Prince Saladin the Pirate (AWP)

We are Prince Saladin (Arabia), Scourge of the High Seas.

Settings: Always War, No Technology Trading
Level: Prince
Map: Archipelago
Size: Small
Climate: Temperate
Sealevel: Low
Era: Ancient
Speed: Normal
Landmass type: Archipelago
Victories: Any
Opponents: 6 random civilizations (2 more than normal)

Roster:
bihary
katank
Shadzy19
Araqiel

Our starting position.
Looks nice, we can see corn, clam, dyes and gems.
Preliminary thoughts?
I think there is nothing going against settling in place. Still, I would check south-east with warrior, and maybe move settler north-east if there is something interesting to the east.

Interesting, but I'll lurk, I might join once I got my cIV working again.

Im definatly up for it , i agree with you on the start position , settle on the spot unless the warrior finds something really good.

Nothing to think about, guys. Settle on spot and research Hinduism.

OK katank, shadzy, we go for it. madviking, I hope you will join sometime. Anybody else is also still welcome.

I will now play 30 turns, after that 10-15 turns per player, OK?

If you guys don't mind having a newcomer to succession games I'd love to participate. Been lurking these forums ever since Civ III came out, finally decided to give it a go.

araqiel, you are in. I put you on the roster. Welcome.

I played 40 turns as things got... Interesting.

4000BC (0)
Moved warrior south-east. See another clam. Still, I settle in place. Yahoo! Marble and silk is within Mecca's radius. I feel lucky and start on Meditation (9). Now with this marble, and being Saladin, we want to build The Oracle to get those GPs running. What do we need in the short run? A workboat, a worker, and a barracks. According to my experience, we are likely alone on our island, so serious military production may be postponed till we see copper and horses. I start Barracks (60).

3960BC (1)
Warrior starts exploring the north.

3800BC (5)
Border expansion. Our island is finite up in the north, but seems to be bigger southward. Another silk and a fish becomes visible.

3680BC (8)
A panther appears next to our warrior.
Mecca grows to size 2. I start a worker (12).

3640BC (9)
Our warrior wins against the panther, down to 0.6.
Meditation comes in and we are Buddhist. I convert. Starting Agriculture (6).

3520BC (12)
I heal our warrior within our borders (5).

3400BC (15)
Agriculture - Fishing (4)

3320BC (17)
Our warrior is healed and moves south to scout.

3240BC (19)
Fishing - Masonry (8)

3200BC (20)
Here I eat my words... We are in war with Tokugawa! A Japanese scout appears out of the fog from the west.
Mecca's borders expand again, revealing gold and wine to the west.
Worker completes, starts farming the corn.
I kill the scout with warrior (79%), down to 0.6.

OK, no panic, let us think... I decide to keep the course. The Japanese will take some time to launch an attack against us. We have to get our economy going, or we are toast in the long run. Switched to work boat.

3160BC (21)
Warrior gets Combat I. Healing.

3000BC (25)
Corn is farmed. Warrior healed, moves to the west.

2920BC (27)
Masonry - Hunting (4)
I am going for Archers. We cannot gamble on copper.
A lion aproaches our warrior.

2880BC (28)
Warrior defends against lion, down to 1.6. We get a promotion, but I decide to save it. Healing. Mecca hits size 3. We are growing like weed, so I am working our double-shield squares (besides the wheat). Worker starts quary.

2800BC (30)
Workboat - resumes Barracks (10)
Warrior is healed, scouting to the south-west.

2760BC (31)
Hunting - Archery (6)
Clams netted.
Warrior scouts now north-west, as I dare not go far from our capital.

2680BC (33)
Quarry completed.

2600BC (35)
Archery is due in 1, now I dare explore further north with warrior. Our "island" is not so small after all...

2560BC (36)
Archery - Mining (4) Heading for Bronze Working.
Marble is hooked, and all I can build are roads. I build a strategic road to the west, after that I will return and build roads to prepare for chopping and mining our hill.

2520BC (37)
Warrior sees the borderline of the Japanese up in the north.

2440BC (39)
Toku adopts slavery. He has bronze working .
Mecca hits size 5. It is at its happiness limit, but with a military police it can still grow. Barracks - archer (3) I MM Mecca so it can build archer in 2. We want to try to park Toku ASAP.

2400BC (40)
Mining - Bronze Working (10)

I am not working the clams at the moment to squeze out an archer, but you may want to work it again after that (it speeds up research as well as growth). Worker is building roads to facilitate quick chopping once we have bronze working. I would chop-mine the hill and the forest east to it (see picture).

Kyoto is at size 3. We are better than the Japanese in most demo categories, and their power is not much greater either.

After bronze working, I think, our priorities are animal husbandry (to see horses), priesthood (to build cheap temple and cheap Oracle) and Sailing (for galleys).

Only god knows what lies in the south and in the south-west (see picture). We should find out ASAP.

We have a powerful capital, but the land around us is not so great.

Next player (katank) play 20 turns, then 10-15 turns per player.
Let us discuss, this game may be tough.

Just to give us an idea, I regenerated 2 other random maps with the same settings, retired, and took pictures of the layouts. Here is a picture showing them.

Only on one of the pictures do two civs share the same land-mass, all the others are seperated. So I think it is a realistic bet we have no other immediate threat apart from the Japanese (also I have seen noone else in 40 turns.)

Some random ideas about the future: I feel a strong synergy in our start position. Marble means a fast Oracle, if completed after we know pottery, we can get Metal Casting, and the forges we build will give us 2 extra happy faces with our gem and gold. Together with our religion and temples, we can have HUGE cities relatively fast, even without Pyramids. I do not think we need Stonehenge either, as we will also benefit greatly from plantations. Marble however also pushes us towards Literature - The Great Library and the Epics are all cheap for us.

