Replay #1 Huge Domination by 640 AD [BUFFY]

[vanillasine]

What will happen in this war? Will I win the race of Vassal-aquiration against overpowerful Hannibal? Be prepared for the next episode of "Replay 01" !

DBZ end credits suddenly started playing in my head.

 

[Seraiel]

DBZ end credits suddenly started playing in my head.

DBZ ownz and thx for reading :>

Btw, forgot to attach the savegame:

 

[Seraiel]

I'm just in the mood of writing, so here it is, the end!

The years from 1 AD to 640 AD:

Spoiler :

Last time, the race of Vassal aquiration had begun and moved on to full speed. Mehmed and Washington vassaled to me by free will, Hannibal got De Gaulle and Bismark. I conquered Ramesses completely, therefor...

... Hannibal gets his 3rd Vassal by 10 AD: Roosevelt capitulates!

I'm still in war with Joao whom I want to vassalize asap to balance things out a little, here again is a worldmap for you, so you have an oversight!



And here again an Update of the Military Power of the Empires:



As you see, delivering Elephants to Roosevelt caused quite a few losses to Hannibals Army. He still though is way more powerful then any other Civilization. Joao is an easy opponent, he lost too much of his forces in the wars I put against him. As you already knew from the last post, time was the main problem, so I simply stepped in with my SoD through the front door.

10 AD: Another GE is born I use him to lightbulb part of Gunpowder.

20 AD: The first City of Joao falls with moderate losses. Problem is mainly, that I still have Cats and no Trebs, as I used to not tech Engineering myself at that time.

As I already mentioned, Joao didn't even try to attack my Forces on the field, because the SoD is so well composed. Have a look at it:



Thats 23 War Elephants, 1/3 promoted to Formation, 1/3 to Shock and 1/3 to Combat. No Way Joao could attack with anything mounted. He also cannot attack with Maces as the Shock-Elephants counter them and he cannot attack with Crossbows, due to the Combat-Elephants. He can't attack with Pikes, as there are also 12 Maces in the Stack, 3 Healers (one must have died somewhere, I always produce 4 Checkers and then upgrade them) 2 Shock-Maces and 2 Combat Maces, rest is promoted to Cover + CR. Believe me, CR-Maces rock heavily and remain that way up to Infantry, only problem of them is that they are slow, but that doesn't matter atm. cause War-Elephants are as slow as they are. In addition, there are also 2 obsolete Charriots and 1 obsolete Spearman in the Stack
This is a Stack for City-offense and Field-defense.

70 AD: I lightbulb part of Printing Press.

What are the forces doing? Healing -.- ^^ Still lack the Medic 3 Woods 3 Healer, he would have fastened up things immensly.

90 AD: I sell "Paper" to nearly all of the Civs, and get about 3k Gold for it, Time for Upgrades to Cuirrassiers.

110 AD: Joao loses his 2nd City, most of his forces, and capitulates. My losses are still moderate to none. Have a look at the Powergraph again:



One can see the huge jump from the Elephants -> Cuirrassiers upgrade, and shortly before that, some losses at Joao's first City, mostly Cats.

Next Target: Lizzy

190 AD: Hannibal declares war on Elizabeth! He wants to steal my next Vassal! His forces have moved up in the meantime, but there is no way I'm gonna let this happen. My forces are barely healed, but they have to move again, Cuirrassiers ride in front, the rest follows slowly.

200 AD: I split up the Cuirrassiers, and attack every unit I find on open field from Lizzy. I even declare War on Suleiman, who still has some Cities in the area, thinking "why not just take him with me, if I'm there already" and conquer some beautiful IMP-Cities with lots of settled GG's.



I tell you, Cuirrassiers are awesome, simply because of their speed, and their strength. I can't remember loosing a single one in the attack, and the Macemen didn't even arrive, then...

210 AD: Lizzy knows it's over, she capitulates immediately.

220 AD: I gift all Techs needed for Cuirrassiers to my Vassals, time they finally do something. I hope, I won't regret that, but I have to take the risk, as all my Vassals annoy Hannibal, and then:

My 3rd GG is born, and his name is "YAMAMOTO"!!!111

Finally I can make a Medic 3 Woods 3 Healer to speed up healing, and it's time he arrives, because only a few turns later: Hannibal declares war!

Funniest thing: Bismark immediately cancels his Vassalage Now you know, what you shouldn't do, when you have Vassals by free will

250 AD: A captured Worker of Lizzy's scouts the SoD of Hannibal, and I suddenly realize, that it's not good.



Those are 70 Units and they are 2 Turns of my egyptian shrine city! My forces didn't even have time to heal, and the Supermedic hasn't even arrived yet! Only a very small force of Cuirrassiers have made it to full health and were able to catch up with the SoD, this will get bloody...

The City has to bleed. Whip walls, whip some Longbows, of course without investing a single turn in them, the population cries! And so do the Cuirassiers, I order all 5-6 to attack, and now I get to know the real power of the flanking ability! They have a hard time against the War Elephants with their 50% bonus against mounted units, nearly all of them die, but:

They damage the stack, and by that inflict damage on all siege weapons! I could not believe, how awesome this is, but they actually inflicted so much damage on the siege weapons, that Hannibal could not use them in his initial attack on the holy city, therefor giving me more time to get more troops there! It's unbelievable, but more and more Cuirrassiers and Longbows arrive, and even before the Maces are there again, Hannibals complete SoD lies raspy on the ground, feeding it with blood!!!

I do have some serious losses though:



But as you see, that's nothing compared to what Hannibal just lost. I tell you: I love Cuirrassiers! They are awesome! I do love CR-Maces or Riflemen or whatever also, they are the best when it comes to city siege, but without the movement speed of the Cuirrassiers, and the flanking ability, I would have lost that city with 100% certainty!

Hannibal is beaten, from now on, it's only a question of the time the remaining troops need to reach Hannibal and Roosevelt.

370 AD: The Currs reach Roosevelt, he only few Elephants and Pikes, so there are nearly no losses at his first City.

380 AD: Hannibal loses his first border-city to Maces. Now that I got Trebs, there is no stopping anymore.

410 AD: What is that? Roosevelt counterattacks with Elephants and Pikes, many Cuirrassiers shed blood... That's why I don't love them, sometimes they're awesome, but against Elephants and Pikes, one always has losses, and Elephants and Pikes come so much earlier and are so much cheaper. Well, it doesn't matter anyway, all troops are marching with a constant flow of reinforcements. It will take some time though, mostly the time, the units need to heal.

420 AD: What's that? Hannibal attacks my Macemen SoD with Cats on the field? Yes. I had to leave some troops in the conquered cities of Lizzy and Sulei behind, and decided for the Combat and Shock Maces, aswell as some pikes. And that is exactly, why I can asure you, that there is a critical limit of "defense-troops" that have to be in a SoD, to prevent AI from doing this. I didn't leave them all behind, just some, I guess the number of defense-troops that have to be in a SoD to make it so that AI does not attack it, is somewhere between 4-8. Anyway, doesn't matter now, but I'm advised now for the future.

470 AD: Roosevelt is down to 25% of his former territory.

480 AD: Roosevelt breaks free from his Vassalage. Same turn I reach Cannons and the industrial era thanks to Lizzy's amazing ability to research. Now it get's ridiculous, no losses anymore.

500 AD: I lightbulb Steampower. Doesn't matter, but in the meantime, Taj Mahal has completed, and I created so many great persons, that I had 2 golden Ages in series.

520 AD: Carthage falls to Cannons and still CR-Maces

I realize now how annoying my vassals can be, pillaging everything on their way instead of conquering some cities! To hell with them! No, just kidding, they are doing a great job, riding around with Cuirrassiers and doing nothing but waiting for the bombardment of their 2 withbrought Trebs

535 AD: Rifling! Now this is really ridiculous, CR-Riflemen and Cannons against the rests of some shattered empires... I beg money from my Vassals to upgrade my Maces and split the Stack again, as I really have nothing to fear anymore, and time is on the edge. Hannibal has reached Cuirrassiers btw now, guess they will have lots of fun against my Riflemen

555 AD: Hadrumentum and Kerkouane fall in the same turn. I ask Hannibal friendly to seal the deal, but he offers me a normal Peace Treaty. Wait, let's try something...

I demand for 2 further Cities of him, aaaaaaaand: He agrees Guess his Cuirrs really had fun with my Rifles

I make the rest short, as it has become really ridiculous now. Even with Roosevelt down and vassalized Hannibal, I still haven't reached domination limit, so I have to move aaaaaall the way north again, to conquer Bismark -.- This costs just so much time...

620 AD: The war against Bismark starts. I just present you two Screens. The first one being from 620 AD:



And the other one 4 turns later:



Blitzed!

