Epic Forty: The Hittite Cosmonauts

[Griselda]

I'm sorry that it took me so long to read through the reports, but I finally have a chance to do that today. It sounds like you have a fun game that had at least some challenges all the way through, which is as much as any sponsor can hope for.

I think you made the right choice merging the worker, as it allowed the last of the proud Tyranese to warn the Hittites about the dreaded Ottomans and Byzantines! It may be that worker's voice that ensured that both civs got their just desserts.



-Griselda

[Griselda]

Congrats on your win! As usual, your research and wonder achievements were phenomenal. The option to create additional personal restrictions is always on the table for Epics players. Even though it limits many points of comparison, this allows players to explore different things that can be done using a familiar map and scenario. Your rules were also nice in that the "no war provocation" concept was an example of the sort of thing that our "honorable" ruleset never quite captured in spirit.

I'm glad that you and Kylearan chose to play with additional restrictions in this Epic. I hope it serves as an example and inspiration to future players.

-Griselda

[playshogi]

I played so long ago I forgot about it. I won in 1902 AD. First time with the expansionist trait and I got a warrior who later popped a city in 3250 BC or so. Then this warrior held off a surprise Ottoman attack 3 warriors and a spearman. Eventually I got 4 techs including 2 on the way to Monarchy, so I got to Monarchy really fast. I pulled two Scientific leaders, but didn't get much use out of them. Magellan, I think, then I blundered by not building Shakes in my city with Copernicus and Newtons. Once I got the tech lead I had to research everything and that made things slow.

[Dwip]

Finally checking in on my own report, here. Much obliged to Gris for the report posting.

And, well, the whole problem with that game was that I did a bit too much building and sitting around, and not enough :war: on people. Which has been my problem ever since the days of Civ 2, so maybe I'll eventually learn. Some day. Eventually.

Fun game, though.

[Ridgelake]

RBC 40 – Ridgelake – Hittite Cosmonauts

Premise: Spaceship victory with a max of 14 cities, each with its 21 tiles and its own worker. No representative government.

According to the preliminary info, it’s a small map, with extra land “so that all civs can expand fully”. Or something to that effect. So I planned on having lots of room to expand. Yes, I can be gullible on occasions……..

Starting tiles look good. I move north to the coast. A nice mix of shields and food. Two scouts, a warrior, and then start on a granary to help crank out settlers to fill that “extra” land….

Scouts meet the Ottomans and the Maya. They pop a few goodie huts, get a couple warriors, gold, and maps. No settlers or cities. One conscript warrior scouts a touch before returning home to MP. The other is south of Otto lands and also moves back towards home to help fog bust.

Around 2500 BC, with a couple of turns left on the granary, the Ottomans send a couple warriors into our land. They aren’t going to sneak attack, are they? We have 2 warriors and they have 2 warriors. Hmmm…can’t buy anything from them for gpt. My warrior in Otto lands is on a hill. Maybe he should move onto one of their tiles to pillage if they declare. Hit enter. Well, sure enough, they declare. An archer kills the warrior in their territory. Then both of their warriors kill my fortified warriors and the game is over. Probably the earliest loss that I have ever experienced.

Well, not much to learn from that. So I replay the last turn. Instead of moving the warrior off the hill, I leave him there. Hit enter. The Ottomans declare, but their order of attack changes. The random seeds on the RNG go to different combats. One of my fortified warriors survives this time and the game continues.

I wanted to swap immediately over to a rax, but that would waste shields. So I let the granary finish. Since I didn’t see any other Otto troops, I start on a rax next. I could always swap to a spear if need be. The rax completes and I start on spears and archers. Ultimately, I make peace with the Ottomans after killing some of their units.

By this time, the capitol is about size 9. I am sorely tempted to try a 1CC. But I decide to play by the guidelines of the game and crank out two quick settlers. But by this time, both the Ottomans and the Mayans have claimed a lot of territory. Particularly bad is the Mayans getting to the wines. That was my primary or secondary target. But I am able to claim the horses and wheat to the west. We need horses for the 3-man chariot UU. The other settler claims the silks on the river. Both of these spots have a lot of jungle and wetlands in the 21. But they will get strong in time.

I may have been in error of the game rules in founding the silk town. It was clear of overlap from my own cities. It did have second-tier overlap with an Ottoman city. But if I could get culture first, I would have all 21 tiles. The three disputed tiles were all jungle/wetlands and would not be worked by either side until after hospitals. I started it first on a temple.

