ALC Game #9: Incas/Huayna Capac

asabahi said:

You can go for the stone hedges and than using the Great Prophet to light bulb theology and you have your religon. Meanwhile you can research techs you need, just making sure you have monotheisim before you pop your great prophet. Second great prophet for shrine and that is extra income. Also Organized Religon can be very helpfull. Just an idea.

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The problem with this is that then you're burning Great People on Prophets. Getting one for the Shrine is great, but if you're going the Cultural route, settling one Artist a few centuries earlier in one of your cities is going to be about the equivalent culture of founding a whole other religion and going through the trouble of building all the buildings.

You need early Theology for the Sistine Chapel, so if you get Christianity with it, it's a decent bonus. The culture from a Shrine and Holy City are outweighed by having an extra Artist sitting in one of your cities earlier, though. It's better to beeline for Drama and Music to get those going and pick up other things later. The more Prophets you get, though, the longer you have to wait for Artists to pop. It's not worth the tradeoff for a Cultural Victory.

You are not Industrial and lack stone and marble. You are playing Monarch Your chances of getting Oracle are poor. I wouldn't try. I would be inclined to pass on most other wonders as well. I have won several games on Monarch, vanilla, with the Incans without building a single world wonder. With all the FP you have, use specialists to drive your GP farm.

I would not research Masonary and would use GPP to bulb the techs you need.

With an empty continent, I think a settler and worker spam strategy is to be preferred. Your military needs are low for the moment - a few axes will take care of your barbs.

By all means, pursue a domination/space race strategy. The aggressive trait is made for warring; especially when paid for by the financial trait.

Tyrant Roger said:

With an empty continent, I think a settler and worker spam strategy is to be preferred. Your military needs are low for the moment - a few axes will take care of your barbs.

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I'd go for chariots, promoting toward Sentry.

Tyrant Roger said:

You are not Industrial and lack stone and marble. You are playing Monarch Your chances of getting Oracle are poor.

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During all of my monarch games, I have never once failed to get Oracle when I've tried to get it - always without marble and industrious. I'm not saying that the chances of success are 100%, but you're certainly not doomed to failure if you try without marble and/or the Industrious trait.

An option to consider would be CoL slingshot (I agree that CS is pushing your luck) hopefully giving you Confucianism followed by GS sling to philosophy which don't mess up GP for CS and gives you taoism for third religion which still leaves options open re culture or warfare.

Pogel said:

I think an Oracle->CS is probably too risky. I have done this on Monarch, but I considered myself fortunate to do so (Oracle at 700BC). I think going for the Oracle->CoL and then GP->CS gambit would be a better bet.

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When do the AI complete construction of the Oracle on Monarch Level generally??? Post 1000AD?

When The CS Slingshot is VERY POSSIBLE, The guy's got a goldmine, floodplains and poped writing. farm the corn grow to size three, work the goldmine and he'll research Preisthood and codes of law realatively quickly, once he researches Preisthood and start the Oracle he could Finish the Oracle and Codes of Law at the exact same time or Finish the Oracle a little after.

In most of my games (I play Warlords with Vassal States Off) Most of the time it's the AI that Starts off with Mysticism that gets the Oracle, Why? Probably because they get a Tech head start with the ability to get a Religion and Preisthood from the get-go. Generally Industrious Civs Don't get this Wonder in my experience.

Unless your Gandhi in Vinilla Civ4 Spirutal/Industrious, lets cross our fingers and hope Gandhi Isn't in the game and was the guy who got Buddhism.

I have run a shadow game to compare the worker first strategy. I have played to the end of round 2 and here are the results:

I was not so lucky poping huts (how could I ) I managed to pop only the wheel, but poped the other ones for 266 GP total.

Build order: worker, quechua, quechua, settler, quechua, worker.
Tech path: poly, mining, pottery, BW, AH, priest
Worker jobs: farmed corn, road, mine, mine road. cottage on the FP

End of round 2 - BC 2840:
Cuzco pop 3 compared to pop 2 and increase next turn in original Sisiutil's game.
Produced worker and 2 quechuas and about 2 turns into the settler.
Techs: poly 3520, mining 3280, pottery 2880 - the same as original game.
Improvements: farm gold mine compared to none in original game.

End of round 3 - BC 2040:
Cuzco pop 3, second city pop 1, whipped settler in Cuzco in 2400 for 1 pop.
Production: worker, 3 quechuas, settler, worker (completed next turn)
Techs: in addition: BW 2560 - 4 turns faster, AH 2240, priest 2120, writing due in 3 turns.
Improvements: farm, cottaged FP, gold mine, roads, copper mine.

