Swiss Pauli Wrote:I’d be surprised if we see a game without a Great Wall gambit.

Very brief summary: I forgot I had to meet customers tonight, so no time to upload the pics for the report.

GW gambit => Mids => High food => SE => CV in 1864.

The pics will be added to the report tomorrow evening

Just so we don't keep mailing dead toons stuff

AliceCo-oper (v.2)
Evok - alive lvl4

10FeetTallAlice (v.2)
Guardian - alive lvl11

AliceBrock
Engineer. lvl9
Is/was a mule, good name for a mule.
"You can get anything you want..." Google Alice Brock if you don't know who that is.

PS: please update if your toon died and have not re-created or deleted. Mail to hell is costly.

KoP

Hi,
just a quick report, since I rather read the reports of other players than bore you with mine.
I don't play alot of games due to time shortage, so I don't know what to expect from boreal map, immortal AI & raging barbs.
So I played probably too conservative.

I moved the scout east and decided to settle 1 E of the orignal spot for the addtional deer.
In my game Lincoln was the founder of Hinduism.
I never built it before, so I went for the Great Wall as a protection from the barbs. Year was 1880BC. I had my second city up by then.
The Pyramids next in 450BC.

I could not keep pace with the AI speed and was enclosed in my corner by Lincoln. I only managed to get up to five cities in that confined space with one late-time four-tile exclave in American territory.
The good news is that Lincoln and me were on good relations (+25 towards the end) all the time and he completely shielded me from the more aggressive AIs.
We were in defensive pacts and mutual wars for many many turns. Too late did I realize that Permanent Alliances are still an option that was not active for that game. I was aiming for that. So the realization really was a showstopper for me.

Towards the end I was fighting a loosing cultural battle against Lincolns encroachment.

Lincoln, HC & Pericles were the dominant AIs in my game. Lincoln was full speed ahead for a space race victory, when Pericles surprised everyone (well, should have checked the victory conditon screen more often) with a Cultural Victory in 1960.
I am confident, that with a PA in place Lincoln and me would have finished the spaceship sooner.
Ah, well.
Still enjoyed the game.
With only 5 hours invested it was one of my quick games really. (small empires do have their plus points for the real life)

Summary:
Cultural Defeat in 1960AD.

mh

Settle in place.

Bronzeworking-> archery -> agriculture

Worker first->barracks->archer

Find we're in the extreme upper left.

Pop gold, gold, gold, gold, scout(!), and the wheel (!!!) from huts

First barb archer (well to the south) in 3120bc - loose both scouts next turn to animals

Turn 27 - first barb archer enters our land

turn 28 - first military unit is built

Turn 29 - Barb archer moves to pillage hooked-up dear, our archer moves to cover

IT - barb archer wins 9% battle and kills our archer

Turn 30 - I see our size 2 city that has been building an archer can NOT slave another one because I forgot to revolt to slavery. Oops.

Turn 31 - I loose when the barn walks into my empty city.

Extreme Adventure 29 Game Report

Pre-Game Thoughts (and misconceptions?)

Setup
Stalin
Immortal
Raging Barbs
Boreal Map

‘nuff said, really.

I really like the scenario design (based on the info page). The idea of a frozen Siberia-like landscape headed by Stalin is too good to pass up. Visions of Russian Gulag style forced labor means that slavery will feel very natural for a change. Besides, everyone knows that an invasion of Russia during winter is doomed … hopefully our local raging barbarians read history too.

I’ve played three test games {with Stalin/Immortal/Boreal/Raging Barbs} to ~500bc and expect a few things.

-There will be lots of reindeer, sheep, wheat, and gems. But little else.
-Raging barbarians don’t mess around, they will start hitting hard before 2500bc
-Stalin has fantastic traits/starting techs for making a run at the great wall
-Health and especially happy caps will be low
-The AI is slowed considerably

I would *really* like to see a game played without building the great wall, but if the start looks promising I’m going all out for it – it’s obscenely powerful for this game type.

An early rush doesn’t make too much sense as there will be plenty of mediocre city sites, and early military will be on barb duty. In fact this game may even lend itself to some old fashioned wonder spamming.

Thawing Stalin

Well, the revealed tiles leave something to be desired, even for a boreal map. I’m willing to gamble and “chase the river” a bit, at the cost of a turn or two. I have absolutely no idea if it paid off, but it’s nice to start next to deer tiles. Agriculture can be delayed (I hope the gods-who-look-over-those-who-foolishly-try-for-early-wonders are on our side this day).

Moscow is Born:



Research is set to bronze working, and initial build to a worker. Our scout finds some gold along with a fellow scout. After only 5-6 turns of research our second scout locates a tribal group wielding dull metal tools



Thanks! Masonry is selected next, and our chances at the great wall are looking better yet.

Moscow builds worker->warrior->warrior. Just before the second warrior is complete the first barbarians raise their fists, brandishing their bows :wow:



Both my warriors move onto the forested camp and Stalin calls back a scout to help. One warrior wins and the other looses. The surviving archer kills my scout and my wounded warrior but a newly trained warrior saves the city – the deer camp is pillaged.

More warriors are trained and by 2480bc I’ve built 6 warriors, lost 4, and killed 5 barbarian archers. Luckily, it looks like I won’t loose this game just yet; our salvation is at hand:



Building Stalin a Campfire

With the great wall done we slowly expand to four cities. I’m using stacks of two warriors to scout – they seem to survive a bit better than the lonely variety.


I’m trying to chop out a fairly late oracle, it works and we choose monarchy. I considered metal casting since we are industrious and have gems, but hereditary rule is just too attractive. The pyramids are still open too – I suspect they will play a part in someone’s game, but not mine.

A great spy is born, who is promptly instructed to use his guile to scout and avoid barbarian patrols.

Many warriors are trained, allowing several cities to grow quickly. Stalin’s domain in 1ad:




Plains cottaging and research building (we know alpha) has allowed the Russian Empire to build a small tech lead (I’ve done zero tech trades so far this game):



Looking ahead to the coming years I see no reason to halt our peaceful expansion. Three settlers are currently under production. Snagging the southern marble means that a run at a few marble wonders is in order. The Great Library and the Mausoleum of Maussollos would be ideal.

Warming Stalin’s Cold Heart

A newly built settler and her sword escort run into an unguarded goody hut in 400ad. Does this count as luck?



The free great artist is born. Our marble proves to be a real boon, helping along the construction of the Parthenon, Mausoleum of Maussollos, The Great Library, and our two Epics.

Moscow is developing nicely:



Stalin is feeling imperious these days, and commissions a giant statue in his likeness:



By 1000ad our corner of the known world has mostly been settled:



Preparations for an invasion of America are under way. (I always enjoy playing against a leader that I’ve played recently. Let’s see how honorable Lincoln does this time around, shall we?)

Research is going well and most of the Russian core is at (or slightly above) the current health cap.

Adventure 29 - Winter Wasteland

I was excited about this event since I missed the Azteskimos adventure the first time around. This time we're on a higher difficulty level (immortal) but on the plus side it's not just us that gets the crappy terrain because we're on a boreal map. If I was sensible I'd have loaded a few boreal maps to see what they're like. I didn't, but after playing the game I can tell you: Lots of tundra, forests, plains and deer. Very little grassland, no jungle or floodplains. There is also a lack of resources, since there is no gold, silver, wine, calendar happy resources etc. Basically there's a lot of deer, a moderate smattering of gems and a few sheep, corn, occasional fur. It's a rectangular map similar to highlands.

Oh, and it's raging barbs. This is awkward - barbs are pretty bad anyway on highlands and I was expecting them to be a pain here on boreal too. But immortal, raging barbs? Eeek.

Note that there isn't a particularly good reason that I didn't build the great wall. I just didn't think about it. I don't think I've ever built that wonder before actually. Maybe I should.

I think the first tech is fairly obvious: archery for barb defence. I moved the settler a few squares. Normally I like to settle on the spot but all those tundra squares meant the capital was a bit rubbish. I wandered south. I wanted to find a spot where I had a couple of deer in the first ring, not the second. This is because there's a period of time where barbs won't enter your borders unless you have something pillagable on the second ring. So if your first food improvements are in the first ring you'll be safe from the barbs that little while longer. I settled here:



The early game with raging barbs is not much fun. You are just building archer after archer, hoping to fogbust and keep your capital safe. However, those fogbusters on immortal soon cost you in unit supply. My early targets for city sites were the gems sites, as they could pay for themselves. There was plenty of food out there, the problem was a lack of grassland to cottage and the barb threat to deal with. The plan was to run cottages at the plains city sites, and at the tundra sites to just improve the food/gems resources, whip a library and run a couple of scientists. My first 3 cities had to be close to the capital to defend them, so I could not grab any gems yet. They went here:



I expanded a little more, and as usual my science goes down to losing money at 10% science. Unfortunately I have to raze this city for some cash, and would rebuild it later on.



One of those WHACKY events reveals oil to us!



The main issue on this map is hapiness. The only hapiness resource we have in our corner of the map is gems! That's +2 happy with a forge. There is fur in other parts of the map which I can trade for later. But for now it seems obvious to me that monarchy is a high priority. So I research it, but it's a little slow to arrive making +1GPT at 0% science.



When it finally came in I revolted to hereditary rule and traded it for alphabet. Now that I secured a marble city I decided to persue the great library for some academies in my plains cottage cities.



By 1000AD I had almost filled out my segment of the map. There was a natural ridgeline separating me from Pericles. My two immediate neighbours, Justinian and Lincoln, were both the same religion as me and friendly. So it seemed that the best path forward was to tech onwards peacefully.

I researched Music and snagged the free Great Artist who started a golden age for my civilisation. Golden ages are quite a bit better when you have a load of plains cottages compared to grass cottages.

Two wonders complete in consecutive turns to ramp up my great scientist production:



I am first to liberalism. The final three cities are also now founded.



I took nationalism with it and built the Taj Mahal. Note I am also at (phoney) war with HC because my good buddy (and religious nutcase) Justinian asked me.

I headed to early democracy, both to get the statue of liberty:



and to get access to emancipation. That's a great civic for us since we don't really need slavery with our plains for production, and our cottages will grow very quickly now.

Shortly afterwards I got biology. This was the first time I had really used the forest preserves. Preserving those otherwise useless tundra forests gave me enough hapiness to abandon HR for representation to supercharge my statue of libery. Biology also let me build a national park in a tundra forest wasteland and get 9 free specialists!

It was about this time that the AIs went a bit crazy. Genghis had been beating up Victoria, and capitulated her. Also Justinian became a peacetime vassal of Pericles (who was the best performing AI in this game). I wasn't too pleased, but there was nothing I could do. Then Genghis declared on (I think) Justinian and the first of many world wars began. Next turn HC piled in on his neighbour Victoria (the weakest AI) for good measure.



I prioritised mecicine and revolted to environmentalism. That's a civic I usually adopt for my BTS space races, since factories and coal plants are now much more unhealthy. As a side effect they make forest preserves worth working. Not that I actually had any coal. I had neither coal nor aluminium - this wasn't going to be a quick space race in terms of production.

In the crazy AI quintet, peace errupted. A big vassal switcheroo occurred: Genghis fared predicably badly against Pericles and became his vassal. Justinian made gains against victoria, renounced the protection of Greece and became master of Victoria, who had become a free state for a short while after Genghis capitulated. Following OK there?

Meanwhile I was teching away quite nicely, looking on with my buddhist pal Lincoln at the mental AIs. Just as I had started the space techs Pericles had had enough with his former ally and declared war on Justinian. That also brought Genghis and Victoria in. HC, ever the opportunist, declared on Vicky too. World War 2 began.



OK, after a lot of fighting, which mainly consisted of Pericles and his puppy dog Genghis beating the crap out of Justinian and Victoria (who got wiped out), Justinian capitulated to Pericles. This put Pericles at war with both HC and Genghis now, and my explorer watched plenty of entertaining fights in what I dubbed World War 3.



Meanwhile, I was busy building a spaceship.



After the final space part tech is researched we are still in a golen age so I revolted to universal suffrage to boost production. I took this fella along with me to the stars:



And we win a space victory in 1930 AD, yay!



Only one other AI had built the apollo program, and hadn't built any parts yet. A few graphs:



After dealing with the barbs, the rest of the game was OK. I presume the AIs had their fair share of barb problems. Also my land was pretty nice for the map type since I could block off a large area for myself with a couple of cities. I noticed I built a lot more cottages than the AIs, who had more farms than me. Thanks for the game!

Got the report done...

http://www.dos486.com/civ4/adv29/

Summary - Cultural Victory in 1880 AD. Went for the Great Wall and then turtled the whole way.

Well, no report. No excuse really, except I am burnt out on writing reports (better than being burnt out on CIV itself!). I did a full out Great Wall beeline, it was the perfect civ for it. I mean, an all land map with Raging Barbarians . It let me expand peacefully to six well located cities capable of running 2+ specialists. All that tundra forest turned into the Pyramids, Great Library, and several other wonders I can't recall. Took out Lincoln in two wars. First war was Maceman vs. Archers and second was Rifles vs. Longbows. Won a space race victory in the late 19th century, if memory serves (I wrote it down somewhere, I'll dig it up for the summary).

Darrell

The link:

the report

Do tell if the link is not working properly.