My Deity eye and luck

[maltz]

I am still fairly new to Civs, but I like the "planning" factor in Civ4. Rarely in a single player game I can plan so much.

After finishing an Emperor win, I moved up to Deity and got whipped like an crying infant. Wondering how the AIs can grow so fast, I opened the world editor and see what they are up to.

Also, I had an illusion that the Deity AIs got some super unfair advantages in combat that is not displayed in the combat odds. So I enabled "random seed on reloading", so I can really test my hypothesis. Indeed I found that the AI cheats on combat odds! Or maybe I am just a paranoid. The combat chance does omit first strikes. (You do know how many hundreds of archers a Deity AI builds).

Now I am getting addicted in both, though. Although I don't change the world, naturally I want to look at the AIs every 5 minutes. Although I accept fair losses during wars, I don't want to lose any battle when my odds are obvious. The Deity eye and luck are truly evil in nature.

The good thing about my Deity (or Demonic) eye is I can observe and plan ahead (very ahead sometimes) accordingly. This is very fun. With the Deity (Demonic) luck I don't have to load the game a few turns back. Just in case you don't know already, even if you disable random seed on reload, every few turns you still have another random seed. If you load it back and play again, you will get a different outcome.

So I figure maybe I will share an on-going story here, too, with my Deity eye and luck. I will skip all boring routine details, and focus on the more interesting parts. I will continue in my replying posts.

 

[maltz]

Map: Standard Terra
Difficulty: Deity
Custom settings: Random seed on reload, Permenant alliance enabled.

I picked Mao for myself. His traits (Phi+Org) are quite useful, and I particularly enjoy the way he bows.

List of opponents:

Alexander
Bismark
Catherine
Elizebeth
Genghis Khan
Ghandi
Isabella
Mansa Musa
Montezuma
Napoleon
Qin Shi Huang
Roosevelt
Saladin

I doubled the number of Civs from default. Experience says this doubling Deity AI rule is about right for my skill level. A complete collection of warmongers, tech racers, and religion fanatics here!

Note: As I put in the title and the opening statement, this story is about how I play a Deity game with the view of the world editor (just viewing), and the option "random seed upon reload" enabled. I also double the number of AIs. Therefore, this game will be much eaiser than a default setting Deity game. I am not here to brag that I can play a Deity game. If you find my use of "cheats" offensive, then please don't keep reading!

***



Here is my open game position. Took me about 20 regenerate attempts to have copper in the fat cross, and stone nearby. The reason for stone is the bonus it provides for the Pyramid. Without the Pyramid, my limited skills are not enough to manage the rest.

You can see tons of resources near the capital. This is pretty much true for all other AIs. In a crowded map there tend to be more resources.

I moved from the default position to the current grassland hill. I sacrfice one crab (which is 2 diagonal squares away), but I get the sheep, one extra silk, 4 more tiles of land, plus a fresh water source. Obviously the move makes me much better off.

Although there is stone below, I know there is no way I can put a settler there before another Deity AI does! My only hope is that some AI will put a city close enough to it... hey hey.

My divine eye also tells my warrior where to go. "How about proceed 80 years to the north west?"

Time flies by, and my axemen came out. Ghandi, who completely blocked my way out, is my obvious target. He founded Hinduism and Judaism already!



My axemen are rather inexperienced, so I picked a easy target for them to level up. It is the holy city of Judaism! However, I don't want to keep this city, since:

(1) it does not have any food resource in the fat cross;
(2) If I take down Ghandi, I will have to choose from Hinduism or Judaism. Hindu is so far way better spread than Judaism. To avoid some extra AIs getting converted to Judaism and become my enemies later, I cannot keep the Holy City.



After a few tough fights, my Deity Luck prevailed. Bombay, the holy city of Hindu, has 4 surplus food from the Pig (6 bread in total, minus 2 that is consumed by the citizen who harvests it), but is filled with plains. The horse and stone mines are also on the plain. Therefore, I am left with only 2 bread surplus, in additional to the city's own 2 bread bonus. In the near future I will need some farms, and windmills to keep the city expanding. I need to wait for Civil Service to connect the irregation from the lake on the east. Bombay will become a mediocre production city.

Delhi is a good Pyramid site since it gets a lot of forest to its north and south - that's why Qin's Chengdu has to go. Delhi also has a wheat resource (4 surplus bread)- I can see Qin's Nanjing gone, too.

There are some riverside grassland in Delhi. I plan to first farm them to get the pop. high, then probably convert a few farms to cottage after I windmill the hills, and cottage the plains. Delhi would be a mediocre commerce city at first, but a better commerce city after Machinery.



Isn't it nice that as soon as you think about it, the cities are gone. Of course, it is partly the magical work of Deity luck.

Just while I chase down Qin to the south, I see Isabella's settler threesome coming from the west. I know where they are going to settle - they are going to take my sheep, and my forest! I can't allow this to happen.

Fortunately, I knew they were coming (because I reloaded from 15 turns later! ), so I built a settler, ready to take their spot in their face. But I can't settle in the blue circle, as I will take away my Pyramid material.

I looked around, and found the next peninsula suitable for the new city. It will be able to grab the clam resource after growing to 2 radius, and still has a few tiles of land to work on. It will be a tiny city created just for land grab purpose. The creation of my new city will prevent Isabella from spawning in the blue circle as it is too close to the new city.

On the east is a Qin city that I kept. It can access corn and copper, and also has a few tiles of land to work on. Combined with this new city, I have secured the entire area to my east.



With my Deity eye I was looking around for possible Pyramid competitor. Almost every single AI in the world is building a Pyramid. Now I only need to beat the second place, that would be Napoleon. I beat them by 6 narrow turns! With my Deity eye, I can laugh in their face!

Note: it is very normal for an industrious AI with stone to complete a Pyramid during the 1800 BC period. When I put a spy in Paris, I can see that Napoleon needs 1350 hammers to complete the Pyramid, same as me. So the AI doesn't really have a discount here. (They do with other units and buildings, though. Their cost is slightly more than half of ours.)

Isabella's trio managed to slip through my boundary, though. She later found a crap city on a desert peninsula in my back, only able to harvest 2 land tiles (including a copper mine, though).



The peaceful days aren't long. Suddenly Bismark marched his stack to declare war! I had been looking for a way to convert to Buddhism, as the rest of the world did. However, none of my city has Budda, only Hindu. Now I am really in trouble!

(to be continued)

 

[maltz]

Let's just pause a moment here, and take a look at my 6th and 7th city, from Qin Shi Huang. Much of the fun I get from Civ4 is the planning element, so I would like to run over all of my cities, covering what I think of them and what they turn out to be.



Guangzhou has 2 food resources, some elephant families and a bunch of fine stones southeast. Two grassland hills makes Guangzhou a fine production city early game (13 hammers), but that's not good enough for a Heroic Epic (at least 20+ hammers I prefer). I wish to turn GZ into a commerce city.

Beijing, the former capital of Qin, is located on the southern tip of the peninsula, and possibly one of the eastmost major city on this old continent. It has 3 schools of fish, 1 bunch of clam and corn beside the minilake. That makes the total food surplus of Beijin a shocking 19 - enough to supply 8 specialists! After chopping out the library, though, I run into the trouble of very poor production (1!). For sure, I will build 3-4 workshops here.

If I were Qin, I would have settled BJ to the north east, grabbing the copper (too bad Qin, a Deity AI, does not come with a Deity eye ), fresh water, 1 extra land tile as well as 4 out of the 5 food resources.

That concludes my not-so-secure, cornered home base! I run a 0% research, supporting alphabat discovery solely from a few library's scientists.



The other hobby of mine is to look at the world from above, planning diplomatic and military future. Me (Mao for Maltz ) is hiding in the east, with Isabela immediately to my west, and Genghis Khan to my northwest.

Mansa Musa and Alexander occupy the central part of the continent. Mansa Musa is attacked by Napoleon at this moment. To the west end we have Roosevelt and Cathy. Roosevelt is attacked by Alex now. He keeps training chariots -- but not to the Hoplites, no! Roosevelt certainlly didn't play Rome:Total War.

"Phalanx formation!"

"ARGHHH~~~ #$@#$@%"

To the south there are Elizebeth, Saladin and Bismark, who declared war on me.



Back on Bismark's invasion. I guess I become an obvious target because I am the only non-Buddhist in the world. I am not a newbie who tries to be a Hindu here, but non of my city has Budda! I have been waiting, turn after turn, that one of the "virgin" coastal towns suddenly shows up a Budda statue, but all I got is the blue symbol of my own.

