Here's my report for Adventure Two, an interesting game made more challenging by my , both from lack of initial focus and still unlearning some Civ III habits.

The Report

I. Overlong Introduction

I feel obliged to introduce myself, as it feels strange to be reporting my first Realms Beyond venture. I was a casual Civ2 player in high school, and an even more casual Civ3 player in college. Casual is code word for “bad.” And “bad” is code word for “I had less skill than Paris Hilton has tact.” I’m so bad at this line of games that I tried playing Colonialization once at a friend’s recommendation, and somehow, the next thing I knew it was 3 days later and I was waking up in the garden section of Home Depot with goat’s blood on my mouth.

Ever since Civ4 has come out, however, I have felt a strong urge to reverse this trend. This is due to the confluence of several factors:
1. Being in philosophy graduate school isn’t exactly arduous, since we philosophers as a group tend not to believe in “work”.
B. Living on enormous loans means I don’t need a job, and
3. Civ4 is so balanced and engrossing that I actually enjoy it enough to want to become really good.

Thus, I came to stumble across Sul/rian’s RB1 (a game so unique I’m sure it drew hundreds of folks just like me….well, actually it wasn’t the game, just the MILLIONS of smilies that hypnotized anyone foolish enough to scour the whole thing). Which led me to reading the Epic1 reports, which made me start Adv2 (first, since its conclusion date was sooner). I was just 1-1 in Monarch games beforehand, so I didn’t think I would stand a chance at this one with its insane start.

Before I start with my game, a quick note on my reporting: this being my first go-around, it will both suck *and* be overly long, a win-win for everyone. My notes during the game alternated between stopping every turn to write down EVERY little thing and just making awful jokes (near the top I wrote the following: “My biggest disappointment with the frozen jungle is that all of the natives have to cover up, so no National Geographic like random nudity. - work this in somewhere!”). I’d meant to be as detailed as possible so that better players could correct some of my bonehead moves - eventually, however, I became too involved in the game to take notes, so this report will be more general than I’d like.

II. Opening Moves

Starting off: I hadn’t read the pre-game info very well, and assumed that I was starting on an island! I assumed that given the heavy naval influence that I had seen in Sirian’s play-style, the key to this game was to buck my tendency to stay away from naval exploration/expansion. So I begin by beelining for sailing, and start building a worker to build camps on those deer.

My early tech path goes as follows: Fishing – Sailing – Masonry (to nab that marble, that I never really took advantage of) – Archery – Writing – Wheel - Alphabet

My early production order in the capital is: worker – warrior – warrior – settler – archer – barracks – settler ( I meant to just work on the barracks while waiting to grow to size3 before starting on the settler, but I forgot to pay enough attention to switch)

Early exploration: When on large pangea maps I never seem to have more than one spare warrior to explore with, but on this crazy convoluted map my scout pops a 2nd scout right off the bat! One of those scouts goes on to pop Animal Husbandry, the other a map of the area to the west.


My second city (I’m not going to bother with the Aztec names) went here:


I could have put it one tile east to fit more aesthetically with the capital, but I would much rather have the plains hill and extra sea square than the ice and one fur square. I start the new city on a galley.

Meanwhile, my scouts manage to encounter the Romans, Chinese, Arabs and English before they are consumed by bears and barb warriors alike. At 875 BC I finish alphabet, and proceed to make a series of trades to net me mining, agriculture, polytheism, mathematics, and pottery. This puts me in almost-tech parity. My plan at this point, now that I’ve taken stock of some of the area, is to expand into as many good city locations as I can get, and then to start doing some military fun. This is my plan simply because of a bad assumption I made – the way to level the playing field in these kinds of situations is to go the route that you can leverage the human strategic capacity the most in, aka military. This, I thought, would help nullify the effects of the crazy starting location. Unfortunately, my assumption doesn’t hold up to the reality of the situation.

III. Early Expansion and War

My scout and galley exploration has turned out some decent sites for new cities – one or possibly two to the west, and some across the water. I choose west first for the simple reason that my capital is awful at production and my second city only nominally better, so I thought a production city more important than high food ones. Thus, I plop down a settler here:



600BC – Tensions start building here, when Mao asks me to stop trading with the English, and Saladin wants me to stop trading with Mao. I refuse both.
550 BC – Julius gives me Iron Working for Alphabet (which I consider gracious of him, given his Pretaeorians and my lack of bronze or iron at the time). My third city becomes even more powerful, since iron pops up right next to it! What is it that Sirian says? It is better to be lucky than good? Having never been good I lack a basis for comparison, but it is pretty nice to be lucky!

Fourth city pops up on that same spot that everyone put a city – on those two tiles separated from the main landmass.


I love this spot SO MUCH, since a single jaguar got to defend it the whole game. In fact, it is somewhere shortly after this point that I realize that no other civ has planted a city on this big lake, and that the seas would forever phear my two galleys that I built early on. Did this happen in every other game, or did someone see an AI actually try to create a city with naval power? Maybe that doesn’t happen in enclosed water spaces like that.

Around 100BC – I finally expand to that fertile area near China. I start with just one jag to defend it there, with the plan to ship in help right away. (An embarrassing fact – it is right about this point that I realize that galleys have a cargo space of 2. I had always thought it was 1. This goes to show how much of an aversion I have to early navy!). My second city starts on the Great Lighthouse at some point in time around here. I figured I should get at least *one* wonder in this damn game.

1AD – Mao, while hungover from celebrating the new millennium, makes an offensive joke about my cannibalistic habits. The resulting tiff breaks out into all out war. Part of why I love the AI is how brilliant it has gotten – instead of just rushing to attack the city I foolishly stuck undefended right in his territory, he takes the time to develop a second front against my third city (the iron city, and also the gateway blocking my homeland peninsula) to strike at the same time.


Uhhh…..let’s whip an archer there. Another thing that I’ve learned about the game from reading reports is just how powerful slavery can be. I’m still working on how to use it best, but beforehand I wholly ignored it.

A turn later, Alex senses my weakness and piles on: he sends units over to city #5 (the one near Mao).


I quickly get a few more units in boats to try and save my colony. The jag takes care of Alex’s little test, but Mao finishes me off. Fortunately the western front progresses a lot better, and Mao’s initial stack is wiped out in a perfect 5 for 5.


A few turns later I complete the Great Lighthouse, and try for some more military.

The price for peace with Mao and Alex is higher than I am willing to pay, so I pull back, get forges/markets/etc. built in my other 4 cities, and use archers/axemen/jags to defend against periodic Mao units. The big thrust to the war came around 600AD. Mao assembled 4 axemen, 3 spearmen, and an archer right outside city #3 and then asked for peace, with me giving him metalcasting as the condition. I refuse, and my 2 archers, jag, and axeman win every battle. The next turn the “price for peace” that Mao offers me is to give me 140 gold and 3 gold / turn. Upgrade!!!!

IV – Slow Re-Expansion

After the Chinese threat was over, and Alex’s war more and more obviously phony as the turns went on, I focused on improving my economic infrastructure. I also knew that I was screwed if I didn’t get a few more decent cities. The Chinese never re-settled that fertile spot (they seemed more concerned with their border with Rome), so I stuck a few spots there, this time pre-loading the area with 5 or 6 military units before bringing the settler. Note that Alex had signed peace with me just before this (giving ME money in exchange!)


Note that I have FINALLY adopted a religion – Mao spread Hinduism to me after our war. Fortunately he was a busy beaver and exported the same thing to Julius and the Malinese. Julius had been fairly friendly with me beforehand for reasons I was never clear on (I thought he was going to be my biggest aggressor, but I think he took too much pity on my starting location to care), but this sealed the deal, and turned the only two civs with direct land access to me into religious allies. A genius move – if only I had pursued a religion earlier and done it myself. Beginner’s luck that it worked out that way for me, as that diplomatic advantage single-handedly allowed me to win when I should not have by any other means. Thus far in the game I had been staying alive tech wise by researching something advanced and then trading it to the AI to catch up on everything else. It was a constant struggle to not far too behind, but Victoria and Mansa Musa slowly developed a huge tech lead on me. What victory condition was I hurtling towards?

I was still stuck with that assumption that I should take someone on militarily. My thoughts were that, once I got a decent amount of macemen, I could swipe some great spots from Rome or China. I figured Rome at first, since the Chinese had Cho-Ku-Nos and macemen should put me on even terms with Rome’s Prats. But as I scouted their area and military presence, I decided that there was no spot that would be worth the huge undertaking that a war with Rome would be. Plus they were being super friendly, and I didn’t want to tarnish that. So then I thought I could wait another hundred years or so and then take on China – but as we had established good relations by then, and I still had a craptastic military….I scrapped all such plans. What that means in the long run is that I spent a great deal of time shuffling military units first west, then down south, only to never use them. I had to find another way to win, and space was the clear answer.

Now I probably should have expanded to the west more – there are some areas along the river there that would have been decent.


However, I felt like taking established barbarian cities in the east instead of bothering to build settlers. It was lazy not capitalizing on every expansion opportunity, but giving Rome that area probably made my life much easier. I went on to build a few cities out east in addition to taking a very nicely situated barb city. (uh, I lost the pic of Visigoth).

