The Hall of Players

[Seraiel]

Talking about having a lot of bad luck, this happened to me:

I was in war with Brennus. He had quite a lot of troops, and wasn't even that backwards, so he had Longbows and Pikes. I couldn't attack him with my few Elephants that were left over from the last war, in which I lost 10 Elephants, noone had less than 80% chances.
I built troops as much as I could afford it, I didn't want to hurt the tech-rating too much, but then I had 4 Knights, 8 Elephants, 3 Trebs and 1 Catapult. Gandhi had even been so nice and had researched Military Tradition, and because I had saved money, I could upgrade all those Knights and Elephants to Cuirrassiers. The length of the buildup were at least 30 turns.
I sent all troops to Brennus holy city, a 30% world-religion shrine-city that I really needed for my economy, because I couldn't keep 100% after the upgrades. Gandhi had camped that city for at least 10T already, and I came when its defenses were just down to 0%. Gandhi attacked, and wounded all defenders severely, so that I would only have needed to ride into in the city with the Cuirrs.

Then Brennus whipped one city too much and vassaled to Roosevelt:



Do you see that? 50% land, 49% of Roosevelts population, and to round it up, Lizzy went WHOOHRN and I'm the only target that she is annoyed to.

I'm gonna gift the southern city Tolosa to Brennus, hoping he'll instantly break free again. City has Sugar and Silks, but isn't great until Sushi, still would have liked to keep it. If Brennus doesn't break free, I really feel cheated about the holy city.

You lost 7 Horse Archers? Condolensces, but giving up a game because of that . What's important is the way, if you get a #1 even though you had bad luck, you can be even more proud, if you get a #2, you at least learned a lot during that game, so you could always pwn the number #1, only because of your increased skill.

 

[Pangaea]

If you want Circumnavigation reasonably quickly, send a Galley with a Settler and possibly a Worker on board, a Work Boat, and a Trireme to the far east/far west of your empire. Settle the City when you learn Optics, net the seafood Resource to get the City immediately productive, and upgrade the Trireme to a Caravel.


I regularly recommend bringing more forces than you think that you'll need to capture a City. If you end up with extra units, some can protect your wounded stack, while others protect the captured City. Then, for the cases where your units don't do as well as you had hoped, you can still make the City capture happen, since you brought along more units than you would have needed in 80% of cases.


Horse Archers aren't meant to be great against Fortified Swordsmen inside of a City. When I use Horse Archers, I make sure that I've used one to first scout the land during peacetime and I focus the initial attacks on Pillaging Strategic Resources and possibly capturing a City while the AI is still underprepared.

Then, move your armies around the AIs' territory to threaten multiple AI Cities by being able to attack multiple AI Cities within a span of 2 turns. You may be surprised to see just how poorly some of the Cities are defended, as the BtS AIs are great at stuffing a few Cities full of Military Units at the cost of leaving other Cities relatively undefended. Don't be afraid to Pillage Roads and the Improvements upon them to make it easier to pick off AI units in the field as they scramble to move from one City to another City to defend from your roaming army.

In a good Horse Archer war, about half of the battles are fought in the fields while you whittle-away the non-Archer Military Units that move from City to City.


If you can, bring along a couple of Chariots to help with picking off Axemen. You can even bring along a small force of Axemen + a Spearman or two, which can move in between several AI Cities so that you'll have suitable counter units to take down the AI's units. Guard your wounded units who picked off AI units with some of your roaming Horse Archers.


If you prefer to just take each City one at a time, in a progressive order from one side of the AI's empire to the other, then you're better off using Catapults. The AIs are good at stuffing Cities with defenders and siege units are the perfect counter to a City that is stuffed with defensive units. If the AIs are getting Longbowmen, self-tech Engineering relatively early on and switch to Trebuchets, to further enhance your army's effectiveness.

Thanks for the tips, the one about circumnavigation could be useful.

I always try to bring more units than I need too, but sometimes you can't and have to make do with what you have. That was the case here, so it hurts much more when the RNG screws you, and reinforcements are miles away.

