Wang's Killing Fields (IMM Always War)

[Grashopa]

@Grashopa: you said you attacked around 400 BC. What size and units did you have in your stack then, and how many cities settled? I am trying to bridge the gap between your ~1100 BC save and the attack...

From my 1160 I settled the 5th city where the settler is moving to picking up a crap load of hammers. Then ivory in the west and the city I should have settled earlier - pig / corn / fps. Just after settling pig/corn I went to war with 4 elephants and 3 hwachas built from the hammer city, my capital and eastern fish city. Pig corn was settled too late to do much but is a great production site.

I took 2 awesomely whippable cities from China which went *hwachas with chops right off the bat. Then I went west and took out 3 of Alex's cities along the river so I could cripple him and get the cottages built that you see in my 1120 AD screenshot. I left Alex with 5 or 6 cities and hit Germany next. First GG was a W3 super medic the rest were settled. The capital made Elephants everyone else went *hwacha.

I settled a GSpy and stole Metal Casting and monarchy from Germany. They picked up machinery a few turns before dying so infiltrating was probably better.

You can compare my 1160 BC screen to Snaaty's to see interesting differences in the settling. Key is to be able to see where its possible to get your commerce and production. I missed that city in close + cottages for example.

Heres my 1160 BC

Spoiler :

I lost one of my 2 W2 warriors so lost a bit of the choke on the AIs and Qin seemed to be escorting his workers!@ But second city was gold and I skipped oracle techs going straight for elepult. Capital will go *archers/hwachas and I'll see if I can get the northern ivory, but if not I grab the western and then *elephants soon.

EDIT - stonehenge went in 2520 for fail gold which helped the research as well.

1500 AD

Spoiler :

Here is mercantilism tripling the freaking beakers after a lot of micro. Germany is dead and Alexander has 2 cities left.

And here is Forbidden Palace, Versailles, Statue of Liberty, Oxford and communism just in. At the end of the GA I'll have destroyers and be in US,FS,Eman for rush buy purposes.

Look at how mercantilism translates into the huge number of beakers now. And if you save your Great People and managed to capture the MoM imagine how huge that would be. With all this land you can burn great people on GAs and earn more beakers than bulbing them.

 

[Snaaty]

...
everytime you post SS's from your game I just have to smile...in a good way...but what is Offentliche Verwaltung???
...

öffentliche verwaltung = civil service (word by word translation would be public management, but meaning is civil service)

I didn't get the opportunity to play that far on my brother's laptop.

But economy was healthy.10 ish cities 200ad, I believe, courthouses in Greece and China, Germany razed for being too far and potentially dangerous. Took capitals and cottaged riverside cities like Corinth and Sparta. Never had intention to get much bigger. Wanted to tech fast to Steel and raze the other continent which was backward.
Already said I had luck with religions.
Didn't lose many HAs. Less than 10.

Settled all but one general in capital (HE city) to make cr3 cannons and to get 3 beakers from representation. Also had 2 GPros settled and that helped with economy, but didn't get GSpy to be able to steal techs. Thats why I didn't spare anyone. Managed to found Confu. All AIs on other continent with different religions with less city than me according to religion spread screen.

Cities were high food and could run 4 specialists each on average. Beijing was supposed to bulb Astro and maybe even Chemistry. Invasion probably between 1000 and 1100ad maybe even before. That's when my economy would rely on capture money. Razing cities would help with economy and galleons would make war really fast. Must admit I was lucky with everything. I guess it had to compensate once.

Why cannons and not cuirs/cavalry to kill another continent? Because I think you need better economy for intercontinental mounted. Specialist economy is weak to mass whipping.

I think plan would work.

i dont think your plan wont work, what i still doubt is that it would be faster then going elewhachas + economy early on... ...i´m pretty confident to hit the 1000 beakers rate without loosing money around 1200 AD with 30 cities, maybe 2000 beakers at 1500 AD with all settled, so switching to full warfare production from 1200 AD on with drafted rifles/cavalry, cannons and gallons, should be very well possible, crushing the other continent with a HUGE invasion force from various sides... ...getting 4 invasions armies ready in parallel should be doable with the huge ammount of cities and production (and beakers)

so bulbing stuff after 1000 AD like in your approach isnt needed, because it only equals the research of 1,5 turns and getting another GA might even drop it to 1 turn

You can compare my 1160 BC screen to Snaaty's to see interesting differences in the settling. Key is to be able to see where its possible to get your commerce and production. I missed that city in close + cottages for example.

there are differences in what i did compared to what grashopa did in detail in most stages of the game, but the general "line of play / grand strategy" was basically quite similar, meaning getting to elewhachas ASAP, get green land ASAP, get mids for later use, beeline merk (it doesnt really matter in the end if you oracle construction like i did, or if you are able to snatch the free GA from musik like grashopa did, or where exactly you plug down your first cities, as long as they bring in enough commerce)

what makes the techrate explode around 1000 AD are some 30 cities with rep-merk specialists backed by 100s of cottages, so key (at least in my opinion) to dominate this 2 continent aw immortal format is to get as much cities and cottages as possible + mids and merk as soon as possible

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Aww... Another one...
Gotta try it But first I need to change my avatar... How am I gonna deal with all those things to do?

 

[GKey]

Would be interesting to hear Mercantilism vs State Property opinions.

My experience from BiC's map: State Property is a way to go. I had 46 cities and Merc (especially with SoL) would bring in hundreds of beakers, but city maintenance was huge too, and difference in tech rate was insignificant in the end. Production with SP was clearly superior on the other hand. But that may be because I had way more farms then cottages.

 

[Doshin]

I replayed, with much less micro-management but a significantly better understanding of the map and speeds:

Spoiler :

A big improvement, but still not good enough. I went from a HA rush ---> Elewacha, when Alex got Elephants of his own. The HA rush was positively restrained compared to Tachywaxon's, probably too restrained. I'd have been in a better position had I not generated five GSpies, three of which were at ~9% odds.

@shakabrade

I think a combination of a hill beachhead city (with Drill IV, ideally WIII Rifle/MG) + mobile naval fleet would work best. The AI seems to hit MS and/or Rifling by 1500AD, so this would give you 30-40 turns to wreak havoc. Presumably this would be extended if Lincoln and Pacal start to suicide their stacks and lose multiple cities.

But how will you build a sufficiently large navy in good time with 10 cities, most of which will be inland? Upgrade Galleys? Moreover, how many GScientists would you need? Four, maybe five?

It seems like you would place a lot of stress on a v. small number of cities.


@Snaaty

Wait, no Snaatsburg?


@GKey

Mercantilism lets you run corporations, and city maintenance is insignificant before colonial expenses. Mining Inc. offers much better production and is the way to go, I think.

 

[Snaaty]

the ammount of research you are able to generate in this game is crazy, CRAZY I TELL YOU... ...how often did it happen to you that you researched RIFLING in 1 turn at 1380 AD without loosing money???

i´m generating more then 2000 beakers already, steadily rising and without the SOL built (will be ready in a few turns). i´m in a GA right now but havent switched to free speech, so beakers should remain stable even after the GA, and with the SOL ready, i dont know where this will take us

i´ve been accumulating research OV since a few turns without planning it, because most techs i researched were simply cheaper then the research i´m generating per turn, and those that were more expensive werent expensive enought to use up the OV

i libpicked demo, which seems strong on a fist glance (and was the most expensive grab out there), but given the fact it was the only tech that took 2 TURNS to research (rest were all 1 turn due to the beakers ov) it really was to deny lib to the ai and to open up free speech... ...yes, no kidding, didnt happen to me before also, so i was also a bit surprised by that developement.

and all without full focus on research (and basically without any micro at all towards the end, because the sheer number of cities makes every turn already last ages), because i was building up an army of 20 gallons and 20 whachas and 40 mounted units to be transported towards the other continent.

to speed up things i upgraded galleys to gallons and phants+knight to cuirassiers for something like 3000-4000 gold in total... ...which seems a lot, but NO, it´s just 2 turns of 0% research (and still genearting more then 500 beakers)

to the game:

Spoiler :

an inbetween screen to show how fast research was developing after settling everyting
View attachment 339847
you also can see the ralley points of my army. i mainly built spears to replace veteran phants and whachas as MP, later knights (spears simply were the cheapest unit i could build)

no idea if the last few cities really will help towards reseaching faster or anything, but well, at a certain points i simply executed orders given via markers to myself


then, 1380 AD, rifling in 1 turn
View attachment 339848

i timed rifling with the arrival of the army on the other continent, so after taking the first city to upgrade all mounted units to cavalry

and here we will land:
View attachment 339849

we will attack russia from 2 sides. russia is in a war against america and vassal maya. so most likely russia will never reach anything capable of defendig decently agains cavalry.

in parallel, 2 more armies are getting built at home, to be shipped towards the upper side of the enemy continent to further speed up things.

