Noble's Club XIII - Alexander of Greece

Took the cheesy way out of the game so I am going to kind of gloss over my report.

My scout started East of my settler, and I popped a hut on turn 2 that gave me another scout. Cool. I decided to settle 1 SE on the river for the Levee bonus later, and also grab a couple more riverside tiles to my capitol. I started a worker and Agg, which were followed by Warrior, Warrior and Mining ---> BW.

My scouts didnt take long finding Hammi, or the others for that matter (although Mao found me). I thought "great, couldnt think of 3 more PITA guys to have as continent-mates, other than maybe SB". Hammis UU owns the Greek one, and PRO is a PITA anyway, but doubly so without an anti-archer UU.

Then it hit me. This is Emperor Light! Knowing how much TMIT loves a good warrior rush, I promptly chopped/whipped out a Barracks and another 5 or 6 warriors, and started marching them toward Hammis border. He had managed to get one Settler out, but no BW (he had Farmed the Copper) or Bowman (yet). SWEET! Long story short, he managed to build a single Bowman, but by then, I had 5 warriors surrounding his cap and while that guy put up a good fight (took 3 with him), it wasnt enough and Hammi was dead. I had the better half of the landmass ALL to myself. Winney and Maoy were south of the Jungle, and I grabbed a couple key spots there, and let them settle and clean up the rest.

However, I almost blew it. Once I popped Babylons borders and got the Copper online, I made a pile of Lanx's. My 1st and 2nd settlers grabbed the Marble/Wheat spot North of my cap, and the Horse/Fish/Rice spot North of Hammis former cap. The GW went early, so I made quite a few units, both Lanx's and Chariots, since there were Axemen roaming around in the North as well. I also grabbed a couple nice Jungle spots, as I teched through AH, IW, and Writing. When Barb cities started cropping up, I started cashing in on them to support my REX, but kept a couple too many. With my slider plummetting and my tech rate an abysmal 12 BPT, I decided that I would make a shot at the Mids even though it was latish and the Stone was way too far to settle. I had already settled the Gold/Iron/Double-Spice spot to the East to partially block Winney in Jungle, and the 2 Banana, Gems, Cows spot to partially block Mao in the South, and saved a barb city in the SW on the coast in the Wheat/Fish/Banana spot.

Uh oh, you guessed it. I was crashing, BAD.

I have been playing mostly water-heavy maps with leaders like Roosevelt, Mehmed, Willem, Darius and Hannibal on Emperor, so having my economy crash due to city maintenance was not something I had a lot of experience with, heh.

Anyway, I pushed as fast as my 12 beakers would take me to Lit to go for the GL, since I had Marble. Around this time Winney got Alphabet too, so I traded with him and actually managed to get the Oracle. However, I was dealt a severe blow when the Mids were BIADL. ARGH. Oh well, I had been chopping out Libraries as fast as I could. I had lots of food so workers werent a problem. I whip-overflowed the GL out without much of a problem. Barb cities popped up all over in the north, and I razed most of them, but gradually kept a few here and there in key spots. I took Construction with the Oracle, and teched HBR and got busy building a Cat/Elephant army. By now, Mao and Winney had grabbed some other key spots in the Jungle Strip, then, Winney got Feud. UGH AGAIN! Well, I didnt mess around, I DoWed on him as I whipped/chopped as many units as I could. I had a nice set of CR II and Cover CR I Lanxes from all the Barb city XP, and just enough Cats to take 2 cities I coveted, so I quickly took them before Win could get LBs in there (I ended up only having to fight one). Mao only had 1 annoying city, and he was also the one whose religion I wanted to follow, so Winney was the best target.

Eventually, as I got cottages maturing (had started with a few farms since I assumed I would be in a full Mids-powered SE), teched CoL, Currency, bulbed Taoism, Paper, used 3 other GSs for Academies, especially in those rivered Jungle cities near Mao's, one of which I intend to move my Cap too. Mao built the Mids, but Bejing is too deep in his territory for any realistic chance at getting it, since he got Feud during my war with Winnie, and I was a LONG LONG way from Trebs.

