Paradigm Shift

[ParadigmShifter]

The big worry is Mansa capitulating to another dominatrix (Izzy). Plus my lack of catapults and the only units Mansa can build being longbows, catapults and trebs.

When is Izzy going to DoW Pacal, she is really taking her time

 

[goldenhero]

Quick (though unrelated..) question. In my HoF mod, I don't get those colored reminders saying <city> is going to grow to size # next turn, or <city> will expand its borders next turn. How do you activate them? One a more related note, I'd wipe him out, quickly before he caps to someone else.

 

[schwartz]

When is Izzy going to DoW Pacal, she is really taking her time

I've seen some AIs in WHEOOH for 20~ turns+ (Don't know the longest they'll actually wait..) and it gets old after you check the trade table every other turn to bribe them into war...
Also, since I can't view the save right now (I'm on my mac, so no BtS), how many cities does Mansa have left?

 

[ParadigmShifter]

@goldenhero : you need to turn on the civ4lerts, it's a check box on one of the options pages.


@schwartz: Mansa has 3 cities left now.

 

[mystyfly]

If you let MM capitulate, you miss the conf shrine. You'll also have 'we yearn to join our motherland'-anger in ex-malinese cities. But once you attack Izzy, his remaining cities will act as a buffer and give you more space where you can attack but can't be attacked. However, fights there will raise your warweariness. Don't really expect any techs from him. If Izzy finishes him off, you can take these cities anyway later. If you want to try this, DoW Izzy asap (at least before she dows pacal).

If you finish MM off, you'll get some more cities, more land, no unhappiness and a holy city. This is what I'd do if you have a military edge vs Izzy (which you do seem to have, at least tech-wise) as you'll be attacking.


In one of your last screenshots there I've seen a GP born in Timbuktu (which was settled). Lucky you

There is a RE that gives 1 free scientist in a city, something to do with herbs, that also give a plot +1C and +X (don't remember exactly) health to the city, you might check that.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Well the way I see it...

a) Continent on its own won't be enough for the domination win, so I need to tech astronomy, probably from liberalism (15.61% * 3 + 17% = 63.83%, best case scenario I think, assuming Pacal has less land than me, which seems likely).

b) If I don't capitulate MM, I have to research compass, optics myself and will probably have to tech enigneering as well. Drama is an extra bonus for accepting MM as a vassal. He is cautious and I think he dislikes Pacal more than me even with the war, I can't see a problem with trading techs with him. Mansa is finished in the Liberalism race anyway with just 3 cities, only 1 decent (Gao the holy city).

c) I have a lack of catapults and no EPs against Izzy (well, 7 in total), so a DoW on Izzy seems to be a bit risky. I would rather wait for her to DoW Pacal and then jump in preventing her from getting much out of her war by taking Pacal's cities. I can use Izzy as a buffer then and Mansa may try and take Pacal's city south of Gao, if he loses Gao to Pacal, even better

d) Yearn to rejoin motherland in 3 cities is kind of balanced out by +1 happiness everywhere else I think.

It is a big decision anyway.

 

[CivMcNut]

Wouldn't one option be to make peace with Mansa Musa with all the techs he will give you, don't get him to capitulate, then wait 10 turns and wipe him out. Main disadvantage of doing that would be possible negative diplomatic points for "You declared war on our friend" This way you would get a tech boost AND not have your Motherland penalty. 10 turns is not a long time to have to wait.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Good point, I'll investigate that possibility. The -1 from Izzy for redeclaring on MM is the same as the "worried about your vassals" penalty anyway.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

OK, I thought about the peace then finish him off strategy while going to get some beer.

I'd probably want to wait for him to tech compass if I did that, that's a couple of turns away. I can probably send a menacing stack towards Gao to make him a bit more nervous in the meantime.

I think Mansa might be prepared to trade techs even after I get a 10 turn treaty (he really is a tech whore), and I can give him anything I have with little risk in that case, he would be dead soon afterwards. The only worry is him trading techs to Izzy (but I think he has every tech she knows already).

I'm starting to lean towards this plan.

