Didn't really play so much as cried foul against the pRNG Gods as they smote me for my blasphemous ways. Then they smote me again for good measure.

Epic 4 report within

There's a reason I posted the first "finished" post in the main thread.

Hello everyone, I will get right to the point. Yesterday A guy that I had been talking to and doing missions with for about a week told me he had an extra factions key, I told Him i needed one but only had 30k. He said we would give it to me for 30k np, H was even askin about the guild and joining it. He took the 30k and the cdkey was faulty of course well now im pretty much broke again and am VERY frustrated beyond words. His name is S Snastydfb. I am notifying everyone here to watch out for him. Thank you for your time in reading this.

Meverah Shadowreign

So, the newness of Factions has worn off, farming the same place over and over is getting boring, and the guild roster is back to showing only 1-4 other people online. Maybe you haven't played in a while because the game got boring to you although you're thinking of giving it another shot. If any of this describes your Guild Wars experience lately and you want to do something, look no further! I've come up with a list of non-questing related time killers and other such games for just hanging out and having fun with the other people who are around when you are. The first 2 ideas are ones that I found elsewhere, the others are Wyrm Originals ™.

Dodgeball
Description: If you don't know what this one is, you've been living under a rock. If you took part in the Dragon Ball arena during the Factions event, you're already familiar with the basics. It involves trying to dodge a Lightning Orb headed right at you with lethal power. As a side bonus, this game also helps you develop your dodging ability, something very useful in PvE and especially PvP. This is a game that plays best with teams of at least 4, and can get really fun (and chaotic) with 2 full teams of 8. You can play it with only 1v1, but that might get a little boring. Also, if you want to speed the game up a bit more you can have a Me/Mo or two fast casting Rebirth on each team to speed things up. They would not be allowed to participate in the actual combat, obviously.

Rules: The character requirements for this are very strict to allow for an even match. You must use a Me/E. Only the +energy armor and a Fast Casting mask are allowed with 5 superior runes equipped, lowering your health to 105. Weapons and focii are not allowed. Your skillbar can only have 3 skills on it: Elemental Attunement, Air Attunement, Lightning Orb.* Your stats should be: 16 Fast Casting, 12 Air Magic.

This game is played either by scrimmage or unrated GvG to assure that you get to play against the team you want to. Scrimmaging is the best option but you can do an unrated if you want to compete with another guild.

At the start of the match, both teams meet at the flag stand (capping the stand is not allowed) which becomes your line of scrimmage. You are not allowed to cross over that line or go more than 80' (aka aggro bubble distance) away from it. Teams then start firing their orbs at each other in order to kill each other. You can dodge an orb by standing still when it's cast and then moving so it hits either behind or beside you, or vise versa (moving and then stopping). Every 2 minutes people will be ressurected automatically at their res shrine until they are at 60% dp. The first team to kill the opposing side enough times to get the entire team to 60 wins.

*If you played Dragon Arena, you may be thinking "why not Shock and Windborn Speed since those were available in the arena?" Well, Shock isn't allowed because there's a line of scrimmage you're not allowed to cross, and Windborn was only in the Dragon Arena so that ANet could give you a skillbar that at least looked like they did something other than make a carbon copy of the already existing game. And yes, I am aware they gave you 5 res sigs, but again, that was just to fill up your skill bar.

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Elimination Skirmishing
Description: This is a pretty simple game that also involves a skirmish or unrated battle. The goal is to eliminate all of the opposing team's NPCs before taking out their Guild Lord and without attacking the players of the opposing team. Works best in a 1v1 environment, but can have more players, although 8v8 probably isn't a very good idea.

Rules: You are allowed to take any offensive build you want. You may not bring skills to heal your NPCs. You may not attack the opposing player(s) - doing so results in an immediate forfeit. Monk skills aren't allowed: you'll have to find a different way to keep yourself alive, sorry.

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Ascalon Dash
Description: It's a race to the finish! You start in Ascalon City and have to run to Beacon's Perch: the first person there wins.

Rules: Virtually any build you want is allowed with the stipulation that no shadow-stepping or teleporting skills may be used. Because multiple zones are involved and a straight run is impossible, each zone counts as a stage, the person who zones to the next area first wins that stage and earns 1 point, with 2 points being awarded for being the first to enter Beacon's. The player with the most points upon arrival at Beacon's is the winner.

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Capture the Flag
Description: This is another skirmish/unrated GvG game that's a little bit different from what your normal game is. The goal is to get your own flag back to your Guild Lord. To do this each team, at the beginning of a match, brings their flag to the opposing team's GL (making their way through the NPCs) to drop it off. Then you go back to your hall and the match starts. The first team to get their flag back wins.

