[Pangaea] Willem van Orange - Strong Land vs Pyramids

[Doshin]

And congrats to you on the win, PeePee

FYI, I also ignored the Mids completely. There are four or five excellent city sites that help block off a further chunk of good land. Wheat/pigs and the double clam spots can seal off the West, Gold/Cow and Rice/Cow secures the East. Claiming these should be the number one priority. With so many good river sites and a Financial leader, the economy can take care of itself.

 

[ben-jammin]

I crushed izzy ruthlessly with cats/elephants and then trebs, taking the buddhist shrine, AP, 5 or 6 other wonders, the christian shrine (worthless) and the jewish holy city (which if I get a GProphet, which is likely, should give me close to +30 for the shrine). But it took a long time and while I was doing it Sury got waaay out of control, and hannibal despite his small empire had cannons before me to go along with his cuirs. One AI is almost at rifling. I don't really know what to do, on Deity this part of the game is really my weakest. Upgrade all trebs to cannons and try to take out another civ or two? Even if that works, how do I deal with a huge Khmer empire that will be way more advanced?

 

[Doshin]

@ben-jammin

Could you post a save or some current screens?

My own attempt:

Spoiler :

Fairly straight-forward play with a strong leader, but this was my first non-AW game for a month or so. Deity is quick.

Early focus was on expansion:

Ragnar went around my second city's culture to found Birka. It never amounted to much and I could eventually work the Pigs.

The religions fell nicely. Everyone entered Buddhism apart from Sitting Bull, who founded Hinduism, and Darius, whom Sitting Bull managed to convert. Ragnar then proceeded to attack SB, of course, but this led nowhere fast and he ended up peace vassaling to Izzy (who took a city from SB before I bribed her off).

Darius was gunning for Lib like a mo' fo', so I could only take Nationalism. I traded for horses in 820 AD and declared the next turn.

Clean sweep eastward. I chose not to vassal Darius, so as not to lose diplo points with the Buddhist bloc.

After Darius, I declared war against a rather weak Sitting Bull.

I took one city and was about to go to the next and take the MoM, but Izzy then pulled the nonsense DOW I posted earlier. I lost my Moai/HE city, but, as great as they are, Conquistadors and Cannons can't beat Cavalry in the open field:

After Izzy, it was a toss-up as to whether I would attack Hannibal or Sury. Neither had Rifling, Sury was larger, but Hannibal had Machine Guns. So I declared war on Sury so that I could prolong the Cavalry charge.

I took one city and was a little bemused by the lack of resistance. Then this stack showed up:

Fun times. Anyway, my (now) heavily-promoted Cavalry tore them a new one. The stack was gone within two turns. After that, I took three more cities, capped Sury, turned up the culture slider and, after ten turns, won Domination.

 

[Izuul]

Well that was annoying. I was at war with both Izzy and Ragnar (Rags peace vassaled a few turns before i was ready to attack Izzy) and neither of them would capitulate to me because they both kept taking turns saying "We are afraid of your enemies." I ended up making peace with Izzy for a tech and capitulating Ragnar, but now i have to wait 10 turns to finish the other job.

Is there a good way to get around this?

 

[ben-jammin]

Doshin: here's the save after finishing with Izzy (1240AD), seems that the idea was solid but should have been prioritized instead of being an afterthought (I was not at all planning on going to war with isabella with medieval units, the opportunity was there much earler). It should have snowballed into a second AI being taken out with trebs but was too late. I think this is still a winning position for a better player like yourself, but not sure. If the next GP from madrid or whatever it is (maybe barcelona? I forget) is a GProphet, which is likely, then the Temple of Solomon would bring in quite a lot of gold.

That plus upgrading trebs to cannons and taking out someone else was my best idea. Unfortunately the diplo situation is not great, and a war dec from any of the AIs would be impossible to recover from IMO.

 

[Izuul]

1625AD Conquest

Spoiler :

SOD marching on Carthage

Hannibal caves and ends the game

 

[Doshin]

@ben-jammin

I think you're in a stronger position than you realize. Your Treb ---> Cannon plan is the way to go, and then you ideally want to support these with Cuirassiers, Grenadiers, or Rifles.

The diplo situation looks fine to me, because everyone is at war with Sitting Bull.

I would:

• Give Cordoba back to Izzy, so that she can reach Military Tradition a little quicker.
  
• Start a Golden Age the turn Madrid goes out of Anarchy (use your GE).
  
• Make sure that when Izzy reaches Military Tradition, your Trebs are upgraded and that you have enough money stockpiled to upgrade at least half of your Elephants. Keep some Elephants (esp. any with Formation) as stack defense.
  
• Attack Hannibal, while teching to Rifling.

Forget about the Temple of Solomon for now: it's a distraction. At this point in the game, a GProphet will offer more if used for a Golden Age.

On the turn SB capitulates, beg one gold from Sury and one gold from Ragnar. This will give you enough time to take out Hannibal.