...

only things left to do is getting destroyers + railroads (around 10 turns) and communism for state property once upkeep gets a problem (which is a bit a problem, because i will need scentific method for it and that will end the time of monastries

after that i guess i will put down a beeling towards airships, just because, maybe i get there before the game is over (should be around 20 turns after destroyers, estimating research at 3000 beakers, so some 30-35 turns in total from now on)

edith adds:
@ doshin:
well, no snaatburg, because i was to lazy to rename cities and didnt plan really to post this game here

something else:
after having a short look at your screen, i think you need to plug down your cities closer and need more of them to get research up. this also really helps in the beginning, because you can share food and cottages.

save is attached

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Played to 650 BC... AW is far less stressing when the thread is already 9 pages long...

Spoiler :

Probably more settlers/units would have been better but I couldn't resist temptation:

Spoiler :

Now Shrine is almost guaranteed but an Academy may require a switch into Caste System.

Seoul:

Spoiler :

Pyongyang:

Spoiler :

Dotmap:
3 settlers needed quickly ("c" signs). Dotmapping inland is pretty difficult and I didn't make it easier going 2x for cities with 2 food specials. I suppose I'll leave some open space and tiles unworked:

Spoiler :

1S of gems (taking pigs) just might be a better spot, allowing to settle 1 more coastal city (rice, horses, stone).

Early tech path:
Hunting, Animal Husbandry, Bronze Working, Masonry, Fishing (!), Sailing (!), Agriculture, The Wheel, Meditation, Priesthood.
Early builds in Seoul:
Worker, Warriors, Worker (size 4), Settler (size 4), Stonehenge, Great Wall.

 

[GKey]

@BiC Looks interesting. No chock again?

@Snaaty Impressive as expected. It seem REX and Push gives better results then Turtle till Banking.

I am trying this now, but can not start my attack prior 125 BC. Simply takes too long to reach Construction. May be trap city I settle for Bismark slows me down. Can you post a save around a date of your first attack?

 

[Snaaty]

@BiC Looks interesting. No chock again?

@Snaaty Impressive as expected. It seem REX and Push gives better results then Turtle till Banking.

I am trying this now, but can not start my attack prior 125 BC. Simply takes too long to reach Construction. May be trap city I settle for Bismark slows me down. Can you post a save around a date of your first attack?

just finished playing another turnset, so here yo go:

1000 BC and 1 AD save attached (didnt keep inbetween saves). i oracled construction btw, then went for phil-mono to bulb theo (i built the gw in a helper city to make sure to get a GP). i settled 8 cities before starting the attack, then came "sirwhipalot" attack started around 400 BC, took first city around 300 BC. i then quickly started to build up a second stack and went with first stack for china+germany, with second stack for greece. while warrin research went for currency, then calendar to avoid going broke. settled islands behind china asap once possible

on to my game:

Spoiler :

researched rifling, took a costal city and an island on each side of russia, upgraded my phants, knights an such to cavalry, then moved inland while teching steel to upgrade the whachas:
View attachment 339982

right now somewhat around 50 cavalry are going wild inland and 20 cannons are shipped along the coast to help taking costal cities. around 25 gallons are doing the logistics and some first fregattes have just joined the fun (lost a few gallons to caravells)

i decided against 4 landing armies and established gallon chains instead to increase the 2 inland armies i have and will use only a few cavalry to help taking cities for the costal-cannon-transportation-services i have installed on both sides of the hostile continent (since they wont be able to take cities if left alone)

i read somewhere in this thread that the ai will get rifling somewhere around 1500-1600 AD. looking at the techspeed in my game, i can confirm this. using fregattes to do some blocking missions i might drop this towards the end of the 16centurie, which would give me some 20 turns more to go berserk without any real resistance (should be enough to bring the game home)

 

[DanielTorrence]

the ammount of research you are able to generate in this game is crazy, CRAZY I TELL YOU... ...how often did it happen to you that you researched RIFLING in 1 turn at 1380 AD without loosing money???

well it surely did never happen in my games so far Nice to read some new posts from you here in S&T, Snaaty, I thought just today about your threads that helped my a lot to win my first immortal games. Will go through your post here later this week.

A lot of magic is happening in this AW-game. Crazy BPT, bulling the AIs around althought there are no trading partners - its really fun to follow, even after I lost two or three times here.

Spoiler :

I was unprepared for Bismarks first pityfull stack, consisting only out of chariots and archers, but it was too early and I focused too much on expansion

 

[GKey]

@Snaaty Your tech rate was clearly supperior to mine early game. Math 1120BC...
Was it because I settled first city the one you marked c-later? And why did not you settle it even in 1AD? With borrowed pigs and fish it was quite a good settlers/units spammer.

Also why you settle Pusan with gold out of BFC?

And no whip anger? At all?

 

[Snaaty]

@ danielT:

thanks, i´m wraping up the game right now, but i´m already having some things in mind which would have sped up things even more... ...if i would have gone calendar before currency it wouldnt have made a big difference early on, but i would have gotten the mausoleum for sure (i missed it by 4 turns in my game). and with 4 GA´s i had in my game, this would have been 16 turns of GA more, let´s say on average 600-700 beakers more per turn, comes down to something around 10.000 beakers in the end... ...yumyum, the invasion would have been 5 turns earlier

...

@ GKey:

i´ll have a look at mine and your saves to answer your question, give me a second...


OK, here we go:
Your tech rate was clearly supperior to mine early game. Was it because I settled first city the one you marked c-later?
yes, this city only drags down your research and brings nothing for the first 10 turns. even after that it´s not a good early city, because the fish isn´t costal and it has no rivers for 3C cottages. it´s actually a really bad early city, because it cant even help getting up cottages for the capital and the pigs you want to keep for the capital

And why did not you settle it even in 1AD? With borrowed pigs and fish it was quite a good settlers/units spammer.
See above, it only costs money and drags down research for a quite long time (10 turns for the fish, 10 turns more for each cottage to grow, makes like 30 turns in total for beeing cost-efficient). there are a ton of better spots to settle.
check my 1 AD save, each city i settled had a clear purpose, 2 hammer cities (one of these only after iw was in), 6 commerce cities, all able to work riverside-grassland-cottages

Also why you settle Pusan with gold out of BFC?
Pusan was supposed had 4 jobs:
1. to work an already built floodplain cottage up to it´s borderpop for max. commerce
2. to grow fast and work cottages, so it only needs to have pigs+corn.
3. to get corn online for the gold city via it´s borderpop. without the corn, gold city would be crap for an eternity, first waiting for the borderpop for the crabs, then waiting to grow size 2 to work gold
4. to get pigs online for the gem city. same reason as for gold city. after pigs+corn had grown to happycap, it just had to work cottages and didnt need food any more for some turns, so both food can be given away
-> for the above mentioned jobs, the placement was ideal, it was the perfect helper city to get the cities of gold+gems up and running asap, at least in my opinion.

And no whip anger? At all?
why should i whip away my cottages? with that many forests to chop? i think i didnt whip at all up to the point the first enemy stack showed up. i only switched to slavery to be able to whip if the enemy shows up (2 whachas worked wonders on bismarks stack of 4 archers)

...

after a look at your save:
you´re working 7 cottages at 900 bc, i´m working 11 at 1000 bc and 8 of mine are already grown to hamlets

 

[ben-jammin]

I went back and replayed the opening to the early BCs, going with a totally different approach inspired by Techy etc. First time I was very passive, got good city sites but didn't do nearly enough to choke the AIs. This time I went straight for HBR after animal husbandry, and found that it's entirely possible to prevent all three AIs from getting metal hooked up this way. You can also easily get all or most of your HAs to combatIV, giving them over 90% odds against archers in forests.

I eventually failed to stop Qin from settling on his iron just through lack of attention, and I also neglected to build the GW thinking that I wouldn't need it. But in hindsight I think that a settled GSpy is by far the best GP early as you can steal quite a number of techs even from the choked AI (IW, monarchy, probably metal casting). The expense of keeping 6+ HAs in enemy territory is obviously worth it for a)facing a total of zero metal units (even with hwachas this is ideal, no?) b)considerable pillage gold which must at least come close to covering the expenses and c)the experience for HAs that you will then have excellent odds with against flat-city archers.

My issue now is balancing the choke with wonder building, expansion, and tech pace. In this case is CoL still the best choice with the oracle? Is pyramids really neccessary in this game? With the financial trait and lots of good cottage-able land, it seems that the hammer spent on the mids might be better used for HAs and settlers. Initial cities would be the FP/corn/pigs site to the west, the gold site right beside that, the phants/wheat/horses site for happiness and production, and...? Helper city for cottages in the capital? Gems site further west? It pays for its maintenance as long as you have IW in, and has riverside.

edit: I suppose i overlooked the power of mercantilism with rep...perhaps the choke can be as effective while still grabbing GW/oracle/mids if metal and horses can be blocked initially by chariots, meaning HBR does not need to be beelined (and could perhaps even be stolen).

