Nobles' Club LIII: Justinian of Byzantium

[Tokahfang]

I apologize in advance for lack of detail and pictures. I have disabled hands and I type via trackball, so inputting links and such is quite difficult. I have been a civ fan since the first one, but was never very good at it. Now that it is really the only good game I can play, I have put a lot more effort and reading into it. I started this year as a
warlord player, and now I am getting comfortable at monarch.

I played this game at monarch difficulty using the monarch save file, normal speed. I use Buffy mod, since I have come to enjoy it from GOTMs. The only custom settings was to turn off random events.

Spoiler :

Tech Path:
Agriculture-Mining-BW-AH-Pottery-writing-HBR-Hunting/Archery (forgot before) - other stuff, plus trades with Asoka

I settled in place and began a worker. My warrior found Saladin 2 turns before the worker was done. He was the founder of Hinduism. Next was a warrior and then a settler to take the land between us. No one seemed motivated to get stonehenge, so I built it while learning to find horses, then began work on a horse archer brigade. From there I was at war with Saladin until 200 ad, and I still am. I am thinking that I will take Medina, then take metal casting for peace, and consolidate from there. I also need to catch up on workers, I used to have enough, but expanded too much recently.

 

[dirtyparrot]

^ Glad that you can still enjoy CIV. Congrats on your progress.

 

[drlake]

675 BC Noble and ready to pounce. What say you about my progress so far? I routinely win on Noble, I'm just very slow about it and do pretty badly when going up a level from there.

Spoiler :

The hut in my city borders popped a map of the SW, so I sent my warrior NE to find ou if my suspicion of uselss tundra to the north was correct. I quickly discover the north edge of the map so continued east and popped a scout (YAY) out of the hut I found when I turned south to start my circle. So I sent the scout W to continue my circle and let my worrior poke around in the SE. So far I'm fairly pleased with the terrain I see and AH revealed horses in my main city (double YAY). So I'm going for poly before mining in the vain hope of getting a religion. Buddhism already popped and I probably won't get hinduism, but it might set me up for judaism.

My scout spotted a hut after revealing the southern coast, but got eaten by a lion while standing on a forest hill (double BOO). So my first warrior is heading back to the city and the new one I'm working on will go out to the new hut. Now since I missed hinduism I have to decide to go for judaism or go back to mining. I'm going for mining because I can easily reach size 4 before bumping my first settler, and I want that riverside hill mined when I do. Meanwhile that hut popped a map to another hut just N of green terriroty I'm going to chase down like an idiot and [put a couple of turns into a barracks while growing to size 4.

So of course I miss the hut. I messed up and forgot to switch to settler at size 4, so I went back a couple turns but decided to keep my decision to chase the hut i missed for continuity, I did however correct my 3 wasted worker turns when I went to mine before having it researched though, so I took the liberty of hooking up my horses.

Now I have to decide Mono/BW/Writing? I have forest to chop, but my first settler will be out before BW would be done, so I'm going with writing so I can get my first library soon. And I've decided not to bother with religion, tempting as it is. I kind of want to develop a horse army because war is one of my weakest areas and I'm in a good position to do so as well as take on religion from a conquered neighbor without anarachy.

I'm looking for my next city site as my settler is in the works. And this is a toughie for me. There is a lot of good land that I probably won't get to first. But my powerhouse city can produce them in 4-5 turns! Very tempting to overexpand here. With the massive production and food of my main city, I think I want to prioritze a commercial city. I'm going to try an settle the grassland river tile that will net me both P/H gold mines with 2 floodplain farms to work them. That should get me some commerce with a little production. Plus I tentaive plan on wiping out Saladin who I just met since my eperience with him tends to be negative. I have no knowledge of Pericles, so I'm hoping he can be dealth with peacfully. So I'd also rather settle to the east knowing I plan on conquering west.

All that consideration for nothing. Close examination revals that the tile I had in mind would not in fact net both gold mines. Luckily I noticed before sending my settler out and wasting time. The game is suggesting the SE P/H that would provide gold, cows and lots of FP. So I think I'm going there instead. I sould be able to get a little prduction, commerce and maybe even run a couple of scientists soon. I may be overzealous though.

So I'm finishing the barracks while my mine is being bult and then I will get another worker out. As much as I wanted to run my settler over to his new hill, I held him back waiting for his escort because I didn't have one in place.

With my barraks done, I'm only 2 turn until growing to my cap. So I'm building an experienced warrior and I'll have some overflow for my next worker too.

With city 2 in place, I'm starting with a barracks for my inteded war and getting a farm down so I can mine that gold. I think I'll churn out 2 workers in my capital while my new gold start warrior plants himself near city site 3.

Here's where my first question really comes in. Where to plant city 3? My one screenie attached is of this time. I have good land to the south but no resources there. There's a sheep stone lake city to my west, but it doesn't look awesome, nor dies it look at risk. There's wine and sheep to be had to the SW that owuld be a good stagin point for my invasion of Saladin, but it's a little far and would make a city to the south. And there more gold and wheat to the east... I have a lot of difficulty here. and I'm not really making room for any good coastal cities with my city ideas. After much consternation, I've decided to head east and esatablish a peacful border town and leave the west to Saladin who I wil conquer later. I've got writing and now I'm going for BW to reveal any copper and prepare to chop out some units. I'll get some libraries up and then head for construction.

Some further scouting to the east reveals that I have plenty of room which is nice and bodes well for my relationship with Pericles. So I'm actually going to put off my intended city and go towards Saldin for a good launching point of rmy invasion. I almost decided to continue on to iron working after BW to see if there is iron because ther is no copper... but writing all this out has made me a bit more concientious. And since I already have horses and wanted a hors army to alter upgrade into my UU anyway, I'm contiuning on to math for the chop bonus (I haven't chopped a single forest yet so I stll have lots) and the construction to get my catss out.

As my settler heads west, the game suggests the roverside plains for a stone/sheep city. And I'm inclined to take it after considering it against my desired P/H sheep/wine city. It's not as close to Saladin for my military launching point, but I think it will provide better option for other fill cities, especial along the cost. Plus there are plenty of hills and FP so it could be a long term production powerhouse. But with 3 cities and no cottages now, my economy will soon tank if I expand or don't some more commerce going. This 3rd city is starting with a library though, to make sure Saladins borders don't run amok. Then the barrakcs will come.

And not a moment too soon, Saladin settles very close to my 3rd city. I think I will burn it when the time comes.

I sort of backseated horseback riding until now, bit since I started bulding chariots and running 2 scientists in my capital I've slipped it in just before construction.

Seeing Saladin's new city guarded by only 2 warriors has tempted me to send my 3 chariots after it for an early start to the war. especially since it border popped in just 3 turns and stole my FP farm... but that I have a feeling that would be a mistake. I'll bide my time and get a biggern payback soon enough.

Crap, Now I have to backfill hunting an archery to get horse arcers... that's probably why I should have gone for alphabet. Oh well, it's only 3 turns for both. Meanwhile my pre-chop mine has coincided nicels with building another settler. This will be my lasst one before the war. It will pop out in just 2 turns and I'll also have a GS soon.

So, finally, on to consturction. Got my border pop from city 2 and got my cows there going, so it's got some pretty good prduction of it's own to go with the gold commerce. Stables are going up in two citie 1 and 2 and I'm gearing up for war.

My GS popped and I'm building horsey archers. And even though my capital has slightly more commerce right now, I think my gold city will have much more in the haul and I'll keep mass producing from my capital. So I'm going to take the academy in the gold city and start running specialist from there when I can.

Construction is in. I have 4 horsies, 5 chariots and found someone that hates saladin and is willing to trade alphabet!. Luky me. I'm going to but a turn or two into alphabet until I can get the trade, then turn off research and focus on war.

Weeee... I backtraded for almost everythin I wanted with math. I even traded math to Saladin before I pounce since I don't think it will help hiim fast enough, he's still behind me. And it's 675 BC already... a bit over the 1000 mark but oh well.

