NC CLXXVI Hannibal

[yena]

Decided to play this and finished in just over 4 hours.

Immortal, epic, no huts/events. 1565 Conquest victory

Spoiler :

This was my second try. I am used to playing on Pangea and the slow tech pace on this map made a mess of my plans. In my second attempt I played much more aggressively, starting with 3 quick cities (SIP, pigs/FP in the SE, and gold/horse in the E. I then build axes while beelining HA, and declared on the Ottomans, keeping the good cities while razing worthless ones to keep my economy decent. I self-teched Alphabet just in time to exhort some techs when he was down to his two last cities. Setting research to Currency, I then rebuild my military and declared on Zara, exhorting techs to peace and repeating until they were both gone. I skipped all wonders, including GLib but got some as spoils of war, including the pyramids.

With 3 gold mines, currency, and the pyramids the economy was acceptable and I beelined optics to get new trade routes. I also build the Colossus, and backfilled all the empty space on my continent. One I found the second continent, I took Astronomy with Liberalism, build two navies and beelines rifles and later cannon. I filled the ships with mostly rifles and took a city from both the Babylonians and the Mongols (one with each fleet) and hid there until they had smashed their stacks on my rifles. Once their offensive capacity was gone it was just a matter of taking a few more coastal cities until they capitulated. Unfortunately this was not enough and I had to declared on Darius(?) and his vassal the Vikings. Darius had rifles so even with some cannons it was slow and bloody work, but he eventually gave up in 1565. The final score was 274127.

 

[InovA]

An update on my first Immortal game: (NHNE)

4000 BC:

Spoiler :

4000BC:
Settling in place looks good
1S1W maybe offers a resource in FoW, but can't pass up the river tiles + FIN trait.

Thought about going 2N1W or 2N2W, north of gold for the 2nd hammer in the city. This wouldn't be bad if theres at least a little food up there and we share our corn/cows with another city.

1N1W is also acceptable, opening up the origin square as a nice tile, but this forfeits 2
similar tiles and gains 2 coastal tiles.

Moved my warrior 1N1W to see if I'd want to try anything other than settling in place, but ultimately chose to settle in place for faster cottages on the river.

Up to 1000 BC:

Spoiler :

My Tech:
Agg -> AH -> BW -> Wheel -> Pot -> Writing -> Sailing* -> Masonry -> Aesthetics
*I waited at 0% until 2 libraries finished.

City build:
Work-War-War-Settler(@3)-Settler-Work(Chop)-Gran-Work-Lib

3040 BC [T24]: Pottery is a good 3rd tech choice, but we have enough of an early economy as it is and making use of BW should help more.

2nd city:

3rd city: [1S of pigs]

This should have been done in reverse order out of fear of Ethiopia stealing the clams/pigs location, but I lost my first warrior early and didn't have an escort/vision of the pigs by the time my first settler finished.

1920 BC [T52]: This is the critical point I've gotten lazy on in the past, a decision needs to be made after teching writing. The 2 questions that I want to keep in mind are:
*Can I rush an opponent?
-I cannot see their resources yet, so we'll put this on the back burner.
*Are any world wonders worth contesting? [Value gained : Effort put in : Chance of success] (out of 10)
-Pyramids: [7 : 9 : 6]
Always decent, but no stone could make me too slow. Don't think it is worth the trouble.
-GLH: [5 : 6 : 9]
I'll have at least 2 coastal cities, might take 1 or 2 from Ethiopia at some point. Not bad overall, but could there be something better?
-Great Wall: [5 : 3 : 3]
I want to go for the great wall! And though I feel like my tech path is a bit slow for the wall, the tech speedup from gold should make up for it!
-Oracle: [7 : 4 : 5]
Now this is interesting. I want to say that if I go for oracle it would give me time to make another worker or two in my capital and still time out well. In my experience the Monarch A.I. usually finishes the Oracle between 1050-750 BC.

I could start it on T71 where it would be built in my capital with 11 hammers/turn. At 150 hammers, at best I could chop 4 forests for it, making for 70 hammers to go. If I time a whip overflow to it properly I could maybe make it in 5 turns, but it could take as many as 7-10 turns. 850 BC in the slowest case, 975 BC in the fastest.

The arbitrary values I assigned each wonder in this game shows that I think I can get the best "value per effort" out of The Oracle, with The Great Wall not far behind. But the risk vs reward is best from GLH, so until I know when the A.I. usually finishes wonders for certain, I'll make the sound play and go for the GLH here.


