Julian Delphiki
Anton's key
Check the save and tech screen to see if liberalism freebie is still available.
All Leaders Challenge Game 19: Sumer/Gilgamesh
- Thread starter Sisiutil
- Start date
Peachrocks
Too Fast For Blazing
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2007
- Messages
- 127
Hmm, I really liked the spy stuff at the start, I've watched since the Inca one (fav civ) but haven't said anything. I'm still on Prince but meh, I like the first meeting scenes with a new continent.
Anyway Hannibal is running Bureaucracy and doesn't have Paper so no Education yet, there is still a reasonable chance the Liberalism race can be won. I'd be willing to bet he's researching Nationalism as well.
Cyrus and Shaka are at war, this is why there are so many negative diplo modifiers between them. If you trade with either the other won't like it... so there are a few possibilities.
1. Trade with Shaka and Hannibal. If Hannibal starts running away with it, you can get friendly with Shaka now by declaring on Cyrus to get brownie points and set him on Hannibal to slow him down later. I think this is the best call, Cyrus might be a good trading partner now, but I don't think this will last for very long, especially if Shaka eats him.
2. Trade with Cyrus and Hannibal, or just Cyrus. Risky but Cyrus techs better than Shaka does, but can't be set on Hannibal like a dog. I frankly don't like this option, Cyrus is a pretty stubborn ally and I generally have irritating experiences with him. Nonetheless its there if there's something I'm missing with this option.
3. Trade with Cyrus and Shaka. They may be at war now, but its possible they'll break it off and again set Shaka on Hannibal later, but you can't declare on Cyrus if you do this, making it harder to control Shaka. Of course if Shaka runs all over Cyrus its out of the question. There's also the drawback of not being able to trade until the war is done, or you risk getting tagged with the 'you traded with our worst enemy' rubbish.
On Washington? Deal with him ASAP. Spies could help lower his defenses so you can capture cities without massive amounts of siege weapons if you want to start massing units now before he gets longbowmen. However he does outnumber you, which complicates things and by the time you equalise he might have LBs.
Anyway Hannibal is running Bureaucracy and doesn't have Paper so no Education yet, there is still a reasonable chance the Liberalism race can be won. I'd be willing to bet he's researching Nationalism as well.
Cyrus and Shaka are at war, this is why there are so many negative diplo modifiers between them. If you trade with either the other won't like it... so there are a few possibilities.
1. Trade with Shaka and Hannibal. If Hannibal starts running away with it, you can get friendly with Shaka now by declaring on Cyrus to get brownie points and set him on Hannibal to slow him down later. I think this is the best call, Cyrus might be a good trading partner now, but I don't think this will last for very long, especially if Shaka eats him.
2. Trade with Cyrus and Hannibal, or just Cyrus. Risky but Cyrus techs better than Shaka does, but can't be set on Hannibal like a dog. I frankly don't like this option, Cyrus is a pretty stubborn ally and I generally have irritating experiences with him. Nonetheless its there if there's something I'm missing with this option.
3. Trade with Cyrus and Shaka. They may be at war now, but its possible they'll break it off and again set Shaka on Hannibal later, but you can't declare on Cyrus if you do this, making it harder to control Shaka. Of course if Shaka runs all over Cyrus its out of the question. There's also the drawback of not being able to trade until the war is done, or you risk getting tagged with the 'you traded with our worst enemy' rubbish.
On Washington? Deal with him ASAP. Spies could help lower his defenses so you can capture cities without massive amounts of siege weapons if you want to start massing units now before he gets longbowmen. However he does outnumber you, which complicates things and by the time you equalise he might have LBs.
r_rolo1
King of myself
Carthage has S. Paya , so it doesn't need lib for FR.... the F4 tech screen still shows paper as a "can research" tech for Han ( I know that the screen is bugged, but ruff_hi said that particular error normally happened if all the civs have the tech, which is not the case ... ) and the F6 still shows the Lib free tech at blue.... Lib is still open IMHO ( I'm not even sure that Han has Paper... 4 more turns and the situation will be clearer )
About Wash: you have to finish him, and sooner the better. He's already pressing you and things will only get worse, especially if you let him live until cottages turn towns....if necessary switch to police state and drown him with units ( that can hurt badly your teching but may be necessary )
About the Lib: If you get it, I think that you would be better with Chemistry ( if you can trade for the Prereqs, of course ). Astro is a great tech, but I'm sensing that you need a harsh and long war to finish Wash and that cannons would be a big help....
