ALC Game #10: India/Asoka

[pigswill]

If you want peace, prepare for war. (Not original but apt). Build units while improving tiles and increasing population; almost certainly where you're falling behind is the number of worked cottages.

 

[carl corey]

Don't forget that in Warlords you can build science/culture/gold at 100% of the hammers invested, with bonuses from forge, etc. If nothing else you can at least support the new cities by whipping a courthouse (and maybe a granary) and then building gold in them. I've done it in a test game for the Ottomans in which I went the Currency way to get CoL and CS and it has proved quite efficient to help me keep a high research rate.

 

[karr1255]

I'd definitely prepare for war and I'd actually go for Toku. Lots of siege weapons are the key. Build those while waiting for macemen and improve your land. (Haven't looked at the save though)

Also my bet for the wonderbuilder out there is Bismarck. He's crazy sometimes. Just give him good land and he get's lots of wonders and still has a big army.

 

[uncarved block]

gdgrimm, that's all very true, and an astute analysis, but that wasn't my point. (Which was stated poorly; the fault is all mine.) VoU had asserted, basically, that getting Macemen was a warmongering move, and I was trying to counter that it's also a pretty good defensive move. Yes, I'd like to think that the AI wouldn't attack someone with a lot of Elephants-- but the actual forces don't seem to make as much difference to the AI as the power graph, and having a military tech the human player doesn't.

Given the sensitive point in the game (consolidating after a war) then, avoiding a war on the AIs terms seems a high priority. If getting Macemen helps prevent that, then it seems like a good decision re: the tech tree. Of course, I'm very pessimistic, so perhaps I'm overstating things-- my first thought when Toku agreed to OB was that he only did it to scout out Sisiutil's territory. Too cautious? Probably, but I've had too many games in which a bordering civ came back with a huge army after an earlier war, and the best way to prevent this is to keep peace until you're ready to strike. YMMV.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

VoU had asserted, basically, that getting Macemen was a warmongering move, and I was trying to counter that it's also a pretty good defensive move. Yes, I'd like to think that the AI wouldn't attack someone with a lot of Elephants-- but the actual forces don't seem to make as much difference to the AI as the power graph, and having a military tech the human player doesn't.

Given the sensitive point in the game (consolidating after a war) then, avoiding a war on the AIs terms seems a high priority. If getting Macemen helps prevent that, then it seems like a good decision re: the tech tree.

I thought I was a bit more specific than that - not that it was a war mongering move, but it was a move made from habit. Yes, macemen are usually good, for more than one reason, but the appropriate question is "Is Machinery the best choice in this position?" and I don't believe that question was asked and answered.

Currency + Civil Service improved the situation, but not to a point that I think choosing the second best move is advisable if going for the win (if the goal is the 800 pound marble trophy, that's a different story).

It looks to me as though Compass or Feudalism better cater to the immediate needs of the position (Harbors for the health and commerce boost, or Serfdom - since I think growth is a priority, the whip can be set aside for a moment - plus Longbows). Having given it some thought, probably Feudalism - I think you can make a case that it should have come before Civil Service, but that can't be helped at this point.

This may or may not be right, but you can't possibly know unless you ask and answer the question.

 

[Sisiutil]

Round 9: to 1120 AD

This round was all about keeping up with the Joneses... er, okay, actually, the Tokugawas.

Here are the tech trades I made with Toku this round. To start off with, I followed patagonia's advice to fetch Feudalism:

Yes, that enables Toku to get his UU, Samurai. I'm not too worried, though. The AI sucks at war in general, and at utilizing its UU in particular. Just look how pathetic Caesar is with his Praetorians. But in the hands of a human, they're nearly unstoppable--since the patch nerfed Cossacks and Redcoats, Praets have got to be the best UU in the game. But I digress...

After that, I decided to get Drama in exchange for Code of Laws. It may come in handy for war weariness, and I decided to get something for CoL before Ragnar traded it to Toku and stole the opportunity from me.

Shortly after that, I popped my next Great Person (another Great Prophet) for Theology. Christianity was already founded elsewhere, but the Theocracy civic, in combination with Vassalage, will be handy soon, methinks. I then shopped that to Toku for another worthwhile tech:

Unreal, huh? Who knew Toku could ever turn out to be a tech-trading buddy like Mansa or Gandhi? The patch has definitely made some differences to the AI!

Of course, several other things happened. Bangalore's borders popped and revealed the northern island I'd suspected was there:

As you can see, I was conveniently already building a Trireme in Bangalore, so I sent it to investigate on the next turn.

