[BTS] Prepare to DIE! #2

[CarpoolKaraoke]

I think this is very well played, CarpoolKaraoke, and it keeps a sense of possibility.
Some moves are unnatural but, really, this is on the map. It's like a 13/10 as far as difficulty is concerned.

I agree this is the right game plan (as opposed to gifting cities). I just think it's a pity we have to game it so much to make it work.
I'll take a loss with the right game plan any day.
(You gotta try it to make it work, if you don't, then it won't.)



I'll be interested to see a peaceful approach succeed.

I mean, how natural do you think the following play is?

Spoiler T79 Peaceful, Quick Proof of Concept :

Size 1 Worker --> Settler, Pyramids/Copper faceplant. Tundra city gift.

T27 --> 2 turns ahead of Julius.

T79 - Gifted a city around T70. Do you think he'll attack? Not sure how to tell without neighbors.

T79: Build

If Caesar doesn't declare......then it's a free build

 

[Gwaja]

@konata_LS

Spoiler :

In my humble view, 15-20 turns is probably good enough, unless the map is funky like having a giant swath of desert or jungle in between, or a 1-tile narrow strip of land connecting two large landmass like how Panama is. Also, the espionage information is a good indicator when we see how many EPs our one and only known AI opponent is putting on us.

Presence and location of strategic resources, as well as the distance between us and our neighbor are probably the most obvious factor when considering offensive war. Choking the opponent by not allowing that AI to utilize their workers, as well as depriving them of strategic resources could help, but we'd better back it up with shinier weapons than simply warriors or archers, as soon as possible. Realistically on Deity, I'd say Horse Archers are probably the earliest form of reliable weaponry in rushing. I am not fond of Axes and Swords to be honest. Otherwise, it would have to wait until Construction to use at least Catapults, and if there are ivory available, then Elephants are overpowered and very reliable.

It'd be preferred not to be DoWed, but sometimes we may prefer to be DoWed on purpose, if we are capable of defending. AI are capable of making some dumb mistakes in warfare, and we can exploit that to full advantage also. If horses are nearby, I'd look to rush to Horseback Riding ASAP. Thankfully on this map, horses are the only thing that is realistically easy to obtain than other resources. ^_^

 

[Gwaja]

@CarpoolKaraoke

Spoiler :

Some really excellent play on your 1st posting there. The AI from the other continents look scary and it seems as though they have been teching and trading peacefully I assume? Bad news for us if so.

On your 2nd posting... I wouldn't feel safe just yet. It is rather a "weak" "Pleased" and with more border tension caused by culture, that could quickly earn more demerits. Once he is out of places to expand, he most likely will point his shiny weapons at us. I may consider getting archery and at least consider putting up walls in the 3 border cities. Since you haven't choked him out of any resources, he's got full access to metal, ivory, and horses. Without Alpha on both sides, it is not exactly clear if he has Horseback Riding, but if so.... ouchy!

 

[CarpoolKaraoke]

@CarpoolKaraoke

Spoiler :

Some really excellent play on your 1st posting there. The AI from the other continents look scary and it seems as though they have been teching and trading peacefully I assume? Bad news for us if so.

On your 2nd posting... I wouldn't feel safe just yet. It is rather a "weak" "Pleased" and with more border tension caused by culture, that could quickly earn more demerits. Once he is out of places to expand, he most likely will point his shiny weapons at us. I may consider getting archery and at least consider putting up walls in the 3 border cities. Since you haven't choked him out of any resources, he's got full access to metal, ivory, and horses. Without Alpha on both sides, it is not exactly clear if he has Horseback Riding, but if so.... ouchy!

Spoiler :

Yep, 400 AD Liberalism.

