AU 503 DAR 1: Up to 2150 BC

[alexman]

I still think Chasqui harassment is the best strategy on this map, so I started a game on Demigod to see how well it works on that level. I tried to pretend that I didn’t know the map.

We settled on the forest, and started building a Chasqui Scout. Researching Alphabet at 100%. The starting scout explored to the north and east and met the Vikings in 3600. We gave them masonry and Pottery for Alphabet, a Worker, and 10 gold. We started researching Mathematics at minimum science.

In 3100, after just having built a second Casqui and started on a Settler, we met both the Mongols and Hittites in the jungle south of the desert. We did some tech brokering, since they obviously hadn’t met the Vikings yet. That put us almost at tech parity (we lacked the Wheel). Our Chasqui was promoted to veteran after being attacked by a barbarian.

[alexman]

In 2710 we found the Mongol capital and grabbed a worker. We saw a town defended by just an Archer, and attacked with our veteran Chasqui. That triggered our Golden Age.

[alexman]

We continued pillaging, but by 2550 Mongol Warriors were approaching our core, so we were ready for peace. The Mongols gave us two workers, two cities, all their gold, and a couple of techs in exchange for some relief from the Chasqui nightmare. After some trading, we are now at tech parity (Iron Working, Horseback, Mysticism), having researched exactly zero techs ourselves.

[alexman]

Not sure if I'll continue and what to do next, but there are several options open. One thing's for sure: the Chasqui harassment has paid off big time.

At this point we are ready to use the rest of our GA to build a Granary and focus on REX. Perhaps we will jump the Palace to one of our new towns, which are river towns, by the way. We may also harass the Hittites and/or Vikings a bit.

Here is the save in case anyone wants to play around with it.

[LzPrst]

there must be something wrong with me cause I CANNOT win a battle with those useless chasquis.
also on emperor at least every game I've played, the mongols get a settler in a jungle village and start off even better. I'll give it one more go at emperor and then nevermore. but first I have to define whether this bleeding contract is invalid or not. I could just say: NO, it isnt, cause its so obvious, but I have to blabber on about why. I'm really starting to dislike academia...

[Aqualung71]

Originally posted by alexman
I still think Chasqui harassment is the best strategy on this map...

I agree. And I played it two ways to confirm that. Mind you, I don't think I played either game particularly well, but the important thing is they were played by the same person with consistent mediocrity, and clearly demonstrate the benefits from the pillaging strategy.

That being said, it doesn't change my opinion that this is still an exceptionally difficult map for any strategy. That's not a complaint, just a fact. It has raised a couple of interesting strategies so far - jshelr's "Moses' 40 years in the desert looking for the promised land" and Aeson's nonchalant suggestion to "capture their capital and move your own palace there!" But umm, kids, this should not be attempted at home.

[Tarquinius]

Yeah I agree Aqualung; I doubt jshelr's - admittely very brave- move across the desert was worth the effort. I mean in the position jshelr is in, it is even more difficult to find good spots for your cities...as the somewhat productive north is further off.
But if you can overcome the difficulties the palace is more centered, but I doubt you can, so i am awaiting jshelr's process to see whether he was right

[LzPrst]

I'd do this again, but I just realized that I have an exam in early june, TWO in fact. does anyone know the meaning of the german\norwegian word Angst? thats what I'm feeling now. I'll finish this course sometime around june 20th...

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by alexman
Not sure if I'll continue and what to do next, but there are several options open. One thing's for sure: the Chasqui harassment has paid off big time.

The key to the games where going after the Mongols produced the best results was the successful attacking of a town. That allowed players to make peace on highly favorable terms, getting an additional city or two and depriving the Mongols of two or three cities..

As an experiment, I tried a couple games where my specific goal was taking a city, but they didn't work out well. In one, I tried double-teaming a city with two Chasquis only to have one retreat and the other die. In another, I waited a little longer and the city I planned to target got a spearman before I could hit it.

I then tried a game where I grabbed a couple workers and then started looking for city targets. Again, I found myself facing spearmen by the time I was ready to go after cities, so attacking a city didn't make a lot of sense. A third Chasqui near home defeated a Mongol warrior that attacked my second city, triggering my GA.

