A game of Monty

[krikav]

Spoiler T59 :

I did put both archer+warrior on the grassland and started roading it. Woody warrior holds his ground on the forested hill against the barb archer in the east.

Woody does a good job, and I move both units into Wheat Helper. (Had to rename cities, can't keep track of all Tenochonotinoxilichan cities. >_<)

This was problematic. :/

I feel I have to take this chance.

And it seems that you don't lose every 50-50 fight.

In the far east, more problems show up.

I do this to get more overflow, in effect turning food into hammers.

Guerilla2 archer on a forested hill was very strong against the spear.

Moving out abit, a barb city spawns.
No interesting resources. Starting to think how to handle happines.
Sury missed out on judaism too, even though monotheism has his favourite civic.
I haven't opened borders with him, and his WB is trapped in the west, he has gone back and forth two times so the islands in the west are likely very small.
He still has all EPs on me, so it looks like we are in some sort of semi-iso situation with a continent each.

I want to go aestethics, and I will want to go for poly+masonry+litterature for GLib+ epics. But I also need to handle the happines situation. A religion would help alot since I'm SPI, and likewise monarchy would be a blessing...
Oh well, likely path now is BW->Sail, and then likely writing if ToAR isn't done by then. If it is, I could try to go mason->poly->PH and hope for some failgold while I aquire further discount toward writing.

BW is about 8-9 turns away. 3 workers capital and pig city have finished their workers and now I'm at 3 workers.
Pig city pops borders T61.
It's about 25-27 workerturns before all floodplains (and that grassland) is cottaged, aligns pretty well before BW comes in.
Pig City needs to stagnate again I think. I'm thinking that worker is the way to go. Capital looks suited to 3pop whip some settlers.
Workboat in capital is good I think. Sury already has writing so if I go sail after BW I can get traderoutes. Perhaps it is worth it to send first workboat toward him, instead of improving a clam...?

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T74 BW->Sailing :

Oracle is built, that tilts me abit away from the masonry/poly failgold path.

Getting a 4F2C tile was to tempting, and I think I have enough time to get the second workboat to Sury before I finish sailing.

Much of the south is unveiled, a nasty barren landscape... Two more tiles that could hold ocean fish. (Hint, there is never any fish. )

Planning cities as so. Starting to wonder if I should move eastern clam 1N, so I have room for a city to take the pig from pig city.
With this low happy-cap, I rather want all 4 citizens working them floodplains.

Oh, it was sury who got confu, nice! Hope that spreads to me quickly.
If I get it, and also tech monotheism we will become best buddies.

BW is done, there is copper but it's in the desolate south.
Whipping the settler I have set up.

There was no fish. If I lay out cities as such, I reach basically every tile on the continent.

Another forest! Woo hoo!

OB now yields me +10 commerce, from 1c internal traderoutes to intercontinental foreign trade. <3
GLH is still available, as is ToAR.
Will save up cash for a few turns now, but I'm kind of tempted to go down the religious line prior to writing. Can't really build any library in any city as they are stagnating on settlers at max happines, maturing cottages.
Capital also has useful things to build, lighthouse, workboats, a couple of warriors... And if I want, I can sink some hammers into GLH too.

What do you think? Would you go for writing asap?
Sury has two gems, but I don't think he has IW yet. Still jungled and he is boasting about his spearman and not his swordman.

 

[Major Tom]

Writing, alphabet. My two cents. With shared religion and org.reg. you get him to friendly. He trades every tech. Also you will see what he tech. Long term I would beeline/bulb Astro.
Also with alphabet, an idea is to send a spy over and steal goodies now and then.

 

[krikav]

@Major Tom Thats not what I did, but now I wish I had.

I went Masonry -> Poly -> PH -> Writing -> Aestethics, and are now one turn away from finishing Litterature.
Feel abit like I got stuck in REx mode and played without a clear plan. Jolted out of that now when GLib was built in a distant land.
Calling it a day now, but would appreciate ideas on how others would handle the game from here.

Spoiler T104 :

Was just about to chop 3 forests into ToAR, that would have been glorious.
But still, 88 failgold is nice too.

Trying to get library up as soon as writing is in. (Setting slider to 0% while waiting).

T96 I notice a great general spawning, action abroad!

T100 I reach Aestethics, but Parthenon is finished the same turn.

Guerilla2 archer steals the barbs worker.
Barbs have stopped spawning, I need to get a unit to 10xp somehow, perhaps I can lure some archer out with warriors, then retaliate over the hill?

This was depressing... I wanted Glib. :/
Have spices and gems from Sury now, and fur will be online in 2-3 turns, the situation is starting to get bearable.
I whipped a settler which I didn't needed, as it looked like I could have stolen that fish site of Sury, but I was a turn late, so gifted him a city instead.
Have two more settlers about half-built for the two last spots on my continent.
Still haven't gotten confu. :'(

Things are starting to look kind of bad. I was hoping to play a sensible long game, getting GLib and building economy while relying on heroic to produce some units.

 

[Major Tom]

Unlucky about GLib an religion spread. Confucianism usually auto spread well. You could do something completely different this time than your usual warring games. With all that food you may run caste/pacifism full time!

Bulb your way to astronomy or even electricity. Communism detour for great spy. That should give you some solid trading chips. Winning condition? How about UN? Personally I find it fun to manipulate AI around. You are SPI after all.

If they are stubborn you can always send some ICBMs. Nuclear assisted diplomacy are underrated here on this forum.

By the way, thanks for posting these well written and illustrated starts.

 

[krikav]

There is certainly interesting aspects in that!
With all these unreligious cities, I do have good chances of getting spread from most blocks when I reach astro.

It's fun to share, thanks for words of appreciation!

 

[Fippy]

Still lots of good cities with much food, am sure you could dig yourself out of the hole if you wanted

 

[krikav]

Spoiler To T121, Action! :

Settled the island, looking forward to seeing all my cottages grow. Teching alfa to get some trades with my future best buddy.
Still haven't gotten confu spread though, must be close to astronomically bad odds for missing spread for a so long time.

I saw the galleys further north with my scout, and sensed danger. But I lost them and was completely convinced that they moved further north. Still no clue how they got down past my scout.
This is absolutely a DoW waiting to happen.

Tried to beg for the only thing I could beg for, but it was apparantly worth too much. If we would have been pushing borders I'm almost sure I would have gotten this and with it a 10 turn grace period.
Again, alfa would have been better, then I could have begged for a almost finished tech.
But now there will be blood. My blood.
I delete my scout up in his territory, don't want him to get free kills and the war success that comes with it. It will be tough enough getting peace as it is.

Was hoping he would go for the capital, as I could get my scrambled archers there in time, but he went for the poor undefended clam city.
I place warriors as lure, hoping he would move his entire stack to either of them, so I could jump into the city with my archers.
Stupid barb galley doesn't help either.
And what a generous helping of units Sury has mustered, nasty nasty.

All my cities are suddenly in deep unhappines after I lost gems+spices from Sury. :/

No luck what so ever, just rivers of Aztec blood.

Piling the units together, crossing my fingers he will attack.
Cursing my stupidity alot now. EVERY city spot on my continent is settled EXCEPT the spot with copper. A settler is whipped asap and all nearby workers get to road some desert in a hurry.
Most cites are building (and chopping) archers, if there comes reinforcements I need to be prepared.

Yes! Thanks a million Sury! The remaining axe is also severely wounded so a combat1+shock archer can finish him off.
Odds against the sword in the city is at 1%, no chance of retaking this untill I have axes of my own.

Finally copper online!

Not sure why he is just standing there, if he had the brains god gave geese he would have sent all those units over and just crushed me.

 

[Major Tom]

Not nice from our best friend. Hope you can get his three cities before longbows is online. Piling up axes on those forest should at least make him talk.

 

[krikav]

Putting this on hold, possibly forever.
After I took back the city and did a peace deal, all traderoutes in all cities are gone, possibly due to some sort of bug.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trade-route-error.652740/

Abit annoying, I was starting to make plans to whip alot of spies all over the board, to put overflow into the two national marble wonders for a good chunk of failgold, while retooling economy to steal my way to parity against sury since he wanted a city 3 tiles away from my capital.

 

[krikav]

Ok, what I thought was a bug, was nothing of the sort. It was just that after making peace the "Years of peace" bonus toward Sury was gone, so my tiny island city got all the traderoutes, abit embarassing.

Moving on...

Spoiler T147 :

Strength in numbers.

Lovely to get a great general! Had both some lucky and some unlucky rolls here. I recal an archer winning some absurdly low odds fight like 5% or so. 8 xp right away.

A few turns later, Sury is willing to talk, but he is asking a steep price.
Alfabet+63GPT was not enough by itself so I have to give him the city, I'm in dire need for the happines resrouces he can trade.

Phew, much better.
Perhaps I should have given him marble instead of wheat for his spices, but I kind of wanted some gold for the marble too.

This spot looks like the best candidate for heroic, moai would be sweet too but w/o stone that will have to wait a long time.
If I venture for more warfare later on in the game, a heroic city with a settled GG feels nice as it enables me to build 5xp units for a long time while remaining in teching civics.

100% espionage now, still quite costly to steal as I don't get any traderoute bonus.
Should probably consult @Kaitzilla s guide for espionage to optimize this.
I'm whipping spies in alot of cities, at 40 hammers they are a nice 2pop whip with alot of overflow.
Every turn a city puts that overflow into national epic.
I self-teched drama and traded that for math, Sury has met some AI since he is willing to trade all of his techs.
Bulbed philo at some point too, and traded that for something I can't remember. Not holding on any tech now but just trying to get what I can.
Would also be sweet if Sury would tech nationalism so I could steal it from him.
Want to go nationalism->constitution for the nationalism civic +25% EP, and then jails.
Most cities are running 1 spy from the sacrificial altars now.

Here I finish national epic, I want to continue the process with heroic epic but don't really want to whip many more spies as they cost upkeep.
I WANTED to whip missionaries, but I have still not gotten confu spread which is outright insane.

I sent up a settler on Surys island to see if there was some room on his northern shore (it wasn't) but I met capac.
After gifting him 20g he became friendly and was willing to sell his map to me for 190g.
That gave me the circumnavigation bonus, which is always nice, but it also gave me a almost complete view of the other AIs.
I'm up against some serious challenges...

They both have astro, and Sully which has Toku as a vassal just got Lib.

Now I got currency, which was a nice boost, mostly because of my island city.
Called it a night at this point, but now I'll have to analyze from the map how religion is spread and try to deduce how diplo is on the main island.
Have never really played a espionage heavy game, but this feels like a nice opportunity as Sury decided he wanted a city right next to my capital.

 

[krikav]

Sorry, no energy writing up this, don't think I will finish it.
I did whip a whole lot of spies and put overflow into marble wonders, then stole my way to (roughly) partity with Sury in clam-city.

Then there is the possibility to set EPs on Zara, and gift a city to him, steal techs so one surpasses Sury and roll over him with rifles/cannons/artilery.
But too much micromanagement, patience is up, need to move on!