[BTS] Nobles' Club 188 - Genghis Khan of Mongolia

[elitetroops]

The Nobles' Club series started out as a way for Noble-level (and below) players to improve their game. Most of the original participants now play at much higher levels, so this has become a way for advanced players to help others learn to play better. You can play your own game at any level and with any mod, but it would be nice to comment on the games of other players and give them advice.

Our next leader is Genghis Khan of The Mongols, whom we last played in NC CXLV. We last played the Mongolia with Kublai Khan in NC CLII. The Mongols start with The Wheel and Hunting.

• Traits: Genghis Khan is Aggressive and Imperialistic.
• The UB: The Ger, a Stable with 2 extra XP points to mounted units compared to normal Stable, which means +4XP to every new Mounted unit. This has a good synergy with the Mongolian UU..
  
  
• The UU: The Keshik, a Horse Archer with one first strike that ignores terrain movement costs. Unlike Horse Archers, Keshiks lack immunity to first strikes, but its own first strike cancels an unpromoted archer's base first strike. HAs are usually great for early warfare. An improved HA is awesome! Top tier UU. Synergizes well with the UB..
  

And the start:

Spoiler map details :

Tectonics, rocky climate.

Spoiler edits :

Changed a mountain to a hill to open up a passage through a ridge.

Finally, a cut and paste of our standard doctrine:

There are no hard and fast rules here. Fun and learning are our primary goals, but we do suggest that you update your progress at various points in the game, using the Spoiler feature of the boards. You can post as often as you like; here's one suggestion:

• 4000 BC (starting thoughts, no spoiler required for that discussion)
• 1000 BC or so (how you decided to progress up the early tech/build paths, which AIs you have met, where you're thinking of putting cities, etc)
• 500 AD or so (after establishing some cities and a possible plan of action)
• 1200 AD or so (mid-game, Lib race, wars or peace, or whichever happened or didn't, met other
• continent if applicable, etc)
• 1600 AD (or when you have decided on a course of action and a specific victory condition)
• End of game (Victory!!! or defeat, no shame in losing, especially if you tried a higher level. Learning is what we focus on, not fastest win or biggest empire)

The WB-saves are attached (zipped; they are bigger than standard saves). To play, simply download and unzip it into your BTS/Saves/WorldBuilder folder. Start the game, and load your favorite MOD (if you use one, if not, check out the BUG MOD), select "Play Scenario", and look for "NC_188_Genghis Khan_Noble" (or Monarch, etc., for higher levels). You can play with your favorite MOD at the Level and Speed of your choice. From Quick-Warlord to Marathon-Deity, all are welcome! We stuck with the name "Nobles Club" because it has a cool ring to it.

Spoiler what's up with specific difficulties :

In each scenario file you can select your level of difficulty, but that doesn't give the AI the right bonus techs by itself. Use the Noble save for all levels at and below Prince. The Monarch save gives all the AI Archery. Emperor adds Hunting; Immortal adds Agriculture; Deity adds The Wheel.

For players on Monarch or above, you should add archery as a tech for the barbarians (if you don't, the AI will capture their cities very early). This cannot be done in the WB save file and must be done in Worldbuilder as follows:

Spoiler how to add techs to the barbarians :

1. Zoom in all the way so you can't see the rest of the map.
2. Use the CTRL-W key (or the menu) to enter the worldbuilder. Avoid looking at the mini-map in the lower right corner.
3. By default you're in "player" mode (look in the box in the upper right; the icon that looks like a person should be selected). You'll get a drop down menu labeled with your leader's name. Barbarians are at the bottom, so cover the rest of the list with your hand if you don't want to see who else is on the map. Select "Barbarians".
4. Select the "Technologies" tab in the box on the left.
5. Find Archery (the arrow head icon; 8th row, 3rd column from the right) and click it.
6. Exit the worldbuilder.
7. Zoom out again after the map fades, and start playing.

Spoiler huts and events :

Note: The standard saves have no huts and have events turned off. If you want tribal villages and random events, choose the saves with "Huts" in their names. If you want huts but no events, select the Huts saves and use Custom Scenario to turn on the option that suppresses events.

 

[elitetroops]

Reserved.