Before Bismark's invasion, I have about 8 leftover axemen in total. Bismark came from the south, facing my elite axemen, who just finished Qin. They all have march promotion, so they don't even need to rest.

Bismark's force is quite large - in the first wave he sent over 6 units (the 4 on my pig farm only contains one German archer. The other 3 are Mansa Musa's settler trio. -- too late! Ha ha).

But the next turn Bismark sent 7-8 more! Always a mix of axeman, chariot and spearman. It is amazing how much Deity AI are capable of this early in the game. As I mentioned earlier somewhere, the Deity AIs produce units at a cost slightly higher than half of ours. For example, I need 70 hammers to get an axeman, while Bismark only needs 39.

Yet, with Deity luck and some hill camping, one after one of Bismark's units committed suicide uphill. When Bismark knows he can't make it, he tried to pillage my horse ranch, but he couldn't -- they all died before their turn comes up next.

My elite axemen all fought like Arnold. Never need rest, and always stay cool. My reinforcement also rush forward, mainly to help my Arnold axemen to hold their ground as the turn ends.

In 3 turns, Bismark's offense is put down. Some tried to flee (or to pillage somewhere?), but they can't move as fast as me, AT MY HOME!

Quickly, I organized an elite assault force, heading straight towards Bismark's land. I pillaged his copper (only to find out he had another copper later), and launched a surprise assault on Munich. I got it even without Deity luck!

Munich became my first city with Budda. Before I give Munich to an underdog, I converted to Buddhism. Munich is my ticket to Budda, and Budda is my salvation! Finally, I look like the others!

Bismark's home defense is surprisingly lame, as most of his units are on his way to my land. (I didn't meet them earlier, because I took an indirect route, through Izzy and Mansa's territory, to save movement points.)

I even sacked Bismark's capital, Berlin!

Since Bismark is too far away, and I am already running 0% research, I can't keep Bismark's cities, even if they are very sweet cities. I gave Munich to Montezuma (a big mistake later), and Berlin to Saladin. Monty and Saladin are bottom scorers, so it doesn't hurt to give them a little boost to balance the AI out, I thought.

Although I could continue to destory Bismark with a few more Axeman loss, I think it is a good time to stop. First, at the same turn of Berlin's capture, another wave of Bismark's forces, mainly chariots, invaded my homeland. I didn't have enough defense to finish them off before they cause some nasty, fast pillage damage. Second, to completely bring down Bismark, I will lose a few more axeman, but I will end up giving Bismark's city to another AI. Bismark's relationship isn't bad with me at all - he has no negative modifier towards me, only me towards him - and AIs don't see that, anyways.



So it is time for peace! Bismark is willing to sign a peace treaty with -- Math and Sailing!

(pic 010)

With Alphabat 100 and Mathematics 101 on my bookshelf, I quickly shop around to look for possible bribery targets. My only available mercenary turns out to be the best match - Ghenghis Khan is willing to declare war on Isabella! They are my only 2 neighbors at this moment, and both of them threatening me as well. There is a Chinese saying: "When two tigers fight, one must be wounded." No sight is better than two neighbors beating each other's crap out, and that's the time when I step in to make peace... through war

(to be continued)

 

[maltz]

I forgot to mention this is a Marathon game, but you probably have figured out by looking at the screenies.

***

While Genghis Khan and Isabella are busy biting each other, my Arnold-like elite axemen had another hundred year journey home. They are welcomed like heros. Workers are going to pave a special memorial road for them, extending all the way to the capital, Shanghai!

However, peace days are never long in a Deity game filled with Warmongers. They soon see another stack coming - and guess who it is?



Monty! He declared war to me next turn! Didn't I just give him a city? This SOB doesn't know what appreciation means, apparantly.
Hey, look what did Monty send over -- isn't that a stack of... archers? Does he seriously think he has a chance?



The outcome of Monty's foolish act is his own downfall. My Arnold axemen were on their second long march, this time supervising the destruction of the silly chief. I had plenty of army to send out this time, as all of my neighbors are fighting against each other. It is weird that Monty was building the Greater Lighthouse in his capital all the way through. Not very smart chief.

Hm... what is Mansa Musa's men doing in the picutre.

I don't even want to make peace with Monty, because (1) Monty is far behind in tech and has nothing good to offer (2) Monty likes to ignore power difference and attack like mad. Easily, Monty is gone. When my Arnold axemen marched to Munich (a long march of another 10 turns), Monty only had 2 units defending. My odds were more than 95%!

Bye bye to Monty. I gave one of Monty's city to Bismark, and keep the other two. I know I am still running a 0% research, but I can't let go the furs in Monty's capital, and the gems in Munich. My new Hindu Shrine (12G/turn) certainly helps.

***

A few hundred years have passed. To my surprise, Isabella, who was superior in score and money, did not do very well against Genghis Khan. Khan's first few waves of invasions were repelled, but he kept producing more troops, axeman, swordsman, etc.

On the other hand, Isabella didn't have so many new units. Apparantly she wasn't concentrating on military during the war. For example, a baldy missionary has travelled to Monty's capital (under my control), and spread Buddhism there.

With more cities but not dedicated to unit production, gradually, Izzy took the defensive stance. She lost her frontline city to Khan.

This is the turning point of the war. If I don't do anything, Izzy will be finished by Khan's mighty army. Ture Izzy just got the Buddist holy shrine built, but cash won't transfer to units (as I have the Pyramid for Universal Sufferage, not her ). It is time for me to intervene.



I want the Shrine before Khan grabs it!

The war to Izzy is costy to me, as I am going to attack everybody's friend (except Khan). I instantly got a -1 "You declared war to our friend!" modifier. I think it is worth it, though, if I win.

Also shown in this picture is I am about to lose the race of the Greater Lighthouse to Bismark!

Amazing that when somebody is down to their last city, they still had the mood to build a world wonder. (Bismark started building the Greater Lighthouse before I gave him one of Monty's cities.)

Well, whip time! With 2 population, I beat Bismark by 1 turn to get the lighthouse. Poor Bismark, victim of my deity eye.



This is around the turn that I declare war to Isabella. You can see some of Khan's axeman approaching Madrid, which is on the blink of falling (2 defenders holding).

And what is Izzy building to defend against the axemen? Spears! Izzy has Iron still, so why is she building the most useless unit against axeman and swordsman? Any axeman, which is only slightly more expensive than a spearman, can hold his ground with the 40% defense bonus of Madrid. Only 2 turns later, I hear the scream from Madrid.

Khan razed it! Isn't Madrid connected to his cities? The capital is usually the sweetest city - that's why I keep Monty's capital, too. So many seafood, some hills and Canadian beavers!

And what is Izzy building in Barcelona? A settler!

Incredibly stupid AI.

Deserves to die quickly with my help. I backstabbed Izzy with now-level-8 Arnold axemen, waited for Khan to throw his axeman away, then promptly took over the Grand Holy City of Buddhism.

24G per turn, woohoo!

Izzy's last city is on a not-so-remote, 1-tile island, just outside one of my cities back home. My axemen boarded a galley, and made short work of this crap colony. Izzy is gone after five turns of my war declaration.


The time is now 1130 BC, and the old continent is taking a more obvious shape. I got four more cities in this wave of counterattacks and backstab, including Monty's capital (can't spell it!, on the north you can see), Munich (previously given to him from Bismark), Izzy's Budda holy city Barcelona and a nice costal town Cordoba, which has Banana, not found in my other cities. I razed Izzy's little city in my backyard, too crappy. My money on Khan to settle there next

Mansa Musa quickly filled the gap of Madrid, settling Gao on the same place.

I now have 11 cities; naturally the upkeep (both number and distance) is killing me. Fortunately, my music research is almost done with 100% beaker rush, and my next goal is naturally code of laws -> court house. Now where should I drop my culture bomb? No kidding, Barcelona!

The old continent enjoys a transcient peace. With Izzy gone, a few more Civs have emerged as the next superpower contender.

-- Alexander has completely wiped out Roosevelt earlier, and sitting happy with 7 cities, many of them producing horse archers. I wonder what will become his next victim? It is funny that Alexander spent so much effort in war, that he is still researching Writing. (I am almost done with Music!)

-- Immediately west of Alex is Cathy, the owner of 6 cities, but she is completely blocked by Alex. Cathy and Liz are leading the world in tech, one having Philosophy and COLaws, and the other having Currency and Calandar.

-- Khan only got a small city from Izzy (too bad, he could have occupied Madrid and becomes a huge threat to me), but thanks to my bribe earlier, he isn't doing too bad.

