AU501 - DAR5: Flight

[Dominae]

This is the fifth DAR thread for AU501: The Power of Seafaring. Report here on your game between DAR4 (Steam Power) and the advent of Flight.

So, how do you plan to win this thing?

[ZargonX]

Ok, the short notes:

1355 - Maya sneak attack, again
1385 - Facism to England for Furs Ind TM 11g
1395 - Military Alliance against Maya with Netherlands for 11gpt 312g
1430 - The Coorp to Netherlands for Spices WM 36gpt 20g
1430 - The Coorps to England for WM 78gpt 100g
1430 - The Coorp to Maya for Peace
1465 - Realized the value of Privateers
1560 - Refining to England for Coal WM Rep Parts Ironclads 178g
1560 - Refining to Netherlands for Spices Esp 18gpt 183g
1560 - Refining to Maya for 81gpt 90g
1560 - Industr to Russia for Dyes 28gpt
1625 - Theory of Evolution
1635 - Atomic Theory to Netherlands for Communism WM 9gpt 1130g
1635 - Atomic Theory to Maya for Silks Wine 57gpt 130g
1635 - Atomic Theory to England for 94gpt 1120g
1675 - Electronics to Maya for WM 179gpt 760g
1675 - Electronics to England for Coal 11gpt 1250g
1680 - Maya sneak attack @(^&$(* again
1685 - Alliance against Maya with Eng for WM and 2400g
1685 - Alliance against Maya with France for Electricity
1700 - Bad-Tibra retaken!
1705 - Erech captured from Maya
1720 - Lazapa captured from Maya
1720 - Forbidden Palace in Haran
1730 - Kaminaljuyu captured from Maya
1735 - Maya build Hoover Dam... beat me by 5 turns :grrr:
1745 - Motor Trans to Dutch for Spices WM 57gpt 200g
1745 - Motor Trans to England for 1690g
1750 - Peace with Maya for 42g
1756 - Netherlands and England sign MPP
1756 - Maya destroy French
1758 - Amphib War to England for Flight WM 8gpt 40g

Screenshots and long notes to follow...

[ZargonX]

This first screen is the state of my empire in the 1400's. I've finished off the Hittites, and the Sumerians have been kicked from their homeland for the most part, and survive on various surrounding islands. The big players at this point are England, Netherlands, and the Maya. My relations with England and the Netherlands are good, with technology trading going back and forth pretty regularly, and them supplying me with some nice GPT deals. The Maya, on the other hand, are jerks. To this point in history, they have launched suprise attacks on me 3 times. The first time cost me my far western isle. The second two cost me one city, Bad-Tibra. Fortunately, I was able to keep the Dutch at war with the Maya fairly regularly, keeping the pressure of me.

[ZargonX]

This next picture is just a snapshot of what became the bulk of my military force through most of the industrial age: the guerilla. With no rubber, these were my go-to guys. This shot, in 1756, is after I've cleared the Maya from the near-west island, and am preparing to go harass them on the far west isle. I don't really want to dedicate enough troops to actually take it, but just enough to keep them occupied for a while and do some damage. The green circled city, Harran, in the last shot, became the home of my FP in 1720. It's not the best spot, by any stretch, but it was a solid city with some nice producers around it, so I just went for it.

My overall goal at this point was a space ship victory. I was pleased with my core lands, and my Sumerian and Japanese holdings were doing quite nicely. I built the ToE in 1620, giving me a good tech edge, though England and the Netherlands were never far behind. Mostly I traded with them for other techs and GPT, which allowed me to keep up a high research rate. Also, the constant Maya sneak attacks let me keep the 3 of them at war with each other for centuries on end, keeping them all slowed down slightly.

The real kicker is resource scarcity. With limited territorial holdings, I find myself missing the strat resources from coal onwards. Coal I get from England, after the Maya destroy my far-off coal port. But the real resource problems are yet to come...

[nbarclay]

Dominae, is the lack of rubber and the fact that the nearest coal is so far away your doing? Something smells a bit fishy here.

[nbarclay]

In 780 AD, right after I discovered Steam Power, the Dutch declared war, landing two crusaders and a longbowman in former Sumeria. The worst thing about the attack was that it cost a huge percentage of my foreign income, forcing me to be more careful with my finances than I would have liked. Losing my eighth luxury wasn't a whole lot of fun either; the happiness boost from being attacked made up for some of the loss, but not all.

I retaliated by enlisting the Mayans, English, and Russians in an alliance against the Dutch. I didn't do a whole lot of fighting, but my Dromons sank about three ships (one of them in port) As part of my negotiations with England, I supplied them with Iron and got Music Theory from them. Luxury sales to England helped replace some of my lost income from the Dutch.

In 850 AD, I got my first Scientific Great Leader of the game with the discovery of Electricity. I decided to use him to rush Bach's Cathedral on the former Hittite/Sumerian continent since cities there would need a happiness boost at size 12 and would often have a hard time coming up with the shields to build happiness improvements. I figured that would probably cost me Magellan's Voyage, which the Mayans were working on in a high-production city, but I was hoping I could still get Smith's (which no one had the tech for yet) by switching to it from Universal Suffrage.

The Grand Alliance against the Dutch ran its course in 980 AD, and I decided to make peace. The peace will not be permanent - repaying them for their barbaric attack offers too good an excuse to get rubber (which I'd found to my great annoyance was absent in spite of huge amounts of jungle) - but for the moment, the Byzantines are too busy building to have much interest in war. Trades with the Dutch brought them up to speed with my other major competitors and got back my eighth luxury along iwth a nice source fo foreign income.

At that point, I was up to seven industrial techs and the rest of the world was still in the medieval era. In a rare occurrence, I actually researched Nationalism and Communism myself. After Steam Power took five turns, I'd been on a four-turn tech pace, but I needed police stations to keep up that pace. And my tech lead was so large that waiting for the AIs to do the research for me would have taken too long.

Russia beat me to Smith's Trading Company by a single turn in 1000 AD, thanks to a cascade from Magellan's Voyage. I ended up having to trade to Russia for Free Artistry, enabling me to switch to Shakespeare's Theater (albeit at a cost of quite a few wasted shields). I'm not really using it - I ended up building it in my capital, which I'm not quite sure I want to grow past size 12 - but at least the AIs didn't get it. Losing Smith's was unpleasant, but my gpt income from other civs was strong enough that I could still do four-turn research and run a gold surplus.

In 1070 AD, the Russians and Mayans entered the Industrial Age as part of a tech-for-luxuries+gold deal. I'd been freezing Russia out of that market by obtaining my dyes from Egypt, but since Russia had recently taken Egypt's spare dye source away from them, that was no longer possible. Russia got Medicine as their free tech, so at least they couldn't start building railroads right away. I was up to nine industrial techs, and two turns away from completing the Theory of Evolution. When I got ToE, I took Atomic Theory and Electronics as my free techs. Even if I'd wanted to beeline to tanks, without rubber, I couldn't build the things.

England declared war in 1150 AD, landing two warriors and a spearman outside an undefended city on West Island. Fortunately, I'd been watching the ship that landed the troops and doing some contingency planning, so I was able to move in a guerilla and an Ancient Cavalry. Not surprisingly, the attack failed.

Constantinople completed Longevity in 1170 AD; in this case, the AU Mod actually did persuade me to research Sanitation where I likely would have skipped it otherwise. I finally got around to researching Refining (which I'd put off in favor of other techs while waiting for the research time to come down from five turns to four) and discovered that the sole remaining Sumerian city has oil. That signed Sumeria's death warrant, but setting an execution date was still a bit of a problem because I didn't have a lot of spare troops available. Also, I didn't want the people in my Sumerian province to get mad, and with no one having researched Military Tradition and with a forest tile in the way, I didn't have any way to capture the city the same turn I declared war.

A decade later, I decided to sell Nationalism to the Russians and Mayas to make up the income lost when England attacked. (I think I got a little over 300 gpt total from the two of them.) I was a bit worried that they might sell it to England and create a situation where I would have to trade England another tech to re-establish my luxury trade once Elizibeth and I made peace, but that ended up not being a problem. In any case, with my lead up to twelve techs, I wasn't too worried.

