Nobles' Club 224: Zara Yaqob of Ethiopia

[earthy]

@scheines if you beg they will sometimes stop plotting, but not always. if they don't stop plotting, you'll know you're the target if they move units into your land. I think they get messed up with the peace treaty, so whatever units they were going to attack with just route to your city instead.


edit: @krikav

Spoiler :

I checked your t50 and your city to the west seems a lot better. PH, no border tensions, etc. I think I got a bit too greedy wanting those extra 2 green river tiles and the FP

 

[Tobiyogi]

I had a great game with some special settings. Always War, NHNE, full trading allowed, Emperor.
Conquest around 1400 AD. Only little folks have been left alive.

Spoiler :

It was an intuitive decision that AW could go well on that map and I was not betrayed. Food, floodplains, stone for Pyras and HG, copper in creative reach, early choking of Cathy and Brennus guaranteed.

For those interested in AW, this is a great map for such a game.

 

[krikav]

@earthy

Spoiler :

Yes, I think so too, the extra land you claim by your placement is good long term, but the extra hammer and closer to capital is better short term.
And not drawing attention from the AIs before one is ready is also prudent.

Looks like you got away with it smoothly though!

 

[earthy]

to t95

Spoiler :

I went archery after securing mids in the capital, and then built a few archers because I don't trust Brennus. After that I went for fishing/writing and started filling my land out. Brennus got a bit cheeky here and Galley'd a settler to the north to try and steal my stuff. I settled Debre Berhan just as he dropped off the settler which blocked his connection, and I think that made him unwilling to settle. He just sat there while I settled Adulis, and then brought the settler home when we got OB.

Brennus also has this very interesting tile.. I want to settle the clam and take it, but if I do I'm definitely going to get border tensions. It looks like the capital should get it with the next border pop anyways, so I don't know if settling the clam is worth pissing off Brennus.

I sent a workboat towards Catherine and a warrior towards Brennus because I can see in the relations screen that Hammy is around. I didn't find Hammy, but the turn after this screenshot I meet Khmer to the south. I change plans from COL to sailing, and instantly get 18 gold worth of traderoutes with Khmer. A few turns later I meet Izzy's workboat. She has CoL, so hope someone else gets alpha so I can get a trade.

Brennus is also stacking a bit here but I'm not sure if it's for me or Catherine.. He is annoyed with her and his worst enemy is Hammurabi, so it doesn't really make sense that he would attack me right?

t95 land/relations:

And something I'm unsure of.. Should I take a guaranteed GS in 15 turns, or risk the G.Eng and get something in 6 turns? I kind of want to go for an Oromo/Treb push, so there's some value in bulbing machinery with a G.eng I think? I feel like going that route, trading for feud, going guilds->GP and backfilling engineering would be quicker than lib route, but I'm not sure. Philo bulb won't do much for me here since religion is too dangerous, but I guess Nationalism would be nice for drafting.. Tough decisions...

 

[scheines]

OK, part II up to 1410 AD:

Spoiler :

Finally meet Charly and Sury after 1000 AD. Did Sury absolutely botch expansion in anyone else's game? He has 5 cities, and none of Charly's have Khmer names. So I guess he just didn't settle much?

On the homefront I am gearing up to capitulate Cathy. Never really used Oromos or Muskets in war much... So I don't know if I need siege or not haha. I declare next turn, I believe. Nationalism helped to play a role in some quick military.

After a round of bombarding or two I pull the trigger. I have lots of Oromos and not much siege, so I accept that I'll need to take some losses if I want to take cities fast at all. I lose more than I kill, but I get the city.

With some decent production, (you can see a number of workshops on the right, I am back in gear ready for Moscow. However, the damn AP had another idea. I didn't defy, maybe I should've.

I consider turning on Brennus while the treaty is in place, but realized we had a peace treaty I put in place in case he got ideas while I capitulated Cathy. He has a substantialy sized stack in Vienne, so I instead just bribe him on Spain, hoping that this incites some dogpiles from the various other tensions around.

Success! I incite a mini world war. Charly + Sury declare on Izzy too, and Hammurabi starts plotting. His worst enemy is Brennus, and land target status makes me think it's Brennus in the crosshair. I'm a bit worried, but he is friendly with Cathy, which should affect his perceived disposition of me, right?

Regardless, with any luck, I'll be able to dogpile onto someone on my continent after Cathy, and the warring should keep teching slower.

Hammy again with the gut punch. I defied. Can't be going backwards. My treaty with Russia expires next turn, roughly, so I declare with the intention of capping her ASAP, because I can't endure another defy.

