Tell us the story of your current game

[MutilationWave]

Wow man nice job. I'm seriously impressed. I started this game and it ended disastrously. I started again and ran out of time before I had to go out of town for two weeks, I can confirm it was rough and I didn't even reach the crisis. Amazing, all 4 paths in Deity Antiquity. I've only done that once.

Thanks for contributing your game as well Timothy, I'd like to hear how the early game went, because I usually skip modern. It's awesome though that the AI is using aircraft, and using them well, now. At least until you atomized them

 

[Berrern]

Amazing, all 4 paths in Deity Antiquity. I've only done that once.

This was actually the first time I've done that!
It was especially surprising that I got the Cultural legacy path, as that usually requires some extensive planning and narrow focus...

I believe the keys to getting there was:

• Luck with Barbarians: If that Warrior had killed or even just delayed my Settler, I wouldn't have been able to settle the Machapuchare, and my game would definitely look very different.
• Gold & Silver resources: I managed to grab 3 of each, meaning an additional 66 Gold Per Turn by the end of the Age! Without this, my two Towns likely wouldn't have survived the Crisis.
• Settling the Great Barrier Reef so early got me an additional 8 Science per Turn, which is huge in early Antiquity. This in turn allowed me to build 3 Wonders from the Tech tree (Ha'Amonga, Colossus, Great Lighthouse) - Wonders which I usually struggle to build.

Oh and of course the Happiness boost from this Leader and Civ combination helped, allowing me to go 2 above the Settlement limit without tanking my yields

 

[Berrern]

Ashoka WR - Chola - Exploration Age
(@MutilationWave 's challenge)

I only had 2 Academies and 1 Amphiteatre from Antiquity, so didn't pick a Golden Age. I obviously grabbed Fealty and went hard for the points - I got a total of 8 Attribute points! This allowed me to get the Alliance bonuses for both Culture and Science (+40 per turn) as well as 1 extra Settlement limit and +50% towards befriending IPs.
I upgraded two Towns and changed capital to Samapa (the City by the Machapuchare).

I was way ahead of the AI in yields already on Turn 1 - well, except for Confucius' Culture:

I had spotted some Distant Lands to the West of my little island, so I prioritised Cartography (only 3 turns - even without being boosted!) and also - as always - went for Piety first.

There was only 4 IPs in our Homelands; 2 Militaristic, 1 Diplomatic, 1 Scientific. I had enough Influence off the bat to befriend two of them, so I picked the Diplomatic one for the Embassy (which prints Influence when you've got alliances) and the Scientific one (despite it being Hostile), hoping to find more of them through Exploration and really make use of the "+5% towards constructing buildings for each Scientific CS" bonus.

All my Towns required 20+ turns to grow, so I specialized all of them.

On Turn 7 I had my first Temple up and could pick and choose freely from the Religion bonuses. I decided to try something new - 2 Relics for converting City States (I typically pick the one for converting Capitals, Cities with Wonders or Cities with 8 Urban population).

Early exploration revealed a decent island with 3 treasures north-west, as well as a plot of land with 3 treasures just outside Friedrich's borders to the west. Of course both locations had Hostile IPs, so I scrambled my Commanders.

Within the first 20 Turns, I manage to build 3 Wonders: Wat Xieng Thong, Serpent Mound and Grand Bazaar. I lost out on the Rila Monastery by 2 turns - another wonder I always struggle to build. If I hadn't gone for Cartography first, I would've gotten this one!

On Turn 17 I disperse the IP in the north-west and settle the island. On top of the 3 treasures, it's got 2 juicy, active Volcanoes to boost yields
Then, as my other Commander and Settler are approaching Friedrich's borders, he suzerains the IP that I was going to disperse. I haven't found any other DL spots to settle yet, so this was a big setback:

A few turns later he beats me to the Brihadeeswarar Temple, my Civilization's Unique Wonder - it's quickly becoming clear who my main enemy this Age will be!

I eventually discover another island further east, with TEN Treasures, so I send a couple of Settlers there.

On Turn 34 I complete the fourth Chola Unique Quarter, which between them should give me a total +60 Naval Trade Route range. However, something is wrong, I'm not allowed to trade with the Distand Land civilizations! It seems there is a bug at play here, I made a post about it here. This bug means that I'll have to settle on the DL Continent in order to trade, so I redirect one of my Settlers heading to the Treasure Island - I have to send him south of Friedrich's borders and hope to find some juicy land down there. The problem is he'll need 12 Turns to get there, meaning the first 40 or so Turns I'm not able to take full advantage of Chola's trade bonuses

While my Settler is on its way there, I find an excellent location for a Treasure Town on the west side of the DL Continent, I build a Settler but he'll need 14 turns to get there, I hope it'll still be available:

At this point, my yields are verging on the ridiculous; I'm making 102 Influence per turn (closest AI is making 32), my Science is more than double of any AI's (except for Confucius who is on par).

