Adventure 44 – Oh Mista Hart!

Summary: Conquest Victory 1505AD, In-Game Score: 7492, Hall of Fame Score: 223067.

Hi all! This is my first attempt at playing in and writing a report for a Realms Beyond event. By no means do I consider myself a pro at Civ4, but by writing a report I hope to improve my ability through some reflection on how I played, and maybe a little constructive criticism if I’m lucky! =) Here goes:

The first thing that caught my eye about this event was the choice of having seventeen opponents on a map size meant for two. I couldn’t help myself so I decided to load up a custom game with similar settings and unsurprisingly I realised this map scenario was going to be very, very cramped. Under the victory conditions Ruff had removed domination. I took this as a hint that this event was meant to be won conquest style. Besides, destroying seventeen other civilizations on a small map would have to somewhat satisfy my desire for world domination.

The choice of Gilgamesh for the leader seemed more than capable for such a task. Being creative would surely be quite beneficial on a map where civs would be border to border from the very start. Faster production speeds on libraries should hopefully give me an early tech advantage as well. Protective seemed not as important since I knew I would be the aggressor 95% of the time. Lastly, the additional rule of only one type of unit per unit type reduced my flexibility but as I didn’t see much need to be defending or counterattacking in this game, I don’t think this will be too limiting on my success.

The Sumerian UU is the Vulture which will be good for an early warring advantage, and their UB the Ziggurat will be very useful on a duel-sized map with large maintenance costs. Additionally I have access to the UB as early as Priesthood. Starting with The Wheel and Agriculture meant my workers would likely have something to do from the get-go, but no Mysticism and seventeen other civs meant that the early religions were all but impossible. Playing on emperor also meant that happiness was likely to be a limiting factor in my progression.

So my initial game plan was to get bronze working, hook up some copper and go on a rampage with my Vultures. After claiming land/cities from a few civs this would likely give me a production advantage and a platform to then go forth and conquer the rest of the world. Here’s our start:





After moving the warrior to pop the hut (gold) I instantly made contact with Wang Kon. This was going to be a very cramped map indeed! I chose to settle in place since the plains hill would provide extra production and there were plenty of food resources available from this position. Uruk started on a worker, and Animal Husbandry was my first tech choice to hook up the cows for a strong growth and production tile.

I quickly made contact with Stalin and Justinian over the next couple of turns, and together with the Korean’s these were my initial neighbours. Animal Husbandry completed, revealing horses next to my capital. Already having The Wheel meant chariots were a prime candidate for my early rush. I next chose to follow Mining --> Bronze Working so I could pump out some Vultures.





Buddhism was founded in 3720BC and the following turn Justinian converted. I knew an early religion was out of my reach, but a less passive approach meant I could likely steal that religion from my unsuspecting Byzantine neighbour. I moved my warrior up onto the gold hill after seeing Moscow produce a worker. The corn just south of Moscow would surely be first priority of this worker and this allowed me the opportunity to steal it if the opportunity presented itself.





And sure enough it did. Moscow only had two archers defending their capital and experience told me that the cautious AI would be very unlikely to take back their worker. Thank you Stalin! :neenernee Moving the worker back to my territory and my warrior further north through Russian territory I came into contact with De Gaulle. I wasn’t afraid of losing my warrior since I intended on switching my melee units over to Vultures hopefully as soon as Bronze Working comes in. After completing the initial worker I set Uruk to build a barracks while I grew. Since it would be largely producing military units the promotions seemed like they would be very useful. 2960BC and I discover Bronze Working:





Hmmm no copper in my borders... I could go on to try my luck with Iron Working, but remembering I read to expect twists in this game I began to think that if we wanted to build Vultures we would have to take copper from one of our neighbours instead. Fortunately my scouting of Russian territory revealed copper just NE of Moscow. At this point I decided that Russian was to be my first target.