So at the end of round 2 I was in better position hen Sisiutil in original game. I didn't have the knowledge of the whole continent though. I build the same size military, so no slowdown in the quechua rush. The only think I missed would be an early worker steal, but then you have only 15 turns from the beggining of the game to find an enemy, steal worker and get him safely home. Therefore its much better to start with a worker if you have an immediately acesible resource like this corn.

This is not meant to be a criticism of the original game. I just wanted to show the difference.

This is an interesting situation. You could go for the cultural victory but the situation seems to favour a Space Race to me perhaps backed up by military spoiling action against any rivals which still allows the agressive trait to be useful.

Strategically you are in a safe position, but have no military options for further expansion (beyond the island) and should therefore expand rapidly to cover the island. You need to spam several cities and workers immediately. The high commerce from cottages and gold will meet the costs and allow good research before courthouses control costs.

Building wonders is going to be difficult without stone or marble. The Colossus needs copper and so is a notable exception and it offers a very profitable return from sea squares if you build several coastal cities. Stonehenge is more likely to stunt your growth than help although the free GPPs would be good. I'd go for workers and settlers and spam cottages. The GP GPPs for the shrine can come from a temple perhaps.You have plenty of food for a few specialists to get an Shrine and a couple of Academies.

Medium term research objectives have to be Alphabet and Literature for GL and NE. You need Literature early ro beat the AI civs to the GL since it will take a long time to build. I would keep at least 4 forests around the capital as each 2 forests is worth one and in your situation that will be worth 1 food. Health is likely to be more of a problem for most of your cities than happiness especially after Monarchy is researched.

I'd go for Optics early for caravels giving exploration and circumnavigation. You'll need to meet the other civs to trade resources and maybe techs to be competative in the Space Race or for more religions if you go for a Cultural victory instead.

Khalid said:

I wouldn't go for stonehenge. If the choice would be cultural, it is better to build obelisks. That way you keep culture generation after calendar. Plus you have religion, so you don't need stonehenge.

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Is this true? I thought Stonehenge allows Monuments to be built instantaneously on cities as they are founded. Do the Monuments puff away when you research Calendar?

As a Monarch player having a hard time getting isolated Domination/Conquest wins, I vote for the aggressive route. I want to see and learn how you pull it off.

From my experience, when I have an isolated start in Monarch, I usually lag so much in tech when I meet up the other civs - I think it's because AIs trade techs all the time. Tech lag plus lack of military power (since you don't need to invest in units other than a few fogbusters) usually leads to a quick defeat by amphibious assault.

I seem to be in a better situation if I go crazy on wonderbuilding. A lot of GP helps by lightbulbing techs. To that end, how about going for Masonry and Great Wall - to get GA as soon as possible (for Pyramid, Great Library or Colossus) and as many as possible?

JohnnyMadrid said:

Is this true? I thought Stonehenge allows Monuments to be built instantaneously on cities as they are founded. Do the Monuments puff away when you research Calendar?

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Yes. It gives the effects of a monument, and the city screen will show a monument until Stonehenge becomes obsolete, but the monuments aren't really there. Once you discover Calendar, you lose everything the pseudo-monuments were giving you, including culture.

JohnnyMadrid said:

I seem to be in a better situation if I go crazy on wonderbuilding. A lot of GP helps by lightbulbing techs. To that end, how about going for Masonry and Great Wall - to get GA as soon as possible (for Pyramid, Great Library or Colossus) and as many as possible?

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LMAO... He can't build the Great Wall this is Civ 4 Vinilla NOT Warlords, You noticed HC IS Agg/Fin NOT Ind/Fin???

kniteowl said:

LMAO... He can't build the Great Wall this is Civ 4 Vinilla NOT Warlords, You noticed HC IS Agg/Fin NOT Ind/Fin???

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My bad - forgot about that this is a vanilla game. Anyways, the only way that worked for me to catch up other civs in techs was cottage spamming and building economic buildings as many as possible in all of my cities. For that, OR and other economic wonders will be helpful, I think. You can minimize the number of units by making only scouts or warriors enough to fogbust - then you don't need to create a single unit until astronomy.

JohnnyMadrid said:

You can minimize the number of units by making only scouts or warriors enough to fogbust - then you don't need to create a single unit until astronomy.

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If he adopts Hereditary Rule from Monarchy he will be able to grow his cities larger than other sources of happiness will allow by using cheap military units. He only has a few happiness resources (gold, gems and spices) and one religion at present but plenty of food in some cities, so he can grow those cities even if they are unhealthy for a while to work cottages. Once he meets other civs he can trade for other happiness and health resouces. So I think he will need to build units and probably quite a lot.

Round 4: to 525 BC

I played several more turns this round in order to get to a point where several key decisions need to be made.

To start off, I decided that being able to explore and (hopefully) meet more civilizations made the most sense. So I decided to found my next city right up on the northern coast:



I also decided to forgo Stonehenge this time and focus on expansion and the Oracle. So I switched research for the time being from Masonry to Priesthood and changed the build queue in Cuzco to a Quechua. And I got my Worker busy improving all those lovely resource tiles around the capital, starting with the corn to hurry the building of another Settler.

Meanwhile, one of my first Quechuas earned another promotion whilst fighting a barb warrior. I sent him to the southeast to do some fog-busting, and look what turned up:



Looks like I'll be able to do a li'l ol' Quechua rush after all! Especially since this barb city is in a very good location--spices, cows, riverside for a health bonus, and coastal as well; in fact, it's city H on Pogel's very handy dotmap (thanks, dude!). I fortified my veteran unit on the forested spice tile 1 NW of the city and started sending reinforcements his way.

Meanwhile, I built my next city, Machu Picchu:



I intend this to be the science city--seems like a good spot for it with all those river tiles for cottages, lots of food, and decent production from the cows, a hill I can mine, and several forests.

After Priesthood was finished, I researched Masonry and then Monotheism. Getting Organized Religion for the "free forge" was just too good to pass up, and the timing was perfect for that to help with the Oracle, which I had just started building in Cuzco.

Of course, there was a side benefit as well:



And I changed civics accordingly:



Hmm, 1 GPT rather than 0. Yeah, I think I can afford that. (Yes, I know it will go up as time goes on and my cities grow.)

I then researched Fishing and whipped a Work Boat out of Tiwanaku. It turns out that the hidden tile 3N 1W of the gems is a coastal tile of the continent to my north (containing clams in fact), so I was able to send the Work Boat exploring with only the first border pop complete. Yes, it is a continent, not a bunch of tiny islands, and yes, it is inhabited:





Interesting neighbours, eh? And look, Alexander founded Buddhism! I recall that it was founded several turns after I finished Polytheism/Hinduism. It makes me wonder if there are any other religious civs out there--or at least, any with Mysticism as a starting tech.

While my intrepid little Work Boat continued exploring, 1 Chariot and 4 Quechuas had gathered outside the barbarian city of Khazak. The city was defended by 3 unpromoted Archers. It would be a tough fight, and I hoped to get lucky. Only one of my Quechuas had additional promotions, the veteran with Cover and Shock in additon to Aggressive's default Combat I. Other than that, I had three rookies, though one of them had a single XP.

I attacked with the XP-less rookies first. They had 26% odds, roughly, and died, but did a lot of damage; the two Archers they attacked were both reduced to about 0.8 health.

My Quechua with 1 XP got similar odds against the sole remaining healthy Archer, and I expected him to die as well, and hoped to take the city on the next turn. But he got very lucky and killed his opponent, earning 4 XPs to bump him all the way up to Level 3 in one attack. That meant my veteran and my Chariot were able to take out the two remaining, weakened defenders, and I had my fourth city:



Since I now have copper for Axemen, this will probably be the only thing close to a Quechua rush I'll do in this game. It was good to be able to give Huayna's boys a chance to shine. I suspect I would have needed several more, however, against a civ city rather than a barbarian one, as those cities are likely to have cultural defenses and possibly Archers with promotions.

Meanwhile, I finished the Oracle with the help of a single chop (keeping 4 forests for +2 health in the capital). I dithered over what tech to choose for some time, but eventually I went with...



Why Metal Casting rather than Code of Laws? A number of reasons. First off, with the other continent more easily reachable than it first appeared, and civs there, I'm leaning away from a cultural game. That means I'd prefer other civs to get the bulk of the remaining religions to increase their emnity towards one another. Second, tech trading is going to be important, and Metal Casting is a low priority tech, but one that the AIs value highly--a good bargaining chip. Third, since I'm on a compact continent and won't be expanding geographically for a little while, Code of Laws and courthouses can wait. Finally, with all the cities I'm likely going to build on the coast, the Colossus is an attractive wonder, especially since I have copper to speed it up.

And in case you're wondering, yes, a couple of turns later, someone founded Confucianism.

I was tempted to end the round there, but instead I thought it would be valuable to see where I stood vis-a-vis the other two civs in terms of technology before making any further decisions. In other words, I wanted to finish Alphabet. I jacked up the science slider and let the gold I'd captured from Khazak cover my deficit financing.

In 525 BC...



I went to see Alexander, the points leader, first--he had several worthwhile techs (Meditation, Monarchy, Hunting, and Horseback Riding). I had Polytheism, Alphabet, and, of course, Metal Casting to offer him. Unfortunately, Alexander hates my guts. Religious differences, don't you know.

As usual, Hatty was much friendlier.



Well, that wasn't too bad, and I have several other techs to offer her if and when she researches something I don't have.

