Epic Thirteen - BYZANTINES

[Borealis]

I ended up running out of time, as the war against the Khmer dragged on despite my Cataphract army. I'd probably win via domination if I finished it, but with an unexpected trip out of town I didn't have the time. I built six cities before going to war, as I wasn't sure how much to bring as rushing on Monarch (I normally play Noble/Prince) and ended up carving up first Babylon with Joao's assistance, then moved against the Khmer, who were getting far too powerful in the south. I decided against founding an early religion, even as Spiritual, as I wasn't sure of my diplomatic state, and it worked out for me as I was able to enlist the Dutch and Portugal as trading partners who loved me.

While I didn't finish the game in time, I enjoyed it as both an interesting challenge and change of pace for my normally builder self, and I think I'm going to try moving up a level and experimenting with some more warlike leaders. I lucked out early on with a couple of nice huts, getting Pottery and Sailing, but mostly survived thanks to driving straight for iron working - meaning I could see the iron to my NW and settle there just in time to nab it. Cataphracts might not be as good as 1.61 Cossacks but they're still pretty nice. I'll try and make sure the next RB event I take part in that I have time to finish and organize my screenshots.

[Kronoz]

I got the Byzantines, but unfortunately Bioshock (another 2K game) got released late in august. It was just about the same time I got tired of CIV. The refreshment of BtS did'nt last long for me

[Dark Savant]

I played, but didn't quite finish. I reached 59%+ land (of 60% needed to win by domination), then got attacked and needed several more turns to fend off a ferocious attack and get the last bits of land required. That took me past the deadline, so I didn't get a chance to report until now, also past the deadline. I suspect the attack came partly to stop me from winning. It worked, in a way. :mad: It's like when I played the Civ 3 Epic 36 and got to AD 2025 or so then got attacked by the Russians.

I'm not going to write a full-length report, just an executive summary.

Game won by domination in AD 1890. I was actually sandbagging a bit towards the end to try to see some of the new modern stuff, but after the Native Americans attacked me I tried to end the game ASAP.

The start position could have been better. No fresh water, a little low on forests, lots of ocean and desert nearby, next-door neighbor is close and is Creative, no readily grabbable copper with iron a bit of a reach, a little light on happiness resources (happiness was a problem for a long time), neither stone nor marble.

Being Imperialistic and able to get food resources by fishing, I decided to start with settler before worker and get two cities going on work boats before finally actually building workers. My starting warriors grabbed lots of huts, mostly for gold.

I delayed all the worker techs while I got fishing and founded Hinduism and Judaism. Those were the only two religions I founded all game; I was short of both Christianity and Islam by one turn.

The AI built all the early wonders before I could even think of building any of them; the first one I snagged was the Hanging Gardens. I also got the Apostolic Palace and, well, I didn't do much with it, it was a little difficult to get Judaism all over the place.

The Babylonians were really sucking, getting attacked twice by the Khmer before I joined in and vassalized them; at that point I had iron hooked up and could build something stronger than chariots. Next, the Dutch had to go, because all the culture they were building was getting obnoxious.

They got vassalized too, and I worked my way around the continent, with the capitulated vassals count eventually hitting five. I founded Mining Inc. and spammed it to all of my cities; by the time I could do this I had tons of mining resources and could actually net a profit from this if I set some of my cities to building Wealth.

The last to be vassalized were the Khmer. For some reason, they were sucking on tech. My city with Oxford and the Hermitage and four cathedrals on their border couldn't keep up on culture ... wait, they must be trying for a culture win! I've got to remember to keep this in mind next time I see an AI suddenly sucking in tech for no apparent reason.

Getting a city's water supply poisoned is really obnoxious. :mad: I didn't do much on the spy front myself, mostly because I wasn't thinking about it.

Oh well, more time next game, perhaps.

[dsplaisted]

It's two weeks late, but my report is here.

I was surprised no one else tried for the cheap Apostolic Palace win. How did I fare? You'll have to read my report