Mansa's Ju-Co, CIVIV 101
- Thread starter xanadux
- Start date
The Final Round ... Intercontinental Destruction
The last round ended with the first intercontinental invasion, and the razing of the Khmer capital.
Round 8
Turn 267 My fleet with half the force moves north towards Nagara. The frigates clear 2 caravels in the way. I assault from the sea again, CR2 cannon withdraws with only 30% odds. Then a combat 2 infantry dies with 88% odds and another dies with 97% odds. City had only a mace, longbow, and sword defending. The winning infantry plus the last healthy one on the boats are left ashore. Move towards Gaul. All my infantry are wounded 30-50%. But I have a lot of healthy cannon and Gaul has lower culture. The 2 infantry will be picked up on the way back. The empty galleons head back to pick up more forces, which they will probably bring to the western side of the continent. The land force moves west to hariharilarious. The ships of the line that Gao and Djenne are building spread out to cover supply lanes in the ocean East of Djenne.
Turn 268 Gaul is on a hill with a CG1 longbow, so I land my forces. Hill plus CG longbow plus amphibious penalty is just too much. Plus I was going to land everyone after the battle to sit and heal anyway. Land force continues
on towards Hardiharhar, and spies split up between that city and the Angkor twins. WW is beginning to take effect, and I raise the culture slider to 10%. Of course I declared war on Fred (Gaul was German), and now am at war with the entire world.
Turn 269 Gaul captured and razed, no losses. I was stupid and sent my great spy carrying caravel out without escort and one of Fred's caravels sunk it. Oh well, it probably won't change anything. My empty galleons have picked up the rest of my cannon and infantry and are heading east to the west coast of the other continent. I am building galleons now in Gao and Djenne. The quicker I get forces to the other continent, the quicker this will be over with.
Turn 270 Another error. I didn't have escort for my galleons that just picked up more troops, and a japanese caravel managed to sink one. Fortunately the one that sunk was only carrying spies. Northern forces get back on galleons to journey south and take more cities. Land attack force closes on Hariharikrishna.
Turn 271 Haripotter falls. I used a spy to drop defenses, and all my cannon to cause collateral damage. Had 7 units defending. All my infantry had 99.9% odds. Great General is born. I will save him in case I need another medic 3 unit Raise culture slider to 20% to further deal with WW.
Turn 272 My sea force comes across Rajavihara, a newly founded Khmer city.
Since My forces are right there, I send in a cannon then an infantry, and continue south. My land forces head towards Angkor Wat.
Turn 273 Mt. Rushmore completed in Lisbon. WW abates somewhat. I was about to raise the slider again, but no longer necessary. My sea force attacks and razes Nara, defended by 3 lbows and a sword with 40% defense. I lose one cannon. I see a ballista elephant as my land force approaches Angkor Wat and kill it. The medic 3 unit with this stack
is a knight. I should have put this unit with the sea force, and used the explorer medic 3 for the land force. I forgot about the Khmer UU which can single out mounted units when it attacks. 4 galleons with 7 infantry and 3 cannon and my new medic 3 knight head east from Djenne. A few turns ago, once I had enough forces In my western jump off point to fill the coming galleons, I started mustering in Djenne.
Turn 274 screenshot:
Nagoya is garrisoned with CG3 muskets. I land my forces to bombard and capture. I think my cannon would have about a 2% withdraw rate against the combined force of the culture, the amphibious penalty and the highly promoted unit.
Turn 275 New eastern sea task force (the one with 7 infantry and 3 cannon) takes Essen with loss of one cannon. Nagoya's defenses removed by bombardment with cannon.
Turn 276 Nagoya taken with no losses. First cannon had 33% but still withdrew. All other attacks over 90%. Dortmund captured and razed by newly arrived NW force (shown in next screen shot).
Turn 277 science to 0%, culture to 30% for WW. New western army sails into furry bay to take out more northern cities:
Note the lone infantryman on the tip of the peninsula. That was Dortmund. To save time, the capturing unit is left behind. Often they are picked back up later, often they are left to fend for themselves and try to join my army later. These units are also used to patrol the newly created neutral territories, looking out for settlers and new cities. SE battle force moves SW next to Osaka. Primary land force continuese SE towards Munich. I see
a ballista elephant there, so my knight medic 3 with an escort of 2 infantry heads north to join the NW battle group.
Turn 278 NW battle force razes Dusseldorf from the sea, then moves W by boat and unused forces land near Stuttgart. SW force moves up and lands 2W of Hamburg. The galleons will return for more troops. Osaka is bombarded by 3 healthy cannon, the rest do nothing to heal for a turn. Osaka is guarded by 3 CG3 longbows. Switch to emancipation to stay happy. Someone adopted it, I didn't bother to check who.
