[BTS] Stumbling back at Deity

[Pangaea]

Thanks, then it is settled. I'll go for Saladin -- unless something drastic changes between now and being ready to attack

Good point about possibly peace vassaling Isabella. It may not happen ofc, but it could be a reason to wait with that war. Then again, I'd quite like Barcelona, which I naturally can't get if she peace vassals. A great shrine + Pyramids is hard to turn down (think both were in that city, I don't have the game open now).

 

[Fish Man]

The Shrine is nice but the Pyramids are about to "obsolete" (a trade for Constitution would be unlocked before you could capture them).
Gaining turns towards the "Jewish menace" is what matters, here.

Please set up a defensive front in the East and DoW in advance to clear the 17 units stack. That will help avoid nasty business like War Weariness and unit upgrades in Arabian cities.
I want 1 X-Bow, 2 Pikes, 3 Cuirassiers and a Chariot medic to start.
How you go about the Western front can be interesting as well. There can be 3 early targets with some converging after.

For defense, you could also just bait them into your territory and hit them with a dozen cuirs. That should basically clear everything...and flank the siege to death.

 

[Fish Man]

In other images :

Spoiler :

Hence : DoW a couple turns before invading. You wanna glue that stack (and clear it on the cheap with unlimited turns).

Hmm...now that I see that map, I wonder if it's not best to just DOW and then immediately just invade to take the 3 border cities (assuming he can claim his first ring cow). That in and of itself should be close to gg. His "attack stack" in Muscat will probably wade into your territory regardless, because I'm pretty sure it's programmed to just send for the nearest enemy city.

 

[Anysense]

Leaving Giza unprotected may help. AI loves free stuff and can't tell what it is actually free from a cheese in a mousetrap.

 

[Pangaea]

Thanks for the plans and images I've ticked off a few games I had going, so will go back to this now. Well, maybe now. Am in the process of moving apartments too, so... you know.. maybe I should do something about that as well

It's nice that Giza happens to be on a hill, because presumably his stack will attack there. Due to HAs it's possible he 'accidentally' ends up forking my cities, which would be uncomfortable, but hopefully I can deal with his stack there. Does DOWing in advance really help in situations like this? My thinking has always been to DOW and then hit them hard on T0. Ideally taking 2-3 cities if you attack with mounted units.

On that note, what I had in mind was to get a solid Cuir force in the west, and then hit Basra and Bagdad straight away -- assuming I can finally claim that blasted cow tile.

 

[Fish Man]

Thanks for the plans and images I've ticked off a few games I had going, so will go back to this now. Well, maybe now. Am in the process of moving apartments too, so... you know.. maybe I should do something about that as well

It's nice that Giza happens to be on a hill, because presumably his stack will attack there. Due to HAs it's possible he 'accidentally' ends up forking my cities, which would be uncomfortable, but hopefully I can deal with his stack there. Does DOWing in advance really help in situations like this? My thinking has always been to DOW and then hit them hard on T0. Ideally taking 2-3 cities if you attack with mounted units.

On that note, what I had in mind was to get a solid Cuir force in the west, and then hit Basra and Bagdad straight away -- assuming I can finally claim that blasted cow tile.

Build culture for a few turns may solve it?

Also, if you all are really worried about "AI targeting most recently captured city", then declare and wait a turn for Sally's stack to move in before you yourself do the cuir stampede. Once an AI attack stack "locks on" to a city, they rarely or never change directions. I've seen Kublai holed up bombarding Hammy's 100% castle defenses with 2 trebs for 10 turns along with 30 other units just sitting there, while I casually took his whole empire.

 

[Anysense]

Stalin seems like a good target for maces and catapults. You are in desperate need of land and appear to have fallen into 'just a bit more research' trap. It does not look too bad though, I suppose you could wait until cuirs - they are not that far off.

 

[Pangaea]

Just wanted to pipe in saying I'm moving this weekend, so won't have time to play this save for a little while. Hopefully it goes smoothly and I'm back in action in a few days, but we'll see.

With Mansa just a step from Lib himself, it looks hard to get something much better with it than Nationalism. But at least you have tech view on him and therefore control the situation. However, maybe it could be an option to just Lib Nationalism soon-ish, and then start on Taj? It's terribly expensive without marble ofc, but if you get there first anyway, that's a secured Golden Age, improved economy, hammers, GPP and all the rest that comes with it. Will boost your speed to cannons.

I've not checked the save, no time right now, but Stalin still looks very backwards in the above tech image, or is that an old one? Banging him up with maces+trebs still looks like a tasty option, but you need to go all in and whip everywhere. There is also a third ring forest west of Heliopolis that you can grab, before it goes (back) to Isabella. Anyway, Lib practically done in 1AD is seriously fast!

Will you keep playing, or was the intention to play to 1AD?

 

[Gumbolt]

Size 17 capital by 1ad is always impressive.

 

[Pangaea]

Starting out, we didn't know there would be horses anywhere, nor if a rush like that would be feasible. In hindsight things are easier.

