Terrible land as Ghandi, how best to leverage specialists and a draft war

After a couple of monarch games where a combination of chariot rushing, land blocking, and plain luck have carried me to massive 3000bpt empires, the cold gaze of the RNG gods have finally fallen upon me and bestowed this particular start.

It's not *that* bad. I started with stone in the 3rd ring of my capital, which nabbed me stonehenge, great wall and pyramids (I don't normally do this btw). I missed out on the Great lighthouse, which would definitely have been useful. Nevertheless, judicious blocking has nabbed me the rest of peninsula, where I only need to backfill and grab as many resources/city (I'm pretty slow at backfilling, though).

My original plan was to pop a great engineer from the pyramids and use him to rush the great library. That fell through at 25% odds, but the nearby marble let me chop it out (even after I'd given Literature to Hannibal as a request. This was a nice boost to my science rate, and I managed to bulb philosophy (Choose Religions was on).

My current plan is to get the colossus going, as I have a ton of seafood, and I'll need that boost. I have no land to cottage, so getting those pseudo-hamlets up and running without having to work them for 20-odd turns will be a boon. My capital is terrible with bureaucracy, hence me desperately working grassland forests. Better than nothing.

I'm blocked off my Gilgamesh, who is surprisingly backwards. That makes him a good candidate for my first target.

Alternatively, non-protective Hannibal built the great lighthouse. He is the tech leader though, which scares me. I do have a galley-load of spies empowered by a settled great spy heading that way, though it could take a while.

Anyways, here is my plan. I've got education down. I tech drama, pull of an old-fashioned liberalism-nationalism slingshot, research gunpowder, and draft up an army. Alternatively, I do the draft war at rifling, which will mean trudging through feudalism-guilds-banking-printing press-replaceable parts. How viable are generic musketmen against protective longbows? I do have a great spy to help me drop their defences, but I've never pulled off this kind of war before.

Ultimately, what is my best course of action?

I don't recommend generic musketmen vs protective longbows. Longbows (St 6) get 25% in cities (St 1.5) and being protective is another 20% (St 1.2 from CG1). So thats musketmen at St 9 vs longbows at St 8.7. And that isnt counting other bonuses like if they are on hills or have CG2.

You need seige. Instead of going through all the trouble to get to rifling, just go to steel and build cannons. you only need 2 techs (chemistry and steel) instead of the 5 to get to rifling.

Well, I'd say that having 5 cities at 700AD is contributing a lot to your low-BPT problem. Ideally, you want 6 cities at or before 1AD in most games.

You missed out on the wonder that could have helped you the most (i.e. TGL). You're probably off just getting Steel from Liberalism and invading your continent with cannons and muskets (or rifles if you prefer)

Framesticker said:

Well, I'd say that having 5 cities at 700AD is contributing a lot to your low-BPT problem. Ideally, you want 6 cities at or before 1AD in most games.

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I do have 6 cities . The low bpt is probably because I have zero rivers and mere speckles of grassland for cottaging. That's where my usual habits of block, backfill, and cottage spam come from.

dirtyparrot said:

You missed out on the wonder that could have helped you the most (i.e. TGL). You're probably off just getting Steel from Liberalism and invading your continent with cannons and muskets (or rifles if you prefer)

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I know, and it irks me that I grabbed the other two Masonry wonders instead. Funny dat, I got the barbarian horse archers event, except they spawned on the other side of the gulf, next to Peter. Plus, I had zero sources of commerce at the start, meaning I was at risk of crashing my economy with 2 cities (I should have teched fishing earlier, I made some rather dumb plays). A steel/muskets war is probably a good idea as well, but I have no good hammer cities to get those cannons out, and the more I delay, the more the AI cottages mature.

I played few more turns on as well. Peter and Hannibal went into wheoohrn, which was scary because I was at a 0.4 ratio with them. It ended up being a dogpile of Gilgamesh, which actually pushes forward the schedule for me invading and killing him. Peter went into wheoohrn earlier, when he was merely cautious, but I saved my ass by offering him philosopy (+4 fair trade, Pleased), beelining currency, and begging for gold. I think that broke the AI targeting engine.

I played on, and ended up going for a rifles/cannon war. I built up an immense stack of trebs, timed a great merchant pop a few turns before steel, and sent him over to the next continent to upgrade a stack of cannons. I had to wait as Gilgamesh had capitulated awfully fast to Peter's classical-era army (though Hannibal's macemen did most of the damage). I've killed off Sumeria, and I've broken the back of the Russian army down to a 1.7 ratio. I'm now just waiting for my doom stack to heal, and I'll traipse merrily through Russian territory. I'll have to be quick, they have muskets now (though no printing press/replaceable parts). The plan is to take over Russia while Pacal over on the next continent runs away with the game (I'd rather that be me). It's a complete love-fest over there, Pacal peacefully expanded to 15 (mostly good) cities, and his vassal Survy has 8.

Part of me thinks I should have gone for Hannibal first, but he had Grenadiers and would have torn me a new one. While I maintained an excellent kill:death ratio with Russia, that wouldn't have occurred with Carthage, and by the time I'd be ready for Russia/Sumeria they'd have upgraded their classical trash to renaissance.

I'm also deliberately delaying Astronomy, as that'd obsolete the Colossus, and the other continent is running mercantilism anyway. I switched into Police state earlier, but the WW isn't that bad, and I may want to go back into merc-rep.

Here's the save.

Peter's dead, Hannibal has rifles and steel, but I'm inching onto assembly line and have a 2.7-fold power rating over him. The new plan is to have a quick victorious war by upgrading my best rifles into infantry (to protect my stack from grenadiers/cannons), taking a few cities, force capitulation, and consolidate my holdings through to industrialism/flight. I've got a great merchant, and I plan on teching Sid's Sushi in order to pop block any diplomatic victories (I can't UN win, the other continent's BFF with Pacal). Alternatively, I consolidate my land and go for a spaceship victory, but that's not exciting.

I know no one cares but this has been a fun game, where some not-quite optimal beelining and dedicating your entire crappy brown empire to churning out rifles and cannons can destroy a much larger, backwards rival.

do you have a 4000bc save ... might be interested in giving it a stab

Sorry for the late reply, I don't have a 4000bc save. Maybe I should get into the habit of it, but I can never tell if I'll play a map to its conclusion or just regenerate. And I haven't finished it, I've just vassalised Hannibal. He's still got 4 cities, but my army has run out of momentum and they've got infantry now (too slow to attack ). I've gained my objectives: take the +20gpt Confucian holy city for wall street, and take his capital for the Statue of Liberty. I'll sit my big army in place to prevent any revolt shenanigans.

I would say the best thing to practice at the moment is the Early, Rapid Expansion. REX.
It is of very little use to have size 10 cities when you could settle more cities.
If you don't settle the land available, then maybe settlers are a better choice than wonders.

Maybe you should read a few articles about Slavery in the War academy and play with them in mind (aiming to whip more).

Universal thing about turn based games is that you'd better do NOW! what you wanna be done later.