Funday Monday Game #2: At Your Stations, Soldiers!

redwings1340

Emperor
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While the succession game is still going on, I can actually play another game of civ at the same time! Efficiency! So, in Civ V I am generally pretty good at getting my science, production, and food going, but it's hard for me to keep up militarily or see the benefits of war. The reason for this is that it's almost impossible for me to internally justify creating soldiers when I can make my cities better.

Therefore, for this Funday Monday game, I am playing the game so that I must create a military unit 1/3 of the time in my two largest cities. That is, if I create two buildings in a row, my next production has to be spent on a unit. As a side restriction, I may not go in to tradition or rationalism. While this will be frustrating, it is up to me to figure out how to use this restriction to my advantage, as it should give me a sizable military.

Game difficulty is emperor, large continents, with 12 civs instead of 10. My starting civ is the Aztecs. If you have any additional restrictions that you think would help me learn how to break free from my peaceful builder habits and play with a strong military, feel free to add them on. These restrictions can be fun or helpful, either way.
 
The Beginning
To annoy the computers and take legal advantage of my restriction, the barbarians were programmed to have an unnatural ferocity and tenacity. Preparing for the inevitable dark red invasion, Lord Montezuma decreed that the Aztec Empire would not rest until everyone else in the world was dead. The Aztec capital did not look overly appealing to Montezuma's harsh eyes, but it did not matter. If everything went right, the entire rest of the world would be ours eventually, so one city did not matter that much.
Spoiler :


Due to my conditions, Montezuma decreed that the Aztecs get ahead of the game, and started working immediately on a jaguar warrior. After the Jaguar was trained, he ordered the construction of a monument. These Jaguars were on scout and Barbarian duty, and there would be a lot of Barbarians to deal with early on.

Mountains of Corpse Rituals
Our initial scouting Jaguar reported Findings of an incredible mountain that inspired him to find meaning in his senseless killing. This mountain had good fields for crops to grow on, and inspired all who passed it with a ton of faith. Immediately after the monument, Montezuma saw the value in this mountain and trained a very early settler (immediately after monument) to go and get inspired by this mountain. There were a few problems, however. The area directly around Mount Uluru was not incredibly rich in resources, and there was no river directly next to it. The best place to settle this city turned out to be two tiles above Uluru, exactly five tiles below the French capital of Paris. After the settler was trained, the Aztec capital trained another Jaguar to maintain the conditions of this challenge.

Culture Galore!
To take advantage of our soldier strategy and raging barbarians, Montezuma realized his warriors needed to fight with a code of honorable senseless bloodshed. Because of this policy and because of the massive amount of barbarians and Jaguars on the map, culture growth started to sprout to the likes I've never seen before. To give you a good idea of how much culture I got, I completed the entire honor policy tree by turn 68.

To celebrate my cultural growth and the merciless killing of barbarians, a French ambassador came to Montezuma's court to discuss future plans of their respective kingdoms. The French were mildly concerned about my expansion to their south, but offered amends by proposing a potential future trade where they would give us ivory for gold. Montezuma was confused though, and asked where the Ivory was. The French ambassador said the Ivory was nearby Paris, but Montezuma corrected him saying, "I'm sorry, but your Ivory is in another kingdom.
Spoiler :


The Revelations from the Mountain and Diplomatic Relations
Under the guidance of Mount Uluru, Montezuma created an amazing religion involving further appreciation of the mountain (One With Nature), taxes to pay for the Empire's army (tithe), and buildings to allow us to forget about the people we are planning on killing (Pagodas). This should be a good way to get this empire through some of the difficulties in successfully warmongering.