 

[scheines]

Spoiler Part III, finally caught up with my screenshots. :

I upgraded my army to a more 50:50 balance of Oromos and trebs. Took Moscow in a swift motion - on the hurry to skirt any AP problems. Look at all the wonders

Seriously? I was worried here, since she wouldn't cap yet. I only voted no - still some residual unhappy from the last vote, as you can see. I fall 1 guy short vs. Novgorod; lost like 5 40%ers in a row. But....

The war success seems to have pushed Cathy into will capitulate territory! I take the deal because I need to get a move on with other AIs.

Brennus has left this stack here all the while. I am wondering if declaring with Rifles in Addis Ababa will net me the best outcome. Not sure if all AIs are as stupid and overaggressive as Monty lmao. What would y'all do from here? I've got about 18 Oromos, a few riflemen, and 6-8 trebs. I will likely use the 1.1K gold to upgrade my Oromos, but don't know the optimal military strategery from here.

 

[scheines]

Spoiler Conclusion, pt 1 of 2 :

OK less detailed now because it's just so tedious trying to document everything while I'm thinking about what I want to do haha. I probably should do more though, probably could learn a bit that way.

Anyways, I picked up from the prior post, planning to tech to steel and capitulate Brennus with rifles + cannons. Hammy and Izzy are starting to really hate me, so Brennus and Cathy as a meatshield is a nice safety net if my army is caught on the other continent. Here, I grab a trade mission for a big batch up troop upgrades. Going to miss free drill I!

Hate trading RP away because it drops rifling on an AI's doorstep, but this was too much gold to pass up (I got basically 14 rifles from this gold).

Now that's more like it! Also, perfect timing, Hammy declares on Brennus 1 turn before I do.

Definitely worth the bit of time to tech steel - I was able to bombard 80 - 0 in 1 turn, then sweep through the defenders. Hammy's DoW really saved me a handful of cannons here - Brennus finally moved that big ole stack.

I move along the coast to Bibracte. No wonders, but to me it seems like AIs suddenly think harder to capitulate when you take their capital. Plus, it's only 2 tiles away from my stack, so it was the natural move.

Another one-sided battle. Makes me wonder if I teched unnecessarily far?

There it is! Just like I hoped - I can move onto bigger problems, like Hammy and the Roman + Khmer conglomerate.

My next big decision point was, who next? I hate trans-oceanic combat, but Hammy had rifles, and Izzy was just kinda far. I settle on Charly, since he didn't have rifles yet, and by the time he did I would have infantry. I slowly churn out a group of galleons and gradually prep to hit Brandenburg. Not a useful city, but it'll be easiest to hit on a water-assault. Don't want to hit anything else because ships have too long of transit time, which makes it tougher to reinforce the initial troops.

 

[scheines]

Spoiler Conclusion, Pt II :

OK, time to wrap up. So, here's the situation at the start of this segment; I really got into the war with Charly and didn't document much. I grab about 6 cities on the northern half of the sub-continent (second image below shows things better). I was really surprised how long it was taking to capitulate Charly - I don't know exactly the calculation but seeing as how I tripled his score, probably doubled his land (not even considering my vassals), and was winning a lot of one sided city assaults (besides my cannons of course lol), I was surprised it took as long as it did. This war really slowed to a crawl. I decided the war weariness was killing me and took a peace treaty for some petty cash.

Hammy is really running away with the tech lead. I decided that domination VC + avoiding him would be my play. For that, I figured I'd need to eliminate everyone else, or close, so I buckle down for some long stretches of combat. I really don't see how I can take him down; maybe I made the mistake of letting him get a significant tech lead, by not attacking him (i.e. instead I picked Charly?). Nonetheless, I press on vs. the remainder of the civs.

I took the 10 turn treaty with Charly to replenish my infantry and get tanks trickling in. From here, I was ready to go.

Also, Hammy and Spain plotted on and off this whole time. I was never too worried; Spain was so far and had no open borders with Hammy, and his worst enemy was the Khmer, and periodically waffled to Spain.

With the help of tanks, my war power really shined. I picked up the pace vs. Charly and was able to take all he had.

Flash forward again, and I'm able to do the same to the Khmer. I managed to get Cathy + Brennus to help me out in teching bombers, and bombers + tanks vs. rifles was a pretty easy cleanup of Sury. Not too much to show here - he only ever had 6 cities, so not much of a worry.

