Replay #6 Short Story

[Seraiel]

Clearview at 1000 BC:


Ok, here is the next part of the Writeup. The 1st part dealt with extreme REXing to 8 cities. The 2nd part dealt with a strong buildup. Now this part finally deals with the 1st war. Before we come to that I want to give you a clearview though, because I have the feeling that that part came to short due to me trying to keep the Writeup short. I also always do a clearview at 1000 BC because that's the point where I compare the rounds, and, this is for Pangaea struggling with city specialization .

First, the 8 cities:

From this screen you can already see, that I was heavily focussing on production in that round: The city is building a Catapult and no Library, even though that would give 8 / turn. Don't worry, this city is going to get a Library, but in the beginning of a round one has to make sacrifices, I could simply decide if I wanted to have 3 Praets (or Catapults) or Library, and with Ghandi already having Longbows I knew that I was late and decided that I wanted to push troops to have a chance to still find a target not having Feudalism.
One thing that's gonna change, is, that the city is planned to get to size 9. The thought about that was, that working green hills is as efficient as the whip. What I don't know is, if working green hills is worth it if one has to work a grassland Farm for that, that's why I changed that plan. later and simply whipped the city whenever it wanted to reach size 6 :>

Same thing with this city regarding the Library. Even though this city is planned as a Commerce-city, it's heavily focusing and troop-production.

At least it's sure that that city doesn't need a Library . Working nothing but the Food and green hills and focusing on, yer, troop-production, who'd have thought it .

This city, with the awesome 15 it produces has a Library . But to justify that, this only happened because the city began on building the Library before Forges were available, and, because it had so many riverside Grasslands, so it wouldn't be whipped in near Future. The cities you saw before this had their Forrests invested in Workers / Settlers, this city had only little Forrests and needed to grow because of the large number of good tiles, that's how that Library got built. The other reason, I remember now, was, that it was a border-city with CRE Willem. I didn't knew at that time against which Civ I'd be going, so I wanted to secure my cultural borders.
You see that I've decided later that every city must contribute to the troop-production, that's why this city is getting a Forge instead of building Research (which would have gotten me Music ) .

Don't worry about the not improved Copper you see, 2 Workers are working on it already, the city just had its borderpop (I use Alt + M to set myself reminders for those things, awesome feature imo, couldn't play without it) . Interesting is, that this city will not grow over size 4 for a looooong time, because it actually only has 4 tiles that are worth working.

Ok, if you're reading now "size 3 Hammer city" and have seen the cities before, you're noticing a trend: I'm focusing as much as possible, I have no intention to grow any cities large but go for full horizontal developement. Talking about the sacrifices from the beginning, this city does not even have a Lighthouse. It's gonna get one, but only after I've conquered the 1st Civ, the Forge has the highest priority as it will give 2 and greatly increase whip-efficiency. Lots of whips in this city will occur, as it's source of is actually quite strong (Fishes) but it only has 3 good tiles.

How could I forget the GP Farm? Maybe because it's so weak . Nothing special to see here, besides that this city is crawling towards the National Epic (remember that I beelined Literature / Music) . Lack of Forrests and Hills is something that can make a decent GP Farm horrible, lesson I learned in that round.

The last and the newest city, Arpinum. Short before it's borderpop which will give the city it's source of Food. Interesting thing again, I only plan to work the grasslands this round, the city is planned for size 5. Plains, especially the non-riverside-ones are not worth thinking about as I learned.

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So as you see, basically the whole empire is focusing on or troop-production (or the buildings to build troops fast) . Due to the GP Farm being so weak, I don't had the possibility to found an Academy yet, anyhow, an Academy won't be so strong either way because I don't plan on running Buro, but of course, Vassalage. Let's look at the demographics to see how well my focus is working out:

I'd say, the production-focus is working out well . I don't care that the best AI has almost twice my GPT, I got Praets and Catapults, and against the lack of Food, well, there is nothing I can do against that, my land is just -poor and my cities are a lot smaller than the ones of the AIs.

The Tech-screen:

As you see, either the AIs are trading everything between them or I have traded it to them for . I'm not ahead, but I'm also not behind. This screen and...

