ALC Game #2: China/Mao

[Sisiutil]

(Round 5: to 25 AD)

Things are starting to heat up.

A lot of things are unfolding according to plan. The fourth city, Nanjing, for example:

As you'll soon see, that's definitely a better spot for it than three tiles west as some suggested. I'm gonna need the production from that cow, and the proximity to my other cities.

I got Alphabet and started shopping around. I did rather well for myself, I think:

Montezuma despises me, however, and didn't want to trade a thing. At this point he has Monarchy and Horseback Riding on me. Cathy was her usual hot-and-cold self, willing to trade some things but not others; Iron Working was up for grabs, but not Mathematics.

Now, remember that my plan was to burn my GP on Theology. I was one tech short, Monotheism--which Mansa also had. The problem was, i didn't have too much else to offer him in return. Ditto for Cathy and IW. So I shrugged and did the following:

Yeah, I know, usually I wouldn't trade Alphabet so readily or easily, but I had a feeling I was going to need Theocracy's +2 XPs pretty soon, and it looks like I was correct in that regard (read on). I did TRY to get IW from Cathy for the two religious techs; that earned me a slap across the face.

But there's good news:

Shanghai is turning into an awesome production city! Who'da thunk it? It now has a barracks and is churning out an Axeman every two turns. I'm thinking Heroic Epic before too long...

And of course, once I snagged Monotheism from Mansa, I burned my GP:

Krikkitone and VoU's discussion around which city a religion would appear in would seem correct. I ran OR for a few turns just to produce a couple of Confucian Missionaries monastery-free, and spread the good word to Guangzhou and Nanjing. Then I popped the Prophet, and lo and behold, Shanghai is now a holy-holy city. Oh, and my SECOND GP appeared just before I did this, so the Kong Miao is now built. Gotta love that Philosophical trait.

Speaking of which, I've built a library in Beijing and have two science specialists running. The odds are a little against a GS at this point, but who knows? And a pop-up informed me that I'm the most advanced civ on the planet, followed by Mansa, Cathy, and Monty. The other three unknown civs are also-rans. (That's right, Monty is out-teching THREE OTHER CIVS. We should start a poll on who they might be. One of them's probably Genghis or Toku. Any takers?)

Around this same time, Cathy started pulling some intimidation tactics. Check what she had wondering around in the woods outside or my capital:

Two Axemen and an Archer. The latter makes me think she'd like to have them move into town for an extended stay. Not bloody likely, babe.

Right after they pulled up, Cathy comes by DEMANDING tribute. Meditation, specifically. Now, I have barracks in almost all my cities. I'm producing mostly Axemen and some Archers. But I'm still just getting warmed up; most of the Axemen are getting Combat I/Shock for defense against the barb Axes that are showing up (and Cathy's, too). The Archers, obviously, are also defensive.

So, I thought, it's a cheap tech, and if it keeps her off my back for a few turns, fine. I caved. So sue me.

The VERY NEXT TURN, the little minx shows up asking for Theology! NOW she's pushing it. I told her to get stuffed. One turn and another smack to the cheek later, our Open Borders is cancelled. Not too bright, as her expeditionary force is now stranded:

Then again, if she means to attack me soon--which I think is now highly likely--those guys are in a good position to wreak some havok. Good thing, as I said, that Shangai is producing Axes like there's no tommorrow.

Then again, there is Cathy's sudden, surprising conversion from Hinduism to Confucianism to take into account. (No, I didn't get a chance to send any missionaries her way.) At this point, though, I think the main advantage of that will be the chance I'll get to save on a couple of missionaries in the cities I'll be taking from her.

Overall, I'd say I'm in a good position to survive a conflict with Cathy. There may be some initial pillaging and casualties to put up with, but it doesn't look like she's bothered with barracks yet--I have--and she obviously isn't running Theocracy--I am. Here's what the power graph looks like:

Yep, I'm just starting to pull ahead of her. I think my jump around 400 BC was when the copper and my first few axes came on-line. None to soon, from the looks of things.

Here's what the map looks like. My wandering Warrior is nearing the end of his usefulness. Monty cancelled our OB as well, so he's now blocked from returning home. I'm trying to swing him around to continue south through Mali (as usual, Mansa is my only friend), but that path may be blocked as well.

So right now I am very focussed on military. I have produced a couple of City Raider I/II axes in addition to the Combat I/Shock defensive ones, and Construction and Catapults will be available shortly. I expect Cathy to declare war any turn now.

She also, by the way, has a city northwest of Nanjing; did you notice the orange circle around the wheat resource? Now why would she plunk down a city all the way up there? Hmm, could it be that iron tile just to the west? Yeah, I'm thinking that city gets razed lickety-split, hopefully before her iron mine comes on-line. That would be one of my first military objectives, along with wiping out her wandering minstrel show just south of Shanghai. I'll probably use my first catapult on that mini-stack.

And I'm coveting Novgorod. Marble, gold, horses--oh yeah. Plus taking it will make my capital a more distant and less enticing prize.

Meanwhile, if I get another GP next, I have a choice between using him for Church of the Nativity or Civil Service. I'm thinking the latter; I've got a shrine for my SR, so Christianity is just a nice little bonus at this point. If I get a GS, I'll try the Philosophy/Ankor Wat route I haven't pursued in the past.

