Game not finished. Somewhere around 1400 AD. Probably won't be finished. Absolutely no fun to play.

I founded 3 religions, 2 in my capital. Judaism and Hinduism in my capital. Confucianism in my second city. Popped about 15 huts, almost all with scouts. Got one tech (animal husbandry, very early), a bit of gold, a couple maps, and basically a whole lotta nothing, except for some angry yokels.

My second city matched a lot of peoples', in the west a bit, by the lake and ocean. My third was actually a canal city in the southeast, fourth was past the mountain on the tip of land there (whip central), fifth (approximately) was the barb city by the iron. I built a few others, including one about 4 south of the Chinese sheep, to get my land. I also built a few in the east, but those came a fair bit later, once I had an economy to support them. A few river sites are beneficial.

Four wars (typical of my games, every single one involved me in one way or another -- except for Epic 1, AI-AI wars do not occur in my games -- I saw more in Epic 1 than all other games combined). Greece declared on me fairly early. Razed a reach city, which actually helped my economy. Sure, his warriors were fighting uphill against my archers, but I only outnumbered him 2:1, so I should lose, right? During that war, Caesar also declared on me.

Final results of those wars -- Alex razed one city that I didn't really need and paid me for peace. I took one of Caesar's cities and he paid me for peace. Probably 30 total unit battles -- I lost about 3 at >95% odds, and maybe won one or two at those odds.

Much of the world was either Jewish or Hindic. I had both shrines, of course (with Oracle points feeding many of them). Mao was Jewish, and I was worried about him, so I was Jewish most of the time. Not that it helped. I was last in score and about 5 techs down, so of course he decided he wouldn't trade with me anymore. The "We fear you are becoming too advanced!" bullshit routine, so he started dropping in the tech race and relative score, but it helped out his AI comrades. [sarcasm]Yeah, that's good coding. Make one guy (who doesn't even like the others) sacrifice himself for the good of the team. Makes ME want to play more.[/sarcasm] If the AI were human friends, I wouldn't invite them to play again.

Of course, no one would join my first couple wars. I only had a tech to offer and +11 relations. Why would anyone help me? Either redded out or I couldn't offer enough. I had up to +12 with people in this game. Never got a single thing from it the whole game, except the option to pay 150% of the cost for techs (my 2000 beaker tech for the AI's 1600 beaker tech? Only if I kick in a few hundred gold. WHY? It wasn't that they were researching it.)

Third war was Mao against Mansa Musa (MM). I paid Mao to start that, since my techs couldn't buy anything else and he never had any cash. From watching (shrines give line-of-sight), they both did absolutely nothing. No pillaging, maybe 10 units crossed the border total. Total waste of my time. No one else would agree to a fight. They all love each other.

Final war was me against Caesar. I had more land from the landgrab than some of the other reports I've read (only a few so far), but it wasn't nearly enough. I was running 80-90% science and falling behind quite rapidly. I needed more land. I had grenadiers and almost rifles. Caesar had muskets and knights.

My main force of about 15 went down to his first city, not on a hill. Attacking at 80+% odds gave me almost a 1:1 kill ratio. Then his catapults attacked my remaining stack in the city, decimating it (as well they should), so his 3 knights all got kills (again, legitimately, those cats can be nasty). I had reinforcements on the way, of course. When my combat II, anti-mounted, full-strength grenadier (str: 14.4) died attacking a knight (str. 8), I was fed up. I hadn't really had time to play in the first place. The craptastic PRNG, the piss-poor diplomacy, the ability of all the AIs to research in peace, etc. etc. etc. made this one no fun. Hell, it made most Civ4 in general no fun. I hope I can find a few fun games to replace the memory of this one, because this one sucked.

Note, I was only second-to-last in score and not TOO bad in the demographics. I may still have been able to scrounge a win. But it was not any fun. Nor was there any way to play before the submission deadline.

Arathorn

Extreme summary report here. I played slowly considering each move and trying to do well. The lands to the West looked as bleak as the starting area, so I planned to move south into China (who had great land). I got a big break during the first war with China - I captured a city and was able to rank up to build the Heroic Epic - after this, China was easy.

As I was slowly but comfortably taking China's cities through on and off again wars I was able to build my infrastucture to compete with the other civs. I was ranked between 1-3 in all the important categories: GNP, production, etc.

Now my heroic epic city was building nothing but defenders for a long time in preparations to win by Space. There was a period towards the end where I became delusional and started building infrastructure in this low-commerce city which I really didn't need instead of pumping out steady streams of defenders. Saladin took advantage of this and declared war with his better units. I was holding him off well as he got to pillage a few tiles, but nothing major.

...then Caesar declared on me. My buddy Mansa Musa was able to come through for me when I asked/bribed (can't remeber which) him to attack Caesar for me. This though didn't help much as Caesar's knights started to pillage at will. I couldn't hold both fronts at once and keep up in tech so I called it quits. 1735 AD retirement.

I enjoyed the challenge.


I played the game without mods, but the picture above is with BMT, taken later.

This was my first attempt at Monarch, and with a start like this I felt my best strategy was simply to play for survival.

I settled on the spot and immediately began a scout for exploration, and research into fishing - we needed food.

After some initial exploration it became clear that the land wasn't ideal to say the least. I decided that my best hope would be to sail south for new land and build an empire around the inland sea. I therefore carried on from fishing into sailing, whilst building a worker, warrior (for defence) and then a settler whose goal was simply to make the inland sea accesable for galleys.

I had some good luck from huts, popping the wheel and agriculture (like that was useful in the ice ). My first settler founded teotihuacan and went to work straight away on a galley whilst I researched archery to defend myself from the barbs i began to spot. My choice of techs thereafter went polytheism, mining, masonary, bronze working, priesthood, writing, iron working. My builds in the capital went archer, archer, barracks, warrior, settler, and then a shot at the oracle.

The 3rd settler joined the archer and went sailing south towards the double fish - Sulla's fishing village. My opening cities were thus:



I then failed to get the oracle by 3 turns.. Oh well, at least i had some cash for deficit research.

I then concentrate for the next millenium on expanding throughout the lake and fighting off barbs. I was very succesful in doing this, managing to even get the south of the sea by Mao. I also got a barb city to the west. I tried to keep the other civs sweet, and this involved agreeing to a phony war against Greece. He was far away, and I figured he couldn't hurt me.

Except it wasn't a phony war. He turned up on my doorstep with lots of units that were better than my ancient defenders. I paid him off with nationalism and let out a sigh of relief.



My 3rd session started with an amusing story - Saladin and I were fighting one of the remaining barb cities in the east. I was building up a force outside its borders to attack, but was beaten to the city by Saladin. I then cursed my luck and began moving my forces away. Then the barbs retook their own city, but were damaged in the assault. My remaining troops walked in and took the city in an opportunistic manner, and had the numbers to hold out.

By now I have managed to survive, and am on good terms with the AI. I am behind in tech, but feel i can try for a sneaky space win. So i begin to build up infrastrucre and industrialise, and use several great merchants to fund deficit research. Mali is eliminated by Mao, and fearing an AI assault sign a defensive pact with Saladin. This works as a deterent.

I survive to the modern age, and begin a few parts at space, but am less confident of building the ship due to lack of resources. Greece then declares on me as my army is still infantry and artillary. He has an air force. I am running out of time as his tanks approach and the bombing begins. I doubt my survival, but before i lose a city Mao saves me by launching into space. I may have lost the game, but I have survived.

Just the text summary for now, since the computer with Civ4 and all my pictures on isn't playing nice with the internet right now. :mad:

I started Worker First, and went with the one strong city immediately west of the capital. I got a massive number of warriors and scouts from huts, and so met everyone fairly quickly.

I didn't try for Buddhism, thinking I would need Fishing and Sailing Right Then, only after Fishing realising that I couldn't possibly get a settler out fast enough for it to matter anyway. I then went back and got Hinduism and Judaism, but it wasn't enough.

I sent the second city, as early as I could get the settler out, over to the strong Iron site in the east. I let it mostly bootstrap itself out, starting with a worker, while my other cities concentrated on getting out around our sea.
I managed to found one out on the isthmus to the inland sea leading to Saladin's lands (with the sheep in the lower part of its radius, across the channel), but couldn't get to any others, since Saladin and Mao settled that way much more quickly than in most games, it would seem. I also got the two double-fish cities, of course.

I also built a wonder or two, including the Great Library, but Vicky got the pyramids (and was the powerhouse for the whole game, at least partially because of it), and I didn't prioritise the Colossus enough, either.

