Replay #5 A history of heroes!

[Zx Zero Zx]

There are other factors playing into this, and I'm not arguing against you, but getting 3 techs for a bribe must not necessarily be more difficult than getting 1 tech. Giving AI 3 techs though, I don't know if I'd do that. You see me in my game getting a growing tech-lead without bribing, maybe you're advancing the AI more than slowing it down. And don't forget, bribing gets cheaper when you're in war with someone, best bribes are triangle bribes where you bribe a vs b and c vs a. But tell me, you see the numbers for normal-Civs (Civs I'm not at war with) on the screens, how much do your bribes really cost you on normal at that time? Also 1200-1400 or less.

Giving the AI the 3 techs isn't really that big of a deal if I can get my economy out of the gutter from taking cities. But it really doesn't advance them that much if you get a good world war going on, as the AI will quickly start to hate EVERYONE but you, and won't tech trade with the other AI. The AI trading between itself is really what speeds up it's tech. When the AI gets stuck in 500 year wars with 1-2 people it will tend to REALLY fracking hate one of them, thus causing one of those AI to declare on one of the others, and if you're lucky they will bribe some war buddies in on it. I have had games where I had the whole world at war for a good 3000 years from bribing them into war, and then a couple of them declaring on each other after having a short peace to build up more troops, unless one of the AI has quite a few more cities than the other, and spams a lot more units neither side will make much head way. Needless to say the AI didn't advance very much while I was picking up vassals.

But all I am trying to say is that if I only had to give one tech instead of three I would be getting faster win dates, as the AI wouldn't reach Eng as quickly, and when the AI doesn't reach Eng before I have taken one AI out, and vassaled another two or three it's game over as I can win with just Trebs, and friends.

 

[happyturtle]

I stayed up last night playing a game for the HoF minor gauntlet. I learned enough about Diplo in your writeups to keep half the world in love with me. My favourite part was the wedding event like yours, only mine was the wedding with different religions. I got the chance to throw an elaborate Taoist wedding which made all the other Tao leaders love me more, and made Toku go to war with me when he was at half my strength I really love having events on. It makes for a fun bit of random that adds a lot of flavour to the game.

Loving the write up so far. Really amazing stuff!

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

You'll really start loving events when you get a slave revolt 15 times in a row.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Ouch, this thread moves on so fast... I've been stuck to page 5...

So I'd say, besides power-ratio, also the diplomacy matters, because Louis definately is stronger than Lizzy, but what this generally says, you have to say that BiC!

Thank you for the burden, I wouldn't know what to say, really

It definitely is cheaper to bribe on Mara/Huge than Normal/Normal but I'm not shocked either.
The 1:1 ratio the AI assigns for gold:beaker conversion is a bit unreasonnable on Normal. In a perfect world, the AI would adapt to multipliers present in its own Empire.
Fact that this 1:1 ratio does not scale with speed either is a bit off.


I'm sure there are other factors than power and attitude influencing bribe costs but I don't know them.
Distance to target comes to mind. Number of cities as well. Those are pure guesses.


Most important thing is to be confident with a particular setting's timings.
I recall AbsoluteZero showed some pretty cheap bribes on Normal/normal/deity. Maybe with Willem ?
I can't remember the exact playthrough but I know he's done some pretty hardcore Alphabet beelines with CRE leaders (going AH, Writing, Alpha). He could then bribe with a small lot of techs that are seldom enough to bribe. This is timing.

 

[Seraiel]

Episode 4​

The age of heroes​

Welcome back to "Replay #5 A history of heroes" with one of the most important episodes, the episode, in which I conquer the world. It's gonna last very long and have very many parts, and, it's going to have a lot of amusing moments.

In the last episode, I got as far as 390 BC, the date in which I took Biology via Liberalism. I've finally defeated Churchill with a lot more losses than needed, but the huge amount of Forrests I had allowed me to produce a lot of Maces / Phants and Trebs. These units, I have given the names of my friends, they are "the heroes" . Will I be more careful, now that my units mean something to me? Find out about that in the following .


Before we dedicate our attention fully to the upcomming war against Roosevelt, here is what happens with the empire in the background:

I decide for "Ollantaytambo" , you remember, the Jungle city that should steal the Food from Pericles, to become a National-parkt GP Farm! I've never built one of those, but it seems just so logical and convincing to me. Have a look at the city:

This city has 9 Jungles, 1 Forrest, double Food and some hills. I could make an awesome Hammer-city out of it, but the decision for it to get the National Park should prove to become invaluable.
The National Park means having to invest a lot of , it's a huge project, so I'm planning on chopping that Forrest into it. The Jungles however have absolutely no value, but when becoming Forrest Preserves, they'll add 9 free Specialists and more that the city ever will need. You won't believe how powerful this city will become.

