PYL VI: Same Start Showdown!

[Ai Shizuka]

Next round.

Elizabeth, Noble, Epic, 1320 - 1768:

Spoiler :

We stopped right after the Roman war in the last round. This round features some economic recovery and some renaissance war.

Post-war recovery wasn't bad, actually. We just spammed the base multipliers and courthouses in the main cities. Stock exchanges are the icing on the cake. Those really helped to boost our economy.

Tech path:
Philo - Liberalism - Nationalism (free) - Engineering (trade with Mao) - Monotheism - Theology - Guilds - Banking - Economy - Drama and Literature (trade with Joao) - Gunpowder - Music (Joao) - Compass (Joao) - Printing Press - Rep parts - Rifling - Mil tradition - Constitution - Corporations - Democracy

1335 - Hagia Sophia BIDL. Some cash from Pacal:

1355 - Bulb Guilds with a GE

1370 - Peace with Stalin. He has -3 with everyone on this continent for DoW on a friend (me).

1375 - Switch from Police State to Universal Suffrage.

1385 - Some trading with Joao:

1390 - Open borders with Stalin.

1395 - Trading with Stalin:

1405 - We are the largest Civilization:

1420 - Liberalism race is won. Nationalism is our free tech and York starts building the Taj Mahal:

1440 - Switch to Serfdom and Organized Religion (after 5000 years of Paganism, we finally decided to backfill Monotheism and Theology).

1445 - Joao's world is round.

1465 - Finally some action not involving us. Stalin declares war on Pacal. Mao declares on Stalin.

1475 - University of Sankore built far away.

1495 - Taj Mahal is done:

1500 - Stalin want us to join the war vs Mao. Not really, we are still in recovery mode and going straight to rifles. And you are the target, not Mao.

1510 - Spiral Minaret completed far away. Stalin captures a mayan city.

1515 - Pacal capitulates to Stalin. That was fast. Now it's Stalin+Pacal vs Mao.

1525 - Mao want help vs Stalin. Not yet. It's tempting, but we decide to stick to the plan (no war until rifles).

1545 - Stalin asks for some tribute. No, take it from your new pet Pacal. He signs peace with Mao.

1590 - The last mysterious civilization find us. He's Buddhist and horribly backward:

1615 - York completes the Heroic Epic and starts spamming trebs, with 3 or 4 more cities. We have rifles. Research down to 0% to upgrade our CR maces.

1620 - Stalin declares war on us. Again. A big russian stack suddenly appears near Arpinum.

1630 - Arpinum is captured by the russian army.

1635 - Arpinum re-captured by our main stack of maces/redcoats and cata/trebs. We try to bribe Joao into closing his borders to Stalin, without success. Bad news, we need to defend 2 fronts now. War preparation is almost done anyway and hopefully he will focus his main force to defend Pacal's land.

1695 - A Great Merchant is born. He's off to Lisbon. Not the most lucrative destination, but the safest. We need the cash to upgrade our CG longbows.

1700 - Oxford University completed in London.

1702 - The first mayan city falls. No need to declare, as we was at war already. CR redcoats attack with overwhelming odds right after the defense bombardment:

1704 - Our Great Merchant arrives in Lisbon and get 1600ish gp.

1712 - All out war: switch to Police State, Vassalage, Theocracy. Not going to stop until Stalin's and his minion's destruction. We are not going to accept Stalin's capitulation.

1716 - Battle for Mutal, Hindu holy city:

1716 - Mutal is conquered, and a few wonders are there. The real prize is Hindu holy shrine and its income:

1722 - A russian stack finally arrives at Lakamha:

1724 - 4 trebs suicided to destroy the russian stack.

1728 - All our longbows are upgraded to rifles. Research up again to 70% at +25 gpt. The Kashi Vishwanath alone providess 38 gpt.

1732 - Joao want us to adopt Hereditary Rule. Not this time.

1734 - Lakamha is conquered.

1740 - Stalin suicides a stack on Lakamha. One of our CR redcoats dies.

1752 - Mayapan is conquered. It's the Islam holy city and comes with a +18 gpt shrine.

1758 - A new russian stack is destroyed. Not really a stack, that was quite pathetic.

1760 - Joao completes the Kremlin.

1766 - Statue of Liberty completed far away.

