[SPOILERS] Yuris125 tries to win a game of Civ5 before it fades away

[yuris125]

Definitely looks like there's a way to bypass Harar and attack Addis Ababa. As long as keep a few units near Harar, so that Nic doesn't realise what's going on until it's too late. Need to prepare properly, so will be a few turns before I can launch this attack - but Addis Ababa would be a good prize if I can get it




In this terrain, siege units might actually be useful? Especially with my Physics beeline giving me early access to Trebuchets - they should be strong at this point of the game. Definitely worth considering

Meanwhile HAK seems to be preparing another attempt to capture Adwa. Although he seems to undervalue ranged units - I htink he doesn't have anywhere near enough




Also pictured is HAK's newest city, which quickly adopted Judaism and gave me that little bit of extra income. I'm also close to converting Cusco. With the first Markets almost ready as well, I should be out of financial hole in a few turns

Science wise, I'm still hoping to finish Physics by T100 - I'm currently 2 beakers short, but one of the cities is growing this turn, and that should give me the missing beakers. Hopefully I will get that great prophet by then as well. With that and extra food from Civil Service (which will be my research target after Physics) I should catch up to Ichabod at least in crop yield...

...but I will definitely catch up if I capture Hanging Gardens in Addis Ababa. So that's definitely a big price I'm still hoping to win

[yuris125]

Big turn (and not just because it was T100)

I got my great prophet and enhanced religion




I also finished Physics and used the great engineer to rush Notre Dame in Gao. Should be completed on the interturn




Apparently the demos screen didn't capture, but I'm currently leading in Crop Yield (although it's lower than what Ichabod had a few turns ago, he probably microed for production while he's at negative happiness)

Ichabod finished Hagia Sophia this turn by the way, so guessing he's also going to enhance religion

My biggest concern at the moment is that Nic's power is rapidly growing, he gains something like 5k soldiers every other turn. He may be preparing for a counter-attack, either on me or on HAK. I'm keeping an eye on him and not seeing any signs of a strike being prepared against me, but I can't underestimate Nic's tactical ability

Science wise, I started on Drama and Poetry, which will be followed up by Civil Service. From there I will likely go towards Education - it's about time to get some Universities going

Culture wise, I will get the next policy in 6 turns. Oracle is still available, so my inclination is to take Representation and use Great Engineer from Liberty finisher to rush Oracle. From there I have a few options:

* Take Religious Tolerance, then Reformation for Religious Fervor to keep my ability to faith buy units in the late game, and plan to open Rationalism after that. Not 100% sure on this path though - my faith per turn output is pretty much peaked at this point unless I invest into getting great prophets and building holy sites, and late game units are quite expensive. I believe industrial era units cost 300 faith each, that's a unit per 5 turns even if I raise my faith production to 60fpt - is it worth the culture investment?
* Alternative path is to still go for Reformation, but take Jesuit Education instead - seeing how I lag behind Ichabod in production, faith buying Universities could be a good way to recover some of the deficit
* Another alternative path is to not develop Piety any more and instead open Commerce and take Wagon Trains - the policy may be unimpressive in single player where you don't need to work on income other than setting up resource sales, but in multiplayer where income is much lower and you need more roads it could be worthwhile

Still thinking about the exact path, but 90% am going for the Oracle plan if it's still available by the time I get the next policy

[T-hawk]

Representation - Engineer - Oracle is spending one policy to get one policy, no net gain. The Golden Age is a bonus, but what's the opportunity cost of other wonders you could rush? Maybe Hagia Sophia? That's 11 faith per turn between itself, the free temple, and settled prophet.

I wouldn't go Jesuit Education. You can't split your faith between units and science. And it costs two policies, because Religious Tolerance is crap. I'd say to just hold the course on faith with Holy Warriors, keep buying medieval and renaissance units, the game will be decided by the time you'd need industrial units.

Do you have Mandate of Heaven? That's how to effectively increase your faith production.

[yuris125]

Ichabod just completed Hagia Sophia unfortunately. He also has Chichen Itza. I've been looking through the list of wonders, and not seeing anything particularly useful other than Oracle until at least Architecture. And building Oracle has denial value in addition to semi-free golden age. I would prefer to Oracle the Rationalism opener or something like that, just don't think I can wait that long

Does Mandate of Heaven work for military units? Description says just buildings and religious units, at the moment I don't have any buildings I can faith buy and don't really need missionaries

I'm not sure the game will be decided before Industrial era. With two continents on the map, it won't be easy for Ichabod to attack me or vice versa. Even if an attack does happen, we both will need to invest heavily into navy, and naval units cannot be faith bought. That's why I think Holy Warriors is going to become much less effective mid-to-long-term. Whether the game will continue mid-to-long-term is a different question, but I currently think it will

[T-hawk]

I'd thought Mandate applied to Holy Warriors, but checking the Holy Warriors succession game, it looks like we realized/decided it doesn't. Of course it's no use to you if it doesn't, unless you do go Jesuit.

[yuris125]

T102

Ichabod entered Renaissance era (via Banking, judging by tech costs). He opened Patronage, so I imagine he's targeting Forbidden Palace. This obviously gives everyone a spy, and I do intend to try to steal some techs from Ichabod. He's not that far ahead (4 techs according to the trade screen), but spies are a good way to catch up in science

He also enhanced his religion, as was my expectation when he finished Hagia Sophia. He took Divine Inspiration (faith from world wonders) and Religious Texts. He does have Mosques, so his faith production should be comparable to mine - but he doesn't have any faith sinks after he builds Mosques everywhere. His early policy tree was Liberty, same as mine, so he can't faith-buy great people

Positive thing about this development is that I was afraid of Ichabod beelining Astronomy and Frigating the hell out of our continent. That doesn't seem to be happening, and I still think it's possible to catch up with Ichabod in peaceful development mode. Definitely possible if capturing Nic's capital is part of this "peaceful development"

Otherwise there's not much going on right now, I can't make headway into Nic until there are enough units to attempt the push towards Addis Ababa. For now I'm concentrating on growing cities and balancing the budget - I'm losing gold at the moment, and it's starting to affect research

[T-hawk]

What units would you use for getting to Nic's capital? Crossbows and trebuchets, or are you going to get to anything better?

[yuris125]

At the moment it's just Comb Bows. I'm still not sure if I should or Machinery or Education after Civil Service. It's tempting to skip Machinery, but Nic is likely to be able to reinforce if I don't have Crossbows. So.. still thinking

I'm keeping an eye on the map between Hanoi and Addis Ababa, and at the moment there's no units except a single Crossbow in his capital. It may be possible to cut off his units in Harar and march onto barely defended capital. But such an attack could easily run out of steam again, and considering there's no ranged units better than Crossbows for a long long time, it's probably worthwhile just getting Machinery and upgrading the army

I'm definitely not attacking in the next dozen turns or so - it's extremely important to have enough units, as this may be the last chance to make gains through military. I would like to have at least a dozen ranged units and 5ish Trebuchets if possible

For reference, this is the map from 4 turns ago - Nic upgraded all Comp Bows I can see to Crossbows, but nothing else changed, the map is just as clear now as it was then

[yuris125]

Nic's feeling frisky




I actually was planning to road the jungle tile where the wounded Horseman is, but can't really do it under fire

Don't think he will achieve much, but will tread carefully - I was wrong before, even in this game...

[yuris125]

Nic seems to be satisfied with harassing me at the moment. I decided to risk it and try to road that jungle tile. Having access to the open terrain beyond the jungle seems to be very important defensively and - if I do assemble a force to strike at Addis Ababa - offensively




As you can see, my gold problem is solved, at least temporarily. The reason is that my religion is spreading, and Ceremonial Burial kicking in. 3 of HAK's cities are converted, and the 4th is on the verge (3 out of 7 citizens follow Judaism, and pressure is obviously very strong)




The funny thing is that Nic's cities are also flipping, despite Nic having his own religion




Addis Ababa won't flip as it's a holy city, but Adwa has 3 follower of Nic's religion and 2 of mine, with 108 Judaism pressure and only 9 of Nic's religion. I'm not 100% sure if an already existing follower can flip from one religion to another, but if it can happen, this city will flip as well

Now, Nic's cities flipping to Judaism is not necessarily a good thing - as he's going tall and only has 4 cities, I imagine he's built all the Pagodas he needs by now, and has no ways to spend faith. So he has to be able to take advantage of Holy Warriors - maybe he even actively wants for my religion to spread to him at this point. But nothing I can do, and I expect my faith production to be stronger in any case. Just need to get back to even footing in unit quality

One more notable thing is how much better Church Property is than Tithe would've been at this point. I have 14 cities following Judaism - that's 28 gpt. Tithe would've required 112 follower to match that. The total size of cities following Judaism is 71 - and not all of their citizens are followers! Can't give you exact numbers, but believe CP is at least twice as good as Tithe would've been

Finally, I remembered to take the demos screen




I honestly think I'm in good shape - crop yield will jump up once I finish Civil Service in 2 turns, and the rest of the stats should follow as cities grow. I also started building Aqueducts in larger cities to fight increasing size of the foodbox and keep them growing fast. As long as I don't succumb to Nic's soldiers number, which is becoming scary once again...

I actually was tempted to send him a peace offer once again; the reason I didn't is that if he can focus solely on HAK, he may be able to wipe him out and get back in the game. This would be very bad, because if Ichabod is the sole competitive power on his continent, and Nic and I are nagging at each other's heels at the ours, Ichabod has a huge advantage - considering he's ahead now, pretty sure he would be able to ride it to victory. I need the opposite - I need to cripple Nic to make sure he's not a threat any more - that's why I'm not dropping the idea of an attack on Addis Ababa despite getting close to Ichabod in the demos. Finally, I still would like to use HAK as a research agreement partner, meaning I need him to a) stay alive and b) be willing to sign a declaration of friendship with me. And if I sign peace with Nic, he may feel that I withdrew from a war against a common enemy and be less inclined to sign that friendship

Finally finally, you can see that I will get the next policy next turn. I'm pretty sure I don't have a better option than Representation right now - there is no active military action right now, cities are growing, pretty good time for a golden age. I'm also certain a Great Engineer is the best great person to take from Liberty finisher. I don't think using it for Oracle is a good idea, as there's no other policy I could immediately benefit from. So I'm going to sit on him until I can build a wonder I actively want. Not 100% sure what it would be yet, but pretty sure spending a GE on Oracle right now would be a waste