Adventure 42 -- Thrashing About

[Arathorn]

The Plan:

Plan implies having an idea of how things are going to go. I’ve been out of Civ4 for quite some time. How can I plan?

OK, a failure usually comes from a failure to plan. I have to have some kind of a goal or gameplan or I’ll flail and thrash about uselessly. The scoring is based on spread of religions to cities. Missionaries aren’t cheap, though. Plus, the description is a cold, icy land. What does that mean I should do?

Religion economy! REX into a near-ICS. Build a bunch of cities and support them all with shrines. Oooh, and a fuller religion economy (RE). Use Apostolic Palace for shields … err … hammers. University of Sankore for beakers. Spiral Minaret for more coins. It’s just crazy enough to work. And use a supplementing SE because cottages, well, I dunno, just because.

Once I have a lot of cities and my econ is crashing, I can use missionaries. And larger cities produce more hammers to get missionaries out faster. I can build and spread religions whenever. Also, I can maybe use religion as a diplo weapon to make an outsider we can all hate and keep everybody else happy with me. It’s a theory, anyway.

(More later -- it's all written, just limited time)

[Arathorn]

Early Thrashing About

With those REX goals firmly in mind, I start the game, exploring and teching towards religion wonders, after I get my workboats built. Why? Because I’m an idiot and forget that priest specialists work better for generating great people.

Exploring, I see a LOT of forest. I think that’ll help my expansion dramatically. Chopping out settlers works so well for good players. I even detour to get Bronze Working, so I can actually chop forests. Everything is coming together.

I met everybody fairly quickly and walked around the world but not before Elizabeth got the circumnavigation bonus. With so much land, though, I didn't care about ships. Hatty to the west and Sitting Bull to the south were the neighbors I needed to be aware of. I would share a long border with them. Fighting was not in my gameplan.

I REX a whole second and third city before getting caught up the allure of wonders. I build Pyramids successfully, in Mecca, using stone and chops. But I only have like 2 or 3 workers, so even that takes me forever, give or take. 775 BC is not a good time to get Pyramids out. Of course, I had approximately no food or specialists, either, so it wasn’t a big detriment.

On the plus side, Christianity spread naturally to me, so I sent it out to the neighbors. This early missionary work wasn’t for scoring but to try to keep myself alive.


My first Great Prophet (from Stonehenge and finally a priest or two) popped in 275 BC and built the Church of the Nativity. The goal of supporting cities with shrines was partially in progress. The problem was I didn’t have that many cities to support.

You can see I had grand plans but the cities/settlers to claim all those C spots were … delayed.

You can see that some of them are no longer even possible to found. Sigh. oh well.

Since I already had all the religions founded in the North Pole, I naturally took Theology from the Oracle. Apostolic Palace felt too important to risk missing. Why not Metal Casting for forges to get everything faster? Errr…rust/poor ability.

Even with my irrational fear of WFYABTA, I did trade some techs.
150 AD -- Theology to Hatty for Monarchy, Iron Working, and 20 gold
250 AD -- Currency to Augustus for Alphabet and 40 gold

I had about four cities, three wonders (Pyramids, Oracle, and Apostolic Palace in progress) and no clue what I was doing. Sitting Bull and Hatty were both Christian friends and my only two neighbors, which was good because I also had no military to speak of. I had very few specialists, but I had chopped a lot of forests. I still had grand plans for lots of cities and had some ideas about how to seal borders to leave myself the infinite amount of time it seems to take me to build a settler and actually found a new city.

[Arathorn]

Reassessing and Mid-game Thrashing

I ran out of time for a few days at this point and tried to reassess what I was doing well (very little) and what needed improvement (basically everything). I decided I needed to focus on units -- workers, settlers, and military. No more wonders! Except, well, UoS, and tSM and finishing AP. I still wanted my religion economy.

A bit of refocus really helped, though I had some panic moments. The first election for Apostolic Palace saw Hatty be elected. I had really good relations with Sitting Bull, Washington, and Hatty who were the major Christian holders. Louis XIV, Elizabeth, and Augustus were all heathens that didn’t like me as much. But +21 relations can’t buy a vote and I didn’t have the population to vote myself in. Basically everybody had some Christian city, though, thanks to the shrine, so a vote to elect a winner could have occurred. Fortunately, Hatty didn’t put anything up.

Voting continued and I was never elected spiritual head. Washington was sometimes and Hatty was sometimes but nobody would vote for me, except me.

The only things the AP really did, though, with them in charge, was unite everybody against Louis XIV. I was worried France would crumble when the AP declared universal war on him, but he managed to not get crushed. That was helped everybody love me but it put everybody I had OB with into Theocracy for seemingly forever.

I did start to grow cities, though, both in numbers and size. I started to get skeleton defenses around, too. Even though I didn’t like anybody except the three Christian civs, I traded with others, too.
880 AD -- Metal Casting and 30 gold to Hatty for Construction and Sailing
1060 AD -- Code of Laws, Theology, and Construction to Augustus for Feudalism, Archery, and 30 gold
(yes I felt the need for longbows, can you tell?)
1220 AD -- Civil Service to Hatty for Aesthetics and 60 gold
1300 AD -- Divine Right to Hatty for Machinery, Compass, and 50 gold
1340 AD -- Drama to Louis XIV for 335 gold
1450 AD -- Education to Hatty for Engineering, Optics, and 40 gold

In the meantime, I was teching, making sure to get UoS and tSM, which I did. Christian Temples were 1 culture, 2 shields, 2 beakers, 3 gold and my first build in every new city because they were so cheap. Until I forget to build missionaries. Oy.

I did expand out to a fair number of cities. I pushed hard against Sitting Bull’s borders and wanted culture in those cities. With my specialist and religion focus, as well as wanting to gain cities culturally, Sistine Chapel would have been ideal. But I missed out on that wonder. Why? Because I’m inept.

Ultimately, probably not important, because I doubt I could have squeezed many more cities in, had I flipped any Sitting Bull cities (which I didn’t. Not while it mattered.) And, well, I didn’t start working my way into the icy areas in the north and south until way too late, even though my economy was booming, but that comes later.

I can tell I was pretty much into my game at this point, because I have basically no screenshots. Sorry.

[Arathorn]

Spreading Religions and Late-Game Thrashing

Finally, around 1500 AD, I had my empire established. I had built a slew of cities and the time had come to spread religions in earnest. I’d built all 7 shrines and triggered a couple golden ages, from Taj Mahal and from great people. I was smart enough to run Pacifism for a while, though I never built some of the good small wonders.

I don’t have a good shot of my empire, but the mini-map tells some, and I only one have city left to found in this pic. I also lucked into gems by North Pole which helped with happiness, though I struggled a lot more with health than with happiness, even with my small cities.


More trades, continuing. Trying to keep a military.
1610 AD -- Gunpower, Replaceable Parts, and Liberalism to Washington for Economics, Constitution, Horseback Riding, World Map, and 240 gold
1685 AD -- Liberalism and 1085 gold to Hatty for Military Tradition
1710 AD -- Steam Power to Washington for Rifling
1740 AD -- Rifling and Steam Power to Hatty for Democracy, Astronomy, world map, and 350 gold

My general builds

Lots of missionaries, some military and some buildings.

I used settlers to fill in a few ice cities. They are TERRIBLE cities that would normally be a huge detriment to an empire. With SoL and all my religious wonders, a temple made ‘em productive pretty quickly. They also were additional scoring opportunities and claimed a few extra resources. My REX stalled for a while but started up again eventually. I should've founded more and earlier.

I was comfortably in the lead at this point and didn’t struggle too much to get SoL in 1810 AD. I almost accumulated more GP than I knew what to do with. I must've had 15 or so. I used some for Sid’s and others for another Golden Age. Got Creative Constructionists, too.

I said earlier that I never flipped a Sitting Bull city. So how did this happen?

I *finally* was elected AP leader, against Hatty, with Washington voting for me. I had pushed my culture, just barely, into some of SB’s cities. So I could ask the AP to “reassign” his cities to me. With Washington’s support, I acquired three total cities from Sitting Bull.




I tried spreading religions with missionaries. Peace with Louis eventually got most others into Free Religion, though I was too slow taking advantage of it.

Weed during this time:
- Staying in Pacifism and Representation instead of going to Organized Religion and Universal Suffrage. I lost a TON of time walking my missionaries all over creation. I could’ve bought ‘em close to the front once I spread ‘em into my ice cities.
- Too late and too few ice cities. More would accept lots of religions and pay for themselves easily. I was running a profit at 100% science. Those ice cities, with purchased missionaries, would have given me a ton more spreading of religions.
- Still too many wonders, worrying about potentially winning the game after 1900. Or for denial. Did I need Christo Redentor? No! But I built it anyway.
- Not just donating missionaries once in AI territory but walking them all the way to each city, which ran me up against my limit of 3 all the time.
- Spreading Corporations, too. Only internally but an unneeded waste.

[Arathorn]

Scoring

I have my 1900 save if anybody wants.

Totals:
1: 18 * 1 = 18
2: 7 * 2 = 14
3: 7 * 3 = 21
4: 11 * 5 = 55
5: 7 * 7 = 49
6: 16 * 10 = 160
7: 32 * 15 = 480

TOTAL: 797

Of those, 36 cities are mine, including 23 of those with 7 religions (all of ‘em in my core, even the ones I acquired from Sitting Bull). Most of the 1’s are Augustus and Louis XIV. Augustus was really lame because of my weed above. Counting all the AIs cities wasn’t easy, but I think I got them accurately. If a miracle occurs and I’m close to anyone, I’ll be happy to recount. I went ahead and bought world maps to get the most up-to-date maps. Except for Elizabeth, who spread religions willy-nilly, almost all of the spreading was mine. I expect to have a semi-solid number of cities but pathetic spreading compared to others. I think waiting to spread intensely was the right move, but I was too lacksidaisical about keeping three missionaries in queue/on map at all times. My luck spreading was reasonable, but I shoulda built another 100 missionaries.



I had cities down in the southern tundra, too, 6 or 7 of them, in addition to the ones in the north that are barely visible in this picture.

[Arathorn]

Denouement

Oh….that’s not the end of the game? I suppose it could be, but that just feels wrong

Options:
Domination: Probably could since I have tank tech and no one else does, but my production is questionable. And it would take a lot of real-world time I don’t have.
Conquest: See domination.
Space: Low production and a lot of my economy expires at computers. It’s 1900 and I’m not technologically advanced. No thanks.
Diplomatic: I suppose I could try. I am AP leader. Some people still like me a fair bit. UN could come along soon. I can try for it, I suppose.
Cultural: 7 religions and been moving in this direction already? Yeah, that’s my goal.

Free Religion, US, and Caste System revolted into. Culture buildings prioritized. North Pole is obviously one of the cities. Baghdad had been my biggest push into Sitting Bull city and is almost as cultural as NP already. It’s the second. Third is questionable. I’m gonna spend a few turns building theaters and temples everywhere and then see who belongs as the third city. That city will get Hermitage, too. (Except it didn't. I think one of SB's cities had Hermitage already in it when it "flipped". Can you get two small wonders that way?)

That city has to be Fustatb (yeah, a typo in city naming. WHOOPS!) It has 6 cathedrals already. All that +50% just gives it too much of a headstart. It’ll be 100 turns probably, but I should be able to do it. I’ll build UN, too, though, just to give me a shot. Or a shot at a loss. Whatever.

Meanwhil, spies were sabotaging farms and poisoning my water supplies. I built a bunch of jails and spies to defend cities. With questionable efficacy, though I was catching a spy roughly every turn at this point.

UN completed in 1928. 30ish turns to cultural victory. Over 800 cpt in two of the three cities and the third could do it (North Pole) but doesn’t need to. Not running 100% culture, because, well, I don’t have that much commerce. Irrigation everywhere. UN leader was Washington. All he did was enforce US and Free Religion. Thank goodness.

Spreading LOTS of corporations (OK, the culture 3) and trading for resources. Finally complete Wall Street in North Pole which helps finances which were starting to crash. Running into the five limit now like I was the thee limit earlier.

OK, I lied. I did get a Sitting Bull city to flip. Chaco Canyon flipped to me. Then they wanted to rejoin Sitting Bull! WEIRD! Can't make up their minds. But they asked to join me, I wasn't going to let them go so easily.

If it would've flipped earlier, I'd've burned it and replaced it with 2-4 cities, but it wasn't important at this very late date. I just kept it and pushed more culture.

And in 1942, North Pole went legendary. Baghdad followed in 1945. Gift Great Artist lets Fustatb finish three turns earlier than I had expected, in 1948.

Not TOO bad of a victory date, considering I barely paid attention to victory conditions until after 1900.

Some interesting total builds…. I spread Buddhism late, so it required the most missionaries. Christianity spread on its own more than the others, so I needed fewer missionaries for it, even though it was the most-spread religion.


The big number, not listed, is 17:14. That's 17 hours and 14 minutes, which is how long it took me to play this game, which is way too long for a supposedly simple game. I'm just too darn SLOW. Oh well, I had a ton of fun.

[Olodune]

I thoroughly enjoyed your report, so thanks for polishing off your mallets and sabers

Weed during this time:
- Staying in Pacifism and Representation instead of going to Organized Religion and Universal Suffrage. I lost a TON of time walking my missionaries all over creation. I could’ve bought ‘em close to the front once I spread ‘em into my ice cities.

So far no one has gone full tilt rush-buying, which I agree is probably the best spreading strategy.

- Not just donating missionaries once in AI territory but walking them all the way to each city, which ran me up against my limit of 3 all the time.

I donated some missionaries (and built a equatorial-belt railroad), but I still wasn't convinced the AI was using the missionaries "correctly" -- probably pure paranoia on my part. Building more ice cities did reduce the need to spread into AI lands.