Problems on Marathon Deity with "normal" leaders

[Seraiel]

Here is a picture for you that you believe it, I didn't myself at first.

 

[Habitus]

Hmm at friendly you shouldn't get the 'too advanced' response, 'we have our reason' 'we want to win the game' and afew other responses can still stop trading so no idea

 

[Seraiel]

Ok, here is an update.

I've played Mao of China in the meantime. I must say, that I was badly disappointed from the Cho-Ku-Nu's. I find them decent, but they're only imbalanced when having a 4+ Golds start where one can share the Gold with overlap from different cities so it's fast and always worked, so one can oracle Machinery.

The no-fishing-strategy sucks totally, because one will have less as one has to build roads to the others first, therefor, one can research it even as fast as bulbing it with a GS after having oracled MC.

I tried out something ridiculous: I played Ragnar from the Vikings and tried to oracle CS . It's impossible with my settings, even if having a max-commerce-start and staying at 2 city only, one would have to find something like writing in a GH to achieve this. But it was great fun, I really thought I'd make it sometime and storm the world with 2000 BC Berserkers.

Atm I'm playing Augustus of Rome. I haven't noticed any difference with Julius tbh, except that I find cheaper Forges better than cheaper Courthouses. In my games with having all the gold-builders in them, maintenance with so few cities usually is no problem, sometimes I have like 5k in the bank and even buy complete techs for that. I do have a problem to rush sufficiently early with them though, 2nd target has at least LBs when I attack them, but then I nromally also got Trebs and Trebs + Praets work great for me.

This was all before 1 AD.

I'm experiencing huge difficulties atm to end a game. In the china-game I got culture-crushed before I could found Sushi, in another Rome game, AI got 6 GEs in a row and rushed Kremlin as it also built Mining Inc before I even had Railroads. Also, I'm not used to modern warfare as my games are usually over before that. The main problem seems to be developing a tech-lead while still warring. With Incans this is easy, first comes the war, then comes the tech-lead, then the endgame war, but with other Civs, it seems to me like one has to be in constant war to finish early enough, leaving little place to settle all those islands cities, leaving little space to work all those cottages... I know I'm doing "not bad" with usually 200 Beakers at 1000 BC, the time I usually rush (First comes Rex, then Oracle, then further Rex, then buildup, then war) , but this is not even half of the Beakers I have with Incans. I even got beaten to Liberalism twice already, once by Pericles, once by Mansa. They both seem to love Free Speach / Free Religion.

I'm still amazed by the sheer power of Praets, and I will try oracle Machinery with Mao again. I've learned a lot about city-placement, using overlap, specialization, dealing with terrain that doesn't say "this city is good for that and this city is good for that" .

Maybe someone finds or just felt like reading it or even happens to know how to reply to this.

Cya, Sera.

P. S.: Vacations are great.

 

[Yamps]

Here is a picture for you that you believe it, I didn't myself at first.

Did you have a vassal there?

 

[Manco Capac]

A hated vassal teamed with the human player lowers your actual diplo stance, which brings back WFYABTA. But if the said vassal is also friendly as you are with a certain leader, then the effect is unnoticed.

Early vassals are usually not recommendable, but later when rolling one AI after the other, it
is nice to keep them healthy to let them tech for us.

 

[civvver]

What do you mean by modern warfare? Rifles era, infantry, tanks and bombers? You don't need a tech lead to war in those eras, you just have to be smarter than the AI. And production with even tech is often better than a tech lead anyway. If you want a really fast war settle all the island, grow them, grab tanks and bombers and blitz the hell out of the other civs to reach domination limits. I don't know if this is too late for you, but I doubt it, you were pretty close to combustion, radio, industrialism in your inca game when you finished and Rome is a little slower.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Looking for a nice "normal leader" for early wars, I'd look into the Charismatic leaders.
Any decently promoted unit can mimic a UU (maybe not to this point but... that CR3 sword must be a good unit). Cha helps, there.

