Nobles' Club 352: Joao II of Portugal

[MeowZeDung]

1700AD Conquest, Monarch

Spoiler :

I decided to get a peace deal with mehmet just to regroup for ten turns and it was just what the doctor ordered. Whipped a bunch of cuirs during the peace and rolled him no problem. After ottoman cap, julius folded even easier to cannon/cuir and my first few cavs. Hannibal and Justin were barely an afterthought. This does make me wonder if I should have just taken 100% of the cities on the main continent instead of taking vassals since I think it would have been enough land for domination. I didn't want to micro that much though, so I just built a couple waves of galleons and sent my stacks down to degualle. Not sure that ended up being less micro though tbh.

Pretty easy win once the momentum took over, but I think it was very slow compared to what I could have done with some better decisions in several places. I'm glad I decided to play my first game back at Monarch as a refresher, but I think I'll step up to EMP for the next one.

 

[konata_LS]

Didn't have much time to play BTS in the past few weeks, because a survival game called Valheim is going to release the Ashlands update . Many gamers have tried public test version for a while and shared their gaming experience . Ashlands add exciting new creatures /structures and change a few items as well (like the formerly OP feather cape becoming very weak to fire now ). As a result, I spent most of my leisure time watching Ashlands contents . Finally came back to BTS this week . Before keep playing this game, I had to watch some videos about construction rush and post-war recovery; otherwise I might forget some basic mechanics and make silly mistakes .

From T115 to T195

Spoiler :

Settings as below. No huts


During my war against Roosy, JC started plotting. I though he probably wanted to dogpile Roosy, as he was annoyed towards Roosy. Much to my surprise, JC's target turned out to be Hanni (the First Punic War broke out ? ). He bribed Mehmed on the same turn. Then Hanni bribed Roosy against JC


The diplomacy screen became chaotic


Next turn JC bribed Justy against Roosy (and yes, Chadibal got the free GArtist from Music in 225AD).


Hanni lost a city to Mehmed; I gave CoL and Metal casting to bribe Mehmed off.


Hannibal is usually a strong AI, so I thought the duel between Hanni and JC would become a stalemate. I was shocked when Hanni lost his capital to JC . Had to give Philo to JC to avoid Hanni's capitulation .


When I was only 5 or 6 turns from Cuirs, Mehmed and JC DoW Hanni again (the Second Punic War? ). Reloaded once here: I tried to bribe JC & Mehmed off, but they both asked Nationalism and Paper. I found their requests too expensive so I didn't give the techs to them. As a result, Hanni quickly capitulated to JC, who became a super monster of 10+ cities with a vassal . So I reloaded from the turn of Mehmed and JC's DoW, gave them Nationalism and paper for their peace with Hannibal.

BTW, 1 city Roosy capitulated to Justy in 1060AD.

Attacked with Cuirs. Hannibal was already weakened by the long war with Romans and Ottomans. He capitulated only 3 turns after my attack. Gave 100 to Hanni for his conversion to Hinduism, mostly to improve the relationship with Justy. Justy was pleased towards me but cautious towards Jewish Hanni; Hanni becoming Hindu would keep Justy at pleased.

After Hanni's capitulation, I needed to choose a target among Mehmed and JC. JC's army was less large than Mehmed's. Mehmed had 10+ cites; the demography screen showed he had the highest soldier count. There was his giant stack from his previous wars against Hanni.

Despite of his large land and massive army, Mehmed was the only available target, because - looking at JC's research: he would get riflemen in 6 turns .

Begged 1 from JC before I attacked Mehmed. I whipped like crazy while Mehmed spammed units like crazy . War weariness and whipping anger were soaring. Defying AP resolution of "stopping the war against Mehmed" only made things worse. Angry faces throughout my empire :

^that city had no whipping anger because it was my HE city. But with so many angry citizens, maybe it was time to whip them away .

Lucky discovery of silver improved a little the happiness issue:


During my war against Mehmed, JC got Rifleman in 1350AD - it was the earliest AI rifling that I had seen on emperor


All these AIs except Roosevelt had high "military" flavour . They were the reverse of Willem or Pacal: instead of researching Physics before rifling, they all rushed towards Replaceable parts - rifling and ignored astronomy . Meanwhile I didn't even have banking or printing press


After a tough fight and heavy loss, Portugal managed to vassal Mehmed before my peace treaty with JC expired . An angry face showed up: it seemed the last AI already made contact with Mehmed prior to his capitulation .


Many cities were heavily whipped. AIs sent spies to sabotage some of my farms or workshops. Several workers were sniped by random knights or chariots during the war . I need to take a break here, thinking about the economy recovery and how to build an army of rifles + cannons for the next war against JC.

 

[Gumbolt]

Thoughts on immortal 1140ad.

