NC XIX: Napoleon

[michmbk]

Singlemalt (and gcm)

Spoiler :

It's funny to hear you say that with respect to Bis and Brennus - our games went so differently because of early decisions. I worker stole Bis early and stunted him for 60+turns, allowing me, Izzy and Brennus to all rex. As a result, Bis never got huge - he got some decent stacks, but never anything all that dangerous to me. Meanwhile Brennus got absolutely huge - he had so much land and so many cities that he sent two stacks towards me when I finally went to war with him totaling 230 units.

So my simple decision to hit Bis early made Brennus the power and Bis the whipping boy.

gcm, I'll try to look at your save tonight, but I saw the others tech down the combustion line (railroad makes sense, but not as much combustion on pangaea, so I got a military tech advantage by beelining fascism for assembly line, a GG and being close to artillery. That's what I would heard toward if you're planning military action. I'll take a look at your save later.

 

[Anomander Rake]

I have made a pig's ear of my second attempt too.

I've just read an excellent story axident http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=240749 which has given me a better idea of how to play.

I'm going to start again - this time I will try to remember to SS and log

AR

 

[Single Malt]

I won this last night with a late space victory.
I have a few screenshots of war spoils

Spoiler :

I attacked Izzy first with (drafted) rifles and cats. Izzy was a busy girl spreading christianity.

62 cities with Christianity!!!
Her cap allowed me a good spot for IronWorks

With 2 Settled GG, which allowed me to take this off Brennus

5 settled GGs!! Bren had been busy spreading Hinduism too, 33 cities. HE went in there. I could have taken any civ late game with my production capabilities (I had a few 100+ cities), but I wasn't prepared to mm a late war at tech parity. Building the spaceship was easy

 

[Anomander Rake]

I have now played to 1000BC and here is my report so far - although input on what has happened and what might happen next is appreciated.

Spoiler :

Noble Epic
I settled in place and started to research AH and build a worker (23 turns). I moved my warrior to the NW to pop the hut

Result!
warriors continued to explore
Islam FIDL - Atlantis
Buddism FIDL

AH finished started to research Masonry

Met Bismark
Hinduism FIDL
Met Charlemagne (Buddist)
Hut popped a scout

Worker built - sent to cows
Started warrior (22 turns)
Masonry done started BW

Met Julius Ceasar
Warrior built - sent to fog bust location of City 2
Started Worker 2 (12 turns)
Sent Worker 1 to quarry

Bismark change to slavery
Met Brennus (Hindu)
Quarry built - worker sent to start Mine
Charlemagne change to Slavery

Finish worker 2
Start Great Wall 29 turns
Worker 2 chops

BW done change to slavery
start Mysticism
Mine done Woker 1 starts farm

Mysticism done - start Fishing
Atlantis changes to Slavery!

The Great Wall built - start Settler 12 turns
Fishing done start pottery
Mine 2 built

Met Isabella
chop settler - done
start Stonehenge (12 turns)

Ceasar changes to slavery
Pottery done - Start Sailing
Orleans founded - start Worker 3

Workers build road from Paris to Orleans

Paris 3 whipped Stonehenge
Start Paris Granary

Brennus changes to Slavery
Sailing researched - start Hunting

Workers farm rice and mine copper in Orleans
Granary done start Workboat in Paris

Judasim FIDL
Hunting done, start Archery

Paris:Workboat done start Axeman
Orleans: Worker done start Granary

Brennus change from Paganism to Organised religion

Paris: Axeman built - begin settler
Warrior 1 promoted to Woodsman 2

Archery done start Writing

Charlemagne open borders
Add to Paris build order to: (Settler) Barracks, Archer, Axeman, Settler
Whip Settler 2

Where to send him?

EEK!!

Settler and Axeman sent N to Horses and Pigs

Hurrah!

Settled him

Added Barracks and Archer to Orleans build list
Whipped Granary

Writing done start Meditation
Archer built in Paris
Lyons Founded - started Granary
Axeman whipped in Paris

Open Borders with Bismark
Meditation done - start Priesthood
Buddism in Paris
Julius Ceasar open Borders

Priesthood done - start IW

Isabella builds the Oracle

Settler and Axemen set off to start city 4

Archer built in Orleans - 3 scouts queued.

