AU 102 - DAR 2 1520 BC to Gunpowder

[ZargonX]

I know that's a pretty arbitrary chunk of time, but just go with it

[Blake]

Immortal Difficulty

After 1520BC not too much happens for a while, I research towards Alphabet and work on infrastructure in my 3 cities.

As Alphabet nears completion I notice that Boney is looking awfully frisky.

His stack of 3 Archers are lurking on my border and this almost inevitably means an attack is coming.

Napoleon then calls up and demand Polytheism, since my chances for peace with Boney are shot (Thanks to his city on my borders) I tell him to sod off.

Sure enough, a few turns later... Huayna Capac attacks??? Well bugger me, his stacks are quite decent, with axemen and chariots, far more than my skirmishers can handle in the open (although they do okay in a city). What's worse is that I KNOW napoleon is going to attack me very soon too, since he's annoyed with me, has units ready to invade AND I just refused his demand.

I decide to try and bribe some others into the war but I can't afford anyone, I do trade for Iron Working from Alexander, though. Iron is revealed within my territory, but I wont be able to connect it. My research is directed towards construction, in order to get catapults.


The Incan and French armies pillage the Mali land cleans, while I ravage the population with the whip, to bring forth new defenders.
Some might consider giving up right about now, having lost all terraforming progress and in a hopeless war. But while it's bad- it's not TOO bad. I'm not in danger of losing cities, and not really in danger of losing units either. It's just a matter of holding out until I can sue for peace.

The Incan forces finish their sweep of my land, and not a single terrain improvement remains. Dismayed by the destruction they inflicted, the remaining Incan forces promptly commit suicide on my cities (This is how the US Invasion of Iraq should've gone, according to the Iraqi information minister anyway).

Capac decides he's ready to talk to me and offers Monotheism for peace - despite having caused significant damage, he had lost a LOT more units than I, and thus he thought he was taking a hammering and was willing to give up stuff for peace.

I turn to Napoleon and Grin, like a shark would, if sharks could grin, and live on land.

The nuisance french city of Rhiems falls quickly to my skirmishers and catapults. A french stack (about a dozen units, axemen and such) is incoming so my skirmishers hole up in Rhiems, a suicide cat forgets the suicide part and actually wins the battle vs a swordsman on the hilll, the remaining french forces suicide without causing any harm. With the french invasion spent, it's booty time.


My stack of skirmishers and catapults find a nice hill to sit on while bombarding down the french Pyramids city. With pitiful defenses, it falls easily. Since a large French stack is incoming I then declare peace, Napoleon giving up Calendar for the honor of peace with me.

Meanwhile all the angry men of the world are in some kind of love fest (I bet it was Alexander's idea), the only strained relation is between Tokugawa and Kublai Khan. This is frankly ridiculous, a human simply couldn't have open borders with Tokugawa under these conditions. And this love fest is a bad thing because it means I'm the worst enemy of pretty much all of them.


In an effort to improve my relationships (especially with Alexander) I drop the state religion - Hinduism wasn't working out anyway. My next tech is directed towards Compass, not because I need it but because it's great trade fodder. Sure enough when I get it I can trade it around to nearly everyone, the main thing I get from this is about 600g - which I use to power research to Civil Service - although while doing that research I pick up Feudalism in a trade to Kublai (Compass, Code of Laws, 360g) - since my unit upkeep is 15gpt, I switch to Vassalage and start stockpiling gold for when I can afford to continue to CS.

Both Boney and Capac offer open borders (what is with this love fest... at least I'm not excluded), I scout out their cities and see the French armies are massive, while the Incan armies seem to have died out somewhat - although longbow defenders will make any invasion difficult. I decide to kick back, focus on infrastructure and stay in the game through shrewd tech trading, and just wait for one of those fools to choose unwisely and attack me (declaring war would give oodles of "you declared war on our friend!")

After not too long (840AD) BOTH Capac and Khan declare war on me - on the same turn! The Incan army is mostly horse achers, while the Mongol invasion is just 3 warriors. Hahah.

I immediately start calling up everyone in an effort to find someone who will help me. I call up my bestest buddy in the whole wide world, Alexander!
Uh-oh.

"We have enough on our hands right now." means that the AI is either in a war, or has committed to a war - in short, his armies are marching to some border and he'll actually declare the war when the units reach the border. It could be me, it could be someone else. All I can do is wait and pray.

The Incan attack force is about a dozen strong - a few horse archers, some axes, and WAY too many spearmen. I use my cash stockpile (the joys of binary science rate) to upgrade a couple of skirmishers to longbows and the Incan forces suicide, causing no damage.

A greek stack appears at my borders, it then enters my borders *phew*, so it seems I'm not the target of greek aggression.

I trade Feudalism to Napoleon, for Metal Casting, in the hope of fostering a little goodwill and keeping him off my back. Napoleon's army is too big to tangle with regardless, Capac is the far more tempting target. If boney wants to fight, I'll let him kill himself on my cities defenses.

Alexander declares war on Huayna Capac and I'm positively delighted by this turn of events. Although Alexander is too far to properly fight HC, it is a distraction and means *mutual military struggle* with Alexander, which combined with choosing civics wisely, means that Alexander will be friendly in no time! There is no stauncher nor more useful ally than Alexander.

I finish researching Civil Service and check the tech screens, no-one has Drama yet. So I research Drama and trade it around for about 600g.

Apparentely Kublai Khan failed to appease the the Aztec Mafia:

Now both of my enemies are in struggles against 3rd parties, who are coincidentally my allies of choice anyway. With this turn of events the game is officially going very well - I've been able to keep the enemy off my terraforming and my economy is humming along. I'm at tech parity - more or less, Alexander is the most advanced, but he is my ally and guaranteed to war until the end of eternity so wont ever launch.
Here I end this part of this DAR, it is quite long enough already!

[ZargonX]

Looking good, Blake That was quite well done dealing with Capac's army. I probably would've folded

[Arrian]

I basically folded in that situation (Inca + Aztecs vs. Me) because I was too stubborn to just hole up in my cities. I insisted on counterattacking, which took its toll.

But I was on Prince, and this is Immortal. I enjoy the writeups, Blake.

-Arrian