BOTM 247: Clash of the Titans Part 2 - First Spoiler - 1AD

[MarleysGh0st]

BOTM 247: Clash of the Titans Part 2 - First Spoiler - 1AD



How is Augustus doing? Notice any significant differences between this game and Huayna Capac's?
Use this thread to tell us what happened in your game, up to 1AD.

Reading Requirements
If you are participating in BOTM 247, then you MUST NOT read this thread unless EITHER

• You have reached at least 1 AD in your game, OR
• You have submitted your entry

Posting Restrictions

• Do not disclose ANY events or information gained post 1 AD.
• Do not reveal your final result if that happened after 1 AD.
• Do not discuss the location of resources that may not show up before 1 AD (Iron is OK, coal and oil are not)
• Do not post any savegame file from the game. Discussions and screenshots are fine but not actual games

 

[nocho]

I've had a fun time playing this until 1AD but likely won't play much further, mainly because Deity still isn't quite my cup of tea and partly because I had a sneaky reload in 150BC to see how I'd do at 1AD without an unfortunate occurrence.

Speaking, of course, entirely for myself, I did find playing the Romans much more convenient than the Incans. I'm probably a bit of a noob with quechua warfare anyway, never played the Incans much in any case and even less so after they got the overpowered-stamp of disapproval and got practically banned from the HoF. Playing with praetorians is much more straightforward and knowing there was iron around (although didn't remember where exactly) and having the two silvers around to just power research forward to IW, also not having to detour for stuff like AH without pasture resources in the capital, made it all pretty easy sailing relatively speaking, at least up until 1AD. I settled in place and then built a second city west of rice and a third due east at sheep/clam/fur/ivory to secure those happies and block off Gandhi a bit.

In 1320BC I finally declared on Roosevelt. He immediately got Frederick in against me, but at first the latter barely sent units. In the first wave I conquered Philadelphia which he had settled on the land bridge towards us, Washington and New York. Signed peace to heal and got math and masonry out of it. Declared again and got 2 more cities and HBR out of it. Now the armies of Frederick started to come, but by simply blocking the access path west of Antium with a single axe made his SoD turn around. If it weren't for this buggish feature things might have looked differenty. Finally, after a third war got Roosevelt's last city in 300BC and the Americans were no more. Here I was still at war with Frederick and practically forgot about that as militarily he hardly posed a threat through the blockage, now also in the spoke far SW that connected Germany with the former Americas. However, in 150BC he bribed Asoka against me who annoyingly killed workers and a settler with his exploring units. So here I decided to reload, sign peace with Fred to avoid being declared on by Asoka and see what 1AD would look like.

So at 1AD I'm at 12 cities, 57 pop, 10 workers and a turn away from CS. With those stats I'd generally be quite happy also on immortal or emperor, so on Deity musn't be all too bad. However, I'm pretty far behind techwise. All AIs have CS as well, and I wouldn't know what a wise tech target would be to trade my way out of this. All AIs have CS/MC/Aesth/Calendar/Construction/Compass/Feud/Theo which I miss. And then some already have paper, philo, guilds, machinery or some combo of those. Possibly the answer would lie in more warring with praets vs longbows with some cats and jumbos mixed in. I probably won't find out this time around.

 

[MirrorGuard]

Tried to be aggressive in early game. But still unable to finish off Germany before he gets Engineering.

Spoiler Some screenshots :

 

[Kaitzilla]

Total map knowledge made me act a bit crazy and neglect my usual diplo.
Germans got bribed to Dow me twice and now I can't make them Friendly.

America put up a bitter resistance by leaving 0 buildings every time I captured one of their cities no matter how big or small it was.

Going to be very difficult to capitulate the other 5 with how fast they tech, but they are all pretty peaceful AI so Rome just needs to grind them down.

 

[Lich_Lord]

I played it out to 225 BC. Unfortunately the AI was much faster in building key wonders (GLH and colossus) this game than my Inca playthrough. So though my civ was significantly more powerful when I did the Inca, I attribute a lot of that to getting the GLH with them and not the Romans. In that game, I built it in 975BC. I was on track to complete it even earlier this game but the English built it in 1440 BC. And then not having GLH made it take too long to research MC to get the colossus.

I started with beelining praetorians and then sailing/masonry for GLH. After making peace with the Americans for tech I decided to attack Asoka next rather than Germany since I knew India has more available land so would be a bigger threat later. Also I was hoping the Germans would build the pyramids for me, which they eventually did.
In 875 BC, the turn I stopped with Huayna, I'm at 8 cities and a few turns away from capturing India's capital. My gpt is also negative so I can't quite finish the MC research.

Spoiler :

--
Then I played a bit further up to 225 BC. With city capture gold I was eventually able to finish MC. I believe I had an option to trade it for currency or construction and chose construction for the catapults. As I kept spamming units by this turn I was running a deficit of -33 gpt at 100% wealth. I got a great spy and felt I had to take the GA to research currency and then CoL so I could continue to fund the wartime economy. I've taken 6 total cities off of Asoka and eventually had to make peace because the rest of his land was too far away from my unit production cities.
The Romans are now preparing to invade Germany and should have around 25 praetorians and 6 catapults as the initial invasion force. The troops should be ready to attack around 100 BC. I was hoping to attack them sooner, but without siege I took some losses against Asoka. And all of the AI are close to feudalism now so waiting for catapults seems a must. Should still have plenty of buffer to take them out before macemen at least.

Rome being able to take out 3 nations in the classical period does seem pretty strong. If the Inca had also missed on wonders, I doubt they could manage to have as many cities the Romans will ~15 turns from now. Though that might be more than offset by the much better tech situation from being financial.
Techwise I'm slightly less advanced than where the Inca were 26 turns earlier!
I don't think I'll go through the motions to finish this game, but I've really enjoyed getting to play this series.

Spoiler :