Danmark in BNW, Need strategic advice

[dragonxxx]

I started a game with random leader, and for the first time I got Danmark.
I have never actually read their description that much, but it seem that they basicly have no UA on most maps?

Anyway, I really would like to get an advise how to proceed here.

Its turn 106, I got 4 cities and NC, finished tradition + Honor opener and Warrior code.
cities seem to be OKish, got no immediate happiness problem, have some unimproved luxes and room to grow. I got good pantheon ( faith and culture from incense and wine), got first religion as well (Pagodas + Tithes, and as there is only one other Pantheon, I am guessing that the Monasteries will still be there, but I got Pagodas, as the happiness will be important, and the AI seems to value these the highest).

I guess I did something stupid, as I got 2 workers from different CS and now 3 of em are at -20, and the rest influence drops -2 per turn. I hoped that this will fade off, but its around 70 turns since then , and its still same ... When will that change?

I picked the honor basicly because I am a bit bored with culture and SV games, so with this game I kinda wanted to do some domination.

So after I got the 2 workers, both CS were protected (by Poland and Russia). I also forward settled on Russia and the Aztecs ( tbh, there was no other option ... ). So my relationships with Russia is not very good. Rest seems to be fine, I have DOF with Morroco, rest is neutral (even russia).

My plan was, to plant a Citadel on the hill next to St. Petersburg to piss her completely off , and then to wipe her out (Physics ready soon and have 3-4 somewhat upgraded Crossobows, just need some infantry units, but got no iron unfortunately ).

But after some review, that seems to be rather pointless. All 3 cities seem to have nothing else than Copper, Moscow has no wonders so I will basicly gain nothing from wiping em out ...

But I really see no good targets. THe Morroco guy has nice stuff in his cities, but he is my friend (thats the only DOF in the game atm) and he is very far away.

The Aztec is close and Poland wanted me to gang him a while ago, but he also has not much lux , and I only see some wine (that I am gonna have soon as well anyway), and some truffels. He has Great Library and Stonehendge at least.

Poland itself has Great Wall, so its pointless to attack and he is far.
And the only thing thats left seems to be the Shoshone. They have at least Sugar, Citrus, Iron and probably gold in the Capital.

I am attaching the save game, if anyone wants, I can put the t1 save as well.
Its on Emperor. I chose random setup, but that seems to be pangea.

Thanks in advance! I am really looking forward to hear some opions on that game.

 

[dragonxxx]

oops, I posted it in the wrong forum. If any mod sees tht, please move it to the strategy forum. Thanks

 

[joshua43214]

I have played out Denmark to domination and science victories in both vanilla and G&K, have not yet played him in BNW, but I can't imagine him being any different there. There is nothing in BNW that would nerf him in any way.

Both of his UU are nice, and the ski infantry is especially nice, and his UA does come in handy often enough in domination games that it is good. He is not an especially strong civ, so he is good to play for the added challenge.

So, some comments,
In general I would say you have done most things well. You got the NC up in a timely fashion along with 4 cities of decent pop in a relatively short period of time. This is not so easy on BNW, you can get there faster, but still very good for emperor level play. Your happiness is under control, and you are growing.

The not so good;
You stole a worker from two different CS. Never do this, you get a seriously massive diplo hit (-20 resting point and no gold) and the CS loving civs will hate you pretty much forever. You are better off stealing the second one from a neighboring civ. I tend to buy one, steal one, and build the rest. In general I want one per city + 2 for the cap.

The map would have been better with a liberty start, but sometimes you can't know that if you step on an early culture ruin. with liberty you could expand out to 6ish cities pretty nicely.

2 scouts sitting around watching the borders. This is a job best performed by your city defense units. There is a great deal of the map not explored, and you really want to know where everything is. You should consider opening up sailing next, it will only take 2 turns and it gives you another TR that could be water based. Water based TR's give much better gold than land based ones. So you need to scout the coast and get up into the corners of the map. I now that the CS's are not giving you gold anymore, but you should atleast know where they all are.

4 CB's and a spear will take down St. Petersburg. Do not sit around waiting to get what you think is a good army, the AI is doing the same thing but doing it faster. I can guarantee that Cathy bee lined currency and is busy building the Petra. She went liberty/piety she is going to be a serious powerhouse (as always). At this point, wait til she finishes the Petra and go nab her cap. It will take her a long time to recover from that.

City placement. You are too spread out. 6 tiles between cities is asking for trouble. settling on flat tiles next to an expansionist civ is asking for trouble too. Ribe would have been better two tiles NW in the hill. You would get a mountain/hill/river city that is easy to defend plus all the other goodies that would come from that location. Aarhus on the hill next to the wine and then your 4th city on the hill/river south of where Aarhus is now. or you could drop a 4th right on the marble to forward settle on Cathy. Another city could go right on the sheep next to the lake by the barb hut, it would grab the iron and incense.

If you are going domination with Denmark, you want the iron, his berserkers are nice and will upgrade eventually into ski infantry.

You need to wrap Cathy up quickly because both Casimar and the Aztecs are settling right toward you and will need to be dealt with next. Monty went liberty so he will be a serious issue. Monty and Cathy are two of the hardest civs to beat if you don't take care of them quickly.

Once issue you will run into on emperor is that the AI is weak, but still plays to win. When you run up the military tech tree, you will very quickly fall behind the AI in science. It's an awkward difficulty, on king you can just proceed and win with no problem, on immortal you can steal your way up the tech tree. On emperor you will have to both make your own tech and steal the tech, so you want education and renaissance fairly quickly. Trebs and zerks will go very far. Muskets are not a big upgrade from berserkers, so head to education next.

I would say in general you have made a good start for emperor, it would be a real challenge on immortal, both Monty and Cathy would have settled right in those big open areas you left already. As it is, one of them will settle that juicy spot next to the iron and sheep very soon unless you settle it, and 5 cities on tradition gets difficult early/midgame.

 

[dragonxxx]

Yeah, these 2 workers were a mistake for sure, but the thing is, that stealing from nearby AI is not that easy as their workers come late.

I could have NC around 15 turns earlier, but did an Oracle first. Don't know if thats good or bad, but I always try to get it when I get it if its available.

You were not right about the Petra, actually Morocco got it just a few turns later. Katy seemed to be very weak, as her lands are not good and just a few resources.

About the city placement - I read about it and ppl were suggesting 7 tiles away, so no land overlapping if possible. About the flat land - only Ribe is on flat, and I didn't place it on the mountain, because I wanted to nab the Marble as well Aarhus was settled first and its not really visible here, but that blind spot in Monte's borders is actually his capital, so I did the forward settling, not him.

I agree that its too wide, but I was a bit greedy and at the same time I placed em all on river and hill. Ribe was the exception, as there was no suitable hill there.

 

[joshua43214]

You were not right about the Petra, actually Morocco got it just a few turns later. Katy seemed to be very weak, as her lands are not good and just a few resources.

About the city placement - I read about it and ppl were suggesting 7 tiles away, so no land overlapping if possible...

Ya, they both had desert starts. You be assured she was going for it and is mad about losing it because now she is into piety and does not have the Petra lol. Kill her off before she does her usual science thing and wins.

7 tile placement is something you can only get away with on low difficulty levels. It is an extremely bad thing for countless reasons. The idea of no overlapping tiles does not work out in practice. It takes 36 pop to work the entire 3 ring, add 6-12 specialists and you need 42-48 pop to work everything. Tall empires are better being 4ish tiles apart depending on terrain. Some starts they can be 3 apart and not compete, other starts need 5 to not compete. Depends mostly on what kind of crappy water or mountain tiles you have. You need to have cities close enough together so that you lock in your cultural borders otherwise the AI will drop a city right inside your "territory." You also want them closer together because they are far easier to defend. The AI can bring its huge carpet of death and you will be powerless because there is no overlapping field o fire. The AI can send its missionaries in with no fear because your borders won't fill up fast enough to snuff them out. Roads will be much more expensive, and if you wait till each city will break even on a 7 tile road, you could be dead from not having them for strategic reasons. Lastly putting 7 tiles between cities means you are forward settling on someone expect in those rare isolated corner starts. You are far more likely to get an early DoW, and more likely to get it from more than one civ by expanding that way.

The old ICS system you put exactly 3 tiles between each city, took liberty and just cranked out a steady stream of cities. You would drop them at first so that they grabbed a new lux, and then add 1-2 pop filler cities later. You basically have to very carefully manage pops in all cities to stay just ahead of the happiness curve.

Make a nice solid core, not a weak sieve.