The horror... the horror...

[Theseus]

For those that don't know me, I've played a lot. HoF and all that. Took a break during the Warlords era, and just kicked up with BTS.

After some install difficulties, I've just played my first game.
It only lasted three hours.

I was kicking butt, and experimenting with the new features, but lost.

I lost. On frickin' Prince.

I missed the Apo Palace (didn't focus on it enough, I guess).

I lost on Diplo. To SHAKA.




I have this to say: Losing diplo to Shaka?? Ridiculous!! Some kind of backwards-logic trick.

Blake coded Barry Caudill into the AI, probably at Trip's instigation.

(If you ever met these guys, you'd know what I mean!!)

[MrWhereItsAt]

Hahah! Awesome. Theseus got pwned!

[Jvstin]

Re: The horror... the horror...

Originally posted by Theseus

I lost on Diplo. To SHAKA.




I have this to say: Losing diplo to Shaka?? Ridiculous!! Some kind of backwards-logic trick.

"Inconceivable!"

[cloudtoground]

Well, my copy of BtS hasn't arrived yet, so I've been playing a warlords game to satisfy my appetite. If it makes you feel any better, I had a nice long war with Shaka last night, and vassalized him just before I went to bed.

[Theseus]

Re: Re: The horror... the horror...

Originally posted by Jvstin


"Inconceivable!"

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."



It happened to some guy at CFC too, with, as he so elegantly puts it, Monty-bloody-nutcase-zooma.

Very funny.

So, does this mean building the Apo Palace is a waaaay high priority?

[Aro]

Inconceivable

1. Not conceivable; unimaginable; unthinkable
2. Unbelievable; incredible
3. Impossible to comprehend or grasp fully: inconceivable folly; an inconceivable disaster.
4. So unlikely or surprising as to have been thought impossible; unbelievable: an inconceivable victory against all odds.

[Verrucosus]

Amazing. The next time I meet Shaka I'll think "Let's be careful ... this is the guy who defeated Theseus by diplomatic victory."

From what I have read about the Apostolic Palace (I have not really played the new expansion yet, but I'm happy to speculate about it), avoiding someone else's religious victory could become a regular subplot in the game.

Very often, there are two groups of civilizations on different continents. It's not that rare that on the other continent one civilization becomes dominant and spread its religion to all other civs over there. If that civilization manages to build the Apostolic Palace, it's only a matter of waiting for Optics and caravels to spread the faith to the civs on your continent. It won't be dominant here, but it doesn't need to because unlike the UN, the votes in the Apostolic Palace depend on faith rather than size. Whatever that means exactly, the new members where the Palace's resident has just converted a single city are unlikely to tip the scales enough to prevent victory by someone from the religion's home continent who has either conquered or befriended his neighbours.

Apart from going for the Palace yourself, the only certain way to prevent a religious victory would be to adopt Theocracy, so the Palace's religion cannot be spread to your own empire. This would be quite restrictive and I hope there are other ways to deal with this risk. (I wonder if a player who is going for a religious victory can fool a theocratic AI by gifting them a small city to make it a member of the Palace.)

Much, in fact, almost all of this is speculation and things might turn out quite differently given more knowledge about the exact voting rules and more experience with the Apostolic Palace in general. However, I very much like the general idea of having to divert resources from my own plan for victory to thwart someone else's. This could happen previously, but it was very rare. I remember a game where I had a small continent for myself and was going for a culture victory, but had to get to send troops to another continent to prevent Napoleon from winning a domination victory. If such complications came up more frequently, I think it would be a change for the better. ... Hey, I'm really getting in the mood for this game.

Anyway, I'm glad to see that Theseus enjoys the expansion so far (which may be a somewhat liberal, but I think fair interpretation of his post).

[Harovan]

I remember you. Vaguely.

Just kidding. Welcome back friend, you've been gone for quite a while! Glad you like BtS. I bought it 2 days ago but didn't play yet.

[Rhothaerill]

T's back.

My copy still hasn't shown up yet. It's not expected to arrive until Friday.

[Theseus]

Yeah, it's been about a year. Combination of burnout and RL.

But I'm back, and I'm totally digging BTS. Second game, still on Prince, and although I don;t have Ultimate Power (was that what Arrian called it?) I am kicking boot-ey.

And yes, I built the friggin' Apo Palace! Not 100% sure how best to use it though...