A Dry, Hot Land

[badams52]

I've been using the random setting (and I usually start and restart a game several times till I find land a game where I get to expand before the AI closes in and with situations that seem interesting to me) and I ended up with this!

[Dominae]

Makes for an interesting game if you start out down South. The AIs would beat up on each other most probably, while you struggle to keep up in techs/expansion.


Dominae

[badams52]

The blue dot is my (babylon) starting location. Red is Rome's (they've got 2 grassland cows next to an inland sea and they mine them both ) and Purlpe, Iroquois'. Certainly not as bad as Aeson's infamous start, but...

If you're massochistic enough to try it here's the 4000 BC save.

[badams52]

Oh, monarch level vanila 1.29 f civ

[Dominae]

I would like to try it, but I feel guilty about still having the NIC game to finish...sigh.


Dominae

[badams52]

Originally posted by Dominae
Makes for an interesting game if you start out down South. The AIs would beat up on each other most probably, while you struggle to keep up in techs/expansion.

How would you expand, I started by maknig my second city all the way out by the wines then started back filling 3-Tile. Rome's attacking the Iroquois and making them pay, I paid tribute.

[badams52]

Originally posted by Dominae
I would like to try it, but I feel guilty about still having the NIC game to finish...sigh.

Sorry about that Dom. How far are you? Almost finished?

[Dominae]

I've got the game wrapped up (just Germans and Russians left - Germans no longer have access to Horses or Gunpowder, Russians are on a smallish island), but as usual things take a while to run their course. I will finish it though, and will produce a full report.


Dominae

[joncnunn]

Purple (North) :Shift settler one tile due west; found capital there.

Red (Center) : Found city in place.

In either case: Cut REX short for war with the other.

Blue (South) : Restart. Capital zone can't be irrigated until Enginerring.

Too much desert nearby for growth.

Center oppoent too far away for Archer rushing.

Originally posted by Dominae
Makes for an interesting game if you start out down South. The AIs would beat up on each other most probably, while you struggle to keep up in techs/expansion.


Dominae

[badams52]

Well, I just finished the game tonight. Write up coming soon, maybe tomorrow.

[badams52]

My second city was Ur all the way in the good land to the north east. From there I backfilled my cities and was able to found Akkad between Ur and Veii, while Rome was busy bopping the second city created by the Iroquios and settling the rest of the land for themselves.

Though my land was terrible, Ellipi was lucky enough to be able to quickly build an FP (since I had little else for it to build) and I started right away (thanks Catt ). With the land the way it was, I was perpetually behind in tech and bought what I could except I researched literature myself and held it alone till the GL was built in Babylon. My suicide galleys (after finally getting map making from the Romans) found an island chain and later found the Russians. Egypt, whom I heard built colossus was no where to be found. All that remained was Russian cities, and Russia got the Great Lighthouse allowing them to settle the worthless islands between the continents. The finding of Russia brought great knowledge to the Babylons as the techs poured in.

Then Rome, the second largest Empire in the world decided the continent wasn't big enough for the two of us and started marching troops into Babylonian territory. I immetiately demanded Rome's legions of doom leave or declare war and he quickly obliged declaring war.

[badams52]

Rome sent his legions of doom toward 2 cities: Ashur and Akkad. Seeing a streamline of legions might look daunting, but I told my troops, "head to the hills and mountains and use the land to help your defense." The troops must have used my advice wisely as Rome's legions of doom suffered defeat after defeat trying to attack my fortified pikemen on the mountains and hills.

Meanwhile, the Iroquois decided now was their chance to take revenge on the Romans while their armies were occupied in the southern lands. Rome quickly took their last remaining city.

Rome not wanting war anymore agreed to peace terms with Babylon.

[badams52]

A couple centuries later, Rome is still second banana in the world as it seems, and with a larger army, Rome again starts moving into Babylon territory where by I again tell Caesar to "leave or declare war" (we all know what large masses of units moving towards your land means) and he says, "so be it, war it is."

Rome moves his legions of doom once again towards Akkad and after Babylonian reinforcements arrive, Caesar moves his even larger legions of doom towards Ashur. Having learned some military secrets from the GL, namely chivalry and gunpowder, I tell my troops the same thing, defend in the hills and mountains. Little did my 3 pikemen squads and lone muskateer squad know they would see 11 legionary units (the legion of doom) coming down the mountain towards their fortified hill positions (number 1 & 2 on the map).

The troops fought bravely, but alas the legion of doom broke through while taking heavy casualties. Seeing the legion of doom hurting, I quickly sent my knights and swordsmen to attack up the mountain. A risky move that paid off when all but 2 legionary units were destroyed with the two remaining down to their last hitpoint were later routed as they tried to retreat.

And just as Hitler didn't learn from Napolean trying to invade Russia, Caesar didn't learn from himself and committed the same mistake twice, only this time it would cost more than just a cause for peace.

[badams52]

Having routed the legions of doom, I took a sense of security and put forth my master plan into action. Not wanting to see anymore legionairies or knights from Rome, I quickly dispatched two galleys filled with 2 musketmen each and sent them to the two iron sources of Rome. The two musketmen at Viroconium camped out and never tasted the steel or bows of the Romans. The two near Salamanca constantly fell victim to Longbowmen attacks, but Rome couldn't re-build the roads fast enough as galley's kept dropping off musketmen. The workers would flee, the longbowmen would attack, the musketmen would sometimes get there, sometimes die in route to the iron, but either way, it delayed Rome's iron so well that no more legionaries, knights, or musketmen were trained.

[badams52]

The hand of God (or the RNG ) was on the side of the Babylonians as Roman cities fortified with legionaries, pikemen and a couple of musketmen kept falling to Babylonian knights again and again. God really punished Rome, the most heavily guarded Roman city, and it fell easily and without Babylonian blood being spilt.

As such, the push towards more fertile northern lands went quickly and as Neapolis fell, the first Babylonian leader was born. Quickly, I sent my leader to recently conquered Antium and established my new palace creating less corruption in the more fertile, production rich, OCP-spaced cities of the newly forming Babylonian empire.

A second and final leader came shortly thereafter and built the only wonder available to Babylon at the time: Sun Tzu's.

Yellow line - old Babylonian border
Yellow circle - old capitol
Orange circle - FP
Green circle - new capitol

[badams52]

The rest was as you say history. I quickly secured the continent and left Rome to the one island city to the south. I wanted 3 civs so that when I started out researching Russia (as I was sure I would) it would be harder for them to keep up, but Russia, seeing my ploy sent it's forces and captured the last of the Roman cities.

I decided I didn't want to fight Russia, so I built and built quickly letting Russia take all the corruption rich islands between the continents. I used my 4 luxiries to get gpt deals from Russia and did the same with my techs to keep money out of Russia's coffers and into mine so that I could accelerate my research even more.

I gave Russia 100 gold as a gift (thanks bamspeedy) and they immediately became polite with me. Later Russia came to me and asked for a ROP and MPP for 2 gpt . I guess Russia wanted protection from themselves . Remembering bamspeedy's article on attitute, I agreed but gave them 55 gold instead of the 2gpt to keep their gpt down. Russia was now gracious with me with all the trading going on where they stayed for the rest of the game.

After the war, I was behind Russia in tech in the middle ages, but once I got to the industrial age, I caught up and then surpassed Russia building the 3 wonders of the industrial age though WS was really unnecessary.

What surprised me was as I got to the building of the spaceship and clearly in the lead (I even researched miniturization and genetics before the last SS tech), Russia went back and researched amphibious warfare and advanced flight

The Babylonian spaceship launched in 1995.

[badams52]

Some of the things I learned from this game, and I bet many of you know this already:

1. War releaves the ailing civ.

Don't have enough power, don't have enough land? Go to war and take what's yours. It's also helpful when you're near a warlike neighbor (Romans) and you have enough units to defend their attacks.

2. The AI is terrible at war.

He attacks across rivers, up to hills and mountains ignoring how important defensive bonuses are.

2a. Always use terrain to get defensive bonuses and draw the AI to terrain without.

It's easy to do really. Keep your troops on mountains and hills. The AI likes to get on those types of terrain for defensive bonuses too, but if you occupy them first, he'll either attack you or go to the plains, grasslands and deserts where the units are much easier to attack. Also when attacking cities, don't attack across the river. Take the extra time (if it takes more time) to move your troops to where the river won't affect your attack.

3. Go for the resources

The AI isn't good at stopping you from pillaging his resources. Pillaging them sends him back to ancient times withonly spearmen or riflemen if he's more advanced to defend with and longbowmen to attack with. Always funny to see a stack of longbowmen trying to attack my tanks. Of course if you're way ahead in tech, then pillaging resources is moot.

4. Make gpt deals with the AI

The less money the AI has to play with, the less research he can do. Conversely, the more money you extort from the AI, the faster your tech advantage grows.

5. Deficit spend on research

This doesn't always work, but if you have enough gold laying around, you can lose money while researching faster. This helped me build a great lead against the AI.

6. Building units and disbanding old ones can be just as good if not better than upgrading with gold.

I didn't have enough gold to upgrade all my units at once, so I built new ones and disbanded the old ones in cities and towns that didn't have high levels of production, killing 2 birds with one stone so to speak.

7. Being behind is only temporary.

Though I will say if your military isn't strong enough, you're not going to go very far, but even if you're behind in tech, numbers count more than quality. Just pillage some resources and you even the playing field. The AI doesn't know how to mobilize for war properly and most of the time, you can outbuild his army.

That's enough for now. But I'm going to leave you with this: because the AI has become a fast REX and building AI taking best strategies in Civ and Civ II, the counter to this is war, war and more war. Now if only the AI could understand counter measures...

[Ephesos]

I think that sounds like a great game. Thrashing the Romans (I hate them above all other civs ), launching a spaceship, and, well, thrashing the Romans (I usually play as Greece/Persia, and I have a history-based grudge). What level were you playing on?

I'm fairly new to the game, and I've only won twice, both cultural victories on chieftain. Pretty sad, but I'm improving (in one culture victory, I completely wiped out the Romans and left Egypt with one city early on).

The strategies you suggested , while conventional, do work great. One thing you covered in the game summary, but forgot to formally mention was PLACE YOUR PALACE & FP CAREFULLY!!! It's obvious that that sped your game up, and possibly allowed you to win, judging from the pretty awful start.

[badams52]

Well in my summary, I wrote down new things I learned and the knowledge of FP + Palace placement being known previous, I didn't mention it.

The game was a monarch level game. If you move up, and it sounds like you should, you will less often win culturally.

[Ephesos]

As a matter of fact, I did move up just recently. I'm Egypt, and I'm trying to fight the French and the Russians, both of them only one continent away. I've actually destroyed 3 cities, and I think my game is getting better than my Chieftain games.

Of course, the great library helped.

[Ephesos]

As a followup on this game, I've taken 3 French cities, raised my total destroyed count to 4, and taken a Russian city. I'm still bashing the French with Knights , but I've found peace with Russia and Germany (also on Russia & France's continent). I'm foremost techwise, and I'm actually pretty strong.

[badams52]

Sounds like the game is in the bag, just gotta mop up and decide which victory to head for.

[Ephesos]

You're right about that. France has 1 city left (I took the Oracle from them), and I think I'll leave them there, since I'd have to go through Germany to get there. I just have to boost my science some more, since Russia is getting ahead of me (they've got Astronomy and Music Theory).

Meanwhile, no one has contacted the Iroquois. They'll probably surprise both me and my opponents. They've has 5300 years to develop on a private continent.

[minke19104]

well if they're isolated, the Iroquois is most likely backwards..

[badams52]

Originally posted by minke19104
well if they're isolated, the Iroquois is most likely backwards..

*picturing the Iroquois as a bunch of backwoods southerners*

Actually come to think of it, kind of like in real life too. There the Iroquois were minding their own business when all those blasted Europeans came along during imperialism

[Ephesos]

Quite true. And as a matter of fact, Russia has claimed the northern third of their continent. How's that for historically accurate (ignore that Egypt - me - nearly wiped out France)? It's only a matter of time until I get the Iroquois to help me take on that blasted Catherine!