I have not yet finished my report (after the deadline, Tuesday night). If it weren't a shadow, I'd have posted a summary. I do think I've got my computer woes from Sunday straightened out, but I'm not certain. That's what I get for waiting to the last few hours to finish the last segment of the report.

Anyway, I'll try and have it up by the end of the week. Got distracted reading other people's reports and debating the rules issues. Now my head is all jumbled up with that stuff. Woops. 8)


- Sirian

I played this game and I am working on a nice report with pictures etc. that I will put up on a web page. However I have not had time to finish it. So for now I will post a very short summary.

I was another person who started out building a worker. Sullla calls this out as a very risky move, but after going back and trying to duplicate Gideon's game, I don't think it has to be. The trick is to keep your scout close enough that you can get him to your capital before any enemy warriors that show up. Since you have double their movement you can still do some decent scouting. It appears that if you leave your capital wide open, warriors on a scouting mission will attempt to take it, but if you move your scout into it they will not attack and will instead go back to scouting.

Anyway, I didn't know any of this at the time and I think I set my scout far enough away that I could have easily been eliminated. But luck prevailed, for me at least.

I captured my first city (Bombay) in 1480 BC, and eliminated Gandhi in 1150 BC. I finished the Forbidden Palace in 1454 AD. I had 17 cities at the end of 1502 AD (one which was captured that turn). I won a conquest victory in 1520 AD.

Sullla mentioned on one of the other reports that he was happy to see people reporting who had found their way here through the Civ IV Walkthrough and Cuban Isolationists. I'm another person on that list

I hope I am not too late with my report.

This is my first attempt at an Epic and boy, was it a test.....

Writing the report was almost as challenging as the game. I found 750 screenshots in my folder after the games completion.

Anyway, here is the report

I am recruiting for a new Sucession game featuring the Meklars. A summary of the game conditions:

Race: Meklars
Map: Medium
Level: Impossible

Our Meklars are Xenophobic, and are repulsed by the idea of mixing with other races. As a result, these variant rules will be used:

V1: Spend 4% on defensive spying per alien race we are in contact with.
V2: No trade agreements
V3: No ground invasions
V4: Abstain from all council votes

We will also add a couple more to overcome some of the quirks of the game.
V5: No starting spectator wars between AIs
V6: No scout blockades

For more details about the variant rules and the reasons for them, see the previous thread entitled "Anyone interested in a new SG?"

Anyone who would like to join, please reply to this thread and I'll start building a roster.

Roster:
Olorin
Zed-F
dathon
StuporMan
Liquidated
(empty)

I'd like to have at least 4 players, 5 or 6 would probably be ideal. If we get more interest than that, we can split into two teams.

As for timing, I'd suggest a time limit of 72 hrs for each turn. That's 48 hrs to post at least a "got it", and another 24 hrs to play and post. But if you post your "got it" early, you still have the rest of the 72 hrs to play and post. No need to be super strict about it, but please let us know if you're going to be unavailable to play your turn.

Let's have some fun!

--Olorin

Firstly, this was my first experience of Always War, and I loved it . Bad news was that I got too caught up in the game so I sort of missed various things that may or may not have happened during the game . BUT, the following I do recall.

Settled in place as its got plenty of juicy bonuses. As an aside, when a "blue circle" appears on a start and there are only 2 resources visible I always think that there's a metal in play .



My early research path was Bronze Working - Agriculture -Archery - The Wheel - Pottery.

Gandhi spotted in 3880. After my scout finds Delhi, I send a warrior over here to camp in the forest across the river. This essentially kills Gandhi in this game. He occasionaly sacrifices a warrior or archer on mine (allowing woodsman promotion) but never ventures out of Delhi, but more on him later.

Thought there was no goody huts!



Peter appears in 2800BC. Saladin in 2620BC. Alexander in 1600BC. Cyrus and Roosevelt in 1570BC. Izzy in 895BC

Welcome to nutcase city, have a nice day! An agressive civ close to me is not so good. I'll just leave him alone for now but eventually he finds me but not for over 2000 years (685BC). .



Found Hamburg on the hill next to the copper in 2260BC, for some axe action. As soon as one appears I send him to help out the warrior at Delhi.

I build Stonehenge in 1210BC.

Build Munich south of Berlin in 700BC.

After a couple of aborted efforts with bad luck from the RNG and bad planning by yours truly I capture Delhi in 385BC, which was still Gandhi's only city.



Build Cologne on the edge of the desert halfway to Delhi.

Then came some wonder building, Pyramids in 220BC (for some hereditary rule as I'm sure to have a large army in this one). Realise no-one has yet built Oracle, so quickly research Code of Laws (to found Confucianism) ready for CS slingshot in 110AD .



At this stage my inexperience at this level was my worst enemy as I wasn't sure what to expect so I turtled for a while (read over 1000 years), absorbing wave after wave of AI troops at Delhi and (to a lesser extent) Cologne. Every turn bought up to 10 attacks. I had catapults, crossbows and maces against spears, swords, chariots and axes. I probably should have gone on the offensive and may have had a quicker victory but just stayed holed up. I razed a couple of Japanese border cities (captured one with the gold mines)and founded some of my own within the territory I had already established. I was thinking Panzers at this stage. Here's my troops at Delhi.



Did some more wonder building mainly because the AI didn't seem to want to build any, Chicken Schnitzel (620AD), Great Library (830AD), Hanging Gardens (1025AD), Colossus (1142AD), Great Lighthouse (1226AD)


So at 1502AD, I had the paltry sum of 9 cities, 6 founded by me, one by Gandhi and two by Tokogawa.

I decide enough is enough in 1685, with the capture of Damascus a my 10th city. By 1732, Saladin is erased from his little penisula (has a couple of distant cities). From here is is pretty much a cake walk to a 1874 domination victory.

I'm not much of a milker so didn't hold off to get a panzer 50xp but had snuck one out for a victory in 1849.

Just before the game ended I had an old school reunion for the surviving defenders of Delhi all those years ago, 3 of them left!



All in all a very enjoyable game (I've actually played a couple more since), so thanks to Sirian for setting it up. Now if I could pay more attention to my notes and screenshots, I'll get a decent report done next time.

Well, this was my first AW game ever. Since this game I've played a few, however, that didn't really help me in this game. At the time I was fairly bad at warring, especially keeping an economy going while at war. To make things worse, I usually played at Prince level. In short, I was going into this game figuring I'd see how long I could survive. Unfortunately I got a new computer between the time I finished the game, and the report, so no pictures, or even notes. So I'll do the best to give a (somewhat) accurate report of the events.

I founded in place, and went for early Bronze Working. Normally I dislike axe rushes, but I figured I'd need every bit of help I could get. I dropped a few cities, expanding westward (not that I could really go anywhere else), and started preparing a stack or two of axes. I was debating over whether I should attack Toku or Ghandi first, however I decided on Ghandi, since he founded Judaism in a city near one of mine, and it threatened to flip a key resource. (Horses I think). My axes easily plowed through a couple of his cities. I was advancing on his capital, however it had quite a few archers in it, and my economy was tanking, so I decided to let up on warring a bit, and salvage my economy.

This turned out to be a big mistake. I stopped military builds and researches for a while, and right around this time the enemy units really started to come in. I lost several warriors to carelessnes, and all but two of my cities couldn't be improved due to constant pillaging. I tried an assault on Ghandi's capital, as it was a fairly nice location, and had the Pyramids, but it was too heavily defended. My economy stalled, and the units just kept coming. At this point I decided to counterattack Toku, to try and create a buffer, however my stacks got intercepted by enemy stacks (albeit smaller ones), and were bled down little by little. By 500 AD or so, I became noticeably outteched, and things began to get out of my control.

By 800 AD or so I had been pushed back to just my capital, and a fishing village I had founded to the north. The fishing village finally fell, leaving me only with my capital. By this point I was facing cats and elephants, myself only having archers. I was slowly pillaged down, and by 1000 AD or so, my capital was finally taken by Toku.

