First online playthrough with Noto

[noto2]

Long time lurker and poster, and massive Civ fan here.

I hate re-rolling and I like to improve on my game, but I've never posted any of my games because I play with mods. Well, CiV's been out for a while now, and the mods I play with are just balance-tweaking ones.

For now, this is mostly an exercise in self-indulgence but if people are interested in following along, all the better.

I'll post a screenshot of the mods I'm using, and the game's settings, and my starting position, as well as the first turn save.

Now, on to the game!

 

[noto2]

We begin our first game with Rome. We're inland, riverside, with 2 wet wheat, 2 salt, and cattle. This is honestly my first roll It's a great start for Rome because I can head up to Bronze Working, passing mining on the way to reveal iron, and unlocking the salt. This is important to me because I've lost Rome games before simply because I didn't reveal iron soon enough.

 

[noto2]

Can't forget the T0 save

 

[stormtrooper412]

I understand Emperor in Acken's Mod is closer to Immortal in the base game, yes?

Liberty and use the finisher to GE Petra in your expo due south

 

[noto2]

Yeah I'd say Acken's mod increases difficulty by one level, that would be a fair assessment. The AI manages to attain much higher beaker and tourism output, is more competitive for wonders (by bulbing GS and then burning a GE to build one), and builds larger armies.

 

[noto2]

Turn 22 3120 BCE

And now the moment of truth – iron is revealed. So far luck is on my side, there are two 6iron spots nearby. I'll go for the one that is also close to incense. It seems I'm surrounded by desert. Desert Folklore would give me faith up to my eyeballs, and so is worth considering. Also, when I get that free GP from finishing Liberty I could try to rush-build Petra. We'll see. Keep in mind I'm planning on playing wide, so something like Machu Pichu would perhaps be a higher priority. It all depends.

Turn 40 2400 BCE

I'm going to need trapping or calendar to expand to a third city and have the happiness to pay for it. As soon as I get that, though, I'm headed for Iron Working to start training legions. I took the craftman pantheon for extra production in my cities. That, plus Liberty, plus the UA means that my cities will be extremely productive early on.

Turn 48 2080 BCE

I have three cities, and 6 iron. Soon I'll get Iron Working, I've got to handle my happiness problems first, though. Once I do get my legions, who will be my first target? I suppose I could hit Geneva first and get Mt. Sinai, then strike Babylon.

Turn 57 1720 BCE

Babylon is building cities right in my face. They will burn soon enough.

 

[noto2]

Turn 62 1520 BCE

Wow. Both Denmark and Babylon declared war on me. I actually have quite a few warriors and a couple of archers kicking around, but this is unfortunate timing. I'm still 12-13 turns away from Iron Working. I had to delay it to hook up luxuries.
So it looks like I'll be fighting a defensive war at first. I'll get my legions first, then build ballistae and march on Babylon. Mt. Sinai will have to wait.

 

[noto2]

Turn 75 1000 BCE

The bad news is, my science rate has stagnated thanks to losing gold and I'm only finishing Iron Working next turn. The good news is, I get IW next turn and can build legions. I'm going to finish Libery soon as well. I think I should burn a GE to build the Colossus, that should fix my budget problems. I can then start training legions in every city and march on Babylon and not stop until I've conquered it. Geneva will come next.

Turn 86 725 BCE

I took the Babylonian city on my border for the cotton it had. The tides of battle have turned in my favour and I now have an army of legions, soon to be backed up by ballistae. As I conquer, I need to keep my economy in mind and city specialization.
Because I'm busy with Babylon, Geneva is no longer a priority, which means that if I want a religion I need to build shrines wherever possible, which is what I have done. I hope it's enough.
Cumae has the Colossus and if I can grow its population, it will attract great trade routes. Still, I need a good coastal city for the Heroic Epic, and Cumae is my only one, at the moment. When I take Babylon, I'll capture an academy and the Hanging Gardens. It will make a great science city/GP farm. This could work out nicely. I can maximize Babylon's population, with food trade routes and whatnot, and build any wonders I'm pursuing there. Rome can then be free to build infrastructure, to maximize the UA. Cumae will then maximize hammer output as my military specialized city.
That gives me Rome for infrastructure, Cumae for military, and Babylon for science/GP. I can then develop my other cities with a mix of farms and trading posts for population/science, and gold. That would probably be the optimal strategy.

Turn 99 400 BCE

I took Babylon, and now I'm struggling with the happiness cap and budget balance again. My military upkeep is costly. Now what? Rome has no natural military advantage from its UA, like China or Japan. Its military power comes and goes with legions. I should continue to press the attack while I have a strong army, there's no reason to stop now. Morocco is the next logical target.
Morocco's cities aren't exactly enticing. I may keep the one with citrus in it, simply because I lack that resource, and then of course I'll keep the capital. As I said before, religious CS aren't particularly useful to me, so I could always conquer Wittenburg since my army is already close. Thing is, I believe I can only conquer one CS for free. The second CS I attack causes them all to become “wary” of me, which I don't want.
So I'll keep marching my legions, and aim for Morocco next. I'll need to build coliseums everywhere and build the Circus Maximus to handle the happy cap. My religion will come next, I suppose I'll adopt Piety for my second policy tree.

 

[noto2]

In Acken's mod, the Piety tree is more useful than in the base game. He hasn't changed the social policies drastically, but the major difference is that in the mod, there's a Piety policy that grants you +1 happiness per owned city with your religion, effectively giving you an extra +1 happy per city, if you spread your religion to it.

Given all these city states around me, I'm also tempted to take Patronage, but I think Piety is a more reliable bet. Given the state of my budget, I'm not sure when I'll have a substantial enough income to be constantly buying CS allies.

 

[Browd]

Moderator Action: Moved to Stories & Let's Plays forum.