With Music in stock, I should be able to bribe a few more Civs into turmoil. I can think of a few choices here:

(1) Alex --> Cathy

Cathy does not have horse, which is actually a good thing for her (as she builds tons of axemen). I am just afraid in case one of them emerge the winner, they will truly grow out of control. I better keep them in check.

(2) Alex --> Khan

The clash between two super military power is always fun to watch, and I can probably stab Khan in the back when my economy recovers. This is probably the ideal match.

(3) Alex / Khan --> Mansa Musa

Mansa Musa isn't powerful, but his skirmishers are meat grinders. Any superpower can waste 500 early years on the African king. Napoleon made this mistake earlier. While thinking of distracting a warmonger, Mansa is the Man.

(4) Others

Owning both Buddhism and Hinduism holy cities, I now have the options to manipulate the world. I can selectively convert a few Civs to Hindu, and bribe the others to attack them, to make them life-long enemies. I think Alex, who already owns 3 Hindu cities, would be a perfect victim, just after he is bribed to go after somebody (thus making people hating him more).

Also, my wars from this point on won't really cause me very much diplomatically, as I can carefully manipulate my victim's religion. Before I declare war, I will Hindu-rush them, to make them disfavored by others. Khan would be a perfect victim of this. Mansa Musa is probably another Hindu candidate, so he doesn't get so many tech trades.

Future is looking good - only that I can't have Alex and Khan taking on me at the same time.

I will bribe them! Bribe them before they look at me!

 

[conquer_dude]

Good luck!

 

[maltz]

It is "city planning" time. Let's look at the four new cities acquired, no. 8-11.



No.8 Tenochititlan (top right)

Nobody knows how to spell it, but everybody recognizes it -- it is Monty's capital. I'll call it "TC" from now on.

I was planning to give TC to Saladin, but I ended up keeping it. The beaver acts like a Notre Dame (+1 happiness to all) already, plus all of the seafood resources will guarantee a large population and trades. With a few workshops, the hammer output will be acceptable. A great GP farm like Beijing!

And actually an improved version of Beijing. TC provides less food, but much more hammers, making it a better GP farm than Beijing. I can build a National Epic here much earlier, without consuming a Great Engineer. Also, unless I run Caste system, I can't get all of the excess food in Beijing converted to specialists. However, in TC I can build a theater quickly, and more buildings that enables specialists.

I am now running GPs primarily from Delhi, as I want to get a G.Eng. to build the Great Library here. (I don't have marble.)

No.9 Cordoba (bottom right)

Not a lot of land tiles, with banana, iron and a few hills. The fruit (banana) will pull this city off the stagnant growth. I need to build a few farms on the plains, and windmill the hills eventually. In the meantime, I will be able to grow a few cottages on the grassland. A mediocre commerce city in the long run, with a slightly better-than-average hammer output.

No.10 Barcelona (top left)

This is probably the best looking commerce city in this game! Now only if I can dig a wide channel to build a harbor...

Bracelona is definitely a commerce city, with a future Wall Street here. Being a duel holy-city, I might even build a Confusian shrine (Kong Miao) by running some priest in the GP farm, and spread Confusionism like mad as well. Now the Budda shrine already gives me 24 gold per turn, and I can easily make it 30+ (most of my cities don't have Budda yet).

Having 5 flood plains is definitely a great cottage spamming site. I will replace most farms with cottages, mine the only hill to the south. There is some serious lack of hammer, though. I will watermill the riverside grasslands, then.

Isabella founded Barcelona in a way it has no overlap with Madrid (razed by Khan, now becomes Mansa Musa's Gao). There isn't really a much better location for Barcelona, as moving in any direction would result in the loss and gain of something, a hill, the dye, some flood plains, the gold mine, etc. After the culture bomb (Music, great artist) I got the gold mine anyways.

No.11 Munich (bottom left)

If Barcelona is the best commerce city in the game, then Munich will come to a close second, after some serious jungle cleaning.

I thought giving Munich to Monty was a mistake, but if I gave it to Saladin then, I wouldn't be laughing with the gems, copper mine, banana and all the grasslands along the river now. Munich is a cottage monster city...!

***

Now back to the story.

Cultural bomb no.1 has been dropped in Barcelona; I got Code of Law next. Courthouses are being built in many remote cities, and missionaries are flooding my territory. I traded with Liz to get Currency, and later with Saladin to get Calendar. My score shoots up high as my population grow big. Everything looks good.

With Music and CoL is store, I can again shop around for bribery targets. Particularly, I wish to bribe:

- Alexander, the strongest military power of the world
- Catherine, the most advanced
- Genghis Khan, also very storng military, and my next target

to go after others, if not each other. I can also bribe smaller Civs to attack them, if they dare.



Time marches on, and it is now 950 BC.

The first buyer I encounter is Alexander. After some sweet talking, Alex is willing to take on Mansa Musa's skirmishers! Good for you, Alex. I hope Mansa Musa teach Alex a fine lesson.



The next buyer I manage to nail is Catherine. She is willing to backstab Alex, although she is really FRIENDLY to him! Way to go, Cathy. I hope Cathy and Alex will fight for eternity. With my Deity luck they probably will.

The war goes on, while I enjoy some good growth time. In 830 BC, Genghis Khan declared war to Mansa Musa, to help his best friend Alex.

The close relationship between the biggest 2 war heads really worries me. I have been trying to break them apart by converting Alex to Hindu. I have spread Hindu to all of Alex cities, and he doesn't have as many Budda in his cities - but he doesn't convert. I guess this is because Hindu is not nearly as popular as Budda. If I spread Hindu further, maybe Alex will be willing to convert.

With Khan entering the battlefield, Mansa Musa suddenly loses his future. How can he survive FIVE lv.3 units every single turn? I must do something...



The thing I do for Mansa Musa is to ready a settler beside Gao, and settle right in when it gets razed by Khan. Alex also razed another Mansa Musa's city earlier. Now Mansa only has 2 left! In this picture you can see how horrible Khan's army is. They are now crossing my territory to get to Mansa Musa on the other side!

In the meantime, my G.Eng. was born, and supervised the Great Library project in TC. My GP farm setup is almost complete. Now I just need some marble to build the National Epic -- and Khan happnes to have it.

Even if I am already building catapults, war elephants and archers (for quick defending) in more than half of my cities, I still won't be able to kill Khan very fast, so I will definitely need some help.

So far I haven't encounterd any city with a significant production value, but it is fine - 5 mediocre production city still out-performs 1 great production city.



At this moment, nobody is willing to take on Khan, as Khan is quite a popular man in the world. Other than Mansa Musa, only Liz is below Pleased -- Cautious to Khan, but too bad Liz is not a war-lover, and I don't have enough techs to "motivate" her.

The only alternative I find is Bismark, whom I purposely did not defeat nearly 1000 years ago. Although he only has 2 cities, his army is comparable to a Civ with 4 cities. (In the Leader Personality Matrix, you can see Bismark put 100% weight on military.) The old man is willing to take on Alex, twice of his power! At this time, Alex is still at war with Catherine, but has made a cease fire with Mansa Musa.

The price Bismark asks is outrageous as well. I hope it is worth it.

With Alex and Khan busy, I've done all I can diplomatically. Basically, when I attack Khan alter on, nobody is coming to his help. I cannot convert Khan to Hindu, so I will gain another "You declared war on my friend!" with many others, including Alex, Cathy, Saladin, Bismark, and Napoleon. That's still worth it, because with best friend Khan gone, Alex alone is not a problem at all.

Now all I have to do is to wait - wait for my military to shoot up, and Khan throws away a few more level 4-5 veterans at Mansa Musa's capital... can I make it before Mansa is dead? My score is about twice as much as Khan's, but I am dealing with a Deity AI who can produce units twice as fast and research twice as fast. I better be more careful.


(to be continued)

 

[maltz]

My showdown with Genghis Khan is inevitable, and should happen as early as possible.

Unlike Alex, who is now bothered by Cathy and Bismark, Khan does not really have any enemy, and he only has two neighbors - Alex and me. Alex is Khan's best friend; together they own more than half of the world's army. If I let Khan take Mansa Musa's land, he will be even more powerful. On the other hand, while most of Khan's spare army is bugged down by Mansa Musa's skirmishers, his homeland will be relatively defenseless.

Since deity AI builds up troop quickly and massively, I can't rely on a few Arnold axemen and catapults. I must capitalize on a military tech lead. My next bet is naturally maceman + catapult.

My research route is:

... Alphabat -> Literature -> Drama -> Music -> Code of Law -> Construction -> Metal Casting -> Machinery -> Civil Service.

I get Construction early, so most of my cities were producing catapults when I am shoot straight towards the maceman techs. Since Khan is 100% on war, I should be able to rush out maceman before Khan gets Feudalism (longbowman).

A good thing is that Khan does not have horse, so he does not have his special light horse archers. I don't need to spend a lot of extra resources on otherwise pretty useless spearmen.

As I was on my way to Civil Service, Khan's endless supply of army cracked open Mansa Musa's capital, leaving the African King only 1 poor city. In a few turns Mansa Musa will be finished, and Khan will have his full strength focused on me.

At this point, my army strength has been built up to be slightly higher than Khan's. Deity Khan is surely producing troops like crazy, but so do I. I dedicated Shanghai, Delhi, Bombay and Guangzhou for troop production.

I know my troops are more advanced and effective at city attacks, as I have a few war elephants, 6 catapults, and a legion of fine axemen ready to crack open any bombarded gate. I am also producing the Chinese special units, Cho-ko-Nu. (The inventer, Zhu-ge Liang, is spelld "Cho-ko" here. Basically it is a semi-automatic crossbow firing at short intervals.)

Should I declare war early, before Mansa is finished?



As my main army has been assembled at the gate, I decided to declare war about 10 turns earlier. Here is my battle plan:

(1) The only frontline city of Khan, Seville, was taken from Isabella ~500 years earlier. My cultural border is right adjacent Seville, so I can grab this town in a surprise attack, with a quick bombardment of catapult and axeman/elephant rush. Usually, 7 catapults is required to kill the entire defense bonus in one turn, while 6 catapults will take down a 50% defense to a negligible 5%.

From Seville, I will make a holding in the forest hill to the north, to wait for more reinforcement to arrive, and kill off any Khan's couterattack forces trying to reclaim Seville. In the above picture, you can see how much "backup forces" is waiting in Khan's capital. They will surely come out, and if they dare to attack me on a forest hill...

(2) After Khan's massive counter attack is neutralized, I will leave about 1/3 backup/wounded army to defend Seville, and dispatch the rest 2/3, self-healing elite Arnold forces to take Turfan, which is only 2-3 turns Northeast from my holding ground. This way, I can secure my capital, Shanghai, and have a close shot at Khan's capital.

(3) With Turfan in the bag, my Civil Service should be done, and I can slide back to 0% research, to save some quick money for maceman upgrades. Khan's capital will be tough as it is clearly a production city, so I will wait till I get at least 2-3 maceman. (Can't wait too long. Each maceman will take 235G, roughly 1.5 turns of income.) I've squeezed out all of my friends's cash just to get Civil Service done early. (At Pleased, AIs will give you free cash - but never Mansa Musa, the most stingy man in the world. According to what I read, however, Mansa Musa is actually a super generous King!)

(4) After healing and upgrades are done in Turfan, I will proceed to Khan's capital, Karakorum. There is an iron mine just outside the capital, and it is actually Khan's only copper/iron. I will camp my army right there, bombard the defense to 5%, and assult with my then-healed Arnold maceman and elephant.

(5) The war is essentially won if I can take Khan's capital. The rest would be just cleanup action. Khan has another city to the south, as well as Mansa Musa's capital in the far southwest. Napoleon will probably take care of that one for me, though.

In the meantime, I have organized a secondary army around Barcelona, Munich and Macau, just for defense purpose. I camp them on hills, forest, any strategic locations which also attract enemy's attentions.



The plans are made, and I declared war. I got another -1 "you declared war to our friend!" from almost everybody, but that's OK. I am still popular among the other AIs. I probably can't afford another, though.

After declaring war and taking down Seville, I shopped around for possible allies. Elizebeth and Saladin are all red-outs, which is not suprising. (Liz is only Pleased with me, and Saladin, although Friendly to me, is Pleased with Khan.) However, Napoleon readily offers to attack his good friend Khan with a cheap price. Mansa Musa's archrival is helping him to defend this time, huh?

With the French warhead on my side, I am much more confident about this war.



Everything goes as expected. Genghis Khan has organized a counter-attack force, heading straight to Seville. I camped my entire force on a forest hill. My only weakness I find is the copper mine on the hill, west of Seville. If the AI is smart enough to move its entire counter-attack stack there, then I will be forced to either abandon Seville (to take it back the next turn), or retreat all of my army back to Seville to defend, and lose my defense bonus). I think the former option is actually better, as Seville is not a valuable city.

The AI isn't so smart, it turned out. Khan wasted all of his swordsmen on my monster stack with 75% defense bonus. After realizing he can't make it with the rest of his stack, he marched a few miserable axemen and spearmen to both sides, trying to pillage the farm and the copper mine accessible from Seville. These suckers never had a chance, though.



With Khan's counter attack gone, I know I have a few turns of freedom here. My elite assault army marched northeast and tookdown Turfan with ease.

Finally, I got Civil Service. My best Arnold axeman is formally upgraded! (just look at that monster unit).

While my Arnold axemen are waiting for upgrades in Seville, I camped my elephants, regular axemen, archers, catapults, and one archer unit on the nearby hill close to Khan's capital. Hopefully, I can attract all of Khan's incoming units, to commit suicidal uphill assaults. Khan's capital, which has a Heroic Epic, is producing 1 swordsman every turn -- and this is a Marathon game! Crazy Deity AI.

Khan took my bait. He threw away all of his fresh, spare units from his capital to my stack on the hill. However, it suprised me when I saw elephants rushing out of his capital, instead of swordsman. I didn't know Khan had elephants... although my own elephant kicked his elephant down the slope. I don't bring elephants for no reason, you see.

Shown in the above picture (upper middle), Khan actually managed to settle a new city RIGHT ON an elephant herd, just after our war broke out. This location was previously occupied by one of Mansa Musa's city (razed by Alexander).

Since the city is right on the resource, I can't even pillage the camp. Fortuantely, Napoleon is here to help me. In the next few turns, Napoleon's swords and horse archers thinned down the city's defense, and my secondary army easily took this ill-fated utility city. No more elephants for Khan! War har har.


Without elephant and iron, Khan's days are counted. He made a suicide bomber (catapult), but 1 catapult is far from 6.

Even Mansa Musa managed to sneak 2 skirmishers to his back (sailing around half of the old continent!). Besides pillaging a village, Mansa's skirmishers probably attracted some of Khan's units, and lowered their health. That's great of you, Mansa! (Considering somebody who is down to their last crap city.) With the help of Mansa, my assault force was able to crack open Karakorum the next turn.

Khan is doomed. He asked for peace, but hell no. All of my productions are back to city infrastructure; I switched to Bureaucracy, and watch my stack of death eat Khan's last city alive.

Napoleon indeed took care of Khan's southern city, formerly Mansa Musa's capital. I am sure Napoleon won't return the city to Mansa Musa. He tried twice to grab it in the last 3000 years, both failed. Ironically he got it by attacking Mansa Musa's enemy.

I was planning to return Mansa Musa's capital to him, and converted him back to Buddhism, as Mansa Musa can help me block off Napoleon. Mansa's silly AI converted to Hindu as soon as he lost his capital, because his only city left has nothing but Hindu. Now, all hope seems lost to Mansa Musa. The only favor I can do for him is to give him a Buddhist missionary, so at least he can die a Buddhist, and a friend (thus giving whoever killed him a "-1 You declared war to our friend!" with everybody else ).

Bismark is not doing too bad against Alex. He lost his Monty city, but also managed to ambush one of Alex's cities in the north. Alex took his lost city back quickly. In this little clash, you can say that Alex gained 2 cities with nothing, and lost 1 city with everything.

Catherine is holding off Alex quite effectively, taking Philadelphia (a small town in the tundra north), as Alex can't concentrate on her entirely. Alex's new frontline cities, New York and Washington, are also poorly defended. New York is on constant revolt, but I never see it flip to Cathy after the war. (It flipped before the war, and Alex took it back after.) Probably Alex took it right back after every flip? Anyways, Alex and Cathy are about balanced now - I like it this way.

With one Deity Civ after another cracking out tons of elephants and catapults, I no longer holds a decisive military advantage. My 3rd wave of expansion is now complete -- Grenadiers will be the next.

With a total of 16 cities, I will enter another building period, to solidify my economy with harbors, forges, markets, grocers and well-built improvement. I will Hindu rush a lot of cities in the world, so Alex will be willing to convert to it, and become everyone's hate boy. Cathy will probably be the next hate girl. I will befriend Liz and Saladin, who are totally unlikely to backstab a friend, and are generally weak as well. Napoleon will become my ally in any future war, as now I know he is willing to take bribe from a friend to beat another friend's crap out.

