NC CLXXXI - Suleiman - Ottoman Empire

[Takesitez]

Still working at it on Immortal...

Spoiler :

After Izuuls comment, I reloaded and fastplayed for a HA rush, and since I play horribly, I was 5 HA short of a dozen ( too many stables argh) at 700 BC even on Immortal lol. It was a disaster. Hammy had a spearman prebuilt for every HA I had. I don't know how Izuul does it on Deity. I mean I attack people with metal with HA no problem, but if it's a warmonger (even the nice kind) with the recource in the BFC, I tend to pass if I don't have ridiculous stuff like WC handy.
Uck, luckily it was just a reload to learn from .

Meanwhile, the original game I talked about earlier, consolidated the 3 way power block between Charlie at 13 cities, me at 14, and Ragnar at 13 with a 6 city vassal. As stated, my plan was to get Babylon online to get all the marble wonders for my juggernaut rennaissance empire. I got all of em besides the most important one... MOM (could've whipped it too ). Screw you Ragnar. I spent a general in the early bc's hammy war on raider 3 cats, and was planning to spend more generals to upgrade more, but considering size of the map, I ended up banking em to make academies in case I need to conquer Charlie.

I did end up launching a few golden ages, and even teched Nationalism for the Taj, since I figured it would keep my options open for the lib path. If something strange happened geopolitically I could lib Demo and go for a lategame whallop with early oxford into demo+US + kremlin unfairness. Nothing of the sort happened though, and Charlie became my buddy; so I just libbed Steel +- 1000 AD instead and soon declared on Ragnar and Ghandi.

I'm still in that war, it's 1350, have both rifling and steel, and running , finally, my first MOM golden age (thanks Ragnar), and I'm thinking how to close this one out. Am I really gonna have to conquer every city on the continent before I get to domination, or is there a faster way?

 

[Izuul]

@Takesitez

Spoiler :

Well stables are usually a bad build for a HA rush. Every stables you build costs you 1 HA and 10-11 3xp HAs are just a lot better than 7 5xp HAs. Seems like you kind of know that though.

 

[Takesitez]

Well, It's done 1700AD domination.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Ragnar was a real pain and refused to capitulate, so I had to whipe him. Charlie teched pretty well and kept more or less at parity with me; but Kremlin whipped factories into mass artillery from 30 cities made the last war a joke, the power spike was pretty funny:



The capital was really nice once it got going this game



And I went a bit overkill on my troop production centers

All in all a very sloppy game on my part, but an enjoyable romp nevertheless.

 

[pigswill]

Immortal marathon 1372 Domination victory.

Marathon is so broken.

Spoiler :

Ragnar vassalised after I captured three more cities. Roosevelt was next, I totally forgot abut his navy and had a hard time and mutilple losses (ships, no units) transporting cavalry across: I went for steam power and whipped out ironclads and replacement galleons to complete the transfer. Fortunately he never got to rifling (though has miltrad, milsci and steel) and capped after losing three cities and most of his units defending Washington. I was getting ready to stomp Willem when domination happened. Score 318k

 

[nate46]

Good job on the wins, guys!

Marathon is so broken.

I think its more balanced if you play huge map size.

 

[Powerfaker]

Progress to 65BC.
(imm/epic/NHNE)

Spoiler :

Expanded to 4 cities. Teched towards Constr+HBR. Long before I got there Ragnar was the first to start a war, on Gandhi 1300BC. Hammy immediately dowed Ragnar. Finally 375BC I was ready and accepted Ragnar's invitation to dow Hammy. Seized 4 cities including his cap using cats and HA's. By then I ran out of cats + one of his cities is a former barb far NW so I had him cap to me (80BC) with that one and a nice buffer city on the edge the peninsula. Babylon is a super catch with ToA, Parth and GLib.

So now I enter a phase of building more infra, rebuild an army based on? Trebs/Janissary? I Made some deals to get Feud/CS/Cal a few turns ago. Then got my first GS too which bulbed Philo. So now (65BC) I'm going through anarchy for switches to buddhism + Buro/Paci for a massive GP catch up.

