There are two kinds of fools. One says, "This is old, and therefore good." And one says, "This is new, and therefore better." - John Brunner, The Shockwave Rider
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Adventure 2: A Firestarter in Azteskimoland
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Kylearan Wrote:Hi, Fighting wars of conquest, man that was bold.  Congrats on a thrilling finish! I had one of those myself, so I know how much fun it must have been for you. I think we will see a higher ratio of thrilling finishes in Civ4. The AIs in Civ4 do not as readily throw themselves on their swords as the old reliable and overly predictable Civ3 AI. As well as you did in the war, I'm surprised it didn't do more for you, but taking out Rome meant Rome did not pitch in vs Mali or England, leaving them to march on unimpeded. (Did you SEE when Mao launched in my game?!?  Good grief. Your Mao is a kitten by comparison, not having swallowed multiple civs whole.)I look forward to many more reports from you. You've taken on a monster proportion as a player and must always now be looked to to see if you posted the winning result for any given event.  - Sirian
Fortune favors the bold.
Hi,
Sirian Wrote:Fighting wars of conquest, man that was bold.In fact, I had believed it not to be bold, but bordering suicide.  But at that time, I had believed my lands were not good enough for the space race, and that I would need to fight a war to have a shot at winning this game at all. Now, reading other reports (Sulla's, Justus', yours etc.), I see that I was wrong. You all founded some more cities far away which I did not dare, and only fought defensive wars and launched faster.But I don't regret my war. While it had slowed me down somewhat, I had a lot of fun doing it! -Kylearan
There are two kinds of fools. One says, "This is old, and therefore good." And one says, "This is new, and therefore better." - John Brunner, The Shockwave Rider
Great game, and great report. I like your analysis of your situation, and the decision of why and vs. whom to go to war. Your game started out similar to mine, although I didn't really know what to do after founding Buddhism, I spread it to my cities and a couple of Chinese cities, then basically forgot about it. You (and Sirian and Sulla as well) all planned on early wonders to get your Prophet and Shrine (and turn a Profit). I never did build my shrine, I tried for a Prophet with priests early, since I skipped the religious wonders, and never got one, and by then I had switched to Christianity and forgotten about it.
Otherwise, the early settling pattern was similar. Intersting also that Mansa stayed strong in yours, rather than being gobbled by China. A few diplomatic moves definitely can alter the shape of the future! All of the wars seemed to have delayed everyone's launch timelines, though, which was a Good Thing! 
Kylearan's opening looks identical to mine. Worker first, research Meditation, get a free scout and then Animal Husbandry from a hut...
After that, however, Kylearan had more hut luck, as all my scouts were killed at a fairly early date while he had tons of units still roaming the map. I wonder how useful that third city site of Tlatelolco turned out to be. I didn't found a city there precisely because it couldn't ever grow into something useful. Kylearan seems to have gotten some good use out of it though, so perhaps my move was somewhat of a mistake. Great Library in 50AD, nice. Very early completion date. And for that matter, you finished the Colossus even sooner than I did. Kylearan and Sirian were both able to get the Texcoco site at the south of the lake centuries later than I did. Interesting. I really thought that if I hadn't gone there with my third city, I wouldn't have gotten it. China expanded differently than I expected, I guess that's all I can say. The Tlaxcala site is just insane, China was already there by 500BC in my game, and you stole it with a settler in 1000AD. Crazyness.  I'm a little surprised at why you decided to go after Caesar, who was your friend and ally. It looks to me like you could have taken out Saladin instead, who also had good lands and you had three allies lined up against. I mean, clearly you were successful in what you chose to do, but attacking Saladin seemed more logical to me. But what do I know? I agree about adding more diplomatic penalties for bribing civs to declare war. Your game at times looks way too reminiscent of the mercenary civs from Civ3. I was highly amused to see all those civs voting for Mansa Musa though! In retrospect, you didn't have any good friends at the end of the game, so I think it does balance out overall. The system does in fact work. I am surprised that you still only had one galley on the inner sea at the end of the game. I had three transports by that time, and they saved my butt during one war declaration. It was very comical, but like I said, I'm surprised you didn't have multiple ships. Interesting that even though you were more dominant than I had been in my game, you actually launched the spaceship 20 turns later. Sirian's going to be up in arms about your game, if he isn't already!  I fully expected someone to go the military route, possibly multiple people, and you did it successfully. But it's interesting to see that the end time was a lot slower in the end. (And Sirian did even less fighting than I did, none in fact, and despite a very unorthodox start came out even faster in the end!) I'm still learning a lot about Civ4 from reading these reports.Thanks for a great report Kylearan.
That Thateloco site is interesting - I briefly considered it to nab the silver, but feared the effect it would have on my economy....in the end I turned out to not have much happiness problems (since I was whipping so much) and was able to get the silver later on anyways.
And I do think the "war ally" diplomatic penalty should be ratcheted up a notch...it is silly that declaring war on someone generally nets a -5 or -6 penalty, but giving someone else a bunch of stuff to declare war only gets you -1. Maybe it should start off at -1, and increase by one or two if the 3rd party manages to capture/raze some cities. I had the same "I gotta fight a war" mentality coming into it, and only avoided that route due to being unable to plan anything! Interesting how that worked out. Great game.
Well, after reading your's and Sulla's reports, it's blatanly obvious that my early game was utterly suboptimal. Although I didn't have NEARLY the hut luck that you had, I didn't manage to grab either wonder and fell into a huge tech hole right from the start. I had to eventually wipe out TWO civs to your one in order to catch up. You early colossus was a great move, one that I completely overlooked in my game.
Great report Ky! I learn so much from reading all of your reports. I have a lot of work to do on my early game, it seems. I liked seeing you gift those units to Mao - that's one strategy for slowing down a spaceship that I didn't consider.
One of my favorite things about the AI in Civ 4 is how ... well, relatively simple it is to set them clawing at each other. It was nice to see someone undertake a warmonger -type strategy. I learned a lot, from you and all the other vet'rans, and my game is beginning to improve drastically.
Hi,
Zalson Wrote:One of my favorite things about the AI in Civ 4 is how ... well, relatively simple it is to set them clawing at each other.I agree. But there are some people who seem to play differently somehow, and don't have that option so often (see Arathorn's report, for example). I know people like Arathorn know how diplomacy works, so I'm still looking into how my style of playing is different... Quote:It was nice to see someone undertake a warmonger -type strategy.I really thought there would be more warmongers among us... -Kylearan
There are two kinds of fools. One says, "This is old, and therefore good." And one says, "This is new, and therefore better." - John Brunner, The Shockwave Rider
Kylearan Wrote:Hi, It is rather puzzling. I occasionally get those "we fear you are becoming to advanced" phrases when they AI has a several tech-lead. I find it one of the most puzzling aspects of the game. I frequently neglect military when I'm not prepping or going to war, so... that could be it. |