Wars are starting up in the Homelands, Rizal declares on Confucius, I'm allied to both, but as my Commanders are now in DL, I cancel the alliances, losing me +40 Culture and Science per turn.

On Turn 42 I meet the 8th and final player, Edward Teach! Seems he won't pose us much trouble :

As I'm running out of places to settle, I decide to go after Eddie, and send my Commanders towards his borders. He's allied to Augustus, so it'll be a war on two fronts, but I'm way ahead of them!

Crisis hits, it's Religion, and the Religious Tolerance crisis policy card actually gives me +120 Happiness! I never bother converting the religion of my own Settlements, so this Crisis is always just a big bonus for me, even more so with this Leader!

I get Gunpowder on Turn 61, upgrade my units and a few turns later I declare on Eddie, who's traded away his Settlements for peace, and only has his capital Carthage left. Some 8 turns later I conquer it - but by then Eddie has taken over one of my CS and also settled a Town somewhere.
At the same time I realise that I've completely forgotten about Trade, having made such a big deal of it not working earlier... I could've been trading with all the DL civs for the past 13 turns!

Augustus wants to trade his ex-capital Nineveh for peace, but I'm making good progress, so I refuse.
I take two of his Towns, raze them both, and on turn 80 the 20-turn timer pops up. I empty all my stacked Convoys to get the Economic legacy path done - and also convert all my DL Towns to complete the Cultural and Military paths. I had already completed the Scientific path some 10 turns ago, so I'm already on 4/4 with 19 turns left!

I conquer Kalhu (pop 13) from Augustus, and keep it as it's got the UQ Ekallu. I then make peace, which gets me Nineveh (pop 46) as well.

With 8 turns left of the Age, and a rested army, I set course for Friedrich's borders, his yields are a bit too strong for my liking (still way behind me though):

I wanted to get Assur and Waset (with 8 Wonders!), but in the end I had to make do with Assur + Babylon, as well as a couple of his Towns which I razed.

I also ran out of time when it came to the man with the burning beard, 1 or 2 more turns and he'd be gone for good:

So all in all a great Exploration age, I ended with 22 Settlements (of which 6 Cities), 8 City-States (I had many more, but multiple got killed by my enemies) - and I managed to build 11 Wonders

I'm well set ahead of Modern, where I'll continue the Indian theme and pick the Mughals.


Final scores, standings and empire:

 

[Berrern]

Ashoka WR - Mughals - Modern Age
(@MutilationWave 's challenge)

I think it's the first time I got the Religious Tolerance legacy option (+4 Happiness in all your Settlements not following your religion - which is all of them!), so I picked that one as it ties in very nicely with this leader bonus.
I also chose Westhpalian Sovereignty for the extra War Support, upgraded 3 Towns and moved the Capital.

On turn 1 I was already making an unheard of 2700 Gold per turn, and was ahead in all yields - this seemed to be a straightforward Modern age:

With such a lead I was considering abandoning the game, but it's a challenge, so I felt I had to ride it out. Plus I could boost the leader a bit, as I haven't played much with him before!
As such I planned to complete all 4 Legacy paths, and started the Age off by declaring war on Edward Teach - might as well purge his 1 Settlement right away.

My war machine was tearing through the Distand Land continent, however the war against Friedrich turned out to be tougher than expected, seeing as he had an additional +4 Combat Strength bonus due to Prussia's special ability.
Nevertheless, I ground him down bit by bit, and by turn 38 I finally got his big City Waset with all its wonders.

Meanwhile I had researched the Gardens of Paradise Civic, meaning I could purchase Wonders outright. I beat the AI to every Wonder throughout the age, and at some point it started getting boring. I decided to come up with an additional challenge for myself: to own every Wonder in the world - and as such I started targetting the Settlements with Wonders (I'm SO happy the Wonder's Screen mod is working again!). This meant backstabbing the few friends I had, but why not, ideologies would likely take care of that anyway!

Around Turn 80 I actually had a lot of fun, as Jose Rizal had decided to build up an airforce and actually used it against my Settlements! Across 3 turns he continuously carpet bombed my capital until I marched in and burned that Aerodrome and City to the ground...

On Turn 85 I completed the third Space Race project, and all 4 Legacy paths had been completed.
I didn't want to finish the game until I had every wonder though, and on Turn 90, Rome fell, giving me the Colosseum, Mausoleum of Theodoric and Thanh Hue. I finally owned all 59 Wonders of the world!