Interesting. Got it. Will play either tonight or tomorrow night.

ill join if that slot is still open (and from what i see it is)

Preturn check. Everything looks good. Let's go scout the japs.

Turn 1 (2360): Microed Mecca to crank out an archer the same turn as growth. I'll then get another worker out the same time as bronze working comes in.

Spotted enemy warrior.


Turn 3 (2280): Archer completed. Move towards Japanese to initiate pillage and park soon.

Turn 5 (2200): Warrior made it to a forested hill right outside their borders. Lone warrior isn't going to accomplish much. Let's hope this is a choke and we can bottle em up. Fortify warrior there for now. Blockade


Turn 9 (2040): Bronze came in. Start on pottery. We need this for Oracling either Metal Casting or Code of Laws. Lots of grasslands to cottage too.

Turn 13 (1880): Pottery came in, start on priesthood.

Turn 16 (1760): IBT Archer on defense kills jap archer (1.2/3). Surprised the others didn't attack or that archer was so dead. Medina founded next to copper.

Switched to slavery. Dropped science to 90% to avoid being broke. Promoted archer to hill defense 2. Camp out Kyoto's mine.

Turn 17 (1720): Priesthood came in. Start on writing. Archer finished, start on Oracle.

Turn 18 (1680): Noticed Jap borders looks like my forces bottled them in. New Jap city founded extremely close to capital. Crowding?

Turn 20 (1600): Oracle came in. Chose Metal Casting. Production set to temple in Mecca. Feel free to veto. Mecca needs to grow though. Temples are cheap for us spiritual too.

I suggest we keep up the blockade and reinforce the archer next to Kyoto. Let's make sure Toku doesn't get access to the land to his west.

We can probably chop some axes to take a city or two off of him.

Kentharu said:

ill join if that slot is still open (and from what i see it is)

Click to expand...

Welcome Kentharu, I added you to the roster.
Nice turns katank. I will look at save.
Can we not employ priests in Mecca now with Oracle? Or that only works with a temple?
Just to stop overgrowth...

Errr... So where is the save?

Probably. I was thinking temple for more happy so Mecca can grow a bit more.

Lots of growth potential. Settler/worker factory mode certainly works too.

I was amazed that I managed to get Oracle on my very last turn. Lol.

Next person should go and micro the tiles a bit in Mecca to make sure it's not too wacky.

katank said:

Probably. I was thinking temple for more happy so Mecca can grow a bit more.

Lots of growth potential. Settler/worker factory mode certainly works too.
.

Click to expand...

Mecca does grow fast. So we can
1. Build our settlers / workers there
2. Put specialists there (Mecca is gonna be our GP factory obviously)
3. Whip stuff. I would start now, with a granary. My take on whipping is that the more population you can whip the better, as the happiness penalty is always just one. So I would whip buildings in Mecca, then regrow while building troops.

Other thoughts: A galley can, in all probability, circumvent this world, so we should build one soonish for that purpose. Also, strong navy will be absolutely essential in this game. I say we will need a galley to cover each of our seafood resources, and plus more for transport. Getting caravels will be very important too.

Have we explored all our continent yet? We should.

We will have a Great Prophet soon in Mecca. We should build our shrine, it will provide much gold in the long run, and some more GP's too. We should build about 2 cottages at Mecca, they will be used. I forsee a strong economic basis for us. Speaking of which, we may want to consider building the Colossus in Mecca too (needs first a forge but pretty cheap with copper).

Iron Working should still be on the list of our desired technologies. We have some jungle to cut, and maybe swordsmen could take out the Japanese? In any case, is there a way to take out the Japs anytime soon? If so, we must go for it. If not, I would go something like a settler, granary (whip), troops, forge (whip), Colossus in Mecca.

Nice turns so far , seems we got off to a good start.
I will probebly go for sailing to get some galleys out exploring to see if we have some other enemy's that can attack us with galleys , will try to find choke points if so , to put our galleys on , that +10% defense for water units is huge for this.

Im not a big fan of whipping unless we have enough happy faces to cover for it , dont wanna end up stoppin our growth because we whipped to much , i would definatly still build the granery and if i had to whip something it would be a forge after we got organized religion since the +25% also helps towards whipping.

Cant really say much else since i cant look at the game
The save game would help katank

Oh gosh, why do I always forget to attach the save? Oops

Whipping will not be a problem happiness wise. Just remember to always whip for 2 or more populations points. If you whip for 1, then you get into a vicious cycle quickly.

Sailing would be awesome. Mecca is actually extremely close to the Japs across the water. Even tons of road would not make the land route attractive for attack. Ship some swords across and Toku is toast.

Lurker Comment:

Whipping will not be a problem happiness wise. Just remember to always whip for 2 or more populations points. If you whip for 1, then you get into a vicious cycle quickly.

Click to expand...

I find that sometimes its even best NOT to build a granary if you have a lot of food. I find that whipping two pop points in a high-food city with a granary, you end up stalling growth - which sucks if you can't run specialists yet...

oldbustedjorn said:

I find that sometimes its even best NOT to build a granary if you have a lot of food. I find that whipping two pop points in a high-food city with a granary, you end up stalling growth - which sucks if you can't run specialists yet...

Click to expand...

Why wouldnt you want a granery in a high food city you are gonna go heavy on the whip? It saves you half the turns to grow , meaning you can whip again faster.

Got it btw , wil probebly play later tonight.