Adventure 46: Compromise's therapist rolls his eyes

[Compromise]

Therapist: Tell me why you've come to me today.

Compromise: Well, whenever I play Civ, I focus a lot on the early game and obsess over the placement of every city and the working of every tile. And if I see that I have a temporary advantage over the AI, I'm unable to stop myself from abusing it.

Therapist: And you consider this to be a bad thing.

Compromise: It doesn't seem very healthy, does it? And I always seem to be pushing those early advantages so far that I end up with an economy that's in shambles; you know...losing money at 0% and all that.

Therapist: I actually don't know--I'm always in the black at 50%--but that's okay. Maybe you should constrain yourself a bit the next game.

Compromise: Okay.

Therapist: So, no horse archer rush...

Compromise: [After a pause] Okay.

Therapist: Don't plan to kill all the AIs...

Compromise: [After a longer pause] Okay.

Therapist: And concentrate on expanding your own civilization, not on the AI's.

Compromise: Okay. Time to play Adventure 46.

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Looked at the starting position. Thought about going for an early religion, but decided that from the game description, the AI probably had tile improvements too, and I didn't want run commerce early.

Founded in place. And began with a...Settler! Usually, the reason not to build a settler first is that it won't have good tiles to work, but here it will!



Founded Pyongyang on Turn 15! Probably my earliest second city ever. Pretty good food and some cottages. I thought the barb lion might bounce out of the cultural borders when I planted the city, but it didn't. The initial warrior had fogbusted for the settler and was, of course, in range to defend the city--defending on its central hill.

Then, the initial warrior set off exploring again. And, from a hill near Charlemagne sees:



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Therapist: [answering the phone late at night] Hello?

Compromise: It's me. I'm in trouble!

Therapist: What's happening?

Compromise: I want to be good. I don't want to do it, but....but....

Therapist: Do what? Yes, be good of course. But do what?

Compromise: It's...it's Prince...and there are only warriors...only two warriors!

Therapist: Who? What? What Prince?

Compromise: Charlemagne...Berlin...City Raider warrior.... Urge to attack...rising....Rising...RISING........GGGAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!! [click]

Therapist: Hello? Hello? Hello? Bueller? Bueller? Hello? Geez, that guy is hopeless.

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Axe plus whipped axe in Pyongyang. Axe in Seoul, but he's too slow to make it to Oktoberfest. Charlemagne's third warrior covers his worker northeast of his city. I attack, capturing the first of many workers who will spend their short lives scurrying about the roads of this continent with no regard for barbarians or threats. They--every worker throughout the game--all die.

First axe wins easily against one of Berlin's two defending warriors. Second axe--wounded a bit from crushing the worker's escort--has decent odds:



Victory!

And in deciding whether or not to keep the city--uh, it has gold = autokeep--I notice:



A military instructor in Berlin?! What madness? Which other AIs have such glorious "tile" improvements from the ancients?

After that, I confess I just axe rushed:

2480BC: 4 axes--some with Berlin city attack promotions--take out 2 warriors plus a whipped archer(!) in Ramesses Carthage. Egyptians gone.

2240BC: 4 promoted axes destroy 2 warriors plus a whipped warrior in Asoka's Persepolis. Indians gone.

2040BC: Build Stonehenge so my many future cities' borders will expand without micromanagement.

1940BC: Relieve Constantinople of Justinian's cruel rule at it's sweet spot near a but of floodplain towns and Ivory and gold.

But then the axe rush fizzles. I didn't attack Brennus because he had lots of axes, archers, and (I think) gallic warriors. But I failed to notice the horse pasture of Justinian, so I didn't bring any spears and had to take peace with him before he wiped out my axe horde.



I wasn't concerned though, because I figured I'd just spam settlers into the improved land, run Caste artists, and get a quick Domination.

But...no. I was surprised that my land percentage wasn't going up very quickly, so I counted tiles on the continent. And found that I needed almost all of them for Domination! And then I noticed that I hadn't even met all the AIs.

Oops. That's what I get for making assumptions about the map.

Hand-researched Math and Code of Laws.

Oracled Construction for Hwachas (never done that before!)

Built the Pyramids for Hereditary Rule (because Monarchy was too expensive!)

Then, almost a millenium and a half after the axe rush age, Brennus had expanded a bit too much into "my" continent:



The capital assault force survived a catapult barrage upon entering his borders, but had more than enough muscle (plus reinforcements) to take Kyoto. Similarly up north, a 4-Hwacha, 4-Axe expeditionary force took Tolosa the same turn.

There was essentially no resistance from him after that.

Justinian felt the brunt of the new Hwacha backed axe assault (never did research Ironworking ) soon thereafter.

Stopped building military. Put out more settlers. And finally, it was over:



I probably should have tried a space launch, but nothing wrong with a little Prince romp every once in a while.

[Birdman]

Love it!