Ruff_Hi's Antics

All Happiness is the Release of Internal Pressure

Game Report: Epic 8 - Potluck (2/6)

... that I am Saladin ... (Spiritual, Philosophical) starting with Mysticism and The Wheel. Well, given that civilization and my start I decide to play for a space victory. Ok, truth be told, I had planned to win via space this game because I haven't won by space for ages and I wanted to revisit the ship build / tech research order. I also had a heap of fun playing Saladin and made a lot of use of the Spiritual trait - lots and lots of revolutions - hmmn - do I want to finish this building? Jump into slavery, whip all round, back into caste systems after 5 rounds ... lots of fun. So, on with the game ...here is where I build Mecca ...

I funny thing happened with I settled my city ... the hut that you can see gave me nothing, zip, nada, zero - not a brass razoo. Hmmn - ripped off - Anyway, I actually found the settling site of Mecca to be very difficult - I have two gold mines for early commerce (after mining), a floodplain for early grown or commerce, some hills but quite a few plains tiles. I actually decided to found on the cows for early production bonus and farm the floodplains and grass lands. I also flip-flopped my capital between a production centre, then a commerce centre and, finally, back to a production centre building farms for production (to work the hills), then cottages and then back to farms. I build both Wall St and Oxford Uni in Mecca but this was a mistake in hind-sight - it should have been Wall St and Ironworks.

The biggest disappointment of this game was when I went to write up my report, I found that I had lost a good 200 or so screenshots and only have screenshots from 1700AD (or there abouts) onwards. I typically don't take notes but do take lots of screenshots. I then use these screenshots to write my reports. So, the early part of this write up is from memory using screenshots from the replay at the end of the game.

Here is my high level view of the opening - beeline Hinduism, Buddism and Jewdaism - all three going to Mecca - my only city. I also later founded Christianity in a separate city. I build the Colossus so that I started with a lot of fishing / coastal cities to leverage that advantage. I also spread my three religions to all my cities. I started off exploring and found a killer site for a GP farm - three huge food tiles, lots of grasslands for additional farms. I placed a marker there for future reference. The only problem was that England plonked a city right there before I could even think of starting a settler. Well, I call it a problem, but it wasn't my problem - it was England's. Don't these AIs know that they shouldn't take my city locations. A short while later, that location was mine (screenshot below from just before the end of the game) ...

and England was eliminated ... the green arrow / line was the route of my battle army.

Mansu was further North and Spain (Ok, as Sullla pointed out, I have confused Egypt - Hatty with Spain - Bella ... please read Egypt instead of Spain for the rest of the report) was running North South just to my West. They actually flipped one of my newly acquired English cities and also took a great commerce city sight that I had also 'Marked'. What is it with this game - the AIs just want to die? However, before I could address the Spainish issue, Mansu completed the Pyramids while I was within 5 turns of finishing it myself. I was running a very productive Specialist economy and was able to build macemen very early - thus fueling my military victories (no slingshot involved). That said - I did land a huge biggest military slingshot later in the game - see later.

So, Mansu steals my Pyramids and that is the end of him - WAR - with the green line / arrows again showing the route that my battle army took.

Its funny, my best friend was England just before I wiped her out. Then it was Mansu ... just before I wiped him out. Now it is Spain ...