AU 100-A DAR 2: 1480 BC Until Start of Classical Era

[Velociryx]

Well....looks like Vel gets to start over. Got double teamed by the Spaniards and the Mongols....could have prolly held one of them off, but both turned out to be a bit overwhelming.

Will try again, with a bit more focus this time....LOVE it!



Analysis of Mistakes in this game

Only one big one...I had enough room to expand in my little corner of the continent...should NOT have done such "in your face" expansion, KNOWING that I would be at a tech disadvantage.

Will also do more pop rushing next time, and freakin' remember to assign my science specialists on the same turn that the library is built.

So...I'll try the same basic approach, slightly modified.

-=Vel=-

[DeepO]

Monarch difficulty, game 32 (+ multiples for test games)

Monarch difficulty, game 32 (+ multiples for test games)

Read the last part here.

As you might recall, I'm on my way to CS, so this will be short.

my worker, after having improved the wheat near NY, moves down to farm the wheat near Wash. Commerce is now less important: I could use another mine. But I need to work the wheat before I can support it... otherwise I'm going to lose the scientist.

This will also speed the Oracle, and the 2 GPp it will produce... hmmm... I really want a scientist! After the Oracle, I'm going to run with 2 scientists to minimize the chance of a prophet.


1200 BC... NY completes its barracks, and starts on warriors. You can never have enough warriors in a CS beeline, it seems

Further, the first desert mine completes. These are not so bad: they give hammers plus commerce. For the moment, I'm going to keep my scientist, though.

My worker hesitates. I need another tech, fast, and preferably another city too the only tech that will benefit me right now is the wheel: it will connect the wheat to NY, allowing it to grow one size larger. NY will get Confucianism as well, and by switching to it I can run stable size 5 cities. I need to bridge a gap of a couple of turns, though, so send my worker to farm a plains near NY. From there, it can start the road on the wheat the moment the moment the wheel arrives.


in 1120 BC, I discover CoL. NY gets confucianism like expected. I move my missionary towards Wash: I need to switch to a state religion to get the happy bonus in NY, so I might as well make my capital profit from it as well. Normally, I would go for an AI, though. Without a heavy focus on missionaries, this move almost certainly means war.

The same turn, I encounter Isabella. Definately war

build queues
Washington
still building the Oracle, 3 more turns remain

NY
- barracks
- warrior
- currently starting on a warrior. It will soon become a 2-turn warrior pump

I'm dropping in the ranks: area #4 (but very close to Bismarck being first), production #3. But that's okay

Next part will be for tomorrow or so, I still need to play it first.

DeepO

[Bobtoad]

Noble Difficulty

Summary...
This is a short phase but an important one nonetheless. My hopes of founding Confucianism are realized. This enables many things: happiness, culture, buildings to increase important things (science, culture, etc.), maybe even more money if I seek that. The death of my starting warrior hurt my exploration badly. I'm a slow explorer as it is, and to lose units really stings. Hopefully this doesn't haunt me too much.

Chronology...
1360 BC - Judaism founded elsewhere.
1120 BC - Discovered Code of Laws and founded Confucianism.
1080 BC - Religious conversion over.

Thoughts: With my goal of Pottery and Code of Laws met, it's now time to shore up the areas I've neglected (i.e. defense). Archery is my first task. I have an eery sense I need defense very soon and don't want a gamble of whether I'll have copper. So [the cheaper tech] archery it is. Since my treasury is still high I shall soon begin more expansion.

The Saga (DAR Links)
4000 BC - 1520 BC
1480 BC - Start of Classica Era
The Classical Era
The Medieval Era
The Renaissance Era

[Fluffybunnyfeet]

Prince difficulty

Progress

Things went extremely well. Plenty of workers were made, with plans to keep at least one per city at all times. A soldier-producing specialist city was founded in a nice spot.

One archer was built to fend off barbarians, but it proved insufficient. In all, there were eight encounters with barbarians in the 20 turns of this DAR. Thankfully the worst effect was a ripping up of some roads/pasture, no units were lost and unit experience was gained

First barbarian city was spotted. With no iron/copper, I will have to leave this alone for now.

Religion was the main goal for this period, and it was achieved, with the Code of Laws. With no Alphabet, tech trading was still impossible.


Outlook

Getting tech trading started has to be the first thing to do.

To the further future, military will still be kept worryingly low, and expansion maximised. Unless I get a city with very high production, I will concentrate on ordinary buildings. The first close neighbours will shape my policy, i'm sure.

