First, thank you to T-Hawk for setting this Adventure up. I think it's great to revive this RB tradition.
I had planned to put a lot of care into this game, with sandboxing, sims and so forth. But I realized I probably wouldn't get to actually playing if I set expectations too high. So I just played a casual game.
Let's see what we started with:
I rolled Hattie (Spiritual, Creative) of Egypt (Agri, Wheel, Obelisk, War Chariot). She is definitely a middle tier leader, with two good traits that aren't Financial, Expansive, or Organized. Egypt is arguably the third best civ in the game, with good early techs and perhaps the best early war unit.
Creative means early religion would be partly redundant, and I wouldn't get it anyway without Myst, with the notorious religion crazed AIs! This means the Obelisk is basically a dead building. I also also didn't need to consider Stonehenge.
Spiritual is hard to get a lot of use from, without a lot of skill or thought. One use is reduced without an early religion - simply revolting to it without anarchy. Two things would be nice though: prioritizing AP and the monk economy, and making use of switching away from slavery periodically, probably to Caste. For the civic flexibility (and not being Financial), Pyramids would be wonderful if we have stone around and maybe worth considering even if we don't.
The scouting warrior started on the Pig and moved 1NW. Krill says to never settle for a 15 turn worker, and fortunately our first Christmas tree on rice means we didn't have to. Settling 2S would mean a 10 turn worker, but giving up a turn of movement, and also the pig, ivory and a floodplan 2W is debatable. The fog could uncover a reason why it is the right move.
I settled 1S because the tiles we lose aren't critical, and it's nice to gain a river hill.
Settling 2S would have picked up a sheep and the PH start, but I think this way is a little superior because of the floodplain and additional resources.
The first tech I started was AH. It's a shame to waste the prereq bonus for hunting, but food is always the first order of business, we can't chop the forest from the rice in time to farm it, and so that pig needs to get improved as soon as possible.
First hut:
Bingo! Fishing isn't the best early tech but free beakers help.
Early scouting:
We haven't found any horse yet. This's pretty sad for Egypt though there's a lot more scouting to do. The next techs were mining to BW. Hunting wasn't that crucial since the ivory is only a 1/3/2 tile.
We met Mansa Musa from the north. He seems to always be one of the best performing AIs. He converted to Hinduism which he founded.
The second hut gave 41 gold.
Another hut:
That's a heck of a toy for turn 23! I still don't see horses though. And Egypt benefits less than any other civ anyway since WCs are so cost effective. Still it's a lot of beakers for free for a tech we'll need eventually.
I'm grew the capital to size 4 before building a second worker or settler, because there wasn't much for a second worker to do before BW finished.
I met Asoka on the way to a hut:
Right as he set it off with 3 barb warriors! Also note the forested lake.
Ummm...
Horses? Copper? Nope. Maybe archery is all I've got! Or I could risk going to iron, but I hate doing that.
I planted the second city on T37. There were more than enough good tiles here to support two cities with this much overlap, I figured. My starting build in the capital was worker -> warrior -> warrior -> worker -> 2x chop + 1 whip settler. Techs were AH -> Mining -> BW -> Hunting -> Pottery. (With Fishing + HBR free from huts.)
Christmas horse was finally discovered:
At 13 tiles from the capital it was a little far to enable a WC rush!
With conquering not being necessary or possible, I basically played a peaceful Rex game from here on. For the third city, settled on turn 57, I opted for the gold + corn site:
Fourth city settled forward for the copper.
The corn NWW of the settlement was tree #2.
City #5 grabbed the lake forest for tree #3. My economy was starting to tank so I headed for sailing (for trade routes) and currency.
Justinian wanted to spread religion. It worked for me! Thessalonica, the holy city, could be a tempting target eventually, unless I want to semi-role play this like Sullla does, and treat good neighbours kindly.
The Oracle fell on turn 82, the same turn I connected copper, finally! I've been relying only on archers and warriors so far.
City #6 was planted to get the gold under tree #4. I must have missed taking a screenshot, but it was the gold forest to the NE of Elephantine, shown on the south edge of the next shot.
City #7 grabbed the forest horse in Justinan's face for tree #5. I don't think I'd try this placement in a vs human game.
City #8 acquired the mysterious forest village for tree #5, once its culture expanded. With currency online I switched toward Monarchy for the happiness. Justinian had also spread Judaism to 6 of my cities, which was wonderful!
I have to say, the AIs didn't do a very good job in the land grab in this game.
Demos for turn 100:
The Great Lighthouse fell on turn 101.
I'm put my Academy in Memphis, and I moved the capital there eventually, since it was my strongest commerce site for Bureau.
The Colossus fell to Mansa, T113.
City #12 was founded on T120 to claim to wheat for tree #6. I thought I had a screenshot for it, but you can see it as the "c" site in the previous screenshot.
I captured this barb city, to claim the incense for tree #7. I think this counts because even though it's captured, the incense isn't in culture yet.
This shows how close to us Justinian built the Jewish shrine.
Here were the demos at breakeven science, after switching to Bureau:
Asoka built the Pyramids on T134.
There are forested crabs on this island to the southeast. But the barbs beat me to settling there. I wasn't completely clear but I don't think trees count if captured from barbarians.
I found a hit record under the tree as a present:
This is where I stopped playing though. Guilds was due at the end of turn, and a possible next move would have been to whip a round of knights, take out Justinian and his shrine and holy sites (with Judaism nicely pre-spread to us!), and work from there.
I didn't think I had anything to prove in this game though, here are the demos:
The poor AIs got completely dominated for food and land. I sacrificed tech rate to do that, but capturing the Jewish shrine would have made the rest of this game a walk in the park.
Final score is 7 trees. It's clearly possible to get many more if playing for that goal.
I had planned to put a lot of care into this game, with sandboxing, sims and so forth. But I realized I probably wouldn't get to actually playing if I set expectations too high. So I just played a casual game.
Let's see what we started with:
I rolled Hattie (Spiritual, Creative) of Egypt (Agri, Wheel, Obelisk, War Chariot). She is definitely a middle tier leader, with two good traits that aren't Financial, Expansive, or Organized. Egypt is arguably the third best civ in the game, with good early techs and perhaps the best early war unit.
Creative means early religion would be partly redundant, and I wouldn't get it anyway without Myst, with the notorious religion crazed AIs! This means the Obelisk is basically a dead building. I also also didn't need to consider Stonehenge.
Spiritual is hard to get a lot of use from, without a lot of skill or thought. One use is reduced without an early religion - simply revolting to it without anarchy. Two things would be nice though: prioritizing AP and the monk economy, and making use of switching away from slavery periodically, probably to Caste. For the civic flexibility (and not being Financial), Pyramids would be wonderful if we have stone around and maybe worth considering even if we don't.
The scouting warrior started on the Pig and moved 1NW. Krill says to never settle for a 15 turn worker, and fortunately our first Christmas tree on rice means we didn't have to. Settling 2S would mean a 10 turn worker, but giving up a turn of movement, and also the pig, ivory and a floodplan 2W is debatable. The fog could uncover a reason why it is the right move.
I settled 1S because the tiles we lose aren't critical, and it's nice to gain a river hill.
Settling 2S would have picked up a sheep and the PH start, but I think this way is a little superior because of the floodplain and additional resources.
The first tech I started was AH. It's a shame to waste the prereq bonus for hunting, but food is always the first order of business, we can't chop the forest from the rice in time to farm it, and so that pig needs to get improved as soon as possible.
First hut:
Bingo! Fishing isn't the best early tech but free beakers help.
Early scouting:
We haven't found any horse yet. This's pretty sad for Egypt though there's a lot more scouting to do. The next techs were mining to BW. Hunting wasn't that crucial since the ivory is only a 1/3/2 tile.
We met Mansa Musa from the north. He seems to always be one of the best performing AIs. He converted to Hinduism which he founded.
The second hut gave 41 gold.
Another hut:
That's a heck of a toy for turn 23! I still don't see horses though. And Egypt benefits less than any other civ anyway since WCs are so cost effective. Still it's a lot of beakers for free for a tech we'll need eventually.
I'm grew the capital to size 4 before building a second worker or settler, because there wasn't much for a second worker to do before BW finished.
I met Asoka on the way to a hut:
Right as he set it off with 3 barb warriors! Also note the forested lake.
Ummm...
Horses? Copper? Nope. Maybe archery is all I've got! Or I could risk going to iron, but I hate doing that.
I planted the second city on T37. There were more than enough good tiles here to support two cities with this much overlap, I figured. My starting build in the capital was worker -> warrior -> warrior -> worker -> 2x chop + 1 whip settler. Techs were AH -> Mining -> BW -> Hunting -> Pottery. (With Fishing + HBR free from huts.)
Christmas horse was finally discovered:
At 13 tiles from the capital it was a little far to enable a WC rush!
With conquering not being necessary or possible, I basically played a peaceful Rex game from here on. For the third city, settled on turn 57, I opted for the gold + corn site:
Fourth city settled forward for the copper.
The corn NWW of the settlement was tree #2.
City #5 grabbed the lake forest for tree #3. My economy was starting to tank so I headed for sailing (for trade routes) and currency.
Justinian wanted to spread religion. It worked for me! Thessalonica, the holy city, could be a tempting target eventually, unless I want to semi-role play this like Sullla does, and treat good neighbours kindly.
The Oracle fell on turn 82, the same turn I connected copper, finally! I've been relying only on archers and warriors so far.
City #6 was planted to get the gold under tree #4. I must have missed taking a screenshot, but it was the gold forest to the NE of Elephantine, shown on the south edge of the next shot.
City #7 grabbed the forest horse in Justinan's face for tree #5. I don't think I'd try this placement in a vs human game.
City #8 acquired the mysterious forest village for tree #5, once its culture expanded. With currency online I switched toward Monarchy for the happiness. Justinian had also spread Judaism to 6 of my cities, which was wonderful!
I have to say, the AIs didn't do a very good job in the land grab in this game.
Demos for turn 100:
The Great Lighthouse fell on turn 101.
I'm put my Academy in Memphis, and I moved the capital there eventually, since it was my strongest commerce site for Bureau.
The Colossus fell to Mansa, T113.
City #12 was founded on T120 to claim to wheat for tree #6. I thought I had a screenshot for it, but you can see it as the "c" site in the previous screenshot.
I captured this barb city, to claim the incense for tree #7. I think this counts because even though it's captured, the incense isn't in culture yet.
This shows how close to us Justinian built the Jewish shrine.
Here were the demos at breakeven science, after switching to Bureau:
Asoka built the Pyramids on T134.
There are forested crabs on this island to the southeast. But the barbs beat me to settling there. I wasn't completely clear but I don't think trees count if captured from barbarians.
I found a hit record under the tree as a present:
This is where I stopped playing though. Guilds was due at the end of turn, and a possible next move would have been to whip a round of knights, take out Justinian and his shrine and holy sites (with Judaism nicely pre-spread to us!), and work from there.
I didn't think I had anything to prove in this game though, here are the demos:
The poor AIs got completely dominated for food and land. I sacrificed tech rate to do that, but capturing the Jewish shrine would have made the rest of this game a walk in the park.
Final score is 7 trees. It's clearly possible to get many more if playing for that goal.
