[BNW] The Alexandrian Conquests - Deity Challenge

[consentient]

In this game, you have to relive the conquests of Alexander the Great, and conquer the near East.

Can you also do what he failed to do - and make it as far as India?

- - -

This is a pretty experimental map, and was a lot of work to create, so I release this with the caveat that I have no idea how easy or difficult it is to complete, nor how realistic the allocation of resources, starting setup is, etc.

Please just play for fun and the challenge, and let's see if we can all meet up in Delhi

You'll need to unzip the .zip file, then also extract the Mod to your mod folder and place the map in your maps folder, in order to play.

Then, you also need to make sure that the Scenario is enabled, as per the attached image.

Special thanks to Stormtrooper412, mbbcam and raider980 for helping me troubleshoot the crashes experienced with the beta version of the scenario.

Settings:

Spoiler :

Hand-made map, hand-picked opponents, cities already founded, Classical era start, Policy Saving, Promotion saving, No Happiness, other misc changes

 

[consentient]

Haha looks like only I'm playing this so far. It's turn 60 and I'm doing pretty well. Conquered Constantinople relatively early, and am besieging Assur waiting for Crossbows to come online. The biggest problem is going to be mobility and city connections. I may well have to build the longest road ever made in Civ 5

 

[beetle]

I am currently locked out of my Steam account, so I missing a prime gaming day!

 

[raider980]

I'm playing and its very fun so far. I'm doing a lot better than I though I would.

Spoiler Spoiler through T59 :

I also took Constantinople early. I intercepted one of her settlers in the first 10 turns or so and just had to take it. Of course that made people dislike me, Gandhi has hated me since the get go.

I decided to be more aggressive than normal and went for Assyria with CB figuring I could take a city with them and then upgrade to XB and it worked. Assyria and Carthage joint DoW me before I could attack him actually.

Now its T59 and I'm about to siege Assur with 28 defense. I only have 3 XB in range but they all have logistics so I think I should be able to take it.

 

[Grendeldef]

I started as well, played some 15 turns and quit as I will later start again from scratch. Apparently there're no barbs or ruins nor are there hooked up horses for starting CCs and so on. In short, quite a lot is different to what I expected and I expected this to be a very odd game with late, boosted starts and ignored happiness.

 

[consentient]

The reason I did not include happiness, ruins or barbs is the scale of the map. Each of these forces has the potential to provide nerfs and buffs on a scale that is difficult to predict. It was important for the basic setup of the map that the AI settle more cities besides the capital. If some of these settlers moved into barb territory, it could all be rather hilarious. And with the vastness of central Asia, and it being extremely unlikely that the human player would get anywhere near scouting much of it, the AI could potentially get such a ridiculous buff from the ruins that it would runaway too early. I wanted it to be possible to get to the final AI before they would win by SV or CV.

I confess that I perhaps don't know enough about the game mechanics to make the perfect map, and I've made some choices based on best guess or on time limitations, but there we are.

The horses was a deliberate choice to represent the difficulty in having horses far away from home and the challenges of resupply. There are lots of horses within your culture borders so you just have to go hook them up.

To get you all more fully into the atmosphere of the challenge, here is a clip of my favourite story related to the conquests:

 

[mbbcam]

I think this map would be too much of a challenge for me, though I like the fact that it is a very different setup from the usual game.

There is a very interesting chapter on Alexander's leadership in John Keegan's book, The Mask of Command: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55203.The_Mask_of_Command

 

[Grendeldef]

The reason I did not include happiness, ruins or barbs is the scale of the map..

The horses was a deliberate choice to represent the difficulty in having horses far away from home and the challenges of resupply. There are lots of horses within your culture borders so you just have to go hook them up.

Yes, no problem as it wasn't a complain but an observation which had I known from the start would've led to playing the start quite differently hence I'll restart. I also gladly admit that few changes I only noticed after few turns could've been spotted on T0. Will it change the end result I have no idea but in short terms it'll make me much happier with my actions.
The CC issue is interesting as all the horse tiles only offer a single horse so it'll takes ages to get even the starting units away from resource penalty.

---add.---

Apparently all captured cities get annexed right away.

 

[raider980]

I think this map would be too much of a challenge for me, though I like the fact that it is a very different setup from the usual game.

When I first looked at the map I thought the same thing. But it's actually not as hard as a standard Deity map in the early going because you're not so far behind. I'd recommend giving it a try, so far it's been one of the most fun challenge games I can remember.

The reason I did not include happiness, ruins or barbs is the scale of the map. Each of these forces has the potential to provide nerfs and buffs on a scale that is difficult to predict. It was important for the basic setup of the map that the AI settle more

I've been trying to find a way to change happiness in Civ 5, its the least enjoyable aspect of the game. And I'm loving no happiness worries. I just want to build 100 cities in all that sweet land. Of course that'll kill my culture but I'm debating whether to do it anyway.

Apparently all captured cities get annexed right away.

Yep, they do. I wonder if CS act the same way and we won't get a chance to liberate it. I hope not because I've got one I'm about to capture.

 

[consentient]

Yeah, I've just discovered that, too. No puppeting means no chance to liberate, either

No idea what caused that. Certainly wasn't something I tinkered with.

I'm at Gandhi's borders and although I've tech'ed well, he is 12 techs ahead. With no visibility through the FOW, I have no way of knowing if he has bombers or not. Depends on his tech path really. If he has a lot of bombers, I don't have a big enough army to take his city. If he doesn't have them, but has Infantry, my upgraded Cavalry might be able to soak it up while the Artillery do the job. If he has neither, the capital will fall in a few turns.

There are quite a lot of things I don't like about this scenario now I've come to play it out. I'll share those in a few weeks once everyone that wants to has a chance to play it.

One of them, though, is that, yes, this is much easier than normal Deity, provided you can fight off the early DoWs, should you earn them

 

[beetle]

It was important for the basic setup of the map that the AI settle more cities besides the capital.

My first play had me trying to sack Constantinople on T2. I did not notice the resource shortfall, so the Companion Calvary evaporated.

On the other hand, I poached Theodora’s Settler and GPr. Then I read this note. So are we meant to turtle for a little bit?

 

[consentient]

You can do as you wish. I didn't turtle. I assaulted Constantinople with the CC but withdrew the one that got hit each turn, and used my CBs to whittle it down over 10 turns or more until I could finally take it.

 

[beetle]

Once I got CBs online, things went pretty smooth.

 

[Kroman]

I thought I was doing not so bad, having wiped out Teodora and Assurbanipal and 1 turn from artillery to obliterate the total leader Darius... when he attacked me with GWBs... turn 124... Don't think I can handle this... I have a strong land army and would easily win this, if not for the GWB.

 

[beetle]

Gandhi launched the turn after I dropped three Nuclear Missiles on him and took Calcutta.

I was moving much too slow anyway. I got hung up on Ashurbanipal. Took me until T148 to take Assur. He was planting new cities as fast as I could take them.

I took Tradition as my second tree. That was a mistake too. Not sure at all how to play it really.

 

[raider980]

How do you utilize policy saving? The Adopt Policy button is there but I don't see any way to end the turn.

I'm on T108 and mopping up Assyria. But Darius just DoW Ashurbanipal too and he's going to take his city on the Sinai which is going to block me from attacking Egypt. And Persia is like 10 techs ahead and already has an ideology. But all I see troop wise are pikemen and trebs so not sure whether to attack him, he's proably got cavalry and gatling guns hiding somewhere which would not be good.

I decided to build lots of cities myself and its great fun. Reminds me of Civ 2 when I just used to be able to found a big sprawling empire. But apparently I didn't found enough because Dido has started spamming settlers and building cities in Anatolia so she may need to be the next to go.

 

[consentient]

To skip the policy choice ,right click on the purple pop-up

 

[beetle]

I abandoned my second game about the T150 mark. I went Patronage while waiting on Rationalism, that was no better. Also, (1) I had an early coastal city that was too easy a mark and (2) I built a couple too many Companion Calvary. I want the Hoplites to be able to upgrade to Lancers.

EDIT: Tried again, three policies in Liberty seemed okay. I still got hung up on Assyria.

My first game Gandhi launched on T245. This time he launched on T200. I had only just unlocked Clauswitz.

 

[beetle]

I never could get a Dom VC from this game. I happily played a war-full SV. Fun map! Thanks for sharing @consentient!

1. First I took Constantinople, catching her GPr for a religon.
2. I will be playing a wide Liberty game, so at the minimum I want all of Turkey. That keeps me at war with Ashurbanipal, just to block him. Meanwhile, he is feeding me workers and settlers. I have 6x XBs, 3x Pikes, and 6x Level 6+ Knights — but I am not able to break into his starting territory.
3. During that time (1) Dido plants on a couple scraps of land that I failed to block, and (2) Darius takes Assur. Industrialization unlocks, and I find I that I need the two decent Coal plots near Assur if want to have factories in all my cities. I do very much want to have factories in all my cities!
4. Dido does me the favor of DOWing me, which is fine as it lets me clear her out of Turkey. About that time, I have gotten (6x Artillery and 3x Infantry) into position to DOW Darius and take Assur. I am at war with him for the rest of the game, but I never do make much progress towards Babylon.
5. Electronics and Combustion unlock, so that gives me the spare bandwidth to take Carthage.

Three SP in Liberty, three in Rationalism, then Three in Order. Closed out Liberty, closed out Rationalism, and put two more picks in Order. So that meant I had to hard built all the SS parts while pumping out units enough to keep the world at bay. I sat on my last SS part (but not many turns) until Darius launched (Gandhi was also woking on his last part) then reload back a turn for my own SV on T221.