Because I didn't waste citizens on cottages. I believe strongly in food as a source of income and production (whip/specialists) and switching it around in bursts. In this game I didn't do any warfare whipping though, so my production came from workshops, but that's still superior to cottages. I prefer to capture matured towns rather than work them myself. If you're not stuck working cottages you can either produce a lot of beakers or units on demand.
A flexible economy allows maximizing whatever is necessary. In this case it meant that I could war swiftly. After checking the log I see that I started moving towards hatty at 1410 AD and took the last city from SB 1630 AD, even faster than I thought.
When I play a financial civ I make a couple of cottages, but it's more effective to regulate them. In my experience "cottaged cities" (cottage almost every tile) isn't that effective, I'd rather farm most of it and then add 2 or 3 cottage tiles to work when I have nothing better to do. Financial shines with middle/late game watermills and windmills though. Windmills in particular are beasts with enviromentalism which is a civic I use on most maps (not this one though due such a wide-spread empire on several islands). They will provide 5 commerce with the required techs and financial, they are in my opinion far better than towns because you can still use representation and get both hammers and commerce (hi golden age). With a late game empire with few cottages almost all of your tiles will have 2-5 commerce (watermills and windmills) instead of some with 6-8 (cottages), so in a way financial can be even more suitable for playing with few cottages than with many.
A short but violent round. Firstly as hoped Hattie built the SoL for me.
Not that it will do me much good but it is always nice to have. So I declared war then noticed my WW was shooting up after taking her first 2 cities. Something I should but never do is check who has and where is the Statue of Zeus. Fortunately it was in her third city I took along with another nice couple of wonders.
One of the reasons Hattie has been teching well was acting as a wonder hog.
Her fifth city I took had some nice wonders as well.
You can add Versailles to that city as well.
Now it was time for peace.
Peace didn't last very long as my troops moved into Sitting Bulls lands. Just needed to take his capital and he was willing to bend the knee.
I am just having my first GA of the game boosted by the MoM (thanks Hattie) I used the spy from being the first to Communism to start this. Actually managed to get one trade with Hattie for physics. Unsurprisingly she is not very happy with me.
Next sessions will be attacking Isabella. No messing around this time I'm going straight for Madrid and hopefully she will capitulate straight away. Then on to Pacal and if I have to Churchill will be last. Tech wise after artillery I'm going Corp/AL as Churchill has Redcoats I'd rather have Infantry to attack him with. Although I will have artillery by then.
First, congrats to everybody who is doing so well. I don't know how you do it.
I will spare everyone a detailed write up as my game is definitely not a model for anyone. I almost quit after my immortal rush bankrupted me for centuries. I did, however, eventually manage to recover the economy reasonably and need to make some important choice as regards liberalism and war.
A quick summary:
-My immortal rush was probably a bit late. I settled a little differently from most (capital in place) and I may have hooked up the horses late. I waited for a border pop from a monument which was maybe dumb. Wiped him out around 300 BC I think.
-My economy was devastated. I only kept two cities but I was still bleeding money at 0% science. My tech was so bad that I was building units and deleting them because I had no buildings to make and couldn't afford the units. I went for masonry instead of writing so I couldn't even get libraries and scientists up and running. Maybe I should have quit here.
-Little by little I inched away from the brink. I had workers coming out of my ass thanks to the war with KK and they cottaged like there was no tomorrow. I usually prefer SE but my financial crisis gave me no choice (I think anyway). I built the mids, GLib, and Parthenon. I am using Kublais old capital as a GP farm running boatloads of scientists + representation + GLib.
-In 1070AD I have bulbed and teched my way to within 1 turn of Liberalism. No AIs have paper and a couple have philo. The only stuff they have and I don't is machinery, drama, and theo.
-On the diplomatic front I threw my lot in with Izzy early on by converting to Buddhism. She has been fighting pacal and churchill. I declared on Pacal when she asked and church declared on me but we havent fought at all. Izzy and I have been friendly for awhile. I have WFYABTA with everybody else.
My Questions:
-I figure my target is Hatty since ruining my only good relationship now seems dumb. Izzy can wait. But how to do it? My army currently consists of a handful of veteran immortals saved from the rush. Should I wait for steel or rifles or just go with Curaissiers and trebs? Grens? It seems everyone is doing different stuff on this and I have no idea which to do. Building an army is going to be tough because of all the stupid cottages. Any thoughts on espionage? I have just been foolishly spreading it around so far.
-Should I hold out for something better for lib or be happy to get anything? I may lose the Taj if I go for steel or something and I would need a lot of techs between here and there. My rate seems ok thanks to maturing cottages and my GP farm but I have bulbed twice to get where I am. Should I roll the dice?
It looks like you did a great job recovering to me
You would probably be a lock for the Taj Mahal -- since we have marble I would be tempted to take Nat with Liberalism rather than waiting. Nationalism + a Golden Age is at least as valuable as holding out for a better tech.
The big question is "Where is your military going to come from?" I didn't see a lot of great production cities, so I would probably lean towards either a Rifle draft or rush bought troops of your choice. Rusten has other ideas about the latter, no doubt
From your current position I think its probably possible to eek out a SS victory, but some military action would be more fun. Hatshepset is the best target, as your Friend Isabella can shield your other side.
Edit: Getting the National Epic out sooner might have been a good idea
First of all, thanks for the war advice. It's my weakest area of the game. Still better than the AI though
Now, on with the show...
Turnset 5: 1500AD - 1802AD (61 turns)
Spoiler:
Whereas the previous few sets had been purely builder, this one was all about war. Long, bloody war. Too long a war to be honest - I need to sharpen up in that respect.
Pre-war demographics:
Spoiler:
As you can clearly see, someone out there is racing away with the game. I'm wondering if it's the AI that's been hogging all the wonders (SoL, UoS, SM, Versailles etc, etc, etc...). Hatty in other words. The target for Persia's armies...
Fortunately she'd run out of friends:
Which was ideal since it meant I could declare with impunity, and without needing to worry about anyone else sticking their oar in. Isabella and Churchill were both WHEOOH at the start of this round, and spent the majority of it locked in a stalemate of a war with each other, whilst I was friendly with Pacal and pleased with SB so I felt safe from their meddling.
I decided to delay the attack until rifling, since Hatty already had steel and cavs are significantly stronger than cuirassiers. With the units upgraded, it was time to declare and in 1540AD the trumpets of war sounded:
Heiraconpolis, Giza, Byblos and Vandal (the 4 Egyptian cities closest to home) quickly fell as I adopted war civics of HR, nationhood, emancipation, theocracy and state property. I'd have preferred slavery, but I'd gone into the conflict hastily while I still had a military edge and hadn't got any jails built. The unhappiness from WW was severe (and would only get worse with time) and I couldn't deal with angry faces from emancipation too. On reflection, I should have stayed in slavery for a while and whipped jails when cities went angry, before revolting again later; towards the end of the war I was running 0% science and 60% culture to keep cities productive so an extra turn of anarchy wouldn't have made any difference.
The first stage of the offensive continued until 1615AD with a thrust inland to take Elephantine, the first major prize of the war, containing the SoL and MoM. That had left me a bit over-extended and short of cannons and with Hatty having managed to research rifling and railroad in the meantime, I needed a few turns to regroup. The discovery of artillery in 1645 (and trading for railroad with Isabella immediately afterwards) gave Persia the military edge once more, so war began again in 1650AD. By that point, Hatty had discovered combustion and although Egyptian destroyers made ferrying units from the homeland more troublesome, winning the circumnavigation bonus was a huge help, since it extended galleon range to the distance between Susa and Hieraconpolis, allowing me to safely sail from one continent to the next.
