4x4 CIV *Spoiler*

[akots]

Well, if one takes Nationalism with Liberalism and researches or trades for Music, there would be only two techs left towards cavalries. Gunpowder is cheap and though Military Tradition has to be self-researched in any case (because it cannot be popped with a great person at this point), it might be decisive in this game considering a rather retarded state of the other continent. If you can do it fast enough, it might be even worth whipping a number of cavalries here and there. They can be delivered to the other continent at a rate of 3 units per turn with a galleon chain. So, it might very well be that the game is decided within the next 20 turns.

[Kemal]

@BCLG: PP is good (yeah our site admin too), but aside from akots's comments, I really think the Taj Mahal should not be underestimated this game. Don't forget that it actually counts double, you get a GA, plus the enemy does not. 1+1 = 2 GAs for one Taj Mahal. Decent logic, isn't it?

@akots: they're not that retarded btw, both have music, and only need nationalism, gunpowder and mil. tradition themselves too for cavs (don't forget they have their research output combined since about turn 20). Or alternatively, they can put up good defenses with gunpowder and chemistry -> grenadier, since they already have engineering. They absolutely can't be underestimated that's for sure.

Also, 20 turns...? I personally don't believe this game can be decided so fast, but we shall see what happens. Don't forget that I have to earn money myself inbetween bursts of research, so after 4 turns for Liberalism there will have to be a small period where money is generated too.

Research after Liberalism really still has to be decided upon, that's the good thing of civ4... lots and lots of possibilities.

[BCLG100]

didnt you say they didnt have philosophy either?

thus if popping pp with your free tech you'd be left in a race for nationalism which you would more than likely win due to your higher science rate (as only one can research it) due to pp you will have had increased gold from the cottages thereby allowing you to get nationalism faster.

having pp before you start your GA is also usefull as it means you can get even more out of your cottages and be well on the way to cavs before the GA is over.

[akots]

quote:Originally posted by Kemal
...
1. they're not that retarded btw, both have music, and only need nationalism, gunpowder and mil. tradition themselves too for cavs (don't forget they have their research output combined since about turn 20).
2.Or alternatively, they can put up good defenses with gunpowder and chemistry -> grenadier, since they already have engineering. They absolutely can't be underestimated that's for sure.

3. Also, 20 turns...? I personally don't believe this game can be decided so fast, but we shall see what happens. Don't forget that I have to earn money myself inbetween bursts of research, so after 4 turns for Liberalism there will have to be a small period where money is generated too.
...

1. They don't have Astronomy and won't get it easily. They also cannot pop it with a great person because there is a preference for Printing Press in the current situation. Therefore they are stuck on the defensive. If you can use this advantage you have, that would be great.
2. IMHO, grenadiers/musketmen won't be enough even with a horde of catapults. One needs rifelemen to survive against cavalry. I also doubt they might have enough cash to upgrade whatever promoted troops they have into grenadiers. So, cavalry might be sufficient especially if covered with a few macemen here and there. But it has to be a strong punch with many units.

I've played a few MP games on a more relaxed settings and never had any problem "delivering" it with cavalry against grenadiers. IMHO, cavalry rules the world of Civ4 as much as it ruled the world of Civ3, it is just that the window is not as large on normal speed. So, you have to build many units within a rather short time period. Of course many means really many, 3-6 every turn for 12-15 turns for may be total of something like 50 or even more. It might be practical with slavery.

3. Regarding cash and stuff, if you can spend a few units here and there and kill Matrix/Aztec, this would accomplish a few things. First, you get instant cash boost to fuel research. Second, you get some instant population boost to whip into cavalries. It would come at a cost but one can worry about the cost later on. And hopefully Matrix has at least a couple of Courthouses here and there in his cities. Not sure about the Aztec, Monte usually does not like to build city improvements.

But this is all just an outsider vision based on your spoiler. May be I'm too optimistic here.

However, the only viable counter to this for the other continent would be a mad race towards riflemen. But they would have to wage a war against Washington to fuel that race considering if and when you might get your Golden Age.

[Kemal]

Although - as akots eloquently pointed out above - the forecast for Mali was really good in this game, it unfortunately looks like the outcome will never be known.

Grs decided to abandon PBEM games and - partly due to my extensive spoilers, perhaps - no replacement has been found. Having been without any play for almost 2 months now, I think it is time to put this one to rest.

[digger760]

bummer, it was good to read yours and theirs respectively to see the inside story unfold

[Whomp]

That stinks. I would've jumped in and been proud to get my head kicked in by you Kemal. Sorry for your wasted time. This would've been a great finish I think.

[Kemal]

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Good thing I did not mention the fact that I had another Galleon packed with 2 maces and a horse archer heading for the other continent together with the forces that took the 1st grs's city in my previous spoiler update! Burn Baby, Burn! Too bad I could not take the workers too...

Already 4 more turns have been played since BCLG took over, and they have been ever so kind to Kemsa Mumal and his Malinese merry men. Things seemed to start off in a negative way, as I noticed that BCLG's first actions were an understandable revolt to slavery (and organized religion, which is less logical in his position imho), plus about 350g vanishing from his treasury (assumed upgrades, could be the crossbow on the pic is one of them).

Thankfully, this short term project of burning two major coastal cities has been achieved now, so anything else gained is a bonus (on top of the ongoing peril these galleons' presence alone causes for their empires).

But on other fronts, the past few turns have been eventful too: first of all, on the war vs BCLG/grs, now that Tiwanaku has been razed and Machu Picchu has become pretty isolated (plus the 2 archers that can be seen moving towards Seattle, gearing up for possible pillage duty), it was time to get Roosevelt involved in the war, after having traded my only copper source with him and making sure he had both Civil service and Machinery plus iron:


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Not too much hope that he will do some actual damage to BCLG, but at least this costs him some health resources


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which of course were immediately shipped in another direction:


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Furthermore, America attacking BCLG might prompt Darkness into action against Roosevelt, leaving his north undermanned... which could of course be beneficial for a certain fleet of marauding Malinese in the area:


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Note the impressive, but fairly one-sided promoted armies of BCLG hanging around Heliopolis...



On domestic matters, there was good news from Matrix, who replied the following when I asked him for 20g to make sure I could complete tech research on the following turn:


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For those not fluent in Dutch, this is the amount of gold Matrix still owes me according to his administration... that's good, considering that I had lost all my stats due to the long pause this game has known, and was prepared to start on even footing as far as his debt to me was concerned. Not that he needs to know of course..

Due to this gold, and the gold plundered from Tiwanaku, tech research has been 100% for some time now, leading to:


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As said, Nationalism will be picked as free tech, and construction of the Taj Mahal will commence shortly. In the meantime, a GA might come even sooner than that, with Rome - despite the fact that Mali is out of pacifism - spawning another GP soon:


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Due to the unfortunate artist received as first GP, creating a GA to leverage the advantage Mali now possesses is a real possibility. However, should yet another artist appear, there is still nothing lost, as one of them can be used to "pop" music, mandatory for medium term goal Military Tradition. The 2nd artist will then wait for another GP spawning in Rome, and start a GA on a later date.

To conclude, some interesting figures on the F9 graphs, clearly illustrating the impact that recent events have had on nations around the globe:

First, there is GNP, where the gap is widening again, mainly due to the lost cities of course but also due to increased civic upkeep for organized religion, I presume.


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Secondly, mfg goods, where we both take hits.. this time, at least for Mali, a shift to the slavery civic and the ensuing pop rushes are to blame, but Kemsa is convinced that the empire will come back stronger due to this sacrifice of pop. BCLG also used the whip, which explains his drop I think, as I saw at least Cuzco dropping a few pop points after his revolt to slavery... not sure whether he would be wipping buildings or units... units is what he needs most I guess, but the combo with organized religion might point towards the former:


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And as the final graph, power. Not much positive to say about this except that I really like the fact the Americans rank so high on the list. A tough nut to crack to be sure, requiring resources they can't afford to spare I hope, despite the obvious trend of both Darkness and grs increasing their power, and thus military prowess:


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And concluding, as per tradition, with the demographics of 800 AD. Only a few turns after the previous demograph posting, so not much new here. Note the horrendous decrease in gnp for the nearest rival though..


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[Kemal]

"THERE ARE NO MALINESE SOLDIERS HIDING INSIDE AMERICAN BORDERS"


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, as everyone's favourite Malinese minister of information likes to put it.


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1. FIGHTING THE WAR OF TERROR

Back again for another update, we're now in 1020 AD, and a lot has happened since the last update - some things concerning military matters, but also a lot of domestic/scientific improvements have been made, during a glorious ongoing period of prosperity for the Malinese Empire.

