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I've read from somewhere on these forums that everyone has their own style of writing reports. My style is simple - write what you were thinking at the moment. The way this report was written was that I would periodically pres Alt-Tab to write exactly what I was thinking. Any editing would be to refine my English, not any change in content. This way, a reader can relate to the player in first-person view, and really connect with the mental state of the player. I also don't like screenshots. If I really need to show something, I would post a save-game.
Pre-game analysis:
- Rushing is pretty much ruled out, because of maintenance costs. I'm pretty sure Sulla separated us from the rest of the world with vast tracts of tundra. Epic 12 had furs for commerce, this time we've got nothing. Rushing won't work.
- A victory would have to be a short-cut one (religious, diplomatic or cultural). A straightforward domination, space race or conquest, long-term tests of GNP and production, won't work, as I think Sulla would have manually edited the map to make the AI's fly ahead in tech way too quickly in juicy lands, while we're stuck in tundra. If you try for a conquest, domination or space-race victory, a runaway AI would win by culture first, even if you are first in score by then. This is a BTS improved-AI feature not available to Vanilla or Warlords players.
- Lack of resources. Monarchy may be more important. Of course, health would be the real limit, with all the tundra and plains.
- Raging barbs means AI's are a lot slower in teching. This is very important. Key concept: it's relative tech speed that matters.
- Raging barbs means either archers or great wall. Like, duh. You aren't really going to wait until you hook up with horses or bronze, right?
- I refuse the religious victory. The mechanism is broken, cheesy and the victory would be hollow.
Game report:
4000BC: Settled in place, researching agriculture. Worker first. Yeah, that's right, raging barbs and I'm building a worker first!
3640BC: Buddhism FIDL.
3600BC: agriculture finished, begin bronze working.
3560BC: I popped bronze working off a hut. An advantage like this would almost take the fun out of this extreme adventure. Almost. More importantly though, if this were not a raging barbs game, my next tech would have been iron working.
3160BC: Masonry finished, Hinduism FIDL. Started animal husbandry.
2960BC: Got fishing as free tech. Unlike bronze working, which is uber, fishing is largely useless. All it does is it contributes to WFYABTA.
2400BC: great wall finished. 2 warriors held off 2 archers and a warrior, staggered. I took that kind of risk because immortal is not deity. Barbarian archers don't trash you in numbers that quickly. Of course this is from experience.
Another side note from experience: yes, I see a beautiful spot of grasslands, wheat, and two gem mines to the west. But I also know that if I settle that spot too early, then the maintenance costs will cripple me until I get it setup. In fact, even the workers needed to road my way there, plus the warriors needed to protect the workers, would be too costly at this point of the game. -3gpt a turn is a lot in the BC years if it doesn't gain you anything for 500 years.
Writing, on the other hand, would work. I do start with a food-sufficient capital.
2080BC: Writing finished, start on mysticism.
1840BC: some event gave my library +1 beaker for 8 gold. I'm getting way too lucky with these events!
1360BC: meet Lincoln. He's peaceful, but I don't like facing him off late game. Peaceful boomers are a lot more dangerous than warmongers. Civ is still, in its core, an empire-building game, not a wargame.
1320BC: I was expecting a great spy, but I got a great scientist instead at 25%. I build an academy in the capital. Now I have other ideas…
850BC: I found Confucianism.
625BC: Oracle completed, mathematics researched, took civil service from Oracle.
By the way, I've decided not to rush for the great library. The great library generates great scientists, but I need great artists. Also, aesthetics and literature are expensive techs that I cannot afford to pursue immediately. I'll go wonder-building later. Additionally, having great scientists faster means liberalism faster, but in a small, landlocked raging barbs game, you can easily get away with liberalism beyond 1200AD on immortal.
25AD: got the health event where you use your citizens to test medicine. This is awesomeness, as health is the real limitation on this map. Happiness you can deal with using monarchy, then slider.
600AD: a large group of barbarian horse archers have gathered near my borders. But that's okay, we've got the Great Wall of Russia to fend off the barbarians from the South. Too bad they're stuck on the edge of the map within my cultural borders until many years later, where 4 horse archers didn't do anything. I was really hoping they would ruin Justinian's day.
840AD: completed statue of Zeus. I'm going to win culturally by wonder-spamming, and whoever tries to attack me will be crippled by WW.
1060AD: Met Pericles… one hell of a Mansa-Musa! He is going to ruin my day.
1070AD: great library completed. For the culture of course.
1110AD: first to Music. I'm really, really hoping to get the Sistine Chapel.
1130AD: Completed Shwedagon Paya.
1260AD: got a great prophet. Kung Miao for the culture.
