Shall we play another game?

The last game was fun but I'm ready to try a non financial civ. Playing a financial civ is pretty straightforward and doesn't require too much planning. Let's try a non financial civ and go for a GS powered economy.

My civ of choice will be Gandhi. Philo for the GSs and Spiritual to switch in and out of pacifism and theocracy to run to economy and war machine.

Gandhi starts with mysticism and mining.

The settings will be the same as the last game: Emperor/Fractal/Normal

Here's the start:



I moved the warrior over to the hill to get a better idea of the surroundings.

Looks like a terrible production but huge amounts of food. No happiness resources visible yet so an early religion would be very helpful. The cheap temples may also come in handy.

Starting position? I happen to agree with the blue circle here. Those sea tiles are pretty worthless and we may be able to grab an extra resource or two is we move one tile west.

Strategy? This initial city will likely be the GP farm so I'd like to move the capital later in the game to a production oriented location.

I'd also like to build the Oracle in the second city to have the first focus on GSs. I'd forgo hindu/buddha and take CoL with the free tech for Confucianism.

I think the initial tech path should probably be Fishing - Agriculture - BW then either AH or wheel depending on if we get copper OR maybe Agriculture then BW and chop some settlers and work boats.

First build should definitely be a worker to start chopping.

Finally, I'd like to run a strategy for taking Military Tradition with the Liberalism free tech and conquer the landmass with cavs. I don't have much GS light bulbing experience so I'd like some help there.

Post Liberalism, I'd like to go to Democracy for Emancipation and switch out all the farms for cottages.

Too much planning ahead??

Round 1 3960 BC to 3520 BC

Round 2 3520 BC to 2480 BC

Round 3 2480 BC to 1600 BC

Round 4 1600 BC to 675 BC

Round 5 675 BC to 175 BC

Round 6 175 BC to 520 AD

Round 7 520 AD to 1270 AD

Here's the save game.

Woohoo Pete, another game. GREAT! Love these games. Capitol one west is a no brainer if you ask me. When I first saw the starting shot I thought CHEATER!!! This is a enormous good starting site for a SE economy. The only downside is the lack of production so better save those forests. A religion at start is too much to ask propably on emperor. Lets get the game going.

Nice to see you join the game. I'm pretty new to GS based economies so I wouldn't mind to get some strategy discussion going.

I was thinking it over and I think I should start with a worker and research BW first followed by fishing. I can chop out some boats and get some commerce going.

Chopping the boats is certainly attractive on this map but If you chop the workboats now you'll have problems building GL later if you don't find marble. I'd start fishing then BW to get workboats as soon as possible without touching the forests. Maybe i'm too attracted to the GL wonder though.

I've been lurking on your previous game...fun read, thanks.

Just a thought here: you could settle directly on the rice. You'd lose a fish but gain a cow. You wouldn't be able to farm the rice, but I think your city would get the +1F, so you'd have a 3F1H1C capital. Also, you'd pull in another hill for a bit better production. You could grab the fish with a later city.

Or you could settle 1S of the rice. Then you could found a second city W of the fish and not have to move your capital for a GP farm.

Just thought I'd try to complicate your thinking a bit! Good luck here; looking forward to seeing how it goes.

Lurked your last instalement ( impressive game IMHO ).

I agree with the blue dot. This city could be a central and after that a damn good GP farm ( after relocating the palace to a more suitable position).
I would settle there and start a worker .

I would recommend settle 1W as well, fish is too good to pass by especially the current settings are screaming a GP farm/MegaScience Dehli.

I think the best openning will be:

Tech: BW-Fishing-Agri-AH-wheel-Pottery-Writing-Alphabet-Literature(GL and NE)
Build: Worker(chop and mine the hill)-FB(chop)-Worrior(grow to size 2)-FB(chop)-FB(grow to size 3)-settler-worker-worrior-settler

Quickly grow the city to size 3 b4 settler, working all 3 seafood tiles gives you 13F+6. You should be able to research the early techs faster, and food-build settlers fast. Build the 2nd worrior early because you have no happy res, need to have him explore the North and locate happy res. You also need the 2nd worker after the first settler to start building roads leading to the new cities.

possibly settle the 2nd city to claim the cow and those nice river tiles, hope it has other prod bonus to make it a prod city.

get Writing ASAP to get the scientists going. Might get that first GS by 1000BC, use him on an Academy in Dehli.

