NC LXXVI: Charlemagne of the Holy Roman Empire

[ecuwins]

Monarch/Normal

SIP - dookie start with an unimpressive leader. Plan to tech Animal Husbandry first.

525BC

Spoiler :

After AH, Mining, Wheel, Bronze, Fishing, Agri, Masonry, Poly, Pottery, Writing, Priesthood, Oracle Code(founded Confucianism), Math, Sailing.

Once I saw the crappy surroundings, I decided to go for two settlers and two workers. One for the fish and one for the marble. Then just tech and build marble wonders for awhile.

620AD

Spoiler :

After Sailing, I teched Aesthetics, Literature, then back filled via trades, Music, lastly beeline Lib.

*Thinks to self* - does all of this wonder whoring make a cultural victory possible?(I have never tried a cultural victory before)

Before the end of turn above, I fire off my first GA via the GArtist from Music. Then Immediately switch to HR, Bureaucracy, Caste, & Organized Religion. I also convert to Confucianism.

1200AD

Spoiler :

Took Constitution via Lib. The plan is to go for Econ, Corp, and Rifling.

I ended up founding Taoism too. So I spread that one around for the temples and in turn the "Cathedrals".

I plan to use the Taj GA to switch to Rep, Free Speech, Free Market, & Pacifism.

1653AD

Spoiler :

Beelined Biology, then Electricity. I then plan to get Artillery before switching to 100% Culture on the slider. If I had Iron, I would just go for Steel, but oh well.

Yeha flipped from Zara and Sitting Bull DOW on me about the time Rifling came in. SB landed a stack at the Clam city. I beat down his Knights and Xbows with Rifles. I also sicked France on him for the price of Nationalism.

At this point, I just want to turtle, run 100% Culture slider ASAP, build Wealth in all cities except the Heroic Epic city(build a steady stream of Rifles and Artillery there, just in case ).

1878AD

Spoiler :

My first cultural win! Also my earliest victory date!

I ended up chopping out Broadway in the marble city, as well as sending all of my culture bombs there. It gave it the little boost that it needed.

 

[yatta77]

@yatta77: Thanks for the welcome. Yeah, it was a Diplomatic Victory. I can't say I played well, but I did secure a win thanks to the AI's suicidal tedencies during modern warfare. When the AI attacks your fortified Marines - in a city, no less - with Anti-Tanks and SAM Infantry, it's Doing It Wrong.

Is there an era in witch the AIs actually have a decent warfare?

My first cultural win! Also my earliest victory date!

Congrats!

 

[pigswill]

Noble epic 670ad (replay).

Spoiler :

As I posted above I thought I'd kind of messed up so replayed from 1300bc save. Built six cities including northern copper, beelined construction then HbR and went to war about 100ad. By 670ad I've wiped out Zara and Nap, got up to 17 cities. The economy is creaking badly, breaking even at 30%, cities are building courthouses or workers or wealth. I haven't researched alphabet, neither has anyone else so no tech trading, very strange. Lots of jungle to be cleared, got to feudalism, might swop to serfdom. Maybe Dow Sury and try to capitulate him.

 

[Grimith]

@yatta77:

Spoiler :

Although I'm not sure, I think the AI stacks in the early game have a tendency to harass rather than immediately blitz towards one of your cities and die. While that, to an extent, depends on the AI's attack courage, I've definitely seen the AI go on more pillage missions with horse archers than I have with, say, tanks.

I could be completely wrong, though, but, at least in the Classical and Renaissance Eras, the AI kinda sorta attacks your empire a bit better by annoying the player.

 

[CuddlesKill]

Space Victory, 1975AD

Spoiler :

It was a long run space race, with Sury my only real rival, but at least 25 turns behind me on his own ship. Not proud of the end date, but considering how slowly the first 5,500 years progressed through the tech tree thanks to my awful land, I don't think it's as bad as it sounds. I think I won liberalism in the 1500's, and it wasn't even close to being lost! Me and Sury warred for the better part of the nineteenth and twentieth century. Just an infinite stream of his troops pouring through that valley with the sugar with no hope of capturing anything, yet too much pressure for me to switch to offense, either. I let the war drag on. Reasoning that if Sury was making all those units he wasn't making a spaceship, which was the only way I could have lost in the long run. I think I spawned 9 generals... the heroic epic city was producing 17exp land units without help from civics despite missing the pentagon! I'd say I enjoyed making the best of my lousy land, I'm glad I stuck this one out!

