King of the World #11: Darius I

[Matthew5117]

re: Total War- It would be awesome to see 3 superpowers batting against each other later in the game!

re: Boudica's map- Great idea!

re: War with China- Agreed.

Looking forward to it!

 

[Hereditary Rule]

Very Nice Playing Neal.

Can't wait to see how it ends!

 

[Gooblah]

re: War with China- I get the feeling that we can take Guangzhou, but that'll probably come pretty darn close to wiping out our military. I'm thinking we'll need to take peace at that point, if only to replenish our siege (and maybe we could get something like China's Pacific island cities in the deal). Then, after 10 turns, maybe think about making another go of it.

re: The next round- I dunno, tomorrow?

TBH, Guangzhou may be winnable, but you're screwed after that. Unless you can magically conjure a Spy or three to ensure high odds of city revolt, you'll spend probably a dozen turns just bombarding, then FINALLY attack with siege after Qin whips a Castle, Walls, and 20 Longbows. Okay, slight exaggeration, but the point still holds. You're dangerously low on Siege.

 

[Ultimocrat]

I agree with Gooblah about Guangzhou. CG3 D1 longbows on a hill are going to be very costly to dislodge with only 2 trebs and a cat. I wouldn't even expect to win unless many of your maces are CR3 -- and even so, do you really want to suicide your highly promoted troops for such a marginal gain?

 

[Neal]

re: Guangzhou- So should I just ignore it? Bypass it and hit flatland cities? Or settle into a comfy hill while trickling in more siege?

 

[Joshua368]

You need seige to invade, simple fact of the game.

 

[Gooblah]

re: Guangzhou- So should I just ignore it? Bypass it and hit flatland cities? Or settle into a comfy hill while trickling in more siege?

I would say, ignore it and get ready to fight another day.

Try to churn through as many techs as possible, focusing on an end result of Rifling and Steel. Screw the navy, it won't help you. Once Qin capitulates, the lack of one won't matter anyways.

Try another mass Cavalry rush (Genghis style), followed up by a more traditional Rifleman march.

 

[pigswill]

CG3LBs are really very tough. You need a bunch of trebs or preferably CR2/3 cannon to make a dent in them.
Is it worth having a faux war in the East while polishing off Hannibal in the west coz you probably won't finish off China this time round and the Niger floodplain is worth adding to your empire.

 

[Stewie0416]

It still astounds me your ability to take cities with such small stacks. Sorry if I sound harsh or anything but you need to GET BIGGER STACKS! At least roughly 30 units, 1/2 of those siege and you should easily be able to swamp China then march that army over the Rome and march right in! BIG STACKS ARE YOUR FRIEND!

 

[Terrance888]

Yeah, I am always amazed at the photos of how he barely makes it in with 1 unit! Or is it that he zooms in ASAP without moving the others in? :???:

I agree, either a biger stack, or have two of those stacks to split up defenders.

IIRC Qin is Protective, so watchout for 2/3 citizen Wall and Castle whips!

 

[Belisar]

you need to GET BIGGER STACKS!

Very true.
And on a related note for future games, build the HE earlier, ASAP.

 

[pigswill]

1010ad Given up on my shadow game.

Spoiler :

Because its basically won. Annihilated Rome in 920ad. Annihilated Greece 1010ad (Athens had Hindu shrine). Built a few wonders (SoZ,Glib, Sankore,AP, Notre Dame, Taj). Captured a couple more (Gwall, Henge, Glight, HG). Got lib in 870ad. Got middle east, half of russia, india, egypt, europe except scandinavia.
Leading on tech:

Also got education, DR, nationalism, banking, currently researching economix.
Doing ok for demographics (inflated atm by golden age):

What helped me most was researching construction and riding straight after Oracle for elephants/cats which can fight prats on even terms.

If anyone wants to carry on, be my guest:

 

[huerfanista]

I finished playing from Neal's 650BC save: 1843 Diplomation win for 144K pts.
Recap:

Spoiler :

Continuing from 1420AD, after a period of peace with Qin during which I built an army of rifles/cannon (turned off slider for a few turns to upgrade all of my CR maces to rifles) and got ironworks and WP in Moscow (traded for music/nat/mil trad/constitution/democracy), I reDOWed Qin and quickly swept through China from both India and Russia. Infantry came online in the middle of this, which helped speed things up.

