Best starting position ever!

[wodan11]

Sokay Starfarer. By and large the citizen governor does a good job. You just happened to stumble on one of the few instances where it needs some help.

Wodan

[joncnunn]

Agreed, I'd have regenerated the map in 4000 BC even if all the sea tiles within sight were sea resources.

Originally posted by Theben
Move your capital to 1 continent and put the hidden palace on the other.

And for sticking it out. I know I'd probably have given up long ago.

[Starfarer]

All right. I've won the game (My first time actually sticking it out an entire game rather than starting a new game, actually) via Space Race, and discovered osme interesting notes.

First, EVERYBODY started on an island, except Catherine, who was on the far southeast continent.

Second, my continent and the one next to me were RIFE with resources aplenty. I lacked for nothing save marble. This made me happy.

Third, MY GOD the barbarians were bigger than some of the AI empires. I didn't take ALL of the barbarian cities (I used several of them as "training grounds" for my troops), but that's partially because there were almost as many of those as there were MY cities. Of course, they were universally in sub-optimal positioning, but that's to be expected.

Fourth, a single Mechanized Infantry in a strong cultural city can survive nearly any assault from nearly any number of units composed of Knights, Catapults, and various archery units. I discovered this when my single Mechanized Infantry fought off and killed twenty three of the mothers in a single computer Stack Of Doom charge. Without taking damage. At all.

Fifth, I have now discovered the utter joy of a Great General. I've had them before, but I always felt it a waste to spend them on a "mere 20 xp." I have now learned that it's not the 20 xp I'm really using it for, but the special promotions (double XP for the win). A single Tank (later upgraded to Modern Armor) survived enough battles to acquire over 100 xp. I was... very pleased.

Those of you who're reading this may have noticed I waited until extremely late game to go to war. This was primarily because I did not care to go to war at all, and eventually only did so against a vastly technologically inferior neighbor (although it shoudl be mentioned he outnumbered me in sheer number of units by at least 20 to 1, but tech lead matters) out of sheer curiosity of how much XP a single unit could acquire.

Catherine remained my only challenge the entire game, and I continually kept her appeased with occasional trades and the like. Keeping out of her wars cost me some points, but not being at war with whoever she considered a friend (which changed from turn to turn, it seems), helped me out a lot. Annexing two full continents and fighting a minor border skirmish with her (and incidentally wiping out pretty much all of her navy) was fun, but she started it. And I got the "wounded troops" event and decided that moment was as good as any to end the war.

My only "major" war was with the aforementioned technologically-inferior opponent, Lincoln. He had to contend with a nearby Mali and later with Catherine, so he was somewhat hobbled, but his military was mighty enough to keep anyone from gobbling him up. His culture was so strong it made invasion risky, as I was afraid his cities might flip right back to him if I didn't garrison them well enough. so I chose another path.

Slash and burn.

I razed approximately eight cities, and captured the rest in one massive rush. Come to discover, he had three cities left, that he'd rushed to found on another continent past one of his allies. That was fine, though. He capitulated. When I got around to offering.

Mali needed only the smallest amount of convincing to surrender as well. I only had to take one of their cities that, honestly, I wanted to take anyway (they had the gall to colonize one my continents!) Amusingly enough, Mali was, at the time of my slash-and-burn war, Lincoln's vassal. By the midpoint of the war, they'd traded places. By the end of it, BOTH of them were my vassals. To add insult to injury, I took all the cities that I'd captured and granted them all independance just to piss Lincoln off.

Napoleon and his "colony", Ragnar (somehow the Vikings came from the French!), were nearby, but I frankly left them alone.

And then, after I'd launched my spaceship, just because I never had before, I nuked France.

I had built up, by this point, quite the large 'just in case" stockpile of at least forty or fifty nuclear weapons, and as I was ging to win anyway, I tasked all my cities to build more. By the end of it, I had enough nuclear weapons to leave every city that France or Ragnar had a smoking, fallout-surrounded 1-pop-no-building ruin. Of course, Global Warming was getting to be a problem, but hey, I was winning anyway, and there's no better time to screw around just to see what'll happen than when yuor winning is a foregone conclusion.

I'd've nuked Catherine instead, just to see her 3500 point score drop like a stone, but she built the SDI and her espianoge points were too good for me to see where.

honestly, while I had the technological lead most of the game (catherine was giving me a run for my money BEFORE I met her, but after... she apparently gave up!), it was still a lot of fun.