Ragnar finished another wonder, Notre Dame, which explains why he was hogging Music:

My Trireme actually finished scoping out the northern island pretty quickly. Turns out there's not much up there:

Not even one lousy resource! Well, I suspect there will be a late resource such as coal, oil, aluminum, or uranium up there. I don't think it's worth settling at this point, not when I'm planning on going to war in the next round and incurring costs from the new cities I hope to acquire. I wouldn't be surprised to see Ragnar or Toku take advantage of our open borders and settle up there. That's fine. Good luck making that city pay for itself, guys.

One other interesting thing with Toku: he's willing to go to war with Ragnar. Well, for the right price, which I unfortunately don't have:

Still, that was an interesting little tidbit. In contrast, Ragnar is not willing to "betray his close friend", the dimwit. Your buddy will sell you out at a moment's notice, you horn-headed moron!

Anyway, that was it for this round! Pretty short, I know, but as I said at the start, I was going to keep the rounds short and seek more advice on my post-patch Warlords. (Full disclosure: I got impatient. This is no longer my first Warlords game. C'mon, I had a new toy, I had to play...)

Anyway, here's some "state of the world" information. The map:

My diplomatic relations:

Here's another weird twist for you: everybody loves Toku! Seriously, both Mehmed and Ragnar are friendly with him. When was the last time you saw that?

The tech situation:

Ragnar is not willing to trade either of his techs for Theology, unfortunately, and as you saw above, I currently have nothing to offer Tokugawa. Oh well, I'm not nearly as far behind as I was. And more importantly, I now have Machinery and Engineering, two key medieval military techs.

My trade screen:

I canceled a deal with Toku this turn because he supposedly had another 1 GPT available, but when I went to see him he had 0! I've seen that a couple of times in Warlords games now. If I go see him again in a turn or two, the GPT will probably be back. Weird... At least he was willing to give 100 gold to me, 'cuz we're such good pals. For now. Heh heh heh...

(Oh yeah, Mehmed still hates my guts. Like I care.)

Here's the power graph:

I'm still behind the giggle twins, but then again, a few turns back, I started by pre-civics-switch military build-up. I have a few units in my cities' queues. I'll switch to Theocracy/Vassalage sometime in the next round. (Anarchy free! Whee!! I love that.) I'll then start churning out Level 3 units with all those lovely extra XPs.

However, given their friendly relations, it seems likely that my three neighbours will dog-pile me. At this point, I think Ragnar seems like the best target, since there's a chance, however slim, that I may be able to get Toku to join in on the fun, or at least stay out of it. Thoughts?

The demographics:

That's slowly getting better. Look, I'm #1 in production! I still have to bring up my GNP, though. Hey, I'm working those cottages, believe me, but they take time to mature, all right?

By the way, Delhi is now the top-ranked city in the world--yes, just a cut above that mysterious wonder-laden town on the other continent, which has 13 population to my 11, and around 6 wonders to my two! Okay, it's kind of meaningless, but just out of curiosity, I'd like to hear someone explain that ranking.

I think the next round, as I said, will see me producing military units and then taking out one of the neighbours. I'd dearly love to take Toku down a notch or two, but as I said, Ragnar seems like the best target at the moment. If I'm successful, I'll consider vassalizing him, if only to try out that option (which, no, I have not yet utilized in my off-line Warlords games).

Even if I don't get Toku to join me, I somehow suspect he'll be reluctant to help the Viking out. I could be wrong and get dog-piled, though, so I'll need some good defensive units. All my border cities have walls, just in case, and at least one War Elephant. I'll build Longbowmen for the border cities too.

I will, of course, heed your advice, but I think we're on a collision course here with one of the neighbours, probably the Viking. Here's the save:

 

[Preston85]

Very interesting, looks like all is not lost as some predicted.

My thought was to make contact with the other continent, they could be very useful for tech trades once you go to war with people on this island. I see your researching Optics already so guess thats your plan to? Or just to defend sea's from ships carrying land units?

How about settling on the island then gifting the city? Could give it someone to make friends (toku) or to your next victim then smash it or leave it as there last city. Would that work in warlords at this difficulty level? Having seen how far the AI is willing to go to settle every last bit of unclaimed land it wouldn't be suprised if they accept it.

 

[pigswill]

Haven't checked the save (coz I'm lazy like that) but my first thought is to go for Tok who's more advanced that Ragnar otherwise by the time you've wiped out Ragnar and consolidated his territory Tok will be a half dozen techs ahead of you.Rifles vs infantry ain't fun when its you with the rifles.

