The All AI Oppnents Are Aggressive Challenge

[ratrangerm]

OK, so I'm hoping to play a little more of this challenge tonight. After having learned a few things from other offline games, I think the plan of action will be as follows:

* Clear out the barb city to the southwest. It will most likely be razed.

* Continue building up the army.

* Hold off on building city No. 6 at this time, as I have to watch maintenance.

* Scout Monty's territory some more, to confirm the location of the Jewish holy city and where Stonehenge was built. Those two cities have to be kept... the rest will need to be razed so maintenance costs don't hurt me too much. I can always go back and fill in spots as needed.

* Leaning toward Currency for research after CoL, then heading to Construction. Much will depend on how my economy is doing.

 

[ratrangerm]

Round 4: 475 BC to 150 BC

Yes, a short round. Had to keep it short as I've hit a critical juncture.

First of all, it turns out our decision to forget pursuing the Oracle was a good thing.



One of the civs on the other continent built it. I'm betting on Huayna Cupac, as he starts with Mysticism and is most likely to be pursuing an early religion.

Meanwhile, I sent an Axemen to check out the Barbarian city.



Not very well defended at this point. I had my Axemen attack one of the Warriors for experience, and the other Warrior never bothered to counter attack despite my Axemen being injured.

Moscow was the first city to complete a library. I then made it a point to do this to Moscow, and would do the same to other cities:



I have to do this as my cities are hitting the happiness thresholds. Once my Rice/Gold city pops its borders, I can then get that Gold mined and my cities can grow a bit more.

Then another development occurred along the way... one that I knew was going to have implications on the game...



St. Petersburg was the city to which Judaism spread, and it looks like it spread on its own. Perhaps I should have removed Open Borders with Monty sooner, but I was Scouting his lands, trying to find out where he built Stonehenge.

And yes, Monty did ask me to convert to Judaism. I turned him down... he remained Cautious, though.

Alexander would complete the Hindu holy shrine, and not long after that, I acquired a key tech in my strategy:



I was not the first to get it, though... somebody on the other continent got to it first. The good news, though, is nobody else on my continent researched it.

Before I did some tech trading, I had another matter to first tend to.



Since the barb city was so far away from my lands and not founded in an ideal spot, I razed it. The extra gold will help with my teching.

After my turn was completed and I checked my cities to ensure their growth was halted/slowed and scientist specialists were assigned to every city with a library, I checked the tech situation for everyone, and went to Alex to see what I could get.



I was very pleased to get a two-for-one deal for CoL. Sailing will put me closer to Calendar, which we will need eventually for some resources we have, and Iron Working will definitely be useful.

And as it turned out, Iron was not that far away from my starting position.



Getting it by Moscow, and within its BFC, was great... now Moscow can serve as a decent production city as needed.

State of the world post to follow.

 

[ratrangerm]

OK, first of all, the tech situation with Monty:



So I still have Alpha and CoL on Monty. I wonder if he's going for Construction... that means I better put it on my priority list.

As for Toku...



Same situation as Monty. The fact he doesn't have Alpha means he won't be trading with Alex. I've still got Alpha on Alex, so he can't tech trade with anyone but me.

Here's the power graph.



As to be expected... Monty is in the lead, so when I head after him, I better take it one step at a time... raze a city, then sue for peace as soon as I can, only to rebuild and go harass him again when the peace treaty expires.

The GNP graph:



I'm doing pretty well here... an attack on Monty will chip his rate down.

And manufactured goods:



Monty is far ahead of me... yet another reason to attack him.

Not much has changed on the map, except that Monty has founded a couple more cities, and Alex has founded one as well.

Things I'm planning for the next round:

* Cancel Open Borders with Monty, get my Scout to check out Alex some more, then gather the troops together and prepare to attack Monty.
* Once I do declare war, that's when I'll convert to Hinduism. I want to make sure I throw the first punch to Monty and put him on the defensive.
* After Math is researched, I think the order of researc should be Construction, then Currency, then Literature. Construction should come first, IMO, so I can get the Cats going, then build Markets.
* Moscow will help St. Pete with building units for now. I'll probably forget a Barracks in Moscow, and have the Axemen it builds stick around in my borders, just in case Monty sends a Jaguar or two up my way.

Any other feedback is welcome... the saved game is attached.

 

[ratrangerm]

Round Five: 150 BC to 300 AD

OK, I haven't started my first invasion yet. Let's just say some developments occurred as I was piecing together my army that are making me wonder if I should change my plans for an early rush on Monty to an early rush on Alex.

Briefly updating some things: I teched to get Mathematics, then Construction, then Literature and am now pursuing Currency.

One of the developments was that I got my first Great Scientist in Moscow.



I decided to have him build an Academy in Moscow and I'll build the Great Library there... with a couple most forest chops and additional hammers from mining the Iron, production should be good enough to get the Library completed.

Somebody somewhere built the Parthenon, and it wasn't one of my neighbors.

As I was exploring Alexander's territory, that's when the development occurred that started making me wonder if I should switch plans to raid Monty...



I was amazed that Judaism spread to Toku first... he still doesn't have open borders with Monty. Now I have to ask myself how long it will be before Toku starts warming up to Monty, but then becomes less than pleased with Alex. If that does happen, an early rush on Monty that doesn't result in me wiping Monty off right away means Toku is likely to start coming to Monty's cause.

Another situation is what Alex did in his attempt to grab Iron that was near my borders.



So now I've got a Greek city that's going to start competing with me for land and will start incurring the close borders penalty.

But here's something that's pretty interesting.



Now, I know Alex has Iron in his borders and there's Copper he'll claim with a border pop... but he hasn't hooked up his Iron yet. He has Chariots, but that's it... and in Vanilla CIV, Chariots have no advantage over Axemen, making him an even more tempting target for an early Axeman rush.

Here's the map for the northern part of the continent.



And here's the southern part.



OK, now here is where I can really use some advice about the next step to take.

My Axemen army is ready to go and I'm starting to build Cats. I need to know whether the smart decision is to go after Monty first, as I planned, or target Alex instead. I can convert to either Hinduism or Judaism and a conversion to Judaism should be enough to eventually cancel out the penalty I got for turning down Monty's request that I convert.

One advantage to going after Alex is, because his cities are closer to me, I can keep at least one before sueing for peace. Monty's are further away, meaning even if he doesn't go sending a huge rush to take his cities back, it will be higher maintenance costs and longer to hook them up to roads. Not to mention that there's jungle between me and Monty, so his Jaguars will gain an advantage as troops make their way between our lands.

So what's it going to be... Monty first, as planned, or switch to Alex?

Saved game is attached.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Briefly updating some things: I teched to get Mathematics, then Construction, then Literature and am now pursuing Currency.

One of the developments was that I got my first Great Scientist in Moscow.

I decided to have him build an Academy in Moscow and I'll build the Great Library there... with a couple most forest chops and additional hammers from mining the Iron, production should be good enough to get the Library completed.

Hmm, maybe. I think you are still fighting the map, though. Moscow is small, and you don't have marble, and Moscow doesn't have particularly great production anyway, and if you are gearing up for a war, hadn't you better be using those hammers for units?

Something else to consider - 300AD is not an early start on the Library. Do you really thing you can bring it in against the civs on the other continent?

In terms of war, if you are only going to get one city, I'd want it to be Athens.

But I want to point out something here - your cities are in a world of hurt for size. It looks to me as though you have given no consideration to lifting your happiness limits. I'm guessing that you ought to have long ago noticed the general lack of ancient era happies in your neighborhood, and either (a) aim to get calendar into your research path earlier or (b) look to leveraging Hereditary Rule.

 

[12thScout]

Edit: Spoilers for l8ter! srry ><
This is how i played it tho, all you pros might do better

 

[ratrangerm]

Round Six: 300 AD to 820 AD

After having mulled things over for a bit, I decided the best strategy would be to make Alexander my friend as much as I could. The borders may have been a problem, but Monty is the most powerful civ on the continent and I didn't think I could trust him.

So, with that in mind, I continued along my tech path... first Currency, then Monarchy, then Civil Service, then I picked up Meditation as I could get it in one turn. I got some techs in trade, more on that later. When I finished this turn, I had my research set to get Machinery.

At any rate, since Monty was going to be my rival, I made a switch in my religion:



And after getting Monarchy, I changed civics.



As expected, Alexander remained cautious because of the close borders, but the shared religion will help counter that. Also, when Alex gets Monarchy and Hereditary Rule, that will also help win relations with him.

I did try to get Alex to swap Monarchy and some gold for Calendar, but he didn't bite. He was, however, willing to make another trade later.



I decided it was best to part with Alphabet... it's getting to the point that the others will be heading in that direction, and I'm also hoping to win favors with him so that he may eventually come assist me against Monty.

Before I got Meditation, I got my next Great Scientist.



He would have given me Compass if I lightbulbed anything. Given that Compass isn't that expensive of a tech, I decided to have him settle in Moscow.

And then, I spotted Monty patrolling my border with a few units, and just as I suspected, Monty wanted to start trouble.



Of course, the way he started trouble was by attacking my super stack while it was on a jungle hill. The Jaguars and Axemen who attacked all fell to my Axemen, and then when he sent his Archers onto a grassland square, they were easy pickings. I'll bet that stupid grin got wiped off Monty's face quickly once he saw how badly the battles went.

My units are now pushing toward Texcoco and I noticed a Horse Archer in the jungle on my way. I checked combat odds, which weren't in the favor of my units, so I'm letting him come closer to my territory so he'll end up on flat lands and I can use a couple of Axemen to take him down. I'll be building Spearman as soon as possible.

I made another tech swap with Alex... I figured I needed to bite the bullet and get tech and gold from him, especially since it's obvious he's beelining to Machinery himself.



And on my final turn, my gamble of delaying a certain Wonder paid off.



As I said earlier, aggressive AI civs tend not to pursue Literature. Heck, somebody was more interested in building Chichen Itza than the Great Library.

Which thus brings the latest turn to a close. Things to consider at this juncture.

* Texcoco isn't that well defended... Monty has an Axeman, a Catapult, a Horse Archer and a promoted Archer for city defense in there, with 50 percent defense from culture and walls. My superstack is just inside his borders... I'm staying on jungles and jungle hills to get the defensive advantage. Would it be wise to split my superstack into two stacks to lure that Catapult out, then press toward the city, bombard and prepare to attack?
* What should come after Machinery? I'm debating on getting Horseback Riding as it wouldn't take too many turns. Music can probably wait as Military Tradition is still quite a ways away. Paper is also available and Engineering would also come in handy for Pikemen and increased road movement. In fact, I think Engineering would be the best pick.

Saved game is attached, thoughts are most welcome.

 

[Rycheman]

Hi Ratrangerm.

I've just discovered your thread detailing your early game with aggresive AI's.I enjoyed reading it as i had decided to play a similar game on Vanilla a few weeks ago.

I was fed up with games where the AI never seemed to attack me.So i started a game on Noble,standard fractal map with all the civs who have the aggressive trait.I choose to play as "Alexander the Great" just cos i had never played as him before , although he's not the greatest aggressive civ.After some exploration it seems i'm on a continent with Huayna Capac.

I'm still in the very early stages of my game because i've recently got Warlords, and wanted to check out the new features.

After reading the posts of your game so far i'm going to revisit my Alexander game this weekend to see how it checks out.I may have learned something from your game.

What to do with Huayna? Would you love him for a tech trading buddie,until you meet someone else, or just wipe him off the face of the earth now?

I'll look forward to reading your next posts.

 

[ratrangerm]

Thanks for the feedback.

Honestly, as I continued from the point I left off, I realized that Monty had quite a few units, and although I was able to capture one of his cities and raze it, then pull my units back to regroup a bit, I then saw him keep approaching me with fairly good-sized stacks.

I'm having to stop to regroup a bit... it looks like I'm going to be in a bind, given that Monty took the war to me first.

That being said, this challenge _has_ proved useful, as I've learned a few pointers from several people (VoU in particular) about taking steps to play with the map presented rather than against it.

I don't know if I'll provide as many detailed posts as I have been, as I've been forgetting to take screenshots. We'll see what happens, but I think the mistakes I made early in the game are coming back to haunt me.

Anyway, as far as your question about Huayna goes, he can be a pretty good tech trading partner, but the thing to remember about him is that, of all the aggressive AI civs in Vanilla CIV, he tends to be the best at teching. So you want to exercise caution and don't trade too much tech to him.

 

[Rycheman]

What's happening now Ratrangerm?
We haven't heard anything for a few days,perhaps you're busy with real life!

 

[ratrangerm]

Not certain if I'll get a chance to finish this or not. I'll certainly try, though.

Hopefully I'll have a chance to play another round tonight and get an update going soon.

EDIT TO UPDATE: Sadly to say, I'm afraid this one is over, given the direction that I went with my game play.

I was able to take one of Monty's cities, but of course, I had to raze it, lest I get bombarded by a ton of units. Then I had to pull back and repel a host of Monty's units that were determined to take my cities.

I was able to force him to a stalemate, essentially, and get him to agree to peace. I had been building a pretty solid relationship with Alex...

...until he then decided to stab me in the back with a surprise capture of one of my workers... and this was when I was trying to get my units regrouped.

I think it's pretty obvious that some of my early mistakes are coming back to haunt me such as:

* Placing St. Petersburg where I placed it. I should have moved it to a different spot where it would be adjacent to not just the Stone, but also a Sheep resource, and a border pop would have given me Deer and Iron, thus making for a more reliable production city.
* I really needed to adopt a state religion sooner than I did. I waited too long, and as a result, there was no way to assure I'd be on good terms with somebody early on. Had I adopted Hinduism sooner, Alex would have warmed up to me and become friendly, and then adding Hereditary Rule as a civic would have sealed it. But I did both too late, and Alex eventually saw me as somebody just in the way.
* I didn't chop forests as early as I should have, as VoU pointed out earlier in the thread. Getting that jump on expansion would have helped greatly.

Like I said, though, I don't consider this a failure or a waste. I can attest that you do learn from your bad games as well as your good ones. Since I started this challenge and then let it go for a while so I could regroup, I played a couple of offline games on Prince (not with all AI opponents aggressive, though) and did much better, getting a Space Race victory on one and a Diplomatic victory on another.

Although this particular challenge is one that didn't go well (thanks mostly to my mistakes), I am not going to give this up completely. I am currently getting another game underway with the same parameters and with Peter again as my leader, only this one is on a fractal map, which could make things a bit more unpredictable.

I will be getting a thread started on the new one soon. I'm going to go ahead and start off for a few turns myself, but will post the saved game from the start in case anyone wants to shadow Take Two of my challenge.

 

[Rycheman]

Thanks for the update,sorry this one didn't work out.

I'm going to read what's happening in round 2 now.Better luck this time around.