The game is mostly in the bag now.

 

[maltz]

After removing the big needle in my eyes, my Civ is looking forward to a bright future. However, right now my major cities are extremely lacking infrastructure, as I spent most of the energy building up troops, missionaries, and others. If I didn't have the 2 religion shrines, there is no way I could expand this far this early in the game.

Alexander is warring Cathy and Bismark (both bribed by me! ). Neither of them is gaining any ground. Bismark managed to take the Monty city (Teotibuacao?, I gave it to him.) back later on, and signed a peace treaty. Alex has the second highest production (hammers), while Catherine has the second highest gold income.

Alex has more Hindu cities than Budda cities, so he has the potential to become the first Hindu nation in the world, and turns into a natural target of everyone. The AI will convert to the most prominent in its land, as long as that religion is gaining a substantial weight in the world.

My plan to Hindu rush Alex ends up in a complete failure, though. I could not pull the number of Hindu cities as high as Budda cities, before many of the Civs switched to Theocracy (mainly Catherine and Saladin, who owns 0 Hindu city). Finally the Buddhist / Hindu ratio is about 42 : 38. Alex never converted. Fortunately, Bismark, Cathy and Liz do not like Alex very much already, so even if I attack Alex, I only get "-1 You declared war on our friend!" from Saladin and Napoleon, who are extremely fond of Alex. Therefore, even if I did succeed in the conversion, Alex still has the same number of friends, anyways.



So let's look at the four new cities I got from Khan.

No. 13 Karakorum

This is Khan's capital. There are 2 food sources (deer camp), converting to 3 excess food after harvesting the iron mine. I can farm all the grasslands, netting 5 more food. This way, even at a population of 13, I will be able to work on all of the mines, netting 26 hammers in total. This is by far my best production city. Definitely deserves a Heroic Epic here. (Later on, Iron pops out near Bombay, to make it almost on par with Karakorum.)

No.14 Turfan

This city would suck big time if there isn't the sheep herd. Even with the sheep, I still have to farm all the grasslands to bearly maintain a medium population. Khan left over a few Hamlets and Village, and I will probably work on them. This is just a poor hybrid city.

No. 15 Beshibalik

With the irrigated corn, I can pull off 3 excess food. Khan had a very similar idea to mine - farm the grass, and cottage the plain. After population shoots high, I can remove the farms to make watermills and cottages. Watermill will provide +1 food under State Property. If I (Mao) don't adapt State Property, who would? Beshibalik has the potential of a good Commerce city, if I can push its hammer up early on.

No. 16 Seville

Wihout any food source, this little city has a few grassland tiles for farming. Even so, I still have to windmill all the hills, leaving 1-2 plains cottaged at most. Seville will become a mediocre production - hybird city.

That concludes my new territory. It is amazing that Khan managed to keep such a large army based on just 4 not-so-rich cities. If it was not my bribe earlier, his research would have fall to the bottom.

***

Peace time passes fast. Let's fast forward 500 years, and it is now 80AD. Mansa Musa, after converting back to Buddhism, has been devoured by his archrival Napoleon - not surprising. After merging Mansa Musa's 2 cities, our French warhead is quickly gaining his score.



My next target is undoubtly the powerful warmonger Alexander. Later, if I take all of Alex's cities, Bismark will have a single city (a former Monty city that I gave to him) in the heart of my land. This can be an annoying eye sore, and will create uncessary border tensions.

So I bribed Bismark to go after Alexander (again). As Alex is twice as powerful as Bismark, and Bismark's Monty city is completely surrounded by Alex's cities, I am pretty sure Alex will occupy it again.

But Bismark is so far behind, so I must give him a few boosts. He was asking Drama and Music. No, those are for the rich Civs. I gave bismark Civil Service and Theology instead (enables Maceman and Theocracy). This is one of the rare occasions that I bribe with more than the AI is asking for. Bismark, the first Civ who declared war on me, is now my best pet dog, after my forgiveness and candies.

***

Another 100 years has past, and Bismark lost his Monty city in no time. Alex probably got really irritated, so he soon dropped a culture bomb into that crap city!

My heroic epic is now complete. Just as almost every single production city is assembling catapults, I upgraded all of my maceman / axeman to Grenadiers (14 in total) in one go. Here is my research route after Civil Service:

... Civil Service
-> Compass (enables harbor, definitely needed in larger coastal cities)
-> Guild (enable grocer, also soon needed in many cities)
-> Optics (sets out to circle the world)
-> Engineering
-> Paper
-> Education
-> Economics: Free great merchant: 5900G from Mecca.
-> Gunpowder
-> Liberalism: Free tech - Chemistry

I traded with Saladin and Liz to get Theology and Philosophy. The 5900G I got from the G.Mer is just enough for all 14 Grenadier upgrades.

I am not ready yet, because I need more catapults and knights, and a few pikeman (Alex uses lots of war elephants).

Alex's miliatry lead is disppearing, although Cathy is also significantly weakened. Sometime during the last century she suffered a huge defeat, apparantly. (See the picture below, there is a little power rating chart.)

As my preparation is almost complete, I have to think about diplomacy again. If I declare war on Alex, he might call for help. Although Bismark, Catherin, and Elizebeth do not like Alex a lot, both Saladin and Napoleon are friendly with him. Saladin is also friendly with me, so I am not worried about him. However, Napoleon is willing to stab his friend, as I bribed him to war Khan 700 years ago.

So what should I do?



Wha... Napoleon gave me a good list to choose from!

- Bismark is definitely not the target, as he is almost playing a one-city challenge game. (His other city is a small one-tile island, where Isabella ended her reign.)

- Catherine is not a good candidate, because Cathy has no way to defend against 2 warmongers at the same time. The war will last only a short time. I need Catherine to stay alive so I can effectively backstab Alex.

- Elizebeth has the 2nd weakest army, and she does not have copper nor iron. Making French fight English would be classic , but I am pretty certain Napoleon is going to win. Elizebeth can't really call for help - because Napoleon is at good terms with everybody else.

- Although having only 3 cities compared to Napoleon's 7, Saladin has a military comparable to Napoleon, and he is almost adjacent to Napoleon (only through the water route, by land they are separated by my city Munich). Letting Napoleon fight Saladin would be really nice, as both of them have a power military to waste. At this point Saladin's score mostly come from his tech advance. Napoleon trails Saladin at least 400 years -- but not anymore!

Too bad Napoleon can't go after Alex, but that's expected. They are best friends.



235AD, everything is ready. My assault forces are in position, and war is declared on Alex! After 700 years of relative peace, the world is again shaken!

(to be continued)

 

[Dusty4prez]

looks good

 

[maltz]

I guess you can say that 235 AD marks the year of "the First World War", as five out of six remaining Civs are massing their troops. My enemy, Alex, is now under attack of three different Civs - Cathy, Bismark and myself. This is all done through the work of Diplomacy, or a little understanding of different AI's behavioral pattern in the diplomatic interface.

Alexander has a total of 8 cities. I will explain my war plan in the following screenshots:



This is the northern part of Alex's territory. Over so many years of wars, Alex's homeland is not very well-defended. In average, he has about 4-5 defenders per city - more for the bigger, fewer for he smaller.

My Assault force 1, which consists of 6 Grenadiers, 7 Catapults, 1 War Elephant, 1 Pikeman, and 2 Cho-Ko Nus, will make a risky bid of Boston, a major commerce city in Alex's heart. I will open fire with Catapults bombarding the city defense all the way down to 0% in the first turn (7 is the magic number), and Grenadiers quickly mop up to finish the defenders. The elephant, pikeman and Cho-ko Nus are there to fortify the city right after capture, useful against a wide range of units.

By now I have saved up 2 Great Artists through my GP farms, and I will drop Bomb No.1 here in Boston. This way, as soon as I take the cities to the east of Boston, my cultural boundary will soon cover the ground, greatly slowing down Alex's possible counter attack pass my defense line, to my undefended back.

Behind my Assault force I is my Support force I, consisting of a mixture of units. They are there to stop any Alex's unit from attacking my GP farm, Tenochititlan (TC), and support other attacks when needed.

My assault force II, which is about half of the strengh is force I, marches towards Thermopylae. This Greek city was once occupied by Bismark a few hundreds years ago. If Bismark's little army can do it, so can I. (Plus I have Supprt force I from the North).

After taking Boston and solidifying its defense, I will organize an attack on Teotihuacan with all troops I can pull off nearby, including all catapults and porbably half of the Grenadiers in Assault I.

