How the mod "A New Dawn" for Civilization IV made me a barbarian

Introduction

A New Dawn

Rise of Mankind: A New Dawn for Civ IV is a total conversion mod which affects almost every part of the game, partly using their own ideas but also adapting ready-made modules such as the Revolutions mod. By adding new technologies, religions, mechanics and nations they have managed to produce an exciting new beast which plays similarly to (Beyond the Sword) BtS, but which adds many more strategical and tactical considerations that the end product feels new and fresh, not to mention challenging.

A tale of three cities

For hundreds of years my mighty kingdom had ruled a significant corner of the known world, keeping both friends and foes at arms reach. However, because of the penalties associated with controlling too big an empire without sufficient administrative technology I was forced to abandon my usual position of Enlightened Despot, honed through many hours of BtS, in favour of the role of the Bad Guy.

Every journey begins with a single step

At first, I felt that my neighbours were keeping at a reasonable distance, leaving me plenty of space for expansion. However, as the centuries passed, their settler voyaged ever closer to my small, but peaceful realm consisting of three cities.

This would not do. A king must protect his borders and ensure that his people live without fear. The kingdoms Sphere of Influence and the peace inducing, neutral borderlands must be preserved. No man in an island, but the people sleep sounder knowing that no armies can sneak up on them unaware. At this point I turned to my Military Advisor and asked where the cutting edge of military research was at the moment. His reply was "horses". The docile animal shown to me was not so impressive while grazing, but when a rider mounted the beast the combined effect was stunning. This would give us an advantage over our enemies both in power and mobility. This would form the basis of a mighty host with which to secure the surrounding plains from encroaching invaders.

Surround and destroy

A new mechanic which is added by the mod is that of encirclement. It goes something like this: The more you can surround your enemy, the greater your attacking bonus. Having units on horseback means that you can take full advantage of this fact. How convenient that our army is made up of almost all cavalry!

As soon as my mighty host rode out onto the plains it was clear that the enemy would not be able to protect their plethora of newly founded cities. Their roads were poor, their defences weak and their soldiers spread out. Feigned attacks would draw the defenders away from vulnerable cities and then the riders would swoop in for the kill.

A desolate landscape

High horses of morality and the fall into depravity

In a normal game of Civilization IV my Enlightened Despotic avatar would benevolently spare the lives of the citizens and Welcome Them with Open Arms to my kingdom built on Tolerance, Equality and Freedom. The only consequence for my ever growing empire would be some temporary financial difficulties due to the increase in administrative costs, while the cities grow enough to pull their weight.

Not so in A New Dawn.

Here, every city has a rebellion-meter which upon conquest would start to rise and rise until the cities break away, spawning huge armies as they do. While I could probably handle the new cities rebellion in the short term, it would put a serious strain on my core cities as well, perhaps enough to make them rebel as well.

Knowing this, my rule took on a much more barbaric and sinister nature. No longer did my cities produce taverns, fountains, scriptorium or any of the other excellent buildings which the mod adds. My once blooming kingdom turned its industry and efforts to just training more and more soldiers with which to scourge the plains and keep my enemies at bay. No stone was left upon stone, no lives were spared. All captured cities were put to the torch in the name of distrust and fear of rebellion. Soon ruins marred the once beautiful country side and only the wind can be heard roaming fields which were once filled with growing crops and blooming orchards. To tread this desolate landscape only leads to a meeting with the veiled riders simply known as The Swift Death.

Aftermath

Of course, this is just a game.
No lives have been lost, no real cruelty committed.
What has happened though, is that a mod has given me a new experience in which I was forced to go out of my comfort zone and re-examine how I use a feature which in the Vanilla game were merely a convenience for when "the AI settled in the wrong place" or "the game is nearly over". By introducing limitations, such as the revolution counter, the character of the game changes and controlling territory becomes more difficult. Leaving it at that would of course be fine, if a bit shallow. However, the mod also introduces a set of new rules for forts which enables them to exert control over the eight tiles surrounding it. In addition, soldiers can claim space and will hold it for as long as there is a unit to occupy it. Thus a new layer of strategy is created where forts and armies are placed in order to claim resources, city sites and create buffer zones.

If you feel as excited about this as I do, go check out the mod at their website:http://anewdawn.sourceforge.net/

Development is ongoing and the mod forum is very much alive.

The Most Exciting Event of the Whole Game!

Wow, the past week has been very busy indeed with a decided lack of gaming as well as posting.
To keep up the flow I'll post a humorous gaming anecdote from the world of Medieval II:Total War.

The Pitch
First time I played the game, which was after all the patches had been released, I decided to play on medium/medium as I had heard that the AI had been improved since Rome: Total War but still received considerable bonuses for the units in combat space. After realising that I didn't really fancy playing any of the factions available at the start I signed up for a Short Campaign as the proud city state of Venice as it's bang in the middle and thus surrounded by states to interact with. Having a small empire to start with would allow me to get to grips with all the new concepts before being severely challenged by internal and external strife; I remember all to well the rebellions that could explode in the face of the Holy Roman Empire in the original Medieval: Total War, or the Western Roman Empire in Barbarian Invasion, the Rome-expansion pack. Besides, it would be very interesting to see if the Creative Assembly had retained the over powered Italian Infantry unit.

As I start playing the game I realise how utterly dreadful the AI actually is. I will not go on a rant about that though, the faults of the game have been listed at great length by others in other places. The interesting bit came after I had invaded Genoa and Florence: Being allied with the Papal State, the Pope and his armies had right of passage in my lands. The Pope used this liberally and sent a large stack of units north and west towards France. However, on the way there his got stuck outside Genoa and turned back towards Rome. On the way to Rome the army got stuck outside Florence and thus turned towards Genoa again. This sequence of events repeated every turn, regular as clockwork: 1 turn, move to Genoa, get stuck, 1 turn, move to Florence, get stuck.

Now, what could be the cause for this constant patrolling? Did the Pope believe the coast between these two great cities to be infested by bandits? Was the general mad? Maybe he lived a double life, with a wife in each city? Unfortunately, the world will never get an answer as the Most Exciting Event of the Campaign happened, after about 60 turns of patrolling.

On the horizon, a ship!

Suddenly, from the great city of Rome, comes a mighty fleet. My spies relay news of this unique occurrence in agitated voices. With ornately crafted and painted hulls gleaming in the sun and the masts transforming the sea into a forest, the grand papal army is loaded aboard in a great hurry.
I send orders to the Genoese fleet to follow the Papal armada closely and not let them out of sight. “Where could they be going?”, I wonder. No crusade has been announced and the Pope doesn't have many enemies.

The fleet steered south, towards the African desert landscape. At the tiny fortress of Tripoli, the army departs the ships and lay siege to, wait for it, the Sicilians. Despite having been the best of friends for a long time the Pope thought it prudent to prune the family tree of the Sicilians a bit and takes a trip to Tripoli to shorten the head of the residing crown prince. In an epic siege which, of course, the player does not get to see (in hindsight I should have put an army of my own next to it in order to participate since I was allied with the pope) the defending Sicilian army is obliderated and swallowed by the desert, never to be seen again.


That's it
And that's the whole story. After decades of patrolling the papal general goes bananas, travels to Tripoli and declares war on Sicily, killing their crown prince in the process. Then he converts the tiny Motte and Baily into a city. The last shows that the Pope had at least some sense in his holy head...

Speaking of mods: In the wake of writing this post I've started a game as the Holy Roman Empire using the mod “Lands to Conquer”. I'll be sure to make a couple of updates on that!

Starcraft in the dark

The other day I played a couple of rounds of Starcraft against my brother with random teams on random maps new to us both.

This is a variant that increases the value of information and the importance of scouting as high as we can push it, which makes for some very interesting games full of deceit and cunning.

Tools such as denial of map information, a form of containment, suddenly becomes viable as the other contestant doesn't know what's out there. If you can dissuade your competitor from exploring a certain area then he or she might miss an excellent expansion or a key defensive point for long enough that you may exploit it first.

For example, on one of the maps we played I discovered very late that I had a semi-hidden third entrance to the base, which I had left completely undefended. Shrouded in shadows the scenery suggested that there was nothing there and so I didn't prioritise the exploration of that area until late in the game. Fortunately for me I had managed to keep my opponent busy through needling attacks on one his expansions, so he didn't have time to capitalise on my mistake. In the end, I had to give up that game for lost as the results of my appalling macro skills reared it's ugly hydra-like head.

The first map we played was a small 2 player map on which there was no easily found natural expansion. I was lucky enough to get protoss as my team and quickly got some zealots over to an easily defended ramp where I also smacked up a shield battery and later on a photon cannon for detection. When my probe encountered purple creep the fact lay clear to the day (or the dusk, as we played in the evening): My brother is a zerg!

I should have realised this from the sounds he made earlier in the day and the size of his fangs, but I guess I've become used to it.

Aaaanyway.

Knowing what I had in front of me I went for some dragoons while reaching for corsairs to harass his overlords. Remember: none of us knew the map we were playing so denying him the scouting from his overlords could be vital.

After having a few skirmishes zergling vs. zealot I gathered a few dragoons to make a push while at the same time annexing that far away "natural" expansion. This turned out to be a good move as I found a budding hatchery in the mirror position, and lightly defended at that. Knowing that this would grab my brothers attention I attempted to cut of his reinforcements with a second team of mixed zealots and dragoons, but they never got to their intended position as my first team desperately needed help. Outnumbered, my brave soldiers managed to dance around enough, through my microing, to ensure the destruction of the horrific zerg outpost whilst the reinforcements strove to join the fun.

At this point I realised that I didn't have any observers. As the thought registered in my brain, spikes started shooting up out of the ground, throwing my ranks into disarray. You can't fight what you can't see.

With none of the infrastructure in place to build the little blighters I quickly set a probe on construction duty and at the same time ordered up another gateway to up production of zealots and dragoons. On the front line my brother tried baiting my brave blue-skins to advance, no doubt to lure them into a trap. Keeping a firm leach on my fervent zealots I dashed in and out with my dragoons instead, managing to take out a few hydralisks and zerglings. When finally I got a reaver and some probes out, queens and a landing party came out of nowhere, destroyed a mining expansion! I quickly rallied what troops I had roaming the country-side and punished this intrusion (or extrusion rather). At this point I had a good containment of the zerg and went in with everything I had. In a reckless assault, where micro got lost along the road of macroing in all the troops, the last zerg base finally fell and victory was mine.

The Aftermath

It was great fun to add an exploration element to the game. As mentioned, scouting and denial of information became very important. Not knowing where the good first expansions were did perplex both me and my brother and things such as not scouting my own base properly could potentially have lost me the game. In games of this variant there is definitely room for tactics beyond what's normally used and a greater possibility for playing mind games.
Although many veterans will find that there aren't many good maps around that they haven't played, it could be worth finding one and trying it "blind" with a friend (or an enemy). There are some great games in store for those brave enough to take a step into the unknown.

Civilization IV - An observation on the power of the Inca

1. Introduction

In the past, whenever I have viewed a Gauntlet game, found in the "Hall of Fame" section of the forum at CivFanatics, where the rules allow the player to select the civilization to play as, I have wondered about the little sign stating "Must not play as Inca".

So I asked myself: "What about this smiling man with golden earmuffs could be frightening enough to ban the whole of the Inca civilization for competition purposes?"


Is he a homicidal maniac? 
No, that position is taken by the insanely murderous and psychotic Montezuma of the Aztec. He'll turn on you and try to drag you to the sacrificial altar if you so much as peer quizzically at his odd-looking hat.

Does he have Super Powers?
Not that I can see. Huayna Capacs' Traits are Financial, which give him an extra commerce in any square where at least 2 commerce is being produced, and Industrious, which increases his wonder production by 50% and allows him to build Forges twice as fast as normal. It's a good combination, but it doesn't seem over-powered to me. Sure, it allows for a high research rate to get to the wonders, and then an advantage in getting them, but wonders are not an instant "I Win"-button.

Having the Celtic Boudicia with her lovely combination of Aggressive and Charismatic (Free Combat I promotion for melee- and gunpowder units, double production speed of Barracks and Drydocks combined with -25% experience needed for unit promotions, +1 happiness per city and +1 happiness from Monument and Broadcast Tower) let's you rampage through the world like a drunk gorilla at the annual Ice-Sculpture Competition, crashing into city after city with a bunch of highly promoted soldiers, smashing everything in sight and generally making a mess. (Speaking of drunk: Boudicia looks a little woozy herself!)


What about his people then? Do they employ the sacrificial altar like the Aztec?
No, the unique building for the Inca is the Terrace, a modified Granary which provides an extra +2  culture per turn. That doesn't seem very over-powered to me. Sure, it's useful for a Cultural victory or for strengthening your cultural borders or even as an alternative to building a monument, but it won't win the game for you. Furthermore there is no synergy with the wonders apart from the added culture if you go for a Cultural victory.

So what's left? Could it be their Unique Unit?

Ah, now we're getting somewhere. Could their Unique Unit be a blood thirsty monster? Let's take a look at what's called the Quechua. Historically this unit is fictitious: Quechua is the name of the language of the Inca and so the usage here might at best allude to the unit being a "Quechuan soldier". The equipment the soldier is carrying is somewhat more realistic as the Inca knew how to mix tin and copper to make bronze and were known to use shields covered in leather for defence.

In the game the Quechua replaces the common Warrior and is thus the first unit the Incas can build. On top of the normal stats of a Warrior the Quechua is granted the promotion Combat I, which gives a 10% boost to it's damage output, as well as an extra 100% vs. Archery units. This is, apparently, what makes the Incas dangerous enough to ban.

Remember the earlier premises? The civilization is banned in Hall of Fame games, which are played against computer players at high difficulties. A known fact is that computer players start with Archers instead of Warriors at higher difficulties. Adding it up these individual pieces, the bonus of the Quechua, the fact that computer players start with Archers and the immediate availability of said Quechua, we have in front of us a picture, nay, a billboard, shouting at us: GO ON, RUSH THEM!!!

2. The Quechua Rush
In order to successfully capture an enemy city using Quechuas you need only two units per defending Archer plus one in reserve in case you are unlucky. The probability of victory against an unpromoted Archer defending a city is at worst (City with cultural defence at level 2 giving +40% defence, 25% fortify bonus and on a hill giving an extra 50%) 36.8% for an attacking unpromoted Quechua. As the archer is virtually guaranteed to be injured during this fight a following attacker will have a considerably higher probability of success. As about a third of the initial attacks will be successful, on average, the need for the Quechuas to travel in teams of two decreases as the number of defenders increases. Still, it is prudent to use the "2 attackers per Archer plus 1" approach as it is virtually guaranteed to win.

Eliminating close-by enemies and stealing their capitals, which are generally placed in rich areas, will give the player at the very least a powerful start, if it doesn't win the game outright.

3. The weakness
Of course, this wouldn't work in multiplayer. First of all, a normal player wouldn't start with archers as defenders effectively turning the Quechua into a 10% stronger Warrior. As Warriors have +25% bonus when defending a city the Quechua rush looses its bite. Factor in that a competitor might research a stronger attack unit such as the Axeman (if they have a source of copper), the Chariot (if they have access to horses) or even the Spearman (without a requirement) and the situation could be quickly turned in their favour.

This can happen in a game against computer controlled players as well if the distance between the starting positions is too great or if the players start on isolated islands. Given enough time the computer players will produce their own Axemen and become impervious to Quechuas.

4. Conclusion
Finding out the (not so) hidden qualities of the Man with the Yellow Hat and his collection of Curious Quechuas gives us another tool to use when we feel like lowering the difficulty level a bit. The Quechua Rush can be used to devastating effect if the enemy is using Archers to defend, but will meet with disaster if the other player is a human, left alone for long enough or in a completely different part of the world.

If anyone is interested in a further explanation of the mathematics behind the combat figures, please make a comment and I'll make a post about that as well.