Noble's Club XIII - Alexander of Greece

[Plinko16]

p.s. I will not use acronyms without spelling them out first time. Possibly like a lot of you I have only recently figured out that the "Mids" was like - "The Pyramids" man and "FIADL" is "Founded in a distant land", i.e. a religion for someone else - no Buddhism for you! File it under "things I didn't know, couldn't find on the web and was too afraid to ask!" so... without further ado, here we go...

Finally, someone following correct AP style for Acronym/abbreviation usage! (Always use full version on first reference)

 

[gcm4738]

Finally, someone following correct AP style for Acronym/abbreviation usage! (Always use full version on first reference)

Old habits die hard! Yeah - I can't write anything without defaulting to proper rules on style. Maybe I'm a stickler for detail? could I be inflexible? Most importantly - Could this be negatively affecting my CIV'ing?!

And away we go...

Spoiler :

Apologies that I don't have screenshots yet - I will figure this out tomorrow - Had a quick go and can't get it to work, but will describe events so far... 1) Initial thoughts and strategy, 2) Key events and relations, 3) Analysis so far and strategy going forward

1) Playing as Alexander, "Alex". Cheaper early barracks which I wouldn't usually build, but might now. Unique Unit, "UU" = Phalanx - super axeman -and general situation means finding copper and looking for early war a priority - more so than usual. Starting location, what can you say? Just about perfect, food, gold, AND cows AND plently of trees and river grassland - settle in place. Research: Mining, Bronze Working "BW" and Agriculture to be able to get food and chop units. Build: Warrior, Worker, Settler to get copper if it doesn't pop up in Athens... Scout in a loop around Athens for second city location and close neighbours.

2) Starting scouting - find Hammurabi "Hammy the Hamster" in two turns, he's just east and aggressive. Oh yeah - two turns in and I can see where this game is going. Better find Copper fast. Scout goes all around Babylon when it's small so I know what resources he's got - can see all his tiles. Then circles around to the south and in 3600 BC - gets eaten by 2x jaguars in the jungle south of Athens... unlucky. Luckily first warrior is up in a couple of turns. 3400's warrior starts exploring, Hinduism and Bhuddism are both FIADL - not by Hammy. 3300 - Bronze Working, "BW" finished. I don't have copper and can't see any - except in Babylon. Loud cursing. Now Iron Working, "IW" is a higher priority. Warrior checks out plains north of Athens, not too much up there except possible iron sites. Warrior has bad luck too and gets whacked by barbs after popping hut. More loud cursing. Stuck without exploring unit for several turns now. Agriculture finished along with worker who farms, chops, mines in that order to get settler/warrior/warrior/worker finished. Some whipping in here too, but because of lots of trees, am not finding much whipping necessary. Second city founded directly east of Athens to get ivory and gold and get under Hammy's skin. Third settler being finished while IW is researched. 2350, IW complete and no visible iron either. What? is someone having a laugh with this map? Playing as Alex with no metal? This could get bad. Warriors frantically searching last nearby areas north and south of Athens while Animal Husbandry, "AH" is researched in last hope for some type of military resource, otherwise it's Archery and settlers all the way for awhile. 2150.. AH teched. No horses, either... except for Hammy, I'm starting to hate that guy already. Have met Churchill and Mao now, no religions anywhere and no particular side-taking going on yet. However, I find iron up northwest of Athens near horses and a river, but it's a little far away, which means my third city goes on the coast SW of Athens where I find a nice vein of copper tucked amongst the jungles and bananas, I'm desperate and I already have IW to chop the jungle and this is the fastest way to get metal so I go for it. 2000 Hammy adopts slavery, so he knows now that he's got copper, Stonehenge, "SH" is built in a far away land "BIAFL", 1775 BC, Interesting random event - starvation in Babylon, for 10 gold and a little food I can get a +3 relations for helping Hammy out. Normally I wouldn't bother, but while I'm sitting with 3 relatively vulnerable cities chopping cheap barracks and workers to get connected to the copper, I decide to go for it. He'll just be that much more surprised when he gets it in the neck. 1275 BC. Three cities all connected to copper, all size 3-4, researched Mysticism for monuments - built, barracks - built, some warriors in case of barbs and now it's decision time. Hammy's got 3 cities. He's just finished the Great Wall - "GW" (presumably in Babylon, but it's not showing up on the 5 top cities/wonders screen.) Writing will be finished in 5 turns. So it's either expand, build for defense, turn Athens into great person factory, starting with library... or (I can hear you all out there crying out for Hammy's head! ) prepare for total war, using open borders to scout him out. I decide war. All three cities now pumping out city raider, "CR" phalanxes with the occasional spearman thrown in for protection against chariots (although the phalanx is ok against these so I'll only build a 2 or 3 to minimise damage to the main battle force.

3) 1000 BC. Three cities still at 2-4 pop, 8 phalanxes, but that will be up to 12+ with a couple of spearmen in a few turns. Have scouted Hammy's 3 cities - 2 Bowmen apiece. He's got a chariot now, but I'm not too worried. His bowman UU worries me a bit. I don't want to wait long, but I also want to make this complete. Babylon must fall - 100%. Anything else will be a loss for me. If I can go on from there to wipe him out great. I'm going to be a little conservative here and get a stack of 18? phalanx with 3 or 4 spearmen and go right for the throat, possibly going on from there. This should be ready to go in 15-20 turns. I don't want to screw this up. I have the element of surprise because he is pleased with me, this will have to be the ultimate bronze age blitz, take Babylon, cut off his copper and horses and as fast as possible.

