Toku Deity Raging Barbs

[Pangaea]

I'm confused about Buddhism not spreading... so just got a thought. Does Mercantilism prevent religious spread too, because you lose trade routes?

 

[Pangaea]

Forget the above, it finally spread, then again the turn after.

STEEL!

T192.

Spoiler :

Got prolonged a turn or two because Churchill went Mercantilism too, as the last AI, so then I lost all good trade routes and 20% research rate (about 380 to 300-ish)

Kept a watch on the Monty-Joao was, which seemed to be getting out of control, and just when I may have pulled the trigger and gifted him PPress to gain peace, they peaced out on their own. Looks like Joao paid Education for it. Phew. Elsewhere, Churchill created Lincoln as a colony.

Don't recall what other trades we did, but it wasn't much. Monty is looking pretty dangerous here, tho. He too got Steel this turn, and must have gone there directly after self-teching Chemistry. Hasn't started plotting again yet, but I'm sure it can't be long when he has Cuirs + Cannons.

We got Education with somebody (Joao I think), and not many lacked it, so therefore I did this, despite giving up semi-monopoly on Chemistry.

Looked over things again, and had to pay a little for Edu+Chemistry for Replaceable Parts with Churchill, so he must be close to Edu too. Therefore made sense to carry out the trade, altho Chemistry is probably available on the market now. When only Isabella had it, it should have been safe I think, as she trades at 60% and isn't Friendly with anybody.

The situation then looks like this. Many have Cuirs by now, which is always dangerous, but nobody has Rifling yet, tho several are getting close.

I've lined up Military Science for now, as I've found recently that it's nice to upgrade Maces (Samurais here) to Grens. Before I basically avoided that tech, and went for Rifling instead. Surprising that nobody else have gotten Liberalism yet, which means that only HC can tech Communism at the moment. He is probably doing either that now, or the hated Democracy (funny, huh).

Capital size 14 now, but think I need to 3-pop the Bank next turn. Will be going more back-and-forth between research and gold going forward, and not least when we declare, so it will come in handy. It has the only monastery in the empire, chopped out a few turns ago. Wanted to save those 24-hammer forests until it got a state religion.

AP Hinduism has spread in a few cities, but I haven't bothered with AP temples yet. Have focused on getting out units instead, tho mostly slow-built. The Heroic Epic city Osaka could 2-turn trebs, which was quite nice (and had a few forests too), and it has also built a couple of muskets and knights. I need some Pikes too, as they are decent Cuir defenders, especially on hills. The city can now 2-turn cannons, which it will probably get busy with for a loooong time (23 base hammers).

The overall empire looks like this (doesn't show some cities up north, that are still not ready for unit production). Also have a settler, finally, for the southern horse city. Have surely whipped the NE island too heavily, but it was nice to get out some workers there, the missionary from the random Buddhism spread, and also this settler.

Am reasonably pleased with the amount of units. Not quite ready yet, but 8-10 cannons is a decent amount to start with. Need more boats first.

Currently we have defensive pacts with Huayna Capac and Boudica, because why not The plan is still to declare on HC, I think. It makes most sense now when I'm in Buddhism (only in a few cities for now, as it's recent). Hopefully they stay out of the war, tho I can't vouch for some of the others. HC does have the AP, but he recently went Free Religion, which probably neuters it a bit.

Pondered about striking further south, like the desert hill outside Tiwanaku, but probably better and safer to land up north on the hill there. Then march on Cari afterwards. No nice defensive hill there, but what can you do.

Uploaded the save too, in case somebody want to take a look. Soon there will be fireworks!

 

[krikav]

@Pangea

Vass/Burocracy

Spoiler :

I guess the bottom line is that I went into vass+theo because I'm greedy for XP.
7xp cannons reach 10xp much sooner and they are really really good.

And from the intuitive stance at that point, the main focus of my empire at that point was not at all tech or research, it was unit production. And as such I wanted better unit production everywhere.
I had steel, and I was ahead in tech and had plenty of opportunity to trade. Commerce would likely go to gold at a 0% slider, and I didn't think burocracy would give me that much as such.

Another factor was that capital was also pushing deep into unhealth (-5), and I was certain that i would start to get unhappines problems there eventually too, so I whipped away population at burocracy/OR dicount, getting 60 hammers per population with the forge, and then the capital can regrow while in vassalage.

