RosemaryThyme, lvl 6 Guardian - This was one tough fight with double the reward. But it is not something you would want right at the entrance of a level with nowhere to run, and not when you are playing HC.
Filed it under Bugs

Start-move warrior, decide to settle 1NE of original. Want to be able to build levees way down the line. Also think I see a FP I can pick up and I'm right.

3360-Early exploration with warrior reveals a lot of pretty cruddy land to the east. Eaten by a bear. I know a big decision point will come soon, if I want the GL I need to settle a coastal city and with this coast in the south there may be a good enough site. But I'm more worried about losing the oracle if I do that. Early research - myst + mining, worker done, starting henge.



2960-finish AH, see horses. After some consideration, pasture them before pigs (saves a worker turn of mvmt).

2680-henge nearly done, masonry researched. Question over oracle - to take MC, need to research one of med/poly, priest, BW, pottery, and not sure what best order is. There's also the appeal of founding Judaism and getting org rel. BW is not so high priority; with horses in capital copper has gotta be real unlikely. Hmmm...decide to research poly first.

2600-Henge is in! 1st wonder. Start GW.

Decide to go BW after poly. Thinking is that grabbing MC with oracle gives me an easy +25% production same as org rel. Instincts are proved right when judiasm is founded distantly only around 5 turns later, much earlier than I would have gotten it. Paris is unhappy at size 6, divert for police warrior for 2 turns.

2160-GW done, 2 down. 5 turn settler possible - wow. Build chariot to scout for settler locations; need to wait until priesthood is researched.

1720-Oracle a few turns from done, should finish same time as pottery allowing me to take MC. Settler and chariot wandering around, haven't really seen a good spot yet. There's one that could claim copper, cow and silver but has no other food source and not much else to recommend.

1560-Oracle done, #3. I'm conceding the great lighthouse most likely. I see a decent city spot getting the cow, copper, 3 grassland hills which will have just enough land to work those 3, and on the coast so it can build the colossus. But there's no rush to get that wonder going so I'm gonna explore the FP to my east. Still no contact, what is going on here? This was pangaea right?

1520-Finally a neighbor. Glad it's someone super-peaceful like MM. Hmmm, wonder if he's more a threat to take wonders than an industrious leader due to his good tech speed? Anyways, need to settle assertively to stake my claim and keep him off my end.



1480-move onto plains hill E of FP, see more malinese borders. Probably gonna settle here. Got GP in capital, think he'll be more useful than GSpy. Settling is good, or should I save him to bulb theology? Mansa's a heathen so that might be the quickest way to get religion. Would have to research meditation, writing (which I'm on) and monotheism I believe.

1120-oh crap, I tell my chariot escorting 2nd built settler to move two spaces, he attacks a warrior in a forest and loses. Have to retreat settler while wait for a new escort.

900BC-mono done, revolt to org rel+slavery, despite not having a religion yet. Will research med and bulb theo.

875-third city founded. I get one of these annoying and clearly wrong things, annoying about the new patch.



700-Just surprises me offereing Alpha for MC. I decline as I'm a ways from locking up the colossus.

675-meditation done, bulb theo. Christianity founded in Orleans - best place as it's gonna be fighting culture battle against Mali! Great luck!.

400-Temple of Artemis done. Very surprised GL not gone yet - maybe I should switch to sailing? 2nd GP born, settle in capital, allows raising of sci sldier back to 70%.

225-I lose the pyramids!?!. Never seen them go before GL before, damn.

900AD - wow, got into a "zone" and forgot anything to write down. have researched thru CS and going after music. No more wonders lost except for GL; this is annoying as I could have surely gotten it if I wasn't so sure it was gonna get taken by someone else.
Religion has given me fits; Mansa converted away to Hindu and Just to buddhism; tried send several missionaries to Just but couldn't switch him back. I went back to no religion which prevented me from building the AP for a long time. When I went back I chose Judaism instead of my own Christianity; there were two Jewish civs and no Christians. Then realize that AP can only be built in my one Jewish city, so building slower than capital there (this was all spurred by Just adopting Theocracy, telling me the clock was ticking). I'm furious that Just hasn't sent me a Buddhist missionary - I'm not worried about Mansa attacking but Just might, and the shared faith bonus should prevent that. Also, Just hates Mansa due to religion, so I've been reluctant to take advantage of the person who should be my #1 tech swapper. I'm running Theo for diplo bonus with Just. Plan is to use the GA from Music for a golden age, use that to get ahead and revolt into free religion anarchy-free after finishing AP (Hey, I'm actually going to take advantage of Shwedagon!). Probably research Philo next, Pacal has it so I'm worried about Angkor Wat. After trading for machinery, also should go engineering for Notre Dame, consider divine right as well.

920 - While taking a break, it crosses my mind that I can't pick up Buddhism while in Theocracy. Fortunately that will change soon. Unfortunately, Just just finished the AP! I'm thinking that I've horribly screwed this up; losing a wonder I had a tech for dozens of turns before any AI is just awful, even though this was largely due to my religion problems. Also BTW, I've settled two prophets and one engineer in Paris.

Finally, another byproduct of this religious disorganization is that I'm reluctant to tech trade at all. Every single AI is hated by one or two others, so any deals get me a relations demerit.

940-Great Library done in Paris, building Nat'l Epic. Ironworks is probably gonna be the 2nd national wonder.

960-Trade CS, Lit, and Mus to Just for Feud+Machinery. Gift lit to Willem so I can trade him Mus for construction next turn. These trades are all pissing off only Sury, who's far away and score is plunging, so I'm not too worried. Traded CS as I saw MM was researching it.

980-Pacal adopts Bureacracy, nice timing to trade away CS the last turn. Trade Music to Willem for Construction, see two AIs already have Engineering - not good. Pop gems from a mine - very good, that's another +2 happy for all! Free religion adopted during the GA GA.

1010-Another great prophet, consider bulbing DR but settle instead.

1040-Asoka offers dyes for my extra sheep, sweet. Bad news is Just declared on Mansa; sigh, more relations demerits with both of them after they ask me for help. Maybe I'll get lucky and the AP people will stop the fighting. Having to research engineering myself as not enough AIs have it to trade.

1050-Sistine in, start A.Wat. Start researching DR before Engin is done on the slim chance that 1) an AI will finish Engin and I can trade for it or 2) ND is built somewhere else. Will switch back in time for capital to start ND as soon as AW done.

1070-Sweet, MM and Just sign peace before either asks me to join in!
1080-See a buddhist missionary in my territory! I hope it does somethign before my GA ends. I'm thinking of gambling and switching to OR now.

1100-GA ends, AW done-nice. Engin in (wasn't able to trade) and ND underway, back to researching DR. I did gamble and won, was able to switch to OR and then to Buddhism in the last turns of the GA, excellent. Settle yet another GP in capital, those hammers are gonna be a big part of my production by the end...I've trained a nice army of maces, not big but enough to keep any random DOW's, and Just should be pleased due to same faith fairly soon (though I do have a close borders that of course is because he put a city near me in a stupid location full of tundra and nothing).

1140-DR done, great! hopefully the AI's will avoid it giving me plenty of time to finish its wonders (Versailles can't be built in the capital so it will take a while...)

1150-I lose ND! Shit! Really sad to lose a historically French wonder...start spiral minaret in capital. Hey, I have a religion again so it might be useful! Willem has paper which I'm researching so I'll switch to USankore before finishing SM.

My first report *speaks with a heavy french accent was an interesting marathon of mmmmmadness. I haven't started with the print screens- nor do I have a web page to post but I will résume it ze best I can....

So to start off- the choice of leaders! Who best then our beloved French leader DeGaulle to want to hog all the worlds wonders in the motherland! France being the center of the universe and all- that would be normal of course!

The land layout was rather hard I found- my dot mapper was not a happy camper. I found my progression good in this game up to the renaissance period where the usual pain- Mansa Musa put his tech machine into gear- that's when the late wonders started falling. Got most of the early to mid wonders.
I only got attacked once- unfortunately and got forced out of the war that I wanted to continue by the apostolic palace vote to end the war- which I had buyilt by the way but didn't control! (keeping that one fresh for future games) So I never got the large land gained needed to push through fast in the industrial and modern age.

Final tally was 20 wonders and a 2017 space race victory....

As always, here are the comments I wrote before the game closed:

http://www.garath.net/Sullla/Civ4/comments.html#Adv24

I was surprised that the AI didn't put up a bit more of a fight. Mortius' report was instructive in this regard; when planning the game, I never considered that the lack of stone and marble resources would cause the AI to build fewer wonders! That's a case of Blake's AI being so smart, it screwed with the concept of the scenario.

I also overestimated the performance of the Monarch AIs a bit. In Beyond the Sword, Monarch difficulty simply isn't as hard as it was in the standalone version of Civ4. (The AI is smarter, but it gets fewer bonuses. Losing the starting worker is the biggest factor.) Much of my thinking is heavily influenced by the older, non-expansion versions of the game; I've only completed two games with Beyond the Sword, compared to about 50 with the original game. Old habits die hard!

Still, I'm not unhappy with the way the game went. All of the 34/34 games were extremely well played, and if a bit of luck sometimes broke their way, so be it. The scoring actually proved quite competitive, with a lot of 30+ scoring games. Most importantly, just about everyone sounded like they had a great deal of fun while playing, which was the real goal for this relaxing game.

So thanks for playing, and I've thoroughly enjoyed reading all of your reports. If you liked this game, you may want to try Ruff's new game (Adv. 25) or the game that sooooo will be opening sometime in the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned...

Expanded to 3 cities early with my coastal city at the nice floodplain site 10 or so tiles east. Oracle -> Metalcasting slingshot, most GPs settled, Theology bulbed via prophet. Some AI beat me to the great lighthouse at about 600 BC, but after that I prioritized wonder enabling techs and cleaned everything else up. Too disappointed with missing the clean sweep to try and extract the relevant info from my save and report properly as I'm sure you will understand.

I've put off writing this report too long and now reporting day is here. The skinny is this: I built 33 out of 34 wonders, missing Chichen Itza. Ironically, I finished this game just before I went on vacation to Cancun, just about 100 miles away from Chichen Itza! Basically, I took Metal Casting with the Oracle, instead of my usual Code of Laws, because I had forgotten there was a wonder with CoL. No surprise, because I've never built Chichen Itza. By the time I realized my mistake, it was too late.

I think my whole game hinged on a lucky break that I got with my exploring chariot.



The barbs have built Khazak on an absolutely stupendous site and the AI had conveniently attacked it just as my wandering chariot arrived. As you can see, I have 82% chance of defeating the wounded barb archer and capturing the city. Needless to say, capturing this city made my game pretty easy. I won a cultural victory in 1925 and never fought any wars.

[url=http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k286/playshogi/Khazak.jpg][/url]

Pre Game Thoughts:
The most important thing will be to found a seaborne city early on. Otherwise any AI which starts on the coast will built the Great Lighthouse. So my second city was founded on the coast.
Another hard wonder will be the Apostolic Palace because you'll have to found a religion or at least adopt one to build it. More on that later.
The last fairly hard wonder will be the Pentagon or those culture boosting wonders which depends on your "beeline". Basically this cancels out all late game beelines by the player because you'll have to follow the AI to get all those wonders. In my game especially there where two main research AI. The first one, Justinian choose the Pentagon path where Willem took the Broadway path and Sury with the Kremlin path, but that didn't matter as much.

So now to the game.

I started with Warrior-> Worker -> Stonehenge -> Settler
and researched Mysticism, the Bronze Working line and Masonry

The first wonder was Stonehenge (2650 BC)


And shortly later i founded my second city Orleans on the coast (2000 BC):

and promptly started it on a Lighthouse to enable TGLighthouse.

Quickly followed by the Great Wall (1900 BC)


In 1440 BC i founded my third city on a formidable floodplain production spot:


And a few years later Paris finished it's third wonder the ToA:


TBC

I can no longer play HG:L with my RETAIL copy, because the game refuses to identify my REGISTERED product key. Looks like I'm stuck without the game until FSS fixes whatever the hell they broke.

The summary:
I signed in, downloaded new patch, and Hellgate restarted. Upon signing in again, I get booted off with an error saying I'm still using the Beta client (which was COMPLETELY uninstalled BEFORE installing from the retail DVD), and must register a product key. I CAN'T register any product keys, because I already have. So, game's broken. I'm stuck. See you whenever.

Edit:
So... yeah. It's working fine now. I don't know what they did, but it's fixed. Very fast turnaround. Less than an hour. Very nice.

Judgement needed - See Third Post - Act now!

Part 1

Decided to settle in place - looked like a great location!

My early research was Mining/Bronze working for some chopping action. Hunting to squeeze out a scout when I saw my initial lands lacked strong second city positions. Then mysticism for my first wonder - the Henge.

Was pleased to find a source of Horse near Paris - used chariots for barb defense for quite a while.

Pushed out and build a 'dogsbody city' claiming the FP to the east of Paris. Here's a tense early moment - the warrior is where the city wants to be.



Fortunately he won and I got a city - this was used to push out units, settlers, workers and other things Paris was too busy to do.

My scout explored and found an amazing city location near Mansa - decided to settle that next before he snagged it:



This would turn into an awesome second city - producing a healthy chunk of my wonders.

Here's the empire in 1 AD:



Much the territory I would hold for the rest of the game - with one noticable addition:



Which actually made me laugh out loud - rightful owner!

The city interested me:



As can be seen - it came with all cultural buildings intact. Didn't realise that would happen.

Adventure 24 is all about building and no war declarations. Well given this is Monarch level (and I'm a Noble player) I don't think I'd be doing too much warring anyway. Figured I would give this one a go. I did use the BUG Mod so this will have to be a shadow game.

4000BC - I liked the looks of the start with pigs, silk, wheat, and a lake all right in the BFC. Since it is Monarch I start a warrior build in the city while the other sets off to see the sights. Tech wise I decide Mining -> Masonry to grab the 'Mids (something I rarely seem to beat the AI to).

3800BC - Borders pop and it looks like we're at the northern edge of the continent. Nice defensive location.

3720BC - Mining in, Masonry started.

3600BC, 3400BC - Buddhism and Hinduism fall in that order.

3360BC - Masonry -> Animal Husbandry

3040BC - warrior is eaten by a Bear, after defeating a Lion. Freaking wildlife. This would be end of my exploring many hundreds of years. Start on the Great Wall.


2920BC - Animal Husbandry -> Bronze working (need some metal for defense and Colossus). We do have horses so at least some chariots and future horse archers.

2480BC - Bronze working -> Hunting (defensive archers needed). Revolting to slavery as it's whipping time.

2280BC - found Orleans to the south. Turns out this city would be a burden until Civil Service allowed me to spread some farmland south. Not a good choice, but I learned.


2240BC - Hunting -> Archery

2000BC - Archery -> Pottery


1880BC - Great Wall finished! Sending forth my warriors for more exploring now that the Barbs can't get me. Start on 'Mids.

1800BC - Barbs found.

1680BC - Pottery -> Writing (possible trade value)

1320BC - Writing -> Myst

1280BC - Meet my first AI, Justinian (Buddihism founder).

1160BC - Meet Mansa

1120BC - Myst -> Meditation

1080BC - Found Lyons right at the copper, barely beating Mansa to the spot. He founds Walta to the south, setting up yet another culture showdown. While I like Mansa as a neighbor, it seems he and I constantly fight a cultural war (with him winning out).

950BC - Meet Asoka and Open Borders with the three known AI. At least they are a peaceful group.

850BC - 'Mids are done! First time ever completing them in an RB event. Revolt to Representation.

800BC - Priesthood -> Monarchy (need the happy faces in my cities)

700BC - Finally get the copper hooked up.

View of Paris:


575BC - Great Spy born and build Scotland Yard with him. Probably should have sent him exploring, but that's what hindsight is all about.

520BC - Built the Oracle( 8) ) and snag Metal Casting.

View of the French Empire:


475BC - Meet Willem and trade him Meditation for Fishing.

350BC - Monarchy -> Iron Working. Make a nice tech trade: Justinian: Metal Casting for Sailing, Poly, and Iron Working; Willem: Metal Casting for Alpabet. Switch research to HBR. Find iron in my borders - nice.....



150BC - Buddihism spreads to me and I convert to make better friends.

75BC - HBR -> Currency

50BC - Meet Khmer. What a lunatic.

1AD - View of French Empire at the turn of the century



2nd Half coming up.