Turn 279 Stuttgart razed. MY medic 3 unit fleeing ballista elephants arrives to joing with this force. Remainder of force is landed and galleons return to main continent for more troops. Central force now 1S of Munich. SW force moves next to hamburg. SE force: now I use the injured cannon to bombard, then the healthy to attack. I used the healthy to bombard last turn to give the injured ones a turn to heal. Lose one cannon, only have 3 infantry here,
and they all win with 99.9% odds. Slider bumped to 40% for war weariness. I have a lot of cash saved up, so should be able to keep my people happy until Sury is dead. War weariness at 9-12 unhappy in core cities, with jails and Mt. rushmore.
Turn 280 NW battle group all gather on square SW of Stuttgart ruins. Central battle group razes Munich. The cannon bombard, and although the city is protected by CG longbows on a hill, my CR3 infantry have over 99% odds, so I attack without cannon to soften the defenders. Osaka is captured by SE battle group. My 2 cannon in the small SW force bombard Hamburg. I have built 5 more galleons in Djenne, Lieria and Oporto. They depart Djenne with another load of troops. This force should have been sent to invade Western Japan, but I make a timing mistake and send them to Berlin instead.
Turn 281 NW battle group moves towards Frankfurt. SE battle group boards galleons and moves up to join with central battle group. This force has only 3 infantry, and has a medic 3 unit. The central force is now heavily injured
with no medic 3 unit. They will join, heal, take Angkor Thom, and be redeployed. I built an explorer in Djenne and used my 5th great general for another medic 3 unit. He departs along with more cannon and infantry on 3 galleons that have returned from the front.
Turn 282 NW battle group now next to Frankfurt. SE group lands 1SW of Angkor Thom. Central group moves to 1E of Angkor Thom. I realize I need my galleons from the NW group more to transport the NW group south than to get more troops, so they return to Frankfurt. I build a few more galleons in Djenne just in case I need them. I am starting to switch my outer cities to wealth. They can't really produce anything to help in the war, but they can make sure I have enough money to pay my army.
Turn 283 Frankfort razed. Angkor Thom razed, and Khmer is no more. With the 2 armies combined outside, I was able to drop defenses, attack with 4 healthy cannon, and take down all 10 or so defenders in one turn. My new force on 5 galleons lands near Berlin. More forces will no longer speed up the conquest, so supply lanes no longer need to be guarded. My 10 ships of the line in Eastern Ocean move to the Western Japanese coasts to bombard cities before my troops get there. 5 frigates in the western ocean head to bombard the eastern Japanese coastal cities. Since I need no more
troops, Timbuktu starts on Pentagon, Lisbon on Statue of Liberty, and Djenne on Kremlin.
Turn 284 After the battle of Angkor Thom, my force again splits up, 4 healthy cannon and 4 healthy infantry head SW towards cologne (I probably should have made the Cologne force a little bigger). The medic3, 8 infantry, and 15 cannon (most of these units injured) board the galleons and head south to finish off the coastal Japanese cities. My force outside Hamburg attacks, both cannon winning, and each of the 7 infantry killing a longbow. 3 units remain in the city. The Frankfort taskforce re-embarks, heading south on its fleet of galleons. The newest force of 8 units and a medic 3 approach Tokyo.
Turn 285 New Japanese city of Izumo is razed, fleet continues south:
Hamburg was reinforced with 3 Catapult and another cbow, and I attacked and razed it. Berlin's defenses dropped. Last small force of 3 infantry
and 5 cannon lands near Tokyo.
Turn 286 Berlin is razed, next turn forces will head NW to take newly founded german city of Hanover. Hamburg forces head SE to Cologne in case they are needed. The east coast fleet moves on to the next city. (I had the wrong name here, but it's the ciy east of Kyoto, that sits at the south of a peninsula). Frigates bombard, and I attack from the ocean, razing it, and moving on towards Kyoto. Tokyo is bombarded by the sea and attacked
from the land:
Notice here my infantry has a promotion available, but I attack without promoting. I did this here to demonstrate an occassionally useful tactic when using superior but outnumbered forces. I have 99.9% odds, and combat 2 will not improve that. So I save the promotion. If my unit is unlucky, and heavily injured, it will get half the lost hitpoints back next turn when I promote it. As long as the unit survives, I will still have high odds next turn, no matter how badly it is injured.
Turn 287 I see that if I invade Kyoto from the sea (even though it has 80% culture defense and a CG3 musket), I can possibly win the game next turn if my forces aren't too injured. I start the attack with a CR3 infantry:
Here is a time when you don't use your cannon first. If I had used a cannon, odds would have been only 1%. I could easily throw 5 or 6 cannon at this city, and although I would get collateral damage, have all the cannon die, and not scratch that tough CG3 musket. And after losing 5 or 6 cannon, still have a low odds fight with my infantry. So the infantry attacks first to damage the tough defender, and only after it is damaged (actually it died) do the cannon attack. Kyoto actually falls rather easily. Then I realize it was
no big deal because It would be impossible to take Cologne next turn anyway. Tokyo also falls, being finished off by an infantry from the Frankfort force on its way down to Satsuma. The force lands outside Satsuma. Unless Fred has sneaked out another city, Satsuma and Hanover will fall next turn, eliminating the Japanese, and Cologne the turn after that eliminating Fred.
