A New series: PYL I (Pick Your Leader)

[TheMeInTeam]

1130 AD (HYPERDRIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Spoiler :

There we go. This is why we built the great wall (I don't care about killing barbies, but the EP are invaluable). I just stole calendar, and even without more EP can incite revolt in every major korean city. Korea DoW'd on me when I DoW'd on the dutch, but didn't help the dutch very much, sending 1 archer. On the 2nd turn of the carthage-dutch bloodletting, his recently settled iron city defended by one spear got taken and auto razed, and I pillaged the only copper they had. Numidians are...kind of good against axes..........

This is my 2nd war with korea. The first one I took 2 cities (notice one of them is on the west...I was hoping to pillage more strategic resources but the map wasn't helping me out here). I attacked from mansa's borders, quickly caputuring one city from each side and taking peace. I've now built up enough espionage and spies to finish this charade, the korean capital is going to get sandwiched, and we'll have ourselves more cities. After this, I should be big enough to vassalize people.

Notice: I waited and waited and caved and caved until pacal spread me some budha. They have the AP religion, and I'm friendly with both lizzy and Pacal II.

IMO, charismatic is one of the best traits in the game. For a warmonger like me, it may be THE best. +2 early on is a big deal, but mixing it with financial is just silly. I'm swarming in super promoted units and the ability to work extra tiles before monarchy allowed me to have currency and code of laws before the dutch were finished off.

 

[Pe Ell]

I'm fast too when I want too. Settled for emperor/normal. Switched on choose religions and random seed. Not that I abuse the reload thing anyway, just out of habit.

Darius, 540 AD:

Spoiler :

Okay, while most of the AI's are easy to get along with I decided to not be right from the start. Stone is good, I had it in my mind to use it for recovery. Plan was to immortalrush as many as possible while using our traits/stone to recover afterward when we had all the land needed. So how did I do?



First and only hut gave mining. Neat, I seldom get tech and this one makes the route for BW shorter. Fishing was first research for all that clam. Built a worker first to hook up rice and improve. Then our scout promptly got eaten by a lion. At least I found te first pushover. Mansa! Skirmishers are not nice but he'll build so few it ont matter. Death is coming mansa, feel it's icy breath!



Ponies! Lots of ponies. I'm seriously drooling all over my keyboard at this point. We'll plant a city right to the northeast by horse and cow. Good early production with hills, at least two that doesn't IW turned up. Think my tech path went fishing-wheel-AH-BW-Masonry-pottery-writing-math. I should also mention that I built GW (in capital) and Henge (in second city). They were so cheap I couldn't resist.



Life's not fair Mansa.



Told you he doesn't build many. The second was whipped the second my immortals came in range. Didn't help him. One more city to the east was razed, only kept capital since the other were swamped by jungle and maintinance would have dragged me down.



Turns out it was Wang who was next in line. Protective fellow, but again he had a massively underwhelming army. As you can see I went for IW after math to get rid of the jungle. Probabl could have waited since I didn't expand anything that needed junglechopping or required iron at that point. Currency towards CoL would have been wiser, or maybe calendar. Got those right after instead.



Weakling nr 2 fallen. Not much to say about it really. Easy wars when you chop/whip an army that quickly. Had about 50/50 flanking and combat immortals with the flankers acting as primitive siege.

][/URL]


Oh yes! Chopped and ready in Persepolis. Switched to rep immidietly. Happy people are productive people. Also begun assigning scientist in mansas former capital and second city. My immortal rush was really ebbing out here but...





Love the GG medic (which is what the first shot is supposed to show). Pushed for Willem thinking I could get some more gains. Two turns into the war Willem switched to vassalage...
I did raze rotterdam, found a holy islamic city with 40% culture and lbows and got my troops out of there. While lbows still are archers he simply was to well dug in for me now. I'll return later.



Good luck and bad luck. Bye barrack! Good thing I don't need you now.



