PIE's Ancient Mediterranean on Deity

[Manco Capac]

Have you ever thought changing your TW avatar? It's getting auld, u know.

G'nite.

 

[kossin]

BTW, I opted a duck instead of a cute kittie this time. It was funny when a duck roamed near me at the job. That was, like, so random. Usually, it's bobbing pigeons, not ducks. There was a diver, like on the canadian dollar.

Have you ever thought changing your TW avatar? It's getting auld, u know.

I suggest you both get duckies and then go PD in SGOTM18

 

[Manco Capac]

I suggest Kossin to change his everlasting Hatshe (Deity 40 or so), which I'll break down soon with my celtic warriors.

I suggest a duck with a carbine.

 

[Manco Capac]

Will make the update soon. RL just kept harassing me... >_>

 

[Manco Capac]

After Lymond's grandiose feat to convince Ephesus' people to join greater celtic nation, the economy was certainly in shambles. The first screenshot shows 0% on the science department and 100% tax slider. In PAE, starting >50% gold slider, people starts to whine and that may shift towards mass revolts. Of course, that 100% taxes as the first screenie did not happened. I immediate put it at 65% gold because the odds of revolts were big. Between 50% to 100%, there are increments of 5%, thus 10 increments. If you get exact balance between happiness and unhappiness, for each additional 5%, you have 1% odd of revolt for a city and this works for all cities depending their happiness level. And on a perfect balance between happiness and unhappiness, it's a max of 10% of revolts. Imagine that in an empire of >5 cities. Ouch! No way out.

But, just like modern entertainments, more people are happy, more they are swallowing unjustice and stupid laws. So, for each additional happy face over unhappy face, you can increase the tax slider more into the abusive region, that is >50%. Thus, if all your cities had theoritically 10 spare happy faces, you would be able to play just like regular BTS with complete freedom regarding manipulation of the slider. Of course, that won't happen early in the games without all happy sources. And later, your cities are better bigger than just having complete freedom of the slider.

Spoiler :

To salvage the economy, I started first to sell all the war slaves to particular in slave market slaves. Celtia was on the brink of economic destruction, so that was necessary.



Lydia, full of themselves, decided to attack from the worst tile ever, the dense forest with -25% defenses.



Rams are unit that are primarily capturable. So, if one manages to capture many, you may get away without making your own.



Freed slaves are slaves from foreign countries that have been unshackled. Just like the historical Cyrus the Great who cut the chains of jewish slaves in Babylon while invading the city. Freed slaves are free citizens. So, the best is to join them in the capital with all the innate capital modifiers.



A vintager is a building allowing exportation of grapes from an initial source, either yours or from foreign lands. So, with vintagers, a grape resource per city.




A treasury is a unit coming from a foreign city invasion. It's basically cultural treasures exported to the capital to be sold to the highest bid. Just like the Egypt invasion by the Brittish where they have stolen countless national artefacts for bringing them back into their homeland for museums or sells.



Another weird bug a la Trojan Horse Mitosis...



The Numidians, although their betrayal because of the Lydians, are willing to OB again at ANNOYED.



Troja was lightly guarded. That was an excellent occasion to control our lands and confine the Lydians behind the mountains wall.








One aspect that was recently implemented in the latest PAE was free research boosts from city invasions. In the past, there was a bug when you got less than the half of a tech filled, you got a bonus and if you filled more than the half of a tech, you lost beakers. That was a strange bug (avoidable though with just switching techs while invading). Now, we get definite number of beakers. War is a motor of researches! It's almost an historical fact.



Finally, we enter the Iron Age era.




Croesus is such a child...



Finally, we get access to incenses. We desesperately need more happy resources.



We meet a new leader, the theban leader. Epaminondas thingy.



He's got a great resource! Myrrh. Thebans can tech Shipbuilding tech, allowing really really early coast trading (for non seafaring nations like Celtia, we have to wait Colonization, which is quite deep into the tech tree, but it's the next tech in our agenda after IW).



We want to know what is he up to in the tech department and the demo.

Following in the next post.

 

[Manco Capac]

In the spoilers....eh bots?
Lotsa images and description...

Spoiler :

The Nubians (for those who don't know, the Nubians were like Egypt, but more in the south. The black pharaoh expression comes from Nubia. Nubia is made distinctive of Egypt altogether, that is High and Low Egypt because of their refusal of adopting hieroglyphic writing. While Egypt was forced into administrative writing because of the recess of Nilotic valley, forcing high density of population and administration of lands, Nubians were still spaced apart enough to not instill them the needs of a complex writing system. They knew about Hieroglyphs and even some of their citizens knew how to use them, but globally, Nubians refused that system of writing. ) teched Magnet. They are first and willing to trade it away. Why? Because PIE only implemented XML and python modifications. The SDK is still intact, meaning the regular BTS rules still apply. Thus a tech not enabling any buildings nor units are not candidate for monopoly.



What those Numidians are up to?



Well, they entered a stack without DoWing, meaning they're after someone else. Lol.



Incenses in....



We found the Egypto-Nubian frontiers. Lots of skirmishes.



Lol, realized later it was probably Egypt who bribed them against Nubians. Indeed, Numidians, Lydians, Nubians and Egyptians are all under the same faith. That helps bribe onto each other. I think...



Epona follower (interesting the random name, because Epona was the horse goddess in Celtic faith. Epona is also Link's horse...m'kay off-topic..) will spread the corporation there, so we can get a nice +3 and utmost important, +3 , meaning, pushing the borders faster for Barbary Lions, thus one more happy resource, thus more control onto the slider and bigger cities.



Final preparation of a stack of doom composed of Archer Chariots transporting ShortSwordmen, which are definitely better city invaders. A cool trick in PAE is to board infantry units (restricted to them for chariot types) while going fast near a city. A way to transfert the horse speed into infantry.



Nubia...



We peak in strength! We are the numbuh one in soldiers.



Last perditious attempt of Lydia...



Well, it tells strongly of their soldiers faith in Lydia...

 

[Manco Capac]

Last post for the latest turnset....

Spoiler :

More about Nubians...



Wow! They've got silver. Quite a rare resource. A shame Nubia is at the other side of the world.



With a special promo trick allowing to use enemy roads, I take a peek and see Lydia will fall without use of our second Trojan Horse.




We have reached the southern part of the world. I used Go To trick to see that.



Well, we only got one chariot retaliation and our Fred the mighty, a chariot too, got killed at 77% chance of survival. Tough luck....



Time to pay the ransom.



Nearly done...



The tech boost gives us Colonization...



I discovered that Minos' Labyrinth, an exceptional wonder, got destroyed. That sucks, eh? A wonder that gets destroyed! At least, we've kept the fine Abu Simbel, worth 25% longer GAge. We have to avoid Judaism tech, so to not obsoletes this nice wonder. On epic, it's a base 14 turns GAges. With Abu Simbel, that will lead to ~17 turns GAge. Will see later if that was intentional to lose such great wonder.

Also, the GProphet that fled the capital invasion (another feature of PAE) also got destroyed by another bug. Because it was guarded by a capturable unit, when we kill the first, the others can be killed too. Normally, a GPeople never gets destroyed unless it's a barb units...but that's more disbanding than destruction.



Those barbs aren't genius at all....



I decided to not get a tech tribute from Lydia and thus a 20 turns peace deal (PAE particularity again). Also that won't help us to reDoW a Egyptian Gods believer when most of the known world are under that faith. And Lydian remaining city is a cakewalk right now.



Most notable aspect of Colonization Civic is cutting in half distance maintenance.



The Great Boadicae wins!



You're done, Crouton!




Hasta la vista...no wait.



All GG are settled in the capital for its big hammer modifiers. We'll pump high level units for sure.

 

[Doshin]

I'm reading through the thread. To judge from the last save, someone likes stickies.

Is happiness more of a problem than in BTS? A ton of wonders seem to add , and I noticed a few unhappy citizens in the save.

 

[Manco Capac]

Stickies are coming from early game, where fog tended to refill unattended areas. A way to remind one where is resources for later cities. PAE is working differently regarding exploration.

Both health and happiness are crucial in this mod. You got a negative on health: diseases or emigration (the later being the best of the two). You got a negative on happiness: worse results being possible emigration and revolts. The latest is the worst being live slave revolts in regular BTS, but also cost money.

Yep, wonders add a lot in the happiness department. That's why I tend to focus all my wonders in the capital where big modifiers force the player to grow that city big for reaping big benefits.

Those unhappy will disappear. It takes a turn before war weariness disappear. Sadly, we'll suffer potential revolts, but after we will likely be neat of 2 spare happy faces in all cities.

 

[Manco Capac]

@Doshin

I have modified the turnset post at page 1. That should lead you easily of what happened. Just need a tad more effort to upload a serie of additional pictures.

BTW, are you always in a hurry? I find it amusing how fast you appear and then log out.

 

[lymond]

Great write-up, Tachy! Entertaining, Erudite, and Effervescent!

Now we need a plan. Economy recovery, ofc. Who to take next? Germanics?

 

[Doshin]

Thanks Tachy.

I log in to post and log out when I leave, to give the impression that I have somewhere important to hurry to.

 

[Manco Capac]

^Sly? jk?

 

[Manco Capac]

Great write-up, Tachy! Entertaining, Erudite, and Effervescent!

Now we need a plan. Economy recovery, ofc. Who to take next? Germanics?

I need need more effervescence from you, Lymond?
BTW, I think I'll some historical anecdotes once in a while. It's fun to give a role playing aspect to this challenge. I always liked ancient ages nations.

 

[lymond]

Sounds good to me. I love History as I'm sure many do around here.

 

[Manco Capac]

BTW, it's true about the reason goading Egyptians towards writing. When I first read that, I was fascinated by the comparison between Egypt and the rest of Africa. Sub-saharian africa never learnt a form of writing because they never felt the need to. Writing is invented not to please storytellers, but administrators because human memory is limited and writing allows to keep administration tables. And most of Africa and Nubians never were stuck in limited spaces like Egyptians, thus why keeping their oral traditions.

 

[cool.sound]

i have only played PAE for a month or so...

i'm not a great civ 4 player...

but i enjoy it...

if i remember right the basis for this mod were

1 must be playable on MAC

2 must be multi-player compatible

3 must be random map compatible

4 modified SDK sometimes cannot be played on a MAC???

5 that's why only XML and Python so far

6 i do not know if any modder/developer working on PAE is comfortable working with the SDK...idk (for messing up the multi-player)

7 MAC cannot run a modified .dll??? (unless they download Wine OS)???

8 many ppl are asking for BBAI or something...

9 i have not yet taken a city and lost a wonder as happened to you

10 someone had a double unit issue a while back though that was supposedly corrected.

11 i speak no Chinese but it is better than my computer skills

 

[Manco Capac]

Hehe you remind me a guy on the forum named soundjata. Not sure to follow you though.

 

[Manco Capac]

Tachywaxon's Seventh Turnset​

It starts T316 (1272 BC) and ends at T365 (1000 BC). It covers the great failure in attempting to capture the first Lydian city. It's a showcase how defensive abilities are boosted in PAE. And also never try to chariot rush unless attacking only warriors and basket archers (2 ).

Spoiler :

Celtic nation is a backward one historically. We can't tech Glass to create glass artefacts. That happy resource is only allowable through a more advanced nation...historically. Still, the technology is capturable through warfare.



Showing the best cities of the world. Don't mind the green square. I thought it meant a slave revolt, but in fact, it's a result of fog system particular of PAE.



Urnfields allow more culture in Durnovaria, thus speeding up third culture ring. We prospect incense for happy.



Some inaccessible hut with some lion roaming by.



Looks like meteors struck there. A burnt forest is bad for bringing sick faces.



Picture says all.



Religious ejector in a single religion city. M'kay?



Croesus used the precious GSpy into a GAges, meaning the GPeople is now burnt and won't be captured later if that was settled.



Celtia has no shame to make sacrifice of its own citizens.



Exploration in the far west of Thusnalda leads to a dead end.



Hut and preparing the lands for settlement.



Thusnelda is angry.



Nubians want freebie. We accept.



Finally, we enslaved our own workers.



Look at this!!!!



Exploration to the SE near Brennus, our Silk Route project stealer! May he die in suffering.



Pillage tech.



Gold, gold and gold.



Two turns settler!!!! How rare.



On PAE, that quest would certainly help. We never have enough happiness, especially if we want binary research (thus needing a spare 10 happy faces). But on strategea mapscripts, there are so many mountains, it will take forever to find the right one. Thus an irrelevant quest.

 

[Manco Capac]

Spoiler :

Mah luck on PAE. Nope.



Low odd loss of my first chariot. Well, that couldn't go better.



Hunnic lands starting to be uncovered.



Stupid insurgents.





Screenie says all.



Barb cities start to spawn.



How ridiculous. Stonehenge in one turn!



Mah slaves dying of natural cause: abuses.



Y U NO happnd befor?



Tribal hut provides me with a worker. Preferred a tech or gold.



Free slave.



The great Trojan Horse.



Wow! Basket Archer defeated a bear at 21%! Nice.




Funerary Cult+Paysant Militia.



Revolt.



We got our first GG!





Slave sellings too.



dc. Those pagans...



That jerk who did the bad thing know think we the bad one. Crouton is one f-cked up guy.



Religion in Nemetocenna to block off those villainous Lydians.



New lydian city.



Crouton is running away!



Another GEngineer. Gotta love those field slaves. There are so intelligent that once in a century, a gengineer spawns.



Some action in Thusnelda's lands.



Lol at what is inside the barb city.



Two interesting turns of events.



Nice leprosis barb city wounded those warriors to a point chariots eat them for breakfast. I'm interested in the gold part, no the city.