NC XXII: Suleiman

[Ai Shizuka]

Emp/epic, to 40 AD:

Spoiler :

mining - bw - pottery - writing - myst - etc

Got 2 GS so far, academy and settled.


4000 - Settle in place. I don't like coastal capitals and this one has great bureau potential.

3850 - Meet Fred and Wang. Obviously they seem to be very close.

3300 - Next AI is JC and I notice Fred's blocked in the eastern peninsula.

3150 - BW reveals copper in the BFC. Screw the settler and start spamming axes.

3075 - Darius. That's 5 civs. Are we on a pangaea?

1850 - Ready for Fred:

1825 - Hamburg captured.

1750 - Fred is dead:

1625 - Edirne, to keep Wang away from those elephants:

650 - Meet Sitting Bull. A workboat, so he should be on a different landmass.

40 - JC declares war on Darius. JC seems to be boxed pretty badly. And we found Ankara:

Empire. I need to pump out a lot of workers t clear the jungle:

Tech board is depressing, but I'm about to set up a proper GP farm and start the cottage spamming.

 

[Ai Shizuka]

Emp/epic, 40 - 1600 AD:

Spoiler :

Almost managed to cheese an AP win, but screwed it up.

Teched peacefully to cuirassiers and then wiped Wang.

580 - Bursa:

960 - Konya:

1130 - Wang becomes Darius' vassal. Boy, I hate this wimp, such a coward. He ALWAYS has to chicken out and vassal to the wrong people.

1375 - Samsun:

1525 - Darius (and his vassal Wang) declared war vs JC at some point. I'm ready with my cuirassiers and backstab. Wonsan captured in the first turn.

1530 - Pyongyang and Namp'o captured.

1570 - Separate peace with Darius. Wang broke free after a couple cities, so he's alone.

1575 - Nice booty in Seoul:

1600 - And Wang is dead:

Empire. I still have to settle two cities. Got lazy when I was almost sure to get the AP win:

Techs:

So what happened with the AP?
This:

It was me vs Wang before the war. Sury was friendly and JC almost there (1 point short). But then I captured the AP and JC became the new second candidate. So I've lost his votes and Sury's not sure anymore.
Got very lazy and teched peaceful stuff, instead of beelining straight to cavalry. Now I don't know if I will catch Darius before rifles.

 

[L-Plate Ruler]

I've had a lot of fun with this map over the weekend. I ended up playing it twice. In short neither went so well, so I'll fire it up again tonight and try a more agressive but 'skilled' approach.

 

[GGS]

620 AD debriefing

Before a questionable mixture of swordsmen and axemen...

Spoiler :

...Berlin (200 BC) and Hamburg (75 BC) fell which left the Ottoman war machine running on empty. A Great General was rewarded and Frederick gave over two low-end techs for peace. Construction came along in 125 AD and the catapults were needed as one of the two remaining German cities was on a hill.

In 600 AD the German civilization was eliminated and the world's most powerful army is now continuing west toward not yet fully explored territory. With eight cities and without Code of Laws the economy is a tad iffy. This is the longest I've played a game without attempting to build a wonder which with literature a turn away is about to change with an attempt at the siren-like Great Library in Ankara (the rice/pig/fish/sugar city) which has to-date produced two Great Scientists.

The plan? It's a matter of intense debate at Suleiman's court. Let slip the "elephants" of war? Rebuild the economy? Become the science centre of the world? All three at the same time?

Intense, indeed.

 

[Ai Shizuka]

Emperor/epic, 1600 - end (1919):

Spoiler :

Can't believe I have dragged this game to the '900s. I'm feeling VERY dumb right now, after looking at the victory spoilers. Didn't imagine the continent was enough for a dom win

Anyway, back to the event.
I was almost sure to get an AP win in the last part, so I didn't focus on military techs and lost the cavalry window to strike Darius before rifles. So I teched to cannons to attack.

1734 - Haha, look at Julius the chicken. And look at his FACE. He knows he's a total wimp:

1744 - Ready to DoW Darius. You can see two extra cavalry stacks in Pusan and 1E of the main stack:

1746 - Darius is no slouch:

1748 - Look at salad boy now, ready to jump in when Darius' stack is at my doorstep. What a hero:

And Darius captures Pusan.

