Deity LP - Suley the HAM man!

[ben-jammin]

@Seraiel, TGJ, ben-jammin
On the subject of Blue Circles changing spots: it does happen pretty frequently. My experience has shown that it changes from settling other cities nearby. I guess it's quite logical that the food quotient is impacted by potentially overlapping BFCs...

As for the hidden resources, I was also under the impression that their potential yield was indeed taken into account in the Blue Circle calculations... Just my impression though.

I would think the circle moving because of a settled city would more likely be the previous location being within 2 tiles of the new city, no?

 

[Izuul]

Ok, i got up to Engineering via the cottage route.

Spoiler :

625 BC, but i built an Academy with my first GS. I'm not sure if that really slowed me down at all though because i only finished Construction and got the required beakers into Eng to bulb it with 3-4 turns to spare.

A barb city popped up early by that northern cow site blocking me from putting a city up there. I put one SW of the capitol using the cow instead. I settled it as soon as i got AH and could hook the cow up for it to contribute.

I have 2 swords and 2 xbows ready with another sword and 3 trebs on the way on the way in the next few turns. I need more workers as i only have 3 right now. That was fine up until this point, but now i need to chop so I'll have to whip one out, probably from the capitol which has some unhappiness.

I was able to start several wars, and i have monarchy and mono, so I'll probably revolt this turn. Germany has horses, but no metal and he's already at war with Alex so he should be an easy target to wipe out. I need to take on Charlie early as he's getting way too big, but i think i need to build up some more before i go after him. Maybe he's the 2nd target. I'm wondering if i should switch into Buddhism despite Charlie being the only guy in it. I think that would get him to pleased and quite possibly allow me to bribe him on someone. I don't think I'm too afraid of the religious backlash from that right now. He's really the only dangerous guy that could cause trouble for me at the moment.

I probably won't get to play any further for awhile b/c I'm leaving Wed morning to go on vacation for a week.

 

[ben-jammin]

Is it worth building some catapults as well as trebs? (Maybe before getting Engineering.)

Since they are cheaper and also better for attacking enemy stacks outside of cities. I guess they would mostly be doing suicide attacks with the Barrage promotion, but it might be better than suiciding one of your trebs...

Not really. If it comes down to being outnumbered you can let the AI recapture a city, where it will then move a bunch of units and you can slaughter them with the CR promoted trebuchets.

 

[Tall German Joe]

Ok, i got up to Engineering via the cottage route.

Spoiler :

625 BC, but i built an Academy with my first GS. I'm not sure if that really slowed me down at all though because i only finished Construction and got the required beakers into Eng to bulb it with 3-4 turns to spare.

A barb city popped up early by that northern cow site blocking me from putting a city up there. I put one SW of the capitol using the cow instead. I settled it as soon as i got AH and could hook the cow up for it to contribute.

I have 2 swords and 2 xbows ready with another sword and 3 trebs on the way on the way in the next few turns. I need more workers as i only have 3 right now. That was fine up until this point, but now i need to chop so I'll have to whip one out, probably from the capitol which has some unhappiness right now.

I was able to start several wars, and i have monarchy and mono, so I'll probably revolt this turn. Germany has horses, but no metal and he's already at war with Alex so he should be an easy target to wipe out. I need to take on Charlie early as he's getting way too big, but i think i need to build up some more before i go after him. Maybe he's the 2nd target.

I probably won't get to play any further for awhile b/c I'm leaving Wed morning to go on vacation for a week.

very very nice! I'm certainly sold that this is better than the Oracle. 7 turns faster Engineering than me, plus an Academy to boot, at much lower risk. you have a bit less military than I did at that the engineering pop (and I don't quite get swords over spears), but you could certainly make that up within 7 turns. do you think the Academy was worth it in the end, or would it have been worth working 2 mines for 27 turns instead?

it's interesting that Charley got so much bigger in your game than he did in mine; he was never a problem.

edit: one last question. what is the cultural % on that corn tile adjacent to Munich? I'm sure its still pretty good because of the Academy, but I'm just curious.