He does have HBR --> there's a war elephant in that stack

 

[Gwaja]

@CarpoolKaraoke

Spoiler :

On your 2nd attempt... your city placements are EXACTLY how I would have placed them. Hamburg that claims both copper and horse is probably the most vital one, as settling there first ensures that JC settles north instead of towards us and it, along with Cologne, can work as blocking cities. I would even consider making Cologne a future capital, seeing as how the shared cottages on floodplains make for one killer cottage capital. Hammers aren't so bad either there.

As a matter of fact, before checking out your save, I was trying this very same settling act, resulting in exactly the same city positions, albeit with one less city.

This approach surely requires the foreknowledge of the map, knowing exactly where the copper and the horse are located. On a blind first attempt, this probably wouldn't be possible. But I personally don't care for that, as I believe that Civ 4 is a game meant to be replayed and dissected for player improvement and continued enjoyment.

And yeah... I see that one Elephant in his city stack with Praetorians and Catapults. Looks a lot like a future invasion stack to me.

 

[Fish Man]

Finally, the long-awaited conclusion to our Fallout, err I mean, Civ game! A t239, or 1645AD conquest victory!

Spoiler :

First of all, as an aside, I noticed in my final sessions that I killed more barb units than Gandhi's units. Even some random savages in loincloths, it turns out, put up a better fight than the supposed strongest runaway AI in this game...from a certain point of view.

That being said, we were considering going nukes but what really sealed the deal was Mansa having already gone fission.

Spoiler :

He was teching like a champ with just a few crappy cities, but without enough production to make much military, all good things must come to an end...

Spoiler :

Despite having bribed Hatty on me, Mansa caps after one turn of war and me taking Timbuktu (+1 other city that was being annoying culturally)! Truly the biggest wuss I've ever seen, though with less than 12 land tiles on the mainland and a few crappy island cities, it's not like he could've fought back more. His navy was also conveniently blasted when I bribed him on Gandhi and Gandhi subsequently destroyed his frigates with destroyers. Then 2 turns later Hatty uses AP to make peace with everyone...she wouldn't have been a threat anyways, as I was 80% her power at this point with only relatively few arties + cavs + rifles running around, and Gandhi with his shiny tanks was a sufficient meatshield.

Afterwards I traded smartly to quickly catch up. I used my strategy of ping-ponging between the two vassals at this point. I gave artillery to Gandhi for part of AL, rocketry to Gandhi for a part of electricity (IIRC), rocketry to Mansa for part of fission, fission to Gandhi for part of industrialism, and then industrialism back to Mansa for railroad! But even on our way to nukes and not having reached them, though, the fun didn't end there. Lincoln for some reason went medicine and radio before rifling and assembly line (or even steam power...sure...). He got rifles and then infantry in a trade when I landed my now respectable stack, but it was too late, so all I had to do to cap him was kill pretty much 3 infantry and a bunch of medieval crap. It didn't help that Lizzy declared on Pacal a few turns prior and bribed him in, so his entire army (probably 10 cuirassiers or something dumb) was roaming Pacal's lands. After I capped him I got a pretty sick trade...almost was tempted to go space at this point, as you all know is my nature .

Spoiler :

Speaking of Pacal...poor bastard was 2 eras behind. Despite having a gold and corn start, which I think @Gwaja may have edited or hand-picked to make him OP...his extremely low comparative peaceweight and isolated religion made him a pariah. Being the worst enemy of 3 people (later 4, as Hatty was bribed in into the war) doesn't do good things for your tech pace...regardless of how financial you are. He also decided to go culture before rifling...probably because he realized he had no chance in **** of winning space? Somewhat smart, except that meant I could also murder his medieval crap with impunity. When you made this map, I don't think you expected me to use arties + infantry vs longbows and cuirassiers against multiple AIs .

