Visual Introduction to Nationalist - Assyria

jma22tb

Prince
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Oct 12, 2011
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Hey guys, after seeing the Desert Dutch post I decided to do one of my own, introducing new players and those who would like to see my Nationalist Strategy in a more visual way in action.

Nationalist Assyria

Communitas Map
Terra
High Sea Level
No Time Victory
Standard Size
Standard Speed
Chieftain Difficulty

This game report serves as an introduction to the Nationalist strategy I've outlined in the strategy section while giving newer players an introduction into the CBO without all the craziness of higher difficulties.

Brief Nationalist Introduction

The goal of our strategy is to pursue economic autarky, cultural supremacy, scientific leadership, and military dominance. This pursuit replaces the need for international trade and diplomacy throughout the game. As the game progresses you'll see how this works and how differently this approach manifests than most strategies.

We're smarter, stronger, better looking, and richer. That's what we want everyone to say about us as the game goes on.

Assyria

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They are one of more than thirty different choices available to players in the Nationalist pool and fit within the Authority group as a nation capable of exerting dominant military power immediately. There are also Progress and Tradition groups, each with their own unique playstyle based on unique abilities, units, buildings, and improvements.

What we'll be focusing on with Assyria is to build a group of five cities that will be capable of winning the Wonder race, build a dominant army and navy, and to support three of each culture guilds and as many specialists as possible. The rest of the cities we gain will be puppets that expand our economy, increase tech costs, but not our policy costs.

Let's begin our reign!

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Right away we can do a bit of a happy dance because we're starting off with a mining luxury resource, Lapis Lazuli. It wouldn't matter if it was gold, silver, etc. because mining resources are perfect for us. This does not interfere with our technological priorities at all, fitting right in with what we want to do at the start of an Authority game.

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One of the things I've learned while working on guides for every Nationalist civilization was how utterly useless Scout first is for what we're trying to do. Monument is without a doubt the most important of any building to start off with if you want to compete for Wonders, and Shrine improves our chance of getting the religious beliefs we want when we get it.

Scout First is not a useless strategy though - it's just far more useful for a diplomacy and trade oriented strategy. It doesn't really make any difference to us this early on where city-states and every other neighbor are because as Nationalists our foreign policy is very different than those who have diplomacy and trade as a priority:

We make trade deals we benefit from or conquer. Friendships are ruses that we will betray once we are ready to conquer them.

Our warrior unit can uncover enough about our region to know where Lapis Lazuli deposits are, as well as a port city site that we can establish as our military-industrial center.

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This is how we'll start off for technology. Pottery and Bronze Working will let us mine the Lapis Lazuli, find Iron, upgrade our Warriors to Spearmen, and be able to build Stonehenge and Statue of Zeus.

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Well that didn't take long at all. By following the river, we found the coastline at the exact minimum distance from Assur to establish a port city on a Lapis Lazuli tile, which is a stronger production city. Looking good already.

The goal with this "exploration" is to learn more about the region, but no further than necessary.

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We've found some homicidal thugs! How delightful. We have plans for them, but taking them on isn't the priority yet. Once we have Spearmen we'll introduce them to the spear and shield. As Sun Tzu said - the defeated warrior goes to war seeking to win. One Warrior unit isn't enough to take a camp down, so we'll make note of them and move on, gaining more information about the region around Assur.

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We got one of those wonderful Production ruins that let us finish our Shrine earlier than expected, so we're going to get that second Warrior ready for battle. Things are looking great right away for us.

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The lesser nations we've met so far are France, Indonesia, and the Maya. I'll talk a bit about each and what threats they pose.

France - The French have incentive to conquer, but have neither an early unique unit or terrain advantage. If they are close to us, we can easily crush them like bugs.

Maya - Their Atlatlist is a nasty fight, gaining 50% more damage against wounded units so if we get them as a neighbor that will be an interesting war.

Indonesia - They get Kris Swordsmen at Iron Working, which are comparable to the Roman Legion unit, so they will also be an interesting enemy to fight as well.

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We have two warriors now so we can hold off on learning more about the region to take advantage of the camp up north. We're building Stonehenge now, which is of vital importance to our religious ambitions.