The peace treaty with the Dutch was ready to expire, and since gold per turn was involved, they would have renegotiated if I didn't. Since I wasn't ready to attack the Dutch yet, I agreed to a straight-up renewal. Prospects for getting rubber before the modern era (which was less than five techs away) were starting to look ugly. But my lead was so big that I could almost certainly build TOW Infantry before the Dutch could build regular infantry. Mixing it up between my TOW Infantry and artillery and Dutch riflemen was starting to look like a good formula for rubber.

My military at that stage was tiny: 2 pikemen (one of them elite), 1 regular knight, 2 riflemen upgraded from pikemen, 8 artillery (2 of them from captured catapults) 8 galleons (upgraded from Dromons), 5 MedInfs (3 in an army and 2 elite), 10 guerillas (upgraded from MedInfs and an elite* swordsman), and 8 Ancient Cavalry (at least 1 elite). With those plus 29 workers, I was actually four units below my free unit support threshold in spite of the reduction in free unit support under Republic in the AU Mod.

England finally agreed to peace in 1230 AD - after having just landed a knight, three longbowmen, and two spearmen outside my coal city where only a single guerilla could be moved into position to defend. The English troops are still sitting there, but as long as all they do is sit, I can live with their presence. I'm really looking forward to when I have the tech and quantity of spare troops to park a TOW Infantry in each of those cities; maybe then the AIs won't keep thinking I'm a good target for invasion.

Universal Suffrage was finally completed in 1250 AD after having had a few starts building it switched to other things. Hoover Dam was completed in Sumer twenty years later; the former Hittite/Sumerian continent is both my biggest land mass and one where building power plants in each city would be rather difficult due to high levels of corruption. I'm also planning to build the Internet there.

In the meantime, in 1255 AD, I noticed that Egypt was down to four cities. To make it a little harder for Russia to finish them off, I sold them Metallurgy dirt cheap and gave them Theory of Gravity, Magnetism, and Nationalism.

The Dutch declared war agian in 1270 AD with a single crusader landed outside my capital. I responded by re-forming the Grand Alliance with Russia, England, and the Mayans (using luxuries as incentives for them to cooperate).

The year is now 1290 AD, and I've just discovered Flight. I've only just barely reached a point where I can research Radio in four turns, but I'll slow down a little in the modern age until I can get enough research labs up and running. I researched every single industrial tech that I have myself, and Steam Power was the only one that took longer than four turns. My closest technological competitor is England, which has only four industrial techs: Nationalism, Communism, Steam Power, and Medicine. So by the time the game is over, there is every possibility that I will be literally an entire era ahead in technology; I've come close to that before, but I don't think I've ever quite actually done it. I've decided to pursue a space race victory unless additional resource problems force me to conquer so much territory that I might as well go for domination while I'm at it. I'm also planning to stay in Republic for the rest of the game since I almost certainly couldn't get a big enough research advantage in some other government to be worth the anarchy.

Gilgamesh was finally stupid enough to order the forest that stands as the only barrier between him and death chopped down, so I'm moving in every fast-mover I have to (one knight, a MedInf army, and some Ancient Cavalry) to help claim "my" oil supply. That will let me upgrade galleons to transports and build destroyers to escort them, fulfilling the naval side of my needs to invade the Netherlands.

Regarding the land side, I'm not in a huge hurry since I have ample gold to build guerillas and upgrade to TOW Infantry. If I get Rocketry as my free tech, I'll probably strike as soon as I can build a couple destroyers to escort my transports. Otherwise, I'll probably pursue Computers and Miniaturization first. (Computers is pretty much always my first Modern tech target because I want research labs to help me research all the other modern techs.) Who knows, maybe I'll even get lucky and get Computers as my free tech?

[Dominae]

Originally posted by nbarclay
Dominae, is the lack of rubber and the fact that the nearest coal is so far away your doing? Something smells a bit fishy here.

There is no lack of Rubber, you just lack Rubber.

[ZargonX]

There is no lack of Rubber, you just lack Rubber.

Dom, you can't imagine how many times I cursed your name every time I would see the spread of the next strat resource

[Dominae]

This is the Seafaring game people, do you expect all the resources to be within stone's throw!?

