Nobles' Club 225: Mao Zedong of China

[sampsa]

Why?
1. It can take forever especially if there are many continents.
2. As it takes so long you might have to upgrade units after you arrive
3. By the time you arrive circumstances might have changed as in alliances/AI techs
4. Late game you need a ton of units which means a ton of ships=insane maintenance
5. This means shiping units back and forth and if a long distance from your mainland it will take a long time for reinforcements
6. Maybe having to go all out for combustion to be able to ship more units and defend your navy
7. Unless you have tanks wars combined with the transport of units will make it extremely tedious and slow

I'm sure I can come up with several more vut this is just on the top of my head...

Well, honestly I've never encountered any of the problems you describe. Or I just didn't realize they were problems. Of course, wars aren't automatic wins but in general the difference between normal and intercontinental warfare is that you need some boats, that's it. I agree that if you are massively behind in tech it's hard to control the sea.

 

[scheines]

Playing on emperor, no huts or events.

Spoiler To T26 / 2690 BC :

For the start, I saw the PH as the probably best option nearby. I went warrior SE to see what I'd gain. Some riverside grasslands, and an extra ivory. Settled here since I didn't see any better options.

Starting builds were a bit awkward. The worker would finish 2T before AH, so I built a warrior 1T to not waste any time. Don't think it really makes a difference though. For tech I am going the obvious AH for the cow. Hope there's a few more sheep or pig to make it worth it.

Warrior starts SW of capital, and works clockwise. Didn't see any reason to go S early because of the jungle. Definitely see a few good early options food cities. Also, was able to time the worker to the cow as I get AH nicely.

Next tech was BW. I considered hunting, but didn't want to delay because it seems like we have plenty of space to soak up. I have only met Asoka, so I reckon we are either semi-isolated with him, or the continent is such that he will be our only neighbor.

I build 4 warriors next, then put on the barracks. Don't think I need more than that for now, unless I have no copper.

Here I am planning out my cities. I like the two 's' sites early, and the lower two ('s-late') for after IW. I'm hoping the sugar / dye has food, since that's a natural progression toward other civilizations first. I'll probably go sheep first, to share food (and hill sheep nets more yield than dry rice). Then rice + stone, and hopefully something to the east. Don't think I'll go for mids, since there seems to be plenty of growing horizontally to do.

At size 3, I start a settler. Because... that's the rule of thumb and I never know when to deviate .

As I said before, sheep -> rice -> hopefully somewhere east is the plan.

Started to get curious here about the civ + map setup. I was excited to try out the Cho Ko Nu, but don't know if my first impression suggests we will want to use them. If Asoka is our only trading partner, it might be more wise to tech further before we take the continent. Especially if this is one of those big-small continent maps where all 5 of the other civs have a trade-fest on the big continent.

Either way, I'll definitely have to explore further before we formulate too much of a plan!

 

[scheines]

Spoiler T78 :

After BW, I go for hunting. I assume I'll end up teching archery for the UU. Plus the continent feels kind of wide open. Without horses or copper, I think I'd like the protection.

The river to the east has lots of calendar resources, but there isn't any great food.

I considered settling way out by the copper, but the unnatural progression felt like it'd throw off barb defenses + waste lots of worker turns.

For techs you can see I went wheel -> pottery. With no coast or financial, I want to get some cottages going along this river to help fend off being broke from expansion.

I settle Shanghai according to plan, improve the sheep, and prepare to chop out granaries. I had to throw down a few farms on the FP to avoid wasting worker turns, but I'll get a bit of use from them, so it' not a total waste.

I also chop out another settler quickly after to settle the rice.

Guangzhou goes down where I planned. I start teching archery because I don't feel any safer yet.

My first debacle! What should I be building? Sure, more settlers and workers are good, but I am not growing when I spam them. Feel like the decent food situation should have me whipping, but I can't find the time to grow.

I realized I could improve the cow S of me, so I settle Nanjing. Will be able to share 6 tiles with the capital too, which should help get some hamlets + villages going.

I get writing and stop research to get the libraries going. Asoka's culture borders are finally visible. To my surprise, he comes from the SE; the way I met him I thought he'd be more NW of us.

Tech-wise, I think I want alpha here (eventually). I desperately need something to build so I can grow cities .

