Win this Deity endgame

[Unconquered Sun]

The setup: started this Warlords 2.08 deity game with Hatshepsut on normal speed, standard size fractal map (6 opponents, med sea, temperate). Map turned out to be 5-1-1, with me, Shaka, Catherine, Wang Kon, Saladin on the big continent and Mao and Ghenghis on the islands.

Early/mid game wars ended with me conquering Shaka and part of Cathy. Cathy became Wang's vassal (then revoked; then vassalized again). In the most recent war Saladin DoWed me, but I had him quickly defeated by an alliance and he is now reduced to 1 city as another Wang vassal.

The present: it's the late 1600s. Wang is pretty much the only AI that stands between us and victory. Korea's been the leader since times immemorial. We were on friendly relations while Wang was Hindu, when he switched to FR relations fell to Pleased. GK and Cathy are friendly, Mao is cautious and Sala's annoyed.

My plan was late game domination victory by defeating Wang, but right now I am not sure if and how to go to war vs Wang. The victory conditions:

1. Domination: Wang must be defeated. He has Rocketry, Industrialism, Radio and possibly Plastics but no Flight. He has 11 major cities and huge army. We've got Assembly Line and Fission, the latter no AI has. The Steel tech lines are lacking, however. We have 14 major cities, including a Globe+MI one and HE+WP+MA+MI one. No IWs tho.

2. Space race: Wang has Apollo and all SS. He is probably researching Satellites. I can trade Fission for Steel right now, or get it very fast and trade with Cathy for Artillery after it. Rocketry can go for ~5 turns and Apollo can be started with Industrialism for Aluminium researched after that. By the way, we are getting GS next turn and more are to come. I've won Immortal space races from similar positions, but this is deity. The other risk with pursuing the space race is Wang DoWing us. GK will sign defensive pact, but this will not deter Wang (it will deter Mao and GK himself). Perhaps, another option to secure us vs invasion during the space race is to bribe Wang into war(s) vs Mao(GK). I know AI build preferences and these wars will certainly slow its spaceship focus somewhat.

3. Cultural: no chance for us, minor chance for Korea. Wang's been running a dozen Sistine Chapel specialists in every city of his since 1 AD or something, which created very annoying culture pressure.

4. Diplomatic. Even if we grow our cities more, Wang will have about 1/3 of the population. Everybody likes me more than him, but only Cathy and GK are friendly, Mao will probably pass (Sala is nonissue).

If we go for war, whether for domination or for crippling attack to win the spacerace, it's vital we find the right path now. One way is to build MP, whip (and even buy if we trade for Demo) nukes everywhere momentarily and double bomb 7 Korean cities. Wang won't complete SDI fast enough, but the question is will he immediately switch to shelters? Two nukes completely destroy all units in unsheltered cities, but sheltered are x4 resilient. Alternatively, we can trade Fission to Wang and wait for him to complete MP resorting to the same plan. This will save us hammers and will charge him hammers, with the downside of uncertainty. At any rate, we'll need Rocketry and Fascism for the war, as well as Industrialism+Oil for tanks.

Speaking about tanks, there are two questions about promotions. Will collateral 3 promoted tanks do well in devastating AI stacks, or are there better promotion choices for the initial war stage when Wong/Cathy will field large armies. The other question is about fallout - it stops normal 2 points move units right away, which makes conquering nuked cities slow. Will Mobility units help?

The other war path, whether nuclear or not, is to go for Composites and wield Modern Armor warfare. I've read it is effective vs the AI, but I've never been forced to war so late in a game.

Everyone is welcome to consider the above approaches or to demonstrate others. There's just one goal: beat the deities!

the_save

 

[lilnev]

Wang has completed Apollo and his casings, while you don't yet have Steel? That sounds pretty far behind. Are the other civs useful trading partners? That's usually the best way to close a big tech gap. And no Democracy, so no Emancipation, so no infinite acreage of towns. How bad is the GNP graph?

It's been a while since I fought a modern war, but I seem to recall bombers (and later, stealth bombers) being the key units. Build a stack of 20 or more, so some can be healing while you pummel the next city. With proper air support, a tank army can move quite quickly. I haven't played with nukes much, just trying them out in already-won situations, so I can't offer much advice there.