 

[cabert]

Unreal, huh? Who knew Toku could ever turn out to be a tech-trading buddy like Mansa or Gandhi? The patch has definitely made some differences to the AI!

I don't think so. Even in vanilla, you could trade with toku, it just takes a lot of +s in relations.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Ragnar or Toku take advantage of our open borders and settle up there. That's fine. Good luck making that city pay for itself, guys.

After the patch they do less smoky settling, from what I've seen.
Still not a reason to settle there yourself right now.
But if you plan for domination, it could be an easy gain.

However, given their friendly relations, it seems likely that my three neighbours will dog-pile me. At this point, I think Ragnar seems like the best target, since there's a chance, however slim, that I may be able to get Toku to join in on the fun, or at least stay out of it. Thoughts?

ragnar is closer to you, he very well can be the one dogpiled on, since you don't have a lot of common borders with toku, and memedh cannot decide to go to war by himself.
So yes, Ragnar is the target.

That's slowly getting better. Look, I'm #1 in production! I still have to bring up my GNP, though. Hey, I'm working those cottages, believe me, but they take time to mature, all right?

Maybe you need more? more workers would have made the biggest difference here.

By the way, Delhi is now the top-ranked city in the world--yes, just a cut above that mysterious wonder-laden town on the other continent, which has 13 population to my 11, and around 6 wonders to my two! Okay, it's kind of meaningless, but just out of curiosity, I'd like to hear someone explain that ranking.

You have more production and commerce in delhi than your opponent has, probably.

I think the next round, as I said, will see me producing military units and then taking out one of the neighbours. I'd dearly love to take Toku down a notch or two, but as I said, Ragnar seems like the best target at the moment. If I'm successful, I'll consider vassalizing him, if only to try out that option (which, no, I have not yet utilized in my off-line Warlords games).

trebuchets ready?
macemen ready?
go go go

 

[patagonia]

Looks like war is the name of the game, in which case stick an extra catapult in the build queue for each city and promote it to barrage 2. They'll pay for themselves quickly enough.

Ragnar's definitely the best target in terms of being geographically easiest to attack, so you may as well go for his cities. Before warring, see if you can bribe Toku, either to stop trading or to join in. You may be lucky and end up with optics to offer. If not that, then I'd head for paper. Toku's clearly beeling for banking so he can start running mercantilism, so bearing that in mind expect your economy to take a bit of a hit in the next few turns too. Whether Toku will get involved on your side or not, I'd leave the two viking cities furthest east alone. If you do end up vassalizing Ragnar, they'll help to act as a buffer zone between you and the Japanese.

One final request/plea - you're unlikely to get many (if any) workers out of the war so please build one in every city once it's finished. GNP and MFG (and pop) are going in the right direction, but you've still got an awful lot of land to improve.

 

[Fetch]

Patagonia beat me to the punch. See if you can use optics as a barganing chip with Toko to get him to dogpile Ragnar. Finishing optics will give you 2 techs that Toko doesn't have (depending on his research, of course). I'm not sure I'd build a worker in every city, as the AI tends to huddle workers in the closest cities at the time of the invasion, which may be anywhere, but seems to always be near or in the capital, which you will take. Right? Right.

 

[Lance of Llanwy]

One thing about Warlords is that it does seem a little easier to get warmongerers to beat on some one. In my experience Optics might just be sexy enough to do the job. Bribing Toku also has the benefit of dragging Mehmed along, for what it matters. I wouldn't suggest vassalizing Ragnar...just doesn't make much sense. Looks like all of his cities have good land. The only time I'd bother, in this case, is if you were really hitting the wall and all he had left were those tundra/ice cities the AI seems to love so much.

At glance, if you're quick enough, you could manage to beat Toku to Nidaros, no doubt a glittering prize, being a capital site(and having Notre Dame...who DOESN'T like free happy faces?) I can't see the resources, but every coastal city except Uppsala looks decent, Nidaros is a given, and Haithabu looks like it's loaded with flood plains, always a plus, and, better yet, under no great pressure from Japanese culture. Bjor-something-or-other was named a keeper earlier. Just remember you may not be able to resettle these babies as easily as you did the Ottoman ones....Toku's going to be breathing down your neck for land...

 

[blueco]

Greetings Sisiutil and everyone else! This is my first post, have been lurking for some time and let me start off by saying that I enjoy these post and find them very intresting and fun. I have learned alot by reading them true.

One thing that happens to me pretty often when I play is that my target vassalizing himself to a 3:e part and I end up fighting a war against 2-3 enemies. If Ragnar and Toku are friendly this might be the case. So if you planing on vassalizing Ragnar I suggest you don´t bring Toku into the fight but you work on making Ragnar´s and Toku´s relationship worse before you attack.