So I teched CS, MC, and am doing Machinery now, with have half of Education already bulbed. I continued to expand carefully in the North as I assimilated Winneys cities, and have a ton of cultural pressure on Mao's border. He got Drama too, which sucks because he will get Theaters up now (well, Pavillions). I am hoping to trade him for it, but he isnt offering. I am also hoping he will build the AP (which is a big part of why I chose to be buddies with him instead of the Brits, his Wonderspam + my fear of his UU, LOL), but Christianity was FIADL, and now he probably wont. At least the Mids and a couple others are on my continent for later.

So after a bit of recovery time, traded for Calendar, etc, I have a very strong position and should be able to get Rifling off Lib, I am generating GSs all over the place, and Athens will make a nice GP farm once I move my Palace to the awesome 2 Banana/Rie/Gems/12 riverside grassland city. I also captured a Barb city on a great spot that grabbed the stone with 5 Floodplains for cottaging, so I have Marble and Stone for the UoS and Taj. I built the SoZ, Heroic Epic and MoM in Hammi's old cap, a great production city, too generate some extra GAs for 15 turn GAs. I shouldnt have any trouble from here, and will likely get either Rifling from Lib (or RP if I am worried). I am also heading for Engineering, because I think Trebs + Rifles is a better plan on this map than Steel-Maces, then up the RP line. I am now in a very mixed hybrid economy, and PP is going to be a solid tech here as I head toward a more classic CE + HR type of Empire. Had I gotten the Mids, I would likely have gone up the Engineering-Guilds-Banking line and ended up with Steel instead of Rifling.

Without the Mids, its harsh to assign the specialists needed to research through the 0% slider phase of the game, but I got lucky and managed to get powerful cities near the super-high commerce tiles, along with a crazy Barb Nation that constantly settled cities on the Northern shore of my land to raze, and they have kept me afloat. I will gradually convert to a CE with a couple GP farms alternating GP pops (the 2 capitols, neither of which will be a capitol soon, LOL). I also managed to grab the Parth with the Marble, kinda wish I had built it in the city with the other GA GPP Wonders, but its polluting my GL Scientist GP pool. Its my own fault I lost em too, but in order to start em sooner, I would have had to skip the Warrior Rush on Hammi, they went before 1000 BC in my game to Mao. I was too busy getting Libraries up and running Scientists, thinking I had at least a shot, but I couldnt get the stone online early enough, trying almost broke me, heh.

So without the Mids, I think Bulbing + Academies with the huge number of GSs I am getting is going to work well, as well as settling a few key one and going at least the 3 GP Golden Age + Taj = 60 turns of Golden Age, heh.

Now I'm looking good. My science has recovered to about 350, and I have a massive army of trebs and maces and cats. Hammy is my target, as I want his land, and he has some cities that need capturing/razing to my north. He is seriously lacking power, but I have delayed the DoW cos Mao has been preparing for war for the last few decades, and I fear he will DoW me when I tackle Babylon. Winny went round the globe, as I had more important worries, but a map trade revealed what he found. Now to meet those civs. No screenies, but a more comprehensive report of the war will come.

...in 1030 AD the city of Babylon fell to Greek war elephants and catapults providing 28 gpt from The Mahabodhi. The score is unfavourably balanced: 943 Mao Zedong, 821 Churchill, 783 Hammurabi, 590 Alexander.

It might have been worse if the 500 AD plan had not been altered by critical re-examination - the two barbarian cities to the north had no culture, so takeover was not on. The notion of the Shwendagon Paya, along with other wonders, was shelved for building the NW iron city, conversion to the continental(?) Buddhist creed and a greater military build-up.

The downside? Hammurabi grabbed one of the northern barbarian cities and Churchill(!) the other. The brightside? The Greeks have the capacity to sustain a long Babylonian War, if the Chinese and the English stay out of it and just enough to purchase Chinese involvement. In any event, war is the policy.

Thanks, I'll do a replay and go from there. Sometimes I really kick a$$, but other times it's a bust. Learn as you go, is it easier to learn just sticking on like monarch and adjusting to that level or work your way up?

I decided I'd lost enough of my SoD that I needed peace for a few turns after capturing 2 Babylonian cities and razing one. Should I be using this time purely to build new units, or should I let it go on longer to also finish some courthouses (at least in the cities away from my capital)?

What does a lot of land mean when you don't lose? A lot of tech. For example, modern armor.



Whoa hey!



I was actually able to beat him to mass media too since he didn't priorize it and I had over 2000 BPT before putting spy points into him. So I get the UN while declaring basically. I had some pretty fast wars for quick before. THIS one, would be fast for any game:



Ten years. Spies on railroads, modern armor against infantry...yeah that won't take too long. From here I couldn't win UN as I was about 60 votes shy. I decided to tech to space since I don't do that much.

One problem .



You only need 25k culture/city to be legendary on quick . I lose.........




















Just kidding!



Paris had 2x legendary culture. Then it had 0 culture. The French response? Expected .


I guess modern armor vs grenadiers don't tickle his fancy.



I took it. I could have gone domination or finished the last ship part and launched it, but I was getting really tired of this game, which wasn't any faster than my others at around 4 hours and change. I made well over 100 modern armors though and had all but future tech...so kind of neato there.

Until next time!

Went for the lib-steel beeline and got there in the end:


Power's not that respectable but I've got a dozen trebs waiting to be upgraded which will help:


Built a couple more cities in the jungle and an infill site on the west coast but it was mainly about growing cities and working a few cottages:


On the other hand I'm not too worried about losing my tech lead:


What's next? Probably switch to theocracy to get some CR2 maces built. Switch to cash to upgrade trebs to cannon. Have a war or two. Probably start with Babylon then England then China. Aim to vassalise.
Then research economics followed by optix and check out the other continent with a tasty trade mission. I'll probably need to switch to Free Religion before then or no-one will talk to me. I'll need astronomy for an invasion fleet, maybe milsci for some grenadiers. Hard to predict until I actually make some contact.

I decided to tech mining first to take advantage of the gold, then agriculture so I could make a farm on the corn when the border popped. Once I had ag, I went with BW. When that's done, on to the wheel to make roads to the gold, and hopefully some nearby copper.
First city build was a warrior, and when he's done, a worker. By the time the worker is done, I should have BW. Slavery right away to whip and chop a settler and another warrior.
I sent my scout in a big circle around the capital, and found three huts for about 250 gold. I'm thinking my best bet for a second city is due east, right between the gold and ivory. It seems like a good location for a production city with the hills around it and the nearby river for farms. Lots of trees to chop, too. Of course, this depends on where I find copper. I may have to settle elsewhere at first, get another settler and then go east.
The plan so far:
I'm going to tech AH and then archery and see what happens from there. The scout is going to go north along the west coast a bit and then east, looking for other places to settle. I like to REX early, and the gold in my two cities will help. The next city will be on the west coast, and hopefully I can get the GLH. I hope to find stone to the north. Maybe I can get the 'mids too. If I'm lucky.
City plan:
I'm thinking the capital will be a good GP farm. There's lots of food, and with some cottages, it should be a power house. The city I plan to settle due east would make a really good production city, I think. Again, lots of food and hills to mine. I'll set that one to produce nothing but units, after a worker and a granary so that I can whip faster.
I'm thinking expanding north would be the way to go, and try to lock up some locations on the coast, then east.
We'll see what happens.

Land is awesome! I start settling Sparta east to keep the gold out of Hammy's hands, who I met at turn 10 or so. Corinth south for copper + bananas, Thebes north for lots of resources and riverside land. I consider a quick rush but decide to rex as there is plenty space for good cities. I block off Hammy in the NE and then expand south, staking off a good bit of land.

