Don Deity: Warlords 2.08, huge random continents map, epic speed

[Snaaty]

@ Dicorion:

I played some deity games in the vanilla version under various settings, and a few in warlords on the standard settings (standard size and speed). This game is my first try on the following settings:

warlords, huge map, epic speed

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@ mrchadt:

Big thanks for helping me out up to here

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@ all:

I will try to find a new way to post the next saves...

 

[Scarredroman]

You'd be scarred, too, if you'd played 150+ games at warlord deity level
where you did not belong. it's annoyingto see your cities disappear undera tide of barbarians, other civs or realise you just aren't going to gt the hang of this game. Then, when , Augustan Rome, I get a start, I bump into the Mongols, go off to make a brew, come back, not look at he screen hit yes, save, exit, delete all other saves of the game and next time wonder how it is that I am at war with the Mongols and now nearing its 800th year. Neighbour to the north is Monty. I have nightmares of hordes of aztecs swarming all over my less than well-defended northern cities. I wouldn't have minded so much, but his neighbours trade him horses, iron and copper just to make him a bit more dangerous.


Music is for the horses, of course. As soon as the horse hears it he wants to charge an enemy of carry out any number of intricate manouevres
depending on the tune.


See if Alex and Bren could be interested in sigining a defensive pact with Don. Then see if Ash can be persuaded to attack Bren -that's the neatest way into war. Failing that, closing borders and makiing unreasonable demands to push Ash into declaring war, is the best option.

 

[Komori]

The north continent is empty?
I guess i'm a explorer, I always like to find new continents and such.

however, I'm useless as a military advisor, so i'll just say:
Show them who is the boss!

 

[Snaaty]

@ Komori:

There appeare to be two civs on the northern conti (white = Germans and light blue = Persia)

I also like to explore and meet neighbours, that´s why I was a little disappointed about having sailed to the wrong direction (and not towards this conti)... ...but there must be another (big) conti out there so I decided to sail on with the caravel (and Don Deity couldn´t afford to build more then one caravel, because of the warfare preps)

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@ Scarredroman:

It seems that the power of Don Deity´s neighbours isn´t that high after all in the last save, after Don Deity has build now most of his units (about half of their strenght is reached), so I think I will stick to your first proposal:

Declare the same turn Gunpowder is reached, even when not all trebs are finished... ...time might be essential

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@ ALL:

I´m still trying to find a way to post the last save...

 

[Adam Elvin]

I took a look at the last save you posted and I noticed you had almost no defenders in your cities. Some were even completely empty...
I guess it would be a good idea to leave at least one or two longbowmen per city. This wards off the "we fear for or safety" penalty. It also gains you a happiness boost, as you are in Hereditary Rule (one per military unit).
Regarding your military campaign: Which city will you attack first? Or will you play passive at first, waiting and destroying Asokas attack stack at first before you invade for real?
@all: I guess music is needed for the trumpeters. Didn't you watch any western movies? Cavalry always attacks with trumpets blaring...

 

[Snaaty]

you can find the 260 AD save here (go to bottom of page for the list of ALL saves of this story)

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@ Adam Elvin:

I will do a last "bar-blah" with my strat. suggestions open for critics and better ideas before finally starting to play out the war.

Some cities are empty (and will have to stay empty for some time more), because the agreed plan (see poll) was to build as many of Don Deity´s offensive units as possible (cav and trebs), then declare and start the war. Only then there will be time to build (=whip) some defenders because it was additionally said to save as much time as possible and to start the war as early as possible.

 

[Scarredroman]

There are six Ash units in england, forces will need to remain to deal with those,
The city the ai should go for is Nottingham. Resources, guard the horses at Canterbury.

I'd reakky try to avoid the penalties for 'you have declared war onour friend'. That could drop you to cautiouswith Alex and Bren. Ash could then bribe them to attack you.

Ash's territory is compact. He has the advantage of interior lines of communicationl ouhave to turn him inside out. Sacking Indian cities will force Ash to build settlers. Bombay you want intact, the others can be razed.

 

[Snaaty]

A bar… …somewhere strange… …somewhere VERY strange…

…

“Hi Don Deity… …you seem to be a little stressed… …what’s wrong?”

“Look, look at this, this is the tech-situation on our continent… …how could things have change so fast???




Alex is suddenly having Banking, Printing Press and Gunpowder on us… now his technological situation even rivals our own…”


“Well, yea Don Deity… …Alex also seems to have quite some cottages around… …and I have mentioned this to you before… …once your neighbours have mastered the secret of Printing Press, they are very likely researching a new technology every 3-5 turns…”

“But how am I supposed to stop Alex now???... …he might reach Rifling every turn now....”

“I have no idea, but this shouldn’t be your main concern now… …lets focus on the Indians first, because after thinking about it once more, I would really advise you to attack them first, because:

- their land is very good
- you will have an easy to defend frontline while advancing
- Bren and Alex like you more then Ash, so MAYBE they wont backstab you

Oh, and something else, I just have met a quite frightened Roman outside the bar, and he told me, that

- Ash has founded Hinduism, and therefore should have build the Hindu shrine, which will bring a LOT of money, once you captured it
- Capturing the Hindu holy town, will allow you to receive detailed reports about any troops stationed in any Hindu city, no matter of the nationality of the city
- The Hindu holy town, Bombay, is far down in the north of Ash’s empire, so most Indian reinforcements should be far away, near the Indian borders.”

