AU 503 DAR 3: Contact with all civilizations

[alexman]

This is the third spoiler thread for AU 503: Pillage and Plunder.

So you're still alive. Good job! Please tell us, how did you do it? What do you think of the Agricultural trait in this game? Now that your Chasquis are nearing their expiration date, what will you use them for? What are your plans for the future?

[Aeson]

I made peace with the Vikings after getting my Chasqui Army. Stayed at war with the Mongols, pillaging everything they had while my Archers fought a holding war down in the Jungles. The Mongols were at war with the Hittites too, and only the occasional Archer headed my way. Back home I was building up Warriors for an upgrade.

Pillaging with an Army really has nothing to do with Chasqui's, other than it's the most mobile Army possible. 3 tiles were pillaged each turn, and it didn't take long for there to be very little left. I first pillaged everything around the city building Zeus, then the Ivory, swung west, then south, then back east. The Mongols had a few tiles left improved, but not much.

In 650BC I finished hooking up the Iron, and upgraded 10 Warriors. Sent the Swords S. The Mongols signed up the Vikings against me a turn before the Hittite MA was going to expire, which was really bad timing. I had planned on making peace with the Mongols at that point, they were willing to offer 3 techs, but had to wait now as they weren't willing to offer any techs because of the alliance against me.

I ended up signing peace with the Mongols in 470BC for 22g, HBR, and Phil. I sent my Chasqui Army up the Viking peninsula, destroying all their improvements. In 250BC I signed peace with the Vikings for Map Making and a size 1 city next to the Hittite bottleneck.

Back to war with the Mongols, and have stayed that way ever since. Going is very slow, killing a flood of Archers, Horsemen, and Spearmen. My Chasqui Army has kept them without Iron this whole time.

The Hittites built the Great Library, but I don't want to take it yet. I've traded my Iron to the Hittites twice so far for techs, and am researching Construction full bore to get into the Middle Ages. I have all the other Ancient Era required techs.

The Mongols completed Zeus only a few turns before I captured the city. They have the Great Wall which is very annoying, as my Catapults can't help on the Wonder cities. My Chasqui Army died when I foolishly attacked a Reg Archer to capture 3 Workers. My HP's got very low, and all the Mongol units then trapped and killed it a few turns later.

I've gotten 4 other leaders, all going to Sword Armies. Given the number of battles there have been, this is probably a bit on the low side. I've cut through the Mongol horde now though, and am poised with 3 of my Armies next to their capitol (Pyramids, Great Wall). I just signed up the Vikings and Hittites to help out, and the Mongols should be about dead by the time the 20 turns are up.

Portugal had built the Great Lighthouse and settled a city near the Hittites a long time ago. They've gotten to Astronomy now, and traded my contact around. I still don't have any maps of the other continent(s), but have contact with everyone.

The Jungles and Swamps are pretty much clear now. I'm not sure what I'm going to do economically though. There is a lot of good land down S, but it will take some time to develope. Still have the FP to build, still in Despotism, about 6 techs behind the leaders (though the Mongols were willing to part with 2-3 techs for peace before I signed alliances). I'll probably just build the FP on the S side of the Desert, and not move the Palace to the better lands. At this point the game is pretty much in the bag.

Sign peace with the Mongols just before they are eliminated (protecting them with my Armies if need be), get Republic and a Middle Age tech or two. Then just take the Great Library once I have things built up a bit, and run from there.

[Aeson]

The Agricultural trait in this game really hasn't kicked in yet. The Desert being useful really made a difference of course, but I didn't take advantage of it very well. I started Irrigating rather late into the game.

It's about to kick in though. I'll have the Pyramids and be switching to a Republic soon. Then my pop will skyrocket.

The Chasqui weren't very valuable in my game. You can pillage on Deity with the right start, but this one definitely isn't it. Being so far away, and with lousy terrain (you really needed that Granary early to have any shot at keeping up), it wasn't possible to get to the AI in time. Too many units and too much infrastructure in place to deal with.

Army pillaging is overpowered of course, and Chasqui Armies are the best at it until Conquistadors. Any Army could have done just about as well though.

[Tarquinius]

Very nice game as usual Aeson...
Amazing how strong you are with this map on Deity!
But I noticed your tech pace is quite low too...or is that normal on Deity, to still be in the ancient age in 600 AD?