 

[yatta77]

@yatta77:

I wasn't arguing with you, just making fun of the AIs warfare.

In facts, AFAIK you are correct: in the end game it is more likely the AIs goes for Total War (or something that sounds like that), while earlier they more likely go for others kind of (poor ) war tactics which, as you say, might be more bothering somehow.

I'm sure that someone knows better than me about this issue might perfection somehow better this rough confirm I just wrote above.

However, what you say, AFAIK, it is true.

 

[Berkobob]

To 25AD:

Spoiler :

Settled some filler cities to get to 6. One city near the iron was placed in a hurry to beat Zara there (at this point I didnt have IW) but otherwise ok. Teched Lit and built Glib, now building NE. Will grab currency and then look to start claiming barb cities and the best of the rest of my land, then work on an army for Zara, he looks pretty weak, only 6 cities so far.

 

[comet]

Prince/Normal to 1 AD:

Spoiler :

I have played and won some games on Monarch but went Prince here because the map type is rather unfamiliar to me, and I'm kinda glad I did because this map is quite different from what I normally play. Any feedback/comments are welcome.

Start was AH > Agri. Although no amazing food tiles, we have the option to play as many 3 food tiles as we deem necessary with the sheep and river grasses.

Early expanding pretty boring, just settled my little 'valley' really. Scouting reveals Zara to the west , some flood plains/desert and the edge of the map to the east and some very poor land to the north. Zaras land is excellent, tons of grasslands, rivers, gems, bananas, etc. though covered in jungle.

Settled 4 reasonable cities, land is quite favorable for hammers, so I will plan on taking Zara's land since my little valley is simply not good enough, and there appears to be only enough room for maybe 2 good cities in the east flood plains, which I don't think anyone is a threat to settle.

Zara appears devoid of metal which should make the war rather simple. Horse archers and Swords are quite sufficient to take out a few archers, I honestly don't even think elephants will be necessary.

I somehow pick up Oracle at 50 BC (lol) when trying to get some failgold to help support economy as I invade Zara and pick up CoL, founding Confucianism. Zara has developed his cities slowly as he had to expand almost immediately into jungle, so this is fairly simple and I'll likely switch my cities into research/wealth or something once its apparent Zara is going down easily.

Zara's first city down:

And my rather meh land:

I'll need to rebuild my economy quickly after taking Zara and may need a good amount of workers to do so. Suryavarman has a ton of cities and looks like he may be my biggest threat after that but it's still a bit early to tell and I am unsure of what anyone else's land looks like really.

Edit: and 1926 Domination?! >_<

Spoiler :

Zara is a pushover as expected since he lacks metal. Wish he would have cleared more of the jungle but oh well, had to put a bunch of worker turns into clearing it but the land is excellent.

475 AD: Take Zara's capital, his last city.

Leftover HA's run around exploring rest of continent. Napoleon is the more natural target I suppose, there is a very narrow path between peaks separating my land from Suryavarmans and it's kind of awkward to move through it.

I go into hardcore build mode, won't be warring again until at least rifles. For some reason the AI is teching embarassingly slow, I'm not sure why, perhaps they play this type of map poorly. In any case, I bulb Phil and found Taoism in 660 AD. Confu (which I also founded) and Taoism are the only religions on our continent, although Zara had hinduism in his capital somehow. I had already been spreading Confucianism around my cities and it's naturally spread to Napoleon and Suryavarman but Napoleon eventually switched to Taoism. I'm not terribly worried though since he's frankly not much of a threat, though I do play nice with him, but I won't convert when he asks; running Organized Religion and Taoism is in like 2 of my cities so meh.

At 1060 AD I meet Victoria and Willem, who are even worse tech-wise than my continents AIs. They have founded most of the religions, and gotten a fair amount of the early wonders but they have small amounts of land, only 5-6 cities.

