[BTS] BOTM 171 HRE Prince Charles First Spoiler to 1AD

[Deckhand]

BOTM 171: Charlemagne, Prince ... First Spoiler

Use this thread to tell us what happened in your game, up to 1AD!

Are you playing nice with all your friendly builder neighbors? Build any wonders?
Or have you already started building the Carolingian empire? Capture any wonders?
Did you notice how big the world is? I hope you settled in place.

Stop! If you are participating in BOTM 171, then you MUST NOT read this thread unless EITHER

• You have reached at least 1 AD in your game, OR
• You have submitted your entry

Posting Restrictions

• Please do not disclose ANY events or information gained post 1 AD.
• Please do not reveal your final result if that happened after 1 AD.
• Please do not discuss the location of resources that may not show up before 1 AD (Iron is OK, coal and oil are not)
• Do not post any savegame file from the game. Discussions and screenshots are fine but not actual games

 

[Berolsaurus]

First off, since I am still new please let me know if anything I am about to post is not acceptable to the spoiler thread or if there is a better way to go about it. Thanks!

Now then, on to the breakdown!

We started by placing our first city at the starting location, it seemed good. After continuing to explore and expand around us we discovered both the Chinese and the Inca.
Feeling that Charles would be very warlike we founded our 5th or 6th city and went about building a mighty army of the empire!

With our army prepared we decided to strike the weaker civ in our game, the Chinese. Caught completely unprepared the Chinese quickly fell to the might of our armies.
We gained two great generals which we placed in our capital for the creation of veteran units.

While our victory was swift and complete(due to many whips being used), the king had failed to plan ahead. The doubling of our empires size and massive army put a massive strain on the budget. Low population(due to whips) and half way developed land plunged the empire into economic ruin. The coffers ran dry and the army began abandoning Charles en mass. Things looked bleak.

Thankfully a savior came, a great engineer was able to begin a golden age due to capturing multiple wonders from the Chinese, including the great wall. This slight economic boost allowed the remaining workers(many had left us due to our bankrupt coffers) to improve things and get cottages going. Meanwhile our people did what they could by having children at record rates and improving the population and thus taxes.

The army was almost non existent at this point but the economy had recovered. With a focus on better planning Charles started to rebuild the army, hoping that nobody would take advantage of the Empire's weakened state.

During this all we met the French, led by De Gaulle. Soon after we also met the French, led by Louis! Had the French been in some kind of civil war? Would they take advantage of Charles weakened empire, time would tell.....

Side note: I meant to take pictures but don't have a habit yet, so I will attempt to do better next time

 

[Deckhand]

Good write up. And nice that you had successes and struggles. Makes the game more interesting and fun.
What units did you use to conquer the Chinese?

 

[Berolsaurus]

Horse archers and axemen mostly, with some archer support. Worked rather well, though I fear I may have used the whip more then I should have with how bad my economy was after the war.

 

[Pangaea]

Nice writeup @Berolsaurus

I'm in some of the same problems tbh. Or to answer the question:

Are you playing nice with all your friendly builder neighbors? Build any wonders?

No and No

When I noticed horses nearby, it was too tempting to be a naughty little boy. Thought about doing something with Chariots, but it's usually such a pain that I waited for Horse Archers. Noticed Qin had metal, so didn't want to attack him first. Went for Capac instead. He died and had founded Buddhism, so I revolted. Then Qin died, and provided us with Pyramids. Instantly went into Rep. Oh, what is this? De Gaulle has the Great Lighthouse and is weak as peas (the odd warrior in cities). He only had 3 cities, but Paris was a sweet one with GLH and Great Wall. Once captured I noticed it had Scotland Yard too. Maybe it will be useful later. De Gaulle is dead now.

Even if this is 'only' Prince, this got us into quite some economic woes. I've been limping to Math and Currency with Rep scientists, and had to pillage everything in sight. And of course build cottages, and lots of them. I usually don't like cottages on non-riverside grassland, but it had to be done here. Got Currency in 1AD, and despite building wealth for 25, I'm still losing 10 per turn. But I can 1-turn Sailing, and get a decent chunk of foreign trade routes (Roosevelt has 7 cities), so that should be enough to break even.Unfortunately Louis hated me when we met (stupid Jew), so wasn't able to open borders with him.

In more normal games I'd roughly be at Education by 1AD (at least teching it), so tech wise I'm way off the pace. But we do have 15 cities, including 3 former capitals and some wonders, so it's not all bad Would be doing around 250 at full tilt, but well.... that would also result in -130 per turn, which isn't all that sustainable with 11 in the coffers -10 for the next turn, and then we should be okay I think. You might call that a close shave!

Very odd, but Oracle hasn't gone yet. Nor do anybody have Alpha, which is pretty frustrating. Since we have Stone and Marble already improved, I'm thinking about teching Masonry and up to Priesthood and try to chop it out. It gotta go soon, though, so maybe it would just be a waste. Would 'only' be able to get something like Metal Casting or CoL. Certainly useful, but not nearly as great as Civil Service and Buro would be.

As suspected the map if freaking gigantic, so I have serious doubts about finishing the game. Sorry about that, but at least I can get to 1AD in these games. Torn between chilling now or trying to keep going with HAs. Costs of more cities will be brutal though. Paris isn't out of revolt yet, and will cost 12-13 gpt in maintenance. Awful.

Haven't met three of the AIs yet, but I know who they are

 

[Berolsaurus]

Interesting, you are much more warlike then I was! Or perhaps I would have been more warlike if 90% of my army didn't abandon me due to bankruptcy

I actually made very close friends with the Inca. The Inca founded a religion(can't remember off hand which one) and I converted to it. Currently that border is very secure since he is quite happy with me. The french(both of them) on my other border are rather unhappy with me though...

 

[Pangaea]

Thankfully no units disbanded (yet) in my game, but it was very close. It can be real tricky in these games prior to trade routes (I briefly had trade with Qin, until I declared on him) and Currency. You can get into a situation where you either have to take it on the chin that most of the army is disbanding, or you need evermore capture gold from taking more cities (postponing the problem). I was at -44 per turn (at 0% research) prior to attacking de Gaulle, and needed to capture Paris to stay afloat (for a few turns). Thankfully he had built some cottages, so that netted us maybe 100 gold, plus a few hundred from taking 3 cities. GLH from Paris helped a little too. Once you acquire Currency you are usually saved, as in a pinch you can build Wealth everywhere. But getting to Currency can be really, really painful.

HC founded a religion in my game too (Buddhism), but he was the softest target (no Protective either), so I went for him first. Nice cities too, although tucked up against the jungle. Sadly only have Buddhism in 3 cities (HC's original ones), and it hasn't spread to single new one yet, which has surprised me. Had HC been alive longer, he would have spread it with missionaries, and maybe built a Shrine. But I chose the path of least resistance

Paris getting out of revolt (in 4-ish turns) will hurt a lot, but it's also a good city with room for some more in the region.

It can often be a nice idea to keep de Gaulle alive, because a lot of AIs hate him, meaning they are less likely to hate you and plot war on you (not such a big problem here, but on higher difficulties it can be). But unfortunately for him he was located nearby a crazy warmonger, with poor defences. A Chariot, some archers, axes and warriors isn't going to deter an army of Horse Archers

Louis already hates me. I've no idea what his land looks like or what defences and units he has (except a ton of culture), but he has to be the next target. Maybe that will be it and I can relax a bit. We will see. Due to the massive distance and size of the map, new cities is going to cost an awful lot. But the horses may get twitchy just sitting about the place

 

[Pangaea]

We gained two great generals which we placed in our capital for the creation of veteran units.

Re-read your update and noticed this, and figured I'd tell you about a trick, in case you're not aware of it. It is often a good idea to use a Great General (typically the first you get) on a super-healer. Usually a weak unit that won't be a defender in a stack. In this game a Chariot is a fine choice, as it is also a 2-mover. What you do is place the Chariot (for instance) and the GG in the same tile (with no other units on it), then hit the upgrade button. That gives another 20XP to the Chariot, giving it 23 or 25 combined, depending on how it was made (Barrack, Stable). Then grab the promotions Combat 1, Medic 1, Medic 2, Medic 3. The unit can now heal your army en mass, meaning they can even heal a good chunk in enemy lands, which means you can capture cities faster. You can often heal units fully in 1 turn, especially inside the newly captured city. More heavily damaged units take longer, but after 1-2 turns you can usually move on.

Edit: Another often-used means to deal with economic woes is to be careful about whipping the capital, after the initial settler-push and so forth. Happiness can be a big constrain ofc, but try to grow the capital and build cottages around it. Once you get Bureaucracy, the capital will be a powerhouse, helped by cottages and maybe an Academy. It's actually not that rare for the capital to yield 50% of your research in a roughly 10-city empire, once you have it set up properly with cottages, buro and academy.

This is by no means a perfect example (not least because the economy is shot even at 0% research), it's not a great cottage capital due to lack of grassland riverside (only 3). But I'm still trying to set it up as a cottage capital because we quite frankly need it.

Spoiler :

 

[Berolsaurus]

That tip about making a super healer is very helpful. Hadn't done that before. Also, I haven't used the Buffy mod before, it appears so of your UI elements are placed differently then mine. Is there a way to move them around?

 

[Pangaea]

What UI elements look different in your game?

 

[Berolsaurus]

What UI elements look different in your game?

My bars for Great General and Great person are underneath my tech progress bar. Yours are to the left and right of the tech bar. I though maybe there was a way to move things around I wasn't aware of.

 

[Pangaea]

My bars for Great General and Great person are underneath my tech progress bar. Yours are to the left and right of the tech bar. I though maybe there was a way to move things around I wasn't aware of.

I'm not aware of a way to change that, so all I can think of is that it may be related to resolution? I'm playing the game at 1920x1080. If you happen to use an older laptop with less resolution, maybe some UI elements have to be ordered differently due to less horizontal space.

I make very few changes from the default Buffy settings. Prefer to turn off the alternative clock (remove the percentage counter), show attacker info in combat odds, add an extra digit to power ratio, and show both leader and civ info in the leaderboard.

There are different ways to show (or rather group) units, but think I may be using the default now. There's a ton of things one can change in the Buffy settings, but don't think we can re-arrange main UI elements like that. It's probably based on resolution.

 

[Deckhand]

My bars for Great General and Great person are underneath my tech progress bar.

likewise

 

[Berolsaurus]

Alright then, thanks for the info.

 

[Kaitzilla]

The economic problems are very real in this game.

 

[voglchen]

I started with a chariot rush towards Qin because I didn't find anyone else before (I missed HC just by one step to the north wth the scout ). Qin just upgraded two warriors to axemen the turn before I got his nice capitol with the great wall. Then I wanted to move on against HC, but he already had two archers, a chariot and an axemen i nhis capitol
Of course I could have overwhelmed him with a few more units, but I was already feeling the economic pressure from my 4 cities and taking two more would have been ugly... I'm just not used to warring with a huge negative cashflow and recovering while still at war or plowing through teh world like Pangaea. Also there was plenty of nice land to settle and I already had the settlers and workers produced because I didn't go full warmode between the guys. So I decided to stay a bit peaceful and i guess go for the classical cuirs to kill them all.
HC started plotting 1 turn before AD, I'm at 7 good cities and I'm placing my army directly at the border, so if he attacks me I'll probably get two of his cities in the first turn. I haven't built any units after Quin but we are still at 1,0. I almost hope he attacks me

 

[shakabrade]

I killed HC with Axes and Qin with Chariots as he has built Axemen everywhere. Quin built pretty early Great Wall with stone he had and I hoped for the Mids as well and left him alive. Mids are built in a far away land and I attack and take 2 cities, declare peace for Masonry and Archery and then finish the job. I am trying to have some research in this game as I am probably going for Space, but those Mids on another side of the map are really a pain. I will have to launch some Knight attack force to take them. My economy is not ruined, but with Mids it would ve been so much better.

 

[Kaitzilla]

I killed HC with Axes and Qin with Chariots as he has built Axemen everywhere. Quin built pretty early Great Wall with stone he had and I hoped for the Mids as well and left him alive. Mids are built in a far away land and I attack and take 2 cities, declare peace for Masonry and Archery and then finish the job. I am trying to have some research in this game as I am probably going for Space, but those Mids on another side of the map are really a pain. I will have to launch some Knight attack force to take them. My economy is not ruined, but with Mids it would ve been so much better.

I feel for you Shakabrade.
My Mids were built far away too.

 

[MarleysGh0st]

No wonders for me, yet. I went to war with HC. By 1 AD, I have 8 cities, including 2 captured from the Inca.

 

[jerza]

Ok, I started with an Axeman attack on the Chinese, but I failed to take Beijing, only got one of the smaller cities. At 1 AD, I have 4 cities (2 more coming soon), science slider at 60% and breaking even, but technologically I'm terribly behind.
Overall, I expected an easy game on Prince (I recently have won a couple of Monarch games quite easily), but my current position is pretty uncomfortable One of the reasons may be that I try to play as quickly as possible (as the deadline is approaching), and also I have played almost all my C4 games at epic speed and I seem to completely lack the feel for normal speed (actually I haven't played normal speed for years). And obviously I'm looking forward to taking a look how better players have played this because I'm sure I do many newbie mistakes in city placement, strategy, and basically everything