Replay #5 A history of heroes!

[Seraiel]

Niice. By the way, how do you get two hammers on water tiles in nottingham?
Nice read as always

Golden Ages give an extra on every tile that already produces one.

And thx .

 

[Um the Muse]

Seriaiel, you misunderstood me earlier: I'm perfectly happy defending the great Incan Empire

According to the war academy article, you gain WW whether or not you win the fight (losing will increase WW 3x faster if you attack). You also gain WW for taking over cities (though not from losing cities).

 

[Seraiel]

Episode 4 - Part VII​

The age of heroes​

The last part of the Writeup went till 560 AD. Here is the continuation:

Also in 560 AD, the heroes conquer Orleons. The French military is basically non-existant at this point of the round, but just for completeness: Orleons had 10 defenders, no Incan gets killed (and no Cannon destroyed) so the score after its conquest is 178:20.

And: Heroes have conquered Brest, an unimportant city on an island, that one had 3 defenders, so the score rises to 181:20!

Not important now, but maybe later: A GM gets born!

575 AD, something funny happens. The heroes are just approaching Louis' capital Paris, when some Archers flee out of it! Seems they've understood the lesson Incans gave them at Lyons!

Neilmeister and Zero greet them heartly, Team Incans score rises to 183:20.

Same turn, the islands invasion commando conquers Dijon with another stupid 90%+ loss of a CR3 Cannon:

City had 4 defenders, so that makes 187:21 for Team Incans.

580 AD, the Cuirrassiers attack Marseille: Here we see happyturtle:

I tell you, turtles get crazy when they see the beach. In this case, happyturtle has just forgotten that the French are there... She gets beaten by a severely harmed Longbow that could barely draw his bow. Chances for this were below 10%.

Anyhow, the other Cuirrs all win their fights, the city falls, it had 4 defenders, so this makes 191:22 for Team Incans.

Same turn, the huge and slow-moving Mainstack attacks Paris:

The mess the cannons leave is no challenge for the heroes, the city joins the Incan empire with no losses again. It had 6 defenders, so this rises the score for Team Incans to 197:22.

Also on the same turn: Mansa captures Grenoble. Louis is now down to 6 cities.

Next stop: Rouen in 590 AD: Screen showing the conquered land and the route I took. Rouen is marked with a circle.

Again, no losses, 5 defenders, 202:22 for the Incans.

And: The island-invasion-commando takes the city of Toulouse: Screen again giving a clearview with with the city being marked and arrows showing the route taken.

You might have expected this already, but again, no losses, Cannons are even more op than hills-Archers are. City had 4 defenders, Team Incans raise their score to 206:22.


600 AD: A Great Spy gets born! I still had the Great Priest from Washington and a GM, now the Great Spy... You know where this is leading to: Yes, this time, I'm gonna go for a 5th GA!

Thinking ahead, I also plan some important Spy-missions: Once I've got Mining Inc., I'll spy-convert Tokugawa and Suryarvarman to Judaism, to get the ressources from them! Having bad relationships with both, and not even open Borders with Tokugawa, this demands from me to create some Caravelles as those can sail through hostile waters without declaring war. Here we see the "Mossad 01", waiting to board her load, an Incan "Tanya".

Spy-Missions I conduct earlier are switching Mansa to Judaism and Organized Religion again. This has the same reason as before, it gets Ramesses to friendly, like that, I'm able to trade Military Science from him:

610 AD, short before the 4th GA ends, the Incans experience another great moment, it's the year of the construction of the Statue of Liberty in the IW-city of Warwick!