This may be only one city, but this city is going to be of great importance, and having a NP-GP-Farm is something I never had, that's why so many words. It's also important though what the other cities are doing and what plans I have, here is a clearview:

Here you basically see what the cities are doing, and how my focuses are set, they are:

1. Expansion onto the islands.
2. Expansion through war.
3. Keep up the Economy and Research.
4. Techtrade.
5. Failgold.

The tech-screen:

Lizzy's researching Guilds, so I don't have to do that. She'll probably continue with Banking, so I'll get that also from her. I have a huge tech-lead with six monopoly techs, being Printing Press, Liberalism, Gunpowder, Chemistry, Scientific Method and Biology. To Lizzy, I can easily trade Education + Philosphy for Guilds + Banking, so I'm not even going to lose any of my monopoly techs. Giving her Philosophy on the turn she finishes Guilds is important, because it'll make it very likely that she'll continue with Nationalism -> Constitution.
Hatty researches Astronomy, so I again don't have to do that myself. Getting it from her seems easy, I can offer her Divine Right which is exactly worth nothing, I can lay useless Liberalism on top, in that all isn't enough, I'm gonna give up my PP monopoly as that tech is of little worth for the AI normally, building Farms over Towns and Workshops over Farms replacing them by Cottages again to repeat the cycle with building Farms. Maybe Hatty will continue with Nationalism once having gotten Divine Right, having both pre-techs lowers the Research-cost for her, making it more likely that she'll research it.
Roosevelt and Pericles can also research Nationalism, so I don't make myself any worries on getting it, if anything fails, I'm giving Liberalism + PP to Mansa. I've pre-chopped enough Forrests, there is just no way I'm not gonna get the next GA via the Taj Mahal. Once in the GA, I'm going to creat more GPs to be able to start another GA, I'm going to switch to State Property for as long as Sushi isn't available. Once it is, I'm going to switch to Free Market, possibly using the 3rd GA. My tech-lead should be big enough for me to not having to research Physics early, I should be able to research Corporations once I got Constitution through trade and still get the free GS.


Ok, now you're informed on at least the next 500y that are following, we can finally come to the war!

Here is a comparison of the opponents:

It's not that long ago, since I've overtaken Roosevelt in power-ratio, and my lead over him is still very thin. Anyhow, he's a stupid AI that has diverted his Forces over numerous cities, while I have stripped mine empty and go all out (or in, whatever) :

The borders-city Portland and the Capital New York have Castles, so I'm gonna need quite a lot of Siege for them. They have something about <10 defenders, he's going to whip every 2nd turn, but 15 Maces / Phants + 2/3rds of the Siege should do the trick, right? That leaves me with a 24 units stack (2/3) and a 12 units stack (1/3). This is how I decided on the Stacksplit. The following clearview adds info on the incan forces as already told, and shows their attack paths:

Does this remind you of Replay #4 somehow? Just to say: I'm extremely nervous when I go to war, that's why I check everything three times and have well developed plans for it. Using multiple Stacks to fasten up the conquest / divert the enemy and having a point where those meet up / can exchange troops is something you'll find often in my wars. I always work with multiple healers and this time, I'm warring with Maces, Phants and Trebs, my absolute favourite units (you'll see that the conquest with those units will take significantly longer than it would have taken with mounted units, but you'll be astonished when experiencing the power of City-Raiders that have decent Siege with them, when you see the win / loss ratios) .

The Fighters in Detail:

Mainstack:

• iggymnrr and Coanda:
  Class: Phants.
  Main purpose: Defend against mounted.
  Secondary purpose: Attack anti-melee-troops.
• BigBossPlayer II:
  Class: Mace.
  Main purpose: Healer.
  Secondary purpose: Multi-purpose-fighter.
• Kaitzilla:
  Class: Mace.
  Main purpose: Combat-Specialist, multi-purpose-fighter.
  Secondary purpose: Guard BigBossPlayer II so he doesn't get chosen as a target.
• Kid-R:
  Class: Mace.
  Main purpose: Shock-Specialist. Defend against attacking melees.
  Secondary purpose: Multi-purpose-fighter.
• WastinTime, Tachywaxon, Silverbow, Keilah, Habitus, SunTzuWu, DanF, Vranasm and le_phobos:
  Class: Mace.
  Main purpose: City-Raider-Specialist.
  Secondary purpose: Do not die.
• Giny:
  Class: Sword.
  Main Purpose: City-Raider-Specialist.
  Secondary purpose: Morale Support

Secondary Stack:

• Zx Zero Zx and T-Hawk:
  (like iggymnrr and Coanda)
• Flashhand:
  (like BigBossPlayer II)
• Um the Muse:
  (like Kaitzilla)
• civvver:
  (like Kid-R)
• Shakabrade, Methos, Denniz:
  (like WastinTime group)
• happyturtle:
  (like Giny)

340 BC, the Incan empire declars war on the American empire led by Roosevelt. Reason: You have something we want, and we're annoyed from your AIness!

The Mainstack moves towards Portland, but what is this? Roosevelt must have been expecting the attack, he fortified a Maceman on the direct path towards the city! The troops call for the anti-melee-specialist "Kid-R":

"No way!" he says. "That other Maceman is fortified and I'm getting River-crossing malus. Why didn't you build some Amphibious-Shock-Phants? I'm not gonna fight!

Come on, Kid-R, I'll give you Catapult support:

*A Catapult is suicided on the Maceman*

"That's alright. I'm still no good swimmer, but that bombardement really hit the other Maceman hard, I think I'll win that fight, watch me!" (Fight has about 90% chances for Kid-R now)

*Kid-R wins the fight but gets heavily wounded*

"That stupid other Maceman said "Look, there's an Amphibious Shock Elephant behind you", I turned around, and there wasn't! Next moment, I get hit in the face, that honorless bastard tricked me ! I made sure that he won't trick anybody again!"

