GOTM69 - Spoiler 2: the Middle Ages

[civ_steve]

GOTM 69 - second spoiler

Reading Requirements:

1. Must have contact with All remaining Civs.
2. Must be able to research an Industrial Age Technology.

Posting restrictions

1. No maps showing Industrial or Modern resources.
2. No discussion of Industrial Age (or later).
3. Absolutely NO Discussion of any other active 'X'OTM contest!

With a Pangaea map you can make contact and war with the AI early on (and vice versa!) Did your game go that route, or did you find use for the Russian Cossacks? (Or are you waiting for a later point in your game to make a move?)

 

[Lanzelot]

Strange: I'm the first to post here, although I have started the game only last weekend...!

In the middle ages I finally fell far behind in tech. I had to use all my money to build up a couple of cities and therefore went with a single scientist and a 40-turn research for quite a long time (80 turns = two techs). However, I wanted to build up one city right next to the Japanese/Arabic border very quickly, so it can build a fast Forbidden Palace. And that plan worked out well: The city was located in the middle of those nutritious floodlands and grew very fast. It also got the necessary Aquaeduct, Marketplace and Courthouse very fast, so it was having a decent production by the time I started the Forbidden Palace and I was able to finish it in around 20 rounds.

Shortly before that the Japanese went suicidal (a Kamikaze ruling them?!) and declared war on Egypt. I was able to get some money and a map from Egypt for rushing to their aid. And we made mincemeat of them, the Egyptians taking 3 Japanese cities and I taking 6. When the Japanese were down to one city, they were willing to give me 4 techs for a peace treaty! I've never seen something like this before! Usually the AI refuses to give any tech for peace and rather dies...

So this war allowed me to catch up a bit on technology and it also fitted in perfectly with my plan of building the FP at that particular part of my empire: it is now surrounded by 3 Japanese cities (and two of my own), which will make good production, once they are up to speed.

I'm now level with the Osmans and Germans, however Egypt is far far ahead of everyone else. (I would like to ask other players as well, especially the strong ones: is this normal on Emperor level, that you never have a chance against the AI in terms of tech, culture and production? Unless I manage to wear down all the others in wars later on, I never have a chance to get a culture or spaceship victory!)
Anyway, the Egyptians also took three or four cities off the Germans and are now the undisputed leader. Even though by now I have Universities and Banks in my productive cities, turned to Democracy and are able to maintain a 4-turn tech output, I don't see, how I would ever survive against the Egypts. Fortunately I had an alliance with them and "helped" them in their war against the Germans (though unfortunately I was not able to bring my forces close to the Germans and get a piece of the pie...), so they are still friendly with me.

My plan now has to be to get up-to-date weapons, then take out the Arabs and Germans, then I'll be strong enough to take the Osmans as well, and this will perhaps get me on even terms with Egypt... If they keep peaceful for long enough!

Fortunately I got three Armies already in my war with Japan. Perhaps I will fill one with Cossacks and win a fight, so I can start building them with the War Academy, and keep the others untill I got tanks... It's just: I haven't even researched Cossacks, and already they are no longer of much use: the Osmans and Egypts already have Infantry... :-( I hope I will be able to still use them against Arabs or Germans, so I can at least get my Golden Age, otherwise I'm busted.

 

[PaperBeetle]

I'm now level with the Osmans and Germans, however Egypt is far far ahead of everyone else. (I would like to ask other players as well, especially the strong ones: is this normal on Emperor level, that you never have a chance against the AI in terms of tech, culture and production? Unless I manage to wear down all the others in wars later on, I never have a chance to get a culture or spaceship victory!)
Anyway, the Egyptians also took three or four cities off the Germans and are now the undisputed leader. Even though by now I have Universities and Banks in my productive cities, turned to Democracy and are able to maintain a 4-turn tech output, I don't see, how I would ever survive against the Egypts. Fortunately I had an alliance with them and "helped" them in their war against the Germans (though unfortunately I was not able to bring my forces close to the Germans and get a piece of the pie...), so they are still friendly with me.

I wouldn't say it was 'normal' to get behind the AI on emperor, although occasionally an AI gets lucky and turns into a superpower after rolling over a couple of neighbours. Their advantage is only 20%, which you should easily make back by developing your empire intelligently, rather than letting it accumulate randomly as the AI does. But sticking to your own plot of land certainly won't give you enough towns to make a decent culture victory; after all you need double your rival's culture, and that probably means more than double their number of towns. Conquering your rivals helps you both by getting more land to cram towns into, and by taking their culture out of the game. So yes 100k is fundamentally a military victory condition. As for space, I think you should be able win the race on emperor without military expansion, but it will be a lot more difficult than if you go to war on the way. The more land you take, the more resources you get (both luxury and strategic) and the less you have to worry about your neighbours dumping huge packs of units into your lovely peaceful empire. And it goes without saying that two cores are better than one.

As for your Egypt, if you want to take them on militarily, you can just go directly to Replaceable Parts and fight them with railroads, infantry armies, cossacks and artillery. It's a slow and painful kind of war, but they won't have any defense against it until they get to the modern age.

 

[Lanzelot]

First of all: thanks a lot, PaperBeetle, for sharing your insights with me! It's really a great feeling, having one of the top players in the world answering questions from a "newcomer" like me! It's like asking a question on some chess forum and then getting an answer from Gary Kasparov himself...!

Ok, looks like my understanding was not that wrong after all. My problem is only that I don't have the required skills yet to set up my empire in a way that it compensates for the 20% bonus the AI has... I guess before my next GOTM I'll study some of the excellent strategy papers on this forum!

I can't really comment on the events following my previous post, as this would take me way into the Industrial Age. So I'll use the remaining time to finish my game, and will then continue this topic in the final spoiler thread.
For now only that much: unfortunately I wasn't able to apply your advice of using Artilley + Cossack Armies against the Egyptians, as they already had Mech Infantry... And using Cossacks against Mech Infantry would be suicide. Just consider the following: in a fight against the Osmans I attacked an Infantry unit in a size 8 city with a Cossack Army. My artillery barrage had reduced the Infantry units in the city to 1/4 and my Cossack Army was 16/16.
And guess what: my Army lost

Regards, Lanzelot

 

[PaperBeetle]

Haha, thanks. But I think there aren't really enough of us left here to compare ourselves to the chess world any more. Maybe it's more like Nico Rosberg asking what gear to use in the first corner at Monaco, and then getting an answer from Felipe Massa... I'm only in the top 3 GPR because I drive for the Submit Every Game team (with apologies to Massa, who I think is an exciting driver, but he's no Senna)

Anyway, rereading my post, I hope I didn't give the impression that keeping up with the emperors is trivial. There's always some hard work involved, and usually a bit of . Also, keep in mind that the AI are developing differently; some will be growing in size, some will be taking the lead in science, and some will be piling up the military, and you can't keep ahead of them all in all areas at the start of the game. It takes a fair while for the lead in any one of these areas to translate to dominance in the other areas too. But you should be able to arrange that when that overall lead is attained, it is you that has it.

 

[Lanzelot]

I'm only in the top 3 GPR because I drive for the Submit Every Game team

Oh, you mean you are only a mere mortal...? What a disappointment

Anyway, rereading my post, I hope I didn't give the impression that keeping up with the emperors is trivial. There's always some hard work involved, and usually a bit of .

Well, yes, I learned that the hard way... Just when I was thinking I was finally catching up and on the road to victory again, Egypt reached the 100k culture victory

For the remainder of the story and an analysis of what I think were the mistakes I commited during that game, see my post in the final spoiler thread...

Regards, Lanzelot