Pericles Deity Fractal NHNE Low sea

[Fish Man]

Double-post: some progress pics and save.

Spoiler :

4 cities before t55, 3 of them right in the middle of the jungle! You don't see that every day. Also, what's an economy, never heard of it. Luckily, I got to writing without completely crashing.

Super late attack, but denying Saladin phants and getting early cities was well worth it.

The most satisfying sound in the world: stack attack -> winning a dozen elephant fights back-to-back after using my cats. Turned Saladin into Salad Dinner for my jumbos .

This commando spot on an island behind enemy lines got me some sweet intercontinental trade routes, and was yet another excellent place to whip from (or run scientists). Also, hill pro longbows are just...yuck. I don't have much of an army left. Will probably wait for cuirs after this; if that pans out well, the game will be effectively won. Meanwhile, Mecca is generating about as many beakers as my capital now. Should I move the palace?

 

[krikav]

@Fish Man

Spoiler :

Haha, I was equally lured into this by "relative ease", wanted a break from the struggling.
"Super late attack", Hey! You beat me by a couple of turns.
I have come to think that 5-10 turns here and there doesn't really matter that much, much more important to have enough units for the task.

My game, to T150

Spoiler :

My fears where exaggerated, I wasn't alone in the fight against Wang, Saladin was also on my side. And Charly does not have OB with Wang, so everything is completely safe. Just continuing to roll over Mao, paying 4-6 catapults per city.

Techpace is rather quick, I agree. Cool move by WvO, libbing divine right and then rushing spiral minaret. It seems he think that wonder was crucial and wanted to take absolutely no chances missing out!
Tried to go compass but just one turn into it almost all AIs also have it.
Went on to self-tech feud, because I really really need to get into vassalage and buddy up with Charly if I want to have any chance of surviving.
Vass+OR after that was in, need to get up infrastructure. I'm going to steel and without trades it will be a long way!

Mao on his last leg. I contemplated backstabbing Saladin when he had his injured stack in Shanghai abit north on this screenshot, but I had too many ill defended bordercities to pull of that stunt. I promote a pair of elefants with flank here to gain immunity to first strikes, that makes sure I don't lose an insane ammount of units without giving the longbow a scratch. <3 those workers.

I paid up this, I thought I could get some trade for Theology, but he continued to be angry at me even after war. He cared more about religion than I remember.

I got a pile of cash a few turns later though!

Charly/WvO and Wang has taken off completely.
Plan to bulb Philo and get a (singularis) trade from Saladin. And then it's either off to an astro-bulb just to get a parting gift from the monsters on their path to future tech 123, or just self-teching engineering, guilds and gunpowder, double-bulb chemistry and tech steel.
Have to consult the bulb-preferences, not sure if it's possible to bulb MilSci as I have gotten theology (paper over MilSci I think).
But I probably have to go for grenadiers too if there is no sudden turn of events in techpace and trade opportunities.

Cannons+Grenadiers and kick Saladin of the mainland, keep him as a small vassal to backfill some tech, then either go for nukes or try some diplo-route?

 

[krikav]

@Fish Man

Spoiler :

Could be worth it to move palace, I plan that too. I imagine that Athens should get national epic and be relieved from capital duties, but I have not decided a good location in my game yet.

Mao was teching kind of slow in my game too, but I'm not sold on the idea with cuirs.
I plan for cannons, as even after Saladin is down in my game, the cannons has utlity.
But if you get Mao down with cuirs, is there much use for them after that...?

 

[Fish Man]

@Fish Man

Spoiler :

Could be worth it to move palace, I plan that too. I imagine that Athens should get national epic and be relieved from capital duties, but I have not decided a good location in my game yet.

Mao was teching kind of slow in my game too, but I'm not sold on the idea with cuirs.
I plan for cannons, as even after Saladin is down in my game, the cannons has utlity.
But if you get Mao down with cuirs, is there much use for them after that...?