Napoleon, meanwhile, was a jerk and denounced me on turn 55 for seemingly no reason. The AI in this game... Sometimes I wonder about their programming... (this is sarcasm. I'm not sure I've ever gotten a civ as angry at me so quickly as I did this game. I've also taken two of his workers from barbarian camps without returning them.)
Spoiler :


War is Coming
For some reason, Napoleon really doesn't like me, so he decided to declare war on me in 925 BC. He also brought Germany in on the action, but I'm feeling pretty prepared right now. I have about 6 Jaguars right now with full honor completed, and a citadel near Paris, so I should be ok with what they throw at me. The only question for now is whether I can capture Paris in this war, which would be awesome if I could, but with just warriors and not enough of an income to upgrade them to swords, I doubt it.
Spoiler :


Observations Thus Far
First of all, Jaguars are awesome!!!!! These things don't need to take precious turns to heal very often, and have a faster movement speed, so with a few of them you can cover the map quite easily. These guys are the ultimate barbarian hunters, and if they're low on health, you can actually attack instead of retreat for the best results! Awesome! Unfortunately, when one of my Jaguars upgraded to a spearman, he didn't keep his drill promotions. He still kept his Jaguar promotions though, and is becoming my finest warrior.

Tlateloco is an experiment, but oh my god the floating gardens could be good on this city. I'm excited for this city to blossom. Also, Trading one strategic resource at a time for two gold with computers is a godsend for the economy of an early warmonger. This saves me so much gold!

My science is low, but I'm having a lot of fun with this game right now. Hunting raging barbarians with Jaguars is fun! :)
 
Good story so far! I haven't really played as the Aztecs that much so I can't offer a lot of civ-specific advice for them (save "build lots of Jaguars and use them to kill stuff"). Otherwise, as you noted, I'd expect Tlatecoco to be amazingly huge by the end of the game, and as it's next to a mountain you might want to make that your science city (and possibly even your GWAM-guild city, too.)
 
Ok, you are doing very well, though playing as Aztecs helps, it's really impressive! Done Honor turn 68, that will really get your war machine churning!

EDIT: Tlatelolco, is going to be freaking ginormous and next to a mountain so I'd recommend building the NC there, in addition to an observatory.
 
Hey, great job! I also like what you and the others are doing on FM #1. I'll be lurking on both. Thanks for all your effort and time.
 
Oh, this is a different thread! I was thinking that you had just posted in the other thread about this game. The names of the threads are so similar that I must have just clicked "Go to first new post" on this thread, thinking it was the other one. :lol:
 
Before I start this write up, I have a confession to make. I didn't keep up the challenge :(. I was running too much of a gold and happiness deficit, and needed to focus on infrastructure, so I stopped producing that many units in favor of spending my gold on upgrading the units I started with.

So, as we started, the French and German war began. France started out by launching an offensive on Teotihuacan, while Germany joined a bit later marching on the capital. Neither offensive gained much ground, and these wars turned out to be a great way for my troops to gain experience, and for my empire to gain lots of gold and culture.

the players in this game make absolutely no sense. This game sucks. Diplomacy in this game is horrible.
Um, I'm sorry, I'm not sure where that outburst came from. Well, immediately after the wars, I gained some peace treaties that improved the Aztec empire and allowed them room to expand their ever growing population. A peace treaty with France gave the Aztec Empire the city of Orleans and two luxury resources, while a peace treaty with Germany gave the Aztecs two more luxury resources. These peace treaties hid some real problems with the sustainability of the Aztec Empire, as it allowed the population of Tlateloco to explode when Hamilcar Barca created a citadel to incorporate three lake tiles in to the city, while strategically doing it before it would cause diplomatic repercussions with Portugal.

What the hell did I do to deserve this? I never even did anything to them, and suddenly they steal my second ring land from my capital with a great general, denounce me, attack a city state I protected, take my city... I don't get how this can be a good game if civs just randomly hate you for absolutely no reason. Bleh, there's not even a ragequit button here... What the heck?

Um, Napoleon, is that you? How did you get in to my write up?

Screw you, you suck.

Um, I suppose I'll ignore Napoleon here. Internally, I got a very late national college in Tlateloco, but with my warring, that isn't too unexpected, and I don't feel bad about that. I went to war with Babylon with Germany, and liberated a Brazilian city to help with some diplo benefits. I think Germany wanted that city for themselves though, so they weren't overly thrilled with the liberation. In fact, they may have asked me to declare war against Brazil soon after the liberation, but I don't know for sure. I was in the middle of clicking a button when they asked me, so I didn't see the request. I think I agreed to do it in ten turns, but that never really happened if I did. I did DoF with Brazil soon after liberating their city.

So, I gained additional stuff in my religion, including Just War, to gain a 20% combat bonus against cities that follow this religion. This bonus allowed me to capture Paris with Jaguar Swordsmen, a Jaguar Pikeman, and a couple composite bows.

Don't you all see it? Complete Imba. How do you stop Jaguars? They are just impossible. They heal when they attack, they're just too good. The Aztecs somehow have the best military and the best population on the continent. Can you say broken?

Well, I don't think it's that bad...

No, it sucks. This game sucks. Do you know the worst part? Who do you think the villain is out of all of this? Is should be Monty, right? Nope! It's me. WTF. Brazil joined the denounce France campaign. What have I done???? Oh, and another thing, sure, that religion in my cities is ok and all, but I should have control over what religions are in my borders. I don't want to give you a combat bonus!! Where are my atheist inquisitors? Your religion is just so broken it sucks!

Well, I liberated a Brazilian city, so that could be a reason why they trust me over you. Also, immediately after capturing Paris, Germany backstabbed me and then ganged up with Babylon to declare war on me, so I'm not exactly in everyone's good graces right now.

What? I don't understand anything you're saying right now. Denounce!

[Montezuma has blocked Napoleon from this writeup]

Spoiler :


Other stuff
The Aztec army crushed a German invasion of the small Brazillian city, but has been unable to make much headway on attacking Germany itself. I've been experiencing happiness problems, but I'm hoping the advent of astronomy and trading with the other continent can lighten this. I came within a couple of turns of Notre Dame, but missed it. Tiotihuacan created a writer's guild, but I'm planning on putting every other specialist building in Tlateloco because of all the lakes.

Unfortunately, the governor of Aztec cities do not naturally expand towards lakes. This is sad and disappointing.

I'm at war with Babylon (I think Germany dragged them in to this war), and they've pillaged a couple of my improvements on the far side of Tlatelolco, but otherwise haven't attempted to make a push on my territory.

For social policies, I've taken two from patronage (+20 resting influence and opener) and two from commerce (opener and reduced road maintenance/caravan boost)

When you're reading this, imagine how a player would feel in Napoleon's shoes if an AI stole territory from their capital with a great general super early. It would not be fun. Oh man, that would be an awesome strategy if you start near Babylon. Get an early academy in your second city!

Spoiler :
 
I've played a bit more, and I have no clue if this game is a success or a failure.

I mean, I'm crushing in almost every demographic measure, but defeating the AIs on emperor difficulty isn't exactly new for me, or the point of this exercise. The point was to play with a strong military, and to use my military to conquer the world. The goal wasn't so much a domination victory as figuring out how to use a military to speed up scientific progress and get a better empire in the process. So, have I done that? A little bit, but not as much as I could have. I've recently gotten comfortable with where I am, which is annoying because I will win with this comfort, but I'm in all out peaceful mode now.

End of the Wars
The mid 1300s were a time of huge change for the Aztec empire. In 1340, our scientists, who had previously been working on new methods of education and bloodshed, developed a method to cross the oceans and figure out what lies beyond our continent. The people were growing unhappy with our normal luxury resources, and a grand will was created to explore the seas to find new lands to conquer and trade with.

Ten years later, in 1350, Germany and Babylon saw the pointlessness of the wars, as all they were doing was giving our empire bodies to loot and captives to sacrifice. While it was everyone's dream in other kingdoms to become a sacrificial captive of the Aztec Empire (Just War belief), the leaders didn't want this bloodshed to continue. Babylon was relatively unharmed by the war, and gave out peace for peace. Germany, though, saw their army destroyed and battered through the war, and gave up the city of Hamburg in a peace treaty. While Hamburg was at first full of angry citizens who were disappointed they didn't die in service of Montezuma's Buddhism, Monty made a speech to say that they would later become far more useful to the empire alive. This speech did little to stave off a revolt led by people looking to become captives, though, and unhappiness reached a low point of -9.

Spoiler :


1410
1410 is considered the best year in Aztec history, even a better one than the Hamburg treaty of 1350, or the sacking of Paris well beforehand. First off, the Forbidden Palace was built, which impressed all of the native aztecs so much that the empire became notably happier afterwards.
Spoiler :


Then, to mock us, Napolean decided to send another ambassador to the capital, just because his purpose in life is probably to troll us now, since he can't really do anything else. The conversation took place like this.
"Hey, Monty, you may have our capital, another city, a huge military, a huge population, and that forbidden palace, but do you know what you don't have?"
"What?"
"You don't have copper, and you're never going to get it from me. Ha! I have something you don't! Look at this nice copper! Oops, where is it? It's in our borders. You can't have it! Hahahahaha!"
"Oh, really? I think it's in disputed territory."
Spoiler :

"Well, shoot. Can I denounce again? Oh, we've already done that, haven't we..."

The next turn, getting copper in the empire fulfilled the quests of two city states. Remember kids, it pays to steal! Great General citadels are a lot more useful than I realized. These guys are awesome. I might even buy one with faith later in this game!

Peace, City State Push, and Diplomacy
The coming years in the Aztec Empire were peaceful. Relations with France were as tense as relations between a large empire and a city state can be, while relations with Germany were a bit more worrisome. Everyone else, though, became good friends. Babylon conquered the Brazillian capital, which, despite having DoF with both nations, the Aztecs secretly celebrated. This meant that it would be a lot easier to keep the rest of the continent converted to Buddhism, the religion of sacrificial captives and war.

Most of the time after the peace treaty was spent on science and production. Public schools and hydro plants were constructed in most cities, and order was adopted after Oxford University springboarded us in to the modern era with radios. A vast railroad network was set up in between cities, and the city of Hamburg turned out to have three aluminum mines, as well as some coal. After our communists sociologists figured out a way to make workers more productive in an Order based society, factories were constructed in half the time it would have taken before, and provided a huge science bonus upon completion.

City states would be huge in Montezuma's grand strategy, and a massive push to bribe them began after the war. Patronage was completed aside from the trade route gold policy, which made city states exceptionally good allies in the future. Currently the Aztec Empire is allied with the vast majority of city states, and very soon this will become all city states that we have met.

With new technological and economic prosperity, Montezuma decided it was best to focus on a peaceful tall late game strategy, although the Aztecs do have a strong military should Germany decide to invade. Wonders are being constructed everywhere currently, and there is no reason to believe that they will not be completed.

Spoiler :

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Other Notes
So, this game is a success in almost every sense of the word, except I didn't fulfill my challenge. Ugh. Still, I did get Hamburg, Paris, and Orleans from warring, and I think my empire is better for it. I think I should go to war against Germany sometime soon, and hope to get Munich in a peace treaty. Then maybe go to war a bit later to capture Berlin. Still, I'm afraid to do so, because I don't need to do this to win. It might just make my victory a bit faster, or something. At least it will make it more satisfying.
 
Nice job, and interesting read. :goodjob:
 
Yeah, Great Generals are very handy when someone's carelessly left luxuries near your border...
 
And now, the end times are come. When I learned that a new empire close to Spain needed my help, I decided to play this game as quickly as possible, and therefore this update may be long.

Research and Development
In the 1770s, Infrastructure and research were the key buzzwords of the hour. Research labs began getting constructed everywhere, the railroad network was finished from the north to the south, and wonders began giving the Aztecs incredible inspiration to continue building the greatest empire in the world. To improve production, Montezuma introduced a five year plan, which was so popular it was renewed every five years since then, and has improved production considerably.

In 1802, research labs were completed in the capital, Hamburg, and Paris, while the Kremlin and Neuscasten were built in other cities. With the bonuses provided by these buildings, Montezuma created an iron curtain policy, which encouraged self sustainability, and internal trade routes in the future. This year was a great year for Germany, and gave Montezuma the confidence he needed to set his eyes back on warfare.

The 12 years war
In 1804, world war broke out. With a little incentive from the Aztec Empire, Babylon declared war on Germany, and with a broken promise from Montezuma, Germany declared war on Portugal. Then, Montezuma joined in this world war against the German Axis of one nation. Experts were predicting a long, drawn out war, but the war turned out to be well worth the effort. The shrines of Buddha gained more sacrifices in these twelve years than in any stretch of recent history beforehand, and once Germany was feeling beat up, Bismark came to Monty for a peace treaty. In the treaty of Munich, Germany agreed to give up their second largest city (ie: only city outside of their capital) in exchange for peace.
Spoiler :


Diplomatic results
Despite conquering four cities from opposing forces over the course of the game so far, nobody saw the Aztec Empire as a warmonger. Only one city was conquered by force, which made cities far more productive than they would have been otherwise, and decreased the warmonger penalty significantly. The free Mayans denounced us, and France and Germany had a long standing deep and searing hatred for the Aztecs, but other than that, diplomatic relations were overwhelmingly positive. I regularly got declarations of friendship from Portugal, Babylon, Brazil, and the Iroquois, and even Spain and the Ottomans liked me for some reason I never understood.

In 1822, with me and the Mayans being the only nations with an ideology, order was passed as the world ideology. With near full patronage and large sums of money being spent on city states, I controlled the world congress.

France, what are you doing?
Immediately after the treaty of Hamburg, a rumor started that France still had luxury resources in their empire. Montezuma was distraught upon hearing the news, and two great generals were sent out to remedy this situation. Unfortunately, France still had untouchable two luxury resources in the city of Troyes. This was the third and fourth luxury resource we had stolen from France this game. Who says that Honor doesn't provide happiness benefits? ;)

Spoiler :


20ish years later, Uranium was discovered to go kablooie if it was mixed in one way, while providing a nice production boost if mixed another. Montezuma also discovered that France might have some of this resource, and could not let that stand.

Spoiler :


Poor France... If my count is correct, I think I used 5 great generals against them over the course of this game.

The Last German War
Eventually, the peace treaty with Germany was over, and The Aztecs declared war on them again. The war was short, and Berlin became part of the Aztec Empire. The German civilization was no more. Indeed, the Aztec Empire committed genocide on a people, but the people remaining became a part of the far better Aztec Empire.

Spoiler :


Woohoo! Now, I've read on these forums before that committing genocide is almost impossible to come back from diplomatically, so what were the consequences of this? Well, France hated me for the rest of the game for understandable reasons. The Mayans denounced me every once in a while for reasons aside from the warring. Otherwise... Basically nothing. Germany was at war with every other major power on the continent at the time (my doing), so they didn't care at all about Germany's extermination. My DoFs with everyone else went in the world. So far I had captured two cities by force, and liberated one (major penalties/bonuses for each). So, they had early concerns about my warring still, but I had more than enough positive modifiers to offset any problems in my capital. I liberated Brazil and had DoFs with them from a while back, and gave my religion to Babylon and Portugal, which made a huge diplo difference.

Basically, I did a decent amount of warmongering. I exterminated a civ and captured two capitals over the course of the game. Unanticipated Diplo consequences were almost 0.

1858
Upon the discovery of Satellites, Montezuma discovered two cities that were not on any maps he had seen before. He sent out his fastest non-jaguar lancer to investigate, and in 1858, we discovered two isolationist landlocked city states. The lancer brought a large sum of money with him from the Aztec Empire, and these city states allied immediately. While it would take a little bit of time to fight off Spanish coups to ally every city state in the world, it did happen eventually. Also to note, diplo victory was off, but I did this anyway.

Also...
In 1862, this was awesome.
Spoiler :

The Mayans went on a late game conquering spree, so I was second in land by the end game, but I remained first in every other demographic, which I find pretty cool. I'm not sure I've done that before on Emperor. I still win by dominating tech most of the time, but I'm usually behind on land and population. Basically, through my taking cities through peace deals, I had a lot of very well developed cities.

1890
1890 was another great year for the Aztecs, as we hosted the world fair in the new Sydney Opera house in Orleans. Even though France submitted content to the fair, we did not show it there. In fact, the placement of the fair was meant to be as insulting as possible to our French neighbors.

Spoiler :


World Projects and the Space Program
In 1901, the world agreed to participate on the International Space Station Project. In 1902, the first man was sent to the Moon as the Apollo project was completed in our Capital. While the space program lagged behind a little bit in the Aztec Empire, the science was there and ready. After the ISS was completed in 1910, being commanded by Aztec captains, mostly built by Aztec scientists, work on a monumental space ship began in six different cities immediately.

In nine years, the space ship went from being started to completed (no great engineer bonuses either), and in 1919, the Aztecs launched a space ship to find new worlds to hate and conquer.

Spoiler :

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Notes and Final Thoughts on the Game
I'm feeling better about this now than I was last update. I didn't follow the every three production condition, but I did do this without taking rationalism or tradition. I ended up with 5 cities with a population above 30, two more cities with a population above 25, and had Berlin as my lowest pop city with a population of 16. That's a lot of population spread out among a lot of cities, and I managed to get it that way by taking all the cities I could through peace deals. I also am feeling better because I finished my conquest of Germany. In fact, I probably should have finished them off earlier. I definitely could have.

Honor is pretty good if you actually use it. Times of war can actually give you a fair bit of money if you're smart about it, and can make your troops a lot better. The opener is awesome when you're the Aztecs too.

Warmongering without diplo penalties is possible if you are smart about it. Just don't do it randomly, and choose very carefully what you want to get out of a war. If you're a hoard mercilessly conquering every city you see, that's going to get you hated, but if you choose a couple civs from the start of the game that you hate and are active in making friendships with everyone else, you can become a leader in setting the world diplomacy.

Religion is awesome for warmongers. If you're going tall/peaceful, you don't really need the diplo benefit from a shared religion, but warmongers do need this. I think Babylon and then Portugal starts to hate me if I don't have a religion, and the game plays out very differently for me. I actually think honor then piety may be a very solid strategy for a lot of civs, as terrible as that sounds at first. Also, religion is great at giving out happiness and gold, which is something that tall peaceful civs often have a lot of, but warmongers desperately need. It's a lot of production that is not spent on growth and development, so it sounds scary to try, but it works out quite well.
 
Great job on the win.

And impressive, that you finished an entire Let's Play on one page of a thread. :hatsoff:
 
Congratulations on the victory! I'm intrigued by your luck in using Honor/Piety; I may have to give that SP combination a try at some point.
 
Now, I didn't actually use piety this game, but I think I should have. I did use honor/piety in a Songhai game a while back though, and it worked out. Here though, having a religious mountain super early was the big part of my religion, although I did make shrines and temples a priority midgame.

The big thing is though, that warmonger/religion has a really nice combo to it. Honor/piety is just the social policy representation of getting those strategies to work, and does work out much better than I anticipated it would at first.
 
I've opened honor with Monty before (back when I was figuring out what I was doing), and I know exactly what you're talking about with finishing the tree so early. It's almost a shame to not constantly be at war. Think of all the culture being lost! :D

I also did this with Bismarck once-- since you're going to be spending a lot of the early game doing barb busting with his UA, you might as well get some culture and gold from it.
 
I've opened honor with Monty before (back when I was figuring out what I was doing), and I know exactly what you're talking about with finishing the tree so early. It's almost a shame to not constantly be at war. Think of all the culture being lost! :D

I also did this with Bismarck once-- since you're going to be spending a lot of the early game doing barb busting with his UA, you might as well get some culture and gold from it.

Yeah, definitely. It's pretty ridiculous how much culture you can get once you have a few jaguars and raging barbarians. They almost never need to take time to heal too because they just attack/heal and move on to the next camp. The beginning part of the game was super fun.
 
What game pace do you play on?

Standard for this game, and for most of my games. Every once in a while I've tried other paces, but I usually go back to standard.
 
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