The Scoreboard:

Show very well how good Brennus is sucking up all the hate. He's already far behind because he's everybodie's Worst Enemy and noone trades with him. After he's down, Pacal will take over his part (because of his low-peaceweight) , so I don't have to worry about him either. Lizzy has a lot of land and Roosevelt has the GLH + the Colossus and seems to run away in tech, those are the ones worrying me. About the Hindus I don't care, because the Christians will be the stronger ones, as I trade more with them.

Plans:

• Build Catapults until I have something like 15-20 of them.
• Whip the cities down to get the same amount of Praets.
• Find a target that doesn't have Longbows yet.
• Trade Music for Theology, continue with researching Paper -> Education.

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Next post going online soon. Hope you enjoyed this clearview, till later,

Seraiel

 

[Seraiel]

1000 BC to 400 BC:


I think there is little to say about the military buildup, but that I switch to Theocracy for it. Due to bad luck or morely because all AIs are at war (and because of that are favouring military-techs heavily) , most AIs get Feudalism, so I also switch to Vassalage after having aquired it through the normal tech-trade-chain. From Mansa I got Calendar, Pacal was already friendly to me so I only had to gift him some money to get him there again and by that get Theology, with those 2 I got Philo from Roosevelt and Feudalism from someone else (cannot remember who) . I also get a GS with whom I build an Academy in Antium, anyhow, without running Buro this has little effect (20 :science / turn) .

The buildup goes on and on until about 600 BC. I've reached Paper in the meantime, so I can present the worldmap to you:

So I finally know where the different AIs are and can see their land. Btw.: I lost the Paper-"race" (again with 1 turn ) to Lincoln, so I couldn't make any money through maptrade... And again unlucky: This map doesn't seem to have a desert-island reducing it's size by 30% which some of the Micro-Pangaea maps have...

Well, anyway, I have a Stack of 40 Praets / Catapults, my neighbours are Hatty, Lincoln and Willem. Willem has the Mids and was so kind to build the MoM aswell, lets have a look at the tech-screen:

That screen had little impact on my decision with whom to go to war, it only shows that Machinery is available on the open Market and that Willem has Civil Service. Maces can be harsh for Praets, but nothing really can stop a Stack of 40 Praets / Catapults at that time. Main reason to go for Willem were the Mids and the MoM. Police State is awesome for a Conquest-game and you know that the MoM is one of my favourite World Wonders as GAs on Huge maps are obviously extremely strong.
The other decision would have been to go against Hatty, which would have been easier if I had to guess, as she's exhausted from the prolongued war against Brennus, whom I supplied with HBR, Construction and and Ivory (not on that screen but not much later) . Lincoln wasn't really a choice, because I couldn't bribe anyone against him, also, his cities are so far away that they'd cause huge maintenance, so you see, I don't care about taking out my "friends" (the Christians) . Once I have conquered 1-2 empires I'll be so strong, that noone noone is a threat. Of course, if a Hindu would have been a choice I'd have chosen him because of the diplo-hits, but the other reasons (Wonders, weakness, maintenance) were the deciding factors.

I scouted Willems territory to localize his SoD. Found that his Forces were almost equally splitted between his capital Amsterdam and a city named "The Hague" . Here you see the Praets in position and you see Willems territory:

No idea really what to say to the war. Willem had about the same amount of troops that I had, but he's a stupid AI that has no courage. If he would have been Shaka I'd maybe lost some Praets to suicide-counter-attacks but against Willem? War was easy as can be. He even got Longbows, no Problems for my STR 8 units that have CR2 promotion. I have absoluteley no idea how many troops I lost, I remember that I suicided all Catapults (something from which I don't know if it was the right decision, as a Cataput is more expensive than a Praet and has lower winning-chances, anyhow, it does collateral) , but how many of those or of the Praets? Here are screens from the end of the war, which was at 380 BC (the DoW was in 550 BC, so this war lasted less than 20 turns) :

Summary: I lost 6 Praets and 13 Catapults (about 20 units) and with those I killed 14 Axes, 5 Spears, 1 Archer, 14 Longbows, 7 HAs plus 10 Catapults (so about twice as many kills as losses) , and during that war, 2 GGs were born.

