SomeGuyNamedRob
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2002
- Messages
- 21
For the first time ever - this morning in fact, I've completed an entire game from start to spaceship landing without a single conflict or fight with barbarian hordes.
I was lucky enough to be the only Civ on a large rounded island (this was important when sending out my exploring ships) in the south western quadrant of the world map. Doubling my luck were the multitude of whales and other special goodies that were all within close proximity of one another, making for high production, high trade cities from the very start. My luck continued as I found plenty of goodie huts full of scrolls, money, and advanced (or friendly) tribes.
It's amazing how the game will randomly serve up the best maps ever, isn't it? I would later learn that the pretty much the entire world map was filled with goodies that would have left any Civ room to expand into an unstoppable war machine, but at the time, I felt really good about my fortunes.
With my Civ hitting a huge expansion curve in my first few turns, I was able to scout out, populate, and devellop my island at a breakneck pace. Diplomat-loaded triremes confirmed my theory of being isolated from the rest of the world map. Even better, other Civs were not as fortunate :
- The Vikings and the Sioux were both on a large, but elongated section of the map that was divided north-south by a 1 square bottleneck. This single square would become the most highly contested piece of land in the entire game. Fortunately, I was able to make peace with both Civs before their 400 year war with each other. Even more fortunate, their 400 year war left them little time to seek out my island that was a mere 4 squares away
- The Americans drew a fairly small crescent shaped bit of land in the north-east corner of the game map, surrounded by the Japanese to the south, and by the Egyptians to the west. That area would be a hotspot for war in the early stages of the game, but would soon cool down as the Americans and Egyptians formed a strong economic alliance that kept the Japanese at bay.
- The Romans drew the worst initial starting point, having a small chain of islands as a starting point. They would be stuck in a constant war mode, as their slow start left little good land by the time they began expansion. Fortunately for me, they chose to expand east instead of west.
Fortunate because I decided that aside from basic defenders, I would go for a hardcore research empire, keeping Communism as my government in order to be able to have lost of exploring ships and explorers without having unhappy people. My land was undefended, save for a sprinkling of defenders in fortresses around the hub of the island.
I took a calculated risk based on my triemes and explorers that other empires would be too busy fighting each other to have time to deal with me.
The gamble paid off.
The Americans, Egyptians, and Japanese would be the first to get into conflict over territorial borders. After the Japanese double crossed the Egyptians as they were close to taking down 2 American cities, the Egyptians made peace and entered into an alliance with the Americans that would be based heavily on R&D trading. The Japanese army was punished, and eventually withdrew from all conflicts after all of their cities fell into riot.
The Sioux would double cross the Vikings, sending a diplomat into the Viking capitol for industrial sabotage. Both sides would fight bitterly at the choke point, exchanging control of that key square several times before the Vikings shifted all production into military, eventually taking the chokepoint, and methodically taking out the Sioux one city at a time by virtue of overwhelming numbers.
Fortunately for me, the massive military struggles left the Viking cities in a state of unrest, which forced them to concentrate more on agriculture and infrastructure. For all the AI stupidities I've seen, The Viking AI was probably the best example of what the game could have been - they struck methodically in large numbers at a single target until it fell. They didn't build unnecessary fortresses every two squares, and they constantly updated their military units to reflect the latest technology they had.
The Romans overcame their starting handicap, and moved east, which put them into conflict with the Vikings. The Romans were able to capture a few Viking cities on small islands left relatively weak from the war with the Sioux. From there, the Romans went north, and struggled with the Japanese for control of a high resource island. The Japanese would eventually win control over the island, but did very little with it in terms of devellopment.
Meanwhile, during the constant state of war that other Civs were in, my R&D empire was light years ahead in terms of technology. My race toward Superconducters and Fusion Power was halted briefly for side trips to growth and Wonder techs such as Refrigeration and Genetic Engineering. I split my Empire into two main sectors - Capitilization and building the smaller, newer cities so they would be ready for Capitilization once I started building the space ship. My research pushed forward even harder, with new techs coming at 2 turn intervals.
As my solo space race began, other Civs began the process of building up and weeding out the weak. The Vikings rose to become the top military power, taking full advantage of their large land mass to expand and make use of their resources. The Americans and Egyptians formed a front line at the far north of the map and began expanding downward, trading techs to devellop a large naval fleet.
The only factor that kept them from making a blitzing dowward sweep was unrest from their Republic Governments - their large Navy fleets made their citizes discontent, which slowed down their expansion effort. Still, they were able to amass the entire northern third of the map.
The Japanese and the Vikings began to make short work of the Romans, who couldn't get a foothold on any large land masses to anchor any kind of invasion fleet they would send out.
As this was going on, my empire - which was ranked just ahead of the Romans in terms of power and 3rd in wealth - was completing my space ship and getting knee deep into Future Technology (I would end up with 8 levels by the time the ship landed). When the time came for the 13 year voyage of my ship, a final switch to Fundamentalism sealed the deal for a high score, especially after an 80% luxury rate set in the last 2 years.
Final Score of the first phase : 2136, with an 85% Civ score. Dissapointing, but I could have done a lot more in terms of diplomacy and trade with other nations. Still, A pretty good score for having gone my entire scoring round without a single fight.
I was lucky enough to be the only Civ on a large rounded island (this was important when sending out my exploring ships) in the south western quadrant of the world map. Doubling my luck were the multitude of whales and other special goodies that were all within close proximity of one another, making for high production, high trade cities from the very start. My luck continued as I found plenty of goodie huts full of scrolls, money, and advanced (or friendly) tribes.
It's amazing how the game will randomly serve up the best maps ever, isn't it? I would later learn that the pretty much the entire world map was filled with goodies that would have left any Civ room to expand into an unstoppable war machine, but at the time, I felt really good about my fortunes.
With my Civ hitting a huge expansion curve in my first few turns, I was able to scout out, populate, and devellop my island at a breakneck pace. Diplomat-loaded triremes confirmed my theory of being isolated from the rest of the world map. Even better, other Civs were not as fortunate :
- The Vikings and the Sioux were both on a large, but elongated section of the map that was divided north-south by a 1 square bottleneck. This single square would become the most highly contested piece of land in the entire game. Fortunately, I was able to make peace with both Civs before their 400 year war with each other. Even more fortunate, their 400 year war left them little time to seek out my island that was a mere 4 squares away
- The Americans drew a fairly small crescent shaped bit of land in the north-east corner of the game map, surrounded by the Japanese to the south, and by the Egyptians to the west. That area would be a hotspot for war in the early stages of the game, but would soon cool down as the Americans and Egyptians formed a strong economic alliance that kept the Japanese at bay.
- The Romans drew the worst initial starting point, having a small chain of islands as a starting point. They would be stuck in a constant war mode, as their slow start left little good land by the time they began expansion. Fortunately for me, they chose to expand east instead of west.
Fortunate because I decided that aside from basic defenders, I would go for a hardcore research empire, keeping Communism as my government in order to be able to have lost of exploring ships and explorers without having unhappy people. My land was undefended, save for a sprinkling of defenders in fortresses around the hub of the island.
I took a calculated risk based on my triemes and explorers that other empires would be too busy fighting each other to have time to deal with me.
The gamble paid off.
The Americans, Egyptians, and Japanese would be the first to get into conflict over territorial borders. After the Japanese double crossed the Egyptians as they were close to taking down 2 American cities, the Egyptians made peace and entered into an alliance with the Americans that would be based heavily on R&D trading. The Japanese army was punished, and eventually withdrew from all conflicts after all of their cities fell into riot.
The Sioux would double cross the Vikings, sending a diplomat into the Viking capitol for industrial sabotage. Both sides would fight bitterly at the choke point, exchanging control of that key square several times before the Vikings shifted all production into military, eventually taking the chokepoint, and methodically taking out the Sioux one city at a time by virtue of overwhelming numbers.
Fortunately for me, the massive military struggles left the Viking cities in a state of unrest, which forced them to concentrate more on agriculture and infrastructure. For all the AI stupidities I've seen, The Viking AI was probably the best example of what the game could have been - they struck methodically in large numbers at a single target until it fell. They didn't build unnecessary fortresses every two squares, and they constantly updated their military units to reflect the latest technology they had.
The Romans overcame their starting handicap, and moved east, which put them into conflict with the Vikings. The Romans were able to capture a few Viking cities on small islands left relatively weak from the war with the Sioux. From there, the Romans went north, and struggled with the Japanese for control of a high resource island. The Japanese would eventually win control over the island, but did very little with it in terms of devellopment.
Meanwhile, during the constant state of war that other Civs were in, my R&D empire was light years ahead in terms of technology. My race toward Superconducters and Fusion Power was halted briefly for side trips to growth and Wonder techs such as Refrigeration and Genetic Engineering. I split my Empire into two main sectors - Capitilization and building the smaller, newer cities so they would be ready for Capitilization once I started building the space ship. My research pushed forward even harder, with new techs coming at 2 turn intervals.
As my solo space race began, other Civs began the process of building up and weeding out the weak. The Vikings rose to become the top military power, taking full advantage of their large land mass to expand and make use of their resources. The Americans and Egyptians formed a front line at the far north of the map and began expanding downward, trading techs to devellop a large naval fleet.
The only factor that kept them from making a blitzing dowward sweep was unrest from their Republic Governments - their large Navy fleets made their citizes discontent, which slowed down their expansion effort. Still, they were able to amass the entire northern third of the map.
The Japanese and the Vikings began to make short work of the Romans, who couldn't get a foothold on any large land masses to anchor any kind of invasion fleet they would send out.
As this was going on, my empire - which was ranked just ahead of the Romans in terms of power and 3rd in wealth - was completing my space ship and getting knee deep into Future Technology (I would end up with 8 levels by the time the ship landed). When the time came for the 13 year voyage of my ship, a final switch to Fundamentalism sealed the deal for a high score, especially after an 80% luxury rate set in the last 2 years.
Final Score of the first phase : 2136, with an 85% Civ score. Dissapointing, but I could have done a lot more in terms of diplomacy and trade with other nations. Still, A pretty good score for having gone my entire scoring round without a single fight.
