Epic 21 (shadow) - Dark Savant

[Dark Savant]

I played this (Dan Quayle of the Americans, with worse-than-useless traits, UU, and UB) too after T-hawk said he was playing it. I finished a couple weeks ago but didn't get around to posting this until now, seeing as how there isn't a reporting deadline for a later shadow game like this.

I spent one turn moving the starting settler 2S, 1E, keeping the cow within range and with the added bonus of starting on a river plains hill. Shame there is no potatoe to go with that cow. I decide that, hey, we want religion, like much of the modern Republican party. So I decide to try to get a couple of the early religions myself, building a couple warriors then a worker while researching Mysticism -> Polytheism -> Mining (speeds up Masonry and gives my worker something else to do) -> Masonry -> Monotheism. This successfully gets me the dual holy HinJew city as hoped. I pick up Sailing and some gold from huts, but nothing else of note.

Now, the more religion, the better! For this, I want to build both Stonehenge and the Oracle to build up enough GPP points to spawn an early Great Prophet that can bulb Theology; I need both because Quayle's Addled trait is -50% to GPP, which I found to be a pretty serious penalty, and easily the worst of the four negative traits Quayle gets. To reliably get Stonehenge on Monarch requires building it before any settlers, I do this and it completes in 2450 BC. A couple settlers follow while I'm catching up on basic worker technologies, and they go here:



New York isn't in a great long-term location, but it claims a bunch of resources and is a good short-term city site. Boston claims horses and the wheat I didn't know I missed moving away from the starting location, and is one of my intended major production cities. I'm also finally researching Bronze Working so I can claim some metal.

[Dark Savant]

A bid for the Oracle fails in 900 BC before I can whip it to completion; Stalin got it and used it on Code of Laws and Confucianism. Ah well. Two copper are within reach, and I make a move on the one close to Hammurabi's borders, located here:



That inconvenient barb city popped up at the last minute. Philadelphia also gives me a good city site on the coast. I build up a military to burn down that barb city, but the Sumerians capture it before I can.

Sumeria briefly flirts with Confucianism before switching over to Hinduism on his own. All these military units and differing state religions bode conflict, and soon enough Sumeria declares war on Babylon. Nothing of note happens before Russia also declares on Babylon, and then I'm asked to join in. Figuring I might be able to grab a piece of Babylon with this much war, I join in.

It turns out, though, that Babylon is tougher than it seemed. Russia soon makes peace, and Hammurabi actually manages to capture that ex-barb city from Sumeria. With that Gilgamesh also sues for peace, and I have to stave off an assault on Philadelphia before giving up some technology for peace. All I got out of the affair was one great general.

[Dark Savant]

I'll need siege units to make headway in any serious war now, so I'll just build peacefully for a while. My sloooowww accumulation of GPP from Stonehenge finally gives me a Great Prophet, which I use to bulb Theology; Christianity had recently been founded on an undiscovered landmass, but I wanted to lock down the Apostolic Palace. Maybe I should have used it on a shrine, though, because look how much my economy sucks:



Yikes, 39 turns to Currency! Maybe I shouldn't have founded Seattle so soon, but the Quayle in me was whispering something about "manifest destiny". I founded that seventh city because it's normally about the right time for it, but this is an effect of the other nasty trait Quayle gets: he builds cottages that mature at half the normal speed.

Boston builds the Temple of Artemis just because no one else had yet. While the crawl to Currency proceeds I build enough military to not look like a target, and also the Hanging Gardens, the Hagia Sophia, the Apostolic Palace, and the Mausoleum of Mausollos.

Strangely enough, the other AI's on this continent aren't running strong economies, either; perhaps those wars were more destructive than they seemed? The other continent can't be moving that quickly either, as other than the Aesthetics wonders being built (the Parthenon would have been nice to cancel Addled, ah well) I don't get any alarming early wonder build messages.

Finally, Currency comes in, I manage to get Code of Laws in a trade and whip up some courthouses, some of those wussy shacks and shanties actually start to mature, and I'm out of my economic crash.

I'm having connectivity issues currently, I'll wrap this up tomorrow.

[Dark Savant]

As my economy recovers, I research Literature to take a shot at the Great Library, but it gets built off-continent before I can whip it. I get Construction for some catapults. (I've always thought this is awful late for the first siege unit; I'm going to check out how the Revolutions mod adds earlier siege units, to see how those fare in combat.) After getting Civil Service for Bureaucracy and maces, and starting to slowly add more cities, it's time to think about luxuries.

Yeah, like religion! I'm the first to Divine Right and get Islam (you really should get 2-3 free missionaries with this one since it's so late to the party, I think), and start work on both the Spiral Minaret and Versailles, which I eventually complete. Our America now has Judaism and Islam but not Christianity; eh, close enough for government work.

The Babylonians are the first to Music, and they use the free Great Artist ... to culture bomb that annoying ex-barb city near Philadelphia, stealing my copper. I've got the one up in the tundra under my control now, fortunately, and Hammurabi's comeuppance comes fairly quickly: the Sumerians get around to declaring war on the Babylonians again, the Russians join the party quickly (and have joined the Hindu party in the meantime), and I join immediately when asked. The first thing I do is to burn down that ex-barb city.

This time, the Babylonians collapse quickly under the dogpile. I only manage to capture two of their cities before they capitulate to me, but they're the two best ones.



I'm a little too slow to re-settle that razed city, alas. Also, I'm not sure I should have accepted the Babylonians as a vassal. For one thing, I had trouble quelling revolts in Babylon and Akkad; the other reason will come up later. Babylon did come with the Buddhist holy city; no shrine yet, though, and I'm still waiting for a second Great Prophet just to create the Hindu holy shrine! It's also got four settled great generals from all of Hammurabi's wars, so I'll be placing the Heroic Epic here.

[Dark Savant]

Stalin is now at the high end of Pleased and Gilgamesh is well into Friendly, from shared war, religion, and civics; I'm not inclined to wage war so I slip back into builder mode, acquiring more territory by filling up my backyard and heading for the islands.

I research Optics as the war winds down, whip up two caravels sailing in both directions , discover the other continent, and secure the circumnavigation bonus. Two of the opposing AI's there are Financial, and they're two of the better ones, namely Elizabeth and Hannibal. Elizabeth has a significant tech lead on everyone else by now.

I research Music to construct some culture along with the Sistine Chapel, then Philosophy for Angkor Wat and the option to revolt to Pacifism to get out from under Addled. Elizabeth has had the option to research Liberalism for some time now (she built the University of Sankore before I could). I take the time to gun for it next, and after a good 30 or so turns (!) I manage to cash it in for Astronomy, which multiple civs already have, but it's easily the most expensive technology on the table.

Next up is Nationalism, which lands me the Taj Mahal constructed right quick with marble and a Bureaucratic capital. The resulting Golden Age is important for a feature I'd forgotten -- it gives you a +100% GPP bonus! I can finally get my third great person in the early 1700's! Boston has the National Epic (which made my second GP an artist, boo) and is having its forests saved for the National Park; it comes up with a 20% Great Merchant when I wanted that 70% Prophet. Not bad, I just cash him in for a load of cash to catch up to Elizabeth. Washington finally lands me a Great Prophet that I use to build the Kashi Viswanath -- in 1722, rather a late date for going to the trouble of founding Hinduism.

Around this time, the English release Washington of the Americans as a vassal. This makes a lot of the in-game messages confusing, since it's sometimes not obvious which "American" the game means.

I'm suddenly rapidly generating GPP, and Washington cranks out GP #5 just before the Golden Age ends. Of course, it's an artist from the Taj Mahal. I just use him to fire a second consecutive Golden Age so I can construct the Statue of Liberty relatively quickly.

[Dark Savant]

Suddenly, Gilgamesh declares war on me the very next turn after the above screenshot! At +15 Friendly relations! I thought no AI other than Catherine did this! Although I do have decent contingents of units chilling in Babylon and Boston on our border, I don't have much else backing them up, and I'm faced with a stack twice the size of my entire military. Fortunately, I get the option to end the war in the AP on the same turn, which I take advantage of. I spend a turn killing some of Gilgamesh's units before the enforced peace kicks in.

I don't know why that happened. Gilgamesh had been saying "we have enough on our hands" for a long time, but so had Stalin, and Russia eventually declared war on the Germans once Stalin had the technology to actually wage transcontinental war. Maybe it's because of my vassal? Gilgamesh didn't like Hammurabi very much, and the first unit that moved into my territory seemingly moved to attack Hammurabi's capital.

Also a surprise is a message in AD 1780 informing me there are only 100 turns left. Uh, whoops? Suddenly I don't have as much time to finish this game as I thought, no way that's going to get me to space from this position. Ah well, I'll still play for a lazy space victory and see what ranking I get from a time victory.

Now that I know Gilgamesh might declare on me, I make sure to build up a stronger military and a military railnet. That's while I'm running Pacifism, of course. By this time I'm finally able to take a secure technological lead, and I have Broadway and the Pentagon underway and in the bag when Gilgamesh declares again (and still at Friendly relations) in AD 1845. He's got a lot of rifles and cavalry and trebuchets advancing on Boston, along with a large number of outdated units, but I've got infantry, and while the battle is closer than I would have liked I wipe it out. I flip Stalin some backwards technology to join the party and start to conquer in earnest.

It goes slowly, because I'm still mostly in builder mode, with Babylon and Atlanta (which got Iron Works + West Point + 1 settled GG) my only cities seriously producing military. Lots of hammers go into completing Broadway, the Pentagon, and all of the Radio and Mass Media wonders. Heh, I'm not really in a position to win the game by diplomatic vote. Frederick amuses me by founding Mining Inc. and then promptly swapping civics to State Property. Elizabeth and Hannibal also declare on me, but they're tied up in other wars and all the damage they do is to my fishing nets.

I continue to play as if I were playing for a lazy space victory, and manage to force Gilgamesh to capitulate shortly before the premature ending. The Sumerian capital has a lot of settled great generals, great people, infrastructure, and wonders that would have been useful if the game went on.



You can also see some of my GG units in that picture. The Pentagon and captured enemy capitals gave me most of the experience I needed, and I've gotten used to keeping my GG units alive; they're fun toys, even though not necessarily optimal.

[Dark Savant]

Well, hey, now I know that the time limit really is there!



Not exactly solid, but I wasn't playing too seriously. Hey, I'm supposed to be Quayle! Speaking of which, who does the game rank me as?



Aww, just one step short of people who actually have some degree of competence. Herbert Hoover's bad reputation is largely undeserved; he's basically the Republican version of Jimmy Carter in that he was awesome at everything other than being president, and even as president both have been held responsible for economic conditions outside their control.

Another Monarch variant victory in the bag. I should check out that Deity-level adventure before it's too late.

[T-hawk]

Nice to see another take on this game, and a mostly builder one in contrast to mine.

I didn't think the Addled trait was all that limiting. With National Epic in the GP farm, it adds up to only one-fourth below-normal GPP generation and less than that for GP generation because of cost escalation. Addled did seriously hurt GP production before the NE, so I just avoided making that part of the game plan. Missing the Great Library probably hurt a lot towards that.

Plastics in 1910 AD is fairly leisurely for space. How did you build your economy for the space research push? Did you use the weak cottages post-Emancipation, and if so were they worthwhile?

And did you get any mileage out of the religions? Religion and Sistine naturally adds up to a cultural win though I guess you weren't interested. And after monastery expiration, religions do just about nothing for space, unless you really need cathedral culture to hold on to space resources.

On Gilgamesh declaring at Friendly - that can happen if the AI is already WHEOOHRN and had made the decision to attack before reaching Friendly. I'm not sure if the vassal figures in; for lots of diplomacy actions, the attitude of the AI towards you and your vassals is averaged (which with many vassals will regress towards Cautious); not sure if that figures towards war declaration.

[Dark Savant]

I didn't think the Addled trait was all that limiting. With National Epic in the GP farm, it adds up to only one-fourth below-normal GPP generation and less than that for GP generation because of cost escalation. Addled did seriously hurt GP production before the NE, so I just avoided making that part of the game plan. Missing the Great Library probably hurt a lot towards that.

Yeah, it does not SOUND that bad, and that's basically what I thought going in. I didn't do anything particularly different setting things up, yet I didn't get my third-generation GP until 1720! I should have pushed harder for food in my National Epic city, but earlier in the game I was planting poor cottages in places I ordinarily wouldn't have just to squeeze out the bits of extra income. It ... wasn't all that effective.

Plastics in 1910 AD is fairly leisurely for space. How did you build your economy for the space research push? Did you use the weak cottages post-Emancipation, and if so were they worthwhile?

I did plant quite a few poor cottages even before Emancipation. Enough of these matured that it wasn't completely awful, but I'm not sure I would try that again; you really want that +2 town bonus from Free Speech long-term and only my early cities got that far. Pyramids or bust, then running tons of farms, would have evaded that problem. If I played through this again, I'd have run cottages/windmills where I put Washington, New York, and Atlanta, and pure farms everywhere else I built my own improvements.

And did you get any mileage out of the religions? Religion and Sistine naturally adds up to a cultural win though I guess you weren't interested. And after monastery expiration, religions do just about nothing for space, unless you really need cathedral culture to hold on to space resources.

My shrine income, by the time I had actually built the shrines (Hindu shrine in 1722, Jewish several decades later; then I built the Buddhist and Islamic shrines too while running Pacifism), was pulling in heaps of income in the endgame; I only ever bothered to spread the religions I had the shrines for. It just took a LOT longer to build up than it normally does.

Part of my attitude when playing this or most other strategy games is that I like to build for the long haul, even in games where I am certain the long haul isn't arriving. I have the habit of micromanaging random fishing villages even the turn before the end.

On Gilgamesh declaring at Friendly - that can happen if the AI is already WHEOOHRN and had made the decision to attack before reaching Friendly. I'm not sure if the vassal figures in; for lots of diplomacy actions, the attitude of the AI towards you and your vassals is averaged (which with many vassals will regress towards Cautious); not sure if that figures towards war declaration.

Gilgamesh had been saying WHEOOH for dozens of turns before he actually declared on me, and he'd been continually friendly since BC times, so I doubt it's the attack decision coming before friendly status, and more of a vassal effect.