Adventure 51 – Hannibal’s Own Medicine (The Non Oliver Stone version)

[ironstar]

Actually I just remembered that Oliver Stone did Alexander… Same same.


For those of you who do not wish to read the report in its full glory, you can find a summary of the result below (spoilered):

Scoring:
• Fastest Victory: 10,7,3,1 (1st-4th date of conquest).
1650, 1725, 1740 and 1816 AD
• Most Elite Unit: 5,3,1 (1st-3rd most XP on one unit)
130, 129 and 127xp
• 3pt for earliest Great General
775 BC
• 1pt for completing Stonehenge
Check!
• 1pt for completing Eiffel Tower
Negative
• 2pt for using a Nuke
Negative
• 3pt for killing the last defender with a gunship
Negative

Score TBD.

And here is the report, also spoilered because of the amount of images.

Alright, so Hannibal of Greece. Pretty solid leader and average civ. infinitely preferable to Carthage whose UB in an AW setting would be pretty crap. Normally I like to play a specialist economy, and love either Phi or Spi for lots of great people and slavery/org rel -> caste/pacifism (or nationhood/theo) switches. Chm however is not a trait I have used much. I suppose it is good for warfare, and in this scenario with endless swarms of enemies, the -25% for promotions will be huge. Financial will allow me to tech well and provide financial support for my conquests. The cottage economy however is a lot more vulnerable to pillaging than a specialist economy, and seeing as this is always war and I can expect plenty of enemy troops attempting to pillage my lands, I will probably lean towards some sort of hybrid. Cottage my core and farm my border cities and work specialists if possible.

This is my first ever stab at an AW game, so naturally I’m a little curious as to how that will turn out. I was fairly late to Civ4, having hung on to C3C, as I found my first few attempts at the game confusing with too much “new stuff”. However I gave it a second try a few years ago, and after stumbling upon Sulllas civ page I was led here to RB. I have learned quite a few tricks by reading reports here the last few years, and coupled with a long train commute to work every day I have certainly raised my skill level.
Normally I play on Emperor, and tend to do fairly well. I would probably describe myself as a solid player but nothing special.

Ok, so on the game. I boot up the save and find myself looking at a solid start which is perfectly suited to my hunting/fishing start with deer and fish in the capitals BFC. With the settler starting on a 2-hammer PH tile I see no reason not to settle in place. The fact that I have 6 water tiles (2 of which are fresh water), is of course not ideal seen from a bureaucracy viewpoint, but I will just have to suck it up.
I decide to take a risk in the start by opening with a worker, working the rice and researching agriculture, despite my scout start. Hopefully I will not end up like Mortius.

On turn 10 I find my first opponent directly south of me: Suleiman (Phi/Imp) of Arabia (Camel archers).

I guess that I can expect another opponent on the other side of the mountain range located to my east as well. The mountains will shield me from and invasion from Sule except for the small 1tile Thermopylaesque access point. I will most definitely want to settle a city there to be able to slow down his advance through culture, and hit any incoming units on flatland. My scout reveals Sules start to be mirrored to mine. After agriculture I start research on archery. My worker starts to camp the deer as I prefer the extra hammer instead of the extra food of the rice as long as I don’t have slavery, and I want to build a workboat next if possible. Luckily I have a plains hill forest so I can quickly push out a 3t warrior if I’m being threatened.
On turn 13 Hinduism is founded in Mecca, Suleimans capital. I continue to scout in an anti-clockwise direction, and find Hammarubi (Agg/Org) of Ethiopia. So I can expect to fight Agg Oromo warriors later.

Next up I find Ramasses (Spi/Ind) of Japan. So that means I will probably see a fierce contest of wonders and also Sammurais. I set research on mining to hook up my silver, and to get to bronze working. I finish my workboat on the same turn as I grow to size 3, working the deer and rice. Unfortunately this tech path meant that my worker had to put two turns into a farm on his way to the mine, otherwise he would have nothing to do. I’m not even sure I want to finish a farm there, maybe for the early game growth, but I will most definitely lay down a cottage there later.

The last civ in the game turned out to be Brennus, a fellow Charismatic bastard (also Spi), in charge of the Spanish civilization and the founder of Buddhism. So I can expect to see Conquistadors later, great. What was my UU again, an axeman with a spear instead of an axe? Ok cool.
He came at me with a scout, so I diverted production into a warrior and worked the PHF to speed him up. The scout turned away however, but I still finished the warrior and followed him up with an archer.

