Something is really screwed up. I've suffered the fake virus alert twice, and Norton threw a fit. It just happened again trying to get to this site...

I can't reply to the welcome thread - trying to resulted in a no valid thread error. I tried it more then once. Something is out of whack.

Hi,

here's my report, finally. My apologies that it's a bit late, but I got sick yesterday and was unable to complete it.

You can find it here.

Because of my illness I had to rush it out now and didn't have time to proof-read it yet, so please excuse any errors (beyond those I usually make ).

Hope it's not too late and you still enjoy it. I've forgotten how much time report writing takes! At least I can read other reports now...

-Kylearan

Unfortunately I had no time to finish this game on time. It’s now 1295 AD and I have just started to gain an upper hand.
This is a quick summary:
Settled on place and started with a Work Boat and Archery. It paid off as the first enemy warrior appeared 3 turns after I built an archer in Athene.
After discovering BW I settled Sparta near eastern copper, then Corinth near Horses, and Thebes on the Iron, which was on the island W of Athens. I scouted only the land up to Tokugawa, to delay the first contact with the rest of enemies.
In the meantime I landed Stonehange and Oracle (Code of Law). Then have built 5 swordsmen, 5 phalanxes and 4 chariots and around 400 BC destroyed Tokugawa. I started by conquering his capital city Cahokia and then just moped up his 3 remaining cities. His Dog Soldiers made a big mistake by attacking my Phalanxes in the open and were run over by my chariots.
I kept Cahokia (become my military pump with Heroic Epic and 4 settled generals) and Mound City, rest of his cities were razed. Then it was 1500 years period of recovering my economy and settling the rest of my territory. After Construction, Currency and Calendar I beelined to Banking. I even built Pyramids relatively late around 1000 AD, which with Mercantilism civ later gave me an edge.
BTW after conquering Tokugawa, I saw the two groups of enemies (Mansa, Monthy and Shaka, Darius) didn’t know each other, probably Toku rejected to open his borders at the start and then I was the obstacle. It slowed down theirs tech progress a bit.
For the entire period I defended myself around Cahokia, and it went quite good. Most of the time I could mop them up with loosing zero or one unit, mostly due to bad luck i.e. I have lost my highly promoted chariot in a battle with 99,8 odds!!!
The plan for the future was to beeline to Rifling first and roll over the rest of enemies.

Some screenshots:








The game was great. I approched it from the non orthodox, builder side and it even worked well

Maybe I will finish the game in the future and post the full shadow report then.

Thanks Sulla!

After some thoughts about settling the capital on the hills for the short term hammer boost or on the pigs to claim fish and couple more hills, founded Athens on the pig as I wouldn’t have to research AH early and could concentrate on BW instead.



Start with a worker and mining for BW after. With the plains hills mined I could build a work boat faster.
Scout goes to the east popping a hut which gave me archery! Later he finds toku’s warrior heading after our capital, so we build an archer and block his way through our borders. A exploring work boat finds crab to the east so I could change the position of the second city from the hills desert to the tundra 2 tiles south, claiming copper, sheep and crabs.



The plan now was to build Stonehenge and later The Oracle, trying to slingshot feudalism, and use the Great Prophet to bulb theology, getting a useful religion and theocracy for the 2XP bonus. Unfortunately I lost Stonehenge by 11 turns in 1725BC, but I managed to complete The Oracle coinciding with completion of monarchy (with the help of some scientists from Sparta and Athens) in 550BC, getting Feudalism!



No classical era to our empire! The first Great Person born was a scientist used for an academy and i never got theology for the 2xp bonus.



I’ve already used this strategy in Epic 14 (Boudica the Great), though thinking now after the game it is much of a defensive way to always war… I could go more aggressive instead and push an early attack with phalanxes. Defending this way would delay the elimination of the nearby civs and increase the tech advantage of Darius and Mansa.

Meanwhile I founded Corinth behind the 2 hills getting horses and clams.



After some turns defending the city from praetorians I pushed further and founded Thebes getting iron, dyes, fish, banana and lots of cottages to avoid economy break.



This city defended big stacks swords axes and vultures from mansa and shaka without losing a single longbow. I used some longbows to attack the nearest toku’s city with a couple of phalanxes and chariots too.





After more defensive turns with even bigger stacks from Rome too in the new city, I could head after Cahokia with a stack of longbows, capturing it in 460AD.



I failed to get The Colossus in 685AD, which would be big for the economy, while I was at 10% research running scientists to research civil service for maces. Native Americans were destroyed in 1420AD and the next target would be Montezuma, who already had knights! Monty suicides a big stack of knights and trebs in my city full of longbows and war elephants, so I could head after Cumae and get it in 1450AD.



A great engineer was luckily born, bulbing Engineering, just when I needed trebuchets to conquer new Roman and Sumerian cities.



Later I captured the roman marble city with the help of trebs but I failed to conquer Rome after (already with musks) and Eridu, the nearest Sumerian city, with a great stack of war elephants and with the help of upcoming Darius knights.





Seeing I was far behind in technology, with darius and mansa already with galleons and researching liberalism around 1600AD. I retired the game in 1680AD as it would take too many long boring turns building and moving stacks, though I think I could win when I’d get cannons. It was a great game indeed! Thanks to the sponsor!

Great Generals: first went to a medic III chariot, about 5 settled in Athens, 2 settled in cahokia and 2 went to maces to get strength VI. I think i had a knight strength VI too.

First Odeon: ~500AD
Highest XP on a Phalanx: not more than 10, as I didn’t use many phalanx, using more longbows instead
Most GG 1500AD: 8
Highest XP total reached on a naval unit: I had a strength IV trireme. It may be around 20XP.
Techs stolen via espionage: None
Retired in 1680AD

Hullo, first report from me. I tried to play it in one day, and unfortunately ran out of time at 1435 AD. I also overlooked several times that in order for the screenshot button to work, I need to have the F-lock key off on the keyboard. I apologise for this, the subsequent haphazardness of this report, the lack of some screenshots, and also that the report is a couple of hours late.

First Odeon was built at 320 BC



Most Exp on a Phalanx at the time: 85



Produced 7 Great Generals, 4 were settled, one attached to a Phalanx, one attached to an Elephant, and the last wasn’t used at the time.



Most Exp on a Naval Unit: 2
Number of Techs Stolen: 0

I settled in place, decided to take a risk and go workboat first while working max hammers, and research mining->bronze.

Popped Sailing out of the nearby hut.
After scouting out the peninsula I moved the scout north and ran into Toku’s warrior. I wasn’t that happy to see that he was Native America since it meant that bronze/hunting troops alone wouldn’t be sufficient.



The warrior unfortunately happened to be 1 square too close for me to both get my warrior out and occupy the NE forest, it only was able to be out when Toku’s warrior reached the tile, and he then walked the warrior past the city and decided to wander around the south area, which was irritating, and cost time building extra warriors to chase him down before I could settle the area. In other words, my opening was bad



I settled what I felt is a bad city SW of the copper just so I could link it up without researching Mysticism, building a monument and having to wait for it to pop, researched AH, and wasn’t too pleased with the location of the horse, was going to have to make another bad city to get the Horses and have a source of food. Decided to settle a city on the desert hill at the end of the peninsula first, planning to use the forest NE of Athens as a chokepoint and get an army out before trying to claim the horses.



Researched Wheel -> Pottery -> Writing -> Mysticism -> Masonry -> Mathematics, planning to go for the most direct route to Construction for Catapults and also to see if I could get the fastest Odeon, if nothing else

Put together a small force, Phalanx, Spear and a pair of Archers, Tokugawa turned up with a pair of Dog soldiers and a pair of Spearmen, but turned back.





Settled Thebes on the western hill. Tokugawa came back with a different small stack (2 Spears, Archer, Dog Soldier) and attacked into Thebes, not killing anything.



Chopped/Slaved out several chariots and a few Phalanxes, moved north, picking off a few Dog Soldiers in the Jungle on the way, and got the first Great General, attached it to a Phalanx.









Tokugawa’s cities were fairly poorly defended, kept Mound City, razed Poverty Point and kept Cahokia (sorry, screenshot of the garrison missing), which also came with Stonehenge. Made an early Scientist from Thebes and built Academy in Athens.

