Epic 7
Page 2

On with the mahem.

As you can see, I thought I’d best get another settler rolling before the oracle, because I wanted to head off that other choke point. I decided also to bend my research towards animal husbandry to get my pigs, and though it’s not clear from this picture, I started to build a work boat. I wasn’t building it for the fish resource, though, it would become my first scout. I was putting off sailing tech. I know, I’m such a noob.

Haha, with 61 turns to complete the oracle, Alex stole it! So much for that course of action! It was around this point that I began to build a lot of cottages, hoping to generate a little income, without suffering from starvation. I didn’t have to worry too much though, as my cities could only grow so much before falling into unhappiness/unhealthiness. And as you can see from the mini map in the bottom right, I had founded my third city already, which put me at 80% research and still losing money. Once again, however, I started city 3 with a worker and sent one of my others to build a road to the city. I thought I could survive on 3 workers for a while though, and built one more warrior. I was taking a gamble and not building too many units, because I wanted to build Elephants when construction came in. So from this point, I bee-lined for it, only backtracking for hunting. I move around the tech tree like a monkey on crack! In 445bc, I found my fourth city up near the sheep/beaver/wines. I had uncovered an island with gems and copper, but I was hoping that spot would last a little longer. I wanted to cover my home island in my own borders, so Alex couldn’t land a settler and take up my space. My fourth city put me even further in the whole for research, as you can see in the following pic.

Oh oh… those barb archers look troublesome also, but I was ready to send another warrior if need be, and I had sent a second one already, so I was pretty sure two warriors could hold the fort. You can also see my little workers building a farm on the corn down there. When finished, they would road up to Elephantine to connect some more resources. Now with my research at a very low rate, and my army non-existent, I was really feeling like a sitting duck. And I hadn’t found Alexander yet, which meant he could come as a surprise and wreck me at any time. I was really gritting my teeth and waiting for construction though, and I didn’t feel like taking up archery. In 235bc, I get my first positive reinforcement! I know this may not seem like much to some, but as this is my first immortal game, I did a little happy dance when I saw this! The only previous messages I had received were messages that Alex had a larger civ than I. So this meant I was hanging in there, right?

In the lower right, if you’ll check out the mini map again, you can see that my work boat was trying to scout the southeast, and had poked through on the west a little. But I couldn’t get him further west, I guess there weren’t enough close islands. So at this point, I sent him to my chokepoint to head westward and see if we could find our nemesis. Also in 235bc, I got my first great prophet, and I used him to make the holy shrine of Hinduism! I was hoping it would help my gold woes. Well, somehow, I was back up to 50% research with a small monetary gain per turn. And having my tech founding on a steady path, I began an aqueduct in my capital, eyeing towards the hanging gardens for a boost in population. I also at this time was managing my cities closely, and since I had reached healthiness/happiness levels, I assigned scientists (after having built libraries) to help with the research level a little. So far, I was feeling pretty good about my game, though I was still worried about my military situation.

So finally in 65ad, after sending my fishing boat to the west, we meet up with Alexander the Great! He’s not too mad at me for being a heathen. “I am Alexaander, ruler of the warlike Greek Empire!” Is this a warning? I spit in your eye, Alexander, I am not afraid! I will say that this was my second pleasant surprise of the game, look at our scores! I’m hardly trailing at all. I must be leading in culture still, and putting up a decent fight for land area and population, because I’m sure his army is far superior to mine at this point. But all in all, a -1 to relations isn’t so bad, right? So my first contact with him was to a small island with one city on it. Guarded by one phalanx and two archers, he also had a worker and a missionary there. If I had a real army to speak of, I might take that from him…110ad finds construction and I think a little harder about that island. I switch to building a small army of elephants and catapults, putting off other structures for now. I also bend research towards ironworking for (hopefully) swordsmen and axemen and then to calendar for my bananas! Sadly, iron working reveals iron only on that piss-poor little island in the south that is two squares wide, yuck. That’s just going to have to wait. Maybe it’s time to settle my copper/gem island. I drop back to 40% science somewhere around here, which is sad news, but somehow Hinduism spreads to a small island that Alex controls to the east, and at least I know where another of his establishments are now, though I don’t have the means to travel there. Somewhere around 650-700 I discovered metal casting and settled my little gem/copper island. Well, apparently Alex felt I was too close to his score, and decided to declare war in 710ad…

As you can see, his forces are arriving from the west. Maybe HE wanted my little copper/gem isle?

Now I had one catapult in the area, 2 elephants, and a warrior that would be 2 turns too late in arriving from my northern city, so I scanned his boats. He had two galleys here in a stack. One had two horse archers, and the other had a phalanx and horse archer I think. My screen shot only shows the combat odds of my galley vs his, because I was worried about his units landing… I didn’t have anything built for horse archers, time to queue up some spearmen. I decided to roll the dice. Not like this galley was doing me any good anyway. ATTACK! Lmao, I won that battle! Only 2 units made it ashore, and my cat and elephants wiped them out post haste, without a loss. Subsequently, his surviving galley attacked my wounded galley after I promoted it and lost to it again! Wow, that’s a mighty fine captain I have. By this time, my two other galley reinforcements had arrived and I loaded them with two cats and two elephants, waited a turn and whipped up another elephant and another cat. These three galleys headed west to the tiny island of Corinth that was such a fine piece of real-estate. So upon landing at Corinth, I discovered the following resistance.

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