Earth 18 Egypt Revisited

[Harv]

Part 14 - Turn 200 - 400 AD - The Calm Before the Storm

T185 Khan wanted to buy Writing from us for 35gp. Well gold is gold. It's very old tech and they will not be around very long to enjoy their gain.
We have parrots near Nagpur for an extra trade point for when we finally clear out that jungle.
T186 Caesar DoW on Fred
T187 Just the turn after the DoW, it turns out we are his worst enemy. For some reason he took it out on Fred. I guess kick him while he's down. Fred has a three front war right now, a historical worst nightmare.
T188 Fred wanted Polytheism for 130gp. Well gold is gold.
T193 We had a wedding with the Chinese and relations are getting better.
T200 Lizzy built the Temple of Solomon

T188 We Captured Avar and the Nile River and renamed it Napata. The Barbarians chose annoying locations for their city sites. If we wish to use all of the Nile River, we need 5 cities, including 2 junk cities. As the Egyptians, we were supposed to be able to control this better.

Spoiler :

T185 War Elephant 4 in Nineveh
War Elephant 5 in Delhi
Temple in Qara
T187 War Elephant 6 in Cuttack
T190 War Elephant 7 in Isuwa
Galley 5 in Cuttack
T191 War Elephant 8 in Cuttack
T192 Courthouse in Persepolis
Work Boat in Cuttack
T193 Islamic Temple in Memphis
T194 Forge is Persepolis, Cuttack, Isuwa, Nineveh, Nagpur, Delhi
Galley 6 in Muscat
Lighthouse in Memphis
T195 Axe 24 in Isuwa
Courthouse in Nagpur
T197 War Elephant 9 in Nineveh
T198 Axe 25 in Isuwa
Galley 7 in Mecca
Garanary in Naukratis
T200 War Elephant 10 in Nagpur

Technology
T189 Literature
T192 Metal Casting
T197 Drama - and we had no reason to research this. For some reason I went Noble-Level and grabbed all the prerequisites.

We should give war a chance.

Body Count:
Losses:
5 War Chariots (Athens, Mecca, 2 at Persepolis, 1 at Susa)
1 Catapult (Athens)
1 Axe (Athens)

Kills:
36 Warriors (22 Barbarian, 7 Indian, 4 Arab, 3 Persian)
26 Archers (17 Barbarian, 5 Greek, 3 Persian, 1 Arabian)
8 Axes (Barbarian)
3 Spears (Barbarian)
3 Galleys (Barbarian)
1 Scout (Greek)
1 Chariot (Greek)
1 Greek Phalanx

 

[Harv]

Part 15 - Turn 207 - 505 AD - The Quickest Way to the Heart is Through the Ribcage

T201 Fred wants HBR to help him out in his multi-front wars, so we gave it to him.
T202 Fred and Izzy settled a peace due to a German mercy event. Fred is down to two fronts.
T203 Louis developed Theology and founded Confucianism.
T206 Lizzy built Chichen Itza
T207 Fred and Louis settled a peace. So Fred is down to a single front.

T201 We DoW on Caesar at the height of his power. We sent our Galleys in to drop right on top of his iron, but he must have seen us coming, because a Prat was sitting on top of it and waiting for us. he left us a different landing point which was almost as good. Then he retreated into Rome, so we moved up to the Iron, pillaged it, and started the siege. The prepared stack of reinforcements arrived two turns later, and a few more a couple turns after that.

Spoiler :

T206 Five turns into the war......
Cesar sent a Chariot in to scout out Athens and had a stack (2 Prats, 1 Axe, 3 Spears, 1 Catapult) not far behind. Athens was defended by a single Axe and with a Chariot right on top, it did not look good. We do, however, have a navy - and Athens was our staging ground to launch on to the Roman heartland. So we found a C2Form Chariot to take it out. Then we put a couple of axes on top of the hill guarding the pass in a brave effort to take as many attackers as we can down with us. If we have to evacuate Athens, then we have to evacuate Athens. There is a stack out there and we are trying to waste its time. Meanwhile, our stack is sieging Rome.

Spoiler :

T207 The attack on Rome
There were 10 defenders, 2 Prats, 3 Archers, 1 Spear, 2 Axes, and 2 Chariots
I do not know the best way to approach this. We can take our roughest and toughest shock troops to do damage to the 2 Prats on top, then gradually lose Catapults to the rest of the defenders.
We opted to open up with 2 Catapult attacks that got each Prat down to 77hp, or 6.2/8. Then we attacked them with War Elephants at 53% and 56%, actually winning both. Then we lost our CR Axe to an Archer at 82%, so I guess it works out. By then, the defenders were weakened to the point the rest of the Catapults were at low risk and just doing target practice. After 7 barrages with the Catapults, the remaining 8 defenders were very easy to clean up.

Spoiler :

T201 Catapult 10 in Isuwa
T202 War Elephant 11 in Nineveh
T203 War Elephant 12 in Lagash
Library in Naukratis
T204 Catapult 11 in Isuwa
T205 Aquaduct in Lagash
Market in Damascus and Memphis
Granary in Napata
T206 War Elephant 13 in Nineveh
War Elephant 14 in Naspur
Forge in Muscat
Temple in Naukratis
Library in Sukkar
T207 Galley 8 in Qana

Technology
T204 Music - and we picked up the free great artist.
We could have spent those turns picking up something like Machinery, instead. We could check who was running down the artsy line and it looks like nobody is.

So with Rome fallen, Caesar no longer has access to Iron. The next target is his source of Copper.

Hindsight for the next time I play: We were sitting on a Great Prophet for a very long time. We could have popped Theology a long time ago. That would get us another holy city and very likely shrine. We would also be in Theology for the extra troop exp which would be coming in handy right now.