Analysis so far.
Good: Three cities on strong locations - although Babylon is already crowding city no. 2. Have plenty of food, hammers - trees for chopping, gold luxuries (not needed yet). All resources worked, hooked up if required, plenty of gold/research due to lots of river tiles and several other good city sites available both north and south, with fish, iron, horses, marble, gems... Barracks in 3 cities are pumping out CR phalanxes until Hammy is dead. Do you hear me? DEAD! Have met Hammy, Churchill, Mao - no religions or particular alliances yet. Have one tasty neighbour with the great wall ready to be conquered, but...
Bad: He's got a really good defensive archer UU. And I've got no wonders, no use of specialists or use of philosophical trait, expansion now stopped for war preparation which will also hinder economy/research when I declare war, "DoW" Hammy. Don't think there is any risk of other civ's joining in or getting grumpy yet, but that is a risk. No naval units or even fishing boat to explore coast. Do not know where other civ's are, but they're not in the immediate neighbourhood. It took me a little longer than I would have liked to get to this situation because of losing my scout and warrior. Otherwise, city 2 would have gone on the copper and city 3 would have probably been up north to get horses or iron, but it's not a bad situation. The key here will be total focus on swarming Hammy with a massive stack of doom, using the element of surprise to my advantage.

I'm reasonably happy, but realise that I have to fight big, fight hard and fight as soon as I can for this to work.

 

[Single Malt]

No spoilers here, cos no specific map/game info, just a quick question. It regards my current game here. I am currently embroiled in a war, against what must be the Statue of Zeus. Its late game, and I have up to 7 angry faces for war weariness, and the brothers of the faith penalty. I just got the quest for the holy city. Is the reward for that quest worth the damage to my economy? I would have to capture another 8-10 cities to make continuing the quest viable, ie, remove that civ from my continent, and relegate them to a few weak island cities. Or is peace and recovery the better option? Or should I revolt to Hereditary Rule and lose the Universal Sufferage production bonus? With current production levels the war, if continued, could be over in 30-40 marathon turns. Its about 1750 AD, and I have infantry, and the military tech lead. I am also pretty sure the holy city has a shrine.

 

[pigswill]

A standard technique for dealing with war-weariness (WW) is to build theatres (and maybe colliseums too) and increase the culture slider. With theatres each 20% culture gives 2 happy faces so 40% culture is four happy faces, usually enough to ward off starvation. Colliseums add 1 happy face per 20% culture so with both you get +6 happy for 40% culture. If you've got a military tech lead and anticipating victory fairly soon then you don't need research. I wouldn't bother swopping to Hereditary Rule (HR).
If the quest for the holy city is compatible with your intended victory then you go for it, otherwise ignore it.

 

[vicawoo]

Most people use the culture slider at that point. With a theatre and broadcast tower, that's +3 happiness per 10%.

You can also trade for resources.

 

[Single Malt]

Cheers for the advice. I didn't consider the culture slider. None of my military production cities have a theatre, same goes for my hammer poor old commerce cities. Guess I better rectify that

 

[Single Malt]

Oh, and I have decided on space, as I have too many enemies for diplo, and can't be bothered with the micro management of an intercontinental invasion. When the war is resolved I will gain naval superiority, and turtle to space. Unless a certain someone is vying for cultural, but I'll be ready

 

[gcm4738]

at a key point in the game

Spoiler :

Having had a good night's sleep after round one and before starting round two I thought I would add a few more thoughts about the current situation.

This map seems designed to encourage/teach the benefits or even the *necessity* of an early axe-rush. Plenty of resources including copper are available to us. We have an aggressive neighbor who needs to be destroyed and the axeman is our UU. I am nearly prepared for this - and would have been fully prepared now - at 1000 BC if I had found the copper earlier. I feel I'm just a bit late, and on a higher difficulty level this would be much more of a problem.

Timing and preparation is everything. Right now I am totally focussed on preparing for and then waging war. No unneccessary techs have been researched, no unneccessary buildings or other units have been built (could argue about the barracks but that was because I hadn't found the metal yet, and the military advantage at half cost due to my Aggressive trait mitigates the fact that I built them instead of axes/pikemen or even swords at this point.)

I want a fairly large stack to ensure complete victory - I not only want to take Hammy's capital, but his second and third cities as well. I've changed my mind on this a little. If he happened to end up with 1 or even two sad cities left (because he spawns a settler for survival) it wouldn't be the end of the world, but it would be a botched operation that would have to be finished off sooner rather than later. His capital and the city to the north with horses are the minimum acceptable victory at this point.

While I need to have a large stack for this - 20+ units say, just a little more patience is required. Right now I am getting stronger at a rate faster than he is. I am chopping my UU and it's coming out of barracks, so even if he's building ONLY military units (unlikely), he's falling behind - the only thing that could cause problems here - other than his Bowman - is if he gets Horse Archers which I think is unlikely in the next 500 years. He's spent a lot of hammers on the Great Wall (hammers that weren't spent on military) which is going to look great on my mantle after I take it away from him and grind his face into the dirt with my boots.

Speed kills in this game. There's a general game philosophy that I'm trying to capture here. It's not just the RATE that my Civ is getting stronger that's important it's the rate that that rate is increasing - i.e. my ACCELERATION that's of main importance.

This philosophy means I've got to get him beat as quickly as possible to take his cities, get them up and running as part of the Greek empire and move on to expanding again as soon as possible. Maybe this all seems obvious - you can read it and go - well yeah - of course. But in my many games on different levels this seems to be a real differentiating factor. Gone are the days when I would happily think, I wonder if I should build a library here and a granary there while I build units over here - don't they look cool... and if I got the Oracle I could get Monarchy... and so on. If you want to win this game, you've got to streamline everything - total efficiency. Know what you're doing, know why, know the risks and be totally committed.