Relevants statistics : First in GNP and Food
Last in Soldiers and Manufacturing (goods)

[Derelict]

Noble Difficulty -- Late Ancient Report

INDEX

Early Ancient
Late Ancient -- Brief!!
Classical
Medieval: Parts 1 & 2
Medieval: Part 3
Renaissance: Part 1
Renaissance: Part 2
Industrial
Modern

1,240 B.C. and Hatshepsut gives me a ring on the stone phone asking for me to cancel my deals with Genghis. I decline her just to see her catty frown (not really, but...)

That's it! I've entered the Classical! Surely doesn't make for an interesting late ancient period, but the Classical is sure to be a bit more pronounced and interesting!

[Dubhghlas]

Late Ancient Period

To recap: The Scots settled along the Dubhghlas river some 2500 years ago. Through these years, they have prospered, founding two additional cities and contacting many other peoples. They are masters of the concept of writing, know how to tame the wild horse, and can carve stone into shapes with which to build. They have not fought any organized peoples; only the barbarians from the wilds have bothered them at all.

The Scots pride themselves on their fair and just society. They have treated other peoples with respect, and with the exception of the rather standoffish Spaniards, ruled by the Itchybelly dynasty, others have responded in kind. The Spanish are too far towards the rising sun to bother the Scots much; the Germans turn out to be well to the same direction, but much further in the direction of warmer climes.

The Dubhghlasses intend to lead the Scots to enlightenment and a pre-eminant position in the world. So far, the trick of an easily reproduceable and readable set of figures eludes the shamen of the clan; all efforts end up failing to record information reliably. But when the day comes, the leaders know that it will benefit the Clan; things one person knows will be easily taught to many others, and messages in detail can be sent to other peoples. The day WILL come.

Another Expansion

It is now some 300 years further along the path to the future. Warriors have scouted out and found the capital city of the German people, which is many days of journey to the direction of the rising sun. It is a large city by comparison to their own capital city of Washington, much more populated (Author's Note: interestingly, Madrid, Thebes, Karakorum and Berlin are all at least size 5!!; Washington is still size 3). The warriors find that they are now getting colder as they continue in that direction, so they begin to head the other way, along the coast of a sea in that land. They reckon that somewhere ahead lie the Spanish and their capital city.

The clan has trained new workers to mine precious metal from the rocks around Boston. The workers will also be building pastures for cows near the same city. Washington will recruit settlers to settle down river, where there is a great bend in the Dubhghlas River; the lands there are fertile, but have more hills around them which the clan hopes can be mined for metal. When New York finishes its library, more settlers will be recruited from those drawn to the city and sent to the coast somewhere warmer and towards the setting sun.

A New Era Dawns

The Clan celebrates! Fully 3150 years (Author's Note: 850 BC) after the founding of their first city, the Scots have perfected the art of using letters to represent sounds, allowing them to write words, not pictures. The Dubhghlasses bask in the glory of this achievement; they know that no other people uses such letters. They cannot help but believe they will be able to outstrip any other peoples when it comes to learning knew things, now. In celebration, settlers head off down the Dubhghlas River, intending to found a new city, a city of Brotherly Love. Rumors of barbarians roaming the wastelands in that direction result in an order for a large company of warriors currently laying around idle in New York to join them in this new city.

The Dubhghlasses immediately announce their accomplishment to the other peoples they have met. With the ability to write down what they observe in words, the Scottish scouts and emissaries quickly make a list of knowledge used by other tribes. None of the other civilizations knows how to tame and ride horses, nor the trick of using letters. The Mongols and the Germans don't even use pictographs to write with, yet. The Spanish Itchybellies don't even know what to do with the herds of cattle and pigs and sheep that roam the lands.

However, all other peoples work a wonderous new metal they call bronze; it takes copper and makes it stronger. In addition, the Mongols and the Germans use clay pots of quite good quality, the Egyptians and the Spanish understand the value of meditation to calm the souls of the people. All but the Germans worship many gods, with temples and idols. The Scots have not bothered to organize their beliefs about the gods and spirits in any way, yet; the leaders prefer it that way, but they know that the people will clamour for this when they hear about what others offer from far away lands.

The Dubhghlasses make a choice. They already know that the Mongols and the Spanish will someday be less friendly; behind the smiles are calculating looks from those leaders. It is Hatsheptsut who deals fairly with the Scots. They accept her offer to teach the Scots how to work bronze, how to use it to make arrowheads and the art of archery, and how to set up temples and shrines to the many gods of the world. In return they only ask for the secret of riding horses. The Dubhghlasses agree, though they know that someday this could mean facing mounted warriors. If the Egyptians can be made friends, though, they might in the future be a help when it comes to dealing with the half barbarian Genghis, who styles himself Khan of Khans.

The Scots have reason to feel good. But even as they preen themselves, rumors of a city of barbarians across the great desert reach them. As the workers begin building a library in Washington, they can't help but wonder when they will see the black flags of raiders riding over the hills in that direction.


Author's Notes:

This was a short period; likely it didn't need to be separated out from the first “era.” Probably better would be to divide the game up into discrete blocks of roughly equal numbers of expected turns; say every 75 turns a report. I doubt many would be going past turn 375 in that case, or the end of the 5th “era.”

To this point, my plans have gone about as expected. I have three good cities, with quality siting for them, though I still haven't taught myself to take advantage of the fact settlers can move one square AND settle on turn one; the better position for Washington is one square to the East, putting the hills in the fat cross and making the next city to the west have more room. Boston is likely to be my key city; I anticipate that there are most if not all of the civs somewhere past it, and they will be handicapped by the existence of the jungle North of Boston. I still aim to cut off easy expansion to the SW by anyone else.

As always, the research path drives the production choices. Writing followed by Alphabet take forever this early; without the ability yet to make cottages or to build harbors, I have no ability to maximize revenue for funding science. And the libraries are not a quick build, either; New York and Boston spend a long time building them, but especially for Boston, it's quite necessary, because I have to get my cultural borders growing there fast, and an obelisk isn't in the picture because of the fact I have spurned all the religion techs.

Why, then, drive straight for Alphabet? Simple; I hope to maximize my leverage as the only civ able to trade techs. Imagine, then, my dissapointment when just two turns after this narrative ends I find out that the same tech shows up for three of the AI civs on the same turn! Guess they don't NEED to find out how to use an Alphabet once I have discovered it; they just go ahead and trade, I suspect. Too freaky a coinkydink to believe it isn't a trade result.

Alphabet has other positives, mostly the fact you are then one step away from Literature and can build the Great Library, and just three steps from Music, which gets you the first Great Artist. Since I perceive I'm going to be in some sort of culture war, I'm heading there ASAP. Of course, this means I'll be behind in the economic techs, but I'm not positioned to be an economic powerhouse until later, since I don't have any seaside cities, yet, and won't until I get a settler off to the NW and to the SW.

I will, I suspect, pay for my dilly-dallying when it comes to military unit production, but so long as the barbarians can't take my cities, I'll accept a delay there. I've discovered from earlier games goofing around that taking cities in this game is damn hard; you don't just roll up with a few swordsmen or mounted units and hack away for a turn or two. So I don't see any advantage to trying to “roll up” the opposition early; and I'm not being pressed by anyone, yet. Itchybelly doesn't like me (I didn't join her religion!), and cancelled our open borders treaty, but the others are being decent so far, even Genghis. I expect to make good friends out of HatchySoupy, and use her to beat up the Mongols as needed.

If there was one lesson the end of the period hammers home, it is that the trading of early techs has much less value when you can't trade for gold, yet! Once I got what I wanted from the Egyptians, the Germans and Mongols had nothing I could use; so I can't leverage a new tech like I could in Civ III, trading it to everyone the same turn for whatever gold or luxury goods I could get back.

[Morrissey]

DAR1
DAR2
DAR3
DAR4
DAR5
DAR6
DAR7


Nothing much to add from my previous DAR as I went for IW more or less straight away (even before discovering pottery!). Only thing of note is that there were three seperate attacks on three of my warriors by barbarians in the same turn. I won two out of three, so won't complain.
Starting to realise I need more workers and military units wandering about as my infrastructure is quite poor and I've got a feeling someone's going to come for me.

[vovan]

Noble Difficulty

DAR 1

In 1400BC, New York builds an archer to improve its defences. Starts on a Granary to promote growth.

In 1320BC, we enter Classical Era, by discovering Iron Working.

This here is my (admittedly rather small so far) nation:



And this is the demographics. Not doing too great so far, I guess, but could be worse.

