Monarch Student XVIII - Gilgamesh

Why on earth do you wait before settling the city on the triple word score?

I'm somewhat sympathetic in a quick NW settlement (not the choice I made, but I recognize the motivation). Running SE to get the copper leaves me completely baffled.

Can't help ya there. I went hard NE to block. I'm guessing people wanted to hook up copper for anti-barbs, but you know how I feel about that (warriors only, man!). I technically used a vulture for 1 area after about 500 BC though.

Unless I'm boxed in and want to rush I usually go for blocks though, and that means no SE copper on this map. I don't know why others went there first TBH.

You're right - I fell victim to my first two warriors popping barbs from huts, and dying before being able to explore as much as I would like. So I was left guessing a bit as to where the other AI were. Hindsight, it would have made more sense to settle the triple gold/ivory site before the copper, but since I had only well explored the south by the time my first settler came out (because of the stupid huts), I figured getting the copper that I knew about was more important.

Thankfully it didn't cost me as I still got a couple good cottage sites N and NE, but I wasn't able to block as much land north as I wanted because of the huts.

I do need to learn more about barb protection on immortal - since I'm still just learning the level, I don't have a comfort zone yet for when they get troublesome and how to deal with them. Also probably need to do a better job of fogbusting with warriors too.

I settled that site to claim copper for vultures AND marble for the oracle.

I also did it for barb defense - without archery and all that empty land around i wanted to get copper quick. I'm probably the only one that played this game that lost out on the 3 gold site so i was pretty aware i might not have thought that out too well. I settled the 2 dye, ivory, rice, 4-5 hill, jungle city hoping it would block off that site and i could settle it in a few turns but that didn't work out.

I did get that city in 400 AD finally when it flipped but i probably wouldn't have been better off getting all blocking cities up before copper and just using warriors, or maybe archers to defend. I'm just paranoid about barbs or early dow's i guess. Even getting the copper city first i still fought a warrior vs barb archer battle defending my NW city (3rd city) before i could get a vulture up north. I typically get lib 200-300 years later than most players so i know i can improve a lot between 2500 BC and 500 AD in my games. (got it around 1100 this game with great capital and good land...)

Just the basic boring teching towards lib stage. I got some more cities settled, but that's about it. I founded Tao, which is the only religion on the continent.

I figured SB would draw Mao into a standstill like he usually does, but it seems like CKNs made all the difference. SB started losing cities, and eventually it was clear that he was going down. Mao eventually took Poverty Point, which happened to be one of the cities that Eridu was pushing back. Mao wasn't interested in putting troops there to stop revolts, so I got a new city.



SB was down to only his capital, and it wasn't guarded by much. I traded for all of his techs, and prepared a small force to try and get Cahokia before Mao did. I was too late though.



The problem for Mao was that Eridu culture pressed Cahokia to the point where it was completely useless. He tried to give it up a few turns later:



I saw that this happened to someone else too, not sure what the cause is. Maybe it was that Cahokia was in revolt? Either way Mao didn't try and keep Cahokia from revolting, instead deciding to keep his SoD in a nearby city. And eventually, I got another excellent city.



Settling Eridu in SB's face definitely payed off. That's 3 extra completely green cities that I get without war.

Teching has been very slow. I couldn't trade with Mao until he got bumped up to pleased, which ironically, was after Cahokia flipped to me and the close border penalties went away. I was able to get the normal lower half techs off of him, but I still had to tech all the prerequisites of steel and lib myself though, leading to a very late lib.

The plan is to take out Mao with cannons, and then probably use a combo of state property and Kremlin rush buy to conquer the world.

The 3 gold site is important, but there is enough time to get it with your second settler. SB and Mao start far enough away that they don't go for it until their 3rd or 4th city. Even on immortal, you can easily get 2 cities before they get 4.

I agree with being baffled over settling Eridu for the tundra copper though. I stole SB's copper, and that city ended up being an early powerhouse (working grassland cow/copper/4 grassland hills at size 6.) This city blocks and claims copper, plus was a better settler pump than my capital. And you definitely don't have time to wait to settle it before SB.

I'm still not claiming making it city #2 was a great idea, but it's not exactly a tundra city. 2 Flood plains, 1 riverside grassland is 7 extra food (counting 2 from city itself). It has 2 base hammers (plains hill) and 4 hills and a copper in it's BFC. Chain irrigating it could let it work all 4 hills and copper. I built heroic epic here and could build 1 turn vultures in the early AD's.

The other copper has 1 cow...

You're right about that city. I settled that copper a lot later in a worse position (mostly tundra, missed the flood plains,) making it pretty bad. Most people put the city so that it is actually a productive city where for me it was just to grab marble. I still don't like settling my first city behind me with 2 AIs to block, but I realize that the city isn't as bad after I looked at it.