If you're not planning someone else's demise you can be damn sure someone else is planning yours. That and if you're not expanding to the maximum limits that your economy will allow all the time (and all the time working to increase the limits that your economy will allow!), whether peacefully or through war, you are losing - you just don't know it yet.

That being said - on to round 2 - then I get to go back and read the rest of the thread I think. Boy I really hope I don't look like a dork.

 

[gcm4738]

Still can't quite figure out the screenshot thing. At this point my empire is large enough that it would take 3 shots to show the whole thing anyway. So I'll just describe where I'm at and also stop to try and consolidate my thoughts because I have a feeling I'm at a place where I usually go wrong. I'll attach a save if anyone wants to have a look though

Spoiler :

Quick (?) summary of 1000 BC - 505 AD. At first I thought this was going to be a lot of play to sum up in a section, and in a way it is I suppose, but here goes. 1000 BC I was churning out the phalanxes. Barb cities had popped up both north and south of Athens. Hammy had taken advantage of open borders to send a chariot and axe around behind Athens so before I declared war on him I left 3 or 4 units in each of my 3 cities which is probably good practise anyway, but I might have risked send more out to attack. Hammy had founded a 4th city but seemed to be floundering a little bit. I guess because of all the work put into the Great Wall (GW), plus a lot of jungle tiles. Anyway in 395 BC I was ready. My stack was 16 phalanx + 2 spears - both smaller and later than I wanted but I checked the diplo screen one last time. Made a final trade with Churchill, Meditation for Polytheism, since he and Hammy had gotten a little friendly. Then I DoW'ed Hammy when he was still pleased. 350 BC Babylon falls and really that was pretty much the end of Hammy. I marched north and took Akkad in 275 BC, Dur-Something-or-other in 140 BC and in 95 BC Nippur and Hammy was out. I had the GW plus 4 new cities. Lost less than half my phalanxes and stationed 2 or 3 in each city along the way to fortify and heal. Actually in hindsight the war was just about perfect... for this level anyway. I couldn't have done this on a higher level I don't think. No one else dogpiled on me. Churchill is still -1 (You wiped our friend off the map!) but doesn't seem too bothered really. I also took the barb city to the north and kept it and a little later settled a good site on the east coast with more gold, clams and near iron which I'll need eventually. I really need the gold - like now. I am way overexpanded. Started to build libraries, graneries, monuments (if necessary), work boats, lighthouses, and workers for cottages, farms, etc. because by now I was running 10% science. Still am in fact, but more on that later.

So I rapidly expanded (REX'ed) through war and one settler and now have 9 cities all growing to the happy cap. Athens and Babylon already there. While this was going on the Pyramids, Oracle, Great Lighthouse (GL) and Colossus were all built on the other continent. Someone over there is wonder hogging. Wonder who it is? (oh hahahaha). Anyway, I've got 3 or 4 phalaxes in each city. About a dozen workers still busy and will be for a while. I am struggling in a couple of the cities for stuff to build due to low tech rate. Don't want more units - can't afford them. Can't afford anymore buildings. Was seriously close to building settlers in Athens and Babylon just to stop growth and sit on them for later.

Then Mao offered a trade of Math for my Alphabet. This seemed like a pretty good trade to me so I went for it. Ahhhh... just a little breathing space in Athens and Babylon now to build aqueduct and then the Hanging Gardens in Babylon to start leveraging my Philosophical trait finally. (oh yeah - I did build a library there and assign a scientist ASAP, but got a Great Spy of course due to the GW. Another GP due to pop in a few turns - hopefully a scientist for the academy in my top science city - Athens of course.) I have never had a Great Spy before so I wasn't sure what to do with him. I haven't been able to adjust the espionage slider at all due to general economic, um, well going down like a lead zeppelin about sums it up. So I sent him on an infiltrate mission to Beijing which seemed to me like the merchant trade mission except I got mega espionage points instead of gold.

Oh - and despite chopping near Babylon, I got beat to the Hanging Gardens. Although the extra pop would have greatly improved my economics and the great engineer points were much desired the money allowed me to bump my science back up for enough turns to get Aesthetics. Now the Parthenon is being built in Athens for the great person (GP) boost, but I bet I get beat to that too. Statue of Zeus is going up in Babylon, I like the (enemy war weariness) effects better than the Shwadagon-whatever-it-is. Although that being said, I could probably use a great prophet more than a great artist and there may be some benefit in running theocracy since I'm a Confucian along with Winston (Winnie) and Mao. Actually I need to build some monastaries and spread the religion in Greece so I can build more monastaries for the science now I think about it.

I'm frantically researching calendar for the cash right now and hoping to either trade or steal currency from Mao with all the espionage points I've got on him due to the Great Spy mission. Salivating over the prospect of getting the Great Library (GL) in Babylon, but that is a little ways off yet. Might stick it in Athens instead. Can't quite work out which would be the better GP factory. Either will work. City specialisation is starting to come along, although other than Athens and Babylon, I've got one (struggling) production city (Sparta) which isn't growing very fast cause I'm working a gold tile which I desperately need until I can start some plantations and get currency for markets, +1 trade route etc.

The Good: Axe rush war on Hammy/1 barb city was about perfect. Have now blocked off the whole middle of the continent, trapping Mao and Winnie in the South. Still have all the north to expand into when economy recovers. Imminent danger of being attacked seems low. Barbs not a problem due to GW and Winnie and Mao seem content to build and expand in their quadrants. Mao is running pacifism, and neither has great land. I have access to all the resources I need with more up north. Think I can get just about everything available at this point exept gems and stone. and even gems is available south of Athens when my economy recovers. Despite economic problems, I'm still competitive in tech and can possibly due some trading in the next round to fill gaps. Worker to city ratio seems about right. I'm developing tiles just in time for them to be worked. Chopping and still very occasionally whipping when necessary. Does not appear to be an immediate threat to me from either Winnie. Mao or barbs.

