AU 202: Analysis, Solutions, and Stories (spoiler)

[alexman]

Post your solutions for AU 202 here!

[Dominae]

Well, things are looking good for England so far! There are officially no Huts left, and here's what I got:

1 Settler
2 Nothing
3 Warrior
4 Warrior
5 Ceremonial Burial
6 Warrior Code
7 Map
8 25 Gold
9 Masonry
10 Mysticism
11 Map
12 Warrior

Yup, Expansionist is good.


Dominae

[Arrian]

1.14 PTW, Monarch, Arabs. 1700BC. 5 cities, settler in route to next spot.

5 x 25 gold
Warrior Code
Alphabet
Settler
Warrior
deserted

Can I trade for yours, Dominae? Ahh, no biggie. You have the English and I have the Arabs.

-Arrian

[Dominae]

Arrian, there's something weird about the our games, because I took a break precisely at 1700BC as well!

The first hut that I opened (SW of starting location) netted me a Settler...I think this is exactly the break I need to compensate for my poor civ:

[BRC]

Well, I'm missing religious/industrious, but I'm thinking my mongols are going to have a field day on this map.


I have just taken Salamanca. The Iroquois do have Horseback Riding, but they hadn't hooked up horses yet. I think that I will make peace for the tech and a city, and then go after them anyway. I would like to wipe my continent clean as fast as possible. I'm even trying a haphazard city placement. (Dominae: I don't think you'll be seeing much of this after this game. I cringe every time I build a new city.)

The Greeks are expanding slowly. They might be next.

I don't think that I'll be able to keep the civs from contacting each other, as Germany seems determined to scope out the south.

I built 5 vet warriors and traded Germany for Iron Working as soon as he had it. The price was steep, but I think it will pay off. I researched The Wheel right away (40 turns), and have built about 4 or 5 chariots. With HBR, these will be horsies. I'm gonna have all sorts of fun with them for a time. Thanks to Arrian for Chariot Upgrade Gambit (Is that it's official name?).

[BRC]

Thanks Dom

[BRC]

I do not recall what I got out of my huts, but I estimate it to be around 50 gold, 3 techs (Masonry, Alphabet, ???), and a city, right next to the capital. Not bad. I didn't build quite as many scouts as I wanted to, as I chose to build an early temple. I want to be able to capture and hold all of the cities that I take.

[BRC]

It's a little after 1000 B.C. I have horses. I have barracks. I have..... 1 temple. This is driving me crazy. The Germans almost have as much culture as I do.

All I'm building is horses, workers, settlers, and barracks. These are working their way up to Germany. Eventually, I'll turn them loose. I had to chase down a settler/spearman pair of the Iroquois all the way over to Greece. I took the city after he laid it down and slaughtered the free troops that came with it.

I guess I left respawn on because that's what he did. He now has the very SE of the continent. I will probably send a detatchment of horses to keep him under control.

I am at war with Greece and Germany right now. I attacked a Greek city on grassland with my horses and lost none, as two were able to retreat. I guess the plan is just to overwhelm Greece. Not much else I can think of.

I have about 6 or 7 elites running around, so it's just a matter of time. I also was informed that my people wanted the FP. I think that Arrian's Strategic Decision Thread has made up my mind for me when I finally get a leader. The continent will be mine.

[Aeson]

I figured to give this AU game a shot... if only to see how many holes in my Scouting thread this AU game would expose. I chose the Russians, forgot about setting the difficulty, so it turned out Deity. Using the 1.29f .bic because I don't yet have PtW. If you don't normally play Deity, you can always edit the Civilization3.ini file to include "Difficulty=5" to impress/punish your friends/family who decide to start up a game of Civ3 in the rare moments you've left the computer... or just to ruin your next game you start. I always forget to set the difficulty. I was planning on trying this game on Emperor.

I started off building 2 Scouts, then going for a Granary. I knew I should have built another Scout [ominous forshadowing (very subtle )]. The first 3 huts were empty, 4th was a map, then finally a tech (Masonry ). After that were a couple more empty huts, and a Warrior.

Contacts came really early, allowing me to trade for all the starting techs but Masonry and Alphabet. I had been researching Alphabet on my own, but obviously the Greeks beat me to it! In retrospective, I should have gone for Iron Working, but I figured to try and get as close to Monarchy as possible through huts, and blocking off Alphabet really helps in that regard. Getting nothing from the huts doesn't help of course. Masonry was a real windfall though, as none of the AI had it, and I wanted one of them to build the Pyramids (hopefully not the Greeks). I traded it for The Wheel, Alphabet, and Iron Working.

Also I stumbled onto something really funny... leading Barbs to AI capitols, and buying their Workers because of it. Scouts make tasty Barbscicles, and are too good to pass up if you place them right. Once an enemy military unit is in the city radius, all the AI workers are moved to the city. In the case of a capitol... buy them! I bought 1 Worker from the Iroquois regularly, then 3 from the Greeks using this tactic (all for a tech they would have gotten anyways from the Iroquois), and 2 more from the Germans. All in the first 30 turns!

The extra Scout really would have helped though. It seems my Scouts had missed some very important information early on. How the Germans snuck their starting units passed my Scouts is quite a mystery, but there they were, 2310BC. To put that in perspective, it's turn 36, 21 tiles from their Capitol. That meant their vendetta against me happened 5 turns after I met them. I HATE THE GERMANS!

Now this was looking terrible. I had just finished off a Granary and my first Settler, and was going to finish off my second Settler the next turn. I thought "Game over" and so just kept building the Settler, as even if I got a Spearman out it would have taken a miracle to stop the rampaging Germans. They hadn't declared war yet of course, but it was clear as day.

The rest I'll let the screenshots tell... The Iroquois ended up building the Pyramids after the second one as well.

EDIT: for clarity's sake, by 'building the Pyramids' I mean started building the Pyramids. They just finished the Collosus though.

[Aeson]

2 German Archers dead, and a Spearman...

[Aeson]

And a 3rd Archer down...

[Aeson]

A few turns later the second wave hits.

[Aeson]

My warriors are invincible (hoping the Iroquois MW's don't test that hypothesis).

[Aeson]

All told, that was 3 regular Warriors defeating 4 Archers, 2 Spearmen (thanks for attacking with them Bismark), and 2 Warriors. 2 of my Warriors getting upgraded to Elite status in the fray... Easily the most improbable result I've seen in any of my Civ3 games! I was fully expecting a Great Leader the way things were going...

[Aeson]

Now the Germans were ready to talk, but I wanted to see just how far this Warrior luck would take me. I was going to upgrade the elites anyways, no reason to not take my shot(s) at a leader. I used my Scout along with a Warrior escort to find more German troops advancing. The Scout would move forward a tile looking, as it could move back if it spotted any units, and then the Warrior would follow. I finally spotted some, and set a trap with my Scout.

The German troops were advancing along a line that would take them through Jungle and Mountains, which was also protected by river on one side. My goal was to lure at least one of them across the river and onto the grasslands, where I was sending my elite Warriors to intercept. I probably could have used my conscript Warrior to this end, but since this is a thread about Scouts...

Again the pictures tell the tale.

[Aeson]

Well it was my 5th elite victory (first with the Scout trap) before it happened.

[Konquest02]

I played on 1.29f, regent level (I planned to play on Monarch but forgot to change it...), as the Amercians. I got up to 1550 BC.

I cleared all the huts on the continent, except one which the Iroquois took just under my nose.
1-Warrior
2-Nothing
3-Settler (The same hut in which Dominae got his. See his screenshot)
4-Maps
5-Ceremonial Burial
6-Bronze Working
7-25 gold
8-Nothing
9-Maps
10-Mysticism
11-Warrior
12-Maps

The game is going pretty good so far. I decided to archer rush the Iroquois before they get horses and the dreaded MWs... I worked quite well as I have taken Salamanca and got 2 techs, all their gold and Niagara Falls (thier 2nd city) in the treaty. My forces are now rebuilding in order to crush them completely.

I think I made a huge mistake. I used to do like Aeson and lead barbs to Athens, the Greek capital that would never grow... Located in the mountains I went near a barb camp and led them up to Athens, destroying all their hopes (work on settler, credible defence, etc...) I then walked next to Athens with a conscript warrior and saw it was undefended. Thinking the AI respawning was off (which is in my usual games), I walked right in Athens, forcing the Greeks to respawn somewhere else on the continent. Now, they have a great start position, are between me and the Germans and are Furious towards me... I have unleashed the power of the Greeks...

Gotta go back to play, as I got some expansion to do... (half of the continent is now empty...) This is probably turning in an UP game!

--Kon--

[Arrian]

WOW! Aeson, that's insane! Grog lives! Well, if there was to be a nemesis for the Germans, it ought to be the Russians, huh?

I miss worker buying, btw. Great tactic using scouts to lure barbs to other civ's capitols. Brilliant, even.

Now, what are you going to do with the leader?

Kon - I'm not entirely sure taking Athens was a mistake. You still hurt them terribly.

-Arrian

[Aeson]

I rushed the Pyramids because it was the only thing available. Didn't have enough cities for the FP, though I probably should have just saved Ivan for that or the Great Library. Ended up building the FP regularly, even though I got 2 more leaders (both when I was almost done building the FP) in the BC's (army, Sun Tzu's), and the Great Library was taken by the French, who had all of 3 cities.

I'm not sure why, but the Iroquois (and most of the other AI as well) have been doing amazing in my game. Even after killing about 50 Iroquois units I couldn't break through. I killed 6 Spearmen in Salmanaca in one turn, and they still had at least 4 remaining. Salmanaca built 3 of the Ancient Wonders, but for some reason they started the Great Library in another much smaller city. Ended up only being able to raze 3 of their cities, and captured 1 (which I probably will lose to a flip).

My Scouts did very nicely in the Iroquois war though, pillaging their Iron and Horses at the start, then leading some Archer/Swordsmen stacks around for a few turns, getting some more pillaging in before they were taken. Now I just got Chivalry from the Greeks for a peace treaty and a bit of gold. Sending some more Scouts in to pillage the Iroquois Iron and Horses once the peace treaty expires again.

[Arrian]

You amaze me.

-Arrian

[Nor Me]

Only difference between my turn 2 screen and dominae's is Ceremonial burial(-- turns).
Why the wheel in 40 turns?

huts:
1. Settler (turn 2!)
2. Bronze working
3. Masonry
4. 25 gold
5. The Wheel(we have a road to bring horses into York.Good work!)
6. warrior
7. warrior
8. Deserted

I built enough scouts but sent too many North so I've missed a few huts. Got contact early enough to be selling rather than buying tech on emperor.

Then things went downhill. 8 turns away from horseback riding, the Iroqouis have it and they declared war. My cities are defended with chariots.

[Arrian]

Oh dear, that sounds bad. Do you have any warriors you can upgrade to swordsmen to toss into the fray?

If the MWs stop before your cities, your chariots can at least attack with 1:1.1 odds, which beats the hell out of 3:1.1 odds.

-Arrian

[BRC]

Why the wheel in 40 turns?

If this was directed to me, I wanted to get the location of all of the horse resources. On my attack of the Iroqouis, I beeline to the horse just SE of Salamanca. I also was able to build chariots early, and could get my "Mongolian Horde" up and running.

[Nor Me]

I have enough warriors but not enough gold ( about 80). Also none are veteran. At the moment the Iroqouis are attacking 1 city, mostly with warriors and across a river. I've only seen 1 MW but they have 3 cities connected and I can't do anything about it. I will conterattack with chariots and wait. If they don't reinforce quickly I'll be OK.

[Dominae]

Aeson,

My memory is horrible, but I assume you're playing a version (1.29f) where Worker-buying is as yet unfixed (Workers go for ~30 gold instead ~120)?

Although I think you were pretty lucky with the first three Archers, your subsequent planned "gamble" with Elites sure made you deserve that Leader. Nice one!

Strangely enough, in my game (Emperor), the Germans did the same Archer rush on me as well. Due to the lower difficulty, they only brought along 2 Archers and 1 Warrior though. I used a Scout to shadow them as they trekked down towards me, and a Warrior to block the direct route (forcing them to zigzag every turn). This allowed me to set up a reasonable defense (2 Spearmen, 2 Warriors) which handled the "surprise" attack easily.

Can Scouts Pillage? I feel I should know this, especially playing this game!

Using Scouts to aid in offenseive maneuvers is brilliant (Pillage or no). I'm busy getting a Horsemen force ready right now, but I'll squeak in a few Scouts here and there.


Dominae

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Nor Me
Only difference between my turn 2 screen and dominae's is Ceremonial burial(-- turns).
Why the wheel in 40 turns?

Pretty sure this question is directed at me. Goody Hut strategy dictates that you should research the cheapest available tech so that you can potentially "pop" the others for free. Although a great idea in theory, I really wanted The Wheel ASAP (with the Iroquois right next door, this turned out to be a good policy). The main reason for this is that it's the only tech available to me that I could "use" immediately, either by building Chariots or seeing Horses. I don't build Temples early. I ended up getting The Wheel in far less than 40 turns, as Bismarck discovered it before I did and I had extra Commerce from (surprisingly!) early cities.


Dominae

[Arrian]

Dominae,

Aeson is indeed playing 1.29.

Scouts can pillage.

-Arrian

[Dominae]

Thanks for the info Arrian.

Progress report: the English aren't half bad! With Expansionist to set up a strong early-game (tech-wise, mostly), and Commercial to support a sprawling empire (which this map encourages), the English traits are serving me well. Now, let's see if I can get my UU to shine...


Dominae

[Nor Me]

Dominae, It worked for me. I got the wheel in much less than 40 turns. Money-wise, I'd have been much better off to research writing in 40 turns.
But my strategy required me to get the wheel early. You got enough huts to be faily certain of getting the wheel eventually if you played for it.

Yes, the English are good. Didn't you expect that?
I think I've almost won already. Should have played on deity.

[Aeson]

They went after you too eh? I'm just glad they started so far away. I'm also glad they got it out of their system early, as later they just were flooding the map with military units. For close to 1000 years my western territory was just about covered with a constant stream of German units heading to fight in Greek lands.