Charlemagne will probably be next. He is certainly not the weakest leader in this game. He has 12 cities. Ragnar took some (not much) from Gandhi and Hammy, so I estimate him on ±12 cities as well, mapped only his core so it could be more. Techpace is.....not slow. All I have is Philo monopoly and CS on half the crew (roughly). That, again, at 65BC.

 

[Benginal]

Imm, Normal, nhne.

Turnset 6, to turn 307 (1874 AD) - Victory.

Spoiler :

We left out with Charlemagne massing troops on my borders and my empire about to learn about steel. Sure enough...



Charlie declares war for the second time this game. I wonder if it will go any better for him?



Well he's certainly not off to a rocking start. He does have a tech advantage, but I have so many units! Should be a somewhat fair fight.



I moved my massive stack in to the HRE. Soon after Charlie had rifles. But I had cannons, and cannons are the best.



I did manage to take 3 cities, which isn't terrible. But my ragtag band of cannons, janissaries and axes was just outgunned by his army of blimps, CG3 rifles, grenadiers, and cavalry. I know when I'm beat...



Luckily, Charlie doesn't. And he probably wouldn't have been able to make much ground against me. Either way, peace was declared.



I headed off for representation. The former Viking territory had developed a few dozen cottages, but I needed something better to catch up in tech. Luckily for me, Steel was still a monopoly tech, so I was able to do some tech trading.



Chemistry to Charlemagne for Nationalism.
Steel to Gandhi for Constitution and Music.
Steel to Willem for Printing Press and Education.
Steel to Charlemagne for Scientific Method.
Constitution to Ragnar for Economics.
Steel and Scientific Method to Ragnar for Replaceable Parts.

The empire looked a little something like this:



All sorts of catch up civilian builds. Libraries, forges, lighthouses, courthouses. You can see up at the top that I was hoping for a Great Merchant. Fingers crossed...



Excellent. Golden Age with MoM (thanks Ragnar) let's go!



Representation because I was going to need it eventually and had a bunch of specialists already working. Vassalage to keep Charlemage happy. I thought about nationhood pretty seriously, but I wasn't going to be drafting. And getting Charlie to pleased was going to make this whole thing much easier. Slavery + OR for whipping in the infrastructure. I wasn't going to choose Free Religion because I wanted to be in Buddhism to get on good terms with Charlemagne. Mercantilism because Free Market doesn't work well when you don't have open borders with anybody except your vassal. .

I limped along to Biology building a lot of wealth and running scientists or merchants where appropriate. I think Biology is my favorite tech in the game. 4f farms are just the bees knees. And Bio is almost always good trade bait.

Biology to Willem for Steam Power.
Biology to Ragnar for Rifling and Compass.

It's worth pointing out that keeping Ragnar as a vassal ended up being a pretty good decision. The "we want to rejoin our homeland" unhappiness was annoying. But I ended up trading with him for nearly ten techs.

Meanwhile, Nidaros had birthed a Great Artist, National Epic had made a Great Scientist. One of my other cities that had been running a lot of merchants produced a Great Merchant. Drumroll...





And the rare, but awesome 4-great person golden age was fired off. Thanks Philosophical!

I mean it's not really a "tech lead" per se, but close enough.




That's quite the stack you've got then Charlie. :-o



I love the Industrial Age. Factories and Coal plants popping up all over the place:



One of my final trades. Artillery and Electricity to Willem for Communism and Facism. And I finish the Golden Age with my final civic switch:



Pretty self-explanatory I think.

One-turn Mount Rushmore just for the why-nots.



The empire went all-out military production.



So many 1 and 2 turn units. I love it. Also, check out the 19XP units being produced in Babylon. I don't think that's happened much in my civ career, but I quite like it. Getting CR3+Drill1 arty out of the gate proved very useful.

I declare and let Charlie come to me:



Heavy losses, as expected. But after that he ran out of steam. I marched through basically straight to Aachen. And as troops were produced they took out the secondary cities.



