Toku Deity Raging Barbs

[krikav]

@drewisfat
Yeah, low sea level is really like playing with fire! If it where not for raging barbs+Toku+Isolation though, i think this map would be considered on the easy side.
There is so much that speaks for slow techrate, and thats really nice.

 

[sampsa]

T18 first attempt

Spoiler :

Fog busted eastern area, two barb archers started approaching already T15. Prick from the south stepped on the plains hill, so couldn't even finish the 2nd warrior in capital (T12 worker, T15 warrior, wouldbeT18 warrior if the plains hill was available). Death. Okay, raging barbs is pretty brutal.

T25 second attempt

Spoiler :

Sent initial warrior south. Achieved pretty much a dream position I suppose. I think I can even afford to go barracks now (have +10 in a warrior too), and mr Lion is fogbusting NW. Warrior NW of capital has cover (killed 2*warrior 2*archer already). T27 forest grew on the northern hill, another nice defensive spot!

 

[Izuul]

T18 first attempt

Spoiler :

Fog busted eastern area, two barb archers started approaching already T15. Prick from the south stepped on the plains hill, so couldn't even finish the 2nd warrior in capital (T12 worker, T15 warrior, wouldbeT18 warrior if the plains hill was available). Death. Okay, raging barbs is pretty brutal.

T25 second attempt

Spoiler :

Sent initial warrior south. Achieved pretty much a dream position I suppose. I think I can even afford to go barracks now (have +10 in a warrior too), and mr Lion is fogbusting NW. Warrior NW of capital has cover (killed 2*warrior 2*archer already). T27 forest grew on the northern hill, another nice defensive spot!

View attachment 585920

Lol yes. If you read my post on the last page that seems to be seeded into the game. You can replicate that exact same T18 life or death situation every time and the archers always appear on the same places on the same turn.

 

[krikav]

Start from the Buffy5 save I made instead! That one is probably way better!
Or better, save a worldbuilder save and then roll a new game from that, so the randomness persist.

 

[Pangaea]

About start

Spoiler :

That's odd, that the same things happen over and over like that. Barbs always come from the north for me, tho in the last game, an archer came from the east too, but late enough that we could deal with it. I'm using the 4000BC save, same that was uploaded.

Awesome work @krikav. You're really doing it!!

 

[Izuul]

It may depend on what you do with the starting warrior. Obviously fog busting one of the spawn pts will change things, but I haven't tested whether moving the warrior in different places before fortifying him in the city makes any difference.

 

[Izuul]

Start from the Buffy5 save I made instead! That one is probably way better!
Or better, save a worldbuilder save and then roll a new game from that, so the randomness persist.

I might try that. Its impossible to learn anything about raging barbs starts in general when you get the exact same RNG every time.

 

[Pangaea]

I have moved that bloke to the west. Not much over there, but I wanted to secure that flank. But that doesn't affect the east. Maybe just bad luck? Don't know

 

[Pangaea]

Up to 1AD again

Spoiler :

Sticking with four cities this time, hoping it will go better. Got Metal Casting this turn. Need to get out some triremes, because two fishing nets were ruined, causing big delays on my third GS (2nd Astro dude). Have rebuilt one of them, and chopped out a workboat for the second. Hopefully none of them go down before I can get out triremes. Have seen 4 barb galleys about, so they sure have spread this time. In the original try, I managed to fogbust better, and nobody spawned, except a late one from the island.

No Sailing yet, but think I'll go for IW first, so we can cottage those northern jungle spots. Tokyo and Osaka are working on a GS each, but the last one will be pretty late due to the barb galley problem.

3 GGs born already, first one in 550BC. Probably Monty being naughty again. Hope Joao or Churchill can withstand.

Edit: well crap, I need sailing too for triremes. Guess I've never done MC before sailing before. Oops!

 

[Pangaea]

T150.

Spoiler :

No Optics yet, but have settled the island. Last GS won't be out until T159, but we probably won't get Optics by then anyway, need to collect gold first. Which makes it slower than last time, I believe. Maybe partly down to all those barb galleys, they wasted 3 fishing nets, but possible I made other mistakes than last time too.

Unit maintenance is high, but what else to do here? Feels wrong to keep cities super-small and basically unable to work any tiles, since we need three GS.

Have started/queued up a few settlers for when we get Optics and Astro. I suspect it was HC that got both Colossus and GLH, which will make him a tech beast again. Religions don't look well-spread, so he's probably hogging bunch of those again too. Soon we will know more. I have a 3-move trireme to be upgraded.

 

[sampsa]

Question:

Spoiler :

Why isn't anyone meeting Isabella with a sentry chariot? Could be somewhat valuable.

 

[krikav]

@sampsa

Spoiler :

I thought about it, and I do think it's nice too.
However, I saw her culture rather late (when settling city3+4 at writing about T60-T70 iirc). And I still didn't have the horse improved by then, had few workers to their priorities where elsewhere, and I had the barbs under control by then too.
All in all, the project required some effort I was in a poor position to give it, but it's a good idea!

With some luck, you could get monarchy for free, or perhaps some other goodies too.

