Exercise: Aggressive Early Warring & No Cottages with Shaka

[Gwaja]

I personally would claim the jumbos with the second city. I would try rushing w/ phants/cats. Pretty awkward start.

It is a really awkward start. First of all, the peaceful AIs: Asoka, Huayna, Auggie, and Hammy are farther away, whereas the more aggressive ones like Boudica and Giggles (who is also protective AND creative on top of that) are my immediate neighbors. Obviously Giggles is the closest one, so if anyone is a candidate for early warfare victim, he has to be it.

Taking on Giggles with even swords is probably not going to be effective, so I am thinking elephants and catapults as well. But it still seems like a huge gamble to try to settle for the jumbos for the 2nd city.

My hope is that when I get Aesthetics, I can trade for Alphabet, Iron Working, and Mathematics. Brief stop for Masonry and I can beeline straight to Construction afterwards. The jumbos must be claimed by me because those are the only immediately close ones available.

 

[Mylene]

Boring map to play a warmonger on, that's for sure
If you want to stick to the early rush plan, i'd say horse archers look like a valid (and fun) option.

One thing you wouldn't want to do is placing a city close to all the jungle, some forests around make rushes much easier. 2W of the rice looks a bit better.

 

[Gwaja]

Boring map to play a warmonger on, that's for sure
If you want to stick to the early rush plan, i'd say horse archers look like a valid (and fun) option.

One thing you wouldn't want to do is placing a city close to all the jungle, some forests around make rushes much easier. 2W of the rice looks a bit better.

You are absolutely right on the map being boring.

To be honest, I have never done a horse archer rush. When and if I build horse archers, I use them not as a primary city attacking force, but as a force to pillage strategic resources like horse, iron, copper, and jumbos, as well as roads, and to harass AI workers. I also use it to try to pick off any straggling catapults or trebuchets. But that's about it.

With no copper nearby and no guarantee of iron as well, I just might be stuck with horse archers if I want to war early... seeing as settling for the jumbos seem very risky, and I have learned my lesson trying to expand into the jungle too early.

2W of the rice, actually DOES look better. I will adjust accordingly.

 

[west45]

To 500ad

Spoiler :

Giggles is almost done with maths, not sure if he is going construction or calender. His defenses are pretty light, a few archers and some chariots.
The only thing I'm worred about here is boudica, declaring on giggles might bring her down to cautious.
I will have 8 HA's next turn, and will be ready to declare as soon as a few more of them get to his borders.

Spoiler :

First turn of the war Kish falls, free worker too.

Spoiler :

Uruk, not a bad city. That oracle will help with the judaism shrine, which is currently the dominant religion.

Spoiler :

The only resistance I encountered outside of his cities, pretty weak.

Spoiler :

Jewish holy city falls, along with his GG. Mine was born on the same turn. Might turn him into a chariot medic.

Spoiler :

Tech situation, I plan on trading away currency for construction and calender on the same turn as soon as I can.

Spoiler :

Giggles finally dead. 8 cities with more to come, pretty soon I will be in good shape to stomp the rest of these civs.

Spoiler :

I revolt to HR 1000 years after trading for monarchy, that's always a good thing to do right guys?

Spoiler :

Current state of the world. Trying to get my economy back on track (I couldn't resist putting cottages on the grass rivers..).
Not sure where to go from here, I wanted to go after boudica but the diplo situation would be pretty complicated if I did.
Save is attached, any advice would be appreciated.

Spoiler :

Btw, boudica doesn't declare at pleased right? she's planning war right now.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Turn 42 (2320 BC)--Play from my saved game if you want to try out a Chariot rush

Spoiler :

Let the rush begin!

"Aggressive Early Warring" being the name of the game, we go with whatever Resource we are given.

I have produced my first Chariot and can spam them at a rate of 2 or 3 per turn--probably closer to 2 per turn with 2 Workers to Chop Forests and overflow Hammers.

We have met all of our neighbours... although at least two came and "met us" instead of us meeting them, so I'm not really sure where everyone is located.

But, no worries, since we have our first Chariot and it can help to explore the nearby land, looking for a source of Copper.