In my experience, once an AI starts building space ship parts it won't DoW you, so I wouldn't worry about that from Wang. I'll try out the save later this week and see what happens.

peace,
lilnev

 

[Unconquered Sun]

Ema towns retool takes 35 turns, forces you to run Free Speech exclusively for any actual benefit over scientists, hinders production unless you run Universal Suffrage for hammer and $ spending, and blocks fast project production as irrigation-workshop switches become impossible. For me, towns on deity are good only when captured, or when playing financial and planning cottaging implications soundly from turn one. I don't think that Ema town retooling is bad strategy, but rather that it has its place; 35 turns on normal/deity is not the same as 35 turns on epic/monarch.

Wang beelined Rocketry very early. He didn't even have Steam Power and such. Why the AI will build Apollo without railroads, factories, plants and aluminium is beyond me, but it seems to be one of Wang's special lose-the-game-despite-all-my-deity-bonuses tactics (running 100+ specialists without Representation seems to be another).

I was postponing steel as GK is likely to reseach it (no WFYABTA to him), or Mao could offer it for trade. We have only one tech over Cathy, so I prefer to trade for something more expensive with her. Right now we run Caste and have the leading research output in the world, which is not to say that Wang's established tech lead will be easily overcome, if at all.

I've seen AIs with Apollo DoW. And Wang has enough powergraph to DoW the entire world. Which we can use to bribe him into war right now...if we bribe him vs both Mao and GK the war may go for quite a while. But is it realistic to hope to win this space race?

 

[Jet]

Why the AI will build Apollo without railroads, factories, plants and aluminium is beyond me

Spoiler :

No planning (except diplo modifiers and simple war state): wakes up every turn, looks around and picks something to do.

No AI code with specific knowledge of the default tech tree.

Poor specialization of cities (not sure if it does anything other than look at the terrain).

 

[Snaaty]

First of all, congrats, I see that you moved up quite fast and successfully...

I still haven´t warlords, so I can´t have a direct look at the game, but from what you tell, it will be very difficult...


What I usually try to do to slow the AI down when I can´t compete directly in Space-Race (works quite efficient in vanilla):

- bribe the most dangerous one to war with more then one opponent
- send out some spies to sabotage the space-ship production


When combining these strats. even when one of your spies is discovered and the big one declares on you, you don´t have to fear him invading ASAP because he is busy (buy back peace ASAP). With a little luck, you manage to slow him down enough with this tactics...

 

[lilnev]

I've never actually tried to win a space race with a specialist economy. I generally run CE (supplemented by a few early GSs), or else I transition to CE after I have a proper GP farm set up, so I prioritize Democracy (after Liberalism, PP, and perhaps Chemistry for some credible defense). I have a lot of "cottage-leaning" cities that still run some mines and perhaps a few watermills (the last tiles they grow onto might not have time to mature into towns), to bring in 150-200 beakers and 30-60 hammers (after multipliers). Plus perhaps two dedicated production cities to handle some of the heavy lifting (Apollo, Elevator, Engine, etc.). I find I'm generally research-limited (teching every 5 or 6 turns) rather than production-limited (I'll launch less than 10 turns after the last required tech).

But in your game, it sounds like it's too late to transition to CE, so I'll give it a try as is. I might learn something. It's good that you still have three trading partners. If you're out-beakering him, and you can leverage that through trades, I'm hopeful. The AI does a terrible job of planning its tech path and distribution of production. Plus all that military drags on his economy.

I'm still not worried about Wang DoWing you. He's pleased, he's not generally a lunatic or a backstabber, and he's otherwise engaged with his spaceship. If he makes demands, it's probably best to appease him, though.

peace,
lilnev

p.s. I've had terrible luck with spies. I think I'm lifetime 0 for 5 or six, before I gave up on the tactic. But others swear by it; maybe I've just had bad dice. Getting Wang to war with someone else is definitely an excellent idea, though.

 

[Unconquered Sun]

I've employed spies to turn a few space races. Sometimes they make it, sometimes they don't.

Wang's been very friendly. No demands whatsoever (sadly, no diplo bonus), actually I believe he gifted me a tech once. Irritating him with spies is risky, because he cannot send all of his units oversea to fight China/Mongolia. Most of his troops will stay on our border.

 

[uberfish]

Wang beelined Rocketry very early. He didn't even have Steam Power and such. Why the AI will build Apollo without railroads, factories, plants and aluminium is beyond me, but it seems to be one of Wang's special lose-the-game-despite-all-my-deity-bonuses tactics (running 100+ specialists without Representation seems to be another).

