Considering that I've never played on Monarch before AND never played as Hatty before, my immediate question was: how was I when I thought this would be a good idea?

I have zero idea of what to expect in this game, but I know that Egypt can be a cultural powerhouse if played correctly. So, basic gameplan: get religion, make friends, avoid war, and attempt to nab the various Culture wonders before the other civs. There is a small voice in my head reminding me that, speaking of first attempts, I've also never tried a Cultural win before. That plus Monarch plus a new civ . . . well, let's see how we go.

The opening for Egypt has two warriors and a settler. I give up the first turn and move the settler one notch to the west to make sure I can nail down the gold tile. Thebes founded in 3970BC. Warrior 1 heads north to get the first village for 52 gold, Warrior 2 heads south and pops 39 gold. Worker into the queue first and reseach goes into Mysticism since I'd like to snag a religion off the bat. We've been given pre-game info on the people we're going to meet and the Arabians are the only civ to start with with that tech. The AI usually tends toward Meditation first, so we'll see if I can hook Polytheism.

Warrior 2 keeps trudging southward and I score a tech-pop (Hunting) from my third Village. The Malinese stroll in from the North to say hello in 3730BC. 50 gold from Village 4 to the west. 42 more from Village 5 to the Southwest. I am rolling, ROLLING I say, in cash. Here's where we are right about now


Contact made with Rome to the west. Buddhism in a distant land in 3370 (I would wager large amounts of my Scrooge-McDuck-like gold reserves that it's Saladin). And, sure enough, I land Hinduism in 3070 as planned. Mining up next. After my worker, I swing for another Warrior, one more Worker, and then a Settler.

I meet both Saladin (Buddhist! Pay me! ) and Elizabeth in the next turn. Hmmm . . . I had hoped that the Arabians would be much farther away, but it looks like they're going to be hanging out right next door to the southeast. That could get messy considering that Saladin already hates my filthy heathen guts. The Chinese arrive on the next turn. I get Mining and then AH. During that last bit of research, my worker gets the gold secured and -- very nice, AH shows me Horses just to the west of Thebes and they're workable! BW is next and I get that at 2080BC, running next on the Tech trail through Meditation, Pottery, Archery, Masonry and Priesthood. My plans to slowly expand are working as I found Memphis to the south (1720BC - I built a road there first) and then immediately get the Copper working.



I quickly build a few War Chariots and Axemen, pause for a few turns to let the barbarian city to the west of Memphis grow a bit . . . then I smash it and take it for myself (Zapotec in 1330BC). Caesar gets Judaism and converts immediately, giving me another Civ that doesn't like me.

I chop for another Settler and run him west of Thebes to obtain the marble plot (Heliopolis, 1000BC). I get Writing next (Libraries + the Culture bonus) and then snag Fishing for the hell of it since it was only 2 turns of Research and my Zapotec's going to need it down south on the coast. At least, I think it's the coast. After getting head-faked on the two huge lakes to the east, a guy starts to wonder. Hinduism spreads in Hastings and Elizabeth becomes my new best friend by converting. Good - more target practice for Saladin if we get to that stage.

I push for the Oracle with my Marble from Heliopolis and build that sucker pretty easily. I have absolutely no hesitation when I get there: Theology. Christianity is born in Memphis. Perfect, just where I wanted it. Many reasons to take Theology here. Partly because I'm not good enough to time the CS slingshot and partly because founding another Religion is huge for my current goals. I also really want the Culture bonuses that the buildings can provide for me. I have Thebes push for one more settler and send them north to the Malinese border. I'm getting pretty walled in here. There's one more barb city to the west of Heliopolis that I have my eye on, so I might be able to get 6 or 7 totally before I'm fully surrounded.

Thebes just goes into Wonder Building mode over the next few years. While researching IW and Currency, I manage to get the Parthenon (175BC) and the Sistene Chapel (260AD) built. The Kashi Vishwanath is also constructed during this period and that relieved some cash flow problems I was having at the time. At some point, Mao tried to invade, but that was a weeeeeeeeak skirmish with a single Axe unit that amouted to nothing. I think he was just annoyed that I walled off the south from him. I finally snag that barb city, Hun, to the west in 410AD. And that's it for me - no borders left to expand to. The Arabians occasionally declare war while all this is going on, but I've got just enough troops to fend off the first wave and then eventually ask for peace. It's working well.

I pick up Calendar and Code of Laws. My second GP was also a prophet (hopefully the last one), so the Church of the Nativity followed a bit later and by spreading my two religions around a little, I was able to keep myself in the 80-90 percent range on research. This was *huge* for me. If I would have been down to 40-50 percent, I think I'd be in serious trouble. And then I got Alphabet in 635. Time to start narrowing the tech gap. I shop Theology around like a cheap hooker (I got the Sistene, so I don't really care) and get a slew of stuff for it: Drama, Literature, Construction, Horseback Riding. Wheeeeeeee. The next two dozen turns are really boring on my end. Just building the occasional wonder (like the Great Library in Memphis) and strengthening my base. The world around this time in my neck of the woods:


Sorry about the lack of cultural borders, but you can see that Najran will, at some point, flip to my side of the ledger. Those two cities are going to eat it up. I feel pretty good about my state of affairs at this point and I just get to a state of peace with Mao and Saladin . . . when the (initially) heart-stopping news arrives. 1190. I remember it well. It was when the Malinese figured that it's time to expand and, hey, the south is nice this time of year. Mansa strolls onto my property with Macemen and I have yet to get Civil Service. The only other two guys who have it are (just my freakin' luck) Mao and Saladin and, as noted, they both have spent the last thousand years randomly declaring war on me. Both have no desire to trade it, so I try to put up a decent defense with what I have (and it ain't much). But my meager longbows and occasional squad of Elephants actually do a decent job of stopping the tide. The Malinese don't appear to be sending anything serious, which is surprising considering this military tech gap he's got on me. So Mansa and I trade off my northern border city, Elphantine, a couple of times.


I get to a point in 1262 where he's willing to talk and I have the city in my control and buy him off with Paper. All in all, no harm done, just some razed tiles that I can eventually build back, but I fear for the future since he looks to be stacked from a military standpoint.

