Dr kossin #26

[Artichoker]

Ideally, you want to have CR3 Cannons by the time they get Riflemen.

It definitely helps to have enough target practice before that time comes, and of course, XP civics as well.

Typically, in this kind of arena with 2 main AI neighbors, you are hoping for one of them to be weak enough so that your military can gain momentum, both production-wise and XP-wise.

As long as you are successful against the 1st target, you can usually gain enough momentum so that fighting the 2nd target with tech parity is no problem.

 

[kossin]

Round 4a

I played a long round and there's too many screenshots for a single post so I'm splitting it in two parts.

Willem was indeed after Liberalism, finishing it this turn actually.

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The freebie was Nationalism... he'd get the Taj Mahal as well.

On my side of things, I bulbed Education and started on fast-Universities in select cities.

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I tried bribing Catherine to war but it wasn't to be, she even refused to go against Hatty!

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Seeing as I couldn't induce any war right now, it was time to start trading around.

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In 740AD, Hatty finally got attacked. WvO DoW'd and then bribed Qin into the war.

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Not long after, the AP vote to declare war on the infidel came up and as a result, everyone was sent to war against poor Hatty.

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The war wasn't very long and she capitulated to Willem soon enough.

Willem had a big pile of cash sitting around from the Economics Great Merchant and I got my hands on it to allow more deficit research.

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Seeing Willem's tech rate, it became clear to me he had to go. While Catherine had as many cities, several of them are pretty bad ones... desert and tundra. Hence, she really isn't as a threat as she looks like right now.
To accomplish this, the Globe Theater went into Snaketown, the double-fish+Pigs city.
The Heroic Epic went to the closest city to it, Chaco Canyon which has 7 hills and 2 food resource.
Cannons would be the bigger part of my force so I started building Trebuchets for upgrades. Some pikes were built and I drafted almost every city to gather muskets.

To accomplish this, civics used were Theocracy/Nationhood. 5xp cannons have much better odds than their 3xp counterpart.

I also traded Gunpowder to Qin for Liberalism. Not that I really needed it right now but Catherine lacked it.

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I triggered a Golden Age to make the most of the pile of cash I had received as I rushed towards Steel.

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I also got in a few more trades that were available on the market.

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Willem eventually revolted into Free Religion, which gave me control over the AP. This is crucial as there won't be any 'Stop the war' motions during the war I was planning...

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With all the techs I'd bought, I finally had enough to bribe Catherine to attack Willem.

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The price is steep but it's really worth it. All those hammers wasted by Deity AIs on units...

Willem was a real tech demon, being first at about just every race and getting the wonders.

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Seeing as Gilgamesh wasn't coming to meet me, I whipped a Caravel and sent it over in his direction.

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This turned out to be great as he had several techs to trade and was lacking several I had.

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I was planning on declaring war in a few turns but Catherine came by to ask a favor... couldn't refuse her.

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I had a 30-unit strong stack at this point and it would really eat through Willem.

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To be continued...

 

[kossin]

Round 4b

Despite "only having cannons", the war went pretty well early on.

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No casualties at all here.

Shortly after, I traded again to upgrade my units a bit more.

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I sent the initial stack north to the matured cities and sent reinforcements to capture the peninsula.

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I started getting casualties however. Willem's research was already all the way to Railroad and Machine Guns were defending cities now... gulp!

In any case, enough cannons can eat through pretty much anything.

Trades were still available during the course of the war and I took most of them so that I didn't fall behind too much.

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Despite facing more advanced units, I had enough cannons to keep marching on Willem. When in doubt, build more siege (if you're taking that approach).
Bombard city, sacrifice a few cannons and then mop up.

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I got here just in time, Cathy's SoD is next door.

I researched Communism for State Property (Qin and Cathy were busy down the AL line). I was planning on trading Physics+Communism for AL but Cathy screwed with my plans.

