[BTS] BOTM 192: Tokugawa, Deity - First Spoiler - 1AD

[ZPV]

I (semi-)retired shortly after 1AD.

In the beginning I went with SIP, with the intention of putting gems in city 2 (founded in 2240BC, by which time Shaka had already settled 1W of the copper).
The tech path was Agriculture-Mining-BW, using the spare worker turns to road to the gems.

Osaka was founded 1N of the gems (i.e. it missed the horse which I hadn't revealed) and Tokyo was 1E of the horse.

I was fairly successful at meeting AIs, and built the Great Lighthouse in 1440BC.

Shaka first declared war in 725BC as he is wont to do, but the saving grace is that Impis are bad (they're basically chariots that reliably die to axemen) and I had a standing army plus some extra whipped axes to deal with his two stacks.
We made peace for Aesthetics once he had Horse Archers. Unfortunately, I had already sacrificed production and this war cost me some more that should have gone into workers and settlers. In addition, the war cut off all my bonus trade routes!

My plan was now to get to Construction, and crawl my way up to Ulundi. If I captured that with its Pyramids, I'd be in the game.
This was going to be difficult if his latest stack in the border city just stayed there...
Shaka's second DoW came at 1AD. I had Construction and was 1 turn away from HBR.

The problem this time is that I have two border cities, and don't have the quantity or quality of units to attack his stack in the open.
My eventual downfall would be a tactical error that left my units within range of attack, while transferring between the two border cities. (My roads are in the wrong place.)
I'm not actually dead, but it's another delay I can't afford.

-----------------------

I think this was winnable with more accurate play - I wasted an awful lot of production by not building enough workers early enough - but wherever I put Kyoto I have a really awkward time trying to dotmap the land for a non-creative civ.
I almost think a psychic move NE for a 4-food-copper-marble capital would give you the best chance.

 

[undead]

A bit rusty after a month. Not much time and energy left either. And immortal is already out of the comfort zone anyway.
A test game showed that the AP was not guaranteed at all. No GLH either.
So not much hope.

The warrior fog busted from the choke point. Convenient.
A barbarian archer from the east attacked the capital defended by only one warrior and fortunately failed.

I had settled near the horse when I discovered copper near the choke point!

I hasted a settler and was about to settle on the choke point when Shaka settled nearby. One turn short.

I attacked Shaka with a few axemen and chariots, then I realized that:
- Shaka already had a swordman
- the chariots were useless against impis (the city near the horse seemed unnecessary)
- there were elephants to the east (they would have met longbowmen anyway?).

I resisted for a while then I resigned.

 

[WastinTime]

Game is long over, but I played anyway.

Research: (towards Elepult)
I decided Math and Construction are about the same , so went all-out for Oracle-> Math and got it.
I skipped Ag and Animal Husbandry, pottery.
Just Bronze, masonry, priesthood, writing, (oracle math)
Then had to get the basics (above) plus sailing, construction, and HBR
(free archery, hunting, IW, Monarchy)
The AI is teching fast and Shaka won't trade. So I got nothing for Math. I had to give 110gold + HBR for Monarchy.

Shaka is less than 5t from Civil Service.
He has 17 units stacked up on the 'chokepoint' hill, and most of them will turn into maces soon, so I have to attack.
Or, more precisely, make Shaka attack me. Even tho I have the cats, why should I attack him on a hill with +25% fortify? I've got my units stacked on the forests west of gems. I'm planning to DoW and do nothing. Assuming he moves his stack into the desert tiles, I ambush him.

The right way to have gotten out of this situation would have been to bribe Shaka to DoW someone else. He's willing, but I don't have a tech to give. He had Construction before me. @Powerfaker : Music is another clever way to keep the tech trading options open. The AI won't likely get Theo or Music once the bonus is gone.

Oracle got me a Great Prophet, so I coulda bulbed Theo and that might be enough for war, but I didn't get Poly/Mono and now it's too late with Civil Service coming. I'm just gonna see how my elepult does (with about 6 axes too)

 

[Fine_Distinction]

Game is long over, but I played anyway.

Research: (towards Elepult)
I decided Math and Construction are about the same , so went all-out for Oracle-> Math and got it.
I skipped Ag and Animal Husbandry, pottery.
Just Bronze, masonry, priesthood, writing, (oracle math)
Then had to get the basics (above) plus sailing, construction, and HBR
(free archery, hunting, IW, Monarchy)
The AI is teching fast and Shaka won't trade. So I got nothing for Math. I had to give 110gold + HBR for Monarchy.