1768 - Uxmal is conquered, but Pacal isn'd done yet. We buy Mao's map, wich reveals the last mayan city in the north-eastern corner of the continent, surrounded by russian land. We are not going to stop anyway. This just delays the inevitable.


The continent:

US of A:

Tech situation looks good, no one is even close to rifles:

Glance screen is a bit less boring, but nothing to write home about:

We still have a single -1 friend-DoW penalty from the roman war. Stalin did all by himself.
The plan now is obvious: destroy Stalin and Pacal's last city.
At that point we may backstab our old pal Joao, striking with 2 stacks from NE and SW.
Or we can wait for transports and go for the USA. George has quite a few wonders there. And the AP, wich his Buddhist, of course .
Hopefully, when we are big enough, Mao will spontaneously join us as a vassal. We should try to get him to friendly.

On a side-note, Joao claimed that continent to the SE, wich makes him a less than ideal target.

The victory condition is quite obvious by now: domination.

 

[DMOC]

Before you start a game, got into the WB save with notepad. Scroll down to your leader.

Where it says playercoler=, you can switch the colors there.

It can not be done via worldbuilder in game...nor can you put Sid in the game any other way but via the WB save text edit (or modding).

Thanks. So there's no way for me to change the colors now that I have already started the game?

 

[Kesshi]

Thanks. So there's no way for me to change the colors now that I have already started the game?

DMOC,

Sure there is. Go into Worldbuilder, save the worldbuilder file, and you can open that file in notepad and modify it. When you want to start playing again, reload the worldbuilder save as a scenario, just like you did to start the PYL game.

 

[Bleys]

Tokugawa does have one advantage over every other Civ in the game - and it's potentially a huge one!

Spoiler :

...you are guaranteed to never start next to Toku when you play him yourself.

Honestly, I LIKE starting near Toku, because he is one of the most predictable AIs in the game. Hes always a grouch, but fades fast once the Medieval techs start coming in, and is easy to conquer. Just keep him small (usually not hard since he doesnt REX well as an AI) and he'll fall by the side of the road quickly. Same with Monty. I used to be worried when these guys showed up in my hood, but now, I see em as easy targets.

 

[dubrown]

Honestly, I LIKE starting near Toku, because he is one of the most predictable AIs in the game. Hes always a grouch, but fades fast once the Medieval techs start coming in, and is easy to conquer. Just keep him small (usually not hard since he doesnt REX well as an AI) and he'll fall by the side of the road quickly. Same with Monty. I used to be worried when these guys showed up in my hood, but now, I see em as easy targets.

Hey, nothing wrong with Toku. granted, this is probably the first time I play the fine japanese (perhaps second) in BtS. You really start to appreciate the protective Lbows and aggressives combat I bonus when you have to war constantly just to keep the economy going.

And if you play him yourself, you're sure to have one less AI that will never trade with you.

 

[Bleys]

Read Artichokers threads about Toku and leveraging Vassalage. He really is a mid-game BEAST when played like that.

Believe it or not, hes a very solid island AI too. Amphibious Samurai FTW! LOL.

 

[DMOC]

DMOC,

Sure there is. Go into Worldbuilder, save the worldbuilder file, and you can open that file in notepad and modify it. When you want to start playing again, reload the worldbuilder save as a scenario, just like you did to start the PYL game.

Okay, thanks. I will do that to edit some colors. There are no in-game effects from doing this, right? I seem to recall some weird things like AI's not producing anything in their cities from loading World Builder games in the past.

 

[semirami]

DMOC,

Sure there is. Go into Worldbuilder, save the worldbuilder file, and you can open that file in notepad and modify it. When you want to start playing again, reload the worldbuilder save as a scenario, just like you did to start the PYL game.

But you'll start a new game than, without religions being founded and relationships will be lost.

 

[PaulusIII]

Izzy, Emp/Epic, to 10 AD:

Spoiler :

Episode I: 4000 BC - 10 AD. "I rushed Rome and all I got was this lousy T-shirt!"

I find JC very close to me.

I also find copper very close to me. 1+1=2...

We're going to rush Rome!

Fast forward to 1750 BC: 10 axemen ready to kick Roman butt.

Unfortunately, he had his praetorians by now. At the cost of several axemen, Rome fell nonetheless, its gem mines now redirected to the Spanish treasury.

