From Zee Immortal Meatgrinder

[God of Kings]

It sounds interesting. Perhaps you can borrow my name for one of your units. It would be interesting for one of your units to be a "God of Kings."

 

[smallfish]

It sounds interesting. Perhaps you can borrow my name for one of your units. It would be interesting for one of your units to be a "God of Kings."

Certainly


For now, let's ramble about how much units one could conceivably rushbuy with this amount of gold

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That's easily at least 10 Bombers and Fighters (evenly split?) or 10 Battleships. Yeah, not something much easy to push through, now is it... I mean, now that I think of it, there has got to be a limit somewhere. Strategic resources is one such, and I can see pillaging enemy resources before massive attacks to be a bigger priority. Then there are those CS allies giving him double quantities of their own strategic resources... an interesting conundrum to solve.


And now, back to our regular (if short) schedule.

Emperor Gustavus, pot meets kettle

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We took our sweet time to denounce good ole Kammy, but what could he do? He had very little in the way of production cities left

And we were, again, first

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The entire world was revealed by the first batch of Incan satellites in 1884 AD, and look at the Swedes! Pound for pound, close to us in size, and with infinitely more city-states ringing him.

Fascist city-states, or puppets to Vasa

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With the amount of oil in Bismarck's disposal, its conceivable he could have Panzers. The fighting for Frankfurt looked tough with all those city-states and Swedish forces surrounding it

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Maybe they had no panzers

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A look at our Social Policy trees:

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We looked over the diplomacy screen. Sweden had 2 CS allies, a ton of gold, had just entered the Atomic Era... while Kamehameha had 7 CS allies, a ton of gold and was close to Information himself...

Logical conclusion dictated that they had to go to war with each other, so we paid Emperor Gustavus off. It seems Emperor Gustavus was extremely receptive, if hostile, towards monetary payments leading towards all-out warfare

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One of our brand new carriers... (the other one was a converted Polynesian)

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What the Swedes had and were building in the grim darkness of Stockholm:

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With the help of 2 GEs, one rushbought with our faith, we completed two critical wonders of the Industrial-Information eras

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Also began upgrading our cannonae:

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Beleaguered Germany holding out for dear life against Emperor Gustavus and his Carolean Infantries (not shown).

They will not last long

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But Polynesian "Socialist" allies manage to coup a victory against the distracted Swedes - by taking one of their "capital city" conquests

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Poor Carthage could never catch a break. First they were beset by Germans and the Swedes and possibly the French. Then the Germans smashed them to oblivion, that their quinqueremes may exist only in the Berlin National Museum for triumphant display. Then it went into Swedish hands when Gustavus declared war on all of Europe

And now it belonged to Florence.

Poor Carthaginians...

We shall perhaps... liberate them then

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[Heerlo]

That was quite the war with Polynesia.

And I am finally a missile artillery.

 

[strijder20]

Hmm, now what could you possible do with advanced ballistics

 

[Gucumatz]

^

Make greeting cards?

I don't can't think of anything better to do with ballistics.

 

[smallfish]

Sorry for late update, chaps. Been busy with work and stuff, and just tired...

That was quite the war with Polynesia.

And I am finally a missile artillery.

Aye, it'd be much tougher if he could annex his puppets and rushbuy more stuff methinks.

But we will see how this new patch comes about... only thing now is the wait.

Hmm, now what could you possible do with advanced ballistics

^

Make greeting cards?

I don't can't think of anything better to do with ballistics.

Well, there is... um... Spaceship Science Victory?


But, let us move over to Ollantaytambo... where we are gathering all our ex-cannonae and some other stuff

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The world's first SS Cockpit:

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In light of Inkan Orbital Superiority, we then told Gustavus not to settle near us, and as expected, they did not take it well. "Unacceptable, I AM A SOVEREIGN RULER!" he yelled, or some such. We did not take this offense lightly, or his continued aggression against our comrade friend Germany

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The shifting of forces was more than just here at Ollantaytambo... the battleships stationed around Honolulu were pressed eastwards as well

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1906 AD - The Inka, digging through archival material and utilizing resources and scientists captured from the Great Polynesian War, finally masters the secrets to splitting the atom on an industrial scale

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A nameless ironclad...

