Adventure 9 - sooooo's report

[sooooo]

Adventure 9 - Stagnation

This adventure was prince level, panagea map as Isabella. We begin the game at 1AD, with the lands seen in the epic description page. We cannot build workers until we reach size 6.

As you can read, things are not promising. We are making 0 GPT at 0% research because of our absence of tile improvements. The first thing I did was to delete warriors until we were under the free militia limit. Then I changed all of the builds to granaries, and set all cities to max growth. I set research on mining.

The largest 4 cities all started workers at size 6. Seville built another worker when it finished its first, and Toledo also built a worker once it had reached 6 too. Thus I had 6 new workers, but also more unit maintenence. My military went on strike for the first time I've been playing. I had to MM each city to work as much commerce plots as possible. I had never before worked so many 2-0-1 grasslands! My workers were told to improve all of the food resources and build some cottages. Finally in 275 AD I had researched my first tech, mining.

Saladin's workers were happily connecting my eastern cities for me:



Unable to build workers or military, all I could build were temples, monasteries and missionaries to improve the hapiness cap in my cities. I had 3 religions in my land - confucianism, judaism and buddhism. I was hanging around the barb town in the east, hoping to sneakily capture it once hatty had weakened the defenses, but it was not to be and Hatty captured it.

The dark ages then ensued, where I didn't research another tech until 1010 AD! I chose Code of Laws. Not for the courthouses, but because of its trading value (some AIs mysteriously avoid this tech). I traded it for Bronze Working and Monotheism. This tech-whoring would become a repeating feature in this game, as I expect it would have to be in everyone elses if they hoped to acheive tech-parity one day. In the meantime, I had remained paganist. Saladin and Hatty were my nearest neighbours, and they hated each other for their different religions. I decided that they could stay each others' worth enemies, and stayed neutral throughout except for 10 turns when Saladin asked me to convert.

Having spread 3 religions and temples around my empire in the absence of anything else to build (courthouses were fairly irrelevant because all cities were close to my capital), I considered a cultural victory. My next tech target was Theology. Mainly because not everyone else had it, but also because I wanted a shot at the Sistine Chapel. It was discovered in 1130AD, and I was able to trade it for Iron Working, Mathematics and Currency. I would get beaten to the Sistine Chapel however.

Tech situation in 1220 AD:



Civil Service was next, and that was whored away for Metal Casting, Alphabet and Literature. By this time I had fully spread all 3 religions and built temples in all 7 cities. It was time to research Music and build some cathedrals. With my 7 cities and 3 religions, I could build 2 cathedrals per holy city. The holy cities I chose were Madrid, Seville and Cordoba, because they were the most food-rich.

I got paper in 1310AD, and through a whole bunch of trades was able to get Horseback Riding, Construction, Calendar, Drama, Compas and Machinery in the same year. While the holy cities were concentrating on cathedrals and theatres, the other cities were set to build macemen.

Tech situation in 1450 AD:



I got beaten to liberalism in 1480 by Qin, probably due to some very sneaky uses of great people. Nevermind, I would just have to trade education for: Gunpowder, Guilds, Optics, Feudalism, Philosophy (which I was currently researching) and Engineering. That was my favourite set of trades, and made me the tech co-leader. I finished Liberalism, traded it for Divine Right and revolted to Free Speech and Free Religion and Caste System.

Tech situation looks much better in 1515 AD:



National epic went to Seville, with it's fish and cows. I revolted to Caste System and generated 3 artist quite quickly in this city all of which were merged into my chosen 3 cities. My first artist came in 1590 AD, with the nice name of Wang Zixhi.

Now was the time to try for my first wonders! I managed to get Angkor Wat in Madrid, but missed out on Taj Mahal and Spiral Minaret. Globe Theatre went in Cordoba, and Oxford was installed in Madrid. I researched Banking (for mercantilism) and Nationalism (built Hermitage in Seville for the artist points) and printing press, then went up the top level of the tree towards Democracy. This was probably , because I had the Statue of Liberty and Eiffel Tower mixed up. I built the Statue from an unlucky great engineer and looked around all my cities for the free broadcast towers . Oh well, I guess a free artist or a suped-up prophet in each city will do!

In the early 18th century emancipation weariness was starting to hit, but there was no way I was getting out of caste system so I went to hereditary rule to combat it. I researched replacable parts and rifling, traded for corporation, steam power and scientific method and then got biology in 1785. There are many theories as to when to turn off research in a culture game. I'm by no means an expert, but I like to do it after biology and rifling. Doing it before rifling seems too risky, and biology gives you a huge boost to your great artist generation. I revolted to representation for a while, and even at 0% research was able to get assembly line in 19 turns. This was traded for steel, railroad and military tradition so I was able to build infantry, machine gunners and cannons to protect myself.

One thing that interested me was the ex-barb city of Sarmation. In 1852 it was almost surrounded by my culture, garissoned by just 2 units:



In 20 more years, the SE forest flipped to me too. My culture had completely surrounded the city for the rest of the game but it never flipped, despite never having more than 2 garrison units at any time.

I could probably have sped this whole thing up by chosing a religion and going to pacifism, but I decided to take the easier and longer win by staying with no state religion. I was confident of repelling an attack by Saladin or Qin, but I could not really be bothered to fight the war. In addition to the 3 merged artists, Seville and Cordoba managed to generate 7 others, and a series of culture bombs made my cities legendary in 1933 AD.



Final states of my 3 cities:



In summary, this game was all about the tech-whoring, and tech whoring is always fun. I also enjoyed inheriting an empire mid-way through a game. I complained in a few earlier events that I wish I had taken a more aggressive route to victory, but I liked the peaceful approach this time. I give this event sooooo's official "I enjoyed this game" award. I'm eager to see if and how people attempted domination victories however.

[sooooo]

Oooops, can a friendly mod please change my title to adventure 9

[blid]

Nice cultural win sooooo. I didn't think there will be zero war games like yours with Judaism and buddhism competing. Guess going for free religion ASAP and staying there was decisive in this regard

[darrelljs]

Cool, another cultural victory. Despite our different paths the end date was almost exactly he same

Darrell