The Bad: Economy still struggling. Need to get teching for longbows, great library, etc, wonders and specialists to leverage Philosophical trait. City specialisation not particularly well defined yet. Still no navy - none at all. Still some unexplored territory in extreme north and south. Someone overseas is cranking out a lot of wonders. As my economy starts to come online and I begin to dominate this continent an Winnie-Mao pigpile on me becomes increasingly likely. May have to start preparing for limited war against one or both of them to "prune them back" a little as it were. But not yet. Running out of trees.

In the next round I need to address the "bad" points above.

What am I forgetting here?? There must be something...

 

[vicawoo]

There's no need to have a lot of units in non-border cities. If you're hurting that badly for cash, build/chop/whip courthouses, build research, trade resource for gold, cottage every grassland tile.

 

[pigswill]

The Noble Epic of Alexander 1440ad.

The story so far....

Spoiler :

At the end of the last round (1020ad) I'd just learned steel. I switched research off for a few turns and upgraded a stack of trebs to cannon. I also switched to theocracy and built some maces. The plan was to subdue the continent by systematically vassaling the AIs. Diplomatically things were ok because of shared religion and also because I'd been selling off non military techs for bargain prices.
In 1060 I declared on Hammurabi. I'd split my army into two smallish stacks so I could capture cities in parallel. Its a trick that works fine if you've got enough of a tech lead to have relatively strong units. Captured Babylon (1090), Sippur (1120), Nippur (1140), Dur-Kirugulza (1150), Borsippa (1200), Mari (1200 too) and Opis (1250). At this point Hammurabi finally saw sense and capitulated. Losses for the campaign:2 cannon and a trireme.





I essentially kept the two stack system for the rest of the wars, gradually adding units to both. They both eventually got great general (GG) medic3 units to keep them healthy and keep the attack rolling.

Mao proved sterner stuff however. I declared on him in 1285 after spending a few turns healing and getting stacks to their starting points. Captured Hangzhou (1295), Macau (1295 too), Nanjing (1315), Xian (1330), Beijing (1360 (yum, pyramids)). Did he quit? No, he did not! Captured Chengdu (1380) and he eventually had enough and capitulated at this point. I lost 4(!) cannon and a crossbow - durned CG3 LBs! (city garrison 3 longbows).

Bit more moving of units. By way of a change I thought I'd try sailing a stack around to London. Finally got units in place and declared on Churchill in 1415. I asked Ham to attack Canterbury while I set Mao the task of capturing Coventry, these being the nearest English cities to their territories. Captured Hastings (1425), landed a stack and captured London (1435). To my surprise Mao actually captured Coventry between turns (1435-40) and to my greater surprise Churchill capitulated rather tamely even though he'd only lost three cities. Whatever happened to "We shall fight them on the beaches etc etc" ? Losses for the campaign: 3 cannon (more CG3 LBs (durned protective leaders))

Not that I'm complaining mind you. I now have quite a few cities and the continent is mine!



Not that it was all just warfare. I wanted to explore the world and also win the economics race for a free Great Merchant (GM). To achieve this I went for guilds > banking > economics (free GM,woot!)> compass > optics then built caravels and sent them out into the world, one of them containing my GM to complete a trade mission (TM). It may not pay as much long term as settling the chappie but its money now, not money later. I thought I'd have problems due to religious differences but gifting a free tech on first contact (+4 diplo though it fades) was enough for Ragnar to agree open borders and a few turns later the GM TM completed and I was 1950 gold richer. I've managed to explore much of the world and meet the rest of the gang, gaining circumnavigation bonus on the way (1345ad). I picked up drama and music in trade along the way.

Meanwhile back at home I researched astronomy for galleons and frigates and military science for grenadiers. I upgraded my CR3 maces (city raiders) to grenadiers. I kept the CR2 maces as they were because maces can gain CR promotions while grenadiers can't, as soon they get up to CR3 they get upgraded however. I then went for scientific method heading for communism so I could switch to state property, which is excellent for cutting costs if you're not bothered about corporations.

I'd had a GS (great scientist) lurking about for ages. I ended up using him for my first (and probably only) golden age. By a fortunate coincidence this enabled my next GS to emerge just in time to lightbulb 80% of scientific method. So I'm now about seven turns from communism.

I'd noticed from the city/wonder screen that Beijing held the pyramids. I launched my golden age immediately after Mao capitulated, which meant I could change civics without anarchy and could swop to US(universal suffrage) as well as free religion, caste system and mercantilism. I thought about adopting representation but opted for US so that I could spend a bunch of cash rushing buildings such as courthouses, theatres and granaries in my newly acquired cities.

Dreams, plans and ambitions: (contains map of rest of the world)

Spoiler :

There's a lot of land out there aind a lot of it still unclaimed (except by the indigenous nations and tribes who are rather patronisingly described as 'barbarians'). Space is a long way away, not difficult with my land area and economy but it would take some time to achieve. Diplomacy would require United Nations and an independent to vote for me. Religious victory is a definite possibility as I dominate the confucian AP. I'd simply have to either settle a city with a confu missionary and gift it to the nearest civ, or sneak some missionaries in or just conquer a city, convert it to confu and return it in a peace settlement. But its a bit cheesy imo( in my opinion). Cultural is another possibility but again it would take time, probably as much as a space victory, as I haven't aimed for it.

But I've got a decent army and a respectable tech lead:


According to the diplomacy/trade screens Mansa's got three cities, Ragnar's got six (including one he captured from Mansa) and Louis's got eight. I've got an army and a navy in London. I've got another flotilla (2 frigates, 6 galleons) on the west coast and a spare army that just needs marching over there. Conquest it shall be.

