[BTS] Nobles' Club 205: Darius I of the Persians

[Olafeson]

Deity around Turn 200 / end of game by accident

Oh geez i did overwrite my savegame file by accident. What a shame, the game was very enjoyable and hard.

Not sure if i would have won it or not, the game was on razors edge.

 

[Pangaea]

Ouch! So sorry to hear that. How did that even happen?

 

[shakabrade]

Interesting map.

Spoiler :

Almost got killed by barbs... They pillaged everything but Copper. I held but it is an interesting position I am in. I guess workers need more priority, now more than ever. I don't think I could have done better than this. I really prioritized defense.



But I have 2 cities, Axes and can now expand freely with Financial trait, which is basically like 30% larger early economy. You can always recover from early game with smart tech trades, but need to grab the land while you can.

 

[Pangaea]

Almost got to the end of this game the other day, so decided to play it out this evening. Won domination in 1505AD with 367000 points.

Spoiler :

Didn't take many screenshots, so this will be somewhat brief.

Libbed Military Tradition for Cuirs, and got to work. Attacked De Gaulle first because he was most backwards. Killed him off, including an island he had, where I later built Moai. Took out Washinton next. Killed him off too, so we wouldn't have to deal with cultural pressure and all that crap. Had a small stack ready to pounce on Joao, but I hoped he would peace vassal once Washington was gone. He did

Augustus was next, and we may have got upgrade to Cavalry by then. Don't recall exactly when we got those. He capped before we took Rome from him. Hannibal next. Some turns before that I had bribed Qin and his peace vassal Ramesses on Hannibal. The latter had been plotting for what felt like half the game, but never done anything except tech like a nutter. This softened them up a bit before we arrived. We declared on Hannibal and took a few cities early. I decided to take Carthage before he capped, to have less cultural issues. It was still a pain many places, and a city actually flipped to Joao towards the end.

The war on Qin was pretty rough. He had a ton of units, including Grenadiers and several big cities were on hills, with those grotesque protected units. Super-longbows behind massive culture isn't fun, not even for Cavalry Glad I attacked as soon as I did, before his borders expanded after taking cities from Hannibal. Had to attack with depleted and injured units, but we took two cities on the first turn of the war. Tough after that, and I had to change plans a few times.

Ramesses was a much softer target, and he almost got killed before domination tripped. Augustus took a city on the winning turn, and I was ready to take one more, maybe two if lucky. He had a former barb city on the western coast, though, so wouldn't have been wiped out, which may also be why Qin didn't want to cap.

Was actually one lousy tile short of domination in 1500AD, but next turn we got over the line. I was surprised at the teching speed of both Qin and Hannibal considering this was Immortal. They were going very rapidly. Thankfully none of the got to Rifling, but Qin got Steel during the war. Physics was around too, so I got hit with some airships in the last turns of the game. I did have access to Infantry in fairness, but didn't build any as I hoped the horses would suffice.

Gotta say, Thebes was quite the shiny place!

Spoiler :

Tough map. Especially all those barbs in the beginning. When I saw the starting positions of the AIs at the ending timelapse, I can understand why. There was so much room around us, and much jungle too. Breeding ground for barbs.

 

[Olafeson]

@Pangaea

Congratz on the win, also very nice write up.

About the loss of my save, i usually only have 1 savegame file / game so i am not able to reload at all. Also i don t like it when the folder is very full, also i play most of the time 2 games at once.

Usually i can still use the auto saves, but this time the autosave have all been erased. Maybe because i used CCcleaner, a tool that gets rid of files oont he computer.

 

[Pangaea]

Cheers, it was a fun but tough map. Much tougher than I expected when it was generated.

Sorry again to hear you lost the save. I assumed you save the game like probably most of us do, where you get a new file all the time from the new date, instead of overwriting the same file each time. I like to have many saves so it's possible to go back way later and check out something, and kinda use them for information later, as I give the files descriptive names. "1AD-200 beakers", "Lib next turn turn", "Declare on XXX", "End of GA", stuff like that. When I do more serious write-ups it's useful to be able to go back to previous saves for screenshots and other info.

Anyway, not a lot of people commenting in here, but I hope you are having fun with the map nevertheless. It has been downloaded over 30 times already

 

[elementoffear]

Cheers, it was a fun but tough map. Much tougher than I expected when it was generated.

