A New series: PYL I (Pick Your Leader)

[Groogaroo]

Darius - 2450 BC - Defeat

Spoiler :

It wasn't even a barb uprising, just a lone barb archer! I was bit lazy garrisoning my capital!

Well that was a quick game! I'm going to give another whirl tho!

 

[schwartz]

@ Groo:

Spoiler :

Tough luck!

 

[Larsz]

I will grab the save and try Hannibal/Prince/Normal. Thanks for the game

 

[Bleys]

Wow, lots of fast players. I am still finishing up 2 other games (Freddy NC and Mansa LHC), so havent had time to even play one. I will play one soon though, my plan is to try whichever leader gets the least tries.

Glad to see you are enjoying it though, I think the idea has a lot of potential. As I said in my OP though, there are a LOT of game going right now, both play-alongs and follow-alongs. This first one is mostly a test, to see what needs adjusting, what works well, etc etc, so please add some feedback on the format itself (no spoiler required) as you play and post.

 

[Larsz]

Carthage/Prince/Normal - Start thru 300BC - Might restart

Spoiler :

In case you haven't seen the start for Carthage:

Tech Path:
Hunting -> Archery -> Animal Husbandry -> Bronze Working -> Wheel -> Mystisism -> Horse Back Riding -> Agriculture -> Writing -> Pottery -> Sailing -> Alphabet (Trade from Mansa for HBR) -> Currency
Then a bunch of trades:
Pacal offered Meditation for Writing
Liz offered Iron Working for Alphabet
Mansa offered Monarchy for Currency
and I just finished Priesthood

Here is the part that is making me contemplate just quitting I researched Animal Husbandry and this is the nearby Horse resource (@ rolo - you are devious ) I also met the Dutch which are much closer to the horse than I am. How much do I really want the UU - Numidian Cavalry? I decide I want it bad enough to race the dutch for it...

I found Utica in 1960 BC, 2N1W of Horses. Haven't had a border pop yet and the Dutch decide to be jerks:

I already have an axeman or two and Willem is still building warriors so I don't think it should be a big deal to declare war and raze his city right away.

1120BC I declare and get one of Willems workers thrown in for my trouble.

I get my border culture pop and raze Willem's city:

By 975BC the dutch are ready for Peace. Problem solved! Not exactly...

I thought I had taken a screenshot of it, but the Dutch rebuilt that city around 400 BC, taking my horses away from me AGAIN!. I had only managed to get a stable and 1 Numidian Cavalry built by that point. Willem was only defending it with a single Axeman so I sent my Numidian Cavalry and and Axeman to see what could be done. I attacked with my Cavalry, took the defending axeman down to 3.6 and then attacked with my own Axeman. Here is the log, my axe had 90% odds:

I had another Axe almost there but by the time he got there, Willem had reinforced:

Either 1 or 2 turns later, Longbowmen came on the scene:

I am on my way to construction but I really wanted to concentrate on peaceful REX - A LOT of peaceful REX with currency and coastal cities. Here is the Carthage Empire at 300 BC:

There are more horses to the east across the small bay. I was planning on expanding over there anyway. That brings up a question, how is distance maintenance calculated? By road route? If that is the case, even though the cities are close, the road is long.

Willem rebuilding and then me losing a 90% odds combat was enough to make me quit playing, at least for now. I'll just cool off for a little while and see how ambitious I am.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

@ larsz

Spoiler :

Man, that's frustrating. I settled 1 SW of pigs, but did so early enough that willem didn't settle so that he'd claim them. Actually, I had Willem boxed in with 3 cities (one being a barb dealie to the east, nothing I could do about that but kill it later).

Regardless, a couple recommendations:

1. Settle your first citIES in the direction of the AI! You backfilled first! Placing a city west of your horse city at some point would have limited willem's ability to reclaim horses (or have them at all if you're fast enough).

2. When exploring, prioritize the land immediately around you, THEN branch out like that. You don't even know some of the best city settling sites in those screen shots, and you should know them before 2000BC. It's not like you can trade with the other AI's that early anyway .

3. You may have done so, but focus on the work boat early, seafood is strong in both growth and commerce...it's a big boost.

4. Good luck, it'll be fun watching how a fell carthaginian plays it

 

[Gocho]

Monarch/Epic, Willem (He's not getting enough love in this thread!)

For some reason screenshots didn't take

1000BC

Spoiler :

I actually moved the settler 1SE onto the beaver for the instant happy and to get deer in the BFC, shame where the copper popped but creative got it in my borders in plenty of time.