Silly me have kept playing today. Barely any progress, but hopefully I have got enough units soon to remove Freddie from the mainland.

Meanwhile I'm going to attack Sury and hopefully get some cities before he gets LBs. He's teching it now, and Asoka and Hatty have it already. Unfortunately Feud tends to spread like wildfire in dry grass. I may not get much time at all. With such a Buddhist lovefest, this can well lead to catastrophe, but I feel like I have to do some more warring before the map fills with LB. Elepults should still be decent. If I had that againt Freddie, hopefully the RNG wouldn't have been so black-hearted.


Teching is considerably slower here on Immortal compared with Deity, that's for damn sure.

 

[Pangaea]

Oh come'on, 7 units on a Huge map is nothing. I had a city flip towards the strongest AI at the 2nd revolt already (Garrisons were on the way but came too late) and now, a 2nd city has revolted, which hinders me from taking a superawesome Shrine-city I want to have for numerous turns already. This is ofc., because 2 consecutive Missonaries failed on the city, and I had to leave it with few defenders, because Brennus had sent a stack to a city further away, he even passed a city of Roosevelt which whom he's also in war without attacking it.

Every game has bad luck, as I told you you can have luck which compensates for something like that, and you not necessarily see that luck, so you not necessarily know from it. Also, you definitely also had luck in the game, like getting Mids and HGs in one city, I got none of those. Pull yourself together and finish this round as good as you can.

Getting Mids fairly late was probably lucky tbf, but I held onto Math for a long while so could have postponed HG. Nice to finally have those in the same city though. Soon I'll have MoM + Parthenon in one city too, doubling up on GA points, if I should need a GArtist down the line.

Have put wonders in different cities in this game, so for the moment have a clean gene pool from Oracle (GP), GLH (GM), GLib (GS), Mids+HG (GE), and hopefully MoM+Parth (GA). It was a lot easier to grab all the good wonders on IMM than Deity.

 

[Seraiel]

I'm currently building my first Wonder, the Taj Mahal .

And I found out, that it's good when one keeps a folder with all savegames from previous rounds. I was so devastated about my poor war efforts, but now loaded a savegame from my Peter-Spacerace, and I wasn't better at all. Ofc. that's a little sad, because I now play Epic speed, and one usually should be better on Epic than on Normal, but that I also am, slightly greater tech-lead from Liberalism, GM from Economics, and 4T from Taj Mahal with nobody having a chance except if someone gets a lucky GE.

Got a lot less worries after having compared the two games.

 

[Seraiel]

Where there's bad luck, there's also good one:

Gandhi getting a GE 1T before I finish the TM:

 

[Seraiel]

Brennus btw. broke not free from Vassalage from Roosevelt, even with being above 50% Population and Land. I believe it's a ticking time-bomb though, hope he'll turn his back on Roosevel soon.

 

[Pangaea]

Link to video.

Willem is strange. Had 5 cities, down to one now Odd to grant independence when the "colony" is so close and he has so few cities.

Damnit, not enough OF, or one forest too little

Nice event.

Thought / hoped this meant a truly free Great Artist, but he got incorporated into the city instead. Obviously a good event though.




Now to decide whether to cap "wiped off the mainland" Freddie or not. Think I will, as he'll just peace vassal to somebody else anyway.

 

[elitetroops]

Interesting. Just found out that for EQM scoring purposes, previous inca games are ignored. For example my Hammurabi game for Challenge 05 scores 100 points, despite being only #6 in the slot. The 5 top games are inca games. This makes it a lot easier to get good EQM score on deity, especially with domination games, where the difference between the #1 date shown in the tables and the best non-inca game can be huge.

 

[Pangaea]

Suspect your answer may be "keep warring", but I ask anyway because the economy isn't in the best of shapes at -817 / turn during a Golden Age. What would you do?


This is what the world looks like

Spoiler :

Think it's fair to say I want that Shrine.

Capital is still regrowing from whipping OF into Oxford.

