NIC - No Improvement Challenge Example game and Spoilers

[badams52]

I will get to the first Screenshot and retelling of my game tomorrow, and you may be surprised when I get to the results, but today I will let you know the set-up. Others may post their games to this thread as well.

My settings:
Standard Map, Continents, 70% Land mass, Temperate, 4 Billion years old.

I chose the Chinese because I was looking for leaders and quick promotions of units (given I wouldn't be building barracks) as well as quick workers. A good case can be made for commercial as well since your corruption will be reduced and you will have much of it without courthouses or the forbidden palace.

The rules I used are illustrated in the NIC Proposal thread so I won't restate them here.

Some things to think about before the stories begin: without harbors and airports, trading of resources can only happen with civs that started on your continent or civs that build a city and harbor/airport on your continent. The resources you have for your productive cities will come from your starting island only (better hope you're not placed on an island without many resources or luxuries).

You will have many, many unproductive cities, now is the time to find the best use for them.

Next post: Saturday

[yxhuvud]

Please post a savegame, so that other people can try.

[badams52]

I wish I could post a 4000 BC saved game (and I should have saved it), instead, I can post a 580 AD saved game early Saturday so you can try from there. Maybe if you ask Dominae, he can post his 4000 BC saved game (if he has it) so that you may try.

Edit: AD date correction.

[Dominae]

Here is the 4000BC save from the NIC game I'm currently trying to finish. I'm not off my island yet, but things have gone fabulously well otherwise. Actually, you could almost say this map was tailor-made for NIC. Anyone who wants to give it a try with me, you're more than welcome.

The game is with AU mod 1.16 (just a warning for those who despise mods).

Edit: Here are the settings:

Emperor difficulty
Carthaginians
Small world, continents, 5 billion years, wet
Restless Barbs
Everything else more or less standard


Dominae

[Bluefrog]

What difficulty, Dom? Emp?

[Datajack Franit]

Screenshots?

[badams52]

The Barbaric Chinese: Part 1 – conquering the Iroquois

Settings:
Civ 1.29f
Monarch, Chinese, non-culture related placement, everything standard.

Mao began his reign in 4000 BC with a hatred of culture and a desire to eradicate the world of all civilizations who produced culture. Mao lays down the groundwork by founding 9 cities grabbing 2 luxuries and much needed iron in the process, but was unable to secure any sources of horses as the Americans control the continent’s only source. Shunning development and all scientists, Mao ingeniously buys all the techs he need from his neighbors and wheels and deals grabbing the necessary knowledge to build swordsmen. It would only be a matter of time till Mao purged the three civilized societies – Iroquois, Americans and Japanese - from his continent. Mao goes forth with his massive armies to conquer the lowly 7-city empire of the Iroquois, who lay next to him. The Iroquois without a source of horses for mounted warriors proved little resistance to Mao as he wipes them out before 580 AD.

[badams52]

Save game from 580AD

[badams52]

The Barbaric Chinese: Part 2 – learning about the world

During Mao’s rush on the Iroquois, Japan decided to get into the action and declared war on the Chinese. Seeing a great chance to wipe out the Japanese, Mao obliged by sending forth a large detachment of swordsmen toward the Japanese empire while keeping the pressure on the Iroquois. The Japanese-destroying soldiers razed Edo with ease giving them great ambition to take down the capitol city Kyoto next. But their ambition was not enough as Mao watched as swordsman after swordsman died at the city walls. Seeing a great stalemate if both wars were allowed to continue, Mao quickly made peace with the Japanese and focused his forces on destroying the Iroquois.

After capturing the Iroquois city of Salamanca brought the Hanging Gardens, The Great Lighthouse and much needed spices under Mao’s power. Having built galleys, Mao sets forth to explore the world to find other civilizations. His first galley traverses the ocean unharmed in a stroke of luck and finds the Egyptian island. Continuing their exploration Mao becomes disheartened as he makes contact with the Persians, the Indians and finally the Aztecs while finding out his continent is the smaller of the two and all the other civilizations are more advanced than his. Mao negotiates with the eastern countries, especially the Persians who are behind the others, as much as he can while leaving the Americans and Japanese in the dark about his newfound scientific advances.

