AU204: Spoilers, Reports and Comments

[Dominae]

When I redistributed starting locations, China indeed ended up at that horrible spot, which was just fine for purposes of creating a KAI (Killer AI) out of France. The Greeks were originally on that island across the channel, but I switched them over to be on the starting continent (China would have taken their spot, in normal circumstances). In previous distributions, that island was in fact was left unclaimed (with two civs on the start continent), but China got a better spot a bit south. So although I did sort of engineer the Greek situation, it could have happened randomly, only with a better China. I figured there was no harm in crafting a "best of both worlds" scenario, so to speak.


Dominae

[yxhuvud]

I tried this at deity. I received the english.


That was kinda hard, since while I actually managed to outREX the greeks thanks to a free city in the hills in the nw, I just couldn't build enough troops to break through.

Sure, I could raze a city or two, but then my territory were flooded by hoplites and things just collapsed.

I did one error in the beginning though, in that I missed that a settler that was crossing the mountains, that I could have delayed with my scouts, giving my settler enough time to reach the area. This gave my territory a terrible shape, and I also lost a good spot.

I can't claim that I would have won if it hadn't been the greeks that was my neighour, but I would definitely have taken the home continent.

I guess I'll go back to my other deity game, where I am doing infantry-artillery warfare in teh modern age, and might have won if I wasn't so goddamn behind in culture. I actually have been into the tech race from the beginning and am presently a few techs ahead, despite being only the 3rd biggest power, landwise.

[Jawa Jocky]

I get the Great Lighthouse from my 1st Japanese city. I foget the movement penalty the AU has for Galleys in the ocean and make a mistake on my 1st turn on additional expoloring.

[Jawa Jocky]

My invasion is running out of steam. I get my 1st GL from a battle and use it to rush a Palace in my 2nd Japanese city. I wanted a better location for my new Capital but I don't have enough muscle to move inward. I sue for peace and get construction to move into the middle ages.

[badman]

After conquering Egypt I finished the game playing as a builder and won by space race.
In the end, only 3 civs still were alive and one of them (Egypt) was erduced to several small island cities.
Babylon was still powerful but AI civs tend to do horribly when playing 1on1, so I won by space race before Babylon could leave the industrial times.

[Jawa Jocky]

I'm trying to make it accross the ocean. These guys all sunk.

[Jawa Jocky]

one of these did make it. I'm now in a postion to tech broker. Expect I'm behind everyone.

[Jawa Jocky]

I gathered up some medevil inf. and took another Japanese city. However, I discovered a problem.


(Samauri Army)

[Dominae]

Originally posted by nbarclay
I finally figured out - and no guarantees that this isn't just coincidence - that galleys don't seem to sink if they end their turn moving from sea into an ocean tile.

I've lost a Galley in an Ocean tile, and am pretty sure it got there from Sea.

(I first got a clue about that when a galley that got stuck ending its turn one early didn't sink.) Once I got the nerve, was just able to take advantage of that fact to make a suicide run to contact France. (I've never cared much for the galley sabotage in the AU mod to begin with, so I don't mind doing some experimentation that could be considered cheating to try to find a way to make it less crippling.)

I'm not sure I agree with you. Although this is mostly a learning experience, reloading to get what you want sort of breaks the community spirit here. I personally do not like the increased attack of Riflemen in the mod, but I'm not going to reload because of it. Considering that your experiment put you into contact with the other continent early, thereby generating a huge advantage, I'm not sure it was so harmless. Then again, you're right in saying that this would have been possible with the standard rules. This game just happens to accentuate why the mod change was made in the first place.


Dominae

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Jawa Jocky
(Samurai Army)

Most feared unit in the game in its time period? Good luck (I mean it)!


Dominae

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Dominae

I'm not sure I agree with you. Although this is mostly a learning experience, reloading to get what you want sort of breaks the community spirit here. I personally do not like the increased attack of Riflemen in the mod, but I'm not going to reload because of it. Considering that your experiment put you into contact with the other continent early, thereby generating a huge advantage, I'm not sure it was so harmless. Then again, you're right in saying that this would have been possible with the standard rules. This game just happens to accentuate why the mod change was made in the first place.

With the rifleman situation you describe, there is no way of knowing whether a rifleman's attack succeeded only because of the AU Mod rules change or whether he would have gotten lucky anyhow. With my situation, there is absolutely no doubt that I would have made contact under the standard rules, so my "cheating" essentially just reversed the rules change - only in such a way that I made contact a lot later and lost a galley in the process. If you think of me as playing with a modified version of the AU mod with the galley sabotage reversed, you get a picture that isn't too far off target.

Nathan

[Dominae]

Hm, well we appear to running into problems of dissatisfaction with the AU mod. I'm inclined to stick the rules that come with the chosen scenario, since it makes the AARs and discussion much simpler. Just look at Jawa Jocky's attempts at crossing to the other continent in comparison to yours to see what I mean. I agree with you that this is not cheating, but the line is blurred.

