Advice on a great start needed

[El_Tigre]

I just had a GREAT start with China (continents, noble, Qin Shi Huang) due
to an excellent starting position. However, I could use some advice on
several issues.

As you can see, I started with horses, cows, elephants and rice, all placed
in a fertile river valley!! A great spot for a civilization with industrious and
financial as traits.




My plan was to build an early worker and focus on terrain improving
technologies. Still, I wanted to found a religion soon so I decided to build
Stonehenge before my first settler. My plan was to use the Great
Prophet later to research either Code of Laws or Theology and found an
advanced religion in my capital.

Scouting to the north, I found a stone resource! I immediately decided to
continue work on Stonehenge (almost completed), and then place my
second settlement to the north although the terrain to the west and south
was a lot better. Frederick was to the north, too, and I definately wanted
to grab that resource, as well as the wine (I couldn't see that iron resource
at that time).

Screenshot from a later save:



Scouting to the south, I crossed a large jungle with dozens of resources! I
met Saladin, who for some reason had been unable to found a religion.

Later I met the Persians and the Inca, all without religion! Buddism and
Hinduism had been founded on some other continent. Some turns later, I
was amazed when I was able to found Judaism in my capital, as I had
seriously neglected the lower part of the tech tree. This situation had
incredible potential, as I was the only civilization with a religion on
this continent with 5 nations! And I had that Great Prophet in the pipeline,
meaning that I could either build an early shrine or grap a second religion.



My capital was florishing with all those resources. It helped that a hut in
the far south gave me a worker that I managed to escort through the
jungle. I had lots of food and hammers, and with the stone resource now
hooked up I decided to start work on the Pyramids.

I had a copper resouce close to my capital, but researching Iron Working
revealed only two iron resources are in the vicinity: one in the north, just
outside the reach of my stone city, and one far to the south, near the
marble resource. I had placed my third city close to my capital, so I would
have another city that could build settlers / workers while my capital would
be focusing on wonders / buildings / missionaries.

Here is where I need your advice:

Should I go for the iron to the north, which would be rather easy to grab,
since Frederick is virtually doing nothing (I suspect he's building the Oracle
in his capital, which has access to marble)?



Or should I try to grab the southern iron resource, trying to beat Saladin
and Cyrus to it? If so, should I go deep and try to get marble, too, or
would this be overexpanding ? Do I even have a chance to beat either
Cyrus or Saladin to that resource? (I marked some potential sites in the
third screenshot)

A third option would be to ignore iron for now, build my next cities in all
those great spots near my capital and then use the copper to build an
army and conquer an iron resource. Frederick would be an easy victim with
just 2 cities so far (although he has another iron resource). On the other
hand, I could easily spread Judaism to him (which has already spread to all
my three cities), and he could be a loyal ally - he's already "pleased", and
so am I, because he's weak!

Things really got weird several turns ago when I completed the Pyramids.
My GP was due just two turns later, but of course the city spawned
Imhotep, a Great Engineer! The probality for this was somewhat around 3
%...



All screenshots (except the first, of course), are from my most recent
save. I'm two turns away from Alphabet, meaning that I should be able to
trade for a lot of techs I missed so far. For instance, I could try to get
Priesthood, then use Imhotep to build the Oracle (if Frederick hasn't
already completed it), and then use the free technology to found a second
religion anyway. Then I could use the first Great Prophet I spawn for the
shrine in my capital.

So, what should I do next? Where should I found my next cities (I will have
my next settler in 4 turns)? Should I overexpand and grab as much land
and resources to the south as possible? Or would the upkeep kill me?
Remember that I have the Pyramids so I can switch to all government civics.

What should I do with Imhotep? So far, Stonehenge and the Pyramids are
the only wonders build.

 

[anjf]

I think you should ty to build the oracle end find another religon but only to prevent one of the other nations on your continent to do so. If you chose for instance the go for Theology you will find christianty, but try to only allow judaism to spread, then all other nation will become jews as well which will turn this continent into one big alliance, IF nobody else here founds a religon and you keep for instance christianty small

 

[southafrica]

I disagree the more religions your cites has the better, especially if you have the holy city, a shrine is not to be underestimated.

 

[ShadowWarrior]

I think you should go north to get that iron source. At the same time, you should spread Judaism to Germany. That will secure your iron source in the north through good relationship with your northern neighbor.

Then you can pick either Cyrus or Saladin to convert to your religion, but do not convert both!

Then you and your southern allie should fight the other one whom you didn't convert. Try your best to secure whatever resources you want while fighting.

While you are doing all these, try to build more cities at the same time if possible.

 

[El_Tigre]

Thanks for your input, I appreciate it.

Judaism will spread to Germany no matter what I do, because our cities are
close together, we already have open borders and I will establish several
trade routes in the next turns, when some roads are completed. So I'll
probably keep him as as an ally. Too bad, Frederick would have be an easy
target and he has that marble resource just behind his capital.

I really like the idea of establishing a religious divide between my southern
neighbours. Hopefully Judaism doesn't spread too fast to all other civilizations,
so that I have a chance to send missionaries of two different religions all the
way south. Wow, this is the first time I hope my religions does NOT spread
too fast...

Okay, so I will use Imhotep for the Oracle and then go for Code of Laws and
Confuzianism. This allows me to switch civics to Representation + Caste
System, which means lots of VERY productive specialists in my food-rich
cities. Meanwhile, I will grab the northern iron resource and will slowly build up
an army. I'll try to isolate either Persia or Arabia, and then attack with the
help (hopefully) of my allies.

Lets see if this plan survives contact with reality (well, game reality, that is)!

 

[Statman]

Then you can pick either Cyrus or Saladin to convert to your religion, but do not convert both!

Then you and your southern allie should fight the other one whom you didn't convert. Try your best to secure whatever resources you want while fighting.

I have a sneaky question along these lines. If you convert one of those Southern leaders to your religion, then try to convert the other one to a different religion, would it be easier to goad them into war with each other?

 

[El_Tigre]

I have a sneaky question along these lines. If you convert one of those Southern leaders to your religion, then try to convert the other one to a different religion, would it be easier to goad them into war with each other?

Well, that's just the point!

If two civilizations have different state religions their attitude to each other
is modified within a range of -1 to -4 (I don't know if it temporally
deteriorates or if it depends on the amount of cities with different state
religion). They'll be at least "cautious", but more likely "annoyed" towards each
other.

BTW, if you open your Foreign Advisor, then click on a different leaderhead,
and then hover over a third leaderhead, a popup will show you all the
details of their attitude towards each other:

 

[El_Tigre]

Time for an update!

Well, not everything worked as planned. I researched Alphabet and was
able to trade for several techs:



Not knowing if I would attack Cyrus or Saladin in the future (depending on
who would grab most of the resources to the south), I decided to trade for
Meditation with the Inca, Sailing with Cyrus and Priesthood with Saladin.

Priesthood allowed me to build the Oracle, which I did using Imhotep in
Guangzhou - under the watchful eyes of an amazed Persian scout:



As you can see in the screenshot, Judaism spread to Germany during that
turn, and Frederick immediatly choose it as state religion. Unfortunately,
Berlin completed a settler the following turn, and Frederick was going to
beat me to the northern iron resource. I contemplated attacking Frederick,
but besides warriors as city garrisons my military consisted of one lonely
chariot! I wasn't ready to attack, and with Judaism as state religion
Frederick was now officially a "good guy" anyway.



I chose Code of Laws as my free technology from the Oracle and
Shanghai became the holy city of Confucianism. My capital build the
Hanging Gardens (easy enough for an industrious civ with stone), and I
managed to found Christianity in Guangzhou, so I've still got a "monopoly
on religions" on my continent.

During the next turns, I started building barracks, archers and then horse
archers for the inevitable war in the south - I just didn't know whom I
would have to attack yet!

Confucianism spread like crazy, it immediately appeared in one of my cities
I recently founded to the west of my capital, then spread to Berlin and
Munich (I sent a missionary to Berlin to convince Frederick to keep Judaism
as state religion), and then appeared in Persepolis! As expected, Cyrus
chose Confucianism as state religion the very next turn. Furthermore, he
was the one who settled near the iron and marble resources:



From now on, there was a huge bull's eye painted on Cyrus' forehead...

My next aim was to worsen the relationship between Cyrus and his
neighbors, namely Saladin. Easy enough:



However, I couldn't convince Saladin to declare war on Cyrus the following
turns. Anyway, Susa was weakly defended by only two archers, so I
decided that I could take on Cyrus alone. Three horse archers managed to
take the city without losses:



With Susa under my control and iron as well as marble connected to my
capital, I had achived my war aims. No Persian army appeared near my
borders, although I knew that Cyrus had several axemen running around. I
offered Cyrus peace, and he accepted immeadiately.

The last couple of turns, I founded another city between Susa and my
capital to secure the resouce rich jungle. Saladin managed to grab a good
chunk of it while I was busy fighting Cyrus, though, so maybe I will send
out my horse archers again...