Warlords 1 - sooooo's report

[sooooo]

Warlords 1 - Impi Zisshun

This was a variantless warlords game as the Zulu. Custom continents, monarch difficulty. My aim was to win a spaceship victory because I haven't built a spaceship in a non-OCC game since adventure 5 and have never got a sub-1900 spaceship. Furthermore I wanted to see if the constant whingers over at CFC were correct that the only way to win with the new patch is constant war.

I settle on the spot and started fishing and a warrior.

Next was work boat, another warrior and a 2nd work boat; research into mining and then bronze working. I whipped my first worker at size 4 - expansive civs in the new patch get a large benefit from whipping their early workers instead of building them with food. This would create a pattern of the capital building a warrior until size 4 then whipping a settler or worker and going back to size 2.

I didn't meet any civs for a long time - indeed I initially presumed Sirian set the number of continents to 1 per civ. But then I met Isabella (who had founded Buddhism) and Qin. Not Kublai, Qin. The layout of the map looked like every city would be coastal, so I went for sailing and masonry next to build the great lighthouse.



I like the Zulu's city names . nMgungundlovu was a fairly crappy site, but at least it expanded towards the AI and quickly got the copper - giving me some barb defense without having to research archery or IW. Nobamba would be my heroic epic city and would have been founded 1E if I had known about the horses at the time. My fogbusting warriors had found 2 peninsulas around the capital that could support cities, but first I wanted to expand towards the AIs.

Great lighthouse was built in 670 BC - my next targets were the great library and the colossus. I researched alphabet and literature and started the library in Ulandi again.



Bulawayo in the east would become a science city. Harrapan in the north was a barb city I captured. Nongoma was squeezed in near the capital because it became apparant that Ulandi did not need to work its wheat. kwaDukuza (what a name!) went onto the western peninsula to claim crabs, sheep and eventually whales. The settler selected would found a city 1E of the cows north of Ulandi and I would also capture a barb city Assyrian in the east which separated our empire from Spain.

You can see I am researching compass, which I do often now. On waterless maps it's great trade bait, and on continents maps it's on the way to optics.

Buddhism spread to myself and Qin so I converted.

Great library was built in 230 AD and around that time I got a great merchant from the lighthouse which I used to lightbulb metal casting. This let me build a forge and then the colossus in Ulandi again, completing the wonder in 740 AD.

I traded compass and MC around for things like code of laws, mathematics, IW, currency, calendar and then went for machinery, then optics. I also met Montezuma to the north - he didn't like me because he was the founder of hinduism. My plan was to use Izzy (who was friendly) as a buffer between Monty and Qin. But that plan fell through when Qin converted to Hinduism and Monty declared on Izzy, taking a couple of towns. I got back to cautious with Monty by gifting a tech, then when he asked me to join in and I agreed. I didn't really have an army except for a few crossbows, so my only action was to raze a couple of crappy spanish cities on my border. I also converted to hinduism when monty asked, but that wasn't for long because I was about to discover liberalism and go to free religion.

Being first to optics means you get (1) the circumnavigation, (2) get to trade with the other continent (Alex, Genghis and Stalin) first and (3) your world map is worth a lot of money - I sold mine for about 1500 gold. Liberalism was discovered in 1262 with the help of blowing a GS on education, taking Astronomy. Yes it obsoletes the colossus, but we get juicy foreign trade routes with our cheap harbours and can build observatories. Monty swallowed up most of spain and captured Madrid (after completely pillaging it of course). I founded Babanango and Ndondakusuka in the spanish ruins. Spain became a vassal of the Aztecs.



Monty was up to friendly with me and Qin was pleased too. Economics was next for the free merchant, then Sci meth and Physics for the free scientist. Monty then founded a city on my borders which gave us border tensions and dropped me to pleased. With him having a massive empire and way ahead in power, I built a lot of troops and put them in Babanango. I had hit WFYHBTA with most people, but genghis and Alex would still trade with me. Genghis was strangely second behind me in tech.

Qin was struggling with his small empire, last in power (apart from Izzy) and got declared on by Alex. He immediately became a peacetime vassal of Monty, which put Alex at war with Monty, Izzy and Qin - I bet Alex wasn't expecting that. I don't like the vassal system. No cities changed hands though. The war would restart again in the 19th century, but again nothing really happened.



I built the statue of liberty and broadway. I was slight tech leader with Genghis close behind, but I wasn't in danger of losing a space race. The only thing I feared was a diplomatic loss to Monty and his 2 vassals or war with Monty. The first wasn't an issue because the UN was only build 2 turns before the end of the game and the second would be OK because I had a thin border to defend and my power rating was OK. Also, Monty was pleased with me - not that reassuring but better than him being annoyed.

So anyway, with the help of this monster city



I built the spaceship in 1857 AD, with Monty being almost 2000 points ahead of me in score.



The game was enjoyable for me because I hadn't built a spaceship for ages and it was my first game on Warlords 2.08. It would have been harder if there were any financial or organised civs in the game. The only civ which you would call a "techer" is Qin, and he got boxed in by the start generator. Teching against Alex and Genghis wasn't so tough, so I still don't know if the whiners are correct when they say you have to war to win in Warlords 2.08.

[Atlas]

good game soooo, 1857 is a good date (a really good date considering you had about 8 tiles you cottage). So you managed to really stay out of wars (except picking at Lizzy's carcass)? That is really nice. A spaceship win... with Shaka . Well the map made that the least pain full option, custom continents is so big that early warfare is difficult, and on this map impossible.

[Swiss Pauli]

Warlords 1 - Impi Zisshun
Furthermore I wanted to see if the constant whingers over at CFC were correct that the only way to win with the new patch is constant war.

I had the same idea, although I knew that a peaceful tech to space was possible, having already done so, but I had a much closer race in this game as you'll see when I post my report later today. In your game, I think the way the vassal dynamic developed played into your hands insofar as potential rivals were too busy fighting (or preparing to fight) to derail your game.

Good win and nice idea with Nongoma: I struggled with using all that food efficiently at Ulundi.

[VoiceOfUnreason]

I whipped my first worker at size 4 - expansive civs in the new patch get a large benefit from whipping their early workers instead of building them with food.

Excellent - I had missed that. Another passage to add to the Vocum.

[Dawn]

Nice posting and good win.

The vassel thing got me though as I sided with Izzy. When she capitulated to Monty it stuck a number of my troops out in the open (I was defending in her cities along the front) and Monty promptly killed them. From there it was not pretty.

I'll see about posting my defeat later tonight or tomorrow.

[sooooo]

@Atlas: Yes, the map strongly favoured a space race here. Being able to peacefully expand to ~10 cities made war not a necessity.

@Dawn: I can see why it would have been tempting to help Izzy in that war. If she survived then you would still have a friendly buffer nation. Luckily for me, 2 cities changed hands in the first 2 turns of the war, and a 3rd a short time later. It wasn't hard to see who I should back. I would like to see your report

@VOU: Hmm, hadn't seen that article. Interesting.