epic 19 - Ronald

[Ronald]

Epic 19 – Ronald’s report

I have not played for more than a year, but recently I got Beyond the Sword as a present and so I had to try it out. Epic 19 is my first BTS game. The scoring system should be interesting.
For Highest land area in 10 AD, I would need lots of cities, for Highest GNP very productive ones and little corruption. That’s asking for trouble and in my thinking an optimal compromise.
Highest land area in 1500 AD is probably asking for playing for a domination victory. Again, conquer the world without crippling the economy will be key. I don’t have a plan yet, but hopefully by the time I will get close I will find one.
I plan to spread my cities wider apart as normal. Since we are creative, the will grow without any cultural building so filling the space quickly.
The next interesting feature was the advanced start, something I did not even know exists. I played a few starts before the epic and decided the following:
Build a starting city. The starting location looks OK, so I will put my city there. Then build 2 settlers, 3 workers and 2 scouts. We have mining and hunting, so the workers can immediately start with mining the gold and build a camp for the ivory. Scouts and settlers will go east and west and find a good location spread out wider than usual.
Research order so that the workers have enough to do: Agriculture, wheel Animal Husbandry, then writing for early libraries.
First build in each of the 3 cities will be a warrior.
This is the starting situation:




I found 2 nice places for the 2nd and 3rd city




Until 10 AD I found only 4 more cities:
Adis Ababa (2375 BC), Yeba (1975 BC), Debra Buhan (1025 BC), Adulis (425 BC)
The original plan was to stay peaceful until at least 10 AD, but with Montezuma close by, this was impossible in this game for me. He declared the first time in 775BC: He had only 1 first wave of troops and after they could not take a city and were killed, nothing happened. I was unprepared for a counter attack, so I made peace in 525 BC. From this time on, I did not trust him at all and increased my defenders in the towns close to him. And for sure, he declared again in 350 BC. This war brought me my first Great General and I promoted one swordsman to 24HP and started the Heroic Epic in Lalibela which became my primary military production throughout the game. Nothing else happened and we made peace in 110 BC
In 10 AD my empire looks like this:




And these are the demographics: GNP: 411 Land Area: 199000




The next time Montezuma declared war was in 160 AD. This time I took 1 city (Calixthahuaca in 295 AD) before we made peace again in 400 AD.
My military became more powerful and when Montezuma declared again in 700 AD, then I was sure this would be his last time.
A quick picture about the battle for Tlaxcala:




And the map in 1000 AD




The war against Montezuma brought high war weariness throughout my empire and I had to run 60% culture at the end to keep my cities productive.
To make things worse, in 1285 Peter declares war on me and he brings in Hannibal as well. I bribe Louis XIV to fight on my side. Since Peter and I have no common border and Hannibal is very far away, these were really phony wars with no fighting for me at all.
This is the last stand of Montezuma:




After destroying Montezuma in 1305 AD I regrouped my troops to the Northwest and declared war on Asoka.
After early capturing Bagalore, Lahore, Pataliputra and Bombay, my troops were outside Delhi in 1495 AD. This was enough for Asoka to hand in his capitulation – YES, this gets me some nice add to my Land Area. I returned Bombay, but kept the other cities.
So, this is the situation in 1500 AD:







The rest was just motions, fighting with infantry against musketmen and longbows.
Declare war on Peter in 1545, he capitulates in 1560. Declare war on Louis XIV in 1605, he capitulates in 1670. Declare war on Hannibal in 1700, he capitulates in 1706.
I reached a Domination Victory after founding 1 addition city in the ice and some border expansions in 1712 AD.










A very enjoyable game. Thanks very much to the sponsor.

[Jabah]

How did you manage to get 1 city and allthis units inside, 'my' advanced start didn't let me have more than 2 units insid a city ?
Without this limit (and since we had not a lot of worker techs), I probably would have selected 3 settlers, 1 worker and 3 scout instead, but I was biaised toward land and not GNP, which was not your criteria.

[Ronald]

I think workers and settlers don't count. It is just scouts and warriors you can't have more than 2

[LKendter]

I clearly didn't understand advanced start well enough. If I knew workers and settlers didn't count I would have build at least one settler.


My question is how in the world do you have rifles in 1000 AD? I can't come anywhere close to the pace.

[T-hawk]

Very nice GNP at both dates. 411 in 10 AD is the highest (uncheesed) so far, as is 2474 in 1500 AD other than my Sushi shenanigans. Whatever you did, Lee should study. How aggressively and early did you build and work cottages?

We hit several similar strategic points. Early skirmish wars with Monty before either side was prepared to conquer territory. Military production concentrated in an early Heroic Epic city. Conquer Asoka next, and take a vassal or two to speed domination.

This was enough for Asoka to hand in his capitulation – YES, this gets me some nice add to my Land Area.

Do vassals count towards the demographics Land Area? I thought the vassal's land counted towards the domination percentage but not the demographics... is that true?

Declare war on Hannibal in 1700, he capitulates in 1706.

That was quick.

[Ronald]

I started very early with cottages and built tons of them. The only really production town for my was Lalibela where I built the Heroic Epic.

You are right that the vassal states territory does not count for the land area. I checked it at my game and the land area did not change in the turn when Asoka became my vassal.