AU 601: alexman's DAR

[alexman]

310 AD

The Great Leader rain has continued, as we are continuing to average about 3 Elite victories per turn, with cannon fodder supplied by the Germanics now, as well as by the Celts. In fact, even with the elimination of Trajan and his Ancient cavalry army in Greece, we have reached the maximum number of armies that our empire can support (5). Now we just have to fill them with 20 Knights (we have half of those so far), and send them over to Greece to get killed by Hoplites.

[alexman]

310 AD

With armies no longer needed, Caesar gave the next Great Leader the honor of moving the Palace to a more central location in Pisae. This move improved the efficiency of the empire only slightly, but it was beneficial for two reasons. First, it moved productivity from the already well-developed southeast to the center of the empire. That way the formerly corrupt cities in the southwest will build their necessary improvements faster, and will be able to start producing units. The second reason for the palace move was to reduce the chance of a culture flip to Carthage, who had built the Temple of Artemis back in the ancient age, and was still in control of several tiles within the radius of some Roman border towns.

As the northern part of the empire increases in population, a second palace move to that region is quite likely.

[alexman]

310 AD

One more comment for this year:

Remember the deal with Babylon back in 270 AD? Caesar needed cash to upgrade his Horsemen to Knights, so he took a 496g loan from Hammurabi, payable under the unfavorable terms of 32g per turn.

Naturally, Casear would rather not make those payments, so he tried a dirty trick on Alexander, who had already bribed the rest of the world back into war against Rome. Caesar agreed to give Babylon a right of passage, hoping that Alexander would suspect that another Roman raid is underway, and bribe Babylon into war against Rome. It worked.

[alexman]

340 AD

OK this is getting silly. I just used a Great Leader to rush an Aqueduct.

[alexman]

360 AD

Greece finally met Carthage, and of course signed them in an alliance against Rome. Now we are at war with everyone. Bring'em on. More leaders for us.

Seriously, hopefully Carthage has been weakened enough from the continuous wars against Persia to not be in a position to seriously threaten us, but we have to divert some production from Knights to Pikemen, just to secure our southern border.

From the power graph, it seems that Greece might be building up their military, getting ready for our next raid. It should be interesting.

[alexman]

400 AD

Our lax attitude towards research spending has left Rome far behind the AI in terms of technology. Perhaps it is time to catch up, as Greece has finally researched (or traded for) their first Medieval technology of Monotheism (other than their free tech).

So Caesar observes a window of opportunity for tech trading: Persia is the only AI that both has a technology that Rome lacks (Gunpowder), and doesn't have Education. He ordered an increase in science spending so that Education is going to be discovered next turn. Hopefully, Persia will not discover Education before that, and Rome will be able to make a trade for Gunpowder. Of course since everyone is at war with Rome, Caesar will first have to sign some temporary peace treaties (temporary because Greece will no doubt let them last one turn at the most, a fact that Caesar will have to exploit, as before ).

By the way, note how the Germanics now have Printing Press, so they will be able to sell Celtic contacts to the Greeks. The age of Greek and Celtic isolation seems to be over.

[alexman]

410 AD

Well Persia did trade for Education on the turn Rome discovered it, so the opportunity to give them Education for Gunpowder was lost. Still, this DAR has lasted long enough, so Caesar was not going to give up on Gunpowder.

He first made peace with Persia, Egypt, Babylon, and the Germanics, getting all their cash in the process. These peace treaties eliminated the war happiness that Roman cities had been enjoying for centuries, but they also opened up trade opportunities with the Germanics and Babylon.

The Germanics were happy to give Rome some wine for Ivory and Silks, which helped erase the loss of war happiness. But the killer deal was with Babylon: Hammurabi had a right of passage agreement with Greece, which meant that some Babylonian troops might have been inside Greek borders, as these two empires are neighbors. Killing two birds with one stone, Caesar supplied Iron to Babylon in exchange for a military alliance against Greece and Gunpowder.

[alexman]

410 AD

Since we now have knowledge of Gunpowder, it’s time to move to DAR 2. Before we do that, let’s examine some future plans.

The plan for the Celts is to continue to farm them for leaders. We have a variety of Elite units around their territory, as well as nine Trebuchets. The Celts are still one of the least advanced AI empires, so we expect to continue to get leaders. Most of them will be used to rush city improvements like Universities, but it’s possible that one of them will move the Palace for a second time to improve the efficiency of the empire.

The Celts also have access to furs, so we will settle two towns up north to steal them. Due to the unreliability of the AI, it is necessary to secure luxuries that will not be lost after a sudden bribe by Greece. These towns will double as healing stations for leader-hunting troops.

[alexman]

410 AD

As for the pending attack on Greece, the 5 Armies are almost full and ready to depart. Just three Knights are missing, due to be completed in 3 turns. This time we will take the route through Carthage and Persia, since Russ might not expect an attack from that direction. Since he just met Carthage, he might not even know that such a route exists.

[alexman]

Second DAR