Game Walkthrough : Hannibal - Emperor (attempt 2)

[Fippy]

Well i think that's not needed on Emp
If you choke Mao early, you can easily "collect" him with only Axes.

Early worker steals are so powerful up to Imm. combined with denying them strat. resources.
In this case you could also attack him with some quickly chopped and/or whipped Axes before he gets his 3rd culture ring.
If you do not build SH and get the wheel instead along with extra workers..

You are right comparing this to Deity would be silly, but if you take Emp. only that's some over stacked and late attack still.

 

[nate45]

Early worker steals are so powerful up to Imm. combined with denying them strat. resources.

yeah i'm not arguing with that, I just think its a cheese strat and also wanted to do the rush without giving myself an artificial advantage. Cause worker steals are so unreliable, you can't rely on them. Catapult rushes pretty much always work on emperor if you do them right though.

and Axe rushes often work, but in my experience waiting for pults is much more consistant, cause they can take pretty much any city where with axes I have to hope he doesn't randomly have 5 archers inside.

also choking mao seemed like a bad idea this game since he had like 4 chariots running around very early. No clue where they went though... There's 2 in beijing but i think he has at least a couple more. That worker steal sure did set him back in OP's game!

 

[Fippy]

Depends on where your goals are of course, if you plan improving your diff. level you would have to play different, drop SH and so on.
In this case Cats may still be fine, but overall if you can find horses HAs are so much faster and better.

And if you are interested in my Deity view on this starting location..i would maybe be forced to steal from Mao and annoy him for decent chances in this game. Cos he may just steal city spots early with being so close and leaving me with almost nothing, not even that copper site.

 

[nate45]

yeah, what would you even do on diety with this? I think even if you rushed settler from size 1 you wouldn't get that copper spot, since he starts with two settlers and can build a third before you can. And you wouldn't even know it was there before he took it, anyway. I guess you'd have to build boats and hope for a bunch of island cities? wouldn't be too bad with financial trait, actually.

I like cats cause they don't require any resource. If i didn't have that copper, I could take beijing with cats + archers if i had too.

 

[Alhrath]

@nate45: Seems that you are much more a warmonger that I am I do some rushes in almost all my games of course, but my attempts here in Emperor come from the fact that people here confirmed that it's possible to win in Emp/Imm without rolling on all your neighbours and win by domination. I'd rather make me a nice empire, then go for science victory for instance.

That's said, I sure want this beijing capital, and will probably go now strait to a elepult rush. I should be able to get this Iron from Lizzy soon enough if I focus on culture in Leptis.

 

[Alhrath]

Turn 111 - The root of diplomacy

Ok, in the next turns, I did Math -> Construction -> on my way to Calendar.

The big thing is that I had to start choosing my friends and foes, and that's probably a thing I could improve in my games. Lizzy started by asking me to convert to buddhism. I'm not sur it was the best, especially to be friend with Augustus and Freddy, but I choosed to keep on my first idea and take her religion. So for now, we have 3 religions, two leader under each of them : me and lizzy Buddhist, Freddy and Augustus Jew and Saladin (just met) and Kubilai Hindu. Mao the Poor is still Pagan

Then Lizzy asked me MC. She is my friend so I gave it to her. And Augustus asked me to stop trading with Kubilai, which I did cause Kubilai is not supposed to be my friend. In final, we have a kind of alliance between buddhists and Jews, and the Hinddu kind of like Mao. Seems a quite good situation.

I traded Math for Hunting and Meditation (and 20 gold) with Augustus (+1 OTRHBF), and next turn Math for Priesthood, Polytheism and Archery with Freddy, which make me by far the most advenced civilization of the world.

I started to build my army, so far quite small (3 axe 1 spear), but rushing that so in a few turns it will be decent and I will be able to take Mao's land. I was planning to build the Moai in Hippo, but thought it was more urgent to build some troops.

I just got a GM, who can bulb CoL. It seems a good idea, especially since Confusianism is not founded yet ...

PS: Do you think a diplo victory with UN is possible ? It always been a dream for me ^^

 

[Packers5280]

Diplo via UN can be done on this map. It can be done very easily, if you understand how to get an AI to vote for you. You need to be +8 with an AI in diplo modifiers to get them to vote for you. Religion can play in, although some AIs will be in free religion, so don't count on using religion. You can also be in FR, which does cancel out the negative modifiers with AI of an another religion. Share civics, sharing resources, and the fair trade can be used very effectively to get an AI to +8. You could go UN by conquest and vassal several AI. Unless they are highest in population, all your vassals will vote for you, regardless of diplo modifiers.

