Epic One - The Honorable French

[Socrates]

Game : krys_epic01
Version : Civ4 1.09
Civ, leader : France, Louis XIV
AIs : 5
Difficulty : Prince
Map : Pangaea
Size : Standard
Climate : Tropical
Sealevel : Low
Era : Ancient
Speed : Epic
Options : none that we know
Victories : all

Link to Epic01's page :
http://www.realmsbeyond.net/civ/civ4-epic1.html



This is my second Civ4 game only, and so I knew I wouldn’t play a high-skilled game ; I was in for discovering the game and trying to win somehow. The funny thing is that my first game was played with Louis XIV too, so I already knew my general plan for the beginning. I will write one post for every 20 turns played.

This is the starting position that we were all given :

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Not a great start, as far as I know, but definitely not a bad one. The cow would help growth and early production, and the stone would possibly ensure a few early wonders.

After much thinking (sic), I moved the warrior to the northern hill, with the intent of scouting the north-east part of the map afterwards. And I didn’t see any reason to move the settler, so I founded Paris in 4000BC.

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Paris and its (dangerous) neighbourhood in 4000BC. No violent youngsters here, but maybe some hungry animals ? I started on a warrior and Animal Husbandry, like in my first game.

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After 4 turns, Paris’s borders had expanded already. I’m already addicted to the creative trait... Lots of jungle here, and some tiny islands in the north...

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9 turns into the game, and already some barbs, because of a hut. There were also roaming animals near my city. Only after that, I realized that animals don’t enter any civ's border.

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Victory !! Oh, a nice summary of the fight in that box. Next time I will learn to resize it. Anyway I was about to lose that first fight, that was close.

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On turn 13, Buddhism was founded, waoh ! In the meantime I had built a 2nd warrior and ordered him to scout the north-west shoreline.

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Brrr, 2 more animals there, and a lion ready to bite into my flesh. Now, why did I choose to move to a tile with no defense bonus where there was one with a 75% defense bonus just next to it ? I started to feel that scouting wasn’t about speed but about security.

The lion didn’t attack my warrior, for some reason. This game is crazy.

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While healing, my 1st warrior was attacked by a wolf from the north-west. And once again it was close. But that meant my 1st promotion, and I realized that Woodsman would be far better than plain Combat in the end, so I picked that. I also wonder what this "Animal Combat" bonus is (+30%).

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On turn 16, I met Washington with my wounded warrior. Nothing to do apart from having a beer. (TM) Also, you can notice bits of flood plains in that pic, which is due to my graphics card. I hope it doesn’t qualify me from the competition, but it surely didn’t help me in any way. Oh BTW, I like to shoot other leaders when they make something funny in front of the camera. You’ll see that throughout my report.

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On the following turn, Montezuma appeared in the east. Nothing to do... but having a beer. (TM)

After Animal Husbandry, I chose Pottery, like in my first game.

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The lion in the west eventually attacked me, while the warrior was on a hill/jungle !! This time it wasn’t close at all. Next time I will learn how to resize the box correctly...

[Socrates]

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Another lion defeated... and some river at last !

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On turn 29, I met Alexander. Nada... beer. (TM)

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Turn 30, Gandhi. Beer... (TM)

With Pottery in the bag, I decided to go for the kind of big gambit that I like to try : Writing. Definitely some krys style there.

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On turn 38, Paris’s borders expanded once again, and this popped the hut in the west, giving me Hunting. Always nice...

[Socrates]

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And finally, on turn 47, I met Genghis Khan, who had been standing right under my nose all that time. Now I’m a little drunk, where are the toilets ? (TM)

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Another easy victory for my 1st warrior. The safe way of moving my warriors was now paying its dividends.

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Hindhuism was founded on turn 50 only. Compare that to Buddhism (turn 13). Strange.

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And yet another victory for my brave warrior. This allowed him to choose another promotion, Woodsman II, of course.

I discovered Writing, and started on Alphabet of course. So many turns to get there !! Big gambit, here I come !

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On turn 60, Alex visited me and proposed an Open Borders agreement, which I accepted.

