(As this is my first RBciv Epic report, critical feedback would be great. Too many screens? Too much rambling? Anyways, I hope you enjoy the read )

Preconceptions

In RB Epic 18 the object of our attention is an honorable Abe. The game is a fairly standard emperor level set up with roleplaying restrictions on Lincoln’s behaviour.

{The following section describes my pre-game analysis, if you prefer your coffee black feel free to skip to the first screenie for comparison purposes. I like pre-game analysis because its fun to see how different preconceptions are from actual gameplay.}

Anyways, highlighting a few of the more significant rules:

1) Civic restrictions (No Slavery, Theocracy, or Police State. Must adopt Emancipation.) Well, no slavery will slow down early game expansion and greatly reduce early productivity of “fishing villages”. Abe’s attributes (Charismatic, Philosophical) are fantastic for early whipping leading into a specialist driven economy, but cottages will work fine. The absence of Police State combined with the “no starvation” rule mean that late game aggressive wars could be painful. I’ll try to avoid those.

2) “A just war is one in which you are not the aggressor.”
Not being able to warmonger at will puts a premium on peaceful expansion. It’s conceivable that Abe could get boxed leading to an early loss.

The Game Plan (yes, this is before contact with the enemy )

We will run a cottage heavy economy fairly early, allowing Abe to peacefully expand via a benevolent form of manifest destiny. The start looks very promising. The map is a hemispheres map with low sea levels and one fewer AI than standard. This script should generate a lot of land for each civilization! (Unless our mapmaker is feeling especially evil this should dovetail nicely with our strategy. Now I’m having visions of being on a small, arid peninsula blocked in by Gandhi. 8) )

As I’m not a huge fan of either victory type Abe will likely steer clear of cultural and religious diplomacy VCs. Space and a UN powered diplomatic victory are likely ending goals. Domination is possible but would require some help from the AI’s.

Finally, as I’ve never played any game speed besides normal, epic speed may be interesting 2:

The Formative Era

I bet almost every report will show that the settler moved 1S onto the plains hill (mine did as well). Marble!

The early tech path is mining -> bronze working-> wheel -> pottery

As the whip is unusable, early production acceleration will depend on building lots of useful stuff out of wood.

Build order is worker -> warrior -> warrior ->worker (chopped) -> settler (chopped) -> settler (chopped).

By 1550BC America the young looks like



There is already a lot of interesting gameplay. We’ve met Buddhist Justinian and Hindu Boudica. Well, it wont be an always peace game (Note that as of now Abe has no idea how close either leader’s territory is (more on this in moment)).

In my experience, Justinian is a very strong warmonger and competent techer. Boudica has Monty Jungle Fever.

-We’ve chopped all the forests in Washington’s BFC and it’s already unhealthy

-Priesthood is two turns away and the marble is being quarried.

-We still don’t know how to breed animals -- slowing down the growth in Boston and New York

-All four cities are nicely located on rivers!

New York has access to copper and is tapped to be our military city, but Abe want to make a play at building the oracle there first. If we miss it we’ll still get a nice pile of gold thanks to the marble.

More troubling is the thick fog of war. Why hasn’t Abe mapped the surrounding area? This is important, especially considering the variant! I don’t know if it’s due to the large land area or epic game speed but this is the tale of Abe’s brave scouts:



All told I believe 3 out of the first 5 warriors were mercilessly slaughtered, despite sticking to defensive terrain. RNG is a cruel deity. The remaining two warriors stayed at home until bronze weapons became available. (I don’t recall any Immortal games being this infested, barring the “barbarian invasion” event).

Even our cities were not safe. (Luckily this axeman knows how to wield his weapon)



One of Washington’s hamlets was pillaged, but the rest of our precious tiles survived the early onslaught.

In 1250BC the oracle is successfully completed. (It can fall sooner so I was quite pleased). We choose monarchy.

Why monarchy? Well we didn’t want code of laws because we don’t plan on building courthouses anytime soon (we can’t whip them and they are slow to build). In fact despite being charismatic and having a gold mine hooked up, Washington and Boston have very high growth potential and will need more happiness soon (we can’t whip, see a pattern yet ) In preparation for monarchy we’ve avoided researching hunting so that cheap warriors can act as urban pacification agents. We see wines on the board as well.

Speaking of wine, our scouts (axes, this time!) have located Justinian’s territory near to the east. So we attack.

Well, with settlers anyways =)



Part of what makes Civ4 such a beautifully rich game is the many ways to do the same thing. In this case that’s wage cultural wars. While Abe has not yet decided whether to befriend Justinian, there is a distinct chance that our cities will fight a prolonged cultural skirmish. Options that would allow us to win (or at least draw) the culture wars are:

1) Build a high value cultural building in the BC’s. Typically a wonder (though the Arabian madrassa, at +4 base culture, works well too). After 1000 years base culture doubles, so speed is key here.

2) Run artist specialists, either from a theatre or via the caste system. (The downside is potentially generating sub-standard artist GPs, and eating into a cities food surplus.)

3) Build the Sistine Chapel and adopt a state religion. Religious buildings of that state religion get a massive + 5 base culture. (All specialists also get + 2 culture for an additional small boost.)

4) Roll a creative civilization. (This one might not work so well for us )

Abe is not yet committed to any cultural works program.

Scouting north we find very juicy land, though infested with barbarian cities.



Approaching the turn of the millennium Abe decides to not antagonize Justinian just yet (we have the option of switching to Judaism, and becoming a religious renegade). So the focus now is to claim the northern land, and assess the border war situation.

The cultural situation is not so great. Although both Chicago and Atlanta have a food resource in their BFCs (rice) they have fallen under Byzantine influence. A city without a food resource is still workable, but the difference is massive.

So Abe decides to do the following:

1) Research Aesthetics -> Literature -> Music
2) Build the Parthenon in Atlanta
3) Build the Sistine Chapel in a high production city

Around this time Abe uses his first great person (a priest from the oracle) to inspire a golden age. Later an academy is built in Washington and the free great artist from Music is combined with a scientist to start GA number two.

The Honorable Empire in 55 AD (We earned the title “honorable” because is a standard game a DoW would have been sent Justinian’s way)



Above you can see that the Great Library is being built in Washington (later I’ll wish I’d built it in Boston instead *oh well*).

We have a small force of axes that autorazes one of the northern barbarian cities and that captures another along the coast (Chinook, my first coastal city!). This expedition has the side effect of garnering enough combat lore to enable the creation of a Heroic Epic (New York. Thanks again marble ).

In ~100ad one of Abe’s ministers reports back from Boudica’s palace that she is planning her own expedition (WHEOOH). I’m not sure if she counts raiding barbarian cities highly enough to return this message (anyone know if WHEOOH applies to planning attacks on barbarian cities?). She certainly has been capturing them regularly! Abe is reasonably a little nervous, and promptly sends two nearby scouts to peruse Celtic territory:



The scouts report seeing mobile archers, axes, catapults, and gaellic warriors, but no large offensive force.

Abe recalls his barbarian axe hunters and moves his active army towards Celtic borderland just in case.

In 190ad Boudica the Bold declares was on Justinian the Buddhist!

Now Abe has held his cards close to his chest up to this point. (We have some + diplo modifiers with both leaders, but officially remain at “cautious”. As I interpret the “assist friend in time of need request” the requester must be at Pleased or greater.)

Note: After re-reading Sullla’s clarification of the above rule it looks like I took a more narrow definition. My version is:

1) Requester must be at Pleased+ for an allowable declaration.
2) If the requester makes peace then I must immediately make peace, unless tribute is demanded.
3) Additionally, I added the rule: “The only time Abe is allowed to bribe someone into a war is if Abe is already engaged in that war, and the new entrant is at Pleased+ diplomatic status with Abe.”

I’m happy with my version, as there was still plenty of potential for action. (And in my first RBciv report I’d rather be too conservative than break any rules ).

Ok, back to the action. Boudica DoWs Justinian. Abe has the option to adopt either Hinduism or Buddhism, their respective religions. After carefully considering the consequences Abe decides that Justinian is a better long term friend. He will be a better trading partner, and he is already somewhat boxed in. (By America in the west and Celtia in the north).

So Abe declares Buddhism as the official religion of America. Immediately Justinian is “Pleased”.

And in 220ad



Of course we would be willing to help our friends. By this point Boudica has already lost her initial stack of Gaellics/Axes/Cats in Byzantine territory.

We march our expeditionary force of city raider axes into Celtic territory and snag the former barbarian city of Yue-Chi. But there is a problem:



Umm. Not good. Boudica immediately approaches with a small stack of chariots and catapults. Remember that brilliant plan of building hammer frugal warriors as military police? Well, we can still build them …

Justinian is called into an emergency conference and we quickly learn the techniques of hunting and construction (for aesthetics + monarchy?). Still, spears are going to be arriving far too late for this battle.

Abe ends up keeping all but one of his city raider axes outside of Yue-Chi. Luckily Boudica happily plays along and moves her entire stack of chariots into the city where they are slaughtered on defense. We would have to repeat this tactic one more time before the war was over. Peace breaks out in 520ad. Yue-Chi is the only city to change hands. Unfortunately, Justinian managed to found the annoying city of Laodicea in the cultural gaps. (Hey, you were supposed to be boxed in :mad: ).



During the war, and in its immediate aftermath, Abe has been aggressively settling northwards, as well as building any marble wonders that fall in his tech path.

In 550ad:



Our economy is feeling the strain of adding such far flung cities to the Empire (we are in the red at 20% science, and, more importantly, our beakers per turn is actually declining).

In hindsight, I think I was a little too aggressive with the ReX as these cities took a long time to become productive. Having too few workers didn’t help. (Actually, I did have about 1.5 workers/city -- which is usually enough, but in this game I could have found productive work for 2.5 workers/city. I’m curious if others had similar problems.)

Nonetheless, I did manage to find productive capacity necessary to build the marble wonders:

Oracle, Parthenon, Great Library, Mausoleum of Maussollos, and Sistine. Too many wonders (and not enough workers)? Perhaps, though all were built for a specific purpose.

Continued in the next post ...

Politically correct title for Yet Another Dumb Variant Idea. A Jack-of-all-trades character, who naturally masters none.

You can equip only one skill per attribute line. So a monk bar would have one healing, one protection, one smiting, and one divine favor skill.

One non-attribute skill is allowed... res signet counts here.

PvE skills are banned. Option: they count as your one non-attribute skill. Blessings and mimicing blessings aren't allowed since they fill your skill bar.

Version A- all your attributes must be at the same level as each other, after rune bonuses.
Version B- all your primary class attributes must be the same level as each other. All your secondary class attributes must be the same level as each other. Signet of Illusions is banned
Option- exempt primary attributes (strength, energy storage etc.) from these restrictions. Or maybe just for the five-attribute classes (elementalist and warrior)

Version C- any attribute distribution you like, but you can't have more than 6 (or 7?) in any attribute.

This should lead to some really wacky builds...

I don't have time for a full report due to travel and work; expect that later this week. This was a very relaxed game; with no scoring I wasn't obsessively micromanaging like I did in the last epic or likely will in Dutch Masters.

Played all-peacefully and managed a UN diplo win in 1750something. As I expect will happen in every other game, Justinian and Boudica founded and stuck with the two early religions, and I was very surprised (but happy) that they didn't come to blows until 1200AD or so. Justinian really pumped out settlers and got a number of city sites I wanted but due to having only 5 opponents I could still peacefully settle a productive empire. Usefully for me, Justinian had a strip of land isolating me from Boudica so I felt very safe after adopting his religion. Other continent was all Christian; Ragnar had warred with Joao until the latter's capitulation - by the time I met them all were mutually Friendly. All three were way far behind in tech, so was Boudica; Justinian was the best AI but I also bribed him with some good tech to make peace with Boudica a few times to prevent the war from going to capitulation.

After building the UN it took a few tries to seal the victory. I lost Boudica's vote due to refusal to stop trading and go to war with Justinian (another reason I bribed the wars to end, to keep too many of those demerits from adding up) and Justinian was my rival. Through trade relations, ditching my religion late in the game, and adopting Hereditary Rule (favorite civic for all 3 other-continent leaders) I was eventually able to get the votes of the whole other continent;

Epic Eighteen is now open for reporting. Please post your reports in the Tournament Discussion subforum.

Heya all!! I haven't been in GW a lot lately and when I am, I always enjoy saying hi to my Realms Beyond buddies and WarBlade always keeps me well-informed about "The Guild" webisode lol! I was reading in the Nudist area (woohoo) that Drasca is going to go out and hunt down pirates and ninjas for a while - or something like that - and it got me to thinking that I had posted this video on our forums, and hadn't shared it with you all!!! I am sure a good many of you get the channel G4 - I like to call it my "nerd fix channel" - they have gaming news, electronics, etc etc....and ALSO quite a few gems of game shows from Japan!! One of the most popular is Ninja Warrior (called Sasuke over there) - it has been on the air for over 11 years, and in all that time only TWO guys have beaten the whole thing! It is divided into 4 stages which are increasingly difficult - and they change it up every year it seems! (The production meetings must sound like....."oh wow some guy ALMOST made it to the end of stage 3 even though he whacked his skull and nearly drowned in the muddy water.....it must be WAY too easy now....so instead of just plain impossible, let's make it SUPER impossible!")
ANYhow - the last guy to win it is Makoto Nagano.....he is a fisherman and the captain of his own fishing vessel....you should see this guy TRAIN for Sasuke....he does *handstands* on the mast!!!! He is the one guy to finally put to rest whether or not Ninjas or Pirates are cooler......he just seems to embody BOTH!! And so, besides being the best super-athlete in the world after winning Sasuke 17....I think his new title should be the REAL Ninja Pirate! (pausing for sympathy laughter)
This is a YouTube clip someone put together of all 4 stages of only Nagano - no subtitles, this is the original Japanese version - he just makes it look so EASY! (my 4 yr old LOOOOOOVES this show and knows ALL the guys who are regulars by NAME - it is so funny to hear him rattling off all these Japanese names like he is buddies with them! He even makes our entire house into a giant obstacle course - so CUTE!)

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Bede mentioned there should be a thread in the RB general forum which has instructions on how to setup Ventrilo to balance everyone's volumn. I can't find it, can some one point me there or re-post it here? Currently for me, the volumn of some of us are very loud and some soft. And some one mentioned my voice is too soft and yet others said I'm ok.

Thank you in advance.

Well, it's Friday, and I'm not ashamed (too much) to say that my female toons all have a basic shirt and jeans in their stash , and so a half-baked idea occurs to me. You could say my goal here is a "relaxed fit" variation on the nudist concept.

The basic thought is that characters could choose to "go casual" either as a lifelong restriction or a simple weekly event for normal characters. For obvious reasons, this would not be limited strictly to casual items. Perhaps a better line of thought would be "undercover".

There would be no restrictions except equipable base items.

Any casual item is encouraged when possible. Dye kits are fine.

The heart of the matter is, what other base items are OK, and what are too blatantly militant? This could be tricky, especially at high levels. Cricket bats and peg leg are good. Harp pistols and grapplers are good. Most boots and gloves are going to be OK, although more casual styles would be preferred. Hats that cover most or all of the face probably aren't going to work. Guns that could be tucked or holstered should be OK... this is an apocalyptic world so even the every day Joe is going to carry some heat. Shields, slow swords, 2 handed guns, etc. aren't going to work. Not sure about focus items, but at least some seem necessary.

Hrm, time for work. More on this later hopefully.

ARGH

I have the new computer up and running. There were numerous issues with getting it going, but I thought I had all the bugs thoroughly squashed.

However, I just crashed the computer in HG:L for the second time. :mad:

This first happened as I got to the character selection screen, and I got the following message:

Quote:Follow these steps to troubleshoot problems with NVIDIA Graphics Driver

This problem was caused by NVIDIA Graphics Driver, which was created by NVIDIA Corporation. Currently, there is no solution for the problem that you reported.

Troubleshooting


The following troubleshooting steps might prevent the problem from recurring.

1. Check for an updated version of NVIDIA Graphics Driver on Windows Update:
   
   Click to open Windows Update
   
   
2. If there are no updated drivers listed on Windows Update, go online to the NVIDIA Corporation website to check for an updated driver:
   
   NVIDIA Corporation
   
   Note: If you are currently running the latest version of NVIDIA Graphics Driver and still experience the problem, we recommend that you contact NVIDIA Corporation for additional information and support.
   
   
3. If NVIDIA Graphics Driver was preinstalled on your computer, you might also want to check the computer manufacturer's website for an updated version of NVIDIA Graphics Driver.
   

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GlassTiger just got the first Test quest open up, at 34-5. GT isn't too happy being so old and still hanging around in normal diff - too many SH runs - He is about 4 lvls too high to experience the game as the game is "balanced" for.

IIRC, Nougan, Shadow, CB anb Bede all have a toon at or near Liverpool Street Station. How about we hook up this Saturday and get all the Test quests done, and Sydonai for a BBQ party this Sunday (after our normal Sunday meet) ?

KoP

Sullla has sponsored a new gentle adventure featuring everyone's new favorite leader Willem. The goal of the game if to have to highest combined beaker and culture output on ONE SINGLE TURN. Micro-management experts, rejoice!

More information on the game can be found here: http://realmsbeyond.net/civ/c4tourney/adv28.html