Monarch Student^ XV Suleiman

Hemispheres, 2 continents, normal continents, tiny islands, temperate

Gold is all over the place! Tech rate was insane, and with very good teching and peaceful AIs on the continent this continent's tech rate will be much faster than the other's. I already have Gandhi at friendly and Liz shouldn't be that far off. One big happy hindu continent. I have settled 6 good cities with 2 more possible. Only 2 happy resources, though.

Current empire:



And the capital:



At 50% tech it has 31 bpt with an academy. Pretty solid if you ask me. I have another GS on the way to bulb philo.

Peacful teching all the way to lib should be easy and a nice tech should be able to be gotten from Liberalism. Pretty easy map script so far. I could easily wipe the continent with cavalry once the time comes.

I got Soz, Great Library, and Parthenon, which gave me a nice amount of GS to bulb through lib. I bulbed philo and got religion, and bulbed once into education.





This ended up winning me lib, allowing me to take military tradition:



Teched out rifling and communism, spammed Workshops and Watermills. High production= lots of cavalry. Used them to stomp over Gandhi:



Not a hard war:



I WAS going to run over Liz, but she got rifles Then I saw I could just beeline UN while running the other continent's fav civics. I set every city to wealth/research and maxed out the science slider. Liz was number 2 pop, and I got everybody but Shaka to vote for me. This allowed for a nice and easy UN victory:





I ran theo+NSR for Izzy, Vassalge for Charlie, and HR for Pacal. None of them at friendly, but all at high pleased.

Builds:



My prod. went way up after WS and WM spam. Not all of that cavalry was used b/c of stupid Liz.

And score:



Fun map, but easy continent with Gandhi and Liz. Other continent had some tech going, or at least Pacal and Izzy did. Shaka and Charlie were too busy warring and getting nowhere. If diplo didn't work I could have easily pumped out Inf+arty to kill Liz and everyone, really.

Settled in place. Tech path was AH->mining->bronze working->masonry
Build the Great Wall because I saw it was a big continent for 3 players. Also lots of gold around.
Afterwards just some peacefull expanding.

West side of the empire


East side of the empire


Happy Hindu loving continent


Tech screen

Warrior goes east and see wheat. I decide to lose a turn and go settle NE to get both weat and sheep, with some luck there is a third food resource in the FOW south.



No food south but gold, nice. I queue techs : Mining -> BW -> AH -> Masonry -> Pottery -> Writing (early scientists)

Yes no Mysticism in there... for a change I decide what the hell, my first cities all end up with decent science anyway so I'll just border pop using chopped libraries.

I'll go with great wall then pyramids as usual, it is my favorite opening. This way I don't lose hammers on extra definding warriors on quick expansion, and my workers are safe. Also letting spy points pile up early is always nice. Pyramids for obvious reasons.

Worker -> warrior (growth+scouting) -> worker -> settler start.

Worker make a farm on wheat then a mine on gold. Making roads as he moves around.

Clearing forest to speed up settler. 1 turn from finish I swap to barracks so I can get another forest cleared and overflow to speed up the barracks. (Since I get double overflow from bonus to settler construction?) Needless to say I am thinking quick military rush.



Lot of good spots around, food, gold, and marble... no stone. Will be a hard choice!

Only met one AI, Elizabeth's little archer came to my territory, and this continent looks weird... Either I am in a lost corner somewhere on a big continent or there are really very few AIs. I hesitate to pursue my rush plan... might not be an interesting move if the AI is far away.

I stumble on Ghandi... not exactly near me either... 2 turns away from completing the barracks, I abort the rush plan. Let's go with rapid expansion and wonders then rush later with crossbowmen or bigger. I think there is too much room for the AI to expand for my liking... I keep scouting but Elizabeth's cities are nowhere to be seen. As I do some military conquest I'll pursue culture on the side as a plan B.

Capital :



Food situation : +8 -11 = -3 food. I am not sure if I should cottage the flood plains (and use farms on grasslands much later), or if I should farm the FPs to get extra early specialists. Finally decides to cottage them. Any input on this?

I expand :



Great wall (I want a great spy to see what the nearby AI is teching to so I can adapt my research for maximum trade) :



~300AD I get a great engineer. I have a choice, either bulb machinery and war DoW someone right now, or go cultural victory and thus use engineer to rush a wonder. As I did more scouting and I see only 2 AIs in my continent, I don't want to go domination because transporting troops across sea is a hassle. I decide to rush the parthenon with the engineer since I don't have marble or stone yet, and get started on the great library.

