Epic 7 - Kylearan's Summary

[Kylearan]

Hi,

I had about two hours to dedicate to this game, so at first I thought I wouldn't be able to play it at all. I mean, having Alex as an opponent would inevitably mean war, right? And wars cost a lot of time, so no Epic 7 for me...

But then I remembered that AIs won't attack if they are friendly towards you, so I gave it a shot anyway. Against an Immortal opponent and no wars, Space Race would be too hard (or would need too much time-consuming micromanagement), so a cultural victory was the way to go for me.

I figured with only one opponent, my chances to get wonders or religions first would be very good, even on Immortal. I founded my capital on spot and built a worker first. Research was Fishing -> Pottery -> Mysticism -> Polytheism -> Priesthood (I got Mining from a hut), then Masonry -> Monotheism -> Writing.

Alex founded Buddhism, but I founded Hinduism, Judaism, then Confucianism with the help of the Oracle. I didn't convert to any of the religions though, waiting for Buddhism to spread to my lands. This happened in 265BC. I thought about waiting for a demand from Alex to convert for an additional +1 bonus, but figured that a declaration of war might be more likely so converted right away to improve relations now.

I also gifted Alex a resource, and built lots of archers so Alex wouldn't attack me just because I was weak. We reached friendly relations in 605AD, at which point I disbanded most of my military. I got relations with Alex to +17 in the end.

The whole game took me a bit more than one hour to play, so lots of weedy decisions followed, like completely forgetting to build the third cathedral in one of my three culture cities. Additionally, I had a lot of bad luck with great people: I had the Globe Theatre, Parthenon, National Epic and lots of artist specialists in my capital with only one(!) source of great prophet points, and yet I generated NINE(!) great prophets and only three great artists (plus another one from discovering Music first). Three of the great prophets were put to good use by building the religious shrines (for their culture and not their money this time...), and they had been very likely to appear anyway because I didn't have many sources of great artists at that time besides the Parthenon. But the last five great prophets were more than annoying. :mad:

So thanks to my mistakes and the lack of great artists, it took me until 1934AD to get three cities to legendary culture.

Sorry for the lack of details, but there wasn't a lot happening anyway, and when the game itself only lasted about 70 minutes, I didn't feel like putting several hours into a report.

Looking forward to read the other reports...

-Kylearan

[Sirian]

the game itself only lasted about 70 minutes...

That's disgusting. I need 70 minutes to tie my shoelaces.

Great job breezing through another event. I think I'm going to add a layer beyond the "Extreme Adventures": Kylearan's Challenges.


Now let's see you breeze through Adventure Thirteen.


- Sirian

[T-hawk]

I'm not sure whether to thank you for avoiding beating my cultural time, or chastise you for not competing harder. I was sure wishing that I could've been friendly with Alexander, but the religious cross-pollination didn't happen in time, and he declared war in 515 AD. I had some bad luck on the Great Artists too, though not as bad as yours. But I founded four religions and accessed a fifth through conquest, which certainly made for a faster finish date than having only three.

Can you grab a screenshot of the locations of the legendary cities? I'd like to see that much from your game.

[Kylearan]

Hi,

sorry for the late answer - got distracted by some silly Adventures.

I'm not sure whether to thank you for avoiding beating my cultural time, or chastise you for not competing harder.

I would have loved to try harder, especially because I had played a cultural victory only once before (my 3CC culture game found on my site, which IIRC had only been my 3rd game of CIV) and would have liked to see what I had learned since then. Alas, I had no time.

Can you grab a screenshot of the locations of the legendary cities? I'd like to see that much from your game.

My empire at the end of the game:



-Kylearan

[Kylearan]

Hi,

oh, and One More Thing (I will have to ask Sirian to renew my user license for using this phrase on Civ fora soon... ):

I'm not sure whether to thank you for avoiding beating my cultural time, or chastise you for not competing harder.

By the way, you have been the inspiration for me to try to win this game via culture. From what you had written in a previous report, I figured you would try to do a cultural victory in this Epic - which in turn gave me the idea to try one myself, because I realized it would play quickly.

I love to play the meta-game; that's what I liked about M:tG as well. This should also answer the question you had asked me some time ago:

Am I that predictable?

Yes.

-Kylearan

[mbuna120]

Kylearan... do you play Standard Type II, Type I, or only Limited MTG?

[Kylearan]

hI;

Kylearan... do you play Standard Type II, Type I, or only Limited MTG?

I haven't played since...I cannot really remember, a year or two after Type II tournaments have been introduced, must have been 1996(?) or so. I've played M:tG almost from the beginning, and I've won my share of tournaments back in the day. But later I got annoyed by the game's imbalances and the increased number of annoying kids playing the game. The wife was very thankful when I finally sold all my cards.

-Kylearan

[T-hawk]

Nice - your cultural city locations matched mine exactly. If you can remember back as far as this game now, what did you think of the eastern city location? Later in the game, I thought it was awkward and underpowered compared to the other two sites. It could do passably well for hammers, but had too much water, and almost no decent cottageable terrain.

From what you had written in a previous report, I figured you would try to do a cultural victory in this Epic - which in turn gave me the idea to try one myself, because I realized it would play quickly.

I thought I'd been cryptic enough in that comment, but I guess I am that predictable. Well, we'll see when the Adv 11 and Potluck reports roll around...

[Kylearan]

Hi,

what did you think of the eastern city location? Later in the game, I thought it was awkward and underpowered compared to the other two sites.

I found the site to be a very good one for the early game. It grabbed the gold resource, which I needed both for the extra happiness and its commerce, and could be whipped decently thanks to the floodplain and the pigs. This helped to complete crucial buildings like monasteries and the library faster, which was important for a cultural game. Later it was weaker compared to other sites, but then it didn't really matter anymore.

Another important thing was that I needed to found the first two additional cities as fast as possible. I wanted my three cultural cities to be holy cities as well so I could construct the shrines there for some additional culture. I dared not delay the founding of the early religions only for my settler to reach a more remore location, so they needed to be close to the capital. All in all, I'd say the site was not very good for a normal game, but very good for this particular game.

-Kylearan

[darrelljs]

The wife was very thankful when I finally sold all my cards.

Just out of curiosity, do you happen to know how much a Black Lotus is going for now? Extremely off topic now, but you gave me the window

Darrell