AU 503 DAR 4: Steam Power

[alexman]

So you are still alive and you have coal. Or don't you? This is the fourth spoiler thread for AU 503: Pillage and Plunder.

How did the middle ages go for you? Keshiks and Berzerks were dangerous on this map - did you manage to avoid confronting them? Have you overcome the tough start, or are you being confined to the arid northern corner of the continent? Did you notice the increased appearance of coal on this map? What are your plans for the Industrial Age?

[Catt]

Stock Rules; Emperor

Part 5 of 7

The Middle Ages proceeded quickly. The Chinese empire was large and growing stronger, and the Chinese aggressively researched new technologies. They established at least a five or six tech lead over the Incans. With relative peace on the home continent, the Hittites, Mongols, and Vikings also pursued empire development. Small skirmishes occasionally erupted among the three other powers, but Pachacuti remained neutral.

A momentary fright was instilled in Pachacuti when he learned that the Chinese had begun to construct Newton’s University in 760 AD – this at a time when Incan knowledge extended only as far as Gunpowder, with 11 turns to go on Astronomy. But it appeared that, for whatever reason, Mao had almost beelined directly for Theory of Gravity – the Chinese hadn’t discovered such technologies as Metallurgy, Banking, or Navigation. A series of fortuitous knowledge-trading enabled much of the rest of the world to obtain a respectable position vis-à-vis the Chinese (with Pachacuti also renewing his habit of trading away the Incan iron to Mursilis), trading amongst each other technologies such as Astronomy, Banking, Navigation, Metallurgy, and Physics. Pachacuti had unfortunately lost all knowledge of what precisely was traded to whom and at what time.

By 1000 AD, the Incans (and much of the rest of the world) had nearly matched the Chinese effort. Pachacuti lacked only Theory of Gravity to reach the next age, and China had not yet entered that age, having detoured for Military Tradition and possibly Printing Press. When the Incans were launched into the Industrial Age, Steam Power was only about 10 turns distant, but Pachacuti had just completed a trade delivering iron to Mursilis for 20 turns. Pachacuti elected to research Economics, since no one else had, and preparations for Smith’s Trading House were put underway. The Incans were the first to discover Economics and did not trade their knowledge. Steam Power was researched sometime in the 1200’s AD.

As the year passed into 1335 AD, the discovery of Industrialization brought forth a great Incan scientist in Cuzco. Smith’s Trading Company would be completed the next turn, and Pachacuti elected to preserve the scientist for assistance with the completion of the Theory of Evolution (an idea that had come to Pachacuti in a dream). The Chinese, having declared war on each of the Ottomans, Mongols, and Vikings, had reverted to a Monarchy, slowing their scientific progress. Each of the Mongols and Vikings had gone Fascist, but while at war were unwilling to trade to China. The discovery of Industrialization gave Pachacuti a lead of that single tech, versus a smattering knowledge of Communism and Fascism elsewhere.

On the same turn that Industrialization was discovered, Machu Picchu, the Incan irrigation city north of Lake Chasqui, completed the Iron Works. Since it had previously completed the Forbidden Palace, Machu Picchu was destined to be a powerful production center.

The screenshot below shows the SGL and the state of the world at 1335 AD – the Chinese are at war with the Ottomans (that lone Ottoman city to the south just flipped back to them after a recent conquest). I cannot remember if I researched Nationalism myself (probably) or actually was able to trade for it – I wanted it since others had discovered MT and the best units I had were a few pikes, trebuchets, and medieval infantry, and not a lot of them either). I tried to reload saves from this period to get a better grip on what was going on in the absence of my notes, but I kept pulling up saves from the Mesoamerican Conquests I had recently played and couldn’t find anything enlightening.

Catt

[nbarclay]

Emperor Level, AU Mod

Almost immediately after my last DAR, the Vikings decided they wanted to pick a fight. Several Bezerks entered my territory, mostly by land but with two landing outside one of my cities. I was able to kill most of the invaders with minimal losses, but the residents of one of my towns were forced to flee in panic rather than allow their town to be taken. (In other words, I abandoned it.) I captured the last Hittite city on the continent and made peace with the Hittites in order to avoid having to fight a two-front war. The war also did one other nasty thing to me very quickly: it disrupted a deal with the other continent, messing up my reputation.