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Another warrior defeated an animal. This was starting to be a long succession of victories !

[Socrates]

In the meantime, unless my memory is failing, I had built a total of 3 warriors since the beginning of the game, then built a worker. The only thing he could do at the time was to build a pasture over the cow and build roads. So I built a road over the stone (for the future), and then roaded towards the site of my future city, in the east. And Paris started to build a settler during this.

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On turn 61, Orleans was founded in the east, by a lake. The site was chosen because of fresh water, pigs and silk, and because I had to grab all the land possible towards the Mongols. Both cities were set on granaries. Not much food around meant that granaries were viable options, even with a low health limit.

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On turn 64, Washington approached me and we agreed on his Open Borders agreement.

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This is a pic of Paris after the completion of its granary. I timed it a la Civ3, ie. one full turn before growth. So I was surprised to see that I didn’t get much food thereafter. But I got it afterwards, while reading the forums. Still, it would be nice to see how much food is stored in the granary at any time. I started on a library in Paris, a really needed building.

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Hiding in the forest was critical now, since archers were around. I think it helped me survive this fight.

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On turn 79, Judaism was founded. All the AIs were adopting Slavery in those times, which meant that they all researched Bronze Working quite quickly. With almost nothing to do with my worker, I started to road towards my next site, in the south-east of Orleans, which was a bit risky now. I was quite annoyed to see that those pigs, on a hill/jungle, couldn’t be harvested now, since jungle had to be cut, and this required not even Bronze Working, but Iron Working !

[Socrates]

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Genghis also asked for an Open Borders agreement, but this time I declined the offer. The only reason was that we were too close to each other, and I didn’t want any Mongolian city in my back. This, combined with my settling plan, would promise some interesting action in the future...

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Another archer defeated in a forest. Time to play that song from the Cure ?

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Montie this time, and I agreed, since he wasn’t that close to my lands. And one foe would be enough. This latest sentence would be important for the development of the game.

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Playing as an ambassador now, and yes, Gandhi, of course I’m opening my borders for you !

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On turn 100 (that sounds long !), I eventually discovered Alphabet. BTW, I’m wondering what those figures in the bottom right mean... So it was the beggining of a long-thinking session, to see what to trade with whom.

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First, Pottery to Genghis for Archery. I didn’t really want to trade with him (I wanted to leave him in the dust as much as possible), but it seemed like a good deal to start with.

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Second, Writing to Alex for Fishing and Mining. Alex seemed to be failing a bit, and so it was probably a good idea to help each other out.

[Socrates]

I had to wait for a turn to pass, because for some reason, we can’t trade techs as freely as in Civ3 (the game doesn’t recognize your newly acquired techs during a heavy trading session).

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So, third, Writing to Washington for Bronze Working. Pfew, I’m saved !

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Fourth, Agriculture (yes !) and Writing to Gandhi for Mysticism and Masonry. Goodie, goodie... Now my worker had something else to do than roading everywhere.

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On turn 107, I founded my 3rd city, Lyons, where I wanted it to be : by another lake. This would close the access to my backyard for the Mongols, but would put pressure on them... After Alphabet, I started to research Mathematics. With a clear monopoly on Alphabet, I could afford researching advanced techs.

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Problems always start at some point in a game. On turn 108, Montie decided to end our Open Borders agreement. It’s true that I had refused to help him in the past.

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Another victory for one of my warriors ! That’s the French : winning uninteresting fights (and losing important ones)...

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And that was it. I lost my Woodsman II warrior in the east, at a time where I thought that the AIs would have cleared their neighbourhood. But this is no Civ3. Here I had put my warrior on a plains tile...

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Problems sometimes take some time to appear. Montie asking to open borders again ? I don’t get it, but I was glad to help. Notice how he looks embarrassed. But beware, this is only the surface of things, you know that real affairs happen in the shade, don’t you ?

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Now, those warriors are starting to annoy me. Lyons was a feeble city, and with the road cut, it could rely on luck only. I had nothing but warriors at this point. Yeah I’m a builder, you know. And I’m playing on Prince...

