Dantski's Epic 10

[Dantski]

I’ll get this out of the way now, I fully expect to get horribly killed by the AI as soon as one of them declares war. I also suspect that I’ll try to expand too quickly like I did in Epic 4 and cripple my economy.

I hope not to get run over by the barbarians in the 16th century this time though.

Pre-game thoughts

I’m thinking the main problem here will be the land grab, if the AI is situated close to us, then their free settler/archer can immediately grab the best city sites close to us. After that, they can also produce additional settlers much faster than us and could easily have 4 cities up by the time I’m building my first. I have no real solution to overcome this so I guess I’ll just pray.

Because I think the player is totally doomed if the AI makes a serious war declaration before say….2000 AD (maybe 2050 in my case), I feel that trying to build a serious military before the modern era, will be a waste of time/shields etc. Yes the cardboard cut-out defence will be employed with perhaps one exception for my capital. I’ll do my best to simply tech and expand as best as I can and see how it goes.

Diplomatically I will play the beggar, desperately trying to avoid being kicked and giving my oppressors anything they want (assuming I ever get anything they want).


So it begins...



Immediately I'll head to archery first to try and secure my cities and I'm too scared of the barbarians to go worker first on Deity.

I meet Rome and decline the salad

Only manage to pop one hut and it gives me another warrior, oh well.

The first Barb warrior appears in 3250 BC and he wanders off.



A couple of Barb cities spring up next to me

Get Osaka founded at a fairly early date of 2140 BC



Tokyo is founded a bit further north of Osaka to grab Copper and Deer.

Meet up with Mao in 985 BC and it appears both my neighbours are Buddhist. So it looks like I'll need to get Buddhism into my lands ASAP!

And in 400 BC it spreads to Kyoto.



I found Edo in the tundra to the north to grab the silver/furs/fish and my expansion is done for now. I simply can't do anything against the Barb cities militarily right now.

JC quickly surrounds me with cities (one from Mao too) and takes the Barb cities as well.

Demographics at 1 AD



After running a Prophet specialist at Kyoto I pop my first great person and Mencius discovers CoL for me in 140 AD.

Fortunately neither of my neighbours actually have it yet, so I'm able to trade CoL for a few techs + some gold.

I meet Huayna in 290 AD and sell him Meditation for some gold.

The Romans settle on my northern borders. Setia looks doomed with only 1 longbow defending vs my culture.



Now at this point I have a good chance of a quick flip, Setia has no culture at all and only one defender, however I see 2 longbows on their way through my land to reinforce.

So I cancel open borders and JC drops to cautious.

In 815 AD I breath a sigh of relief.



I decide to keep Setia for the extra few commerce it will garner from the sea. I immediately resign open borders with Jules.

Pop my 1st great scientist in 905 AD and grab an academy.

Meet the last of my oppressors in 920 AD, as pouty pants makes her entrance.

I finally get access to Samurai in 965 AD and for an all too brief period, I'm on a level military tech field.

In 1178 AD I hear the war horns (actually I don't because I have no sound) and both Huayna and Mao declare on....Spain!

Knowing my research is complete pants at this point, I resolve to produce as many great scientists as possible, Kyoto runs multiple specialists and I adopt Pacifism (which works nicely with my cardboard cut-out defences).

Mao asks for my assistance in wiping out the Spanish, I agree then continue as normal.

In 1364 AD it appears that my allies have been busy.



And like that, the person who everyone hated is gone, am I next I wonder...

With the AI's discovering Liberalism far earlier than me, their culture starts to encroach on my cities and I'm forced to settle a couple of Artists.
Eventually the dire cultural situation forces me to leave Bureaucracy for free speech which hurts my science effort but steadies the borders.

I adopt Representation and Emancipation when Democracy is done for a nice shared Civics bonus with JC.

In 1860 AD Jules offers me a deal I can't refuse.



And I feel relatively secure for the first time in the game, with Mao pleased (was friendly before going to Free Religion) and Huayna on another continent.

With Happiness bieng a problem, this was a welcome boost!



I enter the modern era in 1886 AD

Huayna asks me to adopt Hereditary rule and I decline which drops him to cautious.

At this point I give in to my inner nagging and settle Satsuma right on my eastern border.



I think I should've settled this earlier, this was at its finest.

Industrialism reveals 2 sources of Aluminium closeby. In Roman lands...



In 2010 AD I notice the Internet is still up for grabs and go for it



Note how I'm researching Theology?

At this point, I turn off research and run maximum culture to grab a few extra tiles.

In 2042 AD I trigger a golden age to end the game with.

And in 2043 I build the Internet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



And thus it pops all the techs on the tech tree I had missing, about 7 or so.

Pity it didn't pop all the Future Techs that the AI surely has.

Financial Advisor in 2050 AD



And demographics...



Endgame overview



And score



So I survived to 2050 AD! Only to be compared to Louis the XVI.


I was pleased to get to the end of this game, but most of the credit goes to JC for agreeing to a defensive pact and deterring the others from picking on me. Mind you thats the least he could've done after taking the Barb cities next to me before I could get catapults.

The most iffy moments where when I cancelled Open Borders with JC and had -3 from border tensions, he could easily have declared war then, but I was fortunate. Later on, Huayna wasn't too happy with me and without the shared military struggle bonus vs Spain, he might've declared.

I tried to cut the AI off from the eastern side of my land, but they simply sailed past.

While I felt a bit unlucky with Barb settlements in the early game, I felt EXTREMELY lucky with not having to fight a single non-Barbarian unit.

It was strange not being the focus of so many demands this game, and its nice when the AI gifts you techs! Notable gifted techs were Meditation (which I later traded for gold!), Liberalism and Artillery.

One last thing to note was that I actually grabbed more land than Spain did and my GNP was higher before Izzy got roughed up.

Was a fun game

[mostly_harmless]

Looked very similar to my game up to the point where you managed to get that Defensive Pact with JC and I did not. Look at my report for a "alternative ending"! Congrats to holding out to the end.

[sunrise089]

Nice work holding out. From reading some other reports, you seem to have been fortunate with that diplo pact, since as you said either a declaration by JC or a war when HC found you would have been quite bad. Very brave decision on closing borders, no way would I have been willing to risk the war for that.