Civ4 : Darkness v kryszcztov ***SPOILER***

[Socrates]

Back to business. ;) Feeling a need to play again, I challenged Darkness in PBEM. This is my first PBEM with Civ4, and I'll probably make many mistakes, but I hope I'll have fun.



Game : Darkness v kryszcztov
Version : Civ4 1.61
Darkness : England, Elizabeth
kryszcztov : France, Louis XIV
Number of AIs : 5
Difficulty : Prince
Map : Pangaea
Size : Standard
Climate : Temperate
Sealevel : Medium
Era : Ancient
Speed : Normal
Shoreline : Pressed
Options : none
Victories : all

Map by : Sirian. [eek] Doesn't happen everyday.



I decided to play as Louis XIV, since I had little clue about the leader to choose. Darkness then chose Elizabeth, because apparently England is the replacement for Holland for the Dutch. :D

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First thing I notice is that I already have contact with Alex. [hmm] Very strange. Anyway, I don't know where he is located and I have no business to do with him at the moment. Otherwise, the starting location is nice : 2 good food resources, a river, a shoreline, enough to start the game here.

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So I settled in place, over a forested tile. The land around me is very diverse : lots of forests, in the middle of desert and ice. The very good resources are rare (a wheat), so I'll have to choose a very good city placement.

I carefully looked at the tech tree, and there are 2 techs I need fast : Fishing (fish) and Animal Husbandry (sheep). The thing is, a worker will take ages to complete with the current state (even when the borders include the sheep). So I need to get more citizens in Paris before starting on a worker. But a work boat is faster to build and doesn't stop growth, so the plan is simple : research Fishing first, then build a work boat to harvest the fish, which will get me much food so as to get more citizens quickly. When I learn Animal Husbandry, I'll have enough population to work my good tiles and so I'll be able to spawn a worker fast enough. In the meantime, another warrior is being ordered by default.

[Socrates]

3 turns later... My borders have expanded, to include the sheep in the south as well as the fish in the east.

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There is an interesting marble resource in the north, which I like because stone or marble often means wonders. [thumbsup] Especially when you're the French. [groucho] The problem is that it's a PBEM match, so I'll have to start a wonder if I'm sure I have enough defense and if it yields enough profit to my tribe. I switched the harvested tile to the sheep tile, so as to grow fast (and fat).

The warrior is currently exploring to the west.

[Socrates]

As some of you might have seen in his spoiler, Darkness has found me ! :D This was tonight at turn 41, his warrior came from the north. I have spent quite some time searching him with my exploring warrior, but his city is still nowhere to be seen.

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Just a wounded warrior of his. ;) Has no real hope of taking the city, even if I only have 1 warrior there. I can get a warrior in 3 turns if I need to, and I think that it's enough here (IIRC, I get my unit during the IT before he can play, contrary to Civ3).

As for the rest : Paris has grown to size 5, and I have played accordingly to what I'm explaining in the first post. The worker is currently laying down a road towards the future city site in the west, even though it won't be completely finished on time. I have built : a 2nd warrior, the working boat, a worker, a 3rd warrior, and now the settler.

I'm making good use of my 3 silk forests right now, along with the 2 food resources, which give me a lot of commerce, putting me far ahead of everyone in GNP. I ignored the religious path so far, and got Bronze Working, but no copper around...

I have met every civ now ; Isabella is the Buddha, and Alex is the Hindu (surprising).

[Socrates]

A bit afterwards, I founded my second city, Orleans, in the west.

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By the river, some hills, a cow and a furs, and close to some horses. But there is too much tundra and ice down there. [blush2]

Darkness's warrior got close to Orleans, and I had barely enough to defend it, but he decided not to attack. Once he got to the west of the city, he disappeared.

Saladin became Yahve, while I hadn't discovered a "religious" tech so far. I have signed Open Borders with whoever proposed it to me. During that time, I was far ahead of Darkness in GNP, score and power, but he somehow jumped back almost instantly in everything at some point. That's when I decided not to wait too long before founding Lyons.

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By the sea, next to horses, pigs, incense and corn, on a hill. Genghis Khan is just north of that city. Paris is on a library, something I really need, since...

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I've just discovered Alphabet.

