COTM38 Spoiler2 - End of the Middle Ages

[civ_steve]

COTM 38 Spoiler2: End of the Middle Ages

Reading Requirements:

1. Must be able to research an Industrial Age Technology.
2. Must have contact with all remaining civs in the game

Posting restrictions

1. No maps showing Industrial or Modern resources.
2. No discussion of Industrial Age (or later).
3. Absolutely NO discussion of any other active 'X'OTM Contest

So how is your Netherlands civilization doing as the Middle Ages come to a close, against the Demigod AI on an archipelago map? You start pretty small - have you been able to spread out? I hope so!

 

[AskReeves15]

Well I have been able to take over the northern island. Spain and Babylon have a city each on the small islands to the west of the Indian continent. Unfortunately, India has a huge cultural lead and has crippled the Egyptians. They are also pulling away in tech. India is right now the favorite with myself and Portugal second and the Maya a close 3rd. I have the best cultural city with Amsterdam and luckily enough, when I captured Madrid and Babylon and one other Babylonian city I got 8 Great Wonders.

This is all pretty good, however, I just figured out that the AI gets a huge shield advantage when building stuff, this is ticking me off to no end. Shield costs are cut by like 33% apparently on DG. The problem is, what to do about India?

 

[axehaxe]

Your situation is very similar to mine except that I think I'm in a bit tougher situation. India has a HUGE cultural lead and has already gobbled up Egypt a long time ago. I fortunately have gobbled up Spain and Babylon so I do have a population lead over them. I just fought a war with India in republic and had to stop short after taking one city/selling improvements/gifting and razing another because of 91% WW. They made me pay 100 gold . Good news is I have a prebuild thats been sitting around for ever, and India doesn't have electricity yet nor medicine (Going for TOE). Scary news is that they have 60000+ total culture and getting 600 culture per turn!!!! Plan is to get TOE get hoovers, get RP build 1 billion artillery and infantry and trisect their continent from 3 attack points. Problem is, will I have enough time to not lose to 100 K. I always turn off the cultural setting in my other games because the AI gets WAY too many building discounts and would prematurely trigger the 100 K before I even have a chance to attack them. I dunno...I'll just have to try my best. Maybe going into communism is a good idea...dunno.

 

[Schalke 04]

My starting progress is viewable in the first spoiler thread. So i will just describe my achievements in the MA.

Spanish and Babylonian island is mine. The Babs disappeared completely from the map and the spanish have only one city left, which is very far away from me, so a culture flipping is not very likely.

As said in my first post, the indian were too powerful to mess up with. So i decided to conquer the northwest: the island of the spanish and portuguese. At the end of the MA i could dominate most of the countryside. The chinese have been reduced to one city behind the portuguese front. I will handle them, when i am finished with the portuguese. They hold another northern small island to the north. Due to the very annoying culture flipping problem i want to make that war over quickly.

My goal is now to get steam power and then communism asap. While I’m researching that, I will concentrate on a peaceful time and build infrastructure in all my new cities. A mutual protection pact with the Indians will allow me to focus on producing buildings instead of other military units. A palace-prebuild for the SPHQ and a courthouse nearly everywhere will give me a huge and productive empire. After that infrastructure building I will give order to all my cities to produce military units. Perhaps I will mobilize if necessary. I have two empty armies. One will be used for Cavalry. At this time I don’t have military tradition. I will trade it, when I have steam power. All the war against chinese/Portuguese i was fighting with knights, swiss mercenary and trebuchet. The other army will stay empty until motorized transportation. Additional to this I have a third leader, who is waiting for the espionage agency. I had a very long time without creating a leader, but then they mystically popped up one after another.

Beside the Indians and the mayans every other civilization is far behind in tech. It will be easier to leave the two strong civs alone and conquer any other weak civilization one by one. If that is done I should be very near to a 66% domination.

Here are some pictures of my territory:


Homeland; you can see that some cities are very small. these are the ics cities, which i use now to produce workers (i'm currently researching steam age, so i will need a lot of them), and then later i will disband them.


Babylon


Spain


Portugal


China


Some other small cities, far away from my core cities. I claimed that territory, because I know that the map generator loves it to set important resources to small islands. My outer cities are marked in yellow on the world map:

 

[axehaxe]

Damn...Shalke, looks like you'll have little trouble winning game and India hasn't taken egypt like it did in mine. If you think India is powerful in your game, think how powerful it got in mine when they took the whole continent to themselves!

Right now my game is completely an edge of the seat, foot-tapping, nerve-racking game:

This is a screenshot way back when India destroyed Egypt:

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The biggest danger is their culture which is up to 75000 now and they might trigger a premature 100k...then I lose.

This is what my mainland looks like:

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[sirdanilot]

Conquest class.

These middle ages were really terrible for me. For some reason, they lasted from 50 ad to 1605 AD...

The most advanced foreign power are ironically the Babylonians, with the indians, maya and portuguese not far behind. I eliminated Spain ages ago, and a few turns later I got a message that the Egyptians had been eliminated. It didn't state who did that, as I had only met Spain (who was eliminated), Babylon and China at that time.


Anyway, when I got into the middle ages, research went really slowly. Around 1000 AD, I got the Printing Press and sold that tech to the way more advanced Babylonians (they were at theory of gravity without researching Printing Press...) for all the contacts they knew except for the aztecs, but I met them a while later anyway.

Then, my Great Library kicked in, and I got slingshotted into Banking, Mettalurgy, Astronomy etc. I traded Printing Press with some other civ for Physics aswell. So I only had to research Magnetism and ToG!

Well it wasn't that simple, as for some reason I have forgotten now I researched Navigation first, and my research was still really slow so I only researched my last tech just now.

One turn before ending the middle ages, India invaded me with a whopping amount of one crusader and one rifleman! But my cities there are very poorly defended... Still, their crusader was miraculously killed when it tried to attack my fortified swordsman in my city. Talk about !
As for other war stories, I tried to invade France with a huge SOD of knights and some MDI, but they had such an incredible amount of swordsmen, they slaughtered my entire army on the turn I landed...
A comparable story happened with my invasion of England. They didn't slaughter my entire army with their horses, but they came close to it, and I couldn't take a single city.

The only civ I have a land border with is now Babylon, but they already have Infantry, so warring them would simply be suicide... but that might just happen when India signs an alliance with them against me. Babylon doesn't want my GPT or mpp or rop, which could be a possible prelude to war...

Here's a screenshot of my lands:

Spoiler :

Anyway, I think Demi-god difficulty is just way out of my league. I hope the next cotm will be a little bit easier...

 

[axehaxe]

Originally Posted by sirdanilnot

Well it wasn't that simple, as for some reason I have forgotten now I researched Navigation first, and my research was still really slow so I only researched my last tech just now.

Ouch! Researching navigation is a

AI's first research priorities go there

 

[Kool Keith]

Open class, going for space race victory and first ever demigod win.

This will be an interesting game. I have never been in this type of situation before.

The pace is slow-going. I just entered the IA in 1255 AD.

Unlike the other games, Maya is my top rival, with India right in the mix. Both are down Magnetism and ToG, but up Democracy.

It took a lot of effort trying to capture the large island to the north. Spain was easily dispatched, but Babylon proved to be a tough competitor for me. They still have 4 cities. After a while, I gave up trying to crush them and instead focused on building up my infrastructure. I plan to take care of them for good with guerrillas.

All of my core cities have libraries, and most have universities.

I have build Magellan's Voyage, Cop's Observatory, and I am 5 turns from completing Newton's University.

I figure I will be able to expand my empire by beating up on the weaklings in some late game action. I will most likely pursue war against whichever civ has an important resource. Aztecs, England, France, and Egypt are all very weak.

I noted that I have never been in this situation before. Although I am up two techs, I am concerned that the Maya will use their super-duper demigod capabilities and really pick up the pace.

Coming up with proper resources will be crucial, but hopefully not too difficult, since my military is quite skimpy at the moment.

Either way, it has been an enjoyable game, as I am not used to the challenge of demigod.

 

[sirdanilot]

Ouch! Researching navigation is a

AI's first research priorities go there

Oh really? I didn't notice that. I think I got to navigation before any AI did, but they didn't want to trade it for any of their techs.

I usually find the AI going for Democracy and Free Artistry first, but I guess they don't prioritize it much in this particular game, as I was the first to research Printing Press...

 

[silversheep]

This is my first time playing Demigod, so I'm in conquest class. The highest level I've won was Monarch.

At the end of the middle ages I had 7 cities on my island and 2 on the island to the west. Babylonians attacked Spanish and razed a city, so I plopped down a city on the ruins. I wanted to expand so I attacked the Spanish (alliance w/ Babylonians). I built up knights, medieval infantry, swiss mercenary, and trebuchet. Research was slow, so I ended up getting most techs from Great Library. I kept trying to take Madrid, but not being very good at war, had a standoff there for many years. Finally I captured the Spanish capital as well as Toledo and 3 cities on the island to the west, which is now entirely mine . My forces were stretched thin, and Portugal was pulling way ahead in science, so I made peace and built infrastructure, esp. universities and cathedrals.

