AU 503 DAR 3: Contact with all civilizations

[Catt]

Stock Rules; Emperor

Part 4 of 7

In 310 AD a brave crew of Incans reached landfall far to the west, and found the strange tribe that called themselves Ottomans. Their discovery came at the same time as a great disaster befell Pachacuti’s people. Pachacuti had previously decided that, given the poor land available to the Incans, the construction of a Great Library would aid the empire tremendously. Despite the growth-stifling warfare introduced to the home continent by Pachacuti early, Incan scientific research could simply not keep up with its neighbors. And as word spread of great wonders being completed across the oceans, Pachacuti had concluded that the Incan empire had found itself in a rather large hole – backwardness would be its fate for some time. Just as news of landfall and contact with the Ottomans reached home, and only a handful of turns from the dedication of the Incan great library, Pachacuti was also informed that the Ottomans had successfully collected all of the ancient books into a Great Library of its own. Cuzco completed a 364-shield marketplace.

Having counted on completion of the library, Pachacuti had long ignored any scientific endeavors whatsoever. The large Incan treasury was put to use buying technologies from other tribes, and native research began again.

The surviving Incan galley circumnavigated the new continent, making contact with the Chinese and then eventually the Portuguese. Finally, in 660 AD an Indian galley was encountered along the coast – Pachacuti had long expected to meet the Indians for he could spy Chinese numerous Chinese cities with strange names.

Only a few years later, in 700 AD, the Chinese completed their conquest of the Indians. The Chinese appeared to have established a large and prosperous empire.

Catt

[Strollen]

LOL a 364 shield marketplace ouch. Nice DAR keep them coming.

[Catt]

Originally posted by Strollen
LOL a 364 shield marketplace ouch. Nice DAR keep them coming.

It's funnier in looking back than in the playing . Serves me right since I hardly ever build the GL anymore in any event. Pachacuti did take comfort in knowing that the market's stalls were gold-plated, jewel-encrusted stands and that a permanent force of hired hands provided an ancient-age equivalent of air-conditioning to ease the pain of the hot winds blowing from the southern desert -- you get a lot for 364 shields

Catt

[nbarclay]

Emperor Level, AU Mod

In 470 BC, I won the race to be first on my continent with Currency (after researching it as quickly as I could). From there, I was able to trade for seven other techs and gain a little gold in the process. Even so, I was still behind by Philosophy and Monarchy. No one had discovered Construction at that point. I then researched Monarchy in order to get out of Despotism. (Considering what my anticipated future war with the Mongols was likely to be like, Republic wasn't much of an option.)

I waited a bit longer than I should have to go after the Mongols, finally striking at them in 330 AD. I was still in the ancient era and stuck sending swordsmen and spearmen against pikemen and MedInfs, but at least I had cats to help even the odds. I also hoped for some help from the other AIs, with mixed results. The Hittites turned out to already be at war with the Mongols, but the Vikings were not willing to join me for anything resembling a reasonable price.

Unfortunately, the Hittites made peace after just a few turns. I probably should have signed an alliance with them in the hope of making such an occurrence less likely, but I decided against it for reasons I don't remember.

By 400 AD, I'd razed one Mongol city and was moving down toward another. A Mongol unit came into range of my one and only Chasqui, and I killed it to trigger my GA. At that point, the Vikings were willing to join in for 14 gpt and about five gold up front, and I decided that was a price worth paying.

[nbarclay]

The war continued, but I got two surprises, one mixed and one extremely nasty. The really nasty one was that by the time I reached tbe Mongol capital, the Mongols had researched Gunpowder. The mixed one, which I should have anticipated, was that the Vikings were able to use their Beserks to do nasty things to the Mongols.

I ended up having to pull back from my first attempt to capture the Mongol capital and wait for more catapults to arrive. In the end, I was able to take the city with fairly heavy losses, but then it flipped on me a few turns later. Not only did I lose a few units in the flip, but the Vikings were able to take the city - and with it the Pyramids, the Oracle, and Sun Tsu's - before I could recapture it. That stung a lot. (In some other cases, I razed cities instead of capturing them intact because the Mongols had more than three times my culture, but the idea of razing three wonders wasn't very appealing.)