I want to trade a lot with the AIs, and try to disconnect Darkness from the tech race, but it seems he already has it. :( I'm not experienced with the human-human diplo screen (as this was the first time I opened it tonight), but I could see 2 techs I didn't have, while no tech I have was showing up. The explanation is that I got some other techs before going to Alphabet (maybe Darkness chose the Alphabet path almost directly), and my GNP has dropped recently (3 cities and almost no gold from the newer ones, but some severe maintenance). He, on the other hand, is doing fine in GNP. I was able to get Masonry and Mysticism from the AI though, without giving Alphabet away. I chose Mathematics, as I want to wait for the +50% bonus from forest chopping before cutting some wood.

Settling in the north, so as to get spices and marble, is in order as well.

[Socrates]

The game is continueing at a low pace these days, and I admit I started to get bored with it, as it seems I was losing more and more ground to Darkness and couldn't see a way out. He founded his 4th city well before me, and his rise in GNP became alarming, and I couldn't five any explanation to it (not even Financial should do that !). But I had to expand as well, and so I decided to order a couple of settlers, despite a rather low GNP.

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Rheims, to grab some spices.

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Tours, to grab the marble. That was just after I got Iron Working from an AI, and I couldn't square the city well enough to grab the iron in its fat cross. Thus, the city pattern is not very good, but I'll have to live with it.

I'm ordering 2 other workers, to start chopping, as I discovered Mathematics, and the 3 northern cities are all on granaries.

My GNP is even lower than before of course, so I'll have to find a way out of it. Fortunately, no AI has Alphabet yet, and so I did some nice trading, to stay par with Darkness (I believe ! [eek]). But this won't last... I'm on my way to Calendar, but this is gonna take ages to get it.

Last but not least, I found Darkness !! :) He is at the top left in the minimap (white borders), in the west of Saladin and Alex.

[Rik Meleet]

Get him!!

[BCLG100]

do you have scientists in your cities?+do you have libraries.

remember also its better to run at 0% or 100% so the beakers/gold doesnt round down.

also none of them towns right now especially need a granary. Rheims isnt even growing!

you dont especially need another city (unless you want a resource- raxs/libs/units and workers are what you need. you've got way too many cities and not enough workers, also while waiting for math for the chop bonus is usefull its not key.

hook that iron up, chops a combo of axes/swords and go take out the nearest civ and extort for tech :)

[Socrates]

- I don't have any scientist for a simple reason : there are many tiles with hammers to harvest. If I put some citizens on scientist mode (anyway, I only have one library, in my capital), I'll have less hammers. It's a matter of choice, and I can't be low on hammers right now.

- Not sure about the 0%/100% thingie. I thought that the raw coins and the raw beakers always made the gold I get from tiles, the palace, trade routes, etc...? If my number of beakers is rounded down, I suppose my number of coins is rounded up, no ???

- I'm a builder. :D I like granaries. I think they're useful early on if a city has lots of hammers (compared to food), or very low food but some potential to grow a bit, or... doesn't have much else to do ! ;) Rheims isn't growing because I decided it would use its 4 hammers to build a granary first. I let the 2 other cities grow because they had less than 4 hammers at size 1. Rheims will get its granary in a total of 15 turns, and after that it's growth at double speed !

- I agree I now have to stop expansion and focus on improvements, buildings and units. I'll soon have 4 workers, which is decent, but a 5th one wouldn't hurt. I agree that waiting for Maths isn't key, but now I'll get mucho hammers from chopping.

- I think it's not that useful to go after an AI here. It takes such a long time to make an AI give you techs for peace, and it doesn't happen a lot (at least from my Civ3 experience). I've never asked for a tribute (RBCiv stigmata), maybe it works wonders here ? I think that trying something against Darkness would prove more useful... But attacking a civ that is prepared for an attack is very difficult in Civ4...

[BCLG100]

hammers are of course important however you were commenting on your lack of gnp-scientists are the answer for that.

and about the 100% thing basically it works like this- if say you had 9 commerce, 70% of that will be about 6.3 gets rounded down to 6, youd get 2.7 gold which would get rounded down to 2--basically everything gets rounded down.

Aye but the problem with being a builder is that the human player does not let you just sit about and build up your civ! you really need at least one city building military at all times!

civ4 depending on how you do it you can get a lot of things from taking out another civ-for instance an ally for help in taking out darkness. tech is not the only thing to gain but you can gain a lot

[grs]

Sorry to threadjack: BCLG, you are strong in theory, so send me the save a bit more often and let me see the practice too!

[BCLG100]

grs: see my thread in my forum, i would have e-mailed everyone personally but i didnt have the time and basically i had to come home from uni for the weekend to sort some things out and dont have civ4 with me, you should have the save with you by tomorrow evenin.