Spoiler Thoughts :

I had MT and Gunpowder by 660ad. By 1140 ad I had about 50 cuirs and 3 Ai were dead and Justin capitulated. Just Mehmed left who has a 24 strong stack.I think I need all his land for the win. I have 36 cities. Ap win now off cards with so few rivals. I had taken down American capital much earlier. Such a strong start.

@konata_LS

Spoiler Thoughts :

Stop gifting the AI so many techs. This is why they now have rifles. I suspect if you had teched better and secured more land you would of had cuirs much sooner. Personally I would of joined in 1-2 of these wars. Carthage capital is a great city.

Not a difficult map you just have to beware that the Ai got to alphabet early and were all bribing each other into war if they could.

 

[Gumbolt]

I was all done at 1200ad. Final Ai stack slaughtered on a hill.

 

[konata_LS]

@konata_LS

Spoiler Thoughts :

Stop gifting the AI so many techs. This is why they now have rifles. I suspect if you had teched better and secured more land you would of had cuirs much sooner. Personally I would of joined in 1-2 of these wars. Carthage capital is a great city.

Not a difficult map you just have to beware that the Ai got to alphabet early and were all bribing each other into war if they could.

Spoiler :

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions. Yes, giving paper to JC and Mehmed definitely opened their ways to rifling. Thinking back, I played a little too conservatively since the ancient era . I was too afraid of the strikes after the early wars. Also I'm clumsy with empire management and teching: I barely got CS and philo in 660AD while you already got Cuirs. With war elephants, dogpiling Hannibal would probably have been a better choice. Carthage is great city especially after Hanni built TGL there .

 

[Gumbolt]

Spoiler :

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions. Yes, giving paper to JC and Mehmed definitely opened their ways to rifling. Thinking back, I played a little too conservatively since the ancient era . I was too afraid of the strikes after the early wars. Also I'm clumsy with empire management and teching: I barely got CS and philo in 660AD while you already got Cuirs. With war elephants, dogpiling Hannibal would probably have been a better choice. Carthage is great city especially after Hanni built TGL there .

Spoiler Spoilers :

I was playing immortal so that will slow tech rate a bit but AI will reach alphabet and other techs quickers.

Missing out on TGL is a major issue.When you saw Carthage had this I would of been attacking him asap as he will tech crazy as financial.

Your cities at 25bc are far too small.

 

[Mairt]

1660 Domination Emporer
Decided after 10 odd years of lurking on these forums, time for me to make a post!

Spoiler :

Strong but hemmed in start, straightforward SIP. Early war with Roosy inevitable as soon as I saw his borders. Despite that, I went for GLH early doors gambling on getting overseas routes (got it in 1960BC). Probably a mistake in hindsight but didn't harm me too much I think. That affected my tech path of BW -> Sailing -> Masonry -> Hunting -> TW -> Pottery (1960BC also). Funny game in that I didn't discover agriculture until nearly 1AD.
Saw the elephant near the flood plains and couldn't resist an elepult attack. Executed poorly tbh, Roosy got 3 settlers off while I was taking him out and settled annoyingly far away. Made the clean up messier than it should have been but finally got it done by 880AD after a peaceful intermission.
While that operation was underway, I busily teched towards cuirs reaching the holy grail at a not completely disgraceful 900AD. From there I swapped into whip mode (poor Oporto took the worst of it ). A recent Darius of Persia NC game had taught me the lesson of not vassalling everyone when not on a pangea. Looked to me like I would need most of the land on this continent to get a dom victory and I wasn't far wrong.
Hannibal was the first to go and put up very little fight. During that war JC had vassaled to Mehmed which made my life a little harder. I probably should have handled the diplo better on that... Only play was to go for Justinian. That war was a bit more of a slog but most of his cities were flat land so losses weren't staggering. Major moment in the game came when Justinian bribed Mehmed and JC in on me. Luckily, I was only three turns from finishing Justinian off by then so I killed him and wheeled my main stack around just in time. I had been building a stack north of Washington to hit JC in the rear when the war started. Came in very handy with lots of large Ottoman stacks lumbering disjointedly towards me.
JC was quite backward so, once I had regained the upper hand, it didn't take him long to fall. Just Mehmed left... Noticed while defending againt Mehmed that Janissaries are not the most fun unit to cuir rush against. Before I'd finished JC off I got to rifling and upgraded to cav. War with Mehmed was easy after that and I took the last of his main continent cities in 1645. Ran culture for a couple of border pops and I got to the land target for dom

Kudos to you Gumbolt for grabbing the copper and executing an Axe rush to get the ball rolling. I feel like that was a much better strat than my later elepult war. Or perhaps I just needed to get to contruction faster and be more aggressive. Either way, this is a PB finish time on Emporer (on an admittedly easy map) so happy enough with my run!

Thanks very much for the game!