King of the World #10: Charles de Gaulle

If you're going to kill anyone, make it boudica, she's hogging your stone and you'll want the mids for early rep to utilise the settled GPs.

If you moved up to the NE to settle on the marble, would you be able to still get the southern stone or would there possibly be an issue with you fighting the Celts for it?

Either spot is good for me. Staying in place I like for the extra early production, but NE has its merits too.

Without metals or horses quickly (especially if you move NE), would you still consider an early rush of a neighbor (like the Celts)? Leaves either warriors or archers as your main units. Guess you could wait for swords - there is iron in the BFC no?

Yay, we have two pages of discussion before the game has begun!
That's the sign of a big-name series right there

But anyways, I think enough rushing has been done. It's time to show how culture
kills . Wonderhogging would be nice for a change.

You should also keep an eye at your dear neighbours, OCCs are a lot less reliable when it comes to surprise attacks(ie. no 6+ archers at dow with slavery)

My experience re: the neighbors on Earth34 europe is that you should be quite safe until sometime between 500BC and 0AD, when Stalin and Ragnar start getting frisky. I've been DOWed numerous times by both of them during this period, so be on your toes once construction starts spreading among the AIs. Boudi, Otto, Izzy, and Joao are all pretty easy to get along with early, especially if (as usually happens) a single religion spreads thru europe (BK frequently founds Buddhism).

Neal, if you do decide to go for a cheesy warrior kill at the start, I'd take out Boudica and not Otto. Europe is ridiculously overcrowded, with France, Spain, Portugal, Celts, Dutch, and English all starting without access to a full BFC.

I'd move the celts to Ireland.

You'd better build some wonders soon, or you're going to lose tiles to Willem. Stonehenge would be a great wonder IMO.

Settle in place, get masonry, go wonder happy. Settle everyone except your first GS. Just make sure you watch your diplo and you should be fine. SS shouldn't be too hard, but diplo may be more fun to try.

As for national wonders, Globe, NE, Oxford are givens. The other two slots depend on your own strategy but I'd recommend NP and IW. Yes you don't get the full IW bonus but NP is just that good in OCC. Health becomes a serious issue after you finish the Globe. Moai isn't worth the slot as it'll only add 4 base hammers.

In this round, we build three invaluable wonders in a city defended by a lone Warrior.

I began by settling Paris in place:



There are definite benefits to moving, but, hey. This is all about the Glories of Paris, not the Glories of Calais or Brussels. If there's an argument for settling in place, I'm gonna do it. As you can see, I began building a Worker and researching Mysticism, going along with the consensus.

Borders were established, and...



We done got squished. Europe is a regular wasteland of cultural battles! This is ridiculous!

In 2750 B.C., we did what we could to win a little wiggle room:



A boatload of culture and a free Happiness, which will be helpful until the Globe Theater can be built.

I built a Warrior to replace the one gallivanting about in the Himalayas, and knocked out the Great Wall:



Is this necessary? Not really, but it was cheap (14 turns, I think), it'll give use yet more Culture, and, when we're forced to fight an inevitable defensive war, it just might come in handy.

In 1775 B.C., we completed the third leg of our Great Wonder trifecta:



And with that I wrapped up the round.

Here's a look at Europe as we know it:



As you can see, we're one turn shy of being able to grab Metal Casting with the Oracle. Maybe I'll delay it with a Warrior build or somesuch. We're also starting to win tiles, but it's awfully slow going. I totally should have ground Boudica's face into the dirt back in the dark ages.

The tech tree:



I always feel like I'm wasting my time by mucking around in the religious side of the tree, but, in seeking Wonders, garbage techs like Priesthood and Polytheism are invaluable. Normally, those are post-Alphabet backfills for me.

Finally, a closer look at Paris:



My current goals are to get a Library and Granary up to start running some specialists and beat back our inevitable health problems (and to accelerate our growth). Once we've got some Scientists running, I figure I'll make the jump to Representation. I've also gotta sneak some military builds in there. We're getting close to go time.

So should I pursue Pottery for a Metal Casting slingshot or Writing to take, say, Alphabet or Aesthetics with the Oracle? I could also just take the Oracle cold and get, say, Monarchy, but that seems a little weak.

I look forward to further discussion. Hopefully, I haven't botched things too badly so far

The save:

Good round, just two focus comments

- I would not have sent the worker out to explore, it;s not like you need to find city sites
- I would have researched pottery before bronze working, you don't have that many chops and this would have allowed you to build the oracle before pyramids (and reduce the risk of losing the oracle), or also research writing and get CoL from oracle

I think metal casting makes sense, the colossus is not that bad, GM is good and coastal tiles are marginally ok if you plan to build the statues; and cheap forges is good anyway. It's a shame there's no copper nearby... You don't really need CoL except to bring you closer to CS and you will probably lose the oracle if you delay until writing.

after that, head up in the tree for the marble wonders and of course the gardens and angkor wat. You should be fine with the warrior for a while if diplo is ok.

Note that isa did not found a religion yet, so this could mean that all relevant europe will join the HRE in buddhism.

Pottery will be useful for early research. Don't take Monarchy from the Oracle. Switch to HR and grow Paris as big as you can.
MC is good for cheap forges and it's the best trade fodder you'll be able to get.
Aesthetics is also a valid choice. The AI usually delay it so you might as well research it the old fashioned way and you'll still get the wonders, or a good chance at them at the very least. The Parthenon would be especially nice. S.Paya also if you can't get your hands on Mono for OR, since you'll be making buildings for a while.

Since Izzy didn't found one, if nobody has Judaism, I'd consider going for monotheism if you can found it. Then get a missionary ASAP, spread it to Izzy, and she should spread it to the rest of Europe for you. I guess someone in America got the other religion. If you can get the dominant religion for your section, you can make a lot of cash off the shrine.

UWHabs said:

Since Izzy didn't found one, if nobody has Judaism, I'd consider going for monotheism if you can found it. Then get a missionary ASAP, spread it to Izzy, and she should spread it to the rest of Europe for you. I guess someone in America got the other religion. If you can get the dominant religion for your section, you can make a lot of cash off the shrine.

Click to expand...

Or Saladin got it and he hasn't been met yet.

Judaism would be a nice bonus, but there's other things that are more important now IMO.

While cash might be good, upgrading units isn't that often and rush-buying is pretty far-off as switching to US will lose quite some time (Cristo Redemtor).

I find it interesting that with 3 wonders you have a 40% cultural defense - the same as creative Willem's. Yet, London has a 50% cultural defense without being creative, having any wonders, or even having a religion. How does that work - is it a difficulty level thing or something?

I like the idea of a money-making shrine since US is now available via the mids.

London probably built walls, which give an automatic 50% defense.

50% defense is a wall (that you could spot in the picture if looking carefully).

I would go with representation for the +3 happy instead of HR anyway

UWHabs said:

London probably built walls, which give an automatic 50% defense.

Click to expand...

Thanks. I have GOT to play more and get used to these things.

Crosses fingers for a Pyramids-generated GE...

The culture war will be harsh.

Agree with Jabah, rep now not HR. Waste the turn and get MC from Oracle. After that I would say it is worth the slim chance of getting a religion from Monotheism. OR is great anyway.

After that maybe IW for the production and military bost, you will have Colossus, granary and library to build anyway so no rush to open more wonders.

Kev said:

Thanks. I have GOT to play more and get used to these things.

Click to expand...

To be honest, I never actually really knew how walls worked until you asked the question. Then it just sort of clicked and I was like, "Oh, so THAT's how it works!"

Metal Casting from the Oracle makes a lot of sense, hope you don't miss out on the wonder. Much better than Monarchy, Hereditary Rule and the wine resource are almost useless, the 10 from charismatic and representation will be plenty until the Globe Theatre is online. Metal Casting will great for the cheap forge, don't forget to run a representation engineer as much as possible! Collosus is decent but without copper it can be a little painful to build.

With your first great person coming soon, you might want to switch to Representation immediately so you get his full settled benefits right away. Hope you don't get a Great Spy... I avoided the Great Wall solely for that reason, Great Spies are okay, but Prophets and Engineers are so much better. Not a bad wonder though, the double great general points will definitely come in handy.

I would take a shot at the Temple of Artemis after the Oracle, (actually what I did was take the ToA instead of the Great Wall) it should be a quick build. Also make sure you get those health resources connected, you're losing unnessecary food per turn...

Don't worry, your cultural borders are about to pop again and soon you'll be overpowering the rest of Europe. By the time I ended my round in this game, I had stolen both Willem's fish and clams, and Boudica was down to a single city tile surrounded 100% by French culture. It'll happen, just be patient.

vanatteveldt said:

- I would not have sent the worker out to explore, it;s not like you need to find city sites

Click to expand...

He sent his warrior out, not worker. It'll be good to have met all the civs once trades begin to open up...

Yeah don't mess with HR - revolt to Rep when you get some ability to run specialists (either priests or scientists.) You don't want to lose any turns right now anyway if you're serious about the Oracle. It will go soon, even a one turn delay might hurt you. MC is a great choice, gets you closer to Crossbows, which will be nice to have in case of Praetorians.

I think you've gone the right route. Diplomacy can be a good defense on this map since you are encircled by civs likely to be your friends. The wild cards are of course Boudica and Caesar, but Boudy don't have metals. With any luck, Caesar will find some playmates in Arabia and Africa (or Greece) and by the time he even thinks about backstabbing you, his military advantages will be less scary. Focus on building your OCC structure - Representation, Bureaucracy, Civil Service, and getting your culture buildings up. As long as your neighbors don't backstab you, foreign DOWs can be contained by having your neighbors close borders or declare themselves.

As for culture, Joshua is right on - you will stifle all of Europe which makes diplomacy easy too, you can be nice to your neighbors because they will be behind (you can expect Berlin, Bibracte and London all to get auto razed by culture, maybe Amsterdam but I doubt it.) TOA is great for that too with the free specialist and big culture.