Portugal - Archipelago - Brave New World
Game parameters:-
Expansions:-
Gods and Kings
Brave New World
Mods:-
R.E.D. graphics and extreme
Civ 2 throne room
Reforestation
City limits
Coloured religious icons
Setup:-
Size: Large
Map: Random
Leader: Random
Speed: Marathon
Difficulty: King
Civ's: 7
City States: 14
Game generated:-
Map generated: Archipelago
Civ given: Portugal
Civ's in play:-
The Maya
Germany
Venice
Arabia
Persia
Japan
I am Maria, and I rule Portugal, well, this one city located on an island with only enough room for a second city. Seems a waste of time to build a scout when your home island is only 13 hexes wide and 4 deep, but that's what happens when at the time you don't know you live on an island.
The first thing that is noticeable is that the turns seem to take longer. This gives me a feeling of greater depth and of a fuller, more rounded game.
I choose the tradition route, and this was later to prove the best route (more later),and set-up about building workers, shrines, and another city. Eventually I get to build a trireme and off I go scouting out other lands. I rush for optics once I can build the basic mines, pastures, plantations, etc, so I can build new cities, but also, so my scout can nab an ruins nearby. While doing this, I also notice my second city - Porto is lacking in growth. So I build a road, which seems to take longer in BNW, but once built, I start throwing food from Lisbon, my capital, to Porto. This is food caravanning was to go on from Lisbon to Porto for about 600 turns, stopping when Porto was around population 15.
If playing on a map where you have at least two cities and not met anyone, then linking the two and using an internal caravan can be a great boost in the early game.
The next 100 turns is spent with me, sending my two triremes out scouting, wondering where the other 6 civs and 14 city states are...no really, where were they? Still, my other two tactics were in play. I paired a trireme and scout so that whenever a ruin was spotted I could run in and find stuff, while the trireme sunk barbarians in boats that would have eaten my scout. My other tactic was to locate resources. Cutting to the chase I emptied around ten ruins and had my scout upgraded to archers. I also found gold, salt, copper, etc, but always only one luxury resource per island. During these travels I at last met other civs and city states.
My next tactic was to build a new city on every island with a new luxury resource. In the end I had every resource on the map, expect for whales. Jewellery and porcelain where available through the city states. I set-up my sea trade, and being Portugal, have resource diversity bonus, so my tactic of seeking out resources was sound. As we approach AD I have the lowest score on known civs, and in the end-game graphs, I indeed did have the lowest score at that point. Amusingly by this point I had completed tradition and been forced into taking piety. Turns out building the Oracle before advancing past the first four polices (tradition, liberty, honour, piety) can be a bit dumb.
Remember:
1) Portugal - resource diversity bonus. The more resources you have available to you, will mean you will earn more gold when trading with other nations.
2)The Oracle which gives a free policy, can lead to picking a second social policy from the starter four if you haven't opened up the next batch and have completed your first policy.
I now have around 6 cities and happiness is starting to become a problem. My ratio is currently 1 luxury resource per city, so I need to get the appropriate technology and buildings. Money is not a problem, my sea trade is keeping me comfortable. For a good few hundred turns happiness is my concern.
It's around turn 500 and not one fight, major or minor has broken out. So this is what the forum is talking about...okay, let's carry on...
My first international situation occurs. I settle a city near German lands...well, there was a fur resource I didn't have, and a natural wonder. German sends some military units over to walk around me...
Hmm, I don't want to go to war with Germany as I want to expand into other lands...how to handle this...
At this point I have started to pick up points and I am now 3rd in the points on civs I have met. So...
1) Defensive pact with Japan and Arabia
2) Trade with Germany. Whenever I have to re-schedule a cargo ship...it goes to Germany...
By trading with Germany I am giving Germany a reason to not attack me. I have 3 cargo ships and always at least 2 going to Germany.
It's tense, but Japan goes and declares war on Germany, and Persia asks me to join in on an attack on Germany..."Give me ten turns." I say...
Before Persia asks again, Japan and Germany are at peace...when Persia asks if I am ready, I tell Persia I have changed my mind...Persia never forgets this...
For 1000 turns Persia never forgave me for backing out of a fight...sheesh...
The thing is here, Germany has the most points...is the most scientifically advanced...and I'm giving it more money...although I am getting a little science back in return.