Unfortunately, it all went rather pear-shaped some centuries BC when Caesar decided he didn't like me, and declared war. Far Too Early. I was able to fight him off, but not without the loss of my iron city, which despite having been garrisonned from the mainland just didn't have the strength to hold out.

One of my major weed decisions (on the very long scale, and only in retrospect), then, was that I decided to fight back on a large scale. I didn't think (though other reports have proved me wrong) that the game could be won without warring to gain more and better lands, so I built up (over centuries) a force, landed it on the other side of the sea, and took a few cities from him. Unfortunately, I didn't have quite enough on hand to take Rome, which may well have been crucial. I had a couple more cities, with relatively good lands, but I'd spent far too long building military.

I built up for a while, but then the main crunch came. I'd only been able to afford to spread my religion slightly, due to that military weed, and so only had Mao and Munsa on my side. Mao changed off shortly after discovering Divine Right, in fact, since despite having been Jewish for millennia, he hadn't spread the religion around his empire at all.

The crucial point was that, as I said before, not trying for Buddhism was a big mistake. Because guess who founded it? Saladin, of course, and as in most other games in which that happened (everyone except Sirian, pretty much), he got Alex on his side because of it.

So, shortly after I'd declared war on Rome for the second time (with enough actual units to get most of the job done, I thought), Saladin declared on me. I'd been trying to placate him all game, even considered joining his religion, but it never spread to me, so there was nothing I could do to avoid the declaration. This path was set in 3400BC, when he founded Buddhism.

I had several epic fights at Calixtlahuaca, my city over in his lands, but with most of my forces in Roman lands, and nothing at home since nobody else had a city on the sea, I could only muster two longbows and two pikes in the city. Even when that's a City Garrison III, Guerilla I longbow in a city on a hill, and Combat IV pikes against his mounted stacks, he brought enough. He Brought Enough. There are some fairly cool pictures of this bit, I'll get them up when I can.

I lost the city, and had to pay through the nose for peace.

After that point (about 1500AD) I pretty much lost hope. I was two entire levels of tech behind the leaders, due to just not having the economy, and so in lack of anything else to do, I went back to my earlier plans, and beat up on Rome a bit more, eventually reducing him to a couple of cities in the extreme north-west. By that point, I had at least as good lands as the people who won, but I just didn't have the development or the tech equality.

I decided that my last hope was to keep going with the military plan. Mao had nice lands, and it was only 1800 or so, so I thought I just might have enough time to pull back, still, if I got them. I knew I couldn't do it with what I had. I signed Alexander to war with Mao while I regrouped and upgraded my forces with Grenadiers and Riflemen (yes, that slow on tech) and hit him.

I captured a city on about the second turn of the war. Unfortunately, when I moved on, it turned out that he'd upgraded to Machine Gunners and Artillery. My stack of 30-odd units got wiped to about three, in one turn.

At that point, I finally did give up hope. I think I could have survived until someone, probably Vicky, launched, but it just wasn't interesting anymore, or teaching me anything (except that I'd made some mistakes )

Besides which, I had a rather engaging solo game to play. 50xp Cossacks are *fun* to play with. Beating up on Monarch AIs with them is a nice feeling. And good experience for Adventure 3, which I think I shall be starting shortly...

Anyway, formal results are a retirement in 1856. My demographics were truly depressing, by that point.



Three significant mistakes, as I see it:

First, not going for Buddhism as well as the others. Sirian's game has definitely taught me that. Being half-heartedly religious just isn't the way.

Second, trying (too much) war. I've thought it was the *only* way. Other games have taught me how much can be made, with biology and windmill techs, of tundra and hills.

Third, connected to that, I never even tried for the extreme northeast. I'd never really managed to scout it, and so I assumed that Saladin was there already, when comparison to other people suggests that he almost certainly wasn't. Also, as I said, I simply didn't realise the land could be worth anything significant!

I've learnt some significant lessons from the game and the reports, so I feel it was time well spent, even though I retired. And that's what the Epics and Adventures are about really, right?

--Garath

The starting position is disturbing, and I am half-convinced that I need to research sailing to venture past a possible tundra island peninsula isolated by sea and mountain. With my scout I should know soon enough-- meanwhile bee-lining to Iron Working (Mining>Bronze Working) to build an aggresive army of Jaguars for conquest. Scouts shall be built aplenty to find those goody huts and to seek the civ building our future Aztec cities.

