ALC Game 11: Carthage/Hannibal

[FeedBack]

I may need to shout now........
FIVE PAGES IN A WEEKEND! It's too good to have on a lazy cloudy Monday at work!
Well, some information here. When you were talking about those 2 numbers on the XML file, the first one is how much it will take for the AI to have that "We Fear You Are Becoming Too Advanced" issue trading techs. The greater the number, the longer they will trade with you. I don't know exactly what it means, but Mansa is always willing to trade and his value for this attribute is 20. Sometime ago I read about it on the forums and finally changed my mind about trading those "almost inexpensive" backward techs unless the timing is vital (like trading Poly to be able to research Lit and build the GL before everyone else). I now value early Alphabet a lot less.
Well, back on topic... Notice how close the Red and Brown borders are to the Marble Arch site. Toku is obviously closer and will claim the site if you don't claim it now. Than you may need another site to the further west to gain access to the west coast. If you can do that, you'd isolate Toku and Shaka from Kublai closing borders. I don't know if it's doable, though...
Looking towards the east coast, it's pretty much safer. Look where the Brown borders are, again. They are very far from the Iron site.
Techwise, let's say you may need to go to Alphabet right now if you are building the GL. But trading for HBR is not much likely at this point of the game. So, I think you'd be better researching HBR and while you research Alphabet, you build your army. Another option is waiting for the AI to research Alphabet and try to get it from them. Did anyone ever make it?

So far, so good! Keep up the

 

[BlueSoxSWJ]

From the earlier dotmap, I'd be tempted to move city "A" (marble arch) to 2N of the marble, thus picking up gold, marble, and iron. (Alt: 2N 1E of the marble picks up marble, iron, and cows.) If you can also get a settler up to the northern iron, there's a chance you could be cutting off KK from iron altogether. If you could then use that to give yourself the advantage and take out KK first instead, you could claim the northern half of the continent for yourself, and hopefully use the Buddhist lovefest to keep the peace (at least until you need more land).

 

[JoeBlade]

In retrospect the detour towards IW was probably well worth it. I hadn't considered the production cost of Stables + NCs (or rather, hadn't looked at the savegame) so it was probably a stretch. Speaking of: I think founding one or two decent production cities would be in order.
How to proceed next though?

You could indeed try to coexist peacefully for the time being while REXing and even building a wonder or two. The risk there is falling behind in the Power department; all three civs will gladly stick a knife in your back when that happens, irrespective of your standing. That's my experience with them at least.
Also, KK's Creative trait could cause trouble then, unless you were to construct culture buildings or rely on the culture slider. Both would mean potentially neglecting your military even further (or worse, your research)

The other option is grabbing a handful of decent sites now and preparing for war. The main question then becomes whom to target. My precarious PRO/CON evaluation:
Shaka:
PROs: He's weak already; he has stone, fish, and another source of horses (always good to have two) on you
CONs: His UU is a counter for your UU, plus make good pillagers themselves; only his capital is really worthwhile; expect severe cultural pressure from Toku; he's one of two potential tech trading partners

Toku:
PROs: He has a holy city; he already has sheep, spices and fur on you, possibly bananas, silk and marble too soon; he probably won't ever trade any worthwhile techs
CONs: He's Aggressive AND Protective. You'll need several catapults or heaps of troops to capture his cities, especially once he has longbows and samurai in place. Beelining for Construction would be well recommended

Kublai:
PROs: He's a REXer and can grow substantially in power should you leave him alone; his cultural borders will cause trouble sooner rather than later
CONs: Culture may make it hard to keep his cities; he's the best potential trading partner, annoying him may therefore not be a good idea; he has only one resource you don't have yourself at this moment or at least envisage claiming soon, being Deer. He may grab silk as well though.

All in all Toku seems the more likely target to me now. Still, he also makes the best war buddy of the three AFAIK, so you may want to keep him happy for that reason. At the same time I really don't like the prospect of leaving Kublai in peace because he could grow into a serious threat.
Moreover, you can expect 'declared war on our friend' modifiers irrespective of whom you attack and highly annoying 'won't fight brothers and sisters of the faith' weariness during a war. If you go to war I'd therefore say: prepare well such that you can take over whichever cities you desire in a single, quick strike rather than usual stop-and-go wars.

Hmm, I really wouldn't know what to suggest for the next course. Well, at least these 'insights' might help you make up your mind

 

[aelf]

Do NOT 'share' your continent with Kublai. That would likely prove to be a mistake. Choose one target and that's it, if you don't want to wind up having to conquer the whole continent. Assuming you choose Toku to be your target (he's the most useless), you would kill him off with the assistance of Shaka. After that, keep Shaka friendly and turn him against Kublai. That might necessitate your giving Shaka a land corridor to Mongolia, though, so give cities on the western coast to the Zulu. It sounds crazy, but IMO that's the sensible way to play the game, given your aims.

 

[cabert]

Sisiutil, did you develop an allergy to granaries?
You whipped several times for 1 pop, and you still don't have any granary.
You certainly do this to irritate me .

I don't have much thought to share about this game.
The only thing I know about Carthage is it makes usually a good target

 

[Fetch]

Don't forget you can vassalize one of them.

 

[aelf]

Don't forget you can vassalize one of them.

By the time you do this, the vassal is probably not worth his weight in power.

 

[uncarved block]

Elandel, my reasoning for making Shaka the first target runs something like this: from experience, Shaka tends to bring about unhappiness on his own, by making unreasonable demands, and asking you to stop trading. Sure, he's more willing to trade in theory, but in practice I've found him as bad as Toku; IIRC, he stays "annoyed" all the way up to +2 in relations, and if he's feeling hemmed in, the "close borders spark tensions" demerit will make even that tough to get. Simply put, he's a PITA, and unlike Monty or Izzy, doesn't even make a good attack dog. YMMV.

Slightly OT, but does anyone else use Workers for scouting? Sisiutil went all the way through IW to find out if Shaka had Impis, but the sacrifice of 4-6 worker turns (or less) might have told him the same thing-- though not where the resource was. Or is that crazy talk?

Since the blitzkrieg against Shaka has passed, I agree that Tokugawa is the next best target, especially if the second half or so of the game is going to be peaceful. Kublai is a decent enough chap if he's got enough cities, and certainly the best of this lot to share a continent with. At least that's been my experience; if the consensus is that he's a backstabber, then maybe leaving Shaka is the better option. I just can't get there from here, though.

 

[cabert]

blitzkrieg against shake is still more than likely :
cathage is less powerful than japan, and shaka will attack someone...
guess who

 

[Lance of Llanwy]

Elandel, my reasoning for making Shaka the first target runs something like this: from experience, Shaka tends to bring about unhappiness on his own, by making unreasonable demands, and asking you to stop trading. Sure, he's more willing to trade in theory, but in practice I've found him as bad as Toku; IIRC, he stays "annoyed" all the way up to +2 in relations, and if he's feeling hemmed in, the "close borders spark tensions" demerit will make even that tough to get. Simply put, he's a PITA, and unlike Monty or Izzy, doesn't even make a good attack dog. YMMV.

Slightly OT, but does anyone else use Workers for scouting? Sisiutil went all the way through IW to find out if Shaka had Impis, but the sacrifice of 4-6 worker turns (or less) might have told him the same thing-- though not where the resource was. Or is that crazy talk?

Since the blitzkrieg against Shaka has passed, I agree that Tokugawa is the next best target, especially if the second half or so of the game is going to be peaceful. Kublai is a decent enough chap if he's got enough cities, and certainly the best of this lot to share a continent with. At least that's been my experience; if the consensus is that he's a backstabber, then maybe leaving Shaka is the better option. I just can't get there from here, though.

I agree. Shaka is grumpy and nearly as likely to go to war as Monty, and Shaka can't be placated very effectively with any means I can think of, aside from acquiescing to every ridiculous demand he makes and hoping it works out(at least you could get a fat "brothers of the faith" bonus from Monty, but not so with Shaka, I think he only gets +4 or so, which is easily eroded) Out of the three of them, Kublai is easily the most trustworthy and peaceful neighbor, and that's saying something. Well, maybe Toku is, but especially if that other continent ends up backward, he's not going to make a good trade partner, ever. Kublai is at least a lock to have techs down certain paths of the tech tree the AI favors(he IS a decent builder, mind you). Shaka....I've never seen him do nearly as well tech-wise as nearly every other AI. Even once when he had two vassals and nearly twice the amount of land, I was still up on him by 4-5 techs and stayed that way. He'll just be backward and angry. Kublai could well be kept happy and could be on a good enough tech level that trading with him could be useful...

