Spanish Rise to Power - My First Emperor Game

[steviejay]

what the hell right does England, Germany and Russia to question my playing ability, yeah, as if they lasted as long as I did!!

I shall be forever known as…………………. Isabella the Magnificent. I don’t feel very Magnificent…….. true I don’t feel much like Isabella either, but that’s beside the point.

Game Over, Man!
So, this game is, like, over. No further score will be entered.
Good! I’m done!
Wait, lemme just play ‘couple more turns….

I think I’m done playing.


What I did wrong-
•I think I took too long with the Russian war, just sitting back letting them come to me and me repelling them.
•I let the Celts get ultra powerful (although I’m not sure how I could have avoided it)
•I allowed my rep to just get chewed up (razing French cities etc)
•I spent way too much time on the Egyptian Campaign (should have used more units, I underestimated the units I would face)
•I really should have switched back to Democracy sooner, if I'd have done that I would have had the ability to buy more techs and maybe my culture would have risen a great deal. I'd just gotten comfortable with Communism and didn't realise that if I'd have changed, my luxuries would have helped with WW.

But to be honest, I don’t think I could have beaten the French if I hadn’t razed the French cities, so I just dunno.

Any feedback or criticism on why you think I lost would be groovy.

 

[Rik Meleet]

I don't think this is the time for an "I told you so", regarding Celt cultural victory.

Razing cities doesn't destroy your reputation, breaking deals does. Perhaps you once had an RoP / trade deal / peace treaty / MA / etc. you forgot about and broke it within the 20 turns. I haven't got the time to re-reaf your story yet (be sure that I will). You were just not powerful enough. Perhaps it would have been better to have prepared for an Celtic-conquest instead of Mongol and Egyptian. It would have been tougher and more units would have been needed, but no naval units and risky sea-crossings. But then perhaps the Koreans would have won by Space. So you'd probably have to sign an all out War on the Koreans, without fighting yourself. During that (for you phoney-) war you might have better prepared yourself to strike a crippling blow to the Celts, again with MA's to all nations, except Korea.

That way the Koreans and the Celts would have been neutralised.

But frankly I think the reason for this "nearly-victory" (sounds better than loss, I don't consider this a loss) is earlier. I will reread your story to find the point where wou technically lost the game.

 

[ZubieMaster]

First of all, great game and great job on the story. Very entertaining, especially the first couple pages where you posted the pictures with the arrows explaining your military plans then followed them up perfectly.

I re-read a bit to see where you could have gone after the Celts, and it seems the only logical place would have been when the Russians were close to getting wiped out and your pact with the Celts ran out. But at that point you were outnumbered 5-1 in infantry -- plus the Celts had Mech Inf and Tanks already. Still, you went on to kick serious butt against all other Civs similarly out-teched and out-gunned, so maybe that was the time to make your stand..?

I agree with Rik's point that maybe you should have stayed home instead of going overseas. It seems better to try to secure the home continent first.

Maybe you could have sided with Russia against the Celts earlier for 2-v-1, but at the time you felt Russia was stronger and a bigger threat, I think. It seems the problem was you had to slug it out against two superior borders -- France and Russia -- to gain control of the north, while somehow the Celts conquered all the southern half of the continent while gaining a huge tech lead over you at the same time.

Maybe if you hadn't narrowly missed out on the GL or done some diplomacy differently you could have kept up the tech pace better? That seemed the key as to why you couldn't face the Celts. Overall, I couldn't believe the way you not only survived so behind in tech but were on your way to winning. I bow to your superior skills. A tough loss, but the way you're taking it is good, it maybe was harder on your readers after rooting for you all the way!

 

[Rik Meleet]

I've looked at your early gameplay; as that is the defining period for any game, but haven't studied it. My remarks are just loose remarks of things I saw.

1 - you keep warriors in 3500 BC in your size 1 city with no-one around. That is unneccesary and thus wasteful. If you'd have scouted with it, perhaps you'd gotten 1 or more techs from huts. Also later on (10AD map) your lack of scouting and map trades are showing, the more fog is cleared, the more your WM is worth and the finer you can pinpoint locations for new cities and attacks.

2 - Your cities aren't very well placed. Your Capital in in the far-east, and you expand westwards, allowing the Russians to settle in your 2nd ring with Vladivostok. That way your empire too corrupt and you need valuable resources to build courthouses to counter that. Maybe you could have used 1 leader to rush a Palace in the heart of your Empire, giving you a huge drop in corruption. BTW where was your FP located ?

3 - 340 AD is too late to start thinking of galleys. You got Mapmaking in 1125 BC. By building galleys your WM gets worth more and you have the chance to meet new civs. (see point 1 as well) If you are really lucky you can keep a whole continent's contacts for yourself, becoming the trade-broker in the game, until Navigation or Magnetism.

4 - 1385AD units-screen. Only 19 native workers is far too few for your amount of cities. I continue to see to many unimproved tiles. even when you have railroads in 1430AD-screenshot and 1590AD-screenshot you are still railroading core-city tiles. If you'd have turned Toledo in a worker pump, chunking out a worker every turn or every 2 turns you'd have sufficient workers to build up your nation. I think this is your main flaw.

5 - 1120 AD French-Spanish war starts. It takes until 1320 AD until you sign an alliances Vs the French. This is many many turns lost. At that stage you'd only want fast wars so you don't hurt your nation by the war-effort. 1460AD. War is over; the French destroyed. That is 34 turns of destroyed growth and many lost units for marginal gains (the far away French land).

6 - Not the french but the Russians should be your enemy. They are a lot closer to your Capital, so they are more useful. In 1580AD. The Russians declare on you. Always try to prevent wars on the opponents terms. You suffer and are forced to fight defensively till around 1695AD. (Typo in your report, you call it 1895AD) Your MPP with India caused a rep hit and prolonged the war unneccesarily. If you could have had 20 turns of Peace, the Russians would focus their Military on the Celts, who would drain eachother of units, while you could have build up a nice amount of cavs and infs/rifles and artillery. You'd have been king of the continent and not the Celts. What happened is that you broke Russia's back at high unit-cost and production, while the Celts got the easy task of mopping up. Just a 20 turn peace-period would have reversed that.

At this stage the game is over. Diplo victory is nearly Impossible, Cultural you are way behind. Space: you haven't got the techs and the Indian MPP caused you to redeclare on Russia thus giving you a rep hit for breaking the 20 turn peace-treaty, so you can't trade for techs very well. Domination and Conquest: you tried, but you've seen yourself that that was impossible as well. Your only real chance was to focus all your attention on the UN-city, grab it, hold it and hold a vote.

If you have some BC saves or early AD saves, please post them; I can comment a lot better from saves than from screenshots and text.

In all: very nice read and sometimes the best games are the ones you are really struggling in. And struggle you did. I suppose you've learned a lot from this game. I hope you can scrape enough energy to start another story-game like this one. I really enjoyed reading it.

 

[AdHHH]

Interesting story, unlucky u didn't win, but in my experience you have to control your continent before you can go attacking another. The Celts were a long way ahead, but as you've proved, the Cavalry/Artillery combo can destroy whoever given enough time. But if you'd played the game like that the Koreans wouldve won one way or another. You were in a difficult situation, but equally u will have learnt enough to prove u can destroy the computer the next time

 

[steviejay]

I won't be able to get some early saves. unfortunately they're on my old computer which just consists of a stack. the earliest one I've got was from 1680 (around the time of the Russian War I believe)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Isabella_of_the_Spanish,_1680_AD.SAV

Here's the save

so you can play about with that if you really want

And its ok Rik, you can say I told you so I was walking a thin line trying to get my culture up in time, I guess slipping into Anarchy made me loose

My main worker problem as highlighted by Rik is because I automate them. I'm trying to break myself away from it, its a nasty habbit.

Oddly enough I did give some consideration to just keep moving south once I'd taken out the Russians, but just the sheer frontage that would have been involved put me off, I couldn't guard so many cities and such a long border in the way I did against the Russians.

I knew I wasn't strong enough for the Celts, maybe if my border with them was shorter then I might have been able to declare war and sitback in my heavily fortified towns and just let them throw themselves at me. I decided in order to get stronger I'd need to take other people out, hence my rather quick wars with the Mongolians/Egyptians/Indians/Japanese/Iroquois. But I just wasn't quick enough to build up the strength in time, however by the time of the end of the game I had something like 14 Tank Armies, that has to pack a punch and I've prooven them against Mech inf.

Another annoying thing I noticed is that, by the time I was able to heavily defend my border cities (the 5 Mech Inf 5 Artillery thing) it was almost too late and I was too entangled in other wars to do something about it. I had just gotten Space Flight at the very end but still didn't have Fission so I couldn't build nukes. if I had gotten nukes I probably would have declared on them. Maybe if I hadn't defended the cities in such a way, I could have mooved the units to the other continent to help in the wars there. they would certainly have helped...... but then if I had, the Celts might have attacked seeing me weak

Unfortunately I'm turning into a whole "what if" kinda guy. Plain and simple I lost, I'll need to try again..... might slip back down to Monarch for a game or two to hone my skills on that level, I'm desperate to try a Sumerian game, I've not really played any of the C3C Civ's because I've been concentrating on this.

But I'll come back to this...... there's no way I can let the Celts get away with beating me!!

 

[Semulin]

I really enjoyed your story and game, steve! I hope what ever level you decide to play at next, you'll include all your fans here !

I can't beleive it's all over, i've gotten hooked to getting my spanish rise to power update in the mornings!

Good luck on the next game,

Sem

 

[Rik Meleet]

Steviejay. Don't go back to Monarch. You are nearing Emperor level, just a little more experience and you'll manage.

Try a smaller map and play a game again. Build more workers (about 1.5 native workers per city) and: don't automate !!. Later on, when you are in a winning position, controlling all workers might be boring. You can consider automating them if you like, but I advise against that. The major step to grow beyond Monarch / regent to higher levels is 1) Micromanagement of your cities. 2) full control of your workers. 3) F4 every single turn.

I'll look to your save later. I won't play it, but I'll try to get some game-improving tips for you. I owe you that; you've given me a nice read.

 

[andvruss]

Very good game (even though you lost). Seeing as you startd in PTW, how did you go into Conquests? I thought that couldnt happen?

 

[steviejay]

from what I've read about the new patch if you install the new patch you can't load up saved games from previous games. however if you only have the original game then its groovy.

thanks to all for all the tips and stuff, i'm probably gonna start another Emperor game, maybe a small/medium map, just a quick game, try some stuff out.

I've learned a few things from this game-

1) Your reputation is golden, break it and struggle for the rest of the game.
2) Artillery, no matter what type (be it catapult/cannons/etc) can be the decider in any confrontation
3) It is possible to send over 100 hours on a game and be rather bemused as to where all the time went.

 

[downwithgravity]

congrats on a game well played...i think the best ones are usually "the one that got away"

 

[Point13]

well man, you gave it a great run, good game. That was odd with the cultural deal :/

 

[moo.jim]

A brilliant read, hope to see a sequel.

 

[steviejay]

I am planning on a sequal actually. Definately need to get revenge for the humiliation I suffered at the hands of the Celtic.

I'm just kinda playing about first, cause I played this game for so long I never really done much else, so I went back and done a quick OCC on Regent just cause I'd never done one before and I'll probably play about with the conquests a little before I try an Emperor game again.

It'll be interesting playing as Spain again, with the changed rules in C3C, Spain's now a Seafaring Civ instead of a Commercial one so I'm not sure if that'll make it easier or harder for me, probably harder.