Monarch Student^ XXX Pericles

Only met Wang & Hatty thought we were only 3 then conehead appears near the end. Playing monarch so tech rate is appalling which is excellent Wang & Hatty went buddhist so I did too. Just got about 8 city so crawling to calender now.. Great map and fun game tho.

Only the first turn and I'm already facing a dilemma: The food poor SIP, 1E for an extra Floodplain but less production, 1SE to trade the river for a grasslands cow my scout discovered, or make a complete gamble and move on one of the western plainshills, losing the rice? Is 2N1W of the settler a possible resource or is it just another forest?
Not exactly the easiest capital location decision ever.

Settled 1E, which was wrong, Athens had no food this way. Rushed Hatty because her power rating was lousy, but my Phalanxes died like flies. I'll restart and this time
1) SIP instead.
2) Bring at least 10 Phalanxes this time

As usual a beautiful start goes a bit wrong. Hatty got a barb town in my land, best town i ever saw as well.... Im gonna use another scientist to bulb lib i think but dunno what to get... Wang & Hatty are still pleased so I war when i want to. Conehead hates me. Think I'll take a break coz this is where my play gets worse and worse, only good part is I got oxford in 4 turns tho Im building it in the wrong city lol. Still fun tho

Phalanx rush went better this time, I took two cities from Hatty and couldn't take her capital so I'm choking it while playing along normally apart from that. The wandering Archers were annoying, but by now most of them are dead, except for one who has fortified on a pig hill in my lands (but he didn't even pillage the pasture).
I have blocked off Wang Kon (but I'm not sure what to do with the blocking city), and there doesn't seem to be anyone else around. So, I'm expanding into the tons of land I have available, and have already pretty much crashed my economy. The good part is that I'll get an awesome jungle site soon, in maybe 6 turns I'll be working flatland gems. I'm even debating to move my capital up there later.
So, tech is not looking too good, but Wang doesn't seem to be too advanced either.
The plan is to keep choking Thebes, maybe reinforce my two Phalanxes down there a bit, and then kill Hatty with either Swords or Cats. Or I'll let her live and take peace when I've settled the land, depends on how many more defenders she'll stack in Thebes (maybe she'll go bankrupt from maintenance).
So, the plan is my usual one:
LAND IS POWER, so I somehow have to get some and then I'll sit on it for a while.
More detailed info is in the save in the form of spammed Alt+S signs.

Im knackered now. Still no war I just couldnt resist going for something great off lib, managed to get assembly line(after 2 golden ages). Weird thing is ais are a tech away from education at 1500ad. I tried my best to keep them barefoot and pregnant but they could have helped each other which they didnt. Too much micro gettin factories etc. Hatty and Wang both have more cities but are just braindead this game. Thankyou to host for this.

Very easy game due to neighbours and religion distribution. Such reasonable neighbours with good favourite civs. I blocked both Wan and Hatty out so I could get to 14 cities when the other 3 on my continent had 17. With Astro I settled another 6 while all other civs together got 5. Some brief privateer action helped with that.

Could have blocked hatty down to 4 towns but that would probably have meant strike. I forced myself into a cottage economy because I really had to get out there to get some land. Got 1-2 early great people and then I already had room for big growth due to the many resources I had.
Tech speed was super fast because everyone was buddies. I didn't get anything spectacular from Lib. I think it was Sci Meth, but I'm not sure LOL.
Didn't bother building units until later in the game when I had to take out Hatty completely around 1600 AD (she had sistine! and some shrines). I had such a good standing with all my hindu friends that I could switch to Buddhism later (other continent was buddhist). When I got Buddhism from my colonies I just killed Hatty off, switched Buddhist, beelined UN and basically won. Justinian was the contester and he had +13 with Kublai. I had +14, hehe. Wang abstained but i still won because only Sury voted for Justinian. They had like only 25% of the population.

Decided to go for a gambit I sometimes like to use with Alexander(PHI/AGG)as soon as I saw the stone with the scout,so I SIP and teched toward building the GW asap.After that I concentrated on getting my bronze city connected and started spamming Phalanxes.I then used the Great spy to infiltrate Wangs empire and quickly found that he,d already built SH and was near to completing the Pyramids and the ToA.

Hattys war chariots had already made me think twice about rushing her,but she,s a good ally at friendly so I figured rush Wang instead even though he,s tougher bieng PRO he,d got all those wonders on the way.

I Knew I,d need Cats as well as the "support city revolt" to cut through wang quickly but even though I got construction quite late it worked out well because I declared war on Wang just after he completed the ToA and Mids

Ive taken his first 2 citys and are within 2 turn of taking Seoul.Plan after that is to bleed him dry of Techs and gold before destroying his last city.Athens is going to make an awesome production city so Im goin to move my cap to Seoul and expand maybe 2 citys into the northern jungles.

View attachment Monarch Student Pericles AD-0001wiping out wang.CivBeyondSwordSave

Settled in place. Capital is extremely food poor, but seeing stone really helped my cause. Went for GW and Pyramids to completely ignore barbs and get a nice early represenation.





Wang and Hatty started to REX and squeeze me in, but I settled some blockers and took a barb city to the north. Expanded very linearly, not much good land straight east or west, but north and south land is good. I'm shooting for an "SE" game, which really means nothing.

Techs:







I'm going to probably move the capital to Knossos, which will be my only cottage city most likely. Mass GPP is looking like the way to go. Everybody besides Hammurabi is Confucian, so diplo seems fine. The tech rate on this continent will probably be insane compared to the other one. This is one of my first times going a mostly specs route, so drafting or WS spam is looking like the endgame plan.

After I libbed Assembly line 1500 I just built factories everywhere, 1st war was was 1630 ish, Hatty capped fast, lucky I kept her @ 47% land for ages. Then Wang plopped himself when I was nearly ready and bent over voluntarily. So I moved on conehead who capped fast too. Took till 1750 to be ready for other continent. Lucky tho I only needed transports and 1 destroyer. Khan was master of the continent, Sury and wossname as his servants. I built quite a few infantry and cannon but it still took ages and I had +20 war angry too.

After initial scouting and setting up city #2 for the copper, it was clear that if I could get rid of Hatty, I'd have secured a whole bunch of land to myself.

I got city #3 up for the seafood whilst building a bunch of Phalanx then declared around 400BC. Hatty was finished up by about 120AD but by then I was losing about 10 gpt @ 0% (I'd had to raze some of her cities instead of keeping them as the cost would have been too much).

Thebes was the real trophy of the war, it'd be the main research city and GP farm for most of the game.

Building my economy and research back up afterwards was the most challenging and enjoyable part of the game. I was militarily weak against all of AI for quite some time, but managed the diplo and trading quite well. I'd managed to get the pyramids up during the war/aftermath so switched to representation when I got to the position of having enough specialists running.

The game was already in the bag following the war and re-build (I became the tech leader quite quickly), it was just a question of chosing which way to go. I fancied finishing off the game reasonably quickly, so opted for a peaceful approach.

I've never played Pericles before, he's a pretty strong leader/civ. His traits, UU and UB are all really solid.

Thanks to all involved for putting the map together and a great game!

Final turn pic:

Six cities. Contact with Hatty, Wang and Hammy. We're all Confu (founded from either Meditation or Poly - it was the first religion to be founded).

There's a barb city with banana and copper to my NE, but it has 5 archers on a hill. I'll need construction before I go after it. But I want construction anyway, for Odeons.

No real plans at this stage. I've got enough army to protect myself and enough decent land that I should be able to leverage a military edge at some point and expand some more.

Settled in place. Ran AG ----> oracle CoL just for lulz messing with religions. Got Wang and hatty into confucianism and shrined it for ~15 gpt w/o missionaries. Hammy got hinduism and judaism but I had the shrine + closer trade network. Other than oracle I didn't manage to get any wonders, settled 7 cities by 1 AD.

I skimped on infra big while going early caste. I got merchants for funzies and settled them in sparta (shrine city). After that I bounced around looking for trade techs before self researching engineering + guilds and falling behind.

Then came mass chops + caste + guilds + workshops in vassalage. Lots of CG II longbows, CR II trebs (and maces!), pikes took it to wang kon then hatty. I know medieval isn't conventional vs the AI but it's fun. Since most of wang's cities weren't on a hill and he was teching very fast he was first. You'd think that with PRO he'd put up a fight, but I actually lost very little against him. CR II trebs getting winning odds vs longbows after 1 or 2 rounds usually, but even with minor collateral cr II and soon III maces can clean up any defender of the era no sweat.

Hatty was harder. She had cuirassers and my best answer was pikes. I had knights vs her too to facilitate pillaging her metals. After pillaging both of her iron tiles she fell back to HA (also meant no xbow, knight, or cannon once she got there!). HOWEVER, kublai traded her iron for spices . This is flagrant anti-human bias; the AI will NEVER, EVER make this kind of trade with the human. Cheaters.

So I had to fight cuirassers. Fortunately, after a couple treb hits CR III maces are still quite effective against the no-defense cuirassers. Just like wang, hatty was spanked into capitulation after I got her capitol and southern cities.

The medieval war dragged on a long time. I actually didn't end war with her until late 1600's or early 1700's AD. Almost everyone could research assembly line by then. I got to work teching up, building infra (which I actually started before the war ended) and emphasizing techs I could chain-trade my vassals while directing their research. I got assembly line 2nd, traded it for demo/railroad, traded railroad again. I got bio first, trading that for ultimately around 5 techs. As universities, oxford, and observatories completed, tech rate picked up. The AI got screwed by me going merc/rep (I had the most cities by far and could get a LITTLE foreign trade regardless, and had SoL captured from egypt). Comically, this allowed my medieval warfare empire to blast right by the AI. I had computers and a 200% IW city before anyone else even had plastics. Justinian picked a fight w/ kublai while I coasted to a runaway space win:

Went Caste + Pac and ran a zillion scientists. Bulbed philosophy and got the religion, all other specs were settled in cap and provided great returns with rep. Capital + bulbs kept me ahead of the pack, and netted me lib:





Was planning on getting rifling, but nationalism will have to do. Plan is to draft baby draft to take over Hatty, then go SP workshop/watermill to spam for Wang and Hammu. Then it's just a matter of deciding if I want to finish it on the other continent or win diplo or whatever. I lack ion, so no cannon, just straight up rifles.

I'll switch to nationhood and theocracy for some drafting once rifling is in. Everyone on this continent has a puny buildunitprob so I should be alright with no siege.

My tech rate is horrible, and I'm being bogged down by an ugly medieval war against Hatty. I lost a city on the second turn, since then it has turned into an ugly stalemate, Hatty might be small with her now 3 cities, but it also means her forces are concentrated. Wang and Justinian are hopelessly far ahead, I have run out of things to beeline and trade. Oh, and there's also WFYBTA with Hammy, and no one else to trade with around. No way I can still win this, spaceships are going to be launched while I enter the Industrial Era.

Im monarch player too and I looked at ur 1ad save out of interest. Everyone plays different but a couple things u could do are 1/ your tech is slow because u have too few cottages and scientists, u can have a lot of both.... 2/ if you do see floodplains or gems (money) grab em up fast. Your expansion is better than mine tho, I laughed how much u blocked Hatty . In short go pottery and writing fast.

Teched out rifling, used a Great person to revolt to Theo/Nationhood and started to draft. Hell no we won't go? Oh yes you will,



Since I was relying heavily on specs, my GPT was not very good, forcing me to sell techs to the backwards civs other continent for gold to keep from strike. I decide that it's not worth it to take her out completely, so I take the cap. I took all her northern jungle cities though, which I what I cared about.



Limp to SP and spam workshops/watermills with auto workers. Get to AL, Artillery, and Railroad for war prep with the advanced, but small Wang. He was running away quite a bit so he was the obvious next target.



A few turns into the war he gets Mechs (!). Let's see how that stands up to the industrial zerg:



Oooh. Not well it appears. He gets Internet and Apollo during the war, but no nukes. Even though he gets Mechs, with his low buildunitprob and lack of production, he gets wasted by Infantry/Arty.

Now to finish the continental sweep is Hammurabi, who built the UN. He bulids it inland though, so I take all his mainland cities and cap him, leaving Justinian as my opponent in the UN.





After that it's just hitting end turn until the UN resolution and clicking my name.



K/D









You can see how Mechs get trashed by Infantry/Arty. I added AT and SAMs to the mix to protect in the field and they completely destroyed. Prod lead > tech lead. I did not even have to worry about the other continent, with Justinian vs. Sury + Kublai for the whole war period at the end.

Recap:
Used specs and bulbing for a tech lead. Drafted rifles to get some land. Finished it with the standard Infantry and Artillery for a diplomation.