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The Swedes were stunned and furious... realizing their strategic inferiority to the Inkan Socialist Union of Huaraca, they pushed their peoples harder, forcing entire populaces of Carthaginians, French and Germans to toil ceaselessly at their own Manhattan

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We knew all this, of course... and Gustavus' more blatant attempts at catching up

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"Your wanton aggression against the Peace-loving workers of Germany can no longer be ignored, and this spying incident leaves us no choice.

Prepare for war!"

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[smallfish]

It was unfortunate there was no gold to be demanded from the Hong Kong(nese) right before the Final War for Global Supremacy (tm)

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Our social policies currently... despite being at war, Great Pachacuti, comrade peer to the (Inkan) People and Definitely More Equal Than You, agrees that the Union should eventually develop into a Republic to boost productivity in its industries.

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The taking of Hong Kong... with another nameless ironclad

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With that, it allowed us to enact our first foothold on Swedish Europe, the other one being planned much further north...

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Here.

And no uraniums for you too!

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Having an ironclad in place paid off massively, after much softening by our carrier air groups

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Then our main forces arrived... and of course, a special present(s) for the father of modern warfare

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1913 AD - World's first atomic bomb dropped on Stockholm

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The Swedes were quick to make peace with the Polynesians and finally our German comrades.

They had finally realized the depths of their strategic... limitations.

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But Polynesians and Germans were refusing to make up

Near Honolulu, a Polynesian frigate was stumbled upon by a German ironclad and a skirmish ensued

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Preparing to take down Swedish Paris, where Chichen Itza and Notre Dame lay

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But we weren't ready to conduct any offensive penetrations of Swedish heartland... so it was more special presents.

A really big one.

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A show of white flag was finally given, but Inkan forces simply shot down the peace feelers upon reaching their lines

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Meanwhile, the skirmish between frigate and ironclad finally ended...

Predictably

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More special presents!

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This was Gods of Kings cameo, and though we feel "Dee Ark" would suit him better, it was much better that we named him after someone far more grandiose

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The taking of Paris, a huge boost to much needed happiness

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Then the time to push into fascist lands came... and it started with an air assault.

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One of our many SAMs being sent over to Europe:

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The race to cut the snake's head before it got Manhattan was on, and this time we struck it with an heavy artillery-supported...

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Infantry push

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The Swedes realizing the global superiority of Inkan Socialism, will now surrender everything and the kitchen sink?

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For some reason (deal breaker), they didn't... but it didn't stop us. So Great Pachacuti then also warned the world that Gustavus and his Vasa ilk were never to be trusted

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Ever.

 

[Heerlo]

The Swedes are finally getting what was coming to them...

 

[smallfish]

The Swedes are finally getting what was coming to them...

Yes, I am a horrible communist thing, but that +1 happiness per city and 25% science per factory are just too good!

I do promise will try Freedom in future games, especially if America is involved. Haven't really tried Freedom warmongering on Immortal level, now come to think of it...

Also now this will be in limbo (its ended!) unless I want to do a scenario or do something fun or do another late era start or something something... hmm...

 

[Heerlo]

It's your game;whatever you want to do.You always seem to make good stories.

 

[Mike III]

Yes, I am a horrible communist thing, but that +1 happiness per city and 25% science per factory are just too good!

I do promise will try Freedom in future games, especially if America is involved. Haven't really tried Freedom warmongering on Immortal level, now come to think of it...

Also now this will be in limbo (its ended!) unless I want to do a scenario or do something fun or do another late era start or something something... hmm...

communism is good. i have it. think of yourself as a good communist leader who invests in education and production as well as economy, insteas of a blood thirsty tyrants who works people to death.

 

[smallfish]

It's your game;whatever you want to do.You always seem to make good stories.

Aw, shucks.

communism is good. i have it. think of yourself as a good communist leader who invests in education and production as well as economy, insteas of a blood thirsty tyrants who works people to death.

