Many Leaders Game 4 - The Cultured Monarch

I will declare on Joao sooner or later. I think the landmass is not big enough for the two of us, so I'll have to go after him as he's so close. Finishing Toku is first though (hopefully getting more XP to my troops).

I have yet to figure out the spacing of my cities. I will most likely burn the hill city and leave the coastal one as it gets the pigs in the BFC. But we'll see.

There are some pretty strong starts out there (especially kudos to the Civil Service Slingshot, a thing I never had dared to even consider). That is one reason I'm not ashamed of my last place so far as I'm playing and competing with a very skilled group of players here . I'm looking forward to the course of the games...

The starting spot look good enough, especially since I have fishing as a starting technology. My idea was to grow the city and than do a quick REX, helped by chopping. This means that I need BW, and it is always nice to find copper in the fat cross, even though I don't urgently need it with Sitting Bull.


I also wanted to try for an early religion, so my research was Mining-Mysticism--BW-Masonry-Polytheism-Monotheism, and I despite not starting with Mysticism I managed to get Judaism.


My capital built WB-WB-worker-totem pole-warrior-settler. The first settler will be done in the next turn and will go SE. I hope to get 1-2 more settlers and a few workers out before I have to concentrate on military and culture.

My personal preference for offensive units are Axeman, where York is settled, unless my maths is wrong, allows for the three hills to be mined with a farm on the corn and pasture on the pigs.... 1 axeman every three turns. if i'm wrong let me know, the MM side of it is where i'm lacking at the moment

@AdHoc: Oh, sorry didn't knew that. There goes to show I am still pretty much tuned to Warlords.

Kudos to those who got the stonehenge ... the +10 culture is huge.

@Imhotep, TrivialAI: Yeah, 2 religions and the 3rd one soon in turn 52 may look good ... but my entire empire is now consisted of only 1 warrior and 1 worker

@in general: Some very good play I can see, esp those that decided to go the early military route first. I have considered that, but decided I am going the religious route. Wang (or any Fin leader who starts with Mysticism) is really very suited to early religious grab, especially in a coastal start. Consider Wang's UU, I will go military around that time. I myself being more comfortable with SE than CE is actually trying to relearn the CE by going with a Fin leader.

Those who are industrious should really go hog the wonders instead though. they are very suited for a cultural win that way.

Stonehenge and Judaism were built before I could finish them. So I went to writing to get the Madrassa up. Research was Pottery, Writing, Agriculture, AH, Math, Calendar, Poly, Masonry, Mono. Plan is to get a GP from running 2 priests in Madrassa in Mecca and lightbulb Theology for 2nd religioin (Roosevelt founded Buddhihsm and it spread to me, I converted and adopted OR when I got it) I punted on Oracle, I didn't want to get beat to something else again.

The Barbarians built me a city



Interesting thing, it had 3 warriors in it. I killed one, was waiting for it to grow to size 2. Then Jaos killed one, same turn it turned size 2 and joined our illustrious empire.

This'll be a blocking city though there's not a lot of food in the land up north.

I founded another city



It's close to Tokugawa but he's weak. Osaka's his 2nd city and hasn't had its 1st border pop yet. Note to self for next round: Build some spearmen

My humble empire



Anyone know how to get clouds out of Blue Marble? Ariel shots look too cloudy.

56: Enter Tokuland. Declare war.

57: A chariot presents itself alone to my advancing stack. 70% odds. I attack. If I bypass it, he'll probably just retreat, and hopefully I'll win and get to promote the axeman to recover some of the damage.

Praying to the RNG gods......

Win! With 3.2 health left, and with 3 xp to show for it.



58: The real moment of truth. I will now move next to Kyoto, and in doing so, learn a great deal about my chances for this game.
2 archers = home free
3 archers = ehhhhhhh I'm probably ok
4 archers = I'm so screwed.

and........

TWO ARCHERS! THERE IS A GOD AND HE LOVES ME. But one of them has CG2. Ew.

59: He didn't build another archer. Dodged that bullet. Now......

against the CG2 archer, my skirmishers only have a 1% chance, my axemen 5.4%.
First suicide skirmisher => No damage. And my god they shot at each other forever.
2nd skirmisher: no damage.
I try an axeman. 5.4% odds Please do something. BOOM HEADSHOT WIN. Dancing ensues.
3rd skirmisher, 3.1% odds: Drops the CG1 archer to 1.2. All right!
2nd axeman, 98% odds: takes Kyoto.
Inventory: 4 axemen left, 2 injured. 1 skirmisher left. Time to take out Osaka before it gets a border pop or a second archer.

60: I decide to wait 2 turns to get the two slightly injured by promoted axemen before taking Osaka. Osaka is size 1, and has no good tiles to work, so I'm hoping no archers will pop out.

Trivia time: cities in revolt still count towards your unit cap before expenses. Yay.

62: I go to attack osaka with all 6 troops, and find toku has a second archer. Sigh.

Inventory:
4.6 strength CR2 axe
4.6 strength CR1 axe
4.5 strength CR1 axe
2 unpromoted axes
1 skirmisher

I think I can do it, but I'm going to throw the unpromoted axes in first, rather than the skirmisher. Kyoto taught me that a few first strikes don't help when the odds are that low.

First axe, 6.6% odds: RNG smiles upon me yet again. Brought the archer down to 1.1! I got this for sure.
Second axe, 15.4% odds (I forgot, he's not dug in! bonus! I had nothing to worry about): Only brought him down to 2.5 though.
My top axeman still has less than even odds, so the skirmisher suicides to take him to .1
Mop up, and... I get the option to keep the city. I thought it would auto-raze at size one, but I guess that's only barb cities.

I think long and hard, but I burn it down. I'm making a settler right now, and I don't think I can support 4 cities this early. Plus the city sucks without a border pop - and I don't have mysticism - and it's only average at best after the border pop.

And Toku leaves the game.

That was exhausting. The skirmishers were a mistake. Woulda been better off with 3 more axes than 4 skirmishers.



65: IW -> alphabet

69: third city founded

76: perhaps I should have kept Osaka after all...



80: I get the herbalist event. uhhhhhhhh. I'd normally take the agressive option without thinking twice, but that'll seriously mess with my growth here. I take the aggressive option anyways.

ick. Neither Joao nor Roosy founded a religion. I was hoping to leech off them...

89: missed conf by one turn. Ugh.

Joao expanded like.... well, like an expansive, imperialistic leader would. Icky. Not keeping Osaka was a huge mistake I think.

Kodii - Bravo! I don't think the double holy city is too bad: if you spread one of Conf/Tao around the island you can run Org Rel and have peace and merrily construct culture buildings. The second one can be spread around your cities (and you're well set to have many), get both shrines then Wall St. Bombay will be a slider beast anyway. Let's hope your PC can get its mojo back

azaris - Toku building the Great Lighthouse for him for Azteca.

TriviAI - Looks well set to switch to commerce and culture now that AGG has served its purpose. Have either J or R got religion?

Imhotep - You're right to finish off Toku, but I'm not sure Joao wil be worth the effort, especially as you can share a religion. With Toku, I'd keep Satsuma and raze Osaka (unless Osaka has seafood). Finally, why the Walls (w-o Stone) in Kyoto?

pawelo - CS sling and a huge landgrab that's sealed off your backyard. Excellent work! I don't see any need for war with Joao; I think he'd make a good ally.

njorls - you've got the east sealed off nicely, but Roosy might sneak a settler up there (depending on how the land south of Washington looks).

Zargon - the rush paid out, but I don't think you were wrong to raze Osaka, as long as you get pigs/corn. As FIN, you can support more cities and still have a good tech rate: 100% science at this key land-grab stage is not optimal. Sealing off land with a city SE of Djenne, and one SW of Kyoto should be priorities.

I spend some time looking at the save again. First priority is settlers and workers. I'd like to have 5 cities at then of turn 100.

Research wise, I'd like to found Confucianism and possibly have Alphabet (want those tech-sharing bonuses). Iron Working to get gems connected would also be good.

So let's get the ball rolling.

Finally get that second "Incan" city down.



Joao has started rexing my way.



Found Confusedness.



Excellent, horses under my hamlet



I try not to look at where resources I don't know about are. Maybe I should look next time

I grab a barb city.



Joao goes confused, so do I. Was waiting for one of them to convert before I adopted a religion.

I get Aphabet and do some trading.

Another city.



End up with six cities



I can see two more locations that I want and another couple I might go for.

I should really swap to Caste System and run some artists but I'm getting some value from the whip in my smaller cities.

As usual, more workers could be handy. Haven't used the Industrious trait much but next set I'm after Parthenon, Zeus, National Epic, Heroic Epic (thanks barbs) and Sistine Chapel all in the capital Might even have a stab at Mausollous as Calendar resources abound.

I'm fairly happy with how things are going. I'm not too flash at culture games. I have my little way of getting them to go, which works but won't be too flash.

Next time research plans are Music then Philosophy, trade for Maths and maybe squeeze Calendar in there.

Anyway off to see how everyone else's games are going (seems weird to be in the last half to submit).

Reserach: Writing, Polytheism, Hunting, Code of Laws, Animal Husbandry, Alphabet, Sailing (trade), Iron Working (trade), Archery (trade), Aesthetics (not completed)