|
|
|
Digging Through the Barbarians I haven't
played that much Civ IV yet, but this is certainly the slowest start I've had,
and in Civ III I would feel pretty hopeless to have this few cities. Time
to start digging out of this hole, but all the AI are more powerful than my
pathetic military. The first ray of good news is in 200AD I also get my
first Great Scientist, Plato, who founds an academy in Tenotch. I have also found that my westward expansion is blocked by
the Barbarians at Gaul:
The next
few centuries pass in quiet research, a few trades, and building up some Jaguars
for an assault on Gaul, which fell in
620AD. That, plus the founding of Tlaxcala
in 640AD, gave me this 6-city empire in 800AD:
I loved the 'inland sea' here, and I was lucky that none of the AI built a port city, so I really had no worries of enemy ships. I used a couple galleys for ages shuttling units back and forth. Tlaxcala acted as a canal, so I could also ferry units down that waterway toward Saladin, which helped me in settling on that side. I should have recognized this right away, and settled fishing villages to grab all that commerce! I would eventually do so.) 740AD was
also another Great Scientist, and I started to see the real value of the Great
Library – those free specialists generated a lot of GP points!
After the first academy, I used the rest to speed research on techs, I
probably should have built an academy in Teot, but I didn’t think of it until
much later. I was still in last
place on score, and The Venerable Bede reinforced why by pointing out I was
Hopeless.
Looking
at the scores, though, it was obvious that being a Buddhist wasn’t helping my
social standing any. I had started
off on the wrong foot with Vicky since I met her (don’t know why, but
everything was redlined from the start), so my best bet would be to join the
crowd, and in 840AD I converted to Christianity.
This really boosted relations with Mao to my south.
Luckily I already had a city that had converted, and quickly sent
missionaries around to my other cities. Once
again my expansion options were blocked by the barbarians, so my next target was
Khoisan to the east. A couple
catapults and some Jaguars (I’m starting to like Cover for my early melee
units, more versatile than the city attack, but very effective against the barb
cities).
At least
I was not in last place anymore! My
tech research was starting to boost my score, and I was now headed to Education,
discovered in 1160. Research was
really picking up, and I was the first to discover Liberalism
in 1320AD, and used that to get Nationalism
free. I planned on using that
to grab the Taj Mahal for the free GA. Four
turns later I also had Printing Press with the help of a Great Scientist, and
felt like I was finally getting a tech lead.
Next stop was Constitution in 1500AD, which allowed me to swap to Representation,
and use specialists to really boost my research. I was surprised by getting a Great Artist the next turn in
Tenotch, the National Epic’s Great Artist points having won the draw over all
the scientist points I was generating. It
turned out I would need him, though, as the next turn, I received the bad news
that last-place Mansa Musa had somehow beaten me to the Taj Mahal!
|
