AU207: Big Planet - Strategy, Spoilers and Comments

[BigDork]

Hi everybody...

Well I haven't had a chance to play too much but what little I have played hasn't been to good. I'm now at war with almost the whole continent. The only people not at war with me is the Zulu. Dang Monguls. Luckily there's not a lot most of them can do. Japan landed a single swordsman in the mountains NE of my capitol but I'm sending several horsemen to deal with them. I'm sending a small force to put a little pressure on the Germans so that they'll accept peace.

My second war with Babylon went okay. I managed to auto-raze 2 cities and kill off several units. But with my war with everyone else I had to go for peace quickly. I got two cities from Babylon and now they are left with their capitol only. They keep trying to march settlers through my territory and I'm hoping they'll declare war on me soon instead of removing their troops from my territory.

Maybe I'll get to play more soon. I'll let you all know.

BigD

[aaglo]

Here's a poor screenshot of my game. I just happen to love the numidian mercenary due to it's versatility - a supporting attacker.

The wonders I have: great library, the hanging gardens 1 turn away and art of war 2 turns away.

I'm the biggest in this continent (as far as I know), and the stupid japanese declared a war against me - thus I got my golden age.

I'll see what'll come up with this..

[aaglo]

I keep getting notifications of mountain sage's posts, but nothing is showing...?

[Mountain Sage]

One small problem:

When I try to attach a screenshot through the Upload service, it tells me it's not a valid .JPG file, even when I created it as .JPG and I can view it in the Upload service.
Any quick fix? Thanks

[aaglo]

It can be too big. And is it jpg or jpeg?

[Mountain Sage]

It's jpg. It's a normal screenshot (but not downsized).

[Konquest02]

Your image must be at most 800x600, or the system will tell you it's too large. You need to downsize it either in Photoshop or Paint or any other non-microsoft software...

I'll post screenshots tonight, as my stretch of exams is over...!!

--Kon--

[Mountain Sage]

Once upon a time there was a young lady called Joan, but since her womanhood rites her father Franciscus, the chieftain of a nomadic tribe, and all her kin used to call her Joan of the Arc because of hers skills with the bow (*). Over the years, Joan became a no-nonsense, energetic and ambitious woman, driven to perfection and hard work, full of projects and ideas.

Joan was not very happy with the way of living of her tribe. Moving constantly from a place to another once the game became scarce meant long treks fraught with perils and discomfort, and the price other tribes extracted for passage and hunting rights kept her tribe poor and on the verge of starvation. Often, during the long watches at night by a campsite, she dreamt about a different, better future.

Therefore, the day when her father sadly passed away, she gathered all her tribe around her and said to them: ‘Listen I have a vision. I am fed up with travelling and hardship. This is a lush country, with rivers and wild grain and tame beasts. Let’s stop here and make a permanent encampment. This encampment will become a village, and when this village will become too big we will build another one, not far away, and then another one still. We will grow and prosper. We will build things, learn and research and we will become the marvel of this world. From this day on, we will call ourselves the French, after my father (**), and this village will be called Erin, after her late wife. Are you with me (***)?’

And so it all began.

Excerpts from: ‘An Illustrated History of the Rise of the French Empire’ by Mountain Sage, AC 935.


(*) It should not surprise you if the English language uses two different words (archer and bowman) to designate the same military functionality. This is a classical example of the French superior culture, already achieved during the ancient times. (MS, ditto).

(**) One could wonder how Joan would have called her tribe if her grandfather, the venerable Firaxis, had called his son Helveticus instead of Franciscus. (MS, ditto).

(***) The legend says that the roar of approval was so deafening that a flight of crows passing overhead fell down to earth, stone dead. (MS, ditto).

The following ancient engraving shows you our valorous troops preparing to ambush an unwary Babylonian settlers caravan, in order to stunt their expansion. Our international grading went unfortunately a bit downhill afterwards. (MS, ditto)

[Mountain Sage]

Konquest02,

Your 800x600 just saved the day for the French.
Joan is in your debt.
Want to share a milk bath with her? She's just over 4500 years old, but nowadays plastic surgery makes miracles (or so it is said )

[Mountain Sage]

The archers' rush it's on its way. The French assembled in Roxane all the wisest men they could gather...

[Konquest02]

The Campaign for Germany

Below is my tactics map for my invasion of Germany.

