I came into Epic 21 on a month-long layoff from Civ3. It was something I needed, as I was badly burned out on the game in December. The stress of trying to finish my classes, prepare for the holidays, entertain visitors, and write up my final reports for the Epic 18 Dual Potluck game had exhausted me. I wasn't sure if I was going to play any more Epics, as I was simply worn out on the game. A month away trying other things and relaxing in other ways did me a lot of good, and I was able to play this game with a fresh mind and a rejuvenated spirit. I can say here at the top of this report that I enjoyed this game immensely, and I look forward to upcoming Epic games with great pleasure. :)
But I begin to stray too far off topic. When I opened up the save file that Gris sent me, I was pleased to see that I had gotten the Mongols as my civ. I say pleased because I was interested to try out one of the new civs from PTW; sure the new civs are not all that different, but something new is always fun to try. Despite buying PTW almost as soon as it came out, I had not played out a game past the Ancient Age until this one. The purchase of PTW had coincided with my Civ3 burnout, and I abandoned a couple of half-hearted game starts. This would therefore also be my first PTW game played to any meaningful length.
The "winter" theme for this game was a pure delight. At the time that I first read the game's description, it was snowing steadily outside where I live in Baltimore. Snow is not that rare here, but neither is it common either. A wintry wonderland game, played with the Mongols to test out PTW in a friendly potluck game - this was about the best thing I could have asked for. Here was the starting position I had upon opening up the game:
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The first problem that I had was simply identifying what the terrain types were. Playing with this winter tileset presented its own problems for someone used to their own customized graphics mod like me. I've been using the same one since about June 2002, a span of more than 7 months. After that long, you get used to what things look like! Much right-clicking to discover what terrain exactly was around me ensued. I quickly found that the terrain in the photo consisted of several forest tiles, some jungle tiles (snow-covered jungle?), a grassland tile, and some tundra. After moving the worker and not seeing anything better, I opted to found on the starting spot, as it was on a river, on a coast, and reclaimed a tundra tile. Not the most promising starting location, but I'll take just about anything on a river.
I sent my scout off to the east, who quickly found an ocean in that direction. No surprise there, seeing as how I knew from the game parameters that this was an archipelago map. I built another scout second, and then started in on a granary (which of course did not require researching Pottery for the expansionist Mongols). Actually, I ran 0% research right out of the gate with the Mongols, since I did not need to get granaries and decided I would see who else was on my island (if anyone) before turning on research myself. Before too much time passed, I ran into the Russians on the western half of my continent:
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This was in 3500BC, an early date but not extraordinarily so given that both of us were expansionist. Catherine was annoyed as always and up a couple of techs on me. I traded Warrior Code to them for Ceremonial Burial and change, a trade that Russia got the better deal in (of course). But Russia was sure to research Warrior Code anyway soon, and I figured it was better to get something than nothing from having a tech that Cathy did not. I turned science on, setting it to The Wheel, a tech that the AI often ignores early on and serves the important task of revealing horses on the map.
For the next few turns not much of interest happened. My scouts revealed the scope of the starting island; it was a nice size for building a very strong civ in the future, but absolutely choked with tons of jungle. Snow-covered jungle of course for this scenario. :) It appeared as though my Mongols had been set down in the middle of the tropics. That jungle represented an enourmous amount of future potential, but it would take a ton of effort to have it reach that point. Setting up a worker farm to cut it all down would be paramount to my success on this map.
Then next picture I took was in 2350BC (this is also only my third note for the game out of well over 100; I write only when important things are going on). This was on the turn that I founded my second city, Ta-Tu. It also gives a good indication of the island as a whole, so I'm reproducing it in full here:
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Notice that barb camp in the south? It's on my map because I had a scout down there, then all of a sudden a camp appeared next to him and killed him, all between turns so there was no chance to move out of the way. The life of a scout is so short... The land immediately around Karakorum was not that bad, and neither was the land right around Moscow. Everything in between was nothing but festering jungle, just acres and acres of the stuff. It was going to make choosing my next few city placements crucial, in order to get the most out of slim pickings. This was not an easy start by any means! Also take note of the location of Ta-Tu. The city is unremarkable in every way - except that it possessed a grasslands wheat tile just inside its borders. My starting worker mined a couple of grasslands at Karakorum and then spent the next 25-30 turns bringing irrigation to that wheat tile. Ta-Tu built a granary and then proceeded to build nothing but workers for the next 100 or so turns. The benefits from this were immense, but would only become apparent as more time passed.
By 2230BC I had produced my third settler, which headed to the east coast to found a city overlapping several tiles with the capital. It also made use of that second game forest tile you can see to the northeast of Karakorum. Russia already had three cities built by the time I produced my third settler, but every time Moscow produced a settler it dropped back to size 1, with no granary to help it recover. Due to that fact, I slowly began to catch up to and exceed Russia in settler production. My cities also produced many more shields than their corresponding Russian equivalents.
I discovered The Wheel in 1725BC and looked to see what Cathy would exchange for it. To my great disappointment, she would not give anything more than gold for the new technology; it appeared as though Russia was near to completing their own research on the same tech. Rather than get nothing from it, I traded The Wheel away for Russia's treasury of 35g. Better than nothing, after all. Well at least I have horses, right? Ummm, sort of; there were indeed unclaimed horses on the map, but only a great distance away to the southwest. This neceesitated settling in that direction and securing them as quickly as possible, as without horses I not only couldn't built horseman, I would not be able to produce my glorious Keshiks either! Cathy of course had horses right next to her starting position. *sigh* I had produced a 4th settler in 1725BC and sent him towards the resources. Here is the picture from that date showing the growth of Mongolia and Russia:
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You can see from Moscow being at size 1 that another Russian settler has just been produced and is on its way to founding another city. Also noticed just how far away the horses are from my civilization; it's one thing to get a city down there, but quite another to run a road all the way from there to my capital! This would be a challenging undertaking early in the game. Irrigation has almost reached Ta-Tu, which has already produced a second worker and is working on a third. With the +5 food/turn that city was yielding with an irrgated grasslands wheat (well, +4 in despotism) it was growing actually faster than it could build workers - a wonderful situation. Kazan next built a barracks and provided all of the troops for my civ for a very long time. Karakorum focused on settler production naturally. All in all, this was the best task division among different cities that I have ever run in the ancient age. The results were good down the road as well...
The settler/warrior pair in the picture above separated to deal with the barbarian threat from the north. And it was a good thing that they did, because the warrior died and I had to found the city a tile off from where I wanted to avoid losing the settler too (though the city was still on a river, fortunately). By 1425BC I had founded Tabriz as well down in the south to claim the horses. That city was from from being connected, but I had the start of a road running through the jungle to reach it. In 1375BC I discovered Horseback Riding and was pleased to see that Cathy was willing to trade other techs for it, meaning she had invested no beakers in it herself. I was able to send Horseback Riding + 63g + 2gpt to Russia for Iron Working (I had traded earlier for Bronze Working) so I could see and claim the all-important iron resource. And wouldn't you know it, iron was lying right near the horses in the south as well. I was already going to settle there, now I had twice the motivation for doing so.
The plan was simple. I was playing as the Mongols in this game. The Russians had a number of things I wanted: more techs, more land, gems luxuries, etc. I supposed I could have traded for some of them, but... You Fool! We're the Mongols! We don't "trade", we just take what we want! And then, if we're feeling really generous, we might just let you live. Cathy was going to have to die - there was just no way around it. And I saw a large-scale warriors to swords upgrade as the best way to do that. I still had a lot of gold saved up from when I had run 0% science right from the opening turn of the game; maybe I had had a premonition at that time as to how it would be needed later. In any case, I was resolved to beat the techs out of Catherine. I had to roleplay my civ, after all.
I noted in 1275BC that a barb horse charged up a mountain and killed my warrior. I had rotten luck with barbs in this game; although there were very few of them despite the raging setting for this game (Cathy kept them down for me pretty nicely), the ones I did see caused all sorts of havoc. I think I lost a unit for every barb that I killed, a horrible ratio for Emperor's 50% combat bonus against them. But they were never more than a nuisance for me; those players isolated on their own islands probably had a different story to tell though. By 1250BC I had almost run a road down to those resources, thanks to the amazing worker production of Ta-Tu. Here was the world at that date:
That map is pretty self-explanatory so I'll just leave it as is. In 1075BC I founded Ulaanbaator to grab the iron; it was now just a matter of hooking it up and getting ready to roll. I wasn't completely isolated here with just Cathy for company; in 1000BC I got a pop-up message detailing that the Vikings had completed the Colossus (somewhere). I had no idea when anyone would visit me though, or if I would have to contact them first myself. I founded another city called Hovd on the edge of the northeast pennisula as a fishing town in 925BC, and then Karakorum went onto vet warrior production. In 900BC Catherine founded an embassy in my capital. Awww, Cathy, I didn't know you cared! :) In 825BC, the Russian city of Sevastopol officially became sitting duck #1 as it was founded just to the west of my iron city. Finally in 750BC the moment of truth had arrived, and my iron was connected for the first time. I think this picture pretty much sums it up:
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Nothing says "victory" quite like a picture like that. On the next turn, I moved my swords into position and declared war! That settler pair trying to sneak through my territory was toast, and so were all of the weak, basically unguarded cities that Catherine had founded in the jungles. The first of the Mongol hordes had been unleashed - victory or death were the only two acceptable outcomes!
The sun was little more than a pale disk appearing on the eastern horizon when the small party slipped into the empty morning streets of Tabriz. Temujin stared at the rising ball of flame for a few seconds, adjusting his eyes to the brilliant glare of light reflecting off the waves of the city's harbor, before turning the small group towards their destination. The streets rose on a series of hills shaped to the natural geography of the land as it rose from the coast, creating a disorganized series of intersections and cul de sacks that no one but a local could navigate without quickly losing direction. Tabriz was not a particularly large town - certainly nothing to compare to the capital, or even Kazan - but it was no ramshackle fishing village either. It would take a few minutes to get where they were going through the twisting and turning streets.
"Do we have to do this today, at this hour, great khan?" whined a voice from behind Temujin. That would be Fyodor, the Russian emissary that Catherine had sent when she founded an embassy a few years ago. Fyodor was a short and stout man who seemed enormously out of place surrounded by the tough and lean Mongols that made up the rest of Temujin's party. He had the habit of complaining incessently at the slightest hardship and sniffed at a scented hankerchief whenever he thought Temujin wasn't paying attention.
Temujin had detested him on the spot when he had arrived, and the feeling had not diminished since.
"I don't see what purpose this trip serves anyway," continued the little Russian. "Why would you need to inspect the barracks in such a primitive town? That's the military advisor's job; I certainly wouldn't sully my hands by consorting with filthy soliders if I were in charge. If I may say so, that is, great khan. And all this walking! My legs feel as though they are about to come off! We should have brought horses - but I guess I couldn't expect anything like that in this primitive hovel." Fyodor concluded by sniffing at his perfumed hankerchief pointedly.
Temujin didn't mind the walk in the least; he made a point of jogging several miles every day and running over a dozen miles once a week with the young Mongol warriors. He could still manage to beat many of the boys that were half his age. Rather than telling the Russian emissary that he could stand to benefit from the exercise, Temujin replied in a friendly voice. "Don't worry comrade, we've almost reached our first stop. And I think that Catherine will be most interested to hear about what I have to show you today."
"She had better," Fyodor muttered sullenly.
True to his word, they had already come to the first destination that Temujin had planned for the morning. It was not the barracks that Fyodor had alluded to, but instead a mighty forge sitting on the western edge of the town. Only one street led up to the large stone building that sat by itself; no one wanted too live to close to the incessant sound of the blacksmith's trade. Motioning all but two of his guards to wait outside, Temujin entered the forge with his unhappy Russian companion in tow.
The view inside looked like something straight out of hell itself. Though the sun was just barely over the horizon, dozens of men were already crowded inside the building working at a variety of tasks. Apprentices who were little more than boys manned the great bellows that heated the furnaces while older apprentices did more skilled tasks; here pouring out molten iron, there quenching finished blades in barrels of water or oil. Above the din of men hard at work rose the incessant pounding of the master smiths, hard at work turning liquid metal into fine blades. There were more than a score of them in all, though fewer than half were at work at the moment. You wouldn't have known that from the sound though, or the fiery glow that filled the entire building.
Temujin wandered through the building in haphazard fashion, stopping to see and be seen by the workers. He shook hands with a several of the smiths, exchanged a few words with others, and generally politicized for all that he was worth. Grins appeared on the faces of the men who spotted their leader, but work never stopped for more than a few minutes before they reapplied themselves to the task at hand. After he had made a complete circuit of the forge, Temujin returned to the entryway to rejoin the other members of the little group.
"So, Fyodor, what do you think of the ironworks we have set up here?" asked the khan, his face splitting into a smile to reveal broken and uneven teeth.
"I...impressive," the Russian stuttered back. "On par with those in Moscow itself. But why did you build something like it here?"
Temujin waved his question away with a laugh. "You will know why before the day is done, my friend," he replied. Without saying another word, he signaled again to his two bodyguards and walked out of the building into the chilly morning air. Fyodor had no choice but to follow in his wake or be left behind.
On the route to their next destination, Fyodor tried to glean more information out of Temujin, but the khan fended him off with uninformative short responses such as "we will see" and "wait and find out". He could have laughed at the confusion and frustration on the fat little man's face, though of course Temujin's face revealed nothing he did not want it to. Fyodor was a fool, but he was not stupid. He had to be wondering why Temujin would have led him to see what was clearly a closely guarded secret of the Mongols, and why it had been built in Tabriz, of all places. He also had to be wondering how Temujin had come across the money needed to finance such an undertaking. Little did he know that the entire treasuryhad been sacrificed to purchase the iron and equipment needed for the massive upgrade that Temujin was carrying out. That was one thing that the Russian was not going to find out on this trip. As for what he would discover...
"We're here," annouced Temujin as they reached the barracks that sat in the center of the city. This time the entire bodyguard followed their leader inside, though Fyodor was not paying attention to the guards. The barracks was a simple building, one long hall of wooden walls and a dirt floor that stretched for close to 50 paces. Three large fires burned at intervals down its length to provide both light and heat. But the building itself was unremarkable except for exuding a certain rustic charm. It was the scores of people packed inside it that compelled any visitor's attention. In one corner, men worked through a series of exercises with iron blades under the command of a man on a wooden platform who demonstrated for them. In another corner, dozens more practiced against one another in pairs with padden wooden swords under the eyes of experienced veterans. Elsewhere men with real blades and iron breastplates drilled fighting together in formation against imaginary enemies. Racks of fine swords of all weights and lengths filled the walls, and there was no shortage of metal armor for the head and body. The room was full of the shouts of the instructors and grunts of exertion from the men under training. It also stank badly of sweat and worse. Fyodor buried his face in his hankerchief immediately.
Temujin once again passed through the crowd as he had at the forge, watching the reaction of the Russian emissary out of the corner of his eyes all the while. He had to know what this show meant: the Mongols were building an army of swordsmen, by training their warriors in the use of the new iron technology. But he also had to be wondering why he was being shown all of this, as the only possible target of Mongol aggression could be Russia. When he had made a full circuit of the barracks, Temujin barked out an order for all of the soldiers to gather around him to hear a short speech. While they were assembling, he jumped up onto the wooden platform to stand where he could be seen by all. When it grew quiet, the khan began.
"My people, I come here to you today to bring great news," he began. "A mighty struggle lies ahead of us, with our enemy a foe who seeks to stifle and diminish the greatness of the Mongol nation." Fyodor was sweating openly now, surrounded by the towering Mongols of Temujin's personal guard. He had to be guessing at what was coming next. "Though the sacrifices in the days ahead will be great, I know that with your help we will win through to a great victory!" Temujin drew the sword provided to him by an aide - just as he had planned it days ago - and raised the naked blade over his head. "Today I lead the Mongols to war against Russia!"
A roar filled the hall, one that echoed back and forth only to multiply and resound back again with twice the fury. It was the sound of hundreds of voices shouting together in wordless unison, determined to crush all who opposed them in bloody combat. Dozens of arms brandished weapons overhead. Fyodor had turned a sickly pale shade and appeared to be looking for a way out. Things were only going to get worse for him. Temujin signaled for quiet, and within a few seconds he had it. The Mongols were strict when it came to discipline.
"I see one of our Russian friends is here in this very room," Temujin went on, signaling to his guards. They grabbed the diminuative Russian by both arms and propelled him up onto the platform next to the khan, the little man's stubby legs flailing wildly in the air the whole time. The scented hankerchief slowly drifted to the dirt floor, suddenly forgotten by its owner. "You have a special job my friend," he said with an evil-looking smile.
Fyodor swallowed hard. He could see nothing good would come of this. "A.. a.. and w.. what would th.. that be?" he managed to get out.
"Nothing so bad. I just want you to carry a message back to Catherine for me," said Temujin. Relief flooded Fyodor's eyes to such an extent that he could have laughed. Did he think he was getting out of this so easily? At a gesture from Temujin, the guards bent Fyodor over backwards and stretched out his left arm. Before the man could even cry out in fear or surprise, Temujin swung the sword he still carried down with all of the strength that his muscular body could summon, cleanly severing the Russian's left hand. Then the little man did scream, a horrible sound that sent the assembled Mongols into a gleeful frenzy as blood fountained from the stump of his arm. Within seconds a guard was pressing a burning torch onto the terrible wound to cauterize it and prevent the man's dying from loss of blood. While the crowd around him continued to celebrate, Temujin bent down to the floor so he could stare directly into the Russian's eyes.
"Tell Catherine what you have seen here today," he all but shouted right into Fyodor's face. "I'm sparing your life so that you can carry this message back to Moscow. Now get out of my sight, you disgusting piece of crap." With that, Temujin rose to his feet and descended into the roaring crowd, leaving the poor Russian emissary in the hands of his guards. They had their orders on what to do next.
Within an hour, a heavily bandaged Fyodor tied across his horse was heading westward towards Sevastopol. There was much to tell Catherine about what had happened.