Stonehenge is something I consider to be mandatory in a Nationalist start. Every Wonder other nations constructs helps build a snowball for them. Stonehenge in particular is a huge boost for faith per turn, so we don't want someone like the Maya to have that in combination with the Great Prophet they can get from their unique ability. Nationalist is complex like that - we want to build Wonders, but we aren't going to just coop ourselves up and play Tall all game. We're aggressive but we're not going to ignore culture or science.

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Our first battle! So I meticulously chose the location for these warriors so that they do not have to cross river tiles to attack. This lets us do the most damage possible.

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Which works out well because the camp is almost dismantled already.

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For every Authority playthrough I always start on the left side of the policy with Tribute and Imperium. The reason is that I want a second city ASAP, and the settler we get from Imperium allows us to build Statue of Zeus without sacrificing a second city. For Progress and Tradition I go with Pyramids so that the same effect is achieved as taking Imperium in Authority.

Something important to note about Tribute is that if we can bully city states we will gain additional culture. This is a great boost and gives us a reason to keep city-states alive. Every time we exact tribute from them they'll "help" us gain more policies.

I imagine the threats levied and the reactions by the city-state leaders are what makes for interesting stories to write. Brown-colored pants, stuttering drunk farmers afraid of the great warriors, etc.

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Promotions were changed quite a bit in the latest beta, so I'll talk about how I handle Infantry.The priority I use is Shock I, Cover, Formation I, and Formation II. This gives us the best overall defensive capability of any sequence, the best ability to engage mounted units, and incentive to fight as a wall between your artillery. Our infantry should be the toughest SOBs in the world and terrifying to engage for horsemen.

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Indonesia is getting cute already it seems. We'll have to fix that won't we? In due time of course. For now we'll heal up and get ready for the next total victory.

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Having built Stonehenge it's time to choose our Pantheon. The goal with Pantheons for a Nationalist is to do whatever you can to gain more culture per turn. We want every Wonder we can get so that Aesthetics can enhance our Tourism, while denying our opponents such great works of architecture.

We are a supreme people right?

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We have a significant amount of forest that we don't need to chop down for resources near us, so Goddess of Renewal makes the most sense for us. It's easy, efficient, and enhances the Herbalist building.

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We'll produce a Granary and buy a Worker so that we can get more people in Assur and improve our Lapis Lazuli for more production

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And we'll go for Calendar and Military Theory so that we can build that enhanced Herbalist, Barracks, and unlock Temple of Artemis.

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War of opportunity! The French warrior still trespassing on our region is still around and with two warriors for his one, we like our chances.

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Funny though, the Warrior is pretty good at manipulating terrain to help his escape.

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You might be wondering "why aren't you making a Scout?" We don't have Fishing or any incentive to continue exploring right now. It adds to maintenance and doesn't improve our ability to work tiles at all. Farming, however, is a good way to save GPT and improve our economy while we wait for Imperium to be available.

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And the fool finally slips up. A suicidal attack, now the French warrior is cornered. There was probably nowhere left to run, but at least they finally mustered some courage. Go down fighting.

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Yay! New idiots to introduce to the business side of our weapons! We'll heal up before going to "talk" to them.

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I had originally planned for settling by Lapis Lazuli near Assur, but this is a much better city due to the Great Barrier Reef, Iron, two Lapis Lazuli, and Wheat in the city radius with some trees to spare. Quite the spectacular city to be sure. Who wouldn't want to live there?! The scenery will also make Nineveh an excellent propaganda tool to inspire Assyrians to enlist for our military too.

The purpose of Nineveh is to become the military industrial hub of our empire. We're starting off with Monument, Shine, but following up with Barracks and getting our troops ready for dominance.

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Having humbled the tallest ruler in European history, I make a gentlemen's agreement with a man that lost a unit of troops.

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How adorable. The Maya think they're going to tell me what to do. My response is always the second one at this point in the game, but if I do not intend to settle any further I'll promise them so that I can go through the motions of pretending to care about their existence and getting some brownie points.

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Indonesia proves themselves useful. After mining my second Lapis Lazuli site, they have offered their entire GPT in exchange for it. I approve and accept their tribute.

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Indonesia has decided in their infinite wisdom to forward settle me. As a Nationalist do not worry when you see this happen - laugh. Especially if it's Indonesia basically throwing unique resources at you.

You'll notice that the camp I was excited about going after was not gone after. I decided to wait until I had spearmen before going for it, and now that Medan has popped up on my doorstep I have changed course to getting our war party started early.

More in the second post!
 
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Now that we've built Statue of Zeus, Indonesia should start to get afraid. Very afraid. Assyria's Siege Tower in combination with this melts city defense like a hot knife through butter. It's a total of 55% additional damage to cities for units near a Siege Tower within a tile of a city. Not including promotions.

You'll see when Medan crumbles the power of Assyria and Statue of Zeus. We'll make an Herbalist in Assur to take advantage of our Pantheon's bonus while we wait for Temple of Artemis to become available.

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Now that we have Dominance we'll go for Temple of Artemis, while continuing to prepare Nineveh for its role as our military-industrial hub.

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We also purchase a Horse tile so we can get more production from Nineveh while the city naturally expands to the second Barrier Reef tile.

Do not be concerned about how few cities we have if you are. Settler spam, as Indonesia is about to become intimately familiar with, is very dangerous, especially near a ravenous beast of a nation like us. Not only are they going to have a harder time keeping their people happy than we are, but they will be facing an army that all that extra economic output won't stop.

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Now we're going to improve our economy with Markets and Forges so that Nineveh can crank out units to garrison our cities and prepare to acquire Medan.

We'll garrison Assur and Nineveh with Archers to reduce crime and round out our infantry with another unit and a Siege Tower. Once Iron Working is done we'll go for Mathematis, train Catapults, and the whole of Indonesia will tremble at our approach.

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Having some surplus gold, we purchase the coast and Iron so that nobody gets any bright ideas while also buying the second Lapis Lazuli for more production. Nineveh is going to be a dominant military city, having a stable, iron-enhanced forge, and the Great Barrier Reef, which provides a significant number of yields.

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With Fishing we can go get that Iron, Mathematics for Catapults, Sailing for navy, and Philosophy for Courthouses, we are prepared to conquer Indonesia entire. That's the goal now.

They've taken Progress until this point, which could make them a bit of a challenge if they have Iron with Kris Swordsmen, but with patience and concentrated catapult fire, nothing is going to stop us.

We'll take Medan and march west until all of their cities fall.

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Our third Wonder, Temple of Artemis is complete! Between this and Mausoleum of Halicarnassus this is a no-brainer for Nationalist, gaining more population, a free granary, and more production for ranged units. Mausoleum requires "We Love the King
Day" to be optimal, which means using Great Merchants for Trade Missions to trigger that in all cities. Since we're going Aesthetics, we want Towns instead so that Wonder is not as good for us.

We'll follow that up with Market, Barracks, and Walls in Assur to increase happiness and our economic output.

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Our first Great Engineer! We're going to hold on to this studmuffin until Great Library is available so that we can get our fourth Wonder without having to spend any turns producing it. It does add a maintenance hit, but it's totally worth it. We'll also improve our Iron resource so that we can get even more production in Nineveh.

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Great Prophet! As expected we have the first religion, so we have first dibs on beliefs! This is why it was such a good idea to get Stonehenge. We wouldn't be in this position if someone else got it. Our religion will be primarily economic in scope, going for Holy Law and Cathedrals, with the next beliefs being Thrift and Tithes. Holy Law gives us Faith, Science, and Gold when we gain a new policy, scaling with era, while Cathedrals give us 3 gold per city, increased pressure and resistance, while boosting farms.

Cathedrals are a good forest chopping choice, but do not have to have that to be useful. 3 gold and faith per city with 1 art slot each is fantastic regardless of how we use tiles.

We'll build a cathedral in Assur, then spread Zoroastrianism to Nineveh and Medan once they bow at our feet.

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Now that we have Mathematics we've added some things to our shopping list. Indonesia is in very serious trouble folks.

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And it looks like the Maya have lemming syndrome too. Settling that close to us was insanely stupid. Now we're going to add some naval ships to Nineveh and show the Maya how idiotic that was. We added Market to the list for Nineveh though because GPT has halted so we need to get that fixed so we don't go bankrupt fighting this war.

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Having sufficiently improved Nineveh and Assur, we'll build a road connecting them so we can get the trade connection, while speeding up how quickly our units arrive to the soon to be Medan front.

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Cha-ching! Great Library is ours and begins Assur's command of Great Works wonders. While we cannot build Parthenon, unfortunately, we can get all the others, which will be important throughout the game. Assur is going to be a magnificent city.