The Great Wall - 1480 BC [T63] Ethiopia! I could have finished Masonry by T58, the 150 production needed could have been double, maybe triple chopped, but then still, 90 hammers in 5 turns, not happening. Good call to skip!

Because my 3rd city (coastal) was still establishing itself, I completely delayed tech and went to 0% until my first 2 libraries finished. At around ~300 gold, 1280 BC [T68], I resumed and plan to go for Aesthetics after Sailing+Masonry, then trade for Alpha.

Sailing gave me trading capabilities with the Ottomans, who recently took both ivory tiles nearest to me. He won't trade me one yet so I'm gifting him sheep for diplo.

1000 BC [T75]:
Aesthetics - 5 turns away
GS - 10 turns away
4th city - 6 turns away
GLH starts in 3 turns

Up to 500 AD:

Spoiler :

Tech Path:
Aesthetics -> Mysticism -> Meditation -> Iron Working -> Metal Casting -> Poly -> Literature ->* Currency -> Compass -> Code of Laws -> Music (1st) -> Civil Service (4T away)
*Traded for Alpha, Hunting, Archery, Monotheism, Calender
-Spent Music's Great Artist on a Golden Age
-Bulbed Philosophy
-Meditation for Tech Boost from Monasteries, I feel meh about this move
-Iron Working to go to war with Ethiopia - worked out well, but seems to me like it was a bad decision that got lucky
-I am about 3000 bulbs ahead of Mehmed, though after we trade a few back and forth it should be ~2100 in my favor

925 BC [T78]: Oracle was built in an unknown land.
775 BC [T84]: Pyramids in Ethiopia!
425 BC [T98]: Built the GLH!
225 BC [T106]: Mehmed is prepping for war! I have 0.6 ratio to him, 0.9 to Ethiopia. I've seen his stack scouting my eastern city, I think I'm the target
Maybe not, he has -4 towards Ethiopia for religious differences. I think I'll join that war! But on who's side... hmmmm...
150 BC [T109]: Mehmed is pleased towards me! He will also donate ivory to me, noice!
Zara is teching to alpha now, 6T away, so hopefully I can trade for it before we team up on the poor bastard.
75 BC [T112]: Mehmed finished Alpha (1T before Zara) I traded for it and Mathematics.
50 BC [T113]: Mehmed declared war on Zara!
1 AD [T115]: I declare on Zara! (1.3 power ratio) (~12 swords, 7 axes)
150 AD [T121]: Apostolic Palace built by Buddhists on another continent.
200 AD [T123]: Built The Great Library!
300 AD [T127]: Took Aksum (Pyramids, Great Wall, StoneHenge) after Mehmed threw his stack at it.
400 AD [T131]: The Ethiopian Civilization has been destroyed! (Mehmed got 0 cities.)
500 AD [T135]: I'm now at 8 cities, plan to take 9th at southern fish, Mehmed is at 13 cities.

My WWs:
-Great Wall (stolen)
-Pyramids (stolen)
-Hanging Gardens (stolen)
-GLH
-Great Lib
-StoneHenge (stolen)
-Parthenon (9T away, fail gold is fine)

Dang Zara! All these wonders you made for me!

Map:

Spoiler :

Questions:
-Anyone know of a chart that shows when barbarians get each tech? I always lose at least 1 workboat to the galleys, I should start to prep a defense in future games.

@Gumbolt

Spoiler :

I've NEVER built GLH before, so had no clue what time to aim for. I assumed that because of all the prerequisites for it, the A.I. would probably take a while to get it. After looking at a few replays and the times GLH was built, yes it looks like I got pretty lucky! Also I've been looking through your playthrough up to the points I'm at when I hit them, that aggression sounds like it went soooo well! I wanted to do a rush when I noticed how close they were, but chickened out I like my position more now than I did in 1000 BC at least!

 

[elitetroops]

@InovA: There's no chart for barb tech dates, it depends on how fast the rest of the map techs. They get some beakers every turn for each civ that knows each tech, don't remember the exact amount, or if it maybe was a percentage. Anyway, the sooner the rest of the world techs Sailing, the sooner barb galleys will spawn. Meaning that on higher levels they will come earlier. When you can see that all AI already have Sailing, prepare for barb galleys to arrive within the next 20 turns.

Edit: but you can of course also spawn bust the coast with land units. Barb galleys wander around randomly, until they spot something to attack or pillage. They can see improvements that can be pillaged within 4 turns, so as soon as they get to a distance of 7 tiles or less from your fishing nets, they can head towards them for pillaging. If you can spawnbust more than that with units or cultural borders, you are pretty safe.