After completing a barracks and an archer for defence, Uruk produced four chariots ready to take Moscow. Stalin still only had two archers and two scouts at this point. I sent in my warrior first followed by my Combat I chariots.





I lost two chariots against each archer at 17% odds, but the third and fourth both won at 68%. This was perhaps a little risky but my archer was there for backup with more chariots being produced back home. After taking Moscow I also came into contact with Isabella and Cyrus.





Moscow came out of revolt and its road connection was being severed by Byzantine culture. Worse still, I couldn’t get cultural possession over the copper resource. If I wanted to produce my Vultures it appeared like there was no other way than to take out Justinian first. Taking Buddhism also wouldn’t hurt.





I declare war on Justinian and move my chariot stack up to Constantinople. The 40% culture defence makes Constantinople a harder target than Moscow so I send six chariots this time. Annoyingly the culture becomes too much for Moscow, and on the turn I begin my attack on Constantinople, Moscow flips to the Byzantines Grrr....





Fortunately I manage to take Constantinople and with my surviving chariots I move to take Moscow back. This seemed like a stupid waste of time on my behalf, perhaps I should have whipped a library straight away in Moscow for instant strong culture production. I also realised that taking cities meant that I would always be facing an uphill battle with the neighbouring civ’s culture. Regardless I took back Moscow straight away and the Byzantines were destroyed. During the war I also met Hammurabi over to the west and Pacal to the north.





As you can see Korea was pretty quick to fill up the land I had taken from the Byzantines, and just to make things more frustrating, despite Moscow popping its borders, I was still losing possession of the copper tile this time to the vile French. We’ll they needed to be wiped from this world anyway... Uruk built The Oracle in about 5 turns with marble hooked up, and I chose Monarchy as my free tech. Playing on emperor, and there being a lack of happiness resources about, I thought the happiness cap would be a strong limiter on my civ’s development. After revolting to Hereditary Rule I let my cities begin to grow.

I focused Moscow’s production on culture producing buildings, and after watching a French worker place a mine on the copper, the tile finally flipped over to my control. I could finally build my Vultures and start ripping some of these slightly more developed civs apart.





With construction and now catapults to aid my Vultures I next turned on Korea. They really did fold like a house of cards. For the first time my losses were minimal, and Uruk popped a Great General which was added to the city for units with extra experience. I also used this opportunity to tech trade some techs I had missed, including Monotheism for Organised Religion. Buddhism had spread into Moscow so the production bonus would soon be felt in all my cities. This was also the only time I traded for techs in the game as my science rate was just too superior for the other civs that had stuck to their single cities.

In 725BC I declared war on the French.





They had a few axeman running around but couldn’t do much due to my numerical advantage. I then met Boudica, the holder of Hindu holy city. Turns later I also declared war on Hammurabi. His Bowman put up more of a fight but in the end it was the same old story.





Uruk popped a Great Prophet which built the Buddhist Shrine in Constantinople. Things were going swimmingly and I was about to turn on my next victim when I was offered an opportunity to taste some of my own medicine.





Up until this point I had written off the AI civs. I did not expect the AI to attack, let alone actually pose a threat. Boudica reminded me to pay a little more respect, as she had caught me with my pants down. Pretty much all of my cities only had an archer for defence, and this was more for military police than actual defence. I guess Boudica realised this and after sending a stack of units (Gallic warriors and axeman) she bypassed my border city and went straight for Constantinople.





I took back Constantinople the very next turn. This really should have been avoided but I thought I had enough to defend and I wanted to keep my attacking units for my original plan to attack Pacal.





Despite being at war with Boudica I continued with my conquest over Pacal. The free Great Artist from Music helped with some cultural disputes. Moscow popped a Great Scientist which built the academy in Uruk, The Great Library was also being built in my capital. Since my military units were tied up throughout this game and pretty much every tiled had been improved, I used my workers to do my scouting. Although obvious from the start, there was at least another continent to this map with the other civs, and most interestingly it appeared that the continent I was on did not contain iron – so I guess no knights for me then.

I had discovered Civil Service and Machinery by this point and upgraded all my Vultures to macemen. With this new found military advantage I began my storm on the Celts.





Vienna fell, followed by Bibracte and Tolossa, destroying the Celts from the game.





At turn 150 I took a screenshot of the demographics and you can see I am miles ahead in just about every aspect.





I had built quite a few wonders by this stage too. The Maoi Statues in Babylon (since it had the most water tiles to work) and the Colossus down in Seoul, the Mausoleum of Maussollos in Constantinople and the Spiral Minaret in Uruk. I was also to go on and build Notre Dame and the Taj Mahal. My first caravel was produced and sent forth to discover the other civs.





At this point of the game Monty was dog-piled by Cyrus, Isabella and Ghandi. It was the Persians that took Monty down in the end. I didn’t know whether to be grateful or not since it did mean one less civ I had to wipe out myself. I had Feudalism but wasn’t prepared to spend my gold on upgrades if I was the only one to be attacking. After grabbing Liberalism I next went towards Military Tradition via Gunpowder and Replaceable Parts. With her units out of position I took the opportunity to attack Spain.





I kept two archers with medic II promotions together with my stack in the hope I could speed up my conquest. Isabella was destroyed without losing a single maceman. I also triggered my first Golden Age with a Great Scientist I had just popped. This was timed with the completion of The Taj Mahal, and together with the MoM I had over 17 turns of Golden Age. I used this opportunity to take civics such as Vassalage for the extra XP since from this point onwards I would only be producing military units.

Over in the east my caravel was uncovering the other continent meeting Suryavarman, Hannibal, Ragnar and Kublai Khan. The good news for me was that these civs were very much in the Stone Age comparatively speaking.

With a strong forward line still intact I continued to press the AIs. I chose to go after Sitting Bull next since Persia had maceman and a large army by this stage. I figured by the time I was finished with Sitting Bull I would have cavalry ready to go.





Cahokia fell easily and I had begun to produce my first lot of cavalry. Although I knew there was nothing to prevent me from assured victory I again failed to respect the AI and was surprised by a sudden declaration of war by Cyrus who managed to capture Mutal since I had pretty much zero defence. Again I was able to take the city back the following turn, I just felt a bit silly. These mistakes I made with poor city defence weren’t too costly since my attacks were never stifled and backline units could always clean up the mess, it was more of a pride thing that left me feeling a bit daft.





Over on the other side I continued to rip Sitting Bull apart by taking Poverty Point and finally Mound City. I also used another two great people to further extend my Golden Age. With Sitting Bull gone Persia could take my full attention. One positive of Cyrus taking Mutal was that he lost most of his units taking and trying to defend it. This left it very easy for my cavalry to move through his lands and take his 3 cities (one of which was Monty’s).





This left only India left on my continent and two turns later he was gone too.





This screen shows my use of archers for city defense (MP) despite being so technologically advanced. Also while taking out the Persians and Indians I was producing quite a few Galleons to transfer my cavalry over to take the other continent.





Kublai Kahn was the first to go.





Followed by Suryavarman.





And Hannibal. Ragnar had two cities but these didn’t last long against swarms of promoted cavalry.





And in the nice round date of 1500AD the final civ was wiped from the world.





Here’s a screenshot of the demographics from the final turn if people want to compare. Since the land in this map was catering for eighteen civs it was very fertile with plenty of resources. It’s probably not often you’ll see such strong demographics.





And sure enough in 1505AD I was informed I had won via a Conquest Victory.

I really enjoyed this game so I want to thank the sponsor, Ruff. After reading Ruff's comments it seemed like a well thought out idea to provide an interesting game. Although I am from Australia, I've never heard of this commercial the event refers to. I am a little under 30 years old though...

Hello there, I finally registered here after lurking for some months and realizing I wanted to get in on the fun!

I actually bought used copy of CIV 4 and BtS about a year ago, many years after wearing out CIV 2 in middle/high school and loving every minute of it. Getting acquainted with the game I read Sulla's walk-through and by and by found my way here to the Realms Beyond forums and have been following along the Pitboss and Email games; reading old reports and learning a lot about the game.

Right now I can usually hold my own with the Monarch AIs but am by no means a micromanagement or strategy master. This seemed like a gentle enough adventure I thought I'd get my feet wet... anyway onto the report.

I didn't start this with a lot of pregame analysis... figured it would be more fun to just start playing and see what opportunities presented themselves. And, truth be told, too much micromanagement, planning, or metagaming would probably the fun out of the game for me.

So, as I predict many did, I moved the starting warrior onto the hill to the northwest and was quickly introduced to just how cramped this map was... looked like a little OCCing until we could take some more territory. It was about this early that I decided a conquest victory would be most appealing, and in line with the theme of the variant, one color borders the world over would look very tidy!

Settled in place, mostly because almost every other spot nearby had a resource on it! (and the extra hammer from the plains hill is not to be overlooked).



Starting research went Fishing>Hunting>AH>Mining. During this time a plan started to come together. Given the gold and seafood resource to help tech, and hopefully even the Emperor AI being hamstrung by the cramped starts, I decided to try and pull off an old school CS slingshot! (Not that I was round when this move was easier/ the default) With one city carrying much of the load for a while, early bureaucracy would be killer. This predicated a run through the religious side of the tech tree, as well as the code of laws and math prereqs (math would be a high priority for some cats anyway!)

I figured I would let Stalin build workers for me, and wasted no production on my own. (And never built a settler, this was very OCCish)



I tried choking Stalin with some of those protective archers but had to sign peace when he threatened with a galley that would be unstoppale...



Of course I had more pressing tech needs than sailing! This being my very first game on Emperor difficulty (I'm slowly working my way to consistent wins on Monarch) I was sweating with every push of the enter button while researching maths... just knowing that I was going to receive a pop-up about the Oracle being built elsewhere any moment.

That gold resource really was my saving grace and I successfully pulled off the slingshot in 1640 BC... now just had to go back and fill in usually high priority techs like bronze working and pottery!

My plans for world domination were always on my mind throughout the race for the Oracle. Given that we started with horses and had only one tile where metal could even conceivably be... I figured that we would have no metal at the start and would have to conquer for some. So despite being fairly close to tech requirements for macemen... my first stack was mostly chariots and catapults! I had a few archers tag along that I, very unusually, promoted to shock. I needed them to defend against the counterattacking spearmen I'd see from Justinian and Stalin. (Korea was defeated with a first wave of solely chariots.)

The AI opponents on the starting landmass were not avoiding war either... Never having played with Aggressive AI I was startled to see many war declarations flying, and even civilizations being eliminated by AI opponents!



Here's a shot of Cyrus suiciding a stack against protective archers of Sitting Bull's... he definitely needed some siege to break through those guys.

As I took control over the starting peninsula, a new (perhaps purposefully created?) problem presented itself.... The two copper mines in former russian and byzantine were swallowed up by other civs culture as soon as I took over. Thus, even though I'd knocked out three opponents I still had no metals for macemen.


(some metal just out of my reach )

This 'problem' sort of led to a domino effect of taking out civs. Each time I captured a new capital it was almost entirely swallowed by the next civ in lines' culture, and I'd be forced to make war preparations against them.

To remedy the copper situation I used my chariot and cat stack for their last knockout of the game and took the Babylonian capital in 100 BC. Finally copper was mine! Since I don't have any melee units yet that require upgrading... let the full scale production of macemen commence! (I also built the Colossus in Seoul, figuring most cities on this map would have plenty of water tiles to take advantage of)

Not much to write about the next two wars, France and Celtia had no chance against my macemen promoted to CR2 out of the gate. Both Constantinople and Uruk had settled great generals, and Constantinople would get the heroic epic, with these two cities churning out units no AI could keep up with my production. Never having to build a single settler or worker helped keep the attackers flowing from my cities.

Side note here... can anyone explain why I had 'we yearn to join the motherland' unhappiness in Constantinople even though Justinian was long dead?



Maybe I just don't pay enough attention... but I thought the way to get rid of that unhappiness was wipe the offending civilization off the map!

Although I was cruising I was outraged when Paris actually flipped to the double-holy-city cultural monster of Mutal! Pacal needed a new kind of whooping, and being just on the verge of rifles by about 1000 AD, I had something surprising in store for him.

I, predictably, cranked as many city raider maces as I could, teched to rifling, then shut off research for a few turns so I could upgrade about 15 macemen to city raider rifles! An unstoppable force when the opponent was fielding longbows. Pacal, Cyrus, Montezuma, and then Gandhi were wiped out in a 300 year span between 1300 and 1600 AD. Here's the power graph during the mass upgrade...



Sitting Bull, who had been given room to expand to 4 cities and then claiming Madrid for a 5th managed to tech to muskets and then grenadiers in the middle of my war with him. Fortunately my unending waves of catapults wore him out. The stacks were solely rifles and cats at this point, I'm glad Sitting Bull was knocked out before he had a chance to produce more than about 5-10 grenadiers. A barrage of suicide catapults was my answer to those. I'd sorely hoped I'd be able to build some cannons to minimize my siege losses, but as everyone knows now Ruff_Hi didn't deem our little world fit to be blessed with any iron. I hope no one attempted to use our horses to take the world over with knights!


Fun picture here... for some reason Sitting Bull, despite having gunpowder, thought a sneak attack force of a single spearman would be just the ticket to take some of my territory for his own. It was summarily smacked down. Here's the last holdouts of our continent now flying the Sumerian flag.



You can see I'd recently teched railroad and was on my way to factories before assembling a force to eliminate the other continents civs, the other continent civs that were woefully behind in tech compared to Sitting Bull or Cyrus on our own continent. Perhaps Kublai shouldn't have taken out Mansu Musa early in the game. Certainly having ol' Mansu over there teching and sharing would've kept them closer.

The rest of the game wasn't too exciting. Sailed a large landing party over in galleons and took it to the remaining civs. Won a conquest victory 1860 AD... a number that will certainly be bested very handily.



Perhaps I went a little crazy chasing goals that really didn't exist... but I teched through things like medicine to make sure all my cities were not unhealthy. I ended the game with all my cities totally healthy...


and probably should have just whipped away the unhealthy guys rather than actually revolt to environmentalism. Here's the tidyness chart... showing no more than one of each type of unit in existence.



All in all a fun game, and my first Emperor win! Thanks to the sponsor for the game.

Feel free to chime in with tips to improve my game/reporting. Hope you enjoyed the read. I look forward to comparing my games with the others who probably stomped everyone with horse archers.

No scoring, only goal is to smash the Emperor AI.
Limitation on what types of units we can build, means we have to spam one type (no problem for me!).

Start:



What a capital! Going with a country themed naming scheme.

Then I realise what that archer to the West means, at which point I renamed the capital.
No way I’m going to tolerate Korea so close to my capital for long, protective archers or not. Can’t afford to damage my start too much however.



Decide to build a worker, research will go AH -> Mining -> Fishing -> (BW?)
Need to get those wbs out soon since they’re my only decent food.

Turn 1 – Stalin starts to the North of us. Didn’t realise that these map settings would mean no space for a second city. Oh well, at least neither neighbours are creative. We also started with archery.

Turn 3 – Meet Byzantines.



Turn 7 – Buddhism founded by Justinian.

Turn 10 – Hinduism FIDAL.
AH comes in to give horses in our BFC. Was kinda hoping that would happen.
Chariots ftw.



Turn 20 – Fishing -> BW(11) (-> Myst -> Masonry -> Medi -> Priesthood for Oracle to tech HBR, since we have the archery prereq)

Both Horses and Cows pastured now. Set existing worker to roading the gold (route to Stalin who will be target #2).
Second worker builds next turn, will road cows while waiting for gold road to be built.

I’m not expecting copper in the BFC, but I do note an oddly empty grassland square to the west.



Turn 27 – Wb built -> barracks.
Korea switched to slavery this turn, not good for my chariots, need to kill him asap.

Turn 29 – Contact Persia, he has writing for OB.

Turn 31 – BW comes in, no copper in the BFC. Luckily can’t see any in Korea’s either.

Turn 36 – Buddhism spreads to Oz sucks. Will convert soon.

Turn 40 – Contact France (DeGaulle). Masonry -> Medi -> Priesthood -> Writing.
2 chariots currently.

Turn 45 – OB France and Persia for trade routes.
Size 6 capital now producing 2 turn chariots.



Turn 48 – Tile switch 2S of the chariots gives me visibility into Korean capital.
He’s got 2 archers in there.
2 protective archers, across a river with 20% culture vs 5 chariots all with flanking 1.



Hmmm =)
Let’s go for it, before he gets 40% culture.



Doh, slight mistake. Forgot one of those chariots had only just been built, and so didn’t have enough movement to attack the capital. Can’t complain about the results of the other 4 chariots though, 3 withdrew, 1 won, to leave an archer at 0.7 health.
1 more chariot would have done it. Hopefully next turn then.
Oz sucks starts Oracle for a 5 turn build.

Contact Boadicea. Writing -> Pottery -> Alphabet (no-one has it yet sigh).

Turn 49 – Take Korean capital, rename to NZ sheepies.



Notice Stalin is mining a hill, and I’m not sure if he has IW or not. He’s next for the chariot squad.
Worker force springs into action around NZ sheepies. Cottaged sheep, 3 forests still standing and unboated crabs x2, no wonder Korea was doing badly. Got a free worker also to take our tally up to 3.

Turn 50 – Take sentry on a chariot to get contact with Hammurabi. (Could just see his borders, thought it was Mao)
Byzantine has only 3 archers visible, and copper hooked up. Maybe he should be next?



Decision time:
There are multiple paths that I want to take from here.
The priorities are the same though – 1) Gain military advantage ie either HAs or copper/iron for vultures. 2) Increase hammer production at capital so can spam more units ie forges, (OR), discovering iron etc. So:

• Poly -> Mono for OR (290ish beakers total), with a possible follow on of Hered rule.
  This map is almost playing out like a One City Challenge, and so having a big bad capital would be extremely desirable.
  
• Alphabet. (360b).
  Would allow me to backfill techs such as Hunting/Sailing and possibly the above Poly/Mono line.
  
• Iron working. (240b).
  I’m doing what I believe is called meta gaming here. I don’t think Ruff would have left us without iron or copper in the capital BFC. That would mean that anyone not going AH would be utterly screwed, and that empty grassland square is still calling to me. Iron would give vultures and increased hammer production.
  
• HBR (300b).
  Want! But not too soon, still have chariots which I intend to use vs Stalin or Justinian.
  
• Metal Casting (540b).
  Forges mainly. But they’ll take a long time to build.
  
• Aesth -> Literature (600b total).
  Heroic Epic. +100% production to military, but expensive and harder to get a level 4 unit due to scenario rules and lack of barbs. Maybe wait til HAs before trying for a high xp unit.

I've played a few of these Adventures/Epics, although I'm usually a solo/SG player. Currently don't have consistent time to start my own SG's or play in the multiplayer frenzy (Yeah, kids will do that to you). But this one looked quick and fun so I threw my proverbial hat into the mixed proverbial pool and got a completed game (and a wet hat) to show for it. The results:

Duel map and 18 civs means 1 city/civ or so. When looking at the starting position I gave very serious consideration to burning a turn to found on the Marble hill (3 hammer CC) and committing to a Worker steal/Warrior rush on one of my neighbors (and also because I preferred the Sheep tile to the Clams). Opening the game and moving the Warrior put the kibosh on that



Korea will found in place and I won't win a cultural battle over the Sheep, so we'll just start in place.



Alright Norm, the anthem please!

As one can tell this is a shadow game because I use the evil BUG mod.

Now we have to go bonk some heads. Since every civ starts with Archery (including us ) and duel maps make AA techs go quickly, I had visions of Oracling Feudalism and embarking on the dreaded Longbow rush (Hey, I've done it before).

But after noting the Horses in our BFC I opted for the path of least resistance and set to foment a Horse Archer rush. Took my sweet time getting there, though. I teched BW for chops, Fishing for food, and Writing for OBs. Cost me some time on the build-up, but the terrain info was valuable for choosing the order of targets.

Initial thought was to hit Major Monogram (Stalin, nice disguise Francis!) first



but realized terrain would have been useless with Byz having founded Buddhism. Next thought was to first target Constantine, but just after he built me the Oracle he showed up with Spears. I had 6 HAs waiting and played tag while he moved his units aimlessly around his territory, but couldn't get the units in a good position to strike the city due to the expanded cultural borders taking away the direct diagonal approach.

So I whacked Wanger instead. I suspect he got caught chasing shiny things as he only had 3 Archers and died on the turn of the war declaration. Turns out Seoul was useless because of the Old Woman's culture, even suffering through a Byz revolt while I stuffed Archers inside of it.

Kept my pimp hand strong and took out MM very soon after he build the Great Lighthouse for me. Again, I declare, I capture, AI never gets to move.



City was doubly useless from holy city culture (Constantine and Izzy).

Killing Constantine would make things a whole lot better, so I went to Construction and built 6 Cats. In the interim, Constantine built both the Colossus and the Buddhist shrine (My How's Your Booty). For the first time, an AI got to move after my war declaration.



Unfortunately for the Byz, they couldn't figure out to move their units into the city, or even to attack my stack. Arriving next to the city, and realizing that bombardment (much like 911) is for suckers, I attempted to suicide the six to soften the defenders. This failed miserably, as only two of the Catapults died and one wasn't even allowed to attack.



We have now come to a fork in the road: I had intended to hit four cities and consolidate, but my HA/Cat stack (with a pair of Vulture defenders) has at least one more kill in it. I want this to be Izzy for more shrine gold and to get Moscow out of the crapper. So I need more troops. But .. I am revolting to Caste System (counter-indicator) and researching Aesthetics (presumably to build the Parthenon, but yet a stronger counter-indicator). To put it in an acronym: SNAFU.

But from here it's a drunken man behind the wheel of a steamroller, as we will soon reach the stage where the single-city AI's can't research any longer. The next killing zone is Maces and I expect to bag another 4-5 heads. The point of Caste System was to bulb my way to Maces ... check the bulbing preferences to see if my specialist-heavy strategy is overly complicated, or merely stupid.



(Shiny BUG ... ooohhhh) I have no idea what that picture means. I'm guessing that I want to use food to research Civil Service.

Then we made contact with the enemy. Booberella to be specific. Wench made me revolt back to slavery to fight off her foolhardy attack. Then on my way to Maces, friggin' Constantinople flipped to Babylon .

But before anything eventful happened I made Boudicea pay me for peace pre-CS, and the war machine was back on the rails.

Civil Service/Machinery were researched, I sold techs to upgrade my four Vultures, I was ready to activate Hammer's dental plan ... and then, of course, all-chest-no-brains declares war on me again! Taking the logical response, I pay Babylon to attack Pacal (rudo, rudo, RUDO!), dispose of Boobies troops, then larf when Paris flips away from her. With Hammer's troops on holiday, I declare and get two-turn kill. (Viva fast troops!) Also make peace with the Celts (again).

So, I got bored while waiting for a few PBEM turns and played out most of this game a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, I don't have the autosaves to go back and take screen shots from, and I never take notes, so I'm doing this almost entirely from memory.

Started the game, saw the food, and decided to play it out as a proper OCC game for as long as possible. As it turned out, got as far as rifles before I started the attack, and was never fighting anything more than maces.

This game isn't a fair comparison though, because I got lucky and popped iron and hence got to use cannons

Built henge for fun, just to make sure I got the cultural edge, 2120BC.

Miss out on Oracle for CS, Pacal beats me @ 1640BC.

Get ToA 1600BC

Get a GS for an academy 1360 BC.

GLH 1160BC

At this point a load of wars start breaking out, but I'm sitting there with 1 warrior and a few archers quite happy. Couldn't be bothered with a HA rush (done it enough times in the past).

Adopt HR and OR 775BC (going off the end of game play back for these dates, heh)

Parth 725BC

GM 700BC (add to city)

GL 450BC

225BC, GS.

50BC, GProphet

350AD, Pyramids (As I said, got bored...)

600AD, GM

740AD, GP

1070AD, declare war on Korea with a stack of rifles and cats (slow bombard down)

1080AD, Maya and Aztec declare on me, fine, I can do with the XP...

1090AD, France founds Islam, making every religion on our continent.

1180AD, take out Korea.

1220AD, declare on Russia and take him out.

1230AD declare on Byz, Mongols declare on me.

1270AD, capture Constantinople

1330AD, capture Paris from maya

1360AD, capture babylon from Byz, destroy byz (because of AP pising me off and making my cities unhappy).

1410AD, get Lib (by accident, forgot to stop at 1 turn away). Took some junk tech.

1470AD, capture Mutal from Maya

1480AD, capture Madrid, destroy Maya.

1530AD declare on Natives

1535AD capture Persepolis.

1555AD, capture Cahokia

1595AD, capture Mound city

1605AD, capture Chaco Canyon, destroy Natives.

1625AD declare on boudica (last civ on the continent).

1630AD capture Tenochtitlan

1635AD, capture Delhi.

and then I basically got bored and stopped, as I had just discovered arty, and was fighting grenadiers. I had a massive stack of cav, and a load of cannons that were about to get upgraded (or perhaps just were). I had plenty of land, and could easily win either SS or conquest.



Note, basically everything in the army got produced from Uruk which didn't have teh HE, that got placed in Koreas old capital along with Moia. I played the game as if it were going to go to conquest.

Here it is.

http://www.dos486.com/civ4/adv44/

Conquest Victory, T238. Only took 5 hours.

Full report to follow later, when I get time.

1-paragraph version:
My initial plan was to Oracle Feudalism. Forgot that I needed Writing, so had to take MC instead. Then went back, got Feudalism, and went on a longbow + HA tear. Seoul's Protective archers were frustrating. My conquests weren't the most efficient; I was far too impatient. Eventually Liberalism'd Rifling (T179), and proceeding to draft/conquer the rest of the world. Never built any melee units beyond warriors, which I kept as HR garrisons.

The lack of iron was really frustrating, but I understand why. At least once, I attached a GG to a warrior, put CR3 on him, and then upgraded to a Rifle. 276:93 kill ratio with land units; that should have been more like 276:50, but was definitely too impatient.

Conquest victory in 1812AD. Thanks to the sponsor for a fun game.
Full report to follow.

Its the 26th - time to post your Adventure 44 reports .

I haven't written up my game but here are my comments as the sponsor.

You know how when you look at the stars, the light you see probably left the star a long time ago? Imperium 9 is kind of like that.