Take on Mansa first with the London army. By the time he's been conquered I should have my other army aboard the western fleet so they can invade Nidaros while the London army pinches Rag's city in Mansa land. Once Ragnar's dead or vassalised (either will do) I'll have two armies ready to roll up Louis, starting at either end and meeting in the middle.

That's the theory anyway.

 

[pigswill]

The Noble Epic of Alexander 1580ad.

Spoiler :

That went pretty much as planned. Mansa capitulated after one city. Ragnar was a bit more stubborn and held out until I was just about to capture cities 3 and 4. Louis on the other hand was a wuss. I'd captured Paris and another city and he folded, my second army didn't even have time to land.





Any conclusions? You don't need to whip. You don't even need to chop every tree in sight. You don't actually need an early war. My first war started in 1060ad and was effectively one long war until the end.

What you do need however is planning. The starting point is getting yourself 6-8 cities to get yourself established. If you can do that without an early war then that's fine. About the only times its worth going to war early is when you're hemmed in and can't get your initial cities or when you're next to an established warmonger (like Alex!) and you strike pre-emptively.

Once you've got your initial empire you need to think about which victory you're going for. That depends on the map, the neighbours, your leader and civ and also what kind of victory you want. That's basically it.

Oops, forgot to save the victory. Oh well. Nothing really had changed, a few cities changing hands, that's about all.

 

[gcm4738]

Hello all! I finally figured out the screenshot thing. (Had to dowload the driver for my keyboard to "enable the full suite of features" or something... apparently having all your keys functioning is the part of the "full suite" )

Anyway - I played kind of "1.5" rounds yesterday. i.e. 500 AD to about 1300 AD at which point I had kind of lost focus and gotten into push-the-enter-key zombie-mode. I wasn't checking constantly on Mao and Winnie and I would have had a hard time defining/defending my strategy, so I quit for the day and came back to it today. 1300-1510 AD was much more focused although I don't think I made any huge mistakes yesterday, I wasn't focused on much other than expanding/building/starting to specialise cities...

Oh - and one question, actually two. How do you check "We already have too much on our hands right now" or whatever it is to see if AI is in war preparation mode? And how do I know what my "power rating" is? Thanks.

Spoiler :

It's great to go back and read everyone else's posts today - quite a lot of variety in strategy! I'm surprised some were hesitant to take Hammy on early - I usually have to work at being agressive myself... then again I didn't wipe out the whole continent either like pigswill.

I started to address the points I was worried about in my last post. Thanks vicawoo - yes I did exactly as you suggested and got my economy back reasonably healthy again. I also expanded and settled all the territory up north, including the large island to the NE of our continent. Just in time too, because Winnie stuck a settler on the little island next to me and Mao stuck a little city on the plains in the middle of my empire as you can see in the shots below...

Athens and surrounding areas...



SW border with Mao...



SE border with Mao and Winnie...



I probably should have put up the domestic advisor screen for info too, but if the above actually works, given it's my fist time posting pics, I'll be happy! I've got 12 cities in various stages of development - all in good locations, no trash.

I did build the Great Library (GL) and forbidden palace in Babylon and turn this into my GP factory. It popped out Gspy, Gsci, Gspy, Gart, and now Gsci just this turn. I used the two spies on Mao and then Winnie and stole 4? or 5? techs (metal casting, currency come to mind) from them to keep myself even in techs while infrastructure was being built and economy was coming back. Scientist built academy in Athens and Artist "culture bombed" in Thebes to expand/solidify tile ownership in that dense area.

I researched primarily economic techs all the way to economics to get the GMerchant who is now on his way to London as we speak. When he gets there I'm using the gold to upgrade as many units as possible phalanx -> maces primarily.

Tech situation...



I'm about even now tech-wise and going for rifling and steel asap. In the meantime I'm switching over to military production again. You see - I have a very clever plan... ... at least I *think* it's clever. We'll see... *nervously coughs and clears throat*.

As near as I can tell Mao and Winnie are not building much in the way of military. We're all pleased confucians (or is that confused plecians?) anyway - yeah I know "pleased" doesn't mean much. A lot of their cities are still a couple of horse archers, chariots and a couple archers. So while I'm going for rifling/steel I'm going to build my military all along the southern border. Right now it's (the soon to be) maces with knights/elephants and in a few turns with engineering I'll add pikes and trebuchets. As many as I can pile up while the other techs are researched. At that point I decide whether it's time to invade or whether I've got to amass some muskets/rifles and cannons first - depending on techs and what units Mao and to a lesser extent, Winnie have.

My problem at this point is the long border with Mao. He is also a thorn in my side and needs to be pruned at the very least. Also I think now there is a high probability of Winnie joining in when I DoW Mao. Conventional wisdom is the stack of doom - all your units in one army. But I'm worried I'll end up fighting on several fronts (probably with both Mao and Winnie) and so I'm going to go south from several cities at once, aiming to take at least one city south of me across the board, perhaps more depending on the circumstance.

This seems to go against conventional CIV wisdom and I wonder how it'll turn out. I don't think I'll DoW England at first - just take on Mao and be prepared to make Winnie pay if he joins in. The "how it'll work out" is interesting because I don't have much doubt I'll be able to take several cities and expand south somewhat without losing anything, but then I've got 2 p'oed neighbours who are dangerous for the rest of the game, too large to be beaten or vassalised. Possibly. If so, it might turn out badly - or I may have to keep warring until they are beaten or vassalised, or I've ruined Greece, whatever comes first. Also, I'm somewhat dependent on trade for health resources and gold, but that can be got back eventually from captured cities I guess.

