Nobles' Club 219: Gilgamesh of Sumeria

[krikav]

Spoiler T216 :

I got a offshore city from Ragnar in the capitulation which added 20 raw commerce just from all internal traderoutes.

Here his stack was standing where his lone grenadier stands, I lured him down on flatland by placing a warrior there which he gobbled up.
I then realized that I could lose Kish as he had two-movers in his stack. With 147 turns of whip anger in Kish though, I thought it would be OK.
My army is still moving west so I have to defend here, but with protective and in a hill city I'm not scared.
I should have cold-whipped a spy in Kish though but I thought of that too late!

Instead of taking a free city though, Julius decides to stay and bombard my castle...

Can strike from Mansas territory comfortable as they don't have open borders.

Didn't have any hope of keeping these cities really,

I got to keep one of them! And the other one I lost, but Ragnar was quick to take the opportunity to snipe it back.

And even more lovely, Ragnar suicided his stack against Julius. <3
The units that I had stacked up here in the east got help from the mounted units from west who just arrived, and whiped out his stack completely.
He won't talk though, stubborn old Julius.

Not untill his two last cities he is willing to talk, abit too late now Julius!
I take these two too and whipe him out, and most now I upgrade alot of units and move into position to strike Saladin and Mansa.

Mansa has completed assembly line, and is now working on railroad. No rifling though. His cities are guarded mostly by longbows.
Oh Mansa, do you never learn?

I razed Gao, I thought he would get infantry any second and just wanted to soften him up abit while I could.
Didn't thought about Djenne, should have been ready to strike him there but I was too late.

Now everything is swamped in his culture again. Argh...
Oh, and he goes for combustion after railroad, not rifling no no.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T221 GG :

Gunning him down.
Djenne has AP and the jewish shrine, but is promptly razed.

Cavalry got good odds against machineguns if they are promoted against siege (Machineguns are apprantly a siege unit).
This city is razed too. Still playing it safe.
This turn, I also get Saladins island city with 3 cavalery aided with a chopped rifle from the city I got from Ragnar earlier.

I think that he is now willing to capitulate, due to the small AI Saladin being gone, I want this city too though, as I'm close to the dom limit and don't want to bother Qin with a visit.

Both spies ofcourse fail their revolt mission, so alot of cavalery blood is wasted.

This city gave me almost 30 muskets/rifles alone and deserves a honorable mention.
Also shout-out to kish, which was able to stack up 175 turns of whip anger.

And the capital was absolutely lovely.

GG!

 

[krikav]

@earthy

Spoiler :

Having no iron is always extremly painful.
Other alternatives is to just go for cavalery, or rifles+trebs.

I spent most of the game trying to keep neutral with Mansa so he would give me his ivory, elephants+maces+trebs worked decently for me against Saladin.
I realize now seeing your game how lucky I was that first Ragnar was too stubborn to capitulate untill I had taken most of his cities, and that Julius wasn't willing to give in at all.
Having to tech up just to get a lone AI like that is annoying.

@AcaMetis
Thanks alot for the map, really fun setup!

Spoiler :

The stone + protective combo was really nice, fun to try out espionage right from the start.
My first GPerson was a GEng though, but I worldbuildered him out for a GSpy to try this out instead.

I think I will replay this and see how one would do with a vulture rush though, which is what I would probably have done, had I not been enthralled by the idea of a espionage economy.

 

[AcaMetis]

Spoiler :

I kind of intended people to build, you know, TGW with that stone instead of Mids, since GSpy...but yeah, Mids is hard to turn down . And easy to get with a very powerful production capitol settled straight on stone, once you clear all the forests off the hills .

Interested to see how a Vulture rush would have gone, though. I personally didn't think it'd do overly well, simply because the AIs just do not lend themselves to it no matter who you'd attack (Sally and Qin are PRO, Mansa has Skirmishers, Ragnar and Shaka are big unit spammers, and Julius has Praets). I mean throw enough bodies at it and it'll work, but I'm not sure if it's more efficient/consisted compared to, say, trying to leverage the whole espionage angle.

 

[krikav]

@AcaMetis
A T70 attempt at an alternative strategy.

Spoiler :

Well, the AIs aren't that good at combat, if you have abit of patience and move around, you can kill of most archers on flatland outside of cities, just move in for the kill. Pro archers are evil in hilled cities but Saladin wasn't blessed with such cities.

Turns out, one doesn't have to turn down the pyramids either. ^_^
This is for sure cheezy though, and playing with map knowledge here.
But early access to a 6 strengh unit is brutal, they are almost like swords!

Went mining->mason->BW->Fish->Pot here, only reached pottery because of conquergold.
Stole a worker with warrior about the same time as BW was in.
Buildorder in capital worker->warrior->1-2 turns into barracks->TGW (to size 4, finish at T29) then a settler at size4.
Revolt at settler transit, then connect copper and just chop chop chop.

Vultures get 97-98% odds at pro archers at flatland, and that gives +2xp which is enough for woody2, then one can go around easily scouting for horses/copper/iron and pillage and steal more workers.

 

[earthy]

@krikav

Spoiler :

cavalry/treb would have probably made a lot more sense. I guess I would want to go the guilds route in that scenario instead of education? The only problem is I don't know what to do with the bulbs if I go that way . I also wanted to try out the espionage economy like you did, but it seemed a bit daunting.

the elephant trade I was considering, but I don't think maintaining relations with mansa would have worked out too well for me. he was a bit of a pariah in my game

 

[krikav]

@earthy

Spoiler :

Yes, peaceweight does that to poor Mansa, he was hated by everyone in my game too.
The trick is to not have open borders with him, and to refrain from doing any resource trades with him, untill you are ready.
And when someone DoWs Mansa, you beg something small from him, because that gives him a peacetreaty with you, and then the one who is waring him can't ask you to join in.

By the time I was whipping elephants, I was strong enough to tell anyone who asked me to stop trading with my ivory supplier to go take a hike.

 

[earthy]

good advice, thanks! Is it also true that if you renegotiate resource trades every 10 turns they also can't ask you to stop trading?(since the trade can't be cancelled for x turns)

 

[krikav]

No, that is not true.

If you have a active resource trade, the other AIs can start to pester you about stop trading.
However, if you do agree, the trade won't be canceled.
So it can be useful to renegotiate resource trades that you depend on, if you consider the option to cave in on potential demands to stop trading, as the resource trade can persist for a long time afterwards, even if the AI you stop trading with won't talk to you.

 

[sampsa]

Hmm, I think it is true. But if you have any ongoing trade that can be canceled (like open borders), someone can ask you to cancel deals. So you'd need to close borders too every 10T and re-open when available.