Elisabeth is spreading like wildfire. I am expanding fast myself and Ghandi, yet she has twice the number of cities. I wanted a peaceful game, but I don't think it would be wise to let her take all the space. I end up going machinery after all (the slow way) and spam crossbowmen and a few catapults near the end.

Isabella has a decent force of axemen, elephants, and archers. I take 2-3 cities then Ghandi tries to stop the war using the apostolic palace (all 3 of us are hindu). I oppose it as leaving her rebuild would be a mistake. Also my army is costing me a lot of maintenance money and I have to end the war quickly.

I take half her empire/cities then I have to stop because I find myself at 0% research and still losing money every turn. the unhappyness from both the war and the refusal of the apostolic resolution really took its toll. I make peace and proceed to rebuild.

The sad thing is I have enough troops to finish her off, and maybe even ghandi. Just not the economy to support my troops in enemy territory any longer because of the added cost of captured cities.

I lag behind in research (a lot) and my economy is near dead for a while... Luckily I have enough SE going on. In retrospective I don't know if attacking a civ so far from my capital was such a good idea.

But on the other hand, leaving her expand like she was would have been also problematic. What should I have done differently?

Anyway, half the island is mine, and after getting things relatively back on track and out of lazyness, I decide to stop the warfare and go for a cultural victory because war through sea would be a micromanagement pain and take forever anyway. Might as well keep ghandi and elisabeth as meatshields in case AIs from other contients decide to show up.

From that point on nothing special... a second short (defensive) war with elisabeth, and the maya and their 2 vassals taking a few of ghandi's cities then losing them again. I skipped many turns and tried to get things done quickly. That and the earlier economy crash explain the late 1930AD victory.

Stats :

No pics till 50 AD. Tech path was not unusual i think, took AH-BW-Alp and then Aesth for trading.
Both Gandhi and Elizabeth were friendly with me real fast. I converted to Buddhism (Lizzies religion). Gandhi later adopted Confusianism but he never dropped below cautious.

I start to settle my cities in a line from the SW to the SE hoping to block of a large portion of the continent.

Tried taking a barb city to complete the block but lost it again the turn after that. Didn’t matter anyway since both Gandhi and Elizabeth had sneaked between my borders before they had their first borderpop.












I DOW’d on Gandhi after I had build enough catapults and took 2 of his cities, after that I took peace for gold.



After building some more troops I took 2 more cities after which he capitulated.




1420 AD I meet Shaka and Isabella (who is his vassal at that moment). They have Judaism as religion and instantly dislike me. Poor Gandhi becomes Shaka’s worst enemy immediately.

1490 AD Elizabeth discovers Liberalism, she’s starting to get a techlead at this point so I decide to take her out before she gets redcoats.



I attack with Janissaries and catapults in 1585 AD. I take 3 cities in the east leaving me in control of the northern half of the continent (only Gandhi has one city in the north-east corner).

When I suggest peace she only offers me a city that’s not anywhere on my maps so I guessed it wasn’t worth much. I refuse and take two more cities south of my border. When I take the second one there are already redcoats defending it and since I have no more siege I decide to take piece in exchange for one tech (Optics I think).

In 1640 AD I meet Charlemagne and in 1700 AD Pacal.

I changed to Free Religion and am now in the process of catching up in tech. Shaka still has no Astronomy so for now he won’t be attacking.
Both Charlemagne and Pacal are Hindu’s so they might make a good distraction for Shaka.

That's actually a good plan, much better than mine actually. Especially the way you expanded following the river.

Why didn't the borders pop fast enough? did you make monuments first and did you try chopping them?

Yes i chopped the monuments but i had started on my settlers too late i think. When i realised i could block a large part of the continent it became a race to get those cities there fast enough. In the end i simply started too late

Ok the master plan is to go with culture victory. But might do some warfare to keep the AIs in check if necessary. Since this is Emperor, I'll try to leverage every strength of Suleiman :

- Using quick settlers I'll try to cut the island in half to box the AI in, and to make this easier I'll start by getting Stonehenge for the free monuments.
- I will also found a religion for the additional temples and holy city to help with a faster cultural win, and to do this I will make the oracle and pick code of laws to found Confucianism AND access the Courthouse for its synergy with a fast expanding leader.
- I will try to only make wonders I need so I can concentrate on expanding. Early on I'll stick to stonehenge, oracle, and pyramids. Pyramids might slow me down a lot early since I have no stone, but I feel that I really need the extra research from representation because in a GP economy I will concentrate on farms instead of cottages.

