[BTS] Beating Noble/Huge/Always War

[civac]

Alphabet is something you research just before you get Printing Press.

 

[Gumbolt]

So what is the right tech order for always war.
On this map MC and Collosus would work well with so much coastal tiles.
Alphabet only real advantage is to run science but this is a low hammer map.
PH for this map is a no brainer as you can easily take CS as free tech.
GLH and sailing is slightly nerf as 1C trade route. Albeit I built it as I had 16+ coastal cities.

Then the choices get a bit harder. Maths for chops is good. Hanging gardens too or over rated?
Then a decision about free artist to help golden age. Astronomy route holds little value albeit it might speed up war with naval conquest. Hmmm. So might cuirs given huge trek round this map.
Even with 3 nearly dead AI still having to travel 16-30+ tiles to reach the next AI

.

 

[Gumbolt]

Not sure I am going to finish this. Should of focused on tech more. AI starting to build stacks. Seem to be fending off barbs each turn still. Got about 29 cities 7 AI left.Not sure NC will take them down. This could take hours to finish with over 2800 land tiles and epic speed.

One size 8 stack approaching but only second stack I have seen. Spanish don't seem interested in attacking me. Indians similar story.Persians likely waiting for better units. One Ai not met. My military power is 3x most here.

 

[snowern]

Finally conquered this map. Focused on specialising cities for commerce or production. Whipped away unimproved tiles in production cities instead of filling with cottages. Had to capture the horses from Sitting Bull. The Persians were the tech leader, so counter-clockwise again this time. 9 cities at 685 AD, built 22 cities in total? Domination at 1941 AD.

 

[Gumbolt]

Finally conquered this map. Focused on specialising cities for commerce or production. Whipped away unimproved tiles in production cities instead of filling with cottages. Had to capture the horses from Sitting Bull. The Persians were the tech leader, so counter-clockwise again this time. 9 cities at 685 AD, built 22 cities in total? Domination at 1941 AD.

There are 2-3 horse resources if your willing to settle a bit further away. What techs did you have by 685AD. I should imagine you could tech quite fast if you had a cottage economy. Just way too much land here.

 

[snowern]

What techs did you have by 685AD

Construction, Currency, Code of Laws, Monarchy, Iron Working. Oracled Code of Laws.

There are 2-3 horse resources if your willing to settle a bit further away.

Well... I could have settled some other horse, but taking out AIs was also a priority. Only needed to take this one city to get some horses. Didn't really get much use out of Noobian Cavalry, though. But those Knights were pretty useful.

I should imagine you could tech quite fast if you had a cottage economy. Just way too much land here.

Staying ahead in tech is reasonably easy, but I just always had a lack of units to feel like pushing ahead. Overly cautious. And more land will get me more commerce eventually anyway.

 

[Gumbolt]

played up to about 1280ad or so. A slow grind.
32 cities. Just wonder spammed a bit. GLH, Mids, Colossus, Hanging garden, Parth, NE SoZ, Great Library, MoM.

Ai now have construction and HBR which makes NC less useful.

Just teched Guilds, edu, GP. Need Nationalism and MT for a Cuirs rush. At 100% science under GA doing about 1500 bpt. Upgraded a few NC to knights.

Stack wise Biggest so far has been 9-10 from English. Chariots/pults. Similar too from Germans but more metal. Not really had a stack of a large size from anyone else.

Biggest issue is pesky barbs. Need to capture GW of Indians.

 

[Donald Duck1]

Looking at OP saves I don't think any Ai had any real stacks till 850ad Even then 7-8 in size. Meaning you could probably beeline cuirs here with minimal threat.

Yes, I went straight for cuirs; but still had to build quite some NC and other units for defense. Settled a town next to Sitting Bulls horses, and was lucky with huts popping a scout, agriculture and some more stuff.
Around 960 AD, 38 cuirs, just killed off Sitting Bull and am now attacking on both fronts. Or seal clubbing would be a better description so far, as AI has nothing better than spears, swords and horse archers so far. Reduced unit production a bit in order to continue teching as I don't know yet if cavalry will be needed. Currently teching engineering.

 

[Gumbolt]

I took a much slower approach. 1405 ad and 4 Ai dead. I have about 88 cuirs. AI have LB , phants and HA at present. I think I could possibly settle land with settlers now. Pretty much have 50%+ of land clear of AI. Actual land closer to 24%. Need about 90 cities. Spanish down to about 4 cities.

Should of just expanded and beelined cuirs at start. Spent way too much time with 40-50 NC units.

Update.
5-6 AI nearly dead now and I control about 2/3rd of the donut. I could tech rifles. Not sure cavalry is really needed. If anything this map shows that some games are won once you reach a certain point. One of the downsides to huge maps. Up to 61 cities and about 29% of land. Albeit I need 56%. Which suggest 110 cities to win? Or to wipe out 6 more AI.

 

[Gumbolt]

Getting there slowly. 1440ad. 39% land. 5 AI dead. Indians almost gone. Wiped out a 8-9 strong toku stack with no losses. No losses taking Indian capital. Great wall is nice. Of the 4 Ai left 3 seem to have longbow. 17% short on land and I think each new city gives about 0.5-0.8%. I have about 70 cities. So 20-30 more needed. Might be able to run culture a bit. Still attacking on 2 fronts.Need to keep whipping settlers.


Edit

All done 1480. Had 124 cuirs in the end. English and Persians on last 2-3 cities. Toku and Ragnar not doing much. They might have stacks of 5-6 somewhere. Not sure I saw a single stack over 10 units. Killed about 650 units. Lost 90. Betting barbs accounted for a lot of the killed units. NC struggled against HA. Cuirs much more efficient.

I suspect this date could be easily beaten.

 

[Donald Duck1]

Indeed it seems cavalry is not needed. Eliminated 5 AI by ~1250 AD, and invaded 3 more with 40-50 combat3+march cuirs. AIs still don't have CoL, alphabet, feudalism, engineering... Should have built a few more cuirs and just stop teching after engineering.

Edit: continued till 1305; only vikings, japan and english remain, english are almost done. I whipped some more cuirs to speed up, have around 70 now. Only very few stacks of 10+ seen so far; Japan had a 15+ stack, about half of it catapults so they could be taken out easily.

Japan is the only AI with machinery, but crossbows are no better than swordsman against cuirs.

Cavalry is ~10 turns away but I won't need it; research was funded by conquest gold.

I'm wondering if this map could be won with knights only?

Edit2: 1350 AD victory. built 80+ cuirs total, lost a quarter of them (half of which were avoidable). Killed ~600 units. Settled 10 cities myself and captured maybe 20 more from direct neighbors, to serve as buffer around my core cities and to build wealth. I think 20 was too much, maybe should have simply razed everything.

Added a screenshot of the 160 AD situation. bulbed paper, 2xedu and lib and built an academy. As for wonders I only completed Oracle (civil service) and Heroic Epic; started on National Epic but it never completed.

Spoiler . :

huge0000.JPG

 

[Gumbolt]

1350ad is a nice date here. You streamlined the cuirs beeline superbly. I spammed NC, cities and wonders till i got late cuirs. Of course my point was to prove NC were a strong unit early on.

CS Oracle always nice with a financial AI.