Toku Deity Raging Barbs

[Pangaea]

Wow, T134 Optics sounds awesome on this map! I look forward to see more about your progress.

This feels like a late Steel, but we have it in T195.

Spoiler :

This sure surprised me, but thanks!

The bank from earlier was chopped out in the capital. The last chop into the university, which is then 2-popped. Then the big headache about what civics to go for. Did some math, and we'd lose a fair whack from dropping Buro. Still ended up doing it, tho.

Hopefully those 2 extra XP will be valuable once the war starts, and depending on who we DOW, it will definitely be useful for cities without Buddhism.

Boudica and Isabella were slowly catching up in techs, one hell of an empire she has. Suddenly half the crew had Chemistry, and we then traded it to Joao for Economics. Would have preferred Printing Press at this point, but it couldn't be arranged :-|

We're starting to fall behind, and everybody on the Monty-Churchill-Joao continent is getting quite advanced. Monty finally started plotting again too, and I do wonder a little if it's on us. He started plotting the instant he got Astro, which I think was self-teched. Boudica has plotted a while too, and I think it's on Capac, but hard to know for sure. Much hatred going around, that's for sure.

1350AD, and Steel is done. Quite late, and I don't have very many units either. Feels like we have about 2 cities on this continent. Really hard to get much of anything done. Think the new cities have been slower to set up too. None of them are really ready to contribute yet. Will need a lot more units than this to declare on anybody. Not many hammers in the capital, especially without Buro, but the HE city is excellent.

Hope we can get ready in time here. I may have to whip cities into the ground now, altho it does feel a bit awkward with so few cities. Need more boats too, think I only have 2 galleons. If the timing is right (and Monty doesn't DOW us), maybe I can jump in when Monty or Boudica declares.

 

[Izuul]

Wow! T134 Optics on this map sounds really really fast, how many cities where you at pre-optics? 4?
If it's possible to get the traderoutes with Isabella w/o astro, then it's probably perfecly ok with delaying astro for a long time too. And that was possible, right?

Six cities. 3 in the south + northern pigs + NE clams + triple seafood island. 4 or 5 would probably be faster but you pay some down the road for that.

At some point you can get those trade routes because i did in my last game without Astro, but it hasn't happened yet so I'm not sure what triggers it.

I'll post the save or something in the morning.

 

[Izuul]

Here is my T134 save.. feedback welcome.

Spoiler :

Astro is 27T away if i wait for the double bulb and that also means avoiding CS for 27T which I'm not sure i want to do if i see a decent trade for it. I've already kind of committed to prioritizing Bureau by building the Academy. Alternatively, Calendar is already available for trade now (I'm gonna wait until i meet other AI to see if there is a better deal for it though) so i could trade for that and put 1 bulb into Astro and potentially just research the rest and then use the other scientist for something else later. No research bonus on Astro so that kind of stinks, but it might still be the better alternative.

I have the HE unlocked but i would have to settle a pretty junky city here to get access to marble (those peaks blocking clam + marble are very annoying), but it may very well be worth it if i find some reasonable trades for Aesthetics and Lit. The extra unit production is likely critical later on and the fail gold will also likely be nice.

The east coast is still quite vulnerable to barb galley spawns, but I'm just choosing to live with that risk for the moment.

I think I'm going to work on settling 2-3 more cities and getting some buildings done right now while i don't have Currency. I'd rather build wealth later than research right now since i don't know which techs i may want to trade for shortly.

 

[Izuul]

Semantics question.. is it T133 or 134 Optics? The game log says Optics discovered on T133, but the tech isn't available until T134 so i consider that to be T134.

 

[Pangaea]

@Izuul

Spoiler :

Reading this and seeing the save, kinda makes me want to continue that no-archery start I posted. But then I'll never get to actually play this darn map much further than AI contact Very instructive to see how much can be gained by avoiding archery, if one survives the barb onslaught.

I agree that Optics would be T134 here, since that is when we get expanded borders and such, even if technically it's probably on the 'between turns'. Gets a little muddled by the game log, tho, or the wonder dates list. But while playing the game, it feels more right to count the date when we actually get the tech or building or whatnot.

First thing I checked when seeing that large capital and several cities, was unit maintenance, since that really weighed me down in some previous games. But it's only 4! Wow. That truly surprised me. Looks like a very strong game.

