Deity Roman, Tiny Earth 10 Civs
- Thread starter maltz
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maltz
King
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2006
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- 967
Chapter 12. Crossing the Atlantic Ocean
The Romans became the leading Civ pretty much because of its size and number of cities. The AIs still entered the Medieval age about 40 turns before the Romans, which was trailing by 2-3 techs. So we have to optimize our limited techs into what matters most first, then fill up the less important tech later.
In order to attack England, we need Astronomy in order for our units to sail across the Atlantic Ocean. And immediately after we we enable the techs for the Long Swordsman upgrade (Metal Casting - Steel). So the Legions will be at their full fighting capacity when they actually get into the battlefield.
Before that happens, we will enjoy a few more dozen turns of peace... and watch the AIs hopelessly hating each other.
179. Monty wants us to help him fight Catherine. But I want Catherine to have a large army to help us fight Elizabeth. You can war Catherine any time you want by the time we finished Elizabeth, though.
180. Hiawatha wants us to help him fight Suleiman. They are so far away so there will be no battle anyway. Next!
181. Thanks to the many Colosseums, we have accumulated enough happiness for the third Golden Age (the first two was from our Great Generals). Another 20 turns of rapid growth and Colosseum / Library construction.
182. 24 turn count down to Astronomy. Slowly, we pull back the road-paving Legions and relieve them from barbarian hunting duties. The Honor social policy really helps us to "harvest" the barbarian camps as soon as they are re-spawn. During our peace period (turn 250-350), we busted about 15 camps, roughly 1000+ gold of income. But the barbarians don't give any experience anymore.
183. Monty the warmonger invites us to fight Suleiman. But we want Suleiman's army to fight Elizabeth. Next!
184. Catherine wants us to fight Montezuma. We want you to fight Elizabeth. Next!
185. Askia wants us to fight Montezuma. But Askia has no army left! He has been ranking dead last in the soldier count forever. Declaring war on Monty the warmonger will only get yourself killed, smart Askia. Plus we don't want to declare war to a friend (until our army is ready to wipe it out in 20 turns.
). Next!
186. Miathawa wants to fight Montezuma. Still, we can't declare war on a friend when we still need one. (But welcome to declare the war on your own.)
Just to give you an idea how tedious the AI's war requests are. I only showed half of these request. If the AIs treat each other's war request any seriously, it is not hard to imagine how soon every Civs will turn against each other. And this is what happens in Civ5. Silly.
187. 24 turns up! (Due to our population and research growth, we actually used less than 24 turns). Next goal - 1 turn in Horseback Riding, Engineering, and Currency, then full effort in Metal Casting + Steel for Long Swordsman. I ended up spending 2 turns in Engineering because I forgot to switch it away...
188. Romans were the first to enter Renaissance (at the expense of leaving everything else behind)! All other AI Civs entered Renaissance 2-10 turns later, even Songhai, which only have 2 underdeveloped cities.
189. Saved up some cash and purchased three Carvels immediately. They will sail across the Atlantic Ocean, eliminate any English Trimere in sight, and pave way for the invasion of our land units... which still belongs to the Classic Era.
After Education was researched, we purchased a University in Rome to accelerate the construction of Universities in other cities. Since Rome was running on a huge food surplus, we put one scientist in the university. Too bad Rome does not have mountains to build the Observatory for more bonus in research.
190. Prior to our landing, our scouts, which explored the entire Old World, sneaked in South Africa and pillaged England's iron mine! A small hit to England's iron supply (-2). Our scout did not survive the end of the turn. You served us well. And we shall sabotage England's main iron supply soon.
191. Turn 344. War had been decalred to England to distract its forces to our City State allies (both are former English allies.) The Legions, who were still waiting for the Long Swordsman upgrade, are to attack the weakest English city Warwick (South Africa). The city had a weak defense and was far away from other English cities. Its units were constantly consumed in skirmishes with two nearby City States!
192. Our Carvel easily destroyed an English Trireme. England in this game apparantly did not focus on its strength - navy. We only found two Triremes to sink. (We have 5 Triremes plus 3 Carvels.) It was an easy search-and-destroy mission.
The only other AI who has a sizable navy is Montezuma. We often encouter Monty's Trireme sailing around the world with our own.
193. Carvels are not very powerful at all against land units, though. That will be the job of Frigates, upgraded from Trireme (requires Navigation). Navigation should happen on Turn 356, with the free tech from Monty's Research Agreement (RA). I was hoping to sign more research agreements with Civs that are both friendly and far away from us, such as Iroquois and Songhai. But these two Civs were both dirt poor (partly because they are paying for our luxurious resources) and never had enough cash to sign RA with me.
194. Catherine wants to fight Suleiman... we want you to throw away your army to England, not Ottoman.
195. A good news broke out - England declared war on Montezuma despite being still at war with us! But that doesn't mean much since England and Aztec were separated by a City State and Russia. So they are still keeping their armies. And sadly that does not approve our relationship with Monty (warring the same Civ) by a bit.
And here is a look at the Roman colonies on Australia. Two extra Ivories and one Pearl have been sold for good prices (Mediolanum sits right on an Ivory). We should be able to sell the extra Wine and Cotton once we purchase the tiles, if they are cheap enough to buy. (Each resource sells for 800-900 gold for 90 turns. So anything cheaper is a good investment in 90 turns, and pure profit afterwards.)
196. The Roman Legions met no resistance in their landing, and were in position to take Warwick! After England lost its two City State allies, the city of Warwick's population shrank from 4 to 2. Other than losing just 2 units of food, and probably a free population the wonder Hanging Garden, the city simply has no good tiles - there is a desert Incense and a poor Iron (+2). We will take it and burn it (because extra population is a huge burden on happiness)!
From Turn 250 (the unification of America) to Turn 350 (the invasion of West Africa), the Romans enjoyed 100 turns of growth. Research and income more than doubled (from +49 beakers/turn and +80 gold/turn to +110 beakers/turn and +160 gold/turn). Happiness was running on a surplus of 10, with still several Colosseums on their way.
50% of turn gross income comes from city's earnings. 25% comes from trade routes. 25% comes from other civilization's trade (when they do not have enough cash to purchase our resource). Half of the gross income was used to maintain the empire, with roughly equal parts in unit maintenance, building maintenance, and road maintenance. So essentially Roman's city income balances out its maintenance, and its earnings entirely comes from its internal trade routes and resource trading.
That turn income calculation does not account for the lump sum of cash we received from other Civs when dealing resources, though. Personally I find the spirit of the Civ5 diplomacy and economy to be selling surplus resources - especially to the rich AIs on high difficulties. Surplus resources come from territory expansion. And the hit in happiness in a large empire is balanced out by finding extra resources. So there is really nothing bad in expansion, until there is no more new luxurious resources to be claimed and no more extra resources to be sold.
Here are some things I learned about trade routes in this game:
- The capital must have Harbor to enable other coastal cities with Harbor to establish a trade route.
- For in-land cities on another continent, as long as they are road-connected to a city with harbor, they will be trading with the capital. However, the road must exclusively run on the empire's own territory - not on ally's. If even on tile of the road goes through an allied City State, the trade route does not work.
(to be continued...)
The Romans became the leading Civ pretty much because of its size and number of cities. The AIs still entered the Medieval age about 40 turns before the Romans, which was trailing by 2-3 techs. So we have to optimize our limited techs into what matters most first, then fill up the less important tech later.
In order to attack England, we need Astronomy in order for our units to sail across the Atlantic Ocean. And immediately after we we enable the techs for the Long Swordsman upgrade (Metal Casting - Steel). So the Legions will be at their full fighting capacity when they actually get into the battlefield.
Before that happens, we will enjoy a few more dozen turns of peace... and watch the AIs hopelessly hating each other.
179. Monty wants us to help him fight Catherine. But I want Catherine to have a large army to help us fight Elizabeth. You can war Catherine any time you want by the time we finished Elizabeth, though.
180. Hiawatha wants us to help him fight Suleiman. They are so far away so there will be no battle anyway. Next!
181. Thanks to the many Colosseums, we have accumulated enough happiness for the third Golden Age (the first two was from our Great Generals). Another 20 turns of rapid growth and Colosseum / Library construction.
182. 24 turn count down to Astronomy. Slowly, we pull back the road-paving Legions and relieve them from barbarian hunting duties. The Honor social policy really helps us to "harvest" the barbarian camps as soon as they are re-spawn. During our peace period (turn 250-350), we busted about 15 camps, roughly 1000+ gold of income. But the barbarians don't give any experience anymore.
183. Monty the warmonger invites us to fight Suleiman. But we want Suleiman's army to fight Elizabeth. Next!
184. Catherine wants us to fight Montezuma. We want you to fight Elizabeth. Next!
185. Askia wants us to fight Montezuma. But Askia has no army left! He has been ranking dead last in the soldier count forever. Declaring war on Monty the warmonger will only get yourself killed, smart Askia. Plus we don't want to declare war to a friend (until our army is ready to wipe it out in 20 turns.
). Next!186. Miathawa wants to fight Montezuma. Still, we can't declare war on a friend when we still need one. (But welcome to declare the war on your own.)
Just to give you an idea how tedious the AI's war requests are. I only showed half of these request. If the AIs treat each other's war request any seriously, it is not hard to imagine how soon every Civs will turn against each other. And this is what happens in Civ5. Silly.
187. 24 turns up! (Due to our population and research growth, we actually used less than 24 turns). Next goal - 1 turn in Horseback Riding, Engineering, and Currency, then full effort in Metal Casting + Steel for Long Swordsman. I ended up spending 2 turns in Engineering because I forgot to switch it away...
188. Romans were the first to enter Renaissance (at the expense of leaving everything else behind)! All other AI Civs entered Renaissance 2-10 turns later, even Songhai, which only have 2 underdeveloped cities.
189. Saved up some cash and purchased three Carvels immediately. They will sail across the Atlantic Ocean, eliminate any English Trimere in sight, and pave way for the invasion of our land units... which still belongs to the Classic Era.
After Education was researched, we purchased a University in Rome to accelerate the construction of Universities in other cities. Since Rome was running on a huge food surplus, we put one scientist in the university. Too bad Rome does not have mountains to build the Observatory for more bonus in research.
190. Prior to our landing, our scouts, which explored the entire Old World, sneaked in South Africa and pillaged England's iron mine! A small hit to England's iron supply (-2). Our scout did not survive the end of the turn. You served us well. And we shall sabotage England's main iron supply soon.
191. Turn 344. War had been decalred to England to distract its forces to our City State allies (both are former English allies.