[Socrates]

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Spy report : Sir, we have spotted a fair stack of swordsmen, axemen and spearmen crossing the French border and heading towards the Arabic city of Najran in the north-west.

Yes, I decided to change my plans, so I secretly built some units to play with and sent them to the enemy. I felt I couldn't follow Darkness's GNP pace, so I accepted to slow down the building of my empire, along with a hole in my GNP.

Meanwhile, Alex declared war to Darkness, who apparently got help from Monty and Genghis. The war didn't last long for Darkness, but Alex got smashed a bit by the AIs, and Athens was lost.

During all those years, I got news that the AIs were completing wonders, swapping civics, discovering religions, spawning great people, etc... while I was getting deeper and deeper in my tech hole (almost at 0% science at some point). I was even late discovering Metal Casting, compared to Darkness, but I was able to sell this one to some AIs and make a bit of my gap. Selling a few resources and having populated cities is helping a bit now, but it's still far from prosperity.

At some point Darkness swapped to Pacifism, a civic where building military is quite costly. I think he isn't about to build a sizeable force anytime soon, and his power graph has always been lower than mine. Since I had now built a sizeable force, it was time for building stuff again.

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Hooray to the industrious French ! The Great Lighthouse in Paris isn't particularly helpful (I only have 2 coastal cities, but it still helps a bit for GNP), but that's still something the others won't have, and I can now spawn great people too, and this won't be a luxury.

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Hooray #2 ! [thumbsup] The Parthenon in Orleans (industrious, marble). Once again, not that useful, but still better than nothing, and with so few techs and so many hammers, there wasn't much else to build... It was also nice since I started these projects late.

I swapped to Slavery and Hereditary Rule, the latter one allowing more growth (important). But there is one question you should still have in mind : what with my troops ??

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Spy report : Sir, Sir ! We spotted the French columns marching towards the English, that is Darkness !! [eek]
"Sir" : You must be wrong, krys is known to be a fucking builder, incapable of building a single unit. Why such a change ?
Spy : I don't know. Either he wants to break a cliché, either he wants to perform a ridiculous attack. I'm not sure he has brought enough units there !
"Sir" : Let's see how it goes then. Maybe Darkness can build enough units in time and head for victory...

I lost one turn by misusing AI roads, but anyway I was able to reach Darkness's lands without him noticing me (that I know of ! ;) ). He has a scout moving all around the map, but he missed my stack when they were moving throughout Mongol territory.

Darkness still lacks Feudalism (longbowmen) but has Machinery (crossbowmen). I'm not aiming at victory with such a stack, but I hope to make enough damage to not regret it. Failure won't mean defeat, but a harder game definitely.

[Socrates]

3 turns have passed...

This turn I attacked the city of Nottingham, as those who read Darkness's spoiler should have guessed. ;) There were 5 axemen there, here is the combat log I've just sent to him :

In Nottingham :
City Raider I Sword vs fort. Combat II Axe : Axe 3.5/5
City Raider I Sword vs fort. Axe : Axe 4.2/5
City Raider I Sword vs fort. Axe : Axe 1.8/5
City Raider I Sword vs Axe : Axe 2.5/5
City Raider I Sword vs Axe : Sword 1.9/6
City Raider I Sword vs 4.2/5 fort. Axe : Sword 0.5/6
City Raider I Sword vs 3.5/5 fort. Combat II Axe : Sword 1.7/6
City Raider I Sword vs 2.5/5 Axe : Sword 0.3/6
City Raider I Sword vs 1.8/5 fort. Axe : Sword 3.6/6

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-> Nottingham captured and destroyed !

The money we get in such situations is always something I forget ; I'll be able to run science at 100% (instead of 50-60%) for some 3 turns. :)

On the downside, Genghis Khan declared war this turn, I don't think this has to do with Darkness asking this, but the coincidence is interesting. I have 3 axemen in my territory, and will start to build more units pretty soon.

[Socrates]

And thus the war began... I decided to split my troops in two, one large stack heading for the south, and one stack (healing units) heading for the west, to make a surprise attack. A few turns later I reached the city of York in the south, but Darkness now had enough axemen to prevent the downfall of the city, and that's when I decided to play tactical. ;) Using his forests, my stack passed the city, went further south and eventually got out of his territory to use Greek roads...

That's about when I started to emerge as a power ; here are two interesting graphs.

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Production graph. I was a bit ahead overall, despite two periods of growth, but with one (large) city down Darkness was now stepping back.

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GNP graph. Now this is very interesting. From around 1200BC onwards, Darkness had pwned me in GNP like mad. I even reached zero all by myself after building all those units, and that's when I felt I had to try this attack, otherwise I'd just lose the game. Of course trading a bit with the AIs helped me staying close behind, but it was becoming more and more unbearable. Now you can see the result of the attack with that white curve. ;) This turn was actually the first turn I took back my first place in GNP, only to increase the lead thereafter. I knew I would be back, but that quickly ? Unbelievable !

When I was about to re-enter Darkness's land with my southern stack, I saw 2 large stacks of his, trying to chase me. The problem is that they were not using their roads, and I was wondering how I could easily do that :

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Razing Coventry. It was a small town, but there were roads there, and it's not as if my move was that surprising. I had my northern stack putting the English into trouble, but nevertheless just encountering one unit in Coventry was weird.

So what was I up to with my stack in the north ? I had 4 swords by foot, which I sent to the nearest city in the west (Warwick), while a 5th sword was aboard my galley. I played this one tactical too, trying to leave Darkness doubtful about where I'd attack, since there were 2 cities in reach of my galley (Warwick and Newcastle). But he had enough horse archers and killed my 4 swords by foot around Warwick. So I moved my galley to Newcastle, only to find Newcastle empty !!

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The sword jumped out of the ship and razed the city immediately (amphibious attack). Since Darkness had enough horses, I really wondered what he was doing this time. [???]

In the meantime, my southern stack headed for the west again, where lied the city of Canterbury, using neutral ground. Since there were plenty of roads around, I believed Darkness's stacks would be waiting for me there. Well, not quite.

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Only a catapult there, so I razed the city, while still having my stack rather OK.

5 tiles north : London itself ! Darkness had 8 cities, and was now down to 4, small ones BTW. I had 5 cities, 3 of them being large and strong. So the war was more than successful, and way more successful than expected. [thumbsup] With the last sword gone in the north, I only had my southern stack left here, and only one way to go : northbound, to London. So I entered London's influence zone, but he was waiting for me with many, many troops this time. I didn't move my units very well, and got them all crushed in one turn. He would have done it whatever I had done anyway. And since I wanted to improve my GNP even more, the sooner the better.

The actual war was now over, so I proposed Darkness a peace treaty, which he rejected. ;) I got a 1 unhappy face for war reasons in some cities, but since I'm heavily trading with the AIs, it's not that much of a problem at the moment. I can even grow much more with markets (double happiness for some luxuries I have).

The war with the Mongols wasn't a real one. He just sent a few units, one by one, and I was able to stand while mainly focusing on building. Speaking of which...

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The Colossus in Lyons !!! Once again, not THAT great. But Paris is using coastal tiles while growing, so it's still nice. ;)

I have switched to Bureaucracy. And as you can see, I'm about to discover Engineering, a tech known by no one at the moment. This will help me defend better against the Mongols, as well as allowing the building of pikemen, making Keshiks totally obsolete (if not already). I'm so far ahead in GNP that I can now decently expect catching back the AIs soon. I also started to be invaded by religions, which is always nice when you have none in the first place.

I have an opportunity window of 10-15 turns during which I'm safe against Darkness, should he send me his units right away. I'll use that for building more and more. But I'll make sure to have some medieval units pretty soon, which could also make me safe from my psychotic neighbours.

[Socrates]

We're now a few turns later (we're doing 1 turn per day more or so).

I got more and more concerned by the Mongols, as they decided to send me some units by more than one at last, and not outdated ones BTW.

First, there was this lone galley which descended upon Paris and trashed my fishing net on the fish, which put Paris into famine. [xx(] To do this, it killed a galley I had just built for that purpose (while having less chance to win of course, damnit). So I quickly built a new galley and trashed his. :D A new fishing boat was ordered.

But then I saw 2 loaded galleys approaching, they had 2 keshiks and 2 jumbos. Another keshik was coming by foot (horse foot). Uh-oh. I whipped a pikeman in Lyons, and stopped research. The galleys unloaded the cargo near Lyons (while my galley was being repaired there). One turn later I had a new pikeman, and upgraded one of the 2 archers to longbow. I put all the close units in Lyons, which is a nice city on hill with 40% cultural defense. Then he attacked me with the 4 units that had come with the galleys, and all were easily killed by both the pikeman and the longbow (I had MUCH, MUCH better odds). [thumbsup]

On the following turn (this morning) I saw that, for the first time since I could talk to him, Genghis wasn't asking Lyons for peace, but actually offered 20 gold and 5 gpt !! [eek] Just for 4 units killed ?? This is Prince level after all. I took the liberty to kill his last keshik for experience, and signed the deal. :) There was a crossbow approching (archery unit, +50% vs melee units), and I had no clearly superior unit to deal with it ; I could get me a knight, but the last keshik had just destroyed the pasture over my horses near Lyons. [blush2] I have another horse spot, but I'm making a hell of a profit with it (Monty)... So peace it was.

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Take that asshole, or how the wind quickly changes direction...

I still have some buildings to build in my cities, to give me a clear edge over Darkness, so I may deal with the Mongols later... or never.

BTW, Darkness would be recovering well if it was not for Monty. He is currently fighting the Aztecs, and the power graph shows it's not a phoney war at all. I have an explorer (yes, the unit !)... exploring what I still have as totally black tiles, maybe he'll tell me about it. But Darkness has founded 2 new cities, bringing back his total to 6, ie. 1 more than me ! He's still way behind in size, but he's back to his former GNP level, but definitely not to his former production level. I'm not sure if the GNP level is THAT relevant in Civ anyway...

[Socrates]

Once the war with the Mongols was over, it was time to build again. Darkness was too backwards to compete on the military front, so I guess he had to build too. He brought himself back to 7 cities. As for me, I still have my 5 cities, trying to build as many buildings as possible. I came to a point where I was not doing badly in production (usually #3 or #4, not far behind the Mongols and their numerous cities), but I was a clear #1 in GNP, increasing the tech lead turn after turn. In the meantime I let all the cities grow as fast as possible, building farms over cottages when necessary. The AIs are now slowly catching me back with their cities, but still not clearly in GNP.

At one point I thought I had to strike again, so I took advantage of a situation where I had less buildings to build to start training troops. French musketeers in numbers. Once I had 7 of them, I sent them and 1 horse archer to Darkness's lands, only 5 turns away, using friendly territory. This is when Genghis started to annoy me again. I thought a bit before refusing his demand, and thus war started again. I sent a few units in his territory, trying to pillage stuff, but he started to show his army, and soon I understood I had to go back home and defend while waiting for more troops to be ready. The idea is to hide in cities while waiting for appropriate units to emerge, so as to minimize the losses. This means I agree to have some tiles pillaged, and one of them was a hard move, since this was a farm that allowed irrigation in many farms in the hinterland.

Anyway, on the other front, it looks much like a piece of cake. To add to my military lead, the Greek declared war on Darkness a few turns before. The musketeer stack reached the city of York, but it was still well defended, and odds were bad. It was impossible to make a surprise move there (remember, musketeers have 2 movement points !), so I decided to attack a city in the south.

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With one catapult defending the city, Oxford (built on the site of an ancient English city) fell easily. Darkness probably had too few troops, mainly dedicated to the defense of York (under Greek attack). My move wasn't a surprise one in the sense that the musketeer stack stayed one turn before the city. But you have to bring reinforcements in 1 turn...

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A crazy pic of the same turn. Lyons, under Mongolian attack (city defense brought down by a catapult while waiting for more troops), is enjoying a huge happiness bonus, and I don't know if that's in the rules. I'm under Hereditary Rule, which to my knowledge allows a maximum of 3 happy smileys thanks to troops.

Darkness attempted to kill my horse archer around York (trying to pillage stuff), but he did it with a catapult, an inferior unit with which the horse archer deals very well (+100% strength !). One turn later, he did it with a 2nd catapult, failed again, and eventually killed it with a horse archer. Probably used cats as suicide units, but not very coherent...

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One turn later after razing Oxford, I razed Dover, built on English ruins too. There was just an archer there (and no defense on the previous turn). I had also captured a worker (he is on the pic), but Darkness destroyed a 2nd one before I was able to get him.

This is where we are now. A stack of 5 musketeers (the original stack minus both city killers) is at 1 tile from London. The capital city is just defended with 1 catapult. I have my explorer in the vicinity, jumping from hill to hill, unveiling the terrain and the units. So next turn could be a very important turn, the one where London falls !

[BCLG100]

Nice one krys, press that advantage home, just a note hereditry rule gives unlimited happiness- just depends on the amount of units in the city.

[Socrates]

Oh I didn't know. I always thought there was a limit of 3 happy smileys. You gotta be careful not to let your city grow too much, because there will be a problem when you switch to Representation...