Well done Kid-R, get a rest, Kaitzilla will take over the defense of the Mainstack. Kid-R is wiser now (3 XP earned) but he doesn't know what to do with his knowledge yet (no lvl-up) .

*In the meantime, the secondary Stack crosses the borders in the south unnoticed by the enemy.*

1 turn later, in 330 BC, the Mainstack has fortified itself in front of the Fortress of Portland. 9 Trebs are working overtime to bombard it.

*Stupid Castles. 9 Trebs are reducing the citie's defense only by 36% per round. Like this, it's gonna be 3 turns until the defenses are down and troops can attack on the 4th turn at an earliest.*

320 BC, while the Secondary Stack is advancing protected by the Woods, something that happens very rarely happens: Zx Zero Zx asks an intelligent question:

WTH! Flashhand, where are you?

"I was afk and sticked to BigBossPlayer..."

Ok, here is the plan. The troops will attack Atlanta without you and the Mainstack will conquer Portland. This will push back the cultural borders of Roosevelt so much that you can use the roads to Atlanta and get there quick!

(True story, somehow both Healers were with the Mainstack while the Secondary Stack had none, showing my awesome skills at not failing -.- . )

The walls of Atlanta, in contrast to those of Portland, are made out of paper. It only takes 2 of the 4 Trebs to tear them down completely. Time to attack, first, the remaining 2 CR2-Trebs are sent in:

No Treb falls to a defender, and after the direct assault of the Trebs, the defenders are crawling instead of walking. Shakabrade is the only one having a "hard fight" against a nearly unharmed Axeman, he "only" has 99.7% chances. At his side fighting are Denniz and happyturtle. happyturtle gets severely wounded when the gate of the city is left down and hits her head. Denniz and Shakabrade stood a little bit behind her, their feet get squeezed below it. "And this from an IND Civ," Shakabrade curses. "We have to live with this, we cannot reload from 10s ago," Denniz says. "Oooo... uuuu... ttt... ccc... hhh... my head..." happyturtle moans.

Anyhow: Atlanta falls to the force of the Incan Heroes, no losses today. All three are a little bit wiser now (+1 XP) .

In 310 BC, not only the walls of Portland have been teared down, there are even 2 Trebs which could make a direct assault. Everybody attack!

The Trebuchets fulfill their duty with excellency, they don't get destroyed in the direct assault. Anyhow, le_phobos was impatient, ran towards the city too early and because of that got under friendly fire, he dies the 1st time All other attackers are victorious, including WastinTime, SunTzuWu, Coanda, Silverbow, Keilah, Habitus, Giny, DanF and BigBossPlayer II. DanF got wounded the hardest. "I knew it, these are the Rooseveltanians, they can attack at pleased! I was just friendly asking where the way to the city was, then this guy attacks me!"
The other troops listen carefully to his story, they know, that they can learn a lot from him.

300 BC: News reaches the Heroes. "We got a leecher!" they say. The Mali empire has also declared war on the Americans, they wanna steel some of the honor from the Incans! The Mali aren't known to be great fighters, they're known to be cowards that know nothing of warfare, lose often, and after that vassalize and go after their true passion, which is painting art. (You will understand this, if you don't, but very much later. )

It's also the time where there is no time! All units have to march forward, wounded or not, now that the Mali have joined the war, the Incans have to make sure that those don't get more than one city, therefor, speed is extremely important! The troops can heal while the bombardement of the next castle takes place, Kaitzilla, can you defend Portland on your own?

And so, the troops can advance further into the American territory.

290 BC: Um the Muse gets the same orders as Kaitzilla:

And while the cowardish Mali forces are camping at Houston, a funny scene develops: The Incan Stack is further away from an attacking position than the Mali are, therefor, Roosevelt takes troops from his Capital New York, the next city that Incans will attack, and sends them to defend against the Mali :

This gets even funnier, because in 280 BC, a Longbow from the very South gets sent towards Houston, having to stop directly in front of the Secondary Stack on the open field. Zx Zero Zx cannot resist:

Would you try to hold an Elephant back? Zx Zero Zx storms towards the Archer and kills him!

Again, 2 XP earned from Zero, the 3rd GG arises!

He is sent directly to the front to merge with BigBossPlayer to let him regain his old powers. And while the Americans and the Mali are battleing at Houston, the Mainstack proceeds further towards New York, whichs Bombardement is done in 260 BC. 2 Trebs are destroyed in direct assault, but the defenders are in a desolate state when the Heroes, that aren't even fully healed yet, attack:

All heroes win, this includes Tachywaxon, Coanda, iggymnrr, WastinTime, Keilah, Sun Tzu Wu, Vranasm and Giny. This is the scene after the conquest of Washingtons Capital, the city having the MoM:

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

So this post ends with 3 cities taken, one being the Capital having what the Incans came for (the MoM) . Roosevelts forces are down to the ground, the Incan losses are insignificant until now (2 Trebs + le_phobos in over 25 fights) . The story is going to be continued. Will the incans be able to keep up their awesome success rate? Which hero will get the highest lvl? Will BigBossPlayer get farmed again because he's not paying attention?
Read more about that in the followup! Till then, cya

Seraiel

 

[happyturtle]

My poor head... Why didn't I pull it under my shell?

The captions are awesome. Love it!

 

[Seraiel]

Giving the AI the 3 techs isn't really that big of a deal if I can get my economy out of the gutter from taking cities. But it really doesn't advance them that much if you get a good world war going on, as the AI will quickly start to hate EVERYONE but you, and won't tech trade with the other AI. The AI trading between itself is really what speeds up it's tech. When the AI gets stuck in 500 year wars with 1-2 people it will tend to REALLY fracking hate one of them, thus causing one of those AI to declare on one of the others, and if you're lucky they will bribe some war buddies in on it. I have had games where I had the whole world at war for a good 3000 years from bribing them into war, and then a couple of them declaring on each other after having a short peace to build up more troops, unless one of the AI has quite a few more cities than the other, and spams a lot more units neither side will make much head way. Needless to say the AI didn't advance very much while I was picking up vassals.

But all I am trying to say is that if I only had to give one tech instead of three I would be getting faster win dates, as the AI wouldn't reach Eng as quickly, and when the AI doesn't reach Eng before I have taken one AI out, and vassaled another two or three it's game over as I can win with just Trebs, and friends.

I remember Replay #1, where I bribed Bismarck against Joao I think. This caused a World War that lasted from the beginning to the end of the round. If often takes just one little push, and the AIs get caught in a chain-reaction, one having -3 from "you declared war on us" , the he brings in his 3 friends, the otherone instantly has -6, he needs to even out the power-ratio and asks his friends, -7 to -9, and like that the world is in war and will never recover, because the system for fading diplo-modifierst is total sh**. Basically showing the middle finger every time isn't so bad, because that negative diplo can fade, negative diplo through joining a stupid war, can't. Gangbanging up on a target is as good as a tactic to get AIs to friendly as sharing their favourite Civic, and one of the meanest tactics is to declare war on B, bribe A vs B for cheap money (because onesself is already in war) and let AIs unit bombard the defenses away, weaken the defenders, and always walk behind the stack and steal the cities.
I've won games that were unwinnable from my skill lvl at that point using this tactic.

I stayed up last night playing a game for the HoF minor gauntlet. I learned enough about Diplo in your writeups to keep half the world in love with me. My favourite part was the wedding event like yours, only mine was the wedding with different religions. I got the chance to throw an elaborate Taoist wedding which made all the other Tao leaders love me more, and made Toku go to war with me when he was at half my strength I really love having events on. It makes for a fun bit of random that adds a lot of flavour to the game.

Loving the write up so far. Really amazing stuff!

Hearing that you learned how to "keep half the world in love with you" from me makes me happy . Diplo isn't all that hard to learn in Civ4, it's just really stupid most of the times, things like "rebukedemandsneakprob" , "never deny Washington or one of the French, or you'll get sneak-attacked" , or "beg when the AIs go to war, like that they can't ask you to join it, and they will come and ask, many many times because even AIs not ever talking all have a joinourwarrate of 25", then the "AIs go most often to war with Civs they have shared borders with" or "the more overlap, the more likely one gets dowed" or "if AI capital can build UU chance of war * 2" and other stupidity, but if one knows those things, AI is actually dumb like sh** .

And I understand what you mean with that "flavour through random events", love them too, maybe I'll get the "Charismatic" and "Tower-Shield" Event in an early domination round once, muahr

You'll really start loving events when you get a slave revolt 15 times in a row.

Had that in Replay #4, 4 slave-revolts in the same city, city not growing over size 6 because of revolts for a loooooong time. Anyhow, there are events that are such extremely overpowered, i. e. the mentioned "Charismatic" and "Tower Shield" Event, that I still prefer a Slave Revolt or a burning Forrest from time to time. Playing with Goody Huts and having money from them eases things a lot there.

Ouch, this thread moves on so fast... I've been stuck to page 5...

Thank you for the burden, I wouldn't know what to say, really

It definitely is cheaper to bribe on Mara/Huge than Normal/Normal but I'm not shocked either.
The 1:1 ratio the AI assigns for gold:beaker conversion is a bit unreasonnable on Normal. In a perfect world, the AI would adapt to multipliers present in its own Empire.
Fact that this 1:1 ratio does not scale with speed either is a bit off.


I'm sure there are other factors than power and attitude influencing bribe costs but I don't know them.
Distance to target comes to mind. Number of cities as well. Those are pure guesses.


Most important thing is to be confident with a particular setting's timings.
I recall AbsoluteZero showed some pretty cheap bribes on Normal/normal/deity. Maybe with Willem ?
I can't remember the exact playthrough but I know he's done some pretty hardcore Alphabet beelines with CRE leaders (going AH, Writing, Alpha). He could then bribe with a small lot of techs that are seldom enough to bribe. This is timing.

I've once conducted bribes with Mysticism. It's right that they're extremely cheap in the beginning, and get expensive towards the middle and the end of the game, so the seed of hate must be planted early between the AIs, except in Sushi-games, because in those, one doesn't want to many wars, AI shall love everyone and tech fast, war only leads to tech-equality but not tech-advancement.

Regarding the factors of a bribe: You mention distance: Lizzy was / is on the other continent, I was astonished that Mansa would go to war with her that easily. Anyhow I think, this might just be following normal war-mechanics, why should they have written special bribe ones? Maybe I'm gonna do some extensive testing with the saves from Replay #4, there I had tons of money and was friends with almost everybody, if nobody has done this yet, I should be able to draw a lot of conclusions from what I see and know.

