u/Electronic_Money_575

A movie that really took me by surprise from Takashi Miike, a director known for his violent, cult classic j horror flicks like Audition and Ichi the Killer. I am a huge j horror fan, but I enjoyed it more than all his other films.

The fantasy genre in the 21st century in Western movies feels like it almost always targets children and young adults. Movies are family friendly blockbusters with simple themes.
To see ideas of mystical lands with unknown wonders with realistic characters and adult humor was refreshing.

The dialogue and pacing of the movie is excellent, not a dull moment. The plot is simple, but characters react to each other in funny and realistic ways. They feel like real people despite little details being given about their background. The film does not deal with its lore in a ham fisted, forced way as many fantasy films do sometimes.

Visually, the film is fantastic. Shot on location in Yunnan China, Miike was trying to recreate as closely as possible the dream world created in the book the movie was based on.
Miike was given the budget for this movie in cash, and he filmed with a smaller crew in often bad weather conditions in China just to get the movie finished.

This sort of renegade filming works really well for a movie about a journey to an unreachable land.
What the movie does better than anything else, is put you in the shoes of a modern day salary man transported to an idyllic oasis.

The tanked up Naresuan's elephant is one of the most underrated unique units.
25 combat strength vs 20 for a knight, +50% bonus vs mounted and needs no horses means elephants crush anything up to the Renaissance era, even with just 3 movement

To go all in on elephants, the build is 4 city liberty, granary + stables + barracks in all cities and caravans.
Population carries science, so we skip libraries and get more time to build units
Early market for a great merchant. Then liberty finisher for a second great merchant
Tech wise its basically horseback riding -> currency -> construction -> chivalry.
Prebuild horsemen and gold upgrade to elephants.
Then tech into machinery to upgrade comp bows into crossbows.

Once you have elephants, you don't need horses so you can spam as many as you want.
They are strong enough where you can take cities cycling them, while you get crossbows up.

settings are small, standard speed, deity, great plains

While tougher than the typical camel / bomber / xcom etc rush... the Janissary is a beast unit, and viable even on Deity if you can forgo your science game to get access to it early

- +25% attack bonus
- heals 50 HP on unit kill

Janissaries can clear all units in front of cities and basically take no damage if used correctly,

With lines of cannons behind to take cities, a Janissary carpet of doom can sweep a map pretty quickly

The key to the Janissary Rush...

- Liberty instead of Tradition for faster settlers and production
- Liberty Finisher also gives a great merchant, wait until renaissance era to use it
- Warrior code policy in honor when possible for +15% production of melee units
- National College into workshops + forges, skip universities
- Straight into Steel tech, barracks + armories
- Armories are important cause we need ranged defense promotions for trebuchets / cannons to survive
- Find as much iron as possible and use it all on longswordsman, delay gunpowder till you have used all your iron, gold upgrade to Janissaries. Ideally at least ~10
- Physics for Trebuchet, build 3-4 at least before declaring war
- Start attacking with Janissaries + Trebuchets
- Make sure trebuchets are always defended by line of janissary in front
- the gold from city captures will feed next round of upgrades
- Tech straight into Chemistry for Cannons, gold upgrade trebuchets into cannons
- Production focus, Spam Janissary + Cannon till end game

Timing wise, in this game, I got gunpowder turn 129, waiting till I had built max number of longswordsman and took the last capital 166. If it starts going over turn 180~ ish you are probably in trouble as the unit starts becoming obsolete.

Settings are standard speed, small map size, great plains, deity

wanted to try this for a while, since the insane growth on aztec can mean enough raw science for military techs + high early production to get an early domination, even without an OP unique unit

basically...
max out growth -> max out production -> spam military forever

-- Social Polices --
liberty -> honor

-- Tech path --
archery for temple of artemis (before liberty settlers) -> the wheel for floating gardens -> horseback for stables ->
metal casting for workshops -> machinery for crossbows -> steel for longswords

-- Promotions --
ranged defense on all units to survive city shots on 40 strength+ cities

-- Game Settings Used --
great plains, small map, standard speed, Deity

Game settings pangea, legendary start, medium sea level, standard speed, small map

besides camel archers, Arabia has a lot going for it for maximum tank spam carpets of doom

- desert bias ensures some oil
- double oil for arabia means you almost def start with like 14 oil, or 28 with the autocracy policy
- bazaars give duplicate luxes you can sell for a total of easily around 50 gpt, than you can use for upgrades to landships and tanks
- desert bias also means you are the only potential petra cap in like 50% of games on pangea
- desert bias means desert faith -> high faith game -> can faith purchase scientists and engineers early

To get such a good timing with all our units ready to smesh, we need to balance our production and science carefully

The basic strategy...

