If you haven't played advanced started, you do need to play around with it before starting this epic. I spent a chunk of time last night just trying to fully understand the mechanics, what the AI does wrong, and trying to figure out turn 0. There are some differences...
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Epic Nineteen - Arise, Ethiopia! - Now Open
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Olodune Wrote:@SulllaYes, I am aware that the calculations are different in the expansion. This is factored into the game design - which is why both Cultural and Space are eligible victories for the game. Because the scoring benchmarks are set much, much earlier (10AD and 1500AD), I tend to doubt we'll see the same sort of endgame milking that several players decided to employ in the last Adventure. We'll see though! In other words, I'm not planning on changing the scoring benchmarks. It's up to you to see how well you do. 
Is there an official description of the costs in the Advanced Start, or is part of the game design to see how well we can work it out from our own testing?
Thanks to LKendter for reminding me that I want to vet out what the AI typically looks like at turn 0....
What I've been able to figure out: Think of your points as gold (you keep whatever you don't spend as gold). Techs are at 1 gold per beaker cost, units at 1 gold per hammer cost, cities are same cost as a settler, 149 on epic speed (dunno why it's not 150). Visibility starts at 5/tile (only available, like everything else, after placing first city) and seems to go up a bit with each city you place. Extra population was, I think, 49 to go from size 1 to 2, and I forgot to see if that increases as you go higher. Also haven't gotten around to checking building costs (not like there's many choices here on an ancient age start).
The balance between tech costs and unit/city costs are way out of kilter. You can trade 1 gold for 1 beaker, which is worse than what you generally do during the game (given that you get an inherent bonus to each tech you research, plus additional if you have more than one optional prereq and/or know civs who have that tech), or 1 gold for 1 hammer, which is way better than anything you do during the game (ie you need a specific civic, which in turn requires an expensive wonder or a late renaissance, to trade 3 gold for a hammer, and a wonder to get 2-to-1).
Edit : sorry. wrong thoughts.
"You have been struck down!" - Tales of Dwarf Fortress
--- "moby_harmless seeks thee not. It is thou, thou, that madly seekest him!"
I have been playing Civilization since Civ 1 and have been lurking here for a few months now, but this will be my first attempt at a Realms Beyond Epic (not to mention my first attempt at Emperor). I don't expect to be very competitive in the scoring, but it should be fun.
I remember going out back in October 2005 to get CIV. However, I quickly found that my PC wasn't up to snuff to run it. I only finally convinced my wife it was worth an upgrade.
I think she knew the upgrade would also upgrade the amount of time spent playing.
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