Co-op da Whoop #3: Mehmeryavarman II

[Fleme]

...and this time it's Deity.

We played a deity co-op game before this but got so involved with it that we hardly took screenshots in an orderly manner to create a comprehensive report on it but as a curiousity the AAR with some captions can be found in the spoilers. Game featured Hannibal/Hatshepsul or... Hatshibal:

Spoiler :

I didn't even have the sense to screenshot from t1 but here's after Carthage is settled and Silu popped BW from a hut:

That's a freshwater lake. Yes, it's sick. Initially, the settler was on the plains hill but realizing the lake and my warrior finding the pig there, I opted to relocate capital and wow, what a great spot.

Leaping ahead, a 200 AD Liberalism. I think it's our best date so far. Took PP as I recall it:

Here's me doing a 8-pop whip globe in Carthage:

It had so much food that I whipped cannons and drafted rifles from there through most of our war prep phase. It had something over 300 turns of whip anger when I was done.

Eventually, push came to shove and we decided to dow on Bullgaulle to secure our continent for whatever win we needed. Here's Bull's stack on DoW moving towards my military city of Kerkouane:

And here's the same stack 3 turns after:

Long story short, we took over the continent and killed some 400 units in the process.

Leaping ahead: We aimed for space since we had a solid tech lead and even late we kept ahead of the AI teams mostly thanks to our vassal Asoka who did half of our research. Asoka did die in the first Shaka onslaught and got replaced by KK but he did his part towards our win.

Shaka's stack 11 turns before our spaceship landed. They were Wheoohrn for us and had capped/killed everyone else on the map:

I'd go ahead and say: Too much, too late. Oh yea, and those transports are loaded.

And this is what became of it:

The game this thread is for is Deity/Marathon/Large/Pangaea featuring our team and 5 ai teams. Choose religions is on, other settings are as usual. Chosen leaders are Suryavarman II and Mehmed II, or Mehmeryavarman II for short. Open your Civ and look at the civilopedia if you've forgotten about their traits/UUs/UBs.

Continuing on my streak of ridiculous starts I present you this:

Which naturally prompted me to settle in place. Clearly 2 wet corn isn't enough so the map generator threw me a bone:

Can you guess what's inside?

Spoiler :

...which amounts to the best uncooked capital I've ever had.

Off to a good start. We'll post the first 100 turns shortly.

 

[Silu]

As probably evident from the above post, for our next forum game we picked Mehmeriavarman II as our leader. We did play a full game before we started this one since it went so smooth, too bad it went too smooth to make a report that wouldn't be mega-boring. So instead, here's that game in a cavalcade of 5 pictures, with captions included. Expect the start of the proper (unfinished) game shortly.

Spoiler :

Beautiful fogbustage, even more beautiful start.

Some rifles, our "anti-SoD squad" as opposed to the Carthaginian "take cities squad".

War weariness, kill ratio about 200/30 at this stage.

The AI sure can't make any kind of significant intercontinental invasion.

Boring victory, seen enough Zulus and Portuks on the battlefield lately...

For the game proper, it seems the Corn is always greener on the other side. I don't mind, if our starts were reversed I would have to listen to whine every other turn

Spoiler Sorry, huge picture, not sure how that happened... :

 

[Fleme]

Our first round is usually to t100 and this time was no exception. In Marathon terms, that is 1/15 of the game and is mostly about deciding the initial tech path and hoping for a lucky break in terms of a hut and what have you but here's where we stand at t100:

Yeah, as if Yasodharapura wasn't good enough already, there was a flat grass copper right there in the BFC. I built a total of 4 warriors (I know, who does that?) and 2 workers to chop before opting to go for a settler because spawnbusting is key and barbarians a real nuisance when there's ample terrain. Bottom line is that I wanted to secure land for peaceful settling when my capital is capable of producing a settler in under 15 turns on Marathon with a non-imp leader. Also, notice the sick Moai location just north of Yasodharapura.

My dotmap plans to the south:

First city was founded towards Cathy. It has dry rice that will be irrigated through the city come cs and a gem in the jungle. Main purpose, however, is that it is towards Cathy and blocks her off somewhat.

