RLC#1. Suryavarman of Khmer.

[Killroyan]

Alas poor Shaka, I knew him well.

About the foreign advisor, I did not know this as well Pigswill. No shame there. Learning something new every day.

 

[ben-jammin]

I could see using HA to get a decisuve and unassailable advantage to win the game. But win with conquest or domination with just HA and nothing more advanced (Construction & Currency, btw, would be more advanced).

What I meant was no military unit more advanced than a horse archer. You obviously need economic techs.

Please, demonstrate with saves, I would love to see it. I appreciate the effort the OP put into the many posts in this thread, and the thoughtful postings and commentaries that followed. Perhaps we could keep it constructive and not just drop the usual boast of "I could win this map with just Horse Archers" or something like that.

I thought I was being constructive, not boasting. I spent a couple hours on this map on your suggestion. I didn't take the time to be particularly efficient with whipping or worker management, the economy and tech path were far from optimal. I suppose I was trying to somewhat simulate the way a monarch player might execute this overall strategy. The idea is to be very focused and direct, anything that didnt advance the war effort is ignored. Focus is the only thing that wins on higher levels. No advanced map knowledge was used.

I'll be brief but I think the info will be quite helpful.

This is where I stopped playing to take a couple screenshots and write down the important things from the event log:

Nicely summarizes city placement, tiles to improve and work.

A lot of key information in that screenshot, too. 4 chariots built, 4 lost. 20 horse archers built, 12 lost. 47 archers killed, I think maybe 6 or 7 were barbs, the rest were Sumerian and Celtic. Barracks and stables in each city. I need to take another look at the event log for a few things and then I'll add more info.

3240BC animal husbandry is finished

2880BC the wheel is finished

2400BC horse city

1880BC rice city

1800BC horseback riding is finished

1600BC declare war on Gilgamesh

1440BC bronze working is finished

1280BC archery is finished

1120BC declare war on Brennus

975BC writing is finished

725BC first great general -> used on a scout for a supermedic

575BC math is finished

450BC Sumerian civilization is destroyed

150BC Shaka will first open borders

125BC Celtic civilization is destroyed, 2nd GG is born to be settled in the capital for CRII axes, alphabet is finished

 

[vranasm]

^^ pretty similar to what I would expect of HA rush...

you probably won't finish the game on HA's though facing Shaka with 8 cities and impis.

and you didn't really convince me that it is better way of doing this. You lack currency (from the description) where as if you go with agressive peaceful REX you can end here with cca 10-12 cities at the 100 BC mark and have more techs.

you have gilga and brennus living of course, but that makes your research multiplier stronger.

 

[pigswill]

I note that you declared on Gil before archery for HAs so I guess you started with chariots. I was wondering why you declared then rather than building up a stack of HAs and declaring c 1000bc. I'm sure there's a good reason, I'd just like to know what it was.

Looks like you got 6 cities at 125bc, 3 built, 2 capitals and a blocking city. They're nice cities to have though I'm wondering how your economy is coping with the distance maintenance. You didn't mention how far you'd teched by 125bc. Yu will of course have picked up pllage gold and I guess you'll have got currency, maybe CoL?

I'd reckon that the challenge in this scenario is countering Shaka militarily (and diplomatically in the interim).

 

[Kwibuss]

Nice early conquest indeed.

Allthough this will give Shaka quite some room to play with, which might be nasty. Could build a city to block him though.

 

[pigswill]

Played a few more turns up to 1310.

More war . Move, bombard, attack, heal, move, bombard, attack , heal, count sheep .

Only one brief interlude to relieve the tedium.

AP Resolution. Stop the War

Spoiler :

Against Stalin .

Almost 100%

Closed borders with Brennus in 1290 so he didn't have stray units teleporting to bizarre corners of the map.

Annihilated Shaka 1300, razed Bulaweyo (a very bizarre site indeed south east of Ulundi, I'm almost 100% certain there's oil there discovered by Shaka in 2000bc).

