Epic Forty: The Hittite Cosmonauts

[Caesar_Augustus]

-Quick comment on HTML - some of your pics were bigger than my 800X600 desktop, so I had to scroll left and right to read the text. Not a big deal, but just wanted to give you a heads up.

-Two cities from Huts? Quite the charmed life you lead Justus! Hut luck and Expanionist can make it hard to compare between different games. Though I did get the same ivory spot as you did. And the Ottomans settled Bursa in the exact same spot too. However you caught on to how that changed your dotmap - I was oblivious to the change for my dotmap :wacko:

-An AI researching Lit fairly early is pretty strange, haven't seen that happen much in conquests.

-Did you get zonked with disease in the capital? It seems quite a few of us did

-950 BC is a good date for Monarchy (I didn't form mine until 650 BC)

-Nice move to get the Ottoman Iron site. Taking an Ottoman city on a hill down there (defended by Pikes) was a major PITA in my game.

-Were you happy triggering a Medieval GA? A big part of my game plan was to wait until Hospitals so I could enjoy a bigger benefit.

-I'm impressed at how fast you were able to get into the Industrial Age. None of the AIs in my game seemed too intent on doing any research

-Are you getting as tired of the ToE-AT-Electronics-Hoover move as I am? Not blasting you for doing it - it's a no-brainer move that I do everytime as well. I'd like to see ToE give random techs instead of allowing you to select which ones you want.

-Heh, yep, pollution + jungle clearing meant lots of work for those two unionized workers. I can just picture them taking a 3 hour lunch and laughing as their frantic bosses beg them to get rid of pollution.

-Japan expanded quite nicely in your game. In my game I doomed them to a Babylonian GA-fueled Bowman rush early on, and they never recovered. I can't believe how well the AI kept up in research in your game.

-I *think* that I read somewhere that gifting cities to the AI wasn't allowed, but I'm not sure. I'll let one of the sponsors address the aluminum thing. Who am I to criticize though, since I broke one of the major rules in my game :wacko:

A 1752 AD finish date is quite nice! Looks like things fell nicely into place for you - couple of hut cities, competent AIs, no huge threats. Good show, and some nice strategic planning and execution!

[Caesar_Augustus]

. . . AKA streaming comments. (You know you've been playing way too much MOO lately when . . . )

-For some reason your report loaded really slowly on my machine. I'm only on dialup, but no one else's report was so slow. Sometimes pictures refused to load at all. Could be a distance thing as well (I'm in Atlantic Canada).

-Interesting Advisor pics you have there Rik!

-I see you moved your capital inland. Will be interesting to see how many people founded on the coast as I did. Definitely more long term shields from your position, but I think I pulled in more beakers by placing the capital on the coast.

-Nice luck on the settler pop! Too bad by moving him you moved out of Iron range, but of course hindsight is 20/20.

-You really got a move on to get those spices from the Ottomans! Maybe you're right in avoiding the Granary-before-settler opener.

-Unfortunate that you missed the three-tile continent separation on our native continent's western cape and had to resort to suicide curraghs. Though I'm not sure if that's due to me receiving an unfair advantage from my snoopy terrain . . .

-Do you usually build Colosseums in your games? I rarely build them if not going for a cultural victory - 2gpt maintenance is just not worth +2 content IMHO. Plus I like to keep them around since they're useful for cathedral/uni/bank/hospital/factory pre-builds.

-Iron Works! Very nice. Always a treat to build that Small Wonder!

-Looks like you had AI civs that kept pace in research. No such luck in my game

-Nice parting gift to the AI! Fits the theme of your game well :axe:

Good show overall, and a solid finishing date!

[Caesar_Augustus]

. . . AKA small, negligible comments

An exciting read and variant on a variant, Kylearan! Definitely a unique approache to this Epic. And only by FOUR turns too! Ouch. Yeah, pollution was a major pain in this game. Glad to hear that you had fun though! It's rare to have a good, fun endgame these days.

[Caesar_Augustus]

Strange that the only two sources of Uranium in your game were in Bab territory. In my game, the Maya had two sources, and I was able to trade for one.

It is a pretty volatile resource though, so perhaps they appeared in Maya territory over time.

[Rik Meleet]

Very nice report !!

It got me wondering; I switched to Fascism, you stayed in Monarchy. Which turned out best for this game ?
I got in the end stuck with large amounts of gold I couldn't use for rushing. I got very efficient workers, which cleaned up polution quickly for me. I just wondered what would happen if I had stayed in Monarchy.

Anyone knows what is best ?

[Justus_II]

You're right about the 800x600 thing, I generally try to check that and resize pictures before I post them, but I got in a hurry last night. I have resized them now, and they are uploaded.

Two cities from Huts? Quite the charmed life you lead Justus! Hut luck and Expanionist can make it hard to compare between different games. Though I did get the same ivory spot as you did. And the Ottomans settled Bursa in the exact same spot too. However you caught on to how that changed your dotmap - I was oblivious to the change for my dotmap

Yes, I was quite suprised, although it sounds like several others got at least one, or a settler, at the close hut. I was suprised, as I mentioned I haven't played an Expansionist in Conquests yet, and generally not outside of GOTM, where they remove most nearby huts, so I wasn't expecting that bonanza. Of course, I was also suprised that the first one fit perfectly with Hattusas' borders, since I moved one E, it would have been depressing to have to abandon a city in 3800BC! (Of course, that might have been considered a suburb, kind of a 'culture flip'.

An AI researching Lit fairly early is pretty strange, haven't seen that happen much in conquests.

Early lit was quite a suprise, I've usually seen it wait until into the Middle Ages in Conquest. It was also strange that at the other end, Espionage (which the AI usually gets fairly soon) was never researched. I guess jumping them into the Modern Age gave them too many other choices.

Did you get zonked with disease in the capital? It seems quite a few of us did

Strangely, I did not get hit with disease at the Capital until much later, Middle Ages at least. My jungle city near the horses was hit a few times early, and I think Tarsus got hit once. The really wierd thing was once I hit Medicine, Disease went into overdrive. I bet I got a message somewhere every other turn. It was almost as bad as pollution. Ironic, since Sanitation eliminates disease from Flood Plains, but I still had plenty of uncleared jungle around.

-Nice move to get the Ottoman Iron site.

Thanks! (Of course, at the time, I didn't know there was Iron there, but I'll take the credit!!

Were you happy triggering a Medieval GA? A big part of my game plan was to wait until Hospitals so I could enjoy a bigger benefit.

Yes, I had planned on it then, which is why I started getting concerned about getting the horses connected. I knew I would be doing most of my own research, and the Middle Ages is when my research tends to bog down, so a GA in time to get Libraries in every city, and a couple wonders, was just what I needed.

I'm impressed at how fast you were able to get into the Industrial Age. None of the AIs in my game seemed too intent on doing any research

The Ottomans were my only 'real' research rival, but they were moving fast. I think it was because they got early access to all the luxuries, and had some to trade too. Also, after taking Bursa, they weren't in any wars, so could devote time to research. By the Industrial Age, though, I was doing so well on my own, I was content to just milk them for cash, knowing it would drain their research ability, but make my planning more predictable. Which of course leads me to your next point, the ToE-Hoover 'auto-shot'. It's a tough combination to beat, and probably overpowered. I don't really like adding more random elements, maybe make it like Philosophy, just one free tech, I don't know. As it is, the only real challenge is timing the pre-builds. I may try to hold off on ToE one of these times, I remember a game by SirPleb where he had a pretty commanding lead, and waited to build ToE until he could get Computers and Miniturization, IIRC. In this case, though, with all of my cities big enough to benefit from a factory, it was a no-brainer.

-Heh, yep, pollution + jungle clearing meant lots of work for those two unionized workers. I can just picture them taking a 3 hour lunch and laughing as their frantic bosses beg them to get rid of pollution.

:laugh: Yep, especially when you see two more sitting there one tile away, and won't touch it cuz it's not in their radius. "Check the Contract!"

Japan expanded quite nicely in your game. In my game I doomed them to a Babylonian GA-fueled Bowman rush early on, and they never recovered. I can't believe how well the AI kept up in research in your game.

It was actually quite a peaceful game, for the most part, which helps research. I had the two wars when I dropped to 2nd place, and saw few wars on the other continent also, although Japan must have expanded at some point.

-I *think* that I read somewhere that gifting cities to the AI wasn't allowed, but I'm not sure. I'll let one of the sponsors address the aluminum thing. Who am I to criticize though, since I broke one of the major rules in my game

I couldn't find it in either the rules or the posts, and since it was so close to the closing date (Sunday night) I didn't want to post and wait for a ruling. I probably should have just razed it, it would have had the same net effect for me, as his culture was more than enough to swallow the tiles and the aluminum would have been available anyway. I had actually hoped he would take it, but horses vs. mechs = :axe:

Definitely got into a good groove with research, and tried not to deviate, I was tempted to say no when Osman demanded Fission, but again, it was Sunday, and I wanted a quick ending, so I tried to go peaceful, but he ended up making it interesting at the end after all!

[Justus_II]

I wondered about that after reading the reports of those who went for Facism. I haven't tried it yet, and it actually hadn't occured to me, as I forgot about the worker bonus. I debated Communism, but decided that by the time it was available, whatever gains in corruption I might get would not make up for the loss of 4-6 turns of research. Actually, corruption by then wasn't a problem, I had a relatively compact empire, my FP in Tarsus kept the northern cities reasonable, and I could use Policemen/Police Stations to get rid of the rest. Most of my cities had no corrupted sheilds after policemen, unless I was focusing on growth for a while and didn't need the production, or a few times I needed just a few more scientists to shave a turn off something.

What I can't quantify would be the losses due to more turns of pollution, although for the most part, it affected production more than research, as I could always use the pop as scientists while cleaning, so I don't think saving a few turns on each pollution would impact the reserach pace. Now clearing jungles that much faster might have been nice. The downside is the population hit, with my size15-25 cities, it would have been 3 each, right? That's a bigger impact on research, even though they would grow back pretty quickly. The other big advantage is unit support, but I never exceeded the Monarchy limits by then, so I don't think that would have helped. I may have to try it sometime, a Facist Space Race...

[Sir Bugsy]

Well Done! I am learning more from the veterans. Great game Justus. Thanks for explaining your decision making process in your report. As I'm reading it, I'm slapping my head, "Why didn't I think of that!"

[Sir Bugsy]

When I first started spying, I would cringe when I pushed the execute button. If I got caught I was going to be toast. Ozzy would have on me until :axe:

[Sir Bugsy]

CA - your report was a joy to read. Good research on Trojan history too. Sounds like you had a lot of fun with the game and the report.

I was wondering - if you abandoned the violating city, would your game count.