[BTS] Immortal Stalin shadow

[Anysense]

Chariots+warriors are an option. Probably better leave warriors for clean up, though - too high chance of no damage to a 100% health archer. Grab copper, perhaps? There aren't any great spots for another city in sight, anyway. And CR1 axemen are so much better than C1 chariots, while cost only 5 more. Also very convenient for 2-pop whips.

 

[jnebbe]

Been very busy with work and other things but I continued this game today

T68-88

Spoiler :

Copper was not as far as I remembered so I sent my settler+2workers over there asap

Atm I have 8 warriors which is probably why maintenance is so high, (St. Petersburg is building nothing but warriors) but they're all fogbusting, and once I settle on the copper I won't be able to make anymore

I think axes are definitely the play, as anysense pointed out they're much stronger (free combat 1 + +25% from anti archer upgrade) and only slightly more expensive

Moscow growing asap so it can whip 2/3 times

Copper city founded, definitely not the worst city I've ever seen, it can grow on grasslands then stagnate on size 4 and work 4 cottages

Roads already finished so every city starts an axeman

A couple turns and I'm already ready
Gold city builds a spear as the hammers put into a warrior are saved

A quick google search says that as long as a city has grown to size 2 at least once, it won't autoraze!

Santiago is really nice, I really would've liked Toledo to be 1S so it can use those pigs, but I don't think it's worth it to raze and spend another 100 hammers for that. Moscow using 2/3 food sources is fine since I'll lose a lot of food working plains cottages/specialists

Mysticism coming in, very important that I get some monuments up in Santiago and also to grab the north ivory

I still have 5 axes+1 spear and gamble attacking seville (1E of isabella's ivory) against 4 archers. I do raze this city however; it's a pretty meh spot with no redeeming qualities besides the ivory which I'll get soon enough. On that I make peace with bella (who is still above 2 civs despite only having 3 cities )

Ragnar starts plotting, it's likely against roosevelt since they hate eachother.

Tech situation, there's a couple paths I was thinking of;

I can go down aesthetics path, I have gold and will soon have ivory+3 monuments for failgold, could also get some good trades.

I was also thinking since my marble isn't likely to stay mine for long since it's bordering pacal's capital, I could instead hook up the eastern stone and do something like priesthood->CoL->trade for monarchy+alpha using CoL->bulb philo and have stone to failgold both chitchen iza and ankor wat.

Of course elepult is still an option, let pacal chop those jungles for me, wipe out bella, then turn around and attack pacal.

 

[krikav]

Nice job showing Bella whos boss!
Regarding chariots vs axes.... You have to add the cost of that horrendeous copper city to the axes too though.
And the main reason chariots was an option in my view, is that you had T0 advantage and you already had a bunch of warriors that where more or less useless.
You could have put 1 hammer into chariots T68, whipped 4 of them T69 and then striked her cities with warriors/chariots T71-T72 or something.

Tough choice regarding failgolding or more warfare, Agg/Ind leans us toward both.
Food doesn't look like it's especially good, perhaps only capital has GP potential..? I would consider going for GLib and secure enough GScientists to do something with that way. National epic+globe looks like it fits right into moscow.
The culture from GLib/Natepic would likely hold the marble long term too I think? Don't see what ring it is for pacal vs you.

 

[jnebbe]

T88-108

Spoiler :

Still unsure of which tech path to go, trying to delay commiting as long as possible

Adopt hinduism with everyone else
Ragnar declares on Roosevelt, shaka starts plotting

I decide to go CoL and trade first, I think monarchy is pretty important since capital is hitting happiness-limit and alphabet is important since it lets me build research instead of more warriors I don't really need right now.

First to CoL, I get alphabet+masonry and also monarchy from roosevelt.

South city founded, can share sheep and help grow a couple cottages in moscow. Will probably be my last city for quite a while since there's no good spots left

Looking pretty good, only things that worry me are that augustus just got philo and that pacal already has aesthetics

I'm rushing to aesthetics and lit for great library. Still unsure if I want to go for cuirs or rifles, for some reason I'm hardly ever able to make cuirs work so maybe I'll do that just for the learning experience.

 

[konata_LS]

Spoiler :

Nice Axe rush

The Copper city is not beautiful, but for an early rush under Normal Speed where every turn counts, sometimes people have to sacrifice some long-term advantages for a short-term goal. Switching to Hinduism also looks like a wise choice.

