Latest Game: Tzarina Katarina of Russia

Just started a game with Catherine of Russia - Standard size shuffle type map with one extra AI. I will update the post as the game develops.

Start:

Yup, just typical me - settling one off the coast without even knowing. Anyway, a good river, lots of forests, two food ressources and two Floodplains - not bad. Anyway, I continue and scout my vicinity, and dot off the possible locations of the next few cities:

The northeastern one is a giveaway - two gold and four floodplains, and coastal access. The ?'s represents a possible fourth city - I don't think there is any more land up north. The stretch of blue is Mayan. I play along and scout the Mayan lands, finding he has no copper! I've settled the desert city, and it popped copper on the plains hill NE of it. I have two cities with a relatively nice production, so I decide to try to take out Pacal (who has founded Buddhism in his capital). After some war, the map looks like this:

I've taken Mutal and Lakamha, without any real any resistance. I've also razed the black spot, it had a poor location and my economy had troubles already - I am thinking of resettling it on one of the two ?'s, prolly the Eastern as the western is a resource - cows I think.
I've met Napoleon once and traded a bit with him.
I've only got one non-calendar happy, my precious gold , so I have a little Happiness trouble - I'll have to remove the WW by wiping him from the map. We both have iron, but he hasn't got IW, so I have some time to wipe him off. After some more turns, here is a picture of the world as I know it, 100 AD:

I've sailed two of my CRs over and taken the barb city, defended by 2 warriors, after wiping out Pacal. I have a settler moving towards the spot between bananas and fish on the southern island. I'm beelining Optics before taking Monarchy. I have Calendar, providing Spice and Incense. I haven't met others than Napoleon, who hasn't got a lot of points. He is technically behind, but not much I think - he has Masonry and another tech on me, but not alpha or MC as far as I know.

Any comments and suggestions are welcome. I'm not going to wait that long before playing next round

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Question: What difficulty are you playing on?

And I would settle at the bananafish btw but I tend to emphasize hammers before science.

Og ja, jeg er også dansker

lord_joakim said:

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Thankyou - playing next round today I think.

Question: What difficulty are you playing on?

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Noble, as I'm used to - thinking of playing next game as Prince, but dunno yet.

And I would settle at the bananafish btw but I tend to emphasize hammers before science.

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I see - plains hill is solid for production - and cows shared with the other city. But I need coastal cities, and I haven't built my Maoi Statues yet... I think I'll stick to coastal, but thanks for the suggestions.

To eventual readers: I promise I'll do my best to make the next post:
1) More informing/detailed
2) More easy-to-read (spoilers of pics 'n' such), digestible if you want.

Please comment

Round 2:
100 - 1200 AD

Having the Mayans out of my way, I stop my military machine and focus on my economy, intending to win both optics, music and liberalism races. I grab the Colossus, pop a Great Scientist, which I use to start a golden age. I am not the first to get music, so no artist there - I have a unused GG resting in my capital from my mayan war. I meet America, Washington, on the continent where my barb city is - that is also France's continent. I discover optics, trade Napoleon for monarchy, after converting him and Washington.
I send one caravel west first, then one east.
The western one finds a Sitting Bull with only two cities, having his passage to the northern part of his continent blocked by a mountain. He is technologically behind, but has both HBR and Feudalism on me (Napoleon and Washington has these aswell). I buy monotheism off someone, and realize that AP could be very nice - all my cities are buddhist after an active spread, and it is also my state religion. My eastern caravel finds Genghis Khan, although I don't explore his territory. His techs made me laugh when I first saw them:


My western Caravel meets Darius, who is jew and (surprise!) a powerhouse of tech/score, having 1000 points (I myself have 1200). I sail past, to grab the circumnavigate bonus. I am planning to kill off Sitting Bull and/or Genghis Khan as soon as I can (Astro pop from Lib is the plan).



Ooookay, so far so good. We've gots lots of time to discuss next move, as I won't have access to civ again until wednesday. I'll tro to check the forum rapidly, though.

