Adv20 - haphazard1's report

[haphazard1]

I started this event late due to Epic 11, but it looked very interesting and I wanted to give it a try. With a small map at normal speed, I hoped I would be able to finish in time.

The scenario Sulla set up had three aspects which pointed to a strategy very different from my normal style of play:

-- Early religion(s) would be key for early shrines for income and influence
-- Limits on financial buildings (no courthouses anywhere, markets/grocers/banks only in holy cities)
-- Philosophical leader

As I have never gone for an early religion, tend to play with a heavy emphasis on the financial buildings, and have never played a Philosophical leader (and am far from expert on the use of specialists), this scenario would be a great chance to try a different sort of game. And being on Noble difficulty, I should be able to make a fair go of it despite playing well outside my comfort zone.

My initial plan is to grab Buddhism (no other spiritual civs, so this should be a lock), and then go for Hinduism. If I can claim both, I will establish a strong religious base for myself and limit the AI civs' early access to religion. Longer term, I should be able to grab at least one or two more religions if I can keep my tech rate strong. By spreading all my religions widely within my own empire and to other civs where possible, and building holy shrines for multiple religions, I should end up with very large shrine income to offset the lack of financial buildings.

Now to see if I can turn this plan into results - on to the game!

Where to found the capital? I don't like those mountains in my capital radius, but I definitely want both the sheep and the wheat. The starting tile (on both the river and the coast) looks good, but let's send the warrior SW to the hill and see if anything else is visible. Nothing exciting appears, so I found on the starting tile.



I set research to Meditation to start grabbing religions, and start building a worker. I need to improve those two food resources as soon as possible, and should be able to sneak in a worker tech or two when needed.

My warrior heads for the hut visible to the south, and I get a HUGE break:



Agriculture! My worker will be able to improve that wheat, and I can keep working on religious techs. Very big stroke of luck.

In 3720 AD, the first part of my plan comes through as expected:



I convert - why not, I'm spiritual, and can always change later without penalty. I love playing spiritual civs.

Early exploration is looking good -- there are cows, wine, and fish at a nice site to the west, and another hut provides a map showing still more good land further west. Looks like my first settler will be heading towards the setting sun.

3400 BC - Mecca finishes the worker, who starts on the wheat. Start a warrior for more scouting and protection.

The following turn my scouting warrior pops a hut, and the villagers are hostile! With a lion also nearby, well...it's been nice knowing you, brave warrior!



The following millenia or so is mostly quiet, with Mecca growing in size and producing a series of warriors to replace scouts eaten by lions and bears -- my luck with barbs was HORRIBLE throughout the game, with multiple defenders losing to attackers with < 20% odds. Notable dates are 3280 BC:



And 2480 BC:



My plans have borne fruit, and the dreaded hydra BudHinJewism has grown in Mecca!

I have been exploring -- with several losses to barb animals -- and have found additional good city sites to the south along the river, and to the east where I have found a source of marble. As a philosophical leader, I want those marble-boosted wonders to spawn many great people! I have also met emissaries from Catherine, Napoleon, and Frederick -- an interesting and somewhat worrisome group of rivals. Research has proceeded through Hunting to Animal Husbandry; my religion-mongering has slowed my development and I need worker techs.

2120 BC - Mecca finishes my first settler, and I send him west to the cows/fish/wine site on the coast. My worker has been building a road to speed things along and network the cities, and it is only a couple of turns before Medina is founded:



The spacing from the capital is a bit more than I usually like for the second city, but I wanted the resources as my scouting had found relatively few specials on the map so far. (I believe this is normal for the oasis map script.) Also, due to the financial building limitations of the variant, I was going to need to space my cities out a little more to reach domination without going bankrupt. I could always found a fill-in city if necessary -- there were some decent tiles between the cities.

A couple turns later I finished Animal Husbandry, and discover horses in range of Medina! Excellent luck indeed, and there is a second source to the east near the marble. That looks like the best site for my third city. I start Mining (en route to Bronze Working), and hope to have as good of luck with copper. I need better units, with barbs (animal and human) on the prowl. Not to mention my rivals....

Exploring the southeast, I find stone! But it is very close to French territory, and will almost certainly be claimed by Napoleon. I also find an incredible site, a plains hill with desert corn and _11_ flood plains - DROOL!!! Not much else there, but with that much food and commerce, who cares?

1600 BC - I meet the fourth AI leader, Washington. Fred is top scorer, and overall I'm not stacking up too well:



Trailing in every meaningful category, and dead last by a large margin in soldiers. Lots of work to be done.

My second settler is built and heads east for the marble site, but is delayed a few turns by a barb warrior. In the interval, I complete Bronze Working and find copper at Mecca - big sigh of relief! I will be able to start building stronger units shortly. I revolt and double swap to Slavery and Organized Religion to speed production.

Damascus is finally founded in 1440 BC:



With marble, horses, fish, and lots of hills, Damascus will become a strong hammer city and produce many troops throughout the game.

Research continues moving forward with Archery (for defense), Priesthood (cheap temples, and priest specialists to generate a great prophet or two for shrines), and Pottery (for granaries, and cottages for that flood plains site). Things continue to be quiet, although Napoleon builds a city along the river to the south of Mecca. Annoying, and poor siting as well; I had tentatively dot-mapped two cities in the same area, although I did not expect to get the more southern site; now there will only be one mediocre city.