Turn 288 I capture Hannover and Satsuma, keeping both. My troops want somewhere to sleep after the war.
Turn 289 Kremlin built in Djenne. I bought it last turn, only one I could afford. Hannover captured and kept, and Fred is gone.
Turn 290 Won Conquest victory in 1840AD
Final Power Graph:
Final Score:
Not a perfectly run war, but I think it went well for the most part.
As always, comments soon, and hopefully I find time to make up a war map. I tried my best to describe what was happening, but I imagine many will lose track of what is happening where. Note that unless I specifically mentioned landing my forces, all coastal cities were taken amphibiously.
The last round ended with the first intercontinental invasion, and the razing of the Khmer capital.
Round 8
Turn 267 My fleet with half the force moves north towards Nagara. The frigates clear 2 caravels in the way. I assault from the sea again, CR2 cannon withdraws with only 30% odds. Then a combat 2 infantry dies with 88% odds and another dies with 97% odds. City had only a mace, longbow, and sword defending. The winning infantry plus the last healthy one on the boats are left ashore. Move towards Gaul. All my infantry are wounded 30-50%. But I have a lot of healthy cannon and Gaul has lower culture. The 2 infantry will be picked up on the way back. The empty galleons head back to pick up more forces, which they will probably bring to the western side of the continent. The land force moves west to hariharilarious. The ships of the line that Gao and Djenne are building spread out to cover supply lanes in the ocean East of Djenne.
Turn 268 Gaul is on a hill with a CG1 longbow, so I land my forces. Hill plus CG longbow plus amphibious penalty is just too much. Plus I was going to land everyone after the battle to sit and heal anyway. Land force continues
on towards Hardiharhar, and spies split up between that city and the Angkor twins. WW is beginning to take effect, and I raise the culture slider to 10%. Of course I declared war on Fred (Gaul was German), and now am at war with the entire world.
Turn 269 Gaul captured and razed, no losses. I was stupid and sent my great spy carrying caravel out without escort and one of Fred's caravels sunk it. Oh well, it probably won't change anything. My empty galleons have picked up the rest of my cannon and infantry and are heading east to the west coast of the other continent. I am building galleons now in Gao and Djenne. The quicker I get forces to the other continent, the quicker this will be over with.
Turn 270 Another error. I didn't have escort for my galleons that just picked up more troops, and a japanese caravel managed to sink one. Fortunately the one that sunk was only carrying spies. Northern forces get back on galleons to journey south and take more cities. Land attack force closes on Hariharikrishna.
Turn 271 Haripotter falls. I used a spy to drop defenses, and all my cannon to cause collateral damage. Had 7 units defending. All my infantry had 99.9% odds. Great General is born. I will save him in case I need another medic 3 unit Raise culture slider to 20% to further deal with WW.
Turn 272 My sea force comes across Rajavihara, a newly founded Khmer city.
Spoiler :
Since My forces are right there, I send in a cannon then an infantry, and continue south. My land forces head towards Angkor Wat.
Turn 273 Mt. Rushmore completed in Lisbon. WW abates somewhat. I was about to raise the slider again, but no longer necessary. My sea force attacks and razes Nara, defended by 3 lbows and a sword with 40% defense. I lose one cannon. I see a ballista elephant as my land force approaches Angkor Wat and kill it. The medic 3 unit with this stack
is a knight. I should have put this unit with the sea force, and used the explorer medic 3 for the land force. I forgot about the Khmer UU which can single out mounted units when it attacks. 4 galleons with 7 infantry and 3 cannon and my new medic 3 knight head east from Djenne. A few turns ago, once I had enough forces In my western jump off point to fill the coming galleons, I started mustering in Djenne.
Turn 274 screenshot:
Spoiler :
Nagoya is garrisoned with CG3 muskets. I land my forces to bombard and capture. I think my cannon would have about a 2% withdraw rate against the combined force of the culture, the amphibious penalty and the highly promoted unit.
Turn 275 New eastern sea task force (the one with 7 infantry and 3 cannon) takes Essen with loss of one cannon. Nagoya's defenses removed by bombardment with cannon.
Turn 276 Nagoya taken with no losses. First cannon had 33% but still withdrew. All other attacks over 90%. Dortmund captured and razed by newly arrived NW force (shown in next screen shot).
