King of the World #19: Lincoln

Neal said:

The conversation between Emperor Peter and Legio Corvus seemed to indicate that Worker first was quicker, due to the sheer power of that Deer tile. Regardless, the round has been played. So I guess the question is, what's next?

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I'd settle Mississippi. It sucks since it borders Monty, but he should be more likely to attack Sitting Bull first (defend it well).

Then I'd say you grab a city around Boston, then maybe one in Canada, and use those 4 to go swords/swordapulting against either Sitting Bull or Monty (or take a boat around and settle the Amazon or the Indies).

Regarding the "How do I get this to work" questions, let's move that discussion over to the Throne Room. Short answer, though, is that I have no clue. I didn't do anything special...

eee Thats a bad spot to be in. SB's move really hurt...

Jacksonville is a pretty bad spot, no? It seems as though there isn't much food OR production there. Monty or SB might try and jam a city in the New Orleans spot... might be better to let them do that and then just take it for yourself when you can. I think it'd be better to grab that copper up north and start building axes... I bet Monty is going to be a real a$# hole this game.

This might be a fairly espionage-heavy game, no?

dalamb said:

Wouldn't the settler have been out faster via workboat-first?

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Turn 44/45 seems to be the fastest way to get a Setter out on this map as the Americans, and that's with Worker first.

Neal said:

... Ack.

So, here we stand. We have a Settler out, good and early, but apparently not early enough. The loss of population from the herbal treatment event only cost us a turn on the Settler, so we still wouldn't have beaten the Natives to Poverty Point. So, I guess the question is, with both the Great Plains and the Rio Grande denied to us, where do we go? Do we slouch northward into the Canadian tundra, where we will surely stagnate and perish? That seems to be the only option I see, short of claiming Jacksonville for the sake of claiming it. Or maybe throw dotmaps to the wolves and settle on the Mississippi delta. I think we're in a tight spot. No wonder America sucks so bad on this map.

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Ouch. Turn 45 with 1 pop & no growth is a hard spot to be in. At any rate, the Americans don't have it easy on this map. There are no major food sources on the East Coast except for that Deer and the Clams/Crabs/Fish in the sea.

Countries on the Earth18 maps also tend to correspond somewhat to their real world counterparts. The Americans can do amazing much later in the game with Aluminum, Coal, Oil, etc... but that doesn't help right now. Right now you want Bronze.

I only have 10 minutes before a meeting, but messing around with a dot map I saw two possibilities...

1) Place your first settler 1E of the Bronze. This would get you Bronze right away, which you need, but that location will get very little growth until you get some grassland farms going. Your next two cities would be 1NW of Crab, and 2E/1N of Fish. Unfortunately, that last one would be a Moai Statue place before it would do much for you.

Your best bet here would be chop, chop, chop and take down Poverty Point while Monty goes after Pacal.

2) Place your first settler 1NW of the Fish. That would get you Bronze in the BFC, but it would take a culture pop first. The benefit here is a city that will grow fast...

Alright, I gotta go. I'll take a second look later, and look forward to what others come up with.

A bronze army is pretty rough against SB, but its better than nothing and will hook up long before that Iron. The real shame is the lack of horse on the eastern seaboard, as enough chariots, though ugly, sometimes do better against SB if he gets any number of Dogs.

I'd head up toward Maine/Erie, settle 1NW of the Fish and chop a monument out (iguess?), hook up the Bronze, and pray for Monte's peaceweight hatred of SB to open up a backstab on Poverty point. As poor as you would do against super totem archers and dog soldiers, Monte's Jags are going to do worse. If SB doesnt get drawn into a war though, it looks pretty dire....

Too bad you didn't go for 2N-NW-W at the start. Your capital's culture would have prevented Bull from stealing those 2 corn, you'd have the 2nd best starting location on the entire map (after Paris), you'd have blocked off a huge amount of good land and you'd have limited Bull to mostly crap land. As it is, you're now boxed in by a PRO and AGG leader with nothing better than axes and archers to defend. There's no way to rush Bull at this level - dogs will eat axes/swords alive - you'll need cats + xbows/lbows to seriously threaten him, especially now that he's grabbed the breadbasket of the nation. So suck up to Bull and build some axes for Monty - he'll be heading your way after his first war with Bull. You could try oracling something, but it better be a hard beeline - oracle goes very early on this map. Early monarchy/feudalism would be very useful just to stay alive. Also, taking that health event was a move I think - it really slowed you up and that's the last thing you needed in this situation. I'd only take it if it happened while you were at pop 1.

Settle New Orleans and Detroit next, they can certainly use Lincolns fever dreams to help them. The head towards New York and/or Boston. America has alot of good coastal land there.

Also beeline swords/catapults and just dive into Classic American Politics

Alright, I've taken a second look, and some things come to mind.

First of all, you may be on the defensive for a while. Axemen aren't going to do much to Sitting Bull's Archers, especially if he has Totem Poles, which he should. Same with the Dog Soldiers, which he'll probably build a lot of, because he's got no iron/bronze in his two current cities. The good news is that Sitting Bull's Archers are defensive, and his Dog Soldiers are weak against Archers, so he's not going to come after you before either of you get Catapults.

Montezuma is another story. His Archers don't get any bonuses beyond Barracks, and his Jaguars aren't that great. He also doesn't have iron/bronze in his two current cities, so depending on where he places his third, he may be an easier target. If you don't settle Mississippi, he may even go for it instead of a copper city (though I'm not sure the AI is that stupid). Since he's a madman though, I'd still wait for Catapults.


Speaking of Catapults - have I mentioned them yet? - that's probably the Captain Obvious tech to beeline after Archery & Mysticism. Enough suicide Catapults will take down any city, and any SoD Monty would want to send your way (instead of Pacal's or Sitting Bull's) will find it an uphill struggle after getting hit by the same. Plus, Masonry is on the path to Construction, so that's a bonus.

The only two real questions regarding the tech path are whether to go Animal Husbandry -> Writing or Wheel -> Pottery -> Writing, and if you want to grab Iron Working before grabbing Construction. Animal Husbandry is surprisingly worthless in North America with no Horses, Cows, Sheep, or Pigs... but it is cheaper than Wheel & Pottery. Still, you're going to need the Wheel no matter what, so that's probably the better path.

As for Iron Working, I honestly don't know. It would boost production in the capital and give you another resource for spawning units, but Swordsmen aren't going to do much better against Sitting Bull's defensive bonanza than Axemen. They may help if you decide to target Monty, but only marginally better than CR Axemen. Perhaps the first tech to target after Construction?


Now, for where to place your Settler, here's what I'm thinking (dotmap):



Mississippi's only value to you would be to block and/or have a cottage city. Both don't really help you right now, especially with how bad it's production will be before the late game. Jacksonville is even more of a waste of your resources & time.

You will get some pretty good production out of Toronto & New England, especially with an army of workers laying down farms, mines, and chopping out buddies. Toronto would be my first move, to block out SB and get the fur bonus, then Portland with the third Settler. Portland will be an especially good military city.

You could settle Toronto 1N on the Uranium. That would give New York two extra tiles to work with, as well as allow Toronto to build a Lighthouse to make those Lake Huron & Lake Eerie tiles super productive, but it'd also give you three more worthless tundra. Settling on the Uranium I feel is more powerful long term, and right now you want short term.

Oh, and New York obviously won't do much for you past a pop of 9, but it gets crab, would be a good Moai Statue location, and all those 6 coastal tiles won't exactly hurt your tech rate. Backfill location, naturally, but a decent one.

Game's not over yet.


EDIT: D'oh! Portland would probably do even better 1N of the Fish instead of 1NW. That would free up 3 tiles for Toronto, another for New York, and give you an extra hill to work with. Can't believe I didn't see that before. Oh, well. I'm in no mood to redraw the whole dotmap. My mistake. Also set behind a spoiler because I don't want to distract from Neal's posts with my own pics.

Tough luck about SB grabbing the best site.

Try a 4~5 cities (Missouri/New Orleans is pretty good) catapult+swords (with a few Axes and spears) war to grab some more land from either Monty or SB.

Keep your forests until Mathematics, grow your cities as high as you can (Charismatic helps here with +2 with a Monument), trade for happy resources.

Cottage along rivers and get an early Academy in Washington, shouldn't be too long with Philosophical.

Once you have Iron, feel free to trade Copper away to SB, Dogs are resourceless anyway.

The added fun of Charismatic is that once Catapults win 1 battle, they get the second promo and then the odds are much better.

Leading up to the war, since you'll probably keep Washington's Marble Aesthetics+Literature will give you a shot at TGL+Parthenon to keep research going while you fight. It will also allow Heroic Epic once you have 8xp on 1 unit (maybe from barbs if you're lucky but I doubt it unless you get practice on a city).

SB has better land than the Aztecs and Monty will likely DoW him because of peaceweights so even though SB his a tough nut to crack with his UB+Archers, you should be able to get to him before Longbows; with the help of Monty (bombard city defenses and let him sacrifice his units), casualties should be minimal. You can then turn on Monty with a tech lead (bulbs from mega production).

For people second guessing the turn... I do thumb my nose at thee sir.

I wouldn't consider long term dot map plans at this point, personally. I would 1-settle the Mississippi Delta 2- get a city in Boston or Canada and get a stack ready to hit either SB or Monty:... after they are at war and whichever one you can best nibble off of.

Try a 4~5 cities (Missouri/New Orleans is pretty good) catapult+swords (with a few Axes and spears)

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Spears? For what, the jackalopes?

Hmmm good point, I forgot there are no horses in the New World. Makes thing easier then... A few archers to garrison the new cities.

... I've tried your save 3 times, and none of them had Bull beat me there ... of course I kept my warrior sitting on his border, maybe he built more military that way. Settling that and Ontario (on the Uranium, for 4 lighthouse lakes) blocks Bull off very well. Monty isn't too thrilled about the New Orleans site, so that can be city 4. You can then get 2-4 more good cities on the East coast after that (depends on how you space in the north, and whether Jacksonville is worthwhile) and 2 island cities.

Anyhow, I'd still recommend a commerce-heavy approach until you get to catapults and Maces/LBows/XBows. Remember, you're facing Monty and Bull, two lousy techers with early UUs. It shouldn't be that hard to get a tech lead. Or, wait until they declare war, wait for one of them to start winning, and then join in and capture cities.

I second the advice to settle in the uranium, and block off a solid core of cities in New England. I'd ignore the Mississippi delta for now:

1. It's production-poor, and most of its eventual cottage-city infrastructure will come from whipping. Why not build that infrastructure by whipping away unhappy Indians once you capture the city? Let someone else do the work of growing the city first.

2. For you, it would currently be an indefensible wedge between the Aztecs and Sitting Bull. For them, it's a shared border increasing the likelihood of war.

3. It's a long-term city, and getting it in the short term doesn't help you build up your iron-age army.

This looks like it's going to be a hard slog; it should be fun.

Okay, I played a few centuries, and while it's not really enough to write up as a round, I feel like I should check in for some advice. I'd like to polish it off and post the rond tomorrow.

Hmmm, hard, Good new cities, position seems a bit better then last round, but still very though. Think you should settle 1 more city (the new york area), then let those cities grow a bit, and crank up production (you can grow pretty easiliy, with the healtyness event, and being charismatic).
Build an army and with a small tech lead, try to backstab once SB and monty declare on each other...that's my 2 cents =)

Sitting Bull is going to be the worst enemy of Monty and Pacal for a while due to the difference of peace weights. Perhaps you can bribe Monty to attack Sitting Bull. Then join in the fight and punish Sitting Bull for settling near you.

The decision was made. The hardy settlers gathered up supplies, building materials, and as many medicinal herbs as they could gather and started north:



The Natives, also eyeing the Great Lakes hungrily, attempted to secure rights to the region through a political marriage. Lincoln, seeing the ruse for what it was, refused to take part in the ceremony, rendering it illegitimate. Sitting Bull was not pleased.

But, for the moment, that was of no concern to the American Despot. The Settlers pressed north, weaving their way through Forests, climbing nearly insurmountable Hills, and dodging ferocious Bears. Eventually, by the grace of the spirits, they found a spot and deemed it good:



Many argued that Toronto should have been founded farther north, to bring in the myriad benefits of a coastal city, including greater fishing in the Great Lakes. But to the north lay more tracts of barren Tundra, and, more importantly, a northern Toronto would allow Sitting Bull access to the coast. So, more out of fear of the Natives than any long-term decision-making, Lincoln approved the southern site.

In 2425 B.C., news came that Stonehenge had been built:



This began a rapid disappearance of Wonder opportunities. The Great Wall, Stonehenge, the Pyramids, even the Great Lighthouse and the Oracle were built in relatively quick succession.

As the mysterious Old World reached new heights of civilization, America trundled slowly toward relevancy. Despite his internal reservations, Lincoln found it impossible to ignore the siren song of Slavery:



He used it sparingly, but the Toronto Monument needed to be built before Poverty Point could beat them to it. And so the whip saw its first use.

Augusta was founded in 2175 B.C.:



And this completed the early trifecta of American cities. New York will doubtless be completed sometime in the next round, but, for now, there were more important builds. Like Axemen.

700 years later, a young Mayan rowed into the Caribbean and introduced us to his king:



Pacal was an afterthought... but not as much of an afterthought as Lincoln was.

So I wrapped it up in 675 B.C.:



Washington's running a pair of Scientists to keep our research rate up, and our other two cities are building Libraries to join the fun. Our tech path is, obviously, Mathematics-Construction-Iron Working, unless someone has a serious objection. We have some Axemen ready to party. They won't cut the mustard against Sitting Bull, but a few Cats and we'll likely be ready against the Aztecs. So, what do you all think?

Oh, and regarding the diplomatic situation, it's Cautiouses all around, except that SB and Monty are, interestingly, Annoyed with each other

So here's the save:

This just got very interesting.

I like the idea to move against Aztec before Bull. If you get a mutual war with the bull should be enough to make you safe diplo wise whereas Monty you will not get friendly without him founding a religion and it spreading. Also early war against the bull is hell.

perhaps another few workes and then prechop your forests for a hoard of cats.