[BTS] BOTM 195: Julius Caesar, Always-War - Final Spoiler - Game Submitted

[DynamicSpirit]

BOTM 195: Julius Caesar, Monarch - Final Spoiler - Game Submitted

Use this thread to tell us what happened in your game, particularly anything after 1AD. Did you manage to win? If so, how?

Reading Requirements
If you are participating in BOTM 195 then you MUST NOT read this thread unless

• You have submitted your entry

Posting Restrictions

• Do not post any savegame file from the game. Discussions and screenshots are fine but not actual games.

 

[Tobiyogi]

Thanks for hosting a wonderful game! Save game submitted.

I have never played AW with Julius, but Rome is a strong civ, IMP + TGW guarantees 10 GGs and ORG is a top-tier trait (when you never get trade routes).
When I was at 25 cities versus the end of the game, I was paying 150 Gold Civic upkeep, so imagine 300 gpt for non-ORG character. When I went into State property, it was only 100 gpt something.

My favorite character for AW is probably ORG/CHA Napoleon. Napoleon from Sumeria.

Let's get back to the game. There was something that made it too easy (for me), also in the challenger save. I think it is the combination of "Raging Barbs" on the one side and us having Stonehenge (fogbusting) + Longbow + stone in a very good postion to finish TGW decently early. Some AI was really crippled by the Barbs. Genghis took an eternity to build his 2nd city, and the barbs smashed his tiles several times. Qin was doing quite well, also Tokugawa and Louis. The others not. So I had a very easy time taking out Lizzy, Monty and Genghis. I went for Qin in third place though, because closer and sometimes you need to harm the better opponent first, don't know why.

One of my rules is, as long as I don't see Elephants, I don't build them either. Unless I don't have any metal whatsoever. No problem, Praets and Cats were enough for a very long time.
I settled for the ugly iron in the west, I somewhat wanted to leverage our Unique Unit here.

Did never get HBR and when I saw Elephants, I had already gunpowder.

In the Lib Era, I decided to go for Grenadiers, because a 12 strength unit was more than enough and M. Science is the closest. It was beautiful to upgrade a bunch of CR3 Praets to Grenadiers. Ok, it's not really needed, because when you bring enough siege.... but still nice.

I played it to Domination. The second half is always a bit tedious, but I adore the beginning when you can play some tricks on the AI and watch their reaction
My greatest exploit was a Guerilla III Longbow (works also with a simple archer, but 10 exp are only sufficient for Guerilla 2, unless protective) and a Woodsman III Warrior. 20 Exp points spread over two basic units are enough and you can choke at least 2 Civs, even more when they have very close borders. Some chariots in addition to that. My Hill-Longbow alone took 6-8 workers from Qin. That is a super-weapon - maybe too strong? Because we must also consider that - without a Longbow - we probably wouldn't get such an early GG. You could suicide a couple of archers for that though....

The Woody III warrior was my best unit throughout the whole game as Super-Healer with Extra Movement and surprise attack in forests. He got all the upgrades for free. Grenardier eventually.


My level for this is probably Emperor. The Immortal forum games, where I also contributed two or three, are too tough and this one was never really in danger. But I enjoyed a lot, many thanks.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

There was something that made it too easy (for me), also in the challenger save.

You're playing a different game than most of us!!

I retired in 980AD when Rome fell to the Germans, I killed 91 units and had four cities but once the AI started bringing catapults it was game over.

Fun game thanks!

 

[Tobiyogi]

Sounds like you played it quite defensively with 4 cities. AW is a kind of trade-off, every city you capture means something like one future stack less against you and 2-3 turns of research less for your opponent (ofc dependent on AI but some characters build nothing else than units which you can see when you capture cities w/o any infrastructure)
So no doubt that one has to go out and take stuff asap. The ORG helps in keeping those cities at tolerable costs.

 

[nocho]

After eliminating the English in the stone age and the Aztecs in the late BCs, with China half captured, the early ADs were spent eliminating the rest of China. By this time though some slightly more serious stacks started showing up. Especially from the Mongols who temporarily got one of my Chinese cities. However, superior units with double promos out of the gate thanks to vassalage and some extra road speed through engineering, were too much for them in the end. The last Chinese city fell in 400AD, then the Mongols themselves were gobbled up by 835AD. I was actually thinking about space for a while here, investing in tech and some infrastructure in far-away eastern cities (far from the front that is) for an eventual space-push, but then changed my mind when I looked at the victory screen and saw that I was at about 40% land with domination just at 60%. The risk of tripping acccidental domination looked quite big, so decided to make it not accidental. So here I started building settlers to settle ice-balls and sites were cities existed that I had previously razed because they looked pretty worthless at the time. Meanwhile kept pushing west, captured 2 French cities and then also 2 German ones including Berlin. Settled some land in between and hit domination in 1030AD. Not a bad date I guess, but I'm sure I could've done it quicker if domination had been the goal from the outset. I expect to see some of the real pros maybe pull this off in the early ADs.

