Nobles' Club CXXI: Brennus of the Celts

[ben-jammin]

Tall German Joe

Spoiler :

It might be a more sound strategy to oracle HBR if you can snag those horses before Roosevelt takes them. He's a pretty soft target, I bet HAs would have it done before your catapult rush was ready to start. Plus not much risk of losing the oracle that way, and can still put a couple turns into alpha and trade HBR for it. I think that's what I'm gonna try, I at first thought the commerce fro mthe seafood might make it possible to oracle construction but I'd say there's a 1 in 10 chance of that working.

 

[Pengu]

imm until 860 AD

Spoiler :

Looks tricky, smells tricky with Brennus as the leader and not much commerce, but it is actually a nice position. You can get both marble, stone and phants so your options are open here. I saw the fp and settled 1 NE. Went Ag, Min, BW, Fish, sailing, and detoured through pottery and then masonry. I wanted those granaries for faster growth so I could whip more. Built GLH and saw Rosie settled on stupid positions just to settle on hills. Babylon founded hindu and pacal Buddism while Rosie founded Judaism.
I went Aesth but of course noone teched alpha. I didn't care and went math, currency and then traded Alpha from Rosie. the tech rate was poor and Rosie was the only one decent. I could tech at almost 100% all the time cause of failgold from mids, parth, etc and with all those whimps around me decided to go const+horse. Rosie had no chance and capped after New York fell. pacal was up next and at 500 Ad engineering came in and would make the war less tedious.
He was a bit stubborn but after his 4th city fell he gave up.
I am way ahead in tech and am sitting with 2 vassals so it should be easy from her on out. hammy has been wonder whoring immensly so he is going down next.After he is out only Sury is left that posses any real threat.
Nice with pangea and no war mongerers as neighbours for a change

 

[blunderwonder]

IMM 1590 cav domination

Spoiler :

enjoyed this map alot, had some weird problems with the vassal system, namely towards the end toku renounced from under sury as I was wiping sury out, but sury refused to cap because "im afraid of your enemies", so i had to cap toku first, then come back, ended up getting surry for free later because he needed help with hammurabi who id bribed on him many turns before. SB played it pretty isolationist all game, and did a great job of not capping in the early game while he was at war for a few hundred years. I think my start was worker first, and i teched Ag->fishing->BW->pottery->lit. I considered going bw earlier because of all the forest and lots of food, but then decided to go fishing first because it would take alot of turns for bw with nothing to do but build workboats. I also rexed like mad this game, or it felt like it anyway, i got pretty boxed in but i built 6 or 7 cities and something like 10 workers, there was so much food i was constantly whipping, even with 10 workers all the jungle i settled ended up being a pretty big pain. Neat buddhist lovefest also, with a super early AP, so i had buddhist monastery/temples in every cit, ran OR or pacifism pretty much all game till the end, lots of happiness with the state religion, temples and monuments. I think i only ended up getting TGL, MoM, and Taj, I think i got to music first, and i must have barely gotten MoM, because i got calender pretty late, even with the banana's/silks/dye in some of my cities. Also got a city on the little southern peninsula with 3 fur and 2 fish. was fun thanks

 

[Tall German Joe]

Tall German Joe

Spoiler :

It might be a more sound strategy to oracle HBR if you can snag those horses before Roosevelt takes them. He's a pretty soft target, I bet HAs would have it done before your catapult rush was ready to start. Plus not much risk of losing the oracle that way, and can still put a couple turns into alpha and trade HBR for it. I think that's what I'm gonna try, I at first thought the commerce fro mthe seafood might make it possible to oracle construction but I'd say there's a 1 in 10 chance of that working.

Spoiler :

hmmm, yeah that might be a smart replay. if i had realized that horses were over there, i definitely would have settled my first city near them. unfortunately, i didn't.

my game is still going. its not the end of the world here. i almost have roosevelt wiped out; took a 10 turn peace treaty to get some hella techs, and then i'll finish him off. all the gallics ended up being a good idea, as the bastard got engineering a dozen turns into the war. my borders are with pacal and hammurabi, who are friendly to me, and khmer across the water, who is cautious, and probably close to finishing education. if i can just rebuild peacefully, i might be able to get to a position where steel is still relevant... will have 13-14 cities after I have roosevelt cleared out and empty spaces filled in.