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I captured a former Egyptian city. I'll probably walk over Hatty after Willem to get to Qin on the other side next. He appears to be focusing culture in at least 3 cities so the sooner I deal with him, the better.

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Gilgamesh really proved useful this game, always getting the techs I neglected.

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I finished off Willem shortly after, taking his last city.

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All in all, I lost 22 cannons, 8 muskets, 2 trebuchets, 1 rifle and 1 pike, but Willem is out.

The war took a while to play so I stopped for today. Killing Hatty shouldn't be too hard but Qin and Catherine already are at Infantry so I need some more techs to go after them.

Techs are pretty good despite the long war. Since I now own The Kremlin, rush buying might be the order of the day in the future. It also helps to have a lot of mature cottages...

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Diplo. I want to keep Catherine Friendly so I might out out of Buddhism. Universal Suffrage would be good here so perhaps I should go Free Religion.

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Finally, a non-resized map of my new land.

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I'll need Assembly line to fight Qin and I'll probably wait for Bombers to take on Catherine. Since my bpt are pretty good now, and only going up, I'd say this game is looking good right now.

I believe controlling the whole continent will be enough for Domination, but I can always vassal Cathy and go bash on the oversea AIs for practice.

 

[Riot]

What stops cannons? Whats the timeline for getting them out here?

Honestly, massed Cannons are probably only stopped by Flanking II Cavalry, which have a decent chance of killing them via collateral. You could also try Combat I Pinch Cavalry, which should have decent (read: 50% or above) odds vs Riflemen.

 

[Artichoker]

Impressive work, keep it up!

One note about the Liberalism race...if you know you're going to lose (you can gain these hints with an AI getting early Philosophy or Paper), sometimes you can skip Paper to speed up the Chemistry bulb. In these cases, you'll be aiming to tech either Engineering or Guilds (hoping that you can trade with the AI for the other one). Once you have both, you can research Gunpowder and bulb Chemistry, bypassing the detour of Paper-Education-Liberalism.

Then, you'll be in position to tech Steel, and if you still want Riflemen (depending on the strength of the AI), you can tech Paper (very cheap by this time), trade or tech Printing Press, and trade for Replaceable Parts + Rifling. Even after this point, you've still bypassed Education + Liberalism, but this all assumes that you won't be building Oxford University until a while later.

Or...if you're lazy and don't want to get all the prerequisites for Rifling, you can simply tech Military Science right after Steel, to unlock Grenadiers. But this also assumes that you won't be drafting.

An advantage, though, of using the Grenadiers + Cannons combo is that you won't even need Nationalism, since you won't be drafting, opening up further potential for savings of beakers.

 

[Daedal]

What stops cannons?

Nukes.

Cannons really are awesome and kossin's used them brilliantly in this game. There's a lot of mop up to do, but the game looks like it's in the bag with that much good land and tech parity.

 

[shyuhe]

Nicely done. Just make sure your new conquests don't flip to Cathy. It looks like her culture is pressing pretty hard against some of your new cities.

 

[kossin]

Honestly, massed Cannons are probably only stopped by Flanking II Cavalry, which have a decent chance of killing them via collateral. You could also try Combat I Pinch Cavalry, which should have decent (read: 50% or above) odds vs Riflemen.

I think the point was more with regards on defending against them in cities. Cavalry is ofc the best way to deal with them otherwise.

Impressive work, keep it up!

One note about the Liberalism race...if you know you're going to lose (you can gain these hints with an AI getting early Philosophy or Paper), sometimes you can skip Paper to speed up the Chemistry bulb. In these cases, you'll be aiming to tech either Engineering or Guilds (hoping that you can trade with the AI for the other one). Once you have both, you can research Gunpowder and bulb Chemistry, bypassing the detour of Paper-Education-Liberalism.

Then, you'll be in position to tech Steel, and if you still want Riflemen (depending on the strength of the AI), you can tech Paper (very cheap by this time), trade or tech Printing Press, and trade for Replaceable Parts + Rifling. Even after this point, you've still bypassed Education + Liberalism, but this all assumes that you won't be building Oxford University until a while later.

