A Spiritual Odyssy

[Sirloin]

Set has been played, here's the Report:

Well given that we were split 50/50 over tech path, I broke the tie since I'm playing and decided to go straight to Poly. Teching fishing straightaway isn't much of a spiritual odyssey!

Working Spice Tile for the coin, Research to Poly (18), Build to Warrior. Our scouting warrior sets off on an odyssey of his own...

T3: First hut pop ... barbarians

Spoiler First Hut :

Just kidding its MASONRY. Wow the gods really are with us in this game.

T10: Hut pops a free scout
T13: Buddism FIADL. Meet Washington to the Northeast.

Spoiler Washington :

T14: Washington's EP are equal to us, so he hasn't met anyone else
T17: Hut gives 109 gold. Poly in 1t, warrior in 2t, micro so they are each 1t
T18: Poly is IN, pick religion is on, so I choose:

Spoiler Poly :

I haven't converted yet (although its free since we're SPI)

Set research / production to Fishing(8) / Settler(22) but no beakers or hammers are invested.

Scout meets Shaka to the North

Spoiler Shaka :

This is a good place to stop, so I'll hand it over.

We've got a pretty good scouting picture of our surrounding; no scouts have been eaten by animals yet:

Spoiler World View :

Here is a tentative dotmap for a few nearby sites:

Spoiler Dot Map :

Green would be my recommendation for 2nd city, although its not fully scouted yet, so we may want to tweak its position once we see all of the surrounding land.

Roster:
Sirloin
Grandad1982 - UP NOW
cripp7 - on deck
Pindrus
narri
White Dragon

And the save...

 

[Pindrus]

Looks good, nice that the poly religion was available for us and to see everyone still alive.

Shaka is a good reason to not dally too long in expanding and researching military techs though. Going Mono next is quite tempting though with the hut pop... Who needs monuments if we just keep founding religions, right?

I'm somewhat averse to dotmapping before scouting and BW/AH, but my inclination would also be to settle by the corn/gold to fund further expansion. Also, it would a silly place, but we could put a Maoi city on the wheat NW of Constantinople

We should definitely hold off on converting until we start hitting happy caps and see whether religion gets passively spread.

 

[grandad1982]

Nicely done Sirloin.

Thats some nice hut popping!

Will look at the save and post a plan tonight.

I'd be inclined to go Mono next just because we popped Masonary so are a tech ahead of ourselves as it were. After that Mining/BW would be my guess then Fishing while we chop out Settlers.

Would probably go for a warrior to fog bust that gold site before a settler (also just to grow a bit).

Any way will post my plan in a few hours.

 

[grandad1982]

@White Dragon
I'm more than happy to slip you in the roster, so welcome onboard!

The Roster
Sirlion
Grandad1982 - up now
cripp7 - on deck
Pindrus
White Dragon
narri

I'll slip you in above narri as hes on holiday for a bit and asked to be lower in the roster. I just hope hes not enjoying himself in the sunshine without a hat!!!!

 

[White Dragon]

Just a thought, if we are a tech ahead, couldn't we afford an 8 turn detour for fishing before hitting Mono? Without any workers or worker techs slavery isn't going to be as usefully. We can still slow grow while building a WB for 9 turns during mono run (currently 22 turns) and hopefully still have time for a worker to be built by the time we get BW. Plus, working the two, two commerce clam tiles should more than make up for the 8 turns of detour.

 

[Sirloin]

Yeah, we're in great shape for mono eventually, but we really need fishing, if only for the commerce. Spice is the ONLY tile in all of our BFC that has a coin. Those clams would really help. Techwise, going Mono really early would be cool to secure another relgion and get OR, but we're not going to be building any buildings soon. I think we should take free masonry as breathing room to get some worker techs rather than a mandate to get Mono right now. Since we have SO many forests, my tech order would be:
Fishing, Mining, BW, Mono, (AH or Ag)

Remember things like Fishing/Mining are cheap/fast compared to Mono.

 

[cripp7]

I'd say green also. Going Fish>Mining>BW>Mono>Ag? We should get a worker out of the next city by the time Ag comes out. Hopefully some metal will show up close by.

 

[grandad1982]

Ok I'm swayed on fishing as the next tech.

