Deitymania #3: Justinian I

[Lain]

Update to Turn 100

Spoiler :

So I skip Animal Husbandry and go straight for Writing via Pottery. Some barbs are coming in, but I have 3 archers by now and it's no problem at all. 2 warriors aswell.



One of those warriors finds more land and a barb city, lack of AI units on this side probably means they can't get there. But maybe with galleys. I didn't see work boats either though. Looks like I can backfill this easily.



Here is why I like imperialistic, max overflow with 2-pop-whip of a settler and granary will almost be done.



I will settle the wheat in the north first, blocking off Gandhi once and for all. Road will be done in time.



Interesting to note that Shaka and Kublai share borders, Shaka even dropped to cautious.



A great spot for a city is found, might want this one fairly soon. Fish + Clam, could even make 2 cities out of it, not sure though.



I found Kublai's borders. Contemplating to settle the jungle between him and Gandhi for more land. Long-term it will be useful. Feeling a bit greedy at that time.



Another settler whip for max overflow into a library, it will be finished and start running scientists as soon as possible.



I plan to research Alphabet straight away, not messing around with Aesthetics. It's doubtful if any of these AI's would get Alpha soon enough and I don't want to wait until 500 BC for things like Fishing, Iron Working and Animal Husbandry. Furthermore, Aesthetics is really useless to me as a tech. I don't even have marble for generating failgold. I've also seen Gandhi and Kublai go for Aesthetics themselves occasionally in my games. Gandhi in particular.

I was the first to writing apparently. I open borders with Gandhi (planning to close again after 10 turns because he is worst enemy of everyone) just for his missionary spam... and sure enough, here it comes. He founded 3 religions, after all... saving me the monuments everywhere.



I settled city #4 by the sugar, it will help growing cottages for the capital. City #5 will be founded shortly on the southern sugar to do the same. While city overlap like that is great for cottages, it makes me more likely to be a victim of war declarations, so that is something to keep in mind. Basically I am inviting someone like Shaka to march across the continent and DoW me.



Damn, Kublai wants me to stop trading with Gandhi. If I remember correctly, the latter won't talk after that for a long time and I need him as a trading partner. So I decline... but I close borders with Gandhi next turn manually. -2 diplo hit, ouch. That is bad.



So I connect trade routes with him and send some gifts.



I wanted to settle the jungle city, but Kublai was faster by 2 turns. Oh well, maybe a blessing in disguise, now he will share borders with Gandhi eventually.



I decide to use the settler for a city gift. I want Kublai at pleased as soon as possible. Especially since Shaka is plotting and I have a sneaky suspicion. I don't think Shaka can get to me yet, though. No open borders with anyone and I only see Gandhi and Kublai adjacent to me.



Here you go, friend Kublai. Meanwhile, I send a scout to find Shaka.



Friends forever. Why no city liberation bonus though?



I am first to Alpha, only Gandhi has writing... However, Gandhi has Aesthetics, as you can see. So I am happy with my Alpha beeline. Everything can be backfilled now.



I put some beakers into Animal Husbandry and make this trade with Kublai next turn, after I gifted him writing (he was almost done, couldn't even get Fishing for it)



Found Shaka, he was landblocked by Kublai it seems. Wonder if he would attack his peaceweight friend though... will monitor this situation.



I make a careful trade with Gandhi aswell, no "worst enemy trade" penalty



Shaka stack started moving. I bet it's towards me.



After Alpha, I went straight for Currency to support my expansion. This is the tech situation when Shaka started moving... I see two options:

1) gift him stuff, get him to pleased and beg for peace. But then his troops might just run through my lands and just declare 10 turns later anyway.

So I go for option 2



First, I trade for Mathematics and Monotheism from Gandhi. Then I sell Polytheism to Kublai...





Next turn I declare war on Shaka and bribe in Kublai on him.



Problem solved. Hope Shaka survives, but he should be fine, Kublai was still in expansion mode so he shouldn't have a stack to crush Shaka. I go for Code of Laws next. First GS built an academy in my capital. I want to bulb Philosophy even if I won't be the first to it.

Other continent has only Confucianism so far (someone over where built the oracle and picked CoL) ... so I hope someone (else) gets Taoism over there .

Fun fact: I don't have iron! But Gandhi has three.....

