Adventure 23 (First Report)

[Muaziz]

Introduction
I just started playing Civ4 a couple months back. I was very into the original Civ when it first came out, missing every class I was taking in College for over a week. I dabbled with Civ2 some years later, but have not played since.

When I started playing again, I figure it would be wise to read up on some strategies for beginners and that’s how I came upon this site and civfanatics. Once I got past understanding some of the basics, I found it very enjoyable reading various players’ RBCiv game reports. In particular, I started reading every report that I could find from Sulla, T-Hawk, Kylearan, uberfish, and Sooooo among others.

I figured it was time to write my own report.

The first RBCiv game that I tried to play was Adventure 22 (Brick by Brick). I was originally going to write a report for that one, but did not take very good notes. I also reloaded several times (which I know is against the rules). The reason I did that was not because I wanted to cheat, but because I wanted to learn. I had hoped to write a report that discussed the errors I made and why I decided to go back and change things. One of the things that I am finding difficult is being able to properly analyze research order. Decisions like Bronze Working vs Pottery are not always obvious, especially to me. By making one decision and seeing how it works out, then going back to a previous save to look at how the other decision would have paned out provides me with a lot of insight.

So on with the show…


Ancient Era
As soon as I started, I was confused. I remembered seeing the picture of Montezuma in the game description, but here I was playing the Romans. Ah, I guess that’s what “Unrestricted Leaders” meant. I had never played a game like that before.

I was not too thrilled with settling on the opening spot with our Settler. For starters, I really don’t like wasting the resource benefits by settling on top of a resource. The opening spot also had 3 Ocean tiles which aren’t great, although that would not be an issue for a long time. The starting map also revealed some of the terrain to the east. By moving the Settler 1 spot to the west, we would gain 2 hill tiles on a river, and what appeared to be a 3rd Hill tile. Not losing the Stone tile was an added bonus. And thus Rome was founded in 3960 BC.

We started with a Warrior which we would only use to explore the close surroundings by heading north and proceeding counter-clockwise, then heading back to Rome.

With a Warrior not too far from Rome, I decided a Work Boat (Fishing was one of the two starting Techs) would be a good first choice for what to build. By the time the Work Boat would be complete, the city would be Size 2 and we could start on a Worker to improve the Cow. That meant researching Hunting, then AH.

When AH revealed a Horse tile just South of the Cow, we guided our primitive research towards The Wheel to get some Chariots for defense rather than Archers. I really like Chariots for their ability to play zone defense and beat up on Barbs. It takes a long time before Barbs get anything better than Axemen, so the Chariots have a very long period of usefulness.

The map being a small Pangea, it didn’t take long to meet everyone. Of course, I thought Wang Kon was just to the west of us when in fact it was Ragnar of Korea. Arrrgh. This was obviously going to take some getting used to.

After researching the The Wheel, we started up on Bronze Working. We needed to find out what kinds of metals were nearby and there were plenty of forests around. Here I was really not sure whether we should research Pottery first. Even if there were metals nearby, it would still take a while before we could amass an army, and I figured we should probably expand at least once before starting a war. In hindsight, maybe capturing a city to be our second city would have been better than spending the time to build a Settler. I really haven’t played many games where I go to war very early. My normal plan is to get three cities up and running nicely before I decide what I’m going to do next. But this Adventure really seemed geared towards kicking ass quickly, so I figured I would try to be aggressive a little earlier than I normally would.

So Bronze Working it is. Bronze Working also allows Slavery which we can switch to immediately since we are Spiritual. Prior to three weeks ago, I had never used “the whip”. Heck, two months ago, I didn’t even know what the whip was. Since then, I’ve become very fond of it, but am still learning on when to use it properly.

Bronze Working is researched in 2320 BC, and there is no Copper. After thinking about it, I wasn’t terribly surprised. This Adventure is about kicking ass, and the Romans have by far the best early ass beater in the game with the Praetorian. Odds are good that there will be Iron nearby. The only problem is that our Settler is coming online in 1 turn, but Iron Working is going to take 18 turns to research. So there’s no way we are waiting to settle. We can always have another Settler ready by the time Iron Working is researched. That seems to make a lot more sense. I also debated whether to research Pottery first since I was planning on expanding out to the west, just north of the lake. We would want some cottages on the riverfront. But I decided to go with Iron Working first just in case there was no Iron near our first two cities.

Rome starts on a second Worker after finishing a Warrior that was in the queue. A Chariot comes after the Worker. There were lots of Scouts around so I wasn’t too worried about Barbs at this point.

Antium, our second city, is founded in 2200 BC. We don’t have Pottery yet so can’t start on a Granary. And it’s not yet connected by road to the Horses so we can’t build a Chariot either. So we start on a Barracks with the plan to switch to a Chariot in a couple turns when the road is connected. Antium had been placed in such a location that it had plenty of good tiles to work without a border expansion. There was a partial overlap with Rome which gave us plenty to work with.

All three early religions fell very early. Judaism was the last of three in 2040 BC. Good thing there was the special scoring bonus of “3 points for any religions founded by the player”.

Rome hits Size 5 in 1800 BC, the same turn that a Chariot pops out. Iron Working is still 4 turns away. And I’m really tempted to build the Pyramids which would only take 19 turns; even less after I had a chance to mine one of those riverside hills. But instead, we build another Settler. Once again, in hindsight, it might have been better to simply plan on capturing some cities once the Praetorian army was online. The benefit of building a Settler here is that it would be ready in 6 turns. That meant that if Iron was not in range of out first two cities, we would still have a chance to grab some with the third city.

At some earlier point, I had a Scout pop the only hut I would find this game. It taught us the ancient secrets of Mysticism. I didn’t write it down in my notes at the time since I didn’t think it would ever come into play this game. Buddhism and Hinduism had already been founded, and I wasn’t planning on going down those trees. It was only much later that I realized that it allowed us to build Stonehenge in Rome (in only 5 turns) and thus save us from having to build Monuments in our new cities (in case no religion spread to them). I would never have thought to research Mysticism for Stonehenge. That was a really lucky hut.


Classical Era
Iron Working is researched in 1680 BC, and there is Iron in one of the riverside hills near Rome. The two nearby Workers are immediately dispatched. I decide to research Pottery next to start some Cottage work and hopefully chop a Granary for Antium before we start whipping. Rome would have 5 good tiles (Clam, Cow, Horse, Stone, and now Iron) to work so whipping there would not necessarily be a great idea, especially without a Granary. This is an area of my play that still needs a lot of work. There is another Iron north of Antium, but it’s just outside of the fat cross.

Rome was capped at 5 happiness for now. There were no pre-Calendar happiness resources to be seen, and religion wasn’t going to be part of the plan for a while.

