Tkid1 spanish-monarch-just win baby!

[Thrar]

Got it. Conquistadors take about 10 more turns (Guilds) if I read that correctly, I don't think I can wait that long.
Have to have a closer look at the situation, but I'll probably join the two stacks for a full attack on Pasargadae at first, depending on defenders.

One note about Chichen Itza: It's not as bad as I feared. It adds 25% to the city's defense, which can be bombed away by catapults. So it's nothing permanent, only takes a bit longer to bombard.

 

[Panth]

I don't blame you for not wanting to wait.

I think Chichen Itza gives the 25% bonus to ALL of their cities though . . .that was my point for taking it out first. It eliminates that bonus from the other cities and gives it to us

 

[Thrar]

Tkid, up to you to mop up the rests of Persia!


(0) Science up to 70%, cutting guilds down to 5 turns, at a 96 gold deficit. I expect to get some income from conquered cities, otherwise we can still put research down later.
Turn on some governors, some cities gain a little, others stay even. I consider them quite useful in this game.
Khoisan gets set on courthouse and max growth, this will be built using the bones of the citizens. I have the feeling that Persia will relieve us of that city anyway.
Cancel open borders, cancel our trade deal, and ... pull the trigger. Still in turn 0, we move into Persia!!

IBT - According to Herodotus, Cyrus is more powerful than we are. We'll see...

(1) Cyrus switched to Theocracy.
Start bombing. Arbela at 45%, Pasargadae at 25%. Will fall next turn, I'm curious if the loss of Chichen Itza will automatically drop Arbela's defenses. Slightly Mightier Iron Pillager destroys a catapult.
All new military builds will be mounted - horse archers now, later conquistadors. I don't want to wait forever for reinforcements.
The war let the ETA on Guilds drop to 6 turns, so now it's 5 more, at -113. We're losing 27, count 'em, 27 to inflation! Anyway, my plan is to make Cyrus pay our expenses.
Each army stack is reinforced by 4 workers. You never know, maybe we need a road or 2 at some point. Or we can use them as baits...

(2) now what can this picture mean...

Pasargadae bombed to 0, lost 1 sword, 1 war elephant, then took the city. Somewhere around 150 gold, enough for 1 more turn of research! So we just need to capture 1 city/turn and keep researching!
Arbela's defenses dropped to 30%, by 15%. Bomb it down to 10%.
Police state will be useful for production and happiness, but also costly. Since right now we don't have WW problems, I stay in despotism.

IBT - Persepolis got a great engineer.

(3) Arbela's defenses down.
Our first city raider II sword charges, and dies without scratching the defending longbow.
Second sword goes down too, but does some damage.
Elephant kills longbow.
Axe damages maceman.
Axe kills injured longbow.
Another axe kills the injured mace. Arbela's ours, and brings 105 gold!
I decide to keep it, 5 turns of resistance, and may be useful later in the war. Not so far away from home anyway.
Our scout elephant in the south finds out that there are two cities that STILL have 100% defense bonus! Heavy defensive building going on in Persia!
Guilds due in 3, but we won't be able to keep up the research rate. It's at -118, we have 172 now. By the way, forget about what I said above about building fast units only - we need catapults!

IBT - Persepolis builds Great Library.

(4) Persian knights sighted! However, his only horse is...here:

We might get guilds in 2 turns, just barely. Have to see.

IBT - Persian knight kills one of our swords.

(5) Our elephant takes out aforementioned persian knight. We need to capture a city to finish Guilds any time soon (in 1 turn, then), no money to get research above 10%, inflation at 30!!
Just found a source of income: pillage persian towns! Got 40g from one, that's enough to get about half of what's missing on Guilds.

IBT - ummm...a persian knight kills the elephant defending Arbela, and recaptures it.

(6) Elephant captures Arbela. Tarsus' defenses down to 20%. If we capture this next turn, it means that we can finish Guilds afterwards.

(7) Tarsus is defenseless! Time for our City Raider II macemen! 2 Longbows went down, a maceman is left in Tarsus. A shock elephant takes care of him, and we're 116 gold richer! The city gets burned. Of course, the best thing is that we got 2 more workers!
The good news: we finish Guilds next turn at 20%, -26 per turn.
The bad news: running 0% research, we get a -1 deficit! I've never seen such a bad financial situation.
There's a maceman standing outside Essen, not much I can do though. Persia just lost their horses, we shouldn't get troubled by many more knights.

(8) Guilds! Our last tech in this game I think.