My game on Monarch is in the 1200's now and I am not yet out of the Middle Ages! Cannot remeber I ever had such a slow game! But I am having lots of fun...cleaning op the Mongols now

[Arrian]

/me is in awe of Aeson, as usual.

[Aeson]

With an average start on Deity I would keep up in tech, and probably be pushing the rate a bit. The AI in this game have been at war almost constantly on my continent, so the tech rate has been rather slow, and I've intentionally tried to keep it slow as much as I can. You can get to the Modern Age on some Deity games by around 800AD, riding the AI and not doing too much research yourself.

Once the Hittites finished the Great Library, I decided to go no tech. I'll capture the Great Library and be right up next to the leaders at that point. Otherwise I could have kept up (~Astronomy), but wouldn't have been able to focus so much on Swords.

It certainly would be able to do better than I have. A FP build and a Palace jump should have been done a long time ago, as well as a beeline to Monarchy or Republic. Economically I've just left my core on Swords and Settlers, almost no micromanagement. It's the barbarian playstyle, which is fun IMO, but certainly not optimal. The 'Jungles' are a mess, just left everything on Workers and ignored it.

If this were a GOTM, I'm sure you'd see players who had conquered the entire continent by now. Optimal result would be to fight an early war with the Mongols, avoid their SOD, and capture their capitol. Combined with a Palace jump could have made this into your basic 2 cow settler pump game.

[ducki]

Optimal result would be to fight an early war with the Mongols, avoid their SOD, and capture their capitol. Combined with a Palace jump could have made this into your basic 2 cow settler pump game.

I just never even considered that.
Duh.
Sometimes I feel like I'm not even playing the same game.

[Tarquinius]

Ducki: same thought occured to me when I read that remark from Aeson...I did not even consider the possibility ...but it seems as we were not the only people that missed it

[Arrian]

Don't feel bad, fellas. Me too.

I've actually never done a manual palace jump. I've used MGLs for it, but I've never disbanded my capital to move it.

Aeson - did you feel you needed all 4 MGLs for armies in order to have a fighting chance? Because the first thing that I thought when I read your report was "why not use 1 for the Forbidden or a Palace move?"

-Arrian

[Aqualung71]

Come on Arrian! Aeson's only playing at Deity level, so he needs to make it a little harder by forcing himself to build the FP from scratch

[ducki]

Actually, if he's playing stock(I forgot to look), Armies would likely be my choice too. Maybe 1 for a FP, but no more than that. Stock Armies are just too strong to be passed up. I'd posit that 2 stock armies at or near tech parity are worth one difficulty level if you are warring/conquering. Maybe I'm overestimating their worth.

[Aeson]

I could have gotten by with no Armies, but would have taken quite a few losses in capturing Karakorum (Great Wall so I couldn't use my 20 or so Cats). After Karakorum fell it was just a race to Mongol cities. I used Workers to block the Vikings off, and so there wasn't much rush.

Once I had the second Army I took basically no losses. Armies killed the Spearmen, Cats pinged down the Horses, Archers, and Longbowmen, and Elite Swords and Archers (I had one left that eventually spawned the last Leader) finished them off. I lost 2 Elite Swords in about 30 battles, as a 1HP 1D unit doesn't have much chance.

I probably should have used the 3rd Leader for the FP and 4th to move the Palace, but I really wasn't planning on finishing this game out. I made peace with the Mongols (blocking the Hittites from their last city for 4 turns) for Republic and 3 Middle Age techs. Cost an extra 200g. Then the Hittites destroyed them.

I stopped playing at that point. The Hittites are pretty weak and the Great Library (Leo's is in the same city) would be simple to capture. The other continent is nicely at war, with each civ at war with 2 or 3 of the others due to alliances I signed them up to. Vikings would be a pain to take over for quite a while still because of Beserkers, the rough terrain, and they will have Riflemen very soon. Once Infantry/Artillery are available they wouldn't be a threat though.

[Conqueror]

Emperor, AU Mod

I got Statue of Zeus completed at 730 BC, only few turns after this, a very nice event happened: completing the Currency research, i got lucky, SGL popped out. 3rd one ever in my C3C games



He was used to rush Great Library in 775 BC. This later turned out to be a very bad decision, due to extremely slow tech pace, and the fact that i didnt contatct the other civs yet for quite some time. Great Lighthouse would have been MUCH better choise

Vikings cascaded soon to GLighthouse, they had been only few turns from completing the GLibrary.