State of space race after the Khmer are eliminated. TBH, Hammy was not really going space race optimally IMO; he had super conductors before apollo program. I know the AI is crap at optimizing the end game techs, but I have to admit I may have been screwed if he was a little smarter . Or, on a tougher difficulty, I think he probably finishes 100%.

Well the attrition of war cost me almost all my galleons so my army is stuck . This was a massive time waster; since I wasn't thinking ahead enough to make a few transports. But, I have so much mainland production that I end up declaring war again without most of this anyways.

Hey.. that's actually... really close! I realized I have so much % pop of the world that I'll likely win via diplomacy before domination. Regardless, there's war to be done!

PS - more spain and babylon plotting as worst enemies then stopping?

Success! By 1 vote I manage to pull it off after taking 3 cities from Izzy. Have 80% of the votes guaranteed helps . Hammy was building spaceship parts like a slowpoke, and only got another one done since I started in prior turns. What the hell was he doing this whole time? My only guess is that he is more of a warmonger? I usually get nuked by him when I go science victory, so who knows why he didn't focus on spaceship parts more.

I was not very close to domination land area, but I think I'd have had it given the slow space race.

All in all a pretty fun one. Aside from some AP troubles and Charly taking so long to capitulate that Hammurabi ran away with the tech lead, I was pretty happy with how things went.

 

[AcaMetis]

About AIs and what victory conditions they choose to go for, it's basically completely random . I'm pretty sure there's weights, so say you're less likely to see Gandhi go for conquest than Monty, but I've seen at least one Deity game where a 20+ cities Ragnar got rolled over militarily because he decided to go culture.

 

[Eagle777]

A couple of quick questions.

In a fight between an Oromo warrior that should have +2 first strikes, and a Longbow that's defending a city, who has the actual first strikes?
I ask because when I mouseover the defender to see the fight odds, the mod shows only Longbow's first strikes.

I got a great spy in the rifles age.
Is infiltrating an enemy city with it still potentially useful, or should I burn him for the GA as infiltration loses its appeal?
"3k beakers" that I heard mentioned when discussing infiltration means less and less, now it's close to half a tech.

I bulbed 2k beakers for Printing press. That seems as high as it gets, and PP seemed very useful on this map.

Spoiler :

Game went as smooth as it gets.
I got very nice city spots right away.

Soon I DoWed on Cathy. She was kind enough to build the GL for me.
I warred using spies (to drop defenses to 0%) and swordsmen. Had a few turns producing espionage even. I capped her soon.
I got a tech lead, in no small part thanks to the GL.

Khmer were at one point annoying me with a demand for 650 gold and then plotting.
I was in the middle of finishing Cathy and had a large army, and they changed their mind.

I have a strong tech lead.

Izzy declared on Hammurabi, so I hit him from the other side. My rifles made quick work of his longbows and now I'm three cities deep into his territory, one of those being his capital.

Not sure how I want to finish this. It feels as if whatever I do, it'll be fine.
He won't capitulate just yet. Who knows why? I don't think I lost a single unit to him.

For now capping Izzy and then Brennus afterwards seems to make the most sense. Not sure what I should do with the pair on the other continent while that takes place (if anything). Maybe combustion, and give it to my vassals; that's how I usually take out the navies.

 

[Eagle777]

I am also considering several different plays from this point onwards as far as teching is concerned.

Steam Power seems good with a few big rivers on the map.

Then again, Kremlin and rushbuying seems good, too; even though I actually rarely use the option once I get it.

Thirdly, Physics and airships + GS would prove useful in just about any case.

And, just Fascism for another great person and thus a step closer to a golden age.

Steel I thought of skipping for now. Trebs typically have a higher chance to withdraw than cannons do.
But then again it's a step to Railroads (and Mining).

So I am weighing which tech route to take, and why...

Factories I think can wait for now, while I'm at war. Maybe after I have enough to conquer my continent.

 

[AcaMetis]

In a fight between an Oromo warrior that should have +2 first strikes, and a Longbow that's defending a city, who has the actual first strikes?
I ask because when I mouseover the defender to see the fight odds, the mod shows only Longbow's first strikes.

Oromo Warriors are innately immune to First Strike, so they should never get first struck by someone as far as I understand the mechanics.

 

[Pengu]

This game is nuts(Imm, no huts/events)

Spoiler until 1190 AD :

SIP as no reason to move. Fantastic land. Went ag, bw, wheel, pottery as I often avoid AH. Which worked great as there was no horses anywhere anyway. Started worker at size 3 in capitol to be ready with 2 for the cottaging. But a chop into a settler and settled 2nd city on the river between the fish and stone. Met Brennus and Cathy and found out where they where. Brennus had founded Buddism. My 3rd city was a bit daring as I settled on the river to the west 2 tiles from the corn, so not on the hill(otherwise i wouldn't get the other rives tiles to the west). Met Hammy and he had already started plotting 2400 BC!. Well, as he was already plotting it wasn't on me. I belined maths/masonry as I am a greedy one. Failgold from TGW really got me there fast. Chopped out the mids in my capitol as happiness was getting an issue. Then I trolled Cathy by taking the pig/corn city to the south just before here. There was almost no fogbusting needed as Brennus was to the south and Cathy to the west. No need for archery when I fogbusted the north. Brennus spread his religion really early and i adopted it right away to keep on good term with him. Cathy then settled a city in the jungle to the south only for Hammy to dow her and burn the city. That war would go on for quite some time and keep both occupied. and once again i trolled Catly by settling my 5th city to the NW by the pigs/fur/clam just a couple of turns before her. She started making 500 demands as she always does by she couldn't do anything as she was in a war. And her land was pathetic. Then Brennus the idiot hadn't settled the clams yet as my culture was spreading so I took my 6th city to get double clam. Then I got currency, and traded it for alpha from Cathy. And backfilled with all the other techs. Took monarchy from Hammy even though I didn't rally need it. Then I realized my pig, corn city to the south had too much food and there was iron to the south. A barb city had spawned so Brennus couldn't settle there. I settled my 7th city by the iron so I could share the corn and hopefully flip the barb city. And as luck would have it Hammy too the barb city only for it to be flipped by me. My ninth city went up north by the deer/fish and my 10th by the cows to the south. Met the other leaders in Izzy, Sury and Charly and kissed some butt by giving them techs like Currency, Calender etc as they where in the wong religion. Brennus was totally blocked in with 5 cities but he really liked me with the same religion. And then he got into a war with Izzy to keep him occupied. Cathy then founded Christianity and went into her own religion. She really hated me now . But with 10 good cities I was soaring away in the lead. By the time Cathy and Hammy made peace she was in no position to take on me. With stone and no war I went for failgold from CI, moi statues, and other stone wonders. Won music race and only the lack of marble/horses was a drawback. Decided to go for libing steel. Started my golden age a bit too late for reasons...
Went on a detour to nationalism as I popped a GE in my capitol so I could get the taj for free. The other AIs didn't even have paper so I was kinda safe . But this meant I went on a loooong golden age where I got too much money and timed everything horribly, I got out 3 GM and got failgold from AW, US in a very short time giving my 6k gold. And upgrading my army would only cost 2-3 k. So after libbing steel I went on for military science and printing press as I had a great scientsit lying around anyway.
After Izzy and Brennus had made peace there were no wars for a long time and then just after I got steel Cathy had started plotting. And I thought it just can't be on me. I was planing on attacking her in a few turns after I got MS. Here stack was pathetic with some war elephants, knights and trebs, maybe 20 units. I was sitting with 20 cannons and 20 maceman(soon to be upgraded). And then on the turn I get MS she dows me. Absolutely hilarious. Saves me the diplo hit and I whiped out here stack in no time. After taking a couple of cities she is ready to cap. I stopped at this points as i don't know if it is worth taking Moscow. It will cost me some extra turns as cannon army is slow. Moscow has TGW, the Colossus, the AP, CI and Ankor Wat./

 

[krikav]

@Pengu

Spoiler :

Yes, I noticed that too, this map is completely crazy. Awesome burcap with a super speedy start and a quick natural second city.
Cre really shines here too with the easy borderpops. Then offshore traderoutes with currency is crazy-squared.
Then to top that off with rep scientists powered with an absurd amount of food.

Big problem with this map is simply to handle all the good things we get for free.

 

[Eagle777]

Oromo Warriors are innately immune to First Strike, so they should never get first struck by someone as far as I understand the mechanics.

What if I have a rifleman that has 2 first strikes, fighting a longbow that has 1 first strike, attacking it in a city?

What the mod shows as fight odds is confusing (or maybe it is right?), in that it shows that rifle's first striked are not counted in such a fight and are thus useless

And I thought upgrading an Oromo to a Rifleman would be crazy good with 2 extra free upgrades

 

[Pengu]

Dom 1620 AD

Spoiler end :

Well, I messed up so the end time was poor. Greedy as I am I went and took out Cathy's little peninsula with 3 cities and called it. After capping her I went for Hammy. My little pet Brennus had one thing to do the entire game and he failed, peace vassaling to me...
I demanded tribute from izzy to avoid the bribe as they liked eachother. I took some cities from Hammy but after the capitol fell I decided enough was enough and went straight for Izzy when the peace was up. She had nothing as she had just got MT but not got them online. I settled for a few cities and capped her. But looking at it I should had taken more land from Hammy and Izzy as I was around 50% in land. I went back and got rid of Brennus and went up to 60% of the land. So I had to build a freaking navy of 25-30 boats to feery across my 100 stack army. By now I had infantry while Sury had nothing but rifles. I took 1 city and he capped and then the game was over. So frustrating spending a long time building ships and then winning right away....Insane land but a frustrating end. Had over 30 cities by the end.