Note that I turned off the names of other Leaders in case someone else got to this point in the game but hasn't met every other Leader yet.


Actually, the game is ready to play from this point onwards for anyone who wants to try their hand at rushing... which seems to be the point of this thread... see if you can rush without using Cottages. So, why not start with a good opening and play from there?


2 Workers are in position to start chopping Forests immediately.

I'd suggest using the first 3 or 4 Chariots to scout the nearby land, then once you have the 5th or 6th Chariot out, send everyone at an AI...

If you can intercept a Settler Party (an AI's Settler + defending units) on flatland, do so, otherwise it may be prudent to wait until you have amassed at least 8 Chariots before attacking a capital. 6 Chariots should be enough to attack a secondary City, since the AI probably won't be easily able to whip a defender. Note, however, that if a City has never grown to Size 2, it will be automatically razed instead of giving you the option to keep it.


Gilgamesh looks to be close and I already started building a Road his way, since he was the first AI whose capital I found.

Even if he has access to his Unique Unit, they are vulnerable to Chariots that attack... and if you attack with 6 to 8 Chariots at once, you should be the one on the offense, not him.


I'll leave it as an exercise to play out, since Random Number Generation could give an exceptionally good or poor result, and if the result is good, it may discourage others from playing. So, I'll stop here, at least for now, but I encourage others to pick up the save and play it out.


As for efficiency, I built 2 Work Boats but honestly, I probably didn't need the second one. It helped a tiny bit in additional giving Commerce for Bronze Working, but with us being Expansive, working the Plains Hills square might have been equally as productive Hammer-wise when building our second Worker. Oh well, it's only 30 Hammers and like I said, we did get a bit of Commerce out of it.


There is the possibility of spamming Settlers, but I think that doing so kind of defeats the point of a good rush + recover game, particularly since we settled in-place in order to get the extra Hills square.

I would think that building Roads towards your captured AI Cities would be a wise idea, as would be razing Cities that don't have good Resources for you to use.


I picked Pottery as a placeholder tech, but the tech board is quite open to you right now... Writing for Open Borders, Pottery for Granaries (we're not building Cottages, remember... although apparently you can put some in the capital, if you want to do so), Mysticism for Monuments in captured Cities, Iron Working if we can't find Copper, or whatever tech you want, really.


They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, so here are another 2000 words:

Of course, I tend to put words in my pictures, too, so my pictures are worth more than 1000 words each!

 

[A_Hamster]

@DrWest

Spoiler :

No, Bootycall doesn't. JP1 provides LeaderheadInfo data here.

 

[Gwaja]

@500 AD:

Spoiler :

I realized that it was probably too time consuming and too risky to go for the jumbos to try and elephant & catapult rush. So I figured I would try a horse archer rush, which I have never done before. I have always used horse archers, if I ever build any, for picking off stragglers, especially catapults, as well as harassing enemy workers and pillaging enemy strategic resources. But I have never used them for the purpose to rush someone and as a primary city attacking force.

Because of this and probably due to many tactical errors, I did not get to amass large enough horse archers to rush Giggles until about 100 BC or so. Way too late I know... Giggles already had 7 cities, whereas I only had 3.

I wanted to make sure that I keep up in science in the meantime so I researched Writing first, built a couple of libraries to run scientists, sometimes running 2 of them while starving a little bit. After writing, I went straight to Horseback Riding, intending to use it a trade bait instead of my normal Aesthetics route.

I popped 2 Great Scientists. The first one I used him to bulb Mathematics to get more out of each chop. Prior to this, I made sure to use my existing workers to pre-chop forests all around my cities, so that I won't be settling for 20 instead of 30 with Mathematics. The second one I ended up using him to build the academy in the capital.

Spoiler :

I was also fortunate enough to be the first one to get Music. Huayna was the first one to get to Aesthetics, so I was afraid I will get beaten to it, but he elected to go for Drama instead of Music so I got it. I still have him with me, intending to use him for a Golden Age, but... that might have to change. I will explain later.

Spoiler :

Also I have a Great General as well after all those warring with Giggles. He is also sitting idle, waiting until I decide what to do with him.

