Molachs Egyptians

[Molach]

I've found the right folder to add save games to! So I'm off.
Plan for this game: Build a mighty army to stand the test of time.
Supported by low-mid upgraded cities. From my 80-turn test game I think I'll get tile improvements over districts and just build that way. Granary, watermill, monument in cities then leave it be.

I plan to make a few cities of my own, and when new settlers get real expensive, I'll take them from AIs.

Let's see. How to post a screenshot from steam library...

My starting position. And everyone else's

I'm not experienced enough to know if this is good long term. But we get food from FPs, and decent production with two stones. Production might VERY WELL be KING in this game. No districts or good stuff if you can't build. So yeah. This is probably a decent start.

(Spot reserved for mocking myself when I get more experience)

[Molach]

Met two things: A city state and a civ.
Zanzibar. However some a$$hole met them first, so I didn't get +4 gold in capital from first envoy.

This $$ over here:


There is usually an option to share info about our capitals when we meet. I did, and with the other guys I met as well. Need to know where my targets are.

[Molach]

Build order was two scouts, slinger and then settler. Scouts scouted a bit. I do like the scout's promotion tree.


Stealthy observers or fighters. "Can move after attacking" and "+20 combat in all situations" seem to turn any scout into a fighter.

I suspect I will promote along this right hand side, should be good for finishing off units and getting safe. +20 combat str is a _lot_. I did a fair bit of barb-hunting here, getting promotions for my guys and keeping my stuff safe. I got a barb kill with my slinger but it didn't register, so no boost to archery. Got it anyway. There are also useful techs unlocked by fighting.


For melee units: One-right-choice= +7 combat.

---
I got ready to found my second city in turn 35.

Settled west because my first target is east. So this land might become contested. If the other AIs get around to settle some cities, that is. My east is safe, because I will kill Trajan of Rome, and then huge tracts of land will be open for settling.

[Molach]

Hrm.

This thread is a bit rambling. I've taken 'normal' pictures but seems like I wanna play instead of typing.

But I do want to jot down balancing thoughts.

City state quests...early on they make sense to fulfill, unless you happened to meet them first.
I built a trader, sent to Zanzibar. Boom, 9 gold. Boom, envoy for +4 gold. And boom, road to my new city. Now this quest

Other city state wants me to create a spearman. So do I. Boom, +4 more gold in cap.

Newly met city state wants me to do inspiration for state workforce. (Build a district.)  So do I. I am in fact building it.
Boom, envoy +2 production.

These quests should probably be related to other AIs, not something I am very very happy to do regardless.

[Molach]

Okay, gonna record major things instead. I let the turns fly by, did not record techsand civics, but they generally were always boosted with inspirations and Eurekas.
My tech target is machinery - increase production and unlock archer mark II (crossbowman).

I had positioned 3 units near Rome's borders, and was moving up 2 more. But Trajan wondered what I was planning, and I decided to be honest. Instead of sneaky "Just passing through" I told him "YOU WERE RIGHT TO WORRY, THIS MEANS WAR!"


Archers are just silly good - Here is all that is needed to kill an city without walls:


Warrior in front, can assault city every 3 turns or so. 2 archers bombard city every turn. City heals, but not fast enough. The slinger inside Rome did not appear to do much. My archers were promoted with +5 against land targets, I _think_ it works against city defenders like so. Civic research indicates that I did not have oligarchy at this time, and took the city without +4 strength. Oh well. My extra warrior unit was not needed, city fell in 3-4 turns.

3 turns, by the look of it:


Trajan is dead, Rome is mine. And a huge amount of settleable land. Also the Stonehenge and a holy site district. I got an Eureka for "building a wonder" by capturing stonehenge too, that is pointy stick research allright. Also a settler was hanging about in his capital. He might have run out back and settled a city, but giving it to me works too. It will settle the land between us. My trade route runs out soon, guess I'll send a trade route east to Rome for the road.

My scout has taken the long road, you can barely see it in the minimap lower left corner. He passed Arabia and found two more city-states. Seoul is scientific, and will actually help when I get +3 envoys there as I do have a scientific district.

Bad news:


I've already won. Top everywhere, more or less. Religious victory...Rome had built Stonehenge, which means free prophet, which means religion, Taoism. But that religion is dead for me, I can't win religious victory by adopting and spreading it. I am not sure how/if it will help me, or if I'm tied to the one I started a pantheon for.

Anyway, I think I'll keep warring for a quick finish this game, and then jump to higher difficulty where AIs are less abusable. But since most players play around on prince - how was this not spotted by devs? Quickly take a capital, and suddenly you have two developed cities, and far from being crippled by unit upkeep and distance city upkeep - you have more science than anyone in the world. Did not the devs try out "what happens if we just build some units early on?" Units are _cheap_, there is a +100% production to ancient melee and ranged units legacy.

[Sirian]

These quests should probably be related to other AIs, not something I am very very happy to do regardless.

I always felt that Civ5 CS quests were too far off the path of what I wanted to be doing anyway, thus I ignored the vast majority of them. If the reward is perceived to be not worth the effort and the quest would disrupt your plans and your strategy, why go off chasing it?