Concerns:

1. Victory condition? AP Diplo? Domi? Conq? Space?
2. Tech Path? Anyone got another suggestion than to beeline Liberalism for Astronomy?
3. Next enemy? I am thinking Sitting Bull, but I'm not sure - everybody seems to have longbows (smart AIs!) - I am building a bunch of trebs, and I am thinking of mixing a couple of crossbows into the army if going for SB, pikes if GK
4. Darius? What to do? Exclude him by converting the others to buddhism (GK is Hindu, SB has no religion) or try to wipe him out sometime?
5. Civics? I am currently running HRE / NOTHING / NOTHING / NOTHING / NOTHING, as far as I remember. OR would be good to grab AP (for the +), and Theo // Vassalage is always good for warfare. Serfdom for less workload with the jungle and watermills?

Everybody is welcome to comment!

First of all, I think you should go for Domination. The fact that you have a whole island for yourself is brilliant. Also, you seem to be far ahead of the AIs regarding Astronomy, so it'll probably be very easy for you to conquer at least SB so far (Maybe Genghis).

The first thing to do is to settle the peninsula north of Sitting Bull before a too mighty barb city shows up. Then, you'll have closer borders with Darius and you'll have it easier moving units to his nation.

While improving the peninsula, I would destroy SB. Simply. Raze the Island city (Or Moai it) and keep the other ones, I think. Try to attack both cities at the same time ofc. I would sacrifice 4 trebs on each city, it should do the trick.

Future plan would be to conquer Persia. Hopefully, you'll be ready to do that before he gets Astronomy.

lord_joakim said:

First of all, I think you should go for Domination. The fact that you have a whole island for yourself is brilliant. Also, you seem to be far ahead of the AIs regarding Astronomy, so it'll probably be very easy for you to conquer at least SB so far (Maybe Genghis).

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That's an idea I think I'll try that, and anyway, if my war hits a dead end, as futurehermit would say: "Land is power. Land is power. Land is power."

The first thing to do is to settle the peninsula north of Sitting Bull before a too mighty barb city shows up. Then, you'll have closer borders with Darius and you'll have it easier moving units to his nation.

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Yeah, I was thinking of this, but isn't the maintenance going to (sorry for the harsh language) rape my economy? Should I settle anyway, sail most of my workers with the expedition and chop out FP over there?

While improving the peninsula, I would destroy SB. Simply. Raze the Island city (Or Moai it) and keep the other ones, I think. Try to attack both cities at the same time ofc. I would sacrifice 4 trebs on each city, it should do the trick.

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Sounds fine with me

Future plan would be to conquer Persia. Hopefully, you'll be ready to do that before he gets Astronomy.

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Yeah, that would be the easiest way to do it. But I am thinking that if I kill off all the weaker enemies, I would
1) have less people to catch up small unimportant techs for me.
2) Weaken my economy, losing land to Darius
3) Spread my troops out over a larger area, making it more difficult to defend my land against Persia.

Anyway, we'll see. By the way, PA is on, so I could hope for a PA with Persia although we have different religions? Or with Napoleon, who usually is a military powerhouse?

Diamondeye said:

That's an idea I think I'll try that, and anyway, if my war hits a dead end, as futurehermit would say: "Land is power. Land is power. Land is power."

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If Domination fails, you can always go for Space Race.

Diamondeye said:

Yeah, I was thinking of this, but isn't the maintenance going to (sorry for the harsh language) rape my economy? Should I settle anyway, sail most of my workers with the expedition and chop out FP over there?

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I have had many games on Noble where I had several overseas cities (On 2 continents as big as mine +2minor ), where my economy allowed me to run science at at least 70%, with a SE to boot. I tried more or less times to make colonies, but that only screwed my economy completely.

So it is possible. I would settle there. Send the workers too ofc. and alot of archers to defend yourself against barbs.

Diamondeye said:

Sounds fine with me

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Diamondeye said:

Yeah, that would be the easiest way to do it. But I am thinking that if I kill off all the weaker enemies, I would
1) have less people to catch up small unimportant techs for me.
2) Weaken my economy, losing land to Darius
3) Spread my troops out over a larger area, making it more difficult to defend my land against Persia.

Anyway, we'll see. By the way, PA is on, so I could hope for a PA with Persia although we have different religions? Or with Napoleon, who usually is a military powerhouse?

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If PA's on... Choose from the beginning whoever you're allying yourself with. I would go for pwning them all. But each time you declare war on an enemy, you get -1 relations with ~50% of the bots so if it's possible, go for him first. When he's that high in score, his army is probably only consisting of bored longbows (He tends to be a peacemonger in my games). You should let these reasons concern you before you choose your next enemy:

• You will have a bit trouble PAing Darius when having -3 relations with him for all your previous wars
• Late games without arch enemies are boring mostly a joke, but you get my point
• many minor nations are undeveloped and easy to take in this game. You can destroy most of them and do land grab.
• Genghis' a wuss
• Darius is the only disliking major power right now. It would be good to take him out to run for either PA or conquest of Nappy.
• You have them Galleons. They don't. Darius won't be able to harress your country. You can take one of his cites, make peace, stack it and declare war after 10 turns, making Persepolis learn how to speak Russian
• I'm only saying what I am doing in my own playing style, and I'm only moving up to Prince currently
• You're ahead with everyone in tech.
• If declaring war on Nappy, he has access to your cities more easily than Darius. He can do it with Galleys.
• I'm propagandizing here lol

The bad thing about killing Darius off would be that it can fail. However, I don't believe that it's much possible at this point. You are too powerful to be matched by anyone.

lord_joakim said:

If Domination fails, you can always go for Space Race.

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Yeah, just my thoughts.

I have had many games on Noble where I had several overseas cities (On 2 continents as big as mine +2minor ), where my economy allowed me to run science at at least 70%, with a SE to boot. I tried more or less times to make colonies, but that only screwed my economy completely.

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Okay, point taken

So it is possible. I would settle there. Send the workers too ofc. and alot of archers to defend yourself against barbs.

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Noted.

If PA's on... Choose from the beginning whoever you're allying yourself with. I would go for pwning them all. But each time you declare war on an enemy, you get -1 relations with ~50% of the bots so if it's possible, go for him first. When he's that high in score, his army is probably only consisting of bored longbows (He tends to be a peacemonger in my games). You should let these reasons concern you before you choose your next enemy

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Okay. I am thinking Nappy - Washington has a solid -4 for trading his worst enemy, so Nappy is prolly the strongest and easiest PA.

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• You will have a bit trouble PAing Darius when having -3 relations with him for all your previous wars
• Late games without arch enemies are boring mostly a joke, but you get my point
• many minor nations are undeveloped and easy to take in this game. You can destroy most of them and do land grab.
• Genghis' a wuss
• Darius is the only disliking major power right now. It would be good to take him out to run for either PA or conquest of Nappy.
• You have them Galleons. They don't. Darius won't be able to harress your country. You can take one of his cites, make peace, stack it and declare war after 10 turns, making Persepolis learn how to speak Russian
• I'm only saying what I am doing in my own playing style, and I'm only moving up to Prince currently
• You're ahead with everyone in tech.
• If declaring war on Nappy, he has access to your cities more easily than Darius. He can do it with Galleys.
• I'm propagandizing here lol

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1) True that
2) Yep, point taken. I could get a good use for my cossacks...?
3) Good plan.
4) Definately.
5) Assuming I win Librace, yes. The general idea is good, but I'll wait with Darius for last, I think? See point II.
6) That's fine with me, sounds about same level - thanks for the advice.
7) Thankyou. I know.
8) I'm not.
9) Huh?

The bad thing about killing Darius off would be that it can fail. However, I don't believe that it's much possible at this point. You are too powerful to be matched by anyone.

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Thanks for the compliment. I'll kill him off lategame