5th Open Game - Emperor start with no happiness resources nearby

[Giaur]

@information for impatient ones ...

Select one save between 1500AD and 1700AD. Do not post both: 1500AD and 1700AD. And one save between 1700AD and end of the game (succesful end or not).

 

[shyuhe]

I've re-attempted from the start.

Spoiler :

This time I actually remembered to cottage up the capital area. Other than that, play was very similar to the first time around (but my economy was much easier to sustain with bureaucracy. However, liberalism has not yet been discovered at 1000 AD in my save.

Basically scouted the starting area, didn't venture much into the jungle though. I then founded the coastal marble city as my second city to shot for oracle. I took COL off of oracle, then teched through monarchy on my own and switched into monarchy. I had met Lizzy and Augustus at this point so I started selling backwards tech to them. I continued settling eastwards to cut off my portion of the continent from them. However, Augustus settled cities very close to me and started getting annoyed with me. I gifted him two whole techs to get +4 fair trade bonus and to keep him off my back. I kept on gifting techs to Lizzy to turn her Confucian as well.

With the diplomacy all settled and no fear of war, I just built up infrastructure - although I don't have much of a clue of how to do that with an SE...

I am almost done researching liberalism at 1000 AD, will probably take Nationalism off of it in preparation for war against the southern neighbors. I have a spare GM wandering around in foreign territory and I'm thinking of teching military tradition + gunpowder while building knights, then mass upgrading them into cavalry and going to war. At least that's the plan... we'll see how well it goes in my next update.

 

[jihe]

I decide to try this one out as well and bascially followed the exact strategy as the Gandhi game I had before.
I am an idiot and forgot the 1AD save. Buit here is AD1040.
Actually I will research HBR+MT instead of Chemistry since there are 2 GS's coming soon for lightbulbing.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/106707/Alexander_AD-1040.CivWarlordsSave

Spoiler :

Was very very silly and completely forgot about the Oracle since the AI's always build it quickly. Realised the Oracle was still available around 700BC and then got beaten to it by one turn.

Research is essentially a beeline to Liberalism then Constitution.

Important events:
Scout Pop a ton of gold and Mystism.

475BC: GL
325BC: Philosophy
100BC: CoL and switch to Pacifism+CS
300AD: Civil Service, Paper, Education
520AD: Swtich to Slavery+OR won't be using Pacifism and CS anymore
680AD: Liberalism taking Nationalism
980AD: Constitution

 

[nullspace]

I just won the race to liberalism, and now I'll head for representation. I'm not dominating the game yet, but I'm surviving.

 

[Snaaty]

I also reached the 1 AD mark... ...played in 3 short turnsets during the last week

Spoiler :

So far, everything went more or less as planned. Settled on the spot, next city went inlands, along the river towards jungle... ...next on the coast to claim the marble

Innitial teching was as usuall:

basic workertechs, pottery, ahusbandry (which revealed some horses in BFC), bronze

Since I had no money, nothing usefull left to build and my capital limited to size 4, I decided to leave my usuall techpath and squezed in meditation and priesthood

oracle build/chopped (first time I ever have build the oracle)

While thinking about building the oracle, I suddenly had the idea of changing my techpath some more:

next was math... ...while building the oracle, I already had set 2 scientists to work... ...took CoL of the oracle and bulbed phil around 1500 BC with first GS (instead of building an academy).

Thanks to pacifism, next GS was through in 9 turns (I tried to make max. use of Alex´s traits... ...since agressive was utterly useless, I had to focus on philosofical...)

Academy + some cottages near capital, all other cities were going pure FE... ...one more GS was planned in rivercity

Then back to usuall researchpath:

alpha-lit

Great Library is down to 2 turns at 1 AD in costal city... ...capital is working 3 or 4 cottages to help the research

Got beaten for two great citylocations (dschungel shugar/river by Rome and dschungel shugar/iron by England... ...but managed to grab the diamonds + blue thingy site... ...blocked of a huge area of land (maybe 12-14 cities possible)

Am thinking of using next GS to build 2. academy in diamond-blue thingy city (5 or 6 luxury resources in BFC) instead of using him to bulb paper

...

