Unusual Games Thread

[wolfigor]

In my latest game I (600Ad start, monarch) with the American I found a quite unusual position for Germany.
at least is unusual for me because I rarely play in very late stages of the game.
In my experience Germany gets gangbanged by the neighbours and rarely succeed to expand al lot in direction of their UHV.

Anyway when I got in contact with Europe and exchanged maps I discovered that Germany expanded a lot conquering Milan, the Balkans, Scandinavia, and all of Russia from the west border to the urals!

If that's common... ok, just forget it.
Else I'll go in some old savegames and take some screenshots to show it.

 

[s09119]

I had a very interesting game as Greece over the past few days (playing sparingly). I established myself as a European power early on, founding my capital at Byzantion over Athenai and making the latter a military base for amphibious attacks into Egypt (Babylon was blocking expansion to the east and refused to sign open borders). Eventually, I conquered Alexandria, and moved my main force into Babylon, taking Jerusalem and Sur rather easily, as the main Babylonian army was concentrated on the Persian border.

Then things really got interesting. I popped a Great Prophet and beat Rome to Christianity, becoming the dominant superpower in Eurasia, passing a stagnant China. I finished taking out Egypt and took Babylon, thus completing the Byzantine Empire. After that, I helped Rome set up its domain and destroyed Carthage, giving that area to the Romans (as I was over-extended as it was).

But now I had a problem; the Arabians spawned and I, having just built the Apostolic Palace, launched a Christian Crusade into the Middle East. A coalition of Greek, Roman, and Ethiopian (now my vassal) forces held them at bay, but we couldn't break through to Makkah. Eventually, that war ended in a stalemate, and Persia attacked my men at Babylon.

By the time that war ended, the world was more-or-less historical; the Byzantine Empire controlled Greece, Turkey, Babylon, and Egypt, the European nations were fighting amonst themselves, barbiarians had captured upper Italy and Roma, but the Romans were reconquering it (much like the Italians did in the Renaisance). Also, China was becoming a powerful economic figure as it traded valuable resources to the inifghting Europeans, and the Arabians were continuing to try and conquer the Holy Land. I'm somewhat amazed at how accurate it is right now, and I hope it'll stay this way.

 

[blizzrd]

I'm somewhat amazed at how accurate it is right now, and I hope it'll stay this way.

This is why I've been playing the RFC mod almost exclusively when I load up CivIV since the moment I found it. This and the fact that the mod keeps getting minor tweaks and improvements, unlike updates for the rest of CivIV BTS, which seems to have been shelved now that Civ Revolutions is in the pipeline.

 

[blizzrd]

Stange.
I recently have seen a lot of games with the aztec being the vazal of Japan.

I have seen each of China, Japan and Khmer get the conqueror event during various games. Quite annoying when you are the first European civ to find the new world...

 

[Rhye]

I have seen each of China, Japan and Khmer get the conqueror event during various games. Quite annoying when you are the first European civ to find the new world...

why? It could have been possible

 

[Gigaz]

I just won Arabia by UHV on monarch (600 ad start). It was extremely difficult, these Byzantines are a pain in the ass.
Funny thing about this game was some sort of collapsing chain: Germany and Spain started (the latter was my work )
Vikings and England collapsed later due to too much colonialism, ravenous Russia took over the Viking land and Germany and so they collapsed too. The turks tried to take over old Russias 50 cities and, guess what happened, they collapsed.
France collapsed when the US started to take their cities and the Netherlands were the last middle european superpower

But I guess two things should not occur:
1. The Mongols adopted theocracy without a state religion.
2. Every theocratic country that agreed to have open borders with me willingly spread Islam when i gifted them my missionaries. Without that I would have needed much more time on the last victory condition. (I could as well have changed their civics by espionage)

 

[blizzrd]

why? It could have been possible

Why was it annoying? Because I wanted to kick the Aztecs into the dustbin of history, but the Khmers had already done so...

Yes, I agree it could have been possible - but was certainly annoying each time it happened that an Eastern nation reached the Americas first.

 

[s09119]

Why was it annoying? Because I wanted to kick the Aztecs into the dustbin of history, but the Khmers had already done so...

Yes, I agree it could have been possible - but was certainly annoying each time it happened that an Eastern nation reached the Americas first.

I played a game as England once where Greece had colonized most of North America

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Just finished Spain in monarch with the new version. Interestingly Russia did not expand much (only had 4 cities) and then SPONTANEOUSLY offered to vassalize (Cathy never does that)...of course I was score leader. She also favored teching rather than expanding (she was up to par with me).

It's also my experience that the new Germany is not so aggressive against the Dutch, French or Russians like they used to be. Maybe that's not so "unusual."