) The Legions, who were still waiting for the Long Swordsman upgrade, are to attack the weakest English city Warwick (South Africa). The city had a weak defense and was far away from other English cities. Its units were constantly consumed in skirmishes with two nearby City States!192. Our Carvel easily destroyed an English Trireme. England in this game apparantly did not focus on its strength - navy. We only found two Triremes to sink. (We have 5 Triremes plus 3 Carvels.) It was an easy search-and-destroy mission.
The only other AI who has a sizable navy is Montezuma. We often encouter Monty's Trireme sailing around the world with our own.
193. Carvels are not very powerful at all against land units, though. That will be the job of Frigates, upgraded from Trireme (requires Navigation). Navigation should happen on Turn 356, with the free tech from Monty's Research Agreement (RA). I was hoping to sign more research agreements with Civs that are both friendly and far away from us, such as Iroquois and Songhai. But these two Civs were both dirt poor (partly because they are paying for our luxurious resources
) and never had enough cash to sign RA with me.194. Catherine wants to fight Suleiman... we want you to throw away your army to England, not Ottoman.
195. A good news broke out - England declared war on Montezuma despite being still at war with us! But that doesn't mean much since England and Aztec were separated by a City State and Russia. So they are still keeping their armies. And sadly that does not approve our relationship with Monty (warring the same Civ) by a bit.
And here is a look at the Roman colonies on Australia. Two extra Ivories and one Pearl have been sold for good prices (Mediolanum sits right on an Ivory). We should be able to sell the extra Wine and Cotton once we purchase the tiles, if they are cheap enough to buy. (Each resource sells for 800-900 gold for 90 turns. So anything cheaper is a good investment in 90 turns, and pure profit afterwards.)
196. The Roman Legions met no resistance in their landing, and were in position to take Warwick! After England lost its two City State allies, the city of Warwick's population shrank from 4 to 2. Other than losing just 2 units of food, and probably a free population the wonder Hanging Garden, the city simply has no good tiles - there is a desert Incense and a poor Iron (+2). We will take it and burn it (because extra population is a huge burden on happiness)!
From Turn 250 (the unification of America) to Turn 350 (the invasion of West Africa), the Romans enjoyed 100 turns of growth. Research and income more than doubled (from +49 beakers/turn and +80 gold/turn to +110 beakers/turn and +160 gold/turn). Happiness was running on a surplus of 10, with still several Colosseums on their way.
50% of turn gross income comes from city's earnings. 25% comes from trade routes. 25% comes from other civilization's trade (when they do not have enough cash to purchase our resource). Half of the gross income was used to maintain the empire, with roughly equal parts in unit maintenance, building maintenance, and road maintenance. So essentially Roman's city income balances out its maintenance, and its earnings entirely comes from its internal trade routes and resource trading.
That turn income calculation does not account for the lump sum of cash we received from other Civs when dealing resources, though. Personally I find the spirit of the Civ5 diplomacy and economy to be selling surplus resources - especially to the rich AIs on high difficulties. Surplus resources come from territory expansion. And the hit in happiness in a large empire is balanced out by finding extra resources. So there is really nothing bad in expansion, until there is no more new luxurious resources to be claimed and no more extra resources to be sold.
Here are some things I learned about trade routes in this game:
- The capital must have Harbor to enable other coastal cities with Harbor to establish a trade route.
- For in-land cities on another continent, as long as they are road-connected to a city with harbor, they will be trading with the capital. However, the road must exclusively run on the empire's own territory - not on ally's. If even on tile of the road goes through an allied City State, the trade route does not work.
(to be continued...)
MaulerMike
Chieftain
- Joined
- Mar 3, 2007
- Messages
- 3
This has been a very interesting and entertaining read, especially, since I have yet to win/complete a Deity game. After spending some time looking over some of your tricks I thought I would set up the game with gulp- 10 A.I. on Marathon and give it a try myself.
However I cant set up a 10 AI game with a tiny map. The set up only allows me to play with 4 AI and adjust the city states totals from 0 -28.
However I cant set up a 10 AI game with a tiny map. The set up only allows me to play with 4 AI and adjust the city states totals from 0 -28.
MaulerMike
Chieftain
- Joined
- Mar 3, 2007
- Messages
- 3
What a dummy – I see the Add a AI player on the bottom of the set up now.
maltz
King
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2006
- Messages
- 967
Chapter 13. Bringing down the Former Leader
Romans Legions successfully occupied a defenseless English city in South Africa. In the meantime, the English's army was mostly attacking our allied City State (CS) Rio de Janeiro. The CS had no army left, but was still holding its own. Interestingly, the CS was constantly fighting another of our CS ally Genoa - that's why Genoa had a Great General. So our two allies were fighting each other...
197. I expected our happiness to take a hit while razing English cities, so I traded for Catherin's surplus. (When Happiness drops below -10, units take a huge discount on their combat power - I saw 33% one time. Not sure whether it is universal. Sugar is actually the last luxurious resources that we do not have. Every single Roman city was craving for Sugar. No candies for Roman kids for 4000 years! That's right. Our kids chew Amazon Spices.
198. That Sugar trade resulted in an instant nation-wide of "We Love The King" for 20 turns! More crazy population boom. That should cancel the extra +5 Happiness from the sugar soon...
The picture also shows how Rio Janeiro was stopping the English counterattack for us. At this point, England has the LARGEST army among all Civs. The AI units tried to circle to its back from the sea. Guess what was waiting for them... three units of Carvel! Each Carvel takes away 4 health points from a disembarked unit. So 3 Carvel was exactly needed to kill one unit in one turn.
199. I was checking on the demograph to moniter the English army's strength, and was delighted to find that Catherine became the new leader of military power. How did she pull that off? (Not so long ago, she had the fewest army among all Civs.) Anyway, what are we waiting for? For a cheap price of 243 gold (only 1/4 of the price of a SINGLE unit!), we bribed Catherine to declare war on Elizabeth!
That was probably the single most important factor deciding the outcome of the English-Roman war. With the clash and cancellation of two great armies, we encountered very limited resistance in our subsequent of West Africa!
200. Elizabeth is really a fan of 1-tile cities... here she sent a settler to an island very close to our North American base. At this point, England must had researched Astronomy to enable the Settler to cross the ocean.
But that effort ends in trategy. We happen to have a Trieme patrolling the nearby ocean (to shoot at a barbarian camp). And we happen to have one unit of archer nearby to collect the camp money. Guess who captured the English settlers half a turn before they spawn an annoying new city...
Deleted the captured workers to save maintenance. I thought the AIs would accept workers as gift units, but there was no such option. Too bad.
201. Roman's 4th Great General arrived at the Battlefield to give a bonus to our navy. Under the bonus of two Great Generals, coverage fire from the Carvels, the distraction from Russia, and some heavily upgraded Legions, we took the hardened city Hastings! There is nothing wrong with the city, but we still razed it to reduce happiness penalty.
202. Resarch Agreement free tech comes on Turn 357 - free Navigation! That's another great step for the Roman navy.
Not sure what Monty got, but he entered Renaissance a few turns after.
203. Saved some cash and sold a few more dued resources (90 turns have past since the original deal) Five Triremes instantly upgraded to Frigates! They will too sail across the Atlantic Ocean and ruthlessly bombard English cities and units!
204. And now the weakest pair of Civs finally decides to fight each other. I can't declare war on a friend (Askia). Refused. But I do wish you fight each other to the last unit.
205. Six more turns tiill the Long Swordsman upgrade! The legions could use this break to recover their strength.
And the English Long Swordsman was taunting us! (In fact it was on its way to attack Russia...) Soon we will see some Russia Long Swordsman moving west to attack English cities.
206. That's how much a Frigate would compare to a Trireme. Actually even an Carvel could sink a Trireme in one turn. What an overkill.
Also in this picture is England's source of Iron, in the middle of three cities. Pillaging this iron is not a simple task. The unit would have to dodge the cross fires from three cities at once... Trained a scout (cheapest land unit) to see whether it can accomplish this task!
207. Upgrades of the Long Swordsman have completed and the siege of London begins! England has lost most of its army to Russia and Rome. Let the Ballista leads the Roman Legions... no, Roman Long Swordsmen to glory!
208. Our brave scouts will make a silent landing on the British shore to sabotage its only iron mine (+6)! Without iron, the english won't be able to field any good army! (Oh well they can still buy irons from other Civs, if the AIs are that smart...)
209. Our Frigate closed in to attract the attention of the local defense and to provide some covering fire! There are two units of Longbowman (English's version of Crossbowman)... not looking good. Indeed, the scouts did not see their next turn. The operation failed completely.
210. The Roman army took London with relative ease! But immediately our allies started demanding resources. It happened that we received one extra Marbel from London. Cathy was helping us in a war, so she should get a share of the loot... yeah? But we prefer that we SELL it to you.
The AI "friends" are very demanding... whenever I have a surplus resource, they come to ASK for it for free. And if I refuse, I get a negative modifier in relationship. That's why I sell my extra resources at my earliest oppurtunity. This way I earn extra cash and avoid being accused by a friend later.
211. Immediately, here comes Monty asking for Sugar. Still, we prefer that we sell it to you. Go home, Monty.
212. With very little English resistance left, our Roman army pushed forward and took the fourth English city, York. There were two wonders in the city, the Pyramid and the Hanging Garden! The Pyramid accelerates workers' speed by 50%. A great bonus that essentially cuts the number of workers by half (saving about 5 gold per turn). The Hanging Garden provides Happiness although we missed its population boost. The game might be over before we see the Great Person's birth, though.
So York stays, for it provides its own Happiness.
213. Our navy, 5 Frigates and 3 Carvels, had reduced the one-tile island city of New Castle into a pile of ruins in two turns. Actually the bombardment could only reduce the city's HP to 2. So I had to run a fresh scout over to actually take it down. Lucky that the scout didn't get killed in the process this time...
This one-tile city had two luxurious resources and a food tile. So it is actually not too bad as a source of happiness and some income.
But we can't afford that much population especially in occupied cities.
Our land units kept pushing forward. We accidentally lost a unit of archers to the fire of a lucky English Longbowmen. I planned to buy two replacement Ballista from Rome and upgrade them to Trebuchet when Physics is researched. At this point, Rome had built a Barrack and an Armory. So it is an ideal city to purchase land units. We already purchased the fifth Legion to take care of local barbarians in America.
