Lonely Hearts Club, BtS Edition, Chapter XXXVII : Shaka

I've gotten as far as Robotics, Claimed the internet and heading towards the GE. I'm torn between a conquest win or space, I think I'll stick with space,but I want to stick it to a couple of AI's

Not thrilled with the start – super corn is obviously nice, but I don’t like all the plains – guess it will be good with caste and guilds - a strong production site. Moved my scout to the hill northeast and didn’t see anything great, so settling in place. I do see some real cottage potential to the east though. Since we’re not coastal, GLH is likely tough. Considering great wall for the early barb defense, as I always do in these isolated games, but will wait a few turns to decide. Building my worker for the corn while teching AH. Then teched mining/BW and saw copper and horses in good locations.

Honestly, I was pretty lazy this first round – played fast and didn’t think about things much. As I said, I made one really dumb, dumb mistake which I’ll explain later. Despite the mediocre start, plenty of time to make it up later since I’m isolated. After scouting the island, I decide it’s not that big, and therefore decide to pass on great wall. After teching key worker techs (including pottery), I decide to make a push for Oracle and Confucianism. Tech up to priesthood while getting 3 more cities out – building workers and settlers exclusively in the capital. First city I decide to borrow the corn from Ulundi, then cities 3 and 4 claim copper and horses. Get Ikhandas in all cities which helps my maintenance, and a few impis out to fogbust and beat up on barbs. Success on the Oracle:



I choose code of laws. One thing I did this game that I’ve started doing is once I hit writing, I drop tech to 0% for about 10-12 turns while building libraries. I then push the slider to 100%. A small trick, but it seems to really vault my tech rate up since I get a 25% bonus on that extra research. I feel like it saves me a couple of turns total, and with being isolated, I need all the research help I can get since there’s likely a lot of tech trading going on.

My 5th city was my huge mistake. I didn’t send my scout on the southernmost ice tile on the island, so I settled Bulawayo a bit north of there. I find out that I missed out on fish! I could have settled 2 tiles south, 1 west, and gotten clams and fish, instead of just clams. Screenshot below:



Arrggh. There’s no way to get that fish with any city now, so I wasted a resource - all I had to do was send my scout a bit further before I settled that city. Can’t afford to waste anything on these isolated starts. I teched mathematics early – I’m looking at Hanging Gardens, a preferred wonder of mine when rexing – if I have 7-8 cities down when it’s built, that’s 7-8 population for free plus the health benefits.

With all the incense in my horse city, I tech calendar to get those plantations up. I think I can work them ok because of the food sources there. So at 1 AD, here’s the state of the empire. I just finished teching monarchy. Need to get metal casting, civil service and then decide on victory approaches. If I think culture is viable, I’ll go down the music path to try to get Sistine, get my Confucian cathedrals in, and then start the lib beeline. If going for something else, diplo/conquest or space, I’ll start the lib beeline next. I currently have 8 cities, and think I have the ability to get a total of 10 or so pre-biology, and maybe up to 13 if I squeeze later. Assuming I hit lib, that’ll be where I decide whether to go nationalism/Taj (a strategy I really like) or Astronomy, which may be more useful on this type of map.

I feel like I’m teching well, as I got cottages down early, and have courthouses in most cities and mini-courthouses with the ikhandas, but I really have no idea until I meet someone. Hanging Gardens is 7 turns away, which, if I get it, will mean 8 more population. I just switched out of slavery into caste, so that will be a big boost for my ability to tech in this game, not to mention the health help later on. Not sure if I’ll get it with no stone. No marble either on the island, which sucks. Empire:



Not even close to crashing yet, as I got cottages up fast, and the ikhandas and code of laws are helping too. I think I'm going to go ahead and settle another city at this point. I still have one hut to pop, but a stupid barb archer is fortified there.

Ok, when I left off, was trying to build hanging gardens, tech civil service and MC, then decide on victory condition. Also trying to grow my cities, as I actively whipped in the early game. Hanging Gardens – success!



Nice pop boost - 8 free population. Now need to build some units to keep my happy cap high. Oh, and my great prophet from Oracle finally arrived – 8 gold per turn sure helps.



Building units, workers, a couple settlers, laying down cottages, chaining farms for food poor sites as well, so I can fill in more cities. At this point, I decided to beeline Music - hoping for the great artist, plus a head start on Sistine. Stupid random events – a dustbowl hits when I have no money in my treasury – takes me 3 turns to get enough gold to kill it, and I lose three chain-irrigated farms….ARRRGH!

Music led to a great artist. That clinches it - I'm going all out for culture – have merchants running in one city – may beeline economics if I can, but need to get a sushi merchant. Cities are growing, cottages running…wonders being built:





Beelining liberalism and Sistine is on its way. Growing cities big, and building enough units to stretch happy cap. Things seem to be ok – it’s 1070 AD, I appear to be about 30 turns from liberalism, Ulundi will pop a great person in 6 turns, and it’s an 80% shot at a great engineer, which would be beautiful for lib—nationalism—taj, immediate golden age. I tried building Mausoleum of masollos, but someone beat me to it. Currently in pacifism, with two cities running specialists – one solely merchants for now – once another one pops, I’ll switch it to artists, but would like to have one for a trade mission later – 2000-3000 gold can be huge in the mid-late game.

Bingo – I pop a great engineer. And hey, look, with pacifism, national epic and Parthenon, these engineers keep on coming - I pop a second engineer just 10 turns later. Fantastic - that makes the University of Sankore easy to finish. Meanwhile, this wonder finishes (no engineers used on it). Specialists now add culture, as do all those religious buildings:



And, in 1320 AD, liberalism:



I choose Nationalism, start the Taj, and use a great engineer…in 1330 AD:



Because of all the plains, my cities are kind of stuck growing, so I have a lot of size 10-12 cities – it’ll probably stay that way until biology. Also, in 1330 AD, my pacifism power – another great person, this time a scientist. Academy sounds good to up my beakers. I’m totally neglecting military right now, as I’m teching towards democracy and emancipation. Once I hit that, time to get rifling, then head to medicine for sushi. I’m hoping I can make it to rifling without ramping up military, and can ideally stay in pacifism until then. It’s 1410 and I still haven’t met anyone, and I’d happily keep it that way, because culture is sky high right now. Finally, in 1480, my first meeting:



Not too happy about this – he always seems to DOW me. I assume I’ll need to switch to free religion in the semi-near future. What I want to know is how did I get all these wonders with the ultimate wonderhog in the game? I look at the tech situation – I’d say it’s pretty good considering I'm isolated - either a lot of warring going on, or they have lousy land, because I shouldn't be at tech parity when I meet everyone, which I appear to basically be. 1500 and another great engineer. I’m 8 turns from democracy, and I have 5 great people sleeping (2 artists, 2 merchants, 1 engineer. I think at democracy, I’ll use an artist for a golden age (won’t need them that badly for culture once I get sushi) and do the big switch –free religion and emancipation. Maybe US too, if my happy cap is ok. So here we go – I hit democracy, and use an artist for my golden age, start Statue (my engineer is ready to finish it when it’s close enough), and then it’s straight to rifling. Here we go:



I switch to emancipation and bureaucracy again (I’d like the hammers in the capital temporarily – will switch back to free speech at the end of the age). Maximizing hammers in my Statue city and my capital, which is building Oxford. Hindsight, I should have switched to universal suffrage too. With culture, my happy cap would have been fine. I ended up staying in hereditary rule the whole game, which was a mistake at the end, as my cities had plenty of happiness. Right at the end of the golden age, back to free speech and to free religion – gets Louis and I on better terms. He’s 8 turns from rifling I see, but by my count, I’m 14 turns from rifling, so no real worries. I haven’t yet traded with him, because I want to meet the other AI first.

Awesome, during my golden age and shortly thereafter, I pop two more artists. Pacifism was huge for me until I switched to FR – lots of great people. In 1605, I meet this guy:



No worries – his tech rate sucks. Once I get rifles, I’ll be mass producing them. If this was Pangaea, I’d be nervous. I then meet Cyrus, who scares me a bit – his tech is close to mine. 6 turns from rifling, Cyrus demands liberalism…fine – it gets him to pleased, so he won’t backstab. Cyrus, Genghis and Louis are all pleased with one another, so I decide to backfill:





Good that I’m learning archery, HBR and iron working in 1615 AD. I then meet Augustus, and of course, he’s worst enemy of Genghis, so he’s immediately annoyed, and has chemistry. He doesn’t have compass though, which means he doesn’t have Astronomy, so I feel pretty safe from him. Get rifles, go back to astronomy, while building a caravel to send one of my sleeping merchants on a trade mission, and start mass producing rifles while beelining to medicine. Cyrus offers this deal – normally I wouldn’t trade rifling, but he’s not a backstabber, and I need this on my way to medicine, so I agree.



My merchant got me 1500 gold on a trade mission, which has me racing to medicine. In 1800, I turned to culture only. Building nonstop rifles – even if someone DOWs me, I assume they’ll just pillage my seafood. It’s now 1832 and I see destroyers around my borders. I make two last trades, one offered to me, the other I offered. Figure it can’t hurt to have some cannons.





Cyrus offers this;



Sounds good to me. On cruise control basically. I see destroyers cruising around, but I have tons of rifles, and a defensive pact. Then, in 1876, he breaks it off – everyone DOW’s everyone else, it appears, but they’re all avoiding me. They all start demanding I join in their wars – no flippin’ way at this point – I’m about 40 turns from victory, and even though everyone has combustion but me, I have a ridiculous number of units on my mainland. Basically 30 minutes of pushing the end turn button. Saladin completes Apollo in 1909, but I’m 19 turns from victory (or less if I pop a great artist before, which is about 60% chance. I did pop that great artist, and in 1926:



Stats below. I killed a total of 15 units all game – all barbarians or barb galleys. Barely built any military until rifles, as you can see below. I then proceeded to build rifles, cannons and frigates to try to protect myself. No one ever declared on me, and in fact, my power rating was middle of the pack by the end.













By the way - I didn't play 9 hours, I just left it on all day - more like 3-4.

Three things I can count on in civ4, Monty being psycho, Cathy being a rhymes-with-witch and a lhc game given me lessons in humility. After a somewhat stronger than usual showing for me in the last noble club game I WAS actually thinking maybe I am getting good enuff to move up to prince like some ppl keep saying. Then this game brings me back to reality.

I THOUGHT I started out ok. I settled out my island, built some wonders, even managed to get GLH, collossus AND that triemes quest where one of the rewards is plus 2 commerce with every harbor so my economy seemed to be doing ok.

In fact:


By 1020 AD even the score keeper gave me a 1337 ranking

Then I met other AI's and it went all downhill from their. First I dont even come close to winning the globe race. THEN I lose out lib race to Salad by 16 turns. The lil $$&*&^(* bulbed his way past me. I mean he got like 3 gp SUPER fast. I get a GS and bulb philo, I get another GS and save him. and tech out paper, use gs to bulb edu from 32 to 7 turns. At this point I think it in the bag so I take side trip to tech HB in 5 turns and optics in like 7--BIG mistake.

Salad gets a GM and all of a sudden he have Paper too and already done with philo but he not even TRYING to tech edu yet so I think it still looks good and finish out optics then tech on lib. The in like span of 10 turns. Boom he gets GS and edu is done then BOOM he gets a gp and all of sudden lib race over .

Now if losing lib was the WORST thing that happened in this game so far it wouldnt be THAT bad even it I did lose cuz the lil snit bulbed past me grrr. But by this time I have look at all the other AI's and it is BAD. Augie is HUGE.

I mean HUGE it is like another LHC gane where Rome just went wild on their cont and by time I meet em they are bigger than oprah after a 3 day donut binge :/.

Here is look at the graphs:



I am managing to climb up to number 2 in power but Im STILL not even HALF of augie's power.

Demos:



Excpet for gold in all the imp categories Im 2 but waaaay behind number 1 who is guess who?

Tech sitch:



Techwise im kinda in middle behind salad and cy, about even with augie and ahead of vicky and mr snootyface.

But mil tech show it is worse than it looks:



just going by mil tech if I try to make a move on ANYONE other than vicky I'm bringing spoons to spork fight .


Here is look at AI's contient:

West side:



Mostly Salad and Cy's half. Looks like Ghengy WAS in the game but got voted off by Augie.

Centrel continent:


Pretty much dominanted by Augie. And with all those french cities flying roman colors if you had guessed that lou is Augie's vassal you guessed right.

The east:



Vicky and Lou's side.

Diplo sitch:



Im making friends with Cy and Salad, Augie doesnt like me much but luckily he dont seem to like anybody that much and hates some of the other AI's worse and NOONE cept for augie's lapdog seems to like Vicky.

Now at FIRST look it seems obvious. Two targets I can take at moment or Snootyface and Vicky and since lou is under augies protection and that is one bear I DONT want to start poking yet and nobody important likes Vicky much then obvious choice is go stomp Vicky. BUT it not THAT simple

AP sitch:



Ap is hundu and everybody cept me is a member so if I go warring as SOON as I take one hindu city I run risk of losing by diplo and at least half of Vicky's cities are hindu.

So I dont know. If I do my USUAL plan for sitch's like this--burn ap city to ground it means I have to go to war with salad first who A) one of only two civs who like me, and b) has astro and chem and could probably stomp me :/.

So if I attack asap I haveit means attacking one of weaker civs--Im not TOO far off from grens and grens.cannons and knights pretty strong combo so I do have a shot at anyone cept augie once they come online. But that still means risking diplo loss. waiting doesnt seem like good option either though cuz it just seems like it only matter of time before Augie steamrolls rest of his continent and by then dom win pretty much seald for him.

I think I ONLY have two choices. Go after Vicky. Doing so means risking diplo loss, pluss if while I am taking her out if Augie steamrolls salad and/or cy then he STILL pretty much out of reach. It same deal if I decide to go after Cy or Salad with additions of not only will I lose one of my only two allies, but lose one of only two ppl with chance to help keep augie in check, but STILL risk losing by diplo and STILL risk Augie steamrolling whoever I dont attack and getting even more out of hand.

So really to me ONLY chopice seems to go poke the bear. Augie dont have astronomy yet so load up on gren and cannon, knights and some pikes for his curriasors and try to take and hold his cities and just hope even at dissadvantage I can outfight him.

I STILL risk losing by diplo but Im risking that no matter who I attack and this way if my attack DOES work out even if I dont TOTALLY wipe him out at LEAST it means Augie gets cut down some. But more than likely it means Im gonna get STOMPED. So I say I have like I dont know 1 in 1000 of getting through this. And what worse even if it DOES work it is at best a LOOOONG grinding overseas preflight war which I HATE cuz it mean I am gonna HAVE to be building and ferrying units the WHOLE time which means I could end up waaaay behind salad and cy by time it over even if I do win. Plus I dont know if I have to hammers to make a big enuff force to even get it going at least not before augie gets even bigger.

So it looks bad now and looks like longer it goes it just gonna get worse :/

Ok. I started out pretty well. I had 9 cities by the early ADs and settled a ton. I had my first full-scale intercontinental invasion success on immortal - marines vs rifles (for some reason, louis was huge but slow). Louis was going culture...I took one of his culture cities, wiped out his vassal victoria, then had to take capitulation because sal and cyrus were both near space.

Sure enough, sal launches in 1942. I raze mecca using mech infantry and missiles a couple turns later. He had a DP with cyrus, so I fought both of them off...I got peace with sal (cease fire), then took a 3 cities of cyrus - 2 on an island and one on his mainland for capitulation.

I successfully cut through persian territory on the ground, using more cruise missiles to bombard/damage cyrus' inland capitol...which I took. Sal was reeling, I was #1 in power and production, caesar and puny vassal GK were scared of me...

But nope. I wasn't paying attention. You see, at some point sal took orleans without me realizing it. Louis then flipped it. It was close enough in culture that I couldn't stop it in time, not even with spy pressing...of course it didn't help that I didn't notice when it flipped.

Game over...culture loss to my vassal in 1980 when I was very, very close to winning . If I'd taken sal's UN, I could have won diplo. I had the power to easily kill GK and cap a surrounded crap AC too. But nope. Not to be. I lose...and for a change, it's actually my fault this time, unlike LHC brennus.

I settled in 3960BC on the plains hill, 1W of starting position. I started with Agriculture (and hunting), so I went AH (for the cow/ horse visible), and plan for mining (mine the plains after food recources and BW for slavery/chopping/copper

Explored a bit with my scout, popped 46g and 44g (later on, popped experience and a warrior, could be better, but I should be happy that I dind't pop MAPS lol), while city builds a worker

Worker comes out and AH is complete, I improve cow first, corn second. corn takes 1 more turn to get there, and 1 turn longer to improve (actually thought it would take 2 turns longer, I usually play epic. This won't be the last small error in that regard i guess...)

I build another scout because they tend to die so easy and I want to explore the island fast.

After the corn, my worker starts building mines on the plains hills for production/avoiding growth when at happy cap.
Next, I build Ikhanda-warrior-warrior, build a worker in 4 turns at size 3 (while my worker builds the second mine for a total of 4 improved tiles), and then another warrior growing to size 4.

The island is explored entirely, a few turns before growing to size 4.It is smaller than I hoped for... I started on a settler, and went for the dotmapping.

Jeez, that's hard. Not a lot of quality land, a couple of recourses at places only reachable from crappy city sites. After trying a few things, I ended up with the screenie below, probably far from perfect.

I'll probably settle the GP-farm/wonder city first and shoot for the GLH, since al but 2 cities will be coastal. next will be the commerce city or the silver city, depending on how my research is progressing. I will need fishing-sailing for the GLH, and wheel-pottery(-writing) next.

SO the silver city will probably go first, since I won't be able to build cottages soon enough. my fourth city will be the Fish-Pig city on the west end. I might go cultural with that 4th city, the capital and the commerce city.

I have a lot of problems finding a good production city, other than the capital. I'm gonna build some cottages on the grassland, and then run some specialist or cottage some of the plains.

Hmmm, I realize now I should have played another 2 turns, so I could see the copper. It might mess up the entire dotmap!

Grrr. Decided to wait for BW to finish this time. Copper is above the capital in 3rd ring. I will keep my original dotmap, and just hook it up after the capitals 2nd pop

Also I'm thinking about delaying expansion for Mysticism-chop stonehenge for a great prophet and free border pops.

Would that be a good idea, or is it too late for that (dunno when SH goes on monarch... Well, actually i don't know for any level!

I settle in place after debating about moving 1 east, send the scout out, and its ringed by hills all about, , are we on a tectonics map??

Pop 2 huts for gold and a map, then resting in a forest, I'm attacked by a lion at 23%, and lose out BADLY.. Great here we go again.

Boarders pop revealing sheep to the SE of the BFC, which I still don't capture, along with the hills.

research is Animal husbandry then mining, worker will develop the corn, then the cow's and lastly mine a hill or 2.

3485 BC- I got the health random event, and now have 10 health, looks like happy is going to be the hold up. Building a 2nd scout to pop the last 2 huts, I assume 4/ Island start.

3370 BC- I get industrious villagers building a pasture for me makes up for the scout..nearly.



I've now popped the remaining 2 huts for 2 scouts I have lions by 2 and a bear running amok as well.

I've just lost my 3rd scout, 2nd went to a bear, 3rd, with woodsman 1, defending in forest, lost to a lion. 1 surviving scout.

I've now scouted out the island, apart from a couple of fogged sea tiles, doubt any great benefit there. Not much in the way of resources, I hope copper/iron etc pop up.

Research spoiler for Animal Husbandry

Nothing new found, but barb archers are starting to appear, I've teched archery, and building archers, wall st went up as my 2nd city, along the river, and excellent site for a cottaged city.

Settled 1E if i recall, popped 3 scouts from huts. Stilll good fogbusters.



Disappointing land on first scout to the East, got better to the west though! Managed the GLH in 3rd city, little chooping.



Decided to REX a bit, really went for it, then realsied i had no Pottery/Writing. Really limped along.



It was so bad i had to pass on the health event, still +1 assisted till Monarcy was in.

I had 60 bpt at 800AD, i managed the Colousus which really sorted me out, managed to pull it back a bit to 200 odd. 800AD is usally Lib time for me, not this time!



Pretty much settled it all, couple of fillers to go in.



Meet August first, i'm not as far behind as expected, still nothing to trade. Could trade with Gengis, but he's the AI hate target, so no.

Manage to trade optics to vicky. I manage to beeline Astro, August get it as well, but i trade it around the rest to bring me back somewhat into contention. open borders + GLH really sorts me out after Astro, make a few resource trades, managed to keep good Diplo with most. Nappy hates August which is tricky diplo and trade wise. lucky it was August with Astro not anyone else.



Lib went at 1430AD to August, i didnl;t even have paper!

I'm planning an easy space win, hopefully we have Alloy, have 3 GSci hanging around, will bulb SMeth and trade my way along. Should be a straight forward crusie to space, internet beeline should assist.

Saladin ended up bullying Genghis, Cyrus and Augustus into submission. Louis would've gone that way as well but I beat Louis first and vassaled him as I hoped he would build me an army once I helped him tech.

Turned out to be a mistake as I was now on Sal's hitlist and got declared on twice, both times with a tech disadvantage. The first time I managed to halt him with tanks but I'm down to asymmetric warfare now; and soon even that will be over as Louis is collapsing.




Damn you Saladin! When someone is the lone Hindu in a Jewish/Buddhist continent, I expect him to be the vassal, not the master!

2600BC Got BW, I don't switch into slavery until I need it because of the slave revolt random event. Copper popped in 3rd ring above capital.

As I described i wanted to go fishing-siling for the GLH, and then wheel-pottery. Suddenly I decide I MUST have the Henge. So I started Mysticism and some prechopping, although I have no idea when SH usually goes.

In 2360BC I start fishing and building SH. I get the settler in place for the second city, but I waited till fishing before I settled, because of this:



BTW I really loved the Ikhanda, it was the first building in nearly all cities i built.
I managed to build Stonehenge in 2160BC! A Great Prophet arrives in 50 turns.

2120BC --> Fishing -> Umusomething switches to work a water tile, so workboat and border pop come simultaniously

2080BC --> Capital becomes size 5, and begins worker settler duty.



Settlers in 6 turns, workers in 3.

1800BC Nobamba gets settled, after improving the sheep, nobamba gets settled. I did this a lot this game (improving tiles before settling the city).



1720BC got Sailing. Then I noticed I also needed Masonry for the GLH (didn't know that! Only found out because it was among the 2 recommended techs! Im still a noob in many ways ) So I set research to masonry

in 1560 I have the settler for the commerce city in place, but I waited to settle because I didn't have workeres available yet. Also, I finally adopt slavery.



1400BC I start working on the GLH

1280BC got Wheel, my six workers start building a trade network

1080BC I hook up the copper, but I have had most of the Island fogbusted (see below), so barbs aren't a big problem.



Since I still can't build buildings, the capital is still spitting workers/settlers. The whole game I have had more workers than I knew what to do with!

825 Finish Writing for libraries and popping a Great Scientist. I want to found a religion for the +50% culture buildings, and I'll use my great prophet for that. So I'm researching the early religion techs now.

625BC I finish Priesthood, and I can build the Oracle in a mere 8 turns without even chopping! Let's try it!



600BC I complete the GLH! The city has become unhappy however, so I 3pop whip a library next turn and start running scientists until I can build the GLib

475 BC, a few nailbiting turns later, I complete... the Oracle!



I could chose COL for a religion now, but I decided to choose metal casting for colussus, since I will have lot of water tiles to work. Also early forges will be nice, no health problems because were expansive.

425 BC, Prophet bulbs theology, and get 2 turns anarchy (1 for religion, 1 for org reg civic)

325BC. My GPfarm is too busy building wonders (did I mention I suffer from wonderitis yet???), so I put Nomamba on the job of creating a GScientist

275BC Found Nongoma, and build... My first farm! (well, except from the corn in cap)





150BC Get stables quest (build 7 stables before renaissance), but I'l skip it as I don't even have horseback riding yet.

50BC COLOSSUS! Happiness is holding me back bigtime, so monarchy is next, then math-music for the free GA (hopefully) and sistine chapel.


325AD What a luck! I get the libraries quest. I need to build 7 libraries. I've already got 6!!

375 AD finish the great library. My plan to create a Gscientist in Nomamba almost falls apart, since uMusomething is only 1 turn behind to produces a Gperson, while running no specialists at al! Remind me not to whip anythnig in Nomamba!




500AD, get the Gartist from music. Now it's really really decision time: Go cultural or not?

I don't see myself pulling of time (seems really difficult, I must try this victory type sometime), conquest/domination (I don't have much experience fighting yet), or diplomatic (still havent figured out yet how AP really works, especially since I'm the only one with the AP's religion, if I build it. Can you win by voting for yourself, while you're the only member? Seems Illogical really.)

So space or cultural. I really lack production sites for space, unless I go Sushi, but I might not even have Aluminum, which is almost required to pull it off.

So Cultural it will be!

520AD Gscientist in Nomamba --> Academy
720AD Calendar for incense
840AD Great General BIDL. Interesting. ALso complete the library quest, 1 extra free scientist in GPfarm
900AD Civil Service for bureaucracy. Really a LOT of generals born IDL. Good for me, I guess.
1020AD Sistine chapel built

1160AD Been backfilling some militairy techs, Contact with oversea leaders won't be too long anymore, so need to up my power rating. Recieved a few more great people, mostly scientists. 1 bulbed a piece of education, go for liberalism. Research is now 300bpt @ 70% while breaking even.

1250AD Univ of Sankore, and I also found islam. I have 9 cities now, for 3 x 2 x +50% culture in the 3 culture cities. Probably won't build more cities.

1340 The last turn I go 100% science for 1 turn of... Liberalism baby!



I wanted to pick Archery of course, but accidentally misclicked Printing Press.

Next I researhced Economics, for the GM. I didn't get it! I thought I was miles ahead, but this puts my feet back on the ground...

1410 I am the most cultured civ! I'd better be...

1490 Representation from constitution --> 4 of my cities turn unhappy... Whoops! Been stacking units in some cities under monarchy. Luckily, just putting the culture slider to just 10% solves the problem.

1515 Taj BIDL, too bad, was building this myself, for 3 consecutive Golden Ages...



1550 On the last turn of my GA i change into univ suf/free speech/emancipation/mercantilism/pacifism. Should've gone free religion, because

1555 Meet Ghengis Kahn. He's behind me in tech a lot! After reading through the fora I decide to be a good boy ( = not stubborn) and not gift him anything yet because he might be someone's worst enemy and stuff.

1560 I meet Cyrus, and he is pleased with ghengis. Both are hinduists. Al caution goes PFWOEEI out of the window and I start trading with them.

1570 I put espionage slider up a bit to see power rating.... Ghengis 0.73, Cyrus 0.60. Not good, but could've been worse. Ghengis demands philosophy, and I give it to him, bumping him to pleased.

