Deity Isolation Workshop (Stan/Norm/Fractal/NH/NE)

[Pangaea]

Looked at your updates @Lain, since I knew the land and AIs anyway, and that was a very nice win with a strong military push. Shows it's possible to win at Deity even when fairly far behind in techs -- as long as you have some key military techs.

As for my game, some comments (not played further yet, been busy today):

Spoiler :

I'd like to be ready by 1000AD, but in my experience, 1000AD approaches very quickly, so not sure I'll pull that off, given the lack of infra and of course units. Saw you had a pile of warriors to boost happiness in your game, Lain, but I got Monarchy very late, so couldn't do that, which is also why I've had to restrict whipping. Generally I could only whip when the last anger wore off, until quite recently at least, when a few trades improved the happy cap. But right now, it's probably a good idea to whip out some infra. Maybe even in the capital? Usually I don't whip that one much, and size 10 so late really isn't much.

The thinking of harbour over lighthouse in the capital was that both give me about the same amount of food, and harbour also give commerce. Think you're right that NE should get up asap, and I suppose the capital is the best spot for it. The others simply don't have a great deal of food. Not a fan of capital NE, it always needs so much other infra, and can't be whipped to hell and back. Typically it can't run a zillion specialists either, because it needs to work (mature) cottages.

As for cottages, I see you built lots of them in your game, so I'm a little confused about the advice to tear them down for farms. It's basically my only source of commerce, besides trade routes (until the very annoying Mercantilism hits). That said, I should at least turn the cottages in Vijah (east of capital) to farms. That was the idea from way back, but of course I needed CS first, which is pretty recent. The idea with Madras was to use the sheep (4-food isn't crap), help grow cottages, and then work coast. Could be an okay Moai city too. Not sure I'll bother with that without stone, but it's a thought.

Before unit build-up, I'll need basic infra. That means forge, lighthouse and barracks, and probably harbours everywhere due to low health cap and to further boost trade routes. Btw, in one of your saves I saw that a capital customs house got you +15 commerce. Not a bad deal, so I would have built that rather than another unit or two.

I love getting these lucrative gpt trades, but think you're right that I should cancel the wheat deal. +2 health would be useful as most cities are at or over the health cap.

Would love a GS for bulbing Edu, but it is so far off. Basically no anywhere now, after getting all those GSs. And due to need for infra, and perhaps spreading confu, I think it's best to stay with OR for now.

Should probably get a settler to that 1-tile island too, although non-coast fish makes it less lucrative.

Think I'll plan for a Cuirs attack though, as that can be done much sooner than Cannons+whatever. Hopefully that can be done before my target acquires Rifles. If I'm able to get there quickly enough and grab a pile of cities, upgrading to Cavalry can be rather successful. Pinch-Cavalry can even do a half-decent job against Rifles. Unfortunately the AI tend to start teching out of control right about now, so it's hard to say what kind of window I may get. That's the benefit with Cannons. They are slower, but much more versatile and durable.

 

[Pangaea]

Update from 800AD. A while to go yet.

Spoiler :

I've whipped out some stuff, including in the capital, which is growing fast when working all three food sources. Still quite a ways until I'm ready for war. The others sure are ready though. A full-blown world war in action now. Wish I was ready, as the stacks are bound to be spread all over the place. Joao must be in all sorts of trouble. Reckon it's only a matter of time until a city falls, and with so many after him, he's gonna cap when a few more fall.

For now the tech situation isn't too bad, but it's proving very difficult to get any trades. I think AIs are more restrictive with trades when in war. Will get Nationalism in 2 turns, but since I'll be first to it, naturally I'd like to have a stab at Taj as well, so ideally shouldn't trade it away asap for Engineering, PP or Music. A couple of AIs can tech Education. Can only hope nobody does, because I'm in a lousy position to get a GS for bulbing into it, which means Lib is quite a bit away.

The date for Lib is getting dangerous, certainly, but the wars should slow the AIs down. No way I'll be ready by 1000 AD, though, too much stuff needs doing before I'm ready. The infra is getting there, so can then start pre-building HAs.