Just finished off Carthage to the north in what was a surprisingly difficult fight, thankfully i had a cr3 axeman due to early barbs to crack his cities with. Only held on to the capitol as the others were poorly placed and I really couldn't afford them anyways.

Immediate plans are to block my land to the east so I have a huge area to settle peacefully and I'm chopping the mids like mad in the capitol as the extra happy would be fantastic due to being food/flood plain rich. Next war might not be until rifles if I can peacefully settle and cottage spam. Only wonder built was the GW as barbs might be an issue with so much open space. Also right as I stopped for the day I got really lucky and popped gold in the capitol!

 

[Ravellion]

Seeing as I'm Dutch, and haven't actually played with Willem yet (always Random) I'll do a Monarch run with him, with Bhruic's patch and JPKsomenumber's event mod (so no partisan's without emancipation)!

Rav

 

[siggboy]

First time I'm going to report my progress in a thread ;-). I hope it will go well.

Willem/Monarch/Epic

First observations (this is safe to read after Bronze Working if you've scouted north, west and east of your starting position as Willem):

Spoiler :

I did not settle in place but SE-E (east of the river on the coast), so I could get the Pig and the Deer in the original BFC. Planning to get the Marble with a second city.

As it turns out, Copper would have been in the original BFC as well so now I'm a bit unsure if not settling in place was the greatest of ideas.

I'm definitely going to try to get a HUGE seafaring economy going, building Great Lighthouse, Artemis and Colossus. With Stone, Marble and Copper closely at hand this should be possible. Fingers crossed that it will work -- I hope I'll have enough production in the capital (only three green hills but at least I'll have an engineer going as well).

Loads of other early wonders are possible as well, but the above three will be my priority (probs I'm going to snatch the Oracle as well for early Metal Casting -> Colossus).

Probably I'm going to pop Great People like crazy in the capital, getting a nice mixture of Engineers, Merchants and Scientists. This looks like it's going to be a load of fun, let's hope I don't mess it up.

Hannibal is directly north of me and he's got Copper (I can see this from Scouting), so let's hope he won't mess up with my peaceful build-up in the beginning.

I'm not sure if I like the crazy resource situation, it just opens up too many good options, and I hate it if my plans don't come together ;-)).

Thanks for the map!

 

[Bleys]

Whew, that Freddy game is wearing me out, much for the same reasons the Mansa LHC game started too, LOL, warring in difficult territory.

Taking a break from both those games to start this one. Since I have yet to see a Pacal, and I have never played him, I will have a try with him. He certainly impressed me in the Freddy NC game, with his REXing and teching power. His UU is not horrible either.

Pacal, Monarch, Epic for me. Probably wont finish, I really need to focus on other games, but I want to read some of the spoilers and see how different they are.

 

[Bleys]

Wow, I am LOVING this start for Pacal!!

Pacal, Monarch, Epic, 4000 - 2000 BC:

Spoiler :

Holy cow. Never judge a book by its cover, let me tell ya. The starting BFC itself was nothing to write home about, a bunch of hills and a couple rivers, but with lots of plains-river tiles, as well as Grass hill pigs, a blank grassland tile, and 3 Silks which will be nice eventually, but pre-Calendar I will just farm a couple, turns em into Oases.

But the REAL money is in the surroundings. Floodplains, Gold, close Copper, reasonalbe food despite a lot of plains, wow, like it.

Being Expansive I decided to bust out a couple settlers while chopping out the forests on the Silk tiles for farming. Researched BW-Ag-Hunting (for the UU), AH. 2 settlers, 2 workers and 4 warriors later, here are my 3 cities. I should be teching out of SIGHT pretty quickly with these babies:

The Capitol:

City 2:

City 3:

Between the 3 I have 2 horses, 3 gold, a Copper, 9 Floodplains, an Oasis, loads of riverside tiles, and only a few dead desert tiles (something that sort of goes hand-in-hand with Floodplains). I dont know how the rest of the Civs surrounding areas are, but Pacal is likely to be a tech monster as an AI if he gets the same sites I did and doesnt get stuffed out fairly quickly.

Hoping to bust out a bunch of Chariots Axes, and Holkys, and late-rush Liz. She is right near me, and shouldnt be much of a problem.

 

[siggboy]

750 BC (Willem, Monarch)

Spoiler :

Got 4 cities out now, blocking the Korean with a super-juicy jungle city and facing a Barb city right to the east of Horse Town which I'll probably capture and keep.

There's a settler waiting and I'm thinking hard of where to send him (probably north-east-east of capital to grab Jumbos and Wine and block off Hannibal).

Everybody is Jewish except Pacal (Buddhist but far away so I don't bother right now) and Hannibal (no religion yet, I really hope he's going to have his Bar Mitzwa soon as well or otherwise a war might be inevitable).

The Temple of Artemis has been built already and I'm now rushing towards Lighthouse and Colossus. Built the Oracle in second city for Metal Casting slingshot.

I'm now thinking that it might have been better to get Artemis in the second city as well and save the trees in capital for the two coastal wonders, but well... aleae jacta sunt ;-).

Currently teching Aesthetics on the way to Literature which will be followed by Alphabet for some trading. I might delay Literature depending on the situation because I can only built so many wonders anyway. I really wouldn't mind the Great Library though. I'm also eying the Pyramids still. Hopefully all the wonder-hogging won't get impeded by a necessary military built-up (probably it will).

If I can meet my goals to complete the sea-wonders, however, I'll be happy enough and in great shape unless I get ganked.

 

[Pe Ell]

Darius, 1924 AD. Emperor/normal.

Spoiler :

Fun game! Darius is certainly a powerhouse. Might play some more with him. I want to try out elizabeth and give the english babe som lovin' since she is my favourite leader. Might be too easy now that I know what the map look like. Maybe I'll make it my first immortal game?

So what happened after I left of? A lot. My economy soon recovered with all that land and resources I had. Financial and cheap courthouses certainly helped. As did the stone, Persepolis became quite the wonder literaly speaking. GW, mids, gardens, UoS (whatever, I pretty much never built and religous buildings in this one, briefly flirted with islam to make friends then switched to FR as soon as I got lib) Chicken pizza (lolerz) SoL and later also headquarters for Mining inc and that food one that isn't sushi, Hannibal stole sushi (payed for it too).

Anyway, I was teching like mad, soon having a real CE with cottages everywhere. Only one city that really wasn't cottage central, my military city on the border that spammed units constantly too keep my power up. Rest was just cottages and windmills mostly. Some farms and mines where food was needed/in abundance. I love being financial. Forgot to dedicate a real GP city, my bad. Well, I got the ones needed.

Soon I was ready to go win the game.



Well ok, I didn't really win the war with that. Just captured 3 dutch cities (he didn't have rifling yet so I took my opportunity) using revolt and attack. I played this game without using ground siege weapons at all, more or less. I think two saw action and I had some in reserve in case I big stack showed up. The minute Willem got rifling I pulled out. No need to take casulties.



Well, it had to be done no? See al those horses turning into Gunships? Willem really couldn't counter it. I tried out a new tactic that worked very well. Normally I use infantry+arty for wars around that time, this time I delayed it and got flight--->advanced flight. Calling my tactic parashock. You use bombers to take away culture and cause collateral, air superiority is everything as I play semi-modern/modern wars. Then the choppers with the many moves quickly sweep in (ggmedic is gold here) and kill the defenders. Then you drop in paratroopers to capture and secure. So fast it's silly.



This was supposed to be me bribing Pacal to war. Hannibal took Willem under his wing and I turned it into world war. Yes, lizzy was Pacals vassal. Poor gal was in the wrong religion a long time and bulied by everyone.



Thanks for the help with hannibal Pacal, glad to see so many of your troops perished. Oh that dagger in your back? Never seen it before in my life...



Inevitable. 68k score. Decent for me.

And as a bonus two things I just laughed like crazy when I saw. Note the event text...

 

[Jerrymander]

That's some navy you got there.

 

[Pe Ell]

Indeed! The invicible Persian armada or something.

 

[SergeiKirov]

Hello everyone!

I'm another of those long time lurkers. So I just gave it a try, for fun, with Darius, I'm not reporting the whole of the game, just some random comments.

My congratulations to Bleys for the great idea and to my compatriot r_rolo for the excellent map. If I ever find myself with more free time I'll give a shot at one of the LHC games, but I'm just a regular player, so I won't go through the trouble of posting the game with lots of screenshots (lazyness strikes again... ).

Spoiler :

I picked Darius for a run in Noble, because the start looked so juicy I couldn't resist. The capital turned out to be an obsolete-style GP farm, with some selected wonders. I settled five more cities, two to the east, two to the north and one to the west of the capital, that got the Moai statues.

All cities but one were coastal, as I got the Colossus and the Great Lighthouse, so those water tiles were a must. At the same time I had an army of workers replacing the jungle with cottages.

Most of the people were hindu, out of the missionary frenzy that struck Willem, I joined the flock, so a very lazy game, no wars. I had a nice tech advantage, but the obvious target for my stack of cavalry and cannons, Mansa Musa, was a voluntary vassal of Wang Kon, so I couldn't be bothered...

