Boff-05 Izzy Wizzy was unBearable (Izzy,Emp,Cont/Is)

[Liquidated]

Should only be -1 for declaring so yes. Been working the open borders/trades for a while now.

Oh and for Boff-06, Organized you say... I suspect Darius is a serious nono for the economic abuse, and Freddie is, well, Freddie... What aboot a Caesar?

Darius is Hof Cheese Via UB and UU AND Traits
Rome is Hof Cheese Via UB and omgwtfbbq (PRAETS)
Freddie is German and Liq has plans for Deutchland in boff-07!

If it's about Mehhwtf and The Afro, I'd pick Mehhwtf. If we can select opponents to make sure Zara isnt in yet another game I hate that guy.

Liq prefers Mehhwtf (quality beard) as well but picking Zara is all about No Zara next door... Why else does anyone play toku? That and have yet to seriously play a creative civ since the ill fated boff-01

As for goals, the one tech we must get out of Hannibal before suing for peace is music and his map. Stop at taking Carthage so 2 (or 3 with pig town) towns tops as we don't want him capitulating to someone.

For towns, There's two ways to think about it... Raze or keep.

The north town, which we'll leave for the second war and southmost (we can only see its culture) are 100% dot mappable fine. The town he doubtless placed south of Carthage is fine as well since it has a few hills and pigs for food.

The question are the two middle towns...

Hannibal has like no production so once you gas him, he's not going to be able to recoup very quickly. Razing will Prolly mess up relations with England so Liq is of a mind just to keep that crap and hope a court house survives.

Tho Just follow whatever silver says about keeping those.

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[Grover22]

Alright. I'll play until we get 6 trebs and assorted other troops to the rally spot.

1070ad, turn 252

Barc and Santiago are treb factories.
Madrid and Cordoba are mace factories.
Toledo will crank out mounted units.
Seville will build culture after it finishes its 8-turn mace, per liq's instructions.
Salamanca, Murcia, and Valencia will build infra.

Every city is happy and healthy and has room under caps.

We're researching education, 17 turns left at 60%, +10gpt.

1080ad

Toledo: HA > HA, 4 turns
Salamanca: courthouse > lighthouse, 9 turns
Seville loves the monarch.
Murcia and Toledo grow.

10990ad

Barc: treb > treb
Santiago: treb > treb
Valencia: forge > lighthouse, 9turns (courthouse would be good, too, but this town needs the extra food first, i think)

1100ad
quiet turn

1110ad

Enemy spies destroy the granary in Santiago.
A great scientist and a great prophet are born in far away lands.
Valencia grows.
Angkor Wat is built in a far away land.

1120ad

Toledo: HA > HA
Murcia: forge > library
Seville gets a culture pop

1130ad

Madrid: mace > mace
Santiago: treb > treb (but it should replace its granary when there's a break in the action)
Salamanca and Santiago grow.

1140ad

We stumble upon a spy near Santiago.
Alex asks us to give him paper. I decline.
Barc: treb > treb
Seville: mace > pike
Cordoba and Madrid grow.
Zara has just moved 2 knights and a chariot to our border near seville. I'm going to keep the just-completed mace in seville for now and build a pike, just in case. We can follow through on the culture building plan later.

1150ad

Toledo and Barc love the monarch.

1160ad

Churchill adopts mercantilism. We lose about 18gpt. We're at -9gpt now, with 321 cash.

Cordoba: mace > mace
Salamanca: lighthouse > barracks

Our 5th and 6th trebs reach the rally point. I save to hand it over to Silver or DE.

Here is the army that is at the rally point now:
3 maces
2 horse archers
4 xbows
3 pikes
3 named swords
6 axes
3 cats
6 trebs

I tore down a hamlet and a village near Seville to put up two watermills during my set. I went for the the least mature tiles I could.

I have workers building roads in various places because I saw little else for them to do.

 

[Liquidated]

For Great Justice!

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[Outshined]

Lurk: Man, what is up with Hannibal in this game? His tech rate could only be described as "alarming"!