The war went well at first, with my forces killing most of the Bezerks west of the former Mongol capital. After a few turns, I was able to get most of my trebuchets brought over from the Hittite war to try to retake Karakorum and its wonders. But that effort turned into a fiasco, with one army dead and two others (including a newly formed MedInf army) barely surviving. I was lucky to get my trebuchets out alive, and to be reasonably sure of doing it, I ended up abandoning another town (since the sole pike unit defending it was needed to defend the trebuchets. That town had controlled two of the ivory resources, so its loss ceded those resources to the Vikings.

Just after my trebuchets retreated, the Vikings were willing to make peace. They were even willing to pay just a few gold per turn as reparations for the damage they caused. With peace reestablished, I was able to replace the first town I abandoned, but the Vikings' cultural strength around the ivory was too strong for me to dare to try to rebuild there.

I wasn't able to be first to Banking, but I did win the race to Democracy. That got me Physics and Metallurgy, among other things. I changed governments and started work on Theory of Gravity, which I managed to be first to get while the leading AIs all got Magnetism in spite of an 8-turn anarchy. I traded ToG for Magnetism and assorted goodies, bringing my Incas and the three leading AIs (India, Scandanavia, and the Ottomans) into the industrial era. The Ottomans got Steam Power as their free tech.

What I probably should have done at that point was go for Steam Power and count on getting a branch lead beyond that, but I decided to get fancy instead. I researched Medicine at a relatively slow pace, planning to trade for Nationalism once multiple AIs had it. Unfortunately, even with three AIs having Nationalism, I ended up having to pay some gold to make the deal work.

After Medicine, I targeted Sanitation next, and then started research on Steam Power. I decided not to pursue Communism as early as I'd originally planned, because I was getting surprisingly good wealth and productivity as a Democracy and the idea of going into anarchy during the early industrial wonder races seemed less than entirely attractive. After two turns of research on Steam Power, I was able to trade Sanitation for the rest, and then sold Sanitation to India and the Vikings. That puts me even with the Ottomans in tech and a tech (Steam Power) ahead of India and the Vikings. I'm on roughly a six-turn tech pace.

I don't have any embassies on the other continent yet, but the Ottomans seem to be in their golden age fighting India. No cities have changed hands that I can tell, but India changed governments from Democracy to Feudalism, and the Ottomans chnaged from Democracy to Republic. A war is the only thing I can think of off the top of my head that would account for that. Also, the amount of spare gold the Ottomans have this turn seems consistent with being in a GA.

I've had one of my Hittite cities flip back, but I'm not really ready to try to finish the Hittites off at the moment. Still, their days are numberd. In other news, I managed to snag Smith's as the only medieval wonder I was able to build. India, the Vikings, and my Incas control all of the world's wonders except for Magellan's Voyage, which the Ottomans completed recently.

[Strollen]

AU Mod Emperor Level

At the end of my last DAR, I made a serious of amazing trades and achieved tech parity. Having got parity I was determined to keep it or be the tech leader. I narrowly won the race to physics which I used to get money from Ottoman, Portugal, and India. By 950 I was getting +357 from other civs primarily from techs allowing me to research at 90-100%. I next researched Theory of Gravity while the AI went for Metallurgy and Free Artistry. Not wanting to cancel the SOZ, I delayed picking up Metallurgy but eventually traded for it and Free Artistry. Unfortunately Portugal beat me to Magnetism, which I bought cheap (2 turns away). I then traded Magnetism to Ottoman for Mil. Tradition and money. This gave Ottomans steam power, which I bought for 3000+ Gold!! (I pretty sure I didn't trade Steam power.)

Sadly my wonder races didn't fare as well. Despite pre-building a Palace during my Golden Age, at Muchu Picchu (dye city), and switching to Adam Smith ASAP, I found that after my golden age end I was 11 turns away but Bejing was only 10 when I established and embassy. I then very reluctantly switched Cuzuco to Shakespear and and Much Picchu to Newtons which were built the in 910 AD. As it turns out that was a smart move because Ottoman finished Smiths in 920, a good 9 turns ahead of me.
The middle ages has some of the best wonders, and I finished the era with not a single one. But I case Newtons and Shakespear are better than nothing. The Forbidden Palace completed in 790 at the Mongols capital city proved to me a major boon with a huge reduction in corruption seen in much of my empire.