On a much more positive note, in 1160 BC Napoleon converts to Hinduism! Since I have the hydra, and nothing has spread to my other cities yet anyway, I convert to Hinduism as well. Our French brothers and sisters of the faith will become allies in this harsh land! In fact, Napoleon and I would both remain Hindu (with one short break due to on my part) for the rest of the game, and it would help the diplomatic situation greatly.

850 BC - Stonehenge is BIFAL (turns out to be Napoleon). I never considered going for it, planning to rely on religion for culture instead.

The same turn, I produce my first (!) archer. My military is truly pathetic -- the demo screen shows me with 1/3 the soldiers of the weakest AI! I MUST build more units soon, but I finally got copper hooked up a couple turns ago, so I will have some better units shortly. I also look at the score -- it is sort of depressing to be dead last on Noble.

A couple turns later I finish Writing, and negotiate open borders with everyone for the diplo boost. I start Fishing to be able to use my coastal tiles and resources; I'm still cleaning up basic techs, no wonder I'm in last.

750 BC - My third settler reaches that plains hill surrounded by flood plains, and Baghdad is founded:



Baghdad would become by far my best commcerce city, with all 11 flood plains cottaged. It would also be whipped repeatedly for infrastructure of every kind -- I don't even know how many times, but I recall the city having a +8 "cruel oppression" penalty at one point. I say it, it good!

[haphazard1]

A number of turns pass quietly, with continued scouting. (I'm trying to do better than I did in Epic 11; I usually stink at scouting, and have to remind myself to get units out there.) An amusing moment occurs in 625 BC, as four of the five civs meet up near Hamburg. Too bad the Germans wouldn't come out and play.



575 BC - Mecca completes the Oracle (having marble is wonderful) and I grab Monarchy as the free tech. I have two wine tiles at Medina, and I want Heriditary Rule for happiness. My spread out cities are hammering me with maintenance costs, and my tech rate is only at 50%, so the free grab saves me 23 (!) turns. I revolt to HR immediately.

The same turn, Buddhism spreads to Baghdad. Why couldn't it have been Hinduism? More on my part, I failed to spread Hinduism among my own cities aggressively, despite being in Organized Religion and able to build the missionaries easily. I kept hoping it would spread on its own, but I should have prioritized it to get the civic bonuses.

A few turns later, I get a break as Hindusim spreads to Moscow! Cathy converts the following turn, and my plans for shared religion driving a friendly diplomatic scene are proceeding nicely.

I have started the Parthenon in Mecca, and am running a priest specialist to produce a great prophet. I need some shrine income to get my science rate back up, and boosting spread further can only help.

I also get a scouting warrior down to the far southwest, and find the American capital. WOW!!! Look at this city:



Cows, pigs, bananas, sugar, dye -- plus copper nearby, and lots of forest and some hills. What a powerhouse! So why is Washington in last, and by a significant margin? (Notice that I've moved from last to first -- a wonder and a free tech make the whole world look brighter. ) Germany is to the immediate east; maybe being in the corner is squeezing Washington for land?

An additional bit of AI in that shot: note the archer stationed to guard the copper...despite it being in the corner, totally shielded by American culture for many tiles in all directions. It's a small thing, but still....

A couple turns later I get a bit of a scare, as a barb axeman appears and heads for my capital! (The axe on the right is actually French, the color is hard to tell.)



In Mecca are...one archer and one warrior. Uh oh...my military UNpreparedness is coming back to bite me. Fortunately I've got an axe building. I suffer some more bad luck - my axe loses to the barb at over 70% odds, the archer tries to cleanup the wounded barb and also dies(!), leaving the warrior to finally finish. Too close...I must build more units! (I keep saying that, but....)

325 BC - a major setback! Confucianism is FIDL. I should have prioritized Code of Laws more, but since we can not build courthouses as per the variant rules, I let it slip. on my part, and now I'm going to have a religious enemy to deal with. Turns out to be Cathy...wonderful. She's a pain to deal with WITHOUT religion in the bargain.

Two turns later, the Oracle and my priest specialist produce a great prophet in Mecca. Theology is still safe, so instead of lightbulbing:



Hopefully this will help Hinduism spread further. I can't really afford to build missionaries at the moment, with my pitifully weak military being pressed by barbs and suffering losses faster than I can replace them. (The years from about 500 BC to the AD changeover were absolutely plagued with barbs.)

100 BC - Mecca completes the Parthenon. I am planning to use my philosophical trait, combined with lots of marble-boosted wonders and some specialists, to generate lots of great people, and this will help significantly. A few turns later, the first payoff is a great prophet in Mecca. This time I go for the lightbulb:



Damascus is now a holy city! With its position on the coast, it will make an excellent commerce city, and can now (by variant rules) build financial buildings. This also keeps Christianity out of AI hands -- no need to compound my mistake.

Here is my empire when the AD changeover arrived:



Only four cities, but each a strong contributor. There is still land available to the southwest and the southeast, but I am not in any hurry to expand further. My military is still very weak, and I am struggling to defend what I already have.

The early AD years see the completion of Currency (trade routes to improve my income, and markets in Mecca and Damascus) and Horseback Riding (I need something to kill barb axes). In 300 AD, the Pyramids are completed by Cathy -- I did not try for them. Fred converts to Buddhism the same turn -- he has moved ahead of Napoleon in score, but is far away while the French are close neighbors. I stay Hindu.

