palmerd2 VEM166 Germany playthrough and feedback

[palmerd2]

Hello, VEM Community! I hated Vanilla Civ 5 and have been all over this mod since I heard about it a few weeks ago. I have been running a few random games on Prince difficulty; I played Vanilla on King and you are supposed to "step down" to play the mod [-: I rolled a random Continents Plus today and got Germany; whom I have never played with before in VEM. So without further adieu, I will be providing feedback on how the massive army I plan to build works and how I feel about how the mod plays!

Screenie below of the start location; playing with VEM166 and CivWillard.

Spoiler :

Prince, Standard, Continents Plus, regular sea level, rainfall, resources, etc. 16 City-States.

Cheers, David

 

[glider1]

Wow a VEM player still. That's nice to see that Thal's efforts are still being enjoyed, since he put so much work into wrapping and finalizing VEM before moving onto the GEM mod for G&K.

Cheers

 

[palmerd2]

Thank you :-D

Gods and Kings disappointed a lot of people... I'm not going to spend $30 on the expansion when I got Vanilla+all expansions for $15.99 on Steam sale.


On the game above...
Started off on the right foot with lots of Barb encampments to keep me busy. In addition to the regular Gold received for capturing the tile, I also received an additional 125G, a Brute, 3 Archers, and a Worker for Bismarck's special trait. I relatively quickly got four cities: Berlin at size 8, Hamburg/6, Munich/4, and Cologne/2. I restricted growth here until I got Printing Press so I could afford to expand again.

Culturally, I took Honor first to get the Barb XP bonus and the Citadel for a very early production and science bonus. I then went Tradtion to get growth, free garrisons, and Science/Happiness, and then Liberty for the free Settler, Worker, and Production bonus for Walls. My culture is super low, however, so I'm not expecting new policies very often throughout the rest of my game.

My military, after clearing those encampments, headed throughout the continents so I could get an idea of who to attack once I got Landsnechks. I briefly went to war with Suli and Bluetooth for XP and to forge alliances with Greece and Suli, respectively. Me and Suli are now great friends, since he conveniently asked my to attack Nebi right when I was about to get my UU. Nebi is right next door

I took Babylon right when I got Theater's up so I was able to avoid being livid for an extended time. With the new resources, a great person mission and subsequent trades with Suli/CS allies, I was able to get Berlin to size 12, Munich/Hamburg to 8, Calogne to 5, and founded Frankfurt. My next steps are going to be to finish Nebi off, upgrade for the Industrial, and then likely fight Denmark or Greece. I will rotate my units; garrisoning them instead of upgrading for more even XP across the army. Berlin has an Armory and Heroic Epic so most units will only be one promotion less than my current army.

Spoiler :

As you can see a huge army is not necessary - a diverse army of ranged, siege, and melee units does the trick very nicely. I may duplicate this setup once i hit industrial, sending one brigade to Denmark and the other to Greece.

Spoiler :

My science was lagging behind due to getting Libraries and then going bottom tree and then Currency. However, my science really took off once I took Babylon; there were three wonders and Babylon was almost exclusively scientific. I annexed the city and have been using it as a place where I can quickly purchase units to continue the offensive.

Spoiler :

So far the mod has been awesome on this map with Germany, and I'm really excited to get into the modern era and start rolling Panzers so I can play Germany's war music at ear-crushingly high volume... Achtung Blitzkreig!

 

[Camikaze]

Moderator Action: Moved to Strategy forum.

 

[palmerd2]

I finally reached the Industrial Era on Turn 276 - here are some screenshots of how the mod has played so far.

1. Starting location showing various coastal/island cities.

Spoiler :

2. The army after puppeting one of Nebi's last remaining cities.

Spoiler :

I am going to start by researching Dynamite for the range bonus since I already am using three cannon. I will then need to get Stadiums up before I can take the final city as it is size 32 and I already had to struggle to annex the 27 I took just to get happiness above -10. However, the cities are a nice boost to my score and I've picked up five wonders so far and am looking forward to what is in that last city.

Culture has been focused on Happiness - I picked up Nationalism then went Meritocracy for the happiness with trade route and 5% reduction. I will be getting the -0.5 per Specialist next. then the 100% Courthouse and 3 unhappiness reduction for annexed cities.

After finishing Nebi off, I need to focus on Persia overseas since they and Suli have the highest scores. It is going to be interesting going into the endgame to see where what kind of victory the AI will attempt and whether or not I will be able to stop it.