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Happy Apostolic Palace
After a pause (playing the "Puerto Rico evolver" excel macro compulsively) I've just finished a new BtS game I had started a while ago. Playing Emperor Hannibal (chr/fin) of Carthage on large, normal speed, 9 civs. can't remember the map type I chosen but it turned out to be a Pangaea.
I like playing large maps because I'm expanding slowly - the AI builds settlers like mad and choke me off on normal landmasses. And I shun war as well, so I end up frustrated
Chr is nice early on (when it counts) because happy ressources are more difficult to acquire than health ress. Besides, the 25% exp bonus for units is very satisfying. Apart from this, the carth. UU, numidian cavalry is ok but on normal speed, when you don't like war, it doesn't make much of a difference, it's obsolete quickly. I read a thread here about a mod where it could get city raider promotion - in a non moded game, w/o city raider it's less useful, especially since it has strength 5 not 6 like the horse archers it replaces. The UB, Cothon, plays to my builder / econ improver streak, I liked it a lot.
I started to the west of the unique landmass with 2 mussles, cows, rice and some forests. Found Mansa Musa pretty quickly to the south. After a while Ragnar appeared from the north, Sitting Bull and Catherine from the east. the other opponents were Shaka (far south east), Huyana capac (south - center), Tokugawa (center), Hammurabi (North-east). Not starting with Mysticism I thought I might as well forget about Buddhism/Hinduism-Judaism-christianism religions and aim instead for Tao and confucianism. But then I wanted the Oracle nonetheless. Hammurabi shot for Meditation and founded Buddhism. But then I realized for some obscure reason neither Mansa not Huyana were in a hurry to found Hinduism. I reloaded a save and alteredmy research path. Founded Hinduism in Carthage and made what in retrospect appeared to be a game winning decision : built a Hindu missionary and sent it all the way to Cuzco. This decided Huyana to convert to Hinduism.
Question : what is better than building the AP ? answer : having it built by somebody who converted to YOUR state religion ! That way you get all the benefits (gold AND hammers) w/o the costs. Besides, I can research Mass Media (and incorporate civ Jewelers) w/o obsoleting the AP !!!
Catherine and Sitting Bull then DOW-ed on me. By chance catherine was pretty far and both had to cross heavily forested areas before reaching my cities. I managed to take out their stacks thanks to having access to ivory. The war elephants do come in pretty handy. In the meanwhile, I noticed nobody was very keen on building wonders. I had no access to stone nor marble and Hannibal is not Ind either, but I do like wonders and had enough forests around to chop. Stayed at 3 cities and then at 5 for a looooong while but managed to build the Oracle (took CoL), Great Lighthouse (man, the extra trade routes are great), the Temple of Artemis (nice, but only benefits the building city; works great with GL though), the Colossus, the Great Library.
For some reason, I managed to keep good relations with ragnar, whom I feared. Toku expanded like mad. Managed to get him to accept open borders. Sent Hindu missionaries to both of them, but Hammurabi had been faster and everybody was running Buddhism as state religion apart from me and Huyana (Hindu) and Mansa Musa (who founded Judaism and was running judaism as state rel). Toku vassalised Ragnar and then declared on Mansa Musa. I didn't quite understand why, since he was far away from them. I was watching huge Viking and Japanese armies borrowing my roads on their way to Mali and was thanking Krishna they chose Mansa as their adversary and not me ! Catherine and SB joined in and soon poor Mansa was taking a drubbing. I joined the party as well and captured two malinese cities, including the Islam holy city. Mansa lost his second city, timbuktu to catherine and the Judaism city to ragnar and ended up capitulating to Catherine.
All those wonders got me a great artist, then a second one. I decided to settle them in Hadrumetum, my third city, and try a Cultural victory. Built the hermitage there as well and Hadrumetum became a beacon of culture, eating up into nearby territories
Huyana got elected to the AP and declared a holy war on infidels - the only infidel being Hammurabi, since all the others had at least on Hindu city. this benefitted Toku who vassalised Hammurabi. Then he declared on sitting Bull and vassalised him as well.
By the time I entered Modern era, there were four blocks : Toku was the most powerful with vassals Ragnar, Hammuraby and Sitting Bull. Catherine was second, with vassal Mansa Musa (who could not research away like he usually does). I was third, alone. Shaka managed to slow down Huyana but ended up his vassal nonetheless. Huyana was having a difficult game though.
With, what, Military Sciences I believe, he proposed that all brothers of the faith sign a defensive pact. Man, was that wonderful for me !!!! I hate building armies and waging war, so now I had everybody pledging to defend my weakness ! Thanks Huyana !