Also, with the slower tech pace being semi-isolated. I am considering using elephants / cho ko nus on Asoka. Would love to get IW and some of the early religion techs of him before we declare, though. Otherwise, we could be all alone until Astro.

This feels like what the NC match is pushing me toward, but there's also an abundance of space to grow into. I'm curious to see what others do. Asoka isn't extremely close, but usually these matches are setup to make the UU shine. I'd love to bulb metal casting, but I think the time spent teching math to make the scientist bulb it would just take longer than teching it myself.

I settle Xian to lay claim to the area north. I also want the area for the river + dye + sugar (and cow, later on). Lots of calendar resources, but that'll steer us away from machinery. So, maybe we go for it later.

I didn't feel great about this spot, but didn't want Asoka to grow too much. In hindsight, maybe settling 3W2S would've been better, and I could just take any cities he settle up north.

Here's the state of affairs at T78. I am eyeing settling the copper or the rice/banana, but also don't want to go broke if I start a war. I might have to forgo them for something less resource heavy, but more affordable. With the tech pace I'm on, I think bulbing metal casting will actually speed up the rush a lot, so as of now that's the plan (alpha, math, bulb MC, machinery).

Just kind of have to hope Asoka has IW, and that I have iron already... I guess I am assuming AcaMetis wouldn't mess with our heads but not giving us iron?

 

[AcaMetis]

Spoiler :

This feels like what the NC match is pushing me toward, but there's also an abundance of space to grow into.

Rest assured, the only place this NC match is pushing it's players towards is off the rials. Honestly this might be my most derailed map to date .

Just kind of have to hope Asoka has IW, and that I have iron already... I guess I am assuming AcaMetis wouldn't mess with our heads but not giving us iron?

I make sure the UU resource is somewhere reasonable to grab, even on Deity . It's one of the things that was determined to be good for NC maps, and I make sure to follow that list.

Well, technically the spot that I (rightfully ) expected everyone to settle doesn't have the number of hills that list wants, but I figured, plains cow and double Ivory? It'll be fine .

 

[krikav]

@AcaMetis

Spoiler :

I agree, this map was completely bonkers. But in a really enjoyable and funny way. Every game that is captivating enough to end in a victory (or defeat) is a very good map.

Was the plan to set up a semi-iso situation, where one didn't necesserily need to fight to the death and where instead peaceful coexistance was an option on the table?
Eager to hear the rest of the plan that was derailed!

 

[earthy]

t200

Spoiler :

I wiped out Asoka, then met Genghis/Zara and made a few trades. Justinian switched into Taoism, and that pissed off Monty enough to declare on him.. I was almost able to infect Zara/Genghis with Judaism, but unfortunately Monty beat me to the punch. Instead of OR I went into pacifism, and I'm trying to get enough great people to chain golden ages. I figure with 22 cities + mausoleum a golden age has to be more valuable than bulbs. Not really building many buildings here, just wealth multipliers in my holy cities and forges/courthouses everywhere else. Going to try to transition into a hammer economy after communism/AL, but I'm afraid I don't have enough workers for that(I only have 12 atm. Didn't need many earlier because everything was already cottaged). I'm also kind of second guessing if hammer economy is the best approach with so many mature cottages, but I don't want to have to build science multipliers everywhere and will eventually need production.. Monty and Justinian are obviously no longer friendly with each other, so the tech pace is slowing down quite a bit.
Micro'ing like a bastard here because this is probably the best spot I've ever been in a deity map and I really don't wanna throw this game any suggestions are appreciated

 

[AcaMetis]

@krikav

Spoiler :

The plan for this NC game, not necessarily the map I ended up rolling (certainly not how it played out ), was to try and create a situation where Expansive had a chance to be useful in an odd, but important way - terrible food, fantastic production, and something to spend that production on (meaning early warfare, either of the player's volition or not ) would create a situation where EXP Granaries could fuel quick growth, and in turn quick production, even slavery if absolutely necessary. As for PRO, I was looking for a start with some kind of Hunting resource, just to make Archery a bit more appealing. And, of course, nearby Iron for Cho-Ko-Nu, and no Fish for bulbing shenanigans. I wasn't concerned about whether it'd be semi-iso, continents or a pangaea-type map, I'd take whatever looked interesting.

So, yes, that detail about "we need Machinery for Optics anyway"? Completely failed to notice that . Glad the game's RNG was more on point than I was with giving me semi-iso maps .

The first map I considered was basically this map with one slight difference: Instead of Asoka you were semi-iso with Genghis Kahn . It was certainly interesting, but it looking like it would end up being a Lain-level hard map, so I kept looking. When I rolled this map I saw the double Ivory and things just fell into place - a fantastic argument to go early Hunting with the double riverside ivory and nearby AH resources (-> people go AH before Hunting anyway ), not that much food to give EXP Granaries some importance, a solid argument for early Iron Working with all the jungle around, and semi-iso with an AI that wasn't going to be a threat unless he could kill you through Missionary spam. Playing peaceful was an entirely valid tactic (+9 for adopting his religion alone), military was an entirely valid and doable tactic with ivory and Cho-Ko-Nus, so I figured the player was golden on the home front. As for the other two continents, I figured that Genghis and Zara wouldn't accomplish much of anything, perfect for if you needed a backwards target to beef yourself up, and Justinian with his triple BFC Gold, myriad of strategic resources and nearby crazy neighbour he was going to hate was likely to become the Deity "keep this interesting" factor as you ended up finding an AI you wouldn't be able to just roll over. Unless you went full capitalist on the tank industry, I guess .

What actually happened is that Asoka absolutely crippled himself, first by settling his second city in a spot where it'd take 90 turns to build a Settler there and second by slow building every Stone wonder under the sun. And even when he did do the smart thing and build Oracle, he takes Monarchy. This, in turn, allowed the barbarians to become a rampaging horde, since Asoka wasn't doing his share of settling and fog busting, which turned out to be a major problem for the player when Asoka finished slow building The Great Wall of all things. After Asoka finally got his act together (somewhat) and the player secured his/her borders from the barbarians people started to roll over Asoka, as I expected they would - warfare is profitable against Shaka, let stand mister 2/10 Builds Units, and I figured that with BFC Marble he'd have some good stuff build too. Only the island turned out to be so large that taking his land turned out to become a serious economic problem, much less filling out the rest of it, which makes me regret that Mao isn't ORG. As for after Optics was in, suffice to say that Justinian fell short of the Super Justinian I had envisioned.

 

[krikav]

@earthy

Spoiler :

Have downloaded your save, but I'm preoccupied with a game already, but it looks like you are in a very good position!
Diplo wise, one option is to be a dove when it comes to demands with Zara+Justinian, agree to whatever they demand all the time, and make sure to not have OB or resource trades with their worst enemies.
You can then later swap to no religion + theocracy and likely get up to (or close to) friendly with them.
Just to make sure that you have a escape hatch in a diplo victory if all else fail. (Just farm everything and make them love you).

Not spreading your own religion to every single city might be an option as that can get some useful religion to autospread to you.

Regarding cottages vs hammers, you can either do what I did, just go full cottages and rushbuy stuff you need.

A more modest approach is to rely on mature towns and and universial suffrage in most cities, but design 4-6 cities with workshops, watermills and/or railroad mines, preferably riverside sites as these few spots can then carry all the heavy weight production you need, no matter if thats spaceship parts or tactical nukes.

You don't need science multipliers just because you have cottages either. I didn't have universities or observatories and I had libraries in only about 50+% of the cities, when this carpet of cottages go into a golden age, techs just fly by anyway. ^_^
MoM is quite a prize, I wish I had that in my game!


See if you can put some beakers into economics and possibly get that from Zara for liberalism so you can get free market before the GA runs out.
Should be room for more cities too, I think I fitted in 30 of them on the continent.

 

[krikav]

@AcaMetis

Spoiler :

For what it's worth, I think that there was absolutely potential for Justinian to become a monster. I looked at the replay and he and Monty traded cities for quite some time in the early game. If Monty would have caved earlier and they would then have gone for Churchil things would have become dicey indeed!

I had a wonderful game at least, interesting start with a few different aproaches in micro up to T30, then the barb scare which is always fun. Asokas selfcrippling didn't change things that much I think. Only opened the door for me to be less diligant with micro at a time in the game where it can be tedious.
Then a abroad situation which was kind enough to lend itself to some experimentation of things I seldom come in contact with.