My poor head... Why didn't I pull it under my shell?

The captions are awesome. Love it!

Your shell only has super-powers when you eat Pizza (think of the ninja-turtles to understand or think off an analogy of Popeye and his spinach) , it's a pity that the only Pizza-place in that game, the Chicken Pizza, is far away in Egypt, the Chicken Pizza is the only known thing in the world to enhance defenses, and Hatty needs it all for herself atm. because I bribed Sury against her. Sry, but no Pizza for Incan turtles in this game, only for egyptian turtles.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

I remember Replay #1, where I bribed Bismarck against Joao I think. This caused a World War that lasted from the beginning to the end of the round. If often takes just one little push, and the AIs get caught in a chain-reaction, one having -3 from "you declared war on us" , the he brings in his 3 friends, the otherone instantly has -6, he needs to even out the power-ratio and asks his friends, -7 to -9, and like that the world is in war and will never recover, because the system for fading diplo-modifierst is total sh**. Basically showing the middle finger every time isn't so bad, because that negative diplo can fade, negative diplo through joining a stupid war, can't. Gangbanging up on a target is as good as a tactic to get AIs to friendly as sharing their favourite Civic, and one of the meanest tactics is to declare war on B, bribe A vs B for cheap money (because onesself is already in war) and let AIs unit bombard the defenses away, weaken the defenders, and always walk behind the stack and steal the cities.
I've won games that were unwinnable from my skill lvl at that point using this tactic.

World wars are why I sell my soul in tech to the AI. :3 It is the one reason I like having a couple warmongers on my maps when I am not going for HoF.

Had that in Replay #4, 4 slave-revolts in the same city, city not growing over size 6 because of revolts for a loooooong time. Anyhow, there are events that are such extremely overpowered, i. e. the mentioned "Charismatic" and "Tower Shield" Event, that I still prefer a Slave Revolt or a burning Forrest from time to time. Playing with Goody Huts and having money from them eases things a lot there.

Lucky Huts are fine for HoF things, but Trollvents are an even bigger troll than I am. The turning point for me giving up on Trollvents was when I 100% lost a game to them. I had two cities in revolt from the Slavery Revolt like 10 turns in a row. Which didn't allow me to whip units to save myself from the Great Monty!

 

[tobiasn]

I only read until post #35, I just gotta say

Looking forward to the rest of this

 

[Ben Lehman]

Just wanted to let you know I'm really enjoying reading this! I learn new things every time you update. (Emperor player, so a lot to learn.)

yrs--
--Ben

 

[Seraiel]

World wars are why I sell my soul in tech to the AI. :3 It is the one reason I like having a couple warmongers on my maps when I am not going for HoF.

Having a couple of warmongers is imo something good even if going for HoF. I very much like to have Brennus in my game, because he sucks up just so much hate and does that so well. When he founds a Religion, it gets even more ridiculous, and onesself can always have nice relations with him sharing Organized Religion Civic. I had a game where this "marriage from different religions" event came about 5 times, and Brennus always selected the "go to war" option, didn't laugh that hard for a long long time again .

Lucky Huts are fine for HoF things, but Trollvents are an even bigger troll than I am. The turning point for me giving up on Trollvents was when I 100% lost a game to them. I had two cities in revolt from the Slavery Revolt like 10 turns in a row. Which didn't allow me to whip units to save myself from the Great Monty!

Well, HBR in till T20 is a little op, but I only had that once until now (and back then, I was way to unexperienced to make anything out of it) , but the Slave Revolt comes to often, agree on that. Anyhow, if I ever get the "Charismatic-event" , I will jump around in circles, every unit healing while moving? That's like being able to cast while running in an MMO! Only Warhammer was so stupid to allow that, and even they disallowed it later again.

I only read until post #35, I just gotta say

Looking forward to the rest of this

Thx Writing the next part now.

Just wanted to let you know I'm really enjoying reading this! I learn new things every time you update. (Emperor player, so a lot to learn.)

yrs--
--Ben

Thx again . I always hope that people can take something home for their own game from this, but am surprised when I got told so, because I always think "uh, you write too little about this or that" . Many things run in the background of this round without me even remembering them, so if you got any questions, feel free to ask.

As already mentioned, writing the next part now. Would be nice to know if I shall stick to the "comic-style", because that one really multiplies the work, anyhow, I hope the Writeup gains more through it than it loses through my lack of creativity. Comments on that from "the heroes" themselves would be appreciated, but anyone else's comment of course is aswell.

Sera

 

[Kid R]

"No way!" he says. "That other Maceman is fortified and I'm getting River-crossing malus. Why didn't you build some Amphibious-Shock-Phants? I'm not gonna fight!

Some "hero" I was there ... (you judged my character perfectly )

(Actually I never say "malus" - I just can't persuade myself it's really a real word. I have the same problem with "melee" which sounds like some kind of dessert not anything to do with fighting).

Would be nice to know if I shall stick to the "comic-style", because that one really multiplies the work, anyhow, I hope the Writeup gains more through it than it loses through my lack of creativity. Comments on that from "the heroes" themselves would be appreciated, but anyone else's comment of course is aswell.

Each new chapter keeps exceeding the last one in imaginative presentation, quite the opposite of a lack of creativity, so I'd say just do it how you feel it

I haven't been posting so much just because I'm totally mesmerized by the thready goodness of the last couple of games! Keep it up - and congrats on getting the record!