While these domestic issues will have a profound impact on the game in turns to come, I'd like to start off with some more militaristic matters, which took place somewhere in the late 800's/early 900's AD.

As has been illustrated during earlier spoiler posts, there has been an ongoing state of hostility between the Malinese and Incan empire for some time, and during this period Mali became a close ally of the Americans who went to war with us vs the evil Inca.

But in the meantime, Kemsa Mumal had not forgotten the troublesome negotiations with Darkness of earlier times, and was keen on letting China become acquainted with the Malinese military prowess. Thus, Kemsa simply couldn't find it in his heart to turn down this very reasonable - and impossibly well timed - request made by his eternal ally and friend Roosevelt:


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How convenient that since the destruction of Ollantaytambo, these veteran troops had rested and healed up on board a Malinese Galleon, which in the meantime had covertly positioned himself somewhere north of the Chinese lands.


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So when high-command gave the green light for action to begin, the ship moved in and the world witnessed a little bit of history repeating:


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And a turn later, a division of horse archers secured the same fate for the city of Alexandria:


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The macemen rushed to the scene came a few miles short to garrision the city in time, even though these foul villians managed to cruelly trick and murder my horse archer before they could board their ships again.

Just going to take a slight detour from the spoilers at this point, as I'd like to point out the extreme importance of managing to control the seas on maps like these, and the profound effect this can have on the game.

As it stands, not only have my 2 galleons with a mere 5 units been able to take out 3 major and a minor city of Darkness and grs/bclg uncontested, the psychological effect of these ships popping up out of nowhere is tremendous as well.

Since Darkgrss has no possibility of knowing or scouting out where my vessels are due to their lack of naval power/knowledge, they have now resorted to extreme measures trying to defend what remains of their coastal sites. Every coastal city that is explored now - 9 galleons and 2 caravels are active atm - contains defenses like these now:


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That's 3 top class units permanently guarding a city that darkness has no idea of on whether it will be attacked anytime soon, during a period where he is fighting a very tough war with America in the south. For BCLG, things are even worse as I've seen his coastal cities defended by up to 6 heavily promoted units, all being tied to that specific city site, not being able to do anything useful anywhere.

I've been making sure to keep a galleon into view of their borders from time to time to make sure the threat remains a reality to them, but so far it has just been the 5 aforementioned units - plus a load of naval power - that have been responsible for the havoc on the other continent. A war of terror indeed, and mighty effective at that as well I might add.

Finally, my galleons - as they have no match at seas atm, and if they do get a match, frigates will be around for cover - also provide a safe place to heal wounded units on, once they've made a landing to either attack a city or snatch some workers, making quick hit and run tactics possible even with slow moving infantry units like maces and axes.

Ok, enough of this small detour, just wanted to point out that naval power can be very potent in this game too, under the right circumstances.

Back to the spoiler now, where we left the northern raiding party enjoying themselves plundering upper china. The southern raiders, in the meantime, had decided that - due to a lack of opportune coastal targets - they could be put to much more use on land, and were ordered by the Malinese high command to disembark on American soil, using open borders there to easily move around, and - as was the original plan - provide cover for the northern American cities, which I expected to be under siege by Darkness by now, considering he declared war on them a few turns ago.
With no faulty AI moving them around, they were hoping to catch Darkness army either wounded or unaware at the right moment, striking unsees from out of nothing to take out several units, then running back into safe American borders again if possible*.

However, when reaching Boston, the situation was totally different to what I expected it to be:


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*Note that my plans of striking unseen where thwarted by the fact that Boston is a Hindu city, and unfortunately BCLG has Hinduism as a state religion and controls the Hindu holy city, making my units visible to him. Very poor American roading doesn't help much in staying hidden either.

It seemed that the roles were reversed compared to what I thought was the case, and Roosevelt was actively besieging Darkness. That sure puts the sight of 3 topunits protecting Nanking in the north in an even better light! Of course, witnessing such acts of bravery by their american comrades made the Malinese revel in bloodlust, and they jumped in to join the fray.

With such a setup, the disappointment was rather big when witnessing the same scene a turn later:



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All Americans wasted, and about the same defence for Darkness still in place. Since chances of capturing the city were small - I might have won 3 battles now attacking the city, but then I would be left with wounded units myself, open for Chinese counterattack - I decided to "choose eggs for my money" (Dutch proverb), also figuring that the threat level of my units being alive was worth more than razing that size 2 city anyway.

