elitetroops
Deity
- Joined
- Dec 23, 2012
- Messages
- 5,725
Great discussion! 
Some more details about my game:
Some more details about my game:Spoiler :
I already described the worker stealing tactics. I for sure couldn't have reached a similar date without those workers. Thanks to the massive worker force, every single forest around my cities was prechopped by the time I got construction, and I had roads to Giggles, Pericles, Mansa and Boudica. Also had the road towards Pericles stone city built, so that my follow up troops could take that way. The roads helped with trade routes as well.
With all the prechopped forests, I didn't even need my third city for army production. The gold+FP city didn't build any units early on at all, instead they focused on growing onto cottages and building a library. I whipped it only twice during the game. First time was for forge as I needed the happiness, 2nd time was a cold 3 pop HA whip the turn before I gifted it to Toku (it didn't occur to me that I could have 2 popped a chariot instead
). I also didn't whip capital much, they were working lots of cottages most of the time. This research power wasn't really needed as the game was over much sooner than expected. But it helped to get Feudalism in 250BC. The AI didn't help with tech trading. I also did eventually get to Engineering, but that was a few turns before the game was over, didn't get much use of it. I built some trebs, but I think none of them ever saw any battle.
Research path after construction was Currency-HBR-Monarchy-Feud-Machinery-Engineering (partial GE bulb). In retrospect, I'd say only currency, monarchy and feud are required to win this map. It could be done with nothing but axes and Hwachas as well. I would also have been better of using the GE for a golden age, as engineering was so late.
The war on Pericles was short. He was quite weak and I only took 2 cities in addition to capital before taking peace. I usually never bombard down to 0%. I don't like delaying the attack for bombardment, and if I have enough siege to both bombard to 0% and attack in one turn, then I rather split the stack on more cities. Athens, for example, was defended by one archer and 4 Phalanxes the turn I attacked. I only bombarded it down to 42% (it had walls), then attacked with 5 Hwachas first. The first one had 5% odds against the archer, but managed to wound it enough so that the rest were up against Phalanxes. The second Hwacha already had >50% odds, and from there the odds only went up.
After Pericles, I immediately moved on Boudica. She had 5 cities. I split my stack on 2 at first, then moved on the last 3 pretty much simultaneously. The war lasted 10 turns until she was dead. By then I had gathered most of my army in the border city towards Shaka and I declared on him immediately. He had a bit more units, but my stack was big by then and I already had lots of CR2 Hwachas and quite a few CR3 axes, so he wasn't much of a problem.
In the west, it was axes and Hwachas all the way. I had kept a few Greek and Celtic cities, chopped them clean and whipped them into the ground for more units. Didn't even bother to put up granaries in Celtic cities as I noticed the game was soon over. These reinforcements kept western army going. My 3 core cities stopped sending units westwards about the time I was done with Pericles and began building units for Giggles instead.
The war against Giggles was fun. I declared 250BC with a massive stack of 5 Hwachas and 4 WEs.
In this war, all I really wanted was war success. I had feudalism and knew he would capitulate as soon as I can get +40 war success. Taking a city is always +10, doesn't matter if it is his capital or some crappy tundra city, so I only went for the weaker cities. I had scouted him in advance and knew he had only 2 units/city in the cities I was targetting at that time. I razed the 1st one and this initial stack also managed to capture a 2nd with only 2 more Hwachas catching up from behind. The third city was right south of my FP city and was taken by a 2nd wave of WEs, then he capped as expected.
A couple of turns later Shaka also capitulated, after I had captured two cities, including capital, and razed a small desert city south of Celtic cities. Mansa capped after a 2 turn war. He had some fresh cities in the jungle towards Boudica that hadn't even got their first border pop yet, so getting the necessary war success was no problem. The "war" against Toku I already explained earlier.
In retrospect, I'd say the fastest way to win this map would be to Oracle Construction, then Currency-Monarchy-Feud. Maybe even skip Currency... Take down everyone with Hwachas and axes. Forges are nice, but not absolutely necessary. On this map they also give +2 happiness, which tipped my Oracle towards MC instead of Construction. But still, I think I could possibly have won this faster if I had taken Construction instead.
It should be possible to peace vassal Mansa, as long as he doesn't get too much land. Usually the requirement that you need to have twice their land is the main problem, as your lands will be mostly fresh captured cities with at most one border pop. The requirement is actually that you need twice his land OR population, but twice his population won't happen if you are aggressively whipping an army. Perhaps if you can find time to build an extra settler and settle aggressively to block him in, then it could be easy to peace vassal him. But if not, he will have those weak cities in the jungle to the west, which are easy to take out.
The city gifting trick I used for Toku could also potentially be used for more AI, if you keep enough cities from your first targets. The fun thing with that trick is that you can even do it to several AI in one turn. Gift to first AI, declare, take back, then gift to second AI, declare and take back. If you gift cities that are in revolt, you don't even need 2 movers, because they won't come out of revolt when you gift them and you can take them back with any units. (If you don't have open borders with the target, units will still teleport out of their first ring, so in that case you need roads even if the city is in revolt.)
With all the prechopped forests, I didn't even need my third city for army production. The gold+FP city didn't build any units early on at all, instead they focused on growing onto cottages and building a library. I whipped it only twice during the game. First time was for forge as I needed the happiness, 2nd time was a cold 3 pop HA whip the turn before I gifted it to Toku (it didn't occur to me that I could have 2 popped a chariot instead
). I also didn't whip capital much, they were working lots of cottages most of the time. This research power wasn't really needed as the game was over much sooner than expected. But it helped to get Feudalism in 250BC. The AI didn't help with tech trading. I also did eventually get to Engineering, but that was a few turns before the game was over, didn't get much use of it. I built some trebs, but I think none of them ever saw any battle.Research path after construction was Currency-HBR-Monarchy-Feud-Machinery-Engineering (partial GE bulb). In retrospect, I'd say only currency, monarchy and feud are required to win this map. It could be done with nothing but axes and Hwachas as well. I would also have been better of using the GE for a golden age, as engineering was so late.
The war on Pericles was short. He was quite weak and I only took 2 cities in addition to capital before taking peace. I usually never bombard down to 0%. I don't like delaying the attack for bombardment, and if I have enough siege to both bombard to 0% and attack in one turn, then I rather split the stack on more cities. Athens, for example, was defended by one archer and 4 Phalanxes the turn I attacked. I only bombarded it down to 42% (it had walls), then attacked with 5 Hwachas first. The first one had 5% odds against the archer, but managed to wound it enough so that the rest were up against Phalanxes. The second Hwacha already had >50% odds, and from there the odds only went up.
After Pericles, I immediately moved on Boudica. She had 5 cities. I split my stack on 2 at first, then moved on the last 3 pretty much simultaneously. The war lasted 10 turns until she was dead. By then I had gathered most of my army in the border city towards Shaka and I declared on him immediately. He had a bit more units, but my stack was big by then and I already had lots of CR2 Hwachas and quite a few CR3 axes, so he wasn't much of a problem.
In the west, it was axes and Hwachas all the way. I had kept a few Greek and Celtic cities, chopped them clean and whipped them into the ground for more units. Didn't even bother to put up granaries in Celtic cities as I noticed the game was soon over. These reinforcements kept western army going. My 3 core cities stopped sending units westwards about the time I was done with Pericles and began building units for Giggles instead.
The war against Giggles was fun. I declared 250BC with a massive stack of 5 Hwachas and 4 WEs.
In this war, all I really wanted was war success. I had feudalism and knew he would capitulate as soon as I can get +40 war success. Taking a city is always +10, doesn't matter if it is his capital or some crappy tundra city, so I only went for the weaker cities. I had scouted him in advance and knew he had only 2 units/city in the cities I was targetting at that time. I razed the 1st one and this initial stack also managed to capture a 2nd with only 2 more Hwachas catching up from behind. The third city was right south of my FP city and was taken by a 2nd wave of WEs, then he capped as expected. A couple of turns later Shaka also capitulated, after I had captured two cities, including capital, and razed a small desert city south of Celtic cities. Mansa capped after a 2 turn war. He had some fresh cities in the jungle towards Boudica that hadn't even got their first border pop yet, so getting the necessary war success was no problem. The "war" against Toku I already explained earlier.
In retrospect, I'd say the fastest way to win this map would be to Oracle Construction, then Currency-Monarchy-Feud. Maybe even skip Currency... Take down everyone with Hwachas and axes. Forges are nice, but not absolutely necessary. On this map they also give +2 happiness, which tipped my Oracle towards MC instead of Construction. But still, I think I could possibly have won this faster if I had taken Construction instead.
It should be possible to peace vassal Mansa, as long as he doesn't get too much land. Usually the requirement that you need to have twice their land is the main problem, as your lands will be mostly fresh captured cities with at most one border pop. The requirement is actually that you need twice his land OR population, but twice his population won't happen if you are aggressively whipping an army. Perhaps if you can find time to build an extra settler and settle aggressively to block him in, then it could be easy to peace vassal him. But if not, he will have those weak cities in the jungle to the west, which are easy to take out.
The city gifting trick I used for Toku could also potentially be used for more AI, if you keep enough cities from your first targets. The fun thing with that trick is that you can even do it to several AI in one turn. Gift to first AI, declare, take back, then gift to second AI, declare and take back. If you gift cities that are in revolt, you don't even need 2 movers, because they won't come out of revolt when you gift them and you can take them back with any units. (If you don't have open borders with the target, units will still teleport out of their first ring, so in that case you need roads even if the city is in revolt.)
tech for his 600
I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, but that is one of the worst possible ways I can think of to use a great person. A great merchant should be used for a trade mission, almost always. Do the trade mission in the city where the AI built Temple of Artemis, if you haven't captured it yet. That gives you enough gold to tech quite a while at 100%, or to instantly upgrade a large stack of units the same turn you reach your target military tech. I can only assume this also meant you built some banks. Those are horrible buildings, pretty much never worth building in a game where you tech no further than lib.