Napoleon comes fast to my mind. Very well-rounded leader.
Cha and Org is the combo that gives the most passive benefits (maintenance & happy departments).
France also has excellent starting techs and cool but discrete Uniques.

Mehmed & Hannibal & the Cha/Exp American leader also have this very "normal leader" feel to me.

 

[Habitus]

I have to admit to liking Boudica and G3 Gallic Warriors, 50% withdrawls and the removal of the natural hill defense (from G3 hill attack). With Copper+Iron being useable, alot of starts can be used, thou with only the minor eco boost of +1 , 2 if spare hammers.

 

[Seraiel]

So many answers, nice

Did you have a vassal there?

I didn't have a vassal in any of my non-incan games. In that game, it even developed more strangely. In one turn, they all suddenly were willing to trade their techs, next turn, WFYABTA again. This happened at least 3 times, and made absolute no sense to me. Also, Mansa wasn't willing to trade techs, and one shouldn't become a WFYABTA from him at any time if I understand him right.

A hated vassal teamed with the human player lowers your actual diplo stance, which brings back WFYABTA. But if the said vassal is also friendly as you are with a certain leader, then the effect is unnoticed.

Early vassals are usually not recommendable, but later when rolling one AI after the other, it
is nice to keep them healthy to let them tech for us.

I know that about the combined diplo-stance, but it was not the case in that game. Also: An early Vassal imho is the best you can get, the opposite of not recommendable. The earlier you get a Vassal, the earlier you have AIs bonuses working for you. Having someone that can research Guilds + Banks while you aim for Lib with a direct follow up of Eco is awesome. I was never able to get a Vassal that early though.

What do you mean by modern warfare? Rifles era, infantry, tanks and bombers? You don't need a tech lead to war in those eras, you just have to be smarter than the AI. And production with even tech is often better than a tech lead anyway. If you want a really fast war settle all the island, grow them, grab tanks and bombers and blitz the hell out of the other civs to reach domination limits. I don't know if this is too late for you, but I doubt it, you were pretty close to combustion, radio, industrialism in your inca game when you finished and Rome is a little slower.

I cannot answer this question right now. I will take your advice in my current game and post screenshots and ask for your help again. The biggest problem is just inexperience, being smarter than the AI should normally be no problem, I usually win my wars with only 1/3 of the units the AI has only by smart movement and good use of promotions and well combined forces.

Maybe you all can help me already in my current game, as it seems to be the best till now: This is from 500 BC:

The Scoreboard:



This is the one that looks really good. I'm number 1, though I don't know why, and have a decent number of cities. HC is as good as dead.

Demographics:



These are more realistic than the scoreboard. I'm only in the middle field of Gold, Production and Food, and even though all Civs were in constant war, and though I didn't do much but produce units, I'm last in military. I got the most land, but my cities are small, compared to the ones of the AI.

The land:

This is a big Screen, that's why it's wrapped in Spoilers:

Spoiler :

This screen shows a lot. My neighbours are Pericles, who beat me to Lib and is tech-leader, Hatty with whom I'm friendly, Mansa and Lizzy with small Borders, and Frederick as another neighbour with large Borders. I'm trying to be the first to Economics, that's why all my cities are building research. Even with that though, I only have a research-rate of 350 BPT, I know from Pericles that he's got about 500 and Mansa has about 450. I don't have any espionage, because I don't have Courthouses yet, anyhow, my Gold looks quite ok, because I chose all the Gold-builders as opponents and can usually get some by techtrade.

I hope I can get the Beakers up by using REP and Specialists, I just conquered the Mids, but I need some Infrastructure for the Specialists-slots. I have a decent sized Capital that puts out most of the Beakers, all other cities are Mines + Farms production cities, I wasn't able to set up a real GP Farm till now, but will take the conquered Macchu Picchu for that because it has the HGs and I need some GEs for Mining Inc, Wallstree, Kremlin, etc.

