So I think I could have finished this one all the way to an in-game conclusion if I'd spent as much time planning and playing as I did writing reports, doing slightly silly naming-theme-related research, and taking screenshots as I went along. This method was more fun. I'll post my reports as I can, starting below; they ... uh ... ran a little long. My reports mostly won't be in character, as they're more inspired by the MP reports I've seen around here than by my Orion reports. Hopefully, this should give you a sense for what (if anything) I was thinking in real time though!
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Adventure 59 - RefSteel's Unplanned India
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First and most importantly: RBCiv Adv59 is a pretty generic name for my emperor, especially since it could be shared by up to four different emperors entirely. The leader's original name is supposedly Asoka, but come on. In Civilization 4, Asoka is Spiritual and Organized. And he pilots India, the hands-down most-broken civilization in the game. Asoka of Restricted is not a "leader." Asoka of Restricted is, as we should all be well aware by now, a wombat.
 (Reference) (I didn't promise it would be a reference to anything though.) Anyway, there are three things you need to know about wombats (by which I of course mean Asokas) and they are these: 1) They are marsupials. 2) They live in Australia. 3) They have a wonderful name. These are three more things than you need to know about my playthrough of Adventure 59, but I'm going to go through with it and post a report anyway because now I've gone and made up a naming theme so I may as well play it out. Here goes. The year 4000:  We've decided to play follow-the-leader. The warrior is wandering off someplace while the settler follows dilligently along his trail. Also the settler is moving to a plains hill adjacent to a 4-yield tile, but that's probably a coincidence. The year 3960: We totally call it 3960 in the Australindian Empire. We're counting down to the date when ["Redacted" because I'm writing this as I play; I don't know what happens then either!]  I should probably have just named everything after wombats, but I left my list of internationally famous wombats in my other parka. I'm going to keep all the autosaves and everything though, so I can totally go back and change all the city names and re-take all these screenshots before I post this! There'll totally be dozens of famous wombats to choose from! With names! (Note that "Dozens" is RB-Adv-59 Australindian for "three.") (Plus or minus three.) (Well, if you leave out the "plus" part, maybe.) Seriously though, I'm going to throw down some legit history on you guys. According to the most reliable source ever (well, okay, wikipedia) Sri Mandir Temple was the first Hindu temple ever established on the Australian continent! Sweet, huh? I mean, clearly if there were Hindu wombats, they would put Holy Cow ornaments on their Christmas Hannukah Chinese New Year Western New Year Solstice Mōdraniht Newtonmas Festivus Holiday trees. If you think I'm going to try to found the religion though, you're out of your mind. Oh, also apparently a Fworker is a ten turn build here. Yeah, that's a pretty nice way to start. Wanna know a nicer way to start though?  So landing a free tech on turn 6 wasn't part of the plan, so it's a good thing there was no plan to begin with! Borders popping to grab the one visible hut was definitly a nice (little) bonus to this start tile though. And, you know, a free Wheel makes that bonus a little nicer still. The year 3760: (Yeah, the last bit was from 3760 too, but I didn't want to interrupt myself.)  Jackie French is out exploring. I should note in passing that my unit naming theme here is not "Australian authors" in case you just did an EXTREMELY lazy job of googling her. If you did a slightly less lazy job of googling her though, you pretty much know the naming theme already. The year 3680:  I probably couldn't have founded Buddhism this early no matter what I tried, considering I haven't even finished agriculture. Or maybe Buddhism is cheaper? Or does Myst count as a prereq? You can tell I'm really focused on the details of this game and have all kinds of Civ4 knowledge at my fingertips, right? Oh, also Jackie French is returning from Disappointment Peninsula. ("It's disappointing because it's a penninsula.[TM]") The only way to get that stone in a BFC is to plant a city more or less where Jackie's standing, and pretend that clams actually count as a food resource. (Pro tip: They do! This early though, with ten thousand higher priorities than sailing? Especially when you have a gold hill to feed? Yeah, no.) I assume this is intentional, to create a tough choice for the player: "Do I plant a complete junk city (e.g. ON the stone or maybe 1W to share the wines with a real city or something) or do I plant an icky city (the one I mentioned) that will never really have enough food or do I just accept the stone being like third or fourth ring for a real city?" It would be an interesting choice if landing an important stone wonder was part of my strategy for the game. Luckily, I have no strategy for this game, so it's much easier for me. The year 3360:  How time does fly! I could definitely have landed Hinduism had I been completely insane. It's turn 16 already! Instead, I'm almost halfway through Bronze Working with Agriculture in the bag, one Fworker finished, and a farm on the corn. Also I finish another warrior and grow to size 2 (to keep using that Holy Cow) next turn. I assume this can be optimized more because come on -- I'm not really planning it out in advance at all -- but figuring out what to do with everyone is still fun. For instance, Lachlan Creagh (He's a Fast Worker! Get it? Get it? You know my naming scheme, right? Oh, never mind.) wants to improve the wheat next, but it's too far away for even him to get there and improve it this turn! What do you think he should do instead? (My answer in spoiler tags.) The year 3160:  Look who's on the far side of the northwest desert! Meet the Malinese Maverick, Mansa Musa! ... Yeah, I got nothing. Here's a look at the world as we know it, to emphasize the point (in case I turn out to have one).  If you can't see Mali's borders at the top of the image, it's because, you know, it's Mali. In fact, aren't the Byzantines in this one too? I suspect spotting people's borders will be a bigger challenge in this one than the game itself. The year 3080: A big, scary lion has appeared in front of my southern scouting warrior! (Yes, I have a southern scouting warrior now.) Watch out, little wombat! The year 3040: (AKA "immediately." It was a very slow-moving lion. Or a really, really long battle.)  Yay! He won the ... wait, that's 0.0 out of 2?! Is he actually dead? Is he a ghost?! Haha, no, Civ just looks funny when it's rounding numbers down. But that still means he took something like 98 or 99% damage in that battle. Uh ... I don't think Mr. Fuge is going exploring anymore. ... Well, all right, a little more exploring maybe. Notice that little splash of yellow in the ocean to the south? I'm pretty sure that means...  I'm not sure I'd say the RNGods have smiled on poor Charles Fuge. That lion attacked up a jungle hill and still managed to redline the guy. But it's true: He survived to meet our friend Hatty by moving down to that rice tile! (Disclaimer: "Friend" designation is preliminary and provisional. Designation may be downgraded to "Bitter enemy" pending actual cause and/or indigestion.) The year 3000: (Millenial celebrations have been temporarily suspended while we search for anyone in the empire who actually wants to bother with them.)  Jackie French has been nosing around Mali lands and seeing lots of ocean out there. Also something she discovered earlier but which I neglected to mention: Our second (if we can land it) Holiday Ornament! Those are pretty obviously Mansa Musa's bananas, but whatever; he's just an AI. I won't be planting a city to claim them for a while though, if ever. (Because I'll need to come up with a joke about holy bananas first, and those don't just write themselves.) Oh, also Bronze Working came in last turn, as you can tell from Mansa having an amazing tile in his first ring that he doesn't even know about yet, but I was too busy fretting about Charles Fuge's scrape with the lion and my meeting with Hatty of Egypt to actually notice if I had any copper of my own. I did use the new tech for a couple of things though. The year 2960:  Since events are off and Wombat 59 is Spiritual (and Organized!) I revolted right away. Here I'm simultaneously 2-pop whipping my next Fworker and receiving a chop from the Holy Cows. It would have been a better move to chop the forest NORTH of them and keep the cows forested until AH was nearly ready, but those are the types of slip-ups I make when I don't bother with an actual plan. The build queue you see there is only approximately right. I blame Master of Orion 2. (MoO1 doesn't have build queues, and is far superior in that respect -- and many others -- but MoO2 is the one I played first, starting sometime last millenium.) Anyway, with their forest gone, the cows are now decidedly unholy. (To quote a now-popular carol, "On the first day after christmas, my true love and I had a fight, and so I chopped the pear tree down, and burned it just for spite.") The Settler will be produced at the end of T29, by the way, with the help (since I might as well now) of a couple more chops, so I guess you could call that a plan if you're really lazy about plan-making, but I still have to decide where to send him. Probably it'll be the city I assumed I'd be building since the game began, to claim the gold and share some of SMT's food, but the big thing about Disappointment Peninsula is that its peninsular nature kind of obviates the utility of moving my capital to the gold city later on, as I had supposed I would do. SMT was meant to get everything going as fast as I possibly could without, you know, any actual plan, but it turns out to also be more central to what my early empire will be, and it's looking like the hammers I'd have devoted to a palace are going to be needed for other things instead. Like half a million units to acquire some actual land (after half a million fworkers clear the jungle in the northwest). Maybe I'll build that palace in Timbuktu instead.
Very different start from my game. I moved the settler east and founded on that plains hill to use the gold, clams, corn, wine, and (formerly) holy cows. Amazing how much difference that first choice makes in the game.
Of course, considering how my game has gone, I probably should have gone west as you did. 
(January 13th, 2014, 19:30)Dhalphir Wrote: Haha, I enjoyed this report! Great game :D Thanks Dhalpir! Wait 'til you see the rest.... (January 13th, 2014, 21:50)haphazard1 Wrote: Very different start from my game. I moved the settler east and founded on that plains hill to use the gold, clams, corn, wine, and (formerly) holy cows. Amazing how much difference that first choice makes in the game. Yeah, I considered the eastern site too, and that's the site to which I thought I would eventually move my capital before I discovered Disappointment Peninsula. But getting the Holy Cow in the first ring saved a turn on producing the first worker, and I figured that would be more important overall. (Plus clams is a terrible food tile for most starts.) Anyway, on to part two! The year 2760: There's been a bit of a gap since my previous play session, and instead of continuing on without a plan, I've decided to go for a plan that won't actually work! More fun that way.  The plan has nothing to do with copper; I'm just noticing that I do have some after all. I'll be sure to hook it up sometime after I tech fishing and can actually feed it. No, the plan has to do with Stonehenge, which is why it's not going to work. I have no idea when Emperor AIs build that thing, but they do all start with Mysticism(if I'm reading T-Hawk's game description correctly) so they can surely beat me to it if they try. A better question is, "Why am I trying to build Stonehenge, and the answer is, "I dunno, sounds like more fun than building all the fworkers and settlers I desperately need." So what's the plan? First of all, I notice that the fworker on the hill has already completed his second turn of what might now turn out to be useless mining, so I can't reassign him until next turn. Oops! Second, I note that if I really wanted Stonehenge, I should have founded Commonwealth Bay on the plains tile west of the copper, where it would have four forests and a soon-to-be 2/4/0 tile, all in its first ring. That's not an oops though, because a city in that location would have no excuse to be called Commonwealth Bay in the first place. So I'll just have to make do with a city which is merely 1000% better (guesstimated value) and figure out a way to get Stonehenge a small pile of failgold faster with this city in spite of its forest envy. So here's your chance to play along at home! Can you create a better plan than me for rushing out Stonehenge? Everything you need to know is in the screenie above! (Or at least in this report. 5 turns of whip anger left in SMT in case you care and don't want to look it up. Also note Commonwealth Bay was just founded this turn. I didn't mention that we have exactly 60 beakers left to finish AH, or that this means we would have to get a few commerce from tiles if we want to finish it in four turns instead of five, but it's in the report now!) The Year 2720:  If your plan had Lachlan moving 2E and starting a road while CB worked a Plains Hill Forest, we're still on the same page! Also the game likes to congratulate me for routine accomplishments, and we're all hoping that Michael Morpurgo has more health after his lion-attacking-straight-up-the-side-of-a-forested-hill experience than poor Charles Fugue did. (I've got three warriors running around exploring right now; Mr. Fugue was elected Capital Military Policeman because he's not going to be healthy enough to do anything else for a few centuries.)  As it turns out, Michael survived without a scratch, and so (having recently passed some forested sheep as well) lives to discover the pictured Gingerbread Village! Also yet another lion. You may also notice in this screenshot that Judaism has fallen. We're in a game with four Spiritual Myst-start AIs. I'm glad I didn't waste time pursuing a religious plan. (Or, you know, a plan of any other kind.) The Year 2680:  So this turn is pretty interesting. I went ahead and whipped the third fworker in SMT, leaving it to work just the wheat while Commonwealth Bay borrows the corn to start on growth. If Stonehenge is BiDL in the next couple of turns, I'll be glad I at least did some growing, anyway. If you've noticed the "c1" prechop markers on three forests (two of which aren't even in my borders) around the Bay, you're probably starting to get an idea for what my terrible, terrible plan looks like. (My half-built roads will both have strategic value when finished, at least until construction, which right now feels like a loooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnng way away. The half-built mine was, as previously mentioned, a mistake.) Oh, also, my latest exploring warrior is now one tile away from Charles Fuge's Redline Hill, and you'll never guess who is currently occupying that very hill! The Year 2640:  Yeah, you probably guessed correctly. By the way, my warrior had nearly 2:1 odds of winning that fight, thanks to the forest defense bonus and the +10% against animals. I was still completely unsurprised when the bear won the battle, as my local signs indicate. Moving on! My other explorers are also making themselves useful: Michael Murpurgo, out by the Gingerbread Village, just found out who killed the lion he spotted a couple turns ago!  I met Justinian's now-C1, injured warrior, but I might also have stumbled across his borders at the same time: With Byzantine borders, how would I ever know? In domestic affairs, a forest grew just north of Commonwealth Bay! This does not exactly invalidate my plan (excuse me -- my "plan") but it grew one turn too late to represent a serious improvement! Even now, it's going to give me a spare worker turn and preserve a forest in the capital's BFC, so I'm certainly not complaining. On the other hand, it also gives me an option to instead preserve two forests in Commonwealth Bay's second ring, pasture the cows earlier, and otherwise just make the plan look a whole lot better (Disclaimer: "Better" is still not necessarily "good.") if I'm willing to delay Stonehenge by one more turn. The change only looks worse if someone else finishes Stonehenge at the end of turn 35 or 38 (and looks horribly worse if it's 38, of course) and would actually look better if it gets built somewhere at eot 37. So I think I'm going for it. It's a shame to leave that corn unworked this turn, but for once, I'm trying to think about the future! (Sort of.) The Year 2600:  If you think I'm taking 2:1 odds in a fight between one of my warriors and a lion, you haven't been reading this report. Rather than biting on this one, Jackie French will return to the Holy Bananas and hope the lion comes after her there where she'll (by then) have a fortify bonus as well. (I think.) The corn is being worked again while Sri Mandir Temple tries to grow, but that means the Wheat is idle. It all feels so ... so ... suboptimal! :weeps openly: Seriously though, that's nothing! You want to see suboptimal? How about turning three worker turns and a first-ring forest into 20 failgold!  The Year 2560: The lion retreated back to its hill, so Jackie French is involved in an old-fashioned Australindian standoff. Who will blink first? Also this turn: Stonehenge is still up for grabs, so if I regret changing plans, it will be because I really regret changing plans! And since Animal Husbandry just completed, we start husbanding some animals. You know, it didn't even occur to me at any point that horses might appear in a useful spot for my (ahem) "planning." It's a good thing, too.  The nearest source to my empire -- indeed, the only source within a million miles of my empire -- is right on the doorstep with Mali. That pretty much means I have to plant a city where Jackie French is standing unless I want to one-up my previous comment about clams and pretend that a plains cow counts as a food resource. (Pro tip: It doesn't.) Note that none of the signs on this map are supposed to represent a dotmap (not even a really ill-conceived one). If you're looking for a detailed analysis of where to build your cities to squeeze the most win out of this game, I hate to break it to you, but you're reading the wrong report. The Year 2520:  There's another forest turned into 20 failgold! If henge falls at the end of this turn though, we're still better off than under my previous terrible plan. The year 2480:  Yeah, so who's surpised that Izzy founded Buddhism? (Her Scout spotted Jackie French across a strait over in Lionland during the interturn). If you are surprised, it probably means you've never played the game before, in which case I'm sorry for letting the screen cut off part of her opening speech. (Izzy talks a lot.) As for what she thinks "fiendish heathens" need however ... I'm sure you can use your imagination. And so with the newest worker (the one who just finished a chop last turn) moving up to help complete the cow pasture (at long last!) which Commonwealth Bay uses right away, it is time for the Interturn of Truth! Do I have a Wonder of the Ancient World? (Not one of the actual seven, but never mind.) Or do I have a really, really costly pile of rocks? (REALLY costly. Some of them were transmuted to stone from trees, at great expense.) The year 2440:  The answer, as it turns out, is "both." I did have a moment's panic when I realized even my fworkers couldn't reach the prechopped forest from the cow tile in one turn, but then I remembered I had prechopped it twice and had half-built a strategic road along the way on purpose. (Oh, right. Planning.) By the way: There were actual reasons to chop Stonehenge in this spot. (Apart from "It's a Wonder! Yay!") First: It pops Commonwealth Bay's borders (claiming the gold, which is important) faster than chopping a monument. Second: It means I don't have to worry about popping borders at any of my future cities (which is important partly because of the sparse layout of resources on the map but largely because I don't intend to do a whole lot of detailed planning, except maybe on special occasions like this one). Third: The city will now reach fourth ring borders (claiming the stone) in a not-completely-unreasonable timeframe. Pyramids will surely have fallen by then (I assume) but it'll be in plenty of time for things like Oxford and maybe even Moai Statutes. The downside is that it'll give me Great Priest Points, so I'll have to outrun them with actually-useful GPP someplace (or forget all about it and I dunno, launch some golden ages or something). The Year 2440:  Okay! That was pretty satisfying! Turn-to-turn reports of the details of what's going on and intense concentration on the specifics of a totally silly plan - I like it! I should maybe try the whole "planning things out in detail" bit some more, right? ... Nah. Back to our regularly-scheduled lackadaisical "planning." I'll report when something interesting happens, 'kay?
Yeah, fifteen paragraphs on a single wonder is a bit wordy even by RB standards.
 I do like and often use the tactic of chopping Stonehenge or the Oracle off-capital to get better use of their culture.All the AI leaders were Spiritual, but not all civs with Spiritual leaders start with Mysticism. Mali and Egypt don't. (January 14th, 2014, 01:03)T-hawk Wrote: Yeah, fifteen paragraphs on a single wonder is a bit wordy even by RB standards. Ha - yeah, those are a couple of problems with writing my reports as I went along. And failing to notice which civs I'd actually met and what their starting techs happened to be is another fine example of my lack of attention to strategic detail here. Anyway, more wordy stuff (but not AS wordy, perhaps, and not just about one wonder) still to come, starting with Part 3: The Year 2080:  Hey, I noticed a City Ruins under a forest a little while back! There are the Ornamental Ruins, right in the middle of the screenie! That's interesting, right? I've also reported every single battle that my forces have fought in this game. There have been four. We had odds in every single one of them, better than 90% odds in three of them, better than 98% odds in two of them. We won only the >98% battles, and survived one of those (it was our first fight, also poor Mr. Fuge here) at less than 1/40th health. Just saying. The Year 2040:  Thanks to Michael Morpurgo's second 90+% victory, we've now survived 60% of our battles! Every one of which supposedly had above (and all but one of which supposedly had WAY above) 60% odds of victory, but who's counting? (Obviously, me.) Michael is getting a woodsman promotion in the hope that he'll heal soon enough to be relevant (and not die to the next barb that comes along). The capital has a granary now, and is putting overflow and a third-ring in-borders chop into the next Settler, who still won't be finished for a few turns yet; Stonehenge really set Australindia back by a bit. Unless it was the whole not-making-a-plan thing. The Year 1960:  I never liked Herodotus anyway. The Year 1920:  I have to say, at least if the game RNG's going to rob us of 30 hammers' worth of warriors, at least it's giving the hammers back! The free buddhism spread to the capital means we'll have a cheap way to keep Izzy (and our citizens) happy later on, if we convert, but of course the best news of the day is our second free forest of the game inside the (now bigger) borders Commonwealth Bay. Note that I never even got the xp from the injured barbs who killed my warrior though; they suicided against AI units before my backup warriors could deal with them. (Yes, I have backup warriors. I know this game's pRNG.) The Year 1680:  I'm not including the minimap in this image because I'm too embarrassed. Bael-Bael is so thoroughly isolated from the rest of the Australindian Empire that it might as well be in Tunisia. Pro tip: Do not found a city like this in an MP game! Least of all with a single warrior on defense! If that barb beelines the city right now, I'll probably lose it even though this is single player! (Yes, I would have good odds against him on defense -- around 90% -- but we all know how much that means to the pRNG in this game.) Did you know that the bael, also known as the Bengal quince, is the fruit of a tree native to India? Did you know that it is considered sacred by (some, presumably, of) Indian Hindu faith? And did you know that Bael-bael is an Australian city township fishing village lake-with-a-post-office in northern Victoria? Well, you do now! Going with another vaguely-Hindu-themed name for our Holy Fruit city is especially appropriate on the turn following the construction of Hatty's Kashi Vishwanath, but Australindia itself is looking more and more Buddhist all the time. Also note that the city's founding was delayed by a turn because of the way the pictured barb was positioned last turn (together with a previous barb's luck, as mentioned above and on the pictured tombstone).  Since Writing just finished, I also opened borders with my newly-very-very-near neighbors. That should be enough to fill up all my trade routes for now and also bring home a scouting warrior who Izzy had trapped with her borders when she founded her second city. (So Bael-Bael will be slightly less woefully underdefended in a few turns.) My income immediately jumps by 3gpt, so that's nice. You can see here why I didn't open borders with Hatty and Justin though. I really don't want the AI bugging me with demands that I stop trading right now. (Whereas neither Mansa nor I believe in Worst Enemies.) Finally, I should point out that, in spite of Bael-Bael being hopelessly, painfully late, I was still the first in the world to three cities. This is simply because these "Emperor" AIs got the same starting units I did (instead of their usual mass of free archers and scouts and workers and whatever) -- which means, in spite of their production and economy bonuses, I can probably win the game from here even without a plan if I feel like playing it out. Unless, of course, that barb manages to wipe Bael-Bael off the map.
Part 4
The Year 1520  The location of my next city has been sort of forced upon me by a couple of other new cities on the board. Mansa's city of Djenne apparently claims the sheep ornaments, so I'm going to have to try to take them from him culturally. (My guess is those are Djenne's second-ring borders, and claiming the tile is going to be an up-hill struggle, but we'll see.) City placement is now also being dictated in part by the barb city of Bulgar. I'm not in love with its location, but I might just keep it anyway if it manages to grow to size 2, mainly because an axe is cheaper than a Settler to build. So ... uh ... I should probably get on that axe soon, shouldn't I? (I did hook up my copper a couple turns back, so at least it's a possibility.) Obviously Bulgar is defended by nothing but warriors, which isn't normal on Emperor difficulty, but again, that's because the AIs (and therefore barbs) didn't start with their usual free starting stuff. For the eagle-eye award, can you spot the settler who will found my next city? (Barbs permitting...) How about the "Far-away land" in which the Great Wall was built?  With Jackie French occupying the forest-hill choke point between the local barb and our civilization, I've also dared to send Bael-Bael's MP warrior away to help pretend our new city has some kind of defense. I built more than enough warriors to defend everything, but between my terrible combat luck and my overzealous long-distance exploration, I still have managed to keep almost none of them at home. Errr ... oops? Also notice Bael-Bael's slowly growing culture. Kumbi Saleh is Mansa's latest city, just one turn old, and won't have any culture for a while, but I'm going to take cultural control of (ahem) "my" horses pretty seriously. The Year 1480:  Good news: When the barbarian suicided against Jackie French on her forested hill, she didn't take much more than half damage! With the local threat eliminated and Izzy's culture fogbusting the rest of the region, Jackie's now heading homeward to heal. Bad news: It looks like Djenne just popped its borders again, which means we won't own that sheep for a lonnnnnnnnnnnng time, and with a Malinese worker already roading the tile, the forest will probably be history long before that, ending its ornamental value. I'm going to place a city to contest it anyway because I'm stubborn, but that's pretty much one style point lost forever. (I am once again, as I'm sure you can tell, weeping openly.) Note the fworker just south of my Settler, by the way? He's actually a scout in disguise. I couldn't be completely sure there were no barbarians just West or Southwest of that hill, so I moved the fworker to check it out just in case. Had danger appeared, he still had a move to withdraw back to the forest, but the coast was clear, so he started a road (which we might even finish someday, but not soon) and the Settler was safe to advance. By the time a barb could reach the place now, there'll be a warrior waiting. In a city on a hill, we'll only have 90+% odds on defense, but we do win those occasionally. Take Jackie French, who only had 96.7% odds or something of surviving this most recent attack! The new city will be named Sheringa, by the way. It's a bit of a stretch for my cities theme, as the closest it gets to India is sounding vaguely faux-Indian to my ears, but apart from that, it's a perfect fit for this city. For reasons. The Year 1320:  How Izzy has managed to refrain this long from demanding that I convert, I have no idea. If I had happy space to spare, I'd keep on waiting. My two Buddhist cities also happen to be the ones pushing up against their cap though, so it's time for our favorite Wombat to make the conversion on his own. We may revisit that in another five turns.... The Year 1280:  Ironworking brought in some nice surprises for me that I hadn't been counting on: As with copper, I was so intent on the tech's other benefits (and playing so lazily) that I completely forgot it would also reveal iron to me! There's some right by the capital, in (of course) the one grassland hill I hadn't even begun to mine yet, so that oversight was corrected swiftly. (The mine won't finish until turn 71, but it's better than nothing.) My other source of iron turns out to be directly under the farm I completed a couple of turns ago at Sheringa! I should have realized something like this would happen -- the other bare grassland tile in the middle of this jungle is probably coal or something -- but it's fine for the present; I'm just getting a free hammer per turn now on that farm. Meanwhile, borders finally popped up at Bael-Bael, thankfully stealing a tile from Kumbi Saleh's first ring (meaning there's still no source of culture in that city). 80% of my workforce went to hook up the horses immediately, with the result that we can build chariots whenever we want now (i.e. soonish) and Bael-Bael can get a slightly better start on its granary. Conveniently, it'll grow to size 2 next turn, just in time to work the horses and about-to-be-netted-fish simultaneously. A couple of subtler (and worse) things you can see here: The cottage just southeast of the unholy cow represents four completely wasted worker turns. It was supposed to be a farm instead, but I forgot. (It'll be one later, by the distant time when Civil Service comes in.) And because the Byzantine warrior just beside Bulgar gets magical AI bonuses against barbs (it has Combat I already, too) I assume it will end up taking the city all on its own, in spite of a three-warrior garrison, before I can get an actual combat force out there to claim it for myself. If so, and if the city grows first so it doesn't auto-raze, I'll probably just take it back from him. Not only is Justin far, far, far away, he is Byzantine. Unless and until the window for Cataphracts opens (usually a very brief window for an Ancient start too, and sometimes none at all, since somebody could well tech say Rifling before Byz gets to Guilds) Byzantium is one of the worst civs in the game. The Year 1040:  Had I known in advance, I would have named Sheringa something more appropriate -- an old agricultural town that got taken over by industry or something. Now that it's popped second-ring borders, its lakeside bananas are showing off their dry-rice equivalency by getting farmed into a 4f tile (sort of like the iron was farmed before being mined, except that this time I know in advance that it's going to be a better tile once the relevant tech comes in). I'll probably whip the granary next turn and then go to work on the library, as a first step toward getting some actual culture into the city. Sadly, as predicted (and as can be seen) it's already too late to claim the sheep ornament. Also in the city screens: Sri Mandir Temple has been working two scientists since completing its library a couple turns back (not coincidentally, that's when I restored research to 100% from 0% for Mathematics). It will complete a Great Scientist on the same turn that Commonwealth Bay would have completed a Great Prophet ... if SMT weren't ahead of it in the turn order. And you thought I'd forgotten. Bael-Bael is also in the whip-a-granary-next-turn club, and has big plans for the future (and no one to defend it). (Hopefully that isn't foreshadowing; I'm writing this as I play, so I have no idea.) The Year 1000:  Good news all around! Izzy is now in Organized Religion, which means she can will build some nothing but missionaries and add some more culture to my newer cities! She also built her shrine, so in case she needed a reason to spread her faith around (and believe me, Izzy needs no reason) she's got one ready-made! In not-as-good news, I'm Justinian's worst enemy right now, and apparently also Hatty's. I suppose I could fix this by bouncing into No State Religion for five turns and opening borders with them when they realized Australindia was temporarily not Buddhist anymore, but I still need the happiness right now and neither of those two is scary (nor close by any land route). Byz still has fewer cities than I do in spite of being Imperialistic, and Egypt has only two! (I'm leading the world in cities with four, but I also have hammers in two more settlers, plus a couple of military units to conquer Bulgar. Justin's warrior elected not to attack that city after all, and instead just wandered around through a currently-neutral part of Future Australindia.) (AKA "the world." In case that wasn't clear.) In other news, it's been two thousand years since my initial poll, and still no one in the empire has reported an interest in celebrating the millenium, so we'll just go ahead and not celebrate them at all. The Year 875:  My latest city finally gives me trade routes with Egypt, so I'm making a belated attempt to mend fences with my War-Chariot-packing now-neighbor. [I'll leave this here as a place-holder for some kind of "forking over the clams" joke, and totally not forget to come back and edit one in later on!] I'm hoping we can become even closer if I can ever afford to drop out of Buddhism for a few turns. Sustainability Victoria is an Australian organization currently involved in helping to clean up pollution in the Ganges River, one of the most polluted in the world. The water of the Gagnes is holy to the Hindu people, meaning that finally I have a city with a Hindu-related name that's at least physically close to the founder of Hinduism in this game! The name was truncated for space reasons, but also because it's by no means clear that a city as far from my core as SustainVictoria, right by the borders of a leader who already considers me her worst enemy, is remotely sustainable -- least of all when I still lack hunting and her chariot UB is at the height of its strength. I'll show you what I'm talking about in a few turns (if I remember) along with the reason the holy waters of the Gagnes are relevant to the new city. I have a very good reason for delaying until then though: I'm way too embarrased to show what the place looks like now! The Year 850:  Mandy Foot, also known as "Australindia's only post-warrior combat unit," (an axe does pop out of Commonwealth Bay's barracks next turn though) took the 99+% fight with a barbarian warrior on the highlighted tile, and came out thinking about a Shock promotion on the far side. (She's hoping to help take Bulgar.) Naturally, I'll save actually taking the promotion until she needs it or is ready to heal. The Year 800:  The far west of my empire features a pair of totally inexcusable cities: At least Bael-Bael claimed horses; these two are planted more or less just to laugh in the AI's face while scoring "style points" (without the part about actual "style") for ornaments. It also features some terrible word truncation. Not only is Melbourne Epicure so thoroughly crunched together that two of its Es run into one, the "engraving" on the "tombstone" for Elizabeth Honey's first unit had to shorten her first name to "Liz." It may be noticed that neither of my newest cities feature any tile improvements, apart from the village that was present since 4000 BC. When I'm playing carefully, I typically have a collection of military units and workers out front, preparing the ground for each of my settlers as they arrive. This game's method is way more fun, as I scramble the few fworkers in the area (and struggle to find places to quickly build more) to catch up with the reach cities I just planted without any garrisons right in the faces of two different AIs! (Disclaimer: Your definition of "fun" might not be the same as mine.) The Year 725:  Single-handedly defending the entire western empire (don't worry, Mandy! Help is on the way!) Mandy "Barbsbane" Foot just won a flawless victory against the latest invading barbarian. As you can see, another is staring balefully at her across the river, but he's welcome to try his luck. Meanwhile, Mansa managed to found Confusion in his eastern city -- the one contesting horses and fish with Bael-Bael -- but so long as he stays Hindu (thank you Hatty, for sending him a missionary!) that doesn't represent a threat. We have a head start in any case, and more cultural infrastructure is on the way. The Year 650:  Single. Handed. The barbarbarians feared her. Instead of attacking, they split up in three directions, to threaten two cities, three fast workers, a floodplain cottage, the gingerbread village, and a farm. They got the farm. But they had to buy it. Mandy rode into Melbourne Epicure while the long-awaited axe, arriving at the front at last, covered the city of Sustainability Victoria. The fast workers fled (and also performed useful labor at the same time because fworkers are just kind of like that) and then the barbs charged in. Across the river, into the city, with a lone charioteer to defend, they charged from two directions, in spite of odds that would later be reported as 0% apiece. Mandy Foot put them down, saving the city for the third and fourth time, while the final barbarian pillaged the farm of which he had taken control. The new axeman, exhausted from his march, could only look on. Before he could rouse himself to battle, Mandy was on the move again, charging into the singed grasslands where the farm once stood, and -- with her third "100%" battle in a row, freeing Australindia of the barbarian menace once again. (Sir Isaac Newton also joined the party, but I'll have to decide what to do with him next time. I'm thinking, "Save to bulb something other than Alphabet," because an Academy would yield an average of something like 3-4 beakers per turn right now, and I'm not sure which if any of my current cities will hold my capital during most of my time in bureaucracy.)
Part 5 (At least I'm posting a little faster now; we'll see how long that lasts....)
The Year 625:  Feeling inadequate in the face of Mandy's heroics, with no further intruders approaching, Charles Lamb dragged his axe off toward Bulgar, and got the first blow in on its garrison while Izzy's archer looked on from the far side. Izzy is also continuing to be helpful (and predictable) by spreading Buddhism throughout Australindia. Just the two newest cities (and most distant from her) still to go. The Year 600:  After Izzy's archer took out the second garrison warrior -- I'm guessing it attacked because it's down to 1.2/3; if a barb warrior had attacked out against an AI archer on a forest hill, I doubt if it would have accomplished anything at all -- there was only one warrior left in Bulgar. This left Charles Lamb, now promoted up to City Raider II, to take a shot at conquering the city. The odds were only 99.7% but Charles somehow survived anyway at 3.7/5 health. The Year 500:  Don't get too excited about the Pyramids; they're under construction someplace since I have stone and I might as well, but I'm not expecting to land them and I have no actual plan. It'll be great if the AI is so slow that I finish them, but the failgold will be worthwhile anyway, with stone. As you can see, the "far away land" in which the oracle was built was Hatty's. Just imagine if I'd built up a fancy, complicated plan for building it myself! What a waste of time it would have been! Unless, you know, I had planned to finish it by around turn 90.... The Year 475:  I found another ornament that I shouldn't even try to claim (which of course means I'll probably try to claim it) right by Justin's Mali-bound missionary. I'll also be finishing Moai in Bael-Bael at the end of this turn. That won't make it a spectacular city for some time to come, but it does double its cultural output. And I'll also be finishing Pyramids someplace (in ... I dunno, a few hundred years?) if nobody beats me to it. The Year 425:  With the connection of our third Calendar happiness resource in three turns (plus a banana which I'm gifting to Izzy since I don't need the extra health and I'll have another banana hooked up soon anyway) I finally felt comfortable enough to leave Buddhism for a few turns. It won't be long before I have to switch back, most likely, but hopefully Izzy will ask me this time at least. In the meantime, Sustainability Victoria is getting a little extra much-needed culture, and there will be some other diplomatic benefits as well. The Year 400:  As planned, I finally open borders with Hatty's Egyptian people. She's still (well, again) Justin's worst enemy, but I don't care about Justin, as I think I've mentioned before, whereas Hatty is nearby and I still don't have the technology to make spears. There's another bit of follow-up from last turn to take care of too though.  Recalled from an overseas scouting expedition about a century ago when another barbarian warrior arrived on our border, Mandy Foot frightened the interloper away by the mere act of landing on the same continent. She pursued lest he threaten our cities again, and on the borders of our land, by the underwater forest, as he tried to sneak around her to bun and pillage, she ran him down. She charged, she won the battle - at 99.9% odds - and for doing so, for defending all of Australindia against every barbarian warrior who ever yet has dared attack, she received another combat promotion, the acclaim of all the Australindian people, and a new title: Mandy Foot, Heroine of Australindia! Her defense of the western empire is the stuff of which epics are made. The Year 375:  Turn 100 is not only a nice, round number (apart from the in-game date) it's a great turn for poaching things! Samantha Berger (who you might think doesn't fit our naming theme very well until you add the word "Wagon" to your search) can be seen here sniping a hut right out from under Hatty's nose. We manage to get a warrior out of it, who upon being named Angela McAllister, starts to head back north to rejoin our galley and begin the journey home. (Shortly thereafter, we discovered a clam ornament, just barely within the borders of Heliopolus, but probably impossible to steal any time in the remotely near future.) With Mansa's settler threatening to isolate Bael-Bael even more than it was isolated already, we also managed to stop him cold by redirecting a settler meant for the distant northwest into a filler city that secures the isthmus and (drumroll...) claims the Ornamental Ruins!  According to the Australia India Institute (yes, it exists) the University of Nalanda was an ancient university in India which "was ransacked by invading armies in 1193." The Melbourne-based Australia India Institute is helping to re-establish the U of Nalanda some ten miles away from the ruins. I'll bet you didn't expect to actually learn stuff from this report! So there! The Year 350:  I've mentioned that I'm not afraid of Justin, right? Byzantium is such an awful, awful civ.... But wait! Moments later, I discovered that he built the Temple of Artemis! That totally changes everything! He'll sure be a powerhouse now!
January 14th, 2014, 03:06
(This post was last modified: December 17th, 2017, 18:11 by RefSteel.)
Apparently this is somehow Part 6?
The Year 300:  The AI is being lame as usual and hasn't finished the pyramids yet, so I decided to go ahead and put together another actual plan (Second early stone wonder I've done this for already! This time with actual stone!) I haven't even started it in Melbourne Epicure yet (though I did in two other cities as my vague not-really-plans changed and as I realized that I could use some extra gold to finish currency) but that doesn't really bother me. If nobody finishes it at the end of this turn, I've got it to the exact hammer next turn anyway. (Not pictured: The extra fworker off to the southeast who will come by to help out if that's the case.) You can also see that one of the AIs has founded two different religions, that Mansa got a scientist, and that Charles Lamb the CR2 axe has started taking down the defenders of Zapotec (alongside the Horse ornament). The Year 275:  One-turning an important wonder to the exact hammer is always good fun. Also, just in passing, note that this city is three tiles away from Mansa's second city, which features quite a large garrison. ME is still farrrrrr away from my core, and while there are a handful of zone-defense units in the area (including Mandy) it is currently defended by a single warrior. Do not try this against humans. Seriously. Do not try anything remotely resembling this against humans. Fair warning. Oh - I'm also dipping back into Buddhism for a few turns to prevent one turn of unhappiness in a couple of cities, and turning research back on. Currency should be done in five turns in spite of the various numbers at the top of the screen. The Year 250:  A few turns ago, some airheaded AI scout wandered onto flatland right beside Zapotec and got eaten by one of the city's then-three warriors. Now that barb is no more, and the city has only one defender left. Charles Lamb is no Mandy Foot, but he's gotten awfully good at dealing with barbarians in their homes. Also of course you can see some of the other exciting world events from the recent past. Izzy obviously founded Christianity, which gives us a good chance of getting some AP hammers later on. And we of course adopted Representation thanks to the giant new piles of rocks in Melbourne Epicure. The Year 225:  You can see now how my unfocused, not-sure-where-to-even-build-it Pyramidding has helped ensure I get Currency in a timely fashion. Also that Hatty built a new city near my borders. Meanwhile, since Sheringa just completed an Aqueduct, you don't even need to know that I have stone or that I've decided to go on a wonder tear for a while to realize that work has not really begun on a Settler there this turn. (The Settler is just in the queue because I had a few hammers in one that I don't want to forget about completely.) The Year 175:  The situation around Zapotec just got more complicated with the arrival of a Byzantine chariot and a new barbarian warrior. We have plenty of force in the area to deal with all this stuff of course, but it's time to stop messing about and just take the 96+% shot at the city before Justin captures it.  I don't know where exactly I want a city in this area, but I do know I don't want it there, so Zap gets zapped and Charles Lamb sulks about not getting another promotion. He's just jealous of Mandy. Meanwhile, I've decided where to put my (first) replacement for Z city after all!  New Z Land is ... uh ... not profitable yet. That may change sooner than you'd think though! It's connected to our trade route only tenuously for now, through the good services of Mansa Musa, but that will also change. The Year 100:  Yeah, I made another quick wonder plan. This one seemed important. I'm still being pretty lazy about the Hanging Gardens up in Sheringa, but I can pretend I'm just sandbagging for cities. Adding a great lighthouse to Sustainability Victoria will not only help to keep control of its important tiles, but really help the economy. (I'm switching to Organized Religion this turn too, but it doesn't help with the GLH since it isn't Buddhist - in fact, it's my only Confucian city. Fortunately, OR does help with several other useful buildings, as well as improving relations with Hatty.) The Year 75:  The original core is doing pretty well, especially with a new forest just outside of the capital's BFC and Bael-Bael celebrating a generation(s)-long We Love Our Wombat "day." Now that the economy's back in order with the number of trade routes in most of our cities quadrupling over the past few turns, there are lots of competing settling priorities. And, because I haven't been making real plans or anything, only one settler yet produced, and none currently getting built. (Okay, now that I just said that, I realize my mistake, so I'll go ahead and queue another at least, to pick up granary overflow in Bulgar.) The Year 25:  Mansa Musa has sent one of his axes to attack the barbarian city of Minoan, but Samantha Berger couldn't stand the idea of that axe getting perfectly good experience - and conquest gold for Mali's coffers - when she could be getting it for Australindia instead! She took a combat promotion, won the 90% battle without a scratch, and the city suffered the fate of all Civ4 cities that are conquered before reaching size 2. Also, I queued another couple of Settlers. The Year 1:  We've run out of years in our countdown, so we've decided to start over and count up this time. Nothing else particularly notable happened this year though apart from a Settler whip. I'm sure some philosopher (once we invent philosophy) will come up with some excuse to call this a momentous occasion after the fact though. To distinguish the new dating system from the old one, we're calling this the Ascending Dates system, to contrast with the old Backward Calendar system. |