[Socrates]

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Fortifying and being creative helps early survival ! At least Lyons could breathe a bit. But for how long ??

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Someone must have had discovered Alphabet, because here I traded it with Washington for Sailing and Iron Working. The jungle could now be cleared, and it was about time, because a lot of it had grown in the south of Paris.

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On the same turn 125, I founded Rheims, my 4th city, by the sea. This was really needed, since I needed to open trading routes to the over civs, and this is most easily done by having cities by the coast. Paris was building the Pyramids, and I was quite sure to get them, since I had stone and I was industrious. I put Paris on virtual starvation to speed up its completion. You can note that I discovered a source of iron near Paris. Good news. You can also note that I had to face 2 barbarian cities in the south...

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Problems never take that long to really appear. On turn 130, Montie already had enough of me. Imagine : I had refused everything from him apart from Open Borders. Well, most if not all of it had been fucking blackmailing. Nice, I’m at war, and I only have a few warriors, and he has Jaguars, and there is a lot of jungle. Remember this turn, peace had never seemed so far away. Before I ended the turn, I heard a voice in the wind, saying "You have chosen unwisely." There was no way to tell if this was for Montie or me. Or both. Anyway, Orleans immediately expanded its borders, resulting in Montie’s units being expelled further away (stupid feature). And this got me a nice 40% defense bonus as well.

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On top of that, I still had to defeat barbs. And I wanted Paris to complete the Pyramids too. Orleans was finishing its barracks, Lyons was lost in an unhealthy environment (no road and a lot of jungle), and Rheims was just a young city by the sea. Montie’s archer was coming... Where are my real units ? So I decided to move my warrior out of Paris to help Orleans, resulting in a delay in production there.

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But the archer seemed to head for Paris now ! So I put my warrior on a hill inbetween. A worthy sacrifice, but now what could save Paris ? An upcoming archer in Paris, and the Pyramids would wait. But I didn’t know the IT order in Civ4, so it was a gamble. A scout was the safe build, but the weak one. I chose the risky one, again.

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Speaking of risky actions, I finally decided to attack the wounded archer with my warrior in Orleans, and it succeeded !!! Both cities were safe but unhappy. You can also note that other units were now coming, and that Genghis had settled in the north of Orleans, blocking me in return.

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3 turns later, an impressive round of luck !! No hit from that mighty archer in Orleans. Forget Woodsman, I needed Combat as promotions now.

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I used my new archer to kill another Aztec warrior on flat ground. There was a cottage there, never used. Aztec War, Part II, success.

[Socrates]

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Now, archers are very useful for early city defense. But sometimes you get a bad round of luck, and my archer was killed. He was wounded, yes, but still had far better odds.

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On the following turn, my lone warrior successfully defended himself against the greedy, wounded archer. Orleans was now starting to produce veteran archers (barracks), and there was no Aztec unit in sight. Part III was over, the French Empire was safe.

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On turn 145, Paris completed the Pyramids at last. I am quite glad to be able to grab early wonders again in a Civ game.

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On the same turn, Hinduism was introduced in one of my cities for the first time. But I didn’t badly need the happiness bonus, since health was the limiting factor back then. Plus, this would result in 1 turn of anarchy, and I didn’t want to mess with a virus anyway.

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Instead, still on that same turn, I adopted Representation, especially for the free beakers from the specialists. I took the opportunity to adopt Slavery as well, since it didn’t cost me any extra turn of anarchy.

Then, I didn’t see any new unit from Montie for some time.

[Socrates]

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On turn 162, Confucianism was founded. Notice the walls in Orleans. They should give a 50% defense bonus, but it looks like it’s not additive with the cultural bonus. Does this mean that a city with a 60% cultural defense bonus doesn’t need a wall at all ? Also notice the builder at work : no enemy unit in sight ? just build another wonder then !

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And yet another victory against the evil barbs !! But still no road to Lyons.

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Uh-oh. Same causes, same consequences. I heard the same voice, again...

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And quickly I got my last scouting warrior killed by Genghis in the open.

