Ah the best of intentions. I got this one started, got to a seemingly winning position, and then didn't have the real life time to finish it. (I don't even have the real life timeline for a proper report, but here is the rough timeline of significant events:
First steps: First thing I built was a scout, because with the initial description of Sullla's, I figured knowledge was power. Popped huts gave me Agriculture, Archery and the last 9 turns of my first researched tech: Animal Husbandry.
Mining and Bronzeworking were next, revealing that not only Horses, but also Copper were absent our capital's BFC. Now, I just knew Sullla wasn't cruel, so I invested 34T on ironworking next while preparing a Settler to go grab the Copper to the northwest.
But, of course, this was a cruel start, so Ironworking simply revealed a lack of Iron in the BFC.
That, and the fact that Asoka had Iron, but hadn't hooked it up yet. Intelligence is valuable.
With 3 cities--capital, one to grab copper in NW, and one that grabbed Horses east of the Inca capital--I built up an axe invasion force.
520BC: Attacked Asoka with a handful of axes and more on the way. He'd hooked up his Iron, and even though I didn't have all the troops I needed, I felt I had to take his mine out of service. It wasn't until 310BC that I actually captured Delhi, and I needed 12 axes to take out the 1 spear, 5 archer garrison he had there. I ended up grabbing 3 of his cities: Delhi, Calcutta (N of Delhi and a good GP farm site), and Bombay off to the west.
War plunder largely furnished the funds for the war. I was certainly helped by the fact that somewhere in the BC-timeframe, I popped Gold in one of Karakorum's mines. At least that's one side benefit of using mines instead of the whip for production.
By the time I got his best 3 cities, Asoka had two more cities on the west side of the continent. Having concentrated almost exclusively on production, I couldn't afford to keep them, so I made peace with him in 85BC.
A screenshot of our fledgling empire after the initial conquest of Asoka:
![[Image: civ4screenshot0043ee4.jpg]](http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/33/civ4screenshot0043ee4.jpg)
(You can see on the minimap my third city (east of the Inca capital) which grabs horses an has a bit of production at size 4. Turned out to be an okay staging area for phase 2.
Soon, war plunder had financed Construction, then Pottery and a few other basic techs.
110AD: I just can't sit back and let a financial, aggressive AI go unchallenged, so after getting some catapults up and going, it was off to conquer the Incas, or at least their heartland. Other than his capital, I didn't think he placed his cities very well, so most of them got razed.
By 350AD, the Incas were reduced to 2 ice cities in the east. I had self-researched Alphabet so I could do a little pointy-stick research. I gave them peace for Meditation, Polytheism, Sailing, and Currency.
Now, Huayna had actually founded Christianity in one of his eastern ice cities. I decided that I'd try to generate a great scientist and pop Philosophy for Taoism. Since Asoka had founded Buddhism, that would make 3 religions on the continent, which I figured would be good enough for a cultural win.
770AD: Frederick--our first off-continent AI--appeared in his caravel. I was sort of expecting to see someone around 1000AD, but I guess this wasn't too early. Cyrus showed up in 800AD, which was the very year we sprouted a Great Scientist that founded Taoism for us.
Not being the sharing type, and coveting a couple of Asoka's cities, I redeclared on him in 1040AD. I had to build a couple galleys to take out his island fortress off the southwest coast, but in 1166AD, it was over: Asoka was gone for good.
My economy was not too great, but I was by far the land leader.
I stopped playing in about 1220AD, having consolidated most of my island. Cottages were starting to mature, so I was making a profit of some 43gpt at 0% science. I was in the process of spreading Buddhism, Christianity, and Taoism throughout my empire.
Here is a near-stopping-point screenshot showing the 3 cities I'd decided to use as my culture-slider cultural cities at the end of the game:
![[Image: civ4screenshot0049jx6.jpg]](http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/1459/civ4screenshot0049jx6.jpg)
From here, I figure the game was won. I was surprised to see that Confucianism had actually spread to a city that already had Buddhism in it. Did Cyrus send a missionary? It's possible; I wasn't playing close attention.
I think the path to a cultural victory from here was fairly straightforward. I certainly wasn't going to score any super-early victory date here, and with the no-whipping restraints, I would need a decent military in case someone decided to backstab me. I would also need that military if anyone started to run away for the spacerace.
A spacerace backup was also an option. I'm sure I'd eventually have been able to get back to tech parity, and from there, it would be standard spacerace.
If BtS hadn't come out, I might have considered picking this one up again in the future just to make sure that I could grab a cultural victory before an AI launched. But since Vanilla is now patched to 1.74, and since I don't want to do a dual-install an unpatched game, I think I've done all I'm going to do on this one.
I had fun in the early going. Trying to ensure a rush on two AIs early on with no strategic resources and no good spot for a second or third city was a nice challenge. Looking forward to seeing what BtS holds....
(Now, to read some of the other reports....)
First steps: First thing I built was a scout, because with the initial description of Sullla's, I figured knowledge was power. Popped huts gave me Agriculture, Archery and the last 9 turns of my first researched tech: Animal Husbandry.
Mining and Bronzeworking were next, revealing that not only Horses, but also Copper were absent our capital's BFC. Now, I just knew Sullla wasn't cruel, so I invested 34T on ironworking next while preparing a Settler to go grab the Copper to the northwest.
But, of course, this was a cruel start, so Ironworking simply revealed a lack of Iron in the BFC.
That, and the fact that Asoka had Iron, but hadn't hooked it up yet. Intelligence is valuable.
With 3 cities--capital, one to grab copper in NW, and one that grabbed Horses east of the Inca capital--I built up an axe invasion force.
520BC: Attacked Asoka with a handful of axes and more on the way. He'd hooked up his Iron, and even though I didn't have all the troops I needed, I felt I had to take his mine out of service. It wasn't until 310BC that I actually captured Delhi, and I needed 12 axes to take out the 1 spear, 5 archer garrison he had there. I ended up grabbing 3 of his cities: Delhi, Calcutta (N of Delhi and a good GP farm site), and Bombay off to the west.
War plunder largely furnished the funds for the war. I was certainly helped by the fact that somewhere in the BC-timeframe, I popped Gold in one of Karakorum's mines. At least that's one side benefit of using mines instead of the whip for production.
By the time I got his best 3 cities, Asoka had two more cities on the west side of the continent. Having concentrated almost exclusively on production, I couldn't afford to keep them, so I made peace with him in 85BC.
A screenshot of our fledgling empire after the initial conquest of Asoka:
(You can see on the minimap my third city (east of the Inca capital) which grabs horses an has a bit of production at size 4. Turned out to be an okay staging area for phase 2.
Soon, war plunder had financed Construction, then Pottery and a few other basic techs.
110AD: I just can't sit back and let a financial, aggressive AI go unchallenged, so after getting some catapults up and going, it was off to conquer the Incas, or at least their heartland. Other than his capital, I didn't think he placed his cities very well, so most of them got razed.
By 350AD, the Incas were reduced to 2 ice cities in the east. I had self-researched Alphabet so I could do a little pointy-stick research. I gave them peace for Meditation, Polytheism, Sailing, and Currency.
Now, Huayna had actually founded Christianity in one of his eastern ice cities. I decided that I'd try to generate a great scientist and pop Philosophy for Taoism. Since Asoka had founded Buddhism, that would make 3 religions on the continent, which I figured would be good enough for a cultural win.
770AD: Frederick--our first off-continent AI--appeared in his caravel. I was sort of expecting to see someone around 1000AD, but I guess this wasn't too early. Cyrus showed up in 800AD, which was the very year we sprouted a Great Scientist that founded Taoism for us.
Not being the sharing type, and coveting a couple of Asoka's cities, I redeclared on him in 1040AD. I had to build a couple galleys to take out his island fortress off the southwest coast, but in 1166AD, it was over: Asoka was gone for good.
My economy was not too great, but I was by far the land leader.
I stopped playing in about 1220AD, having consolidated most of my island. Cottages were starting to mature, so I was making a profit of some 43gpt at 0% science. I was in the process of spreading Buddhism, Christianity, and Taoism throughout my empire.
Here is a near-stopping-point screenshot showing the 3 cities I'd decided to use as my culture-slider cultural cities at the end of the game:
From here, I figure the game was won. I was surprised to see that Confucianism had actually spread to a city that already had Buddhism in it. Did Cyrus send a missionary? It's possible; I wasn't playing close attention.
I think the path to a cultural victory from here was fairly straightforward. I certainly wasn't going to score any super-early victory date here, and with the no-whipping restraints, I would need a decent military in case someone decided to backstab me. I would also need that military if anyone started to run away for the spacerace.
A spacerace backup was also an option. I'm sure I'd eventually have been able to get back to tech parity, and from there, it would be standard spacerace.
If BtS hadn't come out, I might have considered picking this one up again in the future just to make sure that I could grab a cultural victory before an AI launched. But since Vanilla is now patched to 1.74, and since I don't want to do a dual-install an unpatched game, I think I've done all I'm going to do on this one.
I had fun in the early going. Trying to ensure a rush on two AIs early on with no strategic resources and no good spot for a second or third city was a nice challenge. Looking forward to seeing what BtS holds....
(Now, to read some of the other reports....)