Spoiler :

Finally it was time to move to the big boys (or, well, girls). Around this time I traded fission and completed Manhattan projected, and queued ICBMs/tactical nukes in every city. I got flight and industrialism to mass-airlift Panzers which really sealed everyone's fate, but...at this point, that was more of a formality. After nuking every single city and stack 2-3 times, there was no resistance against even my unupgraded rifles, much less my now-veteran core army of arties and battle-hardened infantry. My woodsman-medic had now became an ubermedic with the full +40% healing/turn promos, while I also think I got a CRIII axe from all the way against JC to become a nutcracker infantry for the paltry resistance in the irradiated wastelands I had left behind (my great general units were named General Iroh, Medic TF2, and Raiden...I think fitting for 2 healers and a dude who started out as someone who chopped people into pieces with a large and sharp implement, if you get the references). I used ships to nuke and capture London and 1 other city in the first turn of the war against Lizzy; she gave in after 2 more rounds of nukings + captures. I used similar naval tactics to strike against Hatty, and she too gave in after 4 cities were taken. I even got some mobile artillery at the end, purely for style points because it really wasn't even necessary. At the last turn, Hatty finally amassed some tactical nukes...so I nuked her nukes and took the cities that contained them, crushing the last resistance to my reign of terror . And thus, on t239, 1645AD, a mere 40 turns after I had just capped my first AI, I won conquest - and world peace was achieved with a worldwide nuclear cleansing .

(Pictures continued in next post because of attachment limit).

Spoiler :

 

[Fish Man]

Some additional pictures of the nuclear wars.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

On the bottom of the next screenshot, you can see her entire army/siege stack is marching in single-file formation, conveniently outside her bomb-sheltered cities and therefore easily destroyable with just 2 convenient ICBMs! Not that a few extra regular artillery would have mattered against a mobile artillery enjoyer such as myself...

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

And that's a game!

Spoiler :

 

[Fish Man]

And finally, the ending save and analysis.

Spoiler :

This map becomes quite a lot easier, almost like a regular deity iso with some drawbacks but also major advantages, if you manage to take out JC as early as possible. You have the land of 2 civs (and good land, too), to eventually fill out, and at least a few squishy targets beyond. Mansa is easy, Lincoln or probably at least 1 other peacemonger will avoid rifling like an idiot, and Pacal will fall ridiculously behind because of the aforementioned peaceweight + religion diplo issues. Even Gandhi is a pushover if you happen to either manipulate RNG to get him to avoid rifles (you can "re-seed" an AI's tech choice by giving or receiving a tech trade, settling a city, researching something else yourself, giving them some tech, or something similar...do that enough times and you can 'make' AIs like him avoid rifling until well into the modern era, though I didn't even have to do so for Lincoln)...or, if that feels too cheaty, get lucky to catch him in a medicine + mass media beeline, or go for the small fry first until you have 30 cities to spam units from, and so on. JC is the true roadblock here, as you all have surmised. Expend maximal effort to get rid of him as soon as possible, or better yet beat the crap out of him and extort tech to "tech" your way to the optics beeline (before finishing off), and you are well on the way to winning this game. I cheesed a warrior rush to make this work, but if you're not a fan of this extreme RNG-manipulation, you can limit him to just archers with some sort of choke, and then finish the job with HAs or perhaps even brute-force axes. Something you could try as philosophical is math bulb + construction to rush your way to catapults, at which point his archers will be free kills. Since you don't care about making him super mad, and nobody's around to care about "their friend", I would say you can abuse ceasefires and even sacrifice bait-workers, especially ones you capture (maybe with a woody 2 warrior/axe, if you are lucky), to pick off his isolated archers outside of the cities.

Thanks once again for the map, @Gwaja ! It was a blast, and the first time I won deity sub-t250 conquest or dom under such difficult isolated or technically semi-iso circumstances.

Spoiler :

 

[Gwaja]

@Fish Man

Very impressive showing there, with a nice early completion date to go along with it! Thank you for the detailed write up, as I am sure many will study it for a long time.

One thing to clarify though. This map was NOT doctored by me in any way, except for the fact that one extra AI was added in at the custom game setup. As much as it may be hard to be believed, it truly is so. The first "Prepare to Die" with Wang Kon was heavily doctored to purposely create a severely unfair situation. This second one was a naturally generated map that happens to be quite evilly charming in its own way without my personal manipulation. Once I was done with this map, I knew I needed to share it.

Spoiler :

I agree that the real true test is getting JC out of the way ASAP. Whether that be in peaceful fashion or via conquest, he needs to be dealt with, and sooner the better. I am not sure how realistically reliable the peaceful option could be though, because leaving him with all those nice strategic resources for him to build shiny weapons and many cities under his belt may be too much to overcome should he decide to declare. Having him at "Pleased" does drastically reduce the chance of his DoW, but not completely. Plus, his land is just so much better. Once we have his land, only then, our continent becomes a good one. Without it, we are stuck with small area around the capital and the large portion of the rest filled with desert and tundra.

Settling on marble initially, popping the horse, and settling about 2 more cities at max while teching HBR and going straight for Horse Archer rush is an idea, but I'd think that it needs to happen in conjunction with earlier choking to stop JC from utilizing his resources. I'd much prefer that he develop his land for me to use upon capturing his cities, but that too needs to be a balancing act, I think.

As for the rest of the world on other continents.... we are lucky not to have another aggressive AI that could have become a runway superpower. And poor Mansa with such horrible start. I guess that is due to adding an extra AI. Pacal did start with 2 gold mines, but the rest of that continent shared with Lincoln and Liz isn't all that great to be honest. Lincoln does seem to be pretty boxed in his little corner as well, though not as horrible as Mansa. It is Hatty and Gandhi that had the unfair chunk of land mostly free of conflict, all to themselves... really unfair that one.

If I want to "dcctor" this map to be harder, I would adjust the starting position for Mansa and the other 2 AI on that continent, as well as replacing some of the AI to a more aggressive and "capable" ones. Or maybe connect the other 2 continents into one giant continent and place Mansa in the newly created bridge area with some good land and resources? Imaginations are running wild and free. ^_^

 

[Fish Man]

@Fish Man

Very impressive showing there, with a nice early completion date to go along with it! Thank you for the detailed write up, as I am sure many will study it for a long time.

One thing to clarify though. This map was NOT doctored by me in any way, except for the fact that one extra AI was added in at the custom game setup. As much as it may be hard to be believed, it truly is so. The first "Prepare to Die" with Wang Kon was heavily doctored to purposely create a severely unfair situation. This second one was a naturally generated map that happens to be quite evilly charming in its own way without my personal manipulation. Once I was done with this map, I knew I needed to share it.

Spoiler :

I agree that the real true test is getting JC out of the way ASAP. Whether that be in peaceful fashion or via conquest, he needs to be dealt with, and sooner the better. I am not sure how realistically reliable the peaceful option could be though, because leaving him with all those nice strategic resources for him to build shiny weapons and many cities under his belt may be too much to overcome should he decide to declare. Having him at "Pleased" does drastically reduce the chance of his DoW, but not completely. Plus, his land is just so much better. Once we have his land, only then, our continent becomes a good one. Without it, we are stuck with small area around the capital and the large portion of the rest filled with desert and tundra.

Settling on marble initially, popping the horse, and settling about 2 more cities at max while teching HBR and going straight for Horse Archer rush is an idea, but I'd think that it needs to happen in conjunction with earlier choking to stop JC from utilizing his resources. I'd much prefer that he develop his land for me to use upon capturing his cities, but that too needs to be a balancing act, I think.

As for the rest of the world on other continents.... we are lucky not to have another aggressive AI that could have become a runway superpower. And poor Mansa with such horrible start. I guess that is due to adding an extra AI. Pacal did start with 2 gold mines, but the rest of that continent shared with Lincoln and Liz isn't all that great to be honest. Lincoln does seem to be pretty boxed in his little corner as well, though not as horrible as Mansa. It is Hatty and Gandhi that had the unfair chunk of land mostly free of conflict, all to themselves... really unfair that one.

