1000AD     Breakout in the North

Having smashed my enemies in the north and eliminated the Mongols completely, I'll begin by posting the 1000AD map of the northern front:

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As I descibed in the last section, I had made massive gains across the entire northern front. All of the Mongol cities had fallen, and India was now under the gun and coming under attack. My plan was to sweep to the northwest and take out all of the Indian cities over there, then to push over that line of hills/mountains which runs down the center of the picture and attack deep into the Japanese core. The Indians were no threat, but the Japanese were being a major pain with their samurai. Worst of all was when the Japanese would fortify samurai in cities and use them as defense; a defender as strong as a musket who my Riders can't retreat from? That means a lot of casulties. No, it was definitely better to follow the path of least resistance and deal with the Indian cities in range first. I also noticed that the Japanese had iron next to their starting point so that they would always have samurai. Thanks for the little touch Sirian. Now compare the gains made on this map to the more limited ones on the western front:

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On this front there were simply too many AI units to leap forward from city to city as I was doing in the north. Nonetheless, I had made significant progress by jumping forward an entire line of cities since the last screenshot, now defending the St. Regis - Cattaraugus - Salamanca line. I had my hands full of knights though; just look at the four Persian knights sitting on the hill tile to the west of Salamanca. I had to wait for them to come down from the hill, since I didn't have the resources to control the high ground west of the city. In the end, I only solved the problem of that hill tile by pushing on to the next city and moving my lines further to the west. AI muskets have also begun to appear, which are very dangerous pillagers and tough for my Riders to take out. At least they could retreat when losing against muskets though.

In order to improve my situation in the west, I concluded that it would actually be better to push forward and take Mauch Chunk and Grand River, so that those neutral road tiles to the west of Salamanca couldn't be used by the enemy. With this goal in mind, I sent extra reinforcements over to the western front and pushed forward to take Mauch Chunk in 1020AD and Grand River in 1050AD. Both of these pushes forward were accompanied by fairly heavy losses, and for several turns the front was on the verge of collapse. I had to cash rush a couple of Riders near the front to keep things under control, but when things slowly came back under my control, I had a much easier front to defend. Not having to deal with that hill tile next to Salamanca made all the difference in the world.

Meanwhile, I had not been getting any leaders for a while. In fact, despite getting 4 or 5 elite victories every turn, I went from 790AD to 1030AD between leaders, a span of 24 turns. With the probability of getting leaders only 1 in 12, this was simply another run of RNG bad luck. That drought was enough time for the wonder cascade to become reactivated, and though I used my long-awaited leader #16 to rush Copernicus in 1030AD, the cascade continued to run. I snagged Bach's in 1060AD with leader #17, but Persia actually managed to complete Newton's in 1090AD. Oh the horror! It didn't really matter, but my pride was somewhat irked. Why couldn't the number generator have distributed my leaders more equally?

After resting and regrouping for a few turns in the north, my Riders were again ready to move out. Calcutta was taken from India in 1040AD, and I used the territory opened up by that capture to take out the Indian capital of Bombay in 1060AD!

India was already a weak civ, and after losing their capital they fell into the category of "Realms Beyond Pathetic". I actually did see two War Elephants at about this time, but I managed to keep them from winning any battles and kept India from getting its golden age. Their jumbo production ended almost as soon as it started, since India's core was almost gone by the time Gandhi discovered Chivalry. Oh, and I should mention that I played a number of these turns over Easter weekend on a different computer than the one I actually own. It was easy to port over a save file to a different computer, but I didn't bother transferring my graphics mods, which accounts for why some of these screenshots look a little bit different from the others. If you see the standard Civ3 graphics, that means I was playing those turns at my home in Baltimore.

Grand River came under fierce attack in 1070AD, before I could get my catapults up there and when the territory around it was still out of my control. Four AI knights attacked it, but my city walls and musket defenders managed to hold out (barely). Things remained dicey in the west. I also noted sourly that the AI civs had somehow managed to get three techs up on me in 1080AD; they must have reserched different things and then traded amongst themselves. Oh great, that's just what I need. I resolved to ignore the optional techs and concentrate on the mandatory ones to keep up with their pace. And how on earth were they ALL staying in a Republic despite neverending war? I don't accuse the AI of cheating very often, but somethin' ain't right when the Iroquois can lose 80% of their core cities and 100+ units while still staying in a Republic.

I took Delhi in 1090AD - the Japanese city of Delhi, that is. Gandhi had never gotten it back from Tokugawa. I have to admit that things probably would have been much tougher in the north if the AI civs there hadn't spent the BC years before contacting me fighting one another. That was the first Japanese city to fall to me, and in 1100AD I took the first American core city of Miami, as my lines in the west pushed north towards the coast again. Jumping back to the northern front, Lahore was captured and auto-razed in 1110AD. It had only two spears defending it, but they must have been some pretty tough fighters because the two of those guys retreated no fewer than 5 Riders before going down. None of my units were killed, but that was still impressive. It's a good thing I always use overwhelming force to attack, or I wouldn't have been able to take the city.

Now I should mention here that the autorazing of Lahore opened up some land in the extreme northern corner of the map. It was poor land, nothing but tundra, and had no singificance in terms of the front up there, so I saw no reason to refound a city there. As a result, for the first time in centuries there was now open land on the map. No more than one or two turns after this land opened up, AI settlers from every civ began streaming into my territory. This represented a monumental failure in the programming of the Civ3 AI; they are so focused on settling land, any land anywhere on the map, that they walked right into my front lines to be slaghtered. This wouldn't be a big deal if it was an isolated incident, but the AI civs diverted large amounts of production away from military units and into building these asinine settler/musket pairs which were easily killed by my units. This had the effect of greatly weakening their civs as their military production declined and their cities shrunk in size from pumping out so many settlers. Keep this fact in mind as you read through the rest of my report; I certainly didn't know at the time that opening up some unclaimed land would have such a major effect on events.

Philadelphia was captured in 1120AD, completing my new defensive line. This line of cities was much more easily defended than the previous one, but with lots of forces in the west I was already looking beyond it to establish a more western one yet. Bangalore was captured from India in 1140AD to gut India's final core city and reduce them to two far-flung colonies. Leader #18 also popped this turn and was taken back to my core for a free bank. The rise of banks across my civ was another key factor in my progress at this time, as it greatly increased the amount of income I was making; more on that later however.

I pushed across the ridge of mountains which ran down the center of the northern front in 1160AD and captured Nagasaki. While most of my Riders healed up there and prepared for the impending assault on Kyoto, a small contingent of them pressed south and captured the lightly defended Tokyo in 1170AD. Leader #19 appeared in the fighting and went home for another bank. The main attack began in 1190AD, with well over a dozen Riders charging into battle against the samurai and pikes guarding the Japanese capital. The fighting was bloody; five Riders were killed and another 4 or 5 retreated, but in the end the day belonged to Mao!

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The fighting had been so fierce that leader #20, also known as General Tso the 4th, had showed up to command the Chinese forces. He returned home to work on yet another bank in one of my core cities. At this point I wasn't even building the banks by hand, just relying on leaders to rush them when they appeared. You can also see that I'm researching Military Tradition at this point; when I get that tech, watch out because this game is going to be over! The addition of Japanese furs to my civilization prompted near-universal WLTKDs across China; it was my sixth luxury.

I discovered Military Tradition earlier than expected in 1220AD, due to the AI civs having also researched it and lowered the price. I used this turn to do some massive upgrades across my territory, and then it was time to rock and roll on the next turn. My cavs were ready and raring to go, eagerly charging forward to take out the very American capital of Washington itself on the western front!

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Look who it is who's taking the city too: it's Sir Sun Tzu, the very same horseman who produced leader #2 way back in 50BC! Notice how he does not have a little * icon next to his name; since Sir Sun Tzu had been upgraded from a horseman to a Rider, he could produce another leader. My hope was to produce another leader with him as a Rider, and then a third one as a cavalry. That would be pretty impressive if I could pull it off, so I was carefully conserving him and attacking only when not in danger. Here Sir Sun Tzu killed a 1hp musket to take the American capital. I really loved this little guy; anyone who could stay alive for that long in an Always War game had to be a pretty doughty fighter.

The next couple turns could be decribed as overkill. Having punched through the main defenses of Japan, I was now facing their weak seaside fishing towns, and with the fall of Kyoto the Japanese had lost their iron supply and the ability to produce pikes. As a result, my shiny new cavs got to amuse themselves by playing with some Japanese spears (not a pretty thing to watch). Nara was razed and Hyderabad captured in 1240AD, leaving the Indians with one city left. Edo and Izumo were taken with just as much ease on the next turn in 1250AD, and suddenly Japan was just about dead. You wouldn't think that going from the 4 attack of Riders to the 6 attack of cavalry would make that big of a difference, but oh does it ever. Compared to where I was in 1000AD, I had made staggering progress on all front, but the presence of cavalry was about to allow me to make even larger gains. Anyone care to guess where I'll be in 1375AD, 25 turns from now? I suppose you'll have to continue reading and find out. :)

Probably the most interesting thing to notice here is that the number of units the AI civs have been throwing at me has actually decreased since the last 25 years, down to 164 from 202. In part this was due to the fact that the units they were building were more expensive in shields, but it also showed how I had made serious intrustions upon the production base of multiples AI civs. They couldn't throw as many units at me because there were fewer cities to build units. My losses remained high; at 41 losses to the AI 164 I had again an exact 4:1 ratio. But by this point I could afford higher losses, as it was the AI civs who were losing the battle of attrition as I brought the war to their doorsteps. By now, the main question was not whether I would win but how fast I could do it.