Replay #5 A history of heroes!

[Seraiel]

I know I'm awaiting this appearance

Keep up the enjoyable read, I'm inspired to try and fail to win using these settings and tactics

You won't have to wait long, it'll be in the next episode, still writing on that one

And I don't quite get what you're saying with your 2nd sentence, you're inspired to try these settings and tactics and will fail to win using them? So either you're saying that the settings will make you fail, or the tactics will, is something wrong with the tactics used here, would you do something differently? Imo anyone can pull this off up to a certain point that lies between 2 and 3 Million somehwere, surpassing the 3M takes experience and luck in addition (and very good grind-genes as microing hundreds of cities makes one wanna quit the game) .

Interested in the answer, Seraiel

 

[Ozbenno]

And I don't quite get what you're saying with your 2nd sentence, you're inspired to try these settings and tactics and will fail to win using them? So either you're saying that the settings will make you fail, or the tactics will, is something wrong with the tactics used here, would you do something differently?

As in I'm inspired to try these settings but pretty sure I'd still not be able to win (Deity and warring are two things I don't do well)

 

[Seraiel]

Episode 4 - Part III
The age of heroes​

You're all well informed on the status of the Incan empire and what I'm doing / planning with it, so there is nothing more to say except how the game developed further:


20 AD the heroes have healed up, and I've decided on the Stacksplit:

In the Mainstack this time, happyturtle II and ozbenno, who's new in the hero-business, as Knights (Knights are strong against Longbows, they're only not strong against Castles, but as this still is a Siege-fueled war, it made sense to build them) , iggymnrr and Zx Zero Zx as War Elephants (Pikes would of course be better because of getting defensive bonuses, but I had no Engineering when building the Stack and War Elephants are powerful enough with their STR of 12 against mounted units) , BigBossPlayer as a Supermedic that can also fight, WastinTime as an elite-CR, Keilah and Vranasm as normal CR3's, Habitus, DanF, shakabrade, Denniz and Methos as CR2's that still have to lvl, and Kaitzilla and Civvver take the role as Stack-defenders this time. Giny again is there for morale-support and to cheat at xping, and 8 Siege-weapons accompany this Stack, barely enough to tear down Castles in a reasonable amount of time, but Trebs are expensive and get destroyed often (Cats are worse, but "good" are Cannons) .

The secondary Stack is built up by lymond and neilmeister as Knights (those 2 again are new to the hero business) , coanda and T-Hawk are still War Elephants and again have the purpose of defending the Stack against mounted while being decent attackers themselves, the Stack has Flashhand as a Healer, Tachywaxon as elite-CR, Sun Tzu Wu as backup-elite-CR, those two have to take out the hard-targets, Silverbow and le_phobos III have to catch up, and Um the Muse and Kid-R again focus on Stack defense. The secondary Stack has only 4 Siege-weapons as no Castles are expected.

You maybe have noticed, that the National Park of Ollantaytambo has been finished, let's have a look at that city:

That's a strong GP Farm, isn't it? 9 Free Specialists through the Forrest Preserves, an output of 60 BPT and even 22 Hammers ? That's astonishing for a city that is size 6! I was astonished again and again of the power of the National Park GP-Farm when playing that round, National Park really is a strong National Wonder, if it's built in the right city, i. e. a Jungle-city or even better, a Tundra-city. This city already has high value and should obtain an even higher one in the future, once I'd decide to also make a Spy-city out of it.

Back to the war against Pericles, here is a look at the defenders:

As you can see, "Knossos" is defended quite harshly and Pericles has some attacking units, that is, why I decide to bring in "a friend" (morely a puppet) . But before that, here are the movement-paths for the Stacks:

The friend which shall lure Pericles units out of his cities is Louis. I bribe him against Pericles also in 20 AD:

And just to fulfill the goal of completeness and because you've seen an irritating arrow going overseas, Pericles has Justinian as a Vassal and he himself has some overseas cities aswell, of course I'm going to annihilate Justinian and take everything from Pericles. Here is a screen showing where those cities lie:

So the borders are closed now, Pericles cannot see what's awaiting him, and I'm waiting for him to move out some units. Btw., notice that all my island cities are totally undefended? AI in Civ is simply too stupid to successfully war and even start overseas invasions, I don't fear that any of those will experience any sneak-attacks.

