Nobles' Club LXXVIII: Cyrus of Persia

[LeftAdjoint]

@obsolete and leftajoint are you absolutaly sure you cannot lose from the position you have from your screen shots?(turn 68/74?)

Im not saying your wrong.I just like chess.At Imm/Deity I wouldnt of thought its a clear win from either of those positions(not from the micro i had to do at emporer to keep the empire alive).

thats my way of saying-what am i doing wrong?

Spoilers spoiled:

Spoiler :

Well, I'm not obsolete, so I wouldn't make a statement like "it's impossible to lose here", but it's a great position. (I speak just for my own game, as I don't know the details of his) The captured cities were all decent, with adequate food (except the last one, which I razed) and already developed to some extent. This is particularly true of the capitals.

Furthermore, the land blocked off for later cities, and the resources therein, is substantial. There are undoubtedly some good seafood cities, and there is marble, stone, and good tiles galore.

That's the long game. In the short game, we have enough raw production to even take out a third AI with immortals. We're at 6 cities, while China has only 4, and America only 5. I think it's quite doable, though it might not be the best use of resources. Only Charlie can match us in cities, but I suspect that a couple of those are in the tundra from what I can see of the map.

Even giving immortals a rest, there's plenty of time to inch our way towards Currency for economic stability, maybe cottage lightly, and wage war with horse archers. Persepolis is an excellent hammer city with a settled great general, and another general waiting to be settled.

That said, there are still potential problems. Augustus is about to settle a very annoying city by our eastern lands which will cause border tensions. There is a hole in our western empire where Qin might settle—a city that was sadly auto-razed—but settling there immediately will slow our research. As in obsolete's game, there has been no religion spread, so it's hard to say how the diplomacy will go. Any of our neighbors (except Lincoln) are potentially dangerous opponents, and a dogpile at the wrong moment could certainly crush our dreams.

To continue from this point, a plan is undoubtedly necessary, and it must take into account everything that can go wrong, from the potential economic difficulties to the petulant neighbors.

But the two truly problematic AIs are 100% dead, we have solid land, we have the resources to make either the Pyramids or the Great Library and—more importantly—we have cities which can build them! We have horse, we have ivory, we have gold, we have every calendar resource except spice, we have 7 from resources+granary alone, we have lots of forests to chop, and we have a well-promoted army on the field. Basically, we have everything. I would take this position over almost anything else you could realistically give me at turn 76. (on a general map)

Save is attached for reference, and since I might play on to see how huge of a win I can manage.

 

[LeftAdjoint]

Or, in chess terms, if I'm playing an evenly-matched opponent, and I somehow manage to capture his queen in the opening while maintaining solid pawn structure, gaining center control, and castling on the side I want, then of course it's still possible to lose... but mostly just because I'm likely to get bored at that point.

(note: I am not a chess player, so apologies if that analogy made no sense)

 

[LeftAdjoint]

Myth: Confirmed.

Spoiler :

 

[Batorius Iffy]

Turn 67, Monty KO'd at the expense of 3 (not so) Immortal. What next? I feel I could go after Mao without building much more of an army (I've got 9 Immortals) except for some archers for garrison or should it be Shaka before he builds up his army? Or should I pause a bit and build some more cities (I've got 5 cities spread out on a lot of territory) and a whole lot of workers and get some infra-structure going (all 3 original Persian cities have rax, Persepolis has a granary and that's it, nothing remained in the 2 conquered cities)?

Questions, questions. If I don't get an answer soon I'll go ahead and kill someone anyway.

 

[Nydaeli]

Part 2: to 560 AD (Emperor/Normal)

Spoiler :

Shaka was next. I would've liked to get Open Borders first to reconnoiter, but he was pissed at me for what I did to Monty, so he wouldn't let me in. So I just moved my stack over and attacked blindly. It worked out pretty nicely; I got two cities out of it and pillaged a bunch of tiles. Of course, I made a mortal enemy out of Shaka, but that's okay - I weakened him severely.

