mm21-The Art of War-Always

[Arathorn]

Luxury resources and rivers are critical for settling. Everything else is reasonably optional, as far as I'm concerned. I'll build a city to get the commerce bonus from a river or a new happiness resource every time. Other than that, it depends on my happy cap and whether I think the new city will be able to provide enough commerce and happiness to make up for everything it costs. That's a high hurdle, IMO.

Other than that, I agree with getting our section of the world up and running really well. We need more commerce, more science, more production, and more everything. We might also look at getting the new-found city-state on our side.

Arathorn

 

[ThERat]

I think we can't raze Dublin as it is a city state.

Good work to get our economy going. We should try and get research set to banking for the Forbidden palace as part of the expansion so we can get more cities = more money = more research.

Landings on other continents are never easy

 

[Methos]

In my personal games I tend tend to farm grass and hills that are next to a river and put trading posts on any grass that isn't. Unless anyone strongly rejects, that's my plan. Dublin I don't mind for the gold, but Hanoi doesn't have very good terrain, even though it has at least two gold within its city zone. If its possible, I'd prefer to puppet Dublin and raze Hanoi, though it sounds like we can't raze city states.

Edit: I'm actually tempted to annex Dublin, due to its terrain. Any rejections?

 

[Mark1031]

Don't forget if Hanoi has not declared on us then we can stay friends we needn't declare on them. I do the same with all river tiles farmed all off river trade posted for the civil service boost. And we definitely can;t raze city states so annex or puppet.

 

[Methos]

Turn 130 IT: Our chariot archer was bombarded and then overrun by a spear. One unit down.

Turn 131, 400 AD: Apparently city states heal very quickly, as it went from red to green and without our chariot archer, I don't believe we have the strength to take it. I run one sword up against it and get it back to yellow, but our other sword would be a costly attack and not worth it in my opinion. I bring other ranged units to Dublin.

Turn 132, 425 AD: I take Dublin with three swords and a GG. Due to the terrain, I decide to annex the city. Since we're at 0 I purchase a dyes tile and begin a plantation on it. I couldn't locate any dyes within our borders.

Turn 134, 475 AD: Nanjing is founded and begins work on a Work Boat. Our unhappiness is now at 4.



IT: Hanoi wants Monoco destroyed.

Turn 136, 520 AD: A GS is born.

We learn Engineering.

I stop at 540 AD as I'm not sure what to do at this point. I wouldn't mind learning Steel, a long with several other techs. I'm also not sure whether we should bulb a tech, start a GA, or settle it. I'm also not doing very good with building up happiness. I don't like maintenance buildings and tend to stay away from them, but it looks like that's the only thing we have to help out. Our cities aren't growing, but that's simply because we can't afford them too.

My SP games are always small empires, so I tend not to have problems with happiness. Meaning I never build the happiness buildings. Looks like I'll have to change that for large empires.

I'll go ahead and hand off here, if you don't mind.

 

[Arathorn]

Looks like it's colosseum building time. And markets and trading posts. 31 gpt looks good until you realize it's only abouut 10 colosseums or 40 happiness which won't sustain us long-term.

For techs, I think we need to get caravels out ASAP to find another foe. Our military isn't doing much good sitting around, though we should put a unit in each city to help with happiness since we have that social policy.

Lots still to do here. Early conquests are fairly easy. I'm finding in solo games that the Industrial Age often catches me unprepared.

Arathorn

 

[Ozbenno]

OK I'm up, will review save tonight and post a plan. Would say at this stage that GS is always better to bulb in Civ V so might have to hang on to it for a while for something good to bulb, will check that out. Otherwise I think just getting happy is the priority.

 

[ThERat]

As we now own the continent, there are a few things we have to decide.

1. do we beeline to astronomy and find the other continents?
2. do we want to preserve social policy points for the autocracy branch that let's us build many cities for 'free?
3. do we beeline for the forbidden palace to be able to expand?

I would do all those and stop expansion of cities at this moment. No units either until we find a foe and know where to go. Units will only cost us maintenance currently. Happiness buildings, of course paper makers everywhere. Markets as well.

 

[Arathorn]

I agree with ThERat. I would actually prioritize banking, not just for banking but for Forbidden Palace. We wil find the other contintents soon enough. After banking, I would at least get to Optics so we can discover other lands (befriending a city-state there might prove very beneficial).

Social policies, I'm not sure what to think. Honor is obviously important. We can probably do a fair bit of another branch. Is autocracy the way to go? Commerce so we can rule the seas? I really don't have much feel at this point.

I agree on no more units. Happiness buildings, cash buildings, even research buildings should be the main order of the day.

Arathorn

 

[Ozbenno]

OK will play tonight, prioritise economy, happiness and head for Banking.

 

[ThERat]

It's the honor branch of social policies that let's us build more cities, correct. Autocracy is good for the very first part of decreasing unit support by 33%, that's really a lot if you fight a AW game.

My fault to mix them up.

 

[Ozbenno]

No screenshots as there is little to report. Played 11 turns of not much at all.

Went along the Banking path, Theology reseasrched and Education 1t from completion, we then need Chivalry and Banking. We have a GS still, so can maybe use him for banking or Astronomy (later).

Our happiness situation is quite improved, with wines being hooked up and a courthouse and colosseum being built we are in the positive.

The workers are running out of things to do, so I bought some tiles to work. I think every city is hooked up to the trade network now.

Finances are pretty good, big positive cash flow.

Will be another quiet couple of sets until we have Astronomy and can start exploring.

Arathorn is UP.

 

[ThERat]

I would use the scientist for banking, start the FP while going for astronomy. With caravels, we can find natural wonders as well for added happiness.

Are we now preserving our culture for the industrial age policies. Reduced unit maintenance and of course communism are very good for that. In that case, I would suggest to not found more cities until we got those.

 

[Arathorn]

Techs: Completed Education, learned Chivalry, GS'd Banking, and working on Optics. Forbidden Palace is quite expensive, but our best wonder-producing city (Shanghai) is working on it. Still 35 turns from completion, but that might drop with a bit of growth and some other tiles coming into play.

Military actions: Destroyed a couple barbarian camps for no experience. Moved around a few units to garrison a few more cities to maximize happiness benefits from garrison units. I left an archer in the south, where some barb triremes have been playing peek-a-boo.

Workers: Not much to do, so I sent a couple out to sea to explore. One found a cultural city-state (Monaco) and got us 30 gold, so noone else has met them. Might as well keep them out now, since we have so few tiles to improve.

Culture: We have very low production. Social policies are going to be hard to come by unless we start building more.

Happiness: We're doing great. Long ways from a GA, though. Even at +19 happiness.



ThERat is UP.

Arathorn

 

[Ozbenno]

We could put some money towards bribing Monaco to get some extra culture going.

 

[ThERat]

got it

yes, how about getting Monaco allied to receive some culture boost?

 

[ThERat]

most uneventful 10 turns

sailed around with workers a bit, finished few buildings, started 2 mints
we can grab one social policy now, but I suggest we save it for later to take the order branch

Allied with Monaco though for more culture and later met Brussels for another 30gold. The workers discovering the new city state were taken out by a barb boat though.

Astronomy is due next turn and I guess we can sail the world then with some caravels. Happiness is still great as we get cotton from Monaco

Are we beelining for the industrial age first ignoring the lower branch of techs or do we head for gunpowder?

 

[Arathorn]

Once we meet other civilizations, we're going to have to go back to war. I didn't check demographics, but I'm guessing our military is not particularly impressive at this point. We really should go back to at least some fous on building units. We can build knights now, which are pretty good and should be nice for roving defense and barb killing.

But I think we really need steel for longswords directly after Astronomy. Longswords are generally better than muskets and since we have plenty of iron.... Getting cho-ko-nu going (not sure what tech off the top of my head) would also seem to make a lot of sense to me.

Arathorn

 

[Mark1031]

Preturn: Everything looks good and we are humming along nicely. I decided to annex London because it's building a stupid armory and ex-capitals are just too nice to leave as puppets. We certainly have the happiness for it.

Turn 171: we get astronomy start research on machinery which is the tech that allows Cho ko Nos

Turn 172: I begin exploring and then realize that we are holding onto three general's and in a building phase so I decide to start a golden age. 8-turns. Everybody goes to max production. Shanghai is starving to finish the forbidden Palace. Purchase a workshop there to help things along.

Turn 174: meet Budapest-militaristic

Turn 176: meet Kuala Lampur-cultural

Turn 177: machinery is in and I start steel. But then I changed my mind and switch to acoustics. If we want to make this fun with nice civic policies we should build some culture and probably try for that wonder that ups culture in every city. You may argue with this but really I wouldn't try landings too soon and it would help to have some decent naval support. I favor taking it slow and building up some culture so we can have optimal civics.

Turn 178: finally one of our dog paddling workers swims up to the shores of the new continent and meets....

Spoiler :

Alexander the great. We have nothing but contempt for old Alexander and declare war immediately. He responds by beheading poor Michael Phelps our intrepid swimming explorer.

Turn 179: meet Copenhagen-Maritime.

Nothing too exciting happened although I burned a golden age. We were listed as second in number of techs but I lost the screenshot. I am building the porcelain tower in Beijing. With a couple of scientists we could tech up to rifles along the lower path pretty quickly. Rifles backed up by two shot cho-ko-nus would be pretty unstoppable in the near term.

Our Economy and such:

Spoiler :

 

[Mark1031]

Roster update.

Mark1031
Methos UP
Ozbenno ON DECK
Arathorn
ThERat