Gradually the remaining Egyptian cities fell, but although Hatty was willing to capitulate, I wanted to press on and eliminate Egyptian culture completely. I'd also made the possible mistake of going for her northern cities first, rather than plucking the rich fruit down south. Alexandria (with the Confucian shrine) and Thebes (with the SM, an academy, 2 settled prophets and a settled GS) were late but important additions. Finally, in 1785AD, the capture of Heliopolis meant that the Egyptians were no more:
(That city also has Versailles)
I played on for a couple more turns to conduct another major civics switch (should have done this during the end of the war when anarchy wouldn't have mattered) to US/FS/Emancipation/SP/OrgRel and see what sort of shape the economy was in. The answer:
Not too shabby and should improve a bunch as the former Egyptian cities get up to speed. I've not fallen too far behind in tech either despite the protracted war, thanks largely to Isabella and Churchill spending the whole round fighting (they made peace in 1795AD) and nobody else having anyone to trade with:
Spoiler:
I think I'll probably just build a spaceship from here as I don't know if I can face another intercontinental troop deployment. That should be an easy romp with the land at my disposal. I'm just wondering if it's worth signing a DP with Isabella again, or if that's more likely to drag me into a war with Churchill.
Some thoughts on the war I've just fought:
Spoiler:
Although pairing cavalry and cannons was a bit of a mistake (I could have fielded a pure cavalry or cannon/gren force much quicker if I'd been focused), I think that inadvertently gave my army greater longevity since I wasn't using gunpowder units as an offensive weapon against Hatty's machine guns. I also ended up with a lot of highly promoted cavalry by the time she was fielding rifles/cavs of her own, which improved troop survival until near the end of the war where I trashed quite a few units trying to get Egypt eliminated faster. I did use the trick of only moving one unit into a newly captured city a couple of times to make up for the shortage of defensive troops in my expeditionary force, but since I was in nationhood anyway, I should have drafted up more rifles and sent them along for the ride.
However, I should have sent over some spies, especially later in the war when I had a big EP lead on Hatty. I think I'm far too negligent when it comes to EP and tend to largely ignore the feature; wiser allocation of points and actually cashing some of them in could make life much easier in certain situations. I managed to speed up capture of the first few Egyptian cities by ferrying the cannons by ship and taking advantage of cavalry speed that way, but later on my horses movement was wasted waiting for cannons/arty.
I'm not too sure about this, but I think it might have been better to go for Hatty's southern cities at the start of the war too, before my stack got whittled down/fragmented. It would have been quicker to bring fresh troops to the north to prolong the offensive, rather than trying to cope with increasingly stretched supply lines by working north to south through Egypt, although that would have delayed the declaration by 4-5 more turns.
I tried a slightly different approach, this round -- not sure if it will pay off
In 1090 I was already leading the GNP so rather than leverage the classic Renaissance troop surge I decided to try something a little different. The plan is to pick up Democracy + Communism and then choose a more heavy hitting military tech, taking advantage of the Persian economy. So how did the plan work out?
Well we get Democracy:
And the Big Bronze Lady:
A great spy is born when we're first to Communism, and the Kremlin is built:
And our chosen military tech:
While I've been playing Cyrus the Builder the world has evolved around us.
-Churchill finally vassalized Pacal (expected) and Isabella cowered under the English leader for protection as well (unexpected).
-We've spread Buddhism to gain AP immunity, and instead got elected as it's President
-Hatty and Sitting Bull fought a long stalemate, where many GGs were born.
I'm ready for war as our economy is very strong, we have a nice military tech that is far away from being countered, and State Property means colonial payments are obsolete. None of the AIs have Steel or Steam Power, but Rifling has recently made its rounds. In 1615 we're ready for war:
The big question is "Where is your military going to come from?" I didn't see a lot of great production cities, so I would probably lean towards either a Rifle draft or rush bought troops of your choice. Rusten has other ideas about the latter, no doubt
Haha, you know me too well already, it only took 2 days in a SG.
Still, when dragging yourself into a cottage mess (can't look at the save atm so I'll just trust Olodune's observation and your words) there's no other way than drafting or rush-buying for production. I find them both lacking in general, but there's no other way to go at that point if you want to war. Whipping isn't effective with a lot of cottages, both for the re-grow rate and because the culture slider becomes a pain to deal with and you shouldn't workshop over cottages either as time has already been invested into them.