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On turn 173, Paris built the Hanging Gardens. This would help my cities to fight unhealthiness. The sudden population jump, on the contrary, wasn’t really wanted, and eventually lead to starvation cases, but more on that later. BTW, that was 2 wonders spawning great engineers in Paris.

Calendar (for its luxes) was then discovered, and I started to research Construction (catapults ?).

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I had my iron disconnected once by a barb, and was trying to repair that, but in the meantime, Mongolian axemen appeared everywhere ! Paris was now badly threatened, but fortunately there were 2 archers there, and the city was built on a hill.

But in fact, those axemen started to pillage every improvement they found in my lands...

[Socrates]

Things began to get worse and worse.

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On turn 187, the Mongols defeated my last unit in Lyons, and razed the city !!! That was a real drawback : this city had been a junk city all the way, and now was no more. A real waste. This is a very important lesson for me, I know what I’ll do next time, especially with no honourable theme...

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On turn 196, I got my 1st great engineer in Paris. I felt I needed a tech, so he got me Metal Casting for free. In this pic you can see the disaster : all the improvements were destroyed, and I was left with 3 cities, heavily defended with archers who couldn’t attack the axemen. And the iron source had been disconnected another time again, preventing me from building axemen or swordsmen.

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Alphabet to Alex for Horseback Riding. I needed friends now, and techs.

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On turn 197, someone founded Christianity. Five down, two to go.

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A bit later I was able to trade Horseback Riding to Gandhi for Meditation and Polytheism.

[Socrates]

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And then Polytheism to Alex for Priesthood.

It seemed that Gandhi had the most solid position, but that Washington had the tech lead. How would that play out in the end ?

Funnily, nothing new really happened on the war front. Montie had stopped sending units for a while, and Genghis’s axemen had gone to attack those barb cities in the south. Good riddance... I could start to rebuild my awful position. I was feeling hopelessly left in the dust. Then I remembered my game from Civ3’s Epic 34, Dance of the Feathered Serpent, where I had lost my capital in the middle of all this jungle, and how fighting back had become a nightmare... For the record, I had abandonned that game, out of despair.

[Socrates]

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Metal Casting to Gandhi for Monotheism and Monarchy. How long would I be able to actually trade ?

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During this relatively quiet moment, I had built many axemen and catapults, and was now ready to attack at last. I first wanted to clear the northern area a bit, since that was where I had seen most of the units coming my way. So I was about to attack Old Sarai.

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After a nice battle, Old Sarai fell and became mine ! At least that source of iron wouldn’t fall into anyone’s hands but mine.

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On turn 235, I founded Tours on the west coast. It had one mission : secure the horse. This was the last city I would found during the entire game. Here you can see an AI oddity : galleys parking on the coast with no unit inside, staying there for centuries...

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On turn 240, I must have captured the city by the copper source, but the Aztecs must have razed it right away ! Sorry for the memory failing... Anyway, that was another Mongolian city down, and they didn’t have access to any metal now, except through trading. The Aztecs, on the contrary, were gathering more and more units by my borders now.

Orleans was still threatened now and then, so that I was never free to send my units where I wanted.

[Socrates]

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Taoism founded on turn 244. Did I care ?

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On turn 250, I successfully attacked Samarqand, a Mongolian city that had been founded on the same tile as Lyons. I had now stopped research, because of my low treasury and low net income (no cottage, everything into production !).

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4 turns later, I auto-razed Tabriz in the south of Paris. I was preparing an attack on the Mongolian capital, Karakorum, but it was requiring more and more units, so this move was done while waiting for the real thing.

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On the following turn, Paris completed the Heroic Epic, which would speed up unit production there, so this couldn’t be bad on the long run.

[Socrates]

So I waited more and more turns, gathering units. I had already delayed this too much in my head, but I didn’t want to fail, but in the meantime my income was so low and I wasn’t safe enough... Genghis now had his UU, the Keshik, which was a pain to kill because no unit was really superior to that (and horse archers were too precious to be lost).

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But on turn 268, I eventually won my first, important battle ! After a quick siege, Karakorum fell to my army. The gold that I was getting from city pillage helped running science a bit, but that was never enough. As I was making little progress on the battlefield, I was becoming even more backwards in the tech race.