 

[DrCron]

I came back to this game, this is what happened (until 50 AD):

Spoiler :

Started a rush against the Ottomans around 600 BC, just 1 turn before they got IW, because they didn't have copper, so I could get the 1st city with chariots only. The war went on until 25 AD, and I got 5 cities from them. Now I have 9 and they only have 4 left. Unfortunately their iron source is still within their borders. Either way, I'll build a few more Numidian cavalries and finish them off as soon as I can.

Now I'll try to be first to Music (I assume no one in the other continent has it) while I chop the GL. I got mathematics from Mehmed, as well as IW and Poly. Those 3 techs should give me enough room to recover my economy. The cities I took are in fairly decent locations, which will get better after calendar.

Zara has Alpha because I used it to bribe him into the war. Now I adopted his religion and I think I won't attack him in the short term, so we can trade techs until I get to the other continent.

I'm attaching my last save. I have a quick question about tech at this point, maybe the experienced players can help me decide:

Spoiler :

After getting the GA from Music (hopefully) I would normally go for the lib race. But having just 1 trading partner here, I wonder how important is it to be 1st to optics. Should I consider getting optics or just wait until Zara gets it and focus on the lib race? How useful would you say it is to be 1st to circunnavigate/meeting the other civs?

 

[yyeah]

What a map . Iam not familiar to haveing truble with Hannibal xD.

Deity 1490AD 2nd attempt.

Spoiler :

Couple of thoughts.
Iam playing it 2nd time in my 1st game i was too cocky and forgot about what i learned some time ago.
NC rush dosnt work against Zara especialy with SH.
Well i got screwed by odds too 3 times becosue i needed more then 3:1 to take city. 85% cultural def is not too ezy .
But anyway that was just bad play. Attacking Mehmed wasnt option since he got WE's

Decided to try it 1 more time becouse i simply didnt have idea how to beat this map.
One say Lib and Lib MT... hmm not so obv with so high culture in cities and perhaps Ormo/Jannisary its rly tough call.
Another thing is that Mehmed and Zara too, sometimes, are warmogers so its not sure that one can survive until lib.

But i got an idea, i went.
AGC->BW->Wheel->Pottery->Writing->Alpha->Currency
I bribed Mehmed to attack Zara they wont like each other and no tradeing this made game a bit easier.
Then i teched to CS and Egi. Then Astronomy i was 5 turns to Astro when Mehmed DoW Zara, didnt want to DoW Zara befor Astro becouse of tr but simply had to do that. Zara would fall to Mehmed and it would be GG.
So instand of 5 turns i had Astro in like 30 or so.
But anyway i Vassaled Zara and when i was up to attack Mehmed he got Grens ;/.
Decided to wait a bit but Mehmed didnt want to wait in 10 turns after he razed hes fist he manage to bulid like 30 units stack of Grens and Trebs and Downed me.
i had stack around 40-50 too manage to wipe hes stack out and yea we fighting

Just got Cuirs so i think is just a matter of time now.

tech race

Other continent is at war... everybody exept Darius witch is teching like madman... great.

This is v short write up too many things happend xD a lot of diplo game bribe in bribe out etc
But yea one of greatest maps i played last days tbh, usually Hannibal is kind of ezy mode for me but this map is rly challangeing i like it.

 

[Gumbolt]

@ Inova

Spoiler :

Try restarting the game to practice an axe rush. Build 2 cities. Hook up copper. Chop/whip axes and take a reasonably sized stack down south. Until you try just doing a rush you will never truly move your game to that next level.

You will need to focs on the micro or it may end up in tears. Always try for the capital first if you can.

Yes 425bc GLH is very lucky indeed.

Glib without marble is a bigger task. You beat me to music. Not that I even tried for it really.

Looks like you picked up some nice wonders from Zara. There are some advantages to leaving AI alive. Trading partners etc. Albeit on this map they were always going to be fighting eachother.

I need to play on my game. Just not had the time.

 

[jvdl]

Immortal - Standard - Up to 1000 BC

Spoiler :

Saw early on Zara close by in the south so decided to settle there first.
2400 BC: 1st city between wheat & pig SE.
1920 BC: 2nd city between pig & gold SW. And mussels, yummy!
1000 BC: 3rd city with sheep, deer & gold NE.
That leaves a peninsula with at least two good food spots for the taking.

