Duh I feel like a newb lol. I forgot that crus were gunpowder. I also forgot the base movements were different in the mod. I am use to the rules in my own mod lol.
Even if you forget the seige, you could still use a decent navy to land forces ahead of your troops to basically leapfrog the culture of the cities.
To explain, here is what I mean as I don't think that explains it well. Have your main force hit the first few cities while your navy lands a smaller force further ahead of them. This way, the AI sends most of its reinforcements at your main force and the rear is defended less. What this second force does is take a city that then causes the culture boundaries to move back even further. This way, your main force has quicker access to "Neutral" roads for faster movement.
One final note on that. I once did this on earth 18, but I was going east from Europe. What happened was I let my smaller force take their city first. This pulled the culture boundaries back further and I found a huge AI army of over 20 units stuck in the middle of some grasslands and were easy pickings.
I built up a large force of cuirassiers and invaded Hungary. They were easy to put down. Same with Greece. But Germany, who was Hungary's vassal, wouldn't talk to me to settle peacefully and instead vassaled off to Zara, bringing him into the war. Then Spain, who was master of Greece before Pericles departed this Earth, brought France into the war as well. All refused to talk so I was forced to fight on two major fronts. When I marched units over to the gates of Paris to either burn it to the ground or force Louis to make peace, he up and vassals to the Yue! Goujian (Kublai Khan) had just vassald Sury and was the most powerful nation in the world. So now I've got to fight on three fronts with a gigantic Yue army marching across the Himalayas to crush me. Vassals suck, so does the refuse to talk delay, and having everyone be one religion and so friendly. I somehow managed to repel stacks from Spain, Yue and Zara, made peace with all three. So I captured Greece and Hungary and am back into research mode, going for assembly line and possibly tanks/flight so I can finish off the rest of Europe. Whew long summary.
I finished tech'ing the curs and built up an invasion force. Also upgraded some elephants and used map trade money to pay for it.
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If there's one thing I hope you can learn about this mod from me it's that with 30+ civs there is always gold to be had through trades. Exploit it as much as you can. I've been running 80-100% research since 500AD.
The army was ready to invade, but Stephen was sending troops towards the heathen Mansa so he had an army in my backyard I had to deal with first. The lone pikeman put up a fight but the rest were a joke.
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Esztergom fell. After capturing Debrechen, Fredrick decided he was no longer protected by Stephen and did the worst thing he possibly could do, vassal'd to Zara. Well I guess vassaling to Shaka would've been worse. Again the one world religion is messing me up big time. Don't think Zara would've come to his aid if they hadn't been so chummy, because he was pleased with me. I could be wrong though, I'm not a master of diplomacy mechanics. Maybe it was just a power play Zara would've made no matter the circumstances.
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Either way I now had to divert some cuirs south to fend off Zara's knights. He sent a token force really, only 8 or so units, so it was not that bad. My production is off the charts so I was able to handle him.
On the next turn I invaded Greece and someone (Zara or Izzy) brought Babur into the war as well. Talk about getting dogpiled. Now I've got to fight on three fronts! Babur's heart wasn't really in it though.
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I suicided a cuir or two and then pelted his catapults with flank attacks from the remaining cuirs. With his army crushed he paid me to ease up. Lucky for me he doesn't realize that while I can flank his catapults in the open field, I can't spare anyone to invade him!
I finally captured Budapest and you can see what a prize that shrine is.
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I had started a fake war with Mali a long time ago at Shaka's request, but the time had come for peace. I never saw any combat with Mansa. Around that time I took Athens, opening up access to gold and silver for me. Very nice. After Zara's knights were dispatched I captured Laliabela with a handful of cuirs (like 4). I just wanted to press him to see if he would offer peace.
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And it worked.
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Somewhere in here (if you follow the screenshots it looks like it happens the turn I made peace with Babur) France decided to pile on as well. France is not really a power so I wasn't very concerned. They probably have one mediocre stack. Little did I know a surprise attack at Budapest was coming. With free movement over German roads France took the shrine from me. But I went all out crushing their puny elephants and retook Budapest a few turns later.
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Pericles was no more a turn or two later.
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Next one of the most unexpected turn of events happened, and not in a good way. I already thought things hadn't gotten about as bleak as possible when Zara declared and Babur got drawn into the mess. But no, that was like an appetizer for the true hell that was coming.