I spent most of the turnset expanding and working on my economy. I got Alphabet, Currency and Calendar, all of which helped tremendously. I used to be a big fan of self-teching Monarchy relatively early to boost the happiness cap, but I've realized that Calendar is usually better, since it provides nice commerce yields too. My economy mostly consisted of cottages, although I ran two scientists in Persepolis for most of the game.

I converted to Buddhism at some point after the Zulu war, simply for the diplomatic bonus with a majority of civs. I only have it in two cities, and I don't really intend to exploit any religious civics, but I think it's still worth the turn of anarchy.

I teched Construction => CoL => HBR. I founded Confucianism! Not that I'm going to do anything with it, but I like seeing the little star. I halfheartedly prepared for some elepulting.

Shaka declared war on me in 560 AD. Which wasn't so bad, since I was getting my elepult stack ready to attack him, but he still managed to take back one of the cities I captured from him in the previous war. He didn't bring much of a stack, but I didn't leave adequate defenders because I was busy taking barb cities to the west.

His forces are pretty pitiful, and I was able to clean up the units in my territory. In the next segment I will go on the offensive.

 

[vranasm]

Noble/Normal

Was aiming for BC conquest victory, ended disgusted with 700 AD Conquest

Spoiler :

The strategy was pretty simple. Own as much AI's as I can with immortals. And if it wasn't for the damned Rome which whipped spearman directly into my face I would probably succeed.

The order was Monty->Shaka->raze 1 city of Rome (peace then) + Charle (kill off)->Mao->Lincoln->finish Rome (with HA's and axes)

built Great wall to not have issues with barbs and it proved to be clever idea, because they helped me kill Lincoln ;-)

had to build eco somewhat... striked for 1T before getting currency, but readjusting tiles solved the few turns issue.

Spoiler :

 

[Archon_Wing]

Prince/Normal/No huts or events

1917 Domination

Spoiler :

Pretty lousy game; I got really lazy after the first part.

Got initial scout jumped by 2 wolves herp derp. But at least it lived long enough to see Monty near by, which means he had to go. Mao's not a nice guy either so he had to die.

Then I went after Shaka and unfortunately the hill cities made my attack run out of steam. Plus I was striking... However, I do capture the Great Wall.



Also HRE manages to settle the land in between me and China somehow, cutting my empire in half. I can't settle any more land because I'm broke.

Econ goes to the craphole, but maybe this could help


Unfortunately, Shaka decides to retaliate and I lose back one of the cities I took from him. Peace is eventually made, but he will come looking for a fight a few more times. Also, Augustus is going for an AP cheese win and Lincoln is worthless. Gah.


So I declare war on Shaka after rifles and he instantly gives up. Turned attention to Lincoln who gets killed by Cav. That really just leaves Augustus and Chalemenge. I go after the HRE and it's just a matter of time before he gives in.

 

[Nydaeli]

Part 3: to 1290 AD (Emperor/Normal)

Spoiler :

I blundered through another war with Shaka, eventually retaking the previously contested city plus two more. I took a peace treaty around the time of the Liberalism race, especially because Mao was starting to amass a stack on my border. He was mad at me because, in addition to my DoWs on two of his friends, someone else had convinced me to stop trading with him. That was one of many mistakes this game; the others mostly have to do with poor war management (the first Zulu war was probably a mistake overall) and slow settling between wars.

Anyway, I easily won Liberalism - quite late in 1140 AD, taking Nationalism. I should probably be more ambitious with Lib targets, taking stuff like Military Tradition, but Nationalism has always been good to me, between the Taj Mahal and drafting. I took Free Speech and Free Religion immediately, since I had one turn left of a Great Scientist-induced Golden Age. (I managed my Great Scientists pretty badly this game - academy, settle, GA. I should've set them up to bulb Phil/Edu.) The Great Library also went very late this game - 1050 AD! I should've gone for it, but I didn't even get Aesthetics until after Lib.

After Lib, I went for Aesthetics => Literature => Music => Gunpowder => Military Tradition. I had a bunch of elephants and HAs (and a few Immortals) lying around, just waiting to be upgraded to Cuirs.

