CHRONICLES

RBCiv Epic Four

Wednesday, June 19. The barbarians are effectively gone for good now. Yes, folks, the easy part is over. Now comes the true threats. I get a front row seat as the possibilities for these giants to run roughshod over my lil civ as Egypt and Zululand go warring on my doorstep. That Zulu city, Zunguin, is razed, and I hurry a settler toward the spot but Egypt was better prepared and gets there three turns ahead of me. I then park the settler and spearman there, in the hope that the Zulus will take out the city and I can be there (this time) to fill in the void. I really had no place to send this extra settler anyway. It would take him too long to wander up north.

Circa 400BC, I have a settler almost into position north of Lugdunum. Yet here come AI ships up the east coast, and the race is on. I have been running nothing but farmer's gambit (almost, not quite -- I DID built troops early, just that they got slaughtered so I might as well not have bothered! Heh) and yet because of the endless pain suffered at Veii, my only other food bonus city, I am now struggling to grab the rest of my land, and the AI's are almost to the industrial age, and my "army" plans are hopeless scattered to the winds by now.

I had to wake troops and leave cities undefended to block the coast for the ONE turn I needed to beat the Chinese ship to the settlement location. Sheesh! Talk about hairy. I did grab the site I wanted (and good thing, but more on that later). The Chinese then settled next door anyway, and -- much to my chagrin -- I would never gain control of that city of theirs, that blight on my map. Arg.

So there you have it: Rome. I would put a fishing village on the tile two east of Lugdunum, and planned to build my FP in Lugdunum, and perhaps to move my Palace to Antium some day, if I got enough great leaders, or got one too late to do any good with world wonders.

Also note, I've been "researching Literature" for about six hundred years now, and I would continue to do so into AD years, by which time I fell more than a whole ERA behind the AI's on tech! MORE THAN a whole era behind.

There's a reason for that, though. I spent cash and gpt for contacts and also map info and some key embassies. Two civs actually established embassy with me! (You have no idea how rare that is in my games). Egypt and America. Thus, I was spending all my reserves on things other than tech. And why not??? What good is Education or Banking when you don't have a single library or marketplace constructed yet?? What can wait, should wait. The purchase price on tech dropped with each new contact I bought, while the map info gave me vital strategic input.

I also wanted to change government, but the anarchy period could last anywhere from four to eight turns, and I could not run a 36gpt deficit through eight turns with... uh... 50g in the treasury. So even AFTER the gpt deals started to expire, I still had to run more turns building up enough cash reserve to make it through if I drew a long anarchy.

It was not until 90AD that I finally had enough to be SURE to make it through. I revolted and drew a somewhat kind result of 5 turns.

Note the deficit rate, the treasury. If I had drawn 8 turns, it would have cut it too close, but I could run some taxmen to reduce that. The biggest danger was having the AI's come demand cash tributes during the anarchy period. I had to chance it anyway. I was bleeding cash out my tailpipe by remaining in Despotism while all the AI's were already in democracy AND well into the industrial age!

How do I know they were in the industrial age? Well, other than the F4 leader portraits (which is a dead giveaway), there was also the wonder cascade, ending with this gem. Note the date:

After my revolt ended in 190AD and I entered Republic, I had more cash on hand. I finished buying the last contacts, then started on tech. I bought first from the Chinese, seeing as how they were tiny. I wanted to prop them up, allow them to continue to buy ahead of me. That came to an end shortly, though, and I went with India, who was Commercial and thus better able to offer me cheap techs. India got almost ALL my tech purchases from there onward. I was so poor, I had to go with the cheapest sale price, regardless of other concerns.

It was at this point that I finally decided that this barbarian-heavy but isolated start would make for a good game. The barbarians are likely to rough up a lot of players, but the AI's are far enough away and the chances to hang on are solid enough that the game is viable, if difficult. So, early on Thursday evening, June 20, I sent the original and alternate start files, and the teaser image, to Griselda. The game opened for play on Friday night. I, of course, am playing the same one-pass as everybody else, just that my playtests to ensure map viability give me a slight head start on timing, and in this case that head start was quite significant (which is why I would post "game completed" early on Saturday morning). The question that remains is, did I manage to win???

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