Epic One - Skyfish's report

[Skyfish]

A pretty poorly played game...

I thoroughly enjoyed this game, thanks Sirian, and learned a lot too !
I have almost no time to play Civ and I had pretty much concentrated on playing
opening moves or until a game is considered "won" : I rarely finish any of my solo
games and that hurt me quite badly in this one
I had no idea how to either win by Diplo or build a Spaceship so my end date is pathetic
even though end game suspense is enjoyable and we used to look for it when playing Civ3

First I need to apologize :
My computer can not really play Civ IV (can not alt tab) and I was also victim of the
screenshot bug but necver realized it until I started this report so I lost quite a lot
of data and am not able to present a full report.

1- Opening moves :

On opening the save, I noticed wheat up north and jungle down south, I decided to move the settler to the
hill on the coast and not settle on the lake, to get a food rich start. I dont think it was a bad move.
It gave me one very strong early city instead of 2 slow ones.
Inspired by the Hydra, and again misconstruing the difficulty level, I went for Mysticism/Polytheism first
and Paris founded Hinduism in 2480BC !!
Bonuses are good because you can afford to get late workers, I then went towards AH and BW.
I sent many warriors exploring while I was working on religions so...
I quickly realized that the territory south was a massive jungle and decide to extend my
territory to the North and East. Soon Barb animals killed all my scouts/warriors, but not before I
had met my 2 "friendly" neighbours, Monte and Genghis.



Being full of confidence on Prince level, I chose to settle agressive cities near their borders
hopefully triggering war later on so that I could grow and finance def research.
I spotted cows and gold to the North and decide to settle it, I did not realize how close it
was to Monte until after my settler got there but hey its' only Prince level right ?



I only used one chop to get a quick settler out.



Here is my Southern city, I chose that site to block off Genghis (not agreeing to OB)
and get Dyes but only realized later I missed on the fish I named cities according to
geographical situation and not in order of the game so marseilles is south...



..and Reims is East, thats my "nagging Genghis"city. In the start period, barbarians were
a real pain and I had to build a huge amount of units.
The SouthWest of my lands was blocked off to the AIs and I left unsettled for very long,
the barbs had a feast down there. As you can see, on that shot after the settling phase
I went on a Wonder rampage

[Skyfish]

2- The Wonder building phase.

I usually never built wonders in Civ3 and not that many on Civ IV where I had mainly played
Emperor or Monarch level where its too risky to go for early wonders. So I decided to have fun
here and made max use of Stone and our traits. I also tried to get some Great Persons, something
I had still enver done (this is still one of my first Civ IV games).

I had to miss The Oracle though, at the time I was not behind the AIs in techs and (again)failed to spot
the value add of that wonder :roll:

After Stonehenge I went for Pyramids



By that time I ws totally broke...I still did not understand that much about cottages, thinking
they were disfavouring growth which was the key in Civ3
Finished Pyramids in 20BC and went for Parthenon, here you can see how beautiful a capital is
whith NO commerce I was really diggin myself a nice hole...



But at least I was at least the biggest guy out there



Now the biggest weed ever was to NOT switch to Representation once I got the Pyramids :lol
now thats just as bad as irrigating deserts I have no idea what happened I forgot and then I
thought I had already done it, or I did not even realize that 3 sci beakers/city could help a lot at
that stage, I dunno :??? Mind you I was in a Tokyo to Paris flight when I played those turns so...
I wasnt really fresh...(excuses, excuses,..)

In the mean time my other cities wre actively building troops as the Aztecs were growing
more displeased with me all the time.
Here is a nice message from Monte in 230AD



Then a rapid succession of events took place.

My first Great Prophet was born in 270AD and kept.



Parthenon was completed in 300AD.



And the the GP rushed The Kashi Vishwanath in 310AD too !

So that my capital was a culture freak :

[Skyfish]

3- War times.

Suddenly in 350AD, what I predicted back in 3000BC happened, "Monte chose unwisely"™ :



I was thoroughly prepared for this war and my aggressive settlement on Lille had seriously limited
the Aztec growth.
SO that just a few turns later I was bringing the agression to his capital !



Tenochtilan fell in my hands in 440AD, then I lost it again then regained it in 640AD, the AI was
fighting really well and was not "rolling over" as I thought, and this is Prince level ??? Boy is
that a change from Civ3

Then I captured Teotihuacan and Zapotec a huge barb city in the south which would eventually become
my production powerhouse. I was building troops non-stop for all these turns and financing research with
conquest money...

By that time I had the highest score and biggest culture.



I capured Tatlelolco the final "interesting" Aztec city in 820AD. Monte had still NOT offered peace but I
just gave it to him (he wouldnt give anything anyway) and started an infra push/rebuilding period.

Then in 830AD the situation was more or less under control and I took care of the remaining barbs
in my south during that time...and started posting heavily promoted troops around Mongolian borders...

I furiously spread Hinduism in an attempt to better my economy but once the treasures from Aztec would be over
I would have a problem.

I got 2 more GPs since that first one and was now able to trigger a much needed Golden Age, I planned to use it
for infra but exactly at that time this happened :



Such an opportunity would not present itself again, I had to stay on the warpath and I refused, Genghis declared.
Now I had to use my GA to build all units to take care of the Mongols

Several turns later he got this :

[Skyfish]

4- Economic depression.

After taking Karak, I declared peace with Genghis and all the time tried to make very good friends with Gandhi,
Alex and Washington as my goal was an Honourable Dilpo win but they were embedded in conflicts and I could not
side with one of the factions. Gandhi stayed my friends as well as Alex but that was all I could manage really.
Washington was constantly changing opinions.
The bad economics meant I stayed with limited cities for a very long time as youc an see on the screenies.

I was still running totally outdated civics and my management was very poor.



All those wars had left me way behind in the tech game and I tried to rebuild during a long period of lag in the game.



Finally I got to this stage thanks to some good deals and stronger economy, this period is really where I lost momentum
I had not expected the AIs to run away with the game at that point. I had no idea...



The same year my friend Gandhi came to ask for help, an request I really could not refuse




The 2nd Mongolian war was long and costly, and in 1692 Gandhi made peace with Genghis just before I could wipe him out...
He survived with 1 city to the islands on my north.

By that time America seemed to be running away with the game

[Skyfish]

5- A big surprise

At that point I had no strategy or any idea on how to win this game, but something completely unexpected happened



That was crazy : nothing could really explain this declaration but I thought at that point that it would be my
chance to stop Washington's crazy tech advance and I dedicated my econonmy to producing faraminous amounts of units
in order to go and invade the US !!!!!!!!!!

But first THEY came knocking on my door ! Take a look at those stacks, I had no units to destroy Grenadier and Rifles
so I almost lost Tenochtilan at that point which was my science/specialist city...It was a close call and got ugly.
In 1754 I got a Great Engineer could either rush West Point or Pentagon or keep it 13 more turns to trigger a Golden
Age when a thrid Great Person would appear: I went for the latest and the gamble paid off (there was a 5% chance it
wouldnt)





So I managed to buckle up and after triggering a second golden age I brought the offensive to the US after a long long time.



He was really far ahead in Techs and had Infanteries and transports !! But he did not have a lot of units and I just crushed
him under the weight of my armies.


Finally in 1850 !! I was able to give back Delphi to my Greek friends who had in the meantime been victim of Washington as well.
All that time Gandhi never sided with me despite lal my efforts for him to join the war.



In the end I left a few fishing villages to Washington and the main AI was reduced to a dwarf.

[Skyfish]

6- End game.

My ultimate purpose was always to win by diplo, little did I know how that worked...
The attack on America financed some well needed science to try to catch up with India and get to the UN asap.
When I finally built the UN in 1891, my feeling was that I had managed to keep Gandhi and Alex quite happy for
a very long time but my attack on the US would make Gandhi my opponent in the elections.
However both Aztecs and Mongols were Furious at Gandhi, while only Cautious with me and I had reckoned I had
a slim chance.
The Aztecs and Greeks had voted for me as Secretary General but when the real deal came, here was the result :



Well that was it for a Diplo victory, I was never going to get it, even the Greeks whom I had supported all the way
forever abstained..

From that point on I sort of gave up on the game and did not really control it at all. I had no experience at all with
late game strategy.
Suddenly the Indians attacked Greece and I though that since Gandhi was my rival in the UN I could maybe swing Alex's
vote if I intervened for him and yes he came to ask for help and seeing that Gandhi attacked my old friend with no reason
(in fact my 2 old friends were at war now) I deemed Honourable to punish Gandhi.
Right at the time of the First World War, I entered my 5th war, how could I have expected to win by Diplo ?
The weed is too good in Amsterdam I tell ya
Anyway Gandhi was way ahead of me in tech and I was fighting Mech Infs with Cavs for a while there :roll:



Well after a long conflict I took him on of his core cities but my "friend" Alex was still not impressed and kept
abstaining.

After missing a victory by just 1 vote out of 539



I just gave up on Diplo and went for Space and built quite a lot of the parts but my land in ex-America was growing
exponentially and suddenly just a few turns before the Launch I got a Backdoor Domination win





What an irony for a Frenchman to be called a Winston Churchill
This game had too many mistakes to even count but it really was extremely educative
and of course quite enjoying !

[Maniac Marshall]

Eh, you won old friend. That's what counts is it not?

You got really, really lucky that Washington was stupid enough to declare war on you. That's one of the dumbest moves I've seen from an AI yet.

Your choice of victory path surprises me. After reading Sulla's CIV Release week game and hearing about the experiences of a few others (in particular Speaker's failed attempt at an immortal diplo win), I'm pretty gun shy about trying to win that way.

I seem to be fairly isolated in that stance, but I have problems with my winning or losing hinging on a calculation I don't understand.

Until I really understand how the UN voting works, I doubit I'll be going for diplo wins.

Congrats on the win, and don't take the so hard.

Is it not the mark of the good player that he can still win when not playing his best game?

[MeteorPunch]

Interesting game. Really bad commerce with really good military aggression.

[Sirian]

Doesn't look so bad to me. You did better than I did in some respects.

Whatever you thought you knew about difficulty levels, throw it out. This is a new game.

Backdoor Domination is OK. If you control 60% of the population and have made it all the way to Mass Media, I'm good with calling that a victory. The AI's only possible way to beat you from there is a launch, and if they want to do that, they can do it before you get the UN built or before you get to 60% population.

It DOES always come available before Domination will, if you've reached the Modern Age. That is, if the UN is on hand, you can get to Backdoor Domination a lot easier than to real Domination. However, real Domination can be obtained at any time, so it's not automatically second fiddle.

I would have liked more from the Diplomatic game, but the changes are already fairly radical compared to before. The biggest thing I'd like to see is an end to the voting being decided strictly by population. I think some other criteria for determining who gets nominated might be more useful. For instance, an actual NOMINATION PROCESS, rather than automatic selection of nominees based on stats, etc.

Maybe in an expansion, though. Or maybe in Civ5. Or maybe in some other empire building game.


- Sirian

[Kylearan]

Hi,

a poorly played game?!? Are you kidding? Considering that you haven't played CIV much, I think you played very well! Especially the way you handled the wars was well done. (What, you mean you can actually be *prepared* for war if someone declares on you?!? Thanks for that lesson; I still have to learn that... )

-Kylearan