Final shot at my empire where I left of. I'm rexing like mad settling aggresively towards the AI almost crashing my economy. Close one eh? Soon I'll be whipping cheap courthouses and spam riverside cottages. Remember I also have pyramids, henge and GW, building gardens too. Then we'll see how it is finished.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

1540 AD, committal to a victory type...actually that was in 4000BC but that's ok.

Spoiler :

CURIES! Wang wouldn't capitulate until he had 1 city. I took it for the in my cities that actually matter and to save time. That's the major drawback about playing with flanking mounted troops...they don't win at as high of odds, maybe withdrawals don't count =P. Regardless, we're moving pretty well here. We are still making nice with Pacal II, though he declared on lizzy when she went FR. Right now, I'm feeding her techs so she won't get steamrolled. I want to do one of two things over on the eastern front: Kill lizzy myself for domination points, or if that isn't enough knife Pacal II in the back. Either way, I want to fight ONE nation's worth of troops over there at a time, so I'm doing my best to keep them even.

On this front, I've been MASSING spies. +143 EP/turn isn't a world record, but with spies in a city for 5 turns, that's enough to cause a revolt after 2 turns! I could steal techs too, but I don't want to right now. I also love the benefits of passive EP, namely, being able to see EXACTLY where all enemy forces are and what they're comprised of.

On turn 1 of the war, I had curies outside of the northern mansa city (these are much nicer than knights and I beelined them after guilds...pacal won lib but who cares?). on turn 2, I caused a revolt and took it. I had a lot left so I ran over to the other city, where I also had spies. On turn 3, I took his 2nd city. He was willing to listen for peace, but not capitulation yet. I took peace though, as I can let my curies heal without worry and mass more up. We all know how mansa is, so it won't be long until he's my vassal. Going for darius then whatever needed for victory...

Little Bonus! 1720 AD

Spoiler :

Hi lizzy! My name is the orange man.

Well, Mansa capped pretty quickly on the second war, and then I declared on darius. Er....whoops. I didn't notice, but he was Pacal II's vassal!!!!!! Ahhhh! Spamming drafts in my eastern city just in case may have saved me, but it looks like pacal was as surprised as I was...darius had no help from his master at all. I killed a couple stragling middle age troops trying to pass through my eastern borders of pacal's, and then after taking all of darius' mainland cities actually got paid to take peace by pacal. I ran some EP on him, and my power is MUCH higher than his, so that's probably why. We're going to try to cap liz quickly, gift her cities back (like we did with mansa), and then turn on pacal. Unfortunately, I'll probably win domination rather than conquest, because of darius' ONE city out on that little island. That's OK though. I'm not going to take extra turns just to go over and take that. I don't even have astro yet, although I could probably take it anyway . Maybe I'll get REALLY lucky, and mansa or korea will pick it off. I doubt it though.

[/spoiler]

 

[Jerrymander]

I'll take Hannibal, Prince, marathon. Go for a 'cheesy circle'/BC conquest win.

Crank dat soulja boy.

Rereading the thread, since 'meinteam' is taking Hannibal, I'll do Mansa Musa.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

<3. you can do Hannibal too if it so pleases you! Most people play a bit differently than me...although in this case maybe we have the same idea =P.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

1772 AD - End Game

Spoiler :

I changed my mind. Since I was waiting for some of my cavs to heal anyway, I had 3 cities kind of near darius' little 1 tile island city make some galleys. Yes, galleys. With 6 cavalry, I was able to overrun the little island easily (only needed 2 galleys I guess ). Persian empire destroyed! Then it was Pacal vs everybody. He had assembly line and not rifling. Not smart pacal, not smart. 50 cavalry poured in from multiple angles, and of course I had the spies set up too. The war lasted about 6 turns. Game over!



This says a lot about why I kept giving liz techs, despite her being ahead of me. I needed her viable for when I took her myself. Note that I truly spammed units this game. Optimum metastrategy indeed! Though that thread is preaching to the choir if I'm reading it .



Yay! Even with the writeups mid game this took me under 4 hours! Not bad for an epic game, much better than my most recent NC game. The info screen here is pretty telling of my approach to this particular game. It certainly isn't the first time I've done it, although the use of spies made it so much more seemless. All the benefits of blitzkrieg warfare from mounted, less of the drawbacks of heavily defended cities. The knights still pissed me off, but I only had to use them vs korea, and only in my 2nd war there. Apparently, their K/D wasn't too awful for the time I had them, thanks to spies. It's very funny to have loaded EP on the AI, and see it frantically trying to churn out pikes, but being unable to do so in time . Fast wars!

