Germany DV turn 357: Standard, King (adjusted), Milae's Map, 4UC + PAD Tweaks
Game notes: I went Progress/Statecraft/Imperialism, settling the crucial choke-point at Karlsruhe and then peacefully expanding as I pleased while Hiawatha pushed Siam from the south. Eventually I moved in with an established army of unique infantry and eliminated Siam, taking the remaining 3 cities away from Iroquois hands. He turned his sights to Spain and was skirmishing with her for the majority of the game until she offered me voluntarily vassal later on. I just had to sit and keep building on my lead long enough to run-away with things, though at first, Pacal was en route to CV and I was having to prepare an invasion. I wanted to move on Iroquois earlier when I had first established my army of Landsnakes, but he held a strong pact with the menace inhabiting the other continent, Askia. Eventually though, Hiawatha got impatient due to my inevitable victory and attacked, spelling the end for him -- my StormTrooper + Guerilla combo came online, and it was quite nasty. With 2 vassals in hand and complete control of the WC (14/16 CS), I simply had to endure 1 feeble attack from the Maya before securing the DV. I'd just finished the tech tree, so SV would've been around another 10 turns.
This was actually a good game to see contrasting styles play out; I was the only progress or statecraft civ (peaceful wide) which was left uncontested for too long, Maya was tall advanced CV that couldn't muster enough military might to fend off nearby warmonger while simultaneously trying to stop me once I got ahead, Babylon and Celts were tall civs who never got ahead like Maya so fell victim to warmonger(s), Iroquois was a warmonger who could never fully flex its muscles due to a neighboring Progress civ who was more advanced and controlled the diplo game, Askia was a semi-successful warlord whose conquests were too far behind the Maya to break through when it mattered most (let alone deal with me), and Spain was an unsuccessful Authority civ who fell behind the pack due to failure to capitalize in early battle against Hiawatha.
Other notes:
- 40 turns in, right after placing my 2nd city, and Siam asks me to stop expanding. Here's how close Ayutthaya was.
- I had a few vulnerable cities (no walls) for quite a while, and this barb spear never budged. I know we want garrisons to stay put generally, but this was a case where the opposite should happen.
- I know it's Maya, but this man just enhanced (Catholicism) on turn 87...
- Maya hitting me with the first of 3 concert tours, at turn 250. With all the recent talk on progress, or even debate on if CV is over-tuned, one can't overlook just how powerful a counter Writers can be. Maya was well on his way to an easy CV before I bulbed 5+ GW in combination with World's Fair culture boost. You can see it amounted to him barely gaining any ground by game's end regardless of the boost he got for sharing an ideology.
- I think Noble Truths is forcing it. I like the tourism spread and missionary influence mechanics, but it seems a bit weird having them together.
- Statecraft is a great tree, but yields from total delegates on every session (finisher) needs a buff IMO. I know the yields aren't supposed to be huge, but unless you have a commanding # of votes the bonus is trivial. Even with a massive advantage the yields are not very impressive.
- Another cool statecraft perk; the monopolies via CS allow for potential situations like this, where I have my pick of the litter when it comes to Corps, as long as you obviously research it first. I can't recall another time where I could select practically every option.
- Maya and Babylon were neck-and-neck with me in techs going into the 3rd tree, and while rationalism civs tend to pull away here, I was able to use wide progress/industry to run empire-wide science process (combined with Synagogue + Scholarship) for a large chunk of turns -- this is before I even unlocked the final policy for extra WLTKD science.
- I know the AI took Imperialism, but this citadel spamming is really dumb (pre Lebensraum). We had decent diplo before I used a citadel to take the marble and lapis, but then he responds by wasting most/all of his generals within a span of like 20 turns. It wouldn't be so bad if not for the fact that the citadels are left unattended 95% of the time -- I know Stalker has brought this up before -- and to make matters worse, he later declares on me (triggered by a diplo response) while I just walk in and take the land back almost instantly. He was even going to keep the line moving, but decided to wait... an entire 9 turns before settling on a different location to waste yet another General.
- Bismarck and his victory via 69 votes is looking to initiate more than one type of 'hegemony'...
ty!