 

[S.ilver]

Allow S.ilver to outline an attack plan for Hannibal, since Liq is doubtless confused over our objectives. The entire reason for attacking Hannibal is because the idiot is running away in tech, and we need to deal with him before we lose the opportunity (as in he becomes too technologically advanced). Therefore, we want to deal the maximum possible damage to Hannibal, and prevent him from interfering with us again. To that end, when we attack Hannibal, we can't leave anything behind.

According to our original dotmaps, Hannibal has squeezed 4 towns into the space we mapped 3. Now, we cannot simply ignore these towns and march on Carthage, as that is horrendously bad strategy and will leave our flanks and rear exposed to attacks. The good thing about the map setup we have is that Orange Dot is basically a bottleneck where we can hold off any troops from Hannibal with ease.

Therefore, I present the plan as follows...

-Our initial stack will march on Hadrumetum (#1). From where we are, it's basically a short, 3-tile walk, but it's imperative that we get on the hill to reduce the effect of possible attacks that Hannibal could throw at our stack. From there, we can bombard the city with Trebs until it has no defense left, and then launch our attack. It is important that the last attacking unit be a horse unit. It will be able to raze the city and retreat back to the cover of the stack.

-Our next stop from there goes through the forest and angles past Hippo (#2). We will not need much shelling, unless Hannibal suddenly finishes a castle there, so it won't take long to get rid of this city. Attack with Trebs first of course. The unit that razes the city should probably be a Crossbowman, to take best advantage of the hill.

-We march south from there to the mysterious city in the fog (#3). It's a dotmap city, so capture it. I'm pretty sure it's also somewhat new, because in Liq's save, it hasn't popped its borders yet. Leave a scant garrison behind, as we won't be having to worry too much about this town.

-While the main stack is heading south for #3, a secondary stack, with a settler, can head to the orange dot site and found a city there. Hopefully the culture is gone from that area after razing #1 and #2, and a city there will allow us to marshal our forces farther up.

-After we capture #3, the stack can head back north (much faster with no enemy culture), and capture Kerkouane (#4), again leaving a scant garrison behind, as orange dot will be the front lines.

-Once the main stack is healed up at Orange, we can proceed to basically march down the isthmus and neutralize Carthage, and whatever towns Hannibal managed to plant around there.

 

[Diamondeye]

Sounds like a good plan, Silver. Want me to do it (tomorrow) or want to execute your plan yourself?

I'll probably it

 

[Liquidated]

yeah Liq would just let silver deal with this de... spent all last night via pm going like so...

Liq whines "6 trebs?"
Silver says "Suck it up"
Liq whines "but how are you going to do anything with 6 trebs?"
Silver says "I specialize in peaceful Cultural Victories, spanking Hannibal's uncultured behind is like a walk in the park"

He obviously spent all last night min maxing how to evenly distribute all the shrines and cathedrals once we get tao and islam from hannibal, Christ from zara and confusion from alex whereupon the slider goes culture the moment we can roll conqs off the line...

Or something like that...

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[S.ilver]

I can get the ball rolling now, as I absolutely won't be able to play it tomorrow (ugly Tuesdays and Thursdays on the new course schedule...). I'll punt it off to you after a bunch of turns to finish the fool off.

 

[PickledDictator]

Loving this. I really want to see what Silver does. Seems like your stack is too small, but that is probably why I fail so often......

come one, gimmie the pics/story!!!!!!! I like the battle plans drawn out....just like a real conquest in a generals room

 

[Liquidated]

Keep in mind when silver plays, the AI generally goes bananas on him. Liq assumes the AI does this just to keep silver well oiled as he's prone to rust otherwise.

Cheers!
-liq

 

[S.ilver]

1160AD (261):

Ok, so getting ready to drop the heavy hammer on Hannibal's head. Grover has a monster stack ready to use, and it's very balanced in terms of being able to repel anything Hannibal can muster, so we look good to go.

Obvious first round check of the cities though...

Madrid is working a coast tile that is not seafood, so I move the citizen to be a scientist. Probable GS in 17 turns.

Barc looks good obviously, punching out Trebs for the army.

Not sure why we blew up cottages at Seville to run waterwheels. Sure, production sucks here, but that was never the point (the cottages were). Oh well, not much can be done about that now.

