Noble's Club XVI - Shaka

[dalamb]

Just a thought that came to me because of composing the above:

Spoiler building mounted units :

Those hephalumps come out of my military city with Combat I, +2 each Ikhanda/Vassalage/Theocracy/Military Academy, +3 stable, for a total of +11. IIRC promotions (on Epic, at least) come at 2,5, 7, and 10 XP, so they start with 5 promotions (including Combat I). With Heroic Epic in a decent-production city they come out every second turn. No City Raider promotions, but still very tough cookies, e.g with Combat V, +50%. And Guilds aren't far away, so they'll become knights before too long if my economy stands up to the upgrade costs (trade routes with GLH, Currency, castles, able to build harbors now but too busy building far too many units -- I'm timid!)

I don't know the next XP level, but with the war on Saladin they'll surely get there before terribly long. Maybe I should consider a conquest victory? I only just recently began to learn to warmonger, and only to make room by taking out an early neighbour or two, but maybe this is the game for trying it.

 

[Dresden]

If I have the apostolic palace how can I decide what resolution to pass?

Every X number of turns (9 I think on normal speed, definitely 13 on epic) an opportunity for a vote will come up. However, every vote needs certain prereqs and there could be occasions when no votes are possible (which messes with the timer slightly.) When it's time for the vote, then the pope will get a list of possible resolutions to choose from; you just pick which one you want, vote on it, and next turn the results are announced.

@dalamb:

Spoiler various responses :

I've accomplished part of #3: Stalin and Hammurabi are gone, producing 2 GG in the process, one dedicated to an academy in my main military city, one to produce a super-medic Impi (now a maceman).

Why upgrade the medic to maceman? Personally, I follow the doctrine that a super-medic is a unit you never want defending and the easiest way to insure that is to keep it "outdated;" you can still grab an XP here and there if you need it to reach the final promo by cleaning up the last defender after massive siege weakening. And upgrading away from Impi costs you the great speed that it had. I'll keep impi supermedics around for an entire game, running them around in support of rifles and infantry.

I'm about to take on Saladin, whose city spamming has broken up my empire and who is a rival for score and power. He's buddhist, like me, Gilgamesh, and Charlemagne, and they're both Friendly with him. Charlemagne is Friendly with me and Gilgamesh is Pleased, so I expect a relation hit when I attack Saladin. How much damage is this likely to do to me? How do I figure out how big their attitude toward me will change?

You will get a -1 penalty for "declaring war on our friend." Assuming you don't do anything crazy like razing the buddhist holy city the war itself shouldn't cause any further diplo problems from Giggles and Chuck. Do watch out for Sally bribing one of them against you though, especially if Giggles drops to Cautious.

I'm hoping to win the circumnavigation race. Hannibal one wanted to trade world maps, but I didn't take the gamble: my info was likely more valuable to him than his was to me, and my caravels (built just after Pacal's showed up) have less eastward to go than he does westward, because of earlier exploration of the Charlemagne/Gilgamesh continent.

One thing to keep in mind is that you're on the first team. So if you trade maps with someone with the result that both of you gain circumnavigation on the same turn, the bonus still goes to you. As you'll see when I get around to posting my next report, I used a map trade to "steal" circumnavigation from one of my rivals this way in my game.

Here's the current world map. Is that glow on the east some cities I shouldn't be able to see yet?

I don't see any glow unless you mean the stars in the background??

Overall, I'm happy with this game, and hopeful that I'll finally finish one of these NC games! Still not entirely sure of intended victory -- I might go with space ship unless I wind up taking over the southern continent and go for domination.

You seem to be doing okay so far (aside from letting Chuck and Pacal get footholds on "your" continent ). Good luck with the next set!

@dalamb #2: Promotions for a non-charismatic civ occur every n^2 + 1 XP; there is no change for map size or game speed. So the first 5 will come at 2, 5, 10, 17, and 26. Also:

Spoiler Unit Upgrade Info :

4-promo Elephants are pretty strong when combined with siege and can do some serious damage. However, Elephants won't upgrade to Knights; they are "contemporary" units and both will upgrade to Cuirassiers. Also keep in mind that an upgraded unit will keep whatever promos it has but will reset to 10XP; so if you have units with like 15/16 XP, it's a good idea to get to 17 for the next promo before you upgrade them.

 

[dalamb]

@Dresden:

Spoiler :

Thanks! That's three reasons for why the GG/medic upgrade was a bad move! Making it a stronger, more-likely-to-defend unit, taking away the speed, and missing out on that one last promotion.

This is a general question but mentions details of my current situation:

Spoiler vassal-dom question :

I think I can take the plunge into attacking Saladin, but maybe will plop a few triremes at the narrow passage from Charlemagne/Gilgamesh's continent to mine "just in case" one of them declares on me (such as after a bribe from Saladin).

One more subtle worry with Gilg/Charl/Sal all being friendly -- if I am getting close to wiping Saladin out, isn't he likely to beg to be a vassal of one of them, dragging his new overlord into the conflict? Charlemagne definitely has feudalism, since I got it from him, and Giggles might. I'm not quite sure of how one AI decides to be a vassal to another but it apparently happened to me in a recent (NC?) game where suddenly Boudica became Louis' vassal and I had to fight both of them (on the same continent, which was harder to deal with than this map, which has a "choke point" to defend until galleons).

 

[JTMacc99]

@Dresden:

Spoiler :

One more subtle worry with Gilg/Charl/Sal all being friendly -- if I am getting close to wiping Saladin out, isn't he likely to beg to be a vassal of one of them, dragging his new overlord into the conflict? Charlemagne definitely has feudalism, since I got it from him, and Giggles might. I'm not quite sure of how one AI decides to be a vassal to another but it apparently happened to me in a recent (NC?) game where suddenly Boudica became Louis' vassal and I had to fight both of them (on the same continent, which was harder to deal with than this map, which has a "choke point" to defend until galleons).

Be very careful of somebody you are fighting becoming a vassal of another another civ. I find that the most common way this happens is when you are fighting along side another civ, and the enemy accepts capitulation to your brothers in arms. It is also possible that a civ you are fighting alone will willingly become a vassal of another civ, therefore expanding your war to be with two civs. This is less common, because that meant that the other civ actually wanted to go to war with you at the time. The third way, and the one that ALMOST happened in my game:

Spoiler :

Is when you enter into a temporary peace treaty, and another civ swoops in to take your target in as a vassal, therefore avoiding the problem of declaring war on you as part of the deal. In my game, now sitting in 1700 AD with me just finishing a 300 year war with Hammy and about to revolt into the cottage economy civics which should set rocket boosters under the ass of my economy, I ALMOST got completely screwed by a vassalization deal between Hammy and Sal.

In the mid-1600s, I was a turn away from completing rifling, and therefore turning large numbers of CRIII, C1 maces into rifles. The first 5 Babyonian cites were captured at a great cost of production, troops, and general unhappiness around the empire, but the remaining 5 cites were going to go down fast and easy with my fancy new rifles. At least that's what I was thinking when AP owner Sal issued a resolution to stop the war against Hammy. ARGHHHH! Bastard! The ONLY reason Sal (Hindu) would have done this for Hammy (Jewish) was to then take him on as a vassal. I had no choice but to defy the damn thing and become a hated world villain.

To be fair, this was a very good strategic move by the AI, so I'm a little bit impressed. I did complete the eradication of the Babylonian civilization shortly thereafter, so at least the war weary problem went away.

Monarch/Epic 1050AD - 1700AD "The King's Holy War"

Spoiler :

Pretty much this entire period, I was in HR/Bureaucracy/Serf/Decen/Theocracy. Not so great for the economy, especially since it is mostly cottage driven, but pretty good for the war effort and keeping civil unrest under control.

Filling in the blanks with what I mentioned above, I first went ahead and used elephants, swords and cats to eliminate Stalin. It would have been much better strategy to do this at the start of the game with Impi's than at this point, as now I've got lots of nice cities, but they are being crushed by Arab and (especially) Babylonian culture. For example, St. Petersburgh here, seen shortly after capture, never actually got control of that horse tile until I was able to caputure the Babylonian city several tiles away to its northeast.


After consolidating the troops, and building some nice trebs and maces, I took a picture of the culture situation on the continent in 1410AD.


It was time to do something about that purple problem. Here is a look at the three most likely targets for my intitial offensive:


I went for the one in the middle (above my cows and iron), not because it was a great city, but because I wanted to make my way for the his city with the marble and elephants to relieve the brutal cultural pressure, as well as the very necessary stepping stone to Babylon itself.

THAT city fell easily. The next few were brutal. I had the whole empire set on making units (with the exception of the Russian cities which were still either building culture building or maintenance reducing improvements), and I pretty much needed every unit I made to capture the next 5 cities. He just kept building and building units. The fact that I had a couple of pikes in my stacks kept him from ever attempting a large counter-attack with his knights, so I pretty much had to destroy every single one of his units behind city walls.

As this war dragged on, I found myself lagging behind in techs. I lost liberalism by more than 10 turns, and had very little to offer in trades, even though I had several willing trade partners. Eventually, I researched a tech nobody had, but everybody wanted: Military Tradition.

Seems like not the best idea in normal circumstances to trade away a military tech, given that I should be sure that somebody will trade it right back to Hammy, but he had just lost access to his horses, so I was safe. Military tradition got me 5 valuable techs as I shopped it around the world in a single, profitable turn.