Sounds like you are doing OK. However, the image you posted wasn't from 675BC, so it doesn't tell us much about the details of your game at that point.

 

[Grashopa]

4077, I started up a prince/epic a few days ago on the same track as you I'll finish up to 10 AD and check the save.

 

[Karstedt]

Noble 1100 AD. I'm going to stagnate, I just know it!

Spoiler :

Well, I must say, this is the most successful early war I've ever conducted. I not only rolled over Saladin, it probably only took me around 15 turns and cost me a half dozen catapults. Saladin is gone! Rejoice. I kept 2 cities and saked the other two. Sadly there is an iron hill I waffled over and finally decided to ignore, as sacking Saladin's cit that left it one diagonal tile away would have given up the fish that can't be reached by any other city placement that doesn't greatly shar territory.

It is 300 AD, the war is over, my territory expanded and only 1 civ is ahead of me in techs. And only by 1. I picked up HR on a trade as soon as the war was over and have switched to HR and OR... but only 3 cities have religion. Once shares with Pericles, who I have not found yet but stil assume he is somewhere to the east, much farther than I originally thought because I placed another city that way in the midst of the war (yeah, I know. probably shouldn't have diverted resources, but it was going so well). Anyway, back to the religion issue... since I captured the Hindu capital, I'm tempted to take the diplo hit and switch to that so I can get that OR bonus for my rebuilding... I think I will.

Charlie DoW'd me shortly after I engaged Saladin, but I haven't seen him and have no clue where he is. Asoka is also an unknown at this point, though I have had some good trades with him. But things look pretty clear for some building and a little more expansion once I get my religion spread and try to pop a GP to build my hindu monument.

Most of my cities are building research whil I get some hindu missionaries out. And there is a barb city to the NW I'm going to deal with after my aremy heals. Right now I'm focusing on currency and getting those missionaries though so I can get my research slider up again. I also disbanded a couple weak chariots keeping only my sentry an healer, as well as dumping my warriors to save a few coins.

After currency, nobody has asetics yet, so I'm making a run for the GL. I'm building FP farms around my gold city right now because I wat to pop a couple of GP's, but I will probably cottage over a couple of them later.

It's 1100 AD and I've gotten the GL and philosiphy and on my way down the theology -> liberalism route. Since Charlie was at war with me anyway, when I noticed him trying get a foothold on my western shores, I went ahead and kicked him off. He's bac for another stomping now. MY slider is still only up to 30% but I'm about to pop a GP from my new holy city so I should be able to hit %40 in a couple turns. I got a couple more cities down on the east side and my borders have met up with Pericles. And it looks like I've almost got the tech lead and I will get to liberalism first. I'm sitting on a GS just in case though.

I've been wonder tempted a lot these last turns. I tried for the hanging gardens because it only needed 6 turns and missed it. I built the Paya simply for the GP points in my new holy city. I'm going for the colossus because only one other guy has MC and I can build it in 8 turns... I'll probably miss it. And I'm really tempted to build the statue of Zues because I expect to do some more warring with my horse army. I generated about 800 gold during the war and haven't spent it yet... I'm anticipating a horsey upgrade in the future.

Here's where I usually get bogged down in empire building. I think I want wall street in my holy city even though it's not going to be my #1 commerce city but the hindu monument should even it out and I can move my palace there later along with some corps. I have 2 gold cities which could both function as GPP farms or oxfords. This is tought though because there is an abundance of FP and hills on this terrain. So I have massive production all over making it hard to chose sites for other things. Only 2 of my 9 cities are medium producers. I really haven't chopped much except for the hills so I have lots of forest all over. I'd like to hop over to Charlie and beat the crap out of him, but I hate galley wars. Choices, choices.

So since I really want to work on my crusading game, I'm going for the statue of Zeus, but where? I normally wonder stack for max GPP, but I've been coming around to the pick and choosing method. Since I'm about to get the only GP I will definitely need, I'm going to put it my holy city to stack the GPP there since niether GPs or GAs will be particularly useful this game I don't mind muddying the pool. I'm also thinking about building an academy in my holy city since I will be converting it to as much commerce as possible. The academy will be almost uses right now though, addin only about 3 research so I'm still going to sit on my GS.