I was also the first to get Currency during the war, but I was slow to get Code of Laws in time to start erecting courthouses. At this point, I am 3 turns away from it at 100% research slider, but even at 0% I am still losing 20 per turn. Not good!

Speaking of techs, here are some of the trade that I made with the AIs:

Spoiler :

Really, I tried to do my best not to crash my economy during the war, as well as to keep up in techs and make some money on the side as well. Getting Currency early paid off a lot.

Eventually Giggles was destroyed, with one of the cities autorazing due to its population being at 1, having been erected a few turns before the war was over.

Spoiler :

Empire at Glance (Large View):

Spoiler :

Empire at Closer View:

Spoiler :

I briefly mentioned the Great Artist moments ago. I wanted to use him for a Golden Age, but it seems that maybe I might have to use him to culture bomb. As you can see, I am being pressed heavily culturally from the Romans. If I continue playing further after this checkpoint, I think I will do just that.

I can get Code of Laws in 3 turns at 100% research slider, but I won't be able to keep that up for even 3 turns as I am losing a lot of . Open the save and see what I am talking about. I know that this was a failed attempt at early conquest. I did eliminate my intended target, but the result could have been so much better.

Asoka and Huayna are each running Buddhism and Hinduism, as they founded them, while all the others including me are Jewish.

Minor good thing to note is that my Great Library is only 7 turns from completion.

Hammy and Huayna are worst enemies, while Boudica considers Asoka her worst enemy. Nobody is plotting wars though.

Economy: Just absolutely horrible. I hope I can trade for Code of Laws or something really fast... I don't know how long I can hold on with this kind of economy. Notice that I put the science slider at 0% to show this very demoralizing situation with .

Spoiler :

Techs: I am not doing too bad here actually. With Music and Literature bagged, as well as Currency, I now only need to worry about Code of Laws and Civil Service for my immediate needs right now. Not cottaging any tile myself whatsoever hurt the economy quite a bit, but oh well.

Asoka has the monopoly in Code of Laws, so he is obviously not willing to trade it away just yet. I could get Metal Casting from a few AIs, as well as the desperate option to sell my techs to the AIs for amount of that could be a lot more than what they have available to give me.

Spoiler :

Now that I think about it, I think it was a mistake to self research Music when I could have gone for Code of Laws --> Civil Service instead. Getting a free Great Artist is nice and all, but what good does that do if my economy is in shambles?

I think I either need to replay from the start, or try to recover, or give up altogether. I don't really like going back to earlier turns for replay, because you play earlier turns with the knowledge you gain from having already played later turns. Perhaps I will give this exercise another go with a different map, but I think I will keep trying with Shaka regardless. I just like his traits and his ikhandas very much!

 

[lymond]

One note on Impi's and Spears for super medics. I don't recommend it. You'd be better off with a warrior or axe if going the melee approach. The reason is that Spears have high defense bonus against mounted and could run the risk of getting picked off as spears would be first to defend until at least Elies. Furthermore, if the plan to use melee to eventually get medicIIwoodyII, the woody promos are going to further increase the defense bonus of the spearman doc significantly. Although you obviously try to keep your medic well protected in the stack you always want it to have very low chance to defend.

If going the melee route, I try to get an early warrior up to woody II or III, which is not always easy. You could just build one and promote to medicIII off the bat and maybe add mobility if you need that at the moment or Leadership so he can pick off guys at 99% to get more promos like woody. I'll keep him as a warrior up to the point that I'm about to get more advanced units like mace in which case I will upgrade him to axe beforehand. AZ demo'd the axe as a medic which has value since you can protect it with other shock axes, but is still risky. Notice that he lost his quite early.

Personally, I've generally used a chariot for a supermedic. You can't get woodyIII, but it's pretty rare to get a medicIIIwoodyIII unit unless you luck out on your warrior barb fights and war a lot early. MedicIII is pretty darn helpful. The mobility of the chariot helps as well although you can add mobility promo to melee medics. I even add mobility to the chariot so it can escape if needed.

Some even recommend scout medics since they will never defend. I've never tried it since my scouts rarely survive and I don't bother building them.

