Nobles' Club 198 - Joao of Portugal

[Olafeson]

Played some more turns now T 182

I think i am in a decent position now, but not as good as i expected.

Spoiler :

Could not capitulate egypt. What a bummer, her score was too high and she had a lot of islands that could have belonged to me.
Had to defy the AP vote too, with the war weariness i had to run culture at 40% with theaters everywhere to somehow manage the anger. Another AP vote later hatty also wanted to vote herself out of the war and i couldnt take any more "The world sees you as a villain" anger faces. So i rather offered her peace for economics before the vote would come into action next turn.

The war set me behind in tech but they have not reached canons or rifles yet, although Huayna Capac already has physics. He is really ahead in tech. At least they are fighting. Would really have loved to cap Egypt though.

Well nevertheless i managed to capture 3 great cities. One has 4 settled GG and with a baracks i ll get tier 3 promoted units. This will be the place for the Heroic epic for sure. The 2 other spots have good shrines, a bank in each city and i should be fine for the lategame. Probably want to take out Napolean with Cuirassiers though before i start teching again. Not sure about oxford though, Heliopolis has a lot of cottages but will probably lose a lot of tiles to Inka culture.

Looking back at the start of the game, i definetly should have settled more small islands to the south and scout more with my workboat. I missed a couple of good spots and also with Great Lighthouse every seafood city is quite good. Also before the war i shoudl check the next AP vote turn. Happened several times now that the AP was a nuisance and prevented a good outcome of my actions.

 

[Olafeson]

If you are sitting on an empire with only seafood and traderoutes, such as you might happen to find yourself in this map, you can't really build much wealth.
Can't whip wealth/research, but you can whip Feitorias.

Spoiler :

Very interesting approach, so you suggest building a granary, a lighthouse, a harbor and then a feitoria on 1 tile island? Grow slowly and then whip the feitoria?
Other possiblity would be to whip units or to hire specialist. But without doing the math here, i think just growing and then whipping the feitoria with GLH sounds like the stronger play. Building wealth with only base hammer from city does not sound very reasonable obviously. For a peaceful approach or maybe even a cultural victory it sounds pretty reasonable to me. Of course you can always whip Units and win domination, but for example someone plays this map and says : "I am going for culture this game".

 

[Gumbolt]

Still playing on here.

Spoiler 350ad. :

After reducing threat from HRE. I moved on Hetty was was at war with Inca .She was pretty feiry and had a lot of troops including war chariots. My inital attack without phants managed to take a city before I realised I would lose 2-3 units if I didn't take a ceasefire.

2-3 turns with a healed stack (Super medic) I declared again. This time with 5 phants. I reduced defences to 44% and attacked her capital. She had 8-9+ defenders. She has 1 city left with 5 defenders but I want to move on Hammy who is getting strong. Fingers crossed he is not teching feudalism. Unfortunately I am relaint on him for phants and happiness. Need to think about this a bit more.

Still not met the Mongols albeit I can see they are someone's worst enemy.

I will probably attack Hammy on 2 fronts and hope he does not spam WE. I am trying to spam 7-8 of these before I declare.

Happiness is going to be a major issue soon. I need to switch civics and religion but I missed out on music. Hammy's Capital has a lot of good wonders.

I used the GM for a 1100 trade route.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler :

Very interesting approach, so you suggest building a granary, a lighthouse, a harbor and then a feitoria on 1 tile island? Grow slowly and then whip the feitoria?
Other possiblity would be to whip units or to hire specialist. But without doing the math here, i think just growing and then whipping the feitoria with GLH sounds like the stronger play. Building wealth with only base hammer from city does not sound very reasonable obviously. For a peaceful approach or maybe even a cultural victory it sounds pretty reasonable to me. Of course you can always whip Units and win domination, but for example someone plays this map and says : "I am going for culture this game".

Spoiler :

Granaries are a 1pop whip, so they come first. After granary whip you have 5-10hammers overflow which you put into a lighthouse. After that next whip is a warrior for another 15 hammer overflow into a lighthouse, such that the lighthouse can be 1pop whipped after not that many turns extra.
Any remaining overflow I put into libraries and later when I had MC it went into forges.
Once I had compass, I also 2pop whipped harbors, which result in around 20 hammers overflow for a expansive leader, this oveflow was for forges.
Once forges was in place, it was easier to whip remaining libraries, observatories and feitorias.