 

[Izuul]

very very nice! I'm certainly sold that this is better than the Oracle. 7 turns faster Engineering than me, plus an Academy to boot, at much lower risk. you have a bit less military than I did at that the engineering pop (and I don't quite get swords over spears), but you could certainly make that up within 7 turns. do you think the Academy was worth it in the end, or would it have been worth working 2 mines for 27 turns instead?

it's interesting that Charley got so much bigger in your game than he did in mine; he was never a problem.

edit: one last question. what is the cultural % on that corn tile adjacent to Munich? I'm sure its still pretty good because of the Academy, but I'm just curious.

Just wanted a few swords for CR since no maces for a bit, I'm not gonna build any more. I think the academy was 10bpt the turn I put it down and will obviously be worth alot more going forward. I'm not sure what the culture on te corn is ill have to check, but Munich will be mine shortly regardless.

 

[Tall German Joe]

fair enough, I was just curious because that is obviously an extremely handy tile to have, as it allows you to attack Munich from the first turn of the war without needing to worry about leaving your stack in the open or him advancing into your territory with a stack of his own. basically, i'm wondering if the culture from the oracle/academy was what secures that tile, or if the natural culture from the palace/library was enough.

 

[pomthom]

I would think the circle moving because of a settled city would more likely be the previous location being within 2 tiles of the new city, no?

Nah that's what I though too but I'm sure I witnessed otherwise in a game or two

 

[pomthom]

fair enough, I was just curious because that is obviously an extremely handy tile to have, as it allows you to attack Munich from the first turn of the war without needing to worry about leaving your stack in the open or him advancing into your territory with a stack of his own.

That and the 6 yield

 

[Izuul]

I swear i edited my post last night, but apparently it didn't go through. The corn is 63% Ottoman, and very likely would be German right now if not for the academy.

 

[Tall German Joe]

update from 100 BC to 640 AD

more easy money. he's recently attacked Lincoln, who is to the North of Freddy, so I think I know who I'm going after next. ;]

a questionable-looking trade, but he actually already has like 90% of Currency. (which I know because I've been putting all my points on him.) might as well get the free money, right?

more money; I'll have a second one hooked up soon, but I want to snatch that cash while its available.

my uberstack finally combines! freddy's pitiful stack has NO FREAKIN' CHANCE.

he actually gets a longbow out, but check this out, I still crush it! first of all its not fortified, and second of all its not Protective. he has no chance against my CR2 Trebs!

mama mia, that's a lotta easy XP!

here's a lost opportunity. so, after a lot of hard work selling him penny techs for pennies on the dollar to improve relations, I finally get Stalin up to pleased, and find out that he's willing to send his huge unit stack after whoever I want. however, I can't afford to get him to attack Asoka yet. my plan is thus to Cap freddy, get a bunch of techs from him, and then have Stalin go nuts. however, what I forget to think about is that once Freddy is my vassal, Stalin will no longer like me enough to stay at Pleased. what I shoulda done is bribed him on Asoka first for currency/machinery/feudalism, and THEN capped freddy. oh well...

in brighter news, freddy decides to give me Macemen for allowing him to become my slave. thanks fella!

I also secure this swank trade. I coulda just demanded the ivory for free, but I'd rather actually trade for it for now just in case he has something later that I want, something more expensive like Uranium or Oil or something.

moving on, without delay; next up is Lincoln. he's toast. look at all those metal units that my macemen and xbows will eat for breakfast...

mmmmmm...

tech situation is nice. I wish I had Theology though, so I could switch into Theocracy. oh well...

I almost can't believe this, but I'm gonna try for Liberalism. Usually this is impossible to manage with an Engineering rush; my bpt is barely topping a 100 a turn at this point. however, I am getting ridiculous amounts of gold from trades and conquest, so, with the help of some more bulbs, I think I can do it.