60 cities. Frustrating that Asoka has started on Edu. I still need many techs to Lib Biology. Also bad luck that he got Engineering from Pericles. He had monopoly on it, but Buddhist lovefest put a stop to that. I shall get it from Mansa when he is done, or Pericles too by then I think/hope. Then I can bulb into Chemistry and trade for Optics. Bulbed into Lib earlier, so have tried to make up some for not getting a 2nd GS in time to Edu-bulb. Oxford a little later than I wanted, in 370BC.

Asoka getting Eng means a war on him will be costly, however, I've seen quite a few longbows and some pikes, and when I declare he'll probably whip castles, which will be brutal for a mostly Elepult army The last Khmer cities took a real toll on the cata count.

Btw, as expected Isabella broke free from Willem. If I hadn't capped Freddie earlier, I guess that means I could have killed everybody but her and the domination limit should be 76%? It's still 51% despite Brennus getting kicked off the scoreboard, but guess we need to fill up 18 alive civs before it can change.

 

[Seraiel]

I'm asking myself why you're researching Nationalism. 2000 BPT in the BCs is nice though, but couldn't you quickly research Astronomy and Lib Scientific Method? Or a completely different approach, bulb PP, research RP and Lib Rifling. War against Castles is not good, you already noticed that, I'd see that I'd have at least Cuirrs, Cavs or Draft-Rifles are much better though. Getting Sushi is a big goal during a Spacerace, but too early, and your economy can't support it and then you struggle on towards Mining. Better take that 5x% shrine and also have a formidable HQ for the corps.

Only thing that'd stop me from warring would be if I were somewhere between 30 and 40% of the map, because the rest comes through Sushi alone. Even then, I'd think about conquering that shrine and gifting cities to somebody to get below the domination-threshold again.
Don't forget that there's also Lib -> Steel, with Cannons it doesn't matter what defenses he has and it's otw. to corps.

 

[Seraiel]

Regarding luck again btw, so @ Pangaea and everybody struggling:

In my current Spacerace, everything goes according to plan. I got 3 GEs, so I'll get the SoL and the Kremlin + Mining, I was first to Lib, first to Economics, got the Taj Mahal etc.
Still, I'm slower than in my game with Peter, which even was on Normal speed (current game is on Epic) . Only reason can be, that the AIs picked worse techs for research, or are generally weaker. Those are factors that are very hard to see, I can only see them because I play a game that's almost completely similar to a game I played before.

So don't curse a game when you lose troops, what counts is the time with which you'll finish, and you can see that one only shortly before you finish really.

[EDIT]

Just got my 4th GE .

 

[Pangaea]

I'm asking myself why you're researching Nationalism. 2000 BPT in the BCs is nice though, but couldn't you quickly research Astronomy and Lib Scientific Method? Or a completely different approach, bulb PP, research RP and Lib Rifling. War against Castles is not good, you already noticed that, I'd see that I'd have at least Cuirrs, Cavs or Draft-Rifles are much better though. Getting Sushi is a big goal during a Spacerace, but too early, and your economy can't support it and then you struggle on towards Mining. Better take that 5x% shrine and also have a formidable HQ for the corps.

Only thing that'd stop me from warring would be if I were somewhere between 30 and 40% of the map, because the rest comes through Sushi alone. Even then, I'd think about conquering that shrine and gifting cities to somebody to get below the domination-threshold again.
Don't forget that there's also Lib -> Steel, with Cannons it doesn't matter what defenses he has and it's otw. to corps.

Have thought about Libbing Steel, but wouldn't it be better to get faster to Sushi instead?

Currently 27.5%, so getting a little close, but there should be more room for conquering cities, and I do want that Shrine as the corps HQ.

Teching Nationalism because there isn't much else sensible. Should get Engineering in trade soon, plus Optics. Once I have Engineering, I can bulb into Chemistry. Also, after losing the Taj to a GE earlier, I figured it was good to get started on it sooner rather than trading for Nationalism, like I usually do. It's probably unrealistic, but there are two huts that I hope will reveal Astronomy once I have Optics. Now that would be lucky!

