BTS first impressions.

[Cort Haus]

Lame intro vid and music.

Started a normal speed & size Prince continents map and drew the creatively organised Ethiopian guy.

3 crabs and lots of trees. Chose bronze, workboat, worker, chop, worker, chop chop settler, settled bronze site. Felt obliged to go 20% espionage to try it out. Osaka very close - also Monty and Teddy. Axes, axes, axes, bye-bye Osaka who had built Great Wall.

Built cheap libraries and courthouses which felt good, while Monty attacks Teddy and took a city. Falling behind in cities and military while ramping up the economy, but took two barb cities and popped a great spy which I settled. That and the CH's got the espio points flying and I'm now researching civil service and trying to catch-up on military. I expect Monty will attack soon.

It was good fun, and felt very fresh. Hopefully the mad Aztec won't spoil the party.

[Solomwi]

Keep it going long enough to hit gunpowder. Oromos are a fun unit. One question, though... who's Teddy?

[Boracks]

I imagine Teddy is Roosevelt.

And keep an eye on Monty, he's not to be trusted. Unless you want someone to attack someone else, you, whomever is handy...

[Asmodeous]

I imagine Teddy is Roosevelt.

Too bad that's the WRONG ROOSEVELT.

Me.

[Krill]

Yeah, Oromos along with barracks+ either vassalage/theocracy or a settled GG are fun units.

Better in MP though.

[rah]

Yes, always happy when I get zara in an MP game.
The traits to claim a lot of land and a unit to take more.

[joncnunn]

I turned the intro vid off by tweaking the .ini file.

Ethopia is a fine civ.

Uh, even 10% esp is generally a waste of money. Build Court Houses etc. for free ESP points so you don't fall behind in science.

When Monty is on my landmass, I don't trust him at all. Shoot, he even DOWed me when we didn't share landmasses on my current game and got his intended landing forces sunk before they landed.

Anyway, with Monty already in a war, now is a fine time to wipe him out (or if you already have / close to Fedulism) force him to capitulate to you.
Concentrate your existing troops near your existing border and start building lots of troops now and as soon as Teddy asks, intervene against Monty to take him out.

The last thing you want is for Monty to become the master of any of the American leaders.

Lame intro vid and music.

Started a normal speed & size Prince continents map and drew the creatively organised Ethiopian guy.

3 crabs and lots of trees. Chose bronze, workboat, worker, chop, worker, chop chop settler, settled bronze site. Felt obliged to go 20% espionage to try it out. Osaka very close - also Monty and Teddy. Axes, axes, axes, bye-bye Osaka who had built Great Wall.

Built cheap libraries and courthouses which felt good, while Monty attacks Teddy and took a city. Falling behind in cities and military while ramping up the economy, but took two barb cities and popped a great spy which I settled. That and the CH's got the espio points flying and I'm now researching civil service and trying to catch-up on military. I expect Monty will attack soon.

It was good fun, and felt very fresh. Hopefully the mad Aztec won't spoil the party.

[Solomwi]

Yeah, wasn't sure whether he had the wrong Roosevelt or I had forgotten someone.

[Cort Haus]

I did more than get the wrong Roosevelt. I got the wrong era. It was the other fella - the beardy one, and he and Monts had been at peace for a few turns after their war..

Anyway, Jag-man attacked me the next turn I loaded the game with a large, combined-arms stack. He even paused and retreated a tile to join up with reinforcements, which was impressive. I was able to get a large and mixed bag of defenders in, and he kindly obliged by slaughtering his stack against my city.

I paid Abe a tech to get involved, but I was far too drunk at the time to recall how he lost another city to the Aztecs, or indeed any details at all of the few turns I played the other night. Anyway, I've got Gunpowder in a few turns so hopefully I'll have some fun with the UU, whatever it does.



I did pop and settle another great spy though. I like being able to see what they've built early in the game.

[joncnunn]

Friends don't let Friends Drink & Civ

[Sarco]

Drunken civ is great.

It makes the AI better and speeds up the game about 400%. I intend to do some tonight

[Cort Haus]

I took an ex-american city hoping to return it to the leader who actually turned out to be Washington, but it wasn't on the gimme list. Under heavy cultural pressure from the 5-wonder american capital though. So I took the other one that they'd lost and gave it back to try out the new +1 and they promptly culture-bombed it and will now probably get about 4 cities that I'd taken.

Every time I approach an Aztec city with about 3 units it has at least 7 by the time I get there, so it seems as though the AI is much better at defending. War-weariness is starting to make an impression, and I was somewhat alarmed to find no culture slider at first, although drama rectified that one.

The musket-equiv UU of Ethiopia was very effective all drilled-up, especially with not enough seige units available. About 20 cat-strikes were needed to reduce the defenses of some cities, and I was late getting trebs to the party.

Monty had a lot of land and cities, but has offered capitulation. That's no use to me while America is still at war with them though. About the only thing my ally has done so far is reap the rewards of my work so I haven't had the most fruitful of working relationships so far. I've got the aztec capital with a couple of settled generals (I like that change) but need a couple more cities to hold the iron I need and ensure solid gains from this long war.

The longer game on normal speed is a good tweak too.

[Jaybe]

If someone capitulates, they take on the war & peace stats of the conquerer, so you didn't have a situation with that, CH.

[Theben]

Friends let Friends Drink & Civ

fixed.

[self biased]

i'll be drinking and civ'in tonight.