Adventure 5 - sooooo's report

[sooooo]

Hello RBCivvers. This is my first tournament report here. I became interested in the RB community after downloading and playing Adventure Four, which I enjoyed immensely and it remains my fastest Monarch Spaceship despite not knowing the Alphabet! In fact it made me question the need for Alphabet, Drama and Literature in my regular games. I didn't report because of a lack of time, but was determined to do so for the next tournament. I then went back and played the previous adventures and Epic One (Jeez Adventure 2 was hard!). Intro over, let's begin.

Adventure Five - Waiting for Godot

Who is Godot? I'm not up to scratch with my American playwrights. *Checks Wikipedia*. Oh, right.

We are Frederick of Ze Germans, who is philosophical and creative. Creative is great because I don't have to waste hammers on Stonehenge or Obelisks, and can ignore most of the religious techs in the early game. I'm not so good at exploiting the philosophical trait, as I am less confident in handling my specialists/great-people. I prefer to bash people with swordsmen and grenadiers. I settle in place. The start has many forests, so I start with a worker and Bronze Working. With the changes in the new patch, this style of start will become much rarer. The hut near to Berlin yielded The Wheel.

Early scouting allowed me to see we are on a long thin continent with Saladin. Just Saladin. Alphabet would not be so important here I think. Furthermore, Berlin is in the middle of the continent, so a city above and below it, and refusing open borders with Saladin, would secure most of the continent to myself. Saladin founded Hinduism.

My worker and Bronze Working finished, and I couldn't see any Copper. OK, better get archery for Barb protection. I build two warriors, chop 2 workers, build another warrior and then chop a settler. I research Animal Husbandry (no Horses!), Agriculture and Archery. My second city Hamburg is founded on the coast NNW of Berlin in 2200 BC in a very nice spot with 2 food (Sauerkraut and Bratwurst - yum!) and 4 hills - a production city if ever I saw one. Munich my third city is founded SSW of Berlin, also on the coast, and collects Sheep and Stone.

So let's recap:
1. We are on a continent short of hapiness resources, with few trading partners.
2. We have stone.
3. We have one very productive city.
4. We don't need to build Stonehenge.

It doesn't take Ein Genius to research Masonry and start the Pyramids in Hamburg. Pottery and Writing then come in (no Saladin, you can't have open borders), and I chop a library in Berlin and build a few cottages. Munich builds a barracks and starts pumping out archers for Barb and Arab-defense. Then I really need some metals to go and bash Saladin with, so set research to Iron Working.

Oh ... right. It's a no-strategic-resources variant!

Interesting. It looks like Saladin and Izzy (who I'd just met, and had founded Buddism) had no Copper, Iron or Horses either, so I wasn't too pannicked. The only thing I was worried about was a barbarian city appearing and not being able to capture it until catapults. Unfortunately, my barb-watch was not as good as it should have been and I spotted Zapotec at the Eastern edge of the continent. It was defended by two warriors, which would be pretty hard to remove with my one warrior fortified in a forest nearby. That's if they both stayed there. Instead, one of the two barb warriors decided it would be prudent to attack my fortified forested warrior, and dies. I promote my warrior to CR1 and take the city. From then on I had no more barb problems. After getting Alphabet, Saladin and Isabella don't have much to trade that I need, but I pick up a few religious techs for writing.

The Pyramids are completed in Hamburg, and I decide that if I can't go to war then I'd better build lots of wonders. Hamburg starts the Oracle, and with 2 turns to go and with 2 turns left to research Code Of Laws, someone builds it (it would turn out to be Mao Zedong) and takes CoL. In one turn I lose my wonder, my CS slingshot and my religion.

My Germans weren't to be dismayed though, and in between some more settlers, Hamburg builds The Great Lighthouse (from a GE in 150BC) and the Colossus (350AD); Berlin gets the Great Library (1000AD) and the Hanging Gardens (700AD) and Munich gets Chicken Itza (275 AD).