The plan is good, but I didn't calculate with the speed of Louis. Instead of Pericles moving units out to attack him, Louis moves a big Stack of Horse Archers in, threatening the city of Knossos!

This makes me declare war instantly and move in the Stacks, I'm not going to let Louis only get a single city!

On T2 of th war, iggymnrr has to fight a hard battle, a War Elephant is blocking the way of the Mainstack towards Knossos:

His new Formation-spec helps him a lot though, he farms his opponent. In the meantime, the Secondary Stack conquers Mycenae without a single loss, not even one Trebuchet is destroyed:

The heroes score: 53:3 tendency rising.

A message reaches the front: "We're the first to Physics, we got a Great Scientist for that and Seraiel is going to let him perform a fusion-technique with the Great Spy we got for being first to Communism, this is going to trigger the 2nd Golden Age that's needed for the overdue Civic-changes!" Here you see the GPs performing the fusion technique:

I switch to Police State, Caste System, State Property and Pacifism. The Switch to Police State is again to have a chance at triggering the "Charismatic-Event" (all troops promoted to March or +2 Happiness in all cities) , this shows that I value a chance at that event higher than the assured more Beakers I'd get through sticking to REP. CS is needed to run more Specialists during the GA then there are Slots, this also allowes creating specific GPs, the reason for State Property is to nullify the huge maintenance I'm paying for the island-cities, which rise steadily in numbers and of course don't have Courthouses yet, and Pacificsm synergizes very well with GAs, as GAs benefit GP-production.

Running CS + SP and a GA crazily enhances Workshops, have a look at those:

7 yield Workshops that make it unattractive to work the Sugar or even the Biology-fueled Floodplains? York putting out over 140 Hammers ? Settlers only needing 6 turns of production, Airships and Knights being almost constructed at a rate of 1 / turn? Here is a graph showing the insane increase in production caused by the Civic-changes and the GA:

Not that I wasn't #1 in production already, this raises the Mfg. to a value that's 5 times higher than that of the 2nd best Civ! Now how is this production used: First, I produce 6*4 = 24 Airships distributed over all cities. Like this, I get the most out of running Police State. After that, the cities focus on Settler production again, it's the time of the craziest GA-fueled expansion I've ever pulled off! About 10 Galleons are rdy to fulfill this task and more are being constructed every turn. A screen of the Domestic Advisor, showing the production focuses:

A lot is shown on this screen, I'll explain it to you:

• The empire us running multiple GP-Farms now. Cuzco is used to create a GE, something on which it has been working since the beginning of this round, Wasington is working on creating another Great Prophet. It's very hard to create those kinds of great Persons, as there i. e. is only 1 Engineer Slot unlocked through a Forge, that is why the NE-GP-Farm currently works no Specialists, so runs as a normal Commerce / Production city. One cannot have enough GEs, GMs become very important in late-game and the NP-GP-Farm Ollantaytambo hasn't accumulated many GPP yet, that is why it has 9 Merchants and 1 Engineer employed, 9 of those being free Specialists. The order of the GPs is fixed. First, the GE from Cuzco has to finish, then the Great Prophet from Washington has to arise and only after those 2 have been created, more GPs from the real GP-Farms may be born, they have to work just below the lvl of Cuzco and Washington.
• Screen also shows how the production of Airships is diverted onto many cities, making them available as soon as possible and getting the most out of Police-State.
• The GT-city "Vilcabamba" is currently used to produce defenders. I could have let it produce Settlers, but enough other cities are focusing on that imo.
• Cuzco, Berlin, York and Nottingham are quite large already. Those citie's have been chosen to "be whipped as little as possible and grow as large as possible" because this will get important for the internal-TRs that emerge in a Sushi-empire.
• Many cities are still very new (producing Granary or even Culture) , this shows that some crazy REX has already and is still taking place. The cities producing Culture have no Food-surplus, because they have hired Artists that are unlocked through running CS, a very elegant way of getting fast Borderpops that I like very much.

While the Kremlin finishes...

We're back with the heroes from the Mainstack! The Bombardement of Knossos' Castle is complete, and the city must be captured before Louis has a chance at it. The date is 70 AD:

What's that? It's WastinTime having eaten too much Sushi and being sick of it, he dies from the hands of a cunning Crossbowman! His death demoralizes the troops greatly, or are the Greek just cunning fighters? Here we see Vranasm:

And happyturtle:

The treachury done to happyturtle makes Ozbenno mad:

But it's Habitus who confuses the Greek:

And with the gate down, the Incan forces can finally march into the city!