I contacted Portugal at 10 AD, (after losing atleast 10 suicide galleys) and China 30 AD. Ottomans 50 AD while sailing round their continent.

Portugal and China were busy completing wonders and waging war against score leader Ottomans (without my influence). Only wonder left for me after GLib was the Knights Templar, which i built at 190 AD.

But it took me until 300 AD ! that i got contact with India, and that happened when Portugal learned Printing Press and traded my contact to them.

Nothing much has happened in mainland, been building military to take over the continent soon. Didnt connect my Iron until just few turns ago, and built veteran warriors/spears to upgrade them to pikes/medinf. Used obsolete Chasquis to block AI settler movement to the few unsettled jungle tiles. Havent bothered to build settlers to take them. I fugured it was better to let the AI spend resources on building settlers who are running circles at the marshland

Originally posted by alexman
What do you think of the Agricultural trait in this game?

Its quite valuable to have all those desert right next to our starting position to give 2 food after irrigation. Without Agricultural, that area would have been quite useless for a long time, only after government change (to give 3f from city center) + harbors in that area, would the desert been of some use.

Mini-map of 300 AD when i finally had all contacts.

[Strollen]

The power of trading

AU Mod Emperor

I stop my last DAR in 570 BC just after the SOZ had been built.
At that time 5 cities, and I had 4 settlers built and a 5th on the way from my lake settler pump. Amazingly enough they all got to there intented destinations without being beaten out by the AI.
So my 10 cities consisted of the 5 core cities. 2 Jungle cities, a silk city, a city in the plains north of the Mongols, and most surprising a city next to the eastern most iron resource.

However, because of terrain and distance (the iron city was completely corrupted) these were not anywhere as productive as normal 10 cities.

My first 2 researchs wheel, and math were terrific. After that the research Gods failed me badly. Before the AU mod, with research flavors, reseaching currency on a 50 turn path (especially if you wait for several turns before trading Math) was reasonably safe. No longer, the AI is now as likely to chose currency as construction...

I ended up entering the middle ages a couple turns after everyone, broke but not owing much money. Still I was 3rd to researching Feudalism, nothing worse than making max effort for a tech and finishing last. Same story with Gunpowder, Viking and Hittities got it a few turn before me. This despite me building libraries in my 5 core cities pretty early.

Militarily the situation was far better. The 2nd Mongol-Inca war started with provoking the Mongols, I enlisted the help of the Vikings. I let the Viking hordes fight the initial battles and fairly soon the Mongols were on the defensive. After I captured the 5th Mongol city, I got an MGL. My agreement with the viking was about to expire, and I had just finished researching Feudalism, and the Mongol capital had <10 shields built up toward a temple.

I was left with an interesting choice; build an army or rush build a palace and let Cuzuco which was 80 shields into a marketplace build the FP. I chose the army route. Question for the AU member how many people would have gone with the rush build of a palace or FP?

My army of ancient Cav took a 6th mongol city (one latter culture flipped.) I then ended my Diplo Agreement with the Vikings, made peace with Mongols and got Engineering+ Republic for Feudalism. Got Spice, and Incense from the Vikings for Engineering and entered 5 turns of Anarchy.

After coming out of Anarchy my Gov choices were Feudalism or Republic. Given the situation I wish I had picked up Monarchy.
I chose Feudalism, my reasons were 1. I hadn't played it before, 2. The conquoured cities were very corrupted and I figured that using workers instead of cash would worthwhile. 3. With so many jungle cities requiring massive wetlands clearing I figured I couldn't support big cities.

In hindsight, I made a bad choice even with the new minimal corruption I think both Republic and Monarchy are better than Feudalism. The unhappiness caused by rush building making Feudalism a bad builder government and the war weariness makes it every bit as bad as Republic for a warmonger.

Feudalism may have been the right government but not when I didn't rush build the palace. The main reason Feudalism sucks is because you can't realistic rush improvement in city. With Monarchy or Republic if you want to start building a FP you rush build a temple, courthouse, and happiness building and several turns or so you start building your FP. You simply can't do that with Feudalism. So with 15 or 16 cities corruption in the mongol cities was in the 70-95% range without an FP. The only good thing to say about Feudalism was despite having a larger army than normal I seldom had to spend money on army maintaince and corruption in my core cities was minimal.