Spoiler :

At this point I have more than enough production to roll over any AI that does not get rifling. It might not look like it but I'm less than 4 techs from cuirs: music/lit I can get from Sally no problem, and I'm halfway done with guilds, so that leaves just gunpowder, nationalism, and MT. Then when I start a golden age or two I can get out some great merchants to mass upgrade my phants, as well as tech even faster. If I can get even just 2 of the remaining civs with cuirs then the game should be won.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler [USER=178113]@Fish Man[/USER] :

Oh, I didn't realize your techsituation was in such a good shape. Well then it's less of a problem!
Good to give the phants a glorious future too.

I did remember one detail that also adds a silver lining on the game too. There is still one AI unknown.
With some luck, it's a backwards AI on an own continent that could be a potential target!

 

[Anysense]

Well, I take that back, quick, quick ! Hide it somewhere under the desk, so nobody's gonna read it !

^ Yes, that seems to work well enough. I notice your Alphabet timing, especially. It's so much better than mine.
Delaying settlers paid off. Also my detours through The Wheel and then Sailing didn't.
It's not like my cities 2 & 3 were good. You avoided unhealth like a pro.

No, no, no, you were quite right - this isn't going to be easy, not easy at all. I thought I would play a bit more and look how the first war will go and...

Spoiler :

Right on the next turn Charlie turns up with a bunch of CR swords, I have one WE and one warrior to fend them off. There is nothing small enough to beg, the greedy git won't even give me a pig. This is a bit odd, he is not supposed to plot at pleased. Must have started a long time ago.

 

[Anysense]

@Anysense

Spoiler :

It looked like your construction attack was way more streamlined, could you get an earlier attackdate and get an edge that way?

Spoiler :

I think that the only way improve significantly is to gamble on Saladin trading ivory, thus you don't have to settle that crappy city in the middle of the jungles. Strong second city would make huge difference in both research and production.

 

[krikav]

@Anysense

Spoiler :

Crap luck with Charly losing his mind like that. Nothing one can do but to die in honor basically. Quite a considerable stack too!

I had a similar experience earlier in my game:
Mao had been plotting for a while, I couldn't scout any stack, then I stumbled on this and thought it was game over.

Next turn, they start to roll against Saladin! <3

 

[krikav]

@BornInCantaloup

Spoiler :

I could have left him in one city, hoping for him to break free and waiting untill Saladin came closer. But I wanted to get it overwith, get rid of motherland anger, start to distribute units for military police and change course for economic buildup. The 5 workers was a nice price too.

My plan is to go for Saladin with cannons, don't know much beyond that. But if I can get Saladins land and his wonders (Hindu shrine, pyramids) it must be possible to do something against Monster charly with his 20 cities, some of which have 20 in population....
The likely isoloated AI is also intriguing. Charly just got cirumnavigation so when I can afford his map I'll know more.

Both WvO and Saladin are at war against Wang, I got pleased with charly after an AP vote and I was quick to beg from him. Dropped down to cautious again but soon vassalage will get me up to pleased again.
Diplo should be rock solid after that. At least something is going nicely.

 

[Fish Man]

t188 update

Spoiler :

The 15-city monster Charly is capped! He didn't go down without a hard fight, but in the end a combination of tactics and extremely good fortune gave the day to me.

Spoiler :

Despite being able to for about two dozen turns now, he didn't go rifling. The second I saw rifles I would've had to call off the attack, but instead he went for...grenadiers? Which were still super nasty, but not the showstopper that rifles were by any stretch. Anyways, he didn't actually reach military science until I took his capital and like 5 other cities, effectively crippling him.

How I won the war was set of bizarre circumstances which happened to align in my favor. You see, a couple thousand years ago my vassal Saladin captured a barb city in the middle of nowhere. This was a pretty sweet spot, but more importantly, when the war against Charlie came, it was a stack magnet for any attack that might otherwise be headed my way. Sure enough, when I declared, his 30-strong attack stack was lured into Arabian territory where I could take it apart with my cuirs, not losing a single unit. So his offense was successfully dealt with. Oh, and Mao was declared ON by Charlie several turns back but he used the AP to stop that.

