The Emperor Challenge Lineup - Game #3 Shoshone

All games in this series will be set to EMPEROR difficulty. User civilizations, maps, and opponents will change each game, but the pace will always be set at standard and the starting era will always be ancient. We will try for a variety of starts, and not just having a crazy warmonger as your next door neighbor (although there will be that too). This isn't a competition so there will be no predefined victory conditions. New challenges in the series will be posted every other Friday to off set the Deity games.

Who can play?
Anybody can play. The more the merrier. Even if you normally don't play Emperor games you are still welcome to try. The games can become great learning resources for the player trying to improve. Even if you don't finish the game, we are still interested to hear about your experience.

Do's and Don'ts
We are going to be using the honor system. Feel free to restart, reload, play the same game multiple times, but don't use the science overflow exploit. Also please don't edit the game in IGE. If you do chose to cheat, please don't share your results in the comments. Also, please use the spoiler tag if you post a picture, comment about neighboring civs, close by wonders, or locations of ancient ruins.

Also, please tell us about your Build Order, Social Policies, Tech Order, and what type of wonders you went after. I know a lot of this stuff seems pretty mundane to the experienced player, but the details are incredibly useful to people trying to learn.

Future Games in the Series
I currently do not have a means to accept a map submission. I am open to request for which civs can be next, just shoot me a PM.

I presume move settler one tile south and settle hill. Then make 1 pathfinder and work on worker and then switch to shrine when pottery is done and then finish worker.

I'll want desert folklore and Petra and I think that's marble to help me wonder whore.

This may be a better start than Venice two weeks ago. Settled on the hill 1 SE and the wondering whoring is in full effect. Already have Hanging Gardens, Petra, Oracle, Notre Dame, and Borobudur just because. Have my GE waiting to get Pisa next. I didn't get Desert Folklore so I went with Swords to Plowshares thanks to all of the fresh water/food that is available. Capital is already at 25 with two more cities at 10. Theodora stole my salt (but lost that city to Mongolia) so I had to settle instead to get the Wine and the Silver. I'm only going to do three cities for now. Mongolia is keeping Theodora and Gustavus busy so my Crossbowmen defenses and doing just fine. Game is pretty much in the bag already

I prefer the Venice start to this one but this is a good start. I played a few turns last night to check out the start. I felt the one new pathfinder was enough on a continent so I then built my shrine and had no issues getting the first pantheon and taking DF.

Shoshone cities start with much land. So it may be worthwhile to take a good look at the lands west and north of the cap. as it seems possible to grab some lux and also shut out AI development into those areas with just 2 new settlers. The land around Mt. Fuji can be settled later.

I would definitely go for the spot to the north. If I did the math right there is one tile that puts the silver salt and wine without the 3 tile radius of the city. I made the mistake of settling south for the second city and lost my spot to Theodora.

Very easy game here. The starting spot is better than I'd expected. Moved south to the hill. 4 city tradition. I settled Te-Moak up north on the horses just to the right of the mountain as it has 3 lux and many res. Then I settled Agaidika to the west on desert river hills rathe close to Stockholm and a couple turns ahead of a Swedish settler. Swedes weren't too happy with me. Later I could settle Goshute to the right of Mt Fuji for coastal access, whales and 2 fish.

Wonders galore starting with ToA (I didn't think I could be quick enough for GL and indeed it was gone T42.) Pantheon was DF of course. Religion was strong and had no initial competiton on my continent so once Tradition was finished, I went into Piety planning to try SS, but someone on the other continent quickly reformed and took it so I stopped piety ideas.

Swedes attacked and brought Genghis into the war but all he did was to run back home with one warrior after it got shot at. I took Stockholm and then made peace getting Helsinki which I raised. This ruined the Swedes for the entire game.

I never fought again and was on cruise control into Freedom on T198 etc etc

Fun, easy, casual game. I settled the desert hill. Had two expos by turn 40, one north by the salt, and the second west on the river/desert. Finished NC around turn 70, settled fourth city same turn next to Fuji. Stuck to those four cities the whole game. Got education around turn 105. Had the score lead by turn 70, tech lead by 130, and was never in any sort of danger from there.

Got desert folklore turn 22, first religion: tithe, faith from wws, pagodas, faster spread.

I lost out on a few early wonders, but still got ToA, HG, MoH, Notre Dame, and pretty much all post-medieval.

For SPs, I went full tradition, two in Patronage, full Rat, Freedom, which I opened around turn 180 after Oxford > Radio.

Didn't war much at all. I did steal two workers from Theo (a few more from barb camps). Later I destroyed Mongolia's army, liberated Byblos and took his only other city in a peace deal, which i sold to Sweden. That was all around turn 110-120, and Mongolia was completely stunted for the rest of the game.

I sort of meandered through the mid-game, beelining schools even before astronomy (which I stole from Theo), so I didn't found WC until almost turn 200. At around 230 I decided to go for CV. Won IG, and that was all she wrote.

Planning to try a wide Tradition > left side of Piety > Rationalism > Freedom strat.

Love Pathfinders - haven't played Shoshone in a while. Skipped Shrine hoping for a faith rune, which I got on T25. This allowed me to build 2 settlers in a row at 3pop. Got one worker from a barb camp and one from a CS. ~T80 3 city NC.

Desert Folklore > Pagodas > Temple Happiness for religion. The Desert Folklore isn't that great now but it will be in the long run.

I conquered Sweden on T120 with my 4 XB army. Going to go for Constantinople first then possibly Mongols before I finish Byzantium. There are several sweet wonders in Const and I'd like to take Mongols out before they get Keshiks.

I really should have built a city closer to a mountain in order to get Machu Picchu. It's such a nice wonder for this strat. I thought Barringer Crater or Mt. Fiji would count as mountains, but apparently they do not? Other than that the game is going pretty well. I'll probably self found a couple more cities during the conquest.

Not sure what victory to go for. We'll see what the other continent looks like first.

You were quicker than me as I was slowed by going into Piety after Tradition with plans to go SS but someone reformed and took SS so that changed things. I also think I wonder whored more than you did. Oh and had I gone SS, I'd have cleared space for more cities by taking them from AI's

I settled Goshute next to Mt Fuji and was able to build an observatory. I'd presume it would also count as a mountain for wonders.

10 cities... an empire spanning 4 civs worth of starting area... and no coal?!?! Bulbed a GS to get into Industrialization. Argh

I settled on the hill for a nice river/desert start. Took +1 faith from desert tiles and quickly got religion. I chose tithe (gold for every 4 followers), mosques and 15% growth rate because I did not plan on going to war. I saw a few nice city spots on rivers so I guarded them with an archer and pathfinder. I also took 2 workers from Byzantium and 1 from CS. Another worker came from barbarians.

Initially Mongols were aggressive and captured 2 CS, I bribed them to attack Byzantium but they did not really go there since my city was sort of in their way. Tech wise I went for Astronomy to be able to cross the oceans and to meet all civs.

I managed to get Petra before NC at around T90-95. NC was pretty late. I bought a library in my 4th city. After settling I started growing all cities and thanks to rivers and caravans they were growing fine.

WLTKD was a problem initially (no Gold resource) till I met Egypt on another continent (maybe T130 or so).

I chose Freedom as my ideology and gradually worked every specialist in every city.

Social policies: Full Tradition and Rationalism, a few in patronage and commerce (to buy stuff cheaper).

My religion was very strong till about T200 when Egypt and Byzantium started spamming their prohets. I could only protect my capital. Till then I bough mosques in every city which was pretty valuable.

I won't list all my wonders but on this map very valuable ones were were Petra, CI and Machu piccu.

Later in the game tech wise I aimed at Globalization (priority always on science building techs) and burned my scientists to get there (around T230) . Thanks to Religion, Trade routes and specialists my GPT was very decent to buy 7 CS which were not my allies. Needed 39 votes, got 43.

Thank you for the map

Futurism!

I wanted to do a wide Freedom science win, but after I bulbed my GS to get into Industrialization with no coal those plans were off the table. I figured my faith was high enough to faith buy a lot of great people to pull of a Futurism game.

It was a sloppy win. That GS I used to bulb Industrialization could have really come in handy to get to Radio faster. I tried to delay founding WC until after Radio so I could propose International Games on first vote. I also delayed a couple wonders to try and spawn my GPs after Futurism. This worked, kind of. I got International Games on first vote but I got greedy and lost my delayed Globe Theater by a couple turns (had it ready much earlier).

With a clearer plan from the beginning this could have been a much earlier win. Even just by opening Radio earlier and getting Globe that is probably at least 10 turns faster, maybe 20. But it was a fun game anyway Emperor is great because you can try unique strats but the AI is just good enough to keep you honest.

I ended with 6 self founded cities and 7 puppets. I didn't annex anything for culture reasons but maybe annexing a couple capitals would have been a good idea. Not sure.