LK148 - WM, farewell to Greece

4000 BC (1)
Research starts on writing at minimun. I expect to trade for most of the cheap techs before we can research them our self.



3600 BC (8)
Alphabet and $22 goes to Babylon for burial and pottery.


3200 BC (16)
Persia's price for masonry is absurd, so I pass for now.


3100 BC (18)
We give Germany alphabat for warrior code and $20.


2850 BC (23)
Sparta is formed in northern Turkey.


2750 BC (25)
We meet France, but no possible trades.


2630 BC (35)
Persia is now reasonable, so alphabet and $15 buys us masonry.


2190 BC (39)
Thermopylae is built northwest of Athens. Germany beat us to the preferred spot, but right now any decent city we can claim is worth it.


1990 BC (44)
No idea how, but America, Aztecs and Sioux are in the tech leaders lists. We actually make the #8 spot.


1870 BC (47)
Babylon stole my spot by the gems. The settler was a bit to late.

Corinth is formed crammed by Athens. These cities have way more overlap then I like, but size 6 to 12 cities are what will win the early wars.


1830 BC (48)
Babylon must have met somebody new. They are suddenly three techs ahead of us.


1790 BC (49)
Delphi is crammed south of Sparta.


1750 BC (50)
Egypt gets writting for wheel and $40.
Babylon gets writing for iron working and $22.



Summary:
We can see borders in Africa. That should be Songhai.
Our warriors heading toward Asia still haven't found China, Mongolia or India.

We have no iron. However, we do have horses. Full speed research gives us that in 27 turns.
Delphi needs a temple after a token warrior. The plan looks pretty simple. Get some culture to safeguard our cities, and make resistance easier to drop. After that, it is time for barracks, hoplites for real defense, and horses to overrun Europe.

I was right about blocked fast. Those five cities are it for natural cities. The next block will have to be via




Summary:


ROSTER:
LKendter (just played)
Todd Marshall (up)
Greebley (on deck)
CKS

And the save:

I see that I'm up. I will play tomorrow. This should be fun.

signing in for the peanut gallery

Sparta looks like it will be very strong. Lets get the temple when we can to get the last cow, Since we don't have to build lots of settlers we may want more shields once the town grows. The cows won't benefit from mines but the wheat will. Also we could consider switching the cows to mines during our GA if we have extra worker turns.

Not sure when we want to attack Germany or France, but since it will be a GA, I think I would like our towns to be higher in population. Its hard to tell which cities are on the rivers and can grow past size 6.

Greebley said:

Sparta looks like it will be very strong. Lets get the temple when we can to get the last cow,

Click to expand...

I like temple after the ship. I want at least one ship leaving the med, to England, and hopefully lucky to jump to Iceland, Greenland then America.

checking in with lots of questions.

What size are the turnsets normally in these games?
Is this just a special map or are there other rules to be considered? Can I find a overview somewhere?

Why is Corinth working the sugar and not the wheat?
ShopuldnT we put out one more city in Palestine between the fiish and the wheat? and maybe another one in romania?

Generally 10 turns, but at the end shorter sets are understood.

This is just a special huge map with 18 total civs.

These huge maps going for domination need larger cities. In addition, AI culture chokes are common. Palestine would have to many issues fighting culture from Babylon's capitol.

I can't figure out the city in Romania. To me Corinth is in Romania.

I meant N-N-NW of Corinth.

BTW Am I correct in assuming, that the AI Civs in our immediate Neighbourhood will also be stuck at similar No of cities due to the crowding?

Kulko said:

BTW Am I correct in assuming, that the AI Civs in our immediate Neighbourhood will also be stuck at similar No of cities due to the crowding?

Click to expand...

Some such as France and Germany will be squeeze to.

Others like Russia have a lot of land to claim even if it is weaker land.
There is a ton of land in Africa, and only three civs.

This is why "farewell to Greece". After this game Greece is gone to reduce European crowding.

Yes I remeber this problem from the old days of Civ1, when I played the real world map. Will it be removed completely or will it be moved to another place? There seems to be space enough for somebody in the singapur area too.

Greece is becoming Indonesia.

Inherited Turn - I agree with Greebley about the temple in Sparta. We do want a Curragh, but I think it's better to build that in the capital, rather than wait a turn for it to grow so it can build a worker. I swap the capital from worker to Curragh, I swap Sparta from Curragh to Temple, and I swap Cornith from the Sugar hill to a plains wheat. Otherwise, no adjustments. I was tempted to try to be first to Philosophy, but I decided to stick with HBR, since we don't want Republic on this map (lesson learned last game!)

IT - Babylonian spear wanders near Thermopolae. Babylon's boarders expand to meet Delphi.

1) 1725 -

IT -

2) 1700 - Meet Songhai. They have 5 cities, lack The Wheel, Iron Working, and Writing, have a single lux with no spares hooked up. Not much else to say.

IT -

3) 1675 - We wander towards what looks like a Mongolian boarder and spy a settler pair of theirs. They have five cities, Mysticism (which was a Babylon exclusive) and lack only Writing. They have no gold, but will trade Myst for Writing. I think that's a massive overpay, so I decline for now.

IT - Delphi: Warrior -> Temple

4) 1650 -

IT - Athens: Curragh -> Worker

5) 1625 -

IT -

6) 1600 -

IT -

7) 1575 - Chinese boarder spoted.

IT - Athens: Worker -> Barracks

8) 1550 - China contacted. they have six cities, have no money or techs which we do not, and lack the Wheel and Writing. Sparta hits size 3, hires a scientist I can't see running 3 gold worth of Lux to keep one citizen working under our current circumstances.

IT -

9) 1525

IT -

10) 1500 - We find India's boarders, but will not have contact until pressing next turn.

Notes:
I've left you a single worker with movement. Not sure what priorities you might have for him.

You might want to Veto the Barracks in the Capital for a Temple just to even out the core happiness threashold. Your call.

There is a single Curragh on the way to North America, You may well want to make another for South America, as well as one for australia and possibly Zululand if our warrior encounters trouble getting there..

We now have contact with everyone in Eurasia/Africa except India, which will come next turn and the Zulu, who are almost sure to be hopelessly behind this game.

I did not make any deals. Russia has close to 50g, which you might want to get for Iron Working. Regarding trading for Mysticism, I did not think it was a priority, as only 2 civs have it, and giving Mongolia the little known and way more expensive Writing for it seemed absurd. We can surely pick that up from someone later on the cheap, since it's pretty much useless to us right now. Also, I expect India will have it when we make contact with them, and that will just make it cheaper and give us more options.

Not sure if I managed the cities the last turn, so please double check them.

Don't see much to comment on at the moment.
I do like the idea of Athens getting a temple for even happy limit.

ROSTER:
LKendter
Todd Marshall (just played)
Greebley (up)
CKS (on deck)
Kulko

ToddMarshall said:

. I was tempted to try to be first to Philosophy, but I decided to stick with HBR, since we don't want Republic on this map (lesson learned last game!)

Click to expand...

So we want Monarchy I assume? Wouldnt that mean we still can do the monarchy slingshot? On a emperor map that might still be possible after HBR.

Are we preparing for a fast war? so after the temples lots of baracks and horses?

We want Monarchy, because going for domination on this map lends itself to lots of forever wars, with most civs spread all over many islands, so the war weariness can get really oppressive Republic might be more of an option on Emperor, but Monarchy is probably better.

FWIW, we are unlikely to be first to Monarchy. I would expect Babylon at least to beat us. We probably should have done Philo, simply because most don't have writing yet. and most who do are likely beelining Monarchy anyhow. I don't expect it to matter in the long run, though.

We are going to have to go to war with someone shortly, as five cities on this map won't cut it for long. We will eventually need well over 100. We're doing fine now because we've got all the contacts, and the human knows how to maximize trades, but that won't last if we don't grab some more land.

I would like to throw out that I don't think we should completely discard Babylon as an early target. Yes, bowmen will be a pain, and they will get a GA from them, but their capital is right on top of us, and those gems look mighty attractive.

ToddMarshall said:

I would like to throw out that I don't think we should completely discard Babylon as an early target. Yes, bowmen will be a pain, and they will get a GA from them, but their capital is right on top of us, and those gems look mighty attractive.

Click to expand...

Thought about that too, going after Babylon would give us about 4 cities in our immediate neiughbourhood and a lux.

Going after Germany also brings us new land next to our current core, but no immediate Luxes.

Going after France (as was suggested earlier) seems weakest for me, as they are not an immediate neighbour. Only adavntage would be that we could cripple tehm before they get to their UU.

Last I looked France had the advantage of being behind in tech.

Babylon as a tech leader is dangerous, as much more likely to bribe somebody to war with us.

If no one has philosophy when we finish HBR, I'd like to go for it next. I think it is a fairly long shot, but the payoff is big if we get it. Sometimes philosophy goes really late on emperor, and if we can buy poly to get monarchy for free, that'd be great. Lit for free would also be good - we could build cheap libraries instead of expensive temples for culture.

Lee, IIRC, France lacks only wriring now. Germany is behind, though.