I pillaged one of the cows and tried to make peace, but even though I'd stolen two workers, killed a Mongol warrior, and pillaged a couple tiles, the Mongols wanted me to pay more for it than I was willing to. I tried to kill another Mongol warrior to see if that might help in the peace negotiations, but I lost the battle. The Mongols then killed my Chasqui that had just pillaged as well.

Fortunately, I was able to make a series of tech deals a few turns later that brought me peace and tech parity. Here's my situation as of 2030 AD (just a couple turns after where the DAR is really supposed to end). I'll probably play this situation out to about the same point where I am in my other game.

[nbarclay]

When I thought things through originally, I didn't think about how much help an ultra-early GA can provide in granary construction when a civ has very low production. By the end of the GA, I'll probably be ahead of where I would be otherwise in REXing in spite of the time my three Chasquis cost me, so all that's necessary for the strategy to work is for the damage done by the Chasquis to offset not being able to benefit from a GA later. That has an excellent chance of working out.

[ducki]

I was actually saving the "embrace your ultra-early despotic GA" point for my post-game thread, but since you brought it up, I think that is very important for the early UU pillaging campaign.

I think I was able to delay mine until I had 4 cities, but it might have been 3. Even so, the production boost I got combined with having a replacement-city for my capitol to take over settler production and a single barracks town allowed me to get a very good jump on a wonder(capitol), keep the expansion going by pushing through the granary-build, and beef up my military(mostly chasquis, then swords as soon as iron was online, IIRC). All while keeping my research pace in a good place, comparatively speaking.

Does it feel as strong as a good Republic Middle Ages Wonder-nabbing GA? Of course not.
Is it as strong in terms of effect on the game? I think so, but it depends on execution.

We've all waxed poetic about how important the first couple thousand years are and how any advantage properly exploited this early is magnified through the rest of the game, but the Golden Age seems mostly immune to the philosophy of embracing any early advantage.
I know I'm nowhere near the first to advocate embracing a despotic GA and I often pass up excellent opportunities to benefit or inflict pain on my enemies because of the anti-despotic GA bias, so this is not a holier-than-thou statement.

I just think the vast majority of players have a sort of mental block about a valid strategy.

All that aside, it still doesn't feel as powerful, possibly because you don't get to see all those great wonder popups as a direct result.


Edit: Come to think of it, didn't we do an AU with a despotic GA theme, or did I dream that?

[nbarclay]

How much benefit an ultra-early GA brings depends heavily on how much production is available. In many games, there are enough good production tiles that an ultra-early GA makes only a marginal difference in production and therefore has only minimal value. But in this game, most or all of the tiles being worked can benefit in production from a despotic GA. Unfortunately, being used to situations where most of the tiles worked don't benefit from a Despotic GA in production helps produce a blind spot that can cause problems in situations where a lot of the tiles do benefit.

[Aqualung71]

Yeh, I agree with all of the above. It took me several tries, but there's no doubt in my mind that the pillage strategy is best for this map. Difficult, yes, and as Nathan says, the hard part is taking the Mongol towns because of the distance involved. By the time you get down there, they have some spears. Pillaging the cows and ivory can be done, but what then? It's hard to extort them very much at that early stage, and early tech trading has probably left you fairly close to parity anyway.

Then you're left with maybe 3 or 4 Chasquis from your initial builds, wandering around Mongol/Hittite territory. If you lose them while trying to pillage, you probably won't be able to get reinforcements down any time soon, since you've probably built the much delayed granary and first settler. Getting another Chasqui down will take some 12 turns of movement.

Still, even without capturing any towns the pillaging strategy is very effective - even pillaging a measely 3 or 4 Mongol squares and capturing 2 or 3 workers has a measurable effect. And once you get them back to your capital you start to see the benefits with faster tile improvements. Actually, my pillaging game is quite fascinating - at around 1000BC the southern half of my continent is almost uninhabited and it will now be a race between us and the Vikings to get the land, after which a palace move is going to be almost mandatory. In other words, a lot of work still to be done!

On the GA, yes it's very hard to avoid the despotic GA with the pillaging strategy, and I gave up on trying. I think it's important though to make sure you've at least got say 3 towns before your GA is generated, so that you see a significant research boost. A despotic GA is tough to accept as ducki says, but a despotic GA with 1 town? Ummm...no thanks.