Great light house+Harbor will be Huge for Dehli, put that into consideration for whipping.

GL is certainly great, Dehli is very low on hammer, so you need to get Literature at least 10 turns faster than other AIs and whip the GL. but do your best to claim Marble early if possible.

Until you reveal more map.

1W is a house. I am very curious why the settler didnt start there in the first place because its a so much better place its not funny. I sugest going BW while buildings worker first then fishing then agriculture.

Dirk1302 said:

Chopping the boats is certainly attractive on this map but If you chop the workboats now you'll have problems building GL later if you don't find marble. I'd start fishing then BW to get workboats as soon as possible without touching the forests. Maybe i'm too attracted to the GL wonder though.

Click to expand...

I agree that Gl will be an important wonder in this game. It would be nice to score some marble. Some of these forests will need to be chopped since unirrigated rice really sucks for early growth and settler production.

Compromise said:

I've been lurking on your previous game...fun read, thanks.

Just a thought here: you could settle directly on the rice. You'd lose a fish but gain a cow. You wouldn't be able to farm the rice, but I think your city would get the +1F, so you'd have a 3F1H1C capital. Also, you'd pull in another hill for a bit better production. You could grab the fish with a later city.

Or you could settle 1S of the rice. Then you could found a second city W of the fish and not have to move your capital for a GP farm.

Just thought I'd try to complicate your thinking a bit! Good luck here; looking forward to seeing how it goes.

Click to expand...

Thanks, the last game was pretty fun. I think settling on the rice would be a bad idea though. I want those fish and I can use the cows for another city.

r_rolo1 said:

Lurked your last instalement ( impressive game IMHO ).

I agree with the blue dot. This city could be a central and after that a damn good GP farm ( after relocating the palace to a more suitable position).
I would settle there and start a worker .

Click to expand...

So many lurkers in that last game. 1W looks like a winner to me too.

ABigCivFan said:

I would recommend settle 1W as well, fish is too good to pass by especially the current settings are screaming a GP farm/MegaScience Dehli.

I think the best openning will be:

Tech: BW-Fishing-Agri-AH-wheel-Pottery-Writing-Alphabet-Literature(GL and NE)
Build: Worker(chop and mine the hill)-FB(chop)-Worrior(grow to size 2)-FB(chop)-FB(grow to size 3)-settler-worker-worrior-settler

Quickly grow the city to size 3 b4 settler, working all 3 seafood tiles gives you 13F+6. You should be able to research the early techs faster, and food-build settlers fast. Build the 2nd worrior early because you have no happy res, need to have him explore the North and locate happy res. You also need the 2nd worker after the first settler to start building roads leading to the new cities.

possibly settle the 2nd city to claim the cow and those nice river tiles, hope it has other prod bonus to make it a prod city.

get Writing ASAP to get the scientists going. Might get that first GS by 1000BC, use him on an Academy in Dehli.

Great light house+Harbor will be Huge for Dehli, put that into consideration for whipping.

GL is certainly great, Dehli is very low on hammer, so you need to get Literature at least 10 turns faster than other AIs and whip the GL. but do your best to claim Marble early if possible.

Until you reveal more map.

Click to expand...

The man with a plan but where's priesthood fit in your tech line? Oracle would be nice to either score CoL or monarchy.

Great lighthouse sounds like an interesting gamble. I also think we can get 1 or 2 great people by 1000 BC with a little effort.

oyzar said:

1W is a house. I am very curious why the settler didnt start there in the first place because its a so much better place its not funny. I sugest going BW while buildings worker first then fishing then agriculture.

Click to expand...

I guess they just want to make the game harder.

I played a short round. Not sure where City 2 is going to go yet but defenses won't be a problem in this game.



Settled 1W. Calendar happy in view. 16 turns for BW is brutal. I need those boats ASAP!



I hate this guy. He never trades, never opens his border and is protective to boot.

At least he is close?



The optimist in me loves saving 5 turns on BW but the pessimist is wondering why I didn't research fishing first.



So much for production problems in the capital.

I see grapes so I'm wondering if monarchy is better than CoL as the Oracle free tech...

On one hand monarchy = 2 happiness minimum and I can snag Philo with a GS for a religion but that would come much later.

On the other hand, CoL will give me +2 happiness with a temple and I can run a priest to get a GP for an early shrine and after that run unlimited scientists. CoL is better trade bait but I'll need to find a couple other civs because no trades are going through Japan.

Probably too early to decide now.

Pete2006 said:

The man with a plan but where's priesthood fit in your tech line? Oracle would be nice to either score CoL or monarchy.

Great lighthouse sounds like an interesting gamble. I also think we can get 1 or 2 great people by 1000 BC with a little effort.

Click to expand...

For Gahdi's traits, I think it is best to go down the writing-Alp-Literature line to pursue (GL/NE) early. That would be a heck of a combo long-term wise. Since this is emporer, opening tech trading early is important.

You do not have marble, not industious, have low prod, so have to select wonders very carefully. don't waste any turns on religious techs, get them via trading.

For the research time and hammer cost to get Oracle, you could possibly build more settlers, and a liberary. And it is a big risk as the AIs will all race to it. All in all, you have a much better chance to get GL if following my path since you can ALWAYS beat the AIs to literature(in all my Immortal games).

So forget about the Great Light house or Oracle, just shoot for GL and your GS factory , I think it is the best choice in this particular game.

Edit: Nice copper in Capital. I guess it gives you much better shot at both Oracle and GL.

Also, i would mine the copper first, then chop the hill tree for a boat, grow to size 2 (copper+fish), build 2nd settler+worrior, settle the 2nd city to grab: Cow, Wheat, Wine. It should have decent commerce and good production for units.

I agree with ABigCivFan about the site of the 2nd city. Good food potential and a nice candidate for a cottage city later ( if you want to use that strat ).
I also think that getting Monarchy is important, not for the wine but for having big cities ( "happy warriors" ). If you get from Oracle ( doubtful ) or from self research is indiferent.
GL would be a nice aquisition indeed. And ABigCivFan's plan is feasible.

omg you popped BW! sooo lucky. I played a shadow game and got nothing from any huts :/. As you can see from the copper you can wonder what the heck the AI though of when they placed your settler one spot off.. mine the copper and then start happy chopping seems like the order off the day. Cow/weath seems like it can be a decent production city though so can the capital now that you got copper there... With SE there arent too mcuh difference between loads of production and loads of Great people though.

Ok, well, if Toku is close here is my recommendations:

1) Axerush and take his capital. Whip a library in the capital. Try and time it so this is done by the time you have lit so you can chop the GL in his capital. Alternatively, you could plan to move your capital to his capital and target the GL for your current capital, but if you chop a lot of forests in your capital it could take awhile to get it done in your current capital.

2) Teching: If you take CoL off the oracle that is obviously a good thing (opens CoL and Phil lightbulb [don't forget meditation and math]), but your first GP will probably be a prophet. This is not the end of the world of course because you will have a shrine or could lightbulb theology. However, you don't want TOO MANY prophets so you have to be careful. You want GSs so you can lightbulb your way to liberalism.

It's standard practice to have a first war and then to settle down to lightbulbing to liberalism and then to go perma-war (pretty much) for the rest of the game (preferably starting with cav as you mentioned). During the lightbulbing phase, you want to first bulb phil as I mentioned and then run castesys and pacificism in combination. You'll need theology or civil service (probably the latter if you want to go for miltrad) in order to bulb paper and education. You can bulb liberalism directly if you have compass, metal casting, and calendar and AVOID machinery. After liberalism, printing press can be lightbulbed (after you get machinery) and after you have engineering and gunpowder you can bulb chemistry for grenadiers. If you don't have horses grens do a nice job as well.

Overall, it looks to me like you'd be best off going for an initial axerush assuming toku is close enough (good target because he won't trade anyway, despite him being protective). Then settle down, get the GL (and NE!) built, and run around 6+/- scientists (+2 in GL city) in 2 cities (your capital and captured capital). I find that is sufficient to produce a lot of GSs to cover all your lightbulbing needs.

If you want to switch over to cottages later, that is of course your prerogative. However, if you have a large enough continent it is very feasible to run a FE (farm economy) game-long and close out a domination win with renaissance troops (teching to steel and maybe artillery if necessary in addition to renaissance troops). Having farms everywhere makes for nice game-long whipping and drafting. You generally don't have to worry about emancipation unhappiness if you close out the game soon enough because the AI tends to delay democracy.

ABigCivFan said:

Also, i would mine the copper first, then chop the hill tree for a boat, grow to size 2 (copper+fish), build 2nd settler+worrior, settle the 2nd city to grab: Cow, Wheat, Wine. It should have decent commerce and good production for units.

Click to expand...

Sounds good. Will have to do some more scouting to confirm that 2nd city location.

r_rolo1 said:

I agree with ABigCivFan about the site of the 2nd city. Good food potential and a nice candidate for a cottage city later ( if you want to use that strat ).
I also think that getting Monarchy is important, not for the wine but for having big cities ( "happy warriors" ). If you get from Oracle ( doubtful ) or from self research is indiferent.
GL would be a nice aquisition indeed. And ABigCivFan's plan is feasible.

Click to expand...

Yeah, monarchy is a vital component of nearly every game.

oyzar said:

omg you popped BW! sooo lucky. I played a shadow game and got nothing from any huts :/. As you can see from the copper you can wonder what the heck the AI though of when they placed your settler one spot off.. mine the copper and then start happy chopping seems like the order off the day. Cow/weath seems like it can be a decent production city though so can the capital now that you got copper there... With SE there arent too mcuh difference between loads of production and loads of Great people though.

Click to expand...

I got 2 huts and both were decent. Cash + a tech. Much better than barbs!

futurehermit said:

Ok, well, if Toku is close here is my recommendations:

1) Axerush and take his capital. Whip a library in the capital. Try and time it so this is done by the time you have lit so you can chop the GL in his capital. Alternatively, you could plan to move your capital to his capital and target the GL for your current capital, but if you chop a lot of forests in your capital it could take awhile to get it done in your current capital.

Overall, it looks to me like you'd be best off going for an initial axerush assuming toku is close enough (good target because he won't trade anyway, despite him being protective). Then settle down, get the GL (and NE!) built, and run around 6+/- scientists (+2 in GL city) in 2 cities (your capital and captured capital). I find that is sufficient to produce a lot of GSs to cover all your lightbulbing needs.

Click to expand...

Axe rush sounds like a great plan. I met Toku in 3680 so I'll bet his capital is very close. I would definitely prefer to build the GL in Delhi since I'll be running tons of scientists there once I get the chance.

Yeah, I was remembering you saying you want to move your capital out of Delhi, leaving it as your main GP site. That's fine imo. Just be sure then to save some forests (for NE as well I would think).

Hmm. I've never been able to win a game higher than Warlord difficulty. Gotta learn from the pros.

Round 2: Meet and greet the neighbors



Brennus is on the map and he's the founder of Busshism. Brennus is a stingy trader so this could be a slow teching game. If Buddhism flows to Toku and I pick a fight with Toku, I will not be able to trade with Brennus. Hopefully there are a couple more civs on this landmass to trade with.



Boat building begins. My worker is beginning the chop on that plains hills to get it out quickly.



My warrior survived a barb animal attack and after recovering has searched out Toku's capital. The turn immediately following his arrival, he was greeted by one of Toku's loyal servants.

Let's give Toku a proper hello!



After persuading the worker to join my civ, I quickly taught him the methods of fast working. Toku's archers showed up so we decided to get out of there.



Crap! Luckily, the river provided some defense and I held the lions off.



At this point, I noticed that no one has bothered to grab Hinduism. I'm planning to go for the Oracle very soon so I may as well pick this one up right now.



I'm going to out on a limb here and say that Isabella is not in this game.



Time for city placement choices now that we have some more information about our surroundings.

Personally, I like 1E of those cows. It is a little far away from the capital but it would be a powerhouse. It also has plenty of forests to chop out the Oracle.

You were lucky with that Hinduism!

I agree on second city site, because a) it will get you closer to Japan, b) after border pop you have secured two more city sites in southern coast (at least for a while) c) it will have a decent early production (cow + mine).

I suggest a good-old axerush, it's better to kill Toku soon. Maybe leave him a city or two, if you don't meet more civs before that.

I would stop the war with Toku ASAP. It would be a pain in the A__ if he shows up with 4 protective archers when you are just building the 2nd settler.

About 2nd city site, 1E of the 2nd cow looks good, but it is 7 tiles aways from Capital, be prepared to shed -2 or -3 /turn. But if you are gearing up for an axe rush, that is prob the best spot.

I normally build early cities near the capital, 3-5 tiles away to keep my science at 90-100%.

If you fight Toku, i suggest bring at least 2x Axe more than his defending archers. And skip hill cities until catapult.