Played one more turn to get rid of war weariness.

23 cities already. Not too shabby. Brennus really is an afterthought.

That's the straightforward bit finished (1300 year elephant rush). Now for the interesting bit: super-charging the economy.

 

[vranasm]

ehm stalin??? really? at least I guessed correctly the resolution type... it could be declare war on some heathen ....

 

[pigswill]

I've more or less decided to go primarily for a cottage economy, I'll be running a few specialists to speed up GP production and might run rep until I get to emancipation but most general tiles will have a cottage on them (obviously allowing for some food to help cities grow). Its too early in the game to consider a hammer economy because I'm still a long way from the ideal techs for powerful workshops and by the time I get to stuff like chemistry and communism cottages will have probably grown to villages or towns.

I initially thought about going straight for lib but decided to get literature first for national wonders.

I'm considering building HE in Eridu but its my most productive city so I'll try to get Taj there first. Chuck, Mao and Stalin have marble so I want to get it started while I still have a monopoly on nationalism.

Nongama looks like a pretty decent site for NE with 3 food, riverside grassland for farms and a few hills for building specialist stuff like library, market etc.

 

[pigswill]

I got myself a GS in 1030 who's built an academy in Yas. I traded CS to Chuck for aesthetics and MC, got paper in 1010, education in 1130 and just got nationalism in 1300.

As can be seen there's a fair bunch of techs to backfill and I'm not sure how effective tech trading will be.

I've got a very solid hold on liberalism at the moment so I'm reluctant to trade away paper or philosophy. Obviously I don't want to trade away nationalism because I'm after Taj (particularly with Mom).

One possible deal I'm considering is this one:

The only problem is that it gives Brennus maces but given that he's already got LBs and XBs and will get pikes before I can kill him that's not a huge issue.

In terms of research this is an unfamiliar situation for me because normally I'd be looking to get a military tech from liberalism asap. However due to the power of Ballistics we've got the land we need already and I'm quite happy slow building a few LBs/XBs to stop our power slipping (we're ahead atm and I'd like to keep it that way).

One option I considered was going lib>constitution>printing press>democracy. Another option could be guilds> banking> economics> GM> golden age. I can't work out which would be better (or there may be a third route I've overlooked) so advice would be welcome.

 

[pigswill]

In the absence of sage (or any other) advice I pressed on, blundering clumsily through the tech table. Brennus traded machinery for CS+60g before I declared on him in 1360. My good pal Chuck (ok, only pal ) traded compass, music, eng and optics for guilds, paper, philo and banking. I still haven't picked up drama, theo or DR but drama's the only one I want anyway. After lit I studied guilds, banking and economics and used the free GM for a 12 turn golden age.

I think I mentioned a war. Maybe giving Brennus maces was a mistake, maybe it wasn't. Anyway rather than passively await his doom he sallied forth with maces, pikes and cats from various cities. It got a bit scrappy but he's down to his last city (6 medieval defenders with castle and Chichen Izza):

I've been picking up a few GGs with all this warfare. Ulundi looks like a potential production city so that got a MI and I decided I could do with a second medic.

Once I got lit I started on NE which is due to finish next turn. I also remembered to build and whip 6 unis for Oxford which is due in the capital in 3 turns. Taj is still 6 turns away but I've still got a monopoly on nationalism so that's safe and my GM inspired GA doesn't expire for another 10 turns.

Just in case it all sounds too much like a walk in the park here's a look at the latest power chart:

And a quick peek at the current diplomatic situation.

Hopefully Chuck and Mao will continue to fight each other but it would be foolish to get too complacent with my poor diplomatic skills.

I stopped because I've come to the next decision point. Liberalism is due next turn and I need to decide which tech to take:

And here's what the AI have been doing:

My inclination is to go lib>constitution > PP >democracy and I'm thinking of going for SoL.

The other and slightly related issue is which civics to use, my current civics are well out of date.

If I go for constitution then rep would be fairly obvious, with Oxford nearly done bureau is very obvious, probably go to caste during the extended GA and probably FR, pacifism isn't such a great option because religions are fairly evenly spread through the empire (though I have been building Judaic missionaries in anticipation of capturing the Temple of Solomon).

I'm torn between mercantilism and FM. There's no doubt that trading with the AIs is helping them more than its helping me. Free specialist with rep would compensate for not gaining a thrid trade route so its really a question of whether I want the AIs to develop for possible future tech trades or let them fall behind to reduce future threats.

edit: i wonder if I'm playing and posting too quickly for people to catch up and post their ideas.

 

[ben-jammin]

^^ pretty similar to what I would expect of HA rush...

you probably won't finish the game on HA's though facing Shaka with 8 cities and impis.

The only way I won't finish the game with HAs is if there isnt enough land on this continent for a conquest victory, but that was the assumption I was making when I originally said it could be done. Not sure why you think impis are an issue, not only will I destroy his access to metal within the first turn or two of the war, but I will have as many CR2 axemen as HAs, probably.

and you didn't really convince me that it is better way of doing this. You lack currency (from the description) where as if you go with agressive peaceful REX you can end here with cca 10-12 cities at the 100 BC mark and have more techs.

1) I don't need a lot of technologies to win this game if the continent is just barely big enough, that's the entire point.

2) more cities faster doesnt win the game faster if you're not in a position to actually meet any of the victory conditions. If I can pump out settlers and win conquest 5 turns after settling them all at once, it really doesnt matter how many cities I have at 100BC. I shouldn't have even kept Gilgamesh's capital, all it's doing is farming a small amount of xp from repeated barb suicides.

3) even if the continent is too small, it's likely that the other continent will not have feudalism or engineering in time to make this a slower strategy.

you have gilga and brennus living of course, but that makes your research multiplier stronger.

No it doesnt, because monarch AIs tech so slowly that had i not killed them and focused on economy and research instead, they would have nothing i needed for the duration of the game.

Nice early conquest indeed.

Allthough this will give Shaka quite some room to play with, which might be nasty. Could build a city to block him though.

No need to block him, at this difficulty the more cities he settles the fewer defenders per city and the latest cities will have low cultural defense. He managed to get to construction and is presumably happily building a bunch of catapults, which are worthless on defense and are hammers he would otherwise be spending on something better.

I note that you declared on Gil before archery for HAs so I guess you started with chariots. I was wondering why you declared then rather than building up a stack of HAs and declaring c 1000bc. I'm sure there's a good reason, I'd just like to know what it was.

I declared on him as soon as I could get my first chariot to his border. The reason was to steal workers and pillage all his improvements, which got me over 50 gold and made sure I faced nothing but archers. I also didnt allow Brennus to make a single metal unit, though he of course had iron 1 tile south of his capital and researched iron working early.

Waiting runs the risk of the AI being able to build spearmen. A couple of those in each city can mean you need an extra 4-6 HAs for every capture, and losing a bunch of HAs to counterattack. So waiting ot have those extra HAs so you can capture the first city sooner is possibly counterproductive.

Looks like you got 6 cities at 125bc, 3 built, 2 capitals and a blocking city. They're nice cities to have though I'm wondering how your economy is coping with the distance maintenance. You didn't mention how far you'd teched by 125bc. Yu will of course have picked up pllage gold and I guess you'll have got currency, maybe CoL?

I'd reckon that the challenge in this scenario is countering Shaka militarily (and diplomatically in the interim).

Economy is fine, I can start cottage spamming if neccessary to get to currency faster. Maintenance isnt bad with so few cities, I should not have bothered to keep Gilgamesh's capital.

There is no need to worry about Shaka. I'm making no efforts to have good diplo with him, I have been his worst enemy on and off since the beginning. Had he declared war on me at any point, it would have just given me the opportunity to kill a large stack in the open.

I stopped playing just after he would finally open borders. That means a bunch of turns pumping out axes and a few more horses, scouting his land for his metal, and then declaring as soon as I have troops stationed to take a number of cities within the first 2-3 turns.

It'll likely be easier than Gilgamesh was, because he had a lot of protective archers on hills in cities with 50% culture. The only thing that made my losses so low was abuse of how we know the AI behaves during war. I actually killed about half his archers out in the open. The same can be done with Shaka, maybe even better as I think he has higher attack courage. It's often a net gain to sacrifice cheap units to bring a defender out of the city. If the AI has a settler and you back off, they will send the settler out with two defenders to be picked off. The AI will redistribute defenders between cities depending on which city it thinks you are about to attack. With 2 move units you can often pick them off and, if not, they lose their 25% fortify bonus which is significant.

 

[pigswill]

You're obviously far better than I am at this mounted warfare stuff and on a pangean landmass you'd win a conquest victory quite easily. As I posted at the start I'm going for space rather than a military victory and clearing the continent early on with a HA rush would still leave the problem of resettling the continent and building the economy.

 

[pigswill]

Progress has been slightly slow (its a pain having to work for your living ) but even in a few turns some interesting things have happened.
Currently up to 1515.

Took constitution from liberalism to run rep. Forgot to swop civics straight away but only lost a turn:

The AIs are too primitive to really help but powerful enough to be a nuisance so I thought I'd slow them down. Mind you Chuck declared on Mao in 1505 and Stalin declared on Chuck the same turn so they're doing a fine job by themselves.

Research went corporation for an extra (internal) trade route then PP for extra commerce before starting on democracy partly for SoL and partly for emancipation for a few turns (20-30 maybe) to speed up cottage growth.

I picked up a GM in 1500 in Hara to be saved for a later GA and completed Oxford in Yas the same turn.

Eridu completed Taj in 1515 before starting on HE, its always nice to add another 12 turns to a Golden Age.

I'm building wealth in some cities that have no immediate need for buildings to push up the research silder. Overall I'm now generating 1250bpt/+5 gpt which ain't bad but nowhere near enough. Hopefully as cottages turn into towns and cities keep growing that will continue to increase over the next several turns.

I knew I'd forgotten to mention something. After several turns of bombardment and suiciding a dozen cats I've captured Bibracte. Bye bye Brennus .

One thing I haven't really done which is probably a mistake is I haven't been building Barays to speed city growth slightly .

 

[pigswill]

Up to 1600ad.

A dull set of turns. The wild west remains wild, though I did pick up astro and drama from Chuck in exchange for nat and education. Golden age has been ticking along and the economy has been growing.

I've researched scimeth,communism (Kremlin), gunpowder, chem, biology (lots of food and slightly better workshops), RP, steam, researching AL at the moment for factories/power.

We've got a couple of sources of oil, one in an unimproved desert tile which is nice and a couple of coal mines.

I've been building knights, still our most advanced unit but that's enough to keep up the power level.

I also remembered to build a few Barays, better late than never.

Kremlin is due in 3 turns, Sol in 4.

I'm looking for a total of 9 more GPs for 3 more GAs, we've got 4 atm (2GM, prophet,spy) and should pick up GS from physics and GE from fusion. NE city is coming along nicely so we should be ok (sceenshot in next post).

We're totally overwhelming our rivals (albeit inflated by a golden age):

However our extended Golden Age ends next turn and its time to think about civics while we still have an ananarchic revolution left:

I reckon caste is a must for gppt and another workshop boost. Rep or US is a tricky one. We'll be running a few specialists (particularly once Sol is finished) which favours rep, on the other hand Kremlin completes very soon which is very nice for cash rushing some buildings and we have some towns in our hammer deprived cottage cities which would favour US.

