GOTM 45 - Spoiler 2 - entering the industrial age

GOTM 45 second spoiler

The qualification for this spoiler is that you have reached the industrial-age (and have met the requirements for the first spoiler).

The focus of this spoiler is whether you adapted your play style or goals given the "generous" land area available. Were there any AI powerhouses that held you back, either militarily, technology-wise or culturally?

ainwood said:

... you have reached the modern-age ...

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and threadname: entering the industrial age

Open

I reached neither of those newfangled eras that you speak of, but have submitted my endeavours. I actually got as far as Economics, and actually built Smith's Trading Co since at one point I was planning to milk the game.

It was an unusual game for me because I didn't have any problems at all - grew fairly well by means of settlers, knights and cavalry - but still ended up with a lousy score way below 10K. I had domination in 920 AD. Perhaps I didn't wage enough simultaneous wars (ie had too few units)? Perhaps I was too slow in research? Best way to see is to make a graph. Let's see, how is it done again...



OK, OK the milking hesitation there at the end before I threw troops into Babylon must have cost a few turns, but not many points since I had already hurried/built a number of marketplaces.

Note:
This does not include razed towns
You can't see how many towns were captured from a civ on a given turn
MA was reached in 490 BC (turn 103)
Chivalry was learned in 70 BC (turn 124)
Miltary Tradition was learnt in 570 AD (turn 172) - probably quite late
Golden Age started in 580 AD

Final map:


I found it tricky to completely eliminate civs because they always had settlers out on long marches. The Vikings apparently felt a bit forlorn and did something desperate:


It took the drowsy Babylonians 5-6 turns to eliminate the intruders.

Megalou said:

I found it tricky to completely eliminate civs because they always had settlers out on long marches.

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I had the same problem, although in my game they had already settled somewhere far away behind some other country.

Redbad said:

and threadname: entering the industrial age

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Yeah - I'm careless. It is supposed to be 'industrial age'.

Open PtW

610BC my middle ages started peaceful and in Anarchy.
I could trade for feudalism and engineering and set science to bee-line military tradition.

50AD to 170AD I had a small war with Japan and took all their three cities.

230AD palace jumped into Osaka.

390AD Military tradition and getting ready to rumble. No further research.

420 AD started war with Persia and GA

The rest is just slaughtering one civ after the other, with the biggest problem getting the cossacks to where they are needed.

Conquest in 910AD

As her nation entered the Middle Ages, Catherine was listening to her treasurer bragging about the stacks of gold coins in his charge, when a messenger from the Northern Provinces stumbled into the room, “Barbarians” was all he muttered before collapsing. Later the spearman told of countless (30+) groups of barbarian horsemen marauding and pillaging mines and roads in route to Yakutsk, the fur providing city north of Moscow. “I know just how to deal with these ruffians” Catherine said as detailed her plan to counter this new threat. “First we’ll need to spend most of our gold” at which point the treasurer fainted. After his prone body was removed she laid out the rest of her devious plan.

As the barbarian captain led his men into the town square he was amazed not only at the lack of a military to oppose him, but of the large feast that was spread before. Delicious desserts and countless bottles of potent potions were piled on tables as if offerings to the gods of the ancients. After dispatching a man to empty the city coffers, he and his men began eating and drinking throughout the night.

In the morning the townspeople returned to find the bodies of the barbarians either dead from alcohol poisoning and in diabetic comas from too much sugar. The lone survivor rode screaming from the city’s small amount of gold and was never heard from again.

The new embassies that had be the focus of Catherine’s spending spree, greatly improved her international relations and trade with Persia for Feudalism and Rome for Monarchy, put in a position to proclaim the end of her despotic rule with the proclamation naming her as Queen Catherine of the Russian Monarchy in 390 BC. Her new embassies also were a great source of international news such as the completion of the Colossus of Babylon and the outbreak of war between the Zulu and Romans.

As the Kingdom of Russia continued to expand and new technologies were being discovered and traded for, Catherine was pleased when her rebuke of the Roman demand, was received without a declaration of war. At last her once meager military were now considered the equal of Rome’s. To her delight, the Japanese coastal city of Nara revolted and petitioned her to be included among Russia’s cities and was accepted. In 370 AD a Winter Palace was built for Catherine in Odessa, an event that would leave her longing for a southern seat of power. In 390 AD, Houston, on her southern coast revolted from America and joined Russia. As her neighbors continued to complete wonders (Sun Tzu in Washington, Leo’s in Persepolis and Sistine in Babylon), Russia continued adding cities, infrastructure and technologies to take those wonders away from their builders.

New technology trades found Russia on the doorstep of Military Tradition (metallurgy) and Catherine decided that the knights she had been amassing could use a little experience and she turned them loose on the backward Japanese. The Japanese archers, horsemen and spearmen were no match for the Russian knights and after suffering a series of routs, the Japanese leader traded three cities to Russia for peace. With the two that were captured and four razed, Japan was left with only four southern cities. During the war, Shaka received a stern rebuke for demanding a technology without offering any payment. In 650 AD, the Aztec city of Malinalco revolted and joined Russia and now Catherine was nearly free from having to defend her internal cities. With a quick declaration of war with the Iroquois and the capture of Oka, that goal was now completed. By signing alliances with the Aztecs and the Americans, Catherine never saw an Iroquois soldier and allowed herself a chance to rest and rearm her troops for the upcoming campaigns.

In the year 890 AD, Catherine presented her generals with a surprise gift, the mounted rifleman, the Cossack. Soon over a dozen knight units had been refitted and were positioned on the Persia frontier. Xerxes was about to pay for his earlier transgressions. The declaration of war was not unexpected by the Persian ambassador, given the animosity between the two leaders. What he had not expected was the overwhelming power of the Cossacks. City after city inside Persia fell to this awesome unit. The Persian Immortals stood no chance defending and often could do no better than to retreat the mounted attacker, who would then return home to heal, while his brethren destroyed his attacker and claimed his homeland. With the fall of the Persian capital with Leonardo’s Workshop, many a Russian spearman was now given a musket, which would greatly improve the defense along the western frontier. With Persia on the run in the east, the discovery of Magnetism in 980 AD would signal Russia’s entrance into the Industrial Age.

Where to go from here was the one remaining question for Catherine. She had Xerxes on the run and would soon revenge his slight. She still had to deal with Caesar and pay him back for his insults. Then what she wondered. Again she considered her options and culture and diplomacy were not very attractive, so it was to be either space or conquest. As Catherine considered her options she came to realize how much she enjoyed this planet and wondered just how long they might let her remain here. That was a third option that to her knowledge had only been achieved once and that was the initial expedition led by Xerxes (GOTM 1). We shall see, she pondered. For now, let’s finish the rout of Xerxes and the then deal with Rome.

Denyd,

I just wanted to let you know that I thoroughly enjoyed reading your account. I find your writing style to be very pleasing to my brain. In fact, I think I am going to find past accounts of yours to read. Your game is turning out to be a bit like mine, by the way, in terms of seeking vengeance.

I just entered the Industrial Age (1285 AD), and I have many past slights to avenge. I entered the Middle Ages in 230 BC, and made a crucial mistake when I selected my government: I chose Republic instead of Monarchy. Forgetting that Republic in the Classic GOTM now works like that in Conquests, I had far too many units (mainly warriors that I wanted to upgrade, but could not, thanks to Japan beating me to the iron by 1 turn... and workers). Just after I switched to Republic, and my research was all but crippled, I began receiving outrageous demands from the AI tribes. Being located on a peninsula, I subsequently refused most every threat, except for those of Persia, due to his proximity, and because he had been flexing his 'immortal' muscles. (I did not feel that my warriors would last long against those fearsome units!) I then found myself at war with almost every tribe in the world. Because War Weariness set in, my already crippled research became nonexistent, and keeping my head above water in terms of cash flow became an epic struggle. I was stubborn until the rampant War Weariness set in. I then began brokering for peace, but the demands were far too great for my sinking empire to meet. Eventually, I was able to make peace with the entire world by offering just about every ounce of gold per turn to the offenders. Finally, in the year 510 AD, there was peace for Russia. Many names were taken, and Mother Russia vowed to rebuild and to one day rise from her ashes! Looking back at her past lives, Queen Catherine could not remember the last time that she, on Monarch level, had found herself in such a pitiful state at such a late date.

The cost of this 700 year World War to the Russian empire was immense. At the end of it, we were far behind in tech, had very few military units, and were paying almost every ounce of gold out to tribes as part of our peace agreement. Two positive things that the epic struggle spawned was: a Great Leader in 380 AD, and the taking over of iron from the Japanese. The leader would be saved for the completion of a strategic Great Wonder, Leanardo's Workshop; this occured in 610AD. For a period of 740 years, from 510 AD until 1250 AD, Russia did, in fact, rebuild. At the end of this period, Russia was only slightly behind in tech, and had at her disposal a secret weapon (83 of them to be exact): the Cossack!

While planning the invasion of Persia, Catherine decided to order all Japanese troops off of her lands, as they were getting in the way of the positioning of her troops. To her surprise, Japan, severely weakened from earlier wars, declared war upon Russia. When a Japanese swordsman was firmly rebuffed by one of our Cossacks, the Russian Golden Age was ushered in. Her Northern tundra towns were all quickly brought into submission, but her capital, deep into Persian territory would have to wait for its fate to be sealed. Peace was requested of Japan, as it became clear that they would be able to capture our horse breeding town, which was far away from the Russian mainland.

1280 AD is a date that will long be remembered as the beginning of the end of the Persian empire. The initial invasion went quite well, but in the year 1290, Riflemen were spotted in Persia's core cities, and our losses increased. Still, the huge Persian empire was no more as of the year 1345 AD. Our second great leader was forged on the Persian battlefields in the year 1305 AD, and he oversaw the expedited construction of the Forbidden Palace in the newly conquered Persian lands in 1330AD.

Some short-term goals of the Russian empire are to: 1) begin railroading the core cities for a production boon; 2) build factories for a further increase in production (the rest of the GA will expedite their coming online); 3) settle more scores with those who crippled Mother Russia in the Great War of the Ancient Ages; 4) churn out another round of Cossacks for more rapid conquest of lands that are destined to be Russian; 5) build TofE and Hoover's for world dominance in the technological realm and in productive power; 6) foment war against the Celts, who have both the tech lead and productive lead.

Just as you, Denyd, I still am uncertain as to what ultimate path of victory we will forge, but the Russia empire vows to be victorious at all costs.

Hello, not sure whether this is the correct place to post but I don't want to post about an ongoing GOTM anywhere else.

When I conquer an enemy city, and there are resistors in the city, sometime all of the inhabitants are resistors, why don't they die of starvation. No one is working food tiles apart from the centre square and surely there would be a food defecit ? I want to get rid of them through starvation so the city does not flip, but I cannot when they are resisting ? In this case I have conquered a chinese city and there are 10 resistors but no food deficit and people are not starving. Its only when one of the resistors stops resisting that there is stravation ? I have tried to copy a screenshot to the forum, but keep getting a message that the file is too big and can't seem to resize so that you can read it.

Resistors don't need food and you therefor you can't starve them. If you want them to stop resisting (in order to starve them) you have to station military in the city. Maybe you also could hurry settlers/workers in such a city by means of disbanding or chopping forest. But I'm not sure on that.

In my games I sometimes let them resist until the related AI is destroyed. That way I don't risk a flip when I pull military in to end the resistance. And of course the citizens that stopped resisting are happy.

In reality, resistors would need food to survive, but its only a game.....isn't it.

Thanks for the help.

Fat_Blerk said:

In reality, resistors would need food to survive, but its only a game.....isn't it.

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You can think that they are getting food from their goverment that finances their resistence.

To get rid of resistors I normally station a cheap defensive unit or a healing offensive one there for a couple of turns and turn any non-resistor into an entertainer. I used to use scientists or taxmen but too often a resistor would quit resisting and become an unhappy citizen and the city would riot, increasing the flip chance. Without a unit with a land attack factor in the city the resistors remain. In the current GOTM, I had a pair of resistors in Veii for 20+ turns after Rome was gone. I finally moved a rifle in and they became citizens and I promptly starved one of them

JonathanValjean: Thanks for the compliments. I enjoy writing them. I found that I rarely read most of the pure timeline spoilers and my middle of the pack games rarely had any new tips or twists to enlighten the other players, so I went for a more entertaining style of reporting.

After entering the middle ages behing in tech, military and area, the russian people decide that they wanted to know about the ledgendary cossack things. so they belined for military trad, even though they had no idea what it did. so when the cocky group of russian people learned military trad, they said "look at those smug japanese in their tiny little country. lets kill 'em!" This attitude had the japanese destroyed, but russia wanted more. They started asking Mr. Military Advisor for some advice on the strength of Persia and China, the smaller sized empires next to the ever growing russian empire. It turned out that persia had an average sized military to russia, but the chinese had a weak military. So the cossacks in japan wandered over the border and wiped out all but 1 chinese city. That chinese city was deep in babylonian territory, and it wasnt worth attacking, so the chinese lived for longer than they deserved to.

Then trouble started brewing. The celts and americans were at war! and so began WWI. The americans allied themselves with the Babylonians, bringing in my mutual partner. Babylon and I had signed an MPP just 1 turn earlier! The celts walked in babylon, bringing me to war with babylon. And before i could do anything about it, the celts allied the iroquois against me. But wait, there's more. Then the iroquois allied the Aztecs against me. But wait, there's still more! The Aztecs allied themselves with the romans against me!!! And for the finishing touch, the romans allied themselves with the americans against me. But little did the evil axis know, Russia had many friend left. The Russians allied with the Zulu, the Vikings, the Persians and Babylon to bring everyone into the war. It was the allience of the Allied Powers vs the alliance of Evil Empires.

It was difficult for russia to decide where she should put all of her effort, but when america pillaged some iron in new china (the ex-chinese lands) russia launched a full-blooded attack on america. It was a bloody war, but only for america and the iroquois, each losing a decent amount of land. Over the other side of the world, the romans were losing heavily to the romans. At the end of the war, the big winners were Russia and Zululand. The big losers were America, Rome and to a lesser extent, Iroquios.

Russia's next moves...
Rebuild some of the lost cossacks and attack the Aztecs and remaining Americans.
Up the research and aim for tanks.
Roll through Iroquios, Zululand and rome (and if needed, Babylon)

What is this? The competition has got its own city!!



Can't have that!!



Sorry Dave, nothing personal!

...and I experienced kind of the same thing as Megalou:
I thought I was eliminating Persia, but of course they had a settler walking around, he found this little spot :



...and he did like it!!?



Next turn Persia declared war on Rome :suicide:



...btw : Domination in 1020 AD, had a nice palace jump to Persepolis, 7 GL's (Sun Tzu + 6 armies), otherwise just "dominating" slowly

I recall that in cracker's days there were more such cities, like Casa Bamspeedy and Moonsingrovia. Somehow only DaveMcWorgborg seems to have survived. Don't know why

What's the matter with you guys? Of course the Vikings had a city named DaveMcWorgborg. It's was about 1500 cubits east of SirPleibville and 2000 cubits north of fishing village of Space Oddity. It's quite famous for the wonderful Aebleskiver's made by the local chefs. Back in the middle ages, it was a popular seaport for Viking Longships about to sail west to North America. Legend has it that Ainwood's great-great-grandfather led the original colonists from this city to New Zealand while searching for a shorter route to France. (Great leader, lousy sense of direction)



BTW: Just a word of caution to avoid the following situation:

I have a fast unit that just razed a foreign city on the southern border. It was attacked by a slow unit. With just 1hp left my unit attempted to retreat and crashed the game trying to step off the planet. Avoid this condition unless you like fatal error messages.

In fact, I would argue that stepping off the planet is a smart way to save your last hp until you are fully healed...

Doing well considering that this is my first Monach game and I only had 1 Regent game (a win) before, the rest being Warlord games.

Russia was large and had all but detroyed the Japanese (1 city left), but hoplessly backwards, when she turned her attention towards Persia. Things did not go well since the motherland had no horses and was using mostly Persian Mercenaries against Persia who had Calvalry. 2 short wars had resulted in a few Persian cities captured but most of the Russian units lost in the effort. An uneasy peace had settled over the battlefield when news of momentous happenings reached the palace.

The Babalonians had declared war...on Persia. Seeing opputunity beconing, Catherine immediately signed a RoP agreement with Bablon and declared war on Persia once again. Before long Persia was on her knees with Russia taking many of her cities. Babalon was razing instead of capturing allowing Russian settlers to capture even more territory. With the capture of Persian horses Russia was finally able to field Knights. Persia finally dissapeared without so much as a wimper. But did yield a Great Leader who oversaw the contructions of Russia's Forbidden Palace in the heart of what was once Persia.

A few short years later the arrival of the Cossacks re-awakened the Russian bloodlust. She ignored Japan (who had added a few more cities the their last remaining one after the war with Russia). The Chinese and the Americans were also passed over in favour of the Aztecs who stupidly had an outpost in Russia's newly conquered North Eastern Tundra and who were still using Knights.

The first battle resulted in the easy capture of this outpost and ushered in Russia's Golden Age. Advancement followed quickly and before the motherland entered the Industrial ages she had conquered most of the Aztec homelands and had moved to within 3 techs of the rest of the world super powers. This war would result in no pointy-stick research though since the Aztec people were a backwards lot. The next target would have to be more advanced since Russia planned to emerge from her next war as the technological leader. She now had the largest empire the world had ever seen (if a little underdeveloped, infra-structure wise), but the world is a big place and more lands long to become part of her empire.