Lots of jungle but the river will fund it with relative ease. Neighbors for me are Cathy immediately to the east, Giggles further down south and I think that's it. A lot of HR lovers on the map but regardless of that Silu suggested that we'd gamble the 'Mids for Rep with the stone he has and I agreed. I have two locations that between them share 6 food resouces, 5 of which are 6 yield so eventually I see 2 great GP farms being set up. Alternatively, I might spread the corn from Yasodharapura around to two or even three cities designate the moai location as the sole GP farm which in fact seems more reasonable. On the topic of the 'Mids, there's 1 Ind guy on the map, HC, so I guess there's a slim chance that we might actually succeed there.

All in all I can't do any complaining with a capital like that. Heck, I'd gleefully play an OCC with a location like that, but it looks like I can secure something like 8-9 cities if things go my way.

Tech path went AH->BW->Pottery->Masonry

 

[Silu]

So, Deity Pangaea. It tends to be crowded. Deity Pangaea with 12 Civs on a by default 9 player map is even more crowded. We quickly run into Boudica & Churchill (groan), Cathy & Lincoln (half a groan), ZY&Tokugawa (GROAN) and... Joao&Gilgamesh (GROAN, GROAN, GROAN I TELL YOU, what the flippy of the flippety flippin' flip is up with that guy showing up in all FOUR of our forum games? He's easily the guy we both hate the most in this kind of games... With GILGAMESH, the other guy we absolutely hate, while bordering Cathy, the dude we hate the most after those two...)

Erhm... As I was saying, this kind of game asks for lightning-fast expansion and even then you usually have to fight for your life to even get six cities up. So what's my logical conclusion to come into regarding early game strategy?

Settle on Stone and go for the 'Mids! Yeah... My immediate land is pretty crappy. The land towards Boudica, my closest neighbor (10-12 tiles) is MEGA crappy, only desert and tundra, so an aggressive landgrab would do me no good. With a CRE ally with some room to spare and a crazy capital, maybe I can block the path of the Celtic/Enligsh to the west (that barb city is on sea coast) while going for the 'Mids to ensure our earlygame beakers. Said barb city means that I can't complete the block early, though. Barbs were a royal annoyance in this game, even with both of us having BFC Copper. Spawnbusting to prevent those two barb cities was absolutely impossible.

And this is my first 100 turns. Going to go for a second settler before 'Mids in capital, to settle the Corn/Gold so the AIs from that direction can't feasibly settle past me (if I get to settle it in time). I'll probably be somewhat gimped due to building the 'Mids, but my options are limited - the barb city is kinda cramping my style and all the land to the south is jungle.

Sorry if our (my) early game reports seem lackluster, we aren't really the fans of 2-page debates on where to move the warrior before settling and such Maybe that's why we regularly get this landslide of comments in our threads! (</sarcasm>)

 

[JammerUno]

Why settle a useless city to claim the stone without roading towards it and postponing the 'mids? Gold/Corn would have increased your research immediately and be an excellent blocker to the west. Even if there's AI to the south, that jungle would delay expansion in that direction at least for long enough to get a second settler out and claim the stone at a more convenient time.

 

[EMT]

Why settle a useless city to claim the stone without roading towards it and postponing the 'mids? Gold/Corn would have increased your research immediately and be an excellent blocker to the west. Even if there's AI to the south, that jungle would delay expansion in that direction at least for long enough to get a second settler out and claim the stone at a more convenient time.

Probably because Deity means the AI gets extreme discounts on all wonders. Although I agree, I would have gambled on the gold+corn city.

 

[Silu]

Hm, let's see. Doing it the other way would also have been possible I guess, but here's why I didn't.

1) It's not useless, it's building a Worker in record time D) It's actually much better without impros than the Corn city for that purpose.
2) Gold city wouldn't "increase research immediately", since it'd need worker turns I don't have right now, since I need the road and extra mines in cap to give 'Mids a decent shot. It'll more or less get settled at the earliest time when I have workers to improve it.
3) Doing it in the other order would have postponed the mids by a few turns, not good. The road would also be almost completed (or well, much more complete) if I wouldn't have had barb trouble from the north + an event to destroy my pasture, always a nice occurrence at this stage of the game.

