The Immortal Challenge 1: Apocalypto

[lilnev]

An offensive army is one thing. That can certainly be an effective use of hammers. If aelf wants to invade Rome, he needs to get to Engineering ASAP. Trebs are key.

But a deterrent force, when your neighbor is relatively trustworthy, is something else -- inefficient. I think this is the line unconquered sun was really objecting to: "Even if we're to live in peace with Augustus, who sounds reasonable enough, we should keep our guard up until we reach Representation and Free Religion. We should build up our army and get our own crossbows and macemen."

If you're going to fight, fight. If you're not going to fight, don't build an army; focus your techs on improving your economy.

peace,
lilnev

 

[zagnut]

I have enjoyed following this Challenge since I discovered it a few days ago. Now that I have read through to the current page I have some thoughts to add.

I agree with UnconqueredSun that the economy has to be built up. You can’t surpass Rome in power any time soon, and maybe never, but you can concentrate on your GNP. Also, if you don’t expand to the west and north you may find some Roman cities there soon.

You now appear to be committed to a war with France. However, it will take you 5 turns to get to Paris with your cats after you declare. In that time you can only cross your fingers that France doesn’t become a vassal of Rome.

You may also consider bringing Rome into the war. It may be possible because of the antipathy with France. That little boost in good will from Rome if they do join in will help. They may also take Lyons quickly and end a war that you don’t want to be a long, drawn out affair.

Your strong suit is diplomatic relations. Use that skill to improve relations with Rome.

 

[shadow2k]

You now appear to be committed to a war with France. However, it will take you 5 turns to get to Paris with your cats after you declare. In that time you can only cross your fingers that France doesn’t become a vassal of Rome.

You may also consider bringing Rome into the war. It may be possible because of the antipathy with France. That little boost in good will from Rome if they do join in will help. They may also take Lyons quickly and end a war that you don’t want to be a long, drawn out affair.

Your strong suit is diplomatic relations. Use that skill to improve relations with Rome.

The problem with trying to improve relations with Rome is that Aelf will become Rome's worst (only) enemy if France is eliminated. You can probably expect a caravel from across the pond to show up fairly soon and alleviate that problem, but you can't be sure of it.

 

[Godel]

I don't think a civ has a worst enemy if they are Cautious or better towards everyone they know.

 

[EEE_BOY]

IMO you need more land and resources to build and compete with other advanced civ. Hit Rome once it is the time and be prepared.

 

[aelf]

The problem is I have no material to work with, no shared civic or religion and no techs for bribes. There really is nothing I can do to make Augustus a friend right now.

Anyway, I'm in the middle of playing the next round. Will give an update soon.

 

[LucyDuke]

Also, if you don’t expand to the west and north you may find some Roman cities there soon.

This bears repeating.

 

[Unconquered Sun]

I can't make myself believe this. If we wipe out the French and choose to research Paper before Metal Casting and Machinery, how can we be sure that the Romans would not quickly decide that we're a soft target and declare war with overwhelming forces? And what if we don't manage to get the University?

I may have to do some more thinking before I can play the next round.

As long as there are French, you are safe from Rome. Either way, Machinery by itself is of no importance to AI war calculations. The AI will look at your overall military, and if it is 70% or so under the Roman powergraph, it will consider you easy pray. Matching 70% of the Roman powergraph will be giant waste of resources, because Augustus can upgrade for free (nearly) and you can't.

And if Sankore is failed it is as if your city was building wealth, only x2 better because of Stone. Not too great but not a waste either.

 

[aelf]

As long as there are French, you are safe from Rome.

This is what I was trying to say. It's not a 100% guarantee, but safer is better in our position.

Either way, Machinery by itself is of no importance to AI war calculations. The AI will look at your overall military, and if it is 70% or so under the Roman powergraph, it will consider you easy pray. Matching 70% of the Roman powergraph will be giant waste of resources, because Augustus can upgrade for free (nearly) and you can't.

But Machinery also leads to other good techs, such as Optics (to contact the other continent), Engineering (for trebs and pikes) and, later on, Printing Press. Anyway, in our state, we'd take forever to research Education next, so there's little to no hope for trading it to Augustus.

And if Sankore is failed it is as if your city was building wealth, only x2 better because of Stone. Not too great but not a waste either.

I've actually finished playing the next round. I'll post the update later. You'll see how this idea comes back to haunt us. All in all, not looking good, although nothing disastrous happened.

 

[carl corey]

Uh-oh, already looking bad? Or are you just trying to keep us hooked?

I wonder what would happen (would have happened?) if the Romans decided to wipe out the French before you met the other continent. Preparing for war would mean they're building even more troops, so after the war is finished would they come for you? Eh, guess it's just rethorical...

 

[aelf]

Sorry for the long delay. I worked for seven days straight so I didn't have the time and energy to churn out an update quickly. I also needed to think things through. Which path should we take?

Well, I guess what I was driving at, which I hadn't been able to explain clearly, was the importance of being able to fight back. We don't need to try and match Rome's power. We won't. Trying itself is a bad thing, as you guys have pointed out. However, it's important to be able to at least defend ourselves against whatever he throws at us. He sends maces, we have crossbows or maces of our own. He sends knights, we have pikes. If we don't even have counters to his units, we would simply lose. Being able to stop his initial push might buy us time to get peace, and we may survive until we get to Constitution. Otherwise, don't even think about it.

Anyway, the update is coming up.

 

[aelf]

Round 5: 780AD - 1140AD

I decided to play the devil's advocate to myself and took the suggestion of researching Paper next. The reasoning is this: If Louis vassalises to Augustus, we're toast anyway. There wouldn't be enough time to produce counters to Augustus' medieval army. If we research Paper first, we might be able to build the University of Sankore (we have stone), and hopefully it would help us catch up with the AIs. So Paper it was.

Going war with Louis was pretty much a foregone conclusion, and hence it was on:

One of our Woodsman II Jags scouted out Paris' defenses:

It looked manageable. Still, being on a hil, knocking those longbows out would be tough

In the meantime, we founded the lakeside copper city:

I decided to place it where it can poach Orleans' pig. Without a lighthouse, the lake tiles would only produce 2F each. Placing the city 1 tile NE would give it more grassland to cottage, but growth would be slow without the pigs and we wouldn't be able to whip all those buildings up, which is the strength of our mighty civilization.

And we got our second prophet:

I'm thinking of using two shrines to help power up our economy and catch up later on. Anyway, we would probably be moving away from prophets and aiming to get scientists after this, so using this prophet for the Kong Miao now makes sense:

At this point, lightbulbing wouldn't give us any advantage in terms of tech trading anyway.

Back to the war, while we were beseiging Paris, Louis sent small wandering stacks of longbows, archers and a chariot from the NW at lightly-defended Tenochtitlan. I thought they were going to pillage the developed cottages around our capital, and we wouldn't be able to stop him, although he would probably not be able to take the city. That would be quite a big blow to us (we're running Bureaucracy, remember). However, the AI proved itself horribly incompetent at war once again and sent his main stack (of longbowmen and a chariot) to pillage the unworked copper mine instead:

That gave us enough time to bring in enough chariots and an axe to completely destroy all of his pillagers.

Meanwhile, Paris fell:

As expected, it was a tough slog. We lost a Shock axe from a catapult attack during the siege, and we lost about half of our catapults and one Jaguar assaulting the city. Our army had to rest a few turns before going for the next target. It turned out that there was another city south of Paris, at the border with Rome. We would certainly have to take that city (and probably raze it), but I decided that we should go for the French iron city first, NW of Paris.

Before that, though, we finished researching Paper and I happily looked for the University of Sankore in the building list in our capital. I did not find it. I checked the wonder list, and, true enough:

And it was built by none other than our neighbours the Romans themselves I checked the tech trading screen about two turns ago and did not see Paper in the list of techs Augustus had on us. The only explanation is he had a GE waiting (Isambard, IIRC) and rushed the University immediately after getting Paper one turn before us. Arghhh!!! The Romans must die! They've been hogging all the wonders and they took the one we hoped to get too

Anyway, now that it proved to be a mere Paper chase (get it? ), I decided to get down to business. Metal Casting was good for forges (which give extra hammers and happiness) anyway. And Machinery, besides allowing crossbows and maces, would lead to Engineering for trebs and pikes, should we decide to take on Rome (3-move roads would be useful as well). Even if that would not be the case, Machinery enables Optics, which we might want to get soon to contact the other continent. The last thing we need is to be isolated for a long time while Rome is busy trading techs with the other civs. Education is an alternative, but it would take more than 20 turns to research at our current rate, so I don't think it's a feasible option. There's Philosophy, but Taoism has been found and Angkor Wat has been built. The only value in it is trading with Augustus, and after the Paper incident I was not confident we could get it before him. So I decided to go MC -> Machinery next.

We took the French iron city:

It was razed. From the dotmap stand point, the location was sub par. Besides, we could do with a little less upkeep for now.

Our 2nd GG was born from that battle:

So now we're gonna have a Medic III unit.

EDIT: I nearly fell asleep trying to type the second part. I guess I have to go get a good sleep before I can continue Be back in the morning.

[to be continued in the next post...]

 

[carl corey]

Well, good night and don't forget to reread that second part in the morning.

 

[aelf]

[continued from previous post]

After we discovered MC, I checked the tech screen and saw that Augustus still did not have Philosophy. Then something occurred to me - the AIs plainly do not like to go for this tech when Taoism and the Angkor Wat have been snagged. I've seen this fact discussed a couple of times on the forum. Hence, I decided to make a gamble: Researching MC first was very well for the forges, but now we're going to go for Philosophy before Machinery. Hopefully we'd be able to get a good deal from Augustus for it, and maybe something from one or two civs from the other continent too, when we meet them. Philosophy would only take a few more turns to research than Machinery, so it's not an expensive investment. It's a military risk, of course, but you guys have advocated focusing on other things besides the military in our situation, so I'm going with that advice.

A few turns later, I noticed something disturbing. Augustus had two knights and a longbow heading towards the barb city up north (which was only defended by archers):

With our forces tied down in the south, we would not be able to do anything about the barb city for some time. I couldn't let Augustus have that city, so I closed borders with Rome, kicking out his expeditionary force. This did nothing to improve our relations with Rome, but fortunately Augustus remained cautious. We'll open borders with him again when it's certain that we're going to capture that barb city.

Then we met the first civ from the other continent:

Him again! And just as advanced as ever. This did not bode well for us. The other continent could very well be running away with the game. And HC was already unhappy with us for trading with his worst enemy (probably Augustus). Erm, okay. I don't want to be your friend either then.

Shortly after, we captured the city south of Paris:

We lost three catapults. The city was razed, of course. That location would be a nightmare.

And, on the following turn, we discovered Philosophy and met another civ from the other continent:

The good news is he is cautious with us. The bad news is he doesn't like us enough to trade us anything for Philosophy. Arghh!

This is where I stopped playing. I'm tempted to sue for peace with the French, although they built another city near Paris (Avignon) to annoy us. Here are the terms Louis is offering:

That was the best deal we could get. It's not bad at all. At this point, I would say screw WFYABTA; we don't have much trading to do anyway. Also, IMO, the presence of the French reduces the chance of us getting attacked by Rome. And we could do with a break from the WW and start expanding to our north before any AI decides to. The downside is, now that Louis is Christian, a future declaration war on him would earn us a demerit from Augustus. I haven't made the decision, though.

True enough, Augustus still does not have Philosophy. This is what he is willing to offer for it:

He wouldn't give us both Drama and Theology. We could get Machinery or Feudalism from him only if we throw 140 gold into the deal. I don't think that's a good idea. I think the best deal we could get from him after signing peace with Louis is Theology and 250 gold. I really wouldn't mind that, since we'd have lots of gold to quick research Machinery on our own. What do you think?

An overview of the tech situation:

Need I say that it doesn't look good? I don't remember seeing the notification, but Huayna has probably won the Liberalism race and picked Nationalism as the free tech. At least I hope so. If he hasn't, it only means he might be getting another expensive tech soon. The only person we're catching up with is the half-dead Louis, on whom we have Paper and Philosophy. We have Philosophy on Shaka and Augustus and nothing on Huayna.

The power graph:

Nothing much to say here. We'll probably stay low until we start building more advanced troops.

The GNP graph:

I know it's unrealiable an all, but it's still depressing. What on earth could be the reason why we're still lower than Louis? Is our economy in such a bad shape? I thought it has improved.

The map of the continent:

I think it's time to expand northwards. I'm not confident we can go to war wih Rome anytime soon. Trebs, when we get them, would probably see action against the last of the French cities. By the way, the barb city is now defended by longbows, so I suppose it's safe to open borders with Augustus again.

We need to decide on which path to pursue next. Should we go Machinery -> Engineering? I'm inclined towards this path for pikes (to counter knights) and 3-move roads. We need to start being able to fight a real war should we come under attack. I don't know what viable alternatives we have. I guess the importance of Optics can be discussed. Now that two of the other continent's civs have met us, is it important to get caravels asap to contact the others?

Your advice is greatly needed

 

[Mutineer]

Man, you wasted WFUBTA on archery that late in a gome and when you this far behind? You must be out of your mind.

 

[aelf]

Man, you wasted WFUBTA on archery that late in a gome and when you this far behind? You must be out of your mind.

I haven't done anything. And in case you haven't noticed there is no tech trading to be done after Philosophy.

 

[Mutineer]

soory, I look on pictures and I still ROLFIng from latest GOTM results.

 

[aelf]

soory, I look on pictures

As always

 

[DaviddesJ]

Mutineer is an offensive annoyance, but he's right that you shouldn't take Archery in trade even if you can get it for free. Sooner or later, you'll be in a position to trade for other techs, and you don't want to have super-cheap techs like Archery counting against your limit.

(I don't understand what you mean by "there is no tech trading to be done after Philosophy".)

 

[Sisiutil]

EEP! Better you than me!

I'm not going to assume the game is lost at this point, because I've seen you pull off some remarkable victories before, but DAMN, you're far behind!

I think a space race win is out--even with the AI's incompetent approach to production, Huayna will probably stumble into a launch long before you have all the necessary techs. Domination or conquest? Forget it! Diplomatic--maybe, but you'll have to work on your relations with Shaka and Huayna, that's for sure.

What about cultural? You founded 2 religions (with shrines) and could soon have access to a 3rd, either by taking Lyons or Augustus spreading Christianity to you (a reason to open those borders again). I don't know what happened to the Sistine Chapel--probably got built by now--but a combination of Caste System, Pacifism, National Epic, and Drama for the Globe Theatre would do the trick. Convert to Christianty and switch to Representation as soon as both are possible and Augustus will probably love you to pieces and leave you alone. He may even offer you a defensive pact. Cultural also plays to the crappy land to your north, because you don't need good cities for a cultural win; junk cities where you can build the necessary temples will suffice. And need I remind you that as a Spiritual leader, temples are cheap? It also plays to lagging behind in techs, provided you have just enough military to keep from looking like too tasty a treat.

It's definitely early enough to jump on the cultural path. Cultural, like Diplomatic, has another advantage over Space Race, Domination, or Conquest: it's sneaky. The AI doesn't seem able to see a cultural win in the making or do anything about stopping it (except maybe by accident).

And as I recall, you haven't one any of your Master's series games by culture. So it has the attraction of novelty.