Finally we come to the most subjective part of the review wherein I share with you bits of some games that I found interesting. The first is a large Pangaea map, and I'm playing a Kublai Khan, who is aggressive and creative. I chose him because for this game, I was trying to focus on FEWER cities to see if I could still win, and his creative rating helps push out my borders (though really there are much better options for the “fewer cities strategy” than Kublai Khan, but I like the guy). I also turned off space race and timed victories.

GAME 1: “No Real Focus”
As you can see, I started off with the most vital resource in life: wine (which I also include to mean beer or any other intoxicating drink). No matter what, my people's outlook on my rule will be helped by having them too sloshed to care.

Got Wine!

Here we are in 800 b.c. and I only have 2 cities! This is a radical departure from many other games when I would strive to have double this number. But you can see below that I already have some tile improvements and two more workers coming. Of course, I'm being hemmed in by other civs because I didn't push my borders hard enough with more cities. Will this cripple me?

Twin Cities

It's 1 A.D. and do you know where *your* religion is? Despite only having four cities at this point, I am in the lead. Also, I haven't chosen a religion yet because I am waiting to see who my neighbors are. One of the reasons I selected this game for a review, in fact, is that I am surrounded by neighbors, and I thought this would lead to some interesting diplomacy.

1 A.D.

It's 760 A.D. now and some interesting things to note: I have the two biggest cities in the region, which might mean that quality is winning over quantity? I am, though, running at -12 g.p. per turn despite already lowing my research to 90%...then again, those quality cities are producing some good research numbers. Also, I've chosen to go with Buddhism because Gandhi, my neighbor and #2 on the scoreboard, has gone that direction. It looks like I'll need to beef up security on my western and northern border, though.

Size Matters

It's 1820, and sure enough, Peter on my Western border declared war. Fortunately, Frederick on my Northern border has adopted Buddhism, which takes a lot of pressure off me now. On the flip side, I have let my research investments drop too much, probably in overreaction to wanting enough money to upgrade my army against Peter. You can see I've dropped to 4th place, and I'm not sure that I'll be able to recover easily.

War

I am showing two screens below, the military “advisor” screen and the main game screen. I've divided Peter's empire into two pieces, and he's on the ropes. Curiously, Frederick (grey) has dropped Buddhism as his state religion. Is this a sign of war to come with him? In any event, this advisor screen is completely useless as far as I can see. I'm considering this a mere placeholder so a patch can actually do something with it.

Military Advisor

Split Orange

I got sort of lulled into pressing end turn at this point and didn't consider the obvious attack that would come from Saladin (whose religion differs from mine and with whom I had done little trading, etc.). Note, though, that those two tanks in Saladin's territory are from Gandhi and Frederick. Indeed, they helped their ally! Gandhi required 240 gold, but Frederick just helped me out. This was actually kind of fun to see, as the AI really honored our relationship.

Saladin

Well, things become very stable at this point. Why not drop in on my treasury to see how it's doing? By the way, look how much inflation is costing me! Is there anything I can do to counter it? I bet mousing over inflation will bring up something helpful…maybe not.

Inflation

Well, then, let's look at my civics. As you can see, every one of these choices has bonuses for me, and some have penalties for OTHER civs who don't share these. Why wouldn't every AI, as a general rule, simply go for all the items listed at the bottom of the civics choices?

Civics

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