 

[Tobiyogi]

Great victory time!
I should have built settlers too, but the longer AW goes, the more I get "tunnel vision", so I just kept on fighting.....

 

[Conquistador 63]

It was a really fun game, albeit much easier than I had anticipated. It is true that TGW + raging barbs (plus the nice starting bonus) felt almost as cheating against the poor AI.

Like nocho, I flirted with the idea of going to space, as I suppose my domination finish date and score will pale in comparison with the stronger players' games. But in the end decided it would be too boring (I hate milking for score) and ended up with a domination win @870AD for some 150k points.

Thanks for the game, DynamicSpirit!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

It was a really fun game, albeit much easier than I had anticipated. It is true that TGW + raging barbs (plus the nice starting bonus) felt almost as cheating against the poor AI.

Guess I'm going to have to make things a lot harder next time then!

 

[Tobiyogi]

Guess I'm going to have to make things a lot harder next time then!

A little bit, yes. EmpAW would be a sweet challenge one fine day

 

[MarleysGh0st]

Continuing with my Contender save:

Having conquered Elizabeth in the BC, Monty was my next target. I completed the Pyramids in 130, then switched to Police State during a golden age, for the military unit construction bonus. I captured all of Monty's mainland cities by 430, but he had settled Tlaxcala on a one-square desert island, so that was his refuge until I could build a navy (i.e. one trireme and one galley) so that a pair of praetorians could capture that in 805. Meanwhile, I turned my attention to Qin Shi Huang.

As my offensive against QSH progressed, he peace-vassaled to Genghis, but this being an always-war game, that hardly seemed to matter. The Chinese were conquered in 920. Genghis was my next target; all of his cities were captured or razed by 1240.

Bismarck was my next target. While that war proceeded, the AP was finally completed in 1345. I was really worried that Isabella would build that, since she had founded Buddhism and all of the AI but Louis were now Buddhist, so her religious victory was a very real possibility. Luckily for me, Louis was the one to build the AP; he was Hindu, and hadn't even spread that faith to Bismarck or Isabella. No threat there, any more!

Around this time, I decided I needed a Conquest victory more than Domination (if I'm ever to earn a second Eptathlon) so I started razing all captured cities, instead of just the indefensible ones. But I had made this decision too late, after having filled in some gaps in the map with my own settlers. I conquered Bismarck in 1380, then moved on Louis. Paris was captured (and with 9 wonders, I kept that one). In a last-minute attempt to avoid crossing the domination threshold, I moved my units out of two captured German cities, inviting Isabella to walk in. She didn't take the bait, though (or didn't have horse archers in range), so my cultural borders expanded and I had to settle for Domination in 1440. Not bad, but several centuries slower than nocho and Conquistador63, I see. When this happened, I was researching Military Tradition; hoping for cuirassiers to speed up the final conquests.

In an Always-War game, the overriding question must be "What's the butcher's bill?" So here's my answer:

Thanks for the game, DynamicSpirit! And thanks for being generous enough with the bonuses to make this contender save winnable.

Now, you were also generous enough to give us two months to complete this game. I hope that doesn't mean we'll have to wait that long to see BOTM 196.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I hope that doesn't mean we'll have to wait that long to see BOTM 196.

This is in advanced preparation and will launch next week

 

[MarleysGh0st]

This is in advanced preparation and will launch next week

Excellent!

 

[Frederiksberg]

Having very little experience with AW I played the AD part of the game very conservatively and kept research up in the expectation that the AI would reach Feudalism and longbows at some point. The tech rate was, however, extremely slow even for Monarch level and this never happened! In hindsight it would have been optimal to stop research and just spam praetorians even when it's sort of a boring strategy.

In the early AD's the Roman empire hit 14 cities including two island cities for 2 gpt trade routes. Captured and kept Karakorum and a chinese city with gems and gold. As I wrote in my first spoiler I lacked focus on choking so the early AD's were a time of defense. Stacks of 4-6 units came rolling regularly from Bismarck, Izzy, Toku and Louis. In the beginning also from Quin, but My first praetorian SOD payed him a visit and he was eliminated early on. Karakorum was the city closest to the AI's and all the AI stacks went there and suicided against it's walls and longbows. Gold and iron was pillaged a couple of times but other than that there was no danger. Karakorum was also the place were I launched my second praetorian SOD (reinforced by a defensive LB, a chariot GG medic and an axe). This stack did some opportunistic attacks sacking and razing a couple of weakly defended German cities including Berlin and finally traveling through Spain while pillaging (Spanish hilltop cities were no-go without cats). It was attacked from time to time and was very close to being wiped out but 5 heroic units made it back from Spain and met up with a fresh stack of cats, praetorians and horse archers for the capture of Hamburg. As I sent out more and more SOD's the AI attacks at Karakorum became scarce. In the end I teched to Guilds and the last city that fell to a huge stack of knights was Spanish. Izzy and Toku got to Machinery but only managed to build two xbows before it was all over. Conquest at 1140 AD.

All you needed for this game was praetorians and catapults (and some longbows/axes for stack and city defense) and I guess a conquest win in the early AD's would be possible - in particular if attention is paid to choking in the BC's.

 

[ZPV]

Domination in 610 AD.
Praets are a bit silly. The usual rules of AW don't apply because you can just kill anything that comes into your territory.
You also don't really need catapults because they beat archers, swordsmen, and sometimes axes fortified in cities.

At 1AD, Genghis and Elizabeth were dead, Bismarck was cowed, and Monty was almost dead.
I just about had two stacks - one in the east, and one in the west.
Bismarck died in 130AD, and Monty followed in 220AD (I waited let an island city grow to size 2 before capturing it, so it wouldn't autoraze.
China took the brunt of the barbarian waves, and failed to really build anything. Qin was destroyed in 340AD.
After that it was just a case of marching all my units into France and building settlers to fill out the land.
If I had tilecounted properly, I might have ignored France and just built settlers and culture - I'm not sure whether it would have been enough.

Toku got to longbows just before the end, but I wasn't trying to invade him, so it didn't matter.

I wonder how this would have played with 3 capitals instead of 2. I didn't have the guts to turn off tech at Iron Working (or CoL/CS for the added culture and production) but I bet it's possible.

Units built
Praetorian 103, Settler 10, Worker 10, Great General 7, Warrior 6, Work Boat 5, Axeman 4, Chariot 4, Spy 4, Galley 3, Trireme 1, and 5 great people.

 

[Powerfaker]

This was a much different game than it must have been back in the days. I felt in control already before 2000BC. 2 untouchable LB wandering around quickly got to 5XP and started farming workers right before 3000BC. AI capitals like our own didn't look impressive either. Raging barbs started raging long after I built TGW. I didn't kill a single barb unit in the BC's. The more of them went to GK and other AI. My LB's did kill many bears, maybe that's a sign of raging barb animals??

I chose to built an academy with the GS, would soon be more productive than settle. Like most I settled 2nd city on the stone and with it I settled the GA here (quick access to sheep + 3gpt to keep science 100% pace). Great city for both cottaging and TGW boost, which was built in Rome 2600BC, right after city 3 settled on PH north at the copper.

The 1st praets moved out between 1300-1400BC and headed for Elizabeth's single city. Moved in GK next who managed to have a 2nd city despite heavy barb attacks. Those too were taken rather easy.
Next target Monty had pulled up quite a strong defence. On top of that a lot of bad RNG (these things always seem to go hand in hand) turned it to a slaughter fest that cost me 80-90 % of my troops. Eventually he was 5BC eliminated, 2 cities taken over.

Since I produced units non stop anyway the losses against Monty didnt'delay the next campaign for long.The march to the west began.Qin fell and Toku/Bismarck were invaded when domination came in reach. 15 new cities were settled simultaneously and in 3 turns borderpopped to topple 60% land.

During the game Rome produced 3 GProphets which I settled in Rome. I didn't have any GP city. Besides TGW I built Mids and HG in Rome, created some nice failgold too. I missed Oracle=>CS by 3T, well, 1T away from whipping it. I probably would have done that. It was 675BC, I hadn't planned to try, but couldn't pass an attempt when it was 10 turns away. And mssing it wasn't a big deal. I had preats and siege, all I needed for war.. Failgold now went into getting currency faster. By 1AD I had CS/Mach, on the way to Eng, then Feud/Guilds, eventually Music for the GA to start a …... GA.
Of 5GG I settled 4 + 1 scout Medic3.

Oh and a modest butcher's bill (they're wide apart in the statistics screen):
Kills
78 archers
chariots/HA's/axes/swords ± 12-15 each
Losses
16 praets
6 cats / 4HA / 1 or 2 several others (both LB died)
A win/loss ratio of 80/20 was harsh when the majoriy of the fights is high in the 90's. (as long as you get the luck when you need it I'm not complaining)

 

[LANCE1313]

Adventurers save, zero AW experience, very low level player (This game is further proof of this)

I finished my 1AD game summary in what I thought was a good position but with a few AI units marching out of the fog and the following statement, "I'm a bit worried about this but I'll deal with it"

Unfortunately the game was already done at that point and I was simply the last one to know about it. Two turns later I've got ~30 AI units in my eastern territory. I've got adequate defense to keep them out of my cities but I can't keep them out of my territory. I convert to producing 100% units but still can't compete. They pillage my iron and resources repeatedly. For a time it's a slow and painful death. I refuse to give the AI the satisfaction of resigning mostly as punishment to myself. At some point I start cheering for the AI in battles. In 1465AD I'm conquered.

As stated at 1AD with 8 cities, double the score of the next AI and 2 AI's destroyed (English + Mongolia) I thought I was in good shape. In retrospect I see that that meant there were still 6 full strength AI's just lining up to kill me. Having read the other summaries it appears I made two big errors. 1) I didn't build the Great Wall. I spent a lot of resources dealing with the barbs. This would have freed those up for conquering and sent those Barbs to attack the AI's. 2) I didn't choke more AI's. I didn't think I could manage it but it needed to be a higher priority.

I'll consider replaying this at some point after a bit of time away from it.

 

[Mitchum]

Contender save. Continued from my first post here.

I had decided around 2000 BC that I would push for early conquest. I had researched to Construction and then set the research slider to 0%. I cranked out nothing but Cats and Praets. The biggest issue was a) finding the AI because I spent the early years choking and worker stealing and b) moving my units through barb-infested jungles with limited roads (I assume the barbs pillaged a lot of them).

Interestingly, my choking must have worked well because I never once saw a stack of doom at one of my cities. I think I won one battle from inside a city and that was against a barb warrior that beelined one of my cities as soon as they could enter our borders (and before I built the GW).

Once I had the war engine running, it was just a matter of moving the units around the board and taking out cities as quickly as possible.

England eliminated 1225 BC
Mongols eliminated 750 BC
Aztecs eliminated 215 BC
Chinese eliminated 215 BC
Spanish eliminated 215 BC
Germans eliminated 155 BC
French eliminated 65 BC
Japanese eliminated 50 BC

Conquest victory 35 BC.

 

[MarleysGh0st]

Conquest victory 35 BC.

Wow!

Well, now I don't feel so bad about triggering the Domination limit in 1440 AD, when I wanted to push on for conquest.

 

[Mitchum]

Well, now I don't feel so bad about triggering the Domination limit in 1440 AD, when I wanted to push on for conquest.

Frederiksberg outlined my entire strategy with the following quote, although I didn't build longbows and I built nothing but cats and Praets as soon as I researched Construction and hooked up iron.

All you needed for this game was praetorians and catapults (and some longbows/axes for stack and city defense) and I guess a conquest win in the early AD's would be possible - in particular if attention is paid to choking in the BC's.

Interestingly, I didn't want a junk desert city so I took the luscious dessert city from England instead to secure iron. The problem with this strategy was that even though I had choked Liz with a woodie axe and stolen 2 early workers from her, she still had 3 or 4 archers in London at all times so I had to amass quite a stack of axes (this was pre-Construction) in order to take the city. Add 4 or 5 turns of revolt and 15 turns for borders to pop (I settled my GArt in the capital about T50) meant that I didn't have access to iron or Praets until really late in the game (~T130... don't know what year this is but it's after 1000 BC!!) even though I had learned IW fairly early (2575 BC).

If I were to play the game again, I would settle a city in the desert to get iron and Praets online ASAP. Once you have Praets, Conquest is fairly trivial, especially if you've choked and worker-stolen the four nearby AI. Don't forget, the sooner you hit 'em, the weaker they are. The four nearby AI had been denied access to metal and horses (the other four had them) and all of the AI were a LONG way from longbows so I only faced archers, axes, a couple of swords and a handful of chariots and spears.

I think a game that focused on getting iron hooked up ASAP could finish before 500 BC. This is what ZPV was suggesting here ( ZPV):

I wonder how this would have played with 3 capitals instead of 2. I didn't have the guts to turn off tech at Iron Working (or CoL/CS for the added culture and production) but I bet it's possible.

Praets and cats cost about the same but Praets can come much sooner so you can kill 'em all with their pants down while the inept AI try to survive the raging barbs.

For comparison to some other games:

              Built     Lost     Killed
Archers         9         1        77
Axes           14         8        20
Chariots        1         1        13
Warriors        1         0        12
Spears          1         0         9
Praets/swords  32         7         7
Cats           36        22         0

BTW, thanks for the very interesting game, DynamicSpirit. It's fun to play different variants from time to time.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Frederiksberg outlined my entire strategy with the following quote, although I didn't build longbows and I built nothing but cats and Praets as soon as I researched Construction and hooked up iron.

...

I think a game that focused on getting iron hooked up ASAP could finish before 500 BC.

@Mitchum : Great game! I'm happy that people follow my advice even before I have given it

With hindsight I'm as good as you . Or is it, "in hindsight"? Not sure when it comes to the finer details of the English language .

I realize now, I blew my chance for a really early finish because I actually got iron with my second city (eliminated Lizzie with my two longbows)