1750 - Now his stack is split in two parts:

The southern half is destroyed by my main stack.

1754 - Pusan recaptured. Power ratio goes from 0.8 to 1.0. This was the smaller half of his force:

1770 - Finally I capture the first city:

1774 - Cannons upgraded to artillery with the cash from 2 trade missions.

1784 - Nice stuff in Persepolis:

1794 - Pasargadae captured.

1804 - Sardis. And another 20-units stack appears near Persepolis and captures it.

1806 - My secondary stack captures Bactra, on the E coast. And JC is bribed again. I don't pay you to make peace 10 turns later:

1918 - Persepolis recaptured.

1932 - Ecbatana.

1840 - Ergili. Darius is broken, all his cities are defended by 4-5 units at this point.

1843 - Tarsus captured by 2nd stack and Hun by the main stack.

1847 - Saxon.

1948 - Gordium captured and Darius is kicked out of the continent. Can't be arsed to capture his last tiny island:

Didn't take his capitulation, just fascism:

AP should be ok now, right?

WRONG, that stupid island city doesn't have buddhism, so I can't call the diplo win.

1958 - Obviously Darius doesn't open his borders, so I try the caravel trick. Doesn't work.

1863 - I have to wipe him out, after all:

He had a lone infantry:

1865 - NOW the AP should be ok, right?

WRONG AGAIN. Stupid Sury has +16 with me and JC. Of course they have to cheat in every possible way and he'll vote for JC:

No problem, I sign a defensive pact with Sury to get an extra bonus over JC.

1877 - The def pact bonus kicks in and I'm over JC:

1889 - Finally I call the diplo win and WHAT?

I check the AP window again, and I'm 2 points over JC in Sury's book. So that's a first for me. Hidden modifiers bs screwing a game. Nice.

1896 - Stupid SB declares vs Sury and I'm dragged in via our defensive pact. Hey, at least I have an extra bonus from mutual military struggle. Screw this . .. .. .. ., I'm beelining the UN.

1910 - Done:

1913 - Just because I can:

1919 - And finally it's over. You can notice how JC tried to mess it up again by adopting Judaism and dropping to pleased. Why on earth would he convert to Judaism at this point is beyond me:

Too many screens, state of the world in the next reply.

 

[Ai Shizuka]

Spoiler :

Empire:

IW/Oxford capital:

HE/West Point:

Wall Street:

Moai:

Techs:

And diplo with details on Sury:

Could've won in the '700s with a real rifling beeline. Oh well.

 

[Kesshi]

TheMeInTeam,

This map was rather boring, in my opinion. Spoilers show why.

Spoiler :

Three of our 4 neighbours founded early religions, and all had terribad land (except for their capitol) which made them pushovers early on. We started with both Horses and Copper, and 2 sources of Iron nearby. The Philosophical trait means one can easily build shrines in the captured cities and fund a huge ecomony early on. To be honest, this made the game so easy I set 3/4 of my cities on auto-work, and I had like 40 workers on auto-build. Most of them got killed by invading forces during wars, but I really didn't care. Everytime I saw a city building research, I'd whip a worker, I didn't even wait one turn, I'd simply whip a worker and let the governor auto-build whatever it wanted.

And the landmass being enough for domination was just peanuts. I haven't played a real civ game in a long time but this one was easy. I think I won Domination around 1500, with a score of 144k, and had I known about the landmass being big enough, I probably could have done it in the early AD, probably 500 or earlier. I imagine if I replayed it I could win Domination in the BCs on Monarch or Emperor, with a bit of luck.

This really played 1 to 2 levels easier than you chose due to these factors.

 

[KingMorgan]

Some map thoughts etc

Spoiler :

This is an ideal map for Noble level, shame it doesn't work so well with higher level players. Once Freddie is axe rushed it really is game over. Perhaps it is even a bit easy for the noble level too.

Even though it's a WB save, for some reason it doesn't feel like Emperor, even though that was the level i chose.

I'm very tempted to start bi weekly Emperors Club - i might well do so as i have no time to actually play a map i'd post.

