Epic 3 - Rise of the Incans

To begin with, we see this. As you can tell, our warrior is anxious to get going. He wants to see what's on top of the plains hill.

Our settler band is headed by a raging drunk. As soon as he saw the grapes growing on the nearby hill, he knew he had to settle near them. (Okay, not true. I did some quick calculations and decided that with a sparse, no barb, large map that the key would be early expansion. A plains hill is the perfect site since it can drop your first settler research time from 38 turns to 30 turns. But first, we need to make sure there aren't nice fishies in the ocean, since wheat and cows would make a great food-rich site.) The drunk stumbles to the east on his way to the mountain up north

Nope. No fish. North we go, hugging the coast in case we change our minds about the hill.

Next turn. (Note that our Autosave interval is 1!) The warrior goes to investigate the grapes. (Actually, I just love scouting from hilltops.)

Nothing spectacular revealed. Except that our "blue circles" have moved and no longer favor the plains hill. Well, our drunken settler still does!

Cuzco is founded with a poof of dark dust. We've lost 2 turns getting here, but we know more about our situation, are in reach of the cows, have fresh water, and will be able to pump our first settler out in 30 turns, instead of being 2 turns into a 38-turn build.

Could you tell from the subtitle of this report? We're going for a cultural victory baby! From atop the mountain, we shall sit under the Bodhi tree and seek enlightenment! Meanwhile, our uncultured warriors continue to reveal new sights. I hate uncovering few tiles, so we'll head northwest again.

A hut across the bay! I'd much rather head back near where we started, but you can't pass up a hut, so off go the warriors.

Here's another reason to head north. Our warriors have such keen instincts that sometimes they can see riverbanks in unrevealed regions of the world. This reveals to us that we are probably on the southeast part of our continent

A quarter of the way to a religion and we await the hut pop...

A scout! Oh most precious Buddha-to-be-discovered-in-11-turns, we thank you for your mercy! This will let us pop those huts all the more quickly. (Do huts ever pop founding religions? I doubt it.)

There's a bit of riverbed to the north...

And a lot more off to the west. So, we'll let our warrior hug the coast around our island while the scout checks to the west for possible neighbors.

Note that we have started marking the locations of huts with Alt-S signs. This will help us decide where to concentrate our scouting later.

A cultural expansion of Cuzco's borders brings our drunken settler a whipping. We could have had this hut by now if we'd settled in place. Of course, it might not have provided a scout...Okay the whip will have the spikes removed.

Hey hey! Our scout's already paying off by finding a hut. (It yielded 52 gold)

I've decided to mark not just the hut location, but also the prize. From here, it looks like there's only one way around that ends on a hill after two moves

3610BC looks to be a profitable year! The scout has a hut to pop...

...and so does our quechua band

On the downside, both of those huts only yielded maps. So much for a profitable year. At least the scout's backfills some info where we didn't explore. (The quechua map looked out over the ocean...yawn.

Nothing much exciting until...BAM! Who says enlightenment is subtle! Our researchers got nailed by lightning on top of the mountain here. And suddenly after that, everyone in Cuzco knew how to meditate. Praise Buddha! Not being content, of course, those fine spiritual seekers set off to prove the existence of more than one god by researching polytheism.

Meanwhile up north, the coastline has turned out to be longer than expected, and that means another hut!

...worth exactly 42 gold, as it turns out

And our scout continues to meet with good hut-finding luck. He ends his turn by popping...

A quechua! Sweet Buddha--another set of legs to examine our fine island! From what we can see so far, we're probably alone. We've seen the northeast and the northwest with no sign of other civs. Plus, the abundance of huts means no one's been through here popping them yet. Nice!

...Or not. Crap. Not only are we not alone, but we're on this godforsaken jungle rock with one of the big extortionists in history. Well-dressed, you think you are? Maybe for your funeral!

More crap! We can't even slay these heathen know-not-the-Buddha bastard scouts because they're roaming through the jungle!

What?! Is that the edge of a cultural border I see? It's taken Louis' scouts some 600 years to come south about 5 tiles? What have you been doing getting in those "nice clothes", Louis?

We checked the trade screen with Louis, and he has no other colony. So, that must be Paris, and we can deduce its location from the outline. He must have land up north that he scouted first. Still, I wonder if I can keep him trapped on this peninsula! We're gonna lock you in your clothes-closet Louis! (You heathen bastard.) (Also, note that I'm marking where I see his troops so I can estimate when he'll get to other potential huts down south.

The true value of that scout pop becomes apparent now. We would be *seriously* behind in the hut race if it were our warrior versus Louis' scout. I'll be quite curious to see how this plays out in other parallel universes. For us, it's a race. And here's another hut to pop!

Ho Ho! Here comes the French army! I think we'll plan a massacre on the cow plains. Mwahahaha. But first a little more scouting of Louis' domain

You can dance west for a moment Louis, but you gotta cross the cows to go south, and I'm gonna be able to jump you there!

Meanwhile, our scout pops the hut and reveals...The Wheel! Oh, something to grind you under Louis! (or more precisely, pretty soon we'll figure out how to use pot. Err...make pottery, yeah that's it.)

Oh the decision seemed so easy...the trap so perfectly set. And then you had to present me the most sumptuous bait with those innocent bare-chested youths building their nice little road....

Oh keep that nose down fancy-boy. Let's find out what the odds are for quechuas versus archers with no defensive cover.

...86.5%. Those are pretty good odds. Basically 6 out of 7. I don't know if v1.61 takes first strike properly into account or not, but still, we gotta be happy.

The Battle of the Cows commences. Quite possibly, the fate of the epic lies in the balance...

My quechua warriors drink French archer blood with their meal of beef. Oh wait, we don't know how to work cows or their udders yet. Okay. We'll roast the archer corpses over flames fueled by cow patties. Or maybe we'll just retreat to the jungle, lie in wait, and heal our little cover-promoted selves.

We make a quick calculation of how far Louis' scout could have made it based on where we last saw him. We should have time to get to the river hut before he does. Thank Buddha for that scout!

Promoted, healed and now with a taste for French archer blood, our quechua will ambush again upon these cow grasslands.

Has it only been 30 turns? Seems like half a game. Regardless, our first build--a settler--is ready. And just in time, our scout is ready to pop a hut and reveal to us a good spot along the river.

The hut yields Hunting. I guess that'll be good for making Animal Husbandry cheaper, but we don't plan to build any archers in this game.

Thanks to some quick scouting, we have decided on a site for Tiwanaku. Since this will likely be one of our Big 3 cultural cities, we want it to be able to support as many cottages as possible. I think this site has food and sites for 16 cottages!

Our scouting quechua sees a hut that Louis will not be able to get to in time.

...and it gives our quechua experience! That's probably going to become City Raider when we descend upon Paris! Oh Louis, you have no idea what's coming, do you?

BAM! Knowledge of the many gods descends upon the newly settled denizens of Tiwanaku just as strongly as it did upon Cuzco Mountain. Our first cultural city is already spewing forth culture like a... like a... oh crap, I can't think of a good way to end that simile.

We need to learn how to milk those cows. They are sacred to our Hindu brethren, after all. Meanwhile, Louis decides he wants to found Orleans down our way. Ummm. No. We're even better prepared this time than last time!

The Second Battle of Dead Archer Cow Plains...

Hmm. The archers are coming quickly now. We could use some reinforcements.

Looks like help is coming in about 12 turns

But before that, we gotta fight while wounded. Our worst odds yet....

The timing is good here: our worker comes online with two turns to go till we figure out how to work the cows. I think it's time to build up a Parisian invasion force how, though. Too bad we can't capitalize on our plains hill location a bit more.

Did I mention that Tiwanaku was already making boots to put on the ground? I should have.

That's just a cute picture of a cow.

Ladies and Gentlemen, our religious fervor is boundless. We shall seek to prove that the Buddha and the many polytheistic deities are in fact just facets of the one, true Monotheistic god. Plus, we'll be able to build the Pyramids. (I guess I could have let Louis build it for me, but something tells me we've committed to a different path here.)

As all this archer-killing and cow-discovering has been going on, our scout has been plodding along looking for huts. Finally found another one. Unfortunately, it's just another map.

We don't know how to build cottages yet, but we can farm the floodplains for fast growth. Note that Cuzco's citizens are already eating beef, even if it's a little slow to get to market as of yet. Good beef makes good quechuas (and quickly)!

My Buddha (and our many other gods), it's going to take forever to get this invasion force up to Paris!

Now that we have beef in the capital, it's time to grind some wheat.

With both of our cities pumping out troops, we should be able to take Paris with little ado

I'm not exactly clear about the mechanism, but it appears our cities can now discuss their theological differences with each other. We don't even know how to fish, but it seems like a coastal-to-river connection is enough?

Your peninsula up there must really suck, Louis. You keep walking into the same trap!

Cow battle 4!

With three quechuas protecting our worker (Louis' former settler), his archer dances inside the French borders. Probably changing outfits.

In 1630, somebody somewhere built Stonehenge. We must be dealing with Roosevelt across the ocean somewhere because that seems awfully early. Soon after that, some of our polytheistic scholars decide that the pantheon can be reduced to a single deity. And that deity once again lights up the skies over Tiwanaku. Damn, we Inca are a holy people! Despite this, we're still not a happy people: red face at size 4? You people need a temple. But first, more troops for the invasion of Paris. Now, we need to learn how to make fine earthen jugs on which to draw images of our various gods.

The year 1540BC brings yet another settler band to our fine civilization. Since we're in a war, we're looking for a production site. This will also (I hope) serve as a wonder-factory. With only two other civs, we won't have too much competition. Or that's the plan.

Our Paris strike force is assembled. Time to move on the City of Lights. An error means we have one quechua out in front of the others. We find Paris very lightly defended: only two archers! One has City Garrison, though. Louis must have built himself a barracks.

What a difference a turn makes! Now, there are 3 archers, two of whom are promoted!

Surprise attack! Our lead quechua takes a hit from Paris!

A Settler in Paris now? Louis, you had high hopes for that archer, didn't you? Well, we'll be sure to put them to work in the great Incan Empire for ya.

The battle for Paris is ss 306-397, including a quick check of Louis' reaction to our onslaught (and to verify that he has not founded Orleans) and a scouting trip by one of our quechua's to see what kind of resources Paris has.

Paris provides us with a worker, but no new resources that we can see! Plus, it's wayyy far away from Cuzco. We decide to burn the City of Lights.

We're using that Parisian settler/worker to work as a scout of the French peninsula.

I guess these guys can stop building their road up north. So much for your French vacation, guys. Back to work in the Incan grasslands. In 5 turns, you'll be making cottages out of pottery.

Hey...what's this! Louis had Stone! You formerly well dressed bastard; you were holding out on us. This changes everything. We need a Settler up here pronto. But man what crappy terrain Louis had!

Another Settler comes online right before Pottery. Geez, 11 turns to get that group up here. Okay workers, back to work on the Northern Road!

And here, you see why we're interested in Stone. We've decided to implement godotnut's Cultural strategy. He does it at Deity and has religions spread to him. We're at Monarch and founding our own religions. The basic point is to build the Pyramids so that once you research Liberalism, you go all out for cash and cash-rush all the religious buildings you need, then switch to all-culture. We'll see. I've never tried this strategy before.

In 1000BC, everybody else in the world (okay, just two other civs) has more than 57 gold in the bank

Our settler is in position, our road is (mostly) constructed, so let's found right on the Stone to bring it to our Pyramids all the more quickly

Meanwhile, our scout has identified a good site for a Great Artist farm!

I guess that hut-pop of the Hunting technology is useful after all: one more happy face in all our cities. I don't think we'll get far enough along on the research to obsolete those nice fur jackets, either

Ahh. Our latest Settler has arrived at the location of another great Cultural City site. This one has great promise: next to fresh water, and enough food for every tile except the mountain to become a town. We should name this city Suburbopolis

Machu Picchu is starting to earn its keep as a great production center even though we don't plan to fight another war for the rest of the game. The Pyramids will probably spawn a Great Engineer before we get our Great Artist farms up and running. More importantly, we will be able to implement godotnut's strategy of switching to Universal Suffrage after we tech to Liberalism. Then, in a massive spending spree, we'll simply buy all the religious buildings we need, including mucho Cathedrals in our three Legendary Cities!

For now, though, we'll content ourselves to not have to research to Monarchy before implementing Hereditary Rule. Not that the Great Ruler has any intent of living for less than 6000 years! [Later note: I'm not sure why I didn't switch to Organized Religion. Definitely an oversight, perhaps a mistake? Opinions?)

We built a Jewish Monastery in the founding city of Tiwanaku and built a Missionary there. We've sent it to our production city so that when the time comes to spread our religions far and wide, we'll be able to produce Missionaries at a fast clip

While our workers strive to make Ollantaytambo more productive than just a Stone source (good thing there's no penalty for the distance our hard-working masons have to haul that stone to build things like the Pyramids!), somebody somewhere (and they don't speak French hahaha) builds the Great Lighthouse. Fairly useless on this map compared to Epic 2.

This was something of an oversight. I'd expected my great, new cultural city to host the founding of Christianity, but Hinduism spread there on its own. That meant the Stone quarriers up in the distant north received the Christian Lightning Bolt. I should have sent the Jewish missionary here instead of Machu Picchu so that there'd at least be a chance for Corihuayrachina.

It takes us until 130BC, but we finally learn how to work Iron. Now, we can start clearing the pesky jungle and start converting the underlying grasslands to coin and Great Artists. From here, we'll research Monarchy on our way to another religion: Islam! Also note that we've decided to use Machu Picchu as a wonder site this game. The Parthenon should help our Great Artist production rate a little.

[Later note: I never did follow up on this little bit of discovery: an island off to the east that our cultural borders enable us to reach. We have plenty of land on our massive supercontinent for our cultural purposes, so the only thing this could represent would be an annoying land bridge from an as-of-yet unknown civ.]

We found our third cultural city just as we're due to check our population for scoring purposes. Although there's a lot of jungle here, this one will eventually be able to support 18 cottages and 2 self-supporting lakes

The status of our Empire compared to the other two civs on the planet. Our population is enhanced a little because Hereditary Rule has let us use troops to bolster our happiness. We've also intentionally not hooked up any Copper or Iron so that our military troops are still quechuas--the cheapest troop possible.

Ouch: 43 turns to Islam is a long time to wait, but we probably don't need anything else to prepare our empire. We can build cottages and clear jungles. And we've got our three cultural city sites. Just need to set up a few Great Artist farms and get ready to spread many religions everywhere. [Later note: I'll be interested to compare my tech approach to anyone else who went for an early cultural victory. I kept wondering if I should have researched Civil Service for Bureacracy instead of trying to get all these religions. The comparison will be good. Unless everyone else went for the doubtlessly higher scoring approach to this epic.

We found Vilcas here because it will be able to work some cottages for two of our cultural cities. That way, they can become towns more quickly. Also, there's enough grassland around this site that Vilcas should be able to continue to pay for its existence even after its town-farming role is complete

Another wonder, and this one will give us a chance at generating Great Artists in our wonder center. And more quickly too!

But, as expected, our first great person is Imhotep the Engineer. We'll save him for a wonder later.

Thucydides does not give us much credit for our focus on founding religions instead of the more traditional tech paths. [Later note: and that unimproved tile being worked by Cuzco is a blight upon our empire. I'm embarrassed to show this screenshot! I did start to run on autopilot in the Common Era for this game]

We were too slow to capture the lightning bolt here, but I'm glad Islam is founded in one of our cultural cities. I'm surprised it didn't found in Huamanga, our newest city.

Uh oh. Homer is biafal. During his birth, his mother is almost always listening to the first tunes heard by mankind. This will delay our cultural win by 6000 culture points. I hope the excursion to Divine Right was worth it.

I decided that we needed another production center, and Vilcabamba is it. This will help us pump out happymaker quechuas in the near term and temple-teaching Missionaries during the coming Age of Religious Spread. Here, a Hindu missionary teaches the citizens how to do yoga's Sun Salutation. Note too that somebody somewhere has figured out how to do Qigong. The disturbing thing about that pronouncement is that we need Philosophy on our route to Liberalism. Hope Divine Right doesn't cost us that free tech!

I guess 935AD is pretty darn late to discover Music. No, we didn't get a free artist, so Homer has been listening to the first lullabies on some other continent inhabited by infidels.

I thought this was a bit of a longshot, but here we are with the Hanging Gardens. The extra happy face in every city is nice, but what's really nice for this game will be the extra point of health.

Hey hey! This defied the odds. With the Pyramids and the Hanging Gardens pulling for another Great Engineer, Thepsis pulls through by virtue of the Partenon in our wonder center. We're quite away off from our cultural victory, so I think we'll settle him in Tiwanaku which will eventually have the fewest culture-producing towns.

The preceding screenshot also revealed to me that I was being remiss by leaving Imhotep around to rot. I quickly interrupt progress on the Spiral Minaret to have him build Notre Dame for us. Happiness helps, as do even more Great Artist points.

We burn the jungle at this site to found the Great Artist farm of Vitcos. May it bring us the cultural victory we seek that much faster

The Great Prophet points will be annoying, but the having the gold from all the religious buildings we plan to produce (9 temples and 3 cathedrals for each of 5 religions!) should help us run the culture slider a little higher. For a city whose initial goal was to pump out troops for the invasion of Paris, Machu Picchu has certainly reinvented itself as a great wonder city.

I'll never know if this was due to building Notre Dame or not, but we luck out again and produce another Great Artist in Machu Picchu. I think this guy sits around until the time of the culture bombs, though. [Later note: I should have settled him. It took a lot longer than I expected to earn the cash and buy all those religious buildings.]

I was beginning to wonder if the competition had wiped itself out. We finally meet the leader of half the uknown world's population. He's doing quite well in the tech race, but I can use Divine Right to get some of the useful techs I skipped along the way. This deal give me a +4 for trading relations. For a few turns, anyway. I hope we can get our cultural victory before he realizes how pathetic our military is.

This shot of the demographics is taken in 1376AD, the year we discover Education. I assume since Roosevelt doesn't have it and since we're (albeit barely) first in GNP, we should be clear for a first run to Liberalism.

Roosevelt doesn't waste too much time demanding things from us. I think he wanted our world map. A cheap price to pay for him being pleased at our paying him tribute.

Before we researched Education, we capitalized on the MetalCasting we learned from Roosevelt to research Machinery. This gives us the option of choosing Printing Press as our free tech from being the first to discover Liberalism. Extra coin is always good. Maybe it'll shave a few turns off our victory. [Laternote: was this a mistake? I don't remember how many turns I spent researching Machinery, but does 1GPT for each Village/Town really justify the delay in throwing the culture slider? I don't know.)

Here are a couple workers busting their butts in the hot tropical sun in 1502AD. Note that we're building up cash for the Great Religious Spending Spree. This is another scoring moment, so our Demographics screen follows.

The relative state of our empire in 1502AD. Probably not going to win any population awards since we're trying to be minimalist in number of cities. Hereditary Rule continues to cause our Quechuas to make people happy.

Our Great Artist luck streak continues! I simply would not have guessed that this wonder center would produce 3 Great Artists in our first four Great People. Nice.

In 1604AD, our Great Artist farm finally produces (a (heehee)) fruit.

