Civ-4 GOTM 01: Rome
GOTM 2
RBCiv4 Epic 1
Theta Tau
RBCiv4 Adventure 2
RBCiv4 Adventure 1
RBCiv4 Adventure 3
RBCiv4 Adventure 4
GOTM 3

Fatal Errors 1
RBCiv4 Adventure 8
RBCiv Epic 4
RBCiv Epic 5
GOTM 8
RBCiv Adventure 9
RBCiv4 Epic 6
RBCiv4 Epic 7
Adventure 42 - Joy to the World
Adventure 45 - Hannibal's Muse



 Alrighty then. We're going to start the first in (possibly) a series of Luxottica Succession games. Starting us off, we will be Alexander of the Fatal Errors!





Playing at Noble level, all the defaults - 7 AIs. Landmasses to Custom Continents, a random amount of continents. That could leave us all alone on a continent, or sharing with a neighbor or two.

Alex is Aggressive and Philosophical. So, that means:

  • Aggressive - Free promotion of melee and gunpowder units. Double production speed of barracks and dry dock. Good for warring, especially if we're alone on our continent with just one other power.
  • Philosophical - Great People birth rate increased 100 percent. Double production speed of university. We'll want to get tons of Great people and specialist here, and we'll want to head towards the Representation civic (the Constitution tech) since that gives +3 beakers for each specialist.

    Here's the start:



    4000 - This is the 2nd start I rolled. The first one had desert on both the west and east of the start spot, and I didn't feel like dealing with it. This one is nice though - marble right next to the capital! Marble gives 1/2 price on several wonders. The most important is the Oracle, but the Parthenon and the Great Library are also good early wonders we should take a swing at. Other wonders that are 1/2 price with marble are: Hagia Sophia (faster workers), Sistine Chapel (extra culture for specialists), Taj Mahal (golden age), and Versailles (reducing maintenance costs). We'll probably want those last 2 for sure at least.

    4000 - I pop the hut with the scout - it gives 49 gold. I found Athens on the spot. I start on another scout and set research to The Wheel. Intermediate goal - the Oracle. It gives a free tech, but what free tech should we shoot for. Some of the more common choices

      Metal Casting - A relatively expensive tech - just need to research Bronze Working and Pottery. An early forge (or the Colossus!) could be huge. Plus it will allow us to run an Engineer specialist and get a Great Engineer to rush a wonder.
    • Code of Laws - Need writing. Gives us courthouses to fund expansion. Plus we'd likely found Confucianism which gives us a religion.
    • Or if we want to be aggressive / risky, we could try to research Code of Laws ourselves, and use the Oracle to grab Civil Service. CS is an 800 beaker tech (vs. 450 and 350 for the other 2) so we're getting the most bang for our buck. The problem is that if we delay the Oracle enough to research CoL, we might end up losing the Oracle to someone else. This is Noble, so we probably have until 800 BC or so to build it. Worth considering, depending on how it looks.



      3760 - Another hut gives 84 gold.

      3680 - Wheel->Mining. Mining is a pre-req for Masonry, to hook up the marble, and also Bronze Working, which we'll need to chop forests as well as find out where the copper is. The scout finds stone found to the west. We could be rolling in the wonders. The Pyramids would be nice (to run Representation off the bat), but this is far away from our lands, and by the time we get here someone else will have probably already built them. More gold from a hut.



      3600 - Budhism founded by Izzy (as usual). She'll also probably get to the stone before us. She's one of my least favorite neighbors. Especially now that she's founded Buddhism. If we get another religion she is going to hate us forever. So we could try to convert to Buddhism, but a better idea is probably just to build up an "expeditionary force" and whup her.

      3520 - Scout->Worker

      3400 - Mining->Masonry. Gotta have something for the worker to do!

      3240 - Scout ends up next to a bear but actually wins! My scouts usually get eaten :-(

      3200 - Hinduism FIADL.

      3040 - Worker->Warrior, Masonry->Animal Husb. Worker goes to build a quarry on the marble. Scout is healed and then is immediately eaten by a lion :-(. What did I say...

