This thread is for questions or participation posts for Adventure Fifteen. (I'll be watching the reports -- and questions -- on this one closely, to see where the Gentle Adventures should be going next!)


- Sirian

Game Info
The game info, which can be found at Epic Eight, can be summarised as follows:

Sponsor: Sirian
Opening Date: Monday, August 28
Duration: Five Weeks

Difficulty: Monarch
Civilization: RANDOM
World Size: Standard
Opponents: Seven
Terrain: Pangaea, Natural Shoreline
Climate: Temperate
Rules: Standard
Victory: Any

Variant Rules: You may not declare war on any rival prior to 1000BC.

I got to be Saladin (Arabia) and was playing against Julius Caesar (Rome), Mao Zedong (China), Tokugawa (Japan), Elizabeth (England), Hatshepsut (Egypt), Mansa Musa (Mali) and Franklin D. Roosevelt (America). My traits are Philosophical and Spiritual. I start with Mysticism and The Wheel and my unique unit is the Camel Archer, which has a 25% percent withdrawal chance over the Knight unit, which it replaces.


Starting Off



It looks like I’m in the South West corner of the Pangaea. I move the two warriors to scout out some more territory before deciding where to settle. Settling on the spot would make Mecca a coastal city with Cattle, Silk, Incense and Gold in the immediate city radius and another Gold with the first border expansion. However, the Silk and Incense will only be really useful with Plantations. Also, working the Gold Grassland Hills gives no food, so Mecca would need some serious Food-generating tiles (which doesn’t seem to be abundant) in order to be able to work the great Commerce generating tiles. What’s more, settling on the spot would waste the extra food that can be obtained from working the Flood Plains. Settling on the Cattle is also possible, which would still make my Capital a coastal city, but halve the number of Coastal tiles in its City Radius. However, that would also waste the extra Food and Production that could be obtained after building a Pasture.



So, I decide to use one turn to move the Settler NW, and found Mecca. Mecca loses (unfortunately) its Coastal status, but it also loses (fortunately) all but one of the water-tiles with it. Furthermore, it loses the Freshwater health bonus, but that shouldn’t be too big a problem on this difficulty level. Anyway, without any food a higher Health Cap wouldn’t mean a thing. Unfortunately (but expectedly), there are no Food resources on the extra revealed tiles, but the move puts two extra Plains tile (more Food) into the City Radius. All-in-all, I think this site will give me a better capital, especially in the all-important early game. The Hut gives me $44.

Early Strategies

I may not declare war before 1000BC, so an early warrior rush is out. Anyway, I went that route (might I say, with great success, read luck) in Epic VI, so I’d like to do something different this time around. I want to predominantly play a builder’s game with quick early expansion. However, I doubt the warmongers will delay full-scale war to very much later than 1000BC. So, I’m probably not going to have an early finish. Anyway, we’ll see how the game, and the fighting, goes along. I think I may go for a domination victory …

No other Civ starts with Mysticism, so I’m planning on going for both Buddhism and Hinduism. The extra income and happiness will be most welcome to sustain my economy and make rapid early expansion possible. If the Religions spread, it will also cause my borders to expand faster, making the second-row tiles workable much earlier. The Philosophical trait doubles my Great Person birth rate, so I want to build Stonehenge and/or Oracle (preferably in two different cites) to get a few Great Prophets as soon as possible to build Shrines for the extra income, especially if I can spread my Religions widely on the Pangaea. The opportunity cost is probably not getting an early Great Scientist to boost Mecca’s Gold-based research. Maybe I can slip one in …

For now, I start researching Mediation and set production to Stonehenge. I’ll change it to a worker as soon as Mecca reaches size 2 (or later if Farming and/or Mining is not yet visible on the horizon).

