Advanced Game 21 Discussion Thread

[RobWorham]

Advanced League Game 21 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......

Another game with a handful of starters, but only one finisher. Congratulations Diadem on a very impressive domination victory!!!

1st : Diadem : Won Domination Victory - 1842AD - 6240 points / 144350 points

Congratulations also to all those who took part!!!

[Diadem]

Well that's seriously disappointing...

[fed1943]

Congratulations Diadem!
Electrical power went down when I was playing and
my last save was from several turns back.
So, I should not submit my game and I didn't.
After you post about your game (if you willing so) I'll
say something about this interesting game.
Best regards,

[Diadem]

Well Iwas really hoping for some competition. I think I had a very good score, but it's impossible to compare now. Alas.

But I'll post something about my game. I hope people are still interested.

[Diadem]

Ok, my game.

I had never played an tectonics/earth map before, but before loading this save I generated a few maps and looked at them in the worldbuilder. Just to see what types of map I could expect. From this I knew that these maps are very big. Big maps are usually well suited for militaristic games, but not very early wars. So my idea was to peacefully develop early on, conquer one or two neighbours once my economy is developped - so most likely with macemen, and then dominate with a huge empire.

I started with The Wheel, Mysticism and Mining. My first choice was deciding if I wanted a religion. I decided I did. So I started with Meditation. This also meant that starting with a worker would be totally useless. So I did something I don't normally do. I went warrior first. Two warriors even. However that didn't seem so bad for this map. A large map with enemies relatively far apart means lots of goodie huts. And also probably lots of barbs. Besides on a world map it's nice to know where in the world you are relatively early.

I founded Buddhism and continued with Bronze Working, which popped from a goodiehut when I was about halfway, saving me some nice turns. I also popped Hunting and one other tech from goodiehuts I think. So my three warriors did their job well. Though a few died as well.

After 2 warriors my city was size two, and I went on with 2 workers (the 2nd one chopped). After that a warrior for escorting duties and two settlers after that, which settled 6669 and 44441 of my capital (so on the plainshill NE of the cows and next to the river immidiately east of the ivory). Two nice spots, so things were looking good.

By now I knew I was in Africa, with only Genghis Khan somewhere to the south. An dangerous neighbour if allowed to grow, but not very strong technologically. So a very good target for midgame macemen mayhem. I build stonehenge in my capital and then oracle. I love stongehenge when I'm not creative. Meanwhile my other two cities pumped some more workers and the first military units. Holkas don't need any resources, which is nice.

I also found the perfect spot for a powerhouse commerce center. The spot south of my capital, NNE of the corn and 1 west of the iron. With food and hammers, at a conflux of rivers, with mostly grassland and few plains. (damned plains are EVERYWHERE on this map). An obvious cottage powerhouse. So that would be my 4th city.

I sent my first a warrior and my first two holkas south to see what dear Genghis was doing. It turned out he was doing well, with (as far as I could see) three cities and nice terrain. But of course I could only see the edge of his lands. Kindly enough he put two workers on them. Such a sweet gift! I gladly took them, and then sent in my three units to look around a bit in his lands. It turned out he had no copper or iron, but he did have horse. Well chariots don't do much against horses, and neither do archers. So I had some fun pillaging him.

The purpose of this war of course was not to take cities, but only to weaken him, and strengthen myself. This worked perfectly. I gained 2 workers and some cash from pillaging. He lost two workers, almost all his improvements, and a lot of turns where he couldn't work his land effectively. He also had a setter idling in his capital the whole war Best of all I didn't loose a single unit. After a while I gave him peace, retreated my units, and build my 4th city on my target spot.

Meanwhile on the techfront I had done the worker techs and pottery and was working on Judaism. If I remember correctly Iron Working was kind enough to pop from a goodiehut (gotta love those huge maps with only one neighbour in sight). I founded Judaism in my third city, the one next to the ivory. With a river and dye. Nice commerce center as well.

I popped Metal Casting with the Oracle, since I didn't have writing yet (whoops). So I had to tech for CoL. Meanwhile I was just building up my economy, more workers, cutting jungle, building cottages, etc. Also military units, barbs were starting to become annoying. For now no more cities, I wanted CoL first, and there was no risk of the AI taking any spots, only Genghis was near, but the terrain immidiately around what he already has sucked anyway. Besides I didn't want to found confucianism in some backwater town. But I made already had settlers in production by the time I finally founded in. In my Judaism city! Yeah for double shrines! Interestingly enough my capital was now the worst of my 4 cities. Oh well.

After call I did mathematics, Calendar for the happiness and Currency. I continued founding cities. Around 1 AD I had 3 more cities (7 total) and a good control of Africa. I also had cities on both coasts. Oh and the pyramids too. I discovered that Genghis had expanded further than I anticipated, and had taken the western copper. I had a city just north of it (at the coast immidiately north of the rice, south-west of the ivory. A very nice spot with the Moai Statues. Anyway, Genghis had copper and this could not be allowed. Luckily the barbarians had forced me to not neglect my military. So with a few bits of slavery I could quickly muster a nice army of swords and axes to raze it. I hadn't planned this war, but him having copper was unacceptable. So my military went in and razed the city.

That went very easily, and I got a bit too optimistic. I went after his next city. but I had way too few units, and he some axes of his own now. So I got my army slaughtered. So I agreed on peace, and quickly slammed a city near that copper, before he could do it. After that I put the rest of my military on fog-busting duty in North-Africa, releaving me of barbarians.