Teotihuacan is the Monty city that belonged to Bismark I mentioned in the previous chapter. Alex dropped a culture bomb here, contributing to its 60% natural defense now. Too bad, that monster culture will be very short-lived.



This is the southern part of Alex's territory. My Assault force III, which is a direct copy of Assault force I, will make a staight shot towards Sparta, Athens, and later New York. Alex built his Heroic Epic in Sparta (my Deity eye says so ), but this city apparantly sucks as a production city... Dunno what AI was thinking.

Bismark, after losing his Monty city, is spending tons of units on harrassing Sparta. He just keeps making more elephants and catapults, wave after wave. I am sure Alex is very annoyed by now! Sparta's defense has been bombarded to 0 by Bismark before I declare war, and now even the defenders are not at their full health. I expect an ultra-smooth passing of Sparta. But Athens, the capital to the northwest, may not be so easy.



With 0% city defense, my grenadiers ate Alex alive. 8 turns later, I am at the 3rd frame of Alex's territory. New York has been taken by my Assault force III, and my Assault force I and II have regrouped to a horrible stack of death, heading towards Washington, Alex's next stronghold. He has more than 10 units hiding in there.

But they didn't have a chance.

Alex's last city, Corinth, was located further northwest, founded before AD for Alex's another access of horse. It is weird that Cathy couldn't take this little town over so many years, and now the 2 crossbowman in the city are both level 4! Did they contribute to Cathy's huge drop in power 150 years ago?

They may be able to laugh in front of Cathy's elephant, but not infront of Arnold! I mopped up the city with my Arnold mace.. no Arnold Grenadiers. I razed Corinth because I already have 2 horse farms.

My second cultural bomb was dropped in New York. Although this bomb partially overlaps with the previous bomb (in Boston), I won't risk losing New York to Catherine in a cultural revolt, and this will be exactly the start of my next campaign, quickly covering a large area of land in a few turns.

At this point none of the AIs have gunpowder yet, so they are still way, way behind on Grenadiers. With 15 grenadiers, 20+ catapults, almost 10 knights and war elephants, plus 5-6 cities dedicated at producing many kinds of units, my conquest will continue shortly.



Surprisingly, Napoleon is wasted by Saladin. Saladin has a large number of Camel archers, but they shouldn't be a match of Napoleon's knights, which opened Napoleon's war. I saw the knights pillaged a few of Saladin's dye factories.

Later on, I figured out why - Napoleon does not have iron anymore - he traded it from Alex before. Since I own those irons now, Napoleon lost the iron, and the ability to train knights. Fearing that Napoleon to become completely hopeless against Saladin's medium stack of death, I sold Iron to Napoleon, to replace the current Silk deal. Normally I don't trade military resources, but this can be an exception. I want to keep all rival Civs more or less on the same strength, you see.



The 3 to 1 against Alex war ended in 65 years, with my Anarchy on the way to Maoism. Owning 23 cities (7 from Alex), I can only be stopped by all other AIs combined - but they are not smart enough to do so. I'll keep bribing them against each other.

Elizebeth is the next one in score, as she is the only AI Civ that hasn't fought any war, and is the most advanced AI behind me. With 3 quality cities and 1 mal-nutritional colony in my back, she managed to found Islam. Although having a lot of border issues, Liz is such a peaceful lady that I am not really planning to harm her, until she adapts Liberalism.

Saladin, who also has 3 quality cities, is slightly behind Liz. Grabbing two former Mansa Musa cities from Napoleon certainly relieved his land-lock status. If he is able to keep those cities, he may be a problem later on. Fortunately, Saladin is not a fan of liberalism, so as long as I stay a Buddhist, Saladin will not turn against me. If I really want Saladin removed... I can see Bismark waving his hand in the air. However, if not properly supported, Hamburg will disappear in no time. Also, this will pretty much guarantee that Saladin will always fight Bismark in the future, so Bismark cannot help me in other campaigns. I have to consider more on this.

Napoleon just lost 2 cities to Saladin, so he only has 5 now. The French warhead does not really have a rich homeland, as I can count his cottages with 2 hands. He could have cut all those good-for-nothing forests ages ago. He has no use of those health bonus, as his population is so low.

It puzzles me why Catherine has the highest gold income, as she only has 5-6 cottages in total, plus quite a few ships on plain shores. Moscow is founded one tile from the ocean, too bad for her. P.S.: Two of Cathy's cities aren't visible in this map. They are still covered by the fog of war, but my Deity eye told me they are there.

Years of war against Alex rendered half of Cathy's land unimproved. It will take her some time to recover, or will she get the time? I am going to be Catherine's only neighbor on the old continent. Also, nothing hurts more when I settle on the great new continent, to find Catherine's colony right next to mine, and swallow my resources with no mercy.

Bismark is playing a one city challenge game again, if we ignore his one-tile island colony. Hamburg is a solid city, and you all know how much Bureaucracy helps in OCC. His little colony could have accessed some clam, but my border expansion of Beijing completely ruined this island's future.

All of my assult troops are already gathering at the Washington - New York border. In a few turns, they will be fully healed. The only thing that concerns me now is that Catherine is everybody's good friend (which is weird. Did they just give Cathy anything she wants so frequently? Or the AI never asks each other for goodies?) Certainly, I need to act before AIs adopt to Liberalism.

p.s. I just figured out that I spelld NapoleOn all wrong. I will correct it from now on.

 

[IVZanIV]

I really like this. Inspired me move up and use "Emporer Eye"

 

[maltz]

Welcome back.

Singe-player strategy games are usually exciting at the beginning, up to a point that you know you are going to win - then the rest is just patience (and too much time on games).

In CIV4, as our empire expands, there are more cities too look at each turn. Cycling them through, pulling stupid AI-assigned mechanics out from their garage to work in the farm is really enthusiasm draining. However, since it is clear that the player can win even without pulling away mechanics, micro-management after mid-game is not really necessary.

In the following "City Planning" section, I am still supplying my thoughts on all of my new cities, just to make a complete collection. Maybe I will pull a few of my 25 workers here and there to carry my thoughts out, or maybe I just forget about it. It is OK.



No.17 Boston

This city of Alex had a clear goal - to become a commerce city. Many cottages have been worked to village and above.

When I dropped a culture bomb in Boston, it was instantly cured from the revolt. As Alex was still "at large" at that time, more than 70% of Boston's population went on strike. It was clear that I will lose 1 population due to starvation (or emmigration) every turn. I whipped out a theater, and they were still starving. So I whipped out a courthouse next, and the city goes back to balance. I end up with a pop. 3 tiny city, surrounded by all high-rise towns.

With the piggy farm, I only need to convert a few less-developed cottages to farms, to quickly pull the population back to work on all of the existing villages/towns. Boston will become a... Commerce city obviously.

No.18 Thermopylae

A few developed villages/towns are nice, and I will put farms on the plains (there is no food to work on those plain cottages), and probably a few more farms on the grass that has small cottages/hamlet. This way, I can expand my population to work on the horses and beavers. This city is mostly a mediocre hybrid city.

No.19 Teotih...

My screenshot is blocked by the corn, and I am too lazy to figure its full name out By the name I can tell this is the 2nd city that Monty founds.

Currently, the grasslands are farmed, which are quite useful to recover the population. I have assigned a few plain tiles from Thermopylae (just to the north) to this city, because with all the farms, I can work on them. Thermopylae doesn't have the food for those plains.

In case you don't know how to switch the harvest tile between two cities, you can double click on one city, and click on a darkened tile that is currently being assigned to the other city. Doing this will switch back the tile to be used by the city you choose currently.

There is a distant Corn to the northwest, which can be used by another city of mine. If I get some bored workers, I will do a long chain irrigation to bring fresh water there.

No.20 Athens

Alex's capital is a decent city. That river is definitely ideal for a series of watermills under my State Property. Together with the pigs on the hill, I can cottage the rest of the plain tiles. A good Commerce city, if I can see it develop.

No.21 Sparta

Sparta has no food surplus, so I have to watermill along the river, and windmill all hils. It will become a medicore production city. To maximize its production value, I will probably put workshops on the rest of the tiles.



This is a duel-purpose picture. First, continue on the city planning:

No. 22 Washington

In the picture I say there is 9 excess food, but I overlooked the corn! There is actually 13 if the corn is irrigated, or 12 if not. As I mentioned earlier, I can chain-irrigate the corn. Somehow, I don't feel my works are completed if I leave that corn farm in salt water.

