AU 601: smellymummy's DAR

[smellymummy]

Greece, monarch level, vs Strollen









interesting starting location. lot's of beautiful rivers, and a cattle to help start up population.

my first move was to get infrastructure. I irrigated the cattle while building a worker out of athens. I then built a road on forest, did that twice actually, for the river+road trade and the industry of course.

I wanted to get writing+philo as quickly as possible. surprisingly though, I wasn't ready for a 40+ turn philosophy research. I'm still researching it.

After the worker, I built a exploring warrior. My first few paths of exploration where all in the wrong direction (See screenshot below), and I ended up going in circles beacause of the ocean around me.

I was lucky enough to pop a settler though! Apparently my opponent, Rome, got a free settler as well, after briefly talking about it via email.

My next city was laid down on the river near some bananas. I figured I would take full advantage of the extra food and river.

I sent out more warriors and again, sent them all to explore in the wrong directions. This is what held back my contact with other civs, and which eventually brought me to a mean encouter with the romans.

My explorers/warriors did manage to find technology huts, and there was one encounter that I recall with a barbarian camp.. it lasted several turns and netted me a nice 25gold. Won't say no to that

Eventually 1 explorer broke out of my geographical restricted land, and headed north to meet the Babylonians and Egyptians. I profited some by selling them technologies I had found.

My other warrior headed south east and found a 1 tile 'land bridge' and then met up with a roman warrior who had made it all the way to my area of the map.... Rome attacked without provocation

those crazy romans ....

I did have 2 warriors heading up that way, and by the time I got there there was a new barbarian camp, and a nice mountain to heal on. When the roman warrior saw my two warriors waiting beyond the land bridge, he left.

I then was offered a suggestion of peace which I replied with my fair terms, and it was rejected. Following that the roman warrior was killed.

Ahh the joys of antique warfare


I'm now well on my way to getting philosophy. I have a granary city ready to pop settlers (a bit late with the granary I think), 3 cities with plenty of food, and a big jungle to chop

I also have 2 new paths to send out warriors for more exploration and contacts.

The year is 1790BC, and point-wise, I'm in 4th place


Legend:
Pink areas: Planned areas of expansion
Dark areas: Major battles occured
Dark blue arrows: First paths of exploration
Light blue arrows: Future paths of exploration

[smellymummy]

the year is 975BC

I've just ended a multi nation war against me.

Rome had sent an archer near my borders, for no apparent reason, and I had asked my opponent twice to turn his archer away otherwise I will attack. Well he refused to comply, leaving me no other choice than that to kill off his archer. Given the past events I wasn't going to risk Rome triggering a GA, or to raze my border city.

So because there was still 4 or 5 turns left to our previous peace treaty, my opponent apparently didn't have any difficulties making a military alliance with Egypt, Babylon and Carthage against me.

The war was really brief though. Carthage and Babylon both lost one warrior, and Egypt suffered some pillaging, and that's about it.

Rome and I are still currently at war.

In the meantime my Greek civ has expanded a bit more. Since 1790BC I managed to settle 6 new cities. I now have, what I think to be, a firm hold on the entire south western part of the continent, with the 2 major land entry points blocked off by my cultural borders. About a 1/3 of my area is still hidden by fog of war, although I'll be filling in the gaps soon enough.

On the science front I've researched Philosophy, Literature and Code of Laws, and will be discovering Republic in about 2 turns. Several cities have libraries built, and others are on the way to completion.

Era change to medieval is coming soon. All that is lacking is Currency, Construction and Map Making. The persians have map making already, although I'm hesitant to trade code of laws or philosophy just yet, at least not until I can reach a deal with Rome.

My plan now is to get some extra military units to clean out any barbarians, and to at least be ready to counter any barbarian hordes for the era change (just in case!). From my exploration in the far East though, I've noticed that it will be Rome and Germany that will be facing the most barbarians.

I'm also going to produce a few more settlers and fill up the rest of my land more spaced out. Along with settlers will be many more workers to clear up the jungles and swamps.

Already cleared out one jungle tile, and working on my second.

And of course, a gov change to Republic real soon

Summaries from the screenshot:

The few battles fought we're kept on the outside of my lands, with the exception of the fight with Carthage which was inside the AI's territory. I'd like to keep things like this.

Persia is aggressively building around my south border city. Already Persia settled Tyre which gives the AI control of the fish and horse that were there. Babylon settled to my north, really not that aggressively, although it still defines my northern border.

