NC XLV - Zara Yaqob

[Chimera1804]

1803 AD

Spoiler :

So. A lot has happened since my last post. First off the tech deficit is starting to look better . Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, you decide), the AP sent everyone to war against Boudica. I decided that even though previously I had good relations with her that it was probably worth using my 46 unit stack (oromos, knights, and trebs) to take a few cities while the opportunity was there. I especially wanted the shrine. As it was though I took two cities (gifted one to Izzy for peace...she and I were still at war and she was about to take it from me anyways), Qin, Roosy took one and Izzy took the shrine mad. Boudica capitulated to Qin, which was great because the three of us had been the "Three Musketeers" all throughout the game.

Ever since my last post my military city has been pumping units almost non-stop. I have a pretty decent army that currently has a ton of curris, oromos and cannons (curris and oromos need upgrading). My tech situation is looking better (as already mentioned) Other than that not much has happened. Space victory is starting to look more and more doable.

Screens:

Overview:

Techs:

 

[bamdorf]

Spoiler :

Thanks for the suggestions...I just started the GA. I switched to free religion but that doesn't seem to help.. Oh well, you live and learn.]

 

[Trystero]

Spoiler :

Thanks for the suggestions...I just started the GA. I switched to free religion but that doesn't seem to help.. Oh well, you live and learn.

Spoiler :

By "free religion" do you mean "No state religion"? You can't run the FR civic yet since you don't have Liberalism. I opened your save again, started a Golden Age with the Great Artist and converted from Buddhism to No State religion. On the same turn, everyone (except Isabella, no surprise ) went from "Cautious" to "Pleased" with you.

 

[Chimera1804]

1956 AD

Spoiler :

Okay this'll be the last post until the game is over barring some major event (even then I'll probably just play through )

Qin brought me into a war against Izzy. I took a city quickly while he took a few and then she capitulated to him. The big problem here is that I don't have open borders. Just look at the screenshot: currently at war with Bismark (who lacks oil ), and my massive stack is unable to get there....

This was a bit of a surprise to me. I guess having a military city on repeat for several hundred years will do that...

As for Space victory...well...it ain't looking good. Roosy already has five thrusters built and Izzy is building them. I do have the Apollo Program built but lack the techs to build any parts (something I forgot about ) No worries I'm getting Satellites in two turns.

Also by extremely happy chance I popped a GS soon after researching whichever tech allows Aluminium Co. (I believe it's Industrialism). So even though i have no aluminium anywhere I've got the corporation founded and spread to almost all my cities. Qin was kind enough to expand it very quickly throughout his own empire.

Empire Overview:

Techs:

So. Any suggestions to get through Izzy's borders? War is out of the question as she is Qin's vassal and Boudi and Darius are also vassals. Currently though Bismark is having a lot of fun sacrificing units for no good reason and I'm getting lots of experience for my units.

 

[drlake]

@Chimera

Spoiler :

"Go West, young man!"

The AI sucks at naval warfare, in my experience. Build a few transports and some warships and nail Bismarck from the sea. You might want to run some spies over there by land, to take out cultural defenses of a city or two to make getting a beachhead easier.

 

[Chimera1804]

@drlake

Thing is my ENTIRE ARMY (other than defenders and a handful of tanks) is in that one city... That's somewhere around 80 units...

 

[drlake]

@drlake

Thing is my ENTIRE ARMY (other than defenders and a handful of tanks) is in that one city... That's somewhere around 80 units...

Heh, that would be a minor problem...

Spoiler :

Three options I see:

1) Start building a new army to invade Bismarck from the sea with.

2) Build an airport in Barcelona and airlift the troops out.

3) Give the city back to Izzy. Might even break her vassalage to Qin as a bonus.

#2 is the slowest, #3 the fastest. You can combine #1 and #2, but it'll still take a while.

 

[Chimera1804]

Heh, that would be a minor problem...

Spoiler :

Three options I see:

1) Start building a new army to invade Bismarck from the sea with.

2) Build an airport in Barcelona and airlift the troops out.

3) Give the city back to Izzy. Might even break her vassalage to Qin as a bonus.

#2 is the slowest, #3 the fastest. You can combine #1 and #2, but it'll still take a while.

Spoiler :

Well see now I've already played more...Qin now has roosy as a vassal and I've made peace with Bismarck...plus somewhere along the way he's gotten a trade for oil. I suspect that Qin will go for Bismarck next (he's at friendly with me, but bismarck is still "his close friend"). When that happens I could maybe gift the city back to izzy...trouble with that is that it's a shrine and it has rock'n'roll built in it...