214. Suddenly it was the time for another social policy. I was thinking about the 50% unit experience bonus, but our units were all well-leveled already. So I went over to Rationalism to grab the instant Golden Age (8 turns on Marathon). At least I can complete the Chichen Itza (50% longer Golden Age) in Rome faster. So I can keep burning away new Great Generals. Since there are quite a bit of fighting, we can typically afford to burn 3-4 Great Generals per game!
215. With updated land units and supreme navel power, we easily took the remaining English cities. Elizabeth, you certainly did well in this one.
(to be continued...)
Romans Legions successfully occupied a defenseless English city in South Africa. In the meantime, the English's army was mostly attacking our allied City State (CS) Rio de Janeiro. The CS had no army left, but was still holding its own. Interestingly, the CS was constantly fighting another of our CS ally Genoa - that's why Genoa had a Great General. So our two allies were fighting each other...
197. I expected our happiness to take a hit while razing English cities, so I traded for Catherin's surplus. (When Happiness drops below -10, units take a huge discount on their combat power - I saw 33% one time. Not sure whether it is universal. Sugar is actually the last luxurious resources that we do not have. Every single Roman city was craving for Sugar. No candies for Roman kids for 4000 years! That's right. Our kids chew Amazon Spices.
198. That Sugar trade resulted in an instant nation-wide of "We Love The King" for 20 turns! More crazy population boom. That should cancel the extra +5 Happiness from the sugar soon...
The picture also shows how Rio Janeiro was stopping the English counterattack for us. At this point, England has the LARGEST army among all Civs. The AI units tried to circle to its back from the sea. Guess what was waiting for them... three units of Carvel! Each Carvel takes away 4 health points from a disembarked unit. So 3 Carvel was exactly needed to kill one unit in one turn.
199. I was checking on the demograph to moniter the English army's strength, and was delighted to find that Catherine became the new leader of military power. How did she pull that off? (Not so long ago, she had the fewest army among all Civs.) Anyway, what are we waiting for? For a cheap price of 243 gold (only 1/4 of the price of a SINGLE unit!), we bribed Catherine to declare war on Elizabeth!
That was probably the single most important factor deciding the outcome of the English-Roman war. With the clash and cancellation of two great armies, we encountered very limited resistance in our subsequent of West Africa!
200. Elizabeth is really a fan of 1-tile cities... here she sent a settler to an island very close to our North American base. At this point, England must had researched Astronomy to enable the Settler to cross the ocean.
But that effort ends in trategy. We happen to have a Trieme patrolling the nearby ocean (to shoot at a barbarian camp). And we happen to have one unit of archer nearby to collect the camp money. Guess who captured the English settlers half a turn before they spawn an annoying new city...
Deleted the captured workers to save maintenance. I thought the AIs would accept workers as gift units, but there was no such option. Too bad.
201. Roman's 4th Great General arrived at the Battlefield to give a bonus to our navy. Under the bonus of two Great Generals, coverage fire from the Carvels, the distraction from Russia, and some heavily upgraded Legions, we took the hardened city Hastings! There is nothing wrong with the city, but we still razed it to reduce happiness penalty.
202. Resarch Agreement free tech comes on Turn 357 - free Navigation! That's another great step for the Roman navy.
Not sure what Monty got, but he entered Renaissance a few turns after.
203. Saved some cash and sold a few more dued resources (90 turns have past since the original deal) Five Triremes instantly upgraded to Frigates! They will too sail across the Atlantic Ocean and ruthlessly bombard English cities and units!
204. And now the weakest pair of Civs finally decides to fight each other. I can't declare war on a friend (Askia). Refused. But I do wish you fight each other to the last unit.
205. Six more turns tiill the Long Swordsman upgrade! The legions could use this break to recover their strength.
And the English Long Swordsman was taunting us! (In fact it was on its way to attack Russia...
) Soon we will see some Russia Long Swordsman moving west to attack English cities.206. That's how much a Frigate would compare to a Trireme. Actually even an Carvel could sink a Trireme in one turn. What an overkill.
Also in this picture is England's source of Iron, in the middle of three cities. Pillaging this iron is not a simple task. The unit would have to dodge the cross fires from three cities at once... Trained a scout (cheapest land unit) to see whether it can accomplish this task!
207. Upgrades of the Long Swordsman have completed and the siege of London begins! England has lost most of its army to Russia and Rome. Let the Ballista leads the Roman Legions... no, Roman Long Swordsmen to glory!
208. Our brave scouts will make a silent landing on the British shore to sabotage its only iron mine (+6)! Without iron, the english won't be able to field any good army! (Oh well they can still buy irons from other Civs, if the AIs are that smart...)
209. Our Frigate closed in to attract the attention of the local defense and to provide some covering fire! There are two units of Longbowman (English's version of Crossbowman)... not looking good. Indeed, the scouts did not see their next turn. The operation failed completely.
210. The Roman army took London with relative ease! But immediately our allies started demanding resources. It happened that we received one extra Marbel from London. Cathy was helping us in a war, so she should get a share of the loot... yeah? But we prefer that we SELL it to you.
The AI "friends" are very demanding... whenever I have a surplus resource, they come to ASK for it for free. And if I refuse, I get a negative modifier in relationship. That's why I sell my extra resources at my earliest oppurtunity. This way I earn extra cash and avoid being accused by a friend later.
211. Immediately, here comes Monty asking for Sugar. Still, we prefer that we sell it to you. Go home, Monty.
212. With very little English resistance left, our Roman army pushed forward and took the fourth English city, York. There were two wonders in the city, the Pyramid and the Hanging Garden! The Pyramid accelerates workers' speed by 50%. A great bonus that essentially cuts the number of workers by half (saving about 5 gold per turn). The Hanging Garden provides Happiness although we missed its population boost. The game might be over before we see the Great Person's birth, though.
So York stays, for it provides its own Happiness.
213. Our navy, 5 Frigates and 3 Carvels, had reduced the one-tile island city of New Castle into a pile of ruins in two turns. Actually the bombardment could only reduce the city's HP to 2. So I had to run a fresh scout over to actually take it down. Lucky that the scout didn't get killed in the process this time...
This one-tile city had two luxurious resources and a food tile. So it is actually not too bad as a source of happiness and some income. But we can't afford that much population especially in occupied cities.
Our land units kept pushing forward. We accidentally lost a unit of archers to the fire of a lucky English Longbowmen. I planned to buy two replacement Ballista from Rome and upgrade them to Trebuchet when Physics is researched. At this point, Rome had built a Barrack and an Armory. So it is an ideal city to purchase land units. We already purchased the fifth Legion to take care of local barbarians in America.
214. Suddenly it was the time for another social policy. I was thinking about the 50% unit experience bonus, but our units were all well-leveled already. So I went over to Rationalism to grab the instant Golden Age (8 turns on Marathon). At least I can complete the Chichen Itza (50% longer Golden Age) in Rome faster. So I can keep burning away new Great Generals. Since there are quite a bit of fighting, we can typically afford to burn 3-4 Great Generals per game!
215. With updated land units and supreme navel power, we easily took the remaining English cities. Elizabeth, you certainly did well in this one.
(to be continued...)
maltz
King
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2006
- Messages
- 967
Chapter 14. Let the Blames Come
The downfall of England made the Roman Empire the undisputed leading Civ of the game. We started leading in food, hammer, and gold. We were still trailing a couple of techs behind the AI Civs. But we got what matters, and will prioritize those that matters. With superior research output, we should be able to catch up soon.
We were of course dead last in Happiness. At this stage, a few negative happiness (as long as not less than -10) is not a bad sign. We already have good population going in cities. In fact, a little negative unhappiness helps to control population growth, which stops the further deterioration of happiness. This "feedback control" of happiness works very well.
216. Immediately after we conquered England, Catherine, who once declared Friendship with us, denounced us. She looked OK when she was Friendly to us. Now she looks terrible.
I assume the AIs in Civ5 have a "Civilization elimination threshold" for Denouncement. In Emperor, the AIs were indifferent when I eliminated my first Civ. But on Deity, most AIs denounce me when I eliminate ONE Civilization. (We eliminated three while on America, but the AIs did not witness them.) The few exceptions are warmonger Civs such as Monty, whom we met while fighting Arabia.
217. Now here comes Monty. So Monty on Deity has a "Civ elimination threshold" for Denouncement of 2. As soon as we eliminate 2 Civs in front of Monty, he denounces us.
So 2 friends out of 3 have denounced me, all when I was fighting their common enemy. I guess they feel that they no longer need the Romans. Maybe soon they will together declare war on us!
But since now you are no longer my friends (Denouncement cancels Declaration of Friendship and labels the Denouncer a "backstabber"), I can do whatever I want to you...
218. Surprisingly, Monty was the tech leader, leading us by 4 techs! That pretty much means one extra tech in every branch, and possibly one generation of army ahead! We must find someway to remove Monty's existing army so he can't upgrade them cheaply.
219. With a very reasonable price, we bribed Suleiman to fight Monty! Awesome. Now we can concentrate on Catherine.
220. Five more Civs to go. While our army was actually closer to Suleiman's Ottoman Empire, Catherine was a greater threat (as she denounced us already), so she should be the firsrt to be eliminated. Then we plan to work on Suleiman, Monty, Songhai and Iroquois. At this point we are clearly winning the game, so there is no point in waiting for diplomatic or technology victory. We will simply use our superior economic power to purchase more military and mow down the AI Civs one after one.
221. This is Catherine's little Russian Empire, which withstood the attacks of stronger neighbors and actually once has the largest army in the world. Her turn income was one of the highest, possible due to the Sugars of the Nile River. Neither Russia's city was coastal, so we will have more tiles to melee attack the city, but less Navel support.
Just northeast of Russia there is a well-positioned military City State Almaty. It is a must-have ally for our future warfare against Russia, Ottoman, and Aztec.
222. Sensing that war could be declared at any moment, I took a loan from Catherine. So we don't miss out on her cash. Every gold counts.
223. Sold more iron to Monty. It will be nice if he trains a lot of iron-dependent units - they will be very useless when our war breaks out.
224. Suddenly Suleiman denounced us. We did not do anything "wrong" in the previous turns (except for bribing him to war Monty). Maybe he realized that this war is not helping his Empire (I doubt the AI is that smart). Maybe the Ottoman AI just rolled a dice and randomly decides to raise its hostility towards Rome by 1, therefore meeting his Denouncement criteria. Again, I think this entire denouement system is pure idiotic.
225. Since we lost an archer, we ordered two more Ballista from Rome to be shipped to Africa. Ballista can be upgraded to Trebuchet when Physics is researched. That's where we are going next.
226. Some more deals have expired. Now since the AIs are more or less unhappy about us, our resource could not even sell half of the price. Better than nothing.
