Nobles' Club 372: Montezuma of the Aztecs

[jorissimo]

t50 Immortal

Spoiler :

Went Wheel - Pottery - Mining - BW. Now teching AH because we have pig and I would like to see if we have horses. Went worker - warrior - warrior - settler at size 3 - warrior - second settler at size 4 - warrior and now building a worker. Settled Teotihuacan (great city!), which went warrior while growing to size 2 and then worker. Worker 1 farmed the 3 corns in counter-clockwise direction (should have been clockwise really, but oh well) and then built a cottage on the floodplain. After that, it went to improve the corn for Teo, followed by a cottage on the banana and is now chopping for Tenoch. The sheep city is building a granary while growing to size 2, after which it will build and then whip a worker. As for the fourth city, I will probably grab the eastern copper and block SB. Regarding future plans, SB is very close and is inviting an early rush. In the absence of horses, that will be a construction rush supported by axes, jags and perhaps a spear if he has horses. The land is very juicy and neither food nor commerce will be a problem. Tenoch's corns can be shared by no less than three cities potentially. Production could be better but we will be able to whip, especially after we get sacrificial altars. However, happiness is the big limiter right now. I might get wine and other than that there are calendar resources and whales. All of those resources will come kind of late...

 

[Whisker]

Deity, 1870 AD. I give up.
Although being last in tech I still managed to stop one spaceship from reaching Alpha Centauri. Now there is another spaceship about to be launched on the other continent and I simply don't have enough transport capacity or military power to have any hope reaching their capital in time.
Edit: Oh, and there is also this little thing that I'm the only player that has thus far not been a target of at least one nuke. And I have no nukes of my own.

 

[jorissimo]

@BornInCantaloup

Spoiler :

I 100% think you should skip AH and go Writing first.

I hadn't thought of that but you convinced me. Also because of the last quote, I don't really need horses that badly anymore.

While unlocking the sheep is good, you do not have the happy cap to make use of the pigs, yet.

True, pigs are overkill and sheep can be farmed.

In that light, it is possible Tlatelolco should not have settled the sheep but rather corn + copper to the East

The thing is I didn't have BW yet so I didn't even know about that copper when I settled Tlate. If I had known about it then yes, that would have been a better settle for sure.

It's perfectly reasonable to tech up and expand north.

I really needed to hear this! Today my gut feeling shifted more towards teching up, with the nice land to the north. And you answered the exact question I had in mind!

 

[jorissimo]

T75

Spoiler :

2-pop whipped a settler at size 5 in Tenoch, because the eastern copper spot was just too urgent. Went Writing before AH in accordance with @BornInCantaloup 's advice. Settled Texcoco 1800 BC. As soon as Writing finished, Teo started on a Library, which it 2-pop whipped with the help of a chop. Has been running 1-2 scientists ever since. I also built a road from Tex to Poverty Point for trade routes. I whipped a monument in Tex in anticipation of culture pressure from SB. Then built a warrior for urgently needed happiness in other cities. It also worked on a Granary for a while, but at size 2 I decided to get another quick worker out of it working corn and copper. Tenoch finished the worker, then worked on a warrior, again for happiness, and a Granary. Back at size 5, it slow-built a settler that went on to found Tlax, which immediately took one corn from the capital. Overall, as you can see, I focused more on commerce and growth than on infra, with most cities still building Granaries, let alone Libraries. It felt wrong to whip a lot with such a dire happiness situation. I am currently second in GNP. Nobody has Alpha yet, Peter just got IW. I am working on Aesthetics so I can get some trades, because all of my neighbors have traits for teching, so the tech pace may be quite fast. I don't know how far the land stretches in the north, I can see a great 6th city spot there, but I can't really see any further expansion possibilites beyond that yet. Btw, what should I do with the first GS? Save him for Philo? Could be nice to do some spiritual caste-paci gaming, working my way up to Lib. If it's going to be a game like that, the lack of horses makes me wanna go cannons + muskets and later rifles.

 

[aitkensam]

Immortal 1AD (Thanks for hosting!!)

Spoiler :

I went for TW, Pottery before Mining, BW. Felt like the timing worked out fairly well although was quite a slow start. Happy cap was an issue for a while. Judaism didn't spread for ages. But it's spread round now and also got Monarchy and Calendar so it's time to grow!
Have 9 workers but feels like they're struggling to keep up. Darned jungle!!
Wang DoW Sitting Bull which makes Diplo pretty easy. Peter built the good stuff (Mids and GLH) so he might have to die soon...
Probably won't play this out as not a lot of time these days but it's turning into a fun map.

 

[jorissimo]

@BornInCantaloup

Spoiler :

Code of Laws is a perfectly valid entry point into the classical era.

Another one of those things I needed to hear. I often go Aesthetics by default, but it's so useless by itself, and then the Immortal AI might not even have Alphabet by the time I finish Aesth. Funnily enough I do sometimes take the CoL route to CS when I go Engineering, like in the (unpublished) Engineering Izzy game.

you could even take a cheap shot at Oracle -> CoL if the wonders are late.

Good call, I could actually try that. Will have to check if it hasn't already been built though.

I think the tech path around Rifling is better overall.

Right, also drafting with all this food will be worthwhile. Or just SacAlt-fueled whipping.

I think you went AH after Writing ? I was suggesting to go Writing --> Classical Era and reserve AH for trade

I see, I see. AH has really yielded me very little. But trading for it, isn't that really bad for one's trade cap?

mostly did the same and I think it makes a lot of sense, here.

 

[jorissimo]

Itching to get back to this game, but life is getting in the way . Won't read any spoilers until I'm at the respective turn myself

 

[Lord Humungous]

No edits to this map? The land is incredible. I'm playing it on Immortal because I think the Sacrificial Alter with the Spiritual trait is the most fun you can have with a unique building.

Spoiler :

I don't think I've ever seen 3 corn tiles next to each other like that. I settled almost identically to Born in Canteloup , except I can't even imagine pulling it off on Deity. I went Wheel->Pottery->Mining->BW->Alpha, cottaged up immediately with all the over-lap and crazy amount of food. I think I whipped the capital only once or twice total. All that sweet, sweet land to the north was just...available. Most importantly: our only source of horses. My situation at 75AD

Wonders were going late so I made a failed attempt at the Pyramids. Spiritual rep/police state/slavery/caste system would be fun. In my game there is a lovefest with only Sitting Bull left out. So with such a strong capital, such easy diplomacy and trading, and so much strong land it will be a standard cuirassier/cavalry/cannons finish.

 

[AcaMetis]

No edits to this map?

Yup. Didn't even need to do any resource swaps to give AIs nearby strategic resources or rescue any seafood from guaranteed unworkable locations...unless I was just too lazy to do the latter because I so rarely get to do zero edits to a map. One or the other .

 

[jorissimo]

It took a while, but here is finally my T100 update:

Spoiler :

Cities:
Narrowly lost the wine/stone spot to SB. Founded Calix (fish gem site) and Xochi (corn dye site) in 525 BC. There was some tension near Calix with a barb archer, which I managed to deflect with a second warrior, which successfully defended against it in a jungle. I briefly switched into Caste to get a 3-turn border pop in each city. I'm not seeing any clear avenues for settlement except one coastal backfill. I could try to conquer the barb cities though.

Tech:
I managed to chop + whip out the Oracle per @BornInCantaloup 's advice and got it in 800 BC
I took CoL and Confu was founded in Tlate. Then I went Maths, which was probably a mistake, as Monarchy was the bigger priority. After that, I was on 0% for a long time, only briefly breaking the fast to tech Fishing. WK finally got Alpha in 600 BC. I could have put some turns into Alpha to trade it for Maths, but I wasn't sure what Wang was going for so I decided to cash in right away and take IW from him. Peter is now 4 turns away from Alpha. Nobody except Wang has Alpha
However, it feels very counterintuitive to self-tech it. I really need Monarchy right now. 79 bpt, not the best, but also not the worst. The northern cities are going to boom soon though, especially once I get Calendar.

GP:
Got a GS in Theo in 675 BC and decided to save it for Philo. Academies are nice but my reasoning was that Paci and Caste have synergy with Spiritual and are a means towards getting more GS. Getting that Academy would have delayed the second GS quite a lot.

Religion:
As I said above, I founded Confu. However, Buddhism (SB's religion) spread to Texcoco in 600 BC, and I switched to it in 450 BC. Both SB and WK are Buddhist. Meanwhile, Peter and Boudi are Jewish.

