Intermediate Game 34 Discussion Thread

[RobWorham]

Intermediate League Game 34 has closed for submissions. Please feel free to discuss your game in as much detail as you want. The more we talk, the more we can learn from each others successes and failures......

For our last game we had five downloads and four submissions. This one was a little more clear cut than the novice league with Sarco grabbing top spot in convincing domination style. JungleIII comfortably took silver, also with a domination victory, while Sarek nipped bronze with a healthy time victory. Congrats gents!!

1st : Sarco : Won Domination Victory - 1939AD - 7295 points / 43155 points

2nd : JungleIII : Won Domination Victory - 1995AD - 7307 points / 22377 points
3rd : Sarek : Won Time Victory - 2050AD - 7011 points / 8474 points

Hokiemon : Won Space Race Victory - 2026AD - 3818 points / 7159 points

Congratulations also to all those who took part, and thanks to all those who have participated in the Tri-League over these last 2 years!!!

[Sarco]

I wrote a long post but I got logged out.

Basically: I went for astronomy from the start since I quickly decided that Vikings on islands meant military style. Missed the circumnavigation due to not going north/south (doh), traded few techs, used a SE at first and went trade/CE later. I had built 4 cities on my island although the eastern and western cities were quite poor.

Built an attacking force while waiting for Astronomy but I thought I was quite slow and inefficient so I didn't really think I'd win this one.

Once I got my galleons built, I conquered Justinian and the Isabella and Joao. Forcevassalized Sitting Bull after a forced Apostolic war and Mansa Musa offered vassalization.

I kept building units and left my island with poor defenses but once those attacks were finished I was quite confident. I went for Monty and then continued to invade eastwards and then south to Babylon/Rome. By this time I conquered a lot faster than resistances faded so I kept conquering and waiting for my land mass control to catch up.

Using open borders agreements to station bombers made attacks fast together with cruise missiles. Almost all great generals went into military academies to keep unit production up.

Fun fact: I didn't build a single berserker and I hadn't noticed I didn't have any iron before I researched CS

[Traianvs]

Ah ffs, I forgot to send my game..

It was pretty useless to play Vikings since the player's island was cut off by ocean which rendered the berserkers entirely useless, even if there had been some iron.

[Sarco]

Oh no, you can get astronomy while berserkers are still your best attacking unit. They keep their promotions when upgrading, don't they?

My original plan was to attack with berserkers and upgrade them later. Then i realized I had no iron . Attacking from ships straight into the city would have to wait until marines (and modern armor/mech inf).

Oh and the Viking UB is great for this type of game so hardly useless

[Hokiemon]

Fourth place Oh well, it was an interesting game

I settled in place, built two more cities, on the eastern and western ends of the home island. Tried to run a Hybrid Economy. The Capitol was also the Wealth city; made the western city my Science City, since it had the Silver nearby; built The Moai Statues in the eastern city, which made it a pretty fair production city.

I managed to get the circumnavigate bonus by sailing two Caravels east and west, and trading maps with two or three AI civs. After I got Galleons, I took out Spain with Musketmen and Catapults, since I didn't have any Iron on the home island Madrid not only had Iron nearby, it was also the Christian Holy City, so adopted that as my state religion.

Now that I had an Iron resource, I was finally able to build some Berserkers I had decided that the Ottomans just to the north would be my next target, and was just about ready to launch my invasion, when the Romans dropped by and asked for help in their war with the Mongols. Since I was still going for a domination win at this point, and I was somewhat more advanced than the Mongols, I decided one target was as good as the next, and agreed to help the Romans. 20/20 hindsight, this was most likely a mistake. The Mongol and Roman islands were far to the south and right next to each other. Took an extra turn or two to get my forces down there, but I invaded Mongol and captured a couple of their cities pretty quick. Next thing I know, the Romans make peace with the Mongols, and a turn or two later, declare war on me The Romans landed some troops on the Spanish island, but I managed to kill them off, and sink a few of their Galleons in the process. I eventually get a peace treaty with Rome, and then finish off the Mongols.

As I'm sure most of you know, the Vikings are strong believers in that old Klingon proverb: Revenge is a dish best served cold! After a few turns of consolidating my gains on the Mongol island, it payback time. I declare war on the Romans, and capture Rome and one other city they had on a single tile island. Rome was also the Hindu Holy city, so I got their capitol and shrine too Sometime between the first two Roman wars, I got a random event that let me convert four of my cities and four Roman cities to Christianity. I made peace with Rome, and tried to get along with them, and even though they converted to my religion, the relationship was always poor. I tried to improve relations by giving back the one tile island city, since it was always going into revolt anyway, but that was a mistake, since it allowed the Roman cultural borders to completely surround Rome. So I declared war on the Romans again, recaptured the one tile island city, and captured two more Roman cities, one of which was sitting on a nice Uranium deposit. This gave my Roman cities some breathing room, so I made peace with the Romans again.

By this time, Hannibal and a few others had built The Apollo Program, and worried that someone would launch a spaceship before I could complete the domination victory requirements, I shifted gears and started for the space colony victory. Although I was behind in the space race, I was the largest empire, controlling three and a half islands with about 13 cities. I started running some Scientist specialists in most of my cities, and concentrated on the techs with the spaceship components. I was able to build The Space Elevator in my Capitol city, which also helped. I did a complete build on the spaceship and was the first, and only, as it turned out, to launch. After I launched, I started building up my defenses on the home island, just in case, but none of the AI civs ever tried to capture my capitol and end my space colony victory.

[Hokiemon]

Oh no, you can get astronomy while berserkers are still your best attacking unit. They keep their promotions when upgrading, don't they?

Yes indeed! Once I was finally able to build a few, I eventually upgraded my Berserkers to Grenadiers. Grenadiers with Amphibious promotion are extra

Oh and the Viking UB is great for this type of game so hardly useless

Agree! If I play Islands or Archipelago map, I always try and play as Vikings

[Sarek]

The Undecided Vikings!

The best thing about playing at the Prince level (or obviously below) is that if you are a bit indecisive or indeed make a mistake, you can recover. At least I keep telling myself that...

As you can see, a "time victory" suggests I "altered" my game plan several times.

Vikings means drooling for Berserkers! Must...look...for...iron! After realizing we were on an island that we wouldn't be leaving until Astronomy, I first decided to see if the Vikings could play a peaceful, cultural game and win by simply staying home, painting, singing and sculpting? The Vikings even put up Pyramids and eventually a Great Library to try and convince themselves of their refinement!

As soon as I was lucky enough to meet some neighbours, and realized the Vikings - try as they may - were not all that culturally aware, I set my three measly cities to work on preparing for future war! If...only...I...had...that...iron!

In a nutshell:
a) Realizing Monty was to the NW only meant that eventually I would be tangling with Aztecs.
b) Having Hannibal to the N meant that I might be pummeled from two sides. Hannibal, being only slightly more reasonable, was cultivated as a friend.
c) Foolishly thought that I could push around a smaller foe to gain control of iron.

Monty comes for me in the mid-1600's. I beat him down as he lands! I cobble together a response and eventually begin to take his island. And, as is always the case with the Vikings, a little taste of blood and one cannot stop!

Rest of the game was basically "whack-a-mole", trying to prevent either a cultural victory or someone launching a spaceship. I could now do neither of those because I waited much to long to obtain critical mass and put together anything but a war machine.

Monty - Spain - Bull - Hannibal all fall to the horned ones!

Monty attacked me. Spain just seemed ripe. Bull attacked me. And I was fearing a Hannibal strike from the north, so instead went for him. Tough battle, but eventually he came around to my point of view.

Oranje seemed to be going on a cultural tear, so I picked one of his cutural cities and landed on his shore. Silly artistic types!

Zara was the next one to require a little persuasion. It was "hot knife thru butter" by now, but a major problem lurked ahead. Several civs were hot for space travel!

I believe it was Joao that eventually launched, but by that time, I was only a few turns away from putting this one in the history books!

Clumsy - yes.
Fun - most definitely!
And like I said, thankfully a Prince level game, where there is time to see the error of your ways and alter course (most games).

Thanks to the out-going Tri-League team. PLEASE keep this alive!

*** I guess that one post about having #35 up in some 18 hours was just wishful thinking at the time? I'll be anxiously awaiting the next game.

[Traianvs]

Hmm, Hannibal was actually quite a peaceful civ in my game. Probably because he lacked iron (and oil!)