Model of an Epic Fail

[Comrade-Deux]

So last night (or this morning depending on how you look at it) I decided to fire up a game and take periodic screen shots so I could post my probable failure here. I chose France because the french hold a special place in my heart: I'm a French major for one, and I've always liked the french mentality. So I set my favorite French Death Metal record to repeat (Gojira's The Way of All Flesh) and made a sandwich some some spicy dijon mustard and settled down for a few hours of Civ-based froggy fun.

WARNING: 30 screenshots are contained within, slow computers be wary. (had more but that was the limit)

Spoiler :

In retrospect I know where I went wrong, but this is fairly typical play for me.

Game Settings:

The Start:

I find myself in a nice middle spot between two financial civs.

To the South:

To the North:

This is the year I get BW.

View of Map and Players:

My plan is to REX and block them out. Simple. First city to block Ragnar:

Two more to choke out Oranje: with one more to follow.

Meet Roosevelt's fishing boat:

First bad sign, my tech has fallen with the REXing:

I place my 5th city to finish blocking out Oranje: Notice the army of barbarian spearmen? Worrisome because I havent hooked up my bronze yet and they apparently spawned INSIDE Oranje's GW border... irksome.

The three upper cities together: Notice the spearmen? they ignored my 2 poorley defended cities. I figure (correctly) that they are chasing 2 of my workers. I lead them down almost to ragnar throwing warriors at them until they eventually die.

In the middle of all this I find Justinian (or rather he find's me)

Ragnar manages to slip in a city south of the blockade with a conspicuously placed army. I work on Iron Working hoping to find a source of Iron near one of my nicer cities; and to also remove the jungle that is hampering my northern cities' growth.

The barb spearmen die without having done a thing other than to kill a few warriors. I breath a sigh of relief.

But I never get a break do I? I knew this was coming, and kicked myself for not hooking up the copper to my south.

A few turns later I lose my rightmost blockade city, and rush 4 or 5 workers down near Paris where a source of iron spanwed on my trade route. What luck! The following turn I crank out axemen. At this point I am more focused on the war and just take fairly random screenshots of how things go (spoiler! not well)

Uh-oh, I know what this means.

In the end my main failure was what usually does me in: I ignore my military while I REX. If I had settled one more city to the south and taken the copper, I would not have had the problems with the spearmen or later with Oranje. The war dragged on forever because I had to build everything while defending my norhtern cities, which means that Oranje manages to blow me out of the water tech-wise. Towards the end I was facing maces and xbows, and my late achievment of constuction did little to help me. By the time I had catapults he had xbows and longbows stacked a mile high in his capital. After he sallied out of his capital and took out my stack and the blitzed out my main production city (besides capital) I just threw in the towel. Normally I would have gotten frustrated when he took my first city and quit then, but I need to play through more games.

What I think I did well: blocking out my opponents:

What I think I sucked at: creating even a marginal military until it was already needed.

Any comments are welcome and appreciated. By the way, I only recently started trying Prince, as I have been doing pretty well in Noble.

 

[michmbk]

I'll try to shadow quickly after the kids go to bed - nothing better to do since the wife is out of town.

I guess one observation is that you have two civs who both declare at pleased, and both appear like they might get boxed in. If that's the case, you have to presume war until/unless you get them to friendly. Again, on prince, I think you can start with 4-5 warriors and take an AI capital - always an option. But with the two of these guys, you either have to attack them early, or be prepared with solid defense. Since you went for the peaceful start, I'll do it that way as well in my shadow.

Another thing - are you tech trading actively? I rarely tech iron working or monarchy manually (unless I need monarchy for happiness badly) - usually let the AI tech them and trade for them, and with CHA, I wouldn't expect happiness to be too much of an early game issue. Hard to gauge your tech rate because it looks like you're either at 0% or 100% every turn, but seems like there may be opportunities to tech trade.

