Bye bye PtW

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Mountain Sage
I'm out the Ancient Age now. Germany is no. 1 in techs and growing quite well, thanks to a C-T-T-C spacing. It's been peaceful until now, except for a short war against the Babs, which netted me their land north and a GL (Pyramids).
Just note that I tried to get 6 GL with my 4 Archers, but failed miserably. I'm really no good with computers.

Looks like exactly my opening too. 1 leader (army, as all wonders were built) and 1 captured Babylonian city. I strive to keep my neighbors alive, I'm not the conquest type of players.

Now I'm trying to build Sun Tsu and Leo and possibly the Sistine. Once I get the first two, it's a massive update and a war against the English (they are no. 1 overall) and later on against the Russians.
I'm researching at 40-50 turns and still manage to be on the lead (I researched IW, then went the Monarchy path), which I find a bit strange.
Sir Ralph, did you experience the same?
And before somebody asks me, I will post the game on my 'Emperor games' thread when I finish it.

Well, yes, I did experience the same, hence my question if increasing the tech rate 25% didn't hurt the AI too much. After we got out of the Ancient age, only the English and French did any considerable research. I was at 0% all the time and looked for a good deal, but all deals were ****e. Later I had to research Republic myself, because Liz had a Monopoly on it and wouldn't trade it except for a ridiculously high price (~3..4k, rough estimation). This part of the mod surely has to be worked with.

[notyoueither]

Unmodded, the AI will place a steep premium on certain techs.

[Arrian]

He sure as hell is, he's just lazy to do the extra micromanaging, can't wave goodbye to his precious ancient/med wonders for growth's sake and as you mention, can't be arsed to do a CxxC spacing. Am I right, Arrian, lazy git?

In a way I can understand him, though, I seek myself an alloy of challenge and fun, that's why I never got appealed by deity (which is 90% challenge 10% fun), but don't play monarch anymore (90% fun 10% challenge).

You've summed it up at the end there. Emperor = 90% challenge (work), 10% fun. Occasionally I desire that much challenge, but most of the time I just wanna play. And C-T-T-C turns my stomach. Too damn close!

ULTIMA! Sweet!

Do you have barb camps set up as the dungeons? HARDCORE barb camps, even?

The map looks great.

-Arrian

[Harovan]

Well, the Dungeons are cities of the particular tribe, as barb camps (even strong ones) wouldn't last long. But I have some nasty ideas with barbarians. The large unsettled areas and the "raging" settings will cause LOTS of barbs, which are brown by the way, since white is already the color of Spirituality. Foot barbs will be Swordsmen, and mounted barbs will be a special unit available at CFC, featuring a knight riding on a Velociraptor. I think I make it 3.2.2, for a challenge. Barb tribe names will be "Ophidian", "Wyrmgarde", "Gargoyle", "Goblin", "Pirate" and other evil Ultima stuff.

[Arrian]

Ah. Sounds cool.

Victory conditions?

-Arrian

[Harovan]

Conquest, nothing else.

Backstory is, that LB has been killed and the Guardian trapped the Avatar in the Void. Mayhem and destruction was thrown upon Britannia, the Three schools of Virtues Empath Abbey, Serpents Hold and The Lycaeum destroyed (ruins encircled with pollution, looks scary ) along with LB's castle, the Temple of the Codex, the tower of Stonegate, the Gargoyle city of Ambrosia and Lord Blackthorns castle at Terfin too. They who were once friends and companions of the Avatar, are now enemies and compete for dominance in Britannia. The Timelord gave you, valiant stranger, the opportunity to get hold of one of these tribes (your choice) with the quest to re-unite Britannia, restore the Virtues, bla, bla, bla, you get the message.

There's btw an excellent "Ultima X" scenario in the directory. It inspired me greatly, but unfortunately it's not a scenario file but a plain Civ3 1.29f savegame, so I can't tinker with it and had to make all myself.

[Arrian]

Gotcha. I was wondering if you played around with a regicide option - killing Lord Brittish to win, that sort of thing.

-Arrian

[Harovan]

I was tempted with regicide, not with LB though, as he is not part of any of these tribes of a virtue, but stands above them. Thus, I had to have him out of the game. But the AI can't handle regicide well, so I decided against it for the sake of SP. I might add it in MP, but in this case I'd have to make 2 versions.

[Harovan]

I just had an idea: MP can't take more than 8 tribes, but SP can. What about having an extra SP version with LB and the Avatar being 2 powerful, but not replaceable units (like in the Ultima X save), and having been banned to the desert island of Terfin along with some of their most trusted troops (a decent army to start with) and 1-2 ships, but only one settler. The choice of the player is narrowed to one tribe only (and not 8 with different traits as in the scenario above), but we could have LB and the Avatar once more to liberate Britannia.

A lot to tinker with. But let me first think of a good tech tree and unit system. With this raw material we can have different versions.

[FrustratedPoet]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
There's btw an excellent "Ultima X" scenario in the directory. It inspired me greatly, but unfortunately it's not a scenario file but a plain Civ3 1.29f savegame, so I can't tinker with it and had to make all myself.

I hesitate to mention this to you after you've done all that work ... but couldn't you have used that fancy tool that Gramphos developed to turn the .SAV file into a .bic? I'm pretty sure that is possible.

[Harovan]

FP, thanks for the tip, I will know in the future. But there's another reason why I didn't even look for such a tool: The Ulitima X scenario has a distorted map. To make it better looking at the minimap, it's stretched 2:1 along the Y-axis, which makes N-S distances twice as long as W-E distances, although they look the same. I made a map, what looks distorted in the minimap (looks stretched in the W-E direction), but has the right "geometry".

[Mountain Sage]

Originally posted by Arrian


You've summed it up at the end there. Emperor = 90% challenge (work), 10% fun. Occasionally I desire that much challenge, but most of the time I just wanna play. And C-T-T-C turns my stomach. Too damn close!

-Arrian

Well, for me, Emperor is more 50-50. Your chances of winning are very good, even if you try something 'unusual', but ther level is high enough not to allow you to get sloppy in your management (cities, techs, wonders etc.).

As for the C-T-T-C, I agree it's a bit crowded, but again, it all depends on the map and number of civs. If the map is crowded 'at birth', a C-T-T-C gives you more punch (i.e. cities) for the same territory.

[Mountain Sage]

I'm a bit mor than halfway thru this game. As ususal, playing on huge maps with 24 civs takes a lot of time. I will post a short DAR in my 'Emperor games' when I'm finished.
In the meantime, some highlights...

What do you think? Are the French a bit paranoid about me wanting to capture their city or nobody told them RoP exist????
BTW, the city's name is Alesia...

[Mountain Sage]

Economic Power. No coments, except that I can't get my 5% interests with SmithTC. Somebody chould replace the game's accountant...

[Mountain Sage]

The AI is cheating
Ironclads should not be able to sail on ocean squares.
But of course, if an Ironclad protects a Galleon, he can escort it anywhere...