Cumae was taken as well, but I lacked the strength to finish him off at Antium (thanks a lot f-ing RNG). I decided to let him off the hook - he would never play a role in international politics again.

Not content with his status as punching bag, Julius decided to apply for court jester instead. Evidently he had not heard he was no longer significant in world politics.

This just cracked me up. 10 turns ago, I was kicking his ass and he was reduced to one pathetic city. And now he's already got the balls to threaten me? I laughed it off - and sure, he did not go into WHEOOH. He was evidently bluffing.

Some peaceful teching-expansion later... and the irst segment ends at 10 AD. So far, everything looks good. Joao has a lot of land that I'll be looking to relieve him from later on. Caesar is insignificant and will likely die the next round.

Religionwise I've taken Pacal's side because he spread Hinduism all throughout Spain. This keeps one flank safe, and it even warmed Julius up. Both Stalin and Mao have their own religion (never seen commies so religious!), Joao's along with Uncle Joe.

Techwise, I'm ahead because I keep trading with Pacal. Goals: finish off Julius, then we start on the next target. Izzy loves holy war.

 

[DMOC]

But you'll start a new game than, without religions being founded and relationships will be lost.

I could probably start over the game at 4000 BC and try it that way (doing the same moves that I did). Or I could start it with the "new game" and get one of the "unfounded" religions.

 

[Ai Shizuka]

Elizabeth, Noble, Epic, 1768 - 1860:

Spoiler :

More war in this round, to complete the job.

Tech path: democracy - chemistry - steel - divine right (Mao) - optics and sci method (Mao) - astro - physics - military science - steam power - railroad - communism (Mao) - combustion - artillery - assembly line - electricity - radio

1770 - More suiciders from stalin. Good luck against those CG 2-3 redcoats:

1782 - Washington want Education as a tribute. Go educate yourself.

1784 - Rostov captured.

1786 - Mao bribed into war vs Stalin. The goal here is to make him spontaneously vassalize to our empire.

1788 - Wow, that was fast:

1798 - A Great Prophet is born. Not really useful now, so we burn him on a Golden Age.

1800 - St. Petersburg is captured. Scotland Yard inside.

1814 - Yakutsk is captured.

1816 - All trebs are upgraded to cannons. Stalin's future isn't getting any brighter.

1820 - A poorly defended St. Petersburg is re-conquered by Russia. We have a long trek to send defensive units to the new cities.

1826 - I hate this event, but it doesn't matter this late in the game:

Pacal's last city is conquered. What a shame, he was only 126 turns away from that mighty knight:

1836 - St. Peter captured again.

1842 - We get a Great Eng. He's going to found Mining Inc. in a few turns.

1844 - Vladivostok is captured.

1845 - Railroad is done. York starts spamming 1 machine gun per turn for the russian front. Washington declares war on Stalin. Mining Inc. is founded in Mutal, wich is building Wall Street (13 turns). It provides 18 hammers with our current resources.

1850 - George's mighty stack. Gonna conquer the world with this:

1851 - Moscow is captured. Chichen Itza inside:

1852 - We demand emancipation . Switch.

1853 - Our new GA bulbs part of biology.

1855 - Yaroslavl conquered. We open our borders to the Americans.

1856 - Novgorod is captured by Mao. So you are actually doing something in this war.

1860 - Wall Street is completed in Mutal, wich starts building some Mining Inc. executives.
Orenburg is captured by Mao.
Yekaterinburg is captured by ourselves.

1863 - Cannons upgraded to artillery. Some cash from Mao:

1865 - Assembly Line is done. I delayed it on purpose, as redcoats was going to dominate this war. Still, the end of their era . I'm going to finish this war with them anyway. They sure have some style.

1867 - Smolensk is captured.

1869 - We get a Great Spy. Going to infiltrate Joao.

1870 - Calakmul is captured and the bear is dead once and for all.

Old Russia:

The continent:

Now it's decision time.
Population limit for domination is very close, but we still need 17% more land. Some russian cities are still expanding their borders anyway.

One thing is sure: I can't stomach an arti/infantry war right now.
So the options are:

- Diplo victory. Mass Media are coming right after Radio.
- Tank/bombers war vs. Joao. But he's been an honest trading partner for the whole game and I'm not really inclined to wiping him off.
- Intercontinental war vs George. He's annoyed, backward and buddhist. And asked a couple times for some stupid tributes. Enough reasons to destroy him, if you ask me.


So, what do you think? The game is obviously in the bag anyway.

 

[dubrown]

@Ai Shizuka

Spoiler :

I'd probably gone after Joao. Friend or no friend, it's alot less troublesome to just march the stack over the border than to go across the ocean. Ofc, that's if you're alot stronger than Joao, which I suspect, even with even tech, numbers and some human strategy should do the trick.

Edit, ah Joao has immigrated as well, doesn't really matter, if you take his homeland holdings it should be enough I guess.

 

[semirami]

Ramssess/Emperor/Marathon 930BC-690AD The end:

Spoiler :

So I decided to finish the game as soon as possible:

First I whip this in Mutal:

Stalin DoW on me and came with mixed stack axes, cats and swords. The city will fall easy, because it's guarded by 2 war chariots, but the idiot decide to bombard first and I have time to bring reinforcements and whip few axemen. Now he has no chance. He suicide his stack and few turns later came with more units. To avoid any trouble I just made peace with him for Aesthetics, not a big deal because I traded it arround and now everyone has it. I got this from Pacal for free:

Mutal starts with Swedagon Paya. I just need the culture, maybe I can steal some cities from Pacal.

I plan to lightbulb Theology, unfortunately Mutal pops a merchant. I send him to trade mission for 3000 gold and decide to research Theo manually.

Unfortunately 2 turns before completion Christianity is founded in distant land

Well, the next tech that a great prophet will bulb is about half of Divine right, so I'll go in that route. I build the GL, just because I can:

And:

And thanks to Paya:

515AD:

I have the AP done to 1 turn, so I send the free missionary to Alemani. There is a chance for failure, because I have both Buddhism and Hinduism there, but the mission succeeded. I convert to Islam and:

The leader of Islam have a vision...

I'll have Optics in few turns, so I can find and convert the isolated AI. 3 turns later I convert back to Buddhism

625AD:

And he isn't very advanced:

He has Theology, but is in Organized Religion. I got lucky again and succeed to spread Islam. He is the jusih and confu founder and have the both religions in all of his cities.

No one is in theocracy so I spread Islam to everyone and to most of my cities. 685 AD:

and:

 

[Ai Shizuka]

Followed dubrown's advice for the last part.

Elizabeth, Noble, Epic, 1860 - 1897 (victory):

Spoiler :

So Joao is the next target. After millennia of honest trading and friendship, he will be backstabbed by Elizabeth.

1871 - Joao completes the Pentagon. We was completing it in 3 turns.

War preparation. Mining Inc. expanded in all the main production cities, where we are spamming tanks, marines and a few anti-tanks. York is pumping out 1 tank each turn. All redcoats are upgraded to infantry.

The plan is simple: attack from the NE with the russian war veterans, starting from Santarem, and from the SW with the new stack of tanks, starting from Leiria. Hopefully good old Joao is going to capitulate quickly. Our power ratio with him went from 1.7 to 2.5 in the last few years.

1893 - DoW on Joao. Leiria (SW front) and Novgorod (NE front) are captured in the first turn of war. Novgorod was chinese, but culture-flipped by Joao:

1896 - Santarem is captured on the eastern front, and Joao is already talking about capitulation:

1897 - His land is more than enough for a domination victory:

Poor Joao never saw it coming. He didn't even attempt a counter-attack. Still, he was up there on the tech-board. He had flight on us, and quite a few infantry units.

The eastern army:

The western army:

The world:

Power graph:

Demographics. Interestingly enough, Joao was still the commerce-leader:

The score. Quite poor, compared to the experts, but it's my second best:

Overall, I'm quite happy with this game. It started slowly, but went snowballing after JC's defeat.

I think the main mistake was not rushing Rome asap and not blocking Joao to some nice spots. That, and realizing too late how crap my little corner of land was.

About Elizabeth, I don't think I've made good use of her Philo trait. Overall, GP management is one of the weakest part in all my games, wich I really need to improve.

Financial was kinda hampered in the original English empire, but started to shine on the roman lands.

I've made extensive use of the Redcoats, but they never met any real opposition, just a few muskets in late russian war.

And I really like the Stock Exchange, the main asset in the quick economy recovery after the roman war.

Overall, I don't think I'm ready for Prince. Going to play 2 or 3 more games on Noble.

As usual, any kind of comments are more than welcome.

 

[Norvin_Green]

Gilgamesh, Emperor, Normal, 4000bc-375bc (100 turns)

Spoiler :

I've been enjoying creative lately so I figured I'd like to try out Gilgamesh. Not sure how well I'll do on emperor but what the heck - it's only a game. Settled on the opening tile went AH, Mining, BW & worker, warrior, warrior. Met Julius on turn 12 to the north and thought about rushing to HBR but as I scouted around it SEEMED like there was lots of room to the east. About 2640 bc I meet Mao in the east which kind of killed rexing too much and that was before Joao came along too!! Founded Eridu SW of the copper just outside of Rome's culture. 1320 bc settled Kish to NE netting fish, clam and cow - will try to run scientists here to accelerate research. Been more or less building vultures in Eridu. Turn 76 got the Oracle and took Monarchy so next turn revolted to slavery and hereditary rule. Barbs built city to SE took 4 vultures and razed replaced with better positioned city to grab corn, gold, sheep and flood plains. Was late getting city to NE to block Julius so I settled Lagash netting horse, incense and spice. Trying to get two more cities - one to the east which would grab the cow and ivory and one the west getting fish and rice. Religious situation is Pacal is Buddhist, Julius is Hindu , and Stalin, Mao and Joao are all Jewish. Going to try and persuade Julius to fight Joao and make him enemies with all three. He has iron and I'm afraid his praets would make short work of Pacal. If I can get him to launch a campaign against Joao I will join in and try and take a few cities.

 

[dubrown]

@Ai shizuka

Spoiler :

Nice game! You manage to turn the troublesome start around to a victory which is very good. I would say you should be able to move up a level pretty soon, atleast try a game on Prince and see how it works.

What you need to improve from this game is the early age. You where cornered by the AI in this one, didn't have enough land or cities claimed early. When the AI is close it's almost always worth it to early rush the closest neighbour and if not rushing, aggressive settling to block of enough land for you to comfortably backfill.

Anyway, you did great!

 

[dubrown]

Tokugawa, Monarch/Epic 1585AD (Game practically won, IE there's no way I'm loosing this one...)

Spoiler :

It's been a game of almost constant war, howelse to fuel the strained Japanese economy. I'm way behind in tech and will never catch up, but that doesn't matter, I'm too strong for everyone anyway.

I have a newfound respect for the Samurai. In Vassalage and Theocracy I'm pumping out either CRIII or Drill IV Samurais out of my military production cities. And I have to say, getting a Samurai up to DrillIV and CRIII and you got a unit that can kill practically anything. 5-8 first strikes is quite good...
A screenie of a decently beefed up Samurai (not my best ever, but atleast it shows the power of the Drill promo.

Well, Anyway. I was preparing to start my campaign against Joao in my previous report I believe. First stint wen't easily and I took his closest cities. This has continued with a small break to let my troops heal and to get guilds for som knightsupport.

Now, I got some decent stacks

That'll make short work of Joao, most of my cities is producing additional troops so the supply will never stop.
The situation right now in the world:

And some turns later I've run over 3 of Joao cities, amongst one his capital. Here I split up my stack on 3 fronts to take the next batch of cities and then Joao should be willing to capitulate.

To spare you some screenies I'll not show you these, I can assure you that those 3 targetted cities fell quickly, leaving Joao with only 3 spreadout cities left on this continent, I have no idea if he has anything overseas but I don't care.

Well, I forgot to tell you that he once again bribed Stalin to join the fray. He isn't putting any pressure on me but is troubling my vassal Pacal a bit.

Now, Joao wouldn't capitulate to me because he was afraid of my enemies, meaning Stalin, to bad a turn later Joao did volontary vassal himself to Stalin.

No trouble for me though, it's time to take the war to russian soil. He do have Muskets now but they're still no match to my Samurais/Knights/trebs.

Here we stop for today, some pictures showing my poor researchrate

The world as we know it

And relations

Finally, VCs

Domination isn't far of, finish stalin and Joao should do the trick, perhaps some chinese holdings will have to go to get the final needed landarea. Though a Hindu missionary over to America and vassalising Joao and Stalin would probably mean an AP victory, but I believe Domination is more appropriate.

