Kemal vs Killer *Spoiler*

[Kemal]

First spoiler for another game that has been going for some time, vs Killer. Game specs were mostly random, even landmass, so there's little to tell about those. It turned out we are on a (semi)pangea map, made by Skyfish. I'm playing Japan, and Killer the Arabs, with the modification that we'll both use riders as our UU. Finally, an additional rule has been made regarding MAs, only one at a time may be signed vs the human player.

So, to start things off, here's how I started:


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Though the start itself was very good (it's a fresh water lake), I was most unhappy with the nearby villages, as they could mean an early threat from the barbs for me, so I decided to delay grabbing them as long as I could.
In turn 8, already the first major bad news was recieved in Japan, in the form of a quick look at the scores:


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A word to Killer about this revealed what was already the only possibilty, he had popped a settler already!
Since he's expansionistic, it's something you have to be prepared for, but it was still bad news. Unfortunately for me, it didn't end there...


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This is at turn 12(!), and all 30.000 inhabitants of Japan held their breath as this great threat to Japan appeared from the west. The Roman warrior itself wasn't the problem of course, but the hut he was going to pop was extremely dangerous, as my worker was working a nearby tile. I decided to protect him with my warrior and just leave Kyoto open for the barbs to attack. Fortunately for me, the Romans popped pottery, and no barbs. This early encounter messed up my early settling plans, as I had wanted my 2nd city to be placed near the cow to the west. Now I needed to deal with the 2nd barbs village as fast as possible, as the Romans were eager to explore this hut too:


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To prevent barbs, I settled my 2nd city just next to the hut, on the hill, and popped BW. Not the best of city sites, but not bad either, and at least this meant the end of the barbarian threat.

Now, as you may have noticed on the previous pics, the Romans had built there 2nd(?) city very close to Kyoto, but this aggressive settling policy of theirs was only beginning, as this was what I faced near my borders at turn 24 (!!), before I had a chance to finish a 2nd settler:


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The game progressed relatively quiet (only noteable things were Killer popping a free city in around turn 15, and me popping... barbs and getting my warrior killed) until turn 46, when first contact was made with the Arab people:


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Before I continue about what happened when me met, lets first take a look at how Japan was doing in turn 46, starting with an overview of my empire at that time:


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(Note the temple in Tokyo, which will be rushed to steal the cow from Rome)

And on the minimap:


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The score ():


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And concluding with the predictable demographs (hey, only the first time so far this spoiler! ):


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The encounter was near his free city, just past the isthmus that divides the two lands we're on. Immediately I knew I had to block off his access to my lands there, but I also wanted to have contact with more civs than my neighbours Rome, the Greeks to the West, and the Egyptians, who weren't located yet. Another thing I considered was checking out whether his city was defended or not, of course, although that would cost another 2 turns for my warrior to get back and block the path.
After contact was established, Killer and I did some trading, this is what I got after the trades, and what Killer got from me:

Me:
- Mathematics, IW, Writing, Horseback Riding
- 250 gold
- Contact with Babylon, Carthage, Persia
- Roman worker

Killer:

- Mathematics, and an undisclosed amount of cash for selling my contact to his neighbours.

What happened is that we agreed I got writing and contact with Babylon for Mathematics (I bought that for 200 from Egypt). He proceeded by selling my contact around to his neighbours, so the actual trade was only Writing vs Maths. However, it turned out his neighbours were very wealthy, so I sold maths for 250 gold and HR to Carthage and Persia, and Writing to the weak Babylonians for IW. Then I sold HR at monopoly price to my neighbours and got about 200 and a worker for that.
I don't know what Killer got for my contact he sold around, but he was HR behind after the trades were completed. It might be he wants to upgrade chariots however, so maybe he deliberately didn't take it from the AI.

We're now at turn 57, 3 turns ago I did another good round of trading when Persia discovered Mapmaking. Profiting heavily from my middleman position, I got mapmaking and the entire world map plus another 200 gold out of this, bringing my gold total around a staggering 1100 gold already.

This is how Killer is doing in turn 57:


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This is what is called Japan at the moment:


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And the entire WM:


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At the moment, Killer is leading in both score and power, and maybe too in demographs:

Score

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Power

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Demographs

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My current plan is to attack Rome soon, barracks have been constructed in Osaka and Edo, and Tokyo will soon follow. These cities will create a host of warriors that I will upgrade using my large treasury, and I hope I can take out the cities closest to me, especially Cumae, before they'll have too many legionaries (Rome is next to iron). I'm already building the FP in Satsuma, in case I fail to get a leader in my war against the Romans, which is likely since I don't plan to drag it on too long.

I still control the isthmus, but Killer has posted two warriors next to it for some time now, so he might conisder an attack.