I have 7 cities at the moment. Building axes to take out the barb city and I should be able to settle another one to get me to 9... I read somewhere that maintenance rises a lot when you hit city #10? So I might stay at 9.



Long-term plans? Pre-build 20 trebs, cheese iron from Gandhi for one turn, upgrade everything to cannons and visit him to say "thank you" next turn. Something like that. Will probably lib astro again and look for the other continent. Maybe build Oxford too, my capital will be pretty nice.

Or maybe go for Cavalry.

 

[Arvoreniad]

Nice to see another game Lain, particularly some of the diplo in this one. Seems a reasonably strong position with that land to backfill, but I imagine it could become difficult quickly if Kublai or Shaka starts conquering, or if there is a runaway AI out there in the unknown. Can't offer much advice at this point, but good luck!

 

[sampsa]

@ city gifts : the more cities they have, the less they value the gift. Hence why you didn't get any specific bonus from it. It appears you still got a +4 from fair trade, though ?

From what I understand, you get liberation bonus only if the gifted city is close enough to the AI capital.

 

[sampsa]

Distance to capital ? I don't know. How would that work ?

I think it was under 10 tiles? I hope someone can verify.

 

[Lain]

I thought so too, but surely this is less than 10 tiles, or doesn't coast count? It did give +4 for fair trade which was enough for "pleased" at least.

Spoiler :

(archer got teleported behind hills when I declared... have to disband that guy, he won't come back until Astro because I am surely not sending a Galley to pick him up)

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

If I were playing GOTM, where one has a single start to play and no reloads and expect barb spawning can't be adequately fog busted, I would seriously consider Archery before BW. Well done, Lain!

What is the 10 plot distance refering to?

Anyone interested in the teleport formula that will determine where a unit or stack will teleport to when declaring war or closing borders?

 

[Lain]

Thank you, Sun Tzu Wu.

We were wondering about the the +1 liberation bonus one can receive when gifting a city. Not sure about how it is determined though. The 10-tile-rule doesn't seem to apply here, since the capital was pretty close in this case and I didn't get the +1 liberation bonus. See the last screenshot for where I settled the Gift-City. Gifting it only yielded the +4 fair trade bonus, but nothing else.

 

[RedKi-rr]

We were wondering about the the +1 liberation bonus one can receive when gifting a city. Not sure about how it is determined though. The 10-tile-rule doesn't seem to apply here, since the capital was pretty close in this case and I didn't get the +1 liberation bonus. See the last screenshot for where I settled the Gift-City. Gifting it only yielded the +4 fair trade bonus, but nothing else.

I read about a liberation bonus long time ago, so I don't remember details. I can only assume What if distance counts as a land distance? At least it explains 10-squares rule. Also it looks like Mongol's capital is the closest one.

 

[Lain]

Update to Turn 146 (720 AD)

Spoiler :

So I strongly considered backstabbing Kublai, as you suggested, @BornInCantaloup. But being a rather "careful" player I followed the more peaceful approach. Some reasons for that:

1) I still had a barb city to take and at least one spot to settle
2) I was way behind with my GPP generation (up to Turn 100 I only generated one GS and that's it for points) and figured Lib was in danger with Gandhi getting Paper really early.
3) I was close to friendly with Kublai and thought keeping him around might be worthwhile
4) A war like that would have meant later contact with the other continent, meaning later control of the diplo situation over there. For all I know, Kublai and Gandhi might be my smallest concerns in the game. Kublai hit his expansion limit at 10 cities, which is not very scary, even on deity. I should be able to pick him up on the cheap, even if he had a weak Shaka as vassal. Kublai is a moderate danger, but should be controllable.
5) Gandhi will eventually go culture with his 4 religions and stop teching. Looking forward to Tanks vs Rifles against him.
6) My whole infrastructure and tile development was kind of built towards a peaceful mid-game. I was building more cottages when I would have done if I knew I was going for elepult, for example.
7) 80% of Kublai's land is (former) jungle. I prefer taking it after he grew towns everywhere ..... so I can bulldoze them for workshops at Communism

Taking out Kublai cleanly now might mean an earlier domination date later, but I'm not too concerned with that. A safe win in the 1800s will do if I can get there.

