"Artemus Clyde Frog" <mad@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> skrev i meddelandet
news:Xns9A61B5769439CSumAss@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Not a lot of message traffic in this group, so I thought
> I'd see if I can stir something up. I always check in
> here before I fire up the game, just in case there is
> some particularly inspiring story or strategic insight.
> I like this better than the websites, but I'm not sure
> just why. Maybe because I can post without having to
> add yet another username/password to my pc.
>
[snip]
> I think I'll give immortal a try when I finish
> this game.
Wow, immortal! That's impressive. I still get trasked on Noble quite
often.
Here is the first of the two tales I promised in another post. It was
thrilling, all right, though I finally gave up because I was pretty
certain
what the end result would be. I'll try to get the details right, but this
game was *eventful*.
I played as Lizzy (I love her combination of leaders traits, the redcoat
and the stock exchange.) Noble difficulty level, fractal map. I discovered
that my closest neighbours were Hammurabi, Montezuma, Peter the Great of
Russia and Saladin. Oops! Not good. Then I learned that "the Vedic
barbarians were on the march to exterminate civilization". I braced myself
and hoped I wouldn't be the one affected. Then I learned that the Arabic
civilization had been exterminated. A bit later I learned that Russia
(immediately to the west of me) had also been exterminated. Then the Vedic
barbarians attacked my capital city, which was still the only one I had
(this was very early in the game); it was only defended by an unpromoted
warrior, and their invasion force consisted of a single spearman; I
suppose
the others had been killed capturing Mecca (which was east of Moscow) and
Moscow, or were guarding them. I was certain I was doomed, but my brave
little warrior managed to hold his own and kill the assailant. I then
founded my second city, beelined to Masonry, built walls around both
cities
and beelined to Bronze Working. I managed to found Judaism. Then repeated
waves of barbarian warriors, and then archers, and then axemen, kept
coming
out of Moscow and attacking my second city, but by then I had archers who
fought them off.
There was barbarian Moscow, barbarian Mecca somewhere west of it and
another huge barbarian city, founded by the barbarians, south of me. North
of me was Hammurabi, and beyond him Montezuma to the nortwest, and Huayana
Capac somewhat further away beyond Hammurabi to the northeast. In my
scouting, I had also learned that Suryavarnaman of the Khmer lived
somewhere
to the west of me on the same continent. In fact, both Surya and Huayna
Capac lived on middle-sized continents with one tile of water between them
and the continent shared by myself, Montezuma, Hammurabi, Peter (extinct)
and Saladin (extinct). I later realized that Surya and Huayana Capac were
saved from the fury of the barbarians because of the water, though Surya
later on moved across the sound, founded cities and also captured Mecca.
(Lincoln lived on Surya's home continent, on its western half, and had a
nice little empire but no Wonders. Tokugawa had a nasty little continent
of
his own very far away from every one else- his wet dream come true. He
achieved nothing throughout the game.) And Huayana (northeast of me)
moved
across his water tile and founded additional cities to the ones on his
home
continent. I did not have "raging barbarians" enabled; that horde of barb
spearmen were simply very, very lucky, and then barbarians bred in Moscow
(and perhaps Mecca too) became very, very numerous and determined to take
out my second city. OK so far?
I might as well say here that throughout the game, I did not manage to
build a single Wonder, unless one counts the Jewish holy shrine and Sid's
Su****. That's because Huayna and Surya were always there before me,
particularly Huayna. He built the Oracle, the Pyramids, Stonehenge, the
Hanging Gardens, Parthenon, Taj Mahal, the Sistine Chapel, the three
modern
entertainment wonders, blah blah blah. He also founded Buddhism. I think
Surya managed to build a couple of wonders, but apart from that, Huayna
was
the king of Wonders. I was too busy fighting battles. I did try to build
Stonehenge, and later on the Pyramids, and then Parthenon, while my second
and then third and fourth cities churned out more troops, but I was always
forestalled. (I did build improvements and libraries and monuments and so
on - and most definitely barracks.)
Montezuma founded Hinduism, and it spread to Hammurabi, who converted
and
immediately became cautious towards me. Then, there was another bizarre
twist: Judaism spread to one of Hammurabi's cities, and even though
Hinduism
was all over the rest of his empire, he promptly converted to my religion
and made an open borders agreement with me. I built some Jewish
missionaries
to spread my faith to his major cities and make him really committed to
it.
And then Montezuma attacked me. Hammurabi lived between his land and
mine,
but it was me he attacked; he still had an open borders agreement with
Hammurabi. He sent a whole wave of jaguars, spearmen (I think) and
chariots.
