7OTM06 - Completion of Age of Exploration Spoiler Thread

[Lord Yanaek]

At the top of your post please post: Difficulty - Number of turns (optional)

A few questions to consider:

• What Legacy bonuses did you chose and why? What other start up things did you do at the beginning of the Age of Exploration?
• What was your plan for moving toward the victory condition? What are the major steps you planned to take? What events, if any, changed the plan in execution and to what new plan? Any interesting decision points?
• If you decided not to go with Inca, why did you choose another civilization?
• Do you think the new Pangea map makes the economic victory in the exploration era easier/harder compared to the default Continents map?
• Early order for technology/civics? What did you later prioritize for technology/civics?
• How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?
• How many cities/towns did you settle and/or capture? Where did you settle your first few towns in this Age? What was your mix of towns vs cities?
• What were key production/purchase focuses?
• Religious bonuses chosen and why?
• What government did you select? Which bonus did you chose most and why?
• Any cool info we forgot to ask about?
• How did you focus your use of influence?
• Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it?
• Did you enjoy this Age?

 

[cas]

Sovereign save. T110 Exploration finish. 12 legacy points.

What Legacy bonuses did you chose and why? What other start up things did you do at the beginning of the Age of Exploration?
fealty(+2 settlement), military attribute, expansion attribute, keep cities from previous age, diplo attribute, science attribute. I think.

What was your plan for moving toward the victory condition? What are the major steps you planned to take? What events, if any, changed the plan in execution and to what new plan? Any interesting decision points?
Cripple and imprison the AI asap to keep them from advancing legacies/age. Befriend at least one science, culture, commerce CS for unique improvements. Draw out the age as long as possible to build/buy unique improvements and universities late. Exploration -> Modern will choose golden universities for extra science.

If you decided not to go with Inca, why did you choose another civilization?
Chose Norman. I wanted three main things: 1 - early good units to crush the AI (Chevaler), 2 - happiness to exceed settlement limit (Motte and Norman civics), and 3 - gold to buy improvements and universities late (Norman civic Doomsday book +2 gold on farms, doubled during celebration).

Do you think the new Pangea map makes the economic victory in the exploration era easier/harder compared to the default Continents map?
Harder for economic legacy in the Exploration, but easier for Economic victory in Modern if you take over the entire starting continent.

Early order for technology/civics? What did you later prioritize for technology/civics?
First civic was Piety for religion, then Norman civics mostly. Went for Colonialism2 for El Escorial, but Himiko built it first. Then just finish the tree to grab all +settlement civics and on to future civic.
Science was normal path. Beeline shipbuilding, then on to future tech. researched some of the masteries for bonus to food/gold/science.

How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?
Pachacuti leader bonus is better than I thought. Norman civ is awesome for their civics.

How many cities/towns did you settle and/or capture? Where did you settle your first few towns in this Age? What was your mix of towns vs cities?
lost track. I captured all the AI settlements. Razed ones I didn't want and kept many. Ended up with 34 settlements. 18 cities / 16 towns. Some of the cities were fairly late converts just to get Mottes/universities for next age.

What were key production/purchase focuses?
settlers to grab land I wanted and imprison AI civs. Towards the end of the age...Mottes/Baileys, universities, monasteries, and stone heads.

Religious bonuses chosen and why?
+2 relics first time CS conversion, +4 culture / +4 happiness. Mostly irrelevant since I captured all AI settlements except 1/each.

What government did you select? Which bonus did you chose most and why?
Feudal Monarchy. +20% food for growth. Constitutional Monarchy might have been better for +40% gold.

Any cool info we forgot to ask about?
First screenshot below shows 4 of the AI imprisoned in 1-3 tile settlements I founded. Keeps them from expanding or reaching any legacy paths. I fill the open tiles and center tile with 'ageless' buildings like granary to keep the AI from building another temple and spamming missionaries. This allows me to reach 100% religion spread at my leisure. Gifting settlements to the AI should be banned in 7OTM.

How did you focus your use of influence?
Befriended 5 city states (2sci, 2cul, 1mil). Otherwise, mostly war support until it turned negative from capturing/razing AI settlements.

Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it?
1 - Chose the wrong order for AI attack. Should have gone Himiko first. She built all the culture wonders, so when I captured her cities, it triggered Toshakhana legacy and moved the age forward faster than I wanted.
2 - Only 1 commerce CS on my map and it was hostile and in a bad location. I razed it, but should have befriended.
3 - Eliminated Tubman on the last turn of the age. Thought I would be able to raze the settlement, but since I founded it during this age, had to keep it.

Did you enjoy this Age?
Yes, but it was somewhat tedious trying to delay the age instead of moving it along quickly.

Thanks for hosting!

cas

 

[RaidandTrade]

Deity save. Turn 93 finish. 9 (?) Legacy points [3 Culture, 1 Commerce, 2 Military, 3 Science]

Spoiler Ranking :

Spoiler Legacies :

Spoiler End of Age Yields :

What Legacy bonuses did you choose and why? What other start up things did you do at the beginning of the Age of Exploration?

Silk Roads
Change Capital – Chickasaw -> Qusqu
Economic x 1
Diplomatic x 1 (Befriending IPs)
Scientific x 1
Expansionist x 1
Wild -> Cultural x 1

What was your plan for moving toward the victory condition? What are the major steps you planned to take? What events, if any, changed the plan in execution and to what new plan? Any interesting decision points?

Plan was to scout out treasure resource locations. First challenge was that Homou’s navigable rive was locked by Harriet so had to burn some influence for open borders to get the cog out to sea. Only the east is open to me. Cash bought another cog to aid in the exploration.

Two towns were hub towns for a good portion of the age as I wanted Suzerains for free techs. Focus was on getting factory resources for the modern age which I suspected would require a navy rather than settler spam. Ended up settler spam and no conflict.

On the homelands, aim was to lean into Machu Pickchu adjacencies to boost culture and gold plus get me the science legacies. Slightly messed up a tile claim so only one of the nearby tiles was workable by another city though. Still, without min/maxing I was hitting 60+ tile yields.

Early order for technology/civics? What did you later prioritize for technology/civics?

Astronomy > Cartography > Feudalism (Settle)
Piety (Religion ) > Economics (Trade) > Religion > Mit’a > Mit’a Mastery (Machu Pickchu)

How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?

Gold. Lots of gold. Too much gold. Finished exploration with over 10k unspent. Guaranteed Machu Pickchu was also handy, especially with a decent location for it.

How many cities/towns did you settle and/or capture? Where did you settle your first few towns in this Age? What was your mix of towns vs cities?

Silk roads meant I brought in my cities as cities. I settled four more towns in the islands and convert them to get me 2 points on ideology.

What were key production/purchase focuses?

Focus again on infrastructure. I did have some military but my navy pretty much scouted the map to make sure I could see all the cities and islands for Modern.

Religious bonuses chosen and why?

Oooh fishy fishy (guess which icon) founded on turn 16 with Apostolism (+2 relics for foreign settlements with a wonder) and Holy Ecumene (+4 Culture). Also took the belief for conversion via trade routes.

Last 20-30 turns felt like missionary and merchant spam and whack-a-mole. Ended up with all my cities following my religion and around 40 foreign settlements as well. Waset (Amina) wasn’t happy and flipped to me during the crisis.

What government did you select? Which bonus did you choose most and why?

Theocracy. My culture is weak – last place at the start of the age – so I’ll take all the help I can get. Spamming missionaries later on came in handy.

How did you focus your use of influence for diplomacy?

I befriended all but 4 IPs.

Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it?

First time on Pangea and lost a ship trying to sail from island to the other side before ship building. Much more open ocean.

Did you enjoy this Age?

So so. Economic path needs to be fixed; Only managed 1 point. Cultural path needs to be fixed; very click heavy if you’re trying to max religion. Felt like this age was more setting up for Modern but was nice to feel like I was recovering from a mediocre Antiquity.

 

[GeoGeo]

Turn 105, 6 legacy points [3 Culture and Science], Deity

Based on my empire’s position, I was pretty sure there would be little opportunity to pursue the Economic legacy, and I wanted a peaceful, defensive game in hopes of dragging things out. That left a focus on Culture and Science, with the unofficial goal of getting nice big cities for the next age. Mission accomplished on those three fronts.

Legacies chosen: Pax Imperatoria (bonus infantry), Minister the Sick (the most important—free Piety), Master Caravaneer for some extra gold and a smattering of attribute points (eco, science, expansion, and diplo). I forgot to switch capitals made an informed choice to keep my capital from Antiquity. For religion, I focused on targeting foreign wonders as revenge for not getting as many as I wanted in the last age—a simple, workable strategy to make the Culture legacy a foregone conclusion.

I made a point to beeline Tomb of Askia ASAP, and succeeded despite Songhai being present. Easily my favorite Exploration wonder for its ludicrous gold output. I noticed early on that I didn’t actually have any tropical mountains for Machu Pikchu, so I settled a little unnocupied valley to the southwest of my imperial core. The default name was Machu Pikchu—always fun when that works out. The eventual tile yields in that settlement were the highest I’ve ever gotten in Civ 7 (see attached yield porn).

There was a protracted struggle against Augustus early on leading to no land changing hands, after that things became quite peaceful, and I made a point to be extra nice to Harriet, whose territory began to surround mine. I ended up in an alliance with her by the end of the age, in addition to Jose and Napoleon.

I finished the Culture and Science paths by turn 63. After that it was a whole lot of hurrying up and waiting to get bigger cities and fill out the tech and civic trees. Lots of missionary spam, hard buying terraced farms, filling in the remaining mountain adjacencies, and establishing Universities for the golden age bonus. As a side project I passed through Harriet’s territory to take Himiko’s last big city, just for the fun of it. I would’ve taken Friedrich’s too, but the plague hit him and prevented my assault from continuing. The plague also managed to kill one of my commanders for the second age in a row. Gotta be more careful about that.

Was over 1100 culture per turn by the end with 12 settlements (10 of them cities). I got Future Civic twice but due to mistiming I missed Future Tech by a single turn--unfortunate.

(Oops, forgot to save at the end of the age. )