I'm not sure about GOOD communist leaders... but I do try to not starve (read: forced labor) my cities when doing something like wonderspamming or building stuff, and if that happens, I will quickly remedy it so the city will still be healthy (if stagnant).


For now, though, because perhaps the Patch is drawing to a close, let us enjoy ourselves a dose of Multiplayer Shenanigans instead of soon-to-be-obsolete AI.

This one was a curious game - the fellow who was playing this massive top dog had conquered his own neighbor the Romans, spammed so many cities to get at his other opposition on this "Pangaea Continents" and was tearing at this really tough target (in a good way - this top dog was also top lead from Literacy to Military)... when he inexplicably quit.

So yours truly was milling about for some online games... actually one game I was in had crashed and couldn't re-join it for some reason, so I asked around and eventually got this game instead. My job was to dig Japan out of this massive mountain fortress of his... and it was truly a massive mountain range, easily something Carthage would have loved starting in (the only entrances are two really narrow chokepoints to the southwest-west of Kyoto, ditto the northeast-east).

The first thing I noticed though - aside from poor puppet control, the ridiculously long supply line and the lack of cannonae upgrades (he was still using Trebuchets when he had finished Chemistry!), was that he had two Great Generals milling around, and so I changed that by turning them into citadels straight into the main narrow chokepoint towards Japan.

Then with a hefty upgrade of siege engines to cannonae, and some really aggressive push with all my forces at hand, Osaka was struck

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See that citadel right above Osaka? He had a muksetman pillage it the first time I laid it, so I had to clear it out with my Knights (1 knight hits, retreats, then another knight hits, retreats, vice versa - done with 4 knights or so) before moving everyone and a worker in (down south - a cannonae and two knights - he wasted his crossbowman's effort by taking shots at them when they were embarked in waters)

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As it was, it turns out that the Siamese were also at war with him - they managed to take another city of his up north, but then trying to break into Kyoto was like... trying to climb up Mordor in a pogo stick. This fellow had a really good start.

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He also happened to have Himeji AND then the Kremlin, and he was rushing towards Flight... so I figured I had to wait all my massed forces and get some more stuff from the front. Annexed Tokyo (the only city the previous Hunnic player took from Japan before he quit) and eventually Osaka (the only religious city close by...) to get more stuff.

The Siege of Kyoto was a long and tedious affair

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At one point we even tried to directly affect his science by pillaging that Academy to the northwest, but it was for naught when he got a musketman with worker to repair it.

So I had to resort to even more drastic measures:

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And of course, the time of the boom guns was at hand.

I said before that I also annexed Osaka... why? Because I took Autocracy some turns before, had hit 700 faith a turn before Dynamite and so rushbought a Great General to front my coming assault on Kyoto

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"won't save you" was the defiant answer to his long-time nemesis, the Huns, the Conqueror of Rome (Rome with the Great Wall, apparently), and he responded to this immediate steal of land by stealing it back with his own citadel

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We had to pillage BOTH citadels, but the damages were done. It was literally a race to see whether we could take Kyoto before his other GG laid down another disastrous citadel. That Great General was from Brandenburg Gate, so I knew what he was really planning, and I figured even with his deteriorated condition, he still had CS allies and there must be oil in one or all of them...

All my units were immediately fronted against Kyoto - it was truly now or never

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And though the odds were initially grim, another pounding of artillery (with siege promotion - again, why he never built any barracks/armories in his production cities we would never understand) and a quick rush of lancer/cavs...

That was that.

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Truly that.

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[smallfish]

Hoookay, you know what? I'm feeling really inspired with that multiplayer game, so much so that I've decided to go for something similar with some ole fashioned AIs...

So let's do an Industrial start. As the Huns.

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A curious start, but that's what happens when we disabled Start Bias (and put Raging Barbs... not much Barbs to be had, however)

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With all the woods and coasts, we thought we might have started off on a lonely island, and at this point if we were going to play on a lonely island, we might as well have re-rolled the map.