(that's maniacal laughter, in case you're wondering)

[jim_steer]

Originally posted by ZargonX


Dom, you can't imagine how many times I cursed your name every time I would see the spread of the next strat resource

I am sure Dominae's ears have been burning a lot

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Dominae
This is the Seafaring game people, do you expect all the resources to be within stone's throw!?

(that's maniacal laughter, in case you're wondering)

When I play Civ, I expect the terrain to be a reasonable predictor of what resources will be where. If I control about a quarter of the world's land and have lots of mountains and jungle, I figure coal probably won't be a problem. If I have lots of jungle, I figure rubber probably won't be a problem. And if I don't have a resource even though I control about a quarter of the world's land area, likely a bit more, I figure odds are low that scouting for islands so remote that no one can get to them safely before Navigation or Magnetism will make much of a difference.

Dominae, what you did was pervert the game so that what is normally good strategy became bad strategy and what is normally somewhat questionable strategy became good strategy. That would be no big deal if you gave a specific warning in the game's description that the resources are distributed in such a way that finding and settling remote islands is a lot more important than in a normal game. But in the absence of clear warning, I find having my knowledge of the game used against me like this rather annoying as a matter of principle.

[cracky]

cracky manages to secure a rubber source.

AU 501 DAR 5

1320: Coal hooked up. RR’ing begun. Traded Medicine + map to the Dutch for Nationalism. Nobody else even had any cash to trade for Medicine.

1325: Dutch start Universal Suffrage. They also have Communism and Fascism.

1330: Dutch finish Universal Suffrage. Damn SGL! Electricity finished.

1365: Scientific Method finished. Medicine to Hitties for Map + 40 gold + 25 gpt. Sanitation at 4 turn pace. ToE in 18 turns.

1385: Replacable Parts begun at a 6 turn pace. I swear this is the last tech I’m trading away for profit. Must regain tech lead! Sanitation and 33 gold to: the Dutch for Industrialization, the English for 58 gpt. Nobody else has any money. The Dutch have the Corporation already. Wonder how far ahead they are on that branch…

As for the Rubber situation, the only one I might be able to nab is on that tiny island waaaay in the bottom right of the mini-map. England has a city there without expanded borders and NOT covering the rubber. Maybe I can end up culture bombing the other city on that island…

1415: The damn Dutch already have Replaceable Parts! Going to trade Electricity to them for 67 gpt and the Corporation. After they made out like bandits trading sanitation to everyone else, I’m giving it to everyone even if I only get a map.

1425: Oh, I’m an idiot. Can’t get Replaceable Parts without Electricity… Is it worth the trade for 130ish gpt plus refining? Hmmm. No.

1445: Oh Calloo Callay! Steel, Atomic Theory, and Electronics in one turn (ToE)! The rest of the world that counts (England, France, Maya, Dutch) picked up steel. The Dutch are up Refining and 4 techs behind on the lower branch.

1450: Hoover’s started on Japan’s island, believe it or not. My only river city on the starting continent sucks. Sure it has +1 billion food, but its shield output is misery itself.

1475: Combustion begun at 6 turn pace. Nobody has Scientific Method or Replaceable parts yet. The Dutch do already have Combustion though and refuse a 1 for 1 trade. Oil? Oh, I have one source on another of those one city islands in the south Pacific. The Hittites also have one on their secondary isle. I can’t wait to see where Aluminum and Uranium are…

1490: Rubber is now available throughout the empire.

1500: Combustion done. The Dutch have flight already, but still no Scientific Method. Mass Production started at a 6 turn pace. I’m sticking to my guns. NO tech trades! Also, I’ve got about a 2 minute wait between turns here, and there are no wars on.

1565: Battlefield Medicine done in Constantinople. Just finished motorized transport. Must resist urge to build nothing but tanks from now on… England and the Dutch are down Atomic Theory, Electronics and Motorized Transport, and the Mayans and French are also down Combustion and Mass Production. Researching Flight at 7 turn pace.

1585: Hoover’s finished in Satsuma.

1595: Flight done. Now I’m up by Electronics and everything to radio which I’m working on.

Questions, Observations. Why did the Dutch procede as far as flight while not having Scientific Method or Replaceable parts? Why are they still so competitive in the tech race? They have communism, fascism, and espionage as well, which I don't. They must have traded for nearly all the luxuries or something. It looks like I'm headed for a space ship victory, but if this wait between turns gets too extreme I might go for the UN vote (without the massive tech give-away right before).