 

[elementoffear]

thisgonbegood.gif

 

[lymond]

hmm..corn is dry and may be difficult/impossible to ever irrigate it...might be eenteresting to settle on it and go straight to AH, where we will get the horses elite so kindly placed 2E of corn.

 

[Xpl]

Going to play on Emperor again. I find it a nice balance that is comfortably difficult. Standard NHNE as always.

T0 thoughts.

Moved scout 1SE to see more of the southern coastline since it looks like we're on the western end of an island. I like a good chance to settle on dry corn as lymond pointed out. A 3F capital is our ghetto plains hill that we can even move onto same turn! Since it seems the coastline south thins, maybe it is impossible to irrigate?
Teching Fishing is annoying, but it feels like this could be some strings of islands to make GLH worthwhile. No idea how many worker turns it would take to even get to the cows, making me hesistant slightly about setlting the corn. Either way settling corn picks up the cows and another grassland river tile, so that's what I went with.

Spoiler :

Scout revealed sugar 1E of pigs which would have been better to settle on if it didn't miss the cows and take another turn. Settling revealed jungle dyes and spices NW and NE respectively. Looks like potentially the start of another island SW and a plains river system east. If there are multiple small islands, will consider GLH. 2nd city eastwards seems odds on.

 

[elitetroops]

Interesting. I briefly thought about settling on corn, but never seriously considered it. Will be interesting to see how that plays out for you guys!

I'm not gonna go into too much detail about my own game yet, but I can tell you I did

Spoiler :

mine the Pig!!

 

[InovA]

I've been giving this a LOT of thought on where to settle. I'm glad others are choosing different options so I know it's not an easy pick. I'll be playing Immortal NHNE, and from first glance I was considering 4 different options:
(And forgive me if I'm off by a turn or two, was very tired during most of the math. Some overflow may have been in my notes, but not included here)

Spoiler SIP: Agg -> AH :

T10 - Agg
T15 - Worker
T20 - Farm
T22 - AH
T22 - Pop²

From here you can either go for Fishing or straight for Mining + BW

If Mining path:
T26 - Pasture
T26 - Pop³ : Settler production
T30 - Mining
T34 - Settler
T42 - Settler
T46 - BW

If Fishing path:
T26 - Pasture
T26 - Pop³
T28 - Fishing : Possibly go Sailing here, but Mining -> BW expected
T29 - Pop⁴
T33 - Boat : (If T32, Pop⁵ should be T34)
T33 - Pop⁵ : Settler production
T34 - Clams
T36 - Mining
T39 - Settler
T45 - Settler
T46 - BW

IMO the Fishing path looks better, the +2 commerce with clams is hooked up since T34, but the worker is idling for another 5 turns than the Mining path, where it could begin working a tile for the 2nd city and only have maybe 10 - 14 total idle turns.

PROs:

• Straight-Forward
• Keeps the corn
• A good long-term city location
• Gets the small additional 2 per turn bonus when researching AH, due to having Agriculture + Hunting. (x1.4 modifier instead of x1.2 modifier for prerequisite techs)
• Fishing path is already at size 5 (though a warrior needs to stay if you don't want )
• Possible city can be placed 1W of cows

CONs:

• Idle Worker for over 10 turns is guaranteed
• Can't improve nearby tiles until BW finishes (other than Corn + Pig)
• Only 2 Capital
• Can be slow to generate
• Settlers (T39 / T45) come at an average time

Spoiler SIP: Fishing :

T7 - Fishing
T8 - Pop²
T14 - Work Boat
T15 - Clams
T17 - Agg
T24 - Worker
T27 - AH : Tech from here can vary
T29 - Pop³ : Settler Production
T29 - Farm
T34 - Pasture
T38 - Settler
T46 - Settler

Note: If after T8 you choose to rush up to size 3, then focus on work boat production, then worker production, OR if you rush to size 3 after T14, then focus on worker production, it reaches roughly the same outcome by T29 but doesn't have the farm finished. Staying size 2 longer comes out ahead by a mile.

