Replay #4 Slow and steady wins the race

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I am speechless now... and feel so grateful you did this... it had to be absolute fun to plan this!

Even Heinz Guderian or Mannstein will be proud of you!

That's some showing...

I have to admit I never expected that your replays will turn this way out...
 
Haha, my PC didn't crash. But scene was overwhelming. My eyes started to bleed of too much information.
 
:eek:

Must admit I checked the game in HoF a few days ago, before you wrote the last writeup of the game, so I saw you conquered half a million cities at the very end. Seeing the units and plans, however, can take your breath away. Just unreal. How the hell could you keep an overview of all that, and what was needed to take each city? Also, will NASA get back their computer now? :D

Just an insane game, and I look forward to reading the next one, and not least the strategy articles that will hopefully follow. Particularly look forward to city specialisation because, as you know, that is a weakness of mine. Have read some articles about it, but still manage to fail when trying to implement it in-game. More specifics would therefore be excellent :thup:
 
And I thought some of my wars had epic planning behind them. They have nothing on this. Looking forward to the rest - I'm grateful that you're taking the time it takes to write this. It might well be the most epic war ever waged in civ :)
 
Special!11 - Part II


Thx Vranasm and happyturtle to having posted in the meantime. I always go by the rule, that if I only have 1 reader other than myself, it's worth the effort.


There are some things I forgot to mention. What you see on those really really big charts are the 3 main fronts. There were minor fronts in this game too, some spread out island cities in the middle of nowhere, and of course, I also sent troops there too. Vranasm is right, the planning was fun, executing the plan was even more fun, but the reward for it and the Writeup, those are scary to say at best. I'd love if the game somewhat had something like a combat-meter, you know, like games like Mortal Combat have, showing me a big "Fatality" and Special Animation for this, but Strategy games are mostly dry, especially on the highest lvls.

Anyhow, I will not get sad :) . After some real intensive work on the clearviews, you now all have a feeling for what comes next: Yes, the execution of the plan :) Here we go:


The year is still 1378 AD: Things happening at the South Front of Egypt and Babylonia:

  • Strikeforce Gamma (the smal Strikeforce of the armored units) fulfills its duty, by conquering the city. Troops of Mechanized Infantries move into it afterwards.
  • There weren't enough targets for Strikeforce Beta from the center-front, they use the Railroad network to help out at the babylonian front and capture the city of Nippur.
  • A rain of Paratroopers drops in from the south and the north, directly besides Hammurabis Capital Babylon, and the harbor-city of Borsippa.

7f53bba1.jpg


Losses on this front: 1 SAM destroyed because of malfunction, other than that, no losses.


We jump to the center-front, the one with the large Koreon empire:

  • The Air-Bombardement is severe, the power of the combined armored Strikeforces unstoppable.
  • The cities of Inch'on, Birmingham, Reading, Richmond, Dover and Norwitch fall, those are 6 cities to the 2 that were already conquered at the southern front.
  • The commander of the eyptian forces does a questionable decision: After the Stack of Wang Kon has been discovered, he orders the City-Raider promoted Modern Armors to move besides it. Attacking it in this round is impossible, so he wants to provoke a counter-attack. "The defender is always in the better position in Civ, aeh, the World!" He says.

21aa9a11.jpg


Losses on this front: 2 SAMs have a malfunction again. I note, that SAMs suck!


I don't declare war on Viccy yet, because I hope that WKs Stack has stupid orders and tries to attack Viccys city, so that I can easily own him with City-Raiders in it :D

But history writes another story. WK is totally annoying, instead of taking Viccys city and letting me destroy him, he makes a, mostly suicide, attack on my Stack of CR's lead by ULTRALORD! Here is the sadest scene of the end of the round:


f581f94c.jpg


ULTRALORD dies after having fought gloriosly and having defeated 3 tanks! I must say, that I totally miscalculated the strength of WKs SoD, which was so strong, because of the large number of Mobile Artilleries it had. Still, the Modern Armors were a lot stronger than their attackers, but in the end of a round, or when being near to defeat, AIs do stupid things and suicide a ton of unit just to kill a few of the attackers.

A whole Stack eradicated.

But the revenge is in the hands of the Egyptians. Forces from all over the map, the constant stream of reinforcements that arrives every turn kills every single unit that can be reached. Here are screens of the end of T2 of the final war, it's 1380 AD!

South front:

b3209cb1.jpg


The Paratroopers have taken the cities of Borsippa and Babylon just as planned. By that, they freed the way for additional armored units to move in and threaten the city of Akkad.

Center front:

1f5529f1.jpg


The cities of Ulsan and Ellassar have been conquered, and as already told, WKs Stack got eradicated.


WK finally notices that he has a bigger problem that the war against Viccy, he conducts peace with her in 1382 AD!

Nothing else happens, because I don't want it. The cities are revolting less turns than expected, therefor, I don't conquer any in this round, because I don't wanna trigger stupid Domination when I can have awesome Space-Colony-Victory!


1384 AD, I have to capture the city of Akkad. Nothing of importance, if you want, you can see it on the screens above. The necessity to capture that city came out of the situation, that stupid Darius would have captured it otherwise, of course, I cannot let my Vassals get any cities, at least not cities where my troops are standing, waiting for the order to attack!


1386 AD: Hammurabi has broken free from his Vassalage again, he instantly vassals to Frederick, and Frederick decides for peace with me :lol: . I decide that I'm not going to let this happen to me, but that the Babylonian cities don't have the highest priority. The Paratroopers had severe losses, because they're basically a very weak unit compared to a CR2-3 Modern Armor, but also because they lacked Air support at the south front.

I have to take the city of Sippur at the center front, otherwise Washington would have gotten it. ZOMG, what's going on with my Vassals? Normally, when one declares war, Vassals need tons of time to even get of their ass and do anything, even if it's only as stupid as sending a small stack out of 5 units, but my Vassals this time? It's like they were playing for "who's going to get the highest scoring Vassal of HoF" :lol: .

I btw have a very nice picture from that front for you:

55dfe649.jpg


I love that troop movement, basically all advancing further and further to delay the city-conquest, get into position, and then conquer them all at once. If I were Wang Kon, I'd make my testimony seeing this, it's like there are more tiles of his country that have one of my tanks on them like there are free tiles.

Here is a picture of 1390, the turn where I decide that it's late enough, and that I can take the cities (all at once) :

cfc0c962.jpg


I don't count the cities anymore, and the losses, besides having lost a part of Strikeforce Alpha and Ultralord, are still insignificant. I totally understimated the power of Stealth Bombers and CR2-3 Modern Armors. It's not only that the sheer number of troops is insane, and that the number of produced Reinforcements is insane, no, the troops do not even die! It's like when one is playing an MMO and everybody is shouting "they're going down, they're going down!" .

Only 1 turn later, in 1392 AD, time for the final phase of the final war has come: I declare war on Viccy and Asoka! Here is the update from the north front:

3880c996.jpg


10 cities fall by the combined power of Marines, Fighters, Stealth Bombers starting from islands, heavy coastal Bombardement, and you see that right, I've forgotten to take Bristol and Glouchester :lol: . This was was so freaking big, moving 600 units without forgetting one was simply not in my abilities :lol: .
Anyhow, I will see the unconquered cities a few turns later and conquer them also.


Here is the final update of the 3 fronts 1 turn before the Spaceship arrives. All Korean cities have surrendered, I have conquered Viccys empire completely with the exception of some very far away spread out island cities, Asoka is dead too, I hope you recognize the size of the map again, are able to identify the land taken and now know, what this crazy Blitz was in the end. First, it was building a lot of troops, sorting them, bringt them into position, after that, it was sheer roflstomping with a little spot on the carpet of glory, ULTRALORD went down, how sad :lol: .

Spoiler :

f2cd8a07.jpg



If you ask yourself btw on what I did with a big part of my troops afterwards, and what happened to Frederick and Hammurabi, the ones having escaped my fist :) . Well, Frederick declared war on Mansa, and I had too many Tanks... "Hey Mansa, having had enough of having been kicked around for the whole round? Here is something for you :D" *gifts Mansa 1 ton of Modern Armors and Stealth Bombers and sees Frederick loose half his empire on the following turn* .

Good that I'm on Alpha Centauri now, shall Mansa have the world, while I have the Universe.

--------------------


END OF SPECIAL!11

Sera
 
Hope you enjoy JC then :) oh and, would it be possible if you could play this game with a 'normal' start? :p I think it'd be nice to see a comparison

To put it simply, your games are a work of art ;)

Congrats on getting the highest score in HoF!!
 
