Gotag's Report

[Gotag]

A very quick report that I'll flesh out later.. hopefully

Victory in 2089 when I finally cultured the needed tiles from Qin. Ghandi was no more in ~2000 and had been down to 1CC for quite some time since 1930s. I could have won this over 100 years earlier but I didn't want to attack Qin as he had been my bestest buddy and I wanted to do a detailed study on culture. I sat at 67% for over 50 years before I could swine the final 1% (~18 tiles) from Qin.

I decided on the road less traveled and grabbed Mystisism and Poly first before the indicated hunting and archery. This gave me Hinduism which eventually spread throughout the world except for Izzy and Louis. The intelligence gained was huge allowing me to basically pick Ghandi's pocket since I knew where all his units were.

I spent over 50k bribing Qin NOT to attack Ghandi. Every 10 turns he would try to help me out but since Ghandi had no coal, Oil or Uranium that fight would have been over too quickly and I would have no chance for the culture win.

I popped ~5 techs from huts including Monarchy in ~600bc, Machinery, Animal Husbandry, Drama and Metal casting. I tried to maximise this and it worked out well.

Met Ghandi and Qin quite late (after 1300AD) and never had a chance to trade techs till refrig and medicine. Eventually I built the Internet and caught up completely. I was never out of it though as I had rifles by infantry and infantry/arty by the time they had Mechs.

Getting out researched by the barbs was annoying mind you. They showed rifles in 1600AD against me and it was a scramble to get grens up.

Great game and thanks for the chance to play.

Gotag

[Gotag]

I'm a bit surprised by the lack of aggression by most others vs the barbs. I'm not speaking so much of taking barb cities as just generally getting in their face, pillaging the road network and otherwise trying to take the fight to them. Also exploring.

After the advent of archery, I had 7 warriors, of whom 3 had woodsman II promos. A couple also had medic. I formed up 3 hunter/explorer pairs and basically mapped the whole continent by 1AD. These pairs also popped huts (two at a time where possible to maximise getting a tech), captured barb workers (got 2) and figured out where the big barb cities were. I avoided these cities like the plague of course but still two pairs got wiped out when they got to close.

Later I used the info to maximise my Prat hunter/killer groups who went out and captured smaller barb cities (and razed them) while pillaging roads, farms and whatnot to basically slow down the barb menace overall. I also pillaged distant roads to try to funnel the barbs so they came from the north where I was best equipped to deal with them.

I captured IIRC three barb cities early and razed them which allowed me to deficit reseach quite a bit. Later when I could afford it I captured the barb cities to keep.

I don't seem to have had near as much trouble with barbs that most people did. I faced only a smattering of HA while mostly fighting swords and LBs. Early sure they were a PITA but by ~500AD they were just the occasional annoyance.

I must admit to having one of those splendid moments when I went knocking on a barb city in 1635AD with a bunch of Prats, Cats and Elephants and while I was busy knocking down the walls they were unlocking the secrets of not only gunpowder but also rifling. Needless to say a hasty retreat was ordered to the nearest forested hill where my stack managed to survive quite a while. I already had muskets but sadly Prats won't upgrade to muskets.

Anyway, an immensly fun game early on until the minutia of the modern era sucked the life out of it. I must admit while I didn't want to attack Qin, I would have done so to speed things up if the daunting task of moving +150 MA, +80 SB, 50 Jets, 40 battleships ect..... Thank goodness you can automate workers to "build trade network" or moving the 50 odd I had late game would have become overwhelming.

Thanks again Sirian for the chance for revenge for my loss in Civ IIIs Rome vs the Barbs. That one still rankles. I still say that I should be allowed to move units though an ally to attack his ally. He's uh.... simply chosing wisely between us.

Gotag

[Kylearan]

Hi,

I'm a bit surprised by the lack of aggression by most others vs the barbs. I'm not speaking so much of taking barb cities as just generally getting in their face, pillaging the road network and otherwise trying to take the fight to them. Also exploring.

I tried that, multiple times in fact. I had an axe/axe/axe/medic warrior scouting party relatively early - it got killed. My next attempt had been a praet/praet/spear/spear/scout party. As noted in my report, it managed to scout a bit and popped 4 or 5 huts, but then got overwhelmed too. My next (and last) attempt consisted of 3 maces, 2 spears and a medic, and they managed to bust what, 10 or so fog tiles before they got killed as well. All my stacks got overwhelmed by barb stacks with superior numbers, which I've never seen before with barbs.

-Kylearan

[Gotag]

Almost all of my scouting parties went heavy with woodsman promos as given the amount of forest and jungle tiles this seemed the indicated path. Not just the survivability but mainly the two movement. I would advance one tile at a time (and pillage a road if there) and if an enemy was encountered I'd retreat to a hill/forest tile and let them die attacking me.

All my scouting parties eventually got eaten but I got a lot of milage from them never mind huts. Later my hunter/killer groups made me a lot of dough pillaging improvements. I'm not sure if I broke even pillage vs distance support here but if I include city pillage and razing I made quite a bit.

I had a woodsman II combat I prat fortified on a hill jungle with a medic ax in the north just outside the ivory barb city. He sat beside the road and my god, this guy must have killed +30 odd units before he joined the attacking stack that captured the city. I've never wanted so much the cap on experience with barbs to be not there as it was in this game. I would easily have had 5 or more units over 100 before I'd met the AIs.

Gotag

[Sirian]

Thanks again Sirian for the chance for revenge for my loss in Civ IIIs Rome vs the Barbs.

Grabbing your own religion was very bold. Certainly that had to make a difference.

I believe this is the first Deity-level game played by many different skilled players and offering up comparisons. Certainly it's the first with this massive setup of player vs barbs with the AIs locked away. I'm sure there is plenty to learn here for everybody, even those who performed exceptionally, in reading what happened to those who chose other paths.

Congrats on your revenge!


- Sirian

[Sirian]

I'm still marveling that you even got your religion. How is that possible when competing with Spain on a Lake™? She only has to research Meditation and then Polytheism, while you have to go Mysticism-Poly. With the cost penalty on your research, how can you get there first unless via some kind of fake-out dice roll, she doesn't go for it?

The phrase, "Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good," comes to mind.

Or am I missing something here?

Certainly if you go for it and fail (the result in the vast majority of such cases) you have simply set yourself behind in getting to everything else of importance. Talk about gambling--!


- Sirian

[Gotag]

Had I failed you wouldn't be reading what little I wrote. I would have played till I was pretty sure of survival against the barbs at least but I probably wouldn't have played it out.

I got Hindu in 3100BC iirc. I note in one of the screenshots from one of the other players that Ghandi got it in ~3200BC so it wasen't only Izzy to worry about. There is a lot of randomness that can account for it. I'll bet a random barb spawn mess up their research a bit. You also tempt me to play out the start again a few times and see how often I succeed compared to how often I fail.

I knew from the game's premise that I would be alone on a large landmass. The CIV metric at diety almost insists on it. Unlike Civ III, had there been another civ around the barb problem would have been eliminated pretty early which would spoil the whole concept. This makes founding a religion very very handy.

I also mistakenly assumed no nearby iron since I figured it's presence would made the early game too easy. In retrospect no iron would have made the critical second expansion very difficult to impossible as the tech pace would have us using swordsman way too long before we get to maces.

I will admit to a lot of slackness from around 1700AD onwards. The lack of any pressure with respect to time made it pretty easy to relax. At that point I had enough area to stop any of the AIs from winning and I knew it was only a matter of grabbing what was available to grab whilst keeping my nose clean. With both Ghandi and Qin Hindi the diplo was trivial.

Poor Ghandi... He was so advanced with respect to both Qin and I but he lacked almost every strategic resource. No oil, no coal, no uranium, hence no tanks, planes, decent ships or hell, railroads. I felt like kindermord as I sank all his poor little galleons (loaded with MIs and Arty) I wonder if transports should be made available regardless of resources?

Gotag

[uberfish]

It's certainly fitting that the only one to go for a religion did get rewarded for his courage, congrats!

Considering both Isabella and Gandhi were in the game though, I'm amazed there was any chance at all of getting it... Gandhi quite often goes polytheism right off the bat, and you'd expect him to go for it if he went meditation first and missed too.