RLC#3. Genghis Khan.

[ABigCivFan]

took a look at your save.

1. not enough granaries for whipping. with granaries, you can allow cities grow into unhappy and whipping faster and more efficiently

2. too much sharing of food. especially the island cities. the Nigh-hsia should be set up as the GP farm with 4 seafood in the long run.

3. should have researched literature (cheap) first to set up the NE earlier. you will need serious bulbing sooner rather than later

 

[pigswill]

I agree about the shortage of granaries and this will be addressed after the shortage of workers, other stuff can wait a bit longer. I also agree about food sharing particularly island cities but this ties in with shortage of food/dense packing of cities. Once other cities have whipped granary and courthouse (coz city maintenance is high (8-10gpt)) they could grow slowly on coast while Ning Hsai gets more seafood.
On the other hand while aesthetics>lit is relatively cheap NE at 300 hammers is relatively expensive in the short term. GS production will get shared between Turfan, Ning-Hsai and Old Sarai. I must admit to being biased against NE ever since the sgotm I played where we produced 3 GAs in a row in our 90% GS NE/Glib city.
edit: In the medium to long term Ning Hsai with 3-4 seafood is probably better used as a Globe whipping/drafting city than a GP Farm.

 

[pigswill]

Played a few turns up to 225ad. With chopping and whipping we've gone from 7 to 15 workers. CS is just in, haven't revolted yet. We've also got up to 7 granaries with 5 more being built. More units and smaller cities means we've headed into our next recession.

A few notable events:

Of course I agree to this extortion and Jules is temporarily pleased.

I even agree to this one. SB is a happy person for now.

100ad. Taoism fidl. Oh dear, this combined with our low tech rate and poor GS production kind of suggests Lib isn't guaranteed.

125ad Darius builds Hindu shrine.

175. Sanchu is founded (northern wheatfish).

Ning-Hsai starts 2 scientists in 50ad, Old Sarai starts 2 scientists in 150ad.

Even with trade extortion our neighbours are hardly progressing towards Future Tech.

This really is turning into a 'challenging' game.

 

[pigswill]

I'm very surprised at the AI's slow research rate. One of the issues with going for liberalism>steel is that even if you win the lib race you're still dependant on the AIs researching and trading the techs you actually want, in this case the engineering line and the guilds line.

At the moment I'm not convinced we're going to win lib and I'm seriously tempted not to even try. Go for MC machinery construction engineering HR feud guilds gunpowder. Hopefully we'll have a chance of trading for at least some of these.

I had a little study of GP tech preferences and noticed something potentially useful. Philosophy comes before chemistry so we'd need to bulb that, however paper comes after chemistry and no paper means no education, printing press or liberalism.

We don't need no education, we don't need your thought control

'A mongol warrior needs a degree like a fish needs a bicycle'. Discuss.

 

[ben-jammin]

You don't NEED to go for liberalism to win, but it's such a huge boost. 3000+ free beakers plus a valuable trade tech that really doesnt help the AI at all. Even if you can't Lib an ideal tech I would go for it. Just make sure you hold off on machinery to bulb most of lib when things get too close for comfort. In a pinch, replaceable parts is not a bad consolation prize with Lib if you can trade for banking soon enough.

And I wouldn't worry about guilds and engineering. The AIs always go for them, and they will actually give you BOTH just for gunpowder.

 

[ABigCivFan]

Here is my 225AD save for comparison.

i prioritized on several diff techs, Lit for GL and NE, music for the free GArtist, Calendar for resources, running HR+OR planning to switch to Budda soon, and all cities are whipping forges.

Capital has GL which can be the 2nd GP farm during a GAge+Pacifism. The main GP farm has 4 seafood, it will whip NE after the forge. (i got 2 GArtists in a GP farm at 10% odds before, but I will not let bad luck in one game discourage me from using a decent strategy that works most of the times ). Even if you put NE in here, you can still put Globe here for whipping troops later.

HE is unlocked with a CR3 sword fighting barbs.

City placements are not super optimal, can fit in more coastal cities, but i kept a barb city to the West coast. will whip a settler for the double banana city.

Going for CS next to open chain irrigation.

Worker count is low, will build more when CS on line, does not impact that much as they are keeping up with city growth for now, especially when cities are whipping.

 

[pigswill]

ABigCivFan: I've had a look at your save and its surprising how the same start can lead to such different games. In your game you've got a Buddhist love-in going on which simplifies diplomacy 300% at this stage (though possibly complicates it later when you go to war). Rome also looks a lot bigger.