I will cut the forest on a grassland hill to mine it (the forest chop will give me a quick fish boat to boot), and lumbermill the rest. The extra plain tile will be a workshop. Washington is going to be a specialist-oriented research city, and an amateur GP farm.

No. 23 New York

To prevent 80% of my tiles taken by Catherine before the revolt is over, I dropped another culture bomb here earlier. Even so, 2/3 of the city culture still goes to her. It is OK; that won't last long. After St. Peterburg disappears from the Terra (heavy overlap with NY), I will be able to quickly regain some population here. I will watermill the river, spawning cottages; maybe put a few workshops to boost hammer so I can get library and university quickly... a good hybrid city.

***

Also shown in this picture is my planned assault route on Catherine.

Nothing tricky here, though. I simply divided my entire force into two halves. I don't even have backups this time, as my inland production centers are outputing 1-2 units every turn. They are streaming to the front line now, as backups. I still has the Grenadier tech lead, so I expect this invasion to be painless and fast.

***

As soon as the war is declared, I realized I made a big logistical error. Catherine has a city on a one-tile island. To reach there I have to have some water transport, a galley at least. My nearest galley is on the other side of the Old Continent! Even though I had that +1 movement bonus (being the first Civ to go around Terra), it will still take almost ~15 turns! And I am too lazy to load back to my Alex campaign.

In the meantime, I completed the research of Astronomy, so on its way here, this galley sailed into the mist, and emerged as a galleon! I saved about 2 turns by this upgrade.

Before being wiped out, Cathy managed to rush some elephants towards my cities, but they turned back as soon as my stack come close to her city.



During the war, I decided to bribe Bismark to attack Saladin, who is currently at war with Napoleon. Normally I wouldn't do that, because as soon as Napoleon makes peace with Saladin, Saladin can focus on our one-city-challenge Bismark, finishing him in just a few turns. However, I have my Deity Luck (TM), so Napoleon can't possibly think of ever stop warring with Saladin.

To make Bismark and Saladin fight isn't really making a big differnece, though. Mostly, Saladin will be distracted for homeland defense, and lost his 2 new Mansa Musa cities back to Napoleon.

After Cathy, it is obvious whom I am going to get rid of next. Napoleon is just beside Cathy, and he is not liked by most Civs except Bismark (and only if Bismark declares war to Saladin, thus gaining that mutual struggle bonus). I don't really care about Bismark stops being friendly, because he is too tiny to make a difference. Therefore, getting rid of Napoleon doesn't really hurt my diplomacy. And if Napoleon got back the two Mansa Musa's city, I will simply take it in the same go. Two more cities for me without another war.

Thinking one step further, I will then decide whether I will finish the game right there by rushing Elizebeth -> Saladin -> Bismark (if he survives), trying to wrap up the game completely on the old continent, or just play on with Liz and Saladin to settle on the new world... I will probably go with the first option, as I am lazy.

In the Power Rating attached to the above picture, you can see that most of Bismark's free army has been killed off by Saladin, while Saladin has gained back his strength. Bismark's iron was pillaged, too. So I am now supplying him with both horse and iron for merely 1G/turn, hoping he can last a little longer.



Besides St. Peterburg, I also razed Cathy's another heavily-overlapped city, located southwest of Moscow. I don't lose any resource by razing it, and only lost a 2-tile land coverage. That gives me an almost complete radius of --

No. 24 Moscow

Cathy's capital was brilliantly founded one tile from the sea. I will assign the sheep herd to Moscow, watermill all possible grasslands, farm the tiles close to the lake, and keep the well-developed towns. (only 2!) The adjacent iron mine and the plain hill should provide me with enough hammers. Moscow iwll be an OK commerce city, thanks to its intact towns.

I kept the Northern city, Novgorod, as it has the only Whale resource in the entire old continent.

No. 25 Novgorod

This city has +6 food surplus, or +7 with a chain-irrigated wheat farm. This is obviously a specialist-driven research city. The rest of the tiles will be workshops and lumbermills.

For blockading purpose, I sent over some caravel to starve Cathy's coastal towns. They turned out to be useful, as I could upgrade them to frigates soon. The 2 frigates bombarded the defense of Cathy's last, one-tile island city to 4% before my Arnold Grenadiers boarded the galleon, and slaughtered the defenders with 99.8%-100% odds.

Catherine founded Taoism on this island city called Yaroslavl. It has 3 food resources, with a lighthouse that becomes 9 excess food. If I can whip / buy a library here, then this city will give me more than 15 beakers in return every turn, plus the gold from water. I kept this city as my No. 26, as it is actually profitable, and a nice tourism destination for it is a holy city!

Also in this picture, you can see that Cathy built a worker here! There is nothing to improve... except the AI itself.



405 AD. With Cathy out of the meeting, there is only 5 of us left. Chairman Mao, the brightest red sun is clearly covering up the old continent!

Liz, the only Civ that has never seen war, is now running 2nd in score with a 10% lead over and Saladin, Napolon, as they are busy fighting each other. She also researched Nationalism 2 turns before me. (I am on my way to Cavalry.)

Bismark is on the blink of elimination (maybe not, as he also has an island colony lingering in nowhere.)

Also shown in this picture is that I am selling various useless resources to the AI. On Deity, happiness resources are actually redundant for the AIs, as they most likely use Heredity rule, and they can always afford a huge army in larger cities. They also come to the game with +5 extra happiness out of nowhere. On the other hand, health is usually the limiting factor of their monster growth rate.

So... my Grenadier rush was haulted by a logistic error for about 8 turns in extra. I still get time; nobody has Musketeer yet! The French special unit IS the musketeer, so Napoleon must be the next!

 

[maltz]

Napoleon is the next.



While I am on my way to Cavalry, my existing forces should be enough to handle Napoleon. Napoleon lost quite a few of his armies in his ongoing war with Saladin, but he is also producing a lot more while I was dealing with Catherine.

According to my "Budda eye" (I own the holy city), which is now almost equivalent to my Deity eye, I can see Napoleon's defense is distributed out evenly. His 6 cities are: Orleans, Djenne, Lyons, Paris, Rheims and Tours. Napoleon was doing well after Bismark joined the war, as he already took Djenne back, and put a significant number of defense there as well. On the contrary, Saladin now only has two defenders in Timbuktu.

If I am facing a realy-human here, I would station all of my attacking forces in one point, between Orleans and Djenne, choose the weaker path, and break through each city either clockwise or counter-clockwise. I wouldn't devide my force like now - just to play safe and create a "stack of death" feeling to my opponent.

However, AIs are not affected psychologically, and they are very predictable. Therefore, I will divide my forces into two, and pick the shortest marching route to their frontline cities. I have just enough attackers (including a few reasonable losses) to take down their defenders.

Since now I have Galleons with the movement bonus, I can plan a surprise attack. My first chance is to quickly transport a few fallen-behind Grenadiers from Orleans (because they finished their movement by attacking the city before it is captured) to the forest southeast of Paris, saving me about 2 turns compared to the land route.

The more interesting landing comes next. As soon as Paris is captured, I will have 3 galleons around, and 2 Frigates firing at the defense of Rheims, to bring it down to 0. Therefore, I can make a "D-Day" style amphibious attack on Rheims totally through the sea route, with my best Grenadiers. This will save me another turn.

Finally, I will have to attack Tours through the sea route as well. By them I will have completed Military Tradition. As I can instantly upgrade them from my veteran knights, they will probably make short work of the defenders of Tour.



The short war was another landslide massacre. Napoleon was brave to throw 7 units at me outside Djenne. I cut my iron supply to Napoleon long time ago, so he only had 2 knights in total. Since my attack force was very balanced, for every unit he attacked with, I had a good counter to it -- pike to elephant, elephant to horse, etc.

I razed two cities. Rheims was razed due to extremely heavy overlap and very little workable tiles, and Tours was razed because there will be no food resource before the city grows to radius 2. I am sure the AIs will soon take this spot, and waste some turns to make another settler back home. I pillaged the fishing boats of this island just to make the AIs live even harder.

I got 4 new cities from Napoleon.

No. 27 Orleans

The elephants are eating away the food surplus from the rice farm, but fortunately the city has an existing good population. I don't really have to make city improvents here; possibly some lumbermills if the forest survives my "chop for theater" routine of new cities. Orleans will become a mediocre production city.

No. 28 Paris

Napoleon's capital is a typical hybrid city - corn, stone, gems, grasslands, plain hills... The existing improvement also leads it to a hybrid city. I will just keep them and maybe put some lumbermills in the surviving forests.

p.s. If I own a Sistine Chapel (2 culture per specialist), then I don't need to chop theaters. But I don't. It is not a wonder on my wish list as it doesn't really provide any difference until I start to invade, and as I start to invade, I will get the chapel from an AIeventually.

