[BTS] Can this game be won? NEED ADVICE! (NC 175 Bismarck Deity)

[Olafeson]

So this is the Elepult stack i managed to get @ 150 B.C.
5 Phants, 8 catas, 10 axes, 1 spear. Pacal has no Longbows yet, but maybe very soon.
I guess i could have done better, not sure what a good elepult attack date is on deity on a low commerce map. Maybe you guys can tell me. I am pretty sure it is kind of late.

Map rly lacks commerce. Sailing into traderoutes with the other continent connected by coast tiles, gave me the biggest boost in commerce.
Does this attack have a chance if Pacal does not get longbows next turn? Oxhuitza has 2 swords and 1 cata, Chichen Itza 2 bows. No real big stack discovered with my
scout.

Will try this attack now, and if it fails horrible i restart map, taking your advices into consideration. Thank you again for your tips.

Spoiler :

Attack elepults.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[Pedro78]

I see many flaws in your game : cottaging off-river is not recommended when going for an early rush, there are farms where there shouldn't be, not enough catapults. No point in gifting Pacal a city if you plan to attack him early. 150BC is really late for an elephant attack date, you should usually aim for something like 500BC (depends on the start ofc, but here it wasn't too bad). A couple of river cottages + maths bulb should have done the trick.

Pacal has 11 cities here, so he won't be a pushover. You should rather attack Chicken Pizza first, it has only 2 archers (kinda weird). The tech situation doesen't look bright either. If Pacal doesen't get longbows for a very long time you might have a chance, but then you also have to watch out for peace-vassaling...

Maybe you should try a guided game (post small turnsets, wait for detailed advice), or maybe play the same maps as Deity youtubers (Lain, Imploding) and watch the video later to see what you could have done differently.

 

[Pangaea]

Just looking at the army composition, you don't need a truckload of axes, but more catas and more elephants. As mentioned 150BC is a little late too.

Agree that it's better to go for Chitzen Itza. A size 2 city does nothing for you, but getting Itza at maybe 8-9 is a real addition to your empire. Then move on from there. Get a super medic, and keep adding catas. They'll die, a lot, particularly once you face longbows, which may not be too far off when approaching 1AD. Probably lucky nobody have it yet. Deity AIs can get it ridiculously early.

Try with what you have, though, to get a feel for it. Elepults is a strong move, even on Deity.

I'm not a fan of bulbing Math, it feels like a waste when you get 1500+ beakers for a GS - but maybe it's needed for an early rush in a somewhat squeezed position.

Don't know what your infra looks like, but it can be nice to get up some stables to get Combat2 elephants out of the gate (for instance in the capital). And keep switching builds around to fit in with whips. And add chops so it doesn't mess up production times, but add to it, so you get out units every 1-2 turns, ideally from several cities. It's possible to build up an army pretty quickly. But don't waste forests and anger on a bunch of axes.

 

[Olafeson]

Result of the 900 year war VS Pacal Balboa aka The Italian Stallion never surrenders even when he sits in a cave with Gollum as his last soldier. (Last city)
A legendary fighter. Pacal and Gollum united brothers in arms.

Ironically his last city was the one i gifted him earlier.

@Pedro78 i did use GS for math bulb.
@Pangaea due to low commerce i had nothing to build in my cities besides axes until i got HR and traded for Alpha , then i went for research/scientists and 3 stables and teched to construction. But i try to make fewer axes next try. And keep more forests for Phants/Catas instead of wasting them all on settler/workers.

He was more persistent than i ever imagined, Sitting Bull can learn from this dude fore sure.

Spoiler :

He teched to CS and got maces, later after he lost most of his cities he got engineering and some pikes. I barely lost units, just some catapults.
Does he refuse to cap because i razed 2 cities? Anyway was very fun to smash down pacal till he had nowhere to run but Gollums cave.
There he shall be in peace as far as i am concerned for the rest of the game and eat fish with gollum.

It is time to make peace and get some techs. I expected him to cap sooner since i took 4 capitals and he is stuck with one city.

Well i guess i played that horrible but will continue now and build some courthouses, and try to catch up. He only had the GL in his capital.
His land is mediocre, still no good spot for a bureacracy cap (move palace). I will replay this game after i finished it and try to improve the elepult attack.
Any suggestions how to get bpt from here? At 100% research only 200 bpt @ 740 A.D.

I think i will just buddy up with Justitian for now and try to get my economy back up. I bascially hoped for a fast vassal, but Pacal refused wholeheartedly.

His land:

 

[Olafeson]

And the tech:

Lib was researched 475 A.D. by someone on the other continent. Was really a problem that Pacal refused to cap, now i have no one to trade with.
His land also does not offer too much commerce. How far am i behind in tech, is it possible to catch up with this land? I got the Holy City of Hindus in Lakhamba. Thinking about making a GP for shrine, only 12 cities have hinduism though.

During the war i left slider @ 0% research and only teched currency/monarchy/feudalism with some gold from city conquest.

Spoiler :

I want to move my palace to this place after it comes out of revolt. 1 turn to monotheism for finally org. religion. Maybe pacifism and nat. Epic bulbing to education and building Universities/Oxford. Funnily Pacal still has the stone.

Anyway thank you again for your patient advices, i guess it is hard to deal with noobies. But i hope that sometime in the future i will be able to make a mildy useful and more interesting threat. Will need more expierence for sure.

The step from Imm to deity is indeed not to easy.
Should have made peace sooner for somer techs, then i really wanted to cap him to have a trading partner.

AfterWar.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[Olafeson]

@Pedro78

for sure, i already saw all of Lains YT vids and the latest series from Imploading with Victoria. They are indeed great players which i enjoy to watch and i will wait until next
NC 185 to post another game. I think it is better to play along a NC game that lots of people play at the same time, instead of doing my own thing for another time.

For this game though i will ignore Justinian and probably go for the guys on the other continent in Industrial/Modern Era. They only have 7 cities and i got 14.
Justinian is friendly with me and does not like anybody from the other continent. (cautious to all)

But for now i already learned a lot from replaying this map several times and reading your advices.

Saw some older vids from AZ too but he plays Lib with Taj -> MT and cuirassiers most of the time on pangea.

 

[Olafeson]

Lights out @ ca 900 A.D. Napoleon was plotting but i thought he will just redeclare on his archenemy Mansa. Landed galleys with 7 catas 4 knights and 3 maces out of fog of war and took a coastal city with warrior as MP. Will now retry on my own the elepults attempt.

One last question, i checked Civ Illustrated guide by Kaitzilla. Pacal has "Resist Capitulation" : 4/10 (like most of the leaders)

Why do i have to drag him through a 800 year war capture 12 cities and conquer his capital 4 times and he still refuses to cap?
Because i razed 2 of his absolutely horrible cities that blocked me from settling Refill cities? Because my stack was rather small at the end of the war?

Will he refuse to cap if my "military power ratio" is not high enough compared to his military troops? I think he had maybe 4 or 5 remaining units in his last city.

 

[Lain]

Not going to make a LP for this map, but I played a bit and can upload saves, if you want to look and compare. My attack will be pretty late aswell, but should have strong economy. Getting 2 GS for academy + philo bulb.

Justi will be my target, even though I will lose trade routes which I don't like

On capitulation.. if you lose too many units they won't capitulate because they think they are winning. Maybe that happened, I don't know. Sometimes happens with catapult wars.

 

[elitetroops]

Why do i have to drag him through a 800 year war capture 12 cities and conquer his capital 4 times and he still refuses to cap?
Because i razed 2 of his absolutely horrible cities that blocked me from settling Refill cities? Because my stack was rather small at the end of the war?

A number of conditions need to be fulfilled for an AI to capitulate.

-You must have twice his power rating
-You must have either twice his land OR twice his population
-Target must be below average power rating of all living civs
-You need 40 more war success against him than he has against you

In addition target must obviously not be a vassal to someone else, nor can he have any vassals on his own.

War success is gained from killing units and capturing cities
+10 for captured city
+4 for units killed when attacking
+3 for units killed when defending
+1 for collateral kills (for example capturing a worker on the same tile as defender)

If you cease fire or make a peace treaty, war success is reset to 0.

Hard to say in your case which condition you didn't fulfill.

 

[Gumbolt]

Yeah some tough love on this map. Ai way ahead in tech. Terrible start for Germans given closeness of the AI. Hopeless tech rate for 760ad.

AP Cheese looks unlikely here too given your low population here. Taking Justin down early was probably route here. Even so with your land you would struggle to research quickly.

 

[Pangaea]

Not sure why he wouldn't cap, a bit odd really. But looking at the below, I actually thought you need BOTH twice the land and power, and in a recent game figured that was why an AI didn't want to peace vassal (I had more than twice the land, but not pop due to whipping).

A number of conditions need to be fulfilled for an AI to capitulate.

-You must have twice his power rating
-You must have either twice his land OR twice his population
-Target must be below average power rating of all living civs
-You need 40 more war success against him than he has against you

Looking at one of you screens, you have 1.8 times his power, so perhaps that is why. But that sounds pretty weird when Pacal was down to one city, few units, and you should have had a pretty good army. Or did you lose the lot? That may explain it, as he then thinks the war is going well, strangely enough, because you lose a ton of units.

Thought about playing the start here, but I see Lain have done it, so little point in me doing it. He's probably a better player.

One thing to note about elepult wars is that you don't necessarily want to pummel the city with catapults until all are 'spent'. War elephants with strength 8 (and then some combat promotions) will have pretty good odds, sometimes even after just wiping away the culture defence. With longbows that will obviously change, but I see Pacal didn't even get longbows by the end of the war, so depending on how you approached the warfare, you could perhaps have lost way fewer catas (but some more elephants), by attacking earlier with elephants instead of heavily damaging defenders through collateral. Easier to make such judgement calls when playing. Like with virtually everything in this game, there are few rules of thumb to go by, and "it depends" applies.

Bad luck with Napoleon and naval invasions. The AI is usually worse than useless at that.

 

[Olafeson]

First of all thank you again , the information on " cap conditions " @elitetroops.
Very useful and i wrote them down. In the end of the war i deleted some troops (save money) and and ran down some HA and Phants into 1 pike because i got impatient. I think that may have caused it.

Very small update, in this case especially @Lain , i took into consideration your advices and compared your saves to mine.

Even on your first try you managed to outplay my 3th approach .

- You went for Fishing -> Ah-> HR (after writing) and squeezed in some lighthouses and got the juicy oversee trades to Egypt very quickly.
- I went for Ah-> Hr (after writing) leaving me with less food in coastal cities and i got the traderoutes later even though i discovered France/Egypt sooner.
Only got Sailing/Alpha/Masonry and luckily also Math/IW later for HR techtrade.

- You settled Capital 1SE and got some more grass tiles for cottages.
- I did choose SiP and only got 3 cottages at T84 , you have i think 6 or 7 already , 1 already a village. Impressive.

Result of that is Lain bpt +80 @ T84 , while i got +60 bpt @ T 84. Only managed to get a little bit more than you Turn 92 at which point i already
had an academy in my capital.

Pretty impressive considering , i already knew the whole map. Will focus more on earlier cottages.
Somehow i thought with earlier libraries and 2 scientist in each city i could make up for fewer cottages early game. Looks like nope.

 

[Olafeson]

That is my 3th approach on the map, trying to improve my elepults rush after reading your tips. I think this time i did a better Job.

- T92 ( 575 B.C.) i have +92 bpt and since 2 turns an academy in Cap. T95 i will reach Construction.
- Stables everywhere, 3 axes and every forest is prechopped.

Spoiler :

So personally i think your advices let me reach a pretty solid elepult attack date. Probably not the earliest but noticeably earlier then 150 B.C. like last try.
Cities look better now, probably should have these 2 cottages 10-15 turns earlier which are marked on the map.

Pacal and Justitian both have Monarchy and can tech Feudalism. Want to attack Justinian but maybe waiting if he DoW on me. Egpyt his arch enemy though.

Who to attack Pacal or Justitian?


NC 175 Bismarck v. Chr.-0575.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[Olafeson]

So let me make a cut here, i will play this out now and feel a lot more comfortable on deity. Was very helpful for me at least.
Looking forward to make a more interesting thread in the future when i know more about the game. Maybe these 2 suggestions have not been discussed recently.

Always wanted to try out the outcomes of an early defensive war in the B.C. with a protective/imperialistic leader and/or the GW on deity difficulty.
I thought about Charlemagne (Prot/Imp) with or without the GW. Getting out early Great Generals and use them to mass promote some medieval troops
for an early medieval attack. Since he is considered a rather bad leader.

Maybe that would be interesting, or a median statistic about the wonder dates of pre-industrious wonders on deity.


@Fippy
@Lain ( Gl with NC 183 Mansa Musa ^^) where is part 3 i need my daily dose of Civ 4)
@Pedro78
@Pangaea
@elitetroops
@lymond

Thank you for taking your time and helping out a new guy on the forum. Very friendly.

 

[Pedro78]

I'd attack Justinian then Pacal. Pacal is a pushover you can roll over him easy once you're done with Justy (unless he gets rifles, but that will take quite some time).

You're welcome

 

[Anysense]

I played till 225 BC and it seems that we have a wrong sort of a leader. Both Bismarck's traits are utterly useless on that map. Early wonders are out of question as well as early pottery - there is simply no place for cottages. On the other hand, financial or creative would be great, I would not mind imperialistic too.
In 225 BC I've just finished aesthetics. I overexpanded a bit (Dusseldorf could definitely be settle later) and completely forgot about 'overflow into gold' feature, otherwise the date could be improved by about a dozen turns. All in all, it doesn't look too bad, at least my economy has decent potential and Dortmund will make an excellent GP farm. No city suitable for a strong bureau cap though, Frankfurt would be fine but it will take ages to set up it proprely.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

 

[Olafeson]

Hey @Anysense

i have a couple of questions because i can not open your save, since you play with buffy mod.

