PTW Open. Goal: 20K.
MA spoiler.
960AD. Get ToG, trade it for Magnetism and Mil. Trad. Enter IA. Switch Bach to Newton - due in 5.
Greece and Shumer got Medicine, Persia got Nationalism. I'm researching SP, of course. Due in 12 turns.
1000AD. 1 turn to Newton, and some SoB starts a Wonder cascade: Magellan, Bach, Smith and of course Newton.
I was so close... Entremont builds 400-sh. Bank and then builds a Pikeman a turn to disband for improvements in other cities.
1080AD - Got SP. Traded for Medicine and lots of gold and Luxs.
Can do Industrialization in 7 turns. I see that all the Coal in the world belongs to Maya, and they are too broke to buy SP. I'll sell it to them next turn when my Wine deal with Persia expires.
Also this year Zulu finished roading the 3rd Saltpeter, so trade it for Medicine and upgrade 14 knights to Cavs.
Our next adventure would be going to backwards, Saltpeterless Rome and try to get GL beating his Legionnnares.
1160AD - At war with Rome, no GL. Persia learned Industry 1 turn before us, but didn't trade, so we sold it to entire world for lots of gold. Electricity due in 7. Building Factory.
OMG! Persians unloaded Rifle, 5 Knights and an Immortal next to our undefended capital!
I try to stop war with Rome but they refuse.
I ship-chain Cavs from Rome to capital - 5 units against 7 attackers. Romans meanwhile are moving in to attack my weakly-defended town which they gave me after the last war. What to do? I gift it to Greece, with the unexpected bonus of 2 extra defenders appearing in my capital! 7 against 7 - they should hold on (I later read that it could be an exploit but in my case I think it wasn't: I had about 20 Legionnares standing at its gates with only a Pike and a Longbowman inside, I didn't have a chance to keep this town).
Then I trade 2000g from persia for 140gpt, confident that they'll break the deal.
I then buy factory and hurry Cavs in all my cities - thanks Perisans!
1170AD - Persia demands 100g. Heh, they are having second thoughts. No way, we send them off and they dow. Yess! And Romans talk peace! Sure, why not. Persian assault burns out: they lose 3 units against mine 1, 2 Knights are redlined and the Rifleman, for some dim reasons of his own, goes off the mountain. Next turn they all are dead.
We bring Romans and Zulus against Persia for outdated Techs, and Maya (the coal people, yeah!) for 18gpt.
1260AD - Build Univ.Suffrage, start on ToE. Everybody is at war with each other. Shumers and Persia against the rest of the world. They dump some obsolete units on my grounds from time to time, I attack with Elites but still no GL.
1290AD - Build ToE, got Atoms and Electronics, Start Hoover.
1330AD - Hoover.
Make peace with Shumers as they stopped shipping their obsolete units over: probably run out of them.
Rome makes peace with Persia. Great.
I ship about 20 Cavs and 4 Infantry to Roman island and dow. It's time to fish for GLs again, and Romans appear to have 2-3 obsolete units on each tile of their island! My Cavs take some cities but mostly they are chasing Legions and MDIs on the ground.
1355Ad - Wall Street. I hoped it would be Heroic Epic by this time - but no luck.
1380AD - Intelligence Agency. Still no GL.
My Cavs are joined by Tanks (we trade Oil from Persia and Rubber from Zulu - they grabbed 3-Rubber island). After wading through the sea of Pikemen and MDIs and having scores of Elite victories, and leaving Romans with 1 city - still no GL.
(I must have had around 100 Elite victories by this time, killing lots of Romans and 6-7 transport-loads of Sumers and Persians).
Fateful decision
The year is 1415AD. We've got monopoly on Mot.Transp., Persia is up Flight and Amphibia (scary!), the rest of the world is far behind, sponsoring my research.
I'm full of dough, but Flight is due only in 7.
Inspired by Tr1cky's Rising Sun game, I come up with an idea.
Why don't I steal from Persia? Persia has about 5000g, I have about 3500g. Safe steal is 3100g. If I sell Mot.Transp. to Persia (they are giving only 2300g for it, it means they are half-way done with it), they'll get Modern tech, and I have money for 2 safe steals. And I can net Flight, Amphy and maybe Computers in one go, and might be building Seti or UN next turn!
The voice of prudence tells me to wait, research flight and then gift Greece and Shumers and then steal from them - they are far and weak. What if Persia dows: with bombers and Marines next door it would be disastrous.
But I deside to risk it. 1st attempt. Failure, but the spy escapes unnoticed. 2nd attempt. "You no longer have Oil".