Militarily the years between 590AD and 990 were a period of almost constant war. The Viking who in a scene right out of Braveheart had pretended to be my ally and using the ROP walked into the Hittities lend where they immediately made peace. Then as there troops returned home they backstabbed and grapped 3 lightly defended cities including my 2nd iron city. I than immediately made peace with the Hittities induced them to attack the Vikings with some minor tech. Unfortunately without Saltpeter (Copehngan culture wiped out my saltpeter colony) or Iron (having traded my "spare" iron to the Ottamans) my troop building capabilities where very limited. Even worse my army support cost rose from zero to 21 by losing the towns and my war weariness was almost immediately a factor.

Luckily, I did have two Ancient Cav armies which were invaluable, in recapturing Mandalogvi and later Vilcas. The Hittities proved to be valuable allies killing many beserkers with their chariots and Knights, unfortunately they liberated one of my towns, but since it was isolated in my terrority I wasn't to worried. I took the opportunity to destroy the last remaining Mongol city while enjoying the ring side seats for 3rd Viking Hittite war.

I than took my remaining armies and handful of knights and captured the 2 Viking spice towns. At which point suffering from war weariness, upset about losing a Anc. Cav army and desperate to leave Feudalism I halted offensive operations.

I enter Anarchy and few turns latter cancel my alliance/ROP with the Hittities and made peace with the Vikings and got a few gold. This war got the Vikings and Hittities really mad at each other and they remained in almost constant war until the destruction of the Hittities army later.

[Aqualung71]

I reached Steam Power by about 1340 (Emperor, AU Mod), though I restarted this game so many times I have no idea which one I continued playing . I know it was one of the early pillage games since they were so much better than my traditional REX attempts.

I guess the biggest difficulty after the ascendency was gained on the home continent, was discovering how far behind in techs we were compared to the rest of the world. I built the FP as quickly as I could, dispatched the Mongols during intermittent wars and helped the Ottomans remove the Vikings from the continent, albeit rather too late to gain much of their lands for ourselves. In fact, it was only the Ottoman expansion and aggressiveness towards the Vikings that prevented us from taking over our entire continent. Had we been able to do so, I would guess that we would probably have achieved tech parity more quickly.

As at the advent of Steam Power, the Ottomans had taken most of the Viking territory, leaving only the northern cities for us, while the Portuguese and Indians had also gained a foothold....though it was to be shortlived, as we were poised to take all non-Ottoman territories on our home continent, which of course included relieving the Hittites of their last 6 continental cities and obliterating them from the world completely.

Unfortunately, we were still horribly behind in techs, a position from which we would not really recover until the modern age. This of course meant that the industrial age wonders went to other civs, further exacerbating our research problems.

I didn't bother filling in too many of the Mongol/Hittite gaps with settlers. These cities were only marginally productive anyway, being so far from our capital, and I was busy producing military units to guard against any possible Ottoman invasion to waste production on settlers. As a result, the southern part of our territory remained sparsely settled and less developed and our workers concentrated on removing the marshland and jungles from the central steppes to the north of the great lake.

The screenie doesn't really show much in particular, except the size of our empire and how the Ottomans had pushed their way onto our continent while we were busy developing our economy - can't do everything at once!

[Action]

1070 AD to 1455 AD
Monarch

At the end of the last DAR I had just captured the Mongol capital, Karakorum.

I wanted to get out of the war due to the unrest it was causing, but a little scouting told me that if I didn't conquer the Mongols the vikings probably would. While the Mongols still had decent defenses in their cities, they had lost almost all their offensive units, and didn't have much fight left in them.

So, I forced myself to use a few entertainers, and split their empire with the Vikings, taking the larger portion for myself. The Vikings got two coastal cities and the city they'd taken in an amphibious landing, I got the rest, although often only a few turns ahead of a large viking stack. I finally got a supply of horses out of it.

Unfortunately, these cities were all horribly corrupt, and I had no leaders to rush a palace.

After the war, I settled in for a long period of peace. I was still staying just in front of, or at par with the leaders of the tech race, by trading.

The only thing of note in the remainder of the medieval era was the fact that I got three very expensive universities. I had Magellans, Newtons and J.S. Bach's cathedral about 40-60% done, when an AI wonder cascade resulted in all three wonders being completed by other civs. Since the cities building them seemed too close for a forbidden palace (wrong in retrospect, since I went commie), they got very expensive universities.

