ALC Game 16: Persia/Cyrus
- Thread starter Sisiutil
- Start date
Monkeyfinger
Deity
- Joined
- Oct 24, 2006
- Messages
- 2,002
For your economy, change nothing. Keep the specialists going in your native, heavily farmed cities, and keep those matured cottages in old mongolia. Cyrus doesn't have a trait that biases him toward either SE or CE, and unless I didn't check thoroughly enough so there's nothing wrong with having him run hybrid.
Pick a fight with Huayna. If he doesn't get to Assembly line in time to make his core cities impregnable, crush him using the adivce everyone else has given you. If he does? Well... take advantage of the fact that the AI hunkers down in its cities rather than chasing enemy stacks that are going through their territory. Shoot right into the heart of his empire, pillage the towns surrounding his richest city, sue for peace to instantly get your boys home, then either buckle down and beat the now crippled Huayna into space, or give yourself time to catch up to him militarily then beat his teeth down his throat. Whatever.
Pick a fight with Huayna. If he doesn't get to Assembly line in time to make his core cities impregnable, crush him using the adivce everyone else has given you. If he does? Well... take advantage of the fact that the AI hunkers down in its cities rather than chasing enemy stacks that are going through their territory. Shoot right into the heart of his empire, pillage the towns surrounding his richest city, sue for peace to instantly get your boys home, then either buckle down and beat the now crippled Huayna into space, or give yourself time to catch up to him militarily then beat his teeth down his throat. Whatever.
MangleMeElmo
Proud War Criminal
- Joined
- Jun 24, 2007
- Messages
- 213
Impressive playing as always, Sisiutil. I've been watching your ALCs for a while now. A mere 6 months ago I was playing on Warlord, now I've moved up to Monarch, thanks to you. 
The_Oakster
Warlord
As a long time lurker of the ALC series I would just like to congratulate on your threads. They are very informative due to the obvious abilities of the posters and its starting to improve my own game play.
Keep up the good work and personally I would like to see a domination win!
Keep up the good work and personally I would like to see a domination win!
Let loose the dogs of war! Huyana may have a tech lead, but you have more soldiers and can produce them many times faster than he can. Build a gigantic stack of doom and make a rush towards the jugular, Cuzco. After an AI loses their capital they lose most of their research potential and start to collapse, they can't recover from a loss like that. Pillage, rape, plunder, and torch anything you can't hold on to, aim to cripple his potential to pull off space.
To make things much more simple, have him declare on izzy with you first, and send a scout over to make sure all of his units are working in her territory, letting you backstab him. Your rep dosn't matter at this point because Huyana is the only one who even compares with you.
To make things much more simple, have him declare on izzy with you first, and send a scout over to make sure all of his units are working in her territory, letting you backstab him. Your rep dosn't matter at this point because Huyana is the only one who even compares with you.
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
Round 10: 1472 AD to 1553 AD
A short round, but I have a few important decisions to make, so I thought it appropriate to stop here, share what's happened, and solicit advice.
(I also just wanna say that, based on the latest BtS previews, Boudica looks awfully yummy.)
Anyway...
I had to wait a turn or so for a Hindu missionary to complete in Pasargadae, where I don't have a monastery. Then I was able to change civics to Free Religion, as suggested:
That did seem to help with research, and by the end of the round, it certainly improve relations with Ragnar and Isabella as well (along with a few other things, as you'll see).
As I kept track of what Huayna was up to, I noticed that he appeared to bee making a bee-line towards Rifling:
He appears to have bypassed Military Tradition and Cavalry for now. One of the decisions I have to make is whether or not to follow him down this particular tech path. More on that later.
A couple of turns later, Huayna declared war on Isabella again. He asked me to join in, but I turned him down, since he's my next target. In fact, I viewed his sudden DoW on Spain as an opportunity. I moved two stacks next to his nearest cities: Vitcos, just south of Beijing, and Zhou, just west of Tiflis. Then...
Even though I was a long way off from Steel yet, I figured I could take at least two cities from him and hurt him while most of his forces were focused on fighting Isabella to the west. If he grabbed a significant military tech lead, I could just make peace and play catch-up after having dealt him something of a hurtful blow.
I captured Vitcos on that very same turn:
Which gave me deer for health--very nice.
On the next turn, I removed most of the cultural defense at Zhou, down to 8%--the best I could do with the 2 Catapults and 2 Trebuchets I'd left behind up there. I decided not to wait one more turn to remove the defenses completely and use the Trebs for collateral damage. I had 2 Knights and 2 Musketmen to use for attack, and the city was only defended by a Longbowman and a Swordsman. My Knight had 73% odds against the Longbow--good enough, and he won, as did a Musket against the Swordsman.
I was very glad to capture this city, as it was a definite security concern--Huayna having a back door, as it were, to my empire. If I'd waited much longer, he probably would have been able to upgrade its city defenders to Riflemen, and they would have been much tougher to dislodge.
These battles earned me my next Great General, whom I sent to Shanghai to build a Military Academy:
Why there? Well, I'm anticipating making Shanghai my Ironworks city as soon as I have Steel--a military academy will boost its production of military units. My only regret is that I don't have a military city on the coast for naval units; I just don't have a developed coastal city with decent production that's close enough to the action.
I also decided to help out Isabella a little in return for some gold:
She's still not too happy with me because of some past events, but too bad. She's next after Huayna anyway, especially if he manages to make her a vassal. This seems likely; he managed to capture Santiago from her this round.
Finally, on the last turn of the round...
I was already building some Trebuchets in several cities; these switch production to Cannon as soon as Steel finished, so I have some hammers towards Cannon already, as you can see from the Domestic Advisor:
Nevertheless, most of those are several turns from completion, and then many of them will have a long trek to the front lines. Huayna is willing to talk again, and this is what he'd offer for a peace treaty:
No techs, but 440 gold ain't bad--it would allow me to upgrade a couple of units (Macemen to Grenadiers and/or Trebuchets to Cannon). So that is the first decision point I alluded to: should I take the peace treaty or keep fighting?
Vilcas, as you can see, is awfully close to Beijing, where the majority of my units are located, and the city is only defended by about 4 units from different eras. Many of Huayna's ships are there right now, too. So I was thinking of at least taking this city from him before making peace. Or should I take it and keep fighting? I haven't seen much counter-attack from him so far--just a couple of Knights. That could change if he makes peace with Isabella, though.
I managed to get Ragnar to Pleased thanks to Free Religion. (I've noticed Ragnar is rather touchy about religion; he's not a fanatic like Isabella, but like Shaka, he won't trade techs or much else with you if there are religious differences between you.) Also, I traded Paper to him for about 120 gold, gaining me a big diplomatic bonus with him there.
My techs compared to Huayna:
It's good to have Steel on him, but he's definitely more advanced and that's worrisome. I have Grenadiers and Cannon to counter Riflemen, should he proceed to that tech next. If he goes after Military Tradition, however, that would be more problematic--I don't have a decent counter other than throwing a lot of Cannon and Grens and veteran Pikemen at any Cavalry he might send my way. This is why I think following him down the same tech path, to Reliable Parts and Rifling, makes sense, so I have counters to whatever he throws at me. Nationalism and Reliable Parts will both take about 13 turns to research at my current rates.
Here's the power graph for the last 50 turns:
Huayna and I are very close at the moment, but that could change if and when he gets his next military tech. And he has a lot of gold stockpiled to upgrade units.
In terms of production, however, there's simply no contest:
So I could, theoretically, out-produce him--just keep pumping out Grenadiers and Cannon and overwhelm him with them. In the absence of counters, rely on numbers.
So--war or peace? Cavalry or Rifles?
A short round, but I have a few important decisions to make, so I thought it appropriate to stop here, share what's happened, and solicit advice.
(I also just wanna say that, based on the latest BtS previews, Boudica looks awfully yummy.)
Anyway...
I had to wait a turn or so for a Hindu missionary to complete in Pasargadae, where I don't have a monastery. Then I was able to change civics to Free Religion, as suggested:
That did seem to help with research, and by the end of the round, it certainly improve relations with Ragnar and Isabella as well (along with a few other things, as you'll see).
As I kept track of what Huayna was up to, I noticed that he appeared to bee making a bee-line towards Rifling:
He appears to have bypassed Military Tradition and Cavalry for now. One of the decisions I have to make is whether or not to follow him down this particular tech path. More on that later.
A couple of turns later, Huayna declared war on Isabella again. He asked me to join in, but I turned him down, since he's my next target. In fact, I viewed his sudden DoW on Spain as an opportunity. I moved two stacks next to his nearest cities: Vitcos, just south of Beijing, and Zhou, just west of Tiflis. Then...
Even though I was a long way off from Steel yet, I figured I could take at least two cities from him and hurt him while most of his forces were focused on fighting Isabella to the west. If he grabbed a significant military tech lead, I could just make peace and play catch-up after having dealt him something of a hurtful blow.
I captured Vitcos on that very same turn:
Which gave me deer for health--very nice.
On the next turn, I removed most of the cultural defense at Zhou, down to 8%--the best I could do with the 2 Catapults and 2 Trebuchets I'd left behind up there. I decided not to wait one more turn to remove the defenses completely and use the Trebs for collateral damage. I had 2 Knights and 2 Musketmen to use for attack, and the city was only defended by a Longbowman and a Swordsman. My Knight had 73% odds against the Longbow--good enough, and he won, as did a Musket against the Swordsman.
I was very glad to capture this city, as it was a definite security concern--Huayna having a back door, as it were, to my empire. If I'd waited much longer, he probably would have been able to upgrade its city defenders to Riflemen, and they would have been much tougher to dislodge.
These battles earned me my next Great General, whom I sent to Shanghai to build a Military Academy:
Why there? Well, I'm anticipating making Shanghai my Ironworks city as soon as I have Steel--a military academy will boost its production of military units. My only regret is that I don't have a military city on the coast for naval units; I just don't have a developed coastal city with decent production that's close enough to the action.
I also decided to help out Isabella a little in return for some gold:
She's still not too happy with me because of some past events, but too bad. She's next after Huayna anyway, especially if he manages to make her a vassal. This seems likely; he managed to capture Santiago from her this round.
Finally, on the last turn of the round...
I was already building some Trebuchets in several cities; these switch production to Cannon as soon as Steel finished, so I have some hammers towards Cannon already, as you can see from the Domestic Advisor:
Nevertheless, most of those are several turns from completion, and then many of them will have a long trek to the front lines. Huayna is willing to talk again, and this is what he'd offer for a peace treaty:
No techs, but 440 gold ain't bad--it would allow me to upgrade a couple of units (Macemen to Grenadiers and/or Trebuchets to Cannon). So that is the first decision point I alluded to: should I take the peace treaty or keep fighting?
Vilcas, as you can see, is awfully close to Beijing, where the majority of my units are located, and the city is only defended by about 4 units from different eras. Many of Huayna's ships are there right now, too. So I was thinking of at least taking this city from him before making peace. Or should I take it and keep fighting? I haven't seen much counter-attack from him so far--just a couple of Knights. That could change if he makes peace with Isabella, though.
I managed to get Ragnar to Pleased thanks to Free Religion. (I've noticed Ragnar is rather touchy about religion; he's not a fanatic like Isabella, but like Shaka, he won't trade techs or much else with you if there are religious differences between you.) Also, I traded Paper to him for about 120 gold, gaining me a big diplomatic bonus with him there.
My techs compared to Huayna:
It's good to have Steel on him, but he's definitely more advanced and that's worrisome. I have Grenadiers and Cannon to counter Riflemen, should he proceed to that tech next. If he goes after Military Tradition, however, that would be more problematic--I don't have a decent counter other than throwing a lot of Cannon and Grens and veteran Pikemen at any Cavalry he might send my way. This is why I think following him down the same tech path, to Reliable Parts and Rifling, makes sense, so I have counters to whatever he throws at me. Nationalism and Reliable Parts will both take about 13 turns to research at my current rates.
Here's the power graph for the last 50 turns:
Huayna and I are very close at the moment, but that could change if and when he gets his next military tech. And he has a lot of gold stockpiled to upgrade units.
In terms of production, however, there's simply no contest:
So I could, theoretically, out-produce him--just keep pumping out Grenadiers and Cannon and overwhelm him with them. In the absence of counters, rely on numbers.
So--war or peace? Cavalry or Rifles?
uncarved block
Prince
- Joined
- Jan 25, 2006
- Messages
- 351
Instinct says to keep pressing the advantage, and use the war booty to upgrade your CR3 Macemen to Grenadiers as you go. If you make peace now, Huayna will just upgrade everything he has to the most modern units possible. It's your production vs his cash: fight on your terms, I say.
Cavalry over Rifles, for the reasons you give, and also because they can get to the front in half the time-- very hand when you're pressed for quick results.
Cavalry over Rifles, for the reasons you give, and also because they can get to the front in half the time-- very hand when you're pressed for quick results.
InvisibleStalke
Emperor
Definitely war at least until you meet some real resistance and your population start screaming at you to stop. Why would you possibly consider stopping now?
Cavalry definitely. It looks to me like he has chemistry - which you can counter with cavarly and you already have a counter to rifles.
Cavalry definitely. It looks to me like he has chemistry - which you can counter with cavarly and you already have a counter to rifles.
TRJS
Warlord
War with Cav to counter any Cav he has. You should I assume have a few stables around.
I would think that Rifles would be the better way to go. If you go for Cavalry you won't have any good counter for Huayna's rifles (if he goes that way). Grens will be ok for attacking city garrison rifles, but you won't have a good defense for rifles attacking your stacks.
I agree with the others that giving Huayna 10 turns to reposition and upgrade his army doesn't make sense. You should be able to upgrade a couple of trebs to cannons with the gold you have now. You can use the remaining trebs/cats to knock down city defenses and then use your cannons to actually attack the city defenders. Hopefully you'll gain enough gold from each city to upgrade more cannons to replace any that you lose. Eventually you're new cannons will arrive at the front.
I agree with the others that giving Huayna 10 turns to reposition and upgrade his army doesn't make sense. You should be able to upgrade a couple of trebs to cannons with the gold you have now. You can use the remaining trebs/cats to knock down city defenses and then use your cannons to actually attack the city defenders. Hopefully you'll gain enough gold from each city to upgrade more cannons to replace any that you lose. Eventually you're new cannons will arrive at the front.
I would say take Vilcas and then sue for peace. See if he coughs up a tech and money. Then use the 10 turns of peace to build up 2 stacks of doom to crush him from 2 sides. You still have canons over him and it will tear up his SOD. You will need to build up a bigger army since HC is still number 1 in soldiers. That will mean with too little soldiers your stack will have a chance to be obliterated. Nice turnsets so far.
MangleMeElmo
Proud War Criminal
- Joined
- Jun 24, 2007
- Messages
- 213
War and rifles. Don't give Huayna any room to breathe. Besides that, Rifles can be drafted, so I don't see what you have to fear from HC if you have everything except cavalry.
Tristam29
Chieftain
I would keep warring. I would research Calvary for two reasons. First, as Persia, I tend to have stables and usually a few mounted units from earlier wars. Thus, it is a nice way to show that the hordes of UU Imortals can be upgraded to an elite fighting force in the mid-late game. (I'm sorry, but I can't remember how many of these old and promoted units you might still have.)
Secondly, I would go for Calvary because you can counter Riflemen very effectively with what you have. Having a hard hitting unit that can travel to the front lines seems like a nice compliment when compared to Riflemen, which would probably be best for defense in cities at this point.
Secondly, I would go for Calvary because you can counter Riflemen very effectively with what you have. Having a hard hitting unit that can travel to the front lines seems like a nice compliment when compared to Riflemen, which would probably be best for defense in cities at this point.
patagonia
Emperor
- Joined
- Aug 19, 2006
- Messages
- 1,025
Like just about everyone's said, I'd definitely press on with the war. No point making peace, you'll just buy him 10 turns to organise his forces against you.
I wouldn't necessarily press for cavalry or rifles straight away though. Realistically, Huayna's going to have rifling in a few turns, which make cavs a less attractive option (you can counter them with grens easily enough so that's no biggie). After that he'll probably head for military tradition, but if you press ahead with the war his production base will be gassed by that point.
Best tech now is nationalism, then revolt to nationhood to draft grens everywhere. The shear number of these will compensate nicely for any tech edge the Incan might have. As for builds in your cities, every single one should be building cannon now that steel's in. Get to nationalism, switch research to culture (to eradicate the WW you'll have by then) and the end should be pretty close.
I wouldn't necessarily press for cavalry or rifles straight away though. Realistically, Huayna's going to have rifling in a few turns, which make cavs a less attractive option (you can counter them with grens easily enough so that's no biggie). After that he'll probably head for military tradition, but if you press ahead with the war his production base will be gassed by that point.
Best tech now is nationalism, then revolt to nationhood to draft grens everywhere. The shear number of these will compensate nicely for any tech edge the Incan might have. As for builds in your cities, every single one should be building cannon now that steel's in. Get to nationalism, switch research to culture (to eradicate the WW you'll have by then) and the end should be pretty close.
100% agreed
War!
If you sue for peace, Isabella will vassalize to HC. If you don't she sees your power lowering HC's and won't.
What I'd do is whip those cannons, stop research for a while and upgrade.
Next tech? who cares? just win with what you have now.
If you manage to tech to something, better target rifling because HC will have rifles that you can only counter when YOU ATTACK for now.
The defensive unit you need is the rifleman, not the cavalry.
carl corey
Deity
I totally agree with cabert. If you do want to get Rifles, ok, but you could safely switch to whipping units and finish Huayna. Relations with others don't really matter at this point, as they don't have any tech for you to trade. Press the attack, raise the culture slider if needed and take HC out.
Joxer
Warlord
I agree, this should be the last push for the domination win. Use the production power house and overwhelm HC and Izzy.
I agree killing Hyuana ASAP and then anyone else needed for domination win. At this point HC has not ran away enough, you can easily finish him with cannons and grens. No one else really is a threat. You could shut down reseach to handle WW.
Kev
Hired Goon
I, too, would press on with the war, and I would set a specific goal:
Try to get to a point where HC has no access to horses.
Rifles, Grens, and Siege (keep in mind he might go for steel himself to produce cannons against you) he can build whenever, but he WILL need horses for cavalry. I don't know where there are horses in his territory, but if he has a limited source I would definitely see about eradicating them.
I realize he might be able to trade for them, but one can counter that with pillaging his resources (so he won't have resources to trade) and/or asking the others to end trade with him as well.
In essence, if you find you must take a break from the war later, at least you can block cavs from arriving while you retool.
Now that you have steel and a decided production advantage, you can seriously turn down the tech slider and keep the masses happy with the culture slider/theater combo. Your own production curve will continue to rise while HC's will drop with every city you can take from him. Add to that the human vs. AI warfare aspect and it's in the bag, I think.
In fact, I'd even consider getting railroad before taking the rifling path if you were to continue putting some efforts into tech. Keep up the trades with Ragnar and Fred and you can likely trade for rifling - and RR would help to get your troops to the front line much quicker (along with being nice trade bait). Perhaps that's too fancy - rifles would be nice too.
Try to get to a point where HC has no access to horses.
Rifles, Grens, and Siege (keep in mind he might go for steel himself to produce cannons against you) he can build whenever, but he WILL need horses for cavalry. I don't know where there are horses in his territory, but if he has a limited source I would definitely see about eradicating them.
I realize he might be able to trade for them, but one can counter that with pillaging his resources (so he won't have resources to trade) and/or asking the others to end trade with him as well.
In essence, if you find you must take a break from the war later, at least you can block cavs from arriving while you retool.
Now that you have steel and a decided production advantage, you can seriously turn down the tech slider and keep the masses happy with the culture slider/theater combo. Your own production curve will continue to rise while HC's will drop with every city you can take from him. Add to that the human vs. AI warfare aspect and it's in the bag, I think.
In fact, I'd even consider getting railroad before taking the rifling path if you were to continue putting some efforts into tech. Keep up the trades with Ragnar and Fred and you can likely trade for rifling - and RR would help to get your troops to the front line much quicker (along with being nice trade bait). Perhaps that's too fancy - rifles would be nice too.
Similar threads