      2800 - Warrior->Settler. Warrior is on go to to pop the hut that the scout saw before dying. After that he should probably come back to guard Athens. We need some more warriors and should fit in one of our cheap barrackses before too long.



      The next city should probably go down by the rice. I believe there's a fishing resource down there too, so we can place it somewhere that grabs both of those in its 21 square city radius. I forget what else is down there, but it's probably only enough room for 1 city. Another city can go on the north coast to grab wheat and fish, but we really need to expand west towards Izzy. With the two of us apparently alone on this continent, we'll probably need to take her out to have complete control of our continent. Macemen seem to be the best option, which require Civil Service and Machinery.

      We'll also want to get to Sailing and start sending out an exploring galley, to see if there are any coastal passages to the other continents. If not, beeline to Optics to get Caravels to find the rest of the world. Lots of things we need to do....

      Time to turn the game over to Charlie for 20 turns. My recommendations would be to either complete the settler or possibly build another escorting warrior first (you can swap off settler and it will save the shields). We don't want to run too thin on military since barb warriors / archers are going to start appearing sometime soon. Send the settler south towards the rice and whatever else might be down there.

      Tech wise - After Animal Husbandry, the two techs we want next are Bronze Working and Writing. I think I'd go BW first, since that will allow us to start chopping some of the forests to get our next builds (barracks / library / warrior / Oracle etc) out faster. Plus it will reveal the copper, and if we don't have copper close we will need to re-evaluate our next techs and possibly detour to archery or iron working - we need something stronger than warriors by the time barb archers start appearing. Though Animal Husb will show where the horses are - so chariots might be an option.

      I played 30 turns - I think the years are still going 40 to a turn, so 20 more will take us to 2000 BC - take her away!
      2800 BC - Sent the scout to a village nearby Athens. It will take 10 turns to get there.



      2680 BC - Worker completed the road to the mine. Sent them 1 tile to the East.



      2640 BC - Got Animal Husbandry. I stayed with the plan and selected Bronze Working for the next tech. I had the worker begin work on another mine. This will increase our production by 2 at the least. Ok, Scout going for village was a bad (slow) idea. Set them back on their orignal path to the Northwest. I will have the warrior go to the village in case they.re hostile. After checking the warrior's path, I see Dan already has them going for the village. Doh! Maybe I should have read his notes again. Oh well!



      2560 BC - Received 65 gold from the villagers. I sent the warrior back to Athens to guard.

      2480 BC - Workers completed the mine. I will have them build a road to Athens from there.

      2400 BC - Road complete. Now building a road to the cows.



      2320 BC - Building a pasture.

      2280 BC - Warriors are back at Athens. Will have them fortify on the next turn.

      2200 BC - Completed Bronze Working. Will now work on writing. Switching to slavery. Anarchy! We completed the settler just in time. I will have Athens work on a barracks. I.m sending the settler and the warrior to the Southwest (near the rice). We also should be able to pick up the dcopper resource once Sparta expands. I don.t see any enemies in sight so hopefully we wil be safe until a second warrior can be built in the new city.

      2160 BC - We have the cow resource. This increases the health and food production. I feel the need to speed up the barracks a little bit. I think I.ll clear a forest this next turn.

      2120 BC - Sparta built successfully. Starting a warrior 1st thing. Workers begin removing the forest. I see a barbarian flag to the West of Sparta. I don.t want to go on the offensive yet because I only have one warrior. I will keep my eye on the barbs.

      2040 BC - Sending the warrior back to Athens just in case. The barbarian flag disappeared. I feel suddenly vulnerable!

      2000 BC - Ok, never mind. The barracks are complete in Athens and it will only take 1 turn to build another warrior which I set the Athenians to do. I move the worker to the Northeast to build another mine. I ask the warrior to go back to Sparta as another warrior will be built in Athens in 1 turn. Writing is 8 turns away. I think we should think about going to priesthood as the big picture after writing. That way we can research code of laws as we.re building the Oracle. I.m afraid if we wait any longer we won't complete the Oracle 1st. We just need to make sure we finish code of laws before the Oracle is built!



 
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