[BTS] Deity shadow game

[civac]

Yeah, cannons + grenadiers + frigates are a typical MP tech path for exactly the reason you mentioned. Especially, if the map is watery. You wouldn't typically have Education though if you are on this path but would have Guilds because knights are one of the premier MP units.

The issue here is that cannons + grenadiers can be countered by rifles and especially cavs. But I think you are right. I will go Engineering -> Chemistry -> Steel and plant two cities on the barb continent to get internal 2 yield trade routes. A lot of my cities have only 1 yield trade routes because most AIs are in Mercantilism.

 

[krikav]

@civac Can't see everything on the screenshots, but what I see is promising for a rather early cannon attack.
Key thing is that there is alot of cities both at Maos and at Asokas place with hills next to them.
Making a early landing on a hill, guarded by a guerilla musket or two keeps the cannons safe from alot of nastiness.
Then they can be safe in the city with city garrison musket.
Those hills are something I keep an eye open for in almost every iso game for that reason, can get a faster attack that way and supplement with grenadiers a little later.

Abit why I advocate for steel is that even on your own home continent, I wouldn't want to tangle with Toku, and absolutely not Mehmed, without cannons.
Doing some brief stunt with cuirs against Capac might be doable, but not sure if there is any good followup on that.

Are cuirs even a thing in NTT?

 

[civac]

Cuirs do work. Maybe you need slightly more cities than with tech trading, not sure. I have done the cuir breakout thing at least once on Immortal with fewer cities. This game I'm probably too slow and with a decent amount of cities already I prefer something more steady. I know that the experienced MP players also like cuirs but I haven't used them yet.

I remember at least two instances on IMM where I landed a rifle/cannon stack on a hill belonging to a Shakka/Monte-type warmonger and them wiping out my shiny new toys with their medieval/elephant stack.

 

[krikav]

If this was a normal tech trading game, I still would much prefer cannons over cuirs. I tend to like cuirs better with soft targets which Mehmed certainly isn't.
With rifles it's pretty much safe to land and move around freely, well.. against psycos like those you mention then ofcourse hills/forests are best..
But when you land with cannons+support, the cannons is usually the strongest and you really don't want them to defend and it's tricky to get something thats stronger pre MilSci/MT.
Muskets have to get c1+c2+formation to be stronger of flatland and thats rarely doable unless playing agg.
But land on a hill and those guerilla muskets are really strong! That makes most AIs patiently wait inside the cities for the cannonballs to start flying.

 

[civac]

Probably won't come as a surprise that I retired from the game. HC was going for a culture victory and his culture seriously hurt my former German territories. Had a settling race with Mao for the new continent which went OK but two of the new cities were also rendered uselelss by Mao's culture. I was also too slow so that most AIs were in Emancipation. In short the game was intensly frustrating. At the end, I was only going through the motions and invaded Mao's home continent with redcoats and cannons. That narrowly failed. If I had played this properly maybe it would have worked but I doubt I could have stopped HC's culture victory. He was running around with infanty and destroyers.

 

[krikav]

No hard feelings. It was fun while it lasted!

 

[Pangaea]

Ouch. Been reading this thread today and you seemed to be making good progress. I'm sorry to see it end like that, but Deity is rough and NTT surely makes it even harder. It was amusing to see you smash up Frederick with a pure axe stack in the ADs, but that is probably rare on such settings. Although the AI will trade frequently with each other too, it tends to favour the human because we are better at taking advantage of triangle trade and cascading trade opportunities.

Good luck in the next game!

 

[civac]

Thx Pangaea. I may give it another go one of these days. Perhaps with medium sea level at least to make it a bit easier.

I also wonder if I should chose Pacal, Hannibal, Willem over Victoria, maybe even Elizabeth or Mansa. Pacal and Mansa have the advantage of resource-less barb defense, Hannibal is a hedge against the lack of early happiness resources (hurts way worse with NTT though I suppose with deity AIs there is a good chance you can trade for something) and Willem is my favorite leader. Willem's unique stuff is enormously powerful but comes late. Elizabeth theoretically could open a timing attack the easiest but her start is glacial.

 

[Pangaea]

A good thing with Elizabeth, however, is that the first GS will come out very early, which can be used for an early academy, or bulbing Philo. Not as strong in NTT, but still useful I reckon. Should prevent the AIs going for a very early Lib date. But in general the best civs are those with strong and early unique units that will help you claim land and capital(s).