- Rush public schools, if you have mountain cap rush observatories first
- Tradition -> rationalism
- Work scientist slots as early as possible, build porcelain tower if possible
- Try for a high faith setup so we can buy scientists. early grand temple, faith allies etc
- for culture: early hermitage, pass worlds fair ASAP. we need this to fill rationalism so quickly
- public schools -> factories -> chivalry.
- build at least barracks + armories when you have spare time
- spam as many cavalry as you have horses for. They are much much cheaper to build than landships.
- meanwhile tech for oil so you have turns to get it online before landships
- rationalism free tech for landships, now we can faith purchase scientists too
- take as much gold as possible from any AI friends for upgrades / purchases
- bulb your remaining scientists and finally oxford for combined arms ie real tanks
- autocracy double oil + taking land should basically give you infinite oil for more tank reinforcements

In this game, i got landships turn 185 with rationalism free tech -> upgraded my cavalry -> faith purchased scientist and set up oxford for turn 186 combustion.

Immediately warred everyone i was giving gold per turn to, and used pillages + city capture gold to buy more tanks continuously. pillaging every single tile also means your tanks never need to heal really. took about 20 turns to capture all 5 capitals

(The settings for this game were Deity, great plains, small, standard speed)

pretty fun strategy where you skip all early science for production and gold to create undefendable carpets of impis.

besides the bajillion other bonuses impis have, the 25% bonus against gun powder units means even riflemen cant defend against a swarm of cheap impis.

The strategy...

- early game: steal as many workers as possible. I stole 3-4 here. I skipped shrine too
- build: scout -> scout -> granary -> monument
- liberty for early production and quick settlers
- honor secondary later
- temple of artemis for growth and production of comp bows
- 4-6 cities depending on space, i had 4 here
- construction for coliseums as needed
- stables -> markets to maximize production then gold. markets, stables on in cities where they really help. we are minimizing our build order so we can build more spearmen.
- ikanda -> spearman spearman spearman... till civil service
- plus like 6 comp bows
- work merchant slot
- selling every extra lux, horse iron for gold. if you have friendships, keep siphoning their gold.
- ideally time a golden age and merchant before liberty finisher, (I missed both here)
- liberty finisher for great merchant
- upgrade impis at civil service
- move impis in swarms with roads, keep swapping hurt impis with full health ones at the back of the pack, clear shooting positions for your comp bows as quickly as possible
- always maximize flank bonus
- if a city is like 30 or lower combat strength, you can even start smashing your impis into it
- take ranged defense promotions on comp bows. this is much better than trying to go for logistics and range
- now we tech machinery, and spam comp bows in the mean while.
- by now, we should have a merchant + gold from capturing cities to upgrade a disgusting amount of crossbows with promotions. this speeds up taking the next cities a lot
- just hitting impi and crossbow in every city at this point unit i am at unit limit
- building roads to the last civs while fighting others
- plant a city next to the most annoying one to general in twice to get my crossbows in place for the final kill

definitely an easier play on great plains, which is a terrifying map for zulu. but in a way, something like is the ultimate way to use this civ. forgo all science to invest harder in production for their OP af unit.

I upgraded like 14ish spearman to impis at civil service and left overs later. stayed at around the max unit limit the whole game which you increase by taking cities

military timing pushes with babylon are always trickier cause the science comes so fast you usually end up lacking in other things

its a game of balancing the quick science with generating gold for purchasing

paratroopers are particularly ideal to purchase with gold since there is no upgrade to them, so you need to focus on amassing gold and commerce polices as fast as your science gets you there

I planted 2 scientists, bulbed 2 before labs and like 4 after labs. its easy to end up with too many scientists if you wait for labs when the last tech you need is radar.

faith purchased engineers are also more important since you dont get the time ever to build the things you need. I couldn't get religion even after settling sinai, so I had a lot faith saved up

The idea is to spend the early game amassing gold to spam on artillery as early as possible.
so unlike the quickest artillery rush, we will spend time getting industrialization first for autocracy + big ben
game settings are great plains, small map size, standard speed, deity

- choose Arabia to get extra luxuries to sell for gold
( Yes, I know you would have more gold as venice, but sometimes you dont want to do venice no settler stuff)
- speeding up early game: food from wheat pantheon + stole 4 workers from other civs to spend more time on buildings.
- 3 cities to get time for some wonders
- markets soon after national college, start working merchant slots
- beeline universities, get there by turn 100. work university specialist in 1-2 cities.
- after tradition, we want double gold from merchants / faster merchant generation. eventually we want to finish commerce.
- go for banking tech for early second merchant slot / rationalism.
- now we go for chemistry-> fertilizer and steal techs towards industrialization
- after banks/workshops, barracks + armory + spam cannons
- once i hit fertilizer tech, get a second spy + merchants are at their peak value (1400g) so start using them for city states, but save some for city states with coal.
- try to look at the tech costs to see which ones you should get off spies to get industrialization
- build big ben, settle or city state ally for coal if needed, then purchase 3 factories for unit purchasing with autocracy
- bulb your scientist(s), oxford free tech for dynamite
- upgrade existing cannons to artillery, buy a round of artillery from cities every turn as long as you have gold
- if you have a good faith game, you can faith purchase a great merchant.
- manage to generate 4 merchants + faith purchase 2 for 8.4k gold which alone is like 29 artillery on its own
- at this point i had pre built roads to all the neighboring cities, and purchased another couple rounds of workers
- workers build roads constantly connecting cities to keep walls of artillery moving.
- commerce roads are half off and we have so much gold generation that we dont care about removing them
- artillery can move 2 tiles on road and still setup and shoot, something you should use to maximize your shots
- attacking cities that are already connected with road speeds up getting your artillery set up for the next shot. otherwise add roads while you attack for quicker win

Definitely not the quickest artillery rush, i think you can go to around turn 140ish. but this one sets up hard before so the moment it starts its just an unending onslaught of units. also a fun way to use trading posts

my attempt at the fastest possible OCC science victory.
I think babylon is a good choice, but korea could be better

- settings are great plains, standard speed, deity. great plains has a fuck ton of rivers and we need those civil service farms to grow, grow, grow
- tradition. steal 2 workers. +1 food from wheat pantheon. plant free scientist. free pantheon from meeting 2 religious CS
- try to buy buildings when I have gold to focus on wonder spamming
- scout, granary, library, temple of artemis, national college, hagia sofia, hanging gardens, oracle (or sth like that)
- free prophet for religion, tithe, +15% follower production, +2 world wonder faith
- university, plant 2nd, 3rd scientist, observatory, rationalism
- was beat to printing press by china so lost world congress host and leaning tower
- sistine, hermitage. culture go brrr
- rush public schools -> research labs, steal other techs with spies
- freedom, specialist food, specialist generation. Then New Deal: +4 from great ppl tiles. later rest of freedom
- after labs -> hospital, medical center for that final bit of growth
- patronage for ally science, start buying CS and passing the best policies in world congress
- +3 culture from world wonders, worlds fair (I got 2nd) and finally +33% generation of scientists, engineers, merchants when I had all the votes
- traded for kings days till around turn 150~, then it was impossible
- hanging gardens + temple of artemis + tradition growth + food pantheon + maritime ally + infinite fresh water farms keep us growing
- had 11 scientists to bulb at the end for like 5200+ science each
- 6 scientists I generated, 2 from hubble, 3 faith purchased
- end game commerce, science focus, buy all parts with gold for turn 259 space

got lucky on some wonders late like oracle, but also unlucky that genghis killed like half the city states which could have been a real amount of science

I think if you spawn with more maritime CS (I only had 1), you can probably grow more but I grew to like 30 pop by around turn 150. I had like 40+ food early on and late game had 60-70 food cause the multipliers with farms go nuts

Never beat domination on Deity before? Try this out

Game settings: standard speed, small, archipelago, medium sea level, strategic balance (we need iron!)

Camel archers etc are nice but the bonuses that England gets all together make them dominant for the longest time with Ships of the Line like no other civ

Early Build Order
- monument if you do liberty, scout is ok if tradition
- granary if liberty, shrine or granary if you're building settlers at pop 3 with tradition
- steal workers if possible (I stole 1 from CS, 1 from mongolia)
- tech optics if you have no land for settles
- liberty can build a wonder while waiting for settlers policy

Pantheon
- A non faith pantheon is almost always better since we want a benefit in the early game.
- Here, desert faith was op so i went for it. otherwise i would prefer food or production
- I got religion eventually and went for production