This wonder has a great impact on the production, as I got almost 60 cities on the continent so I get almost 60 free Specialists that mostly work as Engineers as the Merchant-Slots are already being fully used! Have a look at the production-graph:

610 AD is also the turn, where Avignon falls. Again, no losses, 5 defenders, 211:22 for Team Incans.

620 AD, Amiens follows. I'm experiencing more and more because of the war, which I honestly don't understand as my losses are insignificant, and Louis doesn't have the Statue of Zeus, it must have somehow to do with the enormous size that some cities have reached already. I have +9 through the war in the largest cities and +4 through my women demanding emancipation, the GA is running out, I have to finish that war and get my citizens again, that's why I'm attacking the cities from the ships already!

625 AD, Louis second-last city "Strassebourgh" falls, again attacked from the ships, but luck is with the bold, no losses in the last cities, Team Incans now scores over 220:22 so my troops have exceeded a Kill / Death-ratio that's better than 10:1!!!


635 AD is the last turn of the 4th Golden Age: Louis is down to one city, I've reached Electricity, but it didn't have the desired effect on the economy, I have a lot less Windmills than I had in Replay #4, so the additional generated by the tech falls out a lot smaller. Here you see a screenshot of the Financial advisor at the end of the turn, with me having switched to Nationalism + Pacifism (no-cost-Civics) already! It's a screen after having invested 3h (!!!) in microing the cities, basically maximising the at the cost of the production! It's a screen with the Incans having 150 cities, of which almost 50% own all Gold-multiplier buildings:

And then, the chain of Super-GAs ends...

Savegame called: "OMG! FROM +700 TO -900 GPT!"
Savegame called: "FUNK YOU STUPID GAME, I'm gonna get myself some coffey now and play this till the end, BUT I WON'T SLOW DOWN THE SPREAD!

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

You should get yourself some coffey too.

End of post.

Seraiel

 

[troglodyt]

Thx again. This is awesome.

Just to clear things up: My friend request from a week ago had the intent of being able to write PMs to you. I can't and couldn't do that (or I'm stupid). I wanted to offer my help proofreading your posts. Though on second thought I'm not sure whether this is such a good idea. On the one hand it would be strange if a fellow German did that. On the other hand I'd have to find and eradicate hilarious mistakes like "Fire at free will"! Awesome!!!

A couple of questions:
1.) Did you build any missionaries in the early stages of the game? Spreading your religion to 3 or 4 neighbors early on and them adopting or you forcing them to adopt Judaism is great financially (ToS), diplomatically and gives more options in terms of military expansion (forcing cheap city revolts).
2.) Related to the last point: Did you ever consider dropping siege in favor of an allout spy/cuir/airships approach which would have been quicker? Has anybody done some maths on that?

Mossad 01. Yeah!!!

 

[Killroyan]

Ok, that is it. My brain overloaded. Going broke during a GA is the first time ever. I loved the pics with the island cities and the maintenance costs. Just incredible. Love the way you show how much this game can be stretched.

You, sir, deserve a place in my signature. Bows his head.

 

[Pangaea]

Reading this is like being put into that machine in a Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy.

 

[Seraiel]

Thx again. This is awesome.

Just to clear things up: My friend request from a week ago had the intent of being able to write PMs to you. I can't and couldn't do that (or I'm stupid). I wanted to offer my help proofreading your posts. Though on second thought I'm not sure whether this is such a good idea. On the one hand it would be strange if a fellow German did that. On the other hand I'd have to find and eradicate hilarious mistakes like "Fire at free will"! Awesome!!!

Hi

What is the error Message you're getting when you try to write PNs? I think you have them disabled in your profile somehow, because I'm able to recieve PNs and can also write them, but when I tried to message you, I got a message like "the user has decided to not recieve PNs... blah blah" .

I'd be glad to have someone proof-reading my posts, as I can barely find the time for that, nor do I speak english well enough to notice all mistakes. Regarding the "Fire at free will" i. e. , I think they say that in "Starship Enterprise" (in german: "Feuern nach eigenem Ermessen" ) . Could you explain plz why that is so hillarious, I wanna laugh about my mistakes too .