Foreign:
As you can see, I got WK to pleased. Boudi, on the other hand, started plotting in t93 after I refused to cancel deals with WK. When I switched to Buddhism, she became Annoyed. She is most likely plotting on me and can reach me through Russia. Need to keep an eye on that northern border. SB is not pleased yet. He is stacking for the barb cities. I will probably lose the northeastern barb city to him as he already has a military ready to go. He will flip the corn from Xochi.

 

[jorissimo]

Something weird happened:

Spoiler :

Something happened that made me realize I may not quite understand AI DoW dynamics. Shortly after my previous update, SB started plotting, and was Cautious with me at that point. He had a stack near my border and seemed to be on the verge of declaring. I decided to try to get him to Pleased by making a favorable trade (CoL for sailing). When that did not work, I also gifted him Alpha and that put him at Pleased. He never stopped plotting though. This is the situation on T75:

At 1 AD, economy picking up, feeling confident about the game, just conquered my 8th city, press enter and then--the dreaded horns of war sound and SB attacks!

If I hover over the Native American Empire on the scoreboard, the only difference I see between 75 BC and 1 AD is that the open borders and peace bonuses are gone (obviously), and there is now a -3 "this war spoils our relationship". The rest is all the same. Was he able to declare because he started plotting at Cautious? There was no real way of begging because no Currency.

 

[sampsa]

@jorissimo

Spoiler :

Something happened that made me realize I may not quite understand AI DoW dynamics.

Well, true. Getting SB up to pleased did nothing. You need to get him to pleased AND beg for something (usually a small amount of gold) for the possibility that he stops plotting. Without currency you can try to beg for a -res and since you have alpha research a tech nearly to completion and then beg that tech.

 

[jorissimo]

Attempts:

Spoiler :

I tried both going back to 75 BC doing the begging trick with Masonry and to 1 AD trying to defend. Both failed. SB did "not want to start trading Masonry away just yet". Just yet. In 1 AD. I put the slider on the highest that would do the tech in 2 turns rather than 1. When I tried to defend against the stack, I didn't have enough time to whip, and the distances were too big to defend. Lost the city. God, I hate this game sometimes. I will have to go further back and just start whipping like a maniac knowing the DOW is coming and nothing can be done against it. Or just beeline Currency earlier.

 

[jorissimo]

Decision point, 50 AD:

Spoiler :

Went back again to 75 BC and started whipping and roading like a madman. Result: SB didn't conquer Texco on turn 2 of the war. However, he has two stacks of 6 each around the city and my capital is in reach of his chariots, but there is no spearman there now, all are defending Texco. Texco has a stack of 7 units and I could move in 4 more this turn. Might have to cold-whip a spear in Tenoch. He also has a sole Dog next to Texco and another small stack of 4 coming. He really prepared for this war. When I say I'm frustrated with Immortal, this is what I'm talking about, and it doesn't seem to change

Btw, there is also the possibility of doing this:

 

[jorissimo]

Honestly though, I think I'll take another big break from civ. It seemed like I was getting comfortable on Immortal, but the past few games have been nothing but frustration. It's tough because I'm still recovering from my accident while also working and doing a lot of physio, plus bureaucracy to sort out with social security and the final formalities of my PhD which I had to postpone til I got better. I clearly just don't have the mental bandwidth available for this game right now.

 

[konata_LS]

The start looks interesting. I haven't won a game as Monty on emperor yet, so, when I had some leisure time for BTS gaming several months ago, I decided to try this map .

Emperor from T0 to T75

Spoiler First attempt :

Actually this was my first attempt of this map which happened last autumn.

Settings as below, NHNE.

Settled on that forest PH. Agri-Mining-BW-TW. Saw the copper but Sitting Bull's border as well. He was very close .
AGG leader, nearby Copper, neighbour very close. No need to wait for the Jaguars. Just axe rush Sitting Bull - let's go Settled my second city near the copper and shared a corn from the capital. Workers started improving the copper .

Also SB and WK founded different religions and they were cautious. That meant attacking SB wouldn't anger WK .