I think the city at the NW copper is clearly a lot better though. You can't farm anything until civil service, but at size 6 it gets 18 hammers and blocks. It's also all grassland and grassland hills, so you can make it a production city, commerce city, whatever. Grassland cow is still 4 food 2 hammers, much better than a farmed flood plain for an early production city.

Settled here to pressure the barb city and claim horses.



Building units to take that city now too, along with a few settlers. And Mao puts me in a tough position:



I opt to join him – I’m not ready to wipe out SB yet, but can use the diplo with Mao as I continue with developing my economy. Boy was I waiting for CS too – bureau capital will rock now. Biggest concern is finding enough production on the map – I don’t have it yet, but hopefully once all my settlers are out, I will. And starting to round out the island:







And the all important bulb – Taoism is mine.



Time for chop walls overflow trick – I need gold – sent all 9 of my workers to the new city temporarily for a master chop – look at those little buggers go!!! 2 minutes of micro for a before:



And after:



564 gold – that’s worth wasting a couple worker turns and a couple minutes micro. Repeated that with one more city with a wealth of trees awaiting a power chop. Deficit research from the chops helps me speed toward lib. And here it is, in the 900s:



Nothing fancy – lib-nat-taj plan. I’m not comfortable enough with this level to know how long I can delay lib. Still need to figure out how to bury Mao. A little concerned as my tech rate is a bit poor, but serviceable, especially since Mao and SB are basically limping techwise too. Should start to really come online once ziggurats finished, and once i get universities in (although my cottage cities are hammer poor).

Mao got rifles when he had 3 cities left (though only 1 rifle in the first of those 3). That's not going to cut it of course, and so he bit the dust. I just used holdovers on SB since he only had 3 cities left from his mao excursion and I just stomped all over his backward longbows.

I thought about massing up a military using flight + marines to completely eliminate Justinian and Izzy (ALL coastal cities for both!!! Whoa!), but got lazy on the micro and just went SP + workshop hammers + hammer multipliers to build myself to 100% science. I was over 2000 beakers shortly after cutting down bull, eventually capping around non-GA 3k/turn. Won internet and as you can see, nobody else got even close.

Part of my reason to do this was a failed attempt to get Justinian to build the UN so that izzy/mehmed vote me winner. So, I had enough disposition with them to ignore any DoW chances at all since mehmed kept declaring on and eventually capitulation sal. Justinian attacked and capped to mehmed too, but nobody did any teching of substance.

I built the entire ship start to finish in 15 turns since I had so many cities.

Settled in place, teched mining-BW. Settled near the SE copper for my second city. Starting spamming vultures. Send my research path down through writing alphabet plus grabbing priesthood while I still had 2 cities.

Some time around 1800BC I started my war verse Sitting Bull. He dropped really quick.


After that I decided to send my forces to Moa. It probably isn't optimal as I become isolated and slightly overexpanded but I just felt like doing it for fun. 1490BC I was officially king of my island.



As for my position this is where Sumeria shines (lots of land after conquest with a crashed economy). Creative means I am getting 2 chop/whip libraries so I can run GS's everywhere to keep economy moving. I am pumping out my cheaper version of courthouses everywhere and soon will dump a Forbidden Palace in Guangzhou to keep maintaince costs down. Got a few CRIII Vultures going around on barb city duty razing barb cities for gold (a couple cities will get my through currency in no time).

I haven't done the maths yet but I am trying to figure out if I can get a domination victory off my island alone. If I can I might stop all production and just build MASS settlers. Send them to everywhere, wait 15 turns for culture border pops, and viola!!! Domination win. EDIT: My landmass on this continent is around 47%. Means I actually need to play a real game and not cheese it

I settled in place explored the land mass. Grrr TWO protective civs. I buzzard rushed em neways hehe . By 1000 bc SB dead which is coolies cuz he was owed a killing since the freddy game . Then not much later china voted off the island too. Thats the ONLY good part.

The bad is after all that I was in pretty up my cities mode. Trying to build libraries and ziggys and before I knew it it 660AD and I havent expanded much at ALL yet .

Peeking at where others are by time the 500's ad are I am waaay behind--add in fact that they all on higher diffs mean I am TOTALLY sucking . PPL seem to be getting 200-300 or more bpt by that point and Im barely getting 90 . I have feeling by time I start meeting other civs it is gonna be UGLY. But hopefully things will get better if I can start expanding a lil bit.

Here is my empire such as it is:



And demos:



ranked at bottom in pretty much EVERYTHING so I have feeling I am gonna get WHOMPED soon. But hopefully I will go down fighting hehe so wish me luck

First goal is to start figuring out how to win. I’m thinking cannons to take down Mao, but that’s kind of a long way off. Stupid SB is destroying villages, mines, etc..with his spies – really annoying. And my tech rate limps and limps until my golden age and some key civic switches.

Then this:



What frustrates me here is that he’s able to get to 1 tile from a key cottage city in the same turn, despite my CRE trait. It’ll take me 2 turns to get reinforcements there – sure hope he bombards. I ask Mao to join the fun:



He is dumb enough to bombard, so 10 vultures show up to protect the city. And I failed to take a picture but SB starts spyblasting me destroying things. This'll be a theme the next 700+ years. Finish this in the midst of the war:



My big concern now is Mao will steamroll SB’s 3 remaining cities, and end up with more cities and power than me. I kill SB's elephants without losing the city, but lose practically all my vultures doing it. So now I have no army at all. And while I rebuild my army, SB capitulates to Mao with one last city. Expected and it sucks. Met Saladin, he’s behind, but a protective pain. Then Mao pops gold apparently in a mine, because he cancels my gold deal and doesn’t want it. More bad breaks, but it'll turn soon. While teching to steel, I decide to switch and get to astro, so I can get some trade routes and build galleons – I’m thinking I’ll need to attack elsewhere first, because Mao’s getting pretty big.

Haven’t met justy, but can see him thanks to saladin’s map – he’s isolated, which makes him a perfect target – I bet he’s behind. Use a great person for a golden age, and head to astro. Meet Mehmed, who doesn’t have horse. Since I need happiness resources, I make a couple generous trades with him to get him to pleased, and get THREE happiness resources for horses – not bad. Don’t usually trade military techs, but it seemed worth it here.

I meet Justy:



Not too far behind, and the stupid worst enemy crap. Doesn’t matter much as I plan to kill him, but annoying to see it again. And this sucker is finally built:



Force is close to ready to launch on Justy. Pop a merchant – trade mission for upgrades. First landing. Still short on galleons for wave 2, but not waiting any longer.



One city:



I struggled just to keep it against his cataphracts. Reinforcements came, and I started to take over – hope it’s not too late, because other civs are starting to gain steam. And after awhile and a bit of unhappiness, he’s dead.



The good news now is I have two empires, which double my strength, and my three key commerce cities now all have their banks, markets and grocers, so I’m starting to gain steam. Mao is big, but I don’t really need to do anything with him – he’s friendly, so he and I now have a defensive pact. Keeps me safe from him while I kill the rest of the world. I can beat up the rest of the world the next round and win, I think. Tech and two empires below:







Next up – beeline destroyers and frigates, and attack whoever Mao dislikes most (to keep him happy with me.

Me and my best bud Mao start tech sharing – he techs railroad for me, I tech electricity for him. Meanwhile we both dislike Izzy, and nothing would pleasesme more than destroying her and taking her holy city. She doesn’t have rifling or steel, so I can hit her quick with artillery and knights. Here I come:



That’s stack 1 – stack 2 is waiting to join in a few turns – I wanted to get her fast with no steel and no rifling. And this is where I made a huge tactical error, the kind I rarely make in warfare. Izzy’s magical upgrades happened lightning fast - way faster than I anticipated. Muskets become rifles, cavalry start appearing everywhere – she even kills my medic and my entire first stack. Then her frigates kill my galleons too. I made a big mistake not waiting until combustion. All in all, this war did not go well, and it cost me the game, I think. If I had waited 10 more turns to tech combustion, upgrade my frigs and galleons and bring along about 40 more units that were being produced, it would have demolished her.

Instead, I lost my whole fleet of galleons, and she landed a bunch of trebs and conquistadors on my lightly defended island. Lost 2 cities before I could mount a counterstrike, but the damage was done. I lost a ton of units, failed to make any headway, and am now sitting behind both Mao and Saladin.

Meanwhile, Saladin completed Apollo, so I’m in trouble. Debating whether to continue this at this point or not – I think it’s likely a lost cause. One mistake on timing – literally a 10 turn wait would have been enough to kill her. I pretty much lost 80% of my attacking force, so I’m left with a 10-15 unit force, and probably not enough time to get powerful enough to beat both Saladin and Mao.

I may try to see if I can salvage this, but it would be such a long tough slog I’m not sure I want to do it. So for now, I’ll chalk this up as my first immortal loss – gets me to 1-1.

I settled in place. Pretty sweet capital spot with floodplains and the gold mine. The rest of the map looks a bit food poor IMO, but there's a nice smattering of rivers and grasslands.

Tech Path:

Mining
Bronze Working
Pottery
Mysticism
Polytheism
Priesthood (love those Ziggy's)
Writing
Masonry
Animal Husbandry
Fishing
Sailing (for the river commerce)
Monarchy (I wasn't going to wait to trade it this time)

I settle my second city coastal next to the copper to the SE.



I meet chairman Mao in 3460 and Sitting Bull in 3025. Both are bad rush targets (especially Mr. Bull) and they're not close enough for my typical rush. So, it's the tech/wonder route for me....



I was tempted to take Metal Casting but since neither of my neighbors have founded a religion and it looks like it's just us on this continent, I went for COL.





Sitting Bull must be squeezed in as he's already moving down my way. It was a mad rush to get my blocking cities in place to the north (near the 3 golds. THREE!) and to claim the horses to the northeast. He missed the gold site, I grabbed it. So he went for the horses, but since he insisted on settling hilltop, I was able to claim the ponies with a better site to the east. His city was sandwiched between my capital and my third city, so he went and did this.....



Well allrighty then. The city isn't in the best spot, but since he's offering it up that'll free my REXing efforts to try and block off Mao. I took it.



Mao captured a barb city on the east coast there, and I put down another city to the southeast to block.

Tech path:

Code of Laws (oracle)
Alphabet
Currency
Monotheism
Iron Working (traded Mao)
Mathematics (traded Mao)
Calendar (traded SB)
Aesthetics
Literature
Civil Service
Meditation



I took this last barb city since both Mao and SB were itching for it.

My first Great Person was late, becase I went for a prophet instead of running scientists right away in my capital.



I put him to good use for a huge boost to gold flow.



I also connected up that marble and put it to good use.....



So, here we are at 1 a.d. and my capital is rockin with Bureauacy



I finally did it! A size 12 capital (would have been 14 if I hadn't whipped a settler) and 143 beakers per turn at 1 a.d. Yes I know there's gold and floodplains out the wazoo, but this is still a big mark of progress for me as little as I get to play.



Moving forward this will likely have to be a domination or space win. With only one religion it'll not be ideal for culture. I'm going to push for a strong tech lead and then thump on Mao. I'm well ahead of my neighbors in techs, but need to work on my military. I have 8 cities with room for 3-4 more.

I didn't do much different in my attempt. I wanted to block the north with my 2nd city but I wussed out and went for the copper.

I hadn't met SB by this stage, since I was focussing on fogbusting rather than exploration with my warriors. Just went ahead and continued settling cities and laying down cottages on all the floodplains:






Traded a bit with Mao, including this pretty nice deal:


Settled the marble if I want the GL or other marble wonders:


Keep settling:


And the tech situation, which shows just how slow they are going:



Not much else happened, Mao declared on SB and took a city, SB declared on me for some reason, but we are back at peace. Not in any rush to take him out yet. At least he'll distract Mao for a while. I'll probably just bide my time and take him out before I go after Mao. I may as well backfill my land first and not rush things.

Tech rate has been pitiful all along. Mao and SB hated each other right from the start, Justi was alone with his own religion and the other continent has been a mass warring idiocy (3 zealots with different religions). I had to self-research all my military techs.

The round starts with more war. I regroup my stuff and declare on backward cow:








I finally meet that huge Ottoman leader and his vassal. I was a bit worried about Meh and his 15 cities, but the war slowed everyone down.





The plan was to kill Justi and see if his land was enough for domination (probably not).
I adopted Vassalage at some point (Meh's fav civic) and actually pushed him to pleased, despite the "trade with worst enemy" bs. But he entered wheoohrn at cautious. He's cautious with Salad as well, so I think he's going after him.

DoW vs Justi:



So Meh has to choose between a bordering land target (Salad) or a far away (8 turns for frigates and galleons) intercontinental target.
Guess who's the lucky one. I'm not even commenting this big pile of bs:







So quick change of plans:



Meh captures 3 coastal cities defended by vultures, I pull my stack all the way back, recapture my cities and give him some peanuts for peace:



New plan: tech to oil ships/infantry/artillery, mass build units, upgrade and go kill Meh.



Meh entered wheoohrn again 2 turns after peace, but I signed a def pact with Salad and wheoohrn status magically disappeared.
Took a while to build/upgrade everything, but I'm ready.

Main stack will capture Ankara, wait for the counter-attack and head to Istanbul:



Second stack to kill Isabella and move on Meh from the N:



Meh moves in with the first of 3 massive stacks (all between 40 and 60 units). No match for drill 4 infantry and machine guns:



Couple wonders in Istanbul:



War vs Isa is going well:



Meh recaptures Ankara with his last stack:



Salad dogpiles:



A few turns later Isabella (down to 1 city) breaks free and I think Salad kills a huge ottoman stack. Meh is out:



Next turn:



Too many images, state of the world in the next reply.