Epic 18 - For Honor (And Glory?)

[Olodune]

(As this is my first RBciv Epic report, critical feedback would be great. Too many screens? Too much rambling? Anyways, I hope you enjoy the read )

Preconceptions

In RB Epic 18 the object of our attention is an honorable Abe. The game is a fairly standard emperor level set up with roleplaying restrictions on Lincoln’s behaviour.

{The following section describes my pre-game analysis, if you prefer your coffee black feel free to skip to the first screenie for comparison purposes. I like pre-game analysis because its fun to see how different preconceptions are from actual gameplay.}

Anyways, highlighting a few of the more significant rules:

1) Civic restrictions (No Slavery, Theocracy, or Police State. Must adopt Emancipation.) Well, no slavery will slow down early game expansion and greatly reduce early productivity of “fishing villages”. Abe’s attributes (Charismatic, Philosophical) are fantastic for early whipping leading into a specialist driven economy, but cottages will work fine. The absence of Police State combined with the “no starvation” rule mean that late game aggressive wars could be painful. I’ll try to avoid those.

2) “A just war is one in which you are not the aggressor.”
Not being able to warmonger at will puts a premium on peaceful expansion. It’s conceivable that Abe could get boxed leading to an early loss.

The Game Plan (yes, this is before contact with the enemy )

We will run a cottage heavy economy fairly early, allowing Abe to peacefully expand via a benevolent form of manifest destiny. The start looks very promising. The map is a hemispheres map with low sea levels and one fewer AI than standard. This script should generate a lot of land for each civilization! (Unless our mapmaker is feeling especially evil this should dovetail nicely with our strategy. Now I’m having visions of being on a small, arid peninsula blocked in by Gandhi. 8) )

As I’m not a huge fan of either victory type Abe will likely steer clear of cultural and religious diplomacy VCs. Space and a UN powered diplomatic victory are likely ending goals. Domination is possible but would require some help from the AI’s.

Finally, as I’ve never played any game speed besides normal, epic speed may be interesting 2:

The Formative Era

I bet almost every report will show that the settler moved 1S onto the plains hill (mine did as well). Marble!

The early tech path is mining -> bronze working-> wheel -> pottery

As the whip is unusable, early production acceleration will depend on building lots of useful stuff out of wood.

Build order is worker -> warrior -> warrior ->worker (chopped) -> settler (chopped) -> settler (chopped).

By 1550BC America the young looks like



There is already a lot of interesting gameplay. We’ve met Buddhist Justinian and Hindu Boudica. Well, it wont be an always peace game (Note that as of now Abe has no idea how close either leader’s territory is (more on this in moment)).

In my experience, Justinian is a very strong warmonger and competent techer. Boudica has Monty Jungle Fever.

-We’ve chopped all the forests in Washington’s BFC and it’s already unhealthy

-Priesthood is two turns away and the marble is being quarried.

-We still don’t know how to breed animals -- slowing down the growth in Boston and New York

-All four cities are nicely located on rivers!

New York has access to copper and is tapped to be our military city, but Abe want to make a play at building the oracle there first. If we miss it we’ll still get a nice pile of gold thanks to the marble.

More troubling is the thick fog of war. Why hasn’t Abe mapped the surrounding area? This is important, especially considering the variant! I don’t know if it’s due to the large land area or epic game speed but this is the tale of Abe’s brave scouts:



All told I believe 3 out of the first 5 warriors were mercilessly slaughtered, despite sticking to defensive terrain. RNG is a cruel deity. The remaining two warriors stayed at home until bronze weapons became available. (I don’t recall any Immortal games being this infested, barring the “barbarian invasion” event).

Even our cities were not safe. (Luckily this axeman knows how to wield his weapon)



One of Washington’s hamlets was pillaged, but the rest of our precious tiles survived the early onslaught.

In 1250BC the oracle is successfully completed. (It can fall sooner so I was quite pleased). We choose monarchy.

Why monarchy? Well we didn’t want code of laws because we don’t plan on building courthouses anytime soon (we can’t whip them and they are slow to build). In fact despite being charismatic and having a gold mine hooked up, Washington and Boston have very high growth potential and will need more happiness soon (we can’t whip, see a pattern yet ) In preparation for monarchy we’ve avoided researching hunting so that cheap warriors can act as urban pacification agents. We see wines on the board as well.

Speaking of wine, our scouts (axes, this time!) have located Justinian’s territory near to the east. So we attack.

Well, with settlers anyways =)



Part of what makes Civ4 such a beautifully rich game is the many ways to do the same thing. In this case that’s wage cultural wars. While Abe has not yet decided whether to befriend Justinian, there is a distinct chance that our cities will fight a prolonged cultural skirmish. Options that would allow us to win (or at least draw) the culture wars are:

1) Build a high value cultural building in the BC’s. Typically a wonder (though the Arabian madrassa, at +4 base culture, works well too). After 1000 years base culture doubles, so speed is key here.

2) Run artist specialists, either from a theatre or via the caste system. (The downside is potentially generating sub-standard artist GPs, and eating into a cities food surplus.)

3) Build the Sistine Chapel and adopt a state religion. Religious buildings of that state religion get a massive + 5 base culture. (All specialists also get + 2 culture for an additional small boost.)

4) Roll a creative civilization. (This one might not work so well for us )

Abe is not yet committed to any cultural works program.

Scouting north we find very juicy land, though infested with barbarian cities.



Approaching the turn of the millennium Abe decides to not antagonize Justinian just yet (we have the option of switching to Judaism, and becoming a religious renegade). So the focus now is to claim the northern land, and assess the border war situation.

The cultural situation is not so great. Although both Chicago and Atlanta have a food resource in their BFCs (rice) they have fallen under Byzantine influence. A city without a food resource is still workable, but the difference is massive.

So Abe decides to do the following:

1) Research Aesthetics -> Literature -> Music
2) Build the Parthenon in Atlanta
3) Build the Sistine Chapel in a high production city

Around this time Abe uses his first great person (a priest from the oracle) to inspire a golden age. Later an academy is built in Washington and the free great artist from Music is combined with a scientist to start GA number two.

The Honorable Empire in 55 AD (We earned the title “honorable” because is a standard game a DoW would have been sent Justinian’s way)



Above you can see that the Great Library is being built in Washington (later I’ll wish I’d built it in Boston instead *oh well*).

We have a small force of axes that autorazes one of the northern barbarian cities and that captures another along the coast (Chinook, my first coastal city!). This expedition has the side effect of garnering enough combat lore to enable the creation of a Heroic Epic (New York. Thanks again marble ).

In ~100ad one of Abe’s ministers reports back from Boudica’s palace that she is planning her own expedition (WHEOOH). I’m not sure if she counts raiding barbarian cities highly enough to return this message (anyone know if WHEOOH applies to planning attacks on barbarian cities?). She certainly has been capturing them regularly! Abe is reasonably a little nervous, and promptly sends two nearby scouts to peruse Celtic territory:



The scouts report seeing mobile archers, axes, catapults, and gaellic warriors, but no large offensive force.

Abe recalls his barbarian axe hunters and moves his active army towards Celtic borderland just in case.

In 190ad Boudica the Bold declares was on Justinian the Buddhist!

Now Abe has held his cards close to his chest up to this point. (We have some + diplo modifiers with both leaders, but officially remain at “cautious”. As I interpret the “assist friend in time of need request” the requester must be at Pleased or greater.)

Note: After re-reading Sullla’s clarification of the above rule it looks like I took a more narrow definition. My version is:

1) Requester must be at Pleased+ for an allowable declaration.
2) If the requester makes peace then I must immediately make peace, unless tribute is demanded.
3) Additionally, I added the rule: “The only time Abe is allowed to bribe someone into a war is if Abe is already engaged in that war, and the new entrant is at Pleased+ diplomatic status with Abe.”

I’m happy with my version, as there was still plenty of potential for action. (And in my first RBciv report I’d rather be too conservative than break any rules ).

Ok, back to the action. Boudica DoWs Justinian. Abe has the option to adopt either Hinduism or Buddhism, their respective religions. After carefully considering the consequences Abe decides that Justinian is a better long term friend. He will be a better trading partner, and he is already somewhat boxed in. (By America in the west and Celtia in the north).

So Abe declares Buddhism as the official religion of America. Immediately Justinian is “Pleased”.

And in 220ad



Of course we would be willing to help our friends. By this point Boudica has already lost her initial stack of Gaellics/Axes/Cats in Byzantine territory.

We march our expeditionary force of city raider axes into Celtic territory and snag the former barbarian city of Yue-Chi. But there is a problem:



Umm. Not good. Boudica immediately approaches with a small stack of chariots and catapults. Remember that brilliant plan of building hammer frugal warriors as military police? Well, we can still build them …

Justinian is called into an emergency conference and we quickly learn the techniques of hunting and construction (for aesthetics + monarchy?). Still, spears are going to be arriving far too late for this battle.

Abe ends up keeping all but one of his city raider axes outside of Yue-Chi. Luckily Boudica happily plays along and moves her entire stack of chariots into the city where they are slaughtered on defense. We would have to repeat this tactic one more time before the war was over. Peace breaks out in 520ad. Yue-Chi is the only city to change hands. Unfortunately, Justinian managed to found the annoying city of Laodicea in the cultural gaps. (Hey, you were supposed to be boxed in :mad: ).



During the war, and in its immediate aftermath, Abe has been aggressively settling northwards, as well as building any marble wonders that fall in his tech path.

In 550ad:



Our economy is feeling the strain of adding such far flung cities to the Empire (we are in the red at 20% science, and, more importantly, our beakers per turn is actually declining).

In hindsight, I think I was a little too aggressive with the ReX as these cities took a long time to become productive. Having too few workers didn’t help. (Actually, I did have about 1.5 workers/city -- which is usually enough, but in this game I could have found productive work for 2.5 workers/city. I’m curious if others had similar problems.)

Nonetheless, I did manage to find productive capacity necessary to build the marble wonders:

Oracle, Parthenon, Great Library, Mausoleum of Maussollos, and Sistine. Too many wonders (and not enough workers)? Perhaps, though all were built for a specific purpose.

Continued in the next post ...

[Olodune]

The Middle Ages and the Cohesion of a Continent

Boudica would die of boredom if she didn’t get to fight at least once every 300 years so we are not surprised to see:




Another DoW from Boudica to Justinian follows on the next turn. As we are now Friendly with the Byzantine leader, and have a largish stack of axes, swords, cats, and spears this looks to be great timing. Surely Justinian will ask for our aid in a few turns, right? Right?

In 950ad the first Celtic city falls to Justinian’s war elephants. A few turns later Gergovia would fall as well, and an armistice would be declared. We never did get a friendly request to join

Pressing ever northward the American’s have a good chunk of land in 1000ad (Abe would shortly add two additional cities on either side of Navajo sitting on the frigid waters of the northern coast.)



As the economy is now thoroughly tanked (138 beakers/turn at 30% science) some economic rebuilding is in order. A bulbed great scientist gives enough beakers to enable a slow limp towards liberalism. In 1190, liberalism -> nationalism (free tech).

Our economic stimulus package is going to be a wimpy, one-time tax rebate . Actually I plan to build the Taj Majal and use the extra production, from the MoM-accelerated-GA, to build banks in all our larger cities.

Boudica Barfs on Banks:



I told you she has Monty Jungle Fever, so why didn’t Abe listen?

A quick glance over our territory and it’s beginning to look like a “You Have Chosen Wisely” moment. A few distressing excerpts:

- While I have the technological capability to build maces, x-bows, pikes, longbows, and trebuchets -- I don’t have a single one of ANY of them Our army is entirely composed of ancient and classical units. Additionally, the “fully tanked” state of our economy means that pricey mass upgrades are off the table. The only silver lining is that the ivory along the western coast has been hooked into the trade network and I have about eight war elephants scattered on the board.

- We have a long border with Celtia, but no horses -- limiting our quick response capability.

- Abe has a shortage of siege. In fact we have a total of six cats in our main stack. Boudica has castles in most of her cities (remember we can’t use spy revolts, either).

- My forces are badly mobilized. See below.



Yeah. That is a combat IV gaellic warrior and a combat II spear heading towards two completely undefended cities . What, is this civ3 or something? The best I can do is empty the city garrison in Portland (a single woods I axe) and give chase. (I can’t whip defenders and I don’t think about drafting maces until *much* later (as in when a certain report is being written *blush*)).

Before I’m willing to acknowledge Boudica as “the Wise” lets see what she does with her tactical advantage, eh?

In typical AI fashion the gaellic and spear promptly suicide against my chasing axe :hat: (Actually it might not be complete as the gaellic/axe fight was a coin toss. If Boudica had called heads, she would have had her pick of three undefended cities.)


The main action is focused around the former barbarian city Yue-Chi, in battles similar to this one:



Not wanting to be upstaged by the fiery redhead I decide to suicide my own small stack in a failed attack:



I’m pretty sure that leaving one wounded defender in an enemy city (with a castle) is not a good plan (especially thanks to whip-happy Blake AI).

Amazingly, a few turns later I do it all over again :



It’s time to stop playing at war, and find our General Sherman. Hey Justy, want the part? I trade Liberalism to the Byzantines for Optics + DoW(Boudica). Justinian (who is Friendly) starts his march towards the sea:



I capture Mycenian and Durnovaria from the Celtic hordes while Justinian pounds the walls of Bibracte. Boudica is gassed and vulnerable to vassalization. I don’t want her as it will sour the America-Byzantium alliance. However, if Justinian takes her as his prize Abe will be immune from continental aggression. It’s a plan.

Our forces are held in defensive posture and Boudica agrees to vassal status with Justinian in 1345.

In the meantime the Taj is completed and America goes back to bank building.

When these lovely commerce multipliers come online our economy improves dramatically. In fact I’m wondering if a banking beeline would have been better than chasing liberalism (say 300 years ago). What do you think?

A look into Boston just after its bank build:



In the above minimap you can see the edge of the other continent. I bought Justinian’s map, but see no immediate urgency to meeting the others for several reasons:

- Abe doesn’t know astronomy, so no trade route income or resource deal potential.

- Most of the more recent wonders + liberalism + Islam have been built/discovered on our continent so there is a good chance that we have a significant tech edge.

- I plan on staying Buddhist to maintain the balance of power (and DoW immunity).

- Some Christians in a distant land decided to build the apostolic palace, and I’d just as soon stay clear from their machinations.

[Olodune]

The End Game

Eventually I do send a caravel over to the other continent. It looks like I was correct about the tech situation:



I would later learn that the continent was in nearly a constant state of war. Primarily the aggressor was Ragnar declaring on Joao, but Louis joined the fray as well. What is also clear is that I’m unlikely to find many friends there (being Buddhist didn’t help). I would eventually get Ragnar up to “Pleased” but it was far from a sure thing. The only resource I was able to trade for was corn (Ragnar). In fact the corn trade was the only significant trade with other continent the entire game.

As you may have guessed, space is the chosen victory condition. Diplomatic didn’t look foolproof and I needed help for Domination. (As it turned out a “door to domination” was opened due to the apostolic palace declaring me an infidel. I chose not to open that particular door, and the religious crusade turned into a fake, short war.)

Before I (briefly) describe the space race I’ll pause and discuss two minor subjects that came up this game. First I’ll update the border war situation with Justinian. (This was a fun mini-game in itself). Secondly I’ll briefly describe the utility of late game filler cities (IMHO).

Culture Wars

Earlier in the game report I mentioned how the two cities I built impinging on Justinian’s territory (Atlanta and Chicago) lost their food resources to Byzantine culture. The Sistine Chapel was built (In Washington, IIRC) and in 930ad we get the second rice back:



Well, I was fairly happy with that small victory and largely ignored the border situation. Roughly a thousand years pass and we get a revolt in Nicomedia!

Wait, could I actually steal his cities?




These revolts made me irrationally happy for a few turns. While I’ve certainly used Sistine powered culture to dramatically push back cultural borders, it’s not too often that I convert cities. Nicomedia even had an early game wonder! (The Shwedagon Paya)

Actually, I captured enough Byzantine land that Boudica briefly broke her vassal arrangement. I didn’t see that one coming, but she voluntarily submitted herself to the pale Byzantine immediately afterwards.

Filler Cities

In a post communist world the maintenance cost of an additional city becomes extremely low. This is partly due to state property and partly due to the “conqueror’s plateau” effect. (In this game it’s actually a ReX plateau).

So beginning around 1700 Abe mandates the settling of cities like Baltimore:



Although it will only ever work five tiles, the investment made is minimal. (Just the hammer cost of a settler). The city will never even require a garrison. I won’t rush any infrastructure and tile-improvement-worker-turns are provided by idle workers. Immediately after settling, Baltimore will (nearly) pay for itself. Initially it has 6 trade route income, and two additional commerce from worked tiles. The upkeep cost is 7gpt, and inflation is around 50%. So we’re looking at 8 beakers+gold against ~11gpt upkeep (Am I missing anything?). Very quickly this tiny city will grow into a significant asset. By the end of game Baltimore has paid for itself many times over:



In addition to the economic productivity, filler cities provide a few strategic advantages:

-They are potential rush buy nodes (especially valuable at normal and faster game speeds)
-If there is a surprise DoW, an AI may land it’s invading stack in a disposable coastal filler city.
-Occasionally a filler city doubles as a useful airbase

The Space Race

This space race was a pretty standard dash to the finish line (ok, a crawl, as this is my first epic speed game).

The only slightly unusual tech path was that Refrigeration (Malls) -> Superconductors (Labs) was completed before Assembly Line.

Our empire in 1800:



Well, the ship stayed earthbound a little longer than Abe had hoped but in 1852 we’re off to Alpha Centauri (Our great Leader Abraham Lincoln joins the voyage, managing to avoid his date with an assassin ,and is henceforth known as Brother L.A.L. the Honorable. In a moment of magnanimity he invites Boudica’s sister, Miriam, to join him )



A glimpse into the Oxford city



The former Celtic former barbarian city of Yue-Chi actually became the American ironworks



Abe’s peaceful expansion led to a dominant mid-game economic advantage:



In the final tally this is one of my most peaceful game ever played. Only 2 ( ) great generals spawned.



In addition to the 19 settled cities, I captured 3 Celtic townships. Another 4 were captured from barbarian control (one auto-razed). Culturally, 2 cities came from Byzantium and 1 from an insignificant Celtic island.

The honorable rule set turned out to be surprisingly easy, but allowed for a very different style of game than I usually play. Warmongering restrictions had the most significant impact. I think I did a pretty good job of sticking to my naïve gameplan too

After seeing some of the recent reports from the RBciv community the only question remaining is by how many hundreds of years someone beats me to space Looking forward to it!

[Michelangelo]

Great read, also looks like a fun game.

Amazingly, a few turns later I do it all over again

Don't worry, you're not alone.

You did great on the early expansion and I think it will be key in the game.

I do want to raise a point though on you culturally acquiring the two cities. (I only do this b/c I specifically avoided this). The rule for this variant states that if you 'liberate' a city you have to offer it back. (Sorry cannot paste the exact phrase as I cannot reach the page right now??) My understanding was that this was meant for culturally acquiring cities. Maybe someone can clear this up.

EDIT, the game-page came back

This was the line I was reffering to, but reading it again it probably meant when capturing a city during a war (say againt boudica) that formarly belonged to your ally (say justinian) you must offer to give it back to justinian only when you are both at war with boudica.

(If you "liberate" an ally's city, you MUST offer to give it back!)

So I un-raise my point

[timmy827]

Well done, both game and report. I think your date is really quite good; Lincoln has good traits but not really optimal ones for early launching and the ruleset eliminates the early rush potential that is usually key to a quick launch.

[Olodune]

Well done, both game and report. I think your date is really quite good; Lincoln has good traits but not really optimal ones for early launching and the ruleset eliminates the early rush potential that is usually key to a quick launch.

IME, philosophical can be a very strong late game accelerator (via multiple Golden Ages strung together in the core phase of part building/teching). In this game I used two early GA's to rescue the economy, and probably didn't micromanage my GPPs well enough.

[Compromise]

I just got a chance to read through your report and wanted to let you know that I found it very entertaining. I was especially impressed with how far ahead you were technologically compared to the other AI continent when you finally contacted them.

Way to keep the peace.

[Zeviz]

Thanks for the well-written and fun report. I liked the humorous interjections, especially alliterations. My only complaint is that embedded pictures stretch the text forcing either constant scrolling, or maximizing the window. (Not good when I read at work. )

For the game itself, it looks like early chopping and better scouting allowed you to expand faster than me, and you were able to carry on and magnify that advantage.

About workers, my rule of thumb is 1 per city in regular cities and 2 per city in jungle cities during expansion phase.

Congratulations with well-played game and what looks like fastest victory. (You won in 1870, right?)

PS I am curious about details of your spaceship construction strategy. It looks like you launched while missing some parts (18, rather than 15 turns of travel time), so which parts did you skip and what was your tech path? (If you still have those notes.)

[Olodune]

Congratulations with well-played game and what looks like fastest victory. (You won in 1870, right?)

Yeah, after launching I wasn't really sure what to do ... so I built wonders I'd skipped and tried to max beakers. On the very last turn I hit 5002 (building wealth/science).

PS I am curious about details of your spaceship construction strategy. It looks like you launched while missing some parts (18, rather than 15 turns of travel time), so which parts did you skip and what was your tech path? (If you still have those notes.)

Well I only really set up two cities for production (though commerce cities on rivers with universal suffrage have decent end game production too). This meant that I had to make sure the casings/thrusters were done early.

Tech path was roughly (picking up pre-reqs along the way):

Superconductor->Rocketry->Industrialization->Composites->Fusion->Genetics->Ecology

I messed up the final part shuffling (I should have workshop spammed a third city with about 25 turns to launch). I also was counting on a final golden age that never materialized. This meant two things:

I had to wait 4 turns after the <Ecology Part> was finished for the first engine, and I would have had to wait 4 more turns for the second.

So I launched 1 Engine short at the cost of 3 turns

[Atlas]

Thanks for the report it was well done

My only complaint is that embedded pictures stretch the text forcing either constant scrolling, or maximizing the window.

Agreed

I actually liked Swiss Pauli's move to a 2 hammer tile better than your move, but either way i bet unhealthiness was terrible