as said elsewhere, I ragequit this, and then the EitB scenarios have been too much fun to pick it up again.
But I really appreciate our sponsors' efforts, and I very much hope for future adventures to happen, so here is what I've got to tell:
I decided for a cultural domination variant. That means I have to win by domination, but must never conquer an enemy city. This is sometimes played with Always Peace (as in Sulla's report where I got the idea from), but I think it's more fun to give the AI a chance to declare when they feel pressed by the culture.
I have won such games before on Monarch, but with ZY of Ethiopia, which is kind of well suited for that objective. SO it would be hard for sure.
Now, imo the way to cultural domination victory goes through:
- Stonehenge (no surprise)
- aggressive pinkdotting. You have to get cities as close to the opponent's inner rings as possible. If you focus on culture, you can generally make even a surrounded city work, but penetrating a solid border is very difficult
Of course the map looked awful, but i figured it could actually help me with my objective, because if the whole center was full of desert, I should be able to claim that whole dustbowl, and from there sting into the other civilizations' territories... so after a questionable second city (Commodore's was better), I settled towards the center, also reaching for that stone which would help me a lot with all the wonders I wanted for my self and for denial to the others. The result was:
So yeah, you can lose a city early and still win a game against the comp, play on... nope, that was the second time! But I did play on. And it happened again. And then I could have chosen to abandon the variant / change it to "lose your third city thrice to the barbs and still win", but what can I say, been playing around with mages and ents and stuff...
So on my path to perdition there were some unlucky dice rolls, but the one thing I really should've done was take archery early on. I thought I could get safe with the copper. What I had not understood was that 2 warriors would not buy me the time to get that train rolling. Also I played really sloppy of course.
BuUt thanks to Brick and T-Hawk, the map definitely had great potential, and had I been more dedicated it could have become a wonderful game.
But I really appreciate our sponsors' efforts, and I very much hope for future adventures to happen, so here is what I've got to tell:
I decided for a cultural domination variant. That means I have to win by domination, but must never conquer an enemy city. This is sometimes played with Always Peace (as in Sulla's report where I got the idea from), but I think it's more fun to give the AI a chance to declare when they feel pressed by the culture.
I have won such games before on Monarch, but with ZY of Ethiopia, which is kind of well suited for that objective. SO it would be hard for sure.
Now, imo the way to cultural domination victory goes through:
- Stonehenge (no surprise)
- aggressive pinkdotting. You have to get cities as close to the opponent's inner rings as possible. If you focus on culture, you can generally make even a surrounded city work, but penetrating a solid border is very difficult
Of course the map looked awful, but i figured it could actually help me with my objective, because if the whole center was full of desert, I should be able to claim that whole dustbowl, and from there sting into the other civilizations' territories... so after a questionable second city (Commodore's was better), I settled towards the center, also reaching for that stone which would help me a lot with all the wonders I wanted for my self and for denial to the others. The result was:
So yeah, you can lose a city early and still win a game against the comp, play on... nope, that was the second time! But I did play on. And it happened again. And then I could have chosen to abandon the variant / change it to "lose your third city thrice to the barbs and still win", but what can I say, been playing around with mages and ents and stuff...
So on my path to perdition there were some unlucky dice rolls, but the one thing I really should've done was take archery early on. I thought I could get safe with the copper. What I had not understood was that 2 warriors would not buy me the time to get that train rolling. Also I played really sloppy of course.
BuUt thanks to Brick and T-Hawk, the map definitely had great potential, and had I been more dedicated it could have become a wonderful game.
here - because I would've been interested to see how the cultural variant worked out. You're right that the desert could make it a lot easier, but on the other hand, all those mountains might have caused you some problems.
Sorry about the barbs there, the desert was prime territory for them to get all in your business. I think you would have had some success with your idea if you were able to gain traction though, the desert area went mostly unsettled by the AIs when I played, and if you also were one of the first to Astro, you could have nabbed a lot of island real estate.