Brett's Games

CIV IV
Beyond The Sword

Success Through Excess

Mission Statement
A chronological write up of my game plays, strategy notes, and other aspects of the game, including mods and so forth, which I hope to keep brief and on point, but I doubt that I actually will... keep things brief... because, like, I do tend to run on.

001 - Twin Cities
After playing (or at least starting) twenty odd games in my latest (this being my third or is it fourth) foray into the world of Civilization IV, I decided I would start writing things up, so as to get some kind of deliverable. And this is the result. A short write up for an unremarkable game whose only saving grace is an interesting (to me, at least) starting position.

Note
Games, strategy notes, and whatnot are intermixed, posted in the order of their creation with every post ending in a link to the next. So, feel free to pick and choose from the index... or start at the beginning and work your way to the end. Also, by way of reiteration, it is not my intent to post exhaustive play-by-plays (I shall leave that to others); but rather, to highlight items of strategic (and/or intellectual) interest.

002 - Random
A random map on monarch on the theory that if I can win there, I can win anywhere... sort of... maybe.

003 - Quad Gold
Four gold in the starting fat cross, what could go wrong?

004 - Monty's Revenge
A game in which I employ the whip to excess, the slaves revolt, and I receive a sound thrashing. Ouch!

005 - Log Files & Graphs
Pure research! A preliminary article about graphing in game commerce.

006 - Inland Team
A game highlighting Team Play on the Inland Sea Map. But for the most, I talk about Plot Culture.

007 - Snake River Map Creation
I made a Garden of Eden (Dream Start) map.

008 - Snake River
I play the above Snake River Custom Map and get an unbelievably high score. Yippie!

009 - Incan War God
A random map to test my gameplay... which is pretty darn awesome... some of the time.

010 - Stef'fan
On a petty human's hopes of becoming the basis for a Game Playing AI.

011 - Desert Sands
A resource poor map, which I played out as both Egypt and Arabia. Egypt did much better.

012 - Previous Games
An Abandoned CIV IV Game Retrospective: call it a bunch of games I abandoned prior to completion for a variety of reasons... but mostly, because I was loosing.

013 - Ice Islands
A replay (four of them, in fact) of the most interesting map that I came across during my Previous Games post. I trounced the AI on a higher level (Noble: originally, I played the map on Monarch). And learned a thing or two about galleys and corporations, in the process. {Er, um... Noble might not be a higher difficulty level than Monarch. Doesn't matter, I still trounced the AI... even if I had to set the difficulty level back to do it.}

014 - Watery Death
This is the last of the Old Abandoned Maps, which I wished to replay. Missiles were launched, lands were nuked, but after a few reloads, a decisive victory was eventually had.

015 - Holy Cow
Boy, but this Rainforest Map was hard for me to beat. There's sixty hours of game time in the final (successful attempt). But was it time well spent? Well, judging from a Total Population or around 1,200 and an Empire spanning 138 Cities, I'd say so.

016 - Cho-Ko-Nuts
A gloriously fun and decisive win, relying on China's Unique Unit... and custom map settings.

017 - Roman War Machine
A High Score Win achieved by fighting the good fight... and little else.

018 - Milk Run
The idea was solid. The implementation was not. In short, if one wishes to successfully Monger in War (i.e. be a War Mongerer), it helps to have someone to fight.

019 - Gods of Glory
Being a Game in which I am served over and over again. Still, I made a new sort of graph to compare multiple attempts on the same map. So, there's always that.

020 - Sea Bandits
I abandoned this game so quickly, it hardly deserves a write up.

021 - Sea of Sand
This map took me a long while to beat, loads of attempts over a six month period. But finally, Victory!

022 - Big Oranje
I gave myself many advantages by tweaking the XML. But I went overboard. If I am going to do such things in the future, I need to play on a harder level.

023 - The One True One
A Custom Game in which the Religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam get plenty of Free Priest Specialists in their Holy Buildings.

024 - Taku-Go-War
Tacky was the wrong leader for this Map. That, and I do not like the Better BAT AI Mod. I will not be using it again.

025 - Boar's Head
I did not win. But I had fun playing. So, does that make me a winner in your book? Because it doesn't in mine.

026 - Aztec Pride
I lost. But what a loss! In the end, I was out-tech'ed, pure and simple.

027 - Rome Four Way
Eight Civilizations sharing Four Continents, what could go wrong? Well, nothing if you keep on playing the same map long enough.

028 - Miscellany
Odds & Ends. A cleaning of my Clutter Drawer. Call it Miscellany.

029 - UNITY
When given such a start, it's hard to lose. Still, I managed to do so twice in my quest to Win a Deity Level One City Challenge.

030 - Random War
I played at a lower level (Noble). So, this one was One & Done!

031 - Diplo
Let us just say, the Victory Screen is less than stellar for a Religious Victory.

032 - Dune Wars Revival - Aborted
I did not get very far. I waived between posting just my notes or making a complete entry (or a semi-complete entry, considering I never played) and finally opted for the full entry... even though it's not very complete.

033 - K-MOD - Gandhi
The advantages over The BUG Mod are not clear to me.

034 - K-MOD - Four Way
Four Civilizations on Four Separate Continents. What could go wrong?

035 - K-MOD - Tacky
War! War! War!
Well, I had intended as such, but it was not to be. Instead, The Game was a Total Fail. I basically gave up.

036 - K-MOD - The Ram God
My final game with this Mod, playing as Egypt on a Cooked Map.

037 - End Of Notes - Text File
If I play another game and if I post it, I expect it will be a bare-bones affair.

038 - Legends of Revolution - Antarctica
Want to hobble The AI in LOR? Might I suggest playing with Revolutions Enabled.

039 - Meticulous
I opted for a Stylized Custom Map, which only served to exacerbate LOR's already sketchy 'Ruthless AI'.

040 - Pericles Peninsula
In the end, I baked The Map, gave myself Stone & Marble and hid-out on a Defensible Peninsula, so I could Build Wonders, as is my want.

041 - Thomas' War
A very solid Mod, which turns out to be a Builders Delight.

042 - War Monger
Bam! Bam!
What else need be said?

043 - Rocket Tech / Early Capture
If at first you don't start isolated, make it so.

044 - Q-Rush
I like this strategy.

045 - Gold Rush
A Garden of Eden Start is probably my favourite type of game.

046 - Critical Support
Why have a single Garden of Eden, when one can have two?

047_coastal_raiders.zip
To be honest, there wasn't all that much raiding. Still, I continue to enjoy hitting End Turn.

CivilizationIV.ini
Well, it's not really an ".ini" it's a ".txt". And it will not come close to working, as it's been reformatted into notes (and/or observations, if you will), focusing upon whatever the remaining ini entries (as many were deleted wholesale) brought to mind.



And the rest of my playing experience falls off into the recess of time.