ALC Game #26: Willem van Oranje/Dutch

[Silu]

hum, well, I don't quite remember what happened in the last round, so I guess I'm not really looking forward to it anymore...
sorry, if it's rude

If only we had some kind of "message board" where the old rounds could be viewed at will!

 

[CHEESE!]

So it's dead?

 

[Lord Parkin]

So it's dead?

Nope, far from it. The turns are played and the write-up is half-done, as I mentioned in the Bullpen thread. I just got delayed due to work and sightseeing - my apologies for that.

(My schedule has been rather unpredictable while I've been here, but this weekend I've had some free time for Civ at last.)

 

[Udey1]

LOOONG Time lurker here. Been watching your game LP. Don't worry about the updates. everyone should be able to do other things with their lives while waiting for updates on this interesting ALC.

 

[Sir5alL]

We are playing on a Standard size map, which uses the Big & Small (Snaky Continents / Islands / Islands Mixed In) map script.

Choosing this kind of map.. isn't it kind of cheating? Since you know it will hugely benefit the special unit/building of the Dutch. These 'wondering nomads' are not supposed to have any clue how the world looks like...

Or is it within civilization IV culture that you can simply pick a map type that suits your traits/leader best?

 

[God-Emperor]

I guess you missed that this is not just a regular game, it is an ALC. Part of the ALC idea is, as mentioned in the first post int his thread, to "attempt to make the most of each leader's unique characteristics: traits, starting techs, unit, and building."

What better way to show off the Dutch UU and UB (and everything else) than on a map that is particularly good for them?

Having them land-locked in the middle of a pangaea map would not be nearly as useful, for example.

 

[tycoonist]

Choosing this kind of map.. isn't it kind of cheating? Since you know it will hugely benefit the special unit/building of the Dutch. These 'wondering nomads' are not supposed to have any clue how the world looks like...

correct.

 

[huerfanista]

Actually, I didn't use the UU at all in easily winning from the current save. I found it far more advantageous to do some "housecleaning" on the home continent before venturing overseas, and by the time that was done I had a better unit available.

Spoiler :

Transports. Oh, and airports a bit later.

 

[Sir5alL]

I guess you missed that this is not just a regular game, it is an ALC. Part of the ALC idea is, as mentioned in the first post int his thread, to "attempt to make the most of each leader's unique characteristics: traits, starting techs, unit, and building."

What better way to show off the Dutch UU and UB (and everything else) than on a map that is particularly good for them?

Having them land-locked in the middle of a pangaea map would not be nearly as useful, for example.

Good point, didn't miss it though.

One could argue, that making the most of the Dutch in your scenario (lots of land, little sea) would be to expand to coastal cities.

 

[Lord Parkin]

I guess you missed that this is not just a regular game, it is an ALC. Part of the ALC idea is, as mentioned in the first post int his thread, to "attempt to make the most of each leader's unique characteristics: traits, starting techs, unit, and building."

What better way to show off the Dutch UU and UB (and everything else) than on a map that is particularly good for them?

Having them land-locked in the middle of a pangaea map would not be nearly as useful, for example.

Yep, exactly right. Sure, the map type I chose for this game made it a whole lot easier for the Dutch. However, I figured it would be much easier to show off the full potential of their unique unit and unique building on a heavily coastal map. And that, after all, is what the ALC series is all about.

By the way, the (long overdue) write-up for the next session will be up in a few minutes. I'm just uploading the last of the pictures now. It's quite huge, so I hope it's been worth the wait.

For those who want to review the previous write-up to remind yourselves of where we were, please click here.

 

[Lord Parkin]

World War One: 580 AD to 1130 AD (46 turns) - Part 1 of 2

Well, it’s been a while, but it’s good to be back!

A very brief recap of the game to date: We founded two cities, Chariot-rushed several of Liz’s cities (including London), and managed to build the Great Lighthouse. We then finished off Liz’s last city and began our expansion phase, spreading our empire to several different islands to our south and west as well as filling out the mainland. After meeting all of the remaining AI nations (India, Babylon, Greece, China, and America), we are now at the point where we are once again considering war, potentially against China. India is our greatest rival, being the only nation at tech par with us, and with their own large island to themselves. They have also built most of the wonders in the game to date, and seem to be preparing for war themselves. From this point, we continue our story!

First up, we make some of the gold-per-turn trades for resources that we forgot to do last time around. Gems go to Hammurabi for 5 GPT; Gandhi gets Silks for 10 GPT; and we trade Clams to Roosevelt for 3 GPT. An extra 18 GPT just like that – not bad at all! Shame I forgot to cash in on this earlier.