 

[Groogaroo]

Sounds like a plan to me! Get peace with mansa for techs, then trade with mansa for techs, then destroy mansa as soon as the cats are in. I'm interested to see how the rest of the game pans out after mansa's finished off.

I hope the beer you bought was civ playing beer, I'm getting anxious for the next update

 

[Rycheman]

I know someone has asked you this already, but i can't find the post,must have got lost somewhere in between building all those courthouses.

I want to know how you get those in- game alerts about population increasing and borders about to pop etc.I've never seen them before in any other game posts.I've looked under the game options but still can't seem to find them.Please help.

Looking forward to the next round,please post soon,if you're not too busy slugging it out with Aelf on the merits of BTS ai gameplay.If it helps,buy more beer.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

It's part of the HOF mod, you get more options pages then, one of them has a checkbox to turn on civ4lerts.

I might give the beer a miss today after the bloke downstairs complained about me falling over.

I'll probably play the next round later.

 

[mystyfly]

@Rycheman:
You can either have those alerts via HOF-mod or you use BUG (Bts unaltered gameplay) mod if you don't want to use the HOF-mod (for some reason). The BUG mod has some more option to customize your interface how you like it.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Dominatrix Cathy - round 8 (to 1250AD)

OK, more mistakes this round

First, I tried to see if I could get a 10 turn peace treaty plus engineering from Mansa.



Even after I removed the gold and map from this deal, he wasn't biting.

Building a forge here, it's going to want a university soon and war weariness is going to cause unhappiness problems too.



Unhappiness due to war weariness has already hit the former barb city, a forge for here as well.



Mansa killed a longbow that was on its way to garrison his former capital. He hasn't got much of a counterattack going though.



An axe finishes off the sword and this mace takes care of the catapult.



Mansa has only light defence in his new capital.



So little in fact I decide to try and nab another worker with a catapult (EDIT: no, this is clearly a chariot, must get these eyes fixed), maybe he will move a longbow out of his other city to take it back.



Moai statues city is coming along quite nicely, I'm going to build some naval units here.



Decide to attack this city before bombarding it fully.



But the attack fails. I have more troops on the way however.

Next turn I whip the forge at the former barb city.



I'm cottaging up this city for now, I may turn it into my ironworks city later on though. Either this city or Yasodharapura.



Forges are the new courthouses in Russian lands



I'm basically building happiness buildings to counter the upcoming war weariness. Drama might be quite handy soon too.



I think about going for an aqueduct here but plump for a temple instead.



And here too... war weariness is becoming an issue.



When I said forges were the new courthouses, I feel all nostalgic and decide to build some more courts.



They are still warring over on the other continent. Also, one of my spies is caught the turn after arriving at Gao.



To be continued...

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Dominatrix Cathy - round 8 (to 1250AD) part 2

Mansa loses both his triremes attacking my pair of triremes. LOL.



Here comes the reinforcements at Niani.



Although Mansa tries to confuse me by sending a longbow to check out his former capital.



But, I lose the horse and have to finish it off with an axe



Here is my stack for attacking Walata. I should be able to take it without using cats, right?



Religious fervour is big in Russia at the moment.



Notice how my other spy at Gao got caught as well. This is the stack for attacking Niani.



I try and save a few cats since both my spies at Gao are now dead.



This turns out to be the last attack at Niani. I raze it.



I check what deal Mansa will give me for a peace treaty, nothing good (i.e..not compass or engineering). I carry on the war.

I whip a quick forge at Rostov too.



Education is now complete.



Joan of Arc has a scout around Gao. Not much there.



Another forge being built at Moscow. Once it is finished I will start on a university.



Not going too badly so far...

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Dominatrix Cathy - round 8 (to 1250AD) part 3

A few turns later and universities are starting to get built, and I am nearly done teching drama.



I've bombarded the defences at Walata and it's time to suicide some cats.



Should be easy pickings, eh?



Well, no. The axe dies, the random number generator is not kind. This is what is left of the defence.



I lose a mace as well, this is what is left after that round of attacking. Not happy with the RNG gods. I'll have to wait for more reinforcements now.



Whip a market here anyway, it will start a university next.



I finish teching drama, and ANOTHER mountain decides what it really likes doing is erupting lava. Pig pasture and two hamlets are destroyed.