On the map in the lower right, you can see, that the islands haven't been settled yet, as Astronomy is needed for that. Pericles took that by Lib, and will get even more powerful through that, I have no idea how to get it from him, as I got nothing I could trade for it, time to look at:

The Tech-Screen:



The problem in all my non-Incan games. Either they're on par with a slight lead, or they're totally backwards. My main goal is to get Astronomy somehow next, because I need to settle those islands for the Seafood, maybe I can trade it for Economics with Hatty, Ramesses, Asoka or Mansa somehow, though it will be difficult.



I think these are the imporants screens giving all the valuable information. It has to be said on plus, that all my cities have about 150 turns of whipping anger, so building an army now to conquer Pericles or Frederick seems impossible. I still got 15 Praets and some Siege from the war against HC though, but I don't think that'll be enough to fight, it barely enough to get a MP in all of my cities, which have been uprotected for a millenium.

Goals: Reach Sushi and Mining Inc, settle those Islands, but also: Conquer Frederick or Pericles to get a Vassal. Get research up while also getting the necessary infrastructure needed for Sushi. Get up a real GP Farm to start farming GPs and run some GAs (I also conquered the MoM already) . Further than that, I don't know, maybe you will.

Looking for a nice "normal leader" for early wars, I'd look into the Charismatic leaders.
Any decently promoted unit can mimic a UU (maybe not to this point but... that CR3 sword must be a good unit). Cha helps, there.

Napoleon comes fast to my mind. Very well-rounded leader.
Cha and Org is the combo that gives the most passive benefits (maintenance & happy departments).
France also has excellent starting techs and cool but discrete Uniques.

Mehmed & Hannibal & the Cha/Exp American leader also have this very "normal leader" feel to me.

That leads me again to Hannibal. He's CHA, his Numidians even get extra flanking for free, and he's also FIN. I don't know if they can compare to Rome though. Rome's Praets have no problems slaying Longbows, and I wonder, if any other unit could do that trick, even with extra promotions. It's just sheer base-str that seems to count most. Maybe I'll give Ragnar another chance, his UU seems to come just in the right moment where my empire is usually set up with Granaries and Barracks and 10% city attack and free Combat 1 don't sound too bad, and, it's a STR 8 unit.

I don't care about starting techs, as one always can cook the start to fit the leader, and because I get all techs with Oracle in 2200 BC so early.

I have to admit to liking Boudica and G3 Gallic Warriors, 50% withdrawls and the removal of the natural hill defense (from G3 hill attack). With Copper+Iron being useable, alot of starts can be used, thou with only the minor eco boost of +1 , 2 if spare hammers.

Guerilla is an awesome promotion, one can use the movement on the hills to attack faster while having a good defensive stance onesself. I think I will set her on my list for "leaders I have to try out" , I'm sure that "playing with Boudica is a lot of fun" .

 

[WastinTime]

Maybe you're putting too much emphasis on UU. What's wrong with a good ole axeman?
Play BurgerKing and Axe rush your neighbors. I've done Axe-rushes with several 'ordinary' AI, (but they usually start with mining.) Still, it's worth a shot.

Then you'll have his UB...won't that save you about 6,000 gold/turn near the end of the game?

-------

And if you're having problems getting mids/glh, just plan on capturing them.

 

[Yamps]

So many answers, nice

I didn't have a vassal in any of my non-incan games. In that game, it even developed more strangely. In one turn, they all suddenly were willing to trade their techs, next turn, WFYABTA again. This happened at least 3 times, and made absolute no sense to me. Also, Mansa wasn't willing to trade techs, and one shouldn't become a WFYABTA from him at any time if I understand him right.

Mansa will give you wfyabta too after enough trades. No idea though why friendly civs gave you that deny if you didn't have a vassal. Maybe somebody could answer this if you upload the save.

As for your research problems, you could always set up EE with Democracy and Communism. Whip all espionage buildings and gift one of your own cities for the prolonged culture bonus. Ideally, one should culture bomb the city before gifting. You could realistically get around 4 beakers for one EP, using other usual multipliers.

