[SPOILERS]Specialist of Everything: JC of the Zulu

[Old Harry]

So do Taj golden ages last a turn longer than regular ones?

[The Black Sword]

I'd have a wild guess that it's something to do with the extra mini-GA turn you get from the Taj. Something like you put 9t on the counter when you complete the Taj, so you get the GA effects for the rest of the turn processed after Taj completion. Then it ticks down to the 8t you expect next turn. Only now you were already in a GA, so you get a full extra turn.

Surely someone must have completed the Taj in a GA before though ...

[Gawdzak]

By the way, is there anyone interested to take over for me in this game? All the drama in PB24 is seriously sapping my interest in Civ 4 and I'm losing the little interest I had left for this game.

The current position is reasonably competitive but certainly not in the lead, partly due to my lacklustre play and partly due to the geography. With just 3 techs away from getting both Astro and Rifling, there's definitely a lot strategic choices left to be made. There's also a little land left to settle/develop if you want to go the peaceful route.

Any takers?

[Old Harry]

I'm afraid anyone reading this is likely to be too spoiled, you'll need to post in Civ General. I'm interested to know what you think you've done wrong though?

Is your loss of interest due to the map, just a function of the late game being a bit of a slog or that you'd normally have declared yourself winner vs the AI by now? I wonder if the balance that RTR brings, extending most games into the modern era, is going to be a problem and make people more likely to burn out? Perhaps we should be playing RTR games on much smaller maps where huge empires aren't going to sap the civ soul.

BTW - I tried completing the Taj in a GA and it did give 9 extra turns instead of 8. TBS's explanation sounds pretty good.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Spoiled. Sorry you aren't enjoying the game right now.

I'd be interested in a retrospective from you on your current situation. I am as spoiled as one can be on this game having played a few of the starts out so I can't really comment much but I'd like to hear your thoughts.

OH, I think you may have hit on a good point about map size and RtR extending games well beyond where they typically are played with base BTS. I can easily see where having to manage 50+ cities AND account for the possibility/likelihood of constant modern war (with all of the contingency planning and positioning) would just be too much. This is something to consider for the next game.

[Gawdzak]

I was busy last few day, so I didn't have time for a proper response.

Basically I just really don't enjoy from playing isolated starts. What I enjoy the most in Civ is to interact with other civilizations, either through war or even just tech trading when I'm playing against the AI's. In this game, I never really felt like I was playing a multiplayer game. I just ignored everyone and did my own thing. I never felt that my actions mattered to other players nor other player's actions mattered to me, and I found that boring.

On top of that, I found developing my land to be a pain. A lot of the food resources in my land are 4-food and I'm surrounded by jungle everywhere. A lot of my cities have no forests, so sometimes it took 20 turns to build a granary. At some point, it all just started to feel like a chore.

I think my biggest mistake in this game is that I didn't build enough workers. I always tried to get away with building as few workers at possible. I was happiness capped for a while in the early game and I think I only had 6 workers for 10 cities at one point. At that point I didn't need the workers. However, when I started expanding into the jungle, I found myself not having nearly enough workers and that slowed down everything, since I didn't have enough workers to both improve tiles around the cities that I already have and also improve tiles for new cities. IMO, there's no point settling new cities if I can't have enough good improved tiles to work.

Regarding the size of the map, I had no idea that the map was going to be this big. I think this is almost as big as the PB13 one, and that game had 18 players. I agree we tend to play on maps that lean towards too big rather than too small. Although players need to be set to a certain minimum distance for the game to be enjoyable for most players. Otherwise, just look at the mess that is PBEM62.

Anyways, I think I hold off on posting in Civ General for replacement right now since there seems to be enough of that going around but if there's someone reading the thread interested, feel free to post here.

Well, for those people who don't like walls of texts, here a small update:







I see everyone's research as usual, there's one war that I will always win: the EP war.

[Ceiliazul]

If you dislike isolation, take heart: the world gets a lot smaller in the age of sail.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

If you dislike isolation, take heart: the world gets a lot smaller in the age of sail.

I would have loved that start (in fact, I did, enough to play the start through 100 turns when the game launched). I like space to farm and the ability to sim and micro far out in advance without having to worry about neighbors putting a wrench into my plans. Too bad I'm spoiled or I'd bail you out.

[Ceiliazul]

Aw Boldly, ynow you are obliged to post A comparison...

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Aw Boldly, ynow you are obliged to post A comparison...

Saves are lost to the sands of time. I didn't take screen shots because played just for killing time. Also, it wouldn't be a fair comparison to Gawdzak because I had previously reviewed the entire map in the lurker thread so I knew precisely how isolated his start was. This gave me certain liberties in settling early that Gawdzak may not have been able to take, depending on how his scouting went. But anyway...

I built GLH in my third city, which perhaps would not have been possible in the actual game, I don't remember when it was built in my game or in PB22. I prioritized settling adjacent islands much earlier than Gawdzak has so I could get full oversea trade routes very early. Then I just spammed cities, often lacking even a garrison unit until happiness became an issue. Fog busting made this mostly manageable. The jungle was a pain but I trudged through ok. Mostly I just settled for a food resource and worked coast if I was short on worker labor to get better options available. The trade routes paid for the cities as they went down.

I don't remember when I stopped playing, I just played a decently long session. I had filled up the mainland continent, the western continent with 4-5 cities, and then a handful of cities on smaller islands, including some to the east. I took plenty of liberties I would not have taken in a MP match, most notably regarding troops. I really didn't build much of anything, just enough to garrison.