No Cottages, Monarch, Louis XIV, Viva de France

So, here we go. I generated first Map and I did not check for anything.

OK.
It is Monarch game Louis XIV, France
All setting standart.
Climat was set on Rundom, but Temperature were choisen.
Continents.
Normal game speed, So, Warmonders, prepare to units absolute normally.
Actially start does not look to bad for no cottage game

Yes, Variant.

We are not permited to build cottages, ever.

Roster so far
Mutineer
acidsatyr
ThERat
uberfish
grahamiam


Sorry folk, I still did not work out how to include pictures in post.

So, Any last comments befor we starting?

I think we should do Me 20 then 15 first round. It is normal speed.

guess our start will give us whip galore with irrigation...not too bad

Viva de France.....Viva La France?

Wow that starting position is amazing, I say go pottery, cottage spam the crap out of those FP and then......wait

Settle in place

by the way, how do we want this thing played?
Bloodshed from the very beginning, maybe trying to steal a wonder or two, or something else altogether?

We are industrious, one word:

Pyramids

I think I will play first turns tomorrow mogning, so, untill that all ideas open.
Useally if I am not doing s specific strat AI I go worker tech-Bronse-Well, then decide what to do.
But on MOnarch I often did hunting-worker tech-bronse-well.
If there anything to explore scouts are more then pay for themself, even if one does not has scout originally. My only consern that team will think I am creasy.

For indusctrial I even do Worker tech-Mysticism-Meditation(or politheism)-Prieshood-Writing why building Stonehedge and then Oracle on one city.
You would be surprised how fast is posible to to get to civil service with Prophet.
My other, dramma-philosofy gambit you allredy know. It is especially powerfull on island start.

Oppss, I learn to mach Japanise, mix up Franch with Japanise my bad.

well this is Monarch so we can pretty much own this game in the ancient era without cottages. I don't know Louis's starting techs, but we could try to get Oracle, maybe pyramids if we have stone... we don't have to rush toward alphabet in this one, so we could get things like masonry and priesthood early on, etc. mining->bronze w. is probly best way to start however.

checking in mining -> BW seems like a good choice

Louis starts with AGR and Wheel, so I agree with Rat

I would like to go for Pyramids even if we don't have stone, we have good production at our capital (3 mines) and it won't take long to build with Industrious - 266 hammers for us vs 200 for a non-industrious civ with stone. With all this food to run specialists, and this being a no cottage game, Representation is a lot better than anything we could get from Oracle or prophets.

I would therefore vote for something like mining -> BW -> masonry, if we don't see any other interesting resources nearby.

well representation is the name of the game here, but I thought that we said we’re not going to resort to any kind of bonus (boni?) which will help us play this game, such as Phil. trait, financial, or in this case pyramids. If we get pyramids this early on we pretty much won the game, and I don't think we proved anything then.

OK,
Off we go.

Research
Mining-Bronse working -Animal hasbentry
Reason, bronse working did not reveal near by bronse, check for hourses and
there some food resources around.

From hats we got little gold, 2 scouts, one of them die from barbarian warrior and one warrior.

I want tith first worker.
We currently have size 4 city and just started to produce setler.
it due in 12 turns, but we can whipe it if nessasary.

I would suggest research pottery next for better whiping.
Liz can beat as to bronse, as she is in slavery.
We meat Elizabet, Mao and bissmark.
Liz is next door to as.


I left warrior unmoved for next person.

0th - scout kills lion
1 th - horses south...start pottery for granaries.
2 nd - zzzzzz
3 rd - zzzzzz
4 th - whip settler
5 th - sending to grab bronze. Scout killed by archer.
6 th - zzzzzzz
7 th - zzzzzzz
8 th - pottery in, start hunting (i see lots of barb archers, and i t will take
this is normal everything seems so....quick. I chose hunting since archers are around the corner and we need 20 turns to build road and hook up bronze. I like to play it safe.
9 th - zzzzzzzzz
10 th - start archery you can change this.

got it, I think settling just north of horses on the hill will be a good spot. It can grab gold, cows and horses + has hills

agree on archery, hope to get out another settler soon

save

played 15 turns to even out things
lost 1 warrior to a barb archer

went for fishing after archery to get that sea resource,
then writing, which is due in 3
after writing we might want to go for IW

we have another settler heading for the spot by the horses

London (I guess it must be London) looks great for no cottages with all those sea tiles, we need to take it
we have copper connected and should whip some axes now

Paris is now going for a rax, that should be whipped asap

london looks good for GP farm

Ok well, we are industrious, why not build some wonders instead of doing the same old axe rush we did the last two games and kiling our economy? We actually have room to expand peacefully this time, and a nice city site to our south at the cow/horses/gold.

Got it but I am not playing this until have get some sort of consensus as to strategy.

lol! Are you getting soft or what?

Seriously however, I think we should go for GL.
London is just so juicy...

Personally I would probably settle gold city first, as it will double our research and then go after London.

And I definatly agains researching Iron working, we absolutly do not need it.

You wouldn't guess it from acid01 but I'm a builder really...

However, I hate having idle troops sitting around and paying maintenance for them so I spent most of my turns that game rounding up all our spare units I could find and sending them off to fight.

If I were playing this solo I'd try to build wonders in two cities at the same time now, but you guys seem to really hate poor Elizabeth for some reason so... I suggest a compromise, we cancel the rax in Paris and build a settler, settle gold city on the river hill 5 south of paris, then build wonders in Paris while the other 2 cities handle workers/military.

I propose to go for either pyramids, great lighthouse, or oracle to CoL/Metalcasting. I'd build Parthenon in one of our other cities too but I bet that would get vetoed.

Waiting for people's input, if everyone really wants to do all out axemen I will build for all out axemen. But well, I say we are not really proving anything if we do that except that it doesn't really matter how you run your economy if you're 2-3x the size of everyone else. And that's the thing. We need to decide what our plan is for this game. Ultra quick domination? Fancy GP slingshots to rush to musketeers? Showing we can peacefully beat the AI in tech with no cottages? We can't really research or play any further without answering this.

Well, with detour to Archery and building second city and road to it we allredy rejected Oracle. On Monarch AI will get it.
To be true, I expected from theRat preturn comment that he just settle gold, as we claimed Cooper and that is not Emperor. Claming cooper was enoght, there was no need to use it. Then our economy would be up to speed.
But by spening worker turns on building a long road and hooking up the cooper he allredy commminted as to early war, Otherwise all this turn would be wasted. Remember, it is NORMAL speed.

Claiming gold would actially accelerate the war, as it is additional +1 happiness and LOndon does look tasty.

BTW, there was Marble near by, so Pantheon is not a bad idea. It is actially give more then piramids (Representation) for gp productivity.