When my cavalry killed off his last longbowman, things were looking really good for Shaka. War was over, and the cities captured are good. During the war, many of the cities had been working cottages, and a great deal of the empire is working mature cottage tiles now. Democracy has just been researched and a great scientist was just born in Ulundi. The GS will be burned for a golden age, and the reign of the king will come to an end. We're going Democracy/US/Emancipation/Free Market/FR, which should put rocket boosters on both research and production.

I'm a few techs behind the world leaders, BUT I am going to research Steam Power next. This will fetch me a great deal on the open market, and I should be right back in line with everybody else, but with far better capacity to surge ahead now. After steam power, it will be steel, and then I'll upgrade 20 trebs into cannons and think about beating up Sal for a while before settling in for the Space Race.

 

[dalamb]

@JTMacc: It's possible your spoilered 3rd scenario is what happened to me in that old game. I'll watch out to try not to duplicate those conditions in this game.

 

[JTMacc99]

@JTMacc: It's possible your spoilered 3rd scenario is what happened to me in that old game. I'll watch out to try not to duplicate those conditions in this game.

Stupid AP. Nobody should ever feel bad about the so-called "cheesy AP victory" given the amount of aggravation it causes in our other games.

 

[Fierabras]

@dalamb

Those glowing stars on that screenshot of yours are very odd!

On vassals:

Spoiler :

In my last Noble Club game with Roosevelt, Izzy became a vassal of India when she was down to 2 cities when I was still at war.

In this game the same was happening when Saladin was down to 2 cities (actually 4, but 2 on the continent of his capital). I tested it and it doesn't seem to matter if you declare peace or not (I tried both ways).

Somehow, I suspect "down to 2 cities on continent with cap" triggers the AI to become a vassal of another AI.

 

[JTMacc99]

In my last game with Roosevelt, Izzy became a vassal of India when she was down to 2 cities when I was still at war.

Did you immediately go into peace with Izzy or into war with India?

 

[huerfanista]

@dalamb:

Spoiler :

I'm fairly happy with my warmongering in this game -- I am still a compulsive builder -- though it was long and tedious. An Impi rush took Moscow and the first Babylonian city while I was building swordsmen. The rest of Babylon was swordsmen versus far too many bowmen, with Impi sometimes finishing off damaged enemy units. He'd kill off too many swordsmen, then build more bowmen as I built more and healed the injured ones. Usually a swordsman could take a bowman at 65-75% odds, but I still lost a bunch: maybe close to the 1/3 you'd expect from those percentages.

It would have been better to take on Hammi after you get construction - you would have many more highly-promoted swords that survive. I would have settled towards him much more aggressively before then. It's also dangerous to leave barb cities "unattended" (i.e., keep a few swords nearby) in key spots - I'm thinking about Gaul here - so the AI can't grab them. That's a key spot that you allowed Saladin to grab. Basically, after grabbing Moscow you should have tried to settle that rich jungle belt to the east to block off the AIs. Unfortunately, by failing to block that section of the map you've allows Saladin to get bigger than he should have been. Aggressive settling towards the AIs is often a key strategic move.

As for the war with Saladin, trebs/maces/ellies should take him out no problem. Favor the formation promo on ellies to counter his camel archers - if he doesn't have them yet, he will soon. Build lots of trebs, promote half of them with accuracy and half pure CR (to knock down his CG2-3 lbows).

I wouldn't worry about Gil or BK being brought in by Sal. The AI is hopeless at galley invasions. Good luck!

 

[Fierabras]

Did you immediately go into peace with Izzy or into war with India?

Izzy became a vassal of Asoka and Asoka refused to talk, so I went into war with India and conquered it with cuirassiers vs longbows. I was going to wage war anyway, but this started it sooner than expected.

 

[dalamb]

@huerfanista:

Spoiler :

I would have settled towards him much more aggressively before then. It's also dangerous to leave barb cities "unattended" (i.e., keep a few swords nearby) in key spots - I'm thinking about Gaul here - so the AI can't grab them.

That's what I did in the previous game, but by building them in Moscow I ruined it as a GP farm. At that point in the current game all 3 of my original cities on my original peninsula were either building war units or the 2 early wonders (GLH, Pyramid). I don't think any of my captured Babylonian cities was up to generating a settler until much later.

I guess I'd have been OK to delay fighting Hammy until Construction/Catapults as you say, so that I could have had my military cities turn to back-filling the territory. I'm still really new to war strategies. I have to fiercely resist the temptation to go back and restart yet again!!

 

[JTMacc99]

Monarch/Epic 1700AD-1941AD Space Victory

Spoiler :

Once Hammurabi was gone, I controlled all but one of Stalin's old cities, all of Hammy's, plus three little ones on that island off the east coast. Sal was still a pretty formidible foe, so I decided to leave him alone. By the time I had infantry and artillery, everybody was signing defensive pacts with everybody else, so I couldn't single out a weakling and pick up any more territory.

