DMOC
Mathematician
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2007
- Messages
- 5,594
I'm guessing it's 24 turns.
ALC Game #24: Hammurabi/Babylon
- Thread starter Sisiutil
- Start date
I'm guessing it's 24 turns.
popejubal
Emperor
...and one other reason why you appear to be a late-game player is that whenever you finish the game is pretty much the late-game by definition. I don't recall you racking up too many Future Techs, so it's obviously not as late as it could be.
Speaking of which, any chance that you might pick the Next War mod at some point in the future? It won't make any difference as far as I can see with the game up until the very end, but it will make some nifty choices at the very tail end of the game possible.
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
I'm having too much fun to quit early! Seriously, pursuing the sort of early win some of the better players achieve is beyond me. Warmonger I may be, but I'm a builder at heart. The journey is as important as the destination.
I don't play mods in the ALC series, so no.
r_rolo1
King of myself
Better AI is a mod IIRC 
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
Round 13: 1844 AD to 1876 AD (32 turns)
As recommended, I had Justinian kneel before me and swear the oath of fealty.
Always nice to deal with a man who knows when he's beat. I gave the city of Angora back to him; I didn't want to spare the troops to garrison it and try to keep it from revolting. Besides, those sweaters are kind of itchy.
And as I suspected, the U.N. peacekeeping vote went his way with everyone but me voting to stop the war. So, vassalizing him was just good sense and good timing.
Despite the benefits of the Babylonian UB, Sid's Sushi meant my cities were growing to extremely large levels, so many of my techs researched this round were intended to offset the health problems resulting from that.
The +1 movement for ships wasn't going to hurt either. I wanted to put power plants in some of my cities too, in order to increase production even further. It may have seemed like overkill, but in my experience a modern war requires a lot of units.
Just as I was getting ready to attack someone else, Mehmed went and declared war on Hannibal.
I decided to jump in. The question was, on whose side? Neither of them jumped up and asked for my help. Ultimately, I wanted to bring the game to a close, so I decided to go after the easier target first.
Hannibal, you might remember, had disbanded a lot of his military as part of his effort to achieve a cultural victory. I thought that taking his mainland cities would achieve two purposes: it would deprive him of that victory, and it would provide me with a solid foundation for attacking the rest of the continent.
I attacked his closest and most isolated coastal city first, using an amphibious force. I used the ships to remove the city's cultural defenses, then used my Fighters from my Carriers to damage the defenders. Then it was up to the Marines:
Sometimes, however, my city raider veterans got better odds--especially the two Infantry who also had Combat II and Pinch. I lost a Marine every now and then, as Fighters simply can't do as much damage as Artillery used to. Even after I had a beachhead, I was limited to four air units per city, so I still didn't have overwhelming air power that I could bring to bear. I also lost several Fighters, since Hannibal had Machine Guns, Anti-Tank units, and SAM Infantry.
In short, Carriers and Fighters have become much more important, dare I say vital to a modern-era war. I built more Carriers and Fighters, fielding a half dozen Aircraft Carriers by the end of the war; but next time, I'm going to build even more.
Next tech:
Darius beat me to the Three Gorges Dam, but it was nice to be able to build a few hydro plants. And I had my eye on eventually getting to Robotics and Mechanized Infantry.
The tide was turning in several respects. I also managed to win then next U.N. Secretary-General election.
Ironic, given that I was busy conquering the world. I was taking cities fairly rapidly. I had one stack of units aboard ships taking coastal cities, and I also had a big stack of Tanks rolling down the middle of the continent, using Bombers and Paratroopers to capture the inland cities. I lost some Fighters and Bombers along the way. The four-air-units-per-city limit was the primary factor in those losses; I also often had to "loan" my Carrier-based Fighters to the inland campaign, which slowed my ability to capture coastal cities. As I said above, next time I'm bringin' more Carriers.
I debated switching from Police State to Universal Suffrage in order to buy Airports in Hannibal's old cities, but decided against it. The losses weren't so bad as to necessitate such a move.
Eventually I captured the last Carthaginian city on the mainland, leaving Hannibal with only a few island cities.
So it was time for the Carthaginian to also bow before me.
In addition, you might remember that Isabella was Hannibal's colony. As I recall, she broke away as soon as he became a vassal. But even though I hadn't invaded Spain, I'd sunk several of her ships. Or perhaps, as a colony, she's compelled to remain beholden to a greater power? Either way, she was also willing to become a vassal.
She also offered me a city, but I didn't need the maintenance costs or especially the cultural battle that would have entailed. I took the 50% of her tiles instead.
Another tech came along with health benefits:
I was spreading Sid's Sushi to the former Carthaginian cities, but as with an domination win, it's always best to just keep warring until you finally win. With Carthage conquered, the next civ on the same land mass were the Ottomans. I'd noticed that most of Mehmed's fleet was bottled up on one of his cities, Samsun:
This was a perfect opportunity to destroy a good chunk of his navy and with it his power.