Or...if you're lazy and don't want to get all the prerequisites for Rifling, you can simply tech Military Science right after Steel, to unlock Grenadiers. But this also assumes that you won't be drafting.

An advantage, though, of using the Grenadiers + Cannons combo is that you won't even need Nationalism, since you won't be drafting, opening up further potential for savings of beakers.

Interesting points.
While I was researching Paper, I still had a glimmer of hope that WvO wouldn't get Education right away. Anyway, being Philosophical and with this Capital, it was hard not to get Universities up.
I'll have to try this gambit sometime soon.

Nukes.

Cannons really are awesome and kossin's used them brilliantly in this game. There's a lot of mop up to do, but the game looks like it's in the bag with that much good land and tech parity.

hehe, nukes deal with everything! It's just rare to find Cannons about by the time you have them.

Nicely done. Just make sure your new conquests don't flip to Cathy. It looks like her culture is pressing pretty hard against some of your new cities.

Utrecht is indeed under some pressure, I'll garrison it while it grows back and gathers some culture to be fine on its own. It's too good of a city to let it revolt.

 

[CivilizedTiger]

Wow... great war!

Could you please say how many of each units you had when you declared against Willem?

 

[kossin]

Sure, here you go. Screenshots of DoW turn + autosave

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[CivilizedTiger]

Thanks!

War is one of the things which is rather strange to me for now. I do win wars, but... that's only because I always shoot for tech advantage and when I go to war, it's rifles+cannons vs muskets and knights (and I expect that this situation will be less and less probable as I go up in difficulty; it's easy to get a tech advantage at prince ). And it always seems to go too slowly. Seeing the numbers you used, the main difference seems to be in the amount of siege equipment. It's good to know.

 

[Riot]

Thanks!

War is one of the things which is rather strange to me for now. I do win wars, but... that's only because I always shoot for tech advantage and when I go to war, it's rifles+cannons vs muskets and knights (and I expect that this situation will be less and less probable as I go up in difficulty; it's easy to get a tech advantage at prince ). And it always seems to go too slowly. Seeing the numbers you used, the main difference seems to be in the amount of siege equipment. It's good to know.

The computer fails at a couple of things that you can exploit:

It will never, ever build enough siege to counter your siege.

No matter how big the stack is, if you have enough siege, collateral damage will burn the bejezus of the AI's SoD. Just make sure you bring enough units to clean up afterwards and defend your stack.

The AI deals very badly with multiple directional threats (you can fool the AI into garrisoning a city while your real stack plunders the other end of the empire).

Once your stack reaches critical mass, the AI will not attack it, nor try to weaken it as it moves about in enemy territory. This means you can walk about with impunity.

AI stacks almost always rally towards cities - not towards your stacks.

 

[Stewie0416]

Wow, I'm really impressed. Machine Guns vs Musketmen and pulling that off is VERY impressive. nice job!

 

[Shurdus]

Nice, here I see very much what my game still lacks but that you have mastered quite nicely. You attack whenever an opportunity comes up, and you then proceed with quite a bit of skill to plow through whatever the Ai throws your way. nicely done.

Another thing that you seem to do really really well is grabbing techs in trades, always keeping an eye out to broker a tech or two. I should really pay more attention to opportunities like these. You of course make it seem simple... Well done!

Bombers + tanks or bombers + infantry should really bag you this game. you are in a winning position so I haave no doubt you will pull this one off really well. Give them hell!

 

[Daedal]

No matter how big the stack is, if you have enough siege, collateral damage will burn the bejezus of the AI's SoD.

Err, sort of, with one minor caveat. If you're using cats/trebs there's a good chance they won't scratch Renaissance units. OTOH cannons seem to do well even against modern units. IMO steel is the critical war tech for the latter half of the game.

 

[McThomas]

Im not sure why... but i think you should taget Catherine...