I wiped out the Chinese civ, and Ashoka was the next one in my sights. Unfortunately, he already had industrialism , but fortunately he's Ashoka. I DOWed him with an infantry/cannon army vs tanks/marines, and after taking a couple of cities in Bengal/Indochina I gave him peace for and a city. I needed more firepower, so during the 10 turns of peace I teched flight and artillery (I already had fascism). I pre-built blimps and cannon, so after artillery came online I turned the slider off for a few turns (I was making 2600 per turn) to upgrade all of my cannon to artillery and all blimps to fighters. I also started churning out anti-tank units from my Russian production cities. I attacked from 3 directions: Persepolis eastward, from Bengal westward to Delhi (my biggest stack), and from W.China southwestward. He fell like a stack of cards.

Next up was Hannibal, who had infantry/cannon. By now I had bombers and was teching MM. He capped after taking 4 cities, including his capital (p-troops from Spain and Italy). Halfway through I DOWed Toku and attacked the home islands with paratroopers and bombers. He folded after I took Kyoto and 3 other cities on the mainland/Indonesia. I popped a GE, which I used to rush the UN, and then all I had to do was wait for the vote.

 

[Jaaboo]

Shadowed this as well with a version of Boudica in Europe and Sury still on the map. I have an interesting situation that's developed around 600 AD or so.

Spoiler :

Settled 1S on the elephants and made for the Immortal rush. Founded Pasargarde 1SE of the horses and as soon as I could started pumping out baracks prompted Immortals. Ham founded Hindu for me the nice man, making Babylon an attractive choice for Wall Street later on. Uruk fell three turns later. Ramses was kind enough to found Judaism for me, but to my dismay it was founded in Memphis, not Thebes. Still both are wonderful cities. As soon as I could I teched Pottery and cottaged the hell out of Egypt and Iraq. Asoka build Stonehenge for me and Sury built the Great Wall. I figured their contributions to history were complete and made it so, but the battle for Khmer lands took a long time.

During that time, JC declared on Boud and converted to Hindu. I converted as well and spread it through my new lands. Qin was a follower of the new Khmer faith (I founded Conf with CoL from the Oracle) and needed reeducation. I got the stable event so I began down the guilds line while building up a small war chest. Qin was on his knees before Guilds came online but the 11 free horse archers became highly promoted Knights after the Chinese campaign.

So here's where it gets interesting. Rome is a beast. Not long after I took Qin's capitulation and welcomed him back into the Hindu fold, Rome vassaled Peri and Boud. Hanibal is a minor player and Qin has contained Wang and Toku. There are two superpowers now in Eurasia - JC and yours truly. JC has the fantastic European lands and I need to explore more to see what of Russia he has claimed, but I have an incredible empire that stretches from Egypt to China. I have a small tech lead on JC, but not enough to strike now. Espionage tells me I have 1.4 times the power of JC and Persopolis is about to finish the HE making it a legendary (LEGEN-DARY!) military pump. Uruk and Pasagarde aren't bad either.

I need to attach a save but here's where I ask for advice:

* Obviously the world isn't big enough for JC & I. I have devoted the last few centuries to shoring up the East, but there is still good land in India to settle. However, I think my next step is to contain JC's Russian expansion. Boud is probably already there so it might be a good start on the war to take out JC's peons, wait for the counter attack and then slowly overwhelm him. Thoughts? I need to post a save.

* The capital & the forbidden palace. Once Civil Service comes in what's a better capital - Babylon with its insane or continue to use Persopolis, my largest city? FP I am thinking somewhere in Asia, probably in the very shiny Burma/Laos location or the SE coastal location of China (Hong Kong).

* The best time to start a knock-down drag out that the war vs. JC will be: Cannons and Cavs? Engineering is next on my list and then I need to get going down the Lib line so I can kick my research into high gear.

 

[pigswill]

@Jaaboo

Spoiler :

You're probably better off keeping persepolis as your capital because you've got three good commerce sites (babylon, thebes, memphis) but probably no major hammer city outside persepolis. Its worth running bureaucracy in persepolis not for the commerce boost but the 50% hammer boost.

 

[huerfanista]

@jaaboo

Spoiler :

What are the settings in your game? Immortal/epic or something else?

Since you settled Persepolis in one of the 2 best spots for long-term (1S or 1SW), I wouldn't move the capital. With ORG/FIN all you need are the welath buildings in your 3 commerce cities. As far as JC is concerned, the way to win IMO is to leverage your empire size to overwhelm him. Just build military everywhere and he shouln't be able to keep up. You have lots of options for gaining a tipping point, but a lot depends on what JC does. If you can grab nat from lib, tech to rifles and draft a huge advanced army from all of your cities. That should be enough to put the game in the bag. Another option would be to grab steel from lib (only if the others avoid the lib path). Good luck. You already seem to have the game in hand.