In 1290 AD, Shaka and Mao both declared war on me! Shaka isn't much of a threat at this point, but Mao could be a problem, especially since his forces are on my southern border and most of my army is in the east. He's only moved one tiny stack into my territory so far, but I know he has more. Military Tradition still has ~9 turns to go, so it might be tough going until then. I'll find out how this war goes in the next segment...

 

[stimpyhoek]

Spoiler :

Did uu then horse archers. At about 300bc it started to strike a lot so I lost a few horse archers but changed religion and civic as often as i could for lots of lovely anarchy. Longest time was 3 consecutive turns so i made a couple cottages and got back to zero. Last 3 i took out were the romans then charlie then all the way back to america but i had built a force before i killed the romans. Could have been a lot faster tho I did luck out and capture the great wall. Oh yeah I made stonehenge so the gp golden age saw me thru back into positive figures.

 

[Amao]

Myth: Confirmed.

Spoiler :

Yet another Myth, you are only 2nd score wise.

 

[ecuwins]

Oh boy. As some have mentioned, this map is ridiculously good.

Monarch/Normal/no huts

1160BC

Spoiler :

AH was first due to the river pig. Horsies Went for two quick settlers(worker/warrior/settler/warrior/settler/worker/worker/Immortals)or something like that.


Teched AH/Mining/Wheel/Bronze/Mysticism/Pottery/Writing/Alphabet

1000BC

Spoiler :

725BC

Spoiler :

225BC

Spoiler :

700AD

Spoiler :

Once Monty and Mao were dead, I was able to spam infrastructure and wonders at will with the help of org religion, mad forests, and slavery. I used the free artist from Music to start a golden age, switch to Pacifism+Caste and starve down a few cities.

1240AD

Spoiler :

Ended up Libbing Biology, I probably could have gone much further.

1430AD

Spoiler :

Taj GA going on, building Vassalage Cannon and Infantry for Mr Lincoln Logs

All saves attached.

 

[Heliac]

@obsolete and leftajoint are you absolutaly sure you cannot lose from the position you have from your screen shots?(turn 68/74?)

Im not saying your wrong.I just like chess.At Imm/Deity I wouldnt of thought its a clear win from either of those positions(not from the micro i had to do at emporer to keep the empire alive).

thats my way of saying-what am i doing wrong?

I kind-of have to agree... particularly from your screenshot, LeftAdjoint, your research slider is on 0%, and without HEAVY micro-management (and with this I mean starving all your cities to try and squeeze out enough scientists to get to Currency FAST), your forces will start STRIKING in two turns.

This is by no means a clear winner! Please point me in the right direction if I'm wrong.

 

[LeftAdjoint]

Yet another Myth, you are only 2nd score wise.

And by one point even!

 

[LeftAdjoint]

I kind-of have to agree... particularly from your screenshot, LeftAdjoint, your research slider is on 0%, and without HEAVY micro-management (and with this I mean starving all your cities to try and squeeze out enough scientists to get to Currency FAST), your forces will start STRIKING in two turns.

This is by no means a clear winner! Please point me in the right direction if I'm wrong.

Spoiler :

Well, let's be fair. FlyingSwan's comments were about the position where I had killed 2 AIs, not 3. The last screenshot was to demonstrate that it was possible—mostly for laughs—and there was some very sloppy playing involved. In particular, I didn't really think about which cities to raze, how much to cottage, what to do with my great scientist... I think maybe some of my workers are even automated. I even said explicitly beforehand that killing a third AI might not be a good play.

But rushing to currency is no big deal. I mean, we want to get there as soon as possible, obviously, but just a handful of library scientists here and there is enough to amble along there eventually. Our GS can even bulb Math at this point, streamlining the process a great deal. No need to starve anything. (not as though a starving city implies a lost game...)

On the other hand, a few emergency measures are probably in order. Disbanding the army, for one—the maintenance costs outside of one's borders are huge, which is a big part of what you're seeing. And switching every single mine in every single city to some commerce-generating tile. And some careful use of workers (we have enough—we captured them!) to get riverside cottages running whenever and wherever possible. All with the goal of hitting break-even.