Haha, my PC didn't crash. But scene was overwhelming. My eyes started to bleed of too much information.

lol :D .

:eek:

Must admit I checked the game in HoF a few days ago, before you wrote the last writeup of the game, so I saw you conquered half a million cities at the very end. Seeing the units and plans, however, can take your breath away. Just unreal. How the hell could you keep an overview of all that, and what was needed to take each city? Also, will NASA get back their computer now? :D

Just an insane game, and I look forward to reading the next one, and not least the strategy articles that will hopefully follow. Particularly look forward to city specialisation because, as you know, that is a weakness of mine. Have read some articles about it, but still manage to fail when trying to implement it in-game. More specifics would therefore be excellent :thup:

lol at the NASA part, but my PC is taken from SNASA (joke from the series "how I met your mother" , a character named "Barney" tells girls he works for SNASA which means "special NASA" which is of course not true and just to get them into his bed :D ).

To keep an overview over so many units and so big plans, Alt + S and Alt + M are great features of the game. I wish someone could code something like a "notepad" for it, a box in which one could make onesself notes, that'd be so awesome.

And I thought some of my wars had epic planning behind them. They have nothing on this. Looking forward to the rest - I'm grateful that you're taking the time it takes to write this. It might well be the most epic war ever waged in civ :)

I should make a video out of this and replay the whole war, calling it "the most epic war ever conducted in Civ4" ;) :D . Hope the last episode was a worthy end to what's been a really long jorney. Glad you enjoyed it.

Hope you enjoy JC then :) oh and, would it be possible if you could play this game with a 'normal' start? :p I think it'd be nice to see a comparison

To put it simply, your games are a work of art ;)

Congrats on getting the highest score in HoF!!

I will play some forum game at some time, then you'll get your comparison, but atm. , my goal is to fulfill some of the elite Quattromasters challenges, so keep playing for HoF, and that means, I'll start with at least 2 golds. Hope this doesn't disappoint you too much.

I will enjoy playing JC, as I always loved playing the Romans, Praetorians on Marathon are just one of the most awesome units there is in the game. Make sure for some very early domination game, I hope that beating a "nano-Pangea" map in the BC's is possible with him.

Regards, Sera
 
Inconceivable! I just had to update my definition for the term "hardcore".


ALT+M: print one of Seraiel's threads, one of these days.
I'm almost ashamed I only browsed through your production, until now.
 
Seraiel, that was a truly epic game. Congratulations! am so looking forward to the HoF Replay 5 writeup.

I now know why you roll lots of maps - what happens afterwards is just mental and can only be achieved with these starts.

Regarding the strategy articles you mentioned - I think it's a great idea and would be happy to contribute in what little way I can. I win most games at Monarch, give Emperor a good run for its money but I've never had the desire to play any higher because I feel I've reached my level and short of asking the Immortal/Deity players to shadow a game for me I don't see how it's done and I don't like doing that because feel awkward asking and I like to learn on my own. A resource guide would certainly help.

I'd like to make some suggestions if I may about areas I'd like to see covered. These are based on your games where I think 'How did you do that?!'

- How to do diplomacy against more powerful civs and prevent getting dogpiled.
- How to keep up in tech with AI civs and still win (I really struggle at Emperor level on this).
- How you do that Sushi....thing. (it looks bloody scary to me!)

I'm more than happy to contribute towards articles that explain how to win at Monarch, although whether this is what you had in mind I don't know?

Anyway, I appreciate the effort you take in writing up these games, they allow the rest of us to dream....
 
Inconceivable! I just had to update my definition for the term "hardcore".


ALT+M: print one of Seraiel's threads, one of these days.
I'm almost ashamed I only browsed through your production, until now.

Hehe, thx :) . I take that as a compliment from someone who himself puts a lot of effort in his Writeups. I feel honored that you had to redefine your definition of the term hardcore :) .

Seraiel, that was a truly epic game. Congratulations! am so looking forward to the HoF Replay 5 writeup.

I now know why you roll lots of maps - what happens afterwards is just mental and can only be achieved with these starts.

Now you got why I like playing the HoF style, it just makes so much fun. I know, that I can bite myself through the hardest maps and win them, but that just doesn't make me laugh as hard, as when I achieve something like Oracle -> Feudalism with completing the Chariot-Quest, when I achieve the highest overall highscore ever achieved, or when I have 10 cities at a time where the (Deity- !) AI has only 5 :D .

