So there I am, building my civilization. I have scouts exploring the surrounding land, meeting the neighbors, pillaging small villages. I have workers ardently farming and building hamlets and such. I even have warriors, being still too primitive of an age for soldiers or gunmen (or guns, swords, etc). I am building my cities, making sure they have an ample food surplus, developing my technologies as much as possible, making settlers to start new cities.
Then- holy guacamole batman!- one of my cities falls to marauding barbarians.
This game being one of my first, I was astounded. How could this happen? I had warriors guarding the city, who I had to watch perish at the hands of my nomadic nemesis. As the city's founder, I was devastated as the barbarians ravaged my land. They destroyed the surrounding farms and pastures I had oh-so-carefully created. It astounded me that my structured, seemingly safe city could be overthrown in about 2 moves, too short a time for reinforcements to arrive. I had enough of a civilization to be termed a "chiefdom" in Diamond's estimations, yet this "band" of barbarians had captured my city!
I guess I should have seen it coming. When discussing the band, tribe, chiefdom, state progression that civilizations go through, Diamond elaborates: "More complex units don't always conquer less complex ones but may succumb to them, as when the Roman and Chinese Empires were overrun by "barbarian" and Mongol chiefdoms, respectively." (281)
The Mongols were a nomadic group arranged in various tribes that became trapped among more advanced civilizations until Ghengis Khan united them in the 13th century. He turned them from tribes into a chiefdom, ruling over the mongolians and terrorizing their neighbors.
Perhaps it was Mongol barbarians that took over my city(s). I don't know. Next time, however, I am going to be more proactive when it comes to attacking threats to my civilization.
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3 comments:
After reading your blog, I honestly have to laugh and admit that I am having the same problem with my neighbors. As much as I initially tried to be passive, especially with the Mongols, it always seemed to back-fire.
I am not sure if it is my inexperience with computer games, or just ignorence building any sort of civilization, yet I am constantly on the verg of defeat. Like you, I am also trying to play a more proactive role; however do you find that you are still wondering why you are supposed to keep moving your men around? I find that continuously moving my warriors is actually setting myself up for invasions. In the meantime, I have to say good luck and let me know if you find a better strategy against those Mongols.
I have to ask, did you not pay attention when the game told you that the 'enemy was approaching (insert city here)'? I'm going to assume you did and just think that you failed at batting your eyelashes and making the barbarians succumb to your feminine wiles. Need I remind you that my cities were pillaged last week? You should have learned from my failure. That is why we study history after all, so we do not repeat the mistakes of our ancestors (or in your case, peers).
I didn't have my warriors roving around- in the tutorial, it told me that your scout can move around wherever, and people would always be friendly (like those small towns that give you gold and technology and then mysteriously vanish) but you don't get the same deal if you have your warriors roving around. Sure, the scout can be killed by any number of things in that case, but it is not killing your PR with your neighbors.
and damn it, I will always try to bat my eyelashes before resorting to violence. sigh.
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