A Bit of Pointless Rant, But What Can You Do?

[hunterai]

What can you do when...

You starts on a continent with Tokugawa, Shaka AND Montezuma

The other continent is Zara Yaqob, Hannibal AND Louise XIV

Despite the fact that your continent is shared by four civs, and the other only three, the other continent is about twice the size



What can you do when...

You see Great General after Great General born on YOUR continent, and countless other type of Great Person on the other side of the world

While you're whipping Axes, Swords and Maces trying to stay alive on this side of the world and you see Wonders after Wonders built on the other

While you're still researching Feudalism hoping to get 5XP longbow just to hold the next Shaka SoD, you see all 7 religions found on the other continent

But despite that, the other continent are all Buddhist!!!



What can you do when...

After what you thought was a heroic victory (I count staying alive after grand melee between Shaka, Toku and Monty a heroic victory), you start to tech Civil Service, thinking here is a chance to recover some economic development. And found that the other side of the world discovered Liberalism. In 1200 A.D. And this is just Emperor

You finally got around to tech Optic at 1300's A.D, build a couple caravels, sails around the world, and found a fleet of Destroyers



I know this is mostly pointless rant, but... Really, what can you do?

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

I know this is mostly pointless rant, but... Really, what can you do?

Destroy your neighbors more quickly?

Also: post the original starting position - it sounds like a fun problem.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

1200 AD is not early at all, even on emperor. In an extreme case I saw an AI get it in the 600's AD on emperor (!) ---> LHC Louis.

But, if you are playing at a difficulty where you normally have some challenge, a warmonger sandwich coupled with balanced, solid AIs far-off is a screw job. You're usually going to lose unless you can put the warmongers down FAST and then just leverage a huge land lead. Putting toku or shaka down fast and early is a tall order though, if you're at your difficulty.

Having monty/toku/shaka is particularly ghetto. They all start pleased with each other, so the dogpiling chance is very high. Quite frustrating when coupled with AI bonuses...and one of the few times I wish I play something slower than normal speed, so I have time to launch a counter attack before immortal Shaka builds 10 troop stacks while my stack heals...with the same city count .

Despite being generally good at warmongering I struggle in early, prolonged wars with a 30+ unitprob AI that's essentially guaranteed to declare on me from turn 0. I believe a lot of other people do too, and we just don't see those games forum-side typically.

 

[Udey1]

that is lame. I am sorry for your predicament. I wonder how high I could get my churchill archers exp on that kinda game.

 

[hunterai]

Destroy your neighbors more quickly?

Also: post the original starting position - it sounds like a fun problem.

Agreed with you thatmy biggest mistake was to panic when I realized the identity of my neighbors.

1200 AD is not early at all, even on emperor. In an extreme case I saw an AI get it in the 600's AD on emperor (!) ---> LHC Louis.

But, if you are playing at a difficulty where you normally have some challenge, a warmonger sandwich coupled with balanced, solid AIs far-off is a screw job. You're usually going to lose unless you can put the warmongers down FAST and then just leverage a huge land lead. Putting toku or shaka down fast and early is a tall order though, if you're at your difficulty.

Having monty/toku/shaka is particularly ghetto. They all start pleased with each other, so the dogpiling chance is very high. Quite frustrating when coupled with AI bonuses...and one of the few times I wish I play something slower than normal speed, so I have time to launch a counter attack before immortal Shaka builds 10 troop stacks while my stack heals...with the same city count .

Despite being generally good at warmongering I struggle in early, prolonged wars with a 30+ unitprob AI that's essentially guaranteed to declare on me from turn 0. I believe a lot of other people do too, and we just don't see those games forum-side typically.

I usually only play monarch, so this is already a step up for me.
In this game, I was on the defensive the whole time after the war started.
I guess I was not prepared enough and only have myself to blame.

 

[hunterai]

Here is the start pic + save

forgot to mention that play as Isabella
BtW, this is low sea level map with 2 extra AI (Brennus on his own island + Willem who was smashed down to 2 cities when I finally found him)

 

[rilke]

Might be a good story/playthrough á la Neal/Mad, who knows.

 

[hunterai]

Might be a good story/playthrough á la Neal/Mad, who knows.

Would love to see someone kick their butt to avenge my death

 

[kochman]

What can you do when...

You starts on a continent with Tokugawa, Shaka AND Montezuma

The other continent is Zara Yaqob, Hannibal AND Louise XIV

Despite the fact that your continent is shared by four civs, and the other only three, the other continent is about twice the size



What can you do when...

You see Great General after Great General born on YOUR continent, and countless other type of Great Person on the other side of the world

While you're whipping Axes, Swords and Maces trying to stay alive on this side of the world and you see Wonders after Wonders built on the other

While you're still researching Feudalism hoping to get 5XP longbow just to hold the next Shaka SoD, you see all 7 religions found on the other continent

But despite that, the other continent are all Buddhist!!!



What can you do when...

After what you thought was a heroic victory (I count staying alive after grand melee between Shaka, Toku and Monty a heroic victory), you start to tech Civil Service, thinking here is a chance to recover some economic development. And found that the other side of the world discovered Liberalism. In 1200 A.D. And this is just Emperor

You finally got around to tech Optic at 1300's A.D, build a couple caravels, sails around the world, and found a fleet of Destroyers



I know this is mostly pointless rant, but... Really, what can you do?

regenerate

 

[r_rolo1]

What can you do when...

Spoiler :

You starts on a continent with Tokugawa, Shaka AND Montezuma

The other continent is Zara Yaqob, Hannibal AND Louise XIV

Despite the fact that your continent is shared by four civs, and the other only three, the other continent is about twice the size



What can you do when...