Regarding the strategy articles you mentioned - I think it's a great idea and would be happy to contribute in what little way I can. I win most games at Monarch, give Emperor a good run for its money but I've never had the desire to play any higher because I feel I've reached my level and short of asking the Immortal/Deity players to shadow a game for me I don't see how it's done and I don't like doing that because feel awkward asking and I like to learn on my own. A resource guide would certainly help.

Have you maybe tried watching the videos of Tachywaxon? I think one can learn a lot about Deity-play from them, even though they don't have any comment except some "Omg" or "Argh" because Tachywaxon can only spead a language that subhuman beings use, it's called "FRENCH" , where F stands for Frogeating.

Regarding your offer to help, that is appreciated, I'm going to open up a user-group for everybody who wants to take part in this project. It doesn't matter that you "only" play Monarch / EMP , there will be tasks for everyone.

I'd like to make some suggestions if I may about areas I'd like to see covered. These are based on your games where I think 'How did you do that?!'

- How to do diplomacy against more powerful civs and prevent getting dogpiled.
- How to keep up in tech with AI civs and still win (I really struggle at Emperor level on this).
- How you do that Sushi....thing. (it looks bloody scary to me!)

I'm more than happy to contribute towards articles that explain how to win at Monarch, although whether this is what you had in mind I don't know?

Anyway, I appreciate the effort you take in writing up these games, they allow the rest of us to dream....

1. Diplomacy is a good catchword, I also planned to write an article about that, because the existing articles I know are pathetic and don't reflect how Diplomacy should be handled in a game. I had lots of trouble with Diplomacy in my first games, put a lot effort in it to learn it, so I think I can handle that well. I haven't got DoWed in my last 5 games at all, if one doesn't count stupid DoWs like the one from Brennus in this round, where he attacked me with his 1 Archer he had :D .

2. That's basically how to develop a flurishing economy, I think I can handle that too, but I'm happy for anyone helping me. It's basically understanding the power of Traderoutes, getting more Traderoutes, building Cottages and knowing what to research and how to techtrade. About the last 2 things I know a lot, because without it, I would have been totally lost with the 17 AI-opponents settings I play.

3. I don't know what you mean with "Sushi thing" but I can write a general game-guide about Sushi-Highscore games, as I think, I really understood them now. Anyhow, every game is different, what one needs is knowing the options one has, using them at the right time, and also winning a few gambles or if not, being prepared for the worst case.

Thx for the big compliment, be sure, if you work hard enough on yourself and always see the things for what they am, and nothing more, you can become as successful playing than anybody else. With beating EMP, you are already more successful than the most players on these forums, now get yourself Mapfinder and get yourself a multiple Gold and Gems start and have some fun, don't forget to turn on Marathon gamespeed and maybe even choose the Incans. Produce as many Quechuas as possible and take out 3 Civs by 2500 BC, if it fails, reload or restart :) . Getting a score of 1M is possible with very little experience, and after you have read this Replay, you should be able to get at least 1.5M, no joking. :)

Regards, Seraiel
 
Regarding your offer to help, that is appreciated, I'm going to open up a user-group for everybody who wants to take part in this project. It doesn't matter that you "only" play Monarch / EMP , there will be tasks for everyone.

Sounds good to me.I'll keep an eye out for it.

Have you maybe tried watching the videos of Tachywaxon? I think one can learn a lot about Deity-play from them, even though they don't have any comment except some "Omg" or "Argh" because Tachywaxon can only spead a language that subhuman beings use, it's called "FRENCH" , where F stands for Frogeating.

Ha ha! I didn't realise she did videos but will look out for them.

2. That's basically how to develop a flurishing economy, I think I can handle that too, but I'm happy for anyone helping me. It's basically understanding the power of Traderoutes, getting more Traderoutes, building Cottages and knowing what to research and how to techtrade. About the last 2 things I know a lot, because without it, I would have been totally lost with the 17 AI-opponents settings I play.

It's that part which I'm really interested in. Some of the tech trades you do, where you offer up 4-5 techs to get just one tech seems to make no sense to me and yet it works? The main difference I've found between Monarch and Emperor is research levels - at Monarch it's quite easy to keep ahead in the tech rate by just having a strong economy and chaining up Museum of Maussollis Golden Ages with Great People from running Specialists under Caste. At Emperor level it doesn't work though and I haven't figured out how to specialise in research and trade the rest from the AI yet.