Since it takes 27 turns before the third GS is out, think you're better off researching half of Astro yourself here. Otherwise it will be T161 Astro, which may be a bit late when you make full AI contact in probably 10-ish turns from now, maybe less. Looks like you need 10-11 turns to research that half, which is a little painful (with no pre-req bonus), but think it will still overall be better than waiting 27 turns. Then you can use that extra GS to bulb Chemistry, if that fits with the tech tree at the time (PPress is prioritised over it, if available). Here, since you have done Meditation, Philo will also be prioritised over it, once CoL is traded for. Ofc, you can bulb that with the 'free' GS too, but it's not something you need that early really.

Also, since you are so early here, it's quite possible nobody will have CS for a long time. I've found that it's not really until a while after 1000AD the AIs really shoot off with their tech pace.

Did you have to sacrifice much to get that island so early? I see it was founded in 1AD already.

 

[Izuul]

Yeah, I'm regretting going Med instead of Poly to get Monarchy a turn or two quicker. At the time I thought it would be fine, but then i didn't get my scientists going quite as early as i was hoping.

 

[Pangaea]

Continued with the game. 1500AD.

Spoiler :

This is odd...

To clarify: Boudica controls the AP. She (and Isabella) declares war on Capac. Two seconds later, in the very same turn, she calls for an AP vote to stop the war against her.



She votes Yes, and the war is stopped after next to no action, only some ships were lost. AI strategy at its finest.

I don't like to pay out the nose for techs, but still carried out this one. She had lacked Economics for a long while, so when I had enough money to do a trade, I did. A handful of turns later, and Boudica still lacked Education, and I sold it to her for 340g.

In 1400AD (T200), Monty declares war on Joao for a fourth time. There is still 162 war weariness listed from the previous war some 30 turns ago. I wasn't quite ready yet, but whipped out some more galleons and sent 7 across the sea to invade Joao, while Monty had his full and undivided attention.

The plan was to land on this hill for extra protection against Joao's Cuirassiers, but as you can see from the below image, that plan was a turn too late :-| (two really)

Instead, we landed next to Braga. A frigate took a peak, and it looked weakly defended, altho a few Cuirs popped up after we landed (but didn't attack us).

I assume this was a bribe. Had hoped he would declare on Monty earlier, but yeah...

Isabella has sent a pack of Privateers, which means that according to the game's practice of "important battles MUST be lost", we lost 2-3 frigates at 80-90% odds. HE city lost seafood. But at least it could produce a workboat rather quick (for some reason workboats are considered military units).

The idea was to march down to Oporto and take that one, but unfortunately for us, Monty had the same idea. It disappeared from our map, and I sent the troops into the boats again instead, to land next to Guimaraes, which conveniently has a 30% shrine.

Well bugger. For the third time in not many more turns, Monty ruins our plans

Our units and boats, that would almost certainly have captured the city that turn (I saw a few more units go into the city while the game was processing, but it had almost nothing), were bumbed off in different directions. Frustrating to always be a little too late, and unfortunately Joao refused to cap to us. I kept checking.

I'm now not quite sure what to do. It's tempting to turn around and DOW Monty, though perhaps I should scout a little first to see if he has an enormous stack. He hasn't gotten to Cuirs, Steel or Rifling yet, so the timing could be good, if we manage to hurt him. But there is also the slight issue of technologically advanced Churchill still being at war with us. I gave him horses for a long while, so he will have Cuirs. Nobody else have Steel yet, and nobody have Rifling yet either (but several coming close) [edit: looks like Isabella and Boudica have recently acquired Rifling.... ]. Monty and Churchill don't have open borders, so Churchill can't get to the one taken city here on land, but he may have sent boats back to our mainland. However, if Monty has a big stack of maybe damaged units inside a captured city, it would be really tempting to attack him. Maybe I don't have sufficient units yet, as we don't have strong attackers apart from cannons. But if we get siege initiative, they can still tear him to shreds over a few turns. Monty just went into Mercantilism too (you ******!!!), so that cut our path to MilScience by a turn, and really ruined our teching/gold rate. Would be nice to get there first and upgrade at least a few units, but time is of the essence.

This bribe is possible, but I don't particularly fancy giving away Steel for it, and Economics isn't enough.