Having learned Chivalry and wanting to add riders to his arsenal, Mao looks forth at the Americans and declares war. Seeing the Japanese borders are between he and America, Mao makes a right of passage agreement with the Japanese to ensure quick reinforcements. Mao dispatches his swordsmen to quickly capture the American cities and begins to learn that capturing isn’t going to work well as a few of the captured cities dispose of the new Chinese government in favor of the culture rich American government. Mao takes quick note of this and believes razing cities is the best way to go for future wars.

[badams52]

The Barbaric Chinese: Part 3 – The Sino-Japanese War

To complete Mao’s dream of global domination, he sought to rid his continent of cultural contamination; though doing so would eradicate any trade possibilities with non-continental nations. Mao believed the 4 luxuries he found on his continent would be enough to keep the people happy.

Mao fearing the rise of the Japanese samurai having tasted their cold hard steel before, devised a plan to keep Japan from building such a world dominating force. He would quickly dispatch his riders to disrupt the supply like to Japan’s only source of iron. The other problem facing Mao would be the temporary disruption of his own horse supply line staying his ability to build more riders. Mao realized that securing Kagoshima would be the fastest way to regain usage of his horses and moved a large dispatch of pikemen, riders, and swordsmen to quickly overwhelm the defending forces of the key city. Upon the expiration of the right of passage agreement, Mao declared war on Japan, and put his master plan into action. The quick riders cut off the Japanese iron supply without much resistance and held off retaliatory attacks long enough for the pikemen to secure a defensive position. With Kagoshima unable to hold up under the sheer numbers of swordsmen and riders, it fell quickly as did the Japanese hopes for stopping the Chinese horde. Japan’s death came quickly and now Mao began to scheme and plan the downfall of his next victim, whoever that might be.

[badams52]

The Barbaric Chinese: Part 4 – Deciding whom to attack

Having secured his continent and nearby islands, Mao now focused his desires to eradicate the other lands from those culture rich elitists! Without embassies or spies to help him with intelligence, Mao used his galleys, caravels, and the bargaining table to learn what knowledge and defense units his enemies possessed.

Mao saw that he would need a large armada of unit filled galleons if he wished to invade the elitists, and as the Aztecs declared war on Mao (Mao laughed as he never saw any invading forces from them), he knew someone would be ripe for the taking.

As the elitists’ research forged ahead, Mao’s 33 gpt seemed to be enough to keep him slightly behind their lead buying what he could when he could. Mao quickly bought his way up to military tradition and then realized hid riders couldn’t learn to ride with guns. Though he had the money, he would have to keep or disband the outdated riders and produce new cavalry as regular units.

As Mao started producing the Cavalry he needed for his assault, he bought and, gasp, researched his way into magnetism. For the first time, Mao realized the price of new technologies became too great for him to buy and decided to enlist the aid of a scientist in one of his size 6 towns. At this point, most of his size 6 towns were producing settlers (1 every 30 turns) and using 3 citizens as taxmen and three citizens to work the land for the necessary 12 bales of food they needed. The sheer number of size 6 towns produced enough settlers to support the war effort as slow as it was going.

Also at this time, Mao learned that his town placement had been abysmal on his home continent and finally figured out that each town being founded 4 tiles away from the most nearby town would yield the gapless cultural border he was looking for. This knowledge he would take with him to the elitists’ continents if his forces would give him the chance.

[badams52]

The Barbaric Chinese: Part 4 – Deciding whom to attack (continued)

Once Mao finally learned the ability to build galleons, he searched out to find that all his nearby neighbors’ cities had defended themselves with riflemen. Mao asked and found out that riflemen, though known to all the elitists civilizations, could not be bought, so he began researching knowing the riflemen would be 40 turns away. Mao worried that his mass of cavalry, riders and musketmen wouldn’t be enough to take cities defended by riflemen on the elitists’ continents and to repel the counterattacks. But he knew that strength lied in numbers, and the sheer numbers of his forces could be enough to turn the tide.

Mao looked at Egypt as a possible target. Their home island looked relatively easy to take having few cities and having taken longest to get riflemen was a plus. But when Mao looked at the Aztecs, as they were the top dog at the time, he asked around to find out that the Indians, Persians, and Egyptians were all willing and eager to sign mutual protection pacts with him since they all knew Mao’s army was strongest and largest. Having allies encouraged Mao and after 17 galleons were built, Mao felt he could finally make a move to grab his foothold in the elitists’ continent.