For the current turn, things have reached a stalemate again on the Chinese/American border near Boston, but I noticed that Darkness has - perhaps forced to do so - let his guard down again in Nanking:


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As can be seen on pic 1 of this post, my units stand by to board the galleon again, and team up with the northern raiding party to see if another coastal raid is possible. More on that in future updates, time to talk domestic matters now:

2. OUR GREAT CIVILIZATION HAS ENTERED A GOLDEN AGE!

Already hinted at a lot during earlier updates, some time after the discovery of Liberalism and the free Nationalism, Kemsa Mumal - first having built up a big treasury - finally took the liberty of sacrificing 2 of his greatest thinkers of the empire, and witnessing such a spectacle enticed the entire population into a period of extra production, with the goal of stengthening the navy and building the Taj Mahal, while the minds of all researching in the empire focused on learning the secrets of military tradition.

And only after a mere 6 turns in Golden Age, Gunpowder, Music and Military Tradition had been researched and the Taj Mahal was finished, adding another +8 turns to our GA:


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In the meantime, Feudalism was traded for with America, while theology will be researched next turn to revert to Theocracy, resulting in level 3 cavs right of the bat. This makes for a total tech rate of 5 techs (worth nearly 7000 beakers total) in 6 turns - another factor, although non-military, which may greatly reduce morale for the opposition.

Production will now focus almost solely on cavalries, and around 15 should be ready when the GA finishes, more than enough to do very serious damage I think, while keeping the entire production and research capabilities of the empire intact.

The reason that this has all progressed so quickly is that production absolutely skyrocketed when the GA started, best illustrated by the following graphs:


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Note that neither Matrix nor Roosevelt really is an enemy of mine atm, making especially the mfg goods graph even kinder to Mali at this point in the game. Note that on the GNP graph, BCLG's line is rapidly taking a dive, which correlates well with the current power graph, where he is soaring:


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Also, he seems to be doing 100% tax from time to time, or at least I noticed him earning heavy sums of money every few turns or so... but that number has dwindled down from over 150gpt to 138 gpt now. Hopefully, these are all signs that the Incan empire may be collapsing under its own weight, much like the empire of Straland has done so much earlier in the game (looking at the gnp again, Matrix never recovered from that). It also means, though, that BCLG may be the toughest nut to crack military wise... which target our cavalries will pursue is so far undecided.

Translated to raw figures, this amounts to:


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Well worth the 2 great persons, I think!

Rounding up the domestic talks, here's a quick overview of the empire again. Notice the rapid growth in pop in some cities, especially Rome... While Timbuktu is still the GNP powerhouse, responsible for almost 40% of the research nationwide iirc, Rome - and to a lesser degree Kumbi Saleh and Niani - have started to rake in the gold and beakers pretty fast as well now. A good contrast vs specialized production cities such as Gao, Djenne Walata and Antium.


North:


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Middle:


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South:


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3.WHAT THE FUTURE BRINGS...

Considering the current state of the other continent, it looks like cavalries might be just the final push needed to permanently tip the balance into Malinese favour for this game. However, as Kemsa will not whip away his own empire for mass production of cavs - not saying that akots's suggestion is a wrong one, but I simply loath to whip away my empire unless it is a necessity for survival - there might be the off-chance that they somehow survive the coming onslaught in such a manner that the war will continue to drag on for some time.

Should this happen, while of course military production will remain high for a long time now, research will steadily continue towards the next long-term military goal, which I think will end the possibilities to oppose Mali for the other continent for sure: Flight.

Since the seas are - and with the lack of coastal production undoubtedly will remain - in Malinese hands, a few carriers packed with fighters should be able to decimate the landscape rather easily, stripping them of all improvements and rendering their cities productionless, without any form of defense possible. Therefore, this is where reseach will be geared towards, and while we are talking modern age techs here, research levels look quite good, and a lot of these techs can actually be lightbulbed by scientists, making this scenario - while perhaps more of a musing on the future than a quick reality - not as impossible as it looks at first glance.

As far as Kemsa is concerned, this all won't be necessary though. All cavs aboard, next stop: the other continent!

[Whomp]

It's a pleasure to watch your precision Kemal. Good show!