Epic 14 - timmy827's ramblings

[timmy827]

Prelude - After a long and exhausting time, I finally rolled to a victory. In my two earlier reports (Epic 13-Portugal, Adv 24) I kept a running log as I played and added in some editorial at the end. I tried the same thing here and wound up with a disasterously long thing, 22 pages in MSWord! Feel free to just look at the pictures and scroll to the conclusion. I tried to cut out as much as I can but just didn't have much time to edit. And while it's long, it's only twice as long as my DeGaulle report; major length but I guess not that absurd.

"Wow, for someone who plays mostly OCC you sure do know how to wage war." - darrelljs, after looking at my epic 13 report.

Well, that statement will be put to the test, won't it? Never played always war before. Interestingly the game was kind of a mirror image of epic 13. In that game (as Portugal) I did some good early rushing, but then teched to rifling well ahead of the AI's and used that to steamroll to domination; it felt a bit like playing Civ2 or SMAC on medium difficulty when a decent player can tech, tech, tech, and then crush with way more advanced units. In the process I made a big tactical blunder; I got cocky and divided my forces allowing Justinian to wipe out one of my main stacks with collateral damage and a lot of obsolete units. This game, my tactics were generally much better but I frequently felt the need to go back to Civ Economy 101 as I was in a big tech hole basically the entire time.

[timmy827]

Start - What to do first? Not worker, as I'm going to paranoidally research archery first and have no hunting resources. Or should I go for religion first? Maybe I'll put hammers into a barracks until I can build an archer. Yeah, let's try that, those barracks hammers won't decay as far as I know, whereas they would if I built a scout or worker first.



3700-Decide to go mining->bw while waiting for 1st archer. Not sure if this is best, perhaps I'm delaying the worker too much. 1st contact as one of Sury's scouts comes from the west.

3325-Quiet so far, archer done and warrior heads east to scout. Building worker at size of 3. BW in 9, worker in 14.

3200-Churchill met, I'm not happy about the prot/char trait combo. This is validated later as Churchill seemed to consistently send the largest/most dangerous stacks.



3075-BW in, able to see copper at awesome city site in picture, will be able to grab 2 seafood, copper and pigs (but must chop monument). Almost definitely going to be my 2nd city. Although resources are balance, so there should be copper closer to my capital right?



2475-AH in, see the horses in fat cross, sweet. building settler, probably going to pass on the eastern site for now. On the western side as shown in pic, I can place a city riverside to grab copper and pigs pre-borderpop, which is good. I also want to expand in that direction to control those gold resources. Archer wins on attack against 1 of two warriors without a scratch, nice.

The decision to go west has long consequences. I don't take that "awesome" site until sometime in the 1700s!

2175-1st settler done, sending west. Training another defensive archer, then comes a worker. Researching pottery for granaries.

1725-Decide to try for henge. Maybe should have done earlier. In middle of long trip to IW. Enemies have been quiet so far except for scouting warriors, some of which I've killed. 2nd city is going to build a scout after rax done.

1650-Sending scouting chariot east, surprisingly aztecs are closer than english.

1475-scout west wanders into trap, killed by Sury axe. Whip henge in captial. Torn on whether to peacefully fill out core cities or prepar for an early rush. Will probably compromise, build some cities while making a chariot force to disrupt Monty.

1050-decided to be peaceful for now, mostly. sending an axe and spear to kmher to see if I can pillage. I'm pretty furious that I've already lost two chariots trying to kill a khmer axeman (not in khmer terriory) at 89% and 96% odds.

1000-have axe/spear/chariot combo wandering aimlessly thru khmer lands, trying to pillage.

775-see 4 spears and 2 axes together in khmer territory, looks like an attack.

600-somehow I thought that stack went somewhere else, then it appears near my westernmost city, with archers and axes following. through whipping and moving, I get two archers and two axes just in time; unfortunately I cannot select the shock promo for the newly whipped axe. My axe and spear in khmer territory get killed, but the chariot racing back is able to pick off one axeman. Khmer founds a city nearby, for one turn its defended by a lone spear but my only unit in position to attack is chariot...two turns later, I have two axes and two chariots (one GG/Medic 3) ready to attack next turn against one spear and one axe - then four more units move in, darn.



230-I'm beginning to wonder if I'm ever gonna make progress; as you can see it took a while to get math and will take even longer to Construction even with two gold mines going, and I can see Sury is researching faster than me....I should have built more workers, I desparately need more roads. I don't know what those 4 khmer units will do-a while ago an axe and spear entered the same way and appeared to be headed for my capital. I guess I have to move my main western army to intercept.



155- AI is kind of dumb - I've caught up with those 4 units and they've moved off the forest into the clear, totally oblivious that I'm going to kill them all.



125-Aztecs are not so dumb and have stayed in places where I can't gather my forces to kill them; I made a mistake a turn ago and wound up with some units chasing instead of blocking cause i tried to defend my workers rather than moving them away. Also, Caesar's first visitors show up-worrying as this is the first invasion by a non-adjacent AI.

65-All enemy units dead. I foolishy found a 5th city and my science rate drops to 30%, i switch research to fishing so I can work some quick commerce. GP due soon, will bulb Theo. Moving axes to set up a blockade at some choke point in the forest. This has been a little dull; as there has only been a single attacking chariot my strategy has been build axeman, promote to shock, build axeman, promote shock, and repeat.

50-Seeing some new Aztec culture, I move a chariot and a gallic over to check it out, revealing a poorly guarded city and the first attacks from England and Korea. Yikes. I decide to send in the gallic at 90% odds rather than wait for the stack to find good defensive terrain; I win but the gallic is down to 20% health and will get killed next turn, I have no one to back him up. Whip a library in the capital. Good news is I get my axeman screen up in the northwest with one in each forest; hopefully Sury won't be able to slip in any annoying lone units that way.



35-Wang Kon's forces joined by a Praet and 3 chariots of rome. I'm handling this very badly, and may have to retreat from the whole group because I don't have any spears with me.



5 BC - Here's some good old fashioned AI stupidity. The prize of my unattended worker split rome's stack from koreas, and when either of them could have attacked my axemen in the grassland with chariots. I move my units into the forested hill tile where half of them already are.

[timmy827]

10AD - Wang moves his stack onto grassland and they are toast, get a good roll for once and don't lose any axes. I get my 2nd GG, who I'm going to settle in the capital. Unfortunately, I'm at -3GPT at only 20% science! I hope fishing allows me to pull that out. Then I realize it's because an english axeman has snuck onto my western goldmine, and the city is undefended...have to whip a chariot to take care of that.



25AD - Careless is Sury who settled a city here on the stone, with only a spear and chariot against 4 attacking axes it has no chance. I decide to go for my 1st city raider promotions; however the first axes still loses at 90% odds. Nevertheless, I'm happy to finally capture a city (it autorazes). Also, this is a good warning to get some spears in the west as this was the first chariot I've seen from Sury. Decide against settling that GG and send him west for another medic III chariot; I'm going to be fighting on two fronts constantly so that's probably better.

40AD-GP born, and will lightbulb....Meditation. After checking the great people tech preferences, I discover that I'll have to research both meditation and priesthood to bulb theology. At my pitiful research rate, it will take 20 turns to research those religious techs. I decide to go for it; it's shorter that the 38 turns it will take me to get construction. I try belatedly to get my workers going on cottages so I can get somewhere techwise.

70AD - I had sent 3 axes, a spear, and 2 chariots to try attacking the closest aztec city. They get rushed by a bunch of english units; the spear heroically kills 3 chariots, then the english foolishy send sword, archer, spear against axes on a hill across a river. So 6 units killed with no losses from me, but a catapult from monty shows up...I'm getting outteched really, really badly. I start to worry that I won't ever get anywhere offensively.



115AD - I've withstood suicide attacks on both fronts, and pressed forward on the east and razed the new aztec city on a hill. I smartly do the mopup with my +1 move GG so I can see the surroundings and be able to move back. I'm perilously close to striking still. My previous strategy was to beeline construction but clearly that's going to take way too long. If I can take one or two more aztec cities I may get enough plunder to finish the religious techs and bulb theology while my workers dig me out of this research hole. I assign two scientists in the capital - I have enough units for defense for now and it will hasten the next great person. However, I'm not sure if I want a GS - currently he would bulb sailing, then compass and calendar, none of which is going to be a huge help.

Thinking in terms of the big picture, I'm not sure what's best. The maintenance costs on this small map are much worse than I expected - obviously my big army is not helping things, but last time I checked the screen the majority of my costs were still civic and city maintenance. I have 5 cities but they're not far spread out and the difficulty is lower than I usually play (which reduces player city maintenance right?) and I have gold mines; I guess I was expecting to be researching at something like 30-40%, not 0.



175AD - I trudge on; science still at 10-20%. Khmer has settled on the stone again so instead of going for their city to NW I head for that. In the east I get a bonus with an easy settler kill. My decision to promote that spear to march pays off, he'll heal after this turn. I think that's a good promo path for spears now; extra combat doesn't help a whole lot as they are heavily favored against chariots and heavily disadvantages against axes.

190AD - that new khmer city is autorazed; I resume the offensive moving my stack north. A peek at the defenses of an aztec core city is great - only two archers, chariot, axe. I may be able to capture it; my main stack is 2 turns away from attacking.

220AD - against 40% cultural defense, I can't quite take the city with acceptable losses. Goal is stay near here, keep iron offline, kill units.

310 - Given up on offensive; will have to wait for catapults. I'm getting outteched and there isn't much to be done.

340 - Priesthood done, Theology bulbed and thank goodness no one else has gotten it yet. State religion at last - good. Theocracy - better. Change of music - priceless. only 19 turns to construction!

415 - Mess up while retreating from aztec territory; wind up next to separate stacks of monty and churchill when my raiders haven't met up with my defenders; result is only 1/2 my forces can attack at once w/o river crossing penalties and they get spread out. I ahve a heart attack when Hernan Cortes defends against the last chariot in an opposing stack (despite having a spear that, while wounded to 2.6/4 strength, surely would have been a better anti-chariot, right?) I have revolted straight in Theocracy; I only have 5 cities and 3 are already christain (1 holy city, 1 from free missionary, 1 from natural spread) so OR isn't worth it. With my forces withdrawn, economy recovers somewhat; now up to 30% science. At the time I don't realize that that is about as high as it will ever sustainably go.

I may be able to take some cities with construction but I think a prolonged offensive will leave me vulnerable to stacks coming from that front. So I think the best (although painfully slow) way to win is a grind; gradually build more cities (I have another settler going in the capital now, aimed for a riverside spot in the north) and expand outward. I feel reasonably safe; with war always on the AI seems to waste its units in small stacks instead of assembling big ones. I will probably stop researching construction and go for aesthetics - for the Statue of Zeus. I hope this will slow all of the AI's down, and denying it to another AI is important. And while I'm getting my butt kicked in tech, the AI doesn't seem to for aesthetics often so I think I should be able to get it. Also, Literature for HE will be very helpful. A neat trick is that by inspecting the time to research Aesthetics, comparing it to things I know no AI has (like CoL, since Conf has not been founded, or paper) I can see no AI has aesthetics even though I don't have alpha yet.

Before committing, I check the XML and see that AI suffers 80% of normal war weariness on Prince; that's good enough for me. Aesthetics, here we come!

Also for fun, here's a kill/loss count so far.



I wish the columns had an auto-total. So its about a 4-to-1 ratio now, not quite enough to offset the team ratios. I'm starting to worry about a main part of my success so far, which goes like this:

The AI now is pretty good at mixing units in stacks, although sometimes it is out to lunch (like a 3 cata, 2 chariot stack). I usually am too; thus the defender has a big advantage since the counter unit will be chosen against the attacker. Now sometimes the AI stacks have walked past my stacks and I have to pull the trigger when they get too close to pillaging a key resource; I'll kill them all but take some losses. But sometimes they will charge me when I'm on a forested hill and I won't lose any units. Trying to predict their movement is difficult and this mechanic seems kind of gamey.

490AD - Lots of guys coming in from the west. I'm paying for not chopping those forests earlier; enemy forces have lots of cover.

505AD - my frantic maneuvering triggers more enemy suicides. A bunch of english units move into a new aztec city I'm trying to capture, including the first horse archer I've seen. Sury is researching MC; worried about getting beaten to the medieval mil techs now.

520AD - more foolish enemy attacks trigger 4th Great General (just imagine if I build the great wall. Hope I can capture it from Sury sometime). Settle in capital which already has 1 and will be getting heroic epic, sometime...Now capital can build 9xp units, good for 3 promotions on top of free combat 1/guerilla 1!

Just a random thought: God help me if there is ivory somewhere (it seems like with this grassland-heavy map some resources are just non-existent) Later I find out that's it's in several places, just none easily reachable by me! This is a big problem.

[timmy827]

595-Get reports of a spy; it occurs that some AI must have alphabet. Then I check the tech screen and the all do - uh oh. I'm still doing fine, no serious threats, but I'm worried with tech trading that they will all run away.

670-Aesthetics done, SoZ underway in captial; chopping everything in sight to get this thing up. Building settler, intending to expand eastward.

700AD - Churchill shows up again and he's got an elephant with him. Just great.

730-SoZ build in a far away land! Oh god, what's going on? Looking at tech screen, it wasn't caesar or churchill. I didn't think to check if any AI had aesthetics when I got it. Oh well, I have some gold for deficit research, but I think that wonder could have helped a lot. Cap switches to Shwedagon, it's the only wonder I have double speed for and it will get me some gold when an AI finishes it.

880-Played a relatively uneventful round. Held off a lot of attacks; Been careful to keep the killing within my cultural borders to avoid WW and it's down to 0 with everyone except Monty, and that's at a trivial level. Caesar's stack is pretty typical in size (5 units); I feel like I can hold out forever until the enemy gets next generation tech. Finished Lit and Construction; HE is a few turns from completion in captial. A third GG has been settled there, so I will soon be cranking out 11XP units from a city with the HE, 5 mined hills + horse and iron tiles. It will be able to pump out cats every two turns and axes/spears almost 1 a turn. I think I can finally turn the corner and start an offensive, important since I'm getting real sick of turtling. Khmer is going to be my target; for some reason Monty is by far the most backward AI. From espionage I see Sury is 15 turns from Civil Service; I should be able to hurt him before he gets into the medieval military. He's the score leader, and has pyramids, great wall, and hanging gardens. A final factor in going west is that Monty, Caesar, and Winston attack from the east while only Wang Kon joins Sury in attacking from the west so I should have less interference from allies.

Churchill is still the only one with horse riding so no elephants from the rest of the crowd; there's no ivory visible in the parts of Cambodia and Mexico (oops, politically incorrect) that I see but I don't have any idea about further than that. Anyone getting elephants is real bad as there's no hard counter; spearmen are a only a 50-50 shot. And while I'm not using many mounted units, my medic IIIs are chariots; so the balista elephant could be incredibly dangerous. I will have to watch the tech screen closely; likely another AI will get HR and break the monopoly then everyone will get it through trade.

So, in a little while I should have catapults rolling into Khmer territory with a large scale invasion around 1000AD. In Epic 13 (I was Portugal) I was doing the exact same thing to Khmer at 100AD, finished them at 430AD, and that was the 2nd civ I had launched a major offensive against. Hopefully I can cripple Khmer and shortly afterwards use a 2nd army to mop up the backwards (by which I mean, still ahead of me technologically) aztecs. At this point I will be frantically trying to get the medieval military techs to catch up with the rest of the AI; hopefully they will maintain their small stack sizes so I will be able to fend them off; just at a much higher loss ratio than I'm managing now; with nearly half the map in my grip I will have the production to compensate. Then once I get the medieval military techs I should be able to make the winning push. This is a lot different from what I expected - I thought this game would be like uberfish's report on the AW game as Bismarck where he outteched everyone while spending his time building wonders. Granted, I'm definitely not in his league as a player, but I didn't expect to fall so far behind the AI. I should have focused on cottages/economy more early and fewer units but I'm sure I'd still be behind; having the AIs all tech trading while I can't is a big disadvantage.

900AD - 1st longbow seen from caesar. As I don't have monarchy, can't see who else has feudalism.

910AD - something extremely disturbing - 10 english units, with 2 elephants and a lot of catapults. There's only one sword and no axes, so I might wind up promoting every spearman I have to charge and seeing what happens.



990AD - That english stack has forced me to retreat my main eastern army to the capital; it's judgement day now. Oddly last turn, he finished bombarding defenses and attacked with a single horse archer, which was promptly killed by my spear. I have a lot of charge and formation promoted units; gotta cross my fingers now. Another GG results in my capital being able to produce 13XP units now, pretty sick. As you can see, a smaller Aztec stack has forced me to move some units to the northern city; with a dun whipped it will hold out a few more turns.

1000AD - its bad. 3 of the 6 catapults withdraw, and they've damaged my spearmen hordes enough that what seem like all of his elephants and horse archers win battles. I'm not going to lose the capital, but I can't afford losses like this.

1030AD-last of the english mopped up; I capture and raze (yet again) the Khmer city on the stone, casualty-free thanks to catapults. Monty's stack suicides into the northern city and I only lose 1 unit; no other enemy forces in sight so I will have the repreive I need to feel safe in the east. Things are looking up.

1070AD - My plans to press on in the west get stalled, of course, by incoming stacks from Sury and Wang. Unfortunately, my maneuvering trying to get one of them to suicide into me results in them moving together. Time and again, I've kicked myself for not clearing out more of these western forests that give the enemy such good cover. Sury has finished CS and I can't see his research anymore. But at least he is the only one who has it.

I'm losing focus and playing poorly. I researched HBR because I saw some stacks w/o spearment and having catapults, where horse archers could have been useful, but haven't build any yet. Researched COL but as shabby as my economy is, courthouses won't be that good until I capture more cities.

[timmy827]

1100AD - In the east, some more action, highlighting one of my new favorite units - the charge spearman. A roman stack came in with a single praet plus catapults and horse units; my combat 5 gallic kills the praet at decent odds, followed by the spears taking out all the catapults and the horse units. I've found the spears useful EXPLAIN

1120AD - Look at this, bad news...



I must say, while some people have said the ballista elephant is a weak UU, it sure is cool-looking. This is the first I've seen; will have to keep my GG chariot away from my main stack for now. My only spearman in the attack stack dies but reduces it to negligible health, rest of stack advances. 2 longbows in city but I should have enough cats to manage things. Churchill brings some guys in the east but it's way smaller than his last one, easily killed. Augustus has an xbow wandering around; this is worrying but would've been a lot worse if it joined his stack I wiped out a few turns ago.

1140AD - Big victory against Khmer! Another ballista elephant eyeing George Patton (chariot, M3) is killed by a newly-arriving spear, I attack the city on the hill. 2 longbows and a bunch of classical units defend. 1st barrage cat scores some hits on one longbow, 2nd suicide cat fails to damage. The collateral damage is not affecting the other longbows, so I try a guerrila 3 gallic next and he excellently nearly kills the healthy longbow before retreating. Rest of attack is a rout; but I don't quite have enough non-catapult attackers to take the city.



1150AD - Thankfully, Sury reinforces the city, which I have more than a dozen healthy units outside, with a lone catapult. Gotta love that AI...After some consideration I raze it upon capture, will want to move it north to get the animal tiles. The city would have cost me 10gpt in maintenance, I want to save for cities that I want to keep (such Yasod-whatever, which has 3 wonders).

1190AD - First war weariness unhappy face hits, I revolt to HR to counter. SoD moved to within striking range of Khmer city.



1210AD - Second major Khmer city razed, 4 longbows and a few other destroyed with only a single catapult lost. That one would have only cost 7gpt to keep; it probably had an intact courthouse. (Later I realize that this wrong, you don't see that city's maintenance costs but immediately see the increase in maintenance at your others for # of cities) Oh well, even if the monetary cost isn't bad I can't afford to worry about defense until Khmer is truly crippled.

All non-Monty AI's now up 6-9 techs on me that I can see (I can't see machinery for example but know that at least Rome has it from seeing an xbow) but with the gold I'm plundering, plus quite a bit cashed in from the Shwedagon Paya being build somewhere else I should be able to get to MC and machinery fairly quickly. Those plus CS and engineering will be all I need to happily warmonger.

Actually, the "can research" helps me out a lot; despite not having MC yet I can see that only Caesar has machinery so far.



On the east front, my attack is underway, but I see this big english stack. It's all HA's, chariots, and catapults (what? maybe churchill has no metal? shouldn't happen right?) so it won't be hard, but I probably will have to raze this city and then break off to defend. On the next turn, I decide not to attack at all and defend 1st, soon I will have more 15XP-catapults from the capital. Due to unit supply costs, best to have efficient campaigns.

1240-One tile away from Yasod, see a korean stack (only 6 units). Retreat my mounted units for now as I'm too jumpy about ballista elephants. Also, a spearman on the way from my territory got attacked by a lone horse archer and lost...booo, if I had promoted it that may not have happened. There's another new Khmer city north of the stone, I'll have to deal with that eventually. In the east the english stack is wiped out without loss.

1265-After two turns of bombardment, Yasod is mine, at a fairly high cost of 3 cats plus some other units. I need more cats on this front. Check out the take - 3 wonders (I knew about these) and three permanent GP uses!

1270-Well, WW is a problem; I have 3 unhappy in my largest cities now. That, combined with Monty getting feudalism, makes me decide a stragetic shift - I can't push in both directions at once (especially since Monty has the SoZ). So I will keep playing defense in the east and send my giant catapult stack west where they're needed. Monty is backwards enough that I can beat him to the other medieval military techs, or so I thought at the time.

From the end of the 1070AD blurb to now was a single 3 hour session after not touching the game for at least a week. I was despairing that I would never get anywhere, and now I'm definitely hooked again.

[timmy827]

Time played is already over 13 hrs, my epic 13 potluck domination victory took only 16.4 hrs!

1275 - Use the captured Pyramids to switch to Representation. WW against Sury drops by a decent amount each turn; during the pause when my stack in Yasod heals and I get my cats over there + Rep happiness should minimize WW effects. Another Great General, spawned with the help of the GW, I'm probably going to settle in Vienne (copper city); with its pile of mines will be a good 2ndary production center, and 6 settled GG's in the cap is ridiculous (probably should have stopped at 4, which was giving me 13exp with barracks and theo, so 4 promotions w/no overrun.) Pillage the ivory north of Yasod; hopefully that's Khmers only source but I have no way of knowing.

1280 - Khmer capital spotted to the north, very poorly defended (1 lb, 1 elephant, 2 cats, sword. More importantly, only 40% cultural defense and no walls.) I think I'll try to hit this next after my cats heal. CS due in 7 turns at the very unsustainable rate of 50% science, at the breakeven rate of 20% the 5 GG's in the capital would provide 1/4 of my science per turn!

1295 - Closing in on Khmer capital (still no more units - what is he thinking?) and 2ndary attack stack ready near Vienne. Also, notice that suddenly, after being at break-even 20% for a good time (usually deficit researching at higher) I'm down to negative gpt at 0% science. Sweet.



1305AD - In the west, capture Pre Rup. Keep it; I was planning on settling here eventually with the sheep, stone and spices, and more importantly one of those spices is already plantationed (don't have sailing yet, much less calendar!) In the east, still more mounted/siege stacks from Winston and Monty; the amount of use I'm getting out of spearmen is just sick.



1310AD - Some AI weirdness, you can see the Khmer city just before my attack; it's been reinforced but all with offensive units. In the east, I beat up some units the previous turn, and all AI didn't move the 2nd halves of their forces this turn. I appreciate the free turn to heal! I save with one unit left in the city, then load up some other game so I can see what the Hanging Gardens look like. The capital doesn't have them, I'm debating whether to raze...



1315AD - I actually decide to postpone the capture for a turn so I can scope out the surroundings. Only two visible bonuses, and one of them is already in Korean borders so I won't be able to get it right away. This one's definitely a razing. Like so many AI cities, 1 tile off the coast...plus I'm still losing money at 0 science so I should only keep real good or wonder-containing cities. And I really do want those gardens, health problems are frequent, and happen constantly when my rice in the NE gets pillaged.

1320AD - I unhappily discover that I don't get the spices until I research Calendar. I get a good amount of $ from pillaging mature cottages in the former Khmer capital area. CS in and machinery started; will take 13 turns at only 10% science. The pyramids are a huge lifesaver, I can protect against strike while still moving research foward at a decent rate (compared to the rest of this game anyways).

1325AD - I decide to switch research to Alphabet; all my EP's are on Sury and I'm hoping to steal a tech or two before he's gone. My scout for the northern force reveals this:



Umm, help? Thankfully I used a guerrila III gallic, so I can run him away...Well, I'll have to suspend this offensive momentarily. Wang had been nice and quiet while I rampaged through Sury's lands, so this is expected. Have I mentioned that I really, really hate Hwachas?

1340AD - Well, that was surprising. Monty comes at me with a single longbow + mounted + cats, I sacrifice a guy against the longbow (as expected) but then lose a lot of my 30+XP spears at good odds against the mounted units. Well, I thought I had been having a good run with the RNG over the last 200 years with very few losses above 70% odds, so I guess that's ok. In the west - Wang's scary looking stack comes undone my AI stupidity and fair bit of luck. They caught a straggling axe and gallic as the rest of my forces ran back to Yasod, where I was preparing to whip a dun for a couple of turns of protection. But when they attacked the stragglers, they led with their elephants, and both times I luck out and my rearguard kills a phant before going down. So when they get near the city, I get lucky and kill the last elephant with a gallic at ~35% odds, get lucky again w/2 cats withdrawing from attacking the horse archers (both around 30%), allowing my 3 horse archers to open fire. First dies, 2nd wins and flanks all 6 Hwachas (!), 3rd wins and flanks 4 of them. Full-strength Hwachas would slaughter my axe and gallic horde, but I can clean up the rest of the stack without loss. WOOHOO! I should now be free to mop up the last of Khmer, maybe I can steal one of calendar/currency from them, get the hanging gardens, get rid of my WW. This is looking real winnable...

And in between turns, a Roman knight comes out of nowhere and kills a gallic warrior. Um, I was really hoping I would be able to get pikemen before seeing these...Good news is, as soon as I get some workers to Yasod I can hook up the ivory and produce some elephants that will suffice for the moment. Man, if I knew capturing the Khmer capital was going to be that easy I wouldn't have razed it. In other good news, I no longer lose $ at 0% science, and another great general is born and sent to Vienne (that's #9).



1350-Well, I was thinking, "one knight isn't that bad", I killed it with a spear as it was somewhat wounded. "I just need a few turns to get the ivory hooked up and...uhoh." I'll be able to survive this but it's gonna hurt, I'm streched thin as this is very far from my core (and especially the HE capital). Reinforcements will be hard to come by. The stack has 3 combatII knights, 1 xbow, three CR1 trebs. Nice to know Caesar has EVERY medieval military tech. I whip the Dun and take a break to ponder how best to handle this. Also, Alpha is in and I start a couple of spies; research set back to Machinery. I had a conflicting desire to eliminate Khmer ASAP to get rid of war weariness vs. leaving one city a little while in order to tech steal; Augustus has solved it with this latest threat. See, there's a bright side to everything!

I have a great prophet sitting in the capital; was thinking a golden age with an anarchy-free switch to Bureaucracy. Currently debating benefits of waiting for Khmer elimination to make sure max tiles are worked vs. benefits of switching to Bureau sooner.

It takes some bloodshed, but the stack is killed, and I forge on to Angkor Wat, where I face the following:



BTW, that ballista elephant has been at 7.6 for every turn I've been able to see it. Not sure if it's not healing or if it's moving each turn; each explanation is a bug of some kind.
This is gonna be bloody, but Khmer will be all but finished.
1st cat dies but I get lucky with the collateral damage which hits each of the other two longbowmen. This takes the odds over the jump point and the next one retreats at 70%. A bug in the defender calculation comes up as the next one (attacking the mace, and identically promoted to the 1st two as CRIII/Acc) only has 60% odds.

Well, I completely misjudged that (in a good way). I lose two of my five cats, and the rest is a romp with straight 90+% odds. Keep it, comes with HG, as well as intact courthouse, granary, and aqueduct - nice! But I'm back to -26 (!) gpt turn at 0 science; I cut back to that so I'll have around 13 turns at the current rate. You can see a korean stack coming under the list of Sury's units in the picture, I should be able to get back to Yasod before anything bad happens. It's one mace, 3 HAs and 3 Hwachas, peanuts compared to his last one.

My 2nd spy is en route to the new city in the south; my 1st got caught before even arriving on the city tile! This is gonna be annoying.

1400 - Korean stack destroyed (wandering NE instead of pillaging ivory, good for me), nothing from Augustus but a lone knight - I'm still very vulnerable at not-out-of-resistance-yet Angkor Wat and am glad I haven't seen anything from him yet. Machinery in; I keep building elephants because I've seen about 1 spearman in the last 200 AI attack stacks.

1415-Closing in on last Khmer city. Only had enough EP's to steal Sailing and it didn't work, so that was a waste...Wang discovers Liberalism. I can see 8 techs he's ahead of me by, plus certainly Calendar, Education, Lib, what he took from Lib, and probably Compass.

1420-Last Khmer city falls!

[timmy827]

1430-1st Aztec city falls! War weariness is already to 125 (Monty has the SoZ). I'm going to bypass one of his coastal cities for this reason. Also, Monty has built the Chichen Itza. Man, what a piece of $#%#$%#. Before I always thought the reason it was worthless was that, as a human against the AI, you're basically always going to be on the offensive (except in special situations like these), I guess I assumed the defensive bonus was permanent and couldn't be bombed away by catapults.

From the top 5 cities screen, I can see CI is in Tenoch but SoZ isn't. I'm hoping its in the closer core city of Teotihuacan.



1435-Uhoh. This won't take the city, but I made a GIANT mistake by whipping a library here (wanted the culture mostly so I could work the corn sooner) instead of getting a Dun up; that would've given me a couple turns to move some elephants into the city which would've made attacking out a much better proposition. I decide to hole up; the trebs will hurt but only 4 units of mine can actually get killed.

In the east, I am forced to delay my assult on Monty as an English stack reappears.

1440-Roman stack destroyed at a steep price (although they still probably lost more hammers than I did.) An english stack appears behind it, and in the east the english stack disappears...what is going on here?

Monty has caught up to me techwise and has CS + machinery, I feel like I should press hard before he gets too many macemen. I have some cash stored up for upgrades, waiting for emergency.

1445 - The english stack charges, which I wasn't expecting, of course they could with being in Wang's territory and 2 squares away. I get some heroic results on defense, culminating in a catapult being chosen for defense against an XBow and winning! An elephant defends against a mace and is brought to the brink of death; on my turn I see I hadn't promoted it.



1455 - The english group in the east seems to have left for good; a huge boost for me otherwise I would have to kill them all (not w/o loss) before pushing this attack. I've reached Teotihuacan, defenses are significant but not terribly tough There is another mace no longer visible to the north that can also reinforce. I don't know what the SoZ looks like but it doesn't seem that it's in this city.

I think one of my biggest problems in this game is lack of information. I have no idea where Korea's cities are; I pillaged the iron near Angkor Wat and don't know if they have another source or not. As you can see, now with my GA over I'm losing gold again at 0% science but I have quite a good amount piled up.

1460 - My attacking stack fins Pyongyang in the north, only 2 (albeit protective) longbows and a spear defend. I only have 2 cats and there are walls, so bombarding will take too long. Wait and see what it's reinforced with....

1465 - Sweet, he doesn't reinforce! I sacrifice 1 cat, 2 axes, and retreat another cat and a guerIII gallic before I can start killing units and take the city. I may have knocked out his ivory supply, I just don't know. In the east I take Teotihuacan, and the city to the south is very poorly defended so I send reserves from my core + stragglers from my main force in that direction. I am concerned about WW but will get to Calendar soon (just finished Currency) and that will help happiness. I'm not sure what to do now; I'm getting a decent defensive force in the west but am down to just one cat and barring another lucky find, I won't be able to take another korean city.



1475 - Well, at least I see some targets now. Seoul has 3 highly promoted longbows (CG3 or CG2 + extra Drill), will not be an easy target.

1480 - Take the aztec city and raze, will refound 1S eventually to get another seafood. That city will probably build my first workboats of the game. Kill a wandering Roman knight in the vicinity; this always worries me as frequently these guys are harbringers of a Roman stack. At least I can kill them easily with elephants and not spearmen now. Pop a GE in Yasod, what do I do with him? The only world wonder open is the Hagia Sophia (or Apo Palace, but that won't be too useful in a game like this). But even with the recent conquests and city foundings, I don't feel at all like I need more workers. And when the other AIs get Theology, I would be happy to see them spend hammers on that wonder. The AI lands I've captured so far have been quite developed so I doubt they would get much use out of it. I send the GE to settle in my capital; given my tech hole I doubt will research any wonder techs before the AI gets them. The other option would be to rush the FP somewhere to help my dismal gold rate.

Speaking of tech, I am going on Calendar for happiness. After that, I think Engineering is the only immediately useful tech researchable.



1485 - In the east, I was unsure of which way to strike next. I decide to head NW because it would put me in better position to intercept an English stack coming towards my homeland.

1495 - Monty sends a ton of junk all over the place, I kill it but WW is up to 500 with him. I'm a little worried about Teotihuacan, it's out of resistance but has a 6% chance of revolt each turn. However, I just killed a lot of offensive units so I don't think Monty has a coherent attack stack anywhere. Relief won't come until I take the city to the NE.

Also, don't know why it's taken me this long to notice, but Hernan Cortes is my GG chariot of the Aztec front. Nice. He also kills a wounded horse archer this turn.

1510 - Will take teh SoZ city next turn. In the west, I'm finally getting enough catapults to make a move but now I'm worried about Caesar; it's been very quiet aside from some suicidal Korean chariot/horse archer incursions. In fact there's been no major enemy moves in my territory since 1450 or so.



1515 - Ask and ye shall receive, eh? Fortunately this groups are quite weak, and I have no less than 7 elephants in Ankgor Wat. The knight certainly looks pretty badass. Caesar's units are one knight, one xbow, 2 trebs.

In the east, I capture the SoZ, and notice right away that my WW is down to 300 instead of pushing 600. I thought (from one of Sisi's ALC games) that you would be stuck with whatever you got doubled, but apparently this isn't the case. Awesome.

1520 - I had changed my mind once about the GE and planned to rush the FP with him in a yet-unfounded city, then I hit myself on the head and realize he can lightbulb the only useful tech. After doing that and dialing up research to 10%, Engineering will come next turn. I was debating burning through my gold to get it but this is better; I may never get out of deficit but after this I think I have all the techs needed to win.

1525 - Disaster in the east, my attack stack is spread out as the cats move forward while some other units stay back to heal. A giant English attack comes; I kill a knight and 2 cats but lose 6-8 units, including my CRIII maces. As if it feels my pain, the game crashes as I alt-tab back and forth to account for this; I haven't done anything yet so I don't lose any play time. Also, I see the first AI pikeman; the era of elephant domination may be coming to a close.



Ok, here's the situation. My forces are still quite divided, I have 4 guys in the city. If I pull back my NW, I will have 11 troops but no good defenders except for one elephant, the rest are cats/axes/gallics and I can't upgrade while the city is in resistance. Churchill has few healthy units left, will he attack the city like this? My GG mobility chariot is in the city under attack; he could move SE, pillage and move back to the city but I'm afraid the pillaging would destroy the farm and not the road. If I could get the road then I'd guarantee a turn of respite (why can't you choose what to pillage? boo designers...). The xbow of mine on the hill is guerilla III promoted; I used one of his two hill moves to see the English stack. If churchill attacks he'll kill at least one of his healthy units. I have 7 units in/around teotihuacan but it will take them 3 moves to reinforce the other city due to that aztec culture impeding the direct route. This is where I really wish I had a horde of followers like Sisutil or aelf (and was playing a public game) that could tell me what the AI is likely to do in this situation.

1540 - Well, its bad but not game-ending; by abandoning both Aztec cities I kept I prevented Churchill from destroying more of my army while it was separated (except for one crossbow defending 3 of my workers that were captured. That sounds bad, but I have 7 more from my core that can go on combat engineer duty). Churchill now has the SoZ; I will have to retreat to my territory and rebuild with more current units



1555 - Capture and keep Seoul, it has the GL, a settled GG and an academy. My strength is building up quickly; I'm waiting for Churchill to come to me in the east so I don't get the WW. He apparently gave the SoZ city back to Monty. Man, I wish I had razed that thing.

Check out the tech screen:

Not so bad compared to a few turns ago. Except that Caesar is close to getting rifles which would be rather terrible. I still have to go feud->guilds->gunpowder->chem->mil sci to get grenadiers.

1570 - Churchill gets a big force in my territory; it's somewhat costly but they are all wiped out.



1595 - Closing in on the SoZ city and its defenses look pretty sad compared to before. In the west, I take Wonsan, think Wang's down to 2 cities now (but god are his CG lb's in every city infuriating!)

1610 - I capture another Korean city, maybe this wasn't such a good idea. The new trebs are stellar against the super-longbows; Caesar has another small group in the area. Not a big threat but maybe I should have concentrated my guys instead. In the east I take the SoZ city; I lose 0 units and kill 8 (no longbows in this city). I learn my lesson from last time and burn it down.

1615 - Ahh, the predictable AI; Caesar mostly ignores my divided forces, killing the cat I left by itself and one axe (the latter is a typical silly AI move; it left one mace by itself wounded to do so. Now if he took his whole stack and killed off the rest of my units in that group, which had my trebuchets plus some obsolete classical units, he could have done some significant damage.

I have another big strategic decision to make soon. Ordinary strategy would be to finish off Wang and Monty to rid myself of the war weariness before making big moves against Caesar or Churchill. But Wang is almost certainly not a threat anymore, and I don't think monty is much of one; but if Caesar gets rifles before I take some of his core cities I could be in big trouble.



1630 - the enemy attacks are coming fast and furious now. This english group catches me off guard as most of my units are healing in Seoul, fortunately the AI inexplicably can't keep the group together. My elephants have already killed two knights in the square with the lone treb.

[timmy827]

1640 - wipe out the english, with more losses than I should have. I wasn't sure which way they were going and had armies in different places, and the AI was smart enough to attack while my forces were divided. No big loss except time; I'm worried that I'm gonna be continually distracted by enemy attacks and not have enough time to finish the campaign. In the east, I've found the aztec capital and it's a problem, walls and a castle (and chichen itza) = forever to bombard even with 4 cats and 5 trebs, nearly all with accuracy promotions. Oh well, it's only fair as I used this same combo to hold off Justinian when he DOWd me in the DeGaulle game. I was worried that a big stack would come to attack my homeland while I'm stuch in Aztec culture but with the appearance of the english in the west I'm not worried anymore.

1650 - If the "can research" screen is accurate, Caesar has rifling...Not sure for how long, haven't been checking that often.

1655AD - Tenochitlan falls! Monty had gotten 4 CG longbows in the city by the time I wore down the defenses; fortunately I had one healthy CR3 treb for each one which all retreated, and the rest was a cakewalk. I lose a 40exp axe taking on one of the maximally-treb-damaged longbows, at 99.6% to win that's the worst luck I've ever had. Although given the amount of fighting and >99% odds battles I've fought in the game so far, the odds that I lose at least one of those is probably pretty good.

I keep Tenochitlan. Until I saw Caesar get rifling (I think anyways - is the "can research" still bugged? I was planning on burning down virtually everything to win by conquest ASAP. If Caesar has rifles defending his cities, that may not be practical, and I may have to go for domination. Caesar has generally sent the smallest attack stacks so I might be able to get by by defending against him (with liberal doses of catapult sacrifice) while I burn the rest of Monty, Wang's and Churchill's land and fill up with my own space.

It will be interesting to see what happens if I try that though - I'm still back and forth between + and - at 0% science so god knows I can't sustain the number of cities needed for domination. Guilds isn't far off now and banking is cheap so I can have mercantilism at my disposal; I could use mercantilism + caste system for 3 turn 1st border pops (with stonehenge) and found all of those cities simultaneously. Actually, conquering Caesar might be easier.

1670 - I wasn't wrong about the rifleman thing. The two of them easily pick off some of my macemen. Funny, I positioned my army here to defend against a roman attack which would probably come over the river, and I've just made it more costly for myself to take them out.



So I'm debating whether to press the attack on the Korean city or whatnot...when I see that Wang also has them! They were longbows last turn; Wang is a vassal of Caesar and probably got it through gift. I feel victimized like the days of yore when the AI could upgrade all of their units for a pittance even on the easier difficulties. Wang still has 490 gold...I check the xml files and see that the AI still pays 50% of upgrade cost. I'm really not happy; I had prepared myself for the possibility that Rome would be impregnable but was expecting to be able to finish off Korea. The worst part is that Wang had been reduced to two cities, and I think without any strategic resources, and now that he has rifling he doesn't need them. He won't be producing killer stacks anytime soon but even a couple of rifles sent my way can cause trouble.

Looking at the tech screen, Churchill is still a good ways off, doesn't have gunpowder or PP yet. And it doesn't look like he has any techs on Augustus, so hopefully he will have to research there himself. I may have time to cripple Churchill before he can get there; I'l try to bypass some of the lesser Aztec cities.

I do feel some more poetic justice across RB events, in the potluck (as Portugal) I had some good early wars to take most of Babylonian and Khmer land. Given that Portugal had a small initial land, I was definitely the strongest after this but not dominant; but I got to rifling well before any AI and used riflemen's power (plus a good dose of drafting) to absolutely roll over the rest of the AI's for domination.

According to my F6 screen, I have over 100 turns to reach grenadiers! Most of my good cities are configured for production right now, but I'm at -30 gpt @ 0% science so I don't think I can research a whole lot faster. And at this rate, it's entirely possible Augustus would get to Infantry or something else by that time.

1675 - This is turning nightmarish quickly. As I retreat from Korea I see an English stack heading towards Angkor Wat, and it's significant. One of Caesar's rifles, wounded, moves in my path. Even though it's on a hill, I decide that I best kill it now; if I don't it will only heal up and join an attack force later. It starts at 11/14 strenght, I think after one sacrificial maceman it should be killable. It takes two macemen and one elephant to get it to 5/14 when a gallic can finally end it. Churchill's stack could probably wipe mine out if it diverts from its path to a city.

1685 - The end may be in sight; Churchill wipes out my retreating stack to a man. George Patton is killed by a longbowman. Only good news is that he got a couple of his trebs killed in the open where they aren't very good. Obviously I really regret killing that rifleman now. If I hadn't and Churchill attacked my units...well I still would have lost a lot but I think the GG might have lived, and on the next turn would have been able to escape Korean borders and use roads to speed to safety.

I have a reserve army gathering in Seoul and Angkor, I may have enough to take out Winston's latest, especially if it separates as the AI sometimes does when some units get wounded.



1690 - Payback time! In the east I finish bombarding the northernmost Aztec city (took a while as this one also had walls + castle). It's on a hill, but Monty has only one longbow and my trebs again star, first one's retreat odds are 71% and all survive, city is taken without loss.


As you can see I'm now on Winston's doorstep; he's gonna regret sending that stack the long way to the west when an awesome army is bearing down on him! I find out later this turn that there is an english city 1N of the English farm visible. I decline the chance to move my guys on the roads to striking distance in a single turn before the English borders expand to the former Aztec land, partially because it seems like an exploit and partially because I'm worried about dividing my stack. Monty is down to one city, newly founded near the SoZ city I burned down.

for the english units, I sacrifice two new trebs in the city for collateral, as I don't think I'll be attacking any cities anytime soon. This weakens the pike enough for a shock elephant to kill it at 47% odds, and then more elephants rout the mounted remnants. I get enough XP's for another great general.

1700 - Churchill tries to sneak a settler down, my units garrisoned in Tenochitlan kill the defending pike and xbow.



1704 - Battle of Canterbury. It only has 40% defense and no walls, so I can bombard and go. I suffer another pretty amazing bad luck - a CR3 trebs vs. a 85% health mace. I had retreat odds of 91.8%, so losing the battle was unfortunate but not absurd, but the defending mace wasn't scratched! That was really annoying. Fortunately that's my only loss against 2 knights, 2 crossbows, one mace and some old units for Winston.

Meanwhile, a small force of new units from my core arrive at the last Aztec city. This worked out luckily for me - I wasn't sure what it had and took a gamble that I could take it with those forces before he whips more defenders, and I have two trebs to redline the two longbows. Monty is no more! This gets rid of a lot of WW. I kept the last two cities I took from him; domination win looks a lot more likely than conquest at this point. Currently I have ~15 turns before I hit strike; I sort of regret spending some of my nest egg on upgrades a while back.

1706 - I'm real pissed now. English knights hit my stack hard and wipe out almost all of my lead group of siege units. OK, with one pike and one elephant being the only up-to-date mounted units I was kind of asking for it, but I'm real unhappy that even my anti-mounted could not kill any knights! I'll give the AI credit, a good move by its part. Then it has to be stupid, instead of withdrawing deep into their own borders, all of the wounded knights move out of reach of the stack they attacked but 1 tile outside my borders, and my units in the aztec city easily kill them all.

1714 - As some more trebuchets join, I'm ready to resume the offensive. I've sighted Nottingham, and it will be a pain with castle defense. Since Churchill's protective, I imagine I will be seeing these in most of his developed cities. I get a great merchant; I was hoping for another engineer to rush the FP. He will finish banking, but that's only 5 turns away; after that he should lightbulb paper which also isn't helpful. Again I feel kind of unlucky; odds were fairly even across GE, Spy, Merchant, Prophet. The GE would have been best, but I'm just not happy about the merchant as his best option is disallowed by the game rules. I guess I settle him somewhere. Good news is with Aztec WW gone, I'm no longer losing money, but still can't raise the science slider above 0 once my eastern army is in enemy territory.



1724 - I'm getting increasingly worried at Nottingham. One more turn and I'll have the defenses down to something negligible, but with this many siege units on each side whoever attacks has a big edge. Churchill has moved more and more units into the city. My CR3 treb already has 50% retreat odds, and while there's a lot of guys in there there's only 3 longbows. So I decide to go for it. Which turns out to be not such a good idea when I later realize that I don't have anywhere near enough attackers to kill everything in the city. After the assults, I lose 2 trebs, 2 elephants while killing one of the longbows, redlining the other two, kill two knights, 2 xbows, and redline various other defenders. This will be interesting....

1728 - I get some more attackers, but Churchill moves a CG3 musket and more knights into the city and I decide to withdraw. The pressure is on, Churchill now has gunpowder and PP. All quiet on the western front. I've stockpiled a lot of maces and catapults there to defend against Rome, so far nothing with a gun except for one lone Korean rifle has entered my territory.

1730 - A scare in the west as I get "the enemy has been spotted" message. It's Caesar with 2 knights. What's with this guy?

1736 - Disaster! Agustus shows up in the east. The stack isn't bad, 1 rifle, 3 knights, 3 trebs. But I've stockpiled so many maces in the west in preparation for an attack from him, and it's all wasted. if I had sent half of those units east, I could take care of this stack a lot easier (might have been able to take Nottingham too.) Well, I get lucky and the first sacrificial mace brings the rifle to <50% health, a second one dies but redlines the rifle, and I mop up the rest without loss.

[timmy827]

1738 - I have to laugh as I see churchill has a pinch-promoted musket when I'm still several turns from gunpowder.

1746 - Argh, I'm back on offense against England, and one knight hits me for a flank attack, killing a pikeman that I stupidly forgot to promote. I rest for a turn, fortunately nothing else comes that way. Caesar shows up in the west but again it's really weak, one rifle, one knight, 3 trebs. I've been moving a sentry GG unit to the Korean border and back every turn; Wang seems to be in hell perpetually moving a settler and few rifles around. I almost feel bad that Caesar gifted him rifles, otherwise I would have put him out of his misery by now.

Good news - after the revolt into mercantilism, research is really picking up and after finishing gunpowder I only have 11 turns to chemistry!

1758 - Nottingham is taken! I get the hagia sophia, and the its well stocked with improvements. The power of CR3 trebs is amazing, I killed ~15-20 units in this city while only losing one treb.



1764 - London in sight! Defenses aren't too impressive. Churchill is now able to research Rifling, and I'll lobby for Blake's dismissal if he isn't right now. If I can bombard London in time (will take 3 turns) I should be able to take it. Wang has placed a city near Seoul that will be annoying - since this area was his, as soon as his borders pop any tile will automatically be his again.



1774 - The Redcoats are coming! Really close to the historical date too. London is down to 20% cultural defense; I decide I can't wait another turn and have him upgrade more units. There's only one redcoat in the city, and it has nothing more that protective default promotions so my CR3 treb actually has a real chance of surviving. It all works out, I capture with my last gallic in the stack. I had hoped that English culture would be removed and my units 1S of my main stack would be able to then move into the city, but no luck. London has Notre Dame, Academy, 2 settled great scientists, and 1 great general. All infra is there except for grocer. Maybe I should have waited a turn as there's little I can do to prevent churchill from retaking next turn. I decide to move a wounded knight and horse archer in; they won't really defend against much but the two knights alone won't be able to take it back.

1776 - Awesome, Churchill doesn't try to retake his capital! I move my whole stack in and feel fairly secure. I'm not sure if I will be able to capture more cities at an afforable price, but by taking two of his best production cities I think I've mostly eliminated the threat from Churchill. I just wish I had been able to eliminate him with my medieval doomstack.

Looking at victory conditions, I'm at 45/66% of land for domination and already well over the population mark. I had kind of wanted to end this by conquest, but as I write this it's the day before reporting day, and I've already spent a little more than 30 hours on this game! I'm 8 turns from grenadiers; and looking at the minimap I should be very close to 66% once I fill in the gaps. So I think the plan is to whip out a lot of grens quickly, send them west for the most part as Wang's rifles unlike Winston's wont have a bonus against grens. Also, I can see that most of the Korean forces are holed up in a city with low defense and I know where his other cities are. In the meantime I will build some settlers to fill in land space. I've already hit the limit for # cities maintenance so they won't damage my economy too much. I will have to decide whether to revolt to Caste System or research Drama for artists.



1782 - Something feels just so good about fighting Recoats during the last 5 turns...Anyways, here's the situation. The southern group is mostly bait, hoping to lure some of the redcoats out of the city. Main stack is heading west from london. Hopefully I won't get screwed by Augustus like I did in the west as I was on verge of taking 2nd-to-last korean city.

1786 - My main attack stack is held up for 2 turns as I have to deal with a Roman group - 1 gren, 2 knights, 3 trebs. Man, Caesar is an idiot; if he built only rifles he could do a lot more damage.

1794 - Minor heart attack as Churchill hits London, fortunately only 1 treb and one redcoat, so I lose one guy but hopefully won't lose the city. I spend some cash to upgrade two units inside to grenadiers. I may have chosen poorly by going after York, London is really suffocated culturally as it comes out of resistance (only 1 tile in the initial 8 belongs to me!) Good news is that it produces 51 beakers, improving my tech speed by a good 20%, even without any tiles to work! So, I go ahead whipping culture buildings. Also, this informs me that one tile is .12% of land area. I have ~70 tiles in the "gaps" in my territory that I can claim w/o further offenses, which would be about 8% more land area. So I'm not as close as I thought.

1798 - Another small Roman stack shows up outside thinly-defended london, fortunately I can complete a Dun from whip overflow and move some muskets into the city. Bombardment of York done; there are 4 redcoats in the city. This is gonna be costly...My CR3 trebs has a 3.5% retreat chance against the top defender. Maybe I should have waited to get some upgraded grens in this stack.

1800 - Yikes! Agustus ignores london and sends 3 trebs and 2 grens against my attack stack. The trebs are kind of wasted being used in the open across a river, first gren kills a mace, and then Cortes himself (upgraded to a knight) defends against the second one! Heart attack again, but I luck out and Cortes is victorious. Medic3 heals all collateral damange before I can act next turn; one time where the healing order works to my advantage. Here's the status of the York assult after all my siege attack:

I only lost one catapult (barrage suicide) and two trebs; got some good luck with successive retreats at 11% and 26% odds. Actually, better than good, since the combination is only 3% likely...

So I think victory (overall, not just here) is pretty assured. The AI's didn't use their rifle advantage enough; it stalled my attacks in the west and slowed me down a lot in the east but couldn't reverse the tide. Given how fast Caesar appeared to be teching, I was fearing facing infantry by the time I got grenadiers and cannon but that is definitely not happening. Mercanitilism did wonders for my research as did capturing some real nice cities. 312 bpt in that screen shot is literally 3 times as many as I was generating a short while ago at 0% science. Caesar would have to research nationalism, constitution, edu, econ, corp, steam power before assembly line so I feel pretty safe.

I feel that perhaps the most important thing that happened this game was Survaryaman building the pyramids instead of Caesar, who has quite a haul of wonders. Ever since capturing the Khmer core I haven't been able to sustain above 0% science ever, so representation probably more than doubled my research speed (doubles the scientists, a better ratio for the other specialists. Don't forget that for a while my settled generals were producing a good deal of my research!

GE born in Yasod. No world wonders available at the moment. He would shave about 6 turns off of Steel, the last mil tech that might make a difference.

[timmy827]

1802 - I decide to get things moving in the west and spend a good portion of my cash reserves on upgrading experienced maces to grenadiers.

1804 - Wang sends one randon rifle and I kill it with a grenadier; I've killed several of them so far but this is the first time I actually see grenades being thrown. Ugh, in the east another Roman small group is visible and I still haven't gotten modern units to my forces in York. I spend my remaining cash to upgrade two combat maces to grens, pays off as I only lose one knight to the attack. Without those grens I was worried about my GG knight being chosen as a defender. Next turn I kill 3 english knights and the one roman treb that withdrew. Time for another editorial thought - at this tech point in the game, when AI's have rifling/mil sci but not mil tradition, the fact that they have horses makes them a lot LESS dangerous as they waste hammers on knights, which I can easily counter with pikes and elephants, instead of gunpowder units that are harder to counter.

1806 - while that is going on, I take and raze the closest Korean city.

1808 - Caesar/Wang get steel. Man I was 3 turns from it, and was really hoping to get one tech the entire game before any AI! WW is up to 11 unhappy in my capital and it's starving down. I think I will revolt to PS after Steel is in. I start moving towards Hastings; I can see the Roman border so I think there is only one more english city NW of london on the coast out of my sight yet.

1812


So in this situation, I want to kill the catapult while it's in the open, but want to move my stack next to hastings. To avoid splitting it up, I should use a 2move unit to kill the cat. My GG knight is a little wounded and has 96% odds; good but I don't want to take any unnecessary risks. But I still have a horse archer! Hard to believe I still have uses for BC units in 1812. I'm losing $ and with big armies on both fronts in enemy territory (my western stack is mostly healed and moving on Korea) I revolt to PS.

1818 - I laugh as Churchill founds Islam. Not like he can tech much else with two cities left. I take hastings at a steep price; then am furious when it doesn't relieve any of the culture pressure on York. I realize England must have another city hidden in the SW. Also there's a healthy dose of roman units in that city; I brace when I hit next turn...



1824 - Take Pusan, also at a greivous price. This time, it's pure screwage by the RNG. I don't lose any 90%+ battles, but I frequently come up with odds between 80-90%, and lose SIX of those in a row (four grens, then a treb and cat against damaged remnants).

1832 - Have razed Inchon, a new Korean city and will soon be moving on Nampo. Reveal the mystery English city - its Ravenna! must have flipped. Good news on the happy front as I pop a source of gems, that's +2 happy in almost all my cities.

1834 - Getting close now. I don't have much siege so I say screw it and just attack Ravenna (defense is only 40% for gunpowder units). For novelty, use the axe pictured to take out one of the redlined defenders.





1836 - Korea is no more! I burn the last city. I will move two settler into the area, building one tile further away from Roman borders as compared to the two long-established Korean cities.

1838 - Caesar has a small stack at Angkor Wat that I knock around a bit, only a badly hurt cannon is left. I have a decent GPT surplus, so I get ready to commence "operation space-fill" to hit the domination limit. Part of me wants to burn every last Roman city to the ground, but this has taken soooo long that I don't want to spend any more time. It's been a great challenge and a lot of fun but is definitely getting tedious.

1840 - Closing in on churchill: Only 4 redcoats.



1842 - 2nd English revolt in London. I'm glad flipping back to owner isn't enabled! Also a funny screenshot - honestly, who told the AI's that pacifism in an always war game was a good idea? I feel dumb but lucky as I realize that walls/castle don't slow the bombardment of cannons, so one turn is enough to level the defenses.



1843 - Hernan Cortes kills a catapult, and England is no more.



1844 - Revolt to caste system and representation, caste will help the new cities pop borders a bit quicker (the free merc specialist). It seemed like a good time for anarchy as one of the big bottlenecks will be Coventry and London coming out of revolt, which doesn't slow down with anarchy.

1847 - Hey, with anarchy and no military offensives underway, I can play 3 turns in about 40 seconds! Awesome! In bad news, I'm only up to 56.7% of land, and as you can see from the SS there isn't that much more land to fill. For a long time, I had thought that the center peak region didn't count, before I went on the offensive I checked my land % and it was close to 1/6. Now I think it does, and I'll have to burn some roman cities.

1848 - Moving on Rome, both fronts. 1st city on the coast is lightly defended. Caesar has nationalism but has not switched to nationhood (lord knows I would in this situation!). Also, if he get mil trad, cavalry could be a pain.

1849 - Arretium falls. I decide that I'm so annoyed at not winning by domination when I control 5/6 of the inhabitable land that Caesar is going to die.



1850 - Suddenly I'm up to 63.5% of land! well, maybe domination will happen first. Actually, I decide to rescind my earlier decision and trigger the domination ASAP instead, I'm close enough. As you can see, I've found 2 of Rome's last 4 cities (Rome and Antium both have coastal wonders so I know roughly where they are too). Each only has 4-5 units, and these rifles aren't protective, so there won't be any real challenge in taking the last few cities. Thus I decide to end ASAP. I found 3 new cities in gaps where I had units waiting which takes me to within .55% of land area, 4 or 5 tiles. I have borders that will pop in Aztec-Inca land next turn, 2 turns, 3 turns so it's assured.

You can also see around Cumae that caesar is going workshop-crazy. If he had done this as soon as he had rifling he could have done more harm.

1851 - Cov's pop moves me to 65.83%. York will seal it next turn. Caesar finishes the Sistine Chapel - yeah, that's gonna help...

Also, here's a SS of my expenses. I was consistently surprised how little impact unit cost/supply was even though I was building them constantly. Obviously this is a bit distorted as I have a ton of cities now, including some new financially draining ones that are only claiming space, but for most of the game the chart was similar.



Another AI oddity - Caesar got a GG recently and attached him to a grenadier in Cumae. But the idiot has only promoted him to combat I/leadership when he could definitely do at least two more. I'm not sure I've seen a GG attached to a unit by the AI ever.

And for more amusement, here's Gustavus Adolphus shooting his pistol into the air like a drunk Texan as my cannon redlines his unit.



1852 - At long last: