Epic One - Kylearan's report

[Kylearan]

Hi,

you can find my Epic one report here. Enjoy!

Comments, criticism, or questions are more than welcome, of course.

Now that that is finished, I can finally read all the other reports...

-Kylearan

EDIT: Ah, while reading Jester's report I realize I should mention I have lost my save for this Epic. (In fact, I lost all my saves. Don't ask. :mad: ) So if this might lead to my game being a shadow game, then so be it; I've only my notes and my report left of that game. Sorry.

[Jester]

Heh, nice game. I can't believe the Parthenon popped AFTER 1500 AD!

That's what we call ridiculous. Good to see I wasn't the only one who hogged wonders, though. Our games went fairly similarly, although I never managed to take any cities (except one of the Khan's, which Monty then took the following turn, when he declared on me...)

Well done! I always feel like such a slacker, not writing spiffy reports like you, Sirian, Sulla, Arathorn, etc...

At least this time I've got an excuse.

-Jester

[Malurous]

Thanks for a great read! Really enjoyed Clan Wars too I decided to comment, because your strategy was very similar to what I had in mind... Too bad I never finished

Yeah that Will destroy the Town thing has amused me in the past too. Kinda cruel, wouldn't you say?

[Snaproll]

Nice report Ky, as always!

Using warrior sentries to push back the fog was a great move, one that I wish I had thought of. I've started doing that in my games now, mostly due to the lessons I learned by not doing it in this game!

Looks like I was one of the few that never got attacked by Genghis. Nice work fending off that early attack. It also seems that most players looked at the start and though "no early religion!" I managed to get HInduism, but I think I may have just been very lucky.

[Sullla]

Writing from a hut? Wow, that's like, yeah, wow. A nice early break for your game. I see your scouts didn't get eaten up by animals like mine did!

Your Orleans is in the same spot as mine was. Hooray for border-sealing paranoia! It was an even larger stretch for you though, since your capital was founded on the starting tile instead of moving. I haven't seen anyone else use your Lyons placement, but it wasn't a bad one, grabbing pigs and horses. Unfortunately, it didn't leave much room for a city above it to the north though.

I focused on Stonehenge and the Oracle in my start, whereas you went for Pyramids. In the long run, I think that the Pyramids proved to be more useful; I did not realize at the time just how critical Representation happiness would be in this game. (I also thought I would get the Pyramids too - until Gandhi built them in 200BC!) My early Metal Casting was a great boon, but I should have made CERTAIN I got the Pyramids by starting them earlier. Ah well. I thought it was money in the bag with stone + Industrious, but Gandhi just built the wonder so fast in my game! (You wouldn't have gotten the Pyramids either in my world, heh.)

Using the warriors to prevent the sprouting of barb cities was very smart, and I should have known to do that myself.

Well one thing I did do is make sure I had enough military for protection. You pushed things a little too far there, and Temujin caught you with your hand in the cookie jar. Epic speed is indeed very different in this regard, as you just can't pull units out of nowhere for defense. (Quick speed is the opposite, you can react ultra-fast to threats, which is why I'm not a huge fan of it.) Planning to deal with threats before they materialize is oh so important on Epic speed. (To be fair, this is my 4th full game on Epic speed, and I wasn't nearly so good at it on my first venture!)

Wow, I didn't get anywhere near the same kind of value out of Alphabet that you did. Was that I mistake on my part, or were the opportunities just not there? I think that maybe I should head further down the branches of the tech tree in the early game and then rely on Alphabet trading to clean up the early ones. That certainly seemed to work well in your game and for several other players too. Still feeling out the best way to proceed here... Similarly, I'm still learning the "sell the older techs" trick with Currency in the early game. Need more practice with this, to be honest.

That Mongol city that flipped turned out to be in a pretty good spot. Temujin was crazy to settle there, of course, but it looks like it certainly worked out.

Got to Liberalism in 1360? Very fast teching there, Kylearan. Nice work. I didn't realize that my warring had slowed me down quite THAT much, but you were a good 50 turns ahead of me on the tree at that point. Impressive. It didn't hurt that both Gandhi and Washington got dragged down by war while you stayed out of it either (but using religion to placate Monty/Temujin was elegantly done, so it was no coincidence).

Jester is right - 1500AD Parthenon is just too funny.

Well - at least until Temujin attacked anyway (he IS insane, after all). Then again, he might not have attacked if you hadn't had a WARRIOR for defense in Tours.

I had enough sources of oil in conquered Aztec lands that I didn't have to put a well over my ancient town. Your writeup of that is most amusing.

1892 launch, very impressive. Your civ stayed (mostly) out of war the whole game, and indeed that was the fastest way to get through the tree to the end. It's going to be tough for someone to top that date, I think, unless they just played a brilliant game. Very well done from start to finish, you're definitely one of our "power gamers" now! Who would have thought that 3 years ago?

Thanks for the report.

[Sirian]

Very well done from start to finish, you're definitely one of our "power gamers" now! Who would have thought that 3 years ago?

Actually, they say practice makes perfect. If you put in as much focus and work as Ky has, you're going to get good at it. (We measure his Civ3 Epics record by how many were MISSED, because it's just way easier to count those than the huge number of games that he played!)

While the rest of us have like 10XP or 17XP, and a couple of us have reached or are nearing 26XP, Kylearan is up there past 50XP, with Combat V, Commando, Blitz, March, Flanking II and Amphibious. He steamrolls opponents by accident, just rumbles through, grinding all beneath his treads.




- Sirian

[Arathorn]

I just checked my game. Liberalism in 1370. So Kylerean, you were a bit ahead of me at that point. Of course, I didn't get Writing from a hut. I essentially never get techs from a hut (except my very first game, where I got a couple). Even if my luck on huts is average from here on out, I'll still feel cheated by huts. Getting Writing (!) of all things is just too unfair.

That Orleans spot has been pretty popular. It took a while to carve out, but it was my science city, with towns all around! I snuck a few more cities in to the east and north, though.

Religion is a good placater. A number of us got ourselves, Monte, and GK to agree on a religion, easing the number of times they attacked us. With those guys as neighbors, though, it's essentially a matter of "when", not "if" they'd attack again.

Arathorn

[Kylearan]

Hi,

My early Metal Casting was a great boon, but I should have made CERTAIN I got the Pyramids by starting them earlier.

It would have been very interesting to see how your game would have went if you had gotten both! Ah well, next time.

Well one thing I did do is make sure I had enough military for protection. You pushed things a little too far there, and Temujin caught you with your hand in the cookie jar.

*cough* Indeed, and I was just damn lucky that he didn't brought two axes for the first war instead of only one in the beginning. But I've learned my lesson since playing Epic 1, and focus more on early military now.

(Quick speed is the opposite, you can react ultra-fast to threats, which is why I'm not a huge fan of it.)

Agreed, I don't like it much as well, seeing how rushed things feel in RB3.

Wow, I didn't get anywhere near the same kind of value out of Alphabet that you did. Was that I mistake on my part, or were the opportunities just not there?

I have to note that my trades were made over a series of about 10 turns or so, not immediately. But I was quite surprised as well to see that many trade opportunities. Prince difficulty, I guess.

Very fast teching there, Kylearan. Nice work. I didn't realize that my warring had slowed me down quite THAT much, but you were a good 50 turns ahead of me on the tree at that point.

While warring seems to slow you down at first, a bigger empire means that you will be able to catch up (and even overtake) later on, as Speaker's game showed. He entered the modern age about the same time I did, but would have launched faster nonetheless. I checked my screenshots and noted that both Speaker and I produced the exact same number of beakers in the end, but I had to have most of my cities sitting on research for this, while his were still producing infrastructure.

That's exactly the reason why I had looked forward so much to the Epics, and the reason why I didn't fight back during the second Khan war, to compare these things.

It's going to be tough for someone to top that date, I think, unless they just played a brilliant game.

It looks like Zevis did this brilliant game; I'm looking forward to reading his report! I guess he warred as well, leading to a faster tech pace in the end. If that's the case, then a link to his and Speaker's game together with a link to my game for comparison should be posted to all the threads over at CFC complaining that warmongering got nerfed too much and is useless now.

-Kylearan

[Rowain]

Great Game and great report Kylearan


Getting Writing from a Hut

Now I understand why you were so astonished about my late Launchdate

[Zeviz]

That was a very interesting report to read. (You were one of the people whose reports I've tried to imitate.)

It looks like you could have launched faster than me if you took a few AI cities. I got Pyramids and Alphabet much earlier than you, but took until 380BC to found my third city. Our territories were about the same after my first Mongol war (around 1000AD), but at that point you had more wonders, much better economy and perhaps slightly better technology (although it's hard to tell since your report doesn't list every tech).

After that, you've stayed ahead of me technologically until industrial age, when I passed you due to sheer volume, the same way I overcame Washington AI from my game. My cities were smaller and not as well developed, but I had twice more of them, so in the end, with State Property and all other late-game civics, my GNP was twice higher than yours.

Another important thing for space victory is production capacity. And capturing many AI cities allowed me to schedule all spaceship parts at the same time. I literally scheduled one part per city and had them all finished 18 turns after completion of Apollo project, while you probably had to build several parts per city.

So it does look like our two games illustrate that at least some warmongering is helpful even for peaceful builders.

About AI wars, those warmongers hurt builder AIs more than you give them credit for. In my game, Gandhi got Liberalism in 1430AD and Washington wasn't far behind, despite the fact that he (Washington) was refusing to sell techs to me (and presumably Gandhi) for most of the game, so Washington alone was researching almost as quickly as me and Gandhi combined in a game where he was unmolested by warmongers.