Also, build a Bank and Grocery (or Market, you're missing one of the two) in the Buddhist shrine city.

 

[Revent]

Fun game. Expanded to 8 cities without war. Generated 2 low odd GE on my way to MT and got the Taj for free basically. I managed to get Lib without a single bulb

Declared on the persians who were backwards and had GLH. They're almost finished now, going to declare on Izzy and Rifling is up in 5 turns and I have 1200 gold in the bank. Mass upgrade. Going to use a GE lying around now to get up a golden age, fish out a GM, trade mission (galley already waiting) and upgrade everything to Cavalry and kill Izzy/cap her.

AP caused war on SB whilst I was warring against the persians. Luckily, I had 3 cuirs en route to a persian city so managed to take out the closest city belonging to SB before he capped to Ragnar.


SS and save once I finish.

 

[ben-jammin]

Hey Doshin, thanks for taking a look. I figured the diplo situation is poor because SB will capitulate soon, and then I'm likely to be everyone's next target. I thought the small period of safety I can enjoy would not be enough. Also surprised you suggest Hannibal as the next target. Could you explain your reasoning?

 

[Doshin]

Sure. He's small but a good techer. Your stack is already next to his territory. The war will be easy: he can only attack one of two cities, so you know where to expect his troops. And after he's capitulated, you can have him tech Rifling for you.

I just had a quick play through, to check that I'm not spouting nonsense...

Spoiler :

No cities needed.

The Khmer are plotting on Darius. They started plotting on you at some stage, but a gold beg put a stop to that. It will take Hannibal ~8 turns to reach Rifling, which will be the aproximate length of time needed to move your stack to Persia. I'd tech Astronomy and trade for RP in this period. Then tech Democracy or Lib and trade for Rifling. Upgrade your troops, and either join in with the Khmer or smash their stack just after they capture a Persian city.

Also, this was far from optimal play on my part (no micro-management, no whipping, I forgot to switch into Theocracy during the GA ).

Save attached, if you're interested,

 

[Revent]

1500 AD:

Spoiler :

Look at all those settled GG's! 13 XP units out the bag in multiple cities!

 

[pepe26]

-100 gold at 80% gold slider is a bummer tho ^^

 

[Izuul]

Time to whip some courthouses in those conquered cities that you kept.

 

[Revent]

Yeah, but the economy will recover I guess. I'm aiming for a domination anyway.

Killed off Ragnar, SB and Darius. Don't think I can kill Izzy right now so contemplating what to do. Will post a save if I'm truly stuck.

 

[ben-jammin]

Thanks again, Doshin. I think that having Sitting Bull on this map really makes the whole game easier. Everyone's favourite punching bag, keeps the AIs busy, actually defends competently, and gives plenty of opportunity for "our mutual military struggle..." diplo bonus via phony war.

Did you upgrade to cannons and declare right away? I guess I should be able to tell from your save.

I really thought I was in a bad situation, I sputter towards the end on deity if it's not a straightforward cuirs->rifling endgame. This map could probably be beaten early if you take out isabella (once she builds you a shrine+wonders) with a more focused elepult war.

 

[ben-jammin]

-100 gold at 80% gold slider is a bummer tho ^^

With 24 cities and all of Darius' towns, I think he'll be okay

 

[Revent]

Okay, it's 1525. I'm actually completely stuck as to what to do. I tried playing various ways out of this and no matter what I do, I'm stuck

The only solution I see is to kill Izzy now. Her culture is REALLY bugging me and she's running away. However, I'm having A LOT of trouble with that She gets rifling in a couple of turns as well which is a bummer

I mean the game SHOULD be ''won'' with all that land I have, but I'm struggling to see what to do with it.

Edit: Oh and lesson learnt: Cavalry sucks against Rifles

 

[Izuul]

With 24 cities and the ability to build cannons, rifles, and cavs, you should be able to do this without too much trouble.

I can't open your save file at work, so i'm unable to give you any detailed suggestions right now, but i think i would take all cities that are capable of producing 10xp+ units and set them to continuously build CR III cannons. Your other cities can build a good mix of rifles, cavs, and more cannons. Once you get a big enough stack of those you can probably roll the rest of the map. Just make sure you keep up with the cannon production. If they are doing their job correctly, you will lose very few rifles and cavs, but you will need to constantly replace the cannons.

 

[shakabrade]

@Revent

You really shouldn't have any trouble dealing with Izzy. You do have cannons. Declare war, let Izzy take one city with her SoD, throw some CR cannons on that city, annihilate the stack. Rest is quite easy.

 

[Revent]

That's actually quite clever!! I guess I'm just being daft and trying to attack without preparing.

At the moment, a lot of my border cities actually have no defence so it's hard to say what she's going to be going for. In one turn, she actually took 3 cities from me because I was being so careless

So definitely need more cannons, some rifles won't hurt and I need some co-ordination