I noticed I had 3 Nukes, so on the next turn I dropped one on Ibn Battuta's Settlement just for the hell of it , before activating my Great Banker in the last Capital to win the game.

Final scores, standings, empire:

Great challenge @MutilationWave , I had a lot of fun especially in the early stages, but as always Modern is just too easy and boring - especially with such a lead from Turn 1!

I look forward to the next one!

 

[Berrern]

I just finished a wild game, and figured I'd share it!

What I did was edit the maps.xml file to allow 17 Natural Wonders on a Huge map - instead of 7 which is the default. However it doesn't always spawn the full 17, there's some RNG involved.
My goal was to take control of all Natural Wonders, and to make it a bit spicier, I played on Demi God difficulty - this is five steps above Deity! I did however leave the Independents Combat Strength on Deity, and AI Combat Strenght on Warrior (+12 Combat Strength).
I also made a rule for myself: I could only settle near a Natural Wonder - the exception of course being in Exploration to get Treasure Resources. If all NW's were taken, I'd have to conquer.

Of course I played with Isabella, and to give myself a fighting chance, I chose Tonga. On a Huge Archipelago map.

I started right next to the Machapuchare, so early Production was no issue. I managed to get 4 Settlements near Natural Wonders, but after that it got difficult - I had to cross the whole continent to get to the other two NWs, and there were Hostile IPs on the way there... By the time I got there with my 2 Settlers, a Commander, and 4 Kalias (Tonga's unique Naval unit), Genghis had settled the Uluru, and Charlemagne the Zhangjiaje
At this point, Genghis was at war with 3 other AIs, and he wasn't prepared for my sneak attack - my Kalias made mincemeat out of his walls, and as the location was far from ideal, I decided to raze his town. 5 turns later (had to wait for the raze!) I settled next to the Uluru, and moved towards his other Settlement that was occupying too many of the desert tiles in the area. After a lot of back and forth, I finally conquered it, razed it, and tried to get peace. What do you know, he had conquered Charlemagne's settlement next to the Zhangjiaje, and gave it to me for peace

For Exploration I picked Hawai'i, and the age turned out to be absolute madness.
I had located two perfect spots for Treasure Towns, settled one of them, but then Simon Bolivar just wouldn't move his units from the island where I was going to settle. I didn't have enough influence to sanction him, nor the time to wait for it, so I declared war despite suffering a -4 War Weariness penalty! I quickly purged his units, settled there, but then he allied with Trung Trac and Catherine, and I was in trouble. The unit spam at this difficulty is UNREAL!

Trung captured a Town, then I took it back, then Simon took it. And I got it back again This is how the entire age progressed, but at least I came out on top - I also managed to conquer two of their Settlements with Natural Wonders, and used the Incorporate function on my City States to get two more.

In Modern I went France (as I hadn't played them in 1.3.0 yet), and by turn 61 I had managed to conquer all 14 Natural Wonders on the map! It wasn't easy, but it was a lot of fun

Have a look at some of these yields

 

[vorlon_mi]

My current game (Himiko, Queen of Wa) has two aspects worth sharing. 1) The combo of mountains, natural wonders, and navigable river that made my neighbor's capital SOOO hard to attack. Makes me wonder how the players over in the "fast science victory" thread manage to do their civ wipes so easily.

2) Much nicer ... an island in the Distant Lands with Treasure Resources!

And a short commute back to my homeland town, as well!

 

[MrRadar]

So I remembered that I've also picked up a copy of Civ 7 on my console (because it became available a few hours earlier than on PC back then), and decided to give it a spin for a more relaxed game on a smaller scale while sitting much more comfortably on a couch.

I've found my release version save which was a mess, so I ditched it and restarted again with the same Machiavelli leading Greece, on a small map (cont&islands), and Immortal difficulty.

My neighbours turned out to be Tecumseh of Egypt, Amina of Aksum and Freddy the Oblique and Roman. And my Machiavelli just couldn't hit the right note with any single one of them.

Amina hates people who settle on plains and desert, but Machiavelli simply did not have too many other options, so the relations went naturally sour.

Tecumseh wants big people to leave small people alone, but every damned IP that were of our landmass were hostile to us (despite standard settings), so Machiavelli just had to clear a couple of them, to make new settlements safe, so Tecumseh started to frown more and more.

Freddy the Cannon Lover hates people who have small numbers of units, and somehow that happened to be Machiavelli, so before too long I was staring at three red sculls staring back at me, which gradually started to turn into two crossed swords, one after another, though with decent intervals.

First DoW was from Amina, but she was the farthest, so it was a bit of a phoney war at first, but she started to pressure me with the war weariness. Then Tecumseh joined in and launched a ground assault against the capital Athens, which was beaten off, eventually. And after waiting long enough, Freddy with the toga said he was now in the right mood to do something violent against Greece.

