AU 202: Analysis, Solutions, and Stories (spoiler)

[Konquest02]

Comments and Analysis

This AU game was about scouting. This is why I chose the Americans. My goody huts were ok, a couple of techs, some gold, plenty of maps and, mostly a settler from the third hut... But as many have seen, the expansionnist trait is really case dependant. Since the Americans were good friends of God, they managed to get something OK from the huts.

Catt - you should have spent more time worshiping your God in your first game, you might ahve got better results!! (God might refer here to your computer's RNG, depending on your level of religion... )

The thing I got most trouble with is my FP placement, as I didn't managed to get most of my empire productive, as I can do most of the time...

I was lucky too to pass near Athens with a popped warrior while it had no defence... This totally crippeled the Greeks and I might have won the game there or on my early archer rush on the Iroquois.

I have not seen a single MW in the whole game. I have not built a F-15, as I won before them...

--Kon--

[BRC]

So Theseus, where's this write-up?

[Theseus]

Aarrgghh, not enough hours in the day.

A short write-up, then:

Mongols, Emperor.

I started 202 before vacation, and don;t remember my early expansionist feats... I remember being underwhelmed by my hut-popping, and happy to be the contact broker.

I think I had three early Scouts. I wasn;t creative enough to do barb-leading, although that's a great idea. I did a lot of extra-territory pillaging, which is always fun.

Germany tried to whack me early too; I gought it off and did some pillaging and was able to negotiate peace.

I realized this game would be a tough one when GWs started popping, and I was still just struggling to expand. (BTW, did anyone notice that almost all of the GWs were built in capitols?) On top of that I was getting killed in the stats, and I kept seeing threatening German, Greek, and Iroqouis incursions, although no attacks.

"Screw this," I said, and proceeded to build my mounted forces.

Horsemen and Keshiks and Cavs, oh my!!

Warmonger?

Oooooooooooooh yeah.

First round: classic oscillation, mostly for trimming and GA burns. First the Iroquois (I am scared ****less of MWs), then Germany, then Greece with Keshiks.

Second round: Some serious damage, same order, arrows into the heart of each enemy AI civ. Amost all razing. A few GLs, one for SunTzu ( again ) and one for an FP in the center of the continent.

Third round: Same order. Razed everything to Salamanca, which had enough GWs to justify keeping. Used a GL to build a Colosseum there. Razed everything to Berlin except for, hmmm, New Hamburg, which was the sole German city with Iron. Kept Berlin for GWs too... the damn color (mustard yellow) made me keep thinking I was playing Egypt... Berlin had Sistine, so I spent waaaay too long building Cathedrals. Greece had nothing worth keeping, so I just razed everything up to the hills, including Athens.

Whew!! I topped out around 60-70 Keshiks / Cavs, and concluded the warfest with maybe 20-25 Cavs.

I then went into serious "fill in the gaps" settling and build mode. I also caught up on tech, having missed ToE but gotten to Electronics first.

I've stopped playing as I believe I've gained overwhelming momentum, but it actually might be an interesting game to play out. Egypt and Babylon are pretty damn healthy...

I'll put up a screenshot and a SAV.

(Sorry for the lackluster AAR... I just wanted to get it out of the way)

[Theseus]

Here's the save...

[alexman]

Impressive display of brute warmongering force, against the AI-on-roids (AU mod), no less!

[Jawa Jocky]

Oh come on Theseus. The funniest part of the game is spending 4 hours to invade another continent on a game that has already been decided.

You really should commit yourself and go for the Humiliating Loss like I did. Nothing can top that feeling you get when you loss a game and have more points than everyone else combined.

[laissez-faire]

Great class. I'm just beginning to 'attend' these AU lectures, this one being my first (so does that mean I placed out of all freshman-level courses? hardly ). Unfortunately since this was my first, I avoided reading the spoiler thread until I was well into the game and therefore do not have a phase-by-phase illustration with screenies.

Summary
Arabs :: Monarch :: PTW 1.14

My skill is steadily improving, this being my best game ever (as far as early domination).

The Iriquois Skirmishes of the 1st and 2nd millenia BC began a multi-millenium Arab expansion. Who instigated them has been lost to history (or lack thereof).

Those being settled on an account of gold, the Great German War began around the birth of Christ (oh, wait, I'm the Arabs), and took them down to one lone bastion if German culture, Stuttgart on the NW crag of an island. Them being short of iron aided in not only a clean sweep of the German peninsula, but also the production of several GLs.

The Iriquois Wars followed soon thereafter and also pushed their anti-Arabic civilization far north from the ruins of Salamanca, leaving them two small settlements on the small NE island chain.

The Greeks were always a backward people. Their domination was actually viewed by historians as an 'assimilation' rather than a war. My own continent was granted around 1300 AD.

The game is actually still in progress. A search for world dominance began in the form of a medium-sized army of cavalry, infantry and artillery storming the shores of Samarra on the far southern tip of Babylonia in the middle of the 17th century. We took that city and years later made a push for the capital. The Ur Fortifications lay in our path, but only for a short while.

It turns out a medium-sized army should have been a large army and that invasion, after reducing the great city of Babylon down to a few stragglers, was thwarted by savage tactics. At one point Babylon was defended by one final cavalry with one final hitpoint. Alas, my cavs, springing forth from Ellipi Hill two squares to the SW ran out of juice. I had no troops left to make the assault. That was the last anyone ever saw of those brave warriors. Next turn, the Artillery Stack of Death made a shameful retreat, one square at a time. One turn away from friendly territory and they too were overwhelmed with Babylonian cavalry. Twenty-five guns in all were captured and quickly disappeared in the fog. There are rumors the primitive Babylonians did not understand the replaceable parts of the guns, and stripped off the barrels, mounting them on wooden wheels and used them as cannons. Imagine! *gasp* They later wrote an epic about the event.

Peace with Hammurabi came shortly thereafter, but not with his ally Tokugawa who continued to blast my mines and wheat fields with his endless fleet of ironclads for nearly forty years. It really drove me to despise this man, almost to the point of re-planning a world-dominating invasion of Japan. But, no, the Arabs are destined to replace the Babylonian culture, so now my cities are churning out tank after tank in preparation for the final assault. History will not repeat itself.

In response to a previous question on this thread, I rushed the FP early in Berlin and flipped my palace one city to the west a little while after. It seems to me that establishment of two centers of 'law' as early as possible is pivotal.

I did not use the scouts as creatively as some. A sweep of the continent yielded me about 3-4 techs and one settler. Interesting that a settler cannot be popped if your civ already has one in production/operation. A tip I'll be sure to employ going forward. Kudos to who discovered that.

Ready to wrap this up and move on to the next class!