 

[Fleme]

Just seconding Silu here; Improving a desert hill is what, 21 turns on Marathon? Would've incurred a delay on the 'Mids and if you're attempting such a gambit on deity as non-ind, every little bit of time counts.

 

[Tokahfang]

For the record, I love reading this series, I appreciate you posting it. Please keep them coming!

 

[Silu]

To 1440BC: The great Ottoman empire, now with 100% more Celtia!

We left off with me having a booming 2 city empire with the 'Mids on the horizon. I settled the Corn/Gold and went 'Mids, which I got some time around 1900BC. Ha, take that, HC! I don't really have any other sensible places to settle that would trump the western barb city. That in mind, I start massing up Axes to take it... It's a traditional hilltop defense with 5 Archers (one of which has Guerilla2CG1 (!!) thanks to random suicided Chariots and other crap ). Well, can't be helped, I really really need that city and if an AI would get it that would be horrible.

At turn 167/1830BC, I notice a lot of Celtic/English activity coming our way... Too much... Upon closer inspection:

?...??!?!?...??!?!?!??!?!?!!!!!!!11

Not one, but TWO Settlers, approaching an area I never thought they'd shoot for at this point, especially considering they still have a crapton of land unsettled actually NEAR them! Well, it's all desert and tundra there, but still! Oh my...

Leading to...

Apparently he thought it would be fun to settle 1) ON MY FILLER CITY MARKER, 2) TO SCREW MY ROAD NETWORK (note: we don't have OB with them and really don't want to, either) 3) TO SCREW MY EMPIRE, having a hole in the middle of one's empire is mega, MEGA annoying. Like, 12-Civs-on-Pangaea-with-all-of-them-being-Joao annoying. And he has a second one still going, to boot.

The kicker? In the previous pic, see that English contingent in the west? Guess if it includes a Settler?

Spoiler Drumroll :

Yes. Surprised?

We could have settled Rajavihara in a crappy place to deny Boudica's other Settler the chance to plop it up. We decided against it, grabbing the best spot and hoping we can deal with the Celtic infestation later. First good news in a while: Churchill's Settler turns back.

Now, two ideas might arise, neither of which will work.

1) "Won't those flip to you eventually?": No. They won't. They'll conjure up every religion and culture building imaginable, and that's hoping they won't pop Artists. No way it will happen. We will probably try, but we will fail.
2) "Can't you just DoW quickly to take them?": No. We can't. Two militaristic Civs near me with my empire being craptastic, no chance.

I'll leave with this weird windfall I got on turn 206. When I saw that I was like òÓ ?! For those who don't spot it, there's a random barb worker hanging around next to Istanbul. No idea how that works.

Also, I think Verlamion's culture area is quite funny in the pic (to the extent that anything about that abomination of a town can be funny) That's not really a Big Fat Cross... Maybe a Little Thin Faucet (LTF)? Little Pistol with a Big Iron Sight (LPwaBIS)? Leave your proposition in the comments! Too bad he will very soon claim most of the actual BFC...

You might also notice I finally captured the barb city, Polynesian. Churchill helped a bit, suiciding a few dudes to soften the defenses there (btw, that's pretty much the only way to get barb cities, especially hilltop ones, in this game mode - also happened in game #1) I might have time to settle a single city in the southern jungle, if Joao/Gilgamesh (they live there) don't get there before me. Yeah, that's a helluva big if I'm not that sure about our future plans at this point... We are in a ginormous tech ditch, thanks to my great tech rate, and I didn't really get a "nice slice of land" which is usually required to claw one's way back up on Deity. In other news: Alex's team is weehorn; there's a real shocker. Luckily they live far, far away.

Anyone else noticed that in all of our games Fleme is usually just Sim Citying up an empire while I'm getting the seven plagues and other assorted afflictions upon me?

 

[Fleme]

Got to laugh at Silu getting all the crap flung at him in this series . I'm sandboxing in my proverbial paradise and there's him in the trenches. Oh well, better him than me.