Checking the screenshot and counting abit backwards... I had 200 bpt in capital with library+academy. That means 114 commerce, and 76 commerce w/o burocracy. (Burocracy gave gain of 38 commerce).
I also had no wealth generating buildings, so that was that, burocracy while running 0% slider would be 114 gpt (base 76*1.5) (burocracys part 38gpt).
Once the capital had been demolished by whipping out bank+grocer it was still at 47 base commerce. And with bank+grocer it would yield 82gpt.
Had I remained in burocracy after the whips I would have been at 123 gpt (47 base * 1.5 bur * 1.75 bank+grocer = 123). But I would not have gotten 100 hammers overflow, and I would not have had vassalage for other cities.


It's good that you pointed it out. I need to think more about that, as I'm getting ready to continue, I need to figure out how I should do civic swaps now.
Want to do a GA to get into state property almost right away. (Might want to wait 1 or 2 turns though).
I figure I want to do some drafting too, but after that I would likely just land in vassalage again, but if I focus on growing capital burocracy will likely be better. I probably have enough strong units right now, and I should probably get ready to push toward more tech. Not sure I can push onwards for boudica without it.
And Capac... Well. I think I need to get Boudi first, I have upset her too much and she will just come after me if I don't. :|

 

[krikav]

@Pangea

Your T192 update

Spoiler :

That merc nonsense is so annoying! I guess it would have served a point settling a pair of more islands anyway, even though we both dismissed that idea.
I like your focused unit production! You are much more ready for a strike, than I was when I reached steel, hope you can get boats up quickly and get a good landing date.
Very annoying with cuirs. Did some math on the musket/pike and you are right, the pike is stronger both on flatland and on hills. I thought the higher base strength of the musket would have a larger effect, especially when you start to reach 2-3 promotions, but no, pike wins narrowly.

Me personally, I would probably take the northernmost city first, but instead of marching into flatland I would just hop on the boats again and go for that desert hill.
Only after I catch a sizeable stack in a city, or if he attacks me in a good defensive position, so I know his unit numbers have dropped abit, then I would start marching on the flatland.
Upgraded CR3 grenadiers are wonderful at the stage when the AI is holding up in cities with rifles. Sometimes it's just better to attack with them right away, saving cannons. Defense is abit more annoying though. Kind of need rifles of your own for that (or machineguns on some occasions).
In my game I have alot of c1+c2+formation grenadiers in the fight with Isabella.

 

[Pangaea]

T230 save

Spoiler :

Opened the save, and I'm a little confused why you haven't sent out caravels to meet the others? Is Optics and Astro very recent?

You have a nice amount of cannons, but lack cleanup/killer units. But to be honest, I think it's too late to salvage this game now. Isabella does lack Rifling for the moment, which is good, but that won't last long when her vassal Monty has it. She's in state property and looks pretty advanced in general, and I suspect the other AIs are in a similar state. Finding a win from this position will be very hard I think.

One of the reasons I haven't liked isolation all that much, is that you are pretty much required to go early Optics and Astro. There is simply no other way to try to catch up, and then deal with them militarily. Perhaps this game can serve as an example of that fact. It's too easy to get left behind when you don't meet the AIs and therefore can't trade with them, can't get all those juicy post-Astro trade routes either if you don't know them. Can't get happy and health resources (some with Isabella, but not enough), and can't start to build up open borders and resource trades bonuses with the other AIs. Religious buildup/penalties, basically everything diplo related. When up against Deity AIs with colossal bonuses, that trade willy nilly with each other, it's simply not possible for the human to properly compete.

If you have another go of this start later (you probably want to play out this one first?), I strongly recommend to go with the more traditional route of early Optics and double-bulbing Astro. Yes, it's very hamstrung and kinda boring to be forced down that path, but it's so important to get early AI contact and jump on the tech trading train.

One small thing I noticed it, micro details really in the bigger scheme of things: I would re-do the wine deal with Isabella. Cancel the sugar deal, and get silver instead. It's better with all those forges.

Also, like krikav said, I wouldn't put BOTH the HE and NE in the capital, or indeed the same city more generally. You then have the dilemma of what to do there. You want to run specialists for the big boost there, maybe you want another Golden Age or to builb something. But you also want to build units non-stop, like right now when you're working hammers there. Like George in Seinfeld said, the worlds are colliding

 

[Pangaea]

krikav

Spoiler :

Thank you. Good point about using boats instead of walking across flatland. I like to do that too, but may be worried here because at least currently I don't have any frigates, and what I really hate is losing land units inside ships. I'm thinking about whipping a drydock or two in some of the new cities, tho, and maybe I can afford to put in at least 1-2 frigates in between galleons as (ship) stack defenders.

Also, and this is a while ago, but what brought me some hope about the plan to strike at Capac, is that he is probably relatively weak militarily. This showed up on all the options:

Not quite "we're afraid of their military might", but it's not a good sign from his perspective. As long as he doesn't get rifles, think we stands a decent chance.

Also, please post more updates from your game, and maybe a save. Would be interesting and probably educational to see more from the war effort. This has turned into a very interesting game!

 

[krikav]

MORE updates from my game?!
I'm almost done with T229 now, T230 will be the next checkpoint with screens and walls of text.

Spoiler :

Have done a GA, done some drafting and now signed peace with Isabella.

3 saves attached. One from when I started the GA, (I wanted to get one of isabellas cities out of revolt first, to do some cold-whipping of all those angry citizens.)
During the first 5 (ended up being 6 turns) I was in nationalism, to do some drafting. Then I debated abit with myself and landed in that I would go for vassalage again.

One safe from when I think I was done with drafting.

Last save is from just recently, might be fun trying to attack the second last city of isabellas. Fun attack micro with different cannons and CR3 grenadiers.
I have just taken the city, razed it to the ground and settled to reach the fish instead. Then I made peace for MT.
My hope is that either Monty or Churchill will take Isabella as a vassal, as that will increase tensions between them and Boudica... But boudi has just started plotting. :|

 

[Izuul]

Answering a few questions

Spoiler :

I just got Optics 2T ago and Astronomy last turn. I didn't build caravels because i need galleons anyway, and what's 1 more turn to wait at this point? I got the diplo hit with Churchill because Monty was the only one that i could trade for Optics and Astro with and he was Churchill's worst enemy. Unfortunate, but i would do the same thing over again. Desperate times and all that.

On the HE and NE.. My logic may be faulty here, but I don't find great scientists particularly useful beyond the Renaissance Era in this kind of military game. Once i got the double bulb for Chem, the value of a GS plummeted for me so i was not concerned about no longer working specs in the capitol. A second golden age would of course be nice, but that requires something else other than a GS which would be difficult to get at this point.

I agree the HE should've gone somewhere else, i just felt like i was really lacking options for it. Nagoya is OK, but i don't believe that city was ready to build the HE at the time i was building it everywhere for FG. It probably would've needed to go in Osaka. My thoughts on this game for a long time now have been that cannons and rifles are the desperation hail mary at the end of the game, and if that fails the game is lost regardless. The capitol with the HE can build 2T cannons.

I just should've settled 2 or 3 more cities by now to help with whipping. That's the one thing i regret more than any of this other stuff.

I don't have any non-cannon troops yet because i just got Rifling. A few muskets for mop up would've been OK, but i was trying not to slow things down too much on the way to Rifling.

 

[Pangaea]

Exciting. T200.

Spoiler :

8 turns later, and I think it is time to undust the war drums. I'm feeling good about our chances, but the tech screen has some warning bells too. HC just got Steel this turn. There was an AP vote last turn which got him to Friendly, and I thought about trading away Steel for something, but he wouldn't have any of it, despite our big bag of money on top, so he was clearly very close. More worryingly, he can also tech Assembly Line (but also need Rifling for Infantry). So most likely we are taking on the tech leader here, altho he thankfully hasn't gone for the key military techs yet (Steel aside).

Our units are in the boats and ready to move. We can get across and land in one turn. Only 6 galleons (produced a couple in the HE city, and upgraded the galley outside NE island), but they can move right back and ferry more units across. All 10 cannons are locked and loaded, so it won't be an instant city capture, but I'm kinda hoping he brings more units up there, so we can bring down more guys in the first city capture. We will lose a lot of trade routes upon the DOW, because HC is basically the only decent guy without Mercantilism, but should still be able to get to Military Science and Grenadiers in 4-5 turns I think. Hope he doesn't have a million catapults here and there, tho, that can be cheaply upgraded to cannons.