PROs:

• Straight-Forward
• Keeps the corn
  
• A good long-term city location
• Gets the small additional 2 per turn bonus when researching AH, due to having Agriculture + Hunting. (x1.4 modifier instead of x1.2 modifier for prerequisite techs)
• Gets faster hooked up
• Possible city can be placed 1W of cows

CONs:

• Idle Worker for over 10 turns is guaranteed
• Can't improve nearby tiles until BW finishes (other than Corn + Pig)
• Settlers (T38 / T46) come at an average time

Spoiler 1N: AH -> Fish/Mine :

Settling on the corn is tempting and proves to speed up the first few turns:
T12 - Worker
T14 - AH : From here you can go for Fishing or Mining paths

Fishing path:
T18 - Pasture - Now you make a gamble! Send the worker up around to the cows, should be about 10 turns to hook up, depending on terrain/barbs
T18 - Pop²
T20 - Fishing : Tech from here can vary, maybe pottery if the worker will stay north
T23 - Pop³
T26 - Boat
T28 - Pasture
T28 - Pop⁴ : Settler Production
T30 - Pottery
T34 - Settler
T34 - Cottage : Worker stays or leaves to improve 2nd city tiles
T39 - Settler
T39 - Cottage

Mining path:
T18 - Pasture
T18 - Pop²
T22 - Mining
T22 - Pop³ : Settler Production
T26 - Mine
T34 - Settler
T38 - BW
T42 - Settler

(Also possible to go 2nd worker at T22 and use both workers to double chop 3rd Settler. Settlers finish at T39 / T45 in this case)

PROs:

• Gets +1 in Capital at start
• Opens the green river hill to be improved before BW finishes
• Has potential for northern cottages to remedy possible weak economy
• Mining path has very fast BW, opening room for double worker - double chop build
• Settlers (T34 / T39) come out very fast
• 3 green river hills (other than pigs) makes for a great production capital

CONs:

• Loses corn as an improvable tile
• Risks a forest growing on the green river hill, eliminating the above PRO
• Fishing path risks losing worker to wolf/unseen barb or forces Scout to stand watch
• If southern area isn't a peninsula and has better looking land to settle, protecting northern cows + cottages can be difficult early on

Spoiler 1N: Fishing :

T7 - Fishing
T7 - Pop²
T13 - Boat
T14 - Clams
T20 - AH
T22 - Worker
T26 - Mining
T26 - Pop³ : Settler production here would only improve their speed by 2 and 1 turns, respectively
T27 - Pasture
T29 - Pop⁴ : Settler production
T32 - Mine
T36 - Settler
T40 - BW
T42 - Settler

(Can start 2nd worker on T29 and double chop 3rd settler)

PROs:

• Gets +1 in Capital at start
• Opens the green river hill to be improved before BW finishes
• Has potential for northern cottages to remedy possible weak economy
• Gets faster hooked up
• 3 green river hills (other than pigs) makes for a great production capital
• May be the strongest opening with zero risk: has fastest + from clams, has faster settlers from + capital, and has fast BW for early chopping

CONs:

• Loses corn as an improvable tile
• Risks a forest growing on the green river hill, eliminating the above PRO
• If southern area isn't a peninsula and has better looking land to settle, protecting northern cows + cottages can be difficult early on

After a while I began going mad and toyed with the idea of settling:

Spoiler 1W: Fishing :

Costs a turn, but hooks the boats up on the same turn as SIP: Fishing, ensures 4 early improved tiles, and will have the least idle worker turns (other than possibly 1N: AH -> Fishing path)

T8 - Fishing
T9 - Pop²
T15 - Boat
T15 - Clams
T17 - Agg
T25 - Worker
T27- AH
T30 - Farm
T30 - Pop³ : Settler production here would only improve their speed by 2 turns each - the goal of this settling location is to work 4 improved tiles ASAP
T34 - Mining
T34 - Pop⁴ : Settler production
T35 - Pasture
T40 - Mine
T41 - Settler
T48 - Settler
T48 - BW

PROs:

• Gets the small additional 2 per turn bonus when researching AH, due to having Agriculture + Hunting. (x1.4 modifier instead of x1.2 modifier for prerequisite techs)
• Gets faster hooked up
• Possible city can be placed 1E of cows (Now the east looks better than 1 west, due to revealed sugar no longer in capital)
• Opens the green river hill to be improved before BW, making for 4 improved tiles available
• 3 green river hills (other than pigs) makes for a great production capital

CONs:

• Loses a turn
• Has slightly slower settlers (T41 / T48)
• Risks a forest growing on the green river hill, eliminated the above PRO

Spoiler Conclusion :

I like elitetroops' idea of mining the pigs, the SIP strats should do better with that while skipping AH and going for faster BW or other tech, but settling the corn's strats seem to push you ahead enough that I don't want to do math on another type of opening.

