Gunpowder Empires

[Chalito]

So this is the Rise and Fall of the Mughals scenario, with some slight modifications to the rules, but major modifications with a new map and added Civs. The original scenario is one of my favorites, but the biggest reason I modded this was to add the Ottomans and give the Safavids something to worry about! But with the Ottomans added I had to make a decision about adding their European rivals, but that just would’ve changed this scenario too much, one that is still centered around India. So with that I just chopped off almost all of the European part of the Ottomans Empire!!! Another issue is this scenario begins in 1521, which is after the Ottomans conquest of the Middle East was in full swing. But I’ve taken the artistic liberty to pretend this happened later on, so this scenario includes the Mamluks, Hejaz, Tahirids, etc… Create your own Ottoman Empire is what I say!

Notes:
PTW style bombarding
No Settlers, all land has been settled.
Raging Barbarians, with no Attack bonuses
Ottomans allied with Adal and Gujarat
Portuguese allied with Abyssinia
Other new civs are: Georgia, Hejaz, Mamluks, Tahirid, Funj, Khanate of Bukhara, Khanate of Khiva, Gujapati, Malwa, Gujarat, Sindh, Gondwana
Nepal renamed to Nepal/Tibet
Original number of units and location is the same as original scenario, except more defenders to occupy the added cities.

House Rules for AI fair play
-Artillery Stack no more than 5, unless the AI is spotted with larger stack.
-All captured Artillery is disbanded.
-No pillaging of Roads by any units. Bombarding Roads is allowed. (This is the opposite of what the AI does)
-No Build-Rush of any Unit or Improvement in any captured city until the population is over 50% my citizens.
-No See Invisible units in captured cities until the population is over 50% my citizens.
-Naval ships never bombard AI ships, unless in port.
-Every war must last at least 15 turns, unless Peace Treaty is first offered by the AI.
-Every Peace must last at least 20 turns, unless the AI starts it first again.
-No obvious AI exploits, like leaving abandoned cities in the interior.
-No forced starvation at captured cities, riots are put down by minimum effort. Starvation sometimes still happens, but it’s not due to a deliberate program of Genocide!
-No protection of HN units.
-No protection escorts for Workers except for AA units.

Now to the first Test Game Report, obviously going to pick the Ottomans for this one. Grab your musket and let’s go!

1526 April
Population: 530,000 4th
Land: 18,300 sq ml 2nd

Logistics:
0 Coolie (Workers)

Infantry
19 Defender of the Faith 2-3-1
2 Palace Guard 3-4-1 (Auto-built)
4 Immobile 20-4-0
16 Janissary 5-5-1

Mounted:
8 Sipahi 5-2-3

Artillery:
7 Cannon 0(8)-0-1


Ottomans start with a Unit advantage over the Mamluks and Safavids, so you got to be aggressive right from the start to expand against these guys. I’m hoping the AI will take advantage of this too. Around 6 of these Janissary units are located overseas in Adal and Gujarat, our faithful allies.

First up would have to be the Mamluks, I needed to secure my access to the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean beyond, so Suez was the main objective. Afterwards would be the Safavids and the march to Basrah.

The Mamluk Sultanate is shaped like a long, bent toothpick, almost like present day Chile, thus a very narrow front line from where we are traveling. This shape will make it a lot easier to conquer!! We began to move just about all of our available attacking units (5 Cannon, 7 Janissary, 7 Sipahi) to Gaziantep to prepare for the invasion. Back in Anatolia all cities were directed to build Coolies, Barracks and Janissaries. We were going to step on their throat and not take it off!

1530 April – I had spotted some Mamluk units heading east of Aleppo and figured they were heading on a Barbarian Camp raid. This was my opportunity to catch them with lightly defended cities. And did we ever! The Sipahi units raced the plains to take Adana, Tarsus and Aleppo in a single turn!!! We only lost to 2 Sipahi units in the process.

 

[Chalito]

1530 Dec – Hama was captured and our Janissary unit got us a GA!!!
Unfortunately, I had a bunch of injured units now, taking care of the wandering Mamluks that returned to the fight as well. With no Barracks nearby to recover quickly, I had to take our first Operational Pause!

IBT - Barbarian sea units have been bombarding Izmir and Rhodes, going to have to build a Navy asap before most of our City Improvements are destroyed.

But then it happened, a catastrophe at Erzincan! We lost a Cannon unit and the town itself too after our Defender of the Faith unit failed to hold the town, from a sneaky Camel Mameluk unit traveling through Safavid territory! We would need to gather some forces here before attempting to recapture it, the cup was bare out north.

1532 Dec – After some rest and recovery, Beirut was captured, but it was a bit costly! Nonetheless Damascus was next!

IBT – We were forced to pay the Safavids 55 Gold for Peace. It would’ve gotten ugly if I didn’t.


1534 April – We’ve started to face some stiffer resistance and the road to Damascus was long and bloody, but eventually captured the city! We are facing the following Mamluk units…
Mameluke 5-3-3
Arab Archers 4(3)-1-1
Arabian Halberdier 1-4-1
We’ve taken 6 Mamluk cities, but that’s forced us to hold back 6 Janissary units to control those towns. It takes our reinforcements quite a long time to reach the front lines.

IBT - Portuguese demand 57 Gold! I told them to shove it and it was War with them too!!


1535 Aug - Recaptured Erzincan after sending an expeditionary force (1 Cannon, 3 Janissary, 2 Sipahi, 1 Palace Guard)! I wanted to make sure I had a big enough force to capture it in the first attack.


1536 Apr - Jaffa was captured! I decided to bypass Jerusalem and head straight to Gaza and finally Suez, the objective! More fresh Janissaries units are slowly coming down to reinforce and the thought came that maybe I should just continue down to the Nile! In Gujarat, our forces have taken a pounding by the Portuguese forces who marched from Diu. The Gujarati are doing nothing, since our Homeland hasn’t been directly attacked. GRRRR, so much for Allies! In the Mediterranean, we build 1 Pirate Prowler which has defeated and created more ships, I have like 7 in total from just building 1 of them.


1538 Dec - Gaza was captured!! This is a VP location, so lots of units used up to take this town. Suez was on the crosshairs! The thought is still there, that maybe all of Egypt is ripe for the picking as well…

1540 April- Barbarian Camp cleared in Cyprus!


1541 August - Suez was captured, only 1 Sipahi lost! Jerusalem is taken in Peace Treaty negotiations. I have already begun placing units on the Safavid frontier for our next adventure. The boys in Gujarat are holding steady, eventually the Portuguese will get it though! 3 turns away from getting upgraded Janissary II units!

 

[Chalito]

1544 August - Gujarat enters the war against the Portuguese after a lone Portuguese cannon appears next to Adana. They came via the long route around Africa!

IBT – We received earth-shattering news came from across the world, the Mughals had declared war on Safavids!!! I realized this was big news, but did not know how consequential this would be for the rest of the world! Almost instantly the Safavids gathered an alliance of Vijayanagar, Golconda and Gujarat to declare war on Mughals! Rug Roh, my damn allies were about to drag me in this mess!

1545 June – And almost as fast as the alliance was signed, the Safavids declared war against Gujarat, what a betrayal!! This was it, we were going to battle the Big Boy on the block and I wasn’t completely ready yet!!!
Bengal and Abyssinia were also signed up against the Mughals! Kandahar had already been taken by the Safavids. It’s an official Indian Ocean World War now!

1547 December -
IBT – Abyssinia attacked Adal, the Mughals attacked Gujarat and the Safavids attacked Gujarat! We were officially dragged into this war now, facing the large enemy to the east.

1548 Oct – We raced any extra units in the Egypt province back to Anatolia, leaving only 2 Cannon and 2 Janissary units each as our line of defense in Suez and Jerusalem.
Erzincan had 2 Janissary, 2 Janissary II, 1 Palace Guard and 3 Rocket Wala.
Elbistan had 1 Defender of the Faith, 4 Janissary II, 5 Sipahi, 1 Rocket Wala, but 3 more on the way. I decided to sent units across the frontier to scout the Safavid units in Diyarbakir and immediately my heart sank. The Safavids had Sikh Guard units stationed there. At 5-8-1, my Sipahi 5 attack unit would struggle mightily against them. The Heroic Cavalry at 6 attack might be a little better, so decide to build a few of these. So my army would be very sluggish with my very capable, but slow moving Janissary II units, it’s going to be a slog.

IBT – Ahmednagar declared war on us.


1549 Aug IBT - Aaaargh, the Safavids have the Artillery Cavalry 10(4)-4-3 already and it ignores the movement cost of Hills!!! Disaster as Gaziantep was lost and another Safavid unit went deep in north to take a Coolie!

1550 June - Retook Gaziantep after losing only 1 Sipahi! Didn’t give the Safavids anytime to reinforce the city.

1551 April - War with Gondwana just started.

1552 February- War with Georgians! This one matters as we share a short border. Oh well, on to the Caucasus!

1554 Aug – Khanate of Khiva, Tibet, Malwa and Ceylon all declare war. There’s so much stuff happening, I can’t keep up anymore. I’ll just write about the important Civs declaring war and in this turn, a very important Civ declared war, the Mamluks! Okay they are not that important with only 5 cities left, but they are on the border way down south and now I have to spread my forces around.

1556 April – At this point, my forces in Erzincan and Elbistan had scaled up to the point where I could sent siege forces to hit Diyarbakir and Ezerum as a fixing action. I have been pounding any Safavid or Georgian unit that crossed the border, more importantly the Safavid cities of Diyarbakir and Ezerum had been effectively destroyed by our continuing Rocket Wala barrage! The Rocket Wala has a firing range of 2 tiles, which made it a lot easier to set up. But I had now gathered a much larger force to go on the offensive and attack Diyarbakir and we did and we were able to captured it! I should note, the Safavids were sending some paltry units to attack. No doubt their full concentration was on the war in the east with the Mughals. I could only imagine the carnage happening over there!

1558 October – Signed Peace Treaties with Mughals, Ahmednagar, Gondwana and just realized I’m at war with the French too.

IBT –Portuguese and Gujarat sign a Peace Treaty and that ends the battles against the 2 alliances.
Adal and Abyssinian traded no cites, but Abyssinian had lost 2 cities to Barbarian tribes!
Gujarat captured Diu, but lost Cambay to the Portuguese and then to the Safavids. I don’t know how the Safavids have been able to hold this town that is completely surrounded!
Georgian Heroic Cavalry approach Trabzon, now that is a concern! I mostly ignored the Georgians, I hadn’t realized they had some strong units.

1559 Aug – Back in Anatolia, our army group in Elbistan had scaled up enough to now launch an attack as well and Ezerum was captured! In Diyarbakir, our units had recuperated enough to go back out and we decided to push deep into Mesopotamia, Mosul was next! The momentum was ours!

IBT – A fierce counter-attack on Ezerum by Georgians and Safavids failed, but just barely!

1560 June - ARRRRRRGGGHHH!!!! Adal and Safavids signed a Peace Treaty, just as I was launching an attack on Mosul!!!!

Population: 5,898,000 2nd
Land: 52,100 sq ml 2nd

VP Scores:
Safavids 21,700
Mughals 16,260
Vasco’s Traders 10,600
Khanate of Bukhara 9,955
Ottomans 9,095
Abyssinia 9,035


Logistics:
18 Coolie (Workers)

Infantry
17 Defender of the Faith 2-3-1
7 Palace Guard 3-4-1 (Auto-built)
4 Immobile 20-4-0
11 Janissary 5-5-1
26 Janissary II 9-7-1

Mounted:
3 Sipahi 5-2-3
2 Heroic Cavalry

Artillery:
14 Rocket Wala 0(10)-0-1

Navy:
6 Pirate Prowler

Waiting until I got the tech for the Artillery Cavalry before I started building more Mounted Units. We were falling behind in Victory Points though. But there’s other ways to win in this scenario. Although I’m not even attempting to build any of the Great Wonders, at Emperor Level that’s just not possible for me.
Around the world, the Safavids had taken Quetta, Ghazni along with Kandahar from Mughals. But lost Merv to Bukhara!

 

[Chalito]

1564 October - Portuguese demand a Map and 31 Gold. Who do these guys think they are!!! War was back on! Mughals and Safavids finally sign a Peace Treaty! Maybe this peace can spread around, it’s a mad world!

1566 October – With the Safavid Peace Treaty holding, I launch an offensive towards the Georgians and was able to take Batumi! The Georgians immediately ask for peace and I agree, but I also take the town of Gagra during negotiations as well. I mean why not!

In the south, we’ve been getting hit by the Invisible Fakir units, but I don’t think these are Mamluks, I think they’re Hejaz units! I had been sending units from the Safavid front down to Gaza via Sea, but suffered a sea attack which took down 3 Elite Janissary units! It was a HN naval vessel, but I suspect they might have been Portuguese, those bastards! This was so devastating that when the Mamluks asked for Peace, I went ahead and agreed right away.

1571 October- War with Mughals started up again, but I won’t face them at all with the Safavids in the middle of us.

1576 October- Safavids declare war on Mughals, the big boys at it again.

1579 October- Once more we get dragged into war with the Mamluks! That’s it, I’m determined to eliminate them once and for all! At this time, the Funj (present-day Sudan)also declared war on us and they were currently at war with the Mamluks too.

1580 October - Portuguese land units near Adana, where I have only 1 unit defending! I rushed Janissary units from Diyarbakir, but Adana is too far to defend in this turn.

IBT – A miracle!! The Portuguese signed a Peace Treaty with Adal, thus ending our war too, Adana is saved!
In India, the Vijayanagar have killed off the Bijapur. The Mughals are also getting ripped apart by a bunch of Civs, mostly by Bengal!

1586 October- Well it took a while to scale up to a comfortable level and launch an offensive on Cairo. I have to keep all southern cities heavily defended due to the invisible, Hidden Nationality Fakir units. But Cairo was finally captured at last and The Grand Hareem Great Wonder was taken, YUSSSSSSS!!! The Mamluks had already lost their southern cities to the Funj, so only Alexandria was next. Now we needed to defend against the Funj!

Back in India, the Malwa and Rajput were eliminated! The primary abusers here were the Portuguese and the Dutch. I should note the Brits had done nothing in India, they lost Bombay and are down to Madras and Calcutta. The French lost Pondicherry and were pretty weak overall. I’m thinking of adding some Indochina cities in the next update, but I would have to creatively locate them around the Tibetan Plateau since the map doesn’t go that far east.

1588 October - War with the Portuguese again, man I hate these guys!

IBT – DOH! Antalya falls to Mamluks! Didn’t notice they had landed a couple of units on the previous turn!

1590 October - Antalya recaptured quickly, but many City Improvements were destroyed!
Back in the south, we stormed the city of Alexandria and the Mamluks had ceased to exist, good riddance!! At this time the Georgians declared war again. I’m getting tired of these guys too!

1592 October – Sindh Sultanate was destroyed!

1593 October - Peace Treaty was signed with Funj, so some peace in the south, but for how long?!? Just as I was getting ready to launch an assault on the Georginas, the Safavids attacked Gujarat and we were back at war!!

Population: 8,920,000 4th
Land: 62,000 sq ml 2nd

VP Scores:
Safavids 32,885
Mughals 31,010
Bengal 23,235
Vasco’s Traders 20,775
Ottomans 17,515
Vijayanagar 15,695


Logistics:
18 Coolie (Workers)

Infantry
15 Defender of the Faith 2-3-1
9 Palace Guard 3-4-1 (Auto-built)
1 Immobile 20-4-0
5 Janissary 5-5-1
31 Janissary II 9-7-1

Asymmetric:
9 Fakir (Invisible, See Invisible)

Mounted:
6 Artillery Cavalry 10-4-3
3 Sipahi 5-2-3
2 Heroic Cavalry

Artillery:
16 Rocket Wala 0(10)-0-1

Navy:
1 Pirate Prowler

We’ve fallen a lot further behind in VP’s, but are much stronger militarily than all of our opponents, I think. I don’t even know how the Mughals are still so high, when they have been reduced to a paltry 5 cities! Vijayanagar and Bengal are slowly carving up the Indian subcontinent for themselves.

1595 October- By I now had the vaunted Artillery Cavalry and was ready to put the hurt on the Safavids. In Diyarbakir, I had assembled a force of 5 Artillery Cavalry, 4 Janissary II and 4 Rocket Wala. The plan was to keep reinforcing this group with new units on the long march to Basra and possibly further east to Isfahan where many Great Wonders awaited! In the north I had 7 total Rocket Wala units and I planned to create pinning actions on the Safavids in Tblisi, Kars and Yerevan. There was a Mountain tile that was 2 tiles from both Kars and Yerevan, here I located 4 Rocket Wala and a bunch of Janissary units to hit them routinely on every turn. We marched south and captured Mosul with the quickness! But we still had some healthy Cavalry units, so we pushed on and also captured Kirkuk on the same turn!!

IBT – ARGGGG!!! Just as fast as we captured Kirkuk, we lost the city! Also noticed the Georgians were at war with Safavids! Maybe they could advance on the Safavids with the help of my artillery!
Back in the south some very Big Portuguese ships were pounding Suez!! I never did get to build up my Navy and now I’m paying the price for it.

1596 October- All techs researched! Hit the Research slider down to 0% and was about to get +300 gpt, let’s go! 3 Portuguese units had landed outside of Antalya, but were eliminated. I needed to use that Gold for my Navy! Signed a peace treaty with Georgia and gave them back the town of Gagra, so they can battle the Safavids a bit better. That town was useless to me.
It looks like each turn is a year now, so I'll just write out the year from now on.

1598 - Gujarat have been eliminated! Mostly by the Portuguese!
Portuguese land units are now attacking Cairo, they walked a long way through Africa, quite a menace!

1601 - After a long fight in present-day northern Iraq, Kirkuk is captured again!!! This time I send some Janissary units for defense.

IBT - Tibet is eliminated, finished off by the Bukharans, after Bengal had taken the other half. Here we go, our advanced Siege units (red arrows below are the fire controls) spotted a bunch of Safavids Cavalry pushing north towards Batumi!! And it was a lot of them! RUH ROH!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

I'd love to see a map of India as well

 

[Chalito]

I'd love to see a map of India as well

I had taken this screenshot to show the Portuguese, Vijayanagar and Bengali expansion areas, then decided not to post it. It also shows 4 Dutch cites. It's mostly concentrated on the areas around our former beloved Gujarat allies. The "Bunker" west of Ahmedabad is where our Ottoman forces were fortified, before they got slaughtered. If I get some time this weekend, I'll take some screenshots that include the Deccan as well. India is packed with cities!

 

[Chalito]

1603 - Hejaz declares war. We’ve been dealing with Portuguese attacks on Cairo, but this might spread our forces a bit too much in the south! This is a real concern, as none of these Mamluk cities were ever able to become productive for the Ottoman Empire. Back in Kirkuk, our only offensive units were healing, but Baghdad was next on the agenda for them.

IBT – The Safavids came for Batumi and our defense couldn’t hold, we lost Batumi! And now they’re coming for Trabzon, this is a productive city!
Back in the south, another group of Portuguese Mounted units arrived from the Arabian de sert, they must have traveled all the way from from Bahrain and Muscat. It was getting desperate down there too.

1604 – In the north, our Rocket Wala siege units were now too advanced to protect us, and so both stacks were ordered back for defense! The Safavid AI had completely out-flank us!!! I really didn’t want to lose Trabzon, so I sent all units from Ezerum to Trabzon, a higher value city, leaving only 1 unit there. Trading space for time, we’d get it back eventually, probably.

In Mesopotamia, we were ready to advance and Baghdad was captured! Unfortunately, we knew we had reached culmination for a bit. We needed to send some of our Cavalry units up north to beat back the Safavid offensive over there.

IBT – To my shock, the Safavids completely ignored Ezerum and attacked the more heavily defended Trabzon, never seen that before from the AI. And this was a huge mistake for them! Ezerum wasn’t important to us, but if they had captured it, they would have used all the roads that would lead to even more very lightly defended cities. And by very lightly I mean, there’s 1 unit in all those cities each, with a simple stat of 4 defense. This gave me the opportunity to get one of my Rocket Wala stacks into the town to properly defend it.
In the south, a catastrophe, as Suez fell to the Hejaz! We were all in shambles down there! Cairo was full of units fighting the Portuguese, and now I needed to decide how many I could spare to fight the Hejaz!

1605 – Suez is recaptured! But I only have mounted units in the town, can’t get any Janissary moving fast enough to defend the town. Safavids asked for a Peace Treaty with no conditions!! Very strange, but I’m liking the struggle, so I say NO, let’s fight to the death! This would end up being a bad judgment call…

IBT – Ugh, we lost Suez again! In the Caucasus, Georgia has eliminated and now we can observe 27 Safavids Cavalry units on their way to Trabzon. In Mesopotamia, 9 Viceroy Cavalry units 10-5-3 arrived at the outskirts of Baghdad.

1606 - Suez recaptured again, this time I was able to put in a Janissary unit for defense! My units are spread very thin….
Trabzon = 4 Janissary II, 1 Palace Guard, 1 Fakir, 4 Artillery Cavalry, 2 Rocket Wala.
Ezerum = 4 Janissary II, 2 Rocket Wala, 2 Fakir, 1 Heroic Cav, 1 Arty Cav
I still had 3 Janissary II, 3 Rocket Wala units deep into Safavid territory that was pounding the invaders going to Trabzon
Baghdad = 3 Janissary II, 4 Rocket Wala, 6 Artillery Cavalry. I used my offensive units to wipe out 8 of the 9 Porto Cavs! Also went on the offensive in Anatolia to take out as many Safavids Mounted units as I can, but we are extremely outnumbered here!
I’ve been able to rush build 1 unit on every turn in the Levant, hoping to turn the tide in the south.

IBT – A major combined attack on Baghdad (Portuguese and Safavids), all Janissary units eliminated! Rug Roh, Baghdad was very far from the heat of the Ottoman Empire, it was going to be rough to reinforce this group. This needed a miracle!
Back in Anatolia, the Safavids ignored the frontline cities in an attempt to reach further inland. Due to the quantity being thrown in here, it was actually a god decision by the AI.

1607 – Fortifying and praying!

IBT - Baghdad was lost along with 4 Blade Wala to the Portuguese! There is no second line here, the whole of Mesopotamia is in danger of falling!! A catastrophic failure!!!!
Safavids now begin attacks on cities and push even deeper into our territory. Many of our units are now surrounded!

1608 – We sent units to Erzincan and started going on offensive with our limited Art Cavs, but they have Blitz ability, so almost like I had more of them, had no choice! Lots of badly injured units throughout!

IBT – In the south, the Portuguese had now set up a 4 Rocket Wala siege on Cairo! In Mesopotamia, Kirkuk was lost to Portuguese! Minimal defense in Mosul, they were also advancing towards the Levant. Portuguese were everywhere and we were collapsing.
Back in India, the Gondwana were eliminated by Bengal!
Safavids begin a major shifting towards Diyarbakir, they were also retreating a bunch of their injured units. A little reprieve of sorts.

 

[Chalito]

Here is the Indian subcontinent in all it's glory!!!

 

[Chalito]

1609 -
IBT – The Portuguese took Mosul and also Hama in the Levant! 5 Portuguese units also landed at lightly defended Antalya on the Mediterranean coast, brilliant flanking move by the AI!!
In Anatolia, the Safavids took Erzurum and Diyarbakir! Erzincan miraculously survived! But we were in real danger now all over the southern Anatolia with the Portuguese and Safavids invaders merging in the south!

1610 – After many turns, we finally got the 3 Rocket Wala, 3 Janissary II stack into Ottoman territory from Tblisi area, but another 2 Rocket Wala stack near Erzurum had been cut off and no roads available through the mountains, they would have to hold in place until the Safavids moved!

IBT - Antalya lost to the Portuguese sea invaders! The advance in the Levant continued as they also took Aleppo!
Safavids took out the 2 Rocket Wala but attacked no further cites, didn’t even advance inside Ottoman territory, really weird stuff!!!

1611 -
IBT - The Portuguese demons were relentless, they captured Gaziantep! Another big landing between the cities of Tarsus and Adana. Not a big landing, a massive landing!!! 20 Total units!!!!! Excellent AI work!
Meanwhile the Safavids made no movements again! I wonder if they really starting to feel pity towards their Muslim Brothers?!?!?!?

1612 -
IBT – The Portuguese captured Tarsus and Adana! This time the Safavids crossed the border again in mass, surely it was all over now and the decision was made to retire for good!

 

[Chalito]

Game Report Summary:
I probably should have headed for Mesopotamia right at the beginning before the Safavids got stronger. Researched the Navy techs much earlier, I reached Suez and then did nothing with it. Did not build the Forbidden Palace, which was a major error on my part. Definitely should have taken the Safavid offer of Peace.


Changes to scenario:
-push the MA ability further back, this scenario has no MPP allowed.
-Increase Arab Trader Ship movement.
-Start with Embassies for more Civs like Adal.
-Place resource and Colony in Gujarat fortress for Ottomans, so they have something to fight for there.
-Sipahi to upgrade to Artillery Cavalry!
-Create IndoChina cities
-Can’t build trade mastery with cotton and opium. Not sure what the issue was here?
-Increase ship transport capacity, but keeping myself constraint to the original number.
-Invisible Transport ships and increase defense for Transports with no escorts.
-Add the city of Van.
-Maybe add a Trade Item for just a resource located in India, I could have used the extra infusion of Gold at the end there.
-Possibly make each unit cost a population point (except for the Euros), I like this concept.

Below is how it started and how it ended, I think some of these Civs have the exact same color on them...

 

[vmxa]

I use Darski's palettes to get 31 colors. Other 31 color options are around.

 

[Chalito]

I use Darski's palettes to get 31 colors. Other 31 color options are around.

I think I found it, I’m going to go and check it out, thanks!!

 

[r16]

so , ı have been filled with an urge to conquer India . Think this is the basic scenario ?

The Rise & Fall of The Mughals ~ v2 ~

Had this scen for ages but never played it properly, it's really lovely work. I had to fix the Ship of the Line, it didn't have the enslave frigate checked. Also I took away the lethal bombardment of rocket walas, it gave me a hideous advantage in my French campaign. I'm not sure if it will...

forums.civfanatics.com

and you would have to upload only the .biq file here ?

 

[Chalito]

so , ı have been filled with an urge to conquer India . Think this is the basic scenario ?

The Rise & Fall of The Mughals ~ v2 ~

Had this scen for ages but never played it properly, it's really lovely work. I had to fix the Ship of the Line, it didn't have the enslave frigate checked. Also I took away the lethal bombardment of rocket walas, it gave me a hideous advantage in my French campaign. I'm not sure if it will...

forums.civfanatics.com

and you would have to upload only the .biq file here ?

Yes, that's it! See attached zip file for biq, but I'm also linking 2 other scenarios for the units.... So you'll need these too.

Arab Conquests

Arabic Conquests / Rise of Islam 7th Century

Hello Civ3- Community, This is the Thread for my Arabic Conquests / Rise of Islam 7th Century Scenario. Feedback and Advices would be very nice & helpful for me. The Scenario is about the Conquest of the Byzantine Empire and the Sasanian Empire by the Rashidun Caliphate (Very Strong). Both...

forums.civfanatics.com

The Desert and the Mountain

The Desert and the Mountain - Empires of Africa

The dry sirocco wind whistles over the vast Sahara wastes. It is the wind of change... Immense camel caravans carry the treasures of the Orient south over the desert. But where they once made for legendary Audagost, now they head for Djenné, Gao, or Katsina - new trading centres where fortunes...

forums.civfanatics.com

 

[r16]

sorry for the late reply / Thank you for upload and links ! Already have the (ever great) African one , will look for the other one .

 

[Chalito]

New game as the Mughals, but this time the Cultural Conversions are staying on!! So with that, I have to modify the House Rules a bit…

House Rules for AI fair play with Cultural Conversions On

-All captured Artillery is disbanded. Will keep captured Arty, but they will be restricted to the lands of their former owners.
-No Rush-build of any Unit or Improvement in any captured city until the population is over 50% my citizens. Rush-build allowed everywhere!
-No See Invisible units in captured cities until the population is over 50% my citizens. See-Invisible units allowed everywhere!
-No forced starvation at captured cities, riots are put down by minimum effort. Starvation sometimes still happens, but it’s not due to a deliberate program of Genocide! With “no raze” on, a genocidal forceful starvation pogrom is a must in captured cities! Let it be known, the game supports Genocide!

1526 – Okay, let us begin!
Population: 1,010,000 1st
Land Area: 16,600 3rd

Logistics:
10 Coolie

Infantry:
1 Akbar the Great
5 Shia Fighters
21 Defender of the Faith
1 Palace Guard (Auto-built w/ Max Limit)
4 Arab Archer
4 Immobile (Immobile)

Mounted:
11 Mughal Cavalry (I increased this from the original scenario)

Artillery:
4 Cannon

I decided to aim for a Victory Point victory, which I thought was achievable with one of the Big Boys. But unlike the previous game, I was planning to avoid any confrontation with the Safavids. Instead, I aimed to take out the smaller surrounding neighbors one-by-one. Just looking at the map, I had to expand towards the areas that are right near my capital, which I thought once integrated would become important productive cities for the empire. And so, I made plans to start by going after Malwa first and then the Rajput as fast as possible! From then I would maybe go south to Gondwana and then east to Bengal. Or possibly go back west to the coast taking out Gujarat and Sindh. Gujarat will force us into war with the Ottomans, so we’ll see how that goes. But all of this would be subject to change depending on what happens with the other neighbors. Immediately I started gathering a large group of units in Gwalior, in preparation for the invasion of Malwa!

The Invasion of Malwa

1530 – And 4 turns later, I was ready to go! I had 10 Mughal Cavalry 6-4-2, 3 Persian Musketman 3-5-1 and 1 Palace Guard units on the war path. All lead by the King Akbar the Great 6-2-1. And in quick succession, we captured Rahambore and Uijain! The Cavalry victories also included the start of a Golden Age for the Mughal Empire! We had much more culture than the Malwans, so I decided to keep the units in the towns to suppress the resistors and of course begin to starve out the local populace.

1531 – We kept the pedal to the metal and captured Vidisha and finally, the Malwa capital of Mandu! And just like that the Malwa Sultanate was history in 2 turns!!! We did lose 2 Mughal Cavlary units in the process, but I was already making preparation to go to Rajasthan and face the Rajput!

1532 – Didn’t take long for the Safavids to start extorting us, but I remained calm and did pay the 55 Gold in tribute they demanded!

 

[Chalito]

The Rajput War

1539 – 7 turns later, I thought I was ready to go again, and I felt this would be tougher as the Rajput had 2 Great Wonders auto-producing some good units. So I devised a plan to split my attack forces into 2 groups to confuse and disorient the enemy.

Group South – Consisted of 5 Mughal Cavalry units plus the King Akbar the Great assembled in the newly conquered Malwa territory, these guys were to head to Udaipur. The battle was swift and Udaipur was captured! But we now faced 2 auto-produced Rajput Resistors 6-5-1 units right outside the city! Plus there were 4 Resistor citizens inside the city. Due to the terrain around the city, I had no choice but to station my units inside the city for citizen suppression and hope for the best. I’m not using the Culture Flip calculator, just going by gut feeling here. Overall Culture was 1679 to 549, in our favor so I did feel a bit confident.

Group East – Consisting of 6 Mughal Cavalry, 2 Arab Archers, 3 Cannon assembled in Agra. These guys were to head to the capital of Jaipur. I had some doubts about this group being large enough, but I didn’t want to wait any longer to build more Cavalry units. It was time to go! And the attack on Jaipur failed, we didn’t have enough Cavalry to finish them off!!! We brought in the Cannons and Archers next to the city to support the attack on the next turn.

1540 – In the south, we took out the 2 Rajput Resistor units near Udaipur. We have lost 2 Cavalry units of our own. My free turn had expired, and my 5 units were stationed inside the city with the hope the resistor citizens can be quelled down. Risky in the age of Culture Flip!
In the east, the attack on the capital failed again, spectacularly. Sent all the Cavalry back to Agra for recovery and moved in the defensive Persian Muskeman units in their place to protect the Cannon. The siege of Jaipur had now begun, because I wasn't strong enough. I had lost 2 Cavalry and 1 Archer units in the north so far.

1542 - The resistance in Udaipur had been put to rest and so now the starvation genocide pogrom had begun. They’re been a lot more action down south than in the north, but we’ve held on strong!

1544 - Rush-built 3 more Mughal Cavs to bring a total of 7 units for another attack on Jaipur. This time we were successful taking the capital Jaipur which held 2 Great Wonders!!! Rajput Resolve and Kerala Martial Arts which both give free units every few turns! Now it’s time to starve this population down!!! Barracks in both captured cities were destroyed and pretty much all of our units were in bad health. So had to sent several Cavalry units way back to heal.

1545 - Sneak attack!!! The Safavids captured 2 Coolie units working to get irrigation to Quetta. They were outside of our controlled land and so no declaration of war needed. 3 total Coolies were executed and 1 Cannon snatched away. This barbarism will be paid back in blood!!!

1546 - We took our Cannon back, but man I had left the whole western frontier pretty empty!!! I needed to get units to Kabul and Kandahar asap!!! The urgency to finish off the Rajput was on, and so we went full throttle on the offensive and captured Ajmer in the south! Then we exploited the victory and captured Jodhipur as well! Sent a bunch of Cavalry to the last Rajput city of Bikaner. Too far to take in this turn, but it should be all over! And I need to wipe them out before the culture flips!

1547 - Bikaner captured, the Rajput were done!!! Sent a bunch of Cavalry and Persian Musketmen out west to confront the Safavids!!!

Population: 4,775,000 2nd
Land Area: 38,100 2nd

Victory points:
Mughals: 6,070
East India Company: 3,265
Vasco’s Traders: 3,095
Abyssinia: 2,745
Bengal: 2,700
Safavids: 2,670
VOC: 2,575
Ottomans: 2,095

Logistics:
25 Coolie

Infantry:
1 Akbar the Great
1 Shia Fighters
16 Defender of the Faith
3 Palace Guard (Auto-bult w/ Max Limit)
4 Arab Archer
4 Immobile
21 Persian Musketman

Mounted:
13 Mughal Cavalry
1 Kalaripayattu Fighter (Auto-built w/ Max Limit), (Not actually mounted, but they have movement of 3!)

Artillery:
8 Cannon
3 Heavy Sling (Not enough Gold to upgrade)

Our nation was the strong and our VP lead was quite impressive!!!

 

[Chalito]

The Safavid War

This was not a war of our choosing and thus I had no objectives in mind. Although the treacherous units that attacked our Workers were weak and quickly dealt with, I certainly expected the Safavids to have more advanced units than us. Really hoping they didn’t already have Sikh Guards or Artillery Cavalry though!! The Safavids also had a big Culture advantage 3314 to 1969!
So I really just planned to defend my territory, it would be nice to take Zaranj as a buffer to the Holy City of Kandahar (VP Location). But only if I truly thought it could be a successful attack and hold, with the Culture Flipping on.

For now, I had to move as many Persian Musketman and Mughal Cavalry units to front line asap from Rajasthan. Although the route through Sindh would have been quicker, I chose not to sign an ROP with Sindh, because I just hate having foreign units on my territory clogging the road. It would take a while to get my units into position!

1550 –
IBT: Our GA had ended and after about 5 turns, the first signs of the Safavids appeared in the horizons west of Quetta and it was quite a few fast mounted Camel units (movement of 3)!

1551 - I had no choice but to sign a ROP with Sindh! They were quickly approaching Quetta, and then maybe going after Rajasthan. At the same time, I moved 3 Cannon units from Kandahar to a forest tile right next to Quetta. The city itself was 1 tile too far for our defensive units to reach, so I needed to prepare in case I had to liberate the city afterwards.

IBT: Oh, the roll of the dice was not very good to us at all! Some real bad luck against the Safavids and we were completely routed in every battle, Quetta had fallen to the enemy! On Emperor level, I had no illusion any city would ever flip to us. We had to go and liberate it by force, if we wanted it back!

1552 - So those Cannons I parked right next to Quetta paid off quickly, as I blasted the enemy mounted units and rushed in a bunch of Mughal Calvalry from Kandahar to liberate Quetta!!!

1553 –
IBT: Big news came to us, that the other big boy on the block, the Ottomans declared war on the Safavids! They took the opportunity to strike at their backside and quickly moved to capture several cities! This would also relieve any kind of pressure on our western frontier AKA the Pashtun Tribal Area.

1555 – Bengal declared war on the Safavids and the multiple MA’s were just getting started. The Royal Rumble had commenced!

1560 - After the liberation of Quetta and the Ottomans jumping into the war, we never saw another Safavid unit approach our territory. They had their hands full out west. The world had begun to tear itself apart, as it typically does with MA’s everywhere. The Safavids were the single biggest target as they were at war with all of their neighbors including the Mamluks, Khiva and Bukhara. They had very impressively taken back several of their cities from the Ottomans (maybe some flipped) and were currently tearing apart the Khiva Sultanate. But for us, it was time to get back to the Plan and take out the smaller Civs one by one, to win the game! We signed a Peace Treaty with the Safavids taking some +/- 50 Gold pieces in the process. With all of our attacking units in the west, the next victim would have to be the close-by neighbor of Sindh, but we needed to wait a few turns till the Sindh ROP ran out! All Cavalry and Cannon units had begun the process of relocating to Multan and Jodhpur to prepare for the next invasion.

The Great Barbarian War
1565 – And then of course, another wrench got thrown into the plan, with reports of a large barbarian uprising near Srinagar in Kashmir . I removed all fighting bonuses against Barbarians, so when 30 plus units of these guys show up, it is a serious risk! I sent many Mughal Cavalry from Multan to Srinagar to deal with the savages hiding out in the mountains and beyond!

1568 – The Mansab System government tech was achieved, but then it took 6 miserable turns of Revolution to finally establish it!!!

1570 – There have been multiple Safavid attacks with their Hidden Nationality Fakir units, grrrrrrr!!!! I have my own Fakir units, which I was planning on using in the upcoming Sindh War, but now I’m thinking I should rotate these guys to the frontier to give the Safavids some payback!

1571 – The great Safavid-Ottoman War ended on this turn. The Ottomans took Diyarbakir, Mosul, Kirkuk, Baghdad, Kars and Tbilisi!!!! The Safavids however have completely eliminated the Khiva Sultanate, taking all of their cities.

1573 - The Barbarian War finally ended with the destruction of their camp. It was a bit more costly than I wanted and took quite a while to travel through those Mountains, the remaining Mughal Cavalry were now Elite units and immediately redeployed to Multan for the planned war with Sindh!!! It would still take them some time to travel back through the mountains.

1578 – Kingdom of Golconda eliminated and I even saw that Myanmar had taken some of their cities!!

1579 – Some Dutch envoys came demanding Charcoal resource from us. Really, how dare this puny civ demand anything from us. We told them were they could stick their demands and thus we were now at war with the Dutch!

1580 -
Population: 8,433,000 2nd
Land Area: 45,400 2nd

Victory points:
Safavids: 23,605
Ottomans: 18,325
Khanate of Bukhara: 15,025
Mughals: 13,655
Vasco’s Traders: 10,545
Bengal: 9,155
East India Company: 7,805

Logistics:
23 Coolie

Infantry:
1 Akbar the Great
14 Defender of the Faith
6 Palace Guard (Auto-built w/ Max Limit)
3 Arab Archer
4 Immobile
24 Persian Musketman
4 RaJput Resolvers (Auto-built w/ Max Limit)
3 Firelancer
1 Sikh Guatd

Asymmetric:
11 Fakir (Invisible, See Invisible) (Auto-built w/ Max Limit)

Mounted:
1 Mughal Cavalry
12 Local Cavalry
2 Kalaripayattu Fighter (Auto-built wonder expired)

Artillery:
13 Rocket Wala
3 Heavy Sling (Not enough Gold to upgrade)

Our economy was such that we were living paycheck to paycheck so to speak. I did save enough to upgrade most of my Mughal Cavalry to Local Cavalry though! And soon I would be able to set my research to 0% and concentrate of expanding my military.
Now for the Dutch, they only had Pullicat in the south of India and a Spice Port near Myanmar. I signed Bijapur to fight the Dutch for 87 Good plus 11 GPT and that would take care of anyone coming from Pullicat!

IBT - Ottomans demand my Territory Map! No need for demands, I hand these out for free to anyone!
The Dutch went on a diplomatic offensive, signing up the Tahirids, Abyssinia, and Vijayanagar to fight Bijapur, not good!
Then they signed up Ahmednagar to fight us! But these guys were already in trouble as they were in war with all of their neighbors including Vijayanagar!

 

[Chalito]

1581 – To take care of any Dutch approaching from my weakly defended eastern frontier, I gave Myanmar Charcoal and Horses to fight the Dutch!
Then I gave the English 186 Gold and 5 GPT to fight the Dutch! By this time, I had stopped all Scientific research and let the Gold pour into our coffers.

I noticed the Bukhara Sultanate was in a war with Sindh and their mounted units were fast approaching Sindh! And so were the Safavids! It was time to go before they carved Sindh up. Our ROP had expired, so I demanded they move their units out of our territory and they did! Then I demanded the Naval Gun Mounts tech and they refused, finally it is time for war!!!

The Sindh War

I decided to keep my previous war strategy of attacking on 2 fronts for maximum effectiveness! Culture was in our favor 2,638 to 489. Without using the Flip formula, I didn’t know exactly what this meant, other than it was very, very good for us!

North Group - Order of Battle
2 Fakir
2 Persian Musketman
7 Local Cavalry
1 Kalaripayattu Fighter
4 Rocket Wala

Launching from Multan, we had a lot of fast-moving offensive units! I was bringing the Rocket Walas just to deal with the AI counterattacks, not to combine with any offensive.
And in the first Battle for the city of Noshera, we captured the city! Yep, they only had 1 unit defending the town! There aren’t any Resistors in this town either! EASY!!! Decided to hold off on attacking the next city for now, since it was their capital.

East Group - Order of Battle
3 Fakir
3 Firelancer
3 Rajput Resistor
1 Kalaripayattu Fighter
4 Local Cavalry
1 Akbar the Great all in Jodhpur
6 Rocket Wala

Launching from Jodhpur, east of Sindh, I had planned a more methodical approach for this group with some slower units along with a lot of artillery. But the attacks would begin with the fast units and we were once again very successful, maybe too successful. We quickly captured Khudabad, but this town did have 3 Resistors in it! I moved my slower units into this town for citizen suppression. We kept going in the south and captured the small town Thatta, no resistors! I only had 2 more mounted units left and decided to go for it and attacked Kolachi (present-day Karachi). We eliminated 2 enemy units, but they were still more defensive units in there. That city would stay with Sindh, for now! Really regretted not having more mounted units in the South Group.

IBT - Tibet declared war on us and Myanmar. Now I needed to reinforce Lucknow and keep an eye on Kathmandu. About 4 weak Tibetan units appeared on that frontier. Ceylon also declared war on us, meh. Sindh was hurting and only limited movement was spotted from them.

1582 – The Kolachi attack was resumed and town was captured, but we did lose a crucial Kalaripayattu Fighter in the process. My very first coastal town! Kolachi did have a lot of Resistors though! Maybe I should add more Commerce to coastal town somehow, to make the Indian Ocean much more important and coastal towns more valuable.
Still held the North Group back. I only wanted to take down 1 capital. In the south, my slower units also approached attack position on Nasrat and we were already pounding them with our Rocket Walas!

IBT – The Sindh Sultanate showed us their teeth and we 2 more units in the war. Plus we lost 2 more additional units to the Gujarat HN units! Bastards! On this same turn the Gujarati declared war on Safavids, this meant the Ottomans would join in soon enough! Possible my chance to jump on the Safavids! Bukhara also declared war on Safavids!
The Mamluks also joined in and declared war on us!! This was a bit more concerning, they were pretty far away, but also a decent size nation. I imagine they would be able to bring in a lot of units once they crossed the whole of present day Iraq and Iran.

1583 – Was very concerned about Kolachi flipping, I needed to finish off Sindh on this turn!
The Battle of Nasrat was costly as we lost 2 Firelancer units and left the rest of our forces in the red! We barely captured the city with our last unit that could move in.
In the north, the Capital city of Bukkur was captured with overwhelming force! The Sindh Sultanate was destroyed! Whew, I’ve survived another potential Culture Flip disaster.

Got a big VP boost after this war and am now in third, but still pretty far from the Safavids!

Safavids: 25,720
Ottomans: 18,406
Mughals: 17,885

I don’t need to fight the Safavids, I need them be at peace with everyone, while I fight off the little civs! Plus, I was nowhere near ready to fight them! I was unclear of where to go next. Bukhara was already getting swarmed by the Safavids, so didn’t want to go there. Gujarat was the best positioned target, right next to Sindh, but we had good relations with them and was commercially good for us, getting Gold for our resources. I could take all of Nepal and Tibet, but would that just overextend us too much?!? There was also Gondwana down south, getting us deeper into the Deccan, where the mighty Mughals belonged…

 

[Chalito]

1584 IBT – The Dutch arrived from the sea! First a small force, then a bigger force of Fusiliers (defense of 9) and 5 Rocket Wala and some mounted units. I had no units strong enough to take them on, so I diverted our own Rocket Wala to Kolachi. The Gujarat have been extra annoying kidnapping any Coolie near the border and unfortunately these are the tiles that need to be worked! I rotated all of our Fakir units to attempt to kidnap them back!


1585 IBT - Gondwana declared war on us! Well, that answered our previous question! Time for another invasion!
Ottomans declared war on Safavids! Ugh, I was thinking they were going load up on Victory Points now.
Vijayanagar declared war on us!! Slight concern, but they are also involved with many of their neighbors.
French declared war on us. Meh
Going to concentrate on Gondwana!


1586 IBT - Myanmar declared war on us! Laughable
Adal declared war on us! Too far from us to care.


The Bengali War
1588 IBT – The Bengali declared war on us! These were our neighbors and thus it was going to be serious! They’ve expanded scatteringly to the south of us in the Deccan, but their main territory was to the east, where we only had a few units stationed!
I immediately signed a peace treaty with Nepal/Tibet and got 38 Gold to end that conflict and get ready for Bengal. I could now rotate my limited units here to fight Bengal. But I still needed a lot more!!!

Destruction of Kolachi
1589 - Kolachi had been relentlessly battered by the Dutch artillery for 5 turns and they had already destroyed all of its City Improvements! We had been bombarding their units back and finally gathered enough strength to go and evict them! We killed 5 Fusilier units, while losing 3 Local Cavalry, but capturing 5 Rocket Wala!!! Kolachi’s population had been reduced to size 1! These were all Sindh citizens though, so they sort of helped a bit in that regard.
Afterwards, I signed a peace treaty with the Dutch getting 10 Gold plus 2 GPT! I was trying to sign peace treaties everywhere so that I could put all of my resources towards the upcoming battles with Bengal.
In the south, I captured Mandla from Gondwana! But right next to it, was a newly conquered Bengali town. We were now staring at the face of the enemy in 2 directions. The Gondwanans were not long for this world with only their capital city left. I signed a peace treaty with them, taking 2 Coolies.
Ceylon killed off by the Malacca Pirates!
Finally, I signed a Peace Treaty with Ahmednagar and got the Naval Warfare tech!

IBT - Ottomans declared war on us! Uh oh, but the Safavids who were fighting them now, should prevent them from reaching us.
Arabs declared war on us! Okay then.
Disaster, as the Bengali came at us hard! We lost the eastern city of Prayagraj to Bengal! Mandla was a mere 2 Hit Points from falling too!


1590
IBT - Ottomans signed a peace treaty with the Safavids! Great and I’m sure they signed an ROP straight away too! More Bengali units were spotted moving towards the south direction. I had already destroyed all roads around Prayagraj to try and slow them down.


1591 – I made the decision to retreat from Mandla! It was only defended by 4 Local Cavalry units with defense of 2! No point in having them get slaughtered. The lack of roads heading to Mandla made any effort in getting strong defenders there untenable! Recently conquered and very little production, let the Bengali have it, for now. Like a great General, I was trading space for time. By now, I had already begun build-rushing some some powerful Artilley Cavalry units for the counter-attack.
The frontier with Gujarat was full of Fakir units to counter the enemy Fakir units who were quite the pestilence! But a full war with Gujarat would be really bad at this time! Well, I needed to make sure I didn’t have to fight the Ottomans on my western frontier, so I sent Elephants and 15 GPT to the Safavids so that they can fight the Ottomans.

IBT – The Bengali marched into undefended Mandla, but we also lost 3 Local Cav units in the open plains. Back in the east, the city of Gwalior was now under Bengali attack!
Bukhara Sultanate destroyed by the Safavids! Many Bengali units spotted approaching Vidisha from the south.


1592 IBT – The Portuguese and Brits both declared war on us.
Lost 3 Rocket Wallas in the south to Bengali attacks!
Gujarat was also at war with Bengal and they had lost the town of Wardha to them! The city of Vidisha barely survived another strong Bengali attack.


1593 – Vidisha was down to 1 Rajput defender and no way of reinforcing it. So I decided to save my unit and retreat from Vidisha. Again trading space for time.

IBT – The undefended town of Vidisha was captured by Bengal!


1594 – By this time, I did believe I now had a decent line of defense set up across the entire new Bengali border, that should hopefully withstand any Bengal attacks! My Cavalry units were just about ready to get unleased for the counteroffensive!

IBT - Gujarat were keeping the Bengali busy in the south with big unit stacks, I was going to take advantage of that!