Unsure about the best civics, though... Should dump OR once more infra is out, but Theo or Pacifism? Sure could use a GM or two for upgrades, but Theo is good for getting two promotions out of the gate with only a barracks. Means I don't need stables for a mounted army.

An overview shot below. Plenty of money to spare, I got 618 (fail) with NE (built in capital, from whip-OFs), but don't think it's enough to go through both Edu and Lib. Not too far off though.

(Not done city micro yet, in case there is something very wonky)

Suggestions or comments?

 

[Lain]

Comments. Edited some more.

Spoiler :

In a recent game I fought with cannons against tanks and won. In this one I fought at (military) tech parity mostly so it was a cake walk. So I trust them much more for sure. But with your situation here it can probably be worthwhile to commit to Cuirs, since all the action is taking off right about now.

The GPP production was already mentioned. I think that upon completion of the National Epic you could have switched into Pacifism+Caste System right away. You could get out a GS in 4-5 turns this way, even right now. So a GS could definitely be ready. Organized Religion is really not such a big deal in my opinion. A few saved hammers, but an Education bulb right now would be 1700 and thus easily worth more. At least one other city should be size 10 and build up a GM pool. Like: Run maximum amount of merchants without starving. Build up food again. Repeat. If started early enough, a later Golden Age can provide the burst to finish the GM this way. Ideally this will result in a 100% chance for a GM. Using the National Epic spot for this purpose can be iffy. Farming a GM from scratch during 8 turns of Golden Age often doesn't quite work out either. The GM thing can also be done with 2 cities. I didn't do that in this game either, but for the future, I think this is the way to go.

But basically, I think Pacifism would be the right decision here. Being Spiritual, you could switch inbetween to get the hammer bonus for a round of whipping. So basically, I would switch right now (and in retrospect, switch in 680 AD when the NE got built). Really, you only need Forges. Harbors are nice, but not a requirement. Some cities were settled a bit too late or maybe shouldn't have been settled at all. This is also true for my game. When I look at my 800 AD save, I could also point out many things that went wrong. That also applies to one or two cottages I maybe regret building. Though I went for Steel so a bit more research power was needed. Cuirs are closer, so cottages get less time to pay back their investment. If that makes sense.

The one-tile city with the ocean fish could become useful and provide some trade routes when everyone goes into Mercantilism. The ocean fish is not a big deal. You can send out a workboat across the ocean (just pointing this out, since I didn't realize this for a long time myself. Astro allows workboats to cross ocean). And with Caste System a border pop wouldn't be a problem either.

The barb city could be taken. Could be a decent spot and some Macemen (maybe with 1 catapult/treb?) would do the trick.

Well I still think Cuirs can work out nicely here. The timing makes me a bit nervous, but with the fighting everywhere it should be possible. MT Lib would be a big deal, so imho definitely switch into Pacifism+Caste immediately.

I would probably just ignore the Taj Mahal, to be honest. There are bigger fish to fry. When being serious about a rush, distractions like that are dangerous. Rather get out 7-8 HAs for the hammers spent.

 

[Pangaea]

Thanks for the advice, Lain.

Spoiler :

I had already played a few turns further, but had also recently changed to Caste+Paci, with the intention of saving up money while getting out a GS for completing Edu. Then, to my surprise, I see the icon for Scientific Method in the teching screen.... Apparently I messed up, probably quite a while ago by trading for Printing Press.

D'OH!

So now I need to tech Edu the (ab)normal way.

Looks like I've made more mistakes than that, but I'll make a stab with Cuirs anyway. Hopefully it goes well. Will try to get out some GMs for upgrades, particularly as more of the spare gold will be spend on Edu.

 

[Pangaea]

I would probably just ignore the Taj Mahal, to be honest. There are bigger fish to fry. When being serious about a rush, distractions like that are dangerous. Rather get out 7-8 HAs for the hammers spent.

Saw this just now, and you could well be right. Then again, I'll either get it or get a nice stash of gold, so it won't be a terrible deal.