The most annoying was Pacal's treaty with Giggles. I could have beat the crap out of him before he knew what hit him.

So, I resigned myself to the space race. Steam power and the Free civics added a great deal of production and commerce to the empire. I also got very fortunate and popped both a great merchant and a great engineer almost exactly when I needed them, and founded Sushi and Mining. I spammed both to every city.

Once the two corporations were running, I had only a couple of issues. I somehow lost the race to build the Hoover Dam to Giggles, which he must have done with an Engineer. The other problem was that HC controlled the United Nations, and I had to defy the environmentalism resolution. That damn unhappiness lasted a long time.

After a while, I had 4 or 5 huge production cities, and had very little problem completing the Internet and the Space Elevator. The former netted me three technologies right off the bat, and then no more as I was way out in front.

HC built all of the media wonders and was shooting for cultural, but hadn't reached a single legendary city at the time of my victory. Around the time of my spaceship launch, I sailed miscellaneous bunch of warships over in his direction, as well as some transports loaded up with 40 modern armors and a few other things like gunships and mech infantry. That fleet just sort of sat outside of his borders in case I needed to destroy a city world famous for it's culture.

Somebody also built the Manhattan project while my spaceship was already on its way. HC proposed the non-proliferation treaty a little later, and it passed.

When the spacehip landed, the fnal score was something in the 32,000 range.

The lesson clearly learned, as if I hadn't learned it already, this game would have been a lot easier if I had killed off Stalin at the start.

 

[huerfanista]

1902 Domination victory, monarch/epic

Spoiler :

Basically, I settled in place and when copper showed up nearby I made the decision to take out Stalin early. Scouting showed he had no copper, so impis and a couple of axes would do the trick. I quickly settled 2 cities - uMgundulovu to grab the copper to the north, with great production in spite of the jungle, and another near the marble for building the oracle. After taking out Stalin I quickly settled another city in the jungle east of Moscow to block out Hammi. His UU precludes an early rush unless you have horses nearby (and especially if you're Egypt ). So my plan was to try to get him to expand westward and compete with Sal for land, and then take him out once I had cats and swords.



Early tech path was something like Mining, BW, archery (popped), AH, myst, med, PH, pottery, writing, IW. I took a barb city with swords on the coast SW of Ulundi - lots of grasslands + rice. I lost the mids late (250BC IIRC) - it was a long shot and the cash was good - and built the oracle to take CoL to cut my explansion costs (Moscow is pretty far away, and I planned to expand soon ). I stole workers from Hammi whenever possible, so he was pretty pissed with me. Once I had cats I built up for war while researching HBR (War ellies!).



I took all of his core cities north and east of Moscow, but he vassaled to Sal with a couple of cities to the west and north of Moscow. He brought BK in, but I ignored him because he could only invade with galleys, and the AI is terrible at that.

I now settled in for righting the economy and teching for maces + trebs, at which point I would take over the continent. Sal was pleased with me, as I had adopted hinduism as soon as it spread to me, so all of my warring with Hammi had no real diplo costs. Once CS and machinery were in, I upgrade my highly promoted swords to maces (typically CR3C1, some CR3C2). I built the HE in uMgundulovu, and it was a great military powerhouse all game. I won lib easily, taking Nat and trading for music with Gil (we were buds for a while ). I then teched mil trad and gunpowder and started building cuirassiers everywhere. I attacked Sal with trebs, maces, and cuirrassiers, and went for Hammi with my leftover cats, WEs, maces, and cuirassiers.



The goal was to get to Mecca for that juicy hindu shrine ASAP. It was actually quite easy, and Sal went down without much of a fight. I got rifling in the middle of the war and upgraded the cuirassiers to cavs to speed things up. At the end, both he and Hammi had a couple of islands somewher, so I vasseled them both. I eventually got Sal up to friendly, but not Hammi.

I was committed to a domination win, so my tech path was for AL, chem, steel, astro (trade), sci meth (trade), steam, constitution (trade), demo (trade), commi, RR, combustion. I built all the financial buildings in my cottage cities and configured my production cities with watermills and workshops. I was able to get the SoL, despite being late to the party. I was first to commi and built the Kremlin, using the GSpy for a GA and massive civics change (FS, rep, SP, theo). I built galleons and frigates in all of my coastal cities, and infantry everywhere else.

First victim was Gil and his vassal BK. I almost blew this one though, through not having a big enough stack to fight off Gil's counterattack, but I was able to get reinforcements there to save the city (Uruk, the Sumerian capital). I got BK down to 1 island city before he vassaled to HC. Gil did the same after I had taken all of the eastern half of his continent. HC already had Hatty and Lincoln as vassals, so he was the obvious next target for the win. I was teching far better than anyone else with all of that land, so I got a decent edge in military - flight was the key, actually. Nobody else had it but me, and it is clearly the best way to wage overseas war now that the Sirian Doctrine was killed by 3.17.

