CHRONICLES

RBCiv Epic Twenty-Seven

I stayed away from this epic for a couple of weeks (weeks!) and wasn't sure I wanted to keep playing. I finally got curious about just what were the odds of going through 55 elite wins without a leader? With a militaristic civ, no less. I got out my calculator...

Blah. Really really bad odds, but not off the charts. I had better odds to have pulled three or four leaders than none at all, but you have to roll craps eventually, right? I thought about it some more. This was spread out over several dozens of turns, so it wasn't like I got bit by the ubiquitous streak result of the RNG. I had just gotten really really unlucky, and worse for putting all my eggs in one basket.

I have played a lot of Always War. I've got no less than half a dozen AW games or game attempts under my belt at Emperor difficulty. I was there for the very first such game. I can probably learn more new tricks, but I understand how to forge a strategy and how to make it work. One of the reasons I put this game on Monarch instead of Emperor was so that players would not be REQUIRED to be lucky to be able to win.

I'd had a lot more fun in Epic Six than Epic Fourteen. The pressure of things not breaking your way all the time made the game more of a challenge. I decided to come back and play on.

Of course, the insult continued. Now that it was too late, and I was locked into min sci research into Monarchy, with no way to get to the Hanging Gardens or the Great Wall (no construction tech... Heck, I didn't even have Code of Laws yet)... NOW the game turns on the leader spigot.

I had used the first leader in 10BC on a sword army. That ate three of my remaining four elite swords at the time, but it did help my military situation and improved my attrition rate. This second one I used to rush the Epic in Beijing, which would ensure more leaders. If I could catch up in tech, I might even get my share of the middle age wonders. I had a long, hard, bitter road ahead, but victory was not yet out of reach by any stretch of the imagination. SunTzu would go a long way, and AW AI's are slow to build wonders for lack of improvements in their cities and heavy troop emphasis. Sometimes they start wonders in smaller cities. And 600 shields is a lot. They could have 570 built up and a leader could snatch the wonder out from under them.

Now with the Epic built, I started to get what you'd expect to be a typical amount of leaders. My third one was used to rush my FP at Hangchow.

My civ was in disarray, though. I had to stop and build granaries, and all the while I'm trying to catch up, I have to deal with attrition. I have to build more settlers and fill in my lands. I'm SO far behind on tech now it's sad, as the AI's start to bring heavier units. I had a six turn anarchy and finally made a govt swap in 410AD.

Those are my first libraries by the way. And notice the population. 410AD and my way-late granaries and my need to build settlers without granaries has left me far behind where I expected to be, I'm nothing short of stunned at the impact the early leader drought has had on my game. I've always before been able to get at least ONE leader out in time to get either the Pyramids or the Great Library, at least on Pangaea maps. (Starting on an island isn't the same because you don't get as many shots at combat).

I thought I had the perfect game plan. I learned all the right lessons: don't self-build wonders, it uses too many shields. Don't sit on my ass building early infrastructure. The Great Library will carry my economy. Go out there and smash some enemies immediately. Don't sit back, focus more on units, get out there and pillage enemy resources and bottle them up in their cities and cripple them early.

I even had spoiler help! I had a tailor made game plan!

So much for that idea. There are some things in any game plan reliant on popping leaders that are simply out of your hands. The leaders represent a make or break roll of the dice.

My game plan actually worked in one regard, though. The leaders did eventually come -- too late to get the all-important early dominate-the-game wonders, but not too late to let me compete. With the "maintenance" items out of the way -- the first army, the Epic, the FP -- I should be able to land all the rest of the wonders. IF I could get to the techs in time.

Well, it took forever... I had to take four turns to research Philosophy at pathetic rates, like running 20-20-10-10 on science. Code of laws I got in two turns, since I invested some anarchy turns into it at lone scientist. (Should have done philosophy then and saved one more turn, but oh well). I had to go four turns on cvurrency and construction, too, so it was fourteen turns after swapping governments that I even got to the middle ages. Then four more turns to get to Feudalism. I had a leader sitting around waiting by that time, so I got to rush SunTzu eighteen turns exactly after emerging from anarchy.

That would be my problem all game long, from here forward: even research @last, I couldn't go faster than four turns, so my massive bankroll from running minsci on iron, math and monarchy wasn't able to gain me as much as I wanted. In fact, its value was reduced greatly for the losses I suffered for being behind in tech, for not having sooner access to courthouses, and MOST especially for being so late to the table with construction, that by the time I had it, the AI's were overrunning me with higher tech units, which shut me completely out of establishing fortified positions on the high ground. As a result, my front was completely wild and open, and I had zero chance of advancing until I caught up on the tech, which I never seemed able to do, because these AI's were all at peace with one another and sending everything they had at me.

The only AI war I saw was that brief one between the Babs and two others, and that was relatively minor. As such, they tech whored more and sped up the tree even faster than I could follow at last civ prices!

The turn after I nabbed SunTzu, I popped a fifth leader. Being ten or more turns away from the next wonder tech, I used it to move my Palace to Canton, west of Beijing, to give myself that barbell-shaped empire that does so well with corruption.

And actually, during the painful time while I was locked into catching up to the middle ages, the AI brought knights. The Iro's brought SEVEN regular knights in two small packs and sped past my highly fortified front lines straight for my capital. They pillaged four separate tiles, all the high ground between the front line and the capital. (All those extra hills I had added to "make it interesting" - HA!) I had to scrambly my tail off to cover the interior and had a lot of insecure moments, since I had gone so topheavy at the front lines. I then had to devote some more units to the back lines, and to cover the occasional amphibious invasion, too, so that spread me further thin.

I got to invention and nabbed Leo's, then finally got around to chivalry and kicked off my golden age.

Sistine was still available and I got it a couple of turns later, but the cascade took out Bach, Cop, Magellan and NEWTON's. (Eep!) The only thing it didn't get was Smith's.

I was now racing to get to cannons before the AI's starting to bring rifles and cavs.

I used my golden age to catch up on infrastructure, though, and my cities were finally feeling the benefits of their granaries, markets, libraries, etc. My civ was finally getting into high gear, but I had had to tread water, relying on Leo's to upgrade what I already had, and dealing with the constant stream of incoming knights, with my riders slowly bleeding away at the mercy of the streaky PRNG, redlined enemies notwithstanding.

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