AU 106 Spoilers

[Catt]

My game doesn't lend itself to an entertaining story, but I'll post a more detailed review with screenshots after I finish. I wanted to chime in earlier because it appears that I followed a unique opening strategy - at least unique compared to the other spoilers.

I played the standard game, Emperor level, and selected the Persians for the industrious workers and the cheap libraries and universities. I moved my settler to the SW, as much as to prevent my initial city from using all of the bonus resources close by as to bring the whale into play -- I figured one city could work the whale and cows and a second city could work the two wheats.

My early exploration hinted that growth would not be an issue, but that happiness would. Knowing that I needed to research on my own on my isolated island, I wanted my cities to grow large so they could produce a good chunk of commerce for science research. Large cities need happiness; lack of happiness meant problems. Lack of local luxuries, combined with no trading until nearly the Industrial Age presented me with my first dilemma - do I beeline for Republic and its commerce bonus, or do I beeline for Monarchy for its military police happiness effects and hope to research my way to a lead under a Monarchy? I elected to beeline for Monarchy. I figured that with 3 MPs in each city, a temple, the one local luxury I could grow my cities to 6 without worries; throw in a little luxury spending and I could probably get to 8 or 9 -- building the Hanging Gardens would add an extra content citizen, and assuming a city other than my capitol built it, I could grow this designated "wonder-city" (because of the palace pre-build opportunity) up towards 12 citizens as early as I wanted to. I planned a later switch to Republic if I was able to build Sistine and/or JS Bachs. The two revolutions worried me a bit without a religious civ, but I decided I really wanted the growth potential of a MP-inspired Monarchy.

My initial research path was (IIRC): Ceremonial Burial, Warrior Code, Mysticism, Polytheism and Monarchy, with a switch to Monarchy and out of Despotism as soon as I got there. I really wanted the contentedness of the HG . This research path, something I've never tried before, had some interesting consequences. First off, I built the HG before anyone built any wonder (IIRC) - perhaps the Colossus was built already? But a huge problem with the research path was the dearth of improvements available for building -- temples went up in cities right away, but after temples there was nothing to build. With more than enough workers and the island rapidly being settled, I actually put a few cities on producing wealth during the ancient ages! -- again something I've never done before and obviously not a very efficient growth path. If I had to do it over again, I would stop off at certain techs just to be able to build other city improvements rather than having ancient towns building wealth.

Again due to my happiness concerns, I beelined towards Sistine (even without a religious civ) and JS Bachs. Upon receiving Monotheism, I researched Theology, Education and Musuc Theory. I managed to build them both before heading back down the tech tree to go after Sun Tzu's and Leo's. Long after I built JS Bachs, the French finally built Sun Tzu's - but interestingly there wasn't any sort of a wonder cascade I could see -- I managed to research Engineering, start Leo's (had a small pre-build in place), and dropped back to research Republic. I switched to Republic during the Leo's build (hoping for a short anarchy and hoping not to lose Leo's by a few turns). My anarchy lasted only 3 turns! On Emperor! Needless to say, a great stroke of luck - I managed to build Leo's quite easily.

Question: I've never seen anything definitive on the length of anarchies -- does anyone know if it is completely random, or, as some have speculated / claimed, does a happier overall civ enjoy better luck with anarchy length?

I'll leave the rest for a more detailed game report with screenshots, but I'll just finish by saying that my unconventional opening put me in about the same position as everyone else. Upon first contact, I discovered that I either had a one-tech lead or a one tech deficit behind France (depending on how you looked at it). France and Greece were the powerhouses; Egypt was backwards but gaining quickly and was in a very nice position to become a monster - as in others' games, the Chinese had been conquered before I even had a chance to meet Mao.

Final thought - I agree with several others who have said the same thing -- I think this game was easier than most -- I never would have guessed I could research my way into the tech lead all alone, on Emperor, using Monarchy for a good chunk of time and suffering through two revolutions.

Catt

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Theseus

I just did something interesting, however, for the first time. In looking at the F1 screen, I got annoyed that I had all these 12 pop cities producing so much extra food... so I started foresting all over the place!