One of the long standing arguments in Civ is whether the AI can see invisible resources which determine their settlement patterns. Firaxis have consistently denied this. On the other hand explain this:

Florence was founded by Chuck who still hasn't discovered SM to spot oil. Furthermore Florence has been built on the ruins of Bulaweyo which Shaka settled before 2000bc when he definitely didn't have scimeth .
Settling 1W would have grabbed a clam resource and kept the other visible resources so why settle there?

 

[vranasm]

how many cities you have? I don't see it from SS's

you should aim for ~30 cities before you switch into tech mode. i always prefer hammer economy with building wealth/research and workshops.

unless you have over ~40 cottages I wouldn't go US+Eman.

 

[pigswill]

I have a mere 26 cities (45% land), 9 built, 17 captured.

In total (I've just counted) I'm working 122 cottaged tiles most of which are village/town.

For hammer economy you need all the workshop techs inc chemistry, communism for SP and AL for factory/power for hammer multipliers. Because I conquered my empire with ballistics I was still many turns from getting all those techs so I went cottages instead. It would certainly be worth building workshops on my currently unused tiles because of the instant returns.

I would imagine that going for hammer economy straight away more commonly goes with cuir/cav rush because you're that much further along the tech tree by the time you've finished conquering and are looking to consolidate.

 

[pigswill]

Time for a guided tour of the Khmer Empire:

Still fairly small cities but hopefully they'll grow a bit more.

Here's our capital Yasaodharapura:

Its got an academy, Oxford and plenty of cottages for a bureaucratic research centre but its almost at the limit of its growth.

Vienne is still one for the future:

Generating 19gpt from Temple of Solomon but could do with some gold multipliers and general development. This city is one of the reasons I was thinking about cash rushing.

Eridu is our HE city and one of the main production centres:

The former Zulu capital of Ulundi is another potential production centre:

Still needs to grow a bit more and then swop some farms for workshops.

Nongama is our GP Farm (every civ should have one):

Once we swop back to Caste it will run a a bunch of scientists (and an argument in favour of running rep).

Finally for those who remember the discussion about '1N of rice' here's Rajavihara which was settled 2N of rice:

Maybe I'll replace GH mines with GH windmills.

 

[Abegweit]

Vienne needs a Lighthouse pretty badly. Harbour and Market first?

 

[pigswill]

@ Abegweit: indeed . That was indeed a mistake which has since been corrected. I'm sure if someone had the time to look through a save there would be many more.

In retrospect one middle size mistake was going lib>const>pp>demo when constitution had the same beaker cost as lib. It would have been more efficient to have researched constitution and pp then libbed democracy.

Like I posted earlier if I was worried about looking stupid I'd never have started this .

 

[pigswill]

We're up to 1675. Pretty uneventful .

Techwise went AL rifling physics(GS) elec indus steel. Been building a few infantry to maintain our military pre-eminence.

We do indeed have aluminium which may come in handy for our voyage to the stars. We also have loads of uranium .

Once again I'm debating techs (ie rocketry via artillery or combustion by train).

Even though Mao beat us to circumnavigation we went sailing around. Stalin's got a pretty big island which may help him keep up with Chuck and Mao. We also found a smaller island which once our knights had slaughtered the native barbarians seemed to be an ideal tourist spot:

Other stuff worth mentioning. In our last turn of golden age we swopped from emancipation to caste but stayed in rep to boost our loads of specialists (40-50 after caste/Sol). We completed Kremlin (1610) and Sol (1620). We got another GS in 1650, now up to 6 GPs so looking ok.

Even though Chuck is our best (indeed only) friend in the whole world he does have some annoying habits:

Ulundi knocked out a budmiss to convert Nongama for another 12 blocking votes.

and after all
you're my wonder wall

Its time for war . Wonder War! Ulundi can build Ironworks, Hermitage, Broadway, Eiffel etc coz its got decent production. Maybe throw in theatre and university (and public transportation for health, despite expansive it can still be a problem in an industrial metropolis).

Save available on request.

edit: I wonder if I should start spoilering screenshots to avoid massive scrolling.