Current situation:

South of Orleans is not good - Atlantis with Archer defence in (probably) 2 cities

I still haven't met Victoria or Ragnar.

Look at Brennus' food production!

and power

This is where is usually starts to go wrong for me.

I have an (axeman) escorted settler looking for a home and another coming in about 15 turns or so. Where to put them?

South to block Bismark and Isabella from the Iron, Dye and Gems? I and 90% sure there is a Barb city there already and Bismark has already settled one lot of Gems.

North to the Iron and Rice?
East to the cows and Gold close to Charlemagne and Atlantis?

After IW should I go for CoL - if I found Confucianism I won't be able to take it for a while due to Charlemagne and Brennus.

What to do?

Going to sleep on it and see if any of you leave feedback

AR

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

Noble, Marathon, 1676 AD.

Spoiler :

From where I left off last time I said Rags was gonna DoW on me for like the FIFTH time and he did the very next turn. He killed his stack on my garrison but did take one other city later. But I kept going and killed off Julie then focused to finally put Rags out of my misery.

One interesting thing was while Brenny HAD the warprep fist thing going it disappeared as soon as Julie died so I GUESS he was looking at Julie and not at me.

Samething happened later during war with rags Izzy starting going into war prep but as soon as rags died she stopped although I didnt THINK rags and julie met the civs over on the west side.

Anyways rags gets killed off then it just sim empire building up my land, getting settlers out to fill in gaps. Which became a TOP priority cuz AP got built and it forced open borders with EVERYBODY so I wanted to fill up before anybody started sending in settlers into the empty spaces. It was annoying cuz the WHOLE point of not having ANY open borders at that point was so I WOULDNT have to worry bout that. Grrr stupid AP.

So I am building up TRYING to catch up in tech. It looks bleak cuz Izzy who got oracle earlierwins lib race so now she is waaaaaay ahead.

Someone mentioned try using spies but I tried a diff tactic. I just asked nicely hehe. And it worked but just once but it did get me free banking .

I managed to do a few other trades to TYRING to be careful to get trades whiuch help me get techs Im missing buit DONT help the AI's which is HARD for me :/.

But I slowly but surely start to catch up and I THINK my empire is in halfway decent shape at this point. Bpt is running ok while also doing nice gold suprplus to fill up bank account which I am gonna need cuz I have some mass upgrades I am gonna wanna do. In fact at some point I am gonna HAVE to turn slider to zero to bank up since I tech tho to assembly line and upgrading my stack of Maces to Infantry is gonna be EXPENSIVE.

Here is how my empire looks now:

The west:

The east:

Close up of my west border. Next war if I do have onne will most likely start here:

There also a little culture war going on with that holy city of izzy's but my cities r winning

Here are what the graphs look like:

And demographics:

Doing a little better than I was last point. Especially witht he hammers. Factories, RR, and mining inc been helping boosting those LOTS

Tech sitch:

It seems a lil better now. Izzy still has commie on me but I am starting to get a few techs up on her now to. Hopefully I can pull ahead now and stay there.

Here are vic conditions:

I have the pop, so if I want dom win I am gonna have to go and kill someone. Bizzy seems best target since he MOST backwards of all the civs BUT:

Bizzy has def pacts with Izzy AND vicky so if I go after him I gonna have to deal with that.

AP win seems out cuz cut the vote has come up twice and ppl keep abstaining the ONLY good thing bout it is now:

I have enough votes to control the thing so it wont be annoying.

Here what dipo sitch looks like:

Me and Brenny seem to have made up since that worker incident but he not been making friends with anybody else. Thanks to all that trading to try and catch up I actually have nice relations with everybody--tho they STILL wont vote for me in ap elections not even vicky they just abstain grrr.