We used the free Technology for Masonry so we can get a bit more culture and production from Arenas

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The second tier Classical techs are all very strong, so we'll get them before getting Theology. It's getting very close to that time folks. The Catapults are almost done and the cavalry and navy are on their way after that.

This whole "two cities turtling" thing is about go from 0-100 really, really quick.

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Medan might have Walls and a garrison... but it's nowhere near enough. This is the before picture.

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This is one turn folks. One turn. Sieges usually take some time. Medan's will be anything but attrition. This is Classical Era Blitzkrieg, courtesy of the Siege Tower. Take note of how that Archer unit has almost been globaled already.

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Four turns later, Medan has been completely subjugated and two units of Indonesia fall before they can even set up a defensive position. The power of the Siege Tower compels you! The power of the Siege Tower compels you!

This is the power of Assyria folks. Cities just melt. And it stays this way throughout the entire Classical and Medieval era until Gunpowder. If you have combined arms like this... you will not lose wars by anything the enemy is doing. You'll only lose them from
bad decisions.

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It isn't enough just to conquer territory either - you have to have a plan for what comes next. By having Philosophy already finished, we can build a courthouse right away at a reduced cost due to the annexation. We'll focus on immediate culture, faith, and reducing crime right off the bat.

Welcome to the Assyrian Empire Medan. Songs will be sung of this glorious day.

More in the next post!
 
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We drop some gold to upgrade our archers to composite bowmen in our cities while working on getting more workers and a garrison for Medan. We want to keep marching and for Medan to be safe while it rebuilds.

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At the doorstep of Jakarta, this is time to be very careful and patient. We have range, but we need to keep our infantry forming an inpenetrable wall while the catapults rain boulders on their heads. These "warriors" they have to challenge us are going to be slaughtered.

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As if on queue. Lhasa's incompetence and weakness has invited a horde of savages to bother us while we liberate Indonesia from its incompetent politicians. This is why we do not lower ourselves to participate in diplomacy with invalids. You can't negotiate with people who can't even secure their own borders. Thankfully we have cavalry and navy being produced in Nineveh to deal with this problem.

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While the north side of our infantry line took a beating, the firepower of our catapults takes even the elite Kris Swordsmen from a full regiment to a few survivors gasping for hope. This is why we waited until we had all six units. Indonesia is sending plenty of men at us, but it isn't enough. Infantry alone cannot defeat Infantry and Artillery in formation.

Even if this was a player, there is no escaping this outcome. The damage those units are capable of is simply too high, and their placement makes it impossible to break through or go around the enemy lines without losing movement to zone of control.

This is why tactics are so important to know - if I was in a sloppy formation, that Kris Swordsman could have killed one of my catapults, maybe even fractured my lines. Discipline rendered even that unit's superior strength meaningless.

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Their losses are catastrophic while ours are nonexistent. This is why you bring artillery folks. Attrition? What attrition?

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Having our entire force at full strength we advance, and the Indonesians now have one Kris Swordsman unit in a desperate, incomplete fort waiting for inevitable doom. They met it swiftly.

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Meanwhile on the Lhasa cleanup mission, our Horsemen are preparing to shred the savages using combined flanking strikes to overwhelm them. We also have a Great General now, which we will use in the front lines as an even greater boost to our forces as we introduce the Indonesian people to Assyrian Imperial society.

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We have hit Honor and completed Authority! Now we've got Terracotta Army and Angkor Wat on the way to cash in greatly for land expansion, start a Golden Age, and expand our military even more! We're kind of a big deal.

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Remember Chichen Itza? Yeah we're going to attack them too. With enough infantry to hold those two forest tiles indefinitely and multiple Dromon to pummel the city, the Maya are going to lose this city. We won't advance any further than that though, because we'd need more than just Dromon and Spearmen.

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Yeah, about that whole city defense thing. This is after two turns. Chichen Itza falling that fast is pretty sad, Palenque. You guys really stepped up on civil defense. I'm sure your people are soooo happy they can vote for idiots who don't even secure new cities. They started off with Progress for context.

The way we'll approach the Medieval era is to get Notre Dame and Globe Theatre in Assur, while improving our military and our religion through Cathedral of St. Basil. This is almost always how I handle a nation that wants to take Aesthetics, because Hotel and other buildings like it will gain more from Great Works all being in one place.