 

[Seraiel]

Mansa will give you wfyabta too after enough trades. No idea though why friendly civs gave you that deny if you didn't have a vassal. Maybe somebody could answer this if you upload the save.

As for your research problems, you could always set up EE with Democracy and Communism. Whip all espionage buildings and gift one of your own cities for the prolonged culture bonus. Ideally, one should culture bomb the city before gifting. You could realistically get around 4 beakers for one EP, using other usual multipliers.

Then it must have benn the number of conducted trades. I remember, that I really traded a lot in that game, often also big trades like 1 vs 7 techs or so. The save is already deleted, as I always delete saves after quitting a round.

Espionage Economy sounds interessting. Later perhaps. For now, I've decided, that 150 turns of whipping anger were not enough. I want to have a Vassal, and for that I need more units, so I've now taken the cities to 210 turns of whipping anger and have a Stack of 20 Maces / Pikes / other + 12 Siege (mostly Trebs) .

Pericles smelled it, and liberated his oversea colonies, now I cannot vassalize him so easily, but Frederick seems to be another worthy Target. I have very large borders with him though, I wonder if he will counter-attack my southern cities while I attack from the North, Stacksplit doesn't seem like a good idea because he has castles, and for those, I need the 12 siege together.

Ramesses is in WHEOOHRN, and it could go against Frederick or Lizzy. If it's against Frederick, I'll join with pleasure, if it's against Lizzy, it'll at least solve my problems of her backstabbing me when i DoW Frederick.

I wanted you to show this graph from military strenght:



it shows the aggressiveness of military upbuild relatively well. The first circle marks the upbuild against Huayna, ca. 1400 BC after Granaries and Barracks were set up. The second circle was after Forges and after capturing Pyramdis -> Switch to Police State. I was astonished how much Forges and PS help, every Whip was 135 hammers, when doing 2pop Treb-whips I had enough OF to chain a Preat / Pike. I can now nearly match the military of the top-notch Ramesses, who has overteaken the lead. Very excited how long the war will take and how it will develop, Frederick is quite strong having Knights but I think CR3 Maces after Treb-Bombardement and collateral have no chance, no matter what it is. The upgrades costet 3k of gold, but were necessary cause Praets against Maces = no good.

Switched to REP and OR again, so no reinforcements, have to catch up in Tech.

 

[vranasm]

@Ser

I think you make there a mistake with thinking that warring and having good economy is possible at the same time.

Actually it's rarely possible. Once you explode from let's say 8 established cities to 16 through war your economy will inevitably tank...a lot (even with ren. breakout).
Usually you need to whip CH's in new cities that get out of the revolt, so being in OR and the cities having your SR is very good thing to have.

The only time where you don't get hit by acquiring cities is once you hit State Property which is best military civic for domination victories, but since you want sushi you can't use it.

This economy effect is visible even on Monarch difficulty level btw. You can have long eras of trying to be above strike just from conquest gold.

As for the last SS of the game 3 posts ago...since you still have big tech lead over at least half the AI's I think you still could feed on them.
Gold doesn't seem to be problem (over 2k banked with -100 gpt), but there is couple of AI's screaming "hey take my 500 gold for some really old tech"

you have most land, but at the same time very average food and hammers production, it probably because of low sized cities (from whippings most probably?). That should fix over time and with food and hammers gnp will eventually come. Be patient.

no one seems to have Nat... golden age would be probably good to help with needed infra and going into better gpt/bpt ratio.

I would probably check if you could make some dent into Ramess (has he some classic wonders? he likes to build them) and through his land into SB. If you could get there some dogpile from some other AI behind them it would be perfect.

You could maybe try to buy gunpowder from hatty for banks + a lot of gold (give away DR for ~1k gold)

 

[Kid R]

Hannibal - I always thought Numidians would be perfect for a game like this. I like the idea of them and Hannibal in general but for my normal speed normal size games there never seems enough war to get the best.

