Epic1 - Arathorn's report...

[Arathorn]

If you're quick, you can read it at

http://www.geocities.com/doug_kuhlman/Epic1-1.html

but my guess is the bandwidth will be used up soon.

If that's down, try http://cassiopeiathedog.net/arathorn/Epic1-1.html -- THANKS, Speaker!

Scroll down for the quick recap, if you want it.





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Won by diplomacy in 1812 AD. Crushed Monte when he attacked. Left everybody else alone. Had Washington's support to win.

Arathorn

[Sullla]

Starting right on a worker, not necessarily a bad move. I went with a warrior and a scout in the expectation that I could pop some huts, but that turned out not to be the case with Temujin's scouts zipping around the area near my starting position. Your second city clearly was in a better spot than mine; I was probably too focused on sealing on Temujin early and could have done more in that regard. You were thus able to get the same site anyway with your third city, while having a productive second city at a much earlier date. Nicely done.

You didn't take Stonehenge or Oracle but did get Pyramids instead, which probably was a bigger help than either of them on this map. My failure to get Pyramids was one of the major setbacks of my game, but Gandhi just built the thing SO early in my game (200BC) because he was being left alone completely by the AI civs. Clearly THAT wasn't the case in a lot of these games! The early research of Iron Working was also clearly a good move; I never should have held off on researching it as long as I did in my game (I went all the way to Alphabet before I headed back for Iron Working).

Interesting that you decided to befriend Temujin by adopting his religion. That may well have been a great decision, keeping him off you in the early stages of the game. Seeing how badly many players were set back by early aggression from Temujin, it's hard to escape that conclusion. Certainly you were able to get more out of trading early on than I did, cleaning up those backwards techs with the AI. I tried, but the opportunities just were not there in my game. I looked for them, honestly!

If you thought your game was tough financially, try doing it without the Pyramids and Representation. Not only fewer beakers from specialists, but less happiness too. Those Great Engineer points were another huge benefit too, clearly. Argh, why did Gandhi have to be such a wonder-monkey in my game!

Monty's declaration of war on Washington clearly helped out a lot. I wish that had happened in my game! But no, Washington just sat back and built forever, with no one ever touching his cottages. And I could not by rule go in there and pillage him myself. Blah.

At this point in time, your website's bandwidth cut out, so I'll have to add in the rest later. Geocities doesn't give you a whole lot of stuff to work with, I've been there before myself! Thanks for the report.

[Speaker]

Help is on the way for Arathorn's report.

[Arathorn]

Help is on the way for Arathorn's report.

As Speaker alluded to, try http://cassiopeiathedog.net/arathorn/Epic1-1.html

Same report -- more bandwidth!

Arathorn

[Kylearan]

Hi,

I have been able to read your full report (sorry to all those whom I helped to keep out ) - good one! I found your comparison between rushing and upgrading units quite interesting. Upgrading *should* be more expensive though, only not that much perhaps, because you keep your promotions which is a major advantage over newly built units.

You did a great early land-grab; Genghis prevented me from doing something like this. But in the end, I seemed to have teched faster than you did, judging from your dates I no longer can access and compare to mine because I foolishly have closed my browser window. (And why do all those I like to compare my game to decide to win by diplomacy, and not by the oh-so-often-seen space race?!? '%$&§$!)

I agree with most of your closing remarks as well. Tech is king, indeed, and Prince is too easy. But I can see some crazy variants I will enjoy even on Prince, and there's the additional challenge of beating other human players which transcend the in-built levels of difficulty anyway.

-Kylearan

[Arathorn]

Sulla, yeah, you were unlucky that Gandhi completed Pyramids so early. But I didnh't give them the chance -- I did it in 440 BC. I think I may have chopped to help it along. I put a fair bit into getting it early.

I think there's a bug on rushing cost for Epic vs. Normal. It's the same gold cost in either speed, but you can obviously get more gold in fewer years on Epic. I don't think it's right. I should have gone to Universal Suffrage earlier and just cash-rushed everything. You don't need hammers at Epic speed (except for maybe the space ship parts), just use cash to rush everything. Would be much more efficient. I think that's wrong.

I'm not sure I ever caught Washington on GNP. But I had more bonus buildings and essentially all the wonders, plus I did a better job spreading my religion (which doesn't help GNP, I believe), so I had as much or more cash to actually spend that did George, even before I assimilated Monty's lands.

In retrospect, I should have ignored the whole Military Tradition route and won with rifles. I think I could have saved close to 20 turns on my end turns. Still not enough to catch Speaker's amazing date, though.

Arathorn

[Sirian]

I think there's a bug on rushing cost for Epic vs. Normal. It's the same gold cost in either speed

Same cost per shield? Or same total cost for the project?

[Arathorn]

Same total cost for the project. 2 gold/hammer @ Epic, 3 gold/hammer @ Normal, 4 gold/hammer @ Quick (or whatever it's called). At least, that's what my quick and dirty tests showed. That seems ... wrong, somehow.

Arathorn