That seems to have blocked Zara by Sully and me. He's pleased and I'll keep it that way. Sully hates him. Let's see if they take on each other.

Left the obvious fish mountains, so production will start late. Hopefully not too late. On the downside, Sully settled close to my horse, which is mildly annoying. He won't get it soon, if at all and even so that's not a show stopper. There's plenty more horse up north.

Barbs are coming in at a regular pace from the north but can bust them from settling and can easily stop them with warriors and 2 axes, all Woodsman 2 now. Shouldn't be any problem. Easy XP.

Tech path: AG - AH - BW - Wh - Pot - Myst - Wr - Aesht. Working on alpha,few turns then Poly-Lit. Zara & Sully are not teching much, so no trades. With all the gold & chopping material & hammers, should not have a problem to get the GL.

Should get more workers though.

 

[InovA]

(continued...)

Up to 1200 AD:

Spoiler :

Tech Path:
Civil Service -> Nationalism -> Paper -> Education -> Liberalism + Military Tradition (940 AD) -> HBR* -> Gunpowder -> Construction -> Engineering -> Chemistry -> Printing Press -> Economics (8T away)
Trade for: Monarchy, Drama, Feudalism, Priesthood, Theology, Guilds, Banking
Stole: Machinery
Future Plans:
-Democracy for Statue of Lib; Straight to Communism.
-Switch to Free Market after getting Economics.
-Astronomy after Communism for oceanic trade while at war with Mehmed.
*I would normally trade for HBR and Construction here, but Mehmed doesn't like to trade I see

1080 AD [T168]: Mehmed fears I'm becoming too advanced I've heard of that, but never had it happen to me.
1120 AD [T172]: Now he doesn't fear I'm too advanced. What, Mehmed, am I not good enough for you now?
1130 AD [T173]: Mehmed gets Notre Dame.
1140 AD [T174]: Met Hammurabi! Traded Education for Drama, Feudalism, Priesthood, Theology, map.

He has been up to a lot! Many WWs, decently high score for sharing a continent with 3 others.
Hammurabi will likely be my main opposition for victory in this game, assuming all goes well with killing Mehmed.
1170 AD [T177]: Hammurabi is prepping war, or just got declared on.
1190 AD [T179]: Built the Taj Mahal!
1200 AD [T180]: The Mongolians took a Babylonian city! Maybe Babylon won't be a contender.
Switched to Mercantilism for the +GP bonus during Golden Age.
Costs me 37gp/turn for no foreign trade.

I have 9 Cuirassier, 1 Trebuchet, 2 GS (+3 more upcoming in my Golden Age), Heroic Epic in 5T.
Will go to war with Mehmed within a century of my Golden Age ending!

*I was seriously debating whether or not to abandon the idea of fighting Mehmed; he's friendly to me, strong, and easy to steal tech from. But I have GLH, he built me a lovely Notre Dame, and I'm planning to get Statue of Liberty, sooo more cities pleeeease!

@Gumbolt
Ok cool, I'll try that after I finish this game!

 

[jvdl]

From 1000 BC up to 1AD

Spoiler :

Tech path: Poly - Lit - Math - CoL - Alpha - Med - Philo (bulb)
Trades: Sail - Hunt - Mason - IW - Arch - Mono

Would also liked to have traded Poly, Alpha, Med but Zara and Mehmed (previously I mistook him for Sully) are useless techers. So my tech situation is a bit slow but with all the gold, CS is only two turns away, slightly behind where it should be but OK.

4th city: 500 BC between fish & iron
5th city: 150 BC between (second) deer & horse.

Including cap that's six cities and although there's more land there's nothing where I would care to settle. Mehmed has a fancy for resourceless tundra & ice & he's welcome to it.

Assume my co-continentals havefinished rexxing and turning their eyes on my goodies. With two axes and a handful of warriors they can run me over anytime. So assigned one GS to a GA, to pump out some semblance of a defense that hopefully will divert their hate to each other; and also to switch to religion, pacifism and buro without anarchy. Need only 3 more GS for lib so that shouldn't be a big problem.

Went for Zara's buddhism, which makes me even more of a target for Mehmed who is piling up elepults and not liking me much (fortunately he hates Zara a lot). Hinduism would have been safer but unfortunately not a single of his missionaries crossed my lands yet. He's also got ten (mostly bad) cities (Zara & me six each) so his maintenance will slow him down but need to be careful. Could please him with some techs but more brownie points if I wait for his demands. Not sure.

