Epic Forty: The Hittite Cosmonauts

[Justus_II]

What an awesome report. Great mix of roleplay, Trojan History/Mythology, and some great pictures. I had fun just reading it, and the section on the Babylonian Horse made me laugh out loud here at work! :laugh:
It was also great to see Hector and his Chariot eventually get a leader, well-deserved. I love it when a game meshes with the roleplay aspect like that! I'm also amazed about how the civs turned out so differently on your map, looks like your early alliance with Babylon set things in motion for quite a different game on the other continent.

[Caesar_Augustus]

If I had abandoned it as soon as I had noticed, maybe my game would have counted. I thought of restarting, but I had been having too much fun (and plus the map knowledge I had gained may have given me an unfair advantage).

The only thing that bugs me about it is that it's a little harder for other to compare their games with mine. So I concentrated more on making it a fun and interesting game as opposed to a game solely focused on achieving the fastest possible launch date. Hence a Chariot attacking Rifles, multiple alliances, fun screenies . . .

As a MA Classics student, I could've offered a lot more on the historical side of things, but I wrote this report in early April and I was too busy to add or revise it by the time reporting day hit. I had orginally planned to include some nice vase photos and many blocks of quotations from the Illiad and the Aeneid, but had too much else on my plate to take things that far.

Glad you enjoyed it!

[Caesar_Augustus]

Originally posted by Justus_II@May 4 2004, 12:55 PM
the section on the Babylonian Horse made me laugh out loud here at work!
It was also great to see Hector and his Chariot eventually get a leader, well-deserved. I love it when a game meshes with the roleplay aspect like that! I'm also amazed about how the civs turned out so differently on your map, looks like your early alliance with Babylon set things in motion for quite a different game on the other continent.

Yeah, I like to fill my reports with pop culture references - the 'think of Trojans' joke was a lift from a Simpsons episode (with Ned as Priam and Homer as Odysseus). There's also more than one Monty Python 'homage' (ie direct ripoff) in the report. Glad to hear that you enjoyed the read!

I was literally on the edge of my seat everytime Hector fought a battle. Even against redlined Rifles, 2 attack vs 6.6 defence isn't very favourable. I had a nice funeral 'oration' all typed up and ready to go for Hector (concerning Achilles killing Hector, dragging around the body, and then finally returning the body to a begging Priam), but the bugger just wouldn't die! I'm glad he lasted the whole game, he more than deserved to travel to Roma Centauri with his family and people.

I especially enjoyed the Laomedon deception - another great example of the game moulding itself to the roleplaying.

Yeah, the early alliances definitely had a negative effect on the tech pace. I thought that once Babylon had conquered the entire continent that they would go whole hog on research and I'd finally have a good trading partner, but instead they went fascist and flung rifle after rifle against my Infantry. :axe:

[Griselda]

Now up on Dwip's site!

[Sirian]

I notice several cities with overlap near AI cores. Are these cities that you captured? Did you manage to settle there before the AI built its nearby cities? Or did you goof in some instances and settle in a couple of illegal locations? I looked through your report for more details on how those situations came about but didn't find enough to determine what happened.

I enjoyed your report. I've read most of the reports by now and enjoyed them all, but I haven't had time to write down my thoughts and comments as I've been reading. This was a good map and I wish I had had enough time to play it.


- Sirian

[Griselda]

I will echo the comments of others and say that was a very impressive game, Kylearan. I had been about to apologize for offering up an Epic that was so similar to the last one you played (I knew that would happen to a few players, but felt it was sort of inevitable for a few reasons), but it seems like you were able to create variety for yourself without any help from me.

Even though the Ottomans were a similar size and shape as Japan, I'm guessing that Japan had to expend a lot more effort acquiring all of that territory. In a non-OCC game, the Ottomans would have been crunched to the north by the expanding Hittites, and here they could just waltz right up to your doorstep. The Japanese had to get their territory the old-fashioned way. So, maybe the Ottos had more time for infra as they went along.

-Griselda

[Rik Meleet]

It seems to me you focussed too much attention on Wonders and too little on expanding your empire. I count about 7 Hittite cities. I faced the same lack-of-room in my game, so I decided to take Ottoman and Maya cities. If you would have build up some military and conquered Bursa, Istanbul, Bonampak and perhaps 1 or 2 more; you'd have a nice civ, capable of researching yourself sufficiently and not having those others demand techs of you.
That way you'd be able to trade for more techs and get a lead in the tech-race, while still maintaining a proper defense force.

You were not number 1 in territory were you ?

Still: a nice read,
Rik

[Rik Meleet]

I'm still irritated by the huge amount of typo's though.

Thanks for enjoying it.

[Rik Meleet]

It was a fun game, until later. It turned very boring during the Mayan war. Every turn pillaging with armies and moving to the next tile to do the same. Every turn checking whether the workers should stay in the city or clean pollution (tiles were long finished due to 200% worker speed in Fascism). Checking every turn to see whether the AI finally researched something, usually not. I gifted everyone into the Modern Age, but I still ended up 4 or 5 techs ahead.

Archer warfare is something I rarely do. I don't like their upgrade path. But I had to; no Iron and no horses. I squeezed in a nice number of archers from Hattusas and Tarsus when they had completed their buildings.
The research of Bursa was needed; I didn't want to attack a city I couldn't conquer since I would have lost a war of attrition.

Black list is something I forgot about as well later in the game. I remembered it just in time to build some "I Can Be Mean (ICBM)" farewell gifts.

My strategy worked; getting a good core, no cities far away on the other continent and allowing the Babylonians to get the whole other continent, so I was 2nd in territory so I could fight if needed.

Glad you liked it.

[Rik Meleet]

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).

It is a picture intensive report; if you give it time (or go on a PC with broadband) you will see all the pictures. Sorry about that.

-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.

I see in the reports that some went to your spot and some to 'mine'. I chose inland because the 14 cities had to be productive to keep up. The early science is in my point of view not so important; you can always trade. I preferred long term production.

-Nice luck on the settler pop! Too bad by moving him you moved out of Iron range, (..) -Iron Works! Very nice. Always a treat to build that Small Wonder!

It was a nice thing all turned out ok in the end. I considered building a colony on the iron, but by that time I already was going for the second Iron-source.

-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.

I had tons of cash (can't cashrush in Fascism) and I wanted to keep my cities in WLTKD for extra production. The gold didn't hurt me and the happyness helped me a lot.

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

Not really; the Maya and the Ottoman's kept up (with me helping them), but the Japanese, Byz and Babylonians were trailing. I had to use them for their free techs by gifting them to the new ages. Fortunately that worked. After gifting and trading all of the civs at about the same moment as me into the Modern Age; I still ended up 4 or 5 techs ahead of everyone. I did not have a spy with the Babylonians, but I am nearly sure no other civ ever build 1 SpaceShip part, besides me.

Good show overall, and a solid finishing date!

I was quiet surprised I have 1 of the fastest launches. This was my first Realms game, and didn't expect to do so well. I'm glad you liked my report.