I attacked with a stack of about 20 and entered his territory from the northwest with it, but my reinforcements didn't follow the original stack. Instead, they camped near the hilltop city of Florence, forming a secondary attack squad while my original set of units pushed deep into Holy Roman territory, straight south to Aachen. As I expected, this confused him to the point where he shuffled longbows back and forth, making them easy targets - and more importantly, as he concentrated his forces at Florence, he left his capital and core almost wide open. I gobbled up his innards with the now-veteran stack of march cuirs (some of the upgraded elephants from the last war), crippling his unit production capability. From then on it was whip, whip, whip until even my secondary stack had enough units to take on the hilltop city while my veterans sacked the internal HRE harder than Kublai sacked China. After 1 more city capture (Ulm), he capped. Having to move through Mao's territory delayed reinforcements, and pro hilltop grenadiers were disgusting to fight, but in the end it all worked out. Again, it was a downright miracle he didn't get rifling, considering military is Charlie's strongest tech preference! Then again, MS is probably the most military-themed tech you could ask for in this game. It even has "military" in the name...wouldn't put it past the AI to have been confused by that .

Now I can turn my attention to Mao, who doesn't even have gunpowder yet...easy pickings. From then on I should have about 30 cities and easily be able to win any way I want. Oh, and Sitting Bull has been isolated this whole time...one more easy target to pick off if I want.

I thought Mecca was a good cottage capital but it seems my standards were too low:

Spoiler :

Almost every tile in the BFC is a flood plain!

I should have no problems whatsoever researching whatever I want after these former HRE cities come online. Maybe I should do a vote...how do you all want me to finish this? Say, it's been a while since y'all have seen a communist-style space game, eh?

 

[krikav]

@Fish Man

Spoiler :

Oh! You went for Charly first, that might be smart. He was to tough for me to have any chance at in my game.
(He already had MoM) This boost resulted in him building some wonders at what I consider rather impressive dates.

T200 Pentagon after a quick detour to electicity to secure some kick-ass musicals first? Why not!

I too managed to dig myself out of the hole I was stuck in, and I'm now in the process of taking all of Saladins stuff.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler About T150 to about T200 :

Here I have bulbed philosophy.

Had put into a few turns into enginering.
I wasn't really all to eager for bulbing philosophy, but it's in the way for the later chemistry bulb so I had to.

Bought Charlys map for 35g and got a pleasant suprise, SB on a small-ish island. His preference to build hordes of units must cost him upkeep wise and ensure he is backwards.

I'm basically just treading water, trying to build up an economy. Quite a few courthouses, forbidden palace and forges. Some culture buildings at good places too and a few filler cities. Picking up some speed once that is done and I start to build more wealth.
73 bpt sustained at 1000ad. ^_^

10 turns later it's better but not good, 166 bpt. Still not done with infrastructure though.
I don't know, I might have gone too much builder here, but I was really unsure how much behind I was, and if crusing alone and if falled behind too much to conquer I really needed some long term functional economy.
Between these 10 turns I took the detour to compass+optics to meet SB.

Even got some trading value out of optics!
Have ignored CS as it provides little value when you can't dare to use burocracy.

And when I finaly reach a possible teching partner, he doesn't have all that much to give me.
Oh well, theo+philosophy for cs+litt+20g. Now I can trade for marble with charly and finish those nice marble national wonders and chain some irrigation to the food specials.

Had one GSci saved, and another one got finished just about when gunpowder was done. But I had quite abit of population so the bulb gave me almost 2000beakers, I couldn't double-bulb that, so ran a GA instead.
A much better idea tbh, should have done that 10 turns ago.