Mainly because she tend to be a bagstabbin one... and she is the only one to challenge you on this mighty continent...

Targeting Qin issnt great... you should Vassal him if pausible...

Go for bombers and take Mother Russia!

I deeply admire your skills, deeply .... Awesome!

 

[kossin]

Wow, I'm really impressed. Machine Guns vs Musketmen and pulling that off is VERY impressive. nice job!

To be fair, it's more like cannons vs. Machine Guns
And I did have Rifles join the fray as the war went on. Having Catherine deal with his SoD also was good... basically at the cost of Astro+Chemisty+450 gold, I got myself a new add-on to my empire.

Nice, here I see very much what my game still lacks but that you have mastered quite nicely. You attack whenever an opportunity comes up, and you then proceed with quite a bit of skill to plow through whatever the Ai throws your way. nicely done.

Another thing that you seem to do really really well is grabbing techs in trades, always keeping an eye out to broker a tech or two. I should really pay more attention to opportunities like these. You of course make it seem simple... Well done!

Bombers + tanks or bombers + infantry should really bag you this game. you are in a winning position so I haave no doubt you will pull this one off really well. Give them hell!

On Deity level, as you hit Medieval and sometimes Renaissance, you pretty much have to check the trade advisor every turn or you're going to miss out on something and find yourself an era behind in 10 turns.

Bombers+Infantry is redundant, they move too slow. Better to use Cavalry as the 5 extra strength really doesn't do that much post-Bombers.

Err, sort of, with one minor caveat. If you're using cats/trebs there's a good chance they won't scratch Renaissance units. OTOH cannons seem to do well even against modern units. IMO steel is the critical war tech for the latter half of the game.

Trebs won't do that much damage to the defending units true, but eventually they'll win a round or two and start taking him down. The real strength really is the collateral that damages the other units. When facing near-0% odds, taking Collateral promotion is sometimes more worthwhile than City Raider as you deal more damage overall.

Im not sure why... but i think you should taget Catherine...

Mainly because she tend to be a bagstabbin one... and she is the only one to challenge you on this mighty continent...

Targeting Qin issnt great... you should Vassal him if pausible...

Go for bombers and take Mother Russia!

I deeply admire your skills, deeply .... Awesome!

Catherine is switching back-and-forth from Pleased and Friendly... the odds of having her attack me are quite low. Even more so since she's currently still at war with Hatty.
In any case, I've already played the next segment so Cathy will just have to wait until tomorrow

 

[kossin]

Round 5a

This will be another two-part round as too many things are happening in short spans of time.

Starting from last round, I garrisoned heavily the city of Utrecth to prevent it from revolting into Russian control. It is the Buddhist Holy City after all. Moreover, I split my stack and moved my troops right away next to 3 of Hatty's cities right away as with Willem's culture gone, I could attack them right on the next turn.

To keep Catherine at Friendly, I reluctantly opted out of Organized Religion with a well spread Buddhism to Free Religion. I also took advantage of Universal Suffrage, given the amount of cities I had (Catherine was out of HR so there was only Gilgamesh as a reason to stay there... yea not good enough).

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I say reluctantly as it meant lost hammers into buildings and losing control of the AP seat...

I had to bombard cities for a longer time as I was a bit stretched on units everywhere but after sacrificing a few cannons, her cities gave way to the liberators.

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It was still a pretty fast and efficient war despite having so few units there.

Once she took her final breath, Thebes and Memphis were swarmed under Chinese culture and were both heavily garrisoned to prevent cultural flips. Qin was enough of a jerk to use the AP to try and wrest them from my control. Luckily, I had a blocking majority by myself so I did not get any penalty for defying the votes. I pretty much decided he had to die at this point, even though Catherine was a juicier target.

You may have noticed that Augustus went into war mode in the previous round. He did so while my relations with him had dropped to Cautious so I had a good feeling I was his target. To give me some time, I kept begging gold from him every time I could. Now that my war was over, I was able to ask protection from mother Russia.