Always good to have potential enemies happy with you, especially when they have a health resource they're willing to trade to you. You have no bananas you say? We'll be happy to supply you with as many bananas as you want! [Later note: I realized that I kept delaying the switch to Pacifism because Roosevelt was Confucian. I should have traded or given him Liberalism so he'd adopt Free Religion and I could earn Great Artists faster. In the end, though, this probably only cost me about 3 turns.

It took me a while to find it, but I finally realized that my newfound copper was popped in, of all places, my Great Artist farm. I didn't bother pillaging my own mine because I figured I soon wouldn't need the happiness from cheap Quechuas anyway. Plus, that's kind of rude--taking away pretty copper from a city that's making thespians for you!

Finally, in 1661AD, we meet Hatshepsut. We tell her of the exploits of Imhotep as he built Notre Dame for us. She asks to see it. We say no.

Despite the fact that we really would like to spend the money on religous buildings, we decide that we can't let Hatshepsut be unhappy with us. The last thing our Quechuas need to see are Egyptian Riflemen! 270 gold it is you sneering waif.

Virgil comes into the world. His favorite metal is Copper.

Now this I should have done much earlier. It cost me 1389 gold, but I finally remembered to build National Epic in my Great Artist farm. Idiot.

Nice phony smile you *****. Here, have Liberalism.

Our luck runs out on the wonder-generated Great Artists. Heron arrives in Machu Picchu and drives up the cost of future thespians.

We salvage the Great Engineer debacle by building a culture-generating and money-saving wonder in our farthest cultural city.

Now powered by the National Epic, Vitcos pumps out Artists at a goodly clip

Hey look at that! Our secondary Great Artist farm over near the pigs north of Huamanga finally produces a fruit.

We're birthing Great Artists faster than we can build buildings with the N'Epic. Calculations show that this is the last Great Person we're going to generate, though. So, we'll switch everybody over to Merchant specialists to maximize the gold flow so the culture slider can stay at maximum.

I forget what he wanted. Some resource, I think. Glad to see he's Friendly to us when all our cities are guarded by quechuas and a couple spearmen. (But they're cultured spearmen, and that makes all the difference, right?)

We roast a couple Great Artists in Corihuayrachina because I made a mistake and thought I had enough to put us over the top in 1840AD.

The Artist Stake burns even hotter over in Huamanga with 4 Great Artists sacrificed in one truly Great Work.

Even Tiwanaku gets to smell a little Artist smoke. (I thought there were two here, forgetting that I'd sent one to Huamanga for their roast a few decades ago.

Nice timing, Gibbon. And yer darn right we're number one in culture!

The obligatory victory splash screen

Despite our concentration building only a few cities, we had decent stats at the end

I...didn't think this was possible. An Augustus Caesar ranking for a Cultural Victory? Was this changed in patch v1.61? Still, I guess that means it's likely to be an acceptable entry for a Realms Beyond Epic.

Scoring Summary

I was totally focused on cultural victory (and short real life playtime!), so I doubt I'll be competitive in many categories. I do hope to win the fastest cultural victory, though.

Victory condition and time: Cultural in 1842AD

Population in 5AD: 798,000

Population in 1502AD: 15,380,000

Largest City at end of game: Don't remember. 21 or 22, I think. Didn't focus on this at all. If fewer than 5 people post reports, I'll go back and find it.

Time of Modern Age: Never made it.

Lessons Learned

I again started to get inefficient in the endgame. I automated some workrs and they converted a few of my towns to farms/plantations (Grr! Why didn't I have that don't-be-idiots box checked?!) Also, in retrospect, I think going for Islam was a mistake. It took me about 50 turns to tech there and only earned me about 100 culture per turn from each of the three cities. Not worth it.

My suspicion is that I could have saved about 5 turns by optimal play using the exact tech path and city siting I chose. I could have saved another 15 turns or so by not going for Islam. And maybe 20 turns by founding more cities and being faster in tech and cash influx. I bet using this general strategy, 1800 would have been an achievable cultural date. I'm very curious to see if anyone beats that date!

Another fun Epic, even though I won't be competitive in scoring. Still, I do hope to play the role of spoiler towards those who opt for a cultural victory!