Post a (tough) Deity map for me to play

[AcaMetis]

Yeah, this genius forgot that Walls exist. What can I say, I don't build them too often.

...I really don't build Walls often. Okay, quick check here, do Walls add 50% defence or do they set the city's effective cultural defence to 50% if it's lower than that? Because my testing is showing me the latter, and that's something I did not know about.

 

[sampsa]

...I really don't build Walls often. Okay, quick check here, do Walls add 50% defence or do they set the city's effective cultural defence to 50% if it's lower than that? Because my testing is showing me the latter, and that's something I did not know about.

Defence is the higher of "cultural" or what to call it, "structural". So indeed for creative civs they are slightly less needed, but still certainly useful. Especially since walls also slow down bombardment.

 

[Fish Man]

Yes, a big bonus is that we avoid the fish completely too.
(@Undefeatable )

Why would you do that to me .

But seriously...I understand the need for an urgent blocking city. Still, you're cre, and trashing a 5-6 food tile in favor of...dry rice? Seems a bit of a waste. Could've whipped half a dozen more HAs with that extra food .

 

[krikav]

It's on a PH too, so a free hammer.

I didn't whip, with 4 in happy cap I didn't think it was a good idea.
Sparta had to stop working the rice plenty of times to avoid growing into unhappines.
Optimal? Don't know!

I have played on:
T153

Spoiler :

I just got machinery through a peacedeal with Khan. He is down to one city now.
Have teched calendar to bulb astro, got two Gscientist and another GPerson incomming soon. I misplanned and teched CoL while waiting for Khan to finish machinery, and now I have to tech Philosophy too.
Two AIs have Astro (Elizabeth and Bismark), and I have some resource trades with them.
Abit worried that they will trade it away before I can bulb it though... I really need to get some trades to catch up.
I did get one trade with bismark, CoL for monarchy.
Rep is doing wonders, my techrate is perfecly OK. I'm not sure this is winable, but the situation doesn't look horrid at least.

 

[krikav]

T266 Diplo

Spoiler :

Got Astro at T158 after a double-bulb, but didn't get many trades from it since most AIs had it. Think I got Guilds and PP?
Went through the guilds line toward steel, 1bulbed chemistry. Traded steel for replaceable parts and for nationalism with Memed and Isabella.

Bismark+Memed+Isabella was buddhist so I set out to please that crowd. Poor hanibal was alone and so was Elizabeth.
Joined a pair of phony wars against Hannibal, which eventually capitulated to Memed.

Built cannons/galleons and drafted rifles and knocked on Elizabeths door at T209.
Reinforced with more of the same, plus the remaining stack of elefants.
I start to like Elefants more and more, my rifles got singled out by redcoats which where nasty, but since elefants don't get defensive bonuses they hide behind stronger cannons. Perhaps my rifle-cannon balance is off?

Elizabeth had only settled 6 cities on her island which had room for at least 9. So she was in no place to really defend even though she had artilery+sam before I was done with her at T243.... Way to long war!
After that, I used two GPersons for a second GA, switched to slavery and whipped courthouses everywhere since I would have had no chance reaching communism. (Was still lacking education)
Went for biology and started to grow my cities and settle alot of filler ones.
Had to give Bismark 1500g close to the vote to get him to friendly.

Disclaimer:
Did a few reloads to cover up gross errors on my part, such as forgetting to beg for peacetreaty before declaring on Elizabeth, which made her bribe bismark on me.

So what happend? How to win semi-iso with warmongerer?

Spoiler :

Go writing before BW for early HA-rush. (Be phi and bulb math) Have alot of chops available to ensure big enough army. - Don't forget to have horses nearby!!
Place a hilltop city for warmongerer to suicide against. - Make sure he does that!
Have your warmongerer build pyramids.
Take his capital with HAs after he has suicide a wave of units. Get ceasefire.
Build a academy in hilltop city for culture.
Switch to rep and reach for construction. Whip odeons in hiltop city and in capital.
Culture-grab ivory and whip wonderful warelefants before peace treaty wears out.
Take most of warmongerers cities, take peace for techs to have a chance to keep up, then kill him.
Fill upp your island and go for cannons+rifles!
Make sure you have a weak target which everyone hates that you can attack, bonus if she builds Broadway+Rocknroll+Hollywood.
Be loved by most others, and boost your pop astronomically.

 

[Fippy]

Krikav,
i have a more creative phase currently, will get back here when i feel like trying to beat Genghis ~~

 

[Rusten]

Pericles game:

Spoiler :

HAs are good, but chariots work too. There are some clues pointing in their direction along the way.

 

[krikav]

Nice @Rusten comming back and showing how it's done!

 

[Lain]

@Rusten

Spoiler :

Nice. Do you promote the Chariots to flanking (screenshot)? Really elegant solution.

Any general pointers on how you would approach a HA war against metal units and his massive production? Is there any particular trick, apart from drawing SoD to suicide on archers while sweeping in behind with HA?

 

[krikav]

I have tried to choke the AI in similar situations. Pillaging and destorying everything in his cities with chariots, and then leaving a few archers on hills close to improvements so that he can't rebuild them.
However, the production they get from working unimproved tiles is not neglectable anyway.
w/o the trick to snag his Ivory here, I would have been entierly chanceless.

 

[Fippy]

Chariots are certainly a fun option,
but imo not what Lain is usually looking for with "an almost safe" plan

There are some parts involved that require good amounts of luck for chariots to work well,
first we need AH & wheel, and BW cannot be teched very quickly.
Why does that matter, well without BW we cannot see if Genghis will grab copper soon.

Without writing we also might not get open borders for a longer time, so we cannot scout all of his lands,
and rely on what he says about Archers or something else being his best unit.

 

[Lain]

Yeah, the thing is, I'm still trying to win 100 (offline, random generations, not handpicked for more difficulty) games in a row (currently on a streak of 10), that's a source of motivation for me and makes me actually finish / not abandon games before victory screen. So doesn't really matter if I ever manage it, it's about the goal and a certain dedication, that's how I have fun.

And I'm not sure I could ever bring myself to attack with Chariots on game 63 or so lol, my heart couldn't take it. Need something foolproof.

Need a plan for when this scenario comes up in a "serious" game , that's the purpose of this here. But if you can safely identify Chariots as a victory condition and make it happen, very impressive, absolutely. Don't think I am quite there yet myself :/

 

[Rusten]

You can scout almost 100% of his territory before open borders on that map. The scout passes through to the south. It's pretty obvious that he's without metal by the time you need to make your decision. It didn't feel very risky to me and the capital is on flatland too. >10 3xp chariots at 1700 BC can do serious damage even to deity AIs, but it's very situational.

Flanking chariots, yes.

Any general pointers on how you would approach a HA war against metal units and his massive production? Is there any particular trick, apart from drawing SoD to suicide on archers while sweeping in behind with HA?

If it's gotten to that point you can only cheese as much as possible.

 

[Fippy]

If your HAs situation shows too much unit spam from Genghis,
or other reasons why you think he's too tuff now,
Cats are always an option too.

With PHI we get maths "for free", you could say so
It's not much fun teching construction while paying for HAs, but maybe you can take 1 city for gold?
While mounted units work best alone, under good conditions, i find there's nothing wrong with adding siege if losses would be too heavy.
HAs are still good units for stack protection, surprise attacks and so on, even if you now need coll. damage.

 

[Fippy]

Played a bit (67), sadly i have to go out now would be motivated for more lol.
Question, would you whip a library in Corinth, or stick with barracks and overflow into Archer?
In Sparta that was an easy decision, can use some help with teching now and later.

I question my maths bulbing with GS #1, settling one could have been good..
2nd comes rather fast with PHI.

 

[sampsa]

Flanking chariots, yes.

Can you expand on this a bit? All chariots promoted to flanking? The usual problem seems to be that the top defender wins the fight unscathed. How did you handle healing?

 

[krikav]

@Fippy
I think the earlier math you can get, the better. I chopped another worker and had 4 of them at T73. It's important to get those forested hammers out quickly.
I also had libraries in all 3 cities, they are so cheap so the added flexibility to either produce with mines or to tech with scientists is nice.
I made an academy in Sparta with my second GSci, to add more culture pressure on the ivory earlier.

I did not revolt to slavery until much later. (When I got pyramids revolted to rep+slavery).


Regarding your library in Corinth, when I just try out two different options, doing a 2-pop whip and regrowing enables me to run two scientists at T78 (One scientist from T73).
If I re-route two of your workers and do 2 pre-math chops, I get two scientists up and running at T72.
I'm not sure which way would be better.

 

[krikav]

I would also want more expanding on chariots. I almost never use them.
Regarding flanking, I don't think highly of that promotion and usually avoid it, but with chariots against archers I think getting to flanking2 is good because it gives immunity to first strikes.

 

[Bibor]

Can you expand on this a bit? All chariots promoted to flanking? The usual problem seems to be that the top defender wins the fight unscathed. How did you handle healing?

Flanking I works against non-archers, but Flanking II is what you want, as Kirkav said, it provides immunity to first strikes.
I use flanking as "mounted siege", if a flanking unit survives the attack, even the "retreat" does (some) damage. First strikes obviously negate this damage, that's why Flanking II is so good.
I usually do the following promotion method: I lead the units unpromoted until I reach the city. Once there, I promote units to flanking as long as there's undamaged defenders. Once units have been damaged, Combat I becomes more interesting, at least for 1 unit that will receive Medic I.
With stables, I do the same, except I go for Flaking II and when defenders are softened I go Combat I + Shock if there's spears/pikes, or Combat II if archers are defending.

 

[sampsa]

Flanking I works against non-archers, but Flanking II is what you want, as Kirkav said, it provides immunity to first strikes.

I am confused. Here we face archers, so flanking-route needs to somehow beat not getting combat I. That flanking II better be really really good, since the initial attack is weakened (by not having combat I)

I use flanking as "mounted siege", if a flanking unit survives the attack, even the "retreat" does (some) damage. First strikes obviously negate this damage, that's why Flanking II is so good.

I am more confused. How do first strikes obviously negate damage done by retreating? I don't understand how these are connected.