Then we met our neighbor...

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Never really seen him take Autocracy before... usually its plain ole Order. I guess this must be what Random Personalities and Domination-only does?

Also, as usual, AIs on Domination mode will rather conquer CS than befriend them.

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We expected the Malaysians to hold off the Romans, with what their incredibly lopsided poor terrain helping them.

Apparently not.

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So upon further scouting with our musketmen, we eventually came to the conclusion that we were stuck on a lonely continent with the Autocratic Regime of Rome... and of course, those (potentially friendly) City-States.

And him... the Khan.

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Well, maybe not.

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Having only 3 cities was not going to cut it. We also had no iron, and since the Romans were spotted milling about with frigates, something had to be done to alter this unfavorable strategic balance.

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The Khan and I were friendly... we both took Autocracy, and he had informed us of Terrible Augustus's plans for world domination. Those are huge diplomatic boosts in my eyes, and speaking of the Roman Tyrant...

We tried to make friends with him. "I must declined," he waved the offer down, wearily perhaps.

So we had no choice but to inform him that his recent settling of lands close to our borders was putting a massive strain on relations between our two empires.

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This was all followed with a denouncement, and the very next turn he denounced us too! All this was perhaps to be made irrelevant since we managed to bag

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Nope, not much of a deterrence to his ridiculous military.

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It was only 7 more turns before we hit Dynamite... we had already massed enough cannonae in Malaca to make a counteroffensive a reality, with the dream of eventually breaking through the mountain barriers seperating Attila from Rome.

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To be honest, at this point, I could read the AI like a book. If they denounce you and then go Neutral immediately, unless the geostrategic situation changes, it means that you can expect a sneak attack within 10 turns or so.

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But like with all massive sneak attacks in history, it was quite painful.

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Still we figured we'll manage to hold onto most of our forces around Malaca intact... was building a ton of stuff from all my other 3 cities to shift west.

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At this point, I figured perhaps the AI had learned about my personal favorite move of fronting all my big guns for a massive push on a target city...

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Well, not really. They just could not ignore all the stuff I had emplaced around Malaca... its like a worker bait, except you are gambling with the fate of your own forces.

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And it was getting really costly.

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Perhaps the advent of Artillery would help shake things up... but nope, one of their Knights just played rampage.

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Guess they really don't care about their own units, so long as they maintain that exchange ratio in favor of them.

But it seems an opening in Rome's defenses had been found, and with our firm grasp of the Malaca Bulge, it was the time of the counterattack.

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[smallfish]

This was something slow and perhaps tedious - no roads were being built yet, and there were plenty of hills in the way to slow our stream of reinforcements.

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Someone once said that sea and ocean travel in CiV was very fast, and I would have to agree. Once I got three big guns pointed at KL, we began pounding the Romans and got a Privateer to smash in to liberate the Malaysians.

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Romans were understandably miffed... attempted counterattack with Frigates and embarked riflemen, and massing ground forces on their side of the mountain range

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One of our musketmen coming back from a long journey across the oceans... actually from exploring the uncharted wilderness of Mongolia. We needed some riflemen templates ready for action double quick...

The Romans attempted to interdict, perhaps also showing their hand of an amphibious attempt on us with this embarked gatling.

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Well, not so surprised was this. Genghis is a pretty science-y fellow, despite his warmonger personality.

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Attempts to keep the Seas of Malacca clear for safe passage of all Hunnic movements and friendlies was a bit tough. The Romans went full Autocracy, hence their stocks of iron got doubled up and they could afford to push out so many Frigates.

Only good thing was that they didn't seem to have coal for Ironclads.

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More meatgrinder stuff - the latest attempt by the Romans to push in a recon unit was utterly annihilated.

(partially shown: massive buildup of naval and ground forces for an invasion of Italy)

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But then, near Istakhr, we spotted some Carthaginian frigates prowling south...

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Oh

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Why do they always say that, presuming the (human) player even trusts them in first place? Are they so full in their own hubris, stocked to the brim with much pride and dignity that their eventual fall will be oh so great?

