the mighty Kull's revered scenario: SEEDS OF GREATNESS

[Sardaukar]

Paul Cullivan "Kull" created the excellent Ancient Empires scenario, depicting the Bronze Age Collapse. I played it a few years ago. Recently, I tried his highly recommended scenario Seeds of Greatness, which operates on the same framework with custom units, art, improvements, etc.



Whereas Ancient Empires begins in 1200BC with fully formed civilizations of 15-25 cities, Seeds of Greatness throws you into the primeval world of 3500 with only a single city. Fortunately, it begins with city walls and a prestigious Palace Guard special unit, which can't be otherwise built and can tank an enormous amount of damage. This makes it nearly impossible to wipe out the other civs before developing mid to late game more advanced units.

There's the original Seeds of Greatness scenario but there's also a special Barbarian Wrath variant that increases them to a special double-plus bad level of activity. In the early game, these massive waves of superior troops pose a serious threat.



Fortunately for Egypt, this first spawning threw up the unwashed Nine Bows to the south of Memphis. They trudged up as a numberless horde and bounced, again and again, off the palace guard of Memphis. This kept Heliopolis intact. A city with walls and spearmen might be able to hold off the barbarians for a while but those things must first be researched and built. Better this way.



The second incursion swarmed out of the east. By this time, pharaoh had access to a number of early chariots, which can consistently smash battering rams or bronze I infantry. You still face two serious problems. First, units in civ 2 will sometimes overextend and march into the space occupied by the unit they just destroyed. These leaves them vulnerable to the next wave. So, I hid my early chariots inside Heliopolis and waited until the enemy sat on the road outside to attack. That way, they could pull back into the city if they overextended. The second danger is your early chariot accumulating damage. I kept three or so and cycled them in and out. The barbarians would only send up a few units at a time, so this was doable.



Due to special events, I'd acquired an amphibious Sea Peoples unit. This particular barbarian spawning took place in a coastal tile. Spawnings generate all the barbarians in one tile and they spread out turn by turn but they don't like stacking up. It's rather like water bubbling up from a spring. The Sea Peoples' amphibious assault managed to destroy the majority of the enemy incursion.

Karnak is in particular danger because it stands directly adjacent to a hill. Any barbarian that happens to stand upon it will gain a +100% defensive bonus. Considering that my whole advantage against the barbarian menace is my ability to pick them off in the open, this can be a lot of grief. Egypt is mostly open land but one imagines other civs would be wise to exercise caution in placing their bases.



Desert scum menace my Libyan tributary state. At this point in the game, they'd upgraded from Bronze I infantry and battering rams to Iron I Infantry and catapults. Now catapults have two moves, so waiting for them to sit outside your cities doesn't work as well. As it so happens, I had three chariots in the area and a conveniently nearby road. These were powerful advanced chariots that hit like a brick to the face (though they've a flimsy defense) and they move rapidly. Egyptian special forces! Pharaoh's elite forces smashed a hole in the barbarian square and rampaged through the camp, slaughtering the majority of the horde as they slept.

Unfortunately, a suicide mission but the loss of their life is acceptable in the eyes of pharaoh.



The heart of Egypt. Only 62 turns remaining and I've only captured one other capital. Doubt pharaoh will win this one.

A fantastic scenario with all kinds of great features. It's been twenty years since playing the original civ II but I think this is better.

[Sardaukar]

Played a full game as Greece. The point of the game is to seize the seven founding cities, one from each civilization. Everything else is chaff. I seized Ur of the Babylonians in 310BC, with 31 turns left. My intention was to play to the end, giving the AI a chance to recapture some of the objectives, but the turn Ur fell, all my artisan workshops, smelting foundries, etc, somehow managed to melt the ice caps, transforming vast swathes of the middle east to desert and swamp. Didn't feel like managing that mess, and it didn't feel historical, so I retired and called it a victory.



Greece starts with Mycenea. In my first attempt, a barbarian boil erupted on the west of the Peloponnese. They couldn't take Mycenea but 75-100 of the ugly vermin would have slowed matters down way too much, so I restarted. In the second attempt, my initial worker rushed to found Sparta. Then I built walled Corinth to hold the barbarian onslaught at a single chokepoint but they never generated in Greece, though there were plenty in other regions of the world. Greece did suffer frequent attacks from pirates. They held Argos, Athens and Orchomenos for I while before I conquered these cities back. Barbarian cities, probably AI cities in general, grow faster than the player's towns, so there's an advantage in that regard, but they don't produce any city improvements. Additional barbarian reinforcements tend to avoid cities they already hold, so a 'barbarian curtain' can be useful.



Didn't have time to subjugate every competing civilization. Instead, I cut a road through them, grabbing those critical objectives. Combat engineers built a road overland through Anatolia but eventually I switched to a relay system of transports that could convey freshly commissioned units from Greece to Syria in one turn. Then they'd have to slog the rest of the way over my new road network. Bridge building comes late, so the road took some painful detours around rivers. You can 'cheat' by building a town on a river tile but that's a significant investment of resources and must be protected as well.