I did a practice run of Saladin with some kind of small tectonics with 12 AI, played to 1AD, and got a few clues. On that map, archery wasn’t as urgent as I had thought, axemen were useful for taking the second city of my neighbors but I needed a huge stack to take a capital, and the AI isn’t as good at combat or tech as I remember. I also learned that choke points were important, and that I needed to make the right friends so I could have trade routes but still expand. And I was reminded a few times that the Spiritual trait is only useful if you don’t forget you have it. Protective felt nice as a kind of a security blanket at the choke points, but the AI was easy enough that I never actually used it. I found that I probably could have founded a religion or two at Prince and had been surprised at that, but maybe I just got a better mix of AI, and none were particularly favored, so I never went down that road in my test game.
When I opened the save, I was surprised to find that no one had any land or population, I had the highest soldier count at 6K, and that there were no religions founded. So, the ‘favor of the gods’ must be favorable land only. And while i would have loved to have seen some stone (stonehenge/pyramids), the starting location didn’t look all that bad for a small city. I decided that a comfortable size 7 was big enough for my first city, it had sufficient production, and I needed to get moving quickly, so I settled in place.
I decided to go for a hunting (scout) and build a warrior. I noticed the marble (oracle) to the east, but decided to send my warrior west first, to get as much land as I could quickly. After culture pop on turn 5 I met Maya, and also started on Mining (slavery). In the meantime, my peers showed normal demographics in production and food, but very high gnp. Turn 6 saw Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism all founded… I call mapmaker shenanigans, and was glad I didn’t go for religion. But, I also see an opportunity to manipulate a religious war. Turn 10 I started on Bronze Working (slavery).
I am noticing that we are not nearly as cramped as I expected, and i wonder where all my opponents are at. At turn 13, I think of starting on a settler after 2 warriors and a scout, but I don’t have a good place for a city, and I don’t see any urgency yet. I start on another scout.
Charlemagne’s scout finds me on 14, and I finally realize I am at the bottom of the map (not used to the map edge graphics, apparently). Turn 17 I start on my 3rd scout, thinking this is ridiculous, but not sure what else to do. On turn 20, I finally start on my first settler. Slavery on turn 21, find dutch who founded buddhism, and start on archery. On turn 23, pop a warrior from a hut. On 24, meet ethiopia and viking. On turn 25, lose new warrior. On turn 27, start on agriculture, before animal husbandry, and for the wheat/soon to be rice north of capital. On turn 29 get waters of life event, +1 commerce. Turn 31, meet Japan (Hinduism), and start my settler on an unprotected run to the space between the copper and the rice, north of capitol. Decide I need some warriors for police duties. Persia on 32, found city 2 (monument) and start animal husbandry on 33. Of the 7 I have met, I am the only one with a second city. Begin first worker on 34. Pop another warrior on 35. Meet Ottoman on 37. On 40 I send my worker to cow, on its way to connect copper and rice, and choose barracks, even though 3 of the 8 AIs I have met already have slavery. I am still the only one with 2 cities, and even though I am lowest in score, I have been very lucky, have met the most civs, and am feeling pretty good. I meet Celtia on 41, who have 2 cities, find the horses in Mecca, speed the monument in city 2, and start on pottery (granary). Maya gets stonehenge. I figure I could have gotten it myself at this rate, but I might be able to ax rush them sooner and just take it now. Turn 48 meet khmer, france on 49, and see my first barbarian. Lose my next 2 units (warrior and scout). Scouting has been pretty successful, only haven’t met Jewish civ. Turn 50 finish pottery, decide against writing yet (madrassas are great, but need more expansion right now, and don’t want open borders requests yet). Iron Working might be huge, but since I know I have horses I will go with what I know i can use, Horseback Riding. Turn 51 I am #6 on most powerful ranking, finish the archer, start on a granary, and connect my cities. Turn 53 the map snaps to show me that I am in the bottom right. I start to wonder if there