AU204: Spoilers, Reports and Comments

[BigDork]

Thanks to Bluefrog's help I can now post screenshots. Here's the minimap from 260AD. Hopefully soon all that green Japanese land will belong to me.

BigD

[badman]

I was really lucky with my first hut ( the one north of the capitol ), which got me a settler
I was hoping that the Greek would research IW but instead they went for writing. I did the exact same thing :/
So I bought Warrior Code from them and razed one of their cities with a large pile of archers.
Then I made peace for Iron Working and two more techs (I gave them literature); they had researched them by then.
So I upgraded my warriors and was just about to declare war, when I realized that the Greek had a GA and were about to finish the GL in 10 turns. I hoped that they would complete it before someone else did and delayed my attack.
They actually did complete it so I'm now in possession of the GL and the Colossus (I haven't built a wonder on my own yet).
I'm now a republic and attacking the Germans (Berlin and Konigsberg are mine).
The Egypts are a powerhouse and if I don't take care of them, they will eventually take care of me
The Babylonians are way behind in tech but they have conquered nearly their whole continent. (The Babylonians are the warmongers in my game, it seems )
edit: I just noticed that the Babs have caught up in tech and are equal to the Egypts and me.

edit2: I got a great leader, what do you think I should spend it on?
I think, a wonder would do best here because I don't have a good place to rush a palace yet. (my FP is being built on my home island and will soon be finished)
I'll just keep the leader because I don't want to start my GA yet but my first wonder will start it (I conquered GL and the Colossus)
i'll probably wait till I have conquered Heliopolis .
I want to rush the Palace there.

edit3: I built an army, hoping for the effects of Heroic Epic.
This decision could turn out to ruin my game if I don't get any leaders from upcoming my wars against Japan and Egypt. Without a palace on that continent, there would be no way of keeping up with Babylon.

[badman]

For some reason this feels like AU106 ( IIRC, the one where you start with Rome on a little crappy island ).
I was lucky and got a second GL. I'm gonna keep him until I've captured Helioplois ( probably as soon as I have cavalry, I'm researching chemistry right now ).
I've just captured the last Japanese city on the second continent, it was fairly easy, even though Kyoto was heavily defended and I needed all my knights to catpure it, my very last knight finally took it.
Kyoto has the Pyramids and Sun Tzu's

Just decided to build the Palace in Tokyo, I don't want to wait any longer, I need it now.
I can't believe how lucky I am, one turn after I rushed the palace, I got a third leader.

[Jawa Jocky]

Vikings, Emperor, AUmod.

I got a settler from the 1st hut. Then cerimonial burial and bronze working. That was it, not a good map for expansionist.

I built a few cities and barracks and beelined for iron working. Figured i needed swordmen to attack hoplites. Here is my army on the turn i attacked greece.

[Jawa Jocky]

I'm one turn away from building my FP in the center of my continent. I'll use a leader to palace jump later. I'm also going to attack Germany and attempt to extort tech. I'm way behind.

[Jawa Jocky]

My first intercontinental invasion. I'll use this island to stage a massive invasion.

[badman]

Did the Japanese kick the Germans off the second continent in your game?

In my game I'm going to rush JSB's Cathedral with my leader. This will start a GA, so I want to build a improvements in my new cities first. My embessador told me that the Egyptians will complete it in 13 turns (at 5 shields per turn in a size-2 city ), so I'm gonna rush it in 12 turns. Poor Egyptians, what a waste

[Dominae]

Originally posted by badman
Did the Japanese kick the Germans off the second continent in your game?

I set up the game so that the Japanese would wipe out the Germans early (just look at the start locations to see why I thought this would happen). But in my game, against all odds, the Germans actually destroyed the Japanese before 1000BC! There's no stopping the German machine...

About the comment that this feels like the a previours AU course, I'm sympathetic. But the theme is randomness after all! Still, there are a few things that seperate this map from the other course: 1) the close proximity of the Greeks on the home continent, creating a pretty hectic early-game, 2) the promixity of the nearest continent, 3) and the intended balance of power between AI civs (Killer AI theory).


Dominae

[badman]

never mind... I'm just stupid

[Dominae]

Ok, I've played up until 230BC for testing purposes, but now I should stop because, well, I set up the game.