Updated score: 68:6 (+ 12 Siege Weapons)

Pericles is willing to capitulate, but as I begged like I do before every war, nobody can join the war on his side / take his Vassalage. I have to be fast from now on though. In 100 AD, the heroes from the Secondary Stack conquers another huge city, Argos, with 1 Trebuchet being destroyed.

You can also see on that screen, that the mainstack has reached Corinth. It's defended by so many Greek troops, that Louis has no chance to take it in one round. This is, why the Incan forces are so polite and give them antecedence. The french are eager to get some fame, and what Incan historians call "stupid suicide of the french" the french themselves call "a great battle that Incans could only win through their courageous attack. Corinth falls to Incan forces in 110 AD:

Due to huge numbers of the new Airships being available now and bombarding the defenders, not even one Trebuchet is destroyed, not to mention that no hero dies. This raises the score to 80:6 (+13 lost Siege) .

130 AD: My plans on getting Nationalism for basically nothing from one of the Egyptians fail one after another. Both, Hatty and Ramesses, plan on constructing the Taj Mahal from the turn where they complete Nationalism! Therefor, I have to give Scientific Method to Mansa:

Anyhow, this isn't as bad as I think, because in 190 AD, this happens:

OLOLOL? Mansa is the #2 Civ on the map, and he's the founder of the islamic Religion, I'm #1 and the founder of Judaism, what shall this become, ownage of all other empires by the combined power of the two Super-Shrine-Civs?

I agree to this without knowing better because of some reasons:

• Mansa seems to be really powerful as a Vassal, he comes freely and not by force meaning he still has a lot of cities / I didn't cripple him / he has a very powerful Shrine fueling his economy.
• I don't have many friends in this round, and Mansa is not really a Vassal that funks up my diplomatic relations, even with combined stance.
• He's the most advanced Civ behind myself, I can use a strong-researcher on the way to Mining Inc.

Some of you will know where this will lead to, I tell you, I didn't. To me this just seemed like how I wrote about it above, I thought this was a shortcut my aims and to a super-highscore victory, but Mansa's complete lack of honor should teach me lessons...

From no honor we come to lots of honor: While the Taj Mahal completes...

... while Medicine finishes...
... while I get Constitution from Mansa (and continue with the last Tech I need for Sushi, tech of Corporation. Mansa gets ordered to research Replaceable Parts which lies on the way to Mining Inc. )
... while Lizzy builds the Church of Nativity (christian Shrine) and some crazy expansion takes place... (Incan empire up to 55 cities now! )
... while a Great Engineer arises from Cuzco...
... and while I switch to REP, because I'm now in the sprinting-phase towards Sushi...

The Heroes conquer Helicarnassus and Sparta with no losses and stand before Pericles Capital Athenes in 200 AD:

Notice that this is Pericles' last city? Yes, Pericles liberated his overseas cities and Zara Yaqob entered the game only to leave it very early again. The screen shows the ridiculous score that Mansa's and my empire combined have, it shows that I could only spare a handful of Galleons to transport the heroes to their target-cities, it shows that one can have a huge deficit even with running State Property and it shows some more things which are explained on the screen itself. No question if Athenes will fall this round, it does, only question: Will there be losses? Nope. Since the Airships are now also available to scratch the Defenders before the Trebs assault them, this war has become pure farming.
So the city falls without any losses, Pericles empire is completely conquered, all that remains are his two Vassals, the score is 96:6 for the heroes or 96:18 if counting the lost Siege.

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

This was the 3rd part of the episode "The Age of heroes", as promised the episode in which I conquer the world and with some amusing moments that I hope you enjoyed . There was very few coverage of the insane REX that is taking place, please just note these numbers:

Status of the Incan before the "Age of heroes" : 22 cities at 370 BC.
Status of the Incan empire after part III: 57 cities at 200 AD.

Those are 35 cities in 57 turns, so basically 2 cities in 3 turns, and the war is getting faster and faster, while more and more cities are producing Settlers, not that 2 cities per 3 turns wasn't insane enough already!

Times look changeful for the Incans. Sushi is late, and the leader has decided to go for the craziest expansion ever conducted in Civ to make up for that. A chain of GAs fuels that expansion, but what will happen once those GAs are over?