(and Istakhr is our Kremlin city btw)

So we paid off President Harald Bluetooth to plunge Denmark into war against Carthage.

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And the very next turn, as we begin our counterattack against the lands of Rome proper, the Chinese denounced them. Yes, this is all very sudden, we met everyone else in the world during our current war with Rome and they are not getting much spotlight because this is about us tearing Rome to pieces.

Bloody chunks and bits of pepperoni (mmm, pizza)

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Not shown: making friends with the Spanish and the Chinese

Shown: Augustus entering Modern era, making our attempt to punch his lands with frigates all the more... painful?

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And here's the rather anti-climatic end of the Hunnic-Carthaginian War. Their frigates were apparently too frightened of my Kremlin city with 85 str (and frigate support), and I could make that even go higher with some rushbuying.

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We are also pretty sure its the first of... perhaps two? three? Only the future can tell.

But the future says that Rome's lifespan is now measured in a dozen turns or so.

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They tried countering this by pushing most of their stuff across the mountains. Positioned artillery and gatling annihilated them all.

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Meanwhile, the invasion of Antium was chugging along slowly. Even having +1 frigates was not helping when the opposition had Modern era defenses

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Us losing units, including a GG up north because I figured to let it out in the open and there really were no units in sight

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Pounding Antium to dust... why they didn't upgrade their lonely rifleman was beyond me.

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And thusly, the city was ours

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[Heerlo]

Looks like the Huns are coming back for Rome.

 

[smallfish]

Looks like the Huns are coming back for Rome.

Indeed Cho, we wondered about Roman ability to fight tooth and nail, but found it sort of lacking...


Our foes had no lack of talented men at their disposal, however

But why he would flee from Chinese Democracy all the way to the warmongering regime of Rome I would not know.

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Augustus was... an interesting fool, but he knew the writing was on the wall and so this came up when we approached him.

Rather tempting but it was not unconditional surrender.

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Yeah, this explains it.

(and also a look at the sorry state of Hunnic society, so focused on warmongering as they are)

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Roman units began adopting a type of fatalistic fanaticism that have characterised desperate armies and losing nations in another world.

Like attempting to attack our navy... with ground units. Embarked.

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Unfortunately for them, sheer willpower will not beat industrial output, an advantage that they threw away early on.

And also, Dido randomly picking targets other than her own continent.

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As we slowly positioned ourselves to take Rome, news came in that the Danes have declared war on Spain by themselves. Coincidentally, Spain was also our friend and I'm sure this has nothing to do with anything

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In his final, perhaps mentally-deteriorated, state, of self-destruction, Augustus publicly denounces Spain for very little reason perhaps other than "she is going to get crushed". We conjecture this was an attempt to attract someone else's attention to our little war, and that they might take Rome's side... but this is all pure conjecture, of course.

Also note the coming of top-of-the-line Roman units to the front...

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Us becoming friends with Genghis, this might be a problem

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Pounding Rome with artillery guns and full frontal of all melee units at hand, while our navy took care of that special problem to the rear.

A good thing the Romans didn't seem willing to get as much Infantry as possible, because that would have sucked most of our artillery's attentions, and thereby slowdown our progress.

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Then we took Rome, nothing of note in there other than being a capital

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At this point we also began pushing all our units from the other side of the mountains, to complete a shaky encirclement that could backfire if Romans spammed out Infantry by dozens.

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I'm glad we can agree that the Romans are a problem for the entire world, and not just because they are about to get crushed out of the game or anything

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Romans decided that my northern push was to be dealt a higher priority instead of the southern one.

Fair enough, not much of a choice they have anyways

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They even attempted to bushwhack my big gun there, but this would be the point where Wagnerian opera starts playing as an empire crumbles into dust

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It was really sad having to see his expression as he was carried away to his execution:

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Then we just upped and denounced Carthage, and our two friends in the world agreed that it was the right move to do

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Perhaps we shall head there next... Fair Carthage

 

[Heerlo]

The Romans were supposed to destroy Carthage, and then you destroy them!This didn't go right!

