Monday, April 26, 2004
The Rise and Fall and Rise and Fall and Rise and Fall of Nations
Played the BEST GAME OF CIVILIZATION 2 EVER this weekend. I used a custom map of my own design, and tweaks to remove population and money caps, plus more to enhance the food yield of arable land.
It was a barn-burner.
The Japanese jumped out to an early lead in tech research; my poor Americans barely held on by completing the Great Library wonder, which gave them access to tons of research done in other lands. Once they had achieved complete technological dominance, the Japanese went on a tear, destroying the civilization of the Vikings, my erstwhile allies, while I stood by, unwilling to tempt the Japanese juggernaut.
Then the Russians destroyed the fledgling German civilization that sprang up briefly in the aftermath of the Vikings' destruction. I believe the Germans managed to build exactly two cities.
The Greeks took a page from the Japanese and Russian books and attacked the burgeoning Spanish empire. After a few hundred years of war, the Spanish empire was laid waste. In their foolish pride, the Greeks then attacked the Indians, under their fearsome emperor Mahatma Ghandi; in a bitter and portracted war, the Indians conquered most of the Greek homeland, leaving them only a few cities at the fringes of their main continent and the cities they had managed to wrest from the Spanish on the continent to the west.
Then the Indians turned their attention to the Russians, and in a lightning campaign took Moscow. This triggered a civil war in the vasty Russian empire, which split into two factions: the loyalist Russians and the rebel Aztecs. The Aztecs proved the better warriors, and within a few hundred more years, the Russian empire was no more.
The Aztecs and the Greeks went to war for reasons long forgotten, and the Aztecs managed to take many of the cities of the former Greek continent. Fighting for the cities on that continent's north coast -- just a few squares away from my American continent's southern tip -- was a bloody see-saw, with each of three cities changing hands no less than three times.
During all this time, I had focused solely on building up my cities and covering the continent I'd settled. I built a huge infrastructure of roads and later railroads, and irrigated every square inch of land that wasn't either unarable or already yielding some valuable commodity. Once my cities had built every conceivable improvement -- from granaries to Strategic Defense Initiative laser batteries to solar powerplants -- I began building my army from a simple defensive constabulary (which despite its small size had ably defended the continent from half-hearted attempts at encroachment by the Greeks and the Indians) to a massive, agile, dynamic, and lethal steamroller, with emphasis on offensive units able to breach enemy walls and pulverize enemy units. But I kept this sword sheathed; it was important to me to maintain my Spotless reputation among the nations.
(I should mention that my government type was Fascist, which does not come with the original game. I modified the Fundamentalist government type found in the game to remove most of the penalties to research while removing the Fanatics unit, which Fundamentalist governments get for free, for balance.)
Of course, the Japanese decided that my nation's rise could not be countenanced, and foolishly attacked me, even managing to land a massive invasion force on my beaches. As my heavy armored forces threw the invaders back into the sea, I launched a massive two-pronged assault on the Japanese empire, which now spanned a continent the size of Asia and Europe combined, with most of Africa thrown in for good measure. I attacked both their westernmost cities and the cradle of their civilization in the far east; I took one city in the west and had crushed the defenses of three other cities nearby, when my forces at the far end of the continent took Kyoto and the gargantuan Japanese empire split into Japanese and Viking factions. The Vikings had re-emerged after a hundred years of subjugation and were once again in charge of their ancestral cities. I accepted the Japanese surrender, thinking they had learned their lesson.
I was mistaken. Refusing to pay me tribute for my infinite patience, the Japanese again attacked me, trying to dislodge my armies from Kyoto. But I had built up forces there, and took the new Japanese capital of Edo... which split the Japanese empire again, this time with a brand new Roman faction arising in the south. The Japanese sued for peace with me, and destroyed the rebel Romans.
Then the Aztecs, apparently oblivious to my overwhelming superiority to the powerful Japanese, pressed an assault against me. I attacked their holdings on the former Spanish continent, those that had been taken from the Greeks by the Russians and had been wrenched from the Russians by the rebel Aztecs. I took every Aztec city on the former Greek continent and then turned my attention to the former Russian empire, now ruled mostly by the Aztecs but with a few cities here and there in Indian hands. I took half of the former Russian continent, all of the Aztec cities in its western half, and the Aztecs begged for peace.
Now once again did the Japanese seek to turn me out of their former capital cities, but this time I would give no quarter. When I took their new capital of Matsuyama, the remnants of the Japanese empire once again dissolved into civil war, with the Romans again rising to press their claims, but I also attacked them, determined that there would be no challenge to my suzerainty over what had once been the Japanese empire. In the course of a single year of war, I took every remaining Japanese city (about twenty or thirty), plus all but two of the Roman cities, leaving the Romans only two remote cities in the farthest east. The Japanese empire, once the proudest in the world, was ashes under my soldiers' boots.
Two years later, I was forced by the precipitous actions of the Romans to erase them from the world.
A few years of blessed peace followed, but the Vikings, ungrateful for my liberation of them from the evil Japanese, rose up to attack me. Again I determined that there would be no respite from my vengeance. I took every city of the Viking empire, saving only one remote city, on the chance that in time they would see the error of their ways and seek reconciliation with me.
Thus, the situation now. The Greek, Indian, and Aztec empires remain, still powerful, but more interested in fighting each other than fighting me. In time, however, they too shall fall... and my dominion over the earth shall know no end...
(Honestly, it was a great game. The power graph looks like a vector-scan tracing of the paths of six bouncing balls.)
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It was a barn-burner.
The Japanese jumped out to an early lead in tech research; my poor Americans barely held on by completing the Great Library wonder, which gave them access to tons of research done in other lands. Once they had achieved complete technological dominance, the Japanese went on a tear, destroying the civilization of the Vikings, my erstwhile allies, while I stood by, unwilling to tempt the Japanese juggernaut.
Then the Russians destroyed the fledgling German civilization that sprang up briefly in the aftermath of the Vikings' destruction. I believe the Germans managed to build exactly two cities.
The Greeks took a page from the Japanese and Russian books and attacked the burgeoning Spanish empire. After a few hundred years of war, the Spanish empire was laid waste. In their foolish pride, the Greeks then attacked the Indians, under their fearsome emperor Mahatma Ghandi; in a bitter and portracted war, the Indians conquered most of the Greek homeland, leaving them only a few cities at the fringes of their main continent and the cities they had managed to wrest from the Spanish on the continent to the west.
Then the Indians turned their attention to the Russians, and in a lightning campaign took Moscow. This triggered a civil war in the vasty Russian empire, which split into two factions: the loyalist Russians and the rebel Aztecs. The Aztecs proved the better warriors, and within a few hundred more years, the Russian empire was no more.
The Aztecs and the Greeks went to war for reasons long forgotten, and the Aztecs managed to take many of the cities of the former Greek continent. Fighting for the cities on that continent's north coast -- just a few squares away from my American continent's southern tip -- was a bloody see-saw, with each of three cities changing hands no less than three times.
During all this time, I had focused solely on building up my cities and covering the continent I'd settled. I built a huge infrastructure of roads and later railroads, and irrigated every square inch of land that wasn't either unarable or already yielding some valuable commodity. Once my cities had built every conceivable improvement -- from granaries to Strategic Defense Initiative laser batteries to solar powerplants -- I began building my army from a simple defensive constabulary (which despite its small size had ably defended the continent from half-hearted attempts at encroachment by the Greeks and the Indians) to a massive, agile, dynamic, and lethal steamroller, with emphasis on offensive units able to breach enemy walls and pulverize enemy units. But I kept this sword sheathed; it was important to me to maintain my Spotless reputation among the nations.
(I should mention that my government type was Fascist, which does not come with the original game. I modified the Fundamentalist government type found in the game to remove most of the penalties to research while removing the Fanatics unit, which Fundamentalist governments get for free, for balance.)
Of course, the Japanese decided that my nation's rise could not be countenanced, and foolishly attacked me, even managing to land a massive invasion force on my beaches. As my heavy armored forces threw the invaders back into the sea, I launched a massive two-pronged assault on the Japanese empire, which now spanned a continent the size of Asia and Europe combined, with most of Africa thrown in for good measure. I attacked both their westernmost cities and the cradle of their civilization in the far east; I took one city in the west and had crushed the defenses of three other cities nearby, when my forces at the far end of the continent took Kyoto and the gargantuan Japanese empire split into Japanese and Viking factions. The Vikings had re-emerged after a hundred years of subjugation and were once again in charge of their ancestral cities. I accepted the Japanese surrender, thinking they had learned their lesson.
I was mistaken. Refusing to pay me tribute for my infinite patience, the Japanese again attacked me, trying to dislodge my armies from Kyoto. But I had built up forces there, and took the new Japanese capital of Edo... which split the Japanese empire again, this time with a brand new Roman faction arising in the south. The Japanese sued for peace with me, and destroyed the rebel Romans.
Then the Aztecs, apparently oblivious to my overwhelming superiority to the powerful Japanese, pressed an assault against me. I attacked their holdings on the former Spanish continent, those that had been taken from the Greeks by the Russians and had been wrenched from the Russians by the rebel Aztecs. I took every Aztec city on the former Greek continent and then turned my attention to the former Russian empire, now ruled mostly by the Aztecs but with a few cities here and there in Indian hands. I took half of the former Russian continent, all of the Aztec cities in its western half, and the Aztecs begged for peace.
Now once again did the Japanese seek to turn me out of their former capital cities, but this time I would give no quarter. When I took their new capital of Matsuyama, the remnants of the Japanese empire once again dissolved into civil war, with the Romans again rising to press their claims, but I also attacked them, determined that there would be no challenge to my suzerainty over what had once been the Japanese empire. In the course of a single year of war, I took every remaining Japanese city (about twenty or thirty), plus all but two of the Roman cities, leaving the Romans only two remote cities in the farthest east. The Japanese empire, once the proudest in the world, was ashes under my soldiers' boots.
Two years later, I was forced by the precipitous actions of the Romans to erase them from the world.
A few years of blessed peace followed, but the Vikings, ungrateful for my liberation of them from the evil Japanese, rose up to attack me. Again I determined that there would be no respite from my vengeance. I took every city of the Viking empire, saving only one remote city, on the chance that in time they would see the error of their ways and seek reconciliation with me.
Thus, the situation now. The Greek, Indian, and Aztec empires remain, still powerful, but more interested in fighting each other than fighting me. In time, however, they too shall fall... and my dominion over the earth shall know no end...
(Honestly, it was a great game. The power graph looks like a vector-scan tracing of the paths of six bouncing balls.)
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