CaptainPlatypus
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jun 12, 2009
- Messages
- 20
Now this is the story all bout how
My difficulty got flipped, turned upside down
And I'd like to take a minute promise not to bore
I'll tell you how I played on Prince in a game of Civ 4.
In a tiny continent born and raised,
Korean by birth and Wang Kon by name,
Chilling, expanding, acting all cool,
And all axeman rushing Joao the Two,
Pretty soon the place was all mine to keep,
Rest of the world made nary a peep,
I send out one little caravel and I get scared,
Because Zara Yaqob was going all up crazy out there.
I begged and pleaded with him to chill it out,
But he called me his worst enemy and went to war,
He sent off a fleet but I reduced it to rubble,
I set up a nice pact and said "I'll kick it like Hubble."
Next war, yo this is bad,
He beat up my ally and made him his vassal,
Is this what Ethiopia rolls like?
Hmmmm this space race might get tight.
I got transports through his navy, don't ask me how,
Landed on his mainland and said "blitzkrieg now",
I took just three cities and that was a test,
But he wanted peace and he paid to take the rest.
I sent off my spaceship nineteen sixty-eight
Zara followed me up just a few turns later,
I looked down at the world,
Victory in store,
I colonized Alpha Cent as the prince of Civ 4.
-----
Prince was tough. I'm typically a Noble player, and I don't have much trouble there, but on Prince my lazy micromanagement starts to shine through. I didn't have much land available, didn't get tech trades until Optics, and Zara was expanding and wonderwhoring like a madman. He had ridiculous amounts of espionage, too (got it to the point where I couldn't see his army strength, which of course was way above mine all game), and for some reason decided to make me his worst enemy even though he shared a continent with infidels and I had Free Religion on precisely to avoid this.
First invasion was while I still had a bit of a tech lead - he invaded with something like 50+ riflemen and grenadiers, but I had about 10 tanks up plus some infantry, and I took out the whole stack before it attacked a single city. Second invasion he had a stronger navy (easily 15 battleships, where I had 3 or 4) and I only had his army matched - I didn't lose a city to him, but it was a near thing, and it took about 12 artillery sacrificed (he came with multiple death stacks) plus railroad-tank abuse (so many attacks per turn!). If I hadn't been able to get arty to him before he razed the railroads on the squares he was on, I probably would have lost my main science city.
Eventually, I managed to launch an actual counterattack (I used my entire navy as bait to lure his battleship hordes away from my transport route) and get some tanks with artillery and mech infantry support onto his mainland - though only after taking two islands simply because his navy was back and I needed safe ports. I didn't manage to do much, but it was enough that he started an AP vote to "end the war against Zara Yaqob", which was my hint to ask for peace. 25 gold per turn and a 500ish lump sum, in exchange for barely defending my territory. Nice. Of course, he AP and UN'd the cities I'd taken back to himself with consecutive votes, but what the hell, they were losing me money anyway.
At this point the space race was in full swing (I'd had multiple cities building spaceship parts during the war, because I knew it was my only chance, and that's what won me the game). He beat me to the space elevator by THREE TURNS, with a great engineer blown on it, but I had a complete ship (everything done but two casings) before him. Launched with a 60% chance, got lucky, and made it in 12 turns. He launched with two left, and attempted a diplomatic victory with the UN with eight left - which he lost. By one country that had been backing him most of the game. Weird. It's almost like somebody gifted him 2000+ gold to break his ties with them just after launch.
It was a fun game. Early war was just as easy as usual, riding an early war to overall victory was a lot harder. I think I'll need to play a few more Prince games before I'm comfortable moving up to Monarch, even though I'm confident I would have won if I'd started on a bigger continent.
My difficulty got flipped, turned upside down
And I'd like to take a minute promise not to bore
I'll tell you how I played on Prince in a game of Civ 4.
In a tiny continent born and raised,
Korean by birth and Wang Kon by name,
Chilling, expanding, acting all cool,
And all axeman rushing Joao the Two,
Pretty soon the place was all mine to keep,
Rest of the world made nary a peep,
I send out one little caravel and I get scared,
Because Zara Yaqob was going all up crazy out there.
I begged and pleaded with him to chill it out,
But he called me his worst enemy and went to war,
He sent off a fleet but I reduced it to rubble,
I set up a nice pact and said "I'll kick it like Hubble."
Next war, yo this is bad,
He beat up my ally and made him his vassal,
Is this what Ethiopia rolls like?
Hmmmm this space race might get tight.
I got transports through his navy, don't ask me how,
Landed on his mainland and said "blitzkrieg now",
I took just three cities and that was a test,
But he wanted peace and he paid to take the rest.
I sent off my spaceship nineteen sixty-eight
Zara followed me up just a few turns later,
I looked down at the world,
Victory in store,
I colonized Alpha Cent as the prince of Civ 4.
-----
Prince was tough. I'm typically a Noble player, and I don't have much trouble there, but on Prince my lazy micromanagement starts to shine through. I didn't have much land available, didn't get tech trades until Optics, and Zara was expanding and wonderwhoring like a madman. He had ridiculous amounts of espionage, too (got it to the point where I couldn't see his army strength, which of course was way above mine all game), and for some reason decided to make me his worst enemy even though he shared a continent with infidels and I had Free Religion on precisely to avoid this.
First invasion was while I still had a bit of a tech lead - he invaded with something like 50+ riflemen and grenadiers, but I had about 10 tanks up plus some infantry, and I took out the whole stack before it attacked a single city. Second invasion he had a stronger navy (easily 15 battleships, where I had 3 or 4) and I only had his army matched - I didn't lose a city to him, but it was a near thing, and it took about 12 artillery sacrificed (he came with multiple death stacks) plus railroad-tank abuse (so many attacks per turn!). If I hadn't been able to get arty to him before he razed the railroads on the squares he was on, I probably would have lost my main science city.
Eventually, I managed to launch an actual counterattack (I used my entire navy as bait to lure his battleship hordes away from my transport route) and get some tanks with artillery and mech infantry support onto his mainland - though only after taking two islands simply because his navy was back and I needed safe ports. I didn't manage to do much, but it was enough that he started an AP vote to "end the war against Zara Yaqob", which was my hint to ask for peace. 25 gold per turn and a 500ish lump sum, in exchange for barely defending my territory. Nice. Of course, he AP and UN'd the cities I'd taken back to himself with consecutive votes, but what the hell, they were losing me money anyway.
At this point the space race was in full swing (I'd had multiple cities building spaceship parts during the war, because I knew it was my only chance, and that's what won me the game). He beat me to the space elevator by THREE TURNS, with a great engineer blown on it, but I had a complete ship (everything done but two casings) before him. Launched with a 60% chance, got lucky, and made it in 12 turns. He launched with two left, and attempted a diplomatic victory with the UN with eight left - which he lost. By one country that had been backing him most of the game. Weird. It's almost like somebody gifted him 2000+ gold to break his ties with them just after launch.
It was a fun game. Early war was just as easy as usual, riding an early war to overall victory was a lot harder. I think I'll need to play a few more Prince games before I'm comfortable moving up to Monarch, even though I'm confident I would have won if I'd started on a bigger continent.
