ALC Game #9: Incas/Huayna Capac

[UncleJJ]

I looked at the savegame in 525 BC and what a superb position you have for this time in any game. My only concern is the economy and that can be summed up in one word... granaries. A granary is simply the most powerful building in the game, and you are building , an axeman (why? and without a barracks? ), a library and a forge before them in your cities.

I understand the forge in Tiwanaku is for the Colossus, but you will get there faster if you whip the granary before the forge and make a couple of grassland farms for more food. As the city grows so its hammer production will grow and you'll be able to whip the forge without worrying. That city screams for a lighthouse too but Literature is a higher priority than Sailing right now so keep researching that.

How can a library be better than a granary in Machu Picchu? A granary effectively doubles food production and therefore all other buildings are effectively halved in cost after a granary is built. A library just adds 25% extra beakers and you don't have many beakers until you grow... and a granary doubles growth rate.

Otherwise good game You will win this with ease.

 

[curtadams]

I wouldn't even consider a landgrab between a creative and a bloodthirsty warmonger. That's just asking for it. I like to invade during AI wars, since I can usually get an ally and my target is distracted. Alex is basically guaranteed to jump Hattie if they have different religions, so you'll get the opportunity. I think you're better off developing your own nice continent for now rather than trying to build or grab a few cities with high maintenence and strong AI pressure.

I think sucking up to Hattie is a great idea. I'd even like to drop a missionary on her to make sure she doesn't turn. Consider having no pork or shellfish on your island a sign.

Can you use somebody else's borders for ocean crossing if you've got open borders?

 

[Thomas G.]

"Can you use somebody else's borders for ocean crossing if you've got open borders?"

Yes.

 

[xen01]

Please provide text messages of the event log. I am interested to see more details. Thanks.

 

[Khalid]

"Can you use somebody else's borders for ocean crossing if you've got open borders?"

Yes.

Yes, but don't forget that once you are at war, you can't use it.

 

[voek]

Well I played a shadow game also (well not finished yet) and I think this is gonna be a easy win. The 'early' contact with Hatty (met Alex later) suprised me, but I think is a good thing. You can either trade with them or invade them, but both are nice

I followed my own strategy I advocated here. Settled 1S, by pass stonehenge, settled east first (north second) quickly pursued Oracle (didn't got Writing for free) and took CoL. I build the parteon and ankor waht in the capital and GL in the east. Using this stragey you can have a GP farm in the capital and GS farm east. Well so far for all I have adviced for in the past. I only can tell my strategy works, but then again other also prob. will. I needed to get used to the normal speed (I play epic) again. Not realy a problem, just anoying. I don't like it you don't have the time to use units, esp. since research at monarch is ridicously fast.

Curious to see which choises you are going to make and what the results will be.

Edit: BTW I don't think I have posted any spoilers, since I have only told what I have done after what I have said here before and haven't uncovered any new facts or anything. But if you think it did plz tell me. It is just preach to build the GL not in the 'infected' capital.

 

[aelf]

I wonder what is the easy victory that a few people have mentioned here. Cultural? Domination? Space race?

To me, except if you're going for cultural, being stuck on an island, no matter how near to the mainland, while others are partying on a continent means trouble. Galleys (which are all you have until Astronomy) carry two each and the units need a turn to load and unload. That's not taking to account the turn(s) a galley would need to spend moving across the water (you can't get across within one turn, right?)

I'm curious what you or others would do in this situation.

 

[cabert]

I would go cultural, but hey, I like it

If you get open borders with hatchepetsuh, you can spend a good deal of turns unloading units in her cities, then go exploring the other island. After that you can have a better idea of the next moves (and close borders to her again, if needed = a settler on a galley)

 

[FoolontheHill]

I'm curious what you or others would do in this situation.

I would probably go for cultural. It is a very good set up for it. Easy to defend and plenty of land. If cultural were out, then I would beeline to optics and try to meet everyone asap for trading opportunties. Then grab astronomy and then start invading. Hard to move enough troops with galleys. So many galleys need to be produced in that situation that it drains a lot of resources.

 

[JohnnyMadrid]

Yes, but don't forget that once you are at war, you can't use it.

