Quote: I have loads of ideas. Few of them are good.

A Druid Team or a Druid Barb team might be worth pursuing, Backhair and Bald Barbs, something along the lines of "We Don't Bathe But We Intend To Cleanse The World of Evil."

Quote: I have loads of ideas. Few of them are good.

A Druid Team or a Druid Barb team might be worth pursuing, Backhair and Bald Barbs, something along the lines of "We Don't Bathe But We Intend To Cleanse The World of Evil."

The scullery maid team, made up of Assassins, Amazons, and Sorceresses, in the theme of "We Don't Do Windows, We Do Worlds."

Also in the running might be the Odd Couple, Triplet, Quad, a team made up of Paladins and Necromancers. I call it Schizoid Heroes: "We Poison and Cleanse, We Raise 'em and Kill 'em, We Need Help!"

DO NOT REPLY TO THIS THREAD. Discussion should go here.

I got Justinian of the Byzantine empire, which was the leader I was hoping for. Why? I wanted to try for a cheap Apostolic Palace win!

I started by researching Polytheism. I ended up popping Agriculture from a hut in 3750 BC (turn 10), and Fishing from a hut in 3725 BC (turn 11). That was really a stroke of luck and probably really helped my early growth curve.

Polytheism finishes in 3525 BC (Turn 19), and I start mining research. Buddhism was founded in a distant land the same year. After mining, I researched Bronze working (revolting to slavery), and then Animal Husbandry. Animal husbandry finished in 2375 BC (Turn 65), and I saw that I have horses outside the capital. I had no copper and didn't want to take the time to research Iron Working (or archery for that matter), so I decided to use chariots for defense. I started research on Pottery.

In 2200 BC (Turn 72), I founded my second city (Thessalonica). I put it 5 tiles west and 1 tile north of my capital. This missed out on a fish resource, but it did get some flood plains, and put pressure on the Dutch. This may not have been the best choice for city placement, but it worked well for me.

After Pottery finished, I went for Masonry, Priesthood, and Monotheism. In 1625 BC (turn 95), I was sending a settler southwest, but the warrior guarding it was killed by a barbarian warrior. So the settler retreated and I had to wait for my capital to build a chariot to defend it.

In 1525 BC (Turn 99), I started the Oracle in Thessalonica. It may have been risky to do it there instead of in the capital, but I really wanted that 8 culture per turn to help in my border dispute against Willem. While I was waiting for a chariot to escort my settler, the Dutch built a city two tiles away from my planned city site. So I was forced to settle 1 tile east of where I originally had planned. That made me lose out on some flood plains, which was unfortunate because there weren't any extra food resources for the city. It did pick up a second supply of horses though. Adrianople was founded in 1475 BC (Turn 101).

In 1375 BC (Turn 105), I finished Monotheism. Judaism was founded in Adrianople. I revolted to Organized Religion, which gives a production boost and let me build missionaries. The next techs on my research path were Writing and then Alphabet. Judaism ended up spreading to the Dutch, and in 1200 BC (Turn 112) they converted to it.

With the help of several forest chops and even a 2-pop whip, the Oracle was finished in 950 BC (Turn 122). I took Theology as the free tech, founding Christianity in Thessalonica. The same turn, the Portuguese converted to Judaism. At this point I decided to make Judaism my main religion, and try to unite as many of the civs as possible under it. When the Apostolic Palace was almost finished, I would switch to either Hinduism or Christianity, so that I would have the majority of the votes. Of course, I'd switch right back to Judaism afterwards, so hopefully the Jewish bloc would vote for me in the elections.

In 700 BC (Turn 132), I founded my fourth city (Nicea), south of Constantinople, grabbing the pigs and lots of hills. Again I'm not sure if this was optimum city placement. I founded it 1 tile directly south of the pigs. If I had founded it 1 tile southeast of where I did, I would have also been able to grab some rice. But I would have had to wait for the border to pop, and there was a barb city in range of the rice anyway. I was thinking of taking the barb city for myself, but the Dutch ended up capturing it in 550 BC (Turn 138).

My research rate felt really slow on Alphabet. In 395 BC (Turn 147), I still had 3 turns of research left on it. At this point Sitting Bull offered me Meditation for Polytheism, which meant I wasn't the first to reach Alphabet. I traded him Priesthood for what's left of my research on Alphabet. I traded Polytheism to Hammurabi for Sailing, and Monotheism to Pacal II for Meditation and Hunting. I started research on Mathematics, planning to go for Currency afterwards, since my economy needed a boost.

In 365 BC (Turn 149), Suryavarman II demanded that I cancel my deals with Hammurabi. At this point I was thinking I would build the Apostolic palace under Christianity, which meant I didn't want to piss of Suryavarman. So I agreed to cancel the deals. This came back to haunt me later, as it was a long time before Hammurabi would talk to me, and I needed open borders with him to get my missionaries to Joao II. The next turn I trade Alphabet to Suryavarman II for Iron Working. No iron popped up in my territory, but there was some north of Thessalonica, where there was room for another city. I also traded Polytheism to Joao II for Archery.

In 245 BC (Turn 157), I founded Antioch 3 tiles north of Thessalonica. It grabbed Fish and Iron, and could share the cows with Thessalonica. I started the Apostolic Palace in Constantinople, and it was due in 30 turns.

In 160 BC (Turn 160), I got a great prophet in Thessalonica, from the Oracle's GPP, and also from running a priest specialist at times. He was sent to Adrianople where he built the Jewish Shrine. Mathematics finished in 155 BC (Turn 163), boosting an in-progress forest chop for the Apostolic palace from 30 to 44 hammers. I started work on Currency. Judaism was spreading automatically to various foreign cities.

In 40 AD (Turn 176), I converted to Hinduism, as part of my plan to build the Apostolic Palace under a religion that no one had any votes for. The palace was due in 5 turns, so I would be able to switch back to Judaism soon after it was built. I still had a monopoly on Theology, but I wasn't going to trade it away and give my opponents to stop my missionaries with the Theocracy civic. Currency finished in 100 AD (Turn 180), and I started work on Metal Casting. I traded Currency to Suryavarman II for Monarchy and 70 gold, and revolted to Hereditary rule.

In 115 AD (Turn 181), the Apostolic Palace finished. The election came up and of course I was the only one eligible for the resident. Immediately after voting for myself, I switched my religion back to Judaism. Now all I had to do was convert one small city of each civilization to Hinduism, and vote myself in as the winner.

In 355 AD (Turn 197), I had the option to put the Religious Victory vote before the Apostolic palace, which I of course took. Suryavarman and Joao both voted for me, but I was still 4 votes short. I had 41 votes, and Suryavarman and Joao 3 and 4 votes. That gave me 48 total votes, but I needed 52 out of 70 total to win.

After this, I worked on increasing my population, and spreading Hinduism to Suryavarman and Joao's cities (since they were voting for me). In 565 AD (Turn 211) the vote came up again. I had converted a bunch of Suryavarman's cities, giving him 31 total votes. But I still come up a meager 2 votes short!

The next election came up in 775 AD (Turn 225), but it was just for the Apostolic palace president. In 860 AD (Turn 231) I popped my second great prophet, which built the Hindu Shrine in constantinople. Since I had been spreading Hinduism to Suryavarman and Joao, it was a nice boost to my finances.

The vote came up again in 940 AD (Turn 239), and this time the total vote count had risen to 216. I ended up 11 votes short of the required 162. From there on my vote situation just kept getting worse, so I started building up my army for an attack on Pacal II. In 1190 AD (Turn 264), I declared war on Pacal II with an attacking stack of 7 Macemen, 4 Cataphracts, 4 Trebuchets, and a Swordsman.

I suffered fairly minimal losses in the war until the end. The Jewish and Hindu shrines did a great job of funding my economy. I was able to keep research in the 70 to 90 percent range while assimilating Pacal II's cities, and pumping out a mix of infrastructure and military units.

In 1340 AD (Turn 288), I finished Liberalism, and chose Astronomy as my free technology. I went on a trading spree, trading Astronomy, Banking, and 485 Gold to Suryavarman for Printing Press and Divine Right, trading Philosophy and Education to Joa II for Gunpowder, Music, and 150 Gold, and trading Astronomy to Willem van Oranje for Nationalism and 20 Gold. This put me in a nice position to be the tech leader.

The war on Pacal II was going well, and in 1390 AD (Turn 298), he was down to one city. At this point he decided to become Zara Yaqob's vassal. So Zara Yaqob, who previously had quite good relations with me, declared war. In 1435 AD (Turn 307), I capture Pacal II's last city, wiping out the Mayan civilization.

I decided to keep up the "free" (ie no relationship penalty since he declared on me) war against Zara Yaqob. He had more of a defense force than Pacal II, and my forces were stretched a bit thinner. So my losses were heavier. But I was still able to take 2 cities by 1520 AD (Turn 324).

It was at this time that I ran out of time to play the game. I was in quite a commanding position, with 2 shrines funding my economy, and leading in tech and in land area (if I recall correctly). The cataphracts had been quite helpful to my conquests. Their age was perhaps coming to a close, but I was 3 turns away from finishing Rifling. I also had a great person saved up for a golden age, and was working on the Statue of Liberty. I think I would have had a pretty easy domination or backdoor domination win.

I was surprised no one else tried to see how badly the Apostolic Palace could be abused. It was harder than I expected, but I did come within 2 votes of a win in 565 AD. I'm not sure how broken/abusable this strategy really is (especially on maps with multiple continents), but in my opinion the win condition should be tweaked a bit.

I apologize for the lateness of my report and the lack of screenshots. I have attached the notes I took while playing the game to this post, for the off chance that someone wants to read about my game in much more detail.

DO NOT REPLY TO THIS THREAD. Discussion should go here.

Didn't have time to finish this one, but I preformed a devastating opening strategy and was doing well...

I decide to open with Worker/Agriculture even tho the fella would be sitting on his bum for a while. I then went with mining/BW, but going straight to Wheel may have been a better idea.
I popped Archery from the hut (nice).

I planned to aggressively lock down MM, and my city placement and naming was not subtle...


You'll note the city FU Mansa Musa, hems MM's capital completely in. He simply can't get out. This stranded his settler in the capital and because the AI wont train as many settlers as it has cities (that would be overexpansion), MM could never train a settle in his 2nd city. A human would have found a way to get the settler out via galley, using my road system in neutral territory, but the AI is not that smart. So MM never founded another city.

I expanded peacefully and trained an army of Phalanxes, scammed some tech out of MM then declared war on him:


Incidently MM built the Pyramids in that city! It was very nice of him. He wasn't nice enough to found me any religions, but the Pyramids!!! Freaking sweet!
I captured the city but due to copious amounts of weed I neglected to actually switch to Representation for many many turns. If memory doesn't fail me, I had thought MM had built the Pyramids in his capital, and thus only switched after capturing the capital, oopsies.

I pushed a galley through MM's borders and ran into Darius:

I'm in an impressively deep tech hole, but things still look good for snagging the Great Library.

I meet hatty also, and can also perform some minor tech trades with her...

I eliminate MM from the game in due time, and also build the Great Library. With a continent to myself and the Pyramids+GL combo, things are looking good. As a side note, the AI's rapid expansion has made the expansion rule non-problematic, I'm quite easily able to expand at a comfortable rate without hitting #1.

Here's a shot of my empire at around 1000AD


Here's a funny for ya!

1050AD

Popped one!

1060AD

Gold Rush!

Hilarious! If you thought pops were bad, and random events were bad, dunno what you'd think of that!!! It's quite possibly the most "inspired" act of the RNGods I've ever seen!

In some good news, I get Circumnavigation, mainly due to map trades - it's that thing where you trade for 90% of the way then rush out a caravel and explore the last 10%.

In more happy news I'm first to Economics, barely beating Elizabeth.

Between my GL/Pyramids combo and ample land I'm able to sort-of keep up in tech... you know, not actually having a tech lead of any description, but constantly coming up with new techs which can be traded, rather than being kept out of the loop.

In a funny, I train a Privateer which I use to sink a caravel, granting me the final GG point I faield to gain in the MM war, I believe I settled the GG.

Biology turns out to be an important trade-fodder tech, and I get for it Physics, Replaceable Parts, Steam Power and lots of loose change and rubbish techs. While this still leaves me behind Asoka, I'm not doing bad.

In the industrial ear I use a GA to run Environmentalism to coincicide with my factory boom, but I return to Free Market at the end of the GA (basically I avoided 7 turns of unhealthiness, giving me a little grace to get Hospitals in).

I pick up a wonder - The Eiffel Tower and Cristo Redentor

I also manage to incorporate Sid's Sushi



Btw note my not one - but TWO metal pops at Athens! I neglected to note the copper pop, but it occurred right AFTER I ninja'd MM's rightful copper supply (so it was useless).

Unhappily, I lose the 3 Gorges Dam to Hatty.

Anyway my final screenshot is this one...


My plan, to put it most simply, was to build the Internet then play whack a legendary city. The AI's were not particularly close to a CV at the point where I stopped playing. Worst thing would be not getting the Internet.

There was no particular reason I stopped playing - just kind of forgot about the game. I'd actually quite like to go back and finish it. If I do, I'll post the conclusion.

After moving the scout south, I didn't see anything. I decided to settle in place. This doesn't feel like the craziest capital ever. Just an unrrigated rice. Man, how are we supposed to grow that ting. Of course, with fishing and hunting, we have completely useless starting techs for the spot. The hut gives us a good overview of the surroundings




<whiner>There are forests all around, but I've come to dislike those starts in BTS since your workers have naught to do before bronze working comes in. Also, the scout would have been able to see the cows :P. Mind you, I was begging for forests as the mayans in epic 13 </whiner>

No worker then. First order a warrior and set research on agriculture

Mali shows early on to our west and another hut pops a map giving me a near whole visibility on the continent shape, or at least its souhtern part. Hinduism is founded early, somewhere away, followed closely by buddhism. Mansa didn't have his share of the early religions.

After agriculture, I went for mining->bronzeworking.

I started the worker at size 3 and got him 6 turns before BW completion (I probably built two warriors). That was approximatevely the time for him to go farm the rice.




A settler was started after that. Seeing there's no copper around, I chose animal husbandry hoping for horsies and queued a worker ahead of the settler. The second city would try to claim horses if there's any. I always try to avoid researching archery.

Our amabassador commited a faux-pas with the malinese. Well, you need more than that to upset the cheerful Musa.

The second worker is whipped and the settler is finished in time with AH. Check the continent :




There are horses in the north. Along with cows and elephants and a looooooot of flat plains. I had the choice between a crappy city, with ultra limited growth and access to the strategic horses or the juicy flood plains spot to the west. I preferred caution as I already lost cities early to barb axes and this was a very bad experience. Here goes Sparta




The oracle fell in 1880 BC. I didn't even know mysticism by then. I was more concerned with defense and researching the wheel, followed by pottery.

Mansa settled his second city to the south west of his capital. I was hoping to have my second settler in time for the flood plains heaven spot. That remained a hope




The elephants are now in danger. Damn you Mansa, you managed to piss me off. Gimme me iron. Against skirmishers, chariots rush is probably not a very good idea.
The settler went for the east, claiming the lesser flood plains spot.




Mansa Musa researched writing and I opened borders with him to confirm we were alone on the continent. I had enough EPs with him to see he was researching code of laws. Confucianism was founded the turn he finished researching it. I checked the city next to Sparta and it wasn't the holy city. It appeared it was founded by another AI. I was very grateful.

You'd think we'll have iron in the capital, since till now it only had ONE resource. You'll be quite wrong. Here's your iron, served with a bit of tundra.




I am researching sailing to have a reliable route to my empire through that river. I researched writing before that to defend my ivory culturally. And I would indeed need it badly. I avoided confucianism but Mansa was determined to get his religion and founded christianity in the city near Sprta.




I was planning from the start to go after Mansa the earliest possible, which led me to settle that far iron. I was researching mathematics on the way to construction while Mansa already had alphabet. I asked him for masonry and he agreed. Kind fellow, that would speed your demise.

I finally managed to get a very late workboat go explore in the north (note forself, always send a scouting boat early on fractal maps).




Mansa spammed christian missionaries to my cities and I converted to his faith.

After the ambassador faux-pas, I had a groom fleeing on his wedding day. What is it with my people ?

I finally got contact with Hatty in 200 BC and opened borders immediately. My workboat visited Darius a few years later. Construction was done in 75 AD. Neither Mansa nor Darius would trade me horseback riding at the moment. I burnt a scientist on alphabet to trade it with Hatty but unfortunately she didn't know horseback riding. You could expect that with her UU being chariots based. Well, I won't have elephants for my malinese campaign.

Mali has skrimishers, who have a 4 strength instead of the usual 3 for archers. He has a capital on a hill. One of his other cities is holy, giving him a strong cultural defensive bonus. He also managed to get copper from somewhere, I was sure the copper in the west was not in his cultural borders yet, so I guess he traded for it. War won't be easy. And this was not the last of the bad news




Guess who is backwards ?




Mansa is clearly leading away. He built the apostolic palace too, grabbed the music free artist. Hmmm, like I needed more reasons to go after you.
I chopped and whipped an army and went after him, hoping for a quick war.




Mansa switched from caste system to slavery immediately. He does know how to use his spiritual trait. Kumbi Saleh had 4 skirmishers and an axe defending.

I had no intentions of providing a report on this Adventure. Given that it was Emperor level and I am at best a Noble level player (as becomes very evident in the report), I figured there was no way to even finish this one.

However, as the game progressed I began to take some screen shots and by the end I SURVIVED. That has to count for something, no?

So my basic goal was to shadow along and see what became of the game. I settled in place with no tech goal. Along the way Mansa became a major ally and pretty much kept me going - both as a pal and allowed me to steal a few early techs.

Here we are in 1020 AD, having only discovered my two very best friends in the whole world.


Here Mansa floats a destroyer by to see my wood burning forges just being constructed.


While everyone was working on Apollo, notice that I am just working on Constitution and still building cats.


continued......

It has been a long time since I finished that game.
I try to make sense of my screenshots.
I was aiming for a cultural victory, despite lacking the most crucial wonders.
Checking the winning criteria screen constantly, I realized I would loose that cultural race to Elizabeth. There were also lots of spaceships launched towards the end, so everybody was quite close. However, Asoka shocked everybody by winning a diplomatic victory in 1882!
Lizzy was second getting three legendary cities in 1923 followed by me reaching three legendary cities in 1928. I believe there were three spaceships due to land in the next few turns.

Remarkable peaceful and therefore quick game. Not a single war I recall but a nice 7 defense pacts in place towards the end between almost everybody (Hatty was alone) being a very stable political environment.
I was fighting with culture against Mansa and even got a couple of flips.
Also remarkable was that I never had any map info apart from the starting continent, there was just no reason to build a boat.

Thanks to the sponsor.
mh

Cultural Victory in 1842

Mortius Report

Sorry for my English , it's not my national language.

Well, I wrote these as soon as I passed the save off to Sulla, hopefully you guys don't make a mockery of them . It looks like 3/4 threads posted so far are for incomplete games, which I take as a bad sign.

Darrell

Hi,

here is my report for Adventure 22, which unfortunately I wasn't able to finish and had to retire in 1565AD.

-Kylearan

While we wait for the patch, Atlas is sponsoring a speedy game for your enjoyment.

Please note that the game formerly known as Adventure Twenty-three has changed its title.