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As if the Maya weren't already terrified. Now we've got a full invasion force to hit them with in combination with what we're already doing to Indonesia.

Speaking of which...

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It's last stand time. They've literally got nothing left to defend themselves with and I lost none of my troops.

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Well, now I have. One unit lost versus at least eight of theirs. Honestly, I thought Indonesia would put up more of a fight, but then again they overextended and tried to forward settle one of the nastiest conqueror nations in the game instead of building more units.

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Guess who's next? The Maya are in serious trouble now. While they do have Atlatlist, they do not have these kinds of numbers or naval power. Combined arms folks. If you control the sea, dominate with artillery, cavalry, and infantry you will be unstoppable.

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Very important screen here. We already have five directly ruled cities with Assur, Nineveh, Chichen Itza, Jakarta, and Medan, so every additional city we get from here will be made puppets so that our policy costs are frozen where they are currently. Surabaya, the holy city of Hinduism, and every city we conquer from here are treated as such.

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While these incompetents are annoying, their desire for an "alliance" is tolerable for now.

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Tikal and their Atlatlist unit is well on its way to defeat, but those things hurt. I lost a Dromon and Catapult to them, but they're far from at an advantage.

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I think we've started off pretty well. I'm not sure though. Oh wait. This is an empire that stretches thousands of miles to the west and east. We've consumed an entire civilization, and are on our way to consume a second.

Nationalist Assyria man...

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Before we can effectively siege Palenque we have recall our Indonesian invasion force from Surabaya to rendezvous here. Once they do we can be certain that we'll have the strength we need to punch holes into Palenque's defenses to take it down. Otherwise, Palenque can just pummel our forces from behind their walls and palace.

We are sending a Dromon around this landmass to see if we can send the navy too.

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Yeah that whole thing about needing money just stopped being a problem.

Authority gaining gold and food per cultural city tile expansion and Angkor Wat is incredibly strong. The cash register will be going crazy, letting us invest into buildings, more workers, and the like.

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Now that we know we can go around with our navy, we're sending our Dromon to pummel Palenque once we send the main force in. As fast as Jakarta went down Palenque might be faster because Dromon, Catapults, infantry and cavalry are going to be hitting them.

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That's an oxymoron of a name right there. The guy barely has a military and declares war on us. That's like Skinny Jim in Accounting taking on a Navy SEAL.

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"I wish you fortune in the wars to come."

"And now it begins."

"No. Now it ends."

Bonus if you get that reference.

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On their knees the Mayans fall, as the Indonesians did before them. Their people have been liberated from politicians and fools, now part of an empire that knows no weakness.

And now our empire is complete. For now.

Assyria now stretches across an entire continent and has gobbled up the Mayan Peninsula. We've crushed two entire nations under our foot.

We are the unquestioned rulers of our region. Assur is the center of the known world.

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Easily one of the most important Wonders you can get. Reformations without having to missionary / trade route spread is definitely the Nationalist way of doing it. Why make it a farcical global affair when you can build a gorgeous cathedral that everyone wants to see?

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Having conquered so much territory and defeating two entire nations, we are not as concerned about waging war with this Reformation. With Tradition or Progress optimal choices that haven't successfully carved their name into the world like this, I'd go for Crusader Spirit, but I've chosen Jesuit Education instead. Throughout the game, we'll have every city up to date with state of the art scientific apparatus without having to produce them, giving us an advantage that will keep us at the forefront of scientific affairs.

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Bleh here we go again with these idiot city-states. At least we get some practice with our pikemen. Every time these happen, I imagine that it's the city-state's royal guard attempting to make a coup d'etat. All because their leaders are spineless and corrupt and they resent them. Problem being the royal guard are as dumb as their leaders are corrupt :mischief:

Oh and btw folks the current bug for trade routes isn't why that number is zero. I literally did not make a single trade route the entire time.

That's the power of Cathedrals, a smart build order, and Authority's maintenance discount. I won't need to make a foreign trade route all game. I can send production to Nineveh for hammers, or food to all my five core cities. I can do whatever I want :cool:

That's all I've got today. I hope you enjoy seeing this unfold and are perhaps more intrigued about how to play this way.
 
Great write-up. Entertaining to read. Thanks for the tips on how to play this Nationalist strategy.
 
We're back!

So we've conquered pretty much the entire known world, but logging in to this game the thing that sticks out right away is that I'm at 1 happiness and only 24 GPT. Not bad, but not the kind of situation I expect.