 

[Gwaja]

Ah... thanks for that handy tip, lymond. ^_^

I've also gotten some tips from Sisiutil and others at the Condensed Tips for Beginners sticky thread about super medics as well. The impi was thought by me because of its mobility bonus, but an explorer is usually my favorite pick along with a warrior. One time I got lucky and got him to Woodsman 3, and he worked out beautifully as a medic.

Attaching save at 500 AD, right upon the destruction of Giggles. Oh how am I gonna get out of this economic mass? And not to mention cultural border pressure from India and Rome....

@west45,

Spoiler :

Your situation at 500 AD is so much much better than I am. I just finished the war with Giggles at 500 AD. Although I've been doing well with techs burning through the pillaged war money, I think I am now officially in economic trouble, not to mention culture trouble as well.

 

[huerfanista]

To 275AD:

Spoiler :

That plains tile N screams strat resource, so I settle on the plains hill 1W. Seafood absolutely sucks for an early rush, I'd much rather have the rice and some farms. Tech order is AH> wheel> mining> BW. Horses show up - Yay! The scout cirlces around clockwise, finding Boudi, Auggie, Ashoka, Giggles, and Hammi. I'm going for a chariot rush on Giggles - the PH start will really speed things up, and the cap has good production. Worker> warrior> ikhanda> worker> * chariots. Workers chop like mad and I throw in a couple of whips. By 1800BC I have a stack of 10 chariots on his borders, and I take his capital and his only other city with my initial stack. He only had 2 archers in his capital, so in 1720BC the Sumerian civilization has been destroyed. (Sorry for the lack of screenies - I got too caught up in the action).

My workers build a road to connect the new cities, and I settle the cow/seafood spot in between (almost due west of Ulundi). Libraries go up in all cities and scientists are run to get writing> HBR by 875BC. I turn the slider off while teching aesthetics - this will hopefully get me a bunch of stuff. Stable go in every city and HAs are chopped/whipped. I road to Boudi's 3 cities - she's next (scouting shows that she has no metals).

In 250BC I've got a dozen or so HAs on her borders, with more on the way. She falls very quickly, and in 50AD the Celtic civilizatin has been destroyed. I use my first GG to make a super-medic chariot and quickly heal up. Aesthietics comes in the same turn, and I trade it around for IW, alpha, math, masonry, and meditation.

In 175AD I DoW Rome with a stack of 18 HAs. I use a fork attack on his first 2 cities, pillaging his only metal (copper) on the 2nd turn and taking 2 cities on the 3rd turn:

I still have around 6 uninjured HAs, to I send them to Rome. It's only guarded by an axe and 2 archers, so it falls easily in 275AD:

It looks like he only has one city left, so it should be Goodnight Irene for Auggie very soon. I'm bleeding gold like mad, so I'll run scientists and build research everywhere to get to currency. Along with some more conquest gold, I should make it OK. I'm building the SoZ and Paya for failure gold.

 

[Gwaja]

@huerfanista,

Spoiler :

Your economic situation is just as bad as mine, but at least you managed to knock out THREE of your neighbors while I only knocked out just Giggles.. and you managed to do this even before I did. Simply amazing. I would never have the guts to do a chariot rush against protective archers, but what do I know...

I am also trying to see what I can do with my economy as well. I do have Sailing and Currency, but lack Code of Laws. I want to see if there is something I can do to get my economy back on track, not to mention the cultural border pressure from Auggie's cities.

My last update post was edited with more images and a bit more details, so if any of you have read that earlier, be sure to check it out again.

 

[GKey]

I actually read a few game write ups from a couple of years back... someone attempting to play a game with absolutely no cottages whatsoever on Emperor and Immortal... and he actually won both games quite handily too....

I am quite sure you meant this thread by Mutineer with some legendary players involved.
It was first thread, I've read after arrival at civfanatics and it made stunning impression on me then.

 

[Mylene]

Uh...erm...yip...those guys played on Emperor with a fish/wet corn/gems capital
+ lots of calendar ressources and more gems/gold, you don't need cottages on Chieftain either, to say it in a blunt way.

 

[huerfanista]

@gwaja

Spoiler :

The only way to take on PRO archers with chariots is to either hit very early or bring a ton of units (and risk them have metals hooked up). It's almost impossible to to do a very early rush (meaning attacking a century or 2 before 1500BC) with a seafood start - it just takes too long to hook up the workboats and get your workers out. That's why I settled on the plains hill. If you can get there around 1700BC the emperor AI usually won't have more than 2 cities, sometimes 3, so it's managable. Almost always hit the capital first so remove most of their production potential.

I've played on to around 1000AD, currently researching liberalism, none of the AIs even has paper yet, so I guess that qualifies as recovering the economy. I used libraries + scientists to get to aesth, traded for alpha (and a bunch of ther stuff), built research everywhere to get to currency, built wealth to get to CoL, build CHs, and voila. I also captured some barb cities for the push on currency.

I built the GLib in Rome, and ended up completing the SoZ and SPaya - I deceided they'd be more use to me than the failure gold, since my econ was largely recovered at that point. I built the Paya and SoZ in border cities to help with the culture battles. Unfortunately, I forgot to head to music after Lit (going for CS instead), so it looks like Hammi will end up building Sistine and I'll have some culture fights on my hands.

Plan is to take Nat from lib, head to MilTrad/GP and build cuirs, then upgrade to cavalry at rifling and sweep the continent. We'll see.

 

[GKey]

@Mylene: Yeah, looks not that impressive today, but then it made complete revolution in my head.

 

[vicawoo]

You can chariot rush protective leaders, though you have to cut more corners than usual. As usual, try to have only 2-3 archers in the enemy capital. You can also try to bait an archer into killing a warrior or worker.

Seafood starts are hard, you probably can't afford to build more than 1.

 

[Gwaja]

I am quite sure you meant this thread by Mutineer with some legendary players involved.
It was first thread, I've read after arrival at civfanatics and it made stunning impression on me then.

@Mylene: Yeah, looks not that impressive today, but then it made complete revolution in my head.

That is one of the threads indeed. Quite impressive really, especially for me who believe a lot in cottaging, although I don't spam them all over the place.

Uh...erm...yip...those guys played on Emperor with a fish/wet corn/gems capital
+ lots of calendar ressources and more gems/gold, you don't need cottages on Chieftain either, to say it in a blunt way.

I am not sure if the maps that were played were doctored or taken a look at before starting the game, but it was still interesting and fresh take nonetheless.

You can chariot rush protective leaders, though you have to cut more corners than usual. As usual, try to have only 2-3 archers in the enemy capital. You can also try to bait an archer into killing a warrior or worker.

Seafood starts are hard, you probably can't afford to build more than 1.

Baiting an archer sounds like a good plan. I didn't think about that really. As for the seafood start, you are right. If I were to want to start hooking them up ASAP, it saps a lot of early turns indeed. Another thing to think about I suppose.

@huerfanista

Spoiler :

I will keep that date in mind. It is obvious that earlier the better on chariot rushes especially against protective archers. Maybe Hatty/Rammy or Cyrus/Darius might get away with a slightly later rushes with their respective unique units, but that is a special exception rather than the rule. And just like vicawoo stated, you are also pointing out the downside of early rushes with seafood start. I have learned a valuable lesson here.

It looks like your game is already in the bag. Very impressive that you were able to recover your economy and have only to worry about culture pressure from the AIs. Given that you took out the 2 more militaristic leaders in Boudica and Giggles, as well as Auggie, it looks like you probably won't have to worry about a lot of aggression from AIs towards you. You will probably only have to worry about someone trying to sneak out a culture victory or turtling to space.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Up Until Turn 174 (1140 AD) Part 1
Note that Part 2 will be in my next message, due to limitations on the number of screenshots that you can upload and attach to a single message.

Spoiler :

Well, no one else seemed to be obviously playing from my ready-to-pump Chariots saved game that I had set up, so I played it out.

Here we see a war of opportunity for grabbing 2 Workers. I did not take any of Augustus' Cities at this time, as my economy would not have withstood taking on a second City at this point in time, considering that I was planning to constantly spam Chariots for some time to come.