Explored more, found the Mayans and got communications w/ Aztecs. I was able to build 2 wonders, Sistine Chapel and later Newton's University. To catch up in science I researched Chemistry, which no one else knew, and traded it for Printing Press, Navigation, and Metallurgy, and gpt. I immediately researched Theory of Gravity at 100%. To my dismay the Portuguese, Indians, and Mayans entered the Industrial age ahead of me . I researched Magnetism and I just finished democracy, so I can switch governments! (I'm in monarchy now)

Madrid culture flipped back to the Spanish, so I declared war again to get it back. I did, but that spoiled my reputation and no one wants gpt from me now! Indians attacked Egypt and soon almost all the civs allied and joined the fight against Egypt, including me! Indians were taking 1 city per turn, so the whole continent was India before my caravel even got there (Later I saw how many cavalry they had...) Now the Egyptians are reduced to 1 island city.

Portuguese are really strong, the biggest civ (17% area and population) AND they are furious with us, declaring war on us twice! Fortunately they are too far away to do any real harm, though they do have a powerful navy of carracks. India is gracious to us (fortunately) and first in culture. Mayans are large as well, but not as powerful. Some civs are still stuck in the ancient age! All visible islands have been occupied. (I have a city on island west of Mayans)

1285 AD now. What next? Switch govs, probably research to Medicine (hospitals) then Scientific Method (Theory of Evolution, so I won't fall behind in tech again). I'm trying for diplomatic victory, military victory seems impossible. Hope the other civs like me... (why are they mad at me for attacking the Spanish? They were attacking Spain too!)

 

[Paul#42]

I usually find the AI going for Democracy and Free Artistry first, but I guess they don't prioritize it much in this particular game, as I was the first to research Printing Press...

Navigation? Printing Press?

What victory condition are you heading for? Why do you waste your time researching these optionals?

I did not manage to submit (once again)
I focused on science, dreaming of Dutch in space...
At least a diplo win should be in range because I had three weeks of vacancy... stupid me, I had less playing time than in everyday life :suicide:

So this morning at 2 am I found myself cruising over India with knights and cavs, railroading like mad in hope to play the Industrial Ages in less than an hour - no chance

It was like 600 AD when I had entered the IA, with India and Egypt being ICSed, Spain and Holland quite productive and my Golden Age just started via Newton's I thought I had a shot for a diplo win in 11xx AD...

Not starting the Golden Age with Swiss Mercenarys (Predator Handicap) was cool, I could still build and use them for quite a while even when guns where available and salt hooked up...

Not that I really needed them

 

[sirdanilot]

I still have no idea why I chose to head for navigation, but Printing Press was actually a smart move, as I had the Glib and with printing press I could buy all contacts Babylon had (I only had Babylon themselves and China, Spain was eliminated), and everyone was way more advanced than me in tech so I got slingshotted half the MA the next turn.

Ahwell, that was my first gotm so I wasn't required to get the gold medal was I?

 

[Paul#42]

I still have no idea why I chose to head for navigation, but Printing Press was actually a smart move, as I had the Glib and with printing press I could buy all contacts Babylon had (I only had Babylon themselves and China, Spain was eliminated), and everyone was way more advanced than me in tech so I got slingshotted half the MA the next turn.

Now that indeed was a smart move in that situation.
I'm always curious to learn smart moves and I'm far from confident to know everything about civ.

I was just afraid you were not listening carefully to The Council's discussions on research...

Ahwell, that was my first gotm so I wasn't required to get the gold medal was I?

Of course you are not. But I would be quite entertained to see you getting a Jason score 25% higher than Klarius'...

 

[PaperBeetle]

Not starting the Golden Age with Swiss Mercenarys (Predator Handicap) was cool, I could still build and use them for quite a while even when guns where available and salt hooked up...

Not that I really needed them

iirc that is always the case. It was done by making the musket upgrade to the swiss mercenary, not the other way around. Same thing with the Egyptian chariot and the horseman?

 

[ignas]

Achieved conquest victory in 820AD.
Stopped research after Chivalry (got it in 90AD) and used Horsemen->Knight upgrade while connecting disconnecting iron. The question was how fast can i reach other civs. Not sufficient number of galleys costed few turns, Maya had MANY units in my game, was surprised too see 150 units heading towards my 40 knights landed on their island. Moving ships was very boring.