REM goes Victorian

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Never much of a fan of 5. Still not liking the interface currently.

Before starting this I played a quick familiarisation game and found that scouts are pants as they get eaten by barb encampment spears quite easily. Plus I found that most improvements seem to give a hammer and they were really lacking. I read a few of the other reports and really have no clue. However I think I have done well.

I actually forgot about reporting and feel a bit ashamed about this as I have nothing except my t51 view. Well actually I could load a couple of the autosaves back up. 

So initially I thought that this capital was quite weak until realising that the rainforested diamonds were 2/1/3! I assumed that the rainforest worked like jungle. No forests to chop, but I went worker first whilst ambling around with the warrior. I decided to send him SE into the forests and found a lovely flood basin with bananas, wheat and sugar, and then a little further on to the SE the dastardly romans. Their leigions seem quite powerful so I was rather concerned. The ability to swap cap info is an interesting concept, which I like.

On exploring the river basin I found a hut/camp thing that gave me some gold, and then further west I saw a barb encampment under seige from the romans. I mulled around it with them attacking it waiting for a chance to snipe, and took another hut/camp, and for some bizzare reason the barb spear suicided on my warrior. Due to turn order I was able to clear it for the gold. This warrior wheeled around to the river basin.

I went worker slinger settler in the cap. On reading other threads I have not had anything other than barb scouts near my land, and I had a barb spear go back and forth watching my troops with no other involvement.

I got Liverpool around t25. Not really sure if it is a good location or not, but it was a green colour and has lots of resources. I have no idea how close cities should even be! The worker went stone quarry/diamond mine/ sheep pasture before eliminating. Worker first with improvements being instant seems rather powerful. Although saying that I have uncovered maybe 100 tiles at most so far? :P At this point I realised that I hadn't spent ANY gold at all and instant bought a worker in the new city. This mechanic seems absurdly powerful... But hey ho. I wanted the quick city as it seemed powerful land and it was between us, but really it was the only land I had uncovered. 

I also got really lucky that Rome built a road to London that I could piggyback and use to move to liverpool too. 

I didn't really have a tech plan. I went mining first for the diamonds and quarry, and then AH was only 1 turn late for the pasture. I then have kinda jumped around on whatever I had the bonus to. They aren't hard bonuses to get, but they are huge boosts. 

Tech path was mining/AH/masonry (I think because I had stone :P)/wheel part/pottery/irrigation when I realised I needed that for the banana/sugar, then finished wheel/sailing/bronze. Most if not all have had the bonuses.

Civics I went CoL/craftmanship/forgein trade/MT/teching early empire. No idea here, following the bonuses again (MT boost I got from the second hut) Put in civics straight away, with the faith/gold cap one and then swapping to the unit building one after that.

I eventually got a patheon and decided on the 2 faith on quarries one as it would boost my faith generation. I have no idea if this is good. I toyed with getting the hammer on oceans one but I have no ocean tiles worked yet.

At this point around t30 I was wondering what to do and I thought it would be fun to warrior rush Rome. They didn't seem particularly powerful and were having barb issues my camped warrior could see. I spammed warriors (they were like 2-3 turn builds in the cap) and moved them down the lovely road they made. This was nice because they are mait free, however I really dislike 1upt. Trying to mass units is nightmarish. Would not try this again. I also got a chariot when I finished the wheel and gold rushed it in liverpool. 

The war was weird. I quickly stomped one unit and nicked a worker, and surrounded the city with 4 warriors, I couldn't fit any more. But then it was a slog. Cities heal rather fast, they had a warrior defending and another came back during the period, but the biggest issue was I could not get a) my numbers to truly bare and b) My chariot got blocked out by warriors in the way.

When he came in I eventually broke through and captured Rome! T51 report because I wanted to end on the capture, but I guess I'm well on my way to a domination :P I have no idea what the costs are for many cities. I will probably clear out now the 2 barb camps I know of, explore east and choose my next target.

I can't see me playing this game longterm however. 1UPT kills me. I dislike the lack of info and everything, but that war just wasn't that much fun. I don't know if I can get used to that.

[Sullla]

Well that warrior rush was effective.   I try not to use early rushes that won't work on higher difficulty levels when learning a new game... although the AI is so bad in this game, perhaps it would work on higher difficulty? I had a devil of a time cracking Rome's defenses in my game, at a much later date when it had medieval walls and a legion for a garrison. Of course, that was largely due to me bringing the wrong units on the attack; conquest doesn't seem to be too hard once the player knows what he's doing. 

Did you play any further in this one? There aren't a lot of England reports here, and comparisons are always interesting.

[Dp101]

I too would appreciate a more extensive report, this subforum feels awfully lonely.