is a massive lake in the middle of this map. Big enough that fertile land might exist inside it. Meet Native America (Judaism) on 54, and know the geographic locations of everyone but Celts and Native America. Turn 56 find Celts, build 2nd worker, start on Granary. Turn 57 Ethiopia proved the world was round… movement bonus may not matter on this map? Also found Native America, finished Granary in capital, and started on another archer (to allow growth). Turn 59 haven’t proven that the ocean is surrounded by land, but seems pretty obvious. How do I capitalize? Maybe with trade with other civs also on land. Ready to expand anyway. But decide that easiest and cheapest way to expand will be to horse archer maya, who I think their second city should be on the ocean anyway. 14 more turns until I have the tech, horses will be connected by then. Various civs offer open borders, I say no. No connection for trade, don’t want religious war, and I don’t need to scout anyone but Maya yet. Turn 66, Maya and I complete a road to each other at the same time, so I request open borders and send a warrior in. He scouts me right away too. Turn 70 there is a barbarian uprising somewhere. Turn 72 complete horsebackriding, trade it to Dutch for sailing/writing (already traded the mysticism for fishing). Oddly he isn’t anyone’s worst enemy yet. Starting on Masonry (construction for elephants). Turn 73 trade horsebackriding, mining, and mysticism to persia for alphabet. This may come back to bite me, and he is worst enemy of viking, but I wanted to catch up technologically. And because of that I can trade horsebackriding to France for Iron Working. Turn 76 Math (construction), stable finished,
Started falling asleep while playing went to bed.
Accidentally loaded autosave instead of real save, but I am pretty sure I remember what I did. Not many units, after all.
Turn 77, Celtia and Holy Roman are expanding quickly, and have 4 cities each. Thankfully, Holy Roman hasn’t been building much of an army, but they are on good terms with Persia and Dutch right now. And persia is even weaker in score and army, without even bronze working, So I will have to pay attention.
Turn 78, Khmer shows WHEOOHRN, worst enemy Native America, who is also worst enemy of Japan and Celtia. Doesn’t look good to be Jewish right now, Hinduism might start to spread if those three get chummy (no religion spreading at all right now, as far as I know).
Turn 80, Khmer asks for Fishing as a handout, I am happy to oblige. Maya builds city 4 on my border above the marble, with their only Holkan as the defender. Too good to be true.
Turn 81 France offers Polytheism for Writing, I figure just about everyone has writing already, and France is a natural geographic ally, I see no reason not to. My only two remaining foreign units (scout and warrior) are stuck on the north shore, unable to get around Japan and have to walk the long way around.
Turn 82 HRE requests open borders, I say no.
Turn 83, I DOW Maya with a stack of 3 chariots, 2 axemen, 2 horse archers, and an archer. I leave only 2 warriors, an archer, and a horse archer at home. (barbarians on the borders, and to pressure Maya city 4). They had been working on the Oracle, so I am hoping that I am catching them offguard. Unfortunately, I got a diplomacy hit from Ottoman, who had been willing to declare, but I didn’t have enough to pay. Deleted the warrior scouting in the north, and sent my stack to Mutal.
Turn 84 barbarian warriors to the west, Ottomans finish Oracle and found Christianity. Mutal slaves something for 2 population, but no additional units (barracks?). I decide to attack the 3 defending axemen without my 2 axemen. Flanking2 horsemen first, 1 survived. Unfortunately, I lost a chariot too, so Mutal has one defender left.
Turn 85 removed the new axeman and old, took Mutal and stonehenge, no losses this turn. Maya capitol was moved north to a gold/sheep/wheat city, but I am moving east to get access to the ocean. I feel a little like Sherman… I think that is bad.
Turn 86 Ottoman is now organized religion and Christian, barbarians are attacking my wheat farm and elephant camp, and I have a new horse archer at home. Decided to leave the mine on the copper, since the holkan don’t need it, and maybe copper will mean they will waste time on axemen instead of archers and more of them. But, after sending a chariot to scout east, i see only 1 archer in my oceanside resort, and decide that axemen east is a waste. My archer does stay in Mutal with 2 recovering units, since I like stonehenge.