Starting with flanking 2 means 50% withdraw so losses are only half of normal, and the more they get used the more highly-promoted units there are, even if none of them have actually won a fight . A few archer battles and you're up to combat 3 or 4 which is 7 strength.

I have found even unexperienced barracks+stable ones are serviceable against longbows too - they do a nice chunk of damage even if the chance of victory is small, and though it takes 2 or 3 stabs to kill each defender, the hammer cost is OK because of withdraw.

 

[Seraiel]

It's unbelievable guys, I've just lost a 30 units Stack in 2 rounds. In round 1, Flanking-promoted Knights attacke my pikes, he lost 6 to 2 of them. After the pikes were damaged, 1 round before I could attack the city with my huge CR bonuses, another 15 Knights (!) attacked the Stack and and slayed every defender there was. After that, the CRs died like pigs in the slaughterhouse . This has never happened to me, I knew his Knights would be dangerous, but I didn't think that he'd attack Combat 2 pikes and sacrifice so many troops. It was more like fighting a human than an AI. I'm still shocked.

I can post saves if anybody is interessted in them.

 

[Habitus]

Its more common off the AIs with high attack courage, which Freddy isn't iirc. Nappy and Ragnar are probably the most common people to do it

Even then I wouldn't say its a common occurance, bad luck hopefully you can get one game to the later stages for a more complete comparison

 

[Bugio]

You should try shaka for early warring/expanding. After incan, he's one of the best scorer and the best early expander thanks to his UB (a mini courthouse which stack with courthouse itself that you can build right away and it's discounted by AGG trait), also expansive helps on score too (health) plus discount granaries and harbours. The impi isn't great, but has its uses with 2 move can help pillage and be excellent medic for mounted wars.

 

[Seraiel]

Its more common off the AIs with high attack courage, which Freddy isn't iirc. Nappy and Ragnar are probably the most common people to do it

Even then I wouldn't say its a common occurance, bad luck hopefully you can get one game to the later stages for a more complete comparison

Only a matter of time I've switched ot Hannibal for the Moment though, as I'm still trying out leaders. Any advice on HA rushes? Do I need Currency? Do I need Math? Should I oracle HBR or something else like Feudalism for quadruple promoted Numidians?

You should try shaka for early warring/expanding. After incan, he's one of the best scorer and the best early expander thanks to his UB (a mini courthouse which stack with courthouse itself that you can build right away and it's discounted by AGG trait), also expansive helps on score too (health) plus discount granaries and harbours. The impi isn't great, but has its uses with 2 move can help pillage and be excellent medic for mounted wars.

I'd love to play Shaka. The Ikhanda is one of the two awesome buildings available to the people playing for points with Corps. I would have no idea though how to win the early wars with him. With the settings I use (Huge map, 17 AIs) , techtrade plays a huge role, and by the time I attack, the AI normally has got LBs aswell as WEs (about 1000 BC) . WastinTime already noticed that I pay heavy attention to UUs, because I don't see how I can win wars with normal ones in early wars. Expansion is the other part, normally, the land is all settled by 1500 BC. Rome got both, IMP and Praets, therefor, they are my current favourite.
Any tips on how to play Shaka are appreciated.

 

[Silverbow]

Elepult?

 

[Manco Capac]

I'd love to play Shaka. The Ikhanda is one of the two awesome buildings available to the people playing for points with Corps. I would have no idea though how to win the early wars with him. With the settings I use (Huge map, 17 AIs) , techtrade plays a huge role, and by the time I attack, the AI normally has got LBs aswell as WEs (about 1000 BC) . WastinTime already noticed that I pay heavy attention to UUs, because I don't see how I can win wars with normal ones in early wars. Expansion is the other part, normally, the land is all settled by 1500 BC. Rome got both, IMP and Praets, therefor, they are my current favourite.
Any tips on how to play Shaka are appreciated.

Did you even friggin' read my reply you were asking in a PM that much?

There was something about Shaka...you want to play with him...and despite.