Nobles' Club CXLI: Augustus of Rome

Tried this on Deity to remind myself why I don't play Deity. Only got 3 cities before Sully boxed me in (well really was boxed in at 2 cities - he left me the fish spot and that's it). Could've gotten a 4th and maybe a 5th down South but a Barb city finished the job of boxing me in.

I built Great Wall and Pyramids. Teched Aesthetics, traded for Alpha/IW and went for Construction. Shaka attacked Sully which was great timing for me. I had a few Praets/Cats ready to attack as well. However, Sully got Longbows around 500 BC and I didn't really have the production/time to take the 3-4 cities I needed. I got one city then quit - playing between a 15 city Shaka and 15 city Cathy didn't seem winnable with my poor start.

Not wanting to play again on Immortal since I knew the start I figured I'd see how quick I could win with just Praets on Noble level. Attacked Sully with a couple warriors (everyone is Inca on below Monarch ) and tried the same on Shaka and Cathy but they got Archery.



I built Great Wall/Pyramids, and just cranked out Praets. I switched to Rep so I decided to keep the cities I took until I had 5. They were all really good spots too (Ottoman capital and 3 nice Shaka cities). After that I razed everything. I kept Moscow later since it was a decent city. Same with Madrid - though that was basically the end of the game. I kept it more to heal Praets faster. I teched Civil Service before Feud. so I didn't have the option to capitulate while fighting Russia and the Celts. It was a very big map but Praets + roads is a good combo. Fun game.


84 Praets built. Was way more than needed. Praets do surprisingly well vs everything - even super hill Celtic guys on hills and Shock axes (in cities).

SIP is a no brainer here, Potentially you could settle on the stone to grab instant access to it, but its still ok to get most of the important stone wonders without doing that.

I opened up with Workboat-Worker-Warrior-Worker-GreatWall-Settler-Mids-settling to 6 cities, Picked up the great lib, and i am currently about to take a barb city and constructing Parthenon.


My tech went Masonry- Wheel-BW, Pottery, Alpha, Currency, First to Alpha (I think i am anyways at this point I have met Shaka, Sully, Cathy, and Boudica).

Im not 100% sure about the city locations on this map, but Ive done the best with what I have if anyone wants to critique it go ahead. I picked up a forward commerce city at the corn, bronze site, and have a very nice floodplains cottage city behind that, but apart from those two locations and my capital I'm not 100% about my placement.




And here are the 25AD Stats

Lost the Great Wall by 4 turns, but got 66 for it, which allowed full research to Pottery and Writing. Went straight onto the Pyramids, and was starving the capital for it. Put a chop into it as well when the stone was hooked up. Got it in 1440BC and directly changed to Police State.

Granaries and barracks are up in both cities (barracks soon in Antium), and the first Praeterian is out next turn, with a pile others lined up. I figure that with them costing 45 and me being in Police State, I should be able to double-whip them with 6 or possibly 7 invested. Pre-Math chops will be worth 25 instead of the usual 20

Think I'll use a worker to road towards Suleiman, as he is the obvious first victim. Oddly he only has 3 cities so far, while Shaka and (much less surprising) Catherine have spammed out to 6. I've not met others yet, but know they should be reachable as Cathy and Shaka isn't putting out enough espionage combined.

Suleiman Oracled Alpha, so I'll probably start putting research into Aesthetics. The thing is, though, I'll probably kill him before being able to trade for Alpha, or at least DoW him... It's the Roman way *evil laugh*

War against Suleiman went well. Praetorians are WICKED!

Attacked his first city with 4 Praets in 950BC. None lost (a little lucky). Was chopping like crazy around the capital, and for the 20 turns since I could produce Praetorians, produced about 1 Praet per turn between two, and later three, cities.

Istanbul fell in 725BC (2 losses I think).


Razed a city in the south before taking on a hill city further north. Approached with 6-7 Prats. Annoyingly lost one at 97% attacking a chariot in the open, but otherwise the attack went well (no losses on the city).

At this point he only had 1 city left and he was willing to give me almost 1000 worth of techs, so we peaced out in exchange for Math, Alpha and Hunting (tried to get Sailing, but that was over his red line).

Shaka, Boudica and Catherine are plotting. I've no idea against whom, but I'll be surprised if none are plotting against me. Ideally Boudica and Shaka are plotting against each other, while Cathy against whoever is probably south or south-west of her. Crossing my fingers

As is sort of her norm, Catherine has expanded like crazy to 9 cities, and has 2 settlers about to exit her borders too (1 probably to settle about where I razed a city, and the other possibly in the lucious floodplains area south of Antium. Sigh


Thankfully I noticed in time that Istanbul would produce what was almost certainly to be a GProphet before Rome, so I just whipped a Library in Rome, which should now be able to get out a GP before Istanbul. A GMerchant can bulb MC, or a GS can build an Academy. Not sure where I will move the capital. Despite lack of food, Istanbul doesn't look too bad. It can be cottaged up and still grow pretty decently.

Conquered Shaka & Suleiman, capped the 3 girls and was ready to take on Nappy but realised I was close to domination so quickly rushed 3 settlers and that plus Barcelona coming out of revolt was enough for a Domination win.

Took longer than expected - not sure if it was the map or the opponents but certainly wasn't a stroll. Built 92 Praets and lost 49 of them.

Fun map - thanks Dalamb!

I did two attempts. First I tried to do everything at once and ultimately achieved nothing at all. Went up to Currency/CoL/Construction with Pyramids, only then attacked Suly. Took his Jewish holy city (S of our FP area) but then stalled at his capital. He got crossbows and it seemed impossible to proceed with the war without taking a breather first.

The second attempt was much more focused.
I figured Oracle->MC will cost me a bunch of for techs I don't need, 100 for Oracle itself, and another 60 per city for the forges.
In contrast, Pyramids need Masonry (also useful for the high-yield stone), cost 200 and give a straight 25% bonus to all things military with Police State. Additionally, they'll let me run Rep later to drag my economy out of the gutter. So I went with Pyramids.

Tech path was something like BW-Ag-AH-TW-Pot-Myst-Masonry-IW, starting with WB-worker-WB (with 1 chop). Myst was needed for a few border pops, the rest for resources.

Declared war in 475 BC with 19 praets via the northern route as he had a city by the northern sheep. From there, went on straight to Istanbul without delay. Shaka decided to join and helped a bit, but it would have been enough even without him. Then moved on south and took 4 more cities, making peace for all his techs in 75 BC.

Switched to Rep, teched Aesth from the spoils of war, traded for Currency. At 1 AD, the economy is still fragile (barely positive cash at 0%), but the scientists are pulling their weight. The potential is enormous, with 200 at a theoretical 100%. CoL will be next, with courthouses and cottages everywhere.
Then either build some cats/trebs and hit Shaka, or go up to cannons and still hit Shaka.

I've nothing to offer in tech trades at the moment; that's what Aesthetics was supposed to be for. I figured I could get Alphabet from it, and possibly Math from someone else and filler techs from a third.

Thanks for the advice about chopping praets in Istanbul; it hadn't occurred to me, and it should have.

Score:This game was quite wonder-spammy:Representation unlocked by the Mids helped to gain a good tech lead. The Spiral Minaret, AP, Sankore and Sistine helped to build a solid religion-based economy.

Used Praets to wipe out Suly by early AD-s. Shaka was a much tougher enemy to deal with, but by 700 AD or something his last city fell to Roman Praets as well. By then everyone else had Longbows and other medieval troops. So I decided to wait until Cuirs and to continue spamming wonders meanwhile. Cathy was the first one to cap, next was Boudica and finally Izzy. Before it was Napoleon's turn the Domination threshold got exceeded. Despite the late Cuir/Cav wars, Praets were still the most common unit type to be built:

Despite the late Cuir/Cav wars, Praets were still the most common unit type to be built:

Spoiler statistics :

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Crikey!! I just have to rub my eyes when I see people being able to finish a whole game in 3 hours. I've clocked up 6 already, and am not yet in the ADs!

I genuinely don't get how you do it. Just send workers quickly to a nearby square and improve it? Are you automating them early on? What about builds? Wars?

I know I'm a slow player because I like to think about most decisions and especially micro, but it's a bit ridiculous that I can easily spend 25-30 hours on a game, while others could play 10 games in the same time-frame.

Am I alone in this, or do others take a long time to finish games too?