Added Body Count:
Losses:
5 War Chariots (Athens, Mecca, 2 at Persepolis, 1 at Susa)
3 Catapult (2 at Rome, 1 at Athens)
2 Axe (Rome, Athens)

Kills:
38 Warriors (24 Barbarian, 7 Indian, 4 Arab, 3 Persian)
30 Archers (18 Barbarian, 5 Greek,3 Roman, 3 Persian, 1 Arabian)
13 Axes (11Barbarian, 2 Roman)
4 Spears (3 Barbarian, 1 Roman)
4 Chariots (3 Roman, 1 Greek)
3 Galleys (Barbarian)
2 Roman Praetorians
1 Scout (Greek)
1 Greek Phalanx

 

[Harv]

Part 16 - Turn 214 - 610 AD - We are the Heathen Enemy

T208 Mansa wants to buy the Alphabet for 90gp. Well gold is gold.
It's strange. I usually do not like giving away tech to the AI. Here they put something on the table and I decide gold is gold.
Meanwhile, Caesar made peace with Fred. Caesar is down to a single front to focus on - and that is in Southern Europe against us. Fred is now at peace. It looks like he survived the French onslaught with all cities intact.
T209 Toku converted to Islam.
T210 The very next turn, they turned to us for a gift to help their war against the Mongols. So we sent them Elephants.
T213 Louis built the AP and was up for election against Lizzy. We are engaged in a fake war against Louis and Lizzy does not actively hate us at the moment. So we voted for Lizzy.
T214 It turns out LIzzy won the election with 150 votes to 72 and it did not matter what we did with our 22 votes. Maybe Lizzy will like us better.
Meanwhile we got a Great Merchant in Isuwa, as a side effect of building the Temple of Artemis.

Spoiler :

Rome appears to have two stacks. His attacking stack is 2 CR2 Prats, 1 CR1 Cat, 1 C1 Axe, and 3 Spears, for a total of 7 units. I will call this is attack stack. His defense stack in Antium is 1 C1Sh Prat, 1 C2 Prat, 1 C1For Prat, and 1 C1Sh Axe, for a total of 4 units.
T209 Rome moved his attack stack to the hill west of Antium in a bid to retake Rome. This is no big deal. We were in the process of loading up our troops to drop on Antium, but we can return return them Italy, move the Catapults back to safety in Rome and set up a defensive line across the Po River. Meanwhile, we moved a couple of Axes to cover up the Copper. A Roman Catapult counterattack, badly damaging one of them. They were fated to die, but their mission to destroy the Roman Copper mine would still succeed. Ironically, with 1 moderately damaged Axe and 1 severely damaged Axe, and 3 Prats sitting in Antium, they could have easily counterattacked. Most likely, the AI makes some decision on which units are attack and which ones are defense, and how many defenders they need in a city.
T210 Confronted with a bitter fight at the Po River, the Romans withdrew and chose a different target. I believe the AI chooses the path of least resistance. One day I might become more skilled at manipulating this and setting traps.
T211 Sure enough those Axes died. The heavily damaged one, number 16, remained on the hill and destroyed the copper mine. It was counterattacked by a Roman Spear. Maybe they are keeping their Prats fresh for a fight in a city. The other one, number 23, counterattacked the Catapult and was heavily damaged. Another Roman Spear killed it in a counterattack. So we took out a Copper Mine and a Catapult, losing 104 hammers to 75. The Romans sent another Catapult to retake Instanbul and that should have been an easy target for our Elephants, but we lost one at 88%.
The Romans are going to reclaim Istanbul. What is the best way to defend against a couple of CR2 Prats? I decided we evacuate units from the city and prepare for a counterattack. The CR2 does nothing in city defense. They will be defending at 8, plus whatever fortification bonus they managed to pick up, based on how many turns it takes us to set up a counterattack. Reinforcements keep coming from our core. We set up a trap. Meanwhile, we had one fresh C1 War Elephant 5 to block the way into Instanbul as a token defense. The CR2 does nothing in the open field, so Prats and Axes would be attacking at a disadvantage. The Spears are all heavily damaged. So this was a bid to defeat one Prat and damage another. Hindsight says we should have also retreated for a counterattack.
T212 Sure enough the Romans reclaimed Istanbul. War Elephant 5 put up an amazing fight. The Romans opened with the Axe, the Cat, then Prat and WE5 amazingly defeated them all, but was easy prey to the legendary Roman Spear. Still, that is nearly half the Roman Stack gone, and the Spears are all heavily damaged.
Reinforcements are coming, so we worked the attrition in Istanbul. WE11 killed off the other CR2 Prat, WE13 killed a Spear, and WC9 killed another Spear. I did say he was constantly moving this stack with damaged Spears that were built to defend against counterattacks like this, but too damaged to do so.
Meanwhile, we got our second Great General, Erwin Ramesses.
T213 With nearly nothing left of Caesar's attack stack in Istanbul, we retook the city.
T214 Finally we come to the conclusion of the Siege of Antium. It is defended with 2 Prats, 1 Ax, 1 Chariot, and 1 Archer.
Our Shock War Elephants were 37% against the Prats, so I decided this was a good opening. One of them actually won and the other left the Legion heavily damaged at 3.4/8. It was simpler to use the War Elephants to keep softening the defenders, but they left only two units for the Catapults to use for target practice.

Spoiler :

T214 We also founded Madras.

Spoiler :

Production and Wonder Hogging
T208
The Parthenon in Persepolis
War Elephant 15 in Ngpur
Market in Muscat
Library in Athens
T209
Forge in Qana
Granary in Athens
Stable in Isuwa
Courthouse in Nineveh which is completely pointless, but I was feeling cruel. We should have whipped another unit.
T210
Catapult in Isuwa
Trireme 1 in Mecca
War Elephant 16 in Nineveh
Missionary in Cuttack
T211 War Elephant 17 in Isuwa
T212
War Elephant 18 in Persepolis
The Great Library in Delhi
Granary in Sukkur
T213
Missionary in Mecca
Settler in Nagpur
Barracks in Qana
T214 Courthouse in Cuttack

Spoiler :

Technology
T211 Machinery

Body Count:
Losses:
5 War Chariots (Athens, Mecca, 2 at Persepolis, 1 at Susa)
4 Catapult (2 at Rome, 1 at Athens,1 at Sparta)
4 Axe (Rome, Athens, and 2 taking out the Roman Copper Mine)
3 Elephant (1 at Antium, 1 taking out Catpult near Istanbul, and 1 bravely defending the road to Istanbul)

Kills:
38 Warriors (24 Barbarian, 7 Indian, 4 Arab, 3 Persian)
36 Archers (19 Barbarian, 8 Roman, 5 Greek, 3 Persian, 1 Arabian)
17 Axes (12 Barbarian, 5 Roman)
8 Spears (3 Barbarian, 5 Roman)
7 Chariots (6 Roman, 1 Greek)
7 Roman Praetorians
3 Catapults (Roman)
3 Galleys (Pirate)
1 Sword (Barbarian)
1 Scout (Greek)
1 Greek Phalanx

We have a Great General. I think we should go to Rome, because it already has two Great Generals. However, it is possible the AP votes to return Rome to the Romans. This might not be possible if we are still at war with the Romans. I will check.
We have a Great Prophet. I should have used him a long time ago to bulb Theology, so I guess we are saving him for later.
We now have a Great Merchant. We can actually use him for a Civil Service bulb and get CS the very next turn. I do not know if there is more gold to be won by making a trade mission to Beijing. That is the alternative idea.

The AP is out and we have 3 Christian cities. We can continue to run OR, except we spam Missionaries and increase our vote. Christian buildings also give a production bonus. It looks like the first vote with Lizzy as Pope will be to end the war with Caesar or end the war with Louis. This vote appears to be scheduled for T226.

We are really looking like the Arabic empire, except instead of driving down the North African Coast, we went up the Italian Peninsula instead and took out the Roman Empire.

Fred has Feudalism and we might do well to acquire it.

 

[Harv]

Part 17 - Turn 224 - 760 AD - The Fall of Paris

T216 The AI does strange things. I figured with Rome kicked out of Southern Europe, we would have nothing to worry about, but a Galley showed up with a CR2 Prat and Spear to counterattack. Their Galley defeated our Galley and it took several turns for the rest of our navy to take it down.
Meanwhile Erwin Ramesses joined Rome, making it 3GG in Rome. It might be a while before we have units being produced. When we do, with Barracks and Vassalage, our units will be starting with 11XP.
T220 Qin offered us Theology for Feudalism. We might as well. It gives us something back for being taken so hard by Fred. Theocracy is useful while we are warmongering. However, we are not planning to run Theocracy soon, because we have a bunch of cities we need to convert to Christianity.
We also have eyes on Paris. It has 10 defenders. Hopefully this time around we know how to count units.
T221 Qin declared on Khan
T222 The trade mission to Guangzhou was worth 1350gp. So far it is working out very similar. That cash gets shoved back into research. We have Libraries with a bonus of about 25%. So it gets leveraged up to 1700. The research has a multiplier of 1.2, so 2040. The 1500 + 3P formula we confirmed at the time yielded 1932. So it does not seem like we gained much making the trade mission.
T223 Cathy and Khan make peace.
T224 Taoism founded by Fred. He researched Philosophy.
I am thinking at this point in the game, founding religions does not matter at all. We have Islam in our part of the world, and a shrine that makes a bit of money. Then we have Christianity that has become the AP religion. In order to spread any other religion, we need missionaries at 60h each. This yields 1gp, times whatever multiplier we have in the holy city, so 1.25gp. I suppose for now it's a 96 turn payoff. After that, there are buildings we can build if we need more happiness. It might also help if we are going for Free Religion.

Production
T215 Catapult 13 in Nineveh
T216 War Elephant 19 in Isuwa
Crossbow 1 in Persepolis
The Colossus in Muscat
T217 Barracks in Memphis
T218 Islamic Temple in Athens
T218 Barracks in Naukratis
T219 Cat 14 in Nineveh
Longbow 1 in Persepolis
War Elephant 20 in Nagpur
T220 Theater in Rome - We finally made a use of our little diversion to Drama
T221 Barracks in Muscat
T222 Crossbow 2 in Mecca
Longbow 2 in Persepolis
National Epic in Delhi
T223 Walls in Isuwa
Longbow 3 in Nagpur
Library in Napata
T224 Treb 1 in Nineveh
War Elephant 22 in Lagash

Technology
T214 Feudalism from Fred for Metal Casting, Currency, Code of Laws, and 25gp.
I looked around bunches of combinations to see what Fred would take. He was probably researching Currency, so he did not value it very highly.
T219 Engineering
T220 Theology from Qin for Feudalism.

T219 The AI does some very strange things. As soon as Rome was down, there opened up a spot in Northern Africa and Lizzy promptly sent a Galley there with a Settler and Worker and founded a city. I decided we did not need fogbusters in the area anymore and sent them elsewhere.

Spoiler :

Body Count:
Losses:
6 Catapults of 14
5 War Chariots of 14
4 Axes of 25
3 War Elephants of 23
1 Galley of 5

Kills:
40 Archers
40 Warriors
19 Axes
11 Spears
9 Chariots
9 Praetorians
5 Galleys
4 Longbows
3 Sowrds
2 Horse Archers
1 Scout
1 Work Boat
1 Trireme

T224 The Battle of Paris
This is the part we have been waiting for!
We had OB with Fred, so we moved our stack through his territory to get a jump on Paris. We had sight on it in T220 and it took us one more turn to get into range. We set up shop on some hills to the southeast and took a couple of turns blowing up the city walls..
Our first Catapult actually survived at 20.5%. The second one was not so lucky. The third one at 25% did not make it, either. So we lost 2 more Catapults, for 150 Hammers. They are also mostly obsolete, because the Trebs ae better at city assault. The Cats might still be useful in the open field. However, they will still be useful in the next war we plan.
After this, we decided it was not really worth sending in more Catapults, so we started using the War Elephants to soften up a few more defenders so that the rest of the catapult barrage would amount to target practice.

Spoiler :

Louis was an early game wonder hog, so we picked up some prizes.

The Great Wall - Those raging hordes of barbarians are still a problem - but outside our borders. So this makes city spamming safer.

The Great Lighthouse - This makes coastal city spam more economical.

The Pyramids - We now have access to some late game government civics. We will be making a quick change to Police State for the bonus to producing units and the reduction of war weariness. When we are finished with our warmongering, we can shift to Republic for the bonus to or specialists. We will do this when we get ready for our first Golden Age.

The Apostolic Palace - As we spread Christianity around our cities, we will gain votes. When we convert and gain full membership, this will double. Then we will take over the Papacy. I believe we have 42 turns to accomplish this. Maybe more, maybe less. It depends on how Lizzy behaves.

 

[Harv]

Part 18 - Turn 235 - 900 AD - Izzy's Demise

Turn 225 - We now have a Great Scientist in Delhi. We can bulb some points in Education. We probably should soon.
Another Great Person is due in Delhi around Turn 241, most likely another Great Scientist.

Turn 226 - We built a Castle in Isuwa. We still have the Temple of Artemis, so we might as well have the extra profitable trade route.
Meanwhile on the Europe front, Izzy took quick advantage of the fall of Paris and founded Barcelona. She now has a coastal city.

Turn 227 - We founded Suakin in order to be able to use the Incense.

Turn 228 - The proposal came out from the AP that we should make peace with Caesar. We voted yes. The vote came in overwhelmingly in favor of peace. So we have peace, for a moment.

Spoiler :

That Castle we built two turns ago suddenly came in handy. We got a Warlord. We paid the gold and now have a settled Great General in Isuwa.

Spoiler :

We did say we were at peace for a moment, but Izzy appears to be looking for trouble in Barcelona.

Spoiler :

She exposed her entire stack. So we declared and launched everything at Barcelona. We lost a War Elephant and Catapult in the attack, but destroyed her stack and Barcelona. We returned our wounded units to Athens to heal up and marched the rest to Madrid and sailed the healed units as they appeared.

T233 Buddhism has been founded by Lizzy. That means she now has Divine Right.

T235 We sieged down Madrid and started the assault, losing 2 more War Elephants. So the total cost of this war was 3 War Elephants and a Catapult, for 345h and we have Madrid and the Church of the Nativity to show for it.

Spoiler :

Technology
T225 Civil Service
T226 Paper
T232 Philosophy

If we are targeting Lizzy next, then we need a bigger navy. We have in the Mediterranean 4 Galleys and she has 4 Galleys and 3 Triremes. If we build about 5 Triremes, then that should make it safe for us to keep ferrying troops across the channel. It is at least a 15 turn delay in our plans, so we might do well to enjoy a period of peace.

The next AP vote is scheduled for Turn 239 / 240. We have been spreading Christianity as fast as we can, so we have increased our voting bloc. I think the next vote will be to return Rome to the Romans. If we convert to Christianity, then we will be granted full member status. The proposal might not even be available to return a city. I think it is return a city from a Member to a Full Member. If we convert, then we will have a massive voting block.

We have 8 cities remaining to convert to Christianity:
Arabian Peninsula: Mecca, Qana, and Muscat
Africa: Memphis and Suakin
India: Cuttack and Madras
Europe: Athens

We should be able to convert 3 more cities by the time the vote comes up. We will leave Mecca and Muscat unconverted in a bid for the Dissident Priest event. It exists 90% of the time, but I have never seen it in action. We need a city that does not have the state religion, and is not the capital, or forbidden palace or Versailles, and is producing at least 30 culture per turn. Mecca is producing 23 and Muscat is producing 16. A mosque and theater in Mecca should push it over the threshold. Muscat is there in case Christianity shows up in Mecca. The cost of this gambit is we have 2 cities we are not converting to the state religion.

Nationalism Race:
Elizabeth has Philosophy and Divine Right both, but not Civil Service. We just started to spy on her to see what she is up to.
Lizzy: Civil Service -> Nationalism
Fred: Civil Service -> Nationalism
Qin: Code of Laws -> Philosophy -> Civil Service -> Nationalism
Hatty: Nationalism (14 Turns)

Liberalism Race:
Lizzy: Paper -> Education -> Liberalism
Fred: Paper -> Education -> Liberalism
Qin: Code of Laws -> Philosophy -> Paper -> Education -> Liberalism
Hatty: Education (14 Turns) -> Liberalism (10 Turns?)

If we want to win both of these races, then we might do well to abandon our research into Guilds for a moment and work the races. So far I count about 38 Turns for both races and Guilds will make that 44 Turns. We can shorten it by changing our civics. We also have one Education bulb when we decide to pop it. We also have one Golden Age if we want it soon.

 

[Harv]

Part 19 - Turn 253 - 1080 AD - Giving Peace a Chance

Turn 235 - 900 AD
Just as the title says, with Madrid captured and all fronts quiet, and quite a few turns from a realistic invasion of the British Isles, we decided to give peace a chance. We went Representation-Vassalage-Caste System-Organized Religion and we converted to Christianity, completely shifting our alliances from one coast to the other.

Turn 236 - 910 AD
Khan wanted to vassal with us. He is at war with China and our stack of units is on the other side of the continent and will take centuries to mobilize in India.
Qin completed the Hagia Sophia. He has some nice land in Southeast Asia to fix up. Maybe he can do something about Mongolia when he conquers it.
Some spy poisoned Persepolis. It was not important enough to investigate who did it. It would be interesting to see how much it cost. It cost us 6 food.
Meanwhile in Africa, we founded Zimbabwe.

Spoiler :

I count a food surplus of 6, but we are claiming resources.

Turn 237 - 920 AD
Catherine DoW'd on Fred and very quickly captured Frankfurt. She has an advantage of 13 to 6 in cities. Fred probably has a tech advantage. He probably has better cities.

Turn 238 - 930 AD
Suddenly Fred wants to vassal with us. Well, Cathy already hates us and our stack is not that far away.

Spoiler :

We gave peace a chance and it didn't last that long. That's what Cathy says.

Turn 239 - 940 AD
Mansa broke free from England and vassaled with us instead.

Turn 241 - 960 AD
We finally popped the Education bulb.
Lizzy tried to stop the war with Russia, but we were having none of that. The war is two turns old and we are just gearing up. We have not even changed civics for wartime. We will get war weariness in Republic, but we seem to have a big surplus in happy resources.

Spoiler :

Turn 243 - 980 AD
We actually managed to get a Great Engineer out of Delhi. This is kind of rare, in that Delhi is running so many Scientists and only one Engineer. We will save him for a special occasion.
Meanwhile, Khan vassaled to Qin.

Turn 244 - 990 AD
We finally started attacking Russia at Thebes, which we renamed Odessa.

Spoiler :

It is nearly 1000 AD and we are still attacking with elepults. What are we doing wrong here?
We took the opportunity to switch to Mercantilism and Theocracy.

Turn 245 - 1000 AD
We built Notre Dame in Nagpur. It is another wonder better off captured. However, it does deliver happiness all across the continent and we will be needing that if we are bent on destroying Russia. Meanwhile we found the Russian stack attacking the Germans. 2 swords, 2 catapults, 2 chariots. It's not that big and it didn't last that long.

Turn 247 - 1020 AD
The Statue of Zeus was built in Japan. By the time we get there, war weariness is unlikely to be an issue.

Turn 248 - 1030 AD
Lizzy built the Spiral Minaret in London. Maybe we will grab that before we know it.
Further east, we captured St. Petersburg, which we renamed Kyiv.

Spoiler :

Turn 249 - 1040 AD
We built a Trebuchet in Rome. It came out of the gate with 15 XP. If we build a stable, then we can build knights with 17 XP if we wanted.
With that much XP, what is the best unit to build?

Turn 253 - 1080 AD
We captured Moscow.

Spoiler :

We are doing it the slow way which is probably not even safer. We should be able to take the city a couple turns earlier. It looks like we are about 5 turns between cities. Maybe it will be a bit quicker once we have gone through the core cities. She has 10 cities, so that makes 50 turns to completely destroy her. That.... puts us into the 1500s.

Technology
T237 Guilds
T242 Education
T244 Banking
T250 Liberalism
T250 Nationalism
T251 Compass
T252 Optics

We took out Liberalism early, because of the number of races we had and I did not want to be caught by surprise. So we lose out on a few research points with the slingshot. Meanwhile, I can think of three races right now:

Taj Majal - We have Nationalism and there are a couple of civs that can research it. We are about 12 turns away and might time it to about when an AI also researches Nationalism.

Circumnavigation - Optics seems to be all the rage right now. We are building a couple of Caravels in our bid to circumnavigate the globe.

Economics - Nobody has Education. Nobody has Paper. Nobody has Banking or Guilds.

Apostolic Palace - There is a vote due next turn. What is proposed does not matter. We have an overwhelming majority. It says there are two votes to the next election, so that puts the next election 29 turns out, or Turn 282. We should be installed as Resident by then. Another 14 turns takes us to Turn 296.

The Americas - are free of religion right now. So they might even be friendlier! If we load up 3 Caravels with Missionaries, then we have a chance to visit the three civs that live there. If we are successful, then we should have all civs as members of the AP. It looks like we also have to add Mansa and Khan. If we go this route, then we have some Missionaries to build - and I count about 43 Turns to pull it off.
Is our dip good enough to win Religious victory? I think we need to work on Fred a little bit.[/spoiler]

 

[Harv]

Part 20 - Turn 262 - 1170 AD - The World at War

The last question from the last post was if our dip was good enough for a religious victory. Now we wonder if a religious victory is possible if we are at war with 5 civs. We sent a missionary through Chinese lands and that was when we knew something was up. The border was all fortified and another stack of catapults were incoming. Meanwhile all of our troops were in Eastern Europe fighting Russians. So the question is how much time we have before war breaks out.

We had a stack of obsolete Chariots we are not using, so we sent them eastwards. One group of three will arrive in 4 turns from Turn 257, around Turn 261, and the other three will arrive around Turn 262. We will divert a few more units over to Cuttack. The Chinese stack should lose a few turns pillaging some improvements, and some more turns sieging down a Castle.

Turn 255 - 1100 AD
We accidentally built Angkor Wat in Muscat. I was trying to stretch it out several turns and get some fail gold. We already accidentally got our great engineer, and the Wat most likely means that Great Profits are in our future.
Meanwhile, we captured Frankfurt from the Russians. A few turns later, we renamed it Novgorod.

Spoiler :

Turn 256 - 1110 AD
There was a vote to stop trading with Khan. We voted no. That was the end of it. There should be one more vote in Turn 269 and an election on Turn 283, and another vote on Turn 297.

Turn 257 - 1120 AD
We built the University of Sangkore in Delhi. This was no accident, but we should have built it somewhere else. We got it and the science points will come in handy.

Turn 258 - 1130 AD
The Chinese offered to buy the Compass from us to finish out their research. We were in no mood to sell.
Qin built Schwedagon Paya. It's not that means anything.
Lizzy completed Versailles. As well as I understand Versailles, it is a great wonder to capture. It means we should not have a capital in Europe.
Novgorod was defended by 4 Longbows. It did not help them one bit. We renamed this city as well.

Spoiler :

Turn 259 - 1140 AD
We thought we could sneak a Missionary into Mongolia, but there was a Russian Horseman patrolling very far away from the front. That was well played, Cathy. You got us.

Turn 260 - 1150 AD
We captured Rostov and renamed it Arkhangelsk.

Spoiler :

We rested up for a turn, then sent our knights to scout the Russian city to the northwest. It looks like Fred is going to take care of that one and get his revenge for losing Frankfurt.

Turn 262 - 11470 AD

We lost a farm in a Dustbowl event. So far it is costing us one farm and 51gp to fix

Spoiler :

On the other side of the continent, we founded Casablanca.

Meanwhile, Qin declared war on us and launched his stack right on top of Cuttack, catching us very nearly completely unprepared.

Spoiler :

.....very nearly completely unprepared for an invasion, except we knew exactly where he was going to drop his stack.

I had trouble counting all the units in the stack. I think it was 6 Chariots, 2 Trebuchets, 3 Catapults, 4 Horse Archers, and one CKN. We also had 6 L4 Knights waiting in Delhi for an immediate counterattack, giving new meaning to flank attack.

Spoiler :

There were 11 battles, all at over 99% probability. We wiped a stack of 16 units on the opening turn of the Great War. Unfortunately, we have no artillery here to capitalize on this blunder and we will be waiting for another big stack. All of our artillery is in the west fighting the Russians.

We have:
31 Cities
15 Workers
7 Warriors
14 Axes
12 Maces
1 Pike
7 Catapults
9 Trebuchets
8 Galleys
3 Caravels
17 Longbows
4 Crossbows
1 War Chariot
12 Knights
17 War Elephants
As well as I counted, it will cost us approximately 4252gp to update our entire military. We really do not need to. A lot of cities are far away from any front and need nothing more than a token defense. However, we will keep a healthy war chest in case we do need to suddenly upgrade units.

The entire known world is at war. Hatty block versus Qin block. Only Lizzy is neutral. We have five AI opponents and we will call it 6 fronts, but we can compress the number of fronts for convenience. It looks like we have named 5.
Eastern Europe - Russians and Romans
Caucasus Mountains
Central Asia
Southeast Asia
Neutral territory

 

[Harv]

Part 21 - Turn 276 - 1280 AD - Never fight a Land War in Asia

We stuck it out with our current government system. Most of our civilization is ignoring the war and building up with a few cities contributing to stacks. The war might go quicker if we built a lot more units.

T263 We sighted Nova Scotia, gaining contact with the New World. We found an American city and established a Christian mission several turns later. Then we returned and gifted a Missionary to them. Hopefully they will spread it to the Aztecs. If not, well we placed Christianity into the New World and there should be a good chance that it spreads on its own. This leaves Mongolia, which might not be around for very much longer, and Mali. Mali is in a Theocracy, so it will be a while before we get Christianity over there. I suppose a solution to that would be to gift Casablanca to them. However if we are doing that, we should found a junkier city.

T264 We founded Kufra in the desert to fill out the Nile River. This most likely was unnecessary.
We also captured Corinth, which we renamed Rostov. The Russians put up pockets of resistance in places, but it tends to be fairly easy to take out.

T266 We captured Yekaterinburg which we renamed Saratov.

T269 We captured Cumae which we renamed Saratov.

T271 Captured Argos which we renamed Astrakhan.

T275 Captured Yaroslavl which we renamed Svedlovsk.

T276 The Barbarian city of Alemanni joined us.
We captured Vladiviostok from the Russians.

Finally, we launched into Hangzhou and captured it in a very bloody battle. It was a fairly well fortified hilltop city and they were using it to build their stack.
We lost 2 Cuirs and 3 Trebs, probably our bloodiest battle of the game. The issue was probably that we did not have enough or well experienced Trebs.
It does hold a strategic position. It gives us an entry into Southeast Asia and slows them down trying to enter India.

Spoiler :

Technology
T263 Printing Press
T268 Gunpowder
T272 Military Tradition

Great People
T263 Great Scientist in Delhi
T273 Great Prophet in Muscat
We have enough standing around for at least 2 Golden Ages. Add the Taj Mahal, that's 3. If we get one great person, that will make 4. We will have 60 turns of golden age some time. It is likely the game will be over by then. Maybe we start popping these golden ages during wartime.

 

[Harv]

Part 22 - Turn 291 - 1355 AD - Isolating China

I am starting to get a CTD issue when taking a picture and hitting the windoze key to check the picture, so I will not have as many pictures. Right now, I try to make a quicksave every turn, because 4 turns for an autosave is too long.

Cities captured:
T277 Smolensk
T278 Orenburg - Russians destroyed
T282 Bantu just east of the Urals
T282 Antium razed and the Romans are destroyed
T282 Chengdu
T283 Ligurian and we kicked the Chinese out of Southeast Asia
T286 Mauryan from the Barbarians
T290 Turfan and the Mongols are destroyed
T291 Xian and we are breaking into southern China

Spoiler :

T284 Toku broke free from Qin and we settled a separate peace with them. We have no interest right not in building up a navy to take them.

Technology:
T278 Chemistry
T283 Steel
T289 Replaceable Parts

Great People
T285 Great Prophet - I think Ankror Wat was a mistake, but we can figure out how to use 3 Great Profits.
T290 Great Scientist

It's 14 cities to go with China and we are breaking into their core.

 

[Harv]

Finish - Turn 402 - 1784 AD - You Guessed what I did

We have the Taj Mahal coming up and a bunch of Great People, so we started a Golden Age on Turn 300 to see how far we could take it. We got it to Turn 375.

The War with China:
T296 Bulgar
T296 Karakorum
T301 Shanghai
T302 Beijing
T304 Beshbalik
T305 Ningbo which we had to recapture because we abandoned the city and the Chinese happened to have a roaming knight
T306 Tiajin
T306 Bactrian
T307 Old Sarai
T308 Shangdong
T309 Gangzhou
T310 Ainu
T311 Nanjing
T312 Vandal from the Barbarians

Wonders:
T297 Oxford University
T303 Taj Mahal in Nineveh
T312 Mining Incorporated in Mecca
T328 Cereal Mills in Mecca - We had a lot of trouble getting this one off the ground.
T345 National Park in Mauryan
T346 Broadway in Paris
T357 Wall Street in Mecca
T358 Statue of Liberty in Isuwa
T360 The Pentagon in Moscow
T361 Three Gorges Dam in Madrid
T367 Cristo Redentor in Nineveh
T368 Apollo Program in Paris
T370 Rock 'n Roll in Memphis
T372 Teh Internetz in Nineveh
T375 Eiffel Tower in Paris
T377 Space Elevator in Madrid
T395 United Nations
T396 Manhattan Project

Here was the National Park we built for fun. We had at the time 20 Scientists and 1 Engineer. It would have been funny to chop up the National Park in order to rush a Spaceship component.

Spoiler :

Great People:
T296 Great Merchant from Economics
T304 Great Prophet in Mecca
T320 Great Scientist from Physics
T330 Great Spy from Communism
T331 Great Engineer with a great stroke of luck
T354 Great Scientist
T372 Great Scientist
T378 Great Engineer from Fusion
T381 Great Scientist - We actually got one from building the National Park

Technology:
T292 Rifling
T296 Economics
T300 Divine Right from Fred for Education and 215gp
T302 Constitution
T306 Corporation
T310 Steam Power
T315 Astronomy
T316 Scientific Method
T320 Physics
T322 Biology
T325 Electricity
T328 Refrigeration
T330 Communism
T333 Combustion
T335 Democracy
T339 Assembly Line
T344 Industrialism
T349 Plastics
T353 Flight
T356 Artillery - There was no reason for us to research this. We could have saved a few turns.
T358 Rocketry
T361 Radio
T363 Satellites
T365 Computers
T368 Robotics
T369 Superconductors
T370 Fission
T372 Ecology
T375 Composites
T376 Fiber Optics
T378 Fusion
T379 Medicine
T380 Genetics
T381 Fascism
T382 Mass Media
T383 Laser
T384 Advanced Flight
T385 Stealth
T385 Military Science from Teh Internetz
......then a bunch of future tech

I wrote out all the components we would need to complete the Space Race, and the cities with the highest production. The thing still took 15 turns to arrive and our score was declining every turn.

Spoiler :

For a domination victory, we were hanging around 45% land area. We just needed to start a war and capitulate somebody, like the Aztecs. For a UN victory, we needed to research Mass Media and build the UN earlier. Here are the reasons I can think of to not do the Space Race on Earth18:

1. It takes a very long time and there is a lot of micro.
2. It might be a memory hog. It was really causing my computer to lag.
3. All those turns are costing precious points. 15 turns from launch to victory and the final score is going down every turn.
4. Back to 1. I did not feel like going through each city to change to research.

About 15 turns ahead of the end, I finally got the sense that it was finally coming and started to fortify my workers in preparation for the end of the world.

Thanks for watching!

 

[krikav]

GG!

And yeah, it's such a memory hog toward the endgame... Thats part of the reason I favour early game play so much. It's frustrating when everything grinds to almost a halt.

 

[Harv]

And yeah, it's such a memory hog toward the endgame... Thats part of the reason I favour early game play so much. It's frustrating when everything grinds to almost a halt.

Thanks! I blame the issues on not taking out the Aztecs and the computer had to keep track of all of Monty's units.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

On epic speed, would corporations be better than communism?

Keep the richest lands and gift everything else to friendly trading partners (not vassals).

Destroy the Aztecs. Colonise and gift the Americas to the Incas.

Gift Sub-Saharan Africa and the Arabian Peninsula to Mali. I keep the fertile crescent.

Gift Australasia and the Western Pacific islands to Japan.

Have I gone over the domination limit yet? If not, what else can I keep?

 

[Harv]

On epic speed, would corporations be better than communism?

Looking at my logs:
T306 Corporation
T312 Mining Incorporated (I'm puzzled why I had this delay.)
T328 Refrigeration and Cereal Mills
T330 Communism
T402 Game Over
T124 Gummy declared the game pretty much won
Somewhere around T312 was where we vassaled Qin.

From here, we were supposed to build a fleet and declare on Toku and Monty, vassal them, and win domination. Astronomy was T315 and we could have pushed that earlier. I did not do this, because we were running Golden Age until T330 which got extended to T375. I probably should have just run the golden ages earlier, starting around T250.

As well as I understand the question, you are asking if corporations are better than communism - in terms of finishing the space race faster?
We ran Mercantalism / Caste / Mining Incorporated / Cereal Mills and got approximately 6 beakers, 14 hammers, 6 food per city.
I did not look up what we could get with State Property.
Space race is a huge investment of hammers and beakers.
So I do not know if I could have shaved turns off by running state property instead of mercantalism.

I do know I could have shaved 50 turns off the game by researching astronomy earlier, building galleons, and sending all those cavalry and cannons over to the aztecs.

Keep the richest lands and gift everything else to friendly trading partners (not vassals).

Destroy the Aztecs. Colonise and gift the Americas to the Incas.

Gift Sub-Saharan Africa and the Arabian Peninsula to Mali. I keep the fertile crescent.

Gift Australasia and the Western Pacific islands to Japan.

Have I gone over the domination limit yet? If not, what else can I keep?

The big yellow blob was our territory and we were running about 45%.

General comment about Earth18:
It's quirky and it's fun a few times or so. If I am doing it again, I can think of some modifiers:
18 out of 34 civilizations appear in the Earth18 scenario.
7 out of 14 European civilizations are present. This makes Europe too crowded.
3 out of 5 American civilizations are present. South America got blocked off.
3 out of 5 Mid-East civilizations are present. (I might make my division of civilizations better. Included Egypt and Arabia.)
1 out of 4 African civilizations are present. (These are grouped as extras.)
4 out of 6 Asian civilizations are present.
Resources are too crowded. I do not know the correct number of resources for a huge map.
Some civs need to be moved or changed. I do not know the ideal amount of room for an AI civ. How many cities do they need to build.

 

[Harv]

For those who are interested in the general discussion of the Earth18 map, I rolled a random huge continents map and this is what I found:

Earth 18 ---->Random Huge
124x68 Overall Size 128x80
3246 Ocean 7248
2111 Coast 594
322 Snow 227
402 Tundra 195
518 Desert 264
778 Plains 659
1055 Grass 1053
8432 Total 10240
I did not look for hills or mountains. I also did not look for goody huts.
This huge map is somewhat bigger and has a lot more ocean tiles. Much of the difference is water tiles. Earth map has more coast tiles.
Two reasons I can think of - One is the earth map is more irregularly shaped and therefore has more coastal tiles. Another is the Earth map has more tiles marked as coast that should be ocean.
I have not thought about if it is generally more possible to place more cities on the Earth map. I am thinking it is because the coastlines are longer and more coast tiles can be placed within city bfc's.

34 Fish 20
18 Crab 7
12 Clam 11
64 Sea Resources 38

15 Corn 16
16 Wheat 8
8 Rice 16
39 Granary 40

19 Cow 18
18 Sheep 9
12 Pig 13
23 Deer 10
72 Meat 50

9 Wine 7

13 Gold 8
12 Silver 6
13 Gems 4
38 Precious Minerals 18

13 Fur 8
10 Ivory 9
13 Whale 4
36 Market 21

9 Silk 9
18 Dye 7
11 Incense 4
13 Spice 7
12 Sugar 8
11 Banana 9
74 Calendar 44

19 Copper 14
22 Iron 20
17 Horse 14
20 Coal 11
16 Aluminum 11
14 Uranium 12
22 Oil 19

10 Stone 5
9 Marble 10

Some of the difference might be due to longer coastlines, so more seafood and whale resources. More deer might be due to more tundra. More incense might be due to more desert.
Resources on the random map are often in silly places.

Some of the unbalance in the map might be due to the way resources are distributed. Europe is heavy because there are lots of locations for capital cities. Asia is also heavy. Africa is light.
The rest of the unbalance is due to things like:
7 of 18 Civs start in a European location. This makes Europe very crowded. The AI does not know how to deal with this.
Japan is on an island and takes a while to deal with it. Also Toku personality.
Mongolia has terrible land and does not know how to fight China.
Mali land has only a few resources and nowhere good to expand, which is what AI does.
That leaves China, India, Arabia, Persia, and Egypt. From what I remember, China tends to run away.
The Inca are hemmed in by the mountains.
South America is blocked off.
Monty builds too many units and cannot tech well.
Roosy does not build enough units and is next to an aggressive neighbor.

 

[Trout]

Sorry to be jumping in here quite late - I also posted this in the E18 Mali thread. Yes, I am also one of the few who really love the Earth 18 scenario and have played it quite a bit. From my experience, I would add:

1. The starting positions are deliberately not fair as the scenario is trying to be historically accurate so the West African region is very poor in resources and fertile land as compared to China or Europe, because the reality is exactly that.

2. Playing raging barbarians does not add to the gameplay in this scenario in my opinion because it just puts Egypt, Mali, and Mongols in an even worse spot than they already are as even normal barbarians will pummel them while Japan, England, Aztecs, Arabians, and the Europeans are barely touched by them.

3. If you want to play for high score and/or challenge yourself by running the table as fast as you can, then you do so by: play any continental european civ, warrior rush the others, which will leave you with five capital cities that will fuel your game until the end. Build colossus and great lighthouse because of all of the water on the map. In the late game, go corporations with Mining/SS or Mining/Cereal Mills. SS is faster and CM will not hurt your economy as much since the maintenance penalty of SS for overseas locations is huge. What I tend to do in that situation is both - spread SS in the Old World and CM in the New World, Australia, Pacific Islands, etc.

4. If you are able to get GLH and Colossus, I find that you can expand as fast as you want and not crash your economy.

5. Because of the large number of cities on the map, shrines can really garner a lot of cash. Spain, Arabia, Monty, Hatty, and India are the ones who typically found the religions.

6. If you play Persia, your mission is pop all of those huts that are in your vicinity, build immortals, kill Egypt/Arabia/India, then turtle until your economy recovers.

7. Some civs absolutely should not SIP. Mali (for the reasons already discussed), Persia should move one tile north to grab the horses, and Inca/Spain should found capital on the coast.

8. If you play Japan, your mission is to acquire sailing and bronze working (oh wow! How convenient that I start with fishing, mining, copper, and two huts on my island) then build galley and two axes and capture Beijing. After that build your rising sun empire as Yamamoto tried but failed to do.

9. If you don't capture Mecca before Arabia has LB's, you will have a difficult fight on your hands.

10. If you play China, just expand, kill, and win the game. You have the best land outside of Europe and nobody to contest you for it. I find that expanding to Korea first works well because the land is very rich and I want to grab it before Japan or Mongols claim it. After that just work your way down to grab all of China and Indochina before swallowing up Japan and India at your leisure.

 

[pigswill]

Trout: I'm afraid I have to disagree with point 1. The reason that western Europe is covered in resources is to enable England, France, Germany and Spain to have rich terrritory so they have a chance of winning the game. There's no way that Europe has that many resources compared to the rest of the world, its simply an attempt to rationalise Europe's colonial domination in the last two hundred years.

 

[Trout]

Pigswill: There may be a bit of that but .... Was the Mediterranean Sea rich in fish historically? Yes. Did Italy, France, Spain, England, and Greece all have access to iron within their borders in roughly the geographical area depicted in E18? Yes. Were there horses historically in Europe? Yes. Did it have more wine than other parts of the Old World? Yes. Did France and England have coal mines? Yes. Is the North Sea rich in seafood? Yes. Was there wheat fields in France, England, Poland, and northern Italy? Yes. Was there stone and marble available in the places depicted in E18? Absolutely. I believe there are more ancient marble structures in Europe than anywhere else and the marble was not imported from afar.

Does Western Africa have any of that? Answer is no. They have elephants, rivers, and salt which was where their wealth came from during their Golden Age. In modern times, oil is located there .. just as depicted in E18.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

The OP did not state her victory condition! It is hard to discuss if we don't know the purpose. I assume it is "domination or conquest in the fewest number of turns".

For domination, we train a hundred settlers, enter caste system, run an artist in every city (or music), and wait for victory in eternal strike. We can conquer the entire old world, or only conquer the juicy bits, while we settle the new world with astronomy. I am not sure which is faster.

For conquest, we don't want too many cities. We want a strong core and capitulate everyone as soon as possible. The "number of cities" component of maintenance is capped at 8. We take astronomy and finish off the Americas.

Real world history mud fight.

Spoiler :

I don't like wine as a resource. There is nothing special about drinks made from grapes as opposed to other foods. I would replace it with potato. I think there is enough historical significance. So now we have four (4) early agriculture resources.

Even mud fights have rules. Whenever you suggest adding a resource, you must suggest which one to take away.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Also I have been playing fan-made Earth maps. Bigger map. The immersion of exploration and building a civilisation is stronger.