Hi all,

Everyone was such a help in my '1200AD' question, to the point that my early game is much, much better.

I've attached a save where I'm at ~700AD, and I'm not sure how next to progress.....

For those who don't have time to open the save:
I'm on a largish continent with 1 other civ, Mansa Musa (I just destroyed the spanish) who is the founder of judaism, which is his religion. I do not have a state religion yet.
I started in the south, he started in the mid west, the central band of the continent is jungle, the mid-east and north have not been settled by either of us. (Lots of calendar resources though)

Right on the northern coast is a barb city with marble, corn and sheep, but it's a LONG way from me, pretty much directly the other side of Mansa Musa, I've got enough troops there to take it....


I've got some short-term questions, and some long term questions.

Short Term

Should I capture that barb city? It has food and marble, but it's the other side of the continent.....

Should I convert to judiaism? Mansa Musa is probably the only Jew on the planet, but he is right next to me. I have the buddist holy city now.

Long Term

My research is pretty low, and I only have 7 cities, and one of those is horrid (I should have razed it). So should I be settling more cities, or building infrastructure?

What should my research path be? I hear lots of talk about liberalism, why is this so good?


Other Questions

Should I be creating ships to go find other civs? I'd have to research the tech.

Where the hell on this map can I put a good production city!? There's lots of hills to the north near that coppor, but no food!



Any advice is greatly appreciated. I think I'm in a good position, but this is where I ALWAYS seem to start stalling, and I need to know how to keep the ball rolling.

Thanks all! :-)

Short Term

Capture and raze some money and extra worker won't hurt. I will probably would pillage improvements also.

Judaism - no point of pleasing Mansa. Use any religion you like. Although you have budhism in all cities.

Long Term

No libraries in 700AD? Why on Earth you are in caste? And in organized religion with no state religion? For fun?

Finish Machinery, tech Civil service, kill Mansa. I would say kill in pieces extorting some techs in process.
And use siege.

Research is okay for noble level. Just you could use somescientists instead of working unimproved plains.


re:liberalism
On high bulb path (philo. paper education)
Extra tech+some civics enabled.

Other Questions

re:ships: depends on taste but if you won't go it might take for ever for them to find you:)

re:Where the hell on this map can I put a good production city!?

Kumbi Saleh is decent. Timbuktu not bad either. And one hell of forests in there

Capture the barb city. You can afford it (free worker too, nice). Also, settle a city somewhere in the jungle north of ex-Spain to grab the gems and dyes. Too bad there's no food in the area, but a city with gems and 2 dyes is profitable immediately.

Courthouses are overrated, at least for low difficulties and non-organized leaders. Your southern city may as well finish it since it's so close, but more workers would probably be more helpful. Madrid needs happiness much more than a courthouse (also, set it to grow immediately, as it gets bigger the representation bonus will kick in and keep it happy to size 9).

Attacking Mansa in the near future is not a good idea (he has feudalism, you don't have any medieval units yet, and he is the absolute best neighbor for this situation, willing to trade techs at monopoly. You should get Calendar off him right away for MC so you can hook up more happy resources). You will want to kill him eventually, maybe at redcoats or maybe before.

Barcelona is probably the best production city you'll have, not great but it's gonna be way ahead of any newly founded city in the north.

I wouldn't put a big emphasis on meeting the other civs soon; you and Mansa will probably be ahead in tech so few trades can be made. Once you can tech Astro you will want to meet everyone so you can rake in the GLH trade routes. Civil Service is probably a better immediate tech goal.

Maybe i expressed wrong. After Machinery (why you are researching it is a mystery for me) and CS you have will have macemen. Given it is noble and Mansa never build serious amount of units...

Why to take Mansa. He has bunch of nice land dyes/gems +lots of better production potential. Finish you libraries and start building siege while teching towards CS.

Well, gain i am not a builder type.:)

I was teching Machinery for the watermills.... is that pointless?

Should I not worry about my money before the new war? My cities are fairly small due to all my whipping, would it be better to build them up with infra first or just kill Mansa as soon as possible?

Mansa is your money. Direct money for capturing and peace offers. Also i saw gems and some very tasty villages at Djenne also some dye plantation... And a shrine. A nice shiny shrine.

Watermills... In state property they are nice.

Okay few things

1. Seville. I would of razed this city. It is never gonna grow with such barren land. Pointless city beyond its trade routes with GLH.

2. Madrid is at zero growth and has a spare food resource not used. Although using scientist specilaists is a good idea. when you get a great scientist build an acadamy in your science city. Adding scientists to city will help. I might even use this a a great person farm. Great library will help too.

3. I set taxes to 40%. Your science is at a level where you are making money is around 104 beakers a turn. This was with a few tweaking of adding specialists to london and other cities. Also adding a food resource to madrid. Thats not bad really for noble.

4. Your teching machinery for workshops. If you want to attack mansa go engineering and build trebs.

5. Your military looks thinly spread for 700ad. Although you are second on the power graph on demographics. On higher levels this would be middle of the stack. A military pump city would be good idea. no obvious choice yet. That being said none of your cities are building units. (never a good thing)

6. Why have you sent 4 chariots to the barb city up north? If you ever capture this city the upkeep will be terrible. Its only defended by warriors so attack and raze.

7. As for rushing mansa. His UU is a pain and I would wait for macemen/ trebs. Trebs will knocked out longbowmen too.

Your in good shape overall and you appear to have 3-4 key early game wonders.

Going forward you need a strategy to actually win the game. Domination will require some military units. Galleons and cannons could be the early win.

Liberalism free tech could help. paper , education, and lib. It may require more pre quisite techs. if you hold off final turn of lib you can see how far down tech ladder you can reach. It is possible to get steel tech on monarch from liberalism. Some have gone much further.

Good luck.