Revenge of the Chinese - Always War Deity

We are getting our heads smacked pretty well in Bz3 as Chinese. So of course I was and wanted to have some success against the AI.

So I thought of starting a new AW. Since I was playing alone and war takes a long time I thought of whether to do it in large or standard map. Finally, decided on a standard map in the interests of time (an earlier attempt of AWD in huge map had to be abandoned half way thru because in the Middle Ages it was taking approx 10 minutes per turn and difficulty.

So here goes.

Game – Always War
Difficulty Level – Deity
Map – Standard, Continents
Civs – Random
Barbs – None

I restarted till I got a decent start. Here it is.

It is a perfect start. Two cows; that will turn the capital to a settler factory. A lux in the distance and quite a few BGs and a corner position, which means I have to defend only in two directions at most.

I decided that I will expand in the directions of the red arrows and avoid the blue ones to delay contact.

Suly started pottery at max. After pottery I had decided to go straight for Lit, hoping to pick up IW in the first contact trade.

I hadn’t even settled my second city when a Jap warrior strolled by. There were no trades possible. They were duly notified of the Chinese intent of wiping them off the face of the earth.



The contact was too early for my taste. I was hoping for a later contact. But I was not very worried. I will stick to my red arrows and expand backwards. I was hoping the Jap will take a long time to get here with a sizeable force. Enough time to build up some defenses.

By 2630BC the settler factory was up and running churning out settlers every 4 turn. Shanghai has been settled and IW was being researched at full speed. I needed to know where iron was located. I let all the settlers go unescorted. Worst case I am going to lose some (although the probability of that was low since I was guessing Japan must be in the direction of the red arrow since that is the direction the warrior came from).

Shanghai was desperately in need of a warrior and next I will be creating walls. I still needed a worker factory.



The settler is headed north to settle a city with access to the silks. I needed to get my lux tax down so that research can be done faster.

We think alike. I too am playing a AWD as the Chinese.

By 1675BC my expansion was going pretty well. There was still no sign of the Japanese still my only contact. I figured they must be at war with somebody else. {That they really were I came to know later and it was not surprising.} Nanking was the only forward city.

There were good news galore.

(a) There were spices, and dyes. When all of them were connected I was able to bring down lux to 0.
(b) There was a solitary source of iron
(c) There was one horse and a settler was about to settle near it.

Concerns :-

(a) Now that I was somewhat ready for the Japs, I was getting concerned that they will not show up soon. With no war I will not get any leaders and no TGL.

Of course, I need not have worried. They soon showed up in hordes.

(b) I was way short of workers. With so much good lands to be improved I needed more workers. I decided to turn Chengdu into a worker factory.

My plan was to build a harbor town and build some suicide galleys and send them off to get some off-continent contacts.

In my earlier games of AW, I never had off continent contacts till late in the game. My techs all came from the TGL. The civs on my continent were so bogged down in the war with me that they would take a long time to get to chivalry. Thus no chivalry till very late in the game - which made me build a lot of MDIs which were useless when Chivalry came in. And once it came in I would have to fight knights with knight equivalent and make slow progress. However, since the off continent civs did much better at techs than the civs on my continent, I was hoping to get Chivalry before the civs on my continent if I made contact with them earlier. Also, since they would be separated by oceans I would be safe from them till Astronomy at least and then too only a couple at a time which can be easily warded off. The AI is ridiculously inept at making beachheads.

Thus I made building a harbor town and a couple of galleys a priority as soon as I had the TGL (which at this point was still some distance off).

That is some impressive expansion for 1675 AD (far better than I was able to pull off in my Rome version which was plagued by disease). You are doing very well on tech (the Wheel + Ironworking + Pottery + most of Writing!). And the starting area (3 luxuries, 6 cows, horses, iron, rivers galore) is superb. This should be interesting regardless of the outcome.

I lost my AWD late last night. I had an excellent start position, but I was playing on a pangaea map and got pounded by streams of warriors and archers from almost every civ. Japan sent ten warriors at me before I had even finished my granary. I got several early leaders, but didn't have anything to rush with them. I learned that a Pangaea start is very difficult for an AWD.

Originally posted by Zwingli
That is some impressive expansion for 1675 AD (far better than I was able to pull off in my Rome version which was plagued by disease).

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Thanks. I do not know how much of that is luck and how much is the skill.

The skill part - Thanks to Bamspeedy. Followed his directions to a T. A 4-turn settler factory. Those cities are the reason for the ability for the fast tech pace.

The luck part - No Japs yet. And it has been about a thousand years since I have declared war with them.

Originally posted by Earp
I lost my AWD late last night. .... I learned that a Pangaea start is very difficult for an AWD.

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True, a pangaea is much more difficult than continents. Hence this is continents. Maybe you should try a continents version first.

keep going this is really interesting

By 1500 BC Japs started showing up in large numbers. First came warriors, then archers and then swords. I had placed Nanking after much thought. If Japs approached Nanking along the red arrow then will be cut down since they had no protection. If they attacked along white arrow they will have protection of the mountains but they will have to attack across a river on a town that had walls and defended by spears.

Instead Toku did something that was completely expected. The AI as usual knows all troops in all enemy cities. {This is absolutely unfair. But then what is fair in Deity? However, it can be used to great advantage as shown}. Tatung is completely undefended. So Toku’s troops took the blue route to Tatung and on their way they were relatively undefended near the grasslands of Tsingtao.

There in the fields of Tsingtao lies buried the skeletons of many Japanese. Even today skulls turn up now and then as farmers plough the fields of Tsingtao. They Japanese were ruthlessly mowed down. By the time Toku could throw archers and swords at me I too had swords and horses connected. Horses would attack and retreat and then swords would cut down the already weakened foe. My kill ratio was about 5:1. But I was doing ok since still the Japanese were my only contact.

Here is another pic of the Jap Beeline (literally) toward Tatung. Inspite of the losses they kept coming for the next hundreds of years.

By this time I had not seen another unit from any other civ. But on the same turn Toku sold my contact to two other civs and guess what.......



Ouch! Three militaristic and aggressive civs on the same continent with me and who knows who else. No wonder I had not seen Jap military for a long time. They probably were fighting with each other. Now that Toku has sold my contact to them that means they are all at peace.

But Mao is not easily scared. For that matter he is not scared at all. Abu the beard and Temujin the barbarian was told of Mao's intent of the ridding the planet of them and making the world more hospitable for the Chinese.

Soon, the Arabs and Mongols also showed up. No one remembers exactly what happened but just when the forces of China were terribly outnumbered a great leader led the small Chinese forces to victory. History will remember him as K'
uang.



As can be seen the Arabs and the Mongols all concentrated their forces in the direction of Tatung which was relatively undefended. I made sure Shanghai and Nanking was really defended well because this Tatung bait was working really well. In this particular turn I had all but wiped out everything else apart from spearmen.

Great story, Betazed. Do you think the reason the AIs are swarming over Tatung, besides the fact that it is relatively undefended, is that it has oil?

Originally posted by cgannon64
Great story, Betazed. Do you think the reason the AIs are swarming over Tatung, besides the fact that it is relatively undefended, is that it has oil?

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I have no idea. There is no way I can know about that yet. I am still two ages from discovering oil. But I doubt that is the reason though.

I was in two minds as to what my first leader should rush. I was three turns away from Lit and I could rush the TGL then. Or I could rush the Pyramids which will be a very nice wornder to have and will help me a loy in my expansion; and when I get my second leader I can rush the TGL. However, the AI has had Lit from some time now, and I did not have the cojones to wait for another leader.

So Kuang rushed the TGL three turns later. All research was stopped and I was making loads of money every turn.

Meanwhile the Tatung brigade continued (that's what Mao called it). Now Japs and Mongols were sending veteran units. It was getting more and more difficult. I couldn't kill horses with swords always since they would retreat. So I had to make many horses and in fact I stopped making swords since they will be useless once I reached the Middle Ages. OTOH, the horses will be very valuable.

But without catapaults I was taking loses. I needed Mathematics soon and cats.

Another interesting event started occurring with great frequency. Japs and Mongols kept sending settlers to the silk forest west of Tatung (marked in the image below). And Mao's swords would ruthlessly cut them down. I was happy to see that I was getting a steady stream of slaves to help build my infrastructure (whenever I could kill the settler before the city has been built). Interestingly, the AI never sent more than one escort with the settler. I could not afford to send more than one sword to attack the settler. So all the AI needed to do was send two escorts. Just two measly spears and that silk would have been theirs. But they never sent more than one escort. Over the entire ancient age period I must have killed at least 10 settlers (giving me something like 14 slaves - and 3 cities razed - ). It is small stupidities like these that make AWD possible at all.

The mongols and Japanese never attacked anything else apart from Tatung. A few mongols horses martyred themselves on the spears and swords of Shanghai and realized the fruitlessness of that.

In the meantime Sun Tzu arrived (yes I could have rushed the Pyramids and TGL if only I had the guts - fortune favors the brave, but what the hell). Sun tzu formed a great sword army which was used specifically to cut down mongol swords. Kuang was also ressurrected and he rushed a Great Heroic Epic. I was generating leaders galore.

I also made a horse army so that I could successfully mow down horses too. catapaults were built and they helped a great deal. In short I was defending really well.

Peculiarly, the Japs never threw anything more than archers at me. Could it be that they do not have either horses or iron? It would be great never to face the Samurai.

Not that I would let the Japs survive that long.

However, at this point I was just totally defending. I have stopped my expansion completely and was in the so called turtle mode (thanks to Sirp for that nomenclature).

And I had no idea how I will attack the Japanese.