Edit: It also appears that Shaka has less land than Toku, and is wedged up against the coast. Attacking Toku before him would result in Shaka snatching up some of Toku's land, but it looks less likely dealing with Shaka would help Toku out much. I'd advise dealing with Shaka first, especially if he still isn't Buddhist. If that's his only Iron source, getting rid of it will be easy, and then any Impis he has will slowly dwindle into nothing. Plus, posessing Shaka's lands allows you to attack Toku from the north and east, and attacking Shaka from two sides wouldn't be very beneficial due to his small size...

 

[stuge]

No early war=good. (In this situation.)

Financial+charismatic+lots of land=lots of bigger-than-average cities with many lucrative cottages.

Do the math, it ain't hard.
There's no reason to attack anyone soon. Shaka's land are pathetic, with the exception of his (surprise,surprise) capital. Just stick an axe/spear stack in Utica
and you can concentrate on peaceful expansion. Toku and Kublai won't run out of lebensraum anytime soon and when they do, you can have a good stack ready to pounce on someone.

Trying to get to the west coast before Toku will be a race but can be done if you settle something approaching Marble Arch ->Ironhoof ->West Coast? ->Golden Pincers.

 

[aelf]

Why not go to war with Toku with Shaka's help?

 

[stuge]

Why not go to war with Toku with Shaka's help?

How soon? If Toku is to be attacked, then this is the best scenario. However, it depends on whether Sisi wants to consolidate his holdings first. Of course, it's possible to expand through settling and conquering simultaneously, but that's akin to digging a hole so deep that you can't climb out.

 

[KMadCandy]

Slightly OT, but does anyone else use Workers for scouting? Sisiutil went all the way through IW to find out if Shaka had Impis, but the sacrifice of 4-6 worker turns (or less) might have told him the same thing-- though not where the resource was. Or is that crazy talk?

don't give him any ideas!!!!!! S already uses his workers in ways so counter to my own that i cringe, as in not roading the corn altho he knows he'll need the health bonus someday. but he does know that he does need to do that so i didn't nag him.

and knowing where the iron is located is crucial info. if we'd run into a mined flat plains or grassland tile we'd know, but here we obviously wouldn't have.

so IMO it's crazy talk for this situation, but then again i do lots of crazy talk myself

 

[Good Sauce]

A note about Shaka: I can never get him to declare peace. even when you're clearly winning he will be stuborn and refuse untill you eliminate him. So if you're gonna go to war with him prepare for finishing the job or learn to live with war wariness.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Sisiutil, did you develop an allergy to granaries?
You whipped several times for 1 pop, and you still don't have any granary.
You certainly do this to irritate me .

Are you kidding me? It was a fight to get him to grow to two pop so that he could whip at all.... .

 

[Sisiutil]

It sounds like we're all thinking along the same lines--expand some more, get those early cities going and claiming resources (more Workers needed), build up the military (barracks, stables, and of course units), then start looking for a target.

Who should that target be? Toku looks very appealing, what with that holy city and all (Wall Street!). But Shaka first still appeals to me. Why? XPs. Shaka will be a relatively easy takedown and a great chance to collect XPs for Charismatic's cheap promotions, and maybe even earn a Great General. Toku will be a tougher target, but conquering Zululand would mean by the time I'm ready to take on Japan, I'll have a stack of promoted veterans. And also, I should have Catapults by then too.

Yes, Kublai is a threat--but so is every other civ around. Of the three neighbours, he's the easiest to get along with, in my experience. In the long term, his traits are not that formidable; if he doesn't strike by mid-game, he's not much of a threat. I'm willing to live and let live... unless he backstabs me, which I will prepare for, and if he does... Consider that if the southern 2/3 of the continent is mine, I can focus my veteran units along the border with Mongolia as a deterrent. I'm already planning on warring more than I originally thought I would be (with these neighbours, can you blame me?). So I'm interested in seeing if I have the diplomatic chops to keep at least one neighbour content with peaceful coexistence.

Cities: BlueSoxSWJ, thanks for the alternative suggestions for Marble Arch. However, those look like production cities to me, and I'm going to have those coming out of my ears. 2S 1E of the marble will claim tons of grassland (3 of those tiles on a river) as well as bananas and rice. This will be a very good commerce/science city, and I desperately need another one of those. stuge, I will definitely consider expanding to the west coast, but we'll see how the economy is doing. I'm already down to 60% research and barely holding, so I'll have to be careful. I'm starting to cottage the capital, and that's keeping my head above water. I also plan on growing the city and running a scientist or two once the Library is complete. (Anticipated build queue for Carthage: Library, Granary, Great Library; other cities can build Settlers from now on.) Still, shyuhe is right, other economy-enhancing techs like CoL and Currency will be important before too long.