Here is military sitch:

Vicky and Bizzy already up to something and odds are it look like they going after Brenny. And it look like Izzy is willing to attack Vicky or Brenny. So I am thinking wait till Bizzy attacks on Brenny which will break ALL his def pacts OR bribe Izzy to attack Vicky which will NOT only break her def pact with Bizzy but will get Bizzy to join cuz of his def pact with Vicky and that way his units SHOULD be way off after Izzy and make him easier to attack.

Not sure if either of those are good ideas but they best I can come up with :/. If anybody have better ideas I would be HAPPY to hear em please .

Well thats it at this point. So see y'all next report--hopefully a victory report

Kaytie

PS Rags evil twin has been ANNOYING not only did he hog a TON of wonders but His galleons and caravals been sailing ALL over pillaging my seafood it been like playing game with barb galleys that last up to ren era grrr. It got better after I FINALLY got chem to to get frigates to fend em off but it took FOREVER.

 

[dankok8]

I was going to play this one on Emperor, but given that the Toku game wasn't hard, I figured TMIT must have something in store here. + I wanna screw around and not win another Domination.

MonarchLite, Normal - 500BC

Spoiler :

I popped Fishing from a hut; should that be possible on Monarch. Don't think it ever happened to me before.

I liked my capital:

And completed the GW as well as:

Until 500BC, I met Charlie, Bismarck, Isabella, Brennus, Vicky, and the Vikings who I'm at war - seems like a minor civ but I have not located them.

My Empire:

I plan to settle another city south of Lyons to block off Charlie. I have a GP ready to bulb Theology when Meditation is done; It should give me a religion that I can spread to Bis and Isa and also allow me to get the AP. Then I can use the AP to fight some holy wars, but I plan no major conquest till about renaissance and Musketeers. I have lots of land to settle.

Brennus is pretty strong so far. Huge Pop!

 

[djvandrake]

What was it that someone said? "GRRR"

I'll second that. GRRRR!

Spoiler :

CAN YOU SAY "DOGPILE"?

I put a lot of effort into my economy and research, and before the thumping started I was only 3 techs behind Izzy, and caught up with a few others. In the end it was all for not. I guess I'd better get a lot more practiced with that whip. because I always seem to struggle with power at this difficulty.

And does Julius Caesar ever NOT backstab someone?

I did learn from this one, and that's good. Turns out I picked the weaker of the coalitions. Brennus took Bismarck as a vassal and Izzy thumped all over Ragnar. After that it was a matter of time.



I'll post a save game from 1200 a.d before the massive bloodshed. I will say that I've definitely learned the value of a hilltop city with walls. I slaughted 5 (yes 5) huge stacks from Brennus and Izzy in their attempt to take Paris. This frenchman didn't surrender, and fought to the last man.

THe save is from 1200 a.d. which was going to be my update before.... well......look in the spolier for the result.

 

[gcm4738]

Well, overall as best as I can remember this is roughly how my game developed fwiw

Spoiler :

Three blocs developed early - based on the first three religions

Brennus (Jewish)
Isabella/Bismarck (Buddhist)
(Me)/Charlemagne/J Caesar (Hindu)

Victoria became an early victim of Brennus
Ragnar became an early victim of Charlemagne/JC
I didn't participate much here as Charlemagne/JC were friendly (Hindu) and perhaps surprisingly Isabella/Bismarck were cautious or even sometimes pleased even though we were different religions.

Brennus had so much land he fell behind in tech - and became vulnerable.
I switched to Buddhism and Bismarck went for Charlemagne. I got most of Charlemagne's land - he's dead. Bismarck also went for Brennus and we each got some of him. JC went either no religion (or FR?) so the only bloc left really is the Buddhist one.

Now the only real competitors left are me, Bismarck, Isabella (all friendly and roughly equals - I have a defensive pact with Bismarck atm). Brennus and JC are further back. Vicky and Ragnar are irrelevant.