So to sum up my start, my two immediate neighbors both have a 2move UU, the resourceless knight replacement that is the Camel archer and the cuirassier replacement that is the Conquistador. With the Conq’s 50% against melee, pikes are really not an option here, the only counters I can bring are cuirassiers or rifles. The fact that I’m Chm is pretty much negated against Brennus, but WILL help me out against Suleiman (I’m looking at you Formation promotion).
Thank God none of them are creative so I should be able to establish defensible borders, however they have both founded an early religion which of course will help them immensely in terms of a culture contest. I wonder if the faith will spread to me when we’re playing AW.

Now as I’m Charismatic, Henge would obviously be great for me. But with my two neighbours starting with mysticism and an Industrious Ramasses in the game, I hold no hopes of landing that particular wonder.
After having teched BW, copper is revealed very close to my capital. I decide to put my first city at the tight Thermopylae pass into Suleimans lands instead of grabbing copper. I’t will be under my cultural control soon enough. Hilariously the city is autonamed SPARTA! How very fitting.
I chop a forest to speed up my settler and revolt to slavery while he is traveling to the new city location, because apparently, that’s what all the cool kids do

On turn 44 I decide to research mysticism. Henge has still not fallen which leads me to do a halfhearted attempt at grabbing the wonder. I would really like to not have to invest all those hammers into monuments. So I whip an archer to completion, taking 25 shields worth of overflow into the wonder along with my 9 base hammers. I have two workers chopping wooden forests to speed construction of the stone circle. I guess you need tree logs to roll the big rocks unto the construction site?

Scouting reveals a pretty juice site up north on a long distended finger from the mainland.

Wet corn, rice, stone and fish, mmm. The only land connection is through my lands, however Brennus can easily travel across with a galley and snatch the site. If I could land that site, it would be pretty well defensible though. A city on the riverside plains and Guerilla archers on the two southern hills and with the forests chopped he would only be able to land on flatland and be easy prey.

A survey shows Brennus to be the least powerful civilization just behind myself, so that’s sort of a relief.


In 1920BC my half-assed attempt ends up landing me Stonehenge, which I’m pretty pleased about. Hopefully it did not cost me too much in terms of development. Now I need to push out settlers to stake my claim, luckily the +1 happy from my free monuments will help negate the whip a bit. Actually it is only after I get the wonder that I realize that this gives me scenario points in this particular adventure… Lucky me

I settled my third city at the pass to Brennus and researched through writing and sailing before dialing up maths to power up the chops. I started to build some phalanxes, and not too soon as the first Arabian units started to trickle into my borders on turn.
I got my first GG on turn 84 after slaughtering parts of a stack from Suleiman and used him on a 8/8 xp phalanx to create my first uber unit. He got morale, leadership and combat II on top of his combat I and shock. The last promotion I kept in reserve for healing purposes. Bring on the axes 
I would actually come to like the phalanx a lot, as the AI invaded with dozens of chariots at this part of the game, and with the 100% defence against chariots, I didn’t have to go overboard in the spear department early on.

I built the Oracle almost as an afterthought in 300BC, taking MC. Could easily have researched CoL and taken CS, but I honestly didn’t think I could snatch the Oracle that late in the game. What’s up with that, is it AW or Monarch which causes the other civ’s to suck at wonder whoring? There’s even an industrial civ in the game, and still I have been able to push out not one, but two wonders on very late dates.
It is not as if Ramasses didn’t compete for wonders though, it’s just that the ones he built early on where really weird, like ToA and Great Wall. Though when I think about it, GW would probably be pretty damn decent in an AW game. However being Industrious Egypt and not building Henge can only be described as pure

After having researched monarchy, I went through the cheap religious techs and lightbulbed theology in 225BC for my very own religion. This also opened up Theocracy, however with the need for forges and markets on the horizon as well as the ability to build missionaries without a monastery I chose to revolt into HR and Organized religion instead. I realize this is a game where fastest finish gets a reward, however I didn’t want to completely destroy my finances with a war just yet.

In 25 BC I razed my first city, an Arabian border city and popped my 2nd GG. I had just researched construction and went unto currency.
In 50 AD I build the Colossus. That is huge for all my water tiles, me being financial and all. This will help my research immensely. The turn after I get a random event revolt in my capital, costing 1 pop, -12 gold and 1 turn of disorder the turn before I was about to finish a settler… Sigh.

I’ve had a workboat scout around the world and found an interesting island down south with ivory. As the map is mirrored I figured I would have one such island of my own and dispatched a galley with a settler and a worker. True enough, I found what I was looking for and wasted no time in hooking up my ivory.
I got heavily invaded in 520AD and shuffled some units from my other front to deal with the problems. This was by far the biggest attack I had yet to face at that time.

Apart from minor pillaging I held on and destroyed the units using “advanced” weaponry, such as catapults and war elephants.

After I had researched civil service I revolted to Beaurocracy and Theocracy and started my military builds. I got a random event at some point, The Master Blacksmith which needed 7 forges for completion. In 980AD I completed the quest and got a free engineer specialist in my capital.

I spent 1 turn picking up alphabet in order to lightbulb Guilds using a Great merchant previously spawned from the Colossus. It’s Knight Time Baby! The AI attacked quite heavily at this point in time and the presence of enemy war elephants meant that I had to sacrifice a number of catapults before attacking with my own mounted units. However I began to accumulate a lot of formation Knights which relieved some of the pressure as I began to get decent odds in every battle.

In 1060AD I pop a Great Engineer from my capital and start a golden age. Having just discovered banking I switch to mercantilism for the free specialists. Before state property this is by far the best option in an always war game I would assume. Along with merc I chose caste system in order to generate a couple of GPs during my GA. Heroic Epic went in my capital and after a university it pumped out knights till the end of the world. The AI continued to pour on with stacks comprised of HA/WE, some random melee and a lot of siege. In between numerous flanking killings I pop a 3% odds Great Spy after having run 9 caste scientists during my golden age. I grab the free merchant at Economics in 1230AD and use the two GP’s to start yet another golden age before going after Liberalism and Taj Mahal. I have expanded to Suleimans island down in the southwest in a rather risky move to claim marble, in order to speed up the Taj.

Here is an overview picture of the Empire:


I finally pop a GS in 1300AD and decide to use him to lightbulb Printing Press. I feel it is too late for an academy to make any big difference and would rather just have the raw beakers.
In 1420AD I complete Taj Mahal and start my 3rd golden age.
My Taj golden age ends in 1505AD coinciding with me discovering rifling and revolting to nationhood. I carry out mass upgrades of cuirassiers to cavalry and my GG maces to riflemen. Trained a couple of CRII maces for upgrades just before discovering rifling, only to discover that I am still able to train macemen. I have just installed 3.19 before playing this game, playing 3.17 before – I guess this is the reason?

In 1530AD I launch my invasion against Brennus in the east. Because of the massive culture output of my border city of Corinth (Colossus, Oracle and a bunch of assorted culture buildings), I am able to hit the Spanish city of Seville on the first turn of war by roading a plain tile on the border. My stack of cavalry decimate his longbows even behind 60% cultural defense and I raze the city.
I split off a 2nd strike force consisting of assorted cavs and a GG rifleman with morale promotion heading toward the capital of Madrid:


I am researching optics as Suleiman has put caravels in the water and I need to respond in kind. On my other front Hammurabi is now bringing Knights to the party for the first time, but I have two GG riflemen and a whole lot of cavalry ready to greet him at The Gates of Hell!!!™ also known as Sparta.

Two turns later I have conquered Madrid, deciding to keep the city as it has an Academy and two settled scientists and a general. In 1555 I conquer Cordoba and decide to keep it, as I have brought rifles and would like the city defense bonus while I heal up my stack (I have brought a GG Medic3 chariot for that very purpose).

In 1575 I capture Barcelona, the Spanish border city next to Japan. I keep it. This allows me to finally shift all my defenses from Corinth, my old border city to the east, after some 5000 years of constant siege. The same turn I discover Steel for cannons.

By 1600AD only Brennus’ offshore ivory island remains. I had planned to ferry to cavalry across with a galley, however a caravel sunk my ship on the interturn. This delayed my conquest of Spain for about 10 turns… 

I razed Japan’s border city at the cost of two CRII riflemen… I need to start bringing cannons to the front to deal with the 60% cultural defenses, or at least just to cause some collateral first.
In 1625 I capture the Japanese capital of Kyoto. Meanwhile my attempts to march against Suleimans capital keeps getting delayed by big stacks from Hammurabi that I need to kill first.

In 1650 the Spanish finally bite the dust and I get my first conquest in the books.