Early Exploration



My warriors start exploring and the first hut lands me a scout in 3910BC. Hopefully I can grab more than my share of huts with this guy. In 3850BC I find $86 in a hut, followed by $89 in 3730BC. One Warrior is sent back to guard Mecca, and my Scout pops into another village. 30 years later, he and a young man that, suspiciously, looks very much like him, leaves the village to do some further scouting. Some villagers with a funny-looking implement teach me Agriculture in 3700BC. During this time I also meet Hatty, Lizzy and Mansa, which seem to be my closest enem-, uhm, neighbours, and all have slightly higher scores than me. In 3670BC I snatch $42 from under Lizzy’s nose, and the second Scout also picks up $42. Having learnt Agriculture, I change production in Mecca to a Worker when it hits size 2 – Mecca desperately needs some surplus Food. I found Buddhism and go for Hinduism next, which I also found, in 3070BC.
My two Scouts successfully defend against a Panther and a Wolf, and goes on to learn all about keeping animals (3400BC) and getting shiny stuff out of the ground (3250BC) from two more very friendly villages. I also find Julius Caesar and, to my surprise, a Barbarian city in the Northern Icelands, that I’m sure was added by Sirian.

So, the situation in 3000BC, after the early exploration and hut-grab (I don’t think I’ll find another one), is as follows. I’ve founded two religions. I’ve got quite a bit of money ($416) saved up that should come in handy when trying to found my second and third cities early on. I can (excuse the pun) “Pasturise” the Cattle and build some farms to get Mecca’s Food surplus going, as well as some mines to start utilising that Gold.

So, the situation in 3000BC, after the early exploration and hut-grab (I don’t think I’ll find another one), is as follows. I’ve founded two religions. I’ve got quite a bit of money ($416) saved up that should come in handy when trying to found my second and third cities early on. I can (excuse the pun) “Pasturise” the Cattle and build some farms to get Mecca’s Food surplus going, as well as some mines to start utilising that Gold.

Next, I need to start building Settlers for some land-grabbing. Hatty is going along very nicely score-wise, so I should go and claim my stake, especially in her direction.

I start with two warriors as well as my settler, hurrah! I found Rome on the starting spot, set my research goal to Hunting. When I found barbarian borders across the ocean on the third turn of exploring, I set my long-term research goal to Archery.

Initial build order: 2 more warriors, worker, settler.

I used some chops to rush subsequent settlers and a few archers, then just held my borders while I built Praetorians and researched Construction: I thought I'd need catapults to conquer the barb city on a hill (Libyan).

Here's my main empire at AD5:



I also built Pisae in the frozen north to get the silver. This city was conquered by a barbarian axeman in 635, then retaken in 920 (after I waited a long time for it to grow to size 2).



In AD5 I decided it was finally time to attack Libyan:



Then I needed to pick my next victim: Tokugawa seemed like the logical choice, since a) he will probably never be friendly; b) he has built Edo right next to my border, so I can capture it the same turn I declare war. After I took Kyoto in AD320, he dropped off a couple horse archers that were ready to create some havoc in my rear area. Since I had no boats to conquer his offshore city, I decided it was a good time for peace. He was willing to give up Horseback Riding if I would call of the dogs.



Buddhism had spread to me in 115 (I converted in 350, after signing all the open borders agreements I could), and Roosevelt was doing his best to keep spreading it:



Next victim: Mao. He was still alive after I took all his known cities: another offshore island? I signed a peace treaty in 695, then soon found his last city, Gepid, on Hattie's southern border. After the cease fire timed out, I conquered it in 875, and Mao was first to go. I probably should have razed Gepid, but I figured it could work a couple decent squares, and maybe wrestle some Ivory away from Hattie. Ha!



Meanwhile, Saladin had declared war on Hattie in AD440. Roosevelt declared war in Saladin in 740, then I joined at his request in 785. Hattie signed a peace treaty in 905, Roosevelt in 995, and I signed in 1010. Phony war all the way.

Kyoto was suffering a lot of yearning for its homeland. Since there's no option of "Fine! Return to your wretched homeland, you ingrates, and see how you like it!", I went for the next best option, "What homeland?". I built a couple galleys, ferried a stack over to Satsuma, and was ready to attack in 1154. Five AIs left.



Since I had open borders with everyone but Saladin, he seemed like the correct next victim. Right after I razed his border city in 1202, he lumbered along with the best stack I saw all game:



The elephants were a real problem; neither my knights nor my macemen matched up well against them, and my pikemen were still marching to the front line. So I sacrificed a couple catapults to weaken the stack, then finished it off. After that, it was just a matter of mopping up, which I completed in 1304. Roosevelt's missionary spam had succeeded in converting Hattie to Buddhism in 1286.

Next up: Mansa Musa. He didn't put up much of a fight, and died in 1490, although I did have some more culture problems: I wanted to keep Djenne, since it had the Temple of Solomon (why didn't he build the Hindu shrine instead?), but it was pretty well buried by English and Egyptian culture.



A couple turns later, Pliny came along to rub my nose in it:



While I was finishing Mansa Musa, I discovered Military Tradition in 1448. I used a Great Scientist who'd been standing around since 1268 to lightbulb chemistry, and finished that in 1460. I completed the Taj Mahal in 1490, and it helped me finish Steel in 1523. I should have just set my science slider to 0% at this point, but I kept researching toward railroad.

Next: Lizzie. She was gone in 1571.

Finally, Hattie. This was the best she could do for a counterattack, plus some pillaging knights:



A few turns later:





Edit 1: fixed image tags, oops.

Arabian Cultural Victory in 1873

4000BC- Already a tough choice- Where to found Mecca? I decide to found on the gold hill. There just won't be enough early food to work both golds. I am kind of short on time for finishing this game, so I will probably shoot for a Culture Victory-it plays to Arabia's strengths religion and great people and is quick to play.

3970BC- Hmm, now I not really happy with Mecca's placement. I wonder if this was customized :rollyeye:. Research to Polytheism, hmm I thought founding on the gold would give me an extra commerce in the center tile, I guess not. Should it?

3760BC- Meet Lizzy and Hatty.

3430BC- Hindu founded in Mecca.



3280BC- Meet Toku.

3160BC- Meet FDR, the Mao.

2980BC- Meet JC

2770BC- Buddhiusm Founded in Thebes.

2230BC-Found Medina (corn, bannanas and rice=specialist), just in time for.



2020BC- Tech path thus far has been Poly->Masonry-> Monothesim (switching b/w Mono and BW to time Judaism with the founding of Medina)-> Agriculture-> Now finishing BW.

1750BC-Take a look at Carib- that plus that barb city in the northwest that I saw had fishing nets very early leads me to believe that someone might have put Barb settlers on the map . I could be wrong though.



1360BC- My religious track is getting me hemmed in here- probably will get 4-5 cities peacefully. This city is Nottingham and I will spend thousands of years trying to flip this thing, it is in a great spot, right where I wanted a city.



1300BC- I trade gold for gems with Lizzy, probably need to spread a religion to her to create some friction b/w her and Hatty.

1210BC-Never mind Judaism spread to her naturally.

1000BC (acutally the turn before)-Found Damascus.



985BC- Baghdad founded.



925-Priesthood comes in, so to recap-After BW->AH->Writing->Priesthood.

Check out LIzzy try to sneak a settler down here...



Now check out what starts happening to that city a bit later...

[img]

640BC-Hastings, is going to flip, silly Lizzy thanks for the city. Right now I am Chopping the Parthenon in Mecca.

475BC-Start running some scientists in Medina.

[url=http://img224.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0009vl6.jpg]

415BC- Parthenon finishes in Mecca.



355BC- is a big year Hastings goes into revolt. I finish Alphabet and it is now time for some trades, I am working towards music, but I also want that free Artist at Music, so lets see what we can get. So FDR gets Poly for Sailing. Lizzy gets Mono and I get Hunting and Meditation. Mao and Mansa are each other's worst enemies, I want to trade with one of them, but can't deciede, so I hold off.

352BC-JC demands Poly, sure partner.

310BC-Mansa demands Alpha, nope, that seals the deal, I will trade with Mao. Poly to Mao for Pottery.

295BC

Here is my lucky number 13, that is my 13th screen shot...



160BC-She Razes my undefended Najaran. It will take my years to get another city in this spot as other priorites take over.

85BC- Math comes in and I try to make a round of trades, JC won't accept anything to declare on Lizzy, so I trade IW for Math and Mono, he must have been close to finishing Math.

95BC- Mansa won't trade much for Alpha, so I take his money.

170-Finally make peace with Lizzy.

185AD- Mao and Hatty go to war, a better event could not be imagined.

Surprise, I mean you won't believe this...



350AD- Plato born, which ever city he founds Taoism in will be my thrid cultural captial.-



Gosh Darn it... founded in Medina, okay, Damascus is it. In hind sight I should have made Baghdad my other city.

365BC- Lizzy gets Philo, for Monarchy and Currency and some gold. Now I make the double switch to Caste System and HR.

455BC- A huge deal happens 370 gold and Metal Casting (monopoly tech!!) from Mansa for Philo from me.

470AD- I nab the free Great Artist.

605AD- Philosphy for HBR and Construction +360 gold to FDR!!!

665AD- Refuse JC extrotion, Theology comes in CS next, if you are gonna refuse JC you better be able to counter Prats. Chopping of Sistine begins in Damascus.

725- I land the Great Library in Bagdad!!



I started building it primarily for the cash refund, I doubt I will ever let it birth a scientist, this was my plan anyway, I figured that if I just run tons of artists at Medina, with the national epic there then I should not get scientists right??? Wrong, I ended up 3. I started the darn thing just for the cash and the science, I did not want any more scientists, oh well.

Here is Medina



So you would think that this would preclude GL scientist formation, but alas, it could not be avoided, the math of it just catches up to.

815AD-Toku joins Mao agianist Hatty.



950-Mao and Hatty make peace.

980- Music, Drama, and CS to FDR for war with JC, I want others at war, not with me.

1118AD- Sistine finished in Damascus- I can't believe the tech/wonder pace in this game, it is soo slow, probably cause there have have been some wars . Hatty and Toku make peace this year, Toku lost Edo.

1166-Mao declares on FDR.

1184-JC and FDR make peace.

1190-Education comes in, time for Liberalism. definately heading towards free speech. Islam has still not been found \

1196- I trade paper for compass, world map and 260 with MM. The next turn Hatty gets paper for Optics, World Map and 50 gold.

1262-Definately getting lots of negative modifiers, but hey guys I ain't giving away Education.

1268-Liberalism comes in and I grab Astronomy with it, switch to Free Speech and Free Religion.

[img]

Teching along- Nationalism, but I miss the Taj due to an engineer of Lizzy's.

[url=http://img213.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0034ii7.jpg]

Then to gunpowder, want to be able to draft something usefull just in case and finally Printing Press.

So here is the culture situation.



1535-Research turns off and gonna pump the culture, man I need another religions, it is tough with only three.

1550- Revolt in Helopolis-great that would give me Buddhism! I want that city!



1553-Hierancopolis is now in revolt, it also has Buddhism.



1568- The culture slider is sooo powerful!!! Helopolis flips to me. I crank it up and already Egyptian cities are flipping to me, Hatty is no culture slouch either, time to spread Buddhism.



This is from the Early 1600's. The next pic is the tech situation at that time. I have already had research turned off for about 20 turns.





1637-Hatty gave a bunch of gold and Const. for Astro.

1649-Hierancopolis flips to me, but I dsiband too much overlap.



1664-Revolt in Alexandria!!



1679-Alexandria has seen the light and joined the Empire.



1685-Hatty declares on Mao-this is good.

1706-Mao has lost Guanzhou and Shanghai, he is on the ropes. Finally an Arabian revolt in Nottingham. I am starting to take tiles from Thebes





And a Progress Report



1724-Beiing falls, I decide now is the time to extort Mao, so I get all his gold 320-not bad.

1727-JC declare on FDR- awesome!

1734-Atlanta captured by JC.

1740-Toku joins the fracus v. FDR- he is done for.

1748-Mao is eliminated by Hatty.

1772-FDR and Toku make peace.

1784-FDR and JC make peace, looks like FDR is tougher than I thought.

More of Thebes tiles fall to me





1804- I was hoping to finish before the 19th Century, but alas it was not meant to be, but maybe it is time for some great works??

1808-Thus it is in 1808 That I learn that I 75,000 culture to hit legendary- another 55 turns or so. Blah.



1828-This power situation is critical, I am the weakest by a fair margin, I already see SAM infantry in Lizzy's cities, I need rifling to avoid aggression, so I turn research back on for 10 turns.



By the way, look at Hatty right here, she is a monster, she has already destroyed Mao, and could come after some one else , it had better not be me, or this report could be more abrupt than I planned.

1836-Rifling comes in and Now for a switch to Nationhood.

1841-In 5 turns I traded 15 pop. points for 15 riflemen, since I am running a ton of culture slider the unhappiness does not matter, I could have gone on for a long time, probably drafting enough to completely do in a neighbor, but that was enough I think, on to the finish, back to free speech and a fully pumped culture slider.



Actually in the this screenie you can see that I have draft a good bit in this former Egpytian city in my five turns of nationhood civic, but look I still have plenty of happiness left, but look even more closely, I am not running the culture slider here, that is residual religious happiness from all the temples etc., if I start running the slider the drafting can [b]really[b] go on! I am not running the slider cause it is better to just save the cash until I am back in Free speech and can get twice the bang for buck from that commerce, in nationhood I don't get the 100% cultural modifier. And now for the result of my work...



I am no longer the weakest civ. This is important, plus the weakest Civ is now FDR, FDR is also the most hated (he has been at war with JC, Hatty, and Toku I think), so these Civs will probably prefer him to me as a target for aggression, also with Toku in the game I am probably safe now since no one like him (not just in this game, but all of them). Oddly I played a pretty cagey diplo game here, over the last few dozen turns Toku has asked for open borders with me like 3 times (it is the Merchantilism civic baby!!)

1864-Hatty declares on Toku!

1868-*sigh* Confucianism spreads to Hastings, I wish that had happened about 1000 years ago.

1873-I win

Now for my 3 cultural cities.





I am least happy with Damascus, I should have made Bagdad my other site, I build the Heroic Epic really early there and wanted it to remain a military pump for the whole game. This city just did not have enough food and you can see it need the most artists.

Finally Medina, this city would have been awesome in a normal game, so much food and two religions got founded here :mad:, however for this game Taoism founding there was a real disappointment since there was also Damascus and Bagadad that were candidates. In this pic I had just switched to Uni. Suf., I don't know why I did that really, but normally it ran about 6-8 artists and had a good bit more culture generation than you see here.



Here is right before the end.



the end



Discussion

The culture slider- I have recently played a few games and been toying with the culture slider and man can it be powerful. Here we can see that Heliopolis is Hatty's 3rd city.



This city flipped to me like 15-20 (I don't remember now) turns after cranking up the culture slider! It was here 3rd city and Hatty knows how to do the culture thing. So basically if you are encroaching on another civs 21 square radius and you have some culure modifies and can afford to go to free speech-do it!! You can get yourself a free, fully developed city.

Lets take a look at Thebes on the winning turn.



I have taken 7 of its 21 tile radius!!! That is a third of the city. This is the Buddhist holy city, with the shrine and she is a creative civ! It is just huge, the best part was taking those 2 spices .

So basically this is the problem with passive-agressive play (ie. cultural war)- The AI does not know how to respond effieciently, it responds appropriately, but not effieciently. What do I do- I build a bunch of temples and theaters then some cathedrals and this pushs the AI's borders back right- what does the AI do to respond- it hires an artist. This will work great in the early game, but by the mid to late game this is a drop in the bucket. Hired Artists will do nothing and actually [b]prevent[b] the city from doing what it should do! That is build cultural buildings, the AI responds appropriately-get some culture and keep my tiles, but not effciently since its method of doing so is not very good.

I am sort of torn about the culture victory, in some ways it is formulaic, but not anymore so than other paths I guess. For those that think it is simply too easy and happens too quickly check this out-



that is essentially + 200 turns of no research!!! Sure it is alot of hitting enter and thus seems easy, but there are certainly opportunity risks involved and forget doing this if you do not already have a sizable tech lead, you will never be able to trick the AI into thinking you are powerful enough not to just swallow up if you can't produce units with a high str. rating Like I did there at the end with the drafting.

I made 2 mistakes, I did not found Islam- I had marble and thus could build mosques fast and I didnot cram enough cities in to the nooks and crannies of the empire once I started running the culture slider. The first mistake probably delayed my game by 20-30 turns the second probably by none, but would not have hurt.

This was a fun game. I don't ever remember Hatty getting so huge before and she started in the middle of the map! Of course Sirian did that on purpose, making the civ that starts in the middle of a pangea the only creative civ, but it is still a tough place to start. Speaking of starts I really liked Rome's. I expect the Roman players to have awesome domination/conquest times on this map-there was plenty of happiness and commerce to just go nuts with Prats. I Have to say that I did not care for my (arabia's) start or for Mansa's or Toku. Toku was stuck out on a Pennisula-a tough spot to be in, but a good civ to use to get out of there. Lizzy also had a good start, but essentially stuck between 3 religous giants- Mali, Arabia, and Egypt and one of them was creative too!! Those playing her will need to break out, and will probably go to Arabia- Saladin will be tough to deal with and is not the best neighbor-so in Lizzy's place I would choose him. Well enough of this time to read reports!!

End game stats



Charlemagne rating 12187
in game score 2223

Start the suprise save and find I've inherited Egypt. Interesting starting position - I decide to settle on starting spot and send warriors exploring north and south. Initial focus on Hunting and start Barracks build. Emphasis growth turned on. Basically I want to grow to size 3 before building worker/settlers this time to see if it works any better than immediate worker.

Pop huts for gold and a map then Mysticism in 3850BC and swap tech to Polytheism to try for Hinduism. A bit of a risk but I feel an early religion could be a real help in this game.

Meet Mansu Mussa to the north in 3790BC - we'll have peace initially :-). I grab another map and some more gold from huts. One warrior has returned home for defence. Also met Saladin to the east as well.

Luckily Polytheism arrives in 3280BC and we get Hinduism before the AI can grab it. Return to Hunting then onto Animal Husbandry..

I swap Thebes to worker at size 3 and turn off emphasis growth. Buddhism FIDL in 3070BC. Might have had a shot at it if I'd pushed but one early religion is enough for me this game.

Animal Husbandry -> Mining in 2770BC. Worker completes same turn (planning :-)) but starts at newly discovered horses next to Thebes instead of moving to Cows.

Mining -> Archery and find Mao to the west. Also Tokugawa to the east a few turns later - he's founded Buddhism. Looks like no really religion hunters in this game :-)

Early production continues with Thebes: Barracks -> Scout -> Settler. Research from Archery -> Priesthood

With my scouting to this point its clear that I've got some good potential production but I'm going to need to work on getting the GNP up to compete in this game. Obvious key to this is use my civs abilities to the maximum. Egyptians are Creative so make those border expansions work for me. Also the War Chariots are good for some early conquering so as long as I stay within the rules. I'm obviously surrounded by opponents so I'll need to make some friends (via Hinduism spread) and eliminate the rest for their land before they hem me in completely.

With this in mind I pondered my second city site for a long time and finally sit a warrior on my proposed site - should be good for plenty of production, on a plains hill with fresh water and it blocks off Mao nicely. I didn't realise until later it was even better than I thought. Sometimes its good to be lucky :-)


We move from Priesthood onto Bronze Working and from Settler -> Archer. Memphis founded as planned in 1780BC

Epic 8 - Potluck

This game was Monarch difficulty on a standard pangaea. The only restriction is that we cannot declare war before 1000 BC.

Sirian rolled me a start with Mali. That's cool - Mansa has my favourite two traits in the game.



It might not look like much in terms of resources or hills, but this is a pretty good start for a financial civ with its many grassland forests. No river, but we can't have everything. We strangely start with 2 warriors - I'm guessing that's to do with the potluck variant. I settled on the spot. We only have food visible to work 1 plains hill mine, so losing a second hill is irrelevant. With an extra scouting warrior from the beginnning, I began with a worker. I started research with bronze working.

My strategy for this game is just to play a "standard" old skool monarch game. Rather than do anything out of the ordinary, I thought I'd play a normal game to give some of the other Malinese emporers something to compare against.

Thus being financial, I want to cottage most of those grassland forests. Not going to play around with specialists - cottages are what we used to build and if they were good enough then they're good enough now. Therefore my early research targets will be bronze working and pottery to cottage, and animal husbandry to pasture the sheep.

And since we've got to chop those forests anyway, we might as well get some military out while doing so, right? That's why I went for bronze before animal husbandry - to find the location of copper.

Since we're on a plains hill, the worker finished before BW and I started a warrior. BW luckily revealed copper in the BFC of Timbuktu, giving a decent production tile in the capital. Agriculture was next as it lead to both animal husbandry and pottery. After those three techs, I went for writing then alphabet.



I chopped a forest for my first settler while building a warrior. My second city was founded in 2650 BC, getting cows, corn, ivory and 2 wines in the BFC. It was slightly short on food, but farming over one of the wines should provide a nice 2-1-3 tile and keep us going. That city started on a worker - pretty unusual but I wanted to get those food resources up asap and the first worker was busy hooking up the copper and chopping forests at the capital.

Timbuktu built stonehenge, then went for axes. Once Djienne's food resources were improved it built a settler. Unfortunately those egyptians beat me to the site I wanted.



I was going to found on the spot my settler is on next turn. Egypt founded 1S of that spot, which doesn't get the fish. But it still had enough food for some cottages if I were to take it. So Kumbi Saleh had to be founded in this less than optimal tundra location:



It had marble though, which would be useful for the great library. As you can see, there's no other decent city sites in my area of the map. To war then! After completing a barracks, Djienne did a double axe-whip, which added to the axes my capital had chopped out during the forest->cottage transformations gave me 9 axes to play with, and a 10th on its way down. Djienne and Timbuktu were now building libraries.



I declared in 670 BC and got Thebes in 625 BC. Elephantine fell in 565 BC. Memphis was pretty well defended and I was low on axes, so I got peace in 475 BC, for priesthood only.



As you can see, I was researching literature. I would build the great library in Djenne as it had the highest production. It also got the national epic, but I was not able to hire any extra specialists there because of a lack of food.

Rather than continue the war, I stayed peaceful for a long, long time. 5 cities is enough to build with. Oh, there was a phony war with Tokugawa at Mao's request, but I never actually fought. I basically beelined to civil service, because Timkuktu was a cottage monster. It was researched in 380 AD. Here's the capital just before that point:



After that I spead buddhism to my cities and cottaged nearly every tile at Elephantile. Thebes and Djenne were geared for production, with Thebes getting the Heroic Epic. Scientists from the great library build academies at Timbuktu and Elephantine. With a large tech lead over the AIs, I thought the quickest way to close out the game would be to go for cavalry, as they can tear through longbows without suicide catapult support.

I went to theology and built 10 catapults in my heroic epic city - split into 2 stacks of 5. With the extra XP, they could get accuracy straight away, meaning they can bomb down defenses in 1 turn. Also, none of them would actually have to fight because cavalry don't need the odds boost. Liberalism was discovered in 1166 AD, taking Military Tradition. After the discovery of gunpowder, I revolted to Vassalage and chopped, whipped and built a load of horsies. Oh, and I built the Taj Mahal just before too, giving golden age production to do so. Thanks, marble!

War was declared in 1268 AD. I had 2 stacks to finish off Hatshepsut: One to go south and wheel round into Arabia and the other to go east from Thebes and wheel south to join the other at Saladin's capital.



Saladin was dead by 1424 AD. Cities fell in 1 turn - the catapults bombarded and the cavalry killed all the defenders. With the double move, cavalry can attack and occupy a captured city in the same turn, so there's no chance of it being retaken. Also, the war wasn't delayed by having to ship suicide catapults to the front lines. Toku sneak attacked me while I was in Arabia, but diverting a few of my reinforcement cavs prevented in him taking any cities.

The English war of 1466-1520 proceded in the same manner.



By now I had researched steel and upgraded my catapults to cannons. I declared war both Qin and JC on the same turn in 1535 AD. JC had been beating up on Qin previously, and captured 2 chinese cities close to me.

No one had even paper yet, let alone rifling.



JC and Qin were left with 1 or two cities. Tokugawa put up a decent fight, at one time decemating one of my stacks with massed catapults. But I got 2 cities from him and that put me over the domination limit. Empire the turn before the win:



Domination in 1595 AD. All thanks to cavalry. They're useless if the AIs have rifles, but without them their longbows don't stand a chance.

Thanks for the game, I'm eager to read other reports.

I have been having some trouble with my internet connection, which until recently has been annoying but bearable. However, now that I'm playing Diablo online again, I can't be reconnecting all the time, so I'm looking for answers.

My computer is upstairs and connects to a wireless router via a Netgear WG121 (54 mbps wireless USB 2.0 adapter). Ever since I set it up, I periodically lose my connection. It will stay offline until I restart my computer or unplug and replug my adapter. Both of these strategies always fix it until it happens again. Sometimes, I lose my connection every two minutes. Sometimes I will stay connected for weeks. It does seem to come in spurts, though. Sometimes it will be particularly bad, and at other times barely noticeable. The average is probably twice a day.

I have had two different routers that I am connecting to, but the network itself hasn't changed much. I used to be on a DHCP internal IP, but now it's static. I didn't notice a difference when I changed routers. (Actually, it worked great for the first couple of weeks, but, once again, that's pretty typical.)

I suspect that it is either my USB adapter, or the way that my OS interacts with the adapter. I am currently running XP Pro without any service packs. I know that I had to download a windows update to get the wireless to work initially.

Are there any other ideas? I'm particularly looking for things to try that don't involve updating the OS or buying stuff, although those might both be unlikely.

This is Closing Day for Epic Eight. You have until the end of Monday, your local time, to finish playing. You have until the end of Tuesday, your local time, to post your report or at least your game summary.

ALL PLAYERS, please post your report links in the Sticky thread for the Civ you drew.

Players hosting their reports offsite should post just a link. Players posting their reports at RB should post as normal, with their report itself NOT being in the sticky threads, then ALSO go to the Sticky thread and there to add a link to their report (the same as everybody else).


REMEMBER: All discussions are supposed to take place in the sticky threads, not attached to any RB-hosted reports. Thanks!

Let the mass of reporting begin.


- Sirian

Roman players, please post your report links in this thread. (Either linking to your own site, or to your RB thread report here in the forum.)

REMEMBER: All discussions are supposed to take place in the sticky threads, not attached to any reports. Thanks!


- Sirian

Malinese players, please post your report links in this thread. (Either linking to your own site, or to your RB thread report here in the forum.)

REMEMBER: All discussions are supposed to take place in the sticky threads, not attached to any reports. Thanks!


- Sirian