I think AI beelining to rocketry and building apollo early is basically a safety net, in case it gets started in a less than ideal city for some reason, or the first city to build Apollo gets taken out by enemies before the project is done. It makes sense from an AI point of view as it ensures that Apollo and the lesser parts will be done in time. 100 specialists without representation is just stupid, though.

Doing my preferred Computers - Assembly Line - Rocketry - Fibre Optics - Fusion spaceship construction routine, which gives a late Apollo, requires a lot more careful management than the AI is capable of to avoid being production bottlenecked at the end when you're pushing 2500+ bpt.

 

[Unconquered Sun]

Some eye candy.

 

[Unconquered Sun]

 

[futurehermit]

that power differential is insane.

bribe someone to attack him or bribe him to attack someone.

use spies to sabotage his space parts.

beeline for space yourself.

fighting him would be suicide imo.

edit: p.s., let's not forget he's protective. does that impact any of the modern units?

 

[lilnev]

I played it out to a spaceship win in 1878.

Spoiler :

OK. This looks very different from the empires to which I am used. I started by trading Fission to Cathy for Steel + Liberalism (we may want Free Religion some day?) + cash, then trading Fission to Wang for a double war + cash + switch to Pacifism. Given his power level, that should crash his economy nicely. I also switched Rostov away from artists and towards production (are you trying to create a GA for some reason? Else, why?), and disbanded the navy and enough older ground forces to bring unit maintainence to zero. Everyone else is involved in at least two wars, so who's going to pick on us? I switched Nobamba (HE city) to building an Observatory, then Wealth, and Nongoma to Ironworks (after factory/ coal plant were complete, of course). All but the least productive 3 or 4 cities got Factory, Coal Plant, Lab, then built Wealth until Apollo was done (or Eiffel Tower, which is the same thing +100% for Copper).

Researched Ecology as the next GS bulb and a tradable offering, then decided that anything I gave to Cathy would just end up in Wang's hands. Better just to self-research through the endgame. So I'm back on the standard (at least for me) space ship track: Rocketry to get Apollo started, then Computers to build Labs. I changed my mind and traded Ecology to Cathy for the rest of Industrialism to find Aluminum.

Wang made peace with Ghengis and vassalized Mao.

At this point, instead of Robotics (for the space elevator; but I didn't have a GE or two to rush it, and there were multiple pre-reqs through Plastics), I picked up Railroad for the hammer boost, then Fiber Optics, hoping to win the Fusion race. I didn't, and in fact getting Fusion was a big mistake, because it stranded my GSs on Flight. Goes to show my ignorance of late-game SE tactics. Too late, I tried to switch specialists so I could at least use him for a golden age. I ended up settling two GSs for the hammers. Weak.

Cathy switched to Free Religion, dropping to pleased and WFYABTA. Wang demanded Ecology, which I didn't give him, but then traded it to him for another war vs. Ghengis, a few thousand gold, and another civics switch into Pacifism/Environmentalism.

After Fusion, I ran the Combustion-Plastics-Robotics route, and finally started Refrigeration for Genetics. At this point, the Stasis Chamber was all that Wang was missing, but he didn't have Refridge. Cathy had it, but not Fiber Optics. Ghengis capitulated to Wang, and I signed a defensive pact with Cathy. I set up two top production cities for the last two parts -- food bar maxed out and workers on hand so I can convert to watermills/workshops and run on a food deficit.

I got to Genetics first, built my stasis chamber (chopped at the end to shave two turns), and launched in 1878.

I didn't play it completely optimally, especially with the GSs, and I didn't try to micromanage too intensively (except for some rebalancing towards mines + farms rather than windmills + workshops after Railroads). I was fairly confident that neither Wang nor Cathy would attack me. Ghengis might have been tempted, but he was in no position to, and Wang clobbered him pretty hard in their second war. It's also possible that the Internet could provide a slightly faster finish, though at least in my case Wang and Cathy took different tech paths at the end (Fiber Optics-Fusion vs. Refridge-Genetics), and Mao wasn't advanced enough to be useful.

I may try a modern war later, just to see how that option plays out.

peace,
lilnev

 

[Winston Hughes]

The only time I've seen a power graph like that was when I was playing on vanilla/noble and was cruising to a comfortable domination victory. What happened between 200ad and 1240ad to cause his rating to start rising so rapidly?

 

[Unconquered Sun]

@lilnev

Spoiler :

Wierd enough, I cannot open your save. Nonetheless, congratulations for proving space victory is possible in the game. Poor Wang, so much headstart wasted. Some of the things you've done I've already considered, like disbanding units if going for the race and disbanding the navy in any case - we'll never match Wang's navy for war, and we don't need to anyway. Also, Nongoma is the best choice for Iron Works city (actually the game starts with my workers moving to Nongoma for hammer-improvements).

Once again, (ab)using diplomacy is the key to peaceful victories on the highest levels. Wang's wars must have diverted production to units and stuff like MP. Bribing him to adopt Pacifism I've actually done - it shaved off ~70 of his GNP, and it is a good move, because, while he runs huge number of specialists, he rarely uses/produces great people in the best way.

I am glad you've never seen an empire like mine - you've learned something new about CIV firsthand. What surprised in your endgame - signing pact with Cathy. Is it possible/viable to sign defensive pacts with someone's vassal? Or did she break off again?

I will also try military victory (via MP) next week, see how it plays out...

 

[Unconquered Sun]

@Winston

Quite a powergraph indeed, considering how he dwarfs the other deity AIs.

What happened? Upgrades. Rifling, Artillery, etc. They are virtually free for deities, and Wang has more military because the AI values his cities very highly (they are all huge, unlike GK's, and there are also many of them, unlike Sala/Mao's) and consequently it provides for massive defenses.

I'm looking forward to pwning Wang on the battlefield, now that space race victory is proved possible. It'll be fun

 

[Unconquered Sun]

edit: p.s., let's not forget he's protective. does that impact any of the modern units?

Oh, yes. Mech Infs

 

[lilnev]

@lilnev

Is it possible/viable to sign defensive pacts with someone's vassal? Or did she break off again?

She came out of vassaldom. I don't know if it's possible to sign with someone's vassal, but I doubt it.

peace,
lilnev

 

[Unconquered Sun]

Here's how the game played out in the earlier phases.


All for the war effort! My entire army of 8 warchariots invades Shaka.

Cathy backstabbed me. War vs Zulu and Russians went on for 30+ turns. Shaka lost two cities, including his capital. Cathy has just lost a second city to me as well. Losing 40 gp/t, empire is on strike. I am forced to sign peace and let them live...for now. Also, GSs start rolling.

Wang had bottlenecked Saladin early and now moves in to fill the vacuum weakened Cathy left. He got longbows ca. 600 BC.

 

[Unconquered Sun]

Hyangsan pwns my Hermitage city (Rostov) deity style

Close up, from lower center to upper left: theater, Oxford University, Hindu monastery, Hindu Mandir. Row above: Judaism temple, Biddhist temple. Next row: Buddhist monastery, Hindu temple and Seowon, Judaism Synagogue, Forbidden Palace. Upper right corner: library. The city works 7 tiles and runs 11 specialists, all of them +2 culture due to the Sistine Chapel.

It's time to finish off Shaka. As my cavalries gather to attack in the south, Globe Theater draftees prepare to defend the north from massive Zulu stacks.

Saladin declares on me and nearly dies a few turns later. As Wang and Cathy close in on his last mainland city on foot/hoof, Genghis and I debark. His stack is kinda bigger than mine, if less experienced.

 

[Unconquered Sun]

THE UPDATE

We know that spaceship victory is possible in the game, as long as Wang is dragged into a war in 1685 (otherwise, one turn later he assumes the "We have other things on our hands now", which is usually harbinger of invasion).

So, is domination possible against the impossible Korean powergraph? We'll see...


I bribed Wang into wars vs Mao and Genghis, traded Fission for Steel and Facism with Cathy. I decided that as soon as Rocketry is researched Slavery&Organized Religion will be adopted to whip factories and plants. I left MP construction to Wang and Cathy, since they were in war it was likely they we'll go after it. Wang indeed constructed it. At the time I was building artillery+infantry+SAM stacks because Wang has recently discovered Flight. There was no time for another switch to Caste and researching the techs for Tanks.

On the turn MP was constructed, I switched all cities to nukes construction. On the following turn 12 nukes were whipped. And on the third turn:

Hyangsan - a somewhat well-guarded Korean city with 108 units