 

[drlake]

Spoiler :

Well see now I've already played more...Qin now has roosy as a vassal and I've made peace with Bismarck...plus somewhere along the way he's gotten a trade for oil. I suspect that Qin will go for Bismarck next (he's at friendly with me, but bismarck is still "his close friend"). When that happens I could maybe gift the city back to izzy...trouble with that is that it's a shrine and it has rock'n'roll built in it...

@Chimera

Spoiler :

Ah, I don't blame you for not wanting to give up the city. Well, have you tried to get OB with Izzy lately? I've found that after wars end they sometimes become more willing to do that.

 

[bamdorf]

Spoiler :

By "free religion" do you mean "No state religion"? You can't run the FR civic yet since you don't have Liberalism. I opened your save again, started a Golden Age with the Great Artist and converted from Buddhism to No State religion. On the same turn, everyone (except Isabella, no surprise ) went from "Cautious" to "Pleased" with you.

Spoiler :

I apologize...I should have been clearer. The *WRONG* idea I had was that Free Religion would help, so I beelined to Liberalism, switched to FR, and got nothing, then slapped myself on the forehead , and switched to NSR. That did work all righty! Eventually one of my eastern cities got Buddhism, and I switched to that and spread it across my civ.

You know, I have won some big games on Noble without really paying attention to a lot of stuff. But now it is clear those days are over...if I hope to advance.

Appreciate the comments.

(heads out to start filling in some of the potholes in my game)

 

[CivilizedTiger]

@bamdorf

Spoiler :

If you run Free Religion, you automatically have no state religion. You couldn't have converted to no state religion after you had already switched to free religion.

Also, please note that FR offers +10% science in all cities. You can't not like that.

 

[Sincro]

Prince/normal

Spoiler :

I played it through, and my game ended extremely suddenly in 1410.

I was able to successfully block off Boudica, and ended up founding 13 total cities. She spread Hinduism to me fairly early, and my scout was able to play dodge with barbarians until I got writing, which then let me send him all the way East to meet everyone else, opening all borders as I went.

There ended up being 2 religious blocks, myself, Boudica, Qin and Roosevelt were Hindu, and Isabella, Darius and Bismark were Buddhist. The important thing to note about that division of religion is both Industrious leaders were Hindu.

Isabella is a religious nutjob, however, and she finally got around to declaring war on... Bismark?!? in the early 1200s. This quickly snowballed into Bismark asking Qin to help out, which he did, and then Isabella asking Darius to help out, which he did, then Qin/Bismark asking Roosevelt, Boudica and I to help out, which we did. Briefly, it was Isabella and Darius versus everyone, but Izzy ended up capping to Bismark and somehow the war between Bismark and Darius was bought off or otherwise ended, which left myself, Qin Roosevelt and Boudica at war with Darius. A war, I might add, in which I sent no units, content to gain diplo modifiers with Qin and Boudica and otherwise just fortifying my own position. I was hoping to end things at a high enough level of friendly that when I started declaring war on people, my former allies wouldn't be able to help out my target.

But as I said earlier, both industrious leaders were my religion, and sure enough, Roosevelt did us all a favor and built the AP. With 13 cities, all Hindu thanks to Boudica's missionaries (I didn't have to build a single one...), and on good terms with both Qin and Boudica, I was immediately elected the resident. Looking at the votes, I noticed that *everyone* had at least one Hindu city, so I gifted techs to both Qin and Boudica to kick them up solidly into friendly, and on the very first vote, I was able to claim a diplo victory.

I was actually sort of disappointed, as I was just starting the Nationalism --> Oromo Warrior draft cycles while building cats and teching to Steel. I had a ton of cash in the bank to turn those cats into Cannons, and was definitely looking forward to going to war with everyone, starting with my good friends.

 

[CivilizedTiger]

@Sincro

Spoiler :

Phew... you scared me there. When I read that your game ended abruptly in the 15th century, my first thought was that I had forgotten to reset the speed and maxturns for one of the scripts.

Anyway, you won, right? Just a question: don't you HAVE TO submit diplomatic victory to the vote? I.e. isn't it a victory condition which requires a voluntary decision on your behalf, a victory condition which can be avoided if you so choose? Of course, I'm not saying that you should avoid it, but if you want a different victory, I think you can just not propose diplo win, or you can just abstain rather than vote for yourself.

