BOTM 217: Elizabeth, Deity - First Spoiler - 1AD

[Fine_Distinction]

Perhaps if the AIs' dominant religion (Hinduism in my game) had spread to even one of my cities I could have converted and gotten on Hanny's good side, but I was so weak and puny he'd probably still be unavoidably drawn toward crushing me like a Brood X cicada.

I played the easier save, but that is exactly what happened in my game - both neighbors got Buddhism and I also converted - and so far they keep me alive even though I completely neglected military so far (relative ranking 0.3-0.4).

 

[krikav]

@Fine_Distinction
I think that going for cuirs against Hannibal sounds like a sensible move even though he is friendly. He is close by so the attack can come sooner and it's easier to reinforce and defend. And if you conquer him you then have one flank totally safe when turning your attention to the other AIs.

As far as I have understod it, not a single AI starts to plot at friendly, only at pleased. (Although Cathy can be bribed against you by some other AI even if he is friendly).

Getting MilTrad from liberalism is the standard play.
Self tech nationalism, bulb education and if you can manage to get compass and metalcasting in a trade, you should be able to bulb liberalism too if you avoid machinery.

There are basically two ways to get cuirs, either you build HAs or war elephants and then upgrade them to cuirs, or you whip cuirs straight. Which approach that is best depends from game to game, but most often HAs->Upgrade is the best.
I'm a sucker for stables and like to have at least two of them, but the key thing is to get a bunch of HAs/Cuirs with combat2 straight out of the gates, so having vassalage or theocracy can substitute stables.

If you take the upgrading path, it's nice to get out a few great marchants to run trade missions to get alot of cash (this is a reason why upgrading is good, because you can turn GPeoplePoints->Cash->Hammers via upgrade.
In either case, once you have libbed MilTrad, you start to tech gunpowder but you don't finish it until you have gold and HAs synced up.
Set a target and work toward it.
Example:
"Hmm... for this war I think I need 25 cuirs, that means I need to build 25 HAs and get 25*170= 4250 gold.. That second GMerchant will spawn at turn X and will reach the temple of aretmetis city turn Y, so then I better start builing those HAs at turn Z at the latest so I have those 25 HAs ready... Better built 30-35 of them, I can upgrade a few more using gold from a 0% slider and conquest gold after I start rolling."

Regarding at what date/turn you get them.. That doesn't matter that much really. If you can hit the AIs before they get engineering thats really sweet because pikes can be abit annoying.
But really, if you don't hold back too much, and if you get enough units you will have a fun time rolling over the AIs all the way until they get rifling.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Hi, I am back after a long hiatus. I am not eligible to play easier saves for the competition, but I still remember brutal Tokugawa deity game, so decided to play "hard monarch" version just for fun.

Nice report - but I don't understand the bolded bit. In case there's any doubt, you can play whichever save you wish to. So playing the adventurer save - as you've done here - is absolutely fine.

 

[Fine_Distinction]

Nice report - but I don't understand the bolded bit. In case there's any doubt, you can play whichever save you wish to. So playing the adventurer save - as you've done here - is absolutely fine.

HI DS, I think it used to be something in the description that if you ended up in the top half of scores of a previous GOTM, you are not supposed to play adventurer save, at least I remember something like that from the time of the infamous Toku deity game. I do not see it anymore and since adventurer saves are not eligible fr medals anyway, I see your point. Good to know for the future.

 

[Fine_Distinction]

@Fine_Distinction
I think that going for cuirs against Hannibal sounds like a sensible move even though he is friendly. He is close by so the attack can come sooner and it's easier to reinforce and defend. And if you conquer him you then have one flank totally safe when turning your attention to the other AIs.

As far as I have understod it, not a single AI starts to plot at friendly, only at pleased. (Although Cathy can be bribed against you by some other AI even if he is friendly).

Getting MilTrad from liberalism is the standard play.
Self tech nationalism, bulb education and if you can manage to get compass and metalcasting in a trade, you should be able to bulb liberalism too if you avoid machinery.

There are basically two ways to get cuirs, either you build HAs or war elephants and then upgrade them to cuirs, or you whip cuirs straight. Which approach that is best depends from game to game, but most often HAs->Upgrade is the best.
I'm a sucker for stables and like to have at least two of them, but the key thing is to get a bunch of HAs/Cuirs with combat2 straight out of the gates, so having vassalage or theocracy can substitute stables.

If you take the upgrading path, it's nice to get out a few great marchants to run trade missions to get alot of cash (this is a reason why upgrading is good, because you can turn GPeoplePoints->Cash->Hammers via upgrade.
In either case, once you have libbed MilTrad, you start to tech gunpowder but you don't finish it until you have gold and HAs synced up.
Set a target and work toward it.
Example:
"Hmm... for this war I think I need 25 cuirs, that means I need to build 25 HAs and get 25*170= 4250 gold.. That second GMerchant will spawn at turn X and will reach the temple of aretmetis city turn Y, so then I better start builing those HAs at turn Z at the latest so I have those 25 HAs ready... Better built 30-35 of them, I can upgrade a few more using gold from a 0% slider and conquest gold after I start rolling."

Regarding at what date/turn you get them.. That doesn't matter that much really. If you can hit the AIs before they get engineering thats really sweet because pikes can be abit annoying.
But really, if you don't hold back too much, and if you get enough units you will have a fun time rolling over the AIs all the way until they get rifling.

Hi @Kikav, thanks a lot! Very informative, I will try it. If they cannot start to plot at friendly, than I am also safe from Gilgamesh, at least for the time being, he started to plot at friendly

 

[DynamicSpirit]

HI DS, I think it used to be something in the description that if you ended up in the top half of scores of a previous GOTM, you are not supposed to play adventurer save, at least I remember something like that from the time of the infamous Toku deity game. I do not see it anymore and since adventurer saves are not eligible fr medals anyway, I see your point. Good to know for the future.

Ah I see! That rule did exist originally, but it was scrapped many years ago. I wouldn't be too surprised if there was some text still lurking somewhere that someone forgot to change though (We did actually discover and remove one such bit of text from the GOTM server site only about a month ago - so sorry if there was some confusion there). The rule for at least the last 10 years has been, that you can play and submit whichever save you feel most comfortable playing.

 

[Fine_Distinction]

Ah I see! That rule did exist originally, but it was scrapped many years ago. I wouldn't be too surprised if there was some text still lurking somewhere that someone forgot to change though (We did actually discover and remove one such bit of text from the GOTM server site only about a month ago - so sorry if there was some confusion there). The rule for at least the last 10 years has been, that you can play and submit whichever save you feel most comfortable playing.

Good to know . I remember seeing rule like this somewhere in save/class description and that was the only reason I played this soul-crushing Toku game on deity .

 

[MirrorGuard]

Hard game. But there is still hope.
Settling on the PH next to the wet corn. Hannibal got busy around T70 and started the attack at BC 825. I lost my fish corn city and I was forced to abandon Hastings several times for a chance to destroy Hannibal's elepult squads. What a bloody war!

During the war, Napolen dowed on me; but his scout roamed near my border who gave me a chance to use a catapult to hit every turn. I got victory points against French and 1 siege 3 catapult for free. Perhaps that accelerated our peace talk. Then Japan was bribed into war against me. He had 4 melee units near Norttingham.
Numidian cavalry and elephants caused heavy casualties.(I have lost 12 spearman already?????). So far I have taken Hippo and Carthage. My next target is the iron+ivory city in the bottom left corner. Hannibal has engineering but not feudalism yet.
Sumail and Babylon were fighting each other. Sorry for posting an image slightly past AD1