By the way, you might have noticed that Hatty has converted to Judaism! If you check the screen behind her, you'll notice our oceanic borders nuzzling up to one another all cozy-like, and Judaism spread from Tiwanaku to Elephantine that way.

Here's a look at the map:



Okay, so, as I said at the start, I played until I reached a point where we have a number of decisions to make. So let's get to it:

City Sites: Yes, I researched Iron Working as well, and I have iron on my continent--but not in the most convenient locations! If you check Pogel's dotmap, the two locations of iron are one tile outside of the fat crosses of cities G (1 SW of the eastern rice) and I (1S 2W of the gold in the middle of the continent's southern half). So either we wait patiently for those cities' 3rd border pops to make those tiles workable, or we adjust the dotmap.

The problem is that moving G 1W (1S of the rice) to get the iron puts a lot of desert in the fat cross and removes some grassland. G would have a gold mine, a plains horse, and a desert iron mine to work--all powered by a single rice paddy and a bunch of plains. Moving city I 1S to get the iron has similar problems, though not as bad--it just gives up a gold mine. My own inclination is to take the lesser of the two evils and found city I 1 tile S of Pogel's location, and let city G claim its iron on the 3rd border pop as a backup.

Research: I chose to research Literature next, with a mind to building the Great Library in Maccu Picchu, but I'm wondering if I should go after Sailing instead--especially since MP has to finish its library first. I know that Sailing allows trade on the coast--since that ocean tile 2N of the gems is ocean, would that allow for trade with Hatty, since it's in my borders, or not? Regardless, should I look towards building Galleys soon for an invasion of the northern continent? That would mean I need a lot more coastal cities.

Religion: Hatty is now a nice Jewish girl. Should I convert to make nice with her? If so, I should build a couple of missionaries in Tiwanaku next and spread Judaism to Cuzco and Maccu Picchu to keep the OR bonus. I should also keep building a few Jewish Missionaries and put 'em on Galleys lest she convert to Alexander's Buddhism. I will get a GP from the Oracle in a few turns and I'm thinking of using him for a shrine right off the bat to further spread one of my 2 religions.

Military: I haven't built any barracks yet, and I've only built one Axeman. Should I settle back for awhile, or get on with things? This ties into possibly researching Sailing next for Galleys. One concern I have is that my route to the northern continent is tenuous--one ocean tile in my borders that could easily become Hatty's, given her creative trait. (This is another reason I'm thinking of becoming Jewish, as it will increase Tiwanaku's cultural output.)

If we decide to invade the northern continent, what's the best approach? Send a Settler and Axe to build a beachhead city on a free spot, stealing a page from the AI's play book? Or just go and take a city (probably one of Alexander's, since he's decided to be disagreeable)?

You might notice that all of these decisions are interrelated, of course. If I decide to invade the other continent ASAP, that means I have to build coastal cites, and it means prioritizing Sailing, and I probably should convert to Judaism to keep Hatty happy and do what I can to keep Tiwanaku's borders expanded to that crucial ocean tile.

This is a very interesting game, isn't it? A very refreshing change, in many ways, from the usual pattern the Prince-level ALCs were falling into.

I played a shadow game. Got worker setler worker warrior. Did get wheel and fishing from huts. Got budism not hinduism. Managed a niiice CS slinghshot. I did build 1S of start though. Never got off my island whole game Here is after i won if anyone care. Dont download it if you dont want to see...

i read somewhere that you can't cross cultural oceans during wars, so that means that Hatty must live for a while... How long does it take before the AI starts sending settlers on galleys? Will they try to settle their continent first?

Or else prepare to capture Hatty's visible city which will give you a solid beachhead with connected borders.

if you go to war with hatty, be careful, while you have acces to her continent, it is really dependent on 1 tile in your fat cross. while she has 3 culture tiles going into ocean that might permit corssing the ocean.

even if you don't go to war, be careful of her settler's galleys.

Id say build up your own continent. Make sure the N city gets as much culture as it can so you can access the Northern continent, even without Hattys consent.

I'd say you do not need a beachhead at this time. Late game invasions can be a pain, but you can do it in the early midgame easy enough, with catapults/macemen.

Question remains if you should send a punitive expedition to force the AI into war-mode, and loot and plunder your way on the other continent. If done right it would earn you gold and promotions, and hurt an enemy is always good.

If you can get them to fight each other you could just prepare for later invasion. But not too late, build up with this in mind.

Btw, I noticed that you promoted a Q with cover AND shock. I believe the common consensus is that you give your units only ONE of the +25% vs. something promotions (in stead of 2 you might as well go with strength +20% vs everything). Cover is good for Qs, but giving him shock too is not optimal. City attack or strength II would have been better by far.