AU501 - DAR4: Steam Power

[Dominae]

This is the fourth DAR thread for AU501 - The Power of Seafaring, dedicated to the time period between DAR3 and Steam Power. This might seem like a long stretch, but consider that some may require Astronomy or Navigation to get all those Contacts.

What are your plans for the Industrial era? Are you playing mostly a Builder game, or a Warmonger one?

[ZargonX]

The next block...

620 - PP to Maya for Gunpowder, 11 gpt 80g
640 - Knights Templar built
660 - Theo to Egypt for Dyes
710 - Sumer get Leos... I prep the invasion fleet
710 - Dutch declare war
820 - Operation Sumery Execution launched
820 - Chem to Maya for Astro, 49gpt 100g
820 - Military alliance and ROP signed with Hittites
850 - Bad-Tibra taken
860 - Lagash taken
940 - Peace with Dutch
940 - Contact with Russia to Maya for 80g and WM
940 - Contact with Dutch and Ivory to Russia for Dyes
940 - Sumer taken
960 - Chem to Egypt for WM 11gpt and 80g
1020 - Ur taken
1060 - Kish taken
1060 - Peace with Sumeria
1110 - Magelleans Expedition built!
1160 - Mayan sneak attack Lose my far off island jungle city.
1220 - Medicine to Netherlands for Eco WM 117gpt 100g
1230 - Operation Hit the Hittite launched
1245 - Tarsus captured
1250 - Bad-Tibra captured by Mayan
1255 - Peace with Maya for Medicine
1265 - Hattusha captured
1280 - Hattusas captured, saltpeter secured
1285 - Kaddesh captured
1300 - Harran captured
1315 - Tyranna captured
1325 - Ugarit captured. I have destroyed the "solid" Hittites
1330 - Sanitation to Netherlands for Demo WM 26gpt 70g
1330 - Sanitation to England for WM 70gpt 7g
1330 - Sanitation 575g 15gpt to Maya for Steam Power

[notyoueither]

Not a single coal to share among 4 civs, the Japanese, Sumerians, Hittites, and Byzantium. Resource distribution... fvckin' eh!

[nbarclay]

I can't help but wonder whether the distance to the nearest coal is the RNG's doing or Dominae's. He's been known to do evil things to players from time to time, but then so has the RNG.

Fortunately, I had REXed all the way to the western island, which has coal. Unfortunately, as Steam Power approached, I recalled workers who had barely started trying to improve that island so they could railroad my core. Only four workers lagged behind where they could get to the coal without an unreasonable delay.

Now to back up and tell how I got to this point.

[nbarclay]

Emperor Level, AU Mod

In 70 AD, the Byzantines finished researching Feudalism, entered anarchy to transition to Republic, and started upgrading forces to invade the Sumerians. Recent trades had brought in luxuries from the Netherlands and Egypt (thanks to the Great Lighthouse), so it was actually possible to change governments without the massive starvation that too often accompanies such transitions.

Tje Sumerian invasion started four turns later in 150 AD, mostly because it took time to send a Dromon with a couple MedInfs west to try to capture the Sumerian city on West Island. (I managed to settle all of the island except for that one city myself.) I seriously considered involving the Hittites in the war, but finally decided against it because a victory by one of their three-man chariots would trigger a GA for them. Since they were next on my list of possible targets, I didn't view that possibility as a good thng. Fortunately, no Sumerian galleys attacked my Dromons, so my GA was not triggered prematurely while I was in anarchy.

In 210 AD, the leader of he new Byzantine Republic issued new orders to the Dromon fleet: ATTACK! Thus, the dawn of the Byzantine Republic was also the dawn of the Byzantine Golden Age. Even though we were at war, I used the Golden Age purely for builder purposes; my military was already so large as to make its upkeep very expensive under Republic (somewhere close to 80 gpt initially) I had something like half a dozen trebuchets, half a dozen pikemen, and a little over twenty MedInfs at the start of the war if I recall correctly, plus a little over twenty workers, some Dromons, and some regular warriors that could serve anti-flip duty in captured cities.

(If I'd been at peace, Monarchy would have been a much better government at that point since I could have used a lot of my troops as MPs to help me hold down the luxury slider. And if I'd been expecting a long, drawn-out war, Monarchy would have been better to avoid war weariness. But I was gambling that I could conquer Sumeria before war weariness became a significant problem, in which case Republic would be about as good as Monarchy in the short term and a lot better in the long term.)

Russia and I were neck and neck in the tech race at that point, with the other civs behind to varying degrees. In my game, Russia did a lot better than their Egyptian neighbors, for which I compensated by making Egypt rather than Russia my dye suppliers.

Another glorious event also occurred in 210 AD: we got our first great leader when one of the two elite sword units left over from the Japanese war won a victory. He immediately formed a Medieval Infantry army to assist in the attack.

The war with Sumeria ended in 330 AD with the capture of the last city on the Sumerian homeland. The Sumerian capital jumped to the southern end of the island just southwest of the Hittites, and with war weariness having just started to become an issue, chasing it there did not seem worthwhile. My attempt to conquer the city on West Island had failed - one MedInf died and the Sumerians were building Enkidus faster than the remaining MedInf could kill them - but Gilgamesh considered that city (and everything else his nation had of value) a small price to pay for his continued survival. During the war, a second leader emerged and formed an Ancient Cavalry army.

One oddity that came about around the time of the war is that I decided to abandon Adrianople, my second city. I'd built other cities so densely along the coast to maximize the availability of coastal tiles for wealth that growing Adrianople to size 12 would have seriously compromised my ability to get any kind of meaningful production out of the coastal cities. So Adrianople dropped back to a small village churning out an occasional settler to build additional cities in AI territory (since I like denser build patterns than AIs do) and the coastal cities got to use most of the tiles in Adrianople's radius.

Here's my empire as it looked when Sumeria fell. The southerly of the two westernmost cities on West Island is the one I got from Sumeria. You can see Sumeria's sole remaining city in the southeastern corner.

By the way, Sumeria had a vastly stronger culture than I did at the time of the war, and I lost a city briefly in a culture flip (along with a couple regular warriors and maybe another unit or two). Fortunately, as of when I got Steam Power, none of my cities had flipped, but maintaining a one-unit garrison in each captured city cut into my forces available for the upcoming war with the Hittites.

[nbarclay]

After the defeat of Sumeria, I went through a few turns of "Do I or Don't I?" with regard to whether I wanted to invade the Hittites. During that time, Dromons shifted to ferry duty moving workers who were finishing improving Japan up to Sumeria to deal with all the jungle and marshland up there. Finally, I decided that since the Hittites had no iron connected (and none available that I knew of), a war with them could be conducted at an acceptable cost without the need to build additional units.

Every now and then, a situation arises in which building a city specifically for an invasion can be good strategy. In this case, I determined that building a city where the land juts out on the southwest of old Sumeria would allow me to use my Seafaring-enhanced, Lighthouse-supercharged Dromons to land two loads of troops each on a hill two tiles away from the Hittite city of Harran. I could land my eight Trebuchets (which included two captured and upgraded Sumerian catapults), my four surviving pikemen, three Ancient Cavalry, and ten MedInfs - essentially my entire military other than anti-flip garrisons and my two armies - in a single turn. The force landed in 410 AD. (Remember that an army with three units in it can't travel on anything more primitive than a galleon! So the armies would have to travel over land.)

[nbarclay]

Instead of attacking at my invasion force, the Hittites decided to send their northern offensive forces through the isthmus connecting their land with the former Sumerian lands. Bombardment by Dromons softened them up and the two armies, with the aid of the two nearest MedInfs serving as anti-flip garrisons, were able to take care of the threat. (If the AI had taken the time to concentrate a single force instead of sending each unit as quickly as it could go from wherever it started, I would have had a much harder time of it.) Still, the invasion kept the two armies out of the main fighting for a few turns.

Not that that helped the Hittites much. Even the mighty three-man chariots proved to be a joke when they were foolish enough to stop inside Harran's city radius after it was captured; they didn't have enough movement left to actually attack. Dromons and trebuchets pounded them, and Ancient Cavalry with a little help from MedInfs dispatched them easily.

The invasion force didn't run into any real trouble until the main body started approaching the capital and the fast-movers attempted to bypass it to strike at the Hittites' southernmost cities. Then, much to my surprise, pikemen appeared! It turned out that the Hittites had an iron supply I hadn't known about on the island they shared with Sumeria, and they finally completed a harbor. My Ancient Cavalry army died at the hands of a lucky pike unit in the far south (after its brave leader pushed his luck a little too far attacking in spite of having some injured troops), and other attacks were a little more costly than I had hoped they would be. But the Hittite pikes ultimately proved to be too little, too late. The last Hittite city fell in 590 AD after only a single turn in which war weariness was a problem.

(I did have one other happiness problem early in the war: I hadn't noticed, but the only sea trade route to Egypt and Russia went through Hittite territory. So I had to do without dyes for a few turns until I conquered enough Hittite territory to reopen the trade route.)

I'm really impressed with the power of Dromons for bombarding coastal cities defended by anything less than pikemen. Against pikemen, they have a much harder time scoring hits, but even so, it was purely Dromon bombardment that softened up the last Hittite city so I could take it. (The last two cities were far enough apart that bombarding with Dromons and invading with Ancient Cavalry was a couple turns quicker than moving in Trebuchets would have been. After what happened to my Ancient Cavalry army, my Ancient Cavalry commander insisted that he didn't want to go up against pikemen without some sort of artillery support. That shows he's not stupid. )

During the Hittite war, I got a third leader, who build a Forbidden Palace in Harran (just east of where my heavy force landed in the screenshot). I'm not sure how good a place that is for it (especially since this is my first 1.15 game), but I figured waiting to build it until I could figure out the perfect place for it wouldn't buy me anything. I'd be very interested to hear other people's thoughts on FP placement on this map.

[nbarclay]

While the military units already built and the occasional new Ancient Cavalry from the Statue of Zeus were busy fighting, the people in the Byzantine homeland were busy with more peaceful pursuits. Research typically ran at a four or five turn pace through most of the middle ages, first with the help of the Golden Age and then with the help of the city improvements the Golden Age helped make possible. Cheap universitites are nice! The rest of the world, including even Russia, quickly started to fall behind in technology. Periodic tech-for-luxury+gold deals helped the Mayans, English, and Dutch a bit, but they had started far enough behind Russia (and Russia had presumably received enough of a boost from its cheap universities) that they couldn't catch up with Russia until around the time I reached the industrial era.

The Sistine Chapel was completed in Constantinople in 410 AD; Leonardo's Workshop in Nicaea in 530 AD; Copernicus's Observatory in Constantinople in 610; and Newton's University in Nicaea in 730 (during the research of Steam Power). Russia built Sun Tsu's, while the Dutch built the Knights Templar. The Mayans and Russians had just started work on Bach's Cathedral when I discovered Steam Power, and no one's gotten around to researching Economics or Navigation yet. (By the way, the Mayas have an Iron Works city not far from their capital. They could be a bit nasty in any wonder race they're allowed to compete in once they get the tech to take advantage of that fact.)

In 670 AD, Russian ships were spotted sailing up the former Hittite coast. I decided to do some final tech deals taking advantage of the lack of contacts (since the Northern civs had Chivalry but not Astronomy and the opposite was true for Russia) and then sell contact with Russia and Egypt to the Dutch. I've also sold and traded my world map pretty broadly, acquiring maps of the entire known world in the process.

The Byzantines entered the industrial age in 720 AD and got Medicine as a free tech. (I'd been hoping for either Stem Power for railroads or Nationalism for Civil Engineers, but such was not to be.) Steam Power could be researched in five turns at 90%, so I decided to boost the slider to 100% in the hope that completion of Newton's University and an important regular university in two turns would make a four-turn pace possible. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough, and Steam Power wasn't completed until 770 AD. At this point, Industrialization and Nationalism can be researched in four turns, but Electricity requires five.

Russia, the Netherlands, the Mayas, and the English are all tied for second place in technology. I have six techs that they don't: Metallurgy, Physics, Theory of Gravity, Magnetism, Medicine, and Steam Power. On the other hand, they all have Music Theory, which I lack. In addition, Russia has yet to get their free tech, which cuts into the size of my lead for practical purposes. Still, with four- and five-turn industrial research as easy as it is, maintaining a tech lead should not be a problem. Fortunately, I'm raking in enough gold through various deals to finance a 100% luxury slider setting.