(Note: at this point in time I got so into the game on my second play session that I forgot to do any kind of chroniciling or reporting whatsoever. So, no more pictures until basically the end. )

The Chinese and Romans had been taken care of, but I knew that the biggest threat were the English. She had been asking for tribute (I accepted once and denied another time when it would have meant all of my gold), and was friendly with the Mali, so I figured the writing was on the wall. Plus, I had a couple of workers with an accompanying axeman guard that was de-foresting much of the space east of my 3rd city to speed up various builds, and they noticed some English units heading my way. So I did the only thing I could do, and traded a couple techs to Julius to convince him to stop trading with Victoria. This worked, and what it did was send a lot of Vicky’s units back to her borders, but, even better, a couple of hers that were close already were sent to my land! Since Rome had expanded to the point of closing off the few passage points in that crazy terrain, it took Victoria FOREVER to get those units off of my land….and while they were on my land, she couldn’t declare war on me. It was so dirty, and just the beginning of my masterplan to exploit diplomacy as much as possible to squeak by. Victoria took out her frustration by eventually declaring on Mansa Musa.

V. Space

Around when I started entering the Industrial/Modern eras, here was how my civ broke down. I had a few good production cities (Iron city, the barb one I stole, and the two in Chinese territory were decent). The rest were mostly or wholly meant for cash and science. I very singlemindedly pursued the techs I’d need for space, and was able to let my military lapse to a ridiculous extent due to my geographic isolation and religious ties. I had managed to climb my way up economically (my GNP was #1 for awhile, inexplicably), but Victoria was still a tad ahead of me science wise. Only time would tell if my production focus and human smarts would outdo the AI’s various discounts at spaceship building.

Of course, I wasn’t about to leave everything up to fate. My goal for most of the 1900s was to keep the rest of the world in perpetual war to slow down their spaceship launches. I got Rome to go to war with Victoria (who got her units off my territory and declared war awhile back, but was unable to ever reach me), China to war against Mali and Greece.


Saladin wasn’t as much of a threat, so I ignored him…although he eventually declared against me, and trashed up my eastern cities pretty bad towards the end. Only Visigoth was of any real importance to me, however, as a spaceship producer.

I did beat everyone to the Apollo Project, but others weren’t far behind. First England, then Mao, then Rome…all were scarily fast at building those casings and thrusters. My big gamble was that they hadn’t planned ahead well enough to set their most powerful cities on the big units the instant they became available, and had instead passed production off to a weaker city. I was just barely correct, as I was able to steal a space victory out from everyone else.

Everyone had built the 8 cheap spaceship parts, but Victoria was the closest to me in the end.
Pictures!:

Western Half


Eastern Half






VI. Conclusion

My critique of my own game is that I did indeed make some large mistakes. Not pushing for at least one religion hurt my economy. I was able to hold on with heavy sea exploitation and the combo of the Colossus and the Great Lighthouse, but just barely. I was real aggressive about expansion in the early turns, but didn’t push enough to get better spots earlier – and when I did grab that city near China, I was so afraid that Mao would snatch it up first that I didn’t properly prepare for its defense. My biggest problem was thinking that since this game would be so hard, I couldn’t allow myself any “luxuries” (early wonders, religions, etc.). I didn’t even consider how, say, the Oracle, might just be a good idea to pursue (especially when marble was sitting in my lap!)

However, my playing skills in general leaped up quite a bit during the course of this game. I did better than I usually do in planning for each city’s future purpose in relationship to my general strategy (it helps when there are only a few viable squares per city!). I used slavery and production micromanagement much more adeptly. And some diplomatic deftness saved my ass big time. To give you a window into how much I’ve improved in just the past few weeks, I shadowed the Epic 1 game around Christmas, and gave up halfway through! Basically, adversity breeds inventiveness, and that’s why this Realms Beyond community is such an unbelievably rich resource. If you actually read all of this, thanks, and I am excited for future events to come.

Edit: I knew I forgot something - the score! For some reason I can't seem to get a screenshot of my HOF, so - ingame - 2677 total score - 6220. Finish date - 1997 (anyone got a later launch date than that???)

Here is the link to it - the formatting's nothing special, and there's no web site surrounding it - just the report!

Please feel free to leave any comments/critiques - I'm new to this, so any help is much appreciated!

Enjoy!

Aztekimo Adventures!

Note: I am hosting this on my own web server; if anyone needs space, let me know and I'll set you up - for the next report, I'll probably set up a different sub-domain for these things!

The Deep Frozen Aztecs (a loss, but not a death ;-))

Adventure 2 reports before Adventure 1 ? Confusing. *nods*.

Pre-game thoughts, as this is where all the differences in games will probably originate. Tent City has already been founded, on a lake but not on the ocean – I didn’t realise this until way too late. :-( So using water tiles is probably a good strategy whilst the place will be swarming with barbarians.

As this WILL be a horrible game – at a difficulty never played before – and with one of Aztec’s starting technologies being Hunting then Archers are the way to go and only later will Spearmen be used.

The problem is Mysticism – is there ANY chance of snagging an early religion ??

OK – let’s start what’ll probably be a short game. But it’ll be a War game played by a builder. *grins* [Edit: I should have stuck to that plan! I am way too passive. *sighs*]

4000BC – Change first build to Barracks (due 10) Research to archery (due 8 ). The Defense Gambit ™. With that mountain guarding one approach, we only need to defend Westward, but it also limits our exploration. So less need to build Scouts – more for early defense.

