BOTM 243: Shaka and Hobbes, Emperor - Final Spoiler - Game Submitted

[MarleysGh0st]

BOTM 243: Shaka and Hobbes, Emperor - Final Spoiler - Game Submitted



Use this thread to tell us what happened in your game, particularly anything after 1AD

Did you win?

Reading Requirements
If you are participating in BOTM 243 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.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Took Montys two remaining cities and got a conquest victory in 75 AD.

 

[MarleysGh0st]

Outstanding!

 

[Frederiksberg]

Outstanding!

Thanks. I wouldn't be surprised though if someone finished conquest in the BC's.

It was a fun game that illustrated very well the power of the impi. I also liked the small map that made the game faster to play. I rarely finish games because it takes too long, especially on the higher levels (immortal, deity). For that reason, I would like to see more games on small maps. A small map makes the game easier, but that could be compensated by making challenger saves where the AI is given extra stuff like settlers or workers. Not that I would play those very often, but some players might like the extra challenge.

 

[Powerfaker]

I liked the land Shaka had available, so chose to settle peacefully first rather than conquer.

SIP, killed a scout from Genghis and Monty and made peace. Ragnar kept his units hidden.
Killed some archers from Toku but he refused peacedeals. Then he serves the Zulu with this party:

Spoiler :

One Impi chases all his workers + settler away from Banana, the other Impi collects them

Build GLH, Oracle => Civil Service (± 600BC), Build Colossus, Circumnavigation before 1AD as well
Initially Monty and Genghis fight. Monty conquers 1 city. Later (early AD's) only Genghis versus Ragnar keep fighting, Ragnar loosing cities.
I notice the tech pace is super slow. Nobody is ever going to reach Feudalism it seems. My plan is to conquer with knights and settle enough for domination. However Toku keeps expanding exclusively northwest, blocking my own expansion, so he gets to deal with HA's. After finishing him it's less than 10T to knights and I have 16 strong cities to roll out my plan resulting in a for me unusual early domination 1050AD.

 

[Kaitzilla]

The warmongering AI are pretty relentless on Deity difficulty.

I wish I was wise enough to go for widespread choking, but I opted for distant fortress cities to soak up Monty and Genghis while I used used religion and (Liberate) to friend Ragnar.

Small map, Emperor starting units, Impi, gah that choke opportunity I chickened out on.


Anyway, beat up Toku, then had a very fun war against Monty and Genghis at the same time.

No wonders without marble and stone.

Police State at the start had me building units forever

So, so broke on gold.
A lot of teaching was done through peace deals.

 

[MarleysGh0st]

Anyway, beat up Toku, then had a very fun war against Monty and Genghis at the same time.

But did you win?

I suppose if you hadn't, it wouldn't have been so much fun.

 

[Kaitzilla]

But did you win?

I suppose if you hadn't, it wouldn't have been so much fun.

Of course!

The small map kept the warmongers from going too wild.


An amphibious assault almost got me good at the start.

Spoiler :

Later, I was schooled in just how long an AI will refuse to talk peace if they DOW the human (or get bribed to DOW) instead of the other way around. (twice as long in turns )

Spoiler :

Monty was thankfully pretty quiet after capturing my most southwest coastal city.
A couple turns of him bombarding down the new wall, then the small party of defenders retreated while 1 more unit was whipped in the city to make a last stand.
Exactly as planned.


I've really started rolling over cities lately since changing my strategy.
I barely build expensive Trebuchets anymore.
Or bombard cities down all the way unless the defenders are strong and on a hill.

I hit the city with 4 suicide Barrage I Catapults.
Or 3 suicide Barrage II Catapults followed by a City Raider II Trebuchet.
A lot of times the top defender only has a 30% chance of not taking any damage from the suicide catapult, so by the time the Treb rolls up it has great odds to survive.
Whether the city has 100% defenses or 0%, whether the attacking Catapult is full hp or 0.1 hp, all the collateral damage is the same.
If the top defender gets lucky and still has full hp after the suicide catapults, I might try to assassinate it with a City Raider III Sword or Mace before sending in the Trebuchet to get the last collateral damage attack in.

Sure I lose 200 or 150 guaranteed on each city or enemy stack hit by the suicide catapults, but I'm not waiting around for the artillery to heal up.
Or standing around lots of turns shooting down walls too much.
All that matters is getting all the defending units except the one on top down to 50% hp.


One case where I might not like mass suicide catapults?
A city with a lot of multiple-Drill-promotion units, Catapults, Trebuchets, or half-hp injured units is just going to soak up new collateral damage like crazy.
That city might need a more traditional attack of 0% city defenses and lots of city raiders.

I guess a Trebuchet heavy game now for me would be one where I'm sure I can upgrade a lot of them to cannons.

Heroic Epic (+100% ) city making Barrage III (10xp) suicide Catapults? That is unreal!
But is it better than 3 cities making Barrage II Catapults? hmmmmm

I'll keep trying it and say something if I fall out of love on the suicide catapult idea.

**Edit**
Actually, 3 Barrage II catapults are all that is needed to get longbows down to 3.7/6 hp with collateral damage.
4 Barrage I catapults will get Longbows down to 3.6/6 hp with collateral damage.
4 City Raider catapults will get Longbows down to 3.8/6hp with collateral damage.

A Trebuchet can use collateral damage to get them down to 3.6/6 hp max, but a Catapult can use collateral damage to get a Longbow down to 3.3/6 hp max since it has more base (5 vs. 4).
I keep forgetting that 50% hp through collateral damage is only really possible if the of the defender matches (or is less than) the of the Catapult or Trebuchet.
Using Catapults or Trebuchets to try to collateral damage down Rifles or Infantry isn't going to work very well.