Just kidding.Nice job.

 

[strijder20]

Thanks to your stories, I've dared to take on Immortal for the second time. And while things aren't exactly rosey (at war with strongest opponent, and one of my core cities got razed by a damn city state with infantry - so much for neglecting rifling), I might actually win this.

 

[smallfish]

The Romans were supposed to destroy Carthage, and then you destroy them!This didn't go right!

Just kidding.Nice job.

Ah yes, that legendary game. Someday I will come back to it... or given the imminent patch, maybe not.

Hence this game.

Thanks to your stories, I've dared to take on Immortal for the second time. And while things aren't exactly rosey (at war with strongest opponent, and one of my core cities got razed by a damn city state with infantry - so much for neglecting rifling), I might actually win this.

Your welcome, strijder. I'm glad to hear my stuff can still help inspire folks like you to try Immortal level and perhaps go way beyond too!

(and since this is presumably Vanilla, go run wild with Stealth Bombers! )



But for now, a lot of things - both ill and fortune - have happened, and its time the curtains unveiled on what had been unleashed. Some temporary fixes were required for our heavy fleet elements, like this flagship here. There's a lot of stuff in need of clean-up and of course the creation of a supply link between the Italian territories and Hunnic Homelands proper.

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The Second World War Roman War had been a massive drain on Hunnic industry, such that it was way behind in Literacy and everyone else in terms of military ranking. As certain uncharitable commentators noted, our military forces were apparently not enough to stem the Raging Barbarians...

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Then both Carthage and Persia took the opportunity to declare war on Spain, our only erstwhile ally on that mini-Pangaea.

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Carthaginian intentions were obvious... they were trying to ICS their way across this already crowded continent, and if they could run over the Spainairds to increase their ranking, that would be so much the sweeter.

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The Mongols also began overclimbing me in terms of sheer score by spamming their own cities. So long as they remained close to their own little island, we would not mind.

For now.

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Not much I can do against them for now - frigates against Atomic Cities will be the death of my navy.

1912 AD - China completes the Manhattan Project

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Then we go ourselves Electronics, and with that we began upgrading most of our essential frigates. Our own Brandenburg city began pumping out carriers and bombers as well...

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I guess ya'll can now guess what I have in mind for next target.

Carthage was too far away... and the closest fellow had also completed an essential happiness wonder: the Eiffel Tower

And he was busy pumping out submarines

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But while we were busy thinking of what to do, a Chinese fleet was spotted milling about Turfan. We figured then that Wu Zetian might have war in mind with Genghis Khan...

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Then it inexplicably veered north.

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Towards us.

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Remember what I said about the worst kind of DOWs coming from those "friendly" civs you have just met, and not "neutrals" who have denounced you several turns ago?

Well, this is one of them

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That's my Brandenburg City, by the way, if I haven't stated it before. An extremely lucrative price, and probably why the Chinese wanted it instead of say... the Kremlin Istakhr.

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However, I'm not entirely sure what they could do other than being an annoyance. This is what I hate the Battleship/Ironclad nerfs in the upcoming patch - the AI can't do anything with their navies for their lives, and you want to dumb down their firepower even less?

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Wooden ships against cold hard iron - there was really no competition, and it got even uglier for whatever stragglers that managed to land

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Meanwhile, while the cream of the Chinese navy was dying in droves off the shores of Hunland, Carthage was making inroads into Spain. We sold as much aluminium as we could to Isabella, but even that may not be enough to stem the communist hordes...

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Yep, the Carthaginian Red Army continued rolling south to meet the Danish democrats

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Before we could react... the Federated Republics of Great Spain was gone, subdued between the Danes and... the communists

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The communists then showed their true intentions by declaring war (for a lump sum of gold) on Chinese Democracy, and we figured this might led to a massive nukefest or something equally entertaining.

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But our fleet was untouched, and it was massive.

This should be something all AIs on King onwards should aspire to in the form of naval invasions, not half-arsed driblets of wooden and iron ships.