Consider in a MP PBEM game, where you misclick a move action, perhaps seeing something you did not expect. Do you reload or play on? Some people consider reloading dishonest, others do not. How to agree, or resolve this? Similarly, your decision that the "Galley sabotage" change does not apply to you is difficult to assess.


Dominae

[BigDork]

Well, I only got to play a little today. Japan is dead. I decided to get Egypt's help fighted the Japanese. Looking back I think this may have been a bad idea. I grabbed 3 out of 5 Japanese cities with Egypt getting the other two. I should have just gone it alone, but I was worried that Japan would get Egypt to fight against me and that would have been too much to handle. It was bad enough I barely had enough to take what I did.

So now it's about 1000ADish. Egypt is ahead of everyone tech wise by about 4 techs. They are about to get cavalry and after that I don't know if will want to pick a fight with them until I get riflemen. I'm currently building up berserkers for a major offensive. I already have about 25 knights close to the Egyptians and 5 caravels loaded with berserkers off the Egyptian coast. But I want to be sure I have enough. They seem to have a pretty big army. I think it's gonna be close.

France and Babylon keep going at it. France finished off China and actually just pulled ahead of Egypt points wise. I managed to pass Babylon within the last ten turns or so. I'm still within 40 points of the leader so I'm not to worried.

Tomorrow is a sleep day so I don't think I'm gonna get to play much. But when I can get back into it I plan on beating on the Egyptians some, extorting as much tech as possible, and then roughing up the French. I think I'm gonna have to bounce between the two civs to keep them from pulling away from me.

I'll post a screen later of how the world looks right now. I'm at work and do have the game handy. I have to say that I am really enjoying this game. It's my first try on Regent and I'm using the AU mod ontop of that. It's making for an actually challenging game for me. More to come.

BigD

[nbarclay]

Dateline: Paris, 1635 AD

So much for my hope for a nice, easy, peaceful coast to victory. The French attacked me just a couple turns after my previous post, killing many of my workers and threatening my new core. I drafted infantry in practically every city in the former Babylonian core, counterattacked the French cavalry with cavalry on my own, and shored up my defenses. I also got an alliance with Egypt to ensure that France and Egypt would not trade their way ahead of me and hopefully draw a little bit of France's fire away from me. Babylon joined in on the French side (causing major happiness headaches) when I triggered a MPP killing wounded cavalry that had retreated into France.

Fortunately, the French suffered from a terminal case of bad timing. The attack came shortly after I discovered Motorized Transportation, and I quickly upgraded my galleon fleet to transports and shipped in my handful of tanks. I then rushed an airport in Babylon and built some airports at home to simplify the logistics of moving in additional tanks.

The French attack pressed on, but all it had left was footsoldiers. Musketeers pillaged across the desert of northern Babylon as they accompanied more modern forces, and my tanks did what damage they could before withdrawing to heal. A Stack of Doom finally reached its target (bypassing a heavily defended border town), but failed to penetrate my city's defenses.

I managed to clean up the remaining French invaders in my territory, and then it was my turn. Very slowly, my tanks, now supported by mechanised infantry, pushed into France. They would move into position to capture a city, take it, and then stop to heal before doing it again. (And my first attack on Paris failed miserably, with every tank in the attacking force injured but none killed.) After that, I brought in three armies trained in my military academy to give me a heavier striking force. The next attack on Paris succeeded.

There was also a humerous interlude when China's "mighty army" of spearmen, archers, horsemen, and even a chariot decided to join in the war on the French side. They provided some nice training for getting tanks upgraded to elite and for some conscript and regular mechanized infantry (upgraded and in some cases promoted from my original emergency conscripts).

I pushed a little north and west of Paris with my tanks, and then finally got Synthetic Fibers. All tanks not in an army, even the elites, were quickly upgraded, and France's remaining three continental cities didn't have a chance. Beijing also fell, its two remaining spearmen proving not to be the modern-armor-killing variety.

From there, it was just a matter of time and distance to get my forces to France's various island posessions. I now own all of France and China except for a single French city Egypt captured, and Egypt, Babylon, and I are the only nations still alive.

At one point, after extorting Rocketry from me right in the middle of our alliance against France, Egypt was within two techs of me. But Egypt changed to communism during the war while I managed to hang onto my republic, and that let me bring my lead back up to five techs.

The map below shows the area where the French war took place. Note that Egypt managed to capture Rouen from France during the war, the one city I don't control on the former French/Babylonian/Chinese continent. They also razed a city along the way, but I rebuilt it. (There are a bunch of cities where the name isn't showing for some reason, but they're cities I own, not ruins.)

Nathan

[nbarclay]

I'm up to 1675 AD now and just finished off Babylon. I gave Egypt Babylon's last city because Egypt already had a city on the same island and I figured the fewer sources of potential conflict, the better. I'm doing a little 4-turn research now, albeit running a large deficit in the process. Egypt is still in Communism; I just hope the reason doesn't have anything to do with attacking me.