The Devel's Workshop II - Jaguar Rush

[Velociryx]

Devel's Workshop II - The Jaguar Rush

“1. Let it be granted that the names given to mountains, rivers and towns, have some meaning. 2. Let it be granted that the language of the name givers expressed that meaning. 3. Let it be granted that the language of the name givers will explain that meaning.”
~ Edward Pococke


Second in the series of "Vel's Workshops," this one, at reader request, will be done on "Epic" speed, rather than Marathon.

Same basic map settings, random map, continents, only this time, since the focus of the study is on the Jaguar, and fighting with him, we specifically selected the Mighty Aztecs to play with.

Before and After saves are attached in the zip file found below.

[Velociryx]

Our opening spot looks pretty good. Good specials, a good mix of hammers and food, and some happiness resources that we can bring into play immediately, as we start with Hunting (camp).

[Velociryx]

Our objective in this workshop will be to successfully execute a Jaguar rush. Success will only be counted if the following qualifiers are true:

* The civ we attack must be completely conquered/destroyed before 1AD (else it isn't really a rush)
* Jaguars are the only OFFENSIVE unit to participate against the civ in question (if I get attacked and a non-jag garrison defends, it does not disqualify the result).

But that's not enough. I've also got to be able to bring the Empire back to a state of profitability (cos overexpansion, of the kind that can occur when conquering a neighbor, can bankrupt you, or at the very least, send the economy into a tailspin). I'll consider "profitability" as being any positive sum of coin at 70% science. Soon as that happens, I'm viable again.

Strategic Notes

I have developed what I believe to be a fairly unorthodox methodology for playing the Aztecs, and I hope you enjoy exploring it with me. As a People, the Aztecs have long fascinated me, and I've done a fair bit of reading about them. Some of that reading has actually been the basis for my playing style with them (but more on that later).

The Jaguar UU as a combat unit is something of an odd bird. Essentially, it's an Axeman that trades coming at a later tech in exchange for not needing any resources to begin using. As such, standard ancient era attack strategies revolving around Axemen as the mainline battle unit should work interchangeably with the Jaguar (and in practice, they do).

But it's not as simple as that, is it? Because Ironworking is a fairly expensive ancient era tech, and by the time you get it, the window of opportunity for USING them effectively has shrunk considerably.

Further, there's no good way to speed things along. If you beeline for pottery to enhance your coin, you spend more beakers than you would have just beelining for Ironworking, so no net savings there.

Likewise, if you make for writing first, in hopes of building a Library to shave research time off of Ironworking, you'll find that you've again, spent as many (or more) beakers in pursuit of saving time than you would have if you'd just gone straight to Iron.

But then, going straight to Iron itself seems a poor choice because it's so....linear.

And it is.

Generally speaking, heading straight for iron may not be suicide, but it's usually the next nearest thing, because what it really does is leaves you CAPABLE of rapid expansion, and utterly lacking the means to SUPPORT that expansion, which is a surefire recepie for economic implosion.

This, I suspect, is why Blake wanted the Jag rush included in the Workshop roster, and the moment I saw it sitting there on the screen, I knew he was right. It simply had to be included.

And to do it properly, this Workshop will (In places at least), read as much like a fiction story as a step-by-step guide.

That said, on with the Workshop!


***

The Aztecs

There is a theory about the Aztecs, and indeed MANY of the North American Indian tribes.

The theory says that several centuries before the prophet Jesus of Nazareth was even a twinkle in his god's eye, there was an Empire in the land of India, in the Bihar region.

The folk of this region were tradesmen and craftsmen of renown, and their ranks were filled with bold explorers.

It is entirely possible...likely even, that these explorers found ways to cross the vast expanse of the Ocean-Sea, and land on the shores of North America, not hundreds, but *thousands* of years before Christopher Columbus, and there is a body of compelling evidence to support this.

Taking into account minor spelling variations, many of the names of great cities in the Aztec and Mayan Empires translate directly into the names and places that figure prominently into Hindu legend and lore. Gods and Goddesses are similar, if not identical. Same with their art. And their language. And the structure of their language. And not just the Aztec and the Maya, but the Hindua in the Great Lakes region of the USA, and the Cherokee (who were, by the way, the only Indian nation to develop a system of writing).

Now...you might be asking what on EARTH any of this has to do with Civ, or with the tutorial, and to that I say this:

The Aztecs worshiped a pantheon of gods with an eerie similarity to those of the Hindu faith.

This then, tells me what we need to research first.

I founded the city on the starting tile. It's good land. Strong land, and it will serve us well. And WHEN the city had been founded, a hut was revealed. Our scout moved toward it, so we could reap its benefits sooner, rather than later.

As for what to build....that's easy. Our goal is to find someone to run over.

We can do that fairly quickly with one scout, and even faster with two. Besides, we don't have anything for our worker to DO, so what's the point in building one? Let the city grow.

[Velociryx]

3980 BC - 40g from hut. We've got at least the beginnings of a bankroll, and are all set.

3920 BC - Gold hill found south of Tenochtitlan. It's too far away to work from our capitol, but it would make a masterful addition as a second city site. Will work toward that goal, now that I know it's there.

Then there's a long (300 year) period of quiet, with absolutly NOTHING to report. Scouts are scouting, capitol is....capitoling. Just....not much going on.

3680 BC, we get a small blip, in that the borders of the capitol expand, but that's the most exciting thing that's happened in a while.

3520 BC - Pop another hut and get a scout. That's newsworthy alright. And now, to keep them straight, I'll have to name them.

Original scout = Lewis
Free scout = Clark
Newly created scout (when he's done) = Smith

3440 BC - Smith's done, and strikes a course north thru the jungle to see what's there, and then...more news. It seems the sleepy beginning has come to and end, and we have met the first of our neighbors....Japan!

[Velociryx]

3400 BC - Lewis defeats a lion

3360 BC - Hut - Map, reveals another hut, but still no sign of Japan's borders....curious.

3320 BC - Hinduism founded, and we switch immediately to that religion (no reason to wait). Begin researching Mining.

3280 BC - Find Japan's borders.

[Velociryx]

3240 BC - Smith defeats Lion (no damage!)

3200 Smith defeats Panther (woody 1 promotion) Clark pops a hut and gets a free warrior! (yay!) Killed by a lion the very next turn (boo!)

3040 BC - Find Persian scout near Japanese Border.

2960 BC - Mining is ours, and now, we turn back to the pages of history.

You see....the Aztec were not a terribly well liked tribe in their region. They were warlike and often brutish to their neighbors (frequently enslaving them, or warring on them to take prisoners for ritual sacrifices and to take as slaves and such), so....slaves. Yes. This then, will be our next area of research. Onward to Bronze!

2840 BC - Tenochtitlan completes its laborer and begins a warrior. Worker begins placing camps at the elephant sites.

2600 BC - Capitol has completed its warrior and begins a settler. Note that this is our ONLY warrior. We're running very light on defense here...one warrior between two cities, but...we'll get the gold site up and running that much quicker, so it's worth the risk. Our only warrior leaves the capitol and heads south and west to park himself on the gold hill and await the arrival of the settler.

2520 - Lewis defeats a wolf in an easy battle, and gains the woody 1 promotion, and at last, we have a good picture of our portion of the continent

[Velociryx]

2440 The warrior from the capitol defeats a lion from his dug-in position on the gold hill.

2360 - The same warrior defeats another lion and earns a promotion. Takes "Cover" to improve his odds against barbarian archers. At this point, both elephants are camped, and the worker begins a mine. All three of our scouts are travelling together now, and are (along with a scout from Japan) preparing to cross the land bridge to some other part of the continent.

[Velociryx]

2320 BC - Lewis defeats a lion.

2280 BC - Persian borders found in the north, across the land bridge.

2160 BC - Bronze Working is ours. We adopt slavery without missing a beat, and as we are exploring the northern portion of the continent, we make the discovery that it's a good bit more dangerous than our little corner of the world. Now that we have pop-n-chop, it's back to the pages of history for our next move.

In Aztec society, the Priesthood was ENORMOUSLY powerful. They were the keepers of time and the stars (they had a calendar similar to the Mayan one), held great sway over the rulers of the land, organized games, and of course, made sacrifices to their blood-thirsty gods.

So on to Priesthood it is. And, we can get to Priesthood (and in fact, Poly PLUS Priesthood) cheaper than we can do Ironworking, and here, at last, is the crux of the plan to get IW quickly.

Like the Aztecs of history, we shall build a monument to our bloodthirsty gods to honor them. This time tho, it'll be in the form of the Oracle! An easy version of the CS Slingshot, and cheaper than doing it the traditional way. Plus, since we founded a religion, it'll give us points toward getting a Prophet.

On the scouting front, Clark makes a misstep, and well....It does not take us long to come to the conclusion that Clark would be....dead. And I think you'll agree, after having a look at the picture.

[Velociryx]

2080 BC - The capitol's first mine is complete, and our worker moves to chop-rush the settler to completion.

2000 BC - Lewis is healed after his last battle and is moving again.

1925 BC - Settler is complete. The capitol begins a barracks in preparation for the day when we begin the Jag-assault on Japan.

1900 BC - Smith zigs when he shoulda zagged, and ends his latest move adjacent to a barbarian archer. Bye Smith.

In other news though, the barracks is completed in the capitol, and we begin another warrior to shore up our shoddy defenses.

1875 BC - Priesthood is ours. Now that we have everything we need to execute the rush, it's time to start taking care of the land. Onward to Agriculture!

1850 BC - Teotihuacan is founded and begins a barracks. Worker from the capitol followed him down and immediately begins mining the gold hill. Need to get that up and running as quickly as possible (speedier research). We're still at 100% science, but losing 2gpt. I can afford that for a while, thanks to the money from the hut, but it won't last forever.....

[Arrian]

Tokugawa ain't gonna know what hit him.

-Arrian

[Velociryx]

1775 BC - Lose our last scout to another barbarian archer...or maybe it's the same one.....

1725 BC - Warrior completes at the capitol. Begin another worker there.

1700 BC - the Gold mine is operational, and the worker near Teotihuacan moves to the Rice. We don't have Agriculture yet, but we will in two turns, and he may as well get to where he needs to be and wait.

1625 BC - Agriculture is ours, and we begin researching Husbandary.

1450 BC - 2nd Workers is done, and the Capitol begins the Oracle. We're gonna chop it to completion, but first, we're gonna get our corn hooked up! I'm in no rush. Well, I'm rushing, so sure, I'm in a rush, but...aw...you know what I mean!

1425 BC - Barracks done in our second city, and it begins training a warrior.

1400 Husbandary is ours, and we discover that there are horses inside our capitol's city radius, AND inside the fat cross! SWEET! Begin researching the wheel.

1325 BC - Warrior is done in the 2nd city. Begin training another.

1250 BC Wheel is ours. Now moving to Pottery. Second city has finished it's warrior and begins another worker.

1050 BC - Pottery done and now going for Writing.

960 BC - The Oracle is completed. Take IronWorking as our freebie tech, and that's our cue. Both cities immediately start making Jags, and two of our three workers are chopping, with the third making a road network between the two cities, and otherwise improving the land.

860 BC - Writing is ours. Now, for the last of it. In order to make sure we don't sink ourselves, we need Code of Laws. Reason for not taking it via Oracle was that we could be researching it while fighting. It wasn't needed for the rush, so...we didn't bother with it.

760 BC - Military Buildup is proceeding well. Five Jags so far.

740 BC - Now at seven Jags...nearing critical mass....

580 BC - Critical Mass achieved. 12 Jags. We are ready to attack. The question is...can we eliminate Japan in the time left to us? (before 1AD).

I think we can, yes.

We open the war by attacking the newly founded city of Edo. It's on a hill, and contains two archers, but our six Jags have two promotions. That should help even the odds, but we'll see.

The attack begins.

First round goes to the Japanese.

SECOND round goes to the Japanese....uh oh. Did we bite off more than we could chew? Attack too early?

Third and fourth rounds go to us! The city is burnt to the ground! VICTORY!!!!

(pic taken just BEFORE the attack)

[Velociryx]

But we're not done. That was just our FIRST strike force. And why stop at just one, when you can have two for twice the price? So...the second strike force moves SW toward another Japanese city (revealed to be Toyko).

Like Edo, it's on a hill, and guarded by two archers. Unlike Edo, it's been there for a while, and if we take it, we can KEEP it. Nice. That's the point. That's what we're here for.

[Velociryx]

540 - The battle for Toyko is nothing at all like the one for Edo. Both their archers fall without a hiccup, and we take no losses at all. Love it when things start firing on all cylinders! 94g captured, along with the city.

Everybody from strike force one has paused to heal/wait for reinforcements, and Strikeforce two does the same (slightly faster tho, since they're inside the city).

480 BC - A Japanese Archer guarding one of the resources near Toyko is killed by our Jags. Not sure what he's up to, but we don't want to take any chances....nor leave any survivors for that matter....

460 BC - With two cities captured, and what I judge to be a sufficient number of reinforcements heading for the battle line, when our cities finish up their latest Jag, they're gonna quit making them and focus on infrastructure. We have to plan for AFTER the war too....

Northern Strike Force ready to march again.....

[Velociryx]

as is the southern....

[Velociryx]

440 BC - Find Osaka....also guarded by two archers. This is familiar territory by now....

420 BC - Osaka is taken with no losses, and as far as we can tell, Japan has only one city left...that would be Kyoto. We'll see. The borders are too big and I can't tell what it's guarded by. Could be daunting.