[1N: AH -> Fishing] looks like the best strat, though risky!
[1N: Fishing] with the double worker - double chop strat is a close 2nd and gets a fast BW, which we gotta love.
All other strats feel about equal to me, other than [SIP: Agg -> AH -> Mining] where economy could be rough if we don't have good commerce tiles for our other cities.
I seriously like the 1W idea, but 1N seems to have a nice payoff.

I choose [1N: Fishing] because of the double worker - double chop along with faster +2!

Yeah, I know this was damned thorough (and possibly off), I'm trying to get a feel for the math and planning ahead of time, so this looked like as good of an opportunity as any!

 

[Fippy]

Well i know that fishing before worker or Agri / AH (depending what you pick with SIP or SoC) is by far the slowest, never go workboat first with clams when you have corn or pigs

 

[elitetroops]

Very nice analysis InovA!

Rather spoiler-free info about my attempts:

Spoiler :

When I pick a NC map, I usually do a quick run through the first 70-80 turns, just to get a feel for how the map and AI would work, and check that the starting position doesn't get stupendously boxed in or something like that. I did that this time as well, and found that this is a quite tricky start. After this initial test run I went back and played it with more thought, different tech path and so on. I felt the second attempt was much better, but as I arrived at t71 and compared with the first quick playthrough, I wasn't in a very much better position at all...

First time I opened AG-AH, then probably fishing and mining->BW. Second time I went AG-Mining-Fishing-BW-AH and mined the pig. Mining the pig is quite okay, especially for the settler pumping phase. As we are IMP, a mined pig produces just as many settler hammers as a pastured pig.

A bit more spoilery about first 70 turns:

Spoiler :

Big problem with this start is what to do with all the food. SIP has a huge amount of food which is not very easy to share with other cities, and happiness is hard to come by in the early game. Second playthrough I managed to place a city 1E of the cows visible in opening screenshot, which helped a bit with sharing food. But even with that city there, I find I can't work the corn a lot of the time. Hence settling on corn could be a rather decent choice.

PS. Worker isn't really idle whatever you do. At least you have The Wheel.

 

[elitetroops]

IMM NHNE t98

Spoiler :

Either I'm very rusty, or this map is quite tough.

SIP and opened with AG-Mining-Fish-BW-AH (mined the pig). First settler south to cow+corn and immediately chopped a workboat there for capitol fish. Second settler north of the large lake 1E of cows, third to wheat+horse. I really didn't want to settle this many cities, slows down teching to HBR so much, but still I had to settle a 5th city for ivory, as that was the only happiness available. Eventually got HBR, built some Keshiks and declared on Sal 550BC. 5 turns later I've taken his 2 good cities and took peace for alpha. Now at 7 cities and lose money at 0%... Okay, this won't last long, as soon as Mecca is out of revolt the shrine will get me into the positive. I have some reserves, but not quite enough to get me to Calendar. I really should have teched towards Calendar earlier, was a mistake to tech Aesthetics here.

My best bet is to keep my Keshik army moving. De Gaulle has the mids, and some gold mines in his capital. I want those badly! But he also has metals, at least one ugly copper that I know of. If I can get Paris and a couple of more cities from him, then the game is as good as won. The biggest problem here is happiness. With calendar and rep this empire would be awesome.

Ragnar is a bit of a problem. He has showed a red fist for quite a while already and he has a lot of units walking around. But it doesn't look like he is building a surprise stack for me.

Spoiler :

 

[Xpl]

Emperor NHNE 1AD

Spoiler :

First attempt with corn capital went AH-Mining-BW-Fishing etc. and settled Beshalik on the hill above the cows. Unfortunately Saladin settled where elite settled his Beshalik and the Hindu culture pressure flipped the cows, reducing the value of going AH first and leaving me with a useless second city.

