Round 4: 400 BC to 540 AD (38 turns)
The round started with some switches mandated by my overseers. I switched production to libraries for the ability to run scientist specialists and I revolted into Representation. Representation powered specialists are super awesome and I would try to run engineers and scientists when practical in my cities.
I also got a lot of use out of Slavery this round whipping pretty much all the time. I don't think I've ever used it to it's full potential before, but man is it powerful.
I quickly met this guy who we can add to our list of dangerous neighbors.
I'm not too worried about him militarily just because he's so far away. It's also worth noting that I met him with a scout which means he's most likely on our landmass. Also worth noting is his religious belief, he's Buddhist ... and he didn't found it. This means that the other two AIs in this game must be nearby. It's possible that one AI founded both Hinduism and Buddhism, but even so, we're definitely not isolated. While I'm not worried about Huayna militarily, he is definitely a force to win the game. Luckily I've been denying him of his usual wonders,
.
Here's a quick view of our fledgling empire preparing for war.
You'll notice I'm building barracks instead of catapults. I figured the +3 experience means that our troops only have to win 1 battle to get two promotions (since we're charismatic).
QUESTION 1: Should I have been building barracks or catapults?
I had built a workboat in Guangzhou and had sent it northwest where I saw Mao's galley hanging out before. He found this.
That's a pretty decent city as it has fish and claims STONE. Score. I think I'll take it. You'll also notice that Mao had founded Confucianism and it had spread to my lands. I thought for a long time about converting. The benefits as I saw them were the obvious benefits of religion, namely the civic, Organized Religion, but also the diplomatic benefits. Mao was already at pleased and a shared religion would make it very likely that we got to Friendly. This would mean I could leave him alone back there and go take out Tokugawa. On the other hand, I wanted to declare war on Mao anyway for reasons previously discussed. Also, I'm scared of revolt and didn't have Monotheism.
QUESTION 2: Should I have joined Mao in Confucianism?
Speaking of religious things, I got my second Great Person.
Now this was a slightly more interesting decision than the last Prophet. I thought about keeping him to build the Confucian shrine with. But Confucianism was quite small and the Great Prophet would give me an immediate 5
, 3
, and 2
. I decided to settle him.
QUESTION 3: Should I have settled him or saved him?
My tech path had been going along as planned with Construction followed by Horseback Riding. I decided to stay on the war tech path a little longer so I researched Iron Working. Do I have iron?
Yes indeed. This was good since it allowed me the ability to build (upgrade some warriors) to axemen and spearmen. Also, it gave Lyons its third excellent tile to work.
The war buildup continued as I whipped, chopped, and built catapults and elephants. I finished researching Alphabet and started on
Aesthetics. My logic here was that I wanted to get back to my wonder building and Aesthetics is good peaceful trade bait for later. I was a bit torn since a pretty good argument could have been made for any of the techs. I'm sure most of you would have picked something else given all the judgment I've been under for building so many wonders.
QUESTION 4: What would you have researched and why?
Here's Orleans in an example of what I was trying to do everywhere. Namely work food tiles and whip out an army.
Notice that I'm running three specialists instead of the hills. My pattern for many of my cities was to work a few specialists, whip them away, grow the city back, then whip away the specialists again. I'm sure I was not doing so at deity-level efficiency. Specifically I was wondering about the grassland hill.
QUESTION 5: Should I be working the grassland hill instead of running a specialist?
I was just about to declare war at this point. But I always like to see what a leader will give me when he thinks we're still friends.
I didn't see any harm in giving him any of those techs and I wanted Calender to improve the spice (which I ended up forgetting to do,
), but also for a certain wonder I liked the idea of building,
. Monarchy's a useful tech too and not one I was ever planning on researching myself. So in an attempt to keep my future WFYABTA limits down with other civs I took it from Mao.
QUESTION 6: Is this logic right? Anyone care to explain the workings of WFYABTA with me?
Anyway, shall we let slip the elephants of war?
The military strategy was pretty straightforward. Catapults are so useless at bombarding, I find it way more effective to sacrifice a few. I promote the first couple to barrage and let them fly. Then when the odds improve to about 20%, I promote instead to city raider and hit the city with the rest of the catapults until the odds on an elephant are about 85%, and then I go in with Elephants. If you were wondering, there is no math at all determining if that is optimal, but it sounds alright to me.
And the Confucian holy city is mine.
I'm thinking I'll probably put the Heroic Epic in Shanghai as it has a lot of hills and a lot of food to feed those hills.
The war strategy was the same with the capital.
For some reason I turned off the resource bubbles. Beijing's got two wet corn to its west, pigs to its north, and iron to its east.
I completely forgot about my trading possibilities so I went and paid a visit to Huayna who had some pretty good stuff to offer.
I'll take happiness and health any day. Ragnar is pissed and Toku won't trade, so this is what I get in terms of trades.
Back at home, I was pretty confident in my military machine, so I took a quick break to build a wonder. It had been 32 turns since I'd completed my last one and I was starting to feel the effects of withdrawal.
After Beijing was mine, I sent most of my force back north to capture the northern half of the Chinese empire. I sent a small contingent south to capture Nanjing.
Given that Nanjing translates to "southern capital city" it looks like Mao knew what he was doing. (For those of you who are curious, Beijing does indeed mean "northern capital city".) Anyway, it's mine now, but I doubt if I'll be building Versailles or the Forbidden Palace there. It's unfortunate that Beijing is so close to my capital, otherwise I could have built the Forbidden Palace there.
But I digress. At RRR's recommendation I sent out a settling party to the island north of Mao's.
Complete with the city was an archer, a worker, and two workboats. Unfortunately, my stupidity caused one of the workboats to be destroyed by a Chinese Galley, sigh. You'll notice that Mao has a city right above mine. He settled it first, and other than the horses it's built on, it's absolutely terrible. I'm not quite sure what he was thinking.
Back on the war front (although a different front this time), my army was ready for the northern campaign.
I suicided the catapult into the city and then took it with minimal losses.
Olmec has access to bananas and cows which gives me two new health resources. It's also an important city because of its access to the mainland of the continent. So all in all I'm pleased to have it.
Over on the island I had a small force trying to get me access to stone.
I settled the army on the wrong side of the river, but did so purposefully. It would have taken another turn to land west of the city and I wanted to capture that city. This was probably an unwise move. Also note that the city has four units: two archers, one great general, and one trireme. A few second later, I lost an elephant at 91% odds and now the last remaining archer was going to get an attached great general and I wouldn't be able to take the city with just my one weakened elephant... Not to worry, the AI is incredibly unintelligent.
And now I have a free great general in a city that will be an excellent navy pump. I also won my own great general a few turns ago, but haven't done anything with him yet.
After aesthetics I researched literature and currently researching Currency. And before I forget, let me show you what my core was doing while I was taking those last two Chinese cities.
And the Parthenon is nearing completion in Orleans.
I'll post a state of the world tonight. In the meantime answer any of the questions you'd like to and take a look around the save.
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