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Kemal
18-09-2003, 16:17
First update on my latest PBEM, vs ERIKK. We've progressed until turn 51 so far, but first let me fill you in on the map specs and some rules we agreed upon:

Standard map, pangea, 6 random opponents, deity difficulty but with us starting off with an additional settler, sedentary barbs. All else is random, I'm playing Babylon with ERIKK commanding the Romans.

As an additional rule, we've agreed upon a total ban of MA's vs human opponents and the signings of MPPs for the entire length of the game.

So to start off the spoiling part of the thread, here's the first picture showing the Babylonian empire in turn 12:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/2003918142659_Babybegin.jpg
66.84*KB

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/2003918143613_minimap12.jpg
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Even though this picture was taken when Babylon was still so young, that "-lon" wasn't pronounced yet, it can be seen that the surrounding lands do offer potential, with already two luxuries in sight, and a few decent bonus resources and a river nearby.

The location of Ur is a bit unfortunate with they eye on future logistics, as it is positioned in a dead corner, with settlers being created there having to travel long distances later on, but the location itself is the best nearby spot possible.

With two expansionistic civs (more about one of them later on) present, and only one religious civ besides me, I figured there was no need to go for pottery myself, but rather tried to get it via a possible trade, so I started by researching mysticism on the full 100%, to use it as a trading tool as fast as possible, and to start a polytheism gamble later on at the earliest date possible.

In turn 29 (when contact with the other civs (except Erikk) had already been established), the Vikings had knowledge of mysticism, one turn before I got it myself. :(
But there wasn't much to worry about as they hadn't yet given it away to the others, so I bought it from them for a few gold pieces, then proceeded by trading it around to all others to fill up the gaps in the Babylonian scientists minds, netting me Writing, The Wheel, Masonry and IW, plus finally gaining contact with ERIKK to see whether he was behind/ahead much. It turned out that at that time he lacked both IW and Mysticism.

Here's what my empire looked like at that time, 17 turns after the previous pic:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/2003918144656_Overviewmysticism.jpg
74.97*KB


As can be seen, there's not just two but even a third luxury near my start, which is good, but another thing that can be seen is that I've got neighbours pretty close by, one of them being India, and the other, well... (starts music)

Guess who's back, back again?
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/2003918144948_Zuluweer.jpg
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Shaka's back, not a friend... :(:( (turns off music again)

Once again I'm faced with my personal arch-enemy, the treacherous Shaka of the evil Zulus. And not only is he back to haunt me again, this time he's bigger and meaner than ever, take a look at the scores from this turn:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/2003918145130_scorenamysticism.jpg
14.4*KB

Ugh, with only 29 turns gone, already the Zulus are well ahead of the rest of the pack, with only Ragnar being able to somewhat keep up with Shaka's cracker-like-gotm start. I strongly suspect they've found either a settler or an advanced tribe, and already need to start thinking about defenses as an attack is almost inevitable with Zulus as neighbours.

But on a positive note, even though I'm dead last in score, the demographs tell an entirely different story:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/2003918145514_demographsnamysticism.jpg
17.45*KB

After some rather uneventful 21 turns of play later, my warrior has managed to do a little exploring of the Zulu empiure, as well as some vague clues about the positioning of the Indian cities and some strange Chinese people far away:

On the Minimap:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/200391815814_minimap51.jpg
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The Zulu:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/2003918145721_Zuluoverview51.jpg
28.3*KB

India:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/2003918145747_Indiaoverview51.jpg
23.56*KB

And Babylon:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/2003918145833_Babylonoverview51.jpg
93.51*KB

Notice that both horses and iron as well as all 3 luxes are within my borders, and with the founding of Eridu to the north I've decided to put a stop on further expansion for now, and focus on military production. The current long term goal will be to assimilate the weak Indians into the Babylonian empire and get a second core running in their lands, either via a leader, or via an expensive palace jump.

Both Nineveh and Ur both have their barracks already in place, with Ur producing a vet warrior every two turns. Along with the warrior that's produced in Nineveh, and later in Ellipi every now and then, they will form the main attack force of swordsmen (after upgrading) to attack India, while being supported by horsemen from Babylon, which will have exactly 7 shields after the barracks are completed, allowing for chariots to be built in 3 turns.
On the Zulu front, both Akkad (temple already finished) and Ashur (will be rushed when possible) will culture expand to push away the Zulu borders, as to locate a possible invasion earlier, allowing for a crucial extra turn to react, as well as increasing the overall empire's culture, which always comes in handy when going to war.

(As for the AI's current plans, I'm happy to report that the Zulu Impi is accompanied by a settler, so no threat yet there, but notice the Indian warrior! Looks like backstabber no1 might be up to something again...)

To finish this first part off my spoiler off in a for me already traditional way, here are the last turns demographs, still looking good for Babylon:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/200391815920_Demographs51.jpg
17.62*KB

anarres
18-09-2003, 16:34
At least you have some slow tiles between you and Shaka, those Impi will lose some of their potency...

Kemal
26-09-2003, 18:18
Time for another update, though we're only at turn 71 now.

This time, I'd like to start off with a small sum, regarding both of my next-door neighbours in this game, India and Zululand. Today's question will be: What is the outcome of the following sum:

Zululand + India = ???

To succesfully make a hypothesis as to what might be the answer to this one should first look at the respective civs behaviour in past games of civ.

So to start off with Zululand and their leader Shaka:
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/200392615576_Zuluweer.jpg
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This is an extremely rare picture of Shaka, as you will rarely see him smile to you during a game of civ. Shaka's past record consists of an almost endless list of acts of war and cruelty, and his main (and actually only) quality seems to be warfare, making him civ3's warmongerer extraordinaire.
Another characteristic is that his wars usually start in the earlier ages, partly due to the fact that he likes to fight early on, and partly of course due to the fact that he usually never reaches the later stages of the game, as his scientific and empire-building skills are almost equal to those of the barbarians.

And now for the second party, India:
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/200392616552_Gandhi.jpg
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This is how you'll usually encounter Gandhi in civ3, appearing as a non-aggressive, peaceloving leader of a mostly commercial-minded tribe.
But don't let his fake smile fool you! Besides being a reasonable empire-builder, Gandhi's main quality is that he's extremely skilled in stabbing his trading partners in the back, usually when you least expect it. Therefore, one should always be on the lookout with this fellow close by, and never give him a window of opportunity to let him execute his treachery.

So with both civs analysed, it seems to be a valid conclusion that there can really only be one outcome to this problem, with both Gandhi and Shaka nearby, the sum of India + Zululand should result in:
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/2003926161353_war.jpg
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And to test this hypothesis, let's take a look at what happened in practice:
Turn 58:
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/2003926161617_DommeGandhi.jpg
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http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/2003926161640_Hammuiserblijmee.jpg
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Q.E.D.

(And as can be seen on the last pic, I'm not too unhappy about this outcome myself!:D)

So after this small lesson in civ-behaviour, and the very pleasant outcome of an early war between India and Zululand, the Babylonians themselves haven't been standing around doing nothing either.
As I said in my previous post, the original plan was to try and increase my empire's lands by taking out the weak Indians, and with the unexpected war between Zululand and India suddenly taking place this plan has been given even more priority, and in turn 65, Babylon itself decided the time had come for Gandhi to be punished for his attack on the innocent and friendly [rolleyes] Zulus:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/2003926162339_WarmetIndia.jpg
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http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/2003926162419_Militaryturn65.jpg
56.99KB

Stacks have been split in 3 swords near Madras and 8 near Bombay, and this is what the scene looked like one turn later:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/2003926162522_India1beurtlater.jpg
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Total losses on both sides were 3 swords for me against 3 spears and 2 archers for India, so a reasonably succesful start of the campaign.

But the last few turns have not only brought Babylon military successes, as there was also, after 40 turns worth of research, the invention of polytheism to celebrate! And what was even more reason for a celebration, I was the first to reach it, so some excellent trading opportunities lay ahead. After long consideration, the trading session with polytheism yielded the following net result for Babylon:

- Mathematics, Construction, Literature, Philosophy, Mapmaking, Code of laws.
- 150 cash
- World map

And with the world map now available, it was of course time to see how Caesar Erikk was progressing with his Romans, here's a pic of his current empire:
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/2003926163532_overviewerikk71.jpg
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Bah, he seems to be developing quite well, which is reflected in the current score table:
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/200392617545_erikkvoorinscore.jpg
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But Babylon itself is going along nicely too at the moment, after acquiring Literature Kemalrabbi immediately ordered for libraries to be constructed in most important cities, while continuing the work on the FP to the northeast of Babylon. These improvements will greatly improve the scientific output of the Babylonian empire and help speed up the current research project of Currency. My current hopes are that after learning about currency, one of the AIs will have completed research on The Republic, and that I can trade for that with my next era's free tech. This is very much a gamble, as the AI could also be massively researching currency by now, thus not Republic at all, which could lead to a severe delay in my empire changing to a more advanced form of government.

However, I want to reach the military techs of the medieval age as soon as possible, and use the more advanced medieval weapons to reap the rewards of the early Zulu GA and thus boost in production, which has lead to the following end-product:
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/200392616460_Zulupyramids.jpg
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Capturing zimbabwe shouldn't be too difficult, as they've pretty much wasted their early advantage it seems, and their military also seems to be not very strong:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/2003926164844_Zululandoverview71.jpg
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http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/2003926164915_averagemetZulu71.jpg
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Currently, my armies are making their way to Delhi, which should be poorly defended as they've just completed the Great Wall there, and have now started on the Great Library after first completing a settler. Still, with only 1 elite and 8 vet swords, plus one lone horseman available, it's still tricky business to attack an AI capital:
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/2003926165125_frontIndia71.jpg
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To complete this spoiler post, here are some pics giving an overview on how Babylon is doing in empire size, score, power, and demographs:

Overview:
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/2003926165331_overviewBabylon71.jpg
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Score:
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/2003926163635_score71.jpg
28.92KB
Power:
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/200392617630_power71.jpg
27.62KB
Demographs:
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/200392617652_Demographs71.jpg
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anarres
26-09-2003, 18:48
Looking good Kemal! :)

Skyfish
28-09-2003, 11:09
Looking at your FP it seems you want to jump the Palace at one point but where ? Zululand ?

Kemal
04-10-2003, 18:06
We've now progressed until turn 86, and as Erikk will be away for a month, the game will be put on hold with Babylon being in a healthy state.

As described before, Babylonian forces were massing to launch an offensive against the Indian capital stronghold of Delhi in turn 71, after which Babylonian generals would make a decision whether taking out the Indian skiing resort (plenty of snow and wine available!) in Bangalore, then possibly make a profitable peace-treaty afterwards.

As it turned out, Babylon was able to achieve both objectives, taking a poorly defended Delhi (3 spears) with little problems (though losing the one elite sword available) and having some lucky rolls against the heavily fortified hillcity of Bangalore, taking out 3 spears on a hill with as many swordsmen. As a result this was the situation of the former Indian lands in turn 77:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/200310416224_Oorlogover.jpg
72.78KB

Unfortunately, the peace-treaty wasn't as good as hoped for, with India failing to comply to the Babylonian demands of surrendering a hilly city to the north (Jaipur) as well as the tactically superbly located city of Karachi in the far east. In the end, it was Babylon who decided to give in, as Kemalrabbi decided to prioritize having his swordsmen near the zulu frontier, in case of a sudden attack, over hunting down the Indians in the rugged lands to the north. Therefore, the citizens of Jaipur were unfortunately forced to continue their sorry existence under their incompetent ruler Gandhi, as only Karachi exchanged ownership, along with some 2 gpt and 30g cash:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/2003104161219_controlepunt.jpg
28.58KB

Just too late to stop that Chinese settler/spear combo, but that one was the last to make it past Karachi, swordsmen now block the the mountain pass against further Chinese incursions in Babylonian lands, forcing them to take the long route around the Great Lake.

Now, the time came for Babylonian colonists to claim the lands that had fallen without ownership after Gandhi's taint was cleansed away from them. However, it appeared that Babylon was not the only one keen on these few patches of fertile ground, and Babylon hesitated one turn too long in two instances, and was forced to let ownership fall in Zululand hands on these two great locations:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/2003104161838_rotzulus1.jpg
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http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/2003104161857_rotzulus2.jpg
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On the scientific front, Babylon has had its ups en downs too in the past 15 turns. In turn 81, Babylon managed to enter the medieval age with the discovery of currency, and managed to sell it around for an additional 400 gold in total to Greece, Scandinavia en China. As a free tech, Kemalrabbi was pleased to find out that Monotheism had also been added to the list of known secrets to the Babylonian Empire, and was even more happier with the fact that this differed with the other scientific civ's bonus tech, Engineering now being known to Alexander's Greeks.
For their next science project, Babylon has started to pursue the knowledge of a more advanced government form, The Republic, and with it now being an estimated 9 turns away in turn 86, and still it not being known to any other civ, it is safe to say that the gamble of going for currency instead of the Republic earlier, to possibly trade for it using the free tech, has been a complete failure, resulting in a serious delay in government transition. :(

Still, the Babylonian BS (Bureau of Statistics) has optimistic figures to present each year. With the completion of the Forbidden Palace in Ellipi only 5 turns away (and indeed Babylon plans to move the palace to Zululand in a later stage of the game), these are the statistics of turn 86:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/2003104163553_demographs86.jpg
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As an additional service, the Bureau has been putting some effort in trying to get more knowledge on the statistics of Babylon's nearest competitors in the categories of Mfg. Goods and GNP. While they expect that it is safe to say that in the mfg goods category, the nearest competitor is only 5 tons away, it is GNP they feel that's the category Babylon shines in at the moment, with the nearest rival coming only to 75 as opposed to Babylon's staggering 113. In both cases, Rome is expected to be in second place.

And talking about Caesar's Erikk empire, Roman growth seems to have stunted over the past 16 turns, these are two pics of Rome's territory, the first being from turn 70, and the second from the latest turn, 86:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/2003104164349_Rome70.jpg
39.18KB

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/2003104164421_Rome86.jpg
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Notice that there has been no expansion of Roman territory at all, and only little growth in their cities overall. Babylonian analysts have reason to believe that Rome has started massing troops for a possible attack on their nearby neighbour the Vikings. This conculison is reached after examination of both the F8 screen, where Rome's power is rapidly increasing, while not acquiring new lands, indicating either a rise in gold or in military. Consulting the military advisor seems to indicate that the latter is the case here:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/2003104165015_bahweak.jpg
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Babylon's best guess on Rome's plans is that they seek to obtain a new core in Scandinavia by conquest, and use a leader to rush a (forbidden) palace there. However, an attack isn't expected anytime soon yet, as using their legionaries would mean entering a GA, and it is expected that Rome will not want to have this happen before changing to a Republic, which will probably still take at the very least 8-15 turns, factoring in research and anarchy.

Only time will tell whether these assumptions are anywhere near the truth of course.

anarres
04-10-2003, 19:50
So are you going for the Zulu next? Have they had their GA?

Skyfish
04-10-2003, 23:43
Looks good however you are worng in thinking "the Babylonian BS" does not mean : Bureau of Statistics am afraid...
It means something else [groucho]
[lol]

Kemal
06-10-2003, 14:14
@sky: Indeed the Bureau is known to some under a different name, especially those who continuously fail to understand the relevance of the data supplied by the BS-agents persist in calling it by its less-honorable name... ;)

@anarres: I'm 99% sure they have experienced their GA during the Indian-Zulu war, that last percent of uncertainty being only because I, as player 1, can never actually see a Zulu unit win a battle, nor have I seen a wounded Impi in this game yet.
However, since the Indians began that war by marching to a Zulu city with 3 warriors, which were never seen again, combined with the fact that exactly after the war started I dropped to 2nd place in both GNP and Mfg goods, I create and base my plans on the assumption that they will not have a GA during the future war I'll have with them.

Whether I'll use knights or Med Infs will depend on my research rate after I've made the change to Republic, but unless it will take very long to reach Chivalry, I'll use knights because of the much longer lifespan these units have in civ3 warfare.

Skyfish
06-10-2003, 16:58
Gotta hate those Med Infs... [vomit] [puke]

Kemal
10-11-2003, 19:58
With Erikk's return from his holiday, this game has been making steady progress, we're now at turn 110 and there have been plenty of events happening in the past 20 turns, so time for a new spoiler update.

Almost immediately after the game got under way again, Kemalrabbi and the Babylonian Empire had reason to celebrate as turn 90 saw the construction of that priceless small wonder, the Forbidden palace:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/20031110154432_FP730BC.jpg
89.5KB

And the Empire of Babylon prospered even further as only 2 turns later a revolution was called for, with both the increase in commerce from the FP as well as some trading with the Carthaginians allowed the Babyloninians to undergo a revolution much earlier than expected, turning into a Republic in turn 93. By trading the Republic away to third parties (Vikings,China) in exchange for luxury commodities, there was no need for Kemalrabbi to instate a luxury tax to keep the people happy, so the overall increase in GNP, as well as Mfg goods of course, was most impressive.

However, there were not only positive things to report during the ninety's, as Babyloninian spies affirmed rumours of the construction of a vast compound of endless scroll racks containing all of the world's scientific research done so far in the Viking City of Trondheim. Alarming news, as this meant that the Vikings' neighbours, Erikk's Romans, could now neglect their pursuit of knowledge in favour of building up a large military force, relying on the Library for scientific advances.
And while the Babylonian BS had been expecting an attack only after a new government would have been installed in Rome (see previous update), in turn 93 the Romans launched a brutal attack on the poor Scandinavians, occupying Reykjavik and Stavanger one turn later:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/2003111016428_AanvalErik670BC.jpg
48.06KB

This called for a change of plans in Babylon's research path, Kemalrabbi announcing that Babylonian scientists would be giving all necessary funds to show the world the wonders of education as soon as possible, hoping to cancel the effects of the Library before important military techs we're researched by other AIs.
With Monotheism already known, there were only two techs to go to education, but this meant a serious delay of the plan of conquering Zululand and their Pyramids.

As it turned out however, setting education as a prime target seems to have been a wise choice, as the Roman military campaign apparently expected little resistance military-wise, probably because of the Carthaginians lending a helping hand in the west. However, it has to be said that Scandinavia managed to pull off a heroic effort in fending the evil romans off as long as possible culturally-wise, with Babylon learning from a very high ranking Roman commander that many Romans were culturally converted into oblivion near the Viking city of Copenhagen in about turn 100:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/20031110161820_550BCCopenhagenflip.jpg
36.78KB

And talking about GA'ed Romans, Babylon was very happy to learn of the latest worldwide statistics of that same year, still ranking them above all other competitors in all major categories. And another fact that amazed the Babylonian leadership was that none other than the Babylonian capital of Babylon was among the top 5 cities in the world, which is nice to hear even though it has no real value of course :

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/2003111016201_F11_550BC.jpg
52.59KB

However, despite the cultural massacre near Copenhagen, Trondheim fell into Roman hands shortly after... :(:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/20031110162322_TrondheimRoman.jpg
27.84KB

Roman scientist managed to learn the techs of The Republic, Feudalism, Theology and Monotheism from the Library before the Babylonians spread the secrets of Education amongst the world, thus cancelling the effects of the Library in turn 108.

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/20031110184629_390BC-Education.jpg
31.42KB

Even though it's disappointing that Erikk has recieved these techs for free, I'm still content that he hasn't gotten Invention (Carthage got that in 109) nor Chivalry from the Library.

Now, it was time to get the military plans back on track. Chivalry will be available in turn 112, and 8 knights will immediately be upgraded, and an attack on Zulu forces is imminent. Before I continue lets take a look at the current state of my empire:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/20031110182623_Babylon350BC.jpg
72.78KB

Horsemen will be upgraded in Nineveh and Ellipi, and the first wave of attackers will aim to take out Isandhlwana (top priority, because of the nearby Gems in the east I really need ) and either Ulundi or Ngome (to the south, not visible in this pic), depending on how I'll compare in military against them. Since I'm average already, it'll probably be Ulundi.
Furthermore, my leftover swordsmen of the Indian tour will aim to take out the dispersed Zulu settlements in the north, two of those are elite, and since I've noticed plenty of Zulu archers in the north...who knows?

Now as you've probably noticed, the vikings also possess two settlements north of Babylon, as Kemalrabbi felt compelled to take action and hopefully ensure Viking survival, they are now allowed to live in those hillside camps, while ensuring their former citizens will continue to let their influence count and make life difficult for Caesar Erikk (and continue their 26 gpt payment to Babylon :D). However, it seems the Romans aren't going to handle this culture problem they have (see later in this spoiler for a pic) half-heartedly, take a look at what remains of some Viking settlements:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/20031110183834_Battlefield350BC.jpg
41.58KB

The world mourns the loss of two great Wonders of the World...

Now to finalize this spoiler update, and I know you wouldn't have expected less, here are some graphs and statistics from the latest turn, 110:

Score:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/2003111018412_Score350BC.jpg
16.31KB

Power:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/20031110184128_power350BC.jpg
19.32KB

Culture:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/20031110184210_culture350BC.jpg
16.01KB

Demographs:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/20031110184233_Demographs350BC.jpg
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Notice I'm now 2nd in mfg goods, maybe indicating Erikk has built the FP too now. His GA will be nearly finished now, so I'm hoping to regain the top spot soon.

Skyfish
10-11-2003, 21:19
Lookin' good as usual [thumbsup]
Good job on the GLib negation operation !

Plux
10-11-2003, 21:25
Still going strong I see.. :) I'd only like to see a WM.

Kemal
10-11-2003, 22:27
Thanks for the votes of confidence Plux and Skyfish. :)
As requested, here's the WM of the latest turn, 111:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/20031110211846_map111.jpg
7.44KB

Kemal
23-11-2003, 15:42
Another update, as much has happened since the previous one, we're now at turn 136.

As chronicled in the last update, the time of knights was soon to be upon the world, and around turn 112 Babylonian scientists had the breakthrough the military had been hoping for so long, with the completion of the research on chivalry, and a mass-upgrade of horsemen to knights.

Now came the time to test them in real field combat, and despite a small delay because of Babylon somehow being unable to force an impi to leave their territory for as long as 3 turns in a row, it was only in turn 116 that the first battles we're fought. Now, before I continue, let me first fill you in on what the exact goals of this military campaign were.
Most importantly, as stated several times already in this spoiler, I absolutely needed room to expand my empire and get a 2nd core up and running. As the Zulu lands had great potential, a total defeat of Zululand was the primary objective, to prevent annoying flips or unhappiness in former Zulu/soon to be Babylonian core cities. Here's a small pic of how I wanted the first ring and the new palace of Babylon to be placed:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/2003112313848_capitalplacement.jpg
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This is with the (still virtual (;))) capital circled, there's two reason for building it here, one because it is centrally located of course, but also because the city of Zimbabwe is home to the secondary objective of the campaign, The Pyramids. So with Zimbabwe being at a "fixed" location, I needed a spot still capable of supporting a decent first ring of cities, without them being too close to the capital. At this current location, Zimbabwe is at distance 4, as are some of the other Zulu cities, and I've marked future Babylonian cities with blue dots, also at distance 4. For this reason, it was unfortunately necessary to remove the poorly located city of Ulundi on capture, as it would have been too close. Another location of the would-be new capital was alos difficult because it needed to be able to grow to size 12 rapidly (i.e. by dogpiling, so it had to be next to rivers) to facilitate a possible palace jump in case of leader drought.

With these plans in mind, the first attack was commissioned and both the people of Ulundi as well as Isnadhlwana never knew what hit them:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/2003112313161_ulundidahaaag.jpg
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http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/20031123131640_Isandhlwanahopla.jpg
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The Babylonian euphoria was tempered a bit during the next two turns as a (maybe a bit overeager) Kemalrabbi ordered it's knights to take the Zulu's most western city of Ngome too, but to his amazement watched as the city's sole Zulu impi defender took the lives of 4 prized Babylonian knights before yielding to Baylonian superiority.

But all in all, this succesful offensive immediately took a tremendous bite out of the Zulu empire, and already settlers had been ordered to the scene, one of which founded the city of Sippar on the future-palace location, which also had a good strategic effect on the military plans, as its culture pressing would help a direct assault on the Zulu city of Zimbabwe later on.

In the meantime, Babylonian foot soldiers had been steadily making progress in the north, taking over the Zulu city of Umtata as well hunting down several regiments of archers, however, their real goal wasn't military conquest, as these experienced elite fighters knew all too well, so their progress was slow on purpose.

Back to the real fighting, turn 123, 7 turns after the war started, finally saw the fall of the source of Zulu opposition, as the mighty Babylonian armies lined up to start their assault on the Zulu capital. As it turned out, Kemalrabbi had greatly overestimated the resistance of the Zulu army, as only 4 regular(!) impies were present to try and fend off the waves of dark-blue determination, and the Zulu capital collapsed under this immense pressure without problems:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/20031123133122_Zimbabwe90bc.jpg
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But that wasn't the best news of the turn, one can see the lone Zulu medieval infantry trying to reach Zimbabwe, he was tracked down and dispatched on the road by an elite task force of knights, resulting in:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/20031123133251_leader90bc.jpg
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As a general note, though I have the impression that the rng has been kind to me so far in my pbems regarding leaders, this aspect of the game, early military conquests, has massively improved in my games ever since I started playing MP games. Back in the times of gotm, I was a 100% builder, aspiring perfection of empires rather than seeking to expand. However, with pbems forcing players to keep up with the other human, military conquests are sometimes necessary, and though I'm maybe riding my luck as far as leaders are concerned, these military conquest variants seem to have improved my gameplay overall, or at least added flexibility regarding strategies for the middle game.

Back to the game, the leader Agum was kept away from battle until all Zulu culture press had been removed from Sippar in turn 127, after which the palace was completed there:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/2003112313461_palacesippar127.jpg
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Further conquest of the Zulus went relatively easy, as can be seen on this minimap from turn 132:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/20031123134831_minimap133.jpg
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And it was at this date that a taskforce of Babylonian knights had finally managed to ride/teleport ;) through Inidan territory to reach the Zulu's final bastion, Tugela:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/20031123135022_taskforce133.jpg
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One turn later:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/20031123135116_taskforce134klote.jpg
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An extremely big disappointment, as battles against impies, aside from Ngome, had been so easy so far, my knights falter at the worst possible time, and this defeeat will mean at least 6,7 additional turn of flipping risks and increased unhappiness in all former Zulu cities. :(

However, the next Zulu Termination Squad will arrive via an easier way, because of reasons that are strongly linked to some non-military decisions that have been made in turn 134. First, let me fill you in one what happened in Babylon and the rest of the world domestically overall during the last 20 turns.
As pointed out previously, Babylon had been forced to settle for 2nd place in mfg. goods during Erikk's attack on the Vikings, though the Babylonian BS still hasn't been able to find a good explanation for the fluctuations in Erikk's demographics it encountered when trying to find out on a per turn basis how great the gap was between the two nations. That is, as I understand, a purely theoratical debate, and I won't go into great detail about, except maybe when the game has finished. As it went, Erikk's Romans have undergone a revolution and chancged to a Republican government, after which Babylon had been the no1 in all major categories once again.

Now, the techpace in this game has been pretty fast so far, exactly as Kemalrabbi likes it, which can be seen on this pic of the science report of the Babylonian Democracy (!) in turn 136, keeping in mind that it was only 24 turns ago that Chivalry was discovered:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/2003112314232_science136.jpg
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This is mainly due to the fact that the AI, especially Carthage, also seems to have made inventing new techs a no1 priority. After Chivalry I decided to go for Banking, as I had noticed that Invention had already been discovered by Carthage by then. When Banking came around 6 turns later, it turned out astronomy was also already available for trade, meaning I scooped two techs with Banking instead of just one. However, as it turned out, Carthage has also discovered Gunpowder while I learned Banking, but as I was a bit arrogant and didn't believe they could have gotten Gunpowder faster than I got Banking (and I still don't know how they did it, I have to admit), I didn't do the trading the right way, and ended up being unable to trade for Gunpowder as well.
As I needed something else to trade for Gunpowder, I then pursued the upper part of the tech tree, and went for Printing Press -> Democracy, which I changed government to in turn 133. By then, I had also managed to trade for Gunpowder using my monopoly Printing Press.

However, the change to Democracy wasn't the best news in turn 133, as Kemalrabbi learned of a very joyful fact of the Roman leader Caesar Erikk himself. A quick check on the F4 screen showed this:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/20031123141151_oorlogerikchina.jpg
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The Chinese have launched a sneak attack on the Roman forces! [coool]
As I showed earlier, the Zulu are nearly dead, and the Chinese are a likely next target. Now, they're weakening themself at the expense of Erikk, who has confided that he has paid the Carthaginians bigtime to set them up against China, and I'm profiting as I've sold democracy to them (Carthage) for their gpt. All in all, a very positive moment for Babylon, with all the population celebrating, which is reflected in a change from Slim Shaka's " The Impies-end Show" to T'Mao's " China in your Lands" as Babylon's most popular Club anthem. ;)

But, back to the science screen, it can be seen that the new age is only 5 techs (6 with Military Tradition) away, and military tradition itself is at only 2 more techs after Chemistry!
This is the reason that Kemalrabbi decided that now was the time to sprint away from the competition in techs, doing so by triggering the GA, which was effectuated in turn 134:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/2003112314213_134GA.jpg
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This was of course triggered by using one of those ancient-only-used-for-ceremonial-activities Bowmen, and the only target available to be shot fast and clean was an Indian archer, so now I'm at war with them again too. This has, as I talked about earlier, the good side-effect of being able to reach the Zulu city of Tugela sooner too, so I expect them to be history real soon now. As far as India is concerned, I'll leave them be if they don't get in the way, and make peace with them again if possible. Here are the demographs of GA' ed Babylon, to indicate the boost the empire has recieved:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/20031123143155_demographs136.jpg
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So that's what has been happening in Babylon recently, with this GA, production and economic ouput has soared, and I'm now researching techs at 4 turns while making hundreds of gold profit, so the Industrial Age won't be away for long anymore now.
I'm using the extra productivity for a much needed boost in military, because I have to be careful. The military advisor has been notifying me of the sorry state of the Babylonian army compared to my rival Caesar Erikk, as can be seen on this pic, which also contains the minimap for the latest turn:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/20031123142925_136minimapmilitaryweak.jpg
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Even though he has hinted to me about a possible attack on Greece, I'm aware that I need to look out for a possible Roman attack, and therefore increasing my military and securing the homelands has high priority now. I think I still have the time to do so, as Erikk hasn't got Astronomy yet, let alone navigation, so crossing the sea is (nearly) impossible, and the route via land has been made invalid now that he's at war with China.

Beam
23-11-2003, 21:51
Looks extremely well, have you decided wether or not to go for MT or the next age?

Skyfish
24-11-2003, 11:00
quote:Babylon had been forced to settle for 2nd place in mfg. goods during Erikk's attack on the Vikings, though the Babylonian BS still hasn't been able to find a good explanation for the fluctuations in Erikk's demographics it encountered when trying to find out on a per turn basis how great the gap was between the two nations. That is, as I understand, a purely theoratical debate, and I won't go into great detail about, except maybe when the game has finished

[rabbit]

Now finally the Great Kemal might come to the wise conclusion that "Babylonian BS" is exactly what it is : BULLSHIT and that the statistical instruments have only very approximate precision in Play By EMail games.

:D

anarres
24-11-2003, 11:19
Either that or ERIKK changed his around by switching from mobilisation or by going 0% to 100% science. ;)

Eldakkar
24-11-2003, 12:59
quote:Originally posted by Skyfish

quote:Babylon had been forced to settle for 2nd place in mfg. goods during Erikk's attack on the Vikings, though the Babylonian BS still hasn't been able to find a good explanation for the fluctuations in Erikk's demographics it encountered when trying to find out on a per turn basis how great the gap was between the two nations. That is, as I understand, a purely theoratical debate, and I won't go into great detail about, except maybe when the game has finished

[rabbit]

Now finally the Great Kemal might come to the wise conclusion that "Babylonian BS" is exactly what it is : BULLSHIT and that the statistical instruments have only very approximate precision in Play By EMail games.

:D




Hoooo, must respond to this. Myself being an avid user of the BS :D

It is a great tool, because the mfg goods are indeed the sum of uncorrupted shields of each civ. Just test it for a simple case!

Nevertheless it is a great puzzle which should be investigated after the game is done. :)

Skyfish
24-11-2003, 13:58
So is the fluctuation in Mfg Goods or Population ? Kemal talks about "demographics" that would point to Population...
What is the problem in clearer terms ?

I still stand by what I said mind you :D

Kemal
24-11-2003, 16:19
Wow, nice to see so many people interested in my BS! :)

However, it seems I failed to clearly put into words what has been the problem with the demographics, so here's a little addendum:

in general, almost all the investigations of the BS regarding the demographics (or as I tend to say, demographs) focus on the 3 categories which I feel are most important in telling something about the enemy. These categories are the mfg. goods, gnp and productivity.

In this given case, it's not in population nor gnp that the fluctuations have been detected, but solely in the mfg. goods category, making it the more unexplainable for me, as, unlike what (as anarres states) can happen with the gnp and productivity categories when, for example, the tax rates change, large per turn fluctuations in shield output can usually only be achieved by very special means, i.e. Golden Age, Forbidden Palace, mobilization.

Now what happened in this game is that Erikk's empire made several jumps in mfg. goods during a +- 30 turn period, starting at 93 (attack of Erikk on Vikings) until about turn 120 (Erikk turning anarchy), of which I have not been able to come up with a solid explanation for so far.

If people should be interested in the exact statistics and numbers of these jumps, I can post them here later on, but as I said in the spoiler, it's all quite theoratical stuff, which some *might* find a little boring I guess.. ;)

digger760
24-11-2003, 17:05
What about city dis-order...maybe Erikk was a bit slack keeping an eye on the happy/unhappy citizens.

Skyfish
24-11-2003, 20:56
He is only using governors : that could explain a lot actually :)

Kemal
28-11-2003, 13:08
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/20031128102125_wl362t.jpg
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Time for another update, we're now at turn 147, on the eve of a massive Babylonian military operation against Roman targets, codenamed "Forbidden Fruit":

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/20031128102316_aanvalerik2.jpg
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http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/20031128102359_landerik2.jpg
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http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/20031128102421_landerikoost.jpg
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http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/2003112811488_planB2.jpg
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Now before I'll enlighten you all on what the meaning of these battle schematics is, let me first fill you in on the origins of the plan, which saw it's first real preparations only 8(!) turns ago, so even after the previous spoiler update. It is therefore, maybe a bit of a risky plan too, but the time seems right to strike now.

To start with Beam's question from some time ago, when the previous update was released, I still didn't know whether to quickly go for the massively powerful cavalry granted by Military Tradition, or to pursue the immense production boost given by the industrial age techs of Steam Power and Nationalism. It was because of this reason that in turn 137, when Chemistry was discovered, I decided to leave both options open by going for metallurgy, which is needed both for cavalries as well as the Industrial Age, to buy me some time to decide on what the best course of action was in this case.

Then, on turn 139, a decision was reached, due to some developments in Roman foreign politics, as this turn marked the start of a massive roman campaign against their northern neighbours, The Greeks. Figuring that, for such a war to have any succes for Rome, it had to be fought all the way, because of the massive culture flipping that threatened Rome's newly captured cities, Kemalrabbi and his military staff decided to try and get an offensive launched against western Rome as soon as possible, while the bulk of the Roman military fought against the Greeks in the north.

with an estimated time of attack in turn 149 (2 turns away), there's still have fighting in the far north between roman and Greek forces, as the Romans leave a trail of destruction behind them, razing any city which they can lay their hands on:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/20031128104235_Griekenbijnadood.jpg
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This fills the hearts of all Babylonians with high hopes, as this should mean positions near the Roman homeland may prove to be only lightly defended.

As for the forces Babylon has trained for this operation, here's the latest from my military advisor, including a minimap:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/20031128104354_minimap147.jpg
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As an additional note, for the last 7 to 8 turns, the good man has estimated that, even before the upgrade to cavalries, the Babylonian military has surpassed the Romans in strength. currently, all but 1 of these cavalries is in some way involved in "Forbidden Fruit", 29 follow the land route, and another 7 have been preparing to navigate the ocean between Babylon and Rome, accompanied by two musketmen.

So, with the help of the cavalries high speed and agreements reached with Mao and Hannibal concerning safe passage through their territory, as well as trading for Navigation against metallurgy with Carthage, the situation as depicted above has been reached, I'll continue with a detailed explanation on how Babylon hopes the attack will progress over the next few turns:

Stage 1, moving to attack positions:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/20031128105334_aanvalerik2.jpg
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Here's the first pic again, this is the current positon of Babylon's cavalries in Carthaginian lands. All of these units have been ordered to rendez-vous on the dark-blue circle, which will be the base of operations for the attack on the Roman borders. Note that one of the cavalries has went astray and now actually seems to endanger the mission, as it might be exposed by a passing Roman scouting vessel in the seas to the northeast.

From the rendez-vous point (turn 148), the green lines indicate the attack plan and targets to be reached on the next turn (149), including the Roman cities of Stavanger, Oslo, Palmyra and Jerusalem, which can be more clearly seen on the following picture:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/200311281103_landerik2.jpg
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Now, especially for this operation, Kemalrabbi has come up with a modification of the normal warfare routines of razing/capturing enemy cities. The current plan is that all enemy cities captured on the first turn of the war (i.e. Palmyra, Oslo, stavanger and Jerusalem are to be surrendered to the leadership of Babylon's long time trading partner, the Carthaginians.

The reasoning behind this is that, as you might remember, no military alliances are to be signed against the human opponent in this game. As I have a RoP with Carthage, giving away these cities will only hinder my movement abilities in a very slight way (can't enter city tiles), while I can move my troops away from the Roman borders at the end of the turn, and use the Carthaginian spheres of influence as a method of shielding my cavs against counterattacks, as Erikk cannot freely use their roads. Since I've destroyed Erikk's reputation in the zulu war by disconnecting the then Zulu capital of Bapedi from my own harbour (which he used to give the Zulus a source of iron), as well as the developments in the Roman-Greek war (the first Greek city seemed to fall in the first turn of the war, even though its cultural sphere prohibited Roman units to stage an assault from within their own territory), Babylon believes Rome could face difficulties in negotiating a RoP with Carthage themselves. And even if they can, it will not expose my forces to counterattack any further than would I have razed the cities.

But, you might think, can Erikk not simply take over the cities of Carthage again the next turn?
This is indeed a possibility, as they will be undefended once I hand them over. However, Babylon believes that these cities will still be completely shielded from Roman attacks, as capturing them would mean open war between Rome and Carthage, and thus Rome having to face twice as many troops, as Carthaginian troops can be deployed to Roman territory in 2 to 3 turns to fight alongside Babylon's. From its military reports, Babylon knows that the Carthaginian army surpasses the roman army in strength, as they we're the last civilization to which babylon's army compared "strong" to. So it is not expected Rome will want to swallow these "poison pills" as that would have a tremendous negative effect for them. Hence the name of the operation, "Forbidden Fruit".

So, keeping in mind that the cultural spheres around Palmyra and Jerusalem will be Carthaginian, at the start of turn 150 (2nd turn of the war) troops will have massed at the yellow dot, following the yellow lines to capture Caesaraugusta, Byzantium and Syracuse that turn, thus completing the capture of Western-Rome in two turns, with all leftover cavs looking to mass at the light-blue dot to cross the large mountain range dividing Roman lands near Neapolis.

On turn 3 of the war (151), the (based on expected resistance) final stage of the attack will fall into place:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/20031128113330_landerikoost.jpg
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From the massing point near Neapolis the northern searoad will be taken to capture the Roman cities of Neapolis, Lutetia and Cumae, after which the attack will lose its fast nature, due to the hilly terrains near the core cities. For example, even though it hasn't exapnded culture yet, Veii is still not reachable in a single turn from the blue dot, and I expect resistance near the core to be too great to leave cavalries exposed to attack near the borders at that stage of the war. I might sever the connection between Veii and Neapolis however, as Erikk's units cannot pass a hill-tile in one turn without roads, thus giving my cavs a somewhat secure place to heal combat wounds.

Now, Babylon has one final trick up its sleeve, as an alternative plan has been made to attack Roman territory. It is expected that all Roman forces will be redeployed in the west once the attack starts, and therefore a small taskforce of knights/muskets has been assembled to make a surprise landing in the west once the war has been raging for a few turns. The coloring of the lines indicates where the fleet will be during each stage of the attack:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/20031128114834_planB2.jpg
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Note that this is only a possible route (the fastest), depending on encountered resistance they might wait with landing, possibly venturing more to the south, where the big cities are).

Of course, this is all how i want it to be, and almost certainly not how it will work out. One minor problem Babylon is facing now is that it has to honour the RoPs it has signed with both Carthage and China, and it is known this can have some unpleasant side-effects. Even though babylon has closed its borders near Karachi and Lahore (the cities on the landbridges connecting Babylon with China) with leftover swordsmen, the Chinese may have come with bad intentions, landing 3 riders in northern Babylon:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Kemal/20031128115318_watdoendiechinezenhier.jpg
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It has to be noted that they are at war with the Vikings atm, though I'm surprised that they unloaded at the hills instead of the mountains (I've manned the mountain with my warrior now, to prevent them entering my lands via that road) as that would have given them more defensive bonus. Another point is that they pay me tons of gold, so it might very well be they'll attack, in which case I'll lose Umfolozi. I have plenty of cash and production now to quickly overcome such an attack, so they fortunately do not pose a real threat to national security. (Looking at the pic again now, it seems they do threaten my lands bigtime, as they *can* reach Delhi with their third rider of course, if they attack and win the two other battles. Well, better hope they'll go for the Vikings then, I guess... :()

Skyfish
28-11-2003, 13:36
[shout] GO MAO ! [shout]
[lol][rotfl] [lol]


Erikk is toast !
Another one in the bag for the Great Kemal who will regain his due ranking before Aggie the Baggie comes back from NZ ;)

ERIKK
28-11-2003, 21:02
"ancient-only-used-for-ceremonial-activities Bowmen"

[lol] You used them even later than I thought!

Well, I am a bit disappointed that I have not been defeated by "a Kemal" but the fact that you
[u]also</u> had your ships on their way makes it a bit less! ;)

This was a unfortunate game for me but I am sure the chances of winning from Kemal are always
very low for me. The fact that my plan: getting a 2nd core in those nice Viking lands fast (no
leader for ages) and using the GA for libraries and temples (lost 15 units in flips) both failed
did not help me much... :(

I can try again in the future, in our next game, as Kemal offered a rematch.

Great play Kemal, thanks for finishing it ASAP! :)

ERIKK
28-11-2003, 21:05
quote:Originally posted by Skyfish

Erikk is toast !
Yes, and very tasty too! ;)

Skyfish
29-11-2003, 08:03
[goodjob] Nice one Kemal !

Plux
29-11-2003, 09:29
Very nice game, Kemal, and thanks for the exhaustive reports. Many congrats on your victory!!