I had the intent of whipping courthouses as well, but with state property that wasn't worth it.
I don't think I would have built harbors if it where not for the overflow.

Running specialists is a more "I want the gain right now"-approach, compared to letting cities grow.

 

[krikav]

Still playing on here.

Spoiler 350ad. :

After reducing threat from HRE. I moved on Hetty was was at war with Inca .She was pretty feiry and had a lot of troops including war chariots. My inital attack without phants managed to take a city before I realised I would lose 2-3 units if I didn't take a ceasefire.

2-3 turns with a healed stack (Super medic) I declared again. This time with 5 phants. I reduced defences to 44% and attacked her capital. She had 8-9+ defenders. She has 1 city left with 5 defenders but I want to move on Hammy who is getting strong. Fingers crossed he is not teching feudalism. Unfortunately I am relaint on him for phants and happiness. Need to think about this a bit more.

Still not met the Mongols albeit I can see they are someone's worst enemy.

I will probably attack Hammy on 2 fronts and hope he does not spam WE. I am trying to spam 7-8 of these before I declare.

Happiness is going to be a major issue soon. I need to switch civics and religion but I missed out on music. Hammy's Capital has a lot of good wonders.

I used the GM for a 1100 trade route.

Spoiler :

Nice going! This looks like it's going to be a early conquest/domination if you keep the tempo up.
I notice that Hammy has two cities in hills on the western front, but 2 moves in you can evaluate if it's worth to take on Borsippa or if it makes more sense to march on toward Babylon.

Cumaeres (Clam-Wheat city) should probably be on a 4->2 pop cycle. I think it takes to long to get to pop6 with those unimproved tiles.
Is it 5 turns to CS or is that lost in the save? If 5+ turns to CS, I think I would revolt to HR right away.
It's also nice for diplo bonus with both Capac and Louis.
You can trade iron for copper+deer+wine with hammy for 1+ happy a little while, copper is just as good as iron for you now, isn't it?

I think Hattys floodplains city looks really nice too...

You have alot of cash, and an military advantage AND you have about 20 forests to chop.
I don't think I would tech any more at the moment but shut down the slider for the time being and instead continue grabbing cities. You have GLH, Currency and CoL so no matter how badly you can tank your economy you can dig yourself out of it.

 

[Gumbolt]

@ Krivav

Spoiler More details. :

I actually cancelled the wine the turn before I uploaded. I have since got it from Inca since.
Switched to HR 1-2 turns after posting.
Inca now in war mode. (Me or Hammy? or maybe HRE? Hetty wiped out by Incas.

I think I probably wanted feudalism. I have taken borsp and his copper city. Agree and whipping away unimproved tiles. I will try to merge up my two stacks here but I may have to go out soon. His capital has 8-9 defenders so far.

Need to keep pumping out units here while the AI lack Feudalism.


Played on a few more turns and his capital is mine. Albeit he is still a big threat. 2 AI have feudalism now. I need to have a long term plan here. AI have 10+ cities each so that is an issue. No one left to roll over easily. Loads of land on this map.

Still playing here.

Spoiler update 700ad :

Inca have declared on Hammy. Didn't even know they had a stack. Taken one more Babylonian city. Traded for fuedalism and he has capitulated. 2 Ai down 4 to go.

 

[Gumbolt]

Still playing here.

900AD

Spoiler 900AD. :

So next target was Incan's who seemed to be next most advanced nation on map. I sent one big stack to their capital (razing one city on the way. His capital had 85% defences and had pikes by time I attacked. I attacked with 5 pults and lost 10 or so units on the one city. I had about 26 attackers. Mostly phants/HA.

I had a secondary stack which attacked his 2 captured Egyptian cities. Both of which I captured. After defeating a few more units in the field and capturing a worker he finally capitulated.

Meanwhile I had an eastern stack that attcked HRE final 4 cities. He had several swords but only archers to really defend. He sent a stack of 4-5 units towards Hammy. After losing his capital he capitulated too.

French and Mongols left. Mongols were in war mode but have stopped once Incas became my vassal.

So far neither have engineering. I am many turns from really declaring on either. I have a ceasefire with French currently. Mongol UU will be annoying here. 2 of my vassals here should be quite strong.

 

[Gumbolt]

1130ad and all done

Spoiler 1130ad :

I hit a snag around 900ad. Wanted to attack French but still 3-4 turns of ceasefire. Eventually declared with 2 stacks and rolled over 3-4 cities before he capitulated. I whipped most cities constantly to keep up my power rating.

At this point GK declared on French before I capitulated him.

GK was a pain in the wotsit. Had to take 7 cities before he would even capitulate. Took a lot of losses with him but only because I was throwing units at the cities with no bombardment. Probably should of built more trebs. I was just trying to finish off the game. On a non terra map I would of wrapped this up much sooner as I likely already had the land count for a normal pangea map.

I think in this instance terra has not really worked as there was no real need to cross the ocean.

I really have pretty much just been full out war mode all game here.

Thanks for a fun game.

 

[krikav]

@Gumbolt:

Spoiler :

Well played Gumbolt! I think that victory date is quite impressing even as it is.

That period when you are 100% certain that you will win, but you still have to go through the motions is abit annoying. Especially if you have a stubborn AI like that...
And yeah, extra land count likely prolonged your domination date substantially.
Terra maps do tend to play out that way. An if there is some way to make the new world to come into play more likely, I don't know how to do it.

 

[Gumbolt]

Spoiler Idea :

Add an ai to the new world. Albeit it makes it a continent game. Terra only really works if you are forced to somehow use it.

If you simply played this map attacking with HA you could probably easily beat my save date. I think the GLH helped keep my economy afloat.

 

[Smilingrogue]

Throwing the towel in on this one.

Spoiler :

I wanted to settle the new world and played this map out with that in the mind.
Generally Hatty dies, no questions asked. No Creative neighbour of mine has a long life. But since I wanted to settle the new world, I played it peacefully and let AIs fight it out.
Wrong move. Hatty capitulated Hammurabi. Then Genghis Khan. Then Louis!
Charlie got Huayana Capac as a vassal. I am hated by Hatty due to close border tension and she's plotting on me.
I have 48 cities. The game ran out of Portuguese names and my latest city is named Persepolis

But I am giving up. My new world cities haven't come online yet. Hatty is one whole era ahead and is going to bring in Paratroopers and Bombers vs my Infantry. Given how underdeveloped my new world cities are, I don't think I can hold out for a win.
Plus each turn is taking me about 20 to 30 minutes as I have to micro manage cities for whips and workers so they won't build cottages in new cities.
Comrades, we are in State Property, build Workshops and Watermills to seize the means of production, not shiny cottages that are abodes to the capitalist pig dogs!

I am not a fan of Terra as it is not intuitive. It always plays out like a Pangaea and wastes an entire continent. Players looking to learn the game should not be looking to settle the New World. The key is to control the game we have and not the one we might have and as a result it is better to go for a conquest, kill everyone and win than play for a super late game.

 

[krikav]

@Smilingrogue

Throwing the towel in on this one.

Spoiler :

I wanted to settle the new world and played this map out with that in the mind.
Generally Hatty dies, no questions asked. No Creative neighbour of mine has a long life. But since I wanted to settle the new world, I played it peacefully and let AIs fight it out.
Wrong move. Hatty capitulated Hammurabi. Then Genghis Khan. Then Louis!
Charlie got Huayana Capac as a vassal. I am hated by Hatty due to close border tension and she's plotting on me.
I have 48 cities. The game ran out of Portuguese names and my latest city is named Persepolis

But I am giving up. My new world cities haven't come online yet. Hatty is one whole era ahead and is going to bring in Paratroopers and Bombers vs my Infantry. Given how underdeveloped my new world cities are, I don't think I can hold out for a win.
Plus each turn is taking me about 20 to 30 minutes as I have to micro manage cities for whips and workers so they won't build cottages in new cities.
Comrades, we are in State Property, build Workshops and Watermills to seize the means of production, not shiny cottages that are abodes to the capitalist pig dogs!

I am not a fan of Terra as it is not intuitive. It always plays out like a Pangaea and wastes an entire continent. Players looking to learn the game should not be looking to settle the New World. The key is to control the game we have and not the one we might have and as a result it is better to go for a conquest, kill everyone and win than play for a super late game.

Spoiler :

Hatty really took a beating in every game, if not by the hands of the player than by the hands of AI. In your case... All of them?
I didn't settle toward her at all, so I only had one tile land border I think.
48 cities is amazing! I'm sure Joao would be proud.
I'm not at all suprised that you feel you have had enough now. This situation is one of the most common ones that I have for abandoning games as well. Not only is the micromanagement extremly tedious, but you also have lag issues.

For this new-world settling to really come into play, I think one would have to play a mod with a new victory condition. Such that you win once you reach a certain land% in the new world.

 

[Smilingrogue]

@krikav

Spoiler :

I read somewhere that if the game runs out of city names it loops back to the start. My whole focus this game was to see if I could get the game to wrap around to Lisbon after Goa. But apparently it just picks a random Civilization that is not in the game and starts using their city names instead.
This curiosity was my undoing. My new world cities sucked because instead of developing them, I was focused on just filling the land, every new city straight up built a worker and a settler with chops. So they didn't grow much.

I also didn't expect Hatty would get as big as she did. I kinda invited trouble by settling in her face 1NE of the Fish on the isthmus leading into our Peninsula. I got super greedy and wanted fresh water and river. She was fine with me till I adopted Free Religion. Then all bets were off.

My game also had Huayana and Louis fighting over wonders. Huayana built pretty much every single one and Louis failed them, powering them both in tech, but leaving their land mostly open to Hatty to spread into. I got dragged into a war with her through AP and she hated me for the rest of the game. Oh well!

About the map

Spoiler :

I don't know if this is in spirit of the map's design, but I like the idea of having Huayana or Pacal isolated on the new world. Either of these AIs is good at teching, will build wonders and threaten culture so they will not be pushovers if left isolated and will force a response that involves going over there and putting them down. The downside is that the isolated AI will have ridiculous amounts of land all to itself and will be a tough beast to slay, particularly on higher difficulties.

 

[ArchGhost]

You think Terra could work in an Always Peace game?

Spoiler :

Viewing the Terra problem as " well conquest is better" is kind of redundant -- conquest is ALWAYS the best option. Controlling your victory by through military force is always gonna be a better option considering how out of control the AIs get if left alone. You can eliminate problem-children and even stifle the other victory conditions entirely by just razing cities. I actually just had to do this in the NC199 game because I shied away from keeping the aggression up.

The isolated AI on the New World is interesting, but I don't think it plays out well either way. Either they become a super power too difficult to stop with all their uncontested land, or YOU do, having subjugated your own continent. I've been playing a lot of Earth18 lately and this is how the Americas always go; even giving HC access through the Andes with some WB edits (default E18 has the AI blocked entirely) Monty dominates the hemisphere, but can't even begin to compare to the power of the player or a runaway AI vassaling the entire rest of the world before coming across the pond!

Seems like it would require some extreme measures, like keeping ALL of the happiness resources in the new world or something, to incentivize ignoring dominating the locals first. Even then HR and the whip for population control are still a thing :s

I don't know, can't think of a way it's better for the player to rush off to the new world instead of prevent everybody else from doing it first. Getting out of Dodge with a largely hostile field on the home continent could be an interesting idea, but it's unlikely you'd even survive that long without doing something to protect yourself if it was the case.

 

[Smilingrogue]

You think Terra could work in an Always Peace game?

Spoiler :

Viewing the Terra problem as " well conquest is better" is kind of redundant -- conquest is ALWAYS the best option. Controlling your victory by through military force is always gonna be a better option considering how out of control the AIs get if left alone. You can eliminate problem-children and even stifle the other victory conditions entirely by just razing cities. I actually just had to do this in the NC199 game because I shied away from keeping the aggression up.

The problem with Terra is not about whether conquest is optimal. As you rightly said, controlling our destiny by beating up our opponents is almost always going to be the best move. The problem with Terra is that it provides zero incentive or justification for the New World.

Spoiler :

If I were to play this map blind, having gone in without knowing it's Terra, I would have rushed Hatty. The map script just wastes the New World. Why would any reasonable person ever suspect there's another massive continent and prepare for it? (Even in real world, Columbus only discovered the Americas by accident while trying to find an alternative sea route to India)

I just wish there were some way to make Terra fun in practice because it sounds super fun in concept.

 

[ArchGhost]

@Kati Thanda

Spoiler :

Brave, going for Charlie first. He was the big dog in my game too. Though I think one of the other players went for him too and it worked out.

America in the New World. Almost seems appropriate!