many of the other people had experienced in the early portion of the game, and formulated a strategy to avoid some of the problems they had.

Also, I think you will find Epic to be very enjoyable. I think it's a lot easier to manage my wars with the extra turns available to put everything where it belongs.

Spoiler :

Specifically, I remember that I chose to kill off the Holy Roman empire at my earliest convenience AND to play religious nice-nice with the Germans until I was ready to deal with them. I almost tanked the game with an economic collapse in the early years, but I attempted to research a tech that nobody else had (Code of Laws) while the rest of them discovered 2-3 techs each. I got it first, and got the triple win of trading it for all sorts of stuff, founding a religion, and getting my much needed half-price courthouses up and running.

After that, I ended up at the stage of the game where you had 5 cities with double that amount. I was able to really crank out the research and got a nice advanced army when I was ready to go to battle.

 

[michmbk]

I agree on epic - it does seem to me to be more enjoyable a level than normal, recognizing it's perhaps a bit easier to war on epic than normal. One thing I really enjoy about these forum games is seeing how the AI turn out differently based on very small acts.

Spoiler :

I chose to worker steal and stagnate Biz, and he ended up a weakling in my game, while Brennus grew gigantic. Others left him alone and went after Charlie, and Biz then vassalized everyone on his side. One very small decision in the first 25 turns resulted in a drastically different game for me compared to others. Pretty neat part of all this to me.

 

[Razzlesnaff]

I've found it easier to war on Epic. I like the longer era length. Makes me feel as though my units aren't getting constantly outdated every 10 turns.

I also enjoy reading through these threads seeing the minute differences in peoples play styles and leaders they tend to ally with completely changing the game.