What would you do next? (Liberty, post NC)

Started a random leader, continents game up on immortal and got ottomans. I'm terrible at domination, so figured I might try a tradition start with later game domination.

Went Scout -> Scout -> Shrine before I realized that this map looked pretty damn great to give liberty a shot. lots of luxes and I thought i could wall myself away from the rest of the continent easily after a little forward settling on Byzantine. Which didn't happen, both Byzantine and Denmark snuck settlers by. Nothing a little war declaration couldn't fix though (although I was late in getting to Theodora's settler, I was able to get the city in a deal)

Also key to my decision was the Faith/Food natural wonder right outside of a city state, so i had to hard build a settler before the policy to get it before the CS did.

Because of the slower start, I didnt get my engineer until turn 105 for a 6 city NC.

The question is, what now (as well as what did I do wrong)?

My empire:


My further expansion area:


There are a few great spots there I cant pass up that. The sea resource/cow/deer city looks like a naval production power house. The hill next to the graveyard of a poor Byzantine decision looks like another. Marble/Flood Plains/Sheep/Desert Hills looks strong, and one filler in the middle is what Im thinking.

My religion has Pagodas and happiness for shrine w/ 3 followers, so I'm pretty sure Ill be able to handle the expansion even with only one new lux for the 4 cities. Ill just have to limit growth for a bit. I'm still pretty new at Liberty, but its a ton of fun.

So, what to tech next? Thinking i want Workshops, than Markets before worrying about Universities. however, I also want to be able to work up a Navy (I am the Ottomans after all)

Also, what about policy trees? Exploration? One into commerce if I can grab Big Ben? If I'm fighting happiness and wont have large pops will Rationalism be as important?

Fun game so far. Liberty rocks if you have the map for it.

If you want to do domination, then for sure go markets then workshops then navigation.
For policies, I'd just go honor. Exploration isn't that useful against the AI. +1 movement is alright but most of what you'll do is bombing cities with frigates so.. yah.

Konya and Samsun are pretty sad cities though. They'll mostly drag you down.
Should have just settled Bursa closer so it'd grab the cotton eventually.
Probably take constantinople eventually for that marble. You can just send some ships there and farm her for dromons, and then eventually use those to take the city.

Also settle that costal spice spot.

Eventually I guarantee an AI will send a settle to take that terrible garbage spot with the desert marble down south. You could settle a coast city next to those CS horses to prevent that. It would be an acceptable city with a river and a circus. You'd have to buy tiles so the CS doesn't suck them.

One thing you can consider if you don't go domination is to go for patronage and then forbidden palace. That's worth a lot of happiness and it much easier to get than Notre Dame, which requires crappy techs and is heavily contested by the AI.

poxpower said:

If you want to do domination, then for sure go markets then workshops then navigation.
For policies, I'd just go honor. Exploration isn't that useful against the AI. +1 movement is alright but most of what you'll do is bombing cities with frigates so.. yah.

Konya and Samsun are pretty sad cities though. They'll mostly drag you down.
Should have just settled Bursa closer so it'd grab the cotton eventually.
Probably take constantinople eventually for that marble. You can just send some ships there and farm her for dromons, and then eventually use those to take the city.

Also settle that costal spice spot.

Eventually I guarantee an AI will send a settle to take that terrible garbage spot with the desert marble down south. You could settle a coast city next to those CS horses to prevent that. It would be an acceptable city with a river and a circus. You'd have to buy tiles so the CS doesn't suck them.

One thing you can consider if you don't go domination is to go for patronage and then forbidden palace. That's worth a lot of happiness and it much easier to get than Notre Dame, which requires crappy techs and is heavily contested by the AI.

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Thanks.

Part of the reason to settle Bursa where it was was so i could quick purchase both the salt and crabs, also allowed me to settle on a hill. Konya does have at least some flood plain tiles to support enough growth to be able to build mines for some passable production. Sansun was a filler city, but has 2 camps (extra food from pantheon...maybe not best idea for liberty but will be useful for growing some of my cities) and I like having a tighter empire, especially when I am anticipating angry neighbors.