I never realized how powerful Shaka could be in a late war. Infantry can become marines-lite with only 2 promos, so all of my early army promoted amphibious. It makes overseas invasions much easier. I built a big stack of infantry and artillery and took HC's capital, Cuzco, while simultaneously attacking Gil's remaining cities. He broke from HC and I vassaled him right away. I basically turtled in Cuzco and started airlifting tanks 1 at a time (I had just gotten industrialism). I parked a carrier with 3 fighters in the city, and had 4 bombers there as well, so I was able to easily beat off his counterattacks. I had already built all of the electricity and radio wonders, so as soon as Cuzco came out of revolt I used the Cristo Redentor to swap to US to rush buy an airport there. I then airlifted a bunch of tanks and started taking his land. I teched through robotics (building TGD and Internet). Once mechs were in, I upgraded all my infantry and the game was quickly over in 1902. In the late game I was teching at around 2000 with a 150 surplus at 60%, but I spent a lot of time making 1200 and 1200 at 30% to accumulate cash for massive upgrades as soon as new military techs became available. Scored around 66K points.



Key cities just before the win:

Ulundi, the capital


uMgundlovu, military production


Mecca, wall street and hindu holy city


Dur-Kurigalzu, ironworks city


And finally, some graphs:

 

[bramirez]

Noble - Normal Speed - Until 1000BC

Ok, so this is my first public game and I would love if you could give me some advice.

Spoiler :

I am at the moment standing on 1000BC - I have 3 cities build and I think these are the two next steps:
- first conquer the barb town that is around the corner.
- get ready to take down Stalin and build a couple of towns down south. One for the elephants and another one for the iron.

The huts gave me some gold,

Research has been: AH, Mining, myst, Wheel, BW, Masonry, IW, Pottery.

Convert to Buddhism to join Charles who is the weakest at the momment.

I know have a warrior and 3 Imps.

So any pointers?

Here are some pics.

Ulundi in the start:


Ulundi 1000 BC



uMgungundlovu 1000 BC



Nobamba 1000 BC



Tech Tree



General view

 

[huerfanista]

@bramirez

Spoiler :

One of the most important rules I've learned on these forums is to settle towards the AIs to block off land, so I think that after you take Moscow you need to settle a city near the bananas between Moscow and Ulundi - otherwise Hammi will cut off Moscow from the rest of your empire. The more you can block him from settling east, the more he will expand west and keep Saladin from getting too big.

Some other thoughts:

- I don't like Nobamba's location. I understand that you want to grab the horses, but it's a junk city location. Settling 2S would have become a dynamite production city (that would have been even better if you'd settled Ulundi in place). You could have let Ulundi become your GP farm and stolen those hills for Nobamba later. Early on, you need a good military production city, and I don't think you have one here.

-It's getting awfully late to be "rushing" Stalin. I'd have gone for him as soon as the iron was hooked up with impis and maybe a couple of axes.

-Beware of war with Hammi before construction. His UU (bowman) gets a bonus against melee and will be very tough for axes/impis/swords without cats. Construction (with HBR) will also get you war ellies, a very strong unit.

-You may want to try for the oracle to get CoL. Moscow is a long way away, and you need to settle another city to block Hammi. I don't see the barb city you're talking about, but the rice/pigs/dye location to the west of Ulundi is very Juicy. So that's 6 cities you'll be trying to support. Don't plan on getting much research done until currency/CoL. Oracle is easy to chop if you have some forests - but it's getting kind of late. The alternative is to run rep scientists in Ulundi (assuming you get the mids) and beelining CoL. But all of those cities are going to put a strain on research very soon.

- You don't really have a good production city yet. uMgungundlovu will be very slow-going after pop4.

 

[Dresden]

Settings:

• Prince "Light"
• Epic
• Choose Religions and No Tech Brokering (hence the "light" qualifier)
• Unofficial Patch, BUG, Chuggi Terrain, some Blue Marble leftovers

Peaceful midgame (350BC - 1430 AD):

Spoiler :

At the end of my first report I had taken out Stalin & Hammy, built the GLighthouse, and solidified my borders near Saladin. This set was focused on settling out the rest of the continent, building up my empire, exploring the world, teching my way to better military units, and other peaceful pursuits.

With my far-flung empire and without the protection of the Great Wall, there were lots of barbarians around. This gave my impis and axemen plenty of opportunity to practice their skills during the peacetime. Once the barbs started upgrading to axemen, I made sure to train some chariots to add to the patrols as well. As a result, most of my cities had one of each type of unit nearby and my power rating continued to be above my neighbors. There were also a couple of barb cities built on the peninsula SE of Moscow which were eventually assimilated into Zululand once I could afford them.