Eventually I get to my Feitoria ability, and quickly rush over to a city-state to build one.
Feitoria's will give you a copy of the resource that city state has, cannot be built on resources, but can be built on other improved tiles. In return the city state gets a +50% defence bonus in that tile...and loses whatever improvement that may have been there.
Except, it then hits me...Venice...
Venice likes, no, not just likes, but "really" likes to turn city states into puppets...
Irrationality starts to seep into my mind...war! Colombo was turned into a puppet and had two resources, one of which was porcelain, and now I can't build a Feitoria there as it's no longer a city state, but part of the Venetian empire.
You can't build a Feitoria in a city state that has become part of the Venetian empire.
However, the rational part of my brain is grabbing my attention and pointing at both Germany, and at the oceans...amphibious assault...bleah! I had mostly ruled our domination when I realised the map type.
I bide my time at nurse my happiness...as it is I'm sometimes having to buy a colosseum or circus just to keep my nation happy. The other nations are sparse in luxury resources, with only Arabia having two silver, for which his price is just plain ridiculous.
Then something amusing happens...Venice, which has been controlling the world congress wants to embargo Germany...um...sure. Except I chicken out in saying yes...I don't say no, but I don't say yes.
Embargo against Germany passed. Brilliant!
The fluctuations in happiness continue and I now have eight cities and have completed piety and commenced on the exploration policy. As soon as I get to archaeology I make a load of archaeologists and promptly set about annoying every other nation by digging up any sites I can get to.
To set up an archaeology site within another empire, you will need the open borders policy...and after you have dug up an artefact or two in their country, you can expect them to withdraw that policy and to not like you either.
Watching fives civs go from friendly to guarded is a cause of worry, so I quickly schedule my cargo ships to visit the other 4 civs in an effort not to get an embargo placed upon me, talking of which...
The next world congress and Venice seeks an embargo on..........Arabia...
I don't vote for the embargo, but I don't vote against it either...where is the social policy marked coward?
By this stage I have the strongest economy, and with Germany and Arabia embargoed, the world economy goes into a slump. A quick check on other civs finances and yep, they're all having a miserable time...except me...as I now have 10 cities and 10 different luxury resources, along with Feitoria's in other city states.
Yet Germany is still the highest rank Civ with the most points, followed by me...there is not much in it, but I never seem to be closing the gap...then I see something...
A german cargo ship waddles past my capital. It's filled with goodies and going to Kiev, a city state.
An embargo against a Civ does not stop that Civ trading with city states.
And then a rather evil plan enters my mind.
I have got a lot, and I mean a lot of gold, around 40,00...as I'm trading with Persia, Japan, Venice and Maya. I take that gold, and basically buy every city state that has become Venetian, of which there is 9 left. As the voting for congress leader begins, I pile all votes on me...and amusingly, every Civ voted for itself...so I became leader...and proposed...
Embargo city-states...
And do you know what...it actually passed, because Venice had also tried to enact something or other, which split the vote and let me get what I wanted...
So, that's
Embargo Germany
Embargo Arabia
Embargo City-states
Maya only has 3 cities, eventually 1
Japan and Persia are lingering in the points
So that should be just me and Venice in the running.
But no, Germany is still ahead of me on points.
I should mention at this point there had been numerous wars...but all seemingly trifling, but then again this was an archipelago map. I settled an island (taking my cities to 12), and see Arabia settle to the north of me. Arabia later lost this city to Venice.
Germany reaches a tenet first and picks order. I reach second and due to my mass archaeological theft, I choose freedom. To me this made sense, for I was steering clear of war at all costs and was aware that my tourism factor was better than anyone elses.
My first two freedom tenets, (two as I got there first), were capitalism and civil society. Which meant +1 happiness per financial centre and specialists consume half the food. My happiness immediately picked up, giving me breathing room, but not enough to build hospitals, and because I had specialists consuming half food, I could allocate more specialists...and it wasn't long until I got to the end of my natural cultural cycle and took universal suffrage, which halves unhappiness from specialists.
Within 30 turns I had gone from happiness of zero to thirty-five. I made two more cities. I overtook Germany in points.
