[A more detailed report (with screen shots) will have to wait until this weekend.]

Last adventure, you may recall, I almost lost on Turn 0 when I declared war on a "settler" that was really a small stack of scouts and archers. This time around, I decided not to wait until Turn 0, and pretty much lost on Turn -1 with my choice of wonders.

I was leaning toward going for a cultural victory, with wonders such as Sistene Chapel and Eiffel Tower. However, before playing the game, I tried a few games at this difficulty level, and always came up short in two areas, research and military. So, it made sense to me that whatever wonders I chose, had to make up for this shortcoming. So, I chose Oxford University and Heroic Epic.

It took a while to realize, when micromanaging my capitol, I couldn't efficiently focus on both military and beakers to the fullest extent. I tried building an early military for a rush, and putting wonders in a second city, but I missed out on basic "necessities" such as Stoenhenge (two turns) and the Oracle (three turns). I then tried focusing on research/wonders, but got clobbered by barbs.

I tried to hang on as best as I could, but somewhere around 100 AD it became obvious. I chose extremely poorly, I couldn't balance my research with military growth, and I'm sure I made some tactical errors that just made it worse. So, I quit... and restarted with two different wonders, just for fun, since I didn't get very far on the map anyway.

For official scoring purposes, let's call it retired at 1 AD.

My replay -- where I went for a pacifist, three-city cultural victory, was much more interesting.

Well yet again I did not finish a tournament game but had fun while I played this. I am somewhere around the 1000 AD mark I think, though it still might be earlier.

I didn't put a lot of thought into the wonders but given that it was on immortal difficulty I figured I was going to have some difficulties. Charismatic screams Stonehenge to me and again under the impression I was going to have a hard time I decided that had to be my first one. The Eiffel Tower didn't even cross my mind. Why? Because I just never really play that far into a game. I have a terrible habit for giving up on games right around liberalism and starting over.

Now my next wonder I've always wanted to play with but never gotten the chance was the Cristo Redentor. Having played a Spiritual leader in PBEM the ability to swap in/out of slavery/serfdom was neat and the Cristo Redentor would provide me that chance to really MM my civics which I "thought" would be fun. I did give some serious thought to just having the Hagia Sophia as I like that wonder but never really build it because it expires too soon in comparison to when you get it. Combining that with Cristo would guarantee me GE's which I love but decided the free border pops and extra happy would make up for it. And with Cristo in my pocket I could just adopt serfdom when I wanted it to get the same effect as the Hagia Sophia.

I did have a quick look through the list of Wonders on CivFanatics trying to decide and quickly considered the Kremlin, but never having used it before, I shied away from it because I didn't understand it. I also strongly considered the Globe Theatre but couldn't decide what to pair it with and I think by now we all know I can't fight my way out of a soaking wet paper bag so also decided against military wonders.

I've got some screenshots and what not that I'll be able to post tonight so look for the rest of my write up then. Thanks to T-Hawk for this game it was a lot of fun for what I played. I can't see me finishing this one as I'm bored with where I am but depending on what the next one is (if I'm not interested in it) I might change my wonders and give ADV 45 another go.

Placeholder for the full report, which should be hopefully up soon

Spaceship victory in 1795 AD

Full report available here

The first choice is of course, which two wonders do I want? This mostly depends on what my plan is going to be. Something like Heroic Epic/West Point would be fun for an early rush (9xp Numidian Calvary!). I tend to be too much of a builder to really enjoy early war though, so those combos are out. Oxford would have to be included in any power science combo, possibly with The Great Library and self built Pyramids. That would also ensure the 2nd GP was a scientist, for the early Academy, after which the Engineer points would certainly be welcome. That's probably overkill on pure science though, and while I intend to have some fun here, that probably breaks the game a little too much for my tastes. I'm not looking for the fastest finish here.

Another powerful wonder would be Kremlin, which combined with something sciencey for early Bureaucracy could lead to a pretty monster capital. I'm not doing that either, but I hope someone does! Then there's any number of slightly less powerful combinations that could certainly lead to a fun game. National Park/Globe Theater springs to mind, along with Collosus/Great Lighthouse for a water themed game.

Ultimately, I'm a builder, and I like going to space. So instead of being TOTALLY boring and picking Oxford/(TGL or Pyramids), I'll be just slightly less boring and pick TGL/TGL. The ring script should give plenty of coastal city placements, science should be taken care of by the capital for quite some time, and The Great Lighthouse makes founding new cities practically free in the early game. My plan will be to grab as much land as possible early on.

I'm aware that the lighthouse bonus doesn't really kick in until after it could be pretty easily built manually, so it's definitely not an optimal choice. I expect that the library itself will be more than enough to carry me through the early game though, and as I confirmed in a shadow after this game was completed, TGL/Oxford with chopped Pyramids totally breaks the game. I'm looking for a somewhat more normal game than that, hence my choices.



The starting warrior is going to head east, carefully checking for good coastal city locations. I never know what to do with seafood starts, but eventually I decide to go worker first. With an oasis to work initially, and fresh water corn to follow, those clams can wait. The worker can chop out work boats later, and once that's done this capital should be an excellent settler pump.

Bronze Working is dialed up first, since I can get both that and Agriculture before the worker comes out. The capital popped the hut and gave us Hunting, which I believe it should do for everyone. Hopefully I can slip a scout out at some point to head west.

We meet Ramesses on T7, so he's probably pretty close. If we're too crowded on both sides, my dreams of peaceful city spam are probably going to be interrupted. His jerk scout also stole a hut.

BW comes in, and I don't see any nearby yet, though I've revealed nothing to the west. None of the potential city sites I've revealed to the east look all that exciting. Decent food, but not much in the way of hammers, which I'd like for city number 2 so the capital can spam workers and settlers instead of boring military.



Great Person number 1 (on turn 10, hehe) is a merchant! The Scientist was 80% odds, but since we have to settle number 1 anyway, I'm quite happy to see Mr. Mill. I probably won't get any more huts, so the gold is welcome, and the extra food probably matters more early on than the science, since I'll be researching pretty quickly anyway. Hopefully number 2 will be the Scientist though, for the obvious Acadamy.

I didn't plan for a merchant though, so now the worker is going to come out one turn ahead of Agriculture. This may or may not end up being a good thing, because I changed my opening plan quite a bit. It occurs to me that I could chop a work boat first, slave it at size 2, putting the overflow into a scout, then build a warrior or two while the worker farms the corn and mines the hill. Once I hit size 4, I should have enough improved tiles to get the first settler out quickly, followed by another worker. I don't know if this is a good idea, but let's try it!

I revolt to Slavery after the worker finishes, and start the Work Boat. The next tech is Animal Husbandry, because I feel like we almost certainly have horses nearby. Hopefully they're on one the plains near the capital, but there are several eligible tiles in the third ring that might not be quite so overpowered (this capital doesn't really need another resource).



And my first setback. Woody 1, full health warrior in a forest dies to a panther at 3.3% odds. And we do have horses, which I think makes C1 a good spot for city 2 (yes yes I see the wasted tiles). I'll check out those fogged tiles to be sure before he settles down though. Research is set to The Wheel and then Iron Working.



The scout was mauled to 0.2 health by a lion, and also reveals a nice sheep/grass gems location that can be put on the coast. It's got a desert and 2 peaks, but still should make a nice cottage location. Rather than spend 9 turns healing, I try to keep to flatland scouting to stay away from threats. A panther will no doubt make a mockery of that plan.

Carthage finishes its second warrior just as it grows to size 4. I decide to chop out another worker before starting on the settler. There is lots of land to be improved here, and it'll only take 3 turns. GP2 is a Scientist, hooray! Academy in 2760 BC. I'm not sure why there was a restriction on engineers but not scientists. Well, yes I am. 2 Engineering wonders would essentially yield at least 2 more free wonders, since the Pyramids would speed along engineer number 2. That really just leaves scientists as the obvious power play, but I guess that'd be hard to avoid.

We meet a scout from Louis on T36. Two industrious civs as neighbors, goody. If they have stone, my Oxford/TGL + manual Pyramids plan might have been hard. On turn 37 our scout discovers Malinese borders, so Mansa is the neighbor to this side. So far, lots of peaceful civs.

Carthage whips the settler for 2 pop, and starts a work boat while growing. Iron Working comes in, and the only source nearby isn't very nearby. We'll have to send some chariots to watch that location, and be ready to grab it quickly. Research plan is now Pottery->Sailing->Writing.

Utica is founded on turn 40. I managed to miss the screenshot, but it's on the C1 tile from the last picture. It doesn't have to worry about a border pop until libraries, so it starts a work boat by working the horses while the 2 workers rescue delicious bacon from the jungle.

Pottery comes in, and Carthage switches to a granary. I plan to double whip it into the work boat, then build some military while growing, stopping for another settler whenever we reach the happy cap. We also meet Caesar on turn 43, and discover our first barb archer, though far from our lands currently.

The next several turns go smoothly, with both cities working on chariots while they grow into their improved tiles. I'll need quite a few apparently, as barb cities have already started popping up.



My scout gets crowded by barbarians and eventually ends his turn next to a warrior, though at least I got most of the settling land to the west scouted out. Writing comes in, and after a brief stop at Archery we head to Mathematics. I'm already researching well past my ability to build infrastructure, so this is mostly for the benefit to chops. It's past time I started spamming settlers.

The Oracle fell on turn 53, 1880 BC. I feel like that's really fast. Stonehenge and the The Great Wall are also gone, on turns 46 and 51 respectively, I believe. Judaism didn't fall until turn 54, which seems late. It was definitely there for the taking, had I wanted it.

After the settler from Carthage completed, I paused for 5 turns to build a lighthouse and grow to size 6 now that the whip unhappiness was gone. Then it should be right back to settler spam while Utica builds military and the occasional worker.

After math, research turned to Masonry and the religious path to Monarchy. I don't have wonder plans until the Colossus, don't need Currency or Code of Laws yet, and could definitely use the happy cap boost. Turn 61 saw GP3, another low odds merchant. This one is kind of irritating. I have plenty of money, and no need to bulb Currency (it'll be awhile before I use up all my TGL trade routes), so he settles in Carthage again.



Here's my capital, in 1520BC. Even without the overflow from the chop, it's producing 5 turn settlers and 3 turn workers. I always feel like I'm too slow about settling, but hopefully I'm doing a little better this game.

So, I haven't mentioned the third settler from Carthage for awhile. Did he fall into the sea?



I'm looking to seal off this entire portion of the ring from Mansa. The problem is that there really should be two cities doing the job, as I can't really find a good way to fit just one in there while sealing the land with only one border pop, all while being on the coast. The next settler needs to seal the land to the east though, so I think I want to place this 2W of the cow. Coastal, blocks all the land with one border pop, and has enough food to work those hills for some solid production.

I once again managed to miss taking a screenshot (a theme on this east side, sadly), but in the east I'd like to settle what turns out to be the only available Iron, a pretty good distance from the capital. Metals aren't gimmies in this game (only bronze was the one shown in my previous picture). There's a settler hanging out in Memphis though, so I may lose this one. Depending on exactly where Ramesses settles, I may still be able to challenge the Iron tile with a different city.

While scouting Egypt, I notice a worker building a workshop. Colossus is probably not looking good. I think I can guess who landed the Oracle.



Well, I won this location, but the borders won't pop in time to stop Mansa if he wants to go further south. Not sure what I would have done about that, but they were gone the next turn, so I assume he went north. West side, secure!

The east side, however, was less secure. I can still put a city that grabs the iron, but it won't be quite where I want it. It should be ok so long as I'm quick with culture. I'm glad we don't have Hatty here. Carthage put out another worker, and is set to triple whip a library into a monument. I'll eventually need to get some cottages down and start making use of financial, but for now I think I can abuse TGL for a bit longer. Utica also double whipped its granary into a monument this turn.

I had met Justinian earlier, and now find Alex to round out the list of opponents. A few aggressive guys here, but with my neighbors being so peaceful, I think I'm in good shape diplomatically for the early game.

And Hippo is founded to claim Iron. Again, no screenshot because I'm a bit dim. A monument chop into a library whip is probably best here. Hinduism also spread to Carthage. I haven't converted yet, but with a Hindu Egypt and Mail still without religion, it might be a good move later.

Not a whole lot happened during the next several turns. I revolted to HR when Monarchy came in, and started research on Currency to further boost the trade route income, which was starting to become significant. Justinian showed up with alphabet, so I put beakers into it until he was willing to trade it for maths. He must have been researching it himself though, so I ended up just trading it for Meditation and finishing the research myself.



Sigh. Despite my thinking that Hinduism might be a good idea earlier, I really don't want the anarchy right now, and he's kind of the natural target if I want to do some warring. I decline. Alphabet came in this turn, how are we doing?



We're uh, doing ok. Egypt engineered the Pyramids in Thebes. Hmm.

And the turns rolled along, Currency added more research power (almost every city has four 2 commerce trade routes), followed by Calendar and Code of Laws. More cities were settled, and infrastructure was built. The AIs continued to make irritating demands.

Carthage worked on The Hanging Gardens, using whip overflow from a worker to start things rolling. Mali landed CoL, which made me happy I had decided to remain godless. GP4 showed up in 525 BC as a scientist, and why does he bulb Compass? Oh yeah, need to finish CoL to open Philo up. Two turns later:



Utica was not the greatest place for that to go. The missionary will help out Hippo against Egypt, at least. That shot also shows that I've finally run out of money for 100% science. 96 turns isn't too bad, and I'm breakeven at 60%. The early advantage of the library has pretty much run it's course, though obviously it's still helping tremendously. Cottages start to go down at the capital and several other cities. I need more workers, so badly.

The Hanging Gardens completed in 350 BC, and our cities grew. Before the year was out, the cities had mysteriously shrunk again, but no one was too unhappy because they all had shiny new courthouses and libraries to play with. Civil Service finished in 175 BC, and I revolted. Traded Currency to Mansa for Construction, and dialed up Metal Casting next, since Egypt was still the only civ who had it. Christianity was also founded by Justinian, who had also founded Buddhism, so probably not a big deal.

Fast forward a few turns, and it's time for the ever popular 1 AD overview. First, some shots of the empire.




My demographics are not incredibly impressive, though I am number 1 in GNP. My land and population numbers are very average, but I have quite a bit of room for growth left, and those numbers should rise steadily over the next thousand years. Most of my later cities have finished their basic infrastructure and can now grow into the cottages my workers are free to put down, rather than being whipped quite so heavily.

You may have noticed the Compass research in those screenshots. Have I forgotten about my suddenly super awesome UB that fits perfectly with my gameplan? Of course I have.

A word on my military: I don't really have any. Mali is cautious and Egypt is pleased, and neither have shown much in the way of aggressive military buildup. I'd actually really like to attempt some war with Egypt with maces/cats, but I don't know if I'll have the forces ready before he catches up on military techs. He'll certainly have longbows, at the very least. I've certainly beaten longbows with maces and cats before, and Egypt's land looks pretty good, so if I can produce an army quickly, I'll definitely take a shot. Otherwise, the plan is to develop and settle my land, and keep teching.

After discovering Compass, I flipped it to Mansa for around 340 gold and Monotheism (forgot to SS it). Mansa showed up with 500 gold, and I'm not really sure where it came from. The last wonder was the Colossus some 10-15 turns ago. Oh well, no complaints here.





Ramesses built the Statue of Zeus in 175AD. Why, in every game, does my first target always build this? I would like to load up a few galleys and take Thebes first, but I don't even know if I'll have the hammers for an acceptable stack as it is. In happier news, The barb city in my backyard has 1 archer in it, and I have 2 swords ready to go next turn.



And things go smoothly, CR1 sword wins at 75% and takes the city. I like the location and could certainly use the settler savings, so I keep it. The screenshot shows paper, but I first decide to head to Music for a shot at the artist. Maybe a poor move, as both Louis and Justinian could be researching it right now, and the AI seems to love GP techs. But it's only three turns at a slight deficit, and I'm well ahead on the Liberalism path, so why not? Of course, one turn into this plan Justinian completed Music, so uh, Paper due in 3! And Egypt got their 63rd Great Engineer, which I had hoped would help make Thebes even tastier, but of course instead built Chichen Itza.

Paper came in, and I did a bunch of map trading with everyone who wasn't someone's worst enemy. Made about 150 gold and got a pretty clean picture of the ring. Obviously, no one's been to the center yet.



You can see on the minimap how things shaped up, and the screen shows why Justinian is the only one really keeping up on tech. Some nicely sized cities, working a fair amount of cottages. Mansa, who normally does so well, got really screwed in the landgrab. France and I have squeezed him somewhat, and though he does have 8 cities, there isn't much room for more. Meanwhile, I have 9, with room for at least 5 more.


I stopped playing the game for quite some time at this point, so I took some time upon my return to look over my empire and evaluate my gameplan. I currently have a fair number of cities, but many are essentially fishing villages or cottage centers. Production is hard to come by, with only my capital and Hadrumetum (on Mansa's borders) really well suited to it. Utica is pretending, but maxes out at 13 shields/turn. This certainly has my economy humming, but is going to make war somewhat difficult.

Speaking of war, I would really prefer to target Egypt at least as far as Thebes. Unfortunately, they have Chichen Itza, elephants, cats, and will probably have longbows by the time I can a muster a stack and declare. So I'll definitely need a lot of units, and what does my military look like right now?



Not super. I'm not going to get the units I need by building them slowly, that's for sure. So, should I abort, develop my empire, and come back later when I've got a tech lead? Yeah, I think I need to. I'd love to whip the hell out of cities and swallow him now, but I decide to play it safe.

Research is set to Education, and then we'll see how far up the tree I can get before I have to cash in Liberalism. All the AIs are missing Philosophy, and only Justinian has Civil Service, so I'm hoping I can get a bigger prize than the traditional Nationalism.

My next Great Person shows up in 425 AD as a merchant. All the options are initially appealing. He'll bulb most of Guilds, which I'll want shortly. The best trade mission I could find earns me 1300 gold, and I'm losing 68/turn at max science, so that would fuel several turns of deficit research. This is normally a great time for a golden age as well I think, in order to help the universities get built, but I'd like to improve my land a bit more, and I'd also like to see if my flyer at the Mausoleum works out.

I'm trying it in Hadrumetum, and of course a slave revolt popped up there this turn. Louis would turn out to win it anyway. That was entirely my fault, started it way too late.

Ultimately, the trade mission seems to have the most value. I gain nearly 100 beakers by going from break even to max science, and he only gives 1086 for guilds. I can run that for more than 11 turns, plus I have the flexibility of upgrades should I want or need those, so he heads off to see Mansa.

Several boring turns go by, though they are occasionally broken up by AI hilarity.




Uh, no. Thanks for stopping by!

So far it's been quite the peaceful game, but in 620 AD I saw that both Alex and Justinian had enough on their hands. They're far enough away that I'm not particularly worried, especially when there are other AIs they hate more. I did keep an eye out for suspicious stacks of units far from home though. Mansa also reminded me to get moving on settling my remaining land.



He was actually pretty aggressive about it, sending another galley behind my lines which no doubt carried more poachers. To add injury to insult, I missed this spot by one turn!



This one really bugged me. Mansa's city was a no resource space filler, this had my stone! Totally my fault of course, I've been way too slow about expanding, but still irritating. I ended up planting two cities as close to Abydos as I could, and got culture into them as quickly as possible. Would this do any good? That answer and more, later in this report!

My teching continued to go smoothly. I was hoping to lib rifling, but was ready to settle for replaceable parts if need be. I made a detour to economics for the free merchant, who would fund several more years of 100% research.

In 900 AD, finally some excitement!



That should slow things down. Caesar is on top of the scoreboard and teching well, while Justinian is the AI leader in GNP. Alex is right in between both of them, and I'm hoping he's stayed true to his usual self by building tons of units. Sadly, he's rather behind on tech, so I imagine he'll be beaten in the end. Just do some damage before you go, Alex! The fact that Justinian got a Great General the very next turn was probably not a good sign. The following turns would see Alex and Caesar get one, as well as a second for Justinian. So they're certainly throwing hammers away! On turn 162, the first of Alex's cities fell to the Romans.

Mansa discovered Gunpowder, and despite being the worst enemy of Caesar, Alex, and Justinian, this trade was too good to pass up.



We're 5 turns from Rifling! I will hopefully have the Taj by then, at which point it is drafting time. I've been grinding out some siege for the past several hundred years, so things are not looking good for the Egyptians, who have fallen well behind in tech.

Sadly, Caesar somehow managed to land the Taj before me. On that same turn, Alex made peace with Justinian and Caesar, only to get declared on by Louis. With so much land between them, I don't expect too much to come of that one. One city changed hands, and clearly several units died, but otherwise it looked like your typical nonfactor AI war.

Liberalism came in, with Rifling the prize. The question now is whether I wait 9 turns for another GP from my capital for the Golden Age, or just eat the 2 turns of anarchy to switch. Well, I can get a theater up in 2 turns, which will add two more artists, which brings the time down to 8 turns. So I'd lose 6 turns of drafting, but gain 2 turns of production for the rest of my empire.

Egypt is two turns from Guilds right now, so I think I need to just eat the anarchy. Muskets won't really stop me, but I'd prefer to go as far as I can against longbows. So we switch to Nationhood/Free Market/Free Religion, keeping HR and Slavery. I can use the golden age after the war to switch to my endgame civics.

In 1150AD, I'm finally ready.



I also have a couple rifles ready to take a boat to Abydos, which is defended only by a knight. The plan is to march straight to Thebes, taking Heliopolis and Memphis on the way. Reinforcements are already on their way and will take care of garrisoning the new captures, as well as taking Alexandria and Byblos. This would be an excellent time to run up both coasts with galleons, but with production so scarce, something had to give, and as usually seems to be the case for me, this time it was the navy.

So let's get this party started! I had 64% odds right off the boat to take Abydos, so I don't bother landing.



This was originally where I planned to place my city, but since I've planted two others nearby to put some pressure on it, I razed it. I guess I kind of forgot about the whole plan to wipe Egypt from the map thing when I did that. Oh well. Egypt's counterattack turned out to be one catapult, which I shot with guns until it died. After bombing the defenses and moving away from the river surrounding Heliopolis, it was time to move in. The screenshots somehow died, but it wasn't terribly exciting. 2 wins at 88% and another at 98% meant my first mainland conquest was a success, in 1180AD.

Tech note: I've continued to pull away from the AIs, leading by ~5 techs over the leaders and absolutely crushing the lesser civs. I'm not incredibly happy about how I managed my empire really; I definitely needed more workers and could have settled my land faster, but the TGL/TGL combo really helped make up the shortcomings and then some. I wasn't all bad either. I was pretty good about managing the whip I think, getting lots of key infrastructure up and running in a timely manner. Once that was up and the cities could grow into their cottages a bit, my science really took off, and of course the two trade missions were an enormous help in powering up the tree. That money is nearly gone (1180AD), but now that cottages are maturing and I'm adding more land, I should be able to maintain my pace and get to space well ahead of my competition. Well, my AI competition anyway. We'll see how well the RB experts do; I'm hoping I'm not blown away by too much, though it was never my goal to submit a fastest finish.

The very next turn, I was in position in front of Memphis, which contained 3 longbows and a crossbow. Three trebs took out half the city's defenses, and then the the rifles moved in. All the battles were at ~70%, one of which I lost without even managing to damage the defending longbow. The others were successful though, and the city was mine.



I'll heal up here for a couple turns while my forces regroup and absorb any counter attacks, then move straight to Thebes. Memphis came with several buildings still intact, including the now mostly irrelevant Chichen Itza. I'm heading for steel, which should come soon enough for cannons to speed things up. After that I'll likely grab steam power before heading to democracy. I'm hoping the AIs will research constitution for me by then, but they rarely seem to care what I want.

Ramesses threw 3 cats at my rifles on the interturn, which was good enough to get me my first GG. He'd head to Thaenae (the city Mansa nearly beat me to) to settle down. It's still a bit busy on infrastructure, having been founded late, but it'll eventually be an ideal HE city. Pretty late for the HE sadly, but it should do a good job of keeping my power rating respectable while the rest of the empire works cottages. Most of my troops needed to heal in Memphis, but some siege started moving up to Alexandria to meet up with fresh conscripts in order to remove that irritating culture from my lands. Ramesses is researching Constitution at the moment, so this war should continue to be a cakewalk. Silly AIs.


Someone blew up Carthage's Cothon. Spies are irritating. I haven't done anything with them this game, and I never do. Let's say I am not a fan of this mechanic.

In 1220AD, Oxford was completed in the capital (with a 5 pop whip, just good enough to keep all the cottages worked) and a Great Scientist was born I put him on ice for a Golden Age. I start running merchants in hopes of going after Sid's Sushi, which is a pretty natural choice on this seafood rich map, and something I should have prioritized long ago. Justinian showed up with
Constitution but won't trade it yet.

This quest popped up next turn:



Internet, tell me what the game already should! I can get either Combat 1 for all ships, Navigation 1 for all ships, or 1 commerce for all harbors. Nothing spectacular, but since I'm building them anyway I'll make sure to spam a few Caravels and pick up the commerce. Though, I'm not sure what's up with that Industrial Age thing. I found a chart that claims I already have several techs belonging to the Industrial Age. I eventually find out that only certain techs from that age fail the quest, Steel being one of them. I can head to Democracy in the meantime, since I won't be able to upgrade my siege until Thebes falls anyway. I wish the game would be more clear about this sort of thing.

I cleaned up Alexandria with no losses.



We once again tear down the Libraries with their devil's literature, and the granaries with their devil's...food? Anyway, it's still size 14, so nice catch.

In 1250AD, some jerk traded Ramesses Gunpowder. Alas, Riflemen still kill muskets with only moderately more trouble than longbows. In response, I finish the Globe Theater and resolve to draft and whip until the game is over. Ok, I would have done that anyway.

Justinian shows up with Constitution, so I trade Chemistry and about 800 gold for it, and start working on Democracy while the last of the Caravels finish up for the quest.

I start attacking Thebes in 1270AD. I lose only one suicide treb, but fall 3 units short of taking the city. It's a similar story in Byblos, though I do lose a rifle at 80% there. Thebes should fall next turn, and Byblos the turn after. At that point, I think I want to make peace for awhile to recover a bit.

Ramesses found several extra defenders for Thebes next turn, but it didn't matter. It fell in 1280AD with no losses.



Look at all those wonders! Most are no longer useful, but Notre Dame and the shrine are both welcome additions, as well as taking that damn statue out of play. (Stupid wonder, or stupidest wonder?)

Byblos does fall the next turn with no more losses. It was close though, as more defenders entered the city, forcing my Medic chariot dealing the finishing blow. My trebs made sure he had 99% odds, so no big deal. The city came with exactly zero buildings intact, and it's some pretty bad filler, claiming nothing but 7 coastal tiles and some ocean, so I burn it. Ramesses wants to capitulate, but speaking of mechanics I hate...

I instead just take this deal for peace, after some haggling over cities.



He actually wouldn't give me Divine Right, so I just took his map but forgot to screenshot it.

Our citizens forgot all about the war when a scientist did something that was apparently really impressive, and the world trembled at the mighty Carthaginian Golden Age! I swapped to US/Free Speech/Caste System on the first turn, intending Emancipation 5 turns later. Production problems, solved!

I completed the quest, which turned out to be one gold per Cothon instead of commerce. Oh well, Democracy in 2, then we finish steel. Also of note: Louis and Alex have been at war for hundreds of years, have generated several great generals, and not a single city has changed hands. GG AI.

The tech situation:



The AIs have caught up a bit while I was off warring, but this infrastructure push should put be right back on top. As soon as I typed up my complaint about AI wars, Louis captured a city and then made peace with Alex. I'm not sure if I'm chagrined or vindicated.

Oh that's it, now you're definitely dead.



He replanted that stupid city. At least it sort of makes sense now, since he lost the sugar. Enjoy it while you can, there are 5 turns left on the peace treaty!

My next GP was another scientist (had about 45/45 sci/merch, with the rest random other stuff). He sticks around to found a corp or start another golden age. Caesar declared on Mansa, good to see he's keeping himself amused. I now make the switch to Emancipation. I'm attempting the SoL, but Louis has Democracy, so I expect I'll be beaten. It's due in 20, and there's not much I can do to speed it up.

Steam Power comes in, and I dial up Railroad. It turns out I have no coal, but Egypt does! Our treaty expires next turn, so it's time to declare.



The bulk of my stack is going to head to Pi-Ramesses, while a few rifles head south to take out whatever city is blighting my land down there. They'll meet up again and Elephantine. I expect they'll be able to split again there to take out the remaining Egyptian cities without much trouble. It'll take some time though, as there's a lot of land to cover.

Declaring war predictably results in a stupid amount of war weariness in the former Egyptian cities. The rest of the empire is doing ok though.



Just super.

Mansa vassalized to Louis, causing Rome and France to be at war. Stupid rule, but this time it works out for me! In more important war news, my cannon dies at 50%, but the rest of the units are then easy pickings for my rifles, and the recently refounded city, whose name I didn't bother to look at, is gone. If the citizens of Thebes would quit whining and actually work, I'm sure they'd be grateful for the new tiles.

The war march continues, with Ramesses using Frigates to bomb the defenses of cities he'll never reach. In 1420AD, cannons do their thing while rifles do theirs:



The resulting Great General makes his way to the front lines so I can finally make my chariot a proper medic.

WHAT IS SO GREAT ABOUT THAT CITY SPOT??



Thanks for the worker, I guess. It is almost railroad time, after all.

Louis is starting to carve up Caesar. He's taken two cities, and I'd kind of prefer he not take yet another vassal. Unfortunately the price for peace is all my tech, so I'll just have to hope Jules gets his act together.

Elephantine is adequately stocked with units, and my forces are currently on the other side of the river. You can also see the settler insanity continuing.



I attack anyway. Cannons die at 80% and 84%, but it's mopping up time after that.



And so in 1450AD, I add the first non-coastal city to my empire. I feel like I have a decision to make at this point. Ramesses is down to 4 cities, and there are zero cottages at any of them. Meanwhile, WW is really starting to suck. I hate leaving civs alive because that motherland unhappiness is a real pain, but I think I have to here. It'd take at least 15 more turns to finish him off, and while I was never hoping to compete for the fastest spaceship, I'd prefer not to be overly slow about it. So I take this deal:



He'll capitulate, but won't give up techs. Ok then. Anyway, I make a pass through all my cities, making sure the extra happiness hasn't inspired the AI governors to do something silly. I've got more than enough land to win a space race, so unfortunately for anyone hoping for an interesting report, that's where I direct my efforts.

I grab Corp from Ramesses and Scientific Method from Mansa, finally obsoleting my original wonders. Thanks TGLs, you were fun!

A few turns later, it's 1500AD, which always seems to be a good time to step back and take a look at things. Caesar is still at war with the Louis/Mansa team, and several cities in bizarre locations have changed hands. Louis took one on the Rome/Greece border, while Caesar managed one in between Louis and Mansa.

Diplomatically, the ring map allows you to be pretty sloppy in that area, and I have taken advantage of that. I'm not great friends with anyone, but no one except Ramesses and Alex really hate me, and they're not threats. Mansa is teching just fine as Louis's vassal, so I should have at least one partner for the rest of the game, and no credible military threats. I expect I'll be (mostly) playing the builder game the rest of the way. Again, not compelling report material, but I enjoy doing it. Now, it's time for you to enjoy some screenshots!

Here's where I stand on tech:



A small lead, which I'm hoping to improve on as my infrastructure push continues. The demographics:



The number one GNP AI is Justinian, which is why I said I'd be mostly playing the builder. There's still some military action in my future, and here's why.



Justinian has decided to try for culture. Constantinople is coastal on the inner ring, so I'll build some ships and raze it at some point. It looks like I have plenty of time.

Here's my territory. First my western half, which is my original core.



Here's the eastern part, made up mostly of former Egypt.



You might notice on the minimap that I've done nothing with the middle islands. I was busy with Egypt, and most of the land there isn't that great. There's still a barb city which will claim silver, and I have a boat full of rifles on their way. That one would be nice to grab. The only other resouce there that I don't own is Furs, which I can trade for if I really need to. The only really noteworthy project right now is the SoL. I'm 5 turns away from it, so I expect Louis will be finishing it shortly. Everything else is banks for Wall Street in my shrine city or other random infrastructure.

It turns out that in 1525AD, I won the race to SoL. Turns out Louis doesn't have copper. That and the war must have slowed him down. It would be lovely to be able to run Representation, but I really, really need the hammers from US. It's still a nice boost.

Biology did the usual, allowing cities in mediocre terrain to rapidly grow into all their tiles, while cities which were already doing well really took off. I like this point in the game, as the full set of tile improvements lets you do almost anything you want with any city. Railroads were also starting to go up, boosting production. The full set of gold buildings in my Hindu shrine bumped income significantly, as did their construction in cities accross the empire. My beaker count is rising rapidly with every turn, and that should continue for pretty much the entire game.

My next GP was a scientist again, despite running four merchants in the capital. Neither corp is appealing, so he went on ice next to the other one. I am hoping for two more late game golden ages, though my luck with GPs this game has not been exceptional. It looks like Sid's is going to come too late to really matter here, which is sad. I don't often mess with corps, since they seem like something of a win-more type of mechanic in most of my games. Here's a game where I'm motivated enough to pay attention to it, and I strike out twice at 50% odds.




Settler or Deity, the AI is always fun to watch.

Here's the tech shot from 1600AD.



Compare the beakers from the 1500 shot. This is why I love being a builder. Half again as many beakers, in 20 turns. Wall Street, which is going to be good for another notch on the slider, is now five turns away. Several production based cities are about done with all their necessary buildings, and will be set to crank military until it's time to build the spaceship.

Louis demands Electricity at this point, reminding me that despite having the ability to build a modern military, I haven't actually done so yet. I give in, as he's not teching nearly as fast as I am.

Crap.



Thank goodness Egypt is free of Buddhism. I had myself a little panic until I saw that. With Combustion came oil, which made everyone sick. Time to windmill the coal! The last several offline games I've played have seen me end up with cities which are right on top of coal, so I was glad to be able to finally pull this little stunt. I hate coal.

I didn't think I'd have time for this one - and didn't ... but due to awful time-management skills, I wound up playing anyway. (Oops.) Given that I was spending time playing civ at all when I did though, I'm glad I spent it on this game rather than making plans for the RBP3 Friendly Kittens, because shortly after I finished the first ~90% of this game, something happened in RBP3 that would have meant any time I spent planning for it would have been wasted completely (a minor move with far-reaching impact, which is kind of typical of civ). Yay Adventure 45! So, I'll try to put a report together for this one, but as I may not finish it even with the extension to the end of Wednesday, I'll post the vitals now, and come back for the full report:

Wonders: Statue of Liberty + Eiffel Tower
Goal: Have fun with late-game wonders that have unusual effects in the early game, and win a cultural victory
Gameplan: Solid, but could have been executed better; more detail with the full report
Result: Cultural victory, Turn 222 (the year 1560)
Apology/disclaimer: In the fine tradition of my MoO reports, this one's likely going to be long. I'm not writing an in-character story for it the way I do with MoO though; I've found it difficult to do so in a way that actually works. Civ leaves too little to the imagination.

I played with Kremlin + Globe Theatre. Currently in the 1200s AD and a couple of turns from domination.

Settled high food locations (preferrably with food resources in first ring) for super-fast early expansion (which led to some awkward filler cities later).

Settled as far as ivory and iron towards Egypt and copper towards Mali. Also settled stone island. Prioritized worker techs early, which meant that I missed out on Stonehenge and Oracle (and thus Colossus, which I captured later). The rest of the wonders I whipped in Carthage. Carthage got the National Epic to go with all the wonders. Missed a few irrelevancies like Hagia Sophia and Schwedagon Paya. The only wonder I remotely wanted that I didn't get was Angkor Wat.

I built a Moai/HE city and whipped a ton of units all over the empire. When my power started spiking Mali vassalised to me, so I conquered Egypt (knights vs archers), then Byzantium (cuirassiers vs longbows/muskerts) and then Greece (cavalry vs longbows/muskets). Settled the central islands to reach the domination limit.

To maintain my empire I ran a number of mausoleum-powered golden ages, and built the holy quartet (Sistine, AP, UoS, SM). A single seafood resource or a few grassland tiles was enough to build an economically viable and productive city. I built the Versailles in Thebes and the forbidden palace in Byzantium.

My wonder combination was extremely powerful so the game played like an easy monarch game. Consequently I didn't put a lot of effort into it and made many suboptimal micromanagement decisions, as well as conducting a lazy campaign. My best game decision was probably the initial wonder selection. I easily had the power to wage a two front war in both directions around the ring, but couldn't be bothered.

Thanks to the sponsor for a fun game!

I'd just like to reiterate that the Kremlin was extremely powerful. Carthage could whip a population point for 44 hammers (not 45 unfortunately, due to rounding errors) multiplied by (1 + 0.25 (OR) + 0.25 (forge) + 0.50 (BB)) = 88 hammers. (EDIT: That doesn't sound quite right, not sure where the Kremlin bonus is applied. Anyway, it was powerful stuff.) At that pace, whipping even wonders was a cinch, especially with both marble and stone readily available. My other cities could also whip like crazy, I had plenty of happy resources + Notre Dame, religions and representation. My military pumps all had ~15 unhappy from whipping.

So this is not only my first ever RB game and first ever write-up, this is also my first game ever above the Noble difficulty, my first ever game on BtS (or Warlords), and only my fifth game ever of Civilization (including I-IV). I am not expecting a good result. But I consider myself to be a brilliant sort of guy, and I’ve studied Sulla, Kylearan and T-Hawk’s playbook, so now I just have to go out and execute so to speak.

I have spent quite a long time contemplating my choice of wonders. Let me break down my thinking on the subject. I am aware that the AI gets pretty large production/commerce/research bonuses on the higher difficulty levels, so I figured I would struggle to get off to a good start. So my initial plan was to grab The Great Library and Statue of Liberty. With these wonders, I might be able to keep up with the AI in early research and production. In fact, I went so far as to request this combination from T-Hawk. But I quickly came to realize that counter to my noob-thinking, the Great Library does not provide two free scientists in every city. But before I could contact T-Hawk to change my wonders, he had already sent me my save file. But he graciously agreed to let me request another, so I was back to the drawing board.

Before choosing Statue of Liberty and Great Library, I strongly debated Pyramids, Shwedagon, and Cristo Redentor. My debate between Pyramids and Shwedagon came down to a debate between Representation and Free Religion. Both provide extra happiness, which is no small advantage, especially when combined w/ upper difficulty penalties, (but slightly less valuable w/ Hannibal’s Charisma) and a research bonus. The Representation bonus, when combined with the Statute of Liberty, would provide nice synergy. Free Religion (+10% beakers) with Shwedagon would provide more value late game, but by the late game, I would already have Free Religion. So really, the only great advantage of Shwedagon would be rushing Free Religion to stay on everyone’s good side. The appeal of Cristo to me was that it was a late game wonder, and thus provided more value. But the ability to change civics for free during a Golden Age nerfs the power of Cristo IMO. And since I have to use my first GP to trigger a GA anyway (or settle), well, there you go. I’ll just save my first GP until I need a civic swap/GA combo. I really came close to picking the Pyramids/Cristo combo for their synergy, but I just couldn’t get past the need for the early flexible production/beaker/gold provided by Statue of Liberty, especially since my understanding of a Ring map (from googled screengrabs) means the entire land mass will be one large continent.

Since I had made up my mind about one wonder, I decided to restudy the whole wonder list over again for the umpteenth time. And for the first time I stopped thinking in generalities and started thinking about victory conditions. And since I suppose on my first try I am unlikely to out-tech the AI on Immortal, I probably don’t want to go for a Space Victory. And I have never tried a cultural victory, so this didn’t seem like the right time to get my feet wet. So that largely left Domination/Conquest. And since a strong military will help keep me alive against better AI/Barbs, West Point seemed like a great choice. Especially when combined with the Charismatic trait of Hannibal, by my math, WP, plus barracks, plus Vassalage/Theocracy will create my units with three free promotions. Three! Even I should be able to win battles with that much XP. I am thinking I might even try to save promotion three for a quick heal after battles unless I need the promotion for better combat odds. Now, a part of me wanted to use Cristo w/ WP so that I could quickly switch in and out of V/T war civics when I was producing units. But Lady Liberty, I just can’t quit you. So Statue of Liberty and WP it will be. The only real hesitation I have about these two wonders are the GPPs they create (Spy/Merchant). But if I just use them for a few GAs, then no harm. No real wonder synergy, but hopefully just what I need on separate accounts.

And then I loaded up my game and realized that my ignorance knows no bounds. The free specialist the Statue of Liberty granted me was only gave me a mere Citizen early on. I didn’t realize I had to have the buildings required to specialize the free specialist. I figured free meant free. Oops! And on another note, I didn’t realize until after the game was over that I had asked for West Point when what I actually wanted was the Pentagon. I kept wondering why Carthage couldn’t build a second National Wonder (Ironworks would’ve been beastly) and just decided that the Palace must count as one of your two NWs in your capitol. Again, oops! So between loading the game up a few times and being paralyzed with fear to make a move, and then also turning it off in frustration after inspecting the specialist screen, I think it took me until Session 5 to even make my first move.

I switched my early build to Fishing boat to let Carthage grow and decided to try to get my Numidian Archers as soon as possible and ignore Axemen (horses were close to Carthage), since who knew where you devious RB guys would hide the resources. Ironically, I wouldn’t end up researching Horseback Riding for ages (I would have Bronze and Iron Working first) and despite choosing West Point, I never declared war the whole game. (I razed one barbarian city, and even that I waited until Mansa did all the dirty work, and then I cleaned up the last Longbowman with my western sentry unit). When my cultural border popped, it gave me a scout from a hut (the only hut I saw all game) and I sent my warrior to the east and my scout to the west. I saw stone on a little island to the east and decided to put my city on that island (negating my Statue of Liberty bonus like a doof) since I didn’t go for any early religions (this becomes very ironic later) and had no way of creating an early border pop in my second city. But this required me to research Sailing and produce a galley. Six of one, a half dozen of another. I would finally settle that second city at about 2200 AD and get the Moai Statues (first time I’ve built them) and the Pyramids in Carthage. Carthage ends up producing nearly every missionary, soldier, settler, worker and ship in my empire.



Barbarians end up chopping down my warrior and scout fairly early, but I never fought another barbarian all game I don’t think. I posted one Numidian Archer on the west side of my Civ and the east side of my borders ran into Ramses quickly when I placed a push city to pick up the Iron near his borders, and that was that for barbarians thank god. Mansa didn’t seem too likely to push all the way down from his spawn to encroach on my borders early, so I tried to build close to Carthage to keep maintenance costs down. My first GP popped as a Merchant, so I ended up settling him to help defray maintenance costs. I rushed to Alphabet and made as many tech trades as I could and managed to stay in second behind Justinian for quite a while. I only met Justinian when I loaded my second Great Merchant into a galley and floated him up the coast for a trade mission in Constantinople (?) for 1300 gold. That 1300 gold proved invaluable for keeping my research up. Once I hit currency, I sold techs every time the AIs could offer me 100+ gold.

It was a weird game, because I never declared war the whole time and only one time did someone try to call out my game of chicken I played by building so little army. I never once got to friendly status with any AIs, but most of the tech leaders (and the ones I annoyed most) like Justinian and Alexander, were on the far side of the map. The whole game stayed peaceful until around 1000 AD when all hell broke loose with this:



I managed to stay out of the fray. But at this point, I came to a few realizations. One, I was falling way behind in score. Two, I had almost no army and no inclination to make one. So Domination wasn’t going to work. I wasn’t the tech leader, so space race seemed like a bad idea. So despite my initial intentions, I decided now would be a perfect time to try my first cultural victory on the fly. The problem was, that circa 1000 AD, I didn’t have a single cottage built yet (oops!). I had spent so much time connecting resources (I had a ton) and chop rushing builds, that I had no infrastructure. For better or worse this hadn’t really been a big deal yet, because I whipped my cities so relentlessly that they had no people to work upgraded tiles anyway (my first time ever using the whip). So I triggered a Golden Age and switched to Serfdom and Bureaucracy, produced a few extra workers, and started cottaging the hell out of everything (with some watermills and mines in Carthage thrown in).

Now what little I knew about cultural victories from reading Sulla/Kylearan and some stuff on CivFanatics, I knew you needed religions (I hadn’t founded any) and lots of commerce for the culture slider. By cottaging, I figured I would be ready to go by 1500-ish AD on commerce. But it was time to take stock of my religions. Between my nine cities (after a late push to get three more settlers out to fill in blank areas), I had four religions. Since Carthage was such a production powerhouse, I started producing one missionary per turn for ages. Now, I knew it was important to build monasteries before Scientific Method (I ended up holding off on this tech for at least 100 years) and to get temples built. And after building the temples, I finally realized exactly what those sweet +50% culture buildings were meant for. But I didn’t realize that you got one for every three temples you built.

Once I realize this, I did a quick city check and realized that I had exactly nine cities, which would allow me to put all four religions’ +50% culture buildings in each of my three cities with the most green for cottages (and Carthage, because of the culture points tied to the early wonders). This was the biggest stroke of luck I had all game in a game filled with tons of luck. Instead of having to settle a useless ninth city just to Universal Sufferage some temples, I just kept pumping missionaries in Carthage every turn and Universal Sufferaging temples everywhere and +50% buildings in my 3 culture cities. By this time, I had long since turned off Research after getting Liberalism, Economic, Corporations, Gunpowder (for token D), Constitution and Democracy (later tech trades would get me Physics, Railroad, and Combustion).



During the build up, I switched to Emancipation and Free Market. By 1500 AD, I was generating about 600-700 gold per turn (and selling old techs for 500-700 gold) and just buying all my buildings. I built the Hermitage in the weakest of my three culture cities (which made it 2nd to Carthage) and the Globe in the other. I ended up building the National Epic in one and Oxford in the other just for additional culture points. This bring me right up to the late 1500s and I was just about ready to roll on the culture slider, when Caesar decided to travel all the way across the map to attack me, despite us having Cautious relations.

A combination of things saved me. One, I turned back on research and finished Rifling in 1-2 turns. Two, I had enough money saved up to upgrade my units and US-rush more units. Three, Carthage was a total beast and could produce Muskets/Rifles/Knights (w/ West Point/Barracks) in 1-2 turns. Four, Caesar only ever sent two piddly land units (Cuirassers) which I quickly dispatched. They only managed to destroy an Iron Mine (which I didn’t need any longer) and one village in a non-culture city. Caesar did send several ships, but in another stroke of luck, not five turns prior I had rushed out Cothons and Caravels to complete some Harbor task the game gave me at random. So I upgraded those Caravels and hammered Caesar’s ships. The fighting was over in a couple turns, but I kept producing units just in case, which slowed down the start of my culture rush, because Caesar wouldn’t even talk about peace for almost 100 years. After a few more turns to get everything in order, I threw down the hammer.

And when it came, I must say, I’ve never quite seen anything like it in my short Civ career. I triggered a Golden Age, finally switched to Free Speech, and pushed my culture slider to 11 (OK, actually 90%). Bam!



That massive orange spike is my economy more than doubling in one turn. At this point, I was creating 700-900 culture points per turn in my three cities. Around this time, I got lucky (less than 50%) and popped a Great Artist, which I saved for a bomb in my weakest city. After 20 turns or so (about 30-ish from victory), I decided to briefly turn back on Research and get Medicine in two turns so I could grow Carthage slightly larger. I also realized that with the slider happiness, I could take the happiness penalty from leaving Emancipation and go back to Caste System for more artists. This helped me pull my second Great Artist at only slightly better than 50/50 odds.

From the time I threw on the cultural slider, I was running a decent profit at 90% culture and did nothing but pump token rifles, cannons, and machine guns everywhere in my empire to hopefully keep the AI at bay. I kept running up my gold reserves just in case I needed to quickly research Assembly Line and upgrade to Infantry. Carthage finished up about 15 turns early and I put it on wealth production and decided to switch to 100% culture. With the two top civs, Justinian and Alexander, beating on each other mercilessly, from here, it was just a cruise in. My second best culture city finished about 12-15 turns later and with my third best city at 42,500, I set off the two Great Artists I had waiting and ended my turn. I got my culture victory in 1901.



Here is a screenshot of my empire in 1900. You’ll just have to excuse the low res textures. My PC is old as dirt.



As you can see, I fell behind in score early and kept falling farther behind. You can see late where Justinian, the long time score leader, got completely hammered by Alexander on the far side of the world from me.



You can see how little military I maintained all game, only really adding to my power late in the game when I was just waiting for my culture to build up turn after turn.



And here you can see what happened when I turned my cultural slider up!



This was Carthage on the final turn. It was a real production powerhouse for me, even without factories/power/Ironworks upgrades. And even still it was my fastest city to Legendary culture, even when I watermilled/mined several tiles rather than cottage.



So this was a game of many firsts for me. But this shall not be my last game at RB, rest assured. I managed to defeat Immortal I suppose only because of the combination of two free wonders (even if I didn’t get anywhere near what I expected out of them), going for cultural victory, and getting incredibly lucky. In summary, I think it comes down to this. Even though I fell way behind in score and failed to execute my original plan, I managed to adapt and find a way to win anyway. And this pretty much comes down to having read through so many of Sulla’s reports. When it came time to consolidate my empire and grow my GNP, what I learned from reading Sulla, Kylearan, and T-Hawk’s reports gave me the know-how. But I have to admit, after never having played on a difficulty higher than Noble, it was really disconcerting to see the AI so far ahead in score and ahead in tech. On the lower difficulties, you stay so far ahead without even really optimizing your game. This was definitely a different AI. Thankfully I seemed like such a minnow, that the AI never bothered with me. So when Caesar said this to me in 1900, once I already had my culture win queued up, I could only smile:





CULTURE WIN
1901
Score: 2223
Hall of Fame Score: _______
Cities Built: 9
Cities Captured: 0
Cities Razed: 1

[EDIT: Reporting date extended to Thursday, July 1]

[EDIT 2: The official page is now up!]

Hi all,

My game is currently incomplete, but since it's reporting day I figure I need to post something. I got my save really late (my fault, not T-Hawks), so I've only played three decent sized sessions, and need 1-2 more to win. I took screenshots, but no notes, so this isn't precise.

Anyways, I took Globe + Heroic Epic after confirming that slaving did apply the HE bonus. This certainly isn't the best combo (IMHO GLibrary+Oxford is the best by a good margin, and everything that doesn't include either GLib or Oxford isn't really worth talking about). Darrell has taken me to task over that remark, made via chat, since Glib + Oxford might not lead to the fastest finishes. He tells me something like Oxford + SoL leads to a faster finish, but really that game is just expanding out to a bunch of cities, right? Darrell is a much better player than I am, but Immortal on this map should be pretty easy to win without any bonus if the player is Financial, has non-aggressive neighbors, and has time/room to expand to nine cities. I think the non-OCC enabled OCC win possible via Oxford + Glibrary is more impressive in terms of leveraging the variant.

Anyways, I teched Bronze Working while assuming we'd not have any (Sullla poisoned me to T-Hawk and resources) copper, and we didn't. I then went for Iron Working while successfully building the GLighthouse in my cap rather than expanding, since I figured I'd be capturing most of my cities. I settled, IIRC, four new cities (five total with cap) before DOWing Egypt with Numidian Cavalry and capturing/razing four cities. I then made peace, built some cats + elephants, and vassalized Egypt around the time the top AIs were getting Feudalism. This is pretty slow, but 1) no iron, 2) my UU sucks, 3) the map means I can't split cities well, 4) in general 2-movers aren't that great again AIs with metal. I then spent AGES moving my units over to Mansa, who was at war with a pair of AIs. I took one city then made peace (elephants + cats dying too easily to medieval enemies).

I then beelined Liberalism and won it, although Justinian did me a favor and didn't research it in the eight turns he could have and beat me to it. I took Nationhood, then researched Guilds + MilTrad. Mansa quickly crumbled to Cuirassiers and vassalized to me in ~1400AD. He did make me capture like five cities and kill all of his units in the open despite being at war with 1-2 other AIs constantly, which surprised me. I then spent AGES walking my new drafted rifles and newly promoted Cavs towards France. France vassalized to me in ~1500AD, and reinforcements are taking AGES to reach the Roman border. I should be able to defeat Rome (he has grens, but I have cannons now) at tech parity, since the AI will inevitably be silly and expose his much larger army of Grens to my 10 C4 Blitz Cavalry, that will chew through them in one turn. I'll then go all-out drafting as soon as Infantry + Artillery are available. I'd have gone all-out at rifles in a Pangea game, but since units take AGES to reach the front that wouldn't work well here.

I should say that T-Hawk's recommended Kremlin is much better than my Heroic Epic, and I wish I had known that the Kremlin bonus applied to slaved units.

I also want to say that while the game was fun and creative, I think the map and game speed are...not good. Economic wonders are simply more powerful than military ones. Even with my wonders I'd have worked my way to a more certain, if not faster, finish via slaving settlers I think. Knowing that, T-Hawk then picked a map where the player can easily defend, but not easily attack. He then added in a bunch of moderate commerce but low-production tiles, and then gave the player the financial trait on top of that. Now financial is fine, and a great military tech, but it's a great tech because it lets you win Liberalism and grab muskets/grens/rifles/cannons/cuirassiers/cavs before your neighbor does and then go on a rampage. But that's the same strategy to win Immortal in a non-culture non-space game anyways. In terms of the game playing easier than Immortal or letting the players have a fun boost...I'm not sure it was really viable with a military path. Or, I should say, not viable after accounting for a commerce-biased map where the enemy civs are going to be 50 tiles away after you've conquered the first two.

One thing these FFH games have reinforced to me is that civs tech far too fast on high difficulty levels with tech trading on. Making the map smaller and more crowded, or turning on Torroidal, or maybe Huge map + high sealevel, or giving the player Expansive+Characteristic, or giving the player Copper or Iron near their cap, all would have gone a long way towards balancing out the viability of the military route. Most off all though, Epic (or Marathon) Speed was perfect for a game like this. Yes Epic plays a half-difficulty easier for the military path, but that's fair because the military wonders are that much weaker. I know T-Hawk doesn't like Epic, but he doesn't like it when it's used unnecessarily. On a large map with crazy-distance civ borders it is necessary IMHO. I suspect with Epic and copper near the start a viable game could be played with axes to one side, then Numids towards the other (substitute chariots + swords if you want iron instead), than an elephant war, the a drafting war. Being able to fit in four wars on Immortal would, I think, be the type of overpowered have-fun strategy that matches what's possible with SP wonders in this game.

Really though, what's needed I think is a basic modifier to tech beaker numbers, at least post-CS on Emperor+ difficulties. The AIs simply tech too fast, and anyone who knows how to build cottages reaches a midgame point where techs are 2-4 turns each, and you trade for half of the beakers anyways. Diety wins should be SLOWER than Settler wins I think. Instead the AI plays an order of magnitude better while the player's tech costs are, what, double? Therefore the player gets tied to the runaway AI tech train and finishes as if the tech costs were half of what they are. And we all know turning off tech trading makes the problem worse not better. Epic Speed doesn't fix the problem, since we still have occasions where a normal city takes as long to build one unit as it takes you to research to the next level of military techs, but at least you don't fall behind while moving across your own land.

Finally, talking to Darrell again just now, we've been discussing the idea, and power, of the "one-big-push" - the time you slave/draft your civ down to rush that too-close AI, or block off those chokepoints, or make 6 settlers maintenance costs be damned, or (most effectively) draft your civ down to where you need 50% on the culture slider, and start the invisible timer until you win (because without a better tactical AI once the player has three muskets per turn in the medi/ren era or three rifles per turn in the indy era the game is pretty much won). My problem with SP civ right now is that the one-big-push is so much more powerful, and necessary, in wartime than when going for a peaceful victory. Other than at the very end of the game (either workshopping over cottages for Space or running the slider for Culture) the hyper-tech-biased game plays pretty much like the generalist game. Maybe you sell your techs for 10-20gold when you REALLY need to cut one turn from Liberalism, or maybe you slave 8pop in a city to get GLibrary, but a "perfect commerce" city working bonuses and cottages only, and building wealth, has output pretty close to the default "work specials, mine grassland hills, cottage everything else" generalist city. On the other hand, the "perfect-production" city involves huge cost (pre-State Property) because you have to slave/draft yourself into the ground, but that city produces tons of hammers during that period. So you're left with one-big-push - winning the game during the time period where you're making tons of hammers per city. And back to this game, that leaves me with a counterproductive wonder/strategy mix. It would have been better to focus my cap (after initial settler production) to full-on beakers, especially with Globe and therefore specialists in the early game. Chop/whip 'Mids if you can and Glib (which should be easy) and work scientists and cottages. Let cities 2-6 or whatnot slave like crazy and make the 10 Numidians for the early rush instead of the capital slaving for 10 out of 12 turns. In the end, I think, you have more beakers AND more units in less time. Ditto for the drafting war, except now you can have Globe anyways in a different city. Final thought: I won liberalism with three cottages and zero scientists in my capital, and without an academy in my lands. I find it hard to believe that isn't indicative of tech costs that are too cheap.
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Anyways, sorry if I turned a tangent into the main body of my post, but while I'm not burned out on civ right now (RBP3 is exciting and FFH is pretty interesting too), but I am a little tired of it shouting at me "draft to victory" every time I don't feel like hitting End Turn 30 times in an end-game.

Adv 45: Hannibal’s Muse

Scenario rules:
[b]Scenario:[/b] You may choose [b]any two wonders[/b] to begin the game in Carthage.

• National wonders are OK. Shrines and corporate HQs are not. The Internet is not a wonder, it's a project.
  
• The United Nations is OK. Diplomatic wins choosing the UN in this way will be scored separately from both conventional UN and AP religious wins.
  
• The ApostolicPalace may not be chosen since you do not have a state religion at game start.
  
• For the Oracle, tell the sponsor what free tech you want (only from those available normally at game start.)
  
• The HangingGardens will start your capital at size 2.
  
• Versailles and ForbiddenPalace are OK, even though they normally can't be built in your Palace city.
  
• Please don't choose the Taj Mahal since there's no easy way to start the Golden Age in the worldbuilder. It's not very good on turn 0 anyway.
  

• Your first Great Person must settle or start a Golden Age.
  
• You may not rush a wonder with a Great Engineer from Carthage until after 1 AD.
  

• First thing to note is that exploration is easy. The ring script simply creates a square ring of land (of a set thickness) all around the edge of the map, and dots the centre with small islands. Therefore, simply throw out a workboat in either direction, and you can sail around the huge continent.
  
• Contact is easy. You can quickly meet all the AIs, and hence, foreign trade routes are plentiful. No need for Astronomy; barring wars, Sailing links everyone up.
  
• Defense is easy. At any one time, you’re likely to have a maximum of two fronts.
  
• Tropical so Iron working is a priority, note the jungled pigs diagonally NW of start.
  
• Space may be at a premium.
  
• Cities often will be coastal.
  

• First GP must settle or start Golden Age. GAs early on are typically frowned upon, so I’m more likely to settle the GP.
  
• It’s more efficient to focus on one particular area. For instance, go for wonders that boost hammer output and give GE points, then settle the GE for a more effective output. Similarly go Oxford Uni and settle the GSci for an easy +12 beakers.
  
• Does deciding to settle the first GP make a GArt more attractive (high basic output of +3 gld/+12 cult) and hence make a Cultural victory more accessible?
  
• No GE rushing pre-1AD. Bleh. GEs less attractive, no Pyramids without stone.
  

• Massive hammer output: Ironworks + (Three Gorges Dam?).
  GEs can be settled, huge hammer output can be used to steal lots of wonders, or build an army fast. Ironworks would kick in once Ironworking comes in, and allows for hiring of Engineers early, to allow for fast settled GEs. Not sure if 3 Gorges would help or not, gives power, but would this translate to +50% hammers straight away, or need factories? (Turns out you need factories, so it’s useless.)
  Additional downside is large unhealthy, from both power (2) and the Ironworks (2).
  
• Peacenik Trade route teching: GLH + Cothons + ToA/ Wall Street/ Ox Uni.
  Easy to get trade routes as mentioned, could be very powerful. Slightly slow to get rolling however – requires 3 cities + the necessary exploration.
  
• Science output: Some combination of Oxford Uni/ TGLib/ Pyramids
  Pyramids gives Representation which doubles Scientist output from +3 to +6 and gives extra happiness. Oxford Uni gives +100% science output (remember can’t use first GSci for an academy) and importantly lets us hire up to 3 scientists. TGLib ofc gives 2 free scientists, but doesn’t let us hire any more.
  Important thing to note about this combination is it’s up and running from Turn 0.
  
• Warmonger route: Pentagon + Heroic Epic HE would give fast start also – workboats count as military units for the +100% bonus.
  
• Cultural route: Putting the late game wonders such Hollywood/ Broadway/ Rock&Roll in the capital makes no sense. Putting the Sistine Chapel in the capital makes a touch more sense, but still not great. Putting The Eiffel Tower in the capital, to get +50% cult output, 2 hireable artists, plus happy cap synergy with Hannibal’s Chm trait -in every city- makes sense. Combine the GM points from this wonder with another merchant wonder, say Wall Street, and the first settled GMer would give +1 food and +12 gold. That’s worth several extra cities early game.
  
• Other options: Early Globe + Kremlin for mass whippings using the excess of food clearly available at starting position. Nat Park? Pure economy using Wall Street + Ox Uni.
  
• Rejected wonders:
  Oracle: Only worthwhile tech to Oracle would be BW, but going the science route would pick this up quickly anyway.
  UN: I imagine you can pretty quickly win via diplomacy, going UN + a hammer building to produce settlers, gift cities to the AI. Doesn’t appeal to me however.
  MoM: Choosing GAs with this could be interesting, but normal speed. I’ll pass.
  Space Elevator: Anyone choosing this is daft