…

Several beers later:

“But now let’s get back to your invasion plan for India:




You can see that I already have incorporated the ideas of your Roman advisor in a detailed and coloured attack plan…”

“I like those bright col…”

“Yes, Don Deity, I know… …you have mentioned this before, but please let’s stick to the subject, yes?”

“Ok, ok, go on…”

“The basic plan behind this is that I highly suppose that Ash has most of his army up in the North, near Alex´ border and the Celt enclave there. So his southern cities should be relatively lightly defended and any reinforcements will arrive in reasonably sized stacks, due to sheer size of his empire and therefore the distance they have to cover. Therefore I suggest that you rush in as fast as you can at several points far down in the south and try to do as much damage as you can BEFORE the bulk of Ash’s army arrives there… …it should take even most of Ash’s knights about 3 turns to reach you there, most other units should need about 5 turns… …so I suggest you divide your army in 4 groups:

The first group will stay at home and guard your borders, because you seem to be quite short of city defenders, in case Ash sends one of his stacks towards England directly… …some cities even don’t have any military police.

The second group will advance on Madras. Take some Trebuchets with your army there. Madras MUST fall within 4 turns (only 1 turn of bombardment possible) or you run a VERY high risk of facing most of Ash’s army there. IF this is done, set this army to block off most reinforcements Ash is trying to send down south.

The third group will advance on Karachi. Take also some Trebuchets with your army there. Once Karachi is captured, set this army to march directly on the Hindu Holy City, Bombay. You will need quite a big army to capture Bombay I suppose, but IF you should succeed in blocking of the Indian reinforcements with your second group, I think you might stand a chance…

The fourth group will advance on Hyderabad. You won’t need any Trebuchets there, because Hyderabad is a young and small city and I don’t expect much defences there. Once Hyderabad is captured, set this army to march directly on Bombay to assist the third group in their siege…”

“This sound quite simple…”

“Umh… …well… …it’s mainly theory… …you know Don Deity… …it MIGHT happen that you MIGHT have to improvise here and there and there and there…”

“I still think it sounds simple…”

…

“Before you go now Don Deity and plunge your continent in chaos and destruction, might I have another look at the power situation?”

“There you go…”




“You still look quite week on power, but you are closing in towards the others. And once you have upgraded all your horse archers and knights to cavalry, you might really end up with about 70% of the power the others have… …this is even better then I would have expected…

There is something you should take into account from now on… …never ever let you power drop lower then about 50% of the average power of the other nations from now on. Even the most peaceful and friendly nations might become tempted to try and backstab you, if this should happen from now on, because you will spoil your relations with ALL of them pretty quick now…

Something else to observe… …you can see when Ash’s Golden Age must have ended because of the power drop. Additionally, he seems to have build no troops since quite some time… …and I have no idea why… …he must be pushing hard for research or be on the wonder hunt… …or simply be up to something VERY weird… …and apparently, Bren has knights now also, because he now has not only the largest army, but also the highest power rating.”

…

Some more beers later:

“And I have again a last tip for you, before I leave now:

Try to get to Banking really fast now, because then you can switch your government from Decentralisation to Mercantilism. This will slow your research down drastically because you will loose ALL foreign trade routes, but it will also slow your continent neighbours down, because then they also cant have trade routes with you any more and since none of them has researched Astronomy so far, they wont be able to establish oversee trade routes to compensate. And right now, best thing you can do is to try to slow them down research-wise... ...this is even more important then speeding up your own research, because you wont be able to keep up with them anyways… …and additionally, the free specialist Mercantilism grants you in every city can help you producing your troops faster. But remember that you have to build (=whipwhiphorrey) forges for that, so you can run an engineering specialist…”

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I’m happy for any feedback, suggestions, tips and hints concerning this game...

IMPORTANT NOTE:

If you want to play along or ahead feel free to pick any save you like. Only thing you REALLY should do is to use spoiler tags for anything AHEAD of the actual story.

The saves for this game can be found here (scroll to the end of the page)

YOU WILL NEED THE WARLORDS 2.13 PATCH TO OPEN THE LAST SAVES

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See you Soon

Snaaty

 

[StuntedAzrael]

Ah, an update at last. Preparations are complete, plans laid out, cavarly itchy for some action just don't forget to give them muskets instead of bows and arrows. And some gunpowder too...

 

[Scarredroman]

Ash has engineering and roads. Infantry can reinfoce targets 1 and 2 in 2 turns and knights in one. I'd estimate Ash's army at 5 units per city plus a dozen relief/assault troops (including the six he's got in England). I'm giving him a total of 82 units at the start. He's got nationalsm, so can draft units.

For forces East 1 and 2 I wish you had a maceman and pikeman along for protection for the trebs and HA. I don't think they can capture their targets and HA are best used for destroying infrastrucure - in my opinion.

