[CIV4] Replay #9 - Beating Deity

[Pangaea]

So it was partly because the capital wasn't so commerce intensive then, so the loss isn't as great as with a typical HoF start. One of the reasons I ask is because it got me thinking, and am now at that point in the current game I'm playing. That is a typical HoF start, though, so maybe still worth it then?

Even when I get early Education, via bulbs or self-teching, I tend to find it hard to pop out Universities quickly anyway, because shortly before so many other useful things are unlocked, and it makes more sense to me to get up Forges and AP temples if unlocked; especially a Forge for cheaper Uni whips. So if there is still a fair bit of infra needed to set up your core cities, I suppose it also makes more sense with Academy instead of Education.

 

[Seraiel]

When building Universities, it's important to run OR too, because whipping them is just too costly otherwise.

And there's good reason, to get Forges as early as possible, which unfortunately not always is possible. Stealing some Workers and chopping Forrests is tremendous help for infrastructure though. AP-Temples can be delayed, Universities are more important when research matters (i. e. Spacerace or also this game) .

 

[Pangaea]

Good point. Too often I'm late with choosing a religion for diplo reasons, so lose out on OR benefit (still tend to double-change with e.g. Buro and OR). With both a Forge and OR you get 45 per citizen whipped, so that's not bad for Universities.

Do you take all these screenshots while playing, or afterwards?

 

[Seraiel]

Good point. Too often I'm late with choosing a religion for diplo reasons, so lose out on OR benefit (still tend to double-change with e.g. Buro and OR). With both a Forge and OR you get 45 per citizen whipped, so that's not bad for Universities.

Do you take all these screenshots while playing, or afterwards?

Afterwards. I'm basically reconstructing the round out of the game-logs and then load the saves, which I make from every turn. Quite a lot of work, but it's the only way, otherwise I'd have to keep hundreds of unsorted CIV-screenshots for months on my harddrive.

 

[drizzt.titan]

I have read a little of some of your replays, wish I had time to really follow one and read the whole thing, perhaps I just need to make time because the learning curve would be invaluable. Anyway somewhere in one of your replay threads (I have no idea which one) you mentioned writing some strategy articles. IIRC the replay was a couple years old and I wondered if you ever wrote any of those strategy articles?

 

[UnforcedError]

Great warring
Good point about Oxford vs. Academy, too.
Were Freddy and Peter on the map from the start? Well, semi-isolated island city sucks, I guess but how could they end up OCC? That's just meh from the AI.

 

[Seraiel]

I have read a little of some of your replays, wish I had time to really follow one and read the whole thing, perhaps I just need to make time because the learning curve would be invaluable. Anyway somewhere in one of your replay threads (I have no idea which one) you mentioned writing some strategy articles. IIRC the replay was a couple years old and I wondered if you ever wrote any of those strategy articles?

Look at my signature .

I btw. always wanted to write more articles, but after CIV Illustrated, nobody else wanted, and I went for another hiatus. Don't know, if strategy-articles now would still get enough attention, at least, CIV is very old and doesn't have too many gamers that don't already know everything left.

Great warring
Good point about Oxford vs. Academy, too.
Were Freddy and Peter on the map from the start? Well, semi-isolated island city sucks, I guess but how could they end up OCC? That's just meh from the AI.

Thx . When doing the writeup, even I myself were surprised, how well I coordinated the conquest in that game. I basically conquered the complete map, which had 100+ cities in about 60 turns, that's almost 2 cities / turn!

Freddy and Peter both were on the map from the start, so it's really meh from the map-generator, to force them into OOC.

 

[Seraiel]

War goes into it's final stage:



Nukes should make the Conquest a little easier and also faster. Elizabeth is shortly before getting Infantries, so I really need a stronger weapon than Cavalries.





Hard to believe, but AIs aren't completely beaten yet:



But this drastically changes in 1535 AD, which is only 17T from victory!



I forgot though, that Nukes also require the Rocketry tech, so it still takes until 1555 AD when I can... :



Yes, queue the first Nukes!

The newly whipped Tanks come in quite handy:



Time for some fun!



With Nukes, troop-streangth doesn't matter anymore, only thing that matters is, that they advance as fast as possible:







Which is very fast with all the roads and 2-move-units, this is 1T later:







No matter how hard the resistence, Nukes handle it:













Advancing on all fronts:









To wipe out the last cities simultaniously:



England after the Aztech invasion:



Victory in 1620 AD, so 4800y of buildup for 800y of total war!



Final stats:





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

All in all a very succesful and fun game, that had it all, Wonders, a lot of research and a decent number of really good wars. Having in mind, that Boreal is a large mapscript, and that it has very poor land / resources, I'm very happy with the 1620 AD Conquest victory which I achieved, and that still holds a #1 place in the HoF, even against all of the way easier games others played on Pangaea like maps. This maybe was the greatest and most challenging war-game I ever played in CIV, and I'm glad to have played it, but even more glad that it's over. This round really took a lot from me, because even staying in tech was already very difficult. I cannot remember any major mistakes which I made, but still remember lots of very well planned actions, which I think is supported by the great winning date.

I hope you had fun reading this, probably the last Replay, I don't think that I'll find the time for a 10th writeup. I'm thankful for all your comments, and wish you all a good time and "happy civving" .

Seraiel

 

[UnforcedError]

Thanks for the detailed and fun write-up Kudos for playing on Boreal too.

 

[Pangaea]

Thanks for the Writeup, Seraiel. I saw there was an update while I was away, but every picture was replaced with a blue square with a question mark inside, so I had to wait until today to read it properly. Very impressive warring, and especially the date. Hard to believe only one person has commented.

In the screenshots I see that ICBMs have exploded, and albeit you build Tactical Nukes too in that first build queue screenshot, in the victory shot I see you are building many more ICBMs. Does this mean they are better than the other nukes? I was under the impression Tactical Nukes were better. Have never used them myself, mind, so don't have any 'live' experience to back up either view.

Another Writeup would be very interesting, but I can understand if you are fatigued from them now, after writing so many. I'm sure many of us have learnt a lot reading them - I know I have

 

[Seraiel]

Thanks for the detailed and fun write-up Kudos for playing on Boreal too.

You're welcome UnforcedError .

Thanks for the Writeup, Seraiel. I saw there was an update while I was away, but every picture was replaced with a blue square with a question mark inside, so I had to wait until today to read it properly. Very impressive warring, and especially the date. Hard to believe only one person has commented.

In the screenshots I see that ICBMs have exploded, and albeit you build Tactical Nukes too in that first build queue screenshot, in the victory shot I see you are building many more ICBMs. Does this mean they are better than the other nukes? I was under the impression Tactical Nukes were better. Have never used them myself, mind, so don't have any 'live' experience to back up either view.

Another Writeup would be very interesting, but I can understand if you are fatigued from them now, after writing so many. I'm sure many of us have learnt a lot reading them - I know I have

I also find it a little odd, that only one person commented on it, the clicks tell, that a minimum of 300 people read it, or someone read it 300 times .

Regarding Nukes: Tactical Nukes are better, because they are cheaper and can evade interception (through SDI) with 50% chance. However, tactical Nukes have a range of, I think 4 tiles, so I couldn't have used them against the far-away AIs which I mostly or completely razed. Another advantage of ICBM's is, that they can be used on the turn they are completed, so they don't need to be re-stationed.

Thx for posting pangaea .

 

[Fractal Spiral]

This write-up is really great. There's so many important things going on in that game, that I can't even hold them all in my mind at once. Reading the high level games with your explanations really gives new insight though.

One thing that stands out to me is how amazing Spiritual trait actually is and how you have unlocked new levels of use for Spiritual. Knowing the mechanics of diplo and timng the game well helps, for things I had never thought of like getting an AI to friendly to enable a key trade at just the right moment, or for using spies for tech stealing by switching into a different religion temporarily to use a spy in that other persons non-state religion city etc.

Also Spiritual was used when you go between Slavery and Caste System multiple times. Seems like Montezuma is not as terrible as I used to think. In my experiences with Montezuma I always thought he was so so bad because I couldn't pull off much research at all with him. I thought Montezuma could barely be competent even at Emperor or Immortal, but this game on Deity shows you used Montezuma, the map, and the strategy including Pyramids and great micro to do something amazing. This is really amazing Seraiel thanks for this awesome write-up.

 

[Seraiel]

This write-up is really great. There's so many important things going on in that game, that I can't even hold them all in my mind at once. Reading the high level games with your explanations really gives new insight though.

One thing that stands out to me is how amazing Spiritual trait actually is and how you have unlocked new levels of use for Spiritual. Knowing the mechanics of diplo and timng the game well helps, for things I had never thought of like getting an AI to friendly to enable a key trade at just the right moment, or for using spies for tech stealing by switching into a different religion temporarily to use a spy in that other persons non-state religion city etc.

Also Spiritual was used when you go between Slavery and Caste System multiple times. Seems like Montezuma is not as terrible as I used to think. In my experiences with Montezuma I always thought he was so so bad because I couldn't pull off much research at all with him. I thought Montezuma could barely be competent even at Emperor or Immortal, but this game on Deity shows you used Montezuma, the map, and the strategy including Pyramids and great micro to do something amazing. This is really amazing Seraiel thanks for this awesome write-up.

I'm glad you enjoyed reading and am thankful for the reply .

Montezuma for sure is one of the weaker, maybe even weakest leaders. His UU is weaker than a normal Swordsman and is actually only good on maps with many Forrests, because on those, one can easily steal Workers with Woodsman II. AGG is also below the weakest traits, though the possibility for Rifles that got the 2nd promotion from Barracks and Theocracy only is actually quite strong. At last, Montezuma's UB is mostly not needed at all, because one only whips a lot in Domination / Conquest games, and in those, cities are usually small so need only little Happiness, while one conquers all available resoures over time.

SPI is truely awesome otoh. Easy switches between the civics allow for things, that simply are not possible with any non-SPI-leader, like switching to Caste for borderpops and max research, or switching between OR, Theocracy and Pacifism, depending on if one focusses on buildings (Universities!) , on troops or on maximum research .
The strongest point for SPI ofc is, that one can extort techs from civs by temporarily switching to their religion and maybe even favourite civic, and it harmonizes very well with espionage-economy. All in all I believe, that the advantage of SPI is probably greater than the one of FIN or CRE. SPI also is awesome for the newly developed "Domination / Conquest via Peace Vassals" -method, that WastinTime brought up in one of the latest Gauntlets. How awesome is it, that one can sometimes get a handful or more civs as peace-vassals, by just having enough military, sharing their borders and getting them on friendly, or whatever is needed .

I btw. re-read my own writeup today, and found something which amazed me. It took me about 25h to get to Rifles and conquer the first target, but it took me more than twice that time to conquer the complete map! This means, that 1. I have become very confident in the early phases of the game and that 2. warring well takes tremendous amounts of planning.
I'm not so sure, if the writeup showed this points with enough detail, it's basically that setting up an empire actually takes only little time and is quite easy, while really achieving the best Conquest date possible takes enormous amounts of work! I find it somehow sad, that so many CIV-players from the Strategies and Tactics forum abandon their games, once they are in what they suppose to be a winning position. I agree, that grinding down a game is very exhausting, but when looking at the round now, I'm really happy and amazed in how little time I was able to conquer all of the remaining civs. I probably could have saved a few turns by sending troops to Washington earlier, but apart from that, I'm happy with everything I saw. It's amazing to know, that I conquered about half of the civs in less than 200y of game-time. This gives me confidence in very many other rounds I played, in which I always thought "damn, it's so late already and I still have only conquered small parts of the map" .

I currently don't have much time to spend on CIV, but maybe, I'll forget about having had enough of doing writeups, and make a writeup of the 990 AD Conquest which I recently played on a standard sized pangaea map. Would be very interesting for purposes of comparing similar victories but completely different sorts of games. At least, 10 is a way better number for writeups than 9, and the game definately was good enough to make a showcase for it, I still remember that I oracled Civil Service in 1800 BC and that I went for early warfare with Elephants and finished the game with only having Cuirrassiers, so definately enough potential.

 

[Pangaea]

Another Writeup would be interesting to read. 990AD conquest on Deity must have been one hell of a game!

 

[drizzt.titan]

Look at my signature .

I btw. always wanted to write more articles, but after CIV Illustrated, nobody else wanted, and I went for another hiatus. Don't know, if strategy-articles now would still get enough attention, at least, CIV is very old and doesn't have too many gamers that don't already know everything left.

I have browsed CIV Illustrated and it changed my choice of favorite opponents significantly, reminded me of some things I had forgotten and I learned a few things about some leaders which I had never known. I suppose I will have to settle for hoping you do another replay and then I can follow that one from the start.

 

[Seraiel]

Another Writeup would be interesting to read. 990AD conquest on Deity must have been one hell of a game!

It was basically an (almost) perfect game like this one, with the main difference being, that the map was far better, so smaller and richer. It's quite interesting, because it was played on Epic Speed and a standard sized Pangaea, so it comes very near to the maps, the standard normal elitests play.

I have browsed CIV Illustrated and it changed my choice of favorite opponents significantly, reminded me of some things I had forgotten and I learned a few things about some leaders which I had never known. I suppose I will have to settle for hoping you do another replay and then I can follow that one from the start.

Glad the guide helped you .Choosing the opponents is one of the key things for a HoF game, setting up the map right saves about as many turns as one could save through very good play and probably even luck.

Unfortunately, the interest in Writeups has greatly diminished. Replay #8 had over 30k clicks, this Replay showed even better play, but is still below 10k of clicks. Maybe if interest goes up again, I'll do "Replay #10 - Legacy" .

 

[Pangaea]

Unfortunately, the interest in Writeups has greatly diminished. Replay #8 had over 30k clicks, this Replay showed even better play, but is still below 10k of clicks. Maybe if interest goes up again, I'll do "Replay #10 - Legacy" .

I can certainly sympathise with that. Doing my Writeup, each post takes several hours of preparation and writing, so when barely a soul bothers to offer feedback or comments it's not exactly great encouragement to do more of them in the future. If it's almost like writing a long private journal, I may as well not do it.

Maybe it's a sign of diminished interest in the game and activity on the board?

 

[Seraiel]

I can certainly sympathise with that. Doing my Writeup, each post takes several hours of preparation and writing, so when barely a soul bothers to offer feedback or comments it's not exactly great encouragement to do more of them in the future. If it's almost like writing a long private journal, I may as well not do it.

Maybe it's a sign of diminished interest in the game and activity on the board?

The problem of Civfanatics simply is, that they allow guests to read everything, but the same guests can not post. This leads to most users simply being too lazy to register, even when they get something of great value, like a writeup which makes them better players. I'm sure, that if Civfanatics would allow guest-posting (which has its own downsides) , that users would leave more feedback.

What's really sad though is, that even many of the registered users don't feel the need to provide anything for what they are taking.

Maybe starving the lurkers and registered users is the only way. It's actually in the responsebility of everyone's, if they want a CFC with all $hit-posts or if they want the forum to have a quality read sometimes.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Will read the latest update on my return from holiday, looking forward to it.

I think Spiritual is a vastly under rated trait on these Forums.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Seraiel]

Anyway somewhere in one of your replay threads (I have no idea which one) you mentioned writing some strategy articles. IIRC the replay was a couple years old and I wondered if you ever wrote any of those strategy articles?

Again towards this: Your question if I had written any of those guides, while having played all necessary games needed for the Elite Quattromaster achievement, inspired me to just write this guide: Civ Illustrated #2: Case studies - city placement.

Even though it was a lot of work, writing the guide made even more fun than writing the Replay's. Therefore it's likely, that I'll write some more guides in near future.

I hope people will like them.