So, while I could post the same exact screenshots as Silu about the Celtobritannians and the joy they bring I'll just do what I do best looking back at this series, post pictures of my sandbox and what's going on. Silu's report extends further than mine because of the happenings in his empire and we'll post a more "coherent" report at 1AD for those interested in tech situation and what have you.

For me, however, the main goal was still holding my ground against Catherine and further down south, Giggles, and mainly to secure enough land that I could set up a decent empire that can build oxford and I won't have to be ashamed of the cities I am settling.

My shots are from 2000 BC which I somehow imagined to be a report year so I took two overview pictures. We did howeved decide to toil on because let's face it - the game is immersive and there are always so many things going on in multiplayer and we often have some pretty drawn out discussions of what might be and what would be best. It brings a whole new level to the game. It's an addictive game after all. But I digress, the empire:

A big deal. Islam whose founder is Giggles spreads. By this point we've decided against adopting either Christianity of the English or Judaism of the Celts and opted to keep our borders closed from them. Sure, this does mean the eventual showdown - in fact probably a classical era showdown between us and them but let's face it - if two fo the early tree religions are founded on a small peninsula which our empires cut off and the third one just to our south where it has potential reaching every other civ on the map the choice becomes really easy.

South is an important direction for me right now:

I have a scouting warrior in Giggles' city to see if any settlers pass it so I can safely secure the sweet Rice/Banana/Ivory/Spice location at my leisure. At the turn of this screenshot it wasn't, however, the best choice to settle yet because our science began to bog down and writing was still ahead as you can see. I am aiming to combine writing, libraries and the hopeful event of Pyramids/Rep to revitalize our research because there's enough food all around to run a few scientists and keep things going. You can also see that Christianity spread to Joao. At this point we don't exactly even know where he is but he's definitely not in the small peninsula with Church/Boudi and the waterway is blocked by a barb city but I suppose those christians were crafty in their ways and snook some cross over to Portugal. I hate Joao so much, so very very much.

Looking at the big picture of bordering not one but actually two HR lovers and having Joao as an additional bonus for HR-related benefits, that would be a wise diplomatic choice but assuming that Islam does take on as the main religion, I feel secure enough adopting it as the state religion to secure relations with the boys down south.

Also, thanks for the comments!

Oh and as a fun fact for those that don't know Finnish (which I assume to be the general case here), Rajavihara translates to Borderhatera, which is so fitting.

 

[shyuhe]

You guys are the worse enemies of Churchill/Boudica? Good luck. Hopefully they declare pre-construction so that walls will basically keep them at bay.

 

[Yared]

Please tell me you have choose religions on???

 

[Fleme]

@Yared94: Yeah, we do; It's in the first post.

@shyuhe: Yep, it's going to be grizzly any way you look at it but I for one am looking forward to whatever may come. (It's not my empire at stake! )

 

[Yared]

I was afraid there.

 

[Trystero]

Wait- What happened? Did the barbarian worker mine the copper in Istanbul's BFC?

Also, that's the craziest AI city placement I've ever seen (OK, not true). But I swear sometimes it seems like the AI is programmed to pick the spots to settle that will cause the human player the most annoyance.

PS - These games are really entertaining. Thanks for posting these!

 

[Silu]

Wait- What happened? Did the barbarian worker mine the copper in Istanbul's BFC?

Haha, not quite. That would be awesome though No idea where it came from because I didn't notice it until that turn (had to do a double take to check its banner since I thought I was delirious) - I guess from the north since it's facing southwards.

There was a lot of barb garrison swap action though, always is in these games. When barb city defenders get killed somewhere, barb garrisons from other cities start moving there, sometimes you can have 3 batches of 2 archers zigzagging across your country in a game like this - they won't attack or pillage but they can be a pain like here when they were stepping back and forth on my Pig tile No idea why a worker would do the same trek. Maybe it was done improving one of the tundra barb cities in the north and was on its way to the jungle barb cities.

 

[Yared]

Did you take it?

 

[Fleme]

Of course he did

 

[Sian]

aren't that kinda like asking if the sky is blue?