AU208: Total Eternal Forever War - Reports and Comments

[Dominae]

Originally posted by nbarclay
1770 AD. Egypt is dead.

How close are you to the win, Nathan?


Dominae

[nbarclay]

I've been wondering how close I am myself, so I downloaded the (apparently pre-release) PtW version of MapStat. Assuming it's correct, I'm currently 72 tiles and 11 population short of the domination threshold. If I wanted to, I could rush the remainder of enough libraries using gold I got from Egypt toward the tail end of the war to take care of the number of tiles fairly quickly. I'm not sure how easy the population aspect would be. Longevity lets me grow quickly where I'm growning, but I've run up against limits on either how much I can grow without Sanitation or how much I want to grow pretty much everywhere but Egypt. On the other hand, I doubt that India and Babylon are still growing a whole lot after all these centuries.

In any case, I'm not planning to go so far out of my way just to get to the domination threshold quickly. Rushing stuff just to cross the domination threshold feels artificial, and I'm not in a mood for that. Besides, I'm not sure I'm planning to call off a Total Eternal Forever War over a little thing like the game's ending.

Nathan

[mimi]

Originally posted by nbarclay
I've been wondering how close I am myself, so I downloaded the (apparently pre-release) PtW version of MapStat

What's this MapStat thingy?

I've been talked into trying this scenario again. I like killing civs so you'd think I should like this game. But I hate losing more...

[Rhothaerill]

Originally posted by mimi


What's this MapStat thingy?

I've been talked into trying this scenario again. I like killing civs so you'd think I should like this game. But I hate losing more...

Wasn't trying to force you Mimi. Just a suggestion to your other post.

I haven't heard of the MapStat either. Nathan is it some downloadable file? Thanks for your help!

Edit: Should have re-read your post first. But what site is it located at?

[nbarclay]

MapStat is a utility that calculates how close you are to the domination threshold. I tracked it through CivFanatics; try the CivFanatics thread for MapStat.

[Rhothaerill]

Originally posted by nbarclay
MapStat is a utility that calculates how close you are to the domination threshold. I tracked it through CivFanatics; try the CivFanatics thread for MapStat.

Thanks. I'll look it up.

[Arrian]

Sounds like you've got it won, Nathan.



Good luck, Rhothaerill.

-Arrian

[Rhothaerill]

The Power of Books

After the capture of Salamanca, we gained control of the horse breeding pens the Iroquois had cultivated. We must hand it to them…they fought poorly, but they breed good horses. Lord Xerxes immediately upped the pressure on the remaining evil Iroquois. Within a few years, their last city was taken and we proved victorious once again. Truly there is no stopping the might of the Persians! With our continent explored and secure, save from the depredations of an occasional unwashed barbarian, we turned our efforts to expansion once again. Our people desired to found cities all throughout our continent. Persian culture would reign supreme. In one stroke of luck, we discovered a mine of beautiful, white gems known as diamonds to the east of Rome. We gave these to our wives and there was joy in the Persian households.

Meanwhile, there was a great undertaking in our capitol of Persepolis. Using our knowledge of mathematics we were building great four-sided grain storehouses we liked to call the Pyramids. As we were nearing completion though, great Xerxes experienced one of his well-documented epiphanies and we decided to fill the pyramids with books from our new libraries to create a Great Library. Scholars across the continent began flocking to Persepolis to study our great civilization.

Game notes: After the defeat of the Iroquois I had a free reign over my entire continent. The northern half hadn’t been settled yet, but I was determined to settle the entire continent soon. I also decided to slacken my military production and rush build libraries in all my cities. This would not only increase my science output, but also give me a bit of culture boost since my capitol was the only city that had so far increased borders. I was trying to look ahead and knew that with total war I’d most likely be invading other continents. I couldn’t avoid culture flips (and since I hadn’t yet seen who all my opponents were I didn’t know at the time that most of the rest of the AI civs were religious), but I could at least minimize them a bit with my own culture. With the libraries and the amount of commerce I was diverting to beakers my tech research seemed to still be doing pretty well, even with being in despotism. Because there were no barbarian flare-ups, I knew that only a maximum of one AI civ might have reached the next age. I decided to forgo the Great Library and instead finish up the Pyramids for a nice boost of population and more pop-rushing before monarchy, which was next on my list of techs desired after finishing map making. I still had half a continent to settle and I wanted to do it quickly. It was not to be though as two turns before I would have finished, the Americans built the Pyramids. I ended up with the Great Library after all. I also lost out on the Colossus, but was able to switch over to the Great Lighthouse right before I lost my shield build-up. It was a fortuitous stroke of luck because I wanted the Great Lighthouse more than the Colossus anyway, if nothing else to keep it out of AI hands.