In 275BC, Islam finally spread to Babylon and I then made a concerted effort to spread it around. Sally would throw an occasional missionary my way so I let him spread to my border cities while I sent the missionaries I build back towards my core and also sent one each to convert Charley and Giggles. I wanted a solid core of friendly neighbors and, eventually, the shrine would be mine anyhow.

Techwise I had started off with the economy going for Currency and CoL. I picked up Mono & Monarchy via trade and then sent research for Math, grabbed Philo (maybe I bulbed it) and then went for the trade-bait techs with Aesthetics & Lit along with Calendar to hook up my jungle resources. After that it was back to econ/infra techs with CS & (bulbed) Paper and some backfill trades for Construction, Theology, and MC. After that I started working towards Optics, picking up Feudalism along the way. The final tech run was towards Communism and lovely State Property. I started off with Ed and PP, picked up Engineering & Banking in trades, then grabbed Econ to steal the GM followed by Astro, SM, and Liberalism to get Communism as the freebie. That was followed up with Gunpowder because once I had State Property the war machine was getting cranked up again.

In terms of diplomacy, all my Muslim brothers were Friendly or high Pleased with me the whole time. I met HC in 685 as he was the first to Optics and had begun exploring. Border expansion of one of my coastal cities got me close enough to meet Pacal in 890 and Egypt was eventually met after I finally got Optics of my own in 1010. The Islander wasn't met until I started scouting out with my own Caravels in 1120.

I was worried that HC had Circumnavigation wrapped up since he had Optics so soon before everyone else and I just really like that +1 movement so I made a bold move. Since he trades maps at Pleased, I sold him CoL for 80 gold which gave me the +4 trade bonus and bumped him up to pleased. I then swapped maps giving both of us enough for circumnavigation. But since I was on Team #1, the tiebreaker goes to me and next turn I was awarded the bonus. And when I got the maps, boy was I shocked. HC was the AI tech leader (and about even with me as we had gone different paths) with only 3 cities -- 3 cities with a total of 5 cottages (actual cottages) between them. He had been wonder-spamming though so probably had some bulbed techs and settled specialists and he also had the Colossus to magnify his financial trait; but it's still impressive to see when a 3-city nation can out-tech one 4 times as big thanks to low maintenance and solid infrastructure. Here are the maps at the time of circumnavigation and what I could see of the Incas at that time:



Of the three Eastern nations, it was easy to choose sides. Pacal was isolated in his Buddhism (although he did build the AP) while the two Jewish nations were the much larger Hatty and the more advanced HC. So I did all my trading with the latter two and even agreed to a "fake" war when Hatty attacked Pacal and asked for my help. And I just completely dismissed the Islander. So I had solid Pleased, nearly friendly allies in Hatty & HC and enemies or near-enemies in the Islander and Pacal. By the end of the set HC had decided to become Hatty's vassal too.

As I alluded to earlier, while the set was spent expanding, teching, and building up infrastructure, the overall goal was preparation for war. Sally was still on my continent and he needed to go away. I had built up a decent Renaissance war machine and was moving towards rifles and after I had gotten Communism and started a GA with the free spy (for no-anarchy SP and increased production) I was ready to go after him. Stacks were small (half-dozen siege, half-dozen maces, along with pairs of knights and 'phants plus pikes and impis in support but I had a power advantage, reserves were coming, his border cities were pretty lightly defended, and the bloodlust was rising again. So the next set will begin with the next step towards Zulu conquest of the Earth.

Maps, demographics, etc. and my 4 top cities:

 

[assass1n]

who will be the next leader ?
when will the next game be up ?

 

[Snowstorm]

Going to give this a go as my first game on noble, so not expected anything amazing Will play on normal speed, no specific options set. Normally play as Oranje, so somebody different will be fun!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

who will be the next leader ?
when will the next game be up ?

See the bullpen.

Basically, Tokugawa is leading at the moment, but feel free to vote on someone!

Map will be out by Friday at the latest, possibly Thursday after my last final but we'll see.

I apologize not playing this one ----> my playtesting made me put it off so I'd "forget" some things but then lots of other distractions popped up. I'll play the next one/not mod the map as much .

 

[Dresden]

Settings:

• Prince "Light"
• Epic
• Choose Religions and No Tech Brokering (hence the "light" qualifier)
• Unofficial Patch, BUG, Chuggi Terrain, some Blue Marble leftovers

Conquest! (well, sorta) 1430 AD - 1778 AD:

Spoiler :

First there was the early rush of Stalin & Hammy. Then there was a time of peace. And now there is either conquest or defeat.

