Many Leaders Game 2 - Sword Training

So i'm Augustas... I'm Trying out his new traits... Seeing if he's any good or not.

Leader Profile:

Civ: Rome
LeaderName: Augustas
Traits: Impirialistic, Industrious.
Favorite Civic: Representation.
Starting Techs: Fishing and Mining

Impirislistic gives me 100% Chance of Geat Generals. It also gives me 50% faster settler production.
Industrious gives us: Wonder production increased 50 percent. Double production speed of Forge.
Industrious isn't going to help much.

My strat: Spawn Settlers, expand quick. Build the great wall so my army won't be bothered by barbs, Then Attack The enemy. Looking for a conquest or dominition victory.

Pretty lame strat isn't it? Well pretty much everything i do is lame...


gah i've done 40 turns and my computer froze. I post this so i don't have to rewrite the biggining again. Expect to have it later today.

So i'm Augustas... I'm Trying out his new traits... Seeing if he's any good or not.

Leader Profile:

Civ: Rome
LeaderName: Augustas
Traits: Impirialistic, Industrious.
Favorite Civic: Representation.
Starting Techs: Fishing and Mining

Impirislistic gives me 100% Chance of Geat Generals. It also gives me 50% faster settler production.
Industrious gives us: Wonder production increased 50 percent. Double production speed of Forge.
Industrious isn't going to help much.

My strat: Spawn Settlers, expand quick. Build the great wall so my army won't be bothered by barbs, Then Attack The enemy. Looking for a conquest or dominition victory.

Pretty lame strat isn't it? Well pretty much everything i do is lame...

Turn 1, 4000 BC

Settle 1 north for clams and extra Production from hill.

Turn 10, 3600 BC:

Hooray!!!

Turn 21, 3160 BC
Meet Ghandi.

Turn 27 , 2920 BC
Revolt.

Turn 28 We meet alex and Churchill at ounce.

Turn 33. 2620 BC
Agriculture in, We meet Washington. I'm biggining to wonder, Ozbenno did you pick these opponints? Because there all my faverout fools in the game!


Turn 39, 2440 BC
Antium Founded. Found English Terrirtories, Wheel Finishes masonry starts. i have bronze!!!

Turn 45 2200 BC
Stonehenge Complete. Start Great Wall to stop and barbs!

Turn 49, 2040 bC

I don't know if i'll be able to complete it...

Turn 50. 2000 BC

I finish of by whipping my romans in rome to complete the Great Wall. To bad i wonb't be able to see it complete this turnset.

Did some congifuring on my last turn. Made research 90% and Espionage 10%. It won't make a differince to my research though.

Rome's Build Order: Worker, Fishing Boat, Warrior, Settler, Stonehenge, Great Wall
Antium's Build Order: Warrior, Worker
Tech Order: Fishing, Mining (starting techs), Hunting, Mysticism (goodyhut), Animal Husbandry, BW, Agriculture, Wheel, Masonry, Pottery
Goody Hut: 39 gold, 74 gold, Tech, 34 gold, Experience,

Anyway, on to the save provided by the wonderful, talented, humble, and one other adjective he told me to put here that I can't remember, Ozbenno. He has sweetened the deal by starting me off with a scout instead of a warrior, but you can bet I'm not going to mention it!


I chose to forgo the classic found in place maneuver, because I reckoned those green splotchy things in the eastern fog were flood plains, and I would be able to use both clams in a second city north of the capital, and not feel obliged to get fishing right away. Given that I still don't have fishing at turn 50, I'd say the plan worked!



I have to say, I was very happy with the move 1 east. I end up with an essentially useless coastal tile in my BFC, but I added wheat, a river grassland, and two floodplains, as well as being on what turns out to be a rather large river.



The 50 turns provided nine huts, including two late ones that were within three squares of an AI's borders. In total, I received one tech , 321 gold, two scouts and a map.

Tech research was pretty standard, except that I beelined to archery, so that I would have access to my UU, exciting or not. I'm one turn from Bronze Working, next stop Alphabet, and will try to trade up to sailing so I can check out Marble Island to my west.



I met Gandhi in 3360 B.C., Alex in 3280, and finally Qin Shi Khan in 2520 B.C.



A look at the espionage screen towards the end of the first turnset shows that we have enough points to see Alex's demographics. I turn up the slider on Gandhi so we'll be able to see his demographics soon.




I founded Akkad in 2440, which felt a little late, but hey it's Noble, right? I broke all the rules again by founding it one off the coast, but this position will gain it the opportunity to work have more cottages, without seriously overlapping with the capital, and it will still have plenty of food with two (unlighthoused) clams and the deer. It's also on the river for the fresh water bonus.

Dur-Kurigalzu was founded in 2000 B.C. south of the capital, so I would have a place to build the two workboats . At this point, I have one turn left on bronze working.

Turn 0 - Founded Athens in place.... What a heck of a start for a Philo leader!!! Start Worker and AH. Hut popped for 46 gold.
Turn 1 - Hut popped for Mysticism. I could use something better, but it's better than a map.
Turn 4 - Popped a hut for more gold!
Turn 10 - AH is in. No ponies in sight. Mining then!
Turn 12 - Worker ready. Start pasturizing the pigs. Warrior building
Turn 14 - Another hut for XP
Turn 16 - Mining in. Start BW. Buddhism FIDL
Turn 17 - Warrior and pigs ready. Another warrior on the queue and worker off to the sheep. Found Gandhi's warrior! He just founded Hinduism!
Turn 21 - Warrior for MP ok. Start Workboat. Missed a hut with the scout. Pop with the warrior for 21 gold.
Turn 27 - Workboat ready. Start a warrior for growing...
Turn 28 - BW is in... There's copeer just south of athens with plenty of food! Start Wheel for connecting...
Turn 29 - Warrior is in. Start settler and revolt to slavery.
Turn 33 - Another missed hut near bronze. Pop with a warrior for.. WRITING! Whip settler for 2 pop in Athens
Turn 34 - Met Alex! Hello big bro! His color is orange, like a Russian.
Turn 36 - Founded Corinth on the tile NE of copper. Already working a pre pasturized pig and copper is pre-roaded.
Turn 48 - Lost my medic scout to a wolf. Settler ready on Athens.
Turn 50 - STOP! Settler on position to found next turn near cows, wheat and wines.

Signs of :

• Started a monument (and left almost until completition) on Corinth. Forgot I was Creative.
• Researched Sailing for connecting the cities when just a road to the river was necessary.
• After Sailing, researched maths for no apparent reason. Could have done better if I went the religious path for the Oracle.

Well, at least for now, I'm doing pretty much the same as I done in Warlords. The only difference is that I'm the score leader!

First 10 turns.
Moved 1 N to the grasssland tile, to make it an uber prod city.

worker first. Went AH. Starting techs for Zara are , mining, hunting. Didnt go fishing, because worker/AH gave me a worker for mines.

Popped Masonry! . Then gold, Buddhisn FIDL , no horses to be seen.

Second 10 turns.
Horses found. Some good city sites.

Worker out, pasture the animals, fishing in, next Myst for Stone henge

Third 10 turns,
Pop more gold from huts. See good gold site, no neighbors.

Scout having a cat and mouse game with the lions, still alive.

Fourth 10 turns.
Stonhenge in. Going for GW because of the lack of neighbours. Pop more gold. Copper found with BW

At turn 44 meet Gandhi. Nice surprise.

Finish the wall to help mass settling, then start on a settler.

Looking good. I hope to settle copper, and floodplains, and then gold.

Hope to nab Oracle. Will be looking to use the floodplains and gold to get to Theology first, found Christianity and build Apostolic.

Stonehenge gives me free Steles. If Apostolic victory looks impossible, I will shift to Cultural, and this may include avoiding Astronomy in order to keep the Stele's 25% culture bonus right to the end.

Strategizing Espionage

(Thanks to the gang in this thread for consolidating Espionage multiplier info)

The goal will be to make the capital an uber-spy city. Pacal, being expansive and via its extra happiness UB, should allow for nice large cities. So the capital will be grown as much as possible to run a Spy Economy.

The first main target will be the Great Wall, as it will generate an earlier Great Spy. Based on info in other threads, the best use of Great Spy is: Super Specialist, then Scotland Yard.

So Great Wall requires Masonry. Pacal starts with Mysticism and Mining, so Masonry is easily researched. Of course, Hunting will be researched first for the metal-less Spearman UU, the Holkan. Fishing will probably be second to get those clams online.

Here are the other Espionage-related builds and Civics to target:
Walls, requires Masonry -- prereq for Castles
Courthouse, requires Code of Laws -- espionage points, 1 spy specialist
Forbidden Palace, requires CoL (obviously not being built in the capital) -- espionage points
Castle, requires Engineering -- espionage points
Nationhood, requires Nationalism (Civic) -- espionage multiplier
Jail, requires Constitution -- espionage points, multiplier, 2 spy specialists
Security Bureau, requires Democracy -- espionage points, 2 spy specialists
Pentagon, requires Assembly Line -- Great Spy generation
West Point, requires Military Tradition -- Great Spy generation
Intelligence Agency, requires Communism -- points, multipliers, and 2 spy specialists
Kremlin, requires Communism -- Great Spy generation, 2 spy specialists

Super Spy Specialists produce 12 espionage points. So by the time I build a courthouse, the capital should be producing:
Palace: 4 points
Courthouse: 2 points
SuperSpy: 12 points
Spy Specialist: 4 points
Scotland Yard: x2
=
44 EPs a turn.


What I'm actually going to do with the EPs is a different question entirely

As a consequence of making the capital a uberspy city, I'll want to make sure my second city is a strong production city ... one hopefully with stone.

Build order will likely be something along the lines of Warrior (for exploring) > Holkan > Worker > Holkan > Workboat > Settler > Great Wall

Techs will likely be Hunting > Bronze Working (for Great Wall chopping) > Fishing > Masonry > The Wheel > Pottery > Animal Husbandry > Writing > Alphabet (will re-jigger once the game is going)

Because I'm focusing on Espionage, Religion and Corporations are going to be severely neglected. Of course, going for CoL may earn me Taoism by accident at this difficulty level.

In terms of winning, well, we'll see what Espionage does the best to benefit. Obviously going for an early conquest/domination makes it hard to fully exploit espionage, so those are out. Diplomatic might be intriguing to attempt (UN, not AP). I'll have a better sense once I'm deep in the game ... with of course Space Race as a final option.

What a lovely location! Definitely going to move 1 north - get the fish, hill and the extra river tiles. Too good to pass up IMO.

My aim at the start is to tryout the new golden ages. All 6 if possible. To that end, shooting for a full specialist economy. Not my usual playstyle, so should be fun!

Mausoleum of Mauselos seems a key wonder - an extra 30 turns of golden age is very important for me, I feel.

In this first set my aim was to expand to 3 cities fast, get Washington pumped up to make some pyramids. To that end wanted a production and a food city online to pick up the slack.

Used a fair number of chops, but avoided the whip for washington.


Turn 1 - settle 1N. Start a workboat. Research Mining.

Turn 2 - Weird - gained mining from a hut. While researching it. Not sure that's happened before! Set a course for BW. Decide to head for worker now instead - switch washington.

Turn 5 - scout passes a beautiful Flood plains site. Find Animal husbandry in a southern hut.

Turn 9 - this is getting crazy - complete my BW research from another hut. Decide to take a shot at the wheel. Budism founded elsewhere.

Turn 10 - kill a lion and see some horsies.

Turn 16 - 74 coins from a hut.

Turn 17 - worker finished > workboat. Wheel > Mysticism. Worker moves to start chopping out the workboat.

Turn 21 - Mystic > Masonry. Workboat > Warrior (hold for size 2 growth and another worker).

Turn 23 - 47 coins from hut. Hiduism founded.

Turn 24 - Washington > Size 2, switch to worker.

Turn 28 - Masonry > Hunting

Turn 29 - free warrior from hut.

Turn 30 - Worker > Warrior.

Turn 31 - Warrior > Workboat - holder for size 3.

Turn 34 - Washington grows to 3 - switch to settler.

Turn 38 - Pottery > Writing.

Turn 39 - 35g from Hut.

Turn 40 - meet the budhist ghandi.

Turn 41 - settler > settler (only to let the overflow from the chops flow in).

Turn 42 - switch to warrior.

Turn 43 - Boston founded > Monument. Revolt to slavery as Boston shall feel the whip!

Turn 44 - Writing > Meditation. Washington - Warrior > Settler.

Turn 50 - Things end for this turnset.

Here's a snapshot:



Things are looking good for Lincoln so far. 2nd city is down, 3rd on the way in 2 turns. Met the nearest neighbour, but not sure if he's on this landmass.

Huts were crazily good: 156g, Mining, Bronze working and Animal husbandry.

Next Washington is to build the pyramids - want a lot of GPP for my golden ages. The extra beakers from representation are really worth it IMO. And a great engineer means I could rush the GL in my slightly hammer poor Boston - a worthy trade off in IMO. Meanwhile Boston will pump out some workers and another couple of settlers.

The 3rd city is going to be founded with a slight overlap, but think it's worth it to grab the cows, wheat and hills in the short term. As noted, hoping to snag a religious wonder or two there. See if I can push out great prophets. Undecided whether to aim at that now or use it to build some troops - protection from barbs, but will then certainly miss Stonehenge or the Oracle - although it's probably a bit late for either.

Best capital placement? I'd vote Hamurabi/Bindamel, and Suryavaram/Vra. That will be a prod giant. Also Hammurabi's North city is nice.

Azaris/DeGaulle. Interesting second city site on the gold. Also didn't settle on the bronze rice spot like everone else. Paris got Truffles! I wonder if the random events are scripted to match the civ to a certain extent.

Kodii, if you are going for Apostolic victory, do you really want to aggressively spread Buddhism? or are you going to win it with a religion that you keep to yourself more?
Nice luck on the huts, esp Sailing for that river connection.

TriviAL I'm interested in the worker settler pump to free up the capital to grow etc.

Is anyone going to choke off this continent to the south? I am in the next 50 if I can manage it.

Well, I guess what I was trying to say was that I wanted to spread Buddhism enough so that a Religious Victory is possible. I believe I need Buddhism in a city of every AI? Thanks for pointing it out though

William of Oranje
Dutch Civilization


Leader Traits

Creative

• +2 per city
• double production of Library, Theatre, and Colosseum

Financial

• +1 on 2 tiles

Unique Unit



East Indiaman

• replaces Galleon
• 6 Strength (+2 above Galleon)
• Cargo Space of 4 (+1 above Galleon)
• Can explore rival territory (Galleon cannot)
• Upgrades To: Transport
• Enabling Tech: Astronomy

Unique Building



Dike

• replaces Levee
• +1 on river tiles
• +1 on water tiles (Levee does not)
• Enabling Tech: Steam Power
• City must be placed on a river or coastal tile to build (Levee requires a river tile)

Starting Techs

• Fishing
• Agriculture

Willem's trait combination, which used to belong to Catherine, is all about early expansion. The culture boost means not having to worry about Obelisks or Religions in order to pop the borders. The financial trait, of course, provides a nice early boost when spamming cottages along the rivers. While I've never been a big fan of the creative trait, I am intrigued by the idea of the half price Libraries that have been added to the trait. I may need to reassess my opinion of this trait. It could well be particularly strong with the philosophical Pericles. Half price Libraries and half price Universities, on top of the GP boost. But enough of the Greeks, back to the Dutch ...

On first glance, the Dutch UU does not seem particularly strong. It is a Galleon replacement, after all. But, it does have extra seating and a 50% strength boost over the Galleon. The extra seating gives the East Indiaman the equivalent cargo space of a Transport. That is quite an advantage when planning an overseas invasion. The extra strength will insulate it from counter-attacks by other Galleons or Caravels. Frigates will still be able to gun down these ships, though. The East Indiaman does, though, have the same strength as the Privateer. That advantage would likely only come into play if you are behind in tech. In which case, there really is no reason to delay researching Chemistry and launching Frigates instead.

And then there is that "explore rival territory" ability of the East Indiaman. On the surface this seems pretty pointless. Its not like you are going to skip Optics and use your UU to explore the oceans. No, Caravels are definitely still needed for that. But post-Astronomy, the Dutch have an advantage over the other civs. That rival that won't open their borders to let your Galleon, loaded with spies, into their waters are no issue for the Dutch. The other civs will need to keep a couple of Caravels in the water post-Astronomy. Not the Dutch. Plus, a Caravel will carry only 1 unit. Not so, the East Indiaman.

I was truly excited when I first read about the Dutch UB. The Dike provides hammers to both water and river tiles. All of a sudden you now have production in those worthless "fishing villages" and your commerce specialized cities no longer have to wait until Universal Suffrage before they have access to hammers! Or do they?

What I failed to notice in my initial excitement was the little icon showing that the Dike was available with Steam Power. Steam Power is pretty far up into the tech tree. This pretty much puts an end to my dream of an obscenely overpowered capital containing a Dike, the Maui Statutes, and the Colossus, all the while running Bureaucracy. Oh well. I do think mostly obscene is still a possibility that is available to all of the financial civs, just without the Dike or Levee.

To be honest, I am not truly enamored by the start that Ozbenno rolled for us. Don't get me wrong, it is an excellent looking city site. Farm animals and seafood and all of those river tiles. Plus enough hills and forests to provide a nice strong production base. An excellent start! But I was hoping for more water tiles in order to test my thesis. The capital will certainly be a strong production city once a Dike is constructed. However, I may need to rethink the idea of pursuing the Colossus, and possibly a different city for the Maui Statutes. I'll just have to wait and see how the map unfolds, I guess.







And without further ado, it is time to play ...

I started the game off by moving my Settler 1N to the grassland on the other side of the river. Why move the Settler and give up the extra hammer in the city center? Not to mention the extra defense? Because I counted 12 excess food, which is exactly enough to work all six hills plus the 3 plains tiles.



With those sheep and pigs available, it is tempting to go after Animal Husbandry first. But, the Dutch start the game with Fishing. With access to 2 clams, I don't need to domesticate the animals right away. Instead I started on Mining with an eye towards Bronze Working. This was further aided by popping a hut for Mining on the very next turn. Frankly, I would have rather had the Wheel, since I had already started Mining. But, I got the Wheel out of the next hut And later on, Hunting from yet another hut.

I would later go on to snag a Warrior and a Scout from huts. I also ended up with 277 gold from the huts, as well. I ended up checking twice to make sure this wasn't a settler difficulty game we were playing. I cannot recall ever having so much good fortune from goody huts.

After Bronze Working, I decided to go with Pottery and Writing to some of those cheap creative Libraries. Amsterdam's production began with a couple of Workboats. One to trawl for clams, the other to scout the coastline. After that, I needed a Warrior for MP duty. I was tempted to go for another Workboat next, for the other clam tile. But with all of these workers techs that I was getting, it seemed best to start a Worker next. I hadn't originally planned on having this much for a Worker to do at this stage of the game.

After Writing came in, I decided to go back and get Animal Husbandry. The orignal plan to a Library would prove to be problematic. With all of the goody huts, I was teching faster than my production and growth could keep up. You see, my capital needed to be at size 4 in order to whip the Library. But at the time of Writing, my capital was only size 3 and I was only half completed on the Worker. The Library had to be delayed. In hindsight, I think the second Workboat was a mistake and that I should have gone for the Worker much sooner. Oh well.

After completing Animal Husbandry, it was time to take a step back and assess the map. Things were certainly going well for the start. I did up a dot map and identified three potential city sites. One would pick up the copper to the south. Another would be built around the flood plains to the east and snag me ivory and wine. The last one was well to the east and would be a canal city for the horses. I decided to start research towards Mathematics and chop out some Settlers. I also recalled my exploring Workboat to improve the Settler build times.



At the same time, I wanted to go grab Masonry and the Great Wall. At this point in the game, I'd already met Ghandi and he appeared to be running the spy slider. This will be secondary, though, to the founding of my cities. Before the turns were over, I would also meet Alexander.

Unfortunately, I misclicked my research selection. I had put 2 turns into Iron Working before I noticed my mistake. In 2000BC, I am 1 turn away from completing my first Settler. My lone Worker has pre-chopped a couple of forests in anticipation of Mathematics being completed. But, I have another 5 turns remaining on that research. If not for my blunder and losing the overflow, I'm sure math would have been done in 2 turns.

I've got to admit, I was truly puzzled at the choices of everyone to go 1 N (except Bindamel) because the east clearly had flood plains. I think the issue was people did not recongnize what they were from the starting shot.

Also, the other issue with I would have never gone one north is that it blocks the chance to use the NW as a GP and Wonder farm, and plunk the Colossuss down there, along with the Moai Statues.

The move of the capital one north is to grab the extra food. This allows you tho work all 7 hills (5 mines, 2 pastures) and cottage all other squares. This makes it a bureaucracy powerhouse. I plan to be running this civic in about 20 turns, probably for the rest of the game, maybe swap to Free Speech late on.

I did see the flood plains... however here was my reasoning for not grabbing them:

a)I try to avoid sea tiles in a non-coastal town, seems like a waste in the long term.
b)Coastal city is useful for the connection, boat building and the sea wonders.
c)We might have started on a limited sized island. Where a non coastal capital could have been regretable.
d)Flood plains normally appear in fairly small clumps. Grabbing all of them in 1 city can make for a great GPP farm.
e)Capital (moved 1N) is nice for food - 2 fish, pig and sheep.

That was what was running through my head.

Although I'll freely admit those are all preconceived ideas for me... you've got me evaluating them for sense now.

I'm hoping the 2nd city can turn out some workers fast enough. Possibly a settler or two later. Figure with the Cow and FP it should be up and running fairly fast. Later it will be my specialist city...

Going that way as the capital will be offline while building the pyramids...I will be aiming for a fair few early wonders. The Mausoleum is extremely desirable for my variant. The Pyramids will be great for Rep - the extra science in my intended SE and the happy boost. Also like to get some religious wonders in another city. Thinking being Priests and Engineers will be the tough GPs to get for my golden ages.

Hoping it all works out, not my usual style of play - I tend to avoid early wonders... but figure this difficulty level should make them easier to get. A change is good!


I like your start - early stonehenge is going to rock. Extra happy and the culture boost is a powerful combi. Tagging the GW with it is also nice! Are you going to push a settler or two out before the Oracle?

Be curious to see how yours goes. Find Ethiopia is one civ the AI plays really well - they often seem to turn into a powerhouse. Played them in my first BTS game and they do somehow seem greater than the sum of their traits/UB/UU.

Love seeing how the games are diverging already. Along the lines of traits, peoples preferances and so on. It's great to see!

City placement is particularly fascinating. Thinking I might be due a re-evaluate of my ideas.