By this time I was thinking of alternatives, when InovA posted their fantastic opening comparison. My issue with my first go was not getting my settler out fast enough to beat Saladin to the mountains between us. After seeing the 1N settle produced faster settlers, I decided to commit to this start fully. I was curious of this mined pigs; for the IMP bonus as elite pointed out. This gave me the idea of actually purusing GLH seriously, as we'll see. I also decided I wouldn't send my worker across the jungle to improve the cows, thus reducing the urgency of pottery since I would only have 1 grassland river tile to cottage if I stayed near the capital. All of this in mind, I show you my ridiculous opening: 1S: Mining/BW/Fishing/Sailing

T0: Settle 1N on corn, queue worker and mining.
T12: Worker finished, moves to pigs to mine. Warrior queued.
T17: Pigs mine finished, moved to hill settler spawned on.

The mine was interesting as it finished 2 warriors, which I don't think would have been completed due to the need for settlers, workers and work boats.

T18: Pop 2. Warrior later, sent south to reveal near Saladin's borders and coastline. Grow to pop 3 on second warrior.
T22: 2nd mine finished, road built after.
T23: Pop 3. 2nd warrior completed and sent east.

T24: BW complete, queue fishing. Worker is now 2S of capital, and builds road first before chopping. Revolt to slavery same turn.
T27: 2S now chopped and goes into settler.
T30: Settler completed, and moves south onto cows hill same turn. Overflow goes into 3 turn WB.

Revolting kind of preserved the production and let me line up fishing finishing the same turn the settler would come out, which was neat and took a while to get down.

T31: Beshalik founded, building a WB, working the cows.
T33: WB comes out of capital.
T34: Third mine is completed 1S of capital.
T39: 2nd worker finishes in capital and moves to river forest 2S of pigs. 1st worker roads pigs and 1S of sugar in preparation to settle to the east.
T41: Sailing finished. (...)
T42: Beshalik takes a mine and the capital switches to the clams now. The chop 2S of pigs to go into a galley at Beshalik (bear with me), and whipped for 1.
T43: Settler finishes in capital, jumps in galley at Beshalik and sails over to Saladin's border and settles straight on the PH east of the corn T46.

At this point I don't even know what I'm doing. I have 3 cities, 2 workers and a galley for some reason.

Capital queues a lighthouse while growing to 4, and Beshalik finishes the WB from earlier with the mine. The mine 1S of pigs is roaded as the chop 1S of sugar goes into the lighthouse. Both workers now road that tile, and start roading towards the east to speed up the 4th settler. Eventually, because...

T47: Capital grows to 4 and takes all 4 mines. Beshalik has to make do with a grassland forest while it waits for a new tile.
T49: Lighthouse finishes in capital.The galley is at the capital now, and 1 worker zips along the roads to jump in and sail over to the cows (finally). Other worker goes to Beshalik.
T50: 3rd settler is whipped in capital to be sent east. Next turn AH finishes with capital 2nd border pop. This grants Beshalik the fish and now it has food finally.

1 worker starts on the cows by Beshalik as the other worker north unloads. 3rd worker is built T56 and sent east.

At this point lighthouses and barracks are queued up as I wait for masonry. I don't want more units aside from 1 warrior because Beshalik can now grow to happy cap with fish and cows online. A lighthouse is whipped in Turfan all the way near Saladin and this gives a 3f2c tile to work along with corn, both of which I'll hopefully keep before the culture flips them. All remaining forests in cultural borders are chopped and sent to the capital for GLH. Workers are filtered over to Ning-hsia to connect horses for later. I really do question what I'm doing as I finish agriculture T65. It's all worth it I guess because...

T71 GLH finished in capital.



Not sure how this will play out, but now I'm encouraged to settle the rest of my cities coastal. Luckily my scout has revealed a lot of AI have settled coastal, so this will only snowball my economy through my eventual conquest. After this I didn't take much notes, but basically floundered around building wonders and walls as I really didn't want any more units. Forget about getting to HBR, I was struggling to get to pottery. Anyway I get some mids fail gold, finish pottery and build granaries everywhere for when I start whipping keshiks. With GLH, zip to HBR as Hinduism spreads through my cities from Turfan to the capital, prompting a switch for happiness and the desperate culture Turfan needs to keep its tiles. Unfortunately it couldn't get a border pop in time to deny the copper (which was a big reason for doing all this nonsense) as Saladin settled next to it. This was worrying as the spearmen and protective archers would ruin my day. Regardless, declared on Saladin 300BC/T103 with 9 keshiks sailed over in a fleet of galleys I built in the downtime.