I pop a prophet from my Oracle city and get my Confu shrine, yay! I expand to the east floodplains and pick up the rather weak land north of my capital, picking up a few wonders along the way (Sistine, Great Library, Mausoleum) but AP is built overseas, would have liked the hammers

The AI tech rate is absolutely horrific, no one is a remote threat to take Liberalism from me, so I delay it a few techs to pick up a more expensive one, finishing it in 1450 AD and picking up Replacable Parts, though I could have waited more if I wanted to. Meanwhile, Napoleon had begun plotting around 1200 AD and I was fairly certain he was going to declare on me since he was still pleased with Khmer, but his stacks are quite unimpressive and I'm not concerned. When he declares on me, his stack is mostly horse archers, longbows, swords, and trebs, in 1450 AD. I upgrade a few HAs to knights and flank the crap out of his trebs, making defense easy. I don't quite have rifles yet which I'd like before going offensive, so I accept his peace offer after killing a bunch of his units off.

I sign a Defensive Pact with Suryavarman, thinking it'll keep Napoleon off me until I'm ready but he DoWs me anyway. I only have a few rifles so far but it really doesn't matter when Naps is running around with longbows so I can work his border cities at least fairly easily.

I don't want Khmer cherry picking cities off France, and I'm a few turns away from Infantry so I peace France after taking two border cities and Khmer follows suit. I save up some money and upgrade a bunch of rifles to infantry and DoW Naps again after peace treaty expires. Infantry vs. longbows, you can imagine how that goes.

Naps is wiped out by 1818 AD. Suryavarman is getting rifles but I'm not far from Tanks/Bombers, though infantry are obviously plenty strong enough to deal with rifles. AI is teching so slow I haven't been able to trade for a useful tech since Monarchy.

Infantry push is a little slow but once tanks roll in Khmer falls quickly. I decide to go for domination for the fun of it and begin settle some garbage cities in the middle of deserts and next to peaks and crap to try to pick up more land.

At this point the game is essentially over, the remaining AI are still running around in rifles while I'm a few techs from mech infantry and such. Domination is a friggin PITA on this map though, there's a bunch of land on the other continent that can't even be reached, so by the time I get to the land threshold the game has gone on for way longer than necessary. Oh well!

Probably should have done this on Monarch, the map seemed harder than it actually was with the AIs teching so poorly. Once Zara was down and I found myself not behind in techs, but keeping pace and soon blowing by everyone, it was pretty much auto-pilot the rest of the way out.

 

[Berkobob]

to 475 AD:

Spoiler :

Boring set, just finished currency/construction while building an army for the two barb cities. Zara still looks really weak, the jungle slowed him down quite a lot. Will finish off HBR then try to get MC for forges (we have lots of hammers on this map) and Monarchy for a better happy cap.

Not sure if I want to go for Lib or Engineering at this stage

Parthenon + Glib + NE in capital, but low happy cap and low food means not as effective to run a ton of scientists for faster GP. No real point going Caste.

The AI is really slow on this map. Checked and no one has Music 475 AD. Decide to research Drama using the gold I have, plus the Barb city should give me enough to get there.

I can then get the free GA and pop a golden age while building up a stack for Zara. Probably just a few elephants for stack defense with the rest being swords/cats.

 

[pigswill]

Noble epic 1440ad.

Spoiler :

Basically one war after another. Having annihiliated Zara and Nappy it was time to think about vassals. Attritional grind against Sury 790-1130 before he vassalised (no, he didn't volunteer). I picked up engineering shortly afterwards so I had some trebs and landsnechts to help against Sitting Bull, I was eager to get him out of the way before he got feudalism and managed it just in time, he was researching it while the war went on (1250-1285) before he capitulated.
The big news around this time was after capturing Aksum earlier on I had spotted an orange border to the south, eventually Aksum had its second border pop, not only was it my pal Hannibal over there but I didn't need astronomy to hop across the channel. Very nice, I headed straight to steel while ignoring irrelevancies such as literature,civil service and liberalism, I finally got to steel in 1320ad. Mind you it took about that long for my forces to get from Native America to the Carthaginian Channel,I stopped research and blew cash on treb upgrades. Declared on Vicky 1360-1390, she folded after losing two cities (including London). Hannibal was equally spineless when I declared in 1410 though I suppose that cannon/landsnechts vs LBs and swords is a bit one sided.

 

[Grimith]

Noble epic 1440ad.

Spoiler :

. . . not only was it my pal Hannibal over there . . . Carthaginian Channel . . . Hannibal was equally spineless . . .

@ pigswill,

Spoiler :

Hannibal? Are you intentionally trolling Willem because you don't like him? I'd totally understand that, but he's not Hannibal.

 

[pigswill]

@ Grimith

Spoiler :

Hannibal? William? I didn't notice the difference.

 

[obsolete]

Haha, I decided to finish that one. Launched a space-ship or else I would have lost to a culture to my vassal, and I was too lazy to use any spies to stop him from doing that.

For some reason, I had over 100 unhappiness due to war-penalty alone, despite I wasn't even losing any units in the war. Not sure what is up with that, but I had quite a few workers on automatic trade-routes that kept wandering into enemy territory like idiots. That probably caused that.

Also, had a total of over 600 icbms in this game, looks like I officialy broke my record. Anyway, this was fun, sadly I didn't get to flip my vassal's capital a second time to knock him out of the game, oh well.

Also, my top leader had over 1000 exp this game, even in Always War Deity games my leaders tend to die off before they get to that point, so this one was fun... though it helps when you're defending at a narrow channel and across a river

I only wish now that I was using charismatic traits!

Spoiler :

I also dropped 40 nukes or so in a single-salvo from the capital, though it didn't add anything special to the effects like other people have claimed. I think they are just seeing things.

 

[yatta77]

Haha, I decided to finish that one. Launched a space-ship or else I would have lost to a culture to my vassal, and I was too lazy to use any spies to stop him from doing that.

Unless I understood wrong what you just wrote... I did that from your save few posts above, just queuing SS components in most productive cities and keeping on hit "enter":
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=293160&d=1308518209
The vassal was not able to culturally win earlier.

But surely your end-game result is way more impressive.
(you are a genius. )

Also, my top leader had over 1000 exp this game, even in Always War Deity games my leaders tend to die off before they get to that point, so this one was fun... though it helps when you're defending at a narrow channel and across a river

Yeah, I saw this guy from your earlier save!
I wouldn't believe it without seeing it: was killing like 5-10 units a turn without taking any damage! (just by first strikes maybe? )
And was still quite away from 1000 exp! Over 1000exp... I guess this is an all times record?

 

[Fish Man]

t131 (400AD)
@dankok8 I'm gonna try my hand at another fast space game.

Spoiler :

So this is a deceptively tough map. The capital is nice but the land around you is garbage. The only saving grace was stone for mids, and later the fact that everyone was pretty cramped with no other capitals being much good either (2 AIs started without a river or any sort of commerce nearby).

I crashed my economy getting to those spots and teching for mids, and only got pottery in decent time because Qin went for an early alphabet and I could trade masonry to him. Still, after writing, rep specialists meant I caught up pretty quick, being second to aesthetics and first to music and trading those around. Using the marble, I built Great Library and Heroic Epic in Nuremberg. By the medieval era, I was first to civil service and philosophy too (self-teched). Shaka is being his usual self and started a bunch of wars, Gilgamesh and Izzy are having their little religious blood feud, and Pacal is pulling ahead - but I secured lib with 4x GS, settling 1 for an academy, and then double bulbing edu/single bulbing lib. Now I'm almost at cuirs, but the main bottleneck will no doubt be getting enough production. All my cities have pretty pathetic food, which means that it'll be very hard to whip from them. Still, maybe I can easily snatch a few cities from an extremely weak Izzy, and then springboard off that.

And yes, I only managed to settle the horse by peeking at previously completed games by other players, so this run isn't totally "clean"...had I missed that, this map would've been even more brutal, and I likely would've needed to go cannons to have a chance..

Spoiler :

 

[dankok8]

@Fish Man

I think you posted your playthrough in the wrong thread. This is an NC from 9 years ago!