Epic 25 - Spartan Survival

[Olodune]

RB Epic 25

Part I

(This is my first game played with the new patch. Hopefully all goes well.)

This … is … Sparta! An always war game is a given. The variant is a very simple one: no pillaging. I’m not certain this will actually hurt the player all that much – except in the very early going when metal pillaging is powerful.

The listed difficulty is Prince, which should be fairly manageable on a regular map. (Edited: This is NOT a regular map, but has been highly customized for this scenario, with stunning results.)

- No barbs or random events
- Unrestricted leaders

Sparta (ie the Greeks) will be under the peace loving guidance of Genghis Khan himself (Agg, Imp). I like the Agg trait for AW since we will be fighting numerous early battles where the extra combat promotion should shine. Imperialistic is less impressive, but at least it means we will have plenty of great generals. Lacking economic traits means that extra care will be needed to keep the Spartan economy from stagnating in the mid-game.

I decided to open with a work boat build in Athens. While a little risky, I hoped that the forested plains hill tile would allow a panic warrior to be built quickly if needed. Luckily this worked just fine. On the research front I decided to go Mining->Bronze Working for early chopping, slavery, and the important reveal of copper (needed to build the Spartan Phalanx). In the meantime first contact was made:



There is a nice forested choke point to hold enemy warriors from entering the capital and eastern peninsula (where my second city would go to claim copper, sheep and wines).

Early scouting reveals that Sparta is not a rich land with commerce tiles in particular short supply. At least we have easy access to copper and horses. Over the next few turns we meet most of our enemies (Mansa and Darius where the last to reveal themselves later in the game).

Tokugawa of the Native Americans – Our nearest neighbour and a nasty defensive threat (more on this in a bit).

Shaka of the Sumerians – Aggressive vultures! Ouch!

Montezuma of the Romans – Aggressive Praetorians! Yikes!

Mana Musa of the English – Technology engine and recoats. Would be great to take down early …

Darius of the Dutch – Another technologist with access to dikes to become a late game industrial powerhouse. Also would be good to take down early …

So Sullla has clearly set the deck against the human player, fun times! At this point all I know is that I only have room for 4-5 average cities without taking lands from Tokugawa’s grasp. I would prefer to kill him early since eliminating enemies is a big help in Always War games. I’m planning an attack with Aggressive Phalanx squads, hoping for some easy fights… No such luck:



Hmmm. Toku already has aggressive + shock Dog Soldiers defending his cities. It may be possible to rush anyways, but I think the losses would pile up too quickly, especially since we need to fend off attacks of the other AIs. Maybe a chariot rush would have been better.

So it’s a defensive stance for now:



I need Catapults and I need an economy. Weighing the two I think it’s more important to get some commerce flowing for our long term survival. So a little building is in order:



We get a double happiness boost from Monarchy; wineries and hereditary rule. In addition I set up Athens as a commerce heavy hybrid city, and two out of my first three expansions as pure commerce cities.

The first dangerous enemy stack approaches:



Those aggressive UUs are a problem as I can’t kill them without taking heavy losses myself. For the most part I try to get the AI to attack Phalanxes with combat and woodsman promotions, but sometimes I needed to attack stacks (especially those heavy with City Raider units – something the AI seems increasingly fond of).

A sign that our economy is doing ok:



Getting a religion is also nice since none will spread naturally in an AW game.

Finally I’m ready to move out with a small stack of offensive troops:



While I still take losses (especially sacrificial cats) the war goes well as Cahokia falls:



Pushing a little farther we get some good news:



Great! One civilization is defeated fairly early in the game. I think this is critical to success in this scenario as the AIs seem to be playing quite well. Darius is well ahead in score despite my conquests, so without more lands early I think players could be in big trouble.

I haven’t scouted well yet, but I know Shaka has been sending stacks from the East, while Monty is somewhere to the West. I decided on targeting Feudalism early since Longbowmen are such fierce city defenders in the early medieval era. After some turns of defense (with plenty of losses on both sides) I became increasingly annoyed with the Roman leader:



Those aggressive Praetorians are a pain (even for Combat III + Shock Phalanxes). So I went on a path of attrition to burn down Rome:



Without pillaging tiles this “vacant” land will be nice to claim soon, since new cities will have many improvements in place already. I reached maces within a few turns of Mansa and Monty so new reinforcements allowed for more progress into Roman lands. War Wariness is becoming a problem for the first time:



After sacrificing most of my troops (this is becoming a recurring theme) the next big milestone is reached:



Great! I’m beginning to think I have a good chance of winning this game. I’ve been defending against Shaka and Darius around Cahokia. Darius is much stronger of the two despite the fact that I haven’t entered either of their lands yet.

In the west Mansa and I have been in a cold blooded stand-off for hundreds of years. Here is my stack (on a jungle tile):



Meanwhile a bit of luck shines on Athens (apparently this is not turned off with events, a little odd):



And I built my first Odeon at an unimpressive date:

[Olodune]

I didn't finish my editing last night (I just got back from a 2-week vacation that includes plenty of jet lag ) but I'll have the rest up later today.

[Olodune]

Part II

While the stand-off with Mansa Musa continued in the west, Darius was sending well equipped stacks from the east:



Mixed stacks with trebuchets and knights meant that it was time to switch from a passive to an active defense as longbowmen can no longer just stand pat, though they have served me well for nearly a thousand years.

As the year 1500 rolled in I stopped to take stock of the situation, partly because it was a good point to do so, and partly since it is the Great General check point:



With eight great generals spawned I’m happy with the amount of bloodshed so far. The combat casualties are heavily in favor of the Spartans too:



Cahokia has been tasked as my primary military city, mostly due to it’s convenient location:



Athens has been turned into a mediocre science city:



However, this game is still not in the bag since Darius has a score lead, and his GNP is impressive:



Between him and Mansa, I am still struggling to maintain technology parity:



Clearly I will loose the Liberalism race, but that is not a big problem. I chose banking for mercantilism (no foreign trade routes anyways), and Printing Press for the passive commerce boost.

Part III is coming shortly.

[Olodune]

Part III

Looking ahead into (and part way through) the renaissance there are four different technologies I considered aiming for.

1) Democracy. The classic tech for a builder’s game based on commerce. I decided to skip this one for now (with nearly disastrous consequences).

2) Steel. Great for offensive smashing, but a little nerve wracking on defense – I’ll skip this as well.

3) Rifling. Rifles provide versatility and solidify my military for centuries, so I decided to beeline here first, hoping to push into English territory before Mansa has redcoats.

4) Communism. Provides a nice production boost, access to the Kremlin, and State Property. I decided to head here next despite the likely chance that Darius would beat me to the Kremlin (he did). This was probably a mistake.

Rifles do provide the firepower to end the cold war in the West:



///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Insert 1-hour break while some poor bloke burns through his kitchen.
Luckily no one was hurt
AND the fire was not directly below me – slightly dangerous and bad for smoke
AND the fire was not directly above me – bad for water damage. Ok end break.
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

The rifles made great progress through English lands, until the door steps of London when Mansa finally gets some Redcoats out. They are tough little guys – and more cities are starting to get hit hard by the dual action of emancipation riots with war weariness.



I could fix the unhappiness with the culture slider, but then I couldn’t research towards Democracy. I think I almost lost this game right here, but luckily I had just enough troops to finish off Mansa, removing the WW and saving my game:



Darius had become increasingly aggressive at smashing his forces towards my defenders:



I held but had no extra troops to go on the offense, and the tech situation was less than ideal:



I also lost my last Phalanx at 80/82 experience (at 98.8% odds. I think that the “Tactics” promotion should be changed to allow a guaranteed retreat every X turns, otherwise GG offensive units are just not viable)



I didn’t find Sugar Island until scouting with Air ships. I wonder if any players manage to grab it peacefully.



In the former English lands I was fighting a brutal air war with Darius. Since I wasn’t happy with the hammer win/loss ratio I ended up allowing him to bomb improvements, then replacing them the following turns:



Darius continued to cause trouble by striping all my fishing nets (for the second time). By the end of the game I’d replaced each net ~2 times. Even the clams by Athens were replaced.



Just when I place tanks into the production queues Darius started to send more serious stacks:



After numerous, and very rare, tank on tank battles the Sumerians are finally no more:



I’d planned on building up to Jet Fighter (for air superiority for my bombers) and Gunships, but just before I was ready to head into Dutch territory domination triggered:



What a fun game! I can’t remember another game I’ve played that has been contentious from the beginning (Phalanx vs. Dogs/Vultures/Praets) through the middle ages, and even into the Modern Era (fighter wars, followed by Armor battles). I think Sullla did a masterful job at map building (at least for me), by placing the technologists behind a warmonger screen with sufficiently boosted starting lands.

The final MFG plot was revealed just how powerful Darius became with his dikes:



This production base was used for troops too:



While I never stole any techs via espionage, I was the victim of theft loosing both Radio and Satellites to Darius:



Summary:

First Odeon: 445ad
Highest XP Phalanx: 80/82
Highest XP boat: ~10
Generals by 1500: 8 (with 127/270 towards number 9)
Techs Stolen : 0 (lost 2 though!)

[Compromise]

I like how you literally had what...only your Medic III left unmoved as you wiped out Mansa (and thus his Democracy-delaying war weariness)? I like it.

That was a fun report to read, thanks.

[mostly_harmless]

Congratulations to the victory. In my game the big island was settled by the Sumerians.

mh

[Olodune]

I like how you literally had what...only your Medic III left unmoved as you wiped out Mansa (and thus his Democracy-delaying war weariness)? I like it.

That was a fun report to read, thanks.

I actually had to delay taking the last two cities while reinforcements made the long march from Cahokia, but I thought I'd brought plenty of troops. A few bad rolls and it came down to the last few units For some reason Mansa had guerrilla promoted redcoats -- quite nasty when holed up on hill cities.

[Sullla]

What a great game! Emancipation/war weariness tightrope walking, air wars, tank on tank battles - how often do we see some of those things in this game? Your game also made me look good, in that my reason for choosing Darius/Netherlands was vindicated. If allowed to survive to the endgame, he turns into a monster with all that extra production!

Great game, and a great report.

[Kylearan]

Hi,

thanks for the great report on an exciting game! The Monarchy slingshot was definitely a good move with no early happiness resources, but wines in our core. You also did much better than me expanding beyond the initial choke - I was too cowardly and didn't dare, which made the game a lot harder for me in the beginning. You also captured Cahokia much earlier, not to mention Rome - not sure why and when you lost steam.

Ouch re: WW and emancipation anger! Looks like my choice of crossbowmen paid off in an unexpected way, in that they were very powerful for a long time and I rarely lost one, so WW never was an issue for me. I had absolutely no problem with emancipation anger either, as no AI researched Democracy, although that was because AIs favored military in my game which was a completely different problem as well.

I can’t remember another game I’ve played that has been contentious from the beginning (Phalanx vs. Dogs/Vultures/Praets) through the middle ages

I fully agree!

-Kylearan

[Olodune]

You also captured Cahokia much earlier, not to mention Rome - not sure why and when you lost steam.

I've been wondering this as well, part of the answer is that I played rather cautiously in the sense of economic development before military. The other part of the answer is that I'm a weaker player in the medieval period than others here -- this is good news to me since it means I can try to focus on that period next game(s).

Reading my own report (and checking the save, etc) I'm nearly certain that a large part of the problem is not enough slavery powered production. I may also be building too many cottages. The current Adventure may provide a good practice round Thanks for the comment.