CHRONICLES

RBCiv Epic Fifteen

Since I knew that I would need to be culturally dominant, I played a builder game here. Temples, libraries, courthouses, and of course, great wonders. After all the Emperor and Deity games I've played, it was rather nice to be able to nab what would turn out to be FOUR of the ancient wonders.

Four? Yes, four. As my FP neared completion, Egypt discovered Construction. I opted to buy in once she had sold it around, and changed my nearly-done FP over to the Great Wall. This would mean another sixteen to twenty turns delay on getting an FP, but having the Great Wall is an enormous deterrent on the AI's for distant colonies. If you get spread out far and wide, with some isolated and corrupt cities, you build or buy walls and the AI's leave you alone. Besides... it was more culture. I nabbed it because I could, then immediately restarted the FP.

Please note on the minimap above, there is a speck of light blue off the east coast of Babylon. I had built a galley out of Minsk (my only lowish corruption city not doing great wonders) to explore that tiny island off the north coast, and the waters in the area. Finding nothing I could use up there, I had sailed clockwise around the continent, spotted the future crossing to other lands, then wandered around a bit down, making sure to return in time to be parked and waiting to cross when the Lighthouse completed.

Also note, I purposely avoided the Great Library. First of all, I didn't need it. I almost never need it. My strategies usually involve having strong economies, and I know how to maximize my trade benefits. About the only game where I needed it and didn't have it was Epic Twelve, and in that one I made the fatal mistake of not pushing scouts through AI territory to make contacts sooner. I was content to run min sci for big techs (writing, literature, monarchy) and buy the rest at deflated prices. Secondly, and more importantly, I wanted to postpone my golden age until the industrial era. I wanted to wait for communism, and get the benefit across all my cities, not just in the few oldest ones. That would also mean skipping Newton's, but I was content with that.

The Lighthouse completed to start the turn in 230BC...

...and I crossed over and spotted a German border on the same turn.

I opted not to pay the Germans for contact with India, and my plan was not to surrender any contacts between the two continents until my side (who was, and would remain, ahead on tech) research Astronomy. That was... a goodly ways off, at this point. So I figured I could find India on my own and save my dough.

One turn after the Lighthouse, my Colossus was completed.

Note that Kiev food supply is still lagging. I spent time building roads in the hills, and digging one mine. My worker was timed to finish chopping that forest in the next couple of turns, in time to speed library construction. I would also choose to whip 20 shields worth, which added to the 10 from the forest meant the library was done in a few more turns. Yet because of the lack of food (and pop growth) at this location, as well as the work still needed to allow the city to grow and all the time spent on a great wonder, Kiev would not catch up to my other core cities for a long time. Minsk needed an aqueduct, but so did Kiev. The rest of my good cities were on fresh water: Moscow, St Pete, Smolensk, Odessa, Tbilisi. Five on fresh water, four not. And clearly, all the fresh water cities were much larger, size 7+ by now.

In 190BC, I discovered Monarchy, revolted immediately, and drew a friendly 3.5 turn anarchy. While still in anarchy, I received my first break:

As a suburb of Kiev, a city already strapped in its workload, this site would never hold much promise, and if I spent worker turns on it, that would slow Kiev even more! I only had nine cities then, though. So why not?

As my galley sailed north along the other continent, I passed unsettled lands, a barb camp, and ran into Indian forces chasing down the barbarians. With full contact, now, I bought their maps (for cash, actually, as the longer they had to wait before starting on libraries, markets and aqueducts, the longer their growth curve would remain stunted). Both India and Germany were in expansionist mode, but there seemed to be a window of time in which I might grab a few plots of land. With walls, the great wall, and vet spears, and these AI's backward on tech, I figured I had a shot at keeping whatever settlements I might manage to grab. So... I trained another ship and started some settlers.

Came out of my revolution in 110BC:

I decided about this time to take global shots of my civ. Here's the heartland under the new Queen:

You can see my ship about to pick up a settler for the trip to the new world. Also going to send a vet spear. Now here's the southern bit of my kingdom:

Still plenty of lands between the other two AI's. I'm hoping to nab three spots, maybe even four. As it turns out, like my plans to get three cities in the southwest, my eyes were big, my ambitions great, but reality would not turn out quite that rosy.

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