mm21-The Art of War-Always

[ThERat]

Pre turn
MM and stop growth in most cities, we now make 103gpt
our next GS will pop in 13 turns in our capital.
Given that we get to metallurgy in 4 turns + pop rifles with GS
We have 7 turns for chemistry then pop fertilizer with our 2ns GS and pop dynamite with said GS in 13 turns. This sounds like the best strategy to me


Turn 211 - 1505AD

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land the GG, take the city, then bombard the land units with our navy and take out 3 units

​

Turn 212 - 1510AD
The AI response is a little underwhelming
We mainly heal and ship in a few more units, it's tough to accommodate them all
start to bombard Lake Simcoe
silks are done and happiness up again

Turn 213 - 1515AD
the enemy came out of their holes (a little only though)
we got some WLTKD, i try to get some growth to use this

I take a barb camp and return some workers to Brussels which makes them our friends and culture goes up a bit

it's crammed on the new continent and I try to shift our units forward without endangering them too much

Turn 214 - 1520AD
defeat another spear on defense
metal is in, pop rifles and go for chemistry
pop a ruin and get some free increase in population in one of our cities, just that it doesn't tell me which one
bomb Lake Simcoe and take it with a knight, going to raze the junk city
upgrade one cat to a treb. wounded sword evacuates into the sea

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Turn 215 - 1525AD
AI suicides yet another pike
we get a GG, decide to burn it for a GA (7 turns)
move forward even though is a little risky, but we need space for our ranged units


Turn 216 - 1530AD
we beat barbs and return the same old workers to Brussels and gain more friendship points
start to bombard Onondaga, it has the pyramids and chichen itza as far as I can tell


Turn 217 - 1535AD
2 trebs pound Onondanga and we take the city with 3 wonders, puppet the city
the city possesses a colloseum as well
upgrade another longsword to rifle and sword to longsword

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Turn 218 - 1540BC
divert a knight and 2 cho ko nus southeast to take the last Iroquois city


Turn 219 - 1545AD
what's up with our enemies, is this the new patch, that nobody attacks
very underwhelming, upgrade last longsword to rifle, move units a little forward
need to divert a homeland rifle to fight some barbs
we are going to waste a lot of beakers with this lack of science overflow, bummer but nothing much I can do

Turn 220 - 1550AD
take out Hiawatha by take/raze Salamanca
advance towards Akwesasne with one rifle and a cho ko nu. I left both trebs alone as we could upgrade them
to cannons next turn

We can then pop fertilizer and dynamite (GS is done in 3 turns in Beijing) and get the proper
social policies

I left us a lot of money in the back to rush some artillery once we can get them
I guess this game won't last that long given the underwhelming AI response (basically nil)

​

 

[ThERat]

I am really puzzled why the AI is so useless in this game. My own king difficulty game played very different. is it the new patch or what is it that makes the AI so passive?

Maybe city states?

 

[Arathorn]

Greece has been trying to take Lhasa. It's pretty obvious there was some warring over on the "other" continent which might have hurt some people (especially Hiawatha, I believe). At the end of my turns, Greece had more soldiers than we did, though I'm sure that's changed with our upgrading and killing a bunch of his units. I'm guessing the other two AIs can't really reach us through Greek culture.

I'm thinking the game will last a while longer, simply because the other continent appears to be quite large. I don't know if we'll have much/any challenge or if it will just be a blitz-slog. Artillery will make us ultra-scary. But rifles/cho-ko-nu are slow and even knights/that-other-fast-unit-we-can-build will take a while to push through a bunch of rough terrain.

I think AIs decide on a victory condition to pursue early and then go after it too single-mindedly. Especially when at war, more military units must be built. But I could easily be wrong. That's just my impression. I've certainly seen invasions of dozens of units simultaneously. I'm guessing, though, that AI decided to try to win by conquest so was building lots of units. Some balance is needed.

Good-looking turns. I would advise a bit of caution as we push forward. We can afford a few casualties. The loss of our entire army on the far continent would be a devastating blow.

Arathorn

 

[ThERat]

Agree to be cautious when advancing. However, the best AI units I have seen so far are pikes. That's a little underwhelming against rifles. Once we get artillery, the sheer range of them will blast the AI away.

 

[Mark1031]

220: We are rolling and everything looks good.

221: Chemistry in start printing press.

222: Golden age ends but we still make 125gpt. Very nice economy. I expect we will take Akwesasme next turn.



223: Take Akwesasme which has a Colosseum and market so I keep it as a puppet. We returned a worker to Brussels and they befriend us. Most importantly in this year a great scientist is born. Got to love those scientists who should really be paid much more irl. This gives us 2 scientists who working together lead us to the great leap forward producing knowledge of fertilizer and dynamite and establishing something called the Nobel Prize. Not only does the knowledge of dynamite allow us to upgrade to range 3 artillery but it also brings us into the industrial age unlocking the all-important autocracy civic. We have enough culture to implement autocracy and our gpt goes from117 to 143 and we don't really have that big of an Army yet.



224: zzzz

225: zzzz

226: Printing press in and I start economics. Also start building the Taj Mahal in our wonder city. We take Osininka which has the Great Wall and I puppet it. Also our battering of the Greeks greatly pleases Lahasa and they become our allies. This provides us with a whopping 20 cpt. I'm not sure what the calculator is for how much culture you get- from one of the other culture civs we were only getting 6 cpt.





227-230: Kind of healing and taking out a mini wave of older units mostly pikes and longswords. Sadly I lost a rifle to a Viennese rifle when I got a little careless on the front lines.

We are in a dominant position militarily, scientifically, and economically. I don't want to get too cocky but I think it is just a foregone conclusion that we win this. If you are impatient you might want to just rush buy a couple of arty on the target continent and start crushing them.

 

[Methos]

Current Roster:
Mark1031
Methos - Up
Ozbenno - On Deck
Arathorn
ThERat

Got it. I won't be able to play until tomorrow, though hopefully will look at the save today before going to work. Feel free to discuss.

 

[Arathorn]

Not sure what there is to discuss. I guess we can decide on style points (take every city but one capital which we save for last) or speed points (kinda focus on the capitals, only taking other cities that are in our way).

Science lead, rocking economy, good happiness, massive military advantage.... Not sure what else needs to be said/done. Don't screw up.

I'm not even sure what I would research at this point. Artillery and rifles are plenty sufficient. I don't see need for more happy buildings or culture buildings or much of anything. So I'd just pick something semi-randomly and focus on the wars.

Arathorn

 

[Methos]

or speed points (kinda focus on the capitals, only taking other cities that are in our way).

I prefer the above. No since in wasting time taking them all. I vote take whats needed in order to win.

Science lead, rocking economy, good happiness, massive military advantage.... Not sure what else needs to be said/done. Don't screw up.

I'm not even sure what I would research at this point. Artillery and rifles are plenty sufficient.

Agree. I just took a quick look, but nothing really jumped out at me. I don't think it matters, but I'll look a little ways up the tree to see if there's anything that we will need and be able to get before the games over. I doubt it though.

I'll play tomorrow.

 

[Ozbenno]

Doesn't really seem much to say, could always use more happiness but can don that probably with what we have and the puppets will auto produce happiness buildings when it gets too low anyway.

 

[ThERat]

This game looks far too easy...even though is king difficulty, it should be a little more of a challenge...sort of underwhelming.
Just finish off the enemy capitals as fast as possible I'd say

 

[Methos]

Sorry, my turnset is taking a lot longer then I planned. These turns take a while. I'm currently up to turn five. I've puppeted Montreal and the city to its southwest is on the razing countdown. I find it interesting that our enemies keep sending units up to our lands, yet they just sit there. I have one cho-ko-no and a riflemen there fighting them off and even though they have around five units around me, the AI isn't doing anything with them.

 

[Ozbenno]

The AI doesn't seem to attack very much, if units are wounded they seem to not attack at all. Very odd AI

 

[Methos]

Why is Shanghai building the Taj Mahal? It states it'll take 56 turns to complete! I'm guessing someone is trying to boost its size during the WLTKD, so I'll leave it alone.

Turn 231, 1605 AD: Turn Montreal into a puppet city.Provided a gift to Monoco, since our influence would degrade next turn to the point that we'd lose ally status. I bought a harbor in the Canadian Lake city, so that we can connect that continent. Did some killing, which I must say I really like Cho-ko-no's.

Turn 232, 1610 AD: I began research on Military Science.

IT:

Not sure what happened, but I'm missing some turn reports.

Turn 235, 1625 AD: Capture Genesse River and set it to raze.

Turn 236, 1630 AD: We gain another policy and I take the wounded units do more damage, since we seem to be fighting with only wounded units anymore.

Turn 237, 1635 AD: I may have just lost a knight. I was thinking he'd have move left to retreat and he doesn't. Adjacent to a city and a cat I'm not expecting much. :argh:

IT: The Greeks bring up several units from the south.

Turn 238, 1640 AD: I didn't lose the knight, but I did lose two Cho-ko-no's. :grr: I believe that's the firs two units I've lost this turnset. It's a bit of a squeeze and I'm not the best warmonger, so I think I'm going to pass it off right here before I make things too bad. Here's the front:





We just earned a GG and I've done nothing with him. Sorry for the bad turnset. I puppeted Montreal, razed Genesse River, and Pharsalos is about to fall.