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Hehehe, I wish him the best of luck now.

Anyway... city infrastructure was mostly this:
1. food
2. some culture
3. Forge/Levee
4. Science multipliers
5. gold multipliers
6. Barracks
7. gold/science

This gave me a really high bpt and I was able to research techs pretty fast now.
AL in 4 turns for example... make that 1 since I traded for it.

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I also took the opportunity to bring Cathy out of a religion to give her some Anarchy.

Almost out of the blue (I wasn't really watching...) I get DoW'd!

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Oh no!

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So what, I have Catherine on my side, right?

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Go get your hands dirty you too.

I rush-bought a few infantry and took back the city a few turns later.

I also built one of my favorite Wonders, the Cristo Redentor.

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Not that I needed many civic changes now but I finally opted out of Slavery in favor on Emancipation to grow the newer cottages and get rid of the unhappiness.

I previously built the National Epic in Snaketown, the Globe Theater city if you remember (double fish+pigs) and it was spitting out GPs left and right (you just saw an Engineer). This time it was a Merchant who netted me a good sum of gold.

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I can make that amount of gold in 1 turn anyway but it's still a good use for him.

Qin sold me the last tech I was looking for, signing his death warrant.

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Selling him Radio, I was also hoping he'd spend hammers Wonder building...

Now I have everything I should need...

Tanks, Bombers, Carriers, Fighters!

I turn every slider to 0% and start rush-buying units heavily. I also took the time to build the Eiffel Tower. I'm starting to feel some heavy cultural pressure from Catherine and I'd rather she not get it.

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The border cities also each got an Airport to host some more Air units.

After 18 turns of boat pillaging, Augustus finally saw the error in his ways and paid back for some of the damage he had done the Native American... that or he was growing afraid of my power.

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Speaking of power, how am I doing?

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Ummm... yea.

How about the eastern front?

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Good bye annoying Culture!

To be continued...

 

[kossin]

Round 5b

Another look at my forces...

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It's not huge yet but I'm still getting over 10 units every turn and well, bombers deal so much damage... especially when there's nothing left to intercept them.

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The carriers would move 2 tiles, send the fighters, and then go hide back in the city.

The odds for attack after a Bomber raid...

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The result is quite clear here.

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Actually, Qin was willing to Capitulate right then, after 1 turn of war

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But I wasn't going to allow that. I'd still have to park units to ward off his culture and he had quite a few shinies in his cities... and it was too easy and fast anyway.

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Pentagon, Broadway, Rock'n'Roll, AP and Hanging Gardens, loot loot!

I actually lost 4 Tanks at garbage odds but even then, that's a pretty swift (4 turns) and successful war if you ask me.

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He wanted to give me an island city as well but I didn't want the additional micro.

I'm sitting pretty close to Domination now, but I have to go kill a certain Russian lady now who's annoyed me too much with her culture in at least 2 games lately.

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Techs... I can get Biology in 1 turn to grow some of the smaller cities but that's probably all I'll ever need here.

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Diplo... pretty useless given my power.

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Current units. I'm spamming Airports pretty much everywhere and I'll fill cities with Bombers. 40ish of them should make the war easy I'd say.

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I've avoided Factories this game. The hammers required are quite high and with rush-buying + Kremlin, the investment vs return just isn't that great. It also means I don't have ungodly amounts of pollution in my cities meaning even less hammers on infrastructure are required.

I still need some preparation but I plan on a multiple city attack on the first turn of war against Catherine. The captured cities will be reinforced by Airlifted defenders to allow the tanks to keep moving on. Anyway, I'm including the auto-save from the Chinese DoW turn if anyone wants to try his hands at it.

 

[shyuhe]

I think Kremlin rushbuying off of US/FS towns is more efficient than caste system workshops, or at least very close. Isn't it (with grass) a 2/1/7 tile vs. a 2/4 tile, with the 7 commerce counting at 3.5 hammers?