 

[nate45]

I don't know anything about diplo victory but if i were you i'd be more afraid of kublai khan. You've pissed him off by picking the wrong religion, plus you stopped trading with him, and you're smaller and weaker than him. He's much more aggressive than anyone else in this game. he could attack you at any time.

What's Kublai's relationship with mao? are they on good terms? Tread carefully, esp with your cities that border mongolia, You might have to fight them both at once. Does elizabeth have open borders with kublai? If yes, you'll have to defend cities on her border, too. Could be tricky.

 

[Alhrath]

Kubilai is pleased with Mao, but is only at +1. For now, Elizabeth is the worst ennemy of Kubilai, event if she is at 0 and I'm at -4. I don't know how it's really calculated. Lizzy is also pleased with Augustus and Freddy, event with 0 and -1 relation.

There is really two groups comming out : one with Lizzy, Augustus, Freddy and me, with open border between all of us, and the other between Kubilai, Saladin and Mao. Kubilai is also the worst ennemy of Lizzy, so I guesse I don't have to worry about her giving open border ^^

 

[HonestlyNot]

I finished my latest Emp. game this morning, so thought I'd give this one a try

To 825BC...

Spoiler :

Considered SIP, but in the end settled 1E on the plains hill, to free up the Westernmost spot for a city and to slightly speed up WB production.

The Chinese are very close! Priority for me was to get out a settler ASAP for a 'wedge' city, to prevent being completely boxed in. I'm quite glad I did so. I've got 4 cities down thus far, two more to settle close by which are safe and two more along the coast to the North-West to pick up the gems, ivory, horses etc. Hopefully by then I'll have Myst and can get quick Monuments up rather than having to chop/whip more Libraries...I'd forgotten about the Monument bonus for Charismatic

Early tech path was a bit funky: Wheel->Sailing->BW->Pottery->Writing->Agriculture->AH->IW->Alphabet (might change to Myst, but Freddie has Alpha already so was thinking about putting a turn or two into that and trading for it). Forgot to assign my espionage points, so I think Freddie's the man for that as he seems to have the tech lead. I need to grow the Capital a bit too and get some scientists running.

Thanks to the OP for the save!

Screenshot:

Current plan: more cites, workers, start trading techs. Borders are open with everybody and I'm getting a lot of pressure from all quarters to stop trading. I'm ignoring the requests for now...

 

[HonestlyNot]

Some AP-related advice please...

Spoiler :

The game's going pretty well, I'm up to ~1000AD at the mo'

Due to a lack of certain key resources (iron, horses, elephants, stone, marble), I decided to tech up and play passive for a while. I won Lib pretty easily and am a good 3-4 techs ahead of the AIs. Rifling isn't that far off now.

I was pretty sure Elizabeth would build the AP; she was first to Theocracy and had spread Christianity to all but one of my cities (the island one, which I converted myself). I'm in Christianity/Organised Religion at present and had pretty much finished building temples and monasteries in all my cities when Salad Bowl went and built the AP which is Hindu

I have Hinduism in a couple of my cities, so do you think I should spread that and build Hindu religious buildings everywhere, or forget about it and gear up for war?

Current save attached.

 

[Alhrath]

@HonestlyNot: Nice to have a shadow play, and you are welcome for the save ^^

I looked at your first post, interessting start, much less on the economic, more on the land taking. I didn't checked your second one, and will not if there is no date provided and it's clearly behind me, don't want to spoil myself

 

[nate45]

I also finished this game-- with conquest victory (as is my style). Finished 1320 AD.

I have a couple of saves, from 475ad and 1190ad. If there's any interest i'll post them once you guys finish your games, but not yet--don't want to spoil it for anyone.

 

[HonestlyNot]

@Alhrath, the date of my posted save game was 1040AD (I put the date in the spoilers, but I'll post outside in future if that's better).

 

[Alhrath]

475ad, 1040AD, 1190ad ... still much further than I am : 100BC. I'm going slow in this game (not more than some turns every 2-3 days), cause it have been advised to me that it's the best way to get advices It's a game walkthrough after all ^^

 

[Alhrath]

Turn 125 And the war were here

I declared war on Mao at turn 117. I took beijing, and here is the chinese empire. I think I will take Guangzhou (two archers for now there). I can leave Shanghai for Freddy I guess, it doesn't seems so interesting. There is still Nanjing somewhere but I can't see it yet.

I went Calendar -> CS -> Philo (I read getting it early prevent AI to try to rush lib).

I didn't revo yet, but will soon to Rep and Bureau.