The Height of Level 9 - Songhai, Asia map, mod Marathon, mod difficulty

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Spoiler :

042. Here is an example of who could grow out of control after mid-game - Ottoman has spawned enough city to make it double the size of average Civs. Ottoman's score also reflects its outstanding expansion rate. We will carefully observe how Suleiman owns or fails along the way.

 

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Spoiler :

043. And here is the stats on Happiness. We can see that the AIs are all extremely happy - the only unhappy Civ is Persia at -5. I guess since the AIs' population no longer sprouts like Annual plants in spring (more like a Woody plant now), they really do not need any discount on Unhappiness. And they can build Happiness buildings very quickly, so they can afford to have lots of small cities - the spirit of ICS (infinite city spawn)!

 

[maltz]

Spoiler :

044. Ottoman's home, on the east edge of the map, almost in the desert of Arab pennisula. Looks like a tragic birth place, with no source of fresh water and food. All Suleiman's new city spawns suffer very similar problems. Can Suleiman overcome the harsh environment?

 

[maltz]

Spoiler :

045. Happiness is tight, so for the next policies I opt for Piety in the hope to get to Theocracy ASAP. -25% unhappiness on population could mean a difference of 20+. That's three or four more cities before the unhappiness problem sets in again!

 

[maltz]

Spoiler :

046. It is very surprising to see Suleiman building the Great Pyramid in the middle of desert. Well, that's what the Egyptians did, too. Suleiman seems to have a fondness of pyramid shapes - he is now building a Chichen Itza here! Good luck with that.

 

[maltz]

Spoiler :

047. There is not much to do for General Rommel back home. But Persia's new base (Arabia) could use some defenders, for the main army will soon depart for the next conquest. The capital will produce new Immortals to help with defense.

 

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Spoiler :

048. It took another 20 turns or so to reach Egypt. This map isn't standard sized at all...
Is Egypt the protype wonder builder better developed than Arabia?
A little. At least the strategic resources are taken care of.
But that's all the tile improvement I could see.
That's very lazy (and again malfunctioning). At least the worker is out already, so why not improve something?

And Egypt already entered Renaissance 10-20 turns ago, but there are still Chariot Archers running, not Knight!
I guess Ramey hasn't bothered with the upgrade yet - because he has no cash.
He has no cash becuase it buys resources from Persia.

p.s. I find that the AIs are generally very slow on unit upgrades. They can sit with 10K or 20K cash, but still decide not to upgrade their units.

 

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Spoiler :

049. Chariot Archers - into the ocean!

 

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Spoiler :

050. Persia's aggression on the second Civ attracts the denouncement of China and strangely, Mongolia. How about you two start fighting each other soon and just leave Darius alone.

 

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Spoiler :

051. Rommel was still on his way (takes 20 turns) and a tragedy happened - the barbarians grabbed the oppurtunity! Our Cotton field! NOOOO~~

 

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Spoiler :

052. So what do we do, when we are about to lose the Cotten to barbarian pillage? We sell it to Alexander for all his cash and a war declaration on China.

 

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Spoiler :

053. Memphis goes down quickly. Just like Harun, the Ramey AI is not a fan of military, so the Persian invaders met almost no resistance. I recall a few Deity games where Ramey goes down like this, too. He is simply a wimpy! Even more of a wimpy when he can't improve his own tiles.

 

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054. The barbarians were laughing at Darius - it actually had reinforcement! After burning two Cotton fields, the Marbel will be gone, too! NOOO~~

 

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055. So what do we do when our Marble is about to lose to barbarian pillage? We sell it to Suleiman for all his cash and his war declaration on China. Poor Wu Zetian.

 

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056. Ramey is begging for peace! He is slightly better off than Harun, offering a whooping 16 more gold and 6 more gold per turn, plus a couple of resources... We will make the pain short.

 

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Spoiler :

057. After a brief rest, the Persian invaders go north to meet with... more Chariot archers.
And the barbarians have already arrived!

Also, Genghis Khan declared war on a nearby City State. That's good - so we only need to bribe him to declare war on one more CS to make it permenant.

 

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Spoiler :

058. Thebes surrounded!
And even more barbarian is showing!
I know they are controlled by the same mastermind, but this is really too much.
Now I can see why Egypt's worker has trouble improving anything when defended with sucky Chariot Archers.

 

[maltz]

Spoiler :

059. The barbarians are here to burn the horses! So what do we do? We sell our horses to China for all her cash.

Slowly in this game I learned one thing - the Deity difficulty is mostly an illusion. As long as the AI grows rich, the human will have an endless supply of cash to do whatever they want - if they don't mind to exploit the game's flawed trade mechanics (and since we already exploit the poor AI in so many other ways, I don't see why not here).

The real difficulty is how much money the AI has, and there is a reversed relationship. The human can easily take all of AI's cash by various means, so the poorer tha AI is, the more difficult the game becomes for human. The AIs are actually quite poor in this game due to their stunted population and the nature of the map (no river for most Civs), so I can't liberally buy anything I want as in a regular Deity game.

 

[maltz]

Spoiler :

060. The last hit on Thebes and Ramey the wonder builder. Strangely there is one tile of road on the unimproved Cows southwest of Thebes. That's the only tile of road I can see...

Ramey deserves an F+ (Harun gets the plain F).

 

[maltz]

Spoiler :

062. Six Civs left. Suleiman is still expanding rapidly, while China took the lead in a few other categories. From experience, we know that Land area is the best indication of long-term prosperity. China's leading GNP will be eventually replaced - even assimilated into the Ottoman empire!