In generall, this game feels more like an isolation game... ...although I lost 2 great citysites to my neighbours (one each) I start to feel pitty with them... ...they tech so incredible slow, that I decided to simply NOT techtrade with them so far... ...had to research all techs myself (only did two extremely onesided trades... ...mainly to increase relations because of different religion to get the +4: CoL-ironworking with England and phil-monarchy with Rome)

Well, I think I´m still quite on track with this game... ... lib should be in around 600 AD, but exact date depending on future trading possibilities with my stupid neighbours (need metal casting and compass)... ...I will try again to do a "no war spacerace" (which should be rel. easy with this start...)

Save in next post, when I have reached the 1000 AD mark

EDIT:

Argh... ...just found out in Pete´s post that something called "odeon" would increase happiness... ...could this be the special building of Greece???... ...should have really checked on this BEFORE playing

 

[Pete2006]

Kudos to you guys who can manage this type of game. I just passed the 1 AD mark and don't even have iron hooked up.

 

[shyuhe]

Argh... ...just found out in Pete´s post that something called "odeon" would increase happiness... ...could this be the special building of Greece???... ...should have really checked on this BEFORE playing

Nice to know I'm not the only one who missed this I didn't start building odeons until very late... It started to conflict with my military builds for war so I haven't even completed a full slate of odeons in my cities yet I definitely could have used those two extra too.

 

[jihe]

Just a thought, wouldn't oracle for alphabet be pretty good? A super early GL can't be bad, and you can even build research if you are in a hole.

 

[shyuhe]

I took CoL for happy reasons (+2 with temples). Plus you get courthouses. Does alphabet take that long to research if you have scientists on the go?

 

[jihe]

usually 15-20 turns for alphabet. anycase I never tried taking alphabet before, moslyt because i am always beaten to oracle.

I took CoL for happy reasons (+2 with temples). Plus you get courthouses. Does alphabet take that long to research if you have scientists on the go?

 

[Dirk1302]

Tried again with some cottages , situation is somewhat better this time, I'll play on from these saves Giaur so forget about the previous ones.

 

[Snaaty]

Thanks for waiting...

Spoiler :

The tech-pace on my conti was really bah.... ...so not much trading done... ...after 1 AD, only construction and machinery were traded (don´t remember for what)

Machinery arrived just in time (lib was down to 1 turn) and since it was around 700 AD I gambled and... ...got astro as freebe at 820 AD.

Right now I´m sailing out to find the other conti (have made first contact 1000 AD) and hope to bring my economy up a little... ...I am more or less broke... ...research at 50 % only

I settled all cities (except capital and early blocking cities) costal and will now migrate my economy from bureau... to TE (trade economy)

I´m busy whipping granaries, libraries/theatres, courthouses and harbours.

There are still two barb cities (now more or less incorporated in my empire... ...I settled around them) which I plan to conquer with trebs once my dumb continent buddies have managed to research engineering (and I have traded for it). I don´t want to trade it with the other conti, because there are better things to trade for later with them

Since I don´t have bronze and I don´t need rep (hrule is OK for TE) I´m thinking of skipping the SoL and concentrating on economy techs and bio ASAP, but I´m still undecided.

Right now I´m researching nationalism, because nationhood it´s a good civic for TE (cheap and happy from barracks for additional whipping) because I plan to change civics from bureau... to nationhood once my TE is up and running

The saves:
saves removed
...

EDIT:

Just had a look at most 1000 AD saves... ...I really seem to be the only one who is playing without specialists AND cottages (except 4-5 near capital and one build by accident (klicked wrong button it seems))

Still my research is quite good, even pre TE (Trade Economy), with only 50% science and closed borders to my continent buddies... ...I think it´s worth having a look at my saves

 

[Giaur]

@Snaaty: I guess it's in fact impressive one ...

