Here's a game that didn't turn out the way I expected. In a good way...

Let me show you what I mean :-)

The game is as follows:

http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh205/kazapp/chaka/settings.jpg

Game settings. This is a BtS 3.13 Bhruic game with 12 civilizations total. As you can see from the settings, it is a Marathon game on a Standard-sized (Low Sealevel) Fractal map. Options are Raging Barbarians, Choose Religion and No Tech Brokering. All victory conditions.

http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh205/kazapp/chaka/myleader.jpg

My esteemed leader, Chaka with a 'C' :-) The Zulus start with Agriculture and Hunting, their unique unit is the Impi, the unique building is the Ikhanda.

http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh205/kazapp/chaka/startpos.jpg

Here is the start position. On the surface of things, it looks fairly decent though not great (my starting techs wont help with these resources).

I elected to grow my capital before starting on my first Worker, to give me time to research the techs I need to work the map; which means Fishing (for the seafood), Animal Husbandry (for the cows), and Bronze Working (for the trees). By going the growth-first route I knew I could not afford to be sentimental about the trees in order to catch up.

But the situation rapidly worsened...

I met my only close neighbor, and soon after the picture cleared.

http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh205/kazapp/chaka/pericles.jpg

http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh205/kazapp/chaka/cutoff.jpg

Here's Pericles, completely blocking me from the continent to the southeast. Of course he must die, or there is no game.

This screenie is early, but how about me telling you I don't have any access to Copper, only Horses.

Horses aren't so bad, you might ask? At this time it's time to remind us all the Greeks UU is an Axeman that isn't vulnerable to Chariots!

And of course Pericles got easy access to Copper - behind his capital, where you wouldn't see it in this shot, which of course means I can't get to pillaging it...

Now, I'm not saying all is lost here. But this start certainly qualifies as a "non-generous" start, wouldn't you agree?

Chariots would not do, I have no quick Axemen or Impis, and researching Ironworking and whip up a Swordsman/Axeman army would probably be a slow, expensive and painful exercise. Especially as I would have to race him for a few city placements, so I at least wouldn't be completely blocked in.

Add to this the "wrong" resources for my starting techs, and being blocked by an AI with early access to an effective counter to my only military resource...

At this point I therefore more or less resigned myself to living a meagre existence (trying to claim as much of our small peninsula as possible, at least leveraging that Zulu trait if in a small way) doing a slow beeline towards Construction and the Catapults I would need to crack open Athens.

However, things didn't turn out quite the way I imagined...

(to be continued) :-)

Fast forward to 810BC, and as you can see, I've gone ahead and built up a small army anyway, despite not being anywhere near Construction.

http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh205/kazapp/chaka/impendingattack.jpg

This is because my scouting Chariot found out something very interesting, and you'll about to see what...

http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh205/kazapp/chaka/thedefense.jpg

Yes - Pericles is defending his capital with a total of 2 Warriors and 1 Missionary! (You'll notice he has Copper in his BFC)

As you might infer from the screen-shot, Pericles never even tried to settle any cities to his north or west, enabling me to grab the maximum number of cities. This was very helpful in building an army while maintaining at least some tech rate despite a 0% science slider.

Then he has gone ahead and built the Islamic Shrine in his capital, a religion he has been kind enough to introduce to all my cities!

Furthermore, his Copper isn't hooked up. I can't imagine him being so slow about this on his own, so I conclude I have some barbarians to thank for this.

A game such as this you simply can't lose, can you...? As you can imagine I'm about to conquer a great capital with no losses whatsoever (two Axe attacks and Athens is mine) - Pericles wasn't even able to whip a third defender!



Now, lets fast-forward to 20 BC. Pericles is ancient history now - he only had one additional city besides his capital, and it was size 1 only and was auto-razed...

If having six cities at 1 AD is okay, how about having eleven with space for more? :-)

http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh205/kazapp/chaka/cityroster.jpg

As you can see, all but one has Islam (the religion I have the Holy City and Shrine for, and by far the most wide-spread) without having had to build a single Missionary!

http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh205/kazapp/chaka/southeast.jpg

Here's my newly conquered south-east. Once jungled, with my own Workers, the two Pericles "gave" me, and a further four Zara Yakob was gracious enough to park undefended on the same border tile, now it's rapidly turning into a grassland heaven. The bountiful Elephants and Gems doesn't hurt either! :-) That's six free Workers!