I don't think it's the cottages that hurt so bad, it's building only cottages on all squares that isn't so great. In the immortal students games where i went to renaissance war (Khmer,Suleiman, Louis also i think) i had lots of workshops mostly on the plain tiles running caste system, i was able to work them because i mix farms and cottages, giving me some flexibility as to which tiles to work.
I don't think it's the cottages that hurt so bad, it's building only cottages on all squares that isn't so great. In the immortal students games where i went to renaissance war (Khmer,Suleiman, Louis also i think) i had lots of workshops mostly on the plain tiles running caste system, i was able to work them because i mix farms and cottages, giving me some flexibility as to which tiles to work.
Sure, moderated cottaging can work too. I've looked at several of your games throughout the university and you're indeed mixing in all of the above which puts you capable of pulling off most strategies. It's the fully cottaged cities with nothing but food resources as food that I hate. If you've directed enough tiles to be able to make a switch into mainly farms and/or workshops I won't give any blame to cottages, that is very strong as well.
Edit: You have flexibility if you can add in farms and workshops, so there's no problem there. The post above was mostly aiming at a cottage mess, which I think of as having cottages everywhere and not being able to make a temporary switch. Flexibility is the important thing, regardless of your amount of cottages, be it zero or several, but too many cottages puts an end to flexibility.
Impressively quick capitulation of Hatty (and then SB). Looks like you attacked Egypt along the same route as me, but were able to finish off the war much, much faster. Do you think that's down to having more troops initially, or the fact that you had more of a military tech lead on her?
Isabella's very backward in your game, so Spain shouldn't put up much resistance at all.
@ Olodune
Spoiler:
Hatty's one turn from cavalry which could be a bit of a pain, but arty will tear through her cities so you look well placed to me. I'd launch an amphibious assault this turn - the opportunity to scuttle the bulk of her fleet at the start of the war is too good to miss in my opinion. If you soften up the city with frigates and airships, your arty will have a field day.
Are you going to use police state to deal with WW problems, or ride it out and go for a quick capitulation?
Sure, moderated cottaging can work too. I've looked at several of your games throughout the university and you're indeed mixing in all of the above which puts you capable of pulling off most strategies. It's the fully cottaged cities with nothing but food resources as food that I hate. If you've directed enough tiles to be able to make a switch into mainly farms and/or workshops I won't give any blame to cottages, that is very strong as well.
Edit: You have flexibility if you can add in farms and workshops, so there's no problem there. The post above was mostly aiming at a cottage mess, which I think of as having cottages everywhere and not being able to make a temporary switch. Flexibility is the important thing, regardless of your amount of cottages, be it zero or several, but too many cottages puts an end to flexibility.
When i played warlords i used to go only farms too. i wasn't as good in beelining liberalism then so i'd had to take nationalism most of the time and always had problems getting constitution if i'd go peaceful. in BTS i thought farms had been nerfed a bit, more pollution from factories, lesser income from big city trade routes since AI cities aren't that big anymore.
Seems that these are minor effects though, pollution can be helped easily with proper beelining. An empire with constitution and bio can still research almost as fast as a cottaged empire and has far better chances to get the best corporations.
You've shown clearly in your games that you can have good research until liberalism usually taking the war route shortly afterwards. If you can get pyramids you'll have far better early research even than with cottages. Do you always go for this wonder?
Since steel can often be taken from liberalism nowadays (also since AIs are considerably slower than in warlords before lib) getting constitution from lib should also be easy now so i think i'll try your strat in one of my next games.
Actually i came close in the Suleiman game, iirc only capital had cottages there.
I think the words overwhelming force describes my attack on Hattie. I was a bit worried about her having Cuirrassiers hence going for rifles but I didn't see many of them and what I did didn't last very long.
I went the same route as you. Took the top 2 cities used spies to remove defences then ferried the troops across to the next city. If I had wanted to take all Hatties cities I would have split my troops and sent half South but preferred going for a quick capitulation.
Going for SB it only took 3 or 4 turns to reach his capital from the last Egyptian city so I went straight for his capital and as expected he capitulated straight after. Just in case though his cities to the North I used my Frigates to remove his defences there.