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Apparently razing Louis' stack left him feeling vulnerable so rather than take his medicine like a man he ran like a baby into the arms of Goujian. Awesome. Now daddy is marching a giant army across India to duke it out with my eastern flank. At least I have some time, as he will be moving with siege and my cuirs move faster.
Around this time a vote was held whether to end the war vs David. Of course I was the only one who voted yes Not gonna get bailed out of this! Why would I vote yes? Well I cannot hold France or Spain's land very well since it's being crushed by Roman and Dutch culture. But I can't go to war with either of them because that would literally be me vs every other civ (except like China and Japan and Persia). I have rifles but the AI is close to them as well so my tech advantage is not going to last. Thus a few turns of peace to research assembly line would be nice. But it didn't happen.
In the meantime the war to the west was going ok. I took seville with an espionage induced revolt and gave my catapults a much needed upgrade. That's one major complaint I have with this mod as well- For whatever reason cannons have changed from requiring steel to requiring replaceable parts. I have not seen an explanation for this on the forum. But it removes one huge choice from the game, going for rifles or going for cannons first. Now cannons come along the same path. It also prevents a steel beeline. I think probably some guy got tired of having to choose between the two.
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Meanwhile the Yue army had come into sight. It was a terrifying force, having the one counter to my rifle defense, the grenadier. Fortunately grenadiers suck vs cannons. One suicide cannon gave my cavalry good odds for some flank attacks.
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As soon as Spain stopped refusing to talk, she decided she'd had enough.
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Lo and behold, Goujian had tried to be clever and split his army. Not sure why. Whatever, a second giant army was at my doorstep. A few cannons were plenty to take care of them. Let this be a lesson, always keep a few siege weapons around for removing stacks of doom. I still had to pay for peace with Goujian because he has a high power rating.
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Now all the wars are over! Citizens rejoice! I did a civics change to bureaucracy and free religion (plus free market and representation I was already running) and setup for some heavy research.
Somehow I had fended off stacks of doom on three fronts from multiple civs and made it though unscathed, other than a few suicide cannoneers. Their sacrifices will not be forgotten.
A quick look at the demographics. Without any golden ages I am a solid first in gnp, one third higher than Goujian. I'm close in production so tech and tactics are going to half to win this game for me.
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With Spain removed from power, the world is shaping up into three very distinct factions. The east led by Goujian (although he has vassals in the west as well, he is the eastern power), Shaka and all of Africa (he killed Mansa, vassaled Carthage and Zara and Ghengis, all voluntarily), and Poland, who has quietly emerged as a leading power. China is of course very strong still as well, and has a defensive pact with Poland.
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So that is the state of the world. I'm ahead in military techs but the rest of the world has scientific method and physics but I can probably trade for those to be even. Any war now I am going to need a lot of soldiers. If it's anything like the last round I can expect a very unified front against me.
I think my next order of business will be to remove the Dutch. They have no allies (but lots of friends), and a lot of land in Europe. I will take his main cities and vassal him without going far north into scandinavia or on boats to his iceland holdings. Then maybe a final war with Spain. Basically any nations I can attack that don't have allies are going down as a prelude to a huge war with Poland.
I'm starting to think about victory conditions now and I feel that either conquest with vassals or a UN victory through vassals is in order. It will simply take too long to get the land for a domination victory. I'm not sure it can be done without going to the new world or spamming trash cities in the north parts of greenland and sibera, something I'm really not interested in. On the other hand most nations will vassal if you take out their main stack and one or two cities, if your power is high enough. So conquest doesn't have to take weeks of gameplay.
Very nicely done. I probably would have lost several cities and still be at war. I do have a question though.
What are the specs of your computer? Just wondering as you are playing GEM further than I have due to lag etc. Hopefully my new one will be better lol.
Anyway, as far as war goes, I probably would not have gone with free religion as you lost the religious diplo bonus. I think you need to start clipping the power groups, and I would start in Europe. Take out Spain, Rome, and the netherlands fast. Prepare for the probable war with Poland and at least destroy their military.
Once Europe is secure, I would focus on Africa. technically it would be the narrowest front of all as in the worst case scenerio, you could fall back to the suez canal. That war would cripple shaka for awhile.