I've learned a lot since that game, and I now realize that delaying my axe rush to build a couple settlers was a big mistake. I probably should've rushed Toku while he still just had a capitol, and maybe one other city. That would've taken out a warlike enemy right on my border, and given me a lot of breathing room. Also, while I think that while taking Ghandi's jewish holy city was a good move, I should've stopped the conquest at that, and put more pressure on Toku. He probably contributed at least half of the units that attacked me. Letting him live for so long was a huge mistake. I mean, Ghandi wasn't exactly that much of a threat to me. What was he going to do? Steal wonders from me? Overrun me with fast workers?

Anyways, I really enjoyed my first tournament here, and would like to thank Sirian for hosting it. Hopefully next time (Epic Eight) I'll do better.

can be found in the usual place:

http://www.dreylin.net/civ4/epic6/Epic6_..._page1.htm

I plan to eventually put up my own web page. Hopefully I will find the time for this before Epic6 is totally stale. To show I officially finished, the below is my final domination win screen.

I am still working on my report, you can find it here

I have changed my reporting style for this report, it is no longer year by year, turns based. I kept the early tech and build order, but it is now less intrusive. Let me know what you think.

While I am finishing up my report, here are a list of my achievements, I doubt any of them will make the list, I was not really focusing on these as much as perhaps I should have.

• Capture City: 1240 BC
  
• Forbidden Palace: 1535 AD
  
• City Count 1502 AD: 18 cities
  
• Elimate Enemy Civ: 475 BC
  
• First Panzer Victory: N/A
  
• First Panzer with 50 XP: N/A
  
• Victory: Domination 1661 AD
  

Summary:
Domination in 1490.
First city conquered: Bombay in 685 BC.
Forbidden Palace in Kyoto, 1232.
28 cities in 1490, I would have captured two more in the next two turns.
First civ eliminated: India in AD 35.
No Panzers.
Going in, I figured the big challenge in this one would be to keep war weariness and maintenance under control. I resolved to chop trees early and often, and pumped out two barracks and two commerce/great person cities. I captured Bombay when my reconnaissance in force found it defended by a single archer.

After that, I rolled up the Indians and Japanese. The game was really over when I captured the Kyoto, which not only provided elephants, but the Pyramids. The AIs made a pretty good effort at recapturing the city, in 230:

And again in 515:

And again in 785:

And yet again in 875:

They did manage to do some damage in the Arabian peninsula, when they sneaked in a stack (the galleys must have come through the coastal waters of Saladin's offshore island, or maybe I just missed them):

Then Roosevelt wanted to join the fun, but I held Mecca and was never again seriously threatened.

The final casualities show how I was using knights and macemen against archers and axemen:

War weariness was never a real problem, thanks in large part to Republic (thanks for the Pyramids, Tokugawa!) and cheap Forges combined with lots of shiny stuff.

The end:

Final comments:
I resolved early not to build ships in this game, and I think it paid off handsomely. Naval warfare is just too random for me, and I would have had to pour a lot of shields into shipping to keep up with the AIs. The AIs used their ships very poorly, just parking them by Delhi and the Arabian peninsula. They did manage a few annoying naval invasions (and one which razed Najr), but I think the shields would have been better spent on land units.
I didn't get many wonders out of my Industrious trait, only building the forbidden palace and the oracle for a very late CS slingshot in 905. I saved a bundle on cheap forges and cheap granaries, though.
I expected more difficulty from support costs than from the AI in this game, and I did have some tough times around AD1000 - I remember being -27 gold at 0% research. My big mistake there was researching Feudalism before Code of Laws, thinking I could save more on troop support than from courthouses. Again, the Pyramids saved my bacon, letting me continue researching while most of my cities were pumping cash as hard as they could.
This was the first game of Civ4 I've actually played through to the victory, and it was a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to seeing how the heavyweights handled this one.