Role Play Challenge: SuperGenius Darius

[madscientist]

SuperGenius darius: Part VI

A bloodthirsty bunch here. So I defer to teh masses and use the Great Merchant for

A Golden Age with our saved Prophet.

We use this time to change civics

Simple and pure production with State Property. I like it!

So weessentially used the Golden Age to build up a massive army as well as navy.

Techpath was Assembly Line followed by most of Fascism for the free Great General.

We take our army to Summeria as Isabella is warring against the rest of the world (Sury vassaled to Justinian).

And this time we are not so pollite as far as declarations

And we proceeded to steamroll over Gilgamesh's 4 core cities, dropping defenses with Frigate bombardment and attacking with our mobile Cavalry/rifle/Cannon army

First city

Second

Which had quite a haul! The AP, which is Confuscian and not widely spread!

The remaining cities

And rather than island hopping, we took this

So we have 1 vassal and Justinian has 3. That leaves Isabella as the odd Zealot out.

I saved here.

Tech

Victory Conditions

Well, that means we will have to hit Justinian sometime if we want a Domination win.

And finally, a look at the Ap screen.

If I recall I never built a Confuscian Monestary (STUPID, STUPID, STUPID) so I may have to switch to Organized Religion to spam out some Confuscian Missionaries.

Because I am thinking of gifting some to our friends. We got an Ap diplo win with the first food/hammer game, perhaps I can sneak one out here!.

 

[torchic21594]

I say go for the Diplo win, but if not, conquest or space would work...

 

[cripp7]

Show how the hammer economy can hammer the AI into submission

 

[madscientist]

Supergenius Darius: Part VII

I moved ahead with the next segment which amounted to two things. Spreading the AP religion to most of my cities and making sure everyone had it in theirs! Netx, I focused on building up a very strong production base post Assembly line!

Techpath went: Fascism (for the free GG)/combustion.Biology/half of electricity.

I started by adopting OR

Since we are post-SM we need it to build Confiscian missionaries.

We also got that popular industrial era random event

I chose the +4 hammer to coal plants.

Next we made some great trades with Mansa Musa who hated out guts

At this point I got confuscianism spread to all other leaders.

Unfortunately, we never got the opportunity to vote ourselves Popemanship.

Then the war horns sounded and we found

WOW! Couldn't have planned that myself! As of the save the Zealots are still at it.

Sury came by for a minor trade

The we finished

Sweet!

At this point we swapped civics again

Taking Police State and Theocracy and finishing jails/Mount Rushmore got us all set for

Just a minor attack force compared to what I have planned!

I saved here, a view of the lands

So I plan to hit that closeup island city, then take out Isabella's core Religious cities.

A look at tech

Still doing OK, although a little behind. Still 2 more techs for tansk then maybe flight. That should be all we need to at least finish of Isabella.

But I am rushing ahead, I really just want to make sure. Is everyone still in a greement to attack Isabella???

 

[Matthew5117]

Oui Oui (French for yes yes).

 

[PaulisKhan]

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh

 

[cripp7]

Way to go Mad bring the pain

 

[royal62184]

I still think you are good enough for emperor/immortal man. You just dominate almost all of these RPCs . Always fun to read regardless.

 

[CHEESE!]

Aaargh want to read the next!!!

I love that one of those transports holds Immortals. Wonder what the discussions between Immortals and Infantry must be like...

 

[apenpaap]

Wonder what the discussions between Immortals and Infantry must be like...

"Ha! You kiddos think you're so cool with your fancy rifles and helmets! It's just lack of respect for tradition!"

PS: Hurray! my 250th forum post!

 

[madscientist]

Supergenius Darius: Part VIII

Well, everyone knew where we were heading in this segment.

On the first turn we got this request.

Damn right Sury, just what we were thinking

So we decided too keep moving our fleet

Oops! Sorry about that Isabella, our bad.

We easily took the first island city

And we are now left with a choice. Either proceed to island hop, or use the force to attack the Spanish core cities. We opted for the latter to start, directing our forces to Madrid and the Hindu shrine

The thing is I am sure Isabella will counter attack, so I simply reinforced the city with half the army and sent the other half

So we sent our armada back towards the Persian homelands to get reinforcements, and stationed the troops here for w while.

We also teched off electricity/Industrialism/Flight.

NOW we started island hopping a bit

During this time the AP vote came up

So we are elected to the holy popemanship! However, the diplo victory option never came up, my guess is since we can vote ourselves a victory we don't get that option. More discussion on this later.

We did manage to finish off industrialism with this trade

After some island hopping we reassembled our forces after Justinian redclared was on Isabella (he got peace early on) expectign a weak Spanish counter attack.

We added the Jewish holy city.

And we proceeded to move along the Spanish coast

Finbally Zara broke free of Isabella, prompting this

Which we accepted. The next turn Zara capitulated to Justinian.

So there are two major Buddhist forces in the world

Justinian with Zara, Mansa, and Sury as vassals

AND

US with Gilgamesh and Isabella as vassals!

Another AP Pope Vote came up

As you can see we have Justinian's favor. So what victory path do we follow here.

Justinian's Lands

That may be quite a vulnerable core there if we drop alot of tanks in Gilgameshes former lands. Also we have our Armada and troops which can perhaps perform an amphibious assault as a distraction. The AI is real bad at 2 fronted wars!

Victory Conditions

Looks to me that an UN vote is out of the question.

TEchs

Not so bad, but do you think I can really out research Justian into space??? I don't think so.

SO how to proceed a victory???

1) We adopt organised religion again and spam out Confuscian Missionaries to everyone else. This forces us to rely on someone's vote for a diplo win, thus opening the Diplo win vote option. As long as we have the AP and noone adopt Confuscianism we are the only candidate.

2) Domination. Mass assemble tanks/planes/infantry and prepare for WW III.

3) Leverage the Hammer economy to build beakers and see if I can actually build the space ship that way?

Looking for some opinions on how to proceed!

 

[Glare Seethe]

You could probably win any way you choose, I'm sure you can out-tech Justinian, especially if you force Isabella into Buddhism (if it's in any of her cities, I guess she was running Theocracy most of the game though) and use her and Gilgamesh to research techs for you.

You could try for UN if you tech to Mass Media yourself, then gift it to one of Justinian's vassals. I haven't checked the save but they're both Hindu and he's Buddhist so he's unlikely to like them enough to vote for them - he'll vote for you instead and you'll win in a landslide. Just keep your population higher than his to ensure you're the other candidate. There's a chance he'll demand MM from his vassals and build the UN himself, of course, but there's a chance he won't, too.

 

[apenpaap]

Why do you even ask what to do? KILLKILLKILLKILLKILL!!!!!

 

[Joshua368]

Peaceful culture victory!

I think a space race could be interesting under these circumstances.

 

[Matthew5117]

Space Race. We know you can win easily with you displayed war skills if you go for Domination. Also, Diplomatic Victory is just too easy (or uninteresting to say the least). Time to go for the hardest victory, and actually have some competition and a chance to lose, thus making the game all the more intriguing.

Edit: Wait a second, doesn't this contradict my opinion on my last post in this thread? I guess it does (I originally said domination). Ok, Mad, choose whatever victory you want.

 

[semirami]

I vote for space too. Domination is too easy.

 

[madscientist]

Game is over and a very surprising and interesting ending!!! I little bit for everyone as far as possible victory conditions!

 

[madscientist]

SuperGenius Darius : Finale

And I mean SUPERGENIUS!

While this was at first a very slow and rather dull RPC, the hammer economy really shined here!

Let's go to the game.

I decided to try for a Space win. Hell with all that production I figure we can build enough beakers to out-tech Justinian, which was going along just terrifically.

We also popped another GP

Which went nicely with our saved GE and GS, so we launched a Golden Age.

We adjusted civics

OR for the hammer economy, helping to build beakers, and confuscian missionaries (yes I still have my eye out for that AP diplo win, I will take the fast and cheap victory in this game if possible). Police State is not too useful now, so I opted for happiness.

We struggled to get beakers above 900, but once we started building beakers

We actually got the beaker count well above 3000 as the Golden Age progressed and I invested more cities to building science.

Alot of AIs were trying to pry Flight off of us, but I declined. Until my Vassal offered it

No problems there!

As the Golden Age came to an end, we see the status of spreading some more Pope-Love

So we cannot vote ourselves Holy See, Let's see if the Diplo victoyr option pops up now. By the way, Justinian was in theocracy so I simply gifted him missionaries. He knew what to do!

At the end of the Golden Age I readjusted civics

To keep Justinian Happy with theocracy and just in case we had to fire up our tanks! I still had my mind to a Space with, with 17 turns left on Apollo in our Ironworks city.

Then something incredible happened.

He had been friendly with us for a very long time and we just adopted Theocracy! My best Guess is he hated Isabella alot more than he liked us! And he is still pleased with us!

So I fired up the old Persian Armada, upgraded all my rifles, airlifted some units into the former Summerian lands (Justinians stack was soso but still dangerous), drafted a few units and prepared for the slow and grindin domination victory that all you blood-thirsty barbarians were hoping for.

At the same time I was irate to get this AP vote on the same turn

Dammit! And we cannot win without Justinian's support. Oh well....

So we prepared our armada

My idea is to start some island hopping and use airports to supply those new territories with airlifts. Of course I may change my mind and simply slaughter Sury, or even mansa who is now Confuscian (and my rival in the vote).

AND, just as my military plans were being laid out, the result of the AP vote came out

Does anyone understand this??? Justinian declares war on us at Friendly, stays pleased, then votes for us in the AP and not his vassal Mansa????

Nevertheless, far be it for me to refuse a cheap AP diplo win.

A look at some of the demographics

Power

Justinian passed us on power numbers, however

Production

THAT would have been the key to a domination win!

Darius Portrait

And finally, a snapshot of some of our cities

You can see the beakers being accumulated by building science! I was teching towards computers (radio, followed by plastics) and was ready to get the internet built real fast! So space looked like an easy game!

I have included the save at the end, if anyone really wants to see a domination win be my guest to fire the game up!

For my part, I find it very funny and entertaining to have the only 2 food/hammer RPCs to both end up in relying on the AP vote of the Holy See to win the game (the brennus game ended the same way)! Nothing like the blessing of the Pope to reward the simple and backbreaking life style of the food/hammer economy!!!


One thing for sure though, I did not miss cottages one bit. That was ALOT of production out there, allowing us to focus on gold producing buildings over beaker producing ones. I built very few libraries and universities although I bit spam Observatories at the end only to get Labs for faster space part production!

I hope you enjoyed this RPC, and I hope the hammer game was illustrated fairly well especially at the end!

I will do a write up in a bit!

Next two RPCs will be Pollution Bull and NatureBoy Gilgamesh!

 

[madscientist]

RPC Summary:

The Hammer Economy

1) Food/Hammer: No cottages and no SE sort of had me bashing my head! However, I was lucky with several commerce producing resources that bailed me out in the early mid-game. The financial trait of Darius was NOT completely lost here though as working the coasts helped out alot.

2) No SE meant not much use for libraries/universities, so I skipped most of them! I focused on the production and gold buildings and that worked well. Similar to the Ragnar game, I did not miss the science buildings. The gold buildings simply allowed me to up the science slider to leverage what little commerce I had towards science.

3) Once we managed to get to Assembly Line (mostly through a series of smart trading) production simply ruled, especially with those fast factories from the Organized trait!

We won by keeping a very strong military for power numbers which essentially kept the zealots at each other's throats instead on mine. Another benefit of the hammer game. I picked one ally who ended up being the best (Until back-stabbed at the end) and we carved up the world!

I really had alot of options on how to win at the end. Even culture was an option as I had at least 5 religions! I wanted the space win, but gladly took the AP diplo-win rather than a grueling extended modern era war!

Thanks for following the RPCs!

 

[royal62184]

I noticed that Justinian was still pleased even after the declaration, that is why he probably voted for you. I thought a vassal had to vote for the master but not necessarily the other way around.