This guy has to win this battle though, surely? After the RNG gods doing me over last turn and what with the volcano and all...



Nope, he loses too. I also get counter attacked next turn and lose the other mace. Terrific.

After the volcanic eruption...



Mansa still isn't prepared to give me a tech for a peace treaty. That means I have to try and take his new capital, but my forces are getting pretty thin now.



From out of nowhere (well fog of war), my stack gets attacked by a longbow and I lose an axe as well.

Joan sees a chance to make it to level 6 so I can build West Point later... she wins.



I'll need to move an axe to the road so Joan isn't killed by a counterattack by a pike though.



St. Petersburg spawns another Great Scientist, I run him to Moscow to settle him there. He would also partially bulb printing press but that can wait until after liberalism and astronomy i think.



Maybe I should have been building units instead of all these buildings...

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Dominatrix Cathy - round 8 (to 1250AD) part 4

I whip Timbuktu 3 times as soon as it comes out of revolt to stop it starving.



I give Joan some new wheels for her chariot, enabling extra movement. Now I will be able to build West Point later.



Mansa adopts pacifism for some reason. Maybe he thinks my stack is running out of steam. And he is right...



After that suicide attack the odds are a little better. Can I hold out long enough to take his Holy City?



That guy loses as well

More whipping is required to build another court...



Then a disaster. A longbow and a pike finish off what remains of my army, including poor Joan. So my medic is killed



So there's not much choice left really. I do this deal with Izzy.



And capitulate Mansa for his gold and Music. He is pleased with me now!



Izzy goes down to pleased from friendly because of the capitulation.

That's where I stopped. Bad RNG results and not enough oomph meant this round was pretty poor. I need to build another army now...

Here's the domination stats anyway...



I start putting some espionage against Izzy.



Culture map



Full view of the continent with resources.



Cities. Soon I will have enough universities for Oxford, I have workers pre chopping forests near Moscow, not in the BFC. When I finish the uni in Moscow I will whip all the others to completion so i can get Oxford ASAP.



Some of my cities

Moscow



St. Petes



Timbuktu. Maybe this would have been a better GP farm than St. Petes. it will be a good secondary GP farm when I switch to caste system which will be after whipping the universities I think, so pretty soon.



The next round should be pretty straightforward, I'll probably play it tonight.

Plan is: whip the universities, change to caste system/theocracy, build a load of trebs/maces, tech liberalism and get astronomy (optics is done next turn), then tech guilds (build knights), banking (switch to mercantilism probably), gunpowder, prinitng press, replaceable parts, rifling, nationalism, military tradition.

Then I can change to nationalism and slavery, whip cossacks and draft rifles, and go on a rampage. I can probably stop teching at military tradition.

At some point I will have an army big enough to go after Pacal.

Izzy has decided she han't got enough on her hands anymore so it looks like she has decided against DoWing Pacal. She'll go back up to friendly once I switch to theocracy though.


Here's the save...

 

[CivMcNut]

What puzzled me in reading your last segment is why you would want to have buildings going up in EVERY city when you had a war going on with MM. Granted he was weak, but had you kept spitting out units your powergraph would have likely intimadated him into coughing up Engineering for peace.

With more units you would have likely taken out/over more cities, perhaps been in a position to wipe him out and get credit for all his land in putting forward a domination win. I do like your idea of getting these critical buildings up quickly, I just try to do it in peacetime for the higher production cities.

Timbuktu has great potential as a GP Farm.

 

[Harbourboy]

Nice thread, Paradigm Shifter.

I guess the lesson for us to learn here is that when at war, we should build more units.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

@CivMcNut: thought I had enough to finish of Mansa, I was wrong. I'm running organised religion which I do often until Oxford is built, so I try and get the most out of the building production bonus before switching to theocracy. Well, what is done is done, and I have engineering now anyway. EDIT: Unfortunately, St. Pete's has already built National Epic so I can expect 1 or 2 GPs from Timbuktu at best I reckon. When I change to caste system it should be OK though.

@Harbourboy: Thanks, I guess you can see why I am often in contention for last place in gauntlets with you now