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Part of me wants to simply play defense against the foolish French "Empire" until he begs for a peace treaty, but the threat with France becomes greater with time. Musketeers are no laughing matter, and neither are Chateaus. While the French are comical now, I need to conquer them while they are still comical, starting with Tours and Lyon.

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This is long overdue. What I'll be doing is sending these trade routes as food from Assur to Chichen Itza, Medan, Jakarta, and Nineveh so that they can support every great people slot they need. Food is vital for them, especially the first three so that they can support all three culture guilds, merchants, scientists, even engineers. We've also got three workers queued up because this massive amount of land needs to be improved. Thankfully, we've got the Pyramids in Palenque to assist with that, adding 25% construction rate to our labor force.

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We're going to redeploy our forces to France now. Our victory over the Maya complete, there's nothing to keep us here with the "war" going on.

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Interestingly, the newly discovered Iroquois have been busy against the French. I was wondering why they had such a low score, and this is why - they're fighting and losing against the Iroquois.

This isn't a surprise - the Iroquois have a terrain advantage in the forest and jungle. The region they've started at is pretty heavily wooded so Mohawk Warriors had to have been difficult for the French to deal with, even with Authority.

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Although I have no idea why they even declared the war in the first place, they want peace already. Maybe the Mayans were desperate and bribed them to.

This is actually okay for now. My happiness is not where I want it to be and I have to redeploy forces anyway, so once they're in position and the peace treaty expires I'll march onto their cities.

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How unfortunate. It looks like the royal guard have destroyed their own city and rule its smoking leftovers. Out of pity for the Kongan people we may have to... "liberate" them to bring peace and order to their city.

I think you understand my meaning.

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Unsurprisingly, Lhasa has already forgotten that we saved them from certain conquest. This "alliance" was never anything more than lip service on their end. Their words are meaningless. But so long as they exist they can be useful for us.

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While training troops is optimal in Nineveh, we might as well assist our forces in Kongo with some heavy firepower. Speed up the "liberation."

We've also added a Temple to the queue for every city so that we can start to choke off the influence of Hinduism and Catholicism. We conquered two Holy Cities and need religious pressure to be higher so that they become marginalized.

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We might as well lift some of that fog too. Nothing global, given the Dromon's limitations, but now that we're in total control of this northern region we might as well satisfy our curiosity.

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We've met the Zulu, who are in a pretty bad situation from how it appears. They're down to one city in the 1200s.

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How delightful, another Sycophant State. At least they're far enough away to not have to babysit them.

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By taking National Treasure to get a Great Engineer we can instantly build a new Wonder for Assur! Well, almost instantly. Moving right along aren't we?

As a side note, I imagine taking Aesthetics as a policy to be this elaborate political tempest in the capital, holding off the internationally ambitious and the clergy from gaining political power. In exchange, the leader of the time decides to support the arts, theatre, etc. which is universally criticized among the elite but is so popular that it doesn't matter.

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We build an Academy outside Assur. This is how I want to spend Great People with Aesthetics - more yields, more culture from GP improvements. If I took Piety the situation would be different. I would probably bulb instead because GP improvements are not given any incentive with that.

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The legendary Assyrian Imperial Army is ready for conquest. With 2 turns remaining they're just on time.

Prepare yourselves, France. Your "empire" is about to meet a real one in war.

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Notre Dame in Assur. This is a theme of our mid and late game - grab every Wonder that provides Great Works so that we can make Assur a Tourism superpower.

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This is the price of incompetence. The rule I have for city-states in Nationalist is to puppet any city-state that succumbs to an uprising.

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Having "liberated" Kongo, we'll move on to sacking Tours. It will not take much to do that, with our Trireme and Dromon along with our Pikemen.

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The time has come France. Your insolence was not forgotten. Now you will join us.

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"Empire" indeed.

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Both cities of Tours and Lyon have fallen, now for the rest.

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I was beginning to be concerned that no other nation had any command of their affairs. Persia, as expected, is one of the strongest "rivals" we have.

It's not a surprise. Persia's Immortals, unique ability, and golden age power is quite strong. They are one of the best nations overall.

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Have I mentioned how much I love the new UI for deals? The goal now is to get each of your deals as close to zero as possible. It saves you having to increase the gold to some ridiculous number, reducing it, offering it, etc. until they accept.

