gmajor 5 walkthrough (epic, emperor, culture, arabia)

vexing

knows
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this will eventually, hopefully, be a complete walk through of my gmajor 5 submission. as it took me eight and a half hours to play through, it will take me a long while to post this, and as i'm limited to 10 picture attachments per post it will be spread across many. my play was in no way perfect, but it was at least good enough to beat the limited competition.

the goal is a culture victory in minimal amount of turns. the map type is inland sea, which is an expanse of land bounded by gray on the sides and fog on the top and bottom, with an ocean in the middle.

i rerolled a few times before getting what turned out to be this map:



arabia is the green in the center bottom. my capital is planted about as far from adjacent civs as can be, 17 hexes from both washington and persepolis. this is far enough that even when they plant their 2nd cities it won't engage hostilities. it takes tiles within about 10 hexes to cause coveting.

my starting position was this:



3 incense, silver, unfortunately no marble but it's a decent enough start that i'll see how it starts out.

i first move my warrior to the upper right to see how things look, and not seeing anything swaying me that way gamble and move my settler on to the hill to the left



i apparently gained a lot of pure desert tiles in addition to the +1 early production.

move the warrior down toward the ruin, settle mecca, lock the incense tile and click production focus (more on this later). the ruin ends up being a culture ruin - score. 35 culture which puts me a few turns from tradition.



continue scouting with the warrior heading south east and catch another ruin for mining and meet an iranian scout:



what to do? reverse directions:



why? darius's scout has been through the center area, and mt. fuji sitting at the bottom area is a potential indicator there'll just be a city state in the bottom area, and my warrior can still beat the scout to any ruins south of mecca.

and it pays off once...



and twice (bottom center)...



this one just revealed the map which didn't show me much except where sidon is to west of the ruin, and where ruins aren't which is useful.

meanwhile, it's turn 11, mecca is about to grow. since food production and growth happen before hammer and gold production, i'm going to exploit that with production focus & locked tiles. the relevant things are all in this picture:



because production focus is selected, after growth the new citizen is immediately sent to work the silver tile for +2 production +2 gold, which gets applied to the scout:



went from 13 hammers into the scout to 20, and total gold increased by 8. if default focus had been left on, the scout would have only gained 5 hammers, gold would have been increased by 7, and the food bucket would have remained the same; i gained a free 2 hammers and 1 gold. it isn't much (especially on epic speed) but every bit counts.

after that i unlocked all the tiles and clicked back to default focus, so the wheat plains and oasis will be worked when they're culture grabbed and i don't have to worry about forgetting. it'll be about 20 turns before growth again anyway and before that happens i'll set up the production focus again.
 

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score #3 for reversing directions:



calendar is very nice, i've now got all the techs for my local luxuries.

after my second scout finishes i send it north to see what's up, then east.
have to choose between monument and granary. either could be a valid choice at this point but i go with monument first.

my warrior discovers another ruin on his first of two moves. since it is in a forest anyway, and all movement points will be expelled grabbing it next turn, i go ahead and move ahead to scout a little bit



the ruin ends up being an upgrade. not the best but i can hardly complain.

my second scout ends up in a jam, having moved from the position marked 2 here to this spot. two barbarians revealed at once sucks.



the scout dies, but at least it discovered the spot my second city will go before dying. one tile west of the wine, a 4 luxury spot including 3 monastery luxuries and two new ones. it's also in the direction of darius i know, and he's not a big warmonger.

my first scout finds his first ruin too. i'd gain nothing by moving next to the barbarian directly toward ruin, as crossing the enemy's corner expels all movement points. so i go round about.



this ruin is another culture ruin. another bump toward settler.

turn 26 the monument finishes. i am at 69 of 90 for policy #3 (tradition -> liberty taken so far), so i will be popping a settler in three turns. i start up on the granary.

turn 29 i get my settler. i do some... ahem... scouting with it to determine a barbarian free path to reach my settlement spot. so nice of the game to remind us noncombat units can't go on the same tiles as opposing combat units.



and some continued scouting



turn 32 i get writing, and everyone but darius is friendly. the 6ish gpt i've been earning + 90 gold from ruins + meeting 6 city states + 3 open borders puts me above the 420 gold needed to buy a worker so i get my first.



my settler finally arrives safely at the foundation site for medina. i plant it next turn and set it on production focus (i'm at 0 happiness) and it says 28 turns to complete library. my worker can't immediately start working on a luxury due to the barbarians floating around, and while i could go left and start a farm i predict next turn i'll be able to work on the NE incense so i leave it in the capital



my capital killed the barb so i moved and started working on the incense. the southern barb is posing no threat to my worker.



my spearman meanwhile came back, saw all the barbarians, turned tail and fled to sidon. =0

 

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What social policies have you chosen? And which ones are next?

How did you gain 420 gold to buy your worker? You hadn't hooked up luxuries yet, so you obviously didn't trade lux for cash. Did you offer gpt for cash to AI? It seems you only met two, right... (I play at lower difficulty level and the AI seldom have that kind of cash this early)? How much gold can you get for that? 90 from ruins, and perhaps 30 from meeting one CS? Anything obvious I'm forgetting?

Thx, btw... this is just the kind of thread that I need to learn from. :goodjob:
 
Great walkthrough and hope to see more updates and many more of these

Only a few turns and I already learned things I had no idea about, like scouting with the settler or maximizing production at city growth
 
What social policies have you chosen? And which ones are next?

How did you gain 420 gold to buy your worker? You hadn't hooked up luxuries yet, so you obviously didn't trade lux for cash. Did you offer gpt for cash to AI? It seems you only met two, right... (I play at lower difficulty level and the AI seldom have that kind of cash this early)? How much gold can you get for that? 90 from ruins, and perhaps 30 from meeting one CS? Anything obvious I'm forgetting?

Open borders x 3 when writing pops = 150 gold. Plus 90 from goody hut + ~200 from 32 turns of up to 10 gpt from economy = 440.
 
Open borders x 3 when writing pops = 150 gold. Plus 90 from goody hut + ~200 from 32 turns of up to 10 gpt from economy = 440.

Aha... selling open borders, that's what I'm missing out on! I'll have to give that a try next time. (or every time :lol: ). Thx! :goodjob:

Keep it coming Vexing... I'm sure I have lots more ignorance to remedy. ;)
 
@kcd_swede, tradition -> liberty -> settler. worker is next. i've met four civs (3 which were friendly at the time of writing) and i've met 6 city states (one or two first), and i've probably been earning 5-6 gpt average.

for continuity of story i will be editing past posts to clarify these points (and future questions) as well.

continuing:

it's now turn 41, i'm at 253 gold. i teched directly to writing, then as all my luxury techs were gifted, i go through animal husbandry to the wheel for eventual access to chariot archers. when that's done i'll tech to iron in hopes of finding some in the desert.

it's been 7?ish turns since i began the plantation on the incense



since anything in an automated task doesn't do its work until the end of the turn (and this includes building improvements) i click build plantation again to force it to finish. note that workers say 1 turn left on both the turn before and the turn they can finish.

now that i've got a luxury i determine who to sell it to



russia is the winner, with the most gold and gpt. i sell for 360 gold directly and buy 2nd worker. both workers head to the luxuries south of the city to improve.

i get the sudden urge to declare on sidon



and on the same turn the urge has passed. note they were not under anyone's protection. if you forget / don't pay attention to the protection announcements, you can click make war on a city state at any time and the confirmation dialog will tell you who they're under the protection of if anyone.

my scout sits and prays to the fortify until healed gods near the grand mesa, though he forgets to face mecca - or maybe he's completely lost his way having gone so far.
the extra wonder let's me grow again in mecca while still being at zero happiness, which is good because with the granary, the +3 food wheat and oasis which my borders picked up, i'm going to grow soon. i lock the tiles and put on production focus as per usual, and this time i let it keep working the silver



after moving the worker back and setting up the spearman to take the northern barb camp here is the general situation. i'm pretty close to finishing the 2nd incense, i'm at 0 happiness and medina has been a mix of growth/production focus as it'll finish the library in time anyway.



taking that barb camp reveals the rock of gibraltar, putting me at one happiness. safe to grow with both cities.

since i'm four turns from free worker policy and that pops near capital (and will mine the riverside hill there) i've moved all three other workers toward medina and end up in this sticky situation:



my spearman is at 7 hp, that barb will move next turn, i bombard it and it does only one more damage so it's at 8 hp. so what do i do?

