Nobles' Club 235: Suryavarman II of the Khmer

[Anysense]

@Anysense

Spoiler :

I'd attack the AI with fewer cities first because, on your attack date, even the AIs who have stretched thin will have put up good garrisons.

Spoiler :

Nah, always attack the strongest. Otherwise they will run away and you will lose the game.
Declared on Pacal on t99. On t114 we made a sweet deal.

I'm a little a behind in tech but its OK.

It took a long time but his cities a worth it. Shame I could not have Chichen Itza.

Spoiler :

HC is next. Can't DoW Mansa because I've just begged Feudalism from him (at 750/1183). The game seems to have decent potential after all, but I 'm a bit tired of warfare. NC 234 was almost like always war and both BOTM games which I played were extremely bloody too. Then I played a short domination game for HoF and nootide's game was also war, war and war again. And I'm too busy with Go to play Civ, anyway.

 

[dr£ddlord]

Spoiler :

Not bumpy game, got marble, got stone, got gems and gold for happiness. Got great library, gardens of babylon, taj mahal. Inca declared war on me just as i got rifling and started drafting. I libbed Steel, used Cavalry, rifles and cannons to clear up the map. Was ahead on points the whole way through.

 

[shakabrade]

@shakabrade I noticed the number of farms in your last screenshot

Lol, yes, but I did have at least 3 more farms to accelerate growth and cottaged over them later.

Spoiler :

Nah, always attack the strongest. Otherwise they will run away and you will lose the game.

Spoiler :

It is good to identify when you must do that and how much time you have. But to ALWAYS attack the strong AI immediately can break your teeth. It is often inefficient. Good thing about your Maya is that they are alone in their Confucianism and are unlikely to drag others into fighting you. Edit: it is obvious that you made a good assesment of their current strength. Capping a good techer is a huge boost and you've also got game in the bag.

How I see things with the war if you are going on with your conquest is that your army is only getting stronger/more promoted if you are all-in into the army. Runaway AI is totally ok until they hit Railroad, and that is very far ahead in the future. Especially when you are attacking with one movers, you are at serious disadvantage as the AI can replenish many units and can use its roads, while your tiny vassals could help you with tech in the meantime if you went via easier route. Last AI can always be brought down with enough siege, especially if you get to cannons.
Also, defender's advantage is mitigated by attacking with multiple SoDs, something you can afford later. I'd still prefer attacking the spread out AIs with 2 mover stacks. BTW, did you capture Mids? Are they close? They are a huge boost for the conquest.

 

[Anysense]

BTW, did you capture Mids? Are they close? They are a huge boost for the conquest.

No. Mids, MoM and GLH are all built by distant civs.

 

[LANCE1313]

First time playing a Nobles Club. I'm a inexperienced player just trying to improve. I chose NOBLE difficulty. Really enjoyed the game and thought I played well for myself. I made a concerted effort to use trade more efficiently. Areas for improvement will include better specialization of cities and dealing with Mongolia more efficiently. I'm going to ask about this in more detail below. Here is a rough timeline:

Spoiler :

1 AD - 7 Cities at 50% Science bar and working on Construction. Intention to is attack North where I have worst relations with Huayna Capac
375AD - Declare War on Huayna Capac
740AD - Arabia Asks to be Vassal State. I accept which draws me into a war with Mongolia
820AD - Huayna Capac destroyed
880AD - Peace with Genhis Khan (I declared this as quickly as I could)
1100AD - Declared war leading to my "Genghis Khan Debacle" which I'll discuss below
1270AD - I'm losing... Declare peace and regroup
1340AD - Declare War Mansa Musa
1510AD - Mansa Musa Capitulates
1535AD - Declare war Genghis Khan
1570AD - Gengis Capitulates
1600AD - Declare War on Pascal II
1630AD - Pascal Capitulates -> This brings me over the land area threshold for Domination. I've been over population threshold for ages.
Victory

The Genghis Khan Debacle - This was a learning experience for me (Again I'm very inexperienced). I didn't actually realize accepting Arabia as a vassal state would pull me into a war with Genghis. When it happened I was worried that I'd bitten off more than I wanted to chew. I understand he is both aggressive and likes to spam units. Ultimately he it didn't really cause any trouble at this time and I was able to get a peace treaty in the not to distant future. The real issue occurred when I regrouped and decided to declare war again. I decided to conquer Mongolia next as my relations with them were the worse by far. I also had my eye on his city Karakorum as it had some nice wonders including the great lighthouse and temple of Artemis that I though would serve me well. I decided to bypass his closer cities and drive for his core. I took Karakorum easily but as I moved on to other targets I spread my army too thin and retook it. I got stuck in a cycle taking a loosing the city multiple times all the while slowly bleeding my army. Basically, I played poorly... I ended up giving up on the fight with him, declared peace, regrouped and moved to another target while continuing to progress in tech.

Now my questions on how to improve.

1. Does it ever make sense to do what I did with Genghis and bypass closer cities to drive to specific cities i want because of wonders etc? In this case it was clearly a mistake.
   
2. I chose to destroy Huayna Capac instead of allow him to capitulate was this a mistake? I was always planning a domination victory.
3. How do you guys pick your next target for war? Worst relationships? Smallest and therefore easiest target? Biggest Civ you can take because it knocks them down and you progress above them?

Overall this was a fun game and I made some improvements in my gameplay. Looking forward to the next and will increase my difficulty setting.

 

[umass_dude]

Won a domination victory at 1740AD playing emperor level. Very happy with that as it is my most comprehensive victory ever. Have learned a lot reading these threads.

Getting the early game sorted was critical. I went AH before Ag and pigs and horse helped a lot. I blocked off the Incas and then Axe rushed them followed by a Horse rush on Saladin. Was just a matter of time following that. The Maya were way ahead of me in tech but stupidly couldn't use it to their advantage and cannon/grenadiers easily subdued them.

 

[mscellaneous]

Immortal, no huts, no events.

Up to 1 AD.

Spoiler :

Due to poor scouting I missed the dry rice and settled on the PH. Teched AH > BW. A lot of close neighbors, with copper nearby an axe rush was immenent. Decided on a 2nd city, near rice + phants + horses. Rushed Saladin first as I hoped Inca would build the Pyramids for me since they had stone. No such luck, so I built them myself. Saladin was wiped out at 1360BC, Incans at 400BC.

After the wars my ecomony was in shambles, about -25GPT at 0% research. Thanks to cheap (creative trait) libraries and cottaged river tiles together with some unconventional teching (Alphabet then Currency) I recovered.

Techwise I am fine. Will bulb Philo in 2 turns, self research Calendar and then probably on to Lib. As for diplo there is some work to do. I was safe since everybody hates (and has warred on) Mansa. But the wars are over and I need to take care that I do not become the next target. Switching into a religion might solve some issues.

Not sure how to proceed. Domination victory seems most obvious. But I am pondering when to start the next war. With maces and trebs or wait for either cuirs or cannons (thru Lib).

 

[Dem Taqat]

@LANCE1313

Spoiler for Answers :

1. Does it ever make sense to do what I did with Genghis and bypass closer cities to drive to specific cities i want because of wonders etc? In this case it was clearly a mistake.
   
2. I chose to destroy Huayna Capac instead of allow him to capitulate was this a mistake? I was always planning a domination victory.
3. How do you guys pick your next target for war? Worst relationships? Smallest and therefore easiest target? Biggest Civ you can take because it knocks them down and you progress above them?

In my experience bypassing cities is basically never a good plan. It means leaving their culture intact, and their unit production going, as well as wasting a lot of moves if you plan to come back and take it later. Real armies historically never left fortresses behind them for exactly the reason you experienced; they will be attritioned down without reinforcements. Also, even if you successfully take that central city, it will never accomplish anything for you due to the absurd amount of cultural pressure it will be under. It’s much better to take the border city; even if you can’t push further in afterwards you should at least be able to utilise some of its tiles, and it will reduce travel time to the heartland in the next war. Especially, you should never bypass the outside hoping for easier pickings in the core, since core cities with their cultural defences are generally harder to take. The only times I would consider going for the core cities first are in a naval invasion, or if the goal of the invasion is to snipe particular cities to prevent space/cultural wins.

For your second question it depends a lot on the situation. At a guess, you had 100+ turns between destroying him and finishing the game, so you probably got a lot of use out of his cities. The questions are therefore did taking that time slow down other conquests, which looking at your timeline seems to be ‘no’, and was the difficulty of killing him worth not having to deal with regular revolts in his old cities due to culture and ‘yearn to rejoin our motherland’ issues? In my past few domination victories I have always destroyed my first target or two completely on the grounds that I want their cities for my own production/science. The final point of consideration for domination wins is that vassal land/population counts half compared to land directly held; taking all the cities yourself might save you an entire war against a larger and more dangerous opponent if you’re just barely scraping across the finish line with that land.

The third question depends on the war’s goal. Sometimes my target is picked for me; they’re the only one on the continent with me, they start it, they’re the one I need to prevent from winning, etc. If I just want to grow my land and output then I generally go for the weakest target I can reach; building a fleet adds to the difficulty of the war immensely. Sometimes, especially at higher levels, you declare war less for your gain and more to damage the target; if one opponent is starting to run away with the game you need to take them down while you have a chance, so there you deliberately attack the strongest. How much diplomacy plays into it varies; but to use this game as an example, I went for Mansa instead of Pacal because one was hated by my allies and the other wasn’t. If one had been a significantly easier target, or had better land, that would probably have been more important to my decision, but given a choice of two roughly equivalent targets, diplomacy mattered more. How the other civ feels towards me is generally less relevant than how my neighbours/allies feel about them, and how many diplomatic maluses I will get for declaring war on them. There are a whole other list of criteria when it comes to early rushing, but I won’t go into that here and now.

Also, I’m not super familiar with Nobles club etiquette, but my impression was that with anything about the map and other civs it’s considered good form to use spoiler tags. (Insert->Spoiler)

DT

 

[mscellaneous]

Game finished.

Spoiler :

Libbed Mil Trad. Conquered remaining 3 rivals with Cuirs. 1190AD domination victory.

 

[5tephen]

A quick update. I'm indebted to @shakabrade for inspiring me to keep going with my deity attempt and I think it's going well (but could be blissful ignorance.)

Spoiler :

Just about won the liberalism race. Not sure if it was worth the opportunity cost but I put a city next to Mansa's horses and took them by culture just before I could build curraisiers. Did a bit of diplo work and bribed Mansa on Pacal just before this. Immediately went after Pacal once I had curraisiers, unfortunately immediately lost horses to culture again but took 3 big cities off Pacal and then sued for peace.

Have gone at Mansa and vassaled him - realising as I write this that I need to pillage my elephants to cancel the very expensive horse trade I made with Genghis just before war with Mansa.

Think my next move will be to vassal Pacal who still leads in tech, then probably Saladin, Genghis and Qin in that order. Think I can probably afford to go cavalry at some point in that journey but my main aim is going to be to vassal ASAP and move on before I get in a tech race I can't win and find that my conquered cities are getting lost to culture and other nonsense.

I know some of you only play deity and I've reloaded on several occasions but I'm really excited to be in a potentially winning position for the first time on this difficulty (unless I've completely misjudged!)

 

[LANCE1313]

@LANCE1313

Spoiler for Answers :

In my experience bypassing cities is basically never a good plan. It means leaving their culture intact, and their unit production going, as well as wasting a lot of moves if you plan to come back and take it later. Real armies historically never left fortresses behind them for exactly the reason you experienced; they will be attritioned down without reinforcements. Also, even if you successfully take that central city, it will never accomplish anything for you due to the absurd amount of cultural pressure it will be under. It’s much better to take the border city; even if you can’t push further in afterwards you should at least be able to utilise some of its tiles, and it will reduce travel time to the heartland in the next war. Especially, you should never bypass the outside hoping for easier pickings in the core, since core cities with their cultural defences are generally harder to take. The only times I would consider going for the core cities first are in a naval invasion, or if the goal of the invasion is to snipe particular cities to prevent space/cultural wins.

For your second question it depends a lot on the situation. At a guess, you had 100+ turns between destroying him and finishing the game, so you probably got a lot of use out of his cities. The questions are therefore did taking that time slow down other conquests, which looking at your timeline seems to be ‘no’, and was the difficulty of killing him worth not having to deal with regular revolts in his old cities due to culture and ‘yearn to rejoin our motherland’ issues? In my past few domination victories I have always destroyed my first target or two completely on the grounds that I want their cities for my own production/science. The final point of consideration for domination wins is that vassal land/population counts half compared to land directly held; taking all the cities yourself might save you an entire war against a larger and more dangerous opponent if you’re just barely scraping across the finish line with that land.

The third question depends on the war’s goal. Sometimes my target is picked for me; they’re the only one on the continent with me, they start it, they’re the one I need to prevent from winning, etc. If I just want to grow my land and output then I generally go for the weakest target I can reach; building a fleet adds to the difficulty of the war immensely. Sometimes, especially at higher levels, you declare war less for your gain and more to damage the target; if one opponent is starting to run away with the game you need to take them down while you have a chance, so there you deliberately attack the strongest. How much diplomacy plays into it varies; but to use this game as an example, I went for Mansa instead of Pacal because one was hated by my allies and the other wasn’t. If one had been a significantly easier target, or had better land, that would probably have been more important to my decision, but given a choice of two roughly equivalent targets, diplomacy mattered more. How the other civ feels towards me is generally less relevant than how my neighbours/allies feel about them, and how many diplomatic maluses I will get for declaring war on them. There are a whole other list of criteria when it comes to early rushing, but I won’t go into that here and now.

Also, I’m not super familiar with Nobles club etiquette, but my impression was that with anything about the map and other civs it’s considered good form to use spoiler tags. (Insert->Spoiler)

DT

Thank you for the feedback. I really appreciate it. I've also edited my previous post to include the spoiler tag. Thank you for pointing this out.