When it came to further tenets, I picked urbanization (+ happiness from granary, water-mill, aqueduct and hospital), Avant Garde (+25% great person generation) and Media Culture (+33% culture from broadcast tower)
With the freedom tree cherry picked, I moved onto aesthetics, and here I was able to boost happiness even more, until with 12 cities having all happiness buildings, I was running at 70...yep, 70 happiness...golden age time...
It's obvious a lot of thought and design has gone into BNW, and if you take the time to plan and take your social policies, you can really synergize...I can't stress the synergy aspect enough.
Yet, this was for one purpose...tourism, as I had nicked so many artefacts. Japan was in the 130%+ area and what was really helping here, was that my reformation ability from the piety tree (the one I had essentially been forced to pick), had led to me picking up the ability to use faith to buy any great person...bonus! So I was using faith to buy great artists/musicans/writers, with engineers for wonders and scientists for tech.
Expect here I notice that Japan for hundreds of turns was in discontent, then civil unrest, and wasn't changing to Freedom. In fact, only me and Arabia, also freedom, were content. This part of the game seemed slightly broken, because 100 turns with at least -20 unhappiness should have seen Japan give up autocracy and turn freedom...but it didn't...
Keep an eye through the culture panel on other civs who are having civil unrest and should be adopting a new tenet. This seemed broken in my game. If problems are occurring it would be nice to get them fixed.
How could do all this without being attacked? I had built 4 units per city, AA, Bomber, destroyer and artillery/MG/infantry. My military might through my trade meant I kept other Civs at bay. I was running around +250gold per turn with that set-up and whenever an election came up I bribed all the city states so I went in with 26 votes, to everybody's 4 (Venice on 8)
Anyway, I then ran up the tech tree to internet and globalisation and around turn 1400 I had my diplomats able to vote...so I voted I should be world leader...and won.
Overall, I felt the game was more interesting and longer, and there was a lot of battles...I saw King Tigers attacking one city...and I saw Bombers getting shot down over another...there was lots of battles, going on but I my goal was not to fight, and I achieved that...though it did take defensive pacts, trade, and a military force of my own to achieve that.
Polices adopted and completed:
Tradition
Piety
Exploration
Aesthetics
Tenet adopted: Freedom
Final Happiness: 70
Final tourism: 1024
Game parameters:-
Expansions:-
Gods and Kings
Brave New World
Mods:-
R.E.D. graphics and extreme
Civ 2 throne room
Reforestation
City limits
Coloured religious icons
Setup:-
Size: Large
Map: Random
Leader: Random
Speed: Marathon
Difficulty: King
Civ's: 7
City States: 14
Game generated:-
Map generated: Archipelago
Civ given: Portugal
Civ's in play:-
The Maya
Germany
Venice
Arabia
Persia
Japan
I am Maria, and I rule Portugal, well, this one city located on an island with only enough room for a second city. Seems a waste of time to build a scout when your home island is only 13 hexes wide and 4 deep, but that's what happens when at the time you don't know you live on an island.
The first thing that is noticeable is that the turns seem to take longer. This gives me a feeling of greater depth and of a fuller, more rounded game.
I choose the tradition route, and this was later to prove the best route (more later),and set-up about building workers, shrines, and another city. Eventually I get to build a trireme and off I go scouting out other lands. I rush for optics once I can build the basic mines, pastures, plantations, etc, so I can build new cities, but also, so my scout can nab an ruins nearby. While doing this, I also notice my second city - Porto is lacking in growth. So I build a road, which seems to take longer in BNW, but once built, I start throwing food from Lisbon, my capital, to Porto. This is food caravanning was to go on from Lisbon to Porto for about 600 turns, stopping when Porto was around population 15.
If playing on a map where you have at least two cities and not met anyone, then linking the two and using an internal caravan can be a great boost in the early game.
The next 100 turns is spent with me, sending my two triremes out scouting, wondering where the other 6 civs and 14 city states are...no really, where were they? Still, my other two tactics were in play. I paired a trireme and scout so that whenever a ruin was spotted I could run in and find stuff, while the trireme sunk barbarians in boats that would have eaten my scout. My other tactic was to locate resources. Cutting to the chase I emptied around ten ruins and had my scout upgraded to archers. I also found gold, salt, copper, etc, but always only one luxury resource per island. During these travels I at last met other civs and city states.
