Epic Eight- Atlas

[Atlas]

Arabian Cultural Victory in 1873

4000BC- Already a tough choice- Where to found Mecca? I decide to found on the gold hill. There just won't be enough early food to work both golds. I am kind of short on time for finishing this game, so I will probably shoot for a Culture Victory-it plays to Arabia's strengths religion and great people and is quick to play.

3970BC- Hmm, now I not really happy with Mecca's placement. I wonder if this was customized :rollyeye:. Research to Polytheism, hmm I thought founding on the gold would give me an extra commerce in the center tile, I guess not. Should it?

3760BC- Meet Lizzy and Hatty.

3430BC- Hindu founded in Mecca.



3280BC- Meet Toku.

3160BC- Meet FDR, the Mao.

2980BC- Meet JC

2770BC- Buddhiusm Founded in Thebes.

2230BC-Found Medina (corn, bannanas and rice=specialist), just in time for.



2020BC- Tech path thus far has been Poly->Masonry-> Monothesim (switching b/w Mono and BW to time Judaism with the founding of Medina)-> Agriculture-> Now finishing BW.

1750BC-Take a look at Carib- that plus that barb city in the northwest that I saw had fishing nets very early leads me to believe that someone might have put Barb settlers on the map . I could be wrong though.



1360BC- My religious track is getting me hemmed in here- probably will get 4-5 cities peacefully. This city is Nottingham and I will spend thousands of years trying to flip this thing, it is in a great spot, right where I wanted a city.



1300BC- I trade gold for gems with Lizzy, probably need to spread a religion to her to create some friction b/w her and Hatty.

1210BC-Never mind Judaism spread to her naturally.

1000BC (acutally the turn before)-Found Damascus.



985BC- Baghdad founded.



925-Priesthood comes in, so to recap-After BW->AH->Writing->Priesthood.

Check out LIzzy try to sneak a settler down here...



Now check out what starts happening to that city a bit later...

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640BC-Hastings, is going to flip, silly Lizzy thanks for the city. Right now I am Chopping the Parthenon in Mecca.

475BC-Start running some scientists in Medina.

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415BC- Parthenon finishes in Mecca.



355BC- is a big year Hastings goes into revolt. I finish Alphabet and it is now time for some trades, I am working towards music, but I also want that free Artist at Music, so lets see what we can get. So FDR gets Poly for Sailing. Lizzy gets Mono and I get Hunting and Meditation. Mao and Mansa are each other's worst enemies, I want to trade with one of them, but can't deciede, so I hold off.

352BC-JC demands Poly, sure partner.

310BC-Mansa demands Alpha, nope, that seals the deal, I will trade with Mao. Poly to Mao for Pottery.

295BC

Here is my lucky number 13, that is my 13th screen shot...



160BC-She Razes my undefended Najaran. It will take my years to get another city in this spot as other priorites take over.

85BC- Math comes in and I try to make a round of trades, JC won't accept anything to declare on Lizzy, so I trade IW for Math and Mono, he must have been close to finishing Math.

95BC- Mansa won't trade much for Alpha, so I take his money.

170-Finally make peace with Lizzy.

185AD- Mao and Hatty go to war, a better event could not be imagined.

Surprise, I mean you won't believe this...



350AD- Plato born, which ever city he founds Taoism in will be my thrid cultural captial.-



Gosh Darn it... founded in Medina, okay, Damascus is it. In hind sight I should have made Baghdad my other city.

365BC- Lizzy gets Philo, for Monarchy and Currency and some gold. Now I make the double switch to Caste System and HR.

455BC- A huge deal happens 370 gold and Metal Casting (monopoly tech!!) from Mansa for Philo from me.

470AD- I nab the free Great Artist.

605AD- Philosphy for HBR and Construction +360 gold to FDR!!!

665AD- Refuse JC extrotion, Theology comes in CS next, if you are gonna refuse JC you better be able to counter Prats. Chopping of Sistine begins in Damascus.

725- I land the Great Library in Bagdad!!



I started building it primarily for the cash refund, I doubt I will ever let it birth a scientist, this was my plan anyway, I figured that if I just run tons of artists at Medina, with the national epic there then I should not get scientists right??? Wrong, I ended up 3. I started the darn thing just for the cash and the science, I did not want any more scientists, oh well.

Here is Medina



So you would think that this would preclude GL scientist formation, but alas, it could not be avoided, the math of it just catches up to.

815AD-Toku joins Mao agianist Hatty.



950-Mao and Hatty make peace.

980- Music, Drama, and CS to FDR for war with JC, I want others at war, not with me.

1118AD- Sistine finished in Damascus- I can't believe the tech/wonder pace in this game, it is soo slow, probably cause there have have been some wars . Hatty and Toku make peace this year, Toku lost Edo.

1166-Mao declares on FDR.

1184-JC and FDR make peace.

1190-Education comes in, time for Liberalism. definately heading towards free speech. Islam has still not been found \

1196- I trade paper for compass, world map and 260 with MM. The next turn Hatty gets paper for Optics, World Map and 50 gold.

1262-Definately getting lots of negative modifiers, but hey guys I ain't giving away Education.

1268-Liberalism comes in and I grab Astronomy with it, switch to Free Speech and Free Religion.

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Teching along- Nationalism, but I miss the Taj due to an engineer of Lizzy's.

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Then to gunpowder, want to be able to draft something usefull just in case and finally Printing Press.

So here is the culture situation.



1535-Research turns off and gonna pump the culture, man I need another religions, it is tough with only three.

1550- Revolt in Helopolis-great that would give me Buddhism! I want that city!



1553-Hierancopolis is now in revolt, it also has Buddhism.



1568- The culture slider is sooo powerful!!! Helopolis flips to me. I crank it up and already Egyptian cities are flipping to me, Hatty is no culture slouch either, time to spread Buddhism.



This is from the Early 1600's. The next pic is the tech situation at that time. I have already had research turned off for about 20 turns.





1637-Hatty gave a bunch of gold and Const. for Astro.

1649-Hierancopolis flips to me, but I dsiband too much overlap.



1664-Revolt in Alexandria!!



1679-Alexandria has seen the light and joined the Empire.



1685-Hatty declares on Mao-this is good.

1706-Mao has lost Guanzhou and Shanghai, he is on the ropes. Finally an Arabian revolt in Nottingham. I am starting to take tiles from Thebes





And a Progress Report



1724-Beiing falls, I decide now is the time to extort Mao, so I get all his gold 320-not bad.

1727-JC declare on FDR- awesome!

1734-Atlanta captured by JC.

1740-Toku joins the fracus v. FDR- he is done for.

1748-Mao is eliminated by Hatty.

1772-FDR and Toku make peace.

1784-FDR and JC make peace, looks like FDR is tougher than I thought.

More of Thebes tiles fall to me





1804- I was hoping to finish before the 19th Century, but alas it was not meant to be, but maybe it is time for some great works??

1808-Thus it is in 1808 That I learn that I 75,000 culture to hit legendary- another 55 turns or so. Blah.



1828-This power situation is critical, I am the weakest by a fair margin, I already see SAM infantry in Lizzy's cities, I need rifling to avoid aggression, so I turn research back on for 10 turns.



By the way, look at Hatty right here, she is a monster, she has already destroyed Mao, and could come after some one else , it had better not be me, or this report could be more abrupt than I planned.

1836-Rifling comes in and Now for a switch to Nationhood.

1841-In 5 turns I traded 15 pop. points for 15 riflemen, since I am running a ton of culture slider the unhappiness does not matter, I could have gone on for a long time, probably drafting enough to completely do in a neighbor, but that was enough I think, on to the finish, back to free speech and a fully pumped culture slider.



Actually in the this screenie you can see that I have draft a good bit in this former Egpytian city in my five turns of nationhood civic, but look I still have plenty of happiness left, but look even more closely, I am not running the culture slider here, that is residual religious happiness from all the temples etc., if I start running the slider the drafting can [b]really[b] go on! I am not running the slider cause it is better to just save the cash until I am back in Free speech and can get twice the bang for buck from that commerce, in nationhood I don't get the 100% cultural modifier. And now for the result of my work...



I am no longer the weakest civ. This is important, plus the weakest Civ is now FDR, FDR is also the most hated (he has been at war with JC, Hatty, and Toku I think), so these Civs will probably prefer him to me as a target for aggression, also with Toku in the game I am probably safe now since no one like him (not just in this game, but all of them). Oddly I played a pretty cagey diplo game here, over the last few dozen turns Toku has asked for open borders with me like 3 times (it is the Merchantilism civic baby!!)

1864-Hatty declares on Toku!

1868-*sigh* Confucianism spreads to Hastings, I wish that had happened about 1000 years ago.

1873-I win

Now for my 3 cultural cities.





I am least happy with Damascus, I should have made Bagdad my other site, I build the Heroic Epic really early there and wanted it to remain a military pump for the whole game. This city just did not have enough food and you can see it need the most artists.

Finally Medina, this city would have been awesome in a normal game, so much food and two religions got founded here :mad:, however for this game Taoism founding there was a real disappointment since there was also Damascus and Bagadad that were candidates. In this pic I had just switched to Uni. Suf., I don't know why I did that really, but normally it ran about 6-8 artists and had a good bit more culture generation than you see here.



Here is right before the end.



the end



Discussion

The culture slider- I have recently played a few games and been toying with the culture slider and man can it be powerful. Here we can see that Heliopolis is Hatty's 3rd city.



This city flipped to me like 15-20 (I don't remember now) turns after cranking up the culture slider! It was here 3rd city and Hatty knows how to do the culture thing. So basically if you are encroaching on another civs 21 square radius and you have some culure modifies and can afford to go to free speech-do it!! You can get yourself a free, fully developed city.

Lets take a look at Thebes on the winning turn.



I have taken 7 of its 21 tile radius!!! That is a third of the city. This is the Buddhist holy city, with the shrine and she is a creative civ! It is just huge, the best part was taking those 2 spices .

So basically this is the problem with passive-agressive play (ie. cultural war)- The AI does not know how to respond effieciently, it responds appropriately, but not effieciently. What do I do- I build a bunch of temples and theaters then some cathedrals and this pushs the AI's borders back right- what does the AI do to respond- it hires an artist. This will work great in the early game, but by the mid to late game this is a drop in the bucket. Hired Artists will do nothing and actually [b]prevent[b] the city from doing what it should do! That is build cultural buildings, the AI responds appropriately-get some culture and keep my tiles, but not effciently since its method of doing so is not very good.

I am sort of torn about the culture victory, in some ways it is formulaic, but not anymore so than other paths I guess. For those that think it is simply too easy and happens too quickly check this out-



that is essentially + 200 turns of no research!!! Sure it is alot of hitting enter and thus seems easy, but there are certainly opportunity risks involved and forget doing this if you do not already have a sizable tech lead, you will never be able to trick the AI into thinking you are powerful enough not to just swallow up if you can't produce units with a high str. rating Like I did there at the end with the drafting.

I made 2 mistakes, I did not found Islam- I had marble and thus could build mosques fast and I didnot cram enough cities in to the nooks and crannies of the empire once I started running the culture slider. The first mistake probably delayed my game by 20-30 turns the second probably by none, but would not have hurt.

This was a fun game. I don't ever remember Hatty getting so huge before and she started in the middle of the map! Of course Sirian did that on purpose, making the civ that starts in the middle of a pangea the only creative civ, but it is still a tough place to start. Speaking of starts I really liked Rome's. I expect the Roman players to have awesome domination/conquest times on this map-there was plenty of happiness and commerce to just go nuts with Prats. I Have to say that I did not care for my (arabia's) start or for Mansa's or Toku. Toku was stuck out on a Pennisula-a tough spot to be in, but a good civ to use to get out of there. Lizzy also had a good start, but essentially stuck between 3 religous giants- Mali, Arabia, and Egypt and one of them was creative too!! Those playing her will need to break out, and will probably go to Arabia- Saladin will be tough to deal with and is not the best neighbor-so in Lizzy's place I would choose him. Well enough of this time to read reports!!

End game stats



Charlemagne rating 12187
in game score 2223

[VoiceOfUnreason]

A city on a gold plains hill should get an extra hammer, but only gets an extra commerce if that hill is on a river.