 

[krikav]

@Pangaea

Spoiler :

Haven't looked into the save, but I agree with what you say, unit maintenence is high but required.
Snailing forward with low bpt is to be accepted in this map I think, it's only thanks to the abundant rivers that things are possible I think.
I don't mind having a bunch of small cities, even with monarchy I usuall only have 1 city garisson warrior in most cities pre-optics.
If you can push the capital with it's academy high enough in pop thats usually goo enough.
Both the population itself and the military police warriors do cost in upkeep, so you gain less than you think by growing pop more.

Did you try out the walling approach to handle the north, or did you fight it out?

 

[Nick723]

@drewisfat
Yeah, low sea level is really like playing with fire! If it where not for raging barbs+Toku+Isolation though, i think this map would be considered on the easy side.
There is so much that speaks for slow techrate, and thats really nice.

Just shadowing along, haven’t had much time to play civ recently. This made me chuckle: this would be an easy map, except for all of these things that make it rather hard...!

 

[krikav]

@Nick723 Hehe, well... I just compared it my mind with the low sea level Kublai game I recently played.

Spoiler Comparisson :

I did a futile attempt razing his capital with mostly infantry/artillery here, had some marines too.
Faced modern armor and mechanized infantry iirc.
Gilgamesh was probably nearing a culture victory here too, and everyone was super advanced.

In this game, I'm grinding along, getting prepared to invade Capac, who is still 100+ turns away from culture in his third city.
And It's T292.
My dance with Boudica, fun as it was, would have been for nothing, if say... Joao/Monty/Churchil instead was 3 competent techers that where happily trading with each other. Game would have been over by this time.
So, the AI compositon and their relations play a huge role, and that is what makes this map "easy". But thats a hugely relative term though.

 

[Pangaea]

@krikav

Spoiler :

I strongly disagree with calling this map "easy"

On unit maintenance, I wonder if I've taken it too far both times. Looking at the T150 save, we're paying something like 14gpt. And I don't even have that many units now (but some triremes to deal with galleys). However, if I kept cities at size 4-5 (capital aside), many fewer cottages would be developed for later, and they'd pretty much only be able to run food + 2 scientists. Worked out very well for you, but much less sure I'd be able to pull it off.

What were your tech orders in the early game? AH, Pottery, Sailing, BW etc.?

On the wall? Neh, I don't like stuff like that. But perhaps more important this time, I had a few archers up there at the time, and I wanted to try to bust the whole area instead of setting up a wall, and then risk an awkward city spawning somewhere again too.

@sampsa

Spoiler :

Definitely thought about it, and even had a vision chariot up north that was fogbusting (+coast for galleys). But to be honest, I wanted to treat this as a full isolation map, which was the main reason I didn't rearrange units and move the chariot south.

 

[krikav]

@Pangaea

Spoiler :

Yeah, easy is for sure the wrong word, but if techrate had been fast or normal, I think it would be impossible.

My techpath went:
Agri->Hunt->Archery->AH->Mining->Pottery->BW->Writing->Myst->Poly->Priest->Monarchy

Up to archery I think is mandatory, but after that I felt I need AH, to get some food for the capital, I settled Osaka so it would get the Wheat.
I overestimated barb galleys, thought they would come much much sooner, so I didn't dare rely anything on seafood.
But AH could probably be postponed or ignored.
Mining is probably necessery to get enough production for archers, but BW could probably be postponed or ignored too. (Although that borders on exploiting map knowledge imho. Noone with a sane mind would forfeit the chance of getting copper here.)
Pottery early I think is important, and with all pre-reqs it's cheap too.
Don't think sailing before writing makes much sense, and to settle the island earlier, one probably has to delay library early on, in a coastal city that can supply galley and workboat(s).

Spoiler Techpath dates :

All the early fun you guys seem to be having, is making me want to stop my grind and start over too.

 

[sampsa]

@krikav

Spoiler :

Agri->Hunt->Archery->AH->Mining->Pottery->BW->Writing->Myst->Poly->Priest->Monarchy

Up to archery I think is mandatory

Haven't continued yet, but I went agri-mining-BW. I'm trying to hold with warriors and push with archers later, perhaps even post-pottery. Do you think that idea is doomed to fail?

 

[krikav]

Not sure, haven't played that much with raging barbs, but I think it would be tough. They just keep comming.
But you have done great with warrior defence in tough spots before @sampsa
Luck favours the bold.

 

[krikav]

I think I put this game on hold here... There is so much lag that it's just extremly annoying.

Spoiler T301 :

ready to strike Capac, will roll in boats from the north too, and these boats strike Tiwanaku (Christoredendator) and Cuzco where basically everything else is. Also queing settlers and will ship 4 of them down and settle on the marked spots.

Phew! 3 turns left on the peace treaty and Monty starts to plot. I know who he is plotting against now!
I lost peased with him, so I tried to rush some spies to go into one of his cities by boat and make him swap to police state, that would jump me up to peased again and I could make a beg, but now when he is plotting I'm safe.

Monty will plot a while longer, then he will take this city. When he does I'll sneak in a city there on the hill.

Closing borders with everyone should keep him safe here I think. Then Monty can be in war all he wants and I get to prepare for probably a long time.
The plan was to go for internet, but that doesn't seem too likely now.
Not sure whats the least effort to go from here, but if my life depended on it, perparing for a gigantic nukefest would probably be the tool I would chose.