AU 503 DAR 1: Up to 2150 BC

[alexman]

I still think Chasqui harassment is the best strategy on this map, so I started a game on Demigod to see how well it works on that level. I tried to pretend that I didn’t know the map.

We settled on the forest, and started building a Chasqui Scout. Researching Alphabet at 100%. The starting scout explored to the north and east and met the Vikings in 3600. We gave them masonry and Pottery for Alphabet, a Worker, and 10 gold. We started researching Mathematics at minimum science.

In 3100, after just having built a second Casqui and started on a Settler, we met both the Mongols and Hittites in the jungle south of the desert. We did some tech brokering, since they obviously hadn’t met the Vikings yet. That put us almost at tech parity (we lacked the Wheel). Our Chasqui was promoted to veteran after being attacked by a barbarian.

[alexman]

In 2710 we found the Mongol capital and grabbed a worker. We saw a town defended by just an Archer, and attacked with our veteran Chasqui. That triggered our Golden Age.

[alexman]

We continued pillaging, but by 2550 Mongol Warriors were approaching our core, so we were ready for peace. The Mongols gave us two workers, two cities, all their gold, and a couple of techs in exchange for some relief from the Chasqui nightmare. After some trading, we are now at tech parity (Iron Working, Horseback, Mysticism), having researched exactly zero techs ourselves.

[alexman]

Not sure if I'll continue and what to do next, but there are several options open. One thing's for sure: the Chasqui harassment has paid off big time.

At this point we are ready to use the rest of our GA to build a Granary and focus on REX. Perhaps we will jump the Palace to one of our new towns, which are river towns, by the way. We may also harass the Hittites and/or Vikings a bit.

Here is the save in case anyone wants to play around with it.

[LzPrst]

there must be something wrong with me cause I CANNOT win a battle with those useless chasquis.
also on emperor at least every game I've played, the mongols get a settler in a jungle village and start off even better. I'll give it one more go at emperor and then nevermore. but first I have to define whether this bleeding contract is invalid or not. I could just say: NO, it isnt, cause its so obvious, but I have to blabber on about why. I'm really starting to dislike academia...

[Aqualung71]

Originally posted by alexman
I still think Chasqui harassment is the best strategy on this map...

I agree. And I played it two ways to confirm that. Mind you, I don't think I played either game particularly well, but the important thing is they were played by the same person with consistent mediocrity, and clearly demonstrate the benefits from the pillaging strategy.

That being said, it doesn't change my opinion that this is still an exceptionally difficult map for any strategy. That's not a complaint, just a fact. It has raised a couple of interesting strategies so far - jshelr's "Moses' 40 years in the desert looking for the promised land" and Aeson's nonchalant suggestion to "capture their capital and move your own palace there!" But umm, kids, this should not be attempted at home.

[Tarquinius]

Yeah I agree Aqualung; I doubt jshelr's - admittely very brave- move across the desert was worth the effort. I mean in the position jshelr is in, it is even more difficult to find good spots for your cities...as the somewhat productive north is further off.
But if you can overcome the difficulties the palace is more centered, but I doubt you can, so i am awaiting jshelr's process to see whether he was right

[LzPrst]

I'd do this again, but I just realized that I have an exam in early june, TWO in fact. does anyone know the meaning of the german\norwegian word Angst? thats what I'm feeling now. I'll finish this course sometime around june 20th...

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by alexman
Not sure if I'll continue and what to do next, but there are several options open. One thing's for sure: the Chasqui harassment has paid off big time.

The key to the games where going after the Mongols produced the best results was the successful attacking of a town. That allowed players to make peace on highly favorable terms, getting an additional city or two and depriving the Mongols of two or three cities..

As an experiment, I tried a couple games where my specific goal was taking a city, but they didn't work out well. In one, I tried double-teaming a city with two Chasquis only to have one retreat and the other die. In another, I waited a little longer and the city I planned to target got a spearman before I could hit it.

I then tried a game where I grabbed a couple workers and then started looking for city targets. Again, I found myself facing spearmen by the time I was ready to go after cities, so attacking a city didn't make a lot of sense. A third Chasqui near home defeated a Mongol warrior that attacked my second city, triggering my GA.

I pillaged one of the cows and tried to make peace, but even though I'd stolen two workers, killed a Mongol warrior, and pillaged a couple tiles, the Mongols wanted me to pay more for it than I was willing to. I tried to kill another Mongol warrior to see if that might help in the peace negotiations, but I lost the battle. The Mongols then killed my Chasqui that had just pillaged as well.

Fortunately, I was able to make a series of tech deals a few turns later that brought me peace and tech parity. Here's my situation as of 2030 AD (just a couple turns after where the DAR is really supposed to end). I'll probably play this situation out to about the same point where I am in my other game.

[nbarclay]

When I thought things through originally, I didn't think about how much help an ultra-early GA can provide in granary construction when a civ has very low production. By the end of the GA, I'll probably be ahead of where I would be otherwise in REXing in spite of the time my three Chasquis cost me, so all that's necessary for the strategy to work is for the damage done by the Chasquis to offset not being able to benefit from a GA later. That has an excellent chance of working out.

[ducki]

I was actually saving the "embrace your ultra-early despotic GA" point for my post-game thread, but since you brought it up, I think that is very important for the early UU pillaging campaign.

I think I was able to delay mine until I had 4 cities, but it might have been 3. Even so, the production boost I got combined with having a replacement-city for my capitol to take over settler production and a single barracks town allowed me to get a very good jump on a wonder(capitol), keep the expansion going by pushing through the granary-build, and beef up my military(mostly chasquis, then swords as soon as iron was online, IIRC). All while keeping my research pace in a good place, comparatively speaking.

