The Rise and Power of Uncle Sam

[Harovan]

Due do several PBEM games and my duties in Gathering Storm, I have not played a single player game for quite a while. Last week finally, my cravings for a new game got bigger than time and PBEM issues, and so I begun to plan an epic game for the weekend, and possibly the next week. I was looking for a fun-and-relax game, not a big challenge. In the latter case I could have joined AU204, which is announced to be pretty difficult. But I have enough trouble at work and in my MP games, so I looked for some kind of ultimate power game (without the "TM", Arrian). The idea of the game is to "replay the history" and to guide the people of America through the industrial and modern ages on the way to absolute world hegemony. Here are the details of the game setup:

Rules and world settings:
- Based on the latest SP AU PTW mod
- Large, continents, 70% water
- Normal, temperate, 4 billion years
- 10 opponents (11 total civs)
- Restless barbarians
- Standard rules, all victory conditions on

Map details:
- 3 continents of about equal size, separated by at least 4 tiles ocean
- The location of the continents relative to each other shall *not* mirror reality (not to spoil the fun of exploring)
- Big oceans should contain 1 or 2 islands of at least 2 tiles, but not bigger than for 2 cities
- Each continent has a "world supply" (11) of 2 exclusive luxuries
- The remaining 2 luxuries (wines, furs) are at all continents with a "continental supply" (3 or 4).
- Each continent has enough strategic resources evenly distrubuted, with the exception of horses, oil and uranium
- None of the resources depletes, to make sure they stay located in the "right" places
- None of the civs shall have a "crappy" start position (jungle, hills)

1st continent: "America"
- May be a bit less than the other continents
- Civs are America (human player), Aztecs, Iroquois
- Only the Iroquois have 2 supplies of horses (for obvious reasons), one around their capital and one somewhere else
- 3 oil supplies, evenly distributed
- 2 supplies of uranium near America (to gift/sell the surplus to an ally in danger)

2nd continent: "Europe", including Russia
- Civs are England, France, Germany and Russia
- Russia should have plenty room to expand, the other 3 nations can be boxed in a bit
- 5 supplies of horses
- 3 supplies of uranium, located in England, France and Russia
- 1 supply of oil, in the "center of gravity" between England, France and Germany (let them fight it out)
- 2 supplies of oil in Russia, in the room where it's supposed to expand

3rd continent: "Asia", including Middle East
- Civs are Japan, China, India and Arabia
- 2 supplies of uranium, located in China and India
- 4 supplies of horses
- 5 supplies of oil around Arabia

Game objectives:
- All civs should survive till the modern age, if possible. It is not allowed to wipe a civ out.
- The player has to prevent genocide between other civs and to help the underdog, if it is possible.
- Aztecs and Iroquois have to be vassalized in the ancient and medieval ages and must survive in "reservations".
- Aggressive wars against the Native Americans aren't allowed after Replacable Parts are discovered.
- Native Americans are to be protected against intercontinental aggression. If they fight each other, the player has to make sure, that both survive.
- The player is not allowed to build any wonder in the ancient and medieval age. He has to build all wonders in the industrial and modern age.
- Main ally of America is England. Main enemies in the industrial age are Germany and Japan, in the modern age Russia and China.
- It would be good to participate in a couple of world wars, this should be not too hard.
- Arabia is the rogue state and punching bag after the discovery of Refining. They shall be punished from time to time, but not wiped out.
- The player has to play for absolute world hegemony. He has bases on all continents and on strategical important islands. He has the strongest military and the finest navy and airforce in the modern age.
- The game must be won by space race. One (the last) spaceship part should be moved forth to the very end of the tech tree.
- The other victory conditions are on to give the AI players an opportunity to counterplay. Don't let them win by UN or culture, and of course not by conquest or domination.
- America is not allowed to change to monarchy or communism. Once it is a democracy, it has to stay so till the game ends.

Difficulty:
- Since the player is restricted to a certain game style and not allowed to build all the good wonders, it's probably not wise to play it too difficult. It's to be played one level lower than the players usual level. I will play it on Monarch, to live out the fun factor.

Since these conditions can't be met with a randomly generated map, I asked our friend alexman to set the game up for me. He did me the favor (thanks, bud! ) and created a wonderful map for me. I promised him to post my tale in the Strategy forum. Here is it.

[Harovan]

3850BC we meet the Iroquois with our first Scout. They stole a hut in front of our nose, oh joy! Thank God, there was only a conscript Warrior in. 3750BC we meet a Jaguar Warrior of the Aztecs. That means, we are pretty boxed in.

We have to expand quickly and to build our inner core dense, to be efficient. So we decide to build a granary after our first settler. If we irrigate the grapes and mine some shielded grasslands, we can have 4 food surplus under despotism and thus build a six turn settler factory.

So far so good. We build cities and expand. We have research on minimum and tech broker between the Aztecs and the Iroquois. The Aztecs stay pathetic, the Iroquois become pretty powerful. 1990BC they extort 37 gold, we give in. After we buy Iron Working and Horseback Riding 1550BC we see, that our neighbors have outREXed all iron sources. Oh joy again , you had to add a bit of a challenge, Alex, hadn't you . We remember our basics and plan an Archer rush. On the Aztecs, not the Iroquois, since they are too powerful and have already horses hooked up (we don't have any). Around 1000BC we are in the mid of our preparations and already listed 3rd in the World by power.

[Harovan]

800BC we declare war on the Aztecs. We're not entirely ready yet, but have the opportunity to capture a settler and a worker, so things are urgent. We have 5 Archers and 3 Spearmen at the frontline, with more units approaching and in training.

We go straight towards their capital, which has iron and furs. After we captured it with Archers and the captured workers finished the road, we switch our production to Swordsmen. Then we take 2 other nearby cities. 710BC Hiawatha extorts us again, 60 gold. We give in, we're not yet prepared for war with him. 630BC an exploring Jaguar Warrior takes Seattle and poprushes a Spearman. We retake it 2 turns later. 590BC the war is over. We get 2 more cities with weird names, 95 gold and their map for peace. They have 2 cities left, with no visible resources. We're almost done with the Aztecs.

The war revealed a mistake in our game objectives, because the Aztec capital had the Oracle and we are not allowed to build an ancient wonder. We decided to keep the wonder, though.

[Harovan]

It's 430BC. Somebody is going to get sneak attacked, but it's not me .

[Harovan]

From 190BC to 70BC, the Second Aztec War gives us another city. Not that we needed so long to take it, but Montezuma didn't acknowledge our envoy for a while.

30BC, we enter the medieval age. We set the beeline for Navigation, for obvious reasons.

90AD, our preparations for the big war against the Iroquois were finished. 4 stacks with a total of 24 Swordsmen, 5 Spearmen and 5 Archers were ready to face the flood of Mounted Warriors. The war went slow, we had terrible losses and very bad RNG luck, but a steady stream of new Swordsmen and Spearmen kept us in business. An elite Archer made us a leader, who became an army of 2 Swordsmen and 1 Spearman. After the capture of Salamanca we had horses and switched our production to Horsemen. They advanced quickly and mopped the remaining Iroquois up. We humiliated Hiawatha badly for his 2 extortions. We conquered both his horse sources. 480AD our people revolted and demanded another government. 520AD, the new American Republic was proclaimed, and a peace treaty signed with the Iroquois. The war gave us 12 cities, including 2 island cities we got for peace. With the Colossus in Salamanca, another wonder was captured. The Iroquois remained with 4 cities left.

[Harovan]

Some more impressions of the big war.

[Harovan]

690BC our Forbidden Palace was built in Tlatelolco. Because this name is a PITA, we renamed it Phoenix. Our new Palace in Oil Springs still needs some centuries, since we build it without a leader.

710 we discover Navigation. 730BC we contact Asia. They are not very advanced. After levelling some techs with the leaders China and India, we remain with a two tech lead.

We signed a Right of Passage agreement with the Aztecs a while ago, because we saw a stream of Iroquois galleys going for them, and we want to protect their only city. Probably Hiawatha is out for a revenge. We can't declare war on the Iroquois, because we have a per turn deal going. Our forces enter Aztec territory.

720AD, the unbelievable happens. An Aztec Archer attacks Teotihuacan (our city), abusing his RoP. The same turn, the Iroquois declare war on the Aztecs. We have the wonderful mission to keep peace between 2 nations, one of which is at war with us. We thank the gods, that we didn't let the Aztecs iron, although their Archers killed one of our Horsemen though. We succeeded to block and lure away the Iroquois.

810BC, the Aztecs give us peace, and we contact Europe. Here we are barely on the even, after levelling techs. England is the big dog here. After trading maps, I almost pissed in my pants laughing. That English Channel is hilarious, Alex!

[Harovan]

Still the Iroquois are at war with the Aztecs. Here's a shot of our Blue Helmets in action.

[Harovan]

From 920AD to 1000AD we started the second offensive on the Iroquois, took 3 of their cities and wiped them off our continent. They have now only an island city left.

From 1020AD to 1060AD the Fourth Aztec War wiped them off our continent as well. We had before gifted them an island city, so they survived it, though.

1050AD, West Point (ex Tenochtitlan), finishes our Military academy. It's indeed the westernmost city on our landmass.

[Harovan]

1060AD Washington D.C. (ex Oil Springs) finishes our new Palace.

1070AD, we enter the industrial age.

Our next plans are:

- Switch to democracy.
- Gather together a small invasion force and secure some bases on the other continents. Especially that Chinese island on the entry of the big bay ("Gulf of Arabia"). It had a big red bullseye, since I discovered it.
- Focus on the industial wonders and increase our tech lead. At the moment, we're about even with the leading AIs.

More to come, for now I need sleep. This were the preparations. The game is focused on a power play in the industrial and modern age, so the fun just begins. We're, of course, already the first by score.

[Dominae]

Looks like fun, Sir Ralph! I should really remember to have fun when I play, too: I'm slugging through the NIC scenario right now, and it is not pretty. If not for the "challenge" factor, I would have moved on a long time ago. Your game looks very refreshing.


Dominae

[badams52]

Sorry about that Dominae. I felt the same way as you when working through NIC. I took many breaks, but having finished it, I feel a sence of accomplishment and a little smarter.

Sir Ralph, sounds very interesting.

[alexman]

Lookin' great so far!
Don't forget to save the pink frogs a couple of times!

[Harovan]

Originally posted by alexman
Lookin' great so far!
Don't forget to save the pink frogs a couple of times!

I might have to do it soon, but in this case I'd have to break with the "allied with England" rule. I'm at the verge of the modern age, and France is at war against an Anglo-German MPP driven alliance. Joan is the bad girl and already took one German city.

More to come soon. This game is fun. I don't remember to have had so many fun for a pretty long time.

[laissez-faire]

Hehe. The English Channel is a nice touch to the map, alexman. Looks like a fun game. I have been too swamped with work to even finish AU204 (which was not going well ), but rue the day of an enjoyment like this one.

[Fosse]

This looks like a lot of fun. Sir Ralph, I like that you solicited someone else to tailor a game for you... I've often wanted to play specific types of games that the random map just can't give me. I won't make them myself, becaue then I know everything... I never thought of this.

I smell an idea for a project... AU extra credit, if you will. Willing participants design games with high chance of killer AIs, interesting landscapes, unusual (for the random map maker) challenges, English Channels, etc. and they post them in one place where the rest of us can play them strictly for fun.

Extra things like "must have Native American reservations" can be thrown in for some, and some could be standard games....

after all, the AU games designed by people wind up being a lot of fun, but they only come out when we have a particular lesson to learn.

What do you guys think?

[Harovan]

It is a fun game. Designed less to be a challenge, more to be fun. I'm already in the early modern age, but don't have the time for a detailed AAR now.

As for the AU project, well Alex and me already thought of this. I would volunteer to make the map this time. You hammer out the conditions.

My experiences from this game so far: Monarch made it waaaay too easy. I am researching at a killer pace, industrial techs every 4-6 turns, modern techs starting at 7 turns, rapidly sinking after research labs (Internet, of course). Tons of money. This makes the ages run very quickly and leaves not much time for fun projects.

So far I have four bases. 3 around Asia (2 Chinese cities, 1 Arabian) and one island in the Indian ocean (the one near India), settled myself. France is getting spanked by a Anglo-German-Russian alliance. I would love to "save frog's ass", but there's the rule to stay allied with England. A rule conflict. Don't know how to be, at least if I don't help France now, they'll be wiped out. Perhaps in an AU game such rules should be softened a bit.

[Arrian]

If you must choose between staying allied with England and saving the Frogs, you gotta go with England. The mother country and all that, you know. Sorry, Joany!

-Arrian

[Fosse]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
As for the AU project, well Alex and me already thought of this. I would volunteer to make the map this time. You hammer out the conditions.

Glad to see I'm not alone on this. I'd propose that we don't wory about one person making "the" map for any current time... and that we should have as many "extra credit" games going at once as we can.

I'd love to see a map that has a real incentive to use naval blockades. access to ocean trades via bays and gulfs. I'm able to start work on such a thing after next Monday, if people are interested.

[Fosse]

And I agree that the spirit of these should be "just for fun," and less about learning.

[aaglo]

Sir Ralph,
What graphic mode do you have? That water looks like from CTP2. And it's nice. (The deeper sea...)

Where can I find it?

[Harovan]

It's Sn00py's newest mod. Located on the PtW CD and, of course, in the Civ3-Files section. The only thing I did was to keep the rivers from Sn00py's older mod.