Unfortunately I'll have no time to play for a bit more than a week now, will be away all week so it'll be continued sometime far of in the future.

 

[MkLh]

Monarch, Epic & Izzy. From 745 AD to 1680:

Spoiler :

Killing Rome left me behind in techs for longer time I expected. Everyone else was quite fast techer on this map, and I was not able to trade anything. Liberalism race was lost by a wide margin. Bulbing education finally allowed some trading.

View attachment 194421
View attachment 194423
View attachment 194422

I was ready to attack Pacal with conquistadors only as late as 1605. Pacal was a tech leaded, but weak on military.

View attachment 194424

Pacal bribed Mao against me.

View attachment 194425

A spy exploit. I use this only for 3 first cities; one of them had Chicken Itza wonder.

View attachment 194426

1685 Pacal capitulates with three cities left.

View attachment 194428
View attachment 194429

 

[Ai Shizuka]

dubrown:

Spoiler :

Thanks, it's always nice to know what went wrong. And the effects of my poor start are quite obvious, just looking at the end date of the other games. I think I'm going to do one more game at Noble before moving to Prince.

And those are some nasty Samurais you have there. Even a nooblet like me can see that your game is pretty much won already.

 

[PaulusIII]

Izzy Emp/Epic, 10 AD - 1720 AD (and domination victory)

Spoiler :

At the beginning of the round, Julius was preparing for war again. It wouldn't be for long though. As soon as I got CS/Machinery, I built maces and wiped his praetorians off the earth. Goodbye, Julius, nice not knowing ya anymore.

After that, a long round of peaceful teching followed. I beat Pacal to liberalism by 2 turns taking PP for it.

Mao declared war on Joao! However, he was doomed to fail and capitulated to Joao. Too soon.

Washington showed up as the final leader, giving me more opportunities for tech trading.

Everyone has put their research into essential techs such as Democracy, Constitution, Economics, Corporation (Stalin of all people ) and Scientific Method. A telltale sign for trouble: if all nations are researching peaceful techs but one nation has - for some odd reason - decided to research Steel, Replaceable Parts and Rifling. That nation of course is Spain.

I'm readying the attack with Spanish Cannons of Doom(TM), drafted riflemen and soon the cavalry will join as well.

I don't know what others think of the Citadel, but I think that it's a good building if used properly. Beeline steel and leave economics be, then build a huge stack of cannons under Vassalage or Theocracy and you have instant CR3 cannons, which will utterly paste medieval troops and even get good chances against grenadiers/rifles. With a few rounds of drafting and the Spanish cannon, a potent SoD was formed with the intention to eradicate Joao. That would be a long, long endeavour, though. He had REXed like mad and had both Stalin (voluntary) and Mao (capitulated) as vassals. But I had a definite technological edge, with all of them still relying on melee troops and muskets. Now I remember why I love drafting so much in situations like these: even fresh riflemen recruits wipe out obsolete troops with ease.

Joao counterattacked: I lost a city to sheer numbers but took it back with cannons and rifles. With Joao's stack destroyed I could simply move forward, deal with small garrisons one at a time, then move on again.

I still wonder, though. How can I be at war with half the world and still - against opponents with equal if not superior technology - keep a monopoly on RP/Rifling and a near-monopoly on Steel all the time?

Stalin did the right thing and left the sinking Portuguese ship. I granted him peace for small cash, for Russia would likely only annoy me during the war and Stalin was far away. Mao was not so lucky, though.

And after Lisbon fell and Mao had deserted him as well, he finally capitulated.

Serves you right, jerk. You've been trying to push me around all game long and now I've finally gotten back to you.

With Joao's capitulation the game essentially became a mop-up. Dow Mao, capitulate Mao, Dow Stalin, capitulate Stalin + colony Zara, Dow Pacal and capitulate him as well. And by then I'd surpassed the domination limit so Washington got home free. He tried to force tribute out of me as well, and had 500 years been preparing for a war that never came. I guess he went out of WHEOOH after I capped Joao.

A typical conquer-the-world-with-riflemen game for me. Fun map, except for Julius nearby not really challenging though. It even started at the beginning because the start with agriculture speeded things up soooo much.