Epic 1: Unaghy´s report

[unaghy]

I haven't participated in this scenario in previous games, so this will be completely new experience for me.

Without monuments it will be really difficult for cities to grab tiles, so I cant rely on it at all and would need to be buying them instead. Therefore strong economy will be the key.  Only source of culture will be population until Humanism, therefore quick expansion an pop grow will be necessary.
 
If Kongo is in the game, it will be main opponent as  it can generate tourism rather quickly trough relics. Also good terms with other civs will be necessary to keep open borders for international tourists bonuses.
 
The initial starting strategy will be quick expansion and commercial/harbor district spam with occasional Industry/Campus districts in cities with higher population. Some wonders to be constructed within first 150 turns, however I do not expect any religious ones. Plan is to land hanging garden, colosseum, petra, great lighthouse and colossus. If possible, then also Potala Palace & Chitzen Itza. All should be placed alongside river to further boost Chateaus.
 
For research tree, first goal will be to get techs unlocking wonders and heading towards Computers to double tourism as soon as possible, then another important tech will be Flight.
 
For culture tree, first goal will be to head towards Humanism and build as many Chateau as possible. They can be only placed alongside river, so trying to avoid placing districts on riverside, even commercial districts will be placed off the riverside despite loosing +2gpt. Second goal will be technology for seaside resorts, then again avoiding to place districts on flat land sea sides.
 
Lets start. 

Moved warrior to west and uncovered river arm with some hills. Looks like I will be able to settle two more cieties along the rivier, each from another side, so I have settled on the spot. Then I sent warrior to souths to see how far the river goes there and soon found new continent and met Egypt (south). Stonehenge has been built on Turn 7. Hmm, seems I´ll have rough competition for wonders. EDIT: Stonehenge on turn 7 was most probably wrong note during playing scenario. I dont know however when it was completed.
 
I started my usual opening – slinger, slinger, builder, slinger, slinger, settler and scouted the surroundings. There is tundra region north of capital, dessert region in the south of capitol, grassland/plains region to south-east with great mounting range to east of capital.

Bought trader on turn 27 for spare Money. Also met three city states – industrial Hong-Kong in the north, industrial Buenos Aires in the east & Yerevan in the west.

In next turns I met Norway (south), Arabia (west) and Kongo (south-east). I was focusing on quick expansion – found Bordeax between Buenos Aires and capitol, Amboise south of BA, Nantes under Paris, Rheims south-east under mountain range, Rouen & Marseilles in the south at Egypt borders. Spent lot of Money to buy tiles on Egypt border to make sure to block them from passing & expansion.
 
Hanging Gardens have been built in Paris to have first wonder on turn 78. Few turnes later (turn 82)  Pyramids were built by AI. Started with Petra in Nantes early to make sure to grab it and having great dessert city. Unfortunatelly, Petra was completed by AI on turn 97, so I have lost production on it. I was still 30 turns short, so I wasnt that much disappointed. Another wonders were built by AI in next decades – Oracly on turn 97, Mahabodi Temple on turn 112, Great library on turn 113, Chichen Itza on turn 134 (planned to built, but was still missing tech) & Hagia Sophia on turn 143.

Turn 90 - French empire strategic view 



Turn 90 - French empire – 14,5 bpt / 8,6 cpt / 1 fpt / 23,9 gpt / 8 tourists / 2 trade routes



Turn 90 - Strategic view
 
On turn 112 met China, on turn 144 got first great persons – Great Merchant Jakob Fugger & Great Engineer Bisheng. Colossus has been built by AI on turn 155. One turn later Nantes completed my second wonder Colosseum & Terracota Army has been built by AI. Finally on turn 161 I have discovered Humanism and started to built Chateaus wherever possible including bonus resources, which of course are harvested in advance. Next heading towards my all favorite Merchant republic. At this point I was suzerain of Hong Kong & Buenos Aires and having 3 envoys each plus Lisbon. I have also completed city state Mohenjo-Daro quest unintetionally, so 1 envoy endded up there as well.
 
Turn 162 - French empire – 62,4 bpt / 40,6 cpt / 6,4 fpt / 72,2 gpt / 18 tourists / 5 trade routes



Turn 162 - First two wonders



Turn 162 – Culture



Alhambra built by AI on turn 169, met Rome on turn 170 and Potala palace built by AI on turn 170.
On turn 171 my scout popped relic „Beard of the evangelist“. I after checkin game variant rules I decided to keep it, as I hadd not aquired it trough prohibited way. I could not mention it in my report or sell it to AI, but It will be another way how to get advantage from this finidings. Therefore I´m mentioning it here honestly and leaving it on Sullla´s decision, if I should be penalized or my result discounted.
 
My third wonder – Great lighthouse has been built on turn 175. One turn later switched to government Merchant republic. Phony war started by Egypt & Arabia against French empire on turn 183 and peace was singed 10 truns later without single battle. Month St. Michel built by AI on turn 203. Until now I have expanded to the west peninsula, where I found 2 cities just south of Arabi and to the east continent, just east to China including small Island where I sneaked as 2 cities as well. Also found filler city on Egypt border & 2 cities in the east towards Yerevan.
 
Turn 203 - French empire – 111,8 bpt / 87,6 cpt / 28,3 fpt / 200,2 gpt / 45 tourists / 12 trade routes



Turn 203  - Ruhr Valley in production with Chateau spam



Turn 203 – Culture; international toursim 62/217 closest is Kongo with 25/133


 
Computers researched on turn 209 rocketing my toursims to 70 per turn. My fourth wonder Ruhr Valley completed on turn 213 and fifth one - Venetian arsenal on turn 216 . On turn 221 I have completed research of flight, further increasing toursim per turn to 224. Landed Oxford university on turn 223, my sixth wonder.
 
Turn 250 - French empire – 199,4 bpt / 123 cpt / 63,1 fpt / 446,3 gpt / 300 tourists / 26 trade routes



Turn 250 - Wonders & Chatteau



Turn 250 - Culture


 
At this point, I was able to found another 6 cities in the east part of the map. Also founded fishing village north of Yerevan to grab another source of silver.
 
Another favorite government has been researched by French empire , class struggle and immediately switched into it. Seventh – Forbidden city (turn 255), eight – Great Zimbabwe (turn 258), ninth - Cristo Redentor (turn 261) & tenth Eiffel Tower (Turn 264) wonder completed in french cities increasing my tourism output to 456 per turn. Eiffel tower especially crucial to my plan as it has increased appeal to all seaside tiles allowing my to place twice as more seaside resorts as it would be possible without it. After completing most of seaside resorts possible in my territory, tourism jumped to 1018 per turn.
 
Then on turn 257 Arabia somehow sneaked his settler trough my east border cities and found their own city in the awkward position without any resource in its surrounding. Oh, well, seems I need to live with it. I have quickly bought tiles around it to limit its expansion.
 
In next turns I have noticed Arabian units marching trough my land to the east and I was wondering where they are heading. I had open borders with them and neutral relations, so I wasnt really worried about them to attacking. Furthermore they were not massing on my borders but spending tens of turs of passing trough. That is why I was surprised when Arabia declared war to my French empire on turn 267. All its units were magically transported on my borders, but scattered based on where they were positioned one turn before. Three field cannons, one bombard, three mamluks and three AT crew against my archers in border cities and slingers in the back cities. Immediately switched to Big Ben construction. I was holding it off one turn before completion to build up some cash. Fortunately for me I have had researched technology granting city defense to all my cities already, so I started to soften Arabian attack.
 
One turn later, my eleventh wonder Big Ben had been completed with my cash doubled to 12.000 gold. I have upgraded archers and some slingers to field cannons and started to pick Arabian units one by one. They were just marching trough my territory without attacking cities, so soon I killed all units in this initial attack. No further attack came from arabia and they come asking for peace soon.
 
Broadway completed on turn 276 by AI. First French national wonder created on turn 282 in tundra city in the south of the map, second one turn later north of Bordeaux and north of Paris. Same turn Paris completed its work on Hermitage, my twelfth wonder.
 
In the next turns I was focusing on commercial hub invest in order to get great merchant adding 10 tourism per industrial zone or campus. On turn 300 I was close to finish with 273/306 tourists. On turn 305 my last, thirteen, wonder Estadio de Maracana has been completed. I had also Sidney opera house in production in Marseilles, but it would take another 13 turns to complete, when I have exceeded 312 Kongo domestic tourists by my 316 international tourists.
 
Turn 307 - French empire core – 425,3 bpt / 413 cpt / 115,5 fpt / 1859,3 gpt / 1646 tourists / 47 trade routes



Turn 307 - French empire north



Turn 307 - French empire south



Turn 307 - French wonders



Turn 307 - Culture from
 
 
Ending turn is 307 and built 13 wonders, so I scored 46 ponts. If I had finished 7 turns earlier it would be 8 more (not ten, as I would not finish Maracana). Oh, well.

To summarize my results.

What I did good - expansion (I may have one of the biggest empires) and Chatteau/Seaside resorts/National park spam.

What I did wrong - ignoring religion and related wonders and also skipping ancient/classic era wonders, when it was crucial to have early tourism in order to build up strong base and defend against other Civs tourism. I also have misread rules and though that international trade routes are forbidden, while only the ones bringing culture were.

[Sullla]

From what I've been gathering based on your reports here on the forums, you seem to be a bit more aggressive than some of the other players. I think that opening with 4 slingers and 1 builder may have been a bit more military than strictly necessary for a game where declaring war was outlawed and conquering cities was highly penalized. That was the sense I kept getting while reading your report: this was played more like a standard game, and less of a crazy variant setup. That led to some impressive results: your expansion was awesome, and that lategame cultural output was extremely impressive! However, this game was all about building wonders, and your French people didn't really build any until fairly late in the game. You may want to experiment a bit when we do future versions of these games. The variant rules are set up specifically so that weird decisions score more scenario points, and the conventional strategies don't necessarily come out on top.

In other words, feel free to try some crazy stuff that might not work.

To answer your question, relics produce faith and tourism. They do not produce culture - they were completely fine for this game. One last thing: do you know if there's another way to present those extremely wide screenshots? They were scaled down to such a small size that I couldn't make out very much on a few of them.

Thanks for joining us and demonstrating a different style of gameplay.

[timmy827]

Actually I'm a little more curious on your early game - when did you found those cities exactly?  besides just the build order wonder how much you prioritized settlers vs wonders. etc

Curious on rushbuying the trader turn 27.  Assume you didn't have 2nd city then?  Trade route to egypt?  They're real good later once tourism is going but not sure that's high on my rush buy wishlist that early.  

Also was there a typo on Stonehenge?  Can't have possibly gone on turn 7 right?  (is it possible for AI to pop 2 builders from huts and chop 5 forests into it right away?)

[unaghy]

Actually I'm a little more curious on your early game - when did you found those cities exactly?  besides just the build order wonder how much you prioritized settlers vs wonders. etc

Curious on rushbuying the trader turn 27.  Assume you didn't have 2nd city then?  Trade route to egypt?  They're real good later once tourism is going but not sure that's high on my rush buy wishlist that early.  

Also was there a typo on Stonehenge?  Can't have possibly gone on turn 7 right?  (is it possible for AI to pop 2 builders from huts and chop 5 forests into it right away?)

I have sacrificed early wonders in order to expand and get culture from populations. Capital city was cracking out settler after settler once I reached housing limit. Once I had 5-6 cities, then put in to play policy card for 50% settler production discount and rushed 5-6 settlers. Once settled them and grown some pop, again switched all to settler production and doubled my cities in short time. There was competition for land, so I had to be quick. Then I did some wonders in between

Trade route to industrial city state for free envoy, some production and gold.

Stonehenge turn 7 is not possible, however I was doing this report two weeks after completing game and found such note there. I did realize it once I was commenting one report, but I dont have any clue when it was built (I dont have such early save) and I dont remmember why I have note "Turn 7 - Stonehenge built by AI" ...I will edit it out.

[unaghy]

From what I've been gathering based on your reports here on the forums, you seem to be a bit more aggressive than some of the other players. I think that opening with 4 slingers and 1 builder may have been a bit more military than strictly necessary for a game where declaring war was outlawed and conquering cities was highly penalized. That was the sense I kept getting while reading your report: this was played more like a standard game, and less of a crazy variant setup. That led to some impressive results: your expansion was awesome, and that lategame cultural output was extremely impressive! However, this game was all about building wonders, and your French people didn't really build any until fairly late in the game. You may want to experiment a bit when we do future versions of these games. The variant rules are set up specifically so that weird decisions score more scenario points, and the conventional strategies don't necessarily come out on top.

In other words, feel free to try some crazy stuff that might not work.

To answer your question, relics produce faith and tourism. They do not produce culture - they were completely fine for this game. One last thing: do you know if there's another way to present those extremely wide screenshots? They were scaled down to such a small size that I couldn't make out very much on a few of them.

Thanks for joining us and demonstrating a different style of gameplay.

You are completely right about me playing standard game. Heavy military in beginning is used for scouting, fog busting, tribal village picking, blocking other civs settlers/missionaries, clearing camps and making contact with other Civs & City states under normal circumstances. I need dive more in to variant scenario and think out of the box. Reports of other players were real eye opener 

I have already changed screen resolution to more convenient full HD, so all my next reports will have much better screenshots.

Looking forward to next adventure/epic, as they really bring better flavor to gaming experience.