START

Tech Queue : Mining (for gold) -> AH (sheep) -> BW (chop) -> Mysticism (stonehenge) -> Meditation then priesthood (for oracle) -> Masonry -> Pottery -> writing -> Aethetics

I settle in place to access more floodplains and try to get more cities density up there. I focus on production, and only build a farm to hit my happy limit :



BO was : Worker -> warrior -> worker -> warrior (bear trouble) -> settler -> warrior (again with the bears)



I get the oracle and pick CoL :







And the prophet comes very soon after and founds my holy city on ghandi's borders :



Guess I am not fast enough. Maybe I should skip either stonehenge or pyramids... Ghandi invades my personal space and founds 2 cities in like 2-3 turns only :





I think this deserves a little tech to crossbowmen. In the meantime I adapt my expansion plans to block him from going any deeper. Check the two white BFC south east of my capital (one city will be high production/war city and the other coastal near the gold mine) :



Pyramids finally :



Some time later, around 450AD my expansion plans are going well. Only one more city to block Ghandi, and the side on Elizabeth is sealed by 3 new cities :



Machinery is finishing in 2 turns. I will start spamming crossbowmen (scouted ghandi he has axemen and archers still) and try to wage a quick war with two separate stacks conquering cities south then converging towards Ghandi's capital :



I spread my religion to ghandi earlier, and he adopted it for a while. But now both he and Elizabeth switched to their own founded religion, so I should get no "war on our friends" with Eliza from my little war on ghandi as they are only pleased with each other. I'd rather stay at peace after that and build up culture after my crossbowmen get some exercise.

A bit condensed, as I finished the game at 4:30 this morning, and went to bed without writing anything.

I settled in place, and started AH->Mining->BW. Worker first, to pasture the pigs, mine the gold, and farm the floodplains. Warrior explored NE to the coast, then north until tundra, then southwards. Met up with India after a while, a few turns from Delhi's borders, and then Elizabeth a few turns later. It's looking like I'm going to have a lot of room to expand to the south and east. With the distance between me and Gandhi, and not knowing where Elizabeth is, besides not being anywhere near me, I decide to Rex, and start setting up cities to the south. Edirne was placed first to claim the fish, wheat, and horses for anti-barb, though I need a border pop for the horses. I rush out several settlers and settle in a line east/southeast from Edirne to try and block Gandhi and Elizabeth in the south. Gandhi founded Buddhism, which quickly spreads across the continent, making it a big lovefest on our continent.

At 10 AD, the settling situation is:


and tech:


Unfortunately, I can't settle my southeastern two cities until I can take out the 2 barb cities that spawned, both in positions I'm not excited about. I've got several swordsmen on their way. Unfortunately, as I head up to take the first city, Gandhi brings up a settler and founds a city 4S from Zhou and Elizabeth is also hiking up a settler, which sets down north of Zhou after a few turns after I raze it. I keep the barb city along the coast, though at this point my block has failed, and I'm just trying to grab what land I can. I end up with a city near the small lake to the east, and another along the east coast to grab 2 seafood resources. I settle a couple more cities later to backfill the area near my capitol- a decent production city on the east coast, a city to grab the 2 seafood NW from Istanbul, and another city grabbing the gold and pig SE from Instanbul. Elizabeth and Gandhi have cities holding most of the northern desert(which comes in to play later), and Gandi grabs 2 more cities in the northeast portion of the continent.

I do have a slight tech lead over Elizabeth and Gandhi, despite expanding so far from my capitol, thanks to all the gold resources, and heavy cottaging through the jungle belt. Gandhi builds the AP, so quickly all of my cities have buddhist monasteries/temples, which helps both with production in my cottaged cities as well as culture to help keep Gandhi from stealing all my land. I picked up confucianism, but didn't bother spreading it apart from additional monasteries in high-commerce cities. Getting closer to Liberalism, I've fallen somewhat behind both Elizabeth and Gandhi in tech, as I crashed my economy somewhat in the land grab after failing to block off the north, but with a bulb for most of Education, I comfortably win Liberalism, taking Nationalism. Trading the Liberalism prereqs let me trade back up to parity with Gandhi and Elizabeth, and finishing the Forbidden Palace along with cottage growth has put my tech rate back up. Shortly afterwards, my caravels start making contact with the other continent. Needless to say, they're a bit backwards:



Pacal founded Hinduism and Judaism, while Isabella founded christianity. At contact, Isabella and Charlie are fighting. I quickly switch to Free religion and decide that I'm going to try for diplomatic, seeing as how Gandhi and Elizabeth are already my BFF's. However, I'm going to need to make sure that they're not my rivals for the voting, so I'm going to have to try and adjust the status of the other continent. I start massing cavalry and galleons to do a strike on the other continent, hopefully helping Isabella dominate some on the other continent. Meanwhile Pacal starts irritating me with demands for gold/tech/civic changes, so I decide to take him out, both because he's furious and will probably come after me at some point, and because he's got both the Jewish and Hindu holy cities, which look like they're probably raking in the cash.