I got Persepolis from 19 shields and 10 extra food to 29 shields and 0 extra food!!

Here's something you don;t see everyday:

I came to the same conclusion as you and mined a lot of the land.

Your forest looks nice on the screenshot but wouldn't mining do the same job and still be able to get later benefit from railroads, which forests won't?

[Chemical Ollie]

Evil Egyptians!

Am I the only one playing as the Romans? I thought commercial was better than scientific, as the total income will increase. I played by the mod rules. I choosed to play monarch, as this is my first AU game and the fact that I have found it very hard to keep up in tech after the 1.29 patch.

I settled on the starting spot and build 12 cities on the home Island. Only 2 tiles are outside city boundaries, of which one is tundra. I had 10-15 workers who eventually was finished with roads, mines, irrigation, woodchopping and planting over the whole place. I added all but 4 of them to cities until I got steam power.

I tried to build a few ancient wonders but lost the race to all of them by just a few turns (see screenshot). I had two major research goals: republic and navigation, but I made a few sidesteps form that path, some by sloppyness and some on purpose.

[nbarclay]

I never got into an "all my cities are size 12 so I have nowhere to grow" situation. I've been bleeding off settlers from my cities with surplus food every now and then to boost the size of other cities (especially in the North). Now I've pushed that about as far as it can go, but there's a lot of unclaimed land in the world so I have another mission for settlers (and I'll also need to build my worker numbers back up soon for railroads). And railroads can make a mined grasslands tile just as good for production as a forest tile in spite of its producing extra, unneeded food.

I did shift a LOT of plains over to mining instead of irrigation, though, once I had all my cities founded and all my other needed tile improvements in place.

Nathan

[Chemical Ollie]

Evil Egyptians!

Apart from you, I have not built an FP, as the corruption with a commercial nation is bearable on that tiny Island. The worst city has about a 30% corruption, but most are much better. I wanted to save it for another continent, preferably in the middle of Greece.

To my surprise, I was able to build some of the medeival wonders: Sistine, Bach's and Magellan. Those happiness wonders are surely helpful in times of war when no one want to give my any luxuries.

It was kinda frustrating to see Englands borders and not be ably to get there.

[nbarclay]

Re: Evil Egyptians!

Originally posted by Olaf HÃ¥rfagre
Am I the only one playing as the Romans? I thought commercial was better than scientific,

If that were the only difference, it would have been hard for me to decide between Rome and Persia. But Industrious seemed a LOT more advantageous than Militaristic in a game where fighting would be theoretically impossible through much if not most of the medieval era. (Fortunately, I checked the game itself for those characteristics; Persia's description in the manual is completely screwed up.)

By the way, 12 cities isn't nearly a dense enough build for the starting situation here. In most games, that kind of build plays to a strategy of shifting from building cities to building military forces a few turns earlier than would be possible if you tried to build more cities. But with military operations completely irrelevant until someone discovers Navigation, it's important to work as many tiles as possible through the medieval era - including the water tiles that bring in boatloads of gold even though they do nothing for production.

Nathan

[Chemical Ollie]

Evil Egyptians

Throughout the early game, I had science set to max with positive cash flow and adjusted the slider to gold whenever I did's lose research turns. However, I forgot to do that a couple of times due to sloppyness. As soon as I had caravelles, I sent 4-5 of them to explore the world. I was the first civ to get boats. The Brits were pathetic but had plenty of tech due to the Great Library. I soon found out that they had no contact with each others, and I could use that against them. Egypts and Greeks were on my tech level and the rest was far behind.

I settled the empty Incense Island with a city on the hill right in the lux cluster. By trading tech and luxuries, the whole world was polite with me and I was tempted to just ride the game out and go for a diplomatic win. However, I eventually realised that My land mass was too small to research all techs at the same rate as the AI was trading them to each other once they made contact. This was also a time when I made a major mistake. As I felt ahead in tech, I spent 20 turns with maximised gold to rush-buy banks and universities in all my cities. Once I got back in research, I saw myself at least 2-3 techs behind the AI and I still haven't caught up.

[Chemical Ollie]

Evil Egyptians!

Nathan, I do not feel too uncomfortable with only 12 cities, as most of them had 12 pop quite early, and all land tiles but a few mountain and tundra was in use.

I wanted some Greek ass. They were powerful but had mostly old units and that island would be perfect for my FP. However, when I had a fleet loaded with 20 cavallery and a few cannons and muskets, something happened that would change my whole game:

The Egypts, who were Polite with me, dumped a ****load of troops right at my incense city. When I asked them to leave, they declared war. The city was defended by 2 muskets and a knight. I rushed a barracks and upgraded the knight to cavallery. I also made the stupid move of moving a defender to a lux tile to protect it from being pillaged, as that would screw up my trades. The Nubi hordes would probably have taken it anyway, but you never know. The town was captured, and all my trading partners turned their back on me. It was a long distance to sail if I wanted it back.

I decided to sail to Egypt instead, and raze my way to get the city back in a peace deal. When my fleet was passing east of Greece, Japan joined in on Egypts side. I made my own pacts with Greece and Iroquis to keep the Nubis and Japs busy. As Japan was quite weak, I fell for the temptation of splitting my fleet that was just a few turns away from landing there. 14 units landed and the Japanese spearmen & swords had no chance against the Roman and Iroqui cavallery. Just a few turns later, they were gone. I kept a few cities to get a foothold on that continent.

My landing in Egypt was a total failure. 2 of by boats were sunk, and the 8 cavallery that got to target were sitting ducks without musketmen support. Now France, Germany and Iroquis had joined the Egyptian side and only Greece was on my side. The pathetic Brits were stupid enought to singlemindedly land some useless troops on my continent. The Egyptians offered me peace for 400 gold and I took the bitter deal to get rid of a painful war disorder. I shipped some more troops to former Japan and held my positions against the Iroquis until they grew tired and made peace. That war gave me 2 leaders. I used one for Universal Suffrage, which triggered an extremely well-timed golden age.

I invaded England and razed one city with ease. Then London proved to be a real pain and it took numerous turns of attacking, healing wonded troops, shipping new ones, bombarding etc before the town fell to a force of 20+ cavallery. The last Brittish town was easier and they are now in OCC on the tiny Island north of their penisula. Still, Liz had the guts to demand tribute for making peace! I did not fall in.

I have traded twice for coal with Greece, first surprisingly cheap but then for 50 gpt. The GA gave me factories at a convenient rate. However, the Egyptians beat me to both Longevity and ToE just 1-2 turns before i got the requiered tech. My Great Leader is idling in Kyoto and eager to build something. I think I will try to ship him home to the mainland and use him for Hoover. Problem is, both Egypt and Iroquis have re-declared war on me, and the Egypts have millions of frigates and iron clads just waiting to sink my fleet.

On the positive side: A golden age with railroads and mobilisation is not bad at all (see the tile production on the screenshot).

[Chemical Ollie]

Evil Egypt!

I see a few obvious things I could have done better so far:

1) I did not abandon excess troops directly after the switch to republic. This costed me 100s of gold over the ages.

2) I did not mine excess food tiles immediately after the cities turned 12 pop.

3) I did not defend my incence colony enough.

4) I should have used my naval tech lead and settled the small islands north of Greece before they did. Now they have proven to have coal, which I have to buy in painful gpt deals

5) I was sometimes sloppy with micromanagements of adjusting the science slider and choosing the right techs.

6) The medieval gold-maximisation investment in fully developed cities costed me the tech lead. (But I probably would have fallen behind eventually anyway, as they are not very willing to trade tech with me.)

7) I should sent bigger loads of troops once I go somewhere. 10-20 units is only enough if the enemy is obsolete, especially if half the invasion force is sunk before it reaches target. It takes a painful lot of turns to bring in replacements.

8) I did not read the AU mod changes before this morning. This caused me to neglect the power of infantry attacks and escort ships for my galleons.

I might replay the game on Emperor later (one level up), just to see if I can win by doing things better.

Well now I have spent 3 hours WRITING about the game. Time to go Civving, boys!

[Theseus]

DOH! What was thinking with that forest bit??!! Olaf, you are right... I should have only put forests on the unshielded tiles. Well, it looked cool...

