Role Play Challenge: The Barbaric Mayans

[madscientist]

Welcome to my next Role Play Challenge (PRC): The Mayan Barbarians! These games are meant to be fun and education! This represents the fourth and last of the Terra based maps I shall play in this series. The first being the popular Joao of Portugal/Brazil, the second the Annoying Frenhc when Louis lost, the third the recent Elizabeth and her massively unhappy American Colony! Here I offer the other flip side of the Terra map, the native inhabitants of the NEW WORLD!!! For educational puropses I hope to show how to deal with raging barbarians in an isolated/large land mass area without the great wall!

Pacal is the child-king of the Barbaric Mayan people. Anarchy runs rampant here, no sense of order or organized leadership. Just orders from Pacal, and of course the whip! But Pacal is no fool, and will quickly adapt to what other leaders do, he just has no one to guide him in this primitive land! And while he knows the sea and can work it, he has no desire to sail past sight of land, for now! He also plands to expand the Mayan empire across the entire world he knows, and will stop at nothing to do this regardless of the savage nations present on his land or from overseas!

So what is this RPC all about!

Settings

Map: Terra map where SEM gratiously agreed to insert Pacal onto the New World. We are isolated with ALOT of land
Monarch difficulty, marathon speed.
RAGING BARBARIANS are turned on!

Rules
1) No world wonders can be built until the Old World is met with the exception of Chichen Itza, for historical flavor. No Great Wall to protect us from those raging barbs!

2) Pacal cannot adopt any civics except slavery until he meets the Europeans! After that, all are in play as in a normal game.

3) Pacal cannot tech or trade for Optics until he has met at least 2 Old World leaders.

4) Pacal MUST control the entire New World land mass area, or at least keep it free of European settlers before he wins the game.

5) Pacal must declare war on, and stay at war against any Old World nation that settles in the New World. He can only accept peace once that city is captures or razed.

Any victory condition is acceptable, even a loss is tolerable. However, controling the entire NEW WORLD is essential to victory and this includes no barbarian cities either!

So a look at our Savage Child leader

And the start

Looks like a very decent start, on a hill and behind a river on the ocean. Very defenseable early on, and looks like some decent cottages.

Pacal starts with mysticism and mining so an early religion is possible. He also has a resourceless UU in the Holkan which requires BW/hunting although we may want at least fishing first. We should have at least three techs before the hordes appear!

The lack of civics means no happiness or production bonus's. However, pacal is expansives (cheap harbors/graneries) and gets +3 happy from the UB so construction should be emphasized easrlier than later.

So how do we start off our Barbaric Mayans!

 

[Krick19]

I say settle in place. Do you want to get a religion? It would help out with cash/happiness.

 

[Sian]

aye ... Settle in place ... try to get a single religion for the +1 happyness and culture and go priest specialists for a shrine asap

 

[Leventis]

I find that Pacal is a pretty good leader to have when isolated. His UB gives +3 and expansive of course grants +2. This offsets not being able to trade for happy and health resources early on and allows him to grow reasonably large cities. Not sure about you not wanting to have civics till the Old World meets you though. It gonna be very tough to run an empire without HR or Rep if you are low on happy resources, even if you do have ballcourts. Reckon you can get an early religion?

The start looks a no-brainer btw, settle in place and go exploring with your warrior. As far as techs go, I think you want to be aiming for writing and construction for libraries and ballcourts respectively. Also, I think you'll probably get horses or bronze in the BFC just by looking at the start. Just 2 resources visable is a bit of a giveaway -- something to keep in mind.

 

[Killroyan]

Food: cows, clams, FP -> check
Production: cows and 4 hills -> check
Commerce: coastal, fp, sea food, financial -> check
Defense: Start on hill (always nice with raging barbarians) -> check

Ok, that settles it

 

[sophie]

Wow, sounds like an interesting concept, good luck with all those barbarians. It would be pretty ironic if you ended up doing a transatlantic invasion of "Eurasia".

 

[madscientist]

Wow, sounds like an interesting concept, good luck with all those barbarians. It would be pretty ironic if you ended up doing a transatlantic invasion of "Eurasia".

I am thinking that's perhaps the LONGGGGGGGGG range plan here! Providing I do not get overrun by the Barbarians.

 

[DMOC]

Tech BW and Hunting to get those Holkans. Save a religion for later (possibly philo lightbulb?)

 

[cripp7]

what is the map size? Standard or large

 

[madscientist]

what is the map size? Standard or large

LArge, which is the default for Terra maps.

 

[Stuck in Pi]

get a religon mad, get a religon...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

This RPC HATES . Hope you have some good resources. Hope very strongly. You're going to get reamed by barb galleys and will probably need MC, which you can't slingshot, so hope you have some gold/silver/gems to make it more useful. Without HR or Mids you'll be needing religion, coliseums (which make construction an unusual early priority for you in this isolation), theaters, and temple to combat anger, and maybe calendar.

On the bright side, at least the UU and UB are very strong in this RPC. The UU will protect you until axes show up, which on monarch will take some time, so you can neglect archery perhaps forever as you'll have time to tech the other stuff. The UB is +3 , which is pretty huge.

IMO shooting for early CoL here would be useful on a lot of counts, especially if you don't go early religion...you'll need the +2 available from religion/temple. With that and construction you get +5 . Anything else like resources and so forth will give you all you need.

 

[semirami]

Going for early religion is a big gamble with raging barbs. Don't rely on holcans too much. They just suck. You need better units with raging barbs. I'd research F/BW/H first for some early holcans fogbusters. If there isn't a copper nearby Archery is next.

The UU will protect you until axes show up, which on monarch will take some time

Not with raging barbs. Axes and even swords will come very soon. And he has a lot of empty land.

 

[AmazonQueen]

Its a coastal start so with any luck you can expand so as to minimise your land borders. Given how common barb galleys will be maybe not bother with fishing boats until you can build triremes.

They do look very tough rules you've set yourself.

 

[Terrance888]

Most important is fog bursting and such. Either play as conquer as they come or stop them at their root...

 

[Hereditary Rule]

This looks like a very interesting RPC! Awaiting with Anticipation. Definitely vote for an early religion here.

 

[madscientist]

The Barbaric Mayans: Part I

I jumped into this one right away, and the good news is that we are still alive!!!

Pacal looks arround in bewilderment at all the land, and decided to send his scouting warrior up NW, finding a forrested river.

He decides to wisely settle in place, taking advantage of the natural defenses.

Pacal briefly considers a "Greater Calling!" and ponders an early religion. But the reality of the situation dictates a need for FAST and RELIABLE defense!

The techpath went: BW(for chopping and whipping units)/hunting(for the UU)/archery(for better city defense)/fishing(to eat!)/AH(to get chariots)/masonry(for wallsdammit!)/wheel(to drive the chariots)/pottery(er, we are financial I guess) and start IW (because you never have enough military against Raging Barbs!).

That's a mouthfull, and we have armsfull of Barbarians out there!!!!

After BW we sheck out the land

Yes, copper is a rather weak location! I originally planned to get a settler there, but altered that plan after the massive BARBS!

A few items to discuss before the horde get's it's press.

The benefit of having a hemisphere to myself is that we can get all the goodie huts, and we got over 500 gold!!! The bad thing is we are developing so slow we still basically have it! The scouting warrior popped some Barbs which decided to pay the Mayan's a little visit.

No problems, we built a few Holkans (chopped most of them) and some archers. They did good enough on warriors to get some decent promotions, the capital defending archer is up to CG III, and we have 1 Guerilla II archer defending a mine to prevent barbs pillaging it.

Also, we have yet to see a barb Galley but we are seeing axemen by the save!

Brutality at it's very best!!!!

We actually managed to build a settler while defending our capital, helped by using the worked to chop a hill forest and settled

My thinking is that there are several forrests to chop, it's a decent city, and most importantly "IT'S ON A HILL!!!!". Good enough for my defending archer to fend off axemen, for now. Finally, I am hoping that the Barbs direct their attacks against the new city and allow the capital to develope. So far mensa/mensa results.

A little better view here

I have a Holkan ontop of the copper (I prefer to settle south on the shore), and another near the horse. If I can get a third city on the river to capture the horse I can get chariots to ward off the Barb axes. I may then be able to buid a road to the cities!!!

So that is where we are at. Raging Barbarians wrecking havoc on the Mayan civilization! Fogbusters are not helping too much as the barbs are just going arround them! Production is limited and I cannot get a large enough force out there, but perhaps that can change. We also have NOT revolted to slavery yet, but I think that's the first thing to do next segment!

SO some more defense, another settler, capture the horses, and let's hope Iron is closer than the copper (AND ON A HILL)!



Also note that along the river there are horses. A plan starts forming

 

[PaulusIII]

So... you are the barbarians yourself, while being under attack by more hordes of barbarians? Sounds like fun!

 

[semirami]

Golden fishville will boost your economy and will give you so much needed axemen. Postpone IW and research Sailing for immediate access to copper in the capital, once the mine is built.

 

[Guardian_PL]

I'm sorry madscientist to say that, but it looks like you're going to stay on lower difficulties for a while still. What on earth is wrong with copper city? Fish, copper, coastal, 2xgold. Instead you're going after cows You're lucky you have Holkans for defense...

Also, although I understand that in role-playing one can do whatever he/she wishes, but I can't help frowning upon statements like:

Pacal is the child-king of the Barbaric Mayan people. Anarchy runs rampant here, no sense of order or organized leadership. Just orders from Pacal, and of course the whip! But Pacal is no fool, and will quickly adapt to what other leaders do, he just has no one to guide him in this primitive land! And while he knows the sea and can work it, he has no desire to sail past sight of land, for now! He also plands to expand the Mayan empire across the entire world he knows, and will stop at nothing to do this regardless of the savage nations present on his land or from overseas!

I mean, it's NOTHING like it!
It's a difference to tell to other people that French are annoying (it's a common inconsistence, similar to saying the English people drink tea at 5 p.m.), and calling Mayans barbaric savages, with no sense of order or organization...
It's your thread, you can do whatever you wish, and I'm sure many, many people will love it.
I won't, end of story