This game was very similar to my first RB event, CIV Epic 1. I have more experience with CIV now, but AI is also much tougher, and the difficulty level here is slightly higher, with a more restrictive rule set. I also had been playing more poorly recently, with a string of losses that I hoped to end with this game.
The game itself started without any specific plan. My settler wasted 3 turns wondering around before settling on the coast. The first turn was wasted because I didn't realize that goody hut was in the forest. After that, I hiked to the coast, because I wasn't sure how important navy would be on this map and decided to get a coastal capital. More importantly, I wanted to optimally utilize the floodplains, which I wouldn't be able to do without more scouting. The floodplain utilization plan worked out well, with my second and third cities becoming instant commercial powerhouses, and later production powerhouses with help of levees, mines, and a couple lumber mills. However, my capital ended up being rather lackluster. It provided adequate production capacity in the short term, but was not my top production city and ended up even weaker later.
My expansion ended up going in a nearly straight line, with second and third cities taking floodplains and fourth city founded next to iron, because I was getting worried about having only warriors for defense. (I tend to ignore archery if there is no immediate military threat.)
My research went into Wheel(roads) -> AH(pasture and reveal horses, which we don't have) -> Mining -> BW (reveals copper and chop forests, mainly on hills) -> Pottery (cottages on floodplains) -> IW (metal for defense)
I didn't do much chopping, and allowed Washington to grow significantly before producing settler, so New York was founded only in 2000BC.
The discovery of IW in 1200BC determined the location of Philadelphia, which was founded next turn after 800BC. (800BC is the date when Justinian spread Buddhism to our lands, although I chose not to convert, to aviod annoying Hindu Celts.)
Meanwhile, I researched Writing (libraries) and went on to my favorite economic path of Alphabet -> Currency -> CoL -> CS. Over the following centuries I was able to sell the techs gained from this beeline for basic religious techs, Monarchy, and Metal Casting. So I converted to HR and Org Rel as my civics even before I chose a religion.
On the diplomatic front, Celts attacked Justinian in 305BC and made peace in 40AD. Here is my empire at 10AD:
[img=http://img369.imageshack.us/img369/554/epic1810adom4.th.jpg]
Note the troops heading towards barbarian city that Justinian is planning to attack. That city is on the hill, and since Justinian was occupied by Celt war, I decided to start by taking Aryan to north-east first. I got that city a few turns before this picture, from under the nose of Celts. That capture ended up deciding the course of entire game as the Celts, with nothing better to do for their stack, decided to attack me in 100AD:
[img=http://img377.imageshack.us/img377/4634/epic18firstceltattackxi7.th.jpg]
As you can see, Aryan is protected by a single Axe, with 1-Warrior garrison in Philadelphia as the only backup. I obviously had to abandon that city and pull the forces intended to attack barb city back to defend Philadelphia.
This attack meat that I converted to Buddhism and became Justinian's best friend for the rest of the game. (Which meant that Justinian became the leading AI, thanks in large part to constant trading with me.) Back to the Celt war, I was able to protect Philadelphia, but I had to go into full-defense mode, with Washington and Philadelphia training troops while the two commerce cities had to produce all workers and settlers for further colonization. This means that I lost most of barbarian cities to Justinian, and was able to settle only 3 cities in the northern jungle. My economy was also shot, going down to 20% research. I did manage to divert enough troops to capture a barbarian city on the south coast.
I eventually managed to recapture Aryan, the city that started this war. I also captured Boudica's nearby city, and quickly lost it to counter-attack. However, by 940AD Boudica wanted "only" Aryan for peace. I recaptured her city with intention of giving it back, but she demanded CS as well, I negotiated down to Aestetics and Currency, and accepted the deal in 950AD.
Shortly after this, Justinian donated to me a nearly useless city choked by my culture. I was considering giving that city right back, because it was just a drain on my resources, but decided to keep it. That decision paid off in the long run, with my city's culture taking nearby rice farm, and the city becoming decent production center thanks to post-biology farms and lumbermills/windmills.
Here is what our empire looked like in 1060AD:
[img=http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/1762/1060adnorthch2.th.jpg]
[img=http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/8369/1000adsouthmx9.th.jpg]
Note the underdeveloped lands and economy barely in the green at 30% research.
However, my economy improved slowly but steadily from here, with tech rate greatly increased by trading with Justinian. University of Sankore, the first wonder I've attempted (and completed) during this game, proved very important for two reasons. First, it gave me lots of research, because monasteries were cheap, and temples are also high on priority list. Second, building temples and monasteries in every city, along with Charismatic Obelisks, my usual Libraries, and cheap Univercities, meant that my border cities were generating lots of culture. So I was slowly pushing back against Justinian's borders, eventually giving all workable tiles to my border cities, and even flipping a city near endgame.
Diplomatically, Celts focused their attacks mainly on Justinian, probably because Byzantine culture isolated two of my cities from the rest of my territory, meaning that there wasn't much point for Celts to attack me. (Only 3 of my cities weren't redded out when talking to them.) I had joined one of Justinian's wars, but succeded only in getting my attack stack wiped out while marching to a Celt city, while Justinain quit after 10 turns, as usual. However, most times I refused Justinian's requests for help, because our shared religion modifier was huge and other positives from close friendship more than compensated for negatives for close borders and refusal to help. (I also made sure to never learn or buy Theology, so Justinian never got a chance to demand that I switch to Theocracy, which was one of forbidden civics.)
In terms of research, I completed Liberalism beeline in 1310AD, taking Nationalism, because it was the most expensive tech available. I also wanted to make sure I'd get Taj Mahal, which I successfully completed in 1420. After Liberalism, I immediately researched Printing Press for economic boost, and then traded with Friendly Justinian for all prerequisites for Economics and beat him to the tech.
The Golden Age from Taj Mahal allowed me 10 turns for anarchy-free civic swaps. First I switch to Free Speech and Mercantilism (Justinian was running it himself, so there was no foreign trade anyway). Then I used deficit research, burning through cash from trades, to get Constitution 2 turns before Golden Age ended, getting a free swap to Representation.
After that we researched Democracy for an early start on Statue of Liberty, which would give extra 6 raw beakers per city under Mercantelism. This research was completed in 1510 and we immediately Emancipated the slaves we never had. SoL was started immediately in Philadelphia (which would remain my top production city until being bypassed by New York in the end of the game), and was completed in 1590, with the help of Great Engineer.
I did a lot of tech trades and researched Corporation. I also started researching Astronomy, when I saw (using espionage I got from courthouses in all cities) that Louis is researching Physics. However, Astronomy became available for sale shortly afterwards, and Louis was willing to sell Scientific Method next turn, probably realising that it was a poisoned pill, so I beat him to Physics, getting the GS, and settling the tech to Louis for some cash when he was almost done with it. (The practice of selling techs AI almost finished researching yielded me lots of cash in this game, and was much safer than my usual way of just selling them random old techs, because it didn't speed up the world tech pace by as much.)
After handing on to the Economics Great Merchant for a long time, I decided to try a cash refund option. It turned out that the amount offered in Constantinopole (2500$) was nearly identical to the amount offered in the cities of same size on the other side of the world. Only Ragnar's capital, offered 2850$, which I took in 1675AD.
In 1605 I got this amusing event:
[img=http://img245.imageshack.us/img245/9351/goldrushop2.th.jpg]
I wonder if Gold Rush was hard-coded to happen in San Francisco, or if it was just a fun coinsidence.
Meanwhile, Boudica declares war on Justinian in 1600. She brought 12 Knights, 11 Maces, and a few older units. I was glad that power wasn't directed against me. The target city had 85% cultural defense and was protected by 4 longbows, 4 catapachts, and a few trebuchets and older units, but it felt pretty quickly to overwhelming forces. However, Justinian captured a city of his own in the north, and was probably beating Celts pretty badly, because they agreed to peace, giving back the core city they've captured. That was good for me, because that city would have opened the passage for them into my core, making it more likely for Boudica to attack me.
I reasearched towards Assembly Line (to improve production), which we learned in 1710, and then started research into Electricity->Radio for an early shot at those wonders. Eifel Tower would be especially good for our Charismatic leader, giving lots of extra happiness, and more culture on Byzantine borders.
In 1714 Justinian stole Replaceable Parts from me. This would be just the first in a series of high-profile thiefts. He ended up stealing over half a dozen top techs, so his massive espionage spending did a good job of complementing his research efforts.
That stolen technology came in very handy for Byzantines, because Celts attacked them the same turn with massive stacks of mounted units. Justinian lost 3 cities in the north, so I got worried enough to sell him Rifling. However, that didn't matter because he made peace shortly afterwards, without losing any more cities.
Unfortunately, these newly captured cities made Celts more interested in my core (despite the fact that they still couldn't reach it), so when I refused a demand for some tech in 1734, Boudica attacked. I had an Infantry (a single unit of it) and a few Rifles, along with a bunch of obsolete units, against mainly Curassiers and Trebuchets, so I wasn't too worried. I spent my cash to upgrade some maces to infantry and sat back to enjoy the show.
However, I got overconfident and upgraded straight to CR infantry. I also left my obsolete units unpromoted, for more CR infantry in the future. So my stack was overwhelmed by sheer numbers. After the carnage of 1748 I was left with less than half a dozen units, while Celts had a dozen units that I could see. So it was time for emergency defence to avoid losing a city full of culture buildings.
First I used a GA I was saving to trigger a Golden Age. The anarchy-free civic swap was used to go to Nationalism (drafting), Universal Suffrage (cash rushing, that I didn't use), and Free Market (which I should have switched to long ago, becuase several AIs stopped running Mercantelism, and I was able to get 6 or more gpt from each of my 4 trade routes per city).
Nationalism was used to draft infantry from the two cities in the Eastern enclave, and the fishing village of San Francisco, that you saw earlier. I also sold whatever I could for all of AI's cash, so I could upgrade a few of the remaining units. This scared the Celts enough that only 3 of their units attacked, allowing my reinforcements to wipe out the stack of wounded units. I didn't have to do any more drafting, but that single drafted infantry (that attacked out of a city to kill very highly promoted maceman) was probably the unit that made the difference between losing and not losing the city.
By the way, Universal Suffrage and Golden Age turned out to be a great combo, greatly increasing my production.
The rest of the war was very uneventful, with my infantry slaughtering outdated troops, sometimes without need for support from Canons.
And a Byzantine city finally flipped to me in 1796:
[img=http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/3135/cityflippingme4.th.jpg]
That city was in a peculiar spot that was pressed by two of my cities from different sides, so the city center was dominated by my culture, even if the surrounding tiles weren't. You can also see my Celt conquests in the minimap. I captured all of their cottage lands, so newly conquered cities gave economic benefit almost right away.
I don't have time to finish the report, so I'll post my space race strategy later, if anybody is interested. The rest of the game was very uneventful.
Celts eventually got vassalized by Justinian just as I was about to capture a few more of their cities. (Justinian invited me to join the war.)
One notable thing was my use of corporations. I founded Mining Inc. and Standard Ethanol because they gave biggest bonuses for production and research, and spread them to each of my cities. I also bought every corporate resource on the market I could afford, using Musicals and Movies as top currency.
With New York (that built Wall Street) building Wealth and most cities building Research, I was able to make up for some of the time lost due to early stupidity. So most spaceship parts were completed in 1876, and the victory happened 15 turns later, with no problems.
Space Race Victory in 1891.
Time spent 23 hours, 22 minutes.
Final Score 41545, with ingame score 3947. I was researching Future Tech 4 when the game ended.
PS Looks like I posted just under the deadline, 11:59pm.
I apparently copied wrong links from ImageShack, but I'll fix it later, if I can find a more reliable picture host.
The game itself started without any specific plan. My settler wasted 3 turns wondering around before settling on the coast. The first turn was wasted because I didn't realize that goody hut was in the forest. After that, I hiked to the coast, because I wasn't sure how important navy would be on this map and decided to get a coastal capital. More importantly, I wanted to optimally utilize the floodplains, which I wouldn't be able to do without more scouting. The floodplain utilization plan worked out well, with my second and third cities becoming instant commercial powerhouses, and later production powerhouses with help of levees, mines, and a couple lumber mills. However, my capital ended up being rather lackluster. It provided adequate production capacity in the short term, but was not my top production city and ended up even weaker later.
My expansion ended up going in a nearly straight line, with second and third cities taking floodplains and fourth city founded next to iron, because I was getting worried about having only warriors for defense. (I tend to ignore archery if there is no immediate military threat.)
My research went into Wheel(roads) -> AH(pasture and reveal horses, which we don't have) -> Mining -> BW (reveals copper and chop forests, mainly on hills) -> Pottery (cottages on floodplains) -> IW (metal for defense)
I didn't do much chopping, and allowed Washington to grow significantly before producing settler, so New York was founded only in 2000BC.
The discovery of IW in 1200BC determined the location of Philadelphia, which was founded next turn after 800BC. (800BC is the date when Justinian spread Buddhism to our lands, although I chose not to convert, to aviod annoying Hindu Celts.)
Meanwhile, I researched Writing (libraries) and went on to my favorite economic path of Alphabet -> Currency -> CoL -> CS. Over the following centuries I was able to sell the techs gained from this beeline for basic religious techs, Monarchy, and Metal Casting. So I converted to HR and Org Rel as my civics even before I chose a religion.
On the diplomatic front, Celts attacked Justinian in 305BC and made peace in 40AD. Here is my empire at 10AD:
[img=http://img369.imageshack.us/img369/554/epic1810adom4.th.jpg]
Note the troops heading towards barbarian city that Justinian is planning to attack. That city is on the hill, and since Justinian was occupied by Celt war, I decided to start by taking Aryan to north-east first. I got that city a few turns before this picture, from under the nose of Celts. That capture ended up deciding the course of entire game as the Celts, with nothing better to do for their stack, decided to attack me in 100AD:
[img=http://img377.imageshack.us/img377/4634/epic18firstceltattackxi7.th.jpg]
As you can see, Aryan is protected by a single Axe, with 1-Warrior garrison in Philadelphia as the only backup. I obviously had to abandon that city and pull the forces intended to attack barb city back to defend Philadelphia.
This attack meat that I converted to Buddhism and became Justinian's best friend for the rest of the game. (Which meant that Justinian became the leading AI, thanks in large part to constant trading with me.) Back to the Celt war, I was able to protect Philadelphia, but I had to go into full-defense mode, with Washington and Philadelphia training troops while the two commerce cities had to produce all workers and settlers for further colonization. This means that I lost most of barbarian cities to Justinian, and was able to settle only 3 cities in the northern jungle. My economy was also shot, going down to 20% research. I did manage to divert enough troops to capture a barbarian city on the south coast.
I eventually managed to recapture Aryan, the city that started this war. I also captured Boudica's nearby city, and quickly lost it to counter-attack. However, by 940AD Boudica wanted "only" Aryan for peace. I recaptured her city with intention of giving it back, but she demanded CS as well, I negotiated down to Aestetics and Currency, and accepted the deal in 950AD.
Shortly after this, Justinian donated to me a nearly useless city choked by my culture. I was considering giving that city right back, because it was just a drain on my resources, but decided to keep it. That decision paid off in the long run, with my city's culture taking nearby rice farm, and the city becoming decent production center thanks to post-biology farms and lumbermills/windmills.
Here is what our empire looked like in 1060AD:
[img=http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/1762/1060adnorthch2.th.jpg]
[img=http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/8369/1000adsouthmx9.th.jpg]
Note the underdeveloped lands and economy barely in the green at 30% research.
However, my economy improved slowly but steadily from here, with tech rate greatly increased by trading with Justinian. University of Sankore, the first wonder I've attempted (and completed) during this game, proved very important for two reasons. First, it gave me lots of research, because monasteries were cheap, and temples are also high on priority list. Second, building temples and monasteries in every city, along with Charismatic Obelisks, my usual Libraries, and cheap Univercities, meant that my border cities were generating lots of culture. So I was slowly pushing back against Justinian's borders, eventually giving all workable tiles to my border cities, and even flipping a city near endgame.
Diplomatically, Celts focused their attacks mainly on Justinian, probably because Byzantine culture isolated two of my cities from the rest of my territory, meaning that there wasn't much point for Celts to attack me. (Only 3 of my cities weren't redded out when talking to them.) I had joined one of Justinian's wars, but succeded only in getting my attack stack wiped out while marching to a Celt city, while Justinain quit after 10 turns, as usual. However, most times I refused Justinian's requests for help, because our shared religion modifier was huge and other positives from close friendship more than compensated for negatives for close borders and refusal to help. (I also made sure to never learn or buy Theology, so Justinian never got a chance to demand that I switch to Theocracy, which was one of forbidden civics.)
In terms of research, I completed Liberalism beeline in 1310AD, taking Nationalism, because it was the most expensive tech available. I also wanted to make sure I'd get Taj Mahal, which I successfully completed in 1420. After Liberalism, I immediately researched Printing Press for economic boost, and then traded with Friendly Justinian for all prerequisites for Economics and beat him to the tech.
The Golden Age from Taj Mahal allowed me 10 turns for anarchy-free civic swaps. First I switch to Free Speech and Mercantilism (Justinian was running it himself, so there was no foreign trade anyway). Then I used deficit research, burning through cash from trades, to get Constitution 2 turns before Golden Age ended, getting a free swap to Representation.
After that we researched Democracy for an early start on Statue of Liberty, which would give extra 6 raw beakers per city under Mercantelism. This research was completed in 1510 and we immediately Emancipated the slaves we never had. SoL was started immediately in Philadelphia (which would remain my top production city until being bypassed by New York in the end of the game), and was completed in 1590, with the help of Great Engineer.
I did a lot of tech trades and researched Corporation. I also started researching Astronomy, when I saw (using espionage I got from courthouses in all cities) that Louis is researching Physics. However, Astronomy became available for sale shortly afterwards, and Louis was willing to sell Scientific Method next turn, probably realising that it was a poisoned pill, so I beat him to Physics, getting the GS, and settling the tech to Louis for some cash when he was almost done with it. (The practice of selling techs AI almost finished researching yielded me lots of cash in this game, and was much safer than my usual way of just selling them random old techs, because it didn't speed up the world tech pace by as much.)
After handing on to the Economics Great Merchant for a long time, I decided to try a cash refund option. It turned out that the amount offered in Constantinopole (2500$) was nearly identical to the amount offered in the cities of same size on the other side of the world. Only Ragnar's capital, offered 2850$, which I took in 1675AD.
In 1605 I got this amusing event:
[img=http://img245.imageshack.us/img245/9351/goldrushop2.th.jpg]
I wonder if Gold Rush was hard-coded to happen in San Francisco, or if it was just a fun coinsidence.
Meanwhile, Boudica declares war on Justinian in 1600. She brought 12 Knights, 11 Maces, and a few older units. I was glad that power wasn't directed against me. The target city had 85% cultural defense and was protected by 4 longbows, 4 catapachts, and a few trebuchets and older units, but it felt pretty quickly to overwhelming forces. However, Justinian captured a city of his own in the north, and was probably beating Celts pretty badly, because they agreed to peace, giving back the core city they've captured. That was good for me, because that city would have opened the passage for them into my core, making it more likely for Boudica to attack me.
I reasearched towards Assembly Line (to improve production), which we learned in 1710, and then started research into Electricity->Radio for an early shot at those wonders. Eifel Tower would be especially good for our Charismatic leader, giving lots of extra happiness, and more culture on Byzantine borders.
In 1714 Justinian stole Replaceable Parts from me. This would be just the first in a series of high-profile thiefts. He ended up stealing over half a dozen top techs, so his massive espionage spending did a good job of complementing his research efforts.
That stolen technology came in very handy for Byzantines, because Celts attacked them the same turn with massive stacks of mounted units. Justinian lost 3 cities in the north, so I got worried enough to sell him Rifling. However, that didn't matter because he made peace shortly afterwards, without losing any more cities.
Unfortunately, these newly captured cities made Celts more interested in my core (despite the fact that they still couldn't reach it), so when I refused a demand for some tech in 1734, Boudica attacked. I had an Infantry (a single unit of it) and a few Rifles, along with a bunch of obsolete units, against mainly Curassiers and Trebuchets, so I wasn't too worried. I spent my cash to upgrade some maces to infantry and sat back to enjoy the show.
However, I got overconfident and upgraded straight to CR infantry. I also left my obsolete units unpromoted, for more CR infantry in the future. So my stack was overwhelmed by sheer numbers. After the carnage of 1748 I was left with less than half a dozen units, while Celts had a dozen units that I could see. So it was time for emergency defence to avoid losing a city full of culture buildings.
First I used a GA I was saving to trigger a Golden Age. The anarchy-free civic swap was used to go to Nationalism (drafting), Universal Suffrage (cash rushing, that I didn't use), and Free Market (which I should have switched to long ago, becuase several AIs stopped running Mercantelism, and I was able to get 6 or more gpt from each of my 4 trade routes per city).
Nationalism was used to draft infantry from the two cities in the Eastern enclave, and the fishing village of San Francisco, that you saw earlier. I also sold whatever I could for all of AI's cash, so I could upgrade a few of the remaining units. This scared the Celts enough that only 3 of their units attacked, allowing my reinforcements to wipe out the stack of wounded units. I didn't have to do any more drafting, but that single drafted infantry (that attacked out of a city to kill very highly promoted maceman) was probably the unit that made the difference between losing and not losing the city.
By the way, Universal Suffrage and Golden Age turned out to be a great combo, greatly increasing my production.
The rest of the war was very uneventful, with my infantry slaughtering outdated troops, sometimes without need for support from Canons.
And a Byzantine city finally flipped to me in 1796:
[img=http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/3135/cityflippingme4.th.jpg]
That city was in a peculiar spot that was pressed by two of my cities from different sides, so the city center was dominated by my culture, even if the surrounding tiles weren't. You can also see my Celt conquests in the minimap. I captured all of their cottage lands, so newly conquered cities gave economic benefit almost right away.
I don't have time to finish the report, so I'll post my space race strategy later, if anybody is interested. The rest of the game was very uneventful.
Celts eventually got vassalized by Justinian just as I was about to capture a few more of their cities. (Justinian invited me to join the war.)
One notable thing was my use of corporations. I founded Mining Inc. and Standard Ethanol because they gave biggest bonuses for production and research, and spread them to each of my cities. I also bought every corporate resource on the market I could afford, using Musicals and Movies as top currency.
With New York (that built Wall Street) building Wealth and most cities building Research, I was able to make up for some of the time lost due to early stupidity. So most spaceship parts were completed in 1876, and the victory happened 15 turns later, with no problems.
Space Race Victory in 1891.
Time spent 23 hours, 22 minutes.
Final Score 41545, with ingame score 3947. I was researching Future Tech 4 when the game ended.
PS Looks like I posted just under the deadline, 11:59pm.
I apparently copied wrong links from ImageShack, but I'll fix it later, if I can find a more reliable picture host.
![[Image: lak1454ww0.jpg]](http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/6121/lak1454ww0.jpg)