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

Having a couple of warmongers is imo something good even if going for HoF. I very much like to have Brennus in my game, because he sucks up just so much hate and does that so well. When he founds a Religion, it gets even more ridiculous, and onesself can always have nice relations with him sharing Organized Religion Civic. I had a game where this "marriage from different religions" event came about 5 times, and Brennus always selected the "go to war" option, didn't laugh that hard for a long long time again .

Looooool, I like having Ragnar, or Mehmed II, or such. The weaker ones you don't have to worry about, but can bribe into war are so much fun.

Well, HBR in till T20 is a little op, but I only had that once until now (and back then, I was way to unexperienced to make anything out of it) , but the Slave Revolt comes to often, agree on that. Anyhow, if I ever get the "Charismatic-event" , I will jump around in circles, every unit healing while moving? That's like being able to cast while running in an MMO! Only Warhammer was so stupid to allow that, and even they disallowed it later again.

Lol, it is all about Jumping, and Casting at the same time. Oh, and you can Run, and Cast at the same time in Diablo 2.

 

[vranasm]

i think you could in WoW run and cast instants.
And almost 100% sure I couldn't cast spells while running in WAR and played from day 1 and I played all the healers :-D.

I remember from WoW there was some jump and spin with some instants technique used for kiting elites by hunter. I think I even tried it :-D

in DAOC there was not many instants, cast spells couldn't be cast on move.

not sure with AION... I think i had to stand still to cast heals with my cleric though. But instants are probably available on the move, but don't think I had many.

 

[Um the Muse]

Yes! I made it to Deity! I'm also the brave sucker soldier who will defend the mighty Incan flanks from counter attacks instead of destroying and pillaging civilians.

Honestly, I enjoy the comic-style bubbles and jokes as much as or more than the rest of the write-up. Keep up the good work, Seraiel

 

[Seraiel]

Episode 4 - Part II​

The age of heroes​

Back with Incans vs Americans. The Incans have won 22 battles and conquered 3 (huge) cities up to this moment. They've lost one of their heroes, le_phobos was to impacient and wanted to conquer a city on his own while the bombardement was still taking place, he fell to friendly fire, but got ressurrected. 2 Trebs were destroyed when directly assaulting a city, anyhow, nobody cares about them as those are only machines. The MoM is now under Incan control and everything looks great. The only fear of the Incan forces is, that the cowardish Mali could steal some of their glory by accidentally conquering a city. Here is a look at the war scenery:

So you see, while the heroes from the Secondary Stack are shortly before conquering Cleveland, the heroes from the Mainstack are healing in New York. le_phobos again is impatient and attacks the War Elephant threatening the city of Atlanta. He hopes to catch up in XP on the other heroes with this:

His hopes regrettably aren't fulfilled, the War Elephant is cunning and kills him again (this was a 50% fight) ! This wakes up Zx Zero Zx!

He wins against the Elephant which was severely wounded by le_phobos and gains another point of XP (99.8% fight) .

In the meantime, other heroes are lvling at the farm-spot of Cleveland, here we see Methos in action:

The city of Cleveland gets taken by the heroes without a single loss, not even a Trebuchet is destroyed! (The first Treb had a chance of 80% against the defending LB, the following Trebs had over 90% chances, always amazed how powerful those are. After the Treb-assults, fighting-chances for the heroes were all above 99%) .

All involved heroes gain 1 point of XP. Top Fighters of the empire are happyturtle, Giny and WastinTime atm., they're lvl 4, which makes the other heroes envious, discussions if the Incan weaponary is too good or if Trebuchets are simply counter-productive have arisen, as you can see on the screen.

In the meantime Roosevelt would be willing to capitulate since Incans conquered New York already, but I don't have any intent on taking him as a Vassal, as having weak Vassals like him, Vassals with too little cities and especially without their capital, is bad in a highscore attempt. They eat at ones score and they don't research fast enough to make up for the trades lost to combined diplo stance. This is an extinction war.

Washington has been asked by the Mali to join the war around Roosevelt, btw. , what are those doing?

Screen is a clearview of the war at 230 BC, so it's T11 of the war. Mansa's forces have have suicided on the defenders in Houston, and I've convinced Roosevelt to make peace with Washington via giving him Divine Right. Regrettably, it wasn't possible to also achieve peace with Mansa, would have been too nice after he had suicided his Stack.
The Mainstack of the Incan forces has barely healed, and already is on its way towards San Francisco. The conquered cities are defended by pairs of Maces and War Elephants, which probably is overkill, but anyhow, this doesn't matter anymore, as more than enough forces are available to attack Roosevelts poorely defended cities.

