Ronald's epic 6 report

[Ronald]

I have never played an always war game before in any civ version. But after playing epic4 untill 2003 (I got rid of all barbarians, but it would have taken another 30 to 50 turns to take on Qin and probably another 200 turns for Ghandi, I did not finish epic4) I thought always war on noble can't be worse than deity raging barbs.
At least it will take the AI much longer to threaten my capital. Nevertheless, I was very careful with my early research: archery first and first build a warrior



I decided to do only a limited scouting and stop untill I meet the first AI. So I wanted to limit the numbers of AIs I am at war with, hoping that some far away AIs won't get through the initially closed borders.
That might have helped with a civ3 like AI since they did not scout the area extensively, but it did not help with the civ4 AI.

I met Ghandi in 3160 BC

Here is a picture of my empire. One can see I researched BW after Archery and have copper close by for my second city. My capital is already proteced by one archer. The scout and the warrior are exploring the nearby land.



I sent my warrior which was not too far away immediately to Ghandi to either capture a worker or prevent him from developing his land. Later I changed the warrior to an archer.



This worked beatufully. As one can see, in 2140 BC, Ghandi has not progressed at all.



Finally Ghandi managed to sneak out a settler protected by two archers, just in time for my axemen.



After razing my first city, Bombay in 1000 BC my freshly promoted axemen are closing in on Delhi



Delhi was captured in 730 BC, the Indian civilization is destroyed and I was now owner of the holy city of Hinduism.



So far, always war looked mostly harmless. The AIs trickled the one or other warrior into my territory, easy prey for my axemen and archers.
This situation changed a bit in the next few hundred years.
I kept expanding, I even finished the early wonders in Berlin: Stonehenge, Pyramids and Oracle. The Oracle for the CS slingshot. I was pulling ahead in techs, so I was not really concerned about the long term prospects.



The AIs are now concentrating all their efforts on Delhi. I got frequent visitors from land and sea:



But my defenses ar much too strong for the invaders. I now have macemen and all the send are horse archers, axemen and spearmen.
No real problem so far.

This is my empire in 1010 AD. I am building my infrastructure, pull ahead in techs even further and have no problem to defend my current position.
I plan to expend a little further with macemen, but wait for a final push with cavalry.



I built the FP in Kagoshima. This city is now in the far west of my empire, but soon it will be in the center, Kagashima is now the focus of all AI action, but looking at the defenders and the invaders, it is clear who has the longer part of the stick:



After researching military tradition, everything went pretty fast.
From the fall of Osaka in 1472



it took a bit more than 200 years to achieve domination victory in 1688.





I was surprised how easy this victory came. Also war weariness never played a role. I did not need move the cultural slider once. Nice epic, thanks Sirian for developing that one. I'm looking forward to playing epic 7, whatever that might be.

[Kodii]

Great work! Congratulations on the victory. I see we both got some beatings at Delhi. I notice that the AI seem to found the same cities in the same positions in our games. In some situations, they just have different names

Lets see how many people ended up founding Hamburg on that hill beside the copper.

[Ronald]

Here is the proof of the first captured city and the first destroyed civ:



In 1502 I had these cities



I built the FP in



Some statistics about this game:

[pindicator]

Haha, I think everybody who has not run a city-specific variant has gotten 12 cities in 1502AD!

As for Hamburg, it really was the natural position to put a second city. On a hill for defense, on a river for trade and resource connection, and it puts the bronze in the back lines to protect from pillagers.

[Sullla]

Haha, I think everybody who has not run a city-specific variant has gotten 12 cities in 1502AD!

I didn't run a city-specific variant, and I had 40 cities in 1502AD.

By the way, congrats Ronald! Running around with cavs in the late game is fun, isn't it?

[Ronald]

By the way, congrats Ronald! Running around with cavs in the late game is fun, isn't it?

It's a lot of fun