Here's my attempt to be a wonderful French Builder: Compromise's Adventure 24 Report

It is in the typical location:
www.kendter.com

My report is here

Score 34/34

And as always, sorry for my english

Hi,

I haven't had the time to write a proper report :mad: , but here's my result:

Stonehenge 2200BC
Great Wall 1720BC
Pyramids 1160BC
Oracle 950BC
Temple of Artemis 725BC
Great Lighthouse 625BC
Hanging Gardens 100BC
Mausoleum of Mausollos (rushed) 100AD
Statue of Zeus 175AD
Chichen Itza 400AD
Great Library 475AD
Parthenon 520AD
Apostolic Palace 620AD
Shwedagon Paya 720AD
Hagia Sophia 740AD
Colossus 900AD
Sistine Chapel 920AD
Angkor Wat (rushed) 920AD
Notre Dame 1120AD
University of Sangkore 1210AD
Versailles (rushed) 1220AD
Spiral Minaret 1240AD
Taj Mahal 1390AD
Statue of Liberty 1550AD
Kremlin 1645AD
Broadway 1700AD
Pentagon 1795AD
Cristo Redentor 1804AD
Rock'n Roll 1812AD
The Eiffel Tower 1820AD
U.N. 1822AD
Hollywood 1826AD
Three Gorges Dam 1878AD
Space Elevator 1908AD

That's all wonders in the game.

I had a bit of luck with generating several engineers, but I think only Angkor Wat was in danger of falling to the AI, so it didn't really make that big a difference.


I guess I could manage to write a more detailed report in a couple of days if anyone is really interested.

-Kylearan

A build-fest: no DoWs, no taking over aggressors’ lands as punishment for them choosing unwisely, and no Marble & Stone. How to approach this? A lot will depend on the other Civs on the map: Capac might go for an early Stonehenge, Monty will be mental, so a lot will depend on our neighbours. Everybody needs good neighbours.




Henge, GW and Oracle are likely to be the earliest Wonders to fall, so how do we plan to get these? Mining and Worker first is my choice: we have Agri and two grass hills to mine, so the next decision is between OCC and a 2 city gambit. Here are the attractive sites nearby:



OCC it is. Mysticism follows Mining, then AH after that. The latter reveals riverside horses in the BFC. Woo. I connect them in case we need to deal with barbs. Hinduism, Buddhism and Judaism are all FIDL quite early, but we’re yet to meet any civs. On turn 34 (2640BC), Masonry comes in just as Stonehenge is completed, so GW gets started immediately. Onto Poly as the Priesthood gate (Temple of Artemis and Great Library). Great Wall is finished in 2280, but Priesthood is four turns away, so a Settler is started (size 5). The lack of sync with Priesthood was me putting some turns into Pottery and forgetting to switch back: we’ve discovered a good coastal city, so I want to grab Metalcasting with the Oracle if at all possible, although a bail-out to Monarchy is a reasonable plan B.

Pottery is completed and in 1960 BC I decide to delay the Oracle further to time with the completion of research into Bronzeworking. This delay allows me to get the Settler out (for rice/FP/hills) and build a granary in Paris. Et voila (and there’s Copper to our east, too):



You’ll note I’ve not met anyone yet. Where are this lot hiding? Aside from starting Pyramids in Orleans (which I’d like to dedicate to GE wonders: Mids, Gardens, Hagia) I can now use the ‘wonder-lull’ to expand: Lille is founded on the northern shore in 1160, shortly after I met Justinian the Buddhist. Well, I didn’t meet him as such: the low-odds great Spy made the introduction for me. I met Mansa soon thereafter, as he took the barb city of Bulgar which had sprung up in a juicy, FP-heavy spot. Although a Priest (for settling) would have been welcome at this early stage, I got my value out of the Spy by using him as an explorer before infiltrating Timbuktu once I had a reasonable idea of the lay of the land.

So, who do we have on our sceptred isle? Two pacifist techers (Mansa and Willem), an uppity hippy (Asoka), the witch (Justinian), Mr. All-bark-no-bite (Pacal II), and one loony (Suryvaraman), and not an IND Civ in sight. If I can share a religion with my nearest neighbours (Mansa and Justinian) I should be fine to run OR and build wonders, leaving them to feel the heat of religious animus. Byzantine is Buddhist, as is Khmer, with Asoka and Pacal being Hindu. Mansa and Willem are unaligned as yet.

My three cities are all pursing wonders: lighthouse => Great Lighthouse in Lyons, ToA in Paris (completed BC625), and Pyramids in Orleans. My eastern expansion was checked when the barb city of Yayoi sprung up at Cows/Copper. With Chariots my best unit and no barracks, I decided to wait until IW is in before deciding on an attack. Pyramids were completed in BC650 (I can see the AI getting these earlier in another game), but this was as important to me:





We have Iron under Orleans, so it’s time to get some Swords out and take Yayoi! Trading to Maths Mansa was not putting Hanging Gardens at serious risk because the Spy Bomb had let me see his production. You’ll also notice I’ve traded Mono to Mansa: the tech was learnt because I have a GP sitting around, and I wanted to LB Theology (Apo, Hagia). After discovering Jesus in Orleans, he missionary was sent to Mansa, as I had the idea to keep him open to a conversion to Christianity at some point in the future.




Lots going on in the above pic: there’s a Settler on a tundra hill to the north of Yayoi. Originally trained for the Yayoi site, I made an error in scouting and failed to see the Fish off this part of the coast, so this city (Rheims) was established maybe a dozen turns after it should have been. There’s another barb city to be taken as well. In this case, I would wait a while for another Settler and re-found 1 tile east to grab Furs and to contest Sheep with Mansa (unsuccessfully, as it turned out). Colossus constructed in AD50: very early, but I needed to whore the tech around as my research pace was woeful compared to Justinian, Mansa and Willem (who founded Confucianism).

Another picture that tells us plenty about my game:





I accepted Sury’s demand to cancel with Asoka before seeing the DoW. The GP got settled in Orleans, as I needed the hammers more than the shrine. However, my build order here was floored: I should have been working on an Aesthetics wonder, because, although I had the monopoly on Theo and Aesthetics, I – unlike the AI - lacked the multipliers for Temple of Zoos and Shwedagon Paya, but I was overly focused on GE points.

I lost ToZ to Pacal as a result. At this stage of the game, I can see many players missing out on a Wonder or two: with Mausoleum of Marsallos, Great Library, the Chicken, the 3 Aesthetics Wonders, Hanging Gardens, Apostolic Palace, Hagia Sophia, and Sistene Chapel all available, sound analysis (and a bit of luck) will be required to bag them all.

I would only miss 1 more Wonder in the rest of the game: having powered through the above Wonders using a GA sparked by the free Artist from Music (although I discovered that completing MoM during a GA doesn’t extend it), I needed to get to Philo for Angkor Wat: Mansa and Willem had it, so I planned to steal it from Mali. However, I got a GS in 980 and lightbulbed Philo, immediately switching to Angkor Wat (completed in max 9 turns).




Well, my Spies tell me that it’s not Mansa’s GE. So what are the odds on it being Willem?





. Not much I could do about that one, though.

I’ll spare you the details of th rest of my buildfest, but having converted to Buddhism late through my own missionaries (after J spread it in Yayoi) in order to build Apostolic Palace, I remained in OR and REP for most of the game. The Thief Economy was a huge boon: I lost just two Spies and stole Machinery, Feudalism, Guilds, Engineering, Optics, Banking, Education & Economics thanks to the three Great Spies (2 to Byzantine and 1 to Mali). The EPs also allowed me to switch research to Liberalism knowing that I’d complete it before Justinian (taking Constitution).

The AI helped me burst ahead in tech by frequent infighting: Pacal attacked Mansa in 1010AD, but Justinian immediately declared on Pacal; Sury declared on Asoka in 1460; Pacal attacked Mansa again in 1545, and once more around 1820. This was in spite of Mansa and Pacal running FR (as did Asoka and Willem) leaving three Buddhists (me, Justinian, and Sury).

Strategic trading in of part-researched techs (Astro, Sci Meth, Communism) from Mansa let me pseudo-beeline to Mass Media whilst grabbing Statue of Liberty and Kremlin. Willem was kind enough to trade me Steam Power, but the AI didn’t bother with Assembly Line, so I was easily able to claim Pentagon (possibly the first time I’ve built it), despite two GEs being born in Byzantine. Such was my Wonder-tech advantage, I had no need to trade Leccy or Radio until I had completed the Wonders.

I contemplated stopping before the Space Elevator was unlocked, as the game was beginning to drag, but I came back to the game after a few days break, and finished off by using two GEs (from Orleans) and a three Man GA on the Elevator, buy-rushing it after 1 turn of production, having used Cristo to swap civics (REP) to shave a turn of research, and again to allow max hammers and buy-rushing (USUF/SP).




An enjoyable builder’s game: it seems possible, but not entirely straightforward, to bag all the Wonders and I expect one or two players to do so. Thanks for the event, Sullla!

In case I don't have time to write a full report tonight, Space victory in 1970AD.

I played in one sitting, so there wasn't a lot of advanced planning. I settled in place, had 5 decent cities, and three more fill-in cities. I saw one war - Justinian invaded around 1600AD, he took one city which I immediately recaptured.

The wonders I failed to get were:

* Apostolic Palace - not even started (what tech is this?)
* Chichen Itza - lost by 1 turn
* Great Lighthouse - no early coastal city
* Hagia Sophia - lost by 1 turn
* Shwedagon Paya - not even started (what tech is this?)
* Sistine Chapel - not even started
* Taj Mahal - only had a few turns invested
* Temple of Artemis - about half-way there

Introduction
I haven’t ever played a game like this so I am looking forward to it. I to tend to play a lot of “builder” games, but this will take it to the extreme. I normally like to have a game plan going into something like this, but for whatever reason, I didn’t spend anytime preparing. In hindsight, it would have been a good idea to figure out which wonders we would most likely be in danger of losing if we did not pick the optimal research path.

Had I actually done this research, I would have looked at all the early Wonders and might have planned a little better.

• Stonehenge (Mysticism)
  
• Great Wall (Masonry)
  
• Pyramids (Masonry)
  
• Great Lighthouse (Masonry, and Sailing for Lighthouse)
  
• Temple of Artemis (Polytheism)
  
• Oracle (Priesthood)
  
• Hanging Gardens (Mathematics, and Masonry for Aqueduct)

Here is the game's page. Have fun!

Go ahead and post your reports. Also keep your eyes open for a new game that should be opening shortly.

...go with a costume that the candy-givers immediately recognize, and, as baby boomers, identify with .

I'd been trying to talk my daughter into this for about 3 years, and this year she finally did it--she ended up with about 2x the candy as her twin brother (in a generic scream/death/who-knows outfit), and they went to the exact same houses at the exact same time. We had to stop back by the base house for her to offload her haul once mid-Trick or Treat

A bad picture of Caiti, but a good picture of the outfit and "props"...




And, afterwards, a little clowning around making spooky-face with their jack-o-lanterns.




Hmm, I wonder where she hid her stash? I could go far some Peanut M&M's about now...

--cy