I should be able to fit in about 8 more cities, which only 1 should immediately have enough food to grow, while the rest will need some serious work.

Legend:

Pink areas: Planned areas of expansion
Dark areas: Major battles occurred
Dark blue arrows: Planned anti-barbarian forays

[smellymummy]

it's 50 AD now

i ended up founding 8 new cities. 4 are near the capital and should become productive later on, especially the three coastal ones.

the 4 other cities are further out from my core so corruption will be an issue for these. for the moment though, they can produce cheap libraries to expand my new borders and workers to builds roads back to athens. I'm planning to settle one last city about 2 tiles from the volcano and iron. There's no food there until railroad, at least it will fill in a big hole in my borders. Egypt (with ROP) is racing towards that area right now with a settler/warrior combo, and probably a settler in a galley too. With some road blocking, I think I'll be able to get my city there before Egypt.

Cheap libraries are paying off with good culture. Greece is in the lead at around 1750 culture, with Babylon in second place at about 1150.

I switched to republic a few turns after my last DAR post which was a mistake. What I should have done was waited for a few more size 7+ cities. The initial unit upkeep costs really hit me hard.

Out of all the income, a third is going to maintain units, another third for science (staying at 40-50%) and another third going to corruption and maintenance. I have 25 workers, 8 warriors and about 20 hoplites, the majority are just regulars too. And I want to make some medieval infantry soon, so my costs are going to go even higher. The military advisor shows that I'm average versus rome, and strong vs all the AI except German (who I'm weak against).


Since my last post I made peace with Rome. It didn’t take to long after that to see a roman archer in the borders of my southern city, Pharsalos. There's only one open tile available to go through from Persian territory into my part of the continent, and I had it blocked with hoplites (the other tile being the city). I didn't want Rome exploring my territory and it also kept out the AI. Even though, the Roman archer fortified itself right there outside my city. I had a unit of my own (a lone warrior) entering roman borders at this point which got to do lots of exploring, even some pillaging. I think I've scouted out almost all of the roman cities. There might be a few hiding so I'd say rome has about 16 cities, while I have 19.

I eventually tired of the roman archer and I declared war. I could of left the archer there, it was just fortified on desert. The only threat was that the archer could have triggered my golden age before I wanted it too. Well by declaring war I made that factor much more random.

While all of this happened, the era change to the middle ages was occurring. I got feudalism for free while the other scientific civs got monotheism. With republic and monarchy I managed to trade around for Mono, and then I used tech to pay an alliance with Germany and Egypt against Rome, and to make more civs love me (plenty of gifts to go around). Rome seems to be taking great care at nurturing the AI, so I saw a need to get diplomacy working for me.

The next turn though I found out that Rome had signed a military alliance vs me with Babylon (this was expected), and also with Persia (who I had just agreed to a ROP) and Carthage. I sent Hoplites into babylon territory, and fortified Pharsalos (on the Persian border). My golden age was eventually triggered by Babylon, and then Persia sent a small stack of horsemen at Pharsalos and died.

That's about the extent of any fighting. I'm surprised Rome isn't supplying Persia with iron though.

So now I'm a few turns in my golden age, low on cash, plenty of jungles to chop, equal tech footing with everyone else, and fielding a large untrained and outdated military. I'll be building a few more medieval infantry and musketeers when I get gunpowder and then probably disband most of the hoplites.

My efforts now are to use my GA to get marketplaces and aqueducts up ASAP. However with education just a few turns away, I'm wondering if I should instead build universities, then go for the marketplaces and aqueducts. I just barely have any gold coming in now, and there’s not much out floating around with the AI civs. And rome is just too stubborn to ever trade with me

Once I get education though, I'm not sure where to go next: invention, banking, astronomy or music theory. More than likely the lower branch will be opened by Rome, and the odds are he's going for military tradition, and I'll need lots of musketeers to stop cavalry.

Overall, turns are getting longer and decisions are becoming harder. I sure would like a SGL though

Screenshot:

[smellymummy]

that's weird I just noticed the missing city names at the bottom

the one to the left is Troy and to the right is Pergamon

[vmxa1]

Another bug.

[alexman]

Good job keeping the AI out of your side of the choke points!
Also, it looks like you're taking full advantage of your scientific trait.

Any updates in the last month?