227. Immediately after our deal with Hiawatha, he came back with a warning of our "highly aggressive behavior". Strange that we do not have this option to warn "extremely aggressive AIs" of their behavior. Why should I care about your warning? Am I going to be afraid that you will march your army towards me? No. I will cheaply bribe you to attack your neighbor, and cheaply bribe your neighbor to attack you before that happens.
228. Our research goal should be Physics (Trebuchet) - Gunpowder. Then we can either pursue Chemistry for a Canon, or Rifling for Rifleman. With any of these, we will be able to blow through the rest of the Civs with ease. That should be the end game.
229. Now since Suleiman denounced us, we took a loan from Suleiman just in case. I am pretty sure that war will be declared before the loan turns into a deficit for us (32 turns).
230. War was declared on Catherine. Our scouts have located its horse ranch. Sabotage!
231. Our Frigate sailed into the Mediterranean ocean to bombard the Russian city and units. The Russian knights have lost their steeds and now suffer 50% combat penalty. A once formidable unit becomes instantly useless.
The ocean was reduced to a big lake in the Tiny Earth map, so how did our ships get in? There is a conveniently located English city right on the mouth of the Mediterranean lake. So the ship can sail into the city from the Atlantic side, and come out on the Mediterranean side. That also means I cannot raze that city to ground before my ships get out, or they will get stuck in the Mediterranean lake forever - or until I pop a settler on the same site again to open up the lake.
233. (Skip 232. I accidentally made two pictures from the same screen shot.)
We are indeed lagging in tech - Catherine is already able to field Rifleman! Fortunately our army was waiting outside her border for any foolish unit to come out and get slaughtered by our ranged untis.
We also located Catherine's iron mine and send a unit to sabotage it.
234. With its iron gone, Catherine's unit was powerless against the same unit of Rome. Of course, our units are heavily upgraded, and we are not dumb enough to let a rough terrain specialist to fight on open field.
235. Yet another Great General is born. There is no use of him on the battlefield. Instantlly sacrificed for Roman's 5th Golden Age!
236. Monty suddenly came with an insult. Actually he just denounced Songhai, our only friend left. So in Monty's eyes we are both his enemies and deserve his insult together. This is a nice mirror of the AI's notice of "I have noticed that we have made friends with the same Civ." But I honestly think the insults can be dropped from the game's design. If the player is going to war the Civ, it won't make a difference. If the player wants to play a peaceful game, this only frustrates them. So there is nothing useful or fun from this kind of insult.
237. Catherine stood little chance before the Roman army when our new City State ally poured out 6 Pikemen to help with the siege. There is only one Civ that shares border with us now...
(to be continued)
The downfall of England made the Roman Empire the undisputed leading Civ of the game. We started leading in food, hammer, and gold. We were still trailing a couple of techs behind the AI Civs. But we got what matters, and will prioritize those that matters. With superior research output, we should be able to catch up soon.
We were of course dead last in Happiness. At this stage, a few negative happiness (as long as not less than -10) is not a bad sign. We already have good population going in cities. In fact, a little negative unhappiness helps to control population growth, which stops the further deterioration of happiness. This "feedback control" of happiness works very well.
216. Immediately after we conquered England, Catherine, who once declared Friendship with us, denounced us. She looked OK when she was Friendly to us. Now she looks terrible.
I assume the AIs in Civ5 have a "Civilization elimination threshold" for Denouncement. In Emperor, the AIs were indifferent when I eliminated my first Civ. But on Deity, most AIs denounce me when I eliminate ONE Civilization. (We eliminated three while on America, but the AIs did not witness them.) The few exceptions are warmonger Civs such as Monty, whom we met while fighting Arabia.
217. Now here comes Monty. So Monty on Deity has a "Civ elimination threshold" for Denouncement of 2. As soon as we eliminate 2 Civs in front of Monty, he denounces us.
So 2 friends out of 3 have denounced me, all when I was fighting their common enemy. I guess they feel that they no longer need the Romans. Maybe soon they will together declare war on us!
But since now you are no longer my friends (Denouncement cancels Declaration of Friendship and labels the Denouncer a "backstabber"), I can do whatever I want to you...
218. Surprisingly, Monty was the tech leader, leading us by 4 techs! That pretty much means one extra tech in every branch, and possibly one generation of army ahead! We must find someway to remove Monty's existing army so he can't upgrade them cheaply.
219. With a very reasonable price, we bribed Suleiman to fight Monty! Awesome. Now we can concentrate on Catherine.
220. Five more Civs to go. While our army was actually closer to Suleiman's Ottoman Empire, Catherine was a greater threat (as she denounced us already), so she should be the firsrt to be eliminated. Then we plan to work on Suleiman, Monty, Songhai and Iroquois. At this point we are clearly winning the game, so there is no point in waiting for diplomatic or technology victory. We will simply use our superior economic power to purchase more military and mow down the AI Civs one after one.
221. This is Catherine's little Russian Empire, which withstood the attacks of stronger neighbors and actually once has the largest army in the world. Her turn income was one of the highest, possible due to the Sugars of the Nile River. Neither Russia's city was coastal, so we will have more tiles to melee attack the city, but less Navel support.
Just northeast of Russia there is a well-positioned military City State Almaty. It is a must-have ally for our future warfare against Russia, Ottoman, and Aztec.
222. Sensing that war could be declared at any moment, I took a loan from Catherine. So we don't miss out on her cash.
Every gold counts.223. Sold more iron to Monty. It will be nice if he trains a lot of iron-dependent units - they will be very useless when our war breaks out.
224. Suddenly Suleiman denounced us. We did not do anything "wrong" in the previous turns (except for bribing him to war Monty). Maybe he realized that this war is not helping his Empire (I doubt the AI is that smart). Maybe the Ottoman AI just rolled a dice and randomly decides to raise its hostility towards Rome by 1, therefore meeting his Denouncement criteria. Again, I think this entire denouement system is pure idiotic.
225. Since we lost an archer, we ordered two more Ballista from Rome to be shipped to Africa. Ballista can be upgraded to Trebuchet when Physics is researched. That's where we are going next.
226. Some more deals have expired. Now since the AIs are more or less unhappy about us, our resource could not even sell half of the price. Better than nothing.
227. Immediately after our deal with Hiawatha, he came back with a warning of our "highly aggressive behavior". Strange that we do not have this option to warn "extremely aggressive AIs" of their behavior. Why should I care about your warning? Am I going to be afraid that you will march your army towards me? No. I will cheaply bribe you to attack your neighbor, and cheaply bribe your neighbor to attack you before that happens.
228. Our research goal should be Physics (Trebuchet) - Gunpowder. Then we can either pursue Chemistry for a Canon, or Rifling for Rifleman. With any of these, we will be able to blow through the rest of the Civs with ease. That should be the end game.
229. Now since Suleiman denounced us, we took a loan from Suleiman just in case. I am pretty sure that war will be declared before the loan turns into a deficit for us (32 turns).
230. War was declared on Catherine. Our scouts have located its horse ranch. Sabotage!
231. Our Frigate sailed into the Mediterranean ocean to bombard the Russian city and units. The Russian knights have lost their steeds and now suffer 50% combat penalty. A once formidable unit becomes instantly useless.
The ocean was reduced to a big lake in the Tiny Earth map, so how did our ships get in? There is a conveniently located English city right on the mouth of the Mediterranean lake. So the ship can sail into the city from the Atlantic side, and come out on the Mediterranean side. That also means I cannot raze that city to ground before my ships get out, or they will get stuck in the Mediterranean lake forever - or until I pop a settler on the same site again to open up the lake.
233. (Skip 232. I accidentally made two pictures from the same screen shot.)
We are indeed lagging in tech - Catherine is already able to field Rifleman! Fortunately our army was waiting outside her border for any foolish unit to come out and get slaughtered by our ranged untis.
We also located Catherine's iron mine and send a unit to sabotage it.
234. With its iron gone, Catherine's unit was powerless against the same unit of Rome. Of course, our units are heavily upgraded, and we are not dumb enough to let a rough terrain specialist to fight on open field.
235. Yet another Great General is born. There is no use of him on the battlefield. Instantlly sacrificed for Roman's 5th Golden Age!
236. Monty suddenly came with an insult. Actually he just denounced Songhai, our only friend left. So in Monty's eyes we are both his enemies and deserve his insult together. This is a nice mirror of the AI's notice of "I have noticed that we have made friends with the same Civ." But I honestly think the insults can be dropped from the game's design. If the player is going to war the Civ, it won't make a difference. If the player wants to play a peaceful game, this only frustrates them. So there is nothing useful or fun from this kind of insult.
237. Catherine stood little chance before the Roman army when our new City State ally poured out 6 Pikemen to help with the siege. There is only one Civ that shares border with us now...
(to be continued)
Civ'ed
I ain't gotta explain a thing
I told you about Monty!
maltz
King
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2006
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Chapter 15. The Roman Liberation Army: Operation Freedom
With Catherine out of the game and our territory separated from Monty's by an allied military City State Almaty, we naturally turned north to fight Suleiman. Suleiman was trailing a bit in techs (even behind us), but was doing pretty well economically. He used to have the largest military, but after all the years of fighting (plus we have bribed him to fight Monty), Suleiman actually had very few units left at home territory.
239. The Russian capital Moscow (we razed the other city to keep Happiness in control) has a Stonehenge wonder. The cultural bonus was nice, but I doubt we are going to see the 5th policy before the game ends.
239. The demograph showed that we were doing extremely well in the 5th Golden Age. All we need to do is to catch up with military techs to secure our land units' dominance.
On the other end, Songhai was doing extremely poorly. All of its other cities have been occupied by other Civs. It had 0 GNP (no gold income)! I thought the Deity AI had some intrinsinc cheat income... oh right, he was still paying for our resources.
240. War was declared on Suleiman! We will liberate the two city states conquered by Suleiman - Operation Freedom!
But in reality, this is nothing but a bold invasion. Sounds very familiar to what the real American Empire is doing...
We immediately caught a busy worker. He belonged to Songhai! Poor Askia, even his workers got enslaved by the others. We will return him (if we can SELL him back to Askia, we would. Not that he could afford it...) At this point, we have deleted half of the workers at home (with the acquisition of the Pyramid, we finish improvements a lot faster), and the AI's lands were so improved already that we have no use for additional workers. And we can't give workers to allies...
Each worker costs 1-2 gold of maintenance per turn. (Not sure how it is calculated, it seems that the actual number is rounded up or down.) Throughout the game we only made ONE worker, which was the FIRST thing that we built in the capital. But we captured about 20 workers throughout the game...
241. Immediately Songhai came with a note of appreciation - a nice touch of Civ5 diplomacy. There is too much denoucement and insult, and too little appreciation and alliance in this game.
242. We also gained a positive modifier with Askia by "freeing his captured citizen". Very soon we returned another unit of worker to Songhai and again received Askia's appreciation. The diplomatic modifier stayed the same - not sure whether this Songhai like us twice as much or not.
243. AI seems to largely ignore its puppeted cities. Not sure whether they are incapable of annexing them and building Court Houses... We discovered Doublin under Suleiman in Turn 260 or so, and over 125 turns the AI did almost nothing to it - and only recently workers started coming in to work on improvements. Our army swarmed in without seeing ANY Suleiman's defense. Maybe they all got sent to fight Monty.
244. Dublin was liberated! We have to minimize the number of new cities in order to reduce the unhappiness coming from the extra population.
245. Dublin was allied with... England! Dublin just woke up from its sleep and thought they were still allied with England! Only in the next turn Dublin realized we had... er, replaced England to become its new ally. A similar situation happened in Oslo about 100 turns ago. Oslo was allied with Arabia. It ceased to ally with Arabia dozens of turns after Arabia was eliminated...
So what if we were (1) at war with England but (2) liberated Dublin from Ottoman? Will Dublin turn against us since they were still allied with England? I think this is very likely. I actually have heard people reporting that they were immediately attacked by ungrateful City States that they just liberated.
There is probably a design flaw on the City State's alliance recognition script. It should run the "check alliance" routine immediately after it is liberated, and automatically assign whoever liberated it the default alliance (its old alliance failed to save it from being occupied anyway). In the current script, the "check alliance" function only runs on the next turn. And given how the Civs always end up hating each other, it is highly likely that a City State immediately turns against its liberator because every Civ is at war with any other Civ... And that's just how bad Civ5's pro-insult, pro-denouncement, and eventually pro-war diplomacy is. I think the developers don't want the AI Civs to fall prey to the player's "befriend with everyone then take down one by one strategy", so they make the AIs extremely hostile. But the side effect is that the AIs end up fighting each other non-stop, too. And there is very little in diplomacy to enjoy except for:
(1) Sell resources before the Civ turns hostile against the player.
(2) Cheaply bribe Civs to war each other at the right time.
That's the core of Civ5 diplomacy.
246. After returning two workers to Askia, I wanted to see whether he likes us enough to sign a Defensive Pact with us.
The answer is NO! Why would anyone refuse to ally with the most powerful Civ in the game... At least Askia could ask us to attack Iroquois and return my two lost cities (currently under Iroquois)... well I guess that's too advanced thinking for AIs.
Actually, about 50 turns ago, the Defensive Pact option became available with Askia already. When I tried to propose it back then, Askia would agree. I did not proceed with the signing, though. Songhai was too weak to make any difference. And I would need to remain neutral when I bribe other Civs to attack Askia to consume their armies while I am busy warring someone else. If I have the defense pact, I would be forced to go to war with whomever I do not want to war at the time.
I guess Songhai had become less friendly to us when he saw that we have conquered one Civ after another. Well, that's actually another reason to befriend us if he wants to stay in the game if the AI is "built to win the game" like the developer said.
247. Turn 390. The Roman Liberation Army surrounded the Istanbul, the capital of Suleiman. I was searching for his iron mine to sabotage, and realized that Suleiman had NO iron... No wonder Suleiman could only field some miserable pikeman that did not even dare to attack us. We used to be his sole iron supplier.
Suleiman actually has a close access of Iron. It was close to a former Songhai city within 10 tiles of Suleiman's capital. The city was puppeted by Iroquois. Considering Iroquois is to the far east of Songhai, it is weird how it gained the hold of a city WEST of Songhai. If Suleiman joined the attack of Iroquois and STEAL this city over (that's definitely what a human player would do), or boldly take it over at all cost without being afraid to anger Iroquois (who is very far away still), things would be quite different. No iron is a death penalty in military in Civ5.
You may have noticed a long row of Dye demand on the right. I allowed our relationship with City State Genoa to drop back to Friendship, since I thought I no longer need the crazy population growth. However, I did not realize that Genoa was our sole supplier of Dyes. So I renewed the deal with 500 gold, and all 17 cities in the Roman Empire got their "We love the King" frenzy for another 20 turns! More population growth! Exactly the opposite of what I wanted.
248. Moscow, once a very populus city, was finally out of its resistance. I cash-rushed a Courthouse and a Colosseum there to boost our Happiness by 4. Every point counts!
249. The end of our 5th Golden Age accelerated the construction of our only home-made wonder in Rome. The Chichen Itza! (50% longer Golden Age)
I would not have built the wonder if I had not run out of meaningful things to build. Rome built, so far in chronological order, a Monument, Barrack, Library, Colosseum (purchased), Armory, University (purchased), and Market (purchased). I think any other building at this stage is a waste of time and maintenance cash.
I picked Chichen Itza because it was relatively easy to complete, and actually makes a little difference when it is completed. Since we are largely at war, we will produce Great Generals at a rapid rate. (The 4th and 5th Great General were born less than 40 turns apart.) In the end we will gain several more turns of Golden Age. Probably equal to 1000-2000 extra gold and 5-10 turns of building acceleration by the time the game ends? (Actually the game ended sooner than I wanted, so the wonder was nearly useless.)
250. When Istanbul was under siege, the once City State Seoul was bombarded by the powerful Roman navy. Of course, we needed a swimming unit of Long Swordsman to actually take it down at HP = 2. That was easy even with an amphibious attack penalty of 50%.
The AIs, although leading us in technology, did not even have one unti of Carvel. I settled on Australia as soon as possible in the fear that Monty would beat me to it, and became quite hard to eradicate as there were more islands in the Pacific Ocean, but Monty never even send any settler overseas depiste being the only Civ to actually have scouted the rest of the world. Even England attempted to spawn a city closer to North America...
I hate those settlers. They are like molds growing on a window beside our computer desk. They will send out more colonies and get closer and closer to us. I want to crush them like as soon as possible.
I still believe controlling the ocean is vitally important to an Earth game (or a Continent game, needless to say in an Archipelago game). It at least blocks the AI from settling and invading our home continent (until people can fly - but a good game never goes that far if started in the antient age). The sea advantage makes us the only Civ with the power of invasion (assuming the player is capable of wiping out all other Civs on their own continent). Ships also provide a lot of covering fire in finding/creating the weak spot to establish our holding in another continent.
251. City Seoul liberated! This one is Cultural. Even with their help, I doubt we would see the next social policy...
252. We are almost done with Suleiman, so we have to think one step ahead. We are going to fight Monty next, so we want Monty to kill off his armies. Hm... how about bribing Monty to invade Askia. Askia is extremely weak, so Monty should agree easily.
And Monty agreed with a whooping 82 gold! That's ridiculously cheap considering each unit costs 1000+ gold each (the Deity AI probably got some heavy discounts, though).
253. I was afraid that Songhai along probably won't kill off Monty's army. So I asked Iroquois to war Monty. Such a cheap price...
254. The last attack needed for bringing down Ankara. Suleiman built the Great Wall, which quite effectively slowed our advance (one tile at per turn). But that only hurts when the attackers are under heavy ranged fire. Suleiman had none. He had a few pikemen and that was it! We don't even have horses!
255. Askia was bold enough to beg/demand for Sugar from us. So that's how you say thanks for returning your workers? You are under a warmonger's attack and you want sugar?
256. The end of Suleiman, once the second most powerful Civ. Suleiman did pretty well - he took over two City States, but never developed them. (I wonder if AIs are allowed to annex City States and build Court Houses. Will that cancel the player's option of liberating the city?) Suleiman was poor in Diplomacy. He made as many enemies as he could in the Old World, but yet he survived this far.
The Great Wall wonder was not built in Suleiman's capital, and I decided to burn it down along with its city. Since we are completely on the offense in end game, there is no need for a defensive wonder.
That's a good ending of Operation: Liberation. There is no more City States to be liberated. Three Civs left to go! - And they are already fighting each other for a little price of 200+ gold... A makeshift "Anti-Roman Alliance" would be a lot more fun and realistic.
(to be continued)
With Catherine out of the game and our territory separated from Monty's by an allied military City State Almaty, we naturally turned north to fight Suleiman. Suleiman was trailing a bit in techs (even behind us), but was doing pretty well economically. He used to have the largest military, but after all the years of fighting (plus we have bribed him to fight Monty), Suleiman actually had very few units left at home territory.
239. The Russian capital Moscow (we razed the other city to keep Happiness in control) has a Stonehenge wonder. The cultural bonus was nice, but I doubt we are going to see the 5th policy before the game ends.
239. The demograph showed that we were doing extremely well in the 5th Golden Age. All we need to do is to catch up with military techs to secure our land units' dominance.
On the other end, Songhai was doing extremely poorly. All of its other cities have been occupied by other Civs. It had 0 GNP (no gold income)! I thought the Deity AI had some intrinsinc cheat income... oh right, he was still paying for our resources.
240. War was declared on Suleiman! We will liberate the two city states conquered by Suleiman - Operation Freedom!
But in reality, this is nothing but a bold invasion.
Sounds very familiar to what the real American Empire is doing... We immediately caught a busy worker. He belonged to Songhai! Poor Askia, even his workers got enslaved by the others. We will return him (if we can SELL him back to Askia, we would.
Not that he could afford it...) At this point, we have deleted half of the workers at home (with the acquisition of the Pyramid, we finish improvements a lot faster), and the AI's lands were so improved already that we have no use for additional workers. And we can't give workers to allies...Each worker costs 1-2 gold of maintenance per turn. (Not sure how it is calculated, it seems that the actual number is rounded up or down.) Throughout the game we only made ONE worker, which was the FIRST thing that we built in the capital. But we captured about 20 workers throughout the game...
241. Immediately Songhai came with a note of appreciation - a nice touch of Civ5 diplomacy. There is too much denoucement and insult, and too little appreciation and alliance in this game.
242. We also gained a positive modifier with Askia by "freeing his captured citizen". Very soon we returned another unit of worker to Songhai and again received Askia's appreciation. The diplomatic modifier stayed the same - not sure whether this Songhai like us twice as much or not.
243. AI seems to largely ignore its puppeted cities. Not sure whether they are incapable of annexing them and building Court Houses... We discovered Doublin under Suleiman in Turn 260 or so, and over 125 turns the AI did almost nothing to it - and only recently workers started coming in to work on improvements. Our army swarmed in without seeing ANY Suleiman's defense. Maybe they all got sent to fight Monty.
244. Dublin was liberated! We have to minimize the number of new cities in order to reduce the unhappiness coming from the extra population.
245. Dublin was allied with... England! Dublin just woke up from its sleep and thought they were still allied with England! Only in the next turn Dublin realized we had... er, replaced England to become its new ally. A similar situation happened in Oslo about 100 turns ago. Oslo was allied with Arabia. It ceased to ally with Arabia dozens of turns after Arabia was eliminated...
So what if we were (1) at war with England but (2) liberated Dublin from Ottoman? Will Dublin turn against us since they were still allied with England? I think this is very likely. I actually have heard people reporting that they were immediately attacked by ungrateful City States that they just liberated.
There is probably a design flaw on the City State's alliance recognition script. It should run the "check alliance" routine immediately after it is liberated, and automatically assign whoever liberated it the default alliance (its old alliance failed to save it from being occupied anyway). In the current script, the "check alliance" function only runs on the next turn. And given how the Civs always end up hating each other, it is highly likely that a City State immediately turns against its liberator because every Civ is at war with any other Civ... And that's just how bad Civ5's pro-insult, pro-denouncement, and eventually pro-war diplomacy is. I think the developers don't want the AI Civs to fall prey to the player's "befriend with everyone then take down one by one strategy", so they make the AIs extremely hostile. But the side effect is that the AIs end up fighting each other non-stop, too. And there is very little in diplomacy to enjoy except for:
(1) Sell resources before the Civ turns hostile against the player.
(2) Cheaply bribe Civs to war each other at the right time.
That's the core of Civ5 diplomacy.
246. After returning two workers to Askia, I wanted to see whether he likes us enough to sign a Defensive Pact with us.
The answer is NO! Why would anyone refuse to ally with the most powerful Civ in the game...
At least Askia could ask us to attack Iroquois and return my two lost cities (currently under Iroquois)... well I guess that's too advanced thinking for AIs.Actually, about 50 turns ago, the Defensive Pact option became available with Askia already. When I tried to propose it back then, Askia would agree. I did not proceed with the signing, though. Songhai was too weak to make any difference. And I would need to remain neutral when I bribe other Civs to attack Askia to consume their armies while I am busy warring someone else. If I have the defense pact, I would be forced to go to war with whomever I do not want to war at the time.
I guess Songhai had become less friendly to us when he saw that we have conquered one Civ after another. Well, that's actually another reason to befriend us if he wants to stay in the game if the AI is "built to win the game" like the developer said.
247. Turn 390. The Roman Liberation Army surrounded the Istanbul, the capital of Suleiman. I was searching for his iron mine to sabotage, and realized that Suleiman had NO iron...
No wonder Suleiman could only field some miserable pikeman that did not even dare to attack us. We used to be his sole iron supplier. Suleiman actually has a close access of Iron. It was close to a former Songhai city within 10 tiles of Suleiman's capital. The city was puppeted by Iroquois. Considering Iroquois is to the far east of Songhai, it is weird how it gained the hold of a city WEST of Songhai. If Suleiman joined the attack of Iroquois and STEAL this city over (that's definitely what a human player would do), or boldly take it over at all cost without being afraid to anger Iroquois (who is very far away still), things would be quite different. No iron is a death penalty in military in Civ5.
You may have noticed a long row of Dye demand on the right. I allowed our relationship with City State Genoa to drop back to Friendship, since I thought I no longer need the crazy population growth. However, I did not realize that Genoa was our sole supplier of Dyes. So I renewed the deal with 500 gold, and all 17 cities in the Roman Empire got their "We love the King" frenzy for another 20 turns! More population growth! Exactly the opposite of what I wanted.
248. Moscow, once a very populus city, was finally out of its resistance. I cash-rushed a Courthouse and a Colosseum there to boost our Happiness by 4. Every point counts!
249. The end of our 5th Golden Age accelerated the construction of our only home-made wonder in Rome. The Chichen Itza! (50% longer Golden Age)
I would not have built the wonder if I had not run out of meaningful things to build. Rome built, so far in chronological order, a Monument, Barrack, Library, Colosseum (purchased), Armory, University (purchased), and Market (purchased). I think any other building at this stage is a waste of time and maintenance cash.
I picked Chichen Itza because it was relatively easy to complete, and actually makes a little difference when it is completed. Since we are largely at war, we will produce Great Generals at a rapid rate. (The 4th and 5th Great General were born less than 40 turns apart.) In the end we will gain several more turns of Golden Age. Probably equal to 1000-2000 extra gold and 5-10 turns of building acceleration by the time the game ends? (Actually the game ended sooner than I wanted, so the wonder was nearly useless.
)250. When Istanbul was under siege, the once City State Seoul was bombarded by the powerful Roman navy. Of course, we needed a swimming unit of Long Swordsman to actually take it down at HP = 2. That was easy even with an amphibious attack penalty of 50%.
The AIs, although leading us in technology, did not even have one unti of Carvel. I settled on Australia as soon as possible in the fear that Monty would beat me to it, and became quite hard to eradicate as there were more islands in the Pacific Ocean, but Monty never even send any settler overseas depiste being the only Civ to actually have scouted the rest of the world. Even England attempted to spawn a city closer to North America...
I hate those settlers. They are like molds growing on a window beside our computer desk. They will send out more colonies and get closer and closer to us. I want to crush them like as soon as possible.
I still believe controlling the ocean is vitally important to an Earth game (or a Continent game, needless to say in an Archipelago game). It at least blocks the AI from settling and invading our home continent (until people can fly - but a good game never goes that far if started in the antient age). The sea advantage makes us the only Civ with the power of invasion (assuming the player is capable of wiping out all other Civs on their own continent). Ships also provide a lot of covering fire in finding/creating the weak spot to establish our holding in another continent.
251. City Seoul liberated! This one is Cultural. Even with their help, I doubt we would see the next social policy...
252. We are almost done with Suleiman, so we have to think one step ahead. We are going to fight Monty next, so we want Monty to kill off his armies. Hm... how about bribing Monty to invade Askia. Askia is extremely weak, so Monty should agree easily.
And Monty agreed with a whooping 82 gold! That's ridiculously cheap considering each unit costs 1000+ gold each (the Deity AI probably got some heavy discounts, though).
253. I was afraid that Songhai along probably won't kill off Monty's army. So I asked Iroquois to war Monty. Such a cheap price...
254. The last attack needed for bringing down Ankara. Suleiman built the Great Wall, which quite effectively slowed our advance (one tile at per turn). But that only hurts when the attackers are under heavy ranged fire. Suleiman had none. He had a few pikemen and that was it! We don't even have horses!
255. Askia was bold enough to beg/demand for Sugar from us. So that's how you say thanks for returning your workers? You are under a warmonger's attack and you want sugar?
256. The end of Suleiman, once the second most powerful Civ. Suleiman did pretty well - he took over two City States, but never developed them. (I wonder if AIs are allowed to annex City States and build Court Houses. Will that cancel the player's option of liberating the city?) Suleiman was poor in Diplomacy. He made as many enemies as he could in the Old World, but yet he survived this far.
The Great Wall wonder was not built in Suleiman's capital, and I decided to burn it down along with its city. Since we are completely on the offense in end game, there is no need for a defensive wonder.
That's a good ending of Operation: Liberation. There is no more City States to be liberated. Three Civs left to go! - And they are already fighting each other for a little price of 200+ gold... A makeshift "Anti-Roman Alliance" would be a lot more fun and realistic.
(to be continued)
I used your advice of selling luxury/strategic resources then waging war in the game I'm playing now. Oddly enough, it was with Elizabeth. It turns out she was dependent on my resources, and when I attack, her units had a -33% modifer due to being very unhappy.
Great story, great advice. Keep it going.
Great story, great advice. Keep it going.
maltz
King
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2006
- Messages
- 967
Oddly enough, it was with Elizabeth. It turns out she was dependent on my resources, and when I attack, her units had a -33% modifer due to being very unhappy.
Great story, great advice. Keep it going.
Sorry I was busy pasting the new stories and didn't have time to reply...
It is good to know that the AIs get the unhappy penalty, too. That's just awesome.
maltz
King
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2006
- Messages
- 967
Chapter 16. The End of the Chief Warmonger
The Roman army is looking forward to end this for the three Civs remaining - Monty the Warmongering Aztec, Askia the Weakling Songhai, and Hiawatha... there is nothing special about Hiawatha.
We are still friends of Songhai, the last remaining pair of friends in this crazy world of warmongers.
257. Soleiman's capital already built a Colosseum when we took over. I don't understand why a Deity AI would ever need extra Happiness, since they already receive a huge boost already.
But that's a good news to us, since we instantly get +4 Happiness from taking over this city, and we do not ever need to waste 1350 gold to rush a Court House in order to spend another 1580 gold to rush a Colosseum.
At this point the Roman Empire was pretty desperate on Happiness. Our population was booming non-stop from 4 allied Maritime City States plus the forever "We love the King days"... Every new city we acquired was an over-grown city under the Deity AI. Even with its population slashed by half, it was still great burden. And there was nothing we could do during its resistance turns, which equals to the remaining population. So we had to wait 7 turns to do anything in Moscow.
In the meantime, we received loads of gold from the Golden Ages and the AIs who are always willing to buy our extra luxurious resources. Even when the AIs do not like us, we still sell each resource for 409 gold. That's pretty far from the standard 900 gold, but still good. We just had so many different kinds of surplus resources to squeeze out their last remaining cash anyway.
258. While we were moving our army south to get ready to invade Aztec, our scout took at look at the war between Monty and Iroquois. Apparantly Iroquois was winning this one. And look at that scary Iroquois Cannon unit! I thought Monty was the leader of technology! Or maybe he researched non-military techs first? That's not the Monty we know.
I was choosing between Cannon and Rifleman. Cannon would come out 11 turns earlier, but that would delay the upgrade of the more death-prone infantry for 11 turns. So in the end I decided to go for Rifleman first, then come back to Cannon. (That turned out to be the inferior choice, though.)
259. Our busy Navy now had to sail all the way from Northern Eruope to India. Fortunately we are on a Tiny earth. And here is a barbarian camp with Musketman in it. Our land unit was lagging behind the barbarians...
260. On the eve of the invasion on Monty, the City State Almaty gave us a free unit. The first free unit in this game is a Long Swordsman. Sure we can find some use of it.
261. At the same time, we heard the completion of a wonder by the Iroquois... a Machu Pichu right beside the Iroquois capital! It beautifully sits on top of the mountain. Must be great to station a unit of Cannon on it to bombard the city...
This wonder gives 20% more gold from trade routes, netting about 20 more gold for the Romans (and certainly far less for the Iroquois) at this point of the game. Not a great bonus since selling ONE resource gives us 409 gold already.
262. Monty's home was largely empty when the Roman army showed up. He probably sent out his remaining units to fight Askia and Hiawatha to the north (and Monty's units were slaughtered by that formidable Iroquois Cannon - our scouts reported).
The AI is very defenseless against a human player's simple strategies:
(1) Minimize its cash so it cannot instantly purchase new units in emergency (is the AI actually aware of this option? I doubt it.)
(2) Bribe multiple Civs to attack the target (or bribe it to attack others) just before the human player's invasion.
(3) Ally with a City State close to the AI. So when the war breaks out, some of target Civ's army and defensive fire go to the City States' units.
Not sure a future patch will make the AI smarter.
In the above screenshot, you can see Monty has one UNPROTECTED Great General one tile away from the city (which we just took over). An easy prey.
And of course we have pillaged Monty's only iron mine, which is conveniently located close to the city.
263. From Monty's northern city, we can see that someone was trying to build a Machu Pichu... but got beaten by the Iroquois. Wonders in Civ5 are generally far less useful than what they were in Civ4.
264. There is a City State Oslo just to the East of Monty, and strangely no one has been allied with it, just Arabia in early game. We have waited long enough for its hostility against us to drop to 0. Now it is a good time to buy it over.
Another Maritime City State! There is MORE food for the Roman Empire than there is lead in their drinking water! People are throwing away leftover food after every meal! We have very fat citizens just like the real American Empire.
We immediately regretted about the alliance when we saw Oslo's soldiers... they were warriors, spearmen and archers! I guess no one had been "sponsoring" them, so they lacked the cash to upgrade their prehistorical units. But as soon as our hot cash flew in, their units all got upgraded in a few turns!
265. Hiawatha comes with a useless warning. Do you know where Seoul is? It is present-day England. And where is Hiawatha? Present day China. So why do you care about a City State half an earth away?
Failed!
266. Like I mentioned before, I picked the Rifling root in order to upgrade the Long outdated Long Sowrdsmen. The AIs have started fielding Musketman and Cannon. Our melee units are taking heavy damages from them.
267. Monty built a Great Lighthouse in its second city. The wonder gives all navel units +1 movement and +1 sight. This is be a great wonder to have in a world of frequent navel battles so the owner of the wonder can out-manuever the enemies' ships. But... it is useless here when we are the ONLY Civ that fields a navy.
Burn!
268. With coverage fire from the sea (5 Frigates and 3 Carvels), ranged support from the land (3 Trebuchets), and veteran melee units (5 Long Swordsmen), we easily took over Monty's defenseless base.
269. We have to diplomatically prepare one step ahead. There will be two Civs left. So why don't we let them fight each other? And Hiawatha the peace lover gladly agreed.
There was no way to bribe Askia to war - I guess he can't because he had NO unit left for war! His cash was 0 and his income was -5/turn!
270. Monty had only one tiny city to the north, which was already under attack of Iroquois' army. That's how Monty's campaign ends - being attacked by everyone else in the game at the same time.
271. Monty took his defeat pretty well. He always plays a good warmonger. And rarely does it end well. In this game, his greatest failure was taking our 500+ gold bribe to betray England.
That single betrayal resulted in the eventual dissolution of the powerful England-Aztec-Songhai-Iroquois alliance that was overpowering the other Civs in the Old World. They started fighting each other and used up their ever-regenerating army. And eventually each Civ would take an extremely cheap bribe to turn on another.
What's the lesson learned? We have to sell resources to get rich, so we can bribe AIs to start that explosive chain reaction of denouncement and war.
(to be continued)
The Roman army is looking forward to end this for the three Civs remaining - Monty the Warmongering Aztec, Askia the Weakling Songhai, and Hiawatha... there is nothing special about Hiawatha.
We are still friends of Songhai, the last remaining pair of friends in this crazy world of warmongers.
257. Soleiman's capital already built a Colosseum when we took over. I don't understand why a Deity AI would ever need extra Happiness, since they already receive a huge boost already.
But that's a good news to us, since we instantly get +4 Happiness from taking over this city, and we do not ever need to waste 1350 gold to rush a Court House in order to spend another 1580 gold to rush a Colosseum.
At this point the Roman Empire was pretty desperate on Happiness. Our population was booming non-stop from 4 allied Maritime City States plus the forever "We love the King days"... Every new city we acquired was an over-grown city under the Deity AI. Even with its population slashed by half, it was still great burden. And there was nothing we could do during its resistance turns, which equals to the remaining population. So we had to wait 7 turns to do anything in Moscow.
In the meantime, we received loads of gold from the Golden Ages and the AIs who are always willing to buy our extra luxurious resources. Even when the AIs do not like us, we still sell each resource for 409 gold. That's pretty far from the standard 900 gold, but still good. We just had so many different kinds of surplus resources to squeeze out their last remaining cash anyway.
258. While we were moving our army south to get ready to invade Aztec, our scout took at look at the war between Monty and Iroquois. Apparantly Iroquois was winning this one. And look at that scary Iroquois Cannon unit! I thought Monty was the leader of technology! Or maybe he researched non-military techs first? That's not the Monty we know.
I was choosing between Cannon and Rifleman. Cannon would come out 11 turns earlier, but that would delay the upgrade of the more death-prone infantry for 11 turns. So in the end I decided to go for Rifleman first, then come back to Cannon. (That turned out to be the inferior choice, though.)
259. Our busy Navy now had to sail all the way from Northern Eruope to India. Fortunately we are on a Tiny earth. And here is a barbarian camp with Musketman in it. Our land unit was lagging behind the barbarians...
260. On the eve of the invasion on Monty, the City State Almaty gave us a free unit. The first free unit in this game is a Long Swordsman. Sure we can find some use of it.
261. At the same time, we heard the completion of a wonder by the Iroquois... a Machu Pichu right beside the Iroquois capital! It beautifully sits on top of the mountain. Must be great to station a unit of Cannon on it to bombard the city...
This wonder gives 20% more gold from trade routes, netting about 20 more gold for the Romans (and certainly far less for the Iroquois) at this point of the game. Not a great bonus since selling ONE resource gives us 409 gold already.
262. Monty's home was largely empty when the Roman army showed up. He probably sent out his remaining units to fight Askia and Hiawatha to the north (and Monty's units were slaughtered by that formidable Iroquois Cannon - our scouts reported).
The AI is very defenseless against a human player's simple strategies:
(1) Minimize its cash so it cannot instantly purchase new units in emergency (is the AI actually aware of this option? I doubt it.)
(2) Bribe multiple Civs to attack the target (or bribe it to attack others) just before the human player's invasion.
(3) Ally with a City State close to the AI. So when the war breaks out, some of target Civ's army and defensive fire go to the City States' units.
Not sure a future patch will make the AI smarter.
In the above screenshot, you can see Monty has one UNPROTECTED Great General one tile away from the city (which we just took over). An easy prey.
And of course we have pillaged Monty's only iron mine, which is conveniently located close to the city.
263. From Monty's northern city, we can see that someone was trying to build a Machu Pichu... but got beaten by the Iroquois. Wonders in Civ5 are generally far less useful than what they were in Civ4.
264. There is a City State Oslo just to the East of Monty, and strangely no one has been allied with it, just Arabia in early game. We have waited long enough for its hostility against us to drop to 0. Now it is a good time to buy it over.
Another Maritime City State! There is MORE food for the Roman Empire than there is lead in their drinking water! People are throwing away leftover food after every meal! We have very fat citizens just like the real American Empire.
We immediately regretted about the alliance when we saw Oslo's soldiers... they were warriors, spearmen and archers! I guess no one had been "sponsoring" them, so they lacked the cash to upgrade their prehistorical units. But as soon as our hot cash flew in, their units all got upgraded in a few turns!
265. Hiawatha comes with a useless warning. Do you know where Seoul is? It is present-day England. And where is Hiawatha? Present day China. So why do you care about a City State half an earth away?
Failed!
266. Like I mentioned before, I picked the Rifling root in order to upgrade the Long outdated Long Sowrdsmen. The AIs have started fielding Musketman and Cannon. Our melee units are taking heavy damages from them.
267. Monty built a Great Lighthouse in its second city. The wonder gives all navel units +1 movement and +1 sight. This is be a great wonder to have in a world of frequent navel battles so the owner of the wonder can out-manuever the enemies' ships. But... it is useless here when we are the ONLY Civ that fields a navy.
Burn!
268. With coverage fire from the sea (5 Frigates and 3 Carvels), ranged support from the land (3 Trebuchets), and veteran melee units (5 Long Swordsmen), we easily took over Monty's defenseless base.
269. We have to diplomatically prepare one step ahead. There will be two Civs left. So why don't we let them fight each other? And Hiawatha the peace lover gladly agreed.
There was no way to bribe Askia to war - I guess he can't because he had NO unit left for war! His cash was 0 and his income was -5/turn!
270. Monty had only one tiny city to the north, which was already under attack of Iroquois' army. That's how Monty's campaign ends - being attacked by everyone else in the game at the same time.
271. Monty took his defeat pretty well. He always plays a good warmonger. And rarely does it end well. In this game, his greatest failure was taking our 500+ gold bribe to betray England.
That single betrayal resulted in the eventual dissolution of the powerful England-Aztec-Songhai-Iroquois alliance that was overpowering the other Civs in the Old World. They started fighting each other and used up their ever-regenerating army. And eventually each Civ would take an extremely cheap bribe to turn on another.
What's the lesson learned? We have to sell resources to get rich, so we can bribe AIs to start that explosive chain reaction of denouncement and war.
(to be continued)
maltz
King
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2006
- Messages
- 967
Chapter 17. The Glorious Domination of Rome
There is one winning formula for a domination victory.
"N Civs to go, and they are all fighting each other."
Now N = 2. Let's finish this game as soon as possible.
272. Here comes the long-anticipated denoucement of Songhai, an appreciation for taking out his bitter enemy Aztec.
Before Askia's eyes, we have eliminated England, Russia, Ottoman, and Aztec. Askia surely looks like a warmonger, so he probably has a higher tolerance to violence. Askia is our friend, but Catherine and Monty waited no time to denounce us before.
In our old plan, we would take down Askia next. But there is a change of plan. Since Askia is so weak, we will leave him alive to distract Hiawatha. So we can steal Hiawatha's capital and comes back for Askia immediately.
