[BTS] BOTM 187, DeGaulle, Final Spoiler, Game Submitted

[Deckhand]

BOTM 187 - De Gaulle Prince or Deity (with Prince starting units) ... Final Spoiler

Tell us all about your game.
Did you have fun?

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[DynamicSpirit]

1812 AD space win.

After 1AD, I declared on the Mongols because their proximity seemed a bit of a threat, and because they had the only nearby marble. And then pretty much the entire rest of the game was a slugfest of expanding borders through war while teching as fast as I could. I think I made the key mistake after the Genghis war of pursuing in the same direction. It started off as, my troops were on already on Egypt's borders and Egypt has the pyramids so I may as well go for it. Then Egypt brought in the Khmer as allies so I ended up finishing them off too. And the trouble was, that meant I spent almost the entire rest of the game capturing fairly mediocre land, while the Persians colonised most of the luscious grassland to the North and East. With hindsight, I really should've taken stock and shifted my focus earlier.

And then in the 1700 ADs just before I finally conquered the Khmer, they brought Stalin into the war against me - which meant I then had to focus on the SouthEast, again leaving the Persians. That war with Russia was astonishing - just because of the sheer numbers of trebs, axes and crossbows he throw at my - umm - infantry. He actually managed in one stack attack to kill a couple of my infantry by sheer weight of numbers, although I didn't mind too much because he lost almost his entire stack of dozens of units in the process. And after that I had pretty much free reign in his territory.

I was really surprised at how backward the AI were - even right at the end when I had tanks, I wasn't seeing any AI unit more advanced than longbows and maces.

On the upside, Musketeers are brilliant! Maybe not so good when the AI has the tech advantage, but amazing when you have the advantage - almost impregnable against longbows outside cities and sooo fast moving.

One other slip-up. After astronomy, I discovered the island to the NorthWest, with a barb city on it. Excited at the prospect of getting an overseas trade route, I rushed some troops over to capture it. Had my riflemen fight a valiant battle against overwhelming odds (in other words, a barb longbow) - and then promptly mis-clicked and gave the city to Carthage instead. Aaargh!

But it made Hannibal pretty happy. And since he didn't have astronomy, and so couldn't open a trade route to the overseas city himself, it must've been somewhat crippling financially for him.

One other minor thing... This was the game where I finally realised that workboats can sail over oceans once you have astronomy. I discovered it when I clicked to send a workboat to the location of some oil, expecting it to meander around the coast, and it promptly sailed off on a direct line through the ocean instead. I was like 'what?????' so I checked in the civilopedia (or whatever you call it) and discovered they can. I dread to think how many times in previous games, I've founded a city on some new island, then had this new city slowly, laboriously, build a workboat, not realising I could've just sent one over from the mainland instead. You learn something new every day!

Spoiler :

 

[krikav]

Wonderful misclick @DynamicSpirit !
I bet Hannibal got really suprised! "Oh, you are giving me a city... Wait! How do I get there...?"

 

[krikav]

I realized way to late, that NOONE had horses, but this shows that the real evil here was the mapmaker, not the AIs, that where all deprived for their beloved UUs.
Also nice that our own UU was the only two-mover on the map.
Couldn't take advantage of this though other than picking of some stray units and stealing some workers during warfare. Did someone else do something fun?

 

[krikav]

Spoiler :

Forgot to take screenshots early on, but it was more or less just a mad expansion dash, had some troubles with barbs early on (3 spears in the same wave wasn't nice) had to 1pop whip some archers. But I got a healthy chunk of land.
AIs where really slow to expand, must have been that they only got prince level starting units. Didn't get alfa for trade until like 300BC.

Didn't bother much with GPersons, first Scientist made an academy, music artist did a GA.
Took chemistry from lib because Hannibal was really rushing forward.

Unit statistics after the war against GK.

Both Justinian and Hannibal was friendly, so got alot of nice trades, and I even got economics first. Hannibal self-teched chemistry while I was saving up cash for steel, and I suspected he with his military flavour might have his aim on steel or mil/sci. So I made a dash for economics.
Got a GEng earlier but this ment I could run a GA with the merchant+whatever else I had and instead rush ironworks in GKs old capital with 3 settled great generals.
after 5 turns with rep+bur+slav+orgreligion I whipped banks+courthouses and then it was police state+vass+caste+free market+theocracy for the rest of the game (later a 2 turn revolt for state property).