Here's the 1640 AD save.

 

[Ozbenno]

Got it, will play in next day or so...

 

[Ozbenno]

I've been tight for time in RL recently, have played half the turns, will be finished today.

 

[Ozbenno]

OK played to turn 245.

Took and puppeted the two Greek cities of Pharsalos and Brantford. Provides a nice chokepoint.



Trying to clear out Venice behind these two at the moment before moving on. Most of the troops are heading from the south Aztec and Egyptian, haven't seen anything Greek at all.

We could do with some more troops over in the new world so I have a rifle, lancer and great general headed over with a frigate escort. If happiness increases a bit (we can buy some buildings I suppose) then we can annex a couple of puppets on the war front to buy and build troops in.

Research is on Sci Method, not sure where we go from here on that front...

 

[Arathorn]

That puts me up, I believe. I will take a look at this tonight and hopefully play.

I'll probably buy some happiness buildings somewhere and keep pushing the war effort. Or maybe I'll say "Screw happiness" and just buy units near the front and put the pedal to the metal and see how many cities I can raze in my turnset. Will probably depend on my day here at work and the overall feel of the game when I open it up.

Arathorn

 

[Arathorn]

Played tonight. But too tired to give any kind of a report. Lost less than 7 cities, so that's good.

Arathorn

 

[Arathorn]

The front was in a bit of disarray on inheritance. Units from three civs were gathered all over the place. We had a narrow front, which was good, but it really limited troop mobility. A hyper-annoying Greek frigate parked near our only road and used its zone-of-control to make things even that much hairier. And, of course, our units were significantly injured. An exposed artillery had me nervous for many turns. But the AI never zerged it under. Nor did it take the very low hp city we had for a long time.

Eventually, though, I managed to clean up behind our lines a bit....



With no real choice, I puppeted it. Our happiness bounced between -5 and +5 pretty much my whole turn set. At least we had a Golden Age going (THANKS), so I had plenty of cash to rush colosseums when the need was really high. Some cities grew. Others didn't, really.

Many AIs grew weary of war. Rameses was the first to come begging for peace.



Over 2300 gold offered for peace? Nice. Of course, I turn him down, but it's a nice offer. And Rameses is very far away for us. BTW, Egypt had completed two social policy trees by the end of my turnset, so have to make sure he can't build Utopia.

With the troops from Dublin freed and that annoying frigate finally killed, I could start moving forward again. We really have no idea what the terrain or cities are like as we move forward. That makes things a bit of a challenge. Range 3 artillery is HUGE, though, and covers for a multitude of sins.



Nothing in Buffalo Creek, though, so I burn it to the ground. Or at least start on the process. LOTS of Aztec units appear in the area. They're all really outdated, though, so they're not going to be difficult to deal with.

Monte apparently realizes this, as he offers almost 2300 gold for peace, as well as a lux and a bit else....



No dice, Montezuma. It feels good to have you where I want you once.

Those back-up troops that Ozbenno had coming helped clean up things behind the lines. Ephesus was a pathetic little city. It's already burned down.



As the western front opens and our troops get healed, we can start moving forward much more rapidly. Two rifles and two artillery are sufficient to take down a city pretty rapidly. As long as they stay semi-healthy.



Knossus, with a colosseum, will make a better forward base than anything else. So I puppet it, for now. We can always raze later. But I think keeping it as a puppet makes sense, at least short-term. It covers its own happiness reasonably well, and it provides a good healing zone. We'll want to cover it with trading posts, of course.

That apparently convinces Alex his cause is in trouble. He's the third and final AI to come begging for peace. His offer is a bit more substantial....



And that's not all the cities he offered. Again, NO, but it's interesting to see what the AIs will give to get peace.

He retaliated to my denial of peace by killing a unit. It was the first (and only casualty) of my turnset. I had a rifle a bit too close to Athens without proper support and a frigate plus city plus cannon plus rifle finished it off. So sad. He will be missed.

Tech-wise, I researched Steam Power to improve our ship speed. Our research power is pretty lousy. It took nearly my full turnset. Of course, I was trying to maximize production since were in a Golden Age. Steam Power also leads to Replaceable Parts, which gives infantry, which will be nice to have. So that's the current tech. Railroads are also available and a reasonable (though probably unnecessary) tech to go after.

Here is the front...



Taj Mahal will complete on the first interturn, to trigger yet another Golden Age. ThERat will get to enjoy that production. Cities are still optimized for GA production, since one just ended and another is about ready to begin. Gotta like that.

We should be able to push forward fairly rapidly at this point. Athens is just to the north and an artillery is in range. That'll take care of one more capital. I'm not sure where the others are. But I don't think they'll take TOO long to find and dispatch.

Arathorn

 

[ThERat]

nice progress!

got it