Adventure 8 - Bede goes to war

[Bede]

Domination date - 1906

Score - 9 points.

Catherine of Russia and Bismarck remain standing but on the ropes.

Details to follow.

End game notes:

The end game turned into a nuclear winter for Russia and Germany. They were just too big to take down with tanks and I didn't think I could reach all of their towns before the borders of the first taken towns popped to hit the domination limit.


I developed the tactic of wasting the cities with nuclear weapons, destroying the defenders with gunships, then moving troops in for a simultaneous kill when all was in readiness.

An alternative would have been to start the conquest from the inside out by capturing interior cities first.

However time was not on my side, and a couple of towns on the edges of the map popped their borders out to claim the last turf needed for domination. I didn't pay any attention to their culture growth.

The Details

Other than a few barbarian battles and the capture of a barbarian city it was a quiet 4000 years in the Realm of the Sun King. Scouts were busy exploring the world (know your enemies) and the people of France studied hard on the knowledge that would bring them prosperity and happiness in the coming wars, for war was surely coming.

Research path was Mining, Bronze Working, Hunting for the scouts, Pottery, Writing, Mysticism, Masonry and Paris starts the Pyramids, Polytheism, Priesthood, and Code of Laws.


Confucianism founds in Lyons and immediately spreads to Paris. Lyon begins working on a temple to get a priest for the Prophet. Spreading the teachings of Confucius is an important part of the plan: religious allies and the money from the collection plates in cities all over the world are vital.

Religion was an important adjunct to the military and every expeditionary force carried a missionary either with it or not far behind. And missionaries were constantly active elsewhere, at home and abroad. As many as could be were on the ground at all times.

Paris built the Pyramids in 725BC(T86), the French adopt Representation and Organized Religion and get started on learning how to fight a real war with swordsmen and catapults and elephants.

The Hanging Gardens goes up in Paris in 75BC(T112) for a nice boost to the population and the first Engineer completes Chichen Itza in 200AD (T123). Paris is going to need the priest points to overcome the Engineers so it starts a temple to go with Chichen. I need that shrine up and working as the missionary efforts are beginning to pay off and my first religious ally is now in the fold (Bismarck).

By 100AD the economy is where I want it and it is time to start the warfare. I have already picked my first three targets (Alexander, Isabella and Kublai Khan on the east side of the Inland Sea) as my scouts have revealed that their lands will add to the manufacturing capacity of the French while Saladin's to the east is mostly green (I want him to turn those meadows into towns for me then I will consider relieving him of the cash flow), and Mansa and Bismarck will be my guardians against Caesar on my back. Cyrus and Hatsheput will be the punching bags on the other side of the water. Catherine between England and Egypt will do as she pleases, as always.





The French are a little weak on the power curve but that is about to change as iron is due to be connected soon and we begin producing swords and catapults and elephants.



Five cities were founded by the French and one captured from the barbarians by 225AD. The seventh and last built was founded as late as 1080AD as a coastal filler to prevent poaching by the neighbors.

The Core Three



The West



The Barbarian South




And in 225AD the wars begin with an attack on Corinth.



There is immediate success at Corinth and Sparta then a little back and forth as Sparta is retaken by the Greek.

In 700AD the Kong Miao goes up in Lyons thanks to Zoroaster out of Paris.

Athens falls in 800AD followed closely by Thermopalaye and Delphi in 960AD.

Meanwhile Bismarck is pounding on Hatsheput on the other side of the Inland Sea.

In 980AD The Great Library goes up in Paris.

The Greek is down to one city, but to get there the French armies have to cross the lands of that other psychotic Isabella so she gets a war declaration too in 1060.

War with Isabella proceeds apace and what I thought was the last Greek city falls in 1130AD and I discover that Alex has captured a barbarian town in the far northeast of Saladin. So peace is signed with Alexander.

I begin the process of turning Athens into a second troop depot. Orleans has been handling the major part of that effort up to this point.

By 1390 the Spanish Queen rests with her ancestors.

And the time has come for Kublai Khan



And the realm at 1440







The Grand Armee



Logistics are atarting to get tougher with the war in the SE and the producitve capacity in the north. The worker force is doing what it can to turn Spain and Greece into productive areas. The Kong Miao is proving its worth as the shrine income is carrying the cost of the military.

Kublai Khan is simply unprepared for the French war machine. By 1555 (18 turns later) he too rests quietly in the dustbin of history. And in a sideblow Alexander will soon be no more.

I could show you the statistics but the only thing that has really changed is the size of the army. It is now twice the size of anybody else's and is looking for its next victim. Still supporting the cavalry with catapults but Steel is next on the research path.



Items of note include the missionary count and the number of seige engines. Those two things are a constant in the military planning as missionaries are essential to keeping the troops moving, and the seige engines reduce the losses of higher price troops.

In 1570 things start to get interesting as without any prompting on the part of the French Mansa declares on Caesar, Bismarck goes to war with Hatsheput (again) and Catherine of Russia declares on England. The French join with Catherine in the English war as the English border butts right up against the old Spanish lands and there is Big Bag of French Ticklers on the border (lots of cannons and cavalry)

By 1615 England is no more and Mansa has asked for help against Caesar. The French grenadiers and cannon and cavalry are only too happy to oblige. Bismarck smells the blood in the arena so slips in the back door to help.

In 1650 it is time to separate Saladin from all the cash his towns are generating so the French Cannon-Grenadiers-Cavalry (CGC) gallop into Arabia and quickly take Mecca, Medina and Kufah and Najran. While in the west Rome is crumbling under the combined French/German/Malinese forces. The French contribution is to hammer the defenses down to nothing, kill a few defenders and let Bismarck and Mansa race each other to the spoils.

Meanwhile in the south Catherine has declared on Cyrus and begun the dismantling of the Persian Empire. She suffers a few setbacks, however, so French troops began the long march from the east and the west into Cyrus's land to give the lady a helping hand.

The Arabs are off the world stage by 1735 but it is just too much of a trek to get into Persia so the French leave that war for the Russians and turn on the Malinese with the help of the Germans. Mansa ends his career in 1795 and most of his lands are in German hands. I kept the cities closest to the French western border but let Germany have the rest.

Bismarck is feeling really frisky after his Roman holiday and tour of the Sahel, so with hardly any urging at all he goes off in another direction - towards Thebes with murderous intent. But like most of his efforts it gets stalled by Egyptian Resistance so his French friends step in to help and finish the Egyptians for him in 1836. He is the primary beneficiary of this war as the French are now wrestling with the problem of achieving Conquest before Domination while preserving enemy cities....

Cyrus is next on the Franco-German-Russian hitlist and it is at that point the scientists present a solution to the problem of Conquest before Domination - Nuclear Weapons and Helicopter Gunships supported by Tanks and Infantry. Bomb them into the Stone Age, destroy the city defenders with the fast moving gunships, then capture them all in one strike with infantry and tanks.

War against Germany starts in 1872 with a Russian sneak attack even as Catherine is cleaning up Persia with French troops doing most of the heavy lifting. Cathy asks for our help against Germany in 1888 and artillery and infantry begin reclaiming the Roman and Malinese lands.

Rocketry is learned in 1868, Combustion in 1886, The Manhattan Project goes up in 1888, and the first ICBM launches in 1900 against a German city in a test of the nuke strike/gunship tactics. All goes as planned!

In 1902 another German city is reduced to smoking rubble and the defenders massacred by gunship rockets but 1904 is the banner year as four more cities are ripened for plucking.





And it is in 1906 that a cultural expansion in Rome and another in Santiago on the very south edge of the map ends the Quest for Conquest. I was a lttle surprised at the Roman border expansions as the town was first captured by the French in 1665, given to the Germans in an effort to trim the landholdings some years later and only just recaptured from the Germans in 1902. The combination of the Creative trait, a State Religion and cultural memory must have contributed.

The real enemy in this game was not the opponents but the logistics of moving troops to wherever the active battles were occuring. It just flat did not occur to me to use the Inland Sea to transport troops, though I did keep a couple of caravels busy moving missionaries around.

The tactic that kept the French war machine in high gear was the high level of missionary activity. Having the Kong Miao and a dedication to producing as many missionaries as possible and having them follow the troops made the support cost of the very large military bearable. I now think of Monasteries as an important adjunct to barracks.

[Rik Meleet]

I get the impression that you've had fun playing this. Good call on the Confucian religion and the Kong Miao - it paid for your campaigning.

[Bede]

It has now become a theme in every game. Religion pays for the warfare. If a missionary doesn't travel with the troops there is one not very far behind. Helps keep the sinews of war strong.

And yes indeedy this was a "blast".