Settling
- you need a min of 2 cities with tradition or 3 with liberty for this. remember, we just need to build a few ships quickly! you can try more cities, in my experience it tends to delay the timing
- we want to be productive asap, grow fast, save lots of gold etc
- so keep getting luxuries online, get trades, build 1-2 workers, city connections. being unhappy will kill your game
- after settling, get sailing tech, and 2 food cargo ships up. one gold cargo can be ok
- I went for 2 city tradition here. teched just till writing for libraries. got 2 cargos out and teched for petra.
- you can go national college first, but I like getting currency anyway cause I want a market to generate a great merchant

Exploring
- To get the maximum possible advantage for a rush, we want to use our abilities as england for more early game yield.
- once you have sailing, you can build triremes with 6 movement. this lets you meet other civs for trades and city states for gold / quests.
- you can find ruins, and your embarked units have 2 more movement than everyone else so you reach them faster
- I also built triremes in my build order before NC cause I wanted some defense vs mongolia

Prebuilding units
- Currency -> Market with specialist. takes 30 turns ish for GM.
- Philosophy for NC.
- Theology -> Compass
- get a gold trade route / maybe a harbor.
- in all your cities, barracks -> spam galleass

Preparing for upgrades
- after compass, we beeline astronomy
- you have 6 iron minimum. I got lucky with more here
- buy from other civs, get CS allies or even prepare a settler for a last second iron settle
- if you are friends with other civs, buy their gold for gpt. we get free gold this way when we war them
- we want as many galleass as we can build, that we can have gold to upgrade
- If you had enough culture, you should be able to open exploration for +1 movement

The Rush
- education ->universities in all your cities while you tech astronomy
- build oxford after in highest production city for free navigation tech the same turn you finish astronomy
- If any civ hits renaissance before you get there, plant your spies in the best cities. you might get astronomy or navigation for free
- wait till you hit astronomy to use your great merchant since it gives more gold then.
- Upgrade first galleass -> ship of the line, then maybe some trireme -> caravel if you have gold ( this is still faster than building privateers)
- attack the closest capital for an extra 6 ore. you can continue to spam ships of the line with that
- use gold from city captures for upgrades / buy workshop etc
- each cargo ship pillage is 200 gold
- tech engineering for an extra trade route potentially but otherwise just spam naval units.
- depending on the map, you may want to send units in 2 directions to get to the capitals faster

The extra movement, extra strength (stronger than a 2 range gattling gun, and early techability make the ship of the line super OP along with the AI being bad at naval warfare

Had a good game Brazil game with a salt start, lake victoria and petra city
Game settings are standard speed, small, pangea, low sea level

- tradition game
- stole 1 worker from egypt, 1 from CS to start
- settled lake vic city first, got +4 faith from natural wonders pantheon
- settled potential petra city. built a caravan while I moved the settler to its spot to feed since it has no food

- built hanging gardens, petra, oracle. got lucky since egypt had a desert city
- built NC -> Universities -> Workshops
- fit in shrines and temples somewhere so I could get grand temple early for high faith
- get last religion. tithe, +5 tourism, +5 culture from hermitage, +2 faith from wonders, 50 faith every time a great person is born

- plan was to go freedom via factories since spain already had 6k+ culture
- printing press for leaning tower which is sooooo good. Get a free engineer
- spain starts to die, everyone else has like 3k culture so futurism became viable
- normally for futurism you start generating GW, GA, GM after ideology but i assumed freedom so I already had some GA, GW into great works

- bulb great scientist for economics, oxford for coal / industrialization
- have coal, start improving.
- meanwhile filling out aesthetics, building amphi / opera
- build 2 factories, buy one in slow city
- autocracy + futurism (+250 tourism each time GA/GW/GM is born)

- engineer taj mahal for golden age + aesthetics GA policy for like 18 turns Carnival
- Buy open borders with everybody, start sending trade routes for tourism boost
- hermitage + build as many wonders as you can while we tech archeology ( so skip public schools)
- get sistine, uffizi.

- aesthetics done, filling out rationalism
- bulb 2nd scientist for archeology, pump out like 5-6 archeologists
- bulb like 1-2 artists to keep golden age going
- still havent won so public school in cap + 1 observatory in expand
- build porcelain + get a scientist. bulb both for radio.
- Faith buy engineer. Engineer eiffel.
- Faith buy an artist since my golden age was done
- Finish Rationalism. Free tech for refrigeration.
- Buy hotel in capital, build in petra city
....
GG

Def a lot of things I could have done better but I would say this is still a good guide for if you want to try a an early Deity Rush.