i buy the incense tile, and start working it, start working the wheat, fortify my spear to heal, force the worker to continue on the wine plantation and let the barb capture it. my reasoning is the spear should have an easy kill next turn at 9 hp.



after bombarding again the barb is down to 6 hp. 8.4 vs 5.4, the min damage i'll do is 5.36, average 7.55. 88% chance i will kill the barb and recapture my worker

unfortunately things don't go quite as planned.



now i'm in another bad situation. bombard kills the barb, and i have a few choices with my spear - i can instant heal it and recapture the worker now safely, i can capture the worker and take a shock promotion and there'll be a 1/4 chance of dying if i'm attacked in the marsh by the barb from the camp, or i can heal up and capture the worker later.

that chinese scout has come from the east so i am hopeful it will move adjacent to the barb, preventing my spear from being attacked so i take the shock promotion and go that route.

instead out of nowhere comes an ottoman archer scout to sit in the tile i was hoping the chinese scout would go to. i forgot about selling open borders. at least i'm now safe. i fortify the spear to heal which puts me well out of the danger zone.



the barb makes a suicide attack on my spear anyway.



bombard does 3 dmg killing the barb and i capture the camp with the spear.
 

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Did not know about the automated worker thing. :cool: It seems like you have a lot of workers. Will you delete them when the improvements are made, or plan expansion to give them something to do? Just curious how many cities you are planning to have.
 
as a general update here's how things look currently



i've been selling all luxuries and saving the gold at this point, i am briefly in unhappiness - the incense from that previously bought tile in medina will finish next turn, the wine in a few turns due to some barbarian complications. after the wine finishes i will move that worker down and buy the other incense tile near medina to work that, the worker on the incense will build a mine just north of medina, the worker finishing up the wheat farm will move back to mecca and start on riverside farms, when the mecca mine finishes that worker will move to make farms too. i probably should have bought the mecca incense tile and started on that - i'll get to it later.

meanwhile my scout has baited a barbarian with worker camp into attack, and is healing up.



i moved intentionally beside this camp in the hopes of having the barb end up low enough hp that i could take the camp with the scout and return that worker, hopefully after having gotten a "destroy this camp" request from whatever city state. in the end the barb isn't low enough hp to safely take the camp with the scout anyway and i end up wandering off after healing.

when medina finishes the library i'm up to 11 beakers/turn. i start a monument there.

on turn 71 i finish the great library in mecca and take philosophy with it



i'm up to 16.5 bpt with the library and raw science granted, and i start on the NC.

i check out the global politics section of the diplomacy info box, and find three players in classical with me: caesar, cath and washington.




i start setting up my research agreements



so i don't have to keep browsing deal history i write down a note for myself to indicate when the RA will resolve, in this case it'd be 117 caesar. the 117 is turn 71 + 46 turns later.

during this play set i also sign with washington on turn 73, and suleiman (who has reached classical) on turn 77. my general goal is to sign three, space a bunch of turns, then sign four more. i'll show how this resolves later.

here's how mecca's dirt looks. it hit a WLTKD when i improved the silver i guess - good luck there.



now that iron is revealed i see i missed out on a third ring grassland iron by moving, but gained a 3rd ring desert iron and 3rd ring desert incense. i also moved too many hills into the third ring; i'll only be getting that single second ring hill for more production soon. i buy the incense tile (my third purchase, all three incense) and get to work on it.

i get a close city state camp kill request from a maritime.



as you may notice from the minimap my spear has been exploring east after having cleared the immediate area of barbs, so it'd take quite a while to get back.

i'm going to need troops eventually anyway, so i see a man about a horse



and rush buy a chariot archer.

the trouble with chariots is you can't kill and capture on the same turn, and this area has been crawling with scouts. i do take a pot shot at the camp while scouts are around; the AI won't attack with scouts even when they could successfully clear a camp doing so.

the next turn the area looks like this. i move ahead to see all tiles surrounding the area



since there are no scouts within two tiles to steal the camp from under me i move back and take the shot, successfully killing the barb

the next turn two scouts end up next to the camp before i slide up and grab it, gaining 50 influence and friendship with the city state for +2 food in capital

 

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on turn 84, i buy the only hill in the 95 gold price range and move the closest worker on top to mine it.



the +2 production shaves 2 turns off projected NC finish turn, and with my recent maritime friend i'm still at +5 food in the capital - the wltk day ended.
the monument has finished in medina and they've started a granary.

on turn 86 i get my 5th policy, and take representation



the golden age shaves one turn off NC finish, and the reduction from extra cities makes my next policy cost 460 instead of the 480 it'd be otherwise

meanwhile my chariot archer goes to collect some exp off a camped barbarian in a camp that sidon has previously requested killed. sidon still hates me, they're at -25ish so i don't intend on taking the camp just yet



unfortunately the combat doesn't end as expected and i wipe out the barb with this one shot. the next turn an ottoman scout is next to the camp so i have no choice but to take it early, which puts me up to +25 with sidon - not enough for even friendship.

for RAs i signed with darius and wu on 85 - this was unintentional, i thought i had advanced turns between. i think this ends up biting me too. i'm down to just cath and askia not being signed.
neither of the two had 300 gold (or maybe askia wasn't in classical yet)
here's a money shot of catherine:



i trade her 132 gold for 2 gpt, then sign the RA. the 132 for 2 gpt is a bad sign, a fully friendly civ should want closer to 95 gold for 2 gpt in epic speed (5% above value).

meanwhile a barbarian has been griefing me - my spear is still on its way back and my chariot archer is sort of working back too. it's pillaged my two wheat farms so far.



the barbarian warrior to the south had left its camp to attack that scout, so i know the camp is to the west of the sugar.

you may also notice i'm one turn from finishing the NC - on turn 92 that happens and i jump from 19.5 bpt to 31.5, a 60% increase. early middle age techs drop from a 24 turn prediction to 15. i start on the hanging gardens.

the next turn the barb ends up on top of my silver, and i really don't want that pillaged and my chariot archer has moved into a range in which it can recapture any stolen worker, so i move my worker into bait range



the barbarian of course takes the bait and captures my worker

i move my chariot archer to an adjacent tile and after the city bombardment it kills the barb



in this position the barbarian worker can't move two tiles back toward camp.

next turn i recapture my worker and find out it's only sort of mine



i wish i could say i had kept track of which worker was which and knew i was going to be able to return the worker i had stolen from sidon, but it was purely luck that was the one. regardless i graciously return the worker the barbarians brutally stole from sidon, which puts me up to friendship level.

in this position, knowing where the camp is and knowing sidon's worker can't move through my borders or units, i begin the dance of the city state worker, where it is very important to lead:



i manipulate the workers movement via blocking such that the worker moves into range of the barb camp, is captured once again, and recapture it.

i graciously return the worker the barbarians brutally stole from sidon, which now puts me up to 71ish influence and ally status



i gain their furs putting me up to 4 happiness from 0, and eventually i'll be getting the horses they're currently improving. i'm down to only 3 workers but i've got more tiles improved than i can work (aside from roads) so that is fine. all in all borrowing sidon's worker has turned out quite well for me.
 

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Will second that. Really good commentary. Hope you'll be able to continue on with it.
 
let's check in generally and specifically on medina



i signed my 7th ra with askia on turn 97, i'm at 33 bpt, 625 gold, 4 happiness from imported furs and one unsold incense, and my luxury sales will be finishing soon. medina started on the oracle after finishing the granary. i'm not sure why i put a farm instead of a mine south of medina - probably for eventual extra food to make up for starving artists. i chose the oracle in medina because it should still safely finish it before an AI will grab it and my capital is going to be busy on other things.
you may notice the camp in the lower right - i've intentionally not killed this camp as it's sitting close to hanoi and close enough to sidon that either could potentially give a quest for it.

i buy the forest to the right of medina to get closer to the sugar.



you may notice the worker sitting in the marshy sugar, working on clearing that marsh

when the marsh is cleared the culture expansion choice switches from the floodplains to the sugar



this is because the value of the tile has increased with the removal of the marsh, and natural cultural expansion chooses things with the highest value. i don't know the exact definition of value but it increases with food and resources and decreases with distance. the same thing can be done by clearing out forests on calendar luxuries.

hanoi finally bites on the camp.



i clear it out in a couple turns and gain a military friendship.

a couple turns later sidon targets yet another encampment to their northwest.



i start moving the chariot archer that cleared the hanoi encampment that way

fortuitously sidon gives me a chariot archer the next turn.



this is my preferred unit, and it's close enough that it can work on clearing the encampment before the other one gets in range.

that chariot finds a barbarian spear in the camp and i move as indicated



i don't want to sit next to spear as it could easily kill my chariot archer, 14 vs 4.4 - a 3x ratio is well within one shot kill range.

i position myself such that the spear cannot attack due to the river and start pegging it



my other chariot archer joins in and they get the job done, the turn after sidon decays to friendship - up to 109 influence.



i finish the hanging gardens.



mecca needs more tiles to make good use of it - each point of growth is +2.25 science, but i'd much rather be getting more production. i start up stonehenge. this is a cultural victory after all. as a bonus my tile acquisition will be sped up when i finish.
 

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meanwhile my scout had stumbled upon this camp



this was on turn 103. i fortify the scout and the barbarian suicides into the scout, killing itself completely - normally a barbarian won't leave a camp with a worker in it like that, so it's an indication another barb has spawned near the camp.

i capture the empty camp and return belgrade's worker



the archer pegs my scout for some more damage and i head north east

belgrade puts a worker out on the horses and the barb takes it leaving me in this position



i'm not 100% sure the archer won't take a shot at my scout here if it thinks it can kill the scout. i checked this, and the archer indeed will not shoot at the scout, escorting the worker overrides its desire to kill. anyway, instead of fortifying here to heal i moved two hexes north east. i know my chances are pretty slim of being able to get that worker again with just my scout so i end up just healing up and wandering around instead of going for the worker recovery.

on to research.
my first RAs are going to be firing on 117, 119 and 123. this is how my research looks on turn 116, on the left trapping is still unfinished



there are a couple options for maximizing classical RA effectiveness, especially on lower difficulties. one option is delay getting into medieval for a long time and sign all your RAs late in the turns before you do, and then finish some early medieval things so they're all at least at late medieval level before firing.

my preferred option is sign a few early RAs and use them to fill in most of the early medieval branch (without actually getting into medieval) and resign classical era RAs with those folks. the effectiveness per RA is probably lower, but you are potentially signing more overall RAs per turns, and to me it's a simpler route.

the bottom 3 techs have some turns in them, but they're all less than 3/8ths done. this is little enough that the half median + single turn research won't be enough to finish them, but will get them close.

metal casting for example. 453 is the median price, so i'll be getting 226ish beakers from the RA, in addition to the 39 i'm earning per turn, combined with the 177 i have in progress will put me at around 442 of 453; not quite finished.



the RA completes, and i sign up for a new one and switch research to something else as i'm still not in the medieval era and don't want to be.

belgrade requests this camp about 10 hexes to their left be destroyed. my scout had been sitting around it waiting for some CS to request its killing - hopefully whichever lost that worker



the worker was helsinki's, so i just gain the 30 influence, but i do gain belgrade as an ally which lets me sell another luxury. that spearman had just spawned apparently, as it does not kill my scout (barbarians do nothing the turn they spawn and the turn after).
helsinki strangely decides to put its worker in the water hex instead of just heading south to home. the AIs barbarian alarm code clearly isn't perfect, although being in the water does protect it from immediate capture...

it doesn't help when the worker returns to land the next turn



again my scout can do nothing to help really, so it just begins the process of healing up. i had at some point given it survivalism 1 for an extra healing point since it's doing a lot of attacking. i do typically prefer the scouting line of promotions for actual scouting work.

turn 123 arrives, the last of three RAs having fired and signed again for 300 gold (vs the 375 + 100 were i in medieval), and this is how my research looks with trapping still unfinished to keep me from medieval - finishing all techs prior to an era advances the era.



i'll finish currency, then metal casting, then engineering. this will leave open machinery, physics, steel, trapping, theology, compass. this will put my median at between compass and machinery level. when i finish theology there'll only be 5 techs opened, which will make the median straight machinery.

after i finish currency, i check out the financial situation



i buy a bazaar in medina - this gives me an additional wine and sugar, and two additional incense (for 7 total). i screw up and sell the sugar to catherine for 266 +2/turn, when i should have sold it to wu, as wu was the previous purchaser of my wine. that deal is expiring relatively soon anyway so it's not too horrible. i also sell the excess incense to askia for all his gold (79+2), because there's no particularly good reason not to.

in the meantime i have completed a road from mecca to medina. while constructing it was a loss of a few gpt, but the trade route has reached the point of a net gain.
i've also gained my 6th policy, which i used to open piety.

medina is still chugging away on the oracle



there's a worker clearing a forest on a hill to help speed up the oracle, so it will be less than the claimed 13 turns.
 

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Not sure I understand what you are doing with partially researching techs. Does tech blocking still work for RA's?
 
Not sure I understand what you are doing with partially researching techs. Does tech blocking still work for RA's?

The RA gives you points for the tech you're currently researching. If the RA is enough to finish one of those techs, it moves you to the next era, which makes the next RA more expensive to sign, because you're no longer in the same era as the AI. So the aim is for each RA to bring one of those techs within a turn of finishing, allowing you to sign the next wave of RAs cheaper, then spend 1 turn per tech finishing them off and moving to the next era, giving you a much bigger benefit for that next wave of just signed, cheaper RAs.
 
The RA gives you points for the tech you're currently researching. If the RA is enough to finish one of those techs, it moves you to the next era, which makes the next RA more expensive to sign, because you're no longer in the same era as the AI. So the aim is for each RA to bring one of those techs within a turn of finishing, allowing you to sign the next wave of RAs cheaper, then spend 1 turn per tech finishing them off and moving to the next era, giving you a much bigger benefit for that next wave of just signed, cheaper RAs.

Aha. Thanks! (Sounds incredibly complicated to pull off :eek: ).
 
and here's how mecca looks:



stonehenge in 8 turns... there are a lot of good things to build in mecca and i am impatient

with the proceeds from my bazaar sales i rush buy a workshop and assign the specialist



stonehenge is cut to a 6 turn prediction, and i'm started on a great engineer.

the next turn another barbarian shows up to grief me



i move my worker as indicated as it's doing nothing critical, and start moving my chariot archers for recovery. the barbarian takes the bait and i kill the barb in a couple of turns to recover the worker.

around this time hanoi requests i build a road to their capital. it's 7 tiles away, my workers are done with constructive work, so i happily oblige and move my three workers on to that.

turn 130 rolls around, and the resolution of my double signed RAs with darius and wu is about to happen. my tech tree looks like this:



i'm working on theology which i hoped to have finished, trapping (not shown) is the next tech selected, then civil service, and education. since i have 6 techs open, the median will be between compass and machinery. if i had 5 open i'd get about 90 more beakers for each ra, so my double signing does cost me that much. the resolutions give me all the early medieval techs and a chunk of education.

i finish stonehenge on the same turn:



in ancient times, hundreds of years before the dawn of history lived a strange race of people... the druids. no one knows who they were or what they were doing, but their legacy remains, hewn into the living rock... of stonehenge.

after all that, here are all the buildings i could construct:



thanks economic advisor for pointing me toward the mint for +2 gold! i'll choose the bazaar instead for an extra silver to sell. a not shown option which i also desire is a settler, which i'll build when the bazaar completes.

medina finishes the oracle and it's time to policy choose:



i take organized religion, mainly to get me closer to the +33% from wonders. medina starts on a temple. monastery would be more raw culture, but i want to get them started on a great artist.

i go to check out the spot where i will plant my settler and find a barb camp there



i move safely out of range and route to the opposite side of the river where i'm unreachable.

additional city state unit gifts have been an archer from belgrade and a pikeman from sidon. i've been exploring with the archer and one of my three chariot archers and happened to go into viewing range of one great barrier reef tile (bottom right tile).



rio had requested a natural wonder viewing, so i am back to friendly with them. rather than jump down into the water for the +1 happiness boost from viewing the other tile, i leave it alone so if another city state requests a "new" natural wonder, i'll be able to oblige quickly and easily.

i also finish the road to hanoi, allying with them



now what to do? i send two workers away and use the last worker to start removing the road, as there's no need to continue paying the 7 gpt for it
 

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Amazing read, vexing!

That barbarian baiting and CS management is such a smart!
And on top of that - your trick to force barbarians to capture Sidon worker you've freed to get more influence is amazing!

Im reading your comments in Tips and tricks section , as well as Martin's for a long time. And I'm pretty sure your walkthrough is the best civ5 reading I've had for months!

I also bet Martin just cant write his walkthrough in a such a brilliant way you did yours :)

Keep it up, vexing! You got yourself a fan! :))
 
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