[joncnunn]

Jon's Dar AU 101 : Noble. Version 1.09

Dar II 1520 BC to the beginning of the classic era

1440 BC: Culture expands in New York

1400 BC: Start reseraching Pottery

1320 BC: Finish a worker in Washington. Start building a warrior
Finish a warrior in Boston and start a warrior.
Connect cows near New York to New York

1200 BC: Start reseraching Mining

1120 BC: Settlers started in Washington and New York

1080 BC: While defending, kill a barb warrior with a warrior

1040 BC: Corn connected to Washington. Start reseaching Bronze Working.
Isabella adopts Organized Religion

1000 BC: Horses connected to New York

925 BC: Stonehidge built in a far away land

875 BC: Alphabet started. The Oracle built in a far away land
Barb state discovered in "my territory"

850 BC: Start building Granery in New York

825 BC: Granery started in Washington

800 BC: Philadephia founded

775 BC: Washington connected to New York. Atlanta founded.

600 BC: Atlanta connected

575 BC: Oblisek constructed in Atlanta. (Cultural war). Boston road connected. (Had been river connected since it's founding)

475 BC: Alphabet discovered. Trade Pristhood for Hunting with Bismark.
Judism spreads to Washington.
Trade Polythism for Mediation with Salian

Overall, I'm third in techs.

The most troublesome thing is that one of my neighbors founded Hinduism while the other founded Budism. And one of them is highly agressive as well. To make it worse, one of them is currently on top of the tech board.

While there is no competion from other players expanding southwest, the Libyans have moved into a fur location.

[clarkcd]

Noble Difficulty

DAR1

This time period was an odd time for the Americans. We found out we weren't doing as well as we thought while being forced to slow our expansion by a sluggish economy. Hopefully the upcoming Classical Age will see an invigorated economy and a renewed expansion effort.

1360 BC - Met Isabella

No matter what I do I've never had her as a friend in any of my games. Religious zealot...

1320 BC - Met Hatshepsut

The American feeling of superiority was rocked on that day. Quickly regrouping...

1320 BC - Founded Boston

...we found the City of Boston to the Southeast of Washington to lay claim to the cows and a second supply of horses. This also helped catapult us into a virtual tie for first place with the Egyptians. Over the next 1000 years we will trade first place back and forth with them.

700 BC - Founded Philadelphia

Spying some much needed copper as well as a supply of gems to the north of New York caused our third settler to head up there to found our fourth city. It also serves to hopefully cut off expansion by my neighbors to the south and west.

700 BC - Met Bismarck

He's fairly far away and with a modern era UU I hope I don't have much to worry about from him... for now...

350 BC - Classical Era Reached

With the discovery of Iron Working the Americans have reached the Classical Era. I happen to be in the lead on that turn but with the Egyptians that close and my economy hindering my expansion plans I'm not feeling very comfortable with how things are going right now. I plan on placing some warriors to the south and west to help cut down on the barbarian intrusions. Hopefully we can nip a barbarian city in the bud or at the very least contain it.

Bold techs are recent advancements.
L1 Techs: Fishing, The Wheel, Agriculture, Hunting, Mysticism, Mining
L2 Techs: Sailing, Pottery, Animal Husbandry, Archery, Meditation, Polytheism, Masonry
L3 Techs: Priesthood, Monotheism, Bronzeworking
L4 Techs: Writing, Ironworking
Currently Researching: Monarchy 0/10 turns

[vulture]

Prince difficulty

I'm going slightly beyond the start of the classical period here...

A very short DAR - carried on researching alphabet until discovering it in 1120 BC. My 4th settler is also finished in the same year, and heads north to found a city on the coast to complete my blockade of the Mongols. Had to drop my science to 90% with the 4th city to break even. One more city to go to seal off the peninsula.

With alphabet in hand, I could start trading techs. Discovered that you can only advance one step along the tech tree per turn - if I trade for mysticism, meditation doesn't show up as tradeable until the following turn.

1120 BC trades:
trade writing to Arabs for bronze working
trade pottery to Germans for masonry
trade pottery to Spain for mysticism.

At this point, the only tech I can 'see' out there is sailing, which the Germans have and won't trade. But since the Spanish founded Judaism, they have at least two post-mysticism techs. As expected, the following turn more techs turn up as tradeable (or 'refusing to trade' more accurately )

1080 BC trades:
trade alphabet to Arabs for iron working.

Didn't really want to trade alphabet, but there are no other available trades at this point. I'm hoping that by giving the Arabs the ability to trade, they can make deals for e.g. polytheism and then trade them to me. It might work. And if not, I've still got IW, which reveals a nice source of iron just outside Washington.

Tech state of other civs:
Mongols lack writing.
Spain lacks writing and animal husbandry. refuse to trade polytheism and meditation.
Germany lacks alphabet. Refuse to trade polytheism and sailing
Arabs lack pottery.
Egypt lacks writing and animal husbandry.

Tech strategy is now to beeline for code of laws to get confucianism as our religion.

The alphabet tech trading gambit has paid off reasonably well. Two civs have techs that we lack, but we have alphabet which costs more than those techs combined. In terms of 'total beaker value of all techs known', we are probably in the lead at this point (although the last civ out there appears to have founded both Hinduism and Buddhism, so they're probably not doing too bad on the research front).

Two new forests have grown near Washington, so we can start chopping these soon. We started with 5, which gives +2 health, and 7 isn't an improvement over that, so I've got 2 to chop without any worries, which will help get a library in the low production capital.

Future plans
Tech-wise, go for Code of Laws to get confuciansim. Should have a few civics to play with by then as well, so we can have a quick revolution. I'm still hoping for a few more tech trades to help me fill in useful techs that I'm ignoring on my CoL quest.

Get my fourth city built, The four border cities are building variously barracks, obelisks and archers. It's a little late to build obelisks maybe, but all I need is one border expansion in each to seal off the peninsula, so the strategic benefits justify the cost. I want two city defense archers in each border town before worrying about any other builds.

New cities will be founded at a more or less continual rate as and when I can afford them. But Washington will probably focus on workers for a while - there are a lot of roads to build and resources to connect.

I expect a few barbarian cities to crop up in the FoW about now, so getting some axe and sword units out in the field will be important once the border is secure. Plus, it's a good way of training units.

[ZargonX]

A History of America, Pt. II
Prince Difficulty

It is a thrilling time as, a mere few years after recording the first part of this History, George enters what he dubs the "Classical Era" with the discovery of Iron Working. Iron, it turns out, is quite plentiful, and George immediately sets about adding some bits of it to his throne.

Seeing the unhappy state of his people, his inability to harvest the luxuries around him, and the hit his budget is taking, George decides to take a gamble and have his wisemen make a beeline for Code of Laws.

In his bed that night, George realizes he is rather haphazard with his research goals, but he thinks that makes him lovable.

[Arrian]

DAR II:

This one's short. As I noted at the end of DAR I, my notes trail off between 1600 bc and 900 bc. Not much happened, apparently.

Anyway:

960 bc – Philly founded 4447 of Wash (desert hill in midst of floodplains).

800 – CoL discovered, Confucism founded in Boston. Oracle complete, Civil Service taken. Revolution to Bur + Caste. Masonry next.

This meant that I flashed through the Classical Era straight into the Medieval Era.

-Arrian

[Rhothaerill]

Rhoth's DAR 2 - Prince Difficulty

There is no DAR 2 for me for this game as I hit the classical era in my first DAR by discovering iron working.

Please head on to my next DAR.

[Fosse]

1240

I've sent three warriors to the forests SW of my start to fight barbs there. My thought is they'd give me warning as they approach, and the forest would protect my units. The first one died when he popped a hut of three. The second arrived in the forest, saw a barb next to him, and was killed in the attack. The third one fights off one, then two arrive while he's injured. I send him home... but Stupid me lets autopathing set him up right next to the two barbs. The first one kills him. So... my settler finishes now and it's another warrior.

I send him east to the stone. New York is getting along nicely on the Pyramids. Iron is dscovered htis turn, and hooray it's right next to where I plotted my Stone city. Things look good... But my expansion is going to be horribly slowed by my constant loss of military units. So much empty space to fill. This is not going as well as it could.

1120
Found Boston, builds warrior. I discovery Archery... I'll go take out that Barb city with soem archers and send the warriors I build out to keep fog lifted. The road to the stone is underway, and soon New York will get a nice boost for the Pyramids. Republic, here I come! I start writing, so I can get to Code of Laws first.


450
Alphabet!

I pray that the NW territory is not yet settled. I finally have a chariot and a settler almost ready to go. I founded Philly nearby because I couldn't escort the settler so far with my military being destroyed.

There is a barb city to the norht, near where I wanted mine. It isn't in a great enough spot for me... I think I'll raze it when I have a settler ready to take the territory. It's just warriors though, so for now I'll use them as experience generators now that I have horses and spears coming out of my cities. New York has sa barracks, and is going to build just units until Forges come along.

Tech swapping time!

I sell Alphabet, the only tech I have on him, to Saladin for Meditation and Sailing. Not the best. NObody else will trade anything after that. Oh well. I start Priesthood, with COL queued up after that.