Hi all,

I didn't write a report for adventure 13 because I blatantly and knowingly broke the rules - to be quite honest I never intended to report this one and I just decided to play it over last weekend when I found some freetime. The only reason I mention it is because I think I'm the only one to grab a space-race victory.... in 2049 A.D.!!

So, how did I cheat? I founded a 7th city... On aluminum. I would've lost a rather humiliating time defeat otherwise, but I just thought a few might be interested, if only for comparison purposes. The AI never fought any wars (with me or between themselves) and only Mansa Musa had made any progress on his spaceship. It was a fun, short game and I fully understand that I am a terrible, horrible, person for grabbing the aluminum! In all fairness I knew I had lost the game when the aluminum popped, so I just wanted to see if I could win.

Snap

Hi all! I've had some problems, so I'm a bit late (the game was finished yesterday), and a bit late with the report too. I've put it together today, please send me all the comments you have because I'm not sure everything works in the webpages. Anyway, a great game, and my play was satisfying enough (for me) too, this time. I've had fun experimenting a game strategy that I often screw up. It didn't happen this time, though.

Summary: Cultural victory, 1997 AD.

A note: I'm not sure I haven't broken rules, therefore this game could be invalidated, but I can't decide for myself. I write about it here, the fact is not mentioned in the report. This has happened:

Forgetting about the no-capital-wonder rule, I started building the Parthenon in Athens, and went quite far, completing about a half of it, when someone finished it. As the rule says, You may not build any Great Wonders in your capital. Technically, I didn't build it, BUT I gained a fair amount of money from it, reaping a little advantage from a supposedly illegal action.

And I reloaded once, too, because I had accidentally declared on Cathy while following her galley. Sorry about all this utsadsmileyhere:, I was so in a rush that I didn't always care for details as I try to do normally.

The report: Adventure 13 - mucco

I gave this one a shot. You can read about it here . I didn't beat T-Hawk, but with more careful play, I might have been able to make it closer.

Here is my game report on Adv 13 . I learnt a few new things in this game and also pulled a M. Night Shyamalan regarding a twist in the tail ending.

One thing that I forgot to mention, I didn't get anything from that hut popped by my settler at Athens - did anyone?

This is for people who played the game but broke a rule, like me, but don't want to create a new thread to advertise their stupidity. But still might have some valuable insight into where to settle, initial research path etc (not like me).

So post here (a) the rule(s) you broke, (b) the excuse/narcotic you're giving for doing so and © any valuable insight you have.

Scoring:

5 points per rule broken
10 points for the most outlandish excuse (decided by me)
2 points per valuable nugget of knowledge provided (with screenshot!)

So for myself:

(a) I thought I only broke one rule - building a granary in my fifth city before a walls. Then having read the reports, I realised that building stonehenge in my capital was also a no-no. I think I also tried to build the great lighthouse here too, but got beaten to it. I was just about to raze/replace Moscow with cats and elephants before I noticed my . So score me 10 points in this category, with a decent attempt at 15 points.

(b) A combination of alcohol and tiredness. But mostly alcohol.

© I'll provide this info this evening when I get access to civ. I settled 1SW, which turned out to be bad because I wasted a sheep and a fish. Others had the correct idea of fitting 2 cities into this area.

Adventure 13 - With extra variants.

Unfortunately, I lost most of my screenshots for this one.

Variant Rules:

* If you lose your capital to invasion, you lose the event.
* You may not move your Palace.
* You may not build any Great Wonders in your capital.
* The first improvement (building) in every city must be Walls.
* Every city must build a Castle before it is allowed to build a University or Observatory.
* This is a SIX CITY CHALLENGE. You may not ever possess more than six cities.
* Your six cities must all be self-founded, using your own settlers, or else captured from barbarians.
* You are not allowed to deliberately lose a city for the purpose of "getting rid of" one you regret.


I am going to add a few more self imposed variant rules to make this more interesting. I'm not interested in fastest finish this event.

Historical flavour:

* Can only build Greek world wonders (defined as Oracle, Parthenon, Great Lighthouse, Colossus, and Great Library. Statue of Liberty is also allowed because it's clearly just a ripoff of the Colossus which is Greek. The UN is allowed just to enable diplomatic victories) I am not required to build them though. National wonders are ok.
* We're playing Alex the enlightened who decided NOT to conquer the world, we will build the same units he would use. Cannot build any regular military units other than scouts, phalanx, catapults, and mounted units. Cavalry are ok. Ships are ok.


Honourable:

* Cannot declare unprovoked war or demand tribute from a civ I'm not at war with. Provocation is defined as a hostile tribute demand, attack on a Friendly civ, or attack on Greece.
* I can raze as many cities as I like during a provoked war, but have to accept peace if the enemy civ will give tribute for it.


Ok, on with the game.

There is - incomprehensibly - a blue circle at the otherwise rather bad looking start site. Presumably, there's a horse or metal resource somewhere nearby, so at any rate I won't be defenceless. I will move two tiles west to pick up the fish and sheep, starting with a Workboat while researching Mysticism -> Polytheism and follow it with a settler. Since walls have to be the first improvement, religion to get culture into new cities is important.

Oh dear. Island map. This spoils my original vision for how the variant was going to turn out in the early to mid game, which could be best described as 'speak softly but carry a big stick', waiting for some AI to demand tribute then exacting revenge for the insult.

I get Hinduism in 3160 BC but don't convert; I proceed to research Animal Husbandry (revealing horses, yay) then Masonry and Monotheism founding Judaism. I need the holy city culture for Sparta to get the gold in range quickly and stave off unhappiness, because I can't build warriors yet! And for both cultural and diplomatic victory conditions which are my most likely goals now, I need religions.

I then found Thermopylae in as heavily overlapped a spot as you can possibly get, but on an island map it has good potential as a GP farm spot. I doubt anyone else is going to found two cities in a 6CC at the minimum possible distance from each other... so let's hope I don't regret this decision later. It's not the overlap I fear so much as the fact that I'll only be able to found three cities away from my own island to claim resources now.

Since Judaism spread to Thermopylae, and cities are starting to become unhappy, I decide to adopt it and switch to Organized Religion + Slavery when BW is finished. Org rel helps a little on the production side and lets me send a missionary to Athens without having to build a monastery. I also build a few chariots for military police purposes I research the entire ancient tech tree at a leisurely pace.

Meanwhile, some random civ builds the oracle in 825 taking the CoL slingshot, around the time BW comes in for me. I discover Thermopylae was inadvertently built right on top of a copper mine. How irritating. There is no other spot that gets the fish+corn, though, so this is tolerable.

I decide to go with Cultural victory as the primary plan, since I seem to have two half-decent cities and terrible production. Thermopylae isn't great, but using my Philosophical side to spawn enough Great Artists should make up for that. Diplomacy and spaceship remain as backup plans.

The AI builds pyramids, and also beats me to Great Lighthouse in 300 BC. Having to build walls, not being allowed to build wonders at the capital and -1 happy from no early garrisons cost me a good shot at this wonder, but in truth I did not try very hard anyway. In the meantime I pursue the elusive fishing boat circumnavigation. My western boat gets lost in a maze of islands in the southwest that don't seem to connect to anything, and my eastern boat gets stuck on Mansa's island.

Cathy demands my spare fish. Ok, fine, whatever. The various AIs keep demanding I stop trading resources with their worst enemies, diplomacy is a real tangle right now as there are about 5 different state religions in play. As these are lose-lose deals I just refuse all the demands to stop trading, since you sometimes don't get a penalty for refusing the demand but you always get a penalty if you do stop trading. I find that having tech trading off breaks the diplomatic system fairly badly. There are too many unavoidable diplomatic penalties the player gets, and not enough ways to raise relations with tech trading out of the picture.

I get alphabet at the relaxed time of 50 AD, and the library and temple in Sparta combine to produce my first GP, a scientist. I plan to use him to found Taoism via the Drama prerequisite for philosophy.

In 300 AD, having signed open borders with Mansa, my eastern fishing boat manages to discover a northern passage and circumnavigates.

In 425 AD I complete the Parthenon in Thermopylae. Very Greek and quite a good wonder to have in a Great Artist farm. This is the only wonder I get all game, and generally not a highly rated one, but it does have one advantage over the others for a cultural game: Purity of purpose. Unlike the fiasco of adventure 11 and its seemingly infinite scientists, there will be NO pollution from non-artist sources this game. Without extraneous wonders to mess things up, every single GP will be of the desired type with 100% precision.

I also failed to get Mathematics out of the way in time, and someone else founds Taoism. How annoying. I do pick up Confucianism in one of my colonies by passive spread so I have three religions to play with. I don't think I've locked up enough religions to make a good play for Diplomatic victory now, unfortunately. There are too many different AI factions. I'll be interested to see if anyone manages it.

I build an academy in Athens with my scientist, then ran a relatively production focused economy to whip a ton of cultural buildings before 800 AD.

I settle a great artist in Sparta - Music has already been taken by Gandhi. I also get a second scientist to build an academy there since I have only two decent science cities. I'll make Sparta run two priests now to get a prophet for one of my shrines.

Then I get declared on by Mansa of all people in 1190. He lands at Sparta with the massive invasion force of 2! axes, and immediately pillages my horses...

I kill them by outnumbering them with whipped phalanx and chariots before they can do any more damage and quickly grab Horseback Riding to have a better counterattacking unit

Isabella joins in next turn with some galleys that pillage the crabs at Corinth but no real invasion force. I consider a punitive counterattack as per the original game concept, but unfortunately I don't have optics, am a long way from it and have to deal with Caravels from Mansa. The best I can do is get enough galleys to defend the fishing on my home island.

4th GP is an artist, which settles in Athens.

I fight for a few hundred years against Isa's galleys and Mansa's caravels with my galleys, breaking about even in terms of sunk hammers as they refuse ceasefire. I build more phalanxes, but the AI doesn't attempt any more landings, being content to send empty ships to try and pillage my fishing boats. Very poor.

5th GP is a prophet which builds Temple of Solomon - only worth 9g for now, but the Americans are using Judaism as state religion so it'll pick up a bit more, and is worth building.

6th GP and all others after that are artists; This and all future artists will be saved for the endgame because of my unorthodox plan for the culture cities.

I pay Isabella off with 60 gold for peace, and struggle into Liberalism at 1580 AD taking Nationalism, and revolting into Free Speech and Religion for the culture boosts. I don't have the production to build Taj Mahal, so I don't even try for it; I'm struggling with finishing cathedrals and globe theatre as it is.

Things are now peaceful. The AIs hate each other because of religious conflicts and have spent most of the game trying to get me to stop trading with each other. Since I'm running out of time to complete this game I turn all research off and decide to try and run for the cultural victory - the earliest I've ever done that. Purity of purpose again, and all that. My experience tells me that as there are no psychos in this game the AIs are going to be each others' worst enemy and not bother me any more when I'm sitting in free religion, especially on an island map. Also as demonstrated earlier in the game they don't even attack competently when they do so why bother with any more military tech anyway. There's another side effect of No tech trading here - Dropping all research early becomes a lot more tempting when you are a long way from the next relevant tech and can't trade to help you along. So, Greek tech ends at liberalism.

I pay Mansa 170 gold and world map for peace, then sell my luxury resources off to the AI for gpt to get culture rate up to 90%.

Due to the overlap and the general production bottleneck caused by the lack of hills on my island, I decided to distribute my culture as follows:

Athens got all the overlapped tiles that were shared with Thermopylae, and built 3 cathedrals.
Sparta which was slightly behind Athens built 2 cathedrals, then Hermitage, then the last cathedral which finished quite late as it didn't have much production to work with, so it only slightly overtook Athens at the end.
Thermopylae was the third cultural city and GA farm, and had Parthenon, National Epic, Globe Theatre and ran up to five artists at a time using stored food.

The minor cities of Corinth and Pharsalos produced one GA each (manipulating the timing at Thermopylae to ensure they would come out and pay off the GPP investment) then when each was done they'd run two merchants from the markets I had built to help me stay at 100% culture rate.

The turn before Sparta became Legendary, I used my 8 great artists to create 7 great works in Thermopylae and one in Athens, achieving Culture victory in 1924. Pretty slow by most standards, but this wasn't a great starting position to say the least and with all the extra variant restrictions...

GP summary: 1 Scientist (academy), 2 Artist (merged), 3 Scientist (academy), 4 Artist (merged), 5 Prophet (shrine), 6-13 Artist (great works)

I'm probably going to avoid cultural victories in future events because, IMO, they aren't very interesting to read when they go well. Unfortunately my self-imposed extra variants ended up pushing me into this one.

theGrimm© Entertainment brings you “A Pirate in the Caribbean”

Starring: Alex as the Pirate King, Captain Cleftjaw:


And Isabella, Gandi, Mao, Catherine, Mansa and Washington as Lambs To The Slaughter:


Right. We have an interesting premise here. The variant rules are as follows:

* If you lose your capital to invasion, you lose the event.
* You may not move your Palace.
* You may not build any Great Wonders in your capital.
* The first improvement (building) in every city must be Walls.
* Every city must build a Castle before it is allowed to build a University or Observatory.
* This is a SIX CITY CHALLENGE. You may not ever possess more than six cities.
* Your six cities must all be self-founded, using your own settlers, or else captured from barbarians.
* You are not allowed to deliberately lose a city for the purpose of "getting rid of" one you regret.

Let’s have a look at how these variant rules will affect the various victory conditions. In descending order of difficulty:
-Domination: Oh, you MUST be joking!
-Space Race: Only six cities to tech and build, on a ‘peligo map with limited production and tech trading turned off? You MUST be joking! I don’t want to be the one who fails down this road.
-Conquest: Kill everyone. Easy. AI’s never manage their military well on water maps.
-Score: Like conquest, only without killing everyone. I fail to see this happening without a warmongers game, but it could be the fallback plan to not-quite-fast-enough conquest.
-Culture: No early wonders, no wonders in the capital and only 6 cities makes it a little harder, but there’s plenty of commerce available for buying culture.

I do believe I will go for the conquest option, for two reasons. First, I’ve never tried a military approach on a ‘peligo (in Gem Dealers I took the true diplomatic approach). I’d like to examine the issues involved in a water war. I’ve also never tried to leverage the aggressive trait before, so I would like to see what it can do.

And here we have the opening position. Wow. Exciting. Or not. No food in sight.


A scout move, and quite a while spent in thought leads me to make an unusual opening move. I move my settler 3 spots (in TWO moves) to grab sheep, fish and the hill. A smoking move, perhaps.But, as per our resident map guru, the capital spot is hand picked to be one of the best on the map (though it isn’t clear what’s good about it at this stage). If that’s true, then my second city will have a great spot and may be capable of some not-quite-early wonders. Colossus and Lighthouse are both possibilities. And if my starting spot wasn’t a superior spot, I’ve at least organised a better starting site for my capital.

Athens begins a workboat (I prefer to go fish first where possible, especially since I already have Fishing), I start researching the Wheel…a worker will follow the workboat, more than likely, and a settler will follow to get Sparta up ASAP to get a stab at not-quite-early wonders. Military is not an issue, nor will it be for a while.

A few more scout moves (and Sailing from the hut…whoot) reveals: Jackpot! Sparta will get fish, two hills, lots of forest and wheat. It will be capable of production the old fashioned way, or the whipped way. And an evil plan begins to formulate itself in my mind. Something I’ve been curious to try for a long time. I’ll give you a teaser: Before today, I’ve never settled a super specialist...

My first priority is to get Sparta up and grown to the happiness limit, with as much production as possible available to work at that size (mine the hills, fish the fish, farm the corn). My second priority is to get some culture in Sparta (preferably without building anything there) because the best tiles are in the second ring.

My worker begins roading towards the future Sparta site while the settler is in production, and as soon as the settler is done, Athens goes commercial. A warrior is built slowly in the meantime, but coastal tiles are worked to bring the research time for Masonry->Mysticism->Polythiesm->Organised Religion down as much as possible.



I love it when a plan comes together…Judaism is founded in Sparta (revolt to Judaism and Organised Religion), which does wonders (no pun intended) for the culture radius. Athens provides the workboat, while the worker mines and farms. Sparta completes its wall, and then immediately begins the Pyramids. I’ll pull out all the stops, and a convenient forest growth (on the hill where the settler started) provides a total of three forests to chop. The one on the spice will need to go eventually, it may as well be now. And the one north of Sparta has no purpose, so it goes too. And the one on the hill goes in favour of a mine; this game will be decided before Replaceable Parts.


(Note that the Oracle falls in 1000BC…I would never have gotten it…)

Meanwhile, research continues. I grab Bronze Working (which reveals bronze under Sparta; whoops), Pottery, Writing, Metal Casting, Iron Working and Mathematics. Writing sees the whipping of libraries which, together with Representation, provides a short term research boost. I DO NOT pursue literature actively as I have no intention of spewing out Great Scientists left right and centre with the great library. I DO generate one, though, for an Academy, but I shut down scientist specialists as soon as possible.

With regards to the pyramids; the use of Representation was only short term. I needed specialist boosted research short term, but the Great Library was not in my plans short or long term. The pyramids, though, would serve another purpose.

Lest I forget, my third city, Thermopylae, was founded to grab pigs and wheat. IN a hazy moment, I though the extra food resource would help maintain more specialists, but in hindsight, I ended up AVOIDING specialists there, and I would have been better off grabbing the gold for extra commerce.


Sparta builds Pyramids->forge->Gardens, and hires an engineer as soon as possible. All Great Engineers are immediately settled in Sparta.


Along the way, I pick up theology, monarchy, vassalage, construction and eventually literature (for the heroic epic, mainly). Then, the Greek War machine kicks into gear. Theocracy + Vasselage + Barracks + Aggressive trait provides 8 experience (CR2,C1) Swords out of the gate. Accuracy Cats (and a few CR2 cats for tough nuts) and combat 1 galleys are also on the menu.

Here, I settled a rather mediocre island to get access to iron in around 700AD:


Research slows down as my unit support costs grow, but I don’t care. Sparta, with its engineers (standard and super) and mines, will produce a military unit of my choice per turn for almost the rest of the game, at least once the Heroic Epic completes. Much of the time I had to micromanage Sparta not to waste hammers, because at maximum output, Sparta was producing more than double the hammers of the unit being produced. Who said micromanagement was dead?

It was only after 1000AD when I declared war for the first time, and Gandi was my target for three reasons: he was first in score, he had a tech lead (longbows) and Isabella was already picking on him.

The first thing I discovered about an oceanic war is this: it’s more expensive. You logistics budget is around 50% larger, due to the need for maintaining the fleet to carry you military. And, until you get frigates, you ships offer no function but shipping. With a huge military budget, I didn’t have a whole lot of cash to maintain my research, so there was a very real chance my opponents would tech out of my reach.

I decided that I would not have the luxury of eliminating one opponent at a time. Instead, each successive campaign would need to focus on doing as much damage as possible in as little time as possible. Then, once I’d “broken” one opponent (razed and pillaged their mainland), I would sue for peace and take on the next one. This probably lead to greater war weariness overall, but I was truly afraid of giving anyone enough time to get too big and strong.

At a detail level, fleets of Galleys with city raider swords and accuracy cats did the job for some time:
[img] http://img457.imageshack.us/img457/6831/...ratlj4.jpg [/img]
The catapults would reduce the city defence to 0, and then the raiders would capture and raze the city. I used the odd CRII suicide catapult (or an accuracy cat in a pinch) to soften the tough nuts, especially the capitals, but usually the AI didn’t have enough units in a city to justify that move.


Then, once a city was razed, the healthy units would pillage the countryside while the injured units healed. Often, the cottages provided more cash than the city, but there was another reason for the heavy pillaging, which was to prevent new cities from getting up and running too fast.


Once their capital islands were toast, the relevant AIs were pretty much useless, and never bothered me again except to roll over and die when I got around to it.

Have a look what Gandi was up to while I rolled over his cities:


After Gandi, Mansa was next. By now I had macemen, and my losses were reduced. Sparta was still producing an 8 exp combat 1 maceman every turn. However, by now, I needed to keep my galleys well grouped, as caravels roamed the seas.

On the research front, I discovered guilds, and then currency when I realised I still couldn’t build grocers. War with Mansa continued, but I let up on military units for markets and grocers, as my ability to build units outstripped my ability to support them.

Engineering followed guilds. Not for castles, mind you. Isabella followed Mansa (with whom I made peace). I still had macemen. Gunpowder followed engineering. A noddy badge to anyone who can guess what came after gunpowder…

Mao followed Isabella. Catherine followed Mao. Same formula applied. But while Mao and Cathy’s cities fell to macemen; some unfortunate events began to unfold:

Washington was teching away merrily while I razed land from him to populate. Note that chemistry and astronomy topped out my tech tree. When I was eventually ready to assault Washington, he had (that I was aware of) astronomy, banking, paper, philosophy, printing press, liberalism, nationalism, education…

Perhaps I shouldn’t have worried. Washington had tech, but I had Sparta. No Prince AI can compete with this monster:

A single city, pushing out an 8 exp unit every turn? Base production was 35 (of which 16 came from specialists) which equated to 87 hpt. Not enough for a grenadier, but by carefully managing overflow, and occasionally producing a cheaper unit, I produced a unit every turn.

When my ships arrived at Washington, I was greeted by an unfortunate sight. Washington had chemistry! But, he must have just researched it, because only one grenadier protected the capital. Combat odds were heavily in his favour:


But once the first grenadier fell, Washington cracked like an overripe melon. And the rest of the game was just cleanup. Washington did manage to research rifling, but all that did was give him the option to build riflemen, a challenge which he embraced and my grenadiers appreciated. It would also appear that my rapid assault left no funds over for upgrading many more grenadiers or rifles.

Cleanup consisted of multiple battle groups consisting of frigates, amphibious grenadiers, city raider grenadiers (upgraded from the maces and swords), generally facing longbows. I won’t bore you with the details, except to say: Domination Victory: 1925.

You might also find this interesting:

Note how all the graphs dip right at the end.

Well I wrote my report in Word and planned to cut out the screenshots at work and upload them, but the evil microsoft won't let me do so sensibly (wtf are 'scraps' anyway). Therefore I've attached two Word files and pasted in (a slightly abridged) text version below.

http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/attachmen...=115&stc=1
http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/attachmen...=116&stc=1

Adventure 13 – The Swiss Report

My friend Swiss Toni claims that “winning a game of Civ is very much like making love to a beautiful woman”. But he’s a bouffanted buffoon, so I ignored his dubious pearls of wisdom and carved my own way through history.

The restrictions set by our sponsor are manifold, but we shall obey his diktats. How are we going to win? We can’t Dominate, Conquest in these circumstances is beyond my ken, Culture is hampered by the no-Wonders-in-Athens rule, Diplomacy is possible but tricky, so Spaceship might be the best bet.

I didn’t make any screenshots until the late game, so I’ve gone back and taken some where there were saves, but it’s still a bit sparse in that department.

The Game

On first sight, it looks a bit weak, but moving the Scout W-SW reveals sheep then Fish, so we move the Settler onto the hut to claim those little fishies. When he moves, he reveals Corn 1 tile SE of the city-site.


3640 - Not very exciting stuff, but at there’s a fair but of food and some happy (Gold, Spices). We’ve not got enough land for 6 cities but 3 or 4 can be squeezed on if needed. Research-wise, we’ve done Mysticism and will now try for Poly but our main goal is Monotheism: we’ve got to build walls, so let’s get to Masonry quickly and then claim Judaism for own. This is the first time I’ve tried to claim this religion. We’re speed building the workboat(WB) now that Athens is size 2.

Poly gets discovered elsewhere in 3600 BC, so research is switched to Masonry. We build a warrior and when Masonry is learned in 3200, Agriculture is given a few turns. In 3040 the warrior is trained, so we start our first Settler and move to finish Poly.


The research of Monotheism starts in 2680 and 2 turns later the Settler completes and moves to the plains hill to the NE of Athens, founding Sparta in 2480. Both cities train WBs.



Having achieved our religious objective, it’s time to plan the next steps. Bronzeworking seems like a good objective, but we finish Agri before Mining-Bronze. Now that the WB scouts are ready, we can build some (wonder)walls. We learn Bronzeworking in 1480 and reveal copper in a tile that Athens and Sparta can share: sweeeet! Needless to say, we switch to Slavery and Org Rel.

Now for the bigger picture: we’d like the water-Wonders (Great Lighthouse and Colossus) but cannot build either in Athens. Our research is also a bit lame, so a Farseer Oracle would be very handy. Hmmm…let’s go for all three! It’s only Prince AIs we’re up against.

The Oracle is started in 1240 and by 1040 we’ve met the pagan Mansa, Hindu Izzy (oh dear) and her follower, Catherine. The order to whip the Oracle is given in 900 BC and in 875 Metal Casting is claimed.

In 700, I flip out as AH is discovered and horses revealed out of Thermopylae’s range: that’s the last time I go with a Blue Circle for city founding against my own thoughts! I’ve not been in any great hurry to found cities thus far for maintenance reasons.

In 375 our first Great Prophet builds the Shrine. This is as much to help spread the word as for financial reasons (to which end settling in Athens would be better). In 350, Sparta begins the Great Lighthouse (too late methinks, but why not try).

During the last 1500 years our WBs have been busy and circumnavigate in 275 BC, a momentous year elsewhere too: Mansa discovers Confucionism and someone completes the Pyramids. In 175, another Civ completes the GL, so Sparta switches to the Colussus which gets rushed in 50BC.

By 1AD, I’ve plotted out sights for my other 3 cities. There’s no über-city in there but they’ll do considering what else is on offer. Unusually, I’ve gone the Maths route as opposed to the Literary path, but Mansa was my only trading possibility and I need to build a Library in Sparta before attacking the Great Library.

In 100AD, Izzy declares a holy war! She has sent the worst ever assault force of two warriors. They suicide against Therm’s goldmine Axeman. In the same year, Zororaster settles in Athens. Over the next 150 years, I found Corinth for Fish and Horses, meet Tao Mao (he of the GL), find Bhuddist Ghandi, start the GLib in Sparta. In 375, Plato (natch) builds the Academy in his home-town of Athens.

Little to report, especially the phony war with Izzy, and on the discovery of Iron in 425, we note that it’s all in weedy locations, including the one we could claim. Peace with Izzy comes in 540 and the GLib gets rushed in 720! The discovery of Paper leads me to tout my Map around for 290G (only Ghandi misses out) and, unusually, I give into Izzy’s demand for Fish.

In 920, Pharsalos is founded and the Sixth Column is complete. Good job the Spartans are a tough bunch because I slaughter 4 more pop in 980 to complete the National Epic (for its lovely synergy with GLib). Our long term aim is a deep Liberalism slingshot: Physics should be possible on these settings (Prince, No TT, Archi). This path will knock out Colossus and GLib in short order but the freebies will compensate longer term.


In 1090 we have a spicy moment as Ghandi asks us to DoW Izzy. We decline with thanks, but he ploughs on without us. I carry on settling G-Men in Athens and selling maps for cash and by 1100AD I’m running binary science, completing Engineering in 1190 and thence starting Castles in all cities, which are finished by 1230.

1230 also marked Cathy’s conversion to the true faith. I’d been spamming her with missionaries and plan to do the same with the mystery Civ who’s out of WB range. It turns out to be Washington (GW) whom I meet in 1350. This period of the game is very dull indeed as my plan to sling to Physics proceeds unmolested and in 1530 I push the button to complete the last turn of Liberalism.


Spam GW with Judaism in 1625 and in 1635 he converts. He, like Cathy, is a small fish but all allies are good.

I spend the rest of the 18th Century researching toward Computers (for Labs) and then Mass Media (UN). I also start spamming Mansa with Judaism as I realize that I lead in population so the UN option might just work, especially as there’s way too little production for a speedy Spaceship.

In 1804, Mansa converts to Judaism and, having whipped in Labs, I’m growing my pop back, to which end I head for Biology in the middle of the century. Broadway is built in Corinth in 1860 for much-needed happiness and I burn a GA and GS on a golden age in 1872, to speed the UN (guess?) and my Ironworks (Athens). In 1892, a GE hurries Rock’n’Roll in Therm.


In 1904, and with the generous support of my co-religionists and Mao, I get elected UN General Secretary, ahead of Ghandi. I try for the win, but as the ballots are counted in 1912, I can only manage 308 out of 380 required. As expected, Mao has abstained. In 1916, I start Industrialism in order to assess the chances of anyone launching a Spaceship. In the 1920 vote I poll 81 fewer votes than required.

It’s time for a new plan. And, unlike Germany in WWI, I have one: attack Izzy and raze her cities; Longbows are her best defenders. I hope to lure Ghandi into war, so that the newly freed sites can be claimed (in all probability) by my allies. Thus in 1922 began the first ‘hot’ war of the game:

The battle for Cordoba was hellish tough and cost me 3 Grenadiers, with the city being taken by a Phalanx!


Bizarrely, Izzy DoWs Ghandi in 1927. This is nothing less than perfect: I couldn’t get Ghandi into the war myself. Now there’s no way he’ll be stealing those city sites! After a short restocking and healing break, with some minor naval engagements, we press on with a beefed up force into the Spanish core.

Madrid and Barcelona are razed, each for the loss of one mere catapult. I decided to leave Asturias until later.

I went on to eliminate Murcia and Salamanca, but made peace in 1943 when I saw that Izzy had upgraded to Rifles. I got 350 bucks and made her convert to Judaism. A few turns earlier I had cut ties with Mao at GW’s behest.

Away from the fighting, I maintained by hold on the Secretariat of the UN and edged closer to victory, but in 1940 I was still 44 away from my goal. A second war on Izzy was inevitable, but I had to upgrade my troops first. I had been running binary science so I had a big enough cashpile to upgrade my Grenadiers to Infantry and, later, my Cats to Arty.

In 1959 I declared war once more and Izzy’s cities fell with few losses:

63 – Zaragoza, 66 – Santiago, 67 – Asturias, 70 – Santander, 71 – Valencia, 73 – Toledo, 74 – Pamplona. I left Izzy stranded on a 3 pop rock in the middle of the ocean. Unfortunately, the elections of 1972 saw me 20 votes short. It’s clear that Mao the Abstainer must have some cities razed, so I snoop around and open borders in order to move my ships into attack positions.

In 1980 I come up 10 votes shy of victory and three turns later I revolt to Police State and use the GE to hurry Hollywood. I realize I’ve left one of my Galleon fleets unescorted, so I move a Bronze Battleship(BBP) to cover – wasted turns.

In 1984, I’m still 10 away from victory, and as the delegates cast their votes in 1987 I declare war on Mao. I forgot to take a screenshot, but Tianing(?) was razed by a (high-cost) amphibious assault on the same turn in a desperate attempt to win the vote. I fail, falling 3 damn votes short!

Nanjing (see below with the rubble of Tianing to the south) and Xian are razed in 1989, losing 2 Arty and an Infantry. Hollywood is completed in 1990, but in 1991 I need to get re-elected as UN General Secretary, thus adding a few turns before my assured victory.

During the inter-turn, Mao attacks my empty galleons in Mansa’s coastal waters and thus declares war on Mansa, whose Defpac partner, GW, declares war on Mao. A weird and weedy move.

In 1992, Shandong is erased from the map and the next turn Kaifeng goes the same way. The next year, Mansa surprisingly DoWs Cathy. Maybe she wouldn’t help him out? During the 93-94 inter-turn, Mao attacks my BBP with 2 Destroyers, losing on in the process. The survivor pillages my fishing boat at Corinth. However, I have another BBP nearby to kill the interloper and a WB is on-hand in Corinth and immediately replaces the lost boats. Mao’s naval pillage-fest never really materialized as feared. He bought a couple of Caravel feints which did their delay job perfectly and by the time he reached my waters I had new Bronze Boats ready.

We go to the urn again in 1995 and, the next year, we do as Swiss Toni recommends and light up our pipe and admire our handiwork.


Summary

A mostly enjoyable game, aside from late renaissance tedium when there was nothing to do: neither trading, nor city improvements, nor much micro. But then again, I could have tried for an all-action Conquest win. It also marked my first Diplomatic Victory (aside from back-door Domination) and the first time I’d founded Judaism. With the militaristic endgame, I could best describe the win as Judeo-Domination.

The lack of Iron highlighted the oddness of the metals requirements: I couldn’t build Frigates or Ironclads, but Battleships, Transports (and Destroyers) weren’t a problem. Knights wouldn’t have been allowed, but I didn’t research Horseback Riding. Other techs skipped included Archery and Theology.

The restrictions were fine, but Castles could have been dropped without much difference to the overall gameplay. Would be interesting to have this game replayed in Warlords where there’s a trade benefit from Castles. On temptation I nearly succumbed to was to part build the odd Great Wonder in Athens for the cash-back, but I felt this would impinge the spirit of the rule, so I resisted temptation (for a change).

Aside from Thermopylae’s location, I didn’t make too many weedy moves. However, I could have risked an amphibious assault on Xian which would have brought victory 10 turns earlier.

Hi all,

This is my first completed game on RB.

I managed to get away with a (very late) Cultural Victory in 2016 AD. I had one small war and although I didn't always feel very safe, I was never in danger of being wiped off the planet. This was probably because I eventually went Buddhy-buddy with the two closest civs (Cathy and Isabella), of which I had already all but killed off one.

I enjoyed the game, here is my full report.

Well actually, my report hasn't been written. This weekend was extremely busy (as those from my SGs already know). It wasn't really spectacular. I probably would have lost by Time if it wasn't for some weird voting... that probably gave it away right there.

EDIT: Its done. Click the link in the next post.