Escape From Eurasia

[XDrake]

I have began a game today with the initial goal of making an Empire out of Austraila and the West Indies. Austraila is often under utilized in the game and seems to be a natural hiding place from godly civilizations.

I start as the Greeks and make an epic Settler journey to the Indian Ocean to work on developing MapMaking. I know, I am losing time... But I want to be behind and forced to catch up.

 

[XDrake]

Two minutes into playing and I already made friends...

Time to wander around and trade knowledge with everybody... Except the Russians. I know sharing something with one lets them all have it in time but I want to give weaker civilizations the edge on the Russians with The Wheel.

 

[XDrake]

My escape from Eurasia was not the sweeping success I hoped. As soon as I arrived in Australia with my settlers the Indians began attacking my city. With my two Chariots outside of Leningrad I decided that I could not return and save the city. Quickly founding Drake Capital and occupying it with my boat and making it home base I attacked Leningrad and managed to destroy it. Even though the Indians betrayed me I know the personalities on the continents to know Stalin would take them down. The Chinese, Indians, nor the Eqyptians could match him. Maybe destroying that city and sharing all my knowledge I collected from everyone with all but the Russians it would stop them. I gave them all the Wheel before I vanished.

It didn't help for long.

Landing in Australia...

I discovered I was not alone in ambition for the small continent. Zulus had three cities there. Founding my city in the hills in the south I feel confident ships will not overrun my city and bombard it.

I wanted to send scouts to Eurasia to gather information on city locations and make peace... But the Zulus had other ideas.

Blocking me in my city with fortifying units I needed to make three chariots to mush the Zulus away. They did not have the wheel and demanded technology or they would give me no peace.

Shaka futher proved himself just like Stalin when he broke peace all the time. At one point I was down to one chariot and a phalanx in my city as one settler unit built. My chariot hung out in the center of the continent in the desert, attacking units would come down toward my city and my chariot would stop them in the desert.

As my city grew to level three I built three more chariots and had four...

And sacked the hell out of the Zulus for pure revenge. This was a small continent and dispite my peaceful nature, one of us had to go.

And now I build. And the years pass. The Russians have remained quiet and no ships have arrived at my shores. Not even an iron clad.

My technology is backward at best. The Russians are not that far ahead surprisingly. After landing and destroying one of their ports in Asia I took Navigation from them.

I sacked another city and they took it back. I did not feel the need to send more of my army. I had a lot of surplus, but I was not there for conquest. I wanted to destroy the few cities he had in Asia from his Indian and Chinese conquests. Those cities one day may send ships and bombers.

 

[colontos]

Reading with interest!

 

[XDrake]

I am solidifying my small island empire by destroying the Russian cities of Asia. They could grow and prove troublesome in the future. Only a couple remain, but no ports. If I do not destroy the few on land they will eventually spew out new ports. Can't have that.

Russian ports are gone and I plan to stalk the cities later. For now it is time to focus on the Americans and check their progress.

I am perplexed after taking the continents as their own from the French (yes, the French), America rules the Americas. And boy have they sat on their ass and did nothing. It is very unlike them since they usually are a technological marval. Like the Russians they have no drive and were only a little ahead of Russian technology. Sending four sails of diplomats and finding all their cities in one turn I stole all their technology and made an embassy.

And know what? That made me from the most backward to he most advanced. Now the Russians are afraid of me for some reason, meeting me in America and offering me immediate peace. They have two phalanx units surrounded by Americans.

Last scenerio proved to me that the constant wars and multiple civilizations made technology advance fast. Seeing two other civilizations makes it slow down obviously.

I could surgically send in three sails of Chariots as a suicide squad and destroy the capital and split them... But there is no reason to do so yet. They do not bother me here. Oddly enough all their ships are in the Atlantic.

My islands are almost complete in their buildings. I want to remain a benevolent republic and avoid contact with enemies. I feel building observation cities on Madagascar, Britain, Cuba, Japan, or Svalbard will invite unwanted contact with Russia or America. The least their ships are near my cities the better. Until then I will win the technological race by speeding my own cities and stealing anything they come up with.

In an age where we should be fearing nuclear fall out we still fight with chariots and legions. Americans only now know the Wheel because I gave it to them. How pathetic.

 

[XDrake]

Although I still surpassed in the technology race the the Americans and Russians caught up quick. My embassies showed them getting technology from each other as it developed, always stealing it. The Russians even landed an armor on Cassius Isle. It ended peacefully with them offering peace because of my United Nations wonder.

And surprisingly, they left the island.

Russian battleships and cruisers come by on occassion, but they ignore me and move on toward the Americas. It looks like America is beginning to terraform and build.

Watching the ending reel of the game I realized why the Americans were so far behind. They were the Chinese at the beginning of the game and around 800BC the Indians destroyed them, and they popped up in the empty Americas. The Germans failed as well at the hands of Russia and the French repoped in South America.

The Americans were backward because of arriving so late. They are catching up nicely and consolidating unlike the Russians who build and can't manage to make roads to connect cities. I am sure if I dropped six transports of armor I would destroy them before they could back up their cities.

 

[XDrake]

I'm so fed up.

I let my democracy fail by sending in three transports of armor to Africa. A big war, right? I pay America to join, which it does for a single turn and makes peace... But that is not where the fun is.

I might actually mess up the Russians. As some lone tanks protect me from northern reinforcements America sneak attacks me with a ship against Drake Capital. It fails, but I was pretty much decimated by American bombers.

America must have sent ever bomber they had via South America to Africa. After thinking a moment I figure this is obviously why they have a good presence in Africa and own all of the west African ports and many of the southern cities.

Anyone who dares cross the desert gets blown up.

Frustrated enough I did something unfair and tacky, I know... I went back in time to 30 years to a saved game.

I want to say before I do this that I am not a quitter in life. But if I can't have it, nobody will.

I call this my Kim Jong-Il strategy.

Feeling like the fat kid in physical fitness class with other the Americans and Russians treating me like their own personal ATM I am taking it personally. I'm going to force nuclear winter.

Now I could do this by just attacking Russian cities in Asia. But no, I want to use the most underutilized unit in Civ. The Carrier.

This seems drastic and unsportsman like, but I want to test a theory.

In the center of Austraila I notice that in the desert I cannot get a city to last long because it is almost uninhabitable. I got it up to level 2 for a while but the first time a natural disaster hit there it died somehow.

My theory is after nuclear winter is over when I clean it up later I can found a city there because I can change those once deserts into plains.

Now that is following the theory that I survive this dispite my lack of rivers to keep me alive. I believe I will probably die.

On another note this is a personal city gluttony record.

32? Biggest I have seen a city grow. And it is a capital no less. It is just in a perfect spot. I am going to feel a little bad when I hit it with a nuclear missle.

 

[XDrake]

Somehow one of my posts didn't show up. Pity. Let me recap the one that happened between the last two.

America and the Soviets went to war. America took a lot of African cities and has been fighting them in both Africa and Europe ever since. America has more than half the cities in Africa and gains and loses some of them daily.

And to top that off peace broke out. The Russians thought in the down time I would be an easy fight. So they landed there and have been taking money from me to maintain peace. My United Nations wonder must be bugged, because they want war if I don't pay.

America likes demanding tribute as well.

I decided since America can't seem to take Africa on their own, I would land in eastern Africa with some transports and help them out. You see it didn't go well.

Back to the present...

As my carrier left harbor heading for the Atlantic the Russians decided to attack. They took one of my cities and failed in taking one of my other islands. They even had a transport full of units in the sea that was one square from landing but a nuclear took care of that.

Not as early as I suspected my nuclear ambitions beginning, but I gave their new city and their Asian cities something special. I appreciated their surprise attack with a surprise of their own.

 

[XDrake]

I did survive the fall out with two fruitful cities. Drake Capital and Sargo survived because of surplus fish. Drake Capital also has hills that provide it an abundence of production. Enough to make an invasion force.

I am beginning a style of warfare I call Mad Max. In an apocolypse world I can land armors and destroy cities that are barely hanging on.

The real meat is in taking cities that occupy major rivers. With those I can keep the fall out going and build an even greater army to wipe out the remaining life on the planet. I can utilize the remaining river valleys to clean up the pollution and rebuild the world in my image.

 

[XDrake]

Regretably I brought a lot of problems I did not anticipate. Dispite killing probably close to 50 million people world wide it did not stop the war. America and Russia still fought on hundreds of years after fall out. I could not hold cities very long but I destroyed them instead of keeping them. The beauty was there was nowhere left to build new ones so each one I destoyed was a death nail.

After about 10 transports I slayed the Russians. I didn't keep one city. The Americans made it damn near impossible to get near their cities because of bombers. Making peace I managed to get close enough and destroy their cities in just three turns.

With Europe, Asia, and Africa free I am beginning a new world by landing a settler in the Yellow River Valley in China to build a first new city. After a little irrigation I am sending another to Asia to begin cleaning up pollution there. Then Europe, and with a diplomat to help me get around eventually America. My recommendation if you ever use fall out as a win tactic is to keep the pollution in one place. Makes it easier to turn off nuclear winter.

I slayed a giant weakened by the fall out. But the real lesson here is you can hide out from enemies on World Map. While the world went on I hid our people away and had a good casulty record. Out of sight, out of mind. I am sure around 1700 I could have invaded and turned the tides on Russia.

Some minor lessons are to destroy some agressive enemies early. My tree of importance goes...

Mongols>Russians>Greeks>Zulus

Greeks are not the best land army but they spread like cancer and if they have a small continent they start out on they will rule the seas and land troops everywhere.

 

[GoldBerg]

thanks for this very inspiring story -
a pleasure to view and read!

 

[sjongejonge]

Very nice story! Shame the pictures aren't working anymore but my own imagination worked out the graphical details.

 

[GoldBerg]

...would be great to see (again) (more) savegame stories with screenshots and *map and *sve files attached here
or
at the conquests at the games of a period of time (GOTM) forums here
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/may-2016-riverworld.567470/#post-14509353 (for example).

 

[Autumn Leaf]

Reading this was fun. More please!

His plan for using global warming to turn Australia's deserts into post-apocalyptic farmland inspired me to start work on a new GOTM scenario. Not to give out too many spoilers, it involves a desert. A planet-wide desert. And spice.

I'd hoped to have it done by now but during testing it threw a fatal bug at 2740 BC. Not sure what went wrong but I suspect the game didn't cope well with 100% land and corrupted the map.