1300AD: Sistine Chapel built. Now I can trade Music away.
1390AD: first to liberalism, took nationalism. Taj Mahal will be my last wonder, and then it'll be cultural slider all the way.
1450AD: Damnit, Lincoln keeps taking my wonders! He took Notre Dame, Mausolleum of Mausollos… friggin everything! He's got the highest power-graph too! What did I tell you about peaceful leaders?
1650AD: traded for constitution. Since I don't have a good GP farm, I might actually adopt universal sufferage and emancipation, and then buy everything.
1802AD: signed a defensive pact with Justinian. +8 for religious bonus, no kidding!
1836AD: keep getting great scientists from my capital. The wonders generate more GP's than I thought. I'm starting to regret building the great library. Fine - I'll pop the two great scientists and get scientific method, and then be done with it.
1856AD: Justinian cancelled defensive pact, to declare war on Lincoln. So… am I going to win by a totally peaceful cultural victory?
1886AD: Lincoln is getting hit by Justinian and Pericles/Genghis Khan. Good luck buddy.
1901AD: Everyone's either a master or a vassal. At least I remain independent even while running a bare-bones military. Why can't the human player become an AI's vassal anyway?
1911AD: Cuzco achieved legendary. Yeah like I care. It's whoever gets the 3rd legendary city that matters. I'm counting on my great artists to blast through him right in the end. I'm also glad that Lincoln did not vassalize to Pericles.
1929AD: I disband all my units, except a spy in each city, to speed up the victory by one turn. It's good that Justinian is so religious - I flipped 2 of his cities and am about to flip a third one. I disbanded them though.
1936AD: cultural victory
Post-game analysis:
To tell you the truth, I won this game mostly due to some luck in the beginning, and more luck near the renaissance for not being attacked, and then able to setup a defensive pact because most of the world still does not embrace free religion. I also got a religious nutcase that also happens to be a unit-spammer, and blocked off any access my enemies had of my lands, which makes things convenient. What I mean to say is, given the average circumstances, this game was actually beyond my skill level.
To confirm, I played another game on this map, just to see if I could win my domination. My prediction was correct: yes, I could get rolling, with the typical sheer ruthlessness of a human warmonger, but then Pericles and Huayna would win by culture by the time I was first in GNP and land area. The slowness was, of course, mostly due to my economy completely collapsing at a huge deficit even at 100% gold slider and building wealth, every time I declared war. Space race and diplomacy I can prevent, invasions I can hold off, but sometimes a runaway AI just wins by culture. I guess it was interesting how you removed all access to strategic resources from Lincoln so the player could bash him. I just felt he was a little too far away for an early rush though. On normal speed, there was too much walking to be done, and the maintenance costs would be too prohibitive if you were to keep any cities. Or maybe he didn't get to have any iron on my side of the mountain range because I blocked him off early. Don't under-estimate the importance of settling cities with the intention of blocking off AI's. In my case it was easy - I wanted marble.
I also want to ask: was it deliberate that you constructed a mountain range to separate the player from Pericles? Because if it was there to protect the player from being hemmed in, well, I'd much prefer bashing the living daylights out of him. On epic 10, I even managed to force two AI's to sue for peace with gold because I pillaged them so hard (I later died because they… um… didn't like that). I could not do that here. Barbarians and mountain ranges got in the way.
It's also interesting how Genghis didn't do so well at all, and had to end up vassalizing to Pericles. Genghis had nice wonders, including the pyramids, and came off with a good start when declaring war on Pericles, but Pericles simply expanded too much under the protected region that was devoid of barbarians. I guess what it demonstrates is the importance of starting position. Also, did you purposely give Huayna Capac stone so he could have had the pyramids? That sucked. If he were more aggressive I could set him against Pericles, but that didn't happen.
Victoria and Justinian suffered a lot from barbarians, but they responded differently. Justinian was a militaristic faction, held off well, and later expanded into my tundra. Victoria lost her third city to barbarians, and then become engaged into a hopeless war against Huayna Capac, which ended up with a capitulation. I'm sure it's the imperialistic trait at work here. I don't like this trait at all, but it's good for the AI chopping settlers.
Was this map supposed to be some sort of puzzle, with a strategic answer in your mind? I see a few ways one can attempt this, but no clear "this is what I intended", which is a mixed blessing. I'm also pretty sure it's not "holiday surprise", in which the only real way to win was by religious victory, which really should not have been included in its current form anyway. I have to say that even a cultural victory seemed a little empty, not because it was not legitimate (I didn't go into detail the careful trading and diplomacy I went through), but because I feel that this particular adventure was meant to be a warmongering one.