Turn 277 science to 0%, culture to 30% for WW. New western army sails into furry bay to take out more northern cities:
Spoiler :
Note the lone infantryman on the tip of the peninsula. That was Dortmund. To save time, the capturing unit is left behind. Often they are picked back up later, often they are left to fend for themselves and try to join my army later. These units are also used to patrol the newly created neutral territories, looking out for settlers and new cities. SE battle force moves SW next to Osaka. Primary land force continuese SE towards Munich. I see
a ballista elephant there, so my knight medic 3 with an escort of 2 infantry heads north to join the NW battle group.
Turn 278 NW battle force razes Dusseldorf from the sea, then moves W by boat and unused forces land near Stuttgart. SW force moves up and lands 2W of Hamburg. The galleons will return for more troops. Osaka is bombarded by 3 healthy cannon, the rest do nothing to heal for a turn. Osaka is guarded by 3 CG3 longbows. Switch to emancipation to stay happy. Someone adopted it, I didn't bother to check who.
Turn 279 Stuttgart razed. MY medic 3 unit fleeing ballista elephants arrives to joing with this force. Remainder of force is landed and galleons return to main continent for more troops. Central force now 1S of Munich. SW force moves next to hamburg. SE force: now I use the injured cannon to bombard, then the healthy to attack. I used the healthy to bombard last turn to give the injured ones a turn to heal. Lose one cannon, only have 3 infantry here,
and they all win with 99.9% odds. Slider bumped to 40% for war weariness. I have a lot of cash saved up, so should be able to keep my people happy until Sury is dead. War weariness at 9-12 unhappy in core cities, with jails and Mt. rushmore.
Turn 280 NW battle group all gather on square SW of Stuttgart ruins. Central battle group razes Munich. The cannon bombard, and although the city is protected by CG longbows on a hill, my CR3 infantry have over 99% odds, so I attack without cannon to soften the defenders. Osaka is captured by SE battle group. My 2 cannon in the small SW force bombard Hamburg. I have built 5 more galleons in Djenne, Lieria and Oporto. They depart Djenne with another load of troops. This force should have been sent to invade Western Japan, but I make a timing mistake and send them to Berlin instead.
Turn 281 NW battle group moves towards Frankfurt. SE battle group boards galleons and moves up to join with central battle group. This force has only 3 infantry, and has a medic 3 unit. The central force is now heavily injured
with no medic 3 unit. They will join, heal, take Angkor Thom, and be redeployed. I built an explorer in Djenne and used my 5th great general for another medic 3 unit. He departs along with more cannon and infantry on 3 galleons that have returned from the front.
Turn 282 NW battle group now next to Frankfurt. SE group lands 1SW of Angkor Thom. Central group moves to 1E of Angkor Thom. I realize I need my galleons from the NW group more to transport the NW group south than to get more troops, so they return to Frankfurt. I build a few more galleons in Djenne just in case I need them. I am starting to switch my outer cities to wealth. They can't really produce anything to help in the war, but they can make sure I have enough money to pay my army.
Turn 283 Frankfort razed. Angkor Thom razed, and Khmer is no more. With the 2 armies combined outside, I was able to drop defenses, attack with 4 healthy cannon, and take down all 10 or so defenders in one turn. My new force on 5 galleons lands near Berlin. More forces will no longer speed up the conquest, so supply lanes no longer need to be guarded. My 10 ships of the line in Eastern Ocean move to the Western Japanese coasts to bombard cities before my troops get there. 5 frigates in the western ocean head to bombard the eastern Japanese coastal cities. Since I need no more
troops, Timbuktu starts on Pentagon, Lisbon on Statue of Liberty, and Djenne on Kremlin.
Turn 284 After the battle of Angkor Thom, my force again splits up, 4 healthy cannon and 4 healthy infantry head SW towards cologne (I probably should have made the Cologne force a little bigger). The medic3, 8 infantry, and 15 cannon (most of these units injured) board the galleons and head south to finish off the coastal Japanese cities. My force outside Hamburg attacks, both cannon winning, and each of the 7 infantry killing a longbow. 3 units remain in the city. The Frankfort taskforce re-embarks, heading south on its fleet of galleons. The newest force of 8 units and a medic 3 approach Tokyo.
Turn 285 New Japanese city of Izumo is razed, fleet continues south:
Spoiler :
Hamburg was reinforced with 3 Catapult and another cbow, and I attacked and razed it. Berlin's defenses dropped. Last small force of 3 infantry
and 5 cannon lands near Tokyo.
Turn 286 Berlin is razed, next turn forces will head NW to take newly founded german city of Hanover. Hamburg forces head SE to Cologne in case they are needed. The east coast fleet moves on to the next city. (I had the wrong name here, but it's the ciy east of Kyoto, that sits at the south of a peninsula). Frigates bombard, and I attack from the ocean, razing it, and moving on towards Kyoto. Tokyo is bombarded by the sea and attacked
from the land:
Spoiler :
Notice here my infantry has a promotion available, but I attack without promoting. I did this here to demonstrate an occassionally useful tactic when using superior but outnumbered forces. I have 99.9% odds, and combat 2 will not improve that. So I save the promotion. If my unit is unlucky, and heavily injured, it will get half the lost hitpoints back next turn when I promote it. As long as the unit survives, I will still have high odds next turn, no matter how badly it is injured.
