Adventure 51: TATAN... IS... SPARTA!!!

[Tatan]

Alright! I played this pretty chill because my aim was merely to win, without much regard for scoring or anything. The report was written in bits and pieces while plaing the actual game, so it kind of grew in to a large and elaborate monster, but have no fear, I put plenty of pretty pictures everywhere to spice things up!

See bottom for scoring!

---

Always War on Monarch? I'm an Emperor level player on BTS sp normally so this shouldn't be too hard a challenge, right? Right?

Anyway, I settled in place out of laziness:



We already have a lot of the surrounding area legally spoilered to us, so the scout's job should is to find the AIs and CHOKE THEM... er wait we can't enter enemy culture until what? Okay, nevermind, the scout's job is to find the AIs and STARE AT THEM IN A HOSTILE MANNER! That'll teach 'em!

Turn 5, borders pop:



Knife fight time!

Buddhism falls on t16, I get Mining (after Agri) a turn later. Circumnavigated the donut by t24:



I got Bronze Working on t30, and decided to chase the Dragon (try to grab Stonehenge). To my mild amusement I succeeded:



My second city, Hang 'em High, is founded on t51 on the defensive hill spot in the NE:



Blocking off the other pass will be the next priority, but I'll need more units to be able to properly defend it.

Nothing happened for a while after that. My scout tried to make a second lap around the donut, but Suleiman smacked him down. Eventually I got my third city up to block the other pass...



...and my fourth city to settle the floodplains:



My plan at this point is to beeline Construction and then defend with phalanxes and catapults. With no ivory visible on the map, the AI won't have a hard counter until maces.

I was about midway through Construction when I remembered that Stonehenge was going to be giving me a Great Prophet fairly soon, so I set research towards Monotheism in order to line up a Theology slingshot. Then, this happened:



Seriously, Judaism was founded yet?! Awesome, looks like I'll be getting a shrine.

I did not realize events were on:



Crack down on the scum, I sayz! Now get back to work!

Brennus DOWs Ramesses on t91:



I... did not even know that was possible? I guess the marriage event caused it.

A short while later I see the first two mini-stacks approach me, coincidentally on the same turn:




Both of my cities have 4 phalanxes, so I wasn't concerned at all. The east stack I just attacked and killed. I had planned to allow the west stack hurl itself uselessly against Chiron... then Suleiman decided to get lost:



What are you doing? The deathtrap is THAT way! With the help of some whipping, I took care of the stack a few turns later outside of Blood Gulch, and picked up a Great General (Leonides, appropriately). I had him merge with Chiron, my future Heroic Epic city.

Meanwhile Machiavelli took a sudden interest in culture...



...and more cities went up:



Then Hammurabi, who was somehow simultaneously cranking out wonders, sent a far more serious stack:



Not exactly a problem giant masses of shock phalanxes (and a barrage II catapult) can't handle, though. Even with quite a number of coinflip losses. Of course, while I'm distracted, Brennus attacks again:



Yet since he insists on not using axes, at all, whatsoever, I beat the attack off pretty easily. And get another great general.

As snide as I am about these victories, the AI did bring the pain enough to make me focus on building loads of units. Not that I was under any real pressure, but it kept delaying my plans for wonders and settlers.

Demographics on 150 AD (t121):



There was a long period after that of nothing happening. I took the opportunity to expand a bit, and teched up to Monarchy and Theology for their corresponding civics. I also built the Heroic Epic in Chiron. Finally, on t132 Ramesses (who had made peace with Brennus at some point) sent a major stack at Hang 'em High:



Helloooooo, future third GG! :D



Not again! The only two events I've gotten as of t141 are both slave revolts. Weaaaaak.

On the bright side, I get to adopt Vassalage (more for lolz than anything else). That means new units in Chiron get:
+3 exp from Barracks
+4 exp from civics (Theo/Vassalage)
+6 exp from 3 settled GGs
for a total of 13 exp, which under Cha translates to 4 promotions! My unofficial goal when I saw this was to be able to build commando units out of Chiron by the end of the game. This will preclude the use of GG medics, but I can build medic II units out of the gate in Chriron, so who cares? As it turns out, Hang 'em High would quite quickly become in need of a medic:



There are too many units for my garrison to attack and kill for them to have much of a chance to heal, and I do not want to let any stacks walk past the city to where they could do some real damage. With a Medic II chariot that will no longer be a problem.

On t146, I got my first combat 5 unit, and my 4th Great General. :D

Apparently I'm still not very impressive militarily, though:



For a long time I just defended statically like this, while pushing out new settlements on the snaky peninsula. Then this happened:



what is this I don't even

Aw, man! That is the last thing I expected to see. Unfortunate for two reasons: 1) my settler was only two turns away, and 2) now I need to do some scrambling in order to get a military force up there.

In other frustrating news, on 1000 AD (t160), when I'm just 5 turns from the Mauseleum of Mauseleos in Blood Gulch, after working on it FOREVER:



ARRRR- *chokes up on own sputtering rage for several seconds* Bleh.

Empire overview at 1000 AD (t160):



My chariots probe the newly founded city of Murcia, marking the first time ever that Greek units have entered hostile borders:



And a turn later, I get my fifth GG. Check out Chiron TL-34, it's beautiful:



I haven't managed it very well at all, but for some reason I grew very attached to this city over the course of the game. Maybe it has something to do with the insane exp new units get.

Of course, there is a downside to all this exp. Namely, due to some incredibly stupid, poorly thought-out design decision, upgraded units above 10 experience go back down to 10. Why they ever implemented this, no one knows... but it means my phalanxes will never promote again if I upgrade them to maces. Why bother, I suppose. Well, either way, I finally unlocked maces on t163, which will have to last me militarily for a long time (I'm turtling, can you tell? ). Just in time, too, because the east is quickly being over-run:



For some reason, Hammurabi started sending all his troops up this way instead of through the west, so Hang 'em High is facing three nations' worth of troops while Chiron just has to deal with Suleiman.

Completed Moai around this time as well:



Discovered CoL and...



What the hell? Turn 166? Seriously, AIs?

6 turns later, in 1120 AD, I get my 6th Great General. A few turns after that, I researched Philosophy and founded Taoism.

[Tatan]

The situation as of t175:






Suleiman, as you can see in the last pic, finally annoyed me enough for me to try and destroy that border city.



Burn! Now Chiron will have a much larger culture buffer.

GOLD!



Popped another one.

Meanwhile I was assembling a strike force to attack Suleiman's colonies on the spiral arm.



I take a city to the NW a few turns later, with one casualty, and raze it.

Oh, what's that, event generator?



I WILL BURN ALL OF YOU TO-
*deep breaths*
Okay, redress the damn grievances, see what I care.

Thre events, ladies and gentlemen. AND ALL OF THEM THE SLAVE REVOLT.

On t182, I start a golden age, just in time to finish Nationalism and start on (you guessed it) the Taj Mahal. At the same time, Brennus is starting to worry me:



Yeah, crossbows. Looks like I'll need some units other than maces and phalanxes. Then again...



...nothin' a source of ivory can't solve. Huzzah broken wafflephants! Oh, and t186: 7th Great General. :D New units in Chiron now get 21 exp--easily enough to get commando if only I had Military Science.

My naval strike force launched another dubiously plausible attack on Sulieman:



Somehow I still took the city next turn, though. I also sent agent 007 to infiltrate Hammurabi's territory and figure out how the hell he's building all those wonders.



A few slow turns followed. I birthed a Great Scientist in the capital and built Ankor Wat in Boarding Action. Suleiman and Hammurabi brought out the big guns in the west:



Er, this is awkward. I haven't had nearly as many problems in the west, so Chiron is a bit undermanned. Despite killing as many units as possible, I still get attacked...



The counterattack was swift and decisive, however, and got me my 8th GG.

Turn 200, and none of the AIs are even close to Liberalism:



I'm looking to nab Chemistry [or even MilSci ]. T200 demos:



Yeah, that's the stuff. My beautiful military:



Surprising how many phalanxes are still in use. I just can't bear to upgrade them and lose 10-20 exp.

Also seriously?



He has certainly not demonstrated this advanced technology to ME.

Then... sigh.

I did something I'm not proud of.

After slaughtering most of a Japanese stack in the east, the remaining sword and redlined horse archer moved into the forest 2N of the city. I didn't have odds on the sword because all my units were wounded, so I spent a turn to heal. Hang em' High was defended by a single catapult, but the HA was redlained, so it wouldn't matter? Right?



Wrong. He must have promoted, which is REALLY something I should have accounted for. I took back the city immediately, of course, but lost almost every building and 4 city sizes. :weed:

Ramesses also started showing up with Samurai around the same time, which proved to be a minor pain to deal with.

Having lost my invasion fleet a while ago (although I evaced all three surviving maces successfully), I sent in the sole remaining galley and two city raider III maces on a mission to attack Suleiman's new city. There was a small road bump...



Whelp, good bye, two awesome maces and my last naval unit down south.

However, in good news:



Woah, just noticed this land! Fortunately, I settled that 1 tile island (for the 2cpt trade routes) and thus can actually reach it by galley. Meanwhile, I built the University of Sankore on t206. Not a fantastic wonder, but it combos well with Ankor Wat--the University encourages you to build more temples, unlocking more Wat-boosted priests. And both wonders were double-speed with stone. Just in time to start building triremes, too, Suleiman's trireme squad is blockading me:



Bah, I should probably tech Astro relatively soon so I can blow these guys out of the water with frigates. And launch some sneak attacks upon my mortal enemy Hammurabi...

In the mean time, though, Hang 'em High's in a bit of trouble...



I've taken a fair amount of attrition here in losing >90% battles, and since Chiron has been busy building the Taj and not more units, my forces are starting to wear thin. Riding this out with only 5 phalanxes, 2 maces, and a chariot might be... difficult. Which is why I whipped the Taj to completion and also set up several Wafflephant whips for next turn. And then forget to actually, you know, whip them next turn.

I DO manage to send out a retaliation fleet against Sulieman, though:



I also pull the trigger on Liberalism:



To MilSci (and commando)!

Then Ramesses completely spoils my good mood by attacking Hang 'em and killing off my favorite unit--a phalanx with C5, march, and 55 exp. I was grooming him to be an elite--he probably never had a shot at the top 3, but I liked him. Fortunately Hammurabi didn't attack, or I would have lost the whole city! All because I forgot to whip those War Elephants for a turn.

But who gives a crap? Because on t217, I discovered how to make commando units! And you bet your butt I will immediately begin to assemble a combined grenadier/old elites force for the inevitable blitz. I also got my 9th GG, who caused me a bit of a dilemma... Military Academy, or join? I quickly decided to take the suboptimal but more fun route of joining. What an awesome city:



Oh, and apparently amidst all this excitement agent 007 was caught, though I never noticed. He still revealed a good chunk of the map:



The new island got settled pretty quickly:



Meanwhile, I start on the path to cavalry: first, to Military Tradition, and then towards Rifling. If I get a chance, I might even build West Point in Chiron.



Wait, 17 turns WITH stone?! Ha ha ha NO. No wonder (har!) no one ever builds the damn thing. I get a breather of several turns, then Ramesses and Brennus launch another massive wave attack against Hang 'em High.



Jeez, this is turning into Civ4: Tower Defense. Every few turns, usually JUST after I finishing repairing my tiles, a stack of one or two AI's combined units comes roaring in. Fortunately, this time I just birthed a Great Prophet, who combines with a stored Great Scientist to kick off my two-person Golden Age. Some empire overview hits:

[Tatan]

I may have a problem in Hang 'em High...



Crap. I set up some Cuirassier whips, but that will NOT be enough. I'm going to have to pull out forces from Chiron, but I'm afraid I still might lose Hang 'em. Sure enough, Ramesses launches an overwhelming attack on the interturn, obliterating my ragged garrison.



Including my 52 exp phalanx. :crying: Dang it, I should have bitten the bullet and just upgraded some guys here to grenadiers; it wouldn't have held the city, but I would have done more damage. As is...



Ramesses and Brennus still have massive armies. Well, I played this badly, getting lulled into complacency by the fact that I haven't been seriously pressured for over a hundred or so turns. Time to get serious.



Unfortunately, while I'm pushing back Ramesses, Brennus is being annoying:



I *think* I pulled enough troops in to keep Timberlands safe:



Fingers crossed...

and Brennus doesn't attack! That stack quickly crumbles to cavs (huzzah, broken Flanking!). I also liberate Hang 'em High:



All it's got left is a granary, a monument, and the Jewish shrine. But at least it's MINE! Plus, with all those backlines towns, it will always be a good commerce city, if anything.

At this point, it's also worth noting that I finally start upgrading most of my surviving maces, phalanxes, and wafflephants. It's obvious that I'll probably never top 55 exp, and certainly not with an older unit, so unless a veteran is only a few exp from a new promo, I bite the bullet and upgrade. All the maces and phalanxes have C5 and either march or commando at this point anyway.

It's also worth noting my new cavalry units out of Chiron can promote to blitz right out of the gate. :D I also found this interesting:



"Look, ma! No war weariness!" Seriously, it's the rare AW game where a capital has no WW this late!

By t241, the last turn of my golden age, I finally had all the east cleared out. Just in time for an attack in the west:



Oh well, at least I got my 10th great general. And as it turns out, that army just disintegrates in the face of blitzing cavs. Sensing an opportunity to finally launch a serious offensive, I redistribute my forces. All the cavalry and commando units head to Chiron, all the rest head to Hang 'em High.

In preperation for this:

Before


After




You can see I am researching Steel in the background there, for cannons obviously. After that, I plan to tech up to Democracy for the classic late game Free Speech/Universal Suffrage town of destruction. To ease the revolt, I plan to initiate a 3-man golden age (using a stored great artist, a great engineer/great prophet still to be popped out of Boarding Action, and the great merchant from Economics).



Medina falls, and I keep it because it is in an okay spot and managed to come out with a lot of infrastructure intact.



Wait a minute! Machiavelli already compiled something in 350 BC. I guess he owns a time machine?

And what's this?! FINALLY an event that's not a slave revolt!



Wait what. This event normally grants peace if you pick the second option. So let's see what happens!



Lol, we make peace and then he immediately auto-declares again, with the side-effect of teleporting most of my army into the city, speeding up healing by a turn. I guess Suleiman really did help heal my guys. :crazyeyes:

My next offensive action comes a turn later...





Ooo, a city with an academy and a +16gpt shrine? I'll take that. :D And also that other city you have city with minimal defenses in the southwest.

While moving my medic to Ice Fields (former Mecca), by sheer luck I see this:



Well, it would not have been pretty if that stack hit me first! Fortunately I have enough cavs to kill off most of the stack preemptively. Then Hammurabi moves in another stack:



Curses. Now I have to split my cavs between Ice Fields and Danger Canyon and hope for the best.

I didn't get the best, but I still got something pretty good: Hammurabi attacked Danger Canyon and only killed 2 of my cavs.

[Tatan]

My attack stalled for a bit after this, partially due to me having already picked off all the easy targets in Suleiman's territory, and partially due to three of my major troop producers building national wonders at the same time (Oxford in Blood Gulch, Ironworks in Boarding Action, and West Point in Chiron ). Eventually:



I had a tough time deciding whether to keep this or not, and ultimately decided to raze it. I don't have adequate troops to defend a city that far forward from Hammurabi.

Next turn I capture Baghdad, and keep it despite the fact that its placement is horrible because 1) I'm lazy and 2) it has Versaille.



Annnd finally:



Turn 262, 1760 AD: my first elmination. I'm sure that's breaking loads of records.

My plan at this point is to continue doing what I have been doing, only moreso. With two slices under my control, I have twice as much land to work with as each individual AI (and as a human can leverage it better). Therefore, while I could keep pushing towards Hammurabi, I don't think I will. Instead, I will amass an army of commando units, upgrade them to infantry, and BULLDOZE.

The new west front:



Yep, I'm holding out INSIDE of Hammurabi's territory. It's the only place I can reliably funnel his troops into a killing zone.



The AIs have actually made fairly decent tech progress. I'm a little worried about naval invasions, so I might have to research Astronomy myself (hmmm, didn't I say something similar a while back? ).

And I finally got my 11th Great General.

T268:



FINALLY. That thing really is a sucker's build, but I'm trying to see how much exp I can get on new units out of Chiron. So far it's 33 for all regular land units. :D

I also finally popped the last GP I needed for my three-man golden age, and pulled what will likely be my last swivic swap:



A horrendously unoptimal build, but I playing this game more for personal fun than anything else at this point.

Remember how two seconds ago I said I wasn't going to attack Hammurabi yet?



I lied. He just researched Constitution when he doesn't even have Gunpowder; I thought he was much closer to rifles. So I will attempt to cripple him.

Boarding Action (my Moai city) + Golden Age =



:D

The situation in the Ottoman empire after a few turns:



His defenses beyond the first city were too large for me to take without heavy casualties, so I pillaged both his metals, killed a bunch of exposed units, and moved on towards Japan. Bye-bye, border city.

T278 was an epic turn for me. I discover Assembly Line, and consequently begin upgrading rifles...



I also razed Aksum. :D



Leading to "partisan resistors" forming and fleeing towards the capital. Bah.

Also I lost a ~98% odds battle with a commando rifle against a lone horse archer.

More partisans:



Ha ha ha ha. At least, I laughed until this began happening every

single

time I razed an Ethiopian city. Yeah, great idea with the events, design team: "Let's make bad things happen to the player through no fault of their own! Yippee!"

Like so:



Destroying a granary, forge, and factory. Why do I only get bad events?

The invasion of Brennus begins:



I build the Statue of Liberty t284, and got my 12th (?) Great General as well. Madrid falls. While I dismantle Ethiopia, I notice this...



66 exp?! That's way better than my 55 exp phalanx, and I hadn't even been paying attention! I'm sure now he'll immediately die in an 97% odds attack, but I'm glad I at least noticed him!

Notice I'm researching Fascism; it was 1 turn, Mt. Rushmore is nice for not having to build a million jails, and the free GG was still available. :D Plus, I got the greatest research screen of all time:



So many options...

On t289, I finally exiled the Ethiopians from the mainland. For several turns afterward things got pretty dull. I razed a few cities, pillaged a crapload of tiles, and generally killed stuff suboptimally. By this time quite honestly I was just in the "whatever I've already won, time to keep clicking until the game agrees with me" phase of AW. I lost that 66 exp unit cavalry (AND his 64 exp runner-up) in Ramesses' territory. My exhausted force no longer had enough strength to take his heavily garrisoned cities, so I settled into a pattern of killing all his exposed units while pillaging the hell out of his land. Brennus had lost most of his mainland cities by this point; my cannon force merely had to physically walk up to each of his remaining cities.

The eastern front, now the only one:



Tokyo fell the same turn. Boarding Action finished the Pentagon next turn. A turn after that, I capture (as oppose to raze) my first city in ages:



I kept this city solely as an airbase against the remaining Spanish cities, because I had built a few airships out of whimsy earlier and the conquest was taking too long on its own. T307 I get another building-destroying event.

[Tatan]

T310:



Finally, Kyoto falls (to the sounds of 5 muskets spawning from thin air, of course :rolleyes.

3 turns later:



And then:



*jawdrop* A GOOD event?! Oh mah gawd!



I never noticed this entire landmass until now.

T317, I build Broadway. Most of my cities are building wealth at this point, as I have waaaaay more than enough troops to wip out the final few cities on the map.

T320, I finally get my 14th Great General, who will be my last.

T321, the fall of Japan:



And yes, that city is one of the AIs' several colonies replanted on the mainland when I wasn't looking.

T325:





Also, you notice how I've been researching 100% for some time, and yet still never run out of gold? This is because in addition to gold from city razings, I have had the bulk of my now-superfluous military pillaging all the AIs' old improvements in sight, which nets an absolutely ridiculous amount of gold per turn. For example, on t326, I gained a total of 195 gold off of pillaging alone, which actually means I am GAINING gold at 100% research. :D

T327:



No, I'm not sandbagging for points at all, why would you even think that?





YEAH, EAT IT YOU #%@& PARTISANS!

Now all that remains is for me to upgrade one of my original medic chariots to a gunship...



...kill the last defender with it...



...and win:




Final map:



Epic power graph:



Kills...




Losses...



and builds...



I have a massive newfound respect for phalanxes. Also, it's rare you see the "cities razed" count so high.

Civ's opinion of me:



Well, in the end apparently I'm only as good as a Roman.

Anyway, this game was fun. Towards the end it got pretty tiresome, but I still had a blast beating the hell out of the AIs. I think I easily could have done a lot better, but as I said at the beginning, I approached this game very casually. Great map, Plako, and thanks to Ceilazul for organizing the game!

[Tatan]

[SIZE="5"]SCORING:[/SIZE]
Finish date: 1911 AD (turn 331)
Most elite unit: 66 exp
First Great General - 300 BC
1 pt for completing Stonehenge
1 pt for completing Eiffel Tower
2 pts for using a nuke
3 pts for killing the last defender with a gunship


And not that it counts for anything, but just for the record, here's what a new unit out of Chiron looked like by the end of the game:

41 exp, baby!

[oledavy]

Great Report Tatan

I loved your naming theme, made me really nostalgic for Halo: CE.

Also, killing the warrior with a nuke

[Ronald]

This was a fun to read report, thanks. I was surprised to see all the slave revolts you had. I can remember having just one.

[Square Leg]

That was a pretty epic report Tatan! Really good read! Also: 47:39 I hope it was over more than 1 session!

Btw - With the sandboxing of Lib; did you consider going for democracy at all or did you find that military techs were needed?

[Compromise]

Epic writeup indeed. Nice.

Bum luck on those events, that's for sure. I don't think I've ever gotten the partisan event.... Seems like there should be a limit to the number of times a particular event can happen to you. Or at least decreasing odds with each subsequent occurrence. Ah well, always something to improve.