The meek shall inherit the Earth. Warlord No military Domination

dutchfire said:

you're tactic seems to be going quite ok but i guess you need boats very fast or you'll never get even close to the domination limit

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We'll see

Wow, this is amazing! Just found the thread and read it all. Good job! Can't wait until the next update.

I, too, just read the whole thread. This is a very nice game, and i hope you win.

This is awesome

First of all, to all who have expressed interest in this story, I'm sorry. Civ4 got the better of me.
On to it then

In 350 BC Brennus called a meeting with his chiefs-of-staff. This was a new council of Jeeves’ design and consisted of Brennus, Molly and Jeeves. Publicly, it was meant to take some of the workload off the other advisors. However, after Jeeves had decided to rejoin his master, the council had used every opportunity to quart the together again, happy again union. So the real reason for having a council of councillors was to have a good discussion in peace and quite and then “propose” readily made policies to the official council. They had unwittingly discovered parliamentarism.

Brennus had called the meeting because the Celts were running out of room to expand and they still only controlled around 50% of the world.
Brennus wasn’t ready to admit defeat now he had his loyal friend and companion back at his side. “I know we can do it, it’ll just take some time. Sooner or later our scientists will discover ships with no attack capabilities.
Jeeves, although he had had 100 years to make an effort, had found it hard to shake his aquired gloomy look on life. “Sooner or later someone will attack us and it’ll most probably happen sooner than ships that can only defend”, he said. Molly, who had had 100 years to calm down, felt he blood boiling again. It made her head go pink and this time Jeeves saw the since and added hurriedly before comments were made about his weak back: “No, we got to make it happen on this continent. But how?”
Molly said: “Maybe we should try and go around our friends’ territories and discover new land?”
Jeeves sighed: “We know pretty much all there is to know of this continent. We’ve only got the high seas left so I vote we make a few ships and send them out. None of the others will notice.”
“NO!” Brennus reaction was forceful to say the least. “I made the rules. I’ll only cheat myself if I don’t stick to them. There has to be another way.”
“Not unless we can steal land from the others”, Jeeves sourly replied. Then a look of intense thinking was followed by a somewhat puzzled and bewildered look. And a wall-to-wall style smile covered his face. “Of course. We’ll steal land from the others.”
Brennus had noticed Jeeves expressions change so he knew there might be a possible solution that wouldn’t involve training military. He tried to get straight to the point, but was too confused about Jeeves newly found confidence, so he said: “Grmph?! But, but, but. I mean to say how?
“Follow me to Oporto”, Jeeves said.
“Oporto? But that’s Portuguese?”
“Not in Oporto. We’ll meet outside the city.
Jeeves jumped up and set about his own mysterious ways.

Shortly after, on the fields outside Oporto, the three companions met up with each other.
“Now what?” Brennus was pretty excited.
“See that settler over there? Order him to found New Cataractonium!” He added: “Please.”
“But that’s too close to at least 3 other cities. We’ll just waste precious land that way.”
“Yes, but we’ll soon gain more land. Trust me”, Jeeves smiled.
“Ok. You there. Settle here! Understood?"
Brennus wasn't used to speaking to the man in the street, nor fields, as it were. He just made sure they understood him. Perhaps the question was a little redundant though. A dog would have understood him. Sure enough New Cataract was founded in 250 BC:


“Nothing happened?” Breenus was to obviously disappointed to even bother trying to hide it.
“Not now, no. Let’s camp out here for a while and see what happens shortly, though. We can toast our success. Finally, we’ve got wine."
Only 20 years later:


"Put all cities on settler production!" Brennus said. "I want every man, woman and child who can carry a backpack out there. We'll spam the lot of them with our cities."

“We’re running out of leaders for our settling missions.” Brennus ran into Jeeves’ house one morning in 150 BC.
“I know”, Jeeves said. “I’ve got a plan.” And again he smiled the smile that his adversaries had come to fear and loathe. “I’ll just wake Molly and we’ll come and see you.”
“Molly? Is she here? At this time of day? You mean to say you’re...?” Brennus left the last question unsaid. After 4000 years of unwanted, stress related abstinence from women, he wasn’t even sure what the question was.
Jeeves could help him out: “Engaged? Yes, we are, thank you.” He added in a low voice: We might be pregnant. And we think the child will be born around 250 AD some time, but it’s still early years so very hush-hush.”
“Well... Good job. Good egg. I mean to say splendid. Well done, old chap. Eh... give Molly my best.” And off he went. Maybe not the most tactful of men, but certainly one of the few rich and powerful men in this world who didn’t use his position to score with women.