Guilds was another option, but the AI always do that, they're just slower than expected here, which is putting me well off the gauntlet pace.

I do hope that once I have Engineering, I can whip out trebs and that will suffice. Will that still be terribly slow, so I'd be better off with cannons?

Already have PP btw, I intend to use it for Eng. But I lack some techs to get Astronomy or RP.

 

[Seraiel]

Catapults or Trebs against Castles doesn't matter, what makes Cannons so much better is, that they don't go against the Castles 100% bonus but only against the cultural defense, and that one already is enough if a Castle was in place. I'd value Cannons over earlier Sushi.

 

[Pangaea]

Catapults or Trebs against Castles doesn't matter, what makes Cannons so much better is, that they don't go against the Castles 100% bonus but only against the cultural defense, and that one already is enough if a Castle was in place. I'd value Cannons over earlier Sushi.

Wow, really? It was my understanding from the gauntlet that getting Sushi asap was a crucial goal.

Considering I want to war some more, however, you could well be right, and I'd be better off going for Steel, maybe even Libbing it.

Looking over Asoka's cities, he doesn't have any walls yet, but that can change quickly in war ofc, when cities are threatened.

 

[Seraiel]

Sushi gives Beakers, but cities also give Beakers. To only negate that Shrine with Sushi, cities would need to grow by more than 50 population, and before that, you only pay extra for Sushi. I suppose Cannons save you more than 10T, which is the number of turns at which you would need to spread Sushi at 5 cities / turn and all cities would need to grow instantly.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Btw, as expected Isabella broke free from Willem. If I hadn't capped Freddie earlier, I guess that means I could have killed everybody but her and the domination limit should be 76%? It's still 51% despite Brennus getting kicked off the scoreboard, but guess we need to fill up 18 alive civs before it can change.

It goes in stages, can't remember how many you need to kill before you see your first change, might be 3 or 4.

 

[Pangaea]

It goes in stages, can't remember how many you need to kill before you see your first change, might be 3 or 4.

Ok. But the scoreboard must be full of live civs, correct?

Sushi gives Beakers, but cities also give Beakers. To only negate that Shrine with Sushi, cities would need to grow by more than 50 population, and before that, you only pay extra for Sushi. I suppose Cannons save you more than 10T, which is the number of turns at which you would need to spread Sushi at 5 cities / turn and all cities would need to grow instantly.

Have played further while thinking about this. Bulbed Chemistry and SciMeth, so can Lib Biology ~50BC.

With the GA over, I'm breaking even at a little over 20%. I've probably settled too many islands too soon tbh. Even with GLH, many are at net loss before they get a courthouse. Soon losing 1000 per turn.

With this situation at hand, I'm leaning towards Libbing Steel actually, even though I originally wanted to get early Sushi. Getting enough to slow-tech Steel after Libbing Biology will take a long time, and like you imply, getting Sushi now will just put me deeper in the hole.

Need to sleep on it, but favouring Steel and taking that juicy shrine with cannons right now.

If I manage to push up the domination limit, cannons would be good to have to sweep over yet more civs too.

 

[elitetroops]

Ok. But the scoreboard must be full of live civs, correct?

The scoreboard must have 18 names on it (including player) before names are pushed off, doesn't matter if they are alive or not.

To get the domination limit, count the AI on the scoreboard that have been there since the beginning of the game. The domination limit is the same as if you had started the game with that amount of AI. I'm pretty sure the domination limit is the same (51%) for 17 AI and 14 AI, so the limit wouldn't change until you get below 14 original AI on the board.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

To get the domination limit, count the AI on the scoreboard that have been there since the beginning of the game. The domination limit is the same as if you had started the game with that amount of AI. I'm pretty sure the domination limit is the same (51%) for 17 AI and 14 AI, so the limit wouldn't change until you get below 14 original AI on the board.

The principle is right but I think it may be 10 or 12 before the limit starts to change.

 

[elitetroops]

The principle is right but I think it may be 10 or 12 before the limit starts to change.

Might very well be. Don't remember the limits for different amounts of AI.