Feel free to post your reports in the forum.

A new game will be opening as soon as I get the new ftp details sorted out.

We appear to be back up! I want to give a big thank you to digix for restoring our database!

Now, that should hopefully be a reminder to me to back up more often.

Hi.

I was bored, so I mangled some quick reccommendation for a really nice roguelike - Ancient Domains of Mystery, or ADOM. (can be downloaded from http://www.adom.de)
Your quest is to find the gates of Chaos and cease the existance of the vile powers... or take control over them yourself. Although a bit bored by fruitless losses, this game still can hook me up for some time.

I think it's the game worthy of playing by RB'ers, maybe even simply for the fact of a big variety in character customization. ADOM has 9 playable races and even more classes, each of them being very different (you earn my title of the Biggest Ballbreaker if you win the game with a Mindcrafter).

Among all the combinations, I decide to choose Gnomish Barbarian. While this sounds silly, this combination has it's pluses. I can aim for Heir talent (available if you can start the game with 3 talents - you take Boon to the Family, Charming and finally Heir, which ships you with an uber-item to start off) easier, because Gnomes start with one free talent. They also start with a Spear and two weapon-marks to it. Spears are my favourite because they add to Defensive Value (which is helpful to evade enemies' attacks) while packing a good punch, and there are many powerful polearms in the game.

I mentioned Talents. What are those? Every three levels you can choose a Talent. It can boost some of your statistics, for example - Hardy adds to your Hit Points total. Some talents unlock the other talents, and some talents can be taken only at the start of the game or have other restrictions (only a dwarf, for example, can take Iron Skin talent).

At the start, I get 2 talents (one standard and the other for being a Gnome). I go for Alert - +1 to Perception isn't very helpful for non-archers, but it unlocks Treasure Hunter (with Miser), which works like MF gear in Diablo 2. You find 50% items more than usual, so you have a better chance of landing an uber piece of gear. The other trait is Tough, for +1 toughness. I don't know if it was a right call, but I want to survive early on, and I can't get Tough later on. I will try to catch all the HP giving talents early.

I start the game with nice Strength and Toughness - 20 and 21, respectively. Other skills are mediocre - 14 Pe will allow me to have a nice range of vision. Ch and Ap aren't really useful (both 10) and usually get down to 1 at the later portions of the game.



My journey starts on a huge... world map. Unlike Nethack, there's a pretty big world to explore. I head to the nearest village - Terinyo. This is a no-brainer to visit this one first - you get quests in this place and you have to buy food before you go further.



Taking your quests is more important than you think. Right after visiting Terinyo, you have to check your skills. If you don't have Healing, you need to get it ASAP, because it's one of the most important skills. However, there are two quests that are exclusive from each other - taking one prevents you from taking the other. You can take the mission of:

1: Rescuing the tainted carpenter from the Village Dungeon, east of Terinyo. This quest is set upon you by the village elder, Rynt.
2: Guth'Alak the druid asks you to kill Keethrax, who has gone mad and is bidding animals to his control to do very bad things. (Blood Raven, anyone?)

Our gnomish barbarian actually has to take the quest number 1. It's the only sure way to get Healing (the others are way too random and rare to ever occur), the quest is overall easier. You also learn Bridge Building, which although rarely useful, can be nice in some situations (most notably Tomb of the High Kings).



Here you can see Smashem - the gnomish barbarian and the spiritual successor to... shhh, no telling! - talking to Rynt. It also highlights where to look for the elder.

There are other quests in Terinyo:

-Tywat Pare (it's an anagram of something - cookie for anyone who guesses), the town's sheriff, is worried about Kranach, who plunders the countryside. Hunt Kranach down BEFORE you get character level of 6 (troll's clvl must be lower than 5, because trolls are slow learners and thus get their levels earlier), and the reward of 3000$ is yours. Quite helpful, but difficult to find (looking for Kranach may be long, and you may encounter many other obstacles on your way, like erratic bears... [stop thinking about MoO!]), and raiders are quite a tough nut to crack.
-The tiny girl in Terinyo asks to find her puppy. It may be tempting to go to Puppy Cave (which shows up on your map after you talk to her), but in fact it's NOT a good idea. Why? On PC:2 (meaning Puppy Cave level 2) there are always Ants - very dangerous monsters for non-spellcasters. Ants breed fast and are hard to hit. If you have luck to have means to kill or bypass ants, you have to fight in a harsh PC:5, which spawns a lot of difficult monsters and has very open spaces. After you reach the end of your destination - PC:6 - you will find another harsh obstacle. The obstacle is Vault. Vaults are areas full of monsters that can sometimes hide an artifact within, but require a lot of heavy fightning. Luckily, the puppy will never be generated within the vault. But you may prolly have to go through the vault to retrieve him.

If 5 days in the game passed and you haven't gone to PC:6 (just to generate the living doggy), the puppy dies. You can finish the quest afterwards by giving his remains (DO NOT EAT CUTE DOG'S REMAINS. NEVER EVER. You will be doomed if you do so. Same for kobolds' corpses.) to the tiny girl. After that, you can spend some time playing with her. What a sad story. Sniff.

(For laughs you can use a Wish to wish the Cute Dog in Terinyo. That kind of mayhem couldn't be done even by Skulla's armies. )

-After you reach level 10, the sheriff will ask you to kill Hotzenplotz in Lawenilothehl (try saying that 5 times fast). Kill the bad guy for Amulet of Order
-OR-
-You can go to Lawenilothehl and accept Hotzenplotz's quests to kill Jharod (he's the one that teaches you Healing, but after you kill him you can use the Chaotic way to learn Healing at Kranf Niest's), and later Tywat Pare (you can lure him out of the city and then slay him)... and if you want to be real badass, kill Hotzenplotz later anyway.

Anyway, I take quests from Rynt, from tiny girl (no intent to finish it now, but it will reveal the location of Puppy Cave to me) and Tywat Pare (you can kill Kranach without it and still get the reward with no problems, but I just wanted to be clear).



There are many caves around Terinyo. To the northwest, there is Small Cave. It's a good place to start - it has a guaranteed waterproof blanket (which can be sometimes useful to avoid rusting your items) in it, and is a good training ground. However, you have to hurry, because the monsters have twice as better level than you! It is a good idea to enter there once, generate monsters at level 2, and enter there later (because SMC is the only way to enter High Mountain Village, through Unremarkable Dungeon).

Northeast, close to the road where you started, is Puppy Cave. Appears after taking tiny girl's quest.

Southeast are Village Dungeon (if you took Rynt's quest), and Druid Dungeon (after taking Guth'Alak's quest). In Village Dungeon, at VD:4 is guaranteed Jharod (who can teach you Healing after you bring Yrrigs to him, and can heal you for free seven times) and at VD:7 is Yrrigs, the mad carpenter. You do the quest not by killing him, but by luring him to VD:4 and letting Jharod touch him.
The Druid Dungeon drags out for 10 levels, after which you meet tough Keethrax and his animals. They will be hostile to you even if you are a Druid, to whom no animals are hostile (which is useful because you don't have to fight cats). Kill Keethrax to collect an artifact of Chaos (quite useless black torc, which can be useful to make a sacrifice to your god out of). Guth'Alak's reward will be either wand of cold or Herbalism or Gardening skill (and if you are a druid, he will give you also a ring of elemental mastery).

If you head south of Terinyo, you will find Lawenilothehl. There are many outlaws and bandits out there, and a black market where you can buy some items, but they are expensive. Barnabas rarely has something worth of interest in his stock.

On the south-eastern edge of the mountains, you will find a very specific Infinite Dungeon. Each level is different in the sense that if you enter, for example, ID:1, leave it and get back, you will get a completely new level. It's an awesome place to level up a weak character.

Finally, on the far west, you will find the main dungeon of the game, Caverns of Chaos, where you will spend majority of the game... but that's the other story.

Smashem goes to Small Cave to generate the monsters at low level and gain his first kill, which is more important than it looks like at the first glance.



I killed a goblin rockthrower as my first kill, and I immediately note it in monster memory. Why do I do this? Because later on you meet the old barbarian. After you kill enough monsters - 500 or so - he will ask you to kill 20 monsters of those whom you first killed. So it's important to get a nice first kill. Goblin rockthrowers are fairly common. A good place is also Lawenilothehl, because there are a lot of hostile cutpurses and bandits, which are rather harmless even to a beginning character (although watch out for assassins!). Taking a good first kill is very important also if you decide to make an ultimate ending - you will have to kill a quickling bard named Filk, who appears at the level of Infinite Dungeon equal to the number of killed by you first kill monsters.

As Smashem goes further to explore Small Cave, I leave you. Hope that you will find some interest in the game.

Does anyone have any idea on how to make torpedo ships work?

In a recent game I was lacking in beams (had NPGs, went Mercs over blasters and missed out on all the beams after that until Plasma Cannon) and tried a large hull equipped with three anti-matter torpedoes. It worked decently, but they could easily be overwhelmed.

I've already figured they're dependant on high propulsion TL compared to the engine level, but what purpose could or should it serve in a fleet, and are there any thoughts how to design them or use them in a fleet?

I compiled the results for Adventure 32:

http://www.dos486.com/civ4/adv32.html

(The HTML is quick & dirty from Excel, so it's kind of messy. The grid itself should be neat enough to copy & paste for the site page.)

Mortius delivered the best result, with myself in second. Mortius had one more pre-1 AD corporation, but I made up for it with an HQ flip and more time to spread branches. The winning margin was essentially the 200 point domination bonus, which only Mortius achieved. I didn't try for it, and both Sullla and Timmy ran into early culture victories before hitting the dom threshold.

Timmy came in third, just two points ahead of zeka! zeka even scored better in more categories and a really fast cultural win, though Timmy countered with the HQ flip. Only Timmy and I managed to score HQ flips (hey cultural teammate!), and mine was mostly dumb luck.

I used Sullla's numbers from his cultural victory. Sorry, Sullla, but I can't personally see giving out points for a worldbuildered result! There were plenty of in-game ways to avoid too much culture: buy out the culture corps with a competitor, get out of Free Speech, trade away resources, deliberately inflict anarchy, or even adopt State Property. I think you've been letting all that worldbuilder power as a game sponsor go to your head.

Three corps before 1 AD seems to have been the magic number, with almost everybody managing that. Corps number four and five were possible with strong planning. I got number four thanks to Shwedagon Paya into Pacifism before 1 AD (did anyone else hit on that?) Mortius got number four with extra wonders and an early National Epic, and number five at the Music freebie.

I thought I was clever in reaching Rocketry and Aluminum Co the mundane way, but so did all the top scorers. And nobody at all scored for any foreign corp branches before 1 AD. I think the AIs only ever got one corp that soon (usually Standard Ethanol), and couldn't possibly incorporate all their own cities that quickly in order to seek foreign expansion.

That island threw up some serious variance in the scoring. Finding it early enough to own it was worth several dozen points for owning cities and corporate branches, plus it was just about necessary for a real shot at domination. I didn't discover it until extremely late and had no equity there.

Extra kudos to ZPV for the Master of Orion style speedy diplo victory. Too bad that was basically a red herring in terms of the rest of the scoring, leaving no time to rack up flips or extra branches.

There looks to be a bit of a shake up at ArenaNet and NCSoft...

Source

Quote: Wednesday, September 10, 2008

NCsoft Announces Formation of "NC West"

CEO Taek Jin Kim Promotes Chris Chung, Jeff Strain, David Reid, and Patrick Wyatt

SEOUL, Korea, Sept. 10, 2008—NCsoft ® Corporation (KSE: 036570.KS), the world's leading publisher and developer of massively multiplayer online games (MMOs), including award-winning franchises Lineage®, Guild Wars® and City of Heroes®, today announced the formation of "NC West™". A wholly-owned subsidiary of NCsoft with operating responsibility for western regions including the US and Europe, NC West will be led by Chris Chung as CEO, Jeff Strain as president, product development, David Reid as president, publishing, and Patrick Wyatt as CTO as well as yet unannounced European executives.

NCsoft's existing subsidiaries NC Interactive, NC Europe, NC Austin, and ArenaNet will be led as a unified organization under NC West with a dedicated focus towards becoming the world's premier western publisher of MMOs. NC West is the tentative name for the organization, and the company expects to announce final naming and corporate structure in the near future. NC West's headquarters is planned to be established in Seattle, WA by the end of 2008.

Chris Chung, previously CEO of NC Interactive, has a long history with NCsoft. He began his tenure at NCsoft's ArenaNet® studio, where he managed that studio's business and helped launch the multi-platinum selling Guild Wars franchise. Chung later went on to become the chief publishing officer for NCsoft's Seoul headquarters. Prior to NCsoft, Chung spent more than five years at Microsoft and later co-founded a marketing research firm. As CEO of NC West, Chung will continue to report directly to NCsoft CEO Taek Jin (TJ) Kim.

"We are confident that by combining our subsidiaries into a unified global organization under Chris Chung's leadership, NC West will become a more powerful force to be reckoned with in the western MMO market," said TJ Kim. "Chris has become a guiding force within our company and has been extremely successful at every position he has held with us. His detailed first-hand knowledge of all aspects of our business is invaluable and will help establish NC West as a global leader."

Jeff Strain was formerly the president and co-founder of ArenaNet, a company he formed with Patrick Wyatt and Mike O'Brien when they left senior roles at Blizzard Entertainment in 2000. Additionally, Strain held the position of executive producer of Guild Wars 2™ prior to taking this new role. Strain will report directly to Chung and manage all NC West development studios across all existing and future products. Strain will also direct the production of NCsoft's Asian-developed titles for NC West territories.

David Reid began with NCsoft in March 2008 as vice-president, marketing for North America. Reid came to NCsoft from Turner Broadcasting's GameTap, where he served as vice-president, marketing. Prior to that, he worked at Microsoft as director of global platform marketing, where he launched the Xbox 360. In his new role, Reid will continue to report to Chung and will lead franchise management, marketing, public relations, sales, and customer support for NC West.

As a founder of ArenaNet, Patrick Wyatt led the development of the network and server technologies for the Guild Wars franchise, and directed the architecture and deployment of ArenaNet's global game network infrastructure. Before co-founding ArenaNet with Strain and O'Brien, Wyatt was the vice president of research and development for Blizzard Entertainment, where he led programming for the Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo franchises. As CTO for NC West, Wyatt will report to Chung and will focus on platform technology development, network operations, and systems engineering.

"There is an unparalleled opportunity for growth in the massively multiplayer online market," said Chris Chung. "By combining the strength of our US and European teams, NCsoft has the best global infrastructure to win in new and existing markets, and the best developer talent capable of creating blockbuster MMO franchises."

About NC West
NC West is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Korea-based NCsoft Corporation, a world leading publisher and developer of massively multiplayer online games including Lineage/Lineage II, Guild Wars, City of Heroes, Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa®, and Aion®: The Tower of Eternity™. More information about NCsoft can be found at www.plaync.com.

NCsoft, ArenaNet, Lineage, City of Heroes, Guild Wars, Guild Wars 2, Tabula Rasa, Aion, The Tower of Eternity and all associated logos and designs are trademarks or registered trademarks of NCsoft Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Quote:The formation of NC West has raised a lot of questions and speculation about what this means for ArenaNet, Guild Wars, and Guild Wars 2.


As far as ArenaNet and Guild Wars are concerned, the creation of NC West ensures that we will get all the publishing support we will need to make Guild Wars 2 a success. ArenaNet remains a standalone studio focused on Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2. Mike O’Brien heads up the studio and is also the Executive Producer for Guild Wars 2. You may recall that Mike is one of the founders of ArenaNet and was also the Executive Producer for the original Guild Wars.


We’d like to congratulate ArenaNet alums Chris Chung, Jeff Strain and Pat Wyatt and we look forward to working closely with them (and kicking ass!) in their expanded roles at NC West

Well, I settled 1N just the same as everyone else.

After this I really wanted two spots, one next to Gandhi, one next to Pericles, so I rapidly built two Settlers, first, taking the Gandhi spot, then near Pericles:




I built one further city in the south, near the Gems, and built the Oracle in 1200BC to take CoL:



At this stage I took a break to look at the scoring system.

I was unlikely to found many corporations by 1AD or win by Cultural Domination, so I decided to take a risk, and go for a BC UN victory.

My plan has 4 stages:
1. Build the Pyramids in Rome
2. Pop a GE, not a GP from Rome.
3. Build the UN, using the GE to do most of it.
4. Generally suck up to everyone and convert as many people as possible to the major religion (Hindu)

I also teched to Music for the free Great Artist to build Civ. Jewellers

Stages 1 and 2 completed without a hitch, and stage 3 happened in 125 BC, completing the UN in 100BC (t111):



I was voted in immediately:



At this point, I thought the game was in the bag, as victory votes happen on turns which are multiples of 4, right? Riiight?

*Presses enter*

Nothing happens.

*Presses enter again*

Still nothing happens.

*Presses enter twice more*

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!
1AD is here.

The vote comes at 50AD, and I have just gotten Civil Service:



The Settler is there to found a city to be liberated for Diplomatic bonuses. I have already given a city to Pericles (the global pariah) this way to ensure he is my opponent.

In my haste/:mad: I forgot to gift around CS, so I did not win the vote:



I immediately corrected the situation by gifting CS to everyone, and, 6 turns later, in 225 AD (t124),



Scoring:

At 1AD I had founded Civilised Jewellers for 100 points, and its presence in the founding city (the one near Pericles) nets me a further 10 points.

For the 1500 AD scoring date, I have spread the corporation to two more cities, and my four cities are all at or above size 10 so
50 + 3x2 + 4x3

For the end scoring date, I get
3x1 + 4x2 - 124



So that makes

110
+ 68
- 113
= 65 points :neenernee

Hi,

I was away from last Friday until today, and just came home two hours ago (and yes, I already had the urge to check out Realms Beyond - might be a sign I've spent way too much time in this forum already... ). I played Adventure 32, and on short notice sent DerangedDuck (the Sponsor) a PM with my executive summary, asking him to post it for me on report day. Looks like he didn't receive it or never read it.

I will post a more detailed report in the next couple of days when I've recovered from my yearly "biking, castles and beer"-tour (through Luxembourg this time). Until then, I post the summary I sent to DerangedDuck.

-----

Hi,

here's my ultra-short summary for Adventure 32 - Friendly Takeover, as I'm on vacation until Wednesday. I will provide a more detailed report when I'm back.

Due to time constraints, I decided not to capture any cities, neither via passive aggression nor by military force. I had only 4 cities until very late in the game, when 2 cities flipped to me. I know this was not optimal scoring-wise, but ah well. (My only gripe with this otherwise excellent scenario is that it rewards military conquest...)

I founded 3 corporations until 1AD: Standard Ethanol, Sid's Sushi and Civilized Jewelers. I only managed to build 1 extra executive, though.

Until 1500AD, I managed to found only 1 additional corporation: Aluminium Co (I lost Creative Construction by 6 turns).

I won a cultural victory in 1808AD.

So my score is:

1AD: 3*100 + 4*10 = 340
1500AD: 4*50 + 42*2 + 4*3 = 296
End: -274 + 111 + 6*2 = -151

Total: 340 + 296 - 151 = 485

-Kylearan

Holding spot. Retired in 1800AD. Report to come later this week.

Report still to come but I finally tallied my points:

1AD = 0
1500AD = 245
Retired in 1800 AD = -482
Overall score = -237

The corporations available since the beginning of the game was a great idea! And I’m not so experienced with them since I often finish my games before the modern dates. The first RBepic I tried to play was Epic 16 – Something Fishy, but I retired very early due to high maintenance (I didn’t know very well the behavior of corporations and spread sushi to the 2nd city when possible) and was unable to make a write-up. So this game sounded perfect to me.

STRATEGY:

Analyzing the game scoring, my goals are:
1) Found as many corporations as possible before 1AD
2) Get as many branches as possible before 1 AD
3) Try to win with domination via culture after founding all corporations, including Aluminum Co.
4) The city sizes will come as consequence of the food corporations


For this, I’ll need:

1) 2 Great Merchants for Sid’s Sushi and Cereal Mills. They will come through Temple of Artemis and Merchants after caste system is available. Ps: TGL is already obsolete
2) 2 Great Engineers for Creative Constructors and Mining Inc. These will come through Pyramids, Hanging Gardens and engineers after researching Metal Casting.
3) 1 Great Scientist for Standard Ethanol who I can get with an early library.
4) 1 Great Artist for Civilized Jewelers from Music. This one will be the most important.
5) I’ll need Another Great Scientist for Aluminum Co. later.

For all these things, combined with the fact that we are in a Pangaea, the expansion needs to be really fast, and the imperialistic trait will help us as it never did. Looking at our land, the initial plan will be research agriculture to farm that corn (after the capital completes worker) and then research bronze working to chop those forests for settler bonus production, just after the capital finishes worker.
With 3 good production cities in hand, we can start building the needed wonders, including Oracle to get Code of Laws (ignoring Superconductors) for unlimited merchants, scientists and artists, and for courthouses.
The culture needed for the domination will come through Sid’s Sushi, Creative Constructors and Civilized Jewelers branches on the border cities as well as Great Artists and cultured buildings. The other companies must be founded in interior cities, such as the capital. I’ll try to get the most resources for these corporations as I can.





THE GAME

After revealing some resources with the warrior and the machine gun I settled Rome on the incense getting 3 food resources (wheat, clam and deer), 2 happy resources (incense and gems!), plenty of forests and some gold, spices and clams!



Wow, never saw better land. Rome started worker (and then 2 settlers) and research is set to agriculture to farm the wheat and then BW to chop forests. The capital would work (only) this 5f resource while building settlers with the help from forests. One machine gun explored to the west, the other to the southwest and the warrior to the east, founding a tribal village and getting Agriculture! It could be Bronze Working, but it didn’t hurt too. BW is being researched now. The SW machine gun found another tribal village next turn getting The Wheel! BW and Masonry were better techs, but this one was better than agriculture. Elizabeth, Pericles and Gandhi were the (cultured) neighbors (I guess the sponsor chose them…). :rolleyes:
After getting BW and farming the wheat, the worker started chopping around and the 2 settlers were built in aprox. 10 turns each one and Antium and Cumae were founded getting nice resources and blocking Pericles and Gandhi.



Since Stonehenge was out of the plans to avoid great prophets, I had to build monuments and libraries. Gandhi founded Buddhism in Delhi and Judaism in Bombay making some culture pressure on Cumae, getting the stones.
After some expansion, with the cities of Neapolis, Ravenna, Arretium and Mediolanum, the Roman Empire was like this:



The high maintenance cost was supported by gold and gems resources and I still had I nice research. Note the 3 main cities building its wonders: Pyramids in Rome with the help of Sitting Bull’s (Hinduism founder) stones, Temple of Artemis in Cumae and The Oracle, near completion, in Antium. Next, a weed move: as planned, I would get code of laws from Oracle and found Confucianism, but instead, I took metal casting in force of habit.



Well, at least I could build forges and hire engineers in the capital, which finished Pyramids in 775BC. Antium was working now on the Great scientist project, with the library already completed and hiring 2 scientists, giving a total of 8 gpp (75%GS), when in 775BC Peter got a Great Scientist and founded Standard Ethanol in St.Petersburg!



Temple of Artemis was completed 2 turns later in Cumae. Hanging Gardens came next, in 400BC in Rome, accelerating GE production. In the same year, the following message surprised me: “Peter has proven the world is round”. Brilliant!



Peter got oil from Std.Ethanol and built a transport, which could pass across ocean. The first roman Great Person born in 350BC, a Great Merchant, after trading techs for CoL and hiring merchants in Cumae to increase the chances of GM, decreasing GProphet chances. Sid’s Sushi Co was founded in Cumae to combat Bombay culture, which was a double Holy city.



Note I was building forums instead of courthouses in order to get Great People faster. Note also the Judaism predomination in the world, due to many missionaries built by Gandhi (probably).
Next, the research beelined to music and I started o build sushi’s executives. On the turn before completing music Pericles afraid me: he got a Great A… Scientist! A silver resource was discoreved on the same turn, wow it’s excellent for Creative Constructors later! The Civilized Jewelers Inc was founded in Antium bombing culture at Greek borders. “Rome celebrates the prime minister day!” : we appreciate it, the high maintenance goes to zero!



I was reaching the dead line 1AD, so I timed the number of hired merchants in Cumae to get the 2nd GM and found Cereal Mills in Rome. On the same turn, Elizabeth got a GM too!



After founding those 3 corporations and expanding them to 7 cities I got 370 scoring points plus a broken economy with 259 maintenance and -92/turn at 0% research.



In the first couple of turns I had to put almost all cities on wealth to avoid a brake, but the research was still good with the help TGL. Other Great Wonders were built then as I had marble, stone and industrial feature.A damned Great Prophet was born with low odds instead of a Great Artist in Antium, so I used him for a 12 turned Golden Age. Pericles is now completing Liberalism and will get Superconductors.
The Great People missing for the others corporations were 2 GE and a GS much later (rocketry). Rome has >50% odds of generating a GE… At the first time, success: Creative Constructions is founded in Cumae!



At the second time: success! Another GE to found Mining inc. … But it was too late! :thumbsdow Sitting Bull got a GE on the very previous turn! Ouch! Well, I had some luck too with the GM… I used him for another Golden Age.



After this, the game didn’t have much action: I was generating a bunch of Great Artists, some cities were flipping (Bombay, Nottingham, Philadelphia, Athens, Corinth and Knossos) and the research was directed to rocketry for the last corporation.





I realized that I was reaching a culture victory fast, frustrating any attempt to win by domination. So, all I had to do was expand the corporations to mine and foreign cities, flip near cities a, improve population and found Aluminum Co. to get the points. Antium had The Great Library, so it was the most suitable city for generating a GS. With the help of lots of hired scientists, Rutherford founded the last corporation in 1290AD.



In the game ending, I still had time to make a smart move: the 3rd Legendary City would be reached in 1 turn. So, in order to get more time to a possible flip, I changed the 5 civics, getting 3 turns of anarchy. The plan succeeded: Knossos was flipped the turn after! :neenernee
I won the game by culture in 1390AD with:

“At 1AD”: - 3 corporations founded
- 7 branches

“At 1500AD”: - 250 from corporations headquarters
- 107 branches for 214 points
- 13 cities size >= 5
- 6 cities flipped

“At the end of the game”: - 199 turns for -199
- 107 branches
- 13 cities size >= 10

TOTAL: 987 points
Finish date: 1390AD





Take a look at Cumae at the end of the game, +1000 income!




Thanks for the sponsor for this excellent game! This was the most funny of the games I played from RB. Actually, I played it once again trying to beat my 1AD scoring. In this new game I could found Std. Ethanol too before 1AD.