I'm going to try to upgrade the difficulty in the future. I feel that winning my first game (although there were others I could've won, sure, but never stuck all the way through) is a good enough milestone.

Anyhow. Just thought you guys might like the final update.

Final score: me: 5800 or so, Catherine 3500 or so, everyone else 900 or less.

[lordrune]

What were your map settings? If you weren't deliberately going for a really heavy island type game, I would myself have regenerated as soon as I saw the start.

[wodan11]

Originally posted by lordrune
What were your map settings? If you weren't deliberately going for a really heavy island type game, I would myself have regenerated as soon as I saw the start.

I wouldn't, myself. Variety is the spice of life.

Wodan

[Sabre2th]

I didn't think a start like that was possible without tweaking the start parameters

[Theben]

I have a feeling there was some glitch in the program that allowed your mech inf to cause such a massacre. I recall playing a civII scenario where a 4 ATT, 4HP, 2 firepower unit killed a 98 DEF, 10HP, 4firepower unit, w/o taking ANY damage.

[Modo44]

Originally posted by Theben
I have a feeling there was some glitch in the program that allowed your mech inf to cause such a massacre. I recall playing a civII scenario where a 4 ATT, 4HP, 2 firepower unit killed a 98 DEF, 10HP, 4firepower unit, w/o taking ANY damage.

It's callen "one in a million odds". Which means it usually happens 1 time out of 10.

[Krill]

Pratchett

[Starfarer]

Originally posted by lordrune
What were your map settings? If you weren't deliberately going for a really heavy island type game, I would myself have regenerated as soon as I saw the start.

Custom_Continents, Medium sea level, Temperate world. Now, see, the thing is, everybody started off on small islands RIGHT NEXT to their main continent! It was weird. Maybe the computer looked at my start position and put the AI players in "comparable" starts? I dunno. I considered restarting, but I wanted to see how far I could take it.

Originally posted by Theben
I have a feeling there was some glitch in the program that allowed your mech inf to cause such a massacre. I recall playing a civII scenario where a 4 ATT, 4HP, 2 firepower unit killed a 98 DEF, 10HP, 4firepower unit, w/o taking ANY damage.

I figured it was the game actually working the way most people wanted it to. *L* Many people have stories of their 40 power Modern Armor taken out by a lowly Spearman, but in this case my power 32 Mech Infantry walloped more than ten times his number of low-tech units. Of course, I'd panicked and airdropped a couple of Marines into the city as backup just in case, but it turns out they weren't necessary.

[Modo44]

Originally posted by Krill
Pratchett

Indeed.

Originally posted by Starfarer
Of course, I'd panicked and airdropped a couple of Marines into the city as backup just in case, but it turns out they weren't necessary.

I wouldn't call it "panic", just common sense overkill.

[DirtyMartini]

While I realize that the original post was tongue in cheek, in my latest game I did indeed get the best start ever.

As Vikings:

Coastal (all water are coast in BFC except ocean fish)
On a river
2 fish
2 crabs
1 clam
1 iron (popped a second iron in the BFC two turns after discovering IW)
two grassland hills and a plains hill ( or something close to that)
flatland tiles are all grassland except one plains
All land tiles (except one hill are) on river.

Ridiculous

I put Moai Statues and Ironworks there. Mine/cottage all but the three available watermill-able tiles. I thought about workshopping over the cottages eventually for maximum superproduction, but post levees/universal sufferage my cottages are just fine. That city is just a complete powerhouse. Never gotten that kind of start synergy -- coastal with all that seafood and starting with fishing. All that river/coast and financial. All those hills/iron and aggressive.

My second city site had yet more seafood and river grassland. Just silly.

I'd post a screeny, but I'm at work.

So far it's early 1800s. The only thing preventing my utter domination is rampant war weariness -- damn you statue of zeus.

PE

[Ming]

Originally posted by DirtyMartini
The only thing preventing my utter domination is rampant war weariness -- damn you statue of zeus.

PE

Simple solution... find the city and raze it

[rah]

Yep, I usually spend some time zooming in on cities till I figure out where it is. TARGET ACQUIRED

[Theben]

Seems a waste for the Moai Statues.