And let's give some (begrudging) kudos to alexman the sadist, for putting together an excellent scenario that has forced us all to discard our usual strategies and go back and try this start out several times in order to see what works best. The reason no-one's reported very far is probably because we've all dug our heels in and are trying to get this game to work in the first 80 turns!

And then once we've all got things in order, we'll remember to explore the rest of the world and find the killer AI's out there who are about 7 techs ahead of us This is the downside of the pillaging strategy - building the Chasquis and sending them off to pillage slows down our own REX and development, but it slows down our rivals more, giving us the edge on our continent. But this has probably put us way behind the rest of the world!

[jshelr]

Originally posted by Aqualung71
Because we're not as insightful or intuitive as you, jshelr

Seriously though, your bravery in doing so was impressive! An intriguing trade-off. I'm very interested to know whether you feel the significant delay in founding your capital (what, 7 turns?) was worth the better terrain and more central position.

I really thought Alexman was telling us to try migrating toward water that was close but not "immediate" with his water comment. Anyway, I do think the move was easily worth the lost turns. With water, the whole northern part of the "empire" is much more productive. And the initial city immediately starts to make up for lost time. (The availability of a scout helped dictate the direction and find he water source, but I suppose you could easily have got it wrong.)

[Strollen]

AU-MOD Emperor

This is my first DAR, and only 2nd AU course

Initial city on the forest. . Obviously with Masonry and Ivory, SOZ is only 2 techs away. However, I figured that wheel is a better trade tech than alphabet and start max research on it.

Scout finds Vikings in the north. Notice they have alphabet, bronze, warrior but no Masonry. As a general rule I avoid trading my initial techs until I have meet 2 civs. A strategy that works out very well in this game.

CS is produced and starts exploring to the south, quickly joined by initial scout. I discover the Mongols and Hittites within a turn of each other. Looks like I have a good Masonry monopoly!

2nd city is found hill by lake, and immediately starts making a worker to bring water to my thirsty people.

Finish researching wheel. Mongols already have the wheel, but neither Viking nor Hittites do. Trade wheel for Bronze, Warrior, and Alphabet plus all of there money. Nobody has Masonry but me still CS finds burial in a hut . (I only find 2 huts despite building 3 CS pretty early, luckily my 2nd hut is Iron working...).

I start researching math at 50 turns... I eventually trade Masonry for Horseback riding to the mongols.

3rd city is by whales in south. Cuzco starts building a settler for the dye area.

At this point I decide to try pillaging I have 2 CS by the Mongols, and a 3rd CS moving south from the Vikings. I grap 2 Mongol workers. I try to avoid an early golden age.

This war ends badly with the Vikings eventually joining the Hittites and Mongols in a war against me. My actual loses are small (a scout) but both the mongols and vikings have good size armies advancing toward me. Worse I trigger my Golden Age with 3 small cities... I restarted from 2510...

[Krill]

AU 503 DAR 1 4000BC-2150BC

Monarch

Before I post this, I want to say that alexman is sadistic. Thank you.

I followed the approach of settling on the forest, but I started work on the ivory asap, since I knew I would need all the gold I could get from this start.

I built a chasqui, then a settler, then a granary. This took slightly longer than 40 turns, (until 1990bc), but it was then that I decided to build the pyramids. The chasqui went southeast, along the mountain corridor, that the scout discovered, but he went south west and discovered the Hittites, after making contact with the mogol scout. This brings me to research:

I researched CB, since I thought I might pop a few goody huts, and I would like to get a decent tech like WC or BW. I later met the Mongols and he Hittites. I managed to trade IW, wheel, alpha and BW with masonry, and writing that I researched before the rest. And it paid off big time. I built the pyramids

WITH AN SGL!!

While I had to think about this, since I could also research maths full bore, and get Zeus, but the thought of a granary in every city was too appealing

The settler went to the hill to give access to water, and the deserts will become my immediate base of operations, with another 3 cities planed on the coast.

On pillaging

just to the south of the Mongols I popped a hut that gave me a conscript warrior, and I used him as a shield for the scout. I managed to pillage the cowsand capture a worker (which was recaptured to protect the scout), but that was all. I will have to shortly negotiate peace the chasqui is just a look out since i do not want a GA with two cities

[Sabular]

AU MOD - Regent

This is my first AU-game and I must say I like it very much.

To be honest, my first try on this map was a fiasco, I started building Chasqui Scouts to late and by the time my first Chasqui reached my southern neighbours both the mongols and hittites were already to large for a feasible pillaging offensive from my terrible starting position.
At that point in time I felt the map was misconstructed for the testing of pillaging, reading some DAR's however convinced me of the opposite and I decided to take another try.

With a little bit of prescience, I built chasquis immediately the second time and sent them south as quickly as possible, I was able to raise the second Mongol city, capture the Hittite and Mongol worker and pillage all Mongol and most hittite terrain improvements before enemy military units showed up.
I was uncareful and one of my chasquis was attacked by a warrior, he survived but it netted me a 1 city GA, my empirewide production was augmented by 66%, (from 3 to 5) and I quickly settled my second city.
My Chasquis were able to lead the Mongol and Hittite forces around while never being in danger of being attacked and I knew neither of them would trouble me in the near future so I decide to focus more on expanding and scouting, which resulted in contact with the Vikings.

Despite my horrible starting position, some strategic errors (I completely missed the possibility to build a city in the hills south of the dessert to transport irrigation and would not do so until well in the middle ages) and a super-early GA (which possitively influenced my opinion on this issue, even so, 1 city is too early) I am in a reasonable position and only the Vikings pose anything of a threat.

[Aqualung71]

Welcome to AU, Sabular, and good on you for posting. And well done for going back and restarting, as many of us have with this particularly difficult game.

I too was a bit put out by having my GA generated so early, but then it's pretty difficult to avoid and it's pretty clear that early pillaging is the best strategy in this game.

It would be even more interesting if you could attach some screenies to your posts.

[Bobikus]

This is my first time posting during an AU game. I have played lots of civ, ever since civ1, and have read many of the postings (Ducki does emperor was an outstanding thread).

I am trying this on emperor, which i win about half the time. I usually destroy monarch, but not going to war until late in the game. I have recently started enjoying early warmongering, and am trying to get good at it.

Here goes:
Looked north, with worker...ah wheat. Moved NE to settle on ivory, get wheat, fish, and sugar hill. Immediately built 3 CS, and sent my original scout south around the hill--argh, desert.

Hmm...this is interesting, a road made of mountains for my CS. I have a huge advantage moving through this moutain jungle. Must concentrate sending forces south through the mountain jungle.

Standard scout meets a hittite. Not too concerned about them. Ah, a mongol warrior is moving through my mountain jungle. By this time my first CS was entering the jungle. The Mongols become first priority. I see the mountain jungle as protection, and the Mongols UU could negate my movement advantage. So, I sent my first three CS from where the Mongols came (SE), and decided to continue building til i got to 3 population (25 turns?, argh).

I forgot, I traded the Hittites for Alphabet. I forgot, I am going for the SoZ. I don't have anything to trade with the Mongols, even better. I reached the Mongol territory with my first CS, and he circled their nation, checking it out.

Wow, cows, bonus grassland, rivers...they are a prime candidate for pillaging with 5 roads, 3 mines, and 2 irrigation. Capital of size 3, another small city of size 1. Two more CS show up and stacking up on the mountains to the NE, waiting to pounce. The city's got a spearmen, so i'm not going there.

Stupid AI...send an archer towards me. Two workers being guarded by a warrior within range, and...what's this? A settler and an archer going toward the SW where my first CS is waiting to attack? I can't handle it anymore...i want to wait for that next CS to get here, but I also want to try to raid them now. I would be happy winning only two workers, which i could each way.

Well, I have to attack. The year is 2550 B.C. Oh yeah, I still have one city, but am building a settler to go North to take advantage of the grass, fish, and possibly wheat. I decide to go after the two workers. The warrior is dead, and I got a GA and two workers...woohoo. I won the other two battles...lucky. Then I pillaged all their tiles. Quick war...peace in 2350, they have two cities of size 1, and no workers. Wow, I get The Wheel, Warrior Code, Ceremonial Burial, and 65 gold.

Now I have 4 mongol workers, two cities, 4 CS (I had to use some to take out some Barbarians). I am building a barracks and more CS in my capital. I still have my original scout cutting of the Hittites by sitting on the mountiain so no one can get by. It's only 2310...but this is all i am playing tonight.

