Round 6: to 1000 AD
A very interesting round--much revealed, and some important decisions to make, of course!
I started by using Moses, my Great Prophet:
Yep, I decided on the Hindu shrine. As I mentioned in a previous post, it will help finance expansion; remember that as my new cities become Hindu, they'll add to its revenue, and once they're done I can spread it to others for more gold. I also hoped that the shrine might help spread the religion automatically, which it did--a little bit. Hey, it saved me one missionary.
And as everyone suggested, I proceeded with the expansion, building three cities. The first one claimed the rice and the fish on the west coast, hence its non-Incan but infinitely easier to remember name:
The next one won't be a terrific city, but it fills in a gap in the map and keeps my neighbours from settling there:
And the last one will be a decent little fishing village way to the south:
That's all I managed for this round. My economy took a substantial hit from that, so I took the rest of the round to recover. Going by the Pogel's dotmap, I can fit in three more cities--a central one 1E of the copper, one on the south coast 1S of the cows, and a third one on the west coast 1N of the desert hill. If anyone has any better ideas, let me know! (And in case you were wondering, Hinduism spread on its own to Sushi; the other cities needed help.)
Tiwanaku also completed a wonder that will help those coastal cities pay for themselves:
As for Alexander and Hatty, they made peace, then went to war again, and look at what Alexander did:
In a way this wasn't such a bad thing. It removed the Egyptian cultural pressure, for starters; my borders quickly claimed that crucial ocean tile 2S 1W of Elephantine. And though my relations with Alexander were rocky, I managed to keep trade going and our borders open. It probably helped that I did no more tech trading with Hatty. I fear the writing is on the wall for our girl with the big hat, and by the time I can get north to do any rasslin' it'll be with Alexander.
To help out with the economy, I prioritized Civil Service, and once I had it, switched civics:
Of course, I can also build Macemen now! I think that either Ironville South or Golden Horse will make good military cities, though both need a lot of farms--GH in particular desperately needs chain farms, as does Lonely Mountain. IS has a lighthouse, but without a good food source, it will take several farms and several citizens before it can work any of the hills to its east.
I also, several turns before this, finished Optics and whipped out three Caravels. Yeah, I'm taking no chances. One went west from Tiwanaku along the Equator; one went west from Ironville, hugging the southern latitudes; and one went east from Khazak. The last one was in fact the first to make contact with the other continent and all of its civs on the last turn in the round:
So who else am I facing? Well, with so many of 'em, it's easier just to show you the diplomatic screen:
I should also add that Napoleon and Washington just made peace, and it seems obvious that poor ol' George came out of that as the one worse off. Napoleon is, in my experience, one of the worst neighbours to have--worse than Monty, even, because he's potentially dangerous throughout the whole game, and is quite willing to wipe out another civ.
Now the really important screen, however, is this one, with the tech standings:
I'm actually doing quite well in this regard. I have a number of techs I can trade to get almost everything on display here. Here's a list of the techs I have over and above each of the civs on the other continent:
- Frederick and Washington don't have Civil Service, Alphabet, Compass, and Machinery.
- Napoleon doesn't have Literature, Civil Service, and Optics.
- Cyrus doesn't have Civil Service.
So Cyrus seems to be the biggest tech fiend. It's encouraging to see that he's the lone Christian, though he doesn't have the holy city. It looks like either Napoleon or Washington may have founded Christianity--they're the only ones with Theology, after all--but they're both Confucian, which Frederick founded. Interesting.
To conclude, here are a couple of screen shots of my half of the world:
Now on to the decision-making.
Well, the first thing I have to do is decide who I'm going to tech trade with, and what I'll offer and what I'll get. I almost have Currency so I won't be trading for that, but there a lot of other juicy offerings available across the pond. However, as soon as I start trading, I'm bound to tick somebody off.
I'd rather not tech trade with Alex or Hatty anymore, since I want every advantage when I come to take them out, so let's not consider them. I have very little to offer Cyrus and don't want to help him either, so let's rule him out. Frederick is tops in score despite lagging behind Cyrus technically--obviously he has a bigger empire--and I'm reluctant to help him out as well. That leaves the two dancing partners, Napoleon or Washington.
Even though Washington is the low man on the totem pole, he has the most techs to offer, so I'm very tempted to trade with him and let Naploeon whine about it all he wants. But it may be a good idea in the long run to stay on Napoleon's good side. If Washington is as badly off as he seems to be, Napoleon is bound to wipe him out before long. If I'm friendly with Nappy, he might even loosen up and trade Theology to me.
So what do you think of this plan: trade for every tech I can get from Napoleon, get Open Borders with him, Cyrus, and Frederick, and let Washington twist in the wind?
And what about the bigger picture? Time's passing by and I'm nowhere near ready to invade Alexander. Ironville South has been producing units, so I'm in a better defensive position, but not one to attack. An Astronomy slingshot from Liberalism is looking like a must; after Currency I should probably start the Liberalism bee-line with Philosophy (unless Frederick gets friendlier).
), including one you know nothing about.
) for theology from GW, alphabet + compass for calendar (needed for astronomy!) with frederick