Ramesses folded like paper, and while I was planning on how I should kill Sury he instead peace vassaled. <3
Darius+Isabella had a hard time up north and after killing isabella and after Stalin made Darius his vassal I closed borders with Stalin, causing him to stock up all his outdated units in persepolis.

I promply declared before he could upgrade the bulk of them to rifles, but I think CR3 grenadiers would have made short work of them anyways.
But I didn't get to shoot these fishes in their barrel, 70 (!!) units made a valiant last rush and died against my stack without killing a single one of my units.
After Persepolis fell, I had workers ready to railroad to Darius remaining cities so all but one where whiped out the same turn.
The following turn, Stalin wanted to capitulate, but I first killed of Darius before accepting that offer.

Had begged from justinian to get a peace treaty prior to attacking Stalin, this was a big mistake as I had to twiddle my thumbs for 5 turns before I could attack him.

Need more units!!

I haven't played large maps before. The crowd of AIs made early diplomacy really tough. And the micromanagement of the late game got really tedious, but it also made for a more grand epic.
All in all, a very fun map!
I personally enjoy cannons+grenadiers and later rifles alot, and the lack of horses on the map tilted the game in that direction heavily, which I really enjoyed.

Thanks alot for the map!
Deity, barbs, no huts no events, normal speed. Just the way I like it! <3
Really fun game!

 

[Deckhand]

I realized way to late, that NOONE had horses, but this shows that the real evil here was the mapmaker, not the AIs, that where all deprived for their beloved UUs.
Also nice that our own UU was the only two-mover on the map.

Seems you both missed this for first spoiler. Now I wonder if I should delete or edit my queries in it. Discussing this at 1AD could be spoilerish and unfair to those who missed it?

How was the map maker evil?
What do the AI civs have in common?
Was the map maker more evil to the player or to the AIs?
Did you take Prince or Deity save?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Seems you both missed this for first spoiler. Now I wonder if I should delete or edit my queries in it. Discussing this at 1AD could be spoilerish and unfair to those who missed it?

Yeah, at 1AD I'd only explored a pretty small proportion of the map (as you can see from the screenshot I posted in that thread), so had no way of knowing that no AI had horsies. It only well into the AD years that it slowly crossed my mind that I hadn't seen a single AI chariot or horse archer, and I started to wonder.

Having said that, your questions in the first spoiler are vague enough that the questions don't really give anything away.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Also nice that our own UU was the only two-mover on the map.
Couldn't take advantage of this though other than picking of some stray units and stealing some workers during warfare. Did someone else do something fun?

Yeah that's basically what I did. I see muskets in general as more like stack-protectors - since with no CR promotions I'm assuming (not actually tried it) that they'd be pretty useless at capturing longbow-protected cities, but they are almost invulnerable to all earlier units (except knights). So I took advantage of the musketeer's high movement to go around mopping up any stray AI units that might damage me in the open field, while I left trebuchets and maces to take the cities. A but like weak-ish knights that have the advantage of not being vulnerable to spears and getting defensive bonuses.

On a separate note, I notice from your screenshots that you got to liberalism without researching code of laws - that's something I've never seen before. And I'm guessing that also means, a relatively late civil service since you must've got to civil service via the more expensive feudalism route. Out of interest, what's the strategy behind that? I've always regarded early civil service as an essential science boost in most games.

 

[krikav]

Oh, a million tiny reasons.

I had Hannibal at friendly quite early in the game he was ahead in tech, and got feudalism from him.
I didn't have my aim at lib at first, was going for engineering.
Vassalage was more important to me, to get my units promoted.
And caste would be completely worthless. I didn't have any religious spread for pacifism and I didn't aim for any gpersons, cities where busy working tiles and being whipped.

I was also at 14 cities at this point, and the value of capital was abit less.
Also, I was behind in developing the capital, as I settled on the sugar and had jungle on the grassland north, and I got severely hit early on by barbs. Also, alot of good land to settle so I didn't have a whole lot of city overlap around the capital.

I thought my "early" warfare would leave me behind in tech, and that some AI would zoom of in tech.
What I was anticipating was that I would conquer a few weak neighbours and get a huge chunk of land with trebs/maces/xbows and much later recover economically and start to get to tech parity again.

But that didn't happen at all.
Maybee it's the large map, that keeps the AIs in expansion mode for longer...? Or perhaps it was just the lack of starting units and techs that put breaks on them?