This is the plan at the moment anyway. We'll see how it goes.

Review:

The Good: Empire is 12 good cities now - whole north of continent blocked (except for a couple AI trash cities). Economy pretty healthy if not spectacular. City specialisation taking shape to some degree if not perfect. Merchant on way to complete mission for gold to modernize military. Borders defended and soon to be more than that. AI not building much military (that I can see - note: must scout their cities again now with a couple of knights) and can be surprised.

The Bad: No contact with other continent yet. Can't afford to research optics, etc. yet - might steal it or trade if possible without giving up military tech. Navy still a little small and needs to be built up somewhat before war to protect fishing resources. Long border to be protected or to attack from. Fighting either AI means fighting both probably - and I can forget about diplomatic victory. Only even or slightly up on techs, but starting to pull away and AI's not prioritizing military techs beyond feudalism/engineering yet.... I don't think.

On to the next round!

 

[r_rolo1]

1- to see the "We already have too much on our hands right now", talk to the leader and hover with the mouse on a redded oponent when you as for him to declare war. There could be many reasons for the redding of the option ( most likely he simply doesn't like you enough ) but if he says he's in hands full it is because he's in war or is planning one.

2- hit F9 to see the demographics tab. opon the graphs and see power. this only works if you have enough espionage points on the target civ.

 

[GGS]

1600 AD debriefing

The hypothesis that this Greek Empire could sustain a long Babylonian War certainly, and fortunately, proved to be correct.

Spoiler :

It cost HBR and metal casting and 70 gold to bring in the Chinese on the war effort in 1200 AD which didn't seem too steep a price when in short order a pleasant un-met civilization was destroyed, a massive barbarian uprising occurred beside a lightly-defended Greek city and Alexander had serious trouble taking Hammurabi's elephant city (it didn't fall until 1320AD). Deal China did, as planned, keep the English at home.

The next entry reveals three new civilizations.

Spoiler :

The Malinese were the toasted civilization and in 1490 AD Ragnar came to the Greek shores to brag about it. Not long later Louis XIV came to visit and immediately became a vassal of Ragnar. The boatless Greeks could but ponder this, combined with the intelligence that Ragnar and Churchill were worst enemies to guess at the location of this new territory.
The war did pick up pace. Two Babylonian cities are now Chinese, eight are Greek and Alexander should take the last city in two turns.
Greece is #1 in land only. The plan? Expolite the land; get the economy and science trains on track; take sides in a Chinese/English War if one can be provoked (they both have fine great wonders) - okay, so there is a large currently pleased Chinese army north of Babylon and Churchill holds land to the far NE of Athens. Victory condition? For the Greeks, a peacable victory seems unlikely (we're combating the R/L Apostolic Palace with theology) so domination remains the likely course.

It might even be a good idea to build a navy of some sort, do you think?

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

Noble, Marathon, 1887 AD

Spoiler :

Interesting game some things happened that I have never seen before.

First I settled in place and built scout while resaerching ag. No techs but TONS of gold and an xtra scout so with 3 scouts we got the continent covered pretty quickly.

TMiT wasnt lying hammy is CLOSE. Too close. First settler I made scooted over to claim the Ivory. even though it mean risking some pressure from Hammy's cap.

My next cities wre also built east towards hammy to block off my lil penisula so I could back fill later. I also got GW chopped in sparta which was nice since a a wonder in the city meant it would help hold off culture from babylon. By this time I was noticing NONE must have started out with mysticism because hindu and buddhism were founded waaaaaaaaaay late. SO I decided to go for Judaism and actually got it .

Not only that holy city ended up being in sparta so that REALLY helped out keeping Babylons culture from being a prob. So at this point chance for a axe rush waaay over so I decide to back fill and build up and try for Hammy after is UU gets obsoleted.

So instead I build settlers and wonderwhore to try and get some gg points going and get some use out of Alex's philo trait. I missout on SH but get Oracle, and ToA and Collossus and Parthenon, and SoZ and GL. I miss out on mids but I did get that religious thingy that let you use all rel civics which meant I could go pacisfist early. I was also able to found confusionism.

Im building up my cities. Hammys borders are in war with mine but thanks to getting some wonders in sparta and a holy city AND Alex's UU I am winning the culture battle.
Everybody is Jewish on the continent so Im not worried bout backstab. Then something weird happens. Hammy GAVE me a city. Weird I NEVER had an AI just falt out gift me ANYTHING much less a city. it was kind of funny he had to do it twice. Normally when AI initiates diplo screen like 90% of time I just click it off since usually what they want I dont have time to bother with. So when hammy opened up again out of habit I just clicked it off but as I was doing it I was look hey did he just try and give me a city????. I was pretty sure he did. And sure enough about 5 or 6 turns later he tries it again and this time I take it. It wasnt a bad city location either. it had some resources in its BFC it didnt overlap to bad with any city had some hills and forests and river going through it. It did have tons of jungle but once they got cleared and farmed it turned into very very nice city .

So with freebie city from hammy, 1 barbie city I captured and 8 cities I founded I got 10 cities I am building up while teching along to maces and knights and trebs so I can make a move on hammy. But lil kink went in THAT plan. All of sudden Mao goes on tear BIGTIME he declares on hammy eats a ton of his cities and then Vassalizes him. The he goes after winnie takes some of his cities then vassalizes him.

Now Im not too worried bout backstab since Mao is pleased with me BUT now Mao is HUGE he has about 16 cities of his own PLUS the cities of his two vassals which are still pretty huge in their own rights. Plus his POWER is HUGE I was having flashback to last LHC game I played. In that one JC's closest neighbor died early to barb even so he became HUGE. So huge that no matter HOW many units I built and Built I was always like .4 in size. It was getting silly i would build and build and was number 2 in power with over 2 and half the szie of number 3 but STILL .4 of JC.

