Hey all,

Since MP threads for games starting "right now" don't seem to work too well, I want to give notice for a pair of game I plan to host.

First, today July 9th at 7:30pm EST, BtS MP game using direct IP connections (avoiding Gamespy). I'll post the IP when I get home.

Second, tomorrow July 10th at 12:00pm EST, FFH MP game using dirdct IP connections (avoiding Gamespy). The IP should be the same as the Friday game.

No idea if there will be enough interest to play either game, but I want to give people some advanced notice.

-sunrise

Yesterday I beat the Legend of Zelda (first quest only) without any deaths/continues/saves. It took 4 hours on the nose. Just thought you all should know.

Therapist: Tell me why you've come to me today.

Compromise: Well, whenever I play Civ, I focus a lot on the early game and obsess over the placement of every city and the working of every tile. And if I see that I have a temporary advantage over the AI, I'm unable to stop myself from abusing it.

Therapist: And you consider this to be a bad thing.

Compromise: It doesn't seem very healthy, does it? And I always seem to be pushing those early advantages so far that I end up with an economy that's in shambles; you know...losing money at 0% and all that.

Therapist: I actually don't know--I'm always in the black at 50%--but that's okay. Maybe you should constrain yourself a bit the next game.

Compromise: Okay.

Therapist: So, no horse archer rush...

Compromise: [After a pause] Okay.

Therapist: Don't plan to kill all the AIs...

Compromise: [After a longer pause] Okay.

Therapist: And concentrate on expanding your own civilization, not on the AI's.

Compromise: Okay. Time to play Adventure 46.

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Looked at the starting position. Thought about going for an early religion, but decided that from the game description, the AI probably had tile improvements too, and I didn't want run commerce early.

Founded in place. And began with a...Settler! Usually, the reason not to build a settler first is that it won't have good tiles to work, but here it will!



Founded Pyongyang on Turn 15! Probably my earliest second city ever. Pretty good food and some cottages. I thought the barb lion might bounce out of the cultural borders when I planted the city, but it didn't. The initial warrior had fogbusted for the settler and was, of course, in range to defend the city--defending on its central hill.

Then, the initial warrior set off exploring again. And, from a hill near Charlemagne sees:



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Therapist: [answering the phone late at night] Hello?

Compromise: It's me. I'm in trouble!

Therapist: What's happening?

Compromise: I want to be good. I don't want to do it, but....but....

Therapist: Do what? Yes, be good of course. But do what?

Compromise: It's...it's Prince...and there are only warriors...only two warriors!

Therapist: Who? What? What Prince?

Compromise: Charlemagne...Berlin...City Raider warrior.... Urge to attack...rising....Rising...RISING........GGGAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!! [click]

Therapist: Hello? Hello? Hello? Bueller? Bueller? Hello? Geez, that guy is hopeless.

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Axe plus whipped axe in Pyongyang. Axe in Seoul, but he's too slow to make it to Oktoberfest. Charlemagne's third warrior covers his worker northeast of his city. I attack, capturing the first of many workers who will spend their short lives scurrying about the roads of this continent with no regard for barbarians or threats. They--every worker throughout the game--all die.

First axe wins easily against one of Berlin's two defending warriors. Second axe--wounded a bit from crushing the worker's escort--has decent odds:



Victory!

And in deciding whether or not to keep the city--uh, it has gold = autokeep--I notice:



A military instructor in Berlin?! What madness? Which other AIs have such glorious "tile" improvements from the ancients?

After that, I confess I just axe rushed:

2480BC: 4 axes--some with Berlin city attack promotions--take out 2 warriors plus a whipped archer(!) in Ramesses Carthage. Egyptians gone.

2240BC: 4 promoted axes destroy 2 warriors plus a whipped warrior in Asoka's Persepolis. Indians gone.

2040BC: Build Stonehenge so my many future cities' borders will expand without micromanagement.

1940BC: Relieve Constantinople of Justinian's cruel rule at it's sweet spot near a but of floodplain towns and Ivory and gold.

But then the axe rush fizzles. I didn't attack Brennus because he had lots of axes, archers, and (I think) gallic warriors. But I failed to notice the horse pasture of Justinian, so I didn't bring any spears and had to take peace with him before he wiped out my axe horde.



I wasn't concerned though, because I figured I'd just spam settlers into the improved land, run Caste artists, and get a quick Domination.

But...no. I was surprised that my land percentage wasn't going up very quickly, so I counted tiles on the continent. And found that I needed almost all of them for Domination! And then I noticed that I hadn't even met all the AIs.

Oops. That's what I get for making assumptions about the map.

Hand-researched Math and Code of Laws.

Oracled Construction for Hwachas (never done that before!)

Built the Pyramids for Hereditary Rule (because Monarchy was too expensive!)

Then, almost a millenium and a half after the axe rush age, Brennus had expanded a bit too much into "my" continent:



The capital assault force survived a catapult barrage upon entering his borders, but had more than enough muscle (plus reinforcements) to take Kyoto. Similarly up north, a 4-Hwacha, 4-Axe expeditionary force took Tolosa the same turn.

There was essentially no resistance from him after that.

Justinian felt the brunt of the new Hwacha backed axe assault (never did research Ironworking ) soon thereafter.

Stopped building military. Put out more settlers. And finally, it was over:



I probably should have tried a space launch, but nothing wrong with a little Prince romp every once in a while.

Pity, as this one was going quite well/luckily:



Might try to finish it off later in the week.

Wow, finally finished my first Adventure here.

Domination win in 1898 AD, 60785 points.

Didn't made a lot of effort since I had to play the game really fast.
Expanded to 9 cities easily, build some wonders and such.
Then Just declared on me.
That decided that I wanted to go for domination.
Took one of his cities and sued for peace.
After that it was building up an army and keeping a military advantage.
The AI's went to war against Brennus multiple times, that kept me safe in the beginning.

I took 3 wars to finish off HRE, they were the most powerfull civ for a long time. It was also because HRE had taken over Brennus's lands in the SW. Brennus was the first to leave us.
Then I took Ram's cities on the main land. Never bothered about the island colonies.
Eliminated Asoka before finishing off HRE.
Then Just was the only one left on the island. Build 200+ tanks after getting control of the 1 oil resource in sea and started hammering against him. He had a lot of Cavs and Inf, so it took some time, but in 1898 I took his capital and that was enough to take me over the Domination limit.

It was a nice game, but I could have done a lot better.
No worker-actions was really a pain, especially warring late in game with lots of units. But I did it!

I've been real busy the last few months, and have had to pretty much limit my gaming to the longer-term things I've committed to (PBEM3, and the Barley Demons SGOTM team). Felt that I should put down a note that both Adv 45 and 46 sounded like great premises (as well as Imperium 29 for that matter); also if I have not read/commented on those who did report for some events it's because I'm holding onto the pipe dream of someday having time to play a late but unspoilered shadow. Wanted also to express thanks for the continued work of the sponsors (Sullla, T-hawk, and RefSteel for these recent events).

It's still reporting day, just barely

http://www.dos486.com/civ4/adv46/

Being a long-time lurker, I downloaded this adventure just to see what all the fuss was about. Wasn't expecting much on my end, so I didn't take any screen shots and most of my notes are from memory, but here goes...

Founded Seoul 1 SW, foolishly thinking I’d get more production. Lost a farm in the BFC to a barb, and that hurt me all game.
Founded Pyongyang on the NW coast and went for the Great Lighthouse, which I won. Didn’t know I had stone in the east as all my exploring went to the west to try and make early contact. The extra commerce really helped out for a long time.
Wosan grabbed the spice and corn NW of capital and Puson was founded in the SW to try and block HRE. The city eventually won the culture battle late in the game, flipping Prague right after I built Wall Street in Seoul. Prague would be my main commerce city for the final turns.
Built just one worker all game and he chopped a few forests outside BFC’s for extra production, but spent most of the game eating donuts and drinking coffee.
Other cities went to the east just to fill in and only Napo, which grabbed the fish to the east really contributed anything. (Maoi really helped there)
Adopted Buddhism early to cozy up to Charlemagne and Justin, which formed a nice buffer zone as I was weak military wise. Got into a couple of phony wars for the modifiers, and eventually only captured a few of Ramses’ island cities in conflict.
Beelined Mass Media to build the UN and got it in 1715. Used a GE to rush Broadway in Puson and also got the Eiffel in Seoul. Was elected president, but couldn’t get enough votes to put me over the top.
Started gearing up for space, knowing it would be tough with no lumber mills or extra production. Built Apollo in 1903 and began the slow slog building parts. Research was strong and had all the basics done pretty quick, the only thing holding me back was production.
Charlie and Justin went after Brennus, but Charlie was my main competition in the UN vote so I bribed him to make peace and let Justin wipe him out.
Was gifting Hammy techs and resources for a long time to get him on my good side and finally got him to friendly.
Was four turns from launching with just 1 engine when Justin lifted off the pad, but, for some reason, on the next turn he voted for me for Diplo victory and his last few captures put me over the top.
Diplo win in 1949, 17792 final score.

Great game and even better experience. I will be back.

Well... this is my first report i guess. I don't even consider myself an average player, but i figured that the best way to start learning advanced strategy is to play a tournament and see for myself. With that said, I made a few screwups with the print screen, and i lost all my initial screenshots. But i still have enough to hopefully make this a good report!

Anyway, this was the start.


If i remember correctly i moved my warrior up but there was nothing there. Sulla obviously intended us to settle on the spot, what with the ruins, but i decided to go down and check that fertile land with my settler. This photo is taken much later, but thanks to me losing my initial screenshots this is the best i can do.



Floodplains, irrigated rice, lots of farms (remember that we can't build improvements), Sugars, and Cows, this site made a lot of food, needed for the settler rush.

I aimed for meditation for a religion, but failed to get it (oops). I went for Bronze working next, to find a copper. Builds went Warrior - Warrior - Settler when city is 2. No point building workers if they can't do anything :P

So, found copper, and my next city was aimed to get it.



I don't think anyone can find a better site than this. Food, lots of hills and forests for production, and two coppers? Woah. It built a monument for the expand, then warriors. Barbs were a trouble in this game (as i'll say later).

In a state of blurness i went fishing next, hoping that it would benefit me. Dumb mistake, but oh well. Next settler took advantage of that though.



Triple sugar, corn, and more importanty, Furs for happiness. With financial the coast became profitable, and with such a huge food surplus this became a whipping ground.

Also, i was starting to have troubles with barbs at this stage, but Copper Central constantly produced Chariots with the Horses from the Main City to handle the problem. I couldn't sit and wait though, had to attack them before they pillaged!

After Animal Husbandry i aimed Iron Working, and when i got it my next city became clear.



It would eventually become a defensive factor, as it controlled the chokepoint into my empire. (Which was why i built walls).

Also, an old photo which showed something i normally wouldn't do.



I already lost one warrior with the first attack, but i had to otherwise he would sabotage the farm, which would end up as something permanent.

Of course, this would be revenge for the attack.



This is the city in the middle life.



P.S: You were allowed to build work boats, so i whipped one from Seatown.

This city was a commerce city, what with all the towns and coasts, supported by the pigs, fish, and wheat. It had troubles with barbs though!

My 6th city, after i had troubles with happiness, was a Pink Dot.



Unfortunately i did lose the pink dot to Harappan, so i settled the next best place. Which was because i could never gain control of the gems lol.

Also, i never noticed, but the marble at Iron Corner was never available until i relooked at it.



Why is there a fort not a quarry? And since I can't build improvements...



I did manage to get a religion in the end though, but since everyone was either Buddist or Jewish, it didn't matter.

And my final city in a backwater...



And with that, the peaceful time ended. It was time for fireworks!

To be continued in the next post as i'm mortally afraid of a post being too big.

I gave this a whirl, because I wanted to see the map. I started by founding my first city to the SE of my capital, with horses in first ring. That reveals my game plan:



That was my first "real" offensive, I harassed my neighbours with chariots while researching horseback riding. My chariots razed a few weakly defended AI cities. Here's a random image from later, my horseback army racing southwards:



It turned out one of the opponents was on another continent, so my conquest plan was foiled. Therefore, I set the slider to 0%, my city builds to wealth, and spammed settlers:



That quickly led to this:



Now in true form I misread the rules again, and somehow thought it was okay to build roads, so I built a few of them - maybe 10 tiles . Chalk me up for another shadow game.