A couple of questions:
1.) Did you build any missionaries in the early stages of the game? Spreading your religion to 3 or 4 neighbors early on and them adopting or you forcing them to adopt Judaism is great financially (ToS), diplomatically and gives more options in terms of military expansion (forcing cheap city revolts).
2.) Related to the last point: Did you ever consider dropping siege in favor of an allout spy/cuir/airships approach which would have been quicker? Has anybody done some maths on that?

Mossad 01. Yeah!!!

Glad you like the names I gave to the units in this game . I hope, that you also understand why the Agents are called "Tanya" (hint: That name is not related to the Jews but to computer-games) .

Regarding a non-Siege Warfare that relies on Airships and Spy-Revolts: I have conducted a lot of Cuirr and Cav Warfare in Replay #4, most times with the support of Airships and must say, that I was quite amazed by the speed of those wars. Some of the Blitzes I conducted in Replay #4 lasted only a handfull of turns, anyhow, the losses most always were severe, I think I lost my complete Stack a few times and had to rebuild forces a lot. I've often read about using Spy-revolts but have to say, that they never appeared as an option for me, because of two reasons:

1. I find it a lot more valuable to know what the Civs are researching, because by that, I can get awesome trades like giving them 5 turns of Astronomy for 3000 .
2. Getting enough to pull of those revolts is very difficult in the beginning, because the multiplier-buildings for come very late. Before that, it would need the slider to aquire enough of them, and that is absolutely no option for me, as in highscore games, one must run maximum-research until one reaches Sushi. Most of the conquest in this game was done before Sushi, and it was done before Cuirrs, so Spies really really were no option. In addition, Spies cost a lot of , one needs at least 20 of them for wars of that size, they have to reach their destinations, their cover gets blown, therefor one has to have multiple spies in multiple cities. That with the spies having to reach the cities themselves defines the number needed, 20 is just a guess, and 20 spies would be equivalent to 1600 , that's 8 Cannons. Cannons I lost 2, but Spies I'd have lost 20, so it's a trade of Speed against cost-efficiency.

I can imagine a game where I focus a lot longer on economic developement and begin with the conquest a lot later, maybe then I'd try out that tactic. To compare an early conquest game against a late-conquest game, I lack the experience as I always went for early conquest until now, but WastinTime already directed my interest towards a different style of play.

Ok, that is it. My brain overloaded. Going broke during a GA is the first time ever. I loved the pics with the island cities and the maintenance costs. Just incredible. Love the way you show how much this game can be stretched.

You, sir, deserve a place in my signature. Bows his head.

Hrhr . The part about the game being so stretched is one of the parts I like most about highscore games. Winning is easy with the Incans and the starts that are normal for HoF play, without playing for highscore, a game would maybe only take something like 20h, which I find waaayyy too little. I love the epicness of Huge Marathon, and highscore games are just epicness^2. In addition, I find it a lot more difficult to not chain-whip / draft and roflstomp everything but build up such an insane empire and then time the date of victory with the peak of the score. Also, diplomacy gets a lot more difficult if one cannot simply bribe everybody against everybody, and leading an empire to its edge of economy is really fun.

The only thing that's really bad about highscore games on Huge Marathon is the need to micro the cities. If there was a way to use the Governor somehow, things would be a lot easier, but that idiot always stops Growth when the cities reach the limit, and it's impossible to force the right number of the right specialists and make him work the right tiles, but I guess that's just a minor obstacle one has to accept when wanting to put up the #1 highscore in HoF.

Reading this is like being put into that machine in a Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy.

Didn't read that book, only saw the movie. Tell me about the machine, what does it do? .

Cya all, Seraiel

 

[Pangaea]

A few years since I read it. It's a machine you can be put into, and you see your importance compared to the vast, vast universe. So you feel tiny as an atom.

In a sense, that's how I feel when reading this thread. So incredibly impressive, yet the benchmark is so high it's impossible to reach even a 10th of it.

