DDD VI: Lincoln

[shakabrade]

After all it seems that even in very favorable situations HA rush is a bad idea on Deity.

I disagree. If HA rush was earlier, it could have worked. And with gold, it should be early. Also, with PHI leader, bulbing Maths is an option and you can chop all those forests into very fast HAs (prechop). Also, spearman here and there is not a problem if you have numbers. Longbows on hills, OTOH, are serious problem.

If you commit to HA rush, second city has to be somewhere where it can Whip/chop an army while also not being a drain on economy (you want HBR as fast as possible). So, not where New York is now, cause New York is a slow city. It is great later. But that's later. Oracling HBR can also be an option, but then barbs would overrun poor Lincoln.

Edit: PH 3W 2N of Washington is a great spot. Gold to speed the research up + many forests. Third city can be Wheat+cow as whipping site. With gold and silver and charismatic, there is quite a happy cap.

 

[Doshin]

Yes, I think I've said elsewhere that I'm not entirely comfortable with HA rushing. I should have read vicawoo's article before committing here. It places a lot of stress on the fact that commerce is the number 1 limiting factor, and the Northern Gold/Silver spot would have contributed to my research enormously (and production, with so many Forests).

 

[Doshin]

Round 5

I started off the round by signing a Defensive Pact with Catherine. There are four turns until the next AP vote, and this will determine the AP Resident:

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That means that there will be no “Stop the war against X” votes for at least 14 turns, in which time I’ll be totally exposed. An alliance with Catherine will at least provide me with a safety net, should Shaka or Willem declare.

The defensive pact was, BTW, completely useless. Willem declared war against Catherine, which meant that I had to declare war against him. Catherine then proceeded to get her ass kicked and immediately lost two cities. She eventually capitulated. Whoops.

I was on my own at this point in terms of research. My tech path went from Gunpowder ---> Chemistry ---> Steel ---> Military Science.

At some stage, Shaka started plotting. This went on for about 20 turns, and then the fist went away. It came back a few turns later. Gandhi also started plotting, but this was against Catherine, it turns out.

Pacal is getting so far ahead it’s almost embarrassing. I switched into Judaism, to bring him up to Pleased. I don’t have Grenadiers yet, but notice the following:

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Pacal does plot war at Pleased, unfortunately, but at least if he’s at Pleased I can beg some gold. He actually did start plotting at one point, but I asked for 10 gold and the red fist went away.

In 1470 AD, I grew tired of waiting for Shaka or Gandhi to declare and took the plunge myself:

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I was still two turns away from Military Science. But Shaka would need one turn to move into my territory, one turn to bombard, and (more importantly) Longbows defending in a hill city are ridiculously overpowered given their cost in hammers. This seemed like the best way to get rid of Shaka’s army. My initial stack:

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Shaka’s invasion force (after feeling the brunt of a couple of Cannons):

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Longbow defense:

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About half his Rifles won their battles. I was expecting this, and on the next turn I mopped up:

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We then went on the offensive:

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In 1550 AD, Shaka somehow reached Assembly Line. This was kinda annoying, but for the most part his units stayed cooped up defending. Still, gotta love those 2-movement Infantry:

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Upon reaching Bulwayo, my Knights issued a challenge. “Good sirs, you have no honor! Cast your weapons aside and fight with us in hand-to-hand combat, as honorable Gentlemen.”

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But Shaka’s Infantry refused to leave the city. So I just blasted them with Cannons:

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The cities captured are mostly an uninspiring lot:

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Nongoma is decent enough, but will no doubt be swamped by Russia’s culture.

With the loss of Nongoma, Shaka was willing to capitulate:

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Ok. It’s T227, 1585 AD, and I’ll declare on one of the two eastern blocs soon. The question is, who? Neither India nor the Dutch have Infantry. India is more powerful, but has better/closer cities and should be easier to capitulate (because Ragnar can be eliminated easily, and once Gandhi lacks a vassal, he’ll fold pretty quickly). And, I’d get rid of the stupid cultural pressure that keeps gnawing away at my territory. Things like this make me so sad:

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That Village and Town were in my capital’s BFC. Now they are simply farms.

I’m up Steel on Shaka, although he’s invested a lot of research into it already. Still, I’ll take what I can get. Rifling will be next.

Save attached, right before I cap Shaka.

Oh, and I think Pacal has Tanks now.

Also, I kept forgetting to turn on resource bubbles for pictures. My bad.

 

[Thrar]

Do you think you can get Domination without having to attack Pacal? Is there enough time before he goes to space?

 

[Doshin]

I'll have to attack Pacal. He's too large (18 cities). He's already built the Apollo Program, but no spaceship parts yet. It's a long haul to build a spaceship, even for a runaway AI.

What helps is that Pacal is a low unit spammer, and hasn't been at war for the entire game. I don't think he'll have much of a stack or any highly promoted units.

I think a win is likely if I can avoid a two-front war. I can pick off the Eastern blocs one at a time. Then Pacal should be a cinch, because I'll have Infantry and Artillery with which to defend while I catch up in tech.

I'll probably wait until Rifling before I make any sort of move. I don't want to fight Cavalry with Cannons and Grenadiers. That never goes well.

Things will be most difficult if I get dragged into a 2-front war before I reach Rifling and (esp.) Assembly Line. I can defend against Pacal by mass suiciding Cannons, but this will really slow me down and could well lead to defeat.

 

[Shaandore]

Very good game so far! I would switch to Espionage economy at this point with all points on Pacal if you hadn't done that already. Him having Apollo program might mean that you will have to sabotage a lot, and maybe even turn against him. I don't think you will have time to capitulate both eastern blocks. But I can be proven wrong, let's see what happens!

Let's hope he doesn't get to Mech Infs soon, the AI tends to do that, and those things are very annoying...

 

[Doshin]

Round 6

First things first, I needed to get to Rifling. Shaka had largely researched Steel, but I managed to get a bit of a discount:

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Rifling was needed because Willem had built a stack that consisted almost entirely of Cavalry:

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I don't know if you've ever been mass-rushed by Cavalry when you're stacking Grenadiers and Cannons, but it's not fun. The Grenadiers mostly lose and the Cannons start to take massive damage from all the flank attacks. In fact, this can happen with Infantry/Cannon stacks too, if you're not careful (Genghis Khan, with his increased war courage and high unit spam, is particularly vicious).

After a quick threat to an old friend:

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I declared war:

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Gandhi was more or less at Assembly Line. Willem was an easier target.

The war against Russia went rather smoothly. Catherine's back had obviously been broken in her earlier wars. I'll mass some pictures:

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While I was beating on Catherine, Willem snuck behind my lines and captured a former Zulu city.

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It was weakly defended (three LBs) and I had an enormous stack of Cannons and Greandiers in the vicinity. Two turns later, I wiped Willem's stack out.

With my Western 'defensive' stack now freed up, I was able to finish off Russia with two stacks moving from the North and West:

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Unfortunately, by this stage I was facing a double threat to my victory. Gandhi was pursuing a culture win with a vengance, while Pacal had already had plans drawn up for his new condo on the moon:

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Still, what could I do? I needed to reach Assembly Line, which meant capitulating Willem:

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Gooooo Shack-attack.

Willem has six cities, I'd already wiped out one stack, but he still managed to put the following together:

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To delay Gandhi and Pacal, I burnt some espionage points. My Spies in India began to sabotage cultural buildings. My Spy in the Maya territory sabotaged an SS Life Support:

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I was also building Galleys. Delhi was on the coast. Mutal was three tiles away from the coast.

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The plan was simple. Build a massive number of Galleys. Move them to the West coast, while my stack returns from Holland. Upgrade my Rifles en route. Send them all the way to the west coast via rail. Load them into the Galleys, wait a turn, and declare war.

Delhi would be even more straight forward (in theory), since it could be attacked amphibiously, or I could mass rush it with Cannons one turn after my army landed.

I had more Galleys than the picture suggests, but Willem had Destroyers roaming about so my movement from city to city was limited.

The clock, however, was ticking:

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And Willem still refused to capitulate:

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Then, in 1804, Gandhi popped a Great Artist:

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And in 1806, Pacal launched his Spaceship:

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And Willem continued to build new armies out of nowhere. Think of all the units I've killed so far, and the fact that he now has only four cities. Then imagine meeting this:

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That's the power of a Deity AI with Mining Inc, I suppose.

With Pacal 10 turns away from victory, and Gandhi 14 or fewer:

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I did the only honorable thing. I made peace with Willem and, with heavy heart, admitted defeat:

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Willem peace-vassals to Pacal on the next turn, if I play on. "Doing fine on our own" my a**.

I then reloaded, entered the Worldbuilder, and mass deleted Gandhi, Pacal, and Willem's cities.

Oh well. After the HA rush, I never really recovered and, try as I might, I couldn't keep pace with the AI. Pacal had Modern Armors and Mech Infantry. I had Cannons. I was also juggling too many balls at once: espionage was needed, to sabotage buildings and spaceship parts. Research was needed, to catch up in tech. Money was needed, to upgrade my army. And units were needed, to fight Catherine and Willem.

If I had been able to attack Catherine and Willem individually, things might have gone my way. I guess I could have left Catherine with one city and hoped that she broke free and capitulated with some free techs. But I thought Willem would fold pretty quickly after losing his vassal (by the end, I outnumbered his cities by more than 5:1).