I'm not totally sure about Mining and BW before Mono though. The extra commerce from clams (even if we quikely work both) will help but it still might be cutting it fine. maybe Fish > Mining > Mono > BW (start worker at the same time). This would give us the rare chance (for my usual REX games anyway) to build a few more fog busters.

Looking in to the future I've been wondering about chopping out the Oracal after our first Settler. The tech would go Priest > Hunting > AH > Writing. If the build was timed right (and we got it first ) then we can take Theo as the free tech.

 

[Pindrus]

Oooh! the temptations of founding religions strikes!

I concur on fishing as the next tech, otherwise we will only be building warriors and settlers! I don't think a work-boat would be done in time to save many turns on Mono (or other) research, but it should still be in the bag as fishing is a cheap tech.

I think we will have to assess the situation after the next set to determine the future tech path. I worry that delaying worker techs to open a Theo Oracle will delay our expansion too long. Our capital is not well suited to such a path with no commerce resource (gems/gold) and tiles that can't be improved with our starting techs (AH is 2-techs off, as is BW). What we do have is lots of food though and cheap temples! If we really want to chase religions we could go fishing-mono-mining-bw-priesthood-writing, try for CoL with the Oracle, and build a couple temples to run priest specs in the cap. for a Theo bulb.

Frankly though, I don't quite understand why founding religions is such a priority for us. As long as we have a holy city (check), we should be able to convert other civ's when we want to war them. Heh, in fact we could even use Islam as our "warring" religion and adopt a more popular religion when not wanting to DoW, to make use of Spi trait. That way we wouldn't always be declaring on our real friends. But perhaps that's not in the spirit of the varient.

 

[cripp7]

I think founding all the religions first is not to allow the AIs control of any religion that we do not own.

 

[grandad1982]

PFT

I switch the Settler to a Warrior and set it to come out at the same time Fishing finishes.


1

We find where Washington is.

Spoiler :

2

We meet a new AI.... Pericles

Spoiler :

He hasn't met Shaka or Washington yet (he did by the end of my set)


3

Pop a hut with our warrior and get xp.


4

Our Warrior kills a Lion IBT. I pormot him Wood2.


6

We meet Brennus. SPI. Guess who founded Buddism.

Spoiler :

7

Zzzzzzzzzzzz


8

Fishing > Mining

Warrior > WB


9,10,

Not much here except a lion is blocking our scouts path.


11

IBT the lion attacks our scout a dies. Horray!

We get the Chariot Quest.

Spoiler :

Quest11:
War Chariots
Prereq: THE_WHEEL AND State Religion
Obsolete: MONARCHY or LITERATURE or CODE_OF_LAWS or AESTHETICS or MATHEMATICS or ALPHABET or HORSEBACK_RIDING or IRON_WORKING or METAL_CASTING
Active/Weight: 25/200
Aim:
Build default number of players for this world size +1 Chariots (8 for standard)
Result:
1.All Chariot units gain the Combat 1 promotion
2.Spread your state religion to 5 own cities

12,13,14,15,

Lalalalalala


16

WB > WB. Wasn't sure what was for the best here. Maybe a Warrior instead. I decided that the two 4 food tiles would be better for getting our first worker out so thats what I went for.


17

Dum de dum de dum


18

Mining in. I've set Mono as a place holder (no beakers in) as I wasn't sure if we wanted the religion or to go for BW.


Ok so heres the land to our S and N of Brennus. Maybe look at a block?

Spoiler :

And the land S of Washington. Again another Block?

Spoiler :

Culture View

Spoiler :

So whats our next tech? If we want to block then BW and get a worker out after the WB so we can chop settlers? This is my preference but it might be more in the spirit of the game to go for Mono. My feeling is that even if we lose the religion from Mono we'll probably still get at lesat 3 more religions if we really wanted to.

The Roster
Sirlion
Grandad1982
cripp7 - up now
Pindrus - on deck
White Dragon
narri

The Save

 

[Pindrus]

Well we've got our work cut out for us! Bren can missionary-spam with the best of them while none of the others we've met yet really do (i.e. even if they get a random spread from us they could still be turned buddhist by Bred) so if we want the continent under the sway of one of our religions we're going to have to be determined. We should keep an eye out on spoiling relations towards Bren-maybe an early bribe of Shaka to DOW if he isn't already in WHEOOHRN once Alpha is in?

I'll have a look at the save and more comments tonight. I might have started a worker after the 1st WB to at least mine the hill-pigs and get the next WB out quicker. They are so slow working unimproved tiles.

I also think that if we go for BW first we run a pretty high risk of losing out on Mono religion if there is another religious nut (or even someone like Hammy) out there in the fog. Not sure if that is such a bad thing, but just saying.

 

[Pindrus]

Also, it's been a while since I've done that quest, so I had to look it up:

War Chariots
Prereq: THE_WHEEL AND State Religion
Obsolete: MONARCHY or LITERATURE or CODE_OF_LAWS or AESTHETICS or MATHEMATICS or ALPHABET or HORSEBACK_RIDING or IRON_WORKING or METAL_CASTING
Active/Weight: 25/200
Aim:
Build default number of players for this world size +1 Chariots (8 for standard)
Result:
1.All Chariot units gain the Combat 1 promotion
2.Spread your state religion to 5 own cities

Could be useful, but I wouldn't really go out of our way to complete it. Actually what would be sort of cool is to develop our primary religion more normally (missionaries/shrine/random spread) and swap to another we control for 5 turns when completing this quest, to get 2 religions in a bunch of cities.

 

[grandad1982]

@ Prindrus

If you had looked beneth the screen you would have seen I had already done the leg work on the quest! Service with a smile

I have to say that I'd be more concerned about getting BW than the Mono religion.

I held off the worker as I felt it would be just waiting aroound till BW. Of course In hindsight I realise it could have been building roads to resourse and towards the poptential gold site. This is why I'm a Monarch and not a (succesfull) Emporer player.

As for the religion spread I'm beging to suspect that several of the AIs will be blocked behing Brennus so getting them in to our religion may be tricky.

 

[Pindrus]

Aha, indeed it would have been easier to scroll down a bit there...

For the worker roading isn't so appealing, it's more being able to mine the open hill for quicker production of the WB. The last WB was done on turn 35, and a worker takes 15 turns, so it would have come in on turn 50. If we switch research to BW it will come in on turn 56, so there won't be any wasted turns (1 to move onto hill, 4 to mine, 1 to move onto forested square).

It looks like we could put up decent blocking cities towards Bren (1) between the clams & rice, and (2) between the pigs & sugar. I would definitely prioritize these and BW above a Mono religion. Washington seems to have been dealt some poor terrain and the strip of desert between him and the main continent should slow him down. Two cities should block him pretty easily too, and we should be able to support 5 with the gold NE of Constantinople. It seems like Shaka shares our continent to the East, based on where the scouts met, so that will make for quite the party!

 

[Sirloin]

I agree that blocking Brennus should be our priority for our next city. I would go for the central pig/sugar city first.

I could go either way on Mono or BW next. If I had some extra time, I would run the clock on a few sample games to see when Mono usually falls, and base the decision on that.

I'll be out of town until Monday Aug 3, so don't think I've gone radio silent.

 

[Pindrus]

I feel that it usually goes 2200-2800 BC or so, but that's on a slightly higher difficulty. Really depends a lot on the opponents. Out of those we've met I would expect it to fall late, but there are several mystery leaders.

 

[cripp7]

I'm going to have to request the skip this time around, because I won't be able to play until Sunday at the latest.

I think going BW next, switch to a worker to start building roads, and then to chop out settlers once BW is in. If Judah isn't founded after that and maybe doing a shot for Mono. Definitely block Brennus with the pig city

 

[Pindrus]

Guess that makes me up then. I have the save from looking at the game yesterday and should be able to play tonight. I agree with the general plan Cripp outlined (switch research to BW and build to worker). I will probably only play until the end of BW (19 turns) though. Hopefully will be able to find Zulu borders with the scout and will probably keep the warrior by Bren around to fog-bust and see where he expands.

 

[grandad1982]

I'm happy with the BW, Pig/Sugar city. I'd suggest on the forest square 1NE of the hill next to the pigs so that it captures those dyes. Will make a nice commerce city.

When I said about roading with the worker I ment that it could be done after the mine was built. Sorry about the ambiguity.

I would send the Wood2 S of Brennus before his culture blocks the S off to us.