Update with Lib

Spoiler :

As expected it wasn't possible to make a 1000AD attack. Suddenly things moved a bit quicker though, and I was able to Lib MilTrad in 1060AD. By then I had finally managed to trade a bit, so had Gunpowder and other tidbits.

As the fists in the scoreboard show, the wars have cooled down, partly because I bribed Cyrus off Toku, so Cyrus could focus on Shaka. Sadly they too peaced out not long after, but by now Shaka is plotting again (he's got a big stack). I suspect his target is Joao, who just peaced out with Sury, so maybe he can get a defence of sorts together.

Only got out 5 HAs, which isn't much. They got turned into Knights when we got Guilds, and 2 turns later Cuirs are available, so now it's Cuir-whipping-time

As for the barb city, I'm pleased that this ploy worked

Built culture in Calcutta (and a Theatre), and only a handful of turns after 100 , the barbs packed down their pointy hats. Had hoped all three longbows would flip too, but didn't expect the worker would (it didn't).

Couldn't bulb Edu, so ran 6 merchants in Delhi and crossed my fingers for a GM. Figured a GS would be useful anyway, but a GM better. Of course, we got the 10% Great Arsehat instead . Will use him for a Golden Age at some point.

Tech situation looks surprisingly good for now. I'm not sure how many Cuirs we need for the initial assault, but I'd like to attack pretty soon, while Cyrus haven't mass-upgraded to Knights and Muskets. He's beelined pretty hard, and with the free GS at Physics, he could well be doing that.

Not much of an army, yet, but it's a start.

Got 4 Galleons too, and will get a few more. The (presently) foodless city south of the capital doesn't have a barracks, so I'm whipping boats there. Have got out a Chariot for future GMedic duty. Planned another one, but was a turn too late. Can use a Cuir instead if I need another bloke for a 2nd front.

 

[Lain]

Looking good . Not much to add at this moment. Be interesting to see at what date you attack and if, in retrospect, you feel it could have been any quicker. With Cuirs you could snowball into a dominant position very quickly. But it's all about the first attack as always. Nice way to deal with the barbarian city aswell.

Recently I started paying more attention to UN wins. In some cases it becomes obvious who will likely build it. I salvaged some games by setting up the necessary diplo network to get a win later. Domination might not always be possible on difficult (slow) isolated starts.

==

Speaking of which, I have a question for some experts who (hopefully) come by every now and then. Assume following situation:

No rivers, no happiness resources, non-fin leader. But a lot of food and hills. And coast obviously. Tokugawa as leader. How do I get to Astro in a reasonable timeframe? Two main questions:

1) Monarchy yes/no?
2) Cottages (in capital?) yes/no?

Yeah depends on map etc etc, but I need some guideline to start with here. I thought about Monarchy and just work coast to raise base commerce and power through with fail gold, but I was told that coast is almost never worth it.

I tried skipping Monarchy and build research (Alpha) + lots of failgold from marble. It ended in absolute disaster. 60-70 beakers and losing money @ 10% slider.

It's one thing playing isolation with some floodplains/rivers and cottage them for a quick start, but I don't know what to do without base commerce. I mean, after city #4 I start losing money and have to work coast. And vanilla scientists/some hills for building research just don't do the trick. I thought about this for hours now and have no idea what to do.

In a "normal" game I'd just rush of course, but in isolation, I just don't know.

 

[Fippy]

I would say Monarchy + CoL, Caste scientists instead of cottages if it's really a lot of food.

 

[Lain]

Yup sounds good, not sure I can get the timing right though. If Astro comes later than 700 AD~, does it already mean that there were serious mistakes in play? Because not sure how I can do it. Aesthetics (marble), Monarchy and CoL and it's already 1 AD for me .

Maybe you want to play along a bit on the next map~ just BC gameplay would already be extremely valuable to compare.

Pleeease

 

[Fippy]

Maybe i can find the time
700AD does not mean serious mistakes imo, if you have really bad Iso conditions like Toku, no rivers or happy..

 

[Pangaea]

Looking good . Not much to add at this moment. Be interesting to see at what date you attack and if, in retrospect, you feel it could have been any quicker. With Cuirs you could snowball into a dominant position very quickly. But it's all about the first attack as always. Nice way to deal with the barbarian city aswell.

An attack has been launched.

Spoiler :

Don't feel it has gone particularly great, as I don't have enough units over there to really put the squeeze on Cyrus. But I've taken a city, and finally took the city he founded early on my island too. However, the good news is that with the failgold from Taj (over 800), I was able to go full tilt to Rifling, which is onboard. The bad news is that I'm not able to upgrade Cuirs in the captured city, probably because one lousy tile is missing a road (the floodplains near Shaka).

I attacked from Shaka's land and moved towards Susa. It was more lightly defended than Ecbatana further north, which contained a fairly big stack. Had to attack an elephant and knight across a river to get to the right spot, 4 tiles away from Ecbatana, so he couldn't hit me directly. With Cyrus moving his stack out from that city, it proved to be a good call, although the RNG in proper fashion boned me and I lost two guys. It enabled to more or less wipe his stack the next turn:

We we heavily wounded however, even lost some guys to attacking longbows in between turns, so although it was very tempting to wipe some badly wounded longbows and such, with borders closed between Shaka and Cyrus from a previous war, I thought the best move was to move out and heal. A GG was soon on the way across the strait.

I tend to underestimate them I think, but it's very frustrating to have your guys pummelled by airships every turn. When that happens from 12 or so each time... yuck. So I left some galleons outside cities to take some of the heat. That worked until he got healthy galleons himself that were up to no good.

Sury & Co tried to stop the war, and I had to defy. Good move, phew.

Have just traded for Economics so can go Free Market. Won't do much good with only two AIs not in Mercantilism, but better than nothing.

Before starting the war, relations with just about everybody were crap, except Cyrus ironically enough, so I had to go Free Religion. That enabled some begs, and Joao couldn't be bribed in on me either (must be Annoyed). Now the 10 turns are up, and I would prefer to get back to Theo, but that might increase the chance for Sury to declare on me. Maybe I'll wait a turn or two, and if he declares, I'll go Theo as everybody else (bar Toku) is in a war then.

This means Shaka is back to war. And what a war machine he has. Scary to say the least...

77 units? Something like that.

How the heck am I supposed to deal with that thing? Needless to say, Joao has been caught with his pants around his ankles, and unless I can bribe Shaka off him, he'll cap. The beast also has Grenadiers. FML.

As for me, I don't have a huge army yet. Have whipped very hard, the right arm is pitifully sore. But Cavs are expensive to whip, so it's slower going now. Need to upgrade the Cuirs I have. No happiness for drafting either, and most cities are too small.

Below are the guys in Susa. Not a lot, but they've been clearing out some counters by Cyrus, though that also means losing a few. Have a Cuir further north too. Thought it took out Cyrus' only source of horses, but he has one in the tundra too. Darnit.

I'm actually not quite sure how to proceed. Need to get my hands on Persepolis and some other juicy cities. Would be easier with Cavs, that's for sure. Although I got hosed when taking Ergili, Cavs should be more durable.

Perhaps attacking with some 20 Cuirs wasn't enough, and I should have waited longer and ferried over more guys. But I felt like I had waited long enough, and since Cyrus hadn't got Muskets yet, nor upgraded all horses to Knights, it felt like I had to cease the chance. Hope it wasn't a wrong call. Hope I can smack him down properly once I get some Cavs over, and ideally can upgrade the Cuirs I have there. They're only 80 a piece.

Have attached a save in case people want to have a look, and maybe offer advice? Any wrong step here will ruin things, especially given that tiny stack of death fluffy bunnies. *gulp*

 

[Lain]

I took a look.

Spoiler :

Well I think Cyrus should fall eventually. But it's hard to reinforce in meaningful numbers. I always found Cavs a bit inconvenient to whip. So I'd imagine that something like upgrading 20-30 HAs (or WEs) might be mandatory in order to offset the production issues that coastal cities are bound to have. Maybe you could have waited a bit longer to attack with 30+. Well it's easier in hindsight of course, but now he is most likely spamming units everywhere.

Not much to say except try to outmaneuver him. I just checked and I literally only had 10 Trebs at 1250 AD. So everything is still possible. Shaka is a worry, but you can still bribe him off if he is about to take his 2nd city. He doesn't have much siege so it will take him a while. Ideally, you take out Cyrus, Toku and Sury with Cavs. Not sure how that's going to work out.

If given the choice, I would always go for cannons though I feel. It's much, much easier to deal with SoDs (make it move into a city and siege it, really easy before Railroads). Cuirs are just so... defenseless. Every roaming Pike or WE can take a cheap shot at them. Try that against Rifles on a hill. Easier to fortify in enemy territory. I feel that with Cuirs, you really have to bring 40+ and like take half the cities in the first few turns. Take out the Airships immediately and get rolling. So upgrades might be even more crucial.

Just thinking out loud a bit. Still think you can do it. Shaka could be dealt with later I'd imagine and nobody else seems to be too dangerous right now. They all hate each other, that's a chance.

Wheat for wine from Sury? Bigger problems than a bit of unhealthiness in the capital right now. And I feel that a switch into Judaism might be an option for later. Shaka won't like you anyway once you cap Cyrus.

 

[Pangaea]

Thank you for the comments. Hope I'm not spamming too hard here

Spoiler :

Hadn't thought about converting to Judaism so thanks for that. Could indeed be a good move once I get a few cities with it. That should make diplo with Sury better. At least if he hadn't just declared war on me. Punk didn't waste any time. Got bribed with, I think, SciMethod. I hadn't swapped to Theo either, so he was Cautious. Not that it matters. Bribe is a bribe.

Had a good think about how to proceed. Figured it was best to take Ecbatana to get a clean front that way. There was some siege, but only 3-4 real defenders, so I threw basically everything I had at the city. We took it, and also managed to clean out some onrushing defenders that were spotted once the culture disappeared. Made a stupid mistake and lost a 6 health Cuir on a Axe, attacking with the wrong guy. Things look a little brighter, however, power ratio is in my favour, so I should think Cyrus is close to spent. Oh, I also managed to bribe Toku on Cyrus (gave him Music and he became Pleased, which meant I could bribe him, and get Chemistry in trade -- thanks Toku, we all love you! ). Toku is weak as hell, but maybe he can at least hold Cyrus on the eastern front, and divide Cyrus' forces a little. With that, everybody's at war again

Shaka didn't waste much time either. Took Joao's capital Lisbon on the first turn he could, so no/minimum bombing down of culture. He probably had such a massive force that he went for it. Appears to have lost a surprising amount of units, however. He had almost 80, and it's 40-45 now. Plus Mehmed's stack, who have built up a decent lot too, in the shadow of Shaka. How soon is Joao likely to cap here? Losing a capital is a big deal, but it's just one city so far.

I'm never sure how to read these war weariness numbers. 270 for Joao due to losing capital, and only 20 for Shaka despite losing 30-40 units?
Shaka went down about 200,000 in power, from roughly 1.65 mill to 1.45 mill. Clearly he has a few guys left.

This is the stack Shaka has over there. Then there is Mehmed with maybe 15 guys, plus whatever they have on the way and in cities. A lot. He'll need to heal up a little now, but that lot will take the next city they aim for too, rather easily, especially if more siege is on the way.

Main thing I wonder about here is how quickly Joao is likely to cap, because I need to prevent it. Shaka+Mehmed is bad enough. Shaka+Mehmed+Joao will be impossible to beat I think. Too many units and too many cities.

Right now I have 7 Cuirs and 15 Cavalry, which will soon be 22 Cavalry. That, plus some more units to ferry over should hopefully be enough to cap or eliminate Cyrus (he's got techs, so I should cap him I suppose).

Sury is probably on the way towards me with something, but I'm not sure what he has. Joao and Sury cancelled each other out earlier, and I think Sury has been working on culture stuff (over 11k in capital). He has access to Grenadiers, but Cavalry should be able to deal with that, at least in the open.

 

[Pangaea]

Instead of amending the last post, I'll make a new one, heh. Some good news (and some tricky news).

Spoiler :

Ferried over more Cavs, and with Toku trying to recapture a city he lost to Cyrus in the last round, Cyrus must have sent some airships over there to help out, which meant fewer could hit us. Time to advance on another city, and I chose Pasargadae. We take it in 1310AD. Few turns of healing, and paid a handful of gold to get out of the war with Sury (no idea what he has or where the units were, so played it safe, as my stack was about to move elsewhere). Time to advance on Persepolis, for the final blow. We take it in 1340AD. Despite moving into attacking positions, the stupid git moved a couple longbows OUT of the city... Thanks though!

May just make that the Heroic Epic city!

(Between huge cities and colony maintenance, they're gonna cost a bomb though)

With that I've capped Cyrus. Could have easily farmed some longbows and catas in the open, but apart from minor amount of extra XP, there was no point. He's an ally now, and we have tough battles ahead. Better for him to upgrade those guys to cannons and whatnot.

Speaking of cannons, 3 AIs have it now, but not we, although I think it will be needed pretty soon for warfare. Idea was to spank up Toku next, but.... damn how I hate that thing

Unfortunately I didn't think things through at the time. It was obvious it would pass (but lucky for me Toku got that city in between turns, before the implementation of the treaty, which removed an Artist-bombed city culture), so I should have been smart and voted for it, and thereby removed the 5 angry chaps who think we are Jewish villains. Might even have been possible to become the AP resident then, in 8 turns, but don't think I can be an opponent now, even if I were to become 2nd in votes. AP sucks

Joao is in all kinds of trouble against heaps of Knights and Grenadiers, and probably soon cannons. If I had more time, maybe it would be possible to get a stack of Cavs over and steal some cities, but in 1-2 turns Shaka+Mehmed are ready to attack the city, so I'll be too late. Besides, most guys need some healing. Perhaps it's better to brace myself for a fight against Sury, who has Cannons and Grenadiers, though in unknown quantities. Cavs can deal with that in the open, but behind high culture walls it's a different story.

Toku is laughably backwards, his best attacking unit was basically longbows and swords, so a darn shame the Annoying Palace destroyed an easy victim there.

 

[Lain]

Some thoughts:

Spoiler :

Good job on capping Cyrus. Should open the door to a potential victory. Are you in a position to bribe Shaka off Joao? Maybe you could even consider backstabbing Shaka here? Take half his cities with Cavs while his monster stack is in Portugese territory (even after they make peace, his stack should be trapped by culture, no?)

I mean let's face it, Shaka is the one remaining danger here. He will hate you anyway (Cyrus). So if you can deal a decisive blow before he hits Rifling, I'd say go for it. Toku won't go anywhere.

Gather 50 Cavs and beeline his capital

A Shaka with 11 cities shouldn't be a big deal, yet. Take 3-4 cities and Mehmed might even break free.

 

[Pangaea]

I've thought about it, but not sure I dare. He's got a LOT of guys! Will need to deal with him sooner or later, though, so maybe..?

Will think about it when I open the game again. Was too tired yesterday and been busy today.

Anybody else still playing this map?

I always play slowly, so shouldn't hold you guys back if you want to try another map.

----------edit
OMG, this is sick!!

...and some pictures. You are right...

Spoiler :

Thanks for the advice. I do believe you are right. That stack will probably get bumped back to captured Lisbon. Mehmed's stack will get back to his land, but it's not nearly as big as Shaka's.

Can give back Ecbatana (only forge and aqueduct survived, bad luck), and should pretty easily be able to snipe two cities, provided the roadless floodplain don't flip in time (54% Persian right now, but with probably no Persian influence atm)

Ballsy move, but perhaps it's needed and the right now, as Shaka currently don't have Steel nor Rifling (but can tech both, and Mehmed has Steel).



Darn it. Just when I was getting a little giddy about this, I see from possible 'stop war' bribes that Shaka must be teching Rifling... Makes this gambit rather dangerous. But also means Future Shaka will become even more dangerous. Don't have anywhere near 50 Cavs though (currently 27), and Cavs against Rifles is not pretty. Even Cavs against city-Grenadiers is not particularly comfortable.

 

[Pangaea]

Some progress, in 1550AD.

Spoiler :

Mehmed and Shaka attacked Oporto a turn sooner than I thought. Close shave!!!

Mehmed attacked first, and lost all but three Knights, and Shaka got as close as you can get to taking the city. That is one combat round away. *gulp*

Bribed Shaka off with Philo+Economics. 65 units got caught in Lisbon. Two centuries later and they are still there, although rather more grim-looking.

The turn after I declare on Shaka, and take two cities that are within reach instantly. They were weakly defended by un-upgraded units. Even came across a Swordman. In the screenshot below I've already taken him down a peg, but he still has close to 2.5 times my power. Mighty fortunate his stack is caught, otherwise he'd simply wipe me. Particularly as he gets Rifling two turns into the war.

Around this time I had enough gold to tech Steel, and loads of Trebs were queued up for upgrades. With Shaka getting Rifling so soon, we can't take more cities with only Cavalry, so will need Cannons to get anything done. For a long time we therefore basically just hold the fort, take out oncoming stacks (thankfully with mostly grenadiers and knights rather than rifles), and ship more units across, including a bunch of trebs.

Persian cities have had a really bad habit of going into revolt, despite fairly low odds, and that keeps messing up resource trades and happiness. But I can't exactly put half the stack in these cities, so must just cross my fingers and hope for the best. Annoying though, especially when huge cities like Persepolis goes into revolt for a long time. It has 5 settled GGs, so would be a fantastic Heroic Epic city, but needs infra first due to bad luck with surviving buildings.

Moving on... after healing up after taking out a pretty well-sized Shaka stack, I felt it was time to go on the offensive. I had just had a 6-8 turn bout of Nationhood to draft Rifles, and some of them had been shipped over, which meant minor stack protection. Had enough cannons to bomb away culture defence and assault the city in one turn, and mGun fell into Indian hands.

A handful or so turns later, and Shaka's capital is in trouble:

Cities over here are very expensive due to colony maintenance, so I was very glad when it was possible to trade Steel for Communism with Cyrus and go into State Property. Truly an excellent civic on maps like this. Saved us over 100 gpt. Ulundi also had MoM, and it was time to blow the GArtist we had hogged for an eternity.

Don't have enough cannons to split up the stack, and Shaka probably won't cap until his giant stack has been dealt with, which now consists of 65+ rifles, grenadiers and cavalry, plus some siege (he doesn't have steel yet). Think I'll go in a clockwise fashion and take his cities there, and see if he manages to break his stack free, or if he will actually cap before that happens, provided he loses enough power when we take his mainland cities.

Have whipped pretty hard, over half the cities are unhappy right now, despite being very small. But we needed units... And we have some of those now. Around 30 Cavs and 30 Rifles, and 12 cannons. That's Slavery for you (and Nationhood). Can finally get out the blasted slow-to-build Globe Theatre as well this turn (will two-pop it). The city kinda needs it, with 12(!!) angry faces from whipping alone (no drafting)

Tech-wise it looks a little dicey, but not too bad. Sury is blasting away as AIs tend to do when left alone in the later eras of the game, and is working on culture as well. Hopefully I won't have to deal with him. I hope to peace vassal Toku (he's pleased with Cyrus and almost with me again, after I agreed to a demand to switch to Judaism). Not sure it can work out since I can't stop the war with Shaka, but it would be a nice bonus.

Attaching the save as well, in case people want to look at it. Hurts to whip away towns, but we needed rifles for defence, so that is why. Don't hit me!

 

[Pedro78]

Exams are over, finally gonna have some time to play.

@Pangaea seems like you're doing pretty good, from there the game should be a piece of cake... 54h in a standard game is insane, wow

What are the future plans for this thread? I'd really like to play another isolation game, a disgusting one if possible , soo many things to experiment yet... I still have that boudica game if yall feel like playing it.

