Hi everyone. With the Epic Eight fireworks beginning to die down, I've uploaded the report for a solo game of mine called Passive-Aggressive Hatty, an Always Peace Domination attempt on Prince. You can find it at the usual location:

http://civ4info.com/Sullla/pahatty_1.html

I'm most interested in hearing from those of you who have tried this variant before, such as Ruff and Atlas. Please let me know what you think was better/worse than your earlier versions of the same idea.

Part I - The Opening

Here is the start for the Americans:

There are two warriors ! Thanks Sirian.
I scout with both warriors and start another warrior at Washington for a reason I still don't know.
After scouting around for a while, I find this:

Tundra! I guess I am an American northerner.

Some turns later I find this man, he says he is Caesar of the Romans, ok whatever. He doesn't look that bad. During the next thousand years I meet all of the other civs.
After a few more years I have scouted out what appears to by my terretory in the Northwest. I come up with this preliminary dotmapTM:

The second city will grab 2 silks, gold, and be fed by some tasty clams. City number 3 will be great down the road for commerce with all of the flatland to be fed by sheep and corn with wine for more commerce as well as stone, never a bad thing for an industrious civ. My fourth city will grab some good resources and be a decent production city with hills, plains, horses, and wheat to feed them. Plus more stone . City 5 will be a great fishing village with access to some land tiles for some production and ivory for happiness.
Soon, my scouts find this abomination:

What a horribly large Barb City, and so early too. Has Sirian been having too much fun with the Worldbuilder?
New York is founded in 2500BC:

I find out the same turn when BW comes in that NY has bronze too, yay! I revolt to slavery a few turns later.
Then I see this!

A barb city has appeared in my rightful territory! :mad: They will pay for this great insult to the American people! This puts greater urgency on hooking up the metal!
I get IW and the great resource gods have smiled upon me ! Iron at Washington YAY!


Now this is a serious problem:

:mad: Tokugawa has placed a city taking New York's clams before it could reach them, time for culture!


The Barbs die to the blade of my swords. Somehow they have accumulated 133 gold which I take before burning the city to the ground.


Now, before I move on to the next big event I will give my opening plays to whoever is looking for them.
Build Order: Warrior --> Settler --> Warrior --> Worker --> Settler
Tech Path: AH --> Wheel --> Mining --> BW --> IW --> Hunting --> Archery

Now, after this slow start, I began to build up some military, swords and axes. Why, Caesar is on my border and I would like to kill him before his Praets really get going. The war Begins:


My axes and swords walk right up to Rome and find it surprisingly unprotected. Caesar is protecting his capital with 2 Archers and a Spear . The result is not surprising:

I take Rome, and with it the Pyramids! I would guess that given the start, I am the only FDR player who failed to get the Pyramids but then captured them ! After putting up a decent fight a Cumae, a norther city on a hill, Caesar loses the city and it is razed for 74 gold. He then comes to me and gives me Polytheism for Peace. I accept as my economy is sandbagging.

Using the last of my gold from Caesar's cities, I deficit research alphabet. Then I pull some crazy tech trades to pull me up from dead last. First, this from Hatty:

Then, I get Sailing and 200 gold from Lizzy, 220 gold and Math from Mao, then Saladin trades me Calendar for Alphabet and 280 gold, then Mansa gives me Monarchy for Alphabet and 80 gold. In total, one 672 beaker tech for 2593 beakers in techs and a net 60 gold! Some catchup there !

Not much happens at all other than the map filling up until this in 710AD:


This is the end of Part I of Galileo44's Epic 8 Report

Does anyone know if ther are going to be any tournament games for the civ games (i only have II: TOT and III: Conquests) or if there are tournaments just not for those games, visit my web page http://www.freewebs.com/demonslayer21/index.html to see any and all games that I play and inform me if any of my games have tournaments...thanks!

First time reporter...
I know...late...

Wow...
After reading, and more importantly trying to craft, the reports seen here on a regular basis, I have a whole new respect for the authors. My first follows. Sorry, just text (I haven't mastered the playing/picture taking yet...it takes all my concentration to just stay in the game as a Prince player at this level in an RB Epic)!
But, I did not want to be a "take a download and disappear" kinda guy.

I received an Egypt file.
Started and quickly found I was surrounded - Mao - Liz - Sal - Mansa all showed up at roughly the same time. Then JC - Toku and finally guessed that Roosey was a bit further away than the rest.

2380 BC - First expanded with Memphis Settler to the west, in an effort to head off JC, then sent next to the SW and founded Heliopolis to stop the Mao expansion.

955 BC - Because I was so crowded, Sal planted a city exactly where I wanted to place one to the SE and playing to the strength of the War Chariots, I decided Sal was my victim and declared.

Killed and kept Medina, then moved on Hindu holy city of Mecca and capture it! Captured Bahgdad next on the coast. It wasn't where I would have put it, so burned...and, that's the end of Sal.

*** Frankly, do NOT know what got into me, I am usually peaceful to a fault (or death, which ever comes first). But with the borders closing in around me, I made a bold move and it actually paid off!

Despite capturing the Hindu city, stayed away from religion still. At this point it seemed that the world was shaping up as JC-Toku-Mao being pals and Liz-Mansa-Roosey being tight.

35 AD - JC and Mao had come to the Hindu faith. They are animals, so I converted as well so they would be with me as opposed to agin me.

80 AD - Pop-rushed the Parthenon in Thebes and the GLibrary in Damascus (to the immediate east of the capital) - I know...tough w/o pics!!! Next time.

275 AD - JC asks that I cancel relations with Liz. I agree with my strong friend.

470 AD - In a move typical of my playing above my head, and by trying to keep too many units fed and happy, I put myself in a "strike" position. Answer...WAR! Because Liz made me angry when she planted a city to my immediate eastern border, I declare on her in 530 AD.

560 AD - Burn Nottingham, the city she had planted east. Then move along and take the Jewish holy city of York and keep!

905 AD - It took years, but finally cracked London and kept it! It was the Buddist holy city. Kept it too! Took one more city shortly after, then asked for peace and a tech - done!

1124 - Took time to use a GProphet to build Hindu shrine...now I was rolling in dough, so...WAR!

1152 - Liz on the pointy end of my stick again. It came down to my troops standing outside a size 1 city that was the Confuscian holy city. She was now Confused of course, as was Mansa. It was not worth keeping (and I knew Mansa would be the next target) so I burned it just to make him bitter!

*** I have no idea what got into me. Must be the pressure of playing RB Monarch!!!

1274 - Finally finished off Hanging Gardens in Thebes too!

1550 AD - Sorry...notes were a little sporadic at this point. I declared WAR again on Mansa and pulled in my buddy JC for backup!

1601 - After wiping the floor with him and taking Djenne and Timbuktu, take Walata and then break to stock up on Rifles.

1667 - Finish a couple of badly placed northern Mansa outposts and he's history!

1673 - Use rifling tech to bride JC into turning on Mao (did I mention Mao had turned Tao some time ago). He anxiously took the challenge! I also remembered Toku was still in the game and bribed him to take on Mao too. There was method to my sudden bloodlust as I planned to wait briefly, then stab Mao myself when he was slightly weakened.

1718 - Beijing - mine!
1734 - Guangzhou - mine!
1748 - Chengdu - mine!
1754 - Ooops, Toku beat me to Shanghai and took it - Mao is gone!

*** Ran quickly outside...must have been a full moon, planet alignment or SOMETHING. I'm actually kicking Monarch behind?!?!?

1766 - 52% pop and 53% land by this point. Domination, as you may have guessed, the goal!

1800 - Seems like a nice round number. Cannons...check! Rifles...check! Cav...roger! Grens...oh ya! Still faithful to my good pal JC, and with Roosey way off to the west and being very quiet, I decide Toku is the unfortunate recipient of my final push to DOM.

1804 - Shanghai - mine!
1806 - Nara mine! AND capture Tokyo same turn! Yikes...I'm scaring even myself now.
1812 - Capture Tao holy city of Xian (and Dia Mao intact)!
1816 - Osaka - Mine!
1821 - Edo - mine!

*** Of course, at this point, I'm am saying I SHOULD HAVE TAKEN PICTURES AND BETTER NOTES FOR MY FIRST RB REPORT!!!

1824 - 61.57% land and begin attacking Japanese capital city.

1825 - Capture Kyoto and with that hit 62.75% land..........

1826 - DOMINATION! 46,351 "Augustus Ceasar"

*** I would REALLY like to thank each and every RB player for helping my game along. Reading reports is one thing. Putting what they teach you into practice quite another. Oh, trust me, I have been humbled since...but for a brief moment (hopefully the first of many) I was playing well above my head and actually won at the Monarch level. Thank you!

Since the sequel to RB23 wont start for a few weeks, thought id put this one up to see if theres any interest..

Settings:
Leader - Kublai Khan
Map - Tilted Axis Massive Continents (All other settings random)
Size - Small
Difficulty - Monarch or Emperor
Opponents - 4

Variant:
- All victory conditions except domination are enabled, but we must win by conquest.
- At one point or another in the game, all 4 AI civ's must be at friendly relations with us. This doesnt mean all 4 at the same time, just that each must be at friendly relations before we betray them like the rabid dog's we truly are

Ill leave signups open here for a few days.

Me Vixie

Hey guys. I know it has been referred here before, but i'm getting yelled at for not advertising. First off let me introduce myself, I go by Blade and i’m a Tournament Moderator for our realm. Currently, we are hosting a private realm called Diablo 2 Relived .09. You may have heard of us, we have been on the diablo top 200 and held #1 for a long time. We currently don't hold #1 due to the change of our URL.

We are gladly accepting all new members that want to join. PVP is the main objective there, and starting up is a piece of cake :D. Getting to level 99 is no longer a problem, due to you can achieve 95+ in as little as 2 hours. There is also a GODLY MF Setup that requires very low class items to make. For example, the armor's recipe is an ID scroll + Health pot.

Rushing is no longer a hassle due to the WPS are located directly at

Catacombs Level 4
Tal Rasha's Tomb
Durance of Hate Level 3
Chaos Sanctuary
Throne Room

Baal runs are a no show here as well. Cow runs are essential. The entrance to the cow level is now a simple trap door located in Act1 in Rogue Encampment. Inside the cow level is a leech pen for the Low Levels to leech without worrying about getting hurt. There are also around 2,500 cows located inside. During Super Cow events, there are 5,000 cows at 400% experience.

PVP has been put on the spot light, and act1 was awarded its own PVP arena located through a trap door. PVP gains its shine most when Specific class Tournaments are held 3 times a week awarding awesome prizes.

Worrying about drop Xfers is no longer an issue because D2 loader is legal so you can load up as many d2 windows that your heart desires. Map hack is also legal there as well, fully customizable.

We are 100% legit, and we put in 110% to make sure our players have fun.

I’m sorry if this is against the rules here, but there is nothing to worry about. Please Visit RelivedGaming.com to find out how to get started.

For FAQ I took my sweet time to make this following guide. Please view it, it will save much trouble.



Welcome to RGN! If you are here for the first time, please take your time to read this. This will save much frustration on your part and ours.

First, let’s get you started on Diablo 2 Relived installation which is located HERE . It's a very useful and an easy step by step guide.

After you read that guide carefully, it's time to read the rules here before you begin to play. You can find the rules HERE . Those are the general rules for the realm. Now for the forum rules go HERE. Now that your are informed of our rules, its playing time!

When you enter the realm for the first time, I suggest either making a Sorceress, or an Amazon.


For the Sorceress follow these guidelines and reasons why to use a Sorceress.

The main idea for using the Sorceress is the fact that the easily obtainable Mf Set up is mostly designed for the feline build. However, it's not a class specific set. The Sorceress is known for her fast ability to achieve high amounts of damage with little effort and godly items. Very agile class.
If you do decide to start off with a Sorceress, use these skills.

20 Nova
20 Thunder Storm
20 Lightning Mastery
20 Orb
1 Warmth
1 Energy Shield (optional on what you spend your stats on)
1 in either of the three cold armor skills
the rest in skills leading up to the maxed.
This build is mainly concerned in rushing your own characters. (don't forget d2 loader is legal here!) Not exactly the best build for cowing, which is why I suggest an Amazon.


For the Amazon follow these guidelines

The Amazon has always been praised for her ability to be godly with just the use of a bow. Yes, the Bowazon is VERY popular here.

20 Multiple shot
20 Guided
20 Dodge
20 Evade
20 Pierce

This is very basic for new Amazon makers. Of course you don’t have to follow these EXACTLY. Just a general idea of what you should be focusing on.
This build is the BEST to do cow runs with. (excluding Paladins with skill gloves of course)


Now, since you just made one of the two above characters, and you join your first game. Take a look around a see what is different here. Head south in town and enter the trap door, this is where you sit at low levels for loads of experience. Now that you have been introduced to the simple things here, back to the channel with you!

The most annoying part of starting out on Diablo 2. "can someone rush me please!?" Ask this until you finally find someone who is willing to. If you really want to get a fast response, post on the forums that you are looking for a rush (in the appropriate place of course!)

You will notice that rushing here is not a huge problem. It is really quite fast! Close to 10 minutes to get fully rushed to hell.
Now that you are rushed to Hell, look in the game list to look for cow runs. Join one up, and head down into the trap door in act 1. In 1 game you should reach level 45 easily. Assuming people in your party grabbed gold, you should have some in your inventory as well. Head over to Akara with your cube and space. Buy the following items;

5x id scrolls
1 health potion
1 thawing potion
1 antidote potion
1 stamina potion
1 key

Take 1 id scroll put in cube, along with 1 of the other item and transmute. This will give you 1 part of the mf setup. Pop in another id scroll with another item like the key for example. Keep doing this until you have all 5 pieces of the Mf set. Here is a screen shot with the complete set stats.


Now cow until your eyes pop out of your head. Find decent runs that won’t take incredibly long. You can reach level 99 in as little as 2 hours.

After making sure that you beat Baal in Hell, its time for you to get your forges. Upon receiving your forge, a reward ticket will drop along with base items. Take this ticket and transmute it in hell act 1. Look familiar? Find the Baddie that lives here, kill him ( Takes only 1 hit). He will drop 3 prize tokens. Grab the tokens and make a new game. Do the other two forges Normal, Nightmare, and repeat with the transmuting the ticket in Hell act 1. (make sure that its only 1 transmute per game or you will lose your tokens!!!)

Either you made a Sorceress or an Amazon, I suggest you save those 9 prize tokens you received, and start looking for a base Hydra Bow. When you find the Hydra Bow look at the cube recipes which can be foundHERE. Weird, you need a Bugged token in order to make the Bugged Wind force with 6 sockets. Ask around for a free Bugged Token, if you acquire one, make your Bugged Wind force. Since you have 6 Prize tokens left, make 6 40/15 ias jewels to put into it. The recipe for the jewels can also be found in the cube recipe link that I mentioned above.

Now that you have the godly bugged Wind Force with 240/90 ias, you can cow your own characters now with ease!


So what about these Bugged Tokens?

In the depths of The Halls of Vault, you will find the hardest Baddie in the game, Andurmediaal.

She doesn't play nicely, and can be a challenge to anyone. The easiest way to bring her down is to have a fully bugged Bowazon teamed up with a simple Necromancer that can cast Bone Prison and Amplify damage. You get the idea. When she dies, she will drop 3 bugged tokens. Nifty eh?!

That seems to be one of the worst start ever, almost completly dry, a food bonus that need several tech to be usefull, a low bonus luxuary and the only grassland are under forrest.



Anyway, Timbuktu is settled on the spot and start a worker asap (almost nothing to gain by being size2 here).
Both warriors are send to explore and quickly meet England (3610BC), Egypt (3400BC), Arabia (3310BC), Rome (2800BC), China (2680BC), America (2350BC) and Japan (2260BC). They also found barbarians cities, and get some maps, XP, gold and hostils from several huts (no units, no tech).

With this start (very low commerce initialy), the research is set to try to get the most of what is around quickly (so no fancy research trying for a religion):
Hunting, Animal, fishing, pottery, bronze, agriculture, archery, mysticism, masonry, writing...

Production was worker first, scout, warrior x3 (size4), settler x2, barracks, skirmisher x2, axe, skirmisher, axe, settler, worker, library

2nd city (Djenne) is founded in 1960 close to the wine (in the desert that will allow irrigation to easily reach the west and north later as a bonus) and stat a worker asap, then barracks and troops (will be the military center).



3rd city (Kumbi Saleh) is found in 1570BC, 4S of Djenne (W of ivory) and is immediatly under heavy pressure from Egypt. start by granary then library.
4th city (Hurrian) is a capture from barbarian in 865BC, training axemen for a unavoidable war with Egypt. This city will be the GPeople center for a while.



5th city (Gao) is founded in 835BC south of Timbuktu as a canal between inside sea and east ocean (too much english pressure to try to grab pig or oasis further east).

Religions
Egypt has all the religion up to now with Thebes being both the buddist and hindhuist holy city, and Memphis (just facing me) being the jewish holy city.
Judaism spreads on its own to most of my cities, but no conversion as I don't need it and don't want to face negative relations now.

In 415, Egypt founded a city in the north in a ugly place (1 from sea, going to pressure even more Djenne) and enough is enough, WAR is declared (especially with them without metal).



Pi-Ramesses is razed immediatly.
While building a army strong enough to attack Memphis (because of cultural defence and Egypt connecting copper), here come a good news : Mao declares on Egypt as well



Memphis is captured and RAZED (even if holy city for judaism and all my cities are jewish) in 295BC as it is really bad from a dotmapping point of view.
The war is then mainly phony until I disvover Alphabet (125AD) to get a few tech for peace.

During the (end part of the) war 2 cities were founded : Walata on the northern "sea" (next to dear) and Niani on the western shore, to get fish, cow and corn.

After it is a quite period of consolidation, as economy is coping quite badly with all this cities

First to Code of Law in 100BC, Hurrian is the holy city for Confuscianism.
First to Civil Service in 650AD, Kumbi Saleh is the holy city for Taoism.

Soon all the AIs are either Buddist or Hindhu, with Thebes being both holy city, that is very tempting.

A very quick war is redeclared in 1070AD, Thebes captured in 1118AD (just an academy, no shrine) and peace sign in 1124AD. (Look at the AIs religion is the following screenshot!!!)



I had my 1st GProphet is 1280 (Hindhu shrine, 33% of the world), 2nd in 1532 (Buddist shrine) to turn Thebes into a cash machine. Thebes is also turn into a heavy hammer machine with mines, watermills (and later workshop with state property)

End of game is not that existing, I had no time to play lot so it is basically hit return until space with a few highlights:

1304AD 1st to liberalism (take Astro), switch from pagan to free religion (all my cities are or will be with "my" 5 religions). Same turn Cesar declares on Egypt

1418AD Rome destroys Egypt, I sneak a city by the little lake south since Cesar was into a razing mood.

1625AD Rome (3rd) declare on America (2nd).
America was building most of the Wonders (except for Pyramids and Library both in London) and was slightly ahead of Rome tech-wise, so gift Chemistry to Rome for cheap to make them equal. Bad idea, Rome conquer all America mainland within 100 years.

I stupidly forget that Forbidden Palace IS a national Wonders (unlike Palace) and realize after building it and Ironwork in Thebes that I can't add Wall Street to take advantage of 60gpt of shrines incomes ...

Techwise, the ending plan is the following
1. beeline to Plastics (3gorges)
2. beeline to Computer (space elevator)
3. beeline to (internet) -> get Communism, Fascism, Rocketry and Flight
4. go for the missing techs (Ecology, Genetics, Fusion) to launch.

Thebes is on Wonders duty most of the time now : SoL (1727), Pentagone (1774), Broadway (1794), 3Gorges (1821), R&R (1836), Space Elevator (1850), Internet (1864), Apollo (1874) then expensive SS parts.

Almost perfectly timed, Thebes finishes his (expensive) part just 1t after discovering Genetics and can then finish the Stasis chambers in 6t , which is 1t after Timbuktu finishes the last thrusters (and 2t after the last casing as well).

Space victory in 1899AD.




Jabah

I commented in the Epic 8 info thread that I really liked the sticky post method of report. You could tell at a glance when new reports were available to read and you could also tell where you were up to in the reading of the reports. Since then, I have thought about it and I think that we should have TWO (2) sticky posts ...

1) One that contains links to the actual reports
2) The second one for discussion of the game - this will keep the report post clean

comments / thoughts?

I’ve never played a limited cities game before and this Epic, with its fairly typical Monarch setup, sounded like a perfect place to try a 3 City Challenge (3CC) space race.

Pre-game thoughts
Philosophical Saladin will have much easier time generating Great People, and with only 3 cities settling them as super-specialists might be more attractive than starting Golden Ages. So early Representation would be a natural choice for extra research from settled Great People and specialists used to generate them. The extra happiness also will be a good bonus.

Another goal will be to gather as many religions as possible, primarily for the happiness bonus. (Each religion gives +1 happiness from Free Religion and +1 happiness from a temple.)

Early Beurocracy was a third goal I considered, but seeing the capital’s weak position changed my mind about that.

Early Game
The starting position looked very bad. There were plenty of resources, but no food to utilize them. Settling on the starting spot would mean that it would be impossible to work a gold mine and grow, and working both gold mines would cause the city to starve. The only decent position was in a plains forest 2 steps away. That city would be working no pre-calendar resources, but would have plenty of food, including 3 floodplains, and acceptable production from some forests and a hill. That city could even operate a couple plains cottages. Thus, Mecca was founded in 3940 in plains forest, getting 3 floodplains and only 4 coastal tiles.

Since I was planning to found only 2 more cities, I had to make sure I’d get the best possible sites, so initial build order was:
Settler (2800BC) -> Worker (2140BC) -> Settler (1000BC)

Thus, in 1000BC my capital was still at size 1, working a single unimproved floodplain, but I was able to found cities 2 and 3 in some of the best available spots. Here is what things looked like in 955BC, when Damascus (city #3) was founded:


My two starting warriors were able to do a lot of fogbusting and crowded pangea meant that there were plenty of AI scouts around, so I never saw any human barbarians and didn’t need to train any early warriors. (Although my warriors did have to play hide and seek with a couple bears for some time.) As you can see in above picture, AIs were already closing in. In fact, when my last settler founded Damascus, he pushed away Hatty’s settler pair you see in that screenshot. So I got my site #3 just in time, and Hatty’s settler turned back north.

Meanwhile, research proceeded along the path of Polytheism (3400BC) -> Mining -> Masonry (pyramids) -> Hunting (Ivory Camp to help Medina build Pyramids) -> Monotheism (1870BC - religion for Medina and Organized Religion to build Pyramids faster)

Surprisingly, Buddhism wasn’t founded in my game until 3070BC, 330 years later than my Hindiusm. That late date was one of the reasons I felt it was ok to delay Monotheism to pick up Mining and Hunting.

After finishing up initial religious research, I learned Animal Husbandry (pastures and horses) and went along Fishing -> Pottery -> Writing -> Alphabet line of study.

Medina was founded in 2710BC and immediately started work on Pyramids, which were completed in 520BC. Ivory camp and pasture on Pigs were the only two improvements the city had during that time. (I couldn’t even chop forests yet.)

In other wonder-related news China built Oracle in 535BC, taking CoL with it and founding Confucianism. Eventually, Mao would also found Christianity and Hatty would take Islam, splitting the world into Egypt/England/Mali Buddhist block and China/Japan/Rome Confucian block, with Confucian Roosevelt staying relatively neutral.

While Medina was still finishing up Pyramids, Damascus started by training a worker, then building an Obelisk for future culture wars. Mecca started catching up on much needed infrastructure, taking time to send a Jewish missionary to Damascus. (Medina sent Judaism to Mecca right after finishing Pyramids.) I kept Judaism as the state religion to give Medina Holy City culture to hold the border against Hatty.

With its 3 floodplains, Mecca was able to catch up in size and train extra workers very quickly, reaching size 7 by 5AD. As the new workers began building cottages, my GNP increased steadily, reaching third place by 5AD, with only Roosevelt far ahead. Here is the situation at the time:


As you can see in the above picture, after Alphabet I went straight for Literature, getting it at the same time Medina completed its Library and generated Great Engineer from the Pyramids. So Great Library was rushed in 35AD. I did some tech trading before this, but held on to my Alphabet monopoly until Great Library was completed.