 

[Rycheman]

Monarch/epic up to 760AD

Spoiler :

Brief update on how my games going so far...
I've now got 10 cities down and can settle maybe 1/2 more within my borders.Economy looks ok and i've now got a decent tech rate with a couple of cottage cities and running some scientists[with the mids].I managed to claim two cities in the jungle SW of Paris with gems and dye

I managed to trade a few techs around to catch up and have CS next turn for bureaucracy.I'm second to Brennus in score and have some decent land.However, i still don't feel very comfortable with this game.Brennus is Huge and can already research Nationalism !

All the AI's seem to have a ton of military everywhere, not sure how that's possible, but there has been a lot of wars in the world.So far i've avoided these, but Izzy has just decalred on me even thou' she is far away.Her single chariot has just arrived and stole an unguarded worker.My biggest concern is Bismark.I share a border with him and he is now annoyed towards me due to his constant stupid demands.AI diplomacy really does need a big overhaul.

That Atlantis galleon has pillaged my seafood at Paris quite a few times which is really starting to annoy me . I'm not sure it was a good idea to cram an extra barb civ on a pangea map, in this already difficult game.

My plan is to survive as long as possible but if i get dogpiled that could be it.My military is ok but i can't out produce my neighbours on the power graph without going all out units and nothing else.I want to attack Charlie to secure even more land and am thinking of Maces and cats, when i get to Machinery but he already has Feudalism.

I must say this is not the Napoleon game i was looking for coz i'm not a big fan of over crowded pangea maps.I just seem to be playing expecting the ineveitable dogpile to come, but we'll have to wait and see what happens.I may finish up some other games first thou'.

 

[michmbk]

Last 50 turns - domination win in 1883

Spoiler :

Not much in the way of text here. Pretty simple - just mowing down Brennus's cities. Once I hit industrialism, every city started building tanks, and I flipped to 100% culture, as Brennus didn't want to capitulate, so I figured I'd need to pop borders to get domination. I had 3-4 stacks of 30-40 units just mowing through Brennus, but he didn't want to capitulate. Even Ragnar and Bis, my vassals were chipping in as I had them at tech parity.

Finally, I got enough land to trip victory:

I love this screen - look at Brennus's power drop. That's what losing 200+ units in about 5-6 turns will do for you.

Stats:

I know I didn't play 11 hours - had to leave the computer a bunch to do other things - still probably about 7 hours, so I need to improve speed. The things I'm learning at monarch level are managing diplomacy better, and being committed to my plan. I worker stole Bis, but was busy building wonders too, so I lost some good land. Later, once I committed to my plan of attack, I built nothing but units for about 30 turns, to make sure I had sufficient stacks to take out the opposition. What made that easier was diplomacy. Getting both Izzy and Brennus to friendly was huge, as the only one I had to worry about from the west was Bis, and I had weakened him right from the start with the worker steal and stagnation approach toward him.

Also was happy with my stack composition - I made sure to build enough siege this time so I didn't lose many attacking units at all. And finally, learning some of the speed civving tips. Waypoints were an immense help - my next game I'm going to try to learn the hotkeys for the worker actions to keep getting faster.

I also learned the power of great engineers - I think I had 6 in the game - never had that many before - really helpful for some of the key buildings. Getting mids and hanging gardens were great early, because those coupled with a forge ensured my first three great people were engineers.

A fun game overall - diplomacy was really important in this one.

 

[JTMacc99]

Monarch/Epic to the mid-1500s AD:

Spoiler :

All of my cottaging and sucking up to the Hindu block (Vicky/Izzy/Bizzy) has allowed me to do two things:
1. Become friendly with those three, while I allowed my power rating to drop down to something like 0.6 or 0.7 of Bizzy and Brennus for a long time giving me the ability to build lots of infrastructure and develop lots of cottages into towns and villages.
2. Grab the tech lead and start to pull ahead.

The tech lead was a LONG time coming, as I almost completely crashed the economy taking out Charlie in the BCs.

Political situation:
Constant war between the Hindus and the Vikings. Many, many stacks have passed all the way through my territory and Viking land. Sadly, during a period of forced AP peace, Bizzy took Rome as a vassal. This was really annoying, as I was just about to assimilate his puny empire into mine.

