Epic Twenty Four: Sulla Plays the First 100 Turns

[Sullla]

Epic 24 is finally here, the Huge map mega-scenario. All credit for the concept goes to T-Hawk; I had nowhere near the time and energy to put together the massive revisiting of Sirian's Civ3 opus. The only thing that I did was provide a sounding board to bounce ideas off of, which I will modestly say made some minor improvements to the design. I hadn't played a single-player game of Civ4 in months, and I have never played a game on a Huge map before. No time like the present though, right? As a one-time deal, this was something that was begging to be tried.

My plan going into the game, such as it was, consisted of trying to make it to the end of the game with as little fuss as possible. I absolutely did intend to spread out like the plague and claim as much territory as possible, and to eliminate my Blood Enemy as soon as possible for the max bonus scoring points. But at the same time, I wasn't going to go crazy over maximizing every single opportunity to increase score. We have other community members who have much more practice at that than me, and I already knew before I started that I wasn't going to be winning anything. This game was going to be all about having fun, and maybe doing some lategame cultural push (one of my favorite aspects of Civ4) to flip some AI cities down the road. I was actually hoping to avoid any Modern or Future era wars at all if possible, having experienced how long they take way back in the Divided We Fall Adventure several years ago.

I moved the warrior north onto the plains hill on the first turn, revealing a cattle resource to the north. If I moved the settler two tiles north, he could found on the plains hill and grab both corn and plains cattle in one stroke. But that would require two turns to move, and also mean giving up on the two floodplains tiles at the start. I sat and thought about it for a solid minute, ultimately deciding that there wasn't enough benefit to moving. So I stayed in place:



Then I sat around for another few minutes thinking about what to research and what to build first. I wanted to go for Stonehenge in the capital early on, because on a gigantic map size like this the free border pops would be a huge advantage. Not just in terms of working more tiles, but also because it would reduce the fog area and cut down somewhat on barbarian spawn. (I could do the same think to an extent with Great Wall, but I'd rather put the shields into Stonehenge and get a Great Prophet than a crummy Great Spy!) Stonehenge, the poor man's Creative trait. That meant going for Mysticism at some point, and I also needed Mining/Bronze Working, so I had to sort out my plan for the first ~30 or so turns before making a single move to start! That's where I love Civ.

Eventually I decided that I would open with worker, mostly because I started with Agriculture as America, then follow that up with a warrior build while growing to size 3 at max food. Research was therefore Mining -> Bronze Working -> Mysticism.

I caught a big break in that the first hut I popped on turn 6 (T6) gave me a free scout! That was about to become the single best unit I've ever gotten out of a goody hut. A Huge map naturally means huge numbers of huts to find, and I had some excellent luck in that regard. Animal Husbandry from a hut on T19 (revealing horses just to the west of Washington), Hunting on T32, and another scout out of a hut later on. One of those scouts would get eaten quickly by a bear, but the second slipped around to the east and explored a gigantic stretch of land along the coast, knowing that the barbs tend to be thinner in concentration on the coastlines. I still had a scout revealing tiles as late as the start of the AD years! Talk about great value. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

As I said before, build order was worker -> warrior (grow to size 3) -> settler -> Stonehenge. Nothing too fancy there, but it's a combo that has done good things for me in the past. Here was a screenshot as I planted my second city:



I considered this spot to have the best overall land in the immediate vicinity of the capital, assuming of course that you didn't move Washington to the plains hill at the outset. Gotta get that plains cattle in use somewhere ASAP! Starting with a warrior at New York was a bit of an unorthodox move, but consider these facts. Stonehenge would complete soon in the capital, making a monument pointless. I didn't have Pottery yet for granaries, and there wasn't really a great need for a barracks here. I did want a second worker, but... with barbs everywhere on this map, having another military unit on hand seemed like a good idea. It wasn't too long before I was scrambling for every unit I could find to keep my fledgling civ safe, and I was glad I had that extra warrior!

I considered the spot right between the pigs and horses for my second city, and ultimately decided to put my third one there instead. I figured I would have enough time to connect the horses before the non-animal barbs started showing up in real numbers. It turned out I was right, although only just barely so!

Now note that I had explored quite a lot of territory on the minimap without finding any of the other civs as yet. I knew that there would be at least three other civs on my continent, possibly four, and it was only a matter of time until I found them. Or in this case, until they found me:



Saladin showed up, and was joined in time by Hammurabi and Sitting Bull. I guessed from this that Saladin was north of me, which turned out to be slightly incorrect. Saladin was the Buddhism founder, and Hammer had gotten Judaism, so our continent was already looking to be polarized diplomatically. As I had plans to found my own third religion, that would set me up for a future Blood Enemy pretty easily. So I hoped, anyway.

Boston went out to the west (T56), on the one and only tile that grabbed the horses, pigs, and oasis tiles. I'm sure everyone who founded on the starting tile put a city here - it was just so obvious that that was the place to go! Getting the horses back to Washington was going to require some extra road connections, however. Meanwhile, I was setting up an Oracle slingshot of Code of Laws:



Why Code of Laws? For one thing, Roosevelt is an Organized leader, and cheap courthouses are a powerful thing to get in play early, especially on a Huge map where your expansion is limited only by economics. (I was seriously tempted to go for Metal Casting and cheap forges too, but had to decide against it because of the relative unimportance of the Colossus, and lack of gold/silver/gems near the start.) Speaking of happy resources, there was a serious lack of them anywhere near the start! A religion seemed like a major asset when facing that difficulty. A religion + shrine would further be a great asset to control for an extended lategame, both for cultural push and for Wall Street/corporations economic synergy. Even better was the hope of running over either Saladin or Hammurabi later on, and controlling a huge share of the world's religions. Finally, for an Industrious civ, if you aren't building a fair share of wonders, you're wasting one of your traits!

In short, I built Oracle on T68 (1280BC) and took Code of Laws. New York became the Holy City.

The Great Wall, which I had no intention of building, fell on T71. I could have had it OR Oracle, but not both. I felt happy with my decision there... Anyway, I found Hammurabi's domains first, located directly to the east of my civ along the coast. He seemed to be getting harassed pretty severely by barbs, and fell way behind early on. Saladin, Sitting Bull, and I all had 5-6 cities, while he was still stick with 3. Not sure what happened there, some kind of mistake in the AI?

I connected my horses right around T75 (1000BC), and just in time!



Note the barbs incoming from the north and west. I was just starting my first chariot, and if you can believe it, I still wasn't in Slavery civic yet! Wanted to pull a double-swap to Slavery and Organized Religion (note the Monotheism research) to save a turn of anarchy. I had been getting great value from a pair of warrior posts just outside my borders; you can see the northern one, who absorbed about three different barb warriors over a span of a dozen turns. There was another one in the southern jungles serving the same purpose. They were a major help in keeping my inner core safe and on infrastructure builds, rather than having to go all military.

I put my fourth city in a bit of an odd spot for the same reason, to absorb the barb attacks coming in from the northwest:



Philadephia is on an incense resource, plus grabs pigs + rice + a floodplains tile. This was the best way I could see to make use of a largely desert region, and would eventually work all three of those incense resources, plus have food left over for specialists! I had a chariot move here on the very next turn to reinforce that poor warrior, and he feasted on barb warriors for the next few dozen turns, helping keep me safe elsewhere.

The Stonehenge/Oracle combo produced a Great Prophet fairly quickly, which I used to build the Kong Miao (Confucian Shrine) on T82 (825BC). The early shrine helped finances and did a nice job of spreading the religion on its own without my help. Atlanta (city #5) followed shortly thereafter in the southeast, in a very fertile pig/corn location. The one thing that had held me back from settling here earlier was enough military to protect the spot from the southern barbs, which were teeming in the jungles.

Like I said...



The barbs definitely come in little waves, and a bad one hit around T90-100. There were four archers advancing from the south alone, plus more creeping in from the north and east. I had four chariots on patrol plus my warrior sentries, and yet it was still a bit uncomfortable! In the above shot, the southernmost archer died attacking my Woody II warrior in the jungle. The eastern one died attacking across the river into Atlanta, as did the northernmost one with my chariot near Washington. The final archer was taken out by a new chariot I build in Washington after the missionary. All told, I had one cottage pillaged in the east at New York, and that was it. Whew! I had dodged the first bullet.



My six cities on T100, or 375BC. I placed Chicago where I did because I was trying to establish a "safe" backline of cities, and the northern coast was the best spot for that at the moment. I was not quite ready to push more cities into the southern jungles as yet, but I still wanted to expand as rapidly as possible. Better to found good cities in uncontested locations than not found them at all, right? I had absolutely no plans of slowing down expansion until my research rate dropped below 50%, and with whipped courthouses and a shrine to play around with, that looked to be quite a while away still. I'll also mention here that Boston's pig and horses tiles made it a great location to build settlers, and I had it or Washington building them for ages on end, as my two cities with the best food + shields rate.

* * * * *

And that's when the Apolyton Demogame made it impossible to continue playing. I don't want this extremely incomplete game to be included in the results, just thought I'd throw out what I did get through for comparison purposes. Thanks for those who took part, and especially to T-Hawk for putting everything together.

[T-hawk]

Hey, Sullla! Glad you got in for at least a sampling. 100 turns is a pretty small chunk though. I was still land-grabbing around turn 300.

Gotta get that plains cattle in use somewhere ASAP!

Plains cattle is good, but is it that great? I'd rather have a 6-food pigs over a 3-3 plains cattle, and there were two of the former in city sites adjacent to Washington. The 3 extra food gets off the ground to sizes 2-4 sooner, and translates back to far more than 3 hammers with granary and whip.

Boston went out to the west (T56), on the one and only tile that grabbed the horses, pigs, and oasis tiles. I'm sure everyone who founded on the starting tile put a city here

Close; I founded 1E of your Boston. That traded the oasis for the better flood plain, which Washington had plenty enough good tiles to give up. Plus the cities were closer for connecting the horses and shuttling units.

I found Hammurabi's domains first, located directly to the east of my civ along the coast. He seemed to be getting harassed pretty severely by barbs, and fell way behind early on. Saladin, Sitting Bull, and I all had 5-6 cities, while he was still stick with 3. Not sure what happened there, some kind of mistake in the AI?

Yeah, pretty much everybody reported Hammurabi as a dud. I'll have to look back at some saves and see why.

on a Huge map where your expansion is limited only by economics. ... The one thing that had held me back from settling here earlier was enough military to protect the spot from the southern barbs, which were teeming in the jungles.

Yup. Military control of barbarians was the limiting factor, more so than economics (barring the Great Wall.) I had a similar experience with barbarian defense. My big problem was barbarian spearmen. Chariots don't work and the only counter is axes, but with no copper nearby they wouldn't come until Iron Working. I handled them mostly by parking archers on high-defense tiles to invite suicides, but never really felt safe until horse archers and longbows. It was like a mini Always War game.

And that's when the Apolyton Demogame made it impossible to continue playing. I don't want this extremely incomplete game to be included in the results, just thought I'd throw out what I did get through for comparison purposes. Thanks for those who took part, and especially to T-Hawk for putting everything together.

Hey, let me return the thanks for being the captain, leader, mogul, poohbah, and dude-in-chief over at Apolyton.