Nobles' Club 218: Asoka of India

[AcaMetis]

Spoiler :

I think it'd be best to break Boudica first as well. Cyrus and especially Joao are undoubtedly very juicy and relatively weak targets, even diplo won't be much of an issue considering the absolute mess of religions that are on the board, but giving 13 cities Boudica the chance to grab a second vassal and/or tech up to AGG/CHA Infantry would be a mistake. Joao or Cyrus could go culture in the meantime, but I imagine that at least one of their three cities is coastal and susceptible to getting burned down to the ground if it comes to that.

 

[earthy]

so i gave this a go on immortal(normally an emp player)

Spoiler :

the land was too juicy for me to war with wang early. I went ag-bw-ah-tw-pottery, and then went for writing into math. grabbed mids with math/stone chops and grabbed COL early snagging the religion. used caste for fast border pops on the fish, switched to pacifism, and used three bulbs to get astro @ 325 AD. this is where it all went wrong. I libbed steel, and put together a fleet of grens+cannons to take out hannibal with his 13 cities. I planned on quickly capitulating him and then swinging back for wang kon, but he just refused to vassal for the longest time. I don't know if it has to do with the difficulty or just his personality, but he made me capture 9 of his cities before capitulating. It's now 1720 AD and that espionage loving ******* wang kon just stole replaceable parts from me. Hopefully I can still get my army back in time to cap him next. He's down to cautious after capping Hannibal.

edit: how I settled it

Spoiler cities :

I didn't get the PH cap but I was happy with how it worked out. The second border pop in the capital let me improve the sheep, so the horse city could immediately work that while I improved the horse/stone. The other sheep city helped share the gold so the capital could whip a bit and focus more on cottages. I was a bit disappointed that I settled the beautiful iron tile, but those extra 2 river tiles I got were nice. this is immediately after astro and 1 turn from CS.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T233 :

Took quite some time to get boats moving. Hurts to not have the circumnavigation.
Hanny lost a city to Boudica, so I bribed her off his back, else he would capitulate.
The axe from way earlier breaks the top defender, clearing the way for the cannons.

Just one city was enough. Having defended against Boudica for 1000 years apparantly takes it's toll.

After Zara lost Yeha, he decided to ditch his old master, took peace with him right away because he had a gazzilon frigates that where interfering with my coastal operations.
Boudica gave me a city that was starving down south as a gift.
A turn or so, then I'll strike Zara, which won't make it out of this alive. Keeping too small vassals make the remaining impossible to cap.

 

[krikav]

so i gave this a go on immortal(normally an emp player)

Spoiler :

the land was too juicy for me to war with wang early. I went ag-bw-ah-tw-pottery, and then went for writing into math. grabbed mids with math/stone chops and grabbed COL early snagging the religion. used caste for fast border pops on the fish, switched to pacifism, and used three bulbs to get astro @ 325 AD. this is where it all went wrong. I libbed steel, and put together a fleet of grens+cannons to take out hannibal with his 13 cities. I planned on quickly capitulating him and then swinging back for wang kon, but he just refused to vassal for the longest time. I don't know if it has to do with the difficulty or just his personality, but he made me capture 9 of his cities before capitulating. It's now 1720 AD and that espionage loving ******* wang kon just stole replaceable parts from me. Hopefully I can still get my army back in time to cap him next. He's down to cautious after capping Hannibal.

Neither Wang nor Hannibal have a high value in resisting capitulation. But getting the first vassal is always abit tough, especially if you shared the continent with Wang.

Spoiler :

I don't really recommend shipping your army back and forth like that. An army should be used for as much as possible, having the units stagnant in boats costing upkeep while not doing anything useful is not good if it can be avoided.
I would get a new army (or just a light defense) to deal with Wang, and do some mainland action with the army you killed Hannibal with, paired with his own capabilities.

How is the balance between Zara and Boudica?
Screenshots?

 

[earthy]

Neither Wang nor Hannibal have a high value in resisting capitulation. But getting the first vassal is always abit tough, especially if you shared the continent with Wang.

Spoiler :

I don't really recommend shipping your army back and forth like that. An army should be used for as much as possible, having the units stagnant in boats costing upkeep while not doing anything useful is not good if it can be avoided.
I would get a new army (or just a light defense) to deal with Wang, and do some mainland action with the army you killed Hannibal with, paired with his own capabilities.

How is the balance between Zara and Boudica?
Screenshots?

Spoiler :

Zara and Boudica were kind of irrelevant for me. I was surprised to see Boudica got big in your game. I think they had a hate triangle going on because GG's were spawning all game. By the time I met them, Hannibal had 13 cities and Boudica/Zara were in the dark ages techwise with 5/4 cities. I ended up gifting Hannibal all of his cities back so I could focus my troops elsewhere, so this is where they're at now. To be honest I could probably just declare on Boudica and let Hannibal take her out for me while I go kill someone else. Looking at the techs now though, Zara caught up quite a bit.

this is how Wang Kon is looking. He still doesn't have rifling, military science, or steel, so he seems like a good target. Persia is starting to build up culture hard so I would like to go take them out, but I just don't want to get backstabbed by Wang while I do that.

and finally here's the tech situation. I was a lot more ahead but started losing a lot of steam trying to cap Hannibal.

 

[sampsa]

@earthy

Spoiler :

Hard to believe you are playing normally emperor, as 325AD astro is not too shabby. After libbing steel the game should be in the bag, but I guess something went wrong with warring. Why not start with Wang btw?

edit: early maths is interesting, maybe I should have thought about it. I still lack it at optics, but ok now I get it free via trade.

 

[earthy]

@sampsa

Spoiler :

Wang was at friendly when I set out, but Hannibal looked like he might cap his continent and turn into a super AI. I figured if I could take out Hannibal then the rest of the game would just be cleanup duty. My issue was he went for really early Cuirs, and my grenadiers were getting stomped until I could reinforce with rifles.

@krikav

Spoiler :

when you're right you're right . I took your advice and kept going on the continent. Boudica capped within 3 turns of DOW, Zara the same. Now Cyrus is plotting though so I might have to deal with him sooner rather than later.

 

[sampsa]

@earthy

Spoiler :

Yeah I get it, it feels a bit dumb to attack the only friendly AI, but still, it would gain many good cities (that don't cost colonial maintenance) with a small investment. No way he could put up a fight vs cannons+maces. Not sure about going grens btw, it's a dead end tech and the unit itself is not that great, unless facing rifles. Pikes+maces are good enough and don't require a tech you don't have.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T249 :

The boats from the main continent where ready.

A small reinforcement from the mainland tried to snipe this city, took it but only held it for a pair of turns.

Was stingy about landing units, wanted to ship to Pasargadae next turn.
Bad bet, as I lost Sardis the turn after taking it. After retaking it though, it held up while I moved toward the northern cities.

A larger reinforcement wave from the mainland took the capital on the western shore, that was enough for him to handle.

Joao was cruising for a culture victory it seems, had just finished rock'n'roll.
He started hating me, but then requested me to go Jewish.
He had 98 turns left on his first city, the other two 100+.

Really fun game! Looking at the replay, I see that it was Zara who attacked Boudica, that was a dumb move. He had some initial progress by taking a city but then got pushed back to his peninsula. His capital had 4 great generals!

I feel bad for poor Joao on that nightmare Island though, rng didn't give him much to play with!

 

[krikav]

I really like Mil/Sci.
Not mainly to build the grenadier which is a good unit imho.
Ofcourse they don't defend against cuirs or rifles, but maces/pikes don't do that either.

Main cause is the possibility to upgrade maces or old swords/axes to CR3 grenadiers which are absolute beasts offensive.
CR3 grenadiers can kill the top defending rifles easily after bombardment, saving alot of cannons.
I like the military academies too.