At the end of the last set I had just teched Gunpowder and used a GA to revolt into State Property. It was time to unify the continent under the rule of Noble Shaka. War was declared on Saladin and I attacked on two fronts. One stack went from Moscow toward his Southern cities while a second stack went after Basra and towards his core. Although I didn't need any help, I decided to bribe Hatty (and her vassal HC) in as well just to make sure Sally didn't pull any shenanigans and get them on his side. Giggles and Charley were both Friendly so I didn't expect any trouble there and I had pretty much written off both Pacal and the Islander. Since Pacal hadn't yet met Sally and the Islander hadn't teched Astronomy the danger of them being bribed in was pretty small anyhow.

The Arab war was long and bloody. My main problem was not bringing enough siege, forgetting about the horrible bombardment damage pre-gunpowder units do against fortifications. The first two cities fell easily, but when I went up against Damascus I found 100% cultural defense plus the cheap protective walls & castle. So with bombardment only dropping defenses by 4% per shot I wound up taking the AI approach and fortifying my troops while the siege spent several turns doing nothing but bombarding. Lucky for me, Sally pretty well just stood there and took it. He had almost no siege of his own and never even tried attacking the stack. His only real counter-attack during the early part of the war was pillaging some farms with his spies. So while the assault was painfully slow, the only losses were from the wave of trebs which softened him up after the cultural defenses finally came down. After that I decided to merge the stacks when taking on Mecca so that sped things up a little. Sally did manage to bribe Giggles to DoW on Hatty/HC but with HC the only one of the three who knew Astronomy (and actually Optics too) it was pretty pointless. It took 150 years, but in 1585 Sally was finally dead and it was time to plan the conquest of the rest of the world.

At this point, I had decided I really wanted a conquest win. So the goal was fast capitulation with minimal territory kept. During the war with Sally, I had built up a small force of Galleons and Frigate escorts, gathering them on the East coast to go after Pacal. By that time the cats/trebs had all become cannons and the CR3 mace/pike had become rifles. And with the massive power advantage it was pure blitzkrieg. I declared on Pacal in 1645, dropping a stack of 16 cannons, 4 rifle, 6 maces, 2 pike, 2 impi (one a superhealer), 2 knights & an elephant next to Mutal, which was defended by 3LBs, a mace, and a pike. Needless to say it fell in 1650 and Pacal might have capped then. However, Lakamha had the AP and I didn't need it interfering in my plans so with a couple units staying behind (and more coming once the galleons went back for a second trip) the stack moved on Lakamha and razed it to the ground. Six turns after war was declared, Pacal capitulated. Since Mutal was actually pretty close to my territory and contained several wonders plus the buddhist shrine I actally kept it too.

With spirits high from the lightning-quick victory, we readied for the assault on Hatty & HC. And wow was that no contest. I landed small stacks (9 cannons, 2 rifle defenders, a half-dozen rifle/melee city raiders and a healer) next to two of her coastal cities (Hieraconpolis and Abydos) and declared in 1700. Her cities were better defended than Pacal's but no match for my troops. In 1702 both cities fell without a casualty and Hatty immediately was willing to cap. Even better, with a power rating 1/5 of mine HC agreed to cap as well without a single battle between us. Since the Egyptian cities weren't anything special and I wanted to stay away from Domination, I gave them back the next turn which helped keep Hatty Pleased with me despite the recent war.

Next came the Islander and it was more of the same. It took a couple of turns to get the Galleons into position and ferry the troops over from Hatty's Southern cities. Once again, 2 cities fell on the first turn (Carthage & Utica), the Islander was immediately willing to cap, and I gave the cities right back a turn or two later. The only civs left to conquer were Giggles and Charley but I was now dangerously close to domination, especially after Hatty took out some barb cities on the island to her SW. She actually tried to give one of them to me but I chose to raze it instead.

By the time I ferried all my troops from Carthage back home I had acquired Military Tradition and Artillery so I spent a couple turns at 100% Wealth and upgraded everybody. I was going to have no trouble rolling over Charley, but being around 10 tiles from the domination limit, I decided I'd have to raze his 3 coastal cities, then capture the last one to eliminate him and then move on Giggles very quickly. Sadly, Charley was in Emancipation when the war started so he spawned musket partisans after each razing, slowing things down a little. But still, his muskets, cuirassiers & assorted renaissance nonsense were no match for the Artillery/Rifle/Cavalry blitz and he was dead in 1764. That left only Giggles.