Oh yeah. I didn't have a single city in the top 5. I'm kind of proud of that.



I can live with it.

PS: I LOVE THE CONQUEST ENDING .

 

[Groogaroo]

I still don't get how some of you guys play these games so fast???

I've been bad... I peeked at the start screenshots before I picked my leader! I think I'm going with darius for this game on prince/epic.

And here is my deep and highly informative analysis on his starting location.

Spoiler :

Yay! Stone in the BFC!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I use just about every time saving method I've been able to find, from stack move, to turning battle animations off (they get old after a while anyway), to queueing up buildings and waypointing units (and making their production constant with ALT). If I start getting big, which is usually, I start to automate workers too. I keep them from working over old improvements, which lets my base cities keep their dominance. Also, though, I will take command of a set of workers later on to use newly found resources or workshop something (in rare instances where I need more troop buildup than I already have).

I'm a CE player through and through, which means very few of my cities need micro. Mostly GP farm/early cities, actually.

 

[Jerrymander]

I played to 505. I think Mansa was a better chioce anyway, you'll see why in my first invasion:

Spoiler :

Warrior -> Worker -> Workboat -> Workboat -> Worker -> Settler

Fishing -> B/working -> Agriculture -> Archery -> Pottery -> I/working
(Why did I get the Wheel for free on Prince?)

3985 - Hut map
3925 - Darius
3880 - 54 gold
3715 - Wang Kon
3280 - Slavery. No copper.
3250 - Hannibal
2815 - Elizabeth
2755 - Scout, hut
2650 - Oranje
2545 - Archery!
2280 - Pacal
2230 - Djenne founded (copper/rice)
1870 - Kumbi Saleh (fish/gems/corn)
1790 - Stonehenge and GWall built faraway (Wall = Darius = first target)
1390 - Delcare war on Darius, 6 Skirms
1380 - Raze Pasargarade (0 gold)
1330 - Raze susa (35 gold), station 4 remaining Skirms outside Perspolis. Darius wastes an immortal on them. Pillage pasture.

1060 - +2 health event (I get this a lot)
1000 - Persepolis conquered (GP farm anyone?) Darius destroyed
850 - Gao settled
540 - Wang Kon builds Oracle, gets Feudalism, adopts HR/Vassalage. He's right next door, and protective. I've researching Construction, gonna get some swords and cats and bang on his doors.
430 - Elizabeth gets a GProphet, builds Hindu shrine. She's farthest behind in tech, score, and power. I'm top in power, 2nd in tech and 3rd in score.
330 - GLighthouse built faraway. I was building it in Persep. Damn. Got gold, though. Fund deficit research. Gearing up for war with Wang, building Swords. Constr is 23 turns out. Turn up the science meter.
320 - Got 187 gold. Constr in 15 turns @ -9 gpt. Pacal already HAS construction, must outsource his R&D.
250 - For kicks and giggle I make 10 arrogant demands of Pacal. I now have -9 with him. Maybe he'll invade me and waste stacks on my longbowmen I get from Wang, netting me x2 XP for GGenerals? (Is this considered cheating?)
200 - See a Korean city. I forgot, he had longbowmen already. Oh dear. I guess I'll just have to make more catapults.
170 - Constr researched, return to normal research rate with 8 gold left. Trade Constr to Oranje for Monarchy, go to HR. Plan to extort Feudalism from Wang when I rape his cities.
150 - Chop some cats. Hammers don't grow on trees - or do they?
120 - Judiasm converts to all 5 of my cities at once. I don't have open borders with anyone, so it must be an event. Regardless, I don't care. Hannibal and Oranje are both Jud, as is Wang, so It's a safe move. Plus +1 happy in all cities.
90 Built Maoi in Persep some time ago. Short term bonus. Whip pults there.
70 - Pyramids built faraway. Some other wonders have been built, but I don't care.
40 - Taosim founded. Someone is teching fast.
10 - Beth adopts Rep, made Pyramids. She's on the opposite end of the continent, poo.
1 AD - Stack prepares for invasion of Wang. 4 swords, 7 cats, 1 axe, 2 skirms.
10 - War declared.
30 - Capture P'yongyang. In a daft location, I raze. Oh no partisans. Damnit.
80 - Ask for peace + feudalism. 'Insult to Korea'. Death warrant signed.
120 - Seoul @ 0% culture. Not enough units to conquer unless I'm lucky.
140 - Down to a 2.3 and 0.2 axemen. Probably whip a Longbowman.
150 - Win some 75% rounds, conquer Seoul, get Orcale and Temple of Artemis. Still won't give Feudalism.
180 - Get Currency, trade for Calendar with Hannibal.
200 - Pop a Great Spy. Yes! Settled in Persep.
290 - Whapssh. Whip 5 pults.
350 - Capture Wonsan. Would raze, but it has clams and a floodplain.
260 - Code of Laws.
460 - Pusan captured, razed. Was the Chrisitan holy city, but there are enough religions in the game. He only has one city, but he will not let go of Feudalism. I was wishing I could get early longbowmen, but suit yourself Wang.
505 - Nampo razed, Wang destroyed. No more longbowmen! That was a pain, I blew so many catapults - 24 to be exact.