1595 Khan's power went from 0.70 to 1.30 in one turn LOL, he recieved a good hit. I buy world map of Cyrus for 240 gold.

Here's the deal:









Whoops, trading with da kahn wasn't too brilliant after all! I always tend to trade too quick

Switched to free religion meanwhile, too avoid BAAAD things

1620 Kahn's getting owned, just 2 cities left. I am asked to join the war, and I agree since everyone seems to hate him. He'l be gone soon i guess.

Gotta watch out for ceasar to get a domination win, he's getting a lot of cities!

How am I doing with my culture? Lets check it out!

While researching:



with slider up:



Screenshot from 1620AD



Umusomething is really behind, especially with the slider up due to lack of commerce, so I really need to work on that.

Plan is, to keep everyone happy and find a way to speed up culture in Umusomething. I already built the hermitage in the commerce city.

Okies in my last report things looked grim Augie is HUGE and AP is a threat and I am waaay behind on tech. I figure I have pretty much NO choice but to go poke the bear and attack Augie and hope taht taking his cities will build me up and take him down enuff that game can be turned around.

I take a looooong time building not only and army but I also have to a build a navy to carry it over grrrrr. Meantime Augie is just getting bigger. He DoW's Salad and Salad doesnt last long at ALL he loses like 2 or 3 cities then caps to Augie. Which is dbly bad for me cuz not is is Augie even bigger but Sal was one of two buddies along with Cy I was hoping could help me with Augie.

So even though it looks bad I keep building and then I dont have to worry about poking the bear cuz the bear pokes me. Augie DoW's on me. Luckily his overseas war skills not THAT impressive plus I have SoL's to fend off frigates and galleys so after taking out a cpl of minor annoying stacks from Augie and Mr Snootyface on my continent:



I make my move. The power at this point STILL looks bad though:


Not just power but whole demo sitch not looking pretty:



But my hope is that having Infantry will mean my quality will handle Augies's quantity. My plan is to just land this stack, capture cities and then pump infantry like no tomorrow and keep on going.

I take Setia as planned to get a foothold then two BIG things go wrong. First I GREATLY underestetimated Augies quantity. HUGE stacks of cavalry and cannon hit my stack in Setia. EVERY frickin turn a big huge stack comes in and my guys have to hold em off. I have waaay to many wounded to go after more cities plus even spitting my stack in half Im not sure it would be enuff to hold setia. But I am not worried. RR gets done and I am starting to build MG's to boost setia defenses and help with stack defense to take other cities.

THEN second big thing happens. Salad that weenie has combustion now and all of sudden his destoyers roaming ALL over the place. I make a trade with Cy for sci meth and start teching combustion but it a loooong 30 plus turn trip to get there. In meantime I DONT want to lose my navy in hopless mission so ALL my SoL's and Frigates guarding my coast and seafood get sent home into ports to keep em from getting sunk. So of course I lose ALL my seafood . That stunts my cities growth BIGTIME pretty much all of them going into starvation.

It also means I dont want to risk sending out rienforcements to setia so for LONGEST time they hold out with WAVES of stacks from Augie coming in but also every few turns or so a BIG stack from Lou and Salad show up.

THEN to make things eeven worse BOTH Vicky and Cy DoW on me so I LOSE resource trades I had with them so my cities now sicker AND unhappy.

SO now teching to Combustion taking even longer and now stacks from Vicky and Cy are hitting Setia along with Augie and his lapdogs grrr.

Then Cy and Salad start coming in with artillery instead of just cannons which hurts even more. So in desperate move I ship a TON of infantry and MG's in a risky dash to setia. Luckily the ships make it there and back safely.

After a LOOONG while I finally tech out combustion. But I still need to upgrade my navy so I hit slider to zero and wait and wait. I finally get enuff to start upgrading ships, first priority is rebuilding workboats and getting seafood hooked back up then upgrade more frigates and sol's for escort and galleons to transports. While I am waiting for that I make a STUPID move.

I am kinda thinking hey since Augie is sending soooooo many units at setia His cities on other side of cont CANT possibly have that many units. So I upgrade enuff galleons to transports to carry what units I have ready for attacking and send em to make a move on Karakhom thinking if I knock his back door augie wont be prepared.

WRONG he has TONS of units there too and So does Cy :/ My stack gets hit hard by cannons and airships and cav. ANd what REALLY sucky bout whole thing is even though most of time my Infantry and MG's WIN the stupid cav end up withdrawing half the time so they STILL kill off pretty much ALL my cannon. Even with destroyers knocking down defences. My guys now all too wounded to win and not enough cannon left to make any kind of attack doable. So I pack whats left up and limp back home dropping em off to reinforce setia.

