AU 504 - Dar 2: 2150BC-1000BC

[Krill]

This is the DAR ("During Action Report") thread for the second 40 turns of AU504 - The Glory of Culture.


Describe how you have positioned yourself in the second 40 turns of the game. How have the special parameters of this game affected your strategic decisions? Have you continued to build upon the economy that you have so far constructed? What lessons have you learned so far? What are your plans for the future?

[Krill]

Just for the basics and a few strats tonight.

The main issue for these turns are, IMHO, either pulling off an archer rush, building up for a sword rush (IE, mass upgrade), or a philo beeline. I took the latter choice for the simple reason that I had a four turn settler pump.


I continued to pump out settlers, but I did spend about ten turns building workers in total, since I needed the land improved asap to keep up with the settling of new towns. I have 2 granaries, Delhi (4turn pump) and Madras (3 turn workers or 6 turn settlers). Bangalore is either 3 turn spears or 2 turn warriors, but since I have enough warriors for MP and future upgrades I want the extra defense to man the southern chokepoints.


Bombay is a wonderprebuild, and I am torn between SoZ or GL. I am leaning towards the GL, since I can then shut off research and either rush build cultural buildings or prepare for a couple of large-ish SoDs.


Western Empire

[Krill]

Tech

Basically, I finished researching Writing, and got Philo first, taking Lit as the free tech, and am currently researching maths (for both SoZ and cats). China has HBR and IW, but not Writing, and will not trade (like I care). Persia has writing, but not IW or HBR. Great, This seems to easy...I wonder what is happening on the other continent...


And China got the Pyramids

I am weak to China in F3, and average to Persia. When I get a few more barracks up, and build warriors, then I will take back the jungles with swords and archers, leaving any cats built for a future SoD in the two choke points.


Eastern Empire

[Krill]

Maybe I should have played on Demi...

[jshelr]

Emperor level Au Mod

I'm in a cranky mood after the upstart Europeans crushed the Americans in the Ryder Cup.

Even so, who can complain about this start?

The peaceful Gandhi was born in the middle of a natural worker/settler pump. And, as the picture shows, it's been pumping quite nicely since our granary was built.

Our middle position could be a disaster if our often- warlike nearby rivals gang up. But, no sign of that yet and, due to being in the middle, we were able to broker some early techs to get an immediate tech lead.

Ivory Iron

Even in the expensive, toned-down version offered by the AU Mod the SoZ is powerful. Our beautiful, tree-lined, lake-side second-city location, complete with lots of bonus shields looks so good that we even started with a temple rather than a directly focused prebuild.

So, we will build a military, adding a temple now and then, and break stuff. Probably china.

Sure looks like fun. The challenge may well be in the "speed to finish" aspect of the game.

Picture is for 1600 bc

Later on, when we had our 9 cities, temples and most libraries, we started on units and researched toward Monarchy.

Snagged Hanging Gardens and bribed Xerxes into helping with an attack on China.

China, unfortunately, then built the Great Wall.

Next bad event: Spain is destroyed.

Whoever did that will be a cultural powerhouse.

The war went on forever, despite a steady and very impressive flow of immortals. I'll include some info on it, although it runs over the time limit for this thread.

We got a leader and decided to play with the new army rather than build an FP. The army let us build heroic epic -- for the culture, of course.

We finally finished the seige of China, walking away with the Pyramids and the Great Wall, having had to raze the MoM.

China was hard to bully and we had to pay to get out of the ancient era. We are now behind Persia in tech. But we were able to build cities in our "backyard" pennisula and so we're pretty big.

Time for some markets and aqueducts before moving on to the big happiness builds. I think I'll research along the peaceful line and see what happens. Having fun.

[Krill]

Russ, is that pic from turn 80? It looks like it is from turn 50 or so...

[Modo44]

Gandhi the wannabe warmonger

Monarch level, AU mod.

My both food-rich cities were making settlers and spearmen. Shortly after 1000BC Delhi switched to workers, because the underdeveloped land started to show. A few warriors came up in the process - to time things with population growth.

I Researched Writing first and probably made a mistake by not trading it at once (could get Horseback Riding and all their gold from the Chinese). A couple turns later I had to pay some gold to get it. Then sold it to the Persians, to get the money back. Seems that they have problems developing - they lag in research ever since I met them. At 1000BC I was close to finishing Literature, with the Chinese knowing Iron Working and the Persians far behind in technology.

Made embassies with both neighbours as soon as I had Writing. The Persians were building a Spearman and the Chinese started the Pyramids (it was 100+ turns at that point, I don't remember how many exactly). This was mostly to get a target lock on both capitals. Beijing was closer... to death.

You can see that I started two wonders, possibly as prebuilds. No shields were lost, I can tell you that. To build two wonders simultaneously was the first choice really different from my normal play. Usually I would go for one of the really powerful wonders (Great Library or SoZ) and never bother with the others. But I wanted all the early culture I could get.

In 1000BC the Indian empire was the world leader in all important demographics. That is, if military service isn't important to you. My intention was to go and attack someone right from the start, but the surroundings made me rethink that. So it was pure expansion and building for now. No archer rush. The plan was to make some swords and then hit hard.

Here's a flyby view of the empire, 1000BC. The Settler near Karachi was going south to the hill near the sugar grassland.

[Tarquinius]

I did not do anything spectacular during this period. I just built along. Started some minor wars with persia and China to keep them busy.
This will be a fairly easy game, but I fear I won't break a new record
Later DAR's will be longer, nothing really happened in this time period.
Pic of 1000 BC:

[Tarquinius]

The main issue for these turns are, IMHO, either pulling off an archer rush, building up for a sword rush (IE, mass upgrade), or a philo beeline. I took the latter choice for the simple reason that I had a four turn settler pump.