540 AD:

Spoiler :

 

[Pengu]

imm 1575 AD Conquest

Spoiler :

Well, this wasn't pretty. I just kinda switched off the micro after pacal capped and probably finished the game with 10 workers and didn't really whip that much at all.
The Army I had just steamrolled hammy's stack, which was kinda big, considering he had 5 cities. But I took few losses and focused on Sury after hammy went down.
He was getting close to lib and I hadn't really been bothered as no one else was close to it. By now I had MT and GP but I still didn't upgrade my phants and knights which would cost me a few units. But I had a few lvl 6 GGs who did the business. Sury did just get lib a few turns before he capped but that moron picked Divine right
I took Economics and got to rifling with the money. Still no upgrade though SB and Toku had been at war before and both were backwards. B ut since Sury was so stubborn(he really didn't give up until he had absolutely nothing left) Sb was getting closer to MS and Rifling and I didn't not want his protective **** to deal with. I quickly declared and I had wished I had upgraded my army as he had a huge stack. or more like 2 stacks with 30 untis in each. But I smashed my remaining trebs into his stacks and whiped everything out. After that I upgraded my army and it was easy picking after that. But SB is one of the the most stubborn AI's and
would not consider to cap until his capitol was taken and he had lost half his cities.
I just dowed Toku right away and after 2-3 cities was taken he capped with little resistance.
So, some nice neighbours and very few capable AI's made this game a breeze.
Only got GLH, did get an early academy, but not much else.
The last 500 years my city management was non existant though

 

[The Oz-Man]

1695 Conquest on Emperor (whooooooooooooooo):

Spoiler :

Not too bad--just waited for Cuirs and roflstomped everyone. Settled 1E, got the wonder resources, and kept the empire tight while using our food surplus to power Pyramid specialists. This start doesn't really want for anything (maybe a decent early commerce resource, but we've got lots of rivers), so taking off wasn't too hard. Wiped out Roosevelt and Pacal, then forced everyone else to capitulate; the only hard one was Sitting Bull, and only because he would not capitulate even when I had three times his power.

Thanks for the map, dalamb!

 

[Izuul]

Deity to 1560AD

Spoiler :

A lot has happened since my last update. Things didn't shake out like i wanted them to diplomatically, but i think it all turned out fine. My initial plan was to build more elephants, upgrade them, and take out Hammy. The AI had other ideas. First SB declared on me out of the blue and attacked my elephant stack with like 1 Knight. The rest of his stack never showed up. Shortly after SB declared, the Jewish bloc with the AP sent out a second resolution to declare war on Roosevelt. I had already defied the first resolution and my cities were suffering from the unhappiness. I couldn't afford to defy a 2nd one, so i just voted No. The resolution passed anyway, and suddenly everyone was at war with America.

I wasn't really finished upgrading troops, but i quickly got my Cuirs rounded up to defend on the initial few turns since Roosevelt was behind me and those cities were mostly garrisoned by warriors. Eventually i went on the offensive, letting the other AI due the dirty work and mopping up on a couple occasions. I took 4 cities including Washington and NY, and he capped giving me Economics in the deal. SB also took peace for 110g in the middle of the Roosevelt war.

Spoiler :

I got a pretty good look at everyone's stack during the war. Hammy didn't have anything too impressive and lost a good bit of it, but Sury had this:

Spoiler :

I declared on Hammy without wasting too much time, and got Pacal into the fray as well for the small price of Divine Right (plus he gave me some gold back!). I felt fairly confident that Sury wouldn't get involved unless there was an AP vote b/c there was nothing that Hammy could bribe him with. I bypassed the nearest Babylonian city b/c it was pretty heavily defended and took one a little further in while Pacal bombarded the first one. I let him suicide his stack and was left with this to easily mop up.

Spoiler :

Hammy was pretty much done after that and capitulated a couple of cities later. He wouldn't give me any tech, but i got some gold out of him, and then made this trade.

