Blackbetsy HOF Attempts

[BlackBetsy]

Have a full minimap now that we've hit Navigation. The Babylonians are nearly gone through AI-AI wars, which is good but makes the Japanese and Germans stronger. Egypt, without saltpeter, is my next target. We've got Cavalry now, and enough cannons to redline the Egyptian cities and fight counterattacks.

The first war with Egypt was something of a stalemate, as I was only able to take out a town in my territory (formerly Mao's) and three border towns. I got a clean peace, and now we are ready to go again with Cavalry. 34 Cavalry, 3 knights in a Knight Army, 2 more to upgrade, plus 24 cannon. My core has libraries / universities and is pumping out Cavalry.

Germany inexplicably brought 3 knights into my territory and declared war, taking a border town that was lightly defended and then losing all its knights in a 1-turn counterattack. Japan, which had been my enemy in a phony war (I declared to free up resources from Germany/Persia for the pillage trade), was brought into the war with Germany by giving us their lux + gold for some amount of gpt that was quickly forgiven when the Japanese could no longer deliver their lux to my capital. The Persians also traded their gold and lux for a zero-turn Military Alliance against Germany. So now Germany is fighting its decent sized neighbors...and hopefully out of my war with Egypt.

War chest reached 15k, but I am spending down a bit to rush a few barracks. @Spoonwood , I have been disconnecting iron to build Mounted Warriors to upgrade to Knights/Cavalry. It's really effective for building up a force more quickly. My iron is on a hill not a mountain, so it gives me 6 turns to build 2-3 Mounted Warriors in core cities vs. 1 Knight.

It's 640 AD and we are researching Magnetism, as we now have the tech lead and a monopoly on Metallurgy and Military Tradition.

 

[Spoonwood]

I have been disconnecting iron to build Mounted Warriors to upgrade to Knights/Cavalry. It's really effective for building up a force more quickly.

I remember resource pillaging to change builds to horsemen before I had started pillaging roads, just from gold that I would get via selling technologies. I remember reading an article suggesting with the name of the "screw yourself" tactic. But, I can't seem to find that article lately. It wasn't all that well written as I recall.. or at least I disliked the name or something, but it had a good idea that works very well.

 

[BlackBetsy]

I remember resource pillaging to change builds to horsemen before I had started pillaging roads, just from gold that I would get via selling technologies. I remember reading an article suggesting with the name of the "screw yourself" tactic. But, I can't seem to find that article lately. It wasn't all that well written as I recall.. or at least I disliked the name or something, but it had a good idea that works very well.

The added benefit is that the resource you pillage sometimes pops up as item you can trade for and get additional pillage trade out of it. I traded for Japan's iron several times while mine was disconnected at a great profit to me.

Anyway, the durability of the pillage trade route system for me has been a critical key to success. In the not too distant future, it's going to go away as my empire becomes dominant once the Egyptian sub-continent is mine. That will bring on the lux I get from the Persians (unless I don't hook it up). There are two surrounded Persian cities in my civ, and there is a chance they might flip to me since my culture is decent this game and local culture is high - they are pretty corrupt former Chinese cities the Persians are hanging on to.

I *think* the right play after I defeat the Egyptians is to take on the Germans, who are the most powerful empire, after the Egyptians. I'll have Persian territory as a buffer and the Japanese should be able to hit them from the east. I'll have to railroad Persia for the Persians I'm sure (will come in handy - I will keep Persian lands in my 65% empire). Then we will just keep rolling east to take on Japan, followed by a coup de grace against the Persians.

The 40+ cavalry I have now need to be up to 100+ by the time I take on the Germans. I don't think the Egyptians have many bombard units (I haven't seen any), so I don't think I will capture up, which will necessitate the building of cannons. Also, settlers will be needed in large quantities to ICS the Egyptian territory, which is pretty good land. Research pace for the AI is pretty slow, and they are soon enough going to hit the Fascism / Communism dead end.

One annoyance is that it took until the Egyptian war to get a MGL, and it was only at the end of the war and I signed a treaty before it had a successful attack. I'll remedy that in my opening move of the next war. Heroic Epic should be almost ready to go after that with a Palace pre-build, and then the Military Academy so I can start using my cash to rush Cavalry armies.

