[BTS] Nobles' Club 185 - Suryavarman II of the Khmer

[Olafeson]

@MkLh

Spoiler :

I took a closer look at your Screenshots and you expanded pretty fast. 12 cities, only 120 gold left and +1gold/turn only with 0% research and 160 turns to Civil service.

Would be interesting to see your approach to recover from maintenance cost. You want to attack with Cuirassiers?

 

[Olafeson]

500 A.D. (Immortal, normal Speed, huts and events)

Spoiler :

As expected i could easily take Munich and Frankfurt from Friedrich, then make peace with him again, Germany basically out of the game already. But then got greedy like a rat and wanted to snatch one city from Wang Kong, so declared on him and switched into confucianism (Sitting Bull was happy), but forgot like a fool that Wang Kong could bribe in Sitting Bull who was a bit behind in tech.

Well took one city from Wang Kong and he was already ready for peace, now moving my stack slow as a snail back to Sitting Bull who is still in war with hatscheput and grab one city from him.On my way to Nationalism to build the Taj Mahal.

Have nearly no cottages and running my research with Hammer economy and the Gold/Gem Mines. Got the GL and the Pantheon.

Running Quests : Classic Literature (build 7 librarys)
Crusade : Take Sitting Bulls nearest town

 

[Olafeson]

@ tycoonist

Spoiler :

I am yet to play a deity game, only immortals player but maybe since you already got physics i assume, try to tech to nuclear weapons and prepare some nukes then attack afterwards with your inferior army.

I watched some videos of "Chris67132" on youtube and he managed to turn one game around like this on deity where the A.I. was already running away pretty fast with Culture/Space victory

In other games he still lost, would be interesting to know since i never used nukes until now .

 

[dutchfire]

Playing Immortal/Epic, a bit above my usual level.

Spoiler :

Map is nice so far, good number of luxuries helps a lot. I've got Ivory, gold, silver and gems (jungled). Had a few barb issues, but survived, only cost a couple of worker turns. Got 5 cities now, hoping to capture a barb city to the east soon.
Teched to Writing quickly, then went for aesthetics in the hope of trading for alphabet, but no-one has alphabet yet Maths->Construction should be the next goal soon, barays are nice and elephults too.

 

[Olafeson]

1000 A.D. (Immortal,normal speed, huts and events on)

Spoiler :

Could conquer 2 cities from SittingBull pretty easily since his stack was fighting with Egypt. Decided to make peace with Sitting Bull and accept the AP vote for total war on Wang Kong. Pretty Bloody game until now.

Wang Kong vs the world now. Managed to capture another city from Wang Kong and prepared to move on in order to vassal him. Unfortunately he still had a huge stack which he moved towards a city i captured earlier and so was forced to make peace with him.

I hope he does not capitulate to another Civ now.

Got a Free Scientist for my Great Library and the Kong Miau Holy Shrine for my quests.

Soon will win Lib and grab Military tradition and tech to Cuirassiers in order to finally get a vassal.
First on the Scoreboard but my total commerce is rather low compared to other games. Looking for a good spot for Oxford but only suboptimal places.

16 turns Golden Age (Taj Mahal hurried with GE, and another GA to extend) will end soon

1000 B.C. and still running around with Elepults either game is slow or i am bad^^.

 

[elitetroops]

@Olafeson:

Spoiler :

Your last update was very confusing, until I realized you were talking about 1000AD, not BC.

Throughout your updates you've been talking about small wars, building a stack to steal a city from Wang and so on. Why? Was there some particular resource you needed by taking that one city, or? Usually when you go to war, the capital is the big prize and if you don't go that far, building a stack isn't necessarily worth it. Normally I would almost always completely wipe out my first target. This gets rid of any unhappiness issues from "we want to join our motherland" and gives cities that you still have time to develop.

 

[Fish Man]

@Olafeson:

Spoiler :

Your last update was very confusing, until I realized you were talking about 1000AD, not BC.

Yeah, I was wondering, "how the heck do you get to liberalism by 1000 BC? must be one of those leet strats that lymond or flippy are keeping from us plebs" but then I realized it was AD. I might try this map on emperor later after finishing my chu ko nu rush.

1 A.D. (Immortal, normal speed, huts and events) and finally ready for a swift attack.

Spoiler :

View attachment 471469 Got 7 cities, one near Sitting Bull to steal him some tiles with my cultural pressure, one far east to grab the wine.

