Adventure 37 by Thy Spellcraft

[Thy_Spellcraft]

So here we go with my first RB-event and therefore with my very first complete report. Unfortunately I don’t have that much time right now, so I‘ll concentrate on those details most of you maybe interested in and will hopefully find the time to add a more details version later on..

Let’s start with the initial thoughts: It’s emperor, ok... So from my experiences I know that emperor AIs are quite aggressive and will most likely tech better than I will. So conquest won’t be reachable for me neither space will.. And as there won’t be a possibility to vassal anyone (I’m sure I won’t get the forces for an aggressive war) or get any diplo plus through fair trades only culture remains. So it’s culture. As early religions won’t be reachable my initial game plan was to get at least four prophets to bulb theo and divine right as well as CoL through Oracle to find at least three religions. In addition I’m going to try for Stonehenge as well, to ensure the “free” borderpops and the early specialists in my cities. The culture comes in handy as well..
As I‘ll concentrate on military techs early on, for surviving long enough to hit cultural victory, I’ll miss most of the early wonders, but with two shrines, Spiral Minaret and Versailles I hopefully will fund around 90%-100% science to get the later once to cruise to a late but “safe” victory.

So I started..
My first action was to move the warrior and to decide to settle 1N of the starting position starting with a warrior. So I secured an additional grasshill and wonderful grassland titles for descent towns. The initial techpath was Myst --> Mining --> BW. With pottery I got a bit lucky as I poped it from a hut.. So the second build in Thebes was the worker to get followed by SH. One or two chops later I finished it successfully in 2320 BC.
While building SH I had to make the decision to tech towards priesthood to go for the Oracle, or for archery for some additional defence(That’s because there’s no copper nearby..). After my first barb warrior encounter already took place in 2560 I decided for the safe way.. So Archery came next and Thebes build some archers, and as fishing got researched some workboats got build to squeeze out some settlers with the additional food from the clams.
After fending off some barb archers my second city came quite late: 1240BC. As there’s plenty of food this will become my NE location! In 600BC my first GP was born and in 325 BC I could bulb him for theo and christianity was founded. Meanwhile in 575 BC my third to become legendary city was founded. With some descent production I’ll hopefully land some wonders here.. Elephantine, the last city before calendar change, was founded in 300 BC and completed my early empire so far:

But shortly before I got really, really lucky, as Christianity spread to Ragnar and he immediately converted .. The most powerful guy becomes my buddy! Great! Right now it’s a bit safer cruise..
As we went on with settling in 225AD Alexandria was founded, followed by PiRamses in 425 AD. In 1170AD I finished settling my spots due the foundation of Giza. Not the biggest empire ever, but hopefully big enough for a victory:

As you can see, there are not many wonders build. Main reason was, that I was really far behind in tech (so far behind I even lost the free artist from music and therefore Sistine.. ) But fortunately I had monopole on Theo, so after SH the second one was the apostolic palace in 660AD and in 1040AD Hagia Sofia was finished.
My second prophet was born in 800AD to build me Church of the Nativity. The third came in 1090 AD and with his help I was at least first to Divine Right in 1230AD. My second religion and once again two wonders nearly no one will get before me!! The Minaret finished in 1310AD, the islamic holy shrine in 1340AD and in 1535AD Versailles completed the “divine right wonders”.
But while trying to get some descent culture into my cities Charly once again revealed his true face and DoW’ed me in 1400AD. At this point I was quite happy, that I decided to research a bit more towards military techs, so after some emergency whips PiRamses got fortified to fend off the massive charge in 1480AD and after killing a second invading stack in 1550 he was once again willing to sign peace in 1555.
After a lot of quite boring rounds (nearly all of my cities were building wealth, research or culture) I got lucky once again: Huayna send a buddhistic missionary to Elephantine, so two more stupas to build! This came really in handy after I had to realize, that somebody else is on his way towards culture as well (and he was even in front..).
After England got killed in 1715AD I managed it, to sign a defence pact with Ragnar in 1780AD. Unfortunately he switch out of HR (which I stay in for nearly whole of the game to keep Huayna friendly), so I had to resign this later one in 1907.. (Just as some kind of note in the margin for those who didn’t know this too: after going back to friendly the defensive pact gets automatically cancelled!!)
As a result of two AP resolution I had to declare on Bull in 1836 as well as in 1898, but I kept both as a phony wars. Nonetheless Bull got killed in 1906..
Just to mention nearby: in 1906 Broadway was finished, and from this stage I knew, that Hanni won’t beat me by a few turns (he could have build it ~20 turns earlier but fortunately he didn’t..)
My original plan was, to go for 100% culture right after mass media, but the backstabber Qin (who I kept in friendly) DoW’ed me one turn before I finished it.. So in addition I had to go for steel as well!! :mad: Nonetheless thanks to the defence pact with ragnar this war stayed phony for me (I didn’t even see a single chinese ship..), and so I could change to 100% culture in 1923AD.
To end up this stuff nothing really interesting happened until Memphis became legendary in 1943AD, Heliopolis in 1945AD and through the last culture bomb Thebes became legendary in 1947AD. So in 1948AD I finally got this screen:


As a short conclusion I only want to add, that exactly that happened what I thought it would.. (except the Oracle) I founded Christianity and Islam and finished with a quite late victory! But it was my first emperor game and I won it even with restrictions!!

Thank you Sulla and I’m looking forward the next event!!

[regoarrarr]

Congratulations on your victory and thanks for the report!

[T-hawk]

What Dreylin said.

Your execution of the game plan went very well, but I'd like to comment on the game plan. Hagia Sophia and Versailles are both for large empires. You'll get more work by just building workers instead of Hagia in a seven city empire. And Versailles is very expensive but saves very little maintenance with only seven cities.

The religious techs might seem "free" if lightbulbed with Prophets. But there's opportunity cost. By spending your first four Great People on religious usage, you missed the opportunity for an early Academy or Engineered wonder or bulbing a more economical tech like Civil Service or Education or Philosophy (another religion). And the hammers that built the AP and Versailles might have built more economical wonders like the Pyramids or Great Library. That all said, you did play out the religious game plan very well and made great use of the AP.

As a result of two AP resolution I had to declare on Bull in 1836 as well as in 1898, but I kept both as a phony wars. Nonetheless Bull got killed in 1906..

AP phony wars can be a great diplomatic tool. It keeps everybody busy while giving you free diplomacy points. Happened in my game too.