CHRONICLES

RBCiv Epic Twenty-Seven

I had a research problem, too. The upgrade to muskets and riders, despite help from Leo, drained my surplus. Well, that and rushing ahead on tech (prior to the golden age) at the best rate I could summon. During the golden age I managed to research five techs at 4 turn research rates, and that still didn't catch me up. Some of the AI's were in the industrial age already. (Why are my games ALWAYS the ones with the fastest AI tech pace??)

I had no choice but to follow the AI's up the research tree, and some of the weaker ones had fallen off the wagon, meaning I was no longer researching at last civ prices, and I often had to choose between researching what I really needed @5th or researching some else on the cheap @8th or @9th. Incredibly, the Iro's were one of the ones in the industrial age! And they had been the first to swarm the knights my way, too. All those wines they had, plus maybe some iron sales, too? Amazing. The Babs were the weakest civ, for having been at war with other AI's, and there were behind me in tech no matter what path I chose. The rest I had to weave my way.

I made it to cannons and that helped. The AI's were also now tripping over one another, with some units forced to wait while others packed the tiles leading into my kill zones. A lot of AI units also lived to fight another day, retreating out of range only to come back in a bigger stack later. Blah.

I had even lost control of some tiles on the front line which got pillaged, including the horse next to Shanghai. If not for the other horse in the SE I'd have been in dire straits.

I got one flip of a Mongol city on the east coast, but I refused to abandon it just to get rid of it. (I couldn't remember if that was an exploit or not -- ha! been too long since I was heavily playing Civ3 -- but I refrained from doing it). I had also noticed AI settler pairs moving my way. I could have left a spot open in my back lines and lured endless settler pairs my way, but I refused to do that, either. I was getting the fair fight I wanted, and in the toughness that I wanted. I had my hands as full as they could be.

Well, I lost a lot of riders in the next half a dozen turns to ridiculous streaks. I started finally to replace them, but I had gotten all the way down to just two of them left before I finished my universities and banks in my best cities and went back on troop production.

I got a second flip, this one also useless for being surrounded by enemy troops. I took it, and the Mongols would take this city from me, leading it to change hands away from America.

Note that I haven't made an inch of territorial gain since 1750BC.

The rifles and enemy cavs are coming any day now. And I KNOW there's no coal in range of territory I control because I put the coal out of range, up in the jungles and over to the west. Arg. Could get very interesting trying to reach the coal. At least it's not tooo far from my current lines. I could fill one of the empty armies I have sitting around with muskets or rifles as applicable and march up there and seize the territory, but I'm unsure about the logistics of protecting the supply line from there back to the core.

I popped my fifteenth leader in 1090AD:

I had also popped one defensive leader in there off a musket, recently, at Shanghai. I had Japan attacking Shanghai with samurai on a continual basis, with half of them retreating only to return after some rest. That cycle never ended, always more and more replacements and some combat every turn, including an occasional loss on my side to a streak. I had some minimal attacks over at Nanking, but those were increasing now. Mostly red and orange attacked me there. Nobody else was attacking. They were all rushing past my cities trying to get into the interior, so I was in a constant slog of trying to kill them before they could penetrate, and occasionally they would have a couple units I didn't have the force to take out, especially when those heavy periods would hit with some major minisods.

I still managed to hold my ground, though, by and large, and now had all the interior high ground fortified and guarded, to minimize damage done by the occasional penetration. I had tried several times to get a fort up on that hill next to Nanking and only blown a bunch of units in the process.

Anyhow, I want you to notice my 20hp army in the yellow, at Canton. It's got 12 of its 20 hps left. Now see the Egyptian knight on the left side of the screen. Between turns, that knight moves two tiles east onto that lip of road sticking out past my hill fort. That lip of road took me fifteen turns to build, sending out my workers, pulling them back, sending them out, pulling them back, until I got two turns in a row without knights in attack range and got the road built. It's such a minor thing, but it represents the ONLY territorial advance I have made since 1750BC and I don't lightly want to surrender it.

So... when that knight moves onto that bit of road, I take my 12hp army and attack it. 12hp to 4hp, those are good odds, yes? Plus my attackers have 4 strength and the defender has 3.3 strength (10% defense bonus). I have a chance to win each round of the combat of 4/(4+3.3), or about 55%. My chances of losing 12 straight ought to be less than 73 out of 1,000,000. My chances of losing twelve combat rounds before I win four are very low, or at least they should be.

The army loses and dies.

I quit on the spot, and this time I knew it would be for keeps.

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