I decided that it wasn't worth waiting around to finish off Augustus right away since he was near to our capital and since I'd grabbed two of his Workers--better that he control the Copper than another AI that refounds this City (it would have auto-razed at City Size 1), particularly since he is not Creative and thus won't get it in his borders for a while, nor did he found an early Religion. Plus, without his 2 Workers, he'll be weak for a while anyway.

Next we have a war of opportunity for razing a City. I actually saw this opportunity with a single Chariot but waited for a few turns until I was able to get 3 Chariots within 1-turn-worth of striking distance. Even a Protective Civ's lone Archer shouldn't stand up to an assault of 3 Combat I Chariots... and if such a thing did happen, I would have 2 Chariots prepared to attack again on the next turn, should Gilgamesh have been unable to reinforce the City with a second Archer by then.

Gilgamesh's capital is too well defended for our small army, so I simply proceed to Pillage his lands while his Workers hide in terror.

Moving on, we catch Hammurabi with his pants completely down.

For whatever reason, he did not whip a 3rd Archer in his capital, so my "just in case he is too dumb to whip" pile of 5 Chariots decided to attack... had there been a third Archer (err, Bowman... but same difference to Chariots since Bowmen get an Anti-Melee bonus, not an Anti-Chariot bonus), I would have just pillaged his lands. But, he made things altogether too easy for me and I razed his capital.

The edge of these Cultural Borders were visible, so my surviving Chariots encircled the City for the kill.

One down, five to go...

Gilgamesh had been busy rebuilding his improvements, so my Chariots got busy making us some more money!

Huayna was a goofball, too, leaving his Cities relatively undefended. However, he did have access to a Mined Resource (which makes it Iron, since we know Bronze Working), so we'll find out in the next message what he did with it and how badly it was used to decimate my Chariot stacks.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Up Until Turn 174 (1140 AD) Part 2

Spoiler :

As it turned out, I was initially too busy Pillaging Cottages to notice Huayna's obvious Iron Mine (a mine on a flatland Plains square that didn't have a Resource bubble), so Huayna had the opportunity to use his Iron for a couple of turns.

However, he failed to build a Spearman. If I recall correctly, he built a Swordsman, but my forces from the south, north, and those dudes to the east that are wasting time Pillaging Cottages instead of Pillaging the Iron Mine all joined up and attacked Huayna's capital. It was defended with 2 Archers + 1 other Iron-based defender (I'm pretty sure that it was a Swordsman). Holy City Shmoly City--it got razed along with the others.

India HAD connected-up their Horse Resource and Iron, but had no Spearmen... during my first war with them, I saw an Axeman, a Swordsman, and a Chariot, as well as a few Archers. Asoka's first two Cities fell, after which I Pillaged his Horse Resource (which was still within his capital's Cultural Borders, even though I'd razed the City that could work said Horse). I also Pillaged all of his Mines that were connected... you can see that I ignored the Mine to the south of his Horse Resource, since, if it did contain Iron, it wouldn't have been connected to Asoka's Trade Network and thus would at best have been a second source of Iron, but would still not have been of use for building units.

I sued for peace while my Chariots healed-up and while reinforcements arrived. As you can see from the screenshot below, I actually had quite a large stack of Chariots at that point, thanks to ignoring all of the other AIs for a while... I really wanted to kill off all of the farther-away AIs, so that future attacks could be focused on spamming units, accomplishing goals at the cost of many units (and thus saving on Maintenance Costs due to units dying quickly), followed by getting the next set of units into the action that much quicker.

Asoka managed to rebuild another City to the south before I captured Delhi. He also managed to bring in a Chariot from out of nowhere to take out one of my southern-approaching Chariots, but the City fell the next turn, eliminating his Chariot by default, hehe.

Oh yeah, I razed his Cities. Great Wall? Scotland Yard? Buddhist Holy City without a Shrine? Who needs those?