 

[BlackBetsy]

Thinking about why I've done decently well so far this game: (1) my starting location had 7 grassland cows. This led me to have 20 towns + several settlers walking at 1000 BC, one of my better starts; (2) two native luxes, which have a huge impact on happiness, growth + war weariness; (3) a one-town narrow connection to Persia. The minimap might suggest Persia has a two city link, but one town is just a remote peninsula settlement; (4) China was between me and Egypt, and I could run a relatively narrow two-town front against them; (5) pillage trade route set up with Persia around 1000 bc. I used it to get late AA techs + cash; (6) native horses and iron - horses are very close to cap.

Starting to think all victories are map victories.....

 

[BlackBetsy]

The Egyptians put up a fight early with strong counterattacks but we are now into the mopping up stage. Importantly, the Egyptians built JS Bach's cathedral, so I went from pretty intense war weariness (70% on the luxury slider for a couple of turns) to 20% luxury. I did bring in some luxuries from overseas as well. I don't want JSBach to flip, so I'll have to exterminate the Egyptians. That will be annoying, because I will have to build galleons to take out the last remaining Egyptian city on a small island offshore. They are down to 3 cities on the mainland, and I think I'm 4 turns away from victory there, and probably 6 -7 turns away from the island city falling.

My allies haven't showed up in the war with the Egyptians, which is just as fine to me. They haven't tried to settle the Egyptian lands yet, either.

Otherwise, the tech pace is slow as we hit the industrial era. The Egyptians were the tech leaders before the war despite having a small-ish civilization, and the Japanese seem to be producing tech rather than the scientific Germans and Persians. They are apparently in the Nationalism dead end, since that's the only tech I see on the trade boards now. Hopefully I will beat them to Electricity / Sci Meth then ToE plus having 100+ cities will put me in a firm tech lead and extract any cash they have.

My war chest is down to just 8k now since I don't have the pillage trade going because of a 20 turn deal to sell Dyes that just ended. I wound up taking 2 attempts to steal Steam Power (5k), but as we know, Steam Power is the best tech in the game. Thank goodness I had two sources of coal hooked up - both in tiles that were hard won in wars with the Chinese and Egyptians. Hordes of slaves are railroading throughout the empire now, and we will see a significant boost in offensive potential as well as cash earnings. I also cash-rushed an Army out of the Military Academy, so there is your 6k in spent gold. AIs are flush with cash again, I'll drain their bank accounts.

Bablyon is down to a 3 city civ, which is nice because it's one fewer war to fight. I am not looking forward to taking on the Germans and their huge empire. By the end, they'll definitely have infantry, which is going to be a pain with Cavalry. It'll be a while before tanks (and Panzers) and I really need to close them off before flight. Hopefully bringing Japan into the war will push them both into Fascism and kill their teching so that I can just use built up momentum against Germany against Japan. I am going to need Japan to show up for the fight with Germany. We know Germany struggles with two-front wars.

 

[BlackBetsy]

Trying to understand why my rep with Otto is bad....

But with Japan, it's OK:

 

[BlackBetsy]

I guess somewhere I ruined my gpt for upfront trade rep. Maybe declaring on the Egyptians before 20 turns ended? But I thought that didn't ruin trade rep.

Anyway, the Egyptians are dead and the Babylonians were reduced to a couple of settlers on a ship....which landed in old Egypt. They founded two cities, and I declared war, captured one and auto-razed the others and we are down to 3 civs. Germany has more land area but I have more population. We are positioning our troops in Persia for the attack.

 

[Spoonwood]

Trying to understand why my rep with Otto is bad....
View attachment 698145

But with Japan, it's OK:

View attachment 698144

Something to do with military alliances.

 

[tjs282]

Those 2 screenies show different types of deals. With a broken rep, upfront goods/gold for fairly-priced* per-turn repayments are verboten (so Otto will never accept), but resource-imports for per-turn are just fine (so Toku's happy to agree).

*The third attachment, which is only showing as a thumbnail for me, shows that Otto will accept ridiculous per-turn payments for a resource + paltry upfront sum, but I wouldn't take that deal. Would you?