Persia dows! OMG! OMG! OMG!
I'm still trying to destroy Romans, all of my 6 Tanks are over there, and I can't build them anymore. I ally everybody but Greece and Maya against Persia, and pray.
1425AD. Persian bombers fly over my land. Temple in one of my cities is destroyed. OMG! What if they bomb my capital? What if they destroy culture buildings there? RNG Gods, please, spare me!
Some of the Persia bombers are occupied with Zulu Galleons - not bad.
And Greece had apparently started a war with Zulu - that's why they wouldn't ally against Persia. And the next thing I know: "You have no Rubber". Damn. Greeks took 3-Rubber island, pillaging everything.
1440AD - Flight is done. Modern Times. What-a-Mess - again.
Shumers got Fission and building UN (due in 125 turns
). Persia got something else as they are not building any Wonder.
1445AD - Rome gone. No GLs.
1460AD - We destroy two transport-loads of Persian troops, but their Bombers destroyed our transports and we can't build new ones. And without transports we can't get to their oil: Galleons will be killed midway.
Persia talks peace! They've got Ecology.
1475AD - Greeks got Computers 3 turns before us! I can't believe it: I falling behind in Techs again! That's Emperor for you...
1490AD - Peace with Persia.
Missed trade on Computers as everybody's got it, and couldn't get Fission. Go to Mini now.
Somewhere in 15xx: Greeks built SETI 1 turn before us!
Shoot, somehow I thought that Hoover garanteed my production superiority... But they just built Hydroplants and Coal plants everywhere by hand...
And Persia builds UN in a cascade! And I still don't have Fission.
And Greece builds Manhattan in a few turns after that.
Vow. I thought Modern-age wonders would be mine, but here you go.
I get some prebuild for Internet and don't trade Mini until I'm almost done with it - just in case. Then I get Genetics and build CfC and Longevity.
I trade Mini and Genetics for Rocketry, Ecology and Space Flight and suddenly realize that there's nothing to build anymore but Apollo, and there's nothing else to research. I research Synthetic Fibers for Modern Armor and stop research - completely.
I never did that in any game before. V.weird feeling. But I still couldn't bring myself to sell libraries and Unis - desided to keep them for culture expansion.
16xx. Assessing the situation. Greece built 5 of the spaceship parts already. Luckily they don't have Uranium as only we and Sumers have it and only we can trade it - but we won't.
But this situation is risky - better to take Greece out for good, what if it trades Aluminium to Persia or someone else. So we prepare for modern age warfare, which was a lot of fun.
They have about 100 units in all, mostly Mech Infs. We are the only ones in the world with Modern Armor as we trade Alu from Greece and Oil from Persia, and nobody else has this combo.
We prepare about 30 Modern Armor, 10 Mech Infs, 20 Marines and 15-20 Cruise missiles. My crappy cities were building missiles istead Artys - and they were very useful.
I bombard Greece beachhead city with Missiles and discover that they have lethal bombardment! Cool. After that out of 4 Mech Infs in that city 1 is dead and 3 redlined. Marines take them out with no casualties, and my army unloads into this city. After that Greece was conquered pretty easily: they were moving their Mech.Infs to the conquered cities and I would bombard them with everything and then use 3 moves of Modern Armor to kill 3 Mech Infs in one go. It's when I discovered that every Greek city was equipped with a factory and a hydro- or coal plant. Vow. And they sell for a lot of money too!
I also took one Greek city on a Zulu island, and then moved my offense onto Zulu continent desiding to get their Oil and have all the strategic resources on hand.
All this time I was keeping alliance with Persia, 1st against Greece and then against Zulu. X-man was still the strongest and the most advanced, and I needed his Oil.
So I desided to just take Zulu cities with resources and leave the rest for X-man to keep him busy. I took all Zulu cities but two, and they had just some TOWs letf in them, and X-man managed not to conquer them for about 50 turns with tons of his trrops on the island, till almost the end of the game! Stupid sod, but it worked great for me. I proved that X-man is not that bad and it IS possible to coexist with him on the same map.
Oh yeah, and I got my GL all right - when fighting Greece, somewhere in 17xx. And then another one. I made an Army with 1st and build HE and Mil.Academy, and then I got the 2nd one when there was nothing else to build. Made another Army with it.
So, after pressing enter some more and making sure that Persia and Incas (overseas super-power) are happy and in war with the Zulu, I got my 1st ever 20K victory on Emperor!
1870AD - Victory!
Firaxis score: 3401
Jason score: 4020
Time played: 34:19:27
Entremont in 1870AD: