ALC Game 28: Ethiopia/Zara

[Tinmonkee]

Minor point that one, and the Ethiopians have a clever ruse; they dress the advance guard as pantomime horses, then while the mayans are busy laughing saying "You think we'd fall for that one sunshine ??" the Oromo's coming steaming over the hill and get stuck in

 

[Mec AntiKythera]

I'm curious too, not gonna lie. I'll need to send a few troops into Mayan territory and scout out the enemy. My tendency is, unfortunately, to build too few troops and then stall before I reach an ending point that I'm pleased with. So I'll probably be building quite a few troops for this war. That being said, I'm probably going to war until the end, so too many troops is not going to be a problem. I'll post details about the enemy's SoD and what I think I need to have in place before my decleration of war and hopefully you and me both can learn something when the better players tell me where I went wrong.

Oh good, I'm not the only one. Though taking too long and building too much can also be quite painful. Bad memories of 14 or 15 chariots out destroying the enemy and my economy with equal impunity may never leave me. Oh, units cost upkeep? What's that? And I thought units were good to have . . .

 

[Benginal]

That's definitely true. A large force early in the game can cripple your economy. Not only do the units cost upkeep, but they are also hopefully capturing cities that can have exorbitantly expensive maintenance on the higher levels. This is why Imm/Deity players like the organized trait so much.

Later in the game, I think it's less of an issue. Notice that with our slider off we are making more than 200 gpt. This is definitely going to take a hit with our war declaration as we'll potentially lose all of our foreign trade route income, but I think we can afford to have a larger than necessary army.

 

[Mec AntiKythera]

Absolutely, at this point in the game it is a completely different story. I agree that it will be worthwhile to have a sizable stack from the get-go since you will be ferrying them over to a different landmass and will need to defend the territory they take without supporting cities nearby. Not that it is so far away, but still it will take a bit longer to get troops to the battlefield.

Funny that you say that about Organized, I didn't know that top players like that trait so much, I see a lot written about Financial but not so much about Organized. I find Organized to be a sneakily fantastic trait, even on lower levels. The first time I saw it's value it really caught me off-guard. I drew it randomly and just set about expanding and conquering as normal, keeping an eye on the commerce to let me know when to halt my early land grabbing, and lo and behold, I just kept adding to my empire and I didn't see the need to change my ways. It was like Thanksgiving dinner, the goodies just kept on coming and nobody told me to stop. It's the delicious bottomless pot of an organized kitchen. I've been hoping to draw that trait again ever since.

 

[Sisiutil]

That's definitely true. A large force early in the game can cripple your economy. Not only do the units cost upkeep, but they are also hopefully capturing cities that can have exorbitantly expensive maintenance on the higher levels. This is why Imm/Deity players like the organized trait so much.

Please remember that the Organized trait does not lower city maintenance. It cuts the cost of civics in half. You may already be aware of this, but the wording in your post was a little unclear, so I thought I'd pipe up, especially since this is a very common misconception regarding Organized.

However, Organized does accelerate the building of Courthouses, so in that regard, it can be very beneficial to empire-building. The double production speed of Lighthouses and Factories is not to be sneezed at either.

 

[Mec AntiKythera]

That's a good point, the benefit to city maintenance costs is indirect. You can get the courthouses built cheaper (and faster) to reduce maintenance, but that's a secondary handling.

However, it is also true that civic costs are based in part on empire size so that is a hidden, but I would say direct, economic benefit from the Organized trait to expansion. While technically not maintenance costs, since civics expenses do stem directly from expansion and the size of the empire it sure feels like maintenance because it grows with the addition of new cities like maintenance does. What I don't know is whether it is the number of cities, the population of the cities, the distance between cities, or a mixture of those factors that determines the how expensive civics are.

 

[Benginal]

Round 7: 1190 AD to 1530 AD (37 Turns)

I started off the round by reaching an agreement for a pretty large trade with Hammurabi.



I used to just look at the beakers of all the techs and determine if a trade was fair that way. But it's often better to look at what will actually happen when you trade the technologies. Hammurabi gets the ability to build universities, but not enough to build Oxford since he only has 5 cities, trebs, and better roads. I'm not really scared. I, on the other hand, can give all my units 2 more XP from the get-go, get one step closer to world exploring caravels (which I research next), can now build theatres for my Globe Theatre city, and get another hammer from my workshops. I also get a legit world map. I was not expecting this, but it turns out Hammy has been doing some exploring.

