jma22tb
Prince
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
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Which works out well because the camp is almost dismantled already.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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
And we'll go for Calendar and Military Theory so that we can build that enhanced Herbalist, Barracks, and unlock Temple of Artemis.
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.
Funny though, the Warrior is pretty good at manipulating terrain to help his escape.
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.
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.
Yay! New idiots to introduce to the business side of our weapons! We'll heal up before going to "talk" to them.
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.
Having humbled the tallest ruler in European history, I make a gentlemen's agreement with a man that lost a unit of troops.
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.
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.
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!
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
Spoiler :
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!
Spoiler :
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.
Spoiler :
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.
Spoiler :
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.
Spoiler :
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.
Spoiler :
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.
Spoiler :
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.
Spoiler :
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.
Spoiler :
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.
Spoiler :
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.
Spoiler :
Which works out well because the camp is almost dismantled already.
Spoiler :
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.
Spoiler :
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.
Spoiler :
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.
Spoiler :
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?
Spoiler :
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.
Spoiler :
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
Spoiler :
And we'll go for Calendar and Military Theory so that we can build that enhanced Herbalist, Barracks, and unlock Temple of Artemis.
Spoiler :
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.
Spoiler :
Funny though, the Warrior is pretty good at manipulating terrain to help his escape.
Spoiler :
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.
Spoiler :
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.
Spoiler :
Yay! New idiots to introduce to the business side of our weapons! We'll heal up before going to "talk" to them.
Spoiler :
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.
Spoiler :
Having humbled the tallest ruler in European history, I make a gentlemen's agreement with a man that lost a unit of troops.
Spoiler :
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.
Spoiler :
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.
Spoiler :
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!