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



Realms Beyond Adventure 3 - Binding of the Three

Sponsor: Sirian
Opening Date: Monday, January 2
Duration: Five Weeks
Map Script: Custom Continents
Map Edits: None
Game Speed: Normal

Difficulty: Prince
Civilization: Russia
Leader: Peter the Great
World Size: Large
Opponents: Nine
Rules: Raging Barbarians
Victory: Any



The basic gist is that, playing as Peter of the Russians, you can either play as Farmers, Priests, or Soldiers. Points are awarded in each category for various things. For example as farmers, you get 10 pts for EACH city founded by Russia that reaches size 25 (and stays there) at any time. Priests - 20 pts - Possessing the Holy Shrine of your State Religion (and keeping it safe from invaders!). And Soldiers: 1 pts - EACH XP on your most-experienced military unit WHO SURVIVES to game's end. Full scoring system is available in the game description linked above. In addition, if you were able to get 150 points in each of the 3 disciplines, you QUADRUPLE your score.

This game intrigued me quite a bit as a way to try and meld various styles of play. Of course, I was most interested in figuring out a way of getting the quadrupling bonus. In looking at the scoring system, it seemed to me that the Soldier score system was by far the stingiest. I think that it will be very difficult to get 150 points there, so it seemed that the Soldier way of life seemed to be the best to focus on, while hopefully still picking up enough farmer and priest points to get the bonus. Plus, going militarily lets me deal with the raging barbs as well as hopefully control enough to milk things enough to only end when I want to.

I played a couple shadow games with the same settings, just to see how things would play out. Here's some of the things that I learned, in no particular order:
  • In my first game I went for Hinduism and Judaism, founding both. That seems doable if you beeline for it. Specifically, to found Hinduism, I think your first 2 techs must be Mysticism and Polytheism. I tried one game going for BW first and was beaten to Hinduism
  • Similarly, Stonehenge and the Oracle are good early wonders to generate the Great Prophets for the shrines I'll want.
  • If I don't have early copper, I'll certainly want Archery to deal with the barbs for lo and they are a-ragin.
  • With a large map and normal speed, it's really hard to get anywhere. That applies to both missionaries as well as any army. I think it will be really hard to fight a war with axemen. So it makes it difficult to get the 5 points for a captured city before 500 AD.
  • On a similar note, with Custom Continents, I'm likely to share my continent with only one other power. Which would mean no tech trading till we meet someone else. I'll have to take over my continent I think.
  • Assuming I adopt all the civics, and I think I probably can afford to, I only really need 7 or 8 big founded cities to get enough farmer points.
Oh probably some other things but... on to the show!
 
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