Adventure 29 - sooooo's report

[sooooo]

Adventure 29 - Winter Wasteland

I was excited about this event since I missed the Azteskimos adventure the first time around. This time we're on a higher difficulty level (immortal) but on the plus side it's not just us that gets the crappy terrain because we're on a boreal map. If I was sensible I'd have loaded a few boreal maps to see what they're like. I didn't, but after playing the game I can tell you: Lots of tundra, forests, plains and deer. Very little grassland, no jungle or floodplains. There is also a lack of resources, since there is no gold, silver, wine, calendar happy resources etc. Basically there's a lot of deer, a moderate smattering of gems and a few sheep, corn, occasional fur. It's a rectangular map similar to highlands.

Oh, and it's raging barbs. This is awkward - barbs are pretty bad anyway on highlands and I was expecting them to be a pain here on boreal too. But immortal, raging barbs? Eeek.

Note that there isn't a particularly good reason that I didn't build the great wall. I just didn't think about it. I don't think I've ever built that wonder before actually. Maybe I should.

I think the first tech is fairly obvious: archery for barb defence. I moved the settler a few squares. Normally I like to settle on the spot but all those tundra squares meant the capital was a bit rubbish. I wandered south. I wanted to find a spot where I had a couple of deer in the first ring, not the second. This is because there's a period of time where barbs won't enter your borders unless you have something pillagable on the second ring. So if your first food improvements are in the first ring you'll be safe from the barbs that little while longer. I settled here:



The early game with raging barbs is not much fun. You are just building archer after archer, hoping to fogbust and keep your capital safe. However, those fogbusters on immortal soon cost you in unit supply. My early targets for city sites were the gems sites, as they could pay for themselves. There was plenty of food out there, the problem was a lack of grassland to cottage and the barb threat to deal with. The plan was to run cottages at the plains city sites, and at the tundra sites to just improve the food/gems resources, whip a library and run a couple of scientists. My first 3 cities had to be close to the capital to defend them, so I could not grab any gems yet. They went here:



I expanded a little more, and as usual my science goes down to losing money at 10% science. Unfortunately I have to raze this city for some cash, and would rebuild it later on.



One of those WHACKY events reveals oil to us!



The main issue on this map is hapiness. The only hapiness resource we have in our corner of the map is gems! That's +2 happy with a forge. There is fur in other parts of the map which I can trade for later. But for now it seems obvious to me that monarchy is a high priority. So I research it, but it's a little slow to arrive making +1GPT at 0% science.



When it finally came in I revolted to hereditary rule and traded it for alphabet. Now that I secured a marble city I decided to persue the great library for some academies in my plains cottage cities.



By 1000AD I had almost filled out my segment of the map. There was a natural ridgeline separating me from Pericles. My two immediate neighbours, Justinian and Lincoln, were both the same religion as me and friendly. So it seemed that the best path forward was to tech onwards peacefully.

I researched Music and snagged the free Great Artist who started a golden age for my civilisation. Golden ages are quite a bit better when you have a load of plains cottages compared to grass cottages.

Two wonders complete in consecutive turns to ramp up my great scientist production:



I am first to liberalism. The final three cities are also now founded.



I took nationalism with it and built the Taj Mahal. Note I am also at (phoney) war with HC because my good buddy (and religious nutcase) Justinian asked me.

I headed to early democracy, both to get the statue of liberty:



and to get access to emancipation. That's a great civic for us since we don't really need slavery with our plains for production, and our cottages will grow very quickly now.

Shortly afterwards I got biology. This was the first time I had really used the forest preserves. Preserving those otherwise useless tundra forests gave me enough hapiness to abandon HR for representation to supercharge my statue of libery. Biology also let me build a national park in a tundra forest wasteland and get 9 free specialists!

It was about this time that the AIs went a bit crazy. Genghis had been beating up Victoria, and capitulated her. Also Justinian became a peacetime vassal of Pericles (who was the best performing AI in this game). I wasn't too pleased, but there was nothing I could do. Then Genghis declared on (I think) Justinian and the first of many world wars began. Next turn HC piled in on his neighbour Victoria (the weakest AI) for good measure.



I prioritised mecicine and revolted to environmentalism. That's a civic I usually adopt for my BTS space races, since factories and coal plants are now much more unhealthy. As a side effect they make forest preserves worth working. Not that I actually had any coal. I had neither coal nor aluminium - this wasn't going to be a quick space race in terms of production.

In the crazy AI quintet, peace errupted. A big vassal switcheroo occurred: Genghis fared predicably badly against Pericles and became his vassal. Justinian made gains against victoria, renounced the protection of Greece and became master of Victoria, who had become a free state for a short while after Genghis capitulated. Following OK there?

Meanwhile I was teching away quite nicely, looking on with my buddhist pal Lincoln at the mental AIs. Just as I had started the space techs Pericles had had enough with his former ally and declared war on Justinian. That also brought Genghis and Victoria in. HC, ever the opportunist, declared on Vicky too. World War 2 began.



OK, after a lot of fighting, which mainly consisted of Pericles and his puppy dog Genghis beating the crap out of Justinian and Victoria (who got wiped out), Justinian capitulated to Pericles. This put Pericles at war with both HC and Genghis now, and my explorer watched plenty of entertaining fights in what I dubbed World War 3.



Meanwhile, I was busy building a spaceship.



After the final space part tech is researched we are still in a golen age so I revolted to universal suffrage to boost production. I took this fella along with me to the stars:



And we win a space victory in 1930 AD, yay!



Only one other AI had built the apollo program, and hadn't built any parts yet. A few graphs:



After dealing with the barbs, the rest of the game was OK. I presume the AIs had their fair share of barb problems. Also my land was pretty nice for the map type since I could block off a large area for myself with a couple of cities. I noticed I built a lot more cottages than the AIs, who had more farms than me. Thanks for the game!

[Olodune]

Someone did skip the Great Wall -- fantastic! I'm not really sure it was a good idea, however

This was the first time I had really used the forest preserves. Preserving those otherwise useless tundra forests gave me enough hapiness to abandon HR for representation to supercharge my statue of libery. Biology also let me build a national park in a tundra forest wasteland and get 9 free specialists!

This is a great call -- I thought I was a complete moron for missing this part of the game, then I realized I never made it to Biology and only picked up Scientific Method towards the end. I wonder if a SciMeth beeline would have been worth it, since its bulb-able I bet you can get it fairly early...

[sylvanllewelyn]

I thought about space race, but I didn't feel confident enough to be able to out-race a cultural victory. I guess what I didn't realise is that all the deer can support lots of towns on tundra. By the same measure, had I settled those tundra cities, I would've had enough commerce to win by domination in my second shadow attempt. I guess I didn't adjust my mindset enough for the boreal map.

[Sullla]

I was hoping someone would forego the Great Wall options and fight the barbs. (As I'll explain in the sponsor's comments, the idea was to leave the Great Wall option up to the player, who could take on the extra challenge if they desired.) Whether it was deliberate or due to forgetfulness... it may for an interesting report either way!

I know that the AI has some problems with the Boreal map, but it still surprises me to see how late the Great Library and Liberalism were falling in these games. There's no way the old (non-expansion) Immortal difficulty would have been so slow. Somehow of the Blake AI changes are terrific, others a bit of a step backwards.

Always fun to sit back and watch the AIs tear out each other's throats, eh? Looked like a nice, calm ending.

[Olodune]

There's no way the old (non-expansion) Immortal difficulty would have been so slow. Somehow of the Blake AI changes are terrific, others a bit of a step backwards.

I think what's going on is that the Warlords AI received huge +happy and +health for free. Now you can starve an AI by cutting off its resources -- overall I really like the changes as the AI is playing a similar game to the human.

It does mean that "Ice Age" style maps in BtS are a lot easier, however.