 

[Pangaea]

Yes, they are very good. Higher than base strength, but also immune to first strikes. That's a pretty big deal when mostly up against archers.

Will see if I can get some hours into this game today. The move is far from done, but at least I'm in the new apartment now, with the computer hooked up.

 

[Pangaea]

Allright, let's see about this game. Played to almost 800AD/T150.

Spoiler :

To be sure it happened in time, I ran culture in Pi-Ramesses to get the Cow, which we did two turns later. In 475AD Gunpowder is researched, and Cuirs are lined up almost everywhere. Some infra is still needed in a few cities.

Spoiler :

I waited a few turns extra to be able to whip some infra with nice OR-overflow, but in 520AD we go Theo for (often) an extra promotion. Unfortunately the missionary failed on the island, but otherwise we have Buddhism everywhere. In the same turn, both Isabella and Gilgamesh became friendly. Though it went a bit back and forth for the whole turnset. I traded a bit, which not all of them liked. But we got our hands on Printing Press, Optics and Drama, which was nice, and much later Guilds.

Saladin has built up a sizeable stack in the east near Giza, and he just got Guilds.

Spoiler :

As you see in that image, a couple workers have roaded for him, and with 20 Cuirs I figured it was time to release them. Hopefully he would invade and not upgrade. I removed the warrior MP and left the city empty, so Saladin wouldn't get any crazy ideas.

Had parked some Cuirs within reach of both Bagdad and Basra. He kept sending units around, so wasn't sure where I needed them most.

Spoiler :

The start goes well.

Spoiler :

Bagdad and Basra falls, but unfortunately there is a cata left standing in Anjar. We take it next turn, tho.

Meanwhile Saladin invades with his stack, thankfully without any naughty upgrades. Feels very unsafe over there, but we'll try to deal with it.

Spoiler :

Brought the warrior back and upgraded him to a Pikeman (155g), and whipped the Musketman next turn, which got CG2 promos. Overflow went into Walls, which was then 1-popped. Not strictly needed, but figured I may as well, and then put that OF into a Cuir.

We attacked with what was possible, removed most catas in the process and some maces and HAs. He did remove most of the defence before the walls came up. Then threw all he had at us, which was a bit surprising tbh.

Spoiler :

Seems like they vanished!

Normally I'd probably have gotten out some Longbows for protection, but err... we can't. Lacking Hunting and Archery

Throughout I've been whipping mercilessly. Even did the capital once. The HE city has been left alone, because I want it to pump out units for future wars. It's not very strong on hammers tbh, but it's enough. If I get that far, it can start to get workshops when they don't suck any more.

After losing that stack and some more cities, including Medina with the shrine, he's hurting pretty bad and is willing to give us Guilds for peace. We keep pushing. I probably overdo it a bit, and wind up risking the super medic to take a city as we move closer to size 18 Mecca.

Spoiler :

Enough culture was removed so that Cuirs could reinforce the city. Phew.

Around now he was willing to capitulate. However, being that close to such a juicy city, it felt wrong to stop. Fostat fell further east. Mecca took longer than I hoped due to heavy reinforcements, but we got it eventually.

Spoiler :

Naturally he was willing to cap now, but the default offer was a size 7 city Aden (which we besieged heavily), but not Banking. I sniped what we could reach, busted some tiles, and tried to swap out Aden for Banking. He agreed, and becomes a vassal. I also asked him ever so nicely to swap to Buddhism. Suddenly Isabella loves him. It may not be realistic, perhaps she is too strong, or soon will be, but it would have been cool to peace vassal Isabella. Sadly she fell down to +9 Pleased, but there is still room for improvement from religion and civic. If it happens soon enough, we can get RepParts from her too.

Cuirs are running rampant here, but this is an overview of the expanded Egyptian empire.

Spoiler :

Although it was terribly expensive at 230 a piece, I did decide to upgrade some WCs. A few were well-promoted and one or two were for better city defence in risky situations.

edit: Almost forgot, I forced Marble out of Saladin and started on Taj Mahal. I'm sure somebody else will beat me, but hopefully we can get a decent chunk of failgold out of it. For some odd reason Isabella didn't spend her GE on Taj. Weird. Maybe she had started on it elsewhere and therefore went for something else..?

Also, for the first time in probably thousands of years, Thebes has taken back the second corn. Woot!

Where do we go from here? I'm thinking Wang next, although it's a little awkward due to the jungle and suchlike (I gifted him Muscat btw, which made him Pleased). Isabella is the natural target really, but she's close to Conquistadors and it would have been very useful to get her as peace vassal. May not be possible though, especially once she gets Conqs and mass upgrade the lot.

 

[Anysense]

Congrats, the game is in the bag! I'm leaning towards attacking WK first. He is bigger, a better techer and protective to boot, hence potentially a lot more trouble once he got rifles. But it should not be too difficult to take him out now. Watch out for AP, although you can afford to defy resolutions its best to avoid them altogether.

 

[Pangaea]

Thanks. It feels like it yeah, just keep going and eventually transition to Cavalry, and hope that is enough.

