[BTS] NC 191 Frederick of Germany

[Pedro78]

I've played to T50, looks like a fun (or interesting at the very least) game but I don't think I'll continue

Spoiler thoughts :

I just don't feel like playing this kind of game at the moment -- tired of early rushes.

If RNG doesn't screw us on turn 60 I think this shouldn't be very hard, though. Double gold+ivory makes taking out Napoleon much less of an issue. Can get Elepult rush going around T80 no problem here I think. Then PHI trait + gold mines and overall great land + Mansa Musa for trades (demographics) allows very good recovery.

But I'm definitely interested in watching Lain's LP of this one, though

 

[intutama]

Help!
Ok so I thought now that I warmed up on Immortal let's try deity again... Then after a few turns I just went
But let's not give up

Spoiler :

First I thought "GL maybe", since it's such a big hit on deity water starts, then I considered that I probably wasn't going to build many coastal cities considering the environment... So I thought let's go HA maybe? and yes we have horses not too far.

Now I'm in the position that I teched HA+Archery before Potery - I thought I don't need cottages anyway and now I notice that I need granaries to improve the whip efficiency.
So...
1. Should I still build granaries before starting building HA?
2. I will probably attack Lyon... Any ideas how to get this stack out of the city? I was thinking of baiting with a worker 1 SW of Lyons...
3. How many HA? I'm a real chicken when it comes to attack, I always need a 2 or 3:1 attacker/defender ration to be sure...
At the screenshot time I have HBR+Archery+Pottery just researched. Munich is a garbage city that will pump warriors to defend captured cities, the rest will whip+chop HA.

Any advice is welcome !

 

[Pedro78]

Hmm that's definitely not the map to try deity when you're an IMM player...

Spoiler :

First advice would be focusing on getting elepults very early. You should have secured the ivory, not having elephants will make the game very hard. Napoleon is a huge unit spammer (the highest unitprob along with Mehmed,Shaka,Ragnar) and his cities are on hills = nearly untakeable with HAs. And this third city is therefore pretty useless.


Oh and SIP is very bad here, settling on the PH 2N1W is superior by far

Edit - and not having a granary in Berlin by that time with this start is unforgivable, really have to watch your micro, buildings plains farms is useless most of the time

 

[intutama]

Spoiler :

Can get Elepult rush going around T80 no problem here I think.

How would you tech your rush on deity? I'm trying different stuff but I always feel like one tech would have been better than what I have now... And I don't see how to tech faster since that one good spot is taken by napoleon on Deity.

I know the map might be too hard on deity for me but I still want to try - seing what reasoning I'm missing etc.

 

[Pedro78]

@intutama

Spoiler :

Something like Ag-AH-BW-Writing-Myst-Wheel-Pottery-HBR-Masonry-Maths(bulb)-Construction. Stable in Berlin only. Myst needed for fish city. I don't like to bulb maths when I have gold but in this case you don't have many (if any) cottageable tiles, and you really want to get going ASAP. The idea is to hit Nappy while he is still expanding and doesn't build to many CITY_DEFENSE units.

You can sure practice on this map. But if you beat this on deity don't play on IMM ever again lol

 

[intutama]

@Pedro78
Failure again in a previous try But now it's going better, one city captured !

Spoiler :

Previous failed try:
Napoleon bullied me for Maths, so apparently he put all his offensive units in the city... Even at turn 98/475BC I have 8el/7cat but they get rekt whatever I do - the man has simply too many units (something like 7sword/7axes + bows), with elephants coming after a few turns of warring. No chance to take the stack outside of the city considering it's all hills anyway.
I didn't bother with the fish city (teched Archery for defense instead of Mysticism+Fishing, in the end didn't need bows), maybe doing so would have gave me a few units more, but probably not enough to make a big difference.

So I gave another try, this time following your tech tree (only you forgot Fishing, which I teched after Myst) and whipping less (hard build more), less workers for quite a while, and generally trying to be as efficient as possible with my few workers.
It didn't make a huge difference in term of timing construction, however I ended up with 2 stables instead of 0, and Munich is an actually useful city (can use fishes). Got a rage moment when a barb galley approached my fishing boats but I could bait it away with a work boat I built while idle for exploration.
The thing is in this try Napoleon is kind of weak... He actually declared war on me 1 turn after I got Construction, but only attacked with something like 3sword/3axes or so... so I kind of turtled (changed my ration of el/pult to 3:1) and got him when he retreat and now got a first city !