So what do I do with the cities and the GGs and what has happened in between?

• The GGs I settle in the HE-city of Neapolis. It'll be very nice to have CR3-Praets from the start, as way more powerful than CR2, in addition, Supermedics play a minor role in Marathon games and with 1-movement-units. Maybe Rome would have made a better HE-city, I was unsure on that the whole round, until I stopped to think about it. Rome has the better , but plains-Hills (with Gold!) of course are worse than green Hills when it comes to production.
• The newly conquered cities get Theaters, Amsterdam with it's tripple- becomes the GT-city!
• I've taken the screenshot from wide angle, so you can see the production of the cities, notice that I'm building AP-temples! I had no idea if those would be worth it, but I like AP-temples very much, even with not being SPI. From a today's perspective I can say, they would pay back their own cost in (240 Huge Marathon) so here is the next guessing competition: You guess the date in which I won the round and by winning you may either choose the game-speed of my next game, or the starting era, or the map-size or the Civ again!
• I have Engineering now (so Trebs) and with that, I'm unstoppable now .

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Hope that competition makes up for the Writeup being so condensed this time, and hope, that you also enjoyed this part, even though only the most important details were shown. Cya all,

Seraiel

 

[Shaandore]

Very good writeup so far. I'm a bit surprised that you waited so long to begin the wars. I guess that WastinTime's thread has some points about waiting for wars though: conquering better cities lets you build a more solid economy.

I would like to make a guess on the finish date: 800 AD

/goes back to lurking mode

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Very enjoyable write-up so far!

I'm guessing the finish date is AD 1000.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Pangaea]

Thanks for the specialisation special

I have noticed you build Forges very early, but I was a little surprised to see Barracks in that many cities. From memory you tend to build few of those early, but here a few are up already.

I suppose you could have abused an early AP win, but since this is a Conquest game that won't happen. Think Sun Tzu Wu will be close with 1000 AD, but I will lean towards later and guess 1100AD.

I find the title of this thread funny

 

[Herodotus Rex]

Lol it took me half a week to read through the last one - this is lightning speed

Enjoying so far! I'm betting on 950!

 

[shakabrade]

100T from now, whichever date that is, everything else would disappoint me.

I am reading this stuff on my mobile phone so I can't make out small details and make any better prediction.

 

[Seraiel]

Very good writeup so far. I'm a bit surprised that you waited so long to begin the wars. I guess that WastinTime's thread has some points about waiting for wars though: conquering better cities lets you build a more solid economy.

I would like to make a guess on the finish date: 800 AD

/goes back to lurking mode

800 AD noted

I'm personally also surprised how late I started to begin the wars. Maybe, this was the biggest fault in my whole round, anyhow, now I got extremely well set up cities and can continueously war until the end of the round .

Very enjoyable write-up so far!

I'm guessing the finish date is AD 1000.

Sun Tzu Wu

1000 AD noted (with a smile ) . Thx for the compliment, reading, and giving feedback .

Thanks for the specialisation special

I have noticed you build Forges very early, but I was a little surprised to see Barracks in that many cities. From memory you tend to build few of those early, but here a few are up already.

I suppose you could have abused an early AP win, but since this is a Conquest game that won't happen. Think Sun Tzu Wu will be close with 1000 AD, but I will lean towards later and guess 1100AD.

I find the title of this thread funny

1100 AD noted (with a sad smile ) . Hard to explain the choice on building so many Barracks. In hindsight, those were probably my biggest fault because I could have DoWed Willem 10-20 turns earlier without them. Anyhow, not having double promoted Catapults would have caused even higher losses of those, but that again I could have made up with sacrificing more Praets or sending them in harder battles.
Maybe some expert Conquest / Domination player can tell us if I was right with the decision to build so much or tell us how he would have done it.

Lol it took me half a week to read through the last one - this is lightning speed

Enjoying so far! I'm betting on 950!

950 noted . Thx for enjoying .

100T from now, whichever date that is, everything else would disappoint me.

I am reading this stuff on my mobile phone so I can't make out small details and make any better prediction.