Here in this map:

Spoiler :

Ship maces/pikes/cannons, tech mil/sci while boats are moving, take a city and then promote and upgrade a couple of grenadiers.
So much less hassle than setting up galleon-chains.

 

[krikav]

@earthy

Spoiler :

Looking at your T255 screenshots.
You mention that you where "Much more ahead in tech before".
How much more do you need!

Perhaps you need to work abit on your killer instinct? I don't think there is much reason to postpone a civic swap to say, nationalism or slavery and start drafting and whipping cannons/rifles, going 0% slider to upgrade old units once you reach rifling.
I think there is a misharmony in continuing to tech to AL when you have already reached an advantage.

Wang is a ducebag anyway, only being your friend prior to democracy, then he leaves his old caste-system ways and joins the enmancipation crowd.

 

[sampsa]

Spoiler :

Perhaps you need to work abit on your killer instinct?

Haven't checked T255 screenshots yet, but yeah I think this is one part of the game where many struggle. When having a military tech lead, more cities should be acquired via war as soon as it is possible!

 

[earthy]

Upgrading is something I definitely need to work on. I always see Lain timing his great merchants so that right when he needs to upgrade his army he's got like 2k gold, but I never seem to be able to pull it off. It's painful earlier on in the game as well when you get maybe 3 unit upgrades out of a turn worth of research ><

 

[krikav]

What @Lain does with Gmerchants and HAs upgrading to cuirs is something of the higher order, it's in essence really inefficient but it's all about burst.
What I'm speaking of is something far more mundane... Continue to build some maces even after you have better tech (Say mil/sci) and keep them maces in your stacks, after siege has killed a city your maces promoted with CR can kill most stuff, even rifles!
When they are CR3 they are golden to upgrade to either rifles or grenadiers.

It shouldn't be painful to get 3 upgrades for a turns worth of research.
The slider should be off, you should not tech!
When you have all tech you need the commerce of your empire should be redirected to the war effort, and one way it can be directed that way is through unit upgrades.

There is absolutely no problem what so ever if the other AIs start to blaze past you in tech as long as they are losing cities to you.
After the war you can tech again, and you can always keep your eyes open for trades too.

 

[earthy]

I'm always worried that other AI will reach a tech lead while I'm at war and make it too painful to keep going. Even if they just reach tech parity all of a sudden you need 3 catapults's to soften a longbow, 2-3 cannons to soften a rifle, etc. I always run out of siege units this way.Maybe I'm just not bringing enough siege, but if I bring more then I don't have enough defenders to leave behind and some HA/Knights/Cuir sneak in and snipe back the cities I've taken.

As for the upgrades, how do you plan that ahead in a semi-iso or iso game? I'm trying to work on my isolation atm so any tips would be appreciated. I generally try to make a big civic change into vassalage/police state after I've gotten steel, so at that point I'm whipping cannons until I research MS/Rifling and then whipping attackers. Would it be worthwhile to manually build maces with single upgrades earlier instead of building wealth? Also at what point am I no longer "allowed" to build a certain unit? I thought grens replaced maces, but looking at one of my saves apparently I can build both..

 

[sampsa]

1AD

Spoiler :

Decided to manually tech philo to be able to double bulb astro after I have alpha+math+aest+calendar. Had I seen this early enough, wouldn't have ran spy+merchant in Mids city. Need to run a GA if I don't get a GS next turn, but it's not the end of the world. Delays astro a bit, ETA 150AD with a next turn GS as Delhi can get 2nd one out really quickly with paci. Just growing cities now, will whip forges with OR after astro bulbs. Wang got to friendly just in time. Got maths for compass this turn and will get calendar for MC next turn. Alpha and monarchy I can get elsewhere. Those ORG courthouses are not horrible despite saving an underwhelming amount of pt, as the extra -points are useful to spy on recently met civs research.

edit: wee, got the GS, and next one from Delhi in 3T by starving a bit. So 75AD astro.

