It sure does sound strange to me saying Epic ONE, when I'm still used to it being Epic FIFTY. Then again, wasn't it just Epic Fourteen not too long ago? Wasn't I just lurking like, Epic Ten? The original Epic One was...almost 3.5 years ago? What was old is new again, indeed.

Anyway. France. Man, I dunno. As long as we're not Nappy, I guess. Certain people would never let THAT alone.

The settings, big surprise, are all new to me, including Prince. I'm the Scourge of Noble at this point, but haven't played more than a tiny bit of Prince. So we'll see how that works out.

So, here we are, and we've got these nice hills, and this nice grasslands, and plains with cows grazing, and a lake, and a big pile of stone...waitaminute. I know where that's going. Or at least I know where that's going in a while. Agriculture and the Wheel are great techs, but not the techs I want at the moment. Animal Husbandry, ho! Paris starts the obligatory warrior.

An uncomfortably short time later, we run into Genghis Khan. Choosing wisely, so to speak, we pick peace in our time. We are not the warlike French.

Paris finishes a warrior, and starts another. When this gets done we'll probably go for a worker.

Lots of things happen in 3480 BC. Somebody founds Buddhism, I discover that Khan is RIGHT NEXT DOOR, and my second warriors trip a hut for some XP. Considering all this jungle, that goes straight into Woodsman I and II promotions. These become immediately useful when it becomes apparent that in that epic struggle between said warriors and a wolf in a forest on a hill, the warriors can win with no damage.

The thing I love about Woodsman II units is they can use that second move to go through hills with woods or jungle just like the hill part wasn't even there, plus get the LOS bonus from it.

In 3200 BC, we pull in Animal Husbandry, and start on Mining. We'll start Masonry when that gets done.

While waiting for something besides exploration to happen, I run into George Washington as his scout comes up next to Paris. Shortly thereafter, up north of Khan, I run into Alex.

In 2440, our worker (finally) completes, and we start on a warrior, because I want to hit size 3 before I start on settlers. I find myself cranking a lot more warriors and suchlike in Civ 4, because barbarians are significantly more annoying than in Civ 3. More interesting, too. I'm not sure how this equates to "good" exactly, because barbarians in Civ 3 annoyed me without being fun.

Boy is this continent crowded. Montezuma's city is up to the northeast, and I stumble into it with my exploratory Woodsman warriors. Hrm. I've heard his music before somewhere, too. Civ 2, maybe? Who knows.

Warrior comes in, and we start on one last warrior. It will complete in 5, the same turn Paris grows. A turn later, Masonry comes in, and it's on to Mysticism.

In 2000 BC, we are in a position to start on our first settler, meaning that it would be appropriate to talk about where we want to send him once we get him.

We're blue, Khan's the brown to the east, and Monty is off-screen to the NE. I envision Lavender Dot and Light Blue Dot as being our front lines. LB Dot is highest priority, because I want those resources, and I want them now rather than later. We will immediately follow up with Lavender Dot, which will close our borders with that first border expansion, and give us the rest of the cities. Failing that, the fallback point is Yellow Dot. I doubt we'll get anything beyond these cities, but that should be enough to carve out a winning position with. At least it was on Noble. We'll see how that works out.

On a side note, doing dotmaps in Paintshop Pro sure has gotten to be really old. I really wish somebody would come up with a dotmap utility of some sort. I'm half surprised there isn't a function on the globe screen to, say, throw down little plus signs of your culture color or something, much like you do signs. It sure would be super handy.

Anyway. First we need to get there. Next turn, 1975 BC, Herodotus tells me that I'm the second most cultured civ in the world, presumably behind whoever founded Buddhism. Speaking of religion, a few turns later, in 1900 BC, somebody nets Hinduism.

In 1825 BC, we run into Gandhi, who's the guy with Buddhism, rather unsurprisingly.

We found Orleans on LB Dot in 1575 BC. Khan has had a settler out somewhere for about 4 turns now, and I've got a warrior trying to figure out where. He's got some good choices, including right where I set down, Lavender Dot, and the very nice river between him and Monty. Meanwhile, we're halfway through Polytheism, and Paris has Stonehenge due in 10.

He went north, as it happens, which is more or less fine:

I can deal with an eventual one tile overlap that I WILL win.

Right on time, I snag Stonehenge in 1375 BC.

I love Stonehenge, because I love culture, and I love knowing the world size. It's also on the way to religions, which I also love. I only wish I loved the wonder movies more, and could stop comparing them to the perfection that were Civ 2's wonder movies. Whatever.

Music, at least custom music, gets louder or softer, the closer you zoom in. Trippy.

Polytheism comes in, and I head straight for Monotheism. I don't think I have a chance, but the Judaism gambit seems to work for me a lot more than it should, so I keep trying it.

After Stonehenge, Paris built a warrior, then threw a turn into a rax to give it a turn to grow to size 4, then switched to our second settler. Orleans will do something similar, working on a rax until growth, then swapping to a worker. It's funny how I keep going with my warrior->worker and settler at size 3 builds from Civ 3, but they seem to work fairly well, so I keep doing them.

In 920 BC, true to form, Judaism is founded in Orleans as Monotheism comes in, and I switch to it straight away, then start on Fishing, then found Lyons on Lavender Dot. Paris, for what it's worth, didn't go settler to settler, but instead tossed a warrior into the mix, which I like to do because it provides a ready made dot holder and city guard for the new city, and lets me work my settler city up every few turns. In this case, it's a good thing I did so, because there's a barbarian city in my rear! (1 NE of pink dot). Our explorers are reporting back that this a pretty vicious game for barbarian cities - there's one south of India, and 1 SE of Khan. If they keep going in the no man's land down there, they'll wind up with a barbarian nation, which would be something I've never seen, but want to, especially if it keeps the AIs busy.

The Visigoth tribe has 3 archers, and is on a hill. That'll be a tough one to crack, especially if I don't wind up with copper.

In 780 BC, it turns out that I am the largest civilization in the world, with 3 cities and a settler on the way. Fishing comes in about then, and I start on Bronze Working. We'll want to take out Visigoth sooner rather than later, and we'll need copper to do it with.