Diplo-wise I decide to suck up Hammy and Winnie, who hate Mao. When I'm at 8 cities or so I start building up military to attack Mao with phalanxes. Exactly one turn before I declare Hammy declares on me. What??? Well anyway, he spent half the game so far building wonders, while I was building military. He has 4 cities, I have 8, you do the math His UU is a PITA but 2 bowmen can't save a city from 8 phalanxes.

After the war I still have a lot of units left, been building swords and started on construction for cats so I decide to try and take out Mao as well. I'm effectively running a war/pillaging economy, taking cities to support the huge army. City maintainance is starting to pull down the economy, so I start razing Chinese cities. Opportunistic Winnie starts settling the empty lands I don't want to give up Beijing, and Shanghai had wonders, so I decided to keep them despite my economy being in the drain.

I could really need some advice now. I overreached quite a bit and currently losing money with the slider at 0%. Still money in the bank from all the city caps to keep my army from disbanding. Should I take peace with Mao (also helps with WW) and try to rebuild? He has at least 3 more cities, but can't have much more. And what to do with Winnie? Should I kick him out of what should be my land? Could I declare on him as well to keep the war economy running and wipe out the entire continent with axes/swords? I'm afraid he'll be growing too big soon, and with a shrine to support his techrate it'll be a while before I can take him down. Or maybe I'm already too late, a bit behind in techs and making 19 BPT while losing 28 GPT and 3 cities building wealth.

Some pictures of the Greek land:

North



Central



South

Someone else said to go AG first and I definitely agree. Early in the game food is your most important tile(s) for cities so you should always prioritize it (unless you need a strategic resource NOW or something). On maps where you have land towards an AI and land away from it, I suggest expanding TOWARDS the AI first, blocking it off and leaving time and room for you to build even more cities later. On this map I build 11 cities peacefully and probably could have gotten 13 with more backfill, and that was on emperor.

As for the capitol or other cities - pick. It's either hammers/commerce or a GP farm. Granted, you might want your first scientist from the capitol if it has spare food so that you can make an early academy and get research going in some cases, but generally speaking city specialization dictates you keep a city in 1 role for most if not all of the game.

Continuing from where I left off I DoW on Hammy. I raze two/keep one of the isolated cities, and take Babylon, his capital. Hammy promptly vassalises to Winny. I never checked to see my tech situation with Winny, and all of a sudden a stack of knights and grenadiers appear at Thebes and start removing my fully matures cottages. My defensive stack got rid of them with heavy casualties, and I asked the chairman Mao to DoW Winny, who obliged (Winny must have been his target all along as he went in with a massive stack and actually took a few English cities). That kept Winny busy, leaving me to remove Hammy by 1502AD. Now its recovery time, and then my rifles will march on Winny, before I stab Mao in the back and consolidate the continent as my own. One question - Should I run free market and corps, or SP when I consolidate the continent?

Some pics
My Post War domestic adviser:


The demographics


the military sit rep

I conquered the Babylonians a few turns ago and just conquered the last barbarian city in the north, and am now consolidating: courthouses everywhere, and Forbidden Palace in Babylon. It seems to have taken a very long time, but I suspect that may be due to normal speed instead of my usual epic.

Everyone left on my continent is Buddhist and Pleased with each other, so given how very long it took to conquer the Babylonians I'm inclined to stay peaceful, especially with the AP floating around to force a peace on me. Mao is currently the AP leader, but I think I have a chance to catch up. Starting to explore East with a galley protected by triremes, so maybe I'll meet others soon.



I have the uneasy feeling that I should have been able to do a lot better; my military-production cities (Athens, Sparta, Corinth) pretty much just kept building units since my first posting, a couple spammed Buddhist missionaries, and the rest were just getting basic infrastructure done. I never built the National Epic -- war production took precedence.

I'm not sure what to do next. I have 4 religions (Buddhist, Confucianism, Taoism, and Christianity, all spread to me except Christianity, which founded in Sparta). Thus cultural victory ought to be fairly straightforward.