So let me show you what I did instead. Have to admit this was one of the worse sessions I played recently. I calculated things, then I forgot them one turn later.... I forgot to make important trades and missed out on beakers. Control on Lib race was totally lost, I was stalled by GPP production and spent turns doing nothing, just waiting for the GP to be finished so I could bulb the rest of education .......

First things first though, I prepared to take the barb city. Might seem like many axes, but wait for it...



Of course I lost 3 of them, but took the city next turn. Jeez.



Code of Laws was finished. I traded it for Calendar and Monarchy, then used Monarchy to buy peace with Shaka. Mutual military struggles among growing religion bonus and favorable resource trades meant a friendly Kublai soon after.

I starved out the 2nd GS of the game to finally bulb Philosophy. The religion went (on the other continent) before I could bulb it, which I don't mind at all. I need Pacifism.



I get Philosophy 150 AD, Civil Service was hit at around 25 AD, tech situation is looking bright so far.





Then some frustration began. First, I messed up with the irrigation. Will have to farm the plains cottage to irrigate the wheat. Did it way too late because first I decided to keep the cottage and only changed my mind later.



Then Gandhi gets Philosophy by himself.... I miss that he could (and would) trade it to Kublai (they were cautious for a while) ... and next turn Kublai gets Philosophy for Metal Casting + x from him. A trade I could have made myself. Also, with Gandhi having Paper for a while already, it kind of forces me to do something about Lib but my GS estimations are totally off for that. I wanted to slow-tech my way to optics first and lalala, then double-bulb education and get Lib at around 600 AD.

Suddenly, everything is in question. 8 turns later or so it looks like this... I traded Civil Service to Kublai for Aesthetics + peace with Shaka ... avoiding Machinery because I still have dreams about bulbing Lib to save beakers. Why did I trade Civil Service at all? Because Gandhi got it that turn and would have traded it for Machinery from Kublai. I wanted to avoid another Philosophy-disaster.

Them trading with each other is kind of messing up everything here.



After Civil Service I teched Paper to build (or try for) Sankore University ... maybe that is where my madness already began. I started to slowly grow GS with pacifism and caste, researched Compass, tralalala.

Then the Philosophy-thing happened. So I started to panic. This is sort of the monologue I had then:

#1: Self-tech education myself? aaaaa
#2: And pick what? Nationalism? Pff lol we don't need Lib anyway, it's no big deal.
#3: How you dare say something like that? It's slipping, I'm telling you, the game is slipping.
#2: Gandhi had Paper for a while. If he is researching Education, it is over anyway. Might aswell keep waiting for the GS and meanwhile research Machinery-Optics or something. Bulb Astro if everything else fails.
#3: Nah, it's the end of everything. Just retire the game. Say the save was lost to a dodgy porn-virus and keep at least some dignity intact.

Anyway... I basically researched half of education, then pre-searched Machinery until 1 turn. Bulbed the rest of education. Waited another 6 turns at 0% research on Lib. Checked trades every turn to see if anyone was researching Education. Nope.

Then I bulbed Liberalism (1 turn of research left, one bulb doesn't finish it by itself). Gandhi got Education. I teched Machinery+Optics, finished Lib and picked Astro. Next turn Gandhi was only willing to give 40 gold + map for Liberalism. PHEW. That was so terrible.

I ran scientists in 5 cities because I couldn't figure out which one would be fastest + just major panic. After Education was in, I kind of got a grip on things again. I thought. Remembered I want 1-2 Great Merchants for Treb-Upgrades, oh right. So re-assigned the scientists to merchants. GP-pollution everywhere. I might pop a couple Great Psychiatrists if I'm unlucky. At one point I completely lost it and ran 13 scientists in my capital, I was mentally ready to starve it to pop 4 or something, because why not, right? Who needs cottages, who needs anything???? I was ready to destroy everything, including myself.
(One punch in the face solved the imminent danger though.)

Being almost at Lib, I calculated GP-points. Next turn I forgot my result and to change stuff (9 instead of 8 scientists one turn earlier for one turn earlier GS). Reload 3 Turns because no later auto save existed. Do same micro. FORGOT TO CHANGE IT AGAIN. Reload 3 turns ... I know all worker turns of that period by heart now.

Worker #1 move 1 tile, start a road and stop, to help Worker #2 with jungle chop next turn. Worker #3 splits from the group to chop lighthouse. Worker #4 farms the plain tile for the WHEAT IRRIGIATION which I finally decided to get there. I will have nightmares about that. Anyway, I never actually lost lib, and if I did, I wouldn't have reloaded that obviously. Just on that one position because I actually made a plan and just went full crazy mode before I could implement it. 3 times.