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London <s>calling</s> falling. :D There was a horse archer and a catapult there. The explorer had defended well against another catapult during my IT. The healed musketeers are now targetting other cities, while the wounded ones have a rest. I have 2 musketeers in front of the city in the west, ready to attack that horse archer there (and horse archers don't even get the city defense bonus !).

I also killed 4 Mongolian units next to Lyons, and put 3 musketeers in that forest. But in the IT, Genghis decided to attack them anyway with knights !! [eek] The bastard was lucky : he killed 2 of them while losing 1 knight. Next time I'll keep my units in town, and let that stupid catapult bombard. I'm in shortage of healed pikemen, that's why I can't kill 'em all...

[Whomp]

Looking good Krys.

[Socrates]

BTW, I forgot to say it : Darkness had just completed the Hanging Gardens in London (like, a few turns ago). [eek] I wonder what is his priority...

[Whomp]

Hanging Garden can be powerful if he's rushing with pop.

[Socrates]

I didn't notice any population decrease, and I'd even say London had been growing lately. I can say that, because I have kept a galley around the city for ages. So he must have been building it with hammers. With the Greek declaring war and us being at war (even with no fight), I thought he would level up his defense a bit. Or maybe he thought I would be back to building mode until the space age. ;) But I have changed ! [saddam] (would be a nice smiley)

[Lt. Killer M]

hehe, I had not read this before the meeting. Now I understand you enthusiasm for the Musks even ebtter [estwing]

btw, what you describe here is pretty close to the attack style I used to practice; you should ahve recognized it at the meeting!

[Socrates]

Well, musketeers are not that strong, but they're quite good against many units. I have yet to find a unit which kicks their balls at that point in the tech tree (but I'm not a Civ4 expert...).

Killer style I used ? Hmmm, if you say so. I'd say I just came with a stack of the same units and attacked the cities, but then my 1st attack in this PBEM (in the Ancient age) was more heterogeneous and less brutal. ;)

[grahamiam]

Nice! [hammer] Whip more musketeers and end this thing [hammer] You don't want to face redcoats if you you don't have to.

[Beam]

Nice read and it shows gpt isn't the only way to go krys! [goodjob] Did you see any Longbows in English terr.? With those it would have been different imo.

[Socrates]

Darkness is a long way to redcoats. I suppose he will never get to them. I have almost never whipped a unit in this game, except a while back when the Mongols attacked me for the first time (in Lyons). There is simply not enough food on this map for that.

Beam, the reason I decided to attack Darkness in the first place is that I couldn't see a way out in this game. I was digging my own graveyard, with what I can now say is a worse territory than Darkness's, and him being financial was too much to cope with. So it was just a "what's the hell, I'm gonna attack and see what I can do this way". So far so good. :D As for longbows, Darkness has discovered their tech a few turns ago only. I have encoutered some in York, the first city I reached, which I decided not to attack. A good choice. ;) There is another longbow in one of his 3 other cities at the moment ; I have to see how to handle that, since odds are a bit against me.

One turn has passed since last update. I was about to raze my 4th city in 4 turns, but I got unlucky. I had 2 musketeers in front of 2 horse archers. The 2nd attack failed, despite a 96% chance for me. [cry] I still have 6 musketeers and 1 explorer in English territory, and 4 English cities to raze. I hope I can finish him with them. [mortalkombat] Maybe the Greeks can help me out a bit.

[Socrates]

I won !!! [thumbsup] Darkness has eventually surrendered.

A few more turns were played, where Darkness killed 3 of my musketeers in 3 battles I should have won (one with 96% odds, which prevented Hastings to fall [EDIT : already posted [mischief] ]). This stopped my musketeer attack.

I started to do quite well against Genghis Khan, destroying more units than he did, and I was about to get control of all my tiles around Lyons. A few more turns and I'd have my 7 catapults, which I would have sent with a big stack towards the first city I'd judge weak...

And, to end the summary, a few more turns (still from now) and I had cavalries. [charge] This would have meant a decisive victory against Darkness with a stack of 10-12 cavalries at most.

[Darkness]

quote:Originally posted by kryszcztov

First thing I notice is that I already have contact with Alex. [hmm] Very strange. Anyway, I don't know where he is located and I have no business to do with him at the moment.

That is really odd, expecially considering the bastard was my nextdoor neighbour... [???]

Re: Hanging gardens: 2 reasons: 1 - I wanted to try and pop-rush as much units as I could. 2 - There was nothing better to build. I had no resources, so the best I could build were longbowmen. My wars versus the AI prevented me from hooking up any strategic resources, because they were close to the borders and constantly under attack.

Thanks for the game Krys! :)