Turn 287 I see that if I invade Kyoto from the sea (even though it has 80% culture defense and a CG3 musket), I can possibly win the game next turn if my forces aren't too injured. I start the attack with a CR3 infantry:
Spoiler :
Here is a time when you don't use your cannon first. If I had used a cannon, odds would have been only 1%. I could easily throw 5 or 6 cannon at this city, and although I would get collateral damage, have all the cannon die, and not scratch that tough CG3 musket. And after losing 5 or 6 cannon, still have a low odds fight with my infantry. So the infantry attacks first to damage the tough defender, and only after it is damaged (actually it died) do the cannon attack. Kyoto actually falls rather easily. Then I realize it was
no big deal because It would be impossible to take Cologne next turn anyway. Tokyo also falls, being finished off by an infantry from the Frankfort force on its way down to Satsuma. The force lands outside Satsuma. Unless Fred has sneaked out another city, Satsuma and Hanover will fall next turn, eliminating the Japanese, and Cologne the turn after that eliminating Fred.
Turn 288 I capture Hannover and Satsuma, keeping both. My troops want somewhere to sleep after the war.
Turn 289 Kremlin built in Djenne. I bought it last turn, only one I could afford. Hannover captured and kept, and Fred is gone.
Turn 290 Won Conquest victory in 1840AD
Final Power Graph:
Spoiler :
Final Score:
Spoiler :
Not a perfectly run war, but I think it went well for the most part.
As always, comments soon, and hopefully I find time to make up a war map. I tried my best to describe what was happening, but I imagine many will lose track of what is happening where. Note that unless I specifically mentioned landing my forces, all coastal cities were taken amphibiously.
A little later than I hoped, but some final comments on the last round.
Don't forget to let me know what you would like to see in the next game with the Civ102 pregame thread.
The last round was pretty simple. Keep building military and take the enemy down fast. The outcome was never in doubt. No medieval civ can stand up to a large force of infantry and cannon. But there is still something to learn from the last round. Mostly, planning an efficient war. You will often have a huge advantage militarily, and sometimes it is very important to wipe out your enemy as quickly as possible, often to minimize war weariness so you can get on to your next goal more quickly and in better economic shape. In this game, after Fascism, no more techs were needed, so as long as I didn't go bankrupt, the economy didn't matter.
I could probably have scored higher by keeping a lot of cities and going for domination instead of conquest. Land is a big part of score. But conquest was simpler, and I believe quicker. I don't really care about score all that much.
The things I think that are of note in this round are the routes my armies took, and except for a couple of minor errors towards the end that probably made the game take 1 or 2 turns longer than it could have, all my forces were being used all the time. Of particular note is the heavy use of amphibious attack without marines or the promotion that negates the amphibious penalty.
When you have the forces, and you want a war over quickly, attacking from the sea is far quicker than landing first. It can even be advantageous when fighting with about the same strength forces as the enemy because by fighting from the sea, your forces are not exposed to enemy siege units. If cities are 4 or 5 tiles away on the coast, you can pretty much take a city per turn until your forces are too wounded and have to heal. If you land each time, the best you can do is a turn to land, a turn to take the city, a turn to get on the ships, and it will be the next turn before you can land again, taking 3x as many turns per city. When the cities are close enough, you can often take more than one city per turn. A little later in the game with combustion navies, it is pretty easy, given enough troops, to have 2 or 3 stacks that each take out 2 cities the first turn of a war. This can be a key way to cripple an opponent (especially a more advanced opponent) with rails without exposing your forces to enemy siege or allowing them to rally defenses.
To keep the war machine moving, the units that captured cities were usually left behind, and the navy moved on to the next target. These units sometimes get picked up later, sometimes are left to try to rejoin another force, and otherwise can distract opposing forces away from city defense or scout neutral territory for settlers and newly settled cities.
One additional tactic that I think bears noting is the case of having 1 or 2 super defenders in a city. The example from the game is Kyoto, defended by a CG3 musket. In these cases, your siege will usually have a very low chance of survival, and often will not even damage the primary defender. They damage the other units in the city, but keep dying without doing much if any damage to the one uber-defender. You will do much better to send in your best city raider unit to damage this tough defender first. Then your siege not only have a much better chance of survival, but also a much better chance of damaging that super unit in the attack.
I probably could have fought this war with grenadiers or rifles instead. Cavalry would not be as effective for 2 reasons ... the pikeman is still a pretty fair counter for cavalry, and the mobility of the cavalry is negated by the slowness of cannon. Cavalry are strong, but will have very high casualties against fortified longbows with 60% or higher culture defense. And most of the cities we attacked had high culture. Especially our first target, Sury, who was pursuing a cultural victory.