 

[Karstedt]

Sounds like you are doing OK. However, the image you posted wasn't from 675BC, so it doesn't tell us much about the details of your game at that point.

That image was just about city placement. I was having trouble deciding. I was logging most of my decisions just to see if anyone thought I made some bad ones.

 

[Tokahfang]

The rest of the game went well. The Byzantine colonists landed in 1926.

Spoiler :

I finished Saladin off quickly, wrestled my economy under control in time to win the liberalism race, and then peacefully teched along minding my own business. Shaka declared war on me and landed an impressively large stack of outdated units on my property. He took a city for a turn, then was decimated by cataphracts and riflemen. Meanwhile, they voted me leader of the AP, and then all jews declared war on Shaka when I asked nicely. I slipped back to peace two turns later and let them play amongst themselves. Pericles was going for culture and flipped one of my cities, which was really the only other exciting thing that happened. I got one of the inner islands, Cyrus got the other, but I did get the resources I needed.

Thanks!

 

[L-Plate Ruler]

@ Karstedt
Nice write up, good work on getting the GL. You've got a good amount of land there, what are your victory plans?

@ Tokahfang
Oh, city lost to culture flip, ouch What difficulty are you playing on?

 

[vranasm]

Monarch/Epic 1738 Conquest victory

Spoiler :

i followed Mogur advice kind of, from 1010AD I switched immidietaly to slavery and whiped some more infrastructure esp. couthouses
My units pumps started to build spy army, to my surprise the greeks were effective in killing my spies leaving me with only 6 of them at time of the war.
In tech department i beelined to cavalries asap. I managed to get great engineer from the GP farm (I really abandoned there those towns and made farms...such pain!) and rushed Taj Mahal (maybe not optimal use of him, but the time looked like optimal for GA, well maybe i could use him for GA directly, but i excluded AIs from taj mahal, so maybe it was better to burn him).
starved GP farm for getting GS. And mostly teched asap, getting at some point around 1k beakers around 1300AD (wow!) with burning through all money i spared before building up Oxford and from GM mission (from economics).
After GA I could start build Cuirassers and shortly after (like 6-7 turns) I started to build Cavalries.
At 1440 I finally had on borders close to Pericles enough cavalries for war against him.
After taking only 2 cities he capitulated.
I checked tech situation and both Cyrus and Ghandi seemed like good target, but I had to first find them (I really really lack with scouting :-().
Cyrus is on the other half and ghandi is just east to pericles, easy decision. My army of cavalries at the time was on borders with ghandi, he already teched to physics (that bugger is a techer! I really hate him ), but that was non factor, I had so much cavalries and he had not enough units that again after 2 cities he capitulated .

I wanted immidietaly attack Cyrus, but! complications!!! I have no navy and i just realized I have to transport all the troops over the waters! and that's the main reason I finished soo late :-(.
After preparing around 5 galleons boarding half of my army and checking tech status seemed best to invade Charlemagne, since he is directly over see at my borders.
He had vassaled Shaka already so it was a bit complicated and lead to my biggest mistake this game.
At first I managed to squeeze in and secure beachhead. Managed to kill Charles SoD, but than splitted too much and well the forces were not enough.
I had to take peace.
After 10 turns i had prepared some airships and healed cavalries + some reinforcements from home base and that meant, another war is in order!

That war lasted very long, but the land is too big and even steamrolling with cavalries takes time.
Shaka and Charle showed biggest fighter spirit this game though and didnt want capitulate easily, I had to break vassalage of shaka and even then i had to make some big damage to troops and number of cities after they finally capitulate.

I healed a bit and sent all cavalries to east borders in preparation for another invasion.
Cyrus managed to get rifleman in all those years, but I finished teching of fighters. Well another mistake, i had flight, but didnt send someone to build well and since I mostly automate workers in ADs i was without oil too late, slowing me a bit down.

