Thursday, March 27, 2014

From Pocatello, with love

We have our first write-in game review!  Here is Udit's playthrough for challenge #6.

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I started the game and made 2 cities as soon as I could. Ethiopia was being bothersome right off the bat, creating a city between my 2 cities. I found the extra starting tiles perk useful when creating cities near resources and grabbing land near other civs like a jerk. I also started off with Liberty instead of Tradition (which is usually my tradition), since my plan was to "make" many cities in this game.

The Zulus were being very aggressive and by the time the Classical era was coming to an end, had already eliminated the Aztecs. So, naturally I got in on their good side, since at the time, I wasn't leading in anything. I found that I was lagging behind on technology for quite a while, and my gold wasn't ramping up as fast as it normally does in Prince. To compensate for that, I went with the Commerce path.

Around the end of the medieval period, I decided that the Incas, who were nearest to me, would just have to go. They were leading in culture along with the Dutch and were also beginning to amass an army. So, I made short work of their capital, and another one of their cities (Machu). Their last city was in a very well-defended area, terrain wise, and I didn't bother taking it. Needless to say, this little escapade cost me tons of happiness, and I went way into the red (think negative 45). Shortly after that barbarians began spawning in my territory. I managed to fight them off, and surprisingly found an awesome solution to my happiness problem (other than buying zoos and coliseums everywhere).

I was at a point where I got my last point in the commerce tree, which effectively doubled my happiness per luxury. Seeing as I had recently acquired several cities and their luxuries, my happiness went from -45 to +45 in one turn. At this point I was sitting in a good position, and I turned my attention to Ethiopia, which I always hate because they always manage to build all the wonders before I do. I took 2 of their cities as well, leaving them with their capital. I had to stop because the Dutch and the one tiny Incan city declared war on me.

So, it was that the Dutch, angering me, sealed their doom. They had very high tourism and I planned to take them out anyway at some point, but I decided to fast forward. I had chosen the Autocracy ideology at this point, and with the Zulus also eager to fight the Dutch, I took their capital and another city (left the Incans alone). The Zulus took the 3rd Dutch city and that was the end of the Dutch.

Then there were many turns of "peace" where I built troops in preparation to take the Zulus out. The other 2 civs were no threat to me anymore. By this time I had airplanes and tons of gold (12000 ish). I also had tons of faith (because I had chosen not to found any religions, and hadn't spent anything on prophets and the like). I found that I had adopted the Ethiopian religion, and could buy many science buildings. I used up most of my faith to buy Public schools and Research centres in all my cities. Needless to say that increased my science output considerably, allowing me to research the Atom bomb.

I took out the Zulu capital and turned my attention to nuking Ethiopia, since I had saved them for a particularly grisly fate. I bought 5 nukes and nuked Ethiopia 3 times and took over their capital. I then nuked the last Incan city and razed that to the ground. I then found out that I had to take the Aztec capital that the Zulus had taken over. That was out of nuke range so I rushed them from both sides and took them over. I could have just waited just one more turn to get a tourism victory, but I wanted a domination victory, so I decided to capture the last capital as well.
  
End of the game stats:
Gold: ~11000
Faith:~2000
Land: Most of it. Just a few small Zulu cities remaining

City States: All allies




Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Challenge #6 - Nowhere to Hide

King level again, but no oceans to hide behind. It should be extremely tough!

Culture: Shoshone
Map size: Small
Map type: Seas (i.e. all land except for a few seas)
Resources: Sparse
Difficulty level: King
Challenge Creator: Bill

Pocatello_0000 BC-4000.Civ5Save

Monday, March 10, 2014

Between A Rock and A Hard Place

I started the game with the idea that I would be a small nation with a powerful navy, much like England during the 1800s. Maybe go for a diplomatic victory or a cultural one. Alas, the best laid plans of mice and men.

Things started fine, founded a second city to my south and north of the City state Valletta there. Met the Poles right to my north east. Walked west and... holy shit, ran into the Indonesians. I'm surrounded already and its only turn 60.

From later on, but you can see my Ottoman capital and Polish and Indonesian cities around it.
With no place to expand I put a third city on a nearby island but knew I was in trouble with my capital getting crunched for space early on and no where else to easily expand. To make matters worse, the Poles also were tight on space and had their eyes on me.

Fast forward centuries. I've held off the Poles in a couple wars due to a good defensive position but the Indonesians are running away with the game culturally, technologically, and militarily (see above screenshot for a sample of a portion of their fleet) while the Poles were no slouches in any department. Meanwhile the Celts and English were also powerful. Only the Assyrians who had the unfortunate luck to spawn next to the leading Indonesians were doing worse than me. With no religion to boost and falling behind technologically, I needed to do something or I was going to lose this one bad.

During a period of friendliness with the Poles, they asked for open borders and I gave it to them to appease Casmir and keep the peace. I watched as a red wave walked through my territory and attacked the Indonesians (who recently kicked the Assyrians off the contintent). Casmir must have felt they were a big threat as well and decided to deal with it. feeling like this was my chance I decided to attack as well sending a force to the south of our landline collection over the small sea to attack the old Assyrian capital now under Indonesian control.

The gamble paid off and I took Asyr and made it my new outpost. Then I swung north and took Surabaya as well, solidifying my empire nicely. With a more solid core I worked to rectify the tech gap with lots of research buildings and research agreements. Slowly I made ground but was worried that Indonesia, still strong culturally would win anyways. Meanwhile, Poland was preparing for another war... with me.

Poland attacked soon after I reached peace with Indonesia and I braced for it as I knew he was classified as having the biggest military and good tech. I weathered the initial wave ok but was startled to see the secod wave not appear. It turns out the Casmir sent the bulk of his military against my city state ally Vancouver to his south! This fortunate turn of luck allowed me to launch an assault on Lodz and take it. Then, just before Vancouver was about to fall Casmir sued for peace as I started bombing and pillaging around Warsaw! Glorious victory!

Now I entered another rebuilding and solidifying period as I worked to integrate my new gains into my greater empire. I watched with concern as Casmir and Indonesia build up armies on my borders.

I thought for sure Casmir would be the one to pull the trigger... but in one turn Casmir asked for some trades and then Indonesia launched an attack. Thus began the Indonesian purge.

I weathered the initial attacks barely in Asyra with the bulk of my army stationed on the Polish border and rushing back, but my navy proved superior and I slowly pushed the enemy back. Then reinforcements arrived and my artillery legions opened up, decimating the enemy lines. I took Medina, razed Ninveh, and sieged Jakarta. I sent in my ironclads and privateers to die to the city's guns but it helped and I put the Indonesians out my my misery. With the West won, I turned to the east.

By now my tech had caught up with the Poles and was only behind the English and powerful Celts, but they were fighting each other a lot. Casmir must have decided to pitch in and try to take some English territory as he went to war with them, so I figured now was the best time and launched an all out war with Poland. Our land forces were equal but my new battleship and submarine navy were too much for his aircraft carriers and ironclad and I bomed the ever-living shit out of anything red. He sued for peace but I was out for blood and took his last city at Krakow. The continent was now mine.

At this point I had allied almost all the city states and was working on the last handful so I decided to go for diplomatic victory. I missed it in the year 2000 by one vote, but the extra delegatesI got for being the leader in the vote assured me I would pass in 2020 which I did. I was concerned for a bit about the Celts making a technological win as they built the Apollo program, but another war with England distracted them from that goal so I could win.



This was NOT an easy victory, trailing the entire game in tech and facing some powerful enemies. I look forward to the next round.