 

[Neal]

Hey, guys...

Sorry, but life is getting in the way again, so I'm not gonna be able to play the next round until Tuesday or Wednesday. Until then, any solid advice on where I should go in the war? Should I whip as many Cats and Trebs as I can out of India and then throw myself at the rock that is Guanzhou? Maybe pass it by, accept a few harrying hits to the stack from Chinese Knights, and try for the more lightly defended Nanjing or Shanghai? Maybe just take a city for a cease fire and use the peace to build up a proper offensive stack?

And what of Hannibal? Should I send my Greek forces into Africa, or keep them in place to ward off Rome? Techwise, I'm thinking Banking-Economics for the free Great Merchant, then pair him with the GP coming out of Thebes for a Golden Age. Use that Golden Age to change Civics and get a head start on Replacable Parts for Rifles. Or should we trade the world to Asoka and Boudica for Chemistry and try for Steel?

 

[Kev]

Neal - no reason to apologize about life. Just happy you play and we can watch.

I'm a mediocre player, but here are some things I can point out:

Seems Hannibal has broken from Qin. You can choose what to do with him based upon how you'd prefer to handle the Chinese front. Not sure why Utica is in revolt - that's interesting...

My view would be to stop hostilities for now with Qin and Wang. Give yourself some time to tech up a bit and build a LOT with units (and infrastructure as needed). I realize that there is the fear that Qin may capitulate to JC, but if that seems like it could happen you might be able to bribe JC to peace. Would Qin be able to capitulate if he himself has a vassal?

The benefits of a break now could mean:

1. You can go specifically at Hannibal alone. Move your Greek army or perhaps even the eastern army (if you have the time) into the region for a short span to capture the AP. Perhaps you would consider Hannibal as a vassal yourself.
2. JC and Qin will at least exhaust themselves a bit militarily.
2a. I would sell optics to Qin for all of his money. Not a dangerous tech for him to have, it's less money for his upgrades, and more money for you (Not sure if there might be a diplo hit with this, though).
3. Perhaps Qin might take a few of the left-over Indian cities that will allow you to take them later.
4. When you are ready to jump back in, perhaps you might be able to do so at someone's request and get some diplo benefits. Lord knows you can use some since everyone you know is either cautious or worse.
5. When you are ready to jump back in, you will certainly have more siege, a larger army overall, and won't likely have to worry about defending Africa against Hannibal.

Obviously, the threat from JC still looms, but some buildup in defense over that border and the fact that he will send some military into Chinese lands will hopefully help.

Looks like fun either way.

I'd also look to trade with some people for gunpowder and theology. Liberalism can be used as such I think, though it might change the diplo if people switch out of religions...

 

[r_rolo1]

Utica is most surely suffering of a slave revolt.

Kev is incorrect about a point: Rome will eat qin alive if left unchecked... just see the balance of forces in western siberia.

I'm somewhat worried about how to handle rome. I'm afraid that he starts to chain vassaling, but taking him out of war with China and Carthage will surely make him target you. It would be epic and very fun for the lurkers, surely, but possibly it is also a good way of losing the game.

About the Greek stack: the roman army is in Western siberia. So should yours, IMHO. You can make a full mounted stack to take Utica if needed ( I think it is a better option that losing almost 20 turns to bring the army from greece to the staging area )

 

[CreeDakota]

I agree with Rolo to Hold all Armies in Place on the Roman Front.

I would be looking to Cap Hannibal, he has two techs to trade right now and will give you more if you direct his research.

I would only take peace with China if you plan to Backstab Rome and can get a better deal than a far off isolated city you cant reinforce. In fact I actually kinda like that Idea as a mid range strategy.

I cant open your save to really see the military situation but that Gaunzhou garrison does not pose a threat in the field so you can safely by pass it this will lead to either 1) he sallies forth and wastes units against your best defenders 2) he moves to attack Chengdu and dies 3) he sits there like a dumb AI. No matter which one you are free to use that small stack to either take a weaker city or to Scout/Pillage around.

Perhaps you can get some units up to the China-Front to assess Caesars Progress and to steal some any cities he weakens but does not capture.

The wost outcome is for China to cap to Rome so monitor his cap status often as the war progresses.