Adventure 2 - theGrimm

[theGrimm]

Embarking on this adventure, allow me to say I’ve never played Monarch difficulty. And I usually restart when I get an opening position like this. Cheesy, I know. Cowardly, perhaps. But there you have it. Honesty is the best policy.
Also, forgive the gaps in my reporting, as I haven’t written many reports yet, and still haven’t perfected the habit of recording my actions.
And for some reason, a lot of screenshots didn’t come out. For example, none of my diplomacy screen screenshots appeared, and I was relying on them to reconstruct key events. If anyone can point me in the right direction for future reports…
Anyway, moving on.

“A-hunting-we-will-go”
There is only ONE logical thing to build with a starting position like this and the hunting tech; a worker. With only one available food until fishing, this baby ain’t gonna grow. But a camp will provide 2 extra food, and there are three deer. One of which I can’t get to yet.

Okay, I guess some people may have decided to build a warrior off the bat, and maybe gone with fishing. But the fishing route will provide less food and less production in the long term. But more commerce. Hmmm.

Research set to Mysticism; some extra happiness would be awesome. Plus, being religious…maybe found a religion? Meanwhile the scouts go off exploring. Ouch, no yummy land to be seen. We do pop Animal Husbandry, which is an expensive tech (relatively speaking), but not too useful at the moment. If ever.

3600BC sees Buddhism founded in Tenochtitlan. All hail Quetzecoatl. Research goes Mysticism->Archery->The Wheel->Fishing->Sailing, while building goes Worker->Barracks->Archer->Archer->Settler
I gambled a little bit on the opening barracks, but if anything serious had attacked me it would have been my head anyway. Besides, I only expected animals for a bit. Research into sailing was prompted by two things…the need for a lighthouse, and the need for a galley. There wasn’t much settling land near Tenoc, but maybe across the sea.
I also did not switch to Buddhism, because, despite the desire for a happy face, I cannot afford a religious war.

“Who moved my city?”
BUT CURSES, Tenoc was founded on a lake, and can’t build boats OR a lighthouse. Well, boats, yes, but they can’t go anywhere. Where’s Monty so I can smack him for founding on such a stupid site! Oh, I’m Monty. Mind you, in hindsight, it probably WAS the best site.

Anyway, city two, Teoticauhan, goes up on the hill three squares west of Tenoc, and starts a lighthouse. Tenoc->Stonehenge. I’ve got the holy city, bring on the shrine.



1400BC Stonehenge completes. Archer->Settler in Tenoc. Meanwhile, Teo completes lighthouse, starts galley. There’s a nice site south of Teo with access to two fishies.

My research path goes Writing->Alphabet->Metal Casting, as I figure I can trade the techs the AI is often slow to reach for others I don’t have time to research. Plus, I need to improve trade relations.

Somewhere near 750BC, Teo: goes Galley->workboat.

“Monty the friendly dwarf”
I’ve suffered in previous Prince games due to my Noble difficulty mindset of “it’s okay if everyone hates me, ‘cos I can kill em all”, so I intend in this game to ensure my survival with good relations with the big boys.

I do some diplo scouting, and discover that Vicki, Caeser, Munsa and Saladin seem opposed to Alex and Mao, so I trade open borders with the Vicki crowd. I also make whatever other tech trades I can with the same bunch, not all of them beneficial to me. I need allies. Please don’t stomp me…

Tlat is founded south of Teo to grab two fishies, and starts lighthouse->library (it’s not a very productive area, but it can support some specialists)

“Don’t follow the white rabbit, Alice!”
Too late. Sadly, I got caught up in a little bit of wonderland. I had presumed that other civs were not too likely to have ocean side cities, and that I therefore had a good chance at Colossus and Lighthouse. Thus, at the cost of my military (at the time it didn’t even cross my mind that my five archer defence would be a tasty treat, and relied too much on my diplomacy), I started wasting resources on the great lighthouse at Teo.

Somewhere around there, I also produce another Settler and archer, and headed off to found a new city. Not a particularly productive area, but grabbing prime land is only going to make me a target. Besides, we Aztecimos like the cold, hard terrain. Grass, sheep and such is for other wussie civs!

I also built a Shrine.

But in 50 BC, Caeser declares war, despite my diplomatic sucking up (he was around + 3 at that stage). I had a little bit of advanced warning thanks to an archer perched on a hill, which game me enough time to rush an archer in Teo and a Jag in Tenoc, but it’s wasn’t enough. I should perhaps have rushed another archer in Teo, but I didn’t and the jag didn’t get there in time.

Actually, I made too many weedy moves to even remember them all, and if I hadn’t panicked at Caesers declaration, I might have done far better. I wasted a jag attacking a horse archer in the open. I didn’t rush an extra archer at Teo, whioch would have been quite unhappy but possibly alive.

Another annoying bit of weed, and one I fall for every time. For some reason, if I [ALT]-Queue a unit while something else is being built, the city builds ONE unit, and then switches back to the original building. Weedily, I often miss that, which is why Teo spend a turn building the great lighthouse and Tenoc a forge in the face of Caesers hordes!!!

Teo fights valiantly for 100 years, but is RAZED by Julius in 50AD.

“You call yourself a Preatorian? Eat Jaguar Steel”
I’ve seen MANY people complain the Praetorian is too powerful, and the Jaguar too weak. Okay, both have been tweaked since earlier patches, but this game certainly provides some anecdotal evidence that the competition is fair. Monty vs Caeser, Praetorian vs Jaguar.

Caesars first wave, badly injured by the attack on Teo, pillaged somewhat and then died, mostly attacking Tenoc. Uh, which still didn’t have walls. And which never got built for some time! Weedy.

Between waves, I built a worker (to recamp), a forge (to speed up production), archers with hill defence (to try and protect my improvements), and jags for city defence. (I say waves, because Caeser refused peace for a long time.)

In at least 5 attacks by Praetorians on Tenoc, my jags never lost a fight. Mostly the Jags were promoted with Shock, but they faced some nasty praets, including a couple with City Attack 2. Also, numerous horse archers, chariots, archers and spearmen, in stacks of between 1 and 6. My other two lake cities provided some archers to try and regain my chokepoint, but were usually cut down.

To add insult to injury, Mao jumped on the bandwagon twice to declare war on me, though fortunately never bothered to send troops, otherwise it would have been curtains. And usually accepted peace quite quickly for free or some minor trinket. Moa was never too friendly with me, as I kept refusing his demands (to stay buddies with the Vikki crowd, including Julius (sic)).

To add further insult to injury, my carefully fostered diplomatic allies felt no pressing need to assist me. But they had no qualms about squishing me some more.

Monty: “Howzit, Munsa. How’s things?”
Munsa: “Hey, life’s good? You?”
Monty: ”Pretty bad. Caesar is ripping up my lands and threatening to tear up Tenoc.”
Munsa: “Yeah, life’s hard sometimes.”
Monty: “You wouldn’t perhaps be willing to distract Caeser, say, for music and drama? For old times sake?”
Munsa: “Uh, no, sorry, old chap. I’m a little busy with the rose gardens at the moment. But it’d be cool if you’d pass drama up along this way. You know, in the spirit of friendship…”
Monty: “Sigh. Okay, sure. Hey, Vicki…”
Vicki: “Go away.”



Now, you’ll recall I’d been researching those less-than-popular techs all along, and finally Caesar was willing to accept Music and Drama in exchange for peace. (Three turns away from a 12 unit odd assult on Tenoc, phew).
I think he smelt blood after Teo, and refused every attempt at a peaceful resolution for 1000 years.

Tenoc immediately switched to settler, as I wanted to move my defensive front forward to the chokepoint hill, protecting my “productive lands”, while research goes to Construction for catapults.

Huh? A turn or two into peace, Caeser merrily asks for open borders again? Well, I grant it. He doesn’t bother using it, though, and starts marching his troops back home, while I struggle to erect a more effective defensive front. The relationship is back to +3. This eight turns after he told me to take my punishment like a man?

Sadly, I got too excited during those wars to document it any better, and I missed a couple of crucial screenshots. Sorry.

Life continues happily on for the Azteczimos. Gaining some religious allies didn’t ever really pan out; although I eventually got Caeser to switch to Buddhism, but many of my other allies where Jewish, so I wasn’t prepared to risk losing them over Caeser as a dubious ally. Nor did I ever switch to Buddhism myself.

“Diplomatic la-di-da”
The next few hundred years or so were quite peaceful. Although most of my cities had cardboard archers on defence duty, the AI seemed to recognize that all of the cities they could reach (namely Texcoco and Tlaxcala), where “well” defended, and unless an AI founded a city on my lake, couldn’t build ships to attack my other three cities. I had founded Calixblahblah one square SE of the former Teo site, and I figured it could would at least pull some decent commerce.

Now, this is really interesting, considering the recent debates around here regarding diplomacy. I did experience Vicki giving me the whole “we fear you are too advanced”, despite very little trading. I had cancelled some trades with her in favour of Julius and Saladin, as Vicki had dropped back a little in the score and didn’t seem to be the great ally she once was, so that’s probably why.

But when Munsa came a calling and offered me Machinery as a GIFT, I nearly fell out of my chair. Six turns later, Saladin offers me GUILDS! Which, of course, I accept. Cool!

Something else I hadn’t seen before. I cancelled deals with Mao at the request of another AI, and for perhaps 500 years he refused to talk to me. From around 1200 to around 1700 or 1800. Like, wow.

During this time, a number of AI also said things like “we encourage you to stop trading with Moa, our worst enemy!” I’m, like, I’d love to, but I’m not. He won’t even talk to me!



“Die, Aztec scum”
In 1625, quite by chance, I noticed a fairly big Greek stack sitting outside my borders in Saladin’s territory; outside Texcoco. Doh! Texcoco had 2 jags, 2 archers and a ‘pult. Alex had an eleven unit stack including phalanx, war elephants, swordsmen and axemen. Which turned out to be his advance party; I suspect he had between 20 and 30 units in the area, if not more.

Needless to say, war was declared, and I had a situation. If Texcoco was captured, Alex would be able to build ships to take the rest of my paper cities. I considered gifting the city to Saladin, who was friendly to me (and seemed willing to accept it), but Caeser had already proved that friendship was proportional to the thickness of my defences.



To my great relief, Alex only razed the city. (How often do you say THAT?) He paid for it though. The Aztec warriors fought like demons, and I suspect the loss ratio was 2:1 in my favour. Maybe more. Alex’ strategy was interesting, though. Despite not bringing any cats (dumb move), he attacked with his weaker older troops first to apply some softening up. So many units did he have, that he never even got around to using the war elephants.

So, Monty was back down to 4 cities, which focussed exclusively on research. What else could I do but take a shot at the UN? I had two civs friendly toward me, I had a chance. Certainly more chance than I did of taking Roman cities, defended by riflemen, with jags.

“Till the world went to Hell in a Bucket”
Okay, despite having 15 units on duty in Tlaxcala, I was under no illusion that I was safe from invasion. By 1800AD, the world was, at least, in the age of Riflemen and Cavalry, and despite my research beelines, the AI was way more advanced than I. I had longbowmen on duty.
But for a change, when war broke out, I wasn’t the whipping boy. Not that I wasn’t involved, of course.

Saladin asks for a Defensive Pact. Sure, I need help more than Sally does.
A turn later, Alex declares war on Sally. Huh?
I declare war on Alex
And over the next few turns.
Rome declares on Alex.
Rome declares on Vicki
Mao declares on Munsa.

And for quite some time, I hear a lot of screamings as cities are razed or captured. Mao seems to have success against Munsa, and Alex gets smacked by Sally, and Rome has some success against Vicki.

And in 1846, Moa completes broadway. At this point I realise a UN beeline is impossible. Although it’s amazing how little one needs to research for a Mass Media Beeline. I have physics, but no democracy, no banking, no riflemen, no…

On the point of no riflemen…I decide to switch to research in that direction.

Ah, why bother, there’s no way to make the rest of the report sound anything but boring. The world made peace. Monty hid quietly in his cage and tried not to annoy anyone. I may finish last, but I sure won’t finish dead.

Caeser built the UN, but even with my help couldn’t scrape together a vote (rather vote for my “ally”, than Moa the annoying.). And when the Chinese completed the Space Elevator and hit a Golden age on the same turn, it was only a matter of time. Space Race Victory, 1981AD and, incidentally, my final score was also 1981. I’d researched Assembly Line by then.

Oh, and Caeser gave me Biology. Sweet of him. Again, no asking.

Hey, why don’t you bunch all go along with Moa…I’ll hang around here and keep the earth in order, eh?

“Not so elementary, eh, Watson?”
-My first mistake was playing the game with a losing attitude. Monarch, hideous opening position (more because of the lack of good land nearby than because Tenoc was on a bad site. Actually, Tenoc’s production was far from terrible); I figured I was going to lose anyway, may as well lose as LATE as possible.
Had I gone for a win, I would probably still have lost, but I’d have maybe lost with style.
-Not enough military. Underestimated the AI. Well, put that down to lack of monarch experience.Although I’ve read enough save games to know by now.



I still don’t have any great ideas about how to pursue a winning strategy, but two ideas:
-Early war, and move my empire to more juicy lands. Beating Praetorians in the early game…not easy.
-Diplomatic. Not let all my cities get toasted, (more and better placed military), and focus on science and defence)

[Sullla]

Why the barracks and the two archers so early on in the capital? I agree on the worker first (as I just typed in Sirian's thread at great length, hehe, he's going to kill me for that) but there's usually no need for that much defense early on. Just curious, what was your rationale for that?

Hmm, the problem with your Teotihuacan site is that it would have missed the fresh water tiles. Not that your spot was terrible, but just that it seems like moving another tile west would have been even stronger.

I think going for the early galley was a very good move. In any case, that's what I did with my game.

Wow, early aggression from Caesar. Tough to deal with. If you read my report, you'll see that I put an enormous effort into converting my neighbors to Buddhism (and Sirian went far beyond even ME in building a diplomatic alliance to shield him from aggression). That may be something to keep in mind for the future. If you can get them on your side, then you don't have to fight them!

AI civs GIVING you major techs as gifts?! Wow. I'm very surprised to see that. I hope they weren't gifts of pity!

Mao won your game too? In the first three games I've looked at, he's been the dominant AI at the end in each one. Interesting. Did he just have great land or something? I still expect to see some different results as I read more games. Congratulations on sticking it out to the very end, and thanks for reporting your results. I hope you enjoy reading the other reports!

[theGrimm]

The first archer was for Tenoc, the second to protect my settler. I like to send the defence ahead of my settler, as that usually also clears the fog between my second site and my current city, and allows the settler to get there faster...

I'd done everything I could to pacify Caeser (he was at +4 with me), short of religion. I guess my wonder sickness prevented the necessary missionaries.

In my game, Moa was pretty average until he starting eating Musa. I don't know if he captured the cities, or just razed them, but he got a good three of Musa's cities.

P.S. An interesting observation which I forgot to mention in the report. You can build a cottage on Tundra which has access to fresh water.

[Sirian]

The first archer was for Tenoc, the second to protect my settler. I like to send the defence ahead of my settler, as that usually also clears the fog between my second site and my current city, and allows the settler to get there faster...

I like to do that, too. In fact, I had not only military sentries all the way west to my second city site, but a road built most of the way too. I also like to get out in front with roads, to speed settler movement, connect up resources, allow any founded religions to begin spreading, etc. Roads are a bigger deal on all-land maps, although rivers can help reduce the need in some cases.

An Extreme Adventure is a tough foray in to Monarch level. This is not your typical Monarch game! I'm sure you'll have a better outing in some other events.


- Sirian

[theGrimm]

Reading Saved Games on Civ Fanatics is one thing, and gives an idea of the sort of game people play to succeed at high levels. But it's only when you read about how other people play the same game as you when you begin to realise your, er, stupidity.

-I've been a slave to close city placement. I'm not sure why, perhaps because I'm afraid if I place cities too far out, they will be very hard to defend. However, when you can only place 5 cities before economics stifles you, they need to be 5 good cities.

-I've never used slavery and whipping (everyone gasps). I really don't know why. Afraid of the unhappiness, perhaps. But now I see if it takes 10 turns to grow back to full size anyway...

-I've realised a city can build almost nothing but military units all game, and it's not a problem. For some reason, I keep getting to a point where I say "gee, who needs another archer. I already have one per city!" Silly, I know. 10 turns later I always end up saying "argh, I don't have enough military!"

-I'm coming to understand city specialization. Being a psycho builder at heart, I often build libraries and universities in cities that will never see more than 10 beakers, ever. It's worse now that buildings don't have maintence; before I'd at least make sure the building paid for itself.

I've learned more, of course, but these are the most tangible things. I bet if you guys had an entrance exam, I would have failed

I started a highlands prince game last night, forcing myself to use slavery (in a decent food position, of course), intensive military, optimal city placement, and focused building. I managed five religions and first place (with double the score of my nearest rival), by 0AD. The point being that I managed to used 4 new "tools" effectively, not that I pulled ahead on a good start.

By the way, Mali makes a great civ for religion hoarding.

Thanks RB.

</end infomercial>

[Mike Lemmer]

I'd be careful about the intensive military. At Monarch, the army really begins to bleed out your pocketbook. It was the first time I started disbanding obsolete units to save money.

Oh, and if you want to work on Slavery, I'd suggest an Oasis map. The middle's filled with flood plains, and you can easily whip 4-5 times in a row. (It's amazing seeing a size 3 city with 8 unhappiness.)

[Bezhukov]

Play England in the 1000AD scenario for a good slavery/drafting primer. I'm really surprised that Caesar came all that way to beat you around. Did you trade Caesar any techs? Sometimes that can help relations.

[theGrimm]

Caeser was +4 towards me. I'd intentionally been trading with him to keep him happy; open borders and tech. I hadn't had time to spread any religion his way; I didn't have the infrastructure, and with my choice of city placement the route wasn't safe for missionaries.

But for some reason it wasn't enough. Maybe because my military was weak, and I made a soft target.

[Renata]

During this time, a number of AI also said things like “we encourage you to stop trading with Moa, our worst enemy!” I’m, like, I’d love to, but I’m not. He won’t even talk to me!

I've noticed this happening, too -- getting that comment when I haven't traded with the civ in question for eons and have no current per-turn trades going, nor any treaties. It's also happened to me when the only "deal" I had at the moment was a peace treaty from a war the grumpy civ had begged me to get into in the first place! (And the complaining civ had backed out first.)

I'm beginning to suspect that that comment is triggered by any trading at all throughout history with the hated civ (kind of along the lines of the "you traded with our worst enemies" attitude modifer, whether or not there are actually any current trades in effect. But the wording doesn't make it sound like that at all -- it prompts you to look for ongoing trades, and to get frustrated unneccessarily when there are none, or when the only one is a peace treaty. It makes you feel like there should be a choice there (just stop trading!) when there isn't (trading has already stopped).

Or maybe it's a bug, and that comment isn't meant to show up when there are no current deals in place (and peace treaties shouldn't count as current deals) and no "hard goods" trades within the past turn or two. Either way, I think it needs to be tweaked. It's just a bit of unnecessary confusion.

Anyway, to get this more on the topic of your game, Grimm, thanks for including your analysis of the things that held you back in this game. I found it very helpful in terms of where I'm still going wrong, too.

And you're absolutely right about a Mass Media beeline being quite feasible in cases of moderately bad tech deficits. I went for it in Epic I against a runaway Washington, researching one beeline tech for every one "other" tech all the way from Astronomy, and using a saved Engineer (from Hanging Gardens GP points) to speed up the UN build. I was roughly two "layers" of tech behind the whole time; either Mass Media itself or its immediate prerequisite was the first tech I got ahead of Washington. So that much can be done if the situation is not completely dire. The bigger problem is getting people to vote for you afterward!