Cordoba has run out of improved tiles to work, so I hire a merchant.

Toledo looks fine, nothing to see there.

Santiago is growing like a weed still, and we are running out of tiles for it to work, so move work to one of the workshops immediately.

Salamanca is fairly meh. Maybe it can make us garrison troops when the Barracks is done.

Murcia growing next turn, so not going to tamper with it this turn. I do switch it from a Library to a Barracks though.

Valencia about to finish a lighthouse. A courthouse first would've been better, as the water tiles suck, and there is no seafood.


Zara is in WHEOOH mode, so hopefully that means he's going after Alex, although we need to keep an eye out.

Ok, well everything looking decent, and our stack is ready to move, so dialing up Hannibal to give him the bad news.

We plunge to -32gpt after moving the stack in, so dial us down to 50% sci for -13gpt. Edu is in an ugly 10 turns.

1170AD (262):

Clearly Hannibal pays off Alex!

Ok, well not a huge deal, as Alex doesn't have OB with Zara, so cannot get through him to us.

Toledo finishes a HA. We're far from the front of Hannibal, but I dial for a Pikeman, in case Alex or Zara try to show up.

Santiago finishes a Treb, I also dial for a Pikeman here.

Valencia finished the lighthouse, and is going for a courthouse.

1180AD (263):

Hannibal drops a couple of Cats on our stack, and they die.

Well this is "bad news".

This is bad news, as Zara has a bunch of knights and stuff near Seville. Luckily he has no siege, but we need our own pikes out there, and fast.

Bomb Hadrumentum down to 58% this turn.

Madrid is done a Maceman, and we need pikes bad on the Western front, so dial some.

Same for Barc, Treb done, getting on Pikes.

1190AD (264):

Hannibal attacks us with a bunch of troops, and two Crossbows take one for the team, dying to Muskets.

We also lose our mace in Seville as Zara attacks with Knights. Getting troops there posthaste.

Bomb Hadrumentum down to 16%.

I revolt to Slavery and whip 2 pikes and a Mace. We need troops badly.

I also kill of the two muskets that kills our Crossbows last turn. One Axe will die for the cause though.

We get a Great General (Arminius in Cordoba).

I immediately make him a Military Instructor in Santiago.

1200AD (264):

Hilariously, Hannibal first attacks the suicider axe with a Pike, and the pike dies. He finishes him off with a Crossbow though .

Zara attacked Seville this turn with a crapload of Knights, but they died. We ended up losing Wilson the Axeman.

Hadrumentum is beat down to 0% defense this turn, but we will wait another turn to get all the Trebs to bear.

Seville is dialing for a Citadel now!

Cordoba's Maceman finished, and we need a pike.

Toledo's Pike also done, so dial another.

Santiago finished a pike, and we should have enough now, so dial for a Longbow.

1210AD (266):

In the inturn, one of our maces dies to a Hannibal Musket, boo. We end up killing that Musket, and retreating back to the stack with a HA.

Time is up for Hadrumentum...

First Treb has 61% odds against a Musket, and withdraws.
Second Treb at 77% vs a Longbow also withdraws.
Another 77% vs longbow... another withdrawl.
81% vs Longbow, withdraws.
91% now... and another withdrawl.
Now at 93% vs Longbow, and yet another withdrawl.
Suicide Cat at 44% and it dies! Oh well.
Next Suicide Cat at 51% lives!
And now for a cat at 86% vs a Longbow. It dies, boo, bad roll.

Ok, so Trebs went 6 for 6, and Cats went 1 for 3.

Time for the valuable units!

CR2 Mace vs a Longbow wins.
Next CR2 Mace against another Longbow also wins.
Gunther the Sword goes in with only 66% odds... and wins FLAWLESS!
Todd is next, and he plows over a War Elephant no problem.
Cecil is up and slaps around a Longbow.
An Axe is next, and kills a War Elephant.
Next Axe gets to beat on a Catapult and kill it. You know you're in trouble when you're defending with Cats...
Axe vs Crossbow next, but the Crossbow is so beat, we go flawless.
Axe vs Longbow now, and again, so beat that we go Flawless...
Crossbow is up next and it beats down a Longbow flawless. Yay for 3 flawless wins in a row!
Another Crossbow is up and wipes the floor with a Longbow.
Axe next, to slap a Musket silly. Flawless!
It's now Pike on Pike, and we win!
Next up is a Pike vs a Longbow, and we win.
Another Pike vs Longbow, and we win flawlessly due to massive beatings.
One last Longbow in the city, and I have ONE more unit left that can move this turn. A Horse Archer...

Whew...

Salamanca finished a Barracks, getting it on a Longbow.

Hannibal is down to 1.3 strength ratio.

No Zara units in sight. Will continue to reinforce Seville...

1220AD (267):

No attacks from Hannibal in the inturn. His units are huddling in his cities in fear.

Also no visible units of Zara's around. Bleh, what an idiot...

Pike finished in Barc, getting back on Trebs... Need to build that second stack I was talking about, lmao.

Murcia finished a Barracks and will dial a Longbowman.

Madrid finished a Pike and will order a Longbow.

Everyone hates us now except Churchill, lolz.

1230AD (268):

Alex must've gotten OB with Zara (mutual military struggle crap), as his units are appearing on the border with Seville. Sigh... I 2-pop whip Seville's Citadel.

Santiago done a Longbow, dialing a Mace.

1240AD (269):

Hippo gets levelled by 2 Trebs...

I drop some Trebs on it, we lose 1, and we charge.

Fresh CR2 Mace goes in and beats up on an enemy Crossbow.

We get a GG in Madrid from this...

He also heads for Santiago.

CR3 Mace is next and pounds on a Crossbow.
One more Crossbow, and Gunther dies to him,
Can't win them all... An Axe takes cary of the Crossbow.
Another Axe kills a Longbow.
One more Axe kills a Longbow.
CR2 Mace slaps around a Pikeman.
Cecil charges and kills a Mace.
Last thing left is a Musket, so Todd deals with it.

We cover Todd with a Crossbowman.

Whipped Citadel in Seville is done, Alex has TWO catapults, ha good luck... We dial for a Longbow.

Pike done in Toldeo, we dial a Mace.

1250AD (270):

Lib is an ugly 23 turns, ugh.

Alex Bombs Seville down to 96%, lmao.

Hannibal did nothing in the inturn except move some maces covering some settlers towards the cities we razed, lolz.

I settle our new GG in Santiago as well.

Pike finished in Cordoba, dial for a Mace.

1255AD (271):

Seville bombed to 92%, lol.

We locate Leptis, which is black dot. It is also the Islamic Holy City. Yum.

2-pop whip Madrid's settler to kill some people.

Barc done a Treb, dial a Longbow.

Santiago done a mace, dial a Treb.

Salamanca done a Longbow, dial another.

Murcia done a Longbow, dial for another (time to phase garrisons).

1260AD (272):

Down to 88% in Seville... lol.

Whip Valencia's courthouse. I should've done it earlier when it was 2 pop, but we save some maintenance, so all is good.

1265AD (273):

Alex still slowly bombing Seville, lol.

Hannibal puts 2 more LBs in Leptis. Well, more to die then, lol.

1 Treb wipes out the meager 20% defenses, and we go in!

First Treb withdraws with 77% odds.
Next Treb only at 69% odds, still withdraws.
At 91% odds now, so beatdown and withdraw the next Treb.

We are out of reasonably healthy Trebs, so sending in regular units now.

CR3 Mace kills a Longbow.
Next CR3 Mace does the same.
Cecil is next and kills another Longbow.
Todd up to clean out another LB.
We send in a Crossbow for the final cleanup.

Everyone else sits tight on the tile to heal a bit.

Madrid done a Longbow, dialing another.

Seville also done a Longbow, dial a Cat.

Valencia done it's courthouse, and it's not contributing, so dial a Temple.

Leptis has no buildings surviving the sack, so dial a Granary.

1270AD (274):

Found Zaragoza.

Barc done a Longbow, dial a Cat.

Zaragoza starts a Granary.