You see Great General after Great General born on YOUR continent, and countless other type of Great Person on the other side of the world

While you're whipping Axes, Swords and Maces trying to stay alive on this side of the world and you see Wonders after Wonders built on the other

While you're still researching Feudalism hoping to get 5XP longbow just to hold the next Shaka SoD, you see all 7 religions found on the other continent

But despite that, the other continent are all Buddhist!!!



What can you do when...

After what you thought was a heroic victory (I count staying alive after grand melee between Shaka, Toku and Monty a heroic victory), you start to tech Civil Service, thinking here is a chance to recover some economic development. And found that the other side of the world discovered Liberalism. In 1200 A.D. And this is just Emperor

You finally got around to tech Optic at 1300's A.D, build a couple caravels, sails around the world, and found a fleet of Destroyers

I know this is mostly pointless rant, but... Really, what can you do?

I don't see nothing unwinnable in this description. Hard, sure, not unwinnable...

Fell free to post the 1200 AD save as well . Would be interesting trying to salvage it.

 

[BadBeat]

in my last game (immortal/fractal) whole continent was hindy
Saladin, who founded hinduism got rifles at 1100AD, he build ALL modern wonders, and won space victory in ~1800

 

[hunterai]

I don't see nothing unwinnable in this description. Hard, sure, not unwinnable...

Fell free to post the 1200 AD save as well . Would be interesting trying to salvage it.

Sad to say I didn't have that 1200 AD save anymore. I started another game and it overwrite the autosave already. Which is a shame as I usually enable autosave every turn without limit of number of saves.

The bad habit is that with that setup, I almost never explicitly save a game. I only do that if I'm stopping to continue later. So, no save and no autosave either.

I only have the starting world built since it was actually my brother who gave me this beginning.

Next time I ran into some interesting situation, I will make sure I backup the autosaves before starting new game.

 

[vicawoo]

So far it's not so bad. I settled the northeast ivory aggressively (on a hill) with my 3rd city, which slowly built a wall. 2nd of course war the cow/wheat/bronze, 4th was the gold for monetary purposes, 5th was the clams south of tokugawa.

6th settler went through shakas land via open borders and settled north of toka, encroaching on shakas land. Liberate, tokugawa pleased. Open borders, gift gold.
Then I grabbed the floodplain sites and skipped the horses, since the land was resource poor.

ivory + warmongers means I tech to construction, with alphabet first since they're dumb AIs. Sent out some fogbusters to keep my land barb free for future settling, and rallied one spear and a bunch of axes to the ivory city in preparation for shakas inevitable attack.

Shaka declared right before I teched construction, but his stack suicided on my walls. I then proceeded to raze his two cities encroaching on my land (horse city especially) and pillaged his bronze. Pleased tokugawa is bribed to war to shaka for mathematics and mysticism. Just met montezuma and he's also willing, but there's a chance he could actually take some of shaka's cities.
Made a mistake when I left my latest city, the pig/wheat to the south, undefended and shaka captured it and toku recaptured it. Shaka has no chance of survival, tokus nicely boxed in, and I have enough land to overwhelm them with production as I play them against each other.

 

[hunterai]

So far it's not so bad. I settled the northeast ivory aggressively (on a hill) with my 3rd city, which slowly built a wall. 2nd of course war the cow/wheat/bronze, 4th was the gold for monetary purposes, 5th was the clams south of tokugawa.

Yes, I actually eyed that site too as 3rd city (gold/floodplain and copper/wheat cities first). By the time I went for the ivory city, I was a couple turns too late and Shaka was there before. I had to settled for pig/floodplain down south instead.

6th settler went through shakas land via open borders and settled north of toka, encroaching on shakas land. Liberate, tokugawa pleased. Open borders, gift gold.
Then I grabbed the floodplain sites and skipped the horses, since the land was resource poor.

That is an interesting tactics. I couldn't get open border with Toku at all in my game.

ivory + warmongers means I tech to construction, with alphabet first since they're dumb AIs. Sent out some fogbusters to keep my land barb free for future settling, and rallied one spear and a bunch of axes to the ivory city in preparation for shakas inevitable attack.

Shaka declared right before I teched construction, but his stack suicided on my walls. I then proceeded to raze his two cities encroaching on my land (horse city especially) and pillaged his bronze. Pleased tokugawa is bribed to war to shaka for mathematics and mysticism. Just met montezuma and he's also willing, but there's a chance he could actually take some of shaka's cities.

Made a mistake when I left my latest city, the pig/wheat to the south, undefended and shaka captured it and toku recaptured it. Shaka has no chance of survival, tokus nicely boxed in, and I have enough land to overwhelm them with production as I play them against each other.

I think that the largest flaw in my thinking. I went for feudalism instead thinking that I will need longbow and vassalage to defend from the war-mongers. In hindsight, going for construction should be obvious with ivory readily available

Nice. You seem to be doing much better than I did. I didn't manage to beat Toku until 800 something AD (damn his Samurai's).

But beware of the tech pace on the other side of the world. In my game I knew I was in trouble as religion after religion, GP after GP, and Wonders after Wonders were found in the distant land.

Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism and Confucius went early as expected. The oracle was used for Theology as that was found right after the oracle in distant land message. Philosophy/Divine Right must have been bulbed as they went unnaturally early (very early AD).

Later I found out that Hannibal got the GLH + Colossus to supplement with Financial trait made his coastal tile a beast. Louise got all of Pyramid, GL and Pathenon and God knew how many other Wonders.

I didn't really remember what the liberalism was used for. But my suspicious was Democracy as the SoL was built around tail end of 1200's right before I quitted (by Hannibal).