Catching up with Wilhelm abit. I gave him gunpowder for something too, can't remember what. Possibly just cash, want to be his friend too!

Argh... Charly culture-bombs his iceball city just to deny me my fur, and secure his fifth and sixth supply of fur just for himself.
Problematic, as I start to run thin on things to trade with him, and partially I also don't want to supply him with any happy/health if I don't have to.

cont...

 

[krikav]

Spoiler :

I had spread Judaism somewhat, slow-building missionaries from a city, and did plan to swap to Judaism the last turn of the GA, and then Charly asks me to.

Back into military tech. Was in Burocracy/Caste/Merc/Paci during the GA. Was scared as hell that Charly would start plotting, because he didn't want to give me anything

Steel is in, I rushbuild ironworks with a GEng I popped. Doesn't do that much right now, but getting IW up is always problematic.
Saladin is going for astro, could give him gunpowder+astro for education or nationalism, but I rather he just wastes his beakers and give me time now.
Didn't manage to pull of any trade mission stunt with pre-builded trebs and don't think it would be fitting either, I feel I'm high in production and low in teching power so turing wealth into hammers feels like going the wrong way.

I wasn't expecting Charly to lack steel, have more or less stopped to pay attention to his tech situation, was planning on getting Mil/Sci from WvO.

Plan here was to start a city revolt and get Najran with knights, and that in turn would lure him to place his entire stack there for me to kill.

Both spies fail at 80% though. As usual!

Throw out some well aged 1400 year old catapults as lure.

He obliges...

Throwing away all catapults first. They are costing in upkeep and this will give the cannons much better odds.

Mission ackomplished! The stack crumbles with no losses on my part, farming XP here as I have quite a few units close to 10xp.

Played through much of the war when I was too tired yesterday, did lose back some city because I was clumsy. Up at T207 iirc with still some work to be done on Saladin.
Will post a status report when he is done.
I plan on taking all his mainland cities and then just making peace again. I think it will be possible to get him to pleased (or if I swap back to hindu again friendly) and trade for most techs he has as it's techs that all other AIs also already know.
Don't want him as a vassal as that would screw up diplomacy and that would make a diplo victory likely impossible.

If either Wang or WvO does build UN, diplomacy victory would be easy, but I suspect that Charly will build it.

 

[krikav]

Yes, really nice work @Fish Man
So much more work when you are behind.

@BornInCantaloup

Spoiler :

Charly has SAM, infantry, artilery, machineguns and have started to build airplanes. Radio was the tech he got most recently.

Wang declared on WvO (or the other way around, can't remember) they both had been plotting.
The war with Saladin ended 2 turns ago when I took Kufah, then got Anjar (the island with double seafood) in a peacedeal.
2 more turns into a new GA in which I plan to become friendly with Saladin and do alot of trading with him.

I thought I was going to trade with SB, but my score jumped to the top half of the pack so now he is "We find you advanced", too bad. But I should be able to get almost everything from Saladin (edu, economics, constitution, corporations, nationalism, miltrad) if theocracy+hindu is enough to tilt him to friendly, I'm not entierly sure.
Have whipped some galleons and more is on the way as the army is marching toward the western shore, so SB is the intended target. After biology I'll likely just save cash until I can self-tech lib toward communism.

Charly is blazing through the techtree and the thought that any of the others will build UN when they are at war feels very unlikely. So he will build it and since Wang hates me I don't think it's enough even if I take all of SBs land and somehow get WvO to love me enough to vote for me.
Well.. I now have biology, and did get pyramids so one idea is to bribe Charly against the others and perhaps make some try with an insane number of whipped rifles+cannons?
Tough to estimate where he will be, if I try to tech up all the way to industrialism+radio+flight for tanker-bomber.

 

[krikav]

@BornInCantaloup

Spoiler :

Bribe Charly would be some time in the future, after a SB conquest and it would work about like this: I declare on Wang, then pay up 3000k G or whatever he wants to have him join in.
After some initial unit trading, I roll in and take a bunch of cities before Wang capitulates to Charly.

But now, if Wang manages to make progress against WvO enough to cap him, the balance would be abit more equal though.


Building UN myself is as bad is if Charly builds it, no? In either case it will be him against me.
If some other AI gets it, I just have to have enough pop to be bigger than Charly to get the chair, and then cast the vote and Charly would vote for me.

Maybe beelining it myself and gifting it to WvO could work... Charly does have military/religious flavour and it's possible he just went for radio to get bombers/subs? Maybe he will be preoccupied with other stuff (industrailism/advanced flight etc) for a long time.
In any case, I should probably make a try for it. Ignoring lib/communism for the time being and go straight for radio after (if) I get that Bio for physics trade.

 

[Fish Man]

@krikav

Spoiler :

Something I noted in your save...Willem and Wang are impressively behind. They’re both still flinging rifles and cannons at each other! If you can take them both on with infantry + artillery with a few anti-tanks for protection, you might not even have to touch Charlie. Let him do what he wants; with his tech flavors he’s almost guaranteed to dillydally in stealth before going for the last few SS techs.

 

[krikav]

To T274

Spoiler :

I didn't really want peace, but I wanted the gold, and I did want the trade to be fair, so had to do it.

My war against SB went pretty well, except that I forgot to put city garissons in some cities...

T232 Charly declares on Wang, so long Wang!!

I finish Mass Media and give it to WvO, and gift him a GEng popped.

I have no idea why I was up for the vote, Charly had more votes than me...? But I got the chair here. Consulting the advisors I saw that a diplo victory vote was between WvO and Charly, so I instead used it to get myself into enmancipation for free, for extra happines. Farming everything everywhere and settling alot of junk filler cities.

Tried to save Wang (well, I was trying to avoid having Charly get more cities and therefore more population.)
Really Wang? You defied that?
Oh well, he capitulated next turn.

Finishing of SB. He fought valiantly, and my lack of resupplies made the war very drawn out.

Trying to build up "stationary spy" bonus, lost an insane amount of spies here, 3-4 every turn.
I got enough pop to be up for the diplo win vote against WvO now, but unfortunatly next vote is about the chair again.

Some of my cities had huge problems with Charlys insane culture. He was in free speach and also had creative constructions.

He launches his spaceship.

I do get the chair, thanks charly!

cont...

 

[krikav]

To T272 continued.

Spoiler :

Turn before the vote...

Oh, I popped a GArtist, tried to culture bomb, but not even that got me my first ring cows back to my capital.
I even built a cathedral here!

Get Charly into vassalage and OR with the hope to get him to friendly. (Also gave him 3k gold).
But I had racked up some spy diplo hits, and also I completely forgot about supplying him with resources. I had shut of all trades to starve him of some happy/health and forgot to put some back up again.

And with that, my hope dies.

GG Charly! You deserved that one!

Thanks for the map @BornInCantaloup !

 

[krikav]

@Fish Man

Spoiler :

That plan also sounds plausable.

A lot of "coulda woulda shoulda" in this game for me.

 

[krikav]

@BornInCantaloup

Spoiler :

It was only the first chair vote which was abit odd. At that time I was not anywhere near Charly in votes so as far as I understand it, the fight over the chair would have been between him and WvO.


I'm almost sure that a replay from 234 would ensure a rather easy diplo victory at an earlier date than T270 too, if you build more spies earlier, put more EPs on charly early and pay more attention to diplo.
There was some votes where I had surpassed Charly in votes, but I was not yet ready to hold the vote for victory since I could not get Charly into vass/or (for Judaism) because I had not swapped EPs to him soon enough, and had not built enough spies.
He suprised me sometime along the line by making a switch out of vass/OR to free speach+free religion.

Have no problems ceding this victory to Charly, he played well (and I did not play perfect).
None of the fun was deprived from me in that loss.