Besides the four Workers, I couldn't resist nabbing Zara's city of Addis Ababa (in the south) - it put considerable cultural pressure on my Nodwengu, and by taking it I got control over the Corn, the Pigs as well as the Horses.

Besides, Zara was (and is) the number two on the scoreboard, so I wasn't about to remain chummy with him anyway.

http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh205/kazapp/chaka/northwest.jpg

Here's my "original" lands, to the northwest. Note how I have the Pyramids in the bag, while Athens is about to relocate the Palace to this very sweet city spot.

Several size 5 cities are running two Scientist specialists, which enables me to keep up in tech - in fact, I'm No #1 or #2 in tech, despite not having had a greater science rate than the current 0% in ages (since Writing, essentially).

The only area I'm not ahead is gold/income, but as you can see, Currency is about to come online. Thus I'm not worried despite running at a deficit at 100% gold slider.



In fact, I feel this game is won already. Not in itself unusual, but given the awkward start, I felt I needed to share my elation!

I really feel my situation improved at an amazing rate here:
1) biggest empire
2) biggest army
3) could smack the #2 Civ around with no counter-attack whatsoever
4) 50% higher score than #2 already in the BCs

The fact Pericles
1) didn't expand northward, instead focusing everything on providing me with the perfect religious tools - I couldn't have played Pericles "better" myself...!
2) must have lost immensely to jungle barbarians, especially how they pillaged his Copper and Road at exactly the right time
3) no other Civ emerging as a strong or religious leader

As well as how the map went from a severe disadvantage to the perfect layout (me only having one front)...

...makes this a somewhat extraordinary game I would think :-)

What do you say?

Yeah, you got lucky. Nicely played, too. One thing you should do ASAP though - move your capital! I bet it alone would take your GPT to positive due to reduced mainteance costs. I haven't looked at the save, but based on your screenies I would say Athens looks like a good choice for capital, at least for now, given it's central location and great production potential. If you continue expanding to east and want Athens to be a GP farm, you can always move your capital again.

He is.. Although with courthouses and ikhandas everywhere it shouldn't be much of a problem to handle maintenance.. IMO you should max research until you get to currency as you are obviously going to go in + after you get it... I hope you have granaries in all those cities building libraries because not building them with expansive is pretty silly... Obviously pericles never researched BW.. Thats the danger of playing on prince, the AI sucks... I assume your ready to move up a level after this? Why are you building a settler? You don't need anys settlers at this stage, however i suspect you need workers given that you have so many unimproved titles... 1.5 per city is a good rule of thumb however with tons of jungle you might need more...

He's already in the process of doing so. ;)

Edit: D'oh...tree'd!

Thanks! It's easy to play well when the RNG does all the work for you :lol:

One note however: Pericles had indeed BW, and had mined the grasslands Copper and was three turns from hooking it up (the hill in between was already roaded). Or perhaps I should say remined/reroaded: even at Prince I can't imagine Pericles to be this slow unless he got "helped" by a pillaging Barb. This was not deliberate timing from my part, just another aspect of the invisible red carpet the game was rolling out for me...

Re: settlers - carful study of the map will show there are still three city sites or so left within my cultural boundaries.

When Currency is coming up I will go from -9 to +23 gold per turn at 0%, so there's no excuse stopping the REX until it's done! :) (All done with no Courthouses, that tech has a much lower priority for me nowadays than previously when I played at Noble level and still could pull of Oracle gambits...)

Thanks! It's easy to play well when the RNG does all the work for you :lol:

One note however: Pericles had indeed BW, and had mined the grasslands Copper and was three turns from hooking it up (the hill in between was already roaded). Or perhaps I should say remined/reroaded: even at Prince I can't imagine Pericles to be this slow unless he got "helped" by a pillaging Barb. This was not deliberate timing from my part, just another aspect of the invisible red carpet the game was rolling out for me...

Re: settlers - carful study of the map will show there are still three city sites or so left within my cultural boundaries.

When Currency is coming up I will go from -9 to +23 gold per turn at 0%, so there's no excuse stopping the REX until it's done! :) (All done with no Courthouses, that tech has a much lower priority for me nowadays than previously when I played at Noble level and still could pull of Oracle gambits...)

Yes but you should research to currency at 100% research not at 0%... it is costing you 32 gold per turn for every turn wasted...

Yes but you should research to currency at 100% research not at 0%... it is costing you 32 gold per turn for every turn wasted...
If you mean I shouldn't finish Currency with more gold in the bank than necessary, right you are!