From here Medina fell same turn, and the bulk of the stack then charged into Mecca with 1-2 looking for workers or a pick on Najran. Captured Najran, then healed stack in Mecca while scout made it's way through my galley system to pick GG and promote to super scout. Meanwhile, continually sending keshiks across, with a few going around the back to pillage and scout. Also Peter declared on me at somepoint, and I have no idea where he is. Thankfully Ragnar hasn't jumped into anything yet, which is the main concern. Damascus 1AD, followed by peace signed for alphabet and mysticism.

Working to calendar for happiness resources, then currency into probably CS and then guilds. Plan is to capture mids and ToA from De Gaulle. Scouting with a few keshiks to find strategics and stack sizes. GM from GLH in capital will likely be sent away to Ragnar to fund the war(s) and keep research high. It's been fun simming out a start to achieve certain goals, even though I typically would just play through the map very quickly. Fairly confident this opening wouldn't work on a higher difficulty than emperor which I'm playing on. Might see once I'm finished. It's pretty crazy and amusing, so will power on through this and see how far keshiks can take me. Feels absurd ferrying around a unit that ignores terrain costs with galleys. BTW, mathematics also means it's time for forts.

Will edit and add screenshots later.

@elitetroops

Spoiler :

Is it 5 cities I count you settled? Noticed Old Sarai is quite far south by the ivory. Think in my first go I settled there third and just ran into a brick wall with maintenance. What was your answer for commerce until HBR? After looking at your layout too, I now realise I completely whiffed settling the horses, and definitely should have settled your spot.

 

[elitetroops]

@Xpl

Spoiler :

Looking good! Interesting opening there, settling on corn AND mining pig. That would not have crossed my mind. Some of your city placements look a bit odd, but GLH explains them. For example the horse+wheat spot I settled is one off coast, so with GLH it can be debated. I think having a galley here can be quite useful. In my first game I also built one ans settled the double clam+iron spot west of the lake.

In my second attempt much of my teching to HBR was powered by scientists. All my cities just wanted to grow into unhappiness too fast, so I whipped lots of libraries. 3 cities were working 2 scientists each at some point.

Ah, forgot to mention, I bulbed Math. It felt like a good idea as teching was so painfully slow and would be greatly improved at Calendar. More chopping power for Keshiks is also nice. My big mistake was that after bulbing Math and trading for Sailing, I did not switch research to Calendar, but kept teching Aesthetics. If I had switched immediately, I'd have Calendar by t100.

And I'm definitely rusty! Your save reminded me that I haven't once checked the resource trade screen in my game. De Gaulle is willing to trade gold!! That extra happiness would have been desperately needed a long time ago!

 

[dankok8]

Played till 975 BC. Emperor/Epic with huts/events...

Spoiler :

Built a second city to claim dry corn and horses very early. Planned to rush a neighbor with chariots and after I got a chariot quest it was even more obvious that I should do it. I first got the Barracks and with chop/whip got 13 chariots. I promoted them with FI and got CI from the event so they were a bit more beefed up. Declared on De Gaulle in 1650 BC and found two spearmen and two archers in the capital which was on a hill and had high cultural defense. I lost 8 chariots but I took the city with my last unit. Paris had the great wall and then I took Orleans with the remaining 5 chariots and captured the Pyramids also. Founded another city SE for the Ivory. Units are on strike but I got Writing early and I'm running scientists with Representation early to stay afloat. Researching HBR right now for Keshiks. I figure a war economy is in order! I'm gonna pay bills with the loot and research with scientists while I try to bring a dominant land mass under the Mongol banner. I usually play normal speed so I find this a bit tedious but for a leader like Ghengis who thrives on war, Epic is good because it extends the shelf life of Keshiks hehe. Gonna finish the Frenchies and then Saladin is probably next. I want his holy city.

 

[dankok8]

Went further to 10 AD.

Spoiler :

Got Keshiks and quickly built an army of them. Re-declared on the French who then immediately bribed Ragnar against me. Hinduism spread everywhere and I converted. The only heathens on the continent are Victoria and Huayna. Anyways I captured Lyons, razed another small city and the French are gone. I chased off a Viking settler heading towards me. They then sent a stack into my land that I could have killed with my horde but it would have been costly on units and I didn't wanna lose Keshiks. I gave Raggy 30 gold for piece and sent my Keshik army into Arabia and I got two core cities before signing peace with Saladin. I settled two more spots. I got 10 cities now and I'm close to Civil Service. Next wave might be Keshiks but I'll need at least some spies. Keshiks pack a great punch but when cultural defenses get high casualties mount.

 

[Imploding]

Ok, this seems like a fun game! I was thinking settle on corn.. go worker then grow to size 2.

Then take max advantage of the IMP bonus.

Tech mining.. mine pigs.. and mine. That will give 7h + 4 f = 15 prod to settlers. Then go BW.. for chopping.. we already have road tech.. and settled on coast. So a couple spots that could be connected by coast so we could easily get out 3-4 fast cities than can be hooked up without to much trouble. Then hopefully settle copper and horses and AXE/HA rush one someone.. use the AGG bonus for all its worth.

 

[Xpl]

Certain AI

Spoiler :

Is anyone having any concerns for Capac? He's wonder spamming like crazy and has GL and Colossus in my game. He's also down in the bottom corner, but not nearly as far away as Sitting Bull, who I haven't even explored yet. Ragnar seems to be more occupied fighting his northern borders, in part due to religion. My game seems stable, but I'm in that medieval lull where the AI are going down their respective tech paths. On the way to knights so no problem. My economy is relatively stable since I'm on a GLH strat, but wondering how others are doing. 500AD currently, will post more detailed summary later

 

[InovA]

PS. Worker isn't really idle whatever you do. At least you have The Wheel.

Right! Even though I noticed we start with Wheel when calculating for Pottery routes, I completely missed that we can make roads until I started playing it!

Spoiler Up to 1000 BC :

I started as I said above, settling on the corn and going for Fishing first, attempting to have slightly faster tech because of it, along with the 2nd worker before settlers, so I could double chop the 3rd settler.
T7 - Fishing
T7 - Pop²
T13 - Boat
T14 - Clams
T20 - AH
T22 - Worker
T26 - Mining
T26 - Pop³
T27 - Pasture
T29 - Pop⁴ : 1 Worker, then Settler production
T32 - Mine

Tech path: Fishing -> AH -> Mining -> BW -> Mysticism -> Meditation -> Priesthood -> *Horseback Riding* -> Archery -> Pottery -> Agriculture (otw, slowly)
This was my idea from the start, so I'm glad it's working (for the most part) as planned so far: Go for fast Oracle (T62) to unlock Horseback Riding and rush Keshik. Seems like a great strategy for Genghis Khan.


My 2nd city was a bit awkward, but I gave it a lot of thought and settled to the south to grab cows and fish:

Saladin owned the cows and the fish weren't available until Karakorum's 2nd border pop, but Mysticism finished shortly after this city was taken, so it could build a monument ASAP. It also had Hinduism spread to it, and Saladin was kind enough to build my pasture. On Turn 64, the cows were mine!


I haven't scouted too much, but can see really only 3 possible targets for my Keshik rush:

Spoiler :

Saladin to the south, De Gaulle to the southwest, and Ragnar to the north. Victoria to the east is a long journey, and I know too little of what she has.

Ragnar has Ivory, at least 1 copper source (easy to eliminate early), +Aggressive trait, NO hill city for the capital or nearest target city, is the enemy of Victoria and Sitting Bull, and is a friend to Peter, Huayna, and De Gaulle

De Gaulle has Ivory, gold, possible hilly terrain, and is a friend to Peter, Huayna, and Ragnar

Saladin has founded Hinduism, has +Protective trait, has a hill city close to me, and is a friend to Victoria

De Gaulle might not be a bad foe, but Ragnar seems like the better pick, for land I know of and diplomatically. I expect to take 3 cities, maybe 4, after he's settled his 5th during/right before the war. Then make peace so he gives me all the tech I'm missing. HBR will be good to trade others, too, at least, but I've noticed my economy is very, very slow right now. I'm not sure how many Keshik to wait for, but I'm at 5, should have 8 by T77. Also I have 3 barracks and 1 ger, so my Keshik should be well trained. Those from the capital (with ger) can even double promote for +bonus vs archers or melee

