It's a short report this time, there wasn't very much to report a game without diplomacy, wars, and scientific competition isn't the most entertaining one. It showed me my limits, though!

http://digilander.libero.it/giacomo888/Epic%207.htm

Summary: went for culture, then for survival, then conquered in 2014 AD.
See you soon at a lower level .

Epic 7 - Mano y Mano

This was a dual sized Immortal game, playing as Hatshepsut against Alexander of Greece. The map script was archipelago snaky continents, with each civ having a "home continent" with various outlying smaller islands also present. The variant was that we could not attack the Greek home continent.

The start was one of the most interesting ones we've had so far in the epics. Not just where to settle, but what to build and research. There is no obvious strategy, like in a few previous events. But first we need a game plan.

Wonders were going to be important in this game. Being in direct competition with just one AI, every wonder we don't get means one more wonder Alex will get. Alex is philosophical and likes to hire a lot of specialists. There is no way we can let him have The Pyramids or The Great Library. Since this is an archi map, the Great Lighthouse and colossus would also be useful. With only one trading partner, the lighthouse would not be as crazy as normal, but it's still good value.

Short Aside:

We're playing as Egypt ... and we only have one competitor. Who's going to keep a book on how many times Sirian uses the "De Nile" joke if he reports ?? I'm going for ... 8 times. End Aside.

Being separated from the AI, there is no point prioritising the bottom segment of the tree for the military techs. Similarly with no tech trading, going up the top line for alphabet is not so hot. I wanted to make sure I founded a religion for the +25% org rel bonus. With that goal, and most of the wonders I wanted being on the middle section, that's where I started, with Mysticism. Since we also start with Agriculture and will have wheat in the BFC, I also planned to start with a worker. Religion/worker start? Tis a bit unusual, but is something you can do if your civ starts with agri, and I did it in Epic 3 too. I decided to ignore the fish for the time being. With wanting to found Hinduism, researching Fishing would be a delay. Also, a worker would be more useful here because after the farm is finished he can go and do other things rather than being consumed.

I settled 1S of the starting position. I figured that site and the starting position were pretty much similar, but moving 1S would save a forest and there could be some more seafood in the south. In the event there was no more seafood, but I don't think I lost anything by moving. The hut got me some gold. My scouting warrior found a decent stone (!) city and quite a nice choke point in the north. Once mysticism was done, I started Polytheism. The worker completed and went to farm the wheat. I then built 3 warriors for fog-busting duty, because I don't particularly like immortal barbs. I figure I can deal with barb archers that spawn in the north, because they will meet my fortified warrior in the hill forest. But if any spawn near my capital I'm pretty much screwed.



That screenshot was after my first warrior being built, with the second due to head east into the hills and the third to fortify in the capital.

We founded Hinduism in 3580 AD. The next was mining, which came in only a couple of turns after my worker finished his farm so he had something to do still. After that came fishing, sailing and masonry, the techs I would need for my first two wonders. Following the warriors, I built a work boat followed by a settler. I had planned for blue dot on the screenshot above, but for some reason I founded 1SE of that spot. That was definite on my part and I cannot remember my reasons for changing my mind. Those bananas would end up being wasted. Anyway, Memphis started on The Pyramids as soon as it was founded. Thebes built a work boat for Memphis, then a lighthouse followed by The Great Lighthouse.

After Masonry, the next techs to be researched were Priesthood, Pottery, and Bronze Working.

The effect of The Great Lighthouse was not so noticable, and I should probably have gone for the Oracle in Thebes. After having hooked up the stone, progress on these two wonders were rapid and I got The Great Lighthouse in 865 BC and The Pyramids in 655 BC. I started The Oracle in Thebes but it was built soon after by Alex. Next on my list of wonders was The Great Library, so I researched Alphabet and Literature next.

While they were researched, I cranked out 2 more settlers. The first went to the canal city blue dot indicated in the earlier screenshot, getting corn and ivory. The second went to the north, to get sheep, furs and incense.