P.S Wash seems to be running low on military and not developed well his cites ( too few owrkers IMHO ).... first cities will fall easily, but the simple size of his empire will make this a long war.
About Wash: you have to finish him, and sooner the better. He's already pressing you and things will only get worse, especially if you let him live until cottages turn towns....if necessary switch to police state and drown him with units ( that can hurt badly your teching but may be necessary )
About the Lib: If you get it, I think that you would be better with Chemistry ( if you can trade for the Prereqs, of course ). Astro is a great tech, but I'm sensing that you need a harsh and long war to finish Wash and that cannons would be a big help....
P.S Wash seems to be running low on military and not developed well his cites ( too few owrkers IMHO ).... first cities will fall easily, but the simple size of his empire will make this a long war.
I think Sisiutil believes he'll get +50% gold from bureaucracy, when everyone knows it's +50% commerce
.Or is it about the 1 food that will allow to work half a tile more?
I know I have built production cities in somewhat food poor situations and have run merchants to settle there and correct this situation.
Sisiutil doesn't have CS nor theology, so he cannot know if Hannibal has paper or not.
The only way to check is in the trade screen with Hannibal. Can you gift him your map or not?
Spoiler paper or not paper? :
somewhat agreed. I would declare and let protective units take care of his "non defensive" units, then throw 4 catapults/ city then finish with vultures.
Totally disagreed. Chemistry doesn't give any military bonus in BtS if you don't have astro or military science.
Go for astro !
KMadCandy
giggling permanoob
i totally flipped out and thought shaka had beaten sitting bull down to one city! then i checked in my own game, and realized that even tho in that world hammurabi's colony cyrus has 3 cities left, you can't see somebody else's vassal's cities on the trade screen 
. for a while there i was very impressed with shaka's rampage! i have nothing useful to add atm. surprising, i know.
. for a while there i was very impressed with shaka's rampage! i have nothing useful to add atm. surprising, i know.i totally flipped out and thought shaka had beaten sitting bull down to one city! then i checked in my own game, and realized that even tho in that world hammurabi's colony cyrus has 3 cities left, you can't see somebody else's vassal's cities on the trade screen
Sitting Bull has a glorious total of 155 points. I'd be very suprised if he had any good cities left.
Kev
Hired Goon
In your take on the tech situation, you state that Hannibal will trade you his gold and CS for optics and ditto for Cyrus.
Actually, from the screenshot it seems that Cyrus actually lacks Compas (along with Code of Laws). Is there a possibility of making a small trade to Cyrus for Compas and then later combine OPTICS with COL (or whatever he might NOT have past that that we might have) to get something better from him? Feudalism would be nice - and perhaps from there we can even shoot to beeline something like GUILDS (or some sort of possible trade or partial research/trade).
Yes, pikes and trebs are nice, but with fast-moving knights and spies to knock out the cultural defense, it might make our efforts against Washington go much faster. He certainly won't have pikes anytime soon, and with some pillaging he wont even be able to get spears up. If it's really, really fast (and we do some pillaging to his econ now) we might be able to hit him with knights before longbows. Just a thought.