........ so, where are we now? At 720 AD.

After getting the last GS for Liberalism bulb and maxing out some Merchant-GPP in 2 cities (to fight pollution....), I switched into Organized Religion + Slavery. I got out 2 caravels and am closing in on 6 universities for starting Oxford.

One caravel already found some borders. Guess I will meet them in the next turnset.



Sankore University was finished. Why? I have no idea. Gandhi never bothered to build it. Gandhi doesn't build anything. He had Theology since 600 BC and AP is not built yet, 1000 years later. I thought cheap AP-temples with Sankore-Boost would be nice. But nothing is working out here. Now I am just looking silly for building the Sankore thing. Hell, maybe I will trade for Theology from Gandhi and build it myself. Because why not.

Tech situation:



Empire overview: 9 decent-to-very good cities.



Don't know what now. Probably make my way to steel. Hoping to trade engineering from the other continent, then just Gunpowder-Chemistry-Steel to go. Build trebs for upgrades from (hopefully) some Great Merchants. And then take out Kublai or so. Who knows. I might just go for culture win or something, I am confused.

Shaka re-declared on Kublai by himself. Don't know what is wrong with that guy. Have to save him from himself. At least their relations are ruined for good now, Kublai still liked him despite the first war.

Could probably attack at 1200 AD. Wait for Oxford before turning up the slider? Might take 12 turns... will just turn up the slider when I have enough gold to get to Steel without stopping I guess.

Screenshot of capital for no particular reason

Going for a vacation after this turnset. I'm done.

 

[Lain]

I will play the next turnset soon and answer in more detail then. Have to open the game and think about what I am going to do. Treb-Upgrades to cannons and drafting muskets was one idea I had. Steel by itself is not too far away. I have quite a few resources and can probably afford to draft 2 or 3 times in each city. Then snowball from conquered cities. If I get my own iron, I can actually build cataphracts. Mop-up units with 12 strength are pretty neat. And Justinian shouldn't be played without building at least one of them . Should be fun until someone gets Rifling and then I can switch to Grenadiers. And at least Shaka is miles away from anything that could stop cannons.

I like Cavalry too, but I can't pre-build Cuirassiers due to lack of iron efficiently. And upgrading Elephants to Cavalry is pretty expensive. At least 200 gold per unit or so? Takes longer to get them and I used Liberalism on Astro already. The tech pace scared me a bit and while Cavalry are faster, I could probably attack with cannons sooner. And Treb->Cannon is only 85 gold. I would aim for around 20 cannons.

Looking forward to meet the other continent, too. With nobody having even optics yet, that should be a nice boost.

For my next game, I was thinking about letting you guys pick from 2-3 starts I will present. Sometimes I start a game and on Turn 5 or so I think "Oh, this might be interesting", then I stop playing and keep the save to maybe feature it here at some point. So far I have a possible plains cow-start isolation and a potential semi-isolation with border tensions on Turn 5 to offer. Will come back to this eventually .

 

[Lain]

After the meltdown-midgame it was time to start war preparations.

Spoiler :

But first, some scope of what is going on in the rest of the world would be great. I meet Zara and Khmer next turn and trade for a map. They are a bit behind as far as tech goes.



Why is Zara always doing so great in games? Look at the amount of land he settled before the Khmer managed to do so. Leaving the latter at 6 cities while Zara has 13. And he is always among the tech leaders until the endgame, occasionally going for culture aswell. Scary.



Shaka actually makes some progress in the war... with his 6 vs Kublai's 10 cities. Weird.



Tech situation when I met everyone. Last one was Pericles who is in Confu while Zara and Sury are in Taoism. Shortly after, Zara builds the AP ..... Gandhi bottled this big time.

I researched/traded for Engineering, then selecting Gunpowder-Chemistry-Steel. Oxford is finished mid-Gunpowder and boosts my research a lot. With the iron situation being like it is, I choose to upgrade trebs to cannons and then mop up with whatever. Draft muskets, for example. My happy cap is great, a lot of resource trades from overseas came in, hippodromes are being built.



After Oxford is done, I switch back into Caste-Pacifism and run merchants in my GP-polluted cities.... I want two Great Merchants, if possible. But even one should yield at least 1500 gold if I caravel him over to the other continent. I am aiming for 20 trebs, which would cost almost 2000 gold in upgrades. The second Great Merchant could help me get to grenadiers and/or rifles for the next wars.





So, weapon of choice has been decided. Now, who to attack? A naval attack is a serious option. They are rather close. However, Zara and Sury are friendly with each other at this point and they don't particularly like me and probably won't for a while. I would have to fight both at the same time and Zara is a bit scary. Pericles would be a soft enough target with his 9 cities. However, I won't have Communism for a while and dealing with overseas-maintenance is a bit off-putting.

Meanwhile, both Shaka and Kublai are weakened from the war and Kublai's tech rate slowed down somewhat. I don't view a close Gandhi as big threat. I suspect he will turn off his slider at some point, just like Mr. Oranje and Mr. Inca tend to do. A big pain when they are far away. But I should be able to attack him with a decisive tech advantage whenever I want in this case.

So, it is between Kublai, Shaka and Pericles. Things become more interesting when Pericles declares on Sury. Note that I am already building some trebuchets.



... but the AP stops the war a few turns later. Another thing to consider. I don't want to be on the wrong end of a holy war here.



I pop a Great Engineer at 6% chance. I deserve him. Could start a golden age, but I decide against it. Steel is almost in anyway and I will be drafting and whipping. At this point, not the tech rate is the problem, but rather the preparation of enough trebuchets. Would prefer to chain 2 golden ages when building factories and coal plants with comm-workshops later.



In terms of war targets, it is kind of between Shaka and Kublai now, for me. Shaka is beating him down nicely, they are both falling behind... I can roll over them so easily. On the other hand, if I take out Pericles, I will make myself a land target for the Sury-Zara-Club. And who else would they attack then? + I would pay horrendous maintenance for culture-flooded cities.

Also, I can't really be bothered with the whole Galleons thing. Cannons and Muskets is fairly straightforward. I can attack reallyy soon. With galleons + moving troops through borders everything gets delayed by a few turns at least. I might just backstab Kublai and wipe out both him and the Zulu in the process. Without leaving behind a single city of them. Against my 20+ cities even mighty Zara won't be able to do a whole lot.

I do get my Great Merchant after all. But see, I had to run Caste+Paci until now when I would have prefered to whip troops already. All because of mistakes in GPP-generation. Lessons to be learned there. I ship him over to Greece. Pericles has a city at size 22 on the coast.



Meanwhile, Kublai loses his capital to Shaka. Wait, what? Kind of crazy. They are evenly matched at 8 cities each now. Well, Kublai won't capitulate yet. I will watch it a while longer, have them waste their troops and then it's cannon time.



Sury founds Islam and switches into it. Woosh. Suddenly, all of them are in their own religion and Zara/Sury become cautious with each other. Beautiful. Uhh, unless Zara decides to vassal his continent now. If he had this streak in him more consistently (conquest wars), he would be the strongest AI in the game without a doubt surely?



Two turns before reaching steel, tech situation is looking like this. Oh, they are going to suffer. And I have no idea what Gandhi is doing, but I like the non-rifling-route. Keep it up, my bald friend. Kremlin maybe, pretty please?



I delay trading for iron until I have 19 trebuchets. Great Merchant yielded 1700 gold.



Then I make this trade.... ridiculous what he is charging. Literally all I have.



But I take it, upgrade all the trebs and pillage my wheat so the trade gets canceled next turn. It is cheesy for sure. Hard to feel bad for the AI though, they trade iron to each other for ... wine. Or fur. Or a fish. At cautious. Just to annoy the player who pillaged the iron in enemy's territory.

I would even pay 50 gpt or something, but his trade adds up to something like 150 with the resources included. More to the point, the AI would never pay me this much for iron in opposite circumstances. So nah, I'm not having that.



Next turn:



I traded Liberalism for Nationalism at some point with Kublai, so drafting already began. My army looks like this now: 21 Musketmen and 19 Cannons.



Two stacks, ready to attack next turn. Reinforcements coming, just have to make do with the cannons for now. But I'm sure Gandhi would lend me his iron again if need be. He had 3-4 units in his border cities, he should be toast. Kublai is defending his new capital against Shaka on the other side of his territory. Shaka can't really take it, but I will have them fight it out.

#1



#2



Kublai has no horses (only the ones I was delivering him until now....), so no Cuirs even if he gets the tech.

The reason for deciding against Cavalry in the end was the favorable treb upgrade + draft opportunity I saw with a big happy cap. Also, I would have needed Guilds, Banking, Printing Press, Replacable Parts, Rifling, Music and Military Tradition. None of which I have or need now. More strategic wars also fit more with my playing style. Horsies belong in the hippodrome for me . Building some war elephants though just because.

Nothing strategic or sophisticated about what is gonna happen to Kublai now though. Poor soul doesn't even have Gunpowder yet. Maybe some knights (I would have to check if he hit Guilds) because in this case I was the moron delivering him Horses for Bananas without noticing ... but meh, even that wouldn't help him.

 

[RedKi-rr]

To Lain:

Nice progress! Looking at the tech situation it is very tempting to say that you already won On the hand Zara is big enough which means that you need to be careful about him.

I only feel bad about the trading about iron...I guess it would be fair to lose money a couple of turns and then to attack Ghandi.

Anyway, may be the most important step in this game was to research archey. You lost only a few bakers, but got very strong and safe postition. So, even, mistakes on GPP didn't matter much.

If you want more challenge you can try somewhat average leader (Shaka, Stalin, Chenghis Khan?...) and a random standard Pangea/Continents/Fractal map.

But if you want even more challenge - try Diety Civ 4 Wardlords 2.08/2.13 instead of BtS. Then...it will happen "or my therapist will be a rich man soon" (c).
(I mean quote from here https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/some-deity-fun-with-mao.575942/)

 

[Lain]

Mmh, I like Fractal because it can give anything. With continents/pangaea I already know what I get. On Fractal scouting seems to be even more important... can happen that you don't meet 2-3 AI so you think "ok other continent" but reachable with sailing. Always lol-moment when I go Astro to meet them and then find out everyone met them already. Doesn't happen to me much anymore but it's an additional challenge to explore the map.

Deity Isolation might be a fun challenge and change. Really, I would like to record videos of deity gameplay but I really don't want to do commentary and there is not much demand for content like that anyway . I would probably pay money myself to watch Deity Isolation or Semi-Isolation by some veteran from here.

Never played warlords, maybe will give it a shot, but from reading on forums I understand that BtS is just a more complete game, so more fun probably?

Anyway, time for update ... until end of game.

Spoiler :

I declare on Kublai and Sury attacks Shaka, which is nice. Everyone will be busy for a while, Sury kind of likes Kublai so no peace vassal / bribes there.



I bribe Shaka into peace with Kublai because he was about to take the new Mongolian capital and possibly capitulate Kublai, now we don't want that to happen



Kublai never managed to put up any kind of resistance. In the whole war with him I lost one warrior (my scout-guy you saw in previous turnsets... forgot to save him, pff) and two cannons or so. And okay, one Musketman at 97% odds you see in the screenshot

15 turns after I declared Kublai is wiped out completely.



On that same turn Sury asks for help against Shaka. Sure, why not? My army just got free. Expecting a bit more fight from Shaka, but the most dangerous thing he has are Knights. With Cannons+Muskets I would go against anything up until Cavalry / Infantry.



Here is Shaka's SoD ... 30 units or so.



I let him attack my city and only defended it with 3-4 units. He takes it as expected and doesn't attack my SoD outside. Well, he couldn't reach my SoD anyway, since it was positioned 4 tiles from his one. Only his Knights could have attacked but didn't.

My stack is waiting outside and greets him with cannons next turn. First Grenadiers reaching the frontline just in time .



After I am done his stack looks like this: I spare one knight in there to let him reinforce and take out even more troops of his under favorable circumstances.



At this point, the tech situation looks like this. All in control. Shaka might get Rifling in a few turns, so it was good I was able to take out his SoD before upgrades. But he doesn't have Military Tradition and Rifles alone won't save him.



A land overview, I plan to wipe him out aswell. He built some nice wonders (Pyramids, Great Lighthouse) and as a vassal he won't benefit me at all, being the weak techer he is.



