Tod, myself and the rest of these folks have now been regularly sitting down to play Civ 4 BTS for about 4 hours every Monday night. It's a whole new Civ experience for me, one that really wasn't possible until Civ 4 itself came along. Civ 4's engine and interface is, at last designed for multiplayer from the ground up. I really enjoy Monday Night Civ, and I'm glad it's been added to my schedule.
I've been playing Civ for just as long as Tod has, and I think Civ 4 BTS is the best iteration of the game so far.
Snivelization was our second game, and the first in which I had a chance to succeed. I was dealt the Holy Romans, whom I had never played; in single player I tend to pick the Romans (call me twinky, it's okay) or the English. Holy Rome gets Imperialistic and Protective, an upgraded Pikeman, and upgraded courthouses.
Imperialistic of course benefits the warmonger with its double-speed generals, but half-price Settlers can be appreciated by anybody. Protective was new to me; I had not played with it before. Landsknechts turned out to be a bust because I didn't end up fighting a middle age war, and I think they're a bit useless in terms of the time period. 65% courthouses are, of course, glorious.
Three continents, nine civs, five humans. The game sprawled out over a convoluted map and distributed the players somewhat awkwardly. I started in the south, next to Milo, who had the Russians. Tod got Julius Caesar, which naturally made me terrified given he's the most aggressive Civ player I know. Giving him Praetorians seemed like game over already, but then, I like to exaggerate. The phear of the Carealot kingdom - the Axis of Caring, really - was enough to scare Milo and I into rather peaceful relations, with the Arabs to his east to beat up on from time to time.
Holy Rome starts with Mysticism, so naturally I gunned for a religion. Founding one, I chose Christianity for the Holy Roman aspect. Later I grabbed another and founded Taoism; I found Milo and, after a few hundred years of badgering, got him to allow me to spread the Good News to the Russian people. He ended up founding Judaism, so with the Old and New Testaments involved, our people seemed of an accord that the real threat was the Care Bear Stare that lived in the North.
Milo and I are both defensive players by nature. Indeed, the whole reason I started playing the Romans in single player was to learn how to be aggressive in the early game. As it happened, neither of us made threatening moves and, eventually, just built like crazy, waiting for the Hugs that we knew were coming.
As Civ games go this was one of my better build outs. I still have not adopted the strategy Tod suggested of just overlapping more. When it comes to city placement, I'm very set in my ways, and the idea of overlapping four squares is very foreign. In part this is because I don't like to micro my populations a lot. I'll move city populations around for growth or production, but only when I want to stop their growth or really crank out a wonder or something. I micro my workers religiously, as well as my build queues; I
never let the computer build anything for me or improve my terrain,
ever. This is a much easier level of micro in Civ 4 because there's just less cities. At first I missed the sprawling cityscapes of Civ 3, but having played quite a bit of Civ 4 now I really prefer this scale.
The one strategy I did manage to pull off extremely well is the
Great People Farm (or Pump). This is a city specifically designed to crank out GPs all game. While wonders are important for GPs, Specialists are easier to get and in the end are the cornerstone of GP production. This means high population, high food, damn the production and commerce, BREED. On top of this, a new national wonder in BTS called the National Park gives you a free specialist for every Forest Preserve you have in the city's radius.
My capital was built with two floodplains, two clams, some grass, and twelve forests on varied terrain. I chopped two of the forests for an early wonder, but had ten remaining when Biology came along. The resulting GP city was the best I've ever built:
If I'd been playing as a Philosophical leader the results would have been absurd; even so I was able to build both my holy buildings, have four golden ages, build an academy, and still have three prophets and an engineer snoozed in my capital. Note that this is in 1955, with Emancipation - I'm not using Caste System.
In any event that was by far the most specialized strategy I implemented. The rest of my cities were a balance of commerce and production. I spread out and de-jungled the northern part of the continent and slowly, achingly slowly civilized that part of the world.