(english is not my first language but I hope my speling is understandable.)

 

[Sisiutil]

Okay, sounds like a plan. Get my Trebs and other forces ready, then build some more Fast Workers. Most of the north has been improved, but my southern territories need work (tricky, because those are about to become the front lines, especially Madras and Cuman).

I will indeed go after Ragnar; I've been leaning that way for some time, in fact, since I avoided sending spare Buddhist missionaries to Japan, hoping Toku would convert to Taoism, leading to a rupture with Rangar. Then again, that would be a rupture with me too, but that's life. Should

Once the war is under way and I have enough units, I also think I'll need to start on markets in my commerce cities (Delhi, Bombay, Cuman) to shore up the economy--after I switch back to Organized Religion, of course. Buddhist Missionaries in those cities would also be good, for the research boost.

I'm planning on upgrading the two Triremes I have sitting off each coast to Caravels once I have Optics and sending them off to meet the other civs and win the circumnavigation bonus. And yes, if I get to that tech before Toku, I will probably use it to bribe him in some way. If he won't attack Ragnar, I'll at least try to get him to stop trading with the viking.

Looking further down the road, we should think about whether we'll pursue Ragnar until the bitter end, or switch to go after Toku part-way through. I'm concerned about how advanced the Japanese will be if I leave them to their own devices for too long. I may not Vassalize Ragnar in this circumstance, just leave him weak and come back to finish him later.

 

[aelf]

If you choose the safe path and go after Ragnar first, I foresee a titanic struggle with Toku that will either make or break the game in the future. But, come to think of it, there's no guarantee you can win the game even if you win the war. Some peacenik on the other continent might be teching his/her way to a space victory as your continent is embroiled in total war.

I do think the game isn't necessarily lost. It's going to be tough, though. But that's when success is truly rewarding. Don't give up!

 

[Lance of Llanwy]

If you choose the safe path and go after Ragnar first, I foresee a titanic struggle with Toku that will either make or break the game in the future. But, come to think of it, there's no guarantee you can win the game even if you win the war. Some peacenik on the other continent might be teching his/her way to a space victory as your continent is embroiled in total war.

I do think the game isn't necessarily lost. It's going to be tough, though. But that's when success is truly rewarding. Don't give up!

I wouldn't be too concerned. They must be pretty even, as we haven't had any visitors. As for wonder-mongers.....in my mind, Bismarck and Louie seem like likely culprits. More workers faster=good teching. The AI also seems to take good advantage of creative, especially now. Other industrious civs at glance:
Qin Shi Huang- Protective means he's probably more confident in his defenses. Less fear of war=more building.
Stalin- He would be ideal....he's probably been knocking heads, fueling expansion with his wonder-brimming capital. Tight-fisted to boot, but probably doesn't have many friends.
Roosevelt- Yeesh. That'd be pretty ugly. The AI just laps up Organized, and Roosevelt really takes off if he can get things started. Trust me....it happened to me...
Huayna Capac- Say hello to Mr. Worst-Case scenario. A happy, healthy Incan nation, loaded with wonders and powering its tech-mongering with financial. Also doubles as grumpy and being a capable war-mongerer.
Ramses- Hmmm...he seems to do well, but never blows guys away. But his presence could mean a religious bloc ruling the other continent. Generally grumpier and less accomadating than Hattie....

 

[Eggolas]

Let's not forget which AIs love GP farms and Pacifism, using the GEs to build wonders and lightbulb techs:

India
England
Egypt

There are quite a few possibilities for the other continent, especially if it's peaceful over there.

 

[aelf]

I wouldn't be too concerned. They must be pretty even, as we haven't had any visitors.

Yes, for now. I was talking about later when Sisiutil really needs to put his foot down about Toku. I think peaceful coexistence is very unlikely.

 

[Sisiutil]

Let's not forget which AIs love GP farms and Pacifism, using the GEs to build wonders and lightbulb techs:

India
England
Egypt

There are quite a few possibilities for the other continent, especially if it's peaceful over there.

Somehow I think the first one is decidedly unlikely.

 

[Sisiutil]

Yes, for now. I was talking about later when Sisiutil really needs to put his foot down about Toku. I think peaceful coexistence is very unlikely.

If we're fairly even with the leader on the other continent in military techs later in the game, then domination may be the way to go.

If they're substantially ahead in that regard, we may have to try for a diplomatic victory, so I'll do my best to keep relations with the other continent as good as possible until we have to make our final decision on a victory condition.