So, how is it done? All the clues are there if you know where to look and you review my list of succession games. I actually ran a game where we were had 4 civs all in a team and the player was responsible for all 4 ... how? Multi-player obviously and HOT-SEAT in particular. Sure, you have to hit enter when you see the "Gandhi - its your go" but a single human can play all of the human players.
So, the player doesn't just have 1 city, the player has 3 spread over 3 civs. It took me a while to select the three civs but I feel that I have settled on three that should provide a nice mixture for the player to play. I've also played with the map, moving the human civs much closer together. This report is based on a trail game that I played rather than the actual game start file. I only had 4 randomly selected AIs to worry about while the Event contains 5 randomly selected AIs.
Now, before we get into the report about my shadow game, lets 'weasel' the words that I used to launch and discuss this event ...
Do you want me to be definitive? Ok. You are NOT TEAMED WITH THE BARBS.
Now, the above is all 100% accurate. However, it is not 100% complete. Sure, you play as Gandhi but you also play as Qin and Cyrus and the player is teamed but not with an AI. You can call this hair splitting but it did raise interest in the event and get some people's gray matter churning.
Finally, lets look at the game settings ... no vassals, no goodie huts, you start with a warrior, AIs start with an extra scout that is right next door to Delhi so everyone knows everyone and war is declared from the get go.
So lets get this ball rolling ... here are my three cities at the end of the first turn ...
Obviously, a team of 3 will out-tech the AIs. Its not exactly linear ... there is some formula kicking around somewhere but basically, a team of three will tech at a rate of (roughly) 1.66 times normal. This should give me a small edge. It helped that my scouts picked up Priesthood, Monarchy and Animal Husbandry. I also set my tech for the religious techs before picking up the worker techs. I then headed towards pottery early (for the granaries). The early builds were work boats for Qin and Cyrus while Gandhi pumped out workers. Qin and Cyrus did not build any workers during the whole game. Gandhi supplied the worker requirements for the team by building 6 of them.
Cyrus had copper while Qin had iron. Gandhi had marble and Cyrus had stone. This is not exactly how I think the game should be played but it is how I set the game up (deliberately!). Gandhi will be my Great Person pump, Qin will pump the wonders while Cyrus will provide the protection. I expect that Qin's wonders will generate the culture he needs while Gandhi's artists will provide his required culture. However, Cyrus?? I will mainly be settling any and all Great Artists in Cyrus' city to generate his culture.
So, Cyrus trades stone to Qin. Qin trades iron to Cyrus. Gandhi trades marble to Qin. This enables Qin to build Stonehenge while Cyrus gets ready for the onslaught. Did I say that Qin built the wonders? Well, not all of them. Gandhi built the Parthenon while Cyrus build The Great Wall (all for obvious reasons). I don't think that I got the resources allocated correctly. Marble should have been swapped back to Gandhi for the Parthenon and for the later Epics ... oh well.
Here is Cyrus' land getting upgraded by Gandhi's workers. Later when the attacks start, it is important to be very aware of the turn cycle. In my game, the cycle was Gandhi, Cyrus, Qin and then the AIs. This meant that I could move the workers out into the open (Gandhi's turn) and then cover them with units (Cyrus' turn) prior to the AIs having their turn.
Qin completes the Oracle 1 turn after the team finishes teching mathematics, thus enabling the team to select Civil Service and giving each city a huge boost. Qin's Pyramids raise the happy cap significant and enable the cities to grow. By 615BC, here is the troop situation ...