In 1675 I’m finally able to move through Suleimans land and I raze the capital of Mecca, angering about half the worlds population.
Suleimans Arabs are quickly collapsing, however on the other front Hammurabi is still putting up a brave face as evidenced by this border garrison:


A few turns later this stack was wiped out to the last man.

In 1725 I raze the last remaining city of the Arabs and that’s strike two in terms of destroyed civilizations:


The Japanese are not long in this world either, however I’m delayed by a fairly long traveling time to their last cities. Three turns later and the Japanese are no more. Third conquest in 1740:


Now its purely mop up time. Finally:


1816 AD conquest. 10 hrs and 8 mins playing time.

Here is a screenshot of my Great Generals:


Some of the units killed and lost in the game:


And here a couple of shots of the demographics:





And finally the in game score:


There’s no doubt in my mind that these dates will be beaten soundly. I guess a much earlier invasion with horse archers, war elephants or knights, transfusing the economy with pillage gold, would be possible. In the words of the famous philosopher: “Get rich or die tryin’”.

To end it all, a funny little remark: I initially thought that this AW scenario was in effect FFA. So when I suddenly got invaded by three different nations allied, I had to juggle quite a bit of defenses around.

And a final (final) remark: Thanks to Ceiliazul for sponsoring this Adventure, it was great fun. I hope there will be more of these, as I would like to play more and wasn’t around back in the day to play the first 50.

NB: Sorry for all the switches between present and past tense. English is not my first language.

[Compromise]

Interesting read, ironstar. Congratulations on your first Always War win.

Comparing with some of the faster finishes, you can see what a difference it makes if you take the fight to the AI early.

Even in this game, I'm surprised you used a Great Engineer to start a Golden Age.

Perhaps you misunderstood the scoring system, but...maybe I did. If one person can get points for *each* of the three most-promoted units, then you would sweep those points! Hadn't even considered that interpretation of the scoring writeup....

[ironstar]

Thanks for the comment, always nice to get feedback.

Regarding the engineer, I can't quite remember my reason. I think it was because I had just discovered banking and wanted a revoltfree civics swap into merc. In hindsight I could perhaps have saved him for Taj, but on the other hand, I feel that I got good benefit from merc.

About the scoring system. It actually never ocurred to me that one player couldn't claim all three, which is why I used my first couple of GG's to attach rather than settle.
I did not use the trick NobleHelium described when attaching GGs, so all the XP (apart from the first 20 from the GG attachment) was obtained through killing. A shame you can't see the number of kills for an individual unit like in Starcraft. This was the only area of my play where I milked it a bit, trying to get loads of kills with my GG units.

Finally about the finish date. Yeah I guess I have a lot to learn
I just turtled until I could get a tech edge and then steamrolled the AI.

After reading the other threads I can see that this is perhaps not the ideal way of dealing with an AW scenario heh.

Also regarding the events. I actually didn't know that the partisan spawnings originated from an event (although in hindsight, what else could it be?) but appearantly Hammurabi got that event as he spawned ungodly amounts of units when I conquered him. I also got the wedding peace deal event with Spain, and out of curiosity clicked "Yes" which was followed by an immediate autodeclare. I did not have any units in Brennus' land and he didn't have any in mine anyway.

[ironstar]

Hmm thought I wrote this in the report but apparently I forgot. Before the game I decided not to spoil myself on the map info

[waterbat]

was that an option? How did I miss it?

[ironstar]

No that was a voluntary "handicap". No extra points

[T-hawk]

I initially thought that this AW scenario was in effect FFA.

Technically it is, in that the other civs *could* declare war on each other. The AI will never do so strategically though; they will never declare a war while already in one.

NB: Sorry for all the switches between present and past tense. English is not my first language.

I do that all the time in reports too, don't worry about it.

Perhaps you misunderstood the scoring system, but...maybe I did. If one person can get points for *each* of the three most-promoted units, then you would sweep those points! Hadn't even considered that interpretation of the scoring writeup....

Yeah... Historically, this is usually figured by considering each player's best result, so separate players take the points for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. If the sponsor wants to interpret it the other way here, that's up to him, but I'd recommend against that.

FYI to Ceiliazul: your last duty as sponsor is to compile the scoring results and nominate a winner, when you get a chance.

[Ceiliazul]

FYI to Ceiliazul: your last duty as sponsor is to compile the scoring results and nominate a winner, when you get a chance.

In the works, T-Hawk. And yes, separate players will score 1st, 2nd, etc.