I was now out of space to found new cities. Sure, there were more jungle and garbage sites, particularly out on the west peninsula. But those were not a good use of resources at the moment. So I would play a 3CC for a while.

I decided to go for the Colossus. I really like that wonder, particularly for non-representative governments. In non-rep govs, it gives a 100% increase in trade over standard tiles. In rep govs, it only gives a 50% boost. So with the government restrictions, the colossus would give extra benefit on a relative basis. Of course, it would also mean a 3CC despotism-GA. I decided to accept that because the long-term benefits of the Colossus were too good for this scenario.

With our lands filled with Mayans and Ottomans, I decided that the seas needed researching. Perhaps we could get a monopoly on contacts. And with nothing else to really build in the capitol, the Lighthouse seemed like a decent idea. It was built. Right as I was about to send out a galley, the Byzantines founded a city to the far west on the peninsula. So much for monopolizing contacts. I did send out galleys with scouts on them and made contact with the other continent. I was amazed at how much empty land there was to the south of the other continent. One scout did pop a settler from a hut. But it happened to correspond to the massive barbarian uprising that occurs when 2 civs go to the MA. Twenty or so barb horses made short work of my settler and scout.

Around 370 AD, I found that I needed more critical mass. I was falling behind in tech and knew that the situation would not improve much if I didn’t get more lands. I really wanted to get the wine site. The Mayans had squabbled with the Ottomans and were gaining more land and were the tech leader. I could not afford to further cripple the weaker Ottomans by taking a first-ring city, the logical next capture of their lands for me. So the Mayan wine site was the target. The capitol built 3Ms, my horse city built spears and archers while the silk city built catapults. After some build-up, I decided to give it a whirl. The Mayans had knights, MDIs and pikes. I got an MA with the Ottomans to help share the heat.

Using the hills for extra defense, I moved next to the Mayan wine city. Trebuchets helped a lot. I killed a couple of pikes and was lucky enough to survive most of the counters. The Ottomans definitely were taking some of the attention.

A few turns into the attack, the Mayans showed up with muskets. No way was I going to win attacking those things with archers and 3-mens. I scrapped together enough for invention and its affiliated longbows. The capital now went to LBs, the silk city spears and the horse city trebuchets. In 540AD, after about 20 turns or so of exasperating war, of always praying the knight counters would not kill all my units, of praying that I would not lose units faster than I could build them, I was able to capture the wine city, along with its second-ring iron. A true conquest, this one and a memory that will stick with me for a long time.

But what about the Mayan muskets? Did I have saltpeter? Probably not given the appearance of my lands. More scrapping pulled together enough for the needed tech. Ah! There is saltpeter in the neighboring Mayan city. And it is positioned well for the 21 tile rule with my lands. But could I hold onto the wine city while I mounted an offensive for the salt city? The remaining 3-mans moved a tile and fortified to cover the buckets. Losses were higher here without the added defense benefit of the hills. But in 630AD, I was able to get the saltpeter city as well. Peace was made with discounts on tech. I was now officially a 5CC with a couple of luxes. I could not yet get the iron as there was a Mayan town with cultural control over it.

The Mayans and Ottomans continued to war for a long time. Neither side really made much progress. One would gain a bit and then lose it back. Looking at my own lands, however, I knew that I would need more cities. When the Ottomans settled a town bordering my horse city, I knew that I had a good target. Mil Trad was an expensive purchase that was not far away. I knew that there would be a window of opportunity before the Ottos got Sipahi. I took advantage of it.

Around 890AD, my second Ottoman war started. I was able to take the coastal poach city that bordered my horse town. It had a 1 tile overlap with the horse town. I interpreted the rules of the scenario to prohibit the use of that tile. So I consciously never developed that tile outside of a road and late in the game moved auto-allocated citizens off of it.

In 970AD, I also captured the Ottoman iron and ivory town that was near the western part of the continent. It had a 1 tile overlap with an Ottoman town to its south. Despite my best efforts, I was never able to win the culture battle to get control of that last tile.

I was now up to a 7CC. I did not want to further damage the Ottoman core. And with Sipahi nearing an appearance, it was time to end this affair. I had achieved my objectives.

I entered the industrial age about 1190AD. The Mayans were regularly a problem for me. They didn’t like the fact that I had two of “their” cities. They frequently declared on me. I used one of these opportunities to clear out the area south of the wine city and west of the internal large lake. Included with these cities was the originally-Ottoman town that overlapped with my silk city. War in the late 1200ADs allowed me to raze three Mayan towns. I had a nice space for a new city that claimed the spices. An 8CC my lands now were, with all available resources and 4 luxes. Somewhere in this war I finally got my first leader. A cave army was made.

Founding this town also gave me the FP message. Around 1360AD, I built my FP in the wine city. I chose that site for its shields once I would enter communism. I have become impressed with the 3 essentially corruption-free cities that communism allows. Three cities are plenty for building spaceship parts.

The wars between the Mayans, Ottomans, and me were largely over from here on out. The Mayans had pretty much the area north and east of the lake, the Ottomans to the south, and me to the west and northwest.

Around the latter stage of the early part of the industrial age, I began to take the tech lead. I had entered communism about 1450AD. Hospitals were a definite push to maximize my limited number of cities. Sci Meth pushed me ahead for good in tech.

The other continent had a lot of wars as well. By about 1550, Japan began to dominate, pushing the Babs off the continent and onto an island. The Byzantines held in there, but were spread thin with 2 cities on my continent on the peninsula, 2 on the island north of our continent, and about 5 cities on their main continent.

The Byzantines demanded a tech of me in 1530, and I told them to stick it. I took the opportunity to first capture one of their cities on my western peninsula (it fit perfectly tile-wise with my horse city), and later razed the town on the point of the peninsula that overlapped with my newly captured one. The island was next for 2 more cities, one of which had Magellan’s in it. During this war, refining was discovered and the absence of it in my existing lands. On the northeastern part of Byz lands was oil that was in the first ring of a coastal city. In 1670, the oil city was captured to end the conquest. My city count was up to 12 now.

I continued to research as much as possible. All of the wars, however, had led all of the other nations into fascism. The best that I could research was about 12 turns. Even so, I was leading tech and pulling away.

In the mid to late industrial age, I was up two or three techs on the world. By about 1790, I entered the modern age and my tech lead was upto about a third of an age. Japan demanded a monopoly tech from me around 1800. I definitely have a defiant nationalist streak in me and told them to shove it. Not surprisingly, they declared. I had been building up forces in my oil city, knowing that it would a difficult to re-supply. Japan definitely challenged me with waves of infantry and cavs. But with artillery, a couple of cav armies, plenty of my own infantry, and some tanks, I was able to hold on and keep them off the oil spot, the road, and the city itself.

Then they attacked with bombers. And they destroyed my harbor.

Thank god for my ROP with the Byzantines. My trade route ran through their lands and harbors. So I was able to build my own fighters and bombers. I was able to get enough fighters to get air supremacy. Meanwhile, tanks spawned some leaders. I disbanded a cav army to make an airport. A new tank army was formed with the leader. I could now airlift troops into the oil city. But this situation definitely shows a major weakness of communism, the inability to rush a project in a small city when in need. I almost lost my oil connection because of it.

The Japan war lasted a long time. They had masses of troops, but not technology. My tanks, with plenty of artillery and bomber help, pushed back the masses. I razed a town that overlapped with my oil city. I razed a town near the dyes and settled my own (#13 overall). I pushed forward and captured a jap town south-southwest of the dyes. It was on a river with lots of hills and grasslands, and another rubber. Babylon city, held by the japs, was also razed as it overlapped my dye town in contest of another oil.

I had been supporting the 1CC Babylon nation that was stuck on an island. They got dragged into a war with the Byzantines. I didn’t pay close enough attention and they got killed by the Byzies, taking my gifted luxury and trade rep with it. Of all of the easily-fixable quirks of Conquests, this ranks right up there on my pet peave list. Losing your trade rep when a civ dies. It didn’t really matter as I was leading in tech and didn’t need to buy anything with GPT, but it still annoys the hell out of me.

Anyway, once in the modern age, Computers were first learned for research labs and mech infs. Then rocketry to locate aluminum. Surprise, surprise, there was no nearby aluminum. The most accessible source was probably the little island to the way south of the other continent. It was held by the japs. A tank army, a couple of artillery pieces, some mechs, and a few tanks were ferried down. An easy conquest. The jap population was converted into a harbor and I now had aluminum. In time, I would disband an aircraft carrier in this town for shields towards a library.

After Rocketry, fission was researched. Uranium was observed in the town south of my holdings on the other continent, along the shore, west of the Byzantines. Bombers softened them up and a couple of tank armies captured the city. Now, in 1866, tt was a good time to end the Jap war as they now had tanks and were pressing my counter abilities a bit. I was never in real danger of losing a city, but they were getting harder to fight off.

The broken trade rep impacted the peace negotiations. I could not accept gpt from them. So I took all their gold and a couple of towns. These towns I gifted to the Byzantines. I had also gifted them back their two towns on their island after I had acquired the aluminum and uranium towns so as to keep within the 14 city limit. I would miss Magellan’s a bit, but I would survive.

By this time, my tech lead was up to about half an age. I was going with 100% research exclusively. The number of turns for a tech slowly declined as my cities grew, research labs were completed, and SETI was built in the capitol. I got down to about 7 turn research for the last tech.

I launched in 1978 with only the japs having a single spaceship part built on their ship. This finish date was by far the latest that I have had in a Civ3 game.

So what lessons can be gleaned from this game? Several things:

1) I really like workers. I did not get all of the tiles completely improved on my 3rd city, the silk one, until 1976. That city was founded in the relatively-early BC. This restriction really impacted the development of my cities.

2) I also like overlapping cities. When I was forced into a 3CC, there is no question that I would have put in more in a normal game. The rule was a major impact. It was a lot of fun trying to take on the giant Mayans with my 3CC. So all was definitely not lost. J

3) Fascism is a terrible government. The AIs just implode in it. My small nation that was 3rd in landmass was pulling away in tech while in communism. The larger Mayans and Japs, both in fascism, just could not compete. The Ottomans, at least, got to democracy and were able to pay me a lot of gold for my techs.

4) My wars certainly contributed to the AI being in poor governments. I did bring in the Mayans and Ottomans to assist me with the Japs. I didn’t need a second front on my continent. The Mayans only very late in the game made peace with the Japs. They weren’t fighting much that I could tell. But it really left them behind, even behind the significantly smaller Ottomans and Byzantines.

5) I have been reading a Tom Clancy novel recently and one of his lines struck me as perfect for this game, “War is nothing but armed robbery writ large.” One nation wanting what the other has and using guns to get it. I “nationalized” every resource but horses, coal, and rubber by war. I also acquired 4 of my 5 luxes by such means. So what does that say about my tendencies when playing civ? Something to ponder for the future

6) By not having all 14 of my cities until the late industrial age, I was able to get needed resource cities without major losses of other, well-developed cities. Of course, not having enough well-developed cities slowed down the tech pace…..

7) I was lucky with culture flips, or the lack of them. With such few cities, I had poor culture. Several captures were near other nation’s capitols. But luck, and enough soldiers, helped with that problem.

It was a fun game and I enjoyed it. Unfortunately, it again highlights the problems of civ with a challenging beginning and a mop-up at the end. The game was effectively over once I acquired the tech lead in the early industrial age. Japan could have made things interesting if they stayed in a representative government. But a lengthy war with them, first to defend resources, then to acquire new ones, kept them out of the research business.

As I also commented about the RBC39 game, the paucity of resources is bad for the game. The relative scarcity made me continue wars for long stretches, keeping the AI from researching. I was able to deal with the absent resources while the AI cannot. I got a lot of money by supplying nations with resources near the end of the game. That further took gold away from their research efforts.

I want to thank the sponsors for a fun game. The stretch of game when I was a 3CC fighting the mighty Mayan empire was as exhilarating a stretch of playing that I have had in a long time. It is those experiences that make civ the addiction that it is and the reason that I keep coming back to it despite its problems.

[Rik Meleet]

I don't understand realy how you got throw so far behind in the beginnig. The Ottoman attack and your bad luck on the defense surely threw you back. But what I am puzzled about is: why did the Ottoman's attack you so early and they didn't do that to so mnay others? I can only identify 2 things; the move north of your settler and the granary. The move made you loose 1 turn and (more importantly) got your capitol into a difficultly defendable position, which was proven by the Ottomans.
The Granary: This was a wrong choice. You knew that the Mayas and the Ottoman's were close; so there would be no need for many settlers. Workers were very limited. Thus the granary was a thing that was costing a lot of shields and time for 0 return.

I do think you've had more enjoyment out of the game than I've had, because you were behind. I called many of my turns 'boring' later in the game as I'd already virtually won and waited for the techs to final get me into space. That was a drag your game did not have.

[Kylearan]

Hi,

I don't think there is a specific reason why the Ottomans attacked him so early while they did not do so in most other games (see Dwip's game for an example where they attacked early too). Most games left the capital weakly defended, and many games saw it founded after a settler move north, with no resulting attack. I think it's just a roll of the dice, either directly or indirectly (maybe the pRNG failed to let any barbs appear near them, so their forces had nothing to do...).

-Kylearan

[Ridgelake]

Rik,

What got me so far behind in the early stage was having to put so many shields into units and not into settlers. Pushing out a half dozen units or so, set me behind by another 20 turns or so. Meanwhile, the AI were aggressive in settling towards me, leaving me with only so so sites.

Overall, the tech pace of the game was horribly slow. That was a direct result of war and bad government choices by the AI. As I commented in my report, increasing the availability of resources would reduce the number of wars. Also, keeping the AI out of fascism would help too. There is something wrong when the 3rd largest nation is leading tech while in non-representative governments.

As for the granary, hindsight is always 20-20. I did not know that the Ottomans, and particularly the Mayan, were going to be so aggressive in settling. I was working under the idea that everyone had lots of land to settle, as I commented early in my report. I don't think that the granary was necessarily a bad choice. It does double your growth. But yes, the lack of good area to settle does reduce the initial benefit of building it.

As for "boring", yes, most of my modern age was such. Really, after I had stemmed the tide of japanese units, it was mostly tedious. With so many artillery pieces and bombers and such, modern war takes forever. This is an ongoing flaw with civ that I don't know how will be fixed.

[Griselda]

Wouldn't you know it, it's taking me an Epic-length time to go through these Epic reports. Please forgive the late reply. It sounds like a great game, and I'm glad you enjoyed it.

I think that your choice for the radar towers was right on. I'm glad you didn't use any captured workers, because the most important thing was that captured workers should do no work. Since radar towers hadn't been prohibited, it makes sense to build them with the names workers.

As far as giving away the city, it's not technically in the rules, since the actual letter of the law says that you must abandon one by the end of the turn, and you didn't abandon it. But, I think it makes sense to allow it for this game, especially since Japan clearly had cultural control of the area.

As far as the goody hut, it turns out that the random map generator and the AI were both pretty advanced. My original intention was to run this game on a completely random map, so I started random ones in game (not in the editor), and tested them. But, I'm picky, especially when it's for something like an Epic that will affect a lot of players. I don't restart just to get an easy map, but I do restart to get what I consider to be a good map. When I started on this map, there were so many great things happening that I knew I had to use it. There were so many tradeoffs and judgement calls that had to be made in my opening moves.

But, it had a problem. There were no horses for miles around. The Ottomans had two horses south of their capitol, but there were no horses or even any iron near the Hittites. That just seemed too mean, especially with the cramped start. So, I started a "play last world" game to get the seed number, and opened the map up in the editor. I took one of the Ottoman's horses and put it to the west of the Hittites. They would be easy to secure, but not too easy to hook up with the variant restrictions. I also moved the iron a little closer in; it had been further east in a spot that was likely to go to the Mayans. That opened up the possibility of an iron works city, but I wasn't sure how likely that would be with this land setup.

I kept all the starting locations, and civs, the same as they had been in my random game, at least on the home continent. I hadn't played in nearly far enough to meet the other continent's civs. So, I let the other continent's start points and civs get decided randomly. I was a little bit concerned about the room available in the south, in what would be Japan, but there didn't seem to be an obvious better choice over there, with so much dry land. However, I figured the larger land area of a behemoth on the other continent would give the player a slightly better opportunity to go on the offensive, so I left it alone.

I didn't move any of the late-game resources around, either. I merely noted their placement and smiled.

-Griselda

[Griselda]

To the best of my knowledge (er, memory), you're the only person besides me to have quoted an Epic in the Epics. The only one I used that even vaguely relates to Troy is the "Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story" quote, from one of the translations of the Odyssey. I had hoped to use more from the ancient texts, but found the more overt "good vs. evil" stuff from the middle ages worked better for the Epics pages.

Oh, and Hector :war: really ! That was a fun touch.

-Griselda, planning to go see, but be annoyed by, both the Troy and the Arthurian movies this summer.