Leader Duels

[ReccaSquirrel]

I'm enjoying a fun little series of games I call Duels. I'm using this as a walk of fire in the Noble difficulty setting before I progress up to the next difficult setting. I'll share my triumphs as I go but I wouldn't mind hearing other people sharing experiences if they try the same thing.

Here's how it works. There are 18 Civilizations in total. You have to face all of them of the course of multiple games. Which two you face is the only thing you have control over.

Your Civilization: Random
Map: Continents
Climate: Random
Sealevel: Random
Era: Random

I'm going through the enemy civilizations alphabeticly.

My first match was Asoka and Alexander. I started as the Romans on a continent with Alexander in the Renaissance Era. No UU for me. I ended up remaining peaceful with Alexander and quickly supressed the fast expanding Asoka to his original continent. I was going to completely destroy Asoka when Alexander surprised me with war. I pushed him into a tiny corner and as I was preparing to finish him off, I was surprised to find myself a Diplomatic win.

My second match was by far the hardest. I started as the French. I shared the continent with Catherine the Great and had Bismark as my distant neighbor. What made it difficult is that the game started in the Industrial Era. Catherine had her UU at the start of the game. This game dragged for a very long time as I slowly beat Catherine into oblivion. In the meantime, Bismark raised ahead in tech and nothing I could do would retake that tech lead. Once Catherine was removed from the game, I found myself only 3% in land mass away from Domination. As Bismark built SS Thrusters, I prepared a massive tank push and sacrificed every bomber and fighter I had against his Sam Infantry to get the remaining 3% of land for the win.

My third game, and most recent, was a pushover match. I started as the Aztec in Future era. I dropped to 100% tax rate and pop rushed settlers like mad, took 60% of the continent I shared with Cyrus and took a large uninhabited continent. As I controlled three of the four oil reserves, all I needed to do was push Cyrus off my continent and it would be a quick invasion of England for a conquest victory. But Elizabeth made it easy for me. She built the UN and I won a Diplomatic victory.

Game #1 Score: 10412
Game #2 Score: 5269
Game #3 Score: 4330

And it would seem that I'm now Isabella during the second Era of the game for my match against Fredrick and Ghandi.

 

[ReccaSquirrel]

Matchs Played Since Last Update:
Frederick and Gandi Bronze Age
Genghis Khan and Hatti Industrial Era
Huayna Capac and Isabella Renaissance
Julius Caesar and Kublai Khan Future Era

Current Match:
Louis XIV and Mansa Musa Ancient History

Stories coming soon!

 

[ReccaSquirrel]

Fredrick, Gandi, Barbarians, and the Spanish

I started out as Isabella which is definitely a new experience for me. The Era start was also difficult. I have two settlers, two archers, and two explorers. I found my capital on the spot and move my second settler with an archer pair northwest to a high commerce sight. My explorers find a really nice coastal area but so far I haven't found any copper.

I run into Gandi who is stuck on a small peninsula on the continent. I have essentually boxed him in without realizing it. Now I have two problems at this point in time. I have no copper and my commerce city is low food due to a large amount of desert. It was probably not my best choice for a first city but it has paid off so far. I decide to send a settler down to a nice coastal city. I have no copper in my area of the world at all and Iron Working is on the way. I found the city and then.... I notice Horse Archer Barbarians!

They are going for my commerce city. I send an extra archer up because the city needs anything it can get. The horse archer attacks and kills the city's original defender. I whip a warrior in the city bringing the starving city's population down to 1. They attack again and my reinforcement archer dies! The warrior has no chance in hell and I'm struggling to get more units out.

Next turn, warrior falls and my city is pillaged. Another Horse Archer appears. I have two cities left, no copper and iron working is something like 7 turns away. My best military unit is an archer and even if by some miracle I had iron hooked up already when iron working comes in, I have no way to get any spearman online in time. I resign and call it my first loss.

I start again and discover I have the same era and civilization under my control. I've learned from my mistakes and know that barbarians come on strong at this point in the game. I found my capital one square from the starting location to give me fresh water, lots of food resources, and coast. I send my explorers and spare archer to look for a good expansion point.

I don't find any copper but I find a good commerce expansion with nice food resources. I do have horses this time and build some horse archers of my own. I also build more archers at the start than I normally would like. I eventually find copper on my section of the map but the location is unacceptable. it will make a good expansion city later, but much later in the game. Besides, I started off with Iron Working and find some right next to my second city.

The fight with barbarians is a very difficult one. I have a very difficult time getting the iron online but eventually my hard work pays off and out rolls the first spearman. The threat of Barbarians is over! Also, thanks to the continent shape and the location of my capital and expansion, I was able to put in a third city with no risk of barbarians that has a beautiful choke point from Frederick who shares the continent with me.

I keep Frederick on Closed Borders while I locate and expand on my large section of the world. I locate a barbarian city and take it. Frederick begins to become a problem though. He follows a heathen religion and because I don't open my borders, he thinks I should give him things for free. He also asks for a trade for horses. I smile as I bring swordsman #8 and catapult #2 into my war stack.

During all this I meet Ghandi. Ghandi and I exchange techs from time to time as well as share resources. It helps because Berlin is the next city I encounter in Germany's territory and it is one hell of a fight to bring down. I get a powerful stack next to it only to have war elephants slip by and attack my newly conquered german city. The war elephants aren't really stopped by spearman so I rush for engineering for pikeman. Pikeman come out and I'm about to bring forth maceman when I finally get the necessary reinforcements needed to take out Berlin. It falls and I immediately sue for peace as my people are very, very unhappy with me.

Peace isn't for long. I bring in Macemen by the dozens and between them, my horse archers, and catapults, the german cities of the continent fall.

I sue for peace again and only get 3 GPT and 60 gold. But now it is time to recover my infrastructure. This is where things start to get interesting. The Germans had evacuated to two smaller islands. One of the cities culture bombs and overpowers my oil patch just revealed. I also have only a thin strip of land between one city and the rest of the world. Also the one adjacent ocean square of my captured German coastal city is now in german control. I wouldn't care except for the city currently has two frigates in it.

I find an out of the way oil spot and start getting things in place for oil. I also begin creating an army of rifleman (iirc). My oil well is finally built, galleons become transports, frigates become destroyers, and the invasion begins. have decided at this point that I want to go for conquest, not domination. I move in and attack the lowest city on the continent (not the one causing culture border issues). It has only two defenders and has a lower culture defense percentage. Plus it is all coastal hills and they have a forest hill right next to the city. I don't want to have any problems with this invasion.

First city falls. I move my main force onto the second city while cavalry pillage everything in sight. Second city falls, finally the culture city falls. And last but not least, I take the final german city on the larger of two islands. However, Ghandi has one city on this island. I don't want to move my troops only to have to come back and find three more cities!

By now I have tanks and infantry operational. I have been bombarding the two remaining german cities on a regular basis with battleships and destroyers. I drop my initial attack unit which consists of two transports full of units. The city falls easily but hurts me. I keep the city this time instead of razing it. Now I can airdrop in a unit a turn to get the reinforcements going. I stop long enough to get my tanks healed and get some bombers into the city. I find that the second german city is just one square too far away to be bombed so instead I take out his production squares. My troops go in, raze the city and Frederick is eliminated.

I normally would not have done such a thing, but two things are on my mind. I'm going for conquest and I notice that Ghandi has Sam Infantry. I declare war that very moment. One city is located on each continent I have troops. Both fall within three turns. Meanwhile my submarines, destroyers, and battleships take down his naval units. The damage is too much to bear one some of my ships but I should be able to keep anything else naval he can toss at me until the badly injured ships are healed.

I drop transport after transport of units onto his main island. One coastal city becomes my launching platform for bombers and healing units while two coastal cities are bombarded. My main force takes an inland city providing Ghandi with his only supply of aluminum. I have bombers dropping payloads on his inland capital, the bombers are frequently hurt or destroyed by the Sam Infantry. However, keeping the Air Strikes and Bombing keeps the city weak and my tanks raze the town. One city remains, it has nothing to it. I decide to have fun and let my artillary take the city.

Recca(Duel) wins Conquest Victory.

Next up: Hatti gets Owned and I learn the perils of nuclear war.

 

[ReccaSquirrel]

Genghis Khan and Hatti in the Industrial Era

Catherine is my favorite civ to play. So I was pleasantly surprised to find myself not only getting Catherine but being able to turn out Cossacks right from the start. I founded Moscow on the spot and had one worker create the horse pen while another created the road. By the time I had founded my three starting cities, I was able to produce Cossacks. But I need to build the barracks first. I meet Hatti very early. We have a mountain range in the middle of the continent near two different coasts creating only two entry points to, or from, my section of the continent. One has desert, the other goes into a jungle area. I focus my invasion Army on my western city while I start to explore Hatti's territory.

Hatti, before we even have open borders, wants to exchange maps. I get a nice look of his land and location. Hatti is focusing on the northern end of the continent and I have the army on the western side. I make the decision to let Hatti do the dirty work for me. I develop steel and expand my territory with two more cities. One is to protect my northern front and one is to fill a nice commerce/production spot on the east.

Steam Power comes in and I see Hatti has Scientific Method. I try to trade and he refuses. War!

I take his nearest city to my western strike force. It falls easily. I try to sue for his Scientific Method. He refuses. I advance further west and take his city. I try to sue again. He refuses. Now I have cut him off on the southern end of the continent. Assembly Lines comes in and out come Infantry. He has built a coastal city on the desert near my northern choke point of my mainland. I move in Canons, Cossacks, and Infantry. I take the city and try to sue again. He refuses. I sue for all of his money though and upgrade my units and infrastructure. I'm running completely on Infantry and Cossacks. I notice that Genghis Khan has mostly developed his entire continent. I want an easy invasion so I take the southern tip of it with a Settler. I put three Infantry in the city right from the beginning to be safe.

Infrastructure is improved, reinforcements are in, back to war. I demand Hatti give me SM. He refuses. I declare. His capital falls. I leave a Machine Gun behind and move forward. I try suing for SM one last time. He refuses so I start researching it myself. It was a nice idea.

I take his two final cities and the entire continent belongs to Catherine. It is time to evaluation my situation and my game plan. Hatti went down fast and as a result, Genghis Khan isn't ahead of me on the tech line. He never met Hatti so I don't have any negatives from him. I just researched Artillery to help take down Hatti's cultural defense bonus. Rocketry is available and because I love Bombers, I can research Fission. Factories are operational in all of my cities but I don't have a decent power source (I hate Coal Plants). I also have a large number of double movement units and Ghengis Khan's cities are almost all coastal cities. I check the tech trade and Khan doesn't have Artillery. That puts him two techs away from Rocketry.

I go for Fission. I buy a Nuclear Plant in Memphis which is my production king. It goes right into the Manhatten Project. I adjust my tax rate so that Rocketry comes in the very same turn that the Manhatten Project finishes. I use all of the extra money coming in (thanks to the Kremlin) to build up my units and infrastructure. While I'm doing this, Khan declares a surprise war. He attacks my city on his continent (which only has about 12 units in it ). I kick him out, I move in and pillage his two nearest cities. I don't have the military though to take his city because my focus had been on infrastructure, not offensive force.

I sue for peace after a while and move spies into his continent. My spies proceed to sabotage every single special resource square he has. No oil, no aluminum, and no horses. (Yet he didn't know who was behind it ).

Manhatten Project completes. My wife is startled as a yip with joy. I pop rush two nukes. Next turn I drop two nukes on his best coastal city. Then an amphibias force moves in and razes it. Next turn brings two more nukes and this is when things go horribly, horribly wrong. I drop both nukes on his inland city near my coastal force. No problem. I then try to move my tanks in. But wait... the tanks stop after one square... because of FALLOUT! This is very, very bad. I was not prepared for fallout reducing movement speed. I can his coastal cities fine but I don't have an attack force needed to take out his inland cities with this method. I need destroy him fast.

My economy tanks very quickly as I airlift and transport tanks over onto his land. I take out his coastal cities first leaving him with four inland cities. But global warming is destroying my resources. I'm losing a lot of production. Genghis has hardly any units to speak of but Sam Infantry HURT when you are trying to move wounded units through his land before the global warming starts killing your city structures and military units. I watched as my GPT dropped from 500 to 400 to 200 to 150. This was WITH 100% Gold Tax.

I take his final city and enjoy a very difficult nuclear war.


Next up: Why a low score is better than a loss.

 

[ReccaSquirrel]

Huayna Capac and Isabella vs. the French

I'm going to keep this game summary short and sweet. Isabella was pacified due to her terrible start location. She had four cities and I out colonized her. I moved in and took all of her original cities and she managed to pull of with two tiny islands. She wasn't worth the effort to take out, she was so far behind.

I had an amazing tech spot and an ever better production. Space Race was my key to victory. However, Huayna Capac had the Apollo Program going as well and while I was pretty sure I could beat him there, I didn't want to risk it. As it turned out, the Spanish cities I had captured were the best production cities on the map.

I did an evaluation of the situation. Huayna Capac could not take out my cities that were finalizing my space ships. He could not take out my main continent cities. My expansion cities were, however, not only on an extension of his continent but not the best cities in the world. He also had bombers and fighters in effect. All I needed to do was declare war and I could expect his full, undivided attention.

I swallowed very deeply and declared war. He couldn't touch my cities like I expected. I thought I was going to lose one very near him but I was able to keep the city. However, the bombers... oh the miserable, miserable bombers! He just kept destroying my Farms and Towns and there was nothing I could do about that. However, it did slow down his development of the space ship and I won the race into space. I had the worst score of any game but I won and for that, I was greatful.