After this I finally researched Agriculture (did I mention that I don’t like farms ), followed by Drama (a prerequisite for Philosophy), which was timed to coincide with birth of my first Great Scientist in 215AD. Normally, I use early Great Scientists for Academies. However, in this game I needed all religions I could get, so I lightbulbed Philosophy, founding Taoism in Medina. I was hoping it would go to Damascus, giving me 3 different Holy Cities, but it later turned out that Medina needed more culture, so getting 2 religious centers there was nice.

The Wars
The rest of the game followed typical spaceship research order, so you can read details in attached notes. I focused on infrastructure and followed appeasement policy, giving in to all demands that didn’t require cancellation of trade deals, or breaking monopoly on a critical tech. A few highlights from this time include constructing Academy in Mecca in 455AD, getting Civil Service in 515AD, and taking Astronomy with Liberalism in 1118AD. (When I discovered Education nobody had even Paper, so I felt confident enough to take the time for Compass and Optics, trading for Machinery, before going on with Liberalism research.)

After constructing Academies in all 3 cities, I settled all other Great Scientists and Engineers in Medina, ending up with 2 Engineers and 4 or 5 Scientists there. With only 3 cities in my empire, a super-specialist would do more good than any wonder except Statue of Liberty, which was too far away and off my main research path.

The primary excitement during this time was generated by AIs:

In 290AD Toku attacked Caesar. This war lasted until 755AD.

Hatty attacked poor Caesar in 785AD and eventually took over all of his lands except a couple of remove colonies.

Mao cancelled Open Borders with me after I made a particularly favorable trade with his worst enemy, Elizabeth. I have to donate a couple techs to him to bring relations back up to Cautious. However, I see only a pair of longbows in each of his border cities, so I am not too worried yet. There is also a galley sailing nearby, but I ignore it.

I switch to Serfdom to speed up my 4 workers, and Mao attacks the next turn.

It’s 950AD. My entire military consists of 3 Warriors. It’s 4 turns until I’ll be able to switch into either Universal Suffrage or Slavery. There is a Galley with Horse Archer and Catapult approaching Mecca. And Hatty is refusing to join the war, because she is still busy killing Caesar. In fact, Mansa is the only AI willing to even consider a war against Mao.

Luckily, Mao was as unprepared for war as I expected. (My infrastructure builds pushed my borders right next to his cities, allowing me to see deep into his territory.) So the only immediate threat was that Galley heading towards Mecca.

My first action was to bribe Mansa (the only AI willing to join me) into the war. However, it will take some time for his troops to cross Egyptian territory, so I’ll have to fend for myself for a few turns. Selling around various techs and trading maps allowed me to raise almost enough cash to upgrade Mecca’s Warrior to Maceman. I turned off research and started a spearman in Mecca and Elephant in Damascus. Two workers in Damascus area were sent to chop a forest on nearby hill. Later they were positioned to chop more forests, but that turned out to be unnecessary.

After upgrading Mecca’s Warrior to Maceman and Damascus’ Warrior to Spearman I turned the research back to maximum level. Mecca’s Mace easily killed attacking Horse Archer and finished off Catapult after healing. (The catapult just sat on the desert hill where it landed, bombarding city’s defenses.) In Damascus area, Spear and Elephant easily destroyed HA/Warrior pillaging pair, and another Spear and Elephant that arrived later were able to kill single HAs without losses. It appears Mansa’s forces arrived quickly, because one of Mao’s HAs entered my territory already wounded.

Overall, the war posed little problem aside from pillaging of several resources on the border. After training above-mentioned units and building Barracks in Mecca and Medina, I went back to building Observatories and other infrastructure.

By 1154 Mao was willing to not only make peace, but pay reparations and sign Open Borders once peace was established. The willingness to sign Open Borders was probably due to my switch to Free Religion the moment I discovered Liberalism in 1118.

In 1268 Hatty asked for help agaisnt Caesar and I agreed, because he was down to 2 remote colonies, so this fake war would just boost my relations with Hatty. Meanwhile, I was the first to discover Economics and settled the Great Merchant in Mecca to help with the food situation.

Mao Canceled OB in 1274. Let's see how long it will take him to redeclare war this time.

After Replaceable Parts, research went into Nationalism->Constitution->Corporation. I was so unconcerned about Mao's threat, that I didn't even bother researching military techs.

Hatty made peace with Rome in 1340 and I followed her example next turn. Rome is down to the last couple of cities and is unlikely to ever become a threat.

Scientific Method would greatly reduce my GP generation and research rates, so after discovering Corporation in 1406 I went for Gunpowder->Chemistry->Steam Power.

In 1424 I see Mao switching to military civics and moving several stacks towards my borders. So I give him something more important to worry about. I ask Hatty to attack him for Banking and 300$. Hatty is already a massive monster, having absorbed most of Roman lands. However, she isn't leader in GNP and is the least advanced of 4 technology leaders (Eliz, Roosevelt, Mansa, and Hatty). Besides, she is the only one willing to attack him and they share a border, making this war immediately probelmatic for Mao.

Unfortunately Mao declared war in 1430 anyway. However, his main stack of knights disappeared, so my 2 elephants and 2 spears (will be upgraded to pikes) should be enough.

Mao's main stack of knights went to his city near north-western edge of my lands, where it was promptly destroyed by Egyptians, while I destroyed a couple of mini-stacks at Mecca and Damascus. That was the only action of the war for me.

Hatty easily rolled over Mao, capturing or razing most of his cities. The war was stalled for a few turns because Hatty’s troops were blocked by Japanese borders, but expansion of China’s border opened a passage, allowing Hatty to capture Mao’s starting peninsula. After this, Hatty was stuck in war mode for centuries, unable to reach Mao’s last city because of Toku’s borders, but unwilling to end the war. This caused her to fall behind technologically and, despite her massive territory, she was never a contender in the space race.

In 1541 Mao begged for peace, offering 120$ and I accepted. Now I'll just have to press Enter a few hundred times and the game will be over.

Endgame
In 1598, after discovering Assembly Line, I notice that Eliz already has Scientific Method, so I try to outrace her to Physics. I am at least 4 turns behind, but hopefully my research-centered economy will let me catch up.

Elizabeth was the star AI was this game. She was running 3CC just like me (she also had a size 2 fishing village in the north, but it probably cost her more than it contributed), but was tech leader among AIs. And she was able to keep up very well until the end, completing Apollo Program just a couple dozen turns after me and long before other AIs.

Before discovery of Scientific Method my research was 913bpt and Medina was producing 69 Great Person Points per turn. After it my research dropped to 784bpt and gpp production at Medina dropped to 51 per turn. I should have bought Scientific Method from Friendly Eliz, but I got so used to having nothing to buy from AIs that I forgot about that option.

I won the race to Physics, getting a Great Scientist in 1637. After this, I took my cities off research to build factories and started researching Electricity->Fusion for nuclear plants. I also followed Hatty's request to re-declare on Mao, although that angered Roosevelt. However, he is still very Pleased with me, so that's not a problem. Eventually, after Mao switched to Judaism, Roosevelt joined that war and killed Mao in a single turn.

The rest of the game was very uneventful. I built nuclear plants (health was too problematic to go for coal) and constructed Broadway, Eiffel Tower, and Rock’n’Roll.

For research, I went for Fission (nuclear plants), Computers (Labs, and picking up happiness wonders on the way), Rocketry (early Apollo Program), Robotics (Space Elevator), Fusion, Genetics, and Ecology.

My research/production balanced turned out to be tilted too far towards production, with most cities having to build Research for most of the endgame.

Shortly before the game was over, Hatty attacked Toku, quickly overrunning his empire and killing him in 1918. Hatty was a true monster this game, ending up with 40% of land area. She could have easily gone for domination, especially if she captured all Japanese cities, instead of razing them. Luckily, AIs never go for any victory other than Space.

Talking about Space, my ship was launched in 1923, while Roosevelt was still missing 6 parts. (Elizabeth was leading AI opponent for a very long time, but 3 good cities just isn’t enough for an AI to compete.)


PS I’ve tried to use a new format in the last couple of reports, focusing on themes, rather than chronological timelines, and putting in some detailed descriptions of wars. Please tell me how well this format is working and whether I should do something differently.

PPS I am attaching my full notes in case anybody is curious about more details of my game. I apologize for the numerous spelling mistakes in them, but they were written while playing, so I didn’t proofread them.

EDIT: I tried to edit the title, but it didn't work. Is there a way to make the thread title match the post title? (Epic 8 - Zeviz's Report (Arabia) )