 

[GKey]

@Snaaty

Well, pros know better
The reason I settled fish city NE was: I want it pull out settlers while Capital is busy with wonders. (Btw I still don't understand how could you get all these wonders and settlers without whip. I whipped at least 2 settlers with 29 overflow into Mids... PreMath chops are so bad ).

Also I would like to know your opinion about my trap city. I could use it as a great cottage / helper spot.
So, I got from Bismark IW, CoL, Sailing, Monarchy and about to get Metal Casting once he finish it in 1 turn (800AD). I even consider to keep him alive if he will tech something useful fast enough after that.

What do you think about whole idea: trap city VS helper city?

 

[Snaaty]

@Snaaty

Btw I still don't understand how could you get all these wonders and settlers without whip. I whipped at least 2 settlers with 29 overflow into Mids... PreMath chops are so bad ).

it was really easy, capital at size 5, working both pigs, gold + 2 riverside-mines get´s a settler every 6 turns without chops (17prod per turn), so for 2 settlers you need 9 turns with an innitial ov of 4 and 3 chops pre math. pre math chops are strong, because early advantages stack, they just need a bit more timing (cottages were worked exclusively by helper cities for quite some time)

 

[GKey]

...
My issue now is balancing the choke with wonder building, expansion, and tech pace.

Balancing here is not easy task indeed. Too bad you did not get GW - it effectively creates for you a war ally, which is awesome in AW format .

In this case is CoL still the best choice with the oracle? Is pyramids really neccessary in this game? With the financial trait and lots of good cottage-able land, it seems that the hammer spent on the mids might be better used for HAs and settlers.

I got CoL from Oracle in my previous attempt, but it seem the way to go here: Phants+Hwachas ASAP, so you'd rather get HBR or even Construction with it.

Well most people went cottage economy here making Mids less powerful, but happy from Representation is really big and helps greatly with cottages too.

 

[ben-jammin]

Balancing here is not easy task indeed. Too bad you did not get GW - it effectively creates for you a war ally, whis is awesome in AW format .


I got CoL from Oracle in my previous attempt, but it seem the way to go here: Phants+Hwachas ASAP, so you'd rather get HBR or even Construction with it.

Well most people went cottage economy here making Mids less powerful, but happy from Representation is really big and helps greatly with cottages too.

To me oracling construction seems like a bit of a gamble. Maybe I will try it. Seems to me that having your religion+potential shrine if you pop a GProphet due to oracle+courthouses available is pretty hard to beat, though. Especially if you are able to use those spy points up. In my much more passive attempt I have to admit that while it was way inferior to a more aggressive approach, the tech stealing was really effective.

 

[Snaaty]

@Snaaty

Also I would like to know your opinion about my trap city. I could use it as a great cottage / helper spot.
So, I got from Bismark IW, CoL, Sailing, Monarchy and about to get Metal Casting once he finish it in 1 turn (800AD). I even consider to keep him alive if he will tech something useful fast enough after that.

What do you think about whole idea: trap city or helper city?

you need some close helper cities around your capital for early research. every advantage you can get early wins over one you get later, i would say.

but since stealing techs is really, really helpful up to the point you reach merk (you are locked a long, long time with research at 0% during the war, later you are struggeling to get it up to 100 beakers somehow), i would plug one down if possible... ...like 9 from upper incens... ...this spot is still close enough to the capital and soooooooo amaizingly bad that you wont even notice a hostile city there

 

[Snaaty]

To me oracling construction seems like a bit of a gamble. Maybe I will try it. Seems to me that having your religion+potential shrine if you pop a GProphet due to oracle+courthouses available is pretty hard to beat, though. Especially if you are able to use those spy points up. In my much more passive attempt I have to admit that while it was way inferior to a more aggressive approach, the tech stealing was really effective.

take hbr from oracle if you want to play save (was my original plan also). it´s only 3 turns longer to research construction assuming research of around 50 beakers/turn then hbr. but when seeing that math was only 7 turns away and oracle would take 2 turns more anyways, i decided to gamble

the religion you should get via theo bulb through a GP (IF you have skipped gw or have put it into a helper city like i did)

 

[ben-jammin]

take hbr from oracle if you want to play save (was my original plan also). it´s only 3 turns longer to research construction assuming research of around 50 beakers/turn then hbr. but when seeing that math was only 7 turns away and oracle would take 2 turns more anyways, i decided to gamble

the religion you should get via theo bulb through a GP (IF you have skipped gw or have put it into a helper city like i did)

Hmmm...obviously you have a better idea than I do. HBR would help out with the AI triple-choke anyway.