After I get these new techs I started a golden age and revolted into the civics I would stay in for the rest of the round. Vassalage for the +2 XP, Caste System for the workshop hammer boost, and Theocracy for the +2 XP.

I have all my military techs in place, so I set research to Astronomy (have to research Calender first) for foreign trade routes (which I don't end up getting any of for diplomatic reasons).

As I'm gearing up for war I meet the rest of the leaders on our fine planet with my caravel. Since Hammy so nicely gave me his world map I was able to circumnavigate the globe in one turn. As to the other leaders, let's just say that my tech lead should be fine for the rest of this game.



Nutjob if I ever met one. But I think he just got Bronze Working a few turns ago. Isolation didn't treat him too well.



Well I'm not Buddhist, so Charlemagne is naturally pissed off. But luckily he hates this guy more.



Looks like he committed suicide when he took his favorite civic thing a little bit too far and started running Free Religion instead of Buddhism. What a silly goof.

Now at this point in the round war prep was going very well. I had a decent navy of five transporting galleys, several triremes/caravels for protection, and many cities churning out troops and cannons in the low single-digit number of turns range. Unfortunately Charlemagne went into wheoohrn mode and I was worried I might be the target.



Luckily though, my current target, Pacal, was friendly with me, so I switched targets to Charlemagne. Nevermind, just two turns later Charlie declared war on WvO.

QUESTION: Does anybody know how long after a leader goes into wheoohrn mode it will be before he declares war?

I had built up a medium sized stack of troops on Pacal's continent and had done a little bit of recon. I found the following city garrisons and made the following battle plan accordingly.



But who wants to declare war on an opponent that's not completely defenseless? Unfortunately, Pacal was so behind he couldn't even be bribed, so it took two turns to accomplish my goal.





On deity, giving an opponent such good techs might not be a good idea. But I didn't really care what I was giving him since I was planning that he'd be wiped out in about 10 turns anyway.

Here's the stack I declared war with. As my plan early said, I split the stack in two. I normally would not split up this small a stack, but I knew that Pacal was weak and that he was already at war. So I took a risk.



Bwahahahahaha



I'll let you follow the war with pictures. If you have any specific questions about what I did, just ask, and I'll see if I can recall the method behind my madness.









These are some excellent wonders in the capital. Looks like I'm practically running a RE (religious economy) now.

During the war I was pestered with demands by other leaders. I decided on following a pretty isolationist foreign policy and turned down demands.





The war rolls on without hitches.





With the force you can see in the screenshot and then another force of equal size hanging out in the northwestern city I decided to



Again, little resistance was met.







And now, with her capital taken, Elizabeth is offering the following deal:



A State of the World will follow sometime in the future, hopefully tonight.

 

[Benginal]

State of the World, 1530 AD

Our Cities











And finally, London. This city is surprisingly lame. I'm thinking that if we decide to capitulate England, we gift them back this city to improve relations.



The World





Some Stats



I'm thinking we can trade with Elizabeth for her techs, if we choose to capitulate her.









Discussion Points

1. Do we capitulate Elizabeth? I think we've kind of decided for a domination victory. Elizabeth is definitely on the run and our army should be technologically more advanced for the rest of the game. So would we be better off taking 50% of her remaining land via cap and getting the war started against our next opponent sooner or should we finish her off now and get all of her pop and land?
2. Who should our next victim be? I like Hammurabi just because he's close and the civ who's doing the best since he's been pretty much unchecked all game. But an argument can be made for pretty much anybody.
3. Tech path? I'm heading straight for assembly line. Cheap factories and infantry seem like a no-brainer to me. Do you guys have any other ideas?

As always, any advice, questions, comments, or answers you have would be greatly appreciated and read with interest.

 

[Coffee Mug]

Excellent round; this is a great series to read. If you do gift back London, you'll lose a settled great general. I'm not sure if that will matter at this stage of the game.

 

[Sisiutil]

Some random thoughts:

• Good job taking out Pacal. I especially thought you'd be in trouble by trading Chemistry to him, but you hit him too hard and fast for him to be a threat.
• I assume you're now pursuing a domination win. Might as well.
• Many of your core cities are stagnating with no relief in sight. Biology should be a priority. Also, if you have a good chance of producing a Great Merchant anytime soon, research Medicine and build Sid's Sushi so you can boost the food availability of those cities.
• With several watermills, London might make a good Ironworks city if you haven't built one already. Buy you'll need to conquer the area around it to keep it free of cultural pressure.
• If you capitulate Liz, what purpose will she serve? Can you outsource research to her? Or would she be a decent attack dog? Either one requires that you leave her with enough cities to fulfil her purpose. In my experience, Liz isn't much of a warmonger, so scratch the attack dog idea. Outsourcing research requires that you get her to at least Pleased status (Friendly is even better) so she'll trade techs to you; given your behaviour in this game, that might be an uphill struggle. You might be better off just finishing her completely, especially since that land will count 100% towards a domination win rather than at 50%. If she's weak, there's no reason you can't send rookie units to England for experience and send your veterans to start a war somewhere else.
• I agree on Assembly Line. Also start stocking up on gold so you can upgrade your best units to Infantry and plan where you're going to build the Pentagon. After AL I'd go after Fascism for the free GG and Paratroopers, Industrialism for Marines and Tanks, Flight for Fighters, Airports, and Carriers. Then build yourself an amphibious strike force (Destroyers, Battleships, Transports, Carriers, Fighters, Marines) that can take out your enemies' coastal cities in no time flat. For inland cities, build blitzkrieg units (Tanks, Paratroopers).

 

[huerfanista]

Outsourcing research requires that you get her to at least Pleased status (Friendly is even better) so she'll trade techs to you; given your behaviour in this game, that might be an uphill struggle.

Huh? If we're playing BTS 3.19, she'll trade her techs even if she hates you.

 

[huerfanista]

If you leave Liz with enough cities she'll be a great tech buddy. Just trading for SM + lib will enable you to tech communism directly, which IMO will be far more beneficial than AL. You already have a big tech lead on the others. Just head next door and take Hammi out (he'll be tough to cap since, unlike Liz, he doesn't see you as a land target). Then WvO, Stalin, and BK (if needed - he's so freakin' backwards). I'd go SP instead of corps - you'll get your online much faster, and that's all you really need to wrap this game up. Also, with an empire spanning multiple continents, SP will be a huge economic boost.

[EDIT]: Actually, Hammi ->WvO -> BK to chain cap the HRE (cap WvO and and leave him his border cities with HRE to make attacking BK easier).

 

[vranasm]

I too would probably take out Liz completely if you can.

What about communism for SP? How it's going with colonial maintenance? Should be really big.

next Hammi, it's no brainer for me, he's close.
In the meantime you can get to flight/physics(airships) and then WvO. Depending on power score you may try directly cap HRE and it will bring you domination.
WvO should cap quickly if you get 2-3 cities at coast from him decisively and it will offer you good beachhead.

 

[Sisiutil]

Huh? If we're playing BTS 3.19, she'll trade her techs even if she hates you.

Older techs that other civs have, sure; but if someone else already has it, why not get it from them instead of waiting for your lame duck research partner to finish researching it? The idea of a genuine tech buddy is that you can get them to research techs that no one, or almost no one, has. The only way to get an iron-clad guarantee that an AI civ will trade you a monopoly tech is to get them to Friendly. I don't think Liz is gonna get there with us in this game.

I too would probably take out Liz completely if you can.

What about communism for SP? How it's going with colonial maintenance? Should be really big.

next Hammi, it's no brainer for me, he's close.
In the meantime you can get to flight/physics(airships) and then WvO. Depending on power score you may try directly cap HRE and it will bring you domination.
WvO should cap quickly if you get 2-3 cities at coast from him decisively and it will offer you good beachhead.

I agree on all of this save for Communism; if we're going for a domination win it makes sense, but even then, given the anaemic growth potential of our core cities, I'd at least want to consider the possibility of a GM for either Sid's Sushi or Cereal Mills.

On a related note, I don't think the Forbidden Palace has been built yet; if not, it should go up somewhere on our new continent.

 

[huerfanista]

Older techs that other civs have, sure; but if someone else already has it, why not get it from them instead of waiting for your lame duck research partner to finish researching it? The idea of a genuine tech buddy is that you can get them to research techs that no one, or almost no one, has. The only way to get an iron-clad guarantee that an AI civ will trade you a monopoly tech is to get them to Friendly. I don't think Liz is gonna get there with us in this game.

Unless I'm missing something here, I have no idea what you're talking about. We are talking about vassaling Liz, right? In 3.19 a vassal MUST trade you ANY tech they have, regardless of their attitude to you. Looking at that tech screen, there's only one AI more advanced than Liz, and that's Hammi - the next victim. There's no reason why Liz can't be a great tech partner if you give her back her cities after vassaling - that's her forte, as the current tech screen indicates clearly. In fact, with both Liz and Hammi as vassals, the game will be a runaway.

 

[kolhite]

Fun game to follow here. In this situation I'd probably go after the Dutch and the HRE, assuming that continent plus your current acquisitions is enough for domination (as it appears). Hopefully get to the Dutch before they get rifles, then the backwards HRE should be a good target.

My concern would be to avoid the tedium/time of multiple intercontinental invasions. Hammurabi would make a good vassal, but vassalizing him would add little to your holdings, and do you really need much more technology (OTOH, he is conveniently close)? You have the tech edge necessary to close out the game, I think.

Hm, I'd probably kill off Elizabeth as well; if not, though, I'd certainly keep London. Does it matter what she, your abject vassal, thinks of you? Come to think of it I can't really think of a situation in which it's mattered what my war vassal thought of me.

If you have a bottleneck with ships, you could keep killing Liz even as you ship soldiers to your next continent, and not lose time.

 

[Sisiutil]

Unless I'm missing something here, I have no idea what you're talking about. We are talking about vassaling Liz, right? In 3.19 a vassal MUST trade you ANY tech they have, regardless of their attitude to you. Looking at that tech screen, there's only one AI more advanced than Liz, and that's Hammi - the next victim. There's no reason why Liz can't be a great tech partner if you give her back her cities after vassaling - that's her forte, as the current tech screen indicates clearly. In fact, with both Liz and Hammi as vassals, the game will be a runaway.

My mistake, strange I hadn't noticed that before. Maybe it's because I just haven't vassalized anyone in such a long time, preferring to just kill baby kill...

 

[Benginal]

Some random thoughts:

1. Good job taking out Pacal. I especially thought you'd be in trouble by trading Chemistry to him, but you hit him too hard and fast for him to be a threat.
2. I assume you're now pursuing a domination win. Might as well.
3. Many of your core cities are stagnating with no relief in sight. Biology should be a priority. Also, if you have a good chance of producing a Great Merchant anytime soon, research Medicine and build Sid's Sushi so you can boost the food availability of those cities.
4. With several watermills, London might make a good Ironworks city if you haven't built one already. Buy you'll need to conquer the area around it to keep it free of cultural pressure.
5. If you capitulate Liz, what purpose will she serve? Can you outsource research to her? Or would she be a decent attack dog? Either one requires that you leave her with enough cities to fulfil her purpose. In my experience, Liz isn't much of a warmonger, so scratch the attack dog idea. Outsourcing research requires that you get her to at least Pleased status (Friendly is even better) so she'll trade techs to you; given your behaviour in this game, that might be an uphill struggle. You might be better off just finishing her completely, especially since that land will count 100% towards a domination win rather than at 50%. If she's weak, there's no reason you can't send rookie units to England for experience and send your veterans to start a war somewhere else.
6. I agree on Assembly Line. Also start stocking up on gold so you can upgrade your best units to Infantry and plan where you're going to build the Pentagon. After AL I'd go after Fascism for the free GG and Paratroopers, Industrialism for Marines and Tanks, Flight for Fighters, Airports, and Carriers. Then build yourself an amphibious strike force (Destroyers, Battleships, Transports, Carriers, Fighters, Marines) that can take out your enemies' coastal cities in no time flat. For inland cities, build blitzkrieg units (Tanks, Paratroopers).

1. Yeah, I often trade for technologies I don't have before a war when I'm pretty sure I can smack the opponent upside the head. There are some techs I wouldn't trade like Feudalism (longbows) and Railroad (machine guns) before a war, but most things are on the table.
2. Yeah, Domination sounds good. It seems like an appropriate victory condition for my first ALC.
3. I'll talk about this more later.
4. London could be a good ironworks city, but I'm thinking of putting it in a coastal city somewhere since I'll be needing many ships. On the other hand, London has a settled Great General, I'll think on it. Also, if you capitulate a civ I'm pretty sure you're guaranteed the BFC of any cities of theirs you captured.
5. I agree with your analysis and will be finishing off Liz. She will serve as an excellent training ground for those troops of mine that have only 7 XP. .
6. I'll talk about this more later.