I thought you can still use the enemy's cultural ocean even at war, just like you can get on enemy's land tiles at war. However, if you take out the city that is generating the cultural ocean, most likely the enemy's culture on the ocean tile will be gone and you won't be able to get across.

 

[voek]

I wonder what is the easy victory that a few people have mentioned here. Cultural? Domination? Space race?

To me, except if you're going for cultural, being stuck on an island, no matter how near to the mainland, while others are partying on a continent means trouble. Galleys (which are all you have until Astronomy) carry two each and the units need a turn to load and unload. That's not taking to account the turn(s) a galley would need to spend moving across the water (you can't get across within one turn, right?)

I'm curious what you or others would do in this situation.

You might refer to my post about the easy win. I claim it can be easy since the starting location is more then great, although he settled 1SW. The second is we are not alone. Sisiutil already has the possibiility to trade with Egypt and Greece. So it isn't a all alone game. The continent is pretty big to have for yourself and has several excellent spots, like you can see.

Of course depending on the choises to be made it will become appearent how 'easy' it will be.
(Edit deleted because oyzar thinks it might be spoiler. Asking him to remove sentence to in his post)

For me it's very interesting what choises Sisiutil will make and what effect those will have on the outcome (compared to my own game). That's what I call learning!

Sisiutil already made different choises so the game will be different for sure.

@Sisiutil, I would like to give advice based on the facts YOU present me with, not based upon my knowledge of the game (my game). But if you still think this will be biased in such away that it contains spoilers for your game, I will refer from posting. I would hate to spoil the game for you and others. I only like to play a shadow game to compare the results at the end.

 

[oyzar]

Saying that it is way easy to keep tech lead is kinda spoiling... But yeah. I think I got off a better start(CS slingshot and all). However i think Sisiutil's superior skill will make him catch up fast + I prolly could have won way earlier with cultural or maybe even some warmongering. I am learing tons from reading these forums allready. I prolly didnt optimize my growth with granries etc..

 

[UncleJJ]

I wonder what is the easy victory that a few people have mentioned here. Cultural? Domination? Space race?

To me, except if you're going for cultural, being stuck on an island, no matter how near to the mainland, while others are partying on a continent means trouble.

I think that being Financial in this situation is ideal. The island is big enough and has enough resources to develop until Astronomy is discovered when an invasion of the other land mass is easy if he chooses the military option. Alex's and Hatty's UU will both be old tech by that time. Having a safe island means he can mostly ignore military units (except those needed for happiness) until Astronomy and then invade with grenadiers and cannons from galleons and frigates.

Financial means he can go cottage crazy and he has a lot of suitable tiles. He has enough food to run a few scientists and priests for shrines and academies. If he gets Colossus the large number of coastal squares are very useful giving 2F and 4C, and even the ocean tiles are 2F and 3C until Astronomy kills the Colossus. That all means a very rapid expansion is possible and very high research rate.

If he chooses the cultural option then he can acquire more religions and that should make for a quick victory by virtue of fast research and multiple cathedrals. Although I think the food supply is a bit too weak for many GAs particularly if priests and scientists grab several early GP slots.

My strategy would avoid commiting to cultural victory early and plan on strong growth until the Renaissance. Then test out the military strength of the neighbours and decide on which option is best. I'd expect Cultural, Diplomatic, Domination or Space Race to be viable.

Edit: Changed Ceasar to Alex

 

[UncleJJ]

Saying that it is way easy to keep tech lead is kinda spoiling.....

you don't need to worry about Sisiutil thinking that was a spoiler. He surely expects to tech like crazy and would be astonished not to be the tech leader. The questions are only how best to exploit his great good fortune.

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

I thought you can still use the enemy's cultural ocean even at war, just like you can get on enemy's land tiles at war.

I think you're right, but it would be useful to be sure. Somebody should maybe try an experiment to see which way it works. I don't think that's a spoiler. It's a matter of proper understanding of the game's mechanics.

My inclination would be to go with UncleJJ's approach, heading toward an eventual space race victory. The only change I'd make is to plan for at least one war before Astronomy that will net you a beachhead for the post-Astronomy conquering. It shouldn't be hard. All you need is one city (you may also need to raze a few nearby cities to relieve cultural pressure). That will make the later wars substantially easier.

 

[Tyrant Roger]

What a wonderful discovery - Hattie and Alex nearby.

Cultural would be too easy and too boring. I suggest you aim for Domination or Space Race. To do that I would convert to Judaism, send missionaries to Hattie to scout the continent and to keep her orthodox. Do other things to keep her happy. Later she will be the beachead you need to attack Alex after you have scouted their continent, built lots of cats [alas no trebs possible], and some ornery maceman or grenadiers.

Meanwhile, settle and cottage spam your lovely big island. With lots of cottages it will prove to be a coin and beaker paradise. And islands do need lighthouses.

You will need courthouses before too long to control costs, but missionaries to Hattie should be your first priority.

In the long run, after you depose Alex and take his best cities, you will be obliged to take Hattie's cities too, but that can wait.

 

[aelf]

I was referring to the difficulty of attacking anybody. The problem with not being on a continent, in this case, is the inability to attack the AIs for more expansion possibilities and to weaken them. As I said, galleys are a bit too costly or ineffective a method of carrying enough troops over. The logistics might prove to be a nightmare in the early game.

By the time you get galleons and gunpowder units, beware of AIs like Alex. He won't be a pushover, not on Monarch. Even Hatty might put up a good fight, depending on how well she's doing in the game. If the Greek is able to bully his neighbours, he might be able to keep up in tech somewhat and someday you may need to watch out for the hordes of cavalry that are his favourite toys.

So, I think if you want to get domination, you have to start getting a beach head and invading Hatty's land in medieval era, when you have courthouses and can afford it. Then swarm Alex with catapults/maces, followed by cannons/grenadiers. You may have to keep fighting wars all the way till you get tanks before you win.

How is it possible to win by domination if you wait till you get galleons and grenadiers before attacking anyone? Remember that galleons carry 3 each. That's only a single additional space compared to its millenial predecessor. You will still need many of them to conduct large-scale campaigns successfully, especially as your continental possesions grow larger.

 

[UncleJJ]

The problem I have with attacking before galleons is the disruption to the rest of the economy. An army capable of a serious attack will cost a huge amount of hammers... say 10 catapults and 10 maces plus 5 galleys to ferry them in two waves... that's about 1300 hammers. That is more than enough for the 6 Universities we'll need to build Oxford. We are very strong on commerce but don't have a lot of food for slavery or hammers so they are what is limiting our economy (as you might expect with a CE). Only when we research Democracy and can use US will we be able to build a substantial military force quickly. So my long term strategy would be revolve around getting a significant technological lead and the means to build troops fast.

If we were on the same continent as Alex and Hatty I would be wanting to war in the middle ages and trying to disrupt the AI build up. But being on our island changes everything making it hard for us to attack effectively and making it easy to defend. We can afford to maximise our own development and tech rapidly until we unlock Liberalism for Free Speech and then shift towards Democracy (take Nationalism as the free tech?).

We should try to befriend Hatty and turn her into our ally and make Alex her enemy and then we won't care about his negative modifiers or demands for techs etc. We can help Hatty by ensuring she has the techs to resist Alex perhaps gift her techs for maceman or knights. When we finally decide to go to war we can (as someone already mentioned) land troops in Hatty's land and assuming open borders march through to attack Alex's cities.

An early attack might disrupt Alex but why do we care if we can out tech him by a wide margin and then out produce him as well. I think the effect of a spoiling war will be to slow up Alex but also slow us by a greater amount. Therefore we should wait until we have a significant advantage. Once we've disposed of Alex poor Hatty will have to give up her lands as well but that again will be easy with the army based on Alex's cities and the cross channel invasion with fresh troops.

Edit: Changed Ceasar to Alex

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

It occurs to me that we might be entering precisely the wrong era to step between the Wench with War Wheels and the Hilltop Baton Twirlers.

 

[pigswill]

It might help to finish the coastal tour of the north island before making too many plans. Rexing south island seems like a good idea regardless of deciding whether to go for galleys or galleons.