Rules: The only skills that are not allowed are movement, shadow-stepping, and teleporting skills. Hexes that slow are allowed, as is cripple (in case there was any confusion with the previous statement). Picking up the opposing team's flag (and thus returning it to their hall) will not stop play: it's your own fault for helping the other team out. If both teams agree, then each team may wipe out the opposing NPCs (not the Guild Lord, for obvious reasons) before the match begins.

Thank you to Sirian for making this very fun scenario. The map was very good at setting up a situation that was challenging, but not un-winnable.

Very brief summary:
Domination Victory in 1998.

Short Report

Starting Strategy
I played 4 practice starts of Deity, raging barbs, going to 3300BC-1000BC. This showed me that while barbs are dangerous, they can be dealt with, as long as military remains my primary focus early on.

I settled on the starting spot, because all nearby hills contain resources. I didn't want to settle on gold, because gold mine near river is one of the best tiles in the game, giving easily defensible source of income better than two pre-Printing Press villages. There was slightly less production and defense in the short run, but that didn’t matter as soon as I got metal-based units.

My early research was Hunting -> Archery -> Bronze Working -> Iron Working -> Wheel -> Pottery.
Production is 2 Warriors -> 3 Archers -> Worker -> 2 Archers (giving city time to grow to size 5) -> Settler.
After finishing gold mine (which put my GNP on par with average AI), I built a mine on Pig hill, which, along with abundant forests, solved any production issues I might have had.

2nd city was founded in 985BC in desert directly south of Iron. Rome completed Barracks at the same time worker completed Iron Mine and, after detour for training an emergency archer to replace a loss, I entered the age of Praetorians in 415BC.

Age of Praetorians
Barbs founded a city on the south of my peninsula, so settler intended to found on furs settles a coastal cottage heaven SW of grassland copper. That city also has a lot of forests and forested hills it can work while building improvements.

In 55 BC a single Praetorian captures southern barb city (kill defender, heal, kill defender, heal, etc.), giving me silver (when rebellion is over) and, after borders expand, furs. In 260AD a couple Praets capture Circussian, the barb city near silks. This city, connected to barb road network, becomes a lightning rod for their attacks until a couple of two-Praetorian teams captures Aryan, a large city north of the western lake, in 1166AD. That year I also found a port on the southern coast, south of 3rd city. This gives me even more secure cottage land, because all western barbarians attack Aryan and sometimes Circussian.

My research meanwhile had been proceeding on a beeline to Rifles, with a long term goal of Fiber Optics. I was putting priority on financial techs, researching military techs as necessary. Research:

Iron Working (1660BC) -> Wheel -> Pottery (cottages) -> AH (reveal horses) -> Writing (libraries for science and culture) -> Metal Casting (115BC) (forges for production and happiness) -> Math (for Currency->CoL and option to research Construction and Calendar) -> Currency (710AD) -> Sailing -> Calendar (980AD) (happiness resources) -> CoL (1112) -> Civil Service (1220) (Beurocracy)

I see barb Longbows in 1196, so after Civil Service, I research Masonry -> Construction for Cats, before going back to Paper -> Education (Univercities)

Barb Horse Archers show up in 1244.

Barb Macemen show up in 1442. They never got Axes, so this is the first upgrade for their warriors, but they prefer to train longbows and Horse Archers anyway.

My heroic Praetorian legions still manage to capture 2 more cities, Polynesian to the north of Rome is captured before barb maces and Ghoth, a port to the west of my south-western port, is captured in 1520. During that siege I realize that CG longbows are a bigger threat to my CR Praets than Maces, so delaying availability of my own maces was a good idea. (Maces are much more expensive, but no better against longbows.)

I get emancipation anger in 1448, so after discovering Education in 1454 I have to take a detour to Mysticism -> Meditation -> Priesthood -> Monarchy to connect Wines and get Hereditary Rule to counter Emancipation anger. Yes, I’ve researched Education before Mysticism in this game. With the constant threat from Barbs and Deity AIs, Romans didn’t have much of a chance to contemplate mysteries of the universe.

At that time Barb Maces became very common, so I had to finally research Machinery, ending the Age of Praetorians in 1532.

The End of Barbarians
We meet Gandhi in 1547 and Quin in 1601. They like each other because of shared religion (Confucianism). My territory is comparable to theirs at the time and is growing, while their growth is stalled. I immediately open borders and start resource for cash deals with both to foster good relations. (Resource deal with Quin can start only in 1661, when he finally gets a trade route with me.) In 1625 Gandhi demands we switch to Confucianism and I agree, improving relations even further. However, I refuse Gandhi’s Defensive Pact in 1637, not wanting to anger other AIs or get pulled into possible wars.

My own research meanwhile went into Printing Press (1577) (lots of cash and prereq. for rifles) -> Feudalism -> Guilds -> Banking (1625) I still have no foreign trade routes, so I switch to Mercantilism right away.

I then research Engineering (faster movement) -> Replaceable Parts -> Gunpowder -> Compass -> Optics (to finally find last 2 civs) -> Chemistry
I chose Chemistry because Grens are better against Rifles and Barbs got Rifles in 1706, while I was researching Optics.

During this time, I secure south-western part of my continent and found 2 cities there in addition to captured Barb cities, while AIs start colonizing north-western part. I capture barb city near the place where north-western and south-western parts of the continent meet, and another barb city north of it and settle a northern port to north-west, defining the borders of AI’s part of the continent.

After researching Chemistry, I upgrade maces to Grens and conquer south-eastern part of the continent, founding 1 more city in the gaps, and letting AIs get northern and north-eastern coasts, because I am too busy with infrastructure.

Endgame Buildup
After seeing how far Gandhi is ahead of me, I abandoned hopes for building Internet and decided to simply rush towards Modern Armor (Composites) and Mechanized Infantry (Robotics). After that, AI’s tech advantage wouldn’t matter and, with my much larger territory, I would have production advantage despite AI bonuses.

I research Philosophy -> Liberalism and start spreading around Confucianism and Taoism for Free Religion happiness. In 1776 we discover Economics and make the massive civic switch: Free Religion (to get its benefits and improve relations with Louis), Free Market (Mercantilism is nice, but 3 (soon to be 4) foreign trade routes are better), and Free Speech, because while Beurocracy was nice, we now have enough Towns trhoughout the world to get more benefit from Free Speech.

I then research Nationalism -> Constitution -> Corporation (1806). The moment that research is done, Quin donates Steam Power! This allows me to discover Assembly Line in 1816, allowing me make my first trade, buying Scientific Method from Louis.

Pentagon is still available, so I try a gamble, researching Democracy, revolting to Universal Suffrage, and running 0 science for about 10 turns to gather enough gold to buy the wonder. Unfortunately, Gandhi completes Pentagon in 1828, 5 turns before I would have been able to buy it. However, this wasn't a total waste, because saved cash allows me to run 100% science for a while (instead of 80%), and I needed Universal Suffrage and Emancipation anyway. Gandhi also kindly donated Steel around this time.

I then research Railroads and use it, along with some saved up cash, to buy Physics from Izzy. Next I research Combustion and buy Rifling, Monotheism, and Alphabet in 1837. I guess Romans had been using hieroglyphs until mid-nineteenth century.

Gandhi constructed Manhattan Project in 1842, but nobody besides me ever built any nukes. So my SDI and bomb shelters I’ve built in almost every city turned out to be a waste of resources.

Over the following years I research the last techs I need, trading with Izzy for remaining optionals like Fascism, Communism, Theology, and Military Tradition. Cities that finish Factories, Coal Plants, Theatres, and Jails start work on air-force, because planes can’t benefit from Vassalage and can be easily upgraded later.

In 1889, with several Modern Armors about to complete, I switch to Vassalage, State Property, and Theocracy.

I end all research in 1904 with discovery of Refrigeration. For the rest of the game I’ll be generating only cash and culture.

In 1915 I get bored of waiting and attack China. This is the first time I’ve ever declared war on Deity AI. Hopefully, my plan will work.

Final War
My plan for Chinese war consisted of 4 parts:

1. Capture all 9 cities on my continent, razing the 3 that are surrounded by Indian culture.
2. Use my fleet of over 30 battleships and some Destroyers with bomber support to sink all counter-attacks.
3. Capture an island near Chinese coast.
4. When island city comes out of rebellion, rush-buy an airport and airlift in an invasion force.

Here is how this played out:

1. Three cities were captured the first turn, with 4th stripped of all defenders. Quin airlifted some defenders into that city, whom I quickly killed, leaving the city empty again. This continued for a couple rounds until I got bored and captured the city. Meanwhile, many of Quin’s bombers were stationed in two cities near the border, which easily fell to strike-forces gathered inside my borders, wiping out a large part of his airforce. In 1919, just 4 years after the start of the war, I raze the last Chinese city on my continent.

2. My fleet is split into two halves, stationed on islands to the east and west of my continent with their bombers. The fleets perform admirably, destroying many carrier groups, and several invasion fleets, including a 20 ship SoD with 10 transports. (2 of those transports get through because I ran out of ships, but 8 land units were much easier to deal with than 40.)

3. In 1929 western fleet captures an island fortress north-east of China’s coast. Next year I capture another nearby island city also with minimal losses, and, two turns later, I capture a first mainland city. To avoid instant death of invading forces, I use 5 Gunships to destroy all nearby improvements and railroads. So when the massive retaliation forces arrive, most of them stop next to the city, giving me a chance to destroy one of the stacks with help of my bombers and evacuate the same turn.

4. When the islands come out of rebellion, I capture another beachhead, while using rush-bought airport to bring in massive reinforcements. I also launch a second invasion from south-west of Chinese lands, using eastern fleet. I lose many units and some cities, because I don’t bother seriously protecting my conquests, but with most of their reserves spent China falls easily and peace is declared in 1962, with China down to a single city, which is holding back Indian culture on the causeway between northern and southern parts of the continent.

I next spend 10 turns building up nukes and trying to force Louis to give up a city, but the prospect of that looks unlikely, so I stop wasting time and build up to capture India. Details of nuclear experiments will be in my full report.

The main trick of Indian war was that I had built all possible culture buildings in my border cities as soon as possible and, after Chinese war was over, I turned culture slider up, rather than down (I was in Police State, so gold was useless). I also built culture in these border cities, and started a Golden Age to speed up military buildup and cultural production. As a result, my borders were right next to Indian border cities, allowing me to use suicide Artillery, and letting Modern Armors blitz, killing over 80 units on the first turn of the war with minimal losses. I also attacked China shortly before this, letting me blitz into India before borders adjusted. I razed Chinese and Indian border cities, putting the causeway under my cultural control, while I captured two Indian cities on south-eastern peninsula of northern AI continent.

The war started in 1985 and ended in 1994, when I got India’s largest remaining city on my continent for peace, leaving them only 3 cities there. This slightly sped up my victory, because I didn’t have to wait for this city to come out of rebellion. Details of the war will be in my full report.

Domination Victory in 1998, as some cities began coming out of resistance and expanding their borders. Total playing time: 63 hours and 53 minutes.

This “brief summary” turned into a short report, but I still plan to post a full report based on my 28 pages of notes. So if you want to see more details of my tactics, rather than just strategy, as well as screenshots, maps, and thoughts I had while playing, check out the full report I’ll post later in the week.

I want to again thank Sirian for setting up this extremely fun game.

First of all: game was great - waves of barbarians
I would not mind if Issy + Lui were the only opponents...

I did NOT took with-help version (anybody did?)
RESULT:
Manged to survive, not strong enough to beat Qin or Mahatma
First in area and population but far from Domination.
Retired soon after 2100 not seeing a way to conquer Louis & Issy soon (I put more effort in it than to Win the game )




Started with (un)conventional move: setteled BASTION on a gold hill:
+1 happy
+1 hammer
+50% defence
I was not assuming that I will EVER be capable of making a worker not mentioning defending the improved tile, I would consider going 1 tile SE further if I had beed more selfconfident.
My warrior leaves the hut behind and goes NE - lets scout a bit before 3400BC, the hut will be popped by cultural bordes soon enough.
Popped huts for ca. 30$$ each.

ca. 3500 I had 3 warriors produced and barracks started. First lion sought by a warrior on the way back home, luckyly linon was taking opposite direction. As I look back I can tell that 2 warriors would have been enough - city on a hill has great defence!

Soonafter:

U don't get things like that on noble :D


"It is the (...) world as we know it":

+++++compare this screenshots with the one below:
The copper tile was HIDDEN in the 2590BC in a very unpleasant way: ONE unknown tile sorrounded by 2 rings of known tiles
I have sent an archer to fight the fog (arounf 2200BC) and BINGO! Found the copper 8) 8)

BTW: My reasearch:
Hunt --> archery ---> AH (part, resigned) ---> BW --> pottery


3310 - Hindu FIDL - I noted here the dates of early religions because in my game Ghandi got Hindu. Obviously, Issy went for Budda first (3670 - Budda FIDL).
@Gotag: when did U managed to get Hindu?

In 2860 - barracks built, I think it was a misteake since my unist gain exp without it... Starting on Archer.


About Promotions:
I tried to promote units to Guerillas. WHY? I planned to settle cities mostly on hill tiles and guerilla=city garrison (nearly...), but I can place guerilla units on the hills (outside the city) to fight the fog(!).
(At this point of the game I was not aware of the wast jungle upnorth + the hill tiles around the starting positions were strenghtening this choice.)
The strategy was pretty nice since I lost my firts unit very late: in 235BC - an Axe while attacking barb city.
I have lost no archers untill HA came

Here U can see one of the units awaiting the 3 waves of barbs (literally):

@Kylearan: I was also trying to intercept barbs before they get to the city, but they sometimes took unexpected paths. If U take a closer look at he barbs at this screen U can see that they COULD take more covered path. Instead they took shorter one.

My report is here

It's mostly complete, except for the final part, the end game.

However, something very strange happened in my game which I can't account for, and which in my mind invalidates any comparisons with other players: the barbarians didn't seem to build any units that required resources. I think I saw one barbarian axeman, but I didn't see any horsemen or swordsmen or macemen. Just archers, longbowmen, and riflemen.

I'm not sure why that was. http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/images/smilies/huh.gif As the game was, I found it fairly challenging, but not overwhelming (easier than, say, the 'original' Epic 4). I haven't played Civ4 that much, and I assumed when I was playing that barbarians simply didn't build units requiring resources, other than the occasional axeman. Now that I see the true challenge other players faced, it leaves me feeling a little miffed. http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/images/smilies/rant.gif

Does anyone have any idea why this might have happened in my game? I have an unmodified version of Civilization 4, with the 1.61 patch (I would imagine that the save wouldn't even be openable in any earlier patch anyway).

-Sirp.

Hey all,

Abject foolishness for me to even try this game. But I won my first GA, so emboldened I tried anyway. I took the "with help" start. It was pretty close to my guess of where I would have gone.

I send my warrior home and batten down the hatches. The blizzard of warriors starts, and so do the upgrades.

Got Bronze working done 2270 BC. Slavery implemented. Whip out my first archer. Archer on a hill, it's barb slaughter time. City Garrison 1, then 2, then 3. Woot- this guy is a grizzled vet! One of my warrior gets the medic upgrade to keep my archers healthy.

While I am surviving ok, and very slowly expanding the Barbs have shot by me (as have the other Civs).

The cost of my army (the only thing keeping me alive) is killing my reseach dead.

By 1382 the Barbs have Macemen to my Prets. I use hills and mountains to my advantage as I am now surrounded by Barb cities. HUGE ones. I steal some needed gold from pillaging, then my expedition get slaughtered.

by 1556 I am still alive (stunning!) but am constantly managing bugetary disasters and fighting off a numeracially (and technologolically) superior barb force. Finally meeting the Chinese, open borders. Beg for tech. No luck.

1685 Barbs have riflemen, at least some. I have prets, some maces. Eap.

1748- the Barb cities are loaded with lots and lots of riflemen. I have no gunpower units at all. I can be easily slaughtered any day now.

In disgust, I call it a night and decide to let my mind work out a solution.

_______

Stay tuned- will Coolhand become Barb Chow?

I thought I would throw this one open to a centralized discussion. Folks need to read the reports and some of the attached comments before chiming in here, but it will be good to have a designated thread to turn to for the meaty discussions and debates.

One thing I found encouraging was that there were some obscure paths to success that didn't occur to me. One was Gotag's founding of his own religion. Another was uberfish's moving of the capital to a spot not reachable within one turn, which preserved all the good tiles. Another was Kylearan's patented "know what the AI avoids researching" tech trading bonanza, aided by his early contact. There was also Blake's somewhat more traditional, but still effective, "whip whip whip my Legions" approach. Some players got their workers moving sooner than I thought would possibly be safe. Certainly this scenario proved out the saying, "Fortune favors the bold!"


- Sirian

EDIT: My detailed report


and there he is:
26 sessions,
61 real time hours,
581 killed foreign mech infs,
but also 157 slayed Roman Modern Armors,
23 pages of notes and
several hundred screenies later,
in 2061AD
mostly_harmless clad in full battle armor proudly walks into the sacred halls of The Realms Beyond to give a short history of the, now world dominating, Roman hegemony!

- no religions for the free world in this game,
- captured the first barb city in 400BC,
- fighting Ghandi off "our" continent and later on invading and assimilating India
- fighting China on a two-front modern war, which lasted for 46 years til the end of the game

And now I am off to wash the blood from my sword and skin and start putting together a real report.
All hail mostly_harmless! ((please?))

Report is here.

Super short version is that I managed to stay alive until the end of the game - Qin won in 1985AD.

That was a fun game and I'm dead chuffed that I was still alive when the AI won