CHRONICLES

RBCiv Epic Six

The assault at Heidelburg was a little on the scary side. I had two spears and a warrior there. I was building walls but they weren't finished when the attacks started. Japan and France each brought half a dozen warriors over a few turns, and one of my spears was killed. I sent a reinforcement as quickly as I could, but there were two scary turns where I thought the city might fall. Then the walls went up, and some of the AI's started to go AROUND the city, toward Leipzig. At 1000BC, the Zulu impi units were giving me a hard time and I was forced to concede that Leipzig and the spices and Berlin were indeed the front line, with Heidelburg and Konigsburg entirely unsecured and unconnectable.

The good news, I was making progress settling the back lines, as you can see. Literature almost online. You can also see four elite spears in that picture. I kept hoping for a defensive leader, but enemy attack after attack after attack, none appeared. I had a second spear, an elite this time, killed up in Heidelburg, but again I sent a replacement and the city remained secure enough. The Japs would start to send horsemen soon enough, though. The others continued to send warriors, or in the case of the Zulu, impis.

By 750BC, I'm really starting to worry about the Pyramids. All this time, with all these elite spears, and no leaders??? Ouch! The years crept by and they crept by and they crept by. I was doing well, but there were three AI civs I didn't know, the Iro's built the Oracle in 590BC, and the Pyramids could go any day now. I -had- to get them, or it would be the worst kind of setback. I'm sweatin bullets. Finally a breakthrough!

As my defensive minisod of three spears, a horse, and a settler advanced to found my iron city, on the tile where the vanguard spear unit has fortified, the horse picked off an enemy spear wandering by and scores my first leader in 570BC. I swapped Berlin to Great Library and send the leader down to Hamburg to rush the Pyramids the next turn. Whew! No idea how close the AI's were to finishing it, but there was no cascade to Colossus or Lighthouse, so I broke the chain there, and that bought me more time for other wonders in the future.

You can see my expanding borders are helping out. I get more warning of what's coming and from where. Any wounded AI units have a long haul to clear out, heal, and return. I don't want too much of that, though, as it only postpones the inevitable, and could add one more to a sod on later turns, which would not be good. Best to kill them if possible. After Polytheism, I started working on Construction. The Great Wall would be really nice.

My second leader came with perfect timing. Perfect! It takes a whole round to get him back to Hamburg to rush the Great Library, giving the tech time to come in and finish the Great Wall on the same turn, destroying any and all AI wonder projects. Some shield overlap in Berlin was lost, but the leaders had not come as often as quickly as I hoped, and I NEEDED the Great Wall to defend my cities against the onslaught.

Of course, the Wall is militaristic while the library is scientific, so that means a golden age! Yes it will come under Despotism, but it will be late enough to help boost my fledgling cities. Note the Iroquois scout in the picture below. I didn't have mapmaking at the time the first Iro unit appeared (don't remember the exact turn). Made contact with them and declared war, but I couldn't trade with them for their map at the time. Oh well. Still two civs left to find, and I might even have to take some ships and go look for them. It was NOT a good thing that contact hadn't been made yet, as they were building temples, libraries, and whatever else: infrastructure that would boost their growth and power curves for all time. The sooner I got them over to making units constantly (now that I had mapmaking and would be sure to get a full map from one of them) the better for me long term.

Currency and Philosophy popped from the Library, and that put me into the middle ages. I still needed Monarchy (THE only government from which to wage an Always War) but with the library in hand, I went to all cash and rode the AI coattails until Education was to come along.

I used my golden age to build a cathedral, and then troops, in Berlin. I built the Forbidden Palace at this time in Hamburg. You can see one of the enemy's amphibious landings in the back lines. Just one unit, a regular war chariot? Yeah, my forces had that under control. (Notice how many forests are still standing? I'll come back to this point later).

I built courthouses in all my distant cities and an aqueduct in Munich at the wines. I took this opportunity to build the Forbidden Palace in Hamburg, according to my plan. The troops from Berlin, after its cathedral, allowed me to fend the AI's off just enough to keep the infra push in high drive. The colossus was finished, the FP finished, some key aqueducts finished. As soon as the golden age ended, I would revolt and swap to monarchy. In fact, I anticipated, with one turn of GA commerce left but GA shields done for keeps, and Revolted at the end of the turn before the notice was posted. As you can see here:

Yes, the French were bringing swordsmen now. Japan continued heavily on the horsemen. The Iro's were in the worst shape, sending warriors and archers still. It's now been twenty turns since my last leader, and I'm growing a little worried. I figured I'd build the Hanging Gardens from scratch in Berlin while I tried to nab SunTzu and the rest with leaders, but the leaders weren't popping.

Into the AD years now, there's a road to Heidelburg that is fairly secure and unbothered, but I still don't have a city northwest of Berlin at orange dot, nor one at the ivory on the northeast coast. I decide its time to grab that, though, so I sent a stack of four spears, a horst and a catapult with a settler up the coast, and they arrived with little fanfare to found Bonn on one of the ivory. Unfortunately, the Zulus founded a city across the bay like one or two turns before I got there, and they denied my city one of the two fish. Arrgh. I hoped the Zulu city would flip, but that seemed a thin hope.

I trained a galley and sent it clockwise around the south shore. I found no more Zulu cities. Instead, Egypt's homeland was directly to my east, on a southern subcontinent akin to India in real life: pointy, triangular.

My leader drought continued, lagging on and on and on. I worried that I should have gone for an army sooner, but I may have missed out on Pyramids or Great Library, and I never thought the drought would stretch for 800 years! Egypt nabbed the Hanging Gardens, leaving Berlin to cascade to SunTzu. I hoped for a leader NOW, as I could get an army victory and immediately swap to complete the Epic in Berlin, but it didn't happen. And then Berlin's shields got too high, and I found myself going for SunTzu (or at least one wonder) with a natural 600 shield build in Berlin. Sheesh! WHERE ARE THOSE LEADERS??? I know I was being careful with tracking the two elites that had already produced leaders. One got killed, the other was in use almost every other turn. I had plenty more elites, but never a single leader from a defensive unit.

The Zulus finally started training swordsmen, and one batch of them attacked my spear on top of the iron and occupied that spot, RIGHT when I was finally going to go connect the iron. I brought cata's over and bombed them to little avail, then finally assaulted head on with archers and horsemen, taking some casualties in the process, but reclaiming the high ground. I stationed more troops there now, and finally set to connecting the iron and then building a fortification (OUCH at the worker-turns needed for that, no rubber, no industrious, and no democracy). I also finally gained control, gradually, of the terrain directly north of Berlin, founding the orange dot at last, and training spears and then pikes to plant on the high ground north of Berlin, try to push the whole front forward to form a new line from Salzburg (orange dot) to Konigsburg. I then intended finally to try to take control of the hills and forests between Berlin and Konigsburg, but the AI onslaught on that side of the front was so relentless, with now three or four civs over there (Japan still mostly harassing the west. Mostly). The forested valley between the iron mountain and the mountains at Berlin remained unsecured. Too much penetration, not enough units on my part. Taking control of that land would have to wait for more tech.

My poor galley got bombarded twice while passing Egyptian cities, leaving it just two hps. Then I was trailing an Egyptian galley along the coast (and all the while fearing they would turn and attack me, sink me, and set my contact with the last two civs back by centuries). I still didn't send out a backup ship, though. The Egyptian galley seemed intent on something else, no idea what. Maybe a settler pair onboard, trying to race to somewhere.

I had been careful all along not to go too light on military in my back lines. I had some vet spears back there, and even one elite, and also a horseman and an archer. The AI's made about four attempts to land back there, mostly single-unit invasions, though once they dropped off two units. My forces back there always handled it, and I kept two or three military police on duty in each city anyway. So I never had any real scares back there (unlike the LOTR2 orignal Always War scenerio, where raiders from the sea even captured a city once, and did much pillaging).

At last I got past the Egyptian shores (wow, they had a lot of cities) and arrived at... the coast of England! Lizzie actually did not have a tech most of the AI's had already, so I tossed that in with some gold to buy her world map.

Yes, Education had popped from the library already. They went to it rather quickly. I continued to run zero science, though, until the AI's made a breakthrough. Then I would follow them along up the tree at deflated research costs. I needed a lot of money to upgrade my horses to knights, and my spears to pikes and then muskets. Why would I need so much money?? Well, because my leader drought continued and as it would turn out, I would lose Leo's Workshop to the Iroquois. England build the Lighthouse (and pulled their Golden Age). I was still working on SunTzu.

See how the back lines are almost all training military? I had them carrying that load while my core cities built up infrastructure. The roles would reverse soon enough. I'm working on SunTzu and so are the AI's. When Berlin finishes that, it will have the shields to crank a new knight every THREE turns, and I planned to do for a long stretch of time. At least it looks like I'm going to get SunTzu, the absolute most important wonder for a conquest attempt on Pangaea. Hamburg had twenty shields and was training longbows every other turn. Longbows! The more I use them, the more I like them. They make great defensive units (sit back, hit the AI's as they come close), and if tossed into a mix, make a great offensive unit during a siege, or against a heavily fortified position (fewer losses among the costlier knight units). They also give you more total units for counterattack, and more shots at a leader. Note poor Konigsburg still stuck at size 2 with no improved tiles, while the sad back line colonies are now all over size 7, fully improved or nearly so, cranking decently high production.

Right around the time I made contact with England, I sent a galley up the other coast with a lone regular warrior on board. I had not known I would get a world map, so I had sent him exploring and to land from the ship to find out more than the ship could alone. Well, the map rendered that mission obsolete, so I landed him at the Zulu silk town for a little raid. Much to my amusement, he killed one impi unit there before expiring. Haha.

In 440AD, I completed SunTzu's. From scratch! My leader drought continued, but the scariest thing of all is that the very next turn, the Iro's completed Leo's in Salamanca. The next turn! I beat them to SunTzu by ONE turn! One! From scratch. The leader drought nearly cost me the most important wonder in the game! (Pyramids being second). Lots of AI cascade to Sistine, too, so even if I did get another leader soon, I'd STILL have to postpone the army to grab an urgent wonder! Arrgh!

The most depressing news of all, I'm now at some forty or fifty elite wins, or more, from defensive units. I'm really getting the sense here that I can't count on leaders defensively, so I shift gears mentally to train even more and more longbows and knights, and go on the counterattack vs all comers as they approach my borders. I even moved my elite horse survivor who had produced my first leader to the back line reserves, guarding against landings, to get him wholly out of the attack rotation.

If I don't get some more leaders soon, I'm going to miss out on several key wonders.

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