Epic 23 by T-hawk

[T-hawk]

Report here, complete with comments about the sponsor

http://www.dos486.com/civ4/epic23/

Quick summary: Oracle slingshot to Feudalism, and resisted a three-civ dogpile with longbowmen. Conquered Alexander first with longbows on offense, and made ex-Russia my economic breadbasket. Mansa became a peacetime vassal and fed me techs. Teched to knights for most of the conquering, took lots of vassals, and finished it off with cavalry. Domination in 1585 AD.

[Ruff_Hi]

T-Hawk - thanks for the report. It was interesting and I liked your execution of the longbow rush. My initial game plan didn't include them (I thought archers plus spear replacement would be enough to hold during any war). I too have noticed that the AI is teching slowly in my shadow game. The map really is 'large' but it is based off the battlefield script which is designed for multi-player - maybe that results in a smaller than expected 'large' (if you know what I mean).

I admit to being more than a bit skeptical of Ruff's sponsoring style. I feel that the hush-hush smarter-than-thou attitude isn't appropriate for RB. We thrive on discussion and community, not secrets and mysteries. Why would one leave out of the info page basic info like the rules options (Unrestricted Leaders), which can be seen right away in the game anyway?

hush-hush smarter-than-thou attitude ... do I really sponsor games that come across like this? I did with the hidden 2 game but I don't remember doing it with any others. I thought it was just RB practice to not discuss the game while it was going on.

Actually, thinking about it - I do like a little mystery in my games that the player finds when they open the save. I wasn't trying to hide 'unrestricted leaders' in this game, I just didn't think I needed to mention it in the write up. I'll note that I should include info like this for future reference.

[T-hawk]

T-Hawk - thanks for the report. It was interesting and I liked your execution of the longbow rush. My initial game plan didn't include them (I thought archers plus spear replacement would be enough to hold during any war).

Protective Archers could probably hold cities, but the problem is in counterattacking. If the AI doesn't suicide against the cities, you're sunk as everything gets pillaged and the price for peace escalates. Archers are too weak to counterattack, and a spear replacement can't counterattack any stack with an axeman. (Yes, an axe replacement would've been better. I can sympathize with such a scenario goof, though. )

And the longbow rush was the only way to go on offense early. If the player didn't grab iron or slingshot longbowmen, there's really no chance to capture any land until Gunpowder. I never realized that iron was intended to be reachable for an alert player. From the game description and absence of copper and horses, I dismissed any possibility of iron and didn't even get IW until pretty late.

hush-hush smarter-than-thou attitude ... do I really sponsor games that come across like this? I did with the hidden 2 game but I don't remember doing it with any others.

Beyaz Peynir. That was the one that really rubbed me the wrong way. You wanted the scoring to hinge on some pretty obscure arcana of the game rules, and protested when players started discussing that in the forum.

I like lots of discussion and information. IMO the spoiler line is only crossed at "X happened in my game" or maybe "I intend to do X in my game." "X might be a good idea" or "Mechanic X works this way" is fair game in my book. But that's my style. I'm happy to agree to disagree on sponsorship style, just going to be vocal in disagreement.

This game turned out quite well - hard but obviously so from the start with ample time to prepare - and certainly unique. Saw your comments on crafting those plains hill locations for the player. I noticed them but didn't twig that they were hand-crafted other than the capital. I heartily approve - that's a great subtle hand in scenario design. My game only claimed one of them, though (towards Boudica): I intentionally missed the two towards Caesar and Isabella in order to claim gold instead, and then barbarian cities and AI wars intervened and scrapped any further plans of that nature.

I'm also amused by your desire for a Montezuma Praetorian assault. My Monty turned in a complete dud. I got ahead of him in power by whipping the longbows, and he never even tried to catch up. And I checked a savegame to see how many Praets he built (that I killed): three the entire game. He had problems with the happy cap (Monarchy and Calendar late), and with unit costs (he did build about 4 archers per city). But he still had 6 cities with plenty of cottages, and that doesn't add up to the utter pathos of lacking Feudalism by 1500 AD or ignoring Praetorians. I'm really curious to see Monty's output in other reports.

Yes, getting the AIs to behave is a big problem for a scenario designer. I've seen AI Rome fail to build Praets a few times before; the AI really seems to have no idea of their strength. One tip is to deny AI Rome horses, which will at least make them not divert effort into inferior mounted units.

[Swiss Pauli]

Great game and report, T-Hawk!

I meant to play this, but somehow the holidays slipped by without even getting started.

[Ruff_Hi]

Beyaz Peynir. That was the one that really rubbed me the wrong way. You wanted the scoring to hinge on some pretty obscure arcana of the game rules, and protested when players started discussing that in the forum.

I like lots of discussion and information. IMO the spoiler line is only crossed at "X happened in my game" or maybe "I intend to do X in my game." "X might be a good idea" or "Mechanic X works this way" is fair game in my book. But that's my style. I'm happy to agree to disagree on sponsorship style, just going to be vocal in disagreement.

Yeah - I remember that discussion and your reaction to my 'no spoiler' comment. I think I over-reacted (a little) and didn't know how to recover (so said nothing).

Comment noted re Rome and Horses. Monty tried twice in my game, the second time when my power ratio to him was 2x and that marked him for death. I did get some late surprise attacks (Alex) who actually took one of my blocking cities while my forces were engaged over the other side of the map.

[invy]

Nice game I liked that Feudalism slingshot, gotta learn that. I was scared when I saw Monty with Pretorians but he was sooo way backwards in my game also, by the time he made few of the Pretors I had Maces running around.
Nice trick with keeping close borders, I missed that somehow.

I see you also had some trouble with Alexandar and Boudica's Landknechts.. spelling. I think Ruff chose good AIs, maybe only Mansa didn't fit in well, he should be somewhere safe on isolated island

EDIT: I forgot to mention, good work on building those two wonders early and keeping with expansion adn barbs at the same time, they certainly slowed me.

[Kodii]

Exceptionally educational and easy to read (as usual). I don't think I'll ever get bored of your reports. I once spent an entire day reading through most of your website!

Great work!

[T-hawk]

I see you also had some trouble with Alexandar and Boudica's Landknechts.. spelling. I think Ruff chose good AIs, maybe only Mansa didn't fit in well, he should be somewhere safe on isolated island

Landsknechts didn't give me any problems. I was worried that they would make it slow and bloody to conquer Boudica, but she capitulated after I only actually killed one Landsknecht.

I didn't catch on that Ruff chose the leader-civ combinations, though it makes sense. Monty of Rome and Caesar of India were both amusing combinations, but I thought they happened randomly. The (red-herring) giveaway was Isabella of Spain - I didn't think Ruff would pick a normal leader combo so thought that one came up randomly.

Mansa Musa of America is completely inferior to Mansa Musa of Mali. The switch deprives Mansa of his good defensive UU and solid UB, replacing them with a UU/UB somewhere beyond the end of time. Also, I'm still not sure what Ruff meant in the info page about Mansa Musa and his financial trait? He's still Financial even when leading another civ. :neenernee

EDIT: I forgot to mention, good work on building those two wonders early and keeping with expansion adn barbs at the same time, they certainly slowed me.

Actually, keeping borders closed helped me against barbarians. The AIs walked several units up to my borders but stopped there and couldn't go further -- which meant they were fogbusting for me.

Also, I was really lucky in barb city spawns. Two popped up just a few tiles beyond my borders, but defended only by warriors so that holkans could take them. Barb cities themselves act as fogbusters (I think) so the area doesn't randomly spawn new units. The city can build units, but without strategic resources it's only warriors and archers, and they tend to stay in the city anyway.

[Ruff_Hi]

I didn't catch on that Ruff chose the leader-civ combinations, though it makes sense. Monty of Rome and Caesar of India were both amusing combinations, but I thought they happened randomly. The (red-herring) giveaway was Isabella of Spain - I didn't think Ruff would pick a normal leader combo so thought that one came up randomly.

All leader - civ combinations were explicit. You probably could come up with a better religious threat than Isabella and Spain,but, really - why bother as she is pretty good at grabbing religions - thus she stayed put.

[T-hawk]

Spain is the best civ for early religion, and uncontestedly so. Spain is the only civ that starts with Fishing and Mysticism, so they can work a 2-commerce water tile right away and clinch first to Med/Poly. Anyone other than Spain needs a land 2-commerce tile available (oasis, river wine or gold).

Isabella isn't really relevant to Spain founding religions. She does like them, but almost any AI will go for a virgin religious tech when available.