I hope again, you enjoyed reading, this time, I took myself some more time for screens, here are some more and the last savegame:

Spoiler :

Now it's time for your questions, if you have any Till then, cya,

Seraiel

 

[Seraiel]

Forgot the Savegame again ^^

 

[Unconventional]

Liberalism at 190 BC, Oxford at 10 BC(besides lots of fighting and unit building), Canons at 480 AD, 500 AD steam power (looks like the modernization theory has been lying to us cause the industrial revolution first occured in Inca around 500 ADs ) and all of them on Deity with only 3 towns and 51 cottages? I myself only can do them between 1000- 1500 AD on Monarch! Dude you are amazing! Is this ultra-crazy fast technology rate related to Deity AI teching like a maniac? If so how come you beat them to those wonders while also rushing so early? Is it all about knowing what to tech and when to tech plus knowing what the AI prefer to tech? I think it's also related to having 17 AI so that techs are researched very quickly. This is amazing to see those Deity AIs getting their buts kicked like noble AIs

 

[Seraiel]

Liberalism at 190 BC, Oxford at 10 BC(besides lots of fighting and unit building), Canons at 480 AD, 500 AD steam power (looks like the modernization theory has been lying to us cause the industrial revolution first occured in Inca around 500 ADs ) and all of them on Deity with only 3 towns and 51 cottages? I myself only can do them between 1000- 1500 AD on Monarch! Dude you are amazing! Is this ultra-crazy fast technology rate related to Deity AI teching like a maniac? If so how come you beat them to those wonders while also rushing so early? Is it all about knowing what to tech and when to tech plus knowing what the AI prefer to tech? I think it's also related to having 17 AI so that techs are researched very quickly. This is amazing to see those Deity AIs getting their buts kicked like noble AIs

Hi

First of all, yer, AI Techs a lot faster on Deity than on any other difficulty lvl, so one has competent partners in teching. Due to trading, one can actually look at the other AI's as being a part of the own tech team. Knowing what to tech and how to trade, is also a big part of my strategy, I already wanted to write a thread about the techs, the AI techs seldomly and that can bring you back in the game, like for example Aesthetics, Literature, Drama, Music, Paper and so on. Just look at the time when I build the Oracle, take CoL, by that I get Alpha and every other tech there is to this moment. Then comes a big expansion phase where I don't tech at all and the AI's run away, but once I reach Aesthetics, I can trade CoL + it for again anything there is, the Theology lightbulb in my games also helps tremendously, as for these three techs, you can really get anything there is. Of course, Mansa Musa has to be in the game for that, as he is the only one, who always trades, but other pleased AI's are also willing to seal the deal.

Great part of fast-teching is also having the Oracle + GLH + a shrine, actually, without them, I wouldn't have had any tech-rate at all, but the last two bring you up from 0% to 30-40% tech-rate instantly, my strategies rely heavily on those also. Getting the GLH demands again to have Mansa in the game, as the early rushing with Checkers doesn't allow very much tech, actually there is only place for Meditation -> Priesthood -> Writing + perhaps one simple other tech like Fishing, after that, one has so many cities and has to pay so much maintenance, that tech's at 0% for 1000 - 2000y. Getting the GLH requires also to pre-chop the forrests directly after the Oracle and the BW-Trade, it's actually one of the really hard to get wonders on Deity as the latest possible time it is built is 1500 BC, and it's advisable to make a good 2pop-whip with maximum overflow, as one doesn't get the wonder-building-penalty by that.

Then getting all the worthful wonders while still building lots of units was possible in this game, cause Persepolis had an insane amount of forrests that could be chopped, it's wide cultural borders also helped big time there, and, that it had 4 hills that could be worked. I actually choose my GP-Farm not only by the amount of food, but also by how many hills it can work, and how many forrests there are to chop, 2 times food is perfectly ok for a GP-Farm, if there are enough forrests and at least 3-4 hills.

Building enough units to warry properly and early, requires to chop heavily again, I always take the "don't have a forrest by 1 AD" as a rule (though you will see in my next game, I also deviate from that rule) and it requires to build less buildings so one can build in more cities. I. e. I only build Granaries for whipping, Forges as they are so cheap with IND, Courthouses for Maintenance-reduce, Libraries for Research-bonus and Barracks + Theocracy for lvl 3 units, I do not build Markets, Grocers, or anything else unless in a shrine-city, as research-rate normally is between 70-100%, they wouldn't do much there either and are all very cost-intensive. Again, running Burocracy also helps quite a lot, when switching to Vassalage in the GA's I always experienced a research loss of at least 100 BPT. Anyway, Vassalage is a good Civic, as it allows lvl 4 mounted units with only one settled GG, but for fast-tech, Burocracy is unbeatable.

And there is the "power of plain pop", one actually has to really cut on whipping so hard imho, people say 1pop-whips are bad, but I don't believe them. If I had made bigger whips, I would not have been able to work such a huge amount of cottages and I never whip in the Burocracy Capital unless totally necessary and I do not whip in the GP-Farm (except for GLH) aswell as I only whip softly every 30 turns in the HE-City, therefor these three are really powerful, they're "the spine" of my empire and have to be handled with care.

Hth you, Sera