I continue on with the setting up of my three cities that I'm aiming for Cultural. I start to get buried on the tech-tree again, clearly falling behind the other groups. But I've been moving toward Liberalism since no one's gotten there yet and I'm making great time on it. It looks good. I'm already looking up the various techs on the tree that I could choose with my upcoming free pass. I have the hammer down at 100 percent research at a -17/Turn rate. It's three turns away. And, naturally, Mansa hooks it in 1538.


:mad: After swearing a blue streak, I calm down a bit. All that work, though . . . oh, well. It's not all bad from the Malinese, however: Confucianism filters in from their side of the fence and I spend the next few hundred years continually pumping religious buildings into my three targets. My Cultural borders are flexing and they finally flip the Arabian city of Najran to the south of Memphis in 1580. More reasons for them to hate me, but I'm just happy for more research production. I'm also waiting for Hastings to give it up already and flip. Maybe next century.


Time passes with absolutely nothing going on. Wars are occasionally fought around me, but never with me. The random Great Artist pops in and goes immediately into the freezer. I'm getting by in diplomacy with other Civs by basically rolling over on damn near every demand, save for religion. But that particular request was from Saladin. No fear with him - he's been crammed into the Southeast corner of the map and is too small with his three cities to give me any kind of problem. I complete the Taj in 1691 and a Golden Age kicks off. Democracy is four turns away and I feel like I'm getting close enough to shut down the research and begin the culture boom that will take me to victory.

But that all gets put on hold when Tokugawa declares war in 1738 (right after I gave him some demanded cash, too). I gotta admit, this does not look good. He has Rifling (I don't) and the small Japanese outpost just above my northern border has four of them (and they look hungry). I can't think of a single thing I can do to defend myself from losing a city or two. Worse still, one of those likely two is Heliopolis (one of my three cities for the culture win) and it's only got one Longbowman hanging out. Only one thing to do: get myself some hired goons.

I turn to Mansa and beg for help. Fortunately, he doesn't like Japan all that much, has been pretty cool with me over the last few hundred years, and is more than willing to declare if I toss him Military Tradition (which I had just picked up one turn beforehand). This could totally come back and bite me on the ass down the road, but if I don't get the help, I'm just waiting to get rolled. Done deal.

Awesomely, it works out rather well. Mansa's HUGE stack of Rifles comes pouring out of the north and smokes Japan for a few turns. Hell, I never even get attacked. Those two pound on each other and I sit back and wait for peace. Mao declares a few years later, but that doesn't worry me at all. He has one city and is coming after me with Horse Archers. I'm not exactly quaking in my boots. The Malinese and Japanese eventually establish peace and I do the same a few turns later on. During all of this, I've had Thebes working on a special project and it rolls out onto the showroom floor in 1792:


Awwwww, yeah. With the Statue built, I'm starting to breathe a little easier and see light at the end of the tunnel. Plus Hastings finally starts to switch sides and then I find out that the Chinese have practically nothing holding up their capital, so I send a Rifle and Cavalry down to take care of it:


Takes a bit of doing since I'm a little slow when it comes to war-mongering, but the Chinese Civ finally falls (first to do so) in 1819. And then Hastings flips two or three turns later. About freakin' time they joined the winning team.

The world continues. Rome has two cities that dwarf my captured Chinese outpost and that flips back to them in 1866. I don't pay it much mind, however. I'm too busy terminating research and jacking the culture scale to 100 percent. I have four GP Artists standing by to create great works in my cities. 1887 rolls around and Mansa builds his first SS Casing. He gets another in 1888. Minor bit of worry here since I've never played this route (Cultural) before - can I get to mine before he gets to his? My 3 Cities are pumping out 442, 441, and 363 points of culture per turn. Captial is at 63,000 and change, the other two are just under 35k. I plan on sending two GP Artists to each and bombing them for 12K, bringing them up to 47. Math calculations in this game are not my strong suit, but just thinking through it - I should have it made. At least, I hope I do.


A few turns later, I finally wake the hell up and notice that Hastings has had Taoism sitting right there. I can't believe I missed that. Had I notcied it sooner, I could have cut years off my plans. Ugh. Anyway, Hastings swiftly adopts a new nickname ("The Tao Propoganda Factory") and I start flooding my cities with Missionaries. Temples are built and I cram Pagodas into my two non-capital culture locations. While I'm doing this Thebes cracks 75000 and rolls into Legendary status in 1912. I go ahead and move my Artists out, creating great works in my other two locations as planned.

Everyone and their mother is completing the Apollo Program, but other than Casings, I haven't seen anything else that alarms me. It looks like smooth sailing from here. Mansa starts putting out Thrusters in the 1930s - doesn't matter, especially since Judaism just popped in and I start adding the sixth religion to my three cities. I get one more Great Artist and that just shortens the time by a few rounds. Memphis hits Legendary in 1942. Just waiting on Heliopolis. The Romans build the UN in '47, but I just drop a small fortune and pick up a Jewish Synagogue, getting that puppy up to 588/per turn. Culture Win obtained in in 1950.


A snapshot of the border standpoint at the end of the game:


Seems like everyone just had their own pocket and, with the exception of Rome taking out 90 percent of the Chinese, they stayed there. Kind of crazy. Not at all what I was expecting.

And one of my little spot on the globe:


Just eight cities, but they worked well for me.

I'm extremely pleased with this turn of events. First time for Egypt, first time for Monarch, first time for Cultural. I had a really, really good Epic 8.

Not quite the civilization replay that we always see, but I found this interesting:

http://www.mapsofwar.com/ind/imperial-history.html

Around here, this should be up the alley of at least one historian

This thread didn't exist and I have a question, so ....

My fellow Americans. I have a confession to make:

The biggest RB event of all time...and I blow it. I managed to corrupt my savefiles after my first session by playing for a while past my last manual save and then playing another game over my autosaves. Sigh.

So, I'll be brief. I wandered for a turn at the start, and ended up founding Washington a bit north of the starting place. On a plains hill and in range of stone. Two food sourced and stone seemed pretty good for an industrious civ. I also expanded fairly aggressively to the east. I'll attach two screenshots (which I do still have). The first shows where the early American cities went:



The next shows the great American achievement before the Common Era:



Yes, we went for the Pyramids and finished them (with a bit of chopping) in 655BC.

In addition to the two non-capital cities you see above, I also founded in the southwest near the seafood and the elephants.

By the time the Pyramids completed, I must confess that I took a couple weeks off (hence the savefile overwrites) to figure out what to do next. I had copper in the radius of the city-about-to-be-founded in the screenshot above. I had horses. I had cities with food. I had troops being built up. I had the Pyramids. I had...

I had no idea what to do next. With such a big, productive empire early on, and with Copper, victory was assured. A conquest/domination romp. A wonder/specialist culturefest. A combination of the above with a "race" to the spaceship. Since I could do everything, I found myself not wanting to do anything.

When I finally got back to the game, I'd decided to finish Mathematics, then set the research goal to "Mass Media" and go for a true diplomatic victory. Mathematics would open up the Hanging Gardens. I planned to make Washington a model city: trying to generate as many great people of all shapes and sizes and settling all of them right there.

But it was not to be. And so I'm afraid this 1/11th of the American die rolls will add little to the Epic 8 discussion. It was interesting to see the very non-even spread of civs. Very cool to get something via real rolls of a die these days!

For comparison purposes:

I built a worker first, then settler (New York).

I teched: AH, Wheel, Mining, Bronze, Masonry, Hunting (for Elephants), and Mathematics.

New York was founded near Rome, Boston nabbed the copper, and Philadelphia was in the southwest (near the elephants).

4000 BC: The history of Arabia begins.



Start with two (!) Warriors and a Settler. The starting position is interesting: it will have HUGE commerce thanks to Silk, Incense and two Gold hills. Shields won’t be a problem either with forests and hills. The site is low food though, despite the Cows. Outside the city centre, it’s only 25/27 food. That will max this city at what, size 12? I will probably need to chop down forests to put some farms there. Moving one west would give extra food, but lose the gold and coast. So I settle in place. The hut gives out nothing….



The city needs improvement, but I also really want a religion. I decide to go for Polytheism (Hinduism) and delay the Worker. With the Cows giving extra food anyway, it can wait for now.

The warrior scout in the west pops a hut and gets Mining! Always nice, especially now that Worker techs are temporarily overruled by religion.



I meet all of my rivals quickly. I meet Elizabeth in 3760 BC, very close to me, only 9 tiles away. I meet Hatshepsut in 3730 BC. Damn. I don’t like her as a neighbour, she becomes too powerful. “Never start a land war in Egypt” has become my motto.
I then meet Mao of China in 3580 BC, Tokugawa of Japan in 3010 BC (he’s probably to the west of China), Roosevelt of America in 2920 BC, Julius Caesar of Rome in 2830 BC and Mansa Musa of Mali in 2770 BC. All eight civilizations in this world are on one continent. Since eight civs is more than the standard for this map, I expect some crowding.




Domestically, Hinduism is founded in Mecca 3430 BC and I convert immediately. I then start on some Worker techs.
Buddhism falls very late, in 2800 BC. No Spain on a lake here! Hatshepsut is the founder, causing some early friction between us.

I leave Archery aside in favour of Bronze Working. This is a bit of a gamble, but if it works I’ll have a very good defence.

I gain Bronze Working and a Settler in 1990 BC, and here is my dotmap:



Medina is founded on Red Dot in 1780 BC.



I pondered for quite some time as to if I should settle to the west or the east of the river. I went with the safe approach and settled west.

In 1480 BC, Stonehenge is constructed in Mecca.



940 BC becomes an important date in Arabian history. Judaism is founded very late. Liz adopts Organized Religion in 925 BC and becomes a Jew in 910 BC. In the same year she plops down Hastings to the south of Red Dot.



Elizabeth has now become my worst enemy. She is both a religious foe and is taking over my intended city sites. War has become inevitable, and I will need to start serious preparations soon. However, I am still stuck at two cities and Mecca is busy building the Oracle. For the moment, the only remaining city site is in the south. It is a good coastal site, and will be able to run a lot of specialists.

In 835 BC Mecca completes the Oracle.



I pick Metal Casting as the free tech, since I felt I would need Forges more than Confucianism. I ended up building only one Forge until 500 AD and I also didn’t build the Colossus.

In 745 BC Moses is born in Mecca and I use him to build the Kashi Vishwanath.



It has effect quickly as Hinduism spreads to a couple of cities. As it spreads to Gao as well, I hope to make Mansa and Mao my friends. Mansa will be important to tie down England and/or Egypt in a war, and friendship with Mao is needed to secure my western flank.

I settle my third city, Damascus, in 625 BC.



I wanted to move one east to get rid of some useless tiles, but the English Settler 2 tiles to the north will almost surely settle on the spot, rendering the site useless for me. So I swallow the couple of useless tiles.







With my third city founded, I have run out of room to expand. The gap left between Mecca and Medina is not worth a city, even despite the presence of Marble. That marble sure is in an awkward position, and it will be some time before I connect it.
My demographics are simply pathetic. I’m last in 4 important departments, and the rest doesn’t look impressive either.
It is clear that I will have to fight my way out of this sardine-can.

Alphabet comes in in 490 BC and I make some trades.

Mansa converts to Buddhism in 385 BC, leaving me with no friends at this moment. I will try to send out Missionaries to convert both Mansa and Mao to Hinduism as soon as possible.

Mathematics comes in in 310 BC. I start on Literature to get the Great Library quickly. Although I may not have handled things optimally until now, I later felt that this was my first truly weedy move in this game. I was preparing for war with England, and should have focused on this. Throwing in a Great Library without access to Marble forced me to divide up my attention for a long time. Mecca would be tied to the Great Library, and with Damascus not capable of supplying military forces yet, Medina was the only city training military units. And military is something I was desperately short of.



And that became painfully obvious when Elizabeth declared war on me in 295 BC. Her invasion force consisted of one measly Chariot, but it was able to run amok for 75 years, pillaging the country around Mecca and preventing me from connecting the Iron near Mecca, until my Axeman was finally able to bring him down.



That screenie pretty much sums up the war against England until 25 BC.
I also convinced Mansa to join the war against England for Alphabet. It would still take me until 25 BC before I was able to gather a large enough force to take the war to Liz.
Hastings fell in 25 BC. I kept it, since Egyptian cultural presence was too heavy to found a new city on ‘my’ dot.