 

[Seraiel]

Episode 4 - Part VIII​

The age of heroes​

And:​

Episode 5​

Insanity Inc. - 20 turns take 2 days (RL!)​

Ok, so I did everything to ease the economy. Still it has crashed. What can I do now? The time is still 640 AD:

First, I micro all the cities. The city govenor always assigns the wrong Specialists, i. e. he prefers Spy-Specialists while I want to have maximum Merchants. In addition, I can i. e. switch tiles in overlaping cities to be worked by the city that has more gold-multiplier buildings. I can also work a little more Merchants and not work Cottages, and, I still can work a little less and a little more Most important: I can build Wealth!

This is a screenshot of the Financial Advisor after 1h invested in microing and whipping the cities (of course, smaller cities with better infrastructure also means better GPT) :

I've notified the changes that occured when comparing this screen to the last screen (last post) which was from the beginning of the same turn. It shows, that there are always things that one can optimize (the +11 or the +17 taxes) , that is pure micro, but the bigger progress of course comes through macro (+400 through setting 16 additional cities to build Wealth) .

Awesome, not? Now I'm only losing 600 / turn, wouhou!

What can I do now... I can do the same thing again!

Ok, this looks about the same as before. I found one Courthouse that I could whip so population is a little lower, and smaller cities mean again lower maintenance. Regarding Courthouses: I whipped 6 of those, and, a lot of cities only need 1 more turn to finish the building they're constructing. Those cities have also Wealth queued, so: Proceed to next turn!

Ok, the new Courthouses are kicking in, as the 4 additional cities producing Wealth do. That's a lot better than before, but now I have to spread Sushi and my treasury is almost used up...


In the meantime, the "Mossad 02" unloads a bunch of Spies into Russian territory:

And most important: The islands-invasion-commando has reached Louis last city Bayonne:

The city's Cultural-Defense was bombarded from two Frigates over the last several turns. You can see that they're highly promoted, which is proof for the ridiculous number of Caravelles / Galleons they sank in the war.

As already told, I'm having a serious problem with due to War Weariness in the largest cities which are also the most important centres of Commerce. I'm short before bankcruptcy so every turn counts, the heroes have to directly attack from the ships:

The first to go is Keilah, as he's the highest promoted Fighter of the invasion force. His chances would have been 30% when the city still had 20% cultural, but then the Frigates bombared the defense down to 4%, raising Keilah's chances to 60%. Additional Airship-support wounded the defenders, raising Keilah's chances to 80%. This is just to show the extreme power of combined Forces. The city will be taken in any case, but will I lose some of my most precious fighters?

Keilah wins, but he gets heavily wounded. Sun Tzu Wu has watched closely and attacks after Keilah, having almost the same odds:

Sun Tzu Wu kills the last defending Longbow, but as he's watched Keilah and the Archer before, he knows how to act and only gets lightly wounded. All French cities are occupied by Incan forces now. Louis was captured when he tried to escape in disguise. He was wearing the clothes of a normal peasant, but he committed a crucial fault: Though his clothes looked like those of a peasant, they were made out of silk and velvet. The Incan heroes noticed this on first sight and gave him the chance to go to exile by giving him a boat. (Half true story, but the part about the clothes is actually true, difference was only that it was Louis XVI who tried to escape his own people and the Guillotine. ) This means the end to the war aswell as it means the end to the French empire!

The news reaches the heroes on the continent:

Are coanda's fears legitimate? Let's have a look at the Financial Advisor after Micro and Whips have been done:

Uh, what has happened there? Well, not that much. I simply did the normal tech-trades, like giving Darius a few turns of Nationalism for some , that's why the treasury is higher, and I assigned as many Merchant-Specialists as possible, by getting rid of the stupid Spy-Specialists the City-Govenor always hires. So no magic, simple, but necessary and time-intensive. From the beginning of this episode (beginning of 640 AD) until now (end of 645 AD) , 3h of time (RL!) had to be invested, so atm. it's 1.5h / turn. Getting through these turns is always the hardest part of a Sushi-game and the reason, why this game would last for 240h.