By then, I had archers. Fortunately, Monte did not bother to destroy my
cottaged tiles or farmland; his troops went straight to my capital city,
where they were all killed when attacking. Then a second and a third wave
arrived and were also promptly killed. While my war with Monte was going
on,
the barbs kept attacking my second city. I kept shuttling troops back and
forth; they were becoming very highly promoted. Barracks, barbs, Monte -
you
can imagine. Then I suggested to Montezuma that we sign a peace treaty,
and
he agreed. I had a horse tile and a luxury tile (gems), but both were very
distant from my cities, near the Babylonian border, and I knew I could
expect a second Aztec sneak attack soon, so for the time being, I didn't
try
to improve those two plots. Instead, I built an iron mine on the southern
border, guarded against barbs by an axeman, and another iron mine very
cosily tucked away a bit west of my capital, out of harm's way. I then
built
up an army of axemen and swordsmen. It should be understood that I simply
hadn't the time to build more than two workers, and I couldn't risk them
trying to do something about the gems or the horses. The barbarians kept
attacking my eastern city; by now they were also giving Hammurabi (and to
some extent Montezuma) a hard time. Aztecs managed to slip an escorted
settler through the barbarian lines and founded a city south of barbarian
Moscow. Then Montezuma attacked me again. He still focused entirely on my
capital. My spearmen killed his chariots, and my archers and single axeman
held off his other troops. After a while, I suggested peace again, and he
agreed. I founded my third city, within reach of another gem deposit, and
beelined towards Feudalism. I also founded a fourth city (by the eastern
sea) and captured the big barb city south of London. And later on, I
founded
another city by the sea, south of the first ****t city. And at some later
time, a military city in ideal production terrain; when I abandoned the
game, it contained the Heroic Epic, West Point, a War Academy and three
military specialists, and it churned out a new unit every turn.
When Montezuma made his third sneak attack, he concentrated on my third
city. He failed to take it because I had crammed it full with troops and
built city walls. I think it was about this time that a random event gave
me
lots of money because my citzens were so well protected by walls. The
money
came in useful for updating warriors to axemen and spearmen, and later on
updating a couple of highly promoted archers to longbowmen. I got my first
Great General and attached him to an axeman. I also captured the Aztec
city
south of Moscow. Then I suggested peace to Montezuma, and he agreed.
Well, I won't be so detailed about most of the rest. I finally hooked up
the other gem deposit, and the horse pasture, and stationed troops,
inluding
my GG, on the horse pasture. I captured barbarian Moscow, which had gold
and bronze - nice! Despite my complete lack of World Wonders, my culture
was
excellent and my borders wide. Twice, my buddy Hammruabi suggested I join
him in a war against Montezuma, and considering what had happened before,
I
thought my reputation could take it. However, Huayana, who was annoyed
with
me even before then, now really started to hate my guts. In the first of
the
two wars fought against Monty with Hammurabi as an ally, I captured two
Aztec cities, the second on the western seabord; during the second war
alongside Hammurabi, I captured an third Aztec city north of the other two
and razed it to improve my cultural borders. Montezuma then vassalled to
Hammurrabi. By this time, I had redcoats and knights.
However, by then Huayana Capac had infantry. Here comes another very
bizarre event. After a fairly long period of peace (I wasn't constantly
fighting wars after having got rid of the barbs, and after Monte's three
attacks) I espied three Inca galleons at sea outside the northern of my
two
****t cities on the eastern seaboard. I realized I was the target. The ****t
city was well garrisoned (I have learned my lesson about that); there was
a
redcoat, a war veteran, there, and also macemen and some longbowmen. I
hastily updated a maceman and a highly promoted longbowman to redcoats and
hoped for the best.
And then Huayna attacked, straight from the ****ps. That was clever of
him,
because troops from my other cities were streaming towards that city and
were one or two tiles away when he struck. Nevertheless, of the three
infantrymen, two cannon, two riflemen, one cavalry and one knight he threw
against my city, not a single one survived. My redcoats killed his
infantrymen. My macemen accounted for the rest, except that the knight was
killed by a bowman and one cannon was killed by another longbowman! I got
another GG out of that attack.
Well, then there was peace. Huayana had founded some minor cities south
of
me, and I should have captured those two nearest to me before suggesting
peace, but I felt I was lucky to get a peace deal. However, peace didn't
last. When, some considerable time later, he attacked again, he had
bombers
and mechanized infantry and tanks; I had air****ps and infantry, and my
first
tank had just rolled out of my military production city. And though I had
upgraded some of my most intensely promoted redcoats, I still had many
redcoats left, and they acquitted themselves well. I capured two of
Huayana
Capac's five cities south of me, and I have no doubt I could have taken
the
other three as well, despite the constant harassment from bombers. Mind
you,
when I captured twose two cites, Huayana lost most of his air force.
Still,
by then Huayana had finished the Apollo Program and built a thruster. He
also rejected my peace overtures. I opened World Builder and discovered
that
I was in the same situation as Gondor after the victory on the Pelennor
Fields; I had only destroyed a fraction of Mordor's military might, Also,
Huayna was only one turn away from fini****ng the cockpit for his
space****p.
One way or another, I was going to lose. So I called it a day - or, to be
precise, an early morning.
Still, it was a truly gripping game. The AI seems to have decided that I
need some really extreme experiences so I won't whine about "all games
being
the same". Not that I ever say that.
Öjevind
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