To avoid domination, I needed to get rid of Charley's last city but I also chose not to raze it when I took it so that I had a place to quickly heal up and, more importantly, upgrade my Rifles to Infantry before the final offensive. So once everybody was ready, I moved my stack out of the city and simply gave it to Giggles. Then, next turn I declared on him, took it back, and burned it to the ground. I then moved my now-massive stack on Kish. And we had a glorious battle to end the game. I brought 24 artillery, 32 Infantry, 16 Cavalry, and my 3 supermedic impi. Giggles initially only had a handful of units there, but after the declaration he brought everything he had nearby for a desperate last stand so when the actual fighting began Kish was defended by 7 siege units, 6 knights, 3 'phants, 2 maces, an xbow, 2 pikes, and 4 LBs. Okay, so he still had no chance but at least he tried to put up a fight. The battle went predictably:

Spoiler :

While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Artillery (15.48/18) decimates Sumerian Longbowman (0.90/6) and withdraws (Prob Victory: 98.5%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Artillery (18.00/18) decimates Sumerian Longbowman (0.90/6) and withdraws (Prob Victory: 98.5%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Artillery (15.66/18) decimates Sumerian Longbowman (0.90/6) and withdraws (Prob Victory: 99.8%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Artillery (15.84/18) decimates Sumerian Longbowman (0.90/6) and withdraws (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Artillery (18.00/18) decimates Sumerian Knight (1.50/10) and withdraws (Prob Victory: 99.9%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Artillery (18.00/18) decimates Sumerian Knight (1.50/10) and withdraws (Prob Victory: 99.9%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Artillery (15.66/18) decimates Sumerian War Elephant (1.20/8) and withdraws (Prob Victory: 99.9%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Artillery (18.00/18) decimates Sumerian Knight (1.50/10) and withdraws (Prob Victory: 99.9%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Artillery (13.32/18) decimates Sumerian War Elephant (1.20/8) and withdraws (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Artillery (18.00/18) decimates Sumerian Knight (1.50/10) and withdraws (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Artillery (18.00/18) decimates Sumerian War Elephant (1.20/8) and withdraws (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Artillery (13.32/18) decimates Sumerian Knight (1.50/10) and withdraws (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Artillery (16.56/18) decimates Sumerian Catapult (0.75/5) and withdraws (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Artillery (18.00/18) decimates Sumerian Catapult (0.75/5) and withdraws (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Artillery (18.00/18) decimates Sumerian Knight (1.50/10) and withdraws (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Artillery (18.00/18) decimates Sumerian Trebuchet (0.60/4) and withdraws (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Artillery (18.00/18) decimates Sumerian Trebuchet (0.60/4) and withdraws (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Artillery (18.00/18) decimates Sumerian Trebuchet (0.60/4) and withdraws (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Artillery (18.00/18) decimates Sumerian Trebuchet (0.60/4) and withdraws (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Infantry (20.00/20) defeats Sumerian Trebuchet (Prob Victory: 99.9%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Infantry (20.00/20) defeats Sumerian Crossbowman (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Infantry (20.00/20) defeats Sumerian Longbowman (Prob Victory: 99.9%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Infantry (20.00/20) defeats Sumerian Longbowman (Prob Victory: 99.9%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Infantry (20.00/20) defeats Sumerian Maceman (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Infantry (18.00/20) defeats Sumerian Pikeman (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Infantry (20.00/20) defeats Sumerian Maceman (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Infantry (20.00/20) defeats Sumerian Pikeman (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Infantry (20.00/20) defeats Sumerian Swordsman (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Infantry (20.00/20) defeats Sumerian Longbowman (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Infantry (20.00/20) defeats Sumerian Longbowman (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Infantry (20.00/20) defeats Sumerian Knight (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Infantry (20.00/20) defeats Sumerian Knight (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Infantry (20.00/20) defeats Sumerian Knight (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Infantry (20.00/20) defeats Sumerian Knight (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Infantry (20.00/20) defeats Sumerian Knight (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Infantry (20.00/20) defeats Sumerian Knight (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Infantry (20.00/20) defeats Sumerian War Elephant (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Infantry (20.00/20) defeats Sumerian War Elephant (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Infantry (20.00/20) defeats Sumerian War Elephant (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Infantry (20.00/20) defeats Sumerian Chariot (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Infantry (20.00/20) defeats Sumerian Catapult (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Infantry (20.00/20) defeats Sumerian Catapult (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Infantry (20.00/20) defeats Sumerian Trebuchet (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Infantry (20.00/20) defeats Sumerian Trebuchet (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Infantry (20.00/20) defeats Sumerian Trebuchet (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
While attacking in Sumerian territory at Kish, Cavalry (15.00/15) defeats Sumerian Trebuchet (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
Captured Kish (Gilgamesh)
Razed Kish

With his massive force squashed like ants, Giggles is immediately willing to capitulate and Shaka has taken over the world! All we need to do is hit "End Turn" and bask in glorious conquest victory....



WHAT!? I did all that careful planning to avoid domination until after everybody was destroyed or vassaled and the damned domination victory triggers anyhow? That, is simply unacceptable. So what did I do? I quit the game, edited the XML files to make domination require a 70-some % minimum land amount, and reloaded. Yeah, I'm that petty.



Ahhhhh. Much better.

Some final screens: