ALC Game 20: Vikings/Ragnar

[cabert]

why conquer half the world and then go for the cheapest victory? we want war!!!

because it's faster, brings more points, and let's you start the next game sooner?

 

[KMadCandy]

because it's faster, brings more points, and let's you us start the debate over where to move the settler to in the next game sooner?

fixed that for ya

ps Apostolic Palace going obsolete is the best news as far as picking our next target in my book, yeehaw!

 

[Gooblah]

Nice, Kmad.

Anyways, to wrap up the game, take out Sury and Roosevelt. It should give you enough for Domination. If not, just build a few cities here and there, and ignore the other two.

OR..

Attack Mehmed II, then have Hannibal dogpile. It'll be more of a challenge.

OR...

Start a World War. Religious tensions are (somewhat) high, so you may be able to bribe Hammurabi/Mehmed with your techs to declare war on everyone possible, then backstab them on their undefended home turf.

 

[Morgrad]

LOL Kmad - that's awesome.

Attack the weaker guys and win the game! So what if it's a cakewalk.

 

[LightSpectra]

Maybe bribe Roosevelt and Hammurabi with a whole lot of techs to go to war with Mehmed five turns before you do yourself, just to screw with his military set-up.

 

[Mesousa]

Great job. Though I guess next time you really have to move up a level when it's an Archipelago map.

I'd go after the little guys and only then one of the bigger ones if you're still lacking. You have that game well decided, going for the strong ones now won't make it much more exciting, you won't get in danger of losing. Just wrap it up fast so you can treat us to the Shaka vs AggAi slaughterfest.

Please don't win through an UN vote, Mr Viking.

 

[uppi]

Time to whip out the calculator:

You: 39.8%
Hammurabi: 17%
Roosevelt: 6.6%
Unoccupied (babaric?): 7.7%

That leaves 28.9% for Mehmed+Sury. Worst case, Mehmed has about 17%, so that would put Sury at about 12%. That would mean adding Roosevelt and Sury to your territory will put you at about 58.4%, 4% short. That might be doable by settler spamming the unoccupied land, but not all land can really be occupied.

So you basically have four options for domiantion:

1) Sury + Roosevelt + Settler Spam + maybe a final assault on islamic lands
2) Sury + Roosevelt + a part of one of the others (it looks like Mehmed has his territory split on two islands. You could take one of them and then sue for peace)
3) One of the Muslims + one of the others
4) War against Islam

If you can mount an invasion quick enough, you should use your tech and power advantage to get at least a part of the islamic lands and then kill of Sury and Roosevelt at you leisure. If you don't feel you have enough of an advantage right now, pick sury and roosevelt first and then descend on Mehmed or Hammurabi with all might.

The third, probably most tedious variant would be to build a sizeable invasion force and raid the islamic lands with superior numbers.

 

[Sisiutil]

Great job. Though I guess next time you really have to move up a level when it's an Archipelago map.

In my defense, I've never played with this map type before. Interesting to see how the AI invested most of its military in naval rather than land units.

Overall, I think I'll try to wrap this game up ASAP since there's not much challenge here, so we can go on to the Shaka game.

 

[Munch]

In my defense, I've never played with this map type before. Interesting to see how the AI invested most of its military in naval rather than land units.

Overall, I think I'll try to wrap this game up ASAP since there's not much challenge here, so we can go on to the Shaka game.

Great game so far.

Any chance of getting the Shaka pre-game thread going? It'll give us something to discuss while you wrap this game up! My vote is firmly for a Lakes map with AggAI, still on this difficulty (Emperor) because it's a map type the AI plays well on.

 

[DrJambo]

So I still have a tech lead, and just need Electricity and Radio to completely catch up. I've been trading techs to the other civs for gold when they're 1 or 2 turns from completion--something that espionage is very handy for.

This is one of the reasons you should try playing with No Tech Brokering (NTB)! This is arguably quite close to being an exploit, since the AI will still part with lots of cash for a tech that it's going to learn in the next one or two turns. With NTB on the game will prevent an AI from trading for a tech it's about to research because it makes sense for the AI to be able to trade the tech.

I know you've been thinking of it already Sisiutil, but you've just got to try NTB and AggAI. It's notched up the difficulty level for me considerably at Emperor level, and given that you've been creaming the AI in recent Emperor ALCs I'd suggest these options before attempting an Immortal ALC.

Well played though!

 

[Gooblah]

How about this?

Next game should be standard settings, preferably Big/Small or Hemispheres or Fractal, with Aggressive AI and No Tech Brokering on. Try a few offline games with these settings, and see how you do. If you suck, bring it down a level, and play with these. If not, keep it on and it'll provide more of a challenge.

Anyways, playing as a Financial leader with a naval-based UU is overpowered on an Archipelago map. Technically, we could have gotten the same effect by having tons of coastal cities on one continent, then Berserker-ing the rest of the continent. Give em all City Raider, then upgrade to Grenadiers. Boink! You're done! Just make some Galleons and screw the other continents.

 

[Gliese 581]

I like the idea of a lakes map, mostly bc I'm going to shadow the Shaka game and I never tried that map + it seems difficult.

 

[justkilled]

I would change to nationhood to draft an infantry from most of the newly conquered cities (and older not that important ones). That should solve your homeland defense problem and you dont really need any of the other legal civics. Happyness (barracks are dirt cheap for you anyway) and EP bonus are nice goodies.

As for the victory I would take on the weaklings. Draft after conquering their pathetic holds and than gather your attack force.
According to Murphy you will probably miss a % or two for domination so its probably needed to backstab one of the islamic block. It would be great if you could manage to get a great artist before that event, the culture bomb would fasten up things in mehmeds lands.

 

[civ4legs]

I would definitely switch to Free Speech and Universal Sufferedge. This will be the final push to victory, so you don't need to worry about the beakers from rep, nor the xp from vassalage. On the other hand, you'd be able to rush-buy troops in case of the muslims attacking you, but more likely, to rush-buy a theatre in any new cities. The free speech should make up for the loss of rep beakers with added commerce, and the +100% culture means your borders pop on new cities nice and quickly...

 

[Julian Delphiki]

Anyways, playing as a Financial leader with a naval-based UU is overpowered on an Archipelago map.

It's not Portugal or Dutch yet .

 

[Daedal]

I wonder if it wouldn't be quickest in this case to DoW on the Islamic bloc, vassalize them as quickly as they'll allow, then take on Sury/Roosy? I figure if Sury + Roosy isn't enough to get domination, you'll have to take on the others with a more cumbersome empire. If you try to take on the other two and annihilate them, you'll be bogged down for a while. Hrm.... it's obvious the game is won, but finding the quickest way to wrap up a game like this is an underrated and useful lesson.

 

[popejubal]

It's not Portugal or Dutch yet .

I'd say that the Vikings have even more of a Naval based UU than any other Civ because they have Berserkers PLUS every ship produced from a city with a lighthouse.

That free extra movement is huge and if the Berserker isn't a Naval based UU, then I've never seen one. Being able to attack from offshore is an enormouse asset.

 

[Julian Delphiki]

Yes, i know what Vikings have. I was just nitpicking.

 

[cabert]

I wonder if it wouldn't be quickest in this case to DoW on the Islamic bloc, vassalize them as quickly as they'll allow, then take on Sury/Roosy? I figure if Sury + Roosy isn't enough to get domination, you'll have to take on the others with a more cumbersome empire. If you try to take on the other two and annihilate them, you'll be bogged down for a while. Hrm.... it's obvious the game is won, but finding the quickest way to wrap up a game like this is an underrated and useful lesson.

the quickest way IMHO is to
1) attack the weak guys first, vassalize if you can't take one out fast enough (mostly if there are inland cities )
2) settle all free land, including 1 tile islands.
3) push the borders! culture slider is good, artists under caste system is good, you don't need to grow

edit : I think you don't need 2 and 3 much.
Just kill 'em all .

 

[teamdresch]

You need 10% culture in a city to draft - how long will that take?