[BTS] Deity stumbling II

[Snowbird]

to 1180AD:

Spoiler :

I've loaded save twice, spent ~15 min looking and closed the game. One of these times, there I am not sure the progress goes properly.... In the end I decided to try vassaling Cyrus (buffers Spain, and too much effort and techs to give up), not trade anything to Ghandi and turn all these horses back to my own continent. Will probably gift couple cities back to Portugese too. The reasoning was that I can't see the safe path to win, so having couple deity vassals should be good enough. chance to unload troops on that peak fort is a factor too (can unload at least 6 units per galleon his way).

1020AD: scouted Ghandi's defenses a bit, and found Justin of Sumeria and his vassal, Mao of France, Rather pissed off pair about trades with their worst enemies. Traded stuff Mao has to Just for Guilds. (Philo, compass and drama). Turn off tech slider (have ~40% chemistry), will try get banking next turn and go for replaceable parts.

1030AD- use third GG for second healer (splash on five units and attach to 9xp horse), mostly doing heal up with the main stack

1040Ad Ghandi cancels iron for three happies (ivory, gems and dye -- so essentialy +5 happy) deal, sigh, sell some health resources for these

1050Ad capture Lisbon, Cyrus won't cap...

1060AD capture Guimarres, limping through RP. Cap cyrus for Astro... will need to upgrade galley to ferry troops back to my own continent. Quin is at -16 (shiny diplo) an in denial of talking. Whipping Faro into oblivion to produce workboats..
I have slightly under 30 cuirarsiers in ex Cyrus lands... with three galeons that is just couple turns and boats can give stranglers a bit of lift. Julius has just ~7-8 techs on me

1090AD using that same port to unload horsies... gifted 1 size Faro back, not loosing gold at zero slider anymore. Bad side Julius has full hands, it ought to be someone else... well, at any case no point into switching to budhism now.

1120Ad after healing and repositioning DoW ghandi, i feel like that should have been at least a turn faster

1180Ad cap Ghandi cause Quin and Mao have replaceable parts, at least one of them is going for rifles (likely Quin, Mao is abit too small to get there in time).

Pictures:
Land and Ghandi's defense line....

On the other hand...

Tech situation --- Julius is through Communism:

I have gold for ~3 turns (FP should be whipped this turn to fight off colonial expenses) and 8 turns to Rifles... could sold tech to Julius and build wealth, but again I need gold to upgrade too. so my best chance to get anywhere is to attack Justinian (he built versailles too ). Not sure what I do plan doing if Spain DoW... Spin exCyrus as colony and try to sign him off somehow? Jutinian's island is also likely not to be enough for domination (Spain has 22%, Celtia ~12% and vassals have some too.)

I think with low gold income I should focus on growth (running spy would get ~80% Gspy in NY in dozen turns) and whip again once Cavalry is a factor... 7 galleons is likely not enough for ~50 cuirrasiers (can make stop at small barb siland). Good thing it is not like Julius is getting infantry...

 

[Snowbird]

to 1310AD

Spoiler :

So i whipped galleons captured barb city for logistics (ide was to unload into taht city run through island into another ship and finally unload into Justinian and Mao island)... Well, Mao got rifling two turns after DoW... Luckily justinian lost 3 cities at that point

I was happy to vote yes. Well, capped Justinian and did some trading

Guess, it is one way to get trade partners.

Managed to get Gspy, so I guess my major plan is to steel communism (spies closing on Spanish tundra city,so in about 6 turns) do a major civic switch and try looking for chance to push again -- tanks probably (I don't think I can get into position earlier). I should produce some workers right now for workshopping, being at 20+ cities should drag me out eventually.

I still have lots of horsies, so might be I will run suicide attack against Mao (while gifting cities to Justinian), worst case I will give few techs in peace deal.

 

[Anysense]

Congrats! It looks really good considering a rather difficult start. Lucky you have such a soft neighbour as Gandhi. I would probably go for domination. Tanks seem a good idea, space is feasible too but it would be too laborious.
Regarding Mao: I think you could let Justinian do the dirty work.

 

[Snowbird]

to 1510Ad:

Spoiler :

I took to 1400Ad to steal Communism, cause had to spend two turns at 100% espionage (Julius is putting ~150 points per turn on me..). Immediately gifted Lagos to Cyrus (swamped in spanish culture, but i had chopped and whip overflowed forbidden palace in there, gifted eridu back because i figured it had to much revolt risk, rather have Justinian tech something for me). Switched to Communism, free religion, caste, representation -- 3 turn revolt. Talk about being fare -- one civic would cost me two turns of anarchy.


Same year DoW Mao -- got two crappy cities early (wish I had airship support), used Mao own gold to promote surviving C3/C4 pinch cuirassiers.

1450ad captured Paris (don't have units to go for Orleans, Justinian is slow bombarding city with two cats)
1460AD steam power, backfill steel through Ghandi (I did some wealth/reserach balancing to finish on the same turn), start assembly line
1480 Mao capitulates, figures I am close to 54%... thinking back cavs and airships might have done it (killing Mao and capping Quin would be enough, so if i stole physics instead...).
1510AD Assembly line done (switch serious cities to factory build up, marginal ones sit on wealth -- I do not think that without slavery they can be worth doing anything else, however, with curthause, ikhanda and state property any city costs just 2.4 gold -- in build up i am still doing ~800 beakers sustainable)

I think I will need tech railroad, electricity and industrialism myself. Physics should come in five turns, biology in ~3 (i switched vassals to free religion, to be tiny bit safer). Not sure if i can get vassals research combustion (it might be worth delaying some factories in order for one of them start on combustion earlier (need to gift railroad) --- well, maybe -- Siettle is straight on oil - so now forts needed)

Shots:

I am actually catching up on Julius I think he gets proper treatment once tanks start comming out.

 

[Snowbird]

Spoiler :

Well, he has not many targets left (last time target was Mao a sfist went away right after capping)...

1530AD.... I had it coming for long time... not sure what is major plan against 30 infantry and 20 cavalry.. surrender ex Cyrus land and retake after tanks? (don't think tehre is a chance of that army moving over water) or gift cities to cyrus (for higher cultural defense and somehow try slowing thing)...

With vassal averages i don't think begging or bribing Quin has a chance... Could have won already through airships...

 

[Pedro78]

Nice writeup

Noticed the Buddhist missionary in the middle of JC's stack? Maybe he's just escorting him for safer religion spread... JK

Is there any chance that you can get JC to pleased and beg him for 10 turns of peace? I'm not sure to what extent it is possible considering vassal modifiers though... Anyway you should probably try to demand gold if you can't beg, because he is gonna declare war anyways. Then, as you're almost to railroad, gotta build quite a lot of machine guns to defend your cities and maybe Infantry+cannons with the collateral damage promotion (forgot what it's called) to eventually destroy his stack (can you get your stack back on the main continent in 10 turns?). If you can trade for artillery from Celtia somehow, it could also be beneficial.

This looks like it's gonna be a painful war, good luck.

 

[Snowbird]

The only smart thing I can think of is getting rid of all cities on that continent (either Cyrus or colony). If i force naval invasion... well, that should delay the whole thing, hopefully.

I will prob ably need to read up on mechanical part (I do not think he would invade vassal directly, but not sure)

 

[Pedro78]

The risk with this is JC conquering all of Cyrus' cities and getting even stronger. If you do that, better gift a bunch of outdated troops to Cyrus so he upgrades them to infantry. I've seen AZ do this and it seems to work quite nicely.

 

[Snowbird]

Well, the actual problem is ... the stack is like ~15-20 cavs doing revolt supression in sumeria/french lands --- they do not upgrade to anything. Cyrus has bunch of xbows/maceas not upgraded (I would also need to drag him up to infantry --- I'd rateher do colony).

On other hand, I am right in the middle of factory/coal plant building (and coal plants 10 hammers more than infantry,iirc). If left alone I would probably have my first tanks in ~15 turns. (bottleneck would be Cyrus/colony/Justinian teching combustion).

I actually noticed the issue cause it is about time to drag vassals through railroad. (note to myself -- check coal mines i think the only coal which is mined is next to spain border). So long term, Julius getting anywhere is not really a threat.

 

[Pedro78]

Don't you have a single tech over JC that you could gift him to get him to pleased, then beg for gold?

 

[Snowbird]

Well,I am at +4 on fair trade and any bonus I get will be averaged through 4 vassals. So gifting biology would not do me anything good.

The strangest thing he refuses to run representation (sits in US - which +railroads will not make things nice), so me and Co could not befriend him that way either. (maybe i should have switched him with spies -- he does declare on pleased, although (should have some reduction -- maybe))

edit: I (currently) think of doing something supercheasy -- gift cities and recapture after DoW (need to read more material if i can generate enough sucesss).

 

[Snowbird]

to 1565AD... AI at war laughing...

Spoiler :

The Deal:

was so happy to take that forgot to take original screenshot.

was so happy to take that forgot to take original screenshot.

Landscape

Writeup:
1530AD: ift rifling and steel to cyrus (figured why he is not upgrading)
1535: JC added 10 units of sam infantry... trade for physics, gift up railroad (cyrus cities are to finish one cannon each and then to be gifted -- I do not belive he would build units) - -tell Justinian and Cyrus to research Combustion. lisbon gets portugese revol -- so it's gifted, with the lnowbow
1540AD: gift cities , longbowzs and cannons...
1545AD gift leiria with some scrapped military police from mainland. DEcided to use biology farms in what i previously discounted as marginal cities...
1550Ad - gift some old unis, gold (not sure if this will do anything good) to Cyrus, gift Bantu to JC, DoW Jc, recapture Bantu.... Well, whatever spain is waiting for can't be good for me. (at very least DoW cancels nonsesnse like total war, 'we rather win' etc.)
1555AD-- Julius captures Lieria, sigh (hopefully stops to heal), apparently impis upgrade into machine guns would have never guessed... Coal plants start to appear so start on +health buildings...
1565AD julius spent some time bomarding lagos.. wiling to talk... go figure he is paying for peace... Biggest winner of the whole thing is clearly Cyrus... at least I manged to keep Evora... I've got enough gold to finish Electricity and afterwards hammer economy of 25 cities should take over.

 

[Snowbird]

to 1710AD Conquest

Spoiler :

The rest went as planned. Manged to get flight from Cyrus, so distant lands essentially built fighters (could have enough brains to tech radio, but fighters were just fine).

Switched JC out of rush buy (he had Kremlin) on DoW turn, because mass bought up antitanks and other stuff is not good. Waited a turn for him to attack and reinforce leiria, cause there was a bit too much CG2 infantry milling around.

~1690Ad he finally talked, figured that might as well go for conquest and DoW Quin (spent two turns in spanish teritory destroying his stack -- truckload of artilery but no assembly line). Made a colony of Sumeria+France exlands to avoid domination. (that was faster than gifting cities).
Built: 155 tanks (a tiny bit of overkill), 93 cuirraisers (+18 cavlary), 26 fighters, 19 workers, 13 longbw (to replace horsie units as military police), 11 axes, 11 impis + various loose units (couple swords for barb city, etc)

Final shots:

Honestly I was somewhat under impressed by tanks.
They seriously need support by fighters/bombers.