Epic 12 - a Swiss Misadventure

[Swiss Pauli]

Epic 12 – The Gauntlet

No Slavery, no Drafting, a dodgy looking capital, and Emperor to boot: what’s not to like about this challenge? My play for the most part, but I’ll come to that later. Unusually for me, I played a couple of test games under similar conditions, with mixed results: one squeezed by creative AIs, one Domination win, and one start where Liz was running away with the game. From my successful game, the plan is to grab a couple of good city sites, suck up to my nearest neighbour then backstab. Viciously. Move the capital to a better location (maybe an AI’s ex-capital) then snowball to Victory. That’s the plan, now on to the real thing!

Standard AH/Worker opening, but have some bad luck early on when my scout gets eaten by a bear. Not being one for rushing (I’ve never rushed anyone, ever), I found Beshbalik at marble/deer/cows:




Not long afterwards, things start to go wrong:




Annoying though the loss of my archer was, my bigger problem is that Asoka and HC are now religious chums. I had hoped that Capac would found one of Hinduism and Judaism (neither fell that early), and that he and Asoka would be at each others throats. Now, however, there’s a good chance they’ll be at mine, as there’s now way forward without fighting, so poor are our native lands.




Even Gibbon would have rushed, methinks…

I found two more cities, one for copper/deer/rice, the other for fish/horse. I go Buddhist and snag Maths, IW, and 100g for Alphabet. Then I cynically extort cash from my friend Asoka and backstab the next turn.

[Swiss Pauli]

I rapidly take three cities from Asoka, razing one (the wrong one, as I lacked Iron). Construction comes in as I press on towards Bombay, but then disaster strikes:




Oh dear. Maybe that Alpha trade wasn’t wise…not only do a have a two front war, but I also lose two happy resources. Had to make peace with Asoka in AD325 and, serendipitously, my units get teleported south, where they rebuff HC’s HAs, then march on Cuzco, and then to Tiwanaku to secure Jumbos for future campaigns.





And this is where I made a key strategic blunder. Instead of going after Asoka, I got it into my head that we could be all pally and take out HC together. It didn’t happen as Asoka went Free Religion during my Incan campaign.

To cut a long story short, Asoka stormed ahead, and although I prepared an enormous Monty-stack (outdated units, but in huge quantities) Asoka’s longbows and muskets became Rifles, on the very turn before my planned attack. Game over.

I switched to a culture strategy, and prioritized surviving to see who won. Cyrus declared on me, but only landed 3 cavs, who were cleaned up for the cost of 3 jumbos. I bribed Alex into war, so I could bail out with a cheap peace: 90g.

In the end, Mansa launched in 1909, and I was about half way to a culture win. I replayed, attacking Asoka instead of HC, and went through India like a knife through butter. Next time I’ll choose more wisely.

[darrelljs]

Even Gibbon would have rushed, methinks…

Yes . By the time you decided to do that (215 A.D.) it was probably too late, your opponents had enjoyed too much time with their nice land. It is nice to see someone who has never rushed before, and is still a good player, but this event unfortunately played against your policy.

Darrell

[sylvanllewelyn]

Almost everyone that won, myself included (but mostly due to luck; read between the lines in my report), had some form of early strategic resources. No matter how bad that city was, strategic resources are *that* important, if only for defending against barbarians. Axes against archers are a surer bet, IMHO.