In 730 AD, I captured the city of Kazan, home of the Great Library. That took me from having barely gotten out of the ancient era to being essentially caught up in technology. I got the bottom branch of the tech tree through Chemistry, but only Monotheism on the top branch.

I decided not to start researching myself, though, because I figured when someone from the other continent made contact with me, I could get a lot of techs for free if I didn't have Education yet. In the meantime, the Vikings and my Incas finished dividing the Mongol lands between us, with them getting about as much out of the war as I did. In 780 AD, the last Mongol city fell.

One other really nasty thing happened during the war: one of my cities in a medium-production zone flipped to the Vikings.

[nbarclay]

With the Mongols defeated, I seriously considered launching a quick war against the Vikings to retake the former Mongol capital. After some thought, though, I reluctantly decided against it. Instead, I decided to take out the Hittites, whom the Mongols had weakened not too long before.

That war has gone smoothly thus far, with two big exceptions. One was the loss of a 3x Ancient Cavalry army when a city flipped (although I did get an army unit during the war that I could use to replace it). The other is that the Hittite capital just jumped to an island city I hadn't known existed, meaning I'll probably need to make peace once I finish capturing their continental holdings and then try to hit their island later once I've built up sufficient naval power. (I've only built two galleys thus far, and one of those was lost in combat.) On the plus side, I got the Temple of Artemis from the Hittites and was able to get about eight turns of benefit from it - long enough for border expansions in my captured Mongol cities, cities I built in formerly Mongol territory, and one captured Hittite city - before it became obsolete.

In the meantime, my silk city flipped to the Vikings, forcing me to trade to them for silk instead of being able to use home-grown silk. I'm not in a position to do much about that now, but I've added it to my list of things the Vikings will have to be punished for.

In 940 AD, an Ottoman ship appeared off my coast and the Ottomans, Portuguese, and Indians all attempted to sell me Chivalry. Not surprisingly, I rejected their offers, since I could count on the Great Library to work its magic.

[nbarclay]

With the Great Library having done its job, I traded for contact with China, maps of the other continent, and two of the three overseas luxuries. (No wines were available on the market.) I also sold Astronomy to the Vikings for just under 49 gpt. I'm thinking I'll research Banking and Democracy and then change governments; with a little luck, maybe I can even trade one or both of those techs. (I'm tempted to stay in Monarchy until I'm ready to switch to Communism, but unless tech deals fall into place nicely, that could get ugly. Still, long term, Communism is definitely the way to go.)

As of two turns ago, I was ahead of the Vikings in both land area and population with 19 percent and 26 percent compared with their 15 and 19 percent. (My border expansions in conquered areas played a major role in the land area part of that.) I'm now up to 21 and 29 percent (thanks in large part to the Hittite war), with India at 24 and 22 percent. Unfortunately, much of my land and population is in the far South, which will be worth little until Communism. On F11, I'm second in Mfg. Goods but only fourth in GNP, part of the price of being a monarchy in a world of mostly republics. (Although India, for some unknown reason, is in Feudalism.)

In the tech race, to the best of my knowledge, the only techs that other civs have that I don't I don't are Music Theory (which only India has) and Metallurgy (which only the Vikings have, although the Vikings don't have Navigation yet). I'm even with the Ottomans, ahead of what little is left of Portugal by Navigation, and far ahead of China and the Hittites (neither of which has Theology yet).

All in all, I'm doing reasonably well in spite of not having done any early pillaging. The game is going as slow as half-frozen molasses, but my size and economic strength are competitive.

Nathan

[vmxa1]

Some nasty flips there Nathan.

[Action]

EDIT: map attached one post down

First AU game
Monarch, Stock version
4000 BC to 1070 A.D.