But from now what to do? I forgot to explore during open borders (boy do I regret this) but from my previous tries I have a good idea how the territory is will probably get Paris and one or two other cities, then Cease Fire for techs, and repeat until he's dead? What do you think?
The second question is how do I reach Astronomy, in fact in my 2 previous Imm games of the forum (the 2 greek continent games) I got "discovered" but other civs before I myself could reach Astronomy...

I guess the tech plan would be Alphabet anyway for trade & build research... Although actually Nap has alphabet and IW. But he's probably to be arrogant and not trade Alpha against peace.
Currency can wait I think - I'll have 4 golds to work.
Monarchy - there is wine, and I'll be able to bash Copper to build warriors for cheap happiness.
And from then on beeline Astronomy, maybe dedicating 2 cities to GS while the rest continue the war effort...

Some images (ps: some workers on auto during the war stress, have to remove them like this mining dude in the SW corner, he could build a cottage instead)

Maybe it's weird to try and try again but I'm learning more than by just making excuses for this defeat and start another game

 

[elmurcis]

Maybe it's weird to try and try again but I'm learning more than by just making excuses for this defeat and start another game

Trying to figure out difficult situation usually is good thing as long as it gives something for future "fresh game situation"

Spoiler :

(and dealing with Nasty Nappy who has nobody else to attack in game - always is like that )

 

[intutama]

Spoiler :

Turn 116 - got Paris, with some losses... Napoleon got Longbows. With only 3 catapults left and about 10 elephants (some scattered) I decided to Cease Fire for some techs - Alphabet + Meditation. Orleans will have to fall in 10 turns, don't want a french city in my backyard.
- Settler being built to settle 2S1W from Orleans, to work 1 irrigated plain and the 2 gold tiles. Sadly Orleans' border pop prevent this during peace...
- Paris/Lyons have no Wonder
- Tech idling Metal Casting, working GS in Capitol+one other city, Scout gonna scout, Workboat gonna scout too
- Still have 14 Elephants. Going to build catapults, take orlean and probably another city, then I don't think I'll be able to take more as eventually Napoleon's going to get better units. Can I really trust the "4 cities" counter?

 

[intutama]

Spoiler :

Ok last turnset for today... Maybe
That's why I can't post my games here, I'm not patient enough to wait for your advices... I'm still reading them however, posthumously

Got 1 GS in Capitol, no idea what to do with the dude. Whip some cats afterwards.
Got a library in another city, build GS now (the city south to capitol, not much to do there). Will probably work GS in capitol too, the city really has nothing else to do except maybe build more stone-throwing machines.
Whipped cats, build some warriors to free elephants from defense duty, monument+granary in captured cities, settler bidding for his time...

So the attack plan is: Attack of Orleans with 8 elephants and 6 catapults. I think catapults combard gets less effective (-6% ?) but I'll still just bombard on turn then attack with 3 or 4. Don't want to lose elephants at the start of the war as they are all level 3 now and I'd rather have them die capturing a last city.
I keep 6 elephants split in Paris and Lyons. I'm afraid of a sudden counter attack of knights or whatever. Putting hammers in walls for this purpose (so I can whip them in case). Otherwise more catapults.
I want to get Orleans and Rheims then peace for some techs. My idling of Metal casting was a disaster as Napoleon teched it (which I was sure was the case but still didnt switch to cur).

So the big problem is what to tech now. I want Monarchy, so maybe tech that prerequiste tech to get monarchy in a peace deal? But then what? I don't think Astronomy gonna help, I'll get it way to late I think...

Napoleon's Wonderland:
Check the nice double fish spot... Perfect for a holiday, if you dont mind pirates

 

[Pedro78]

@intutama
I don't think your current position is horrible but it could certainly be much better. Would you mind attaching some saves? Those really help figuring out what went wrong and when.

I'll play the game to T100 and see what happens, kind of hard to give constructive criticism if I can't get a feel for the map and don't know how hard it actually is.

 

[intutama]

@Pedro78 Here's the save of the turn I got construction (94) if you feel like having a look !

edit: oh boy

 

[Pedro78]

@intutama

Spoiler thoughts on your game, in no particular order :

• You have 6 warriors (completely useless, only need ~4 for early spawnbusting, and even then some should later be disbanded) and are paying -4gpt in unit cost. You haven't deleted your scout but haven't scouted Nappy out either. Your extra warriors should be spawnbusting, not sitting in Berlin
• You apparently bulbed Maths, which imo is a good thing on this map, but you left your GS sitting around for 20 turns, paying extra unit cost.
• Settling Cologne was useless for an Elepult rush. Better to stay at 3 cities and attack much earlier.
• I'm not sold on settling Hamburg on the PH, I'd rather have the cows in the first rings (you need food here, not hammers as at this point of the game you don't have anything relevant to build, I know Berlin's second border pop grabs the cows but it comes a little bit too late). Only advantage is it frees up a riverside grass tile
• Somehow when I gave you advice on the tech path I forgot that we were PHI, in which case it's much better to get Pottery before Writing as you'll still get the GS in time for Maths bulb.
• 5 workers is way too much, 3 or 4 would be enough
• You have one worker chopping a forest 4 tiles away from Berlin that's not even in your culture, that's counter productive as you have plenty of unchopped BFC forests
• You're not maximizing your cities' production. In this case, this is what they should look like (edited from your save with WB):

Spoiler :

Munich should be growing on Fish+GrassFarm and add one Ivory @size3. Then whipped every time it reaches size 4. Berlin could also be whipped 4-2 (would actually crank out more hammers this way) but you cannot deal with the unhappiness here so I think high natural hammers are better in this case.

• You have 3 stables, only really need one in eihter Berlin or Hamburg, can build a second one if too many excess hammers. Other cities can build catapults.
• 3 of your 4 cities have automated citizens, that's usually not good. It's much better to check a city's tiles each turn to make sure everything's "optimal"

And last but not least, it's turn 94 and you've barely played for half an hour! I know some people are playing faster than others, but you just cannot play 90 turns in 30 minutes and have a good game, especially when you're not a "good" deity player. When playing really fast and really experienced, you can get to T90 in ~1 hour and have a half-decent game, but not in 30 minutes..

I'm not sure whether I'll actually play this or not, btw. Anyway I hope that was helpful and did point you in the right direction

Edit - oh and I'm sure there's a lot more to be said here, but these are the first things that came to my mind

 

[intutama]

@Pedro78

Spoiler :

First of all thanks a lot for having a look at the save, that's really nice from you.

While I can "explain" some mistakes (the same way I can explain to my wife why I haven't taken out the trash yet ), what comes out is that I took this round too lightly and didn't try to squeeze out every single drop of gold and make use of every hammer each turn. While I do have some deity wins, they were on much easier maps and with easier leaders.

I played my game a little bit more but then decided to quit - I beat Napoleon a second time and got some techs, but MM is so far ahead (Astronomy) I can't get deals with him, and I didn't feel like crawling through the tech tree while people start sending spaceships.

I did give another try with 3 cities and a different placement for the gold city, I reached construction on turn 87, Napoleon DOW a few turns later with a big stack, I turtled and countered... In the end this is just like my previous tries: it's already turn 105 or so when I take a first city and can move in his territory. Although this time I separated 4 units to smash his Iron to prevent "resurrection"...

From this try, I would say that in fact I'd rather get writing soon (after BW) as Capitol has no other way to produce gold/beakers until sailing - there are only one weak cottageable tile and another that will keep getting smashed. I'd also leave space between Mysticism and Fishing since we need 10 turns for border pop anyway. Maybe it's possible to shave one or two turns this way...

Also not sure how to meet Mansa Musa, do I need to wait for a border pop from him? Or wait that a boat passes?

 

[elmurcis]

@intutama Since you played that far....

Spoiler :

Also not sure how to meet Mansa Musa

Spoiler :

you need "junk city" on rice (wet rice ) to south. with 1st ring border pop i think it was possible to get over... I got over with 2nd culture ring setting 1E from rice only because I played without tech trading so MM was not that important to reach, except for trade routes... but when I got over he already had Mercantilism

Spoiler :

But atleast I could admire he having 11 wonders and 5!! of 6 religions.. only Nappy got Budism before he dieded

 

[Izuul]

Yeah, this one is tough on Deity.

Spoiler :

I got attacked before i could get to Construction. Fortunately i had Archery and a few archers already built due to earlier barb troubles in the west, but i still had to chop and whip a bunch of archers and then pay maintenance on them which has slowed me down quite a bit. He forked my gold and ivory cities so i ended up with about 9 units split between the two of them.. yuck. He also spent some turns standing on one of my gold mines. He's wasted a ton of units attacking me, but still wants a city for peace.

Got Construction a couple turns ago and now have 3 phants and will have a couple of cats soon. It's already ~550 BC though. Would've been in much better shape without the DOW obviously. Probably could've gotten Construction a half dozen turns earlier.

 

[intutama]

Spoiler :

After pondering the whole day today... New try... Construction on turn 82 this time and I think I'm going crazy
And I'm pretty sure turn 81 is reachable since it would have been better to work a GS in gold town instead of working a cottage, noticed too late... And maybe by dedicating 2 workers to fish-town instead of one

Anyway, this is the final try, not going to go through this again

As usual, Napoleon declares war several turn after I reach construction. His stack penetrates my territory, and he goes for an all-in attack on my own forest-hill protected stack. A black day for Napoleon, as his stack is gone while mine is intact.