While I was busy with Gandhi, Copper had popped at some point... I only noticed when I looked in one of my Cities and was happy to see that I could finally build Impis. I thought that I'd perhaps managed to connect-up Augustus' source of Copper (I'd captured his Copper City earlier. Perhaps I took that City during the 10-turn Peace Treaty with Asoka that I used for grabbing Mysticism and another cheap tech while also regrouping my forces). As it turned out, Augustus' Cultural Borders still controlled his Copper square... which was still un-roaded and un-mined... so I only got Copper access due to the Mine popping it. Chariots were still working out fine anyway, but it was neat to actually be able to build Shaka's Unique Unit.

Okay, here is where that screenshot went--the one of Asoka being eliminated.

As my western Chariot army returned eastward, it took out one of Gilgamesh's Cities and well as a ton of his Workers that weren't expecting me to use the Roads that were previously within his Cultural Borders in order to capture a ton of said Workers!

It looks like he was trying to get his Horse Resource connected, but didn't manage to do so.

There's yet another source of Copper. I think that getting a source of Gems or Silver would have been far preferable, but I'll take the extra 2 Hammers with a smile, thank you very much!

Sometime thereafter, I finished off Gilgamesh, then focused my attention on Boudica.

I foolishly allowed Augustus to build The Oracle, which he used to grab Feudalism. Oh well, I'll take him down eventually.

I forked three of Boudica's Cities, two at a time, alternatingly, until she would leave one of them lightly-enough defended for me to take it down. Here, you see me razing the second of those three Cities, with the third one being her capital.

Getting a Gallic Warrior made her confident, so she first sent out an Axeman + Spearman combo that I ignored, followed by sending out her Gallic Warrior. It was time to strike! Thanks to an amphibiously-landed 7-experience-point freshly-build Catapult (Barracks plus 2 settled Great Generals), I was able to take her capital without losses... two Catapults retreated and the rest of her 3 defenders were easily eaten-up.

After that point, I went to bed, hoping to continue the game in the morning, only to find that the power had gone out overnight. So, I only have the autosave before the attack. Oh well, if I play on, at best, I'll play no better (losing 0 units) or at worst, I'll play a bit worse and might lose a unit or two assaulting the City--if that second siutation happens, I'll just accept it instead of trying to reload until I get my previous good results in that battle--a couple of more unit losses for capturing a capital will be a worthy sacrifice.

I kept this City (and will keep it again if I continue playing the game) due to it having The Great Lighthouse. It also happened to have a nice settled Great Prophet.

Augustus will take some work, but Boudica is willing to give a TON of expensive techs for Peace... so, I'll probably raze or capture one of her two remaining Cities, take Peace for techs, then focus on Augustus. 1-on-1, I should be able to tactically beat him, even if he does have good City defenders. Of course, I have Ivory, so if I get a great Peace deal from Boudica, Augustus will be begging for mercy soon enough.

I've also kept a reasonably-large Pillaging party near Augustus' Iron, since he did manage to get his Iron connected briefly and I don't want to see that situation happen again. He hasn't bothered to try and connect his Copper since it is techincally within my big fat cross (even though it's still within his Cultural Borders), since he (rightfully) feels that it would not be safe to send his Workers there.

Augustus did raze a newly-founded City of mine that I'd built for Cow + Dyes next to his Cultural Borders, but I didn't really need the City and I can always rebuild it if I really want it badly enough.

5 turns of City Revolt should be plenty of time for me to be able to Pillage all of Boudica's Cottages. So far, I have not built or worked a single Cottage the entire game, keeping to the original theme of this thread.

 

[huerfanista]

@vranasm [EDIT: oops, I mean @gwaja - thanks Dhoom! ]

Spoiler :

It looks like your game is already in the bag. Very impressive that you were able to recover your economy and have only to worry about culture pressure from the AIs. Given that you took out the 2 more militaristic leaders in Boudica and Giggles, as well as Auggie, it looks like you probably won't have to worry about a lot of aggression from AIs towards you. You will probably only have to worry about someone trying to sneak out a culture victory or turtling to space.

Actually, I don't think I have to worry about any of those AI victory conditions - I should be able to easily sweep the map with cavalry. Even their cultural pressure isn't much of an issue - I've built wonders in border cities which are doing a good job holding them back.