Empire in 1010AD:



With a high Wonder-fueled GDP, and the knowledge of Vorsprung Durch Technik, my aim now is to get Grenadiers before Saladin, and then go bash him about a bit. This is actually my favourite tactic at Prince level - to get the Liberalism - Steel slingshot and build cannons and grenadiers before anyone else, which are excellent against Longbows. Grenadiers are actually my favourite unit in the game, because they're good even when the AI upgrades his Longbows to Muskets or Riflemen. I nearly always start a war when I get them. Obviously there is no need for Steel here (cannons require Iron), so I take Chemistry with my free tech from Liberalism. I convert to Free Religion.

I switch to Police State and Vassalage, grenadiers and cats are built and Saladin is conquered between 1505AD and 1700AD. Longbows and Camel Archers just aren't good enough Saladin. I now control the whole continent and the small Island to the north, which has food resources to support three cities. I then "pop" a supply of Iron on my continent - a bit too late now!

My continent in 1705AD:



In the meantime I had built Caravels and met the other 3 civs - Mao Zedong (China), Huyana Capac (Inca) and Louis XIV (France) in the 9th century. They had all adopted Confucianism from Mao, and were having a big lovefest threesome over on their island. I think this is good, as despite the fact they will trade more with each other, no one civ would conquer more than their fair share of the continent and become a rival superpower to Ze Germans. All 3 civs are behind me in tech, but Mao and HC are my closest rivals. Isabella is very backward, only knows me, and doesn't particularly like me. Ahhh, Isabella, if only circumstances were different.

It was at this point that with my large population, Isabella being second in Pop and Confucianism speading to my lands, that I could easily convert to the threesome's religion and win a UN vote. That's until I looked at the Victory page. In the words of a bald yellow man: "Doh!". Spaceship it is then. As I suspected, I had no Coal, Oil or Aluminium. The only Aluminium on the map was being ground into tiny pieces and made into flour by Louis for most of the game, who was working the two sites with windmills. No need for a grindstone Louis - just use a furnace!



There was still time for a few more wonders though, and I got The Statue of Liberty, The Eiffel Tower, Broadway, Rock & Roll and The Pentagon, but missed out on the Taj Mahal and The Kremlin to HC.

Unfortunately for the reader, this was not a nail-biting come-from-behind spaceship victory. I simply had too many high-pop cities compared to Mao and HC. The Apollo Program was built in 1896AD and I beelined to Robotics, built (OK, bought) the Space Elevator (1900AD) and built the last 3 parts on the same turn in 1937AD. Ze Germans had won a spaceship victory! Mao and HC only had casings built.



In conclusion, I enjoyed this no-resources variant. I don't often play a builder game, so it was good for me to fine-tune the tech-order to get a quick spaceship. Early wonder-building was much easier knowing that you weren't going to be attacked by anything other than archers. It was the wonders that gave me a high GDP to get chemistry first, and then conquer my neighbour. This then gave me more high-Pop, high-production cities for a quick no-Al spaceship. I was fortunate about the religion-induced orgy on the other big continent. If the Incans, the only financial civ on the map, had decided to take over backwards-France then it would have been much more close. Thanks for reading, I'll be sure to tell of my tales in such adventures as: Epic 2: Eastern Gem Dealers. I'm going now to read a bit more about this Godot guy.

GNP:


Goods:


Power:

[Qwack]

Nice game, It seems as if taking control of that island ring towards the north helped out with the research rate. Both you and rho were able to grab that island and built the SpaceShip in the 1930's.

Man, everyone so far has gone to war in this game though. I thought that war was actually going to hurt more than help in this map. But all the other reports also seem to have Saladin founding a religion, so with the religious differences may have led to conflict. In my game, I was easily able to spread daoism to saladin and we were buddies for the entire game.

It will be interesting to see if there was any other games without a war.

Hamburg starts the Oracle, and with 2 turns to go and with 2 turns left to research Code Of Laws, someone builds it (it would turn out to be Mao Zedong) and takes CoL. In one turn I lose my wonder, my CS slingshot and my religion.

Same thing happened to me

[VoiceOfUnreason]

The only Aluminium on the map was being ground into tiny pieces and made into flour by Louis

Great line.

[Bede]

Nicely done.