Expanded normally, filling up the peninsula and all the way down to the silks in the jungle. Then I bumped up against hittite and mongol cities. Nothing of particular interest happened until late ancient age. I stayed competative in tech by trading it around, and researching a fair amount on my own. I went Republic instead of monarchy, a big mistake, due to war weariness.

I had not gone on a pillaging raid early, so the Mongols were huge. The hittites were smaller and stuck on the west coast, but still decent. The Vikings had filled up their peninsula, but the land was pretty bad. Clearly, the Mongols were the ones I needed to take out. Especially as they had the full powered statue of zeus.

I had Iron but no way to get horses, so I started massing swordsmen with a few catapults. The Mongols had ancient cavalry and spearmen and archers(no iron). When I had what I thought were enough, I brought the Vikings into a military alliance with the Mongols. Quickly I burned two level one Mongol cities, sent a settler to place the town of Ica in the place of one of them, and started moving my swordsmen into position to besiege Choybalsan. However, the Mongols threw a lot of troops at me, and I was only able to mass enough swordsmen by building a military road right up to the city. This road dropped them off in a swamp right next to the city, where they could hold off Mongolia's ancient cavalry much better than on the plains. After many years of battle, I conquered Choybalsan, using only Swordsmen. It was defended by a bunch of ancient cavalry and spearmen and archers. At about this time I was able to bring the Hittites into the war with a minor gift.

Next up was Ulaanbaatar, which fell easily. Ambitiously, I moved my forces to Karakorum. The theme of this game is pillaging, and I had a few Chasiquis out doing just that. My only success of note was disconnecting their horses. This will prove to be of importance later. However, one of them triggered my golden age, which was a bit annoying as I was having severe civil disorder problems due to war weariness, and having to use the luxury slider.

As I massed my forces before the mighty walls of Karakorum (huge city even then), I noticed a mongol galley sneaking out of the fog. I moved my nearest swordsmen to counter it, but it was too late. It disgorged an ancient cavalry and a spearmen. One regular swordsman was no match, and they conquered Cuzco. A highly embarassing turn of events, but no big deal as I only lost a temple a library and a granary, and the palace moved to an ever so slightly better location (Macchu Picchu, in the desert, but more centrally located)
Due to the poor terrain Cuzco was extremely under developed compared to my usual cities from other games, as it had been my major settler factory for a long time.

I quickly reconquered Cuzco, but unfortunately, a pikeman had shown up in Karakorum. Even worse, a mongol archer had stolen my two pathetic catapults when I mistakenly left them unguarded. My seven swordsmen proved no match for Karakorum, only one elite limped back to Ulaanbaator.

At this point, the lenghty, lengthy war was causing me severe war weariness, and my armies were low, so I peaced out, (my military alliances had expired) getting a small lump sum of gold from the Mongols and 1 gold per turn. (and of course keeping my two cities and stolen colony spot)

The inter war period was uneventful, although I did manage to build Copernicus's observatory, my first wonder, in Macchu Picchu, my new capital. The main highlight though, was constant war between the Mongols and the Vikings. They were at war for almost all of the 40 turns between my first and second war on the mongols. This severely retarded the tech efforts of both sides, allowing me to get a few techs up.

The second war actually began when the Hittites asked me for a military alliance. The Vikings and Mongols were still at war, or at war again, so it was another gang bang. This time it was to be musketmen, medieval infantry and trebuchets (later cannon) vs pikemen, ancient cav and longbowmen. The Mongols kept losing connection to their iron due to constant war, and apparently still had not reconnected the horses I'd pillaged either!

However, the defenses of Karakorum were very strong. I remember killing 4 spearman and 3 pikemen, as well as countless Ancient cavalry and longbowmen the AI sent out to die. The vikings who I feared would steal the city for a while, killed another 3 spearmen at least. My medieval infantry and trebuchets were very feeble against the huge city, and it finally took the arrival of cannon for me to batter the defenders into submission. In fact, I developed military tradition right as I finally captured it. But lacking horses, medieval infantry is still the best I can build.