Make sure to also follow the next part of the episode, or "I'll go rampage!" Till then, cya

Seraiel

 

[vranasm]

enjoying the story...and I lost all the xp!! grrr

I bet Mansa pulled off his "Now I will screw you with peace vassaling and going culture you can't do anything about"

 

[Killroyan]

My head is almost exploding from the screenshots. Mind baffling and loving it. Especially with all the small comments (especially the Habitus talking blue and opening the gate). No unit for me though, so maybe I can get one in the next game. Respect for this game Seraiel. Make sure to show the power of Sushi.

National Park is ridiculously strong. Too bad those are jungle since they suck as a tile with only 1 food. Forest preserves in a national park are insane. They still bring in food and production. I have had national parks overtaking my capital with 10+ wonders in it in GP generation.

Keep it coming.

 

[Pangaea]

Highly, highly approve of wiping out Pericles! :evilgrin:

It's information overload for me too when looking at the screens, and thinking about what is probably to come later, Replay 4 in mind. Don't understand how you can pull off something like this, time and time again, when we normal mortals can barely take in all the stuff in the screenshots. Love the level of detail you are putting into them and the story though. It's great to see what you are doing and why. A much better way to learn :thup:

Small comment though, it's hard to see the red lines on the mostly dark background. More contrast would be good.

Just surreal it's possible to get so many techs so early, with Sushi just around the corner at 1AD. Suppose this is easier to pull off on settings like this when you know the ins and outs of the AI and the personalities and are able to pull them this way and that one, but it's incredibly impressive.

What I notice between Replay 4 and this one, is that you seem better prepared to stay ahead of the curve now. Pumping settlers and boats, and constructing multiplier buildings early, before the economic crash of Sushi and Mining. Very enjoyable read so far. Had no idea National Park could be so effective either. Also, I notice +2 from the Temples. Is that due to it being the AP religion?

You mentioned Libraries too, do you build many buildings? With a probably crashing economy in the near future, is there much point to that, bar GP slots outside of Caste? Since I was running 0% research in the end of my recent game, that you helped me so much with, to upgrade units and spread corporations, one thing I noticed is that science buildings quickly became pretty pointless (being a little harsh). Still useful in cities running specialists of course, but in the vast majority of cities they'd more or less do nothing. It's probably one of those things that separate Sushi games (or otherwise crashed economies and science sliders) from more normal games where you can have the slider at 50%+.

Keep up the good work.

 

[happyturtle]

Dammit, where's my pizza? At least I know I won't die again, since I was happyturtleIII in the opening display.

 

[Choggy]

I've had Mansa try to pull the 'please vassal me so I can win by Culture Victory' trick before too, although didn't fall for it. Am looking to see how you dealt with that...spies?

Never tried a Jungle National Park before...Wow! Does it need Caste to be able to fill those specialist slots?

Regarding grassland Workshops under SP and Caste - you're right, they are absolute beasts, even without a GA powering them it's 4 free hammers per tile. They're even better than plains workshops, which I normally build on those crappy non-riverside plains tiles once I get Guilds, as they are food neutral.

There's a trick you can do on Normal speed under SP and Caste (don't know how this would work on Marathon) where you group your workers into teams of 4, each team can build a workshop or a Bio farm in one turn, so a few of these 'teams' working together can change a whole city's function in one go. Really useful when you're on a SP-powered conquest charge, as each captured city comes out of anarchy you can ignore what the AI has built in terms of city tile improvements, change the city to suit your needs and then move on to the next city. You can take over an entire civ and have them running at full capacity in next to no time with enough workers (and usually there are plenty spare unless they're off building railroads at this point).

One final thing I love about SP and Caste -the maximum maintenance cost a SP city incurs is 6gpt (again, normal speed), and 3gpt with a courthouse. That can be covered by one grassland bio-farm running a Merchant. The remaining 19 city tiles (excluding the city itself) can then be used for commerce and production as required. Each city becomes it's own self-supporting powerhouse and the more cities you have the better it gets, which gives you a much more flexible approach to your economy to the usual civ model of rich commerce cities supporting poor production cities that you have outside of SP.

 

[Jet]

Sera: questions about small island cities (cities with few or no land tiles.)

What build order do you use in those cities? Which buildings do you rush buy?

It looks like you settle island cities with seafood resources as fast as you can build Settlers for them, and then after Sushi, you also settle no-food island cities as fast as you can build Settlers for them. Is that correct?

 

[Jet]

Also, how do you decide where and when to build the Forbidden Palace?

 

[Seraiel]

enjoying the story...and I lost all the xp!! grrr

I bet Mansa pulled off his "Now I will screw you with peace vassaling and going culture you can't do anything about"

You're right about the "Now I will screw you with peace vassaling and going culture" but wrong with the "you can't do anything about" . Mansa would bleed for his treachery. It's too bad that AI doesn't have memories, because after what I did to him in revenge, would prevent him from doing that ever again . I'm asking myself if this approach from him is hardcoaded, which I'd somehow see as a very bad joke from the programmers. A Vassal normally should lose every right to win, or if he / she wins, it should count as a win for the Master, that's my opinion. If not that, humans should be able to vassal to AIs, "How about it Shaka, it 2000 BC and I've just oracled Feudalism, you guard me? I only wanna paint some nice pictures from now on, I get your techs, but you don't get mine, deal?" .

My head is almost exploding from the screenshots. Mind baffling and loving it. Especially with all the small comments (especially the Habitus talking blue and opening the gate). No unit for me though, so maybe I can get one in the next game. Respect for this game Seraiel. Make sure to show the power of Sushi.

National Park is ridiculously strong. Too bad those are jungle since they suck as a tile with only 1 food. Forest preserves in a national park are insane. They still bring in food and production. I have had national parks overtaking my capital with 10+ wonders in it in GP generation.

Keep it coming.

Maybe you can, if you maybe change your signature, and I maybe play another game that breaks some rekords? Working with me together on the Strategy-Articles which are planned to follow this Writeup will also greatly increase chances .

How about comparing GP Farms? Getting to know the strength of the National-Park-GP-Farm was surprising and breathtaking from the point where I built in onwards. I was a little sad that the Jungles didn't get upgraded to 2 tiles, and I'd have some problems with taking a city owning valuable Forrests for it, as 1 city with Forrests means 2 further cities + Workers + 1 World Wonder... Therefor, I think Tundra or Jungle are the best choices still, not sure though, Jungle means loosing awesome land below the Jungles, Tundra means loosing a city that has virtually all hills with Lumbermills and Railroads, so maybe suck it up and really sacrifice a good spot for it? We'd have to make comparisons of those 3 for example to get an answer to what is probably the best overal, think 3 cities, 1 has to be the NP-GP-Farm, 1 is in the Jungle, 1 is in the Tundra, 1 is in between, which combination gets out the most?

I'm assuming more people then us would like to know.

Highly, highly approve of wiping out Pericles! :evilgrin:

It's information overload for me too when looking at the screens, and thinking about what is probably to come later, Replay 4 in mind. Don't understand how you can pull off something like this, time and time again, when we normal mortals can barely take in all the stuff in the screenshots. Love the level of detail you are putting into them and the story though. It's great to see what you are doing and why. A much better way to learn :thup:

Thx . Regarding the "pulling it off" thing: That's handled by experience. I've played a lot of Huge maps, as I specialized on that Setting, I know basically every possible look of the Big & Smalls mapscript, and I know what to do at every possible point now. I learned it, mainly fom WastinTime and T-Hawk. I have my own Strategies, like the "Paper- / Educationblock" , the "1st one GA, then the Super-GA-Chain with the MoM", I've played over 500 Checker-rushes, and so on and so forth.

With that, it only takes me the questions "where am I now" (question concerning the phase of the game) , "what will come next" (question on how to prepare for the next phase) and "what's the maximum I can get out of this turn" (question of perfectionism) , those are the things I have to realise and think about, those lead to the decisions I make and to how I move the units. To play very slow (if I'm not in funk you stupid AI mode) helps me not make mistakes, and the luck is with the bold as I learned. I put an extreme amount of effort into perfectionism, during the high-phase of Sushi, I micromanage all cities, sometimes making 1 turn last up to 3 hours (5 minutes for moving the units, 30-50 minutes for developing new plans, 1h+ for Micro, and again 30 minutes for adjusting and maximising everything) . This is what happyturtle calls insanity, but that's just how I work and have fun . The fun is when I see the results, like in this case, when the score succeeded WastinTime's 3.2M, then the relief was really great.

Small comment though, it's hard to see the red lines on the mostly dark background. More contrast would be good.

Noticed that myself already, but it's good that you say it, because my neuroses don't let me change anything I decided for during the same game / Writeup. Sounds weird, I know, but because of that I have the rule "you can stick to something stupid in one game, but in the next, you must break free from it", allowing me to keep my mistakes for a while and getting rid of them one after another. Imo the best way to enhance the clearness would be to use broader lines, atm. I'm only working with size 2 lines, size 3 or even 4 would probably be better. Maybe I'll just change them from 2 to 3 for the next posts and from 3-4 in the very end, then the only people who'll be able to notice my inconsistency are ones jumping from page 1 to page 5 . Believe it or not, but this is the truth, my head is my own worst enemy.

Just surreal it's possible to get so many techs so early, with Sushi just around the corner at 1AD. Suppose this is easier to pull off on settings like this when you know the ins and outs of the AI and the personalities and are able to pull them this way and that one, but it's incredibly impressive.

Don't think it's surreal, it's really the settings. It is also skill, it's playing with the settings, it's choosing the enemies and playing with them, it's using the other AIs for ones own purposes, but it's Marathon allowing for the crazy Checker-powered snowball, it's Marathon allowing to conquer 3 Civs instead of 1, and it's Huge opening up more possibilites and making things like Shrines so ridiculously strong, that people say the settings / Incans are broken, but for HoF play it doesn't matter, as it's broken against broken again .

What I notice between Replay 4 and this one, is that you seem better prepared to stay ahead of the curve now. Pumping settlers and boats, and constructing multiplier buildings early, before the economic crash of Sushi and Mining. Very enjoyable read so far. Had no idea National Park could be so effective either. Also, I notice +2 from the Temples. Is that due to it being the AP religion?

You mentioned Libraries too, do you build many buildings? With a probably crashing economy in the near future, is there much point to that, bar GP slots outside of Caste? Since I was running 0% research in the end of my recent game, that you helped me so much with, to upgrade units and spread corporations, one thing I noticed is that science buildings quickly became pretty pointless (being a little harsh). Still useful in cities running specialists of course, but in the vast majority of cities they'd more or less do nothing. It's probably one of those things that separate Sushi games (or otherwise crashed economies and science sliders) from more normal games where you can have the slider at 50%+.

Keep up the good work.

Believe me, I played better in Replay #4 than I did in this, maybe as good due to the newly earned experience from Replay #4. What makes me stay ahead here are the Incans, being so extremely powerful. That's why I also wrote that comparison-episode on Incans vs Egyptians, because there is no comparison, Incans start with 3 Capitals and 7 Extensions, when Egyptians have 2. Egyptians catch up a little with War Chariots, but Checkers can live so long, and have such a ridiculously effectiveness when it comes to their cost, Egypt can never fully catch up. First they miss the cities, then they miss the Wonders, and then they miss the FIN trait which is more important in a Sushi-game than any other trait, Incans are the strongest Civ not only because of Checkers launching insane snowballs but also because FIN / IND is an insane combo, not to mention that the +2 from the terrace really help a lot.

The 2 on the temples come from the AP, that's why I smiled so when I succeeded with that AP-gambit that (what I find surprising) nobody has commented on yet, the one where Pericles, one of the few Jewish Civs became a GE and I gave him Theology so he builds the AP in my Religion with me being elected.

Concerning Science buildings, I build them if I have the , which often is not the case. My buildorder once Sushi is reached is clearly Granary -> (Lighthouse) -> Forge -> Courthouse -> Harbor -> Barracks -> Bank -> Market -> Grocer and then maybe a Library, though, with whipping, that buildorder can change, a Bank can get whipped before the Barracks should the city be large enough already.

Before reaching Sushi (with the less build-options and the 100% Research) , Libraries have their place in the buildqueue like this: Granary -> Forge -> AP Temple -> Courthouse and then the Library, I clearly prioritize over as Hammers snowball through conquest, science doesn't.

Dammit, where's my pizza? At least I know I won't die again, since I was happyturtleIII in the opening display.

Have you thought about the final war? Maybe a nuke will hit you and the Mechanized Infantry you saw was the last picture from your existance? No, just kidding. You did a lot better once you had a Rifle and were a Cuirrassier, I think, you even reached lvl 5, and that without any Pizza!

I've had Mansa try to pull the 'please vassal me so I can win by Culture Victory' trick before too, although didn't fall for it. Am looking to see how you dealt with that...spies?

So he did it to you also, this really is ridiculous And yer, you're thinking the right direction .

Never tried a Jungle National Park before...Wow! Does it need Caste to be able to fill those specialist slots?