My next tactic was to build a new city on every island with a new luxury resource. In the end I had every resource on the map, expect for whales. Jewellery and porcelain where available through the city states. I set-up my sea trade, and being Portugal, have resource diversity bonus, so my tactic of seeking out resources was sound. As we approach AD I have the lowest score on known civs, and in the end-game graphs, I indeed did have the lowest score at that point. Amusingly by this point I had completed tradition and been forced into taking piety. Turns out building the Oracle before advancing past the first four polices (tradition, liberty, honour, piety) can be a bit dumb.
Remember:
1) Portugal - resource diversity bonus. The more resources you have available to you, will mean you will earn more gold when trading with other nations.
2)The Oracle which gives a free policy, can lead to picking a second social policy from the starter four if you haven't opened up the next batch and have completed your first policy.
I now have around 6 cities and happiness is starting to become a problem. My ratio is currently 1 luxury resource per city, so I need to get the appropriate technology and buildings. Money is not a problem, my sea trade is keeping me comfortable. For a good few hundred turns happiness is my concern.
It's around turn 500 and not one fight, major or minor has broken out. So this is what the forum is talking about...okay, let's carry on...
My first international situation occurs. I settle a city near German lands...well, there was a fur resource I didn't have, and a natural wonder. German sends some military units over to walk around me...
Hmm, I don't want to go to war with Germany as I want to expand into other lands...how to handle this...
At this point I have started to pick up points and I am now 3rd in the points on civs I have met. So...
1) Defensive pact with Japan and Arabia
2) Trade with Germany. Whenever I have to re-schedule a cargo ship...it goes to Germany...
By trading with Germany I am giving Germany a reason to not attack me. I have 3 cargo ships and always at least 2 going to Germany.
It's tense, but Japan goes and declares war on Germany, and Persia asks me to join in on an attack on Germany..."Give me ten turns." I say...
Before Persia asks again, Japan and Germany are at peace...when Persia asks if I am ready, I tell Persia I have changed my mind...Persia never forgets this...
For 1000 turns Persia never forgave me for backing out of a fight...sheesh...
The thing is here, Germany has the most points...is the most scientifically advanced...and I'm giving it more money...although I am getting a little science back in return.
Eventually I get to my Feitoria ability, and quickly rush over to a city-state to build one.
Feitoria's will give you a copy of the resource that city state has, cannot be built on resources, but can be built on other improved tiles. In return the city state gets a +50% defence bonus in that tile...and loses whatever improvement that may have been there.
Except, it then hits me...Venice...
Venice likes, no, not just likes, but "really" likes to turn city states into puppets...
Irrationality starts to seep into my mind...war! Colombo was turned into a puppet and had two resources, one of which was porcelain, and now I can't build a Feitoria there as it's no longer a city state, but part of the Venetian empire.
You can't build a Feitoria in a city state that has become part of the Venetian empire.
However, the rational part of my brain is grabbing my attention and pointing at both Germany, and at the oceans...amphibious assault...bleah! I had mostly ruled our domination when I realised the map type.
I bide my time at nurse my happiness...as it is I'm sometimes having to buy a colosseum or circus just to keep my nation happy. The other nations are sparse in luxury resources, with only Arabia having two silver, for which his price is just plain ridiculous.
Then something amusing happens...Venice, which has been controlling the world congress wants to embargo Germany...um...sure. Except I chicken out in saying yes...I don't say no, but I don't say yes.
Embargo against Germany passed. Brilliant!
The fluctuations in happiness continue and I now have eight cities and have completed piety and commenced on the exploration policy. As soon as I get to archaeology I make a load of archaeologists and promptly set about annoying every other nation by digging up any sites I can get to.
To set up an archaeology site within another empire, you will need the open borders policy...and after you have dug up an artefact or two in their country, you can expect them to withdraw that policy and to not like you either.
Watching fives civs go from friendly to guarded is a cause of worry, so I quickly schedule my cargo ships to visit the other 4 civs in an effort not to get an embargo placed upon me, talking of which...
The next world congress and Venice seeks an embargo on..........Arabia...
I don't vote for the embargo, but I don't vote against it either...where is the social policy marked coward?
By this stage I have the strongest economy, and with Germany and Arabia embargoed, the world economy goes into a slump. A quick check on other civs finances and yep, they're all having a miserable time...except me...as I now have 10 cities and 10 different luxury resources, along with Feitoria's in other city states.
