Epic 7 - T-hawk reprises the original

[T-hawk]

Here it is:

http://www.dos486.com/civ4/epic7/

[mostly_harmless]

Very impressive. I wonder how many cultural wins (and losses) we will see for this event.
I certainly have not seen the cultural win movie yet.

[T-hawk]

Summary of the opening moves:

Research: Mysticism - Meditation - Polytheism - Fishing - Bronze - Masonry - Animal Husbandry - Pottery - Writing - Code of Laws (to get Confucianism, not to access Civil Service)
Build: Worker - warrior - warrior - (warrior?) - settler - settler (doubly whipped) - Pyramids (then Great Library via Engineer)
Second City: Memphis at stone-fish-banana, 1720 BC
Third City: area east of capital, ~1500 BC

Game Plan: Found early religions to win by culture. For economy, I didn't even think about trying the Oracle-CS slingshot. I played this game the first week it was open, before the slingshot was a hot topic. With Stone available, the Pyramids seemed like a strong gameplan, with the ensuing Engineer rushing the Great Library.

[mbuna120]

Lol, a magic the gathering reference. I support you. I'm an avid player myself. Nice trouncing of Alexander!

[Rik Meleet]

Off topic

I used to play MtG every monday night in a cafe. Some evening, late August 2001 I am a bit earlier than usually and there are only a few people I know. There is also a tall boy who I had never seen before. We get into a 4-player game that I manage to win. I later learn that the unknown guy is Tom van de Logt; who had just become World Champion 2 weeks earlier. Of course you can't compare the situations, but still... Beating the current World Champion at his own game certainly is an ego-booster.

[sooooo]

Ah, and the cultural wins are coming in now . I thought this would be more popular. It's the one victory type that doesn't require a tech advantage to do well, just careful planning and good diplomacy. Then it's a race between your city management and the AI's teching. Well played.

[Sirian]

Incidentally, I'm noticing that whipping is very efficient to get the early buildings constructed. With a granary and +6 or so food surplus, the cities can grow every five turns or so, which the whip converts into 44 shields. Nine shields per turn via whipping is more than a city that size can pull off the land. I must ask, though, why is whipping so good on Epic speed? I thought the paradigm for the slower game speeds was supposed to be every unit of production stays the same, while every cost is multiplied. But whipping seems to be unique among forms of production in that it increases with the slower game speeds.

Because the food needed to grow on Epic speed is increased 1.5x, it is actually correct that shield output from whipping should also increase 1.5x

Whipping is no more efficient on Epic, in the ratio of food translated in to shields, than Normal or Quick.


- Sirian

[Speaker]

Impressive game and report, as always!

[darrelljs]

Thanks for doing the opening summary for me

After a bunch of domination reads (and one space race by Blake), this is the third cultural attempt in a row (and a pretty early finish as well). It's funny, while I was playing I also thought the dotmaps would be rather homogenous, but I've noticed a lot of diversity while reading the reports.

Darrell

[T-hawk]

Because the food needed to grow on Epic speed is increased 1.5x, it is actually correct that shield output from whipping should also increase 1.5x

I get it - whipping is considered not really as a means of production, but rather as a way of converting one type of production to another. I suppose that's also the logic behind having Great Works worth more (6000) culture on Epic speed: you've already paid the "Epic speed dues" in the form of more Great Person Points.

Forest chop shield production is also increased on Epic speed, which I'm not sure I understand why. I guess that's one resource that doesn't increase with game speed (forest count) combined with one that does (worker turns of labor), so either way something won't quite match up.