State of my land as of 505 AD:

Thoughts:
Protective + Longbowmen - Macemen = BIG NO. DON'T EVER LET PROTECTIVE CIVS GET THE ORACLE. Oh god that sucked so bad.

 

[schwartz]

Nice idea Bleys, this should be fun.
I'll take Wang and Monarch/Normal.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

@ Jerry

Spoiler :

Hot damn, you're moving pretty quick. As Hannibal I was still fighting Wang in the 1100's or so, and he was the 2nd guy I went for too . @ archer rush. A protective mali leader would be unfair!

It is, of course, interesting to see Willem @ the top in your game. I'm sure you can guess what happened to him in my game with me playing as Carthage...

Nice comments on Pacal II and lizzy btw . Lizzy always seems to suck as an AI

 

[Jerrymander]

@meinteam:

Spoiler :

I'm probably gonna hang back now. Oranje has waaay outteched me, so now I haev to build my economic base. I hate this part.
I mostly said those comments because the triad of me/hannibal/oranje are gonna steamroller them in the later ages. Silly nuts, sticking to their idiotic religions. WHEN WILL THEY SEE THE LIGHT?!
Here, I'll go check out your spoilers and tell YOU what YOU could have done better, haha.

edort:

Spoiler :

I read up to your 1130 AD post. See, I did have the same idea as you. I was going to race to HBR, and pump out numids while chain capitulating/annihilating the AI. However, I figured that the spiritual trait from Mansa would be more beneficial to me in Marathon, where middle age switches for one civic take 4 (!) turns. Did Wang Kon oracle Feudalism in your game? I'm just curious. I lost a bunch of Swords, too, around 10 or 11. So ridiculous, but he was 'in my way'. I'll probably go Theology after Drama and try to get the AP and a diplomatic win. Seems very feasible for me, and an apt way to end a metal rush.
Oh, and those archers, I sent them into Darius's land because I hadn't hooked up my metal yet. I was being really lazy about it. If Darius didn't have metal, I would have taken Persepolis many turns earlier. damn you RNG.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

@ Jerry:

Spoiler :

I don't recall who got the oracle. He did have longbows, and I WAS wondering how he was teching feudalism so quickly (only guy that got it before me, and I prioritize it for rear defense and capitulations). He did research it (I had a powerful espionage game, so I could see!), but he might have taken monarch with the oracle. Religions look similar for you and me, except for obviously I was hannibal, so MM had a religion and lizzy was also budhist until she stupidly went FR.

Remember that while longbows are tough, most of the meaningful time in my war vs wang was a Numidian blitz from multiple ends, quick peace, then a 2nd push with a mix of numidians/knights. The 2nd war was helped heavily by spies. Flanking 2 gives first strike immunity, so drill was utterly useless to him. CG probably helped him, but with a withdrawal a longbow is usually softened up enough for a follow up smacking from a knight. I actually didn't plan a mix of numidians and knights, but it turned out to be really effective...the numidians were like mobile collateral damage, and the knights cleanup. I moved slower early on so econ wasn't a major issue here (pumping monument then courthouses in new cities, and had currency long before). Beelining hard to curies though, because I hate that knights have no inherent withdrawal. A lot.

Forbidden Palace early on is very overlooked, or just rarely mentioned (I don't think I did either). If you don't have it yet, I suggest you put it in one of your eastmost cities. Yes, making it early sacrifices some optimization with placement, but it gives you the eco boost right when it matters the most. I put it in a korean city ASAP after courthouse was done. It was worth 20 or 30 GPT! How many shrines can touch that when FP is available? Considering how early it's available, it might be among the most overlooked economic recovery buildings in the game. In one of the LHC games, the FP alone gave me about 150 GPT .

 

[Gwynnja]

I retired from a game as Lizzy recently, so... Let's give her another shot, Prince/Marathon

 

[Gwynnja]

How do I hide my pictures in the spoiler box?

 

[Jerrymander]

How do I hide my pictures in the spoiler box?

Just do:

 [ spoiler ][ img ]http://img.url.goes/here.jpg[ /img ][ /spoiler ]

Like you would in a normal post but inside the

Spoiler :

tags.

 

[Gwynnja]

Just do:

 [ spoiler ][ img ]http://img.url.goes/here.jpg[ /img ][ /spoiler ]

Like you would in a normal post but inside the

Spoiler :

tags.

Spoiler :

Ok, then do I have to use photobucket then and put up full size pics? i was gonna just upload them straight from my screenshots file and show thumbs, but they showed up outside the spoiler box. (Sorry, I'm sort of dumb about this )

 

[Jerrymander]

Ok, then do I have to use photobucket then and put up full size pics? i was gonna just upload them straight from my screenshots file and show thumbs, but they showed up outside the spoiler box. (Sorry, I'm sort of dumb about this )

Well, you don't have to use Photobucket, but it would probably be better, so that you don't have the thumbnails at the end of the post.

 

[BalbanesBeoulve]

My first impulse was to play Hannibal, but seems like everyone's playing him. So i'll go with Wang Kon just to be different.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I feel bad now. I wanted to do Hannibal because so many people say his UU sucks, and I couldn't have that. His UU is pretty good actually, at least against the AI. Yes, -1 str hurts, but the Numidian cavalry has a 50% bonus vs melee (read: their counter unit, not to mention axes). It also STARTS WITH FLANK I. Which means with a stable, you get combat I flank II numidian cavalry.

There are 7 basic units that you'll bump into in the classical age:

1. Archers: Numidians are slightly weaker vs these than horse archers, but if a city is being garrisoned with archers, you're going to like your odds. Like all other horse archers, numidians are immune to first strike (or are with flank II anyway for sure, which you'll get). With 50% withdrawal and a hefty chance to win, archers aren't the concern.

2. Axes: Only an idiot would go axes vs numidians. Carthage's UU is like a suped up chariot when it comes to axes. Next.

3. Swords: Swords have 6 str. Oh wait, numidians get 50% against them, and withdrawal if attacking. Next.

4. Spears: The counter to all HA's. Basically the one thing that actually holds up to numidians OK that the AI can usually get in time. Here's the thing though: numidian cavalry is much stronger vs spears than HA's or even keshiks. Defending spears will still be stronger, though will take grievous harm (and may not get a kill anyway). Just for fun, run the numbers of a shock Num Cavalry (possible with just barracks + stable!) vs a combat I or unpromoted spear on flatlands . Oooooh, that's not going to be too tempting to the AI, is it? This does mean that you can go a little deeper into AI lands to pillage metal too. Don't forget this.

5. Catapults: HA's in general own cats. -1 str isn't going to prevent the +50% bonus from raping them. Besides, if SIEGE is defending, you know you're doing well (you generally want to avoid being attacked by it regardless of what you have)!

6. Elephants. FINALLY something that stacks up to and consistently defeats numidian cavalry. Ivory is comparatively rare however, and could quickly become pillage bait in some circumstances also. Alternatively, Carthage could just kill an ivory civ before they get the techs needed...

7. Horse Archers: Ugh . Other HA's beat Numidians! That's bad. Still, some civs don't get HBR right away, and the computer is pretty bad with mounted troops. Still, if the computer has HBR you'll probably want to pillage horses if you can. If not, it's not the end of the world. The rule of mounted vs mounted is to be the attacker. I advise you not break it vs other HA's

I'd have happily gone with anyone in this game, though having played mansa and darius recently I did want to avoid them more than the others. Most of all, I wanted to showcase the Numidian cavalry a bit, because they're fun to use if set up correctly.