If you can secure Europe and/or Africa, you would effectively secure 2/3 of your borders. This would leave china as the only threat (I know that the G-man is not technically chinese but he is close enough lol). Also, if you secure two of the fronts, you could start the war with china on your own terms by attacking his vassals and hitting his stacks as they march toward you. Make China come to you.
You know what they say: "Never fight a land war in Asia."
My pc is over a year old, but it's still a top of the line gaming processor. It's a i5-760 which I overclocked to 3.6ghz, 4gb of ddr3 ram on win7 64 bit. Graphic cards don't really effect civ4 much but I have a palit sonic platinum nivida gtx460 (it has a modest factory overclock, performs about 15% better than stock). So I can basically play all the new games no problem.
Before that I had an athalon dual core 2.0 ghz and only 2gb of ddr2 on xp and I could not play this mod. Civ4 uses an obscene amount of memory and needs a fast cpu. My cpu wouldn't even come under full load, but for whatever reason the turns would just take forever. Even now by the modern age turns on this pc will take over a minute between them. I press enter and surf the web lol.
Yeah I start getting that lag late middle ages lol. I know this may be considered cheating, but I actually moded the mod to play a little faster. If you set the maximum number of trade routes to a lower number (I have it at 2) it really changes the game, but also makes it a little faster. Also, I have found that by just eliminating civs from the game I am playing can make a huge difference. That is why I always try to completely wipe them out. I usually disable vassels as well.
Other changes like no random events, no ROM effect like IDW, no espionage I have found make a big difference even if it does change the way you play the game. I also disabled global warming for when I played the modern scenerios. Overall, ever since I have downloaded this mod, every once and a while, I will go in and try to eliminate some calculation that the game must make in order to speed it up.
I would also like to edit my earlier post. I did not realize Rome was vassaled. That would probably change your plans in Europe.
man forget everything lol. Just take on the yue lol. You have the tech lead now, knock out his vassales in europe and then strike out east. If you send a strike force, just raze his cities lol.
Beeline infantry then artillery then tanks and then flight. At least this way you would knock out the strongest nation who probably does not have an army you can't handle as most of his score is probably from his vassels.
I thought it over, and came to what was not an easy decision, and may be very debatable, but is what I think is the only true course of action.
No matter who I attack in Europe Messiko will dow me, either because of alliances or because of friendships they'll drag him into the war. That also means Turkey and Germany, his vassals. Goujian is too far away to attack. I'll be marching an army through India where his allies can pick me apart before I even get there. Plus holding his lands will be difficult with reinforcements so far.
Thus the best course of action is to go right at Messiko. He has giant stacks that will probably hit my flank, but I can easily cut his legs out from under him if I go right at Warsaw. Spain and Germany can't mount much resistance in Europe, so I should be unchallenged there. The main problem will be Messiko himself if he sends his stacks through the balkans rather than facing me front on, and Mehmed and whatever troops he has, which will probably be a lot.
That's the reasoning behind it, and I played half a round, I'll post in the next couple days.
No its understandable. I meant the attack yue as a joke anyway. It sound like you would need to strike hard and fast. Was there a "friendly" civ near warsaw where you could hold your stacks and attack from there? It also sounds like you would have a ton of loses when it came to seige. This situation sounds like the time to have to much seige.
Actually Debreccen and Budapest are right up against Messiko's border, a turn's moves away from Warsaw. The only way to launch an assault one turn after the dow is to sit next to Berlin, which obviously can't happen.
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I'm about half way through the round. Messiko pulled Spain and Ethiopia into the war against me. My army in eastern europe has run into very little resistance and I'm rolling through Messiko's cities, captured over 6 so far including his capital. In Africa I'm barely holding onto Thebes, having survived a 10 unit strong cavalry stack from Zara and multiple smaller raiding parties sent by Izzy. To the East Messiko marched a huge stack of cannons, cavalry, grenadiers and rifles to Persepolis and has taken it. I'm slowly picking away at his stacks but I might lose Akkad as well. He has over 40 units and I only have about 4 artillery and half dozen infantry making hit and fade runs. My only hope is I am building about 6 more infantry per turn in the core of my empire, but can they get to Akkad in time? So while his back is broken, his arms are still flailing about and I'm going to take a couple black eyes in this fight.
Finally, Mehmed sent a huge stack of his own towards Akkad as well (about 30 units) but since I took a bunch of cities from Messiko he broke free of vassalage and I was able to make peace with him, despite a bunch of cannons at my front door. Whew! So that was a turn of luck. I'll make peace with Zara and Izzy as soon as they will speak with me.
Here's a hail mary idea. Do you have enough EP's against poland to switch his religion? I am assuming he has atleast one city with a different religion in it.
I continued teching away to artillery and assembly line. I needed a tech advantage to succeed in any new war. Then I built a fairly large army and invaded Poland. Messiko had his stack somewhere away from the heart of his empire and I marched all the way to Warsaw.
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Unfortunately, Spain and Ethiopia dow'd me due to defensive pacts. Ethiopia had somehow thrown off Shaka's vassalage. After taking cities from Poland, Turkey broke free of their rule, but was still at war with me refusing to talk. Messiko's and Mehmed's stacks showed up on my doorstep.
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For whatever reason Mehmed's stack withdrew. Maybe he thought I was going to threaten his cities from the north. Whatever the reason it was very fortuitous. I lost Persepolis but Messiko couldn't make much more progress against my advanced army, despite his overwhelming numbers.
In the meantime Zara and Izzy were punishing me in Africa. After one assault Thebes was left with one surviving infantry, a close call. But reinforcements arrived and no cities were lost. Though I couldn't afford to launch any counter strikes with all my units focusing on Poland.
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Now Messiko did another puzzling thing. He split his stack in two. Unfortunately I didn't have any larger stacks of cavalry to punish his cannons, but I picked them off 1by1 with infantry at ease. His army was soon broken.
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The war in the north continued to go well. Occasionally Germany would send a few cavalry in, but nothing major.
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Finally Spain and Turkey got over their insolence and accepted my terms.
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Then Germany dragged Cyrus into the war. He vassaled to him on the following turn. I should mention I was going for capitulation from Messiko but he wouldn't budge, nor would Fredrik, probably because I wasn't threatening him with stacks.
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This complicates things, but it does give me a clear target after wrapping up the war with Poland. I took Moscow from Cyrus and retook Persepolis and sent an army down into the heart of Persia's cities. It was pretty slow moving with the terrain though and as of yet I haven't taken any cities.
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Meanwhile the world was catching up in tech. The Yue delayed infantry and artillery for so long, but managed to research flight. The dutch completed ignored military techs (still lacking rifles) but got to radio and built some wonders. I had seen a couple machine guns in the north of Poland but they weren't much trouble against artillery. However I knew this day was coming:
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So now Poland has infantry plus machine guns, which pretty much shreds any attack I throw at him. Sure stacks of artillery can take them out, but I'm spread thin now, having stormed through most of Russia.
I'm at a crossroads. No one will capitulate, ruining my plan at a conquest victory for now. It's possible I could use tanks and bombers to push my agenda, and it would certainly work vs the Europeans until they get flight, but the Yue already have it. I supposed by the time I fight Goujian I might have modern armor and mobile artillery, but what should I do right now? Keep the war up with Poland? Make peace for 10 turns, build up some tanks and start the fight again?
I feel there still is enough time for a conquest victory if I take out any civs who start the space shuttle. We're still a ways away from that level of tech. So maybe it's time to rebuild the cities I took in Europe and outproduce everyone with tanks.
I agree that space is to far away for now. However, I would advise making peace with enough people for now who are a major threat. I would almost advise going for flight first and using carriers to hit the europeans from the air instead of using artillery as much. Also, bombers are great defense against stacks of enemies when you have no seige.
Making peace with anyone left in africa, make peace with poland and crush the rest of europe fast. Worst case scenerio, conduct total war and take cities and raze them. Deny your enemies what you can't hold.
That's a fine idea actually, I hadn't thought of that, razing cities. It'll let me keep my stacks together and razing 3-4 core cities from anyone's empire, Goujian, Shaka, Zara, is going to kill their production.
The only downside is the massive diplo penalty. Granted, years of warring does not help either, but since it sounds like you are going for conquest/domination victory, diplo is not an issue.
I am not sure about this, but I think if you raze cities, it helps increase the likelyhood of vassalage.
