DDD I: Charlemagne

[Smilingrogue]

@ Doshin

Nice work, mate!
Why do you think Montezuma will disengage from Justinian if you jump in? Is Justi telling you he can't stop the war and you have to talk to Monty about it?

Also, I would like to echo Vranasm and request a change in image size. Consider going with .jpg instead of .png as those are smaller in size without any noticeable difference in quality.

 

[Mylene]

Yip Compass always pays back easily, Jumbo wars look easy when you start but after it's over i often realize how much better Curis are.
Just cos you can go on, stopping 13 city Willy much harder after an early war.

 

[Doshin]

@ Doshin

Nice work, mate!

Thanks!

Why do you think Montezuma will disengage from Justinian if you jump in? Is Justi telling you he can't stop the war and you have to talk to Monty about it?

I can bribe Monty off Justinian, but not vice versa (Justinian: "We'd love to, but you'd have to contact them..."). Monty is, as usual, lagging behind in techs. So if I declare, there's a good chance that he'll make peace with Justinian for tech and swing his stack back to crush me. Also, unlike HC, he has Ivory (= Elephants) and Engineering (= Trebs, Pikes, and Castles).

Also, I would like to echo Vranasm and request a change in image size. Consider going with .jpg instead of .png as those are smaller in size without any noticeable difference in quality.

My screenshots are automatically saved as .png files, but I'll have smaller pics in the next update.

Yip Compass always pays back easily, Jumbo wars look easy when you start but after it's over i often realize how much better Curis are.
Just cos you can go on, stopping 13 city Willy much harder after an early war.

For sure. Elepult wars work best against wimps, or when you can Oracle HBR or one of the necessary techs, or when the captured cities are awesome (like they were here). Given the option, I'd bulb my way peacefully to Lib. every time.

I think attacking HC was the right move. If Monty had smashed Justinian, I'd have needed to switch back into Judaism, leaving me exposed to HC once again. As it was, Monty had obviously over-expanded and got caught off guard by Justinian (who has a small, compact peninsula all to himself). But an early shrine and the Mids isn't a bad tradeoff.

 

[shakabrade]

Fun game so far.

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Scout revealed wet wheat so 2S was obvious move.

Tech path: Agri, Ah, Mining, Wheel, Pottery, BW.

Scout revealed Monty and HC were relatively close (No shi*, Sherlock! Is this Pangaea or not...) so I decided to go for settler ASAP. It was built at size 3 and secured Pigs/Horse/Ivory/shared Corn city. Next city was built towards HC to secure Flood plains/sheep/shared wheat spot. Faster settlers didn't leave much room for fogbusting the West but I knew some warriors would do until Chariots arrive. I did lose one warrior to an Archer but Justin's Archer took care of that barb.

I tried to get one chariot to level 4 and it managed to win 3-4 battles against Archers at around 75% odds (and got to level 4 ). And then it died to an Axe at 96%+ odds. Lol. But I don't complain.

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Western land could be easily blocked but it was bad so I decided to go for obvious Elepult for some living space. I didn't whip much, only Monument or two and few granaries. didn't even whip much later. Whipped only 4-5 War elephants. But I did prechop and chop everything and, coupled with natural production, I managed to gather respectable stack 250BC. I was piling up my money until library was built but also I usually wait to see if some trade will open up. Researching HBR before Maths is always good because Maths trade is often possible, especially with so many techers like in this game. I traded for Maths and Masonry to speed my Construction research time.

I decided to attack Inca because tech pace was already to fast and HC built so many wonders, although it'd be nice if I got rid of Monty, simply because he is Monty. Monty asked for tribute and I had to give him HBR or Maths, not sure which, but my back was secured. Monty went for Lizzy and I happily joined when he asked me to for some diplo points.

And then war came and it was well prepared war (which means enough catapults) with anticipated losses. I thought about resuming my campaign but everyone had LBs so that wasn't very smart thing to do. I reduced HC to one city and signed peace for about 1.5k beakers in techs.

My bpt is staggering even with one city in revolt thanks to Rathaus and Mids I captured. Reaching Steel early would really be easy so it is no mistake to declare this game won. Most of the army is still alive and can defend against any SoD.

Thanks, Doshin, for the map.