 

[Izuul]

I'm kind of interested to revisit the opening of this game. There are a lot of ways to play the beginning - some more conservative and some extremely risky. Like not building warrior first probably gets you killed within the first 20-30T of the game a reasonable amount of the time. Delaying Archery also increases your chances of dying quickly, especially if you also combo that with an early worker to actually take advantage of teching something other than Hunting > Archery. And of course the improvements aren't very useful if you can't protect them from being pillaged.

I'm just curious about how much you can get away with early in the game and still have a reasonable chance of survival.

 

[Pangaea]

Also, whats with that error message?! <Color= blablah map finder regen map"? That error message was one of the main reasons I reinstalled, and it persist!

Any idea about this @lymond?

 

[krikav]

@Izuul For sure!
Iirc I went worker first and agriculture. But as soon as worker was done city went 100% hammers (forested hill) and spammed warriors for a while.
Even this caused me to almost die once when I was foolish enough to not have a warrior pre-built in city while I was teching toward archery.

 

[Pangaea]

Iirc I went worker first and agriculture. But as soon as worker was done city went 100% hammers (forested hill) and spammed warriors for a while.

Actually the exact same opening here. Think I built quite a few warriors before doing anything else, because barbs kept coming and coming. Without a PH, worker first would probably be suicide here. It was a close thing.

 

[krikav]

@Pangea T200

Spoiler :

Argh, nasty cannons. Those are dangerous. But with a stack of cannons yourself, you won't get crushed since they are immune to collateral. Might be sensible to do down the drill line with a few stack defenders of yours too.
Even though he is shaping up to become really dangerous, I think it makes sense to hit him while you still can. Even if you just manage to get a pair of cities, that still cripples him abit, and thats good. Try to keep a plan B in mind, in case you see infantry popping up everywhere. If you got an army it's best to continue use it.
Did Joao and Monty sign peace? Monty plotting again?
Perhaps Joao is a nice planB target?

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T228 :

After signing peace with featherhead, and trading for steampower with Joao.
Here I give Monty Economics+Scientific Method to join the war against Isabella. I get his 330g too.
If not, I think he will surely attack Churchil soon, and I'm in no position to piggyback and take advantage of such a conflict. Also I want the shared war bonus to get better relationship with both him and Joao. That Capac will dislike them both abit more is a nice bonus too, but the main reason I want them in the war is because they have alot of boats around, and if they join they will likely take care of most of Isabellas nasty frigattes who threaten my seafood.
Heroic can 1turn a ironclad too, which I do.

I'm paranoid about Capac getting rifling from Joao, perhaps by giving him Physics. So I give Capac rifling for his gold, and I also ask him to go into Theocracy, something that makes tensions rise between all of the AIs because he is the only one in judaism.

Capac and Joao still likes almost everyone as they think everyone who is in HR is really cool.

One ironclad is quite enough.
Ah... Remember the good old days when I supplied you with iron Monty? Those where the days! Coal is nice too though.

Isabella fights back. Glad she hit Madrid where I had fortified grenadiers promoted combat->formation. The attacking stack that is marching toward Toledo almost only has CR3 grenadiers and samurais.

Madrid is out of revolt and I cold-whip some stuff there. A rifle and a library I think. That city has two settled GScientists and an academy so I'll try to keep the towns there. But other than that... I'm quite eager to pillage.
Now I do some rounds of drafting, trying to spread the anger as thin as possible. 2 drafts in most, 1 in a few who didn't grow up to pop6 fast enough, and 3 in a pair. Only capital and Heroic is spared.

I bombarded for two turns, and Winnie suicides his units. Thanks alot! Here I just attack with a CR3 grenadier first, then the samurais clean up. While the cannons can start moving toward Salamanca right away.

Barcelona goes into revolt.. and once it exits revolt it goes into revolt right away again. :|

Now I was planning on swapping civics, but I want one more rounds of drafts. Yokohama really has nothing better to do, and will reach pop6 again next turn. And Izumo and Satsuma can get another hit! Moooore Toku rifles!

The settler Pig-Thief sneaks in and settles the city Spearhead during cultural vaccuum after the destruction of Salamanca.

I did consider going into civics to tech more. But representation doesn't give me much, amost no city except for island city with it's 6 specialists are running any. Besides I want HR for the happines, and to keep Joao/Capac friendly and as possible trading partners.
I considered burocracy, which does add almost 20% to my teching power, but vassalage offsets abit of that by giving me 16 free units, and giving me stronger units everywhere, but most importantly with vass and the GGeneral I'll get in 2xp will enable heroic to churn out CR3 cannons. So I just go with that.

 

[Izuul]

I tried worker first a little while ago and died almost instantly.

T18. Went Worker > Warrior > Warrior using the FPH for 3T Warriors. I got the 1st warrior out but an archer moved onto the FPH and pushed that 2nd Warrior back to 4T which was the difference. 2 archers attacked my 2 warriors, 1 won and then killed me on the next turn with the warrior 1H short of finishing.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T229 :

Cannons and 3 guarding rifles got unloaded a turn earlier and have been bombarding. There is still some cultural defence left though.

I had 1 10xp cannon, 4 at 8xp and one at 7xp.
After bombardment to 0 with the 8xp cannons the CR3 cannon still gets bad odds.

Check with a strong grenadier, but he is expensive...

So I try to soften up with a cannon.

The cannon didn't injure the two rifles, so the Grenadier have to go in. And ofcourse he dies at 92% odds.

But with that city garisson2 rifle out of the way... Look at the odds for the next grenadier against a uninjured combat2 rifleman!
And after this, it's more a study on "which units do I want to give what XP?".
Sometimes it's much more sensible to attack with a samurai at 95% odds, if that Samurai gets 2xp and completes his journey up to 10xp, than to just attack with a grenadier who is in no need for more XP at all.

After the grenadier, the CR3 cannon likes the odds more.
I had waaaaay to few cannons in this stack than I generally aim for, some are busy healing in cities, some are around Salamanca, and others are simply not built, because I felt the need to build more grenadiers to defend against Monty/Joao, or that I needed to build a few more Samurai before I got rifling.

Not really sure if it was worth razing that. But it could be a long game, and I have a hard time taking the morale hits from seeing orphaned seafood like that.

I sprint in and steal 2 workers. I even had a grenadier at comando, but he could not reach the 4 tiles to the other two workers 1S of Zaragosa.
I make peace for military tradition, who oddly enough almost noone has.
Thank you so much for your cities Isabella, I do hope Monty/Joao/Winnie plays nicely with you now.

Tech situation. Abit annoyed at how fast Monty is catching up. Boudica is still some way from assembly line and from artillery. I hope I can get my bearings fast enough to make some dent at her before she becomes too strong. She is building railroad though, so this could be tough.
I need to get myself some cavallery, as they are really nice against machineguns when promoted to charge (anti siege).

 

[krikav]

@Pangea
Am I posting enough updates now?!

Spoiler T230 :

I settle the GGeneral, and now I just have to figure out how to reconfigure/grow this city to get 35-36 base hammers so I can 1turn cannons.
I think I'll steal the riverside cottages from capital and make watermills on them.

Pillage abit!

With MT, now capac wants to join a defensive pact!

Since Boudica doesn't plot at pleased, capac is not her target, so If I get an unlucky DoW from her, at least I have some company.
Her main stack is not in Santiago anymore, so it could be that she is planning to attack Isabella in Zaragosa. But it's also thinkable that she is after Churchill who is her worst enemy, or Monty at cautious with Joao the vassal at Annoyed.

Capac has still not taken those. So I'll try to get some riff-raff down there. Obsolete samurais and grenadiers with bonky promotions can go and borrow some cannon for the job.

I want a piece of that island too. A settler party is on the way, and I'll send a galleon or two more of rifles and cannons too to get or raze the barb city.

But mainly, I have to prepare to fight a tough battle here.
I'll check a few more turns if spearhead has any chance of getting the pig, because if I can't grow it to pop2 at least once. I can't use it as a trap for Boudi.
Gifting it to Isabella might be an option.

And while the main fight goes on in the desert. I have to assemble some strikeforce that can get a few cities along the coast here.

 

[Pangaea]

You are getting there

 

[lymond]

Any idea about this @lymond?

Well, not certain for sure. Have not used mapfinder for years. It appears possibly tied to the shortcut for running mapfinder in-game which is ALT+CTL+G. krik - is this message just popping up automatically or as a result of pressing some shortcut at the time? Do you have MapFinder installed, or have you in the past?

@Noble Zarkon may have some idea.

Post in question - 3rd pic down:

krikav jacks up MF