So around 1722 I felt the time is right and with airship support I started attack of cyrus with 33 cavalries. riflemen are problem but not when they face 16x number of them. but the first city costed me a bit.
I finally finished the well and quickly upgraded my airships to fighters, meaning that i finally have good quality air support and easing a lot my progress even against riflemen.
After 4 more cities he finally throwed in towel.

Some screens




Great map afterall! Thanks Dalamb.
I have to admit biggest disappointment I had was, when i finally realized i really have to build some navy! Not for that I think I had steamrolled the map around 1600AD.

I am looking forward for another NC game soon!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Immortal/Normal

Start -----> Finish

Spoiler :

Settled in place. AG ----> AH is very obvious as these are our two specials. AH reveals horse. I felt like closing the door on this one very early, so I settled on the plains hill by floodplain/gold, teched writing --->archery ---->HBR ---->BW. First target was Sal, then pericles. I was sure to leave them with 1 cruddy city each so that I could extort tech off of them - from Sal I got currency/math, and from pericles I got monarchy/aesthetics/rest of CoL/tons of lesser techs.

To pay for this, I did a combo of slider down + cottage spam in conquests. I turned my slider off after BW actually, allowing 1 settled GS + HBR trades to get me alphabet and pottery. I was losing 50 gpt at 0% at one point while HA armies were outside borders, but that quickly fell below -20 gpt which is no real issue with 1k in the bank. So, after fleecing the AI for about 1/3 of the world's land, I had currency/CoL/monarchy and a stable diplo situation (all @ pleased except the guys who got stomped at war or vassals).







That kind of warfare left me in a bit of a tech hole although nothing too serious given my land situation.



So after that I coasted out to space. I wasn't paying attention and didn't realize I had no aluminum, so I actually brute-forced all the space parts with just 150% production (labs and forge/factory/power). Of course, I DID have copper for internet to deny it to Asoka, and I did at that point have a blowout tech lead, so it didn't matter. Asoka got all the techs too by the end of the game, but hadn't even finished his ship yet when I won. 1 AI city made legendary. Nobody in the world could declare on me due to diplo, and charlie/shakavassal was fighting cyrus and his peacevassal Sal.



As you can see, if HA's are handed to cut down AI production quickly, their troop count isn't too bad:



That's the kills/deaths for fighting 2 AI, one of which was protective, both of which had metal I could not realistically take away. No matter, I still had well over a 2:1 K/D, which is very good pre-siege!

Final civics = all bottom civics.

 

[drlake]

Emperor/Epic to 65BC:

Spoiler :

This is actually take 3 of the game, though the screenshots say "take two". Take 2 was an attempt to put myself in a better position than my first run through (posted earlier in the thread) where I expanded peacefully. Since the most aggressive neighbor is Saladin, I decided to take him out. Take 2 was to try a Chariot rush.

Long story short, it didn't work. I was never able to take Mecca due to the combination of protective Archers and cultural defenses. I tried a couple of restarts, but always faced 4+ Archers there and 50% or so cultural defenses so the Chariots never had a chance.

Take 3 was to see if I could make it work with HAs. So far, so good. I teched HBR in 1350BC, with 3 cities built, and started pumping HAs in all three after building stables. I Declared war in 550BC, at which point I had 10-11 HAs built and went straight for Mecca. 2 turns later, Mecca was mine. I took Medina next, then Baghdad (the ruins N or Mecca), and finally Damascus (damn Iron city...) in 305BC. Total builds were 17HAs, of which I lost 7 (and 1 Chariot). I stopped building HAs a few turns before the end, in favor of a mix of wealth, infrastructure, and a couple of archer/settler pairs (now known as Nicaea and Antioch).

Here's the current map:




I know Pericles tends to expand slowly, but this is ridiculous. On the plus side, having three barbarian cities between us gives me a nice cushion for my expansion now that the war is done.

I only razed one city in the war with Saladin (he only built 4). I probably should have razed Damascus, but I didn't realize he was sitting on the Iron (no IW at that point) but it will eventually block Charlie off from settling in the NW corner, assuming he sends settlers across before I build the coastal cities marked.

