Washington (IC) Immortal Cookbook

Wow Fierabras :( Thats really bad luck. They all were peaceful before declaring, including Gilg and Monty?

I was playing the good diplomat and, amongst other things, was on +4 for HR with 4 opponents due to early Monarchy. I just made one mistake to not accept one of those typical high demands from Pacal.
 
OK. Here is mine 400 AD.
Spoiler :

Chariots vs Vultures action.
Spoiler :

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Gilg down to 2 cities on mainland

Spoiler :

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Tech - slow thx to war.
Was first to Music - GA from GA.
Founded Tao, bulbed.
Converted to Hinduism to avoid WFYBTA with advanced guys.
Education in 7, partially bulbed.
Another GS asleep in capital. Did not make Academy due luck of strong science city. Did not decide yet if go for Cuirassiers or try bulb PP, research Gunpowder, bulb Chem and Lib - Steel. Will depend on AI's research speed.

Spoiler :

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Overall not sure if war was really necessary, going to shadow my first save and check if peace till Renaissance is better on this map.

 

Attachments

I played the round.

I have to admit replaying first 20 turns from 1500BC. So I accept if I am striked out of this round (I think it will not be problem since the save is not great), I really wanted to play it through to see if i survive.

Spoiler :


Good news...I survived! Well this is ending good news...
I got the furs spot on Aztec land, but on our own landmass have only 6 cities... 7 cities overall, low trade potential (no resources altogether). Army nonexisting.
I actually didnt connect that Iron! I completely forgot about it...

Well at least the beakers are so-so (around 200bpt).
I cottaged almost whole land, leaving 1 prod. city and 1 Gp farm (didnt build NE though...)

Oh I should maybe say something nice about the save since no one will.
I like the size of cities. They are somewhat big (2 cities 15+14, 2 11).
There are cottages all around that can still grow so the eco didnt peak yet!

Scouting is poor since on water my galleys (i actually build at least 5!) got eaten :-(. Forget to scout on land with some chariot...

Tech situation is not good, since i have paper on AIs and they still have some techs on me.

Well that's it. I am happy i survived to 400AD. But am discontent with my laziness... too much automatization (workers, cities etc.)

Some screens

Spoiler :

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I've been thoroughly enjoying your hard work, everyone. My computer's on the fritz at the moment, so I'm living vicariously through you. Keep up the good work!
 
Please note that some screenshots consist of multiple screenshots collaged together. Generally, things that happened on the same turn got put into the same screenshot as each other, with a possible couple of exceptions.

I will space out the screenshots from each other by a line so that you can see an obvious "visible gap" between them.

Hopefully, the screenshots will tell most of the important parts of the story.

Up to Turn 118 (1050 BC)
Spoiler :

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Good lord, Dhoom. I read that and I want to go back to playing Noble where I belong!
Part of the point of sharing is that you CAN climb the difficulty ladder.

Civ 4 is complex and each turn we have to make dozens of decisions. I simply tried to capture the gist of a lot of the decisions that I made, so that others can learn and benefit.

Spoiler :
War is the great equalizer in Civ. The higher that you climb in difficulty levels, the greater the potential positive impact that going to war can have on your game. It's just the very nature of the fact that AIs get better production bonuses on buildings, Settlers, Workers, and everything else, allowing them to build a juicier civilization for you to capture, coupled with the fact that their military tactics don't improve based upon climbing difficulty levels (or if they do improve, it's not really all that noticeable to me).

In this game, I simply focused on building 0 Wonders (I haven't even started on the National ones yet, but it wouldn't be a bad idea to get Literature soon and build some, now that Monte's back has been broken), while putting a heavy emphasis on building Military Units.

Most of the war dealt with logistical issues, but transfering units via Galleys doesn't make for fun screenshots. :) I did, however, try to put in a few "transporting units" screenshots and I also did my best to outline a few tactical approaches to the warring where I am admittedly taking advantage of the AIs' poor tactical choices.

Certainly, others played better than my game in various aspects.

I focused heavily on war and had successes that way. Others had different focuses which can be equally valid approaches to success.
 
@dhoomstriker

I love your style... it was good read before sleep.

Spoiler :

have a question. it seemed to me you didnt use siege in your monte war... I thought that the usual waring approach is bring enough siege even in classical age war.
I saw that cultural was mostly around 60%... have to say I am confused with the relative success you had.
Can you be more specific about losses? went it the way that for each defender you calculate 1-1.5 lost attacking unit? Or you had better success rate? isnt it a bit "wasting" hammers...probably not since you got shinies after all...

 
@vranasm
Spoiler :
Economy
probably not since you got shinies after all...
Just to clarify, there are no Holy Shrines in the Dual Holy City. So, it's kind of a junker of a City to keep right now.

Most of our economic success actually came from TRADING HEALTH RESOURCES FOR HAPPINESS RESOURCES.