I think I took something like 6 cities in the final 2 turns of the war. And a few turns after I got a Great Artist. Here's a fun tip.



A culture bomb brings a city out of revolt early!



And that trips domination.

Food -> Production -> Power.





Fun game! My time would have been way better if I'd gone to the Industrial age right away instead of doing that tech-parity war with Ragnar thing. But I wanted to use Janissaries, ya know. Two DOWs from Charlemagne didn't speed up the time either. But he got his in the end.

A nice little 1874 score. Key word there being little.

 

[Izuul]

I've gotten a bit bogged down in my deity game (1120 AD).

Spoiler :

I'll still win eventually, but Charlie got rifling around 1050 or so AD right when i was getting pretty close to actually being able to cap him. I took peace for some techs and I'm researching Rifling right now. I should get it in 6T, but i don't know if just Cavs will even be enough for Charlie. On the bright side i got Ragnar into the war and he lost a stack of 30+ units attacking a hill city full of rifles. I'll probably just back stab him now and come back for Charlie later.

Oh yeah, Charlie had 13 cities and 2 peace vassals (Hammy with 4 cities and Gandhi with 7) when i attacked him. Fun stuff. I kind of regret going for Astro instead of Rifling now, but it seemed like the right move at the time. *shrug*

Well over 200 units killed already.

Spoiler :

 

[nate46]

@izuul

Spoiler :

can you post a screenshot of the cap city screen? i want to see the bureaucracy in all its glory...

 

[bdubbs]

Haven't had a chance to play since my last posting but want to get back at it soon

@Benginal I was checking out your write up and at one point you mentioned something about not letting your national epic city cannibalize your other cities GP. I was hoping you might be able to clarify what you mean by that.

@Nate46 You've mentioned this is the first NC map you've made so I just want to say I think you did a pretty good job and I also like the different approach you are taking with your capitol in your game and I'm interested in seeing how that's going to work out. I think the map presents an interesting challenge in the early stages of the game managing the lack of a big food resource.

 

[nate46]

@Benginal I was checking out your write up and at one point you mentioned something about not letting your national epic city cannibalize your other cities GP.

i think he means--you might have the situation where some small city might produce a GP if not for the national epic city, but then the national epic city raises the cost of the GP... so its better to let the lesser city finish its GP first, or it will be seriously delayed.
...

and once you guys are done with your games, i'm going to prove that chariots + catapults is actually viable~! You'd think they'd just attack my stack. But in my experience, they don't.

 

[bdubbs]

I've found in my games that the CPU rarely attacks my stacks until they can send suicide cats. I can't speak for anyone else but don't feel the need to wait on me for your write up. I never know if I'm going to find the time / patience to finish a game but reading the write ups always teaches me things without having to play tons of games to figure them out myself

 

[georgjorge]

Different AIs have different levels of so-called attack courage. If you wage war against Monty, he might attack your stack out in the open even at initially bad odds, while someone like Roosevelt or Gandhi will rather turtle in his cities unless his attacking odds are great.

Of course, whether you are actually threatening a city (in which case the AI will put more units into the city before attacking) or are just out in the open with no way to reach a city also factors into the decision to attack your stack or not.

 

[Takesitez]

Spoiler query about suleiman and opening position :

I found it interesting that even though the start has iron nearby, and a close war target, almost noone decided to do the Machinery/Engineering bulb with ol' Suley here.

Myself I decided to go swords +cats as well; I felt that the relatively low food start made the old 'build 2 libraries and bulb away' maybe a bit sketchy and the oracle Metalcasting into bulbs also seemed troublesome since you have a nearby rival when you open and you eventually find out that others have rather decent starting positions (in my game oracle went 2000BC... on Immortal, which is pretty impressive). The closeby seafood specials (need to skip fishing for this plan) also factored in when deciding on what cities to organize a war from, although I didn't end up settling the crab 'till much later)

In retrospect, what do you guys all think about the Machinery bulb from this position ? I personally only have experience doing this if I have a strong food special in cap, and no 7 turn floodplains to farm

Would it be folly to go steal a worker from hammy and try to speed up the farming development ?

