Epic Eight - ROME

[Sullla]

Sounds like some crazy stuff going on there! Machiavellian gameplan, lopsided dice rolls, warriors heroically defending against axes.... If you get the time to add more details, I'm sure everyone would be interested in hearing about them!

[Atlas]

Rome may have had little production, but it is the capital that I wanted when I was playing and saw all the starts. Praets-> is the way to go. Why drag it out? Good games Romans!

[theGrimm]

That was a thoroughly entertaining game report. SHINIES!

Given the capital's awesome location, I was surprised to see how slow your early expansion was in this game.

I had to give them time to build some shines, eh?

[Antoninus]

I drew Rome. Right away it seemed my settler should move south, thereby picking up the second gem in its fat cross, plus getting rid of a few desert squares in exchange for more fertile land. Sure enough, after moving him one square south the AI put a blue circle around my new location.

I don’t normally do this, but I tried building a worker out of the gate. I already had a second warrior, so it was either that or build a barracks until the city grew to size two. 23 moves to build the worker? Yikes. So a barracks, it is.

Here is my capital in 3490 BC:



(I've never used screenshots before, so I apologize if I have to edit this report to fix the images.)

One warrior headed south, one north. Found the coastline to the south. Then the villagers down there granted me the sailing technology. Since Julius Ceasar can build lighthouses quickly, that was a nice gift.

Met Mao Zedong’s scout to the south. Now, you be nice, Mao.

Uh oh. Trouble already. My northern warrior steps right next to a barbarian archer. Archers already, in 3880 BC? Hmm. Luckily, the archer quickly stole away into the fog. But when my warrior then entered the village up north, a funny thing happened. The villagers were hostile, but just as the battle began a forest sprung up right under my warrior’s feet. That 50% defense bonus allowed him to withstand the attack from two barbarian warriors. Nice. His luck finally ran out, however, when he came across a nasty bear. This time, the forest didn’t help him (it seems the bear was able to climb those trees faster then my poor little warrior.)

Four sources of dye located to the south. Looks like I might be destined to become the “Dye King of the Known World.”

Villagers to the southeast have an extra scout they apparently don’t need. When they asked if I could use an extra scout, I gave them a few beads to show my gratitude.

My scout found both the coastline to the northeast, as well as a friendly group of villagers willing to teach me Agriculture, all on the same turn. That’ll come in handy (if I can ever produce a worker!)

More villagers grant me the wheel. I now like my decision to go after Bronze Working first, since I learned a lot of the worker techs from my friendly villager neighbors.

Founded Antium just on the coast, in range of the copper, clams, horses and gold resources.

Once I reached alphabet, I was able to get both masonry and meditation from Hatty for Alphabet. Since I could build lighthouses quickly, this trade made eminent sense, allowing me to at least try to build the great lighthouse.

Due to nothing more than inattentiveness on my part, I lost a worker/warrior pair to a barbarian archer. Damn, that’ll set me back quite a bit.

Tokugawa tricked me pretty good at one point. We had an open borders agreement, so my galley traveled around Toku’s territory until it came to an isthmus. Just when the galley traveled outside of Tuku’s borders, he cancelled the open borders agreement with me. Sneaky bastid. That trapped my galley into a three square little area with no way out. Since galleys will never be able to travel the ocean, and since I did not intend to declare war on Tukugawa just to get my galley home, I was forced to abandon my crew, sink the ship, and force them all to swim to shore. If I could rename that section of land, I’d call it Pitcairn Isthmus.

Lagging behind in points, but clearly the tech leader. Let’s see if I can pull myself out of this game by focusing on my economy. Running at 100%, even though losing a bit each turn, because I traded for so many techs and received gold in return.

This place is crowded! I have borders approaching me on all sides.



I was thinking, maybe, a cultural win. That would allow me to obtain a few more cities via friendly cultural flips, plus, I could focus on my economy, rather than worry about war with anyone (a strategy at which I’m not nearly as skilled). We’ll see.

Eventually, I had four religions, but founded only one. So even though I have few cities (4), I could build all the religious buildings and push for a cultural win.



Atlanta, the American city directly north of me, converted due to my cultural influence. Here’s a look:



That’s one of the cool things about a cultural strategy. “Would you like this new city to join you?” “Sure, thank you very much.” No messy wars, no young citizens being sent to their deaths. Just a nice peaceful way to take over a new settlement. This would be my only method of acquisition during this game.

Here is another example:



Look at how four different cultural borders are cramping Shanghai’s style. This city was eventually taken over by one of the AI’s, so it never flipped to me.

By the time I got to Radio, for the Eiffel Tower, several Civs wanted me to trade it to them. But I refused, because I wanted the Eiffel Tower to get free Broadcast Towers in every city, and therefore the extra 50% boost in culture.

Eventually, my capital reached 50,000 cultural points, so I checked on the other two cities. What’s this? Oh no. I need 75,000!! Whaaaaaat? (Can you tell I’m not used to playing on Epic speed?) All this time I thought I was cruising, and now I realize I’m not going to make it.

Roosevelt starts the space ship. Can I possibly get to 75,000 culture per city before he launches? I think not, but I refuse to give up at this point.

At some point it dawns on me that I have only 5 cities. I need 6 temples of each religion in order to build the cathedrals/synagogues. Duh. Once I figured this out, I sent a settler down to the southern end to establish a new city right near Toku’s border. I knew this was risky, but I’d been friendly with Toku all game. Luckily, Hatty declared war on him and started taking over his cities, so he was no longer interested in my little settlement at his northern border.

Saladin eventually passes Roosevelt in building his spaceship. In 2005, Saladin needs on one more space ship part, the engine, before he’s off to Alfa Centauri (or wherever they go when they slip the bonds of earth).

And it happens!

Cultural Victory in 2007! Saladin would have had the spaceship built in a matter of three more turns!

This is fantastic for me. Monarch difficulty is 2 levels above where I’d been playing up until a few weeks ago. I attempted Adventure 10, and lost, but learned a great deal. And now my first Epic, and first victory in an RB event. I’m deemed to have the leadership skills of only Warren G. Harding, but I don’t care. I won.

Thanks, Sirian. This was a personal best, and really entertaining for me.

[Rowain]

Congrats on your Monarchy -win

and bringing Roman-culture to the world