3290BC – Pop 1st hut – get a scout !! – Barracks definitely the correct choice! ;-)



We’re at the TOP of the World – with a single access only – very defensible & explains the blackness above us. *laughs*. Revise plan for Science – need sailing now. *nods*

3760BC – Pop 2nd hut – get another scout !! Gold would have been nicer. Least I get to explore early. :-)



3680BC – Learn archery – notice no Religion has gone – wonder who my rivals are this late into the game. Forgot – Dumb. Greek, English, Malinese, Arabian, Roman, all size 2 except Rome – must be a horror site. Good. :-) Oh – I’m size 1 also & not even on the board. :-( Try for Hinduism anyway.

3600BC – Pop 2 more huts. :-) Mining and a Map. Nice. (The Mining makes up for trying to learn Polytheism).

3480BC – Meet Roman Caesar – 1 set of scouts dodge a bear, another land by some wolves, but win.

3200BC – Found Hinduism! *dances* Build Archer – start on another. Research Bronze. Defensive Gambit – remember? ;-)

2960BC – 2nd Archer … Worker – I need a worker … all else can wait. Rome has some beautiful Southern lands too. *envy*

2800BC – Meet the Malinese – and I’m now in way behind 3rd place. Was to be expected. Will I be able to dig my way out of last place ??

2720BC – Rome has a 2nd CITY ?????? Crap.

2600BC – Bronze Working – revolt to Slavery – 0 turns Anarchy – Ohhh yeah – Nice. Go for Meditation. *laughs* No Bronze nearby at all. Horrible. Archers it will have to be.

2200BC – Meditation – Oh – It must have already been discovered. :-( Roads next. Help move the Settler out when it finally gets built. Ha ha ha.

1840BC – Only one Scout left of my 3 originals. Barbarian cities have appeared. Get Wheels. Iron Working is needed. Swords & Jags please. :-) Meet the English Victoria who’s almost double my score and way in front of everyone else. Already!

1760BC – Barbarian city – Hmmmmm ….. maybe I should use their cities instead of building Settlers ??? They always do seem to place them nicely. ;-) New Plan. Swords – Oh … I’ll need Iron first. Oooops. LOL. *waits* Only 23 more turns! Yuk. So slow.

1720BC – WHAT ??? Rome has 3 cities ????? *Sighs*

1760BC – Barbarian city needs to be neutralized – archer will distract on forest hill (as arrowed). ;-)



1560BC – Meet China. Now way way behind in 5th place.

1480BC – Stonehenge – whilst I was waiting for Iron Working. Well – I’ve a religion and Great Prophets could be fun. Archer next. Barbarians in distant parts are guarding huts. Can’t do anything with a Scout. :-P



1200BC – All my Scouts are now dead. A Sad day indeed as I won’t be exploring the world anymore. Until I conquer it. *hee hee* [Edit: yeah – ha ha indeed]

1080BC – Open borders deal with England, then others. Build Monastery, start on Settler, who’ll arrive two turns after Ironworking, so deciding where I build.

875BC. Iron Working arrives. Ohhh CRAP!!!!. The barbarian city has it. *Swears violently* Before I panic and think about resigning … I wonder what the Jaguar can do … can I use the Copper way away south and build down there? What’s that?? Jaguars don’t need Iron to Build ?? Really??? Cool. Ahhh … that’s OK then. Time for WAR.

825BC – City 2 – built to take advantage of the lake – but I haven’t been doing that have I ?? Hmmmm – too many choices. :-(

700BC – learn Masonry, Fishing next. After that Sailing. And Animal Husbandry as I build up Jaguars to attack that Barbarian city.

225BC – These Jaguars are draining the treasury. Balance in all things I see. Hmmmmm. Down to 60% research now as I popped no gold earlier. :-\

75BC – Great Prophet, build Hindu Shrine. Research now breaking even at 70% - Well – I do only have 2 cities. Maybe I should spread a religion ?? :-)

50AD – Notice the barbarian city with 4 Archers is now WALLED & at 50% Defense. I’ve surrounded it with 5 Jaguars and 3 Archers. Order the Attack!!! I capture it. but lose 4 Jags in the process. *Phew* Oh, but research can go back up with less troops to support. *laughs*



150AD – Build 3rd City (so it’s my 4th) for the Silver Resource.

450AD – First Hindu Missionary arrives in Rome. We both convert to Hinduism. China was already there. Friends I now have. Big powerful friends. :-)

500AD – Finally Meet Greek Alexander. He is so far ahead of everyone it’s not funny. Hmmmm … Game plan now to survive to watch someone Launch the Spaceship ?? *laughs*

660AD – Half a Million Souls

860AD – City 5 built – ensuring no border conflict with Rome. :-)

1120AD – Realise I’m now so far behind in Technology, even with tech trading, that it’s only a matter of time before advanced troops wipe me out. No idea what else to do. Hmmmmm. It will be interesting to see what everyone else did. *nods*



1140AD – 1 million Souls & then found a fishing village just south of the Capital.

