Deity ABC's - Achieving Better Consistency

[krikav]

Can never practice HA rushes too much, and yeah they often lead to quite alot of fun too. Your moving back and forth and striking opportunistically is just the way to use them, gj!
I have not scouted the north, but to me, lush green land that has been improved with cities loaded with population and buildings are very hard to trump.
In a game like this, I would almost certainly go with elepult for one target, then supplement army with more medieval stuff for another round with a secondary target to make use of the veterans and GGenerals. In the secondary war I would make sure to get some handfulls of berserkers promoted along the CR line for possible upgrades later on.

 

[Berks]

So, can we win with ALL of Zara's land?

And if we Elepulted Zara, what date would we expect to take the land?

 

[krikav]

T100 is a normal benchmark date I use to assess if my construction attack is early or late. If I'm attacking T90 I know it's blazing fast, if I'm attacking by T110 I better have a large army that won't have to slow down much.
This map, with Fin+gems and forests I think should be on the fast side, so on the lower side of that bound I would say.

I like the idea @Fippy mentioned, with going for construction first, and adding HBR later that would enable possibly starting with just axes/catapults earlier and then finishing up HBR and adding elephants abit later

We are on the large continent, so there is not much on the other continent that could screw things up for us I think, so just focusing here gaining dominance should secure a victory sooner or later.

 

[Berks]

I started playing another set just to see how badly I would lose, when I was presented with an opportunity.....

T103

I retreated my stack, waiting to snipe some more units and try to circle around to Lalibela with the main portion of the stack.

HC joined the war against Zara a few turns later. I direct him to attack Lalibela.

Finished Alpha and traded for some smaller filler techs like Sailing, Masonry, Math and IW.

I snipe Lalibela on T103, and Zara will trade me CoL for peace. I take it so I can get Calendar and Monarchy after a few turns of research and try to keep up a bit in the tech race.
No one has Feud so I should be able to join soon, and Zara still has enough defenders so I don't expect him to lose a city.

Stopped whipping my cities now, I'm still slowbuilding HA with the intention of rejoining the war and taking the rest of the cities.
Suley and HC are too big to fight afterwards, so time to improve land and grow.
I'm behind, but I don't feel the game is lost just yet.

Need to start generating some GS, I haven't found a good city to use yet. Maybe I should whip a Library in Uppsala, I would prefer Nidaros to keep working Cottages.

Think I should research MC next, and head towards Optics.

Set was a bit rushed so tile micro maybe not perfect, but the general idea was there.

 

[Berks]

Diplomacy continued to break my way, and I was able to wipe out Zara and take all of his land.

T130

Traded for Calendar and Monarchy as planned. Now have room to grow my cities again.

Continue to add a few more HA to the stack. Started on MC so I can get Currency and some money.

Redeclare on Zara on T113. Take Gondar on T115.

Not enough forces to take the capital, so build up and take Debre Berhan. Zara down to 1 city.

Get MC and trade for Currency and money as planned. Research into Civil Service.

Not enough HA to take Zara out, so I wait for HC to move his stack into position. I should be able to snipe the city, as his stack isn't huge.

Find why HC has no troops - he's after the barb city to the north! Waiting.........

Zara gets Feudalism first, and vassals to Suley, while at war with HC and I! Suley got the barb city, but I have no units. I make a few emergency axes and spears as I see a HA moving around.

Kill the HA, but would need an army to take any cities. Suley had 14 cities before he declared.

HC builds AP, I vote for him. Start planning to build temples and monasteries for AP hammers.

Civil Service in. After building up, I'm able to wipe out Zara, but I lose most of my army. Still think its worth it as Suley also has Longbows now.

Next Set

Tech Paper -> Edu and bulb Philo seems risky, its already 375AD and I have no idea if we are the most advanced. On the other hand, HC is next door and doesn't have paper or philo yet.

Optics doesn't seem much better, I still don't have machinery.

Grow cities, improve land. Spread Buddhism and grow our hammer counts. I should get a GP soon which I can use for a GA or to bulb perhaps Philo.

Seek peace with Suley, I have no army and would need to re-build up to even start making progress.

This is not my strongest section of the game by any means. Suggestions welcome

 

[krikav]

Did they make peace?
If Capac is also at war, it might be good to just stay in the war for the time being. Try to kill some stray units so you can get peace at will later on.
Perhaps you can also piggyback and do some fragstealing?

Not sure there is much point bulbing philo, or trying for lib. Might be a tall order to get there first.
For sure grow cities, you got alot of nice resources and should be able to get large cities. A paci-push later could also be nice, but I shouldn't rush it.
Taking some anarchy is no big deal, rather postpone the GA until your cities are nice and large.

Cottagespam could be really sweet with FIN too.
I think you are in a comfortable situation to develop and strive to get an edge later on.

An thing that catch my eye is Aksum where you could perhaps get Globe up? Capac doesn't have aestethics so that could provide some trading value. Aestethics->Drama. That also makes it cheaper to tech philo.
There is dye available too, and if you need to stay peacefull with Capac, the theatres could be extra nice to hold the culture abit.

Now is probably also the time to try to see if you can grab some more land up north.

Oh, you are in HR, right? They both love that civic, so diplo should be solid in a while. Good thing Sully dowed you.

 

[Fippy]

If you revolt into Bud now HC would be friendly (already +9, 11 should be enuf).
Could go for Machinery trade with CS and start on Compass + Optics after if you prefer that route.
With some luck Compass gives you his gold too

Maybe better to first put 1t into Machinery and then revolt thou (trade during Anarchy).