I also did the latter, although a bit late (I still won the race, but I will cover that in the next DAR.)
I combined with a different military strategy: building Chariots and later upgrade them to Horsemen. (I attacked China as late as 500 BC) I plan to upgrade my horsemen as soon as I get Chivalry; that could take a while though.

[Arrian]

Monarch, AU Mod.

In 1750 bc, the Chinese discovered Horseback Riding.

Normally, this wouldn't be all that important. On this particular occasion, however, they got an SGL for it. I know this because they completed the Pyramids in 1725bc in Beijing.

The Chinese are the most hardcore AI opponent I've seen in a long, long time. That's a combo of the Pyramids and the AU mod. I'll have a more complete report later (my notes are at home), but suffice it to say I fought a meatgrinder war against them (ancient age units - archers, spears, cats, swords, horsemen) and had to call it off after taking only 2 cities from them, having suffered terrible attrition (some of which was due to some pretty bad combat rolls - despite my catapults). My initial army was nearly wiped out.

I've done a LOT more damage to the Persians, with much less force required. Oh, and the Iroquois, wherever they are, are freakin' scary wonder-builders.

I'm up to 590 AD, and am building up for the all-out strike to take China down.

-Arrian

p.s. 300 shields for the SoZ which produces AC w/o the hit point bonus... that's a strong nerf. Ouch. Took me forever to build it, and then the payoff isn't really all that good.

[jshelr]

Arrian

Had the same sort of result with China. Long war that we persisted in fighting until we took the capital and the pyramids. But China held up well under attack from both India and Persia, who supplied an endless stream of immortals.

[jshelr]

Originally posted by Krill
Russ, is that pic from turn 80? It looks like it is from turn 50 or so...

I don't really remember. But the capital built at least a granary and 5 settler/worker pairs at 6 turns per pair. There was probably an early worker and warrior. So, I'm guessing you are about right Krill.

[Risa]

AU504, Emperor, AU Mod

1950bc: Bangalore was founded 4 tiles northeast from Delhi.
From what I knew that time I thought further east was only hostile jungle and had no proper city spot, so it became the east front of traditional India. I concentrated on civilizing central area and west peninsula.
Bombay handed over its duty of warrior camp to Bangalore, started the first temple of India, then a palace prebuild.
1725bc: We learned how to write. The next object is how to do maths. Of course, for Statue of Zeus.
1600bc: Persian also knew about writing this time. So it's time for teaching Chinese about it. They rewarded us with the secret of wheel. By that time, they even knew how to ride horses.
1450bc: Several years earlier my scout climbed over the south mountain barrier and found a large beautiful unclaimed grassland. So came our people. This year Karachi was founded on south foot of the mountain. It was a pure peaceful town, not a single military unit guards there.
1400bc: Well, that land was not that unclaimed as I thought. 2 Chinese archer approached to the undefended city and burned it to the ground. My warriors were too late to save the city when they arrived, but they did stop Chinese from invading across the mountain.
1150bc: By this time Chinese was finally willing to come to the table. Peace was resettled. We taught them about maths, which we had mastered for some time, and they taught us about iron working. We were learning about literature, but we had been informed that persian was already knew it. So it just call for a fair trade, maths for literature.
1000bc: Hyderabad was found on ruin of Karachi. Heavy guard accompanied.
The prebuild in Bombay worked well. It was only 2 turns before SoZ completed by now.

The loss of Karachi is my second mistake of this game. I shouldn't left a city unguarded on the front line. The war costs me not only a city, but as later turns out, a wonder as well. By that time Madras was about to start the Colossus, but it had to training military units during the war. Later I lost the race to German by only 7 turns. If without that war...

Another is I completely forgot about the free tech of philosophy. Later when Chinese got philosophy and map making at the same time, I was wondering why. Of course I shouldn't complain that. After all I get the SoZ.

Perhaps a more serious one is city placement. Especially on the peninsula, my cities are too loose. By 900bc I complete the settle plan, only 5 city on the peninsula. It should be 7, or even 8.

No save at this time as well, so no screanshot still.

[Modo44]

Originally posted by Krill
SoZ or GL. I am leaning towards the GL, since I can then shut off research and either rush build cultural buildings or prepare for a couple of large-ish SoDs.

The GL would be nice because of it's culture only. But if you allow the AIs on the other continent to get Monotheism and Education before you, you're in trouble. Remember, they will be able to build those Cathedrals and Universities much faster than you do. Whtever you build, you need to get in front of the tech race ASAP.

[nbarclay]

Re: Gandhi the wannabe warmonger

Originally posted by Modo44
Monarch level, AU mod.

My both food-rich cities were making settlers and spearmen.

Used properly, Delhi can crank out a settler every four turns or a worker every two. Four-turn settler pumps sometimes require managing cities yourself instead of counting on the governor to do it (since governors have a nasty habit of sacrificing food for shields), but their value is enormous. I know it's too late for you to take advantage of that in this game, but you might keep it in mind for future reference.

In 1000BC the Indian empire was the world leader in all important demographics. That is, if military service isn't important to you.

One of the oddities of the "Military Service" demographic is that it is a function of both military size and population. Thus, if a player has a significantly larger population than the AIs, it is possible to have the largest, most powerful military in the world and still rank dead last in military service. That makes it a lot harder to view that demographic as important, or even particularly useful.