Civ 4 18 civs Pangaea test Marathon Monarch episode 3

Fighting Cyrus and then Darius. I was then absorbed into the greater world war at last, and on the side I didn't expect.

 ^ Mass building of Theatres, thanks to Slavery Civic. Allowed me to build the Globe Theatre in my capital, which allows it to grow as high as my happiness limit.

 ^ Civics.

 ^ Boo-urns, not even on the list!

 ^ My armies active in Cyrus' Greek lands. My Great Spy I used earlier allowed me to assault him successfully and absorb all his lands into mine.

 ^ He launched a little attack on me in my southern Portuguese lands.

 Hammurabi became my vassal mid-war, I believe after I mass-whipped through Slavery an army of Knights, at least 10-20 of them in a few short turns.

 ^ They didn't vote for me!

 ^ I attacked Darius after killing Cyrus off. I also used a Great Spy prior to the attack.

 ^ This stack of Knights on the left will die, sadly, but also break teh back of Darius' armies, there would be no great offensives by him after that.

 ^ Overall situation and placement of my armies.

 ^ Being able to reach Moscow within a few turns of starting the war was vital, ripping his heart out and consigning him to defeat.

 ^ Successful espionage and attack of Moscow.

 ^ Moscow has fallen. Moving in to close off the east side and create my Sumerian Lake.

 ^ The two forces converge, allowing us to roll westwards.

 ^ He managed to rush up and retake a city! Note the lack of roads in the desert in top right, this is a recurring problem with my roads obviously not linked up to his pre-war.

 ^ Overall situation. Sumerian Lake created.

 ^Managed to get back that town easily enough. He keeps building Pikes to counter my Knights.

 ^ Moving westwards.

 ^ Managed to converge on Yaroslavl' eventually. Note Hammurabi's War Elephants which while utterly useless in offence they provided a major distraction; Darius kept attacking his stack which just kept moving around pointlessly.

 ^ He will capitulate but I want to finish him off.

^Successful spy use here; it would still prove costly but marked the end of his effective resistance.

 ^ Now able to take these last two cities. Spotted a massive stack used by Willem Van Orange - managed to make demands off him to gain a peace treaty in case he decided to intervene.

 ^ The power graph. Mine may be inflated by my vassals but still significant. Charlemagne is also major along with Willem and both have at least one vassal.

 ^ I was pleasantly surprised to find I had the lead in soldiers. Might be mine plus Hamm + Vicky but not sure.

 ^ A brief respite - my Workers are finishing off my Indian acquisitions.

 ^ Spies in place for final attack.

 ^ Probably once again a mistake to go two-prong but feck it.

 My Southern neighbours Louis the vassal of Wang Kon declared war on me; Darius became the vassal of Wang Kon too dragging them in.

 ^ My 5th Great General. Three are settled (including this guy) and two in the field. One died in the Russian war.

 ^ The fall of Russia.

 ^ Victoria's last city, an Incan (Wang Kon) possession. I let it fall so her Indian culture residue in my land becomes 100% Sumerian.

 ^ The end of Darius.

 ^ Vicky dies! I am now sending everything I can to this front.

 ^ Destroyed Louis' pitiful expedition.

 ^ Churchill declared war and took Rostov off me. This rounded out my cultural borders AND brought me into the greater war, Mao-Ragnar-Genghis-Willem vs. Churchill-Louis-Wang-Gandhi, effectively Christians versus Hindus. The latter are vastly inferior overall but Churchill of Spain is the ideal frontier against all these invaders, actually holding them off! I will hold here and exert my main efforts in the south versus Wang-Louis-Gandhi in an attempt to dominate the south-east and therefore become the Master of the East, with Churchill and Willem in the centre and all manner in the West - Mao, Lincoln, Genghis, Charlemagne, Elizabeth... Note Genghis' huge army, green in top left.

^ I managed to seize Vicky's last town and sue for peace. Churchill still at war but he has enough on his plate.

Civ 4 18 civs Pangaea test Marathon Monarch episode 2

Episode 2.

Indian War.

 ^ Already in Delhi and with the next major stack moving back in.

 ^ Composition of the main stack.

 I was able to use the few hundred espionage points I had built up versus Victoria to utilise at least two City Revolts which helped a bit.

 ^ It was fun baiting and destroying that small stack of five Indian swordsmen, they kept pressing toward my border because I had some Workers there.

 ^ It was probably a mistake to separate my stack, bt here is the one on the coast, awaiting the help of the Spy.

 ^ Note that Bombay is out of cultural defence; I think my Spy City Revolt didn't pay off so had to bombard the old fashioned way.

 ^ Not much left of Bombay!

 ^ I had written a gigantic 'VASSAL' in lines to unsubtly remind myself to vassal Vicky when I reached the coast and she was reduced to mere island holdings. Not ideal but prudent-ish financially.

 ^ Bombay has fallen. Still awaiting the help of a Spy in Paliputra.

 ^ I defied the Apostolic Palace resolution for my sins.

 ^ She will give in, but I want to push her off the mainland.

 ^ I awaited the arrival of a second stack from Vijayanagara to finish off the resistance in her new capital of Not-Delhi. 

 ^ Inexplicable low quality? Anyway, I chose city revolt...

 ^ And succeeded, as per green spy symbol on city. Commence the attack...