The crisis also started and it was the fall of the empire one with happiness penalties. And that is not a trifling matter as AI holds me hostage with their pressure in terms of the war support. I earn almost double the influence but they are 3 vs 1, so I can barely manage to keep at -2 against any one of them. It drops one notch further, my people lose their minds and start burning down their s**t, and that costs to repair.

So the state of Greece at 10% of the age remaining is such that Machiavelli feels a bit outmachiavellied. Also, not one time in my deity games on PC I have seen an AI mount a fleet like this:

And all those Egyptian ships are coming straight for Athens. They're mostly ignoring Nekhen, which btw. left Egypt and joined me due to a happiness crisis.

My southern border has very nice natural obstacles, so Sparta is at least covered from one side, but very open from all other sides:

So all in all I got myself quite a tough game, far from relaxing... and I'm loving it!
My two commanders are needed on three fronts to defend, and I badly need a third one but I can't spare 12 turns to build one and I can hardly gather 1200 gold to buy one because my home front barely holds and is just one step ahead of massive revolts madness that start eating my balance and treasury. And me being at -2 war support means that they all just laugh in my face when I offer peace and send some more units my way.

It's a shame that on console you can't hover a cursor over the elapsed time percentage number to see the exact remaining turns at the moment. Because the transition can't come soon enough. Anyway, I'm finding playing on a smaller map somehow more engaging, probably because there are fewer places to manage, so I feel a closer connection to each of them

 

[MutilationWave]

@MrRadar I'm curious why you placed your settlements so close together. Not a criticism at all. I think one of my weaknesses is placing every settlement as if it were a city, so in my games I try to place all settlements with 5 or 6 tiles between each. If I were planning for some to be towns, they don't need as much space. Was this the plan before World War BC broke out?

 

[MrRadar]

@MrRadar I'm curious why you placed your settlements so close together. Not a criticism at all. I think one of my weaknesses is placing every settlement as if it were a city, so in my games I try to place all settlements with 5 or 6 tiles between each. If I were planning for some to be towns, they don't need as much space. Was this the plan before World War BC broke out?

Corinth and Chalcis were placed as intentional farming/fishing towns and to claim some resources, so they don't need too much space. Sparta was intended to be a city with a lot of open space, and Thebes was settled primarily for the 2 camels, but it will become my third city some time, as there's also enough of open space there. For now Thebes also just looks awesome, sitting there on that rock with matching walls

 

[MrRadar]

Update:

So my tense situation untensed in quite an anticlimax. Amina finally agreed to white peace despite still having a +2 war support against me and risking nothing at all to continue to strangle me.

The next turn I noticed that game progress went to 100%, so I tried something:

With the fight still very well on and my whole army on the brink and with +2 war support against me Tecumseh is now in Oprah mode. Seriously, FXS, if you're unable to code diplomacy right any more, just get rid of it altogether, it's disgraceful, even insulting. I get gifted a free town in a peace deal for a military path milestone and that calls up the final dialogue of the age, so the next turn is transition. I will wait for tomorrow's 1.3.1 for this

 

[Berrern]

New patch, new game!

Of course we'll be trying out the new leader Sayyida al Hurra, and the goal is to transition to Iceland in the Exploration age - and then the Ottomans in Modern.
Iceland unlocks by either being the first to discover a Natural Wonder (not easy if Isabella is in the game!!) or by doing 4 Coastal Raids.

As such, we'll be going for a Civilization with a unique boat, and since we recently played Tonga, let's go for Aksum, who should tie in nicely with Sayyida's unique Naval abilities.
Aksum has received some considerable buffs in 1.3.1, so it'll be really interesting to see how this plays out!

Below are the settings (the rest I've left on default) - I'll also attach a save file:
- Map: Standard size Shattered Seas
- Players: 8
- Difficulty: Deity
- Age transition: Regroup
- Countdown timer: 20 Turns
- Disasters: Catastrophic - let's see if we can get that Volcano going!
- Mementos: Ballestila (+1 Sight for Naval Units) and Hermione Model (+1 Movement to all Naval Units)
- Game random seed: 1949874948
- Map random seed: 1949874971

EDIT: In case anyone's wondering why Aksum is starting in the Tundra in this game, it's because Iceland wants Tundra - meaning this game might not be for the historians!

Of course, as always, everyone's welcome to join!

 

[Berrern]

@MrRadar I'm curious why you placed your settlements so close together. Not a criticism at all. I think one of my weaknesses is placing every settlement as if it were a city, so in my games I try to place all settlements with 5 or 6 tiles between each. If I were planning for some to be towns, they don't need as much space. Was this the plan before World War BC broke out?

