ADV 45: Athlete's Unfinished Business

[athlete4life10]

Well yet again I did not finish a tournament game but had fun while I played this. I am somewhere around the 1000 AD mark I think, though it still might be earlier.

I didn't put a lot of thought into the wonders but given that it was on immortal difficulty I figured I was going to have some difficulties. Charismatic screams Stonehenge to me and again under the impression I was going to have a hard time I decided that had to be my first one. The Eiffel Tower didn't even cross my mind. Why? Because I just never really play that far into a game. I have a terrible habit for giving up on games right around liberalism and starting over.

Now my next wonder I've always wanted to play with but never gotten the chance was the Cristo Redentor. Having played a Spiritual leader in PBEM the ability to swap in/out of slavery/serfdom was neat and the Cristo Redentor would provide me that chance to really MM my civics which I "thought" would be fun. I did give some serious thought to just having the Hagia Sophia as I like that wonder but never really build it because it expires too soon in comparison to when you get it. Combining that with Cristo would guarantee me GE's which I love but decided the free border pops and extra happy would make up for it. And with Cristo in my pocket I could just adopt serfdom when I wanted it to get the same effect as the Hagia Sophia.

I did have a quick look through the list of Wonders on CivFanatics trying to decide and quickly considered the Kremlin, but never having used it before, I shied away from it because I didn't understand it. I also strongly considered the Globe Theatre but couldn't decide what to pair it with and I think by now we all know I can't fight my way out of a soaking wet paper bag so also decided against military wonders.

I've got some screenshots and what not that I'll be able to post tonight so look for the rest of my write up then. Thanks to T-Hawk for this game it was a lot of fun for what I played. I can't see me finishing this one as I'm bored with where I am but depending on what the next one is (if I'm not interested in it) I might change my wonders and give ADV 45 another go.

[athlete4life10]

So my screenshots are pretty barren...but I had some decent notes so this is basically how it went. One major benefit of having the Cristo Redentor early was to stay out of slavery unless I had to use it (due to random events) yet I constantly forgot to get out of it. MM'ing civic swaps could be annoying and I never really got to the point where I had to do more than that!

My opening went worker, workboat, workboat, warrior, granary, worker, settler. The settler was whipped which overflowed into a barracks. I landed an engineer on T25 which was settled and my tech path was: Bronzeworking, Agriculture, The Wheel, Pottery, Animal Husbandry (hut popped Hunting on T1, I wonder if everybody go that), Iron Working, Writing. Met Ramses to my east, who landed Hinduism, and Mansa Musa to my west. I was able to successfully pull off a worker steal against Ramsses which came in very handy!

Upon deciding to commit to the worker steal, I decided I would do everything to befriend Mansa Musa, while working my way around the wheel to kill everybody else. As it turned out it took forever just to get to Justinian and after a bit I didn't know what to do which is the biggest reason why I stopped playing this game. Now having had time to think about it, I shoudl have just sealed him off and teched to a space win which probably would have been possible.

I settled my 2nd city close by, just to my NW to help keep maintenance costs down. However it wasn't until T50 that I got it down. I think that's still better than Refsteel's 2nd city so yay for me! Utica would end up being 1W of the pigs.

I then founded a city (Hadrumetum) on Memphis’s borders far to my E (1S,1SE of the Iron), using Stonehenge to pop my borders and I could then backfill cities as needed. I never did (backfill) during the time I played. I ended up just using it as a staging to attack Egypt. I chopped, whipped and built Numidian Cavalaries and captured Memphis. I had to bypass Egypt’s capital and went on to raze their other city. I then came back to the capital and had my initial strike force of 4 Numid Cav’s meet up with another 4 and was able to take down the Egyptian Capital complete with Lighthouse, and Kashi Viswanith.

My first elimination of an enemy civ in BC times (550 BC) ….eh*hem…in SP play that is .

So single unit type warfare...I'm actually ok with!

Numid Cav's may not be great, but having discovered just how good flanking II is, makes an HA rush probably the best rushing unit in the game. The added survivability is awesome.

I healed up and then sent them on their way out again. Contacts began to roll in and it looked like a Buddhist bloc was forming, but Mansa was not going to be part of it. Mansa founded Conf. and sent the missionary to me, so I buddied up with him as per my plan. Some tech trades began to happen, most of which had me at a major disadvantage. Still I was happy to do them. So long as I could keep Mansa happy, I figured I’d have a trading buddy all game. I was able to get to the Byzantine border and raze a couple of cities, 1 of which was Adrianople, a size 9 city. The other was some small recently founded one. My Numidian Strikeforce then made their way to Constantinople where they spotted a stack of catapults and some melee units, so I was able to get peace for 10 gold.

As I said before at this point I should have just sealed him off and settled all my land. France and Greece were at phony wars with me (friends of buddhist Justinian) but I would be able to raze a newly founded French city with a scouting pair of Numids and get peace on that front and Alex never bothered sending anything my way that I saw, so I probably could have done so. If war had been required later I woudl have had the land develloped and could have continued. But no stupid me I tried to hook up elephants and go for a cat/phant run. By the time I got them back over to Byzantine he's refounded the cities and settled all down the east coast and starting to make his way into the former egyptian lands. At that point I just gave up cause it was going to take me forever.

I honestly don't understand how people can finish a normal speed game like this in less then 50 hours of playing time. Well let's be fair and say 40.

Anyways as I said before it was fun for a while (until I couldn't figure out my best path to take) and was definitely a great idea so thanks for sponsoring it T-Hawk!

Athlete

[regoarrarr]

One major benefit of having the Cristo Redentor early was to stay out of slavery unless I had to use it (due to random events) yet I constantly forgot to get out of it. MM'ing civic swaps could be annoying and I never really got to the point where I had to do more than that!

That was one of the reasons I didn't pick CR - didn't want to deal with having to remember to swap in and out of everything