This was pretty much my first 'full' game of Civ 4 with Warlords. I'd been a big fan of Civ in the past, so I was looking forward to seeing what was possible in this game. My objective was to fool around with religions, vassals, and take it into the modern era.
I started out as Saladin on a large terra map, with permanent alliances enabled, city flipping after conquest enabled. My first few turns went well, with me luckily discovering the korean civilization just a small distance away and catching them with their city empty. I marched right in with my initial warrior and destroyed them, giving myself space to breath, then continued scouting out the continent.
The game developed and eventually the 'old world' was settled. To my south was the mighty Incan empire and beyond that the Ottomans, and to the north and round the bend of the continent that way, the significant Roman and terrifyingly huge Russian civ, and then the quietly expanding Vikings, Greeks and small Chinese civ far beyond my reach.
I was lucky enough to found all the major 'Book' religions - judaism, christianity, and islam, and for a long while the official religion of the Arabian empire was Judaism (cough). I promoted Judaism aggressively, and with the aid of passive spreading the Incans were soon loyal jewish allies. The area around Rome developed more into a Christianity/Islam area, while the mighty block of 'eastern' nations - Ottomans, Vikings, Chinese, and Greeks, were full of buddhists, hindus, confuscists, and taoists. Peter of Russia vascillated between his native buddism, and my aggressively spread Judaism, throughout the game.. usually at my prompting, he'd adopt Judaism, improve relations with me immensely, then revert in a few turns back to Buddha - I eventually gave up.
It became clear to me that I was boxed in between the Incans and the Romans, and with the Incans having been game-long friends, I decided to flex my muscle against Rome to the north. I adopted my + XP civics and pulsed my military up to size from peaceful expansion levels in an orgy of production, then started gathering them on my northern border. War was declared, and mighty arab forces of longbows, catapults, and horses had soon marched north through many of the core cities - Rome, Neapolis, Antium, all became mine. Peace was made when Rome was a ragged shell in the icebound artic reaches of the continent.
Interestingly, Islam was founded in an occupied (resisting) Roman city during the period of this war.. I have visions of Muhammed as a resistance prophet, and Islam certainly did spread well in the northern roman-ethnic area of my empire. I never did promote Islam that much.. a religion founded in defiance of my empire, by a roman rebel, fueled by stories of noble struggle against -me-? No way!
After a long period of rebuilding and regrouping, I was looking for a way to stem the rising tide of the buddhist-hindu block, personified by Peter of Russia on my immediate east. That was when I began to spread Judaism into Russia, and it did take.. like I said, for a little while. Interestingly, I -was- able to embroil Peter in a war against the remains of Rome, and took on the struggle again myself. I was attempting to damage Peter's international reputation.
This is where things began to get interesting. Rome capitulated easily. The Incans finally finalized their life long love affair with me by becoming a permanent ally, and Peter volunteered himself as a vassal during the second roman war! I had a conquered worthless vassal, an extremely strong permanent ally, and a volunteered vassal.
That didn't last. Peter soon opted out of his vassalage, but like I was going to let him get out of the mighty Arab/Incan empire -that- easily. Patiently I pulsed my somewhat worn military up again and gathered it on the Russian borders. Moscow fell, and several others of the strong russian heartland.. it was a rough cavalry and trebuchet and grenadier-based struggle, but Peter (oddly friendly to me despite his eastern buddhist leanings) surprisingly capitulated after just a few of his cities had been captured.
Score: Arab/Incan empire, with weak vassal Rome, and strong vassal Russia, now versus the -massive- hinduism/buddhist heartland of the vikings, Ottomans, Greeks, and Chinese.
Oh, the eastern block didn't like me. They had diplomatic penalties up the ying-yang for my power and the number of my vassals, but at least I had gotten rid of the religion modifiers by adopting free religion and reaping the benefits of my multi-faith homeland. Even Peter didn't like me - he was infuriatingly just ahead of me in tech, and the tech or two he was always ahead of me in was -always- redded out with a "We don't want to trade this at this time" explanation.. I thought he was a vassal?
For a long time there was peace. The only spot of trouble I had was that Peter had capitulated at such a large percentage of his territory that he was in real danger of growing past his 'break out' limits.. and I noticed him settling cities in the new world. Grr! My first expedition to the new world in the age of galleons had been a disaster.. the city overwhelmed by massive hordes of barbarians. In the age of transports and gunpowder, I went back with a sizable army, and over the course of several battles, captured three of the large collection of 12+ barbarian cities on that continent. They began to grow in culture and the threat of Peter breaking free of my leash was finished, as well as my gaining access to several nice resources.
Diplomatically, things were growing far worse. The Vikings and Ottomans had signed a permanent alliance! The Greeks had a defensive pact with both of them! Interestingly, Mao of China - wedged between these two massive superpower alliances, stayed studiously neutral to both of us. I had built the united nations, because I thought my block was sizable enough to have some
voting power.. but the powerful Viking-Ottoman empire captured the secretary general position. I knew I had to take action and 'prune' some of the voting power out of them, but to do so would be to start a total world war.
There was nothing for it again. Despite feeling antiquated in Vassalage and Theocracy, I went into them again to begin enlarging my military for the third or fourth time, but as I was doing so, the UN (MY UN!) began to pass resolutions shoving me back into universal suffrage and emancipation.. thank -god- Ecology Civic resolution didn't pass.
The striking thing about this war was this.. that my homeland was completely safe. I was protected from the Viking's retaliation by the body of my russian vassal - still quite powerful. I was protected from the Ottoman's aggression by the even more sizable body of my ally Incan. I EMPTIED my land of units, shipping them into the land of china.. we had an open borders agreement with them, they were on the Viking and Greek flanks.
My troops gathered in Shanghai until to select them made my computer chug. War was declared.
Poor Mao. The greeks announced war on me. The ottomans announced war on me. Inca pronounced war on the vikings and the greeks and ottomans. Etc, etc. Total world war. The diplomatic screen was a criss-cross of red lines and blue and yellow alliances, and Mao was 'cautious' towards the two groups.
The main body of my troops quickly escaped into Viking territory, while south of them, well out of my attention span, my Incan allies handily dealt with Ottoman aggression. The terrible thing was that the greeks, instead of attacking my main body as I had expected, ran rampant in China.. oh, they hadn't declared war on Mao. They had blocked the channel of my reinforcements! Poor neutral china became a killing ground for Arabs and Greeks. Fighting erupted *INSIDE* Mao's Shanghai as my troops tried to gather.
I had no choice but to start gathering my reinforcements together, far back from my embattled main army, until they were a small army themselves, and could chug through the heavy greek resistance. The consequence of that severe disruption was that I had to cut my campaign in Norse lands short, and raze cities I would rather have kept. I finally managed to diplomatically
schmooze Alexander into a peace after capturing a city or two of his, and secure my route into the Viking land, but I made a horrible, horrible mistake.
The huge main body of my army was suddenly trapped, bottled up in a little bubble deep in greek culture land, without an open borders agreement and no real chance of getting one and with the 'You can not declare war again so soon!' modifier preventing me from just walking them out then and there, while the war with the vikings was still raging.
Thankfully by then my free reinforcement secondary army had the vikings on the run. I had to cash-build an airport in that tiny occupied greek city and start air-lifting my units out one by one. One more viking city was taken, and I had completely scorched the Viking earth.. Ragnar was reduced to another Rome, trampled and small trapped in the frigid northern wastes of the continent. They did -not- capitulate, though for a few turns there was renewed world wide peace.
Briefly war was redeclared on Alexander so I could flee with my 30+ unit main army back into my territory through the small skin of greek border that seperated me from safety. I was simply too impatient to air lift them all. Interestingly, they never recaptured that abandoned size 1 piece of garbage.. I was able to redo the peace soon.
Finally I thought I would have the votes.. AGH! JUST SHORT!
The Ottomans would have to be pruned. I still had a massive quantity of units from my viking campaign, and gatherered them on the ottoman border inside my Incan allies's lands. Inca had done quite well in the previous world war, expanding their empire by several captured Ottoman cities.
In the end it was a cake walk, and though it was a second world war (minus the Greeks, who had opted out of the defensive pact) my enemies were just not up to facing me. I captured three large (size 20+) ottoman cities.. their main core, before they had had to expand outward and to the east along a chain of archipelegos and islands. I had gifted one to my Incan friends, and as Damascus fell, I contacted Mehmed.
The ottoman empire capitulated. The vikings, being permanent allies, came with them.
The Score:
The Arab/Incan Empire made vassals of rome, russia, the vikings, and the ottomans. Mao was small and extremely neutral through the whole ordeal. The greeks didn't like me, and I had never made major inroads into their territory. They simply provided the toughest resistance I had seen throughout the game.
But the next time the Leader resolution came up at the UN.. I made it, handily. I wish I had paid attention to how Mao voted that time; he had conscientiously abstained from every leader vote since the UN had been founded despite how much I had courted him. All my vassals and allies voted for me though and that was enough.
It was a Diplomatic victory in 180something, with 40% of the world population and only one real friend of the remaining six civs. I felt wowed by the whole game.
I started out as Saladin on a large terra map, with permanent alliances enabled, city flipping after conquest enabled. My first few turns went well, with me luckily discovering the korean civilization just a small distance away and catching them with their city empty. I marched right in with my initial warrior and destroyed them, giving myself space to breath, then continued scouting out the continent.
The game developed and eventually the 'old world' was settled. To my south was the mighty Incan empire and beyond that the Ottomans, and to the north and round the bend of the continent that way, the significant Roman and terrifyingly huge Russian civ, and then the quietly expanding Vikings, Greeks and small Chinese civ far beyond my reach.
I was lucky enough to found all the major 'Book' religions - judaism, christianity, and islam, and for a long while the official religion of the Arabian empire was Judaism (cough). I promoted Judaism aggressively, and with the aid of passive spreading the Incans were soon loyal jewish allies. The area around Rome developed more into a Christianity/Islam area, while the mighty block of 'eastern' nations - Ottomans, Vikings, Chinese, and Greeks, were full of buddhists, hindus, confuscists, and taoists. Peter of Russia vascillated between his native buddism, and my aggressively spread Judaism, throughout the game.. usually at my prompting, he'd adopt Judaism, improve relations with me immensely, then revert in a few turns back to Buddha - I eventually gave up.
It became clear to me that I was boxed in between the Incans and the Romans, and with the Incans having been game-long friends, I decided to flex my muscle against Rome to the north. I adopted my + XP civics and pulsed my military up to size from peaceful expansion levels in an orgy of production, then started gathering them on my northern border. War was declared, and mighty arab forces of longbows, catapults, and horses had soon marched north through many of the core cities - Rome, Neapolis, Antium, all became mine. Peace was made when Rome was a ragged shell in the icebound artic reaches of the continent.
Interestingly, Islam was founded in an occupied (resisting) Roman city during the period of this war.. I have visions of Muhammed as a resistance prophet, and Islam certainly did spread well in the northern roman-ethnic area of my empire. I never did promote Islam that much.. a religion founded in defiance of my empire, by a roman rebel, fueled by stories of noble struggle against -me-? No way!
After a long period of rebuilding and regrouping, I was looking for a way to stem the rising tide of the buddhist-hindu block, personified by Peter of Russia on my immediate east. That was when I began to spread Judaism into Russia, and it did take.. like I said, for a little while. Interestingly, I -was- able to embroil Peter in a war against the remains of Rome, and took on the struggle again myself. I was attempting to damage Peter's international reputation.
This is where things began to get interesting. Rome capitulated easily. The Incans finally finalized their life long love affair with me by becoming a permanent ally, and Peter volunteered himself as a vassal during the second roman war! I had a conquered worthless vassal, an extremely strong permanent ally, and a volunteered vassal.
That didn't last. Peter soon opted out of his vassalage, but like I was going to let him get out of the mighty Arab/Incan empire -that- easily. Patiently I pulsed my somewhat worn military up again and gathered it on the Russian borders. Moscow fell, and several others of the strong russian heartland.. it was a rough cavalry and trebuchet and grenadier-based struggle, but Peter (oddly friendly to me despite his eastern buddhist leanings) surprisingly capitulated after just a few of his cities had been captured.
Score: Arab/Incan empire, with weak vassal Rome, and strong vassal Russia, now versus the -massive- hinduism/buddhist heartland of the vikings, Ottomans, Greeks, and Chinese.
Oh, the eastern block didn't like me. They had diplomatic penalties up the ying-yang for my power and the number of my vassals, but at least I had gotten rid of the religion modifiers by adopting free religion and reaping the benefits of my multi-faith homeland. Even Peter didn't like me - he was infuriatingly just ahead of me in tech, and the tech or two he was always ahead of me in was -always- redded out with a "We don't want to trade this at this time" explanation.. I thought he was a vassal?
For a long time there was peace. The only spot of trouble I had was that Peter had capitulated at such a large percentage of his territory that he was in real danger of growing past his 'break out' limits.. and I noticed him settling cities in the new world. Grr! My first expedition to the new world in the age of galleons had been a disaster.. the city overwhelmed by massive hordes of barbarians. In the age of transports and gunpowder, I went back with a sizable army, and over the course of several battles, captured three of the large collection of 12+ barbarian cities on that continent. They began to grow in culture and the threat of Peter breaking free of my leash was finished, as well as my gaining access to several nice resources.
Diplomatically, things were growing far worse. The Vikings and Ottomans had signed a permanent alliance! The Greeks had a defensive pact with both of them! Interestingly, Mao of China - wedged between these two massive superpower alliances, stayed studiously neutral to both of us. I had built the united nations, because I thought my block was sizable enough to have some
voting power.. but the powerful Viking-Ottoman empire captured the secretary general position. I knew I had to take action and 'prune' some of the voting power out of them, but to do so would be to start a total world war.
There was nothing for it again. Despite feeling antiquated in Vassalage and Theocracy, I went into them again to begin enlarging my military for the third or fourth time, but as I was doing so, the UN (MY UN!) began to pass resolutions shoving me back into universal suffrage and emancipation.. thank -god- Ecology Civic resolution didn't pass.
The striking thing about this war was this.. that my homeland was completely safe. I was protected from the Viking's retaliation by the body of my russian vassal - still quite powerful. I was protected from the Ottoman's aggression by the even more sizable body of my ally Incan. I EMPTIED my land of units, shipping them into the land of china.. we had an open borders agreement with them, they were on the Viking and Greek flanks.
My troops gathered in Shanghai until to select them made my computer chug. War was declared.
Poor Mao. The greeks announced war on me. The ottomans announced war on me. Inca pronounced war on the vikings and the greeks and ottomans. Etc, etc. Total world war. The diplomatic screen was a criss-cross of red lines and blue and yellow alliances, and Mao was 'cautious' towards the two groups.
The main body of my troops quickly escaped into Viking territory, while south of them, well out of my attention span, my Incan allies handily dealt with Ottoman aggression. The terrible thing was that the greeks, instead of attacking my main body as I had expected, ran rampant in China.. oh, they hadn't declared war on Mao. They had blocked the channel of my reinforcements! Poor neutral china became a killing ground for Arabs and Greeks. Fighting erupted *INSIDE* Mao's Shanghai as my troops tried to gather.
I had no choice but to start gathering my reinforcements together, far back from my embattled main army, until they were a small army themselves, and could chug through the heavy greek resistance. The consequence of that severe disruption was that I had to cut my campaign in Norse lands short, and raze cities I would rather have kept. I finally managed to diplomatically
schmooze Alexander into a peace after capturing a city or two of his, and secure my route into the Viking land, but I made a horrible, horrible mistake.
The huge main body of my army was suddenly trapped, bottled up in a little bubble deep in greek culture land, without an open borders agreement and no real chance of getting one and with the 'You can not declare war again so soon!' modifier preventing me from just walking them out then and there, while the war with the vikings was still raging.
Thankfully by then my free reinforcement secondary army had the vikings on the run. I had to cash-build an airport in that tiny occupied greek city and start air-lifting my units out one by one. One more viking city was taken, and I had completely scorched the Viking earth.. Ragnar was reduced to another Rome, trampled and small trapped in the frigid northern wastes of the continent. They did -not- capitulate, though for a few turns there was renewed world wide peace.
Briefly war was redeclared on Alexander so I could flee with my 30+ unit main army back into my territory through the small skin of greek border that seperated me from safety. I was simply too impatient to air lift them all. Interestingly, they never recaptured that abandoned size 1 piece of garbage.. I was able to redo the peace soon.
Finally I thought I would have the votes.. AGH! JUST SHORT!
The Ottomans would have to be pruned. I still had a massive quantity of units from my viking campaign, and gatherered them on the ottoman border inside my Incan allies's lands. Inca had done quite well in the previous world war, expanding their empire by several captured Ottoman cities.
In the end it was a cake walk, and though it was a second world war (minus the Greeks, who had opted out of the defensive pact) my enemies were just not up to facing me. I captured three large (size 20+) ottoman cities.. their main core, before they had had to expand outward and to the east along a chain of archipelegos and islands. I had gifted one to my Incan friends, and as Damascus fell, I contacted Mehmed.
The ottoman empire capitulated. The vikings, being permanent allies, came with them.
The Score:
The Arab/Incan Empire made vassals of rome, russia, the vikings, and the ottomans. Mao was small and extremely neutral through the whole ordeal. The greeks didn't like me, and I had never made major inroads into their territory. They simply provided the toughest resistance I had seen throughout the game.
But the next time the Leader resolution came up at the UN.. I made it, handily. I wish I had paid attention to how Mao voted that time; he had conscientiously abstained from every leader vote since the UN had been founded despite how much I had courted him. All my vassals and allies voted for me though and that was enough.
It was a Diplomatic victory in 180something, with 40% of the world population and only one real friend of the remaining six civs. I felt wowed by the whole game.
Anyways, both of you guys had OBs w/ Mao prior to war, correct? Because that's the only way fighting could rage in there w/o declaration of war.
