Hello everyone. I've decided that I'm going to try to do a story game, although it will probably end halfway through as my glorious empire crashes and burns around me. :lol: Anyway, I've decided who I'm going to be, all the stats and everything, but I won't be playing it until tomorrow at the earliest, so .... Also, I might not play as often as I'd like - I also play AoE II, Painkiller, and my roommate wants me to finish getting the cheats on Goldeneye for him :sigh: ... oh, yeah, and school :sad: I should be able to update at least once a week, though, considering I don't have *that* much homework.

So lets get things started, shall we? I'll be playing as the Americans, ruled by the Ruler Ssendam - which brings me to my next point: there will be some odd references scattered throughout the game, some more noticable than others; my ruler's name, for example, is from an older game, yet when I decided upon it, I quickly realized that there could only be one name for my capital: Sparta! The first poster to find a particular reference will be awarded points, which are good for absolutely nothing.

World Stats:
Large ... or was it Huge ... Blast! Anyway, 60% Water Pangaea
Raging Barbarians
Normal, Temperate, 4 Billion Years of Age.
1000 Turn Limit (I'm slow; you'll see)
Domination: 80% Land, 95% Pop
Domination and Conquest Victories on
Scientific Leaders on
Cultural Conversions on
Less Aggressive AI (They frighten me, okay! :blush: )
As for my enemies, they are:
Mongols
Scandinavia
Germany
Zulus
Aztecs
Byzantines
Rome
Russia
Japan
Celts
Greece (Yes - I'll either have to raze or rename their city!)
Iroquois

Finally, I'll be playing on Regent for the first time. Okay, second, but the first time was recently and I didn't get very far before I decided to do this one.
If you're interested ... http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/112000/Lincoln_of_the_Americans_820_AD.SAV
... feel free.

Anyway ... Screenshot!
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii117/Entropy_Judge/StartLocation.jpg
My starting location - second try! That's what I'll be starting from hopefully tomorrow after my exam. See you all soon.

A new story! No idea what the Ssendam reference is from. As to the Greek Athens - they'll just skip the name. Same thing happens when England tries to build New York and America has it, or France tries New Orleans and America has it, and once in a long while when America tries Richmond and England has it or vice versa.

Good luck with the exam.

Ssendam is the oldest slaad from D&D edition 1. Jeez, that's old!

Tasslehoff gets it! Although I think he was actually first introduced simply as one of their two deities (the other being Ygoryl, or something).

Anyway ... I haven't had much time to play, so actual 'story content' is rather lacking at this point. :( It does look like I might actually have a good starting position, though ...

http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii117/Entropy_Judge/80Sci.jpg
First thing I did was put it on 80% Science and went along this path. Do you think I should keep going, or is there something more important than Republic I should be going for?

Well, I decided to build a Warrior first, since my city (which, by the way, I forgot to change the name of! I went in after the last image uploaded and changed it, but it'll read as Washington for this post only) wouldn't grow enough to let me build a worker ...
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii117/Entropy_Judge/PlannedCitylocations.jpg

I've circled possible city locations in red ... should I try for a closer placement? I've only played Warlord and Chieftain up 'til now, so I've been able to get away with really loose placement.

http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii117/Entropy_Judge/North.jpgI've got three Scouts running around - the two visible in this shot, and one exploring the South.

http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii117/Entropy_Judge/ZoomedOut.jpg
I still only have a single worker, and he's irrigating the desert to the south-SE of Sparta/Washington so I can irrigate the plains/grasslands. I know I'm going to be expanding west, and probably North as well. Is South worth it, besides shooting for the Dyes? I'm going to keep my Scouts moving in a spiral pattern, heading counter-clockwise to explore what I can, but the mountains and Jungles to the south bother me. I haven't seen any of my rivals, and I've only gotten one goody-hut; 25 gp from the Illinois.

I've left the pictures spoiled for now, as there's not much of interest happening :( . Hopefully I can start building things quickly and get an actual empire going before I run into anyone ....

Your start position wasn't great, but the grass west of Washington looks great. If you were going for 20K, there is a spot with 8 BG's and 2 cows!!!!!:eek:

Hmm...a few things that may be making Regent rather difficult.

*You're doing 80% research on Alphabet, but it's still taking 50 turns to be done. 50 turns is the maximum, so just turn science down to 10% for 50 turns (may have to be 20% at first so you're still spending 1 gold on science) and stockpile a whole bunch of gold. Spending any more than the minimum is only draining your treasury.

Generally if it takes 35 or more turns to research something, you should at least seriously consider going 10%. The saved money can be quite helpful later.

*Your circled city locations, in general, are quite poor.

The red tile where you built New York has only one tile that gives 2 food (at that a lake, thus giving no shields) until either you clear jungle or culture pop the borders - both of which take prohibitively long this early in the game. New York may be a great city late in the game, but putting a city there this early practically wastes a Settler and with it valuable time. You can probably wait until Washington culture pops at 100 to get the spices.

The red tile 2 west of Washington suffers from the similar problem that not a single tile in the 9-tile-square gives 2 food, thus making it useless for expansion. It does have plains, but there's no water nearby. And at least at Regent - even at Monarch - you can still place cities so they utilize 17-20 tiles with no problems. You don't need that close of placement, and in that case the terrain is awful.

The red tile in the desert NW of Washington, again, has only one tile that gives 2 food until it culture pops, making it a poor choice for early expansion. The tile one NW of the red circled tile would make a far better choice, allowing 2 BG and a sugar plain right away. It is farther away, and I'd probably prefer the circled one purely for ideal distance, but in this case the value of the terrain far outweighs a one tile difference in distance.

The orange circled tile W/SW of Washington looks like a pretty good city location.

West looks like the best direction to expand initially, with lots of lucrative grasslands. I'd also put one city in the grasslands SE of New York. Once you've got six or seven cities you can afford to put one in the jungle to get the Dyes if happiness is becoming an issue, but that city will be useless for production for quite some time so you don't want to build it too early.

*Washington is producing wealth. Generally you ought to be building Warriors early game, perhaps a Granary since you have Pottery. In conjunction with the science tip, you could be making far more than 1 gold per turn with 10% science, and more than pay for any incurred unit support costs (which should disappear once you get 3 or 4 cities at any rate).

New York is probably going to make this a difficult game, but it's by no means impossible at this point. You're at a disadvantage, but there's plenty of ways to catch up.

ARG. I hate school - I just get started doing something, and *then* the homework picks up. :( :mad: I probably won't be able to update for another two weeks, at least (Spring Break). I've gotten a bit further, but nothing special.

Didn't know about how the Science part works; Warlord is really lenient that way. That's part of what led me to build NY where I did - it's currently working the lake for the extra Gold, which is helping a bit; I think it's next citizen is going to be a Scientist or a Taxman, though. I knew it wasn't going to be growing much until I could clear the Jungle, which I won't do for some time.

For the city locations, I was trying to keep them close to my capital to get used to closer city placements, but I think I'll follow your suggestions, Quintillus. I was looking SE of NY, too - I put a 'possible' mark on the hill next to the Wheat, but I think I'll move it south so I can get more production later on.

Granaries! I'm not used to being the Americans; I usually play as Germany or the Celts, so I'm not really used to building Granaries. I'll switch to that ... it might double as a Settler pre-build, as well.

Anyway, thanks for the help, and I'll try to get another post up eventually, but it probably won't happen for another two weeks.