Thanks for reading everyone! I will aim for a Lib ----> Cuirassier rush in the next one.

 

[Doshin]

P.S.

I think a win is likely if I can avoid a two-front war. I can pick off the Eastern blocs one at a time. Then Pacal should be a cinch, because I'll have Infantry and Artillery with which to defend while I catch up in tech.

For further reading, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubris

 

[erajah]

Very entertaining read, Doshin. Admittedly, I follow your threads (and other similar ones), way more than I even play Civ4, and I greatly appreciate the effort you put in to these posts.

Finally you have one defeat -- you were making Deity look too easy.

 

[vanillasine]

enjoyed the writeup, ty

 

[The Oz-Man]

I then reloaded, entered the Worldbuilder, and mass deleted Gandhi, Pacal, and Willem's cities.

Undefeated, baby! Count it.

 

[Shaandore]

This was a good game and a good read!
Let's hope the next part of this series will bring you more challanges, and you will be able to overcome them next time!

 

[pepe26]

deity AI is just a bunch of freaking cheesing-a** cheaters... shame developers havent put more effort in creating a smarter and still competetive AI. seeing what willem did, is such a frustrating experience even for the audience! discriminating the player is one of the things, I hate most of this game

loved your feisty write-up and how you hung on but i woulda given up long before at the time you said that thing you hubris-quoted later

 

[Doshin]

Thanks all, especially to those names I don't recognize.

Willem's unwillingness to capitulate was understandable, in terms of the AI's way of seeing the world. I'm not an expert, but I think a number of events conspired to make Willem reluctant to give in.

• A master doesn't count war success against their vassal as detrimental to them. I captured five Russian cities in total, but Willem didn't care. Willem started the war with seven cities. One hundred years later, Willem still has seven cities. Willem's doing great.
  
• Willem reached Assembly Line by the time I reached his core. I *think* an AI recognizes when they have superior units.
  
• The AI definitely knows when their troops are winning or holding their own. Cannons can still defeat Infantry, but you will take losses (it's not like Artillery vs Infantry, where, after the first five or so attacks, it's a bloodbath). The AI caves much more easily when they are losing cities or units en masse, without time to recover.
  
• Finally, Willem's power was still very close to my own. The human fights smart with small numbers and can clear the globe with a single stack of mounted units as Warriors continue to defend their cities. The AI has ~12 units per city, an enormous stack waiting to be attacked with siege, and 3 million Destroyers. So even when the player has five times as many cities, the AI believes it has the power to make a spirited comeback.

My biggest regret is that I couldn't launch an amphibious invasion against Delhi in good time. I could have actually put the Navy SEALS to good use.

 

[admtanaka]

A tough loss but a good read. I think you are right, it was a tough one after the HA rush against Ragnar (and having to take peace before alpha).

 

[vranasm]

I then reloaded, entered the Worldbuilder, and mass deleted Gandhi, Pacal, and Willem's cities.

sometimes do the same tough game, good read, not sure if gratz is in place

 

[Killroyan]

Very nice game Doshin. Lots of fun to read. Thx. All I can say is NEXT!!!!

 

[Smilingrogue]

Did you manage to actually dislodge Cath from under Willem's boot? I think you should have taken her as a vassal if she was willing to cap for free techs. But hindsight is 20/20.

Great read as always, Doshin. Looking forward to more.

 

[Xcalibrator]

Did anyone consider settling on the sheep? I haven't opened the game yet but wouldn't that give you an extra food right away, plus the standard extra hammer for plains hill? Save 5 turns on the worker, then grow faster with the extra food plus getting the grassland sheep hooked up earlier? (Of course, I'm assuming that AH would be finished by the time you have a worker.) True, no gold in the BFC that way but you wouldn't know that at the time. (Although I'm an Imm+ player, I suck at picking where to settle, so be gentle.)

 

[Doshin]

@Smilingrogue

Nope, and I would have taken her as a vassal had she broken free. My end game was predicated upon capitulating Catherine/Willem/Ragnar/Gandhi for free techs and the ability to direct their research. Unfortunately this didn't happen.

@Xcalibrator

Settling on the Sheep grants +1 but no extra food. The rule is something like: "a city site will always yield at least 2 and 1 . If the base tile grants two food and is covered by a food resource (Cow, Corn, Sugar, Banana etc.) this will be bumped to 3 . If the base tile is covered by a hammer resource (Marble, Stone, Copper, Iron etc.) the base yield will be increased by +1 ."

There's probably a more concise way to express that.

A PH Sheep isn't a great tile though, you're right. I don't think settling on top would necessarily be bad play. What swung it for me was the I needed to research AH anyway, and I didn't want a farmed Floodplains to serve as my only other source of food.