Once the industrial age dawned, I went nationalism > communism > steam power. I was the first nation to steam power, but India has medicine and fascism over me. Everyone else is behind, Portugal, China and the Ottomans about 4 techs behind, the Vikings and Hittites close behind.

In the middle of this I had a short revolution and became communist. The corruption seems to be a lot less, and I still haven't built the forbidden palace (two turns away) or any police stations. It seems like Communism will be quite powerful, once I build up the infra of my mongol conquests a little more. I am able to run at 100% tech right now, due to GPT payments, and I get techs at 7-9 (mostly 8) turns. Not great, but my Mongolian provinces dont even have libraries yet, so I expect it to improve. I still have a few more wars to fight, and for that, Communism will be much better.

Every single AI civ is in Democracy, so I really ought to get them fighting each other.

[Mountain Sage]

230AD:
Traded Engineering with Scandinavia for Feudalism and 80 gold, for the Republic with Portugal and Polytheism with the Hittites for 88 gold.

250AD:
Declared war on the Mongols. With our second GL built the FP in Almarik.

280AD:
Another GL! We will create our first (glorious) army.

310AD
We switched to Feudalism.

340AD:
The Mongols were (finally) destroyed.

420AD:
The Hittites declared war and we got another GL.

510AD:
The war with the Hittites ended. The are down to their island town. And we got another GL.

630AD:
We were the first one to discover Chemistry. Traded it for Monotheism, 50 gold and 19gpt with China, Theology, 54 gold and 6gpt with India, Education and 7 gold with Portugal, then Education for Chivalry and 5 gold with the Vikings. The other civs had Astronomy and Printing Press. We went for Banking in 10 turns.

660AD:
The Heroic Epic is completed.

710BC:
Traded Saltpetre, Dyes, Incense and Ivory with India for 48 gpt.
The Vikings declared war on us (a bit provoked… I admit)

810AD:
Traded around Economics for Astronomy, Navigation, 180 gold. Smith Trading Co. is 1 turn away.

900AD:
We discovered Physics. Magnetism in 11 turns.

1050AD:
The war with the Vikings ended. They lost the continent and the small island north.

1100AD:
We entered a new age. Portugal is behind us in techs, India and China have Military Tradition and Nationalism, and the Ottomans are also behind. Researching Steam Power in 15 turns at 100%.
Our Privateers started to rule the seas (well, sort of). More pillaging!

1210AD:
We declared war on the Hittites.

1260AD:
We got Steam Power. Now it’s ToE.
Traded it with the Ottomans for Military Tradition, Democracy, wines, 44 gpt and with China for gems, Music Theory, 16gpt, 48 gold.

[Mountain Sage]

Economics

[Mountain Sage]

The Power Graph

[Theseus]

STEAM POWER

AU Mod, Emperor

It wasn’t until 1030 AD that I was ready for the next wars… considering how far behind I was, Chivalry was critical.

But, errr, waiting that long had presented a further problem: the Mongols had gone ballistic!! But still, I considered them overextended.

BTW, that is the new Hittite capitol off to the west. Never got much outta them in the way of war spoils… C3C, I guess.

[Theseus]

I enlisted the Vikings of course… I had stayed in very good relations with them (except for once city that I had captured long ago), with this in mind. Man, seeing Berserks in action against SOMEONE ELSE felt good!!

The good news about my extended GL-hunting in the jungles was that almost all of my ACs were elite, and as my war in earnest against the Mongols got going, I was rewarded with 3 more GLs in the space of just 150 years or so, and thankfully as my Knights were coming on-line… by 1200 AD, I had four Knight+2xAC Armies as part of my offense.

[Theseus]

Here’s an illustrative shot from mid-war:

I didn’t have the strength to steamroller over the Mongols, nor to appropriately build south towards their lands quickly enough. The only two cities I really wanted were Karakorum for the Pyramids, and Kazan for Leonardo (*drool*).

So, in keeping with the theme, I pillaged and razed my way south and across Mongol lands. The only downside was that random civs were building crap towns in my wake, but I reasoned that they would be easily taken in the future, and perhaps afford opportunities for extortion.

[Theseus]

The results of my and the Vikings’ efforts (I forget what I did to get world maps):

[Theseus]

And just in time too!! I had chosen to go with Feudalism, and the war weariness was killing me!!

[Theseus]

More bad news!! I am waaaay behind on tech. L