I do exactly the same as you, I always aim for ~6 tiles between my Settlements. You just never know if a site could be ideal for a City when the Exploration Age Resources pop up...

I'm sure this isn't the best way to go about things, several of my Towns never get to claim all the resources in their radius, even well into the Exploration age!

 

[Berrern]

Sayyida al Hurra - Aksum - Antiquity Age

Being a Tundra start meant plenty of Production, but food was scarce. I decided to ignore Military (as this map type meant we were likely on a secluded island) and managed to get 3 scouts out before starting on the Granary. I always time my start so that the Granary is done around the time the City reaches population 4, so I can then start pumping 3 Settlers as soon as possible.

By turn 7, both Volcanoes had erupted, and yields were already booming:

I started researching Pottery first, in order to get the extra boost from the Flax resource, which perhaps wasn't the best strategy as the early exploration revealed a fairly small "continent" with room for maybe 4 Settlements.
On turn 11 I got Pottery and started on Sailing, as I was already boxed in.

There were no hostile IPs (well, no IPs at all) on our island, so I went straight for Mysticism to get Stone Circles, as there's plenty of Rough tiles around.
I wanted to get some Dhows out to take advantage of Sayyida's unique ability, however they cost 2 gold per turn to maintain, and having them sit in the home territory isn't going to help with scouting, so I prioritised Scouts instead.

I got Discipline and the free Commander, and I think it's the first time I've got to this stage without having a single military unit. Luckily the Barbarians can't swim, because there's a hostile IPs just south, blocked off by a single Volcano tile.

Around Turn 40 I discover the Great Barrier Reef, one of my favourite early Natural Wonders due to its massive Science boost. I'd ignore the Settlement limit to settle here (I'm currently on 4/4), however it's 14 tiles south of our island, and my capital is currently producing the Great Stele - and will then focus on the Colossus - so I can't currently build any Settlers. It'll have to wait...

As there's no imminent risk of any wars, I choose the upper path of the Civic tree, hoping to get the Oracle. Of course, halfway through the research, Himiko builds it, so I pivot and go for Tactics instead, to see if I can get the Terracotta Army (I've noticed since 1.3.0 the AI isn't that fast at building it).

A violent Blizzard strikes, further boosting yields. I gotta say I'm really enjoying playing with Catastrophic Disasters!! It also makes those Volcanoes so so valuable when considering potential Settlement locations.

On Turn 97 I finally settle on the little island by the Great Barrier Reef.
Meanwhile I've dispersed Akraim (south of the Volcano) and settled a Town there - in hindsight I should've settled on the Reef first to get the Science benefits sooner. I've also managed to build some of the most difficult Wonders in my capital: Terracotta Army, Mausoleom of Theodoric, Colossus and Ha'Amonga 'A Maui. Can I possibly manage to complete the Cultural Legacy path?! Indeed I can, by turn 108 I've added the Great Lighthouse and Weyiang Palace to my collection

I don't get my first City State until turn 101! Catherine, Amina and Himiko have been swamping me with Endeavors which were too hard to turn down. This means I haven't done any Espionage yet either (I haven't even researched the relevant Masteries!), so I'm not really playing into Sayyida's strengths - however I'm Helpful with Cathy and Friendly with 3 other leaders. And no negative relationships so far!

The Crisis strikes, it's Loyalty, I'm on 6/6 Settlement limit, but need to go above in order to complete the Military legacy path.

By Turn 112 I have nothing more to build in my Capital (I missed out on Monks Mound by 2 turns), so I start pumping out Dhows, they only require 1 turn to build. I only have 3 Dhows up until now - again, not really playing to my leader's strengths... Some 5 turns later I denounce Himiko, I need 6 points on the Military Legacy path, meaning 3 Settlements to conquer if I am to complete it. I need to time this right, and not conquer any until there's less than 10 turns left, lest I might lose them again due to Revolts.
It won't be easy, the Capital will surely prove too difficult to take, so I set my sights on Mele Havea, Nukulela and Mu'a - the issue of course is the long distance to the latter + the fact that my boats will have to sail by her capital to get there:

The 20-Turn counter pops up as I've assembled a Navy of 13 Dhows. I believe I'll need more in order to take 3 of Himiko's Settlements, so I keep building them.
Then on the next turn, Catherine's Knossos just west of my island, has had enough, revolts, and joins my empire Now I only have to conquer 2 Settlements!

This does come at a cost though, as I now have unhappy settlements, risking Revolts... Thanks to multiple Happiness Resources, I just about manage to keep them all at 0 happiness or above, except for Knossos, which is -18! Can a Settlement flip again during the Loyalty Crisis? One to keep an eye on!