Axes arrived at SB's city. Going straight towards his capital because I didn't see any copper mine in his second city, so he definitely had copper near his capital. I remembered Dog soldiers had high bonus against melee units, looking for a chance to pillage SB's copper and deprive him of Dog soldiers, maybe? But wait... how could SB have CG3 archers on T74? I knew PRO leaders started with CG1 and Drill 1 archers. CG3 at this era seemed a little weird, right?

Combat odds: 5.8% Who cares. Just behave like the true brave, fearless AI Monty and charge

The battle was soul crushing . Only one wounded Axe survived while SB still had 5 units in his city .

Clicked on Retire

After rage quit, I wondered how SB had CG3 units before 1000BC. I checked Civilopedia and read SB's UB required Myst and it gave 3 exp to archers. SB founded Hinduism so he surely had his UB unlocked. That explained things. I also realized SB's UU didn't need copper to build - pillaging SB's copper mine wouldn't make any sense . I haven't played BTS for many weeks when this first attempt was made, no wonder I forgot many basic information and game mechanics .

This map offers great opportunities to teach newbies "Axe rush, even with copper nearby + AGG leader, is not always the wisest choice, especially when the target is Sitting Bull".

Well...given my skill issues, I think it's mandatory to read Civilopedia and review some basics like units, techs, and buildings before starting my second attempt of this map .

 

[konata_LS]

Second attempt from T0 to T137

Spoiler :

Emperor level, NHNE, normal speed.

The second attempt started almost two weeks ago. On T0 moving the mouse on the score showed there were more then 1000 land tiles on this map. So there was actually no need to axe rush; the map gave enough space to everyone. Usually I would do such a land tiles check at the beginning of the games, but I didn't know why I hadn't do it in my first attempt. Perhaps many weeks of not playing civ made me forget about some basic moves .

Peaceful expansion to 9 cities. This time I befriended Sitting Bull and gifted a city to him . The early game didn't go very well for me because I lost two workers to barbarians.

As shown in the statistics, I built 12 workers but only had 10 workers . After Writing, without gold or gem, the was dire. I had no to research Fishing-Sailing so I sent two workers to build roads towards WK for the trade routes. The workers moved outside my borders and got killed by barb archers . The trade routes weren't established yet; I lost two workers; one of my cities had to hastily build an axe to deal with barbs. All these things definitely created a snowball effect on the whole empire development.

The religious situations were a little different from the first attempt: WK founded Buddhism, unknown AIs founded Hinduism and Judaism. Boudica self-teched CoL and founded Confu. Our continent was split into two religions blocks: the northern low peaceweight Confu and the southern high peaceweight Buddhist. Boudica and Peter soon became friendly towards each other. Same for WK and his good friend SB. WK was Confucian AIs' worst enemy while Peter was Buddhist AIs' worst enemy.

I hadn't chosen a state religion yet but it was tempting to join the Confu block simply because there was no Buddhism spread in my empire despite of being next to WK and having open borders with him for a long time (I genuinely didn't know what WK was doing ).

It was rare to see Boudica and Peter become the tech leader while the FIN AI fell behind But I could not laugh at WK because my tech situation was pathetic as well. It was 540AD and I barely got CoL & currency. Still 10+ turns away from Civil service .

One Aztec city was built near the stone, but Mids were built very early by Peter . Also Angkor Wat was built before I got philo - no hope to get failgold . It seemed Peter was having a good time with Rep specialists and his PHI pumpage .

 

[konata_LS]

From T138 to T260

Spoiler :

Boudica attacked WK in 620AD. They made peace after around 20 turns.

(and yes, just looking at Peter's gold and stone capital . He's 2 turns Music while I barely got Poly after 600AD )

My tech situation was too slow for a cuirs attack. Plus, all these AIs had more or less military flavour and tend to go early rifling. A cannons attack would be more suitable with these targets. Boudica DoW WK again in 1270AD.

Since WK kept Boudica busy, I attacked Peter first.
Monty's Jaguar were weak in a sword/catapults attack, but it was the fastest unit to reach Medic 3 Woods 3 promotion. With only 26 exp (it would need 50 exp for leaders who are neither AGG nor CHA), and it could heal 40% damage per turn

Look at Peter's capital. Look at all these wonders

During the war with Peter, Washington's caravel showed up near the coast. Washi had already Economics, BTW. Gave Gunpowder to Washington for banking, compass, and his map. Judging from the map, the last unmet civ was Ethiopian. It seemed the far away AIs were not as backward as I imagined.