 

[Virdrago]

Amsterdam (the only Dutch city) flipped to the French in my Russian game. I spoke with Willem, he wasn't at war with anyone, and then suddenly, the Dutch were destroyed and the city was French.

This game also included a Viking South Africa (5 cities).

 

[Dschingis Khan]

Once played a game where the Arabs were the first to reach the New World and conquered the Aztecs+Mayans. Mekkah was captured by Turks and their new Capital was all the way in Mexico! They ended up becoming a powerful force by spreading into California. It was pretty weird, but nifty nontheless.

Another game I played, was as the Mongols. I had just conquered China when it declared Independence the next turn or so. I was very angry, until they offered to be vassals, which wasn't so bad.

 

[monolith94]

I just played an odd game as the Greeks. Founded Corinth, then sent my three phalanxes east to ravage the middle east. Razed Hattusas and Jerusalem, but kept Tyre. Romans declared war and razed Corinth, leaving me with tyre as my capital! I think I would've been able to still make a game of it with what I had left, but then I got dows from both persia and egypt! Oi. I was able to capture ur, but then the persians got Tyre. Ur was my new capital, which I managed to keep defending. Essentially, I had started off as the greeks, but ended up as Kuwait...

 

[Walliard]

Played(still playing, in fact) a game as Maya where all of Europe became Muslim. Virtually no Christian cities anywhere. Wonder what the Arabs pulled there...?

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Played(still playing, in fact) a game as Maya where all of Europe became Muslim. Virtually no Christian cities anywhere. Wonder what the Arabs pulled there...?

I've seen that before, when a superpowerful China founded almost all the religions except for Buddhism and Hinduism. Then Islam shows up in 600 AD and with the extra water spread rates it reached Europe. Good for them, you should have switched to Arabia and played an easy game.

 

[Walliard]

It's looking to be a pretty easy game regardless. Only trouble I had was against the Aztecs.

 

[mushyman]

I've just loaded up a 3000bc Monarch start with Turkey, and I would love to have been able to see what went on in the previous 4280 years.

From my start, Rome appeared to have control of the Balkans, were the clear score leader, and had DOW'd me on the flip. A few turns in I noticed an "enemy has been spotted", and was shocked to see a Cuirasser just outside my borders! So I decided to have a nose around in the Worldbuilder...

Firstly, Rome looked large and stable, covering most of Italy and Greece and some of Eastern Europe. Rome itself was housing the Great Library, Sistine Chapel, Notre Dame and Leaning Tower - Mediolanum similarly had the Hagia Sophia, the Hanging Gardens and the Spiral Minaret. Kinda explains the massive tech lead, I suppose! Amusingly however, there was an independent Sparta sitting right in the middle of the Roman borders - a size 1 city, it contained both Angkor Wat and the Apostolic Palace. Athens itself, meanwhile apparently hadn't bothered with any wonders at all - Delhi had built most of the traditional Greek ones.

Other interesting points - the English had only bothered to found two cities, Manchester and London. Nevertheless they had industriously farmed Cornwall, a tile too far away from any city to be worked Ethiopia was somehow third in score and stable - I'm not sure how, as they only had four small cities, all in their spawn area. They were quite advanced techwise though. Also, Seoul was for some reason a Persian city! Looked very odd boxed in by the Chinese and Japanese culture. And the Egyptians had founded Christianity and the holy city Per-Wadjet was currently size 1, plague ridden and barbarian controlled

The most shocking result though (and pretty much the reason I came to post this), was the fact that the Vikings were...... gone! Scandanavia was totally uninhabited In fact, the only clue that anything had ever been there was a pile of city ruins where Nidaros normally is. One can only assume that they were wiped out just after spawn by a massive stack of barbarians, but the circumstances for that to come about are so unlikely as to be unbelievable. Very freaky!

I'm tempted to play through to see exactly what effect an empty Scandanavia would have on the European civs expansion - would they try and colonize it or just leave it a barren wasteland? On the other hand, a large, stable and advanced Rome might be too tough a nut to crack

 

[ADP101]

im playing a game now and the aztec have chinese crossbow mercs, making them a lil hard to kill off cuz they attatched a general to one of their units, just brought a cannon and took em all out tho so s' all good

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Very unusual game Mushyman. The Greeks seem to always found 2 cities now which means they won't have time for any of the usual Greek wonders. Sparta, as I said before, is seriously underestimated as a growth/production city.

Poor Vikings. I don't think the Germans are programmed to found any cities there, although the Russians may. When I squatted as the Vikings in England and Ireland and left Norway empty, the English knew that with their trireme but didn't send any of their settlers there.

You're going to have a tough time finding any vassals unless Egypt, India and maybe Carthage spawn.

 

[kairob]

Garmans do want some parts of Scandanavia IIRC.

 

[Lone Wolf]

And England sometimes has a soft spot for Stavanger...