We have a large surplus of Health Resources. I traded away our ONLY SOURCE of some Resources in order to get more Happiness Resources.

This fact had a huge impact on the game, as Cities could grow larger, work more Cottages, and could whip for larger amounts (many Forges were whipped for 4 people in Cities that had a lot of Food surplus). For those who didn't have a lot of Happiness, they might have STOPPED WORKING things like the Pig, Fish, Clam, etc Food sources more frequently than I did, meaning that said games aren't benefiting from those Food Resouces as much as I could, since I could keep growing and thus get more value out of those squares.


War
have a question. it seemed to me you didnt use siege in your monte war... I thought that the usual waring approach is bring enough siege even in classical age war.
Call it an extremely late rush instead of a properly executed Classical rush. I'm still learning just like the rest of you. Just like our area, Monte doesn't appear to have a lot of Hills in his area, so his production isn't great. This fact was further emphasized when we saw only 1 Archer in his later-to-be Dual Holy City.


I saw that cultural was mostly around 60%... have to say I am confused with the relative success you had.
Can you be more specific about losses? went it the way that for each defender you calculate 1-1.5 lost attacking unit? Or you had better success rate? isnt it a bit "wasting" hammers...
The first City that I went for was his capital. As you see in the "Fork Attack" screenshot, it was lightly defended at the time. However, on the next turn, he reinforced it heavily.

I dropped off a stack of 4 units using 2 Galleys onto a Forest to the east of his capitol, which was good for taking on the brunt of rougly 1 attack from Monte every turn. I later dropped off a couple of more units to support that mini-stack as soon as said units arrived from our mainland.


Meanwhile, the main stack, which was planning to go for his capital, turned around and went west. Monte, presumably fearing our mini-stack to the east of his capital in the Forest, did not send his stack of units to support the now threatened western City.

We won a couple of battles in the "open" by defending in Forests as we moved west, which, since we are Charismatic and since I didn't pre-promote a lot of our units, gave us two instant promotions that nearly-healed those units and gave them promos like Combat I + Shock (for anti-Melee) and, as the Turn 174 screenshot discusses, Combat I + Charge (for anti-Siege). The initial 4 Axemen attackers all took City Raider I promotions and acted as the equivalent of approximately 2 Catapults that don't stop to take the time to Bombard defences. This fact was only true because there were a small number of defenders. When the AI has a large number of defenders or has Longbowmen, it will take a lot more suicidal units to equate to a small number of Catapults.

So, yes, ideally, it's better to have Catapults. But, we didn't know Construction because we'd built so many units that we couldn't advance our tech pace. Catch 22. :)



For capturing that western City, it appears that we lost 5 battles (1 was a retreat) against 4 units, which is better than to be expected on average, but it is true that the Catapult didn't get defensive bonuses and we also had two or three units with 2 promotions attacking after the initial wave of City Raider I suicidal Axemen. We had much worse odds when capturing the capital, but every battle for a City was about having overwhelming numbers.


The terrain was really helpful, since Monte hadn't cleared a lot of his Forests and that fact gave our armies a lot of strong defensive bonuses when marching between his Cities.


The gist of the war was to avoid fighting large stacks of units. Monte helped a lot by suiciding several catapults on our stacks when we were in good defensive terrain (on Hills or in Forests), essentially handing us free wins, instead of defending with said Catapults in his Cities or instead of building more Archers to guard each of his Cities.


Once we'd pillaged his Copper, he had a limited source of Axemen (I wasn't sure if he'd have more Copper or Iron but he stopped building Axemen so he must not have another source of Metal). It was then more of a matter of luring them out of his Cities where they would either win or lose against our stack and then if they won, die the next turn.

Once he'd run out of Axemen in his capital, without us even having to attack the capital directly, it still wasn't an EASY battle to capture his captial, but it meant that Swordsmen became far more valuable. The Turn 195 screenshot shows the results of the battle for his capital. We lost two good City Raider III units in that battle (a Swordsman and an Axeman), but the fact that we had such units (thanks to using the Great General on 4 units in the field) gave us a decisive advantage. Still, even then, we lost 10 battles (2 were Chariot retreats where the Chariots survived) and won 6 battles, meaning that an army of 16 units was used to kill 6 units. That said, we had at least another 8 units that could have attacked that turn, if needed, although arguably some of our extra units that weren't needed in the attack were wounded and thus might not have been all that helpful in attacking.

Had we attacked his capital earlier on Turn 171 (just after the Turn 170 screenshot) when we had a smaller stack (barely 16 units if you count the 4 units in our two Galleys), the screenshot makes it look like we would have won, but Monte moved his mobile stack into his capital in between turns (aka on his turn), putting somewhere around 10 units in his capital. It would have been suicidal and war-losing to have attacked his City at that point. The fact that we were able to "pin his stack down" is what allowed us to capture his other two Cities and thus slowly weaken his cultural influence in the area, weaken his overall production, and pick away at his armies a few units at a time.
 
@dhoomstriker

Spoiler :

thanks for detailed info...
with shinies i just meant his cities ;-). This kind of battle could have ended with you wasting a lot of units because of no siege, bad tech progress etc. So you had to get something out of it and you got the land, that's great for next progress.

Overall it seems like really dragged war, i don't know if i would risk such long war on such high difficulty. Even on Monarch I try for decisive wars. Maybe I am too safe player?
WW wasnt limiting factor? I think in early ADs you start to get some WW.

I have to admit when I aim for war around 1AD I always wait for cats. I will reconsider this position in my next games.

BTW I think I didnt saw savegame? I discuss things with you based on screens only...
 
@drlake
I don't see your save. Looking screen shots it was nice and peaceful turn.

@Dhoomstriker
Spoiler :

Monty about to die which is always good.
GLH captured – good job!
13 cities, 8 workers - well you were too busy with military units spamming, which was more important for sure.
My guess you did not adopt OR because few Confu cities you got are focused on units. Adopting theocracy then? You got it not long ago, so it could not help you much, may be worth it still.
Good exploration.
Tech could be worth, since advanced guys are at WFYBTA. Pity hindu did not spread to you so you could deal with it. Diplomatically good though.

Interesting how is Gilg-Bis war going. Gilg seems to have better land, while Bis is a better troop spammer.

Los Angeles… Could be nice city if not Gilg culture was eat his fish. I bet you curse that gift city right now! :mad::mad::lol:

Very good turn no doubt!
:goodjob:


@Vranasm
Spoiler :

Seems like nice peaceful round.

Stable big cities. Good economy, decent tech. Good job!

7 cities 6 workers, sounds less then classic formulae, but given our land its quite enough.

No exploration though, your warrior SE of Nibru is getting bored. Or is he there to watch out for Gilg?

No metal connected :(, are you planning for north iron city?

Your military is small so I would suggest pacifism with CS you currently running. Double GPP at cost of 1 anarchy turn might be worth it IMO.

Good job with Seattle got its borders popped before Gilgs city, so it got double fish and is going to be nice city!

I like most that Lui in your save is at war :spear:, or at least gearing for it. I am quite sure you are not his target and with Inca vassal he might be our strongest opponent, so let him fight! :D.
:goodjob:


Cant wait for saves from others. Common guys, its weeeeekend! :)
 
Finished my round:
Spoiler :

Started by finishing the settler and settling on the hill above the rice.
Also got the spot between the rice and the hill a turn or 2 before Gilg got there with his settler.
Poped some silver by New York and a lot later I poped gems in the iron city. :D
Around here I lost focus for a while trying to tech and getting screwed by WAYABTA from the hindy gang. Since gilg converted and monty was almost friendly I gifted a tech to monty to get him to friendly.
Gilg DOWed Bismark and I continued to play a bit unfocused. My plan from the start was to go after monty but with Gilg in another religion I changed plan to Gilg.
Louis and HC fought a war and Monty sailed away to fight Pascal in a war that is still on and has lost me some diplo points (pascal asked me to join in and the next turn to cancel borders)
Halfway into the round I pulled myself together and started on my army and when I got construction I whipped quite a few catapults and DOWed Gilg. Got 3 of his cities pretty quickly before turn 200 including the AP, Parth. and a 18 gold Confucian shrine.
A few turns before I ended, Gilg voted to stop the war and knowing he had enough votes himself I had to defy it which is giving me a lot of unhappiness atm Traded for 2 happiness resourses already and have a boat sitting on the whale waiting for next turn.

Teching has been a pain since Hindu people don't want to trade unless I am far behind but I am doing ok. I think Lib is lost but we might make it if we hurry.

My plan from here would probably be to take Gilgs capital and the last city to the west and then vassalize him. Then swap to Hinduism(we have it in Seattle) to join the gang and backstab monty next(revenge for all the :):):):) he as pulled in other games!).
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Attachments

@gkey

Spoiler :


good points... Somewhere after settling 2 more cities i just went on clicking spree... dunno what i was thinking. As i wrote in report I completely forgot the iron there, in this situation i dont know if waiting for another border pop is worse/better then another coastal city.

I am not much paci user, it's my weakness probably. I think there is already some units... in gilg border cities should be at least 4-5 garison, monte city is another 4... So it could be expensive not? And i think i am using them for city size at some more cities. Could be a bit drag.

Lui joined the party few turns ago already vassalized HC... when i saw it, my jaw just dropped...

I think peaceful approach didnt work, number of cities is definitely subpar and we will have big problems with this amount to milk any advantage i could have built.

 
I need to play my round. I will admit the SGOYM has taken up a lot of my play and testing time. I will try and do a round now. I can only try and match what Dhoom as done. I have not looked at the spoilers but he seems to be getting a lot of praise. :goodjob:
 
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