Adventure 22 - Blake's partial report

[Blake]

Didn't have time to finish this one, but I preformed a devastating opening strategy and was doing well...

I decide to open with Worker/Agriculture even tho the fella would be sitting on his bum for a while. I then went with mining/BW, but going straight to Wheel may have been a better idea.
I popped Archery from the hut (nice).

I planned to aggressively lock down MM, and my city placement and naming was not subtle...


You'll note the city FU Mansa Musa, hems MM's capital completely in. He simply can't get out. This stranded his settler in the capital and because the AI wont train as many settlers as it has cities (that would be overexpansion), MM could never train a settle in his 2nd city. A human would have found a way to get the settler out via galley, using my road system in neutral territory, but the AI is not that smart. So MM never founded another city.

I expanded peacefully and trained an army of Phalanxes, scammed some tech out of MM then declared war on him:


Incidently MM built the Pyramids in that city! It was very nice of him. He wasn't nice enough to found me any religions, but the Pyramids!!! Freaking sweet!
I captured the city but due to copious amounts of weed I neglected to actually switch to Representation for many many turns. If memory doesn't fail me, I had thought MM had built the Pyramids in his capital, and thus only switched after capturing the capital, oopsies.

I pushed a galley through MM's borders and ran into Darius:

I'm in an impressively deep tech hole, but things still look good for snagging the Great Library.

I meet hatty also, and can also perform some minor tech trades with her...

I eliminate MM from the game in due time, and also build the Great Library. With a continent to myself and the Pyramids+GL combo, things are looking good. As a side note, the AI's rapid expansion has made the expansion rule non-problematic, I'm quite easily able to expand at a comfortable rate without hitting #1.

Here's a shot of my empire at around 1000AD


Here's a funny for ya!

1050AD

Popped one!

1060AD

Gold Rush!

Hilarious! If you thought pops were bad, and random events were bad, dunno what you'd think of that!!! It's quite possibly the most "inspired" act of the RNGods I've ever seen!

In some good news, I get Circumnavigation, mainly due to map trades - it's that thing where you trade for 90% of the way then rush out a caravel and explore the last 10%.

In more happy news I'm first to Economics, barely beating Elizabeth.

Between my GL/Pyramids combo and ample land I'm able to sort-of keep up in tech... you know, not actually having a tech lead of any description, but constantly coming up with new techs which can be traded, rather than being kept out of the loop.

In a funny, I train a Privateer which I use to sink a caravel, granting me the final GG point I faield to gain in the MM war, I believe I settled the GG.

Biology turns out to be an important trade-fodder tech, and I get for it Physics, Replaceable Parts, Steam Power and lots of loose change and rubbish techs. While this still leaves me behind Asoka, I'm not doing bad.

In the industrial ear I use a GA to run Environmentalism to coincicide with my factory boom, but I return to Free Market at the end of the GA (basically I avoided 7 turns of unhealthiness, giving me a little grace to get Hospitals in).

I pick up a wonder - The Eiffel Tower and Cristo Redentor

I also manage to incorporate Sid's Sushi



Btw note my not one - but TWO metal pops at Athens! I neglected to note the copper pop, but it occurred right AFTER I ninja'd MM's rightful copper supply (so it was useless).

Unhappily, I lose the 3 Gorges Dam to Hatty.

Anyway my final screenshot is this one...


My plan, to put it most simply, was to build the Internet then play whack a legendary city. The AI's were not particularly close to a CV at the point where I stopped playing. Worst thing would be not getting the Internet.

There was no particular reason I stopped playing - just kind of forgot about the game. I'd actually quite like to go back and finish it. If I do, I'll post the conclusion.

[darrelljs]

You'll note the city FU Mansa Musa, hems MM's capital completely in. He simply can't get out. This stranded his settler in the capital and because the AI wont train as many settlers as it has cities (that would be overexpansion), MM could never train a settle in his 2nd city.

. I guess I should have built a little one tile land bridge but it was hard to anticipate someone pulling this move.

I don't recall an AI willing to trade Rocketry, and at Pleased no less. If you do play it out, why not try and reach Alpha Centauri before any of the AIs can win cultural, just to match blid .

Darrell

[uberfish]

I think you'd be hard pressed to come up with a scenario in which Blake couldn't find some way to exploit his own AI. Nice second city...

[Blake]

As a FYI, the settler-getting-trapped thing wasn't planned, but I did know founding the city there would cause him no end of troubles and at least impede his development greatly.
I'm honestly surprised more people didn't do that - most people seem to be aholes when it comes to hemming the AI in.
Also I wasn't exactly strong on city garrisons, so I used MM's borders to do the required fog-busting .

Of course I wouldn't have dared found such an aggressive city against many AI personalities... but it takes all kinds of absurd flukes of the RNG to have MM come for you. Creative leaders can really cause pacifist personalities major grief.