Hi again. Itâs been a while since I last played a tournament game, but this variant sounded like being a lot of fun. Or at least I thought soâ¦.
I thought a while for different starting technologies and it will be interesting to read about what techs other players have chosen and why and how well the strategy based on the starting tech has been played out.
I chose Fiber Optics just because I have never built the Internet in a single game (or at least I canât remember doing it). In my view it comes a bit late in the game and usually in that phase of the game I have a lot more important things to do than building this project.
Not to make it too easy though, I added a small variant to my game. Every technology that I discover on the internet, I will have to distribute (gift) to all other civs not aware of this technology at that exact moment of time. If the civ lacks a pre-required tech, then itâs too bad for them. Also if I am at war with another civ, I donât have to share my findings with my enemy. The idea of this variant was to see how fast the tech tree could be ran through with the help of the internet.
The problem with the project is that it takes 2000 hammers to finish. If you start it too early, it will cripple you in the expansion phase. As Mao is not industrious we donât get the double speed for world wonders. The project can not either be rushed by a Great Engineer, so no point in trying to use the philosophical trait and build the Pyramids for an early GE. The best strategy that I came up with, was to learn BW pretty early to locate copper (halves the production cost for the internet) and then found a city to grab that. Also the idea was to go for a rapid early settler expansion with focus on food and hammers, to get a decent amount of cities out there and then go for early metal casting to get a forge for the production multiplier. Only after this I would go for the internet.
With a lot of charity going to happen in this game, I thought that I would have a fare chance to go for a diplomatic victory. Knowing that the terra map includes a huge âemptyâ landmass, I thought that prioritizing astronomy would be important to get to the new continent first. By acquiring a big chunk of that continent, I would get more votes in the UN voting.
Game on:
I settle on the starting location. With three grassland hills, corn and fresh water it would be a decent capital. Set research for BW and start a worker for the corn farm. When BW comes in, I discover copper right outside the gates of Beijing. How convenient. Go for the Wheel to hook up the copper for Axes. No point in building too many warriors or to go for archery.
Meet Huayna Capac from south, Montezuma from west and Tokugawa from east. Later on Victoria, Saladin and Roosevelt come wandering from somewhere.
After the Wheel I go for pottery. I will need granaries and also some cottages, because I will have to research some techs after all. Then I go for mysticism for obelisks and hunting to hook up both ivory and fur for so much needed happiness.
I kept on building some settlers and was up to five cities when the land around me started to become a little crowded. This was around 300 AD and I decided it was time to start build the internet. I had a forge in Moscow and could finish the project in about 50 â 60 turns. Thought of doing some chopping and also putting some whip overflow from defenders, when the city grew unhappy.
This is where the game started to go on a sidetrack and the name of the sidetrack was war. I knew I had some lunatics as neighbours so I had tried to be nice to all of them. All of a sudden Toku still chooses unwisely and declares in 350 AD. The good part is that he is sending mostly Horse archers, as I have both spears and jumbos to counter. The bad part is that I am trying to build the spectacular internet at the same time in my best production city. Well, my promoted jumbos and some suicide cats start invading the Japanese lands and I take a couple of Tokuâs aggressively placed cities, because I had the opportunity and I felt that the land initially should have been mine. In 900 AD we negotiate peace.
In the mean time Monte has been busy with Victoria, and declared war in 475 AD and ended it 1515 when he razed the last English city. He had asked both Toku and me to join the war. I agreed for some Mutual Military Struggle bonuses, but it was a phoney war by all means.
In 1370 AD I finally complete the miraculous wonder called the internet. I immediately discover Drama, Theology, Civil Service, Philosophy, Banking and Engineering. I gift these to everybody evenly. HC is the tech leader and he gets nothing, while the two warmongers Toku and Monte gets almost every tech. As those two have been concentrating more on building units and acquiring land, guess who gains the most.
I discover astronomy and start sending troops to the ânew continentâ to capture some barb cities. My caravels have been scouting the lands the best they could and I had spotted many mature cities, so why bother shipping settlers. I also had a couple of explorers on my caravels, but they did not survive more than the first turn after entering the barb continent. It was almost insane with the amount of barb units.
In 1665 AD I started my occupation of the new continent by capturing a barb city down south. I had four galleons shipping units overseas non-stop and this did apparently not go unnoticed by my neighbour Monte. After all these bribes and trying to score diplo points with him, he was at pleased, pretty close to friendly and then that dog bites me at my weak moment. In 1685 he declares and throws an endless stream of units at Guangzhou, and the city barely holds. Its rifles and knights against my defending rifles. After a while he starts to show up with grenadiers as well, but that is not a problem if you attack them with rifles.
In 1710 AD I capture another barb city and Toku declares on me at the same turn. This did not come a total surprise as I had tried to find allies against Monte a couple of turns earlier and Toku had enough on his hands. I had shuffled a couple of rifles to Edo, a city that a earlier had taken from Toku and suspected to be his primary target in the case I was his victim.
I had a quite strong army, but the problem was that I had three war fronts on the same time. So it was more turtling up against Monte and Toku and keep on pushing with existing forces against the barbs.
I took peace against Monte the first chance I got, checking it every turn. The funny part was that I never attacked a single unit on his territory, but he was still willing to pay for peace. This was in 1785 AD. I also decided to change my variant rules a bit, because I was so angry with these two fellows. Anybody who declares on me wonât ever get a single free tech from me again.
After this I took one city from Toku and we made peace. At this point I concentrated on capturing as much of the land on the new continent as possible. I would not get near domination, but had the biggest portion of land and most citizens. I was heading for Mass Media and the UN when this stubborn Monte declares again in 1923. Now I was getting really angry. I had checked the diplo situation quite often and already in 1914 he had enough on his hands. I assumed that I would be his prime target, but still the declaration made me angry.
So in the 10 turns when he was preparing, so did I. Built some modern navy units and started on flight to get bombers and gunships. He mainly attacked with artillery, SAMs, cavalry and infantry. It was not a problem to fight him of even though he had an insane amount of units to throw at me again. I sank at least four of his attempts to send units to the new continent and also took his cities there. After producing a sufficient amount of tanks and gunships I sent them to take some of his cities on the old continent. Backed up with bombers, it was not so hard to take some cities from him and I end up with seven of them before we make peace in 1961.
During the war I had finished the Apollo Program in 1928. I just wanted to have the space race as an option if the UN vote would fail. I did not start building any parts though, as I was too busy building units. I also build the UN in 1950. I was easily elected as the Secretary General, with Monte as my opponent. Toku and Saladin were backing me up. But the diplo victory vote did not work, as both of them abstained. At this point I thought I would just take Montes lands and take either backdoor domination or real domination. War weariness was increasing very rapidly so I just had to sue for peace after taking the before mentioned seven cities.
At this point I was quite tired on this game already as I donât really like modern war fare. It just takes too long and war weariness is sick even if you have jails and Mt. Rushmore. So I set my course on space race and build the space elevator and many laboratories and finished the space ship in 2003.
My free tech was Fiber Optics. The idea was to get the internet up and running and then just enjoy being Santa Claus and gifting all new fancy techs to everyone. In the end I got 28 techs for free, but it did not feel like the Internet would have been a central thing in the game.
Thanks anyway to darreljs for setting up the game and to Sullla for taking time to e-mail separate starting files for everyone. I already have my eyes on epic eleven and will give it a shot.
I thought a while for different starting technologies and it will be interesting to read about what techs other players have chosen and why and how well the strategy based on the starting tech has been played out.
I chose Fiber Optics just because I have never built the Internet in a single game (or at least I canât remember doing it). In my view it comes a bit late in the game and usually in that phase of the game I have a lot more important things to do than building this project.
Not to make it too easy though, I added a small variant to my game. Every technology that I discover on the internet, I will have to distribute (gift) to all other civs not aware of this technology at that exact moment of time. If the civ lacks a pre-required tech, then itâs too bad for them. Also if I am at war with another civ, I donât have to share my findings with my enemy. The idea of this variant was to see how fast the tech tree could be ran through with the help of the internet.
The problem with the project is that it takes 2000 hammers to finish. If you start it too early, it will cripple you in the expansion phase. As Mao is not industrious we donât get the double speed for world wonders. The project can not either be rushed by a Great Engineer, so no point in trying to use the philosophical trait and build the Pyramids for an early GE. The best strategy that I came up with, was to learn BW pretty early to locate copper (halves the production cost for the internet) and then found a city to grab that. Also the idea was to go for a rapid early settler expansion with focus on food and hammers, to get a decent amount of cities out there and then go for early metal casting to get a forge for the production multiplier. Only after this I would go for the internet.
With a lot of charity going to happen in this game, I thought that I would have a fare chance to go for a diplomatic victory. Knowing that the terra map includes a huge âemptyâ landmass, I thought that prioritizing astronomy would be important to get to the new continent first. By acquiring a big chunk of that continent, I would get more votes in the UN voting.
Game on:
I settle on the starting location. With three grassland hills, corn and fresh water it would be a decent capital. Set research for BW and start a worker for the corn farm. When BW comes in, I discover copper right outside the gates of Beijing. How convenient. Go for the Wheel to hook up the copper for Axes. No point in building too many warriors or to go for archery.
Meet Huayna Capac from south, Montezuma from west and Tokugawa from east. Later on Victoria, Saladin and Roosevelt come wandering from somewhere.
After the Wheel I go for pottery. I will need granaries and also some cottages, because I will have to research some techs after all. Then I go for mysticism for obelisks and hunting to hook up both ivory and fur for so much needed happiness.
I kept on building some settlers and was up to five cities when the land around me started to become a little crowded. This was around 300 AD and I decided it was time to start build the internet. I had a forge in Moscow and could finish the project in about 50 â 60 turns. Thought of doing some chopping and also putting some whip overflow from defenders, when the city grew unhappy.
This is where the game started to go on a sidetrack and the name of the sidetrack was war. I knew I had some lunatics as neighbours so I had tried to be nice to all of them. All of a sudden Toku still chooses unwisely and declares in 350 AD. The good part is that he is sending mostly Horse archers, as I have both spears and jumbos to counter. The bad part is that I am trying to build the spectacular internet at the same time in my best production city. Well, my promoted jumbos and some suicide cats start invading the Japanese lands and I take a couple of Tokuâs aggressively placed cities, because I had the opportunity and I felt that the land initially should have been mine. In 900 AD we negotiate peace.
In the mean time Monte has been busy with Victoria, and declared war in 475 AD and ended it 1515 when he razed the last English city. He had asked both Toku and me to join the war. I agreed for some Mutual Military Struggle bonuses, but it was a phoney war by all means.
In 1370 AD I finally complete the miraculous wonder called the internet. I immediately discover Drama, Theology, Civil Service, Philosophy, Banking and Engineering. I gift these to everybody evenly. HC is the tech leader and he gets nothing, while the two warmongers Toku and Monte gets almost every tech. As those two have been concentrating more on building units and acquiring land, guess who gains the most.
I discover astronomy and start sending troops to the ânew continentâ to capture some barb cities. My caravels have been scouting the lands the best they could and I had spotted many mature cities, so why bother shipping settlers. I also had a couple of explorers on my caravels, but they did not survive more than the first turn after entering the barb continent. It was almost insane with the amount of barb units.
In 1665 AD I started my occupation of the new continent by capturing a barb city down south. I had four galleons shipping units overseas non-stop and this did apparently not go unnoticed by my neighbour Monte. After all these bribes and trying to score diplo points with him, he was at pleased, pretty close to friendly and then that dog bites me at my weak moment. In 1685 he declares and throws an endless stream of units at Guangzhou, and the city barely holds. Its rifles and knights against my defending rifles. After a while he starts to show up with grenadiers as well, but that is not a problem if you attack them with rifles.
In 1710 AD I capture another barb city and Toku declares on me at the same turn. This did not come a total surprise as I had tried to find allies against Monte a couple of turns earlier and Toku had enough on his hands. I had shuffled a couple of rifles to Edo, a city that a earlier had taken from Toku and suspected to be his primary target in the case I was his victim.
I had a quite strong army, but the problem was that I had three war fronts on the same time. So it was more turtling up against Monte and Toku and keep on pushing with existing forces against the barbs.
I took peace against Monte the first chance I got, checking it every turn. The funny part was that I never attacked a single unit on his territory, but he was still willing to pay for peace. This was in 1785 AD. I also decided to change my variant rules a bit, because I was so angry with these two fellows. Anybody who declares on me wonât ever get a single free tech from me again.
After this I took one city from Toku and we made peace. At this point I concentrated on capturing as much of the land on the new continent as possible. I would not get near domination, but had the biggest portion of land and most citizens. I was heading for Mass Media and the UN when this stubborn Monte declares again in 1923. Now I was getting really angry. I had checked the diplo situation quite often and already in 1914 he had enough on his hands. I assumed that I would be his prime target, but still the declaration made me angry.
So in the 10 turns when he was preparing, so did I. Built some modern navy units and started on flight to get bombers and gunships. He mainly attacked with artillery, SAMs, cavalry and infantry. It was not a problem to fight him of even though he had an insane amount of units to throw at me again. I sank at least four of his attempts to send units to the new continent and also took his cities there. After producing a sufficient amount of tanks and gunships I sent them to take some of his cities on the old continent. Backed up with bombers, it was not so hard to take some cities from him and I end up with seven of them before we make peace in 1961.
During the war I had finished the Apollo Program in 1928. I just wanted to have the space race as an option if the UN vote would fail. I did not start building any parts though, as I was too busy building units. I also build the UN in 1950. I was easily elected as the Secretary General, with Monte as my opponent. Toku and Saladin were backing me up. But the diplo victory vote did not work, as both of them abstained. At this point I thought I would just take Montes lands and take either backdoor domination or real domination. War weariness was increasing very rapidly so I just had to sue for peace after taking the before mentioned seven cities.
At this point I was quite tired on this game already as I donât really like modern war fare. It just takes too long and war weariness is sick even if you have jails and Mt. Rushmore. So I set my course on space race and build the space elevator and many laboratories and finished the space ship in 2003.
My free tech was Fiber Optics. The idea was to get the internet up and running and then just enjoy being Santa Claus and gifting all new fancy techs to everyone. In the end I got 28 techs for free, but it did not feel like the Internet would have been a central thing in the game.
Thanks anyway to darreljs for setting up the game and to Sullla for taking time to e-mail separate starting files for everyone. I already have my eyes on epic eleven and will give it a shot.
I probably would have done the same thing after getting declared on too - no need to help the jerks out further! 
.