Now watch the Financial Advisor on the next turn, when the War Weariness isn't existent anymore:

YES! The end of the war means the end of the in the cities, and my empire is generating profit again! Just before going bankrupt I could conquer all of Louis' cities and turn the tide. Note that this screen is from the beginning of the round, it's before Sushi is spread, here is one from the end of the turn:

I have 900 as treasury, right? So I can use them up and construct some necessary buildings, i. e. the buildings that the cities need when growing really large, or further Settlers, or some Cathedrals for . You just have to know, that from this point on, without running a GA, every turn is a financial battle in which production has to be maximised while still being able to proceed to the next turn without the units going on strike.

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

I won't bother you further with this fight from now on, you'll know when you think of the name of the episode, which is going to be continued soon with the developements of the round. Hope you enjoyed this episode or these two episodes too, cya,

Seraiel

 

[shakabrade]

Just to clear things up: My friend request from a week ago had the intent of being able to write PMs to you. I can't and couldn't do that (or I'm stupid). I wanted to offer my help proofreading your posts. Though on second thought I'm not sure whether this is such a good idea. On the one hand it would be strange if a fellow German did that. On the other hand I'd have to find and eradicate hilarious mistakes like "Fire at free will"! Awesome!!!

I believe your problem is that you only have 3 posts, while you need at least 5 posts and need to be registered at least 5 days to post Private Messages.

Hope it helps.


@Seraiel

You said you played this one 240h. But how much time do you spend doing write-ups?

240h a game... That'd be 30 standard/normal games! (and also total number of all games I've played this year) How come you don't overload? Can you do other stuff like working or studying with the same zeal? If you can, please write a guide. I'd definitely be interested in that. If you take drugs, say which one.

 

[happyturtle]

I will be so sad when this write up is over. I really enjoy reading it.

 

[georgjorge]

In "normal" games, when I conquer the first AI and have 15+ cities, I stop caring about micromanaging and workers and just whip out new stuff whenever I think of it. I can't think what would make one micro over 100 cities every turn on Marathon speed...

I also support shakabrades proposal to tell us your secrets on how you can do so much stuff in so little time

 

[troglodyt]

Really?

 

[troglodyt]

No kidding?

 

[Revent]

Insanity!

 

[troglodyt]

Hi

I'd be glad to have someone proof-reading my posts, as I can barely find the time for that, nor do I speak english well enough to notice all mistakes. Regarding the "Fire at free will" i. e. , I think they say that in "Starship Enterprise" (in german: "Feuern nach eigenem Ermessen" ) . Could you explain plz why that is so hillarious, I wanna laugh about my mistakes too .

Glad you like the names I gave to the units in this game . I hope, that you also understand why the Agents are called "Tanya" (hint: That name is not related to the Jews but to computer-games) .

...

Cya all, Seraiel

It is "fire at will". "Fire at free will" would be the command to kill the free will ("Knallt den freien Willen ab"). Considering how much whipping you are doing here that is quite appropriate.
I'm not familiar with Tanya and the game she appears in.

trog

 

[shakabrade]

Tanya --- Red Alert, c'mon...

 

[troglodyt]

Tanya --- Red Alert, c'mon...

I had to google. Never really played it except once or twice. I've always been into turn based strategy games like chess or ... civ.

trog

 

[Pangaea]

It is "fire at will". "Fire at free will" would be the command to kill the free will ("Knallt den freien Willen ab"). Considering how much whipping you are doing here that is quite appropriate.
I'm not familiar with Tanya and the game she appears in.

trog

It would be even more amusing if he were the Greeks.

 

[Jester Fool]

Most epic thread ever. Too bad I will never get within 3.3 million of your score.

Edit: And I play lowly Immortal.