You're doing well in the classic immortal strategy (GS spam, early lib). Its obvious that I haven't set myself up for the classic immortal strategy or I'd have gone for poly>lit straight after aesthetics and probably gone for fewer cities with less food sharing. It'll be interesting to discover if my somewhat eccentric approach actually works.

edit: because I haven't set myself up for lib slingshot I get one GS in 10 turns, the next in 40+ so education/lib bulbs just ain't going to happen. MC gives me forges, machinery adds maces/xbows then construction>eng for pikes and trebs. I can do the old Sisiutil trick of stacking part-built units in cities ready for a major army in 2-3 turns once steel is eventually in.

 

[pigswill]

The experiment continues. All the way to 580ad in fact.

We're still alive which is always a good start. No-one's trying to kill us at the moment which is even better. A few 'highlights' since the last report.

250ad, Jules builds Chichen Izza.

275. We trade CS to SB for monarchy and calendar. We hold a revolution and adopt HR and Bureau, to my surprise (and mild chagrin) the revolution takes 2 turns of anarchy.

400. MC is in, start some forges, start on machinery.

425. SB builds MoM, unusual for an AI to trade a tech while they're still building the wonder.

500. Shaka builds Glib.

520. Jules declares on Shaka. Could be interesting as Jules power rating is significantly higher.
We get our second GP! A GS that bulbs philosophy (Taoism was founded in a distant land in 100ad as I'm sure you remember).
We sell MC to Darius for 510g.

540. Trade philosophy +40g to Darius for feudalism.

580. Machinery>construction. Time to pause.

Our workers have been busy with chain irrigation, mining hills and building plantations but they've just built our first cottages of the game .

With the notable exception of Darius the AIs are still stuck in the iron age:

Ning-Hsai is running GE and 2GS, produces next GP in 19 turns. Old Sarai will soon get a forge to try the same trick.

No-one's willing to trade construction, not particularly unusual of course, so I'll have to learn it myself before starting on engineering. More growth, more cottages, less jungle etc etc.

 

[ABigCivFan]

I suggest to get Optics first at this point. There are still 2 more AIs out there. As you pointed out some of the key techs went really early away from your Conti. It is important to find them. You will probably get more tech trading opportunities which will be a huge boost to your tech rate, and get an idea how advanced they are.

Circumv bonus is always good too.

 

[Yudishtira]

We're still alive which is always a good start. No-one's trying to kill us at the moment which is even better. A few 'highlights' since the last report.

I like being still alive so I agree with this part. But if no-one's trying to kill you, shouldn't you be trying to kill someone? Otherwise either your power will lag behind, or you will have stacks of trained killers standing around twiddling.

520. Jules declares on Shaka. Could be interesting as Jules power rating is significantly higher.

There you go! You must defend Shaka! Otherwise JC disappears into the stratosphere ahead of you, never to be seen (or matched in score/power/etc.) again.

 

[pigswill]

All good points Yudishtira. I have played up to 960ad in my impatience/enthusiasm/reckless stupidity (delete as appropriate) and your gloomy prognostications have indeed been visionary. I also played on before ABCFs suggested a visit to the opticians to treat my limited vision.

I played on slowly growing cities, chopping jungles and improving the land. Built a few more granaries and forges, even courthouses on Sushi Island to reduce colonial maintenance. In terms of research I picked up construction (620), engineering (780), polytheism (840) and guilds (940). I've even got my third great person, a GS no less.

Shaka built himself the Mahabodhi to join Glib he built recently. Darius has also been chasing wonders (Temple of Solomon 760ad, Ankhor Wat 780ad and University of Sankore 940ad). The Mysterons picked up Colossus 580ad and Notre Dame 720ad but no contact has yet been established.

Meanwhile Jules has been munching away at Zululand, capturing Ondini in 700 and Bulaweyo in 840ad. I sneaked a peak at his main stack, fairly respectable (c 30 units with a decent amount of seige included). I gave iron to Shaka for free but it hasn't really made a difference.

Here's what we have to withstand the military juggernaut:

Nothing to worry about then.

I suspect that we'd be in this situation regardless of the tech path we chose, even if we went for lib>miltrad or lib>steel Jules would probably still be running away with the game at this point .

 

[noto2]

TMIT what did you mean earlier when you were talking about "stack splitting", you mean simply attacking with 2 stacks? Or do you mean something more complex, some sort of strategy? I too am impressed you were able to defeat Rome at tech parity in time to stop MM from launching the ship. My game played out in a similar fashion to yours except the infantry/artillery war with Rome was dragging on and on and on and I was gaining ground so painfully slow that it took bombers/tanks to finally break through, although in my game Rome also had Persia as a vassal as well :/ Anyway the war just took forever and MM launched the ship during, and I didn't have the resources to stop him.

 

[pigswill]

I have a bit of a plan......

I am pretty much at tech parity with Jules:

With the exception of guilds.

I can tech HbR in one turn.

I can make this trade:

I can swop to vassalge after HbR.

I can an army out of these cities:

Giving an army of lvl3 knights, trebs, maces and pikes in next to no time.

 

[ABigCivFan]

Just posting some pics and saves for comparison.

Got optics early, found 2 other fast teching AIs in the 700ADs and did bunch of important tech trades with them.

960AD picture of the 4 seafood GP farm running 9 merchant specialists during a GA.

Capital is the HE city.

1200AD: full war with JC. 4 GMs (one from economics) went on TM and got 6800 Gold.

1210AD: stack of 30 C3 and C2 curis vs. JC's main stack.

980AD and 1210AD save attached.

might post more comments later if needed.

Edit: I declared on SB before DOW JC, and then bribed JC to War with SB with Education. This did not help much as JC did not even move his stack toward SB lol. After I DOW JC, he bribed Shaka to fight me. Shaka is not much a factor prob will pick some easy xp from his units.

 

[pigswill]

This may qualify for one of the shortest turnsets ever. We're only up to 1000ad. Stuff has happened:

i) We did the horse trade with Darius.
ii) We've learned HbR.
iii) We've built a couple of spies to go stack hunting (last seen in Zululand)
iv) Jules has just captured Nongama and Shaka has capitulated.

We may have missed out on Keshiks (obselete before we got horses) but that doesn't mean we have to miss out on the UB:

Spoiler :

If you want peace, prepare for war.
If you want war, prepare for war.
Whatever you want, prepare for war.

First kill the stack then worry about capturing cities.

Even on the first page people were commenting that Keshiks should really be Knights. Well in this game they will be.

With gers and rax knights start at 7xp. Is it worth a turn swopping from bureau to vassalage? Probably....

 

[ABigCivFan]

Yes, definitly switch to Vassalage. you need 2 promo units. I would suggest to build Trebs, some CR2 maces and a couple of pikes as stack defenders.

With the number of cities you have, whipping a quick army is np. the problem is the speed of war progression. JC at this point is researching pretty fast and he likes military techs. Focus on taking down his stacks and key cities. look for bribing as well, get as many AIs gang up on him.

Do you have optics yet? you really can not ignor the other 2 AIs who were teching pretty fast in your game.

 

[pigswill]

I don't have optics and would need compass first. I suspect that whipping cities down to nothing and supporting armies will seriously nerf research in the short term. Its likely that the Mysterons will find us well before we find them.

One major problem with medieval warfare is that even with trebs it takes like forever to whittle down walls and castles which you can't ignore pre-gunpowder unfortunately. I'm really not sure how well knights do against LBs with 100% defence bonus, probably a suicide mission better left to sacrificial trebs or CR maces. But I'm going to have to deal with Jules SoD before thinking about cities. So I think I'll have a couple of tranches of whipping knights before adding trebs, maces and pikes to the mix.

Before whipping any units I'd better switch to vassalage.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

TMIT what did you mean earlier when you were talking about "stack splitting", you mean simply attacking with 2 stacks? Or do you mean something more complex, some sort of strategy?

It's a crucial thing with 1 move unit warfare. Yes, you split stacks. I forget in this game, but I had at least 3 then a late 4th pressing cities. Another trick is to use open borders to come from multiple angles. I don't recall doing that in this game though due to vassal situation.

Edit: It's worth noting the situation I fought in and that I quickly assembled a CR III arty-spam HE city. CR III arty are absolutely ridiculous and pull winning odds on anything but modern/future era stuff. It's one of the biggest windows in the game.

 

[Yudishtira]

I don't have optics and would need compass first. I suspect that whipping cities down to nothing and supporting armies will seriously nerf research in the short term. Its likely that the Mysterons will find us well before we find them.

One major problem with medieval warfare is that even with trebs it takes like forever to whittle down walls and castles which you can't ignore pre-gunpowder unfortunately. I'm really not sure how well knights do against LBs with 100% defence bonus, probably a suicide mission better left to sacrificial trebs or CR maces. But I'm going to have to deal with Jules SoD before thinking about cities. So I think I'll have a couple of tranches of whipping knights before adding trebs, maces and pikes to the mix.

Before whipping any units I'd better switch to vassalage.

I'm no expert but it appears to me you are only a dozen or so units behind JC. Panic-whipping away population is contraindicated.

On the other hand, overkill is infinitely better than underkill. Best not to risk your SoD being a unit or two light when it comes to the crunch.

 

[noto2]

It's a crucial thing with 1 move unit warfare. Yes, you split stacks. I forget in this game, but I had at least 3 then a late 4th pressing cities. Another trick is to use open borders to come from multiple angles. I don't recall doing that in this game though due to vassal situation.

Edit: It's worth noting the situation I fought in and that I quickly assembled a CR III arty-spam HE city. CR III arty are absolutely ridiculous and pull winning odds on anything but modern/future era stuff. It's one of the biggest windows in the game.

Ah ok, I thought you were talking about somethin akin to forking. Yeah, CR 3 arty from a HE city is indeed ridiculous