In the meanwhile, a pair of my elephants sneak into Napoleon's hinterland to smash a suspicious mine... This should stop the flow of spearmen !

I smash the tile while on the front units regroup to take the first city. Catapults are severely lacking... And more and more armored units seem to come from Napoleon's territory... NANI?!

I decide to use the superior analytical power of the humain brain to find the cause of this... And also the developers' oversights... Crikey! There's something not right with this one mine!

This is near from Paris... No way to quickly go smash this one.

Anyway I take a first city... Orleans, on a hill, takes time and cause some losses... And Paris, despite a weaker defense, even more losses as I want to settle a peace deal as soon as possible - and limit Napoleon's iron supply too.
Turn 109, Napoleon won't settle peace for IW... I move my stack forward to try to bully him.

Anyway. turn 110:
- bully Napoleon for a IW peace deal. I need IW because I want to settle that jungle rice. Stack is in a poor state, maybe I got too enthusiastic on that last siege. Note to self: don't play Deity after 2 glasses of wine.
- Met Mansa Musa. He has a lot to trade... I'm hoping to get Metal Casting (with hammers invested) against HBR. Maybe I can then bulb some see-faring techs and exchange them for Monarchy/Currency... My absolute lack of experience in teching Astronomy (among other things ) shows here.
- If MM can reach me, I can reach MM I guess... Build a work boat for exploration duty (didnt before cause galleys and no slot for it). Need them trade routes.
- Will also settle the second 2x gold spot and work them with a 3-pop city.
- Otherwise... Well the plan is to hope I can get some nice trade deals with MM. I should be able to get 2 GS relatively easily. Man if only @Wrathful would finish his continent game... Then I'd know how the heck do I get to Astro now

 

[elitetroops]

To everyone taking this on on deity:

Spoiler :

Looks like our dear neighbor is a bit of a problem, with a tendency to attack too early. Anyone considered gifting a city? There's a pretty perfect spot for that in the middle of the desert NW of cap. It eliminates all barb pressure as well. He can still plot at pleased, but his NoWarProb goes up from 50 (cautious) to 90 (pleased), which could give you a lot more time before he starts plotting. If he doesn't start plotting before your stack is ready, he should have less units when you attack. Think it could work?

 

[salty mud]

This is the first time I've taken on a game like this, so I'm pretty excited to get started. I'm playing with the Legends of Revolution mod on epic speed, Monarch difficulty, so my strategies may have to differ from some others posted in this thread to deal with extra problems and issues the mod throws at me.

My thoughts at 4000BC are a relatively food heavy capital city, which is good news for Frederick's philosophical trait. I'll immediately research animal husbandry and agriculture to get my city growing whilst exploring. I'll then probably shift towards bronze working to take advantage of slavery and hopefully reveal some copper - I've no idea what resources are available.

See you all at 1000BC.

 

[elitetroops]

Welcome to NC @salty mud! I don't know much about the LoR mod, looking forward to your 1000BC report to see how it influences the game.

 

[salty mud]

Thank you for the kind welcome, elitetroops. LoR is my personal favourite mod, adding more depth to religions and city happiness for starters. Founding multiple religions can tear your empire apart as non-state religions feel hard done by. As such, spreading your religion becomes a good tactic, as it can help destabilise rival empires.

Spoiler :

Anyway, here's my progress thus far. Everyone's favourite lunatic, Napoleon, is right on my doorstep. I seized on the two gold piles to the east and farmed up the city to work the tiles. There was some other gold to the north east which I seized also, though my city placement is less than ideal - Napoleon placed Lyon there before I could get Munchen down, so I decided to settle on the gold. This still gives me some farmable land AND gives me an extra gold, while denying both of them to Napoleon. I'm currently working all 3 workable gold tiles, so my research is through the roof.

I feel it's better to take out Napoleon sooner rather than later, so I'm using my super fast research to get to elephants and catapults before he can. Last I checked he was wasting his time researching Seafaring, allowing trade on coasts (I believe this is a LoR tech). I'm currently researching Horseback Riding, and once it's done my legions of elephants can start training. I've already had a Great Scientist, which I used to get Alphabet, though predictably Napoleon isn't giving much away.

EDIT: a few turns after this was taken Napoleon declared war on me with a full stack of swords and axes. Munchen fell almost immediately, I managed to capture Lyon with a few elephants and catapults but his force was superior to mine. He obviously has some iron or copper within his borders and it takes me too long to get to elephants to hold him off so it calls for a rethink I believe. I may have to start this game again.