Epic 9 - Chariots Sailing through Bloody Waters

[Kylearan]

Hi,

you can read my report of Epic 9 - Horse Feathers here, as usual.

-Kylearan

[darrelljs]

Nice win . T-Hawk played your alternate game strategy from the start and also finished later than the early attack approach. However, I wonder if the main reason the early attack date was earlier was Japan being defended by Warriors?

Darrell

P.S. Epic VIII?

[Compromise]

Very nice. I think you've added even more proof that the earlier the aggression, the better. I suspect that the main reason why your second game was going to take longer was that in your first game, you so quickly eliminated the only real tech advantage the AI had: trading partners!

Great opening play!

[T-hawk]

turtle up and power-research to Guilds as fast as possible. . . . Maybe this strategy would have been faster?

*raises hand*

It wasn't quite faster - 1734 AD vs 1691 AD. But it was pretty close. My missing circumnavigation probably accounted for half or more of that difference.

The other half of the Guilds picture was to get to the doorstep of Mercantilism. Combined with Representation from the Pyramids, Mercantilism gave all the captured junk cities +4 to +6 units of economic production right away. With that plan, the junk cities were essentially economically neutral rather than huge drains, despite what the Lying GNP Screen would indicate.

There's plenty of comments about the GNP graph in my report and the comments. The single-turn spikes in your GNP graph are due to anarchy (and are illusory anyway) - see my comments in Ruff's thread for more detail.

[Compromise]

I think it's great that the two strategies yield similar end dates. T-Hawk had better junk cities, Ky had fewer of them. Again, I find myself wondering if Blake's AI would have made much, if any, difference here.

[Atlas]

I think it's great that the two strategies yield similar end dates. T-Hawk had better junk cities, Ky had fewer of them. Again, I find myself wondering if Blake's AI would have made much, if any, difference here.

The main difference would have been more a nuisance value as opposed to game altering. The difference would have primarily been that the AI would have founded more cities- squeezing them into every nook and cranny and thus with no city razing it would have been problematic.

[Kodii]

Interesting to see that we founded our mainland cities in the exact same spots (except your Samarqand). Great game.

I somehow lost steam while conquering India, and especially took way too long to prepare my assault of Persia. I could have attacked there much sooner, had I planned more carefully.

But if you did, your power graph wouldn't be as pretty.

[Ruff_Hi]

Nice game and early battles - I built the Great Light house in my game and those extra trade routes helped pay for the crappy cities.

[sooooo]

Cool! Well done, that's an early domination date.

Sooooo has taught us that ultra-early aggression is usually the way to go in Civ 4, and so I decided to see how this will go in this particular variant-game.

I think I've turned into a builder in my old age .

The main advantage of early aggression in this game IMO was that you wipe out civs only after they've founded the good city sites and before they get chance to settle the junk.

[Kylearan]

Hi,

However, I wonder if the main reason the early attack date was earlier was Japan being defended by Warriors?

No, I don't think that didn't matter much. I was building swords anyway to send over to him at that time, and archers fall easily to city raider swords. I may have lost a couple of turns, but not much.

P.S. Epic VIII?

*cough* A lot of work came up unexpectedly on Epic 8's report day, so I didn't come around to work on the report for over a week. And then...I found it impossible to motivate myself to finish it, so long after the end. Sorry!

Let's say I promise to finish it as soon as Sirian has finally written his infamous Epic 36 report.

-Kylearan