Fun game to follow here. In this situation I'd probably go after the Dutch and the HRE, assuming that continent plus your current acquisitions is enough for domination (as it appears). Hopefully get to the Dutch before they get rifles, then the backwards HRE should be a good target.

My concern would be to avoid the tedium/time of multiple intercontinental invasions. Hammurabi would make a good vassal, but vassalizing him would add little to your holdings, and do you really need much more technology (OTOH, he is conveniently close)? You have the tech edge necessary to close out the game, I think.

Hm, I'd probably kill off Elizabeth as well; if not, though, I'd certainly keep London. Does it matter what she, your abject vassal, thinks of you? Come to think of it I can't really think of a situation in which it's mattered what my war vassal thought of me.

If you have a bottleneck with ships, you could keep killing Liz even as you ship soldiers to your next continent, and not lose time.

This is great and what I think I will end up doing.

 

[Benginal]

Corps vs SP
There are multiple threads about Corporations versus State Property. These two concepts are mutually exclusive but both offer tremendous advantages when leveraged properly. I will now attempt to give a fair, but concise summary of each.

Corps

• (+) Allow your cities to grow bigger, more powerful, or more creative.
• (+) Have the potential to make the Headquarter City very wealthy.
• (-) More micro intensive. I have to build missionaries and think about which cities should get which corporations as they can get very expensive if abused.

State Property

• (+) Really easy to use. Simply switch to the civic and enjoy the benefits.
• (+) Gives all my workshops a bonus . I plan on spamming workshops all over my new lands as it makes the cities very useful very quickly.
• (-) Means I will have to deal with smaller cities.

I think in this game I am going to run State Property. I have an empire that's acquiring cities incredibly quickly and I'm planning on building many workshops. Also, I'm hoping this game will be wrapping up shortly and I will be able to turn the research slider down. But when should we turn the research slider down...

Tech Path

I've organized the short-term tech paths by importance of the end result.

1. Infantry: Constitution -> Steam Power -> Corporation -> Assembly Line
2. State Property: Liberalism -> Scientific Method -> Communism
3. Destroyers & Transports: Steam Power -> Railroad -> Combustion
4. Sid's Sushi: Constitution -> Corporation -> Scientific Method -> Biology -> Medicine
5. Artillery: Scientific Method -> Physics -> Artillery

I'm thinking that we should just beeline Assembly Line, and then as soon as we get that follow list 2, and then as soon as we get Communism beeline list 3, and then turn off the slider. We should be able to get through these techs pretty quickly, especially since I'm going to buddy up to Hammy and use him as a trading partner. I've got espionage all going his way, so that we can see his research and tech accordingly. This will allow us to maintain a large empire at low costs, build a powerful navy, and build an army of Infantry and Cannons and win the game with superior numbers.

Victims

I very much like kolhite's war strategy. It seems that while Hammurabi is certainly closer and easier to attack, he is my only friend, he's teching along quite nicely, and he doesn't really have that much land to offer our domination victory.

I think therefore, that we should hit targets in such a way that our army stays relatively advanced for as long as possible. So we'll work our way down the tech ladder. That means invading the Netherlands first then down through the Holy Roman Empire. If, after they've both capitulated we're still short, we can declare on completely backwards Russia and take over that island for the win.

I'm not going to lie. I don't like modern warfare as it's too tedious for my tastes. I will probably force myself to play a game using modern warfare tactics on an ALC, but for now we'll stick with what I know best. Also, we might be able to fight with a more advanced army for the rest of the game if we get a move on with it.

As always, any comments, alternative strategies, questions, or other points of discussion you'd like to present are more than welcome and I'll do my best to respond. This shouldn't be hard since finals are finished and I am now on vacation!

 

[huerfanista]

Corps vs SP
State Property

• (+) Really easy to use. Simply switch to the civic and enjoy the benefits.
• (+) Gives all my workshops a bonus . I plan on spamming workshops all over my new lands as it makes the cities very useful very quickly.
• (-) Means I will have to deal with smaller cities.

You left off one of the best reasons for SP on this map: eliminating colony maintenance. For a domination game spanning multiple continents, this is huge. Even if you're not going to use Liz as a tech buddy, I'd leave her with one crap city and vassal her so you can get lib and SM from her - this will greatly shorten the path to communism. In fact, it would likely pay to go for communism immediately after getting those techs from her - the gain in reduced maintenance will greatly shorten the path to AL.