 

[earthy]

@krikav

Spoiler :

there was only one spot I could have settled that would have got its own food, but it wouldn't have a single tile that wasn't already being used . There was another spot that could have taken a food from a 3 food city and worked 2 tiles, but that feels so "meh". Is it really worth settling those spots when you already have 20+ cities? U.S. does seem really smart here but I'm not very experienced with it. In my game it's feeling a bit awkward since I put down a ton of workshops and most cities are building units in 2 turns anyways. I can't even figure out if it's worth switching to police state.. The 25% would be great for some cities, but losing the +1 town in other cities would cripple their production.. Very complicated when you have 50 towns

Spoiler to T225 - who to attack? :

I was chugging along thanks to 36 turns of golden age, workshopping everything that wasn't a town. Once I got the last three great people out I switched to free religion, state property, and U.S. The plan was to get a few infantry/cannons and go take out Genghis + Zara while teching to tanks for the other three, but Genghis kind of threw a wrench in my plan. Before I was ready he decided he wanted to accelerate the timeline.

I didn't really want to deal with that in case Monty dogpiles or something, so I bribed Zara on him with communism. This started a bit of a chain reaction, as Churchill also declared on Genghis. In hindsight I probably should have just built some units and dealt with it. Now I'm not sure if attacking him is still wise. I don't want a repeat of last game where I take two of Ghenghis' cities and then he capitulates to zara or something. I also have no means of bribing off zara/churchill except maybe money. Do I just go for zara instead? The problem with that is he can bring in Justinian with Biology, but I can probably get Justinian to pleased with money. Edit: apparently he traded biology away! this is why we take breaks


On the bright side, this HE city is looking pretty mean:

And I do have a bit of a navy ready to transport my troops. I think within 5-6 turns I should be ready to move out on one of them:

Tech situation & land:

 

[elementoffear]

@elementoffear

Spoiler :

I did detail abit in this post: https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...o-zedong-of-china.655567/page-4#post-15689252

I think one possible source of frustration in your games might be that you think you have enough and then stop building, or start teching to the next step? I know that was what held me back for a long long time.
If ever I managed a nice invasion with cannons+rifles, I lost steam after initial gains because I was busy at home building observatories preparing to tech toward assembly line or similar.

In my situation I felt absolutely comfortable that my huge empire could produce enough tanks to wear them down if not quickly then eventually.
I tried to not get distracted by fancy ideas, no worry about tomorrow, just more tanks and getting them to the front as quickly as possible.

If I was less comfortable I would have also secured bombers first (and it was really close so probably dumb not going there anyway).
Think i could have finished radio in 3-4 turns.
Bombers would take care of cultural defense, and also add some collateral damage to really soften up city defenders for the tanks. They would also have been much easier to just fly in, saving me the trouble of shipping more tanks.

In the end, I lost 130 tanks of 300 built.
But most of the losses came from the very end, when I started to take on inland hill cities with full cultural defense loaded up with mechanized infrantry.
The first tank gets 1% odds, the second one gets 10%, the third gets 30% and the fourth 80+. But when he was down at 5 cities and I had tanks to spare it was just alt+g and mass rightclick.

But really, this game from me should not be taken as a good guideline. I played extremly sloppy and quickly, comfortable in a position of almost crushing advantage both land and techwise.

This is even more interesting,

Spoiler :

again I would probably build unnecessary stuff, why No naval escorts? just transports..

 

[krikav]

@earthy

Rushbuying / Police State

Spoiler :

I don't know much about rushbuying either, first time I did it seriously in this game.
From what I have gathered from stray posts here and there it seems like it's a conversion ratio of 3Gold -> 1 Hammer. (With kremlin 2gold -> 1 hammer?)
It's similar to whipping in such a way that if you have no hammers invested you get a much higher price.
But even w/o kremlin, gold to hammer conversion ratio seems to be better than unit upgrades. And we often bend our games out of shape to benefit from unit upgrades, so rushbuying is certainly a usefull tool to turn commerce to fighting power.
I liked the fact that it was completely neutral to what city it was. Didn't matter if it was a starving captured city with 10 unhappy faces or my blooming capital, I could buy tanks there anyway.


The hammers from towns are just icing on the cake, you have in your T225 situation 50 towns, so thats just 50 raw hammers once you get out of the final GA. (62 hammers after forge conversion).
Compare that with the case if you build units everywhere with police state. Each of your 76 workshops would give you 1 extra hammer toward units, so there is 76 hammers from police state.
The 10 mines would add another 10 and then you have some from levees/windmills/plains/etc.
So just the raw hammers, police state wins out by alot. It's the rushbuying ability that would speak in favour of US.