Is it possible to peace vassal somebody during a war? Wondering if Isabella may still be willing while I wage war on Wang. But don't recall if the term is even more weird than the other stuff it can pull off, heh.

 

[Pangaea]

Yeah, I see that, and kinda agree. It was hard to whip away good tiles to begin with, especially villages, but then you get into the flow of it. "Cuir can be whipped --> Whip Cuir --> Kill stuff".

At this stage of the game, an economy doesn't matter as much any more. Well, as long as I can get to Rifling somehow that is. Cavs are a pretty big upgrade on Cuirs tbh.

I'll play some more and report later. War will be waged on Wang, the poor lad

 

[Anysense]

You can't have too many units, because if you do - open second front. Still, whipping 4->2 may be a little too brutal even in this game where research is not very important, as it can hardly go further than Rifling. I'm not sure about Byblos, though. It does not have any good tiles apart from food. Sure, whipping it 7->5 is more efficient than 4->2, but you have to invest a fair bit of food to grow 3 times. Thats 48, isn't it? Roughly 1 cuirassier worth of investment... Might be worth it now that building units is not urgent.

 

[Pangaea]

When I wrote that I had already played a bit further, and whipped like a crazy person. At some point I ofc eased off and started building Wealth instead, and we had more units than was needed. But it's a lot of fun to see so many horses trampling around everywhere

Spoiler :

War on Wang was declared, and incidentally I got an answer to the previous vassalage question:

Spoiler :

Mansa was the one that nailed Taj Mahal. But at least we got 300 failgold out of it, which helped us limp to Rifling.

We probably don't need a whole lot more Cuirs, but you know... CUIRS!

Spoiler :

After Wang, it was Mansa's turn. But I also intended to open up a second front of sorts, by attacking Gilgamesh from two directions. Here Mansa turned up with a big but inferior stack.

Spoiler :

Caught me by surprise as I was about to attack Kumbi Saleh, but we had enough fit units nearby to kill most of them. Important to be careful with river crossings, because the game isn't.

Lost some units on Mansa because he got tough Muskets, but we were able to upgrade to some Cavalry before declaring on Gilgamesh. 41 Cuirs + 9 Cavalry are bearing down on him.

He was willing to cap after just taking Nibru, but I tried to grab what we could. He had 14 units, including 7-ish Maces, in Awdaghost, which he previously captured from Mansa. Managed to punch through, though, which I was pleased about.

Spoiler :

Unfortunately I forgot about the second front stack outside Ur. Capped him before getting to those units. Could have gotten some more points, but oh well.

Spoiler :

Next turn we secure a Conquest win. Didn't quite get up to enough percentage for land to be in contention for Domination as well.

Spoiler :

Killed units. Many longbows.

Spoiler :

Pretty respectable score I'd say.

Spoiler :

The endgame usually isn't as interesting to read about as the early phases, but hopefully some still found it useful. The savegame doesn't show a whole lot apart from cities growing back onto good tiles again. Thebes became size 19 in the end. It grew steadily once it finally got both corns.

Fair to say that War Chariots can be incredibly strong. Set me up for a strong and early finish here. Really goes to show the power of snowballing. As a result, this actually didn't feel like a Deity game. Well, apart from the very beginning. Barbs are nasty, and the AIs expand very fast. Looking at the post-game history, Stalin settled everything in my direction pretty much. Which kinda sealed his fate

 

[soundjata]

I guess the way the game may have been solved between 2014 and 2021 is really about unit mass.
Not city management.
My point about grassland farms was exclusively about city management.

BIC for as long as I remember, this game has always been solved with unit mass.
Research Astro, build 254786 galleons and cuirassiers and executives. Move them around.
Are you refering to sim city or what

 

[Pangaea]

You can already bribe Gilgamesh on Mansa or Wang. Isabella would agree to a bribe against Mansa.
Timbuktu has the AP, which is the main concern in a war with Wang.

Just to comment on this: While playing I looked over bribe options, and like you observed, there are some possibilities. It was quite expensive however, and the way I looked at it, I'm going to kill them all anyway, so didn't want to give them key techs that could make that more difficult, especially if it got traded around (hello Mansa!). So in the end I didn't use any bribes. Gilgamesh did beg for Education at some point, however, which I gave him, giving a 10-turn peace treaty. Ended up working out really well, as it expired about 1 turn before we were ready to declare on him. I declared one turn before I had enough units in place btw, figuring he'd probably invade and then I could let Mansa deal with it. That kinda happened, but not as fully as hoped. Awdaghost was still packed full of units, but maybe half had clashed with random Malinese units nearby. So it did help a little.

I too looked at settling a city, both near that jungled rice and elsewhere, but never found the time to prioritise settlers. It was kinda pointless at that point in the game anyway, and it also turned out that Wang's culture covered much of the jungle, where it made most sense to settle anyhow. But moving through wasn't as horrible as it would have been earlier in the game, due to Wang finally having roaded through the jungle. Since his culture didn't cover everything, those roads made it easier for us.

 

[Fish Man]

Congrats on the win!!!