Adv 26 - timmy827

[timmy827]

Foreword: For those who didn't try this one, Sulla has really put back the extreme in adventure. Besides the 2nd-highest difficulty, it quickly becomes apparent that we are given an isolated start with absolutely NO resources of any kind. The capital has five flood plains and there is one oasis just south, and that is more or less all we have to work with.

Quick summary - did as well as I could and managed to avoid getting invaded/wiped out, but lost culturally in 1872. I was definitely hamstrung by lack of foresight, I should have realized earlier than I did that space was a pipe dream and diplo was the only chance of victory. Even if I had, I have no experience winning diplo without starting from a position of strength so it probably wouldn't have worked.

Start - go warrior-worker, research wheel->pottery for quick cottages. Settle on the spot; examining my health/happy shows that I am Washington (Exp/Cha, sensible for this type of game where the health and happy caps are so low.

I build the Henge pretty quickly after growing to max size (6) while putting up a granary and scout in the capital; after popping hut in the west for a really useless map (all water) realized that I seemed to be isolated and have waited for the scouts to pop the other's I've found. At this point I hadn't uncovered anything but had guessed the lack of resources. I researched AH in hopes of horses as I really like chariot's mobility for isolated start fogbusting but no luck yet. Wish I hadn't now; going BW earlier might've allowed chop or whip on henge.

Soon after my exploring warrior dies to a barb archer and I realize that I'm gonna need archery to survive.

Turn 60ish - While building 1st settler, barbs start entering my lands; I wasn't expecting that. There's some formula, and I thought the gist was that if you're isolated, they won't advance until you have two cities. What gives? I've finished writing and am going math for chopping. I get a random event promoting all melee units to Cover, which allows my warrior to kill one wounded archer.

After a couple close calls, I get a few archers out and am reasonably secure for a very long time.

82 (825BC) Classical age entered with Math. New York founded 3n3w of capital.
Let's think longterm for a moment...Assuming I never find any resources how can I increase my happy and health caps?
Happy:
With henge and charismatic bonus, I have 7 in the capital and 6 in other cities.
Henge prophet will be in in 20 turns, I will be able to bulb theology but will have to self-research other religious techs to enable that. Of course they will allow useful religious buildings...Much like my Boudica (epic 14) game, but here the theocracy civic won't be anywhere near as useful. Other way would be to try to bulb Philo with a scientist but that will probably be my 2nd great person.
Of course monarchy will end happy problems. As a bonus, since I won't ever have strategic resources I should be able to build happy-warriors until rifles and grenadiers.
Health - a bit more situational...
2 from Expansive, 2 base. 2 from fresh water sometimes, variable amount from forest. 2 from aqueduct. 1 from HG - should decide soon how much I want to pursue this. This is going to be a bigger problem.

So even though happy isn't such a big issue.

102/325BC - Man I'm dumb. Get my great prophet, then realize that while Mono and masonry aren't before theology on the bulb list, you need them to be able to research theo....

175BC - I was thinking of chopping everything around Washington to try to get HG and it just went. I was wondering if the AI's had similarly limited starts and it seems not (pyramids, artemis have also been built).

50AD - 4th city about to be founded west of capital, on coast and will grab the last of the riverside tiles. Will overlap some but given that it will be long time before I can grow cities over size ~10 who cares?

OK, so now I enter a zombie mode, only playing a few turns at a time. It's pretty dull with no resources. I decide not to go for optics but to focus my
efforts on democracy-liberalism. Tech CoL->CS->Paper->MC and expand some. I research part of philosophy and run some scientists in the capital in an effort to get a GS to bulb Education and put me close to Lib, but get a prophet and build the shrine.

In 1160, Genghis shows up. I actually have Paper on him. I have the choice of trading with him for part-researched machinery or Philo. I decide that first to Lib is not going to happen and PP is my immediate goal, but take Philosophy. I get a little gold instead of giving a little, and due to AI tech priorities there's a greater chance I'll be able to broker it for some old techs later. I'm worried about trading-with-enemies penalties, but this does get GK to pleased for the moment.



1230AD - This screenshot sums it up nicely - the barbs and I are going to slug it out with the same units the AI's had in 4000BC, while elsewhere in the world people are circling the earth and thinking about liberalism.
I'm really surprised, haven't been landed on by barbs before. I recently founded a city nearer the barb city in the east and was more worried about that one. I only have 1 archer in Chicago, but they decide to move away.

Over the next couple centuries, the rest of the AI's show up - Churchill, JCaesar, Mao, Pacal, and Hammurabi. I am able to pull off a couple more tech trades. The rest of the world is not too happy with each other, so diplo is tricky.

Eventually I get amphibbed by the barbs after becoming longbows - My one CG1 archer has enough defense bonus to at least kill one of the two attackers, but is slaughtered by the 2nd. 2 LBs approach seattle overland from the barb city as well. Geez. Fortunately, I have 2 archers ready to counterattack, and the barb LB does not heal over the turn and is still at 4/6 health. I take him out and retake my city with one sacrificial archer, and destroy one of their gallies to boot. Unfortunately, the city is at size 4 and is health-limited, must restart that Aqueduct it was so close to finishing.

1410AD - Wow, what a boost PP, PP raises sustainable science rate from 140 to 185 flasks. Unfortunately, JC gets it, and Churchill is now annoyed with GK. To avoid diplo, the only trade I can make is PP to Winston for Engineering, IW, and Monarchy. It's too bad that education and nationalism are
too expensive. I decide to set research to Education. GK doesn't have it so I might be able to trade for Nationalism or something else.

A few turns later I've met everyone. I have PP on Hammy but refrain from trading as GK and Mao are both ticked at him. Mao seems a bit backwards (in that he only has 5 visible techs on me, not 8 so I may be able to get something from him for education. Also, seems that Pacal and Hammy have Astro so I decide to rush out 3 more settlers to fill the rest of the space, then maybe try to take that barb city.



1440 - Ha! Take that, Sulla! Of course, since I've been health limited more than happy limited for a long time this isn't a very big deal.

I need to think about victory; probably space and diplo are the only possibilities, and I'm doubtful about both.

1605 - I finish Constitution after part-researching Nationalism and trading Mao Edu for it. In some real good luck, Mao still doesn't have it and Caesar is Cautious to him, so I can trade it for feuadlism, aesthetics, compass, and his map without diplo penalties. I had been worried that I was missing out on the game, that the point was to beeling Astro as best you could so you could settle some "miracle island" full of resources, and Mao's map shows that this is not the case. Emancipation unhappy is starting to rear its head in many of my cities. I revolt to representation and pacifism, will run 3 specialists in the capital to hurry my 3rd GP for a golden age. After this reconfig, Democracy is 18 turns away (and GP due in 8 so GA will drop that) at sustainable science instead of 26 turns. Not bad.

1685 - On last turn of GA, Democracy in. Again Mao is my only acceptable trading partner (although Caesar is now pissed at him again, but I've already ticked off Caesar.) Optics + Gunpowder are all I can get but there is also some good gold. I revolt to US + Nationhood + Emancipation. I've been building some trebs and will now draft some muskets. I have to take out that barb city before someone else does or the barbs get rifling. BTW Pacal can research Satellites...not good...
Set research to Liberalism, after that go for Astro (still need calendar) for trade routes.


1745 - Pacal builds UN, 1st election is him over Mao. Pacal has 172 votes, Mao 133, me 75. I have enough land that if I can get to Environmentalism, I might be able to grow enough pop to pass Mao. Pacal has a whole generation of tech lead over the other AI's; from diplo modifiers I can tell he's never fought in any war. I really need to get one started but don't have much leverage to bribe with...

1775 - Astro in, I can open borders with Winston, Mao, and Pacal only ticking off JC in the process. Trade routes give big boost, but I'm still going to be in a tech hole for the rest of the game.

1780 - Interesting random event, in the sense that it's the most lopsided choice. Congress wants to impeach the president (come on Congress, this is GW, not Andrew Johnson, Nixon, or Clinton). Choice A is 6 unhappy "temporarily" in all cities balanced by 1 happy in all cities for 10 turns. Choice B is 2 turns of anarchy in the capital and +2 hammers for courthouses. From previous experience with other random events, I think choice A works like whip unhappy, so 10 turns of 6 unhappy, 10 of 5, etc...Really bad normally, and for a poor schmuck like myself would result in every city starving down to size 2 or so.

1848 - Looks like it's just about over. I just finished researching Biology. I had delayed Scientific Method for a few turns to finish building 2 monasteries for Judaism and Buddhism which spread to me relatively late - in my situation the +1 happy from FR, and +1 for temple are crucial. I'm heading for Environmentalism which will finally significantly ease the health burdens. A UN vote has just come up for it; I'm curious to see what happens as no one has Medicine yet. Once I get into Enviro one way or another, I will start farming selectively and growing as much as possible in hopes of enough population to pass Mao in the UN voting. But my diplo situation isn't very good; I gave into a demand from Genghis which ruined my relations with Winston and Hammurabi (later no longer relevant, got dogpiled in a war and has vassalized to Pacal).

The reason that it probably doesn't matter is that Pacal is full-tilting towards cultural; his first city just hit and his lowest city is at 39,000 and gaining 800/turn so there's very little time. GK has always had too much on his hands; Mao is afraid of Pacal's might (of course a whole separate issue is that I may never have gotten enough tech to bribe them into it) and I'm in no position to launch a cross-continental invasion to raze a legendary city.

1850 - Vote passes, I forget to closely check how my vote total measures up. GK is willing to declare on Pacal, Biology isn't enough. But I see some opportunities...I abandon Medicine.

1856 - After a couple turns of research, I get Physics from Winston for Bio. I get Steel from Pacal for Bio as well. In the interturn, GK gets physics, but bio and steel are enough to get him to declare. This is a really slim hope; it's like 9 turns until the last city goes legendary and the lay of the land is such that GK will have to capture 3 or so cities before getting close to any of the 3 cultural cities.



1862 - here's my vote status. Still a ways to go. Not much has happened in the war; Maya captured and razed a city Genghis captured during the Hammy dogpile. I'm hoping that if GK kills a good number of units, Mao will lose his fear and be willing to join in. Winston and JC have too much on their hands so that's the only other potential person to bribe in.

1872 - Well, GK never made headway and Mao remained too scared. Pacal wins culturally. Check out the power graph:



I understand why Mao wouldn't declare. The trends at the end showed just how futile my hopes were. Indeed, after the conclusion stuff I heard that one of the Khan's main cities was captured.

I don't think I've ever seen a game with a single AI this runaway. He was the only one to complete Apollo, had massive power advantage, and even after turning off research for a while at the end (AFAIK the AI's always use the culture slider when trying for that victory). Other graphs were similarly to his advantage. World wonders - me 1, GK 1, Rome 3, England 4, Maya however many left. Top five cities all Maya.

This was an interesting idea. I'm really curious if anyone managed to win. I wouldn't think it impossible for some of the top players, but in my particular game Pacal was so dominant that I'm not sure any amount of better play from me would have been enough. But hey, it was worth it for a tough challenge. In terms of Civ challenge - life balance this probably worked out better than Epic 14 (Boudica, Always War) where I could lose fairly quickly instead of winning in 37 hours. Thanks to Sulla.

[Deceptus]

Thanks for the report.
Huh, on the screenshot of Emancipation resolution your worker farms a Town... I dunno, that seems weedy to me.

[timmy827]

Not in this game - I was belatedly trying to farm everything and grow cities as diplo was the only option with a nonzero (barely) chance of success, and I needed more citizens. There wasn't really any tech left that would have made a big difference.