More cities?

Spoiler :

When you are starting to reach techs like state property and/or biology, any spot that can work just a few tiles can be a nice addition to the empire, I routinely settle more cities when I can.
It can also help balance out unhappines from enmancipation and unhealth issues if one has more but smaller cities.
Tricky not to mass settle them with bad timing though as they do cost about 10gpt early on.

War bribes

Spoiler :

Good thing that you had lookouts to spot boats from potential enemies.
I think it was probably a mistake bribing Zara against GK too. Those galleons most likely had 4 trebs and 2 HAs.
But no big problem really.
I would ship units over to the nearest dropoff point (you have OB with both of them) and see who looks like they are winning and attack them. (If GK is rolling over Zara, I would go kill GK).
That way, there is much lesser chance for vassaling.

That being said... Look at New sarai here! Likely filled to the brim with defenders.
Cannons would love to hit that spot.

 

[krikav]

@elementoffear

Spoiler :

When I first dropped of some tanks @ Zaras place, it was with this fleet.
Mainly transports but one destroyer to take beating just in case.
But don't need that much escorts if noone is hostile.

Here is just prior to declaring on Justinian. Small fleets shipping in as tanks are being built.
The stack selected (In the NW) is the last boats before the war declaration. They will drop of tanks at Churchils land, stay vunerable the turn of war declaration and then go hide at Zaras ports.
I think I collected most of them again, and went home to bring a huge boatload of tanks over to GK.
I have some battleships, but they are mainly just as lightning rods.
During the war, the battleships hide in whatever port available, and move out to bombard and then move into port again.

Lost just one transport during the game.
Did lose 12 battleships, but that was mainly toward the end when I played much more risky with them and went into the open to bombard.
In the end, I think that at least half of the remaining 160 tanks are still standing on my home continent because of the troubles shipping. Didn't see much of justinians fleet (perhaps because I managed to kill of most of them while they where in port) but both GK and Monty went around with destroyers and battleships harassing my logistics.

 

[Excal]

T286 1832AD

Spoiler :

expanded peacefully to 22 cities cottaging/workshopping mostly

won Lib(Nat) whipped Taj only to have AI complete on same turn AGAIN

plenty of warring happening elsewhere, then surprise attack by Kahn - amphibious assault by horse-arch/elephant
Pro CKN on hill easily repels before I even realise what is happening
upgraded a couple nearby Caravels to Frigate and mow down his Galleons before he gets home and Peace Treaty

after reading @krikav post - I am enthusiastic to try RushBuy

so tech to tank/artill/marine/battleship, start GAge and switch UniSuff/FreeSpeech/Eman (already State Prop/FreeRelig)
Genghis has already vassaled to Zara
attack Zara take two cities and he suicides most of his stack against my marine defenders (all survive)
- Zara caps and offers Genghis city
- Genghis then also caps on same turn

probably Monty next as hated by Justin/Churchill

 

[Eagle777]

@ Krikav
Thanks for the production tip!

Spoiler :

I took out Asoka, and now I am thinking whom do I hit next, and with what.... And if I do it at all. I have 17 cities, Churchill has 12, I almost caught up in tech.
He is Constitution, Physics, Steel and Rifling ahead of me.
I get those in 2-3 turns.
Two guys don't have rifling and won't get it soon. Perhaps hitting them and vassalizing them would be a decent play, to give them tech and then continue warring.
Perhaps Space Race is winnable.

Seems like a tough call.

 

[scheines]

Spoiler To T154, pt. 1 :

Picking up from a few days back:

What do yall think of this spot? It's filler city quality, sure. Sure, the spots I highlighted in my last post seem better. But I need to "round out" my empire so Asoka doesn't settle there, right? This city costs so little it seems wasteful not to settle it.

Settle my first GS. Games with water required always run late.

Time to make a decision (elepult or cho ko nu). Asoka is being stubborn and won't trade IW. I go elepult here for that reason, and I figured masonry + HBR + construction saves me a lot of beakers vs. metal casting + machinery.

Overall empire shot at 175 BC. 1 turn from some serious whipping, so I let some unhappiness build since I'll whip it away.

I am pretty cottage heavy - not any stellar food, aside from the 2 fish rice waay out east. Should I even bother with the NE in a game such as this? Even if it, say, goes the space race route?