Spoiler :

I noticed Sury still didn't have Replaceable Parts or Military Science, so i declared on him right after my stack healed. That stack of 20+ Knights and Ballista Elephants in the pic up above showed up a few turns later outside of a Babylonian city, but it was all Cuirs at this point. I hit it with the 3 cannons that had made it to the front lines, and then threw all of my Cuirs at it wiping it out with almost no losses.

I healed, picked off Angkor Wat which was really lightly defended, and then marched on towards his capitol where i was met by this.

Spoiler :

He must have bee-lined Rifling when i declared on him. Good thing i had cannons!

Spoiler :

I didn't have enough units to fully take him out, and on the next turn he had 10 or so units in there again including 4-5 fresh Rifles. Fortunately i had some full-strength guys left that were able to mop things up pretty easily. I moved on taking two more cities and finally got my damn marble back (now that it's useless). Things weren't all sunshine and roses though b/c literally every seafood resource i had got smashed by Frigates, and i lost my Fish+Furs city to the south to a boat attack. Washington captured it a couple of turns later and actually agreed to give it back to me though. heh

Spoiler :

On the last turn of the war, Sury got Infantry. I'm really glad that didn't happen earlier.

Spoiler :

He capitulated after that and gave me Steam Power, but i didn't get a screenshot of it. I also traded him Steel and Military Science for Biology bringing things to where they stand now.

I'm not entirely sure where to go from here. Sury has Infantry and Hammy has Artillery. I think both of them could have both techs soon, so gifting back some cities and letting them do the dirty work is an option. I could also keep the cities since there's a lot of good stuff in Sury's cities and tech/trade to Infantry and maybe Artillery myself.

This is the tech situation and a list of my relevant units:

Spoiler :

11 Rifles, 21 Grens, 30 Cuirs/Cavs, 36 Cannons

 

[ben-jammin]

Izuul

Spoiler :

Japan without even gunpowder? I think you know what to do next

 

[Izuul]

Deity 1824AD Conquest

Spoiler :

I decided to stop and do a little bit of teching before continuing with the conquest. Manipulating vassal research for trades works really well on Deity since they can still tech competently.

Spoiler :

With those techs i started building up troops next to SB. He had 16 super rifles sitting in his main stack, so i had to wait for all of my upgraded troops to catch up before attacking (they aren't all there yet in the pic).

Spoiler :

I took quite a few losses, but wiped out him out over the course of two turns. It was smooth sailing the rest of the way after that, and he gave in after losing 6 cities. I then turned my stack on Toku and he gave in really quickly leaving just Pacal.

Pacal had tanks, but he's definitely not a unit spammer, so he never really had a chance against this.

Spoiler :

I just spread some anti-tanks around for defense and hit him from several directions. He was a bit more stubborn than i thought he would be, but he eventually saw the writing on the wall and gave up.

Spoiler :

This one was a lot more grueling than the Immortal games that i typically play, but it wasn't too bad since i was able to win Lib and do some damage with Cuirs. Its the Deity games where I'm forced to attack early that i still struggle with.

 

[Gebstadter]

Never done one of these before. I've got a few screens from 1840BC; not quite 1000BC but late enough that I've got some vague ideas for people to tear apart. Playing on Noble, no huts.

Spoiler :

After moving the scout 1SW, to reveal another clam, I decided to SIP. Early exploration revealed a bunch of jungle to the north so I decided it was probably not very promising early on -- this was probably a mistake, looking back. The land to the east looked appealing with all its food resources.

I researched Ag first, then Fishing. After that I went for BW to see where Copper was, and also to enable Slavery to take advantage of all the food in the capital.

Originally I was going to build my second city further west, but moved to grab the copper instead once I researched BW.

My hope is to cottagespam the blue city and build Maoi Statues in the green one (figuring that the food from fish should subsidize a bunch of camps on the fur). The capital seems like it should focus on production; not much in the way of cottagespam potential there. I'm currently researching IW in order to reveal the Iron, in case that changes my city plans.

Thoughts?

 

[Tall German Joe]

@Gebstadr

Spoiler :

that is quite an ambitious second city spot. why did you feel that you needed to settle so far away? what are your plans for the next 2000 years?

@Izuul, @The Oz-Man, @Pengu

nice conquest wins! am coming close (maybe?) to one myself... will post a closing report when it happens.

 

[Kyle Everett]

@Tall German Joe

Spoiler :

I settled on top of the copper myself to block Roosevelt. I did build the GLH though to make the coastal site better.

 

[Smilingrogue]

1695 Conquest on Emperor (whooooooooooooooo):

Oz-man playing Emperor! I guess this means the next Pretender update will be played on Deity, right?

 

[Tall German Joe]

@Tall German Joe

Spoiler :

I settled on top of the copper myself to block Roosevelt. I did build the GLH though to make the coastal site better.

Spoiler :

its not that i don't think that city will become productive (its very nice in that sense), it's that it is very far away from your capital for a second city. the maintenance costs will be quite high, and you'll find it difficult to develop the land quickly...

 

[Tall German Joe]

Diety 1705 AD Domination

Spoiler :

managed to pull it off! got to say, owe more of the victory due to the geopolitical situation than my own skills, although i do pat myself on the back for exploiting it.

ok, so where i last left off, it was 540 AD and i had just wiped roosevelt. i was really behind the tech leaders (6-7 techs total at least, at that time), but actually overall middle of the pack. first, japan and north america were at war from roughly 1000BC - 1600 AD, when i settled their petty dispute for them once and for all. both remained very backwards all game, even despite me selling petty techs for petty cash to both parties numerous times. secondly, pacal was BFFs with me forever, but disliked khmer (the other tech leader, but who had only 6 cities) and babylon (who shared a religion with us for a bit, but then switched into his self-founded taoism). pacal didn't have any techs to trade with me for the most part, but did want a few things that i had (guilds, banking, and gunpowder), of which he bought, in cash, FOR FULL PRICE. wow!

Spoiler :

about 4k gold total in the earlyish AD years can do wonders for a rifling beeline. next, hammy ended up at war with khmer for quite a long time, roundabouts 700 AD - 1300 AD. i was ready to jump in on his side myself, but he dropped out the turn before i got rifling (and i was hoping to wait until steel). that accelerated my plans a bit; didn't want to give him a chance to rebuild his infrastructure, nor to give him a chance at rifles. (he got replaceable parts on the turn i attacked). at any rate, my plan worked beautifully:

Spoiler :

i actually attacked by sea! khmer's culture expanded all the way to Tolosa, but i did control the square to the 1SW of Gergovia. i had whipped 7 galleys, and loaded them with 8 rifles, 6 trebs; on the turn i declared, i was able to dumb them on the hill right above rajovihara, which was defended by only a musketman, a longbow, and a sword; the city was easily mine the next turn. meanwhile, my ships were able to complete a round trip within 2 turns, and so i was able to bring over my great general medic scout, 6 more trebs, and 12 more rifles before khmer frigates controlled the passage. 20 rifles was more than enough to hold the city with 0 losses while sury suicided dozens of ballista elephants and cuirs into me. i took just one more city and he capped.

the game after that was just a mere formality:

Spoiler :

first capped hammy (didn't have rifling), then took out the two hikikomoris (neither had rifling) - first SB then TG. the end was a very close call, in terms of land area - i controlled almost 64% on the nose, with only a few empty squares possible left to claim, because NA was able to snipe one of tokugawa's cities from me. ended up having to take his last city. i had known this might be a possibility for awhile beforehand though, so i had been whipping jails, int agencies, and security bureaus in all my cities. you can see that i ended the game earning 2200 espionage points / turn, with about 25k points banked on pacal by the end with a dozen spies parked in his city closest to my capital. ended up not being necessary though.

Spoiler :

 

[Bulletti]

1436 AD, Noble, Marathon, Diplomatic victory.

Spoiler :

Smashed Roosevelt with UUs as soon as I was able to. Pacal quickly followed, and before Feudalism I defeated the evil Khmer. Beelined to gunpowder, started a war against the evil Babylonians and again beelined, this time to rifling. I had a LOT of gold saved for upgrading all my axemen and gallic warriors to riflemen and promptly proceeded to stomp the Babylonian empire, which had annoyingly spread inbetween Pacal's starting area and mine. Unfortunately, before I was able to erase the Babylonian civilization entirely, I won diplomatic victory. Tokugawa voted himself, I got Sitting Bull's vote. Babylon abstained. SB and Babylon had oppressed the Japanese the whole time.

