This was an interesting experience so I thought I'd share it. Some players have probably had similar experiences, so feel free to share. Oh, and I always play Russia (although I want to try Wu with China sometime, but haven't had the time). I attached the initial and ending save game files in case anyone is interested.
My last Emperor game was a truly horrible start on Pangaea, small size, standard time passage. Moved my settler back from a coastal start to be beside a mountain for later building an observatory. No luxuries in the initial tiles, whales and copper in second range (and couldn't get the whales forever since I settled away from the coast, of course) and the "mountain" turned out to be the tip of a large range (on a very craggy map overall, too... CiV's algorithms for "pangaea" really need a lot of work as the maps are not actually pangaea, at least as far as geological history is concerned). No other decent city sites within reasonable distance, either, and a couple of city states sealing the northern entrance to the mountains, as well as another city state on the coast to the west (ocean bay east with an isthmus connecting to a small peninsula and another coastal city state). My capital wound up needing to focus on production (and got Petra to help although it wasn't the ideal location... it helped, though).
Once I saw the general surroundings, I knew I would have to turtle and try for culture. Most other civs were okay with this, even the Inca north of me on the other side of the city states (well, the Inca were okay as far as not being too crazy, anyway). However, Egypt decides to be annoying despite initial friendships. Usually, Ramses doesn't cause me any trouble in my games, but this one was certainly an exception.
By medieval times, Inca decides to attempt to settle the peninsula east (not going to happen and a very silly idea anyway since the city would be taken over by me later). Meanwhile, Ramses figures that his cheating gold income must be used to take my local city state friends even though he already has others in his territory. Obviously, this cannot be allowed because one DoW would cause an implosion with Russia in the midst of a city state singularity.
Thus, I had to DoW both Inca and Egypt, although the former was simply to take the settler and make him realize the error of his ways.
He sued for peace fairly soon and was generally no big deal for the whole game, as I said. However, I wound up needing to remain at war with Egypt from that point on. Aside from the fact that his regular peace offerings required me to give up all my gold and (very few) resources (not going to happen, obviously, as this is not negotiating in good faith), I could not afford to allow him to take the city states around me. In fact, I had to take over the one to the west to make sure it stayed with me no matter what (Egypt was to the west across a small one tile wide inlet that led to a small bay from a much larger ice-locked bay, with Egypt somewhere unseen across the ice-locked bay to the west). I only puppeted the city state, of course, as I needed to keep my SP costs as low as possible to have some way of keeping pace with the AI, especially Egypt.
Fast forward through thousands of years of war. Fortunately, Japan and China were to the north of Egypt. They also remained at war with him the entire game, too, although they also sometimes fought each other as well as Polynesia (Egypt took his capital before I DoWed in medieval era so he wasn't really in the game) and Inca (the latter was sometimes in conflict with China, not Japan). So we have Egypt fighting for thousands of years on three fronts simultaneously (and still raking in hundreds of GPT and tens of thousands of gold in the bank plus buying out almost every city state... yeah, right...). Ramses also wound up an era ahead of me (two era for some AIs).
Finally, as I neared my last five or so social policies in the two trees I left incomplete (modern era) I knew I need to slow him down. Japan had placed a city (Nagasaki) on the mountain peninsula across the inlet to the west, so it was within air range of the city state I had taken over when I first DoWed. Egypt took it, of course (Oda just will not stop REXing even when it is ludicrous to place certain cities in certain locations). Ramses didn't go for flight (or didn't do so very strongly, anyway) as he was focusing on military (probably due to Japan and China wars). Enter the Russian air force (about 7 bombers and 5 triplanes by the time I finished building planes). I had to contend with the large Egyptian navy in the ice-locked bay to the west, too. By this point, I settled another city on one of the couple of other luxuries in my area (gems almost in the antarctic) and since it was coastal, I could buy a couple of subs and a privateer ( ). Managed to cap an Egyptian battleship and keep it, and this is what enabled me to handle his enormous fleet in the western bay.
Ramses is an era ahead, of course (i.e., he's in the atomic era). I managed to take Nagasaki after many, many bombing runs (lots of upgrades, including several bombers with double attack and air repair). He completes the Manhattan Project while losing Nagasaki. I finally manage to see the hidden area of the map to the west across the bay... and the next Egyptian city to the southwest along the coast is Thebes, his capital. Uh huh... Ramses the Wonder Spammer really can't be allowed to keep that, right?
Especially not since he had just built the first of the SS Boosters and placed it there!
(By the way, in other news on the other side of the world, the Incans finally lost their capital to me somewhere near this time as they simply would not stay nice with my city state allies to the north).
Thebes had a 157 strength, but one turn of bomb runs turned that to pretty much zero. Took a couple of turns to get something near it to take it, though. Obviously, I am just waiting to see him launch lots of bombers or something, but he doesn't (because, well... he's busy building nukes, right?).
I wasn't sure that an AI would actually nuke their own capital. I mean, nuking your own main resources and citizenry... how barbaric, you know? What civ's population would take that from their leader without revolting?
Well, a couple of turns after taking Thebes, a nuclear missle lands in the city, answering this question (and obliterating much of the population and surrounding area resources, of course). Fine, I lose a couple of units (one of them my upgraded scout-archer from the beginning who had become a nasty Machine Gun... oh well).
Ramses' forces approach to retake Thebes, and I bomb them back to oblivion with my bombers and triplanes that are now based in Nagasaki (not to mention bombing the Incans and Egypt city state ally to the north of Nagasaki). My stolen battleship supports from the bay, of course. Ramses is upset, I can tell... he lands not one, but TWO atomic bombs in the middle of Thebes after losing a couple of waves of forces. Not that this helps him take the city back, of course, nor does it stop or even slow my progress in SPs towards my Utopia Project. Heck, after three nukes being dropped on the city, there isn't really much left to bother retaking, anyway, you know? Not sure why he wanted it back so badly after doing that to it.
Anyway, all of this stretched the game to almost turn 400 (I finally finished Utopia turn 393). I'm not sure that I'd call the experience "fun" but at least seeing the AI nuke their own capital into radioactive dust was interesting and memorable.
My last Emperor game was a truly horrible start on Pangaea, small size, standard time passage. Moved my settler back from a coastal start to be beside a mountain for later building an observatory. No luxuries in the initial tiles, whales and copper in second range (and couldn't get the whales forever since I settled away from the coast, of course) and the "mountain" turned out to be the tip of a large range (on a very craggy map overall, too... CiV's algorithms for "pangaea" really need a lot of work as the maps are not actually pangaea, at least as far as geological history is concerned). No other decent city sites within reasonable distance, either, and a couple of city states sealing the northern entrance to the mountains, as well as another city state on the coast to the west (ocean bay east with an isthmus connecting to a small peninsula and another coastal city state). My capital wound up needing to focus on production (and got Petra to help although it wasn't the ideal location... it helped, though).
Once I saw the general surroundings, I knew I would have to turtle and try for culture. Most other civs were okay with this, even the Inca north of me on the other side of the city states (well, the Inca were okay as far as not being too crazy, anyway). However, Egypt decides to be annoying despite initial friendships. Usually, Ramses doesn't cause me any trouble in my games, but this one was certainly an exception.
By medieval times, Inca decides to attempt to settle the peninsula east (not going to happen and a very silly idea anyway since the city would be taken over by me later). Meanwhile, Ramses figures that his cheating gold income must be used to take my local city state friends even though he already has others in his territory. Obviously, this cannot be allowed because one DoW would cause an implosion with Russia in the midst of a city state singularity.
Thus, I had to DoW both Inca and Egypt, although the former was simply to take the settler and make him realize the error of his ways.