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Same turn, and a 2nd engineer in Paris. I used him to hurry the production of the National Epic, which was speeding up the spawning of great persons. Call that a plain investment.

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Desperately looking for some gold or techs, I sold Literature to Alex for 300 gold. Not that fair, but it was an obsolete tech and I needed that gold, and badly.

[Socrates]

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Music to Washington for Currency and 40 gold. You can see that I was starting to lose the tech race...

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Music to Alex for Code of Laws and 20 gold.

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The Mongolians had settled a bit in the northern islands, so I had to attack them there, otherwise maybe my cities would flip back, and of course it’s never good to let someone survive. So on turn 291, I auto-razed Tiflis with a few units. The Indians were already ready to resettle the place, as you can see.

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On turn 294, Islam was founded. So that was it : no religion for me in this game either. But contrary to my first game, I wasn’t even close to founding Islam myself anyway.

[Socrates]

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On turn 301, the last Mongolian settlement in the north was mine : New Sarai. I didn’t really needed those cities now, since I had to improve my core cities first, but destroying the Mongolians seemed more important.

Genghis Khan was now left with 2 cities in the east. I really wanted to finally crush him, but the Aztecs were still an important threat. I don’t know if I messed up a little there, because obviously I needed to take time to crush my neighbours first, before improving my economy. But I felt I needed to do both at the same time, so I couldn’t attack the Mongols in the north, face the Aztecs in the north-east, prepare an attack on the last Mongolian cities, while building all kinds of stuff in my cities. Impossible. I had to choose. This slowly resulted in a better situation overall, but I was still under the threat of my 2 neighbours, and couldn’t stop building units inbetween. As a consequence, I could only hold Karakorum, but not expand from there. And since the Aztecs were becoming more and more annoying (I even got a very good round of luck in Old Sarai once), I had to attack them too now.

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Maybe just sending many horse archers in the open with no catapult would do the trick ? Indeed, on turn 305, I was able to capture Calixtlahuaca, despite facing longbowmen. Yes, exactly, I was using ancient units against medieval units. Like if I had the choice.

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On turn 306, I got a 3rd great person, a great artist this time. I used him to discover Theology.

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Theology and Drama to Alex for Feudalism and 70 gold. Alex was becoming my trading partner, since we were both runner-ups.

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There were still a tech to sell to an advanced civ, now and then, like Drama to Washington for 360 gold.

Now that both the Mongolians and the Aztecs weren’t a real threat anymore, I could have signed peace at some point. But I kept hearing that voice in my head... telling me that I could win by crushing them. The thing is that I still had 2 barb cities to face, and I now had enough.

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So, on turn 310, I captured the first barb city, Khazak. I had built swordsmen especially for that (and then maybe for the other civs).

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6 turns later, which meant that I took the time to heal my units and bombard city walls, I also captured the other barb city, Hittite. That's... betta'. Now Paris was almost safe from any attack, and I could concentrate on the east, while safely developping my backyard.

[Socrates]

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I continued my attack on Azteca, and on turn 329, I captured Tlaxcala. If it hadn’t been for city pillage, I wouldn’t have been able to hope anything from this game, since I was running science at such a shameful rate (here : 30%).

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This is a pic of turn 338. Montie was also at war with Washington, which was very good for me, and Genghis was also at war with both Gandhi and Alex. So warring at this time wasn’t such a pain. The real pain was that it was taking so much time for so little gain, while I was letting the advanced civs getting more and more advanced.

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On turn 340, in order to save Calixsomething from being a constant target, I captured Tlatelolco. You could think that I was rolling from victory to victory, but in fact it was a slow process, and I didn’t have that many units.

[Socrates]

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Xochicalco on turn 346. Things were starting to look bad for Montie, but this was still not the end.

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On turn 356a, I got another great artist, used to get beakers into Divine Right.