If I want to "dcctor" this map to be harder, I would adjust the starting position for Mansa and the other 2 AI on that continent, as well as replacing some of the AI to a more aggressive and "capable" ones. Or maybe connect the other 2 continents into one giant continent and place Mansa in the newly created bridge area with some good land and resources? Imaginations are running wild and free. ^_^

Thank you! Full disclosure, my playstyle is unique in that it reloads severely and games the RNG to the maximal extent without outright giving ourselves the automatic best outcome every time with the "new random seed" option. Most other people don't play this way, so in all likelihood, straight-up warrior-rushing is not viable unless you want to restart like 100 times. Though, philosophically speaking, when does reloading/map knowledge "cross the line"? I would say everyone has a certain tolerance for that...and mine just happens to be set at a far higher level. Already, others are starting over quite a few times here, replaying turnsets, etc.

I don't doubt that the map was generated naturally tbh, my statement was meant as a half-joke of which I wasn't sure whether or not it was true at this point. I believe you!

If you want to make this map harder, it's simple.

Spoiler :

Replace JC with Augustus (low peaceweight gang), and move him to a place where he has contact with the other AIs, then make our island full iso and make it garbage to the point where it can barely even get to something like astro/steel. Maybe even replace Pacal with Willem (a far more friendly dude). The Lain Tokugawa isolation game is a prime example of why this is bad - the starting island was so garbage and the rest of the map so OP that even without any edits, Joao was going superconductors or gunships or something while Augustus had 17 cities and a vassal by the time he had just started crawling towards artillery. On a deity map where AIs get 1200AD infantry, it's hard if not impossible to win iso normally. I myself eventually managed to "beat" that game, but only by turning fully to the dark side and turning on "new random seed". I then reloaded 6000 times to pop gems in my capital, which along with the silver gave enough commerce and happiness to just barely tech to cuirassiers before people started getting dangerous stuff (and astro without the super costly monarchy detour). I launched an intercontinental invasion with cuirs, which went 100% successfully because I reloaded every single fight, and capped Joao and Asoka, which then gave me enough commerce to push towards nukes and thereafter finish the game without much more ultra-cheese reloads. Other AIs having land is for sure dangerous, but the biggest obstacle you can give is consigning the human player to poor land, and small amounts of it, while giving the AIs better land and several times as much of it. All the games that Lain has lost, if I recall correctly, were starts where he was literally stuck on 3-5 cities - and iso or not, that eventually spelled doom for even perhaps the best player on the forums. It is for this reason that I suspect, at least with my playstyle (and certainly with Lain's, as he flat-out won it without a single reload), even the first "prepare to die" is not that impossible. By giving our neighbors so much land, you gave us the land too, when we eventually took it with an early attack.

 

[Gwaja]

@Fish Man

We should play the game the way we enjoy for ourselves. After all, it is a "single-player" game. It is also fun and refreshing to see different styles of play. As for the map generation, I hope it wasn't... as Lain gently put it in the Wang Kon map... "It's so unfair".... ^_^ I am happy you liked the map though. Gives me motivation to make more.

Knock knock especially to: @Fippy, @lymond, and @drewisfat ... did you hear that? **cough**

Spoiler :

Making our start complete iso with barely enough room for maybe 5-6 subpar cities, especially in combination with mediocre capital, would surely make any game harder. I think it would be too evil even for my standard. You are right... land is king in this game. Especially on Deity, with AI having large chunk of good land, it makes games so much more difficult.

I think I remember that Lain game. Pretty brutal if I recall it correctly. I don't think I would have had the patience to see through the game to the end. Kudos for his and your patience.

Now I may have to add you to my list of potential victim for Round 3. ^_^

 

[Fish Man]

@Fish Man

We should play the game the way we enjoy for ourselves. After all, it is a "single-player" game. It is also fun and refreshing to see different styles of play. As for the map generation, I hope it wasn't... as Lain gently put it in the Wang Kon map... "It's so unfair".... ^_^ I am happy you liked the map though. Gives me motivation to make more.

Knock knock especially to: @Fippy, @lymond, and @drewisfat ... did you hear that? **cough**

Spoiler :

Making our start complete iso with barely enough room for maybe 5-6 subpar cities, especially in combination with mediocre capital, would surely make any game harder. I think it would be too evil even for my standard. You are right... land is king in this game. Especially on Deity, with AI having large chunk of good land, it makes games so much more difficult.

I think I remember that Lain game. Pretty brutal if I recall it correctly. I don't think I would have had the patience to see through the game to the end. Kudos for his and your patience.

Now I may have to add you to my list of potential victim for Round 3. ^_^

While we're at it - make leaders who are good techers and prefer military techs, the opponents. People like Mansa and Gandhi are too much of pushovers. A 15-city Hannibal + Justinian + Zara + Saladin + Isabella + Joao? Just give up on t0 .

(And yes, these are some of the best techers in the game, who also ALL have medium or high military tech preference and are high peaceweight buddy-buddies, according to the "know your enemy" guide. No radio beeline to save your hide this time!)

 

[Gwaja]

@Fish Man

I agree that the most dangerous kind of AI are the ones that tend to stay somewhat peaceful but pursue military techs at a good pace as to stay relevant in the tech game. Mindless cavemen style warmongers aren't the biggest threats. I have that "Know your enemy" article bookmarked and refer to it all the time... such a good guide that one.

Now, if you will excuse me, I will go back to making Part 3, just for you. ^_^

 

[krikav]

@Gwaja Low sea level fractal map with an isolation start is really tough as it is.
If you have a rough start, and with AIs ready to snowball... Well. Thats already bordering impossible.

 

[Gwaja]

@krikav

Ouch... yeah. An isolation with a bad land is bad enough already, but having an AI or two that can sweep the boards and grow to be monsters even before we are able to do anything, let alone be aware of it until Optics... that is indeed going to be hard. Should that really be the theme for Round 3?

 

[krikav]

@Gwaja Well... Probably not.
It's just so depressing and soul-crushing that most people won't even try it.

I just rolled such a map here:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/prepare-to-cringe-bad-maps-deity.647427/page-8#post-16295757
Not only does it have all the other usual bad stuff, but you will also be set back by barbarians too, with low sea level your island is bound to be more problematic to handle from that perspective.

Come to think about it... I don't think I have ever even won a game with low sea level with a strong leader/start. Haven't played much low sea level though.
It was @Pedro78 that introduced the concept to me in the deity iso workshop thread:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...rm-fractal-nh-ne.612863/page-31#post-14973220

Made a playthrough here:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/a-fun-game-of-kublai.666850/

I'm not sure one can call it "fun" really though.
The justinian map is harder too I think, mainly because of a slower start. Don't know the situation overseas yet.

 

[Gwaja]

@krikav

Thanks for the map! ^_^

 

[Kaitzilla]

Difficulty: Deity
AI: 7, instead of the normal 6
Map Type: Continents
Map Size: Normal
Speed: Normal
Chosen Leader: Random --> Frederick

The Start: At least the capital site is quite good. It will be a great capital. But that is all the positive I can say about the surrounding areas.

Blindly forward I will go!

*Edit*

Thunk!
BAT Mod 4.1 huh
Looks like Lemon Merchant's signature has it.

 

[Gwaja]

Blindly forward I will go!

*Edit*

Thunk!
BAT Mod 4.1 huh
Looks like Lemon Merchant's signature has it.

Next time I will be sure to not post any saves made while already played using BAT. I always use BAT for my offline games, but I realize it is just too troublesome for many.

There is a WB save a few posts down, but barbarian techs need changed and the national flag colors will come out funky.