The army isn't huge yet, and not all are on Monty's continent, but it's a start.

Thoughts? Do I declare on Monty-Joao and hope Churchill doesn't land with a big force back home? Or is that too risky? I did get burned last time from underestimating the AI

 

[Pangaea]

Oh dear :-| (same turn)

Spoiler :

Oh dear, I moved a couple of units to see.

That is... a lot.

 

[krikav]

@Pangea

Spoiler :

I love to see those Montystacks.
If it's something that I learned from Monty/Shaka/Ragnar it's that numbers really do count.

I don't think there is much you can do about that. Even if you trap them all in a city and manage to cannon them down, I don't think you have enough mopup units to make the kills count right away.

 

[Pangaea]

@krikav

Spoiler :

Definitely think you are correct about that. They are too many, some 60+ units combined. If I had for example twice the stack over there, I could perhaps take it on, but this seems suicidal. And now with Joao as a vassal, he'll get Cuirs any moment, turning those 30+ knights into Cuirs over probably a few turns. Would have been so great to wipe them out right now, before they become untouchable, but sadly don't think it can be done. Probably need to bide my time and hope for a good opportunity later. Crawl to Grenadiers, and try to get peace with Churchill in the meantime. Shipping units all over to him, not knowing what he has, is probably not the best idea right now.

Boudica stopped plotting when Joao capped, so she was probably plotting on Joao too. At least both of those are friendly now, which is nice.

 

[Pangaea]

Hmm, this looks a little bleak. 1550AD.

Spoiler :

We pillaged quite a bit. Trying not to think about that giant-ass stack he's got around.

Meanwhile, Churchill can tech AL. Monty demands to cut off trade ties with Isabella. Sorry, cannae do. She's the only civ in the known universe NOT in Mercantilism.

Monty looks happy (I think that is him looking happy...)

None have been going for Steel yet as far as I can tell (can't check Churchill tho), but now Joao is getting close. Will only trade us Divine Right now, which is only worth around 2000 .

Oooof. Finally Churchill is willing to talk, and doesn't want Steel for peace. I lost a fishing net and he lost a galleon, but that was all that happened. Never saw any more units. Now we have one coin left

Same turn, in 1525AD, and Monty can tech AL too. Wooh.

However, for the moment we have Steel + Military Science on everybody. There is a crazy scary army out there somewhere. Naturally I assume it is Monty's.

Well then Mr Featherhead. Shall we dance?

Cannons did their thing and messed him up pretty badly, but we really didn't have enough mopup units. Should have had 10-15 more at least, but that would have taken way too long to produce.

At this point I check the demographics again, and expect a healthy dropoff from the top guy. But there is nothing. Is it Churchill? He's been in peace (apart from our fake war). But no, of course it must be Boudica! She has Rifling and have probably upgraded everything with at least one leg. 3.43 million, or over 4 times our power.

THIS I like

It passes with a major margin, and Monty finds himself in a world war.

By now we are really struggling with attrition. Who knew that a 17-city Monty is a rough opponent..? At least Joao hasn't really done anything, that war broke him it seems. I've traded away MilSci to Boudica and Isabella for Replaceable Parts and Nationalism (think it was that), hoping to get Rifling next turn. That proved tricky, maybe because Churchill got Steel too that turn (which means Steel has a lower trade value).

Then something really nasty happened. Monty, the crazy so-and-so, threw everything he had at us, including half-dead longbows.

Lost the super-medic And pretty much everything else. Plenty of healthy enough units in that city, plus yet more reinforcements. I keep thinking about what to do, but don't really come up with a good solution. Those borders really messed me up, not being able to move to the hill in one turn anymore. We did kill a handful more units than we lost, but it feels like a total stack wipe tbh. All my guys are very wounded, including all those cannons, most CR2-3 Samurais that I wanted to upgrade to Grens or Rifles have vanished into thin air.

Okay, we finally were able to trade for Rifling. Had to sell MilSci to HC too, in exchange for Liberalism and some 300-odd Then paid almost all we had for Steel <> Rifling. Was able to upgrade one dude to rifleman. But not really knowing how to handle this tricky position, I moved him next to the border before upgrading him, hoping Monty will suicide a bunch of dudes into him (Combat2 Horses promotion).