Sorry again to hear you lost the save. I assumed you save the game like probably most of us do, where you get a new file all the time from the new date, instead of overwriting the same file each time. I like to have many saves so it's possible to go back way later and check out something, and kinda use them for information later, as I give the files descriptive names. "1AD-200 beakers", "Lib next turn turn", "Declare on XXX", "End of GA", stuff like that. When I do more serious write-ups it's useful to be able to go back to previous saves for screenshots and other info.

Anyway, not a lot of people commenting in here, but I hope you are having fun with the map nevertheless. It has been downloaded over 30 times already

Not everyone comments on game progress, mainly because we probably keep loosing.... civ 4 is my punishment

 

[shakabrade]

Actually...

Spoiler :

I stopped here because I am in winning position by my standards. This is your typical Pangaea Cuir > Cavalry rush setup. I have also claimed my own horses just in case that I can't trade for them. Early tech deficit was erased by teching Aesthetics, Literature, Music and Compass. Lost Music GA by one turn but probably because I have turned my research on when I had enough money, forgetting about the potential and probable money coming from the tech trades. There are many AIs and lot of money in trades after Aesthetics wonders failgold.

All cities but one have good to excellent whipping potential and 2 cities are at more than +10 . It is easy to recover on Pangaea with extra AIs. The critical point was grabbing the land via Fish/Pigs/Rice city and whipping it hard (6 - 3 cycle) plus some chops in other cities got us those settlers. Everyone hates De Gaulle and Washington.

The damage from the barbs pillaging all early food and forcing Axes being built would be (an estimate, pf course) no Great Library, failed Music push (partially my fault), all cities 2 sizes smaller, no Forges yet and 1 Great Scientist.

 

[Excal]

Immortal No huts / No Events
Space Victory
(but poor score)

Spoiler :

Like others had a lot of early barb problems
then attacked by DeGaulle
but successfully defended and offered tech for peace

Expanded to about 10 cities peacefully
then DoW DeGaulle with Maces/Trebs and took 4 cities (burned 1)
Tech to Cuirs and took 2 more cities and capped

Then teched to space

Tech Path: AnimHusb / Min / Bronze / Wheel / Pott / Writ / Fish / Aesth / Myst / IronWork / Sailing / Arch / Mason
Built GrLib / NatEpic in cap

Thanks for an interesting game

 

[MasterofDisasta]

I played through this one but didn't take and screenshots until the end. Thanks for posting the map!

Immortal No huts / No Events
Cultural Victory @1820AD

Spoiler :

I've been wanting to try cultural victory for a while and with all the floodplains and marble this map seemed like a good choice.
Won @1820. Would like to try cultural vic again.



Capital became GP farm.
2 cities north of capital became cottage cities.

DeGaulle & Joao both went Hindu and I joined them. I kept bribing DeGaulle into wars with Washington to protect myself. Eventually we got a 3 way defensive pact setup and that was sufficient protection while I put all commerce into cultural slider.

Unfortunately I got beat to most of the wonders. Lost Parthenon & MoM by >5 turns and even lost Sistine by 1 turn! I'm sure those cost me.

Lack of production really hurt early game. I struggled to set up good production cities.

 

[Tobiyogi]

After a third try, I am still agonizing how to get along with this map because....

Spoiler :

the barbs are heavily invading from all sides. good to read that other players got the same problems. I even consider to skip the gold mines and to settle my 2. city near the copper as archers are not enough. Fogbusting seems impossible. Maybe I can hold on long enough before I get the border pop for the copper, as I would like to have a city between the copper and the rice, otherwise it will never really grow. So Wheel, Pottery, mining, BW and mysticism. Even AH is questionable only for one pig.

 

[yyeah]

@Pangaea xD
You know that i dont like lake starts .... decided to sip.
nice map btw

 

[yyeah]

Spoiler 123 :

i canot capture the screen but iam on the way xD

i needed to open border with de g sad

Spoiler 123 :

jesus and ac washington + ac

 

[yyeah]

going to kill barbs iu didnt gp yet so hope for good trade with mc ... will be corp game

 

[yyeah]

1ad deity

 

[yyeah]

well 325 ad but i will break this map

 

[yyeah]

well 400 ad war with 2 gys ac was frendly but he vassal to hannibal .... can i take this game to the chem

 

[yyeah]

if i will win lib in this game that will be v funny xD, not bad,
deity 580ad
worst capitol i ever had

Spoiler 123 :

sip was a bad idea

 

[yyeah]

Spoiler national park ? :

situation looks like this
[

Spoiler 123 :

url=https://ibb.co/FX7skn0][/url]

Spoiler this 1 is better for np :

 

[yyeah]

Spoiler i will cannon de g :

however i dont know how will my eco survive to the tanks .... anybody ?