Epic 12 - A sunday drive.

[Blake]

Okay lets go. Couldn't be bothered with the website this time so it's forumspace.

First tech = Animal Husbandry
Build = Worker

That should be the standard opening, I'd think.




The first neighbor I meet is Asoka the Girly Princess of India. I can see why this game is called the Gauntlet! The Girly Princess founds Buddhism a little later. No doubt he is going to preach compassion and forgiveness while I ruthlessly kill him and take his cities.

I also meet Huayna Capac the Ratman when his scout turns up at my borders.

Okay *time out*.

Call a game “The Gauntlet” then for the neighbors, the second most pacifist leader in the game (with a “Kick me” sign stuck to his back, and a “Rush me” sign stuck to his front), and one of the most wonder-obsessed leaders in the game? Oooookay.

Expansion time. Choosing the second city site WAS a challenge. Being non-creative it's necessary to carefully weigh the pros and cons of placing a city in a spot with no immediately accessible resources. However in the end I decide to do just that, mainly due to the poor quality terrain.



After a bunch of turns religion spreads to the city (I'd made some roads for that purpose).

Anyway I didn't care that much about copper, because I concluded that with the river and furs it'd be no difficulty whatsoever teching to catapults. I would've rathered use some Keshiks, but no horses nearby.

Construction comes along soon enough and I'm prepared.



Chop chop! Turning off slavery was meant to make this some kind of difficult, but with a huge abundance of useless forest on this kind of map the real abuse is in chopping... so very quickly some catapults are rolling off the assembly lines, meeting up with a large horde of Axes I'd been dribbling out of the cities.

The tech after construction is Alphabet so I can do some tech trading and by trading I mean offer to stop beating on the girly princess in exchange for some of his tech. This is often known as extortion.

Ratman comes bugging me with some diplomacy



Yes, religious wars can be unpleasant. Since I was planning on some unpleasentries vs the buddhists anyway I accept this request to adopt hindhusim.

I then note that Ratman has some Ivory for sale. As I said I'd pumped out a whole load of axes, I had more than I really wanted (due to upkeeps) so I trade away my 1 source of Copper to get Ivory, which is definitely an awesome deal. Elephants are a better use of upkeep than spears, and I get the happy from the Ivory. Cheers ratman.



Asoka screams like a girl as my stack rolls into his territory. Or maybe he sat and meditated while Delhi was being sacked. I don't know.



You know, with a name like “The Gauntlet”, I was not expecting to be beating up girls and nerds.

My army continues to liberate the Indian cities with the gold being used to finance alphabet research. While this is going on Ratman helpfully helps out my war effort by spreading Hinduism into the Buddhist Indian cities, for additional culture and happiness. Cheers Ratman, and keep building up your own cities too!

I take an Indian city which had built the Oracle, useful only for some prophet points, which actually will be useful.

In a case of patent ridiculousness an incan settler party wanders through my territory and....



Founds a city and Jesusism the very next turn. Oookay.

My rampaging stacks wipe out a rubbish indian city in tundra and it's time to make the Indian Fairy Princess pay for his... well, pay.

Read the log backwards to figure out what happens...



Basically, extort a bunch of tech in exchange for 10 turns of existence.



The Indian Fairy Princess is found huddling in a snowy little scumhole. He is executed and the Indian People Rejoice, welcoming their new Mongol Overlord who is neither a fairy nor a princess.

The first great person is born and he is one of those brainiacs, building an Academy in Delhi since in the long run it'll be a better city than the capital.

My workers are still chopping feverishly, wiping out the tundra forests, and pretty much all forests, producing mainly elephants.

After not long at all I declare war on Ratman, with the first target being the City of Jesus


My armies make a beeline for the jumbos, then for the Pyramids, which the wonder crazy ratman has naturally built:



With these in my hands I switch to Representation.

The rule of no slavery brings with it various downsides, such as the inability to rush defenders in an emergency. However again this variant fails in practise, as this happens:



Yup! A very handy palace jump! To Delhi which along with being far more central is also my Commercial Powerhouse and has an Academy and is that Civil Service being researched, yuppers!

So just pretend that in my infinite brilliance it was all part of my plan and totally not a matter of not defending my capital properly against Incan horse archers. (ignore that I'm far too honest to actually do something like that deliberately, but it was a very profitable event)

Karak is of course taken right back by some random Elephant.

[Blake]

Ratman does manage to get Crossbows out, but they are pretty useless vs Elephants and so the invasion continues, relentlessly.



My initial thrust was to acquire Ivory and Pyramids, and in doing so I split ratman's empire in half, I then focused on securing the eastern half and some fringe cities before moving on to his main core, once those areas are secured I decide to offer him 10 turns of peace. For this he gives me Metal Casting, and I then trade Civil Service for Machinery, yeah the silly goose was still pleased with me due to shared religion.

In happy news, one of those men wise in the ways of separating fools and their gold is born



I decide to build the Hinduism shrine first, since not only is it more spread than Buddhism, but the Ratman had kindly built me a Market in the city, very nice since I don't have currency yet.

Actually check how damn fine that city is:



Yeha, an Academy. A nice city.

I was just about to start researching Optics, when along comes Cyrus the Persian. He has the self-founded religion of Conf.

He's also willing to trade me Optics and 50g for Civil Service, very nice.

A couple of turns later I meet Mansa Musa! Good grief. Call a game “The Gauntlet” and makes the AI's a bunch of freaking peaceniks? This game could be called shooting fish in a barrel.

My despair only deepens upon meeting Frederick the Pansy German (not to be mistaken with Germans who aren't pansies), he has founded Taoism.

And then, my knight in Shining Armor!



Alexander doesn't quite get my exuberance and I think we got off on the wrong foot.

In the world of stuff like technology, Frederick with his man-whore of Alexander (they are both Taoism) has been happilly teching off way yonder, and gets Astronomy about 20 turns before I have it...

In slightly unhappy news Mansa Musa also nabs Circumnavigation, altough he's the least likely to actually do anything with it.

You could probably guess that the war with Inca resumed



Also Alexander goes for Mansa Musa, I can't remember if I started that war with bribery or if it's just good old fashioned Alexander madness, I think it was the latter.

My lands are purged of Incans (he still has an offshore island) and I offer him peace for some junk tech, Literature and Horseback Riding.

It's time to start catching up in tech:



Cyrus is a great tech trading partner because he's easy to trade with (high WFYABTA limit), and backwards due to isolation. This makes him perfect for playing catchup with Mansa Musa and Frederick.



Just a nice shot of my lands, around 1500AD. Note the Forbidden Palace going in the happy hindu super-city.

The next trade I make with Cyrus is Replaceable Parts for Gunpowder and loose change.



Ratman finally makes his departure from the game.

[Blake]

I'd birthed a Great Merchant, who was sent far far away:



The 3750g is going to be useful for research. Also as a side note I switched to Pacifism during the final stages of the Incan war, so the Great People are coming at a good clip.



Also I make a civic switch once I get Liberialism.


With the cash bomb I'm easily able to research some trade fodder and such, getting Biology first, and trading it to Frederick for Steel. Of course I continue to use Cyrus to acquire other techs.

I pick up Communism and use if to Bribe Mansa Musa to war with Frederick, cementing my victory (okay, it's cheap, I know I know). Amusingly the next turn Alexander declares war on Mansa Musa, out of his own free will.


Final civics of the game.



I also build what I believe is my first wonder of the game, The Kremlin.


Demographics at around 1700AD:



The AI's are of course sucking, this being Vanilla. Unbelievably I even have respectable soldiers, fully half as much as the best. This is pretty pathetic considering I'm running pacifism and also pretty much acting that way.



My second wonder of the game is the Big Metal Lady, completed with a Great Engineer.

And my Iron Works city, State Property Power!



I had pretty much chosen an arbitary city with large radius of decent land and paved it over workshops. This city probably out-produces the next two strongest AI's entire empires combined :P.

Now for a funny:



Alexander declares war on Mansa Musa

Simultaneously, Cyrus delcares war on Alexander.

And then along comes Mansa Musa and begs me to declare war on Alexander. I agree of course.



The Three Gorges Dam promises to curse some health woes.



Alexander finds himself in a spot of trouble. Of course his armies have been depleted by fighting Mansa Musa, so there is no chance to beat down the superier tanks with sheer weight of numbers. Poor Alexander. *reject my affections, *mutter**



Alexander's Attack Stack also finds itself in a spot of trouble, as it's spotted by one of my Sentry Destroyers. It is glug-glugged over the next few turns.

Happily the UN is completed.



Cyrus is of course my man whore, he can always be relied on that way. Alexander is also basically voting for me, as his cities are being rapidly confinscated.
It seems that my effort to sabotage the relationship between MM and Freddy didn't actually work. Oh well.

Despite heading for victory, I can still be kind:



In my infinite compassion, I return a Malanese city to Mansa Musa.

And then, pretty much just like that:



The game is over.

With my significant territories and annexing of Greek Territory, combined with support from Cyrus, I have more than enough votes for the UN Victory.

Thus I win backdoor domination in 1824AD.

CONCLUSION:

I'm afraid that this game really failed to live up the to the description

Scenario: To paraphrase the Civ3 version of The Gauntlet, this one is going to be crushingly brutal. What would happen if the “tricks” used by elite players were taken off the table, then combined with a tremendously challenging starting position? We’re about to find out.

Nope. The starting location was a good one. It's only naturally for the mongols to immediately pursue Animal Husbandry, and thus with just the natural tech choice, all the starting resources can be immediately improved.

Comments: This is a no-holds-barred scenario designed to test our elite players’ true skill. Temujin has been specifically selected as a leader with little to no economic advantages whatsoever, aside from cheap granaries. The map has also been designed to limit the potential for early cottages. On Emperor difficulty, you’ll have a significant mountain to climb against boosted rivals with superior starting positions. Good luck.

It seems a bit bass ackwards to create a variant which is supposed to be commerce poor, and then give it a start with a strong river system and 2 furs, allowing the player to tech to catapults with ease.

To compound this, the cold and dry settings promotes a chopping strategy over whipping. With a food poor, hammer heavy start, why whip? It makes much more sense to just chop everything. As such the no whipping rule hardly even came into play. It was just amusing irony that the only time the no-whipping rule affected me, was to my immense benefit and probably exploitive. Look at that, I accidently exploited a rule designed to make the variant harder .

And the worst thing of all was the leader roundup: Asoka and Huayna Capac are pretty much the easiest leaders in the game to rush, they are pathetic. The rest of the crowd was hardly impressive either, Alexander on another island is nothing – acting only to slow down the others with his madness. Mansa Musa was the only “Strong” leader in the game, with a degree of rush resilience and rapid teching.

Overall this game should not challenge any veteran player, it should be shooting fish in a barrel for elite players.

At a minimum it should have been ensured that their were interesting immediate neighbors, at least an aggressive leader who *actually likes training units*!
Having Cyrus as an easy tech whoring partner can probably be forgiven, but it did make the mid game pretty trivial.

Perhaps in this case, The Gauntlet is not for the players, but Sullla .

BUT ANYWAY:

I still enjoyed the game, enough to play and even report it. What can I say, I love an excuse to be bitter, sarcastic and snide, it's fun.

I do however hope that future games targeted to challenge elite players will actually do that.

[darrelljs]

I still enjoyed the game, enough to play and even report it. What can I say, I love an excuse to be bitter, sarcastic and snide, it's fun.

I hadn't noticed .

Darrell

[T-hawk]

First tech = Animal Husbandry
Build = Worker

That should be the standard opening, I'd think.

Yeah, I think everybody did either that, or Agriculture before AH. Agri gives a discount on AH as an extra prerequisite, and it also leads to Pottery.


Nice (lucky) move on building the copper city in the resource location, then getting the religious auto spread for the border expansion. I wanted to do that but didn't. Were you trying to build an obelisk at all for a backup plan in case the religion didn't spread?

I pick up Communism and use if to Bribe Mansa Musa to war with Frederick, cementing my victory (okay, it's cheap, I know I know). Amusingly the next turn Alexander declares war on Mansa Musa, out of his own free will.

Could've been Frederick bribing/demanding Alexander to join the war against Mansa.

Surprised you waited for Construction before rushing India, though. Did you not think you could get the job done with axes and swords?

[Blake]

Nice (lucky) move on building the copper city in the resource location, then getting the religious auto spread for the border expansion. I wanted to do that but didn't. Were you trying to build an obelisk at all for a backup plan in case the religion didn't spread?

It's quite possible that I already had built (chopped) an obelisk, you can see that there is considerable progress into the granary and at least one forest is gone - it took a nice good long time for the religion to spread. But I wasn't in any great hurry.

Surprised you waited for Construction before rushing India, though. Did you not think you could get the job done with axes and swords?

I was in no hurry (hey my game is called The Sunday Drive ).
Anyway I wanted mathematics for obvious reasons and I like having catapults, elephants too. A longlived army in a no-upgrading game is nice.

Also my economy never got remotely unhealthy, generally staying above 20%. I don't mind letting the AI build up cities for a while.

I was interested in an easy game and also making the variant rules / description look silly (always fun to do). It was a lazy game.

Note that I habitually do not tech to swords, I consider Iron Working to be worth researching only if I need metal OR need to chop jungles. Unless I'm Celts (in Warlords/BTS) or maybe Aztecs. Anyway in this game there was copper and no jungles to chop so I didn't feel the need to go to IW when I knew that Catapults would do the trick swimmingly well. I do tend to play it safe, I gamble when I have to, I don't when I don't.

Teching Alphabet ultra-early and trading for IW isn't a bad idea, though.

[uberfish]

Note that I habitually do not tech to swords, I consider Iron Working to be worth researching only if I need metal OR need to chop jungles. Unless I'm Celts (in Warlords/BTS) or maybe Aztecs. Anyway in this game there was copper and no jungles to chop so I didn't feel the need to go to IW when I knew that Catapults would do the trick swimmingly well. I do tend to play it safe, I gamble when I have to, I don't when I don't.

I used to hate self-researching Iron, but I actually do it more and more recently in games with early warfare. You can't always rely on the AI trading it to you immediately you get alphabet on continents. Swords are significantly better than axes at taking cities, and knowing where the iron is lets you cut the enemy off from metal with good scouting.

In BtS my policy on alphabet has totally reversed, now that the AI researches it in a timely fashion I will usually go for the tech that gives me something I want right now, and then trade for the AI's alphabet.

[sylvanllewelyn]

I was initially planning to do exactly what you did, but you just did it faster and better during the classical era, which forced me into a space race rather than domination in the modern era.

As for the "no slavery" being a "non-factor", actually, yes, it was a factor. It devastated my economy completely. Asoka didn't leave many forests for chopping out courthouses, and Delhi had no hills to speak of to build the palace.

How did you tech to construction so quickly? I wish I could do the same.

[sooooo]

Your report made me laugh, thanks