 

[krikav]

@sampsa I really like that screenshot. Shows how deliberate you are with worker turns.
Few roads, and no mine.

 

[krikav]

@earthy

Spoiler :

Regarding upgrades:
I don't know 100% when one can't built units and when one can't either.
But the important thing I know.
Can build maces when you are lacking either rifling or mil/sci, when you have both you can't build maces. Thats why it's kind of important to build a bunch before you get both techs.
There are charts ingame in civopedia under the category "unit upgrades".

Unit upgrades cost are 20+ diff_in_hammer_cost*3, thats why a treb (which cost 80hammers) cost 80g to upgrade to a cannon (cost 100hammers).
And why it costs a fortune to upgrade chariots to cuirs, and why upgrading HA's to cuirs is a total ripoff and something you only consider because the great person system allows you to get a huuuuge stack of cash that you can't use productively any other way.

The treb->cannon upgrade is probably the most obvious example of a useful upgrade.
You reach engineering aeons before you complete the key techs you need. (Be that steel alone, or steel + rifling or steel + milsci).
During the time period between engineering and that final tech, what can you do with your hammers?
Either you squander them on some non essential infrastructure, or you build research/wealth which could speed up the arrival of the tech, or you build trebs.

If you have a very hammer heavy empire, best choice might be to just build wealth to reach the tech faster, because you can after the tech produce units fast anyway.
If you have a very commerce heavy empire though.... You are well rewarded for building trebs, because after the final military tech, you can then focus entierly on building rifles/grenadiers with the few hammers your empire got, and the rest of the empire can continue to go commerce at 0% slider, "building" cannons of the trebs you had.


And the reflection:
Even if they just reach tech parity all of a sudden you need 3 catapults's to soften a longbow, 2-3 cannons to soften a rifle, etc. I always run out of siege units this way.Maybe I'm just not bringing enough siege, but if I bring more then I don't have enough defenders to leave behind and some HA/Knights/Cuir sneak in and snipe back the cities I've taken.

I too lose cities to sniping mounted units, or other things.
Experience and attention reduces the frequency, but importantly is to accept it and retake them. War is messy.

And by what you write, I would say that the problem is not building enough units.
It can help to think of units as the cost of cities.
"Now I'm paying 6 catapults per city, up from 2 catapults prior to longbows. A pity I didn't strike earlier as 100 hammers lost per city was nice.
300 hammers per juicy city is still lovely though, I will keep going."

And best way to build enough units is to just put yourself in the mindset of Shaka/Ragnar/GK.
I frequently find myself massively overbuilding units, but that is usually a very comfortable problem to manage. Having built to few units, and being forced to a early peace treaty after just a pair of cities because reinforcements don't reach the front is a worse problem.

 

[Gumbolt]

Hmmm

Spoiler Thoughts :

My only quibble with these latest series is many are designed to be a challenge. So you end up isolated with the worst possible Ai who is designed to be a pain. Be it Korea or Gilga. Koreans always spam units.

I went for a delayed HA rush. Used Oracle for HBR and grabbed about 140 or so fail gold too. Managed to take capital and razed his gold city. My stack was all badly injured. 0.5-1 strength. So took peace.

He built 2 more cities. My captured capital was squashed by culture. He still had copper/iron and horse. I assume someone added some resources here? I have taken his northern city. Killed off about 10-11 roaming Korean units. Absolutely crazy! Captured his new capital and razed his final 2 cities. Did capture mids so not a complete waste. Have settled a general and a priest as I get 3 science a turn.

I need some serious bulbing here to recover.

 

[sampsa]

@Gumbolt

Spoiler :

I don't think the map is very hard, I mean the starting area is strong and Wang won't plot at pleased. It was your choice to attack him instead of just blazing ahead in tech like I or earthy did.