 

[MarleysGh0st]

I'll have to try your idea with the catapults. I know my wars plod along way too slowly, when I'm bombarding down those defenses. Particularly when they're starting at 100% and I'm using cats and trebs.

 

[Fine_Distinction]

Thanks. I wouldn't be surprised though if someone finished conquest in the BC's.

It was a fun game that illustrated very well the power of the impi. I also liked the small map that made the game faster to play. I rarely finish games because it takes too long, especially on the higher levels (immortal, deity). For that reason, I would like to see more games on small maps. A small map makes the game easier, but that could be compensated by making challenger saves where the AI is given extra stuff like settlers or workers. Not that I would play those very often, but some players might like the extra challenge.

Hi @Frederiksberg, can you say more how you conquered everybody so quickly? Maybe a couple screenshots between getting HBR and conquering Japanese and what was your army conquering Aztecs and Mongols?

I replayed this game a couple times, trying an HA rush supported by Impis. I am getting HBR at a similar - or even earlier - time than you, but my conquest is much slower. And once later civs have 4-5 cities it drags forever ... especially that once they connect metals it is much more difficult.

EDIT: After too many replays, I did get an early conquest - but I am still curious how others played. I under-used Impi, built very few, had no idea that "defending" stacks of chariots are a thing in AI cities

 

[Frederiksberg]

@Fine_Distinction, I can give a rough sketch of my strategy. First of all I built a bunch of early Impis as soon as I got copper connected. My goal was to have at least two impis roaming the lands of each of the four AI opponents. As long as the AI doesn't have metals, impis can move around with impunity and destroy every improvement the AI tries to build. And you even get some gold for your coffers! Monty and his jaguars were a slight problem, but by keeping my impis in the forests most of the time, I could keep them reasonably safe. I also turned off research after having secured HBR, BW and the basic worker techs. Finally, I stopped building settlers when I had a core of four cities, and near the end, I razed a couple of captured cities to lower expenses. One more thing, I let my workers build a long road towards the AI to secure good mobility of my forces.

 

[Fine_Distinction]

@Fine_Distinction, I can give a rough sketch of my strategy. First of all I built a bunch of early Impis as soon as I got copper connected. My goal was to have at least two impis roaming the lands of each of the four AI opponents. As long as the AI doesn't have metals, impis can move around with impunity and destroy every improvement the AI tries to build. And you even get some gold for your coffers! Monty and his jaguars were a slight problem, but by keeping my impis in the forests most of the time, I could keep them reasonably safe. I also turned off research after having secured HBR, BW and the basic worker techs. Finally, I stopped building settlers when I had a core of four cities, and near the end, I razed a couple of captured cities to lower expenses. One more thing, I let my workers build a long road towards the AI to secure good mobility of my forces.

 

[Fine_Distinction]

Thanks! I came up with a similar strategy except I did not build enough Impis, harassed AIs typically with just one or even used the same one to harass two neighboring AIs. I also noted that if an Impi stayed in BFC AI will just build units and don't try to rebuild improvements so I was going in and out but sometimes forgetting to harass AI regularly. You also mentioned harassing an AI with woodsman II warrior but due to lack of barbarians I never managed to get one.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Keeping the AI backward by pillaging their lands is probably the key to a fast victory. Toku only got to one city and Ragnar to two cities before they were eliminated from my game. Makes the conquest a lot easier and pillaging also prevents the AI from getting any early showstopper techs like feudalism.

 

[Fine_Distinction]

Not actual GOTM, after several replays, so not comparable with @Frederiksberg result. But felt good while I am waiting for the Mac save of the Xmas game ...

 

[Frederiksberg]

@Fine_Distinction, good game! I can see you used a slightly different strategy beelining Feudalism.

 

[Fine_Distinction]

@Fine_Distinction, good game! I can see you used a slightly different strategy beelining Feudalism.

@Frederiksberg, that was my best attempt and generally a lucky game. I was normally building Stonehedge since many cities needed monuments, but this game Ragnar build it for me and I conquered it soon after

I didn't save this game, but as I recall, I did not plan to get Feudalism from the beginning (normally I was just turtling to currency during conquest) but kinda realized that my economy is doing pretty well in spite of constant conquest and go for it. I remember getting it late and not helping that much in the end - I got it only to make AI capitulate. OTOH, I was probably not that expensive to get, I remember AI speed of research was glacial and that I could get any wonder I wanted, so I probably just oracles it (researching Monarchy) which made it much cheaper than normally. And since it was a late Oracle it costed much less in terms of delayed growth. On the other hand, the only pay off was Mongols capitulating having just 2 poorly defended cities with my army very close, so it probably saved my about 3 turns, which may not be worth 150 hammers for Oracle and researching a couple mostly useless techs. OTOH, in spite of the road system, transporting my army from the core cities to the Mongols took almost 10 turns, so I had hopes capitulating will be easier and faster. Stopped replying after this, so not sure if Feudalism was worth it, I just remember being disappointed in how late they capitulated (and Monty never did).

 

[Frederiksberg]

My intuition says that researching beyond BW and HBR is not really needed and the gold is better spent on maintaining a larger army. I think I also captured Stonehenge in my game, but building wonders is probably not the way to go either.

One thing I should probably have done differently in my game was to attack the far away AI first. I can easily attack later the close by AI with fresh units from my core cities, so the early units should focus on those faraway cities. I think this might be one thing you could do to push the conquest date into the BCs.

 

[Fine_Distinction]

yeah, I was thinking the same, late game production capabilities are not a problem, but getting troops to Mongols or Aztecs was taking insane amount of time. Also these were two most dangerous AIs, so killing them first made sense.

I do not think any research beyond HBR was necessary, I just thought it may be a more convenient way to conquest, less relying on proper logistics, which is not my strength

Happy New Year