Peter capitulated after losing a few more cities. He gave me some medieval or classical era techs just because everyone else already had them .

Boudica and WK were still killing each other. She launched a holy war through AP; the resolution pasted. I voted "yes" because I planned to attack WK next, after all:

(and yes, as some people noticed, 10 turns to replaceable parts, that was my situation )
But things didn't go as expected. After I took only 2 cities from WK, he capitulated to Boudica . I should have given Boudica some techs to bribe her out of war .

It was impossible to take WK as vassal at the moment. The only war target was SB who had massive CG3 longbows and the highest "resist capitulation" .During the war, SB's CG3 longbows suddenly became CG3 rifles - oh, I forgot to check the tech trade screen for many turns . Immediately opened the tech screen and realized that SB was the first to rifling:

Of course everyone had astronomy except me. Also everyone had MT while I had no knowledge about Music. Maybe I should have played the tech trade more carefully, but almost every turn of the war, SB poisoned my water or sabotaged some of my workshops/farms. That was quite irritating .
After 20+ turns of war, SB got dogpiled by Boudica. He finally capitulated in 1705AD giving me three techs in the capitulation deal - everyone else had astro and music anyway. In other words I got out teched by Sitting Bull.

After SB's capitulation, Boudica became a problem. She liked Peter and me but was furious towards SB. She started plotting only one or two turns after making peace with SB .

She had a big stack right next to my border, and more Celtic units were moving towards the front . Her target was probably me .

It's time to build more rifles .

 

[konata_LS]

From T261 to T324

Spoiler :

Settings as below, no tribal village

Something wild just happened: I thought Boudica was plotting on me. But on T268, she DoW Washington and Zara who signed defensive pact

I really didn't understand why Boudica attacked Washington while her main stack remained near my border . Did she have expedition force on her galleons? Impossible to know; I had no spare caravel to check that. In such case, I just joined the war. I planned to attack Boudica & WK anyway.
We have enough on our hands right now (most of my games end up in bloody situations like this).

After Boudica lost some cities, the VC screen showed Zara was the second largest AI who had 16% of land (of course, Monty was the biggest one). So, Washington had less than 16% land. Assuming Washington had 15% land, 15% + 16% = 31%. The other continent had 31% of land. That meant my continent had at least 68% of land, right? If I could capture all the cities of WK and Boudica, that would be enough to reach domination threshold .

Confu is the second most spread religion. During the war was bleeding; - from war weariness and emancipation anger were soaring. Capturing the confu shrine from Boudica would relieve largely the financial pressure .

But after the confu holy city came out of revolt, the didn't improve at all . I must check the city to see what went wrong:

What?! Boudica didn't bother build a shrine in her holy city ?! WTH was she doing all these turns ? Capturing a holy city which had nothing - was she just trolling me? [insert Angry Monty emoji here]
And yes, that 2 farm tile looked silly . My workers putting workshops accidentally cut off the irrigation chain .

Washington and Zara made peace with Boudica several of turns later. They immediately signed defensive pact again and researched towards the space ship, letting our continent stuck in the cavemen war. Finally Boudica and WK disappeared. The domination seemed very close .

Unfortunately, after all the captured cities came out of revolt, Monty only had 62.71% land. I even turned on slider and adopted free speech, trying to grab the 1.29% required for domination. It didn't work . My calculation of the land tiles proved to be incorrect. As result, I had to build a fleet & attack the far away AIs who had defensive pact, just for this cursed 1.29% .

No time for more complaint. Time to build a fleet. Shortly after some Aztec cities built drydock and started shipbuilding, Zara completed Manhattan Project :

TBH it was the first time I saw the AIs beeline Fission completely ignoring Mass Media. Usually in my games on monarch or emperor which reach the modern era, there are always some AIs who beeline Mass Media, build UN, and ban nukes.

Manhattan project was completed but no one on our continent had Fission, BTW

Of course, those who had Fission and Rocketry didn't want to trade these two techs to me, just to prevent me from building ICBM. Very clever .

The reaction of my vassals and me to far away Manhattan project completion

Need to take break here and learn about nukes game mechanics .

