Okay then...
**SPOILERS**
This is a complete report:
4000BC - Settler moves onto Jungle tile. Workers goes to irrigate Flood plain.
3950- Athens founded. Research on Pottery begins.
3500- Meet Rome, who refuses to trade us anything. Also pop a goody hut and get barbs, of course.
3400- Learn Pottery, now researching Masonry. Trade Pottery and Bronze Working to Rome for Ceremonial Burial
and their 10g.
3000- Flood plain disease strikes Athens! Noooo!
2590- Learn Masonry, now researching Writing.
2550- Meet Egypt. They give us Warrior Code and 10g for Pottery.
2430- Meet Carthage. Cultural-linked start must be enabled.
2150- Athens finally pops out its first Settler. Also got a Warrior from a hut.
2110- Find a barb camp! Gah, I didn't know barbs were turned on in this game. Settler gets an escort then.
2070- My free hut warrior is killed by barbarians
2030- Sparta founded
1990- Egypt trades us The Wheel for Alphabet. Carthage trades us Iron Working for Pottery and The Wheel.
1700BC- Thermopylae founded.
1650- Writing learned, now researching Map Making.
1500- Trade Writing to Egypt for Mysticism and 38g.
Writing, Mysticism, and 20g traded to Carthage for Mathematics.
Corinth founded not quite where I wanted to build it. A Roman Settler would've gotten there first.
1300- Rome steals a city spot in the desert from me.
1275- Horses connected, not that I'll ever get to use them. I'll probably trade them away in the future.
Delphi founded.
1175- Map Making learned, now researching Literature.
Trade Map Making to Carthage for Philosophy, 30g, and his World Map.
Heh, after playing Conquests, it's nice to be able to trade maps early again.
Trade Rome and Egypt for their WMs, too.
1125- Pharsalos founded.
900- Literature learned.
Trade Mathematics and Philosophy to Rome for Horseback Riding.
Egypt gets HBR for their map and some money.
875- Knossos founded.
775- Argos founded.
730- Mycenae founded in a bad spot just to try to culture-flip Rome's Neapolis.
690- Code of Laws learned, now researching The Republic.
650- Herakleia founded.
510- Contact the Zulus on an island to the West.
490- Zulus establish an embassy in our capital.
Carthage declares war on us, and sneak-attacks Argos!
Our warrior there barely holds out against their warrior.
Establish an embassy with Rome, and then ally them against Carthage.
350- Ephesus founded on the Zulu island.
Carthage must be busy with Rome, because they aren't attacking me anymore.
330- Suddenly realize I haven't traded maps with Zulus, so I do so.
310- Learn The Republic, and revolt immediately. I only get a 3 turn Anarchy!! Woohoo!
Make peace with Carthage, thus breaking the alliance. Bah, I don't care, I have good trading
opportunity with Carthage now. Trade The Republic to Carthage for Currency, Construction, WM, and 48g.
250- Anarchy ends and we become a Republic.
Contact the Babylonians who are on the same continent as the Zulus.
Trade maps with Babylon.
170- Egypt demands contact with Babylon. I capitulate because Alex is a wimp.
150- Caesar demands contact with Zulus. I give in of course.
130- Spices connected at last.
110- Learn Polytheism and enter Middle Ages, getting Engineering as free tech.
Feudalism research begins.
10AD- Woohoo! AD years!
Everyone is in Middle Ages now, except Zulus.
Babs must've gotten Engineering as their free tech too.
230- Learn Feudalism, begin researching Invention. Hoping to get Leo's.
340- After a long and bitter war, Rome and Carthage finally sign peace.
370- Babylon demands some money from me, and I refuse. They declare war, but I don't care.
Babylon is too far away to cause me trouble.
420- Learn Invention, begin researching Monotheism.
430- I forgot that I had a colony on the other island. Babylon attacks it (Ephesus), but it's
guarded by a Hoplite, and they trigger my Golden Age! Hooray!
450- Make peace with Babylon before they can destroy my colony.
480- Egypt offers to trade us some Incense for our Spices. I take the trade.