I basically took the sure path. Infantry became available just as I was completeing city infrastructures, and are not far behind getting levees. With rifles or grenadiers, the war would have been slower, casualties higher, more time for healing, and amphibious attack probably not feasible. There is a huge difference between an attack of 20 and an attack of 14. There was also a small risk that by using rifles, by the time we got to Freddy's core cities he would have grenadiers. That would have meant always having to remove city defenses, and a lot of cannon lost to soften up the cities.
In my estimation, warring before infantry would have taken at least a little longer than waiting. An additional argument for waiting is that without infantry, the war would be longer, and war weariness much higher. With Fascism a ways out, there would be little I could do to combat super high war weariness. Conceivably, I would have had to take peace to pause and research fascism for police state.
More comments on the game as a whole, and hopefully a war map later today.
Don't forget to let me know what you would like to see in the next game with the Civ102 pregame thread.
The last round was pretty simple. Keep building military and take the enemy down fast. The outcome was never in doubt. No medieval civ can stand up to a large force of infantry and cannon. But there is still something to learn from the last round. Mostly, planning an efficient war. You will often have a huge advantage militarily, and sometimes it is very important to wipe out your enemy as quickly as possible, often to minimize war weariness so you can get on to your next goal more quickly and in better economic shape. In this game, after Fascism, no more techs were needed, so as long as I didn't go bankrupt, the economy didn't matter.
I could probably have scored higher by keeping a lot of cities and going for domination instead of conquest. Land is a big part of score. But conquest was simpler, and I believe quicker. I don't really care about score all that much.
The things I think that are of note in this round are the routes my armies took, and except for a couple of minor errors towards the end that probably made the game take 1 or 2 turns longer than it could have, all my forces were being used all the time. Of particular note is the heavy use of amphibious attack without marines or the promotion that negates the amphibious penalty.
When you have the forces, and you want a war over quickly, attacking from the sea is far quicker than landing first. It can even be advantageous when fighting with about the same strength forces as the enemy because by fighting from the sea, your forces are not exposed to enemy siege units. If cities are 4 or 5 tiles away on the coast, you can pretty much take a city per turn until your forces are too wounded and have to heal. If you land each time, the best you can do is a turn to land, a turn to take the city, a turn to get on the ships, and it will be the next turn before you can land again, taking 3x as many turns per city. When the cities are close enough, you can often take more than one city per turn. A little later in the game with combustion navies, it is pretty easy, given enough troops, to have 2 or 3 stacks that each take out 2 cities the first turn of a war. This can be a key way to cripple an opponent (especially a more advanced opponent) with rails without exposing your forces to enemy siege or allowing them to rally defenses.
To keep the war machine moving, the units that captured cities were usually left behind, and the navy moved on to the next target. These units sometimes get picked up later, sometimes are left to try to rejoin another force, and otherwise can distract opposing forces away from city defense or scout neutral territory for settlers and newly settled cities.
One additional tactic that I think bears noting is the case of having 1 or 2 super defenders in a city. The example from the game is Kyoto, defended by a CG3 musket. In these cases, your siege will usually have a very low chance of survival, and often will not even damage the primary defender. They damage the other units in the city, but keep dying without doing much if any damage to the one uber-defender. You will do much better to send in your best city raider unit to damage this tough defender first. Then your siege not only have a much better chance of survival, but also a much better chance of damaging that super unit in the attack.
I probably could have fought this war with grenadiers or rifles instead. Cavalry would not be as effective for 2 reasons ... the pikeman is still a pretty fair counter for cavalry, and the mobility of the cavalry is negated by the slowness of cannon. Cavalry are strong, but will have very high casualties against fortified longbows with 60% or higher culture defense. And most of the cities we attacked had high culture. Especially our first target, Sury, who was pursuing a cultural victory.
I basically took the sure path. Infantry became available just as I was completeing city infrastructures, and are not far behind getting levees. With rifles or grenadiers, the war would have been slower, casualties higher, more time for healing, and amphibious attack probably not feasible. There is a huge difference between an attack of 20 and an attack of 14. There was also a small risk that by using rifles, by the time we got to Freddy's core cities he would have grenadiers. That would have meant always having to remove city defenses, and a lot of cannon lost to soften up the cities.
In my estimation, warring before infantry would have taken at least a little longer than waiting. An additional argument for waiting is that without infantry, the war would be longer, and war weariness much higher. With Fascism a ways out, there would be little I could do to combat super high war weariness. Conceivably, I would have had to take peace to pause and research fascism for police state.
More comments on the game as a whole, and hopefully a war map later today.
The promised battle map:
I noticed some of the city names were wrong in the original write up, and I neglected to mention Angkor Wat's demise. This map accurately shows the paths my forces took.