After that I just happily teched and expanded. I put a city in the exit of Africa, grabbing the 2 gold, iron and cow there, and giving a nice base of operations for future actions against Eurasia. I slowly filled the Northern part of Africa with cities as well. And I teched for Macemen. I also switched to Judaism, which had become Wang Kon's religion. It was better spread than Buddism anyway.

I was just building up my army of maceman when Genghis declared on me! Funny guy. Him and what army? He had copper nor iron. He had some axes from before, but no way to build new ones. He almost grabbed my city, but a slaved maceman put a stop to his invasion. After that my forces washed over him and ended his existence. I had too few units, at least at the start, to make it go really fast, and I had some losses of course. But all in all it went smoothly. As was expected, of course, with maces against archers.

So in 1320 the Mongolian Civilization fell, and I ruled all of Africa. After this the race was pretty much over. I had a good techlead, founded 3 religions, had a double-shrine city that generated huge amounts of income and some really good commerce powerhouses. Since I ruled all of Africa there was no pressure from neighbours, no risk of barbarians, noone to attack me. Wang Kon, my only friend in the world, had expanded out of Europe and into Asia. He was second in the world. But we only shared a tiny and easily defendable border. No problems there. I was the first to circumnavigate the world (the other continent was backwards and irrelevant, though I think I traded for some techs I skipped) and the first to liberalims. I got oxford in my aforementioned 4th city and wallstreet in my double shrine one. I moved my capital to my oxford city, since my original capital pretty much sucked. I build some wonders, backfilled some terrain, but mainly just teched until I had infantry.

Once I had infantry I built a huge number of them and attacked. One stack walked from the Middle East into Europe, crushing all opposition. One stack walked from the Middle East towards his Asian cities, crushing all opposition. And one force invaded over sea from North Africa into Southern and Western Europe, crushing all opposition. I won, he died. Easy.

I developped my new lands, and continued teching for tanks. Sitting Bull was in South-East Asia. The rest of Asia was filled with Augustus and Tokugawa who had been vassalized by him. I attacked Sitting Bull first, by land and sea, and quickly conquered him. I was now building units faster than I could use them, so I loaded a half-dozen transports and invaded Zara Yaqob in South-America, and also declared war on Augustus/Tokugawa. I conquered all three and won a domination victory one or two turns after the last of those fell, when the borders of my new cities popped.

All in all it was an interesting game. It went quite smoothy because I kept my only enemy small with a very succesful early war. Because the map was so big, I had no other natural enemies, and this allowed me to fill the entire continent. I've pretty good at developping cities and with so many cities a techlead is just easy. Almost all of my cities were commerce ones, btw. I didn't need too much military early and, and late game I had enough production anyway with 20+ cities, with factories and levees. With three religions and a lot of resources I didn't face any serious happiness problems either. Health was a bit of a problem later in the game with factories and coal plants in big cities. But nothing really problematic.

I have to say the map is too big for my tastes though. There's just so much to do in a single turn later in the game that things slow down to a crawl. I already had a dominating lead as well by this time, so it was a bit boring. That's why this report focusses mostly on the early game. That's the most interesting part.

One final note is that it did not seem to be a true emperor game. I started with 3 techs, not two. and I think the AI started with too few units, though I can't be sure of that. I'm under the impression that the game was created for the novice league, and the difficulty was later changed to emperor, without changing the starting conditions.

[Nugog]

Nice write up!

[RobWorham]

Thanks Diadem!!!

[fed1943]

Congratulations again,Diadem.
My game was somewhat similar to yours, but a bit different.

2nd/west city on the same place,east one a little more far to get the
marble and the copper;4th city later on the same place.And budhism.
But I didn't begin with the warriors,instead I made Stonehenge from
the start.
Hence, I delayed capital, while next cities faster.
I just get two techs from huts: Hunting and Archery.
After 3rd city, capital went to GW. So, no barbs trouble, but war against Khan was delayed and was indeed a tough one. Even with
the Shrine, research suffered. After his defeat, I went north.
And had just founded the same gold city when power off.

Not sure, but from your report, I think you was in better shape than
me. (True, and Oracle and Pyramids,too).

My best regards,

[jbp26]

sorry diadem, i know how frustrating it is to play a great game with no one to compare it too. i started this one but then got a wicked virus and had to do a clean install of my whole OS, so i was forced to drop out.

[Diadem]

Looks like we were on pretty much the same strategy then fed1943.

I've done Stonehenge-first starts. If you have no useful worker techs and you're going religion first, then it's useful to let your city grow a bit before building your first worker. If you're on a small map and don't expect barbs to be trouble then starting with 'henge is a good option. In this case though I figured warriors were quite useful. Either way I'd never finish 'Henge all the way before starting with worker. Build 'Henge until size 2 and then go for your worker.

Anyway mostly the same strategy for us. Though I think my early war with Genghis really payed off. I got 2 workers, which is a major boon early on, and I must have pillaged at 100 gold or so. That's half a tech or so, that early in the game. Plus of course delaying him, and knowing his terrain exactly.

It's interesting that we founded on mostly the same spots.

My city strategy usually seems to be different from most people. I usually have fewer cities, but with less overlap, and further apart on average. I'd rather have 2 powerhouse cities then 4 merely good ones. Though later in the game I tend to build filler cities.