Pottery is discovered in 1520 BC. Antium switches to a Granary which I plan to chop. Rome is going to work on a third Worker next, followed by a Praetorian buildup. Next up research wise is Writing. Nothing else looked all that necessary right now. After Writing, I still wasn’t sure if Alphabet or Mathematics would be the better option. Since we have met everyone, Alphabet will give us a lot of flexibility with tech trades. Mathematics, on the other hand, will lead to Calendar. Of course, Calendar requires Sailing which I would rather not have to research, and could probably acquire in a trade if I had Alphabet.



Cumae is founded in 1440BC northwest of Antium, in range of a Cow, Iron, and some Silk.



After finishing the third Settler, Rome can either work on a Granary or ramp up for the upcoming war effort against Ragnar, whose only crime was starting the closest. I opt for the Granary so that I can put the whip to better use if needed.

Writing is discovered in 1160 BC and we established Open Borders with everyone except Toku who, as usual, prefers to live in a hole by himself.

Confucianism is founded in a distant land in 800 BC. I guess it’s a good thing that the other civs are busy with religions while I start beating the war drums. But getting early religions in this scenario was not going to happen, and I would be shocked if anyone founds any religions, except maybe a bulbed Philosophy. Actually, where would anyone get any Great Scientists? Ummm, I guess not.


War with Korea
We now have many Praetorians just on our side of the border from P’yongyang ready to pounce. Unfortunately, there’s a huge stack there with a Settler. I figure it would be better to give the Settler and his escort a couple turns to get out before we make our move.



After the Korean forces depart, P’yongyang is much more susceptible to an attack.


In 675 BC, we cancel the Open Borders with Ragnar and declare war We move in, and the next turn, P’yongyang’s two lonely Axemen fall to the Praetorian army with no casualties. Now the question is whether to keep the city or burn it. This is where my lack of experience really hurts. I really don’t have a good feel for how much I can expand in the early game without our economy tanking. The location wasn’t too bad so I decide to keep it and see how it pans out. It comes with a Granary which makes it a great deal since it has a Corn and will have access to both Flood Plains (shared with Antium who will cap out on pop not too long from now). But from here on out, I was planning on razing anything except capitals for a while. In hindsight, keeping P’yongyang should have been a no-brainer. The drain on the economy turned out to be minimal, and it turned out to be a fine city.

Here is the stack that led the capture of P’yongyang.


Here is what P’yongyang and its surroundings look like after the capture.


I decide to regroup the forces for a turn in P’yongyang to allow the 4 trailing Praetorians the chance to catch up. The Koreans then foolishly approach the city stopping on the Corn tile to the northwest rather than stopping on the hills to the west with its 25% defense bonus. We end up nose to nose with the bulk of the Korean forces that had left the city three turns prior: 3 Swords, 2 Axes, and 1 Spear.



On the following turn, we promote two Praetorians with Shock and they take out the two Axes with 2-1 odds. The question now is whether to promote more Praetorians with Shock to make easy work of the Swords, or to save those promotions for instant healing and City Raider. Once again, my lack of experience in the finer points of Civ warfare rears its ugly head. On the bright side, looking at combat scenarios is a lot like calculating pot odds in Poker, something I can actually manage to do when not completely smashed.

The Korean forces are massacred at the gates of P’yongyang, but we will need to heal before we can advance any further. I move a 5XP Chariot (from Barb action) into the city and promote it with Combat I and Medic I to speed up the healing.



In 600 BC, we discover the Alphabet, but it does little good right now. We’re at war with Korea. Toku doesn’t want to trade. Doesn’t help that we wouldn’t cut ties with Hat, but it is so hard to get Toku to warm up without sharing a religion. I see that Wang slingshot Metal Casing when he built the Oracle. He doesn’t want to trade it, but all I have is Alphabet anyways so it’s not like a deal was possible. Hat doesn’t have anything worthwhile either. I guess it would have been better to go with Mathematics. Oh well. we might as well research it now since no one else has it. And as soon as I do that, I realize that the Forum (Market) is the unique Roman building. So Currency will be coming up shortly. We don’t have any Fur, Ivory, Silk or Whale right now, but there’s an Ivory near the Korean capitol and I intend to take it before too long.

The battle for Seoul in 525 BC goes about as expected, perhaps losing 1 less unit than the statistics would indicate.

The question now was whether to try to wipe out the Koreans or broker a peace deal (hopefully with techs as bounty). We had 4 badly injured Praetorians that would need 2-4 turns to heal up, and as many as 4 relatively healthy reserves on their way. I could see that Ragnar had at least two more cities. One straight south of P’yongyang (most likely the one that the Settler there founded since I had not noticed it before), and one southwest of Seoul. Toku’s territory expanded pretty far south so I doubt that Ragnar had a chance to migrate north at all. So most likely two cities left. As an aside, Toku’s southern most city was called “Poverty Point”… was that a Barb town that he razed?? Bizarre.

A Great General appeared during the battle of Seoul. With Charismatic leaders, I love using the Great General to bestow 20XP upon a unit. I especially enjoy creating units of doom. My record is a 400XP unit with Cyrus of Persia (Charismatic and Imperialistic), but that was on Prince difficulty in a random game with a real nice start. One option was to build the super Chariot Medic. 20XP would get our current Medic I Chariot to Medic III for ultra fast healing. The other option was to use it more offensively in the hopes of creating an unstoppable juggernaut. The problem is that Praetorians, as great as they are, move really really slowly. Also, when trying to create the Warlord unit of doom, the Combat route is better than the City Raider route since you get Blitz and Commando. Of course, now I remember that in BTS, Blitz requires the new Military Science research, as does Commando. I’m pretty sure that in Warlords, you could get them at any point in the game with the proper prerequisite promotions. One thing that I am finding out is that by typing up parts of this report as I play, I tend to think things through a lot more than I would otherwise. So the current plan is to build a Chariot Medic III unit for fast healing support.

Our troops march onwards to Pusan.


Pusan is razed in 450 BC. Ragnar is willing to give away all his techs in exchange for peace. We could trade the other civs for the same techs, but given that the Alphabet is our only trade bait, I would rather hold onto it in the hopes of getting something more significant. We make “peace” with Ragnar, knowing that he is not long for this world.

We upgrade the 6XP Chariot to Medic III and Morale (+1 Movement Range). This unit will never fight so will never see any more XP. The extra movement is better than all of the other promotions for a healing unit.



Rome completes the Pyramids in 375 BC. We don’t immediately switch to Representation due to the higher upkeep. We have no Great People so the science bonus is meaningless right now. I plan to switch as soon as one of our cities would reach the happiness cap. Having picked up Ivory with the conquest of Seoul, we have a little extra room to grow before the switch.

375 BC also saw the birth of St Patrick, a Great Prophet… Hmmm, I guess he must of prophesized a lot about how cool it was to dress up like a leprechaun and drink till you fell down.



We haven’t founded any religions so we can’t use the Great Prophet to build a Shrine, so that leaves joining a city or bulbing something useful. Currently, the Great Prophet will bulb Meditation, but that’s a cheap tech and both Hat and Wang have it, so we will be able to trade for it eventually. It’s time to look up the Great Person cheat-sheet: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=140952.

After Meditation down the list is Polytheism. Hat has it, but won’t trade it right now. But I’m sure she will eventually. Priesthood is next and I know Wang has it since he built the Oracle pretty early on. After that is Monotheism which someone has since Judaism was founded in 2040 BC. Based on what I can see, it’s either Hat or Wang which are the two civs furthest away. Theology is next on the Great Prophet bulb list. I don’t have any of the prereqs yet, but I will if I trade for the other stuff higher up. But is it really worth waiting that long to found Christianity?? Probably not since it’s only a 690 beaker tech. It’s possible I could trade it to Wang for Metal Casing, but I just don’t know whether that is even possible. For starters, whoever got Monotheism could go religion happy and research it. I am not familiar enough with the AIs to predict what they are likely to research. In the end, St Patrick heads towards Antium to found the James Joyce pub. I picked Antium since it would have higher commerce down the road, especially once the Dyes were hooked up. In hindsight, I have no idea why I ever even considered founding Christianity. It would also have been better for St Patrick to join Rome rather than Antium.

In 350 BC, the Venerable Bede proclaims that Toku is the largest civilization with our Roman empire coming in second. Wow. Ok, I see how it is.

In 325 BC we are at a crossroads. We still have 5 more turns before we can finish off Ragnar. And we’ve been trying to develop out research with Libraries since the end of the great Korean war. No one likes Toku except Ragnar (and I could not care less about his feelings). Poverty Point is not far from Seoul where the bulk of our now fully healed Praetorians are stationed. There are many troops there, but I doubt the city would last more than 1 turn. But for some reason, we can’t declare war on him. WTF! Apparently, us giving him Cows as tribute set up a peace deal that we cannot cancel. I accepted at the time since no one else needed Cows so I figured we might as well try to make Toku happy. I thought for sure that such a demand would prevent *him* from declaring war for 10 turns, but would not affect me. Oh well… live and learn.

In 275 BC we revolt to Representation and Slavery now that we plan to start whipping. The extra upkeep is only 2 gpt. We can also see that Wang is researching the Alphabet since he will no longer trade us Math+Poly for it. In fact we cannot even get Math+Med for it. That’s ok since Hat will trade Med, and has Poly which she will eventually trade I am sure. Time to trade for Math which we had spent some research in already, and switch to Currency.


War with Native America
In 225 BC when the stupid Cows for Peace deal expires, we declare war on Toku. As our forces approach Hookers at the Point… errr… I mean Poverty Point, Toku decides to throw his forces onto our Praetorians. He loses 5 units to our 1 Praetorian. Considering this city is on a hill, that offensive slaughter didn’t make very much sense at all.





In 125 BC, Poverty Point is razed. Our economy is hurting and that city was just too close to Seoul to be worthwhile.



In 25 BC, we make peace with Toku since his other cities would take a while to get to and we would rather finish off Ragnar who is much closer. So we once again declare war on Ragnar to put him out of his misery. Namp’o is razed in 1 AD to celebrate the new millennium.



A second Great General emerges. I’m debating whether to have him join a city as a Great Military instructor or whether to add 20XP to one of our veteran Praetorians. We don’t have the Heroic Epic of course since we haven’t gone anywhere near Literature. I haven’t really thought about which town would be a good military producer yet. Rome is far and away the hammer producing leader right now, but Cumae and Seoul both have decent potential. On the Praetorian side, our most experienced unit has 18XP, adding another 20XP would allow it to reach Rank 6 (37 XP), giving it an additional two promotions. But those promotions would pretty much have to be one extra level of Combat and most likely Morale. I’m not convinced Morale is that great on a Praetorian since we can’t have him out all alone. I opt to turn Seoul into the military production center and have the Military Instructor join the city. Seoul is also much closer to the front lines so that seems like a good choice. In hindsight, that was the best choice. Seoul would grow into a very nice city would good production.

Hinduism spreads to Seoul and P’yongyang in 25 AD. At least one of those appears to be the work of Missionaries from Hat. We don’t have Organized Religion yet so no reason to convert. Hat and Toku are both Hindu, and Wang is Buddhist. Since Hat and Wang are the furthest away, I would rather stay on decent terms with them so as to allow for some tech trades. Toku is next on our hit list so I really don’t care what he thinks. Besides, he already hates us from our earlier short-lived war.

Here is the satellite view in 25 AD.


Wonsan, Ragnar’s last city, will fall shortly. But before we take it, we need to decide whether we want to keep it or raze it. To break even, we would need to lower research to about 40%. I feel it’s safer not to risk over expanding at this point, so I decide to raze it.

In 100 AD, Toku decides to be a douche and re-settles just northwest of Seoul stealing the Copper. We’ve razed the previous two cities on that very same site. The rubble is probably still simmering. What makes him think we won’t do it again?



Praetorians are going to be the best unit we have on offense for quite a while. But we will need Catapults to make any progress on the older fortified cities. Construction is still two turns away since Wang doesn’t want to trade it away just yet.

I now notice that Hat is not only trying to spread Hinduism, but Judaism as well. Not really sure what that’s about.

Hat was the first to switch to Hereditary Rule in 150 BC. Wang follows the next turn, and Toku a couple of turns after that. It’s probably time to trade Mathematics to Hat for Meditation, Priesthood and some loose change. We’ll still have plenty of trade bait (Alphabet, Currency, Calendar, and the incoming Construction).

Hat spreads Hinduism to Rome in 150 AD. Rome was working on an Aqueduct and I was thinking of building the Hanging Gardens as well. With the 25% bonus from the Forum, an extra useful Wonder would work well. The Hanging Gardens will also make it more likely for a Great Engineer with the Pyramids rather than getting another (not as useful) Great Prophet.

Construction is also discovered in 150 AD. Wang still won’t trade Metal Casing, or anything else for that matter. He’s had that tech forever, but wants to hold onto it just a little longer I guess. So the question is what to go for next. I’m really not sure. I’d like to get Metal Casing, but I know that as soon as I get close, Wang will just trade it away leaving us with less trade potential. Another option is to research Code of Laws to get to Civil Service for Bureaucracy. Code of Laws will also give us Courthouses which will become important to keep out economy afloat as we expand into Toku’s turf. I also plan on moving the capitol from Rome to Antium later on. Once the other civs get Macemen, our Praetorians won’t be so hot anymore and we will probably need to tech up some before we can go back to taking over the world. In hindsight, that last prediction was off. CR3 Praetorians with Shock still do great work against Macemen.

We trade Currency to Hat for Monarchy and Monotheism. We need the latter to switch to Organized Religion.

When Rome completes the Aqueduct, I consider several options: Hanging Gardens, Moai Statues, Hindu Missionary, or military. There’s no better city for the Moai Statues than Rome, so we will build it there eventually. I’m really worried about completing the Hanging Gardens in time. If we had researched Mathematics before the Alphabet we could have pulled it off for sure, but Wang has had Mathematics for a really long time so I suspect he is working on it (he’s been pretty Wonder-happy this game). We are already over the military cap, so we are paying unit costs as it is. We will need more military soon, but we can probably spare a couple of turns. The Missionary can probably wait as well. The 25% bonus from Organized Religion only applies to buildings and not military so it’s not an immediate benefit. In the end, I opt for the Moai Statues. As it turns out, Wang would build the Hanging Gardens in 225 AD so I am more confident in my decision with hindsight.

In 225 AD, we declare war on Toku once more. Our forces are split with half heading towards the poorly defended city of Snaketown northwest of Seoul, and the other half advancing from P’yongyang. This greatly reduces the risk of getting “back-doored” from that side.

In 250 AD, we discover Code of Laws and Christianity is founded in a distant land. The trade screen reveals that both Hat and Wang have it, but Hat still wants the same techs as last turn (and doesn’t have anything else that we don’t have). I don’t see how either one could have traded it to the other. The relations between the two show that it wasn’t gifted, so not sure what happened. I guess it’s possible that they both independently researched it on their own. That would be good since Wang is at least a couple of techs ahead, if not more.

Wang also spread Buddhism in Seoul and all of a sudden I smell Apostolic Palace horseshit coming up.

Chaco Canyon is taken in 400 AD. It has access to Rice and Iron and a bunch of forest tiles. Not a horrible location for a city. I am very concerned about crashing our economy, but at this point Wang has Feudalism, so Hat is very likely to get it before we can finish off Toku, heal up, and redeploy all our forces on the western front.

A turn later, Seoul’s water gets poisoned. All evidence points towards Toku. Hard to imagine that he could be so angry as to hurt the innocent people of Seoul. We switch production to an Aqueduct and whip it the next turn. We had a couple of unhappy people anyway due to the war, so the poisoning was relatively harmless, but it would not go unpunished.


Medieval Era
Civil Service arrives in 475 AD. The people rise up and demand shorter hours and an expanding bureaucracy. Finally a tech that Wang doesn’t have. Although I’m not terribly eager to trade it to him just yet. As it turns out, we would never trade with Wang.

The Native American capitol, Cahokia, is on a hill. There are only 2 Archers and 1 Chariot defending it at this point, but that will still require sacrificing quite a few units to push through. Our most promoted Praetorian with CR3 and C2 aren’t even breaking 50% (but I just realized that some units were not fully healed, so I will wait while the Medic III Warlord fixes that), and I’m certainly not going to take a chance with those odds. We have some noobie Praetorians coming in that will soak the initial blow and pave the way for the veteran units.

In technology news, several thousand years after the discovery of Metal Casing, Wang thinks it’s still way too early to start trading it. Metal Casing is a prerequisite for Future Tech I guess. I’m starting to wonder if Wang will ever trade a technology that he has a monopoly on. Probably not. On the bright side, it looks like Hat is getting the same treatment from Wang so there’s a chance I will be able to get to her before she can easily repel Cats and Praetorians. I doubt I will be able to finish her off, but we should be able to take over or raze some of the outlying cities.

After Civil Service I wasn’t sure what to research, I set it Paper without really thinking about it. The turn after I realize that I should probably give it a little thought. I can get Horseback riding from Hat. Aesthetics, Compass, Theology and Feudalism don’t have much to offer. That leaves Philosophy, Paper, and Metal Casing. Since I don’t have access to Gold, Silver, or Gems, so the Forge is not as nice as it might otherwise be. I would love to get Engineering for the Road Movement bonus if nothing else; Notre Dame is also a great wonder, and one that we can build more quickly with Stone. But Engineering is going to take Metal Casing and then Machinery, so it’s still a ways off. I am gaining a lot of respect for the players who can plan their Great People production to line up with their research objectives long in advance. I’m currently employing the “just-in-time” research model. Not quite as effective.

So let’s examine the two options a little more closely. Paper (6) to Education (23) to Philosophy (9) to Liberalism (1 for the Nationalism slingshot. The research turns are using our current research numbers and not some sort of projection. This plan ends with Military Tradition and Gunpowder for Cuirassiers perhaps turning into Cavalry before the game ends. One assumption here is that Hat will research some of the techs that lead up to Gunpowder. Otherwise, it will take forever to get there, even with the Universities that will come pretty soon with this approach.

The other option is Metal Casing (5) to Machinery (9) to Engineering (11). This is more of a short term plan, but it would certainly allow us to get to Gunpowder a lot faster. The bad news is that Praetorians can’t upgrade into Musketmen, only Macemen, Grenadiers and Riflemen. Since BTS, Grenadiers are no longer obtainable with Chemistry, but rather Military Science. Hmmm… I think the safer, albeit slower, route is going the Liberalism slingshot path. But this game is supposed to be about speed. So off to Metal Casing we go. I make a note of this as a pivotal moment in the game. I might come back and replay the other outcome depending on how this one pans out. With hindsight, this was the better approach; the game ended long before Cuirassiers would have been possible.

Sure enough, Wang builds the Apostolic Palace (Buddhist) in 500 AD. On the next turn, we can vote for Wang or abstain. Tough call. I wonder who will win.

Cahokia falls in 520 AD, and a third Great General emerges conveniently in Seoul, our military headquarters. Toku has one city left, northwest of Cahokia in uncharted territory. Time to heal up and get this long war over with… at least until the next war.

We discover Metal Casing in 560 AD, and much to my surprise, Wang does not have Machinery. He’s had Feudalism and Aesthetics for a while though. So he either went down the Lit/Drama path or Guilds. Guess we’ll find out later.

The defense at Mound City, Toku’s last holdout, isn’t too bad. We have Cats there to get rid of the defenses before we head in. We also have 4 more veteran Praetorians that will be there in time to raze the city. It’s too close to Cahokia to be a worthwhile city, not to mention that it’s incredibly far from our capitol. With hindsight, I probably should have kept this city. Towards the end of the game, I would send a Settler there just to grab the real estate necessary for a Domination victory.



The war with Toku is really starting to take effect on the populace. Fortunately, it should be over in two more turns. That will give us time to get the defenses of Mound City to 0% and then we will have 6 veteran fully healed Praetorians to burn it to the ground.

Apparently Wang needs help, since he asks for Civil Service. Ummm, how about no? If you refuse to trade your techs, don’t expect me to just give mine away. So now he refuses to trade techs because he just doesn’t like us enough. Not like he was going to trade us anything useful anyways. Wang also completes the Statue of Zeus that same turn. +100% War Weariness is going to suck, but at least we don’t have to worry about it for a while. It’s also unclear how much of Wang’s turf we will need to take to pull off a Domination victory. There’s still some open territory due north of Rome that we never bothered settling. We could always send a couple of Settlers up there late game to grab the extra real estate needed to hit the 64% Domination victory condition.

In 620 AD, with the Native American empire wiped out, happiness returns to the Roman empire. That same year a great Prophet is born to help celebrate the conquest. The next two techs that a Great Prophet can bulb are Theology and Divine Right. So we go with the same plan as before, and send the Prophet to join Antium which will be at 39 commerce with the new resident.



Hat can trade Aesthetics in 640 AD, so I can only assume that is the tech she has been researching. She’s horribly behind having spent the majority of the game researching religion and art. I guess she didn’t get the memo that this was a turbo smackdown kind of affair. Oh well… live and learn. Or not.

Machinery is discovered in 720 AD; the same year, Taoism is founded in a distant land. It was almost certainly founded by Wang since Hat doesn’t have Code of Laws and only recently obtained Aesthetics (which leads to Drama which can also unlock Philosophy). Sure enough, the Trade screen (Foreign Advisor) reveals that Wang is guilty of researching peaceful techs in a very non-peaceful world. I’m sure the end game would be a lot different with some more aggressive play from our friends on the west coast of the continent.


War with Arabia
In 740 AD, I am ready for war with Hat. As a show of good faith, we trade her Code of Laws, Alphabet (yes, Alphabet) and 5g for Horseback riding and Aesthetics. I doubt we will need either, but it’s not like she can get any use out of the techs we trade her either. And on the off chance that this game drags out for a while, we can research Drama to help out with war weariness and the Horseback Riding could theoretically come into play much later in the game (with Military Tradition for Cuirassiers and/or Cavalry). I doubt it will come to that, but this trade can’t hurt.

Here is the satellite view in 740 AD.


Our forces are split in a northern group that will attack Kufah, and a southern one that will attack Najran. Here are the Kufah expedition and the city defenses.



Here are the Najran dispatch and the city defenses.



In 760 AD, the Arabian (yes, Hat is Arabian; well at least that makes more sense than some of the other pairings) cities of Kufah and Najran get blown away with ease. I guess I had overestimated how quickly Hat would get Longbows. In unrelated Tech News, both Hat and Wang now have access to Drama Dancing Revolution. Once again, I have no idea how a trade could have happened. Their relationship is “Cautious” and Wang doesn’t seem to have given anything for it. There’s no way that Wang researched and traded it to Hat for nothing. Or is there? I have no idea, but I have a lot to learn about how the AIs handle tech trades amongst themselves.



I notice that Hat has learned of the well written word and Literature in 820 AD. When under attack by overwhelming forces, it is usually best to bury oneself in religion and literature. Wang could be working on Guilds or Nationalism since he researched Civil Service all by his lonesome.

In 840 AD, the spy power of Courthouses reveals that Wang is working on Divine Right. Woohoo! I should know what Hat is up to in a turn or two, but at this point, it hardly matters. 840 AD is also the year that the glorious Roman Empire is enlightened by Engineering.

Islam is founded in 880 AD by Wang according to the Spy report. Looking back at the log, it looks like Wang also discovered Music in 820 AD to score Johannes Vermeer, a Great Artist. By the way, whatever happened to the Vermeer heist this past year? Vermeer was certainly one of the great artists of his time.

Notre Dame is built in 940 AD in Rome, not Ile de la Cité as Wikipedia would have you believe. In Spy vs Spy news, we can now see that Wang is researching Machinery (2) and Hat is researching Feudalism (13). Bad news for Hat, Mecca and Baghdad will soon fall. Those Longbowmen will be several centuries too late. I’m actually planning on making peace with Hat after I leave her with only one city in order to extort Drama and Literature from her. Baghdad, the birthplace of Christianity (ironic, I know) does fall that same year.

The Roman armies converge towards Mecca. The siege will be short lived.


Mecca, the Arabian capitol, is captured in 960 AD. This lovely city comes fully equipped with Kashi Vishwanath, one Great Wall, and Scotland Yard! After wondering how in the world Hat has Communism already, I recall that in BTS, Scotland yard is a unique building from the Great Spy that emanated from the Great Wall.


An unhappy looking Hatsheput agrees to peace in exchange for Literature, Drama, and Theology. Sounds like a pretty good deal. In that deal, Hat also agrees to become our Vassal. That spares us having to take her last city; a crappy desert city at that. And as an added bonus, half of Hat’s territory will count towards our Domination victory objective.


Here is the satellite view in 960 AD after peace with Arabia.


You can see that Antium is working on the Forbidden Palace. I meant to build a Palace, but then decided against it. I didn’t actually notice this mistake until I took that screenshot. I never did build a Forbidden Palace although perhaps should have in some place like Cahokia.

Incidentally, purging the continent of Hat and her Arabian ilk proved to be a lot easier than Toku and his Native American pets. Those Dog Soldiers are not to be trifled with.

Time to check on victory conditions again. We are now at 65% of population (57% required) and 39% of land area (64% required). So we are still a ways off. Our newly conquered cities will expand once they stop revolting, but that won’t be nearly enough. We will need to strike Wang, and we will need to expand in the currently unoccupied northeastern territories.

In 980 AD, the spy network reveals that Wang just started working on Guilds and will need 6 turns to complete that research.

We discover Guilds in 1060 AD, same year as Wang. For the past several turns, we’ve been focusing on infrastructure. We’ve also built some Spies to scope out the nearby Babylonian cities (Wang is Babylonian in case that was not previously mentioned). We’ve also taken the time to build the Great Library in Rome and are now working on the Hagia Sophia since there are a lot of Workers cleaning up around the old Arabian cities. Rome is so far from the front lines that any troops coming from there would take a long time to reach their destination. Rome is still the capitol so it is producing those Wonders rather quickly. If this were a longer game, I would eventually switch to Antium as the capitol, but it isn’t going to happen here, I finally realize.


War with Babylon
War is declared on Wang in 1080 AD. Angle is captured the next year without much resistance. We will only have enough troops to capture two or three more cities. I’m not sure if that will be enough. We don’t have many reinforcements on their way although we are building a couple Knights. I’m hoping that the 4 Settlers we’ve built will be enough to reach the 64% land area target.



Sippar falls in 1100 AD with only one casualty; it was only defended with 1 Longbowmen and 1 Macemen.



A third Great Prophet is born in 1110 AD in Rome. In hindsight, I should have settled all the Great Prophets in Rome because of the Bureaucracy boost. My long term plan of having Antium as the commerce center of the world was not going to come to fruition. It might have been a good plan in a long game, but it was suboptimal in this case. Joining a city at this late stage in the game is hardly worth so instead, we use the Great Prophet to start a Golden Age.

Borsippa falls in 1120 AD with a Longbowmen being the only worthwhile defense. Swords and Spears are really not cutting it right now.

In 1140 AD, we had lots of little cities everywhere. We settled 6 new cities just to gobble up the rest of the territory. I finally remembered to increase the Culture slider. So next turn, they will all get their first border pop.

Here are the northern settlements.



Domination Victory in 1150 AD
Sure enough, a Domination victory is scored in 1150 AD with 74.5% percent of the land area (68% was required). I should have cranked up the Culture earlier. I imagine that a Domination victory could also have been achieved without ever going to war with Wang. We could have saved maybe 5 to 10 turns by settling more quickly, and maybe just taking the 2 eastern most cities from the Babylonians if needed.


Here is the satellite view of the world when the game ended in 1150 AD.


The power graph looks pretty much as expected.


The kill statistics show 226 units killed, but that may included a handful of Barbs.


Ignore the time played on the Statistics info screen. I leave my gaming machine on all the time, so the 17 hours played is not indicative of how long the game actually took. I’m not really sure how long it took.


Conclusion
Babylon had built 10 Wonders during the course of the game! We were definitely not playing the same game. The starting location for Babylon was chock full of good resources: Fish, Clam, Cow, Horse, Gold, and Iron.

Time to look back and reflect on what was well done and what could have been done a lot better. Obviously, the Domination victory could have been achieved earlier as noted above. I later went back and started from the save in 960 AD after Hat’s capitulation. I was able to win in 1070 AD without war, and could have done it a turn sooner with just slightly better planning (i.e., with an actual plan rather than just sending random settlers around). So the Domination victory could have been obtained 9 turns sooner than what I managed to accomplish.

Looking back at other ways to shave of a couple turns on the victory, there were a few more things that could have gone differently. I probably should have kept a few more cities rather than razing them. I could have killed Ragnar outright without negotiating peace and coming back to him later. My war against Toku could have been planned a little better such that I would not have to declare war on him twice. Giving Cow tribute to Toku (which in turn prevented me from attacking him when I would have liked) was just plain dumb, especially since his friendship meant nothing as I planned to attack him soon anyway. All in all, I think the early game went very well, but I stagnated a little in the middle.

Trying for a Liberalism slingshot would have accomplished very little; there’s no way I would have gotten much past Education before the game ended. All we’d have is a couple of nice universities for our troubles. I had also thought that I would need another unit besides the Praetorian to win. I really didn’t think that Hat would get steamrolled so easily. I was really expecting to face a lot of Longbowmen, but instead went up against Classical era units.

Settling the Great Prophets in Antium rather than the capitol was a mistake. Bureaucracy would magnify both the commerce and hammers from the Great Prophet. Thinking that the game would last long enough for Oxford University and possible Wall Street to outweigh the Bureaucracy benefits was a mistake.

The special ability of the Forum (Market Unique Building) did little during this game. I guess there would have been one less Great Prophet without it, but this was not a GP Farm type of game. Rome was the only city to ever produce a Great Person.

On a related note, I probably should not have researched Currency as early as I did. The Forum’s special ability turned out to be irrelevant this game, and we did not need the happiness quite that early since we were running Representation. It’s hard to say how much the “+1 trade route per city” impacted the game. If I were to play it again, I would research Mathematics before the Alphabet, and probably Construction after that. Construction might even come ahead of the Alphabet, although getting to Organized Religion after Hat had spread Hinduism was nice.

Contrary to my fears, the Apostolic Palace did nothing this game. After Wang built it, he voted himself in, but no resolutions were ever proposed. He didn’t like Hat all that much since they were of different religions. As a result, Wang never tried to get us to call off the war on Arabia. That could also be because the war didn’t last all that long. It appears to me that the AI civs are much more willing to talk peace in BTS than they were in Warlords. I remember many games in the past where I had to wait a long time before an AI at war would even be willing to talk to me.

I’m not sure if I should have founded more cities, and if so, when would have been a good time to do that. I basically left the northeastern part of the map untouched until the very end of the game. There were no great spots up there so I never felt like I had a strong incentive to expand there. I will be curious to read what other people did in terms of city expansion.

After Hat’s capitulation, I should have immediately tried to settle all the remaining territory rather than strengthening the economy. Building the Great Library in Rome was somewhat silly given that I would turn off research after Guilds when I realized the game would be over before Gunpowder. And to think that my plan had been to get all the way to Military Science for Grenadiers. I was way off base there. Building the Hagia Sophia was also a waste of time. It would have been great if the game was going to go on for a while, but that wasn’t the case here.

Scoring wise, I had many Rank 6 units, but none that reached the 50 XP for Rank 7. I could have used the third Great General for the extra rank but didn’t bother. As was pointed out on the forums, the scoring system was a little wacky so I don’t pay any attention to it.

Wow, that took a long time to write up; and that’s despite having taken a ton of notes along the way. And to think some of the people here have been doing this for a long time. Any feedback on this report would also be greatly appreciated since it is my first one. It’s probably too long so I will have to work on being more concise in the future and focus on the most important stuff. I look forward to reading everyone’s reports!

As a closing remark, I just wanted to say that I just finished reading RB29d and I have to say that is probably one of the greatest Civ4 games ever played. Yeah, I know… I’ve got a ton of old reports to read still.


Appendix: Alternate Strategy
After thinking about it the next day, I felt like my research order was pretty poor. After Writing, I had researched: Alphabet → Mathematics (partial, then acquired in a trade) → Currency → Calendar (having traded for Sailing) → Construction → Code of Laws → Civil Service → Metal Casing → Machinery → Engineering → Guilds. Guilds turned out to be a complete waste of time since I only ever built one or two Grocers, didn’t have any Workshops, and the handful of Knights that I did build arrived too late to do any good. Engineering did give the Road Movement bonus which was nice, but by that point in the game, I would only need to conquer most of Hat’s territories (and finish patching the open real estate with Settlers) to achieve a Domination victory. Trebuchets weren’t needed since we had plenty of Cats (which can’t even be upgraded into Trebs). Engineering did allow us to build Notre Dame though. That was useful during the war with Arabia, although cranking up the culture slider (with Coliseums since I did not yet have Drama for Theatres) could have accomplished the same thing. Machinery provided Windmills that I only built a few of, and Watermills that I did not use. Machinery also allowed me to upgrade the Praetorians to Macemen, but that was also not really required. Metal Casing allowed for Forges which would in turn help with the war effort. It would also provide one extra happiness once Gold was acquired. I could have expanded north of Rome at pretty much any point in the game to hook that resource.

I was now formulating a new plan that would not involve anything past Metal Casing. That would allow me to turn off research much earlier and allow me to support a much larger empire. That in turn meant expanding much sooner to the northeastern territories, and also keeping more of the marginal enemy cities. I would also research Mathematics before Alphabet to get the chopping bonus sooner (I had deferred some chopping during this stage in the game). Knowing now that AI civs will not trade monopoly techs (I think I read that in a report very recently), getting the Alphabet as early would not be very important. It’s possible I could skip it entirely and have Wang or Hat offer it up once they both knew it. But even if that never happened, I could always research it quickly before signing any peace deals if there were any techs I wanted to extort.

Everything is in the timing. One thing I had not originally realized is that Seoul is on a Hill. I hadn’t noticed this the first time around since it was lightly defended and quickly taken. This game went very differently with a huge stack of Shock enabled Axemen (+25% vs Melee) on a hill (+25%) with a 40% culture defense bonus. All of a sudden, things didn’t look so hot anymore.

The big difference was that I had attacked earlier, prior to Ragnar settling another city (bringing along forces for defense). That dramatically changed the military landscape. This particular scenario would require Catapults. That wasn’t a big issue since I had started to research Construction after Mathematics, but it would delay the capture of Seoul.

Researching Currency as early as I did may not have been such a bad thing after all. In this second offspring game that I played, I ran into serious economic problems, having to run research between 10 and 20% for a long time. Tech trading was also very different in this alternate universe since Hat ended up picking up most of my “trade bait” techs from Wang.

Here are some of the things that were different this time around: research went much slower (as expected since we expanded more and kept more cities), Hat expanded more (so the war with her proved a lot trickier), the little tech trading that was done with AIs was different. I was really surprised by how differently the tech situation played out.

In hindsight, I probably did not need Construction at all. The Calendar resources provided enough happiness, and extra Praetorians could have taken the place of the Catapults that I built. Not losing movement when going across a river is nice, but not game breaking. Getting to Code of Laws faster would have made for a better economy much earlier. In this alternate reality game, I no longer needed to tech by the time my economy stabilized (when I hit Civil Service for Bureaucracy) which seemed like a waste.

I accomplished a Domination victory in 940 AD, 10 turns earlier than in my previous trial (the earlier reload where I optimized the end game after Hat’s capitulation). I am now done with this adventure. I had a lot of fun and learned a lot. I expect to learn even more by reading other people’s reports. Thanks to Atlas for sponsoring this event!

[Atlas]

Great First Report Muaziz and welcome to RB (in case no one has said that yet) !

You had a well played game. So a few comments:

Originally Posted by Muaziz

Decisions like Bronze Working vs Pottery are not always obvious

A general comment- BW should probably come before Pottery in like 95% of games. The exception being a game where you research Animal Husbandry first + find horses in the Capital, are playing Monarch or less and don't plan on really early aggression. Otherwise you NEED to know where Copper is and REALLY need to be whipping. On a side note I will almost always research Pottery before Iron Working b/c it is such an expensive tech that it really helps to have a cottage or two helping it along.

Chariots rock for barb defense, no doubt about it (especially if you can clean up some warriors and get the Sentry (visibility Promotion on some of them)).

Originally Posted by Muaziz

I had a Scout pop the only hut I would find this game. It taught us the ancient secrets of Mysticism.

Nicely done since I deleted all the huts even remotely close to the player since in a test game I pope Bronze Working from one, but I wanted the AI to have a go at them and see what they could get.

Currency is an awesome tech for fixing your economy, but not for Markets, try building wealth in a city or two the next time you have sunk your economy taking over a neighbor you will be shocked how much that helps

You won't see this often (and I think you would agree with me), but you planned too long term in this game. Your thought/decision-making process was better suited to game that you planned on taking into the Industrial or Modern Eras. In most games this planning process will put in good stead for the final outcome, but this game was an exception

Originally Posted by Muaziz

Any feedback on this report would also be greatly appreciated since it is my first one. It’s probably too long so I will have to work on being more concise in the future and focus on the most important stuff.

Your report was good, I liked how you outlined your decision making process, but A picture is worth a 1000 words , you could use more pics and you should resize your pics since they are too big (I use Paint and resize to 75%).

[Dreylin]

Hey, good game and good first report - enjoyed it. I'm sure you'll find your style evolving over the next few reports until you hit a groove (I know I did ... when I actually finish a report! )

Just wanted to point out one thing:

Originally Posted by Muaziz

Bureaucracy would magnify both the commerce and hammers from the Great Prophet.

The Great Prophets actually generate Gold, not commerce ... thus it is directly affected by Markets, etc. but not by Bureaucracy, which targets the raw commerce.

Enjoyed reading!

Dreylin

[DaveV]

Originally Posted by Muaziz

I imagine that a Domination victory could also have been achieved without ever going to war with Wang.

(raises hand)
But I was two turns slower to victory than you, probably because I was so much slower to Iron Working.

[Sullla]

That was a really well-done report, Muaziz, going in detail through your thought process at every step of the game. I also enjoyed many of the deadpan comments scattered throughout the text. You may want to concentrate more on the "big" decisions in future reports, to avoid getting bogged down in the details. But I wouldn't worry, as you'll find your report style and only get better with more practice.

Much as I likely would have done, you ended up building a lot of nice peaceful stuff (wonders, city improvements) that our super-aggressors uberfish and sooooo ignored entirely. I enjoyed contrasting your very different types of games. In the end, you usually can conquer a Tiny or even Small map with nothing more than mass Praetorians.

Also, one quick tip for the endgame: when needing to expand borders in new cities, you can pop into Caste System and run a forced Artist specialist. For a Spiritual civ like Montezuma, that will often expand borders faster than using the culture slider in immature cities with little commerce. Thanks for such a fine report!

[Muaziz]

Originally Posted by Atlas

A general comment- BW should probably come before Pottery in like 95% of games. The exception being a game where you research Animal Husbandry first + find horses in the Capital, are playing Monarch or less and don't plan on really early aggression. Otherwise you NEED to know where Copper is and REALLY need to be whipping.

I've become a big fan of whipping, but I have a hard time whipping when I am working a Clam, a Cow, a Horse, and a Stone. More generally, if I am working only quality tiles, and I am at the happiness cap, I probably don't whip when I should.

Originally Posted by Atlas

On a side note I will almost always research Pottery before Iron Working b/c it is such an expensive tech that it really helps to have a cottage or two helping it along.

That's what I did in my last two games, and it seemed to work well.

Originally Posted by Atlas

Chariots rock for barb defense, no doubt about it (especially if you can clean up some warriors and get the Sentry (visibility Promotion on some of them)).

I hadn't thought about using them with Visibility. Especially useful in cases where you want them for fog busting.

Originally Posted by Atlas

Currency is an awesome tech for fixing your economy, but not for Markets, try building wealth in a city or two the next time you have sunk your economy taking over a neighbor you will be shocked how much that helps.

I had never thought of doing that. I have always avoided Currency unless I had nothing important to build. But that's a very useful tip and something I will keep in mind for the future.

Originally Posted by Atlas

You won't see this often (and I think you would agree with me), but you planned too long term in this game. Your thought/decision-making process was better suited to game that you planned on taking into the Industrial or Modern Eras. In most games this planning process will put in good stead for the final outcome, but this game was an exception

Agreed. I just hadn't imagined that the game would play out as quickly as it did. I guess that's what Aggressive Praets on a small map will do. I've never played a game that was anything like this.

Originally Posted by Atlas

A picture is worth a 1000 words , you could use more pics and you should resize your pics since they are too big (I use Paint and resize to 75%).

I took the time to crop a lot of pics to keep the size down. What's a good size for a full screen pic. I play in 1600x1200, and Photobucket resizes all images to a max size of 1024x768. Is 800x600 a good size? That would be a quarter of the original size, and about 61% of the current size.

Originally Posted by Dreylin

Hey, good game and good first report - enjoyed it. I'm sure you'll find your style evolving over the next few reports until you hit a groove (I know I did ... when I actually finish a report! )

Yeah, I need to work on keeping reports a little more manageable. Since I wrote it as I went along, I didn't pay too much attention to the length. But when I went back to edit and add the image links, I realized it was quite an unwieldy mess. As my jr high school History professor once said "please forgive me, I did not have the time to be brief". Incidentally, this is the only thing I remember from that class.

Originally Posted by Dreylin

Just wanted to point out one thing: The Great Prophets actually generate Gold, not commerce ... thus it is directly affected by Markets, etc. but not by Bureaucracy, which targets the raw commerce.

Funny you should mention that since I actually noticed that in my Adv 24 game and made a special point about it since I did not know.

Originally Posted by DaveV

But I was two turns slower to victory than you

And we were both almost 100 turns slower than Sooooo. Yikes!

Originally Posted by Sullla

You may want to concentrate more on the "big" decisions in future reports, to avoid getting bogged down in the details.

Agreed. I'm working on my Epic 14 report right now and trying to take out all the boring parts.

Originally Posted by Sullla

Much as I likely would have done, you ended up building a lot of nice peaceful stuff (wonders, city improvements) that our super-aggressors uberfish and sooooo ignored entirely.

I was amazed at how quickly they were able to win. I thought I had won pretty quickly. At least for me.

Having never played a game like this, I played this more like a normal game, just with a much heavier troop buildup and concentration on military. But I also kept the longer term in mind. The last thing I wanted to have happen is to get halfway through the game and have my economy completely tank and my progress completely halted.

Originally Posted by Sullla

In the end, you usually can conquer a Tiny or even Small map with nothing more than mass Praetorians.

I normally play on larger maps, so did not even know if was possible to conquer everyone with just Praets.

Originally Posted by Sullla

Also, one quick tip for the endgame: when needing to expand borders in new cities, you can pop into Caste System and run a forced Artist specialist. For a Spiritual civ like Montezuma, that will often expand borders faster than using the culture slider in immature cities with little commerce.

In the game reload that I replayed at the end, I ended up doing this and realized it was in fact a much better way to go.

Thanks again for the feedback. I really appreciate it.

[Ruff_Hi]

Originally Posted by Muaziz

I took the time to crop a lot of pics to keep the size down. What's a good size for a full screen pic. I play in 1600x1200, and Photobucket resizes all images to a max size of 1024x768. Is 800x600 a good size? That would be a quarter of the original size, and about 61% of the current size.

I did some experimenting and found that 860 wide is as wide as a normal display will let you go with forum posts.

[Muaziz]

Originally Posted by Ruff_Hi

I did some experimenting and found that 860 wide is as wide as a normal display will let you go with forum posts.

What is "normal display" by today's standards? Of all my machines, the lowest resolution I run is 1400x1050 and that's on my work laptop (ThinkPad T60p which has a 15.2" TFT display). It's hard to find anyone selling monitors that are less than 17". Maybe I just like the higher res so I can have more crap on my screen.

[Kylearan]

Hi,

great report Muaziz, and welcome to RB! I for one liked your detailed notes about your decision process. In fact, I like both types of report: The "big bicture" reports for the long-term strategies and meta-game thoughts, and the detailed reports like yours to discuss micro issues. Since more and more people here, including me, are shifting towards the big picture reports, I'm glad there are still people left who write detailed reports.

Originally Posted by Muaziz

I was not too thrilled with settling on the opening spot with our Settler. For starters, I really don’t like wasting the resource benefits by settling on top of a resource.

You're right normally, but as can be seen by sooooo and others, some games are just not meant to last long enough so that the long-term effects outweigh the short-term benefits of settling on the stone.

This is where my lack of experience really hurts. I really don’t have a good feel for how much I can expand in the early game without our economy tanking.

As a rule of thumb, if I can afford 40% research or more, I consider my economy strong enough for capturing or building more cities. Of course that all depends on the terrain of the city in question, the long-term financial growth potential of my lands, which economic techs I will research soon and other things, but that is usually my first guide.

On the following turn, we promote two Praetorians with Shock and they take out the two Axes with 2-1 odds. The question now is whether to promote more Praetorians with Shock to make easy work of the Swords, or to save those promotions for instant healing and City Raider.

In my attack force, I usually prefer city raider and only promote a small number with shock, the reason being that I almost always attack cities with these units anyway, and city raider is almost as good as shock but applies to all attacks and not only to attacks against melee units.

What is "normal display" by today's standards? Of all my machines, the lowest resolution I run is 1400x1050 and that's on my work laptop (ThinkPad T60p which has a 15.2" TFT display). It's hard to find anyone selling monitors that are less than 17". Maybe I just like the higher res so I can have more crap on my screen.

What many people forget IMHO is that not everybody has his/her browser window at full size. I run a screen resolution of 1600x1200 pixels, but when I'm reading, my Firefox uses only about half the width of my screen. The reason is that this way, I can read text lines without having to move my head and that my eyes have to move only very little as well. This is a lot less tiring than reading a paragraph which runs along the whole screen width.

-Kylearan

[TriviAl]

I really enjoyed your report.

It was great to see the thought processes that went into making the decisions - found that made for a fascinating read. Thank you very much for that!