My long-term goal is to befriend Victoria, and possibly Saladin and De Gaulle. Sitting Bull is everyone's enemy right now, so I don't care what happens with him, and the others seem farther away to be noteworthy. Huayna may be just east of De Gaulle, but meh. I've been gifting Clams and Pig to Victoria practically since we met (T34 and T39), so she's already giving a + for the years of gifts. I figure if the 4 of us all become Hindu, we'll be great friends. I may also liberate a poor city or 2 among them.

Might also go for Ele-pult against Saladin for that holy city

T75:

 

[Snowbird]

First 11 turns

Spoiler :

bravely loaded Diety save after not playing for few months and somehow persuaded myself to settle on sugar despite seeing coastal fish on T1...


The whole idea of settling sugar was to dodge teching AH (plan was to go mining, improve three tiles and drop few setllers out of corn, mined pig and mined riverside)... of course there is a chance of Saladin second city becoming holy, and upper cow being blocked by vikings. On other hand from the squeezed space, it does look like finding horses is top priority.

 

[dankok8]

Played to 1580 AD.

Spoiler :

Following Saladin my Keshik army this time helped a bit by siege went after Peter. I captured three cities and razed one more before making piece. Given his terrible land and the fact that he converted to Judaism made him the weakest and most hated figure in the world. I bribed Saladin to fight against him which also served the purpose of securing my east and west fronts while I was busy eleswhere. Sitting Bull asked me to declare war on Huayna and I agreed especially since he settled a nice city in the jungle and is also hated by most. As soon as I went after Huayna, Ragnar again declared on me and sent a fairly big medieval army of berserkers, elephants, and trebuchets into my territory. The small city he went after near the dyes NE of the starting position had just two Keshiks defending so I retreated and left it for the enemy and regrouped further in. When his army came inland about 5 turns later I was ready for him. Luckily I had Feudalism for longbows. When he approached my cities I sent in a few catapults to weaken the stack, then the flank promoted Keshiks to flank damage the siege, and then cleaned up with combat promoted Keshiks and other assorted units. I destroyed a lot of his army and captured one of his cities in the jungle and recaptured my own. And of course I also took that gem that Capac settled. As soon as I signed a 10 turn peace treaty with Ragnar, he declared war on Sitting Bull where he proceeded to suicide his army against Bull's monster CGIII longbows behind walls and castles and the dumbass didn't even bring siege. Bull had higher power too when Ragnar went after him. AI stupidity at its finest! Time to pay Ragnar for declaring war on me twice. I went in and took two core cities helped by trebuchets before he capped to Sitting Bull. I then went and finished Peter off and took all of his land. Right now, Saladin (with Huayna as his vassal) is fighting Victoria after I bribed him to go after her. He is strong in power a bit better than me even but she just got Rifling and started upgrading to Redcoats so her own power graph is spiking and he won't have an easy time there. Meanwhile my veteran army that is now cuirassiers and cannon is ready to ravage Arabia when his troops go to the other side. Sal doesn't even have replaceable parts yet so he's not that close to rifling. My war machine is just revving up and soon my production will overwhelm the rest of the AI. Land is power.

Important question:

Spoiler :

In this whole game I realized that despite building Courthouses, Forbidden Palace and solid infrastructure including cottages, I was struggling to make a profit at 20% research. I did ok because I always had scores of gold from war but it was still strange. Then I looked at my cities carefully and noticed I have no foreign trade routes. Every city has two or three +1 or +2 trade routes with other domestic cities. Why does this happen? I had Open Borders with both Sitting Bull and Saladin virtually the entire game.

About where to settle the capital: (don't read if you didn't settle yet!)

Spoiler :

I settled in place and because there is seafood in the south lake it was a good move. The workboat from the capital cannot normally pass there but it can if you build a fort in the isthmus 1S 1SW of the capital.

 

[elitetroops]

@dankok8 re traderoutes:

Spoiler :

Are those AI by any chance in Mercantilism? Or are you?