theGrimm's Epic 8 - The Spoils of War

[theGrimm]

Epic 8: Potluck – The Spoils of War

No fancy variants here, except that every civ on the map will be played by someone else. Same map, same civs…but the civs will be shared by the players. With no specific variant rules, no specific goals, we can just play and have fun with whatever rules we want.

And here we have the Roman start:


I founded on the starting spot, by the way, since my two (!) warrior scouts offered no compelling reasons to move. So, let’s have a look. We have loads of grassland. A smattering of flood plain. Gems on a hill. Wine. Cows. River. In fact, it looks like the One Right Opening move would be Oracle -> Civil Service for a capital city that simply SPEWS commerce. Well, whipping and chopping praetorians early WON’T work because of that little variant restriction, no war before BC.

I’m playing as Rome, too, so I have Praetorians. Now, I’ve never played with praetorians before, and with a game such as this I would rather like to take an historic approach. Rome will dominate the world with its Legions of Praetorians. Haha. Despite having never built a praet before this game, I know one thing. They’re strong. So, to balance the power of my praets somewhat, I will introduce a variant rule (to the already existing rule, which is that I may not declare war before 1000BC).

Variant Rules:
Julius Caesar is a military genius. Battle formations, logistics, training…he can do it all. But in the aspects of creativity, Julius is somewhat lacking. The world will see great visionary works, constructed to the glory of mankind. But Rome will not build such visionary structures. Oh no.
Variant Rule #1: Rome may build NO great wonders, anywhere, anytime, ever.

But Julius can still admire the beauty of a marvelous piece of architecture. And as the ruler of the world’s greatest nation, he must own ALL such pieces of architecture.
Variant Rule #2: Rome must capture and own every Great Wonder. No wonder cities may be razed. All wonder cities MUST be captured before TRUE victory can be claimed.

Right, let’s begin…

***
A fairly uninteresting opening play sees Wheel -> Pottery and a worker first to connect the gems and construct cottages on the flood plains. There isn’t a TON of extra food, but enough to grow at a decent rate, especially with cheap granaries. Iron Working follows Pottery for obvious reasons; I want to try and grab iron with my second city. And Rome will not produce a settler particularly fast until it grows, so a granary follows the worker, and then a barracks.

Here, my capital development, together with a nice little spot north of Rome that is being “reserved” by my warrior:


And in 2050BC, I get this (guess it doesn’t matter so much where city 2 goes, eh?):

How ironic. 8)

After Roosevelt wrote his own entry in Julius’ little black book with an annoying city placement, I was compelled to found Antium in a location other than anticipated. This placement was primarily production focused, but grabbed a couple of nifty resources:


While Antium grew, Rome build praetorians, and my research path beelined towards civil service the old fashioned way. I helped myself to Confucianism along the way, which was rather inconveniently founded in Antium (inconveient because Antium would be a military powerhouse, with no time for building wussy banks and markets and such...)

Around 600 years BC, my praetorians saw first blood against a barbarian city. It was razed (inconveniently placed, and I hate that “we wish to return to our motherland” nonsense when we’re talking barbarians):


A short while later, Cumae was founded in a more convenient location to grab the third “metal” happiness resource, silver, which would make forges oh-so-tasty. Cumae would later become the home of Roman enlightenment. In other words, a specialist city:


So anyway, with the nearby barbarians dead, my praets started to grow bored. Where CAN I send them next? Oh, look…shinies!


In the early AD years (185 I believe), I was ready for a three prong attack on Roosevelt (roughly 4 praetorians per battle group):

Philadelphia and Boston I kept, Atlanta I razed. Washington fell in 410, which I also kept for its shinies. With Stonehenge, I quit research on calendar to give time for my new American cities to pop their borders. The fall of New York (also a keeper) saw the end of Roosevelt. You have been assimilated!

Here’s my Roman Empire in 605AD:


Following the fall of Rome, the next few hundred years is spent building infrastructure, most notably, the Forbidden Palace in Washington and the Heroic Epic in Antium. And lots of forges and courthouses. Cumae also produced a few Great People.

In 1172AD, Rome was ready to get more shinies. Hatty, top of the pecking order, and nearby, would be my next target:


Alexandria has no shinies, and is razed:


A short while later, China (brought into the war by Egypt, maybe) declares war, and makes a nuisance of himself in the north, where I have four cities producing knights at regular intervals:

Silly China. I don’t particularly want to fight China. China has no shinies. I think I will raze that annoying little city and then let China have peace.

Here’s a shiny update in 1214AD. It will form the blueprint for my military campaigns over the course of the rest of the game:


War with Egypt continued. With Mansa keeping Hatty occupied in the North, my forces swept south. The shiny Notre Dame in Elephantine was saved, while Minoan and Najran (south of Elephantine) were razed.


I finally made peace with Hatty, leaving her some shinies for the time being. I think I will let the following picture speak for itself, though:

Annoying culture.

The war with Sally was short, with the only goal being to raze Damascus and get rid of that damned culture, but the Hagia Sophia had gone up in Mecca, so Sally had better be building rifles if he knows what’s good for him…Big Daddy Julius has cavalry now! The availability of Cavalry also sees research shut down in favour of upgrading knights.

My cavalry head East for Memphis and the Great Library, while my praets and catapults head slowly north:


And the Egyptian Civ is destroyed in 1490. So long and thanks for the...shinies.

Next on the agenda is England, who has lots of shinies. They also have musketeers. Oh dear, my cavalry are petrified.

York has the Sistine Chapel; London has the Great Lighthouse, the Hanging Gardens and Angkor Wat. Nottingham has nothing, but the streets are clean so we keep it. Goa has nothing, and is razed. It was all over in 15 turns, not even worth showing pics of.

Sally was next:


Then Mansa:


And with the help of a great artist culture bomb and a few border pops, we have victory! Here are a few of my shinier shiny cities, together with the world map:

All existing World Wonders belong to Rome, but none have been built by Rome. Except the confucian shrine, somehow. Mmmm...I wonder how I that...