Mao loaded up his 17 galleons with 23 regular cavalry, 22 riders – 2 elites, 8 veterans and 12 regulars – and 7 regular musketmen and sailed off for the closest Aztec city, Atzcapotzalco. A caravel with 2 settlers and a mustetman followed close behind to settle a city if the attack became a success.

In the meantime, Mao signed MPPs with India, Egypt and Persia, knowing that a multiple front attack would be very beneficial. Egypt and Persia required money to seal the deal once India signed for free. Mao’s largest assembled force to date landed on the mountains next to Atzcapotzalco and waited to see what the Aztecs might do seeing such a large army.

[badams52]

The Barbaric Chinese: Part 5 – World War I

Mao’s landing force met little resistance to his surprise. According to CivLackey’s Civ Combat Calculator, a regular Cavalry would have a 7.7% chance of beating a fortified veteran rifleman in the city on a hill. The riders would have less chance, but it so happened that most of the initial force remained unscathed and didn’t fight. So after founding New Canton on the elitists’ continent, Mao rushed forward and quickly razed Teotihuacan and founded New Nanking to secure a strong hold on the elitists’ continent.

With renewed hope, Mao went about slowly and systematically destroying the Aztecs. With the help of his allies, the Aztecs’ supply lines to saltpeter were blocked and trade embargos kept the Aztecs from acquiring such resources in the event of a MPP not being resigned and a peace negotiation signed between the Aztecs and one of the allies. Mao feared trades with Egypt the most since they had the only source of silk and gladly shared with those less fortunate than themselves.

As the war raged on year after year, communism took its toll on India and the Aztecs as their pop rushing became extreme and their once large cities became a small unhappy town once again. This became advantageous to Mao as he began to wait till cities were reduced to towns and then use his forces to attack thus sparing the lives of many, many soldiers. But the waiting made the war linger on as his one army took towns one by one.

Edit: slow moving army

[badams52]

Forgot the image

Edit: Image with armies' movements

[badams52]

The Barbaric Chinese: Part 5 – World War I (cont)

As the war raged on, Persia became disillusioned having only gained one city from the attacks and dropped out of the alliance. Egypt later dropped out as well leaving just India and myself to destroy the Aztec cities and town. India took the northern cities while Mao razed the southern cities. After having wiped out all southern Aztec towns, Mao noticed Persian troops heading towards his territory. He knew this couldn’t be good as he saw infantrymen for the first time!

Persia turned sides and declared war on China! A mistake Mao would make them pay for. Still having an MPP with India, India declared war on Persia as a new development took place. Mao saw that the war against the Aztecs had kept them behind in research (no infantrymen to be found) but he devised a devious plan to learn some science while deceiving his enemies. Mao signed a peace treaty with the Aztecs getting the corporation and then bought electricity from the Aztecs requiring 133 gold per turn! Mao realized his devilishness would probably keep him from ever being able to secure a gold per turn deal again, but to gain the knowledge of infantry, he was willing to make the small sacrifice. After a few years of peace with the Aztecs, the inevitability of the MPP with India reared it’s head and caused Mao to declare war on the Aztecs thus breaking his previous gold per turn deal. Mao then quickly took what he could from the lowly Aztecs and left the rest to the Indians. A few years later, Mao bought replacement parts from the Indians (the Indians always discounted techs when compared to the Persians or Egyptians. Mao still doesn’t know what affinity the Indians have for him).

Now knowing how the Persians are getting their infantry, Mao sends his crack regular rider army and another rider to do the pillaging over to the Persians only source of rubber. Mao learned from previous wars that the elitists were afraid to attack his large armies and started using his quick moving cavalry and rider armies for defense purposes during resource blocking schemes. Through experience, Mao also found out that he could kill infantry in towns by attacking with an army of cavalry, though it would take the cavalry many years to heal and once in a while, an army would be lost. So Mao’s strategy against the Persians started out as one of waiting for communism to take its toll and attack towns with his armies while denying the Persians from building more infantry. This attack was slow going, and Mao had no definite knowledge of how many armies he could have so Mao began searching for alternative ways to attack.

Edit: changed image