Does it feel as strong as a good Republic Middle Ages Wonder-nabbing GA? Of course not.
Is it as strong in terms of effect on the game? I think so, but it depends on execution.

We've all waxed poetic about how important the first couple thousand years are and how any advantage properly exploited this early is magnified through the rest of the game, but the Golden Age seems mostly immune to the philosophy of embracing any early advantage.
I know I'm nowhere near the first to advocate embracing a despotic GA and I often pass up excellent opportunities to benefit or inflict pain on my enemies because of the anti-despotic GA bias, so this is not a holier-than-thou statement.

I just think the vast majority of players have a sort of mental block about a valid strategy.

All that aside, it still doesn't feel as powerful, possibly because you don't get to see all those great wonder popups as a direct result.


Edit: Come to think of it, didn't we do an AU with a despotic GA theme, or did I dream that?

[nbarclay]

How much benefit an ultra-early GA brings depends heavily on how much production is available. In many games, there are enough good production tiles that an ultra-early GA makes only a marginal difference in production and therefore has only minimal value. But in this game, most or all of the tiles being worked can benefit in production from a despotic GA. Unfortunately, being used to situations where most of the tiles worked don't benefit from a Despotic GA in production helps produce a blind spot that can cause problems in situations where a lot of the tiles do benefit.

[Aqualung71]

Yeh, I agree with all of the above. It took me several tries, but there's no doubt in my mind that the pillage strategy is best for this map. Difficult, yes, and as Nathan says, the hard part is taking the Mongol towns because of the distance involved. By the time you get down there, they have some spears. Pillaging the cows and ivory can be done, but what then? It's hard to extort them very much at that early stage, and early tech trading has probably left you fairly close to parity anyway.

Then you're left with maybe 3 or 4 Chasquis from your initial builds, wandering around Mongol/Hittite territory. If you lose them while trying to pillage, you probably won't be able to get reinforcements down any time soon, since you've probably built the much delayed granary and first settler. Getting another Chasqui down will take some 12 turns of movement.

Still, even without capturing any towns the pillaging strategy is very effective - even pillaging a measely 3 or 4 Mongol squares and capturing 2 or 3 workers has a measurable effect. And once you get them back to your capital you start to see the benefits with faster tile improvements. Actually, my pillaging game is quite fascinating - at around 1000BC the southern half of my continent is almost uninhabited and it will now be a race between us and the Vikings to get the land, after which a palace move is going to be almost mandatory. In other words, a lot of work still to be done!

On the GA, yes it's very hard to avoid the despotic GA with the pillaging strategy, and I gave up on trying. I think it's important though to make sure you've at least got say 3 towns before your GA is generated, so that you see a significant research boost. A despotic GA is tough to accept as ducki says, but a despotic GA with 1 town? Ummm...no thanks.

And let's give some (begrudging) kudos to alexman the sadist, for putting together an excellent scenario that has forced us all to discard our usual strategies and go back and try this start out several times in order to see what works best. The reason no-one's reported very far is probably because we've all dug our heels in and are trying to get this game to work in the first 80 turns!

And then once we've all got things in order, we'll remember to explore the rest of the world and find the killer AI's out there who are about 7 techs ahead of us This is the downside of the pillaging strategy - building the Chasquis and sending them off to pillage slows down our own REX and development, but it slows down our rivals more, giving us the edge on our continent. But this has probably put us way behind the rest of the world!

[jshelr]

Originally posted by Aqualung71
Because we're not as insightful or intuitive as you, jshelr

Seriously though, your bravery in doing so was impressive! An intriguing trade-off. I'm very interested to know whether you feel the significant delay in founding your capital (what, 7 turns?) was worth the better terrain and more central position.

I really thought Alexman was telling us to try migrating toward water that was close but not "immediate" with his water comment. Anyway, I do think the move was easily worth the lost turns. With water, the whole northern part of the "empire" is much more productive. And the initial city immediately starts to make up for lost time. (The availability of a scout helped dictate the direction and find he water source, but I suppose you could easily have got it wrong.)

[Strollen]

AU-MOD Emperor

This is my first DAR, and only 2nd AU course

Initial city on the forest. . Obviously with Masonry and Ivory, SOZ is only 2 techs away. However, I figured that wheel is a better trade tech than alphabet and start max research on it.

Scout finds Vikings in the north. Notice they have alphabet, bronze, warrior but no Masonry. As a general rule I avoid trading my initial techs until I have meet 2 civs. A strategy that works out very well in this game.

CS is produced and starts exploring to the south, quickly joined by initial scout. I discover the Mongols and Hittites within a turn of each other. Looks like I have a good Masonry monopoly!

2nd city is found hill by lake, and immediately starts making a worker to bring water to my thirsty people.

Finish researching wheel. Mongols already have the wheel, but neither Viking nor Hittites do. Trade wheel for Bronze, Warrior, and Alphabet plus all of there money. Nobody has Masonry but me still CS finds burial in a hut . (I only find 2 huts despite building 3 CS pretty early, luckily my 2nd hut is Iron working...).

I start researching math at 50 turns... I eventually trade Masonry for Horseback riding to the mongols.

3rd city is by whales in south. Cuzco starts building a settler for the dye area.

At this point I decide to try pillaging I have 2 CS by the Mongols, and a 3rd CS moving south from the Vikings. I grap 2 Mongol workers. I try to avoid an early golden age.

This war ends badly with the Vikings eventually joining the Hittites and Mongols in a war against me. My actual loses are small (a scout) but both the mongols and vikings have good size armies advancing toward me. Worse I trigger my Golden Age with 3 small cities... I restarted from 2510...