A Strategic Choice

[BRC]

In any case, I think I've shown it's possible to be aggressive without cultural "backup"...it just makes things a bit trickier.

You definately have. My question for you is: Would a couple of early temples have stunted your growth enough that you would be in a weaker position right now?

The war against Egypt was easy, but, as usual, there were about 4 flips during the campaign, causing me to lose around 10 Knights.

How much of a sacrifice would you have had to make in order to prevent this?

Then I realised I was thinking in terms of the AU mod!

The Great Wall is why some mods exist, I believe. It just isn't all that effective for the human player as it is.

Sure thing, I'll post some feedback shortly.

If you want to do this somewhere else, go right ahead. I don't want to threadjack this, as it probably should be in the Must Read Directory when it's done.
If anyone else has anything to say about the save, just shout it out. Thanks

[Arrian]

Dominae,

You built the forbidden palace ONE TILE SW OF MINE!

Typo. It's one tille SE of mine. Not that it matters, but it bugged me for about 1/2 hour last night when I was trying to sleep. I built directly north of the middle wine.

In retrospect, building the Great Library was a mistake. I received very little benifit from it, and it triggered my GA earlier than yours, without a FP. I think FP was the way to go. Copernicus offered you a perfect mid-medieval golden age (I'm a big fan of medieval golden ages).

My culture was double Egypt's when I attacked them - 150yrs after you finished them off - and far more than double anyone else's. It was nearly 1/2 the graph. Grog likes cathedrals - they have pretty stained glass.

Anyway, I have had 1 Egyptian city flip (losing 1 Sipahi). I'm starving them all, waiting for my caravels to get to that last city. I didn't notice it - the Egyptians and Mongols are both yellowish... and the Mongols have 2 cities on that island. Damnit. I plan to land my troops, kill the city, give it to the Mongols, re-load my troops, and set sail for the unknown. By then I will have navigation (I'll research it next).

At this point the Romans hate me, the Arabs hate me, the Egyptians hate me (for a few more turns, after which they can hate me from the depths of hell) and the Mongols love me. You know you're a bad man when Ghengis Khan is "gracious" to you and the rest of the world would like to rip you heart out.

-Arrian

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Arrian
the Egyptians hate me (for a few more turns, after which they can hate me from the depths of hell)

(Let me know in what year you finish the game, if you decide to go through the motions...)


Dominae

[Arrian]

Oh, I think I'll play it out. I could win at any time (as I'm sure you could too) simply by taking over the rest of the continent with my Sipahi. That should trigger domination, at least once the borders expand.

But I doubt I'll do it that way. I like having my one ally (Mongolia). Perhaps I'll kill the Romans and Aztecs, just to neaten up the map (they have 5 cities between them).

I want to at least find out who the 8th civ is. Since I intend to use my 2 caravels currently tasked to the destruction of Egypt to find them, and they will be loaded with 3 Sipahi each (assuming I lose none to the final Egyptian city), I am pondering simply finding the 8th civ, locating their luxury (spices), and dropping off the Sipahi. I should be able to take the city, and then liberal use of my treasury should allow me to hold it. Muwahaha!

-Arrian

[Dominae]

BRC's game

BRC, I started a new thread to comment on your game, since (out of respect for Arrian) I don't want to threadjack this one. Same title as the subject of this post.


Dominae

[Arrian]

Thanks, Dominae, although I'm not to perturbed by threadjacks.

I played my game until 1130AD, the date upon which I finally met the 8th civ: Carthage. I traded them LITERATURE for their map and all their gold.

The Egyptians and Arabs are dead. Only Mongolia, Rome, the Aztecs and newfound Carthage remain.

I have made a patchwork screenshot, hopefully it's small enough...

[Dominae]

Good work! I realise it may have been a good idea to send a few Knights up to the French earlier on, as the Palace is bordering on their lands. The critical decision of what to do with the Leader was drowned in superior positioning on a great map, I think. That, and a strong start.


Dominae

[Arrian]

Well, yeah, the start was nice. I seek those out, you know

So I think the FP choice was overall the best, though the Pyramids were definitely nice. The reason I chose them was the effort required to get build the FP city and cities surrounding it: it essentially meant war with Egypt (without the pop boost of the Pyramids, especially), which I didn't want to do. You seem to have managed it just fine. If I had a optimal, or near-optimal FP location ready to go, I wouldn't have considered it a strategic choice. I briefly considered rushing the FP in Tenochticlan, actually. Not optimal, to be sure, but even a halfway decent FP location set up in 1025bc could be powerful. I wonder... nah, I'm done with this game.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Shameless bump of my own thread, due to the recent poll regarding use of the 1st leader...

-Arrian

[Dominae]

Arrian, it seems I've drawn the opposite conclusion since my experience with this game.

Look at the screenshot where I build the FP. How productive is that city? And the 1 city surrounding it? I mean, eventually I got the awesome power of the FP working beautifully (thank you, thank you ), but that took a long time, if memory serves. With the Pyramids and Industrious Workers, I'm thinking things could have been a lot better.


Dominae

[Arrian]

Perhaps. It's possible.

The Pyramids allowed me to REX faster and punch out lots of workers to cut down the jungle. It also ensured that I would get the Great Library (due to killing the AI wonder cascade right then and there, and me being the first to literature). That was nice. However, I had to build the FP manually, and did not complete it until a number of turns after the end of my GA. That hurt.

My last screenshot shows the game in 1130AD. Egypt is finally dead. But most of Egypt is just getting developed now - meaning my FP radius is underdeveloped. At that stage in your game, you had a fully productive FP core.

-Arrian