Open Challenge Game - A lamb in the horde of wolves

[pawelo]

@Mr Felony

I played accordingly to the rule for the next part, and I'm still at cautious / pleased with everyone around due to heavily giving away techs.
Of course, the +1 with warring along Ragnar and -3 with Hammy for the same reasons will follow me till the end...

Still, here are my next 50:

Spoiler :

And yes, we are still here to report! And well alive, no one dared to attack our great nation on this turn set.

Overview first.

South:



North:



This turn set was dominated by two major world events – Boudica warring Alex to the east and GK warring Joao, well, uh, across Ragnar got also a minor warring with his all-time favorite Hammurabi.

Also, our major concern as the most peaceful nation in the world, was to get happy with everyone, while refusing to cancel deals and go to war ( yes, Mr Felony, I admin all my faults and will never go to was along a civ just to please it… ). Therefore, I gifted away Aestethics, CoL, Litterature whenever it was necessary to accommodate all parts of the conflict. And they all went asking for more… Anyway, got some deals through though, getting Horseback Riding for Currency with Alex and Civil Service for Engineering and 100 Gold with Ragnar. Not that bad, and it keeps them cautious/pleased.

I had great luck which allowed me to compensate refusals to war along GK – got an opportunity to salvage some fellow in Bushbalik for +3 modifier with GK. This only got him Cautious for so long.

Joao even proposed to be my vassal, which I refused according to the rules.

So here we are, with all archers upgraded to longbows, in course of upgrading all spears to pikes and constructing castles

As for the paths:

TECH:
Feudalism ->Construction ->(Horseback Riding) ->Aesthetics ->Metal Casting ->Literature ->Machinery ->Engineering ->Divine Right ->Drama ->Philosophy ->Paper

CITIES:
Cahokia: Library ->Christian Missionary ->(Academy through Great Scientist) ->Hanging Gardens (lost race-got gold) ->Great Library ->Notre Dame ->Theatre

Poverty Point: Apostolic Palace (got elected of course) ->Confucian Missionary ->Statue of Zeus (MAJOR, MAJOR wonder in this game) ->Parthenon(lost race, got gold, too bad) ->Forge ->Market ->Aqueduct ->Castle ->Library ->Theatre ->Christian Missionary ->Angkor Wat (due in 11)

Mound City: Market ->Courthouse ->Granary ( supports really low prod, but is a monster commerce city with all those cottaged floodplains, too bad I have no whip around )

Chaco Valley: Mausoleum of Massalos (my favorite when philosophical) ->Castle ->Library

Mesa Verde: Granary ->Library ->Jew Missionary ->Jew Missionary ->Jew Temple ->(Holy Islam City)->Castle ->Spiral Minaret

Snaketown: Market ->Lighthouse ->Granary


GREAT PEOPLE:
Great Scientist in Mound City, get Academy in Cahokia
Great Spy in Cahokia ( third one, at less than 15% probability ) – I decide to merge him to Cahokia for science and counter-espionage, I merge the second one to Mound City for the same reasons. One sleeps for Golden Age purposes

CIVICS:
Run Bureaucracy / Serfdom / Pacifism

FOREIGN:
Pleased with Ragnar, Joao
Cautious with GK, Alex, Boudica
Furious with Hammurabi ( he refuses to talk, I can’t gift him anything… )

Wish me luck for the next 50, when everyone will be riding around on horses calling themselve Knights

Hope to stay alive to report more tomorrow

Cheers!

 

[Diamondeye]

Whoah, higher difficulty than I play, no slavery, no DoWing, no vassalizing, no religious +relations... That's sick. I'm not in for it

 

[MrFelony]

the statue of zeus was pretty clutch in my game too, last thing i wanted was for ragnar to get it, that would have really hurt me lol (though the fact that not one of my military troops ever left the borders helped a lot lol)

 

[pawelo]

Whoah, higher difficulty than I play, no slavery, no DoWing, no vassalizing, no religious +relations... That's sick. I'm not in for it

It's more doable that I thought at first

The major limitation is the tech handicap - can't discover Rifling, Military Tradition and Industrialisation before AI - makes it very tough to be sure that the AI won't rush you with better troops than your defenders.

Very fun to play however - you really have to change your way of play, and pretty fast as there is no offensive on your side - real builder game.

And I'm still alive after next 50 - will post them tomorrow

 

[r_rolo1]

Well, a small writeup....

Spoiler :

Whoa, for a lamb game, this is feeling like a AW game to me I'm in 1300 AD and had 4 wars until now (3 with Ragnar and one with the Khan .... Predictable result of a early ReX ( sound measure, taking in account my eastern neighbour ) that boxed Khan early and that made Ragnar go mad. !st war with ragnar I was with my pants down, but was saved by a mediator and by the result of a Greed quest ( portuguese horses , taken with culture ) that gave me 4 chariots in the right time.

Ragnar was still pissed with me and redeclared as soon as he could, but this time I was ready .In the mean time I built some wonders, especially the GW and SoZ ( in the turn after finishing the GW I got the Barbarian Horde event Boudica dealt with it.... ), and a unconviced Ragnar tried his luck again... captured some workers, but my heavily promoted Xbows and spears ( AI are relying a lot in HA in this game... ) cleaned out the mess. Meanwhile, GK thinked that the time was ripe to get something out of me... Mongol UU is no match for a heavily promoted spear ( if the spear can catch him, of course ).

Ragnar asked for peace ( we has putting the eye in the much weaker Hammurabi), that I gave to him with pleasure and now I'm tackling GK ( we became willing to talk this turn, still didn't made peace ) Ragnar and Hammurrabi are in war ( Ragnar looks to be winning ) and Boudica and João II are fighting Alex ( that looks to be having the upper hand over the two ). Wierd game so far: so wierd that in 1300 Ad the Pyramids are still undone . A map below ( didn't lost much time exploring other lands )

Spoiler :

 

[pawelo]

As I said yesterday, I'm not dead yet...

Thanks a lot r_rolo for your sum-up - seems you had less friendly south-eastern neighbor than I did
Anyway, hope you will finish your game and tell us the outcome

Here we go for my next fifty:

Spoiler :

Checkpoint 5 – T201 – T250

First, as usual, the overview.

South:



Center:



North:



Well, well, things are going pretty well now. The only point is, that I delay those rifles waiting for some AI to grab them. I’m happy enough I can take Military Tradition, because GK has almost researched it…

So, how did it went? As usual, GK, Alex, Ragnar and Boudica scr***d me pretty much on the tech side of the story. It did keep them at cautions, warring between each other, which is good for me. GK warred Boudica with his vassal Joao alongside. Boudica ended by becoming GK vassal, who really becomes too powerful, methinks. Anyway, I am biting some of his core cities pretty badly with my culture – when Bushbalik and Turfan will turn Native Americans, he will be weakened a bit.

Other actions were undertaken to spread three religions, get all the shrines with Great Prophets, more wonders and heavy push on happiness and research.

All in all, it allows me to do 80% and still have money to spare. I consider going for Universal Suffrage with all my money – you never know when Khan changes his mind and backstabs you.

I think about going for diplomatic this time - I'm the most liked leader by everyone - backing up for space, if UN votes go wrong. Aggressive AI seems to abstain pretty often...

My paths for this turn set:

TECH:
Paper ->Education ->Liberalism ->(Compass traded with Alex for Engineering) ->(Nationalism from Liberalism) ->Guilds ->Banking ->Gunpowder ->Chemistry ->(Music from GK for Divine Right) ->Economics ->Printing Press ->Rep. Parts -> Military Science -> Scientific Method ->Military Tradition

CITIES:
Cahokia -Theatre ->University of Sankore ->University ->Confu Monastery ->Grocer ->Forge ->Confu Academy ->Oxford University ->Musketman ->Musketman

Poverty Point – (Kong Miao with GP) ->Angkor Wat ->National Epic ->Confu Temple ->University ->Confu Monastery ->Confu Missionary ->Confu Missionary ->Confu Missionary ->Grocer ->Versailles

Mound City – (Academy with GS) ->Grocer ->Theatre ->(Taj Mahal with GE) ->University ->(Church of Nativity with GP) ->Confu Temple ->Christ Temple ->Forge

Chaco Canyon - Library ->Theatre ->University ->Confu Temple ->Confu Monastery ->Forge ->Market ->Bank

Mesa Verde – Spiral Minaret ->Theatre ->Forge ->University ->Hermitage (decided to put it here to push hard on Ragnar to the west and Joao/GK to the east, will it work?) ->(El-Marna Islam Shrine with GP) ->Globe Theatre

Snaketown - Granary ->Moai Statues ->Library ->University ->Theatre ->Confu Temple ->Harbor

GREAT PEOPLE:
Great Scientist @Cahokia – Golden Age with Great Spy
Great Prophet @Poverty Point – Confu Shrine in Poverty Point
Great Scientist @Cahokia - Academy in Mound City
Great Engineer @Cahokia – Taj Mahal in Mound City
Great Prophet @Poverty Point – Christ Shrine in Mound City
Great Merchant @Cahokia (for Economics) – Trade Mission for 1500 Gold in Athens
Great Prophet @Cahokia – Islam Shrine in Mesa Verde

FOREIGN:
Pleased with Boudica, Joao, Ragnar
Cautious with Alex, GK
Annoyed with Hammy (he talks to me now, just to say be gone

@work today, so wish me luck this evening

Good luck r_rolo for the next part of your game!

cheers!

 

[MrFelony]

I think in my game I had about 5-6 wars with ragnar and 5-6 wars with kahn, usually at the same time

 

[pawelo]

@Mr Felony

Tough luck
I'm pretty happy with my game as it goes. I'm pretty sure I could have managed Ragnar anyway, even if I didn't go with him to war with Hammy, breaking my self-imposed rule once
It might have been the fact that my religion self-spread to Ragnar rather early, and he went for state religion with it for the next 50-60 turns.

 

[pawelo]

And the lamb was eaten...
The feast was memorable

Spoiler :

Though being cautious/pleased with everyone, the hell broke loose at Gunpowder.

At first, my long time buddy Ragnar back-stabbed me. Though I had drafting going to defend Mesa Verde to the south, his Trebs/Knights/Grenadiers were pretty much. When I thought that I was getting over it, GK entered the war with Joao and Boudica, his fellowship of the Khan, and then it was it.

I abandonned on turn 263, with Mesa Verde lost to Ragnar on the same turn ( lost 9 muskets on hill with plenty culture - all my defending army was pretty much there ), and 2 stacks of 15+ Cuirassiers going after Poverty Point and Cahokia.

I leave you the save at turn 250. Maybe you will be luckier.

I think, after having played this game, that the tech limitation was too much. I could have had Rifling 30 turns ago, and maybe they would match the AI hordes. Also, two units per city is just too little against heavy strike from four directions.
Without those limitations, this game would be pretty a pain in the **** to play.

I wonder if r_rolo will beat it. Good luck!

I hope you will be there for the next one, coming several days from now

I will try to make another one playable

Cheers everyone, and here are the saves at turn 200 and 250.
If you can do better, please enlighten me

 

[MrFelony]

i would have definitely gone for rifling. the whole game you needed to have the military advantage because you always would start off with inferior number of troops. Also, I'm not sure what you did GNP wise, but you should have made at least one or two cottage farms. the stone site was a perfect spot as it was out of the way of most wars thus it would almost never get touched. I can't really compare our two games though since I started the game a lot differently. I think moving the capital to the north near kahn gave me a bigger advantage since 1) it blocked kahns expansion and flipped 3 of his cities, was high in production so i could pump out defenders, and was also a great spot for some cottaging/defense.

 

[pawelo]

@Mr Felony - I used two merchants to trade mission far away.
This way I had more than enough to upgrade when necessary. But this self-imposed idea about rifling, limited my power.
I wonder if I will not take over my game in T250, going for rifling then.

 

[r_rolo1]

I'm pleased to anounce that I retired in style ( aka quit before the inevitable loss ).

A brief resume:

After some more wars with Ragnar and GK... João Dowed me while in war in the west of the country. In spite of having the upper hand over the first 2 ( had prepared the terrain to ressemble the civ III kill zones and was delivering a nice punch of WW to them ( their cities were top 7 pop ), but I had almost no defense on the east ( shame on me ) and were completely submersed by medieval units with muskets as main defense. If only I had acess to rifles ( stupid AI that doesn't know how to tech )....

Conclusions:
-You can't live with a neighbour that wants you dead. You have to destroy him or his bases or conquer his cities, period.
-You need to sometime take sides in a war. I was taming Alex as my pet dog, but his constant demands of "fight X civ " and the rules made him drop to cautious....
-Rifling is a key tech....
-Castes help the power graph and can prevent some DoWs, but not forever....

 

[MrFelony]

actually, apparently castles don't provide anything to number of soldiers anymore, though is power based solely on number of soldiers? I got lucky in my game and joao and brennus were keeping each other busy. I was very nervous when brennus started stockpiling troops on my western boarder, so i broke the rules and kept my troops from a previous war instead of deleting them. luckily he just used our open boarders to dogpile on hammurabi

 

[pawelo]

I'm pleased to anounce that I retired in style ( aka quit before the inevitable loss ).

A brief resume:

After some more wars with Ragnar and GK... João Dowed me while in war in the west of the country. In spite of having the upper hand over the first 2 ( had prepared the terrain to ressemble the civ III kill zones and was delivering a nice punch of WW to them ( their cities were top 7 pop ), but I had almost no defense on the east ( shame on me ) and were completely submersed by medieval units with muskets as main defense. If only I had acess to rifles ( stupid AI that doesn't know how to tech )....

Conclusions:
-You can't live with a neighbour that wants you dead. You have to destroy him or his bases or conquer his cities, period.
-You need to sometime take sides in a war. I was taming Alex as my pet dog, but his constant demands of "fight X civ " and the rules made him drop to cautious....
-Rifling is a key tech....
-Castes help the power graph and can prevent some DoWs, but not forever....

I came up to pretty same conclusions.
This game was possible to challange if :
- there was no restriction on teching Rifling - two infantry with nice cultural defense would dissuade an enemy with his horde of Knights
- there was no restriction on the number of defenders

Without one of those, it was pretty much impossible.

I will try to make the next one more doable
Thanks for all those who have tried!

 

[shyuhe]

I actually managed a cultural win in the late 1900's, although looking back on the rules, I made two mistakes I didn't realize you're not allowed to take cities as part of a peace deal (I took two rather worthless cities). I even exterminated the Vikings in my game So much for being peaceful. The wrath of the peacemongers is to be feared.

The midgame was really hard. I had teched most of the way through the tree when Alex declared on me (first war I was involved in). He had a massive stack of about 50 units made up of grenadiers, curassiers, and trebuchets. I fielded ... machine guns I stacked about 10 in the city he was going to attack and he lost about 2/3 of his attacking stack. After that, I just whittled away with airships and my own curassiers and eventually he settled for peace. He had almost 30 from WW but somehow his economy hadn't crashed yet... i need to look into that later.

The war with Alex went bad in the middle because Genghis attacked me while Alex was attacking me (Alex was the master of everybody but Ragnar at the time, who was a vassal of Genghis). So I was at war with the whole world at this point. Thankfully this all came after my industrial revolution so I just churned out troops and took Genghis down, and when Ragnar declared independence again, wiped him out before he would be willing to talk with me. Again, I abused machine guns against the Mongols and the Vikings. I just parked my machine guns in some forests next to his stack and watched him suicide his stacks away.

The late game was more tedious than anything. Alex would try to attack me every 30 turns or so and I would have to draft out an army each time to take him on. Then I would disband the older units each time (I was fielding gunships at the end since they finally teched rifling). The lack of rifling for a long time made this game quite challenging - I thought I was going to die when Alex declared on me the first time and I got swamped from both sides (his stack was on my west). I'm amazed at how much damage machine guns do to grenadiers and other older units... It probably helped that I had at least drill 2 on my machine guns too.

In the end, I pushed out a cultural victory - my 3rd city took forever to reach legendary status since I didn't realize I had to win with a cultural victory for the longest time. In the midgame, I was very close to winning an AP win but my religion never spread to Hammurabi. If it had, I could have won around 1000 AD too... But I guess not everything works out the way you want it to.

My victory screen: (about 22k ish points)



and yes, I had just finished researching industrialism even though nobody else had it. I turned research completely off when industrialism was my last tech left but I was still leaking beakers from somewhere and finished it 2 turns before victory. I didn't build any tanks though.

 

[pawelo]

@shyuhe
Great game!
Though you have taken some liberties here and there , you did greatly respecting the rifling limitation that killed my in turn 263 or so.
There were some things in the rules that might need improvement - the rules were too much to deal with neighbours like Ragnar, GK or Alex on Aggressive prince, knowingly being the least powerful.
Anyway, knowing how my game went, I'm amazed you have managed a win given the circumstances!

@all
Will be back soon with another one. If you're in for another unusual game challange, stay tuned.
Next time it will be quite different

 

[r_rolo1]

I think the big problem was that the rules almost obliged people to play defensively ( because of the number of units limitation ) and that you couldn't use Rifles and grens ( by tech blocking ), the only defensivve bonuses units in their era. Then you needed to defend with same era units in much smaller numbers, a thing that is not easy at all. Things would be far diferent if you could build grens or rifles before the AI ( you could build all the mediaval defensive and attacking units before the AI, why not block maces and allow grens? ( just a idea for a future rerun ) )

I liked the game. It was my first BTS agressive AI game and it was fun ( reminded me the civ III games: playing with largely inferior number in defense requires a much more exact manouvering and management )

 

[MrFelony]

i feel bad since i missed the rule about rifling . I dont think it would have matter a whole lot though cause i had such a large tech lead i probably would have gotten machine guns as well. isn't military science the tech that allows grens, which isnt one fo the blocked techs

 

[r_rolo1]

Oh, Military Science was allowed...... .... Maybe I'll pick the 1300 save and try again

 

[pawelo]

Oh, Military Science was allowed...... .... Maybe I'll pick the 1300 save and try again

Yeah, I left a big gap...
I may have a re-run too, starting with the T200 save