^ Got it. I made her capitulate then, freeing me to swing west toward Cyrus.

Civ 4 18 civs Pangaea test Marathon Monarch episode 1

Good day. Kept meaning to do something like this but that's life. These pictures are from quite late in the game but screw it. I am Rameses of the Sumerians, a deliberate pick. Rameses nets me Spiritual and Industrious traits. Spiritual allows me to build Temples faster but more importantly allows me to switch between civics without turns of anarchy, nice in a Marathon game where this can take a while. It also allows me to switch from benevolent monarch to brutal dictator in wartime to suppress war weariness and speed up unit production or from Organised Religion (which give me faster buildings) to Theocracy which gives me a small EXP bonus to units and back again., I also foresee the use of Nationhood to draft units in cities every turn, namely Rifles in what I expect to be an insane late game. His Industrious trait nets me faster Wonders (50% and faster Forges, one of those essential buildings.

18 civilizations on one Pangaea. I've played Huge Pangaeas with the recommended 11 civs before and I have played the real world map with 18 civs plenty of times but never combined the two. I have played 18 civ Islands and it is quite entertaining. I wanted gigantic land wars involving three pronged assaults on a national scale and 100+ troop stacks of dooms running around so I started this. Raging Barbarians and hoping I got Stone and build the Great Wall first (I did) which was another setting. Unrestricted Leaders allowing me to be an Egyptian running the Sumerians - who have a nifty Axeman called the Vulture which is good for taking cities guarded by Archers (most of them) and their Ziggurat is an earlier Courthouse which reduces maintenance costs by 75% rather that the usual 50%. I intend to go big for this so I wanted them, it's probably my favourite civilization to play while Rameses would be one of my top three or so leaders alongside Asoka and a few others.

Early impressions: huge, huge map, took a while for my Great Spies to scout properly. The game expanded it to fit everyone which is good, nobody looks like they were screwed. I was blessed with extra space to the east and one dead leader (the Portuguese died to the barbarians early on and was due south of me). Genghis and Ragnar, very aggressive leaders, ascended higher than usual and seemed to dominate but now by Middle Ages things have swung toward more tech-heavy leaders like Willem of Orange, Elizabeth and practical, strong leaders like Mao. And me! My score is inflated by Wonders (Stonehenge, Great Wall, Pyramids (all Stone) and one or two others) also I founded Confucianism (widespread) but converted to Christianity to appease the strong Christian leaders of the middle and west. They also built the Apostolic Palace fittingly enough so it helps to get in on those votes. I am still in the process of spreading Christianity to myself to get the bonuses for religious civics (OR, Theocracy). I have been involved in a series of proxy wars against far off people simply to appease others. Both good and evil leaders keep approaching me to break off ties and I have mostly refused, rendering me somewhat Cautious to Annoyed with most leaders, though some are Pleased.

^ Lots of options. Lisbon was just captured from the barbarians and I settled one of my last cities to the west of it in an attempt to make a 'Sumerian Lake' out of that inland sea. Lines in the north-west indicate my plotting versus Cyrus of the Greeks. A nice limited war to take those three cities and allow me to finish him off later on. Victoria of the Indians in purple to the east will most likely be pushed off the coast and made my vassal as she has distant colony trash I am not interested in making a fleet for.

^ The overall situation. Christianity reigns supreme followed by Hinduism. Power is in constant flux but Mao seems to have carefully risen to the top while hyper aggressive Genghis threw away his power lead by pissing everyone off. Ragnar too, while Alexander of the Arabs and founder of Judaism completes the aggro-evil leaders who annoy everyone and was also killed off by a vast coalition. All of my neighbours in the East bar the (red) Russians are not very strong while in the West the assortment of green (Genghis, Mao) and brown/pink/yellow (Lincoln of the Zulus) powers hold sway.

^ My stack that attacked Cyrus. I have three Great Spies all game and I used the one sitting in Thebes there to give me thousands of espionage points versus him and allowed me to rapidly take those three border towns with minimal losses simply by executing one turn city revolts. Haven't done of those in ages but they're so powerful. Thebes-Sparta-Argos and then a peace treaty that netted me some gold. Cyrus has a few scattered cities across the map so I may need to just wipe him out here and double my empire and turn his last few possessions into my vassals, we'll see. Elizabeth became the vassal of Willem or vice versa so I am expecting a veritable host of these kinds of arrangements now that we enter the medieval age.

^ Afterward. I had a pile of cash so when I got Longbows via Feudalism I promoted about 10-15 border Archers to Longbows and walled my frontiers. The stack remained in these three cities for a few more turns until this was ready then swung toward Victoria. I nabbed Delhi and am now pressing toward the remaining handful of cities on the mainland then I hope to make her my offshore vassal. Several wars in the Far West mean it's still uncertain who will emerge but at the moment Mao is looking very strong while Genghis is rapidly losing influence; someone captured Gaziantep off him indicating weakness for the beleaguered Temujin. Like Alexander he will probably be ganged up on and destroyed while Mao quietly builds the whole time.

^ The Workers were moving strangely so I took a snap, though this is from earlier in the game.

Episode 2 soon? Very soon given I will be playing this again later tonight. I will definitely take the screenshots but not sure about the actual blog post but I'm not the worst at getting them posted.