CHRONICLES

RBCiv Epic TewntyNine

So my plan is cruising along, right? Wrong.

Liz got to Literature before the Pyramids were completed? Arrgh!

I have no choice but to buy Monarchy from Egypt @3rd, wasting my min sci effort, just to get something, anything out of my Damascus investment. I stuck with Despotism for now, to make sure I got this wonder built.

To add insult to injury, three turns after London built the Library, the city fell to France. The AI is so Hell Bent on building wonders, it will sit through a war while its nation falls around it, just so it can complete a wonder to screw the player, even though they are costing themselves their own position in the game to do that. Maddening. One of the last remaining "screw you" factors not fixed by patches, where the AI does deliberately stupid things costing its own position in the game just to hurt the human player.

At least I did get the Hanging Gardens.

That turn, I revolted, switching next turn to Monarchy. The boost improved my income. I rushbuilt the colesseum in Najran, then topped off the rest of the one in Baghdad in 30BC. Damascus finished its library in 10BC, then started on its colesseum, the last available cultural item at that point in time.

Here's my cultural standing in 10AD:

Damascus is low city on the totem pole, but it still has its colesseum to build. It will also get the equivalent of two wonders' worth of culture starting in 810AD when the Gardens doubles in value. That will be as good as building Copernicus at that date, so Damascus is largely set. Najran and Baghdad are the laggards. Medina will also need a great wonder or two. Mecca can surely nab Sistine for me, and that will be all it needs. Figuring Leo and SunTzu as lost causes, that leaves Cop, Bach, Smith, Magellan, Shakespeare and Newton in the middle ages. Could I possibly get them all? Only if the cascade dies before we get to Astronomy and Music Theory. That seems highly unlikely on a small map. Ugh, this is not good. There's nothing to be done about it until after Education comes in, though. So for now the best plan seems to be to go for Sistine in the capital, get cathedrals asap at the other cities, also get universities asap, THEN shoot for wonders, try to get one each in Najran, Medina and Baghdad. A well timed military golden age could aid that cause, I think. OK, enough planning. On with the show.

Oops, wait. A little more planning. :) Here's the top 5 list in 10AD:

Rome I bet I can pass. Thebes and Paris will depend on how many other wonders they get. If I get lucky, I might pass one of them. Most likely I will have to raze them both to take over all five top5 slots. Oracle and Pyramids each give 4cpt, and they will each double around 500AD. Yuck. Incredibly enough, I am third in land area and second in population? In a 5CC? Amazing what 20% land can do for this kind of scenario. This is a far cry from RBD SG10. :) Speaking of which, I surely have some advantage in this scenario, having gone through that experience. Will be interesting to compare results of those who remember that game (playing or lurking) vs those who arrived later and never read about it.

The early AD years were quiet and went by quickly. The Ottomans got Feudalism as their free tech, delaying my access to cathedrals by delaying the advent of Monotheism. Arrgh. I hope that happens in everyone's game, or else chalk up yet more bad luck to my column. The only good break I've caught all game long was a barbarian who SHOULD HAVE BEEN DEAD ANYWAY not wiping out my temple when it sacked Najran and stole 20% of my history's savings. (That qualifies as "good" luck in this game? Sheesh!)

When I got hold of Feudalism, Mecca started on Sistine prebuild. I had a lot of spears to upgrade to pikes, and still no barracks at Baghdad or Najran, so I had some good old fashioned unit shuffle to do.

Monotheism was finally discovered in 370AD. I bought in immediately. Damascus had been building market. I swapped that to cathedral at loss of a couple of shields. I bought Najran's cathedral almost from scratch, blowing my treasury. Even though this was a small map, I ran min sci on Engineering. What else was I going to do? With no cultural items available on the lower half of the tree, I could afford to wait even though the AI's raced on to Invention and Gunpowder.

Medina had recently finished its aqueduct. Baghdad still lacked one. The one thing Najran had going for it was being on the lake, which caught it up somewhat with the two dry cities. One of those three was clearly going to be my lowest city, thus the scoring city. Damascus and Mecca were already out of the running.

After the cathedrals, I had more sleepy centuries: building markets, barracks, workers, troops... improving my tiles and working the trades. My blockades kept any more new cities from being settled.

France's isolation combined with their decimation of their only neighbor kept Joanie out of wonder races should would otherwise have won. Egypt would complete SunTzu in Thebes and Leo's in Elephantine, but first I would build Sistine in Mecca.

Note the cash buildup in my treasury! Very important. I had a Palace prebuild going at Baghdad, just getting started. I feared the AI's might delay their research into Education, though. They had already done so by advancing up the lower part of the tree. I could not afford for my prebuild to run out. With only five cities, the Palace only needed 300 shields. So I had to do my own research here, to be certain to get to Education around the time my prebuild in Baghdad got to 200 shields. I also wanted to make sure I had at least 800g on hand, to rushbuy my uni at Najran. That would give me both of my lowest culture cities their uni's on the first possible turn, around 750AD, where they could still pull in some 1000year bonus before the scoring benchmark date of 1802AD!

Mecca built its cathedral four turns after finishing Sistine. At that point it had over 20spt.

Egypt learned education a few turns before I did. I could not afford to pay her off @2nd and eat the penalty, so I finished my own research, a few turns ahead of where I would have without the help. My uni plan was carried out as envisioned in 760AD:

See that I have 220 gold left? That is because I have already spent 780 to rush the university at Najran.

Now check out that one desert tile controlled by the Ottomans, stabbing into my territory. That was the one desert tile predestined to fall under AI control no matter where the player builds in the Baghdad and Medina regions. Seeing that, I had the sneaking suspicion that that is where the oil would turn out to be: that T-hawk would deliberately screw us to give us a headache late in the game. After all, if I had made this map, that's what I would have done. :)

HA! I nailed it!

Well, erm, except for that "oil" part. :) I got the core analysis right, though. We be screwed.

That really stuck out to me because I learned about it the very turn after I speculated on it. :) There was a second saltpeter, this one south of Najran, in range of Pisae. Pisae had never expanded its borders, so I actually had that saltpeter in range, for the moment. If Caesar built a temple over there, though, he would take control over it. I vowed that if Pisae flipped to me or I ever went to war with Rome, Pisae would get the Pompeii treatment: the city would burn!

As soon as I completed the uni at Baghdad, I started another palace prebuild. The casade had indeed ended before either Astronomy or Music Theory, so I would have a chance (with help of golden age) to go after Bach, Cop and Magellan. Bach first. Baghdad would go after that one, since it had the most shields (all those plains and mountains -- it only had enough food to survive thanks to three food bonuses). Magellan would come at Najran, I hoped. That left Medina needing Copernicus or Smith, yet I had only the Palace to use as prebuild. Medina would have to wait.

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