Epic 14 - Zeviz's Report

[Zeviz]

First, I'd like to thank Sulla for setting up this fun game and thank Sooooo, Uberfish, and everybody else whose reports for adventure 23 taught me to handle scenarios that require extreme early aggression.

My plan for this game was to start an attack right on the deadline, and to continue for as long as I could sustain it, focusing on economy in new cities to keep the empire from bankruptcy. Technologically, I started with worker techs that revealed resources, then researched towards Construction, then Currency and CoL (with eventual targets of Machinery and CS). Then I'd go for Banking (for Mercantelism), with a detour to Engineering and some other techs of immediate importance. After that, I might have aimed for Grenadiers and Cannons, but the game might not even get that far.

Early Preparations
I founded the capital on the starting spot, because that would give best production in the medium and long run, with lots of food, hills, and plains forests. Settling on a plains hill would give slightly better short term production, but would make a weaker city in the medium and long run. Extra defense from a hill wasn't an issue, because Prince AIs wouldn't launch an early attack, and if I was pushed all the way back to my capital later, that would mean that the game is lost anyway.

My first build was a Worker, because AI's exploring warriors never attack defended cities, so the original warrior would provide sufficient garrison for a while. However, I also used that warrior for exploration, and, after finishing the initial circuit around my borders, sent him too far away to the east, so the game almost ended in 3150BC, when Caezar's warrior approached my undefended capital. However, my second warrior was produced next turn, and Caesar's warrior had to turn back empty-handed. (In my experience, exploring warriors don't attack defended cities.)

Meanwhile, the AIs founded Hinduism in 3650 and Buddhism in 3525. I was focusing on dual-duty techs that would enable worker actions, while revealing strategic resources and enabling units. I started with Agriculture->Animal Husbandry(3375), finishing which revealed horses next to the capital. So I researched Wheel and trained a couple Chariots for exploration, building Barracks first to make sure the Chariots got some promotions out of the gate. These two chariots were able to find all of AI's lands, and kill some exploring units in the process. I also trained a third chariot to protect my settler.

After the Wheel, my research went into Mining->BW(2550). I saw Copper, so directed research towards Pottery->Writing, but made a later detour to IW, when I remembered that I'll need it for my Gallic Warriors, even if I don't need Iron itself.

I started first settler only when the capital reached size 5 in 2650, and interrupted his build to train a chariot escort, letting city reach size 6. So I had all nearby areas scouted out by the time settler was ready. I decided to go for the western copper, because that city would also get Gold in its city radius. The city had to build an obelisk before it would be able to use food resource and gold, but it was worth it in the long run. The large number of nearby hills allowed decent production, and all riverside grasslands were cottaged later for financing my expansion.

In 1725 Copper was connected and we were ready to start chopping out Axemen, but it was too long until invasion deadline, so I built a monument (for happiness to grow to size 7) followed by library in the capital instead. Shortly before this we destroyed first "invasion force", consisting of an archer and a warrior.

In 1625BC we entered Classical age with discovery of IW. Research went into Math, heading towards Construction and later Currency, CoL, and other economic techs.

Around this time I also founded a city next to eastern Copper, and two of my workers built a road towards it and started improving it.

In 1425BC we suffer our first death, as an exploring chariot is killed by Khmer axeman. Meanwhile, I am starting to train Gaelic warriors, who can be trained in the capital every 3 or 4 turns.

The Aztec War
In 1000BC I have a force of 4 Gallic Warriors, an Axeman, and a Chariot is approaching Monty's borders, while a worker is building a road towards my future cities. Monty is the obvious first target, because he must be eliminated before he buries me under a pile of units.

That turn my chariot exploring northern lands gets a chance to capture two British workers on the border, which will solve my worker shortage if I can get them home through Monty's lands. Unfortunately that chariot gets killed next round by a Jaguar, but one of the captured workers does make it to my lands, only to be lost later due to negligence.

Here is the situation at the 1000BC deadline:

There is another gaellic warrior on the way, and the capital is producing new ones every 3 turns. You can also see the start of cottage spam around my third city.

And here is the western part of my empire:

The capital was allowed to grow into unhappiness, because Gold is about to be connected, raising the happy cap.

In 925BC we capture our first city, at the cost of two Gallic Warriors.

Our first Great General was born in 750BC. He was merged with a chariot, but I included too many swordsmen in the stack, so the chariot had to win several battles before getting the coveted Medic III promotion.

Monty was whipping defenders, so it took me until 470BC to capture his capital, with the help of newly trained units, and the elite swordsmen who got some XP from the general.

While paying attention mostly to the eastern front, I almost missed Korean stack of 3 chariots, an axe, and an archer approaching from the west. I had 2 axemen in the area, and whipped a third one, while upgrading garrison warrior to spear.

In 395BC I finished research into Construction and started researching Currency, while the slider had to drop down below 40%. However, since I had captured Monty's Ivory (an unexpected bit of good luck), I could train elephants if I researched HBR.

Aztecs were destroyed in 350BC, overwhelmed by my constant stream of Gallic Warriors with an Axe and a Chariot for protection. Several of my Gallic Warriors were CR3 by now, so even axemen in cities didn't have good odds against them. The Koreans had parked their stack in a forest next to my city and weren't doing anything with it, which was mildly annoying, but not really problematic.

Here are the former Aztec lands at the time:

Note that my research was down to 30% already. Not razing last Aztec city was probably a mistake, but I always hesitate to raze cities, and in that case I forgot that the option was even there.

The English War
At this point I spent a lot of time thinking which way to attack. On one hand, Khmer is nearby, while English cities would kill my economy with distance upkeep. And I'd rather not deal with Ballista Elephants. On the other hand, England would become technological powerhouse if left unmolested. Also, I really didn't want to leave Caesar to keep training Praetorians, and the way to Rome goes through England. In the end, preventing English teching and Rome's Praetorian buildup won the argument. I suspected that Monty was placed in his position to protect Churchill, so with Monty gone I just had to take advantage of this opening.

I had also been completely neglecting the whip. A mistake I now correct to speed up infrastructure production in new cities and Catapult training in two Copper cities.

I wanted to make sure the conquest of England is well on the way by the time 0AD deadline rolls around. (0AD is usually quoted as the time BtS AI starts building lots of troops.) So I started the attack right away, without even waiting for the newly trained catapults.

I got second Great General in 320BC (after Korean mini-stack suicided against my city), and made him an instructor in the capital.

York falls in 215BC and we finally get Medic III Chariot. Meanwhile, our first Catapults are slowly making their way to the front. I am now making +6gpt at 0% research and this will drop even further when York comes out of rebellion. On the bright side, we are a strong leader on all other measures on the graph. I start building Pyramids in Vienne for the refund, because I no longer need more troops in the capital area, and I have to pause my offensive to wait for catapults to catch up. (London has too much cultural defense to ignore.)

In 50BC we capture London, destroying Roman-English mixed stack. Rome is still using Axemen and Chariots.

England is destroyed in 85AD. I now control exactly half of the world, but am losing money at 0% research, and am only #2 in military. However, I now have over 500$ in the bank, which means that, with the help of a couple of scientists, I'll be able to research Currency in 9 turns (running -51gpt at 40% research). Chopping lots of forests around Vienne has brought Pyramids close to completion, so I will soon get either ability to run Representation, or a huge cash infusion.

Here are the newly captured English lands:


The Roman War
In 115AD we see the first Praetorian, heading towards Nottingham.

We complete Pyramids in 160AD and immediately switch to Representation. Meanwhile, somebody else completes Colossus. The completion of Pyramids turns out to be critical to overall success of the game. With sliders stuck at 0%, I had to rely on specialists, so Representation instantly doubled my research rate, not even counting the happiness bonus.

The first defensive battle against Praetorians is won, but they take my veteran axes down into the red. So Rome will present a tough challenge. I consider switching the focus of attacks to Khmer, but it's probably better to keep hitting Rome while they have few Praetorians trained. We recently raised a small Roman town on former English border. My main problem is that I had stopped building troops a while ago, so I am running out of new units. However, Monty's former cities are almost done with infrastructure, and my capital is back on troop duty as well. So reinforcements should be coming shortly.

After researching Currency in 190AD we go on to CoL, while the cities are reconfigured for growth to take advantage of newly acquired Representation happiness.

CoL comes in in 385AD and I immediately schedule Courthouses everywhere. Meanwhile, my offensive has stalled. I am losing some units, and had even lost a frontier city which I didn't protect properly. However, I keep raising cities Caesar builds on my border as well.

In 490AD we finally get our first Great Scientist. The Great Scientist will be settled in the city west of the capital, because I will be running research slider at 0% for foreseeable future, so settled specialist will be more beneficial. And that city will eventually warrant an academy. Correction: Settled Generals produce additional beakers under Representation, so Capital is best place for future academy. The scientist is settled there, and his extra hummer brings ETA on catapult down from 4 to 3 turns.

I've just dispatched another Khmer attack stack and, considering my lack of progress on the Roman front, I decided to open up a western front, so a newly trained Catapult and swordsman are redirected there and my capital, now with 3 settled Generals will direct all new troops towards nearby Khmer, instead of the 13 turn trek north.

We enter Medieval Age in 805AD with discovery of Machinery. Next I spend a single turn to research Archery for Crossbows, before going on to CS for Maces. My economy has been recovering well with the help of Courthouses and Markets, but the war has been going with intermittent success. Western attack was a complete disaster and I now have about a dozen units, including two Praetorians besieging Vienne. However, my war on northern front has been going well. I captured Cumae, lost it when most troops moved on towards Rome, then re-captured it, while my two remaining veteran Gaelic Swordsmen besiege Rome. I completely forgot that Chariots now have bonus against Axes, which would explain the huge number of Axemen I've lost to them.

Rome falls in 850AD. However, after that I begin playing too carelessly and my offensive stalls again.

In fact, I underestimate enemy forces so much that I lose Vienna in 950AD.

This picture was taken from the save a turn before the city fell. The remaining 4 defenders were no match for the Khmer SoD that suffered relatively low losses.

Loss of Vienna also means the loss of my only source of Gold, plunging all cities into unhappiness. I later realize that losing Pyramids also takes me out of Representation, which was the cause of most of new unhappiness. (-2 from Gold with Forge and -3 from Representation = -5 happiness in largest cities. No wonder my economy completely crashed.)

I next suffer a very tense moment as Korean stack suicides against a pair of Drill III Crossbows and a pair of wounded Maces, who blocked the way to my capital, occupying a hill.

This is the first time in all of RB events when I've lost my second city and came close to losing my capital. (In reality, I could have whipped enough defenders from the capital even if my stack lost, but that would have crippled the city for a long time.)

Rome is destroyed in 1060AD. During the same turn I spot the first Korean Longbow.

Due to my drastic happiness problems, I had to keep the Roman city founded on top of their Gold. I had razed that city several times before, but I had to keep it to compensate for the 5 happiness I lost when losing Vienne.

The Endgame
The amazing thing is that Khmer and Korea are still as powerful as me, despite my control of more than half of the map. Or at least they look as powerful as me based on the demographic information. However, my capital can produce Macemen at a good rate, and the rest of my cities can train enough troops to maintain the pressure in the north. So the situation is probably safer than it looks.

The newly trained stack of Macemen recaptured Vienna in 1130AD, allowing us to return to Representation. Meanwhile, we have raised the first Korean city in the north. I will have to start raising cities now, because we are losing money at 0% research slider, and we already have more land than the rest of AIs combined.

I just remembered about Forbidden Palace. Forgetting about it was a pretty stupid mistake. I schedule it in London, which has good production potential and can pre-whip a crossbow for some extra production. There are also some forests to chop.

Research into Aesthetics (started when I panicked about unhappiness from loss of Vienne) was pretty pointless, because I will not be able to afford culture slider even if I need it, so instead of going for Drama I will put a turn into Engineering to prevent beaker decay and will go for Meditation (to take advantage of Temple of Solomon I captured from Rome) and later take the path towards Feudalism and Banking.

I got Stonehenge from Caesar, but Khmer and Korea have most other wonders. Korea has Statue of Zeus, so I have to either quickly capture their capital, or focus on Khemer first. I'll try the "capture the capital" approach.

Completion of Forbidden Palace around 1230AD greatly improves my financial situation. I also notice that Shweyagon Papaya, which is still available, enables all religious civics, so I start working on it in York, while some cities start Jewish monasteries, and Engineering is being researched at 100% science (eating through the cash reserve I've built up from capturing cities).

In 1260 we discover Engineering and I direct research towards Monarchy->Feudalism.

In 1280 we capture Seoul (after raising another city on the north coast on the way there) and see Khmer border to the south. Considering that the southern army has already started the push into Khmer territory, the fall of Khmer might come shortly after fall of Korea.

Koreans now have a massive supply of cash, probably from missing some wonder, and are quickly researching machinery. However, this will not help them, because I am besieging their new capital, and it looks like they don't have many other cities.

I suddenly found myself with some extra happiness. It turns out we popped Silver from one of the Capital's mines.

In 1315 we capture Korea's new capital with the Statue of Zeus. This also delays Korean acquisition of Machinery by a turn. The next turn after Statue of Zeus is captured, our WW seems to decrease a little. This means that extra WW is probably tied to the wonder itself.

Next turn Korea becomes Khmer's Vassal. That's not going to give them much help, considering that Khmer already lost several cities themselves.

In 1330 we complete Shwedagon Paya, the second self-built wonder of the game. Next turn we convert to Vassalage and Free Religion. The reason I chose Free Religion is that I don't really need more experienced units, or more units at all for that matter, but extra happiness will be good to counter War Weariness.

Talking about southern front, it turns out Taoism was founded in a new city Khmer placed next to my border, so I had to keep that town. (I dislike razing holy cities even more than I dislike razing cities in general.)

The Koreans are eliminated in 1375, while my southern army is capturing Khmer cities at a good rate. We discover Guilds the same turn, but it's too late to switch to Mercantelism, because the game is almost over, and I am chopping Macemen out of my capital almost every turn.


By the way, the Khmer had built more than half of the wonders in the game in their capital. I am curious what that city location looks like.

In 1395 we finally get around to learning HBR, and I start training Knights, the only units that have a chance to get to the frontlines before Khmer lose their last two cities.

In 1415 I capture Khmer capital. The city has 10 wonders! Surprisingly, it doesn't look like a strong production city either. I guess there were plenty of forests to chop around it, but I am still surprised by the number of wonders in that single city. The city also has a Scotland Yard, which sounds like a waste of an early Great Spy to me, but AI might have run some spy specialists there, so it might not have been a total waste.

We also get a Great Scientist that turn, only third GP for the entire duration of the game. Looks like I wasn't really taking full advantage of Representation after all. (If I had run a proper specialist economy, I'd probably have generated far more than 3 GPs by now.)

The Khmer are defeated in 1425, leading to Conquest Victory in 1430AD.


Time spent 15 hours 23 minutes.

Toughest Gallic Warrior: 62XP (CR3, C5, Shock) - this guy had helped capture cities of every empire from Aztecs to Khmer, going around the world with my northern army. (I actually don't remember if he fought the Aztecs, because I began paying attention to most experienced Gallic Warriors only after the conquest of England.)

Cities in 1500AD - NA. (If it matters, I had 25 cities at the end of the game in 1430AD.)

Dun built - never.
Naval unit built - never. (I didn't even research Sailing until going for Calendar in the late game.)

Overall, this was the hardest of the AW events we've had so far. It might look easy in retrospect, but I was close to losing my capital around 1000AD and was worried about the outcome even after elimination of Rome.

Thanks again to Sulla for setting up the game and to everybody who wrote reports for the Adventure 23. Now I can be less embarrassed about Epic 13.

[blid]

Congrats on the win That was an interesting read, I would have thought monarchy a no brainer in an AW game (no tech trading games in general) but you managed to get a lot of happiness using resources and representation and delay monarchy till late in the game.

[Zeviz]

Congrats on the win That was an interesting read, I would have thought monarchy a no brainer in an AW game (no tech trading games in general) but you managed to get a lot of happiness using resources and representation and delay monarchy till late in the game.

Thanks.

About Monarchy, I tend to ignore it in extreme games, because my beelines never include religious techs. For example, I prefer to get to CoL through Currency, which means that if I want more happiness I am as likely to swing by Calendar as I am to go for Monarchy. I also like Metal Casting, with Forges serving as another source of happiness on most maps. A great thing about CIV is that there are many ways to reach a goal, so my usual playstyle allows me to ignore the Meditation/Polytheism branches and get same benefits from other techs.