Epic 18 - Stroll in the Park

[timmy827]

I don't have time for a full report due to travel and work; expect that later this week. This was a very relaxed game; with no scoring I wasn't obsessively micromanaging like I did in the last epic or likely will in Dutch Masters.

Played all-peacefully and managed a UN diplo win in 1750something. As I expect will happen in every other game, Justinian and Boudica founded and stuck with the two early religions, and I was very surprised (but happy) that they didn't come to blows until 1200AD or so. Justinian really pumped out settlers and got a number of city sites I wanted but due to having only 5 opponents I could still peacefully settle a productive empire. Usefully for me, Justinian had a strip of land isolating me from Boudica so I felt very safe after adopting his religion. Other continent was all Christian; Ragnar had warred with Joao until the latter's capitulation - by the time I met them all were mutually Friendly. All three were way far behind in tech, so was Boudica; Justinian was the best AI but I also bribed him with some good tech to make peace with Boudica a few times to prevent the war from going to capitulation.

After building the UN it took a few tries to seal the victory. I lost Boudica's vote due to refusal to stop trading and go to war with Justinian (another reason I bribed the wars to end, to keep too many of those demerits from adding up) and Justinian was my rival. Through trade relations, ditching my religion late in the game, and adopting Hereditary Rule (favorite civic for all 3 other-continent leaders) I was eventually able to get the votes of the whole other continent;

[Olodune]

...they didn't come to blows until 1200AD or so. ...

Is that so? I'll post the real story of Celtic-Byzantine relations this evening

Good call with hereditary rule late game

[Michelangelo]

I played a big part of this game, but don't have the time to finish it in time (probably b/c I'm still playing and it's allready 1897 and no end in sight 8) ). But I too was unpleasantly surprised by Justinians rapid expansion, but unlike you he did corner me in and leaving me only 7 cities. The rest of your game sound very similar, only much much quicker , so I look forward to your full report to see what could have happened in my game as well.

[timmy827]

My first encounter with the Honorable ruleset - see the game's page (http://realmsbeyond.net/civ/c4tourney/epic18.html) if you don't know them.

Settle 1s on plains hill, seems like a fine choice.
I admit I'm addicted to Stonehenge, especially for Charismatic leaders, so research mysticism and mining while worker built in capital and proceed directly to it. Initial hut pops for map to south revelaing 2nd hut, warrior pops that and another to SW for 79 gold total, I see that's a backfill peninsula and send him NE. Meet Justinian (founded Buddhism) and almost immediately get a random event giving -1 relations, joy...the good news is that is does fade eventually, much to my surprise.
3175BC - warrior meets untimely end at hands of no less than 5 barbs from booby-trap-hut. Here's what he reveals:



A lot to work with; I decide to go hunting-->archery before wheel->pottery as per Snaaty's guide. I will build a scout when I can; most importantly I don't know where Justinian is yet.

2950 - meet Boudica, oh joy...she's founder of Hindu and Judaism. She appears to be north of the jungle. Soon after, nice random event - truffles, giving me a 3/1/1 grass forest. Soon after I do complete Stonehenge.

2100 - BW in, and there's copper right where I'm going to put my 2nd city - awesome (location in next picture). Already a barb city in the south; I worry that the AI's might go after one in a place where they wouldn't send a settler.


1825BC - Found New York. 2nd scout is just about to start uncovering new territory. You can see that I have trade potential with Justinian, so I know he has Sailing and has a city somewhere on the river going off to the east. He also has 2 cow and 2 gold to trade, not sure if that means he has 2 or 3 of each (but either is pretty good this early!)

1425 - Justinian has FIVE cities already as I'm just about to put down my 3rd. Yikes.


950 - I feel compelled to say that the "no slavery" rule means that I can't run mad scientist experiments. Next turn I oracle CoL; thought about MC but I don't have any coast cities yet.


Here you can see my 4th and 5th sites. Despite Justinian's rapid expansion, there's a lot of good land left and I still have 3 decent sites on my backfill peninsula. I reached Alphabet first and traded for sailing, iron working and monarchy w/o giving away alphabet. Justinian was willing to trade Monarchy but not Math, so there must be someone else to the east? It turns out that I'm wrong on this. Maybe he popped it from a hut, which means (for some reason) he's willing to trade it away at monopoly. Weird, but helpful.

My empire is really underdeveloped and I still have an incomplete picture of the jungle. I've had terrible times with barbs, first with losing all my scouts and then with being pillaged from the north constantly. I have a decent stack of axes and will be going after a barb city north of Atlanta. (why is this the 5th city name? I certainly understand the first 4 in the American order, but it seems like you'd take LA or Chicago next for size, or Charleston or Richmond for historical importance.)
In surpising random news, I soon win "most cultured". I guess I have the two early culture giving wonders but very little else in that department.



Look at how much land I've finally unveiled to the north and still no sign of Boudica. I just finished a settler intended to go 1N of that cow to get gems but lost to Justinian. Man, if only there were a corporation taking rice and cow as inputs, I'd be raking it in...I've made a huge mistake by researching aesthetics (hoping to be able to trade Justinian for math) and now I must head to Calendar alone as he is still unwiling to trade math. The GL will be safe for a while and I need to pump settlers and workers out of the capital so I'm postponing literature.


Finally found some of B's territory. And there's still a silly amount of land to claim.


160AD - finally take that barb city, with riverside and pigs and wheat it will be nice. Had to cancel open borders with Justinian once to keep his army from moving in. I was a little worried about ticking him off so I converted to Buddhism, was hoping to save that for 1st golden age but not worth risking a war over. My research rate is dropping and I'm using some build-research to get me to Calendar (I have 3 dyes that will give a big commerce boost) and currency. I gift Boudica rice to help offset religious-diplo penalty. Starting Mausoleum in captial and Parthenon in NY; the latter isn't crucial but nice and some of NY's tiles are starting to feel cultural pressure so that should be a big boon.

340AD - darn, I lose the Parthenon. But I'm going to get a wad of cash so it's not too bad. Maus is done next turn, conveniently only a few turns away from capitals next GP for golden age. I trade Calendar around this time to Boudica for construction (need to take some more barb cities!) and after finishing currency I sell Calendar to Justy for meditation, 100 gold, and good relations.
I soon finish literature only to find that the capital needs to build a library

505AD - Imperialistic leaders at their most annoying.


520AD - Now I have a couple of interesting decisions to make. First @ this barb city - I'm nowhere near getting the rest of my forces up here, but in typical AI fashion Justinian pulled the trigger early and reduced it to one archer so I can probably take it. It's a looong ways away but might get me stone, although I'm not sure what I would really use it for (pyramids are still open but I doubt they will be when the city gets it's 3rd ring and the quarry is up).

The religious-building wonders are nice but I haven't built a single religous building yet; ND is also nice but I'm going to prioritze the Democracy path so I doubt I will get that either. I decide to pass.


Got a random event giving +3 relations with Justinian for the measly price of 11 gold and all the food stored in one city. That more than makes up for the relations ding at the beginning.

790AD - Have finished Paper. Boudica bulbed Philosophy. Justinian is finally at friendly from gradually increasing religion bonus and random event giving +3 relations for the measly price of 11 gold and all the food stored in one city. That more than makes up for the relations ding at the beginning.

820AD - I get the first revolt from that city Justinian put near me. I had used Caste System to run two artists to get the 3rd ring before Justinian got hardly any culture there. As I have almost no experience flipping cities this is a pleasantly quick result. However, to the AI's credit Justinian does a good job reinforcing the culture; eventually it gets over 50% Byz and stays there for the rest of the game.

I use GSs on Education and Printing Press. Such a strong move (this would be borderline broken if you didn't have to finish Education first before bulbing PP); even though I don't have that many mature cottages yet PP still boosts my sustainable science by something like 25%. Some guides recommend not researching machinery so you can bulb Liberalism with a GS but I think this is better unless you're running no cottages.


1030AD - I trade Boudica for stone...you've got to be kidding me. I can't believe this is still open! As you can see I have diverted from Liberalism to Optics; I feel the tech pace is slow enough that I can take Dem from Lib but want some contact with other AIs to be sure.

1120AD - 1st caravel is sent out westward from San Francisco, the cow/clam city just west of the capital. Next turn a chop completes one in my SE city heading east.

1150AD - Hanging Gardens in Washington at a ridiculously late date, pyramids (some other civ) only a few turns earlier. I think there are no industrious civs and no stone on the other continent but am quickly proved wrong. 1st caravel scores:

He's woefully backwards!

And he has Joao as his vassal (I actually found Joao's lands) who is just as lost techwise. I stop researching Lib and go for Nationalism; clearly I'm going to be able to take Democracy.

1160AD - meet Louis

Louie is willing to trade his map at Cautious so I throw Compass his way.


Looking at the map I'm briefly confused, then I double-check the game's RB page and see that there were only 5 opponents, not 6. Makes sense as there was a lot of land for me to settle even with Justinian's frequent (and annoying) expansion.

[timmy827]

Alright, time to think victory. I wanted to do Diplo as I haven't in a while. Unfortunately Justinian is my best bud but is likely to be the rival as well. All three civs on the other continent have HR as favorite civic so it could be possible to get all of their votes. Backup - space is probably certain, but I just did one. Cultural might be possible; I prefer to do it with artists and Caste System but I can probably get enough of a tech lead that using the slider will be ok. I do have 3 religions present.

Also, there's some land at the NW corner of the other continent blocked by a peak and it appears that no one is there yet (I can see a barb city.) So I might be able to get something going there; I could mess around with a colony for a few extra votes. Once I get a better picture I go for it as it has fur, whales, stone, and sheep (all of which I don't).

1220AD - Well it finally happened - Boudica declared on Justinian. I was expecting this ages ago and it had been so long that I had stopped checking if either of them had enough on their hands. Power-wise, given a short time to build up I might want to join Bouddy and take Justinian down a few notches in power, hoping that evenutally someone else will become my diplo rival without ticking him off too much. However that's risky, I don't have a military tech edge on him and my experience is that he's a pretty competent warmonger, also the front is very broad. I can see that some of his western cities would be easy pickings but he could also easily show up with a big stack in an unexpected location. However, to keep the spirit of the "honorable" rules I will stay out of this one; both have been good neighbors (expect for the settling thing) and I would like to keep decent relations with both. I preemptively stop trading with Boudica to avoid excessive demands. Justinian's graph is much higher than B's, she's gonna get stomped. I may have to stop the war to prevent capitulation and eventually bribe Just into peace with Boudica for Edu + gold. Should have done sooner; was cheaper earlier and would've avoided request to join from both of them.

1275AD - darn it, Just is going for Lib. I'm halfway done and can certainly beat him to it but I can't finish Constitution also. So I cash Lib for Astronomy (I had already put some beakers into constitution, and the immediate benefits from overseas trade were pretty significant. Also allows me to get going on colonization projects). I soon do a 2-GP golden age to chase Democracy

Decide on diplo victory plan with culture as backup, so start spreading Conf, Budd, and Hindu to my cities. Trade for music and banking and start Sistine in NY which I promptly lose to Louis a few turns later - really sloppy on my part. I had been kicking around culture as a possible win and could have gotten music from Justinian anytime (or self-researched easily). Tentatively I plan NY and Atlanta to be my other culture cities; NY is not heavily cottaged but it can quickly get up the Hermitage and cathedrals. However, I am good about religion spreading and have 3 religions in 9 cities each by 1350.


1370AD -Dem in, revolt to US, free speech, and emancipation. Boudica and Justinian are at it again; power graph indicates quite a bit of fighting but no captures yet.

1425AD - Enter industrial age with Sci Method. Head for Communism, I should be able to revolt to state property before end of double golden age (although state property sounds really dodgy for an Honorable game. But on the other hand, if you wanted to be really "honorable" with civics you would also outlaw all labor ones except emancipation, HR, possibly Organized Religion as well...)

1430AD - 1st American foray into the other continent.



Rats, Ragnar just beat me to these sites (there's a settler on the ice island). I had hoped to plunk two cities here for more sushi resources. He still doesn't have optics but got them through culture, very frustrating as that's really hard to anticipate. I decide not to put down on the eastern island as I don't want the close borders penalty. Due to the honorable rules I was stuck with one badly placed city and one completely superfluous city on the St. Louis landmass; at least with state property they pay for themselves. One of them got Taoism (which I didn't have yet) spread, very cool; a missionary is bought and is en route to the homeland.

Pretty laid back going from here on. Found a couple of icy southern cities to grab seafood for sushi. Get Lady Liberty done in 1580 and enter the modern age with Radio in 1605. Justinian is nice enough to research Biology for me. Give into to nagging demands left and right for diplo points. Start building Cristo Redentor. I'm anticipating that switching out of buddhism and into HR right before elections will swing the whole other continent to my side, giving me the votes I need.



1645 - Trade for Bio and Corp (both with some beakers in to bring price down) for Physics alone to Justinian. He's going after Medicine, nice for me as I want Sushi, so I trigger a golden age with 3 people, saving a merchant for the corp and an artist for bombing the slowest culture city.

1704 - I have traded with Justy for Medicine and revolted to FM so I could found the sushi corp. Finished the statue, UN has 7 or so turns left, nearly done with Assembly Line after which I may turn off research; Infantry should be enough to defend for the rest of the game. Justinian has too much on his hands so Boudica is gonna get pounded.

1714 - Make these trades for more Sushi resources.



1716 - NY looks to be the slowest culture city and it had 176 turns to go legendary (with 50% on slider). Sushi is gonna help a lot, not just with direct culture but the extra food allowing me to convert farms to cottages. NY is nearly done with the UN and it might not be the slowest city after it gets its Taoist cathedral and broadcast tower. Just is @ war with Boudica, surprisingly there's only been one city capture so far and it's a Byzantine! He's also hitting me with spies a lot, one of them store Replaceable Parts (this is really annoying; we're friendly, I've given him lots of tech in trade, etc.) I've built spies of my own to counter along with Security Bureaus, and started running counterespionage missions on him.

1718 - Boudica takes another Byzantine minor city, I'm really surprised as his power graph is 2x as high (although he doesn't really have a military tech edge). I give Boudica PP and Constitution to make peace.

1722AD - UN is done. I forgot to change civics to HR and free religion for diplo reasons, but I have higher ratings than Justy with everyone else so I'm not too worried, at least for 1st election.


1724AD - easy win, run the table except for my rival of course. I need 672 to win the game. After changing civis, Boudica is up to Pleased, Joao to Friendly, Ragnar and Louie remain Pleased. The civic bonus went back to +1, I had been expecting to it resume where it had been before (I think +3 or +4).


1730AD - flip a holy city! That doesn't happen too often (of course since Justinian was always buddhist is wasn't producing anything significant culturally). Here's another religion to speed up the culture win if needed. Unfortunately, it's starving by default; I am able to unstarve it by taking tiles away from one of my other cities (Atlanta, one of the 3 culture ones) which puts Atlanta into slow starvation. I rush workers and plan to send next Sushi exec here.

1738AD - diplo vote comes up, need 697 of 1125.
1740AD - too bad. At least I will only need Ragnar to come around.


1750AD - Rangar has enough on his hands..hmmm...he's still friendly with Louis, pleased with me and Bouddy, Cautious with Justinian. The good news is that I think Ragnar will be enough to tip the scales now; my votes vs. Justinian have been increasing with the city flip and sushi growing my cities while cultural encroachment starves some of his down (not entirely happy with this as per the honorable rules, but that's my backup plan, and with the requirement to stay in Emancipation there's no way around using the slider.) Soon he comes asking for a tech and I'm happy to oblige; he's still only Pleased but it's enough to get his vote at the next election. As I thought, this time that's enough:


Boudica had asked to stop trading with the Byzantines; I wonder if I could have gotten her vote too. But in case it didn't work out I wanted to go back to Buddhist and sign a DP with Justinian to guarantee no trouble until culture win so wasn't worth the risk.



Replay is real interesting - Ragnar declared on Joao around 600BC when their territory wasn't even close to touching, and made slow but steady progress until capitulation in 970AD! Never seen an AI rush across a big gap or stay at war for that long! Well that helps explain why the other continent was so backwards.

Another fine experience from RBCiv and Sulla (based on the time I joined, those two terms are pretty interchangeable in my mind. Maybe I should think of a game idea!) After lots of internal debate about how to launch as quickly as possible in epic 18 this was nice and laid back. I was surprised how little "no slavery" held me back and I've been inspired to try that more often. I think Charismatic + no rushing rule is a big reason - usually the best thing to whip early in the game are axes or swords to take an enemy capital. And with Charismatic, I decided to forsake early expansion (which in itself worked out great due to the large space between me and the AIs) for Stonehenge saving 30 normal speed hammers at all cities. No whipping also means that you're forced to grow and take advantage of the extra happiness.

Hopefully my report isn't too painful to read - I finished the game a couple of weeks ago before doing a lot of traveling, so when I went back to edit my log it was hard to remember good stuff for converting the log to a narrative.

[Olodune]

"505AD - Imperialistic leaders at their most annoying."

I think flat-lining my economy to mostly contain Justinian may not have been such a bad idea. Your economy didn't really suffer any long term consequences though -- his was just a little stronger in your game.


"Replay is real interesting - Ragnar declared on Joao around 600BC when their territory wasn't even close to touching, and made slow but steady progress until capitulation in 970AD! Never seen an AI rush across a big gap or stay at war for that long! Well that helps explain why the other continent was so backwards."

My replay was similar though Ragnar went through 4-5 DoW/peace cycles until finally forcing Joao to submission towards the end of the game. It's too bad the "other" continent wasn't more of a factor in any of our games. (Nice job in gaining favor over there though ) Do you think there was just too much land? Or the wrong mix of AI personalities?

[Compromise]

It's rather refreshing to see a series of diplomatic votes where the percentage voting for you increases with each vote. Well played.

I too am surprised that you managed to flip a holy city. That doesn't happen in many games....

[Atlas]

It's too bad the "other" continent wasn't more of a factor in any of our games. (Nice job in gaining favor over there though ) Do you think there was just too much land? Or the wrong mix of AI personalities?

Yeah, I bet this game is a bit tougher if you have Mansa, Gandhi and Pericles on the other continent. Instead of the ultra aggressive Ragnar and pretty aggressive Louis. I think Joao's job was really just to build cities and improve tiles for one of the other two to take from him at a later date.

[timmy827]

Agreed with Atlas, just not a good set of techers on the other continent. As to the amount of land - I think it's a good idea given the ruleset. I really like the way the expansion played out - plenty of room for the human to set up a good sized empire peacefully, but Imperialistic Jusitinian also grabbing a lot and making sure it's not a total cakewalk.