As you play at a level much higher than I do, I cannot give you any useful advice like IMM/DEI players can give you. But about Cuirs and Rifles, it's possible that a player conquers one or two AIs with Cuirs, then build some Cannons and Rifles to attack the next target.

The video below on Deity level may inspire you: (the player attacked Hammi with Cuirs, researched Chemistry and Steel during the war, then planned to attack AC+Joao with Cannons and Rifles)

Good luck for your game

 

[sampsa]

@jnebbe

Spoiler :

In general, I'd be a bit wary of fighting a war to claim some land and then leave the furious AI next to you, planning to take it peacefully until cuirs/rifles from there. Maybe you can get away with it, not sure.

One improvement I can immediately see looking at the screenshots: try not to build monuments. It's 30 for very little. Yes it helps to get the first border pop, but beyond that it's just nothing. Since everyone is hindu, it would be much better to dedicate one or even two cities to spread that around your empire asap! So somewhere before T90, get meditation asap and whip monastery, then missionaries in Novgorod. Library can wait. That way you can get the border pops in cities that need it and +1 is a nice extra. Also then these newer cities can focus on urgent matters first (granary, growing). I would've skipped granary though in both Toledo and Yaroslavl as they have no food.

 

[jnebbe]

T108-144

Spoiler :

As sampsa pointed out its really greedy to leave a furious isabella next to me and just hope I don't get attacked.

I'm in a really good tech position so I can afford the eco hit this war will take.
It will be a bit awkward though since 3 cities have no food and I really didn't want to whip those.

HBR finishes and ofc nobody will give trade me math for it
Strongly considered going horse archers here but bella has both walls and spears, and I'd like to completely wipe her out, may as well go elepult as I planned

Augustus attacks shaka, have to decline this

Construction finishes T122, time to kill my already-struggling eco!

**all my pics apparently got messed up after this**

Start north and work my way south-east

At one point roosevelt had some 400g, I bulb philo with my GS which I got a while ago, but unfortunately he had spent his gold by the next turn so I settle on this trade. Maybe a missplay to not bulb philo immediately, wasn't sure if I wanted the bulb for something else or maybe a golden age since I would not be getting music 1st

Finally capture Barcelona. Very slow war but I finally destroyed her main stack so it should be smooth sailing from here on out. Her other cities should only have a few units each but my economy is already pretty rough. At the very least I think I should stop whipping and let all cities grow.

My original plan if I didn't go elepult was to failgold aesthetics techs+ankor wat (which is also why I built the monuments), only ankor wat hasn't been built by this point. Pacal has great library already, it's unlikely I'll get music 1st, definitely getting late for cuirs, leading more to cannons/rifles or maybe keep teching till modern era?

Could trade philo to ragnar for CS, go lit and build national epic, then get 3/4 for education/paper/printing press and go from there?

 

[sampsa]

@jnebbe

Spoiler :

I think the tech path didn't work very well. Looking at it now, what good did CoL do compared to going immediately aesth-lit-music line? I think the point of CoL must be to gain something from religion, the civic it unlocks and/or the bulb (philo) it unlocks. It's also mainly a peaceful line, though of course situations can change quickly and you need to adapt a lot especially on pangaea maps.

To me, HBR+200g for currency looks like a bad trade. Especially in a poor tech situation I'd try not to give money away - rather try to take max value from trading philo around. Pacal can go music and probably will, so I wouldn't put efforts on getting it. It's almost 700AD anyway and usually you make a run for music in the BCs...

I would focus now on killing/capping Isabella and simultaneously staying in the tech race. I think literacy to build NE is a good idea (try to get some fail gold too if possible, also fail gold HE), perhaps there is some chance for winning lib or at least getting value from education.

 

[jnebbe]

@jnebbe

Spoiler :

I think the tech path didn't work very well. Looking at it now, what good did CoL do compared to going immediately aesth-lit-music line? I think the point of CoL must be to gain something from religion, the civic it unlocks and/or the bulb (philo) it unlocks. It's also mainly a peaceful line, though of course situations can change quickly and you need to adapt a lot especially on pangaea maps.

To me, HBR+200g for currency looks like a bad trade. Especially in a poor tech situation I'd try not to give money away - rather try to take max value from trading philo around. Pacal can go music and probably will, so I wouldn't put efforts on getting it. It's almost 700AD anyway and usually you make a run for music in the BCs...

I would focus now on killing/capping Isabella and simultaneously staying in the tech race. I think literacy to build NE is a good idea (try to get some fail gold too if possible, also fail gold HE), perhaps there is some chance for winning lib or at least getting value from education.

The original plan was to go CoL->philo and use CoL to trade for alpha+monarchy, of course I needed to change plans to go elepult instead. I feel like that's been the theme of this game, lots of changing plans when put in tricky situations.

Got currency since I figured I didn't need the gold since I wasn't currently teching, and the extra trade route will add up fast.

Lib should still be possible, definitely leading to rifles and perhaps cannons

 

[konata_LS]

@sampsa

Spoiler :

Excuse me for interrupting, but as you mentionned "It's also mainly a peaceful line" in #48, which tech path do you consider as "a military line"? Does Machinery-Guilds-Engineering-Gunpowder-Chemistry belong to military line?

Do you think "Rifles + Cannons" combo is better than "Grens + Cannons"? In an off-line game, I attacked with Grens + Cannons because Military Science was just after Chemistry. But the result was very poor: only 2 turns after the DoW, my Grens and Cannons were smashed by AI's 30+ Cavs and Rifles. So I wonder if Grens+Cannons have some weaknesses compared to Rifles + Cannons.

 

[sampsa]

@konata_LS

Spoiler :

Excuse me for interrupting, but as you mentionned "It's also mainly a peaceful line" in #48, which tech path do you consider as "a military line"? Does Machinery-Guilds-Engineering-Gunpowder-Chemistry belong to military line?

I mean peaceful in the BCs. Thus going for stuff like CoL(-philo) or aesth-line should rule out construction or HBR-based attacks. The techs you mention are in the military line surely. In the ADs you can get there with or without liberalism though, which in itself is not on war path at all. In the ADs you will often need to tech something all around the tree so the techs you choose to go for are no longer as focused on one part of the tree, trades that you can get start to matter a lot and so on.

Do you think "Rifles + Cannons" combo is better than "Grens + Cannons"? In an off-line game, I attacked with Grens + Cannons because Military Science was just after Chemistry. But the result was very poor: only 2 turns after the DoW, my Grens and Cannons were smashed by AI's 30+ Cavs and Rifles. So I wonder if Grens+Cannons have some weaknesses compared to Rifles + Cannons.

I am mostly in the cannons+anything camp. Cannons by themselves can cut through everything you face, assuming you get to steel fast enough. If your stack got smashed, you probably did several things wrong. First of all you need to know what they have and where (use spies if you don't have OB). AI having a big stack is not necessarily an issue, as long as you know where it is and can figure out where you want to face it. Attacking it in the open is one of the best possibilities, another one is in a city with no defences (for example, let him capture a city with it) so that you can use the cr-promos on cannons. Also, if your enemies already have rifles when you attack with cannons, something has gone wrong earlier.

 

[krikav]

Cannons+anything is the way to go. You can have maces or muskets or whatever rag-tags you have gathered.
From there, I tend to like to go for grenadiers because it's so much faster to reach once you are already at steel. I also like to upgrade CR3 maces to grenadiers for awesome units against enemy rifles later on.
Raw produced grenadiers also upgrade very nicely to machineguns with city garisson or combat+formation later on, if the war drags on alot.

But sometimes you face a target that has a gadzillion knights, or has reached cuirs... And then it adds alot of safety to reach rifles yourself.
Once you are at rifles+cannons yourself, you can fight with ease even at tech parity.

 

[konata_LS]

@sampsa

Spoiler :

Thanks for you answer!

You're right, I committed several mistakes in my ealy game, like settling cities with food in the second ring, staying with 7 cities 5 workers for a long time, building some unnecessary things like markets.

Not scouting before the war and ignoring diplomacy led also to the failure of my attack. I didn't check the tech trading screen before the war; only after the war began, I realised my target already got Cavs. I abandoned that game, but it was a good lesson to learn for me.

@krikav

Spoiler :

Yes, Grens can be faster than Rifles when going for Chemistry-Steel. Military Academy is aldo tempting, especially with IMP leaders. But Grens + Cannons often become vulnerable to AI's Cuirs or Cavs.

On the other hand, Rifling is on a tech line different than Chemistry-Steel, so the attack will be delayed if we choose Rifles + Cannons. But this combo is quite safe when some AIs get MT.

Upgrading CG Grens to MG is really a good idea!

 

[jnebbe]

In my opinion the biggest advantage rifles have over grenadiers is that you can draft them, lets you draft multiple times from the same city and still have enough pop to whip out cannons