Yet Germany is still the highest rank Civ with the most points, followed by me...there is not much in it, but I never seem to be closing the gap...then I see something...
A german cargo ship waddles past my capital. It's filled with goodies and going to Kiev, a city state.
An embargo against a Civ does not stop that Civ trading with city states.
And then a rather evil plan enters my mind.
I have got a lot, and I mean a lot of gold, around 40,00...as I'm trading with Persia, Japan, Venice and Maya. I take that gold, and basically buy every city state that has become Venetian, of which there is 9 left. As the voting for congress leader begins, I pile all votes on me...and amusingly, every Civ voted for itself...so I became leader...and proposed...
Embargo city-states...
And do you know what...it actually passed, because Venice had also tried to enact something or other, which split the vote and let me get what I wanted...
So, that's
Embargo Germany
Embargo Arabia
Embargo City-states
Maya only has 3 cities, eventually 1
Japan and Persia are lingering in the points
So that should be just me and Venice in the running.
But no, Germany is still ahead of me on points.
I should mention at this point there had been numerous wars...but all seemingly trifling, but then again this was an archipelago map. I settled an island (taking my cities to 12), and see Arabia settle to the north of me. Arabia later lost this city to Venice.
Germany reaches a tenet first and picks order. I reach second and due to my mass archaeological theft, I choose freedom. To me this made sense, for I was steering clear of war at all costs and was aware that my tourism factor was better than anyone elses.
My first two freedom tenets, (two as I got there first), were capitalism and civil society. Which meant +1 happiness per financial centre and specialists consume half the food. My happiness immediately picked up, giving me breathing room, but not enough to build hospitals, and because I had specialists consuming half food, I could allocate more specialists...and it wasn't long until I got to the end of my natural cultural cycle and took universal suffrage, which halves unhappiness from specialists.
Within 30 turns I had gone from happiness of zero to thirty-five. I made two more cities. I overtook Germany in points.
When it came to further tenets, I picked urbanization (+ happiness from granary, water-mill, aqueduct and hospital), Avant Garde (+25% great person generation) and Media Culture (+33% culture from broadcast tower)
With the freedom tree cherry picked, I moved onto aesthetics, and here I was able to boost happiness even more, until with 12 cities having all happiness buildings, I was running at 70...yep, 70 happiness...golden age time...
It's obvious a lot of thought and design has gone into BNW, and if you take the time to plan and take your social policies, you can really synergize...I can't stress the synergy aspect enough.
Yet, this was for one purpose...tourism, as I had nicked so many artefacts. Japan was in the 130%+ area and what was really helping here, was that my reformation ability from the piety tree (the one I had essentially been forced to pick), had led to me picking up the ability to use faith to buy any great person...bonus! So I was using faith to buy great artists/musicans/writers, with engineers for wonders and scientists for tech.
Expect here I notice that Japan for hundreds of turns was in discontent, then civil unrest, and wasn't changing to Freedom. In fact, only me and Arabia, also freedom, were content. This part of the game seemed slightly broken, because 100 turns with at least -20 unhappiness should have seen Japan give up autocracy and turn freedom...but it didn't...
Keep an eye through the culture panel on other civs who are having civil unrest and should be adopting a new tenet. This seemed broken in my game. If problems are occurring it would be nice to get them fixed.
How could do all this without being attacked? I had built 4 units per city, AA, Bomber, destroyer and artillery/MG/infantry. My military might through my trade meant I kept other Civs at bay. I was running around +250gold per turn with that set-up and whenever an election came up I bribed all the city states so I went in with 26 votes, to everybody's 4 (Venice on 8)
Anyway, I then ran up the tech tree to internet and globalisation and around turn 1400 I had my diplomats able to vote...so I voted I should be world leader...and won.
Overall, I felt the game was more interesting and longer, and there was a lot of battles...I saw King Tigers attacking one city...and I saw Bombers getting shot down over another...there was lots of battles, going on but I my goal was not to fight, and I achieved that...though it did take defensive pacts, trade, and a military force of my own to achieve that.
Polices adopted and completed:
Tradition
Piety
Exploration
Aesthetics
Tenet adopted: Freedom
Final Happiness: 70
Final tourism: 1024