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On turn 357, I captured Teotihuacan, an important city. Oh, a note about starvation. I don’t think I have crossed the line in this game. When I could do nothing to prevent a real starvation (losing pop), I used my whip to build a building in the city, resulting into a population decrease, but through forced labor, not hunger. Since the whip wasn’t prohibited by the rules, that was OK, and the city being less unhappy thereafter, it was always a good move. This would apply to this huge city which would never survive at that level.

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Rheims was now becoming my best city, thanks to 3 food resources, a few hills, a few cottages and many sea tiles. So I built the Globe Theater there, in order to never face any unhappiness there again. I would now let the city grow and reach any new health limit.

[Socrates]

With all those wars going on, I was expecting the advanced civs, India and America, to make some gains over Azteca and Mongolia. I had twice tried to attack the next Mongolian city in the east, but I failed there. Fortunately, Gandhi helped me in that task, and captured both cities in the end.

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And so, on turn 366, Gandhi put an end to the Mongolian existence. Good. How late am I today ?

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With more security around and more resources being connected, I was now able to trade with my friends. Here, cow for wine with Washington. Don’t be scared by the eyes : I was now playing with the lowest graphics options possible, and this was how it looked like.

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Yeah OK, you can be scared !! And... there’s a message with those evil eyes, what does it say ? The Greeks declaring war ? That’s bad, isn’t it ? Maybe I should have adopted Hinduism on that other turn, as asked by Alex...

And so I had to face another foe... again... Funnily, this time I didn’t hear any voice at all... Maybe the Greeks being located too far away was enough of a reason ?

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On turn 380, the Greeks captured Teotihuacan. Obviously they knew they were coming. With knights. Facing swordsmen and archers. Could get ugly-ugly.

[Socrates]

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Well, Alex had settled in my back thanks to our former Open Borders agreement, so I immediately abandonned the cities in the east to capture Pharsalos, on turn 382. Nothing worse than having multiple fronts.

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Fish and rice to Gandhi for ivory. War weariness was a real problem in those days, I even got a 10-point red-face for war weariness !!

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There was no voice this time indeed. Someone tell me how I would be able to counter the Greeks with my obsolete units ? At a time where I was desperately trying to put an end to all my wars ? So I signed peace with Alex, and I even gifted him with New Sarai, a city that was next to a Greek city in the northern islands (he asked for this one).

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Horse to Washington for sheep. I can’t help myself if I don’t help the others as well...

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On turn 394, I eventually adopted Hinduism as my state religion. The peace treaty with Alex was about to expire, and I know this was one reason for him to hate me. With so many cities being infected by this religion, it wouldn’t be bad anyway. But guess who was happy to see me doing this ? Let’s say that I converted to stay on the board...

[Socrates]

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On turn 406, Alex even signed an Open Borders agreement with me again ! The only thing that was nice for him on my side was my religion. Didn’t Henry IV the French convert to Catholicism to become King ?

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Meanwhile there was no way I was going to stop attacking the Aztecs, and on turn 407, I captured their capital city, Tenochtitlan. You can see on that pic that the Greeks enjoyed a large territory for a newly captured city (Teotihuacan) : that was because it was a holy city. Don’t ask me how it works, I don’t know.

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My relationship with Alex was becoming better, and I would do everything to keep that trend. Sugar for spices, fine.

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But no one said that the AI is crystal clear. To my surprise and real anger, Alex declared war again !! I ordered my archers to stop shivering.

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Tlaxcala fell on turn 415. I barely had a few knights, and he was coming with war elephants and grenadiers. Pfff, will I even have a chance to fight back ? Calling the other civs for rescue was tempting, but I didn’t know if it was OK with the rules, so... I never used it during the whole game.

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Like during the previous war with the Greeks, I abandonned my cities to concentrate on a primary target. This time, it was Montie’s last city, Texcoco, captured on turn 416. And thus the Aztecs were no more. And I had a big smile on my face. This ended a war that had lasted for 286 turns !!! The immediate result (well, 1 turn later) was the end of war weariness in all my cities, what a huge relief.

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On turn 419, I got another great artist, that I used to get beakers into Nationalism. Note that my workers had now cut much jungle in my core, and built many cottages. This was the only way to go : cottages everywhere, sacrificing production, putting cities on growth again.