As my siege train settled in around Karakorum, another foolish mistake on my part occured. I had left Ulaanbaatar guarded by a wounded elite swordsman who I was trying to get a leader from. Strangely enough, the AI sent a pikeman and a spearman around my siege train via the roads, and ATTACKED Ulaanbaatar with them. And they conquered it from me. Pretty brave and smart by the AI. My hordes of medieval infantry quickly reconquered it, but the loss of a temple in a highly corrupt city represented a many turn set back.

Karakorum was size 11 after I conquered it, and contained the pyramids and the statue of zeus (obselete). The war is actually still going on, but war weariness is getting bad.

I actually contacted the other continent before I conquered Karakorum, but it was heavily under siege so I decided to finish out the siege. I traded for contacts with the Portuguese, who built the great lighthouse and showed up in a galley. Luckily for me, the Indians had concentrated on the other side of the tech tree, so I was able to gain quite a few techs by trading, putting me ahead, slightly.

Lessons learned:

I'm not good enough to play as a Republic. I need to be able to support enough troops to put a defender in every city. Right now, my workers alone take up 75% of the support limit for Republic, and every troop over the limit is 2 gp. I could also use the military policing of monarchy.

Without horses it's damn hard to get leaders. On the other hand, I am getting some good practice with sieging cities down.

It was surprisingly easy to keep all the AI's friendly then set them against the Mongols, and this really weakened the Mongols and the Vikings.

Stuff I have no clue about:

Where to put the forbidden palace?

[Action]

here is the map, for some reason it didn't show

[Aqualung71]

Welcome to AU, Action. Looks like you've had a rollicking good time with this one!

On FP placement, it is not as crucial as it was in PTW since the FP no longer provides a new set of city ranks. I think the best placement for long term benefit is about 3 cities away from your capital - close enough to benefit from the reduced distance corruption but not so far that this is nerfed by horrible rank corruption. This is somewhat dependent on map size and difficulty level.

However, since it may take longer to build the FP in the perfect location because of existing waste in that city and so less usable shields (excluding the timely arrival of a leader to do the work for you), it is probably better to get it built as quickly as possible in a shield-rich city, which will enable your entire empire to reap the corruption reducing benefit of having a higher OCN, considerably sooner than you otherwise would. And of course, you have the option to move your Capital later by rebuilding the Palace in a more balanced location (or abandoning your capital and jumping your palace, if that takes your fancy!)

[Mountain Sage]

850BC:
Traded Literature for HR and 170 gold with the Mongols and for 76 gold with the Vikings. Our glorious navy discovered a small island in the west.
War with the Vikings (bopped a Settler’s team by the oasis).

775BC:
The hut on the small island gave us Construction!
Made peace with the Hittites for two small town far south… useless, but pretty.

650BC:
The war with he Vikings ended for 25 gold more.
We bopped another Mongol’s team and made an alliance with the Hittites.

470BC:
The impregnable Mongol capital fell to our brave soldiers and with it the Pyramids. The third hut on the big island west gave us CoL.

330BC:
Contact!
Traded Literature for Polytheism, Currency and 11 gold with Portugal,
We are now in the Medieval Times. Engineering in 50 turns.

250BC:
The war with the Mongols ended. We got all their cities except their capitol…

70BC:
We finally discovered the Ottomans, the count should be complete now.
The Mongols and the Hittites are at war with each other. The Mongols are down to 1 city. Maybe we should relieve them from their pain…

[Mountain Sage]

Economics

[Mountain Sage]

The Power Graph

[Theseus]

Originally posted by Arrian
* Arrian is in awe of Aeson, as usual.

I am just writing my DARS now, and catching up on others'.

As I read your opening post, Aeson, my jaw was just hanging down to the floor... as usual.

And then I saw Arrian's post, and concurred entirely... as usual.

I never even THOUGHT about the CS ability to move across hills and mountains in conjunction with free Army pillaging.

Awesome move!