Shaka is less than 5t from Civil Service.
He has like 25 units stacked up on the 'chokepoint' hill, and 15 of them will turn into maces soon, so I have to attack.
Or, more precisely, make Shaka attack me. Even tho I have the cats, why should I attack him on a hill with +25% fortify? I've got my units stacked on the forests west of gems. I'm planning to DoW and do nothing. Assuming he moves his stack into the desert tiles, I ambush him.

The right way to have gotten out of this situation would have been to bribe Shaka to DoW someone else. He's willing, but I don't have a tech to give. He had Construction before me. @Powerfaker : Music is another clever way to keep the tech trading options open. The AI won't likely get Theo or Music once the bonus is gone.

Oracle got me a Great Prophet, so I coulda bulbed Theo and that might be enough for war, but I didn't get Poly/Mono and now it's too late with Civil Service coming. I'm just gonna see how my elepult does (with about 6 axes too)

Thanks for the report! Hoping that you will take revenge on Shaka on our behalf

Interesting that Shaka did not DoW you yet - in the original game and couple replays, I always got DoWed in the BCs. In the original game, I settled 1W of the chokepoint, perhaps it contributed.

Where did you settle? Did Shaka also got Mids (-> Police State) your game?

 

[WastinTime]

I almost think a psychic move NE for a 4-food-copper-marble capital would give you the best chance.

I did this ^^. i.e. cheated, so my game doesn't count for a number of reasons.

Shaka did get mids/Police State.
Just lucky he didn't attack I guess. Unless it was the early barracks/axes that helped.

btw, the war went better than planned. 13 units got murdered in the desert. I rolled over his first of Twelve! cities.
I still have 8 axe, 8 elephant, 4 catapult, 2 horse archer, 2 chariot (with a Great General Healer), and a spear. All heavily promoted now.
I'll probably get revenge for ya'all buy my economy as collapsed. Not sure if I'll play the whole game or not.
I should have plenty of money from conquest to recover my tech rate.

 

[WastinTime]

I suppose what I would do is whip it cities like crazy, gift them back to him to get rid of anger, recapture, make peace for his tech, rinse, repeat.
He's doing Paper already. The AI never does Paper.
Steal his wealth with spies.
Would be a very memorable game, but it doesn't feel worth playing with the GotM over and my fore-knowledge.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Shaka did get mids/Police State.
Just lucky he didn't attack I guess. Unless it was the early barracks/axes that helped.

I think it's due to RNG. In my game I started building axes non-stop when I realized how little land was available for peaceful expansion. Unfortunately I had already wasted beakers on Sailing (planning for GLH) and hammers on lighthouse. Anyway, building an army of about 20 axes didn't stop Shaka from declaring quite early.

Would be a very memorable game, but it doesn't feel worth playing with the GotM over and my fore-knowledge.

Maybe you could play to a point where you think it's obvious that the game can be won and then post the result and maybe even a link to the save?

 

[Xcalibrator]

I'll probably get revenge for ya'all buy my economy as collapsed. Not sure if I'll play the whole game or not.

Avenge me! AVENGE ME!!

 

[Fine_Distinction]

I think it's due to RNG. In my game I started building axes non-stop when I realized how little land was available for peaceful expansion. Unfortunately I had already wasted beakers on Sailing (planning for GLH) and hammers on lighthouse. Anyway, building an army of about 20 axes didn't stop Shaka from declaring quite early.

Math from Oracle is really neat, I also bee-lined Math but by bulbing, to build a fort on the choke-point hill (was 1 turn late ;().

In the game, I also tried for the GLH and wasted beakers & hammers on Sailing and LH ;(. I did not have as many as 20 axes, but definitely had early barracks almost everywhere. I think being attacked by Shaka maybe more related to being land target (settling choke-point)?

 

[Fine_Distinction]

I think it's due to RNG. In my game I started building axes non-stop when I realized how little land was available for peaceful expansion. Unfortunately I had already wasted beakers on Sailing (planning for GLH) and hammers on lighthouse. Anyway, building an army of about 20 axes didn't stop Shaka from declaring quite early.

Maybe you could play to a point where you think it's obvious that the game can be won and then post the result and maybe even a link to the save?

