Adventure 30 - Timmy827

[timmy827]

Pregame thoughts - the immediate one is OCC, not surprisingly. Is it possible with these restrictions though? Specifically, the national wonders question is the big one, although on second thought it is greatly simplified by the fact that 3 of the big 5 I normally use in BTS (NE, Globe, NP, Oxford, IW) won't be available as they take a certain number of buildings. So - can I win with just the NE and NP? The beauty of OCC of course is that you can do a test game in a couple hours or less and I got one to a space-winning position. However, there were a lot of lucky breaks in that one, I was isolated but had stone at the start (and generally great terrain) so could easily get up the GW and Pyramids. Isolation seems to be key with aggressive AI's; by the time they can attack you there's lots of sucking up/bribing options to keep out of war.

Looking at the teaser screenshot - lots of forest is extremely good, eight coastal tiles with only two seafood is not. I will try the OCC with moving inland to attempt better locations.

After moving around a bit, a plan takes shape:

Something I've often wished I could try in OCC, where seafood is good (as always) but ordinary water tiles are pretty much junk. So I can, at some point, build a 2nd city to give me a WB; I will probably wait until it can build wealth/research after that. The clams will be good eventually but no rush, pigs and corn have me more than covered for now. This is really very good as OCC sites w/o stone or marble go, I would maybe like one more hill for early production but it's strong, very few plains, lots of forest. Soon I meet Monty (joy!) and I can tell from EP that there's at least another AI around too. And it turns out to be Toku! I was expecting that Compromise might stack the deck with especially aggressive AIs....what worries me is that Monty did not found one of the early two religions, if he had it would've been possible to adopt it and maybe befriend him before he attacked (That was my thought at the time, later I realized that with every AI starting with Mysticism the first religions could wind up anywhere). The good news is I won't have to worry about barb defense too much.

Later I run across Ragnar as well. I may be going down in flames, but I'm not changing the plan now! Pyramids started in 2200BC.

I've trained 3 archers, 2 to guard the north from barbs and 1 for MP duty.

Stonehenge isn't built until 1600BC by Toku. The lateness of that date pretty much guarantees that I will have no problems with the mids.


Let's hope they keep it up.

Of course there are downsides:

Doesn't this poor fool know I nothing but a handful of defensive units? I refuse and am unhappy to find out that gives -2, not -1, putting Toku into Annoyed also. Someone Oracles Christianity too. Can my continent get a religion please? Soon after Confu is founded somewhere else as well. Pyramids done in 850BC, the first piece of the (quasi)OCC space race in in place.

Soon after, toku asks for a DOW from me AGAIN. They should really only allowed to do this once per war! He's not the only one not happy with me:


Oh come on Monty. You know how much heat I took to not declare phony war? Boo....
As I frantically train unpromoted archers, I am happy to see by borders expand for more defense, then...the stack doesn't invade? What? The horns sound...and it's Ragnar DOWing the Aztecs! The timing is like something out of a movie. Ragnar is now my official Best Buddy for the rest of the game.

That amazing luck is followed by more bad news, I get crowded in from the north much earlier than I expected. I was originally going to settle on that southern coastal sugar, but now it will get close borders penalties with Toku...oh what the hell, he's gonna hate me forever anyways (see the problem with this pattern of pissing him off?). Sparta goes up (kind of strange for Pericles to control just Athens and Sparta, isn't it?):

Do I have a death wish? Most certainly. Every religion but Islam is gone so there is little chance of faith calming relations in the neighborhood (the loss of Pacifism is a blow too, although there's not that much difference between 3 and 4 times normal GP production). Since I met Monty first I had been assuming that he would border me, so I had been sort of trying to stay on his good side with resource deals. Clearly with Toku being the one to wind up next to me I'm in longterm trouble as he is one of the hardest to befriend.

[timmy827]

100BC - Toku has gotten Alphabet surprisingly early for an AI (he's actually quite ahead of me in tech, I only have lit to several for him!) so I can tell he has "enough on his hands". Then I see this:


I am only able to get 4 archers (all unpromoted) into Sparta in time. But the Spartan spirit comes through and I clean up with no losses! A later attack is also repulsed, after which two units park themselves in an annoying position:

They then stand there doing nothing for several turns. If the AI wanted to resort to pillaging this would have been a great time to do so, no way I can do anything but defend inside cities with archers.

This relative lull lets me put the capital back to peaceful pursuits and I get the great library, then I see this:

Fortunately I am able to make peace with Toku for Literature (he had been willing to talk for ages but always wanted Sparta; I'm afraid that I missed this chance earlier.)

After CoL, I do one last whip (library) in Sparta and go to Caste System. I want Feudalism before CS (boy, that's a strange techpath for quasi-OCC) so I can get longbows before Toku declares again.

In 720AD - Feudalism is in and I can upgrade 2 longbows. Toku and Monty both have enough on their hands; earlier Monty was willing to attack Toku but unfortunately I didn't have enough tech to bribe him with. Toku was planning before our peac treaty expired, I wonder if this means he's planning on someone else? Soon Ragnar started a war prep as well.

A nice wakeup call comes at the millenium:

Geez, I'm curious as to who's on the other continent now.

The powder keg finally goes off in 1140AD - Toku declares on Monty! Oh boy, that's great news. I can stop living in fear for another 200 years.

Also, why won't anyone (well, OK, Monty as the other two don't like me enough to trade anything) trade construction?

I've also noticed that the AI seems to always be willing to trade Monarchy now regardless of monopoly.

[timmy827]

1350AD - Toku has made peace and has enough on his hands again, I enter panic mode and start stocking up on longbows again. Next turn Peter shows up, finally contact with someone else! I hold off trades as he can't help me with the Bio beeline. Who else is on the other continent? Some time later:


This is not encouraging...although not surprising given how fast wonders and religions were dropping early.

I know I shouldn't trade with the top dog, but getting to rifles faster may be a matter of survival, so a few turns laterI trade Bio to Ghandi for RP, Optics, and his map. Willem and Mansa are revealed as the other leaders. Well, I knew OCC was a gamble and I very well could lose because of it even if I survive... Peter only has three cities and there's no hope of him conquering anything; Ghandi and Willem will love each other from free religion and are probably too peaceful to bribe into war in any case. The map is really neat, haven't seem hemispheres like this before, with a chain of islands in the middle between the two main continents. Too bad my strategy rules out colonization.

Next turn Mansa shows up. He is willing (as always) to trade monopoly techs like Rifling. I delay by one turn to reduce the gold cost of getting Economics as well, and find that Ghandi has given him Bio the next turn (the only thing I could offer). I got burned, and badly. How badly?

one turn to bomb my cultural defenses. Next turn is a slaughter, he has 4 trebs and 9 cats, so each of my many longbows is pounded to half strength by the time the collateral is done, and I win NO battles after that. Even rifling probably wouldn't have saved me as I couldn't upgrade everything there to a rifle.

I was able to bribe Ragnar to peace with Monty and bribe Monty into the war, but at this point I'm not expecting much as Monty has been losing cities and is pretty weak. Those slim hopes are dashed anyways in 1645 when a random event makes peace between him and Toku. I am able to start getting Rifles and repulse a 6 unit siegeless attack on Athens easily, but eventually Toku gets his act together and brings a coordinated assault:

Even though I have 8 rifles in the city, there's enough siege to overwhelm me. It's rather like the battle I lost in my first epic (13, BTS potluck) against Justinian, except that this time I lose the game instead of 1/2 of my invasion force.

A very interesting scenario concept from Compromise. Obviously he stacked the AIs so that a pacifist quasi-OCC approach would be crushed by the warmongers as I eventually was; even without the final defeat beating those teching AI's would've been tough. I wonder if anyone else playing like me will found a religion or have one from one of their neighbors; that may be the key to forestalling an attack. The other valid strategy will probably be extreme early aggression, killing off the neighbors early will be far less costly in # of things built than having enough units to defend/deter attack in the middle ages.

[sunrise089]

Well played Timmy and shame on Compromise for such a brutal setup

I suspect that the winning score will be from a non-minimalist player since many of the extremely low build numbers might similarly result in defeats.

[dazedroyalty]

Interesting choice going with the modified-OCC. The start in this game was lacking in metals!

[sylvanllewelyn]

I thought my game was just like a typical emperor game, not much fun, so I didn't bother keeping my saves nor write a report. But seeing how you struggled, I wish I didn't deleted all the saves now. Plus it's been a whole month now, and I really forgot the details of the game, because I felt it was so typical. All I remembered was Oracle-->feudalism and a bunch of highly promoted longbows many centuries later. All my hall of fame says is space race and a date.