I notice that Hannibal is teching Liberalism in 9 turns. We get it in 19. We lose... sigh... Will tech it anyways, as Free Speech is major...

1275AD (275):

Toledo finishes a Maceman, we'll dial a Crossbow.

Santiago finishes a Treb, and dials a Cat.

1280AD (276):

Madrid finishes a Longbow, dial for a University.

Cordoba done a mace, dial another.

Salamanca finishes a Longbow, starts a Library.

Murcia done a Longbow, starts a Temple.

1285AD (277):

Cat finished in Barc, dial another.

1290AD (278):

Cat done in Santiago, dial the blown up granary, lol.

1295AD (279):

In the inturn, Zara tries a knight charge on Seville. He manages to kill ONE pikeman. Everything else including his siege dies.

Pull up to the north city of Hannibal's this turn.

Granary done in Santiago, get back to Trebs.

Murcia done a Hindu Temple, dial for a Hindu Monastery.

Valencia finished a Hindu Temple, also dial for a Monastery.

1300AD (280):

We beat down Alex's stack a bit outside of Seville.

Then we are go for beating down Kerkouane.

2 trebs Zero it, and we go in.

First Treb withdraws with 44% odds, wow.
Next one has 81% odds and DIES. Evil RNG. Oh well.
82% odds also dies. Ugh.

Ok, well not wasting any more Trebs.
CR3 Mace handles a Crossbowman.
Next CR3 Mace kills a Longbow.
Last CR3 Mace also kills a Longbow.
Cecil is up next and wipes the floor with a Longbow.
Last up is the Musket, and Todd steps in.

Cat done in Barc, I dial for a Treb.

Seville done a Cat, dial for a Longbow.

Toledo finished a Crossbow, dial for a market.

Kerkwtf dials up a temple, as everything critical survived.

Take peace with Zara for this...

Also get peace with this other idiot...

We randomly punk off a Hannibal Longbow and get our third GG.

Going to pass the buck here, as I've gotten peace with those idiots to the west. Hannibal is on his last leg. Probably another city between us and Carthage, but we'll take it for sure. Also, S.ilver has rudely hogged turns (19 to be exact), but did manage to complete the attack plan... kinda... I expected to be able to pull more reinforcements to get it done faster, but idiot antics to the west cause some problems.

Afterwards, we MUST attack Zara... as his GNP is around Hannibal's, and he'll be the next runaway. Of course, we need to put the civ back together before we do such, and hopefully get Conqs.

 

[Grover22]

Holding your own against two civs while crushing a third? Great work!

Grover

 

[Liquidated]

WTH silver? Only 3 Great Generals?

Ok well silver powns the house as normal, shame about losing liberalism.

A few things I noticed that need to get done DE.

1. Cancel the treb in Barqs and build the Heroic Epic. 6 ish turns so painless.

2. That Great general we have should go for a super medic..
To get a perfect woods 3 medic 3 would be impossible for us at this stage in the game so skip woodie altogether and pop a Horse archer medic.

Have Santiago build a stable now and pop brand new horse archer. It will be 3 + 2 + 4 + 4 +20 exp for an easy 33/37 exp... i.e. 5 promos.

Combat 1
Medic 1
Medic 2
Medic 3
Morale

That gives us a 25% healing wimp medic with 3 move. So long as it doesn't upgrade and stays with other troops, it should live.

Other than that, if you manage to finish off pig town and carthage in a timely mannor, try and line up techs that lead to conqs.... music nationalism and gunpowder.

Let liberalism finish.

Next Tech afterward is uh questionable... GP in 6 turns and if it's a scientist it'll bulb printing press so that might be worth doing as it's too late to embed the gs. Other choice would be killing off gunpowder.


Oh yeah and swap back to caste system.

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[Grover22]

If Hannibal has one or more cities on islands or another big landmass, does he survive? We have no galleys, and the logistics would really bog down our advance.

 

[PickledDictator]

Silver, pure brilliance!

That is where I would panic and fail!

When it comes to reinforcing your military builds, I notice in some cities your switching the builds around..ie pike, cat, treb, mace

Do you do this by tracking what your losing and what you need? One of my major failures playing is warring. I either go with too many troops, thus delaying victories or making them more difficult, or I simply don't have the right mix of troops to go with the evil RNG

Isn't Hannibal likely to capitulate to one of the others? Or are you going to finish him off before tackling Zara?

 

[Liquidated]

He has 3 towns on islands, 5 towns total. Carthage is one, the taoist holy city that must be at pigs is two so that leaves 3.

Take out pig town and carthage then get peace for whatever we can extort... a map would be boffo. That will severely gimp him.

Need to take out the rest of this continent (zara and then alex) asap meaning gunpowder music nationalism and military tradition...

screw bulbing printing press I guess as we cannot be arased diverging from that path.

Techs we want to extort from hannibal include music and compass (to track those islands down abnd meet the other two civs) and a bloody map.

Gunpowder/nationalism would be nice as well but not likely.

Wish there was a No financial civs option in this game because they are just broken on water maps.


Cheers!
-Liq

 

[Diamondeye]

That was marvellous, Silver! Now, luckily, I don't have anything against doing a bit of cleanup , I'll play a short set tomorrow. I'll make sure not to DoW Zara immidiately after getting peace with Hannibal.

And what are the exact turns on Lib (us vs Carthage)? I mean, we killed off one of his towns, so he should've dived a bit... I hope.

 

[S.ilver]

When it comes to reinforcing your military builds, I notice in some cities your switching the builds around..ie pike, cat, treb, mace

Do you do this by tracking what your losing and what you need? One of my major failures playing is warring. I either go with too many troops, thus delaying victories or making them more difficult, or I simply don't have the right mix of troops to go with the evil RNG

Well, for the initial stack construction, you'll need to credit Liq and Grover for putting together a balanced and diversified stack. Really, when I went in the stack had no weaknesses except being out-strengthed by muskets, and that's not a huge deal when the muskets take major damage attacking the stack and then die to an axeman or something like that.

As for my seeming random shifts in unit builds as troops finish... it largely WOULD be tracking what my stack needed due to losses or unforeseen issues, but in this case most of the troops that were built were for an active defense against Crazy Hair and Psycho Alex. So it was mainly in response to large knight formations showing up on my doorstep.

 

[PickledDictator]

Well, for the initial stack construction, you'll need to credit Liq and Grover for putting together a balanced and diversified stack. Really, when I went in the stack had no weaknesses except being out-strengthed by muskets, and that's not a huge deal when the muskets take major damage attacking the stack and then die to an axeman or something like that.

As for my seeming random shifts in unit builds as troops finish... it largely WOULD be tracking what my stack needed due to losses or unforeseen issues, but in this case most of the troops that were built were for an active defense against Crazy Hair and Psycho Alex. So it was mainly in response to large knight formations showing up on my doorstep.

Yes I realized that the stack presented to you was virtually flawless, good job by the others!

I know it's hard to give a direct answer to this question, but like many others, I find myself often to be quite weak compared to the ai.

As a rule of thumb for say your first 4-6 cities, roughly how many troops do you have per city? I tend to panic when the SOD comes from the opposition, and despite my best efforts, find myself constantly getting smashed at this level because of it.

btw, the series that you guys play is so much fun to both read and get tips from!

 

[Liquidated]

There's no hard and fast rule for number of troops. At higher difficulties one really needs to play the diplomatic cards you are dealt and work from there.

In our case we had Hannibal pleased at the very start (via hindu) so there was never a need to place troops on that border as hannibal 100% will not attack at pleased.

Churchill, on the other hand, was not pleased early on and due to the number of melee sitting in Nottingham we had to respond. Once we opened borders though he went to pleased (again, Church will 100% not attack at pleased)

Zara is not an aggressive leader by his nature though and he was next door to crazy alex, who WILL attack at pleased. So long as alex and zara were at it, we didn't need to guard that border heavily.

We did keep just enough troop/potential in the area to beat back Zara and Alex both but with those two idiots now sharing war dip, we need to keep a strong border going as we build up to roll over Zara.

Long slog ahead hahaha.

Cheers!
-Liq