I am worried that Bizzy will take the vikings as a vassal, because I am just now ready to move my cannons/musketeers and CR maces into his territory. I once again had peace forced upon me by the AP, so I'm hoping to come out of it soon. I'm not sure what I will need to do to keep the Vikings from vassalizing to Bizzy, but I will at least see what it will take for the two of them to make peace in order to take capitulation out of the equation.

With my cannons, and oodles of cash upgrading old melee units to maces and pikes, my power rating is almost even with Brennus now, and will hopefully catch up with the Germans soon.

Right before I saved, I burned a Great Scientist on a golden age. I put aside the military techs for a little while to grab Democracy, and I would like to make the switch over to the cottage economy civics. Fast growth of my cottages, and the extra hammer for the towns are going to be a huge kick in the pants for my empire. I'm going to stay out of Free Religion however, as I am getting a lot of use from the diplomatic ramifications of being a Hindu.

I think I might actually go into Nationalism at the start of the golden age, and draft a bunch of musketeers first, and then switch out of it before the GA ends.

If I can assimilate the Viking cities into my empire quickly, there is a possibility that I could get to Industrialization WAY before Bizzy gets to assembly line. He's spent an awful lot of time building units and fighting wars, and is pretty damn far behind in techs right now.

Tech tree thoughts are as follows:
1. Finish replaceable parts to get the most excellent upgrades of lumber mills and extra hammers for my waterwheels.
2. Economics/Corporation (should take no more than 6 turns, and I don't want to trade for them.)
3. Steam Power (Gonna move this one up because of the cottaged/river cities.)
4. Rifles
5. Assembly Line
6. Railroad
Then go back and get SciMeth/Physics.

I think that I can win this game through domination, but I'm going to attempt to do it by getting the old advantage. It's not something I've managed to pull off at Monarch yet, so we'll see how it goes this time.

 

[gcm4738]

Fail again, but closer this time I think

Whoever said Prince -> Monarch was a jump was right. Man, this is painful.

I was really p.o.'d after this game.

BTW - Thanks for your detailed post michmbk - I learned a lot from your game. That was a good write-up too.

Spoiler :

After the last post I decided to war. Built/drafted curassiers/muskets while teching rifling/steel, got a lot of troops and decided to attack... Isabella. She was teching better than anyone and plus had the Buddhist shrine.

This actually started ok. It took me all day yesterday to go from 1600's - 1800's. War the whole way. I took Izzy down. Bismarck attacked. I took a couple of his cities and razed some others. Brennus eventually attacked me. (The only thing he and Bismarck could agree on was that they didn't like me.) Got peace with them again as I went to wipe Izzy's last few cities.

And then I made a crucial error.

I stopped making units. My remaining stack was enough to finish Izzy off. Captured the AP, Statue of Liberty, Kremilin, Buddhist Shrine and some other good stuff from Izzy and so I sent all my cities back into peace building mode to catch up while I finished her off. Then Izzy vassaled to Bismarck and it suddenly Bismarck, Ragnar and Victoria DoW'ed me and then Brennus dogpiled as well. My Land Area/Military Strength ratio was rocketing as Izzy disappeared along with my stack. I was a few techs behind and lost a couple of cities before I threw in the towel.

I'm actually ok at the micro-level aspect of the game at this point I think. It's the macro level I'm struggling with. Whether I should have attacked Izzy instead of Bismarck or Brennus... I'm not sure.

I managed diplo better in this game, but it still needs work.

@ michmbk - Great write-up. You managed the AI's by setting them up against each other to great effect. I did none of this. I'm starting to manage my own relationship with the AI's a little better, but I haven't started to manage their relationships with each other at all... Big lesson learned there. Along with - it's not enough to just take the land, you have to be able to *keep* it.

I just need to keep playing until my "pattern recognition" is better. Keep trying different angles on diplomacy. I need more experience with the different leaders and what they're likely to do. I'm tempted to have another go at this game, but I don't really want to. I think I'll set up "Monarch Student III" instead. At this rate I'll be on Monarch Student MCLXXX or something before I get a win...

