http://www.kendter.com/adv55-1.htm

Cultural win in 1790 AD.

To be honest it took me about three reads through before I had a vague clue what you were supposed to do with this adventure, but once I had that clue, it sounded interesting...

First up leader choices with their handicap:
Victoria 0 (Financial)
Emancipation means cottages grow faster meaning the fin bonus isn't so pronounced
Joao 5 (Expansive)
Environmentalism means exp is less useful, cheap granary and workers are good though
Suleiman 8 (Philosophical)
No caste/republic means specialist economy less useful
Augustus 12 (Industrious)
Wonders for culture? Yes please!
Catherine 15 (Creative)
Cheap Libraries and theatres + extra culture anyway - yes please!
Justinian 18 (Spiritual)
Can't change civics or religion so this is pointless
Julius 20 (Organized)
I don't think civic costs are going to be a problem - probably won't build many cities
Charlemagne 25 (Protective)
Ha ha!
Cyrus 30 (Charismatic)
I like being happy.
Genghis 33 (Aggressive)
Always peace?

So it's between Augustus, Cyrus and Catharine, and I think that wonders will be more useful for culture than the extra happy or the extra culture.

Augustus it is then!

t0 Start with Aggriculture,
t7 Popped sailing (doh!) from a hut
t8 Start Bronze Working
t12 45 gold from a hut
t16 Warrior eaten by a bear - no more huts for me
t21 Bronze Working in, mysticism next for Stonehenge (delays settler, but gets a hell of a lot of culture - I wonder if this is a terrible idea)
t27 Start Meditation
t31 Finished replacement warrior - start on Stonehenge
t32 Start Wheel -> Pottery
t40 Three chops come in to finish Stonehenge
t45 First settler - ouch, this is very late. Wonder how that will affect things

t46 Start Priesthood
t47 Settle Antium
t50 Start Oracle in Antium, Start Writing

t55 Finished Oracle, took Metal Casting, couldn't think of anything more suitable...
t57 Start on Animal Handling
t62 Start on Maths
t64 Settle Cumae
t69 Settle Neapolis
t77 Trade MC for alphabet and poly with Fred, then get hunting and iron working from hatty for 4 small techs, will build temple of artemis for real/failgold as there's nothing else for Antium to do right now. Discovered I placed Cumae on Iron so no cheap warriors for MP any more.
t78 Budhism appears in Rome
t80 Settle Ravenna - and the economy has crashed - I'm getting some cottages up and will turn research off until libraries in Rome and Cumae are in place

t87 Got a Great Prophet - not really what I want, but I'll settle him in Rome.
t91 Temple of Artemis finished in Antium - I want a settler quick for the gems and sugar up north - then I've got some more fill-in spots to settle, but none of the rest are urgent, so I'll wait for the economy to recover...
t92 Calander in - I want Aesthetics and Literature next, but need currency to stop the economy crashing. So far I've built wonders in Antium and Rome, so to get culture victory I need to use another city - I was thinking Neapolis, but just realised Ravenna in the NE has way better production potential for future wonders, so I think I'll put MOM in there.
Confuc is also founded this turn - I'm going to need to get some of these religions. Also Chicago just appeared where I wanted a city. :@

t93 I've got tech visability on Roosevelt - the only other ind leader and he's getting Calendar in 4, meaning I need to hurry MOM
t100 Should get MOM by t113 - going for Aesthetics now, for the great library
t101 I'm quite big

t104 Microed the MOM to finish t110
t106 Literature in, I want music for Sistine and the artist GP
t110 Yay! MOM! I'm the only one with lit and the Great Lib is due t118 - pretty confident I'll get it.

t114 Music is in and Cervantes is born. And I'm not sure if a great work (4000) or settling is better - settling is +24 per turn with another 12 for the hermitage, and six for each cathedral, broadcast tower, broadway, hollywood and rock n roll built - those last four will be ages yet, but I should get a hermitage and a couple of cathedrals pretty soon, so 48 will pay back by about t200. Will settle in Antium where I'm going to struggle to get cottages up and running for the culture slider later.
t117 So sistine gives +5 culture per turn for state religion buildings. Are you sure I'm not allowed a quick burst out of free religion Swiss Pauli? Anyway drama is in and it's a beeline to Nationalism next please. I want Taoism though, so Philosophy first (Hatty and Mansa could get it, but I doubt they're interested...)
t118 TGL built in Rome - tempted to trade for code of laws with Mansa, but he wants music for it and sistine isn't finished yet...
t125 Got Taoism this turn, but it appeared in Neapolis - I did some research after and found out it's cos that was the most recently founded city with the least number of religions already in. Doh! I wanted it in Ravenna
t135 I'm spreading religion around and building cathedrals now - lacking Hinduism, Islam and Christianity - I could plant some new cities to see if they can be attracted. Almost fully cottaged Rome and Ravena and farmed Antium. I wonder when to switch tech off and go for the slider?
t138 Maybe all these cottages aren't that great - how will I make cash to sustain culture slider? Build wealth in other cities? Anyhow I'll try to get the Parthanon in Antium, just for fun...
t140 Nationalism in. Tech off. Which cities to build the Hermitage and Taj in? Why is there no marble? So I think I need the globe in Rome (for artist slots), Hermitage in Antium (most base culture) and Taj in Ravenna (wish I'd got Taoism there) and then lots of artist bombs... Will save some cash to get the culture when there is more infrastructure in place.
Rome:

Antium

Ravenna

t146 taj due t157
t149 Missed the Parthanon by 6 turns, should have built it before the hermitage:@
t150 Turning culture on - Looks like I'll be there by t300!
155 Taj is built - got a great artist out of Antium at ridiculously low odds, I need six to get Ravenna to finish at the same time as Rome (approx t270 at the moment). running artists in all three cities now, building cathedrals wherever possible. Chicago and Jute both now have more roman culture than their own. Oh, and I've just been overtaken by gandhi on score.
t157 GS born Rome - 7 turns per GP at the moment

t164 GA born Rome - wahay! off to Ravenna to bomb
t171 Eta for victory - t250
t173 GS born Rome
t176 Finished Statue of Liberty for more specialists
t185 Current eta for culture victory is t231 - if I can get two more artists and this golden age lasts forever that is...
t191 Last turn of golden age and Chicago just joined us the magnificent Roman empire.

t192 If I get two more GAs then end date is t235, if I get four it's t226
t198 Just realised that windmills get more bang for the buck than mines, will start building those now!:blush:
t213 Nearly lost to Ghandi! How did that happen - it's always peace, why would they vote for him?

t217 Arse! Got a Great Scientist - with 66% odds for an artist, so I'm looking at a t240 finish now. I'm going for max food at Rome now to allow more specialists.

t228 Rome and Antium both go legendary, Ravenna is still 5k away from legendary. If the GP due in 7 turns in Rome is an artist I'll finish t235, otherwise it'll be t239.
t235 Wahay! Oh balls, he can't get to Raverna and bomb this turn

t236 Wahay! Hang on, it hasn't given me the winning message - do I have to wait til next turn?

t237 Wahay! So how did I do? -12 for Augustus makes a final score of 225



Afterthoughs
It'd be good if someone can point out if I got these decisions right or wrong:
- I wonder if I should have carried on teching to broadway/hollywood/rock n roll before going 100% culture slider. I hadn't realised how much not being in Caste System/Representation/Pacifism would slow great people generation down. Perhaps Phi would have been good after all?
- I only went for seven cities as I thought that more would hinder the culture rate in the three important cities.
- I think I should have gone for a city with more food for the national epic (although it could only ever make five artists so maybe not?)

I do know I should have found out how to make taoism found in Ravenna and should have gone for windmills a lot earlier, but what else did I get wrong? :P

Anyway thanks Swiss Pauli, really interesting to have such a different emphasis to what I normally play.

The game evolved from an old idea I had for forcing the modern, ‘politically correct’ civics on the player from the start of the game. Interesting as this might be, it’s rather passive because it forces the player to not do things so another element was needed to round out the scenario. Considering how easy warfare against the AI - either to cement a strong start, or to compensate for a poor one - then Always Peace will test the players’ empire building skills. If it’s to be a peaceful game then Culture should be the goal because Space Race is very protracted (and was also the goal of Mansa’s Muse). Winning is assumed, so the game shouldn’t require too much of the players’ time.

It was in the discussion about optimal leader for such a scenario with T-Hawk that the idea of a ranking and handicap system occurred to me. We batted a few ideas back and forth, but I didn’t test the handicap system very much because I simply didn’t have the time (or inclination) to test all the leaders in the run up to launching the game. During the limited testing I did undertake, I realized that the civs starting with Mysticism were handily placed to snag religions, so I lowered Charlemagne’s handicap from 30 to 25. At the same time, I made the mistake of increasing that of Cyrus from 25 to 30, just to have the same spread of handicaps. In hindsight, I can see that for the nonsense it clearly was.

The leaders were chosen because of their lack of fondness for training units, and the map was selected so that the player would be (almost) surrounded by AIs. I edited to move Hatshetsup from way out east beyond India over to the west of the player. Marble didn’t appear naturally. This would normally be a pain in a culture game, but the player had enough advantage from turbo-charged cottages that it wouldn't be too much of a drag. It also gave an indirect buff to Industrious. There were two(!) huts at the capital that had to be deleted (causing a wonky river on re-editing).





Looking at the map, the floodplains site and the jungle gems are ideal spots for legendary cities, but the player should also reach for the stone in order to speed his cathedrals.

Looking at the difficulty, I was unsure whether to for Monarch or Emperor and decided on the former, but boosted the AIs by giving them gold at their capitals. This was too speed them along in the early game, and to counteract Emancipation anger generated by the player.

I tested the game with Victoria and played with an emphasis on speed. Frederick’s settler forced me to settle one city south of its planned target tile (to get stone in the third ring) but I was able to claim the stone with a further city. Otherwise, I was fairly lucky with religion spreads, getting 5 despite founding none Legendary cities weren’t bad but certainly not optimal (Nottingham and York):




With more concentrated play, I think I could have shaved around 5-10 turns off that finish date, so I’d expect the strongest players to finish around 1500AD at the earliest with a strong leader.

I also asked the players to PM me their leader choices, so I could get a feel for their thoughts on the handicap system. Here’s the list:




Augustus the most popular leader, but a couple of ‘shrewdies’ went for Cyrus whose odds I discussed above. Will be interested to read the Justinian reports: can cheap temples, and easy access to an early religion or two trump the civic-switch nerf? In any event, I hope the players enjoyed this ‘Cultural Quickie’, and would like to thank them for taking the time to play.

So, recently I became aware that a strategy game called Elemental: Fallen Enchantress is going to be released on the 23rd of October, and I was wondering if anyone on the forums has knowledge of the game or has participated in the beta? Judging by the information available on the homepage, the game is going to be a blend of 4x and RPG elements, while having combat not too different from what has been done in the Heroes of Might and Magic games.

Before buying it, I'd like to have a little more to go by. Since it is a sequel, I had a look at the previous game, which, judging by reviews, was something between a failure and a work-in-progress. Ordinarily, this would dissuade me from purchasing the sequel, but since I see that Derek Paxton is the lead designer on the game (and wasn't on the prequel), I am considering giving the game a shot. Fall from Heaven was an outstanding mod, and if Paxton has been in control of the development, Fallen Enchantress could be worth checking out.

Is anyone here planning on buying the game?

No reports yet? Well I'll get things started. First time in a long while I've played as an official competitor.

http://dos486.com/civ4/adv55/

With the site changeover, we lost the previous list of users with access to this forum. I see it's been set up again with 40-some users by now.

The leaders with power to add users to the group are kjn, Sullla, novice, sunrise089, and T-hawk. Question 1: Who's managing this going forward? Sunrise did most of the initial approvals, but he hasn't been around so much lately. I don't want to myself, since I don't have any list of the original team members. (I'll approve obvious long-time RB folks, but I was always ceding any questionable decisions to Sunrise.)

Question 2, do we want to make any reference to this in a publicly visible forum, or not? Pro: would help anyone we left out find their way back here. Con: might trigger another round of complaining about exclusionary practices.

It took a lot longer than I expected -- over a full year -- but SotS2 is nearly at the all-clear point. The next official SotS2 update should be the all-clear update.

SotS2 official forums penultimate update post

The all-clear update is what I personally have been waiting for before jumping into SotS2 again. Of course, GW2 is occupying a lot of my attention at the moment (and has a Halloween update coming up I am sure), so I will have to make a call as to when I can devote some time to SotS2, and how much. But I'm definitely looking forward to being able to play a stable and fairly feature-complete version of the game!

Note that there are a couple things the devs wanted to include in the all-clear version but have not been able to for various reasons, the main one being scenarios. (Apparently their scenario guy was in a music band, and had to leave Kerberos to go on tour with his band.) Still, most of the comments on the official forums these days are pretty positive about how the game has shaped up over the last year, so it looks like a good time to jump in.

Could Signatures be edited so they can be longer? ... currently they're only 255char's, which aren't quite enough since that includes tags such as {color} and {size}

Welcome back everyone. Will be working on moving over themes and other items here today.

One thing that didn't port over properly (was killing the serving trying) were post attachments (such as pictures). They are backed up and may try again in the future but looks like it may need a custom script to do so and not take the server down.

The temporary forums can be accessed now at http://realmsbeyond.org/forumstemp/

Umm just installed Civ on a different computer.
Unfortunately while patching, fiddling with .ini etc. something happened and now none of the user interface is visible.
This is only in-game, all out of game (setup and so forth) work fine and in-game hotkeys, movement with mouse, etc. mean I cna load most things (escape for menu, ctrl-w for worldbuilder and so on), but I can't see them, meaning I can't micro, hire specialists, properly command workers or anything!
Is there a switch I've flipped or something (note: I've tried the minimise interface from CFC with no effect)
Help?!