Anyhows well done TMIT, i'm sure alot of people enjoyed this game, i certainly did, even though i'm not going to finish it. (too lazy to take a cannon Domination win)

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

I didnt mind the map either. I thought it was lots of fun which is why it kind of cheesed me off when my game kinda ended out of the blue before I could finish hehe.

Kaytie

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Balancing a themed game is difficult - if I add difficulty I can easily make it too hard. Some of the NC games caused a lot of people to struggle, including both those I've made and my predecessors. I remember a lot of complaints about Zara's map, and super barb in roosevelt. It was also kind of mean of me to put hammy near shaka , although it just happened that way (I didn't actually swap start locs in that one I don't think).

My #1 goal is to have odd-looking maps, and some variety between games.

 

[Bandobras Took]

I have to say, I normally play drier maps then this -- it's been an interesting change.

 

[GGS]

1230 AD debrieifing.

This has had the feeling of a period of drift.

Spoiler :

The growth of Rome was missed on the espionage slider and in 760 religion-king Wang Kon became a vassal of Julius Caesar. In 840 the Ottomans, as foreshadowed, lost the Great Library race to an unknown power by a coutry mile. (The cash was helpful).

On the bright side the quasi-science economy first discovered liberalism for nationalism (building the Taj Mahal in Istanbul). Gunpowder came next for the Jannisaries while while the eight-city civilization became more or less financially functional. By 1200 it was clear that the three western powers were higher-tech poor to the point of inviting invasion in a science-driven war. In 1230 the navy-less Ottomans catch a break when Suryavarmen II and Sitting Bull discover the homeland. The latter provides a world map and it turns out that they both are also higher-tech challenged.

Rome is the biggest military power by about 25% more troops. So, the plan is to go for steel and then trash the economy on a military upgraging/building programme before going to war in the west.

Balancing a quirky science/GP city strategy may be dumb, it is not simple, but it is interesting.

 

[Bandobras Took]

To The End

Spoiler :

I ended up declaring on the threeway alliance of Caesar, Darius, and Wang before they completely out-teched me. Unfortunately, due to some of the worst combat luck I've had in quite a while, Caesar succeeded in taking my military city while my SoD was engaged with Wang. I think I'll concede at this point -- I'd have had a chance if Wang hadn't voluntarily vassalized to the Caesar-Darius conglomerate, but there was nobody I could really attack safely after I got rid of Frederick.

 

[dalamb]

With regard to comments about the map difficulty, starting with Kesshi's:

Spoiler :

I wasn't feeling well around the time this game came out, so put it aside and am about to come back to it. I decided to read Kesshi's comment and found it very encouraging: I'm a weak player, so something "not too hard to win at Noble" is good for me. I rarely finish games but am going to give this one a shot, aiming for an axe rush against Frederick like he suggested.

So, TMIT, don't feel bad about this one!

 

[dalamb]

with Imperialistic I could rapidly build enough cities to "Icelandize" the economy.

What does "Icelandize" mean? I presume it has nothing to do with volcanos and hot springs

 

[Anomander Rake]

What does "Icelandize" mean? I presume it has nothing to do with volcanos and hot springs

Government Follows Iceland Economy Into Oblivion

Terror as Iceland faces economic collapse

Iceland's Government Collapses Over Economic Crisis

 

[dalamb]

Spoiler :

I decided to axe rush Frederick and conquer Wang Kon with swords; I accomplished the latter in 230 BC. Now I'm going to consolidate before going after anybody else, since I'm down to 10% on the science slider. On the other hand, I built the Buddhist shrine in Berlin and captured the Jewish and Hindu in Seoul, so I'll eventually be doing well economically. Here's the empire in 230 BC:

Spoiler map :

Unlike most of my games I'm doing reasonably well on the power graph

Spoiler power :

If the economy weren't doing so poorly I could probably take on Darius soon; maybe things will get better after Seoul comes out of anarchy, given its two shrines. Rome has no iron that I can see, so isn't necessarily a priority -- though Cumae is dangerously close to some that used to belong to Wang Kon. Since I already have iron I'll raze that to slow him down a bit.

Tech path was mining > pottery > BW at which point I started an axe rush for Berlin, which I took with 6 axes (overkill) in 1525 BC. Next was writ > hunt > arch for defensive units. At that point it seemed best to go for IW both for jungle-chopping and swordsmen, since it seemed to me I'd likely need swordsmen to take on protective Korea. After that I needed fish to work the seafood off Berlin and AH for the pigs adjacent to Edirne, which I placed to get access to iron.

I planned next on math > currency > CoL for courthouses to consolidate my growing empire, while building enough swords to attack Korea, but after Math realized I should go for Masonry to get hammams, which are now proving useful for growth.

Wang kindly spread Judaism to Edirne and (barbarian) Teoihuacan, which means with Pyongyang and Seoul I have 4 of my 6 cities Jewish; Rome is also Jewish so I expect to switch shortly. Darius is Confucian; I'd have to get Currency (aeons away at 10%) before I could afford to trade something to him for his Alphabet, so there's no point in staying neutral to try to get a better deal from him.

Edit:

Spoiler goof :

Rome has another iron working location off to the SW, so I think I really need to knock him out sooner rather than later. I expect to raze most of his cities except Rome.

 

[dalamb]

Spoiler :

I just finished the long hard fight to conquer the Romans. I attacked in 205 AD just before he connected iron (the worker had "2 turns" left) and pillaged his iron and horses, then destroyed a couple of his western cities on my way to pillaging his copper. To take Rome itself I needed to wait for Construction and build catapults, so I had a period of peace when he was down to just Rome and a small far-south city.

Spoiler map :

I'm currently consolidating: building the Heroic Epic in Seoul, making sure the last few cities have courthouses, spreading the religions around to take advantage of shrines, building stables in my main military cities. Two Great Generals went to military academies in Istanbul and Seoul, and one went to a medic-3 chariot.

I met Sitting Bull around the same time I conquered Korea, and have just met Suryavarman. Conquering Darius has to be next, I think, but he's fairly powerful; I need to get Rome online as another military-production city.

Spoiler power graph :

 

[GGS]

1670 AD debriefing

Rome, with the largest army in the world, nine in-the-captial-city wonders including the problematic Apostolic Palace and his faithful side-kick Wang Kon had to be the target of the Great Western War.

Spoiler :

The Taj Mahal in 1320 and an 8% chance of a Great Artist in the science/GP city in 1420 meant the Ottoman New Army could be recruited via Golden Age rather than complete economic rendering.

Meanwhile, in 1380 Julius Caesar and Wang Kon declared war on Darius I. Janissaries were ready but cannons were not so the Ottoman intervention had to wait until 1420. The principal attack was on the four Korean cities but a side effort had to be made on a Roman barbarian take-away six tiles to the SW of Istanbul. By 1515 the Korean civilization was no more.

Meanwhile, again, Darius I made a seperate peace in 1505 - "summer soldiers and sunshine patriots." The Germanic portion of the population was in revolt over a defying of an Apostolic Palace attempted city return so the Ottomans accepted an AP-dictated peace with the Romans in 1520. When the peace period ended Suleiman commanded a fine army of Janissaries and cannons and accepted the common wisdom of the Istanbul bazaars, "never deal with the monkey when you can deal with the organ grinder". And so began the long direct march on the city of Rome.

The Roman cuirassiers (inattention) were a nasty surprise but in 1605 Rome fell to a large if damaged army. The cuirassiers threat was dealt with by a raid on the only Roman source of horses. The last of the three large Roman cities fell in 1670. The truncated (a small town surrounded by Persians and two cities north of Sitting Bull) Roman Empire was accepted as a vassal.

The next nasty surprise was land to the east of Berlin. Another Sitting Bull map trade indicated a second possible front.

The course of action - look at a couple of civics changes, near-certain war with Persia, spread Hinduism, the AP religion, which is missing in four Turk towns and all but one Persian city. Victory conditions - domination and AP (all civs have Hinduism) diplomatic can be pursued in tandem.

This is winnable. This is the first game in which I have built only libraries (rather than monuments and threatres) for initial culture expansions. Is this a sensible tactic or was I situationally lucky?

Spoiler :

Rifle and cavalry units are being commissioned and the tech path is toward destroyers and transports to back-up the naval force of one brave triereme.

 

[GGS]

Apology; the first sentence of the 1670 AD report slipped outside the spoiler brackets.