Russ Haynes: Nice posts on your games. How long are these games taking you? I've been plugging away at 1 game in the time you've screamed through with the Germans and Novgorod! If only there were more hours in my day...
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I'm not sure how many hours, but I have lost a lot of sleep the last 2-3 weeks (has it been that long since I DLed this mod?). My wife has been very understanding!!
Looking at your Novgorod map: I'm surprised to see the Byzantines getting smashed by other AI rivals. Be wary of the Kazar's culture - they look reasonably strong and in my games have always been culturally strong when they've not been killed. I probably shouldn't admit to such a gross lack of attention to my opponents, but in my previous game I got surprised by a Kazar culture win in the closing stages of the game.
Yeah, the Byzantines have been eliminated or a minor power in both my games. I think the Serbs control Constantinople in my German game. I may have to play as the Byzantines some time. There are so many possibilities for different kinds of games with this mod. So many different civs and their unique units and traits
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Update to Novgorods 1385:
Cities:
Novgorod: 55
Khazar: 28
Fatimids: 24
Almohads: 18
Significant dates:
1326: War with Lithunania was in full swing. I finished taking all of the Lithuanian cities in Russia and began redeploying troops toward Poland for the final assault.
1338-1359: War with Germany. As I began to redeploy my forces for the final conquest of Lithuania I noticed German Ritters and other troops show up near my cities in the south-central area of my empire
. I tried to deflect the incoming missile from the Germans by getting them to ally with me against Lithuania. It didn't work and they attacked my southern most city. I defended it successfully but lost a couple of Pikemen. I counterattacked and pretty much wiped out the force they had sent with bombardment from garrison trebuchets and then chivalric knights
. I lost a number of older knights while doing this, but Heavy Armor was near and with it Late Knights to match up with the German Ritters.
Following this sneak attack I gathered my allies again
. IIRC, they included: the Khazars, Rus, French, Castilians, Hungarians, Swedes, English, and the Bulgarians. I used the forces I had already redeployed to Poland to attack Lithuanian and some German cities (I think the Germans held Old Bohemia (ie; Prague), a city in Hungary and a couple in Old Poland). I began sending others (mainly knights and trebuchets) through Rus and Hungarian territories (via ROP) to negate any other German move through the Balkans to attack my flank.
I concentrated my attack in the Old Polish, Bohemian and Hungarian areas and smashed the Germans back
. As you can see from the map I hold most of what was Poland (earlier the Khazars had taken 1 city, Wroclaw), Prague (Bohemia) and 1 city on the south side of the Carpathians (I held another in Old Hungary but made it a gift to the Magyars). I also moved a force down to the Adriatic Sea and took out Regensburg (located just north and east of Venice). I had hoped to give this to Hungary, too, but my assault destroyed the town
. (BTW, what rules govern whether or not a town is automatically destroyed if it is population size 1? Some cities go away and other don't.)
I also built three pilgrams and sent them into Poland to resettle some cities that had been razed by various forces earlier (not me since I play a "no raze" type of game). My front line in Poland/East Germany/Bohemia/Hungary now consists of four cities (2 that I resettled), with 4 second line cities (Salzburg, Cracow, a city on the Baltic and another I resettled) north and east of the mountains. Finally, once this was accomplished I waited for my 20 turn alliances to end and then I made peace with Germany and Lithuania. The Lithuanians are now down to 1 city in northeastern Germany.
1357-1377: War with the Abbasids. About the time my alliances against Germany were ending I got a demand from the Abbasids for the "Pike" advance (IIRC). They had been dominating the race in science most of the game and now that I was leveling up to them and surpasssing them sometimes, they didn't seem to like it much
. They also tried a sneak attack on my south central cities and I beat them back without much trouble.
Once again, I asked for alliances and got them
. IIRC, this one included: the Khazars, Rus, Turks, Bulgars, Fatimids, Hungarians, and Almohads. As you can see from the map, the Abbasids are now down to 1 city. Mess with the bull and get the ....., well, you know what I mean
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After the initial sneak attack, I started to deploy an expeditionary force from my south and eastern cities into Khazaria for a move south against the Abbasids, but when I saw how many units everyone else was sending I recalled the troops. I never actually had to fight any more Abbasid forces and my allies (especially the Fatimds and Khazars) came out ahead.
1377-1385: Consolidation and reorganization. I am now in the process of moving troops around and building/upgrading new units (landesknechts and halberdiers) for my garrisons cities. In my four front line cities in the west I placed 4 Late Knights, 4 Landesknechts, 4 Halberdiers/Pikemen, and 4 Bombards. I also began to disband some older footsoldiers (crusaders and the men-at-arms equivalent) who had only ever achieved "Trained" status, to make room for the newer and better trained units. I also began to upgrade Pikemen in other border and coastal areas as well as building up my stock of Cuman Mercenaries since they have a movement of "3" and could be of great use as raiders and such in case of war with Rus and/or Khazar.
Well, that's it for now. I have actually played into the 1400s as I write this, and will update again (porbably tomorrow). Suffice it to say that another civ demanded tech and I refused, and guess what, war was declared!
Maybe now would be a good time for that vacation to the Holy Land I always wanted to take
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This is a shot 20 turnes before the end. The only change that ocured untill the end was a lost of the Frankish south (all cities) to Fatmids in just few turns. I played this without patch so France was pink in that game. I'm already in my second game with 1.2 patch, so I just wanted to take screany for you but colours and other change already applied on this old game
. Since my computer is pathetically slow. It take me more than 5 minutes per turn to wait for AI turn. I’ll just stick with smaller map, until I get better machine (one day).
