BIG victories:

T-Hawk 15 pts
zeka 14 pts
Ruff Hi 11 pts

Congratulations!

Losses and Retirements:

Haradasun - Spaceship Loss - 2005 AD
DerrangedDuck - Spaceship Loss - 1980 AD
Steev - Retired 1728 AD
Jabah - Retired 1724 AD
timmy827 - Retired 1000 AD

Ahhh, *leans back on swivel chair, cracks fingers*, my first CFTS.

Now these comments concern a game that I designed last Autumn, which was started last winter and then delayed until late July due to a bug. I could not play the revised version since this past month has been very busy for me. I did play the original save (up until enountering the bug).

The aim was to create a game where people would spin off colonies. At the time, BTS was very new and it would be the ideal way to explore the feature. I see from reports that people learnt quite a few things about colonies, even a year on from the expansion's release.

To encourage people to split off colonies, a simple scoring system was devised whereby you would gain a point for every AI that voted for you in a Diplomatic Victory election.

Diplomatic victory has always been a nice goal for a variant game since it could be gained either by forceful or peaceful means. I imagined this game could take similar directions: Civs could be wiped out and replaced by colonies, they could be capitulated, or they could be befriended. I was slighly worried about the possibility for milking (wiping everyone but 1 civ out and creating 16 colonies) but milking is possible in any scoring system really. If anyone was to wipe out every other AI then good luck to them (especially seeing some of the AI's starts!).

The original, winter 2007 save was very quirky, with a region of jungle at the south of the starting island with many gems but no food (this was a naturally rolled map). When rolling a new save, nothing that weird came up. I rolled about 6 starts until I came up with one I liked. I switched around the player's start (which had a too small starting island) with Saladin's start (which was decent, but only the 5th best start IMO). Apart from that there were no map edits. So the player started here:


Meanwhile, the Dutch had an amazing starting position:


This map had everything I wanted. The Dutch (very strong science-wise, very weak militaristically) were close enough for the human to attack, and had the potential to rival a UN victory with a SS launch if not kept in check. The Romans had a high-production start, Spain was on a lake etc. The AIs (England, Spain, Netherlands, France, Ottomans, Rome, Arabs) were chosen for thematic reasons - all had a history of creating colonies or vassals. A large map with 1 less AI than normal could be quite daunting, but archipelago doesn't have as much land as usual so thought it would be OK.

Please leave your feedback regarding things you liked and things you would have changed.

Beijing Welcome You video on youtube. A very good representation on Chinese culture and Beijing landscape.

Song translation:

Quote:Another morning is coming, and brings in the fresh air
Our friendship will never change, just like the fragrance of green tea
My door is always open for you, and I'm here for you with open arms
You'd know me better when you hugged me, and you will love it here
Be my guest no matter you are from home and abroad

You are here as promised, friends we welcome you
I grow green plant at home to show you all the legends in the past
I want to plant in the soil to make you good memories
Friends and strangers, you are all my guests, and please be at home
No matter how many times we meet, there are still a lot to talk about

Welcome to Beijing, we will show you a brand new place
The charm of Beijing is full of life
Welcome come to Beijing, let's breath together in the sunshine
We want to make new record on this yellow soil
I always keep my doors open, to welcome the world

The old ages is smiling like youth, to welcome that day
We are all friends, please make yourself at home
With all the smiles, I am here waiting for you----By Hangeng

http://vault.ign.com/View.php?view=Artic...tail&id=35

Hope this works...

While searching for a picture for RBwiki Diablo section I came across this old screen in the RBD site. The story was:
A picture to die for - A quick Laz run turned into something that lasted for almost an hour. I have always thought it beautiful with all 3 colors of Bloodstars crisscorssing the screen but I never managed to stop and smell the roses. So I thought to myself, “I am going to grab a few screens if it kills me”. I wasn’t satisfied after a few grabs, something seem missing... so I decided to invite the 3 unique ladies as well, afterall, what kind of a party would it be without the trio. Now all I needed is a grand ballroom and I found one fitted for an all stars cast. Can you spot the 3 uniques?

Don’t ask how many times I died for this picture



but that was only half the story. The fact is, that was an EUREKA moment for me, that led to series of testing and (un)related discoveries. It improved my game much, to say the least

I remember using this principle, to show Gumby (a BMN player from the Asylum, also one of the players in the first Ironman team to beat Diablo) how an Ironman mage can clear level 5 of bats with lvl 1 Charged Bolts. He, short of accusing me of cheating, just couldn't believe it and insisted I must be doing something more (even tho he was playing right beside me).

I am not sure if this info is included in the latest version of Jarulf's Guide, but he was looking at the same data around the same time I discovered E=M C Squares
Expertise = Monster Controlling Squares

Quote:KingOFPain
I have a small revealation in the monster AI

Dogs spit much less within 4 squares (inconsistent results)

Gloom (and maybe Horned demons too) won't charge within 4 squares

Witches and goat archers will run and stand at the fourth squares. Some goats will sometimes take a small pause at the second square and fire but still retreats to the fourth square after.

Quote:Jarulf
>Dogs spit much less within 4 squares (inconsistent results)

I have not finished the spit AI so I can't tell for sure. It is a bit tricky in that part. By the way, Magma and Lightning Demions uses about the same AI and so do Diablo although there are some small differences.

>Gloom (and maybe Horned demons too) won't charge within 4 squares

Correct as far as Glooms go. I have not looked at all at Horned ones. but it seems they can only charge at a distance greater than 4 as well.


>Witches and goat archers will run and stand at the fourth squares. Some goats will sometimes take a small pause at the second square and fire but still retreats to the fourth square after.

I am looking this AI right now (well, not right now, but it is the one I look at when I have time (it is the same AI and also for the fast spitters). I have it as this:

1. if not active, exit
2. if out of sight of target and it is a player, walk towards last seen location, exit
3. if last action was not ranged attack, goto 5
4. do delay for Rnd[20]/20 seconds, exit
5. if D >=4, goto 7
6. if R < 10·Intf + 70, walk away from target, exit
7. if target is within sight, do ranged attack, exit

So as you can see, if the distance (D), is below 4, the chance for waliking away is 70, 80, 90 and 100% depending on subtype. Meaning Night Clan and Soul Burners always walk away until the distance is 4 while the others at time will stop and fire. After they fire they will then always make a delay for anything from 0 frames up to 20 frames which is a second.

Hello to everyone. This is my first report, so bear with me. I've been lurking for a bit, reading others reports on the various epics and succession games, and finally decided to try my hand at one. Yeah, the report is late, but as you'll soon see, I don't really think it'll matter.

Now, before I get into the game, I already have low expectations. Very low--I don't expect to win the game, or even come close. I'll consider myself lucky if I survive to the 1500s. Why? Well, I'm a Warlord player, with random delves into Noble. Thus far, I've not managed a victory on Noble. So, suddenly jumping into an Emperor difficulty game? I don't expect things to go well.

That said, I attempt to make a plan. Obviously, trying for a diplomatic victory is the way to go, so I decide to head in that direction. But I'm derailed on that early--one of the major differences between Warlord and Emperor are the starting techs known. I was aware of the combat differences and cost differences...but for some reason that part had slipped my mind. Nevertheless, I take it in stride and move on.

I build in the starting location, scout out the starting island, and make a quick dotmap. That's one thing I've never been terribly good at, but I try. A couple of work boats get made, the first to grab some clams, the second to explore while I research towards galleys. He returns a few turns later to be replaced by a galley. The galley quickly finds and makes friends with Isabella and Suleiman. Both are Buddhist, but since I don't have religion yet, that's not a big deal. A few turns later, Buddhism does indeed spread to one of my cities, and since my plan is to try to make friends with as many as possible, I convert to get those bonuses. It takes some time to convert the rest of my cities, but I work on it.

About this time, I went on vacation, and forgot about the game--which will lead into the end game for sure. I did eventually come back to it--the day before it was due. Not that I was planning on being competitive in it, but I may as well make an effort, right?

Well, at this point, I've managed to settle my initial island, one city on a nearby island, and claim a barbarian city on that same second island. I do eventually settle another in the northern ice, but that'll be it for me. The one in the north begs to join up with Saladin at one point, and since I was having major financial troubles at the time, I agreed.

Yeah, financial troubles. I knew money would be tighter here, but the difference was a bit more than I expected. For quite a while, I was running 10%-20% science and losing money. Not as bad as it could be, but pretty bad. I ended up recovering eventually, but it took a while to get to be able to build research (only units were getting built for a while, which didn't help the money situation). Once I got there, I as able to get to Currency and Code of Laws fairly quickly, and recover from there. But...the damage was done. By the time I was able to see other people's techs, I was down 4-6 techs from everyone. And it only got worse from there. I was able to get a couple relative monopolies, and in efforts to close the gap, traded them to everyone. I got a 7 for 1 with Paper, and another tech gave me 5. Not bad, but I was still far behind the leaders.

The AIs warred a bit around me, but nothing major. Izzy had settled a city on my 'colony' -- I still hadn't spun it off yet, trying to milk the extra research out of it. Julius declared war on her, and took that city during the interturn. But Izzy had the AP, and a vote of 'stop the war' went through successfully. Second time around, she got her city back, so in the end, it was a no-gain for Rome.

Speaking of Colonization, JC was the man on this one. He spawned no less than three colonies, with Justinian and Brennus ending up beside me. Those two actually remained below me on the score chart the entire game--but it's not like I could go after them. The best unit I ever got were Musketmen, and Rome was far stronger than I was. In fact, he was the first to declare on me, but Izzy helped me out there with the AP.

The second to declare on me was Willem. Fortunately, I had a defensive pact with Izzy at the time, and she came into the war. He was far and away the leader of this game, and spent years working down my coastal defenses with Frigates (I tried to defend with my numerous Galleys, but to no avail). He never landed, but continued to work around my island working down my defenses. JC declared on me again, but it didn't last long before Izzy put a stop to that once more. Suleiman came in on the Buddhist side. For a while there, Saladin was the only one not actually at war with anyone, as everyone else came into this tense world war.

By this point, I was more than 8 techs behind Willem, and even a beeline to Mass Media wouldn't have got it for me--not to mention nearly no chance to rush the building of the UN. Willem was somewhere around 1,000 gold in the bank...and it just wasn't worth it to continue the game. I was done now, it was just a matter of waiting for him to build enough military to take me out; I wouldn't have been able to put up much of a defense. And since I had nothing he wanted enough to make peace; and he didn't have any buddhist cities, the war wasn't ending. So it was at this point that I retired (the year was 1728 AD)...I was pleased enough with my relative success in the game, having lasted well beyond the 1500 mark, and doing ok at that. Certainly not great, and I was dead last in score among the starting civilizations, but at least I was still alive at that point.

So there is the tale of my first try at Emperor. I look forward to more failed attempts--who knows, I might pull out a surprise win at some point. Thanks for reading.

Hi Everyone,

Please find below the Exec Summary of my virgin attempt at the Epic series. It was certainly an epic game and while my full report may well turn out to be a little overdue, hopefully the screen shot attached highlights how tight the game was.

My first attempt at the Epic series went down to the wire, but in the end I lost it in a space race to my ally Isabella. My intention was to win by UN diplomacy, which was in hindsight a long drawn out and volatile process, especially with the Apostolic palace, lead by the impulses of an aggressive, religious zealot in Isabella dramatically influencing results. The game will also highlight some seriously moves by the protagonist (me!!) and as well show how sometimes even the best laid plans and most cafelly thought out strategies can be brought to their knees through a combination of lassez faire management, some really poor choices and unthinking emotional outbursts at the computer (cursing in a portuguese accent of course).

Still, besides my general ineptitude the game actrually went down to the wire as I had developed a loyal bloc of 9 allies and colonies. The screen shot shows that the votes were due in the turn after Isabella won a Space race. And the results of these...well you will have to read my report to see how close it was.

I will try to post it before the end of the week!

This is a placeholder for a report which I will hopefully finish and upload within a few days.

Short summary of game:
Founded many colonies, but was unable to get enough UN votes. Spaceship loss to Julius Ceasar in 1980 (turn 611). However, I had an absolute blast. Most fun I've had losing a game in a long time.

This was a real cool concept, but I knew I wouldn't be able to finish it as I had some vacation time overlapping along with forays into SGs and the Imperia. All of the time-sink of large island maps is compounded greatly by my computer's lack of performance. I probably could have finished the game at the cost of saving and restarting civ every few turns (and restarting my computer every 5 or so cycles) but instead decided to stop at 1000AD.

Executive summary - got all of the big 4 wonders for this map type - Stonehenge, TGL, Oracle (in order to get) Colossus. Expanded pretty well with an optics beeline; by 1000AD I had most of the world mapped out and was beginning to poach islands with carracks. Was planning for flavor to spin off colonies as I got each enlightenment "idea" tech but didn't get that far. Will post some pictures and details later this week when I have time.

I didn’t have experience with colonies in civ iv since I rarely play with archipelago or terra maps, so this game was a good opportunity to learn more about this.Another thing I have to learn is to write the report during the game so it can be more detailed. I always write it on the closing day; I forget many things and base my report on the screenshots taken to remember the game. It is also somewhat boring to write the whole report in one day, so I will try to make a summary of the most important facts.

The (bonus) scoring tells me I have to win by diplomacy with as many votes as possible. So I have to settle all the way around the archipelago for colonies, tech beeline mass media and have friendship with as many AIs as possible.
I planned to tech this way by lightbulbing the late techs with great scientists and have a strong economy based on The Great Lighthouse, Pyramids and The Colossus. The Oracle would be very difficult since I planned to ignore the religious path.

Lisbon was settled in place getting clams ivory cows and plenty of forests to chop the 2 wonders. Tech path was: Hunting - AH – Sailing (early galley) – BW – Archery – Masonry – Pottery – Writing – Maths – Currency … . I preferred to wait the alphabet from AIs to share some techs. Cultural borders expanded only after libraries… Stonehenge was a possibility too but I ignored it to avoid great prophets, which in this game would help for nothing. Isabella founded Buddhism and Suleiman followed that faith, and so did I when possible. The Great Lighthouse was built in 1110BC, when I already had two cities on the eastern island (settled them early to avoid Isabella to take it). Evora was founded on Isabella’s lands, hoping for one more opportunity of colony, but I realized later I had to have 2 cities in an island to get the colony. Furthermore, later I realized that 18 was the limit of civs allowed in one game (never played with more than 12 too) Well, the inexperience with colonies…
Oporto hired two scientists as soon as it built its library and the GS came for an academy at the capital in 725BC.
I lost The Colossus in 440BC! built in the same city of The Oracle. Hmm Huayna Capac must be there… The Pyramids came in 335BC. Code of Laws was researched in a frustaded (8 turns) attempt to found Confucianism, but it allowed me to hire merchants enough (with caste system) to lightbulb Civil Service in 55AD.

After that, teching was directed to optics and I started massive building settlers.
The other civilizations were met: Rome was actually the city with Oracle, Colossus and much other wonders, Willem was the best AI civ in technology lacking civil service and optics, Victoria and Napoleon were old enemies, Saladin was obsolete with his poor land. I managed to found cities for 9 colonies (Julius Caesar got a colony too :mad: ) and another cities were found to new colonies when I realized the game already had 18 civs. This cities were gifted and this turned out to be a good move since I boosted some relations. The happy cap was not a problem due to the number of colonies (“we influence another civs”).
Talking about the tech path for mass media, I got scientific method from liberalism after lightbulbing almost entirely education and part of atronomy.




Physics and electricity were helped by another GS.

Radio and Mass Media were researched. Chemistry was lightbulbed too and later I got biology to increase population for more votes! The United Nations was built in 1665AD.

I was expecting Julius Caesar to be my opponent but actually it was Isabella, meaning I lost the votes from Izzy and Julius would abstain! At this time I was at free religion, getting the votes from willem van oranje and Suleiman who was Christian (Isabella was Buddhist). I won the secretary election with the votes from all colonies, Suleiman and Willem, but had not the enough votes for diplomatic victory. After some tech giving, Julius and Victoria became pleased with the help of representation and after 3 elections I could won with 14 votes in 1752AD.

I had no expectative of Napoleon voting for me, but Saladin and Justinian abstained, although I was waiting their votes.
Stats:

sooooo had a great idea elaborating this game and I enjoyed it very much! Thanks and sorry for the short report and the lack of images for more details of the game.