The really annoying thing is that the Mayas and Russians have coal already hooked up to start their railroad networks the moment they get Steam Power, while I'm going to have to waste a few turns hooking up coal before I can start mine. Still, things could be worse: at least I have a supply available to hook up.

[notyoueither]

Wait for it. The better bit is yet to come...

[notyoueither]

Wow, that mini map looks cool, Nathan.

In my game the Dutch wrapped up the Pyramids, then the Colossus and the GrLH. They are well on their way to being the KAI of the game, having already held off an all against them dogpile once.

See all those islands? They're all Dutch. I have just reached parity with them in tech midway through the Industrial era.

As usual, they researched all the dead-ends. That allowed me to get Darwin's and I have a good jump on Hoover, for all the good it will do me with 8 home cities and no coal in sight.

/me glares at Dominae

[nbarclay]

You can't take the coal center on the island two islands west of home?

[ZargonX]

Here's a shot from the beginning of Operation: Hit the Hittite. The main reason behind it was to secure a source of saltpeter, the second reason being that I wanted more territory

[ZargonX]

The nice thing about having Magellean's Expedition and the Knights Templar was that I could get my heavy-hitting Crusaders out to the nearby islands almost instantly. Having that level of speed a power let me blast through the Sumerians and Hittites. The Sumerians were lucky enough to have cities elsewhere that I decided not to hunt them down; the Hittites weren't so lucky. This shot is of the closing days of the Hittites. It's also about 6 turns from me getting Steam Power and learning the nasty secret about coal availability. Unfortunately for me, the Maya controlled the coal source on the large island 2 west of the homeland, and I was in no position to tangle with them, as they were the dominant power in the game at this point.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by nbarclay
You can't take the coal center on the island two islands west of home?

I can and I will, but it is taking time. It is occupied by the Dutch, English and some others. This gets into consequences of decisions.

Way, way back, I decided to play this without camps and to focus more on building. Strike 1.

Then when deciding when and how to deal with the Japanese I put off invasion for the sake of some Libraries and other builder type things. When I crossed, I had a bad run of RNG and found the island to be teeming with Spear and Archers, so I put off further invasion til Chivalry. Strike 2.

Having finally subdued the Japanese I had to decide what next. I thought I could live without SP for the game and instead counted on Rubber to get me Oil. I figured with the terrain on the Home Island, and the Western Jungle Island, and Japan, and a piece of Sumeria I grabbed with Knights prior to them getting too many Riflemen, that I would have Coal. Strike 3.

I'm not sure how many more strikes I get, but it should be fun finding out.

I have just captured the Hittite SP and should now be able to build the Frigates and Cavalry that will be required to keep the shipping moving and to take Dutch cities away from them (and keep them). Thus I am now assembling the force to go there and get my Coal as I tidy things up with the Hittites.

I'm not sure Strike 1 is a strike at all though. Not cramming cities in introduces serious risk of losing the game at Emperor. I find it more satisfying when each decision and action has more hanging on it due to lower room for error. However, some things can then be even more annoying when they happen.

[cracky]

Steam Power but no coal hooked up

AU 501 DAR 4 --monarch -stock rules

This DAR tends to tail off in detail towards the end as I forgot to take notes....

530 BC: Polytheism to the dutch for Construction and 89 gold.

490 BC: Volcano active again. The Gods hate me!

470 BC: Popped Lit from a hut. 9 turns to currency and I’m out of this age. No republic for me!

310 BC: Uh-oh. The Japanese just started building the statue of Zeus. Looks like I’ll be attacking with Medieval Infantry…

290 BC: Entered Middle Ages, got Feudalism as my free tech. The second island to the west is nearly full. Looks like I’ll have 4 of 7 or 8 cities on it.

230 BC: Gah! Japanese sneak attack! And I don’t have a single Med. Inf. Built yet. However they do have a galley in range of one of my Dromons. To start my golden age or not. I AM in monarchy at least, but I’ve only just started the Middle Ages.

Sigh… An early golden age it is. Before it ends, I should be able to wipe out the Japanese and be close to Chivalry (eyeing the Hittites). I can’t figure out if I should go for Sun Tzu’s. For one thing, I don’t want anybody else to have it, but is it really worth all those shields when half the cities on my continent already have barracks. Nope, not worth it while I can still go for The Hanging Gardens. Golden Age Begun.