Had a save at T141, here is the overview then:

Spoiler :

Tech: nothing here is normal imho. What I see as normal at T140 is some AIs very close at lib, and almost all have feud.

47 raw commerce, burocracy would give me 24 more (42 beakers per turn at 100%) and 5 hammers.

I had 18 workers at this time. I thought I built alot but I should have had more. Jungle is tough.

 

[MarleysGh0st]

Continuing with my Contender save...

At 1 AD I was in the midst of a long war with Genghis. Construction in 25 AD let me start building catapults, and his cities started falling to my army. He still wouldn't consider capitulating until he was down to two cities in 940. At that point, I decided I'd rather finish him off. The Mongol Empire was destroyed in 1010. Along the way, Ramses had peace-vassaled to me. (It wasn't until the end of the game that I realized the extent of his bad luck. Thebes, his capital, which had become the holy city of Hinduism and Judaism, was captured by barbs in 1080 BC. Ramses could never liberate the city, so it remained in barb hands until Suryavarman captured it about the same time I was defeating Genghis.)

Since my army was already there, I decided to make Suryavarman my next target, to secure the entire southwest of the continent. (Somewhat foolishly, I didn't pause to scout out his territory before I declared war.) His army was in Thebes. I captured that and one more city, but I saw that he still had many more units in the area than I did, so I made peace in 1170.

I rebuilt my army (by now, including musketeers) and was contemplating when to resume the war, when he attacked me in 1470. And just as he started bombarding Thebes, my scientists discovered the secret of steel and upgraded my defending trebuchets to cannon. Sury's invading army was obliterated, and he bent the knee in 1490 without my having to take any more of his cities.

From there, event moved much more quickly. Isabella peace-vassaled, and I attacked Darius. I took three cities, then accepted his vassalage in 1570.

War with Justinian begins in 1580. I only have to take two of his cities before he bends the knee. Stalin is my next target in 1605. After taking two of his cities, he also capitulates. And now I've researched railroads, which are becoming much more necessary, given the long distances my reinforcement must move to the front.

I declare war against Hannibal in 1620. Even before my stacks have arrived on his front, my new vassal Stalin can skirmish with him, and the clock can start ticking towards the moment Hannibal will negotiation with me. I capture one of his cities in 1645, and Hannibal capitulates.

Now with 62.45% land (and much more pop) I've over the domination limit, and I'm afraid the computer will randomly decide to credit me with the wrong victory condition. I return every city I can to my vassals, but that still leaves me with 60.16% land, a fraction over the limit. It's nail-biting time as I end the turn, but the coin toss favors me, and I'm given a Conquest Victory in 1650.

 

[krikav]

Nice! And 10 years before me too.

 

[Kaitzilla]

This map was a ton of fun!

Saw Stalin coming, so I switched to his religion to barely get Pleased and begged 10.
Then 10 turns later when he attacked I had City Defender 3 musketeers in Castles and watched him commit suicide.

Had an epic battle with the Mongols. So many macemen!

Egypt was a nightmare.
I captured the capital with my main army, and then the next turn the AP forced me into peace and my army was completely surrounded by Egypt's culture.
That meant 10 turns of my main army not going anywhere.
I should have defied the vote!
Worse, 2 turns before I could DOW Egypt again, he peace vassaled to the very large Persian Empire who I have a 4 turn Peace Treaty with.
I later got my revenge by wiping out Egypt completely and stealing 1 Persian city before the rifles could counter attack.

Liberalism->Steel in 1000AD and rode cannons all the way to a conquest win on the Deity map in 1615.
4xp Galleons with Drydocks were very useful!

I loved being the only civ with 2 units.
I abused the hell out of it by pillaging roads, luring stacks into traps, and rushing weakly defended cities and razing them to really open up a front.

Had a save at T141, here is the overview then:

14 cities, nice!

Here is my T140 empire if you want to see it.​

Spoiler :

At the critical moment, I went Aesthetics->Literature->Code of Laws->Civil Service->Engineering I think.
Getting stone and lots of fail gold was the only way to get ahead of the pack on Deity, and Engineering and later Steel were the main war techs.

 

[krikav]

@Kaitzilla
We seem to have had a roughly similar game, nice to see that I'm behind at every turn, looks like there is still so much to learn.
I love how your roads are planned, nice smooth net across the empire. How many turns ahead are you planning workermovements?

I won Dom at 1660, not nearly as nice at comq in 1615.
Isn't that almost HoF material..?

Lib chemistry at 1080 for me.
I could have made much better use of failgold, don't think I utilized the philo+paper+CoL stone wonders at all, but I was quite boosted by the marble ones though.
Do you have some routine where you whip units/spies/missionaries for overflow around the empire, rotating which city catches overflow?

Really well played!

 

[zbgayumn]

Well, that was quite a slog!

The end result was a Domination victory in 1810 AD.

It got started with getting Iron to the NE and getting Maces long before anyone else. I was thinking about attacking GK, when he saved me the trouble and DoW'd me instead. I took like 5 of his 9 cities and then vassaled him. I then sent my armies to the opposite front to attack Justinian. I was doing well there, but then I hit his capitulation threshold. I wanted Domination, not Conquest, so I kept taking cities and soon he vassaled himself to Carthage to bring them into the war. That made things dicey because Carthage had a huge army and had been at war with Persia, so he had a number of troops nearby. I took a few more Byzantine cities before Hannibal lost enough units attacking me to take a peace deal.

Because Hannibal was now a huge obstacle to my east, I marched my armies (most of them) back to the west and prepared to attack Egypt who was vassaled to Khmer. Instead, Persia DoW'd me out of nowhere and I had to send those units north. The protracted war with Hannibal meant that Persia had really ramped up their army. I lost a city for 1 turn, I think, while I hit them along the western side of the front. A few turns into this war is when I finally got Rifling. This time I made sure to capture two cities on the same turn and then vassal Cyrus before he could throw himself on someone else's mercy.

After that, I kept a smallish stack in the NW to take out Spain. The majority I sent back to attack Egypt/Khmer. I had two stacks to the SW at that point, the one in the NW, and I started sending many of my new units to a rally point in the east. The fight against Egypt/Khmer was where the game really started to drag. So many units to move, so many enemy units. Some of them got to Muskets, but mostly it was Maces and LBs. The war in the SW really turned into a rout when I got Steel and upgrade trebs to cannons. As I killed off Egypt and started on the Khmer, I decided that I would have to attack Stalin to make sure I hit 60%. My stack to the east was like 40 rifleman & cannons by then, so I sent them in. But not before begging 1 gold off Hannibal so that he would stay on the sidelines. He was the only one that had Grenadiers. Again, the Russian stacks were ridiculous, but I beat them down. As I captured the 2nd city there, and finished off the Khmer, I hit the Dom limit. (btw, Khmer vassaled themselves to Russia before they died, but I had already declared on Russia by then)

So, anyone have tips on how to finish off enemies without having them bring another civ into the war by vassaling themselves?

As for Musketeers, I did build a lot of them and they're not bad on offense, but clearly not as good as CR3 maces. I picked off wounded enemy units and got back into a city or a stack. I eventually used them to make my super-medic GGs.

 

[krikav]

Nice slugfest @zbgayumn !

I get suprised by my targets vassaling themselves from time to time too.
The only remedies I know if, is to be pleased (or friendly) with the potential master(s), so that they won't accept the vassal and send a DoW to you.
That, and having peacetreaty with the potential master(s).

 

[socralynnek]

Oh, no one mentioned a Diplo win, so I might have the fastest one ;-)

Diplo win in 1908 (or so), Contender save.

Prepared early for being attacked by Genghis, so I was prepared and took some of his cities (don't remember whether I was the one declaring war)

But during that time, Stalin was brought into the war and later on Egypt declared. Was able to fight them off, but at some point I had to accept capitulation by Genghis (needed to rebuild units...)
I was surprised how long it took until Karakorum couldn't flip anymore... (well if you don't play Civ4 for a few years, some things get lost)

Spain became vassal of Persia quite early.
Persia and Carthage had an ok tech rate for this level.

I decided to go after Egypt (same as with Karakorum, I had to put quite some units into Memphis to keep the city when Egypt capitulated) and then Khmer.

Made a mistake making peace with Hannibal, who declared on me a few turns earlier, without seeing that Khmer vassaled to him...
...so before I finished off Khmer, I took some Persian cities, which was a little more costly.

Then I took some Russian cities, then some Byzantine until I finally could win via Diplo...

First diplo chairman vote was even won by Byzanz, so only until most vassaled to me it was enough...


Didn't get the balance with being tech leader and expanding via war too well, missed some wonders, but was tech leader throughout the game anyway.