Anyway, your report is fascinating... dramatically different from most of the other games.

You learned (and teach... this is AU after all!!) a good lesson though, that intercontinental invasions MUST be done with overwhelming force.

I haven't continued my report yet, but as a quickie, I did upgrade all those Horsemen to Cavs, and did a two prong invasion (quickly followed by a third as soon as my Galleons could get back, load, and sail) of the eastern horn of Greece, ranging from the northern tip of what had previously been England down to furs... each prong of the attack included 32 Cavs, 4 Riflemen, 2 Immortals, and 2 Cannon. It was, shall we say, a success.

[Chemical Ollie]

Evil Egyptians!

I landed on my feet, but there are still dark clouds on the horizon. I have grabbed some Incense, secured one coal and made peace with everybody except France. I was able to sneak my leader back to the mainland by shipping him far to the north and he is now waiting for Hoover in my capitol. Egypt has just started building it and I'm 2 turns away from atomic theory. There is a chance to win this race. An invasion force with infantry in armies and plenty of artillery is one turn from landing on the French diamond garden.

On the bad side is: France have MPP with Iroquis that will trigger when I attack them. No one is respecting my borders and I have just enough troops on most continents to hold them back if they declare war, none to go offensive. I am at least 6 techs behind most of them. Germany has joined an alliance with France. I do not fear them, but it will not help my peoples happiness.

Here is how I got myself some coal: I was in war with England and in Peace with Greece. The Coal was in the Greek jungle right on the border. I was afraid Greece would expand the border if I captured or razed the British city. So I settled on the Brit side, then razed the Brit city and used the slave workers to build a road to the coal. After rushing a temple and a harbour, the coal was mine.

[nbarclay]

Re: Evil Egyptians!

Originally posted by Olaf HÃ¥rfagre
Nathan, I do not feel too uncomfortable with only 12 cities, as most of them had 12 pop quite early, and all land tiles but a few mountain and tundra was in use.

The catch is that for wealth, and hence for research, ocean tiles are ultimately every bit as important as land tiles. Coastal tiles give half again as much gold as most land tiles under Republic, and twice as much under Monarchy. If you had more cities, you probably wouldn't be having such a hard time in the tech race.

I went with a 17-city build that lets all my cities reach size twelve (although they aren't quite all there yet) in order to maximize research. My northernmost and southernmost cities actually each took away a land tile I could have worked, but the extra water they let me work comes in handy. Also note that keeping the outlying cities from getting huge will help keep them in WLTED (Emperor, since I'm Persia) now that I have lots of luxuries, which is good for production. And I can work practically every bit of land on the continent before hospitals, which is also a significant plus for the pre-industrial and early industrial game.

By the way, I built my Forbidden Palace in Arbela, just three tiles northeast of my capital. It's definitely not an optimal location for the early game, but if I can get a leader and move my palace to a conquered land (possibly in the Japan/Iroquois/France sector), the FP will be perfectly situated to keep my core going strong.

Nathan

[Chemical Ollie]

Re: Re: Evil Egyptians!

Originally posted by nbarclay


The catch is that for wealth, and hence for research, ocean tiles are ultimately every bit as important as land tiles. Coastal tiles give half again as much gold as most land tiles under Republic, and twice as much under Monarchy. If you had more cities, you probably wouldn't be having such a hard time in the tech race.
...

Nathan

OK you have a point. I will think of that when I replay the game as Persians on a higher level.

[Dominae]

I see that I'm a bit late in starting 106 (my first AU game!), so I'll try not to repeat too much wisdom that has already been posted.

First off I'd like to note that it's really helpful to keep a log when playing (if only for the AU games). Not only does it make it easier to post the results of your game, but if forces you to really think about your long-term strategies (although I haven't tried this, I suppose you could also read through your log when you're done to see what you've learned).

I usually restart when I see that I'm alone on a continent, so this scenario forced me to make some novel and interesting decisions. I've already posted my early-game strategies on the 106 Hints and Tips thread, so I won't repeat them here.

Ok, on to the game!