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For now I'm still profiting from my monopoly on all contacts, but with mapmaking discovered, I expect the AI to reach eachother soon, even though I refrained from giving mapmaking to the Greeks (and they still don't have it), who are, of my neighbours, closest to Killer.

To finalize this large spoiler update, here's a nice trade with Babylon I did in the latest turn:


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Best part of it is that this almost certainly Killer's gold flowing in my vaults, as the AI never maintains a large positive cashflow ealry in the game. Since he has just acquired mapmaking himself this turn, I think this must have been the price he paid for it.

[anarres]

That's nice, taking the gold Killer is giving to the AI!

[Skyfish]

Am not sure I understand this right but it looks like he messed up the trades :
why didn't Killer sell Math to his AIs when you sold it to him in the first place ?
Also you say you got Writing from him but then proceeded to sell Writing to the Babylonians, why didn't he do that himself and cut you from those deals ?

[Kemal]

@Sky: To make sure I got the first shot at trading maths, I specifically asked him to send the contact with Babs/Writing accepted before agreeing to the deal, so I could get the other contacts via the Babylonians during my turn, and proceed with selling mathematics to more AI buyers, before he got the turn back again.
As it turned out, before he sent me anything (we were negotiating while it was his turn) he sold contact with me to all AIs, netting him some gold, but saving me the costs of buying contacts fom Babylon (which made up for the fact that, in the end, he only gave writing for maths, not writing and contact with Babylon, as we had agreed).

So he never had the possibility to sell maths to the AI, as he got it last. Why he didn't give/sell Babylon all known (to him) techs to deny me a possible trade, I don't know.

[Puwen]

I recomend you to unfortyfy your warrior at the istmus so it doesn't die from disease.

[Kemal]

BREAKING NEWS: ARABIA LAUNCHES SNEAK ATTACK ON JAPANESE FORCES

What had been feared in Japan for some time has become reality as the Arabian leader Lt. Killer M, a notorious warmongerer, has ambushed Japanese forces on the isthmus without provocation, and without consulting with the Japanese leadership first to see if war could have been prevented.

Now, the Japanese leader ToKemalu is pondering whether additional actions against the Arabian people are necessary, and has asked for an audience with the Carthaginian General Hannibal. The possibilty of a Japanese-Carthaginian alliance is not yet off the table, even though the Japanese leader had a sudden stroke of insanity and let the turn pass to Killer, while he could have made the deal by selling contact with Rome and Greece to Carthage for the alliance.

I'll have the iron connected in 2 turns from now, then I'll upgrade about 7 warriors to swords in case Killer sets up the Romans against me, if he has the luck of encountering an AI unit on the isthmus.

EDIT: @puwen: thanks for the tip, but I left it fortified because I feared he would die of other causes than disease sooner, which turned out to be the truth as this post shows..

[ProPain]

quote:Originally posted by Puwen

I recomend you to unfortyfy your warrior at the istmus so it doesn't die from disease.

I never knew this only happened to fortified units! You're never too old to learn I guess. Great tip!

[anarres]

Kemal, have you got a map of the warzone?

[Kemal]

I certainly have, and as an additional bonus there's also an overview of what's been happening during the last few turns, as there has been more warfare than just between Killer and Carthage in the past several years.

As reported before, I left the possibility of signing an alliance using contacts as a payment uncertain for a turn, but thankfully Killer hadn't found the Greeks yet as I got it back again, so I quickly set up Carthage and scooped 190 gold from Persia by trading away a few contacts. Iron was almost connected, and with plenty of vet warriors around, I was actually already gearing up for war against Rome, while the Greeks were still some distance away.

However, almost immediately after contacts became available to Killer, he bought the Greeks in, making me believe he doesn't have the world map yet, as buying in Rome seems to have been a better choice at that moment. As there was no Greek anywhere near my borders the first turn after they declared war, I decided to continue as planned and launched my attack vs Rome on Cumae, which was only defended by 1 spear, yet cost me a vet sword to occupy.

In the current situation, I'm planning to push the Roman borders back, hoping to take Neapolis, which has incense, in 2 turns, while using a few swords and horses to keep the Greeks at bay in the west. Killer is still at war with Carthage, but nothing seemed to have happened yet. One thing that is noteable though, is that I'm ranked strong in military against Killer and Babylon, and average to all other AI except carthage, whom I'm weak against. Good to hear they have a decent army, though I think it consists mostly of overvalued (by the mil. advisor) mercs.

Here are some pics of current wartime hotspots, as well as the minimap and my current army:

Eastern Front (with Neapolis barely visible in the topright corner):


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Western Front (only a few archers from Knossos so far):


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The Japanese Army(plus minimap) in the current turn, 69:


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Most recent pic from Killer/Carthage:



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[Skyfish]

You are playing the safe card too much , you could have divided your big stack of swords between Neapolis and Veii, the latter looks like a nice city to own, seems overkill to me but I dont know the game enough, seen many Legions yet ?