273. I was a little hesitant on declaring war on Iroquois, and allowed its Cannon to retreat into the city. Its attack almost one-shot killed a veteran unit of veteran Long Swordsman! Dangerous weapon.
Fortunately we took down the city with ease, and Iroquois' Cannon was automatically destroyed. There might be more as we push on...
274. A second free unit, this time from Dublin. We have no use of the Crossbowmen (too far from the already crowded battlefield). So I gave it right back to the City State.
275. Oue ships have arrived on the east coast of Asia. And indeed! There is a unit of Cannon! Strength 40 after bonus! That would one-shot kill any unit we have each turn. We can't allow it to fire!
Fortunately at this stage, more than half of our ships have received the Range +1 upgrade (after 2 levels of land unit bonus). So we were able to concentrate our fire on the Cannon unit and destroyed it in one turn. Now the naval advantage shows its force.
Why didn't the AI put the Cannon in the hardened city instead? That would give us a huge headache. (Civ5 AIs seem to have the tendency to walk its powerful ranged units around to be picked off by ours.)
276. We indeed located Iroquois' iron and sent the scouts over to sabotage it. But the city's bombardment was extremely lucky for somereason - it one-shot killed our Scouts before they had a chance to destroy the mine. If I reload the save to get a new random number seed, the Scouts could easily survive the end-turn. But I didn't bother - the Cannon was already gone. So there is no iron-dependent unit's power to reduce!
277. Finally it almost the time to take down Songhai. Mostly for my amusement, I tried to sqeeze out all his remaining cash - 5 gold and 8 gold per turn. Miserable.
278. With the Cannon gone, the Roman army surrounded the Iroquois capital easily and took it down with ease.
Since Iroquois has lost its capital, we immediately signed a Peace Treaty with Hiawatha. There was no extra condition involved - Hiawatha would not agree with any unequal treaty, which is pretty much the case for the Deity difficulty after the patch.
279. We got our 6th Great General just before the game ends. Gladly we burned it for our 6th and final Golden Age. Under the bonus of Chichen Itza, the Golden Age becomes 14 turns.
In total, we had 6 Golden Ages of 16 (3rd GG), 14 (4th GG), 20 (1st real), 8 (policy), 12 (don't remember exactly, 5th GG), and 14 (6th GG). We spent about one in six turns in Golden Age, which only started more than half way into the game!
And the Deity AIs are pretty much in a constant Golden Age.
280. That's the last picture of Sonhai. We got the city surrounded and took it down in ONE single turn. (Most of our melee units already have the Blitz upgrade, 2 attacks per turn.)
And we did not see the coming of Rifleman - there is 1 turn left! I should have gone through the Cannon route. At least I could have bombarded two capitals with it.
In fact, I am not even sure whether I can upgrade my Trebuchets to Cannons. It is more likely that they are upgraded from Crossbowmen. Then I would only have ONE Cannon (since I lost one of my two archers earlier.) I always finished my game before I see any Riflemen or Cannon...
281. Ah... the familiar disappointing victory screen. I would love to have some kind of curve showing each Civ's every power (gold income, soldier count, etc.) over time, so we can relive every moment.
282. The final stats. We FINALLY became the leader in technology!
283. Final score was... Augustus Caesar! And we are indeed Augustus Caesar! The Glory of Rome is fittingly restored to its rightful owner.
That concludes my story. I hope you enjoyed it. I certainly did. I have received feedback from forums users that they have learned a few tricks or two from the story. I am very happy that this story helped you in any way.
I also learned a lot of strategies from other people's story from this website or another. There are tons of great strategic mind out there. If there is any advise that I can give people to improve there game to the next level, I would say:
(1) Understand the game's mechanism. You know what you are doing for your ever decision. (These are not easy, because the game mechanisms changes over patches and your information could be outdated.)
(2) Read stories from people's Deity games. These people usually explain what they are doing.
(3) Know what to expect for each of your choices. Then make the best decision. For example, for every research decision, there is a clear goal and you know that's the most important goal.
(4) Plan ahead. Usually you know what will be happening in mid game during early game, and what will be happening in end game during mid game.
(5) Understand the AI's thinking and use it at your advantage. I am really a fan of this, so I have shown quite a few ways to do that. I guess some would call it exploitation. I call it "countering the AI's unfair advantage".
There is one winning formula for a domination victory.
"N Civs to go, and they are all fighting each other."
Now N = 2. Let's finish this game as soon as possible.
272. Here comes the long-anticipated denoucement of Songhai, an appreciation for taking out his bitter enemy Aztec.
Before Askia's eyes, we have eliminated England, Russia, Ottoman, and Aztec. Askia surely looks like a warmonger, so he probably has a higher tolerance to violence. Askia is our friend, but Catherine and Monty waited no time to denounce us before.
In our old plan, we would take down Askia next. But there is a change of plan. Since Askia is so weak, we will leave him alive to distract Hiawatha. So we can steal Hiawatha's capital and comes back for Askia immediately.
273. I was a little hesitant on declaring war on Iroquois, and allowed its Cannon to retreat into the city. Its attack almost one-shot killed a veteran unit of veteran Long Swordsman! Dangerous weapon.
Fortunately we took down the city with ease, and Iroquois' Cannon was automatically destroyed. There might be more as we push on...
274. A second free unit, this time from Dublin. We have no use of the Crossbowmen (too far from the already crowded battlefield). So I gave it right back to the City State.
275. Oue ships have arrived on the east coast of Asia. And indeed! There is a unit of Cannon! Strength 40 after bonus! That would one-shot kill any unit we have each turn. We can't allow it to fire!
Fortunately at this stage, more than half of our ships have received the Range +1 upgrade (after 2 levels of land unit bonus). So we were able to concentrate our fire on the Cannon unit and destroyed it in one turn. Now the naval advantage shows its force.
Why didn't the AI put the Cannon in the hardened city instead? That would give us a huge headache. (Civ5 AIs seem to have the tendency to walk its powerful ranged units around to be picked off by ours.)
276. We indeed located Iroquois' iron and sent the scouts over to sabotage it. But the city's bombardment was extremely lucky for somereason - it one-shot killed our Scouts before they had a chance to destroy the mine. If I reload the save to get a new random number seed, the Scouts could easily survive the end-turn. But I didn't bother - the Cannon was already gone. So there is no iron-dependent unit's power to reduce!
277. Finally it almost the time to take down Songhai. Mostly for my amusement, I tried to sqeeze out all his remaining cash - 5 gold and 8 gold per turn. Miserable.
278. With the Cannon gone, the Roman army surrounded the Iroquois capital easily and took it down with ease.
Since Iroquois has lost its capital, we immediately signed a Peace Treaty with Hiawatha. There was no extra condition involved - Hiawatha would not agree with any unequal treaty, which is pretty much the case for the Deity difficulty after the patch.
279. We got our 6th Great General just before the game ends. Gladly we burned it for our 6th and final Golden Age. Under the bonus of Chichen Itza, the Golden Age becomes 14 turns.
In total, we had 6 Golden Ages of 16 (3rd GG), 14 (4th GG), 20 (1st real), 8 (policy), 12 (don't remember exactly, 5th GG), and 14 (6th GG). We spent about one in six turns in Golden Age, which only started more than half way into the game!
And the Deity AIs are pretty much in a constant Golden Age.
280. That's the last picture of Sonhai. We got the city surrounded and took it down in ONE single turn. (Most of our melee units already have the Blitz upgrade, 2 attacks per turn.)
And we did not see the coming of Rifleman - there is 1 turn left! I should have gone through the Cannon route. At least I could have bombarded two capitals with it.
In fact, I am not even sure whether I can upgrade my Trebuchets to Cannons. It is more likely that they are upgraded from Crossbowmen. Then I would only have ONE Cannon (since I lost one of my two archers earlier.) I always finished my game before I see any Riflemen or Cannon...
281. Ah... the familiar disappointing victory screen. I would love to have some kind of curve showing each Civ's every power (gold income, soldier count, etc.) over time, so we can relive every moment.
282. The final stats. We FINALLY became the leader in technology!
283. Final score was... Augustus Caesar! And we are indeed Augustus Caesar! The Glory of Rome is fittingly restored to its rightful owner.
That concludes my story. I hope you enjoyed it. I certainly did. I have received feedback from forums users that they have learned a few tricks or two from the story. I am very happy that this story helped you in any way.
I also learned a lot of strategies from other people's story from this website or another. There are tons of great strategic mind out there. If there is any advise that I can give people to improve there game to the next level, I would say:
(1) Understand the game's mechanism. You know what you are doing for your ever decision. (These are not easy, because the game mechanisms changes over patches and your information could be outdated.)
(2) Read stories from people's Deity games. These people usually explain what they are doing.
(3) Know what to expect for each of your choices. Then make the best decision. For example, for every research decision, there is a clear goal and you know that's the most important goal.
(4) Plan ahead. Usually you know what will be happening in mid game during early game, and what will be happening in end game during mid game.
(5) Understand the AI's thinking and use it at your advantage. I am really a fan of this, so I have shown quite a few ways to do that. I guess some would call it exploitation. I call it "countering the AI's unfair advantage".
Sparthage
Fighting Tyranny
Great game! Great story!
dashwinner
Prince
- Joined
- Dec 5, 2010
- Messages
- 320
Greatest 2 hours spent at work ever! informative, well written, witty and with lots of pictures. all the stories should be like this one, honestly well done, i thoroughly enjoyed it.
DragonHead
Warlord
Awesoke! I need some of your stategy! You beat Diety I take on Nobles! (I still haven't wiped my computer- I need to do that to get civ V installed, it's virused and I need a better video card to play it-I have one.)
younflancy
Warlord
- Joined
- May 26, 2008
- Messages
- 111
That's quite an awesome story!
Airey
Prince
- Joined
- Feb 9, 2008
- Messages
- 509
Love your diagrams!
Sound strategies all around...
although it's really weird seeing you Circumference the world way before discovering Civil Service
Not needing Astronomy before meeting Asia really helped in manipulating AIs super early on to avoid 1 AI runaway: which likely to be England. Plus nice side effect of Aisans not working together for RAs.
Really love your writeups...looking forward to see more of it in the future
Sound strategies all around...
although it's really weird seeing you Circumference the world way before discovering Civil Service
Not needing Astronomy before meeting Asia really helped in manipulating AIs super early on to avoid 1 AI runaway: which likely to be England. Plus nice side effect of Aisans not working together for RAs.Really love your writeups...looking forward to see more of it in the future
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