Deity Pangea - easy mode (no cottage)

[soundjata]

Thank you @drewisfat this is exactly the kind of demonstration I was hoping for.

 

[Fish Man]

I mean it's good advice 99% of the time and I'd caution anyone about looking too hard for the exception. In this case:
- BFC river gold and myst starter means I can be confident I'll win the race to Mono, which is very rare.
- There's synergy with stone wonder starts and Mono. Mono requires masonry, which you normally wouldn't want to get that early but I want at least the mids and an attempt at TGW. OR helps get those times down as well.
- Justinian. He starts with Myst and he's SPI so swapping into OR and Judaism early doesn't have the usual 2 turns of anarchy cost. Plus, in going for a Cataphract rush like this there's not really an urgency to rush the techs that are easier to self-found religions with (Col/Phi).
- I care about Theo. Usually I don't and usually it's a burden to get every city to have your state religion if you're counting on random spread from the AI. Also theology is a dumb tech (but I steal it for cheaps from Ham). By building 9xp cataphracts out of the gate, a single GG can bring up to 20 catas to 3 promos.
- A big reason to not get your own religion is that an AI will do the dirty work for you and then love you for joining his religion. In this case SB isn't founding anything, and I'm already at war with SB and WK so getting them to pleased to be able to boom in peace is not relevant.
- That border pop. With full map vision (especially knowledge of the fish and iron) that city site makes less sense. But it was visible immediately and was what I focused on. Can't afford to build a monument and then wait 10 more turns for the border pop when I need stone ASAP.
- Controlling a holy city is very advantageous if utilizing espionage to steal techs because of the 40% discount it can bring if you spread your religion to a city belonging to an otherwise heretic AI. OR lets you build that missionary without a wasteful monastery.
- No urgency to get other techs. I don't need AH for pastures, hunting for camps, fishing for WB, or pottery for cottages, and since I had Myst/Mining, Masonry is cheaper.
- I shoot for memes when they present themselves

Wow, congrats ! You got me (and I assume @sampsa ) beat on every level. NO cottages built, and still won a good 10 turns faster than I did.

I think my main problem was still staying in a builder mentality even knowing the only way I could win was conquest (those repeated space games are beginning to build some hard-to-shake habits). I thought that if I continued to tech to MT and upgrade my cataphracts, I could eventually leave the siege behind and blitz everyone really quick with a now-veteran army of upgraded cuirs. But that took far too long, when the more efficient approach, as you demonstrated, would've been to completely turn off research after guilds, instead turning the espionage slider to 100%, ignore even trebs, and slam cataphracts into revolted cities until you win - in the meantime endlessly whipping from every city.

 

[sampsa]

Looks like I won't have time to play so I might as well check the game. OK, I think the win date is around what I'd expect to achieve. Of course that doesn't count for anything if I don't actually play.

 

[sampsa]

Maybe my message can be misunderstood, so just to clear it up: 1100AD is roughly the date I expected someone to win. Of course it's a good achievement, but I don't see why someone would expect less.

 

[drewisfat]

Yeah cataphracts should conquer the world quickly. The reason they're not a top UU though is that spies come with a lot of complication. Since I've turned off the slider for espionage at Guilds, I'm pretty much either going to win the game before T200 or I'm going to lose. You need a surplus of spies nearby such that if one city revolt fails you can just ignore that city - or if it's important, move a spy there and try again next turn. I had good luck overall with spies, which is to say that I had average luck spread out over all the AI. I could totally weather 3 cataphracts failing in a row at 90+% odds, but if 3 spies fail in a row early, it would be a different game. It's also hard to predict the espionage cost. If the spy fails and you move in a different spy, well you've lost the 50% wait bonus (unless you wait another 5 turns). And there's the potential for the AI to run counterespionage. In some ways it has a bigger window of attack than cuirs do, but it's important to note that not only would rifling end your attacking chances, but Democracy with Security Bureaus would as well.

 

[soundjata]

Catafreeks are indeed such a small window...

I did cap WK and stole some nice techs from him (economy, corporation, scientific method, ...)

Too much infra, not enough army and now someone is about to hit the Celt + Korea + Byzantine team

Turn 234

Spoiler :

Infra in Cahokia

Guess who's coming? NAS is coming George Washington is coming

 

[Pangaea]

Oof, is that a Rifles army he has? May be tricky for your warriors!

 

[soundjata]

Machine guns and cavalries -.-

 

[Fish Man]

Machine guns and cavalries -.-

I mean you're almost at infantry yourself, so what's the big worry?

 

[Fish Man]

Invading against railroads is very difficult and Soundjata still needs to build-up. Washington is a strong leader. He has built-up already, will DoW (will he ?) and will keep teching up. If he gets artilleries, tough times.
Railroads completely change the critical mass you need to avoid retaliation. It's conceivable to have a 50 units stack wiped by cannons + cavalries.

I guess the saving grace is that Celts act as a buffer. Probably should plan to fight in Celtia rather than America, at least while Washington's army is not under control.

And then, if war breaks, Washington could likely bribe in Hammurabi. There's no chance for our hero to control the diplo. My guess is that the 3 of them (add in Hatshepsut) have destroyers...

edit : I'm dumb. War has broken already. Now it's game over if Hammurabi jumps in. Research drops to a halt if units are built.

Well, never say never. Remember that @Lain game where he won against a 16-city future era Augustus and a thousand modern armor/mechs with just whipping tanks? If @soundjata just reaches industrialism and flight he can grind’em down eventually.

 

[civac]

Well, never say never. Remember that @Lain game where he won against a 16-city future era Augustus and a thousand modern armor/mechs with just whipping tanks? If @soundjata just reaches industrialism and flight he can grind’em down eventually.

The ai is not any better at warring in the modern area. I have never seen it deal with a simple Infantry + Artillery stack if you have proper numbers (150+ or better 200+ units). This is irrespective of their technologial level. Modern Armor, Mechs, Gunships, it does not matter. They are capable of nuking your stack though even it means hitting their own stuff.