Epic Eight - ENGLAND

[Bede]

Here's the report:

http://www.dingusegg.com/Civ4/TeaAndCrumpets/

notopt

I feel for you man, I really, really do. And off to such a nice start, too.

[notoptimal]

I feel for you man, I really, really do. And off to such a nice start, too.

I know...I skimmed through the other three England reports and I seemed to have fared the best in avoiding getting that boxed in (which, for me, was an accomplishment in itself ) Even with Caesar's war, I felt I had that under control as well. Even in going over my notes to do the report, I'm not quite sure where, exactly, things started to fall apart (well, OK, I was always the weakest militarily ) and felt I had a reasonable chance to pull it off until Saladin came knocking. I suppose my tactical error was not keeping the maces in for defense, but I guess I can go reload my save (I've got one from 1424, the war started in 1466) and see if that does make a difference, especially since Saladin never showed up with any sort of real stack....

notopt

[Sirian]

Kylearan expected to be unavailable Monday and Tuesday, so asked me to post his report link. He drew England:

Kylearan's Epic Eight Report!

Enjoy!


- Sirian

[Sirian]

So I opened the save, and found myself with a settler and two warriors. Uh...two warriors? Normally, you start with only one! Maybe Sirian put the extra warrior in there for the human player so all civs started with the same units, making potluck comparisons more meaningful? But then he should have given us an extra worker too, as the AIs start with one - strange.

Ah, but that's just it. The AIs do NOT start with one in this game. To set up the map, I had to use the Scenario feature, and in a Scenario, the units on the board are the units on the board. Period.

Since I did not want to start players with a worker, the AIs could not get one. Yet since I did not want to start AIs with just one Warrior (or zero! -- in the case of Hunting civs) the player had to get two.

AIs normally get all their units in a stack, while humans get their settler on the starting spot and their initial warrior or scout offset by a tile or two.


So what I did here is give every civ a free extra warrior. The Warrior went with the Settler, so that the AIs would have a garrison unit right away, while the "second unit", either warrior or scout depending on the civ, was offset the way is normal for human civs.

ALL CIVS IN ALL MAPS STARTED FROM THE SAME POSITIONS, including the same units.

Thus it will always have to be in Potluck games.


Yes, not giving the Monarch AIs their starting Worker is like making the game half a difficulty level easier than a normal Monarch game, but that was OK. I wanted this game to be accessible to those who would be "playing outside their comfort zone" on difficulty level, just because they wanted to take part in this jumbo feast that is RBCiv Potluck.


- Sirian

[Hadrian11]

I know...I skimmed through the other three England reports and I seemed to have fared the best in avoiding getting that boxed in (which, for me, was an accomplishment in itself ) Even with Caesar's war, I felt I had that under control as well. Even in going over my notes to do the report, I'm not quite sure where, exactly, things started to fall apart (well, OK, I was always the weakest militarily ) and felt I had a reasonable chance to pull it off until Saladin came knocking. I suppose my tactical error was not keeping the maces in for defense, but I guess I can go reload my save (I've got one from 1424, the war started in 1466) and see if that does make a difference, especially since Saladin never showed up with any sort of real stack....

notopt

Something else that I noticed was that you promoted all of your maces to CR1 as you entered Arabian lands. When entering AI lands for the first invasion, I usually like to promote a few units to combat1 for counterattacks and suicide cats and hold off promoting the others until ready to attack, so that they can get the 50% extra healing. I think that would have helped your stack a little bit since CR1 does no good when defending on open terrain.

[ThERat]

notoptimal, I was surprised to see you NOT getting boxed in...I wonder what that was. Did you see my start? I was barley able to found 2 cities, but then the crazy AI of Egypt made up for it. I wonder why Egypt had so few defenders and a mere chariot in their capital. Have never seen such foolishness before

[ThERat]

also, interesting to see that quite a few founded London inland on the same spot and I think it was the best location possible even if it meant horses outside the fat cross

edit: just read kry's short report, he got much more resistance from Egypt, that's even more puzzling for me

[Bede]

Just to keep some skin in the game, here is the link to Bede's English Empire in Epic 8.

Not all the pages have been finished yet, so, prithee patience.

Without a doubt this has to be my favorite game.

[Bulwark]

First Kylearan and now Bede.

You cannot do this to me, I need to know how your respective saga's continues!! :mad:

Flawless reports so far though

[notoptimal]

notoptimal, I was surprised to see you NOT getting boxed in...I wonder what that was. Did you see my start? I was barley able to found 2 cities, but then the crazy AI of Egypt made up for it. I wonder why Egypt had so few defenders and a mere chariot in their capital. Have never seen such foolishness before

Yeah, the AI gave you Egypt on a silver platter on that one.

As far as my expansion goes, maybe the PRNG decided that since I didn't get any techs from huts (so far, I seem to be the only one that didn'y get a hut-tech), I would get land instead. On a more serious note, it seems that in every game except mine, Memphis was founded ESE of Thebes, where in mine Memphis was NW of the capital. I think this may have been due to when (and where) York was founded. For instance, you and Bede founded York after myself and Drugged_Unholy did. I think the two of us got York down before Egypt founded Memphis, which effectively moved that city. (I'll have to retire from the game to check the replay) The direction that we went with York (SW instead of NW) may have also rearranged the AI's expansion choices. As for what kept Mansa at bay, I may have gotten lucky with my lack of fogbusting -- the presence of Apache NW of London may have forced Mansa's expansion westwards as well.

Something else that I noticed was that you promoted all of your maces to CR1 as you entered Arabian lands. When entering AI lands for the first invasion, I usually like to promote a few units to combat1 for counterattacks and suicide cats and hold off promoting the others until ready to attack, so that they can get the 50% extra healing. I think that would have helped your stack a little bit since CR1 does no good when defending on open terrain.

Unit promotions is something I'm still feeling my way around in terms of optimal use....I tend to be "brute-force" in my promotion choices. I think, though, that Adv 15 will see me exploring my options with promotions a little more.

notopt