Screenies:

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[Doshin]

Round 4 (Part 1)

(Lots of images, so I hope they're quicker to load than in previous posts. I switched from Imageshack to Photobucket, and I think they've been compressed more).

A reminder of where I’d gotten to in the last round:

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The main goal now was to win Lib. On Deity, it tends to go between 500 AD and 1000 AD. Usually Wilhelm or Lizzie will get there early… so I decided to go all out, and put my NE/Philosophy/Golden Age GP plan into practice.

With one turn invested in Literature, I made the following trade:

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And built the NE in my capital:

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This would have been better in one of the recently captured Inca sites (with the wonder GPPs). But it would have been too slow, and the GP pool would have been too clouded.

In 740 AD I generated a Great Engineer, earmarked for a GA:

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One turn later, I got a GS in Aachen, who bulbed towards Lib. And, with two turns of research:

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Wilhelm had already been able to research Lib. for three turns, so I just took Printing Press for the economic boost and trade bait. Aachen then generated a Great Merchant, which I promptly sent off to London (home of the Temple of Artemis).

In 1090 AD, Monty was still duking it out with Justinian:

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So I declared, with 18 Cuirassiers (more being built, some Knights ready to be upgraded.):

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I like the look on Monty's face.

Pics will do most of the talking:

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During my war with Monty, HC had decided he was hot stuff and broke free from Wilhelm. Since everyone else had Rifling, I decided to take care of unfinished business:

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Bad luck:

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I teched to Assembly Line and then went for Lizzie:

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Part two coming up...

 

[Doshin]

Round 4 (Part 2)

I'll keep it short, because I'm sure you're all bored of clicking on spoiler tags by now

I move from Lizzie to Mr Grumpy:

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Haha, no:

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Great AI strategizing:

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Wilhelm is the only AI of note left. He's about 30 turns away from winning via Culture, so I'll finish him off in the next round. And that should be enough for Domination.

 

[Doshin]

@ Shakabrade

Nice rush. So much cleaner and quicker than my own

Representation, a shrine (~100 GPT), and whipped Rathauses (Rathäuser) lead to a killer economy.

 

[Smilingrogue]

Nice game! Looks like it's a wrap.
How did you stop HC from re-capping to Willem? Was your power rating too high for anyone else to take him as a vassal and start a war with you?

 

[Doshin]

Nice game! Looks like it's a wrap.
How did you stop HC from re-capping to Willem? Was your power rating too high for anyone else to take him as a vassal and start a war with you?

Don't quote me on this, but I'm 80% sure that if an AI is plotting, they won't accept a peace vassal if that vassal will drag them into a war. The mechanic, unless I'm mistaken, is the same one that stops you from bribing an AI into a war against someone on whom they're already plotting (e.g. Monty plots on Elizabeth, player declares against Elizabeth, player can't instantly bribe Monty to declare).

More importantly, I was four turns away from Rifling and had 15 cities. If Willem had declared, I might have lost one or two border cities, but I was in a good position to recover.

 

[Doshin]

Round 5

To victory!

I’ve not got too much to say: the game was in the bag.

I teched to Industrialism and built a few Tanks before declaring war on the Dutch. Willem moved his stack next to Cuzco. With Drill III Artillery and some Combat III Tanks, I destroyed the best defenders. My Infantry and Cavalry then did the rest. Apparently this was all too much for poor Willem. Without needing to take a single city, he capitulated:

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Leaving me to win Domination:

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Stats and screens:

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Capital:

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Well, now I’ve won with Charlemagne I still don’t think he’s very good. The Rathaus is great, but not game-breaking. Everything else about the Holy Romans is a bit pants. Apart from their theme music. I like that.

The early diplo was, for me, the most challenging part of the game, especially because Monty and HC founded competing religions. I’d be interested to hear whether anyone passed over an early war in favor of a straight Lib. race.

Thanks to everyone who read and/or played! It’s nice to kick things off with a win. I’ll start another game in a week or so.

 

[JSS]

Nice game man, congrats!

 

[Smilingrogue]

Don't quote me on this, but I'm 80% sure that if an AI is plotting, they won't accept a peace vassal if that vassal will drag them into a war. The mechanic, unless I'm mistaken, is the same one that stops you from bribing an AI into a war against someone on whom they're already plotting (e.g. Monty plots on Elizabeth, player declares against Elizabeth, player can't instantly bribe Monty to declare).

Ah... that is right, AIs already in WHEOOHRN will not start wars via any other means even if the end target is the same one they are plotting on. (AP may force one, I am not sure on that) Didn't notice Willy was in war-prep.

Nice game and congrats on the win.

 

[shakabrade]

Congratulations on the game, Doshin.

Started with a win.

And so many large pics! I have 12Mbps connection and still have to wait some time for pics to load.

 

[shakabrade]

I have finished my own game. Pangaea is simple map to play (but most dangerous).

Spoiler :

I stopped 350AD last time. Now I tried to decide which path to go:
1) Lib MT or Nationalism at least and go for Cuirs
2) Lib MT or Nationalism and go for Cavalry
3) Go straight for Cannons

Short Evaluation:
1) First, I can easily lose Lib race with 3 super techers still in game, so it is risky, second, Cuir date would be a bit late and Cuirs alone wouldn't be enough to win this game, third, there are too many hill cities in Aztec land to capture so Cuirs would have high fatality. Tech path is not too long so that is not a problem. Forgot to include gunpowder to tech tree.

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2) Tech path is simply too long. But 2 moves is great. Long tech path gives too much time to those techers to reach Rifling and it takes my time too.

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3) Short tech path and 2-3 techs can be traded for for sure. Cannons are unstoppable but they are slow. However, there is no risk they will not work since they own everything including infantries all the way until Artillery. Also, with cannons, you lose less units and capping is, therefore, easier. So it was clear win for cannons in these circumstances, especially with high bpt.

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I gathered a force and invaded Monty 980 AD, iIrc, because he can be really PITA if you let him live for too long with too many cities and, also, shortest conquest path started with him (Willy is a wimp and you can leave him for later, even if he gets tech superiority). He attacked England and I had luxury of splitting my forces to three cities. They all merged into one primary stack to capture Tenochtitlan and secondary stack captured some other city. He capitulated. Soon after that, I capped Byzantines and killed Inca, their city state vassal. Few turns after England capped, Giggles followed them some 3 turns after, and finally, in 2T war Willem.

I skipped Lib, skipped Education path, didn't build National Epic. Didn't even whip much but had 4 cities capable of producing 6 cannons in 8 turns and whipped occasionally other cities. If I was playing carefully, I could have bulbed Philo and traded it for Engineering and Feudalism. Many mistakes but grand strategy made up for them.


Some screenies of HRE military might, kills/losses and victory screen:

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As you can see, going for Lib can sometimes be a drag.

 

[Doshin]

Nice one Shakabrade. I might have won with Charlie, but you killed the map

For the next game, I'm thinking of playing Pangaea again, and maybe Continents after that. (Unless someone wants to volunteer and vet a few Fractal maps that I generate so that I'm not isolated?)

 

[shakabrade]

Nice one Shakabrade. I might have won with Charlie, but you killed the map

For the next game, I'm thinking of playing Pangaea again, and maybe Continents after that. (Unless someone wants to volunteer and vet a few Fractal maps that I generate so that I'm not isolated?)

Thanks.

You could have easily done the same thing. I can see you know how to manage your empire and recover quickly. You just went for more Lib influenced conservative path.

I don't think you need another Pangaea map. You wouldn't have much to learn if that is your goal. Continents, fractal, big and small, hemispheres are way to go. More elements of the game. Including navy and trade routes.

I like the pace with which you play your games, without overthinking, and would be glad to shadow more if I get some free time to play.

 

[ben-jammin]

1360AD on deity with a shite leader and monty as a neighbour is impressive as hell!

 

[shakabrade]

1360AD on deity with a shite leader and monty as a neighbour is impressive as hell!

Thanks.
I like Charly, actually. Rathaus is very strong building, especially if you go to corps. Imp trait is very useful on deity pangaea for grabbing that one extra city/resource you need.

Starting land was great and Monty was castrated because I didn't share 7 or so tiles with him and thus didn't become land target. Also, he had Lizzy as a neighbour and he hates her because of peaceweights. He also demanded tribute from me and I didn't have to gift him a city to get him to pleased.

Starting land was also great. Perfect for elepult with all those forests, food, mines and flood plains, and elephants . Only some golds could make it better but then it'd be too good to play it.

So it wasn't that hard.

 

[shakabrade]

double post