Report to follow - on my laptop not here.

Space Victory in the 19-somethings...

Really enjoyed this so thanks T-Hawk!

I had a lot of fun with this varient, trying a few as Elizabeth surrounded by lake fish. Fast races to space with minimal ai interaction.

The trick here is to win with the largest tech margin. What steps could you take to deviate from the fastest space build to slow down your opponents?

War! Though with one city, it would take perhaps too many resources while going to space as well. Killing all your continental neighbors would prevent intercontinental trade and tech trading, though early privaters might be better yet. Coastal access needed.

I like the idea of early Emancipation. Giving every ai an early unhappy face must hurt. No caste system would hamstring a huge food-specialist megapolis, but a smaller commerce tile city could do it.

Religion is a bit tricky, grabbing all the later religions allow one extra monastary and temple, risking the possibility of a big happy religious ai mono-culture. Keeping a smaller city allows the delay of Scientific Method (and its monastary killing powers) as I would not need the National Park to reign in health. I also could skip the Globe Theatre and its tendacy to provide artists.

Speaking of the five national wonders, they will be Oxford, Wall Street, Iron Works, and... Red Cross. With a small fleet of privateers, having the medic promotion acts a force multiplier, and likewise for march promotions on infantry.

So here is the land:



Gold! Ripe for Mining Inc.



A snapshot of warriors and workers after the discovery of Bronzeworking. Having found Hinduism (3240 BC) & Judaism (2520), I decided to skip the Pyramids, building temples and researching Monarchy directly. Confuscianism came in (1440) with the Oracle bringing the joys of Bureaucracy. Nabu-rimmanni creates our Academy 80 years later. Christianity (1160), Taoism (750), & Islam (450) develop in our polyreligious city-state. In 325 BC, Isabella, the Buddist founder (3640) spreads Buddism to Cahokia and it becomes the city with 7 religions (and 7 Temples and 7 Monastaries).

Hannibal builds the Pyramids in 700 BC. The Native Americans would not need to lift a stone to gain representation. Liberalism comes in 75 BC, and with it Democracy, unleashing Emancipation unto the unwashed masses still in despotism (Hannibal chose Representation but switched to Universal Sufferage shortly thereafter).



As an aside, looking at the religious distribution. Suyavaman picked up Hinduism prior to writing, and Isabella never opened borders with him but she did open borders with Shaka who became Jewish. I was hoping to get Buddism from Isabella, but her missionaries literally walked into my town and then... left heading south to Shaka. After a bit Shaka asked me to become Jewish (I did... I mean it's Shaka, and hoping that I could get him to close borders with Isabella so the missionaries would come back to me. Instead Shaka converts to Buddism and I was left Jewish until my first golden age when I shift to Hinduism.). A bit later, I built the Kashi Vishwanath, and sent a Hindu missionary with my Caravel to seed that religion on the other continent. This was a bit of a silly move as Suyvaman was Hindu and I would be in free religion. Choosing to see what randomly developed and then building the shrine may have been better. Ultimately Charlemagne and Hannibal become Hindu, and Cyrus became Christian.



A few turns later an Observatory graces our city and our base commmerce multiplies by 50% followed by a 305%!!! science multiple. The 1170 science does benefit from a golden age, but it's not entirely coincidental that these things get built during these times (and screenshots taken .



The age of the privateer would last a thousand years. Shaka had declared war on the Khmer in 375 BC, a war that never ended despite dozens of cities changing hands. Shaka was ahead of tech due to relations with Izzy, but Suyavaman was larger with numerous, if slightly, outdated troops. My privateers could completly ignore them and focus on the other continent which was at peace despite a religious schism. Turns out Izzy was the first to optics, and I lost a few precious privateers aggressively hunting down her carvavels before I got all of her ports blockaded. Boxed in, she attacked, not Sury as I expected, but me. What could I do, but roll out my march promoted marines and raize all her coastal cities to the ground? Since it would do me no good to let Survayman occupy former Spanish land, I let her live (at the cost of some future spy actions taken against me). The minimap hints of the blanket of privateers (mostly double stacked) patrolling the other continent. Buying maps for 5 gold betrayed the location of a pair Carthaginian ships, that were promptly found and sunk.



I held the continents apart until 1340 AD, when my fleet of dwindling privateers saw but could not catch a blocade running Spanish Caravel who managed to get word to Charlemagne before I sent it sinking under the waves the next turn. Trade networks slowly formed, but Hannibal and Isabella would not meet until sometime in the eighteenth century.



From here I started building spaceship parts, but my once speedy tech rate, wasn't much better than it was in 50 AD. Towards the end Isabella declared on me, and I raized Valencia (site of former Madrid) to the ground, forcing another peace when I saw a huge number of Holy Roman galleons stream towards me. I had a metal Navy, but it was small as every last privateer went out fighting, so I traded 2700 gold to Hannibal to net Military Science to take advantage of the blitz promotion. It still took 50 years to wipe out that fleet once the "backstab" was official.

Victory came in 1824, 12 turns after the launching in 1795. I built the Internet on the last turn to net me, one tech, Artillery. I believe Cyrus had Electricity on Hannibal, while Hannibal had Assembly Plant and Medicine on Cyrus. Native America had all the techs save Stealth and Laser, 17 of them known only by me.

Writing this report is going to be a bit difficult for me, so please bear with me a bit. I played through the whole game, enjoyed it a lot, tried out some things I'd never used before, and finished in something like two days, knowing I hadn't set any speed records (in-game or otherwise) or achieved anything like the high score that would be turned in, but happy with my land choices and most of my play.

One day later, before I started this report, I realized that fish can be placed in a lake. Obviously, freshwater fish (with a coastal city) is the single best tile in the entire game, but it somehow escaped my noticed completely until after my game was complete. I had given myself a coastal city; I had put fish in both sea tiles; I planned to make food tiles my first two improvements, and had more food tiles waiting in the wings. The thought process that resulted in my forgetting that lake-fish was possible doesn't even bear describing. It was particularly foolish considering that I noticed (and posted about) the possibility of putting a forest on an already-founded capital. Spotting tiny esoteric details while missing the blindingly obvious is apparently Standard Operating Procedure for me.

So, I'm sitting here with a finished game that I thoroughly enjoyed, but which doesn't even begin to approach the best I could have done. We're talking about a difference of up to 6 food per turn(!) for the majority of the game, and about 6 base commerce per turn throughout virtually the ENTIRE game! I even went so far as to start a shadow game with six lake-fish tiles (and of course a coastal capital with two saltwater fish) and played about fifty turns just to see how far ahead that set-up would get me (answer: way, way, way ahead) before dropping it due to I've-already-played-this-game syndrome.

(An example of the kind of start I DIDN'T play...

...due basically to being absent-minded.)

So, consider this report an experiment in playing an OCC with (two saltwater fish for a coastal capital and) any LAND tiles you desire.

Right; so, let's get started. If we conveniently ignore the fact (which I somehow forgot) that fish can live in lakes, this is a pretty good start, I think. You could argue that a few more forests (say, on 4 or all of the gold tiles) together with a Mining-BW start might have been stronger, but I'm not sure. Probably the marble should have been another wheat as well. I did build a couple of marble wonders, but not enough to really justify it, I think. I decided the early happiness from gems and silver were worth the 3 base commerce per turn, and I think this was borne out by the end of the game. Giving up a food per turn to get two health (with granary) from rice also seemed worthwhile to me, but that's a bit harder to say. Anyway, at the time, I was pretty happy with what I picked.

(My immediate neighborhood...

...as displayed in WorldBuilder)

Note the way I redrew some of the rivers. I made a couple of rules (strictly for myself) about them though: 1) Rivers can only be added or removed by clicking on the editable tiles. This is a relatively minor point, as it pretty much only affects rivers north of my city (due to ocean in the east) but I wanted to be sure of staying within the rules. 2) All rivers must flow into (and never from) the sea. This rule was created for aesthetic reasons only.

And so we begin.

I initially sent my warrior scouting northeast in hopes of defogging a coastal trade route early on. That was pretty much a flop because of the land shape, and I soon became frightened that some Immortal bear might turn up and eat my only military unit, so I sent him home again soon enough, but that gambit did at least speed my meetings with Izzy (turn 3) and maybe Sury (turn 10). Not that this made the slightest difference.

In the meantime, I researched Mining and the Wheel, while building a pair of workers. The first went straight to the wheat and farmed it, speeding the second along. I grew on a workboat while I teched Pottery and my workers made themselves useful, farming the corn, mining the gold, and building some early roads. I build almost half a granary while teching writing, then almost a third of a library (and a little piece of a barracks) while teching bronze and masonry. I revolted to slavery just in time to whip the granary into the pyramids, and soon thereafter did the same with the library. I was teching mathematics while my workers pre-chopped forests, and I completed my first chop (actually a gems stripmine) as soon as Math completed. Three turns later, the Wonder would be complete.

(I like it when things work out neatly.)

(Got 'em - exact to the very hammer.)

As you can see, I went Mysticism - Medi after Mathematics. Priesthood would be next, with the idea of grabbing the oracle - it seemed worthwhile, if only for scoring reasons, and after all I'd gone to all that trouble to include marble in my BFC....

Have I been neglecting my neighbors here? Well, I also did that in-game. I completely forgot to offer open borders until Sury came along asking for them on turn 42 (at which point I finally offered them to Izzy too.) I didn't even meet Shaka until turn 52 - the turn after Thucydides declared Isabella the wealthiest civilization in the world. Sury was 4th. I was of course "Hopeless" with a whopping 0 gold in my treasury. Hopeless though I may have been, I was 1st in the world in GNP, with almost three times the second-place rating. I'd better have been; barring population (first, thanks to civ's weird pop calculations that disproportionately reward enormous single cities) I was sixth or seventh in every other category.

With Math in, Marble hooked, and more forests to chop, the Oracle was in the bag as soon as Priesthood hit and I saw that it hadn't BIDL. But then ... what's the fun of a race that's already won? I'm afraid I decided to play hare to the AI tortoises. Instead of Oracling something rational, I thought to myself, "I've got a great tech rate. I'll bet I can grab Code of Laws and pull off a Civil Service Slingshot!" This was dumb. I knew perfectly well that one or more of the AIs must have Priesthood already, and on Immortal, they'd have the Oracle pretty quickly. Still, I was good at teching. CoL came in on turn 58, founding Confusion in my capital city (much to my chagrine - I'd been hoping Izzy's state religion would spread to me - though the free missionary did come in handy for exploring my continent, finally). Only ... I'd forgotten to chop the Oracle as CoL was coming in. And CS wouldn't take that long to research naturally....

With three emperor AIs swarming their scouts all over my continent, there just wasn't time or place for many barbs to appear. I did have a barracks finished and a Dog Soldier mostly-built in case of need, but there wasn't much call for defense. Not much.



You can see the "enemy has been spotted" sign near the upper left. It was one barb warrior coming in from the southeast. I finished the Dog and splattered him, and that was the last barbarian threat to my city throughout the game.

Oh, and Izzy is demanding one of my ridiculous number of gold resources. I of course gave in to her gladly. Diplo benefits! Yay! I'd long avoided opening borders with Shaka specifically because he'd founded Hinduism and become her Worst Enemy, but had eventually given up on that, not only opening borders with him but trading him a spare wheat for his spare clams. Under representation (of course, thanks to the 'mids) and with gold, silver, and gems, once I'd cut enough forests and worked out my whip anger, I might actually need help to stay healthy.

In the image, you might also notice my lousy score (241 to Sury's 330) and the time (way too late at night) and the turn. I have no idea why the Oracle hadn't fallen, but I certainly wasn't complaining.

The next turn, I killed the barb, and Civil Service came in. I immediately revolted to Bureaucracy, taking Caste System at the same time to allow arbitrary numbers of scientists. After all, I was philosophical, already in Representation, and at my happy cap (so I didn't want to grow) and it would speed up Paper research tremendously!

...

...

Why are you looking at me that way?

On turn 74, I landed a Scientist at 75% odds, and sped up research even more with an academy. I'd already lost the previous die roll, and compounded the ill fortune by behaving foolishly. The engineer who showed up back on turn 59, and who should have been settled immediately, was still sitting around waiting for something to build for me.

And then ... and then ... I'm sorry, but there's no excuse for this. Turn 75? On Immortal difficulty?



This was the second game I'd ever played at this difficulty (the first being Adventure 45) and I didn't see anything wrong with it at the time. It strikes me now though that I must have gotten incredibly lucky for Oracle to fall this late. It's not every day that you land Education(!) with that thing.

More things to notice, by the way:
- As someone feared might happen in the announcement thread, Sury has poached my coal. Fortunately, as T-Hawk predicted, it didn't stay poached for long. If Sury founded a city right on someone's aluminum though, that might have been a serious problem. Fifth ring is a little extreme.
- My Confusing Missionary didn't end up exploring very far in the end. When he was in Sury's biggest city - the Khmer were still pagans at the time - he converted it. You can see the fall-out now, as Sury himself has gotten Confused. This will lead to lots of tensions with Buddhist Izzy and Hindu Shaka down the line. For my part, I stayed agnostic. Fewer headaches that way.
- Yes, I placed in-game signs on (at first, pointing out from afar) all the late-game resources, in case I forgot their locations as I played.
- Not only was I playing Civ too late at night, I was multitasking Civ too late at night. Judging by the clock time and number of turns between these two screenies, this was probably after one of the occasions when I left a game running in mid-turn while I talked to some of my relatives who live ten time zones away.

Before long, I started to reap what I had sown. I'd teched Currency - Sailing - Iron Working after my Oracle sling, then finally made my way to Aesthetics and Drama, for the Globe. I'd decided to use my GE on it - with stone, Oxford was almost as cheap as a regular university - but I spawned another Great Engineer just as I was building my Theater, on turn 83. Only after rushing the Globe did I join my remaining GE to the city, as I should have done more than fifty turns before - whether or not I expected another GE! In the meantime, Izzy and Sury had gone to war over their differences in faith, and they weren't all that happy to let my two-ancient-unit army play the role of spectator. I got a demand from each within three turns to join the war with the other. I declined with thanks. Even later, when it became obvious that Sury was wiping the floor with Spain, I didn't dare join in. I've seen the Civ4 AI too often pull out of a war the turn after demanding the player's aid. So while I did get to peacefully build along while Sury and Izzy fought their war, the Khmer were growing steadily in power, and I was racking up diplomatic penalties on both sides for refusing to join in the slaughter with my nonexistant army.

(To be continued...)

It's the 17th day of Christmas, so it's finally time to open up and share our presents. Please post reports in the Tournament Reports subforum. You have until the end of Monday to finish playing, and reports due by the end of Tuesday to count for scoring.

So did anyone wish for a pony?

Did anyone see this?

http://www.2kgames.com/civworld/alpha/

You seem to be almost set with the game rules so we can tackle the tech stuff now. Tracker script went for a rough ride in PBEM III, but I *think* everything that could get broken, did break and got fixed already. You'll get shiny new and polished version

So emails, time-zones and play-windows please and I'll get to work.

Players of FFH2 PBEM3 -- stay out! Spoilers abound.

Really.

Tons

and

tons

of

spoilers.

It's

a

map

thread

after

all!

OK, that should do for now.

So I thought I remembered at one point a utility that would take your replay file (whatever.Civ4BeyondSwordReplay) and export a text / HTML file that listed all the things that are in the replay.

I know they have something like that for games submitted to the CFC HOF but does anybody know of anything like that?

I actually did play most of the first FfH adventure, before finally getting fed up with the AI's unutterable stupidity. I even took a screenshot (and promptly forgot to post it) because...

Square Leg Wrote:And then let’s have a pic of your highly promoted adepts at the time you kill each good civ. (It is the one with the highest xp, not a sum of all) Bonus points for a cool name!

The place to insult/demean the actions/players of this game. Delete as appropriate. Or compliment, or just secretly discuss or whatever if you insist.