Epic 7

Okay, okay... Where to begin... So this is my first reporting on Realms Beyond, and indeed, my first epic at all. I have been skulking around for some time now, reading the masters' works and trying to improve my budding game. But after playing a few personal games and trying to implement what I've learned, I decided I should try one...on immortal level? Why the hell not?! I did decide to check up on Alexander, since I usually randomize and don't worry about what traits the civs have until I get them, and found out that he’s aggressive and philosophical. So he’s going to attack the crap out of me, right? Probably. But, since I’m going to be weak compared to him, I might as well go for an early religion. He’ll hate me anyway. So first things first, our starting position:

Being but a novice, I saw no reason not to start out on the square I was standing… after all, we have fresh water and ocean access, wheat and fish soon, and a couple of hills. Looks good! The hut that pops when I settle nets me a scout. I clapped like Paula Abdul on American Idol until I realized that my scout wouldn’t have far to scout, as this is Archipelago. Oh well, he’s a city defender during a crisis, right? So I continue to scout around the island, heading North and West with my new scout, and South and East with my warrior. It doesn’t take long to scout the whole island, but it appears to be a tasty place to live! I also popped a hut north by some sheep and wines to the tune of 28 gold! So here’s the island.

Wow, Sirian, thanks for the resource heavy start . Now I know that happiness/healthiness caps are lower the higher you go up in difficulty, so I wasn’t too surprised to see that my city couldn’t grow past 5 to reach those limits. Starting with agriculture and wheel, I decided I’d make a worker first, to try and hook up some extra resources asap. Following the same logic, I realized that pigs would add extra healthiness, and the silver would add extra happiness, so I decided that city #2 would go to the red dot. I would like to mention that upon scouting, I noticed that the top and bottom of my home island stretch to the ends of the globe. I wasn’t sure how important this would be, but it seemed that maybe I could block the east/west access, depending on where Alexander was. Sort of choke points if you will were available at the red dot and the yellow dot. I didn’t want his ships (I was sure he’d have ships before me) to be able to settle both sides of my island if I could help it. And since the world is flat at this point in history, he can’t just go around the other way, right? So after my initial worker, I switched to a warrior, so my city could grow, then Stonehenge, and then I think I paused Stonehenge to start on a settler (I’m writing this after the fact, as I needed to focus during gametime!) And in 3250bc, I discovered polytheism! Can you guess what became the holy city? *hint* I didn’t have a second city settled yet…

Here’s what I decided to study on the tech tree… hmm, hard to see… it’s mining then bronze working then on to pottery. For some reason, I was thinking I could get Stonehenge AND the oracle, and I wanted pottery so I could both build early cottages and to make metal casting available for the free tech. Of course I wanted bronze working so I could whip and chop my early wonders, and hopefully for some defensive axemen. A distant land founded Buddhism shortly after my I founded Hinduism…In 3010bc, I thought it may be time to build the Stonehenge. It’s a shame that I couldn’t settle towards the stone first, but I didn’t feel that was my strongest second city. Indeed, I wouldn’t found a city near the stone for quite some time, but my borders would eventually expand enough to mine it anyway. Sometime around 2500bc, my scout, posted on a hilltop forest for sentry duty, was killed by a barb archer. Oh well.

I decided another worker was in order, because I had so many resources coming available, and I planned on making more cities than I usually would this early in the game since I was on my own island and couldn’t be attacked right away and I wanted to be able to connect cities/resources/etc. (run-on sentence much?) By 1780, I had founded priesthood, and was almost finished Stonehenge, eyeing the oracle. I had chopped almost all my forests by this point, and by the by, there was no copper upon discovering bronze working. Alexander had discovered Judaism before I was even thinking about another religion, but that’s ok by me. As long as he’s studying religion, he’s not studying warfare! I did finish Stonehenge without whipping and that helped my borders to pop and get that stone under command, though I didn’t think I should go after the pyramids because Alexander would probably get them anyway. I am already at a loss for gold by this point, and working at 80% research now. Why is that with only 2 cities I wonder? Anyway, I guess this is one early wonder that Alex won’t be generating extra great person points from.

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