We also trade Horseback Riding to Gandhi to grab the 180 gold he’s sitting on. A very favourable deal for him, but since he’s not going to declare war on us anytime soon (due to being Pleased with us), it’s fairly safe. Plus, extra gold is always useful.

I notice that the University of Sankore is available to be built, but isn’t being built anywhere. Though I’m sorely tempted to start it in our capital, I decide not to as it’s probably more to our benefit to mass military right now in preparation for a war with Mao (we have a military instructor in Amsterdam). Maybe London can start on Sankore later on instead.

We have a Great Merchant sitting around in our capital. I decide to save him for now, perhaps for a Golden Age later on when we want a civics change.

Next turn, and Gandhi has 360 gold available for trade. Typical… if only we’d waited another turn to trade HBR! Oh well. Mao also has a lot of gold available – over 200 – but we don’t want to give him any more techs at the moment. We’re planning a war with him after all, so we want to keep him technologically backwards.

We settle a new city, Dorestad.

We begin on Philosophy. Next up – finishing off Education, then Liberalism!

Deventer is founded…

Roosevelt converts to Christianity, meaning that every single civ has one of the six different religions that presently exist. Funny! I've never seen that happen in a game with only six players before.

We finish Philosophy, and immediately trade it to Gandhi for Theology and a pile of gold (270). Greece already had the technology, so I wanted to get in quickly and steal the trade out from underneath them.

In 670 AD, Gandhi founds Islam. No surprise there… I expect he’ll grab the two wonders associated with Divine Right soon too. Not to worry, he’s still shot himself in the foot by delaying the Liberalism/Economics part of the tech tree, which is excellent for us.

A couple of turns later, Gandhi builts the Islamic Shrine. Obviously he had a Great Prophet sitting around.

A few more turns, and Gandhi builds the Sistine Chapel. He really is a crazy wonder-hoarder in this game.

Hammurabi and Gandhi both become willing to trade Feudalism. I decide to trade with Hammurabi, as he’s further behind in tech. Philosophy and Optics nets us Feudalism and a bit of gold (70).

We also trade our world map around to everyone and net about a hundred gold.

By this time we’ve amassed a small force (about 10 Macemen and a few Catapults), and I decide it’s time to go ahead with the invasion of Mao Zedong. We’re unlikely to get very far at first due to the small size of the force, but at this point everyone else has Machinery and I’m worried that Mao will get it soon. I want to strike first before he gets Crossbowmen.

Alex is happy to join in our war with Mao. In fact, he’s happy to declare war on Hammurabi at the same time! Typical crazy warmonger. It’s a hefty price to pay, but I’m not too worried about giving away any of the techs in question – and besides, I’d like to get a nice big continental war started. Keeps everyone else off my back.

I also talk to Roosevelt, and it turns out he’s willing to declare war on both Mao and Alex as well, for a relatively cheap price. Why not! We accept his offer, bringing another nation into the world war that’s just begun.

Our Macemen have very nice odds against the weak Archers…

And we subsequently take Tianjin with no losses.

We notice that Gandhi has dropped from pleased to cautious with us. As a result, we decide to trade Paper for Aesthetics (+100 gold), which brings him back to being pleased with us. Perhaps unnecessary (I’m not sure exactly how AI war decisions work), but I want to make sure that there’s no chance that Gandhi will declare war on us while we’re busy with Mao. (Remember he’s preparing for war at the moment.)

Hopefully we’ll still be able to finish Sankore ahead of him, even despite giving him Paper. We’ll keep a close eye on Liberalism, and if Gandhi gets Education then we’ll grab it.

Mao doesn’t yet have Crossbowmen, but he does have Longbowmen starting to appear, which are a bit annoying.

We lose 1 Maceman weakening the Longbowman (even though we had 55% odds), but capture Saxon.

I spot a barbarian Swordsman roaming through Chinese lands, which is amusing – apparently even the barbs want to join in this war!

One of our Caravels has finished exploring and can afford a bit of a risk, so he attacks a barbarian Galley for a chance at some XP. He wins without a scratch!

Another Caravel also battles a barb Galley and wins as well. We also clear up several more barbarian Galleys later on as we find them.

We finally have enough espionage on Gandhi to see his research. He’s going for Education, but it’ll take him a while – 10 turns or so.