If Ash denudes his northern cities of troops, Alex and Bren will jump all over him. I'd cavalry rush Madras and raze it, whip/chop another half dozen cavalry and send them against Delhi with every other unit I could get there.
In fact the only Indian city I'd capture and not raze is Bombay. Ash will refound the cities, which you can then take. They won't take so long to come out of revolt and will have almost no Indian culture.

My order of taking/razing = Madras, Delhi, Karachi, Hyderbad, Calcutta, Bombay (keep), Ligurian. Bengal I'd ignore. You may chop a couple of settlers to put in over ruins of Karachi and Bangalore rather than waiting for Ash to refound the cities. The six other cities are half middle sized and half big. The bulk of your frces would end the war with Inida in the north and in the right place for attacking Alex.

 

[Eikka]

You need a plenty of luck, hope you got that.

 

[Thrar]

Founding new cities in formerly Indian territory won't help you in terms of culture, and neither does having him refound them later.
The culture value used for checking flip chances and tile ownership is calculated per tile, not per city. So if you found a city in formerly Indian territory, it will be 0% yours in the beginning; even though it won't be able to flip unless there's active Indian culture on the tile.

 

[Scarredroman]

It's not suggested for culture flip reasons.

 

[Snaaty]

@ Sacarredroman:

There wont be any HA in this war (at least not on Don Deity´s side). The money from the trade mission + the money in the tresury should be enought to upgrade all HA and knights

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@ all:

I´m a builder... ...which means I´m no genious at warfare... ...and therefore I will take all tips and advice for war and will try to play according to them... ...except razing cities... ...this is sort of against my builderish-civ-religion

 

[Komori]

yeah, i'd also advise against razing cities... you never know when your fellow neighbours have a settler just waiting for a little space to settle...

you go and destroy your enemy and end up giving land for your next enemy.

 

[Scarredroman]

I'm advocating destroying 6 of the 7 southern cities, because I don not believe Don can hold the cities and move on with sufficient force to take the next and he has to spend so long waiting for the cities he takes to come out of revolt. Ash will then build settlers rather than military units and the military units he does create will be sent to escort settlers rather than to fight Don. If Don settled (by chopping forests in Warwick) on ruins of Indian cities, he'd have a fully developed infrastructure to expand into.

Don has ruled that strategy out.

 

[EEE_BOY]

why razing cities? city with population 1 only adds maintainance cost to your empire, u need population to work on tiles, + population grow takes time.

no defender in city is good idea that i never thought about before, when do u plan to build some defenders for your new captured cities? the annoying knights would sneak attack your city unpredictably until u have the holy city.

 

[Scarredroman]

A city of pop 1 pays less in maintenance than a much larger one. A city with a fully developed BFC is going to expand rapidly.

 

[Bran]

Cautiously Emperor Bran enters the bar of the gods (somewhere very strange ...). He spots Don Deity and aproaches him, with as much dignity as he can muster. "Great Don Deity, I was guided to this bar by a provocative (at least for my humble ears) thesis entitled 'Bts WAY to easy???'. I read through the events that happened here and I find the knowledge you share very intresting and helpful. I had a look at some of your achievements as leader and though your empires don't look like empires I couldn't have build myself, your empire reached so much more so much earlier, than my own comparable empires could ever hope for. Mind if I join you for a beer or two?"

Don Deity gives a nod, which Emperor Bran takes as a "Sure, as long as you don't get too pesky"

Emperor Bran is still impressed by the mere presence of Don Deity, but the beer helps him to find enough courage to give his 'advice' to Don Deity: "Great Don Deity, if I understand your aim right, you want to boost your empire by conquering new cities and people. Therefore my advice would be not to raze any cities. Most of the conquered cities will have some buildings left in them (most important: courthouses), the people in the conquered cities yearn for your golden whip and it would be a shame to simply murder them. The maintenance costs are tied to the development/size of the city (true: a new founded city is cheaper, but that's because it's not developed). The culture is tied to the tile and not to the city and is not reset by razing the city (see: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=225927), therefore the only aim you would reach by razing the cities, would be to weaken Ash. Most of the new conquered cities can be garrisoned by a very small force, because your main force enjoys the element of mobility and once the first conquest are done, you can quickly reinforce any spot Ash might find suitable for a counter offensive."

Emperor Bran takes another bottle of beer and continues: "Concerning the time after a succesfull war against Ash, I would advice to try to get Bren and Alex to declare war on your neighbours on the northern continent, this will slow them down and give you the opportunity to finish Ash and maybe even backstab one or both of your friends, but only time will tell which action will be best suited for Bren and Alex."

Emperor Bran has finished his second bottle of beer, he stands up "Great Don Deity, I must leave you now, but if you don't mind I will come back at a later time" and leaves the bar of the gods (somewhere very strange ...).

 

[Scarredroman]

Don does not have forces to spare as garrisons. Yes, there is a risk that Alex or Bren might send settlers, but it is unlikely that they would choose to send them to the southern cities before Ash (or Don) can.