The ONLY good thing to come out of that STUPID move was apparently Augie had most of his navy at karakhom and he tries to sail it off. So my destoyers and even my transports sink a TON of frigates and galleons. Which ends up making a difference cuz soon after Augie techs out combustion but makes HARDLY any destroyers or transports. I guess sinking most of his wooden fleet didnt leave him much to upgrade plus his focusing on setia seemed to make him prioritize land units so he hasnt been factor at all on the sea.

I have to wait and wait to build up new army and tech SLOWLY to artillery, not only for xtra punch but also so stupid LOSING cavalry dont kill em when they withdraw grrrr. By around 1900 over 100 fricking years since I first took setia I FINALLY have another stack. I take the city on coast west of setia and then start ferrying more units over fast as I can pump em out. I get two impatient -- as soon I have 4 units rdy to go I load em up and just send the transport. After losing one to a random destoryer I make more destroyers and:




have them patrolling out between setia and my main continent making a lil corridor.

After artillery done I go for flight which is 54 turns away grrr. My beakers are sucky cuz after losing ALL my off island resource trades cuz EVERY body DoW'ed on me plus killing LITERALLY hundreds and hundreds of units attacking setia WW was building up BIG time I went out of Rep and into Policestate and nationalism. No I havent been drafting my food was too low and most of my cities too smal for drating to make a big a diff so I just wanted the xtra barracks happiness. Besides other thing about all those units attack setia all that time is TEN gg's have spawn for me, plus 1 more for getting facism 1st. So between academys and a settled gg in like 5 cities plus unit boost from police state and then a small boost from Mining inc BUILDING units hasnt been the problem it been building ANYTHING else to help boost my econmy to get a decnt bpt going.

I was SOOOO desperate I did something else that probably BIGTIME stupid. I wasted THREE GP's to try and tech flight faster. I burned a gs and and a ge for a golden age and then burned a gm I WAS saving to build sushi to bulb out some of flight. I did cut down 54 turns into 21 but that STILL a pretty sucky rate even on marathon. BUT I kpet making units and I FINALLY started making progress. I took Cumae, which had HG which helped LOTS with health issues. Then took mecca then a few more cities includiong Mecca which is holy shrine city for hindu the BIGGEST religion on planet. Plus getting more cities I finally started getting xtra resorces and Augie power FINALLY started dropping. In fact it has dropped so much at times his power been lower than salad and lou.

And at this point I have flight all done and am building airports as fast as I can so I can now air lift units to try and get moving faster.

Here is how things look now.

Current Power Rating:


LOTS less scary than it was in 1789 hehe

Current demos look better now too:



The AI continent:



Ive managed to conquer from Najaran in west all the way to rome in east. Lou has already broken away from Augie but salad hasnt. Cy willing to cap now but I dont want to cap him just yet. Persopolis just has TOO many nice wonders going so I am probably gonna try and wipe him out.

Here how vic conditions look now:



Basic plan is this take ALL of Augies cities on west. and take out salads one last city on main cont. Then move on and try to cap Lou and then vicky while also going west to take out cy. Hopefully by this time augie will eiter cap or salad will break away on his own and I will at least TRY and make peace with salad. I have to move fast cuz he and probably cy too I just dont have the ep on him to see are waaaaay close to tanks--at least waaay closer than me.

Also ap is still a danger:



vote has come up twice between Cy and salad and augie can still put cy over top but he been abstaining so I am gonna TRY and get persopolis which is ap city before next vote and also more hindu cities and hope I can maybe even get control of the thing before augie decides to vote for salad.

Tech sitch:



still bad and could be worse once salad and cy get tanks--all of sudden new anti tank unit being available with artillery isnt such a bad idea anymore hehe

Diplo sitch:



Everybody hates me . Suckiest part is I DIDNT do ANYTHING they ALL attacked ME!!! I WAS pleased with Cy AND Salad but those lil weenies chose augie's side over mine. It also looks like lou and vicky like each other LOTS.:


I dont really know what "event" Vicky been doing with lou thats worth plus 24 happy to him and I am kinda pretty sure I DONT wanna know ::shudders::

My empire at this point:



My cities are starting to recover and grow again now that we getting some off island resources.

My cap:



Pretty much ONLY halfway decent city I have really but:



Its ranked number 1 in top 5 cities . You can also see my "top 5 reasons I aint letting cy cap until I take persopolis" hehe

Oh and inc ase you thought I been exaggeating bout killing TONS of cavalry:



This game been one LOOOOONG wargame :/

So anyways thats how things are for me at this point. Games not in bag YET but at least it doesnt look as hopeless as it did earlier. Wish me luck