Boy this continent kept rolling on. I started to doubt my rush choice here - Asoka isn't tough at all to peacefully coexist with, and we could've peacefully hit 12 cities I think. But, I am committed, so I press on.

Second GS. I hold onto her... nothing good to bulb. I might use a golden age to jump start myself after war. If there is a 5 civ continent out there, they will zoom by us in tech for sure. So I figure we will have to catch up quite a bit after war.

My initial stack before declaring. Light on catapults, but I have a few more streaming in I think.

I last second throw some hammers into the mids for a bit of failgold. Don't want to run out of gold! On that note, I did tech currency next for the eco boost.

First I take Varanasi, as it is en route to Delhi. No GW in my game for Asoka, but he has 4-5 other wonders in Delhi.

Next, Bombay. Managed a 4x worker steal as well.

 

[earthy]

@AcaMetis thanks for the really fun map!

@krikav

Spoiler :

Thanks for the tips! very helpful. I have checked the rest of your game now as well and holy tanks + cottages ! That strategy looks really fun and I really want to try it soon. I also understand your advice now about more smaller cities later when all the emancipation anger built up. I was dying pretty bad even with every resource at size ~18-19 when war weariness kicked in.

Spoiler T283 Dom: :

It looked like Genghis was getting his ass kicked, so I took Krikav's advice and went for Zara instead. That city on the edge of his culture had very few defenders, but I wanted to attack along the coast to save a few turns moving. I drop enough guys off for Debre Berhan, then move the rest down the coast for the next city. With reinforcements I'll take Gondar, and then Zara will capitulate. Here the cannons are just bombarding so the Inf can take their 90% fights.

T235 Zara capitulates, and then I attack Genghis by land. He only has rifles so same deal. He's a bit of a stubborn guy, so even though I took 3 cities and killed his army he holds out until t244. After he capitulates, I gift his crap back and give him + zara every tech the others have.

Can't get a railroad or combustion trade after industrialism so It takes me a little while to get up to tanks. Monty declares on Justinian, and I entertain the idea of joining the war against Monty. I even go so far as transporting my troops over: He unfortunately has far too many destroyers and artillery around, and most cities have quite a few machine guns. I don't want to lose all my galleons here just to throw cannons at machine guns, so Instead I drop off my army and move it into Justinian's land. Justinian takes two of Monty's cities, so I save up some money and bribe him off with 2100g after combustion.

@t264 I'm in full rushboy mode and ready to move in on Monty. The plan was to launch an amphibious assault with marines over here for two reasons. First, I'll be able to hide my boats from his hoarde of destroyers on t0. Second, it'll pull all of his army away from Justinian's border, and then I can flank with my older army to pick off lightly defended cities. After capturing Tlaxcala I move my army up on the hill, and Monty suicides into it so hard he already wants to capitulate . Too bad he won't talk to me!

Monty capitulates after a few turns, and then I go for Justinian. Thanks to bribing him off Monty earlier I have t0 access to two cities, and also the majority of his army. I attack two turns before he gets Mech. Infantry and wipe most of his stuff out. I also demand 1 gold from Churchill for a peace treaty here, even though they are cautious with each other so I don't think it was necessary.

After capturing 5 cities he's willing to capitulate on t277, but that's going to leave me with ~63.56% land. Rather than dealing with churchill I just capture two more cities to make sure I hit dom, then accept capitulation. Result is t283 Dom:

 

[scheines]

Spoiler To T154, Pt. 2 :

I opted to press on with haste because I have a habit of dragging on wars. I get to Delhi a little light on elephants though.

I take a few small techs and petty cash from Asoka to build up an army, and heal up.

Empire shortly before the new war declaration. I had been teching toward feudalism to cap Asoka, but I am nowhere close.

I opted to cottage Guangzhou and Nanjing. Just figured it'd take forever to irrigate everything.

On of my two stacks for the next phase of war. I have a similar stack in Bombay. The main goal here is to capture Delhi, but Calcutta is settled right where I wanted to... so I'll be taking that as well.

More misplanning... I got pulled in too many directions here , and didn't bring enough elephants again. In hindsight, I should've just had one stack, but it's not a terrible problem as I am streaming reinforcements in. This did cost me a number of turns though.

I capture Calcutta, Delhi, and Madras. I razed Madras. Didn't see a point in keeping it.