325 AD - Medina completes the Great Lighthouse, boosting trade income for 3 of my 4 cities. Medina has developed into a solid hammer city, and will build a couple more wonders as well as a LOT of troops. The Heroic Epic will eventually be built here.

The following turn Mecca produces another great prophet:



With two shrines, Mecca is now bringing in a very nice income. And the following turn it completes a major project:



More multiplied great person points for Mecca, and some much-needed science for my empire. I finish Drama the following turn, and begin Philosophy to make sure no one else gets Taoism.

The next couple hundred years are quiet - the barb threat finally dies down, despite the founding of two barb cities (one southwest, one southeast). I fend off some no-win diplomatic demands to cancel deals, and rack up a few negatives with Fred and Cathy. I avoid offending Napoleon, due to our close borders.

500 AD - Washington converts to Confucianism. Drat. My plans for religious harmony are in shambles, with only the French sharing my state religion. The diplomatic situation is tense, due to religious penalties, but so far things stay peaceful.

A couple turns later Mecca completes the National Epic, and with +250% to GPP is producing 63 per turn. An abundance of great people is just what I need to drive my civ to a controlling position, and they will come frequently with stacked bonuses from being Philosophical, the Parthenon, and the National Epic.

600 AD - I wrap up Philosophy first...



and then use another great prophet from Mecca to lightbulb most of Divine Right:



Taoism founds in Baghdad, and Islam in Medina -- all four of my cities are now holy cities! Variant restrictions on financial buildings, what are those?

A couple turns later, Mecca produces my first great scientist -- the great people are coming every few turns. He goes to build an academy in Baghdad, which is producing torrents of commerce from all those cottaged flood plains.

760 AD - I reach Music first, and the free great artist lightbulbs Feudalism. I start a round of longbow upgrades, and start researching Civil Service. My military is finally becoming vaguely respectable.

860 AD - Napoleon finishes the Hanging Gardens. I would have liked this one, but with only four cities I just couldn't prioritize it. Napoleon is industrious, so I might not have gotten it anyway.

A couple turns later I finish the Sistine Chapel in Medina for a strong cultural boost to my western border, which is under pressure from Russia. I finish Civil Service the same turn and revolt to Beauracracy. My capital is still my strongest city, and the boost will be very welcome.

One turn later Mecca produces ANOTHER great prophet, who goes to build the Taoist shrine in Baghdad, which is under cultural pressure from the French. Some more income never hurts, either.

I continue aggressively pushing for wonders, and in 980 AD Mecca completes Angkor Wat. With cheap spiritual temples, boosted priest specialists will come in very handy. Cathy complets Chichen Itza the same turn -- I did not pursue this one.

During this period, a barb city had appeared southeast of Medina. There had been four barb cities in various places, which I had ignored, but Zapotec happened to have gold in its radius, and my growing cities were badly in need of happiness. I gathered some troops (I actually had a few by this point), and in 1000 AD I took the city. Five cities...what a concept.

A few turns later I complete Machinery, and find I have complete tech superiority for the first time in the game!



It has taken quite a while to get here - 1060 AD for outright tech lead on Noble is rather late - but now I can begin planning to take over the world. I need a full generation (at least) of military tech over my rivals to realistically be able to conquer them all. With Machinery I have macemen, but my opponents are at (or nearly at) Feudalism for longbows, so any fighting would be very messy. I will continue to bide my time, pushing my tech lead to grab key wonders and military advantages, and then I will attack. Ideally, this will be a classic cav rush, and with my good, dear friend Napoleon being the only one with iron, pikes should not be a problem. Now I just need to get the techs, and build an army.

1080 AD - Mecca produces ANOTHER (!) great prophet. Islamic shrine, this time.

Over the next 200 years, I continue building wonders (Notre Dame in Mecca, Spiral Minaret in Medina, Colossus in Damascus, Hagia Sophia in Mecca) and researching (Engineering -> Guilds -> Compass -> Banking -> Nationalism (~1/2 lightbulbed by a random great artist from Mecca). My civ is just roaring along at this point, with seemingly another wonder or tech every couple of turns. Every game should be like this.

1290 AD - A stroke of good fortune for Arabia, as I "pop another one" and get a second source of copper on the hill 2S of Mecca.



I have never actually had this event before; I usually emphasize food production heavily and KMad indicated in the Epic 11 discussions that this makes such events less likely. Nice to see, even if it is a resource I already have.

The diplomatic situation to date has been amazingly calm, probably because there was still some unclaimed land and a few barb cities for the AIs to vent their anger on...but I knew it could not last. And in 1310 AD, the peace is broken for the first time, as Cathy declares on her fellow Confucian, Washington. They had border conflict, and Washington was the weakest civ, which apparently overcame their shared faith. Or maybe old George made the mistake of turning her down....

The following turn I complete Gunpowder, and move on to Paper. A quick push to Liberalism is in order before going for Military Tradition, as I don't want anyone else beating me to the free tech and grabbing a key military tech of any kind.

I also FINALLY realize I've been an idiot and spread my state religion to Baghdad and Zapotec. Should have done this MUCH earlier. Both cities are being whipped mercilessly, as their massive food production far outpaces their hammer capacity.

1370 AD - Mecca completes a key project:



The golden age boosts research still further, and in 1420 AD I complete Military Tradition. Multiple cities begin building cavalry, with Zapotec turning out catapults to support the coming war effort.

Two turns later, the citizens of Marseilles have had enough of Napoleon's boring leadership:



This brings stone under my control, although it is too late for it to be truly useful. Note the American territory to the southeast -- Washington sent troops all the way over to capture a barb city here.

A few turns later, the conflict spreads as Fred declares on Cathy! He also founds a city southwest of Medina, pushing hard against my borders. I am not pleased by this...maybe Fred should be the first victim of our coming expansion drive?

[haphazard1]

The next turn Mecca produces ANOTHER (!!!) great prophet -- this is getting ridiculous. I decide to use the prophet and a great artist from a few turns earlier to trigger a second golden age. The extra production will speed my military buildup.

All the warring civs are asking for my support, for techs, for resources -- relations with everyone but Napoleon are dropping fast. Someone may declare on me before I'm quite good and ready! In 1520 AD I manage to buy Washington's world map for 100 gold, which reveals a fair bit of Russian and German territory I had not scouted -- it's good to know where the targets are. My cavs are ready, it's time to start the drive to domination! First up is Fred -- I declare and start with the city he founded a few turns back:



The AI sure did like that area -- note the ruins of a barb city 1W of (former) Stuttgart. The French would later sneak a settler here as well. The city was size 1 and auto-razed, but I would have torched it anyway; it would have been too exposed to counter-attack by Cathy. She was semi-agreeable for the moment, due to our shared military struggle with Germany, but that would not last. I was planning to wipe out everyone but Napoleon, who was up to Friendly despite our border tensions. The other three civs' territory should be plenty to reach the 68% domination threshold, and I didn't want to fight the French and their pikes anyway if I could avoid it. Also, since France did not have open borders with the other three civs, I could leave my eastern holdings with minimal defenders and pour all available forces into conquering the western half of the map. I would have to deal with the Americans' captured barb city at some point, though.

The following turn I revolt to Vassalage and Theocracy (should have done this when I started my troop buildup, more on my part), and hit Dortmund:



Checking the tech screen this turn, I was shocked to see Washington had Education -- I'm still two turns short! He might grab Liberalism! I shift science to 90% (I had been running much lower to generate cash for upgrades), producing this science bar the following turn:



Not QUITE enough.

Cathy asks me to declare on Washington, and I agree. He is the weakest civ, and I need to keep Cathy happy until I'm ready to eliminate her. I'm planning to wipe him out anyway, this just accelerates things a bit.

1545 AD - Moving south into the German heartland, I capture Frankfurt. Longbows and spearmen just can not stand up to cavalry. I am not even bothering to take down the cultural defenses, but just overrunning everything in sight with cavalry. I lose an occasional cav, but most of my units are rapidly gaining experience and promotions, increasing my advantage even more.

The following turn I finish Liberalism, and grab Economics for the free Great Merchant. Rifling is next, and I will need cash for mass upgrades. I send the merchant to France, eventually netting 1300 gold from Paris.

I make what turns out to be another move this turn, revolting to Free Markets and Free Religion. I was desperate for happiness, and with several religions in my core cities Free Religion would help. Losing the shared faith bonus with Napoleon was a big problem, though; I was relying on him staying out of the fight. I would reverse this move the minimum five turns later -- definitely was not thinking straight. What I should have done is bump up the culture slider, but I was pushing hard for Rifling and did not want to reduce science.

Having declared on Washington at Cathy's request, I needed to do something about that lone American city to my southeast:



A musketman and an elephant were a bit of a problem for cav, and I didn't have much in the east, but I started making plans to scrape up some kind of force.

1555 AD - The campaign in the west continued to roll - Essen was only defended by a longbow, a spear, and a catapult, and fell easily.



The same turn, Mecca generated a great scientist. I wasn't sure what to do with this guy, and ended up sending him to build an academy in Medina. I should have used him to lightbulb (Chemistry was the option), but estimated that there were enough turns left in the game for the academy to payoff. I turned out to be incorrect by about 1/3 on this.

The following turn, Napoleon demanded Education. Relations were suffering due to my switch to Free Religion, so I gave it to him. Consequences of my own stupidity.

I continued pushing against Germany, but Berlin was a bit better defended:



Three longbows, on a hill, 60% culture, plus cats and an elephant. I would need more than cavalry to take Berlin; fortunately Zapotec had been cranking out catapults regularly for some time now, and I had kept them near the front. It would take a few turns to get them where I needed them, though.

In the meantime, my scratch force in the east ended the American threat to my back lines:



Yes, macemen. There was one cav in the attack, but he was killed by the American elephant after taking out the defending musketman. Note Rifling is still not finished, as I had given in and started bumping up the culture slider.

My merchant reached Paris the same turn, and look at what Napoleon has sitting around:





Yeah, I really do NOT want to have to fight Napoleon! My core cities, being away from the fighting, have only a single obsolete defender each. I need to get France back to friendly, like right now. I swap back to Theocracy and Hinduism after the minimum five turns.

1580 AD - Munich falls to the advancing Arabian forces. I am still gathering siege forces for the much tougher nut of Berlin.

1590 AD - Rifling finally finishes, after repeated bumps of the culture slider left it at four turns for about four turns. Science is dropped to zero as I accumulate upgrade cash and start mass rifle upgrades.

1605 AD - Some losses and many wounded units, but the German capital is taken:

[haphazard1]

The following turn Cathy takes Boston, and Washington offers 80 gold for peace -- I agree. War weariness is crushing, and the culture slider is up to 50% with three German cities left. I will need the break before resuming the attack, assuming Cathy leaves anything of America by then. She has already taken Chicago and Atlanta as well, leaving only Washington and New York in American control. (Philadelphia has been German for some time.)

I spend the next few turns healing units and gathering forces to attack Hamburg, the new German capital. I finish upgrading all applicable units to rifles, and get a little science going again - 20%. Another great merchant (from Medina for a change) lightbulbs about half of Constitution, saving 10 turns. I check the victory screen in 1625 AD and find I have 34.03% of total land area -- halfway to the threshold!

The following turn I spot French units moving west, 4W, 1N of Essen:





With the border stress at Essen pushing the modifier to -4, Napoleon is at Pleased (+11, where +12 has been Friendly). I'm probably safe, and at least the stack is here and not heading for my capital, but.... Here's the power graph; despite my build up, Napoleon is no pushover:



Where is Napoleon sending all those troops? Trade screen shows he has enough on his hands, so someone has got some incoming. Sure hope it isn't me. Even if it is not, if France annexes enough western territory I may have to fight them to get enough land for domination. That could delay my finish by dozens of turns.

On the more positive side, I capture Hamburg, with four workers in the deal:



Only Cologne and the minor city of Philadelphia left...and Philly falls the next turn. I begin gathering my forces to take Cologne and eliminate Fred once and for all.

1645 AD - Napoleon declares on Fred and moves his stack into German territory. But my forces are already in place, and take Cologne!



One down, two (hopefully only two) to go. The question of the moment is what will France do -- return its forces to the homeland or declare on someone else?

Here's a look at the southwest corner of the map after the fall of Germany:



Washington has only two cities left, which I will clean up as soon as our peace deal expires (3 turns). Then it will be time to go after Russia -- I have started accumulating forces at Medina for a northern push against the core Russian cities, while my veterans will regroup and drive north from what is currently America. This leaves me open to raids and counter-attacks along a NE-SW line, but hopefully I will keep Cathy too busy to send her troops away from the home front.

All this is dependent on Napoleon not doing something crazy with that stack, of course.

Over the next three turns, I heal units and mass on the American border. No need to pretend I'm not coming. Napoleon's stack heads back to France (whew!), and I complete Constitution and revolt to Representation and Serfdom. My captured workers have much to do in my new lands.

I also get another great artist from Mecca - if I'm calculating correctly, this is my 15th generated great person. Plus freebies from Music and Economics, for 17 so far. Philosophical is a lot more fun than I realized. I decide to keep this one ready in the north to culture bomb a captured Russian city out of resistance.

1660 AD - I re-declare on Washington and advance on New York. Saw an American settler a couple turns ago, but lost track of him...and the following turn he founds Seattle in the middle of my German territory! :mad: Stupid cities not coming out of revolt and getting some culture going...grrrr. :mad: Now I have ANOTHER city to destroy.



Napoleon also has a settler moving west. I'm not happy about it, but can't afford the diplo hit to cancel borders and trap him. (I've surrounded France completely by this point.) One city should not be able to take enough land to keep me from reaching 68%.

New York's defenses stink (longbows with 40% culture), so I just overrun the city without waiting for siege units. On to Washington! I raze Seattle the following turn for good measure.

Inter-turn, Cathy kicks off a golden age. Oh boy...boosted Russian unit production, just before I start a war with them. Wonderful. At least she still doesn't have Nationalism, so she's not going to start producing cossacks just yet. That would REALLY put a crimp in my plans -- I'll be checking the tech screen periodically to see if Nationalism disappears from my "advantage" list.

1675 AD - I complete Chemistry and start researching Steel. I was intending to upgrade my catapults to Cannon, but would later learn that I need iron to do so! So this was another move; I've had quite a few of those this game.

Napoleon swaps to Mercantilism, cutting off my last trade partner (Cathy switched some time ago, and I'm about to declare on her anyway.) So I revolt to Mercantilism as well, and also swap back to Slavery. Boosted workers are nice, but whipping is just too useful for newly captured cities which are going to starve anyway.

My cavalry reach Washington, and the defenses are pitiful.



The fighting with Russia, and being boxed in by Germany and Russia, really hampered America. He had tech for muskets, but not enough production to build more than a couple. Even with 60% culture, 1 mace and 1 garrison I longbow can not stop cav. I didn't bother to wait for the siege units.



Two down, one to go.

I start staging forces northward, and find that Cathy has much tougher defenses than poor old George:



Elephants with pinch...I'm going to need some rifles at the front. Fortunately, I have some solid forces myself:



And in the north as well (the stack shown is the center tile; there are four more cav each 1N and 1S):



While moving my units about, I note something odd in the corner by Washington:



This is two turns after America was destroyed. I don't think I had seen that tile during those two turns, but still...very odd.

During the inter-turn, Cathy cancels open borders -- she knows what is coming just as well as I do. In 1685 AD, I declare and begin the attack. Ack, Nappy considers Cathy a "friend" so I get another -1 diplo hit. France better not get any stupid ideas....

Novgorod falls one turn into the war, after my catapults crush its defenses to zero.



I've got just a few units scattered about the landscape.

The battle in the south is tougher, as Cathy sends several elephants south from Boston, damaging my cavalry. She also has enough troops to send an expeditionary force towards Philly:



I was worried something like this would happen. Philly and Hamburg have one rifle each; I'll need to get a couple units over there somehow.

More forces move during the inter-turn, and I recheck the Philly situation:





This is NOT good! The horse archers, even with pinch, are not a significant threat other than pillaging, but there is enough force there to take Philly (bad) and Hamburg (worse). I need more troops here NOW!

The closest forces are attacking Boston, but are trapped inside the Russian cultural zone. But if I could capture Boston, without using all my troops, I could then send the rest to Philly in two turns. Might barely be enough...but I need to capture Boston with as few units used as possible. The catapults are going to have to carry the load, with one cav to help. Are the mighty Arabian forces up to the challenge?



They are. Note the victorious catapult, killing a 3/4 strength longbow to take the city. I got some good luck here, thankfully; helps offset all the bad barb luck early on.

A mad scramble of units follows, with workers rushing en masse to lay down a couple key sections of road. In the confusion, I get an unpleasant surprise:



A barb city spawns in the corner by Washington! Cities taking forever to come out of revolt (9 turns for Washington), no cultural borders, and this kind of garbage happens.

Anyway, my reinforcements reach Philly, which whips walls (despite being only size 2) as most of Cathy's units are not gunpowder. Here's what I pulled together:



That should do it. Note that Hamburg is empty; several other cities to the south are also without garrison. I grabbed EVERYTHING that could reach the city in time.

During the inter-turn, Cathy's cats bomb the newly-whipped walls, rather than hammering the defenders. The lack of collateral damage helps turn the tide, and the attacking Russian units are massacred. Lots of severely damaged units on my side, but enough is left to counter-attack the next turn and crush the remaining Russian forces. The threat to Philly is over. Cathy's golden age has also ended -- the tide is turning.

The next turn I complete Steel, and learn I can't upgrade to cannon without iron. Ack! I talk to my good buddy Napoleon, but he wants horses, marble, ivory, sugar, and 25 gold per turn!



I don't think so, Nappy old boy. At that price, I can live with catapults.

In the north, my forces reach Moscow, and are viciously pounded by 4 catapults. Fortunately, I have LOTS of units up there, and the attack proceeds. Although it is a little unrealistic that catapults at less than 1/2 health still do full bombard damage.

The city is well defended:



Cathy has reached Chemistry; her grenadiers would be troublesome going forward. Note that all but the settler longbow are garrison II? I reduced the defenses to zero, sent 5 suicide cats to weaken the defenders, and Moscow was taken!



I then used my great artist to culture bomb the city and end resistance. The result was even less effective than I feared against the established Russian culture:



Still, it eliminated 8 turns of anarchy and gave me an open route to the south.

The following turn, my hastily regrouped southern forces captured Atlanta!



I had been a little too hasty, though, and did not have enough strength forward. Cathy counter-attacked, and with a couple lucky dice rolls retook the city. All the original culture then instantly re-appeared (I hate this bug!):



My units were damaged from the first battle, but a couple turns later healed up units from the battle of Philadelphia arrived and Atlanta was captured a second time. The same turn, Arabian forces also took Chicago and St Peterburg! Only Rostov remained of the Russian empire.



And Arab forces were rapidly gathering for the final assault.

[haphazard1]

1735 AD - While my forces moved into position at Rostov, I took a quick look around my empire. War weariness was out of control, with culture up to 50% to keep cities working. Damascus had +15, Mecca +13, Baghdad +12 -- it's just crazy.

For giggles, I checked my diplomatic status with Cathy:



-20 net! 21 negative modifiers, and that lone +1 for trade relations. Wow.

The next turn everything was in place:



Other than the garrison II grenadier, not much to worry about. And I think I have enough cav - most of those are stacks of two and three. The result was a foregone conclusion:



Now it's just some mopping up, and grabbing tiles to get to the 68% threshold. With the fall of Rostov, I had 61.79%; just getting cities out of revolt should be plenty. But that's going to take 9 turns in Rostov's case; surely I can speed things up a bit?

I had been building several settlers, once it was obvious new troops would never reach the front before the end. Now they went to work, and I quickly founded three new cities - the first new Arab cities in millenia. Najran, Kufah, and Basra went into gap areas to grab tiles, and captured cities began coming out of revolt. There was only one complication - France.

The French had sent out that settler some turns before, and founded a city at that double ivory site the AI liked so much. I had ignored it, because I didn't want trouble with Napoleon and one brand new city couldn't take much land anyway...until the French sent a great artist out and culture bombed the damn thing. :mad:

Here's the city, with the great artist approaching from the southeast:



And here's the after effect:



My new cities of Kufah and Najran (under the interface) got only a fraction of the tiles they would have had. Darn Frenchies delayed my victory by a couple turns. :mad: I don't expect it to matter, because I'm sure several players probably reached domination with maces and cats. But it was frustrating to be SOOO close to the end, and then have this happen.

In any case, I had the culture slider at 70% and got a couple border pops, and in 1765 AD the game was over:



Read on for the wrap up.

[haphazard1]

Domination victory in 1765 AD
In game score: 4527
Hall of Fame score: 45181
Augustus Caesar

I had 74.93% of population and 69.45% of land, with St Petersburg and Rostov not yet out of revolt. A handful more turns would see my land easily over 75%.

A few shots from the replay:

1250 AD - The unclaimed land is almost gone. War broke out 5 turns later.



Note Washington is boxed in; Philadelphia flipped to Germany by culture in 680 AD. Considering how strong George was in tech even with minimal land, this was a fortunate development for me.

1520 AD - I declare war on Fred and raze Stuttgart, beginning my drive for domination.



1675 AD - Germany and America are gone.



1765 AD - Victory. There is still territory which will become mine; note the French culture bomb effect.



The final demographics:



I lead in everything but GNP; I am running -296 gold per turn at this point. Shows how badly this metric is broken. Note the maufacturing edge - 414 vs 132! Crops, land, and population all roughly 3x or better. Soldiers about 50% more than Napoleon; he still had formidable forces, especially those dangerously fast Musketeers.

From the stats:



My most common kills were longbows and cats, with a fair number of elephants and muskets mixed in. Note the 6 grenadiers -- if Cathy had time to build more of those, things would have been a LOT tougher.

My losses?



Remarkably light. Those early barb losses were painful -- I had so FEW units then! - but not that numerous. Cavs top the list, with most of the losses from overrunning cities without waiting for siege units to knock down the cultural defenses.

Final totals:



Lots of cavs and rifles, and some catapults left over. Note how few of my final tally of workers were actually built by me.

Overall, I executed moderately well in this game. My initial plan of grabbing multiple religions was not all that successful, due to my lapse in letting Confucianism get founded by Cathy. It did work by providing multiple holy shrines and enough income to run my economy. This was helped by staying small (4, then 5 cities) until after 1500 AD, with my four core cities all being holy cities and thus allowed to build markets, grocers, and banks.

I could have expanded more aggressively early -- there was land available in various places right up to the time I unleashed my cavalry on the world. Maybe I was TOO worried about maintenance costs smothering my economy? Expanding further would have required a heavier emphasis on military, and I probably would not have gotten as many wonders as I did; Napoleon is industrious, and he grabbed a number of wonders (Stonehenge, Hanging Gardens, Versailles) as it was. I pretty much swept the mid-game wonders, plus several of the early ones, and the resulting great person points really helped. The final wonder tally:

7 in Mecca (Parthenon, Oracle, Great Library, Angkor Wat, Hagia Sophia, Notre Dame, Taj Mahal), plus 2 shrines
3 in Medina (Great Lighthouse, Sistine Chapel, Spiral Minaret), plus 1 shrine
1 in Damascus (Colossus)
0 in Baghdad, plus 1 shrine

I ended up generating (if I'm counting correctly) 16 great people, plus 2 freebies for Music and Economics. I built 4 shrines, triggered one golden age, culture bombed Moscow, built two academies, and sent one merchant out for cash. That leaves 8 lightbulbs, which really helped me move through the tech tree. Interesting to note I never settled any great people; also, I never got a great engineer.

I did finish Steam Power on the victory turn, to reveal coal. For curiosity's sake, I checked the worldbuilder afterwards for the other late-game resources:

Coal - 5 sources, including near Mecca and Damascus although not in city radius
Oil - None near the Arab start except due south, claimed by the French
Uranium - At Medina in city radius
Aluminum - None on the entire map, unless I missed one! Very interesting....

Of the early strategic resources, copper, marble, and horses were readily available for Arabia. Early stone was pretty much out of reach without fighting France. Iron was perhaps the most interesting resource of the game -- only 3 sources, all claimed by France! The northern-most might have been grabbed by an early settler south along the river, but as it developed no one but France had iron the entire game. Don't think I've ever seen that before.

Food and health resources were pretty well distributed, and several were readily available at the Arab start. Luxuries were tougher; wine was available to the west, with gold to the southwest and ivory even further southwest. No other luxuries were near the Arab starting position.

The key points of the game for me were:

1) Strong mid-game play -- despite having only four cities until 1000 AD, I gained an outright lead in tech and just about swept the key mid-period wonders. The only one I missed was Versailles, and with only four fairly close cities I didn't need it. This leading position set up...

2) Strong warfare execution -- From declaring on Germany to elimination of Russia took 44 turns. Having a monopoly on cavalry, and later on rifles, obviously was a huge edge. But that's a lot of land and cities for 44 turns. Despite some reverses (Atlanta) and close calls (Philly and elsewhere), I kept the advance rolling and never let up the pressure. The AI just isn't really able to handle that well, especially once their initial response/striking force is destroyed.

3) Keeping Napoleon friendly (or at least neutral). This was huge, and allowed me to concentrate my forces on taking land in the west rather than fighting around my core cities. I feel confident I could have beaten Napoleon, either going after him first or (obviously) going after him last. But it would have been a VERY tough fight, and the other civs (except Washington, who probably would have been killed by Cathy) would have had time to reach rifles and cavalry (and cossacks!) of their own. Not fighting Napoleon was a key decision, and it worked.

Overall, this was a tremendously fun game -- I played small and peaceful for a long time, then took the world by storm. I generated a ton of great people, and I got to (almost) sweep the religions. Many thanks to Sulla for sponsoring this!

[Sullla]

Interesting second city location, way out there in the east. Funny that you managed to find the horses even though they were invisible!

11 floodplains cottages at Baghdad, now that's the way to get the most out of the Oasis map! You've got to be careful not to get TOO whip-happy though; +8 cruel oppression penalty is a bit too much, methinks.

I added a pigs resource to the American capital, but everything else was there naturally. Including that copper in the utter southwest of the world.

You probably need to expand out to more cities; 4 cities at the AD crossover is not a whole lot. I know you said in your report that you were struggling to defend what you had, but you could build axes in 2 turns at the capital! Surely it wasn't THAT hard to get some military going?

I do think you had the right answer to this scenario's building restrictions: make ALL your cities Holy Cities! That's more or less what I was going for, something along those lines.

I enjoyed watching you steal the prize of the final German cities out from under Napoleon's nose! I think the military campaigns were generally well orchestrated. Cavalry versus anything less than rifles is always a steamroll.

Sarmatian... I've got some fantastic pictures of barb cities popping up in even more absurd locations during testing that I wish I could post. Oh well. I've had some chuckles over this myself.

Overall, a well-played game and a nice report too. Thanks for joining our community!

[haphazard1]

Interesting second city location, way out there in the east. Funny that you managed to find the horses even though they were invisible!

I wanted the visible resources, and wider spacing seemed likely to be a good idea for domination. The horses being there as well was a very pleasant surprise.

11 floodplains cottages at Baghdad, now that's the way to get the most out of the Oasis map! You've got to be careful not to get TOO whip-happy though; +8 cruel oppression penalty is a bit too much, methinks.

It was probably a bit much. But other than the two desert hills, there was no hammer production for the city. And the food was just overwhelming. So I whipped essentially everything - library, temples, monastaries, walls, barracks - everything.

I added a pigs resource to the American capital, but everything else was there naturally. Including that copper in the utter southwest of the world.

I was wondering about all those food resources. Will we see Notes from the Sponsor for this game?

You probably need to expand out to more cities; 4 cities at the AD crossover is not a whole lot. I know you said in your report that you were struggling to defend what you had, but you could build axes in 2 turns at the capital! Surely it wasn't THAT hard to get some military going?

It wasn't that I couldn't build more military, it was always having other things that seemed more important at the time. This is a trap I find myself falling into quite often; I'm trying to learn to balance my development and my military better. I'm planning to make a try at Epic 12, and I am sure I will need to do MUCH better on this for that game or it will be real short.

Normally I would have more cities by the AD crossover -- I usually push harder during the land grab stage. For this scenario, I had decided to stay smaller to limit maintenance costs; before all my cities became holy cities there were times my science rate was getting crunched pretty badly. So I just stopped expanding.

I do think you had the right answer to this scenario's building restrictions: make ALL your cities Holy Cities! That's more or less what I was going for, something along those lines.

This was a fun aspect of the scenario, and worked out better than I hoped. I even considered building Wall Street later, but the Confucian holy city for bank #5 turned out to be Rostov, the very last city I captured.

I enjoyed watching you steal the prize of the final German cities out from under Napoleon's nose! I think the military campaigns were generally well orchestrated. Cavalry versus anything less than rifles is always a steamroll.

I wasn't about to let the French steal the results of my hard work! I might have been able to finish a little faster by going for Chemistry earlier and using grenadiers rather than cavalry, with the catapults able to keep up and help with defenses. But since I had pushed to Nationalism for the Taj anyway, I went with the horses. None of the AI civs ever reached Replaceable Parts, so it was a romp.

Sarmatian... I've got some fantastic pictures of barb cities popping up in even more absurd locations during testing that I wish I could post. Oh well. I've had some chuckles over this myself.

A couple others popped up along the map edges which I didn't bother to mention. I'm not sure how the algorithms work, but by that era it seems like leaving any space dark for even a couple of turns will spawn a barb city. My extra cav wiped them out easily, but it was annoying.

Overall, a well-played game and a nice report too. Thanks for joining our community!

Thanks for commenting, Sulla! I'm having a huge amount of fun with these games, and am learning a lot from the forums and game reports. Many of the players here (including you) are amazing.

[DerangedDuck]

Comparing our two games is really interesting (for me anyway). It looks like you finished maybe 28 turns earlier and started your final offensives 23 turns earlier than I did. However, at that time, Nappy was long gone in my game. So you cleaned up 3 guys 5 turns faster than I cleaned up 2. The calvalry offensive was a really nice move.

[haphazard1]

Comparing our two games is really interesting (for me anyway). It looks like you finished maybe 28 turns earlier and started your final offensives 23 turns earlier than I did. However, at that time, Nappy was long gone in my game. So you cleaned up 3 guys 5 turns faster than I cleaned up 2. The calvalry offensive was a really nice move.

Thanks, DerangedDuck. The extra move for the cav really helped speed up the conquering, as most of the time the odds were good enough that I did not need to wait for the catapults to catch up. The lack of earlier fighting made the whole game move faster, which is helpful because I tend to play slowly. Note the game time on the final summary shots - almost 22 hours! No earlier fighting also meant I had only a couple promoted city raider maces to upgrade to rifles; in most games I have at least 6 or 8, which are just incredible for taking cities.

Still, the cavs were more than adequate for the task. I'm just happy Cathy never reached Military Tradition -- cossacks would have been a BIG problem for my forces!