Turn 87 another horse archer at home, no more barbarians in sight, only need to rebuild wheat (which at my current happy, I don’t really need right now anyway).
Turn 88 Japan demands Horseback Riding. That is an expensive demand, but I was feeling earlier that Hinduism will play a role in the next 50 turns, so I give it to him. Native America wasn’t happy about that. Bad luck in the east, lost the chariot and the horse archer is badly damaged. The lone archer defender is only 15% damaged, I will need to send in another army for that city. The first bad luck of the game thus far. I sent a damaged horse archer out of Mutal to attack a stray archer, to try to secure a retreat for my damaged horse archer. That didn’t go well, then I realized I should have just had it defend, so I did that with the damaged chariot. After this comedy of errors, I decided I needed a break, and shut down for the day.
Next day, opened the save, and had to decide if I should throw more good units after bad decisions. There is still one archer in Mutal, that could protect the horse archer. One turn until Mutal comes out of resistance. I think I remember from years ago that a city can’t flip during or in the turn after resistance from conquering, and no other Maya culture is touching the city, but I don’t really know. I decided to move the archer out and leave Mutal empty.
Turn 89, the offensive archer retreated without attacking my units or city, Mutal is a productive member of society, and I moved the units into Mutal for healing. It will take a few extra turns for the healing, otherwise, no lasting harm done. I don’t know how much longer it will take to get the ocean city, but Maya didn’t slave another archer, so maybe I will be lucky. Somehow, France already converted to Christianity (and isn’t pleased with Dutch now), and someone founded confucianism. And more barbarians on the western borders.
Turn 90, Maya has 2 new holkans in their near cities, I can’t see the ocean city right now. Somehow Ottoman is connected to me, and I could trade resources (but no trade route). I assume they are coming down the river to my capitol.
Turn 91, Ottoman has jumped on the we don’t like Native America bandwagon, I gift them a cow for fun. Barbarians attacking my elephants, and Maya is moving on me. Accidentally moved a worker off a forested plains hill into Maya territory, but that will probably only set me back a turn, not lose the warrior. One of my horse archers at home tried to deal with an attacking axeman and failed, but I had an axeman nearby to help clean up.
Turn 93, Khmer declared on Sitting Bull. Persia and Ethiopia decided they didn’t like that, and no one followed him yet. I met an Ottoman confucian missionary, so it appears that it was the Ottomans that founded it. Holy Rome converted to Christianity too, so it appears the Ottomans have a good thing going.
Turn 94 complete Math, and start on currency. I consider construction (elephants and catapults), and think I can finish Maya before the 29 turns it would take. I begin assault on Maya ocean. My flanking2 horse archer does a little damage to the only holkan before retreating. A shock horse archer damages it a little more before dying, a combat2 horse archer succeeds against an archer, a raider1 axe succeeds against the other archer, a shock chariot runs suicide against the holkan, for the purpose that a warrior can defeat it and take the city. Again, I under estimated the RNG, but was able to prevail. The city has a granary and lighthouse, I am happy to keep it. I also take 2 workers. I also get a connection to HRE. I send a horse archer toward Ottoman, to hopefully get trade routes.
Turn 95 Ragnar demands sailing, people generally like him, and he may be useful for a trade route in the future. I say yes. Khmer asks me to declare on Native America, and the only negative I see is Persia disliking me, and while I don’t want that, I decide to say yes.
Turn 97 open borders with Ottoman and Khmer (still trying to get my scout home). I ask Ottoman to go to war with Maya (long term relations bonus) and Native America (trying to create a diplomatic block that includes me) for math and horseback riding. Probably not my best idea ever, but I don’t want a surprise on my eastern border within the next 50 years, and this might help.
Turn 98 more barbarians. I realize that I didn’t actually need line of sight to get the trade routes, and that I could have had that gold 20+ turns ago. Oops. I will have to study up on when trade routes can be active.
Turn 100 traded for gold from Khmer.
Turn 101 I am #4 in wealthiest, at 66. Ethiopia converts to Buddhism. I give Celtia meditation and horsebackriding for monotheism and war on Maya. I have positioned an army of 7 horse archers and an axeman (with 3 more a tile away) at the Maya capitol, to go against a holkan, 2 axemen, and 2 archers. 3 more barbarians in the west. Why don’t they go after Ragnar?
Turn 102 somehow my gold with Khmer got canceled? And now they won’t take what I offered them before. Not fair. Nervous about the RNG, I wait a turn so the 3 other axemen can take part in the assault. By the way, Native America is already down to 1 city, with only Khmer, Ottoman (I doubt they did anything), and me (I know i didn’t) at war with them. Apparently Khmer knows what they are doing?
Turn 103 flanking2 horse archer survived against holkan. Flanking2 horse archer survived against axeman. Great general born. Flanking2 horse archer defeated axeman. Flanking2 horse archer survived against archer. Flanking2 horse archer survived against archer. Shock horse archer defeated by axeman. Combat2 horse archer defeats holkan. Raider2 axeman defeats archer. Raider1 axeman defeats axeman. Combat1 axeman defeats axeman. Combat1 axeman defeats archer. I take city, still has granary in it, I keep it.
With the general, I am torn. The Maya war is almost over, I don’t see much more conquest happening this game, or at least until much later, so settling doesn’t make much sense. I like a medic3 horse archer, but a tactics horse archer at 80% (75 camel, 90 calvary) withdrawal could be a very useful defensive weapon. Regardless, I have time, I think.
Turn 104 Mutal finishes the Madrassa. I decide that 11 horse archers and 4 axemen are enough, and stop building units.
Turn 106 can’t afford more units, have 3 scouts already, decided to start on pyramids, if only for fail gold.
Turn 107 Ethiopia used their great spy for a golden age. Maya’s gold/sheep/wheat city was pacified, giving me gold (happy) and commerce. My time to currency cut in half. Iron connected. Native America got 3 of its cities back since I last looked.
Session over.
I notice some barb culture to the west, don’t think it is a good city placement though. Will probably just take my leftover army and just raze it.
Turn 109 looks like that city may not be so bad, and another barb city on the coast might be better. 2 cities building research. Khmer makes peace with Native America. Viking “WHEOOHRN”, but says they are too good of friends to stop trading with France. Native America is their worst enemy, but that isn’t enough to fool me. Viking is eyeing my western front. I start building archers.
Turn 110 flanking2 horse archer retreats against holkan. Flanking2 horse archer is defeated by holkan. Flanking2 horse archer is defeated by archer. Combat3 horse archer defeats axeman. Flanking2 horse archer retreats from archer. Flanking2 horse archer defeats archer. Flanking2 horse archer defeats holkan. Raider2 axeman defeats archer. Combat1 axeman defeats archer, takes city. City has nothing, but best way to use marble/copper/cow, so I will keep it. Costs me a lot of maintenance, so might be wrong decision. Maya exterminated. Probably slow compared to others, but happy with my decision of conquer instead of expand on turn 59.
Turn 113 I realize that my borders are weak, no matter what my power graph says. HRE is behind me in tech and almost my equal in power, Ottoman is my equal in power (inflated by more advanced tech), and even though at war with Native America its borders with France are secure. And Viking has doubled in power in the last 30 turns. I need even more archers than I thought. Perhaps foolishly, I still think i will try to take at least one barbarian city with some horse archers. But I will redirect some axemen to border defense.
Turn 114 HRE switched from Christianity to Buddhism, which will probably make my life more difficult in about 50 turns. I decided to open borders with Ragnar, so I could send a scout in. A small army was just inside the border, probably all Viking can muster so far.
Turn 115 finish Currency, start on Construction (catapult/elephants), still don’t have calendar/code of laws. Lost combat2 horse archer against barb city, bad luck.