Research goes down to 0, and we're still at -6. Each city captured now should allow one horse archer upgrade. We're at 112, so we can float for a while. WW kicks in, so I switch to police state. Down to -15 per turn.

IBT - Arbela got recaptured again.

(9) I take Arbela back and burn it this time. Pasargadae comes out of resistance, and is actually useful! We're at +6 income!!

(10) Several macemen around Essen. Alemanni right next door finishes our first conquistador next turn...will be fun.
Sacrifice 2 horse archers on a pikeman to take Bactra and another 146 gold. Burn it down.

Here's the situation:
Isn't our econ beautiful?

Northern Persia:

Southern Persia:

There are two pillager units in northern Persia, if you can get through, try to go for their iron. The conquistador from Alemanni next turn should be able to take care of the macemen around Essen. Don't bother to send more catapults to Gordium, by the time they arrive the defenses will be at 0% anyway. We need the city raider macemen over there, though.

I'll be extremely disappointed if I get to play again!

 

[theorykid]

Wow...split their empire right down the middle. Nice work!

It looks like 5 more cities. I don't think i can finish it, but i bet Panth has a shot.

I wonder if conquistadors have that +50% vs. pikes as well. it would make them
a pretty awesome offensive unit if they do. i suppose i will see soon...

 

[Panth]

Tyre's gonna be tough just because it's going to take so long to get there. Unless we can backdoor through former German territory. It's, what, about 12 moves away from where our armies currently are? It'll go no problem, just a matter of how long it takes to get there.

Go Tkid! Teach those Persians to . . . erm, exist

Didn't they learn anything from the Germans?

 

[theorykid]

Sorry for the delay folks. things are quite busy. i should however, be relaxing in about 6 hours from this post, with a 'beverage', wiping out the persians.

 

[DementedAvenger]

Sorry for the delay folks. things are quite busy. i should however, be relaxing in about 6 hours from this post, with a 'beverage', wiping out the persians.

Conquist those evil Persians!

 

[theorykid]

Ack! Sorry for the unreasonable delay...at least it's not quite 48 hours yet.

 

[theorykid]

Preflight

Well, Thrar covered the situation rather nicely. A bit of MM: 3 cities at
health or happy limits, so switch to production. WW starting to factor
in (Madrid is -3 happiness because of the war).

Good thing i don't plan on letting it last long.

1. 1505AD
Alemanni: Conquistador-> Conquistador.
Tundra City-> Temple-> Maceman (for city raider eventually)

Persian macemen hanging out near Essen and Munich. Munich will have to wait,
only archers and longbows there.

Attack with mace near Essen with conquistador, win. 7.0/10. Promote to flanking 1 and 2, and
combat 1. Final health 9.6/10. yeah.

Set a lot of units to heal.

Siege of Persepolis:
We have 1 cat with 8 exp. I give city raider 2, and suicide. Yup, it's
suicide. Suicide another, with a successful withdrawl. Best longbow has
4.6/6 defending now.

Attack with CRIII sword. wins, 2.2/6.
Promote sword to CRII. Attack, lose.
Attack with CRIII Axe. Win, 0.5/5.
Attack with CRII Axe, win 4.3/5.

Grr. only horse archers and cats left, and a pike with 4.3 strength left
will maul the horse archers.

Take a deep breath, suicide a cat (5.5 vs. 6.3). Success!

Slightly Mightier Iron pillager takes the day!

So 1 cat and 1 sword dead in the struggle. Hmm and haw for a bit about razing.
Keep it...parthenon and great library result. Back to 0 income, but 483 in
the treasury.

Spot a cat south of persepolis, probably running to
reinforce Gordium. Horse archer stops that plan.

Diplomacy with cyrus says we have 5 more cities to take.

Feeling pretty satisfied, i end the turn.

2. 1510AD.
Madrid -> Conquistador-> Conquistador
Seville -> Conquistador-> Conquistador
Essen: Barracks -> Longbow.

Cottage near munich plundered by maceman.

Send one conquistador to southern front, the other to northern.

Upgrade a horse archer in Persepolis.

Bombard and gather forces at gordium.

3. 1515AD.
Barcelona: Conquistador -> longbow

Remove annoying mace near Munich.

Plunder iron. Now lets see you make pikes, cyrus!

Pull 2 longbows out of Barcelona, send to 1 to persepolis and the
other the parsagardae. Better defenders than conquistadors, whom
i have other plans for.

4. 1520AD.
CRIII mace has 8.9 vs. 5.8 to gordium longbow. Since pike is
defending, though, i would hate to waste our horse and elephants.
Conquistador arrives next turn, and so will wait a bit.

Eager to get started, send healthy units in Persepolis towards Susa.

5. 1525 AD.
Barcelona: Longbow->Longbow
Seville: Conquistador - >Cat

Persian borders are close to the east of Essen. i'll start assembling troops
for a threat to their western borders as well. Also have some concern
about barb state se of essen, although 1st things first.

Gordium reduced to 0 defence.
CRIII mace, wins.
CombatII Conquistador, wins, although fought bow rather than pike, probably
due to bonuses. hmm.

6. 1530 AD.
Madrid : Conquistador -> Mace. (We need some CR units. We're swimming
in Cav.)

Second CRIII mace finally arrives to gordium. Attack!!!
Mace wins. Take remaining cat out with elephants.

BURN BABY BURN!

So much for the southern front.

Separate out fast and slow units from Gordium attack, move towards 'eastern' front.
4 cities left. Our forces are assembled at Susa, the current capital.

7. 1535 AD.
Forces assembling at Essen. Scouting Conquistador discovers Sardis, 20% defence, 2
longbows, not far east of Essen.

6 cats bombard Susa, reduce to 0.
Upgrade Conquistador to combat II, attack Susa, against pike (11 vs. 10.2).
Victory! these guys are good...
Another conquistador takes out longbow.
Foolishly lose a horse archer while checking odds. should alt-hover, yes, i
know.

8. 1540 AD.

Moving units, and getting more forces at Susa. i want to be able to move on
Sidon almost immediately after. too many causulties would damped things.

2 elephants victorious at Susa.

9. 1545 AD.

Seville: Mace-> Conquistador
Barcelona: Mace -> Conquistador

okay, after having used conquistadors, i'm converted. i want units
on the field now.

Newly arrived conquistador takes out mace defender at Susa.
CRIII axe defeats last cat. Another persian capitol down.
204 gold in booty. Burn it to the ground.

Move unused towards Sidon (last northern city).
Attackers from Gordium approaching Tyre (their capitol now).
Forces assembling at Sardis. (But shouldn't be hard)
Pillage some resources, including wine.

10. 1550 AD
(Sniff! my last turn!)
Persepolis comes out of revolt. -24 gpt now. Grr. should have razed it.

Madrid: Mace-> Conquistador. Great prophet Born. use it to join city, mostly for gpt. back to -18 gpt.

Okay...3 cities left, 2 with serious forces gathered.
All that's left is to use the assembled units, then move on Tyre. Almost game over.

Word of warning: Many units on Auto-move, going to an attack point, new
units sent to Tyre. Also warweariness is getting quite bad...7 unhappy faces in madrid.

Okay Panth...All that's left for you is the victory lap. A bloody last lap, but a victory nonetheless.

2nd last save:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Tkid1_AD-1550.Civ4SavedGame

 

[Panth]

For Isabella!!!

Got it.

 

[Panth]

Preturn 1550 AD: The decline of the Persians

Not much to say. It's all pretty well set up; troops in position, more cooking; long term plans aren't really an issue at this point.

T1 1555

- Sidon contingent bombards from 50% -> 12%. Check odds and notice that we are river-crossing and will relocated before further violence ensues.

- Odds at Sardis are about even so I'll hold off unitl the cats arrive. I don't like coinflips.

- Perspolis Wrecking Crew heads for Tyre . . .no rest for the wicked . . .

T2 1560

- 2 cats bombard Sidon to 0%, odds are still bad even without rivercrossing - other 4 cats move to collateralize next turn

* Basically troops are at all 4 cities but odds are bad. Defenses are being whittled away whilst awaiting reinforcements. Cats especially as even with defenses down, the odds are not much in our favor. Some suicide cats will be required to drop those numbers a bit. Time is ours. Their territory is a wasteland. They have zero offensive capability. There is no reason to rush an attack and risk losing a stack allowing them some freedom.

T3 1565

**Sidon**
- Collateral II Cat hits Sidon hard - 1 bow @ 3.8, 2 @ 5.4 now. Oh, and it retreated.
- Raider II cat cranks up the damage 3.3, 3.6, 4.9. It retreated too.
- Raider II cat hits again - 3.0, 3.2, 2.0 now. It died though.
- Raider II cat hits again - 0.7, 3.0, 2.0 now. It died too.
* Conquistador takes out #1, Longbow #2, and Slightly Mighty Iron Pillager gains the glory of burning down Sidon.