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You may have been wondering why I was letting gold stack up. It was to save up for upgrading my civil defense garrison forces to Crossbowmen. When you have nine of them you need 1440 gold to purchase that. One of the downsides to ruling the known world right?

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Having reached the Renaissance Era, we now have a spy, which will immediately be placed into Assur for counter-espionage. All the lesser nations of the world envy us and are awed by our knowledge. We will not make it easy for them to gain it.

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Tyre might as well give us some additional culture if they're going to block our invasion's progress.

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Yeah, Troyes has fallen too. Unfortunately the rapid acquisition of three cities in resistance has made unhappiness a bit of a problem.

We'd rather deal with that now than have to deal with worse problems later with Chateaus and Musketeers.

More in the next post!
 
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And we've met Byzantium now, the final nation in our map, having conquered two others and working on our third xD.

Byzantine Cataphracts would have made for a very interesting early war. Perhaps we may have suffered some losses if they began near us instead of Indonesia.

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Yet another reason we do not participate in charity for weak city-states. The French Empire's weakness motivated them to build a road through Tyre instead of conquering them. Now that road is being used by their nemesis to bring them into the fold.

And what is Tyre doing while we march? Paying tribute and watching us.

We must be cautious though. Paris will not fall easily and there are enough forces to give us problems if we do not maintain discipline.

Spoiler :


Our cartographic intitiative has been fruitful. This entire landmass is ripe for the taking. Something to consider for later on when we get Order.

Spoiler :


We lost a pikemen to focus fire, but we are locked in and ready to smash Paris, with Dromon coming to reinforce as well. The Siege of Paris begins!

Spoiler :


We build Royal Library in Nineveh and not Assur because Royal Library has greater utility as a military wonder than a typical School of Philosophy. It grants XP per Great Work stored, so we want that bad boy in Nineveh.

Spoiler :


Well that was slightly anti-climactic. It didn't take very long for us to get Paris and they have nothing to take the city back with.

Spoiler :


Unlike the French, I do not like sharing land with city-states that can betray me at any time interfering with my continuous road network. Byzantium may be upset, but Lions do not care for opinions of the Sheep!

Spoiler :


I think it's safe to say we should stop expanding at this point. The French Empire and the city of Tyre have all been brought to the fold.

This is Roman / Mongolian Empire level dominance. We've done something incredible so let's brag even more.

Spoiler :


2 million square kilometers.The world's leading population, agriculture, industry, scientific output, culture output, policies, gross national product, tourism, total faith gain, and the world's leader for Wonders.

Too bad our people are rioting though.

It will take some time to reign all of this in.

Spoiler :


We want to improve our military with cannons and tercio build Sistine Chapel and Uffizi, while improving our GPT. Assur's majesty continues to be a priority and our army will be strong enough to handle any opportunism from Byzantium, should they seek revenge for Tyre.

Spoiler :


As host of the world congress, we would like to propose... wow.

So conquering two holy cities has its effects. We've basically divided the world into Zoroastrian and Orthodox domains. I doubt we'll be able to pass it, but we'll propose a World Religion so that we may possibly gain a massive tourism boost from Assur, as well as more votes.

Spoiler :


It seems we are not the only great Empire in the world. Persia's conquest of Iroquois immediately makes them a challenger to us. It's not an easy task either - Iroquois are absolutely ferocious in the trees, so Persia definitely earned that victory.

Spoiler :


Just a reminder of how we're using our cities. Because of the food trade routes we are capable of having this many specialists, but even then we have to keep the food coming in, hence the two food buildings.

Spoiler :


This is a big "HELL NO" of a deal. With the unhappiness we have the last thing we need is to give Byzantium's Orthodox priests a free pass to proselytize and destabilize my holdings.

Spoiler :


I found your last city France!

Since I like having a continuous empire rather than a fragmented one I might raze this city since its so far removed from the rest of mine.

Spoiler :


I was considering making them a vassal, but protecting vassals is obnoxious. It's like having a city-state alliance. So instead I'm robbing them blind and forcing them to give me an export instead. Whether Byzantium conquers them or not is no concern to me.

Spoiler :


We'll send this conscripted Caravel out to explore the world, taking the Sentry promotion so they see more of it.

Spoiler :


Now that we're at peace for a while we want to assess the global state of affairs.

Persia - Their conquest of the Iroquois have made them powerful enough to warrant our attention as rivals. They have built the Great Wall and Great Lighthouse, so they will be a very dangerous opponent in war. Their navy will be faster, their lands harder to tread. They could conquer many of the other nations around them.

Byzantium - Their obnoxious Orthodox Church is spreading its influence quickly throughout the southern nations and filling their coffers due to Thrift and God of Commerce. They are not as powerful as Persia, but a strong economy can build powerful armies and a global religion can build diplomatic power. They could be trouble.

Zulu - Confined to a single city, the Zulu are barely more than a city-state.

Iroquois - The same goes for the Iroquois after the Persians took Onandaga.

France - Also applies to the French after our war against them.

Spoiler :


I can't even zoom out enough to see my whole empire lol. Pretty insane stuff right?

That's all I've got today. I hope you're enjoying Assyria redraw the world map!
 
Have promotions changed recentally? I'm using the 5/14 beta version, but I can't pick formation after cover.
 
They have actually. This guide was made for a previous beta, and now there's a different promotion unlock order.
 
Shock I, Shock II, Cover, Medic for Infantry. I barely ever have infantry alone, so having a disciplined line that is very dangerous to try to break though is vital.
 
Hi ! I'm new to CBP and reading this guide was both instructive and entertaining. Thanks a lot !

A little question : Assyria is a textbook example for this strategy as it's very strong early on. Now, what would you do with a nation that has an incentive to conquer, but no strong point early on ? I've France in mind, for example. Would you still start with authority, build a large army and take over your neighbors ? Or follow a more peaceful way initially, until you're ready to fight ?

EDIT : by the way, were you playing on higher difficulties, how would you adjust ? I suppose for a start you would be forced to be less wonder-gluttonous and only take those you really want (Zeus for example).
 
Welcome!

Yep, there are Nationalist choices that are more delayed in when they go on a conquering spree, France actually being a perfect example of that. They'll want Tradition, Aesthetics, Imperialism and to time their conquest around gaining the Musketeer. Their religion will need more science at parts, like Scholarship and Jesuit Education, due to the lack of Progress or Rationalism.

I don't recommend being completely passive with them until that point though - if you have a combined arms force and you use it well, you can win wars even against a tougher opponent.

The higher the difficulty goes, the more important war becomes relative to the other victories due to the enhanced golden ages and era progression bonuses the AI gets. I honestly only recommend optimal Authority choices for something like, say, Deity, because a Scientific or Cultural Victory isn't going to happen efficiently when the others have an inherent advantage against you in domestic matters.
 
I feel like this strat doesn't really work at higher difficulties. you very rarely get to plant 5 cities unless you are VERY isolated in inmortal or above. Also early game wonders are very hard to get
 
I'd love to see more of this, because I have no idea how to handle mid-late game, though I can own early game pretty hard.
 
Yea higher difficulties is more of a combat oriented situation rather than Wonders. I don't really play those difficulties often because it takes out so many choices that you'd be able to do on lower difficulties.
 
Thanks for the answer !

As it has been pointed above, though, the weakness of the guide is the choice of Warlord for a difficulty. I'm in my first CBP game, I picked King, and although I was quite backward for a while, not knowing what I was doing and discovering the mechanics, now I'm catching up (I started to catch up by the late Renaissance, I entered the Modern Era first and am decently ranked in everything but military) and I've a shot a winning. So, if I can pull this out on King after what I considered to be a failed and experimental early-mid game, I imagine any strategy would work well on Warlord (much like in Vanilla, you can't really fail on the lower settings).

Therefore, Warlord may not be the best setting to learn the gist of a strategy, since it allows you too much leeway ; for example, you can build wonders that are not essential to the success of the strategy, just because you can build them (which is a bad habit, at least in Vanilla), and delay the most important beelines.

You have a point, though, regarding Deity. If CBP is even remotely akin to Vanilla, higher difficulties must be a strange world where strategic diversity is substantially lower than on more forgiving settings, because of the need for sheer efficiency. Immortal and Deity are probably not the best places to teach and practice a strategy, either, with too much luck involved.

So, were you to publish any other guide, I think you should do it on some higher difficulty than Warlord, though not the highest ones. King or Emperor, maybe ?

But don't get me wrong, you guide isn't bad, not at all :)
 
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