General A New Dawn discussion

Every so often I come across a game that was particularly fun or interesting, and sometimes a peculiar or otherwise notable event that I felt was worthwhile enough to screenshot or jot down, but never really had any place to post it. Making a new thread for just that one event seemed a bit much, though there wasn't really much else to place it in.

So, I sort of felt a new thread focusing on general discussion of the mod and any interesting or amusing events you may have encountered while playing might be a nice idea. Instead of discussing development, balancing issues, bugs and glitches, Multiplayer OOS'es and the like - which is the focus of the stickied threads - this thread would focus on merely the gameplay. Sharing tales of interesting or strange events, or glorious hard-fought battles, the discovery and conquest of a massive world... The likes.


First up, in my first game in the newest revision, I was playing a Large-Prince game, and was preparing to start pushing into the Zulu and Assyrian territories so I could have more resources to try and keep up with Isabella, who was almost seven techs ahead of the leader in second place
Well, I saw the Zulu moving this settler around so I followed it with an Explorer that got stuck in Neutral Lands. I eventually saw the borders pop up as the city was founded, but in the very same turn I saw the borders vanish. After ending the turn, I found out that the city had gotten razed by a pack of barbarian Javalineers that had ended their turn right next to where he founded the city
What bad luck!



In the same game many years later, I was peeking at the world map (Can't remember why though) in the World Builder and saw that the Incans had been reduced to one city for some reason, and in control of the majority of their territory was Ghandi. The Incans - along with their Portuguese and Chinese neighbors sharing the tiny island - were spawned from Barbarian cities and the Incans were doing fairly well actually. I later found out that Huyana was suffering from Rebellions and Ghandi eventually overran his entire territory and vassalized him. This was a few dozen turns before Isabella finally exploded and declared war on me, and when she had Grenadiers, and Muskets with Rifles not too far away? Yeah. I was still using Aquebustiers (I can never spell that right...) so it was no contest. The war didn't last long once she plowed through my OCC Zulu Vassal and three-city Assyrian vassal. She refused peace no matter what I tried offering, and eventually forced a Conquest Loss on me
The worst part of this is that she asked me to go Confucian and I accepted, which moved her from Cautious to Friendly, and I made the stupid mistake of going back to Buddhist (Which I founded) the moment I was able to. This was a fatal mistake and probably was the decision that sealed my game. I don't know what I was thinking
View attachment 372700


My next game I decided to try the Huge World Map scenario, and hoped that the Flexible Difficulty feature wouldn't spit in my face like it did the previous game (Half the score of Izzy and she's six times as strong as me, and it increases the difficulty on me!?) This game went so much better, perhaps largely in due to my fairly resource rich start, and I even managed to launch a successful naval assault on Pericles - who had founded three religions! Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and Hellenism. I razed both Holy Cities, which in turn made the Aztecs upset with me since they had converted to Zoroastrianism a while back. They were Naghualist at first (I had beelined Calendar, even skipping Animal Husbandry to get there!) but quickly swapped to Zoroastiranism for whatever reason.
Well, the thing I found interesting here was the very turn I researched Vassalage I had seven AI immediately contact me and ask to be my vassal
The very next turn Aku would vassalize to me as well. This was a very very nice change of pace from the previous game where I got stomped epically.
View attachment 372701

I'm still a bit hopeful some AI will end up challenging my authority, but if I get to the Reneisance era without that happening, I might help a leader or two along with some... Ahem... Divine Intervention via the World Builder




Anyway. These were some recent ones I found interesting, and I hope that others might join in the discussion and have some things to share as well
No two games of Civilization ever play the same way, even if you were to re-load the same game you just finished. So there's plenty of unique stories to be heard!
Maybe the title would have been better as 'Your AND tales and stories'

Well I had a few interesting things in the previous game, one being an island that had more barbarians that I've ever seen in a very long time, and this was without Raging Barbarians!! Sadly, the game crashed before I could get a good shot of it and it corrupted my save file in the process

That being said, I decided to start a new game but try something I hadn't done since standard BTS: An Always War game
To mix things up just a bit more, I also made it a Team Game (3 v 3 v 3 v 3 just because) and selected the Team Battleground mapscript since I don't often use that one.

Map settings:
-Large World Size
-Arid Climate
-Ancient Start
-Epic Speed

Game Settings:
-Aggressive AI (From what I know it affects more than just diplomacy, so I switched it on anyway.)
-Always War
-Require Complete Kills
-No Revolutions/Inquisitions
-No Barbarian Civs
-No Tech Diffusion (In a Team Game, do you really need this? )
-Barbarians Always Raze
-Expanded Castles (The buildings obsolete fairly quickly in AND, but even so, they're pretty cool.)
-Arctic and City Parks
-Civic/Early Buildings/HistoricWonders
-Modern Corporations
-Advanced Nukes
-No Fixed Borders

Teams:
-Assyria (Myself), Montezuma, Nebuchadrezzar
-Stalin, Ragnar, Ghengis Khan
-Joao II, Wang Kong, Frederick
-Hirohito, Leonidas, Mashirissa


And my starting spot (Didn't re-roll)


Well let's see how this goes

*Edit* Is the 'Great Mediator' peace event supposed to trigger in an Always War game? Not even out of Ancient Era yet and it's come up twice now. Actually pretty funny to hear the peace alert only for war horns to flare up again a split second later

I also forgot to enable the option that locks all civs into permanent war/peace, so the three other AI teams are actually being fairly nice with each other. Saved the game and edited the WB file to include the Permanent War/Peace option, and now everyone hates each other as it should be ^^

Wow. Recent revisions really did make the AI better; it stole an important wonder from me (Piazza san Marco). Or maybe Willem van Oranje has a higher wonder build chance.

And that was on Warlord!

Tolni said:

Wow. Recent revisions really did make the AI better; it stole an important wonder from me (Piazza san Marco). Or maybe Willem van Oranje has a higher wonder build chance.

And that was on Warlord!

Click to expand...

I end up losing a lot of wonders to the Dutch and Portuguese (Joao mostly) a lot as well
Most of the standard games I'm in that Joao II shows up, he ends up running away with the tech lead but falls behind in cities and military for some bizarre reason.


For a long while I was constantly losing the Great Library and the Sistine to the AI, both of which are MY wonders. I will not permit any AI to lay their grubby little hands on the Sistine. That is my rightful wonder and woe to any AI that dares to steal it from me


But yeah, the AI do seem quite a bit better at getting wonders lately. Or maybe they're just getting lucky, or we're a bit too used to being able to walk all over the AI and take our time with things

Not sure what's going on here, but the AI seem a bit... Slow to improve their land. Maybe it's the Always War and having three other teams being at war with them, or a side-effect of it being a team game, but Carthage NEVER hooked up their copper, Greece never hooked up their Iron or Ivory (And took 100+ turns just to farm their Rice!!!!) and most forests are still around and few resources are improved or even hooked up at all.

The only exceptions are my two AI buddies, who have been furiously improving their lands.

I eventually just popped open the WorldBuilder and hooked up the AI's resources myself, and then they began upgrading their troops. If they wouldn't do it...




Really not sure what I was seeing. Noble difficulty, and they went almost to AD years without even trying to connect their Copper and Ivory
I wonder if this is how Always War games tend to work out in AND, or if it was from the 3 v 3 v 3 v 3 Always War thing I set up, where everyone is permanently at war with everyone else. The AI might have gotten worried and whatnot... But ya'd think they'd simply have their workers out escorted or something...
I tried a game like this in BTS once (A 10-civ FFA Always War) and the AIs were just a touch slow to improve their lands, but they didn't take *this* long to.

Rezca said:

I also forgot to enable the option that locks all civs into permanent war/peace, so the three other AI teams are actually being fairly nice with each other. Saved the game and edited the WB file to include the Permanent War/Peace option, and now everyone hates each other as it should be ^^

Click to expand...

It is possible to change a game option after the game is started?
Can you teach me that magic spell, please?



BTW: In my later games, since changing to AND2.x from 1.75 I feel the barbarians are very... errr... sleepy
I play with Barbarian worlds and in the last one with Raging barb.s too, but they don't do much. Anyone else experiencing the same?

Anyway, do you go for an early religion (Zoro/Kemetism), mid one (Judaism/Buddhism) or something from Confucianism onwards?

I usually go for Judaism; gives really good Shrine, and the Masada is quite good at making cash.

Tolni said:

Anyway, do you go for an early religion (Zoro/Kemetism), mid one (Judaism/Buddhism) or something from Confucianism onwards?

I usually go for Judaism; gives really good Shrine, and the Masada is quite good at making cash.

Click to expand...

I always beeline at the start of the game for Kemetism for a state religion. I like its wonders: Temple of Seth (+military prod) goes to my Elite military city, and the one with +% with wheat to capital (which usually has no due to civics, and anyway the most stable regarding revolution. Also, I make my capital specialize to trading and espionage.)
I avoid Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Budhism and Hinduism.
I also go for Hellenism (the shrine is good, and Gymnasia also gos for the military city for the free promotion) and Naghualism (I like its catedral's and monestry's bonus). But most importantly get Confucianism (its holy city will become my elite military city.
In my earlier games I was also going for Taoism (free promo from its monastry in military city), but since there is the Shaolin monastry I will let it for someone else.
I also let Christianity and Islam for someone else.

Sogroon said:

It is possible to change a game option after the game is started?
Can you teach me that magic spell, please?

Click to expand...

It's pretty easy actually, but not possible in MP games as far as I know. You start your game or load a game, and then enter the World Builder - in my experience, the sooner you do this the better.
Then click Save map and put it somewhere, anywhere. Name it something you'll remember too - you'll have to launch this file from the Scenarios menu and not the Load Game menu. Wherever you put it to edit it, make sure you move it back to the Documents\My Games\Beyond the Sword\Saves\WorldBuilder folder when you're done and ready to play it.
Exit the World Builder and exit to the main menu.

Start a new game with the options you want, preferably on a Duel sized map so it generates quickly, and then again enter the World Builder and save that one (I usually save it in the BTS My Games folder outside the Saves directory so it doesn't clutter up the Scenarios listing in-game)

Open that file with a text editor - my personal favorite being Notepad++
With the 'standard settings' WB File I created, I'd have something like this for the early bit:



Some common settings I often change are removing game options I really don't like playing with, or in the case of the Orion map which has no custom settings, I add in others I do like such as the Early Buildings and No Fixed Borders. Some scenarios only have a limited number of turns, like the Warlords scenario Peloponesian. Not fun!
The 'Mars Colonization' AND scenario starts in the Future Era. I edited it so it starts in the late Modern instead so there's still stuff to research.

Anyway. So assuming it is just the game options you want to change, and not anything else, select all the Option=GAMEOPTION bits and then open the WB Save you made originally.
In my case, Orion originally looked like this:


I'd paste the settings I wanted in between the Calendar and Victory options, then save the file. You can even do this while Civilization is open - but NOT if that save file is open


One thing I noticed, is it seems to 'reset' who has founded what religion, and when you launch the game it treats it like you're starting a new one. The former? I don't know. I edited the file 80 or so turns into the game, and saw that the tech that founds Kemetism still had the lil religion icon next to it, despite Genghis already founding it like 40 turns earlier. I never actually researched it before starting a new game to try other things, so I don't know how it'd affect things if I did research it. Probably nothing, but ya never know.

Sogroon said:

BTW: In my later games, since changing to AND2.x from 1.75 I feel the barbarians are very... errr... sleepy
I play with Barbarian worlds and in the last one with Raging barb.s too, but they don't do much. Anyone else experiencing the same?

Click to expand...

Two words: Huge. Highlands.

You may beg the Barbarians for forgiveness whenever you feel like it

Seriously, this was like 20 revisions ago when the barbarians were DEFINITELY docile on almost every difficulty and map, and I launch a Highlands map (It's the one with no world wrap and is almost entirely land with tons of mountains and hills) and FOUR AI exit the game before the Classic was even 1/3 over, and I nearly got wiped out just from Javelins alone - when I had axes and light swords! If I founded even one city, no less than 30 or 40 units would swarm it only a few turns later. By the Medieval era, there was 70+ barbarian cities across the map!


I've had some good experience with a 10 or 13 AI map with Raging Barbs and Barb World enabled, some of which I almost didn't survive, but I do know what you mean. Sometimes the barbarians exit the stage far too quickly for my tastes, but it often depends on the mapscript and how many neighbors you have (Highlands is particularly brutal with barbarians)

I find that PerfectMongoose tends to cover large parts of the map with frozen wasteland. This may be because I choose to have relatively little ocean area. These frozen wastes are perfect breeding grounds for barbarians, though the cities of course can't really develop. As a result, I often see barbarians wandering around around the edges of the wastes, including barb' muskets and so forth. I quite enjoy having large areas of land belonging to no-one relatively long into the game. That's with neither Raging Barb's nor Barb' World options.

@Rezca
THX or the magic trick
Maybe I try it with the newest rev for trying the new wonder tag.

About barbs: I usually play on Perfectworld, Planetgenerator and (recently) Smartmap. Size is giant+ (160x160 torodial).

My Warrior was scouting around Hammurabi's territory, and he ended his turn right next to his capitol, where there was this huge army standing there! I hit end turn and when the dust settled the only non-barbarian units left were my warrior and Hammurabi's worker



Continuing the 'unfortunate' losses to barbarians, earlier Ghengis Khan had founded Judaism but only a few turns later had the city it was founded in taken over (And presumably razed) by barbarians

That IS unfortunate!
*edit* Some turns later, my exploring Galley found that the Jewish holy city was merely captured by barbs, not razed. But if Khan doesn't work fast, he's gonna get mowed over by them!

He's only got a few javelins in the city that worker is sitting by

There's also THIS way of changing options ingame, which is what I usually use. I made myself a screenshot with the whole numbered option list and then I know which number I need without having to retype the long python commands each time.

Noyyau said:

There's also THIS way of changing options ingame, which is what I usually use. I made myself a screenshot with the whole numbered option list and then I know which number I need without having to retype the long python commands each time.

Click to expand...

Would you be willing to post the screenshot?

JosEPh

Sure, this one is from a very old revision though, I'm not sure if there have been changes in the more recent ones.

Something that never happened to me before.
I was playing German Civilization, had a nice empire, a war in the north, and an undefended city in the south coast (Munich). Well, as many other times, a galley would appear and land near the city with some troops. Nothing rare here.
What happened there was:



Munich was captured, and in the next turn, Paris appeared as a minor! Included a lot of troops that were not there before.

RyoHazuki said:

Something that never happened to me before.
I was playing German Civilization, had a nice empire, a war in the north, and an undefended city in the south coast (Munich). Well, as many other times, a galley would appear and land near the city with some troops. Nothing rare here.
What happened there was:



Munich was captured, and in the next turn, Paris appeared as a minor! Included a lot of troops that were not there before.

Click to expand...

Nothing strange, that's how Barbarian Civs work; once they have a good size city (conquered, in this case), they form a new civ. And to help them survive in an already developed environment, they get a boost in techs, units and so on, for a while at least.

Well, i usually play with barb world so i know how it works, its simply that it never happened to me so fast.

RyoHazuki said:

Well, i usually play with barb world so i know how it works, its simply that it never happened to me so fast.

Click to expand...

Barbarian Civs. Barbarian World is another option. Probably it's the first time they get such a big city. IIRC the triggering limit is size 3.

As I was playing just read the rumor: The Mutapa City State (born from a barb city) has found some treasure.
Okay, I have enough espionage to look into the city, so let's see...



He already has 4 treasures in the city doing nothing with them.
I didn't want to hurt them, but to let them develop into a full civ, but...
I changed my mind



That raises the question: Does the AI know, what to do with this unit?
It didn't use it either for culture boos or for hurrying production.