RBCiv Epic 14: Alexander the Great

Some pregame notes are in order.  Epic 14 was my second ever game of Monarch, the first having been finished the night before I started this.  I've never played the Greeks at all before, having been mostly an Egypt and Iroquois player previously.  I also suck a lot at ancient warfare,  and I'm absolutely convinced that the RNG hates me with a passion.  The prediction is that I'll be suffering my first humiliating loss in quite a while.  But we'll see.

It should be noted that this is more or less stream of consciousness writing while playing the game, with a little bit of cleanup.  Oh, and I got maybe a little too excited about the screenshots.  And now, onward to the game...

It's a Small World After All...

<"Give Peace a Chance" echoes through the world>

The next order of business... Who are these Greeks, and where are we, anyway? Scientific, Commercial, so cheap buildings, free tech, lots of money, and less corruption. Unfortunately no Industrious worker crutches like I'm used to. But we get those cheap, free pikemen. Right. Now. And best of all, our civ color isn't pink.

First order of business, upon looking around the world, is to determine if we can irrigate those bovines cruising around the plains. If not, life is going to be horrid. If so, we'll live. Upon worker movement, it sort of doesn't look like it. Maybe we're on a really large lake. In any case, the initial settlement spot doesn't look bad. Athens is founded.

The scientists want to know what to do now... This raises questions. Like what sort of path do I want to take? Great Library seems important, because I'm certainly not going to be trading for tech much. Then again, that puts one way behind on the tech race anyway. Well, let's try it anyway. Greek scientists begin working on some sort of workable writing system.

Very shortly, Athens produces a warrior, following my standard practice of warrior/warrior/settlers, with no capital defenses and having the warriors explore.

And they immediately find wines. Well, at least Greece will have some luxuries, although sending our glorious hoplites off to war drunk out of their minds is something of a bothersome idea...

3500 BC comes, and... The Americans? are right next door! ACK! This could be...bad. Maybe. Athens can crank troops like nobody's business, so let's do that... warriors suck, but they're better than nothing.

By 3100 BC, 4 warriors are ready in front of what presumably is Washington. When, all of a sudden, here comes... England? Erk. Fortunately the hoplite will be ready next turn. Dial up Beth, and she's got all of... Pottery up on us. Oh, miserableness. What's worse, she doesn't want our money. Well, we'll show her... WAR!

3050 BC - Bad to worse. An American warrior is spotted. Abe is contacted, and hey, he's got Pottery AND Masonry! And I've got Alphabet! Alphabet and 29 gold will get us both his techs. Unfortunately for Abe, he's a foreign scum barbarian and must be eradicated. And we have our ferocious warriors armed with stone axes to go beat him up with! Charge!

2950 BC - Abe, Abe, Abe. What's this business of pulling out a spear right before I attack you? <sigh> Fortunately, I DO have all those warriors, which is incidentally pulling my income down massively (as massively is counted in 2950BC, anyway). This ancient warfare thing is...different.

And of course over the turn, Abe pulls out a bunch of troops and beats my guys twice with no losses. Barely a scratch, even. Bah. And the spear is invincible. Ok, the warrior gambit very much did NOT work. So, Brave Sir Robin bravely got the hell out of Dodge. On the plus side, however, science can be started up again.

While bravely running like mad through the hill country, Brave Sir Robin finally takes down an American warrior but almost dies. Uh-huh. And that English guy is so brave he's just sitting there on a hill. Not going for my worker, nothing. That's new and different, certainly. Elizabeth's probably laughing it up, getting free goody hut tech like mad. But we're the Greeks! We're the only enlightened people in the world! We'll show her!

Oh, that's why he was waiting... 2 more warriors. Got it. In 2510 BC the vultures begin flocking...