 

[shakabrade]

Spoiler :

I settled cities to block Hammy in this order: Northern floodplains, southern coast, Cows/stone and only after that the best city which shares gold, cow and has seafood and Corn?, IiRc. And I settled eastern iron, which is quite decent at size 4.
Therefore, I had 6 good cities.
Initially, I wanted to rush Hammy but his cities were all at the hills. Afterwards, I got elephants in trade from Charly and decided to go for elepult. However, when my first cats went out, Charly canceled the deal and I couldn't get them back and Hammy got Longbows 500BC so without elephants is was pointless.

So, which way to go?
The problem in this game is that after large Babylon you have to kill very strong Charly or Raggy and one of them will surely have techwhoring Gandhi as a vassal and Willem and Roosy as trade partners. Map's shape makes you lose a lot of turns just moving around and gives a lot of time to rivals who are all competent techers to reach Rifling.

Therefore I skipped Jannisarys and Trebs and went to Lib Rifling but not for rifles and went for Cavs instead. And I did so at 680AD. I capped Babylon and decided to kill Charly who was at 15 cities and had Gandhi as a vassal. Ragnar was easier target but he was also more behind. I attacked Charly while he was about to research Rifling. I took some cities, and then he got not Rifling but Railroad and Machine Guns and I got Airships . Therefore he still capped. Weak Gandhi really messed capping pretty bad as average power was really low and I had to take all but 4 cities from Charly before Gandhi broke free and Charly capped. However, Gandhi had Machine Guns and Rifles. But I got Artillery. He capped. Then, Raggy was attacked and he capped quite quickly. (I gave back good chunk of cities to Hammy, Charly and Gandhi to make them look stronger, and gave them techs to build army). Afterwards I wanted to cap Willem and Roosy on the other continent but: I forgot to build f***** ships (something I easily could have timed as I had a lot of production, but forgot it as i play in sessions).
Therefore I lost 6-7 turns waiting for them. I first attacked Willem as he was weaker and I needed my bases for Bombers who came online. Anyway, capping both of them took 5 Turns.
Fun game, a lot of pressure from the AIs. However, if I had Babylon which had lot of useful wonders and great land some 30T earlier, it would have been much faster game but it stayed one Ivory away.

 

[bdubbs]

@Shaka nice win, its funny I started my game up again and after looking around I was thinking

Spoiler :

if we had an early ivory that elephults probably would make this game considerably easier.

I decided to start over and try nate's settler first strategy... kind of.

to 2360 B.C. Normal speed Emp

Spoiler :

Took the plains hill settle again, settler first while I worked a forested plains hill. Settled 1N of the corn first.

The biggest flaw to the rex strategy on this map imo is the turns you miss working the gold in the capital early on. I'm hoping to make up for that by working that second gold in Edirne earlier than I would usually be able to.

I started a worker in the capital after the settler, and a 17t settler in Edirne. The advantage of this strategy is the 15 or 17 turn settler in a size 1 city. I'm hoping I'll be able to expand at a relatively fast pace but still do it conservatively enough to keep my research at an acceptable pace.

My worker comes out turn 28 (had I gone worker first and built 2 farms first I should have been approximately 4T from working the goldmine give or take a turn. I start a farm while building a warrior so I can grow in the capital.

Turn 35 my settler finishes. I decide on the clams / fur spot because it is towards Babylon and it has a ton of forests for unit chopping later, and I will need the health before too long.

I built two warriors while growing size 3 in my cap (i lost one to a barb lion so I only have 3 wars) now I'm working on my second worker at size 3 in the cap. My worker is currently finishing up my second cap farm (I went gold mine second), and Edirne is trying to grow to size 2 where I plan to whip a worker.

