EPIC 24 - Ronald's report

[Ronald]

To start just the scoring summary:

Land: 1455
Wonders: 145 (Great Library, Great Wall, Pyramids, Shwedagon)
Pleased civs: 6
Large cities: 0
Legendary cities: 0
Future techs: 705 (future tech 121)

Total: 2311

Muliplier:
One time -15%
Invading Sitting Bull -10%
1 city nuked -1%
2 wonders destroyed -2%

Total: 0.72

Grand Total: 1663

Detailled report will follow tonight or tomorrow

Was a very intersting game to play - Thanks to the sponsor!

[Ronald]

I settled in place and after founding New York I immediately built the Great Wall to protect myself from the barbarians.



After that I expanded peacefully and built the pyramids, the Great Library and Shwedagon Paya.

Sittung BUll expanded really fast as well, Hammurabi had quite some troubles with barbs and was the smallest of the civs in my continent. Saladin was in between and soon became annoyed with me. I refused him to help was of the wrong religion and also our borders were too close.
So he decided that I am his worst enemy and declared war on me.

Here you can see his stack of troops closing in:



The war was short. After he depleted his stack, we made peace and it took a few hundred years until I was prepared to take him down as my blood enemy.

I start in 1660 AD. This war took a very long time (to be specific: until 1906) . I started with riflemen and cats then cavalry and cannons and finally infantry and stupid enough, I researched into the modern aera before I defeated him. This was really niot necessary, I just choose the wrong tech. So no bonus too bad.
When fighting Saladin, I was wishing the game was on epic speed and not on normal.

Here is the development until 1906:

[Ronald]

To increase score I decided to take on the largest AI which happened to be Sitting Bull. By now I was much faster than him in techs and in 1925 I declared war on him.
This war was much faster>





Now that was all I wanted. I founded standard Ethanol and spreaded it through all my cities to maximise science output. I got 1 future tech every turn and ended with 121.

Catharina declared several times war on Julius Caesar and was threathening to wipe him from the planet.
I bribed catharina to stop this war because I did not want to get the penalty for ending the game with less than 6 civs.

And then, when I thought I was just cruising to an eventless victory, out of the blue Catherina declared war on me in 2022.
She landed a pitiful stack of tanks which was eliminated on turn one, but she manged to nuke 1 of my cities (loss of another 1% in score). Later I found out she destroyed also 2 wonders which were originally built be Julius when she destroyed some of his cities.
After making peace in 2028 nothing happened untill the end in 2050 with a time victory.

[Fenton Denton Smith]

Is there an echo in here? here?

[T-hawk]

Looking forward to a full report. Just a scoring note for now: invading Sitting Bull (assuming he was not your Blood Enemy), incurs score penalty of both -15% for one-time aggression and -10% for invading one civ.

[Ronald]

Looking forward to a full report. Just a scoring note for now: invading Sitting Bull (assuming he was not your Blood Enemy), incurs score penalty of both -15% for one-time aggression and -10% for invading one civ.

Thanks for pointing this out. I thought the first invasion is -15% and every additional one -10%.
I change my calculation in post 1

[T-hawk]

When fighting Saladin, I was wishing the game was on epic speed and not on normal.

You wanted more turns? But yes, I understand the feeling. With the fast late tech pace compared to the map size, I literally had industrial-age units going obsolete before they even arrived at combat.

Standard Ethanol is a different corp choice, I don't think we've seen that one yet. That might have been a pretty good deal. 38 science per city would match 6-7 specialists from Sushi or Cereal. Plus Ethanol costs less maintenance because the cities are smaller. Its only downside is one-dimensionality; if the Future Tech rate is maxed, any further Ethanol has no use.

Yeah, Catherine seemed to be the big power on the far continent in almost all games. You made no bid for the far continent? I think I see a barbarian city still there on the southwest peninsula in 1908 AD!

Thanks for the report!

[Ronald]

Yeah, Catherine seemed to be the big power on the far continent in almost all games. You made no bid for the far continent? I think I see a barbarian city still there on the southwest peninsula in 1908 AD!

I did not consider cultural flips at all. After seeing the other games, I don't know why - definitely something I won't forget in future games.
So just taking one city and then maybe found another one or two did not seem to be attractive at this time since I did not want to fight another war with the danger of nukes.
On top of that, I thought the war against Sitting Bull only costed me 15%, so the additional 10% of another war was not worth it. Only after posting I found out that the first war was worth 25% and the additional only 10% more. That might have changed my plan.