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

[alexman]

Post your solutions for AU 202 here!

[Dominae]

Well, things are looking good for England so far! There are officially no Huts left, and here's what I got:

1 Settler
2 Nothing
3 Warrior
4 Warrior
5 Ceremonial Burial
6 Warrior Code
7 Map
8 25 Gold
9 Masonry
10 Mysticism
11 Map
12 Warrior

Yup, Expansionist is good.


Dominae

[Arrian]

1.14 PTW, Monarch, Arabs. 1700BC. 5 cities, settler in route to next spot.

5 x 25 gold
Warrior Code
Alphabet
Settler
Warrior
deserted

Can I trade for yours, Dominae? Ahh, no biggie. You have the English and I have the Arabs.

-Arrian

[Dominae]

Arrian, there's something weird about the our games, because I took a break precisely at 1700BC as well!

The first hut that I opened (SW of starting location) netted me a Settler...I think this is exactly the break I need to compensate for my poor civ:

[BRC]

Well, I'm missing religious/industrious, but I'm thinking my mongols are going to have a field day on this map.


I have just taken Salamanca. The Iroquois do have Horseback Riding, but they hadn't hooked up horses yet. I think that I will make peace for the tech and a city, and then go after them anyway. I would like to wipe my continent clean as fast as possible. I'm even trying a haphazard city placement. (Dominae: I don't think you'll be seeing much of this after this game. I cringe every time I build a new city.)

The Greeks are expanding slowly. They might be next.

I don't think that I'll be able to keep the civs from contacting each other, as Germany seems determined to scope out the south.

I built 5 vet warriors and traded Germany for Iron Working as soon as he had it. The price was steep, but I think it will pay off. I researched The Wheel right away (40 turns), and have built about 4 or 5 chariots. With HBR, these will be horsies. I'm gonna have all sorts of fun with them for a time. Thanks to Arrian for Chariot Upgrade Gambit (Is that it's official name?).

[BRC]

Thanks Dom

[BRC]

I do not recall what I got out of my huts, but I estimate it to be around 50 gold, 3 techs (Masonry, Alphabet, ???), and a city, right next to the capital. Not bad. I didn't build quite as many scouts as I wanted to, as I chose to build an early temple. I want to be able to capture and hold all of the cities that I take.

[BRC]

It's a little after 1000 B.C. I have horses. I have barracks. I have..... 1 temple. This is driving me crazy. The Germans almost have as much culture as I do.

All I'm building is horses, workers, settlers, and barracks. These are working their way up to Germany. Eventually, I'll turn them loose. I had to chase down a settler/spearman pair of the Iroquois all the way over to Greece. I took the city after he laid it down and slaughtered the free troops that came with it.

I guess I left respawn on because that's what he did. He now has the very SE of the continent. I will probably send a detatchment of horses to keep him under control.

I am at war with Greece and Germany right now. I attacked a Greek city on grassland with my horses and lost none, as two were able to retreat. I guess the plan is just to overwhelm Greece. Not much else I can think of.

I have about 6 or 7 elites running around, so it's just a matter of time. I also was informed that my people wanted the FP. I think that Arrian's Strategic Decision Thread has made up my mind for me when I finally get a leader. The continent will be mine.

[Aeson]

I'm not sure if this is good luck, bad luck, or if I'm just hallucinating...

I figured to give this AU game a shot... if only to see how many holes in my Scouting thread this AU game would expose. I chose the Russians, forgot about setting the difficulty, so it turned out Deity. Using the 1.29f .bic because I don't yet have PtW. If you don't normally play Deity, you can always edit the Civilization3.ini file to include "Difficulty=5" to impress/punish your friends/family who decide to start up a game of Civ3 in the rare moments you've left the computer... or just to ruin your next game you start. I always forget to set the difficulty. I was planning on trying this game on Emperor.

I started off building 2 Scouts, then going for a Granary. I knew I should have built another Scout [ominous forshadowing (very subtle )]. The first 3 huts were empty, 4th was a map, then finally a tech (Masonry ). After that were a couple more empty huts, and a Warrior.

Contacts came really early, allowing me to trade for all the starting techs but Masonry and Alphabet. I had been researching Alphabet on my own, but obviously the Greeks beat me to it! In retrospective, I should have gone for Iron Working, but I figured to try and get as close to Monarchy as possible through huts, and blocking off Alphabet really helps in that regard. Getting nothing from the huts doesn't help of course. Masonry was a real windfall though, as none of the AI had it, and I wanted one of them to build the Pyramids (hopefully not the Greeks). I traded it for The Wheel, Alphabet, and Iron Working.

Also I stumbled onto something really funny... leading Barbs to AI capitols, and buying their Workers because of it. Scouts make tasty Barbscicles, and are too good to pass up if you place them right. Once an enemy military unit is in the city radius, all the AI workers are moved to the city. In the case of a capitol... buy them! I bought 1 Worker from the Iroquois regularly, then 3 from the Greeks using this tactic (all for a tech they would have gotten anyways from the Iroquois), and 2 more from the Germans. All in the first 30 turns!

The extra Scout really would have helped though. It seems my Scouts had missed some very important information early on. How the Germans snuck their starting units passed my Scouts is quite a mystery, but there they were, 2310BC. To put that in perspective, it's turn 36, 21 tiles from their Capitol. That meant their vendetta against me happened 5 turns after I met them. I HATE THE GERMANS!

Now this was looking terrible. I had just finished off a Granary and my first Settler, and was going to finish off my second Settler the next turn. I thought "Game over" and so just kept building the Settler, as even if I got a Spearman out it would have taken a miracle to stop the rampaging Germans. They hadn't declared war yet of course, but it was clear as day.

The rest I'll let the screenshots tell... The Iroquois ended up building the Pyramids after the second one as well.

EDIT: for clarity's sake, by 'building the Pyramids' I mean started building the Pyramids. They just finished the Collosus though.

[Aeson]

2 German Archers dead, and a Spearman...

[Aeson]

And a 3rd Archer down...

[Aeson]

A few turns later the second wave hits.

[Aeson]

My warriors are invincible (hoping the Iroquois MW's don't test that hypothesis).

[Aeson]

All told, that was 3 regular Warriors defeating 4 Archers, 2 Spearmen (thanks for attacking with them Bismark), and 2 Warriors. 2 of my Warriors getting upgraded to Elite status in the fray... Easily the most improbable result I've seen in any of my Civ3 games! I was fully expecting a Great Leader the way things were going...

[Aeson]

Now the Germans were ready to talk, but I wanted to see just how far this Warrior luck would take me. I was going to upgrade the elites anyways, no reason to not take my shot(s) at a leader. I used my Scout along with a Warrior escort to find more German troops advancing. The Scout would move forward a tile looking, as it could move back if it spotted any units, and then the Warrior would follow. I finally spotted some, and set a trap with my Scout.

The German troops were advancing along a line that would take them through Jungle and Mountains, which was also protected by river on one side. My goal was to lure at least one of them across the river and onto the grasslands, where I was sending my elite Warriors to intercept. I probably could have used my conscript Warrior to this end, but since this is a thread about Scouts...

Again the pictures tell the tale.