Upon Edit: OK, I see that you write that Cyrus won't give you Feud for the techs that you have on him now - you don't mention Optics as one of those techs so my bad. I also realize that Guilds would take you well out of the Liberalism tech path (not to mention building knights time-wise) and that probably won't be so great - though Engineering would do the same (unless a trade can be made for it). You might have to take Washington out in halves. You could try to build up now and take him with maces + whatever siege you have and try to get Feudalism from him should he get there in time when you stop the war. Then finish him off later with an even higher tech-disparity. Opens up the prospects of the other civs getting involved diplomatically or vassaling, but each option has their pros and cons.
Actually, from the screenshot it seems that Cyrus actually lacks Compas (along with Code of Laws). Is there a possibility of making a small trade to Cyrus for Compas and then later combine OPTICS with COL (or whatever he might NOT have past that that we might have) to get something better from him? Feudalism would be nice - and perhaps from there we can even shoot to beeline something like GUILDS (or some sort of possible trade or partial research/trade).
Yes, pikes and trebs are nice, but with fast-moving knights and spies to knock out the cultural defense, it might make our efforts against Washington go much faster. He certainly won't have pikes anytime soon, and with some pillaging he wont even be able to get spears up. If it's really, really fast (and we do some pillaging to his econ now) we might be able to hit him with knights before longbows. Just a thought.
Upon Edit: OK, I see that you write that Cyrus won't give you Feud for the techs that you have on him now - you don't mention Optics as one of those techs so my bad. I also realize that Guilds would take you well out of the Liberalism tech path (not to mention building knights time-wise) and that probably won't be so great - though Engineering would do the same (unless a trade can be made for it). You might have to take Washington out in halves. You could try to build up now and take him with maces + whatever siege you have and try to get Feudalism from him should he get there in time when you stop the war. Then finish him off later with an even higher tech-disparity. Opens up the prospects of the other civs getting involved diplomatically or vassaling, but each option has their pros and cons.
KrikkitTwo
Immortal
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2004
- Messages
- 12,418
I would definitely go full war now, pump put Vultures until obsolete then pump out maces,
Trebs are unnecessary as America doesn't have feudalism yet.. Catapults will do fine.
The problem is this might eliminate the Liberalism Race... at least by means of Normal teching... However, it will be worth it long run.
Washington is beginning to recover from his overexpansion... that needs to be you recovering from over expansion in the long run.
Crush him now, go to a ~20 city specialist economy to leave Liberalism a possibility and begin cottaging it up for conversion.
Tech Path straight to Liberalism from Civil Service, then Astronomy (free or if you lose the race).. CS is the only military tech you sort of need, Pikes and Trebs are unnecessary.. Maces+Spears+Cats+Crossbows will be fine... It might be worth trading to Cyrus for Civil Service.
Its sea to shining sea time...
Trebs are unnecessary as America doesn't have feudalism yet.. Catapults will do fine.
The problem is this might eliminate the Liberalism Race... at least by means of Normal teching... However, it will be worth it long run.
Washington is beginning to recover from his overexpansion... that needs to be you recovering from over expansion in the long run.
Crush him now, go to a ~20 city specialist economy to leave Liberalism a possibility and begin cottaging it up for conversion.
Tech Path straight to Liberalism from Civil Service, then Astronomy (free or if you lose the race).. CS is the only military tech you sort of need, Pikes and Trebs are unnecessary.. Maces+Spears+Cats+Crossbows will be fine... It might be worth trading to Cyrus for Civil Service.
Its sea to shining sea time...
It seems to me that conquering America is the highest priority. How will you ever compete with Hannibal and Cyrus without Washington's land?
I don't like going for Liberalism here. I'm thinking all out military build up, using maces and spies on Washington. Put EP spending all on Hannibal, run spy specialists for extra EPs (still give good beakers under Rep), hope to generate a Great Spy to infiltrate Carthage. Tech/steal up towards steel + astronomy. Might have cannon to help finish of Washington. Once Washington is done, or even before, build some drydocks and spam frigates. Enough frigates will defend you even if you are behind in tech. If necessary continue teching to combustion for Destroyers. You have enough land that eventually you should be able to catch up your economy. You also may be able to slow Carthage down with a naval war. Get an edge, and the AI can never catch up. All you need is navy and cannon and you can raze some coastal cities if necessary too.
I don't like going for Liberalism here. I'm thinking all out military build up, using maces and spies on Washington. Put EP spending all on Hannibal, run spy specialists for extra EPs (still give good beakers under Rep), hope to generate a Great Spy to infiltrate Carthage. Tech/steal up towards steel + astronomy. Might have cannon to help finish of Washington. Once Washington is done, or even before, build some drydocks and spam frigates. Enough frigates will defend you even if you are behind in tech. If necessary continue teching to combustion for Destroyers. You have enough land that eventually you should be able to catch up your economy. You also may be able to slow Carthage down with a naval war. Get an edge, and the AI can never catch up. All you need is navy and cannon and you can raze some coastal cities if necessary too.
I second this... desperate times call for desperate measures. Your southern half of that continent seems to have crappy land in general and this is Emperor level so going for Liberalism might be trying to do too much. Also a good idea not to try to build the Great Library.
Gooblah
Heh...
- Joined
- Jun 5, 2007
- Messages
- 4,282
Jeez, Sisutil. What has happened?
Washington leads us in power by a long shot, Shaka has beat down Sitting Bull to just a few cities and is a total tech machine, Hannibal is competing with Persia yet still alive and being a tech whore as well, and we appear to be losing our recent runs of good luck.
Enough of the pessimism, though it does bring me to my next few points:
Civics:
Bureaucracy-Probably a good idea. The extra commerce and production will make Uruk a war machine. In a recent game as Isabella in the 1000 AD, I had Steel in the 1300s. Though she is pretty easy, the thing is, most of my one-turn Rifles came from Paris, my capital, which didn't have the HE or Ironworks. Bureaucracy will go a long way in tipping the power balance.
Caste System-Coupled with Representation, the SE is probably the best way to go here. You have an abundance of cities with lots of food, and some long rivers thrown in, so maybe a hybrid economy is the best choice.
Military
Pump out more iron, blood, and toil. That made little sense, but simply, BUILD MORE UNITS! The power graph is one thing, but the lack of units in your cities is a big loss on defense. If another AI declares war, you are dead in the water. Also, beeline to whatever tech enables Privateers. Blockade Washington and starve him into submission. At least put him into a deficit. Then use spies to sabotage a few units. Something to get him to declare war, so his units will fall against Walls, Castles, Culture, and Protective Longbows (TRADE FOR FEUDALISM). Then mop up with Maces.
My non-BTS opinion.
Washington leads us in power by a long shot, Shaka has beat down Sitting Bull to just a few cities and is a total tech machine, Hannibal is competing with Persia yet still alive and being a tech whore as well, and we appear to be losing our recent runs of good luck.
Enough of the pessimism, though it does bring me to my next few points:
Civics:
Bureaucracy-Probably a good idea. The extra commerce and production will make Uruk a war machine. In a recent game as Isabella in the 1000 AD, I had Steel in the 1300s. Though she is pretty easy, the thing is, most of my one-turn Rifles came from Paris, my capital, which didn't have the HE or Ironworks. Bureaucracy will go a long way in tipping the power balance.
Caste System-Coupled with Representation, the SE is probably the best way to go here. You have an abundance of cities with lots of food, and some long rivers thrown in, so maybe a hybrid economy is the best choice.
Military
Pump out more iron, blood, and toil. That made little sense, but simply, BUILD MORE UNITS! The power graph is one thing, but the lack of units in your cities is a big loss on defense. If another AI declares war, you are dead in the water. Also, beeline to whatever tech enables Privateers. Blockade Washington and starve him into submission. At least put him into a deficit. Then use spies to sabotage a few units. Something to get him to declare war, so his units will fall against Walls, Castles, Culture, and Protective Longbows (TRADE FOR FEUDALISM). Then mop up with Maces.
My non-BTS opinion.
absimiliard
Warlord
Washington must die.
If it's not too late you need to try to kill him. Even if it is too late you still need to try to kill him.
He's bigger than you. He has more commerce than you. He has more production than you. You may have the human advantage, but AI or not, if you don't eat him soon he will eat you in the end.
Censeo ceterum, Washington delenda est.
-abs
If it's not too late you need to try to kill him. Even if it is too late you still need to try to kill him.
He's bigger than you. He has more commerce than you. He has more production than you. You may have the human advantage, but AI or not, if you don't eat him soon he will eat you in the end.
Censeo ceterum, Washington delenda est.
-abs
KrikkitTwo
Immortal
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2004
- Messages
- 12,418
Indeed the situation is dire enough that it might be worth switching to US, 100% gold and Mass buying troops.
I think everyone will agree that you have to take some of Washington's land to be competitive. I think everyone would also agree that this has to start rather soon before Washington's massive empire becomes a juggernaut.
The problem is that the lack of military buildup in the last couple of rounds makes going to war difficult in the immediate future.
The best that I can come up with is to declare war soon with the idea of using a rope-a-dope strategy at first. When you have the minimum number of units that you think are needed for defense declare war and let Washington come to you. Battles in your land will not generate WW and you'll even gain double GG points thanks to GW. Hopefully this will give you a chance to reduce Washington's army while at the same time building up your army.
As soon as you have enough troops to spare send them to capture and raze Zapotec. Have a settler available to found the whaling city and have Nidaros or Kish build a workboat (and caravel protector) so the whales can be hooked up as soon as the whaling city gets its border expansion.
Once an invasion stack is ready you can send it forward to start capturing Washington's jungle cities. A mace/treb army will be able to conquer America, but it's not going to be a quick war. I still think WW is going to be a big problem, even with the Pyramids providing for the use of Police State.
One option you may want to pursue is to try to get Guilds ASAP and then use knights to capture any weakly defended outlying American cities. Spies can help the knights by knocking down city defenses. Instead of trading for Feudalism it's probably better to just steal it from Washington once he finishes researching it.
One question that probably needs to be asked at this point is how much of America do you need to capture to have a chance at winning the game? Finishing Washington off was the initial goal, but I don't know if it's a reasonable goal at this point. Would the jungle cities alone provide you with enough of an economic boost to be competitive with the civs on the other continent?
The diplo situation on the other continent is another problem. The war between Shaka and Cyrus is definitely not what you wanted to see. Declaring war on one of them could get you MMS points with the other, but only if the war continues for a while. You will get the diplo hit from declaring war regardless, and to make matters worse Hannibal is pleased with both, so you'll get a "declared war on our friend" hit with him either way. The real aggravating part is that Shaka and Cyrus share a religion (the AP religion incidentally) and will go back to being buddies once their war ends. If you declare war on either you will end up being that civ's worst enemy. Unfortunately they will both probably be asking you to join in on their side in the coming turns (even though you don't have Astronomy and therefore couldn't get any troops to their continent
). Meanwhile they won't ask Hannibal for help, so it's yet another case where the human player gets hosed by the Civ diplomatic system. 
At this point I don't think you can make any trades with Cyrus or Shaka until their war ends. Hopefully Taoism will spread to one of your cities rather quickly. Converting might even let you use the AP to instigate a Taoist block vs. Hannibal war.
A couple of other points:
I think you may want to re-assess the espionage situation. Washington is going to be around for a while so I don't think removing all EPs from him is a good move at this point. In fact I would continue to put all EPs toward him for the foreseeable future. Information about the civs on the other continent will be helpful, but it isn't necessary at this point. Washington now has CoL for courthouses and spy specialists, and all his EPs will be going against you.
Lagash will actually be a better production city than Kish. It has seven hills that could be mined in addition to the cow and horse pastures. It also has lots of riverside tiles for windmills and levee when the time comes. It will require farming over some cottaged tiles as well, but it has much more production potential. Although I suppose it might be best to make Kish the HE city since it's coastal, and then plan to make Lagash the IW city. By then hopefully there will be enough commerce generated in the empire that farming over Lagash's towns won't hurt too much.
Since Hannibal is running Free Religion, he has no state religion, and I'm pretty sure you can't use the AP to launch a crusade against civs with no state religion- they must have a non-AP religion as their state religion.
But a spy could be used to make him switch to some other religion civic. Hannibal has built the Temple of Solomon, so presumably Judaism would be his state religion.
Of course many things would have to work out for that to be a possibility. But considering how hopeless things look it seems that we should look for whatever positives we can find.
athelious
Chieftain
I would trade with both Cyrus and Hannibal to get the tech advantage you need to wipe out Washington before his economy catches up with his overexpansion. If you have the chance to take your whole continent then you will have a significant advantage in the game. this is worth more than a possible slight negative diplo with Shaka (someone you can't trust anyway). Limit trading with Hannibal later yes, but now a trade with him could really benefit you.
If you want to keep most of Washington's cities and plan to stay in CE you have the option to convert your GP farm from Scientists to Merchants.
If you want to keep most of Washington's cities and plan to stay in CE you have the option to convert your GP farm from Scientists to Merchants.
slaze
Deity
You can beat him. As big as he is, all he's got 6
troops, and you happen to have the cheapest 6 troop around. But the one tech that obsoletes their use you just happen to be researching and will get in 5 turns, if you keep at it. So, slow down buckaroo, despite all the modern advances your citizens are hearing about over there on the other continent, you're in the dark ages, and don't kid yourself otherwise 
So what's the score? Washington's researching Feudalism, I believe, in 31 turns, and the breakdown of the armies goes a little something like this:
You/Wash
Cities
8/14
Worker
8/12
Spy
1/-
Scout
1/-
Archer
7/19
Crossbow
1/-
Chariot
5/-
Horse Archer
-/-
Vulture/Axe
5/12
Sword
-/9
Spear
2/5
Catapult
1/-
Caravel
3/-
Units
34/71
Looks like you could use some crossbows maybe. Yes Macemen will help, but balance them with Vultures. And two move horse archers have their uses.
You have a little time for build up, but feudalism will make it a lot harder to take cities so you gotta get moving. It's 11 tiles to Washington from the border by San Francisco ... can you raise an army in 20 turns?
What's the deal on upgrading? Is it better to build swords to upgrade to mace?
troops, and you happen to have the cheapest 6 troop around. But the one tech that obsoletes their use you just happen to be researching and will get in 5 turns, if you keep at it. So, slow down buckaroo, despite all the modern advances your citizens are hearing about over there on the other continent, you're in the dark ages, and don't kid yourself otherwise So what's the score? Washington's researching Feudalism, I believe, in 31 turns, and the breakdown of the armies goes a little something like this:
You/Wash
Cities
8/14
Worker
8/12
Spy
1/-
Scout
1/-
Archer
7/19
Crossbow
1/-
Chariot
5/-
Horse Archer
-/-
Vulture/Axe
5/12
Sword
-/9
Spear
2/5
Catapult
1/-
Caravel
3/-
Units
34/71
Looks like you could use some crossbows maybe. Yes Macemen will help, but balance them with Vultures. And two move horse archers have their uses.
You have a little time for build up, but feudalism will make it a lot harder to take cities so you gotta get moving. It's 11 tiles to Washington from the border by San Francisco ... can you raise an army in 20 turns?
What's the deal on upgrading? Is it better to build swords to upgrade to mace?
Washington's research is currently at 0% (+61 gpt) which is the reason for the long research time for Feudalism. It may stay there, but it could also go up which would get Feudalism for Washington much faster. I think attacking before Washington gets Feudalism is out.
Remember that the unit numbers you quoted for Washington are the units that are currently visible to Sisiutil. There are almost certainly some more units that aren't currently seen. I find it rather suspicious that there are no mounted units despite Washington having horses and having researched HBR.