No one was able to get a religious victory through the AP, but the UN vote for diplo victory was me against the buddist heathen Pacal, so guess who won...

 

[siggboy]

Another update from me:

Spoiler :

Thinking hard and fast, I've decided to gank Hannibal. He's only just started to grow out of his peninsula, and his lone "outpost" was garded by two Archers, one of them unpromoted. Since I had already started on the Axes, and the Wonders were coming along nicely in the capital, I had a go for him.

Capturing that first city was not a problem, I only lost one or two axes (he had moved in two spears in the meantime), then moved north onto Hannie's island to start a war of attrition (first thing was to pillage the only copper mine he had built so far).

From there on, it was pillaging, and picking up whatever units I could, while slaughtering what Hannie left in the field carelessly.

Right now there are not many improvements left, and I'm only facing Archers. I'm bombarding his hill capital while moving in more cats, and soon enough will take it and the city to the west, then either eliminate him or sue for peace to finish him off later (he's got another copper mine to the north and iron as well, so probably I should finish the job rather sooner than later).

On the wonder front, I've built: Oracle, Great Lighthouse, Artemis, Colossus, Gardens, Great Library. Missed out on the Pyramids to the Persian but that does hardly matter since I'm going to run a cottage/trade economy anyway. More wonders are in the pipeline already, I'll get the Parthenon just for fun and whatever else looks nice to me (god, I love having stone AND marble almost right from the start). The only pity is that I don't have quite that much food in the capital so running a horde of specialists won't be possible while keeping production reasonable.

Great People: got two priests so far, both of which I settled in the capital (Wonder Ville) for additional hammers. Ran an engineer for most of the time there but none has popped so far. Maybe later...

Teching was easy, all the important early techs I've researched myself, so far I've traded for not much (I think Calendar and Meditation).

The land to the east is still unexplored, since I was busy fighting and totally forgot about that, but assuming that there isn't much there except for barbs I guess my empire will grow huge without a lot more warring. (I hate warring.)

The distant Maya might knock on my door at one point, but the rest of the family is playing along nicely (everybody is Jewish except for the Maya and Elizabeth, whom I met quite late). Manja is great for trading techs as always. I've already started to dump older techs for some cash, since none of the AIs seem to be in a position to run away. Hannibal is still a complete heathen, and nobody will might my pummeling of his since I've declared war so early anyway . Loving it.

Right now it looks like its going to be a total pushover, probably the best Monarch game I've played so far.

I really like Willem so far, Creative/Financial is a nice combination if you're not into fighting, like myself. The improved Galleon will prove to be worth it in case sea expansion becomes necessary and the Dike will be invaluable on this map later during endgame. Totally forgot about how easy early expansion gets with the Creative bonus.

Thanks again for this awesome map!

 

[BalbanesBeoulve]

Wang Kon, emperor, marathon.

Spoiler :

Ouch, everybody's been teching ridiculously well. The only war so far was when I bribed Hannibal to attack Mansa. Even with different religions nobody was less than cautious with each other, so as soon as someone discovered something, everybody else got it. So i've been having trouble trading as everything I get everybody already has. It's been really rough, but the tech rates are slowing down. The start was also rough, I had lots of room to expand and lots of grassland, but clearing out the jungles was hell. I should have waged an early war and taken out mansa and darius in the BCs. That definitely would have made things easier. I missed the kremlin even though i beelined communism. So right now i'm teching to rifles and steel and i'm rushbuying an army as soon as i do. My plan is to take the kremlin from darius. he's got a pretty small 5 city empire. Shouldn't be too touch to take him out.After that I'll probably tech to infantry and artillery then turn off research and take over everybody else.

 

[siggboy]

What you are seeing is the result of keeping a city not properly defended, then having it run over by barbs and a friendly AI capturing it with a passing Axeman 1 turn before you can take it back yourself:

Spoiler :

Argh.

I guess I'll have to culture flip it or trade/liberate it at some point because I really don't plan to wage war on this civ right now...

 

[BalbanesBeoulve]

Spoiler :

Ok, i threw in the towel. For a long time elizabeth was way behind but now she's caught up and even passed me. Only Hannibal is still behind. And even though i've thrown him at Darius and Mansa he keeps getting the peace event so he's not helping me outmuch.

Keeping all these guys alive is definitely a mistake. They need to die in the BCs.

I started a new game and I just noticed a huge problem with this scenario.

Spoiler :

yes. I just warrior rushed mansa. on emperor. Unlike normal emperor and even monarch games, the AIs here don't start with any archers so stuff like this is possible. Makes an early rush just too hard to resist and too damn easy. Almost feels like cheating. Should I even bother to keep playing this game?