Deity ABC's - Achieving Better Consistency

[Berks]

@krikav

The saving hammers on Archers at the cost of commerce makes sense given we have Gems and focused on Commerce early.
I felt we had a short border and lots of good defensive tiles so we could avoid Archery in this case.
A bit greedy to be sure, as the next set showed.

T50

Archers and Warriors stream in from the North.
I keep Copper unhooked for a bit to build a few Warriors, prevent hammers from turning into Spearmen and then get 2 Axes

AH in, we have Horse in BFC! I have workers road the Copper and move 1 to start on the Horse.

HC and Zara build blocking cities in the Jungle. Bye bye plains cows.

Only lost 1 scout to buy time for my first Axe to get in position.
Killed 4 warriors and 2 archers, and the danger has passed now.

Tech Myst -> Pot -> Writing.
Slavery late as I did not want to whip away improved tiles.
Whipped a Settler from 6 -> 4.
Have now started growing Uppsala, it was using Copper to build Warriors and an Axe in time to defend the city tile itself.

Was not able to spare a unit to scout East, so I end up using a Worker to do so.
No seafood, so I think I will neglect the East in favour of going North

Maybe I should settle a helper 2S of Clam for the Dye later on?
Problem with that is we have no food to utilize the green tiles N of the capital (except dry Rice.... yay!)

Next Set

Finish Writing
Explore N with Axe
Settle Clam site
Hook up Ivory
Build Axes for Barb City

 

[krikav]

You seem to have a talent for rolling maps with depressing areas outside of capital.

Just looking at the development on the screenshot, things look a bit slow for T50, but it's hard to say really.
Building axes and settling more would not be my first priority here, I would make plan for how I could get a bunch of HAs up really fast with gems+fin cottages.

 

[Berks]

Hi Krikav,

You're right, the land outside the capital isn't that good. Lets try HA's and see how it goes.

T69

I switched research to HBR, and built a few more Workers. I want to strike ASAP so Writing can wait. We have enough commerce.

Settled Haithabu to maximise its' short term production using Copper and Mines. Zara ended up settling right on the Dye, the only tile he could settle on.

Cottaged a few tiles to speed up research and built a few mines also.

Opened borders with HC and Zara, but not Suley, as he is in a different religion to HC. HC has border tension with both opponents.

Zara has 6 cities, and I have seen a Settler in his northern city, so I think he is out of space. A few Swords too, so he has Iron at least.

Barb city to the N still untouched. I think there's a lot of land to the N which Suley is taking. HC seems to be expanding either South or West, his city's only had Archers in it.

HBR in, grab Archery and start making Stables. Will whip and chop out some HA over the next dozen turns.

 

[krikav]

@Berks Just finished the game I was playing, and I think I'll try this map out now. Have even remembered to clear autosaves!
I have seen location of copper, but not the rest yet, will try to play this as I would normally play though.

Will try to get some checkpoints at T27 T36 T50 T69 for you to compare with.

 

[Berks]

Good luck with the game Krikav. I have produced the army, I'll attach the T82 save with 12 HA and a Chariot ready to go.

I'm really hoping you're able to get more HA or hit earlier than I did. I played a short round after this one which made me want to take a break for a day or two. I'll post that one up when I get a chance, as I want to do a more detailed writeup.

T82

Not much to say about this round, just whipping and chopping HA's. Two cities with Stables and one without as I had some spare pop to whip away in Uppsala. Save attached.

 

[sampsa]

Two cities with Stables and one without as I had some spare pop to whip away in Uppsala.

In general, stables are pretty bad for HA-attacks. I think one can be worth it to have some C2-HAs (or shock), but two stables is very hard to justify IMO, almost always you'd much rather have an extra attacker than some 4*2xp. Without seeing the specifics, just growing (even into unhappiness) would be what I'd prefer. There is no such thing as "spare pop". Whipping a stable means not whipping a HA.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler :

I did not work lake/unimproved gams, but went for fastest growth with 3F instead, not really sure that was better but it's almost certainly what I would have done without seeing your accelerated BW approach.
Both workers jumped into the same forest to get the settler done faster, but I lacked 1-2 hammers, so instead I ended up delaying settler 1 turn. Growing Nidaros a turn, because byt hen the workers where making the final road and settler reaches the spot the same turn anyway.

Had some nasty barbs show up, so sacrificed scout and then lost one warrior in the forested hill 1S of rice before I could whip an axe. After this bout, the barbs where completely silent.

Overflow from the axe-whip and chops finishes granary in capital, want to preserve forests but also want to clear riverside and make cottages asap.
Uppsala has to build it's own worker, poor city.

I was abit unsure about HBR right away, went for writing first as the palace commerce+gems+cottages is bound to make it worthwhile with a somewhat fast library in the capital, also AH+Pottery both makes writing cheap.
Zara started boasting about his swords at T47, so he is kind of off the table for a HA rush, creative hill city spears is nothing I want to deal with.
2-3 turns later I see Sullys city on top of a copper hill so I rule out him too.

Started going HBR, but rather soon I realize that was a mistake, can't rely on religion to get those clams and this city will be worthless without the clams, so I make the detour I wanted to avoid.

Here I also see Capac (who only has chariots) with his holy city with walls on top of a hill, so here I rule out HAs altogether. Elepult next.

T69 overview. I forgot completely about the earlier checkpoints, but all autosaves is attached.
Think it's best to just self-tech everything from here, Math->Mason->Construction. But going aestethics for tradebiat could also be an option. Build two monuments in Uppsala+Nidaros and then put unit whip overflow into SoZ.

 

[krikav]

@Berks
I think I set you off to a HA-rush that will be problematic at best, with my earlier remark.
It's so different just trying to advice seeing the map, and a completely different when you have the situational awareness.

 

[Fippy]

Elepult should be safer, yup.
Or more like Axepult with some Jumbos added later, good to prebuild some agg Axes in copper city.

 

[Fippy]

Seeing the position of your army Berks, Addis Ababa is def. not one where you want to slam HAs in
If Zara, i would use HC's land and start with Lalibela.

 

[Berks]

@krikav

I don't usually use HA's (With my 'talent' as you put it for rolling maps I found archerpult was sufficient on Immortal). I don't think I did it optimally at all!
My game from T27-50 wasn't too great IMO so I might replay from the T27 save after we all laugh at my next round

I will say I think I executed my attack rather well, just on the wrong target on the wrong map

By the way, Zara only has 1 city on a hill

@sampsa

By 'spare pop' I mean Uppsala had no Commerce tiles to work, so while I was researching HBR, it was building Workers, a Chariot and a Monument (not ideal) and I whipped it down from unhappiness. With 3 forest chops it produced almost 1/2 the army.

I built the Stable after putting the first chop + overflow into a HA, so I could 2 pop whip the Stable, and finish HA's on the following 2 turns (might have been 3 turns as I was chopping the city too). Remove unhappy pop + grassland forest pop in return for 3 promos. Not saying it was good, but that's the why.

I did beat two counterattacking Spears on open ground and three in a city with Shock HA, and many of my HA in the first attack had less than 1 strength remaining, so I think the 2nd promo kept many alive.

@Fippy

I realised Zara would be the wrong target, and you will be happy to know I did not slam my HA into his city. I'll explain in the next set.

@All

I watched some HA rush video's from AZ and Lain before I played from T50 onwards to see timings and numbers and what the target's compositions looked like.
While not being as good as either of those two, I did have more numbers at an earlier date than some of the games, so I'm reasonably satisfied with how I did the build up.

I also won multiple unfavourable battles, so no complaints there.

And now, onto the fun.

T93

After loading my T82 save, you can see from the screenshot I have killed 6 warriors and 2 archers, and lost 1 warrior (also lost 1 scout)

I knew I wouldn't be able to take Zara after scouting him out, but wanted to throw the dice anyway.

Declared and moved my stack back N of the gems. Zara moved most of his metal units onto the Gems tile on, and I killed them without losses on T83.

Moved back on the Gems on T84, and took Addis Abbaba on T85.

Most of my HA survived with less than 1 strength, so I parked my stack to heal and split off the healthly/reinforcing HA's to take Yeha.

Annoyingly, Zara managed to whip 2 archers and a Spear from that city, but I managed to take it eventually, losing 3 HA's.

I killed some Spears at unfavourable odds, which balanced out losing 2 high odds battles for Yeha against the last defender.

I then moved down towards Zara's capital with a stack of 12 healthy HA's, and saved the game there. The reason? See the armies screenshot.

The kills - 6 Archers, 5 Spears (!), 4 Swords and 3 Axes.

The losses - 6HA, 1 Axe.

So I feel I did well overall with the war, but Zara was way too strong to take on with just HA.

HC seems weaker but I know he has spears running around too. Not really interested in trying against him with HA.

There's quite a bit of land to the North, any merits in a peaceful expansion next time? Or is it elepult all the way?

 

[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).