After a brief pause for infrastructure improvements I was ready for a new war. The Hittites were soon devouring up the remainder of the Mongol empire. I waited until they took a 2nd Mongol city and than joined the attack. My original plan was to take the Hittite incense city. The cursed Viking took my bribe of money and ivory, walked into the Hittite terriority, got a peace and than promptly left. At this point my people were suffering from my minor war weariness, coupled with rush building happiness so peace was the logical option. At the end I picked up two former Mongol cities and a minor concessions from the Hittites. More unfortunate was that despite 1/2 dozen attempts I couldn't trigger my Golden Age with my CS units. (in previous wars I avoided a despotic GA.)

A 2nd hittite war followed the first fairly quickly (again provoked) and this triggered my GA my Army grapped a Hittite city but still I found pushing over the mountains to be difficult.

Meanwhile, news of the other continent was very depressing. In 550 AD Portugal arrived at my shore. I couldn't afford contact with the other nations and they were very advanced indeed. I had just learned Monothesism as part of the peace settlement.
So news that Ottoman was building Adam smith was very depressing indeed.

By 590 AD the Ottomans made contact which was the first turn I finished researching Chemistry. This started my all time best tech trading frenzy... Which I think is worth repeating for all of you depressed about how far behind the tech race you are..

In 590 this is the scientific progress of the Civs
Mongols Fuedalism, Engineering
Inca Monothesim, Chemistry
Hittites Theology, Chivalry, Gunpowder
Viking Ditto+ Printing press
Chinese All + Banking
Indians All + Astromony
Portugal, Ottoman the entire upper branch except for Free Artistry

Now my 0% science GPT was +200 exactly (Golden Age.)

I traded GPT to Vikings for contact with Chinese
GPT to Vikings for Theology
GPT (~60) to China for Education
Eduation to Vikings for Printing Press + contact with India
GPT to India for Astronomy
Astronomy to China for Banking + small GPT
Astronomy to Vikings for GPT and Chivalry

Chemistry+ Dye to Portugal for Navigation + Democracy
Navigation to India for cash + GPT
Navigation to China for GPT
Chemistry + Ivory + Dye to Ottomans for Economy +Cash+GPT + 1 luxury

In all I picked up 9 techs and one luxury for a Chemistry, two dye, two ivory and grand total of 47 GPT... A few turns later I trade many of the remaining techs to India, China, and the Vikings and ended up with a large surplus from the other Civs. Not bad for a for being horribly behind in tech only a 40 years before.

[Catt]

Stock Rules; Emperor

Part 3 of 7

In 650 BC Pachacuti renewed the Mongol alliance – the war had largely been a stalemate between Temujin and Mursilis, with the Incans seeing little action, but the Mongols must have lost a large number of soldiers – this time Temujin was willing to offer enticements for the continued alliance. The deceiving Temujin made peace soon thereafter, and Hittite forces began their march north. Fortunately, the harsh terrain prevented the incursion of three-man-chariots, and the Hittite march took many decades. In 570 BC, Pachacuti purchased peace at a cost of 120 gold. Pachacuti was pleased with the results – the Hittite and Mongolian expansion was immeasurably slowed by the war, and the Incan empire was blossoming. Only the innate agricultural knowledge possessed by the Incans could so successfully make use of the great desert, and with the establishment of the Incan Republic, city growth increased as better methods of harvest spread from city to city.

As the dawn of the new millennium approached, the Incan citizens were well-entertained, trading dyes for imports of incense and spices from the Hittites and Vikings. Temujin’s empire was underpowered – large swaths of territory remained as unimproved as they were when the world was created. The Hittites were confined to a smaller empire than Pachacuti thought likely (especially given the troubles encountered by Temujin early), and the Vikings worked fairly inhospitable land not suited to growth.

This was a period of growth, expansion, and exploration for Pachacuti’s people. The southern jungles were almost completely settled but for a single Mongol city that sprouted on the northern-most shore of the great lake, and the north was settled with one interloping Viking city in the arid deserts east from Cuzco. Workers were trained across the Incan land to clear the troublesome jungles and make the south a productive home. Meanwhile Incan curraghs made dangerous trips west in search of additional land. Several small islands were discovered, and with the discovery of Map Making Incan galleys continued the exploration.

Catt