Game settings

Difficulty: Noble
Civilization: Persia
Leader: Cyrus
World Size: Small
Opponents: 4
Map Script: Shuffle
Landmass Type: -
Climate: Cold
Speed: Normal
Rules: Standard
Victory: All enabled

Well, after my stunning defeat in my first Epic it was time to try out one of the adventures. This one was set on Noble, a level I've played many times and also abandoned in exchange for Prince. Thus, this should be a walk in the park, right?

The setup for this adventure can be found here.

The leader was Cyrus who is Expansionist and Creative. This would mean free expansions and some cheap culture as well as free health and bonuses for some health buildings. Also their UU is pretty decent and I looked forward to trying it out. Considering the traits and the UU I decided to try and go for a military victory using my Immortals and capitalizing on my Creative trait to quickly gain border expansions. It should also allow me to seal off land from my enemies.

This was the starting position. We have a nice river, hills and some flood plains. Not too bad. The plains hill looked interesting. It would still be on the river, it wouldn't waste a forest and it would seal off nicely with what looks like coast to the south. I decided to move the scout there to investigate the surroundings. Since it looked pretty decent and would give me be both cattle and ivory I decided to move there for my first city. Persepolis was then founded.

The hut popped a free scout for me giving me a great early boost for exploration. I needed a good look around to find the horses needed for my Immortals. Of course, this necessitated getting hold of animal husbandry first in order to spot them. As it was also necessary for me to use the cattle it seemed a good idea to get hold of it as soon as possible. I started out researching the wheel, then pottery and then animal husbandry.

My capital started on a warrior for early defence and then a worker to start improving the squares. I followed up from that with a granary for growth and then a barracks to get better military units. I felt I was on to a good start here.

Another village to the southwest of Persepolis popped gold and then, a few turns later I ran into a neighbour.

Ah, Montezuma. Seems a good thing that I had decided on a military win, because with him as neighbour war was bound to come, sooner rather than later. I've had him on +12 before in relations only for him to still declare war on me. I like the fact that the AI will declare if they sense a weakness, but this guy is such a loon that I think it almost impossible to coexist with him. Only one thing worried me. There was jungle between our two nations and as I recalled his jaguars have bonusses there. Not what you want to see in the early game. Ah well, adapt or die as they say. I fully intended to make him the dead one. On the bright side my scouts soon found Tenochtitlan. Knowing the location of th enemy capital is something I've found to be highly useful as it is not only, usually, the center of their strenght, but it also gives you a good idea of which direction an attack might come from.

Barely seconds later I run into my second neighbour. Yet again a nutcase. I can't help but wonder if Sirian put those two there in order to spice things up or if it was just a coincidence. All we need know for the holy triumvirate of nutcases is Isabella.

Well, if nothing else it just reinforces my belief and desire that war is coming. Having to choose who to attack first was also a relatively simple task now. With Monte having his jags, it would seem like the best plan would be to go after Tokugawa first before he would start running around with Samurai. All this assuming of course that neither of them would declare upon me before I was prepared for them.

My scouts faithfully continued exploring, but I never got anything else out of the huts other than gold. While useful I'd much rather have had some kind of technology or even maps. What they did find though was lots more jungle. Buddism got founded relatively early. I was yet to finish my research into pottery. This would indicate a spiritual nation out there in the dark. Having already met two lunatics I expected it to be Isabella, but I would later get pleasently surprised.

Well, that would be for later. For now I was still busy scouting out the surroundings and managed to find myself a little village that hadn't been explored by my neighbours yet. One slight problem appeared though... Bears! What happened next is best described as "ROOOAR! Crunch, crunch. Buuuuuurp." Right, chalk off one scout. Well, at least they served me well. I decided to send my second scout pair in the same direction. With the bears now wounded and, hopefully, wandering off somewhere else I wanted to get that village before Tokugawa.

Well, two gold pieces to those who can predict what happened next. Approaching the hut from another direction I popped it and got myself a new scout. Not the best. Most of the land had already been scouted so I didn't really need it. Better than maps of course, but I would have preferred some technology or even gold. To top it off the bears were still around and summarily ate yet another of my scouts. Say what you will for scouts, but their life expectancy is rather short. Particularly with hungry bears around. Where is the park ranger you need to stop old Yogi?

I still had only the one city as you can see from the mini map, but I was finally about ready to go out for the next one. Just for comparison I figured it might be nice to have a look at my capital, the lands around and the garrison as I prepared to go out and form my second city.

Almost down to 2000BC at this point, but the delay in building the first settler did have several benefits. Not only would I be able to send out two defenders with the settler as protection against barbarians, but the city had also reached a size that meant the settler would be built faster. While my second city would be delayed, my capital was advanced enough to more than compensate for this. In fact, I need even more tiles improved. Once I start working on unimproved tiles, it is a good idea to slow growth a bit by building a worker or a settler. At least, I think so. Two cottages have gone up on the flood plains, the elephants are hooked up and so are the cattle. This all combines nicely. My workers are building another cottage here and soon it would be time for some mining. Note that I don't usually chop settlers. I find it more worthwhile to grow the city and save the forests for either wonderchopping or lumbermills later on.

I had to decide where to send him as well. I wanted some horses, but the nearest available ones were far away and would get my city squeezed between Monte and Toku. A nice place, to be sure, but it would be more than difficult to protect. With this in mind I resigned myself to go without horses for now. One interesting had happened around this time. Still no hinduism. Pretty unusual considering the late date. I decided to pursue it myself, but two turns before I managed to get it, it was FIDAL. I went on to get Judaism instead though. My first religion of this game and the first on my continent.