PCVII: Wang Kong

I'd go Fishing--->Agriculture for as much food as you can harbor.

Standard
Pangaea
Temperate

For added challenge and fun. (I made most plains into grasslands, and most deserts into plains for easier play. The start isn't that great, but there are *planty* of other good spots just near you.

Nothing much interesting, had a few bad issues with stupid barbs getting very luck but other than that, I decided to go a bit light on wonders with this leader, and aquire them by conquest.

Darius got the Sh~t beat out of him by a mass dog pile early. Most the Ais were doing fake-wars so he was able to last a long time. Eventually he vassaled to an orange guy. Then while I was getting cavalry & rifles, the Romans backstab that orange master. I then took this moment to jump in and beat the crap out of Darius too. I left him with one city then vassaled. But wouldn’t you know, stupid Orange-Guy gets Surry to DoW on me with a large medieval stack.

Idiot Surry moves all his seige, etc right in range for my 30 cavalry, buwahahah! No human player could be this stupid!

To make a long story short, I raped Surry in that battle, then took his cities in rapid succession, all with cav and no seige. Vassaled him for being a total IDIOT, and then DoW on the Greeks. Vassaled Greeks, then DoW on Romans. Vassaled Romans, then DoW on the orange guy again (and his master HC). Finally we vassal HC and then that meets out end-game requirements.

GG…. Just another rolling-vassal exploit, nothing much worth going over.

Settled in place for the hammer and fresh water bonus'.

Met Sury at 3200 BC, maybe he's close enough to rush?
The victory conditions show Sury has 4% of the land, he's already got a second city?!?

Starting techs: Fishing, Bronze Working, Agriculture, Animal Husbandry (then The Wheel).
Build order: Warrior, work boat, worker (then warrior, settler, worker, settler, worker).

Something I found from the rush in PC VI was that I struggled to get enough warriors out with two cities, so I'll try three in this game.

Next step is to scout out Sury and see if he's close enough to rush in the first instance.

Because the copper is to the east that'll be where I settle the second city, the third will be the one NW that has been tagged as Production.

Proposed victory conditions, probably Space Race

Just a thought - Why don't consider settling that corn flood plains as soon as possible since AI appears to be coming from the west and to get some good cottages up quick since you have the FIN trait.

Settled in place, as putting cities on a hill with a protective leader is very much more powerful than other leaders.

Techs: Fishing, Agriculture, Hunting, Animal Husbandry, Wheel, Pottery (1/2), Archery (so when settler popped from capitol started on archer rather than a warrior / chariot), Pottery (other 1/2), Bronze Working, Sailing, Writing, Iron Working, Masonry, Meditation, Priesthood, COL, Monarchy, Alphabet, (forget the rest as I started to trade some techs by now).

Builds: Warrior, Workboat, Warrior, Worker, Warrior, Settler, (forget the rest)


Quickly pumped out two settlers to create a nice blocking area against Persia. Did not see any scouting units coming from my west so figured it was a dead end.


Founded Code of laws shortly after someone built the Oracle.


Darius has the audacity to press my borders and steal the sugar spot from me... he'll pay for that!


I send a ship with a scout south to see why Greece only has 1 city still... lots of unclaimed land down there. Build a settler to stake a claim at the gold spot (tried to take the barb city, but lost 3 swordsmen to bad rolls, so I'll let sury take it )

Also sury asks me to adopt Hinduism, which seems to be the winner's choice so I comply to boost relations, and also prep for a war against my heathen neighbors of Persia.


Luckily for me, Darius is thinking the same thing, and declares on me, allowing me to avoid any negative diplo hits. He sends a few axe and spears to my holy city, but I'm well fortified there with quite a few axe and sword as that was my staging point.

AC joins in against me. Well two can play this game Darius. I call up my friends and invite them all to a party in Rome, last one there's a rotten egg!


Darius' capitol falls with a few losses, as it is a well fortified hill position. I bunker down and my production cities keep pumping out troops (taking a break every now and then to build some production buildings. My commerce cities are slowly working on the tech buildings, while working heavy on cottages.

I hold the position a long time as AC sues for peace against all of my friends rather quickly, and keeps sending horse and catapult to attempt to liberate Darius' capitol.


Finally after holding my ground for a while I press on once I have sturdy defenders and tall walls to hold off any counter attacks.


At last I march upon Darius' final city, and it has a grand prize in the harbor for me.


The first axeman I'd built has the honor of claiming the prize.


With Darius defeated I garrison up my lands, as AC is still sending in a few raiding parties every now and then. With a slight respite in the war effort I manage to discover Liberalism first and take Astronomy, thought of going for Replaceable parts for the hammer increase for my science cities, but Astron is slightly more free test tubes.


Having fortified my position I lay my gaze on the heathen capitol of Rome, and note its lack of defenders. Sury smelt blood and had DOW AC a few turns earlier.


And before I could throw anything against the Roman walls, AC cowardly runs into the arms of Sury for protection, denying me my prize.


With peace settling throughout the land I spare any further whipping, as Sury and I are neck and neck for dominance in the AP votes. A few hundred years pass and finally a vote is held, finding me to be the diplomatic winner ! Earliest non-rush win I've had. Fun game, didn't go full warmonger, just a calculated war, while keeping tech parity (and edged away at the end).

Good spotting thanks. Yes, I always forget about the leader traits when planning city locations. That spot on the corn would have made a better second city, and might have meant getting horse archers into Darius a few turns earlier.

Ok, so after getting three cities up and running and bumping into all sorts of leaders (I get the feeling we'll be a little crampt for a while) I got a horse archer/chariot rush going on Darius. The capital fell easily as did the second and third cities, which I opted to raze. All done and dusted by 625 BC. The capital made for a nice blocking city so I chopped a couple of settlers just to annoy Caesar with a quick land/resource grab.

I've adopted the dominant relation, Budhism, to keep everyone happy and am for the moment concentrating on infrastructure and teching. No more wars for the next few centuries.

Assuming I cannot branch out beyond the land I current have I'll be able to settle 12 cities, which I'm pretty happy about. Actually, to save on time/resources I'm waiting for that barbarian city to hit size two before I raid it

Coming up, I'll try for the Great Lighthouse as a number (all) of my commerce cities are coastal.

Depending on how well things go I might try and take out Caesar.
Also, I might try and grap a few of those wee islands to the NWW. Lots of nice resources to help them grow.

I settled in the spot and went for Animal Husbandry and Fishing. After finding Horse and Darius I went for the Wheel and am planning to Chariot rush.

Things were going pretty well. In fact Caesar had annoyed his other two neighbours so much they both went to war within a turn of one another, circa 1500 AD. Having amassed a modest army I joined in the fray (despite being on terms with Caesar) because I'd spotted two of his border cities that would fit nicely into my empire.

The battle was quick, about 80 years. I'd captured two and razed two (to push back cultural borders), built a new city and all three of us signed peace treaties on the same turn. From there on things went a bit pear shaped. The two captured cities, despite having temples and theaters kept revolting. I lost one to who'sits in the south. The other two ended up being completely surrounded by Roman cultural borders. Later on, Caesar vassaled to the guy in the south, Sury? and then a bit later Sury went to war with me. Everyone else was with me except him and of course Caesar. It didn't go so well, I razed one of his larger border cities but his troops destroyed my armies and that's where the game is now.

In hindsight I don't think I should have gone to war with Caesar and if I did, I should have stuck buy and wiped him out, at minimum capturing the capital.

So I'm going to have another go. I'll rush the first guy like I did first time round, but from then I'm going to try for a diplomatic/space victory.