So I KNEW I didnt want to mess with mao and his UU in medievel age so I start teching to rifling while building units to TRY and catch up and also to upgrade em when it was time.

It took a lil while but by 1714 I was rdy. Right b4 then I had set slider to zero to build up cash for mass upgrade. When I had it I upgraded all my units and had a HUGE stack of cav, rifles and cannon. Afte upgrade I was at 1.0 dead even with mao so I attacked.

Hammy and Winnie Dow'ed back but they werent a factor since they were waaaay behind in tech. Mao DID have muskets and grenadiers at this point but really I STILL like rifles better. Yeah grend have edge when they ATTACK rifles but dont do diddly when defending against rifles. PLUS rifles mean cav too and with cav in stack it mean they will be eating any grend who attack instead of the grends eating your rifles.

Now mao mad big mistake AI ALWAYS makes. He loaded up MOST of his units in one city. Now he rpetty much had to cuz that city was babylon hammys old cap. And when it had all of hammys culture Sparta was doing very good job of pushing it back and as soon as Mao took it from Hammy it got SWAMPED by my culture so it needed most of his units their JUST to keep from going into revolt. So my big stack attacked killed off his Huge SoD right off the bat and it was all down hill from there.

It still took awhile since Mao was HUGE but he never managed to get any kind of counter attack going. But by 1780 mao was down to one lil island and ended up being my vassal. Hammy never did anything and Winnie sent ONE teeny stack in but it got eaten. Also timeing with them was PERFECT JUST as I finished taking all of Mao's cities along my borders and was rdy to start going deep intoi his core cities BOTH Hammy and winnie broke free and I was able to make peace with them. That let me take all the units I had guarding along their borders and move em to main stack that was working on Mao to replinish it so it could keep going without losing any momentom.

Hammy and winnie breaking free at this time also conevnient in that it gave me control of AP. I built it to get hammer boost for the rel building. But Mao won first election. However RIGHT befoire and I mean ONE turn before I DoW'ed on him Mao switches to Taosism (which he founded) as his state religion. Because of that I didnt have to worry about any stop war between brothers and sisters of the faith thingy since mao wasnt in ap religion anymore. Then when next vote came up and Hammy and Winnie free again vote was between me and winnie. Hammy voted for me winnie for himself and Mao abstained so I got control.

By 1780 Mao is down to one island and is my new vassal. I then set sights on Hammy which is no prob at all since he is waaaaaay behind on tech and I am coming after him with not just a huge SoD but a huge SoD that just got through a loooong war with at time biggest army in world so now was a well promoted SoD. PLUS during war with Mao I managed to build a second SoD to I was hitting Hammy from two sides.

When Hammy was down to his last few cities he vassalized to Winnie which brought him in against me which was no biggie cuz he was next on list neways hehe.

Winnie wasnt as backwards as Hammy he had gerns and rifles and cannons and airships by this point. But I was still teching faster and brings me to 2nd reason why I like rifles better than grends. Maybe you could get grens before rifles but getting rifles while AI getting grends means you will get Infantry before they do . I also had airships too and machine guns to handle winnies airships (btw whoever fixed unnoficial patch so AI would use air units even IF you have units that can intercept did nice job. Used to be for longest time ONE machine gun in stack meant AI would NEVER send out their air units but now they using em again)

I kicked winnie off the contient and took two cities on island close to london so their culture wouldnt be a headache for london. But I didnt vassalize. I just took cease fire for two resons--1) the two rinky dink cities he had left wouldnt help much in a dom win. And 2) winnie is worse enemy of both Rags and Lou the next 2 strongest ciovs after me so if they gonna kill someone they will attack him first and give me time to build up all the new cities on my contient. Then when Im rdy for big overseas war I will go for dom win.

Dom win seems pretty easy to get at this point. Rags and Mansa pretty much took each other out by warring on each other pretty much nonstop for like 5500 years. rags eventually won and Mansa is his vassal but they spent so much time warring instead of teching or building up their cities they waaay behind techwise and teching slow. And lou hasnt done much just cuz his start was soooooo sucky he never really was able to get ball rolling. He rank number 3 not from him rising so much as from all other civs falling.

So it been interesting game long period of peace then almost all out war when I was ready. Since I didnt go to war until soo late I didnt get any use out of Greek UU. But I think I leveraged Alex's other traits pretty good and the UB. I went pretty much specialist economy to point of not building a SINGlE cottage at all. I got beat to MoM but between Taj and extra specialists from phil, and getting pacifism early I was able to get 4 GA's going which helped me tech and build and save up gold for mass upgrades when I was rdy to go to war. Pluss I made use of UB by using its xtra culture to keep borders strong and hold off first Hammy's cities then Maos cities culture and not let em swamp me. And then when I DID go to war the free combat promo on all those rifles and infantry really did help

So aside from only making 2 phalanx's whole game I think I still played the civ and ldr ok and as long as I dont blow it I think I should get dom win pretty easy .

Oh and aside from gift city two other things happened that never seen b4 in game. One was three way war. At one point I was at war with Mao who was at war with Lou who was at war with me hehe. And the other thing that happened was I actually saw an AI privateer so they CAN actually build em hehe. I even got screenie of it



So lots of nest things happening.

Kaytie

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

Noble,Marathon 1917AD dom win

Spoiler :

Ok by 1900AD or so after building up all the new cities I got from Mao and Winnie I decidied it was time to go for win. I got my stack together and sailed em off towards the french. I took Paris right off the bat and poor lou never recovered.