Finished Construction, started Horseback Riding for Elephants. Founded Argos on the western side of the jungle area, economy was looking pretty bad at +11 gold at 0%.

Shaka circumnavigated on turn 162 (170BC), so I sent a galley around the coastline, eventually finding Darius’s Work Boat on turn 194.



Meanwhile, I set Tokugawa’s old lands up as the main military area, with the backline cities building catapults, settled generals into Cahokia until it could make 11xp melee units.

Researched Iron Working, Mysticism, Meditation, Priesthood and Code of Laws, and set up Argos as a cottage city and an Academy. Confucianism unfortunately fell 2 turns before I finished.

While defending, I built up around ~20 Catapults, around a dozen Elephants, a handful of swords and other melee, and decided to attack Shaka/Darius first since they were the two score and land area leaders, and the west side with Mansa and Montezuma seemed easy to hold, Mansa kept sending unpromoted troops and Montezuma kept sending primarily Horse Archers.







I cleared out Shaka in 29 turns with few losses, other than a single size 1 city that he resettled, I decided to leave that alone for the time being and continue advancing since he was pretty much crippled, and I could just mop it up later. In the meantime I researched Calender, Monarchy… Agriculture… and Civil Service, started Metal Casting, heading for Machinery.







I also built up a smaller second stack and sent it west, to raze one of Montezuma’s cities. I ran into some Darius Macemen, Pikes, Knights and Crossbows while going through Shaka, so I withdrew the western stack to pick up some maces and reinforce the eastern attack.



I decided to try and do as much damage as possible to Darius with what was already nearby to slow him down and hopefully get enough time for the reinforcements to arrive before he could get to Rifles.

I managed to raze his double shrine holy city with just a couple of suicide catapults, as it was primarily defended by knights, and marched on Amsterdam. Unfortunately he had Muskets in the Capital, and I had to use most of the remaining siege to raze it. (He had built the Pyramids and most of the other wonders there)









I pulled back the stack to Shaka’s last city to kill him off and pick up the reinforcements, and then I ran out of time I will try and finish it tomorrow, anyway.

I founded my capital and named it "Sparta!!!!". I thought the extra explanation marks were funny, but after I named my second city Athens, the game always suggested "Sparta" for my new city names.

I went work boat first, scouted east and popped sailing from the hut. On turn 20 Tokugawa's warrior showed up and I finished mine. But for some reason I kept him in the capital instead of moving him NE to the choke point. I don't know why I did this, I think maybe I didn't want to risk losing a battle defending a forest square and then have Tokugawa's warrior walk into my capital. But he would only have had 10% odds or so I think, and he probably wouldn't have even attacked me. So this was a really bad decision.

Tokugawa went past my capital and explored east, but he came back to pin down my worker until I finally got an archer on turn 33.

I founded my second city on turn 63. Does this look like a good city spot?


OOPS, there's a crabs hiding behind the peaks. If I had known that I would have founded directly on the sheep.


I founded Horse City 3N of the capital on turn 81. On turn 112 I researched Monotheism, founding Judaism. I built the Oracle in Athens on turn 126 and took Monarchy for free.

On turn 131 I captured Poverty Point with a stack of 3 Phalanxes, 5 Chariots, and an Archer.


However, I sent my stack north towards Cahoika, and Tokugawa recaptured the city on turn 141. I probably should have just razed it. On the plus side, I did raze Mound City, which had been built on the elephants, the same turn I lost Poverty Point. I also recaptured Poverty Point with a single chariot on the same turn, but again I did not raze it, and lost it again the next turn. Finally on turn 144 I razed Poverty Point for good.

On turn 142, I founded Eisenburg in the Jungle by the Iron, Dye, Bananas, and Fish. Fueled by double-whip overflows, I built The Great Lighthouse in Horse City on turn 153, and the Pyramids in Sparta!!!! on turn 166.

I lost the city of Eisenburg around turn 166, and retook it on turn 180. After this there was a lot of fighting in the jungles NE of Eisenburg. I did pretty well, taking advantage of the defensive terrain. On turn 212 I razed Chaco Canyon (which had been built on the ruins of Poverty Point). I also founded the city of Iron Isle on the island west of Sparta!!!! on around turn 185.

On turn 230, I had what I thought was a decent sized stack near Tokugawa's capital, when it was attacked by both a Dutch and Sumerian stack, as well as a few of Tokugawa's longbowmen, and utterly decimated. At this point I didn't have much of an army and the stacks coming in had kept getting bigger and bigger, so I gave up.

I replayed a shadow game and in that game I managed to capture Tokugawa's capital on turn 140 with a stack of 5 phalanxes, 2 chariots, and an archer versus an archer, 2 chariots, a spearman, and a dog soldier on defense. After that I was able to slowly advance eastward and westward. By around 1500 AD it was clear that I was going to win and I stopped playing.

I really enjoyed playing this scenario. The main reason I wrote this report was because I wanted to thank Sullla for an awesome scenario design!

The last AW Epic was my 2nd RB game, and I made quite a mess of it. I was the slowest winner by a good margin, although since half the reports were losses that really isn't too bad, but kept a horrendously overdetailed log. I had every intention of compressing that into an ok report, but needed until the last minute to finish playing the game and had no time to sort it out. I hoped to do much better this time - win at an eariler date and (more importantly) with way less than the 36 hours I put into the Boudica game; and write a real report instead of a glorified turnlog.

Since we have the food to work all visible hills, I founded on the silks instead of the starting plains hill. Scout went to the deadend SE first, popped another one. Toku (of Native America) sent his starting warrior south for early contact, had some interesting manuevers sneaking one scout north to explore while keeping tabs with the 2nd one, making sure I'd be able to start a warrior in time if he went towards my capital. Found Cahokia quickly, and got past to the east; happened to end a turn seeing the edge of a purple border but not in contact. Elected to turn back; however a wandering unit of Shaka of Sumeria found me sometime before the AI's really started attacking so this probably didn't affect anything.

BW revealed copper on our backfill peninsula, so my main goal was a go. I wanted to reprise Sullla's early rush from his Epic 14 which worked so well for him. With the experience of that game and his demonstration, I was pretty confident that a traditional 8-10 Phalanxes would be enough to eliminate one AI, even Toku of NA, and would do so before any other AI's really attacked. Also the geography was more favorable here - the map was a lowercase "m", with us at the bottom of the middle vertical; taking out Toku meant that we'd have two fronts to defend but very close together, unlike Epic 14.
I decided I couldn't afford a monumenet so settled Sparta here, forever wasting those clams:

I trained a total of three workers before barracks and Phalanxes, needed a lot of worker power to road across the jungle to Toku. The gods showed their approval of my plan in 1750BC when Toku completed Stonehenge instead of stocking up on Dogs and archers. Throw in some usual chop/whip, and the result is 9 Phalanxes zooming in on Cahokia in 1200 BC. He had 2 dogs, 1 archer, 1 spear but stupidly let me kill one of those dogs outside the city. Some more idiocy followed with me killing 2 more units (including a CG3 archer!) outside his 2nd/last city, and thus the rush was a roaring success, think only 4 Phalanx lost. As good as this was, my scouts reported that Toku had only a single warrior in Cahokia for a LONG time, and a cheese two-warrior rush would have probably worked (no Stonehenge in that case though). Anyways, Cahokia would be a superb production city too; but keeping Poverty Point was a little questionable, only one resource (corn) and I don't even have the tech for it! A settler was rushed up and settled Corinth soon afterwards:

Great location here. This would be my frontline for over two millenia, with the western AI's sending virtually all there troops to the flatlands 1NW, so I could attack without defensive cover or let them charge into a fortified hill city. The importance of terrain in border cities is another thing that I am a lot better at after Epic 14. And this city brings in two vital military resources and is a good production center in its own right, although Cahokia is getting the honor of the first settled GG that you see at the botton. Cropped out of the screenshot is that I'm now losing money at 0% science, but hey no one ever said war was cheap.

Now that I had this successful opening, let's explain how I planned to win this game. In Epic 14 I had a lot of cottage cities and relied on my heroic epic capital to carry much of the military load. I could keep science at 30% but still fell way behind the tech-trading AI's, and didn't have quite enough units to push well. Here I plan to focus more on hammers - Sparta, Corinth, and Cahokia are all production cities, Athens is hybrid, and only Poverty Point will get cottages. In Epic 14 I was teching to macemen, trebs, and such but they weren't really helping; here all I want is constrcuction and HBR. In Epic 20 I learned that enough elephants and cats will get you through anything; the more I thought about it the more I concluded that the higher tech units aren't really more hammer efficient than the lower tech ones.

Classic example is axe vs. mace, since they have the same abilities and axe is exactly 1/2 the cost. Two axes have 51% odds to beat one mace. Now of course when they win it's usually with one axe down, so the expected hammer value is not even, but still the old cheap units hold up pretty well. Especially if you can build elephants as the AI loves mounted units.

Combined with the fact that nothing really improves your military production between Literature and Nationhood, who needs teching?

Now of course, the value of a military tech edge is when you can bring 10 rifles against 10 medieval units. Your force costs more hammers, but probably wins all battles but one; assuming you can heal before more opposing forces attack your injured units the hammers lost differential is enourmous. But getting a tech lead with these settings sounds pretty much impossible to me, so zerg-swarming with big stacks of old units sounds like a plan.

Back on the homefront, I teched to Priesthood and Oracled Monarchy in 800BC. And on the AI front, Monty had left his foremost city, on flat land, with only one archer on defense. I had a Phalanx in the area originally trying to camp on a forested hill and give early warning of incoming stacks, but decided to roll the dice at 65%. Luck held and I burned it to the ground, a nice bonus.

Very little happend for a while (besides founding of some cities in the jungle belt. These ones mostly just cottaged everywhere to pay the bills so I won't discuss them much). The calm broke just before the AD changeover when the AI's started attacking in earnest. Early on with no cats they were easy - pile Phalanxes behind Corinth's hills and culture, or the forested hills east of Cahokia, and defend with big bonuses. I settled a poor city just after the changeover:

I was anticipating having trouble with some units camping on these hills, so Argos is supposed to absorb their attacks, and 2 pop whip a cat or elephant each time it grows to size 4. That was another lesson from Bakumatsu, where Kagoshima had good growth from rice and cow but total crap for other terrain, whipping it endlessly generated quite a haul of military. Unfortunately I was caught by the 2nd wave from Shaka and Darius just before a worker chopped that forest 1E, and had a horrible siege from 100-500AD with their units camping out in the trees; the whole time I could not improve the sheep and Argos was just a terrible waste of money. Definitely my biggest mistake, either sending a 2nd worker to chop faster or putting enough units to cover the worker would have helped out a ton.

Was in quite a tech hole naturally, but did get to Currency at the not-awful time of 370AD. I had ignored that in Epic 14 and here I knew putting cities on Wealth would be useful. Some wonder refund cash also comes in and I am able to complete my tech goals of Construction + HBR by 600AD. Here's a stack of Monty's around that time:

Picture included to show the AI's unit prefs, they still really favor mounted+siege once they can build cats, which makes attacking out of your cities so much easier. This leads into my criticisms of Sulla's AI choices:

Toku of NA was quite solid, one of the most annoying defensive civs and even worse with Aggressive on the dogs and (even more important) a unit-heavy AI. I really got lucky with this clown building Stonehenge instead of 5 more CG3 archers. Although one of the reports mentioned "no-open-borders Toku" - I'm curious if a player does not rush if he will really shield them from the AI? I figure the "mutual struggle" bonus will get him pleased with AI's eventually but maybe this could block them for a while.
Monty of Rome sounds good, but the mounted/siege emphasis of the AI mentioned above means he really doesn't exploit the uber UU well at all. While Monty is a good warmonger, part of what makes him more dangerous in normal games is that he's so darn eager to DOW, and that doesn't matter here. A fairly good choice but not as scary as it sounds.
Shaka of Sumeria - Shaka is a fine choice, but the Vulture is crap. Nice UU vs. the AI tendency to build a lot of archers but totally worse than the normal axeman vs. a human player, which will usually build axes of their own and mostly ignore archers.
Mansa of England - you definitely want Mansa on the AI team for his tech trading willingness, but England was an odd choice. UU is great for its era but my game never got there despite killing Mansa last.
Darius of Netherlands - didn't work out too well. I think someone like Hannibal would be better as a good techer but one who still builds units; Darius send far fewer units than even Mansa. Also a bizarre civ choice that Sulla is sort of fixated on (see his comments on leader choices for the big Pitboss game) - I was by far the slowest in Epic 14 and still no one was near Steam Power.

Back to the game - I had decided to make my first offensive in the east while holding at Corinth in the west. After epic 14 I concluded that this would work better than diving my units equally and trying to push both directions at once. East seemed better because Darius built the Pyramids and was the most passive AI in unit-building. I feared my stack getting streched thin in a battle with the near AI and then jumped by a stack of the far AI, and that seemed a lot less likely in the east. Here's first wave heading out at 700 AD:

Battles were slow and sort of costly, but burned one city and captured Uruk (with a shiny new Mausoleum) in 920AD. As you can see Uruk had great production terrain and eventually took over much of the military pump duties for the eastern front.

As expected, taking the capital really broke Shaka's back. Darius finally attempted a rescue:

They did kill some units, but was too little too late. The last Sumerian city was taken in 1110AD, although annoyingingly it was also on a hill and its Archers did a fair number on my attackers. I think I was also lucky in choosing to strike east in that there was a considerable "dead zone" between Shaka and Darius with no food resources. There were no cities there which sped up the conquest significantly. However it was still 1300AD before I had rebuilt enough troops and gotten the workers to road and enter Dutch territory. Took two cities, then suffered the greatest betrayal in history:

Probably that was the most I've ever laughed from playing any computer game. Continued on to reach Amsterdam and those vaunted Pyramids:

Pretty uber start there (though what's with the desert?). A Castle + Chichen Itza slowed me down, but the good news is that I knew collateral is a solution to military tech edge and thus had a very catapult-heavy force. A single revolt was already 2 turns, but decided to do it anways (gotta love 0% science in AW, when those settled GG's really do contribute a significant part of your research!) In the meantime, a steady stream of efficient victories resulted in quite a pile of troops back at Corinth/Cahokia, so in 1415AD I was ready to start that drive:

It ran into a double-attack from Rome/England right away which cut into its formidable size, but could keep moving. Always nice to know you have a grace period before another offensive stack can hit you.

Anyways, victory was pretty certain at this point, keep throwing cats liberally and you will win when you have as many cities as the AI's put together. I will note some things - building a FP finally in Uruk got my economy out of neutral and the 1-man, Maus-lengthened GA let me tech to Guilds and Banking. Mercantilism was of course huge, but none of the subesequent researches really mattered (was aiming for Steel but didn't get close before winning). Probably Literature or Civil Service (with a big mace upgrade) would have been better uses of my pillage gold than Deficit Research to Nowhere ™. However, Knights were great to build late in the game since the front line was so far away from my core producers. Also I did tech Alpha for spies, performed no espionage missions but they were great for mapping out the western lands in advance of my armies. Mansa also exhibited the usual AI cluelessness by wasting his research on Liberalism, Economics, Astronomy instead of heading for Rifling, Mil Sci, or Steel. I was particularly sad when he researched Corporation, which literally does nothing but make him poorer (he had TGL and all coastal cities) as he was nowhere near Steam Power or one of the corp techs.

The Dutch had more cites than I expected but their back was broken at Amsterdam and I easily finished them off in 1535AD. Rome (city) in 1550AD similarly broke active resistance there, although I did wind up in one snag with a castle/hill city when I split my stack up. Didn't want to wait forever to plink the defenses with a couple cats and it only had 1 each of longbow, praet, cat, so decided to burn about 6 units to knock it out. Not pretty but kept the front lines moving. Last of Monty was gone in 1620; around this time the eastern army was arriving finally and a tidal wave of Spartans overwhelmed England quickly with a multi-pronged attack. Here's Cantebury:

Nice location here, held and choked his home peninsula while the more mobile forces cleared out his northern half. Then it was time to flood:

There are two cities not yet revealed, but got them all in time for the Conquest win to register on the nice round date of 1700AD. Final stats:

Yep, burned a lot of cats. Also lost 39 phants and 17 phalanxes, which were the vast majority of causalties.

RNG SHAFTING
No, not combat odds. Hindusim spread to Cahokia before I captured it and I thought "Aha!, now that I have a religion, I don't need to bulb Theology like my last game!". I never felt that missionaries were a good use of hammers and assumed that it would spread eventually...but it just literally never did. Since I had workers roading with the rush Cahokia was connected to all other cities by the time it was out of resistance, but I am pretty sure I got no random spreads at all until a few of the other conquered faiths spread in the 1600's (far too late to matter).

HONORABLE MENTIONS
I could never be bothered to waste hammers on something silly like an Odeon or a non-work-boat (this map would be a lot harder if the AI's would send galley invasions to backline cities, or even pillage seafood with their caravels, but they don't as long as you're on the same landmass). Never really had enough EP to attempt a steal.
Got 8 GG's before 1500AD. I don't expect that to win though, someone who built the great wall would likely get a few more.
Had a 29XP Phalanx which also probably isn't close to the top (someone who attaches a GG and goes Leadership will easily get way more, again I focused on winning efficiently more than the optional goals).

Thanks to Sullla, fun game. It was cool to compare how much easier and quicker this was than Epic 14, I can really claim I've gotten better at Civ4. Good to know I at least accomplished one thing during the last year and a half!

I have to report a loss on this one (my first epic)

I built a warrior then went worker and I went to BW research-wise. My scout scouted the peninsula E first and I decided to make 2 quick cities there first.

However, I made some big mistake And that was to not read the map settings to see that the barbs were off! So I sent my first warrior on a hill E of the capital to ... fog bust I computed that I would have time to get back to the capital should I see danger... My scout found another scout from a hut and one of them spotted a Toku warrior coming, but... well I still could get to my capital in time right? Turns out I was wrong, and the warriors would arrive to it in the same time. Toku went first The lay of the land was such that Toku had pretty much no choice but to go to my capital... Oh well, hopefully next time.

I then continued the game for a bit by reloading from a point where I would move my warrior back one turn earlier. Everything went fine, made a couple of cities E of the capital, then another one on a hill by the horses. Unfortunately after a while I lost a bit interest and started to play a bit sloppy. I was a bit upset because of that stupid mistake that missed me what looked like a good game... Well, you live you learn.

The move I was proudest of was to get a phalanx on a forested hill next to Rome's iron! It stayed there for ever and I haven't seen a single Praetorian. I made also a few more cities including one by the iron and stopped playing after taking Toku's second city. I was in a good position I thought with a city by the elephants and a decent potential to build more troops. I would have lost Toku's second city as Shaka was coming with quite a few troops, but was in a position to take it back. All in all, I feel I had a decent chance (in large part because the Romans were a non-factor!), although it seems that the game was a bit harder than expected.

I took a few screenshots and will try to post some here.

EDIT: Forgot to say I got the TGL which greatly helped the economy!

Kalin

I apologize for the delay in the upload- had to do some site maintenance stuff first.

Adventure Thirty-eight.

Perhaps jumping straight into an AW Epic after a long break and playing it in a single session until 3am wasn't such a great idea. At least that's my excuse for playing the game one and a half times.

The first playthrough was abandoned around 370AD, when right after I captured first major Native American city, my army got wiped out by British SoD. I might have survived a lot longer, but playing a 3CC empire wasn't very fun, so I went back to change the biggest strategic mistake of the game: my reaction to seeing Dog Soldiers. (Of course if I was more familiar with BtS I would have recognized the danger as soon as I saw Native Americans, but I didn't want to reload that far.) My original plan was to rush Toku with Phalanxes. I abandoned it as soon as I saw his UU, but first time I continued to lazily research economic techs, eventually getting to Construction. The second time, I've immediately inserted HBR research, quickly secured horses, and converted planned Phalanx rush into HA rush. So instead of forever staying at 3 cities I've eliminated Toku in 320BC, and eventually won Conquest victory in 1706AD. (Domination would have been faster, but 1706AD is still not too bad.)

If you will accept shadow report of my second playthrough, I'll post it tomorrow. Otherwise, there is not much to say about my original failure.