After looking at it closer, im going to do 3 more cities. Spice/2 Fish on the corner hill, the coast spot between deer and cow, and the horse spot you suggested(I was considering one over from it, but tI like your spot better)

Ill probably just plug the one tile between Sansun and Ankara and keep borders closed. That will block their settlers for a while. Ill grab Constantinople (because who wouldnt want both Istanbul and Constantinople in same empire) but Pocatello and his non coastal capital will just have to wait until Artillery. Hes the one guy i havent fought, so Ill just suck up a little to him.

Went with exploration anyway, at least initially. With 7/10 cities coastal (with a TON of sea resources), the happiness per lighthouse/harbor/seaport is pretty big and the three construction per coastal city is still nice at this stage. Along with the extra range, it just seemed a bigger boost than Honor, which I'm going to go down now.

Couldnt get any Dromons from Theodora but some comps and Galleases did the trick (with a few more casualties than i would have liked). I feel a little bad for her, she got her Great Porphet too late for a religion so I get a city with 5 sea resources and a holy site.

Pocatello playing tradition/piety doesnt care, Denmark is weak but Copenhagen is annoyingly placed so might be on to the other continent.

Is a frigate conquest a possibility or should I wait for the bigger guns?

Ill get it around turn 175 but no one else has caravels yet that Ive seen

teakbois said:

Is a frigate conquest a possibility or should I wait for the bigger guns?

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Against the AI, Frigates is what does most of the naval domination.
Galleas are very bad because they can't enter ocean tiles ( unless you are polynesia, which is then super unfair lol )

But frigates are unstoppable if you rush to navigation. With Ottoman, just build frigates and privateers and roll over the map by taking enemy ships. You should have so many that you can easily make 2-3 armies to take over cities faster.

You need to use frigates as much as possible before the AI gets airplanes, because bombers are pretty good against frigates.
But anyway, shouldn't be a problem, naval domination is the easiest and most fun as the AI is super terrible at it

Get to the other continent and find...

A shortage of coastal cities. Most capitals are 3 tiles deep.

Good thing Monty was hell bent on taking back his lone coastal city I was raising, farmed some exp got me some range 3 Frigates. Called in an army of Cannons and Janissaries to help. Total casualties in war vs tech leader Monty: 1 Privateer, 1 Janissary.

However it is turn 210 and only 2/7 down, getting near Dynamite and will take care of Pocatello with one army while i wipe out the other continent with the main force.

Could still stand to work on my efficiency but this domination thing seems like the easy victory path once you get your early game solid.

You should grow your cities a lot more. You have 18 excess happiness in that first picture! Even Liberty cities need at least 10 or so pop before they're valuable, otherwise they don't even compensate for the 5% science cost per city malus.

As for the tactical situation:

Constantinople has nothing but flatland tiles to it's south so it should fall pretty quickly to archers or artillery, particularly since you can stage from your own territory.

Japper007 said:

You should grow your cities a lot more. You have 18 excess happiness in that first picture! Even Liberty cities need at least 10 or so pop before they're valuable, otherwise they don't even compensate for the 5% science cost per city

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This is only my second attempt at Liberty, and Ive realized that a) happiness isnt as limiting as I would have imagined it would be but b) it can sure go south fast when you have multiple cities growing and then someone flips your mercantile cs on you.

At that point I was in settler build mode for the last couple of cities and wanted to get them down before going back into growth. I still over estimated the impact a bit.

My first immortal domination victory. I can see first hand how dumb the AI can be. I was able to declare war on the final civ (Arabia) and place 6 Artillery outside of Mecca the same turn. 2 turns later (301) and the domination was complete.

Obviously I'm going after you. Your north is super exposed. Maybe put your 1,000 troops there instead of to the south among all your other cities? I laughed when I captured Mecca and saw the carpet of doom waiting below.

Fun game, even got use out of both my UUs. Tradition gets an army out crazy quick.