 

[michmbk]

gcm:

Spoiler :

I'm learning a lot at this level too - I've been at monarch for about 10 games now. But even this one, I had two instances where I was 1-2 turns from losing a key city, so there were some close calls along the way. It sounds like you're picking up a lot though. To me, on monarch level, diplomacy and being more committed to your plans are the things I pay more attention to now.

Another thing I've picked up is before starting, thinking about the leader and what wonders or strategies I may try before even playing 1 turn. I'm a big fan of pushing my advantages to the limit. Here, with charismatic, that meant pyramids for high cost civics (which I could run cheaply) like police state and rep. And Notre Dame was a priority, to increase my happy cap even more (an extra 2 happiness early is huge). Hanging Gardens was along the same lines - more pop and health to push my early caps. Those are things I think about with a charismatic leader. Not to mention warring often and getting as much XP as possible to leverage the cheap promotions. 5 promotions on cavalry in the late game was huge.

If the next monarch game is going to be Asoka, you might think about what you want to do ahead of time. For me, it'll mean civics that match what I'm building. Build units for a stretch while in vassalage/theocracy, buildings for a stretch while in org religion. High cost civics are totally manageable with the organized trait. So military rex is a good possibility, or peaceful rex using spiritual. Depending on the map, wonders I'll think about early are mids and Schwedegon - I want as many civics available to me as possible because I can freely switch. I might prioritize economics and corp over liberalism for more civics. Depends on the map of course, but I try to spend a couple minutes before the game thinking about how I'll use the leader's advantages - that seems to help when I dive in.

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

Noble, Marathon, 1848 AD dom, Part 1, I guess 2 many images so I will split it up.

Spoiler :

Well like I said when I left off I was building up my empire and trying to build up a tech lead and waiting to see what moves the AI's did.

It finally happened Bizzy DoW's on Brenny. Not sure why since at this point Brenny is waaaaay stronger. I havent upgraded all my units so I didnt feel rdy to take adavntage. I tried to wait a lil longer. I DID however get a lil stack going to take care of this:

I finally started to put Rag's evil twin out of my misery. Not to mention getting some NICE useful wonders such as MoM, Spiral and HG

Now as I thought Bizzy doesnt last long at ALL against Brenny and caps to him VERY soon. With Bizzy now Brenny's vassal I decide to go after Izzy since she is closer. But she pretty high in power rating and cuz she got BOTH Oracle and Lib race she is most advance AI by FAR. So I decided I want to keep building up to make SURE I have big enough stack to deal with her.

But as the turns go buy and I am building, for SOME reason Bizzy breaks away from Brenny and is on his own again. I keep TRYING to stay focused on building up for going after Izzy. I mean part of me is saying look Bizzy's cities are guarded by grenadiers and longbows and we have tanks and infantry LETS GO!!. But the other part of me kept saying BUT we need to keep focused on building a stack for Izzy PLUS we still have TONS of shinys we want to build to make our cities all pretty. So I listen to second voice for most part. I HATE going to war unles I am 100% sure I have a shot and besides I LIKE making my empire pretty .

So I waited a kept building but finally I couldnt stand seeing Bizzy's empire all ready to be conqured so finally after a few turns I gathered together a lil stack and:

And waiting DID pay off. Bizzy managed to get rifles in meantime but:

I managed to keep upgrading my techs too so I was able to get nice odds on his rifles hehe

I guess Bizzy wasnt in mood for a fight cuz after that one city gets taken he willing to cap. So I let him.

Then I do something TOTALLY stupid. My plan WAS to finally make move on Izzy. I even had plan to first get her into war with Vicky so her stacks would be after her when my stack rolled in. But FIRST I just asked and she was happy to help. And DUH!!! I forgot making it a request instead of trade meant I COULDNT attack for ten turns. Not only THAT but I clicked wrong button so instead of asking for war I just asked her to stop trading grrr. Stupid stuff like THAT is one of many reasons I stick with noble :/.

Well after realizing my mistake and not wanting to waste time I decide while ten turn thingy is counting down I will go after Vicky and her lackey abe and see if I can cap em so:

I take one city and DOH!! thats ALL I can get to ove rland cuz rest of her empire blocked off by brenny. I DONT want to open borders with brenny cuz by this time my empire economy going pretty decent and open borders would help him waaaaaay more than me. And unlike Bizzy Vicky not rdy to cap after losing just one city.

Luckily I still have my amphib stack of marines I used to go after evil rags. So I send it over to Abes island and take another of Vickys cities she has over there. And thats enough and she willing to cap. And after she caps, Abe breaks free and even though I havent taken a single one of his cities he willing to cap too.

So now I have Bizzy, Vicky and abe all wrapped up and it time to make final move.

After I cple of turns for final mass upgrades I take look at sitch to decide who to go after. I basically have 4 stacks.

My amphib stack:

even tho it still over on Abes island.

The stack I used tot ake Bizzy's city then Vicky's city on main pangea cont:

I kept it there just cuz I new I would need HUGE garrison to fight off vickys and Bizzys culture.

I have a second lil stack I made in case I wanted to send it off after Brenny or needed in case he backstab me if I went after Izzy.

And finally my big stack I had been building up to go after Izzy:

Okies MAYBE it more of a huge stack then just big but like I said I do TRY to make sure I have a big enuff army to win before I make move

So I decide it would e shame to waste my big/huge stack so:

And then what the heck I dow on brenny to and send my two lil stacks after hehe.

I take one of Brenny's and cpl of Izzys. It was kind of nice that big stack finally got some battles in cuz it had ALL my old updated units from wars with Julie and Rags so :

My ex ellie gunships got to have a last hurrah .

After I take two cites and moving in for a third Izzy rdy to cap. But Brenny still wont. Im not sure WHY he wont cuz:

His stacks a LIL low tech for the times hehe. I guess he just want to be stubborn for some reason. But I look at vic conditions:

And I seem to be pretty close already and sure enough on next turn:

Dom win yay! I'll stop part 1 here and put post moem in part 2

 

[KaytieKat]

Part 2, Noble marathon 1848 AD, dom win

Spoiler :

Here is post modem

Final graphs:

It was slow going as usual but I did manage to pull away at end. Even on power I did pretty most of game. I pretty much HAD to with julie and rags as neighbors so while brenny and izzy got close fo a lil while by end I was able to push way out in front.

Demographics:

Leading in the important categories. Corps, Sushi and Mining helped both with economy and hammer rating. I admit I MAY have gone a tad over board on unit building but it IS helpful to have a nice biggish army going plus this is Nappy he is SUPPOSED to unit spam hehe .

I even managed 4 cities in the top 5

All that adds up to:

One of my better scores yaya!

My empire:

The west:

the east:

That why I am glad I took time to make sure my empire was pretty I LOVE having LOTS of BIG happy healthy cities

Here are close ups of my best:

My cap:

My main science city. Not HUGE on beakers even with oxford and academy but it still not bad as a hybrid I think especially with two GG's settled and having decent happers it was able to help pump out nice units with 3 promotions out of box WITHOUT needing Vassalage or Theo.

My Money city:

HONESTLY I PROBABLY should have tried putting WS and the corps in in BK"s old cap since it would hav ebeen MUCH better and was a holy city too but Nidaros had a shrine and Aushen didnt. And I just like keeping my money cities in ones that have shrines. And I NEVER did get a grt priest to pop so I could put one in aushen. I only got ONE whole game and it was settled in paris before I ever went to war with bk.

My hammer city:

It got going a lil later than my other good cities but once it did get going it got prety nice And no going for nukes is NOT overkill I just wanted backup in case coneventional military wasnt big enuff

I also had two other cities worth noting:

Before Grenoble passed it up with IW Lyons was my top hammer city very early and with two settled GG's it was pumping out TONS of 3 promotion Ellies to go after Rags and Julie so it main reason I was able to keep up with those two power wise.

And my redcross city:

With redcoss and westpoint it could make things like medic 1/woody3 mech infantry medics and medic1 ships and artilly with 3 xtra promotions. So I got lucky with the gg's and managed to get pretty much the equivalent of 3 west point cities which is one of main reasons why I was able to get a nice army going

So I guess thats it. It took awhile to get going but once I finally DID manage to get my empire sorted I was able to overcome NOT getting Mids, NOT getting GL. GLH, Col, or oracle and not getting lib race. All that made teching slow at start and put me behind but once I was able to catch up and then pull away it got going pretty strong at end.

Only bad thing about whole game is I didnt make even ONE mouseketeer . I DO think I used Nappy's traits pretty well and got LOTS of use out of UB so I guess that make up for not using his UU or at least at end I got nappy a big enuff army that he wouldnt mind hehe

Okies thats it for this game, good luck to everybody still playing and see y'all next one

Kaytie

 

[gcm4738]

@michmbk

Thanks for the advice and encouragement. I have been trying to do more of the advance planning as you suggest, but not as much as I could - and it could use more improvement no doubt.

If I had a workable plan in advance now I could carry it out fairly easily at this level I think. That's probably where I should really learn from this game. I don't need to play it again, but I need to think about what I did and the order I did it in. As a list of things my game boiled down to:

(guess I should spoiler this)

Spoiler :

Rex/Build SH, GW
Meet Charlemagne/JC/Join Hindus
Rex more by taking Atlantis/Barb cities
Meet other AI's - 3 blocs develop/trade techs with Charle/JC
Turn on Charle/join Izzy+Bizzy, Expand by taking Charle cities
Win race to liberalism/take nationalism/get gunpowder
Build whacking great military
War Izzy
(and so on as described)

and that plan might have worked - except I shut off my military building too early. And the other problem was that it obviated diplo victory. I didn't know that at the time, but I underestimated how grumpy

Spoiler :

Brennus would be - and stay. And I couldn't get him to come round even though I gifted a couple of cities back to him. I'd already permanently trashed that relationship. I thought I could drive a wedge between Brennus and Bismarck and possibly join up with Brennus, but that was never going to happen. I ended up just uniting them against me.

I would argue that your game was more difficult because Brennus, Bismarck and Izzy shared the same religion! If I had to play mine over again I would buddy up with Charle/JC as I did and then turn to Brennus for help against Izzy+Bismarck, that would have been a much better strategy I think, and much easier in my game because they had different religions!

It never occurred to me that you could manipulate AI's away from vassalizing to another AI. Nor did it occur to me the trouble they could potentially cause me by vassalizing!

I have to just keep playing and playing at this point. I'm slowly plugging the few remaining leaks in my boat while I see how enough games pan out to understand how to put together a workable plan. I stayed on the beam a bit longer this time before getting knocked off. Eventually I'll get to the end.

So - like you say for Asoka... Spiritual: Can change civics and religions? whenever needed for growth and AI diplo demands - So access to as many civics as possible. 'mids an Shwed Paya-thingy would be good. Prioritize techs appropriately. He starts with Myst - so maybe the Monastic/Priest (Oracle?)/Monarchy/Theology path gets a little stronger? Build SH or oracle for GP's and bulb-boost along this path? Get the right religion from the right neighbour for the cheap temples.

His UU... No strategy required. His UB... comes late and just adds some extra + Other than cheap lighthouse/courthouse, Organised is pretty built-in trait it seems to me. As always, get 3-4 cities down and copper or horses hooked up, meet the neighbours and then it's all map-dependent from there!

 

[sophie]

All right, I'll give this game a shot, here's hoping for success!

 

[Anexus]

I have a quick question

Spoiler :

I saw a couple games with Lincoln in it, but I never encountered Lincoln in my game. Did he probably get destroyed by Atlantis and/or Vicky before I even got to that part of the map? I did neglect westward exploration in my game, which I probably shouldn't have. Just wondering what is going on there.

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

@ anexis

Spoiler :

in my game he got spawn when Vicky settled over a large Island then spun it off as a colony

Kaytie

 

[Single Malt]

Anexus, what Kaytie said.

Spoiler :

If the English AI make a colony, its usually an American Leader. In my game it was Bizzy, who colonised the island to Justinian.