I'm using mostly Cavalry as speed will be my greatest ally. If I can take 3-4 cities on the first turn of the war, then I'll be in buisness. My force is split up in two groups, the main one going to the Iron city circled in red and the going straight to the jugular to Berlin. I want to establish my capital there so I need to be in control of the city. Once the iron is cut out, I should be OK. I have a second group ef 17 cavs waiting at the eastern border for the troops to rush west before to take their cities easily...

What do you think of this plan? Any changes? I've played a little bit so I'll post other screenies in about 1/2 hour...

--Kon--

[badams52]

MS: great AAR so far. Love your story telling style.

Kon: Hmmm, you're in cavs and you have a long way to go till you conquer your continent. But I'm sure soon you will rule the roost. BUt how did you get contact with the other nations? I don't see a path across the ocean that made it to the other continent. Did they find you first? You're farther behind than I thought.

[BigDork]

Hi everybody...

Well, I've decided to bow outta this AU game. With the war and all I'm really busy and really stressed right now. Also I think I've been playing a little much and need a breather. But I'm still gonna be lurking around here. There's a lot of dull moments at work where I can follow what's going on here. But hopefully I'll be recharged and ready to go for the next AU course. Good luck on this one...

BigD

[BigDork]

Oh yeah...

And my wife is demanding what little freetime I have I spend with her. And well, she can beat me up so it wasn't that hard of a choice.

BigD

[vulture]

French, Emperor level, PTW 1.14

The Dawn of the French Nation

4000 BC Paris is founded, and the curious little people living in huts next door decide to move in with us as well. Don't know why, since they have maps of the area and we can't even write yet. To rectify this, Joan embarks on researching writing ("oh, so that's what you're meant to do with all those letters in the alphabet..."). The workers build roads and mines on the bonus grassland, and then go an irrigate the cow, which complains. The maps we have been given show ivory to the east, coastline to the west, and another goody hut to the north.

Warrior production begins. Upon completion he heads north to go and visit the small tribe. Unfortunately he learns the wrong lessons from the first hut, and wanders in demanding to see their map. Three warriors appear and try to kill him (the last one succeeds).

Meanwhile a second warrior is built to guard the capitol. Our worker, building a road eastwards towards the ivory, sees another hut just in time to see a Babylonian spearman go in and come out with a friendly warrior in tow. Contact is thus made with the Babylonians, and we give them masonry and alphabet in return for bronze working, ceremonial burial and 10 gold.

After churning out a stream of warriors, we eventually get around to producing our first settler, just as the road to the ivory is finished. For reasons never adequately explained, the settler shuns the ivory and heads off to the west coast. Meanwhile we have failed to learn out lessons and produced more barbarians from huts.

Finally, in 2190 BC, the glorius day arrives, and the wise men unveil the secret of writing, to great acclaim. An embassy is estabilshed with the Babylonians (who have accumulated all the shield for a settler in Babylon, which is size 1, and doing nothing until it reaches size 3...). We start to research literature at 40 turn pace, although in retrospect, it might have been wiser to up the rate a bit here. Although the choice appears to be between getting a tech in 40 turns with good cash flow or 37 turns with no excess cash, the AI will always do the latter, so you often find yourself beaten to the tech by a few turns. You can't afford to buy the last bit because you are nowhere near the number of beakers required, and when you do finally get it, it has already been traded to everyone else, so you are stuck behind in the tech race.

Luckily, it didn't turn out quite that bad. The turn I got literature, two other civs also finished researching it, so there were still trading opportunities. But I'm getting ahead of the story.

2150 BC saw Frances third city appear on the east coast, and the nation celebrated the acquisition of ivory, not to mention the completion of the coast-to-coast highway, and the blocking-off-of-the-perfidious-Babylonians-with-our-culture. And also we persuaded a tribe of savages to teach us pottery (and we call then savages?).

Shortly therearfter, the Babylonians got hold of warrior code, so we traded that (and all their 25 gold) in return for writing. Not long after that they got mysticism, which we traded for pottery, but had to give up 174 gold.

The question now for us was whether to attack Babylon or not. We had three cities, two of which had barracks, so building a strike force for an early crushing blow was a possiblity. In the end we decided on peaceful aggression, settling right up against their borders, whilst expanding more loosely towards the chokepoins we had found to the northwest and northeast.