A fun game of Kublai!

[krikav]

Yep, that was some major . I think what I had in mind is barb cities? They are allowed to be generated when the (amount of cities on continent/amount of leaders on continent => 3)? I'm not surprised if even this is complete nonsense.

Apparantly, I was interested in the topic in ages past too.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/barbarian-cities.449360/

 

[Nick723]

@Nick723
The rationale:

Spoiler :

I don't want to revolt to slavery, because I don't need to do any whipping at all, except for maybe this library, and maybe some pre-whipping to get overflow into caravels.
I don't want the turn of anarchy as it would slow me down.
And slavery cost in upkeep too, right now it's 1 gold per turn, but it will likely increase soon.

The point with forests (and pre-whipped overflow) is that you can get 60+ hammers overflow into caravels on the same turn as you discover optics.
Then they fly out of the harbour on the turn after optics.

If you want to whip caravels, you have to on optics turn put hammers into them, and then whip them on the turn after optics and they are leaving the harbour two turns after optics disovery.

Regarding the food:

Spoiler :

Yes!
This is precicely why I thought it was so urgent to settle Turfan. Neither of the other two cities needed the rice, and that food was essentially being wasted.
The bottleneck I'm facing now is 100% commerce, so it does makes sense to not work the food...
But it _still_ hurts my eyes and my soul!

Hmmm interesting - makes sense what you are saying but surprised in some ways it has turned out this way. I would have thought that slavery would have been useful in the expansion phase - but perhaps not. I agree if you’ve not revolted by now it does seem to be a waste if you can avoid. I’ll have to play map to see how it pans out for me!

Agree that last thing you want to do is sit around waiting for caravels. So if no slavery, better save those forests!

 

[krikav]

Just humming along.

Spoiler T92 :

Now all 5 cities are developed.
BPT increased way faster than I anticipated.

Not much has happend, abit of worker micro, and some fogbusting.
Had a barb galley spawn close to the calm because I was a cheapscate and moved the GSci into culture to save supply. Moved a archer that wasn't doing anything up north-east and deleted a warrior standing there.
2060 beakers still needed, so might be looking at a T115 optics.

Trying to keep expenses as lean as possible.

Individual cities.
Capital is juggling abit with Turfan, will take the sheep once food drops too low. Will likely transition to cottages once the GSci is out. This city won't be doing any GPerson duty after this one.

This city has been looking like this for thousands of years now.

Taking sheep and/or cottages to balance food.

This one is just running cottages, will probably want to focus on production here so taking GPerson duty feels difficult.

Likewise here.

 

[krikav]

@Nick723

Spoiler :

Abit suprised myself!
Basically I think it was that BW where delayed, and once it was in math where so close and forests so abundant that slavery wouldn't contribute anything (except saving forests for later).
Also, the happycap is making any excess whipping counterproductive right away, pop4 cities are stunted as it is, pop3 cities would be even worse.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T116 :

Chopping into research, not used to having alphabet. So I basically roaded every forest for nothing, could have just chopped continiously if I had paid attention.
Not releasing this settler until it's time to settle, as every unit adds a gold or so in upkeep and I want to continue to stay lean.

As I was closing in on the goal, it became apparant that T115 compass seemed impossible, I could probably have done it if I had starved down Turfan and Karakorum more earlier, but as it is here I'm 5-10 beakers short, so I just settle right away now, the added cost doesn't delay me more.

This guy have been thinking about optics for quite some time, but it wasn't until we discovered compass that he finally put all the pieces together!

Caravel+scout ready to go!

And the same on the western coast!

Can't really grow that much yet. At least 16 turns to astro.
Should probably start to self-tech toward monarchy.
Also on the wish-list is 5 settlers to settle:
Clam + Southern Sheep/Marble + Northern fish + Eastern fishes + Far away crabfish.
Most cities won't require any workerturns so probably don't have to get that many more workers, but two more I likely need, will have to farm alot and probably lay down workshops.
I need some swords to take the barb city too, or possibly let them hang around for awhile, I could train some trebuchets against them to get some strong cannons, but the spot is quite nice too. Perhaps I can get a new barb city to spawn in the ice if I quite spawnbusting there.

So excited to find the AIs!

 

[Fippy]

Nice one Krikav
Monarchy is very annoying if all rivers can be covered by smaller cities, your game shows how much time can be saved without.

 

[krikav]

Nice one Krikav
Monarchy is very annoying if all rivers can be covered by smaller cities, your game shows how much time can be saved without.

Spoiler :

Yeah, it can be really nice!
There are alot of corners that one can cut this way. Not having to build alot of warriors is one obvious thing, but also less urgency with improving all tiles around capital so one can get by with fewer workers early on, further skimping on upkeep.

Although this approach does have it's drawbacks too.
Not ideal to have tiny starving cities, and due to reseach building I'm also low on infrastructure, no forges and still lacking granaries in first two cities!
And I am abit uncomfortable without academy.

Also, I'm not really sure how to transition from here. Still 16 turns to possible astro and more happines. Perhaps I should just revolt to slavery and whip out the infrastructure I'm still lacking.
But then again, if I can't secure any trades, it would be close to a disaster if I can't self-tech calendar.

 

[krikav]

Heavy spoilers, full map knowledge. (Well, not coal/oil/uranium, but you get the point)

Spoiler T133 :

T119 I meet Justinian and his peace vassal Hannibal. Together they have built about two thirds of all the wonders.
But Justinian doesn't know compass and Hannibal doesn't know optics!
After thinking abit I chicken out and just cash in compass for calendar+15g, just to be sure I'll get it.

Two turns later my scout which landed on Justinians shores meet Gilgamesh and I happily trade away machinery for currency+50g!

You have built nicely guys!

I have held onto optics for a while, self-teching myst->poly->PH, I was hoping that the overflow would be enough to finish masonry during revolt, but it wasn't.
I can't delay longer though, and revolt to HR+Slavery, having a bunch of important whips to do.

Out of revolt, still only Justinian (which I gave optics for Monarchy) knows optics, but I meet this guy who among other things is willing to sell me his map.
I take the deal right away, and I'm awarded with speedboats for the rest of the game, pheew!

Almost no religion in russia, so I rule out Cathrine, I'm hoping for Peter which is a nice trading partner and a good warbuddy too, Stalin is just a dufus.

The next turn I finish masonry and was planning to trade for construction and some other goodies with Gilga+Hanny, but inbetween turns, Hanny gets optics, abit dissapointed but still happy that I get Construction from Gilga.

After the trade i contact Ragnar with my caravel. (I generally try to do trades before meeting some AIs, as that saves WFYABTA with those I haven't met yet.
After gifting him 10g getting him up to pleased he would be willing to give me CoL for compass if I add 50g to the deal, but he is worst enemy of both Willy and Justy, so I let that deal hang.
Shorly thereafter while checking I notice that he has alot of beakers into Compass, and just like that I'm out of the trading game.

Still, getting calendar+currency+monarchy+construction was sweet, and kind of more than I dared to hope.

I study the map abit, and to my horror all the guys with the good happines stuff have their own source of sheep... The only thing that looks kind of hopeful is that WvO seems to be lacking iron. If noone else trades him that I might be able to get a lot of stuff for one of my sources of iron.

Trying to get all my city spots up and running, but it's hard... The stock of forests are running low, the capital I'm trying to grow and Beshebalik is pushing that GSci... Only Ning-Hsia is giving me good whips. I really feel the hangover from hibernating with 5 tiny cities during the pre-optics period.

Economy pre-astro. A bleak sight to say the least. Ofcourse it could be pushed up abit, but I'm hardly working any of the towns I have matured, now it's just farms and whatever food neutral tiles I can find.

And economy after the astro bulb, wow!

I forgot to hook up the iron, and I don't have any worker in the region for a while, so I trade sheep for sugar with WvO, and I sell fish to Peter and Sheep to Ragnar.
I also set a reminder (alt+m) for 10 turns, to remind me to cancel and renegotiate the deal with Ragnar, whom I still don't have open borders with.
This is to avoid having the other AIs who hate Ragnar constantly pester me about stopping to trade with him, a demand that I have learned the hard way that you should never ever ever cave in to as that usually ends up locking you away from interacting with that AI for the rest of the game.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T135, overview, situation and comparisson. :

Tech situation.
I'll finish drama, then I figure out who I want to trade Astro for Feud+Engineering with, and the turn after that trade I'll hope to find someone willing to trade away Philo+CS.
If I can get guilds too, that would be awesome and I would start to tech down gunpowder->chemistry->steel.
If not, I will probably stall abit and see if some opportunity arises to trade abit toward nationalism/MT or paper/PP etc.
Not really sure yet what to aim for, but I'm pretty sure I'll build a bunch of theatres and also alot of colosseums and eventually draft and whip myself an army.
I'll probably stay in HR for a long time, as it's the favourite civic for alot of the AIs.
If I can secure some settlement on the offshore islands, I might go for nationalism->constitution and build some jails and try some espionage shenanigans to stay competitive.

Justinian is going absolutely bananas. Have to rein him in somehow.
WvO is plotting, and I think and hope it's against Ragnar, but I would like Gilga and Justinian to get into a fight, but they kind of like each other despite being in different religions as they have very close peaceweights.

I'll get even more workers. I swear it feels like I have two.

Overview at T135.
Karakorum, Beshebalik and Turfan are battling each other for the rice and the sheep and trying to grow. I don't whip there.
Old Sarai I whip sparingly 5->3, because it takes ages to regrow.
Ning-hsia I do 3-pop whips 6->3 settlers, and will slow-build another one now to cool down abit before I whip yet another one.
New-Sarai is doing 1pop whips of workboats when it catches up with the poor worker which is trying to build windmills on the green hills.
And it has NO problem with whip anger, growing with it's brow hilled sheep.
Tabris (Marble town) I'll whip another worker to get those forests down and the marble/iron improved. I would like to get a forge and lighthouse there too, but workers first.
I might need quite a few more workers, I want to farm most of the green land around Old-Sarai and also the region south-west of capital once I get CS.
Have 3 more cities to settle on my continent, and a barb city to capture. But I probably ignore one of those to I can stay at 12 cities as that gives me cheaper revolts.
Turfan is the only city with any GPP at all and once I get that guy out I have to be prepared to do a proper GA, but that will likely be a loong while in the future when seafood spots are more mature.

Oh, and for comparisson... This is the situation I found myself in on T135 the first try around. When I:
* Screwed up initial settlement
* Spent too much resources combating barbs.
* Went IW before monarchy.
* Settled too many cities.
* Went monarchy (which I'm not sure is a mistake tbh).
T135 first time around I have just reached optics, and Ragnar found me T125 and also got speedboats that turn.

 

[Fippy]

Difficult crowd, they are all trade happy..
Trading with Rags would be possible after a small gold gift for pleased (and can get that gold back again too), but he's not much better and friendly with Giggles so might give Astro away too.

I looked for several mins and didn't come up with a best solution.

 

[krikav]

@Fippy

Spoiler :

I checked the illustrated, and it seems that Justinian and Gilgamesh are the ones who are most stingy about trading at 30%.
WvO and Peter is almost like Mansa, but Peter is abit behind...? It's possible he won't have anythign worthwhile to trade for.

Not sure how to play this properly.. Do some trading with this crowd and when they blaze away and become too advanced just betray them and instead buddy up with Ragnar? He and Gilga is in hindu and both love HR, and with a shared war friendly is not far away.
But Ragnar is looking like he is in pretty bleak shape compared to the others, not sure things would turn out good if he decides to go berserk.

Not sure how to handle happines either, I consider theatres/colosseums and a 20% slider, thats +5 happines, but even w/o working commerce tiles it's still quite costly at 25-30gpt or so, and it will get very costly once I mature cities.

Not obvious if I should fiddle around with national wonders either. I do have marble for the epics, and globe might be nice.
I know you don't like drafts, but with agg it's nice, can get pinch rifles with theocracy.

No religious spread at all yet, but have only had astro for a few turns .


Am I expanding and developing too much? Should I skimp a few cities and focus on earlier warfare instead?

 

[Fippy]

Spoiler :

Any city with some food is good imo, considering you get ~10 from traderoutes now.
Using HR for happy with some whipped Maces or stuff like that (cannon support) & Trebs would be better than culture slider imo.
When all units move out after reaching steel, slider as needed is good.

One problem when figuring out trading is Guilds, Giggles & Rags are my preferred partners too but they both dun have Guilds.
Justi and Hanni would just give each other Astro, and Justi is already blazing.
Yup on Peter being behind a bit, so maybe him first for Engi and Feuda, then Willy for Guilds.
Could add Mono from Peter too..it's cheap but i doubt the trading cap plays any role here (and most trade many techs until then), so you can get Guilds + Theo.

 

[sampsa]

Time to play some now.

It seems like all the "No chop"-guys have been right all along.

Indeed. Don't forget to mine everything you see and start popping jewelry.

If you want to whip caravels, you have to on optics turn put hammers into them, and then whip them on the turn after optics and they are leaving the harbour two turns after optics disovery.

Yes. Usually I have no chops left, so I cold whip caravels. Loses some 12 or so, but contact 1T faster is usually worth it I think.

 

[sampsa]

T88

Spoiler :

Have monarchy, revolted to HR+slavery a few turns ago. Academy in capital. Everything I've done so far feels wrong to me. There are at least two big reasons why I don't think this strategy will be competitive.

1) . Only +6 from visible resources, and to make this work I think I'd need several cities size 10 by 1AD, preferably size 15 soon after. Perhaps with more (EXP?) this wouldn't be that bad.
2) Worker turns. Growth is exploding now, so I really need something like 1.5 workers per city, which in turn costs maintenance. That on top of the warrior maintenance.

I haven't played a ton of iso, so perhaps these are the noob mistakes you need to do in order to learn.

Barbs are still a pain, though with map knowledge actually not horribly far from full spawn busting. I think I'll play to 1AD and start again.

 

[sampsa]

T115

Spoiler :

Well, not the worst position ever, but unit maintenance is just killing me. It's like 18pt now, thought it would be closer to 10 or so. I'm settling crab+fish in SE for , but maybe that was just a bad idea. I just don't have enough green tiles for the chosen grand strategy either, also even one -res would help a ton (or CHA). With better (=earlier) fog busting maybe I wouldn't need to build a trireme to get the clam. Built a 2nd one to clear the north coast to be able to get a boat to SE, but too much hassle I guess with the whole SE-city. Oh also 8 workers seems too much as my workers are doing unimportant stuff now mostly. Lots of room for improvement, but anyway I think the whole monarchy-strategy is unsound on this map.

Optics is pretty far and I won't have two GSs for astro bulb (have I ever mentioned that academies suck?) . Maybe some kind of an improvement would be to sacrifice two cities for running 2*sci full time. Still it's something like 800AD astro at best I guess, now even later for sure.

 

[krikav]

@sampsa

Spoiler :

Cold-whipping caravels is almost certainly worth it if it leads to a earlier turn. Depending on the city ofcourse, some can't stand it.
Another trick is to build triremes and pay 50g for an upgrade, this is probably fastest as the trireme can stand in position out in the ocean.
And one of the nicest tricks I have seen is from that Iso workshop thread, don't remember if it was pedro, rusten or Fippy who mentioned it. But making sure to have settlers at 39/100 or 69/100 and doing a whip 1T before optics, while working maximum food can give more then 30h overflow. Combined with a lone chop and some natural hammers, that is enough.
Good synergy too, as settlers is just what one needs at that point.


I'm not really decided on if monarchy is good or bad on this map.
I don't agree with the "several cities with high pop" judgement, I usually find myself with mainly just a bunch of warriors in capital, while the other cities enjoy just one extra happy from their usual warrior. Well, som cities can get 2-3 warriors, but only in the capital the sky is the limit, and this probably have to do with the academy.

My second attempt, bulbing optics is sort of the wicawoo style (I forget how he spelled his name). And probably it's antagonistic to monarchy because the demand to bulb optics to recoup for lost time teching math/alpha denies me that academy,
What prompted me onto that path was that both math and alpha looked really nice, loads of forest and a need to expand rapidly, and also a trickle of natural hammers in almost every city that couldn't really be put to good use.
So I don't think my game in itself disproves monarchy.

I really agree on the worker turns! I had my capital in your location first time around, and it grew large fast, too fast for workers to keep up.
Could it be, that it was the barb troubles, paired with a delayed BW, that caused subsequent cities to come online slower?
There was not a satellite ring of cities with already established cottages/hamlets around the capital for it to take as it grew.
I usually get the academy guy out from the capital, as it usually gets it's library fastest, and after that capital is relieved from GPP duty and is allowed to grow.
The satellite cities that will spawn GSci 2&3 for astro are then more willing to hand over their cottages to capital, as they will grow slower and have less demand for tiles.

Regarding health, I'm not sure. Freshwater and two grains should be good.
Capital always turns into a stinking cesspool anyway.


Apparantly I didn't take any screenshot nor save for 1AD first try around, but I think you are totally crushing that attempt.
Closest screen I have is from T123 inside capital:

Spoiler :

I did have the additional problem that I settled Beshebalik like a moron, leaving it on GP-duty without any source of food on it's own, forcing it to compete with capital for the rice and/or floodplains which was a total nightmare.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T136 trading spree :

I don't know if you saw @Fippy, but Ragnar is worst enemy of bost WvO and Justinian, I don't think I dare upset them both massively right now. WvO is plotting already, almost certainly on Ragnar, but who knows with that notorious backstabber.

I just finished Drama, which Peter doesn't have, and I also see that Peter doesn't have Music.
I think that trading away astro to either Gilgamesh or Justinian is 100% safe, if only me and one other have it, I don't think they will trade it away.
I think it might be abit greedy but Willy is almost certainly willing to give me gunpowder for astro.

Perhaps starting with Astro for Philo+Feud with Justinian T136, possibly with CoL thrown into the deal.
Then Guilds from Hanny T136.
And if a miracle happends and neither of them give away Astro to Willy, I can get gunpowder for Astro with Willy T137.
Willy doesn't have anything that Hanny wants I think?
Willy does have gunpowder though, so Justinian and Willy might trade astro<->gunpowder and leave me hanging.

And IF they shaft me during inbetween turns, I don't see any way for Giggles or Peter to get Astro.
So if the greedy plan to get gunpowder fails, I still have Peter/Giggles as fallback to get engineering.

Also, Neither Willy nor Justinian have music, which could be added to the deal to get nationalism for astro. But as it is now, I don't think Nationalism would be available when only Hanny and Justy knows it.
But with abit of luck, I could also get my hands on music and guilds, and use those as trading chips against Peter, keeping Astro less spread for longer.

I could get mono and 90g for drama with Peter right away, or I could simply 1-turn mono myself, but with no religious spread yet, I don't think there is any rush to get theo.
All of these guys have a very high WFYABTA, but not Ragnar though, and if things go sour he might be a important trading partner later on, so I don't think trading for mono is worth that risk.

 

[krikav]

Very short turnsets at this point, careful deliberation with thousands of beakers swinging in either direction.

Spoiler T138 :

I do this trade, I take HBR instead of CoL because I can get more gold that way. I'm also thinking that cuirs/cavallery could play a role in this game, the geer is nice with the added xp.

And I leave this situation.

Next turn, I finally connect my iron, I had previously even traded away my wheat for Willys banana, just to make sure he had as little resources as possible to trade away to get a source of iron from anyone else but me. And then on the last possible turn, apparantly the lucky bastard pops iron. I start to feel like I'm in dire need to get my hands on some resources...

Now I trade with Hannibal.

I look abit over the map and realize the map I got from Justinian has revealed yet another offshore island. Filled to the brim with sheep, fish and horse, my favourite resources!!!

Next turn, I get Buddhism spread, and Justinian wins lib. (Did I mention he built Taj the last turn or so? )

Justinian took PP with Lib it seems. And my oh my did I score a jackpot! I get gunpowder just like I wanted.
I could also get CS from Gilga for guilds, and engineering from peter for guilds+drama, keeping them outside of astro for a while longer.
Or I could stall for another turn, and instead try to get something from Justinian by flipping back gunpowder to him and adding music to the mix.
Probably a question of who too boost, and who to rein in, but I'm not sure I can rein in Justinian... Perhaps it's best to just trade with him while I can, and keep the others abit more behind.
I could possibly aim for an attack on Peter.
I'm leaning toward getting CS from Gilga, and waiting for a turn to see if I can get engineering from Justinian. But it's quite possible Justinian will just get Music or Gunpowder or both for lib or PP.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T141 :

So, I did give Gilga guilds for CS+110g+ his map, and end T138 like this.

Next turn, greed strikes again, and I figure I might be able to get PP from Justinian... So I trade Astro+Gunpowder with gilga to get Nationalism and paper.
I also put a full turn into PP.

Hurrying to get a settler party on a boat to get some of that offshore land before someone else grabs it.
I really got hurt by WvO popping iron, because now I can't build warriors to handle happines either. Need to pillage that iron but I have not had any time to do so.

Seems I got lucky! Justinian didn't get either music nor gunpowder, so I trade those to him for PP, but I have to add my map and 115g to sweeten the deal.

Both Islam and Hinduism spread. I have buddhism since prior, but in clam city which have difficulties getting monastery and missionaries up, Hinduism is in beshebalik and would be easier to spread around. But I have to think quite abit before choosing sides here.

Settler party has set sail, a workboat is trying to catch up.
Not sure if I should aim for the dual-fish-horse far away, or settle the clam+fish closer to Ragnar. Ideally I want both.

Gilga is on his way to finish PP as he wants 385g added to give me engineering for it.
I think that just getting Engineering from Willy for PP is best,I could still get theo from Gilga too.
I have really managed to leave Peter and Ragnar in the dust with this trading spree.
Now I think I should go chemistry->steel, and if banking/RP becomes available I could go for rifles+cannons against Peter.
Thinking that I should try get a half-price drydock up soon too, and get a few privateers up to further disrupt Peters development. If I could get 3-4 of them up by his northern shores they could probably kill dozens of caravels and plunder a small fortune before he reaches astro+chemistry.

8 workers now, starting to feel like I have at least some by now. And with CS in I can at least start giving my cities some opportunity to grow by irrigating the green.

Have gotten up some windmills, but now I'll mostly just farm. Some workers are chopping the last stock of tundra forest.
Will probably whip out a pair of maces from Old-Sarai now to get the barb city, and once they are out I have to pillage the iron to sort out happines.
Capital is allowed to grow into unhappines now, I cross my fingers that some resource trade will show up.
Ning-Hsia will have to make at least 2 more settlers, one from chops+slowbuild and one 3pop whipped, for crabs and northern fish, or for another overseas settlement.
I feel a problem in that my empire development is lagging behind in my technological ambitions though. I'm nowhere near ready to start waging war against Peter anytime soon, and allthough he looks backwards right now, he might pick up the pace rather quickly.
Regarding Justinian... Perhaps I should close borders with him to deprive him of traderoutes? Not sure it would have any effect though, as my cities are so small they are unlikely to give him much commerce anyway.

 

[Fippy]

Krikav

Spoiler :

That worked really well, yup you should start on Chemistry now.
Theo from Giggles sounds good too.
If Peter gets 100+ gold i would give him old techs like Lit or Drama, cos you will need 100% research yourself.