Role Play Challenge: All Good Things.......

[madscientist]

Wow. Wasn't expecting Ragnar to hit Hatty right then - I thought that she had capitulated to HC or somebody last segment, but I guess she didn't. Probably a good thing.

It will be interesting to see if anything transpires from the HC/Mansa vs. Ragnar war. Let all the financial civs go at it - go on, get in there Willem and Hannibal! If you DO decide to go after HC eventually, will the other Buddhists keep giving you diplo hits. Seems you've attacked Hatty and Monty (twice) before this. Are you getting hits for that?

While the Hindu bloc is smaller in number, Ragnar, Willem, Hannibal, and Zara are going to be tough. The three financial guys represent 3 of the top 5 in score (with Zara not too far back), and HC may drop soon if the war does not go well. You COULD consider a change to Hindu if you are going to keep bashing your fellow Buddhists (assuming you have a city with the religion). Might be a pain to have to spread it around, but that bloc looks like it may get stronger. If you did that, Hindus would have 4 of the top 5 in score. You could get some immediate bonus with Ragnar if you switched and attacked HC now for the mutual military struggle.

Weird to see that Monty is pleased with Ragnar - different religions and all.

Any status on the AP?

An when did any Khan worry about diplo-points They will all be dead anyway!

Seriously, A swap to Hinduism may be worth looking into soon. Depends If I want to expand east or west with our knights. I think absorbing either Incan or Egyptiian lands will give us enough land to really start directing the military game here (providing I have teh time to build settlers ).

As far as techs, I definitely have this plan

Research Gunpowder

Bulb Paper and Education

Tech Liberalism


Take either CHemistry or nationalism.

The choice would then be targeting Military tradition or Steel.

 

[Kev]

I think that New Sari has Hinduism, so you can switch if you'd like. You'd have to get a monastery up quickly and start spreading it, but I it also seems that you only have 2 or 3 cities with Buddhism while in Theocracy. Whatever religion you go with, might need to spread it out quickly.

The Buddhists are HC, Justinian, Toku, Pericles, Isabella, Mansa, Shaka, Monty and Hatty. Monty and Hatty are basically done, and Toku is such a prig you probably won't get anything from him even with the religion. Mansa, on the other hand, will trade with you pretty much no matter what. So the people you might lose as tech traders by switching to Hindu would be HC, Justinian (definite as a zealot), Pericles, Isabella (again, a zealot), and Shaka. Other than HC, who is now in a war, I think you can outpace the rest anyway.

The Hindus are Ragnar, Willem, Hannibal, and Zara. Four very strong tech-ers in my estimation and already all of them are near the top of the leaderboard. Not sure how any of them might be with trading if you stay Buddhist - if some will still trade perhaps a switch to Hindu is not worth it.

Then there is Sury who is the only Jewish civ. Sigh.

You can always bide your time to see if anyone switches, what religion the AP is part of, etc.

My own thought would be to go after HC when next you decide to war. His land seems better, he's close, and I would love to get to the Buddhist Holy City (is it shrined yet?). With that in mind, I might consider taking a shot at him soon while he's distracted by Ragnar.

 

[AlejDuke]

Sounds like Military Tradition would be best to upgrade all those veteran keshiks to continue your bloodthirsty conquest!

 

[Matthew5117]

^AGREED! MUAH HAH HA HA HA!

 

[Hereditary Rule]

KESHIKS!!!!!!!!

 

[madscientist]

All Good Things....: Death of the Egyptians and Difficult Choices!

So we decided to build military a little bit and some infrastructure.

The bulb order got a little emssed up and when we got

Apparently the bulb is optics! With noone to trade it to us at the moment I used him for an academ in Karakorum.

Of course after I trade it, we get this offer a few turns after

So we pulled off the trade which opened up.

OK, so we did not need to bulb Paper and we got an academy to boot! Not bad.

And best yet we get a map to see where we are!

So basically Toku and us are dividing the continent!

Techpath was a little odd. Gunpowder/Chem (partway)/Education (finished after a bulb)/Liberalism (stopped once Ragnar beat us to it)/Finish Chem and save.

Back to the game, we got this request

Which we agreed to. Ragnar/Hatty is on our imediate radar. Besides, it divide Ragnars empire a bit and raises his maintenance costs.

We decide to unload Gunpowder

And changed civics

Trying to pump out a few GSs fast!

The next GS we got

We used to bulb education.

We then get this request from our good Zealot friend.

Time to die Hatty, your time is up.

Then we decide to get a war allie, one on Ragnar's border

This turned out disasterous for mansa, essentially weakening another AI.

Soon the world erupts into a war

Very soon after this Mansa Vassals to Hyuna, so up to the save Ragnar and Hyuna were at it! Hannibal joined a little later and leveled Mansa!

So enough of the world, what is the Horde up to?

First, Ragnar's eastern city

Poof!

We did bring a few settlers and rebuilt the city as Sanchu

A Proper Khan name!

Then we go after the best of the Egyptian cities

And imediately raze it and build

KAZAN!!!!!

We are out of settlers, so revert to simple barbarric razing. We are producing a few more settlers to repopulate the area.

At this point Sury broke away from Ragnar (Yes he vassaled to him) and we made a separate peace.

We used the bulk of our remaining army to destroy the Egyptian cities

And we actually took one western Viking city which we razed

After destroying a few more of Hatty's cities, she breaks away from Ragnar and we make a separate peace with teh viking.

But regarding Hatty

To Be Continued......................

 

[madscientist]

All Good Things....: Death of the Egyptians and Difficult Choices!

And in the interest of building our treaury a bit, we throw Monty a bone.

Hatty is down to one city when we finish Education

Not much choices, as Mansa won't trade Nationalism. Ragnar already has education and beat us to Liberalism!

We decide to float our treasury a little more

We then finally sack the last Egyptian city, which we burn to the ground.

That's four leaders dead!

Just at this point we popped another GS, which we used for a Golden Age

And immediately changec civics

Time to build somemore infrastructure.

We start resettling teh former egyptian lands, taking advantage of the existing tile improvements.

Alamirk is born.

We then find we are up from the Grand religious leader

Kublai is absolutely delighted but crushed when he loses! He vows vengence on those that voted for Hyuna, and those who voted for Kublai to boot!

The Ulaanbaatar is born!

And with the Golden Ages help we research Chemistry before anyone else!

Leaving us with a choice

What do we research next!

Also we have 1 turn of the Golden Age left, do we readjust civics???

The trade potential

Is not much. We can get Nationalism for Chemistry and some gold, but do we want to???

So here's the map

Current civics

Status of the world

And demographics

So we have choices

Techs
1) Trade chemictry for nationalism and research Military Traditions
2) Research Military Tradition
3) Research Steel right away even if it takes 40 something turns.
4) Start heading towards rifling (3 techs away!).

Victums
1)Finish off Monty leaving our Zealot frinds to protect the northern flank.
2) Backstab Hyuna.
3) Amass a large army and start invading the most dangerous leader, Ragnar.
4) Strike at Tokugawa before he get's gunpowder!

Looking for any advice here on how to proceed!

 

[PaulisKhan]

Very fun to watch, makes me sad I can't run maps that large, it looks like an incredible game to play.

Good job so far!

Finish off Monte now and settle his land, regardless of what you decide to tech.

Tech option 1: steel to add cannons to your armoury - hammer Toku

Tech option 2: pause the expansion while you tech out the cavalry requirements and use your gold stockpile to upgrade all of your high promoted mounted units and head out on another rampage

Tech option 3: head to communism and use your land/production advantage to build a massive army of whatever

 

[Matthew5117]

Great game so far Mad!

Don't trade Chemistry, keep your monopoly.

Beeline to Military Tradition and Rifling to get Calvary and right after, Steel for Cannons. If you get past Steel, beeline toe Communism to get State Property. No explanation needed!!!!

Attack counter-clockwise from the bottom-right of the continent and around to Toku.

Just out of curiosity, how long is it taking to load each turn?

 

[muxec]

I vote for Steel. Kill Toku. Do not backstab Capac yet. I do not see the save yet, but is there anyone who loves Sury?

 

[madscientist]

Save added!

 

[JammerUno]

I would venture than vassalage/OR is a better choice at this time than bureau/theo. The cost of rebuilding every city from scratch is quite substantial, and OR would offset some of that.

 

[Loknar]

I would venture than vassalage/OR is a better choice at this time than bureau/theo. The cost of rebuilding every city from scratch is quite substantial, and OR would offset some of that.

Since the AP is Buddhist I would rather recommend stacking Missionaries and building a Buddhist Temple in all new cities before all else. I think that is sufficient to get them started; you gain a terrific military production boost in the HE capital and want them to come out trained. (The Bureau bonus does apply to units, doesn't it?)

Great game, I love its epic scale! You really know how to live up to your audience's expectations and lighten our grieving over the series' going Nirvana!

 

[kossin]

Steel.
Build trebuchets en masse and mass upgrade to canons. Then conquer away.

 

[bestje]

Go for millitary tradition, steel seems like a sensible choice but a horde of cannons? Just doesn't quite fit my idea of the mongol horde!

 

[madscientist]

All Good Things.....: To the Breaking Point

well, I think we have come to a point where we will see how this game plays out! Nothing catastrophic just yet, but Ragnar is a beast and.....

We start by settling another city, Hovd

And as the Chemistry Genie has escaped the lamp (Meaning someone else researched it), it's time to spread it arround

This allows us to adjust civics

And oepn up somemore trades

Meanwhile we had a pretty tunnel minded techpath: Military Tradition (after getting Nationalism)/Replaceable Part/Rifling and saved!

We got another trade with Zara

And quickly swap civics once again

Getting off the crutch of researching via the slider. We can now consider a decent SE based game using teh cottages more as a gold source. We shall see how this ends up.

We started building Military again and found this

Ragnar is getting to be a real problem here. Other Ais are fighting, but Ragnar continues to steamroll. Hyuan is not defeated yet (he still has Mansa as his lacky) but he is no longer pleased (we are in representation and he's in FR!).

At this point Isabella is actually taking a few Japanese cities

So I am thinking Toku may be succeptible here.

Thus to cut back a little on Toku

We razed a few border cities, plus one former barb city way off to the east.

And to prevent Ragnar from attacking us (we are not exactly ready yet).

Most of the segment they went at it although by the end Isabella capitulated to Ragnar. well, perhaps that was a bad idea as I now have to fight both Ragnar and Isabella at once.

After a few more razed cities Toku is willing to talk

And still the tech-monger still lives

RP is already researched (damned Pericles is fast for 3 cities!) so I had no problem with that trade.


And soon we tech

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We saved here, being teh sole owners of the rifling tech!

Our cities are doing just fine

I think I am quite finished building more cities for now! At least until State Property.

And demographics

Right now all I am interested in is SOLDIERS!!!!!!!!!!

So I think we tech steel next, then head towards assembly line.

We are spamming theaters and plan on getting the Globe theater in Bibrate. Then we can revolt to nationalism and start drafting rifles.

My questions is, "Do we hit Ragnar NOW, or wait for cannons?" Money is tight so I do not have enough to upgrade, nor do I think upping the slider to 100% will be enough for now!

 

[Matthew5117]

Wait for cannons, if he's ahead of you in terms of soldiers, that means he'll have tons of units. Cannons are necessary for destroying tons of units (collateral damage , but make sure you have counters for mounted units so that they don't flank your cannons).

In terms of strategies, let him attack first so that you can be on the defense. After you attack his stacks with cannons, they will be destroyed but still will attack your cities that have City Garrisoned Riflemen. After that, its easy clean up.

 

[madscientist]

In terms of strategies, let him attack first so that you can be on the defense.

Your not telling a Khan to go on teh defensive, are you

 

[Matthew5117]

Your not telling a Khan to go on teh defensive, are you

Well I certainly don't want to lose AGAIN. We must win at all costs.

 

[muxec]

Ragnar is strong but I think WvO is more dangerous. Beware, there is a whole continent unsettled and Willem is great at overseas expansion. Be on guard or he will win.