I first set my research on The Republic and proceeded to colonize the continent. I actually irrigated most of the tiles early in order to get my pop up as quickly as possible. To maintain happiness, I set the Luxury slider to 10% and used 2 Warriors as police in every city. Once I hit Republic I beelined for Construction, got all my cities to size 12 and built every improvement I could build (including Coliseums). I then went back and mined over most of the irrigation so as not to have any surplus food.

I tried for The Colossus early, but the English beat me to it by about 4 turns. As there was nothing else to build, I jumped my palace to a city 4 tiles distant, which had not effect on corruption whatsoever. I got the Pyramids (not really that useful), and got within 2 turns of building The Great Library (for the sole purpose of denying to the AI) when I saw that it would trigger my GA! At the time, this didn't seem very attractive, so I again switched to Palace and put it right back where it started (big waste of time).

At this point there wasn't much to do until the Middle ages so I looked ahead. I saw from the rate of tech depreciation that I was remaining competitive in tech, but was by no means ahead. I deduced that most of the other civs must be on their own seperate islands because they weren't engaging in any sort of tech loop that makes the AI seem to research incredibly fast. So my long-term goal became to be first in the water with Caravels allowing me to colonize any undiscovered land masses and be the first to contact all other civs. I was itching to pick a fight after all this waiting, so I also decided I was going to conquer my nearest neighbor, which I knew was the English because I could see their borders to the southeast. I proceeded to pre-build an invasion army (mostly Horsemen and Immortals at this point), and a few "colonization teams" consisting of Settler/Worker/Spearmen.

I got Monotheism as my free advance and saw that Navigation was a on a straight path from it. I also saw that it went straight through Education, so I was happy not to have built the Great Library. I built Cathedrals in all my cities, finished the Sistine Chapel and sold all my Coliseums. This allowed me to put my Luxury slider down to 0% (hopefully for good). I continued to build my invasion force.

[I'm starting to copy from my notes at this point, so please forgive the change in narrative style...]

1140AD I discover Astronomy and start researching Navigation. I use Coliseums to pre-build Caravels in all my coastal cities. I ended up building around 15 Caravels total in the next 10 turns. Things were going well, but I was worried that the English would prove too strong (i.e. have Pikemen/Musketmen in all their cities) for me to conquer.

1260AD, I contact the English, and they're still in the Ancient era! London has only Spearmen as defenders. I trade for Territory map and that's it...I can contact the Greeks by myself, thank you very much.

1275AD, I contact the Germans: I'm slightly ahead in tech, and they haven't met anyone. We trade Territory maps. I eye their largish continent with all its defensible mountains as a nice land to conduct an invasion.

1285AD, I contact the Greeks. Here, we're on the same level technologically, but he's got about twice the land area that I do. I resign myself to have Alexander as a long-term opponent.

Finally, in 1295AD, I invade England with a small force of 15 Immortals and 12 Horsemen, which I consider enough to overrun their puny civ. I'm forced to declare peace for a few turns because of War Weariness, but I wipe them out in 1400AD.

In the meantime, my Caravels are sailing around the globe and contact all the other civs. I see that no one else has discovered Navigation, and there is much rejoicing (yeah, Monty Python reference!). I can place the civs in "trading circles":

1. Greeks and English (nearly dead)
2. Germans
3. French, Japanese, Iroquois
4. Egyptians

I make it a policy to keep these circles from meeting for as long as possible (even though they'd give me their firstborn children for any comm). This policy really pays off, and I manage to pull ahead in tech and still make enough money to fund a new war against the Greeks (the Germans were too far away, and I already have a foothold on the Greek continent via the English cities).

Feeling I have momentum, I invade Greece in 1435AD with around 30 Knights and 15 Musketmen, just 5 turns before I discover Military Tradition. I figure I'll be able to rush buy a Harbor and a Barracks in some newly-conquered city, which is way more convenient than trucking my Knights back to my continent (or even any of the ex-English cities). 5 turns is a lot too, because the Greeks were just about to discover Gunpowder (or so I surmise).