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We denounced the Khan and his warmongering ilk not long after we paid them off to declare war on China

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And then The Longest Day began

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[smallfish]

The power of Total War is sadly underestimated by a lot of folks. 20% attack bonus, even for only 30 turns, is extremely useful when it comes to conversions...

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I can understand why Honor is looked down upon, even though Military Tradition would speed experience farming up for a lot of your "key" units to gain Logistics and +1 range fast, but everything about Autocracy is just plain good for total warmongering. Need happiness? Annex puppet and get a courthouse asap and enjoy double boost of smiley faces. Money issue? No problem, your maintenance fee has a 33% discount, go throw in more stuff. You need something of an edge, even if temporary, plus production boostage for all military stuff? Total War is your answer to Ethiopia! And finally Fascism - you can spam so many Battleships, so many Airplanes, so many Rocket Artilleries, so many Nukes... the list goes on.

Mongols were viciously huge through Autocracy, and superior in technology. Had far more advanced units than what the Romans could have dreamed of fielding.

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We took Samarqand as the first step instead of Turfan, to cover the fleet's right flank

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Even landed in an GW Infantry to cover the ground approaches to the city itself

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At the same time, another GW Infantry was to act as fire bait for Turfan's many garrisons

We remembered our Ethiopian game where an Austrian gatling gun (or was it Machine Gun?) chopped up our embarked artillery as it headed for their coastal city of Manila. Nothing of that sort was going to happen again, not on my watch.

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Looks like things were working well - our tech plan of going for Combustion and Railroads before getting to Ballistics and Radar (another change coming with the Patch, one which is less... miffy than the nerfage) was paying off handsomely

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Then the bombardment of Turfan began with a full broadside plus air strikes.

Mongols also presented us a frontal of their units, perhaps in preparation for an embarked attempt at Samarqand

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But to play on Immortal and above, one has to be aggressive at times - and more importantly, know when to unleash all of it

This was the time

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Well, maybe not

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Meanwhile, destroyers patrolling our left flank took out a pair of Mongolian subs - and uncovered another line of them

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Retaking Turfan - this time with far more melee shields to block Mongol counterattack

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Ahahaha, okay, this isn't as bad as on Deity (and they still do carpet spam on both levels btw), but it is BAD

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Figures, they had an invisible rocket artillery placed on that mined hill a tile north of Karakorum

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Hoookay, this is going to be *fun*

Mongols still broke through my screen and not only that but they didn't stop there and went to retake Turfan. Again.

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I can only begin to imagine how much more painful this would have been if it had been done only with Frigates and Privateers/Ironclads... or if the AI had rushbought far more units

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Turfan has entered this world's dictionary of "Stalingrad". One of many, perhaps.

But now the Mongols have made another surprising move - allying with a CS we hadn't even met yet

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An example of amphibious replacements of one of our wrecked units

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It seems between our massive gunlines and rocket artilleries and other units... the Mongols were getting depleted.

Not saying much, but it should be soon...

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Yep, he was getting ready to offer us anything but his cities and so he could rebuild and take his out with even stronger waves

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One of our promoted Bombers making the go at Karakorum's defenses

(spoilers: it died)

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And once again, Turfan belonged to Genghis Khan... Turfan... Genghis...

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For us to retake Turfan and keep it down, we would need to do something else.

Like pushing all out for his capital.

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Genghis had completed Manhattan Project some turns ago, but we never spotted him churning out atomic bombs.

A good thing in my book, but this nuclear plant of his is going to cause problems in the near future

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And now we got to satellites, a good look at the world map, plus we paid off the Persians to take on the Chinese (we made peace a long time ago, but that didn't stop us from having hidden ill feelings towards them)

Pity this was no Huge Map

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A look at us swinging to the south now that Karakorum was ours

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And the final nail in the coffin for Genghis Khan - the Vietnamese enters the war against Mongolia.

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We had truly exhausted his major military elements. Any goldstack he might have left is being spent on pushing out units or buying stuff we aren't aware of, and they are rapidly dwindling as we take out more of his cities

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Where next, I wonder?