I plan to keep terrorizing the Mongols, and start checking out the Hittites...I think I like this early warmongering...(was that mountain jungle road put in there on purpose? oh yeah, how do you take screen shots in this game?)

Bo Beekus

[Catt]

AU 503 – Pillage & Plunder; Emperor; Stock Rules

Part 1 of 7

As I’ve complained about too many times, I have been quite busy in RL for some time now, and though I completed AU 503, I neither kept great notes nor can spare the time for a terribly entertaining summary. Nonetheless, here is what I have.

I selected Emperor due to the reputed difficulty of the scenario and my unwillingness (or inability) to invest a lot of time into the game.

Like many others, Pachacuti moved his worker to the sugar hill, moved the Incan scout northwards, and elected to settle on the forest in order to bring the whale into Cuzco’s range. The initial laborers of the settlement worked the commerce-rich fish as Incan scientists labored on the discovery of Alphabet. Explorations north revealed wheat fields, and Pachacuti established his initial plans – despite the resource-poor start, three fast-moving Chasqui’s would be trained and sent to harass other tribes.

From a small mountain range to Cuzco’s northeast, the Incan scout caught sight of a Viking warrior across a narrow channel. Contact was made and Pachacuti shared the secrets of Masonry and 2 gold pieces for the secrets of Alphabet. Incan scientists worked feverishly on developing a system of Writing to make use of the newly acquired Alphabet.

In 3300 BC the Incan scouting party discovered a small body of fresh water to the south. Pachacuti now knew the initial expansion plans of the Incan empire. A new settlement would first be constructed in the grasslands and forests to the north – sharing the bounty of the wheated plains with Cuzco; a second settlement would be formed in the hills north of Lake Pachacuti and would serve as the spigot to irrigate the vast deserts and plains of greater Cuzco.

In 3100 BC the Incan scout encountered a Hittite scout and Pachacuti again traded the knowledge of Masonry, receiving in return knowledge of Bronze Working and Warrior Code, plus 10 gold.

In 2510 BC the Incan scout discovered the Mongol hordes; Temujin possessed knowledge of the Wheel and Ceremonial Burial, but no trades were feasible as he had also unraveled the mysteries of Masonry. The initial glimpse of Mongol territory convinced Pachacuti that the Chasquis must sabotage the growing strength of Temujin – Mongol lands were much more fertile than the desolate Incan lands, and the extended room for expansion represented a long term threat to Incan glory. Fortunately, the Chasqui attack force had begun its march south.

In approximately 2310 BC, the first blow was landed – the lead Chasqui swooped into Mongol territory and enslaved two Mongol working parties. Two additional Chasquis took up positions in the mountains north of plains studded with Ivory. Temujin then made a strategic mistake – a Mongol settler party, defended by one warrior, attempted to escape to the east of Karkorum. The Chasquis pounced, one falling to the warrior’s club but the second bringing victory and an additional pair of enslaved working parties.

Catt

[Jawa Jocky]

AU503 replay, Monarch, AUmod

My 1st game was actually winnable despite my best efforts However when comparing it to other’s games; I realize I have missed the point of this course. My mistake was simple. I waited to long before starting my pillage campaign, because I was too concerned about rexing to compensate for the less than perfect start.

So Reload.

I have two cities. No surprise it’s the Forest and Hill start (I went North 3 tiles last time and I think it was actually better, I didn’t irrigate fast enough last time and thought this approach would be better). A settler is currently in the works but all the other builds have been Chasqui Scouts. I’m still late compared to others but it feels early compared to my 1st game. I may actually start again since I’m improving every time, but I feel like I should atleast post something.

[Jawa Jocky]

AU503 3rdPlay, Monarch, AUmod

Recap of previous games:

Game 1 was abandoned game after completing a successful “Classic REX” with delayed pillaging strategy, because I felt I wasn’t approaching the course the way it was designed.

Game 2 was lost due to over-pillaging. It was a “learning experience” that I have analyzed and posted in the post game comments thread.

On to the current game:

The strategy for game 3 was to hit the AI with an earlier (and smaller) pillaging campaign. 4 Chasqui and a Settler were built, with current builds at 2150bc including barracks for a unit pump (for anticipated defense) and another settler to make the lake hill irrigation pass through city. But enough of that lets move on to the pillaging details.