Diplomacy, if finely crafted, would find relationships building where common interests lie. Having at least some of the CS quests coincide with "what I was doing anyway" would be a most welcome change indeed. At least for me.

I suppose that's not the same as the quests *ALL* being "too easy", which could be the case here. I don't know yet. But for sure, if they were all senseless and disconnected from the game as it is playing out, I would have no interest in letting them lead me around by the nose. Just my two cents on it.


- Sirian

[Sirian]

Trajan is dead, Rome is mine.

...

I've already won. Top everywhere, more or less. ... But since most players play around on prince - how was this not spotted by devs? Quickly take a capital, and suddenly you have two developed cities, and far from being crippled by unit upkeep and distance city upkeep - you have more science than anyone in the world.

Far from the only report I've seen about successfully taking capitals with an ancient-era military rush. (That doesn't sound very good, does it?)

The early military rush has been around forever. It is one of the stickiest problems for a 4X game to handle. A lot of the game gets warped around, trying to stop it. I do believe, in the end, those costs have to be paid, otherwise the loudest voices across the (veteran) community will generate overwhelming negative feedback. But I could see a philosophy that knows about the issue and simply doesn't care, preferring not to do what would need to be done against it, in favor of a different kind of opening. Let the warmongers run amok and ignore them, tailoring the game to those who either don't know how to exploit it or who would choose not to. Whether the wolves would eat such a design in this day and age, we would have to see.

Knowing about and consciously ignoring the problem is the only favorable spin I can see for it, though. Not knowing would be quite a bit of fail. Knowing but being unable to address it would be a fail of a different stripe.

If they are forced to react to this and change the early game design and balance around to stop it, any iterative balance work that has already been done on the game goes out the window and balance is back to the drawing board. They might eventually get things ironed out, but not any time soon.


- Sirian

[Molach]

Thank you for comments. On city states I'll agree it's still early and I might have gotten too lucky this game.

I just played a game on warlord difficulty (to check on district prices). And wow, early barbarians sure know how to harass. I had 2 warriors and a slinger around, clearing camps was their mission, but they all fell to horsemen suddenly spawning. Granted, I was just clickin' around and was low on military (high on districts though), but I had the +5 against barb thing, and still lost those units. Cleared a few camps too, so it was not passiveness that did it - I got overwhelmed. I suspect that having AIs and city states close & around you is a major thing in repressing barbs.

BUT, and a big but this is - you can't really tell if you are isolated and will face barbarian hordes early on. So I think that in the start you just need to stock up on the military. If you are along, fine you need them to defend new cities and fight barbs. If you are among AIs...you just use them to take aforementioned capital.

Early slinger -> feed kill -> grab archery -> upgrade = pretty good, as I think that archers are the way to go against barbs too. ZOC-providing warrior in front and you are set.

Onward to my game - One of the AIs actually got eliminated before I did the Romans, but it had to be barbs who did it.


Played some more turns yesterday, but got too late to upload and post then. So here:

I went on a little settling spree, got 4 new cities and teched towards machinery. 1 archer upgraded, but I had to build a crossbowman because I ran low on money because I bought monuments in new cities. Yup, I did not go all-in on military in this game, I still feel like developing my cities. But when my 4 units were ready, I denounced Roosevelt and waited some turns. Right after Kongo decided to attack him, they mostly fought on the steppes. And they were a bit shy of actually killing each others' units, often two units would face off and exchange some attacks...then just stop. Probably something to do with wanting to preserve units.

After my brief period of waiting (I could of course have declared straight-up war if I really needed to)

Worth noting that I did not take the oligarchy (+4 strength) policy either. Figured I didn't need it.

Move in, kill a unit on the way, then used two swords and two crossbows to clear him off:

.
Last battle, my swordsman (attacking NE into city) took the city after this fight here. Also: settler in capital™. There is decent and even good, open, settleable territory close of here.

Land combat promotions on crossbows do not help, they receive -20 or so because attacking city. No matter here, obviously.

Here is the proof, with settler-view, that Washy had no problem finding a place to settle down:

Dark green, 6 tiles from capital, that's just about perfect.

This pic here:

I did _not_ denounce that woman. She did, me, after America was no more. And not unexpected, I _was_ a warmonger, just like SHE said. I still get a casus belli. But also, I (am pretty sure I) think I did not have to wait 5 turns after her denounciation. I had planned to, but then she walked a lone settler right in front of my legion...
That is a casus belli right there.

Sorry babe. You and me, war, lets go. I understand that the warrior was on an important mission and unavailable for escort duty. He actually just might have been killed in one attack by swordsman too, so no problem, really.

America settler is close to the east here, I would settle two cities on this peninsula-corner thing. Mostly to fill up space, but also because, you know, science and civics. I'd have built a Harbor, but it would have taken waaaay too long.

I was also denounced by Kongo (close to my north-west), and after I attack Brit Babe here, Saladin wanted me to know that I was a warmongering tyrant too. Guys, these denounciations can be a two-edged sword, you know. (I did not obtain any war declarations in the turnset - so I failed that civic-boosting inspiration)

It's a long and winding road to England, I sent these troops and suspect that London is a few turns from falling:


Pic taken because my redlined spearman is facing a healthy spearman in the city. (I used mine to kill off an enemy archer). Next turn...no counterattack. I actually think it would have survived my next round too, and be able to retreat into the city. So that was strangely passive.

Catapult has a malus vs units in the open (probably had in ciV, but I never used any). Two promotions later - and it is almost full strength.

I've made some knights, not as many as one might think because I also fooled around with religion. I founded my own - and then suddenly the ex-Roman Taoists became Raists. Ra-ism, my chosen belief. I know this because I founded my religion in Washington (didn't want to risk getting swallowed by Tao in rome. I bought some missionaries with faith, spread religion, got some tithes, got an aposthle, enhanced belief....I seriously do not know what I am doing, but as far as I could see, the "religious" lens view did not tell me much about how much pressure which cities were receiving/giving where and how far and...(I mostly know what little I know about religious pressure from reading T-Hawks ciV reports).

AI sure loves holy sites...Rome, Washington and now London all have/had one each and nothing else. I have better hopes for Kongo.

[Molach]

Moving on.


England is dead.

After this Kongo denounced me. How convenient...

But he had only 1 city and died quick.

He did have civy walls and an encampment, but their fire was not very effective, and catapults on defense don't hurt too bad against land units either.
Here is his city, 3 districts. Also in screenshot, rainforest is good! Have to forget the civ4 "jungle is bad" thing when playing 6. It is quite the opposite, 'jungle' cities are excellent and require no worker support.

I now have three enemies left, Arabia, China and ....unmet civilization. (Still didn't meet him during this following session.)
CHINA at least had 3 cities. So did Arabia, but while I sent some extra units east to the Arabs, I focused on the invasion of China first.

First I had to get there, looong boring walk/sail through the jungle/over the seas to get there. Half my force was embarked and other half walked overland. But a bit more fun when I got there:

It would seem that attacking from boats is hard...need to disembark first. I suppose there are units that can attack, maybe techs that make all able to, and also there are naval units that can shoot - so civ3 "meet them on the shore"-defense shouldn't work (it would have worked here, but that is beside the point).
I fail to see why not have the -50% malus but allow attacking amphibiously though. Anyway, fun to move units in, seizing points, setting up places to shoot after a slightly hurried landing...trying to bypass China's allied city state of yerevan on the flank (which I did _not_ want to capture, I want to abuse it after China is dead)

By the way, for the third time I was 'spotted' by the AI - Qin wanted to know why my troops were on his border - one or two turns before I really wanted to attack. I went with the honorable choice - "Yes, we are indeed attacking you". I did have casus belli due to him denouncing me, he also refused to stop spreading his religion to me (He said yes, I'll stop, then went ahead and carried on, but I did get a message that he broke our deal. Never checked if I had a 'better' casus belli then formal declaration though, and don't know what kind of declaration you get for doing that "You were right to worry, this means war". Not that I care about negatives from warmongering at this point, the AI are at -40 relations and will forever be mad at me.
Kudos to AI for spotting my obvious intentions to attack. Also like that I get my turn to carry out the attack - it would seriously suck if I was 'spotted' like this, and then either have to lie about not wanting war, or being shredded on the AIs turn. I do get my turn to move and shoot.

Anyway, that was where I left off yesterday. And it is extremely late, but I guess I have time to finish up China now (they are now down to one city and will be gone in a few turns. But where is the last civ??)

[Molach]

Another session, another death.


Now this is a pretty crappy city...but why wouldn't I take it? Amenities, I guess. But I'd rather have the city and some culture/science than have to deal with a barbarian encampment here later on.

Next target: Arabia. Still haven't found that last civ....


Deploying for the war. I have about 8 units in this theater, 10-15 way north of here. I'll sail half my force over the sea here. But for the heck of it, I'm going to wait a few more turns until I'm suzerain of the city-state here (missionary spread + 2 envoys due in 3 turns).

The city I founded here is quite new, but I harvested marsh to grow it to size 3. Also chopped a forest. I guess it is "honorable" to chop like I would have in civ IV - close to a city, preferable inside borders. Chopping on the other side of the world and gain magic production here is what is unbalanced.

I was also sorely tempted to disband my army and buy another one here. I would have if it was only Arabia left, but for all I know the unmet civ might be in the top right corner, near my current forces. You can see on the minimap that I am sailing units around and generally trying to find that sneaky civ.

In civ IV I would have needed to bring galleys from my core, found a city or a fort to make a canal here to outflank the city of medina. Here I can just walk them into the water. In fact, if you _do_ have galleys they are noteworth for _not_ being able to ferry units at all. I can't help but think that something has gone missing here. Is this designed for the lazy/casual civver who can't be bothered to bring boats and plan where their navy should be? Just...walk into the water and go where you want to go. I dunno.

Anyway, on with some more turns!