Monotheism learned. Now researching Theology.
520- Rome demands Spices, those bastards. I'm not in a position to refuse.
560- Theology learned. Full speed to Education and Universities! Time to leave these AIs in the dust!
580- Uh oh, the AIs are starting to cascade to Leo's! I still have 6 turns to go. I hope I make it.
630- Golden Age ends.
640- Education learned, now researchin Astronomy.
650- Zulus demand Theology. I refuse, and surprisingly they don't declare war.
Leonardo's Workshop built in Athens!
700- Forbidden Palace built in Pharsalos. Only a small reduction in corruption, though.
This as good a time as any for another screenshot:
780- Astronomy learned. Now researching Banking.
Sending some workers to the colony(Ephesus) to hook up some Dyes.
790- Trade Education to Carthage for Gunpowder.
We have no Saltpeter. Actually, there's one source just across the border in Roman lands.
I'll rush some culture in Mycenae to try to grab that tile.
840- Major culture war between Mycenae and Antium. An investigation of Antium reveals it has slightly
more culture. I rush a Colosseum to compensate.
880- Trade Astronomy to Egypt for several things, but mainly Music Theory and some GPT.
890- Mycenae finally wins the culture war! Immediately upgrade all Hoplites to Muskets.
940- Egypt declares war on us!!
I have to pay a LOT, but I get Carthage to ally with me against Egypt.
980- Zulus demand Spices. I refuse and they back down just like last time.
1000- Egypt captures one of my catapults, but then Carthage captures it so I can't get it back
1020- Build Copernicus' Observatory in Sparta.
Meanwhile, I gather Catapults in Knossos for an attack on Egypt.
1040- Egypt unfortunately catches on to my plan to pillage their Iron, and they kill my pillaging Musket.
He survived like 6 turns in to their territory, but Egypt killed him just as he reached their Iron.
1050- Oh ****!! Egypt gets the Romans to declare war on me!
1070- Hmm, forget trying to attack Egypt. I need to focus totally on defense.
1080- Rome pillages my Saltpeter. Oh well, at least now I can build cheaper Hoplites.
1100- The RNG cheats horribly as Egyptian Knights kill all my Muskets in Knossos with little effort.
I quit.
YOU [expletive] CHEATING RNG!!!
Also, Rome captures Mycenae.
Again, I QUIT!!
At this point, I get a Retirement loss because I quit the game.
Summary: Musketmen fortified behind walls are apparently defenseless against Knights.
Wow, just wow. I haven't had a game suddenly go so wrong since I left Regent level. Back then I often
had a problem with AIs suddenly sneak-attaking me at the worst possible moment. As I got better at Civ
the problem just seemed to go away. And then now, many months later Egypt catches me with my pants down.
I can only conclude that the variant rules had something to do with this. My military was fairly small.
I kept at least two Muskets in each city, and three in some. In a normal game, I would've had a half-decent
force of offensive units sitting around just in case of a war. Without such a force now, I was totally
immasculated when it came to warfare. I pumped out a LOT of Muskets and Catapults after the war started,
but they did me little good. Catapults really suck (I wish this had been on Conquests so I could've built
Trebuchets instead), and I only ever managed to shave one or two hit points off of a few Knights.
The Muskets should've done better, though. I managed to actually attack some red-lined Knights and kill them.
Mostly they stayed on defense, though. That's where the RNG screwed me. Three Egyptian Knights attack
Knossos, moments later I have three dead Musketmen. Same with Rome up in Mycenae. Their MDIs destroyed my
Muskets up there as well. Both cities had Walls.
This game was *probably* salvageable, but it would take much more effort and time than I can give. I could
have made peace with Egypt, thus breaking the alliance with Carthage and destroying what little reputation I
had left. Rome I couldn't make peace with, but I could have held against them in my stronger core cities, maybe.
But once I had peace, I'd be much weaker, and susceptible to any power-hungry despot who wanted my land.
I'm betting that it wouldn't have been long before Carthage set his eyes on capturing my Spices.
I can't really foresee a win for me resulting from this situation, so I retire.
.
Fun looking start.