Been a while since I updated, though I haven't played a whole lot further. Here's what transpired:
First I made peace with Poland. Their protective infantry were just too much. Time to wait for tanks and bombers for them. Asoka came along and voluntarily vassaled. I'm surprised too because Cyrus is right next door and we're at war, but I jumped at it. I now have a buffer between myself and the Yue, albeit a weak one.
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Next I took the war to Cyrus. He had infantry as well, but they're non protective and he hadn't time to build many of them.
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I also started invading Germany. I'm not sure how capitulation works in detail, but I don't think Cyrus will bend the knee if he has a vassal. Also Germany is pretty pathetic at this point so for them to break free it would take a major pummeling of Cyrus. Might as well kill Fredrick.
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Cyrus sent his biggest stack north to retake Moscow. I sent some troops there to duke it out but by that time he had retreated as I threatened the heart of his empire down near India.
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The AP was getting seriously annoying at this point. I gave up the cities because I can't handle the unhappiness right now and with Poland's cultural pressure they're somewhat lame anyway.
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I stormed through the Germans. I have shots of taking Berlin and other cities but there wasn't much resistance, just a couple infantry at each.
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With his vassl destroyed Cyrus soon capitulated.
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Now a bit of a decision point. I'm free to attack whomever and I have tanks. I made what might turn out to be a poor decision by trading industrialism to Cyrus for rocketry and to Asoka for medicine. They could possibly gift the techs to my enemies despite being my vassals. I doubt they will trade them though because my enemies don't have any tech lead to trade back.
I needed to pick my next target and the logical choice seemed to be the Dutch. They are way behind in tech (just got rifles), have a ton of nice wonders and no alliances. It will be nice to knock off the rest of Europe.
I should say something about the diplomatic situation now. Diplomacy plays a huge part in war success, as I am learning. It's not even so much my relationships, but the AI's relationships with each other. For example the previous wars I kept getting dogpiled because of alliances and defensive pacts and vassals and the AI just plain loved each other. At this point there is a rift between the Americas and everyone else. Goujian and Japan are at war with Austraila and America. Shaka is at war with someone over there too, I forgot who. At one point Japan even declared against Sury (and consequently the Yue). Basically everyone is tied up in wars, even though they are intercontinental and thus most of their stacks are unused. But in my war against the Dutch and Spain no one was drawn in against me and it was over in a few short turns. I am hoping the rest of the game goes as well.
As you can see, with longbows Willem didn't last long.
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He had neglected rifles and assembly line and railroad in favor of being the first to get radio and building hollywood, broadway, rock n roll AND the eiffel tower I will have zero happiness problems the rest of the game, and have taken out the only serious cultural victory contender.
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I rolled right on through to Spain. Again going with the plan of pacifying Europe and taking on the singular nations first. Isabella had modern tech but was still no match for my tanks.
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Near the end of the war I got bombers and went to town on Izzy's defenses. I could've taken her capitulation after capturing all her European cities but Notre Dame was in Cordoba in North Africa and I coveted it. I'm not sure why as I have a happy cap of like 35 now, but hey, Amsterdam is size 31 and will probably have some we long for the motherland ! Might as well. It was painful getting tanks all the way from Europe to Africa but it now sets me up to invade Carthage quite nicely.
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A quick look at the demographics. The yue are dead even with me, but even still I should have a monopoly on modern armor for a few decades. Also they are spending a crapload of gnp on espionage. They have to have it on the slider because I need over 5000 points just to see their demographics.
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You can see I am a loooong way from any sort of victory, even having stormed through the better half of Europe. From here I think it's quick war with England and France, vassal Messiko for good, then look at Africa. I definitely want to take out the independent nations first. The only thing is I want to leverage my tech advantage against the Yue and if I spend 50 years capitulating Shaka and Mehmed, Gouijan may catch up. It wouldn't matter at that point because I could massively outproduce him though. So maybe just focusing on my side of the world for now is fine.
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Not gonna get bailed out of this! Why would I vote yes? Well I cannot hold France or Spain's land very well since it's being crushed by Roman and Dutch culture. But I can't go to war with either of them because that would literally be me vs every other civ (except like China and Japan and Persia). I have rifles but the AI is close to them as well so my tech advantage is not going to last. Thus a few turns of peace to research assembly line would be nice. But it didn't happen.
! Might as well. It was painful getting tanks all the way from Europe to Africa but it now sets me up to invade Carthage quite nicely.