90 BC: Sold Lit. around the block for 700 gold

50 BC: Hanging Gardens built. What the heck, Constantinople starts on Sun Tzu’s.

90 AD: Bwahahaha. With two cities left the Japanese have finished the Temple of Zeus.

170 AD: The Japanese menace was ended the same year as our Golden Age, with chivalry one turn away and 22 to go on Sun Tzu’s. I’m up monotheism, feudalism, and chivalry on everyone. With some laggards like the English much further behind than that. I’m going to do Theology next and try to get The Sistene Chapel before bee-lining to Cavalry.

230 AD: The volcano on Japan’s island erupts, toasting the two ancient Cavalry about to enter a Dromon!

280 AD: Just realized Sumeria and the Hittites are already going at it. I don’t exactly have many spare military units at the moment. I’m still digesting Japan. But maybe my 4 elite Med. Inf. Can take a city or two and generate a leader. Even if not, I’m still going to need a foothold on that continent for the knight/cavalry push. Sumeria and the Hittites will probably be my last conquests of the game (unless of course, someone gets uppity).

320 AD: Hittites made peace a turn after I declared war on Sumeria. So much for the war on two fronts. I took one city next to some gems at least. I did lose three of my four elite Med. Inf. However… Traded Monotheism to the Sumerians for Engineering, and Currency to Egypt for Dyes.

420 AD: Sistene Chapel built in Constantinople. Knights a-massing for Sumerian conquest.

630 AD: Hang on a moment! Still prepping the war. Thought I’d build some trebuchets to help soften up the pikemen. Then I realized I’m researching Chemistry. Great Scott! No gunpowder on the home island or any of the other three I own (the ones to the west). And with no other civ knowing what gunpowder is, looks like this’ll be a low-tech war. …better get a move on then!

740 AD: war begins. The main thrust is 6 ancient Cav, 7 knights, 5 trebuchet. Two diversionary thrusts of 3-4 AC, knights strike other Sumerian targets. Hope the Sumerians have some saltpepper for me.

800 AD: Leader Generated taking down the last Sumerian city. I’m kind of torn here. I don’t expect to do much more fighting, so I’m not all that interested in the heroic epic, and a second core. in Ur could be nice. FP it is.

820: Leo’s finished. No salt pepper in Sumeria…

830: FP rushed with leader in Ur.

The Dutch and the French start a war that lasts on and off for the next 400 years. Somewhere in here the Dutch catch their golden age and make me look like a gimpy snail in the tech race.

1140: Finished Smith’s. The Dutch have a 3 tech lead: free artistry, magnetism, and theory of gravity. The French and English both have free artistry as well.

1150: finished Magellan’s Voyage. Going into revolt for democracy now… Scratch that, have to take salt pepper from the Hittites first.

1220: Scratch the Hittite war. Knights vs. Musketmen is not my idea of a good time. I’m 8 turns away from steam power. Got medicine as my free tech. The dutch are on par except they have nationalism instead of medicine. England and france have neither of those two. Everyone else is a few techs behind. (I traded Magnetism when I got it to England (Free Artistry) and France (Theory of Gravity, but I had to give them ivory as well).

1240: Revolution!

1270: The thirty year expirement in anarchy is over and our people opt for Democracy.

1295: Steam Power discovered. I have coal, but it isn’t hooked up yet. Needless to say every worker on that island has been converted into CalTrans, orange vest wearing, pavement rollers.


Overview: I screwed up a number of times in this DAR. To get Democracy I traded the Maya contact with the Hittites, Egyptians, and Russians. I then traded the contacts to everyone else before the Mayans could. If I hadn't done this, the Hittites might not have know what their salt pepper was good for before I was ready to attack. Instead of trading Banking + some gold to the Dutch for Metallurgy, I sold them banking and then didn't sell it to everyone else because they were broke. Should have sold it anyway, This was the point where the Dutch took off in the tech race.

Anyway... I have a ToE prebuild going in a shield rich city. I might trade medicine + gold for nationalism. Both the Dutch and French have it.

I'm going to entirely ignore the Communism/Espionage/Fascism mini-branch. I have no use for them but usually get them anyway on Regent because I can.