I shipped over a ton of cavalry along with some infantry and machine guns to help hold on to the cities, and had enough production to fill up 4-5 galleons with calvary/MG's by the time my navy got back home. Shortly after my declaration, Isabella made peace with Charlie, which was followed quickly by him jumping in to help Pacal. I wasn't worried much, as he was remarkedly backwards, and had been taking a beating from Isabella. However, as I got Pacal down to 2 cities, he vasalled to Shaka, who had a fresh army and had just got rifling, so he came rolling in with a stack of cavalry. After some fighting and losing a couple of the cities I had taken, which Shaka gifted back to Pacal, Pacal decided to break free. Shaka paid me a couple hundred gold to get out of the war, and I brought in some infantry and finished off Pacal. One of the downsides that hurt me a lot in this war, is that since Elizabeth and Gandi controlled the desert in the north of the continent, I had no source of oil, making me depend on galleons and frigates, even after combustion (I put off SM a bit so as not to obsolete the great library, and to finish off buddhist monasteries in my seafood city in the NW. Thus, I researched combustion without first knowing if I had oil).

On the downside, at this point, Gandhi is #2 in population, meaning that he's my opponent for the UN, and he beelined to MM, and is working on a culture victory, having built all 3 hits wonders, and is working on the UN, while I've been bogged down with the overseas war. Checking the VC's, Gandhi is obviously going for culture, but still has quite a ways to go. With my war cleared up on the far continent, I start building some basic infrastructure there (including wall street on the hindu shrine producing 28gpt), and quickly assemble an army of infantry and artillery to assault Gandhi, figuring that I'm high enough in rep with Elizabeth to still have her votes even with the penalty for declaring on her friend, and I'll have Gandhi's votes after he capitulates(after I take control of Delhi and gain control of the UN). A quick slog later, and I've got the main cities from Gandhi's empire, and he's pleased to capitulate to me, giving a horrendous city in the ice on the other continent. It's just north of Isabella's territory, so I take it, thinking I may be able to gift it to her for liberation. Unfortunately, she won't take it off my hands, so I give it back to Gandhi.

After finishing Gandhi, I ship another stack over to the far continent to meet up with the remains of my previous force who have been keeping down revolts from holy roman culture, and declare on Charlemagne. After wiping his stack, but before even reaching his nearest city, he's willing to capitulate, which I take. While marshalling my forces back towards Shaka's borders, the UN vote comes up, and I check to see how I am for victory. The votes came in, and I was 5 votes over.

Normally I would probably go for a culture win on a map like this because of pretty good land and peaceful neighbors but I decided to do something different. The game was much longer then I expected but I had an interesting time.

Good start, I thought with the floodplains and gold. Also, there was many more gold sites on this map as well. I went for GW because I did not see any AI's that close to me and thought barbs might be a problem on a spacious map. The other earlyish wonders I built was the parthenon and great library. I agressively tried to settle south as soon as possible and grabbed what I thought were the good sites. I probably over-REXed early on and had some economic problems but the gold helped me out.

Empire around 1AD



I thought the start city looked like a nice bureaucracy capital so made sure to get CS on the way to Lib. Should have gotten a GP farm up a lot sooner in order to help bulb the path to liberalism but I still won lib and took nationalism. My economy was not the best during my tech up to Lib so I decided against a medieval war and went for early calvary in order to kill ghandi and elizabeth. Ghandi fell fairly easily, he did not have too many cities. Elizabeth had redcoats which are pretty good and have bonuses vs calvary but I was close to infantry so I waited a bit and then took all her cities.

My continent by late 1800's



With my continent under control I massed transports, arty, tanks, and infantry and proceeded to kill charlemaine. Shaka capped isabella and pacal so he did not want to cap to me even after I killed his 2-3 20+ unit stacks. Shaka was way behind in military tech and only had rifles/calvary against my tanks/arty. He eventually capped and his 2 vassals then capped to me as well.

1902 Conquest Victory





Overall it was a pretty fun game. I don't usually fight industerial/early modern wars so it was a change in pace. Thanks for hosting, I may try out some emperor games because I'm doing pretty good on monarch.