Chengdu falls…

We notice a fairly decent stack of Mao’s. It’s a bit outdated, but it could still do some damage due to the small number of units we presently have in that area. I decide to sue for peace and re-declare war in 10 turns, to avoid unnecessary losses. We’ve grabbed 3 cities in a short time, which is fairly decent. Making temporary peace also has the added advantages that Mao’s stack should head over to Greece and suicide itself, and also that we’ll have time to regroup for a more powerful re-invasion. The only disadvantages are probable extra demerits with Gandhi (for declaring war on a “friend” again – Gandhi liking everyone can be annoying at times), and the fact that Mao may have Crossbows in action by the time we re-declare (although we can build some Elephants to counter those in the meantime).

So, peace is (temporarily) signed. We even manage to get a decent amount of gold (and gold per turn) as a side benefit.

Since we almost have Liberalism and there’s no chance of Gandhi stealing it from us, we take advantage of a decent trade:

Kampen is founded…

We finish Liberalism, and take Astronomy as the free tech. Nationalism probably would have been a better pick strategy-wise, but I figured since we’re already doing pretty well – and since this is an ALC game after all – that it’d be nice to try out our UU. Especially since we have the +1 movement due to circumnavigating!

In 900 AD, we finish the University of Sankore! Hooray! It won’t give us a massive boost at the moment, but at least it’ll keep Gandhi back a bit.

Gandhi is now 3 turns from Liberalism, so I decide to strike a deal with him to grab Drama as well as a pile of gold. Can’t hurt, after all.

Roosevelt asks us to war with Greece. We refuse, as even if we weren’t occupied with Mao, we can’t reach Greece due to a lack of Open Borders with China at the moment. Luckily this doesn’t cause a relations drop with America for now.

I decide to begin on Notre Dame in London, since no-one else has built it yet and we’ll have Stone very soon (thanks to a border expansion at one of our new Chinese cities).

Roosevelt gets a Great Engineer, but doesn’t yet have Engineering (for Notre Dame) or Philosophy (for Angkor Wat). There are no other wonders available at the moment. I wonder what he’ll do with it – maybe save it for later.

Gandhi starts researching Astronomy. We’ll have to watch out for him once he gets that, since he’ll theoretically be able to strike anywhere.

We settle Gronigen, and simultaneously discover a barbarian Galley. Our new East Indiaman swiftly takes care of him.

Another barb Galley suddenly turns up to the east and pillages a Clam before we notice it. Another East Indiaman is dispatched to take care of the pest.

 

[Lord Parkin]

World War One: 580 AD to 1130 AD (46 turns) - Part 2 of 2

We finally get enough espionage on Mao to see his research – he’ll get Machinery in 7 turns. Incidentally, it’s also time to re-declare war, which is very convenient!

First up, we capture the island city of Shandong via East Indiaman. (That ability to freely travel in Chinese lands without Open Borders is certainly cool, by the way!) This also nets us a free Worker.

Darius suddenly turns up in the game… apparently Hammurabi founded a colony. Interesting turn of events…

Alexander makes peace with Roosevelt. What a worthless war that was. I don’t think I’ll bother buying off America again, since they’re such weaklings in this game.

Hammurabi finishes Astronomy and immediately trades it to Gandhi, robbing us of a potential trade. Damn him.

We capture Xian, albeit with the very harsh loss of 5 units – 1 Trebuchet and 4 Macemen. Bloody RNG.

The Greek city of Argos falls to China. Obviously that must be where Mao’s stack went.

We trade off Literature to the backward Roosevelt for 180 gold.

London finishes Notre Dame, which is immensely helpful in fixing some of the war unhappiness issues we were having around our empire.

Mao attacks us with his first Crossbowman. Luckily we have a War Elephant which takes care of him nicely.

We finish Economics and get the free Great Merchant. At this point we use a second Great Merchant for a golden age, for two reasons: civics switches (to Free Market and Caste System – and later Theocracy) as well as to get Nationalism faster. Gandhi has just started researching the tech himself, and we definitely want to beat him to the Taj Mahal. A Golden Age is definitely not what he needs right now (or maybe it is, but it’s not what we want him to have!).

So, our Golden Age begins! It’s going to be a nice long 15 turns thanks to the Epic speed and Mausoleum of Mausollus wonder which we own.

The siege on Guangzho begins…

…and ends, with much more reasonable losses than last time (1 Trebuchet and 1 Maceman, not bad for a hilltop assault). From the battle, we even get a Great General! We’ll probably use him for a level 6 super-medic, to kill two birds with one stone – faster healing troops, and making available West Point.

At this point, we have a chokepoint city which effectively severs the big Chinese cities (Beijing and Shanghai) from the rest of the Chinese empire. Since both Beijing and Shanghai are hilltop cities and likely to be difficult to assault, I decide to go for some of the Chinese cities to the east first. These cities are (mostly) on flatland, so will be far easier to assault. We can come back for the northern cities later on, once we have more experienced troops (or possibly Riflemen). For now though, I’m getting a bit tired of bleeding troops in sieges against hilltop fortresses.

I notice that Gandhi has gone to cautious with us again, so I make a nice trade to boost him back to pleased: Guilds for Music. It’s heavily in his favour, but it does the trick – plus I grab an extra 350 gold in the process, which isn’t too bad.

Our stack moves on, and Nanjing is captured with the loss of a single Trebuchet.

The Heroic Epic is completed in Amsterdam. I should have built it a while ago, but forgot about it – my bad! It’s done now though, so high XP troops will be pouring out of that city from now on.

The National Epic is started in London too, at long last.

Roosevelt demands Astronomy. Yeah right, buddy… I tell him where to stick it.

Hammurabi completes the Church of the Nativity.

Leeuwarden is founded.

Gandhi finishes the Spiral Minaret – no surprises there.

We switch to Theocracy for the XP bonus.

Hammurabi has quite a lot of Galleons hanging around, which is a bit worrying. He’s not preparing for war, but I’m building up some defences just in case.

Hangzhou falls to our ever-growing army, which is also healing at super-speed now thanks to a super-medic Elephant.

Meanwhile Mao has been irritating us with Spies, destroying a mine and a Granary. All the more reason to wipe him off the map!

Gandhi asks us to convert to Buddhism. We really don’t want to get him annoyed with us, since he’s still preparing for war and his army is worryingly large – so we do it. Luckily, we happen to be in a golden age, so we don’t get anarchy – and moreover we can switch back to Hinduism in a few turns if we so desire. In the meantime, the diplomatic plus points are certainly nice!

We finish Printing Press and get a nice economic boost. Next up – the path to Rifling and world domination! I begin research on Gunpowder to start us off.

We get an event that promotes every Pikeman to shock. Not that we have any Pikemen right now. Still, it’ll be useful if we need to build a few in future.

We capture Knossos! The former Greek, former Chinese city is now ours. Additionally, we get a very tasty bonus of 4 Workers from the surrounding area.

Let’s take a look at the graphs and demographics at this point.

First up, GNP – it’s apparent that Gandhi is the only real competition here, everyone else is a joke.

Next, production – we’re way in the lead here, and that will only continue to increase as we capture more cities… especially once Dikes and Factories come into play.

We’re leading in food, obviously, as we have the most cities.

We’re in the middle of the pack with power. Gandhi’s power level is a little worrying at the moment, although once we get Rifling we should start to seriously catch up.

We’re coming second in terms of culture. No surprises that Gandhi is first, with his ridiculous number of wonders.

As for espionage, we’re at the bottom of the pack, but that’s no problem.

We have the #4 and #5 cities. Gandhi has #1 and #2; America has #3.

And here are the hard numbers.

Finally, the victory conditions screen:

At this point, I’ll stop to allow some discussion. Here are a few points to get things started:

• The war with China – what should be the next move? I’m thinking regroup and heal, then finish off the two remaining eastern cities before heading north.
• Gandhi – what’s up with him? Any predictions on what he’ll do next? By the way, was I right in making extra deals to keep him pleased, or would he not have declared war on us regardless? How does that work?
• Hammurabi and his ships – do they pose a threat or not? Will AI’s declare war out of the blue without going into preparation first?
• Our next great person – it’ll be from London in 2 turns. Most probably a Great Prophet or a Great Engineer, but there’s a chance it could be anything at all, apart from a Great Merchant. What should we do if it’s a Great Prophet – Jewish shrine or Hindu? If it’s a Great Engineer, should we rush a wonder… or save him for Mining Inc?
• Tech path – does everyone agree on heading for Rifling next, to allow us to mow through our enemies much more easily? What about after that… perhaps Democracy and the Statue of Liberty? Or Chemistry/Steel and Frigates/Cannons? Or – here’s an idea – Steam Power and our unique Dikes!?
• Civics – any changes suggested here? Perhaps Organized Religion?
• Religion – should we stick with Buddhism or switch to something else before our golden age ends? Either way I think we need to spread our religion around a lot more. I’ve been really lazy in this game with that, actually – usually I’m much more on the case with spreading the state religion.
• Victory condition – probably time to start seriously thinking about this. I’m thinking domination is the most logical victory to aim for at this stage. Any objections/suggestions?
• Espionage – who to spy on next? We’re just catching up to Gandhi again, and we already have both Mao and Hammurabi’s research revealed.