 

[Pengu]

@Pengu

Spoiler :

Yes, I noticed that too, this map is completely crazy. Awesome burcap with a super speedy start and a quick natural second city.
Cre really shines here too with the easy borderpops. Then offshore traderoutes with currency is crazy-squared.
Then to top that off with rep scientists powered with an absurd amount of food.

Big problem with this map is simply to handle all the good things we get for free.

Spoiler game :

Yeah, I was a bit greedy with the mids but those 30 hammer chops are so nice

 

[AcaMetis]

What if I have a rifleman that has 2 first strikes, fighting a longbow that has 1 first strike, attacking it in a city?

What the mod shows as fight odds is confusing (or maybe it is right?), in that it shows that rifle's first striked are not counted in such a fight and are thus useless

And I thought upgrading an Oromo to a Rifleman would be crazy good with 2 extra free upgrades

If both sides of a combat have First Strike they cancel out, and whichever side has more (if either) gets to use their remaining ones. So in your example the Rifle would get 1 First Strike, and the Longbow would get nothing.

And yes, free promotions on upgraded units can be really good .

 

[Eagle777]

Thanks!

Quite odd that the mod gets the odds wrong when it displays them. I gotta check whether the odds differ depending on which unit I choose... (I'll choose a rifle with and without first strikes to compare)

That is certainly a display bug, then? That would mean that the percentage is erroneously displayed for those fights, but actually works fine?

I had a thought that perhaps it matters that the rifles were attacking a city, and that that might've given Longbows their first strike

One of the finest free promos in one of my games was Amphibious rifles. From a bunch of veteran Berserkers.
With City raider from fighting, AND +10% strength which the Berserkers get naturally to boot so Rifles did not lose out on that, either.

That naval invasion was like no other

 

[earthy]

Spoiler defeat :

Tried to beeline guilds-GP then double bulb chemistry but it came out too awkward. I missed my G.eng, and couldn't get a feudalism trade because the AI were so far behind early on. I ended up having to tech everything myself(feud,machinery,guilds,GP, construction, engineering), and the AI would usually just get it 4-5 turns after me.. if I had to replay this I would just lib steel, or trade Khmer for his horse and wipe the continent out with Cuirs.

Hammy and Catherine went in on Brennus around t130 and I saw Catherine's entire army die, so I took the opportunity to attack her around T140. I take my gift city back, then take the city she just captured from Brennus.

Fearing that Brennus would cap to Hammy I ceasefire with Catherine and take out one of Brennus cities so he vassals to me instead. It doesn't work and he vassals to Hammy. I redirect to Catherine, and after taking out most of her stuff she vassals. They're spread out, but I have 28 Oromo's and 10 trebs here. Izzy starts plotting on Hammy, so I head for steel while I wait for her to strike so I don't have to face his army myself.

Hammy's army:

When Izzy goes in, I declare and wipe out Brennus. At this point I have so many units that I can split my stack in two, and I'm wiping Hammy out hard. (1/2 army shown, other half moving for Akkad)

I take out Sippar and I'm one turn from taking both Akkad and Babylon when Hammy capitulates to Izzy. I guess I should have bribed her off with steel, but I didn't think someone second in score with 9 cities would cap like that(especially when I had way more war success, checked every turn, and he wouldn't cap to me..)

I declare on Izzy and bait her into taking Sippar from me, then wipe her stack in two turns.

I get a bit of gusto here and take 3-4 more of Hammy's cities. Got up to rifling/m.sci, upgraded all my Oromo's, but now they both have mass cavalry/cannons and they're a few turns away from infantry/artillery. Could probably just zerg them with police state, but I've made so many mistakes this game that I don't see a point in torturing myself to try to win this out.Going to take so long since I can't capitulate Hammy and 18 city Izzy will just be throwing units at me(and continually sniping any city I leave too lightly defended). In my mind I lost when I let Hammy capitulate to Izzy, so continuing this now really doesn't appeal to me

final screenshots: