Epic One - Smegged's Report

[Smegged]

The year is 2002, the game is Civ 3, RBCiv Epic One, the Honourable
French. My result: bad. The last line of my report read "820 AD - Lyons
falls, the French are no more". Now I've improved a LOT as a player since
that epic. In fact many of the decisions I made in that game would make
me cringe if I saw them now. Nevertheless, here is a teaser of what is to
come:


French history begins in the year 4000BC. Our glorious leadership decide
the information is power, and that moving the warrior onto the hill before
settling is the best move. Our intelligence reports that the starting spot is
certainly the best spot for founding the first city of the Civ 4 Epics! And
with that, the French settle and name the city Paris.

Looking at the variant rules I had a think about my gameplan. With the
inability to declare war, and restrictions which make prolonged warfare a lot
more difficult, I decide that a cultural victory is probably a good way to
go. Being industrious can help this goal as well (cheap wonders - yes
please!). With the stone in my city radius either stonehenge or the
pyramids are likely to be a good early wonder to get. I decide to pursue at
least one of the early religions. Hinduism is nice and cheap and won't take
too long to get, but Judaism will be a good option if I am going for an early
Pyramids. I start researching Mysticism.

A few years go by and our warriors pop a village or two, starting with the
one to the west of Paris,


Our warriors are victorious over the lions of the north.


Exploring my continent I discover some jungle. Then I discover some more
jungle, and then finally, I surprisingly find even more jungle. To the South
is Jungle, to the West is jungle. I'm living in the bloody amazon over here.
Meanwhile, I find out that Buddhism has been founded, and I'm still 18
turns from Hinduism.


I fight some wars with lions in the east, coming out victorious in most
battles. While this is going on I made contact with Ghandi in 2960BC,
Georgy boy in 2920BC, Genghis Khan in 2720BC, Montezuma in 2040BC and
finally Alexander the not-so-great in 1750BC. In between all this, I get this
screen:


After getting my religion I decide that it is very prudent to get archers
ASAP, especially with Genghis I-can-never-be-trusted Khan around. But
before I got archers I make a stopover for animal husbandry so that I can
work my cows. Moooooo. Then in 1950BC I get this message:


Eep! This means Khan has Bronze working, which is Not Very Good News
(NVGN). Soon after I found my second and then third cities. I placed
them so that they will cut off AI access to my lands to the west.
Somewhere in the hundreds BC Genghis converts to Bhuddism. This seals
our fate. We will go to war, the only question is when. I go heavier on the
military to compensate. The next piece of NVGN is this:


I had six turns to go on Stonehenge . I decide to go for the pyramids
instead. Montezuma has a moment of brilliance. That's the kind of move I
would make - using the Oracle to found Christianity:


Soon after I finish the Pyramids:


I have to say that the Pyramids are by far the strongest early game
wonder. Why are they so strong? How does +15 population in the early
game (thanks to Representation) sound, or perhaps +25% military
production (though not in this game) sound? It is vastly underrated, and in
some ways is more powerful than the Civ 3 pyramids . At least it
certainly is far better on archapelago maps or maps where you don't have
much land.

A peek at my lands 330AD:


Unfortunately all this expansion has cost my economy heavily. Civ 4 makes
it nearly impossible for massive amounts of expansion. It gets so bad I get
this (city maintenance was at 18gpt (out of my 22gpt income)):


In 680AD Genghis comes calling for tribute - pigs in this case. I cave.
Then, next turn, I get this message:


Genghis chose UNWISELY. And I made a mistake. I only had two archers
in Orleans. Khan sent 3 axemen. The first axeman was killed, leaving a
wounded archer. The second axeman won his battle, and the third finished
off the wounded archers, capturing Orleans, my second strongest city.
Stupidly, I had a third archer about two squares away from Orleans sitting
guarding nothing. Had I moved him in, I'd not have lost the city.
Meanwhile, I had started the Parthenon and managed to be pipped at the
post by one turn. My notes have the words "could anything more go
wrong" next to them. Then I investigated Orleans several turns later and
discovered this:


Razed.


This loss would certainly cost me any hope of getting fastest finish for the
space race or diplo. My only chance for fastest finish in any category
would be domination, but that was unlikely with the honourable ruleset.
Nevertheless, I pressed on, forcing Khan into a stalemate. The battles
were long and bloody, but eventually the mighty French forces routed his
troups and took the city of Beshbalik. This city would prove to be a thorn
in Montezuma's side down the track, but I'm getting ahead of myself. This
is how my lands looked after the first Mongol war. Note the Captured
Barbarian city of Angle. Eventually this would become my wealthiest city,
housing both Wall Street and Oxford University.


What that map did not show was one of Alexanders and one of Genghis's
galleys, both housing settler/archer pairs. Both beat me to the site of
Marseilles by several turns, but neither settled there. I have no idea why,
but I'm not going to complain about it . Also note how poor my economy
has been over the war years. I'm STILL researching currency and it's past
1000AD! I'm so ridiculously far behind the AI that it's a joke. However, I'm
still breathing, and wars are being had in other areas of the world. The
game leader from the early game, Ghandi has finally lost some of his power,
and is now third in rankings - thanks mainly to oscillating warfare with
America, Greece and the Aztecs. Things even started to look slightly
positive after this:


Still, this was what the Technology screen looked like:


I finally managed to invent currency in 1300AD. I completed another
wonder in 1555AD - The colossus:


Sometime in there I went to war with Genghis again. This is going to be a
common theme in my game, so you will excuse me if I forget exactly when
each war started and ended . What is important is that I captured one
of his cities. What is really stupid is that I lost it to a culture flip bug. If
you have no flip after capture enabled, but you capture a border city that
is culturally close to a different empire, it will almost certainly revolt to
them. In this case I lost my city to the Aztecs, even though they only had
about a 5% cultural share in the city. I didn't really mind however, as the
city was just costing me money. Sometime later I got my first religious
great leader and snared this:


The third Mongol war broke out in the late 1600s. It would cost Khan yet
another city. Unfortunately I was never in enough of a position to really
take him on and wipe him out in these wars, as I tended to be several
techs behind. Another thing that I find really odd in Civ 4 is that
musketmen are essentially useless units. One tech later and Grenadiers
come onto the scene with 33% more strength and the same upgrades
available to them. How odd. Anyway:


Khan must have been sick of the slaughter that he was receiving at my
hands, because I received this message in 1752AD:


Interestingly, I grabbed this screenshot to show what I consider to be a
bug in the game. If you will notice that the governor is on, there is
definitely enough food available, and yet:


While it's not quite a spearman and a tank... (the grenadier was wounded)


Wars were fought, Mongels were killed, and somewhere in there I built this:


Then this:


1836AD Heralded the arrival of Democracy and Emancipation, from now until
the end of the game. The late 1800s saw a dogpile on America, who
fought bravely for the most part and didn't lose too much of their holdings.
It also saw the building of this:


Not too much interesting happened (except a war - this time a defensive
one against Monte, mainly as an aid to America (after they asked). Oh,
and I built this:


The Pentagon helped my war efforts immensely. When America made
peace with the Aztecs, I tried to do the same, but Monte was being
moronic. He kept demanding Beshbalik. So I decided to go on the
offensive. After all, I had plenty of spare infantry to send his way. Sure I
wasn't planning on taking a city, but some pillaging should show him.
Needless to say I checked every turn to see if he wanted peace for free.
But alas, his response was always the same. "No Way". He chose
unwisely.


Now I'm sure it must be a bug in the calculations that the AI does about
economic damage. Taking a city from an AI seems to teach it to cave into
at least moderately fair peace demands, but I pillaged 4 cities back into the
stone age and Monte still requested a city for peace. It was absolutely
ridiculous. OMGWHTTI . I started my leader-induced golden age in 1947.
In 1948 I got this message:


That's right, I was researching Electricity and the Americans had already
started their Space Program!!! Georgy boy completed the Eifel Tower one
turn later. Meanwhile a rather interesting little graphics bug popped up.
Have a look at my infantry and the firing cavalry. They're locked in battle,
from over two squares away .


1963 Saw the end of the Aztec war when my forces marched
Calixtlahuaca:


By this time I had caught up on tech with everyone except the US. Oh
yeah, and culture bombs are overpowered:


Genghis was smoking some pungent weed. Didn't he know that to stay
alive all he had to do was not attack me or the US? This was also the first
time I was in the lead in the game.


While I methodically took every last Mongol city (really, there wasn't that
many), and managed to FINALLY get my hands on a source of coal (I went
around a hundred years without rails!), I got off a good trade mission:


Oh yeah, and did I mention that earlier in the game I mined all of the hills in
my territory that were not within any cities radius? I do that once I have
run out of meaningful jobs for my workers to do. It's a good idea because
of random resources that pop up occasionally. I had Gems and Iron pop up
this game. The Mongols last stand:


Have a look at my favourite vacation spot, complete with Rice, silks, fish
and now Iron:


Then, just like that, it's all over.




One of the more telling graphs about the game for me:


My HoF so far (I'm missing a game or two from before I reinstalled):

[Speaker]

I don't think anyone will beat that finish date, for a time victory.

[MeteorPunch]

Looked like you had a fun game there - lots of war. :aar: I'm surprised these Prince-level AI's could not make it to space, but with Montezuma taking out Ghandi leaves Washington without a trade partner...so the remaining civs are all warmongers (including you ).

[Kylearan]

Hi,

you certainly lived in interesting times! And waged war a lot for someone who I believed to be a builder at heart...

That nobody managed to launch until 2050 AD is odd. It's very interesting to see the huge variety between the games; from AIs launching in the early 20th century to not launching at all.

-Kylearan

[Sirp_]

Nice to see such a 'gritty' game being played out. Congratulations on sticking with it and coming out with a win.

-Sirp.

[Arathorn]

I also can't believe nobody launched by 2050 AD. Some poor people had the AI launching in 1927! That's amazingly early. But nobody launching by 2050? Very cool.

Arathorn

[Smegged]

Sometimes being a builder at heart means building more infantry

In all seriousness, the length of the Dark Ages in my game was probably why it never finished. No currency until 1300 AD! I've not seen a slower tech pace ever I think!

[Smegged]

Take a look at my HoF entries... This ain't the first time

Combined, America and I had the tech to build the spaceship, but there was no way that I was going to trade it to him. I think I ended up about four parts from completion whereas the Americans were only two parts away.

[Smegged]

Who said it was Monte who took out Ghandi? America and Greece also took equal parts in that honour . This game was bloody and vicious. The only AI that I did not end up at war with at one stage or another was America (well Ghandi, but he hardly counts...). Towards the end I had a defensive pact with America, and it is likely that there would have been a world war had one of us been attacked (Monte was in bed with Alexander for much of the game)

[mjj55409]

Interesting game. Started quite similarly to mine, except that Monte was the early agressor. I never really recovered from the early Aztec Wars and eventually was wiped out by the Mongols. And in my game, America was the AI knocked out of the game while Gandhi was on top of the score list.