A fun game of Kublai!

[krikav]

Playing an awesome game of Kublai at the moment.
Think I might have botched the start (I'm up at T69 myself now), anyone else care to have a try?

Starting screenshot:

Spoiler :

Settings:

Spoiler :

 

[krikav]

Lots of spoilery screenshots, AH/BW, starting area etc.

Spoiler T69 :

I moved scout north-west and saw rice/floodplains. I briefly considered just settling in place as it would provide alot of natural spawnbusting, another option was to move two times to reach the spot 2E of rice as that would leave starting location open for city2... But I moved once and settled where I did.
Started with Agri->AH.
It became apparant very early that barbs would be a nightmare, so I went archery after AH.
After that, i went early pottery, reasoning that I had a safe tucked away location on that peninsula that could start to develop cottages early for me.

Built two archers and they are getting well promoted (guerilla for mobility, need to cover multiple fronts).
I went writing after pottery, worker was busy laying down cottages, and BW was so far away w/o mining and the libraries are dirt cheap.

After BW, with no copper in sight and being constantly harassed by barbs (got the east somewhat fogbusted but they are comming in heavily from the south) I make a somewhat unorthodox choice to go IW before monarchy, with the hope to have some iron close by.
Archers are great defenders, but I don't really dare to attack and I'm getting bypassed alot and getting improvements pillaged are really annoying, so many worker turns lost.

Stats up until IW.
No losses yet, except pillaged improvements and alot of unecessery worker movements (and forced techpath).

Well.. there was iron but not easily accessable. Just killed of two more incomming archers so haven't seen any signs of them slowing down and settling down yet.
I have to be abit conservative with the amount of cities I settle, so will probably go 2S of the iron, so I get sheep/wheat/iron in the same city.
Not sure if I should settle one more helper 3W1S of capital, to juggle sheep/rice with the others, or if I should just let the food go to waste up until monarchy.

Even with creative and almost fully landlocked area for "myself" (damn you barbs!) I'm still narrowly last in land.
Low sea level means there will be juggernaut AIs to contend with later on.
Can't really afford to tech archery, can't really afford to mess around with barbs for ages.

 

[krikav]

Attached a worldbuilder save, in case someone wants to play w/o buffy5.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T89 :

Played abit more.
Took chances like these, I figured I probably have to delete or replace warriors on the front anyway, and if he succeeds he is close to woody3 and a candidate for super medic later. He survives too!

Barbs are continuing to stall my development.. But I'm pushing back abit at last.
I station both archers in that forest, and my good one dies at 20-30% odds, the bad one gets revenge at 99.9 though!

Why does the mapgenerator do these type of things?! This will hurt my eyes for the rest of the game. Impossible to claim all fish.

I get my Academy guy and start the monarchy sprint. Allthough I do make a detour to fishing first, the settler from Turfan will settle that clam-spot. I can probably not afford it, but I can't afford to spawnbust or defend from that area either.

More nasty spears... I station this archer here and he dies in two turns when the spear wins a 32% fight. Not much luck with rolls today!
At least that archer abit further back wins when the continue to march in and attack him in the forest NE of Turfan at 1.9 and 1.1% odds, but even more luck was that they didn't start to march north to the iron city, so I don't have to let the chops land into yet more archers!

T89, closing in on monarchy now and finally I'm getting my island under control.
The entire perimeter is spawnbusted for galleys too, so my clams are safe.
Not much resources to speak of on my home island... Sure hope that the AIs have a taste for sheep, or that someone is lacking iron.
At least I DO have iron and horses.

And the north. I feel like I'm quite abit behind. Going IW was a serious mistake. A call I made when the situation seemed desperate. I should probably have left it half-teched when I came to my senses.
I can get my second astro-GSci at T133 as the absolute earliest (from Turfan) but I think I'll allow turfan to grow abit too, getting a super-early optics and meeting and getting trades before T140 is probably not on the table anymore.

I'm not last in land anymore! Seems like my commerce isn't terrible either, but I guess thats because the AIs are expanding like mad dogs by now.

Barbs...

And economy. I have stalled Karakarum on a settler which is almost finished now, but I don't think I can afford to settle him.
Might be worth it though if I can chop out a library fast and just let it run 2 scientists.

 

[krikav]

Save at T89, does anyone spot anything I might have overlooked? Anything obvious that should be done, or something that should have been done differently?

 

[lymond]

I assume this is Fractal?

 

[sampsa]

@krikav

Spoiler :

Perhaps too early granaries? Say in Beshbalik. Assuming you have autosaves, you can even check how much you've whipped there. IMO very hard to make granaries worth it without EXP without -res. Of course at monarchy they become awesome.

 

[krikav]

I assume this is Fractal?

I do think it is. It's a save from the isolation workshop thread.

 

[krikav]

@krikav

Spoiler :

Perhaps too early granaries? Say in Beshbalik. Assuming you have autosaves, you can even check how much you've whipped there. IMO very hard to make granaries worth it without EXP without -res. Of course at monarchy they become awesome.

Could be! I have to take a look. But I think I even went libraries first in most cities. I didn't whip much at all. Agree that the happycap is crushingly low.

 

[lymond]

Spoiler :

The barbs were fun..ha. Actually went Archery after AH/BW and was just in time. (I actually settled same spot as you). But I shoulda waited on BW until after Writing.

 

[krikav]

@lymond

Spoiler :

I did do that, Agri->AH->Arch->pot->Writing->mining->BW.
I think that Agri->AH->Arch was ok, but after that I'm less sure, a mine would have helped to get archers out more conveniently, and it would have made the construction of the library much faster.

Also, I wonder if early pottery really was worth it. Sure the cottages where nice, but getting a library even earlier would also have been nice, and as @sampsa
mentioned, granaries aren't really that relevant here. Especially not before BW.

And yeah, barbs are simply brutal. Part of the fun with the map.

 

[Fippy]

Spoiler :

Pottery def. before writing, no mistake there
Not expensive with the discount for writing, and many rivers.

BW after AH is gambling imo (Lymo ), actually this looks like a delay BW map.
No need for slavery with cheap libraries and little use for granaries.

I would have settled 3E1N of your cap, another fp and more green rivers.

 

[krikav]

@Fippy 3E1N of cap, which number in the order would that have been?

 

[Fippy]

Hmm depends on barb activity, eventually before Turfan which is ofc better but needs sheep watched early.
I usually flock towards close commerce spots if they pressure everywhere, even if they are not great cities.
Less food benefits from earlier settling without a happy cap.

One worker to cottage fp and then grass in time for growth.
Edit oops floodplains not in your borders right away.

 

[krikav]

Makes sense, pasturing that sheep in the south was such a pain.
I think I'll push this one up to optics, and then see if I can improve on the opening with the advices from here.
@Fippy where would you have settled, and why?

 

[Fippy]

3s of Cap first i think, all barbs will run against a hill city that needs nothing improved south

 

[krikav]

Beware, spoiler for one AI!
Feedback / Critique is welcome,
I want to play this one more, because I think it's much to learn with the AIs later on, but I will probably restart now to see if I can improve.

Spoiler Aaaand Optics! :

@Fippy

Spoiler :

I like that idea, I had to defend actively in my game and over the course of the game that cost me a fortune in upkeep.
On a similar note, a city 2S of the wheat could act as a similar barb-magnet, especially if one places a warrior 1S of the wheat to block pathfinding to the wheat.
Looks rather bleak, but pre-optics it's sweet with wheat+2scientists+grass cottage + plains cottage @ pop5.

 

[Fippy]

Yup if you can get it in too it's great protection.
If settling 3s you can also settle 3n, Rice stays with Cap then.

 

[krikav]

3N would have been simply awesome. 3N1W was horrible, the lack of that single floodplain ment that I had to juggle tiles back and forth like a mad hatter.

 

[sampsa]

Yup if you can get it in too it's great protection.
If settling 3s you can also settle 3n, Rice stays with Cap then.

Yeah I think this is the best play. Knowing myself, I'd try to not go archery (hey, we are AGG after all) and likely get pwned