I then assume the entire stack will die on the spot if I leave them there, nobody are really capable defenders. Even the anti-horses promoted grenadier is half-dead, and probably won't stand up to e.g. C2 knights with full health. Promote a cannon to collateral and slam it into a few knights he has, then move some more units out of the city to the tile 1N of the hill almost our entire stack died on. And then reluctantly move the surviving lot down from the hill. Most likely they will die anyway, but I can cross my fingers he will stay back to heal, while the half-dead guys have a couple of full health defenders there now, plus that pretty scary-looking rifleman next to them again. Knowing the RNG, he'll die to a random chariot or something.

We did kill a lot of guys in that city, but it kinda feels like we got nowhere. Units are still pouring in, and my reinforcements can't get to the front fast enough, nor in enough numbers. Felt like I had to try something though, and he had most likely started plotting on me anyway. Really thought we had him for a while too

Sorry for the long-winded way to say "I'm screwed" (probably) :|

The tech situation looks like this now. Nice to finally have Rifling and set our sights on Communism, altho this last turn was pretty dire news for our army.

(that was the 10th picture)

Hmmmm. Should I have waited longer? Done something else?

Perhaps everything isn't lost yet, with the entire world at war with him. At some point you'd think Boudica especially will send some units, seeing as she has about 4 million of them! And would think Churchill will start to snipe at his other borders too, with presumably a pack of Cuirs (and access to cannons now).

 

[Pangaea]

Save file if somebody wants to take a look

 

[krikav]

@Pangea

Spoiler :

Yeah, thats Monty... Throwing half dead longbows at you. He loses a million units but doesn't care about tomorrow.
He can take it and rebuild with his deity bonuses and you cannot.
It's tough to dance with those maniacs. The other sane AIs you can count on staying inside their cities most of the time.

He isn't willing to do a ceasefire? Starting a war with blazing their stack in a city is almost always very nice, as it often opens up the possibility for a strategic ceasefire, just in such situations as you find yourself with that wounded stack.
Other tricks of the trade, is to place some bait and hope he goes for that instead. Say, let the musket stay on the hill, and place a wounded samurai 1N of the hill, and retreat with your main stack NE. Sometimes such things work, and they go for the lone wounded unit with their entire stack.


I wouldn't count on Boudica helping out anything. They are so bad at intercontinental warfare.

 

[shakabrade]

@Pangaea

Spoiler :

Have you seen @shakabrade s signature? Everything he learned he learned from reloading.
It's probably impossible to get enough experience for how the AIs attack, how they move their units, where their sod comes from etc etc, without reloading when things fudge up alot.
It's simply hard to build up the numbers of combat encounters you can draw upon intuitively in the future without that tool.

Outside of BOTM, I reload for annoying micro mistakes I made, and if I screw up the timing enough and think that I have stuff to learn by going back, I do.
But I really enjoy calling it a day, congratulating the AI for oursmarting me and moving on too.
If I where in your situation, I would probably reload and get the stack composition and timing better. Some frigattes (or perhaps even a SoTL promoted flank->navigation to keep up with the galleons), and more stack defenders, preferably also a pair of grenadiers promoted against horses.

Don't worry, I feel that the game is slipping away from me too, will update shortly!

I was summoned. Indeed, I reloaded a lot to understand which units work, how does attacking order work, how much can attacking the top defender with the drill unit be beneficial to put at least some damage, how many units is enough, or what if I went for Cuirs instead of Cannons, what if I skipped this tech and went for faster library, figuring out the timings. Of course, I don't need to do it anymore but playing the same map with multiple approaches is very good for your neural network. Since I am very into "big picture", it really helps me to try many stuff and figure out the pattern behind it. That makes my play very intuitive. You will never see me explaining mechanics or xml files, I usually know very little about such stuff. When I saw the impressive games back in the days, I would not really try to copy them but would try to figure out how to get there myself to engage more into learning the stuff. That is also how I learn all stuff I do, a bit learning by doing and then reflecting on stuff to see what I (think I) get and what I don't, followed by researching about the stuff which is there but I had no idea it was there before I actually tried to do it. Now this sounds like some process, but it is really not. Just try one hypothesis and then the next and then make those hypothesis merge and have children and merge again and have very inbred children (ideas). I lost it.