That’s about all I can think of for now. Hope you enjoyed the write-up! Once again, sorry for the long delay since the last update.

Until next time,
- Lord Parkin

 

[Lord Parkin]

The savegame file for round 5 is attached.

Please let me know if there are any errors in the above write-up - I haven't completely proof-read it. Some pictures maybe be in the wrong places too, so just let me know and I can fix them up.

I might go back and add a couple of short silly side-stories like I did in the original write-ups in the next few days. I'll let you guys know as soon as that happens.

 

[DMOC]

FYI Gandhi doesn't give any demerits for refusing demands.

Nice round though. Continue taking China then head for Greece and Babylon. I suggest a domination victory.

 

[timmy827]

I don't think there's any reason to worry about the eastern Chinese, go after the real prizes on that northern peninsula first.

I would go MT after Gunpowder instead of Rifling; a horde of Curaissers will be plenty to mow down Greece and Babylon. Your choice whether to whip out a bunch of knights and upgrade, or whip out a ton directly right after MT. If you really want you can tech Rifling for Cavs but I doubt it's really needed. Of course, once you have those two killed your tech path and such no longer matters

 

[Lord Parkin]

FYI Gandhi doesn't give any demerits for refusing demands.

Oh yeah, that's right... forgot about that. Still, gained the positive points for accepting (and having the same religion), so it was still probably worth the trouble.

Nice round though. Continue taking China then head for Greece and Babylon. I suggest a domination victory.

Yep, my thoughts exactly.

 

[shyuhe]

If Gandhi's already gone to prepare for war, there is nothing you can do to dissuade him, other than bribing another civ to war with Gandhi. He may also decide to not declare because his army isn't big enough. Regardless, it's not very useful to try buttering him up once he's already decided to declare war. And I'd be shocked if Gandhi actually fielded a real army considering his unit build probability.

AI can declare after 0 or 1 turn of war prep if they do dagger strategy. I don't remember if Hammy is a candidate for that - I don't think he is.

 

[Lord Parkin]

I don't think there's any reason to worry about the eastern Chinese, go after the real prizes on that northern peninsula first.

It'll only take a few turns to grab the eastern cities and secure that flank for good, so I think it's worth doing. Could head straight for the big cities in the north though, I guess... that'd secure that flank too.

I would go MT after Gunpowder instead of Rifling; a horde of Curaissers will be plenty to mow down Greece and Babylon. Your choice whether to whip out a bunch of knights and upgrade, or whip out a ton directly right after MT. If you really want you can tech Rifling for Cavs but I doubt it's really needed. Of course, once you have those two killed your tech path and such no longer matters

Really? I've never really been a huge fan of Curaissers, especially when my neighbours have the ability to build Pikemen. Usually they'll still have to wait for the siege units before attacking, so the extra movement is almost unnecessary. Plus of course, they can't get the city raider promotions! To me, the main attraction of Rifling is the ability to upgrade all those highly promoted Macemen to CR3 Rifles. No-one messes with those - it really will be a steamroll at that point.

 

[Lord Parkin]

If Gandhi's already gone to prepare for war, there is nothing you can do to dissuade him, other than bribing another civ to war with Gandhi. He may also decide to not declare because his army isn't big enough. Regardless, it's not very useful to try buttering him up once he's already decided to declare war. And I'd be shocked if Gandhi actually fielded a real army considering his unit build probability.

No-one wants to war with Gandhi... they all either love him or are afraid of his might.

What I'd be most interested to know is whether Gandhi can change his target after he makes the initial decision to "do war". Originally he made that decision when he was pleased with me, so presumably his intention was to war with someone else. My question is, can that change if my relations with him drop to cautious or below for a while? Will he decide that I'm suddenly the more attractive target, or will he go for the person he originally decided to war against regardless of how relations change with me?

AI can declare after 0 or 1 turn of war prep if they do dagger strategy. I don't remember if Hammy is a candidate for that - I don't think he is.

Hmm. I guess even if not, it'd still be worth beefing up defences a bit, especially on those island cities. You can never be sure when an AI will backstab you, after all...

 

[Shoot the Moon]

You have more than double the production of the second place civ, with Dikes still to come! I'd say the strategy at this point is: win however you like