**Sardis**
With odds slightly in our favor and a serious numbers advantage, I decide to test the waters
- Conquistador 1 takes out a bow.
- Conquistador 2 takes out a bow.
- Conquistador 3 takes out a crossbow.
- Mace 1 goes raider II and takes out cat
- Mace 2 goes raider II and takes out cat
* Sardis be rubble now as well

**Tyre**
Only city left so far as I can tell. Odds are still poor here. All troops headed this way and 3 cats prepped to collateralize next turn. Has only Crossbow and 2 longbows . . . oh and a worker.

+ There is a barb city in the south and a barb sword head to Cologne.
+ There are 2 black spots in the south. I doubt Cy has a city there, but I suppose it is possible.

T4 1570

**Tyre**
- Cats collateralize the defenders down to ~3 . . . only 1 cat survived, but it shouldn't matter shortly . . .
[As an aside, my view is all screwed up during city attacks - it zoomed in on an elephant on the other side ofthe map so I couldn't actually see the fights . . .never happened before]

- Conquistador takes out longbow
- Mace raider III takes out crossbow
- Horse Archer takes out longbow and . . . .

++Persia is no more!++

I saved before entering through to the next turn so you can all load up, hit [enter], and watch the post-game show. Here's the main point though:

And thus, our saga comes to an end . . .

 

[theorykid]

Nice work! that will definitly top my Hall of Fame!
My 1st conquest victory too, and also my first Monarch win.

If any of you guys see a SG that i started, i will always make room for you.
It was definitly an great team effort.

Awards:

Tkid: Back-patter and motivator extraordinaire
Panth: Medal of courage (Spearheaded major assaults)
Demented Avenger: Troop raising champion (i mean, getting together in army in 10 turns for the attack on germany. wow.)
Ucel: Strategic Wiz (Carried war right to the enemy, and pillaged and burned to keep the economy up)
Thrary: Micromanager Brilliance (it was fantastic getting the game from you, everything was always in perfect shape)

 

[Panth]

It was a great game from everybody. I thought we all worked well together and we were obviously effective.

I'd never played anything beyond noble before, and this was one one of my first SG's ever so I really didn't know what to expect. I found it a truly positive experience and would be thrilled to join in on any future SG's with any of you.

 

[Thrar]

Awards:

Tkid: Back-patter and motivator extraordinaire
Panth: Medal of courage (Spearheaded major assaults)
Demented Avenger: Troop raising champion (i mean, getting together in army in 10 turns for the attack on germany. wow.)
Ucel: Strategic Wiz (Carried war right to the enemy, and pillaged and burned to keep the economy up)
Thrary: Micromanager Brilliance (it was fantastic getting the game from you, everything was always in perfect shape)

wow, how did you remember all those things? I'd like to say something like that too, but don't recall so many details...

It's not gonna top my HoF, theres a 50k game (noble) already, but it's my first completed SG, first conquest victory, and first game (+win) on monarch. Still lotsa first things ^^


I think one thing that strategically was a lot different from my games that our attacks on Germany only used relatively small forces in the beginning. When I declared on Persia, everything was perfectly set up, lots of troops for the attack on both cities, but I was really surprised to see what a big bite we took of Germany, with forces I estimated enough to take Cologne and Essen only.
I enjoyed the game very much, very well played by everyone, funny how plain some individual strengths and gameplay differences can be seen. I won't join any new SGs in the next month or two, but after that it'd be a pleasure to see you in some other game!

 

[Thrar]

Now that's interesting...I got 47030 points for the game.
IIRC the patch changes something in regard to difficulty now influencing points or so, maybe because of that. Otherwise, dunno.

 

[theorykid]

Same as me Thrar. i think it was the patch. check the readme, i think there's something about like 'adjusting final score for difficulty level'.

i very well couldn't claim the title 'back-patter and motivator extraordinaire' if i couldn't remember all those neat little things, could i?

 

[DementedAvenger]

Thanks, guys, that was a fun game. Good playing by all, and I'd also love to play with any of you again.

 

[ucel]

Ouch, I missed the happy end .
Everything has been told already, so I also wanted to thanks for the game and till the next time. Tkid, are you planning something?

 

[theorykid]

I'm planning to plan something...probably a start for next weekend.

Probably 2 games, actually:
Always peace (Gandhi as leader) Tkid2
Always War (Genghis as leader) Tkid3

Both similar maps, standard continents, prince level.

Any of you guys are more than welcome for either or both.. Probably a 6 person roster.

 

[DementedAvenger]

The gandhi game sounds fun to me, I almost always go on an early war rampage and it'll be fun to try to expand without that crutch.