Chasqui 1 started the campaign as soon as he reached Hittites’ lands. He grabbed their worker and pillaged all but 1 tile before getting killed by an archer. With no reinforcements on the way I accepted peace for a tech that everyone else already had.

Chasqui 2 hit the Mongols as soon as he got there. He grabbed their worker and pillaged all tiles in the Mongol lands before getting killed. I tried to get a peace agreement but they were kind of upset and were not interested.

Chasqui 3 was going to hit the Vikings but ends up delaying the mission to help our liberated workers return safely to their new home.

Chasqui 4 was heading South to free up Chasqui 3 so he could go hit the Vikings

Special Notes:

To find out what happens next you can skip over to the end game thread instead of the DAR 2 thread like you might expect.

[Mad Bomber]

AU503-Regent level.

I chose to go the early pillage route instead of the more traditional REX game. Unfortunately I made a nuber of mistakes.

The first was that I placed my capitol in the starting postion when I could have moved one tile NE and had access to the wheat. The second is not building a granary. The former was costly as I did not have anyone working the wheat until I built my second city c. 2100BC, the latter was crippling as I could not get much production from the capitol. My third (and biggest) mistake was attacking a Hittite scout (I wanted all the GH's to myself) and ran right into a warrior that the scout had just popped from a hut the turn before. The inevitable result

[Mad Bomber]

Used the resulting GA to get out a number of Chasqui scouts which would be my only offensive military for much of the game. Soon after the GA, I made contact with the Mongols. I also signed a peace treaty with the Hittites for Alphabet, Bronze Working, and Warrior Code. Then I went a'pillaging against the Mongols.

[Mad Bomber]

So after pillaging all of the Mongol Improvements, but unable to take a city directly, I signed another peace treaty this time getting The Wheel and some gold out of the deal. At 2275 I had a total of three citiies, one of which came from a goody hut. On the brighter side I did have about eight scouts out and about and I would soon find the Hittite and Scandanavian homelands.

[Mountain Sage]

Second try: in the first one, I got to the Medieval Times without any pillage or collective rape, and I realized maybe the game should be played a bit differently. So I went back to the drawing board… and put two constraints on my game: I would not move my capital and would stay in Feudalism (makes it a bit more ‘barbarian’).


From my jumbled notes (‘vanilla’ 1.22, Emperor):

4000BC:
Settled on the spot and started mining the sugar. My scout goes south. Started researching the Wheel as a trade tech.

3600BC:
A friendly Illinois settler wants to join our Despotism. That hill by the lake suddenly looks promising.

3450BC:
Our second city is founded by the lake and starts a worker.

3300BC:
A second hut by the volcano gives us CB. Hittites contacted. They have Alphabet and WC, we have Masonry, CB and BW.

3200BC:
We meet the Mongols. They have Alphabet, WC and BW. Traded Masonry and CB for Alphabet with the Mongols, BW and CB with the Hittites for 45 gold.

2270BC:
Contact with Scandinavia. Traded CB for 35 gold.

2030BC:
We have now 2 cities and Writing is in 6 turns. We already contacted Scandinavia, the Hittites and the Mongols. Our glorious empire looks a bit short of cash but there are some fertile plains and fat cities south of us…

[Mountain Sage]

the economics:

[Mountain Sage]

the Power Graph

[Addled Platypus]

Very evil in design...and makes you rethink everything learned while playing easier levels.

No irragation, little resources, plenty of other civ's plus the hordes. What more can a player ask for...

Just this

With the challenge to attempt to pillage and plunder with slow production and research. I manage a couple of pillages and plunders, but in the end I have to trade for peace.

Had eventually traded to get irragation and much more with the Hittites. Altough still annoyed with me.

Then try to expand, keep the hordes in check, trade to keep from falling to far behind, three other civs expanding in my direction

let's not forget everyone else is out producing in units,advances being built, attitudes usually not niece for long.

I have not had the success of others

So for the next 40 turns will have to be defensive, after a while with a strong enough force pillage on 1 civ, go for the capitol (?) and hope to liberate advances.
If I wait to long, I know I will be overwhelmed by more modern units and eliminated.

Ya Ya Ya... just that easy

[Addled Platypus]

just found ALL the other mods


I will have no life for a while

Will all these work with 1.22 patch?


I would like to take this time to thank all those who make this thread the tops...

THANK YOU ALL