During the war I already started to consolidate my empire. I want something stronger than cannons for Gandhi and my economy has to be stabilized. I trade and tech my way to Communism and after capturing the Pyramids I switch into Police State / Bureaucracy / Slavery / State Property / Theocracy for a last round of whip madness. I don't even have Rifles yet, but I don't need them for Shaka. I did pick up Military Science for some Grenadiers though.



I re-assigned some horsies from the domestic hippodromes to the battlefield just for fun. A game with Justinian is not complete until at least one cataphract has joined the fray.



As you can see, Shaka has Rifling. The only useful thing about taking him as a vassal would be getting that tech, but... meh. Punish Shaka whenever you can.



I spammed workshops/farms and researched Biology for trade bait.



In the year 1575 AD mighty Byzantine Empire claims its rightful place at the top of the scoreboard. 27 cities, I did settle one additional in Shaka's former land to claim Marble+Whale. You can also see my further "plan" for this game. Artillery for Gandhi. And if necessary, Tanks+Aircraft vs the other continent after that. Having started with cannons, I call this the triathlon of punishment. I don't have Assembly Line yet, will go with Rifles+Artillery and whip in Police State.



There are still some minor subtleties to consider. I realize Gandhi would bribe Zara on me if I didn't do anything. So I do the obvious thing: Declare on Gandhi and bribe Zara on him myself before he can do it. Spared me some inconvenience with a possible holy war against me. Pericles has been plotting war for 200 years now, being useless as in most of my games. I don't even care on who, probably Sury though.



I offer Gandhi to take my lightly defended city which is being swamped by his culture. He is still ~90 turns away from winning it though. He does have Artillery aswell but no Infantry.



His stack obliges.



I wiped it out on my turn, just like with Shaka. 15 Artillery/Cannons and then mop up. Go Team Cataphracts!



My Heroic Epic city, the only place that is not getting whipped.



My capital with Oxford... Okay, also not getting whipped



The war was pretty straightforward, though I took some heavier losses than before. Quite a few Artillery died and I met some Machine Guns which were rather painful. I had two stacks pushing forward in his territory.

#1



#2



Needless to say, battles like the following one didn't end well for him.



After taking his most important cities, I consider my situation. Zara didn't take any cities from him, but farmed some war success (he had a stack of 10 shadowing me somehow and suicided on a city, but between AIs that is deemed "war success" sometimes). Since I am a bit worried about Zara capitulating him, I take Gandhi's capitulation myself. He does have quite a few techs on me and he might be slightly useful to keep around.

Also, he is putting up a bit of resistance in each city and I don't want to bother with reinforcements for some tundra cities. Probably makes more sense to turn my attention towards the other continent now.

So... Welcome in the Byzantine Empire, Gandhi.



Pericles built the UN and I get voted as President since nobody likes him apparently. If it were possible, he would have voted for me aswell, I am sure of it . Shared wars with Sury + Zara did help with the diplo situation even though I am in a different religion.



I started my first golden ages of the game to build Factories+Coal Plants everywhere and make a possible transition from Slavery. While doing that, I realized I might aswell try for UN win. Getting Sury to Friendly won't work, but Zara might if I switch out of my religion and adopt Theocracy (his favorite civic which he is in).

First time he didn't vote for me. I kind of already gave up then and prepared to invade the other continent (I had around 48% land at this point, not taking Kublai/Shaka as vassals certainly helped with that).

But in the next election he voted for me despite not being "Friendly" yet??? Guess I got another +1 or +2 modifiers and it somehow pushed him over the edge? I thought votes were done based on attitudes (Cautious/Pleased/Friendly etc) with different caps for each leader, but rather each +1 -1 modifier counts?

Anyway, 1730 AD Diplo win. One of my earlier finishes . But just started my second golden age in a row and whipping tanks from 34 cities would have spelled a quick end anyway. I was pretty much at tech parity military wise. Was already shipping over my veterans.



Only lost 78 units in total, most of them cannons in the Gandhi-War when I just threw them on cities carelessly because they would be obsolete after that anyway.

All in all, the smoothest win so far. Never in danger at all. Justinian rocks, absolutely love playing him.

And that's that for this one

 

[RedKi-rr]

Lain, nice game and win Will you continue Deitymania series? Without it last days, the forum of S&T looks so empty . If you want I can try to find hard maps/settings for you

 

[Lain]

Thank you . I will definitely continue this series, just need a little break from the game . Played a lot in recent weeks.