DeGaulle is a weird leader - IND favors building, while CHA favors war - one synergy they have is the cheap forges allowing for faster unit production.

Also, what was your early tech path & build order - curious as that'll help understand how you started. If you're moving up a level, this is probably a tougher game to do it on with two FIN civs who declare at pleased and you having a so-so leader overall, so don't let it get you down too much.

 

[Comrade-Deux]

Initally I thought I might go for culture, and even though I know he's not the best leader for it, I figured IND would help and CHA is always useful.

Don't quite remember but I believe initiall build/tech order was AH/MIN/BW and WORK/WAR/WAR/SET.

I knew that Ragnar was a warmonger but I was surprised that Willem DOW'd me rather than Ragnar.

Initially I wanted to capitalize on the IND by building the Oracle for a sling to Casting, but instead used the oracle to study up CoL and get the religion and to trade it. And I did get a few good things for CoL but only managed to trade it twice because everyone started targeting me for an upcoming war.

And I kept my slider at 0% or 100% because from what I learned on this site that is called binary research. I probably didn't do it correctly and that might have contributed to my rapid decline in tech-strength. I also kept it at 0% to build up money to upg my warriors to axes which contributed to my survival. Thanks for taking some interest in this.

 

[war ensemble]

I believe you are losing this war due to said "french mentality." Just sayin'.

 

[Lansky]

While your rexing did you in I would say it is more likely due to the way in which you did it. Willem is a backstabber and never to be trusted. Ragnar is just a crazy bastard. So by blocking in a lunatic and an untrustworthy weasel you gave them no target but you and nothing to do but build up an army to bust out. You would have done much better by simply hooking up the copper and killing one or both of them in the same time you put down all these cities. Kinda bored so I'll have a look at the starting save.

 

[michmbk]

Willem is actually more likely to declare at pleased than Ragnar - one thing you probably will want to do as you move up is jot down on a sheet of paper from the reference guide who declares at pleased and who doesn't. It's important to know so you can know how to address situations like this. knowing that, you probably would have been better prepared for Willem's move. Taking a look at the game now.

 

[the reverend]

One thing I try to do while going for peaceful wins is to prioritize Alphabet, and then bribe other civs into war. This keeps them busy fighting each other instead of you. And it usually only takes one civ to declare until you've started a massive world war. Another option, though, is to rush an opponent and take his cities rather than settling your own. This way, you'll have a strong military and a lot of cities, which will help for any type of victory.

 

[Comrade-Deux]

@ War Ensemble: Yeah, lol, I know my play fit the stereotype but the French throughout history and to this day has one the most powerful and technologically advanced fighting forces; and historically up until (and during) vietnam the French Forign Legion has been the most powerful light infantry in the world. They do not deserve being labled as "surrender monkies" by any stretch of the means, which is a title they got by losing to the Nazi's, but they never surrendered and continued to fight despite having lost everything. The only thing that possibly let's them earn this title is Vishi France which sided with the Nazi's.

@Lansky & michmbk: I had no bloody idea someone who was creative and financial would be so much of a backstabber. Took me by surprise. Is there a list of known backstabbers and warmongers?

 

[Foamy7]

You really should have grabbed the copper. Even when rexing, grabbing strategic resources really is a must, especially when it opens up a new unit type or two for you.

The other thing I would have done differently would be to set the northern blocking cities south of where they are. Their sites were good if you wanted to immediately rush Willem; but without the means to really do so, they just piss him off.

Lyons, especially, is too far north. Rheims you could have gone 1 S or SW and still denied Willem the horses. Tours is just a waste of a settler if not going for Willem immediately. Why? Because it is ALL jungle. Let Willem settle it, and let his workers carve it out for you. It won't produce crap for a long time anyways.

Willem can be a monster if left unchecked, but all he would have had in any case would be his capital, which appears to be on a peninsula, and room for two more substandard cities, one SW of the capital (Tours location), and one SE of the capital (N of Rheims location).

Ragnar is unstable. Far better to hook up copper, axe rush him, and then deal with Willem.

 

[Foamy7]

Yeah, lol, I know my play fit the stereotype but the French throughout history and to this day has one the most powerful and technologically advanced fighting forces; and historically up until (and during) vietnam the French Forign Legion has been the most powerful light infantry in the world. They do not deserve being labled as "surrender monkies" by any stretch of the means, which is a title they got by losing to the Nazi's, but they never surrendered and continued to fight despite having lost everything. The only thing that possibly let's them earn this title is Vishi France which sided with the Nazi's.

I also play just about as well as the French sometimes. But most of the stereotype comes from the fact that their military just has not done well since Napoleon DoWed Russia. The Foreign Legion is still a good fighting force, it's just that after WWI, WWII, Vietnam (1950's), nobody has any respect for them.

 

[Comrade-Deux]

@ Foamy7: Je suis d'accord avec vous! I just think that their reputation is not deserved. Sure, they can be spiky people, and they made an art of being dismissive and condenscending but the military surrender thing is undeserved IMO.

 

[Lansky]

There is a reference chart of leader's tendencies on the forum somewhere but I do not have a link on hand. I also haven't looked at it in a while and once in a while get a nasty surprise still

Oh also I've played a tiny bit of the map so far and in this particular situation I'd say the best spot for the copper city is settling on top of the copper. Tech sailing and you have empire wide copper.

 

[Kevie]

i think will would naturally DOW on you because you boxed him in. so when you box in an AI, be prepared to kill him soon because he/she will DOW you very soon.

 

[Lansky]

My play is slloppy but it will still give you a general idea of what I meant and let other players make fun of me at the same time! (i.e. I have WAY too few workers for starters)

First save is before declaring on Willem. Settled a handful of cities first and made sure to block Ragnar off from "my" area of the land which was very easy thanks to those mountains. Built SH and The Oracle in Paris. Stonehenge for the easy monument happiness and then The Oracle to slingshot Civil Service. After the needed worker techs I picked up Math/CoL and then completed building it. Also since the capital is very high in food it has been working 2 scientists since right after the library went in. So far only prophets have spawned but they are nice early for both settling and Shrine building.

Second save is right after taking out Willem and founding Taoism (researching philosophy) and getting two religions founded in the southern copper city. This will be Wallstreet if the game lasts that long. Lyons is my early cottage city, The Hague will be my HE city, and I'm still figuring out the GP farm. May move the capital to Lyons or elsewhere and use Paris. That's a lot of food. Need to chop/whip in courthouses as the tech rate is getting low but from here the game is really all but won on Noble. Get a few monasteries up to get out missionaries for the shrines (as well as more prophets for the Hindu/Tao shrines), get down more cottages, maybe just go ahead and take out Ragnar with maces, maybe not. Priority one is more workers and settling the rest of the resources first though, especially the juicy jungle area.

 

[michmbk]

Played this long enough to see it was over - about 500 AD. Score is well ahead of those I've met, and I checked WB to see how the zealots I haven't met are doing - they'd have no shot, as I have at least 4-5 techs on both, and that's even with my economy limping pre-courthouses. From here, it'd just be finish specializing - build a bunch of units to kill Rags, and then move on east from there. Details of how I got there in spoiler.

Spoiler :

This is prince, so normally, I’d start with a warrior, and if I find anyone nearby, would add 4-5 more warriors and rush the nearest civ, but I’ll shadow as if I’m playing on monarch - worker first build is standard for me on monarch and above.

Settled in place, went worker & warriors to size 4 (this was actually dumb - should have chopped out the settler at size 2 to get copper faster). Tech was Mining/BW. I got AH from a hut, but entered WB and gave it back – don’t want any extra advantages in a shadow. Went myst/pottery/writing/fishing/sailing and then AH – I forgot about it and had lined up a bunch of techs for speed – should have teched AH earlier. But I didn’t need the pig ASAP anyway with the corn in my BFC, and wanted to be able to chop, and the seafood wasn’t that much of an early priority.