1400AD – Captured an Eastern barbarian city with Jaguars – no losses. :-)

Unfortunately there was a glitch with the ‘print screen’ function and no more piks are available, but it’s all downhill from here anyway. :-(

1450AD – Build another Eastern town, pop a hut guarded by Archer & get Compass. Saladin’s obviously used a Great Artist on a captured barbarian town in the East taking most of the available remaining land. *sighs*

1510AD – 2 million souls – still way last in the rankings.

1806AD – Complete the Colossus. *smiles*

1814AD – learnt Gunpowder … clicked on the tech for the UN – it’s 10 techs away – I think the UN is my only way to win … I’ve two friends China & Rome – who are No. 2 & 3 in the world – my opponent England will be No. 1. It is do-able. *hopefully* Even if I am currently 7 techs behind the other civs. *LOL*

I need – in order:
Calendar (1)
Optics (3 )
Astronomy (11)
Paper (3 )
Printing Press (9)
Scientific Method (14)
Physics (24)
Electricity (29)
Radio (39)
Mass Media (23 )

Time to seriously trade, starting with the lowest in score (why give advantage to those already ahead?):

Saladin: Can’t trade
Alex: Paper/Calendar/Optics/220g = Military Tradition
Mansa Musa: Won’t trade tech even though they look available
My Friend Julius Caesar: Coal + 8g/turn = Silver – Won’t trade tech
My Friend Mao: 3g/turn = Marble – Won’t trade tech
Victoria: 14g/turn = Deer – Can’t trade tech

Now I can research at 100% & a 12g/turn surplus. Nice trading. Hinduism is the widest spread of the religions at 35%.

Now the tech need is:
Astronomy (11)
Printing Press (9)
Scientific Method (14)
Physics (24)
Electricity (29)
Radio (39)
Mass Media (21)

Back to the game.

1834AD – After Learning Astronomy Alex swaps Printing Press + 500g for it. I slide into 2nd last place for the first time ever – above Saladin. *grin* But more work to be done as we’re both way way behind. *nods* Visit the others but none need Astron – Hmmm … Alex has either already traded it around or they knew it ??

1856AD – Scientific Method – trading time again. Nothing doing – AND they all seem to have Physics. Yuk. Plod on I shall.

1864AD – Find out why Saladin is doing so badly, Alex is wiping him out with VERY advanced troops. And Mao completes Broadway. :-( Well – I might vote Mao in and claim a Hindu block win. Ha ha ha … Yuk.

1878AD – As I slip back to last place again Caesar offers Physics (with 6 turns to learn) as I’m so backwards. I accept. But Mao ends his gold for my Furs and I go into negative gold per turn at 100% – not critical yet, but it will need to be watched. The lack of cottages in this game has definitely hurt me.

1908AD – Mao builds Eiffel Tower … he’s obviously one step closer to the UN.

1912AD – Electricity. 25 turns to Radio. So I’m 25 turns plus the time it took Mao to build Eiffel behind. *laughs* but thankfully I’ve had a peaceful game … good neighbours make good walls. ;-)

1918AD – Victoria (score leader) completes Apollo Program.

1920AD – Munsa builds a SS Casing. *Oh* Whilst Saladin gets swarmed over by Tanks and Gunships. Thank goodness it’s not me. I’d last only a few turns!!! *gulp*

1937AD – Radio, Mass Media in 13 turns … knowing Hollywood was completed last turn. So the UN is due any moment now, but only England has it. Will they build the UN ??? That’s the deciding question. Saladin is destroyed and his land shared between Alex and Mao. I will no longer come last in this game. *cheers* Then a Great merchant appears from the Colossus. Send him off on a trip.

1947AD – With mass media due in 2 the UN election for Sec General appears. Victoria or Caesar – Hmmmm not Mao who’s points leader. Caesar, my Hindu brother it is. Ahhh – then the UN announcement appears – built by Victoria. *laughs* All the while SS Thrusters are being built by everyone. & Caesar ROMPS it in for UN leader. *lol*

1952AD – 1st UN resolution – Free Religion – vote No. I like being able to spy on the AI. ;-) It just succeeds – 3 civs vote yes, 3 no. I wonder if that was done to get a better UN vote for a win???? (by taking away negative religion influences ??) *ponders* [Edit: I don’t think it was by what happens next – shame]

1956AD – 2nd UN resolution – unanimous vote for Emancipation, probably as I was the only one who didn’t have it – Errr… were my people sad?? I didn’t notice. *shakes head* Looks like it’ll be a Space Ship loss ?? :-P

1960AD – Nukes banned.

1964AD – Caesar voted in again.

1968AD – Open markets passed.

1972AD – Universal Suffrage fails. I voted No.

1976AD – Universal Suffrage fails. I voted Yes. Please put me out of my misery.

1979AD – Space Race Loss to Mao. Finally! *grins* 5hrs 16mins, Score 2680, Game Score 1916.



Yes – not aggressive at all, but when was the right time ?? Should I have headed straight for Iron Working and swarmed my opponents ???? Not enough cottages, but where could they have been built ??? However, great use of religion for both income and to make some good friends. Not great use of the lakes and other water tiles. I didn’t trade well enough, nor try to get other civs to fight amongst themselves. At this difficulty it looks like you need to stir every single ingredient into the pot to get success.

Hope you all had better cooking than I.

Hi,

you can find my report for Adventure 2 here.

-Kylearan

Embarking on this adventure, allow me to say I’ve never played Monarch difficulty. And I usually restart when I get an opening position like this. Cheesy, I know. Cowardly, perhaps. But there you have it. Honesty is the best policy.
Also, forgive the gaps in my reporting, as I haven’t written many reports yet, and still haven’t perfected the habit of recording my actions.
And for some reason, a lot of screenshots didn’t come out. For example, none of my diplomacy screen screenshots appeared, and I was relying on them to reconstruct key events. If anyone can point me in the right direction for future reports…
Anyway, moving on.

“A-hunting-we-will-go”
There is only ONE logical thing to build with a starting position like this and the hunting tech; a worker. With only one available food until fishing, this baby ain’t gonna grow. But a camp will provide 2 extra food, and there are three deer. One of which I can’t get to yet.

Okay, I guess some people may have decided to build a warrior off the bat, and maybe gone with fishing. But the fishing route will provide less food and less production in the long term. But more commerce. Hmmm.

Research set to Mysticism; some extra happiness would be awesome. Plus, being religious…maybe found a religion? Meanwhile the scouts go off exploring. Ouch, no yummy land to be seen. We do pop Animal Husbandry, which is an expensive tech (relatively speaking), but not too useful at the moment. If ever.

3600BC sees Buddhism founded in Tenochtitlan. All hail Quetzecoatl. Research goes Mysticism->Archery->The Wheel->Fishing->Sailing, while building goes Worker->Barracks->Archer->Archer->Settler
I gambled a little bit on the opening barracks, but if anything serious had attacked me it would have been my head anyway. Besides, I only expected animals for a bit. Research into sailing was prompted by two things…the need for a lighthouse, and the need for a galley. There wasn’t much settling land near Tenoc, but maybe across the sea.
I also did not switch to Buddhism, because, despite the desire for a happy face, I cannot afford a religious war.

“Who moved my city?”
BUT CURSES, Tenoc was founded on a lake, and can’t build boats OR a lighthouse. Well, boats, yes, but they can’t go anywhere. Where’s Monty so I can smack him for founding on such a stupid site! Oh, I’m Monty. Mind you, in hindsight, it probably WAS the best site.

Anyway, city two, Teoticauhan, goes up on the hill three squares west of Tenoc, and starts a lighthouse. Tenoc->Stonehenge. I’ve got the holy city, bring on the shrine.



1400BC Stonehenge completes. Archer->Settler in Tenoc. Meanwhile, Teo completes lighthouse, starts galley. There’s a nice site south of Teo with access to two fishies.

My research path goes Writing->Alphabet->Metal Casting, as I figure I can trade the techs the AI is often slow to reach for others I don’t have time to research. Plus, I need to improve trade relations.

Somewhere near 750BC, Teo: goes Galley->workboat.

“Monty the friendly dwarf”
I’ve suffered in previous Prince games due to my Noble difficulty mindset of “it’s okay if everyone hates me, ‘cos I can kill em all”, so I intend in this game to ensure my survival with good relations with the big boys.

I do some diplo scouting, and discover that Vicki, Caeser, Munsa and Saladin seem opposed to Alex and Mao, so I trade open borders with the Vicki crowd. I also make whatever other tech trades I can with the same bunch, not all of them beneficial to me. I need allies. Please don’t stomp me…

Tlat is founded south of Teo to grab two fishies, and starts lighthouse->library (it’s not a very productive area, but it can support some specialists)

“Don’t follow the white rabbit, Alice!”
Too late. Sadly, I got caught up in a little bit of wonderland. I had presumed that other civs were not too likely to have ocean side cities, and that I therefore had a good chance at Colossus and Lighthouse. Thus, at the cost of my military (at the time it didn’t even cross my mind that my five archer defence would be a tasty treat, and relied too much on my diplomacy), I started wasting resources on the great lighthouse at Teo.

Somewhere around there, I also produce another Settler and archer, and headed off to found a new city. Not a particularly productive area, but grabbing prime land is only going to make me a target. Besides, we Aztecimos like the cold, hard terrain. Grass, sheep and such is for other wussie civs!

I also built a Shrine.

But in 50 BC, Caeser declares war, despite my diplomatic sucking up (he was around + 3 at that stage). I had a little bit of advanced warning thanks to an archer perched on a hill, which game me enough time to rush an archer in Teo and a Jag in Tenoc, but it’s wasn’t enough. I should perhaps have rushed another archer in Teo, but I didn’t and the jag didn’t get there in time.

Actually, I made too many weedy moves to even remember them all, and if I hadn’t panicked at Caesers declaration, I might have done far better. I wasted a jag attacking a horse archer in the open. I didn’t rush an extra archer at Teo, whioch would have been quite unhappy but possibly alive.

Another annoying bit of weed, and one I fall for every time. For some reason, if I [ALT]-Queue a unit while something else is being built, the city builds ONE unit, and then switches back to the original building. Weedily, I often miss that, which is why Teo spend a turn building the great lighthouse and Tenoc a forge in the face of Caesers hordes!!!

Teo fights valiantly for 100 years, but is RAZED by Julius in 50AD.

“You call yourself a Preatorian? Eat Jaguar Steel”
I’ve seen MANY people complain the Praetorian is too powerful, and the Jaguar too weak. Okay, both have been tweaked since earlier patches, but this game certainly provides some anecdotal evidence that the competition is fair. Monty vs Caeser, Praetorian vs Jaguar.

Caesars first wave, badly injured by the attack on Teo, pillaged somewhat and then died, mostly attacking Tenoc. Uh, which still didn’t have walls. And which never got built for some time! Weedy.

Between waves, I built a worker (to recamp), a forge (to speed up production), archers with hill defence (to try and protect my improvements), and jags for city defence. (I say waves, because Caeser refused peace for a long time.)

In at least 5 attacks by Praetorians on Tenoc, my jags never lost a fight. Mostly the Jags were promoted with Shock, but they faced some nasty praets, including a couple with City Attack 2. Also, numerous horse archers, chariots, archers and spearmen, in stacks of between 1 and 6. My other two lake cities provided some archers to try and regain my chokepoint, but were usually cut down.

To add insult to injury, Mao jumped on the bandwagon twice to declare war on me, though fortunately never bothered to send troops, otherwise it would have been curtains. And usually accepted peace quite quickly for free or some minor trinket. Moa was never too friendly with me, as I kept refusing his demands (to stay buddies with the Vikki crowd, including Julius (sic)).

To add further insult to injury, my carefully fostered diplomatic allies felt no pressing need to assist me. But they had no qualms about squishing me some more.

Monty: “Howzit, Munsa. How’s things?”
Munsa: “Hey, life’s good? You?”
Monty: ”Pretty bad. Caesar is ripping up my lands and threatening to tear up Tenoc.”
Munsa: “Yeah, life’s hard sometimes.”
Monty: “You wouldn’t perhaps be willing to distract Caeser, say, for music and drama? For old times sake?”
Munsa: “Uh, no, sorry, old chap. I’m a little busy with the rose gardens at the moment. But it’d be cool if you’d pass drama up along this way. You know, in the spirit of friendship…”
Monty: “Sigh. Okay, sure. Hey, Vicki…”
Vicki: “Go away.”



Now, you’ll recall I’d been researching those less-than-popular techs all along, and finally Caesar was willing to accept Music and Drama in exchange for peace. (Three turns away from a 12 unit odd assult on Tenoc, phew).
I think he smelt blood after Teo, and refused every attempt at a peaceful resolution for 1000 years.

Tenoc immediately switched to settler, as I wanted to move my defensive front forward to the chokepoint hill, protecting my “productive lands”, while research goes to Construction for catapults.

Huh? A turn or two into peace, Caeser merrily asks for open borders again? Well, I grant it. He doesn’t bother using it, though, and starts marching his troops back home, while I struggle to erect a more effective defensive front. The relationship is back to +3. This eight turns after he told me to take my punishment like a man?

Sadly, I got too excited during those wars to document it any better, and I missed a couple of crucial screenshots. Sorry.

Life continues happily on for the Azteczimos. Gaining some religious allies didn’t ever really pan out; although I eventually got Caeser to switch to Buddhism, but many of my other allies where Jewish, so I wasn’t prepared to risk losing them over Caeser as a dubious ally. Nor did I ever switch to Buddhism myself.

“Diplomatic la-di-da”
The next few hundred years or so were quite peaceful. Although most of my cities had cardboard archers on defence duty, the AI seemed to recognize that all of the cities they could reach (namely Texcoco and Tlaxcala), where “well” defended, and unless an AI founded a city on my lake, couldn’t build ships to attack my other three cities. I had founded Calixblahblah one square SE of the former Teo site, and I figured it could would at least pull some decent commerce.

Now, this is really interesting, considering the recent debates around here regarding diplomacy. I did experience Vicki giving me the whole “we fear you are too advanced”, despite very little trading. I had cancelled some trades with her in favour of Julius and Saladin, as Vicki had dropped back a little in the score and didn’t seem to be the great ally she once was, so that’s probably why.

But when Munsa came a calling and offered me Machinery as a GIFT, I nearly fell out of my chair. Six turns later, Saladin offers me GUILDS! Which, of course, I accept. Cool!

Something else I hadn’t seen before. I cancelled deals with Mao at the request of another AI, and for perhaps 500 years he refused to talk to me. From around 1200 to around 1700 or 1800. Like, wow.

During this time, a number of AI also said things like “we encourage you to stop trading with Moa, our worst enemy!” I’m, like, I’d love to, but I’m not. He won’t even talk to me!



“Die, Aztec scum”
In 1625, quite by chance, I noticed a fairly big Greek stack sitting outside my borders in Saladin’s territory; outside Texcoco. Doh! Texcoco had 2 jags, 2 archers and a ‘pult. Alex had an eleven unit stack including phalanx, war elephants, swordsmen and axemen. Which turned out to be his advance party; I suspect he had between 20 and 30 units in the area, if not more.

Needless to say, war was declared, and I had a situation. If Texcoco was captured, Alex would be able to build ships to take the rest of my paper cities. I considered gifting the city to Saladin, who was friendly to me (and seemed willing to accept it), but Caeser had already proved that friendship was proportional to the thickness of my defences.



To my great relief, Alex only razed the city. (How often do you say THAT?) He paid for it though. The Aztec warriors fought like demons, and I suspect the loss ratio was 2:1 in my favour. Maybe more. Alex’ strategy was interesting, though. Despite not bringing any cats (dumb move), he attacked with his weaker older troops first to apply some softening up. So many units did he have, that he never even got around to using the war elephants.

So, Monty was back down to 4 cities, which focussed exclusively on research. What else could I do but take a shot at the UN? I had two civs friendly toward me, I had a chance. Certainly more chance than I did of taking Roman cities, defended by riflemen, with jags.

“Till the world went to Hell in a Bucket”
Okay, despite having 15 units on duty in Tlaxcala, I was under no illusion that I was safe from invasion. By 1800AD, the world was, at least, in the age of Riflemen and Cavalry, and despite my research beelines, the AI was way more advanced than I. I had longbowmen on duty.
But for a change, when war broke out, I wasn’t the whipping boy. Not that I wasn’t involved, of course.

Saladin asks for a Defensive Pact. Sure, I need help more than Sally does.
A turn later, Alex declares war on Sally. Huh?
I declare war on Alex
And over the next few turns.
Rome declares on Alex.
Rome declares on Vicki
Mao declares on Munsa.

And for quite some time, I hear a lot of screamings as cities are razed or captured. Mao seems to have success against Munsa, and Alex gets smacked by Sally, and Rome has some success against Vicki.

And in 1846, Moa completes broadway. At this point I realise a UN beeline is impossible. Although it’s amazing how little one needs to research for a Mass Media Beeline. I have physics, but no democracy, no banking, no riflemen, no…

On the point of no riflemen…I decide to switch to research in that direction.

Ah, why bother, there’s no way to make the rest of the report sound anything but boring. The world made peace. Monty hid quietly in his cage and tried not to annoy anyone. I may finish last, but I sure won’t finish dead.

Caeser built the UN, but even with my help couldn’t scrape together a vote (rather vote for my “ally”, than Moa the annoying.). And when the Chinese completed the Space Elevator and hit a Golden age on the same turn, it was only a matter of time. Space Race Victory, 1981AD and, incidentally, my final score was also 1981. I’d researched Assembly Line by then.

Oh, and Caeser gave me Biology. Sweet of him. Again, no asking.

Hey, why don’t you bunch all go along with Moa…I’ll hang around here and keep the earth in order, eh?

“Not so elementary, eh, Watson?”
-My first mistake was playing the game with a losing attitude. Monarch, hideous opening position (more because of the lack of good land nearby than because Tenoc was on a bad site. Actually, Tenoc’s production was far from terrible); I figured I was going to lose anyway, may as well lose as LATE as possible.
Had I gone for a win, I would probably still have lost, but I’d have maybe lost with style.
-Not enough military. Underestimated the AI. Well, put that down to lack of monarch experience.Although I’ve read enough save games to know by now.



I still don’t have any great ideas about how to pursue a winning strategy, but two ideas:
-Early war, and move my empire to more juicy lands. Beating Praetorians in the early game…not easy.
-Diplomatic. Not let all my cities get toasted, (more and better placed military), and focus on science and defence)

The Report

Result: Loss

Mansa Musa wins the space race in 1982. I wasn't anywhere near close, though I was in better shape than Alex and Saladin.

Arathorn is sponsoring the next game in our Extreme Adventures series - Adventure Four - Hatshepsut's Hieroglyphics, which is now open.

Oh, and happy birthday to Arathorn! :2dance:

Report is up at the usual spot. Happy reading.

http://civ4info.com/Sullla/civ4SP.html

My results from this game are a Shadow. I had a great time with it anyway.

CLICK HERE to begin the adventure.


- Sirian