I was desperately trying to organize the catch-up mechanism in the tech race. I was picking techs already known by most civs, since I was plain last, and would research them in order, since not knowing a loose prerequisite gets you a malus.

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On turn 420, at the first opportunity, I signed peace with Alex once again, and once again I had to give him a city, so Texcoco became Greek. This was purely strategical : I gave him the city that was far in the east (he asked for another one first).

[Socrates]

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Banana to Washington for fur. I’m a poor king.

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And once again, Open Borders with Alex, along with sugar for spices again.

And now I was starting to catch Alex in techs a bit, so it was time to research different techs, so as to trade and go even faster.

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Here I traded Nationalism for Economics and 450 gold. It’s always nice to trade with morons.

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On the same turn, I decided it was time to change civics. Free Market was what I wanted, but I also adopted Pacifism, since it didn’t require any extra turn of anarchy. More gold for me, but also more gold for them...

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Fish for gold to Washington. We now had no more bad mark in our relationship, we were like 2 lovers... or 2 loosers ?

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Liberalism and 30 gold to Alex for Gunpowder. Being of the same religion surely is important, notice how quickly it is increasing, even with Alex.

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Now, Washington approached me and proposed a Defensive Pact. I considered my situation, knowing I wouldn’t be able to build any unit at all in the future, and so I accepted. At least Alex wouldn’t be so tempted to play foolishly once again... However this resulted in worse relationships with both Alex and Gandhi, the latter being not that important.

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Constitution to Alex for Chemistry and 160 gold.

[Socrates]

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Democracy to Alex for Replaceable Parts and 10 gold. I’m good at trading, not at warring.

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And since I had just got Democracy this turn, I had to change civics once again at the end of the turn. Besides the mandatory Emancipation from the honourable rules (which is nice anyway : quicker towns and no more unhappiness from the other civs), I also adopted Free Speech. I could have adopted the latter a few turns before but that would have meant 1 more turn of anarchy. Both solutions were probably equivalent in terms of gold.

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At some point Washington had stopped a few deals we had. So I set up new deals, here horse for 8 gpt. I want gold.

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Dye to Gandhi for coal and 14 gpt (or should I say 14 gpt and coal ?). I hadn’t even discovered the tech that enables coal. Strange.

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Dye to Alex for 8 gpt. I want all your gold.

[Socrates]

Turns passed, and I started to be quite confident that Alex wouldn’t declare war a 3rd time. But I was also starting to wonder if there was a way to catch Gandhi and Washington in the tech race... Also at that time I was starting to leave Alex behind me, so I was again researching the cheapest techs...

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Fish to Gandhi for hit musicals. I was researching Biology. That tells you how backwards I was.

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Rice to Washington for 5 gpt. All is good to get.

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Rheims being a great city, I was able to put specialists (preferably engineers and scientists) there once it had reached its health limit. And on turn 471, I got a great scientist in that city, which I used for some beakers into Physics. Even a golden age didn’t appeal to me as much as gaining free beakers.

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On turn 472, some kind of good news : Washington declared war on Alex, and immediately captured Texcoco !! This would put the Greek cities near my borders into trouble, and would slow down Washington’s economy a bit.

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I don’t know how I must take this, since I only have a few knights and archers, but here is Washington happily asking me to join him into his war against Alex ! Is he gay or what ?? I agreed with it, with the hope of grabbing a city or two with my few knights. Also note that Alex the Fool had abandonned Hinduism a long time ago. And that Washington declaring war on Alex ended our Defensive Pact, which wasn’t used, so.

[Socrates]

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And yet another great artist in Paris, on turn 482. Used for beakers of course, into Fascism (not needed, so, too bad).

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And then the terrible news, on turn 483 : the Apollo Program was completed by Gandhi !!! At a time where I was still in the middle of the industrial age... I was now researching at 90% science again, but I had started my catching back too late, from too far away...

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On that same turn, I captured back Tlaxcala. Some uranium there...

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Washington was now coming with tanks, and at first I tried to profit from his slow attack on Teotihuacan. But he suddenly brought a few of them, and captured the city in a blink of an eye. Too bad. At least that was the end of the Greeks in the middle of the continent. They still had cities in the northern islands, but I didn’t want to fight them over there. Meanwhile the Americans were making good progress in Alex’s core...

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Dye to Gandhi for hit singles. Gandhi is rocking hard...

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Rice to Washington for 16 gpt. Always searching for better deals.

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Believe it or not, I was eventually able to catch up both Gandhi and Washington, but that was only due to the open tech tree : in fact I was still quite backwards. Nevermind, here I traded Refrigeration, a tech needed for the spaceship victory, for Gandhi’s Steel and 120 gold. Like always, I can’t gain something if they don’t gain something as well.

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Refrigeration to Washington for Railroad (!), world map and 330 gold. Never trade for a world map if you play with 1.09 and have a slow machine...

[Socrates]

At that point, I was still doing all I could to catch up in science, but I was also building everything in all my cities, in order to fight for Space : factories, coal plants, laboratories, etc... even the Iron Works in Karakorum (not completed). There would be a time where Universal Suffrage would help a lot, but it was still about science... and getting the tech enabling the Apollo Program (maybe I didn’t choose the quickest way to get there, but I barely had built factories and coal plants when I got that tech anyway).

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Here is a funny pic. At last an AI has some sense ! I understand what you feel, Gandhi, you want to win and don’t want to look realistic nor play according to our good relationship. Just win, win, win. Let it be known that this pleased me (contrary to the ridiculous diplo victory).

And that is where I stopped playing when the deadline came in : turn 520 (1910AD).

[Socrates]

But I came back from holidays and completed my game last night. Here is the rest of the story. Hopefully it can be accepted. I blame it on the horrible behaviour of my PC (extreme lagging).

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/kryszcztov/2005122943250_krys_epic01-527-1917AD-a.jpg
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On turn 527, I finally adopted Universal Suffrage, so as to get more production (since it would now be the critical factor). I also adopted Bureaucracy, so as to get more production in Paris, which had just started to build the Apollo Program, but this required yet another turn of anarchy. After a quick calculation, I found out that it was a bit better that way.

All I had to do now was to wait for Paris to complete that project, which would take a lot of turns. No spaceship part enabled before that. At that point Gandhi only had 1 part of the spaceship left to complete, while Washington hadn’t even built the Apollo Program. I don’t know why.

In order to play faster, my workers hadn’t even built any railroad (not needed, if someone attacks me, I’m dead anyway). I was only checking every city every turn in order to maximize my chances. Meanwhile Alex had lost all his cities on the continent !! He was left with the 2 cities he had in the north. Never did Alex come to ask me for peace after making peace with Washington, so I didn’t feel forced to sign peace. This had no consequence anyway, since...

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/kryszcztov/2005122943443_krys_epic01-530-1920AD-a.jpg
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On turn 530 (1920AD), the game was over, and Gandhi won the game through the spaceship victory.

I think it is safe to assume that Gandhi won thanks to religion. Hinduism was by far the dominant religion on the planet, and his capital was the Hindu holy city. I don’t know how it really works, but this must have gained him a lot of gold.

As for me, what can I say. Maybe I would have been able to win if I had signed peace before it was too late ? But I kept hoping that I could crush my foes and be left with enough time to catch up. The extremely slow pace of the early epic game was reassuring in a way. But if there is one lesson to remember, this is it : grow your potatoes in your backyard before going out naked in the street in front of Grandma Genghis !!!



Outcome : Loss, Space Race for Gandhi
Score : 4968
Finish date : 1919AD (there is a problem here, the game stopped in 1920AD ?)
Game score : 4141



Thanks for reading my report. I hope you enjoyed that. Sorry for the clear lack of TMs in this one, but I quickly wanted to write it, since I was late. Next time I'll be more inspired and funnier in my writing, I promise. Also, sorry for the complete lack of smileys, this was copied-pasted from Word. As for the honourable theme, please let me know if you think I did something wrong, or if you want to know something. Otherwise, any comment or question is more than welcome, here or at RBCiv.