Smoke-Jaguar versus Sid.

[Dominae]

Ok, time for one of us to throw down the gauntlet and challenge the Strat forum to a Sid-level game. That will be me. korn469 already post a thread for a comparative Sid exercise, but it died pretty quickly (maybe because Plains, no fresh water and Sid difficulty are not a great combination - what were you thinking!?).

Below is a 4000BC savegame of my second attempt at Sid. As you can see from the screenshot in the next post, the starting location is thankfully quite good. I selected the Mayans, as I feel that Agricultural/Industrious is a consistently strong trait across difficulty levels (all the way up to Sid). Maybe I'll even have a chance to Barb farm with Javelin Throwers for a bit before AI stacks of doom come to ruin my fun.

I invite anyone to try this out with me. Think of it as an exercise, and less a "fun" game. Once you think about it the right way even Sid can be fun I think, despite the fact that you'll be playing catchup until the Industrial era (or beyond!).

Concerning the gpt bug, I plan to ignore it. Early on it will be necessary to give the AI gpt to keep alive in the tech, so the AI has the advantage there. Once I start asking the AI for gpt, well, I'll more or less have "beat" Sid at that point.

Let's see how rough Sid really is!


Dominae

[Dominae]

Yay Cattle.

[Brundlefly]

What are the other game settings you've chosen for this one? Map, barbs, etc., etc.,

[Arrian]

+5 food once you irrigate that sucker. Mmm, agricultural.

Enjoy, Dom. I'll be interested in how things go, but this isn't my cup 'o tea.

-Arrian

[ducki]

As soon as my Carthaginian Knights are done with my Monarch level rampage, I plan to try this out. With only 1 Emperor start under my belt, and that only to the end of Peaceful Rex, this one should be a relatively short game for me.

Thanks for posting it, Dom!

[Dominae]

Originally posted by bfg9000
What are the other game settings you've chosen for this one? Map, barbs, etc., etc.

Map: Everything standard, including Size.
Barbs: Roaming.
Rules: Default.

Enjoy, Dom. I'll be interested in how things go, but this isn't my cup 'o tea.

Thanks, I'll be sure to let you know how badly I get humiliated.


Dominae

[Harovan]

I will have a Sid challenge after the game is fixed. Sid is a squeeze-all-you-can-out-of-the-land level, one has to be very anal what concerns food, shields and gold and I just wouldn't enjoy this with a broken game. Even more since I suppose, that I won't play more than one Sid challenge ever.

[vmxa1]

I have only got to three demi games so far, what happened to deity first?
I downloaded it, maybe I will take the plunge and my lumps.

[vmxa1]

BTW I am not so concrned about the cow as I am about how many and where any luxs may be located.

[ZargonX]

Excellent. As a builder who normally plays Monarch, I give myself 35 turns

[vmxa1]

I started and he map looks good. Now if it was only at a level that was a tad bit more leisurely.

Anyway it occurs to me that the Ag trait may not be so good for Sid level. Maybe I am not thinking clearly, but being able to grow and make more units/settlers/workers will not be all that great with a civ near you. Cheap temples and barracks may be more helpful.

It did not take long for the AI to demand some cash and with the scabs of archers and warriors they have close to me, I had no choice.

Wonders are being built faster that warriors, very depresing.
Temple of Artemis up in Kyoto in 2190BC and they did the HG soon after, ouch.

[Rhothaerill]

I tried it for a while and got pounded not by my neighbors but by barbs! Barb warriors won every battle and basically overran my fledgling empire.

I've seen the wonders thing too. The Colossus was completed in 2850 and the Oracle just a bit later.

I think I'll try this again later and hope that the barbs don't get the RNG luck again.

[Dominae]

I'll wait a bit before posting any screenshots, but for now (I hate to say this): this is a lot easier than I thought!

Edit: This is not to say that this will be an "easy" game...not by a long shot!

Although the Mongols probably have an crazy number of military units, and I've been hopelessly outrun to every Ancient era Wonder (Pyramids in 2430BC, ouch!), REX has gone rather well. I'll probably have at least 15 or so productive cities when I hit the Medieval era. The Mongols did not have the best starting location (or so it seems), and they had a bunch of room to expand that was not in my direction. All I need to do now is keep up in tech and things should shape up somewhere around the Industrial era.

The Corruption in C3C is rather annoying. When you're trying to milk everything you can out of your empire, it's hard not to notice such things...

Oh, and I'm 3 for 3 with the Enslave ability.


Dominae

[vmxa1]

No slaves for me so far and the barbs won most of the early fight and nearly got my two vet warriors escorting my settler. They send 5 units, but I survived and made the town.

It is not going too badly, since no one has come for my head and I have managed to get two luxs roaded. I am so far behind in techs, it is funny. I am just making JT's and spears.

Japan is close to me an dhas already built Zeus and is working on the Templar, that should be fun for me when they get ready.

[Tassadar500]

Originally posted by Dominae
I'll wait a bit before posting any screenshots, but for now (I hate to say this): this is a lot easier than I thought!

Edit: This is not to say that this will be an "easy" game...not by a long shot!

Although the Mongols probably have an crazy number of military units, and I've been hopelessly outrun to every Ancient era Wonder (Pyramids in 2430BC, ouch!), REX has gone rather well. I'll probably have at least 15 or so productive cities when I hit the Medieval era. The Mongols did not have the best starting location (or so it seems), and they had a bunch of room to expand that was not in my direction. All I need to do now is keep up in tech and things should shape up somewhere around the Industrial era.

The Corruption in C3C is rather annoying. When you're trying to milk everything you can out of your empire, it's hard not to notice such things...

Oh, and I'm 3 for 3 with the Enslave ability.


Dominae

Sounds good Dominae Let's see if you can make it 6 for 6