Lincoln folds after just 2 cities. Alex joined the war too and took another city, Philadelphia in the north; hopefully his stack remains there long enough for me to crush it!

thank you Stalin.

I forget to screenshot the War dec, but I declared War on Alex and took Philadelphia. he had moved half of his stack out of the city already, though. I gave New York back to Lincoln, and will soon give Philly back too. these cities will be worthless for me, so I might as well use my vassal's cultural borders to speed up the war.

here's Chicago, a city Alex took in his original war. it dies. I don't end up giving this one back to Lincoln, but I can't remember why... maybe so I could have my own source of ivory? I really don't remember. I think it was a mistake in retrospect, because Alex ended up taking longer than I expected to cap and might have given in sooner if Lincoln had a longer border with him. the lesson: don't be too greedy, kids!

Corinth ends up being a little tougher because Alex has his first macemen on fortified here. however, it too, dies.

Education is still coming along nicely. gonna finish it with a bulb and that'll be that. asoka just got paper though, so things might start heatin up in the race for liberalism...

I get Philosophy the easy way. Since Asoka has paper now too, I have no qualms about trading it away anymore.

Alex's last stand. Unfortunately for him, I have some CR3 trebs now, and they make mincemeat of his stack.

oh my he has the AP. too bad judaism isn't spread around to my cities very much. still, I should start building monasteries and temples where I can.

nice doin' business with you, Alexander!

next time: Lib and the eastern half of the continent!

 

[shakabrade]

Great war-pace and nice stack balance

Your unit naming functions weird. You have multiple units with same name attacking on the same turn (multiple Trebutchet 1 (Edirne) and Crossbowman 1 (Istanbul) attacking on the same turn). That can happen only (experience from my installation) if units are upgraded, but nothing upgrades to trebs and xbows.

 

[Tall German Joe]

Great war-pace and nice stack balance

Your unit naming functions weird. You have multiple units with same name attacking on the same turn (multiple Trebutchet 1 (Edirne) and Crossbowman 1 (Istanbul) attacking on the same turn). That can happen only (experience from my installation) if units are upgraded, but nothing upgrades to trebs and xbows.

thank you

and as far as the names go, I have no idea. that is pretty weird! maybe some kinda bug in BUG?

 

[Izuul]

Your game up to around 1AD looks really similar to mine. I attacked a little sooner and capped Freddy two turns sooner, but he took a different tech path in my game. He got Feudalism earlier and put up pretty good resistance in Berlin with 4-5 LBs and around 15 troops total. It took me 2 turns to kill off all of the units, and my stack is pretty damaged so I'm going to need to heal for 2 turns before i can attack Lincoln.

Freddy also didn't go for CS as early (he had just started teching it) so i got like Drama and HBR rather than CS. I did however trade Machinery and Drama for CS and some gold with Asoka on the next turn. I don't like giving up Machinery, but he had just started teching it and was gonna have it in 6 turns either way.

Spoiler :

I have a few maces on the way now that i have CS. Lincoln has a mini stack wandering around that i need to be really careful with. He's still at war with Stalin so i think they are heading in that direction, but i don't even think he has OB with Charlie to get over there. I'm probably gonna have to delay a DoW to see where it goes. My borders are gonna pop next turn possibly forcing him away. I can get a couple of maces there in two turns to defend.

 

[Tall German Joe]

update from 640 AD to 1120 AD

I cancel the iron and renegotiate a better deal. Charley's got engineering when I wasn't looking and already built a couple Landskrenchts, which will be pretty tough to deal with if I encounter them stacked with knights in the open field.

it'll take my uberstack 10 turns to move to the front, so I take some time with some newly built trebs to scout out Charley a bit. he doesn't have much at all. note that I'm! 3 turns! from Liberalism! and Asoka just got Education! I have Germany finishing Gunpowder in 8 turns, so I'm really hoping to lib Nationalism and then go on a manic Janissary drafting spree. America, on the other hand, is set to research Guilds.

overal tech situation:

on the turn lib finishes, Asoka offers this trade. 0_0 sure man, why not!

Lincoln has my requested wares:

and my Army has finally arrived to the new front. declared war but forgot to screenshot it!

Charley bribes Stalin in. will have to play a bit defensively soon until I get some Jannies mixed into my stack.

even against charley's protective longbows, my CR3 trebs come out way on top.

strangely, Stalin gives up after I kill a few of his wandering swordsmen and horse archers. why back out now? do you think I'm gonna attack your cities with the 10 tiles of the Holy Roman Empire in the way?

gunpowder is finally in. now I just need a golden age so I can go on a drafting spree...

this is what I was afraid of. ugh. Jannies are not yet ready so the only way I can deal with this is to lose a couple of formation crossbows before I can clean up with other units. I'm just happy this stack wasn't bigger.

yowwy that is a big stack.

mine is still bigger though!

right back atcha buddy. Banking is a very important tech for rush strategies as you're gonna find yourself sitting at 0% slider quite often. I forgot to screenshot this, but since I did move my capital it Munich, which I then proceeded to cottage up completely, a single bank there could mean an additional 50-60 gpt for my coffers.

of course, I can always get gold this way. this is probably the last tech trade I'll ever do with this guy, as he's starting to pull away from me; Lib was the last tech I had that he didn't, while he has 4 others that I don't.

finally got to Aachen. kinda scary that he can build stacks like this every 4 turns or so, ain't it? it's taking forever to seige his cities because he has wall+castle in every single one PLUS the chichen izza. 125% defense, ugh.

I finally get another great person to fire up a golden age.

I switch into what will be pretty much my final civics for the game. I'll switch back out of caste and nationhood near when the GA ends, but the rest is pretty final. (switching from HR -> Police State would be nice, assuming I manage to capture Moscow anytime soon). Anyways, Nationhood for the draft, Hinduism + Theocracy gives me 15 Exp trebs and 5 exp new units in other cities (meaning drafted Jannies will get Combat 1 out of the gate, which is nice). Caste system to pump out GMs for a trade mission. Mercantalism does not prevent me from having foreign trade routes with my vassals and gives extra hammers.

chose Hinduism over the AP religion because simply more of my important cities have it. in fact, the only ones that don't are still building infrastructure anyways!

and the draft begins. 22 happiness cap, 13 current unhappiness = at the very least 3 drafts! repeat across my dozen+ other cities.

my former capital, which has my NE, works on getting me some fast cash for deficiet research on Steel.

with a musket in hand, Charley's Landsknecht's no longer pose any problem.

FINALLY ready to take this city.

he's willing to cap now, but why bother? Asoka has rifling, which means Stalin will have it soon too. he also has MT. I might as well take another city while I get Steel. charley's Prauge is the Buddhist holy city, and it has a shrine. considering that Buddhism is spread to about 75% of all cities on the planet, this sounds like a perfect way to kill some time!

Freddy finishes Chemistry. I have about 4000 gold banked up at this point, enough to finish steel in 8 turns despite losing -322 gpt.

on the last turn of the GA, I switch back out of Nationhood and Caste for Bureau (to help finish Steel) and Slavery. my cities are all pretty much at the happy cap now; I managed to draft 24 Jannies in 7 turns! now all I need is more seige and I can deal with Stalin with 2 stacks.

my Great Merchant arrives at the Temple of Artemis city for a nice chunk of change:

I take Prauge, and oh by is this nice. still has the market and grocer! all I need to do is chop the bank!

 

[Tall German Joe]

on the same turn as Prague falls, Charley gives me a much better deal:

4 outta 6 down! to be continued...

 

[vranasm]

oooh prague fell! what I will do.... planning to go there for a weekend.... just kidding

nice game, nice description

we need moarz!

 

[Tall German Joe]

update from 1120 AD to 1380 AD

now that Charley's under my control, we make some more deals. notice how doesn't have any more gold for trade anymore; he had 900 available at the capitulation screen, but only gave me 720. now it says he has 0. where did that 180 gold go? he still has it, but its just not available for trade. that's because AIs always try to keep some minimum amount of cash reserves on hand which they can only spend in emergencies (e.g. for peace treaties)

Stalin is obviously the next target, but he won't give me open borders to scope him out. I instead try to crawl around the edges of Asoka's territory, and do indeed manage to find Stalin's HUGE stack. yowza!

Steel is finally in, and I have just enough gold (after begging a bit from Vassals) to upgrade about 22 trebs to cannons. most of these are 10 XP+. SO LET'S GET ROLLIN!

on the turn I declare, I move into my secondary (bigger but less experienced) stack into position but... wha??? where'd that stack go? this makes me very uneasy... he doesn't have rifling yet, but does have RP. I wish I had Freddy tech Military Science instead of RP... my "main" stack hits Stalin from under his soft belly, making a beeline to Moscow. more on that in a moment.

and, it's confirmed, Rifling is in. this is very annoying. luckily, rifles corralled into cities stand no chance against massed cannons.

see? he's toast.

got RP myself. just a little bit more for rifling...

here's the main stack. like I said before, it came straight from Mainz.

Moscow has a LOT of nice stuff, particularly the Mids (for Police State) and the Mausoleaum. wish I had some of this earlier, but at the very least I'll try to pop another Golden Age and make some civic swaps then.

I'm not sure why this city is so lightly defended, but I don't even need to seige it. My 4 cuirs are enough to take it.

and then I use the cuirs from Moscow to reinforce.

and oh my god, I finally found that stack. and it's mostly upgraded. !

I have to back off and regroup. if he decides to counter attack, I'm probably toast.

but, he doesn't. only a couple defenders remain at 70 hp, so even though I lose my first few attacks, I still end up killing about 25 units this turn.

next turn, I end up killing 15 more. he still has about 15-20 units in the stack, but Stalin decides that he's had enough. no point in killing them now; they'll be in a war on my side in a few turns!

MS and Rifling is in. I upgrade all my lvl 5 and 6 Medieval units to Grenadiers instead of Rifles because my initial scouting has revealed that 95% of Asoka's units are rifles. The more experienced Jans will becomes Rifles though.

my second GM does a little better than last time. this will all go towards unit upgrades this time.

war declared! I have 2 stacks like this! Asoka had just started pumping espionage on me like crazy these last few turns, so I can no longer see his Demographics, but from what I can tell he's still a ways off from Infantry and I had a 1.4 power ratio with him even before my stacks were upgraded.

2 cities crushed simultaneously, and reinforcements cut off from the third.

and that's it! he gives up in 3 turns.

turn 198, 1380 Conquest + Domination.

final Power:

final GNP. that is India near the top, then Stalin. I'm all the way on the bottom. most of my techs all game came from brokering!

unit tally killed:

and final score:

thanks for reading!

 

[Strickl3r]

played a little tonight

Spoiler :

Used 3 GS to bulb engineering. 1. from capitol, 2. from Edirne, 3. from Capitol again.
Couldn't work the gold much in the beginning because of that, but got 625 BC Engineering, which i assume is good.

Crushed Freddy and got CoL and HBR from him. Now it's Lincolns turn.
I didn't do much diplo except adopting charlys religion, everything else just went ok.
Tech pace seems to be slow because of war, etc.

This is usually the point where I often lose my games with this kind of plays or kind of give up because somebody is teching away or I'm beyond recovery with my economy and haven't got much troops left, but this looks good so far as i can see:

€: GZ on 1380 AD win.

 

[Seraiel]

Keep an eye on the german Chariot in the NE (near Bursa) ^^

1380 AD Domination is a really good time for standard-settings, and given this start.

The writeup on it I could have imagined differend (longer, more emotional, more detailed) , but it's still better then most of the Writeups here.

So Congratiulations.

 

[Strickl3r]

Germany is capped. But he almost would have sniped this one