 

[Spoonwood]

Those 2 screenies show different types of deals. With a broken rep, upfront goods/gold for fairly-priced* per-turn repayments are verboten (so Otto will never accept), but resource-imports for per-turn are just fine (so Toku's happy to agree).

*The third attachment, which is only showing as a thumbnail for me, shows that Otto will accept ridiculous per-turn payments for a resource + paltry upfront sum, but I wouldn't take that deal. Would you?

No, there does exist an exception. From Microbe's article:

2. MA

If you broke a deal with A, and want to make gpt deal with B, you could MA with B against A and B will forgive your betrayal to A.

 

[BlackBetsy]

Three opponents left. The Germans, the Japanese, and the Persians.

We signed a ROP agreement with the Persians to attack through their territory to get to Germany. As noted earlier, there is a one-city connection bottleneck between the Iroquois nation and Persia. Xerxes wound up fortifying a unit of cavalry in the bottleneck and I had to build galleons and re-route my invasion of Germany to be a seaborne one. That took many turns as the Persian lands I could land on were swampy and unroaded, and therefore couldn't handle artillery.

Now we have our force in Germany, Replaceable Parts for artillery and the war has begun. Japan and Persia were brought into the war through a MPP I signed with them just a few turns earlier for a total of 150 gold. Before the war, I checked and Germany had no rubber and therefore no infantry. But now it seems a Persian city with rubber switched to Germany through culture flip or war, so I'll have to pillage that resource and send a cavalry army to generally cause chaos behind German lines. Hopefully there aren't more than 20-30 infantry around yet through upgrades. Before the war, I emptied the German treasury by selling it Scientific Method the turn before ToE completed.

This one isn't going to be a fun war. Germany is a huge empire that, even after I took over China and Egypt, is still as big as mine. So the warfare will be as economic as it is military as each city taken and razed is one less city that can generate troops and gold for Otto. Disconnecting as many resources and luxes as possible will further help. We are going to land a settler to create a beach head city; maybe we can do the Sir Pleb style army-poofing, although I only have a pitiful 4 armies at this point. I'd have to generate probably 4-5 more to set up a nice army screen that can be moved back and forth. I'll choose my beach-head city based on having the smallest number of armies being able to make the German army dance back and forth between roads to the beach head city.

Japan is going to be broke for 20 turns because I've sold it SciMeth and Atomic Theory. Germany researched Rep Parts on its own - I wouldn't sell that given its military implications - and I would really like to stop them dead in their research tracks before Motorized Transportation and Flight. The Persians are dead scientifically and broke (army costs, for sure). So I'm hoping the German war will break the game for me. It's already 1250 so progress isn't fast and I'll be lucky to wrap up this war before 1450. I don't see conquest completing until the 1700's. There is a single island I captured from Egypt that is a really nice place for me to put whatever civ I decide to keep alive.

Research is about 8 turns at 90% science, so I am not doing a great job on beakers. The ICS'ed Egyptian territory, which had a decent number of flood plains, is starting to produce good specialist farms for me even though we are only 10-15 turns from the end of the Egypt war. We've got about 100 cities. Hoover Dam will help out on turning core factories much more productive, we'll have lots of 2 turn cavalry and tanks to send to the front.

 

[BlackBetsy]

We are going to land a settler to create a beach head city; maybe we can do the Sir Pleb style army-poofing, although I only have a pitiful 4 armies at this point. I'd have to generate probably 4-5 more to set up a nice army screen that can be moved back and forth.

Note: I had a huge force of Elite cavalry that attacked a stack of unfortified Bablyonian spearmen in their ill-fated attempt to recolonize Egypt as the New Babylonia. Even with Heroic Epic built, I got zero MGLs.

(I did keep a MGL generated on defense this game, though, which is rare and nice).

 

[Spoonwood]

Trying to understand why my rep with Otto is bad....

Lately, when declaring war I've started to check in the F4 screen immediately before declaring to see if I have any ongoing deals with the opponent.