Let's fasten this all up a little bit:

Things that happen until the conquest of San Francisco in 180 BC:

• I'm able to aquire Guilds from Lizzy, just like planned.
• I also aquire Astronomy from Hatty via giving her Liberalism, Guilds and Diving Right.
• Mansa finally succeeds on conquering Houston, after that he makes peace with Roosevelt. I don't know if him not vassaling Roosevelt had anything to do with me having had a peace-treaty with Mansa, but it's nice, now there is nothing that can save Roosevelts empire from its conquest through the Incans.
• I can assign a city Peter conquered from Lizzy back to her.
• I found some cities securing Sushi-ressources, the Incan empire now has 30 cities.
• I experience problems with keeping up 100% research again, but getting insane trades like giving Mansa 5 turns he lacked for Astronomy while I get 3k of in exchange help . Having enough EP to know what the other Civs are researching is always a big advantage.
• I upgrade the Galleys to Galleons.
• I self-research Banking. After completition, 8 Banks get queued in Commerce-heaviest cities, mainly the ones having a University.
• I decide for the GP-Farm "Berlin" to become a Spy-city. Nothing of importance at this point of the story, but something of great importance in the future.

I'm experiencing a little bottleneck with the supply of ships., this is why the heroes from the Secondary Stack join the Mainstack in the Battle around San Francisco, which is a little like the release of a new MMORPG, when all lvl-spots are just totally crowded from the players:

After 3 turns of bombarding the city's castle, and with loosing only 1 Trebuchet in the direct assault, the heroes capture that city also, again, with no losses. After that, they split up for the remaining cities, some of them boarding on ships which had great trouble passing the suiciding Caravels of Roosevelt.

In 150 BC, the heroes attack the cities of Detroit and Cincinnatti while still being wounded from the battles before, there just isn't any time to heal! Both cities fall with happyturtle dying...

As she was a great fighter, the healers rez her immediately. She buys herself a Horse and new weapons after this. All this can be seen on the following screen:

Just to keep track of the losses, conquering the city of Detroit also took 3 Trebuchets, San Fracisco had 8 defenders while Detroit had 3, Cincinnati 2 and Cleveland 7, Kid-R defended Cleveland against one of Roosevelts Maces attacking from a Galley, I didn't keep track of the naval forces that were destroyed in this war, so it's atm. 42 battles won for the heroes, 3 battles lost, and 4 Trebuchets have been destroyed. 7 cities have been taken, of which 4 were huge.

If you followed the screen, you'll know that Baltimore is also short before falling, date of the conquest is 120 BC. Now Roosevelt is down to one city that is overseas. It takes a little while to get enough troops over there, but in 70 BC, Incan historians note the full destruction of Roosevelts Civilization, with 50:3 in battles, not counting 6 lost Trebuchets and 1 suicided Catapult!

This war lasted for 28 turns, which is a lot longer than the wars you know from Replay #4, mainly due to the lower movement of the troops, but also due to the long time it takes to bombard the Castles. Anyhow, a war with mounted units (and without bombarding the Castles) would have been completely devastating at that time, as Knights against Castles is suicide (a fortified Longbow in a Castles-hills-city has a STR of 18, worse if the Longbow even has promotions, then it can easily go over 20! ) . This war has been extremely cost-effective, which I wanted to point out with keeping track of the win/loss ratio. 50:10 (counting the lost Trebs and Catapult) is just astonishing, and shows the power of siege-fueled wars.

Now here are the current plans I have:

• Continue the "REX" peacefully, aswell as martial. The next target I choose for martial is Pericles, as he sits next to me, so I don't have to walk a long way, and his military rating is just pityful.
• Get Nationalism and Constitution through trade. Here, I experienced the biggest slowdown of the round, as no Civ wanted to research Nationalism somehow. This somewhat related to the Civs being somehow extremely slow on that map, and with the few strong Civs going early for Liberalism, denying me the Lib -> Med Slingshot as making it impossible for me to reach Sushi till 1 AD (T350) .
• Research Phyics to get another GP to start a GA and revolutionize to first State Property and with Sushi to Free Market. After Physics, complete Medicine and with getting Constitution, research Corporation.
• Build the Taj Mahal to get another GA.
• Finish the construction of the Kremlin.
• Create the necessary infrastructure needed for Sushi (Banks, Markets, Grocers) .
• Develop the Hammer-cities, that are needed for Space-colony victory.
• Continue with the Research of Steel followed by Steampower and Railroad to get Mining Inc.
• Stay out of trouble, lvl the heroes.

And here is a clearview of the Incan empire at 1 AD, which is short before the planned followup-war:

Northern departement:

Southeastern departement:

Southwestern departement:

Basic stats:

41 cities, researching Physics with about 1500 / turn at 100%, breaking even at 60% of Research what would be about 1000 / turn.

A look at the Financial Advisor:

Traderoutes are making about 50% of the total Commerce as usual on Big & Small's (with non-FIN-Civs, their fraction is even higher) , total Commerce of about 1k which get's greatly multiplied when being converted into Research due to Libraries, Universities and of course Oxford, the Shrine has become powerful and produces an income equal to what is aquired through Ressource-trade (with more multipliers, the Shrine will exceed the trade) , and the high unit-cost is caused by the enormous amount of military I have, with the cities being quite small still.

Almost most important, the demographics:

Showing that I have hugely focused on Military developement. I'm still about twice as powerful concerning GNP, Mfg. and Food, but advanced from one of the last places in Military to the upper third.

Graphs basically showing the same, but in more detail:

GNP shows that I have almost twice the financial power of Mansa, who is so strong because he owns the Masjid-al-Haram (islamic Shrine) . The golden Age cannot be seen here, because I switched to tiles with less Commerce and more Hammers, and also switched Civis at that time. This is why the GA can be seen so well in the production-graph, which shows a lot of whipping in the end (horizontal developement) , first Universities, then a lot of Settlers. The Food-graph shows the same developement as the production-graph, showing the heavy whipping that was conducted with the reach of Astronomy but not showing the GA as of course there is no Food-bonus during those.

The power-graph, showing a huge military developement, that was only achieved with having a powerful, early set up HE-city! I can basically choose which empire to take out.

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

So the Americans have been conquered, and the next target is in reach already. I've expanded through peaceful means as through war, and the MoM has been conquered, so the chain of super-GAs can finally be started. The other Civs being slow and researching Nationalism late is the biggest Bottleneck of this round, I don't have any intent on researching those myself and am basically waiting on those while researching Physics to perform the overdue switch of Civics.
Will the heroes be as successful in the next war, as they were in this war? How long will it be until the stupid Pericles, who has wasted a GE on building the Apostolic Palace for me will arrested and sent to exile for all eternity? And the biggest question of all, when will the Incans finally get Sushi?

Keep reading to know about that, next part of the episode going online within the hours, till then, cya,

Seraiel

 

[Revent]

Hate when the AI settle behind your lands! So freakin' annoying!
But amazing game as always Sera! Really enjoying the read

 

[Seraiel]

Some "hero" I was there ... (you judged my character perfectly )

(Actually I never say "malus" - I just can't persuade myself it's really a real word. I have the same problem with "melee" which sounds like some kind of dessert not anything to do with fighting).

Each new chapter keeps exceeding the last one in imaginative presentation, quite the opposite of a lack of creativity, so I'd say just do it how you feel it

I haven't been posting so much just because I'm totally mesmerized by the thready goodness of the last couple of games! Keep it up - and congrats on getting the record!

The ngetative bonus (better? ) that's caused by crossing a river, is huge, in addition, the Mace was fortified. Heroes don't suicide, they're willing to die for their cause, but fighting against that Macemen without catapult-support, would have been sheer suicide.

With lack of creativity I ment the content of the captions, that one's really hard to develop and takes a lot of imigination, and I'm somewhat dissatisfied with me often, that's why I asked. If you say it's "mesmerizing", I'm positively surprised and say thx

Looooool, I like having Ragnar, or Mehmed II, or such. The weaker ones you don't have to worry about, but can bribe into war are so much fun.

Ragnar weak? You're joking, right? He's imo the most aggressive unit-spammer out there .

Lol, it is all about Jumping, and Casting at the same time. Oh, and you can Run, and Cast at the same time in Diablo 2.

Diablo 2 is no real MMORPG, and one can only run and cast / jumpcast in the worse MMO's. Those also don't have an interruption system for the casters. Both things make little whiners whine a lot in the forums, that's why some changed it, but the imbalance created by that could only be balanced again by making casters extremely weak, basically like melees with other animations, nothing as distinguished like in DAoC, where Tanks were the death to casters and could operate independently while casters were the death to huge amounts of other players when standing under the protection of a tank.

i think you could in WoW run and cast instants.
And almost 100% sure I couldn't cast spells while running in WAR and played from day 1 and I played all the healers :-D.

I remember from WoW there was some jump and spin with some instants technique used for kiting elites by hunter. I think I even tried it :-D

in DAOC there was not many instants, cast spells couldn't be cast on move.

not sure with AION... I think i had to stand still to cast heals with my cleric though. But instants are probably available on the move, but don't think I had many.

WoW = unholy word.

WAR: If you didn't know how to instant cast there, you clearly did something wrong I was initally thinking of the Brightwizzard who had his "bomb" (pbaoe-spell) instant, but a sigmar-priest which is the only class I accept as a healer (archmage was more the definiton of a towel and the dwarf-priest? he was no healer, more a running dmg-absorber) could cast his grp-heal ini 0.5s with moral 2. If you know how to move and manipulate lag, you were only standing 0.25s of those 0.5s, that is like casting on the run.

DAoC, that's how a combat-system should be, there was only one class the people whined about because it had an instant, and that was the bonedancer, all other classes had to stand for a long time to cast, and would get interrupted by every little thing for longer than it took to interrupt them again. This made playing casters so difficult, that the length of whine-posts was not manageable by Mythic, that's why they changed it in WAR, but to the worse.

AION had a very good combat system for the one side (elyos) and an instant-cast-system for the other (asmodians) , where sorcs where stacking a cast-stigma with a cantor's ability and both together created instant-casts. Asmodians using that tactic were not beateable.

Yes! I made it to Deity! I'm also the brave sucker soldier who will defend the mighty Incan flanks from counter attacks instead of destroying and pillaging civilians.

Honestly, I enjoy the comic-style bubbles and jokes as much as or more than the rest of the write-up. Keep up the good work, Seraiel

The Combat / Combat-Shock promoted troops always have a more defensive task in contrast to the CRs . Maybe there will be some chances to fight in the future? There are also heroes that weren't even alive until this point of the game, think of ozbenno . And one city had to be defended against an attack, it was the one of Kid-R, maybe Roosevelt knew he didn't like to fight, you must imagine that noone came was because you're name is frightening Glad you're enjoying the Writeup .

Regards, Sera

 

[Ozbenno]

There are also heroes that weren't even alive until this point of the game, think of ozbenno

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

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

Ragnar weak? You're joking, right? He's imo the most aggressive unit-spammer out there .

He always is on the losing side of wars when he's in my games.