Icko Open Class
Well, this was my first submitted game of the month, and I'm proud of it!
It was also my first demigod game AND the first one where I didn't reload AND my first spaceship win.
Quite a lot of firsts
Ancient Times
I settled SW of the starting position, getting (luckily) the game and the cattle in the city. However, it was a while before I could get a regular settler/warrior factory going (what with barbarians killing my workers, and me fussing up the pop management), as a result I made much fewer towns that I ought to have made.
I explored quite a bit with my curraghs and was trade leader for quite a while, getting the tech for money and redestributing them around as I saw fit. I got to philosophy first, but I didn't trust the AI to be slow enough to let me get COL first, so I went straight to Phil and got COL as gift (not the best value, but I'm happy to have pulled it through in demi-god difficulty!)
Then I seriously blundered: in a moment of day-dreaming I traded the elephants to the indian (who was already a cultural and military powerhouse at the time). I prayed that my advanced build of the ToZ was enough, but the veggie-curry-lover beat me to it anyway. DOH!!
that was dumb on my part.
Anyway, I swallowed hard, and got on with it. I fortified some units in Caesarea, on the southern bottleneck, to hold against the (inevitably coming) indian horde. However it was going to take a few centuries for that to happen.
Middle Ages
Behaving like Gandhi's best friend, we exchanged techs, luxuries, money and cities (that is to say: he got lux, money and flipped one of my towns, and I bought some techs)
I got into repubblic, and tried to bring home at least the Templars, and feel more safe, but this too was not to be: guess who made it? Yes, that's right, our purple friend.
As a cascade, at least I got the Sistine Chapel.
At this point I was desperately trying to catch up with his monstrous culture (5 times my own, and going stronger) to avoid a chain reaction of flips.
But I did flip
to me a Dutch hamlet in the north of the starting continent.
Sometime in this age the viking civilization came to a brutal end, at the hands of Carthage.
Late in the age I was starting to fall behind in tech, and was closed in our limited land. So what do I do now, I was wondering. So solve the empasse, I bought the last techs for the new age and got ...
Industrial Age
Steam Power as my free tech, only to see I had no coal. (well, discounting the mean touch of the coal mountain isle right on my doorstep, but unusable)
The dutch had 2 coals, but fortunately they were slightly behind in techs. I could either gift them to the industrial and buy their resource or invade them and take it. Well, guess what?, I didn't have my golden age yet, and was unlikely to get it from wonders, so this was a perfect opportunity!
I loaded my only 4 dromons with cavalries and pikes, and invaded (after declaring war) Holland. So now I had a golden age right in time to swamp them with cavalries (dromon vs. caravel is very much fun!)
In this occasion I had the pleasure of discovering the power of artillery barrage: 10+ cannons blowing to pieces the swiss pikes, and opening the way for my Cavalries, was a sight to behold!
At this point I also got 2 great leaders (-> cav army) and quickly uprooted them from their land. I made peace in exchange for their last 2 towns, but the Carthaginias wouldn't listen to their pleads of mercy and eradicated them.
Was just starting to enjoy the new peaceful era, when Persia, not content with having Carthage and India and Ottomans as enemies, declared war on me. Well, too bad! For them. I loaded my armies onto galleons and rapidly took their 2 luxuries' cities. At this point I was well behind in tech, and the prices that the India/Ottomans duopolists put were simply outrageous. So I had to research Refinery and Replacable parts by myself, only to discover that I had oil but no rubber. Fortunately (??!!??) India and Carthage had 2 each, so I could buy it, and for a pretty penny too!
Anyway, my arty and cavs were enough to crush the besieged persians, and slowly but steadily they were eradicated.
Buying techs I made to Motorized Transport just in time: India decided that it had too many idle troops and invaded me without declaring.
Immediately I bought alliances with all the remaining powers, and started praying. Everybody was more powerful than me.
In a couple of turns my stronghold in the south was barely hanging on, completely besieged.
For some reason they wouldn't attack en masse Caesarea (well, they did try a couple of times, but were discouraged by my arty and strenuous defence)
That hill on the bottleneck was my saving defence: it meant that attacking tanks would stop there, where my artillery could redline them, and my tanks would finish the job; the momentum of the indian invasion was interrupted!
Up in the north I was winning the colonial battle for the territory of the civ_formerly_known_as_Persia, but my Cavalry army was protonized by carpet bombing from the Indians. Wow, that was a shock! Anyway,I resolved the northern troubles, and shipped everything I got down to the defence of the homeland.
Modern Age
I was nearly getting hope when 2 things happened: the Indians finished the U.N and they also got some Mech Infantry. And I was still in the Ind Age. So I re-bought alliances (beacuse the vile traitors had cut them short) and set on spying my way to the modern age.
For some reason my allies wouldn't even consider payments in gpt, even though I had been careful not to break any deal before. In fact I had RoP and alliances and trades with them and they were polite or gracious, but they wouldn't give me credit: only cash payments. So it was cheaper to steal from the indians (I mean: we are at war anyway!)
And the AI doesn't use mech infantry for attack, not routinely anyway (it did from time to time). Then I discovered that the only source of oil for the indian was on an island (on the edge of the minimap), and I bombed it to oblivion. No more tanks! No more bombers! Just TOW and marines, which were easily despatched with artillery. And so my reconquista began!
I had to be careful, because their culture was an order of magnitude bigger than mine, but erasing the useless and holding with massive numbers the neccessary, I managed to slowly conquer the whole continent. Delhi flipped back once, but I saw that coming (thanks, Dianthus), and had all but one of my units outside waiting for it. [And it was good too, because it was a shortcut to starvation of the troublesome city]
I gave India peace in exchange of all its cities: the war weariness was really troubling me, the indians were kicked out of the continent, I now owned all the major wonders (Smith, Hoover, Coperincus, Pyramids)
and the ottomans had started their space ship.
Another shiver went down my spine: what to do? Attacking? I would be torn to pieces: even after the corroborating war with the indians I was still "weak compared to them", plus they already had nukes.
So let's race to the space!
I had stolen tech parity from the indians, and I now turned on my own research, and my space docks went to work full throttle.
Plus I built a few nukes, just in case it came down to the last SS-piece.
I also had an ace in my sleeve: a great leader was saved for the most expensive part (in Synthetic Fibers).
So I got to Robotics fiirst, stole Synth Fibers from the Ottomans (safely) and completed the last 2 pieces simultaneously on the next turn: 1762.
Victory!!! [dance]
As a little personal satisfaction, on the last turn I declared war on the last indian city and blasted it away with an army of modern armours: the darned Indians didn't see the new era of mankind exploring space!
Firaxis Score: 4631
Jason Score: 5054
Here is a minimap of the world at the start of the Centauri Age:
Conclusions
Boy! this game was a cliffhanger for me right until the end!
I was middle score in the ancient age, but then I was a bottom feeder for most or all of the middleage, industrial and some modern times!
Always the weakest in power and cuture. (well, not literally, but much weaker than the superpowers: India, Ottomans and Carthage)
On the brink of losing: conquered by the Indians by arms or culture (if they hadn't attacked me, I would have to do it, because they were going for the 100k), then UN in hostile hands, then another cliffhanger with the space race.
Right until 10 turn to the end I wasn't sure I could pull this through!
Thank you, Ainwood!!!
I usually lose interest when I realized I am solidly on top, and that is why I seldom finish a game
or I feel frustrated by the rng and reload an unfair (to me
) combat result, but this time I hanged on and completed the game fair and square, and I won!!!!
. It worked.
