Epic One - Snuis' Report

[Snuis]

Hi all,

Here's what my report turned into: www.tlatelolco.azt/history/diary

I renamed the leader name from RBCiv-Epic1 to Egg, which i regret a bit now (seeing noone else changed it). I'll post a short normal report here later today. It's fun comparing opening strategies.

Big thanks to all who helped organizing this Epic

[Speaker]

Fun report. For some reason, this line made me laugh out loud:

"Dad was an experienced archer and all round respected man (experienced drinker too)."

I pictured a pub exchange like this:

Man: Hello good Sir, what is it you do?
Dad: (Fiddling with his quivver) I'm an archer! I shoot things with my bow and arrows!
Man: (Slowly backing away) That's nice. I...gotta go.

[Kylearan]

Hi,

fun report, indeed! Highly original, if a bit lacking on the details.

-Kylearan

[Snuis]

When i finally stumbled upon this site (5 december) i had been playing Civ 4 a LOT for a solid month and actually got a little tired of it. I was still working a bit on an adventure-scenario i had been trying to create but couldn't get myself to play another normal game. This Epic was exactly what i needed to get me interested again. Thanks for that .


I should be able to handle the prince difficulty, have won several monarchgames. Since i usually play huge 18 civ games i'm not too sure what size of my empire will be sufficient and how the diplomacy part will turn out. The honorable rules are pretty much the rules i voluntarily use when i play. One of my very first games i was good friends with my neighbour Gandhi. When he started running away with the game i simply retired, couldn't bring myself to attack a close friend, which was the only option to win that game. Since then i have become a little reluctant to get close relations with him. Yesterday i played the game until 720 BC. Seeing Gandhi is already on top with some pretty bad guys in the game it'll be interesting to see how this will work out. And i already miss Tokugawa and Hatshepsut . Ok let's get going.

Starting considerations:
I allways play random civs and i can't remember a game in which i was Louis. He usually starts well in my games but i can't remember him surviving early wars without a lot of damage. Industrious and stone screams Pyramids. So i think i'll go for that. Somehow i'm not too keen on founding religions and this game will be no exception at least for now. Start on a worker straight away? Why not, 23 turns, 20 turns to Animal Husbandry, and since i start out with the wheel the worker can allways lay out some roads if nothing better is at hand. Downside of starting this way is the lack of exploration in the early game (i only manage to visit one tribal village, which nets me 107 gold none the less) and of course the lack of growth of Paris, but the quickly improved cow will partly make up for that. Plan is to make some warriors after the worker until Paris grows to size two, then make a settler and immediately after that start building the Pyramids.

4000BC-720BC:
Warrior wandering the northwest finds the perfect spot for a settler/worker factory: Fish, pigs and some hills. Everything goes according to plan. When the first settler is ready i have a general idea of the surroundings. I have met most of the competitors (well they have met me) which reminds me of the smallness of the map. Big decision to be made: cut off the AI and found an average city near Karakorum or follow the original plan and setup the settlerproducing city northwest. I keep with the original plan, that city should be up in no time (worker is ready to work on it and i just finished researching Fishing (after Mining and Masonry)). Orleans founded 1850 BC. Still i decide to make another settler in Paris to at least try to secure the spot to cut off the AI. As it turns out that is no problem at all (Doubts: Am i being too modest again? Should I have grabbed a lot more land?). Lyons founded 1175 BC. Set to work on a barracks. As usual i am last in power score. Bronze is only found in the far northeast and out of reach for now and probably forever. On to research Iron Working. Meanwhile a barbarian city has popped up in the backyard. Oh dear, decent spot but not at all where i would have placed it if i had the choice. That fish will be lost forever. Undoubtedly that city will be size two when i finally will arrive with some axe- or swordsmen. And rats, there's a fish southeast of Lyons, which i missed.



720 BC.
That's where i'm now, when writing all of this. This very turn i completed the Pyramids, researched Iron Working and built the first settler in Orleans. I am reasonably happy with the position i'm in. Iron is short at hand, a worker is ready to start mining it this turn. Should be 10 turns before the first decent military units arrive. Worries:
-I still have no idea who's my next neighbour to the northeast. Need to find out as soon as possible before the demands and tributes start. I'll probably send my settler there although there could be AI cities already.
-No commerce to speak of. Science is already slowing. I need cottages yesterday.
-How do i win this game??? Naturally it would turn out to be Gandhi, Washington and me against Montezuma, Ghenghis and Alexander. Problem is when either the Indians or the Americans become too powerful. But i guess it's too early to tell yet. I'd love to pull off a diplomatic win, i haven't been able to do that until now. Key might be Alexander. We'll see.


720BC-720AD.
Quite an uneventful session. I manage to get enough soldiers to keep anyone from attacking me. Rheims founded 660 BC in the northeast near wheat and pig. Montezuma's apparently there. Nice pair of neighbours you've given us Sirian. There's still room for a city there (well, even further north there's a beautiful fishingspot but i'm in no position to be able to afford that now) but Ghenghis beats me to it which i don't mind too much. I'm desperately lacking funds. When i start to research Mathematics it takes 70 (!) turns to research (40% sciencerate at that moment). Since then i recovered a bit by building lots of cottages and using specialists + the representationbonus but i'm probably still Egg the pathetic when it comes to advancedness. When Monty switched to bureaucracy at first i thought game over. Until i realised he had probably been reading the strategy boards and went for the Oracle>Civil Service tactic (Oracle was built only in 200 AD or something). In 220 BC Alexander declares war on Gandhi, both buddhists (Gandhi has founded all 3 early religions i suppose, Washington and Ghenghis are judaists, Montezuma is confucianist which he founded himself). I refuse to help both which earns me some red points. Since then they made peace but at the moment it's war again and i might go war on Gandhi if Alex asks me again because Gandhi is clearly last in the pecking order.
I got my first great engineer in 490 AD and used it to research Metal Casting. I just (720 AD) researched the Alphabet but it's still quite unclear how much i lag behind because i haven't got one religious tech yet. Nobody has Alphabet, noone has Metal Casting. So i think i'll trade Metal Casting to the safe AI's (only Washington and Ghengis i think, Alexander is annoyed which i don't like) to catch up a bit. Hanging Gardens have been built in Paris and the Colossus (not very useful here but you have to do something with your shields) in Rheims. I have 7 cities, living space is more or less defined. And i'm not too happy about the situation. The scoresheet lies (i'm in the lead by 200 points). Sooner or later Ghenghis and Monty will war me and i better be prepared.





Finished.
Diplomatic victory 1907. Turned out to be quite an easy game. Though i can see things could easily go wrong (if Ghenghis and Montezuma share the same religion for example). The Indians were destroyed around 1000 AD. I only joined Washington in his fight with the Aztecs because i was bored, but it turned out to be quite beneficial, providing me with silver, the Kong Miao and especially coal. In the end i made a big mistake by gambling an attack on Teotihuacan which left one 0.0 health longbowman in it, with a Mongolian knight within striking distance. The next turn the Aztecs were destroyed. Now it took me 5 or 6 elections before i won the game. I actually didn't think i could do a diplomatic victory anymore (Spaceship was well on it's way).



I really enjoyed the expansion phase in this game (after reading some other reports it seems i haven't been nearly aggressive enough though). Around 1000 AD, when it became clear the game was in the bag, my attention rapidly waned and it was a bit of a chore to play out.

[Sullla]

Ok Snuis, that was the most bizarre Epic report I've ever read. And I mean that in a good way! What made you decide to tell things from the point of view of the Aztecs? Some very nice lines of commentary in there too, by the way.

As for the more descriptive report posted afterwards, you are the first person I've seen who sent the initial settler west. Obviously that was due to the lack of exploration caused by building a worker right off the bat, interesting stuff on the comparisons. I think the worker first strategy, paired with research into Animal Husbandry, wasn't a bad way to go at the start of the game, but it did cut down on the terrain info nearby.

Very early Pyramids, looks like a strong start there. Without seeing more of the map, I can't comment on the city placements though. Sirian says he didn't customize the map in the game info, but I have my doubts too.

If you read my report, clearly I disagree with you about the usefulness of the Colossus.

OK, then there's no more notes after that until the game ends. Who voted for you? Who was your opponent? Any more info you'd like to share about the latter stages of the game would be nice to hear.

[Snuis]

Thanks for the kind response Sullla! (And Speaker and Kylearan, should have done so in my previous post )

What made me decide to tell things from Aztec point of view? Well, i guess the main reason is that i thought it was quite a dull game. The only AI that did declare war on me was Alexander (moments after i joined the Americans in their fight with the Aztec) and all i ever saw of him was a galley or two. And i only captured three cities throughout the game.

I wasn't going to post the additional reports, which i wrote while playing the early game. But i really enjoyed reading other peoples reports (especially the early ages) and i had some text ready so i decided to post them anyway. If i participate in the Epic-2 i will deliver a more complete report

I should have been a bit more explicit about the diplomatig votes, i agree, so here goes: I built the United Nations in 1851. At that point Ghenghis and Washington were pleased with me, Alexander annoyed. Ghenghis Khan turned out to be the opponent for victory, with Alexander voting for him and Washington voting for me. Wasn't enough for me to win. As time went by i got more votes but the requirements also went up. I put all my cities in growth mode (should have intercepted some autorailing workers sooner to work on Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco) and when i finally won it was by a single vote.

Additional note. After i finished the game i thought the only really honorable victors would be the ones who helped Gandhi to survive. Comparing all games now though it seems my game was quite exceptional in that the Indians were destroyed this early.

Too much rambling already

[Arathorn]

You weren't the only one who saw Gandhi eliminated early, though. He was gone by 1100 AD in my game, too. But he was a dominant force in other games (winning at least one by space, if memory serves). The games are still *VERY* different.

Arathorn