I'm planning on building the light blue and magenta cities next, to get stone and copper respectively. In the near term I'm going to be pushing towards Pericles and not worrying so much about the West, because those cities will be on better land and because maintenance will be lower. The only one of the barbarian cities I'll consider keeping is the far E one, assuming Pericles doesn't get to it first.

City List:


I'm getting close to the "10 cities by 1AD" goal and am having no economic problems in this game, so that part is looking good! I do need to build more units soon, to support my HAs as I expand into the barbarian cities.

Foreign Relations:


Charlie doesn't like me, but there's not much he can do while separated from me by water. Everyone else likes me, so I'm in a pretty secure position right now. I don't expect any problems with Pericles or Asoka, until I cause them.

Tech Race:


Going good. I'm putting a couple turns of research into Calendar, to see if I can get it off Cyrus for Aesthetics or Monarchy. I'm trying to avoid trading away Currency until I can get better than Calendar (and he wants 35g to boot!). No sense improving their economies without a significant return on the investment.

Tech Tree:


My tech order was Agr - AH - Min - Hunt - Arch - BW - Writ - HBR (1350BC). I could have switched Hunt and Arch to after HBR and sped up the process slightly, since I would have had stables done before I was able to build HAs.

After that, Pot - Aes - trade for (IW/Alpha/Fish/Med/Poly/Priest/Sail/Math/Mon in order) - Cur, and now working on Calendar make the trade easier.

After Calendar, it will be Masonry - CoL - Lit (to build the GL. No marble, but I'll chop it out).

Religion:


I see converting to Judaism and switching to OR is indicated. I'm going to wait until after I get Calendar off Cyrus, in case that shifts him to Cautious. That'll also piss of Charlie, but as I noted above that doesn't bother me. I expect a war with him one of these days.

VC:


Demographics:


There's one more AI civ out there, and judging from this they are big! I assume that Cyrus is the only other known AI with a larger population, and I'm in good shape with regard to economic strength.

Plans:
To sum things up, I'm going into sort-of peaceful expansion mode. The only planned wars are against the barbarians to my East, to open that land for cities. I expect to get another 3-4 cities in that direction before I run into Pericles, at which point I'll think about filling in some of the holes in the West. I doubt I'll start another war before Cataphracts, since I've got enough room to double (at least) my city count without fighting one.

Comments and feedback?

 

[Tokahfang]

@ Tokahfang
Oh, city lost to culture flip, ouch What difficulty are you playing on?

Monarch

 

[Gwynnja]

Sorry if this isn't directly related to the specific game, but I would like to play along, without random events. Can I turn them off?

 

[drlake]

Sorry if this isn't directly related to the specific game, but I would like to play along, without random events. Can I turn them off?

Sure, load as a custom scenario.

 

[vicawoo]

I apologize in advance for lack of detail and pictures. I have disabled hands and I type via trackball, so inputting links and such is quite difficult.

Get imageshack toolbar, and drag and drop images to get the links. Typing urls is oh so tedious.

 

[Karstedt]

@TheMeInTeam: What upgrades did you give your horsemen to avoid getting them slaughtered? I noticed you had almost no catapults, and I have had no luck attacking cities post chariots without catapults.

@L-Plate Ruler: Victory plans? What are those? This is why I stagnate. I compulsively start to build. I'm hoping to continue the crusade at least until after my UU is obsolete. I run a very weak war game and am trying to work on it. Ideally, I'd like to conquer my new western neighbor and head for domination.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

@TheMeInTeam: What upgrades did you give your horsemen to avoid getting them slaughtered? I noticed you had almost no catapults, and I have had no luck attacking cities post chariots without catapults.

@L-Plate Ruler: Victory plans? What are those? This is why I stagnate. I compulsively start to build. I'm hoping to continue the crusade at least until after my UU is obsolete. I run a very weak war game and am trying to work on it. Ideally, I'd like to conquer my new western neighbor and head for domination.

A mixture of combat II and Combat I + shock. Further promos were more combat if they survived.

And I didn't use "few" catapults. I used 0 catapults.

