I'm about to finish my first French game. Since it has been quite a while ago when I played a full game, most buildings were new to me. I'm especially positive about the wharf, that has become an important building now. Other reports:
- Kiev respwaned just after the barbarian waves and became the largest civ, they had 11% of the map. Turkey conquered Istanbul and some cities on the Greek west coast, the more developed cities were harder to conquer. Bulgaria was conquered by the Mongols, who only got defeated rather late by an alliance of Kiev, Genoa and Venice.
- Spain conquered Cordoba within a century, I'm not sure whether this is positive or not. They also expanded to Sicily. Never seen them Holland, although they were friendly against me.
- Most civs were stable (flat icon) until 1300 AD, the more powerful civs became solid then. I guess this is because of the economy, since there is always something to improve. Without a Golden Age, I was at + 80, 4 or 5 stars in every box except civics, and later on expansion.
- I wanted to conquer Germany very early, and so I did. Trier and Frankfurt were worthful additions, Augsburg declared independence and another city in the north got destroyed. They respawned once, my stability was +17 then. Luckily, their 2 crossbowmen were much weaker then my Knights, so I retook the city pretty quickly. This time I vassalized them, to make sure that they wouldn't return.
- I have the feeling that riverside tiles are slightly overpowered. 1 Production and 2 Wealth is a lot, so these tiles stay empty for a long time. Although I think this is good, we might want to rediscuss this.
- The later techs give many Great Persons, but they are not as powerful as I wish they would be. For example, Spies were near to useless, and Scientists could only bulb 2000 beakers, which is compared to my 3600 research per turn, a small difference. I think that the balance should be moved towards something else later on.
- 3600 research per turn, yes that is true. I must admit that I've tried to maximize science output, flat lands without forrests are now flat lands with 2-2-8 towns. The more science oriented cities like Paris and Marseille (that build the Belem Tower IIRC) produced, with the resource bonusses, over 200 coins per turn. In Marseille, that became my number one city in science, that resulted in 700 beakers per turn on 90% research. With Free Religion it could have been even more.
- Expansion stability was never an issue thanks to the UP, sometimes even 5 stars. So, I was able to do some conquests that were historical for the early Franks, like Prague, that was weakly defended by Austria. I razed it and replaced it with Chartres, 1 NW. Same deal with Dijon, rebuilt it 1 S. 2 SE is probably even better, but it leaves some space for Lyon that I haven't built yet. Toulouse was razed too, for the silly reason that there is no river there, and I have to waste some tiles to farms. I even razed Amsterdam, and built Anvers and Groningen instead. I didn't catch the iron and the sulphur this way in a fat cross, but that didn't matter so much, since I could afford to buy all necessary infrastructure.
- I didn't manage to build up a fair relation with Turkey. I guess that's because of the -40 religion penalty. Even Arabia has never been so angry. Is this a bug or a way to let Turkey hate Byzantium more?
- England had a hard job conquering Ireland, they only succeeded by 1650.
- There is something seriously wrong with Ragnar I think. First, he didn't want to expand in RFC, and now he doesn't want to expand too! The Swedish flipped exactly one city, the Norse remained with Tonsberg and Copenhagen, and Lubeck, that flipped from the Spanish.
- As I didn't give the others a single chance to build a colony (I have 3Miro's patch installed), I got lots of resources, even resulting in a high stability because of happy cities. Bordeaux had 44 happy faces in 1620, but no doubt that Paris has passed 50 by now. I haven't constructed a Tanner or a Coffeeshop yet, that could also give +5. Health was a different story, and I think that is okay. My largest cities only became healthy with Medicine, and I plannend to construct some unhealty buildings afterwards. Cities larger than ~22 are doomed, if you want to maximize production.
- Loading takes ages. My PC can stay alive for another 15 turns when I win the UHV (and it wasn't that easy to be honest, if I didn't pay attention I'd have lost), but there are other UHV's that require to play even longer, and I fear that I won't be able to get those. Some really early UHV's like the Norse would be welcome.
- Arabia and Frankia dominated in everything. Frankia in science, Arabia in espionage, though Frankia is cathing up, and in culture. Around 1500, Al-Quds had 15000 culture and what was even worse, they got more culture per turn than Paris, thanks to some corporations (they had 3 I believe). Some artists and Hermitage kept me alive.
In short, this has been the most enjoyable game in civ in months!
I'm really happy about the results and I can't wait to play another game tomorrow, as I've passed my exams (still waiting for the results though, but I'm sure I've passed them
). Keep going guys, you are doing an amazing job!
in 1642 (when i finished the techtree)