From here I am not sure what's best. Do I wipe out Asoka at the cost of falling further behind in tech? In a 100% peaceful setup, lib usually goes about now for me, maybe 100 years later. So that's off the table.

To me, Asoka seems worthwhile to keep. He has a number of religious techs I need, so eliminating him would be a waste of beakers. The revolts are annoying, yes, but I'd love to just cap him later on instead of spending all the extra time on the last few cities. Thoughts?

 

[earthy]

@scheines

Spoiler :

I'm not a huge fan of Chendu. It has no food until you get a border pop, calendar, and put tons of turns into it. Not really ideal in the early stages of the game, especially if you're lacking the workers to put down cottages there.. I think the cow/copper spot would help you a lot more. With so much jungle and a wimpy neighbor we kind of want to let him develop the land for us a bit, and then take it from him . That means for spots like Chengdu, if he does steal it you can just take it back when you kill him. And the closer he settles to you, the more convenient it is to wipe him out. If the land is really good you definitely want to think about getting what you can, but if it's mediocre and covered in jungle you shouldn't really worry about denying it to the AI. Their overexpansion will hurt their economy, which you can take advantage of.


edit: and I think you had plenty of guys to take Delhi the first time. Throw 2-3 catapults to their death and attack with all four elephants at good odds, then the next turn you could have taken it.

re:moving forward.. If you still have units I wouldn't be afraid to use them opportunistically. What I did was take a city or two, ceasefire, move my troops towards his next city, declare again, etc. It wouldn't be a bad idea to head towards optics so you can meet the rest of the world though. Machinery also allows Cho-Ko-Nu, and while they're not amazing against longbows they might do the trick with the remnants of your army. You could also just join his religion and build relations. He will like you pretty quick that way. With 11 cities you're in a good spot either way, so just make sure to work those cottages so your economy can bounce back. Working unimproved tiles looks like the #1 thing you should work on fixing here

 

[scheines]

Spoiler To T235, pt 1 :

@earthy, I hear you on the unimproved tiles I'm working... but what should I put there? I can't irrigate yet. Should I cottage them and pave over later if I wanted farms originally? I tend to like to cottage only the capital and maybe a few other dry + food resource-less cities. And, you're saying the extra cost (distance) to my expansion is worth settling the copper over this spot?

Maybe on Delhi I'm not fine tuned enough with war to know when I've enough. Typically I like taking a city in 1T (excluding seige of course) so they cant reinforce.

With all that in mind, back to the match

After taking one more city I take a peace treaty to extort more free techs + get my bearings a bit.

I captured the MoM from Asoka, so I used a golden age to jump-start things a bit. I get out another GS from here. I save this for later. No use in bulbing philo to me since pacifism won't get great use, and Taoism is already founded.

I capture the barb city during the ceasefire to make decent use of my units. PS - I found all the food on the island haha

On the tail end of the GA, I swap into bureau and HR.

I get out a GP here... not my first choice, but Asoka's wonder spamming has kind of ruined much hope of getting the right great people. I use him + the scientist for a second GA. BTW, is there any validity to the MoM + GA spam strategy? Seems kind of interesting if you marble. 36 turns of VS for 3 GP + Taj, vs 24? The extra GPP seem like they might cascade into a big advantage for a longer game, but maybe bulbing is of better value for people who can play quicker than I.

As an aside... what should I have teched here? I don't play enough isolation maps to know. Should I have gone directly for Astro? Is the value in meeting other civs the trades? I went education because lib is pretty easy to win on emperor, but don't really know when not to go for it.

Went for philo because I finished education and lib hasn't gone yet. I figured I'd either get the Taj or lib this way. My tech choices felt ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ here.

I have an army burning 14 gpt, so I decide to use them on finishing Asoka, whether entirely or not.

I power through Lahore, and then Asoka gives me this for capitulation? Oh well, I guess I'll just eliminate him . Aesthetics just isn't worth the revolts + join our mother land unhappiness + Asoka being an ass and stealing techs via espionage.

By some miracle I won lib still lol. I guess the map is as generally isolated as I was. I didn't plan to win it but it kind of fell into my lab. I take nationalism since it's the most beakers, and this gives me confidence that Taj is an option.

Asoka's last stand. Probably waited 10 or so too many turns to wipe him out, but got too focused on eco. In hindsight, I should've razed this IMO. Really doesn't give me anything.