 

[konata_LS]

From T324 to T342:

Spoiler :

After the long war against Boudica & WK, I noticed something alarming in the military and demography screen. This was my units after conquering my whole continent:

Meanwhile, the demography on the same turn screen showed an AI was stronger than me .

It was frightening to imagine Zara or Washington had more soldiers than Monty's 30+ rifles, 20+ cavs, and 30+ sieges (cannons and arty) . I wondered whether the defensive pact increased their soldier count, and whether their nukes increased their power. Thankfully I got an answer here. That meant the other continent either had a big stack or a large number of nukes .

To prepare the final war against Zara & Washi, I studied Civilopedia and read carefully about units, nukes, and interception. For example I learnt that Aircraft damage and nuke damage were calculated differently. I also noticed about the intercepting mechanics, like SAM and mobile SAM can intercept Air units.

But only SDI can intercept Nukes. In BTS, nukes and aircraft are different types of units.

The information above is already known by many experienced players who played nuclear wars before. But for me, it was the first time I paid attention to the nukes interception .

Peter built TGW in his former capital. That city generated a GSpy and I sent it to scout the other continent. Three tactical nukes spotted in Zara's capital .

Those were only part of his nuclear weapons. He had some more in other cities .

Started a 12 turns GAge (captured MoM from SB), a high built the Internet. Finally caught up in techs .

Built a fleet, many tanks, marines, and infanteries. Many destroyers and battleships were needed as well, because the enemy might put a tactical nuke on a submarine and sneak attack one of my coastal city. Destroyers could see submarines while battleships had higher , better odds against enemy missile cruisers.

After scouting, I decided to attack from Washington's side, because Washi had fewer nukes than Zara. Carriers and transports sent a large Aztec army to attack Washington. Zara automatically DoW me due to his defensive pact with Washi.

Of course, got nuked next turn.

Each turn became long, because apart from controlling the offensive army in the battlefront, I had to check every "sentry" destroyer near my coast: enemy submarines or missile cruisers (they might carry tactical nukes!) which moved towards my continent should be immediately sunken. Washington nuked me sometimes. Zara kept sending small army to attack my units garrisoned in the captured American cities. Besides, the game became really laggy due to many units moving around.

During this war, I realised that Airship could see submarines but fighter could not. I didn't pay attention to that before .

As shown in the event log, Boudica's former capital got a GArtist (she built Notre dame here). I moved the GArtist to one of the captured cities and culture bomb it. The border pop made my land immediately reach the domination limit:

Next turn, Monty got domination while still at war against Washi and Zara. Hundreds of Aztec soldiers were marching through hostile territory, under enemy's bombs and nuclear mushroom cloud. Monty's game ended in a very Monty way

The win date is very late, but I'll just take it. For me, a win is a win. Even a 2049AD UN win is a win.

Killed more than 400 enemy units in total. Monty being Monty . Let's slaughter 50000 enemy units to celebrate this auspicious occasion

And yes, 24 bomb shelters were built to reduce ICBM's damage .

Finally achieved a game on emperor as Monty, although with two attempts and several reloads . The map is winnable, because the land shape assigned equal space to everyone; no "one AI cramped in the corner and its neighbour has space for 18+ cities" situation. Peace vassal is unlikely to happen. OTOH, it's also challenging. Monty's starting techs are horrendous. There is no early high tile. Both SB and WK have metal near their capital, thus an unfortunate early DoW may happen. Peter up north is a backstabber as well. TBH the far away continent surprised me, because they were slow in the early & mid game but suddenly become technically advanced after they got astronomy. Zara and Washi both have room for more than 10 cities. On emperor and below, the AIs rarely win space before 1900AD, which buys the human players enough time to win domination before AIs win space. With Deity AI per era modifier and discount, however, far away space ship launching might be a serious threat.

The map suits well Monty. AGG Rifles and Grens are good in the renaissance era wars. Cheap drydocks are really nice in naval attack. I also realise that the Woods 3 Medic 3 Jaguar is awesome to heal my units wounded by enemy's nukes. Through playing this map, I've learnt much about the nukes and intercepting game mechanics that I rarely noticed before. The most important lesson is do not axe rush Sitting Bull.

Thanks for letting me learn something new