Just moving my troops North to board for my attack against Isa. Hoping again I will take her Capital then she will capitulate. Her other mainland cities won't last long even if she doesn't. She does have some cities on the Western Island but I've drafted some rifles there so no chance of her taking that city. Also the one city on my mainland currently has 1 LB so don't think I will have much trouble taking that city either. Lastly as you noted Isa doesn't have Gunpowder yet so her best troops will be Lbows and I'll have Artillery. The words overkill come to mind.
Pacal isn't much more advanced than Isabella. I sold him gunpowder cheaply otherwise I'd doubt he would have that.
I expect I will have to attack Churchill for the domination limit but can check after Pacal.
When i played warlords i used to go only farms too. i wasn't as good in beelining liberalism then so i'd had to take nationalism most of the time and always had problems getting constitution if i'd go peaceful. in BTS i thought farms had been nerfed a bit, more pollution from factories, lesser income from big city trade routes since AI cities aren't that big anymore.
Seems that these are minor effects though, pollution can be helped easily with proper beelining. An empire with constitution and bio can still research almost as fast as a cottaged empire and has far better chances to get the best corporations.
You've shown clearly in your games that you can have good research until liberalism usually taking the war route shortly afterwards. If you can get pyramids you'll have far better early research even than with cottages. Do you always go for this wonder?
Since steel can often be taken from liberalism nowadays (also since AIs are considerably slower than in warlords before lib) getting constitution from lib should also be easy now so i think i'll try your strat in one of my next games.
Actually i came close in the Suleiman game, iirc only capital had cottages there.
Not at all, I usually avoid it. This is the first university thread that I have made it I believe (except for Suleiman where I captured it). Actually I made it in the Louis game as well, but we had stone, an island to ourselves and the industrious trait, so it doesn't really count. I only consider getting the Pyramids if I have stone nearby, but even then I'm more likely to skip it than to make it, but it depends on whether I have something constructive to do. I did get it in the Monty game hosted by ABigCivFan, but as I stated in my post, I only went for it because there were vast areas of available land, I wouldn't have any trouble expanding into a medium-sized empire even with the hammers invested into the Pyramids.
This game I had no other buildings to construct at the point of time where I started it and I already had more units than I wanted due to the rush so I considered it to be worth the hammers. I'm not that addicted to early representation, the majority of my beakers usually come from strategic lightbulbs and working special resources (incense, dye etc). It's a great bonus, but often it's much safer to prevent getting boxed in and invest into settlers/workers/axes instead, even with stone. Having representation won't be much good if you're stuck at 3-4 cities.
... I'd launch an amphibious assault this turn - the opportunity to scuttle the bulk of her fleet at the start of the war is too good to miss in my opinion. If you soften up the city with frigates and airships, your arty will have a field day.
Are you going to use police state to deal with WW problems, or ride it out and go for a quick capitulation?
As you noted, scuttling Hatty's main navy sure was appealing -- not only does it limit her ability to counter my ships, but the large power drop could be helpful to early capitulation.
Airships are very useful as well -- they damage the top few defenders, provide fantastic scouting, and enable naval superiority. Fun stuff.
I didn't switch to Police State, but neither did I seek an early capitulation
Edit: If you haven't tried it before: do a recon mission with an airship on top of a mountain -- the revealed terrain is massive.
Not at all, I usually avoid it. This is the first university thread that I have made it I believe (except for Suleiman where I captured it). Actually I made it in the Louis game as well, but we had stone, an island to ourselves and the industrious trait, so it doesn't really count. I only consider getting the Pyramids if I have stone nearby, but even then I'm more likely to skip it than to make it, but it depends on whether I have something constructive to do. I did get it in the Monty game hosted by ABigCivFan, but as I stated in my post, I only went for it because there were vast areas of available land, I wouldn't have any trouble expanding into a medium-sized empire even with the hammers invested into the Pyramids.
This game I had no other buildings to construct at the point of time where I started it and I already had more units than I wanted due to the rush so I considered it to be worth the hammers. I'm not that addicted to early representation, the majority of my beakers usually come from strategic lightbulbs and working special resources (incense, dye etc). It's a great bonus, but often it's much safer to prevent getting boxed in and invest into settlers/workers/axes instead, even with stone. Having representation won't be much good if you're stuck at 3-4 cities.
It was indeed your Deity game as Monty that i remember vividly that you built the wonder quite early, indeed we've stone there and while i didn't consider it i thought it a good move when i read about it, indeed there was a massive amount of land there that didn't look as if it would be settled early. Also fast research is more important on deity than immortal.
Long timespan, there's just nothing happening in my game.I research COL 75 BC but my economy is still in dire straits 1 AD and i've nothing to build except useless units.Alphabet comes in 125 AD and at last i can convert the useless production to research. I really recovered around 375 AD with the discovery of currency and meeting Izzy, i net +/- 100 beakers/turn without loss which is at least reasonable research 375 AD. I build no wonders only cottages/farms and infra. 1160 Ad i have around 400 beakers/turn but i haven't expanded outside the island at all. I guess i can take Hatty out and maybe SB later, i haven't played for it really, no globe no HE no workshops. Also i'm still experiencing some human WW from the multiple modern wars i fought as Louis.
So i go peaceful with a deep beeline to radio. Around 1450 Hatsephut has enough on her hands, she's annoying as hell anyway this game with the AP. So i set my friends Izzy and Churchill on her. 1740 Ad i have electricity and radio on SB, he has artillery on me. I've built Christo redentor, and Broadway, will also get Rock and roll. I don't know about corporations, KK has built GW(the worst wonder in the game really for me) in my best gp farm, also if i forget to check the city for a while the game puts a spy specialist there. Annoying that i can't turn this off. Anyway i'm set for my next great spy, i have no idea what to with these guys. Will try for an engineer and mining co next.
Island is big enough to tech to space and that's my intention. I think i'll win it pretty easily from here but not with an impressive score. I'm a bit bored by this particular game and it shows for instance in Karakorum which still has no harbor 1740 AD .
Following on from the last post I had decided to attack Isabella and to take her Capital straight away hoping to get an early capitulation. The first part went well and took Madrid on the first turn of the war.
Madrid.
Remembered to use spies this time.
I was hoping for a quick capitulation but she wouldn't play ball and I had to take 6 more cities before she would give in but eventually decided it was better to join the Persian Empire.
I'm usually pretty generous with my vassals and tend to gift them techs and resources. This would certainly help later on.
Looking at the screenshots the war only took 7 turns but seemed much longer than that.
Next person to attack was Pacal. I had more hopes of him giving up quickly.
I did manage to have 2 spies in this city but both failed. On the plus side my siege didn't take long to reduce the cultural defences. So the city fell straight away and.
A 2 turn war much better. Gifted him plenty of techs as well. I don't have enough for a domination win so as expected I have to take on Churchill. At the time he was missing steel and steam the former he stole off me.
Luckily (for me) he had based most of his SoD in a former Mayan city so when the time came to declare I would put a big dent in his power rating.
This war turned into quite a tough slog. At the end he had infantry and wasn't far off Industrialism but not enough to stop me and my allies. I had finally got my troops to London which would have fallen on the next turn. On checking the screen he was willing to capitulate. Leading to.
Quick shot of the power graph. You can see where Churchill and I had a couple of big battles. No prizes for guessing who won.
And finally.
Another new highest score for me.
Thanks for hosting this game silverbullet. Another .
Congrats , impressive game. Conquest 1775 AD seems extremely early to me on this map. Two questions:
Am i right presuming that you can only get conquest by vassalizing everyone and that you must take care to vassalize all the others but one without reaching the domination limits?
Why do you use spies when you've got lots of siege? I use spies when going rifle or mounted attack but not if i have cannons, build enough of them and you can bombard and take a city same turn.
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Firstly as hoped Hattie built the SoL for me.
So I declared war then noticed my WW was shooting up after taking her first 2 cities. Something I should but never do is check who has and where is the Statue of Zeus. Fortunately it was in her third city I took along with another nice couple of wonders.
I went for masonry instead of writing so I couldn't even get libraries and scientists up and running. Maybe I should have quit here.
My Questions:
