My first steps on a path that leads to darkness ...

Tiberius · October 8, 2002, 07:16

I was wondering how it is to kick asses from the very beginning and to threaten instead of being threatened, sooo, here I am, playing for the very first time the role of a bad, evil, warmongerer despot

Chosen civ: the Chinese.
Setup: Monarch, standard map, 8 civs, everything random, all victory conditions on.

The map has 2 big continents, 2 smaller ones and some islands. I started on a big continent, between the japanese and the indians. The starting position was a perfect excuse for my first evil strategy: the archer rush!

First war: With only 2 cities (Beijing and Shanghai) I managed to conquer 3 or 4 indians cities, destroy others, extort some techs and later to completely destroy the indians. Unfortunately, the japanese grew quite big in the meantime, so I was busy for a few turns to build cities and then started to build my second army of devils: the Horsemen!

Second war: I took 6 or 7 japanese cities, who were obviously happy to join the growing chinese empire
(do you think I'm exxagerating? :innocent:

) So far things were going well, I was having a good amount of territory, luxuries and resources and I was scientifically anvanced. Only those pesky people were complaing about culture, but who needs those useless improvements, when I had barracks to build? After I secured some strategic positions, panicked because I was losing the wonder races (unfortunately no leaders so far), I couldn't help myself and [embarassed]I stopped the war and made some development. [/embarassed]

Of course development means not only temples and marketplaces, but also heading for the next target on the science chart: Chivalry. Once my wise scientists discovered the stirrup, the japanese had really something to worry about: the chinese Rider. They were foolish enough not to accomplish my demands, so the second chinese-japanese war started in 1335.

Attached the beginning of the war. Chinese are light blue, Germans: dark blue, Persians: light-green, Aztecs: dark green, Babylon: red, Zulu: yellow, Japanese: dark red. The japanese were having 2 cities sorrounded by my borders and I conquered these quickly. The rest of their teritorry was north from me and it was a long-long war until I completely conquered them. (arghhh, those bloody samurais; they are so damn tough!).
I've got 3 or 4 leaders from this war and built an army (and later the Heroic Epic), the FP and a wonder or two.
Right now it is peace and the people are hapilly building cathedrals and libraries (we, despots, are so kind, benevolent and warm-hearted; people misunderstand us *sigh*).

More to come ...

Tiberius · October 8, 2002, 07:41

The second shot is a little late, the game was so interesting that I forgot to take screenshots.
I have already conquered the japanese and a some aztec cities (I needed a luxury

). Unfortunately Babylon hasn't sit still in the meantime, it looks like they will be a worthy opponent for the final round.

I could take out the aztecs but instead I chosed the germans. They have 5 cities on my continent (on my continent

) plus they haven't discovered Motorized Transportation yet and I wanted to hit them before they get Panzers.

What is interesting in this game is that nobody started so far a war against me! I started them all. I suspect they are afraid of me. Once the zulu came to me and asked for some trade treaty saying:
"Trade with us, oh, powerful and mighty Mao". I was so shocked, I almost gave them the goods for free!

It is good to be powerful

Tiberius · October 9, 2002, 02:46

Arghhhhh!!!!

Not only I'm not going to win this game by domination, like I wanted to, but actually I think I'm going to lose it. I was stupid enough not to disable the cultural and space race victory conditions, and I already have 85000 culture points while the babylonians are well ahead of me! I'm not sure how many turns is going to take them to win, but certainly not too many. Plus both the babs and me are building the spaceships, and wainting only for laser to finish them, but I think the game will be over before that.

I conquered 13 german cities without problem, however destroying the aztecs takes longer than I thought. My attacking style is a slower one, I wait for my artilleries to take positions near the target cities and attack it only after I damage seriously the defending units and thus I'm losing time.

Nevertheless, warmongering is not that bad

I like especially the fact that nobody threatens me and that I can build wonders easily with the GLs!

Dark side, here I come

Tiberius · October 9, 2002, 03:12

One of my cities captured from the japanese. It is my best city ever, in terms of production. Fortunately I put the FP near them, without knowing that they're going to build the Iron Works. The city is on river and it is surrounded by grasslands, plains and lots of hills.

Keep in mind that I haven't built a Nuclear Plant yet, nor a Mfg Plant!

They are building an Army or an ICBM in 3 turns!

vmxa1 · October 9, 2002, 03:49

IW is a real boost to productivity. I never build nuc plants or mfg plants you don't need them and surely do not want the side effects. Beside I see you have Hoover anyway. Looks like you have enough pollution without the mfg plant.
Can you just drop a ton of units on the Babs to circumvent their winning? I always turn off cult and space and diplo wins. They are worth one run only to me.

Tiberius · October 9, 2002, 04:27

Quote:

Originally posted by vmxa1
Can you just drop a ton of units on the Babs to circumvent their winning?

My original plan was to finish the germans and aztecs by 2000 and reserve the final 50 years for a big scale, final war with the Babs. Unfortunately, like I said, it is too late for that. I am somehow behing in my schedule and running out of time because of a very likely cultural defeat in a few turns.

I could try to attack them, though I think my army isn't big enough for a quick victory. I have something like 40 or 50 MAs, 30 artilleries and not too many bombers while they have over 130 MIs. I can build between 7 or 10 MAs per turn, I'm not sure, but still they have too many defenders for a quick win.

Btw, can I see somewhere the total culture of the Babs? I can only guess based on culture chart, but that's all.
[/QUOTE]

DaveMcW · October 9, 2002, 08:22

If you have at least half the culture of the babylonians they won't be able to win.

Or if your culture totally sucks, use the top 5 cities (hit F11 to see) as your priority target list and work your way down. And be sure to raze them so they have no chance to flip.

Tiberius · October 9, 2002, 08:28

Man, I have 85.000 culture points! They are well ahead of me, so probaby have above 95.000! How many turns until 100.000 ??

However, razing the biggest ones might be a good solution.

* Hmm... Thinking... Razing ... Hmm *

Arrian · October 9, 2002, 10:09

Tiberius,

The 100,000pt cultural win can only happen if the nearest competitor has less than 1/2 of that. So if you have 85,000 and the Babs have 95,000 there is no chance of them winning culturally (unless they have a city approaching 10,000 all by itself).

I'd say you're at the point where you should be picking off small civs for their luxury supplies. The Zulu, Aztecs and Germans look weak. You're fighting Germany... good, finish them and proceed on to Zululand (unless they have no luxuries). This will give you a foothold on the Babylonian continent.

Then you have a choice: go over to Azteca and grab another luxury or, if pressed for time and seeking a domination win, unleash hell on Babylon.

[Vader Voice]Welcome to the Dark Side. Apolyton has taught you well.[/Vader Voice]

-Arrian

vmxa1 · October 9, 2002, 12:31

Arrian, I think you meant 20,000 for a city.

Theseus · October 9, 2002, 12:44

Is there a reason you can't win via SS?

Arrian · October 9, 2002, 12:49

vmxa1,

Guilty as charged, sir. I mean 20,000 of course. It's been a while since I've even attempted that.

Tiberius,

I was actually going to ask the same thing as Theseus, but you seemed to be really enjoying your warmongering, and building the SS isn't really the warrior route. Of course, you should build it anyway, stopping short of building the Planetary Party Lounge, so that you can win at any time, preventing an AI from "stealing" the win.

-Arrian

Theseus · October 9, 2002, 13:02

More importantly, don;t let any difficulties in this game deter you from the dark power.

My guess is you need to be yet more aggressive... looking at the screen shots, I would propose that you could have taken out the Aztecs in the period from 1940-1991AD.

MJW · October 9, 2002, 20:38

ROP-Rape.

vmxa1 · October 9, 2002, 21:18

Arrian, not to worry I got my wires crossed many times, it is easy to do. You think one thing and write another. Kind of like whenI call my kids by the wrong name, its not that I don't know the names, just a the brain fails to engage.