Edward and Catherine have finished their wars, so I ally them both - hopefully they can help divert Himiko's attention.

On turn 132, with 8 turns left of the age, I declare on Himiko. It should take about 5 turns to take a town with 2 Dhows, I just hope I have enough of them (16!) to protect the 4 that'll be bombarding:

I needn't have worried in the slightest, my boats are much stronger than hers, and I've got 3 Military Aids going - for a total of +8 Combat Strength. Two turns later Mele Havea falls, and in another two turns, Nukulela falls. I keep them both - the former has a Volcano and the latter a Camel resource. My empire plunges into unhappiness, citizens are rioting and ravaging the infrastructure, but there's only 5 turns left of the age, so no worries about revolting.

3 turns before the age I complete the Scientific path, meaning all 4 paths are done!

On Turn 140, the last turn of the age, I do the Coastal Raids required to unlock Iceland. I nearly forgot about it!!

I didn't really play to Sayyida's strengths in this game, only towards the end of the Age did my Dhows boost the Culture and Influence yields. I completed only 2 or 3 Espionage missions as my neighbours kept luring me into Endeavours instead.
Let's see if I can better utilise her strengths in the next age!

Empire, standings and yields - please note that the yields are heavily skewed by the raging unhappiness (e.g. before the war I had 151 in Science and 246 in Culture!):

(I did complete the Great Library Scientific path, but the looters have since pillaged Libraries and Academies!)

No Aksum game without a bit of Hawilt spam

So we transition to Iceland in Exploration, and as you can see from the mini-map, there's only a tiny bit of Distant Lands near me, to the northeast. Will have to settle a Town in Eddie's territory ASAP to expand towards the DL over there. Luckily our relationship is Helpful, so I should be able to ally him immediately. I should've thought of this towards the end of this age, but I somehow overlooked it...

 

[m_mus]

So how did you like the new mapscript?

 

[Berrern]

So how did you like the new mapscript?

I really enjoyed it!!
Very interesting how each player has their own island, and the way all islands are connected by Coast makes the navy much more useful - even if I didn't really exploit it until the end of the age.

Like Pangaea, it does make the Exploration age somewhat less exciting though, as you've already met all the players by the time Antiquity ends. It'd be grand if half the islands would be in your Homeland, and the rest in the Distant Lands... Regardless, this is definitely my new go-to map type!

That being said, I wish the AI was better at naval warfare (any warfare, really) - especially when it comes to crossing the coasts and attacking your lands. I yearn for the days of Civ 3 when out of the blue you could get 3 enemy Transports with 18 units suddenly disembarking on your shores!

 

[tedhebert]

So how did you like the new mapscript?

I really enjoyed it!!
Very interesting how each player has their own island, and the way all islands are connected by Coast makes the navy much more useful - even if I didn't really exploit it until the end of the age.

Like Pangaea, it does make the Exploration age somewhat less exciting though, as you've already met all the players by the time Antiquity ends. It'd be grand if half the islands would be in your Homeland, and the rest in the Distant Lands... Regardless, this is definitely my new go-to map type!

That being said, I wish the AI was better at naval warfare (any warfare, really) - especially when it comes to crossing the coasts and attacking your lands. I yearn for the days of Civ 3 when out of the blue you could get 3 enemy Transports with 18 units suddenly disembarking on your shores!

I really like it too… just finishing antiquity on my first game with the map, very special thing, I’m situated smack in the middle of the map so I thought « here goes my chances for explo treasure hunting » but very surprisingly, I have a very small area right beside my capital (about 10 tiles away), maybe 10X10 tiles area, that is all surrounded by ocean and my exploring has revealed that inside is considered distant land even if completely surrounded by homelands… also another bigger region completely south in the middle of the map, bordering south pole, that is also considered distant land… so it’s not just east and west where you have distant land islands but also north and south + one region directly in the center of the map. I find this very interesting

 

[Berrern]

Sayyida al Hurra - Iceland - Exploration Age

Despite completing all 4 Legacy Paths in the previous age, I didn't choose a Golden Age (I rarely do these days), instead I went for Fealty as well as a unique bonus that gives your Naval Units +3 Combat Strength at the cost of 10% Influence. I also grabbed 6 attribute points, +35 Gold for previous Trade Routes and +11 Science from the Antiquity Codices. I upgraded two Towns and changed Capital, so started the age with 4 Cities (and 5 Towns).

I had a considerable lead in Culture off the bat, while four of the AIs had a slight lead on Science. I was also leading the way in Influence:

Thanks to getting two Future Civics in the previous age, I got Piety in 1 turn and immediately bought a Temple. I picked the +2 Relics for converting a City State, as well as the Tikkun Olam for extra Influence.