Anyway, congrats!

 

[Sincro]

@CivilizedTiger

Spoiler :

No, you don't have to claim a diplo victory if you don't want to, but claiming one that early was almost certainly going to be the best possible score I could have attained. It was around 56k iirc.

 

[bamdorf]

Spoiler :

I stand corrected. I did the experiment, and FR works as you say. I checked my game logs, and I was in Pacificism, not FR. No wonder it didn't do any good.
I am going to speak with my medical consultant about how early Alzeimer's can begin.
Seriously.
If I pull a win out of this mess it won't be my fault.

[/QUOTE]

 

[Chimera1804]

Okay, I have an interesting situation I'd like to ask some more experienced players about.

Spoiler :

In my game, Qin has almost taken over the world. He has four vassal states and is himself the largest nation. He went to war against Bismark and I joined in...turns out being at war with the same person means your "allies" will be much more will for OB . I took two cities (including Berlin, which had the UN ) and Bismark capitulated (I wanted to take another city but if i waited another turn he would capitulate to Qin). Now the entire world except for Qin and I are vassals. My question is, will Qin come after me despite being at Friendly right now?

Also, about how much is it to rush buy nukes and ICBMs? Not sure if it would be a feasible plan to try rush-buying a ton of them and nuking the snot out of Qin.

Advice would be appreciated. As a note Qin is currently four or five times more powerful than me...

 

[Sincro]

@Chimera1804

Spoiler :

If you did not have a vassal, as long as he was friendly, you would be safe from an attack. However, since you took a vassal, with whom I assume Qin has terrible relations, you are most likely at risk. A Civs attitude toward you is actually the average of his attitude toward you and all your vassals, which could very well mean that his actual attitude toward you is pleased or even cautious.

From the sound of things, he's probably going to be elected as head of the UN next time it comes up, although he might not have enough for a diplo win yet. The trouble is, you certainly don't have the votes. So Diplo is out for you. Cultural is probably also out, because cultural requires some dedication, and building enough units to take out German cities that far from your main territory indicates you haven't focused on culture. Obviously, if you want a domination win, you'll be going to war with Qin. Conquest is out, unless you raze everything as you go, and also means going to war with Qin. That leaves Space Race. Your best bet is probably to tech towards space, and build a gazillion units to defend your territory. If you do wind up at war, and Qin goes for the UN city, my advice is let him take it, then re-take it from him and then raze it, to avoid him cheesing out a diplo win.

I don't have much experience with nukes, cause I try to get em banned as soon as possible. You'll have to ask someone else for that kind of advice.

 

[CivilizedTiger]

@bamdorf

Spoiler :

Don't worry about it, many people, me included, have their share of carelessness. I've actually quit two games because I pushed the wrong tech button, in the early game, and half-way through I realized I was researching something I didn't need, such as horse back riding, which I was researching in stead of bronze working, thanks to mis-clicking.

Other times I forget to switch into civics, most notorious example being slavery, since I usually wait for my first expensive unit, usually a settler, to be done and moving towards a target before I incur the anarchy turns.

Other times I even mis-click when moving troops, I've even lost an early war because of that. (the idea was Blitzkrieg, so losing one turn because of a wrong click kind of kills the Blitz )

You can carry on, or, if you want, you can try to play the map again. The point here is to learn, so if you choose to try again, there's no shame. But of course, it's your choice. Not all oversights are serious enough to warrant retrying.

 

[Chimera1804]

@Sincro

Spoiler :

For diplo victory, do vassals automatically vote for their master? I know qin is well hated by most of his vassals (i've been constantly begged to "Stop trading with our worst enemy, the Chinese" by Darius and Roosy). Plus i hold enough votes that my simple abstaining should prevent him from winning.

As for my taking a vassal it was that or let him capitulate to qin...I believe my being the only free state left probably would have the same effect, but I'm not sure. Plus, asking Qin to go to war/stop trading with Bismark was redded out before because "We couldn't betray our close friends."

 

[Trystero]

@Chimera1804:

Spoiler :

@Sincro

For diplo victory, do vassals automatically vote for their master? I know qin is well hated by most of his vassals (i've been constantly begged to "Stop trading with our worst enemy, the Chinese" by Darius and Roosy). Plus i hold enough votes that my simple abstaining should prevent him from winning.

Yes, for UN or AP resolutions vassals vote for their master.