Because Milo and I tend to be rather peaceful and defensive players, our continent was one of commerce and large garrisons. I built out a number of primarily-commerce cities, gunning for Economics and building more coastal cities later in the game to take advantage of Customs Houses. Protective meant I had reasonable stacks of City Defense 3 units throughout the game, culminating in a respectable number of infantry.
The Carealot Kingdom quickly dominated its neighbors and appeared to direct them with threats of force for much of the game. As the wars dragged on and the pronouncements of Hugs were heard, our people became more and more concerned about the Axis of Caring. We built a city in a strategic island near them, as a forward base from which to defend our lands.
Things were tensely quiet as the Axis attempted to get giggy with Gilamesh. Unfortunately for the Kingdom, the Sumerian Navy was significantly more potent than they anticipated. The war ended quickly as a result.
About this time I had discovered Combustion. The Axis solidified its position as Mike and Tod formed a Permanent Alliance, and Jamie Retired with his people as Vassals to Carealot. Faced with this bloc of Caring, Milo and I formed our own alliance. I had founded Christianity, and he was the center of Judaism. Thus was the Zionist-Crusader Alliance born.
Tod being the most aggressive Civ player I know and Mike being the guy who wiped me out last game, it was clear the war would have to start on our terms. With the Combustion edge I decided to deploy a stack of Destroyers and land a punitive force in their homeland for the express purpose of harassment and pillage. Originally, there was a plan to take a strategic port city - Marseilles - which acted as a canal between the two oceans.
About those oceans: the terrain in this game was a mess. While there were technically three continents, the ice caps made navigation around the globe impossible. Tod had his own little sea to play around in, but in the end the city of Marseilles was the only passage between his bathtub and the rest of the world.
In any case, seeing no Combustion-based ships in the Axis navy, the war was on. A large stack of infanty and cannons made their way to Mike's France, pillaging their way up the coast. The Destroyers of the Alliance Navy initially won battles, but the Axis quickly gunned for Combustion and proceeded to show us exactly how to fight a war at sea.
I have never been big on navies in Civ. It's a weakness, a flaw in my strategies. I know this. That said, the war became an industrial age naval conflict with comparatively low casualties, keeping war weariness at bay. The Axis Navy was a force to be reckoned with, and the non-starter of taking Marseilles meant they could reinforce and re-arm as needed. The Axis used blockading and zones of naval control to great effect, and mounted a successful counterattack. They took my forward city, Aachen, and renamed it "Power of Love" (can you feel it?). Hugs were dispensed, and the stage was set for the Care Bear Stare to deliver its Love to Orenburg, Milo's primary port city in the combat zone.
The first battle of Orenburg was won by the Alliance rather handily; it became clear that my Protective Infantry were going to continue to hold off whatever was thrown at us. Submarines were deployed under the ice caps to pillage Axis resources thought untouchable.
Once First Orenburg was over, the Zionist-Crusader Alliance dedicated itself to the pursuit of the Bomb. A rather long lull in the fighting descended; Flight was discovered, Bombers were built. An Axis naval flotilla was seen to the north of Orenburg, and to our surprise, the Second Battle of Orenburg was initiated thereafter (we figured they'd go for a less protected island city).
It was at the Second Battle of Orenburg that the Axis realized it was out-teched. Waves of bombers pounded the invasion force. Artillery delivered ballistic Love from behind fortifications. Industrialism was at hand and Tanks began to pour forth.
The Second Battle of Orenburg resulted in the Axis Expeditionary Force retreating to its transports without ever executing a single offensive maneuver.
The flotilla moved on, eventually attacking the aforementioned island city and destroying it from the sea. But the writing was on the wall; even as the flotilla closed on my own port cities to the north, ICBMs were being built and readied to deliver their Message. When the Axis invasion of Holy Rome was blunted by tanks and highly trained Infantry, the Axis conceded and retired.
One turn before my first ICBM was completed.
