posted
Playing civ4 with a friend online and we are using the European Empires 3 Mod in which its the map of europe and the techs are slightly redone.
I play the extended version with my friend russia since I really can't handle being in smushed places. But ya what I usually do is that i pump out warriors and within 20 turns take in this order: Smolensk, Novgorod, Kursk, and finally Kiev. From there I i build 2-5 workers and build up my economy a little, then i found st. petersburg in more or less the historical place.
Most games I'ld mass archers and take out lithuania before they even get a second city eliminating them once and for all, but this method eventually puts me head to head with the poles, and then usually i expand to the ukraine/crimia too quickly and generally i end up at 10% tech rate and fall dangerously behind, catching up only aroud the early industrial period but still with economic problems and with a more advance but smaller europe.
However with my newest game with my friend Dano:
I conquer the barbarian cities and revert to an economic build mode, consrtucting troops to make sure my cities are defended, ad workers to build cottages so my economy can grow, However I goto war with the Baltics twice in a row once o take Orel (historical place) and then to take Minsk giving me their only source of copper. And forcing them off to the sidelines but leaving me in dire economic difficulties.
Whoring my tech out to the AI allowed me to stockpile larges surpluses of capitol inwhich I burned at a rate of -100 per turn a 100% research, reducing to a manageable 50% with feudal argriculture, and currency. and further whoring.
However, eventually Poland founded cities in the ukraine and I went nuts, I DOWed them and sent some 6 axemen and 4 spearment and took 2 cities, and then peaced them and DOWed Hungary to take their city.
Dano as turkey founded 2 cities in sebastopol, but I agreed to fund him tech if he agreed to peacefully hand them over to me at a later and convenient date. (he was having serious issues and agreed).
Eventually he gave up and switched to france and the AI took over as turkey managing somewhat but forever lost in ignomity and france staying in second/third place.
However, as russia probly because of my 5 city lead at the beginning I remained in first place a good 300-400 points beyond second place, I currently have before I had to go to bed:
1st in population 1st in land area 1st in army size 1st in crop yield 1st in production 3rd largest religion (orthodox) Technologically I've fallen behind the second and third place people but a light year ahead of those under 8th place and my economy is starting to revive again. 50-60% TECH rating.
After I unified Russia all the way to the black sea and Dano became france I DOWed turkey and took those cities and got a huge war reparation off of turkey 200 gold. Then I DOWed Hungary and took Moldova and Odessa (Geographically) and from their converted to Orthodoxed. (I founded the religion but didnt switch from Islam until later)
When I switched to Orthodoxed, Lithunia DOWed me and I was in trouble.
I was in a horrible positon my latest military budget (a little rping doesnt hurt) had forced me to disband a large fraction of my armed forces and was left with little reserves.
However luckily Lithuania had only a small offensive army considering their defence needs and the fact that the loss of Minsk centuries ago weakened them considerably and with 2 newly produced horse men mopped up thei 2 axemen invasion force. I bough the designs for siege weapons from Swedon and was about to engage in offensive operarion when Hungary upset that I became Orthodoxed DOWed me.
I quickly peaced Lithaunia for I am not insane with only war reparations as my only gain and sent my main forces down into Hungary, the image can be foundhere: http://img457.imageshack.us/my.php?imageciv4pj.gif
And I took that city after a long siege which only lasted long because I was waiting for 4 catapults to make sure i didnt lose a single man. I gained my only supply a stone then and a strategic location south of poland. Being an encredibly hilly area I plan to build a series of fort to defend my border.
After that war, I realized that I was horribly ill prepared for a major war and began the production of long bowman replacements for my archers, at least 3-4 LBM per border city, 4 LBM if its a hostile nation, 2 per inner city and I plan to have a mobile reserve of 5 Horse Archers, and a offencive punch of 4 axemen and 6 swordsmen to be replaced my 8 Macemen when i finish Bereaucracy. I began building markets and courthouses in every city and forbiddon palace I will build in ukraine somewhere probly Dnipropetovs'k. (remember all cities are in their closest geographical locations)
I'm also building forges and will switch to full war production in prepation for offencive action vs Lithuania once my economy has grown abit.
So overal, I'm in first place in miltiary might, population, production, crop yield. However I'm slowly falling behind techwise, at 50% I'm still losing money and tech whoring can only go so far.
Also I am hardly diplomatic, my wars and then my conversion has heavily affected my foreign relations, Venice keeps "changing gov'ts" so to speaks, one turn requesting open borders and then the next cancelling them. And then reopening them later . Orthodox is spreading like wild fire but not enough for any of the other nations to convert, so Im the only Orthodoxed nation and very few nations like me . If 3 nations (Poland, Lithuania AND anyone other third would be good examples) all DOWed me all at once I doubt I could fend them all once for long, I may be able to knock Lithuania out quickly, and hold off say Hungary since they're weak, but fresh nations with few wars like Poland or Bohemia (Thankfully their friendly with me) would have large field armis that would be hard to deal with, the overal strain would in the end attrition my forces and spread myself thin.
Note: Without fail, in every game we've played either Dan does very very well, or I do very very well and the either I or him does very very badly.
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