Epic 26 T-hawk non report

[T-hawk]

I turned in a dud of a game.

I decided to go espionage economy, which seemed appropriate for high difficulty and the diplomatic restrictions on trading. So I built the Great Wall to spawn and settle my first GP as a spy. The problem with the plan was that Saladin and Sitting Bull were both too poor at researching to make EE worthwhile. I compounded the error by burning my second GP as a scientist on Philosophy, intending to use Taoism for the espionage discount, but there was nothing available to steal.

But the bigger error came in the midgame. There was a barbarian city between me and Saladin, and I was trying to train a sword to Heroic Epic status on it. Saladin captured the barb city just before I finished. Between wanting a level-4 unit, and an opportunistic shot to capture both the barb city and another weak border city, I declared war on Saladin.

I made my goals, but then he wouldn't agree to peace, and by variant rule I couldn't give any concession. (I peeked on occasion, often the price was as low as 50 gold.) So I was stuck fighting him for a good 60 turns until I did get the HE done and threatened one of his real cities. So while I burned effort on a pointless war, Louis grabbed Liberalism into Astronomy.

Happy cap was a tremendous problem. Our terrain was so weak, only three happy resources and none with a doubler! So I felt I still needed to conquer Saladin to have any sort of decent speed towards space. Of course the point to do that was drafted Redcoats.

But I got a terrible break when Saladin beelined Rifling at the same time I did, while Louis beelined Democracy and ignored guns. I proceeded to attack Saladin anyway, but the going was tremendously slow. Redcoats don't have any advantage over Protective rifles. And thanks to the earlier war, I had gotten Globe Theater going for a draft camp extremely late. After 50 turns more of fighting, I still hadn't cracked Saladin's capital. What I should have done was take my Redcoats over to gunless Sitting Bull instead, but just didn't think of that, being stuck on conquering Saladin.

I quit around 1600 AD when the victory conditions scoreboard showed France well on the way to a culture win. France had three cities over 10k culture already and a lead of six techs on me. France had early Free Speech, early Democracy, early Astronomy (remember his UB is the Salon with a free artist), loads of wonders, and four religions in each culture city. It looked impossible to beat France's culture by space, so I would have had to set up a culture decapitation after the Arabian war.

I just wasn't up for that kind of effort. Literally I was stressing out at work and losing sleep in thinking about how to beat the game. I decided to save myself from Civ burnout (especially on Epic speed) and instead go develop and playtest Adventure 43.

Sullla, what was the rationale for requiring the player to win by space but allowing the AI to win by culture? I sure understand taking culture off the player's table, but why leave it on for the AI?

[Olodune]

I turned in a dud of a game.
The problem with the plan was that Saladin and Sitting Bull were both too poor at researching to make EE worthwhile.

With the 3-4 split it seems like an early EE only pays off if you are part of the 4, especially as you are not contributing to the tech pace. Of course having two poor techers doesn't help either ... I imagine your game would have gone a lot smoother if Mansa and Pacal were your continent-mates.

[Sullla]

Sullla, what was the rationale for requiring the player to win by space but allowing the AI to win by culture? I sure understand taking culture off the player's table, but why leave it on for the AI?

Very simple, just to make the game more challenging. We all know the AI is atrociously bad at building the spaceship; I wanted Culture left on to provide an alternate way for the player to lose. I figured that almost no one would lose to AI Space, but they might be under pressure from AI Culture.

After reading about how many players won rather easily in this Epic, I was sort of glad to see the AI have its act together in at least one game.

[T-hawk]

Well, with the pressure off now, and inspired by pocketbeetle's great comeback win, I continued playing this one.

I stopped conquering Arabia at his capital, then took my Redcoats over to conquer Sitting Bull (who still lacked Gunpowder) instead and one of his colony vassals. That worked, picking up a dozen cities, some much-needed happy resources, and more fuel for Sushi and later Mining Inc.

I was about ten techs behind by then, but stormed back amazingly quickly by going full-blown espionage economy. Jails are actually the most efficient economic multiplier per hammer in the game, and Nationhood +25% EP is the biggest economic multiplier of any civic. I caught up with steals, researched Industrialism and Plastics first on my own, and with 30 cities of Sushi-powered Rep specialists, I'm easily ahead in the space race.

So I started building transports and tanks to go knock out France's culture city. Unfortunately, what happened next was that Babylon declared war out of the blue and sank my entire French invasion fleet!

Haven't decided if I want to continue from here. Babylon just destroyed my entire navy, and is going to pillage my entire world of seafood. Peace won't be possible (remember we can't grant concessions) until I build about 40 battleships to get the upper hand and take a city. Not sure if I can manage that while also reaching nukes to stop France (I can't even get spies over there), and not sure if I feel like trying.

[novice]

Nice effort though. I guess it goes to show that sometimes the AI is able to put a spanner in the wheels of players even of your caliber, through a combination of lucky timing, high difficulty settings and bothersome variant rules.

[T-hawk]

Game, I wish I knew how to quit you.

Full Report.

[novice]

...and that's why they call them the Epics. Good game and a very readable and entertaining report.

[Compromise]

Game, I wish I knew how to quit you.

Isn't that the truth!

Going for the Wall was cool, though I would not have expected the archer-pileup just outside of it. I imagine you could get a kind of mini-game with unescorted settlers dodging barbs on their way to city sites.

I always find your reports informative. I'm impressed with the effectiveness of the espionage economy; I'll have to try that some day. I also like the idea of having hundreds in the bank in case the AI offers a tech for tech+gold trade.

I was also impressed with how advanced your economy was upon meeting the big continent's AIs. And despite the many wars--those must have been long turnsets--you were able to steal your way to the top of the board by 1800AD. Impressive.

Overall, the most amazing thing is the amount of micro that you put into this, e.g.

Starting in 1884 AD, I made sure Rheims would never go Legendary by hitting it with a spy revolt every turn. Literally every turn. Thirty straight turns of spy revolts. I stacked up as many as 30 spies in the city at a time.

Wow. As novice noted, that's epic.

Thanks for the great writeup.

[pocketbeetle]

Nice report, and glad you finished it in the end