AU 601: alexman's DAR

[alexman]

Originally posted by Arrian
I might have taken a shot at pillaging the floodplains "3" of Sparta, hoping that my opponent might be caught unprepared for the appearance of my warrior and that he couldn't muster an archer in time to nail my warrior.

Yes, I might have too - if it weren't for the friggin Hoplite and Archer that appeared there in the next turn!
Jshelr is an experienced MP player. Nothing comes easy against him.

By the way, Persia will finally talk to us in 1050 BC, and they do indeed have a military alliance with the Greeks against us. Still not sure if that happened before or after the sneak attack though. We can easily buy peace, but we're in no danger and it would piss off Hannibal, so I'll wait another 12 turns for our alliance to expire.

[Arrian]

Ah, ok, that makes perfect sense. Run A-WAAAAAY [/Python]

-Arrian

[alexman]

950 BC


The statue has been built! This is the first time I have actually built (not captured) this Wonder, so I had never seen the splash screen before. Very cool, and appropriate for the theme of this game.

[alexman]

950 BC

The Greeks have just plopped a city (Argos) on top of an iron resource. I guess Russ couldn't wait for the boders of Pharsalos to expand - that might be a good sign that things are desperate.

Our Warriors try their best to harass, but something tells me they will not last very long in Greek territory.

[alexman]

950 BC

So what to do now that we have the SoZ?

Well, Carthage is our ally and they have plenty of Mercs running around, so attacking them is out of the question for now. We could get a RoP with Carthage and go attack Persia, but Persia is Greece's neighbor, so we would be doing Alexander a favor. We could also send our troops all the way to Greece, but by the time they get there, they might be faced with Riflemen.

The plan is to harrass the backwards and isolated Celts (they don't even know the Alphabet yet).
We will send AC north as they are produced. We will also send Legionaries as soon as we connect our Iron and switch out of Despotism.

The goals are to 1) stop the Celtic expansion south, 2) get a perfectly timed GA, and 3) hopefully generate some military Great Leaders. A 3-AC Army, or a 3-Legionary Army with free pillaging and healing in enemy territory could do nasty things to Greece's economy.

[alexman]

925 BC

A moment of silence. Both our Warriors lurking around the borders of Greece have been killed by veteran Archers.

This is the last screenshot we received from our spies before they were showered by arrows:

[alexman]

875 BC

On the bright side, we discovered Philosophy first, and used it to get Construction for free. Bablylon already has Monarchy, and Persia has Map Making. Otherwise everyone (except the Celts) are pretty much at tech parity.

We taught Philosophy to Babylon for 287g+15gpt plus a re-declaration of war on the Greeks. Babylon actually borders Greece now, so that might cause Russ a slight headache.

We will switch to Monarchy soon, as soon as Babylon trades it around and it loses value. We're in no big hurry, as unit support will drop to half in Monarchy, since we don't yet have any cities above size 6. Does anyone know whether the SoZ still produces Ancient Cavalry during anarchy?

Actually, I'm toying with the idea of skipping Monarchy and going for Feudalism (reduced corruption in the AU mod), since our cities are quite tightly spaced and we have lots of mountains that will result in plenty of towns unable to grow to cities. We're using a tight spacing because the commercial trait allows it without getting into ridiculous OCN corruption. The downside is that the war weariness might become a problem if we want to harass the Celts, as planned.

Speaking of the Celts, they might be backwards because of their isolation, but they have Iron connected, they already have the most land area of anyone, and they are still expanding like crazy. They are a sleeping giant who definitely needs trimming before he wakes up.

[alexman]

825 BC

By now, Carthage, Germany, and Egypt all know the secrets of Monarchy. It was therefore possible to make a straight trade of Philosophy for Monarchy with our friend Hannibal. The Roman Monarchy is estimated to take power over the current state of anarchy in 7 turns.

The bad news is that Germany already obtained Construction and traded it to Carthage. We were holding off trading Construction around, using Philosophy to get what we wanted from the AI, and hoping we could do the same with Construction later. So the tech pace is quite fast, which is not good for the lifespan of our Ancient Cavalry. We have decided to slow down the pace and to save some gold for Legionary upgrades.

By the way, don't Ancient Cavalry look good in Roman red?

[vmxa1]

AC looks good in Red, only if your a Roman citizen.

[alexman]

750 BC

This time the Greeks used some smart trading as a middle man between Egypt and Persia to get caught up in tech (they lack only Philosophy now) and to sign a peace treaty with Egypt.

So Code of Laws is the last ancient technology missing from all civs. As soon as Greece gets it, we will be in a tight spot because of the trading power they will have over the AI with their free Middle Ages tech. The scientific trait is very powerful in this type of game. It would be nice to get CoL before Greece so we can gift it to all scientific civs (Babylon, Persia) and hopefully one of them will get the same free tech as Greece, thereby reducing its trading value. The problem is that we will not likely get CoL before Greece, due to our Anarchy situation.

Anyway, for now, let's enjoy our position of power over the AI. Our alliance with Carthage against Persia expired this turn, so we sign peace with them and give them Philosophy for Map Making plus about 150g. Evidently they had a military alliance with Greece against us involving renegotiation of peace, because as soon as we signed the above deal, Persia declared war on Greece automatically. They gave us the rest of their cash (50g) for a military alliance against Greece.

Finally, we gave Egypt 3gpt to re-declare war on Greece. With all the war declarations against him, Alexander must be in war happiness heaven!

[Arrian]

Lookin' good.

-Arrian

[alexman]

630 BC

The RL pace of the game has slowed down a bit. Russ blames it on the good weather.

In 650 BC Carthage discovered Code of Laws, and traded it to Egypt. This of course triggered massive barbarian uprisings throughout the land. We had sent our Ancient Cavalry north for barb hunting to get some battle experience before attacking the Celts (we want leaders, rememeber). However, facing 16 horsemen is not exactly the type of experience they were looking for - we want them to live to be able to tell about it.

Not much else is new since the last report. Greece is still at war with all their known civilizations, and they are still in Anarchy, so we don't expect them to reach get Code of Laws (and their free tech) just yet. Our peace agreement with Carthage expires in 3 turns, so when we renegotiate, we will get Code of Laws from them, which we will then gift to Babylon and Persia.

[alexman]

610 BC

Damn barbarian horsemen came out of the fog of war and killed one of my Ancient Cavalries. This turn they will kill one of my workers too, and I can't do anything about it. I really truly hate barbarians.

In other news, the Germans and Persia joined Egypt and Carthage in the middle ages this turn. Egypt gifted us Code of Laws plus all their gold (16g+1gpt) in exchange for continued peace.

This gift brought Rome into the middle ages, and we could see that the free tech of Persia was Engineering. Good, now we can gift Code of Laws to Babylon, and hope for a different free tech, so we have a better chance to devalue Greece's free tech. Nope, they get Engineering too.

[Arrian]

You aren't actually starting a marketplace in New Pompeii are you?

Barbs do suck. Restless, eh? I've been playing restless barbs lately (I used to just play roaming), and the double-strength uprisings gave me some trouble (16 instead of 8, big difference. Especially when they split into groups of 8 and go after seperate targets).

Too bad you don't have any legionaries lying around... those are great for absorbing stacks of barbs.

-Arrian

[alexman]

Been slow to connect my Iron. I should have a dozen Legionaries from upgraded Warriors in 2 turns.

You're right about New Pomeii. It's actually going to build a Courthouse, but I didn't have Code of laws yet in that screenshot.