 

[Mogur]

@vranasm

Spoiler :

Nice win
Im not any kind of expert at Cavarly wars, but generally wanted to get you thinking about focusing your whole empire to the task. You had a good number of cities and were teching great so Cavs seemed like a good choice.

It doesnt sound like you had much luck with the spies. I'll admit Im not great with them either. Dont keep them in enemy territory any longer than necessary. But, they need to be stationed 5 turns in an enemy city to get the 50% discount on EP's. It takes timing and calculated risks. Used effectively Cavs/Spies and later Cavs/Fighters/Bombers can just wreck the AI without building a single siege unit. Obviously not always possible though.

Kind of a shame about needing the navy. Slowed you down a few years. I was thinking Inland Sea was a continuous streach of land around a single body of water. I thought you could get to every AI by land. My bad. Also I should have reminded you about fighters needing oil. Well played though, good game!

 

[huerfanista]

Monarch/epic thru 1320AD:

Spoiler :

Settled in place, popping the hut for a map which showed the stone to the west. Worker> warrior x2 > settler. Ag> AH> mining> BW> med> PH> masonry> pottery. After popping out 3 cities I built the oracle (mostly chopped) in city 2 (stone), taking MC. Then I chopped/whipped a forge in Constantinople and ran an engineer for 100% chance of a GE. Used him to bulb machinery. Settled a couple more cities, built the mid and HG in the capital, which got the GE sooner. Built the colossus and GLH in a coastal city just for the hell of it. Writing> alpha> CoL> CS, traded for monarchy, IW, poly, HBR, aesth, calendar, math. After CS I went lit (built GL with 2nd GE)> feud> guilds> eng, and started spamming cataphracts. Declared on Saladin in 715AD:


Capped him after taking all the cities on this continent (he had one city on the other continent). Declared on Pericles next, after building up a bunch of trebs (he had engineering and was starting to build castles). I capped him after taking most of his cities, including Athens.

Cataphracts are very strong when gotten early (and 700AD isn't really all that early, but it's early enough), as you can see:


After engineering I went banking> paper> edu> phil (bulb)> lib (took Nationalism)> MilTrad. I'm 2 turns from gunpowder and nobody else has banking yet so the GM from economics will be a lock and will upgrade all those 'phracts to cuirassiers or cavalry (not sure which way I'll go yet). This one's in the bag.

 

[vranasm]

@vranasm

Spoiler :

Nice win
Im not any kind of expert at Cavarly wars, but generally wanted to get you thinking about focusing your whole empire to the task. You had a good number of cities and were teching great so Cavs seemed like a good choice.

It doesnt sound like you had much luck with the spies. I'll admit Im not great with them either. Dont keep them in enemy territory any longer than necessary. But, they need to be stationed 5 turns in an enemy city to get the 50% discount on EP's. It takes timing and calculated risks. Used effectively Cavs/Spies and later Cavs/Fighters/Bombers can just wreck the AI without building a single siege unit. Obviously not always possible though.

Kind of a shame about needing the navy. Slowed you down a few years. I was thinking Inland Sea was a continuous streach of land around a single body of water. I thought you could get to every AI by land. My bad. Also I should have reminded you about fighters needing oil. Well played though, good game!

Spoiler :

That was exactly the problem with spies. I stationed them too soon. I almost think that the 50% discount is not so critical as to have at least some spies... :-D
Later I tried to station them for 1-2 turns to get at least some discount. But I have to say that after some promotions cavalry charge against longbows can be done even without spies/siege, because the odds are pretty high in your favor at least to 60% cultural is without problems, 80 is manageable, 100% is a bit problem (and actually I pretty much used cavalry charge without spies against everybody after Pericles, the airships and fighters were nice additions though).

Well the map layout is not your problem but mine, because i didnt scout properly . That oil was classical mistake I make in every game :-D, I just can't mm workers whole game, especially after all my core cities have all improvements, it's time to automate a bit and set citizen management so the local managers direct workers themself. But since I block removing old improvements usually that means I dont work oil soon enough :-D.