Right after I DoWed on Lou Raga DoW'ed on Winnie. And right after that Rags' vassal Mansa comes by asking for help. I decided ok in hopes it will get Rags to friendly and I wont have to worry about him getting annoying.

Most of my Units were off taking french cities but Ibuilt a few more to send off against winnie and his vassal Rosie. Rages takes one of winnies last cities and take final two and thats it for winnie. Not long after that I finish off rosie.

At this point some of the cities captured in last war start coming out of revolt and are border popping so I feel I am close. I get Lou to cap and when he does his Vassal Sury breaks free and then he caps too and next turn I get Dom win

Here are some screenies of end results:

Score graph:



Score graph shows nicely how I was doing ok keeping up then Mao makes a BIG jump when he vassals Winnie and Hammy. Then it shows small drop where I attack, a big drop as his vassals break away then steady drop as he loses cities

Gnp graph:



I managed to ok pretty much whole game but once I had contient all to myself the gold REALLY started coming in

Hammer graph:



Along the line you can see little spikes where I had my golden ages and then like gold hammers just took off once I had all of main cont.

Powergraph:



You can see how Mao just TOOK OFF and I had to catch up. Then drop off once I did . Toward end Rags starting to try and do some build up but by that time he just didnt have chance to compete.

Demographics:



I LOVE when I manage to get huge leads in all important categories Normally I get waaay behind bigtime and have to try and claw way out. Also poor Rags is in same sitch I was in that LHC game I mentioned my last post. Where I built and built and BUILT TONS of units to point where I had way more than all the other civs but still wasnt ANYWHERE near near JC's power. Same deal this game happened to Rags Number two in power -- waaay more than the other civs -- but just never could come close to catching up to leader.

Final Score:



Not my best score but still not bad and win is a win

Overview of my starting empire:



I moved my first city Right up near Babylon to get the Ellies. The Corinth over to get the copper. I didnt like Loc of settling right NEXT to the copper so I settled 2 west of it which was better location but meant I needed broder pop to get it. Between waiting for border pop and fact Sparta was busy on GW just really meant by time I got round to rushing Hammy his bowman would be settled in behind walls and be just too big a pain. So I settled Thebes and Argos to block him off then backfilled till I felt ready to make a move.

My best Cites:

Athens:



My cap, my main science city and one of my top production cities, when it wasnt wonderwhoring it was building units most game with side trips now and then for buildings.

Corinth:



Not too bad of a money city It just one city out of about 50 or so by end of game but it was making 1/3rd of my entire economy. Kinda neat especially since like I said in my other post to go with sepcialist mode not a single cottage, not even a merchant. Just a shrine and two corp HQ's and wallstreet. with a lil help from trade routes and silver that ended up popping under the mine.

Sparta:



My top hammer city. early game it built a cpl of wonders to handle culture of babylon then mis game it was military pump. Then by late game as I got other cities that could pump units just as fast but not build wonders as fast it turned in to my late game wonderwhore. (And yeah I know building internet probably waste of hammers but I LIKE the shinies hehe )

Hammys Gift:

This is Shushan the city Hammy just gave me for no reason:



I guess it being so close to Sparta and Athens and Croith is close by too just out of screenie that he figured it was gonna flip neways. I didnt complain it acted as buffer between Athens and Sparta and the other AI's and once I cleared out all the junge it was a nice city in its own right. Also it was close enough that it was abale to get me acces to one of only TWO oil patches on that enitre huge continent which saved whoever made that map from hearing me cry about it hehe (as it was it was a pain just having to go to war to make sure I got coal)

Close up a Shushan:



Reason for Corinths making money:



Hehe corp spam . It got expensive but it gave newly conqured cities HUGE bonuses and the more developed cities got better too and between gold it gave Corinth they managed to help more than hurt economy overall. Another benefit of controlling a huge continent. I means you get the resoruces not only to have corps with BIG bonuses but economy to handle spamming it.

And one last pic.



I just HAD to give props to Mickey. He was my first GG and he went to a spear to be a super medic. From the first attack on Baylon just east of Sparta all the way down to Lyons on other side of world he lead the main stack that conquered a continent and got me the dom win. I couldnt have done it without you Micky thanks .

Well thats it. It was a fun game for me. I really liked the map just lucky for whoever decided to put just TWO fircking oil patches on that ENTIRE continent that it didnt end up being big deal hehe j/k

Kaytie

 

[cripp7]

@KaytieKat

Very Very nice game! Impressive how you conquered the whole continent. I like you Wallstreet city. Good job

 

[dalamb]

4000 BC - 580 AD
580-1310 AD

Noble, normal, 4000 BC - 500 AD.
I restarted after getting to 1725 at one point, deciding I was too far behind from poor strategy. I learned a lot more about diplomacy this time; the long boring story of how I slowly realized a tiny bit more about how part of the game works follows, in case it enlightens any other newbie Nobles:

Spoiler :

I restarted with the goal of conquering Babylon faster, which I accomplished by AD 150 this time. I continued peacefully towards a cultural victory, but eventually my co-religionist Mao attacked me; I suspect I neglected my military. I backed up to the conquest of Babylon and continued again from that point.

After a couple more restarts (I'm addicted, I suppose) I realized life would be simpler if I could convert Churchill to my religion, so I spread Confucianism to all his cities and found that he didn't like me enough. I noticed that his favoured religion was Christianity, so I performed the experiment of spreading Christianity by creating missionaries in all his cities via the worldbuilder, gifting him enough techs to make him pleased, and waiting and waiting ... but after many turns he still wasn't pleased enough with me to make the switch. Eventually while spying on China I realized there was an "influence religion" mission -- and a few turns later my spy converted Churchill to Christianity.

Now I'm going back to where I got Christianity in the first place and trying the same approach legitemately, without the worldbuilder.