Their meeting was short and it was organized that the other advisors met with them soon after.
Jeeves cleared his throat and started speaking: “Our goal is almost reached. Now, at this time we’re looking for courageous men, women and children to go out and secure more land. We will soon have our friends convinced that the Celts are fit to rule the world, and pacifistically so.”
There was sniggering amongst the advisors and Jeeves misunderstood. “What? Pacifistically is a word.”
“Ah, yes. That may be so.” The military advisor was back in charge of the opposition. “Problem is the last 100 years you’ve sent out everyone who could hold a stick and carry a backpack. We haven’t even got leaders left to lead these expeditions.”
Jeeves smiled.
“Oh no”, said the military advisor.
“Oh no what?”, said one of the other advisors who had a poor view in Jeeves’ direction.
“He just smiled”, said the military advisor.
“Oh no.”
“Exactly.”
Jeeves cleared his throat again. “We would like to make the proposition that you lot lead some of our settler missions.”
There was a collective sigh from the group of advisors. “We won’t have to sit here and wait for the enemy to crash through the gates?”
“What gates?”
“Rhetorical.”
“Rhetorical gates? Are those the iron enhanced ones?
“There aren’t any gates, I was being rhetorical.”
“Oh... You take vitamins then?”
Jeeves was getting a sore throat from all the throat clearing. “These are special missions.” Again he smiled. “We want you to go into friendly territory and settle close to their cities in case someone declares war on us.”
The advisors thought about it some. After a while, the science advisor spoke. “But that would probably mean that some of our cities would be razed and burnt? We could die!”
“That’s how war works I’m afraid. You’ve always seemed eager to try it. Now you can experience it first hand.”
“What if we won’t go?”
“Well we thought about that. Your other choice will be to go and tell Ragnar that the iron deal is off.”

Trondheim 10 AD:


Military 10 AD:


Victory screen 10 AD:

Oh, never saw this thread before, great read.

Oh God...
*dies of suspense*

The long years dragged on and every 20 years there was added tension as the Celts waited anxiously to see if someone would attack them. The advisors got kicked out of Scandinavia, got in again using false passports and took their position awaiting orders to settle. They were behaving quite amicably considering the situation. That said, telling Ragnar he couldn’t have more iron was obviously the shorter and more certain route to a rendezvous with the guillotine and the Celtic advisors had become very attached to their heads (unquestioning love is such a beautiful thing, it’s not like the advisors heads had ever done them any good).

In 230 AD a messenger came with good news. “Brennus Sire, the Byzanthians have given up. They have been cowed by our pacifistic ways.” Shortly afterwards, one after one messenger came in telling Brennus that the other civlizations had given up.
A big party was thrown in Brennus honour and the Celts celebrated without fear of being attacked for the first time in many millennia. It was the party of a lifetime and considering the longevity of the Celts, it made for one heck of a party
Jeeves asked Brennus inconspicuously over dinner: “Should we tell the other advisors that it’s safe to return home?”
Brennus smiled: “Nah. Let them sweat it out a little longer.”

Pictures on their way...

helluva ride
you actually won....
or did you?

First a look at each AI civ's territory:

Carthage:


Portugal:


Spain, with two more cities to the west:


Scandinavia, check out 1-tile Reykjavik :


Byzanths1:


Byzanths2:


The one that got away...
I tried as well as I could to hem the AI in so they couldn't place new cities away from their home territory. This is the one that got away. You'll see it clearly on the territory map:


Territory, thanks to Civassist2


Our military, only combat settlers that are ready just in case and a few workers left:


Finally, F8 victory conditions:

More stats from Civassist:

Number of cities: 78
Turns played: 139
Time played: 05:28:16

Final save - 230 AD

Great, to be honest I didn't expect to win it. You seemed far from the limit! !

Epilogue:
Later in 230 AD Jeeves and Molly had a son and they named him, of course, after their great leader. And just before the year was over they married with full ceremony uner the stars of Celtia. Children being born out of marriage was not a common thing in Celtia in those days, but Brennus just sighed and said: “Well, after all, we’re living in the ADs.”

Mirc said:

Great, to be honest I didn't expect to win it. You seemed far from the limit! !

Click to expand...

Thanks, I was worried myself for a while. But once the ToA started to take effect, I thought I maybe could win it.
Btw, the game has been just lying on my harddisk since I started writing this. I just wanted to make a good job of the writeup.
Edit: just remembered... For clarity, I had to reinstall the entire c-drive of my harddisk (as described earlier in the thread), but luckily I had saved this along with important docs on a backup I eventually found...

It was a very enjoyable game that I can recommend to all builders out there.

Insane! at Reykjavik!

Sima Qian said:

Insane! at Reykjavik!

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Thanks, if Civ 4 doesn't get the better of me once more, I may index it and make chapter headlines and such. You've set the standard there

Nice work Capt.!!

The story was really great, although I thought for sure Jeeve's would lose his head and Brennus would wind up with Molly. But a surprise ending is always a good thing!

Did you end up using any of those Combat Settlers? Or, was ToA enough to secure the vistory? Inquiring minds want to know...

Excellent use of your skills as a builder.

Next game, try it on Monarch? Or, perhaps, Emperor...

leif erikson said:

Did you end up using any of those Combat Settlers? Or, was ToA enough to secure the vistory? Inquiring minds want to know...

Excellent use of your skills as a builder.

Next game, try it on Monarch? Or, perhaps, Emperor...

Click to expand...

None of the combat settlers came into use. On the last 10 turns or so I only gained 5-10 tiles per turn, but they came at a steady pace and none of the AIs seemed to prepare for an attack so I kept my nerve and waited it out instead of using the combat settlers. On the chieftain game I did, I used them.
ToA wasn't enough on it's own. But it did most of the ground work for culture expansions.

I think it may be doable on regent if one of the top notch players gets a good start. It may be doable on even higher levels, but I suspect you'll have to bend the rules some

If someone does it on Sid without modding the rules and with the first start rolled I give him my house.
Reykjavik was funny indeed!