Yeah, it is not a competition game anymore, but would be still very interesting to see for everybody that played (any many ppl did not submit due to disappointing results). @WastinTime, if you would have time to get this game to a winning position and post a brief report, would be highly educational

 

[Frederiksberg]

Math from Oracle is really neat, I also bee-lined Math but by bulbing, to build a fort on the choke-point hill (was 1 turn late ;().

In the game, I also tried for the GLH and wasted beakers & hammers on Sailing and LH ;(. I did not have as many as 20 axes, but definitely had early barracks almost everywhere. I think being attacked by Shaka maybe more related to being land target (settling choke-point)?

Oracle is surely better than GLH because it's all about the speed of attack and getting fast to those crucial tech's required. I don't think my axe attack could have worked even with Math. You need Elepults. I never settled the choke-point but got attacked early anyway.

 

[WastinTime]

I don't think my axe attack could have worked

I think you coulda sat where I did, 2 tiles east of the chokepoint, and mowed down his units in the desert over and over again.
You'd need a couple spears just to keep the chariots in check.

 

[Fine_Distinction]

I think you coulda sat where I did, 2 tiles east of the chokepoint, and mowed down his units in the desert over and over again.
You'd need a couple spears just to keep the chariots in check.

what could have also worked would be to build a fort on the choke point hill. I defended that hill for centuries, Shaka suicided many medium sized stacks against my mixture of archers, spearmans and axes. He finally got me - 1t before building a fort there - when I diverted some units to conquer barbarian triple-Elephant city in the East and he simultaneously brought a ton of cats and a really big stack .

Defending at choke point hill seemed perfect since Shaka kept suiciding units, the problem was my economy/expansion was not good enough to allow me to attack him succesfully

 

[Fine_Distinction]

I never settled the choke-point but got attacked early anyway.

it is interesting that WT did not get attacked. My understanding was that power ratio have minimal impact on AI war decisions, I also had no tools early on to improve diplo with Shaka (no religion spread etc).

@WastinTime, did you give Shaka resources etc to improve diplo?

 

[WastinTime]

did you give Shaka resources etc to improve diplo?

I did, but I don't think the +1 kicked in. It takes 50 turns. Maybe it did, but I didn't get him to Pleased, which would really help.

 

[Frederiksberg]

I think you coulda sat where I did, 2 tiles east of the chokepoint, and mowed down his units in the desert over and over again.
You'd need a couple spears just to keep the chariots in check.

Yes, but my problem was that I had already committed to an all out attack by chopping 20 units. Defending with a smaller well composed stack of axes and spears was surely the best play in case of an early DOW in order to buy time for research of Construction. I was too far from Construction with almost no gold to spare due to unit cost. I think it's critical to determine very early in this game that an attack on Shaka is the only viable play.

 

[Fine_Distinction]

Yes, but my problem was that I had already committed to an all out attack by chopping 20 units. Defending with a smaller well composed stack of axes and spears was surely the best play in case of an early DOW in order to buy time for research of Construction. I was too far from Construction with almost no gold to spare due to unit cost. I think it's critical to determine very early in this game that an attack on Shaka is the only viable play.

Yeah, I had same problems, it was very hard to figure out what to do in real time.

Initially, I thought that settling the choke-point area might be game changing, that Shaka does not have another metals, at least copper, so I went all-out to be there first ...

Shaka is so close, has a ton of units and attacked me relatively early. From then on, I needed a considerable stack just to defend. And than units cost were dragging my tech rate too much down, so I was falling more and more behind.

Maybe early on I had too many units, dunno. I think main problem I was trying for GLH and also sacrificed a lot to settle choke point, both costed me a lot in terms of lost opportunities. Eh, life

 

[shakabrade]

I did everything you said in my original game but, have take a city from Shaka with elepult, Shaka was at war with Khmer, almost taken Ulundi and then he signs peace with Khmer and comes with 2nd SoD the same power as the one I barely managed to wipe out couple of turns before. I simplt coukdnt outoroduce Shaka in police state. Even with good battle trades.

 

[Fine_Distinction]

I did everything you said in my original game but, have take a city from Shaka with elepult, Shaka was at war with Khmer, almost taken Ulundi and then he signs peace with Khmer and comes with 2nd SoD the same power as the one I barely managed to wipe out couple of turns before. I simplt coukdnt outoroduce Shaka in police state. Even with good battle trades.

WT settled 1NE, at really nice spot, with marble (helping Oracle), that probably helped a lot, getting to cats earlier gives you more time to outproduce Shaka.

But I generally agree, game seemed practically non-winnable on your first try