I bought two Settlers by turn 4, both heading towards Eddie - one to settle on his island and one to settle on the tiny strip of DL northeast of my empire. Unfortunately the DL strip had no Treasure Resources, so I sent my Settler to explore the area east of Eddie instead. On Turn 12 I settled Borg in Eddie's lands, at the same time as I completed the Wat Xieng Thong wonder in my Capital.

On Turn 22, just as I was getting excited about having a peaceful Exploration age, Himiko denounces me. I've got enough Influence to block it, but she doesn't scare me, so let her have her way. I've got 4k Gold in the bank, so I start pumping out the viking boats - time to let their traditions roar! I've only researched the first batch of the Icelandic Civics, so I pivot from Colonialism (was hoping to build El Escorial) to Væringjar for the extra combat strength on my ships, and will then do Hugins Drekka to be able to Pillage within 2 tiles.

Catherine is Helpful again (I set up 3 Trade Routes to make her happy), so I ally her, I've now got 3 Allies, giving me a sweet +60 Culture boost.

The exploration of the Distant Lands isn't going great, first of all there's very little of it, and more importantly, none of the islands I find have any Treasures! Of course there's plenty of Hostile IPs in those lands, and my westbound Settler, who finally found a Treasure Resource, got killed by a Cog. My exploration party heading east gets eaten up by Barbarians, there's nowhere to rest and heal, and so they kill my Commander and all of a sudden I'm left with one Settler and one Swordsman:

My mistake here was sending out Commanders that weren't fully packed with military units...
Reinforcements won't arrive in time, so I decide to settle on that 1 available spot on Tidore's island - it's not a great location and there's no Treasures there, but hopefully I can pump out some units there and get a foothold in the DL.

Meanwhile my Scouts have done a great job at exploring, but they've only found a total of 2 islands with 1 Treasure Resource each. At this time I'm getting the notification that Amina has started returning Treasure Convoys - where are her towns, I've almost explored everything?!

On Turn 51 I finally settle a Town near a Treasure. I've still only found 1 other Treasure, and that island is heavily guarded - and due to its layout my ships can't attack it! What's worse is that I started befriending the IP there by mistake, but by Turn 59 my Knights arrive:

I quickly purge the IP and settle there, so I now have 2 Towns in DL, with only 1 Treasure each.

Some 10 turns later I've explored the whole map, I've found Amina's 2 Towns in the DL, but neither has a Treasure Resource. She's now up to 10 Treasure points, and I see that she's playing as Songhai, so of course she's generating them in the Cities on Navigable Rivers in her Homelands...

So, in the end, there's only TWO TREASURE RESOURCES on this entire map! Luckily I control them both, but it'll be very difficult to get even a point on the Economic Legacy Path in this game.

During all this exploring, Himiko didn't declare war on me even after Denouncing, so when I get Shipbuilding, I declare on her and upgrade my 5 Vikingr ships. I pillage, I plunder, and without meaning to, I take her ex-Capital Lapaha from the sea. The 2-tile pillaging bonus is really awesome - you don't need land units to take many coastal Settlements!

5 turns later I conquer Mu'a, and over the next 4 turns I take Himiko's Capital Lahaina as well as 2 more Towns - she's now effectively purged from her island (well, it's my island now! ), but still has 1 Settlement down in Xerxes' lands, given to her in a peace deal. I make peace.

I've now got a sizeable Navy, and I want to complete the Militaristic Legacy Path, so I denounce Amina, hoping to take her two Towns in the little DL island south of her main island. She's also got Djedet down here, with the Vinicunca Natural Wonder:

She's got Tier 3 Cavalry already, but I've got 20 Vikingr boats and 3 Fleet Commanders, so I should be able to take them. I wait 8 turns for Gunpowder, upgrade all my boats, and declare war.

Meanwhile, my first Treasure Convoy spawns on Turn 65! No chance of getting that Legacy Path with only two Treasure Resources on the entire map... I then see that Amina has got 12 Treasure points, and Xerxes has 1! I can only assume he's captured one of her Convoys, they've been in and out of wars since early Antiquity. But even so, wouldn't that give him a Treasure Convoy worth two points? Very odd...

I also complete a Sayyida task of performing 5 Espionage missions - which comes with a reward of +2 Influence in every settlement, brilliant - I'm now printing the stuff at +113 per turn!
Of course, the 5th Espionage mission was towards Himiko (who had superior Culture output when I started it), who's now only making 50 Culture per turn - so I get only 500 Culture (I'm currently making 795 per turn!).