Then he noticed that the Japanese-founded city of Nara, close to Hadrumetum, was not only Hindu but also had become majority Carthaginian. so he proposed to return it to its "rightful owner" ... me ! Well, gee, double triple thanks, Huyana !
It didn't miss, Toku got mad so he DOW-ed on me all the same, along with his vassals, Ragnar, SB and Hammu. The only difference now being that he instantly got at war with Catherine, who was pretty strong as well. Toku came with his SOD against ... Nara, of course. Whose defenses (walls, castle) were erected by ... well, himself. So with about 4-5 Rifleman (I was realist enough to rush to get Rifling before everybody else) I dispatched about 40-50 Japanese and NA attackers (mostly Knigths, WE and macemen, but also a few Cuirassiers).
The pattern then kept repeating : Hadrumetum's culture engulfed another japanese city, Izumo, Toku got mad and declared again. His Cavaleries were no match for my Infantry. Then the Viking city of Halitubo was on the row for a return to its "rightful owner" (me again). Ragnar defyied the resolution once but apparently you can only defy once : when it came up again, he only voted "no" and the resolution passed. Toku declared again but by now I had Mech infs, mobile artilerry and Modern Armor and Gunships. He appeared with a stack of 15 antitanks, 30 cavaleries, 15 artilerries, 5 SAM Infs and a few other units. Managed to soften the stack with my 5 mobile art. then brought to bear my mech infs against the antitanks, then the modern armor against the SAM which cleared the way for the gunships. They were fighting the cavalries but in the process wiping out the artilerry through flank attack ! Flank atack is great ! When I was through, there were about 15 cavaleries standing. all the artilerries died without ever having a chance to fight. On his turn, the cavaleries commited seppuku on my mech infs and that was that. 10 turns later, Utica and Hadrumetum followed Carthage by reaching legendary status.
All in all, a fun game - aiming for Cultural victory makes espionnage less obnoxious : the AI kept destroying farms and mines and towns and custom houses but it mattered less, there was no "project" to be sabotaged. With Krishnu visnawath and the Kong Miao Carthage and Utica were making lots of gold. Then I incorporated civ Jewelers in the islam holy city and built Forbidden palace and Wall street there as well - this ex-malinese city became the mint of my empire. I managed to run the slider at 90 - 100% science for almost the whole game.
I like playing large maps because I'm expanding slowly - the AI builds settlers like mad and choke me off on normal landmasses. And I shun war as well, so I end up frustrated
Chr is nice early on (when it counts) because happy ressources are more difficult to acquire than health ress. Besides, the 25% exp bonus for units is very satisfying. Apart from this, the carth. UU, numidian cavalry is ok but on normal speed, when you don't like war, it doesn't make much of a difference, it's obsolete quickly. I read a thread here about a mod where it could get city raider promotion - in a non moded game, w/o city raider it's less useful, especially since it has strength 5 not 6 like the horse archers it replaces. The UB, Cothon, plays to my builder / econ improver streak, I liked it a lot.
I started to the west of the unique landmass with 2 mussles, cows, rice and some forests. Found Mansa Musa pretty quickly to the south. After a while Ragnar appeared from the north, Sitting Bull and Catherine from the east. the other opponents were Shaka (far south east), Huyana capac (south - center), Tokugawa (center), Hammurabi (North-east). Not starting with Mysticism I thought I might as well forget about Buddhism/Hinduism-Judaism-christianism religions and aim instead for Tao and confucianism. But then I wanted the Oracle nonetheless. Hammurabi shot for Meditation and founded Buddhism. But then I realized for some obscure reason neither Mansa not Huyana were in a hurry to found Hinduism. I reloaded a save and alteredmy research path. Founded Hinduism in Carthage and made what in retrospect appeared to be a game winning decision : built a Hindu missionary and sent it all the way to Cuzco. This decided Huyana to convert to Hinduism.
Question : what is better than building the AP ? answer : having it built by somebody who converted to YOUR state religion ! That way you get all the benefits (gold AND hammers) w/o the costs. Besides, I can research Mass Media (and incorporate civ Jewelers) w/o obsoleting the AP !!!
Catherine and Sitting Bull then DOW-ed on me. By chance catherine was pretty far and both had to cross heavily forested areas before reaching my cities. I managed to take out their stacks thanks to having access to ivory. The war elephants do come in pretty handy. In the meanwhile, I noticed nobody was very keen on building wonders. I had no access to stone nor marble and Hannibal is not Ind either, but I do like wonders and had enough forests around to chop. Stayed at 3 cities and then at 5 for a looooong while but managed to build the Oracle (took CoL), Great Lighthouse (man, the extra trade routes are great), the Temple of Artemis (nice, but only benefits the building city; works great with GL though), the Colossus, the Great Library.
For some reason, I managed to keep good relations with ragnar, whom I feared. Toku expanded like mad. Managed to get him to accept open borders. Sent Hindu missionaries to both of them, but Hammurabi had been faster and everybody was running Buddhism as state religion apart from me and Huyana (Hindu) and Mansa Musa (who founded Judaism and was running judaism as state rel). Toku vassalised Ragnar and then declared on Mansa Musa. I didn't quite understand why, since he was far away from them. I was watching huge Viking and Japanese armies borrowing my roads on their way to Mali and was thanking Krishna they chose Mansa as their adversary and not me ! Catherine and SB joined in and soon poor Mansa was taking a drubbing. I joined the party as well and captured two malinese cities, including the Islam holy city. Mansa lost his second city, timbuktu to catherine and the Judaism city to ragnar and ended up capitulating to Catherine.
All those wonders got me a great artist, then a second one. I decided to settle them in Hadrumetum, my third city, and try a Cultural victory. Built the hermitage there as well and Hadrumetum became a beacon of culture, eating up into nearby territories
Huyana got elected to the AP and declared a holy war on infidels - the only infidel being Hammurabi, since all the others had at least on Hindu city. this benefitted Toku who vassalised Hammurabi. Then he declared on sitting Bull and vassalised him as well.
By the time I entered Modern era, there were four blocks : Toku was the most powerful with vassals Ragnar, Hammuraby and Sitting Bull. Catherine was second, with vassal Mansa Musa (who could not research away like he usually does). I was third, alone. Shaka managed to slow down Huyana but ended up his vassal nonetheless. Huyana was having a difficult game though.
With, what, Military Sciences I believe, he proposed that all brothers of the faith sign a defensive pact. Man, was that wonderful for me !!!! I hate building armies and waging war, so now I had everybody pledging to defend my weakness ! Thanks Huyana !
Then he noticed that the Japanese-founded city of Nara, close to Hadrumetum, was not only Hindu but also had become majority Carthaginian. so he proposed to return it to its "rightful owner" ... me ! Well, gee, double triple thanks, Huyana !
It didn't miss, Toku got mad so he DOW-ed on me all the same, along with his vassals, Ragnar, SB and Hammu. The only difference now being that he instantly got at war with Catherine, who was pretty strong as well. Toku came with his SOD against ... Nara, of course. Whose defenses (walls, castle) were erected by ... well, himself. So with about 4-5 Rifleman (I was realist enough to rush to get Rifling before everybody else) I dispatched about 40-50 Japanese and NA attackers (mostly Knigths, WE and macemen, but also a few Cuirassiers).
The pattern then kept repeating : Hadrumetum's culture engulfed another japanese city, Izumo, Toku got mad and declared again. His Cavaleries were no match for my Infantry. Then the Viking city of Halitubo was on the row for a return to its "rightful owner" (me again). Ragnar defyied the resolution once but apparently you can only defy once : when it came up again, he only voted "no" and the resolution passed. Toku declared again but by now I had Mech infs, mobile artilerry and Modern Armor and Gunships. He appeared with a stack of 15 antitanks, 30 cavaleries, 15 artilerries, 5 SAM Infs and a few other units. Managed to soften the stack with my 5 mobile art. then brought to bear my mech infs against the antitanks, then the modern armor against the SAM which cleared the way for the gunships. They were fighting the cavalries but in the process wiping out the artilerry through flank attack ! Flank atack is great ! When I was through, there were about 15 cavaleries standing. all the artilerries died without ever having a chance to fight. On his turn, the cavaleries commited seppuku on my mech infs and that was that. 10 turns later, Utica and Hadrumetum followed Carthage by reaching legendary status.
All in all, a fun game - aiming for Cultural victory makes espionnage less obnoxious : the AI kept destroying farms and mines and towns and custom houses but it mattered less, there was no "project" to be sabotaged. With Krishnu visnawath and the Kong Miao Carthage and Utica were making lots of gold. Then I incorporated civ Jewelers in the islam holy city and built Forbidden palace and Wall street there as well - this ex-malinese city became the mint of my empire. I managed to run the slider at 90 - 100% science for almost the whole game.
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