Does this game look winnable?

[RedRover57]

I have been trying to beat the game on Deity and finally got a reasonable start. I'm playing Aztecs with standard settings and a Lakes map (ala Mad Djinn). I did a typical Tradition - Citizenship - Meritocracy start and used the GS to bulb Steel. I stayed at one city until after NC and HE and settled one more city later. I built/bought 6 jaguars, 3 of which had the HE bonus. I got very lucky in that I had a 6 iron tile in the third circle around my capitol. England declared on me right after I had upgraded to swords, which was perfect timing as I was going to take her out first anyway. After taking her capitol and leaving her with one city I waited on my 3 RA's to mature for Rifling and got it on turn 137 with proper blocking. That's pretty much where I stand now and so far so good. Here is what the current map looks like:

Spoiler :

I was planning to take on Arabia next, but Cathy declared on me out of the blue instead. I think it was out of desperation as she has run out of room to expand (she is also warring Arabia). Up until now I have been friendly with everyone (but haven't made any DoF), which allowed for some good trading. But the main problem is Siam. Ram is completely out of control - he just took India's capitol and there doesn't seem to be any stopping him. My scout shows that he has a crap-ton of cannons and rifles and he's 11% ahead of me in tech. He also has 6 or 7 CS allies (and all of the maritime CS) and lots of cash (almost 4k) so it will be all but impossible to buy some away from him. I just don't see how I can catch up to him in tech as he is wiping out all of my trading partners.

My only thought is that I can take out Arabia and Russia and then be in a better situation to try to whittle him down. But he will probably have artillery by then which will be a killer.

Any suggestions? Maybe I should try a game where I specifically omit Siam.

 

[truefrequencie]

It's a bit hard to determine whether it’s winnable, I'm leaning towards winnable but it will probably be a very messy game. If you're aiming at domination victory then it will be a bit difficult, because the last 1/2 civilizations left will definitely reach the modern era and get nuclear bombs before you have a chance to wipe them out.

Overall, the main problem is the slow pace you're going at conquering. I actually did a similar game and by the time I reached Rifling @ T130 I was way into my third civilization. So you need to push yourself to conquer a bit more quickly. This will help because you won’t run into a situation with Siam and it gives the AI less research agreements to sign with.

If you’re heading towards a cultural victory, then wipe out England then Arabia and maybe Cathy; followed by playing defensively from there. But with this strategy Siam could just start building spaceship parts (especially considering he has a tech lead), and you might lose, so either way it’s a bit tricky.

 

[Treso]

Maybe if you try a diplomatic victory?

Get enough city states and DoW him. The CSs will start to hate him immediately. If you can survive enough time until UN is build and votation...

 

[RedRover57]

I think it's a goner. I don't want to cheese out some kind of a cheap diplo victory (if I can even tech to the UN before Siam swallows up everything). It was good practice though. There's such a huge leap between Immortal and Deity.

I agree that I didn't conquer fast enough, but that was largely because of a somewhat slow start (didn't get NC until after turn 50). A slow start meant the first AI victim had more troops and tougher cities than I would have liked to see. This was due to poor production in my capitol, and not very good food/growth either. You can see how small my capitol still is at turn 140 and how low my beakers/turn is. Usually I try to have close to 150 beakers/turn by turn 150, but in this game I had to block the top of the tech tree to slingshot Rifling so that meant no Education/unis yet. The only way to get tech rate up without beelining Education is by conquering to increase pop.

Also, because I spent my cash on upgrading and buying RA's, I didn't have any for CS allies. So that meant no increased science through Scholasticism. I didn't have the 1500 gold to buy any CS away from Siam (or India or Arabia) - the 3 of them have all of the CS. You can see how I badly need some maritime CS in order for several of my puppets to even start growing past 2 pop.

I probably should have continued warring after I finished off England instead of waiting on rifles. But I thought I needed the short break to get my economy and happiness in order as I was running in the red in both. The break also allowed me to start making siege after picking up some more iron from England. I guess I need to work on my speed.

 

[Johan de Witt]

In my experience, siege units win the game.

Even when I'm not doing very good, getting 3 or more siege weapons usually starts my rise to the top. With a few well placed siege weapons you can destroy a much larger army in the field and even when you can't reduce a city to rubble in a few turns, getting experience for your siege makes them very strong in the long run.

I even once destroyed an enemy with 7 cities and riflemen with my army of 4 experienced trebuchets and pikemen.

Must add I play on marathon though...

 

[MrHankey]

That looks pretty grim...Honestly, you're either going to have to try to DoW Siam (hopefully with friends, or pay siam to DoW them first) or start knocking down his CSs.

I think you either should have conquered faster or pumped culture instead of so hardcore blocking for rifles. Your culture per turn at this stage is pretty bad if you're looking to build utopia before Siam kills everyone/builds the UN and I don't think you'll take the culture states from him. The slow rate might come from the HE also. It seems to slow things down a bit--maybe I'm wrong though.

 

[RedRover57]

It's interesting comparing my game to Mad Djinn's Aztec video series. On turn 140 (video #16) he had much higher bpt and cpt than I do because he went for the top of the tech tree first, but did not even have Gunpowder yet. However, he also was not up against a totally out-of-control Siam with cannons, rifles and elephants already. So he was able to still push forward with his LS army. I could have done a few things better, but I think the main problem in my game is that Siam did not have any real competition. He had early wars with Ottomans, India and Mongolia (and Russia even helped him by also fighting Ottomans and Mongolia) and basically destroyed them all. With the capture of India's capitol he picked up 5-6 wonders, including Great Wall and Hijemi Castle. There were no other aggressive (and competent) AI civs on the map to challenge him, and I was too far away to start. I needed a civ like Greece or France next to him - one that usually is fairly competent to start and who I could bribe into war with him.

Even though I think this game was doomed from the start because of Siam, it's still interesting to speculate on whether other starting strategies may have been better for me. It's clear now that pushing earlier against England with swords as soon as I could hook up the iron would have been better (and not bothering with HE to push out the additional jaguars sooner). But I'm also wondering if it would have been better to REX first on this map and settle those 3 other decent sites around my capitol before England got to 2 of them. At least one of those would have got me another 6 iron earlier, since now I have to wait for the cultural borders of the puppets to expand to nab it. But I'm still thinking that the one city NC start (with Meritocracy as SP #3) is the fastest way to LS by far.

 

[SilkwormTR]

If you can post a saved game, it may be easier to comment and talk about it and we can play a few turns.(usually I end up playing a hundered ) Thanks.

 

[MadDjinn]

It's interesting comparing my game to Mad Djinn's Aztec video series. On turn 140 (video #16) he had much higher bpt and cpt than I do because he went for the top of the tech tree first, but did not even have Gunpowder yet. However, he also was not up against a totally out-of-control Siam with cannons, rifles and elephants already. So he was able to still push forward with his LS army.

If you're headed for culture, then you'd need to take the top of the tech tree ASAP for the buildings.

My LS rush worked a bit better than 'normal' (ok, 2-3 civs dead can still be 'normal' but not when running across the map to do it) mostly due to me taking on two civs that had wars just before I got there. (China vs. Spain and Babylon vs. Ghandi)

After that, I did need to stop for the obvious reasons, but had decent territory to kite the Siamese units in for the culture. Siam had a decent weapons tech lead on me for a while, though once I hit rifling with decently promoted units, that didn't matter as much.

Siam could have been a bigger threat had they not attacked me first. They did try for Darius along the way, but given that I was already trimming their military down, they couldn't manage it. (plus well, upgraded Immortals vs. Siam Elephants is a reasonably fair fight) Not to mention the terrain had a significant impact. I'm not sure 6 LS could withstand all of Siams might if the River/marsh area wasn't there. first, they missed out on a decent chance to overexpand with the Elephants.

 

[RedRover57]

@MadDjinn

Actually, I was planning domination from turn 1, which is why I beelined Rifles. So my strategy was different from yours at the start. I just happen to like playing Monty and didn't necessarily choose him for his UA.

I have attached the turn 140 save game if anyone is interested in taking on the big bad Siam. First order of business would be to start making more units - lots of them.

 

[Deau]

This is definitely a winnable game, I've had games post patch where my LS rush would only get me 2 extra cities, that I'd be trailing in tech to 2-3 civs and would manage to catch up/leverage through the later game.

There are 2 ways to play it, I think the most secure is to wait for mech inf+artillery before you try anything against Siam. Thus I recommend you try to bribe siam to pretty much DoW everyone(or vice versa if the cost isn't significantly higher to avoid giving more gold to siam). Maybe even to 2 CSs in hope that he goes to perma war with every currently unalied CSs.

From there, this will refrain him from RA uses and since you are at friendly with most civs still, this should allow you to get 2 waves of 4-5 or so succesful RAs. As for what target to attack next, I suggest you aim for a very rich AI (likely the 2nd richest after siam) and aim for a fat peace treaty settlement. This should allow you to have a lump sum to dump into ninjaing some of siams' little friends

In order to avoid Siam from attacking you while your army is off to another target, I suggest you secure a DoF with him, maybe also with other AIs that are not DoFed with your next target (again pref the richest after siam). This should secure your luxury sales for another 2 waves to a decent price (100% or 87%). Sell as many as you can to siam to prevent races when you flip one of his allies.

Hopefully you have not gone into theocracy and can open rationalism tree without going deep in the red regarding happiness. If this is the case, save a GS and expect to use 1 GS + the 2 free techs around the same time to basically trigger mech infs around the same time that you will be getting infantry. Mech infs + artillery should enable you to hit siam hard. Not exactly sure how many other civs you'll be able to catch in between now and then. But if you manage to take Ramk's capital through mech infs, you'll be golden for victory. Every other civ will be much too far in tech to keep up with your mech infs if they are well timed through triple or even quadruple bubble.

Note this is all based on the pic, I am not at my apt for another while so I can't take a direct look at the game save . 11% is really not as scary as it sounds if you have a lot of cheaper/earlier era techs locked for rifling pop. Between waves or RAs and hard teching most of those locked techs, you should catch industrial with a ~5% disadvantage that will be compensated by the triple bubble.

 

[MadDjinn]

As per your specific game:

I have been noticing recently that you can easily catch/beat the AI to Renassiance with proper RA spam/decent tech, but then that's when their tech rate kicks into overdrive, passing you for a bit (if you're not continuing the RA spam). But that's ok.

beeline Artillery with some RAs/GSs and use rifles + artillery (heavy artillery) vs. him and you should be ok as long as he doesn't have mech infantry by then. I'd suggest starting the war outside of his borders so that you can deal with his unit spam from a fortified position letting the artillery do the work. (and get the promotions)

Once his army is trimmed down a bit, you should be able to approach his cities and gain peace treaties (keep everything in a group rather than spread out) where he'll capitulate. You may need to take a few cities first. - gift them to a different AI if you don't have the happiness for it so that they'll have a border with Siam and then start disliking them.

 

[RedRover57]

...this should allow you to get 2 waves of 4-5 or so succesful RAs. As for what target to attack next, I suggest you aim for a very rich AI (likely the 2nd richest after siam) and aim for a fat peace treaty settlement.

Not gonna happen. No other AI's have money except for Siam (well Gandhi has some, but he is as good as dead and probably won't last 20 more turns unless he settles for peace with Siam and gives it all away).

India - Good as dead
Mongolia - Good as dead
England - Good as dead (thanks to me)
Ottomans - Good as dead; they gave everything to Siam in a peace treaty; they recently declared on me in some sort of desperation move, but haven't sent any troops my way; they had been friendly all game
Russia - Declared war on me even though we were friendly trading partners; I believe it was because she ran out of room to expand; she is at war with everyone around her except Siam (whom she has denounced)
Arabia - The only AI in half decent shape except for Siam, but surprisingly has no cash; currently also at war with Russia and denounced Siam

So my only possible RA partners are Arabia (whom I would need to lend the cash to) and Siam (who has almost 4k gold and over 300 gpt, most of which is probably from Ottomans). I doubt India will last the 30 turns.

Also @Deau - I have taken 2 policies in Piety toward Theocracy already so Rationalism is off the plate.

 

[Deau]

Not gonna happen. No other AI's have money except for Siam (well Gandhi has some, but he is as good as dead and probably won't last 20 more turns unless he settles for peace with Siam and gives it all away).


So my only possible RA partners are Arabia (whom I would need to lend the cash to) and Siam (who has almost 4k gold and over 300 gpt, most of which is probably from Ottomans). I doubt India will last the 30 turns.

Also @Deau - I have taken 2 policies in Piety toward Theocracy already so Rationalism is off the plate.

Ah I'm sorry for you . I have been pulling completely away from theocracy for deity dom after seeing how insanely strong jumping from rifles to mech infs within very few turns was (using 2 free techs in rationalism)

Well the very last thing I would suggest you try to get massive RAs is to war a civ that has shared borders with siam then, take a city near siam and sell the puppet for as much gold as you can to him to fund double sided (gift+your 300g) with other AIs to get the RA spam going.

Even better would be if you could sell him a few cities in a line shape so when you catch up on tech, you kinda have a bottleneck to attack into and you should be able to slowly progress through his massive army with artillery

This is definitely not the ideal solution but it could work...I hope

*edit* btw if you ever do the above thing about city sales, make sure you sell any lux the city has before selling the city itself