No. 29 Lyons

Napolean left behind some well developed towns and workshops, exactly what I need. The only thing I can do in addition is to cut down the jungle to the north, and probably farm or workshop it. With 2 luxury resources and some villages and towns, Lyons looks like a commerce city, but with its limited land and food, it can never bring in a substancial income. I will probably go with the hybrid route to make a few advanced research infrastructure (Library, Univeristy, Observatory)

No. 30 Djenne

This was the 2nd city founded by Mansa Musa. Mansa was taken down by Napoleon, and Saladin grabbed this city afterwards, only to lose it back to Napoleon after Bismark harrassed Saladin in the back. This ill-fated city has now seen 4 different rulers, with a miserable population of 3 and almost no improvement left by the pillagers.

This city can certainly support a larger population, as it has 2 food resources (pig and banana), and many grassland tiles for watermill / farm. Most important of all, there is an incense (spelled wrong in the pictire, sorry) resource within the fat corss - the ONLY incense on the old continent! I get another free happiness by keeping this city.

***

Napoleon is done. So who is next? Geographically, I should go for Elizebeth, as if I go after Saladin first, I have to put a lot of extra defense on the elongated borders. However, can Bismark survive under Saladin's 5-to-1 advantage? Actually, it won't make any difference, as I will grab Hamburg myself sooner or later.



505 AD, 100 years after Catherine's defeat, I have declared war to Elizebeth! My tactics against the AI are all very simple (and brainless). By this time I have upgraded all of my knights to cavalry, so I am even more comfortable at this war.

Elizebeth has 2 distant colonies to be taken care of. The first one is right in my backyard since 2000 years ago - a very poor one-tile city. I dispatched 3 cavalry to take care of them.

The other city is founded at the same spot of Napoleon's Tour. Elizebeth took my bait, only to see her new city automatically razed by my cavalry.

My research of Steel is also complete at this moment, so I can upgrade a few catapults to cannons every turn, with 0% research. By the end of the war, about 80% of my catapults have been converted to Cannons.

As I mentioned in previosuly, Liz had neither copper nor iron, just horse. Her army was probably the weakest among all AIs - but she does own the first AI gunpowder unit in this game - a Musketeer, who died the turn next to its birth.


After razing the 2 useless colonies, I end up with 3 nice city from the English:

No. 31 York

With a reasonable food resource (clam), 4 dyes and cottages upgrades, as well as a big existing population, this city will turn into a nice commerce city in no time!

No. 32 Nottingham

Elizebeth farmed it extensivly, which I think is unecessary for a city that is in majority grasslands. (cottages are better). Too bad it is now late in the game, so I will probably just keep most farms and convert 1 or 2 into workshops to boost its hammer.

No. 33 London

Liz's capital has a low number of land tiles to work on. She kept quite a few forests, which I will probably convert to workshops or lumbermills. I like workshops better, because this city will never grow to a high-enough population to see green faces. With its costal status and 2 food sources, London will be an OK commerce city, with some specialists to boost research.



The Old Continnet is almost covered in red. Can Saladin, who is now the 2nd most advanced Civ in the three, escape to the new continent before I occupy his last holding on the old coninent? Can Bismark, who gave me the first defensive war in the game, survive long enough to be finished by no other but myself?

Bismark is holding very well, apprantly. Hamburg was founded on a hill. NOw I am sure we all know how important this is to an one-city-challenge game.

With my iron and horses, Bismark was able to build some knights, which must gave Saladin some huge headaches. Saladin's Berlin (I gave to him very early in the game) was pillaged to stone age along with Hamburg! I actually made a very good bribe (Bismark -> Saladin).

One interesting side note is that I cannot form a PA with Bismark, who is still friendly with me, because he thinks I am too powerful for him. By doing a PA, he can actually win the game with me. Why would an AI refuse the PA proposal from a super-star Civ? He really forced me to finish him off.

11 down, 2 to go!

 

[KillerCardinal]

Just in case you don't know already, even if you disable random seed on reload, every few turns you still have another random seed. If you load it back and play again, you will get a different outcome.

Just as a note, I don't think this is actually true. Basically, the question you need to ask yourself before deciding that this is true for sure is whether or not you have done exactly the same actions, in exactly the same order. If not, then even with the same random seed you will get different outcomes. Keep in mind that other random events happen that you don't see, which may still be influenced by something as simple as a move on your part. IE, if your unit moves next to monty's border one time, that may affect his willingness to wage war on you, which may cause another random number to be generated that wasn't before.

Basically, what I'm saying is that over the space of a few turns(especially later in the game) it is VERY unlikely that you can remember exactly what you did, and in the same order, so reloading a few turns earlier will probably make it seem like there is a new random seed.

My only evidence of this is that in the early game when exploring with scouts, and my instincts will generally cause the scout to do EXACTLY the same movement pattern, I will practically always get the same things popped from the goody huts in the first 30 turns or so. Thus I don't think that the random seed is regenerated(and frankly, programming wise, I don't see the sense in resetting it arbitrarily).

 

[maltz]

whether or not you have done exactly the same actions...

Now you reminded me that I always purposely did something different when I loaded a few turns back, in order to get a different outcome. Sorry I wasn't very clear about that. When I discovered this "random seed on reload" feature, I was very happy because it saved me a lot of time.

 

[maltz]

If you are reading this, you have my sincere thanks. The game is essentially over a long time ago.

I guess we are both trying to fulfill our work here. I don't like the feeling of incompleteness, and I feel guilty of leaving it here like that, just a little push...

To make our lives more meaningful, let's just cut the jump to the end of the war. With so many Cavalry, Cannons and Grenadiers, I knocked both Saladin and Bismark out in a few turns. I won the game on 575 AD!

And here is the final city planning part. I promise it is short



No. 34 Medina

Saladin's idea about Medina is very similar to mine. The large number of plains can't support this city's population unless farmed. It is a mediocre - OK production city.

No. 35 Mecca

With 16 food surplus and 3 tiles of land, This city is very close to Beijing and TC, my other 2 GP farms, only even lower in hammer output. A specialist-driven research city under Representation.

No. 36 Hamburg

After substrating the iron mine and plain silk, there are still 4 food surplus from the running-away pigs and washed-away wheat. I would watermill a few tiles, and use windmills to support a higher population to work on cottage on the plains. A potentially good commerce city, after the improvements are back!



No. 37 Timbuktu

Mansa Musa's capital is blessed with 0 hill; perhaps that's why none of the previous owners (Mansa, Khan, Napoleon, Saladin) bothered to cut down any of the forest. I wouldn't cut all of them, maybe leaving 2 for lumbermill, watermill the riverside tiles, and cottage the rest. This city can access 2 dyes, so it naturally becomes a hybrid city.

No. 38 Berlin

Bismark's capital, given to Saladin by me 2000 years ago. This city is similar to Hamburg, with a reasonable number of food surplus, and enough land tiles to work on cottages. This city is potentially a good commerce/hybrid city up to size 14. Founding it adjacent to the sea will result in the loss of 3 grassland tiles (one of them is dye, 6 golds). The extra health provided by a harbor is useless for a size 11 city, while the extra 3 plains and dye definitely overweights the extra sea trade revenue. If I can move it, I will move the city one tile to the right, to access three more land tiles, but 1 of them will overlap Munich, which is also Bismark's city (occupied by me), and 2 of them will overlap with Nottingham, previously an English city.



Almost 19 hours, finally, the game is over! The last session was numbered 276 - you can see how much time I have wasted on the Deity luck My final score isn't as high as my another Deity eye/luck game on Standard Pangaea, where I finished 200 years later and not as advanced as this one. I guess my score is brought down by a smaller portion of land area on Terra.

Thank you for reading again. If I get some extra time to kill in the future, I will write another story with some new ideas.

 

[IVZanIV]

Definately loved this, I'm gonna rate it.

 

[maltz]

Definately loved this, I'm gonna rate it.

Thanks very much for all your support. Recently I have another idea of playing a "banished in Terra" game, where I move my settler and warrior to Terra and try to start a new empire there, and meet the colonizers later. Will report it after I get some results.

 

[Graaf Floris]

Thanks very much for all your support. Recently I have another idea of playing a "banished in Terra" game, where I move my settler and warrior to Terra and try to start a new empire there, and meet the colonizers later. Will report it after I get some results.

I'll be reading that story when it comes.

I liked this report on how you defeated the AI on deity. Really motivating!

 

[redstar05]

nice story