It does not necessarily need Caste, but getting enough Specialist-Slots without Caste is difficult, that's for sure. Spy-Slots are aquired easily in lategame, but there are definately too little possibilites for Merchants and Scientists in this game.

Regarding grassland Workshops under SP and Caste - you're right, they are absolute beasts, even without a GA powering them it's 4 free hammers per tile. They're even better than plains workshops, which I normally build on those crappy non-riverside plains tiles once I get Guilds, as they are food neutral.

CS + SP Workshops are amazing, I'm very much looking forward to the next non-Corp-game I play, where I can run those Civis Atm. I'm trying to play for earliest Conquest on a Huge nano-Pangea-map, but didn't have any really good starts up till now.

There's a trick you can do on Normal speed under SP and Caste (don't know how this would work on Marathon) where you group your workers into teams of 4, each team can build a workshop or a Bio farm in one turn, so a few of these 'teams' working together can change a whole city's function in one go. Really useful when you're on a SP-powered conquest charge, as each captured city comes out of anarchy you can ignore what the AI has built in terms of city tile improvements, change the city to suit your needs and then move on to the next city. You can take over an entire civ and have them running at full capacity in next to no time with enough workers (and usually there are plenty spare unless they're off building railroads at this point).

I know about stacking Workers, but 1. I'm hardcore 2. I use as little Workers as possible. Rebuilding terrain that AI has built, re-specializing cities is something I try not to do, especially not when the Cottages already have grown to Hamlets or often even Villages. In this round, I sometimes managed with 0.5 - 0.8 Workers / city, which is the opposite of what others advise, but it can be done, I can prove it.

One final thing I love about SP and Caste -the maximum maintenance cost a SP city incurs is 6gpt (again, normal speed), and 3gpt with a courthouse. That can be covered by one grassland bio-farm running a Merchant. The remaining 19 city tiles (excluding the city itself) can then be used for commerce and production as required. Each city becomes it's own self-supporting powerhouse and the more cities you have the better it gets, which gives you a much more flexible approach to your economy to the usual civ model of rich commerce cities supporting poor production cities that you have outside of SP.

The maximum maintenance cost on Huge maps is 8 GPT, which isn't that much more, 33% to be exact. Running hybrid-economies and staying flexible is something I prefer aswell as highly specializing the citie's. I wouldn't work that 1 Merchant in the IW city i. e. , but I would work max-Merchants in the WS-city in any game . Using SE aswell as Cottage- and Hammer-economies is what lets one get the most out of the land. I'm about 95% sure I'll write an article about hybrid-economy in the followup, but must inform myself on the existing articles first, as I don't wanna write anything anybody already has written about in all extend.

Sera: questions about small island cities (cities with few or no land tiles.)

What build order do you use in those cities? Which buildings do you rush buy?

It looks like you settle island cities with seafood resources as fast as you can build Settlers for them, and then after Sushi, you also settle no-food island cities as fast as you can build Settlers for them. Is that correct?

Also, how do you decide where and when to build the Forbidden Palace?

Buildorder is Granary (2pop-whip with OF in Lighthouse) , then Forge (2pop-whip with OF completing the Lighthouse) , then Courthouse (3pop-whip) and after those, the city grows on Barracks and Harbor and when the size is big enough, I whip a Bank. I use Slavery for as long as I spam Execs, and don't rushbuy anything but Workboats.

Your assumptions about how I settle is correct, as fast as I can build Settlers, and the order is also correct, Ressources first, then no-ressource-places. If I have to choose between two, the one with more land-tiles get's preferred, because having only 2 Workshops can make the difference between a city costing the empire hell for a long long time, or getting the buildings up one after another.

National Wonders (Forbidden Palace) follow the principle of snowballing, the earlier you can get them up, the better. When I start the Super-GA-Chain, I revolutionize to US at some point to buy all the Workboats, that is the time, when I buy a Courhouse somewhere and also buy the Forbidden Palace, even before Sushi, as that wonder saves more than most would imagine. Placing it well is easy with US, look for the largest group of islands you can settle that is the farthest away from your palace, prioritize Settlers with sending them there, creating tight colonies with lower maintenance can be a crucial factor.

TY all for your Feedback!!!

Seraiel

 

[vranasm]

well not sure with the hardcoded thing, but if there is some AI that does it regularly then it's mansa...