Great Library was built in Thebes in 470 AD. Alex got Metal Casting very early and was able to get The Colossus before I even had the tech to try for it. He also got Parthenon and Chicken Itza. For some reason Alex did not want Stonehenge, so I got it for De Nile purposes in 70 BC. I was fairly paranoid about there being a galley route to "my" islands, so I settled the two outlying islands before the pigs+silver city city just east of Thebes. Here is my empire after having founded those three cities:



In hindsight that was a pretty poor dotmap. I should not have wasted those bananas or fish on the east coast. Maybe I could have settled those cities anyway, and been cramped for room. It would probably have been better. I was building Hindu and Jewish monasteries to try and get 2 religions and 2 temples in Stonehenge City (Heliopolis) to get me a priest for the Hindu shrine. It never happened though because Thebes was always ahead in GP points due to the great library and got many a scientist.

It was time to fill in some tech gaps. I got Code of Laws, Mathematics, Currency and Civil Service next. I ignored some pretty strong warning signs in 1142 AD when Alex revolted to Vassalage and Theocracy. That's not fair, I don't even know those techs yet! Anyway, he declared on me in 1226 AD. It's not hard so see why, here is my military 1 turn earlier:



So I rolled over and died to 8 experience axemen vs warriors right? Well no. That war lasted until 1730 AD, not coincidentally the date in which Alex finally got off his lazy arse and landed some troops on my lands. Well actually his lands, but we'll get to that later. Yep, despite me having 7 cities and 7 warriors, all Alex did was to send a few galleys and caravels over to stop me working the coast near Heliopolis. He didn't even send anything to pillage the fish at Thebes. Nor could he be bothered to circumnavigate with his caravels. I built some axes and spears pretty quickly anyway, but there was no landing party to deal with. I guess this facet of the AI was why this game was at immortal difficulty. It would probably have been fine at deity too.

This peaceful war must have hurt Alex economically, because I was able to win the race to Liberalism in 1418 AD, taking Nationalism. On the same turn I built Angkor Wat, because with many temples already built it would help the gold situation to hire priests rather than engineers.

My plan was to beeline to rifles and get some drafting going. After filling in a few gaps in the tech tree, that finally happened in 1610 AD. I had optics, but not astronomy yet. I had been drafting muskets, but was surprised to see that I could only draft 1 unit per turn on this duel map. My new caravels killed Alex's that had been sitting outside Heliopolis for hundreds of years, and I also circumnavigated which was very useful. My first invasion force of rifles and cats were packed onto galleys and sent to conquer. Alex had rifles and cavs, so it should be easy from here on in. The next tech to research was Astronomy. Here's the plan:



As you can see from the screenshot, I was in a golden age that I started from 2 great people once rifling came in. I did not try for the Taj, and Alex got it.

Here is the power chart before I started my offensive:



Sparta Conrinth was first to fall (3 riflemen defending), and was captured fairly easily after 2 suicide cats. It would be of no use to me because of the culture from Alex's main continent, and revolted 3 times. It was never re-attacked despite being left defended by 1 rifle and 1 musket and being right next to Alex's production towns.

I made use of the spiritul trade here, changing from nationhood and free speech rapidly, and also from free religion to and from theology when required. I adopted police state (thanks, Pyramids) as soon as WW got large, and it did (+11 in the capital at one stage). Obviously I switched to Mercantilism as soon as I got banking for free AKWed priests in every city.

My galleys and protective caravels made the perilous journey around the coastline to the southern island. The first wave of galleys dropped off 4 cats, 2 protective rifles and 2 muskets to begin the bombarding before the other forces came. However, no one told the RNG gods that rifles in a forest should not lose to cavs, and both my rifles and a musket were killed before the reinforcements came.

I was first to Astronomy, and this helped me immensely. After turning off research and upgrading galleys to galleons, reinforcements came quickly and I captured the four cities on that island but lost most of my troops. Alex decided it was finally time to fight back, and landed this invasion force:



I couldn't deal with this, but Alex decided he'd now was the time he'd had enough of this 6-century old war and gave me peace and threw in 50 gold and his map too :crazyeyes:.

However, by the time I was ready to redeclare in 20 or so turns, I had chemistry and steel and was able to decimate this stack (which was still there) with cannons. After settling some more isolated islands and capturing 5 more Greek cities with cannons/grenadiers (4 of them arctic iceballs), I got over the 74% domination limit in 1788 AD. Here are my cities, note that Alex does not control any tiles outside of his Core Continent.



Starting on your own continent was a nice break from the previous two epics. A peaceful, wonder-filled beginning was just what was required. However, this also brought about its problems, namely exemplifying how terrible the AI is at intercontinental warface. I mean seriously, with 7 warriors defending my empire in the 13th century, surely an immortal AI can send a few stacks over instead of empty ships? And its defense of its outlying cities was also awful. Where was the stack of siege weapons on that southern continent to decimate a landing party? Where were the reinforcements from the home continent? Each city had reliably 3 or 2 riflemen, with just one having 2 cavs too. All I needed was 2 suicide cats per city plus 4-5 attacking rifles and the city was mine. But anyway, I'd like to see how others do and how early my domination date is. I don't think there's enough land to grab without astronomy, so the earliest dates may come from a beeline to astronomy followed by a maceman/catapult/galleon war, hoping the AI hasn't got rifles yet. I expect overwhelmingly for domination to be the most popular victory, with a few cultural ones thrown in too. Finally, thanks for the Sponsor and to RB for the game.

Hi there,

Here's my Epic 7 report. It was a lot of fun! I hope you enjoy it. The best thing is I have time to really read the other reports since today is a holiday in the U.S.

Snaproll's Epic 7 Report

I really wanted to bring up my Epic VII game in Sulla's Epic VI report thread, but it would have been spoilerish. I used the same tactic (albeit the naval version) and wasn't sure if it was an exploit. I'm still not. Let's face it, there are many ways to take advantage of the AI, and I believe this one garnered so much attention simply because it wasn't subtle. Anyway, the report can be found here:

http://www.erudita.com/darrell/EpicVII/d...art_1.html

Darrell

I have family visiting in town, so I do not have time to write a full report. But that is alright, since my Epic 7 game was somewhat boring, and a loss to boot:

From the beginning, I was behind in techs. I managed to found Buddhism (after Hindu was founded), but he founded all the other religions. I expanded very fast, building few defensive units, but clearing fog quickly.

After I had filled my home isle with 5 cities, I spread to the east, I saw what I thought was his home continent to the west. Eventually, he seemed to have the west half of the map, I had the eastern half. He had all the little isles to the north. He never conquered the barbarian city on the southern western isle, so I eventually did with macemen (he had rifles at the time), taking both that city, and one of his former cities the barbarians had taken, which was the holy city of Confucius.

Over the course of the game, Alex declared war on me three times. The first time I bribed him for peace with a city I had just flipped which was under my cultural influence (on the barbarian isle). The second time I paid him about 4000 gold. The third time I gave him a tech. The fourth time the war was still going at 2050 AD.

Every single war, including the last one, was virtually the same. He would take one unit (first cavelry, later tank), on the barbarian isle and pilliage. He would use his massive fleet of ships to kill all my fishing boats. If he had planes, they would bomb my improvements. And that was it. It seemed he was playing with the same varient. He never even attempted to land troops anywhere, much less my homeland. Each of these wars was only a momentary setback. Never was any city threatened (other than by starvation), in any way.

He built virtually every early wonder (I tried many, but failed utterly), but by the middle ages he seemed to give up on wonders. I built virtually every late game wonder, from Angor Wok to Broadway.

The big flaw in my game was a huge strategic error I made in the middle ages. I decided my plan to catch up was to beeline to Fiber Optics (did you know you can do that without Assembly Line even?) and build the Internet. I can say this went flawlessly. I had several techs over him (and he had a ton over me) when I reached this point. What I did not have was proper math skills. One opponent. As in, no two other civilizations to know anything!

So, here I was 150 turns from the end of the game and hopelessly outteched in military. The instant troop upgrade I was expecting did not come. I tried to recover, but I was about 500-800 points behind in score for the rest of the game, and hopelessly behind in military techs. With about 13 turns left, he declared war on me, just to rub it in.

Despite him building several space ship parts (I had built many as well), he won in a time victory at 2050.

The most suprising thing about this game to me was how ineffective he was at warfare. He never made any effort at all to capture a single city. Not once did I ever see even a two unit stack headed to any of my cities.

I apologise for no pictures, I took 75 screenshots, but frankly, they would not add much.

Thats it, back to the family!

-Iustus

I didn't report Epic 6, so it's only fair I wrote (what I hope to be ) a good report for Epic 7 because this epic really was a lot of fun, of course I knew it was going to be a lot of fun. Immortal, and a duel with my favorite AI, Alexander! What could possible go wrong?

Epic 7 Report

Is it September already? Please post your reports in the reporting forum.

Hi everyone.

I'm not able to send a PM because I get an error saying it's full yet I just registered!!

Waiting for your advice. Goodbye

Although the closing date is supposed to be today, I'm a little wary of posting my results before the official "reporting is open" notice.

But, I'm reserving my spot as "first to report".

Hey, some of us can't compete against the better players in civ, we need to grab what little victories we can.

----------------------------------------
Considering that Epic 6 was played without any thought to an overall strategy (I've said I never intented to play out Epic 6, and I'm sticking by that excuse!), I think I'll provide some insight into how I usually approach the opening of a game.

Summary: I'm facing a lone, unpredicably warlike AI on an island map. The difficulty level is Immortal, something I've never tried before. I've played on Deity, although that game was tampered with enough that it didn't give a realistic impression of the difficulty of the game. Not that I have any evidence that THIS game wasn't tampered with.

Fortunately, the AI has shown a severe weakness on archipelago maps, in that islands off the home continent are poorly managed. The AI seems to leave the development of such islands settlements to themselves rather than shipping defenders and workers across en masse. Thus, islands are poorly developed and poorly defended. In addition, the AI often does not prioritise it's navy.

Since there is only one AI competing for wonders (albeit an immortal AI), there is ample opportuniy to build them myself provided I prioritise them early enough. On an archiplego map, the Colossus and Great Lighthouse combo are awesome, and the AI is often slow to build them due to the prerequisite structures. They are very powerful wonders where every one of my cities is likely to make heavy use of ocean based trade.

(Okay, it's a cheesy strategy, but this IS an immortal game, and I think it's fair that I pull out all the stops to win, rather than imposing mini variants on myself before I know what's up on this difficulty level.)

Another note, regarding barbarians. On Immortal, they won't be a pushover, and with small islands, it'll be easier to scout the land then fend off waves of barbs. I'll lose out on some experience this way, but I want to focus on infrastructure in the beginning. I can probably fend off Alex with my navy, so every shield than can be saved on units in the beginning can be spent on offensive units later.

Oh, in case it wasn't obvious, I'm relying on the fact that Alex' island is small enough to allow domination. If not, having a superior landmass can hopefully be converted into some other kind of victory. One other potential strategy killer is if I can't reach Alex via the coast.

Right, with that verbose analysis out of the way, let the game begin.

***
--Landgrab--

With the starting position offering no compelling reasons to move my settler from the initial point, I found in place. The hut pops a scout. I began by building a warrior at Thebes. The scout will hopefully give me an early indication of how large a barbwatch force I need. Fishing First ™; Thebes can grow while I build a workboat.

After fishing, I pursue a religion. With only one competitor (who isn't known for his religious piety), I'm sure to grab one if I don't leave it too long, and the extra happiness will be welcome with such high happiness penalties. The religion I pursue is Hindisum, since it's on route to Judaism and Organised religion. Does anyone know whether Organised religion affects Wonders?

Early exploration reveals some very interesting things:
-My "island" runs from pole to pole; to control the seas I'll need at least one "Panama Canal" city.
-I have ivory. This is beyond incredible. Elephants and Catapults can defeat everything up to rifles with decent odds, with pikemen the biggest threat. And both are in the same place on the tech tree.
-My island can be secured from barbs with around 4 or five warriors...a negligable investment.
-Stone! Yes! I actually have a decent shot at the Great Lighthouse.

Following the founding of Hinduism, I pursue Hunting -> Archery as my scout is nailed by a barb archer...Bronze Working follows as my archer heads north to establish a barb watch, followed by a couple of warriors.Memphis (Panama) is founded to claim pigs and silver in 1960 BC, and begins a workboat (can't think of anything better to build, and city 3 will need the fish ASAP...) and barbwatch is set up soon after:


Heliopolis is founded to claim the stone in 1000BC. Assuming no major interesting developments, I'll look to clean up the bottom of the tech tree, then metal casting and iron working, and finally beelining to construction if I've found Alex by then. Assuming I get the Great Lighthouse and / or Colossus, the merchant will be used to nab currency. I think that's a slick move, don't you?

***
--Infrastructure--

All goes according to plan...by 295 BC, the Lighthouse is complete, Elephantine has been founded to nab the ivory (I didn't plan it, I swear!), the wheat and the bananas, Alex has been "found", and Memphis / Panama is making great progress with the Pyramids (I couldn't resist, what with all that available stone and nothing better to build...)

Here's my civ in 115BC (Thebes is suffering from the Great Lighthouse whip, and maintenance costs from 4 cities is taking it's toll on my research):


Show Me the Money! I pop currency in 545 AD with my Great Merchant generated in Thebes:


Also, I decide to get Code of Laws before Construction as maintenance costs where beginning to bite, and I didn't (yet) have the infrastructure to churn out elephants and cats.

All was quiet for a few thousand years. I built (and whipped) markets, and military (barracks, elephants and catapults), but ignored libraries, temples and monastaries wherever possible. If this game wasn't won with elephants, Alex would have an unacceptable tech lead.

Egypt shortly before peace ended abruptly:


***
--War--

However, Alex, frustrated either by the lack of room to expand, or our religious differences, or maybe just by being himself, declared war with a single unmanned galley. I had seven in the general vicinity, along with catapults and elephants, so while it was a little earlier than I would have liked to begin rumbling, it was hardly something to cry over. In my favour was what seemed like a single coastal route to my lands, making defence by sea a viable option.

The battle of Corinth marked the begging of a series of Great Wars between Egypt and Greece; on that occasion (as in most others), Greece was the loser, as two longbows fell to catapults and war elephants. My losses were greater in terms of units, Alex lost out on territory:


I would have accepted peace, to complete the assembly of my army, but Alex wouldn't settle for anything less than the return of Corinth. Uhm...what weed are YOU smoking, Alex?

War continued. My Galleys ventured out to find Greek Colonies to vanquish. My advanced guard discovered two islands, and I guessed that the southern island with barbarian culture was almost certainly NOT the Greek homeland, so without further ado my armies set sail.


Over the course of a few years, I captured two Greek cities on the southern island, a barbarian city (with Stonehenge!!) and razed a third Greek City. Pharsalos, on the island slightly south west of the Greek motherland, also fell:


Following the fall of Pharsalos, Alex was finally ready for peace, and this time, HE was willing to pay. I guess that his source of WEED was cut off by my galleys. 470GP and 4 GPT were pocket change compared to the TRUE treasure, his world map!

Back on the home front,, a Great Engineer had been used to build the Great Library, but all further scientific advancements where largely pointless. This was a battle for territory...Alex had the technology, but not enough of the right units in the right places. But could I take enough land to reach the 74% required for domination without touching Alex's homeland?

***
--One…more…TILE!--

Corinth revolted frequently, and was a constant worry. A huge chunk of territory, but highly volatile. There were a couple of little island around, and I had settlers waiting on them to found cities, but if they didn’t bring me to the domination limit, I would be crippled financially. As it was, I was running on 10-20% science.

Following the 10 turns of mandatory peace, during which I had prepared my fleet, I launched my second and hopefully final invasion on Greek territories. Alex has nothing to match my fleet…an occasional galley or caravel, and his final colonies fell in the region of 1650AD to an onslaught of galleys, catapults and elephants:


Oh, so close!!! 1673, and still 5% territory to go! I still had some island states to found, and some borders to pop, but would it be enough?


And then, with only 8 tiles to spare (I’ve circled them):


Domination Victory in 1685. Alex’ homeland remains untouched. Thank you all for watching.

After getting the heads up from Griselda, ive decided to launch the first realms beyond warlords SG.

So basically, this is another SG idea I had been planning to start for awhile. To keep it simple, I want to see whether it is possible to win a high level(emperor) game with absolutely NO TRADING with the AI whatsoever. No foreign trade routes, no bee-lining to alphabet and getting all the worker tech's, No open borders... you get the point.

Leader: Either Washington or Tokugawa (can be changed if team prefers to but I suppose those 2 kind of go with the theme)
Map: Fractal - random climate and random sealevel
Difficulty: Emperor
Speed: Epic

Variant: Cannot ever trade with the AI 8) (Extortion or getting extorted does not count )

Looking for 4 players like usual. Post preferred leader when you signup.