 

[Pangaea]

Funny this one got bumped, as I've just played way longer than I should, but managed to finally crawl over the line. Only 110+ hours

Victory in 1812AD.

Spoiler :

Too tired to make a picturesque update, and few will probably bother to read it anyway. Short story is Toku peace-vassaled, during the war on Shaka. I took all of Shaka's cities, and he still wouldn't cap. Had to deal with his huge stack that was still locked in 1-tile Lisbon. Wiped him, healed up, declared on Joao. Took a few cities, including his new capital, and he capped. Oh, and btw, there were another 5 GGs in Lisbon. Crazy how many GGs were born in this game, and how many settled ones we came across. Heroic Epic city had 6 (5 AI settled), so units rolled out with 4 promos. Not bad

Mehmed was pretty advanced, despite being small, but we declared on him next. Had railroads, so could have been nasty, a human would have taken a couple cities I reckon due to border pressure after taking Shaka's cities. Instead he countered and conveniently moved a big stack into a fort, right next to my stack. Took out that stack in the west, and grabbed a city or two in the east with the main stack, and he capped.

That still wasn't enough to win, so I had to deal with technologically superior Sury. Naturally he still didn't have a chance, but it took much longer than expected as we had to take almost all his stuff. And with him going culture, the borders were bru-tal. He was only 20 turns from victory upon DOW. He had tons and tons of units too, so several times we didn't have enough guys to take the city in one go. And that was with a 60+ unit stack. Apart from Sury's fighters (who did jack apart from taking down a few airships and later fighters), we were on tech parity -- at least a little bit into the war, when we too got Tanks. Mehmed stole a city from me, after I had wiped some 40-odd units in the city. But I just wanted to get over the line, so it didn't matter.

Coin toss, and it landed on Domination. In fairness I could have won UN shortly after 1800AD, but I wanted a "proper" win in a game like this. Sury built it, and everybody else were vassals at that point.

Throughout, we killed 543 units by my count, with 79 cavalry and 72 rifles as the worst off. We lost exactly 100 guys, excluding the lone worker. Funny about workers btw. At the end we only had 8, and it was 6 for a very long time, despite having 20-25 cities. Slightly low ratio.

Sury liked wonders...

The quite nice D) Heroic Epic city at the end. Could have had more hammers of course, but too few workers and they were busy building railroads. Didn't exactly lack units at the end.

Didn't bother with Oxford, Wall Street or even Factories-Power. Pumped units instead.

Exhausting game that took much longer than I thought around 1600-1700. And that was with a not that harsh isolation. If it would have been more difficult to ferry over units, I don't think I could have won this. But in any case, I should have waited longer before attacking with Cuirs, so the initial push would have been stronger. Some of the delay was due to having to sit around for a long time before making real gains against Cyrus.

Overall not a bad game, and it's been a long time since I've used modern units. CR3 Artillery is freakishly strong, and battleships are quite nice when you control the seas. Fighters kinda sucked, but maybe it would have been more useful if there was time to add bombers and make more use of them. They got shot down a lot though. Artillery+infantry+tanks was better and faster than air units.

Guess that got longer than intended, but that's how it is, eh?

 

[Lain]

Congrats on the nice victory @Pangaea . Definitely deserved with Domination/Conquest. Nice to see that taking out Shaka worked out so well. I was a bit concerned in the beginning since the thing with Cyrus seemed to drag on for a bit. But you managed that well and made the right decisions afterwards.

Good to hear you are back, @Pedro78. Hope it went well. Yeah I took a little break in the recent weeks. Boudica next could be an option. There is also another map that actually caused me to go into hiatus-mode because it almost broke my soul. It also lacked a few things that would make the game easier.

Could fire up that one tomorrow, or the Boudi game. Hmm...

 

[Lain]

Let's play the Boudica one next. I'll edit this post to a decent introduction later. I started recording and will definitely upload this time .

Thing is, I already recorded a few games. But I was very critical because of my commentary and just playing too slowly (for a Lets Play kind of thing). So I tried to improve both and think it should make for a more entertaining viewing by now.