Plan is to send my worker down to farm the corn then mine the gold after he's finished with the FP, use the next worker that comes out to chop a settler. Long term goal is to lay down 2-3 more cities and chop cats / swords and it makes sense to work chopping the mids in somewhere as well

Tech was mining > BW> fishing, and now I'm just finishing pottery on T41 I'm thinking of taking writing next, then possibly AH depending on how immediate my need for cows is. I liked the early alpha backfill method I used in my last game but I think my research might be too slow. If I don't then some techs I need will be masonry, AH, and possibly myst because the way I dotmapped I'd rather have the stone in the second ring.

Here's some dotmapping

Spoiler :

This is a city I'm considering on waiting to settle until post Babylonian war for a number of reasons. The longest term one is I'd like to settle that city 1N but require a way to get border pops before I can work the seafood. In the short term there's no good tiles to work and this city would only be useful for chopping units. I will be settling something in that area eventually though.

Spoiler :

I'm a little concerned about the red and white city locations as well. Red seems necessary if I want to eventually run Istanbul and my Beauro city. It would let me work a bunch of cottages in that BFC. It has 2 fps that aren't in that bfc for farms so I can hopefully whip things here later. The extra overlap with the white city has me a little concerned about how it would develop long term though

Spoiler :

This last spot has me a little concerned as well because it slows down the stone, but the main reasoning for its placement is the extra FP tile with being coastal as an extra bonus. Is it worth it to tech myst or chop a library up there to get the stone? I have to get my next city up there soon if I want to get the mids probably

A question about tile improvements

Spoiler :

I'm planning to have 3 cities without any real food resources. I know I have to go a little easier with the whip in these cities because of it, but since I'm going to need to whip I need farms on the floodplains. The question becomes how many? I was thinking 2 farms per city makes the most sense. That way I'll be able to grow onto fp cottages and do 2 pop whips.

6 cities should be enough for cats / swords right?

 

[nate46]

I decided to start over and try nate's settler first strategy... kind of.

I just want to point out that I don't think the settler first strategy is correct on this map.

The advantage of settler first is that you don't need development techs to develop, so its good if you want to beeline priesthood or don't have the pre-reqs for AH. But if your worker can be employed mostly full time improving tiles that you can immediately work, or if your worker can chop forests, then worker first is going to be a bit faster even with IMP trait.

... one thing that IS different about IMP: its almost never worth growing your city to size 3 before building a settler... you build the settler from pop 1 or 2, after improving your best hammer tile(s).

 

[bdubbs]

I just wanted to do something different and I don't think it's worked out too bad so far. Would it get me snuffed on immortal? Probably. Don't worry I won't blame you if it ends up being a total fiasco

Besides other than going settler first its really not either of your strategies at all, I guess it would have been more accurate to say I went settler first because your post made me want to try something different.

 

[Izuul]

Well, i got there. Deity 1505 Domination

Spoiler :

I was less than 2% land away from winning ~10 turns earlier. I had to go back after Charlie for a 2nd time and this time he got Infantry a couple turns after i attacked. I only needed to take 2-3 cities off of him to get enough land, but i had to wait for my main stack to get back from America so that took a little while.

 

[bdubbs]

Smooth Sailing so far to 175 A.D.

Spoiler :

Babylon is crushed, going down on my last turn. When I took Akkhad Hammy only had one city yet and since I needed to heal, i signed a peace treaty with him in order to get MC which he got with the oracle.

I razed 2 cities of his. One was on the border of my FPS and I'm already sharing tons of tiles, and the other was his last city which didn't even have a floodplain quality food tile lol.

Ragnar is up to 12 cities, I'm at 9, about to be 10. I don't think there's been a war yet other than mine. Gandhi still has 6 cities and so does Charly but I haven't met whoever else is on this map which is my next priority so I can see how the overall tech situation is.

From what I can tell there's a good bit of land still up for grabs in that in between land between myself, rags, and charly. Until new information presents itself to deter me I'm planning a typical cuir attack. The land in the north is mostly jungle, I'm definitely going to at least expand as far as the bananas. In this situation would it make sense to grab up as much free land as I can? Or save myself maintenance costs and bunker down with the cities I have?