I finished off the Greeks about ten turns back, the same turn I met the Egyptians and the Germans (Arrian Deception!). Like I said above, the Germans surprisingly took care of the Japanese, leaving the Egyptians as the Killer AI (Germany's lands are horrible compared with what Egypt got...). I'm gunning for the Great Library, because Egypt entered the Medieval age two turns ago. I'm still inching my way to The Republic the hard way, because Cleo is building the GL too and I'm afraid I'll lose the race. After I get some Libraries up in my main towns, I plan muster some kind of army for use against the Germans. It is imperative that I get on to that continent before Egypt gets really out of hand. This is all assuming, of course, that I'll play on at a later date.

I found the early-game quite fun, but I did have the advantage of knowing what was "going on" from turn 1 (before, actually). If you look at the Greek lands you'll see that they're actually quite poor, which is why the early game turns out to be easier than it looks. I figured that putting you all alone on a little island ten tiles away from the Greeks would at least bring about some curses, but the goal was not to make it impossible.

Anyway, that's all for me. Have fun everyone.


Dominae

[nbarclay]

Dateline: Babylon, 1350 AD

I trailed Egypt just a little in technology most of the way through the middle ages, but some tech brokering with Egypt and France toward the end finally got me a lead (and also a nice little stockpile of gold). Early in the industrial era, Egypt demanded Steam Power and declared war when I refused. I was in the middle of trying to build up a horseman force to upgrade to cavalry and attack Babylon, so I used a "wall of units" defense to keep Egyptian forces from landing. During that same tmeframe, Egypt conqured Germany to gain total control of its entire continent. Definitely a killer AI civ! The early industrial era was also the time of Korea's golden age, thanks to the Great Lighthouse and Newton's University.

My own first extracontinental adventure involved capturing Japan's last city, which was on the island to my west. Not long after, I upgraded 21 horsemen to cavalry, bult a very few more from scratch, and sent an invasion fleet of cavalry with five infantry units for support to Babylon. The fighting took longer than I had hoped and forced me to make some use of the luxury slider, but in the end, I succeeded. Babylon's core is now mine, and is home to my new palace (thanks to my one and only leader in the game thus far).

War weariness cost me a bit in the tech race, and between that and researching Atomic Theory the hard way, my lead is only three techs even after the boost from ToE. But at least they're expensive techs: Atomic Theory, Electronics, and Radio. I've also managed to snag all the industrial wonders so far, and should make it a clean sweep with Hoover in a dozen turns or so.

Nathan

[nbarclay]

Oops, forgot to include the minimap.

[nbarclay]

By the way, my attack on Babylon was an exception to my general rule against sending cavalry up against riflemen. I was getting pretty desperate for a larger income and industrial base, and I figured Babylon hadn't had a whole lot of time for upgrades. As things turned out, my strike force was barely large enough to do the job, which was a good thing because my cities had better things to do than build reinforcement units that were already practically obsolete.

Nathan

[nbarclay]

Dateline: Seoul, 1455 AD

Korea is enjoying a period of peace and prosperity and has just entered the modern era. I've built three cities of my own in the former Babylonian core in order to take advantage of some tiles (mostly coast and sea but a very little land) that the Babylonians hadn't bothered to use, and I've been taking advantage of income from foreign sources to rush improvements in my new cities (and also a few newly captured ones). I'm expecting Computers in six turns at 100% research (thanks to foreign income), not a great pace for modern research (my goal is always four) but not really horrible. Getting Rocketry for free stretched out my tech lead to five techs over Egypt and six over France, so I should be in good shape to win the space race if peace prevails.

By the way, I scored a major coup in the tech race selling Egypt Combustion shortly before France could finish researching it. I got three luxuries and 134 gpt from Egypt, and France and Egypt lost a chance to do a swap that would have helped them cut into my lead. That may not be as glamorous as a tank army crushing enemy infantry under its treads, but the wars fought by accountants are no less important than those fought by soldiers.

Nathan

[nbarclay]

Dominae, is this the original Beijing, or did China have the original razed and build a new one before being reduced to this single city? I've never seen such a pathetic capital after such a long time - China has been stuck with that one city ever since I met them.