Great luck! First hut pops a Scout, and there appears to be a land bridge off the tundra peninsula. The initial wave of scouts discover Animal Husbandry, Agriculture, Masonry, and net 149 gold before being felled by wild animals.

Romans discovered in 3400 BC, quite a shock, need to hit them before they get iron hooked up.

2080 BC, we enter the Classical era with the discovery of Iron Working. Come on Jaguars.

750 Capture of Barbarian City of Mauryan



650 BC Caeser declares war. I am fielding 8 Jaguars, 2 Archers and a Warrior but not in an advanced positon. Caeser's inital attack is defeated, and a long war ensues, mostly centered over the city of Neopolis.

Once the truce of 325 AD is signed, the Aztecs begin construction of their new capitol at Neopolis. I am severely overextended financially due to unit and city costs and I still need alphabet.

1070-1270 AD Second Roman War. Caeser attacks Neopolis aggressively, but with an Aztec Army heavily encamped behind the city walls, the city holds. After some particular heavy fighting, we take advantage of numbers and overrun the nearby city of Arretium. Caeser is happy to then sign a truce.


1600 AD, I ask Victoria for Literature and she gives it to me, happy to help a friend in need. We have the same state religion and aside from minor border tension, have great relations with the most powerful civ in the game.

1610 AD, Victoria declares war on her hopefull ally-- it appears that it be a fight of Jaguars versus Knights & Macemen. Such an unexpected betrayel, by the pleased and recently generous English.

1640 Stunned by the razing of Neopolis, the capitol, the Aztec empire concedes. It was lightly defended as its garrison had moved southwest not expecting an English assault from the Roman border.

Retired 1640 AD
Dan Qualye 629
In-Game Score 450

Edit: Thoughts and Notes

I enjoyed the game though I was severely hamstrung by the lack of commerce and ran at 0% science for long stretches due to unit expenditures. I thought that the early military build would net some nice cities, but the extra travel distance due to terrain created a disastrous war of attrition, as Aztec Jaguars exchanged with Roman Horsemen over the long front. Being a bit more patient on the counter-attack to build mixed forces for defense would have yielded better results.

Early Build & Research Choices

Scout > Scout > Barracks > Scout > Scout > Warrior > Worker > Jaguar (x9)
Mining>Bronze Working>Iron Working>Archery>Wheel

I promised Herbie an adventure. I doubt he took me seriously. Like Sullla, that's a costly mistake.

Updated Jan 28th, updated info in bold

The cultural revolution has begun! You have risen to power, and the bureaucractic intellectuals must be overrun! Question your parents, question authority, question all forms of old culture! Fight the borgeoises! We are against the political and intellectual elite!

Leader: Mao (Philosophical/Organized)
Map: Highlands, large lakes, dense mountain peaks.
Size: Small
Opponents: Random, standard # of opponents for this map size (4-5).
Difficulty: Prince
Victory paths open: All



Variant rules:
1. You are not allowed to build culture producing buildings. Wonders are allowed. Holy shrines are not.

This removes a great number of buildings that include, but isn't limited to, libraries, monasteries, temples, theatres and universities. If it produces culture, and it isn't a wonder, it probably isn't allowed.

Addendum: No Stonehenge. No free obelisks for you! Likewise no Eiffel tower for free Radio towers either.

2. Banking has been given to you for mercantilism civic. Use it to prevent early foreign propogandist (religious) influences via trade.

You must switch to mercantilism as soon as the first foreign trade route opens, and may not switch away from mercantilism until state property, which you may use if desired.

3. You are allowed to adopt a state religion you found. Use missionaries and religious civics as state propoganda.

4. You are not allowed to adopt Hereditary Rule, Bureacracy, Serfdom, or Free Market.

These civics imply a master and inequitable relationship between man and the proletariat. There is no uber-man, no kings of divine right, nor will we allow an oppressive governmental bureacracy, nor will lords own other people.

Capitalist free markets are not allowed! That is what led to inequity in the first place.

Slavery is allowed, as in terms of this game, means working people to death to complete a project. You are encouraged to risk the lives of your people for your great leaps forward.

And finally, the save


This event begins Tuesday, January 16th 2005, and will last six weeks, Valentines day. "Game complete" will be required Midnight, your local time, Sunday February 19th, reports due by Monday of February 20th. Enjoy Valentines day, on the 14th, if you can

Crazy start? Crazy land? Crazy Rules? You bet!

I never thought I'd be posting this report, as I left this game for dead no fewer than three times. I actually got off to a stronger start than other reports I've read today, but the sailing was far from smooth after the start.

Started out with my standard opening build (worker), but a non-standard opening tech. I only go for an early religion if I'm likely to be isolated and can do so without idling my first worker. As this was the case here, Meditation was my first tech, followed by Fishing, Mining, and Bronze. The rush to Bronze was so I could chop a settler in Tenochitlan and a Galley in my second city (and first coastal city!) with help from the whip too (Sailing was my next tech, with help from lake tiles in the capital).

I had been tempted to follow a OCC strategy similar to Sirian's, but reasoned that every one of my (tundra/ice) tiles would be earning one less food/hammer than regular terrain, even with mines/windmills. The lake at the capital, lacking a lighthouse (it wasn't technically coastal) and harbor, would also be suboptimal. The third deer was the clincher - I needed to get oars in the water ASAP!

This required a second city, which I built on the bare tundra by the lake to the west (I realized later that one tile further west would have been optimal to get the second plains hill) with that chopped settler. Note: no Stonehenge, no Oracle - there were higher priorities!

The upshot was that I got that third deer developed very early, powering quick settlers/workers from the capital and a decently early sci specialist academy run in the capital. The third city was the slave's paradise on the hill southeast of the capital (I eventually whipped everything there, including Bank, University, and National Epic! Even with marble, that took 7 citizens).
I don't work Ocean tiles, since they only yield one commerce, so this city was home to 4-6 specialists when it wasn't regrowing pop. I later put another slave colony near the other fish (in the site sealed off by peaks), and these two cities also provided lots of troops via Nationalism.

Anyway, the important thing was the fourth and fifth cities. My fourth city was at the SW corner of the lake, netting both coppers eventually (the western one was workable by the city), with a fish off the coast for the food. After this city built the Colossus, it settled another city three tiles south that got stone, crabs, and later uranium. The fifth city was in the familiar site in the SE by Mao, with sheep and gold workable, and whales evenutally in cultural control.

All these early cities made things tight economically (50% research), but I was able to keep up in tech with the sci specialist run in the capital and some decent trades. Once Colussus came in, I thought I was home free. I conquered to barb city to the west by the iron, founded another city securing the pass to Rome, and took out another barb city to the east by the river with silver and another iron. Got Liberalism, etc, etc...

Maybe the mistake I made at this point was trading too many resources with everyone, giving me worst enemy trading penalties. I'd been on good enough terms with Caesar, but had been unable to coax him into any wars, so there was a clock ticking in my head. I did beeline for Rifling and Nationalism - my favorite tactic on a low-hammer map, but then noticed that I only really had three cities that could easily recoup drafted pop. As my first Rifle headed east to take some more barb cities, Saladin declared.

No sweat, I had a nice tech lead, and no really vulnerable cities. Took out Saladin's initial push, conquered one of his frontier cities, and pushed for his core. And then I discovered Steam Power. No coal. That was bad. None even close (wish I'd noticed that one Sulla got!). Caesar had one behind a second line city. In fact he had three (and wouldn't trade any!). This was very bad.

Sure enough Caesar sprung the sneak. I was able to draft rifles and hold off the attack, but these food-poor cities really couldn't afford to spend another 30-40 turns gorwing back to max pop. Peace with Saladin, buy in Mao and Mansa vs. Caesar.

Oh, and Caesar and I had been trading 4 other resources. This was the first point at which I felt like quitting, but I decided to soldier on and see what happened. This might be my chance to get the coal! My economy was still pretty good thanks to Statue of Liberty and Electricity, which I beelined to get the extra Windmill commerce, then State Property greatly reduced maintenance costs in the new barb cities I had taken in the east, while firing up a bunch of watermills in that part of the world (first they got all farms to get to max pop, then farms were changed to mills - all hills got windmills too).

So the economy was fine, and then Infantry and factories and I took three of Caesar's cities, including Versailles...

But WW was up to 40% culture, and my tech pace had slowed down, and the techs I had used to bring in allies cost me the tech lead. And then Saladin snuck again. So it was peace with Caesar, and back to war with Saladin. Another wave of drafting, this time in the east, fouling up optimized watermill cities, and very nearly lost two cities anyway (I had left my defenses too thin there, thinking Saladin was gassed).

I had gone for Radio (foolishly thinking I could get Caesar's coal via Eiffel Tower culture - those cities ended up with 7000 culture, and still didn't get near reclaiming their western tiles), and as soon as Flight came in Caesar was back to reclaim his cities, this time with the full range of modern techs. He even had fighters to blunt the impact of my bombers, while chewing up my countryside, including the food of my Heroic Epic city - starving it down to unproductivity.

This was the second point at which I felt like giving up, and did for a week or so, until someone in a Civfanatic forums mentioned the game, and I figured I'd see if I could salvage it. I started by giving Saladin back one of the cities from the previous war that contained 5 tanks and 2 Infantry waiting for it to unrevolt.

Once this force got back to the western front, I (barely) managed to raze a couple Roman cities using combined forces (marines vs. artillery, SAM's vs. gunships, gunships vs. tanks, tanks to take the cities) and wasted some bombers going into the teeth of anti-aircraft fire. Once I realized how powerful gunships were for pillaging, the tide turned. Caesar had rails right up to the three former Roman cities, so I had to keep large garrisons in them.

Just as I was amassing a force to take Rome and get the holy grail (coal!), I got the worst imaginable news. Alex had declared. I know Alex. Alex likes to sit back and build stacks of hundreds of units. Your only hope against Alex is that he stays busy with someone else. As I said, in this game, my diplo sucked (although I did end up Sec Gen!), so this was Alex's first war. I shuddered to think how many units he had stockpiled. His first move of the war was to move the dreaded dot, dot, dot stack next to Baghdad. You know, the stack so big the screen doesn't have room for it. It contained at least 20 well-promoted Infantry as well.

This was the third point at which I felt like giving up.

What the heck, made it this far.

I had gone for Fission to get Nuke Plants (lacking Coal), then Rocketry to get Apollo started (Vicky already had it, I had 11 turns to go), then beelined for Robotics for the Space Elevator. As if Alex's surprise wasn't bad enough, I discovered that I didn't have a city at the proper latitude to build the Space Elevator! Was that added in the last patch?

What I did have, however, now, was Mechs. Sure wish I'd had those a few turns earlier vs Rome. but Caesar would finally talk, and WW was already at 40% again, so I had to take peace with JC again (it would last til game's end) and kill at least 200 units from Alex over the next ten turns. Someone's spy had cut off my Oil, but the 4 bombers left over from the Roman war, combined with 7 ridiculously promoted Mechs in a hill city, were just enough to give Alex's unit a nice place to die. I did lose the initial city, but when the human has air, and the AI doesn't: hambuger hill for the AI.

Near the end, Alex brought some tanks and SAM's, but it was too late.

I had no stomach for revenge, however, as it was time for space. Used a Great Engineer for Scotland Yard and kept tabs on Vicky. Max sci (all sci specialists, building research) to get the techs, then max wealth to fund sabotage. Passed the foreign trade route and extra trade route via UN, windmilled everything in sight, and got research down to three turns on the last tech. Took out Saladin's capital when Mao invited me to join him in wiping out Sal (if I'd only had that site sooner!).

Ended up beating Vicky to space by two turns in 1983, in an ending similar to Sirian's, complete with madcap procudtion adjustments in the last city, a well-timed final Golden Age, and three successful (and ruinously expensive!) sabatogue attempts.

Considering that I spent much of the mid/late game running 20-40% culture to keep my lily-livered people happy, I was really surprised to get the win. Just shows how important diplo really is...

I switched back and forth a couple times between Free Market and State Property - Free Market boosts revenues, while State Property cuts expenses - but I should have stayed in State Property, as the trade routes on highland maps are pretty unimpressive, and the extra food from watermills made my 5 (!) cities to the Northeast monsters just in time to simultaneously build the last 4 spaceship parts.

4000BC-1400BC

The starting position didn’t look that bad to me. We’ve got 3 deer and marble and we’re on fresh water. My original plan was to beeline to iron working and crank out Jaguars to wipe out my nearest neighbor with the good land.

Since we start with hunting, I order worker first, so as to build camps on the deer and start researching mining. I was lucky with hut popping. I received: 1) scout 2) Animal Husbandry 3) Masonry 4) map 5) gold. However, learning those 2 key techs caused me to deviate wildly from my war plan. By 3120BC, I had learned Mining and Bronze Working, built a warrior in Teno and contacted the Romans. At this time, I made my first deviation from the war plan, by starting Stonehenge instead of barracks. My next tech to study was Fishing intending to follow with Sailing so I could build galleys as the desirable land was in the south. In 2920BC, I foolishly lost one of my scouts to pop a hut even though I had seen a bear lurking in the area. He died for a map. After learning Fishing in 2840BC, I deviate again and start research on wheel. I’m going for my standard Oracle – Code of Laws – Confucianism plan. Stonehenge finishes in 2400 and I start a settler at size 4. I found Teo in 1960BC, while I’ve followed through on the religion plan by learning meditation and priesthood and start on writing. After building barracks in Teno, I start the Oracle in 1880BC. I learn writing in 1600BC followed shortly by completing the Oracle in 1560BC while founding Confucianism in Teo in 1520BC.



1400BC-980AD



At 1400BC I have 2 cities, Teno at size 5 and Teo at 3. Wow! I learn sailing in 1320 because I realized that I had to expand to the south. By 900 I began building Jags planning to attack the Chinese and Tlatelo was founded as a beachhead.



http://www.realmsbeyond.net/userfiles/fi...chhead.jpg




But, my religion spread to Beijing and Mao converted so I was reluctant to attack. I didn’t have enough Jags anyway. I began building infrastructure. Texcoco, was founded in 275BC. Tlaxcala was founded as a canal city with dreams of sending waves of galleys to attack the Arabian heartland, but these were only dreams. Calixta was founded in 860AD completing my 6 city “empire”.



http://www.realmsbeyond.net/userfiles/fi...glance.jpg

Perhaps, I needed to settle more aggressively, in the south. The copper site was available for a long time, but China has Macao there now.


http://www.realmsbeyond.net/userfiles/fi...tysite.jpg


and I failed to attack the barb city in the east with its sheep and iron. I didn't get iron or copper until very late in the game.




http://www.realmsbeyond.net/userfiles/fi...gi_hun.jpg



I began to attack with missionaries, converting Caesar in 700 AD. Perhaps, unwisely in 720AD I refuse Caesar’s demand for 90g and he declares war in 980.



http://www.realmsbeyond.net/userfiles/fi...attack.jpg

980-1280

The war lasted 300 years and was mostly an assault on Tlatelo. I couldn’t get Mao to cancel his open borders with JC, so the Roman waves came through China. Having learned from Epic 1 to fortify heavily, I spent these turns ferrying defenders from Teno and Teo and I managed to hold the city. Just as praetorians began to show up, JC agreed to “peace with honor”.



1280-1802

I was also at war with MM, who DOWed me in 1080, I sent a meager force to try to capture the former barb city, but I failed. In 1560, I tried to capture a barb city in the east and failed by 1 turn before Saladin captured it, so I DOWed Saladin to take that city, but I couldn’t hold it. Another 250 years of defensive war followed as Saladin sent many attackers at my cities, but I repelled all, somewhat more comfortably this time. However, I’m not going to win the game ferrying defenders across the Inland Sea!



1802-1991



I was the first one to Liberalism, but my tech lead began to wane after that. Let’s just say Vicky launched in 1991, with me having built just 8 parts and still needed to research a few techs. Notable events during this period was the demise of MM. That barb city was his last city and I failed by 1 turn to capture before Mao razed it. I re-built the city there, but it was too late to develop it properly. Also, in 1932, Alex DOWed Saladin and I paid Mao off to join the fight and Saladin completely collapsed and was eliminated in 1983. I can only conclude that I failed to expand rapidly enough. I should have captured the barb city in the west and explored the east as well as settle aggressively in the south. I think I had time to do this, but I waffled too much with half-hearted feints in one direction then another accomplishing nothing.

My Report

A disastrous attempt and an early retirement I'm still torn about. At least the start was good...

Report's in PDF form, 'cuz I tried doing it with LaTeX. Hope you enjoy, it's about 2MB all told.

Executive summary: Loss to space race (1992AD, Victoria) after nearly getting wiped off the map. Survived, though!

Report!