Despite having my FP in what used to be Sumeria, the Japanese home island is quite productive. Can you say Hoover's? This leaves me with three moderate to high production centers. After reading some of the other DARs I began regretting not putting my FP on the Japanese island. Putting it in Sumeria has worked out nicely in the long run, but I think I could have had a larger lead earlier on if I'd just plunked down the FP in Japan.

I don't have a screen shot for this DAR, after the last one I played straight through to the end of the game. In brief, the northern hemisphere looks pretty much like everyone elses. In the south, I own everything west of the home island, the three mini-islands in the far south, and the Hittite/Sumeria continent north of the isthmus.

[Dominae]

Dominae, what you did was pervert the game so that what is normally good strategy became bad strategy and what is normally somewhat questionable strategy became good strategy...

I suppose I should answer this. In formulating my answer, I've looked at the issue from two vantage points:

1. Strategic resource scarcity in AU501 is not conducive to the goals of AU.

I'm not really sure why the lack of resources around the starting location makes you "good" strategy of expansion somehow become "bad"; you've been on a 4-turn research pace throughout the Industrial era, so you must be doing something right. And I'm also not sure why it's "bad" strategy to claim islands, especially when they're prime locations for Strategic resources (for instance, the Tundra islands near the poles, or the numerous Jungle islands near the equator are highly likely to contain Oil/Aluminum and Coal, respectively; although Rubber does appear in Jungle, there's no guarantees that it will because it can also be present in Forest). The only "bad" strategy that I've noticed is expecting to have Strategic resources and not doing a thing about it (other than complain about the map) when this is not the case.

If you've played even just a handful of Conquests games you'll know that probably the biggest change to the epic game is resource distribution. The map for this scenario, although admittedly "cooked", is far from a "perversion" of what the map generator typically serves up in C3C. I can point you to numerous threads on how the resource distribution now "sucks", both in the Conquests and General forums. Since this is a big issue, I feel an AU game that brings it to the fore but without prior warning to the players is completely justified. And, as just stated above, this particular map is not at all far from what you could potentially get in a random map game.

2. Resource scarcity in AU501 is just plain not fun.

Of course, we're trying to enjoy ourselves here, not just learn about Civ3. However, different people have fun in different ways. Although many of us do enjoy UP-style games, it's simply not a good idea to enjoyment and educational purposes to make AU courses to be too easy. Therefore as a scenario creator I feel it's smart practice not to spoon-feed those players who want UP all the time, and this includes "easy" resource distribution. Of course I know how far you will be able to expand militarily, that's why I put some of the Strategic resources a bit further. There's no point in getting angry because you're learning what the course is meant to teach you (or being challenged in new/interesting ways).

For your case in particular, it seems pretty clear to me that you got bummed out when you realised you would have to do a bit of extra work to secure Rubber. I feel confident in saying this because you did not react negatively to the other "unrealistic" map features, such as the Coal that neatly feel within your expansion reach, or the perfect Sea lanes that made trading possible with every other civ. But when Rubber does not fall within your borders, whoa! that's a problem.

I'm sure you can find a way to leverage your impressive tech advantage into securement of a Rubber resource. Whether this is fun or not to you I take no responsibility for. Some (most?) people are actually enjoying the challenge:

As for the Rubber situation, the only one I might be able to nab is on that tiny island waaaay in the bottom right of the mini-map. England has a city there without expanded borders and NOT covering the rubber. Maybe I can end up culture bombing the other city on that island...
[...]
Oil? Oh, I have one source on another of those one city islands in the south Pacific. The Hittites also have one on their secondary isle. I can’t wait to see where Aluminum and Uranium are…
[...]
1490: Rubber is now available throughout the empire.

In any case, I'll probably not be making the map for the next AU, because I want to play it!


Dominae

[nbarclay]

I'm going to move this discussion to the post-game wrap-up thread, since at this point, not all the resources have been uncovered.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by nbarclay
I'm going to move this discussion to the post-game wrap-up thread, since at this point, not all the resources have been uncovered.

Oops, I should have thought of that!