I agree that Alphabet should be next. Knightowl is right, I'll play the game more or less as I usually would without getting too preoccupied with the UU--several of you have chided me about that already. When you have a UU with a short shelf life, a bee-line makes sense, but the NC's, as you say, can be very effective for a long time. I liked KO's insight about being able to use properly-promoted Numidian Cavalry as even better versions of Crossbowmen. Good thinking!

After Alphabet, I hope to trade for Polytheism and then research Literature for the Great Library. Then if I haven't traded for HBR, I'll research it.

Cabert, I'm well aware that I need granaries. But I've had other priorities, you know? Workers, anti-barb units, Settlers... I'll fit them in there, never fear. Sheesh, here VoU was berating me for not growing my cities, and here you are at me for not whipping enough citizens away! Yeah, yeah, I know, they're not mutually exclusive goals. Just remember--even though I like using the whip, I've never been especially good at it--especially with the more mathematically-complicated whips, like 2 or 3 citizens at once. I usually only do that if cities are unhappy, and in this game, the happiness cap started high and keeps rising. And I've needed citizens to work key tiles.

I hope to play the next round tonight. I anticipate a longer round, playing through to a point where I'm finished REXing (6 cities would be good, I think) and am ready for the first war.

 

[Eggolas]

Sisiutil --

I think you're doing just fine, especially now that you're prioritizing growth/CE which make great use of Hannibal's traits.

MarblePeel looks really interesting. It could be a great commerce city until State Property, at which point it could be converted to a massive production city to crank out whatever.

Workers ... yeah, ok, I won't say any more.

As for whom to attack first, I concur with Shaka while you are continuing the expansion to hem in KK. Build some spears though as KK in Warlords likes his HA UU. I like the idea of gaining xp during the war. Those promoted NC will make fine Knights and Cavalry.

Is there really no Ivory on the continent? The cats are still important, but that doesn't seem very nice of the RNG. Will you be heading for Engineering as a priority?

Looking forward to the next posting.

 

[spleen1015]

I learn the same thing every time I read one of these threads.

I don't think I will ever be able to handle the scope of this game. There are just so many things to think about.

 

[patagonia]

It sounds like we're all thinking along the same lines--expand some more, get those early cities going and claiming resources (more Workers needed), build up the military (barracks, stables, and of course units), then start looking for a target.

Your game's now diverged sufficiently far from mine that I can chip in without risking anything approaching a spoiler.
Although I've played the starting save, I avoided war and what's below talks about it and nothing else.

The tough thing with playing someone like Hannibal after the patch and trying to leverage all aspects of Carthage is that you're pushed in conflicting directions. At the time you're champing at the bit to use that UU, you'd often be better off REXing and laying down cottages. Since post-patch monarch AIs tend to get feudalism inconveniently early and the aim of any war should be to take cities (especially the capital: if you're spending the hammers, you want to see the benefits), building up for a bit first makes perfect sense to me. With Toku being protective and having a holy city, you'll definitely need catapults before you can take him down, so I'm glad to see you're using the long lifespan of NC to justify some short-term buildering rather than rushing straight into conflict.

Based on what's known of the map and the game so far, Kyoto would obviously make a great wall-street location (cha-ching!), whilst Ulundi seems like a decent GP farm with all that seafood, so there's definite merit in moving to snag both. Don't be afraid to fall behind Kublai in tech if you focus heavily on a military buildup (if you move on both your southern neighbours, he'll end up with a sizeable empire himself). Charismatic and financial actually play quite well together in terms of recovery as you can have larger cities working better cottages.

Note: Due to "warmonger respect" you'll probably end up with -2 from Kublai for declaring on Shaka and Toku assuming you take them each out in a single war. Much starting and stopping could see that climb unless you can persuade him to join you for the assult on the Japanese. The bureaucracy bonus for his favourite civic will help to keep him sweet for much of the game, but with a large empire you'll want to swap to free speech eventually to beef up all of your towns. Bearing that in mind, a mutual military struggle bonus against Toku or one of the overseas civs is worth considering, as is giving in to any demands he may have in the interests of cultivating a long-term friendship.