Tiberius · October 10, 2002, 02:03

Unfortunately I didn't have time to play yesterday
*sigh*

Quote:

The 100,000pt cultural win can only happen if the nearest competitor has less than 1/2 of that.

Oh. [embarassed]I didn't know that. [/embarassed].
So I don't have to worry about cultural defeat. At worst I must worry about a cultural win, because the culturally most developed city in the world is Beijing

Arrian, I'm fighting now the aztecs, not the germans. They both have a luxury I want. I chosed the aztecs because they have started to build military (tanks+bombers) and I couldn't let them do that. (and they didn't want to let the UN inspectors check their arsenal

) I can't attack the zulu for some years, because I have ROP with them and some luxury exchange treaty (10 more turns or so). Obviously the zulus are a good footpoint for my final invasion against babylon.

Oh, there is one more recent problem I forgot: the zulus are at war with babylon and obviously losing. Aaarrrghh! I have to do something about that, just don't know what. Violate the ROP and the trade treaty with the zulu attacking them? I think it doesn't matter anymore, does it?

You are right Master Theseus, I should have been more aggressive. (I'm not looking for excuses, but I conquered 13 german and 3 aztec cities in the '40-'91 period) The problem is that after I conquered the japanese (the best part of the game) I went to democracy and I've been staying there since then. It is not so easy to keep the people happy with all those wars! What I did was waging blitz-wars: conquering 4-5 cities, singing peace treaty, and again and again ....
Lastly, from time to time, I coudn't abstain myself and I've built improvements instead of military

(I think there is still a good amount of builder left in me, but I won't let it deter me from the Dark Power! )

The premature game ending through SS race is still worrying me. I went on a different tech-path (Miniaturization - Genetics and Ecology - Synthetic Fybers) while the babs went directly for Space Flight - Superconductor, Sattelites. The Laser is not that far for both of us. I sure I could win the SS race, just don't want to. (Like Arrian said it well, "building the SS isn't really the warrior route.").

Thanks guys, ahhh..., Dark Lords, for all your teaching. The Dark Side will prevail !

PS How do you do it? I mean, the modern age wars? Slow, careful attacks with MAs, MIs, artilleries, bombers, battleships, etc, or just flooding the enemy with hundreds of MAs ??? I have a big problem: I don't like my units to die, and I attack (perhaps) too late, when all the defenders are badly damaged by my artillery fire.

Jaybe · October 10, 2002, 03:48

Tiberius,
For conquest w/o losses and blitz w/o artillery: lots of ARMIES filled with MA, especially against MI in metros. Also, bombers and battleships, of course. Stealth bombers are also nice, especially against an active air defense.

For the Babylon SS race you can either attack them sooner and take their capital, or use espionage to destroy their parts construction. It can be expensive to locate where they are building the SS part(s) and it only forces them to start over. A nuclear surgical strike on their capital, immediately followed by ground forces to take/destroy it may also play a role. It destroys their ship.

Arrian · October 10, 2002, 08:21

Tiberius,

You have 10 turns more to go on a trade deal with a dying civ? That's a problem, buddy. If the Babylonians cut your trade connection with the Zulu prior to the expiration of that trade deal, your reputation will take a huge hit. If you care about your rep, it may behoove you to get some units on Zulu soil and simply block the attacking Bab forces until the deal is cancelled honorably.

Otherwise, it sounds like you're doing well.

-Arrian

Tiberius · October 10, 2002, 10:41

I've signed the treaty before the babs attacked the zulu. Actually it's quite an old treaty. They're giving me a luxury and it is quite important to keep my pop happy. I was planning to finish the aztecs by the time the zulu treaty will expire and attack the zulu after. The Babs have just ruined my plan. Moving some units there is a sound plan, though. Thanks.
Obviously my reputation is not really that important from this point on. So maybe I'll just attack the zulu.