The last date that got mentioned in the Writeup was 400 BC, so that +100 turns makes 550 AD . You see I'm shocked, there are still 8 targets on the map, I haven't replenished my siege, and I said I decided for Theaters and AP temples.. That'd leave me with less then 10 turns for every Civ, and I'm advancing into the era where wars are most harsh, the wars against Castles...

I won't give you a 2nd guess as your first is in the range where the AP-temples would pay for themselves (I said they'd do) , but maybe you want to re-guess (not for the competition but morely to be not disappointed by me so much ) ?

550 AD noted.

Sera

 

[Revent]

I'll guess 1050 AD

 

[klonoklown]

I'll go for 1250 AD.

 

[vranasm]

hmm I say 1120 AD ...

 

[shakabrade]

Ok, I'll give you 100 more years, so it's 650AD. It is not like you don't have Praets. And I think forges were a mistake. It is delaying your attack too much since Forge on marathon is worth too many Praets. Optimizing is not an option in getting better dates. Capturing cities earlier would get you more cities earlier and would enable you to whip Praets in those captured cities earlier, probably outproducing forges and, more importantly, the sooner you start using Praets, the more effective they are. Getting Mids and switching to Police State would be nice.

Edit: Ok, now that I see details, I can tell Praets will not be enough and your victory is still far ahead. I don't have any more attempts so I won't guess.

Next time you attempt this, I expect nothing but BC conquest.

 

[Seraiel]

I'll guess 1050 AD

1050 AD noted .

I'll go for 1250 AD.

1250 AD noted .

hmm I say 1120 AD ...

1120 AD noted

Ok, I'll give you 100 more years, so it's 650AD. It is not like you don't have Praets. And I think forges were a mistake. It is delaying your attack too much since Forge on marathon is worth too many Praets. Optimizing is not an option in getting better dates. Capturing cities earlier would get you more cities earlier and would enable you to whip Praets in those captured cities earlier, probably outproducing forges and, more importantly, the sooner you start using Praets, the more effective they are. Getting Mids and switching to Police State would be nice.

Edit: Ok, now that I see details, I can tell Praets will not be enough and your victory is still far ahead. I don't have any more attempts so I won't guess.

Next time you attempt this, I expect nothing but BC conquest.

*cough* there is no non-Incan BC Conquest Game in the HoF *cough* on a map-size bigger than small *cough*

 

[shakabrade]

Cas with Hatshepsut?

 

[Seraiel]

Could it be that you mistake Domination and Conquest? Who's Cas?

 

[Manco Capac]

cas is a french word meaning "case" like in "case by case" expression.
Or maybe a referrence to the OCC expert Mr.Cas.

EDIT: I love the harmony between HoF people and S&T people. Coexistence is great now while awful in the past. If Obsolete could just shut his mouth with past attitude...of dissension.

Moderator Action: Be careful with that kind of personal reference to other players It can be easily interpreted as name calling ...

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

...
*cough* there is no non-Incan BC Conquest Game in the HoF *cough* on a map-size bigger than small *cough*

In fact, there are only four:

http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/adh...&era=-1&exp=0&pubID=159&exclinca=on&submit=Go

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[vranasm]

competition closed, the date revealed

Seraiel - 980 AD, Huge, Marathon, Deity, Conquest game for 388078 points

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

Wow 980, I don't think I would struggle to beat that even with a nuts start for a HA into Knight wars on Deity.

 

[Seraiel]

In fact, there are only four:

http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/adh...&era=-1&exp=0&pubID=159&exclinca=on&submit=Go

Sun Tzu Wu

STW, I said bigger than small with a reason .

competition closed, the date revealed

Seraiel - 980 AD, Huge, Marathon, Deity, Conquest game for 388078 points

And that makes the winner of the competetion Sun Tzu Wu if I'm correct! His guess 1000 AD is only 20y from the actuall winning date and there were no other, closer guesses.

Wow 980, I don't think I would struggle to beat that even with a nuts start for a HA into Knight wars on Deity.

You always talk big ZZZ, if you can so easily beat all the HoF players, just do it . I think you're largely underestimating the size of that map and how long medieval wars took.

Sera