As with Hannibal, while my naval stack captured coastal cities, my tank units rolled into the inner cities--and some coastal cities too, since the amphibious task force can't be everywhere.
Soon after this, I was one tech away from Mech Infantry:
But I was closer to victory than I was to my next tech, frankly.
So close! I suspected that I just needed for a few of the Carthaginian cities to come out of revolt and pop their borders, but I kept capturing Ottoman cities nonetheless.
Sure enough, thanks in part to Sid's Sushi expanding my borders to rapidly, the game came to a close.
Cool! The saved game file is below. A post mortem report will follow.
As recommended, I had Justinian kneel before me and swear the oath of fealty.
Always nice to deal with a man who knows when he's beat. I gave the city of Angora back to him; I didn't want to spare the troops to garrison it and try to keep it from revolting. Besides, those sweaters are kind of itchy.
And as I suspected, the U.N. peacekeeping vote went his way with everyone but me voting to stop the war. So, vassalizing him was just good sense and good timing.
Despite the benefits of the Babylonian UB, Sid's Sushi meant my cities were growing to extremely large levels, so many of my techs researched this round were intended to offset the health problems resulting from that.
The +1 movement for ships wasn't going to hurt either. I wanted to put power plants in some of my cities too, in order to increase production even further. It may have seemed like overkill, but in my experience a modern war requires a lot of units.
Just as I was getting ready to attack someone else, Mehmed went and declared war on Hannibal.
I decided to jump in. The question was, on whose side? Neither of them jumped up and asked for my help. Ultimately, I wanted to bring the game to a close, so I decided to go after the easier target first.
Hannibal, you might remember, had disbanded a lot of his military as part of his effort to achieve a cultural victory. I thought that taking his mainland cities would achieve two purposes: it would deprive him of that victory, and it would provide me with a solid foundation for attacking the rest of the continent.
I attacked his closest and most isolated coastal city first, using an amphibious force. I used the ships to remove the city's cultural defenses, then used my Fighters from my Carriers to damage the defenders. Then it was up to the Marines:
Sometimes, however, my city raider veterans got better odds--especially the two Infantry who also had Combat II and Pinch. I lost a Marine every now and then, as Fighters simply can't do as much damage as Artillery used to. Even after I had a beachhead, I was limited to four air units per city, so I still didn't have overwhelming air power that I could bring to bear. I also lost several Fighters, since Hannibal had Machine Guns, Anti-Tank units, and SAM Infantry.
In short, Carriers and Fighters have become much more important, dare I say vital to a modern-era war. I built more Carriers and Fighters, fielding a half dozen Aircraft Carriers by the end of the war; but next time, I'm going to build even more.
Next tech:
Darius beat me to the Three Gorges Dam, but it was nice to be able to build a few hydro plants. And I had my eye on eventually getting to Robotics and Mechanized Infantry.
The tide was turning in several respects. I also managed to win then next U.N. Secretary-General election.
Ironic, given that I was busy conquering the world. I was taking cities fairly rapidly. I had one stack of units aboard ships taking coastal cities, and I also had a big stack of Tanks rolling down the middle of the continent, using Bombers and Paratroopers to capture the inland cities. I lost some Fighters and Bombers along the way. The four-air-units-per-city limit was the primary factor in those losses; I also often had to "loan" my Carrier-based Fighters to the inland campaign, which slowed my ability to capture coastal cities. As I said above, next time I'm bringin' more Carriers.
I debated switching from Police State to Universal Suffrage in order to buy Airports in Hannibal's old cities, but decided against it. The losses weren't so bad as to necessitate such a move.
Eventually I captured the last Carthaginian city on the mainland, leaving Hannibal with only a few island cities.
So it was time for the Carthaginian to also bow before me.
In addition, you might remember that Isabella was Hannibal's colony. As I recall, she broke away as soon as he became a vassal. But even though I hadn't invaded Spain, I'd sunk several of her ships. Or perhaps, as a colony, she's compelled to remain beholden to a greater power? Either way, she was also willing to become a vassal.
She also offered me a city, but I didn't need the maintenance costs or especially the cultural battle that would have entailed. I took the 50% of her tiles instead.
Another tech came along with health benefits:
I was spreading Sid's Sushi to the former Carthaginian cities, but as with an domination win, it's always best to just keep warring until you finally win. With Carthage conquered, the next civ on the same land mass were the Ottomans. I'd noticed that most of Mehmed's fleet was bottled up on one of his cities, Samsun:
This was a perfect opportunity to destroy a good chunk of his navy and with it his power.
As with Hannibal, while my naval stack captured coastal cities, my tank units rolled into the inner cities--and some coastal cities too, since the amphibious task force can't be everywhere.
Soon after this, I was one tech away from Mech Infantry:
But I was closer to victory than I was to my next tech, frankly.
So close! I suspected that I just needed for a few of the Carthaginian cities to come out of revolt and pop their borders, but I kept capturing Ottoman cities nonetheless.
Sure enough, thanks in part to Sid's Sushi expanding my borders to rapidly, the game came to a close.
Cool! The saved game file is below. A post mortem report will follow.
azzaman333
meh
One word perfectly sums up the action on the (ex)Ottoman and Carthiginian continent.
Ownage.
Ownage.
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
Post Mortem
Here's a look at the map of Greater Babylon:
And some of the graphs, starting with score:
GNP/Gold:
Production:
And power--all game:
...and for the last 50 turns:
As you can see from the above, the game didn't really start to go my way until I took on Saladin... leading me to conclude, as several of you urged me, that I should have taken him on sooner. And as usual, as my production took off, so did my score, power, and likelihood of winning.
Demographics:
Top 5 cities/wonders:
Darius had more wonders, but as you can see, kids, wonders don't necessarily win the game. I think I built a grand total of two wonders, the Great Library and the Pentagon (not including shrines).
Statistics:
And, finally, score:
Pretty respectable for Immortal level.
EDIT: That's the highest ALC score thus far.
However, looking back, I have to say I could have played this game a lot better and probably won sooner. I made a very basic mistake early on: not building a road to Arabia, thereby forgoing trade routes and religion spread. The game might have been very different if I'd been able to adopt Islam early on. It galls me a little that I was playing as an Organized leader and never once used my favourite high-maintenance civic, Organized Religion. That meant it took longer to build a lot of my infrastructure, and that delayed the war with Saladin.
As for my take on Hammurabi: Aggressive and Organized is a good combination for warmongering, I just wish, as I said, that I'd been able to leverage both a little more. I got my money's worth out of Aggressive, at least. The UU is not spectacular; I'm not a defensive player, so I'm not going to see a lot of benefit from a defensive unit. The Bowmen are kind of like nice little security blankets. The UB was better--not overpowered, even after winning the associated quest, but the combined health and happiness boost was useful for warmongering.
Anyway, that's my take on things, let's hear yours.
Here's a look at the map of Greater Babylon:
And some of the graphs, starting with score:
GNP/Gold:
Production:
And power--all game:
...and for the last 50 turns:
As you can see from the above, the game didn't really start to go my way until I took on Saladin... leading me to conclude, as several of you urged me, that I should have taken him on sooner. And as usual, as my production took off, so did my score, power, and likelihood of winning.
Demographics:
Top 5 cities/wonders:
Darius had more wonders, but as you can see, kids, wonders don't necessarily win the game. I think I built a grand total of two wonders, the Great Library and the Pentagon (not including shrines).
Statistics:
And, finally, score:
Pretty respectable for Immortal level.
EDIT: That's the highest ALC score thus far.
However, looking back, I have to say I could have played this game a lot better and probably won sooner. I made a very basic mistake early on: not building a road to Arabia, thereby forgoing trade routes and religion spread. The game might have been very different if I'd been able to adopt Islam early on. It galls me a little that I was playing as an Organized leader and never once used my favourite high-maintenance civic, Organized Religion. That meant it took longer to build a lot of my infrastructure, and that delayed the war with Saladin.
As for my take on Hammurabi: Aggressive and Organized is a good combination for warmongering, I just wish, as I said, that I'd been able to leverage both a little more. I got my money's worth out of Aggressive, at least. The UU is not spectacular; I'm not a defensive player, so I'm not going to see a lot of benefit from a defensive unit. The Bowmen are kind of like nice little security blankets. The UB was better--not overpowered, even after winning the associated quest, but the combined health and happiness boost was useful for warmongering.
Anyway, that's my take on things, let's hear yours.
azzaman333
meh
I think the key moment was when Hannible went for Culture. It gave you a clear, obvious point of reference to how close he was to winning every turn, thus allowing you to focus on Justinian rather than having to slow him down. Excluding the early Zara rush and killing Saladin.
Commodore Nate
Warlord
- Joined
- Feb 6, 2008
- Messages
- 204
Congratulations on a well played game 
.
Dr Yes
Definitely hooked
Well done, Sisiutil, my congratulations. With hindsight of course there are many improvements to the game, but you stayed in control and didn't rush it, so you deserved the win. Nice high score, too!
So, a few days off and then on to the next game? Would you fancy playing William of Orange?
So, a few days off and then on to the next game? Would you fancy playing William of Orange?
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
Next game will be Boudica. 
azzaman333
meh
Next game will be Boudica.
Wait...
it's Boudica?
And here I was thinking it was Boobica.
pigswill
fly (one day)
If I remember correctly a vassal can't pinch any tiles that's in your city's BFC so I suspect that worrying about culture pressure was unnecessary - not that it made a big difference to the outcome of the game.
And this differs from our reality how?
And now for something completely different:
In which direction should our Scout move?
JujuLautre
Deity
Exact. But the city can still be subject to revolts if it is inside the cultural influence of a vassal's city. The fact that the BFC is inside your cultural borders does not give you cultural predominance in the area.
Tokugawa-sama's bride? (Or is she his daughter? I never can remember that one.)Next game will be Boudica.
Shall we prep the Space Shuttle, then?
