A tale of an AW game on the Monster Map

[ThERat]

Yes, that's right, the map has the same dimensions as Aggies Monster Map game (max size). There are some differences though. This game will be played as Always War game on continents with standard settings.

As I will face 30 foes, I will play this on emperor difficulty. In order to make overseas and far flung cities on the same continent productive, OCN is set to 100 cities. The tech rate is slowed to 500.

As I don't really have experience whether this setting will be too easy or difficult, I will just play it out...

So, what Civ did I chose? It surely has to be an agricultural Civ as the max number of 512 cities would be reached sooner or later and without the food bonus, too few cities would mean no chance of survival.
Huge distance would also mean, a seafaring Civ would be nice to have, thus I chose Netherlands. I haven't played this Civ in a while as well.

 

[Own]

Good luck Rat. Playing an SG game of this time looks crazy enough, but a solo? :crazy:

 

[ThERat]

I wanted to have a start that let's me survive and enjoy the game...I wanted to have at least 1 food bonus and the 3rd roll gave me a cow and it turned out to be 2 cows in fact.



Hmm, what a nice start. Due to the huge distances, I opted for a food gambit and expanded initially while hardly keeping up with military production. After settling my third city, the capital went for a granary to be th settler pump. It turns out that there is a lot of food around...funny map

It turned out that I am located at the top of a peninsula of sorts (I sure hope it's not a deserted Island I am on). Expansion continued while going for WC, followed by bronze working and IW.

Here is the situation just before acquiring bronze working. I researched WC at min science to accumulate cash for max research after that.



This map seems to favor me so far as iron is pretty close by. Founded a city in the hills to get iron online for facing the enemy with swords rather than inept archers.



While continuing to expand I stumbled upon a newly founded city of a blue Civ, the color of Korea, Germany or Incas?

 

[ThERat]

Well, I wanted AW and there it is...opening the diplomacy screen I see this



First of all, I am happy to face a Civ with a late UU. Secondly, Germany lags behind in cities, that means my expansion isn't all that terrible.

Meanwhile, research gave me CB for temples and border expansions as I can't afford to play CxxC on such a huge map. Then went for masonry to get a palace prebuild running for the GL.

I tried my luck and destroyed the German town with my warrior
However, 3 turns later, my great lucky streak gets some interruption by a dreaded green phalanx

 

[ThERat]

The Greeks turn out to be bigger. War is declared (by the way, no tech trading in this AW).

I try to scramble my defense forces anticipating an attack of the initial wave of units...

And here they come


I manage to pull in a second spear into Harlingen before the attack starts



Well, I survive the first small wave and manage to pull in another archer while swords move towards the front. The phalanxs annoys me and enters on a pillaging mission. I attack with a sword and lose triggering their GA, that will be nice

In the meantime, I acquired literature and there are 14 turns to the GL left. I need catapults against the Greek UU, so research continues.

The next wave of Germans attack and I get mighty lucky



I need it as more Germans are coming...swords will soon arrive and I hope it's on time for saving the city.

 

[ThERat]

The stats so far are:

Netherlands: 19 cities
Germany: 10 cities, up wheel myst, maths, down lit
Greece: 15 cities, up wheel myst, maths , down writing

 

[ThERat]

Well, after the initial expansion, meeting Germany and Greece while getting a first army, was the starter for this AW game...

The next phase would include trying to keep the AI at bay while slowly creeping forward. I was building the Great Library and hoped to get it. Without the Great Library, the massive unit support at this early stage can really make or brake a game.

The Greeks now fulled by a Golden Age, kept pumping out units. This is an image of the early battles soon after meeting them. The stacks are still alright to handle, especially with catapults coming online. Hoplites are surely annoying, but bomb them down, and elite swords can handle them.

 

[ThERat]

Good news came from Rotterdam


Now, this would free up a lot of research spending to be used as unit support. The Great Library gave me HBR, philosophy, construction, mysticism and polytheism. For strange reasons a bigger Greece actually lags in techs and Germany already had currency, CoL and monarchy, that we need.

Later on, Greece got CoL which we then learned from the GL.

A few turns later, we got the expected and awaited message while trying to expand

 

[ThERat]

with no added expansion for now, focus was on leader fishing and getting out an army to raze enemy cities. Of course, this heavily depends on luck.

Rotterdam was set on the Heroic Epic. You can't get enough MGL's in such a game.

Well, I didn't have to wait too long to get a 2nd army. This is very important as one army now can move forward to attack German cities (Yes, German cities as I don't need to lose sword armies against hoplites. Sword armies are still pretty fragile)


The first army then captured Bonn while redlined. This gave me some sweat, but for whatever reason the AI decided to let me heal and abandon the city



I got more leader luck and got a 3rd army and on top of that, the pentagon. This is very important to be able to attack towns properly.

A 3rd army


The pentagon MGL. The picture also shows a good overview over the front. I have an army with a settler in place trying to found a city every turn. The center of my empire is building infra (I built a temple in most cities as we have only 1 lux). I would love to get markets, but Greece refuses to learn currency.


I built the HE and set Rotterdam on a palace yet again hoping for Sun Tzu to arrive in time. That wonder would be huge for me.

Stats at 50 AD
Netherlands: 23 cities
Germany: 11 cities, up monarchy and currency, down literature
Greece: 16 cities, down literature

 

[Tasslehoff]

I've never seen the "too many cities" message before... When does it come?

 

[ThERat]

I've never seen the "too many cities" message before... When does it come?

There is a hard coded limit of 512 cities, which is actually a kind of pity. Well, when Civ3 came out, monster maps would take monster time. These days with much faster computers (we all had to buy them thanks to Civ 4 ), it might be possible tom run more cities I assume.

 

[Tasslehoff]

A limit of 512 cities, as in 512 cities in the entire world? Because there's no way you have 512 cities.

 

[Jokeslayer]

A limit of 512 cities, as in 512 cities in the entire world? Because there's no way you have 512 cities.

Yes, it's for the entire world.

 

[ThERat]

The frontline now moved very slow due to the 512 city limits. Lucky, I had the GL as unit support can be staggering especially when changing to monarchy. While fighting I got yet another sword army.


Then finally around 150AD, the Greek learned how to be monarchs and we quickly stole that knowledge via our Library. I immediately revolted and surprisingly saw this.

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That must be the change of OCN to 100. 4 turns anarchy are pleasant and I ran on alternate revolts to prevent starvation. The mere wine lux makes life hard and we have to run 30% lux for our big cities. I guess this game will see me building cathedrals even.

Meanwhile I captured Marathon, which proved to be the big magnet for Greek units. Horse after horse was thrown at the city gates and easily repelled by our army inside.


In the hills of Marathon, we got another army soon


In the south, we started to go after the German core, which was easy as they lack any resource and lux by now. Leipzig was the first victim and then the capital of once mighty Germany fell. Curiously enough, Germany still had the tech lead since Greek philosophers went on strike.



The razing of German cities allowed me to slowly expand. The staggering unit support of around 120gpt by now made things a little difficult. Since Greece refused to learn currency, markets are still unheard of in my empire.


The last image in 420AD shows us approaching Munich and suddenly orange borders came into view. Who might hat be? How advanced are they? How big might the initial waves of attackers be (with OCN 100, there must be plenty of units). Will I be able to survive that initial onslaught? Will I finally gain more techs and enter the MA?



Final Tally now at 420AD:
Netherlands: 32 cities
Germany: 5 cities, up republic and currency, down literature
Greece: 13 cities, down literature

 

[ThERat]

Questions were raised during the last session. Some were answered and new questions came up. Just to recap, wht were the issues during the last session:

1. Who is that orange Civ?
2. Will I ever get currency before economic meltdown?
3. And will I ever get into the MA?
4. Would my second palace prebuild net Sun Tzu?

Well, it didn't take long and we finally made it

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This triggered a massive frenzy to get up market to improve the economy. Meanwhile I had avoided that orange Civ to go after Germany. Once the Germans were almost eliminated, I stepped forward to greet a snobbish looking lady



There were good and bad news. The bad news of course is another enemy at the gates. Good news though, she lacked all resources just like Germany and had a third lux (we had wines already and were about to snatch dyes from Greece). 3 luxes on a continent ain't too bad. This also implies that this continent might be massive.
I told Lizzy to get lost and declared war of course.

The Germans were no match any more after taking out their capital and their demise was completed in 510AD.

 

[ThERat]

I must have felt too good, then this piece of news came:

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Well, Rotterdam then built a rather expensive market to start a prebuild yet again for maybe KT.

50 years later the English units finally arrived at out new extended border. Note that there are both iron and horses in those hills and Germany never bothered to connect them

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It was no issue to deal with those new arrivals and archers and warrior are a little underwhelming. I did, however, start a MG: drought. This means I am still stuck with sword armies. These armies slowly made their way forward into English and Greek land.

In the meantime I also acquired feudalism and monotheism via the Great Library but got mildly disturbed by this piece of news

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Copernicus? Astronomy? I don't even know theology and engineering yet. Lucky, England lacks all resources, else we would be fighting knights instead of archers.
I decided to send out a galley to meet someone more advanced than Greece.

The galley then ran into this grey matter

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Turned out to be India and not very advanced either, but we got this crucial tech

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In the end we got theology as well as engineering after running into Maya's.

 

[ThERat]

the status of the game now at 620AD:

Netherlands: 42 cities
Greece: 11 cities, down republic, mono + engineering, still lacks iron
England: 16 citied, up education
India: unknown information due to recent war declaration
Maya: unknown information due to recent war declaration

I now make 137gpt at 0% science due to 107 gpt unit support

 

[Ansar]

Thanks for all the pictures so far!

The game seems great so far!

 

[Quintillus]

Impressive early wars. And great luck with the military great leaders. Do you know yet if there's anyone on the continent besides England and Greece?

 

[Tasslehoff]

Very impressive. Any chance of a world map?