I numbered the armies by the time they arrived at the continent. Red and green are both number 1 because they arrived in 14 galleons then split up. Number 2 was on 7 galleons, Number 3 on 4 galleons, Number 4 on 5 galleons, and Number 5 on 3 galleons. Each force was 3x # of galleons, with 1 and 2 each having a ship of spies. Most forces were roughly equal cannon and infantry.
If a force landed, I painted a dot in the spot. If it took a city from the sea, merely a line into the city. Note how quick amphibious battle is ... the green army, starting in the middle, moving all the way north, most of the way south, back to the middle, then south and around to the west, finished its battles a turn sooner than the red army that started its path the same turn!
The white circle is Hanover, a newly settled German City. I didn't mark the japanese city of Izumo, but you can see the line where the green army took it.
Spoiler :
I noticed some of the city names were wrong in the original write up, and I neglected to mention Angkor Wat's demise. This map accurately shows the paths my forces took.
I numbered the armies by the time they arrived at the continent. Red and green are both number 1 because they arrived in 14 galleons then split up. Number 2 was on 7 galleons, Number 3 on 4 galleons, Number 4 on 5 galleons, and Number 5 on 3 galleons. Each force was 3x # of galleons, with 1 and 2 each having a ship of spies. Most forces were roughly equal cannon and infantry.
If a force landed, I painted a dot in the spot. If it took a city from the sea, merely a line into the city. Note how quick amphibious battle is ... the green army, starting in the middle, moving all the way north, most of the way south, back to the middle, then south and around to the west, finished its battles a turn sooner than the red army that started its path the same turn!
The white circle is Hanover, a newly settled German City. I didn't mark the japanese city of Izumo, but you can see the line where the green army took it.
qwertz
Prince
really nice tread 
for posting it.
I've got one final question; I think it's quite obvious that your strategy was in a way an overkill for the prince level. So my question is on which level do you think you could still stay competitive playing the game as you did, if you see what I mean
.
for posting it.I've got one final question; I think it's quite obvious that your strategy was in a way an overkill for the prince level. So my question is on which level do you think you could still stay competitive playing the game as you did, if you see what I mean
.General game overview:
Although war was a big part of this game, in my opinion, the overarching theme was economy before all else. Because my only early rival, Jao, was content to expand peacefully, and there was plenty of room for both of us for quite a while, early war and military development was put off with very little risk. This allowed a single-minded development of an extremely potent form of economy: the Bureaucracy capital cottage economy.
Even without the contribution of the second commerce city, Timbuktu could easily have left the AI in the dust with regards to technology.
I think there were 2 other themes to this game.
1. Limited expansion can mean a better economy. Pre-Oxford, the economy of this game was generated by 2 cities. The cottaged capital, and the support city of Djenne. Djenne contributed greatly to the economy in 2 ways. The city produced an early Great Scientist for an Academy, and also ran merchant specialists to allow the capital to produce more science. A much faster expansion rate in this game (which would have easily been possible by having Djenne concentrate on settlers rather than a Great Scientist) would have had several consequences to slow the economy:
- Greater expansion would have caused border pressure with Portugal, and therefore more resources would have to be spent on military for a likely earlier war.
- More cities equals more upkeep.
2. When you have the luxury, waiting for a clear military tech advantage is very strong. I could have easily attacked Jao earlier with axemen. But since the gain was small (1 more good production city) and the cost was high (not developing my economy), waiting for macemen made a lot of sense. If I had attacked with axes, 2 things would have been very different from the game as played. The first is that the capital would have had to work mines to produce military rather than develop the cottages. The second is that the copper city would have been city 2, and the Academy would have been greatly delayed.
I am by no means arguing against the early rush. An early rush is extremely powerful in the right circumstances. But taking Lisbon with axes, in my opinion, would have put my teching dozens of turns behind. As the game played out, my science powerhouse, Timbuktu, and my other commerce city, KS, never had to bother with military production until they were completely developed cities. The power of superior military tech allowed me to pretty much continue economic development without a hitch in the war with Jao. It didn't take many maces at all to win the first 2 Portuguese wars, and my commerce cities made no contribution at all to that military effort.
The more I play CivIV, the more I think that there are really only 2 primary goals: Economy (technology) and Production (military). In many ways each leads to the other. In some games, Economy leads to production. This was one of those games. A strong Economy led to a strong military. In other games, the opposite is necessary. Strong production and military leads to strong economy and technology.
Although war was a big part of this game, in my opinion, the overarching theme was economy before all else. Because my only early rival, Jao, was content to expand peacefully, and there was plenty of room for both of us for quite a while, early war and military development was put off with very little risk. This allowed a single-minded development of an extremely potent form of economy: the Bureaucracy capital cottage economy.
Even without the contribution of the second commerce city, Timbuktu could easily have left the AI in the dust with regards to technology.
I think there were 2 other themes to this game.
