Looking for a no-brainer, Veg-out game?

[Bleys]

Being a busy holiday week and not wanting to get involved in a too many "real" games, where I intend to do reports and such, I decided to try an Earth 18 Civ as Rome. If you have never tried this (or a similar varient), its so much fun to blow through the AIs with these Praets. Play at your "usual" level, too, because its a cinch.

Bust out a couple cities, beeline Iron Working, build some Praets and go conquer all of Europe. I started with Greece (Sparta and Athens), moved to Spain (Madrid), France (Paris), England (London and York), and Germany (Berlin, Hamburg, and Munich). Basically, I took all those cities with 10 Praets, plus a few Chariots, Axes and Spears for support, on Emperor/Epic. I only had Cats and Elephants for the last 2 cities of Germany, so they didnt do much.

During this process, I only built the GLibrary in Rome, then captured the Buddhist holy city in Madrid, Stoney and the Mids in Paris, and the GLH in London. Best part is, the ENTIRE KNOWN WORLD is also Buddhist except GK (met all but Toku, HC, Monty and Roosey) so Madrid is going to become a godly Wall Street city. I already build the HE and Parth there too, for kicks (Parthanon is an awesome Wonder for the Romans)

I have only played this map as China once and Roosey once, so I never knew how much fun it is to blow through Europe like this. Heres a couple screenshots and the save from 430 AD, when I take the last German city in my area, Munich (he's still in the game with 2 cities in the frozen north):

Spoiler :

This is why I am building so many Stables:

Planning Steel from Lib, to just roll through the rest of the continent with Knights and Praets, basically.

To try it from scratch at your preferred level/speed, its the Earth(18 Civ) Scenario. Truly a lot of mindless fun with an OP unit.

 

[sinergistic]

Yeah, it is fun

Although, and this might just be a function of the difficulty level and speed I play with (Noble/Mara) , but I normally have more cities than that by 1AD. (I'm working on moveing up a level by playing non-earth maps, but I keep reverting to earth maps because I find them more fun).

In my games I've typically taking over Egypt (floodplain bonanza) and the middle east (ugh, desert) and I'm getting ready to invade India.

So, question: Do you think you could have taken more cities than that? I mean, have you just been playing a really laid back game? Or is Emp really that hard that 10 or so cities was it? I'm curious, because other than the King of the World series that Neal does, I don't see to many mentions of earth maps on here.

 

[Bleys]

I probably could just keep going indefinitely at this point, with the loot from captured cities fueling my research. At Monarch, I likely would also have Russia and Egypt at least, and below that, well, I have no idea, maybe I should have a go at Prince and see how many cities I can grab.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I find on lower levels you have to delay the initial hit somewhat.

On levels like immortal I can just attack, even extorting techs like alpha, CoL, or metal casting (!). On prince they won't have anything fast enough lol . Have to oracle CoL or something.

 

[DMOC]

I only played Rome on a 36 civ map. On Noble difficulty I believe I got about 160 cities by 1500 AD, researching Satellites or something. I also had stacks of 50 modern armor.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Hmmm...yeah on maps like THAT you can overcome almost anything with CoL and a shrine. A shrine and multipliers giving you hundreds of gold by itself is pretty reasonable even somewhat early...and the # of cities cap cost isn't all that bad there.

 

[Kesshi]

sinergistic,

I've had up to 44 cities by 1ad, though I was playing a 36 civ Earth map on Prince with no city razing, though I'm fairly confidant I could do that (or even better) on Emperor or Immortal if I put my mind to it.

 

[Diamondeye]

Do it on Settler, then come back and tell us how it went

Tank vs Spear anyone?

 

[r_rolo1]

Last time I tried earth 18 civs with rome ( long , long long time ago.... still in warlords ), my last preat action was in India, after taking all europe, Egypt, Persia and a little of Russia ( well, to say the truth , I was using preats vs grens in the end CRIII preats vs unpromoted grens in a 0% defense city still have very respectable odds ).

I might try it again someday .......

 

[DMOC]

Do it on Settler, then come back and tell us how it went

Tank vs Spear anyone?

More like tank vs. warrior.

Or Quechas.

 

[Scoottr]

Always wondered why the Earth maps were any fun. I mean what is the point of the fog when you know the shape of the land masses, where every island is located, where each civ is going to be placed.....Guess that is why it is a no-brainer?

 

[tycoonist]

on marathon, i have conquered everyone in the old world by 600AD on immortal... so much fun

 

[huerfanista]

After reading some of Neal's Earth18 games I decided to play my first as Romans monarch (my usual level) and marathon. It played more like settler than monarch. I won domination around 1400AD with 282K. I was researching industrialism (after having built all the Radio wonders, researched flight and artillery, bio, medicine) and the AIs were just getting muskets. It actually got quite tedious. I think I spent about 75% of the game in war.