The research of our fine scholars continues apace under the fine direction of Lord Xerxes. The people love our lord, but are clamoring for more say in their role in our empire. Xerxes, giving leader that he is, has dreamed up a new form of government to provide his people with more say, while he still maintains total control. He calls it Monarchy, and has given our researchers time to prepare the details before beginning a government transition.

Hark, what do see off our south coast but ships! We send our diplomats to parley, and indeed they do. These ships belong to the English people and their leader Elizabeth. Our first discussions seem to go well as they give us their maps of the world and teach us better construction techniques in exchange for our gold, but alas it is not to be. Elizabeth suffers the same evil gleam in her eyes as the lost Romans and Iroquois. Is everyone we meet so hateful of our culture? Being a proactive leader, Xerxes declares war. We will annihilate these English scum and their ugly ruler just as we annihilated the rest who have challenged our might!

More to come later...

[mimi]

Well, I'm trying the silly thing again. Had a better start this time because I took Rome immediately (and I've been making use of the pop-rush - normally I don't 'cause it just upsets them all but I'll worry about that later. Perhaps I'll turn commie and they'll just have to live with it for the entire game).

I've been having a hard time with barbs though - they are everywhere! I can't build a road without guarding my workers and I have no extra units to guard with 'cause I lost most of them in my elimination of the Iroquois and those stupid English who keep landing in the EXACT same spot over and over and over again. Now I have 2 elite swords standing there waiting for them to land.

Can't get to England either - sent out 3 galleys with units and the damn English galleys are everywhere and they sink me. Doesn't matter if they only have half health, they're super-galleys and they sink me.

I'm the only one on my continent now and have just put out settlers to clear up the barb breeding grounds so maybe that's under control. I got the GL and everyone else just researched Education so that's it for my free step up. Good thing someone researched Chiv first! Now I just gotta make it to England with some riders to get the game swinging my way.

Wonder if I should populate my own lands and build infrastructure or just build boats and riders and hope I can make it to England before they get calvary? (I'm only on regent)

[vmxa1]

Mimi, IMO two things are key in this map.
1- take Rome to at least delay Legions, if not prevent them
2-get to England early.
It may be too late already. Not because you can't take over that island, but because the others will have too much time to grow.
I made a coastal city right away and started on a few galleys as soon as I had the tech.
This let me get 2 landed before they could gear up.
I held the barbs down, by have first two roving archers and then horsemen, until I could get the land blanketed.
I did not want any uprisings.
Good luck.

[Rhothaerill]

Good job so far Mimi. I think we both learned from our first go around playing the Mongols that taking out the Romans was an early key. My suggestion, based on my own game, is go after the English with almost all your Rider might and cover your home continent with cities. The other Civs will be heading your way soon enough and if they have a base on your continent it will be worse than if they have to land in your territory. Keep some Riders back for defense of your continent too. If you have a road network up then those Riders can cover a lot of ground and keep any AI civ landings from being a problem.

I have at least two more AAR/DARs to write to bring me up to my current time in the game (My Big Mistake and The Fall of the English )

[mimi]

Humph! I may not be able to play tonite because, APPARENTLY, I'm supposed to interact with the other beings in my household! I tried the whole commie thing but that didn't go over very well - turns out we can't pop-rush a dishwasher in real life!