1. Limited expansion can mean a better economy. Pre-Oxford, the economy of this game was generated by 2 cities. The cottaged capital, and the support city of Djenne. Djenne contributed greatly to the economy in 2 ways. The city produced an early Great Scientist for an Academy, and also ran merchant specialists to allow the capital to produce more science. A much faster expansion rate in this game (which would have easily been possible by having Djenne concentrate on settlers rather than a Great Scientist) would have had several consequences to slow the economy:
- Greater expansion would have caused border pressure with Portugal, and therefore more resources would have to be spent on military for a likely earlier war.
- More cities equals more upkeep.
2. When you have the luxury, waiting for a clear military tech advantage is very strong. I could have easily attacked Jao earlier with axemen. But since the gain was small (1 more good production city) and the cost was high (not developing my economy), waiting for macemen made a lot of sense. If I had attacked with axes, 2 things would have been very different from the game as played. The first is that the capital would have had to work mines to produce military rather than develop the cottages. The second is that the copper city would have been city 2, and the Academy would have been greatly delayed.
I am by no means arguing against the early rush. An early rush is extremely powerful in the right circumstances. But taking Lisbon with axes, in my opinion, would have put my teching dozens of turns behind. As the game played out, my science powerhouse, Timbuktu, and my other commerce city, KS, never had to bother with military production until they were completely developed cities. The power of superior military tech allowed me to pretty much continue economic development without a hitch in the war with Jao. It didn't take many maces at all to win the first 2 Portuguese wars, and my commerce cities made no contribution at all to that military effort.
The more I play CivIV, the more I think that there are really only 2 primary goals: Economy (technology) and Production (military). In many ways each leads to the other. In some games, Economy leads to production. This was one of those games. A strong Economy led to a strong military. In other games, the opposite is necessary. Strong production and military leads to strong economy and technology.
really nice tread
I've got one final question; I think it's quite obvious that your strategy was in a way an overkill for the prince level. So my question is on which level do you think you could still stay competitive playing the game as you did, if you see what I mean
I understand saying my strategy is overkill for the Prince level. Mali completely dominated its opponents from the beginning. But although less experienced players may not get quite as good results, this is a simple strategy that can allow most players to win at Monarch and below. Not all games will be so simple to run such a single minded cottage economy. I had the luxury of time and space to deal with.
For this particular game, it would have been almost as easy to play exactly the same and have a very easy win at monarch level. At emperor level, Jao would probably have had to been dealt with earlier, and expansion to my first 4 cities, and perhaps a 5th or 6th would have had to happen earlier. At the very least, Gao would have been the second city settled. You can't play games with delaying getting a strategic resource at Emperor level. I would have never considered Djenne first at emperor. The risk of Jao attacking earlier would be too high.
At emperor level, I still would have tried to have my capital focus on cottages, but would have made a few key changes. First, the copper city would be settled first. Second, better scouting would have certainly made KS have the stone and horses in its FC. Third, a city getting the Dyes and fish on the west coast would have been founded. Scouting would have been more a priority, and I would have known the land of Portugal much better much sooner. I probably would have built the copper city and started building axes while teching to alphabet. After scouting Jao and realizing the only good city he had was Lisbon, I would have built 8-10 axes and 3-4 spies, and taken Lisbon and one more city.
In general, the strategic themes of this game are valid, IMO, at emperor and below. I haven't played at immortal, so have no comment on that. Just because you may be a warlord or noble level player, you should not think this game doesn't apply to you. Everything I did is applicable IMO at any level at monarch or below. The only thing I specifically avoided is going for wonder gambits that might not work at monarch, and almost always won't work at emperor.
qwertz
Prince
Exactly what I wanted to hear. I can usually win on prince without a lot of problems, but often get in troubles at monarch. As I am usually having a totally different strategy, I wondered if I could try playing with a xanadux-style strategy at monarch. 
Exactly what I wanted to hear. I can usually win on prince without a lot of problems, but often get in troubles at monarch. As I am usually having a totally different strategy, I wondered if I could try playing with a xanadux-style strategy at monarch.
The strategy I used was strong at a basic level. That is what I am trying to show in these games ... the basic strategies ... not high level maneuvering to beat Immortal or Deity. Developing a stong Capital based cottage economy is certainly a viable option at emperor and below, probably at immortal, and possibly for some games at deity. One of the things I am trying to accomplish here is to provide strong strategic methods that will help anyone struggling at monarch and below. Almost everything I do applies to every level between settler and monarch, and most things should be applicable to at least some extent at higher levels.
And actually, to tell you the truth, this game was not Xanadux style. It's actually the first true CE game I have played since I got BTS. I just think CE is the simplest economy, and that everyone should know how to do it, so that is the first thing I wanted to teach.
Gone Dark
Chieftain
Great thread. I'll be back with a few questions after I'm finished reading all of it. I appriciate the details in the beginning of the game in this walkthrough a lot.
oynaz
Prince
Thank you for an interesting and entertaining read.
