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In the beginning...

Here's what the world looked like, after I had moved my scout south two spaces and my worker west one.

No fresh water in sight - maybe one down there to the southeast, but I'm not going to walk that far to settle. So I found where we started, and get this.

Warrior Code is awesome - starting the beeline to Horseback Riding that I know we'll need to do. I do wonder about the rest of the picture, though - there's some lousy programming behind that scene (a size-0 city?) I also wonder whether I could have gotten a settler from the hut. You can't get a settler if you have one active; in that picture, it looks like the settler still exists, but who can really tell for sure?

I do decide to start The Wheel at minimum science: we need it for Horseback Riding, and Japan doesn't appear to be in the game (nobody starts with it.)

I very soon met India to the south, right on that lake! Hi there. Then, shortly later...

Um, three civs on this cramped little rock? Sirian wasn't kidding when he said that horses would be needed. Forget this minimum research junk; set to max on The Wheel. We need to absolutely BLITZ to Horseback Riding, and all my moves will be geared to that, while being prepared for war if someone declares before I'm ready. Also, I'm not going to found any other cities until I've conquered somebody - Salamanca will produce nothing but war items.

I trade Pottery + Warrior Code to Egypt for Masonry + 7g, and Pottery + Masonry to India for Alphabet + 10g.

Salamanca's build order was this. I micromanaged the luxury slider all the while, and poured everything else into research. Our SOLE goal right now is maximum possible commerce income, to make it to Horseback Riding ASAP.
Scout - went west but lost the only other hut to the Indians.
Archer - not a warrior. Need police now, but I want a unit that can fight later.
Barracks
Archer - now we have five units, over the 4-free-per-city threshold, so I disband one scout.
Temple - it doesn't improve the economic situation, but at least pays for its own maintenance in that I can run one less luxury.

Now the Wheel has come in, and Horses are right under Salamanca (how suspiciously convenient.) We start furiously researching Horseback Riding, still microing the luxury slider constantly. Also, who the heck is that?

How the ding-dong did France get Map Making already? No, wait, they don't even have Writing... they must be south of Egypt? Wow, this is a ridiculous map generator. This whole big world and two-thirds of the civs are on this same little rock? I trade Pottery to Joanie for her 13 gold.

Back to Salamanca:
2470 BC: Chariot for later upgrade; disband the other scout to save costs.
2350 BC: Another chariot - we're now paying 1/turn in unit costs. I should've disbanded an archer but didn't.
2230 BC: Walls, because there isn't anything else to build that won't cost maintenance.
2190 BC: France founds Orleans west of Salamanca. Hey, Joanie stole one of my grassland tiles! Salamanca has to work an unirrigated plains... but I reassign it to a coastal tile since we need every single bit of trade we can get. It soon hits size 5, at which it runs zero food surplus to work two coastal tiles for the extra science.
2110 BC: A third Chariot, and disband the first regular Archer to cut costs. I start, of all things, a Granary as a Mounted Warrior prebuild. Certainly one of the silliest prebuilds in Civ 3 history.
1910 BC: Horseback Riding comes, and the research is shut off. But thanks to the new rules against using the "Big Picture scrollahead", we have to wait forty years before we can build a Mounted Warrior. I also disband the other Archer - we need all the cash we can get to upgrade those three Chariots.

I realize that Horseback Riding is useless to any civilization lacking Horses or named Egypt (who'd already have 2-1-2 War Chariots), so I trade it to Egypt for Mysticism, and then Mysticism + Horseback to India for Iron Working. We do have some iron, though it's unlikely we'll need it.

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