[Rhothaerill]

My Big Mistake

The evil English reign of terror was about to come to an end. Our Lord Xerxes vowed that Elizabeth would come to regret the way she has treated her people. And when Xerxes rules the entire English continent, all will be well for everyone. We immediately rededicated all our efforts to our supreme military and began to drop our units off on the English coastline. Thanks to the map Elizabeth so kindly provided us before her treacherous intentions were laid bare allowed us to plot out the safest route to her lands. Within a short time their entire northern coast was ours. We pushed on with all our might to their capitol. Lord Xerxes brilliant battle tactics called for a lightning quick drive to the English capitol of London to cut her forces in half. If all went well we’d hold the entire north and center of the continent while continuing to land our forces to reinforce our defense of the lands we had taken. Our Immortal forces cut through the defenses of the English like a hot knife through butter. London would be ours!

Game notes: After the war declaration I immediately set all my cities to military production again. In retrospect I should have had them producing military units all along after the libraries , but that wasn’t a big deal as I already had a lot of units to spare. Even with a road network though it took a little while to start getting a good amount of my units ferried over to the English coast. Within a few turns my Immortals had taken three cities (the one on the northernmost peninsula was razed and I placed a new city there as a base for my troops. I finally received my first Great Leader (poor elite promotion resulting from the relatively speedy wars with the Romans and Iroquois) and promptly ferried him back to my continent. It was good timing as my Forbidden Palace was in need of a boost. I planned to place it in roughly the exact center of my continent in anticipation of a palace jump later in the game. That particular city was a one-shield producer because of corruption so my insta-palace helped the northern part of my continent immensely. And then I made my big mistake as per the title of this AAR installment. In pushing toward London I didn’t divert any of my forces to pillaging the sole source of English iron. I instead planned to take it out after taking London. But here the RNG finally let me down and I lost most of my Immortal force taking London.

Treachery against my lord Xerxes great forces. Almost immediately after the sack of London we were attacked by the sword wielding forces of the evil English armies. They must have had inside help for our brave units to fall so quickly. We are Persian. We are resilient. And we will conquer these English. Our forces fell back to regroup at Nottingham, but again we were betrayed from within as the English people rose up against us and redeclared their allegiance to England. How could this be? Are we not delivering them from the oppression of wicked Elizabeth? Undaunted we sent our remaining units on the continent to retake Nottingham and hold it until more of our glorious armies could join them. We will conquer!

Xerxes famous idea of Monarchy has swept the nation into a fervor. But just as we were preparing to implement the last bit of this new government, news of the setbacks on the English front caused panic and anarchy in our empire. Only a marginal few protested our war so they were quickly taken into custody (Persian justice is swift). And then we heard the call we dreaded. Barbarians at the gates!

Game notes: During my conquering times I finished researching Monarchy, but held off on switching until I finished the two wonders I was working on. I was pre-building the Great Wall in Persepolis in anticipation of the Hanging Gardens, but the Americans beat Pasargadae to the Great Lighthouse the turn after. I ended up receiving the Great Wall and the Hanging Gardens, two wonders that were nice for happiness and defense, but not nearly as nice as The Great Lighthouse would have been for finding the other civs to activate my Great Library's powers well before they could find me. As noted above I suffered several setbacks in my England conquest, but none greater than failing to pillage the iron. I believe it cost me about 15-20 turns overall because I was suddenly fighting swordsman instead of archers. Always, always take out the resource tiles as soon as you can! After failing to do so I can't stress that enough. The English had only one iron, and it would have been so much easier to fight them without swordsman units.

The proliferation of barbarians also cost me some time. As seen in the screenshot below, two civs had finally entered the Middle Ages and triggered several hordes of barbarians in my as-yet unclaimed territories to the north.

More to come later...

[vmxa1]

Entertaining report, too bad you did not have a few horsemen roving around to stomp out any camps.
I set a few to prevent respawns.

[cumi]

Aaaaah, those barbarians!

Rhothaerill, I lost until now about 5 workers and a settler because of them.

BTW, I destroyed Rome, Iraq and England too, but I didn't filled up the starting continent with cities, so I have on the north a lot "uncontrolled" tiles, where the barbs can easily organize themselves. During the war with England I couldn't concentrate on this, so I lost a lot (for me) workers. rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

BTW^2, I playing on the easiest level now, and - how should I say - the game is quite a routine-game until now. Let's wait for the contact with the rest of the world, but I am not expecting too mutch - I build the last 10 wonder....