All hell breaks loose at this point when a Polite French emissary assures me that her 4 Knights will leave my territory around a city I build on the island south of the French continent (they have a couple of cities there too). I don't trust her one bit, and sure enough she declares war the next turn. I'm quite worried because she's now ahead of me in tech and becoming quite the superpower. However, after losing that one colony I see that her plans weren't very ambitious: she never attacks my main continent (heh-heh, crazy AI). I turn lemons into lemonade by signing an Alliance agains the French with both the Japanese and the Germans. Hopefully this will focus her superior powers of production into a long and futile war.

Meanwhile, I'm conquering Greece, and picking the spot for my FP that I can now rush build with the Leader I just got. I'll post the (somewhat shorter) conclusion in a day or two.


Dominae

[Killerdaffy]

It's 4000BC and the Persians emerge on the banks of the Karun River and close to the immeasurable expanse of the ocean. The nomads find some cattle close by to the south and some plants called 'wheat' to the north which, according to some locals, are not only edible but highly nutritious. Before settling, though, the Shah (adhering to the customs of the 'Emperor' class he belongs to) decides to send out some workers to scout out the immediate environs. Because they had spotted some suspicious outlines in the darkness to the south, the scouts move into that direction along the riverbank, discovering even more cattle. Persepolis will truely be a great city!!

In 3250BC the new city of Ctesiphon is founded to the south, taking advantage of even more cattle. This truly is a fertile land. A local tribe also provide us with maps of the northern parts of these lands making this look more and more like an island.

In 1725BC the imperial palace is being refurnished, after the Shah thought that cave simply wasn't befitting his status any more. In unrelated news some pirates were spotted aproaching the island from the high seas for the first time recently.

The Colossus is being erected across the future entrance to Persepolis Harbor in 1675BC. The lead architect decided it would be easier to build the 33m (110 imperial ft.) structure first and dig the harbor channel passing underneath it afterwards instead of the other way around, as several other court advisors had proposed. His next project would be even larger he said in an interview, even though details were only to be released in several centuries.

Wow! This time that architect guy has really outdone himself!! The 'Pyramids' rise on a plateau close to the river, completed just 20 years before travellers report of 'The Oracle' being erected in a far away city called 'Kyoto'. While it doesn't seem to have any direct impact on the local climate the travellers attribute this to the fact that several other tribes haven't signed the appropriate treaties, yet.

Not much later we finally found a way to store important data about our civilization: It's called 'The Great Library' and was constructed in Ctesiphon in 150BC. A nice secondary effect is to have a so-called 'Golden Age' right after giving power to another new institution called the Senate.

Our architect showed us plans for a 'Great Wall' recently. He said he didn't really know what it would be good for but we let him build it anyway, just to keep in in practice. Some guy named 'Brian' was born 260 years ago.

960AD and our glorious Caravels just dicovered the Greeks. They are technologically backward, though. In fact, nobody seems to have discovered Education, yet, never mind anything after that. Some people hadn't even made it into Medieval...

Met the Egyptian in 1090AD. They have Gunpowder but no Astronomy...

Those filthy Greeks declared war on us!!! It's 1285AD, just 10 turns before our luxury trade was going to end and our 40 cavalry attack was planned.

We made peace with the evil Greeks in 1345AD, after first taking their iron and one of their saltpeter. We hope to have them attacking again soon, since we are bleeding them dry with further trade deals.

Hm, the Egyptians are catching up, just advancing to Industrial (the Barbarian uprisings were expensive, costing the imperial treasury several hundred gold).

Short analysis, since I probably wont play this game any further: I surmised that gunning for Literature quickly and then take on Republic with the Libraries was the best choice for Persia. The only problem was the early GA, which I basically couldn't avoid after getting the Pyramids (later made all Ancient less Oracle & HG, all Medieval minus Sun Tzu). I figured waiting out contact with the other civs would take too much time, so I beelined for Navigation, with the only diversion to Bach's. Greece attacked me two turns too early, destroying 10-15 Horsemen in the process, since only half of my force was upgraded at that point. They will die within a few turns, though.

Generally I was surprised that I could outresearch the AI this easily. I made some minor mistakes that cost several turns over the ages but still Egypt was the only one in the same league in research terms. It might be harder to do with Rome.