Adventure 46 Report - Amelia's screenie failure

[Amelia]

Well... this is my first report i guess. I don't even consider myself an average player, but i figured that the best way to start learning advanced strategy is to play a tournament and see for myself. With that said, I made a few screwups with the print screen, and i lost all my initial screenshots. But i still have enough to hopefully make this a good report!

Anyway, this was the start.


If i remember correctly i moved my warrior up but there was nothing there. Sulla obviously intended us to settle on the spot, what with the ruins, but i decided to go down and check that fertile land with my settler. This photo is taken much later, but thanks to me losing my initial screenshots this is the best i can do.



Floodplains, irrigated rice, lots of farms (remember that we can't build improvements), Sugars, and Cows, this site made a lot of food, needed for the settler rush.

I aimed for meditation for a religion, but failed to get it (oops). I went for Bronze working next, to find a copper. Builds went Warrior - Warrior - Settler when city is 2. No point building workers if they can't do anything :P

So, found copper, and my next city was aimed to get it.



I don't think anyone can find a better site than this. Food, lots of hills and forests for production, and two coppers? Woah. It built a monument for the expand, then warriors. Barbs were a trouble in this game (as i'll say later).

In a state of blurness i went fishing next, hoping that it would benefit me. Dumb mistake, but oh well. Next settler took advantage of that though.



Triple sugar, corn, and more importanty, Furs for happiness. With financial the coast became profitable, and with such a huge food surplus this became a whipping ground.

Also, i was starting to have troubles with barbs at this stage, but Copper Central constantly produced Chariots with the Horses from the Main City to handle the problem. I couldn't sit and wait though, had to attack them before they pillaged!

After Animal Husbandry i aimed Iron Working, and when i got it my next city became clear.



It would eventually become a defensive factor, as it controlled the chokepoint into my empire. (Which was why i built walls).

Also, an old photo which showed something i normally wouldn't do.



I already lost one warrior with the first attack, but i had to otherwise he would sabotage the farm, which would end up as something permanent.

Of course, this would be revenge for the attack.



This is the city in the middle life.



P.S: You were allowed to build work boats, so i whipped one from Seatown.

This city was a commerce city, what with all the towns and coasts, supported by the pigs, fish, and wheat. It had troubles with barbs though!

My 6th city, after i had troubles with happiness, was a Pink Dot.



Unfortunately i did lose the pink dot to Harappan, so i settled the next best place. Which was because i could never gain control of the gems lol.

Also, i never noticed, but the marble at Iron Corner was never available until i relooked at it.



Why is there a fort not a quarry? And since I can't build improvements...



I did manage to get a religion in the end though, but since everyone was either Buddist or Jewish, it didn't matter.

And my final city in a backwater...



And with that, the peaceful time ended. It was time for fireworks!

To be continued in the next post as i'm mortally afraid of a post being too big.

[novice]

Do you want comments in between your posts? I can edit this away if not.

Nice report so far, thumbs up for lots of screenshots!

Some comments:
- You founded your iron city in the same spot as me.
- If you wanted the gems you could have gotten them by settling your Hopeful Gems one tile to the west.
- The fort will give you marble when your cultural borders engulf it.
- You could spot the metals initially by looking for mined grassland tiles. The copper in the original capital location was one of the reasons I founded in place.

[Amelia]

Somehow or other, we entered war. The jewish sect (Asoka/Brennus) vs the Buddisht (Me/Justinian/HR/Egypt).

Yeah, it's not going to go well for the jewish.

It was even worse for Brennus after Asoka was persuaded with the Apolistic Palace to war against Brennus, and he was slowly taken apart.



Notice my exploration on the left, i was checking for any available land.

Now i realize. How do i win? Conquest is out, and so is Domination, i will get picked apart by the tri-pact (and the stupid apolistic palace will stop any wars anyway), ... but wait... apolistic palace?

So i decide at last for a cheesy religious diplo win. The palace was built by Egypt, and Justinian was my firm friend, so i could work something out that way.

But first, there was something else on my mind. Remember those 2 gems?



So here was the plan. Convert egypt to Tao, then slaughter him. I guessed that if i placed Tao in every city of his, he would convert due to having more Tao compared to Buddism. I will get the Gems, more land (and more votes), and so on.

Unfortunately he never turned. I'm still wondering why.

And all that didn't matter anymore when suddenly...



Sometimes it is better to be lucky than to be good? Was that the quote :P

Also, on the left islands, some drama is happening.

Help! My gunmen on horse... are being attacked by club-wielding Barbarians!



And here i would like to comment on something. Why didn't the islands have improvements? It basically made all these islands ungettable as i couldn't improve the land.

With that said...



I decided to give the city to HR, burden him with expenses, since i couldn't use it myself. Barbs took over it :P

Now, i was starting to realize something. Why wasn't the Religious victory being chosen? Was something wrong?



Oh. Of course. Another civ.

So, change of plans. By this time Brennus had died, and Asoka was on the receiving end of the attack. I bribed here and there so that only me and Justinian (my firm friend) got the cities. I also gave a lot of things to Hammarubi, and sent in a lot of missionaries to convert all his cities to Buddist.

But before that...

Coal!





... and that was rather... cold... Sulla...

I eventually built a city over the coal next to the sea to get the coal. Needed it for railroads :P

So, this was the first result of the elections...



Damn! Charlegmene just found liberalism and he switched to Free Religion... so i lost his vote!

I started bribing him as much as i can, then i realized i could bribe him to enter Theology back. (Which i was on due to fav civic of Justinian). With that...



Got the victory! Ok, while it's not such a good victory, i can say that i'm proud i managed to finish a tournament. Only thing was that at times i was so excited i forgot to take screenshots :P

With that said, let's go to all my cities.



Specialist capital!



Heroic Epic, produced a lot of my military for the war against Brennus / Asoka (they sometimes managed to bring stuff to me).



Commerce city, with furs.



Hybrid defensive wall, most of my troops were stationed here.



Commerce city, note that it was losing the culture battle. (no towns taken away though!)



Gem city lol. Can't believe i placed a city all the way out just for gems.



Backwater city, mainly for commerce (Financial coasts!)



Coal city! Nothing else though lol.



And... international trade routes city! Since you couldn't build land improvements, I just made do with triple fishes. It would have been a good commerce + draft city i guess.



Quite even with the ai, i'm not that happy with this but given that this is my first time in a tourney i'm satisfied.



Yeah happyville is all the way down there. Urgh.



I built mainly Hwachas for offensive, but obviously religion matters were more important!

And yes, 13 theatres although i had 9 cities. I gave up a few in the middle doomed to die under culture.

Also, 0 workers. Not every game you can see that!



At least i'm still Augustus :P

Well, fire away! I appreciate any critics or comments Thanks for designing such a good game Sulla.

[Amelia]

Novice:

Somehow i was quite blur in noticing mines / pastures on nothing... i didn't know why. Also, i didn't know forts could be used for marble, thanks for the info!

If i settled the Gems city one spot to the left, i wouldn't get the cows, and farms for the production. It ended up building a lot of missionaries, so i guess it did something worthwhile.

Thanks for the comments novice

[Compromise]

Welcome Amelia!

Sounds like you had a fun time playing, which is what it's all about.

I noticed something in a few of your cities, e.g. your capital Happyville--loved the nonstandard names!--and the Hopeful Gems. And that's food. Food surplus, to be exact. Farms on normal (brown) plains tiles just aren't worth working, but your capital had a number of them.

And there were two food sources that Happy Gems could have grabbed if it were placed 2 tiles to the north.

The eventual biggest size for the city--before Sid's Sushi or Cereal Mills or Biology--is set by the food surplus.

The rest of your cities looked pretty good though, so maybe I'm making too much out of a couple of atypical examples.

Also, consider putting your first few cities closer to the AI. You can backfill your area later, after you've "encouraged" them to settle on the far side of their capitals...towards the other AIs instead of you!

Good work on hooking up horses to take care of barbs here. They were a nuisance on this map if you didn't expand quickly.

Nice work on the Apostolic Victory. Your situation seemed to be just the place for it to be used.

Glad you had fun and reported!

[Amelia]

I remember i placed Happyville to churn out settlers fast... while I agree plains farm is quite useless, irrigated rice, cows, spices and farmed flood plains meant that i could build settlers from size 3 (4 if i wanted the spice bonus in).

Hopeful Gems was just . Honestly that was my weediest move... One spot left could obtain gems, two spots above could obtain double food (+ one gems), but i had to build it in that area lol. Thanks for the comments compromise... I hope i can improve my game

[Profane]

Forts can be used to connect any Land resource, I think.