I’ll try to demo how the rush would work on monarch to hopefully show how easy it should be on prince. Neither of them are that far, and I hate Willem’s CRE trait, so I opt for him. At size 4, built my settler to claim copper – watch what my worker has been doing:

He’s built a road to the copper to connect it as fast as possible. And my settler goes down – I opt to settle him right on it:

Normally wouldn’t do that, but it seemed like the best long term city site, and it means axes even faster. It starts on Stonehenge which I fully expect to fail – gold will come in handy. Chop and whip axes! I started my first axe on turn 46. In spite of THREE bad random events in 9 turns – unhappiness from the first forest fire which I didn't take a shot of, then these two:

I say in spite of that, by turn 63, I had 7 axes on their way to Willem, and an 8th a turn later following. On monarch - I'd send at least 10, but can get away with this on prince. The barb spearmen above ran away from my axe horde, intelligently enough. And I got 52 failgold on Stonehenge, to help fund the economy. And off to Willem:

Amazingly, he had just managed to get an archer in his second city, so I took a chance I’d kill in on 30% odds and failed. But Amsterdam has 1 archer and 1 warrior against 7 axes – so it’s mine:

Note those two workers I got – very valuable – and it’s a double holy city too! Not bad. And he’s dead.

I have 4 cities now, and plenty of land to myself. So I settle it out - put one more city out to block ragnar, while building a monastery to spread religion to him. By the way, I've also been gifting him clam for quite awhile - this is important because once I spread judaism to him, he gets to pleased with me. Even though he declares at pleased - I figure he'll dislike someone else more - which I was right about. More bad luck - these random events have sucked.

I also got a barbarian horse archer spawn later in like the last tile of fog on my island. I had a spear and 2 axes nearby, so no big deal - but geez - random events were obscenely unlucky! Meanwhile, I was building wonders for failgold, especially stone wonders. Sometimes you intend to fail, but don't:

Considering I had about 10 coastal cities, this was certainly a positive development. So here's where I cut off - one city producing missionaries, a couple starting to produce a stack of units, and the rest getting their infrastructure laid down - half my courthouses are in, so I'm close to taking off. Rags had just DOWed Roosevelt and asked me to join, which I did, because roosevelt is way behind. Also, note I'm building pyramids - intending for failgold, but I might actually get that too. Here's the empire.

Next up would be the switch to caste, because I have massive food in at least three cities - so would be able to run major scientists - would really be deadly if I got mids. Here's what I built - I even forgot to get a priest running so I can shrine my jewish holy city, which would mean about 20 gold per turn between mine and Rag's cities.

 

[Comrade-Deux]

Thanks for the shadow michmbk, im going to give this one another try. I'll post how I do.

 

[Dragonwrenn]

And to think that France used to be THE supreme power in Europe (Napoleanic and Bourbon Monarchy).

 

[Gliese 581]

Americans have just inherited the english hatred of the french, based on their mentioned military power historically amongst other things which is kind of funny since America might not have been without them. Of course, the french hate the english right back for being more successful imperialist bastards.

(Please don't take my words too seriously )

As for the game, yeah being boxed between Willem and Ragnar you know you're going to be attacked sooner or later. Better to take out Ragnar if possible in that situation, you were his only reasonable target, but you got a tough start there.

 

[Comrade-Deux]

I agree for the most part, but I think that American-born francophobia (which is rampant in my neck of the woods) goes beyond age-old rivalries (france was our original ally) and has to do with right wing america (And a lot of left wing america too) setting up an image of America as 'tough' 'strong' 'independant' and somehow France gets labled the opposite: 'frail' 'weak' 'pushovers'. But this stereotype is but one of many Americans typically have. One could say that America is one of the more Xenophobic nations despite it's history with immigrants.

(sorry this topic got derailed)