In the meantime, we have great land to develop, and great resources, so besides an awkward desire to focus overmuch on cottages, our empire will really not suffer too much. Since many of the cities we captured have plenty of improved tiles already, we could even survive the disbanding of our entire worker force and garrison—though I really don't think it need come to that.

And this is going from the triple-kill screenshot. If I had been playing to win instead of to get a fun screenshot, it would be even easier. And from the double kill? A cakewalk.

I don't mean to suggest that it's obvious how to recover from these economic holes, but it comes with experience—as long as you're not too scared to get into the hole in the first place. It's basically the same principle as with rapid expansion—you want your slider to hit 0%, otherwise you're not taking full advantage of the available opportunities.

I actually have a theory that it's possible to kill four AIs with immortals on this map and recover. (on Immortal difficulty anyway) I don't know if I'll getting around to trying it.

Hmm... I wonder what the highest difficulty is that one can get Conquest on this map using just immortals?

 

[Nydaeli]

Part 4: to 1828 AD (Emperor/Normal)

Spoiler :

Well, this was ugly. I whipped out the Taj Mahal (8 pop!!!) and revolted to Nationhood during the Golden Age, and started drafting a ton of Musketmen. They weren't much good against Mao's knight-heavy stacks though, and I mostly just holed up in cities while he ravaged my countryside. I lost Teotihuacan to his main stack.

Mao did, however, help me out, somewhat inexplicably: as the AP resident, he proposed a Stop the War Againt Shaka resolution, which succeeded. But he didn't let up his onslaught. This was in fact one of the most intense Civ wars I've fought in quite a while. I cut my research to zero so I could fund Cuirassier upgrades, but I was still only making ~100 GPT and these came slowly.

In 1480 I finally succeeded in taking Teo back. Mao gave me a peace treaty and a bit of gold shortly afterward. I wanted to press on, but my empire was in shambles from aggressive whipping, drafting and pillaging.

I took an 80-year respite to build up a decent Cuir stack, then attacked and captured two cities. Then Mao used the AP to force peace So I picked another target: Augustus. This was a vicious backstab, as he'd been a steadfast friend and trade partner for the whole game; but all things must come to an end. I captured all of his cities quite easily, especially since Rifling finished in the middle of the war.

After the war finished, I teched to Communism and Democracy, and revolted my endgame civic combo of US/Bureau/Emanc/SP/FR. I never seem to want corporations; I'd rather spend the endgame building units and workshops than GPs and executives. After this I declared on Mao and played a very standard cavalry war. Mao didn't put up much resistance; I'd taken out most of his military when he attacked me previously. I built cavalry and riflemen in all my cities and crashed them into his defenders repeatedly until he didn't have any cities left. I captured everything, including the horrible tundra cities, to further my goal of a Domination victory. The Fall of China finally went down in 1828.

Victory is assured at this point. (Theoretically it was assured after my initial chariot rush, aside from the fact that I played quite poorly for the next ~3000 years.) After this I'll wipe out Shaka followed by Charlemagne, and pray that Lincoln doesn't get bribed to war with me. (Or maybe beg for gold to exploit the AI into peace?) There will be one more installment with the final wars of the game.

 

[Darkeagle6]

Played until 1000 BC. Once again Prince, Epic speed, no huts/events. That was interesting! I played this game in short bursts because I was rather busy, so I don't have a detailed log of how things went, but anyway:

Spoiler :

Basically, I went AH to see if there were horses and, of course, found them quite quickly. As I quickly met the two crazies (And Mao, whom I feared would expand quickly, not sure if he normally does though) that surrounded me, I figured it would be a good opportunity to try and successfully rush someone for once. As I was pondering who to rush, one scouting warrior of mine, passing next to Mao's borders, saw a worker improving his land right next to his border. A malicious thought formed in my mind, and I quickly stole a worker from him, figuring it would speed me up, slow him down, and the diplo didn't matter because I would be targetting him now (also, the only spot I could see as viable for a second city, food-wise, was right next to his capital; another reason to destroy him.) And so, I sent immortals his way; by the point I had decided this, though, I quite a few immortals already, so I also send some towards Monty... I kill Mao very quickly (he never got the time to build a second city) and finish off Monty by 1925. At this point, I figure, Shaka's annoyed at me and he still only has archers (and no strategic ressources as far as I could see) I might as well finish what I started, and so I round up military forces and begin my conquests of the Zulu lands. Everything goes surprisingly well (I've never warred this successfully in any other game; this is my first game as Persia, so I'm going to assume it's because immortals are awesome).

AND THEN: on the turn before I take Shaka's last city, something happens which had never happened before: A sight and sound which would be remembered for generations by emerging tribes, thought to be the unleashed fury of the gods, and later understood to simply be the glorious crash-and-burn of the Persian economy I had not been expecting this, because I've never really played in a manner that makes me vulnerable to these things; I'm usually more conservative in my expansion/agression (Mind you, I only kept capitals, so I only have 5 cities) and usually make sure to do it at a pace which my economy can sustain, not to mention I usually have some gold from huts; I guess I was having too much fun destroying my enemies and forgot to think things through... I found out when my units went on strike. XD

So now, it's 1000BC. I've destroyed the Zulus, which gave me a bit of gold to survive a bit longer, deleted a bunch of units I didn't need anymore, brought back most of the remaining units within my borders, rearranged my worked city tiles so that I was working more commerce, and now I can get a +1 surplus at 0% science. I'm currently connecting the previous Aztec/Zulu capitals with roads, stopped researching alphabet and am researching fishing at 10% science with the help of some scientists (so I can work lakes for 2 commerce and eventually get fishing for the river trading). I've also started building the Temple of Artemis in my Capital and Stonehenge in my second city, in hopes of getting gold (from stonehenge if completed elsewhere) and the trade bonus from the temple of Artemis (or gold, of course), not to mention that building more units seems like it would be suicide.

Well, now there's a bunch of things I'd like to do and which I would be doing if I could afford to, like settling in a few nice spots, or trying to nab a religion and spread it to Augustus so that he'll hate Charlemagne... I have no idea where this game is going, since I've never been in this situation before. That's part of the fun, though. Feel free to indicate what you think from my save (ie if you think I've ruined my chances of winning this) if you feel like opening it.

 

[Nydaeli]

Finally wrapped up my game with an 1878 Domination victory:

Spoiler :

Score: 74273

Spoiler :

On the turn when I was going to declare on Shaka, Charlemagne re-vassaled him. That was fine, I could take them both at this point in the game. I built a bunch of Cannons to add to my Cavalry stack, since it was getting late in the game and my enemies had swarms of Riflemen. This slows down the assault dramatically, but it seems a lot better than Airships (which have been pretty terrible in my limited experience) and I didn't really have any EPs for the spy/revolt approach. I captured a bunch of cities, Shaka freed himself from Charlie and promptly accepted me as his new master, and then Charlie did the same after I captured another couple cities. This gave me enough pop/land for Domination.

This game was truly nothing but mediocre, but I pulled out a victory nonetheless. Maybe I'll move up to Immortal so I can get adequately punished for my mistakes

 

[MarigoldRan]

Darius is always the better warmongerer.

 

[gorf37]

Something is really wrong with this deity map, either I"m a god, or somehow my power this early really is stronger than everyone else? And why is it religion isn't spreading to anyone, amoung numerous other strange issues...?

I also noticed this problem. Almost zero automatic spread.

I had great fun with this game. Experimented with going for Alpha very early, while rushing. When my three infill cities were laid-down, I nearly went into a strike, but managed to limp to Alpha, then built research until Currency. Once Calendar comes in, I'll become a juggernaut. Lib>>Military Tradition for Cuirassiers will likely be my chosen finish here.

 

[Htadus]

Playing immortal.

Spoiler :

Took out monty and kept both cities. Then took down Shaka and kept 3 of his cities. Hope the Oracle -> CoL will work since economy is in the hole but 4 scientists are moving science along. Since the 2 went down in early BC, I am thinking about going after another before 1500BC.

Should have started the cottages early. Oh well.

This is a generous map with phants, gold and Gems being available very early.