I don't know what you mean with "Sushi thing"

I mean where you somehow manage not to completely kill your economy by running up huge maintenance costs from creating an insane sushi economy.

....don't forget to turn on Marathon gamespeed...

Marathon? It's bad enough for me at Normal speed, where a game typically takes me between 30-50 hours! I'm a micro-management freak, I even attack cities one unit at a time to manage promotions, the late game can take me 30 mins per move if I'm at war (which I usually am :D). I think I'd die before I managed to finish a Marathon game!

I'm not so concerned with getting a huge score - my goal is to win by Domination or Conquest as quickly as possible. My earliest victory was the NC Shaka game (he's awesome btw, those UB barracks absolutely rock with his traits) where I finished around 1650AD. I'd love to beat it and I reckon I could do it at higher levels, the increased tech rate would mean better units are available earlier.
 
Epic is my favourite speed - feels about the right balance. Quick is fun for being quick, but Normal is not quick enough for the fun but too quick to feel I can do anything.

Marathon though. Ugh.... So.... Slow..... x.x
 
This was truly epic, been enjoying the write-up.. Man, you're crazy.. Good! :D Learnt a lot! Although 80% of what you did late game seems like voodoo for a player at my level (monarch). :lol:

Looking forward to reading the rest of your write-ups :)

(btw, Pangaea, you the llama poof? Saw you mentioning CM/FM back there. Small web, innit :) )
 
Btw., just to show ahcos the power of the GT: Could someone do some math on this?

Like...

What if the 1200 turns of Whipping Anger were all cold 2pop-Exec-whips? How many :hammers: would that be.

Or:

What if the 1200 turns of Whipping Anger would have been all Drafts, how many :hammers: would that again have been?

Tia, Seraiel
 
The way I'd look at it, if you're going to be in Nationalism with Rifling, Globe Theater is adding something like 75 hammers per turn to your civ's production (110 per turn for each rifle, but you have to work higher-food tiles so you get lower production otherwise; call it ~75 gained).* With maybe a 40-turn window from when you get Rifling to when Rifles are too far behind and you want to start making later units, that's around 3000:hammers: for the low investment of 300:hammers: up front. I dare you to show me anything else in Civ4 that will pay back 10-for-1 in a 40-turn period.

On Marathon, 40 drafts should cost around 2000:food: in regrowth (varying a bit depending on city size), be enough for 1200 turns of draft anger (0 with Globe :D), and produce 8800:hammers: worth of drafted rifles.

________
*On Normal speed. Costs would change on Marathon, but so would number of drafts and a lot of other stuff.
 
That's some nice Math, ty :) . Could it be that maybe the Kremlin beats the GT with large empires? Just imagine, I whipped about 50 Settlers + 100 Execs + 50 Granaries + 50 Lighthouses + 50 Forges + 50 Courthouses in a timeframe of 50 turns. Let's make it more acurate and apply a large, better measured timeframe:

250 AD - 750 AD:

100 cities founded (here, maybe about half of the Settlers was whipped, the rest was normally produced because I had to stall Growth)
Needing 100 Execs (actually 200, but I didn't whip the Mining Inc Execs so it's 100)
Getting as buildings: Granary, Lighthouse, Forge, Courthouse, Grocer, Market, Bank

The Kremlin saves 33% of that and has the cost of 10 Executives, I guess this is "a little bit more" payback, isn't it?

Cya, Sera
 
After days of reading, I can finally post and thank you! This was a tremendous bit of work on your part, and appreciated by newcomers like me. I've been playing for some time, and only can win on prince about half the time (unliess I use quechua rush ... but I don't like using the same guys over and over).

I have Civ IV warlords, so don't think I can get sushi or mining, can I? I've never noticed those options anyway, lol.

Anyway, these write-ups are great from someone trying to find his way to the next level. Thanks again.
 
Thx a lot for leaving feedback here, that is what I appreciate a lot :)

If you play Warlords, that's a lot harder than BtS because of the lower Happiness-cap (and I believe also other things, never played it) . Maybe get yourself Civ complete edition for 5€ on Amazon? ;)

Regards, Sera
 
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