@all: I will do a writeup tomorrow morning.

Concerning my own game: Merchantilism is a threat for me. But I'll try to push my current save to the end. I guess it will be easy. You can always fight with numbers. If I remember correctly Constitution can be partly lightbulbed by Great Merchant. That's also information for you Dirk ...

 

[Dirk1302]

Yes i know a merchant can help here, i got constitution relatively easy the second time i played though, problem now is, it's not as useful to me now i've cottaged half of my empire. Again i've played sloppy , this time probably because i've seen it all before up till 1600. I'll probably finish the game tonight with a space race attempt, win or lose, it'll be my last attempt at this one, never felt comfortable in this game.

 

[Dirk1302]

Spoiler about the finish of the game.

Spoiler :

I really got thrashed this game, Mansa launched 1845 AD. I hadn't even finished Internet and Apollo program by that time, there were a lot of small things that i could have done better (expand a bit earlier and better micro M , at least fetch the pig spot on the left that MM got in the end) but i don't think it would have turned the game around.

I now think that i should have tried for domination, the map didn't seem suitable for this though (far AI's). It would also have taken a lot of my time in a game that i was playing for the second time already.

I hope the rest of you do better and that i'll pick up a few good ideas from your games.

 

[mrchadt]

To snatty, I'm really impressed with the location of your 4th city. It gets the gems and dye. I got a city over there but not as early as you did. I don't understand how you manage to expand so well without crashing your economy, I guess it's whipping court houses and keeping your military to a minimum. You somehow manage to keep all of the ai's sweet. Do you gift them lots? You seem to have a very good understanding of the ai diplomacy scoring system.

Another thing to most of you, you all seem to play a lot quicker then I do, my games do report a slower time then actually playing as I often leave the game on while I do something else. Do you use the ordering builds function? and how do you keep an eye on where all you military are?
Thanks

 

[Dirk1302]

Keeping the Ai sweet is not the problem in this game i think, Augustus and Lizzy are generally not quick to declare on you. I should have whipped courthouses and markets myself earlier than i could have expanded easier towards the gems and dye myself instead of taking them later from Augustus.

As for playing quicker, you mean the auto building governor by ordering builds function? I don't use that, military is always at home exceping for fogbusters and citytakers. Probably i just play a lot.

 

[Snaaty]

@ mrchadt & dirk:

Just checked my first save what I did:

I didn´t whip early (normally only start around 1 AD or so) because early happiness is a huge problem... ...my trick for expansion are extremely early cottages near capital (had 3 cottages with 4 gold each) combined with scientists

Courthouses I have build only after i expanded... ...but I compensated the 30 turns or so of total economical breakdown with libraries and scientists (I build libs VERY early to switch between CE and SE when needed) therefore I got 3 GS extremely early because I was able to set 2 GS at work in all 3 cities I had at that time (bulbed phil and have build 2 academies)

Since I try to avoid early game wars, I can keep my military costs quite low (had around 500 BC 4 warriors, 1 scout and 3 charriots)

my philosophy is quite simple for early game expansion... ...first expand (and block of the AI) then take care on recovering economy

The citysite with the gems and dye I have only choosen to get a monopol on those resources (to have them ALL in BFC)... ...the city isn´t very good in my point of view for long term consideration because not enough food (later the gold generated by luxurious resources doesn´t matter much... ...I usually stop working them in midgame and switch to farms because of the food)

Dirk is right... ...those AI´s are really easy to handle, even when not sharing your religion (once they are pleased, they leave you alone)

 

[Binky123]

I'm replaying (with cottages) as well. I should have the update for you before the writeup tomorrow morning though. All farms was too hard for me

 

[Binky123]

Here are my saves.

I massed cottages and built nothing pretty much.