In military heavy Sid games that I've played alternatively, I just haven't declared war. Instead I either have the AI say that if they give us peace and a luxury or resource supply, then the trade route will stay intact and we'll give them gold per turn... or gift them a city or two and then have the AI say that if they give us peace and a luxury supply, then the route will stay intact and we'll give them gold per turn. When the trade route doesn't stay intact, then the AI no longer gives us peace.

And since this is the second time you've had a broken reputation without knowing why, I'm very much going to recommend that in the future you give up declaring war on AIs. At least on high level non-island maps where you might give away non-core cities for a turn. Let the AIs declare war instead. They won't mind doing so ... not that they will enjoy declaring war also.

 

[BlackBetsy]

And since this is the second time you've had a broken reputation without knowing why, I'm very much going to recommend that in the future you give up declaring war on AIs. At least on high level non-island maps where you might give away non-core cities for a turn. Let the AIs declare war instead. They won't mind doing so ... not that they will enjoy declaring war also.

You know, this game I've had real trouble getting DoW from my AI opponents. My military - strangely - has been average to better against my targets and they haven't been declaring or...they don't even have units in my territory. I guess I need to get them to Furious by making repeated demands? Because I've told them to get out and they have been doing so.

I do double-check F4 - my whole strategy is waiting out turns - but maybe I missed something on that second Egyptian war. I may go through the .sav files and see.

 

[Spoonwood]

My military - strangely - has been average to better against my targets and they haven't been declaring or...they don't even have units in my territory. I guess I need to get them to Furious by making repeated demands?

Probably for your sort of situation, yes.

When you can renegotiate and then pillage so that an AI fails to supply a luxury or resource and thus declares war, then you don't need change their attitude so that they declare war.

 

[BlackBetsy]

Probably for your sort of situation, yes.

When you can renegotiate and then pillage so that an AI fails to supply a luxury or resource and thus declares war, then you don't need change their attitude so that they declare war.

Ok, so for example, if I'm at peace with the Egyptians, I call up the peace treaty in the bargaining table, and then add luxes on the Egyptian side, and gpt on my side, then I pillage the trade route, Egypt declares war with me?

 

[Spoonwood]

Ok, so for example, if I'm at peace with the Egyptians, I call up the peace treaty in the bargaining table, and then add luxes on the Egyptian side, and gpt on my side, then I pillage the trade route, Egypt declares war with me?

Yes!

There does exist one catch here though. You won't be able to change your gpt amount until you've renegotiate the peace treaty or declared war also. So, make sure to turn your tax slider temporarily up so that you're sure to have enough gpt for the deal. It works well with a clean reputation in my experience. However, with a broken reputation, it might end up rather costly.

 

[BlackBetsy]

It's 1435, and the German war is 1 turn away from completion. I think, at this point, there is a good chance that we can wrap up victory in the 1500's. Tanks are rolling out of factories, and the Japanese don't even have Combustion yet, so I shouldn't be seeing Tanks or Bombers. Persia's army has been wrecked trying to take back territory lost early in the war to the Germans.

Happily, the Japanese took out the former Babylonian territory from the Germans, who had taken it somehow, and I won't have to wait out a RoP to finish off the Germans. Settler mass-production is under way, as we pick out prime lands for settlement for the milking phase.

Oh...the German navy has been pacing back and forth along my coast as I open up a landing spot then close it. Not quite the land-based fun that Sir Pleb had, but fun nonetheless. There are probably 32 cavalry offshore in 8 galleons guarded by 24 frigates that will go poof....

 

[BlackBetsy]

We are 4 turns into the Japanese war, in 1480 AD. Persia, unfortunately, took a border town with silks - the 8th luxury - that it would take me 2 turns to take. Otherwise it has gone pretty well, even though the Japanese cultural expansions are going to slow down my ability to take cities rapidly. We are two layers into the Japanese empire, and are in the Kyoto layer. Beyond Kyoto, Japan has one core layer left and then we are in the old Babylonian territory.

Japan had 120 infantry at the start of the war, now down to just 74. Japan's cavalry force was never big, but it's down to 6 at this point. I am hoping that once we get past Kyoto, it's going to go fast.

 

[BlackBetsy]

11 turns later....