All in all, pretty mixed feelings. I feel like winning diplo VC was lame and cheap, especially when I had such a strong military movement going on... I had tech brokering turned off. Huts and events on.

 

[Gebstadter]

@Gebstadr

Spoiler :

that is quite an ambitious second city spot. why did you feel that you needed to settle so far away? what are your plans for the next 2000 years?

Spoiler :

I think mostly I wanted to make sure I could grab the copper -- though that might not be as important as I first thought. A secondary idea was that I should try to expand outwards quickly and then "fill in" the closer desirable sites if I can establish cultural borders to keep the AI out.

However, until very recently I've been in the habit of trying to keep my city crosses nearly-disjoint, although from reading the forum recently it seems like that is not really best practice. I don't know much about optimally sharing tiles between cities, though.

Insofar as I have a plan for the next 2000 years, it is to establish a decent core of research and production, try to parlay that into a tech advantage, and then go smash someone's head in with rifles before they can get there. Perhaps this strategy won't work so well with Brennus as it would with the Fin leaders I'm so fond of.

 

[Smilingrogue]

I am going to call this a win as

Spoiler :

Sitting Bull

will NOT capitulate even after getting his butt kicked massively. I don't care to slog through anymore.

Upto 1680 AD, Immortal, Normal Speed, No Huts, No Events.

Spoiler :

Early on, I managed to secure stone and what would become my future cap with my third city.

Spoiler :

Great Lighthouse was very tempting here, so was the Oracle due to the Ivory, but Brennus and Celts aren't exactly a top Civ/Leader (sorry Lymond! ), so I played it safe and didn't chase any wonders.

I did land late pyramids in 50 BC though.

Spoiler :

This helped propel my research and I also landed the Great Library in 225 AD. Stone and Marble helped by allowing for fail gold. Bulbed Philosophy, Education and Liberalism. I landed it in 800 AD and picked up Nationalism.

Spoiler :

I could have gotten it sooner but Pyramids spawned a Great Engineer instead of a Great Scientist, slightly delaying bulbs.

Spoiler :

I could have taken Lib much later too, I bulbed Philo and had a monopoly on it, so Lib was safe. I could have taken Steel, but I needed a Golden Age and Taj with Marble available made more sense. So Nat it is.

Spoiler :

Teched Steel in 1150 AD.

Spoiler :

Military Science in 1200 AD.

Spoiler :

Upgraded Trebs and Maces to Cannons and Grenadiers. Roosevelt went first as he was culture pressing my cap with four cities.

Spoiler :

Pacal next.

Spoiler :

Now I had a decision to make. I could hit Hammurabi and his master Suryavarman or I could just bypass them both and hit a very backwards Sitting Bull and Tokugawa. I decided to hit SB and Toku first while getting to Artillery and Infantry as Sury had a stranglehold on AP and I didn't want to put up with constant "Please stop the war against me!" votes. But of course, SB gets his butt handed to him on a platter, loses massive swathes of territory, has no technological edge or even hope of catching up due to being enemy #1 of the world, is down to three cities, but he WILL NOT CAPITULATE!!!

Spoiler :

So I am going to say screw this and do something else. It's only a matter of getting to Artillery and Infantry and sweeping the map. Yeah, Sury's ahead in tech:

Spoiler :

But Pacal is still teching well and I can bounce techs off him to keep up and Infantry and Artillery are frankly all I need to finish the game. I just don't want to slog through SB and then Toku and then his aunt and their cat.

Thanks for the map, Dalamb!

 

[Patchface]

Spoiler :

A couple of turns later that GA shows up in his city across the bay from me.

And on the next turn i lose my marble for the rest of the game...

Spoiler :

Ha! I don't think I've ever seen that before. Brilliant move in a way.

 

[Izuul]

Spoiler :

Ha! I don't think I've ever seen that before. Brilliant move in a way.

Yeah, seriously. That's probably the most creative move I've ever seen performed by the AI.

@Tachy (if you happen to see this)

Spoiler :

Was there any chance at all the AI specifically targeted my marble with the GA bomb, or was that a lucky side effect?