Looks like you ReX very hard in the beginning of the game, hamburg and munich took land from Pacal i only would have been able to get if i tookm my first settler there, and
even then i think pacal would have been quicker. It is pretty good land. Pigs, double fish and stone.

I can not see it but maybe you lost the marble to Justinian? Not sure about that, Just from assuming the borders at the minimap.

1 turn into alpha and trade for aesth? You want to run research since you have no cottages?

How did you manage to get so much bpt (+124) with no sailing, no currency and no cottages?
As far as i understand you can only have 1 traderoute/city to either Justinian/Pacal (so only 2-4 commerce/traderoute). I don t think you run 2 scientists in every city,
and i guess your first GS will be in 5 turns so no academy yet.

Why you go do not go for Literature and build the GL and Nat. Epic? If you trade Aesth now for alpha someone else might go for Lit and build the GL.
Is it because you have no marble? As mentioned earlier i can not see that.

You plan on winning Music? And later Lib?

Quite interesting.

 

[Anysense]

Rexed but not really hard 2360, 2080, 1560, 1320, 1040, 875, 775, 650. I'd have settled Hamburg 2S but of course Pacal got there first.
I have 30 beakers produced by 10 scientists, 18 commerce from traderoutes, 30 from coastal/ocean tiles, 9 from cetral tiles and a bit more from the rest. I have libraries in 7 cities out of 9 (there was nothing else to build for quite a while). Still it's not much considering that I've been squeezing everything from my economy to reach aesthetics ASAP.
Marble is contested, we both have it in 2nd ring so I can probably have it for a while. Anyway, I think it's too late for GL. It is usually built somewhere between 500 BC and 1 AD.
One turn into alpha is the way to go but Justinian has got 130 gold and would like to have it. I would probably trade aesthetics for that gold+a couple of cheap techs and trade it against alpha a couple of turns later. There is, however, a chance he will start trading it around.
I'm not sure about the tech path. Literature->music would be fine, but drama might be better because the AI tends to research it very late. I have still not met 3 civs, lack of info complicates the matter. I should have done scouting earlier but there is a barbarian galley "guarding" the channel...
I will probably replay it from 1400-1600 BC, there must be a way to improve by at least 10 turns, 225 BC is way too late.

 

[Lain]

1 AD

Spoiler :

Lots of sloppy play, but I tried very hard not to crash economy and as a result didn't build enough units . Should have whipped more after all. Anyway, Justi is pretty much broken.



But had to sign peace because he was about to take a city. Stupid De Gaulle traded him ivory and he got Longbows.



Tech situation is looking decent. Bulbed Philosophy and got Civil Service this turn. Can trade for Machinery/Theology/Feudalism now without giving away Philo. Will self-tech Engineering and probably try to take my continent before Rifling. Then sit back and win space maybe.



Forges are already up in my most important cities. Golden Age in 3 turns, will run Caste/Paci for 1-2 scientists (or maybe a GM?) and then switch into Theocracy/Vassalage for destruction. Or maybe Bureau because I get 2 promotions anyway. Also Police State later since Justi has the Mids. Justi should be dead very quickly and Pacal is big, but weak and has no friends. Will be interesting to balance economy/war, good training for medieval action. Would be cool not to fall behind and keep trading/teching at the same time. But with 20+cities by 1000 AD it shouldn't matter anyway.

 

[Lain]

425 AD

Spoiler :

Didn't go quite as planned. I maybe declared a bit too early, but I wanted to wipe out Justi's stack before he upgrades to Cataphracts and stuff like that... he had at least 10 Horse Archers. Also he surprised me with some cheap shots and basically I didn't make any progress so far... but healing up now and stacking troops to push west and make the dream come true.



Secondary stack will capture the minor cities. Heavy fighting here aswell.



Meanwhile I wasn't sleeping and double-bulbed Chemistry 400 AD. Because who cares about Education/Lib. Hopefully I can reach Steel during this millenium and push for Pacal with my then-to-be veterans. Even if he gets Rifling, I should have enough momentum and cities to whip from for heavy face wreckage. Should have enough time to win the game after that. Maybe.



Beaker rate is pretty bad right now because the war is cutting off my oversea-traderoutes. Should improve with Justi's land + Pyramids. In hindsight Pacal might have been the better target. Live and learn. Friendly Maya netted me part of Engineering and Gunpowder though. Not much experience with this medieval stuff. Which is exactly the reason why I'm trying this now.