I remember one of the first NC games I played on Prince difficulty like 2 years ago, he did the same...
after I got to double the number of his cities...voila "I want to be your friend lalala" and I got mine first peace vassal ever ;-)

I actually find it pretty funny that Mansa has a STRATEGY afterall...since it is good one, if the player is inexperienced and not cautios enough

would be even more hilarious if there was no spy abuse available.

 

[WastinTime]

I thought I was the only one who preached minimal workers. 0.5 workers/city sounds good to me.

 

[happyturtle]

You have barracks in every city, even the little island ones?

 

[coanda]

So out of curiosity - I see you posting these games where you've put in 200+ hours. Do you just work on one game at a time, or do you play shorter games in between sessions for a change of pace?

 

[Pangaea]

Thx . Regarding the "pulling it off" thing: That's handled by experience. I've played a lot of Huge maps, as I specialized on that Setting, I know basically every possible look of the Big & Smalls mapscript, and I know what to do at every possible point now. I learned it, mainly fom WastinTime and T-Hawk. I have my own Strategies, like the "Paper- / Educationblock" , the "1st one GA, then the Super-GA-Chain with the MoM", I've played over 500 Checker-rushes, and so on and so forth.

Exactly what is the Paper/Education-block?

If you happen to complete the MoM while in a Golden Age, will it get added on top of the turns left of the current GA, or will some be 'lost'?

The 2 on the temples come from the AP, that's why I smiled so when I succeeded with that AP-gambit that (what I find surprising) nobody has commented on yet, the one where Pericles, one of the few Jewish Civs became a GE and I gave him Theology so he builds the AP in my Religion with me being elected.

Thought that was a wonderful move for what it's worth. Shows how well you know the game, tech tree and AIs when you can instantly get him to do that instead of whatever else he may have wanted to build.

Concerning Science buildings, I build them if I have the , which often is not the case. My buildorder once Sushi is reached is clearly Granary -> (Lighthouse) -> Forge -> Courthouse -> Harbor -> Barracks -> Bank -> Market -> Grocer and then maybe a Library, though, with whipping, that buildorder can change, a Bank can get whipped before the Barracks should the city be large enough already.

Before reaching Sushi (with the less build-options and the 100% Research) , Libraries have their place in the buildqueue like this: Granary -> Forge -> AP Temple -> Courthouse and then the Library, I clearly prioritize over as Hammers snowball through conquest, science doesn't.

Excellent stuff about build orders and selected buildings. This is the type of stuff that should go into an article at some point, as it can easily get overlooked in such massive threads as these. Same about city specialisation and building selection and orders.

There are a few articles on city specialisation and some of the cover parts of this, but more articles on it would certainly not hurt. How to decide which city get what type of specialisation (particularly HE, GPF, GT and other such places); what buildings to build where, in what order; how to specialise the city in terms of tile improvements.

This is, I think, one of the key areas that separate the pack from the top level players, so thorough yet fairly concise articles on how to get better at this would be great additions to the War Academy.

Good luck with the further conquest of the world, and the settling of Sushi and Mining And of course the covert muck-up of Mansa's culture war

 

[WastinTime]

The "education block" refers to how you can block the AI from advancing too quickly by not trading them Education. It takes a long time for them to finally decide to research it. (Paper too, but not as important to block that one in my experience.)

 

[Pangaea]

How do you do that though? By giving them Philosophy or Divine Right and hope they continue down those paths instead of to Paper and Education and later Liberalism? Simply not trading with them?

 

[joanne]

loool, you're researching industrial techs by 1AD? I've seen this insanity before in these types of games, but it never fails to amaze me. Reminds me of early civ3 games I had where I would trade/extort techs from the AI at every opportunity (RoP-rape ) and reach the industrial era around the early ADs then roll over spears/pikes with tanks - felt very much like cheating but sure was fun

Back to the game, hopping into the workshop lovewagon: workshops with all the upgrades even without the golden age boost are so awesome, they're like having a copper or iron mine for every workshopped tile

Also the hero captions are a nice touch

 

[Revent]

Would using the NP for a production city be any good?
For example, in an area that used to be jungle (grassland and maybe a river) it could be farmed to grow to max size, and then converted to all workshops. No unhealth from pop so each tile will be self supporting itself under state property, and would give out a beastly production.

Obviously, I think using 10 specialists would be pretty amazing and I'm sure you'll show us what you do with it Sera but is this a viable alternative for, let's say Space Race?