Well, some thoughts first:
when I first read about the potluck epic, I didn't think I was going to participate, for two reasons: I hadn't ever won on Monarch before, and I havn't writen anything in English since I finished school.
But when everybody else seemed to suscribe, I thought it might still be fun to do so as well - mainly for the same two reasons mentioned above.

At that time, I still planned to write a very detailed report, but now I have to admit that if I was a little wiser, I wouldn't write a report at all. (Too much I have to do within the next few days.)
I'll just write a short report and hope everybody has enough stuff to read at the moment, anyway.

- - - - -
So, I played Arabia. When reading this, you've probably already seen the arabian starting position, but I'll add a screenshot, anyway. (At least, I'll try to.)

(Well, this doesn't look as it should, but I hope it works. Or I'll fix it later....) [Edit: Yes, now it works all fine.]

I founded Mekka just where the settler started. It didn't seem like a really great starting position, but still like a good one. I especially liked the gold, and I was going to use it.
When much later I had a complete map of the world, the Roman starting position seemed to be the best to me.

I don't remember what I found in the first hut, so it probably wasn't important. Maps maybe?
Anyway, I scouted the environment with both of the warriors, and in three more huts I found 125 gold and archery. Great - I'm usually an all too peacefull builder and research that military stuff too late.

I started my research with some worker techs. In 2920 BC, not a single religion had been founded yet, so I decided to start researching Polytheism, and I actually got there first in 2530. (That is late, isn't it?)

At that time, I had already meet some of my neighbours (including Elizabeth, who had founded Buddhism) and started building my first settler, so it was time for a closer look at my environment:


-Red dot: I wanted my first city there, as I feared I would else lose this position to my northern neighbours Egypt and England.
-Purple dot: not sure about that one...

- - - End of part 1 (Just so I can take a look on wether all this image-stuff works as I hope it does.) [Edit: it obviously didn't... *fixing it*] [Done. ]

Domination victory 1589 AD

Quick and dirty: War Chariots, war in 1000 BC, capture cities, build oracles, discover civil services, bully puny AIs, win slower than the best but faster than many.

I typed a lot more, only to discover that hitting Esc deletes everything. I'll flesh this out some tomorrow.

This is the story of China in Epic 8. Everyone played the same map, but was assigned a different civ on that map and over 100 people signed up for the event. I was randomly assigned Mao, who is organized and philosophical so I have cheap courthouses, lighthouses and universities. The only variant restriction is to not declare war before 1000BC. The first pic shows the starting location after settling in place. The +2 health from the river is offset by -2 health from floodplains. There is only 1 hill so this capital is shield poor. My initial build is worker because the scenario provides 2 warriors and animal husbandry is researched first.



After the worker completed, I built another warrior then a settler. I researched Bronze Working next, but copper was nowhere to be found. My second city, Shanghai, is in a decent spot near ivory.



I finally discover copper further east of Shanghai and in 1540BC I claim it with my 3rd city Guangzhou. This city would come under terrible cultural pressure from Buddhist Egypt which is also creative. But I needed the copper to do an axe rush because I didn't know any other way to proceed.


In 415Bc I sent my axemen north and declared war on Rome. My initial assault on Antium went badly and it was down to my last attacker vs. the last defender at better than 90% odds in my favor. Add another tale of RNG woe: the city did not fall. IBT, JC managed to re-inforce, so there was nothing to do but build a bigger, better stack and my troops were victorious in 130BC. I marched on Rome next and in 40BC you can see I wasn't taking any chances. Also, during that year Mansa asked me to convert to Buddhism and I agreed.



After I captured Rome I turned toward the southwest and moved on Tokugawa. The RNG was very favorable for me this time as I won my first 11 combats, even low-odds combats. I captured 3 cities and razed 2 more. I drove Tokugawa off the mainland and agreed to peace in 590.



Meanwhile, in 230, I used a Great Scientist to lightbulb Philosophy and thereby discovered Taoism. Here you can see the holy city of Guangzhou. A few turns later, I dropped the state religion so the holy city culture could be used to fight back against Egypt's culture, which is a serious problem.



In 635, I discovered feudalism and revolt to vassalage which I've never used before. It seems to make sense to try out high cost civics choices with an organized civ and my capital is so shield poor the extra free units might make it a toss up with bureaucracy. At any rate, I never used bureaucracy in this game!

In 785, I build my first wonder, Angkor Wat in Guangzhou. I need a prophet to build the Taoist shrine and this wonder allows me to assign 3 priest specialists to generate one quickly. Since I've got the wonder for culture, I revolt to Buddhism and Organized Religion. Here you can see I fed the city while maintaining 3 specialists.



Now there followed a longish set of turns of trading, building, and teching my way into the lead. In 1226, I decide to finish off Julius and I get FDR to join me for the price of Drama. I don't need the help, but I'm thinking about a diplomatic win, and the "mutual military struggle" adds a diplomatic plus. I even let FDR capture Neapolis and then move on to raze Rome's last city. In the screenshot, you can see that Egypt, FDR, Mansa and myself are Buddhist.



I also eliminated Japan in 1352, even though, by now, Tokugawa is Buddhist and this incurs a diplomatic penalty, but I think it's easier to win diplomatically when you are pleased/friendly with EVERY civ remaining in the game. I also squeeze in 2 new cities south of my capital for the extra UN votes. Here is a picture of Xian and noteworthy is that Liz is in free religion.



Only Saladin remains to be eliminated and this is accomplished in 1595. I had the honor of razing Saladin's last city. I didn't keep it because I wasn't sure I could hold it against Egypt's culture and didn't want a size 8 city to flip to Egypt which looked to be my opponent in the UN vote. In the end, Liz poached this site.



Now all that remained was to tech toward Mass Media. Conviently, a Great Engineer was born in Rome where I had ironworks and this saved me 13 turns on the construction of the UN. Since Hatty would be my opponent, I adopted the favorite civics of FDR (universal suffrage), Mansa (free market) and Liz (free religion). This last one was a dubious move as it costs me +7 with Mansa for sharing Buddhism. I'm only 5 votes short of voting myself secretary-general, so I need at least 1 AI.



The result is I'm secretary-general, but only FDR votes for me.



I quickly adopt Buddhism as the state religion for the 3rd time in the game. The vote for diplomatic victory comes in 1790. I'm +19 with FDR and +22 with Mansa and +9 with Liz. This is enough, as FDR and Mansa vote for me.



I had a lot of fun in this game and this was easily my favorite epic so far. Just the right mix of warring and building and, of course, winning always improves my attitude about the game. I look forward to more potlucks.

Report is done, but I plan to add pics to make it a bit less boring to read.
_________________________________________________________________

Intro:

This is my first RB epic, and therefore first report, so I might not exactly be up to the group's high standards, but that will at least give me room for improvement. Finally, I should mention that I STARTED this game only 2 days before closing time, and so the time I devoted to taking notes and capturing screens was virtually nil. I have enough notes to make a decent short report for the early-mid game, and remember a bit about the end, but pics will be severely lacking or nonexistent until I load up some saves and capture some status pics, and there will be no 'action' pics at all.

I've been playing Civ since about February and until about a month and a half ago was a rather poor player. Finally my lurking on CivFanantics forum began to pay off, and I won my first monarch game about a month ago using Cathy. I now feel I can win most games played on Monarch IF I'm able to play with a financial leader, I and have even won my only attempt at an Emperor game (Praetorian rush with Julius). When I downloaded the savefile for this game however my heart sank when I saw RBEpic_8Egypt as the title. I was faced with making a win with Spiritual and Creative and no midgame unique unit. I did not expect much success. I had NEVER played a game with a spiritual civ, and while Cathy is also creative, I knew it's a trait best suited for the early game, and would have preferred a trait like Financial or Aggressive that would carry me through for the rest.

Faced with this scary prospect, I did what anyone with far too much time on my hands would do - I began playing lots of test games. I created games matching Sirian's settings long before I ever opened the save file, using the same Civs and map settings, so only the map itself would be different in the real Epic 8. I ended up playing 4 test games, one accidentally on Normal speed instead of Epic, and learned (or was reminded of) the following things:
_________________________________________________________________

Conclusions from my test games:

-Monarch AIs expand fast, and if you're unlucky it's easy to get left with very few initial cites before the land is full (partially a product of a slightly over-populated map), and Creative can help make sure cities placed close to the AI end up controlling a decent amount of tiles.

-Spiritual can be a wonderful trait when a tech allows a civic that can help a bit, but is not worth the cost of anarchy. I learned I could leverage small advantages by jumping into slavery, hereditary rule, free market, etc the turn they became available without having to effect my builds. I did NOT tend to make full use of the tech because I never really messed with the religious civics, nor did I swap into XP generating civics when preparing for war - the civics themselves seemed to offer too many trade-offs, and the Monarch AIs really don't put up THAT much of a fight when you make the war on your own terms.

-Taking a religion is unnecessary - it's impossible to make everyone like you if you take one, and you don't need allies that much on this level (or you don't need to share a religion to make an ally). This allowed me to ignore the early religious techs except when I could try to grab the Oracle, but it also denied me the opportunity to run Organized religion or Theocracy for their bonuses.

-Mansa Musa and Roosevelt are VERY easy to make Friendly, even without a religion, and signing defensive packs with them tends to make you safe in the late game. Unfortunately they also tend to be big tech rivals, so without pressure on Mansa, he may out-tech you into space.

-Defensive pacts can provide a false sense of security if the AIs in the pact declare war on a third party. Suddenly you can be left without allies and looking very vulnerable to a Civ with a larger army in the late-game.

-Barbs can be tough on Monarch, so it's important to make use of the War Chariot to keep them at bay, since the unit isn't very good against the other Civs.

-Industrious trait is NOT necessary even at this level to get wonders. I managed to get the Pyramids in three out of four test games, got the Oracle twice, and got the wonders I really like (Hanging Gardens, Statue of Liberty, and Space Elevator) in every game, as well more than a third of the others and most of the modern era happiness wonders.

-Workers are your friends - you can never have too many.

-It's easy to make it to Liberalism. I waited until I was about five techs from it, choose Liberalism in the tech advisor, and won it in every test game with no AI close.
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The results of my four test games were as follows:

-Space win by a few turns (I believe in the late 1900s) over Mansa after taking out two Civs

-Diplo win (on Normal speed) in the late 1800s with close allies Mansa and Lizzy voting for me, after I took out three Civs

-Space LOSS to Mansa in the late 1900s by maybe ten turns, fighting a late war against a speak attacking Mao, and having only taken out one Civ.

-Space win in 1910 over Mansa (who had all the casings and thrusters built) after taking out two Civs.

Therefore I developed several key goals for my actual game on the downloaded map that I planned to try if the map allowed (I was worried the difficulty would be harder because Sirian choose a map that was tougher on the player - I need not had worried.)
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Goals for the Epic:

-Continue to take out Civs and absorb their empires - staying small means being out-teched by financial civs
-Don't take a religion
-Keep a strong military by building at least one round of each defensive unit in every city to keep my power graph level about the lowest AIs
-Put pressure on Mansa if possible.
-Watch out for barbs
-Build more workers than normal - one for each city.

My game succeeded beyond all of my hopes, partly because I'm still improving each game and party because I felt we were given a very easy map that also gave me a bit of luck. Most of all however, by taking out Mansa early I knocked out the main tech rival in my test games, and it was pretty smooth sailing from there.

(Note: This game would have probably been VERY different for me with aggressive AI civs instead of fairly peaceful ones (or the very backward Toko), I don't know why Sirian didn't throw in Genghis, Monty, or Alex, but if he had I may have had one less tech rival, but I also would have had a harder time knocking out whoever my neighbors happened to be)
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Game report:

I founded on the starting location, after being very tempted to move to a safer hill tile (I still expected lots of Barbs and a tough map). I couldn't resist keeping the default start tile however, since I know the game tends to make those spots have a better chance of popping resources later in the game.

I liked starting with two warriors, since I could scout more and continue scouting after I moved one back to the capital for barb defense. I had GREAT luck with the scouting warriors, popping fishing AND BRONZE WORKING (!) before one of the warriors was killed by an AI animal. The bronze tech pop wasn't as useful as it seems however, since I only had about 8 turns left on the research counter before I researched it on my own, but it was still quite nice.

I followed my default research path - Mining, Bronze, worker tech to hook up resource in capital's radius (it was AH in this game), Iron Working. I like knowing which locations will have metal before I found my third city.

Similarly, I have a default build order (at least on Monarch) - worker, worker chops worker, second worker hooks up resource, first worker chops settler. After that I built a war chariot while growing to two, and then a second settler.

I found Memphis due north of the capital, securing four resources, but taking only a mediocre location otherwise. I continued to think this was a hard map at this point, since the spots near resources seemed to lacs grasslands and flood planes, while the high-food tile locations seemed to lack resources.

Heliopolis is founded south of the capital near flood plains, and will be suburb commerce city, but weak early on due to a lack of resource tiles. I had two spots grabbed out from under me (Saladin founded Medina to my East on the tile I wanted, and Mao founded a city to the west AFTER I had left my worker asleep for three turns while I moved a warrior in position to block possible barbs and forgot to awaken the settler - Mao beet me by two turns. Still, I'm glad I lost both spots, since I ended up with the best location (and don't really know how I missed it).

The game was rapidly approaching the 1000BC cutoff after which I would be allowed to declare war on an AI. I actually had enough available land to settle a marginal fourth city without a war, but I begin looking around just to check on possible targets and noticed that Saladin was VERY weak for this stage of the game – in 1000BC he would have two cities and lack archers in his second (as well as the third he founded a few turns before I declared). I on the other hand had no real military (barbs would have been a threat if there had been any), as well as no Iron. I planned on launching a war City Raider Axes, but then realized just how much faster I could churn out the cheap war chariots. As I recall I began the war with 12 chariots and 3 axes built, although only 8 chariots were in position to take Medina and Damascus in the first turn of the war.

Mecca ends up having 4 archers, and I make the stupid move of attacking with damaged chariots and loose my troops and let one archer live. Fortune favors the bold however, so when my reserve force of 4 archers arrives I attack Saladin's new garrison of three archers, and win two battles at less than 50% odds and take the city. As Sirian has forced me to read about 500 times, Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good ™.

I now have a small empire of six cites, all in pretty good locations. Most of the AI have five cites at this point, I believe Mansa and maybe Mao had six. I planned on continuing my attacks on neighboring AIs, but first needed to do some consolidating of my little empire. Since I lack detailed logs of the order I preformed actions, and don't have any screenshots, I'll just provide my actions leading up to the next war in boring list/topic form.

Diplomacy – I planned on being friends with Roosevelt and Caesar in this game, due to them sharing the smallest amount of my border, so I gave each of them techs when asked (Iron working as well, drat). I also gave it to Mansa, since I didn't want another war so soon with a Civ that ranked high on the power graph. Lizzy asked as well, but I told her to take a hike – I knew with our close borders she would be harder to keep as a close friend. Long-term I probably could have remained close friends with Caesar and Roosevelt, since I never declared on them, but honestly, I found myself needing little than any potential ally could offer. Plus Roosevelt and Caesar ended up hating each other, so I was getting negatives for “worst enemy” trading. They ended up cautious, but my military prevented them from ever declaring on me. I realize I could have made them closer through religion, but that also might have meant more wars at a pace I did not controll, and I would gladly fight wars alone on my own terms than be forced to back Caesar or Roosevelt into a war with their religious enemies in order to maintain the relations I had carefully cultivated. This would have gone differently had I not been the strongest Civ, but in this game I quite obviously was.

Research path - Pottery for Cottages, Writing for Libraries, Math for Hanging Gardens, Alphabet for tech trading, Calendar for luxury resources, Metal Casting for forges. Most boring thing anyone has ever written – Check.

Wonders – Wonders went VERY late in this game. I didn't prioritize Stonehenge at all, and my rush to build war chariots meant I began building Pyramids very late, and without Stone I thought it very unlikely I would get it. Stonehenge was still available in 300BC, I made no effort to grab it however. The Pyramids were FIDL in 300BC netting me 300 gold or so (I had about 25 turns left, so I wasn't close). I made no effort to grab Oracle or Parthenon (they were gone before I researched their techs). I did make an effort to grab two wonders fairly early on however, so Memphis started Aqueduct-Hanging Gardens as soon as Mathematics was researched and Mecca built Lighthouse-Great Lighthouse as soon as possible as well.

Build path – My research break-even rate had fallen to 30% after my little war and captured cities, so I needed a period of considerable infrastructure buildup. In rapid succession I churned out a worker for each city, assigning one to work its own city (well assigning in my head, I obviously don't automate city improvements). I managed to research Calender at 100%, and then had exhausted all my cash reserves. I used binary research on Metal Casting, but nothing else, since I don't really enjoy the additional micromanaging despite the minor benefits. After the workers my build path was granery-barracks-walls-axeman-sword (I gained iron from Saladin's territory)-library-forge.

After this first war my research would never fall below 60% for any length of time despite a considerable amount of waring. I suppose this means I could have been even more aggressive, but at the same time I feel I struck a good balance of being aggressive while still teching fast enough to not worry about falling behind Civs I was not currently fighting.

I suppose I will also mention at this point that while preparing for my next war I also came to the realization that I had seen no barb troops this game. Now I had seen two barb city boundaries, so I knew they were there, but they must have been sending troops elsewhere. I saw ZERO barbs in this game until the 1700s, when a barb city up in the ice sent a few longbows towards me that were killed by a Cav – not exactly the scary barb threat I predicted.

As I just mentioned I was building Axes and then Swords. The former were city defenders (I never build archers in my game), the later were the beginning of my next attack phase. I had decided I would eventually attack both Lizzy and Mansa, hoping to knock out the former and just push back the latter – I was quite hemmed in on my East, and they had several nice cities. I planned to follow the same capturing process I would for the entire game after Saladin had been eliminated – only taking about 40% of the AIs cities, burning the rest. This meant that even when I finished the game I only had 19 cities, but it also meant every city had a full cross to work and I didn't have to pay maintanance on junk cities. Creative really helped here, since I didn't need placeholder cities to secure borders, as did a total of five great artists, all used to culture bomb captured cities to fill in territory with my cultural borders.

I raise an army of about 15 words to attack Lizzy's southern cities. I plan to take a few and then see if I can knock her out. I make a note that I will NOT be able to immediately carry the war to Mansa even if I make a quick peace with Lizzy since the next war will need Cats. The turns right before the war go like this – I'm researching Drama-Music for the GA (I will get it). I could have used Music for a lot of tech trades, but I made FAR fewer than in my test games. Honestly, as long as I was ahead in commerce, I could see little reason to give the AI something good for something that would take me 4-6 turns to research (as I said before this would have been different if I wanted close allies). I am still sucking up to Caesar, Roosevelt, and like an idiot – Mao. I actually gave him a tech even though we shared a border and I knew I would eventually attack him. The foolish diplomacy with Mao is probably what pushed me towards playing this game without really trying to make anyone like me, so long as I didn't make Caesar or Roosevelt annoyed. Anyways, when my research was back up to 50% I felt ready to attack, and did declare on Lizzy in 440AD. Right before I attacked I did something I have never tried before however and something that I'm a bit ashamed of – I demanded Construction the turn before I declared, not expecting anything, but she actually gave it to me. Cats began being built in most cities at this point, something that didn't bode well for Mansa.

I knock out two of Lizzy's junk cites that had been pushed back by my culture in the first turns of the war. I then take York, which is fairly well defended, and prepare to attack London. At this point I plan to take London and burn one medium sized city with overlap (Nottingham) south of London. However before this can happen Mansa declares on my in 605AD. I'm faced with a major dilemma, since Mansa is threatening Memphis with one sword, and may have more coming, and Lizzy will agree to an immediate peace, which will allow my attack force to become my defense force. I gamble that Mansa is offering a phony war and therefore I can safely take London and burn Nottingham, while only whipping one elephant in Memphis (one of my very few whips, since neither happiness or health were ever much of a problem in this game – very east compared to my tests again).

In 750AD I have taken London and Lizzy has researched Feudalism and began building and upgrading Longbows. She has also moved a settler pair down to rebuild a junk city, but when my axeman threatens she moves away, sparing me burning it again. On the other hand I was an idiot outside York, watching Mansa's horse archer walk up to the city defended only by an axeman and then attack successfully and take the city. Thankfully he doesn't burn it, and I retake it next turn using the sword I had STANDING OUTSIDE THE CITY.

In 760AD I have burned Nottingham and made peace with Lizzy since I couldn't locate her last city (it ended up being located on the ice above Mansa). Lizzy offered me Mysticism and Horseback riding to sweeten the deal. Mansa does little to threaten my empire, so I take my time and heal troops before burning Mansa's first junk city in the north. Mansa then founds another junk city on site of an old English junk city, which I burn with leftover war chariots upgraded to horse archers. I then prepare to take very defended Djenne using suicide cats. After taking Djenne Mansa will accept peace while giving me Polytheism and Meditation (which I still hadn't researched).

I spend the following turns building up the captured cities and shooting for some wonders – I build Great Library and Angkor Wat, loose Chitzen Itza, rush Notre Dame with a GE, and notice I have captured the Pyramids, Parthenon, and Sistine Chapel in London. I realize Lizzy had built Sistine the turn before I took the city, so thanks Lizzy. I revolt to Hereditary Rule and will remain there until I swap to Universal Suffrage in 500 or so years.

I then prepare to go to war with Mansa on my own terms, and eliminate him this time. I build up two identical armies of six cats and twelve maces (using upgraded leftover swords from the last war that had city raider two and three promotions for about half my armies). I plan to take two or three of Mansa's cities, burn the rest, knock out Lizzy if I can find her, and then keep the army rolling to attack Tokugawa or Mao if maintenance is under control. The war goes very well – Mansa has tons of defenders in his capital and two cities in the East (western cites have only two defenders each), but I use suicide cats and loose very few Maces. I take his capital and finish him off, having captured three of his cites total (Timbuktu, Tekedda, and having captured Djenne in the last war). I immediately declare on Lizzy and take out her two TOTAL iceball cites in the north, she's eliminated in 1490.

After this my notes get even more spotty – I basically knew I had things won – I had double the score of second place Roosevelt. I considerer going for a space victory, but after seeing how I already had over 40% of the area, I decide to go for my first higher-than-Noble domination win.

Basically before the next war I will shoot to Liberalism, win it, take Nationalism, build the Taj, take whatever tech it is that provides a free GM, and use the $$$ from the trade mission to fund deficit research for many turns to come at 90%.

I used my leftover forced from the campaign against Mansa to start a little war against Tokugawa in 1592AD. The situation is that I plan to attack Mao with Cavs, and am finishing researching Gunpowder in 1592. I will build Cavs and then attack Mao, take what cities I want, and then move on to Toku, but first I need to take out two of Toku's cities he has managed to build to Mao's East in order to not fight a two front war or loose territory to those cities' culture. I plan to get good use out of my remaining maces and cats, so I make two stacks (about 5 cats and 8 maces each) to take Toku's cities, planning to quickly take them, make peace, and declare on Mao. Mao however had other ideas – he declares on my one turn AFTER I declare on Toku. I have to use my offensive stacks as defenders to knock out Mao's stacks that are about to enter my territory, and basically we end up destroying each other's ability to field an army. I however have just finished researching Military Tradition and begin building Cavs in every city. A trickle of Cavs (and maces upgraded to rifles) quickly becomes a torrent however, and the writing is on the wall for Mao and Toku.

I accept peace with Toku as soon as I can (but AFTER I take and burn those two Eastern cities) in order to focus on Mao. My cats and cavs converge on his southern cities, and they begin falling like flies. He will research chemistry before I knock him out, but one grenadier and 3-4 longbows per city simply cannot match an army of combat four cavs and city raider three rifles with cats upgraded to cannon that can take out 60% cultural defenses in one turn.

In 1712AD I have taken Mao down to 2 cities – a junk city on an island to the south and a city surrounded by Caesar's culture to the far north. I have 52% of the land area, and am considering having to push for back door domination through the UN if knocking out Toku won't push me above 62% land area.

I declare peace with Mao and immediately declare on Toku. He is hopelessly backwards, and I'm able to field three different armies and run wild around his Civ. After all, there isn't any military rule about dividing an army in the face of INFERIOR forces. I culture bomb my last artist and bring my land total to 58% with Toku still having one city on an island, and me having one of his former cities still in revolt. I had been building Galleons in preparation of having to take the island (this is the moment I'm most proud of – I never would have had the foresight to do this a month ago). I do manage to take the island city in 1802, but in 1804 I get a border pop and reach 62.5% in 1804 and trigger domination victory in 1806.
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Conclusion:

I was obviously going to win this game by any victory type I wanted – I had over four times the production and GDP of Roosevelt, so it wasn't touch and go by any means, but I don't think I could have finished any faster with my current mediocre abilities as a player with any other victory type. I DO think I could have reached domination earlier however, if I had built less infrastructure and more units and therefore been willing to accept greater losses in exchange for faster progress. As I said however, I kept expecting this game to be harder than it was, so I played conservative throughout. The game could easily had gone differently had the AIs I attacked early had cities placed on more hills or if my territory had fewer happiness or health resources. Being able to knock out Saladin so easily and never having to worry about happiness or health made this game the easiest Monarch game I've played yet, even taking into account my rising (though still modest) abilities. This is easily attested to by the fact that I managed to achieve domination victory without allies where in my test game I was barely winning (or even loosing) the space race.

In summary I would say I managed to respond to my goals in the following ways:

-Continue to take out Civs and absorb their empires - staying small means being out-teched by financial civs

I did great on this point, taking out so many civs early was the way to go IMHO.

-Don't take a religion

Check – I saw no reason to in this game

-Keep a strong military by building at least one round of each defensive unit in every city to keep my power graph level about the lowest Ais

I never lagged in power, but unlike other games it wasn't because I had a lot of defenders, but rather because I had a large offensive strike force. Being ahead in tech meant that I could afford to lower research down to zero at one point during the game in order to upgrade all my defenders from longbows to rifles however.

-Put pressure on Mansa if possible.

Taking him out was the biggest change from my test games – the player had an advantage here because he started close and in a lousy location in terms of available high-food tiles as long as they attacked him fairly quickly.

-Watch out for barbs

Non-issue, as there were almost no barbs.

-Build more workers than normal - one for each city.

19 cities, 24 workers – Check.
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Short Version:

Short version is I played an aggressive game with no allies, after a strong start crushing Saladin, Lizzy, Mansa in turn, then building up for a final push on Mao and then Tokugawa to hit the domination threshold in 1806. Back-door domination was about 40 or so turns away IIRC, and rocketry about the same number of turns, so Domination was the quickest victory type I think I could have managed.
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Big Finish:

I really enjoyed this game, thanks to Sirian for seting it up, and thanks to the RB community for making this such an inviting place to play. This was my first RB game, but it won't be the last. The best thing I can say about this game is that preparing for it made me a much better Civ player, and making people enjoy the game more is exactly what these sort of sites should be all about.

Thanks for the ride.

Ronald's report RB-epic8 part 1

I got the Mali start file.



I have not played a Mali game before and I am looking forward to doing so.
Mansa is always doing really well on the research front, so I hope I can do
that as well.
Spiriual and financial are quite powerful.
There is one oddity: I have 2 warriors
The only aspect of the file I don't like is the actual starting position.
Since I can see ice in the North, it must be very close to the upper edge. I
really want to move my settler.
So I move my settler onto the goodie hut and get a map:



There is a powerful starting position (red dot) with wheat, cow, ivory and 2
wines. It takes 3 turns to get there, but I think it is worth it.
So I settle there in 3880 BC, set production to a worker and science to BW.



I had incredible good luck with goodie huts. The first popped BW, so I
switched my research to agriculture, the second popped masonry.
I made quickly contact with Elizabeth and when my borders of Timbuktu
expanded, I saw a yellow border in the South. Fortunately it is friendly
Hatty and not Julius.



My luck with goodie huts continued: The next gave me agriculture, so I
changed research to AH
The next civ I met was Saladin, the Mao and Julius.
After completing my worker I improved the cow tile and then chopped a
settler. The settler is going for blue dot, another beautiful city site with
fish, cow and corn. It also will prevent Hatty to settle North.
Research was set to pottery.



After pottery, writing was next. Timbuktu produced a handful of warriors to
protect the city from barbs in the North, then production was set to a
granary and a library.
Research was set to mysticism - medidation - priesthood - CoL Yes, I am
going for the CS slingshot again. There are no real good city sites close
by, so I rather let the AI build cities and conquer them later.
In 850 BC I finally build the Oracle and set my research to Alphabeth.
The reast untill 0 AD was uneventful.
I made contact with the remaining AIs: Roosevelt and Tokugawa
I settler my third city in the relativ best spot NW of Timbuktu, then saw a
one tile island with fish. When I moved a galley and a settler closer, I saw
a larger island (the island turned out to be part of the landmass near
Rome).
So I settled Gao there and conquered the barb city next to it.
I also capured a nice barb fisihing village way up north. Hatty settled 2
mediocre towns north of Timbuktu.





Now I prepare for my first war. The victim will be Hatty, I really want
Thebes and Elephantine.
In 95 AD I declare war on Hatty and open two fronts:

One for Elephantine


and One for Thebes



Goal was to take these two cities and then file for peace. They will greatly
improve my empire. The final blow for Egypt should come as soon as I have
macemen.
Elephantine fell immediatly, Thebes took longer then expected, but in 245
AD, Thebes was conquered and I filed for peace the next turn.






Ronald's report epic 8 part 2

I decided not to wait untill maces and take down Hatty before. First city to
fall: Memphis



Next will be Heliopolis


Then Alexandria and finally her 3 cities in the North:



On the research side, I was first to liberalism, took nationalism as my free
tech and started to research military tradition to get to cavalrie.
Timbuktu started to build the Tal Mahal for my Golden Age.
I was way ahead in research. This was surprising since usually I can't get
that far away on monarch difficulty.
With my golden age, I upgraded all war elephants to Cavalrie and my veteran
swordsmen to macemen and prepared for the next war. This time against
Saladin:

First city to fall Was Damaskus and now my troops are on its way to Baghdad:



This war was extremely easy. Not much trouble at all. In 1274 Arabia is
destroyed



Since that was so easy, repeat with England, same outcome, last city to fall
was Hastings



Well, actually the reat of the game was more of the same: Destroyed China,
took all of Tokugawas cities on the main continent, took halve of Rome for
domination in 1568 with one of my highest scores I got so far: 121817
I researched to assembly line, upgraded some macemen to infantry with city
raider 3 + 10% strength, but they never saw the frontline.

Here a picture about the last part of the game:



and final victory



A very enjoyable game. I'm looking forward to comare notes with my fellow
Malinese and how the other civs did. Great game concept.