He sued for peace fairly soon and was generally no big deal for the whole game, as I said. However, I wound up needing to remain at war with Egypt from that point on. Aside from the fact that his regular peace offerings required me to give up all my gold and (very few) resources (not going to happen, obviously, as this is not negotiating in good faith), I could not afford to allow him to take the city states around me. In fact, I had to take over the one to the west to make sure it stayed with me no matter what (Egypt was to the west across a small one tile wide inlet that led to a small bay from a much larger ice-locked bay, with Egypt somewhere unseen across the ice-locked bay to the west). I only puppeted the city state, of course, as I needed to keep my SP costs as low as possible to have some way of keeping pace with the AI, especially Egypt.Fast forward through thousands of years of war. Fortunately, Japan and China were to the north of Egypt. They also remained at war with him the entire game, too, although they also sometimes fought each other as well as Polynesia (Egypt took his capital before I DoWed in medieval era so he wasn't really in the game) and Inca (the latter was sometimes in conflict with China, not Japan). So we have Egypt fighting for thousands of years on three fronts simultaneously (and still raking in hundreds of GPT and tens of thousands of gold in the bank plus buying out almost every city state... yeah, right...). Ramses also wound up an era ahead of me (two era for some AIs).
Finally, as I neared my last five or so social policies in the two trees I left incomplete (modern era) I knew I need to slow him down. Japan had placed a city (Nagasaki) on the mountain peninsula across the inlet to the west, so it was within air range of the city state I had taken over when I first DoWed. Egypt took it, of course (Oda just will not stop REXing even when it is ludicrous to place certain cities in certain locations). Ramses didn't go for flight (or didn't do so very strongly, anyway) as he was focusing on military (probably due to Japan and China wars). Enter the Russian air force (about 7 bombers and 5 triplanes by the time I finished building planes). I had to contend with the large Egyptian navy in the ice-locked bay to the west, too. By this point, I settled another city on one of the couple of other luxuries in my area (gems almost in the antarctic) and since it was coastal, I could buy a couple of subs and a privateer (
). Managed to cap an Egyptian battleship and keep it, and this is what enabled me to handle his enormous fleet in the western bay.Ramses is an era ahead, of course (i.e., he's in the atomic era). I managed to take Nagasaki after many, many bombing runs (lots of upgrades, including several bombers with double attack and air repair). He completes the Manhattan Project while losing Nagasaki. I finally manage to see the hidden area of the map to the west across the bay... and the next Egyptian city to the southwest along the coast is Thebes, his capital. Uh huh... Ramses the Wonder Spammer really can't be allowed to keep that, right?
Especially not since he had just built the first of the SS Boosters and placed it there!(By the way, in other news on the other side of the world, the Incans finally lost their capital to me somewhere near this time as they simply would not stay nice with my city state allies to the north).
Thebes had a 157 strength, but one turn of bomb runs turned that to pretty much zero. Took a couple of turns to get something near it to take it, though. Obviously, I am just waiting to see him launch lots of bombers or something, but he doesn't (because, well... he's busy building nukes, right?).
I wasn't sure that an AI would actually nuke their own capital. I mean, nuking your own main resources and citizenry... how barbaric, you know? What civ's population would take that from their leader without revolting?
Well, a couple of turns after taking Thebes, a nuclear missle lands in the city, answering this question (and obliterating much of the population and surrounding area resources, of course). Fine, I lose a couple of units (one of them my upgraded scout-archer from the beginning who had become a nasty Machine Gun... oh well).
Ramses' forces approach to retake Thebes, and I bomb them back to oblivion with my bombers and triplanes that are now based in Nagasaki (not to mention bombing the Incans and Egypt city state ally to the north of Nagasaki). My stolen battleship supports from the bay, of course. Ramses is upset, I can tell... he lands not one, but TWO atomic bombs in the middle of Thebes after losing a couple of waves of forces. Not that this helps him take the city back, of course, nor does it stop or even slow my progress in SPs towards my Utopia Project. Heck, after three nukes being dropped on the city, there isn't really much left to bother retaking, anyway, you know? Not sure why he wanted it back so badly after doing that to it.
Anyway, all of this stretched the game to almost turn 400 (I finally finished Utopia turn 393). I'm not sure that I'd call the experience "fun" but at least seeing the AI nuke their own capital into radioactive dust was interesting and memorable.