One of the drawbacks of Viking pillaging becomes clear once the unrest in Himiko's Lapaha clears - I'll need 1700 Gold to repair everything!

On turn 71, Amina is Hostile, so I declare. On the next turn I complete the Cultural Legacy Path - without having built a single Missionary! Those Viking Civics, eh?

The Crisis hits, it's Revolution! I'm 3 below the Settlement Limit, but have my eyes on 4 of Amina's Settlements... Meanwhile I get my first Future Civic, the pillaging bonuses of Iceland really boost the science and culture!! While pillaging Amina, I actually get 3 techs during 1 turn - however this also coincided with a successful espionage mission.

Having already conquered 7 of Himiko's Settlements with boats only, I'm somehow unable to conquer Amina's Capital Gao for some reason - perhaps Capitals can't be taken from the sea:

While pillaging like crazy, I accidentally conquer Anakena - with all the pillaging orders, it can be hard to see if a coastal raid will capture a Settlement or just pillage!

Over the next turns I capture six more Settlements from Amina, more than I was planning for, but I saw that her ex-capital Waset has got EIGHT wonders, so I'm planning to trade her all the non-DL Settlements back in exchange for Waset. Guess what - she refuses! I even throw in all my settlements for Waset just to see, but she still rejects. Oh well, my Navy is certainly up for more pillaging!

The 20-turn counter doesn't show up for whatever reason, and suddenly there's 19 turns left of the age. Around this time, my 5 Missionaries arrive in all 5 DL settlements, so I convert them all to finish the Militaristic Legacy Path.

Here's a shot of her City before the Vikings arrived, and another shot some 7 turns later:

I can't capture it from the sea, as there's 1 District that's out of reach. I scramble a Commander, but there's only 9 turns left, if he runs into resistance I might not make it in time...
But I do, and Waset finally falls. I don't want to make peace yet, as I want to see if I can get to +8 War Support to unlock the National Guard Legacy Bonus next age. Unfortunately I only make it to +7, and make peace with her on the final turn, giving back 3 Towns I took from her, meaning I end the age at 1 above the Settlement Limit: 22/21.

During this war, something funny happened. It started with a Treasure Convoy worth four points spawning in my City that only had one Treasure resource:

As it made its way back towards my shores, Amina captured it. On the next turn I got it back, and it made landfall in my Homelands. Again, Amina captures it with a boat. On the next turn, I get it back again, but on the next turn the Volcano next to it erupts, killing it!

So I ended the age with only 13 Treasure Points, making just the first point on the Economic Legacy Path. It's the first time I haven't completed this path, but it's not easy when there's only 2 Treasure Resources on the entire map!!

I complete all the other three Legacy Paths. My last action of the age is to spend 10k on three Fleet Commanders to ensure my 30 boats survive the transition, as well as spending 30k Gold on buying Ageless stuff in all Settlements. The Viking pillaging gets you enormous amounts of gold!!

I also managed to build nearly all the Wonders during this Age, I only missed out on Rila Monastery, Reykjaholt and Borobodur.

I'm dominating in all yields, and am considering skipping Modern as it'll be a walk-over, but this is a challenge game so I want to finish it - not to mention I want to check out the Ottomans!

Final yields, scores and empire:

So next up is Ottomans, in what should be a breeze through Modern. Let's see!

 

[Berrern]

Due to the ridiculousness of only having two Treasure Resources on the entire map, I suspected a bug with the new map script. As such, I took the map generator for a spin, but there's no bug - it just seems I was extremely unlucky!

Here's the number of Treasure Resources on this map type - I did 5 starts on each of Standard, Large and Huge maps:
- Standard: 11, 8, 14, 12, 14.
- Large: 19, 18, 15, 15, 16.
- Huge: 16, 16, 25, 18, 31.

 

[Berrern]

so it’s not just east and west where you have distant land islands but also north and south + one region directly in the center of the map. I find this very interesting

Yeah when I tested out the map generation as per my post above, I noticed this too, there are often small islands that can be located anywhere, I even saw a couple of maps where one or two distant lands islands were located right in the very middle of the map, sandwiched in between all the 'continents'! So unpredictable, I love it!

 

[Krikkit1]

Due to the ridiculousness of only having two Treasure Resources on the entire map, I suspected a bug with the new map script. As such, I took the map generator for a spin, but there's no bug - it just seems I was extremely unlucky!

Here's the number of Treasure Resources on this map type - I did 5 starts on each of Standard, Large and Huge maps:
- Standard: 11, 8, 14, 12, 14.
- Large: 19, 18, 15, 15, 16.
- Huge: 16, 16, 25, 18, 31.

Only 2 definitely sounds like a bug, because a decent map script would have some minimum number ( probably something like 1.5 per player)