Bribed Hatscheput on Sitting Bull and Wang Kong joined into the Party by himself like a Moron, now they run into Protective archers on hills and cripple themselves. Also got a small stack prepared to conquer Munich and Frankfurt from Friedrich the Whimp, should be a swift succesful Attack. He is far behind in Tech.

Oracled Aesthetics, and bulbed Theology and Currency with some GP.

I appreciate your LOTR names. Forth Eorlingas!

 

[Olafeson]

@ undefeatable @ elitetroops

Ah yeah, LOTR city names are definetly a must^^

Spoiler :

First of all thank you for your interest in my game. Gonna give a rather long answer because i think every game is situational especially on immortal/deity, also the map script was special.

Yeah haha, i saw my mistake and fixed it, Lib 1000 B.C . Well when i get elephants and even U.U. elephants, i usually use them for small warfare. Just a little before my attack i bribed egypt onto Sitting Bull and then Wang Kong declared on Sitting Bull too and moved his stack away. So i basically grabbed real quick the 2 free cities from germany who was on another continent anyway. A.I. not a biggy with naval attacks, so was not worried.

While Wang and Sitting Bull already in war with someone else i basically backstabbed them, while their army was out of position.

Germany: 1 city with floodplains, 1 city with lots of hills, iron, fish and corn.
Wang Kong : 1 city with gems, unfortuantely i lost the gems cultural pressure later.
Sitting Bull: The holy city (confucianism) and even the shrine because of the Crusade quest, with 3 wine and 1 wheat. Really nice!

Really nice cities, easy to grab because basically undefended (+ the gold from city capture, +with currency you get gold+ gold/turn when making peace)

Also Sitting Bull got huge (12 cities) and every city i can take from the A.I. slows them down and benefits me, unless the city is really bad.
Now i got what i wanted and i saw that Wang had elephants too, Sitting Bull protective and fortified spearman in his other cities, it is better to make peace and attack later in the game again. You already got your edge over the A.I. with these small victories.

A long war with them only leaves my economy in shambles and slows down my tech rate.

 

[Olafeson]

1190 A.D. (immortal, normal speed, huts and events on)

Spoiler :

Sitting Bull far behind in tech as expected, still no Longbows and in war with Egypt and Wang Kon.
easy target for my cuirassiers. First vassal. Also got his capital with the pyramids and 2 other nice cities.

Then immidately declaring on egypt to get back the cities she stole from Sitting Bull and gift those back to him.

 

[Olafeson]

1390 A.D. (immortal, normal speed, huts and events on)

Spoiler :

Finally after a bit of a sloppy war with egypt in which i run out of Trebuchets and it drag way too long, got her to capitulate.

19 cities now, 2 Vassals, Wang Kon and Ashoka still far away from Rifling , gonna take them down with canons and cuirassiers.

Game should be won by now, unless Zara can cap Germany and join sides with India and Korea but unlikely.

 

[Olafeson]

1480 A.D. (immortal,normal speed, huts and events on)

Spoiler :

With the production of 21 cities and superior tech (Cuirs and canons)., Ashoka capitulated after 1 city and Wang Kon followed soon

1 continent under my rule with 4 vassals, this game soon will be won.
Next update will probably be the victory screen, Just one last war against Zara.

 

[Olafeson]

1695 A.D. ( Immortal, normal speed, huts and events on)

Spoiler :

The finishing touches. Germany capitulated after i took their capital.

Unfortunately Zara was persistent, had to ship tons of Infantry/canons later Marines/Artillery to defeat his Rifleman/Cavalry stacked cities.
As soon as i got 2 of Zaras citys i gave them independence and Ragnar joined the fray. Every captured city was gifted to ragnar and after a couple more Zara finally
with his face in the dust was forced to surrender to me.

Personally i can not enjoy these lategame wars which drag on forever ( at least for me), meanwhile all my 5 vassals could not land one single troop on Zaras continent, or launch one attack. That always annoys me pretty much. The A.I. is just such a fool.

Nevertheless Domination VICTORY 1695 A.D. . If you have any tips for me regarding the way i posted here ( did i post too many posts for my game, too less, too few pictures, not enough explanation of my strategy, etc.) , i would appreciate them very much.

After all a nice game with a couple of mistakes but i think good usage of bribing the enemy A.I. players into war with techs and backstack them when they are weakened.

 

[Olafeson]

Now pretty curious to see how other players approach this map. Well that was more fun than i expected to post a game here, if you have any links to some
youtube channels which play or have played CIV 4 BTS on immortal/deity level, feel free to share them with me. I always could kill for a good Let´s Play Civ 4 to watch.

 

[elitetroops]

Congrats Olafeson! Very nice write-up with enough pictures. And a great finish date! I didn't have time to look in detail at your latest posts, but it looks like you had a solid plan to conquer the world!

 

[dutchfire]

IMM/Epic

Spoiler :

I'm hacking away nicely at this. Wang is dead via Elephult and I'm now at war with Sitting Bull. My economy is losing money at 0%, which is a bit of an issue, and I've not really made technological progress beyond Construction+COL+Calendar+Feudalism. I managed to capture the Great Library and a +35gpt shrine from Sitting Bull, once those come online everything should be better. Currently building wealth in some cities, trying to sell resources for gpt, whipping courthouses and working commerce tiles. Should also start the Forbidden Palace probably. Other tips?
However, the land is a bit poor in commerce which makes it difficult. I'm also permanently short on workers, given the enormous amount of forests just waiting to be chopped.
Still, Elephult should work until people start getting gunpowder units.

 

[monopole magnet]

4,000 B.C

Noble, Huts/Events off, Normal, BUG Mod

Spoiler :

Settler moves 1 tile SW. If founding here, I get both Flood Plains tiles (foooooood) along with the Cow and the Banana.

Scout moves 1 tile SW and then onto the hills 1 tile NW to end turn on a tile with good view.

 

[unas876]

Deity, 675 BC

Spoiler :

So yeah I don't know if I got unlucky or what, but SB blocked me off before I had any chance of expanding towards him and taking that river to the west. I had expected not to get anywhere towards the south, so thats alright. But now Bismarck settles my junk, and he was there around 750BC. Not only that, but he also completely ruins that city by not grabbing the gold mine. That totally messed me up. Maybe I should have settled there earlier instead of the town way up north, but I wanted to block SB at the same time.
The original plan was to go for a culture win, seeing how this map contains no warmongers and one should be able to get away with no warring at all (Hatchet demanded the religion switch, otherwise I wouldn't have done that either). But now as things stand I don't see any nice spots apart from the capital to turn into culture cities. No more great cottage spots. If I can grab the town with the 3 seafood northeast I'll have plenty of opportunity to get GAs, but thats not gonna cut it I'm afraid.
Seeing as I'm a noob I'm not really sure if I'm gonna be able to do the conquest thing on Deity, but I guess thats what its gonna have to be, unless someone has some advice on what to do in terms of culture.

Also tech wise, I went AH first, then Wheel -> BW -> Agri -> Pottery -> Writing -> Fishing (IIRCC) and now after an Academy finally Aesthetics. Feel like I'm super behind, so I guess I got my Academy too late due to taking a bad tech path early. Is this just a slow start or was it bad to go AH early? Gonna have a look now to check what tech path other people took. Feel free to wreck me, in fact, I'd appreciate it

Edit: doesn't look like any Deity players have posted their early tech path here. So can anyone please have a look at mine and confirm my fear that it was bad and maybe give a different approach?

 

[monopole magnet]

700 BC

Noble, Huts/Events off, Normal, BUG Mod

Spoiler :

4 cities so far. I plan on making one more to the east, hooking up a Gold resource to it and putting down some cottages. Somewhat worried about the distance penalty, though.

I found Ivory early on, good from UU perspective.

Before getting my second city I ended up creating Settlers before I had scouted any good locations. Not a good habit...

I wanted to tech to Mathematics ASAP to be able to build Barays, so I traded for some tech along the way. Sitting Bull and Bismarck seem to be negatively disposed towards me even though I have traded with both.

My plan is to stabilize my economy by teching to Currency, constructing Banks and Cottages and then build some of my UU and go take Sitting Bull.

 

[Olafeson]

@unas876

So i took my time and compared your approach to mine in the early game. Before i start let me tell you i am just an "Immortal Difficulty Pleb", because for me the A.I.
on Deity just gets unfair Bonus. Feels like you are a fit guy who has to win a race vs fatman but the fatman has a car, you have a to run .

So until the real pros arrive and tell you what to do, lets have some monkey talk. And yes, i made dis myself with my Paint Skillz. Pretty long answer, of course not meant to be a rant.

Spoiler :

Explanation :
1,2,3 : first, second, third city i would have taken.
F : Farm
C : Cottage
LOL : a cottage on a riverside hill (wtf?)

Tech Path : Farming -> BW -> Mysticism -> Masonry-> Poly-> Priesthood-> Writing-> Oracle maybe Alpha (then trade for older Techs like AH, Wheel,Pottery etc.) or smth. else like CoL.

The cows early only net you +2 hammers instead of a FP farm that gives +1 extra commerce, that way you speed up your early research rate. You can get some hammers soon from the copper and the riverside Grasshill NE the capital,+1 commerce too from that.

Everyone plays different and FP Cottages are very common but i think they are a mistake here, because of the limited food due to mapscript. In your capital you get + 5 Food (2 from cows, 1 from each FP cottage, that allows you to work 2-3 hills, if you instead farm the 3 FP you get +8 food, grow much faster (work 4-5 hills) and whip settler/workers. Of course you get some extra commerce but only +1 for the cottages and then +2 when they grow to hamlets. If you whip, you only grow back slow. No irrigated corn/wheat on this map. Means overall a capital with rather low pop, since there are phants, gold and gem nearby, happiness would allow growing early.

Meaning instead of slow CE, rather go for Wonder/Hammer economy. Run 2 Scientist in Capital after Library, then go back to building Research (from Alpha) with all those hills. Bonus of Hammer research also is that you can run your slider on 0% research and still get lots of Research/Turn while saving gold.

Also you started the cottages very late, after AH, Wheel, BW and even agriculture which basically means you abandon the FP for a long time which give
1 commerce/ 4 food if you start with farming. The extra +1 commerce from an early farm at FP speeds up your early research. Additional you researched farming but did not build a single farm. So basically wasted research points. Meanhwile your worker runs around making only roads and some mines after the early pasture. Meaning untill you got Pottery you either worked unimproved FP tiles or some grassland hill tiles.

If you get to BW after farming you have 2 FP farms, at size 3 chop/whip a worker grow back one size and chop/whip a settler at size 3 or 4. The extra food lets you grow back faster, work more mines and get some hammers into the Artemis Temple (failgold with 100% bonus hammers from marble) if you are lucky you get it which nets you an early GP togeteher with the oracle (Bulbing some nice techs). As soon as you get Priesthood start the oracle, finish Artemis Temple later.

With early acces to marble (even without roads) and so many forests to chop there is no real excuse not to try for the Oracle/Artemis Temple. Even on Deity, at least you get failgold.

If you would have settled your first city (Haryharalaya) 2 tiles west on the river you get +2 commerce from traderoutes (cuz of river; the same commerce of your cottages early), in addition to extra health bonus and the Horses. Allows you to share some improved tiles from capital too, maybe a FP farm to grow faster. Cap meanwhile builds wonders and grabs a hill. Another bonus: even more river tiles.

Second settled city would have secured the phants and another 2 FP, also grab some land before Sitting Bull or Wang can steal it. Share tiles from Capital too like the copper.

Third city (Angkor Thom) was rather poorly placed too, you got the fish, but settling 2 tiles to the north would have secured another 3 FP, this time for cottages.

Not to mention the 4 turns for the worker to build a cottage on the NE hill, still only a cottage at 675 B.C.

If you compare that to my approach admittedly only on Immortal not on deity. Already got Aesthetics (Oracle), selfteched Literature and traded Alpha with another Civ that got it. 850 B.C., building the Pantheon and GL.

I think biggest mistake was not to farm the FP tiles. Crippling your Capital Growth for a few extra coins of commerce. Also not building a quarry on the marble (it is a good tile with 1 food / 3 hammer / 3 commerce) why not
use it? If you farm the FP you can use this tile and get the same commerce as from a FP hamlet and get + 3 hammers. For more commerce you had to grow the cottages to villages for 30 turns (10 turns cottage/ 20 turns hamlet)

 

[dutchfire]

IMM/Epic

Spoiler :

I'm hacking away nicely at this. Wang is dead via Elephult and I'm now at war with Sitting Bull. My economy is losing money at 0%, which is a bit of an issue, and I've not really made technological progress beyond Construction+COL+Calendar+Feudalism. I managed to capture the Great Library and a +35gpt shrine from Sitting Bull, once those come online everything should be better. Currently building wealth in some cities, trying to sell resources for gpt, whipping courthouses and working commerce tiles. Should also start the Forbidden Palace probably. Other tips?
However, the land is a bit poor in commerce which makes it difficult. I'm also permanently short on workers, given the enormous amount of forests just waiting to be chopped.
Still, Elephult should work until people start getting gunpowder units.

Spoiler :

Sitting Bull is dead, and Hatsheput capitulated. Managed to pick up Civil Service and Machinery. Plan is to also knock out Asoka using the Elephult, and afterwards think about the economy. Still running negative at 0%, but not so much, it should be okay when I switch to building wealth instead of units.