The semblance of defense won't be horses because (A) they won't stand a chance against elepults and (B) the AI don't perceive them as a good defense (I think?). On this map the UU is really useless! So while my iron fish HE city will spam horse, the GA is used by each city to build some spears and archers for self defence. A waste of hammers but I don't trust my diplo skills enough to prevent attack with five warriors alone.

What to do after CS? HA & Monarchy? Hereditary rule with the whip! Horses galore. Then music & nationalism. But cuirs won't get me over the ocean...

Maybe a HA stampede with catapults (bit late to call it a rush). Against my good friend Zara. Could work. Mehmed would surely want to help me.

 

[ConfusedCounsel]

Conquest victory at 1650.
Could have been faster, but meh.

Spoiler :

 

[jvdl]

520 AD. A weird thing happened

Spoiler :

Trade calendar with Zara (the trade includes his world map), the mini-map is centered and lo and behold: I get a peek of another continent (see picture).

How could Zara possibly have that? Is this a bug?

 

[ConfusedCounsel]

520 AD. A weird thing happened

Spoiler :

Trade calendar with Zara (the trade includes his world map), the mini-map is centered and lo and behold: I get a peek of another continent (see picture).

How could Zara possibly have that? Is this a bug?

Spoiler :

Same thing happened with me. I suspect some leaders got switched around in worldbuilder and this is the original starting location of Zara, with some lingering vision.

 

[MegaLurker]

People who don't think Numidians are good don't know what they're talking about.

On Immortal they allowed me to take the entire continent, taking techs for peace over and over until 600+AD facing mostly metal units

 

[Gator Country]

Spoiler :

Same thing happened with me. I suspect some leaders got switched around in worldbuilder and this is the original starting location of Zara, with some lingering vision.

Damn.

When I set up the map, I was playing with the idea of switching Zara with Ragnar; I know it's been done in past NC games to give a more interesting mix to the nearby AIs, and I wanted to play around a bit with the World Builder to get a better idea of how it works. In the end I switched everyone back to their original starting positions, but obviously I didn't clean up my mess.

I'm sorry about that.

 

[Gator Country]

People who don't think Numidians are good don't know what they're talking about.

On Immortal they allowed me to take the entire continent, taking techs for peace over and over until 600+AD facing mostly metal units

Good job beating the map! If you give me the full details of your win I'll update the HOF table at the start of the thread.

@ConfusedCounsel - same goes for you.

 

[MegaLurker]

I'm not done yet. Might be very close if our continent has the required land percentage, otherwise who knows.

 

[Gator Country]

I'm not done yet. Might be very close if our continent has the required land percentage, otherwise who knows.

Good luck!

 

[ConfusedCounsel]

Good job beating the map! If you give me the full details of your win I'll update the HOF table at the start of the thread.

@ConfusedCounsel - same goes for you.

Conquest Domination 1650, immortal. Relatively uneventful game, teching untill I won lib, build cuirassiers, conquered my continent, got galleons and riffling, upgraded my mounted force, took the other continent. Destroyed the Babs, subjugated the mongols and was well on my way of destroying both the vikings and the persians when I won.

Don't worry about the bright spot, it didn't really effect any gameplay, imo.

 

[InovA]

520 AD. A weird thing happened

Spoiler :

Trade calendar with Zara (the trade includes his world map), the mini-map is centered and lo and behold: I get a peek of another continent (see picture).

How could Zara possibly have that? Is this a bug?

Spoiler :

I think it's because Zara is the founder of Buddhism. If he settled a Great Prophet then he can see all Buddhist cities. It's a bit rare, but I believe any religion can spread across the world without having met the other civs. (Maybe a settled Great Prophet is required for this.) If this happened, he could see that city, but you only see the land, no city, so either the city was razed during war or it was taken recently and is currently in revolt as you two traded maps. In this case, in a few turns trading maps again would show a Buddhist city there if Zara still has vision.

 

[Gator Country]

Spoiler :

I think it's because Zara is the founder of Buddhism. If he settled a Great Prophet then he can see all Buddhist cities. It's a bit rare, but I believe any religion can spread across the world without having met the other civs. (Maybe a settled Great Prophet is required for this.) If this happened, he could see that city, but you only see the land, no city, so either the city was razed during war or it was taken recently and is currently in revolt as you two traded maps. In this case, in a few turns trading maps again would show a Buddhist city there if Zara still has vision.

Nah - read a couple of posts above. I goofed making the map.

I'll consider it a lesson learned and try not to repeat it on future maps.