In terms of research, after Construction appears next turn, I think I should go Metal Casting --> Machinery to get China's UU. Going after CKUs is looking very attractive, not only because war is imminent. With Monty getting ticked, Any Russian cities I capture in the south will serve as a buffer to protect my core cities. The CKUs will really help solidify my gains there.

As always, your thoughts are appreciated.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Neat... um I'd try capture that Northern city she founded. If it's in a position to get all three resources, then it saves a Settler. As for her Iron mine coming on line... she already has Bronze, so unless you are worried about her having Crossbows, you should be fine (Swords shouldn't be that problematic given your axemen Focus.).. if you're worried just pillage the mine with a Shock Axe, while you take her other cities.

As for the GP... I'd say
if Scientist-> Philosophy, A.W. + Priests in Bejing (for a Prophet to do the following)
if Prophet->Civil Service, Bureaucracy in Bejing

for Research->Machinery (for CKNs)->Literature->Monarchy

This essentially allows a post-war period of
1. More Prophet Wonders in Capital (to get remaining Religions, Shrines)
once you have A.W. there concentrate on Priests to build all possible Prophet wonders And to get the needed Prophets themselves)
2. Great Library in Silk city (for a Science pusher)
3. CKNs for Defense of Russian subjects and Macemen for war #2 (crush Monty.. and get to use your Organized trait.)

As for the city Specializations
Stone=Heroic Epic+?WallStreet?Westpoint?+Units or Generic Wonders when army big enough(Gardens, Colossus, Parthenon)
Silk=N.Epic+Oxford, Scientists
Capital=Ironworks+Prophet Wonders, Priests (switch off the Priests once you get enough Prophets to allow Silk to take the remainder of the GPs)

Marble=Production (Wonders you don't want to waste 'Stone' on)
Other cities=Commerce

(Marble, Capital, and Stone end up being the Space Race Cities)

 

[pigswill]

It might be worth keeping city nw of Nanjing if you were going to build there yourself.
I think you might have benefitted from switching to Police State along with theocracy, in the short term military production seems more important than research.
If you get a prophet another shrine would help Shanghai become your long term money city so more commerce goes to research or culture.
If none of the civs on other continent are major technophiles then space race becomes less of a race so despite initial enthusiasm for culture victory space race seems the one to go for.
If Cathy's got literature and marble she may well be going for GL.

 

[Sisiutil]

The game is getting more exciting at this point--I'm anxious to get back to it, but I'm waiting to give everyone a chance to weigh in. So hurry up!

Cathy's sudden switch to Confucianism may be very convenient. It may simply be that she suddenly has more Confucian than Hindu cities. However, it could also be--and maybe I'm ascribing too much humanity to the AI here--that she got belligerent when she had a higher power rating, swung by my cities and saw all those Combat I/Shock Axemen, noticed my power rating rising beyond hers all sudden-like, and decided to back off and get a little more friendly.

At any rate, next turn I'm going to pay her a visit and she if the shared religion means she's more ameniable to a renewed Open Borders and tech trading. As in the Monty game, OB is handy for a bit of quick pre-invasion scouting. And she does have both Literature and Calendar on me at this point. (I'm tempted to let her build the GL and then take it from her.) She gets no military techs from me, of course; but once the war starts, I may see what I can snag from her for a 10-turn peace agreement.

Thanks for the tip, yes, I will consider keeping the NW iron/wheat city. I'm laying odds it's 1W of the wheat since neither the deer nor the iron is hooked up yet; that's exactly where I would have put it, if you check the dotmap. So yeah, it may be a keeper. Nice of Cathy to go building all my cities for me like that.

A bigger concern than military at this point is economy. I only have two Workers, and they've been run off their feet. The only reason I'm in the black is because of the shrine, though 80% on the research slider at this point is very respectable. But I'm going to go into the red when my first stack steps out of my territory. I need more cottages! One secondary objective of the war with Cathy is going to be grabbing workers.

Let me just say, as well, that Cultural is still, I think, a possibility. At this point, what I want to do long-term is eliminate Cathy and Monty, then get friendly with my remaining (but contained) neighbour Mansa and settle back for either Cultural or Space Race victories.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Thoughts....

1) Don't forget to build your monasteries for both Taoism and Christianity (mistake I made in a Saladin game last night)

2) You should be anticipating running at or around 100% science, as the shrines are going to bleed gold for you. Eventually, you will need to stick banks somewhere to build Wall Street.

3) Remember, running Theocracy is only important when a unit is finished

4) I'd probably not be farming in Guangzhou, but would instead use the whip to keep the city size under control; send the second worker over to help improve Nanjing.

5) The cat has horses, so don't forget your spears.

 

[pigswill]

As I said earlier Guangzhou is a reasonable worker factory which controls its expansion usefully.
It won't be a disaster to run research lower for a few turns; not in itself a reason to defer war (free GL is, but that's a bit of a gamble).
You do seem to humanise AI leaders, good for narrative effect, no so good for strategic planning.

 

[JoeBlade]

A possibility for the worker shortage: once you have a few units out you could turn Shanghai into a temporary worker factory. It's relatively far from the (upcoming) battleground, so any units produced there won't reach the fray quickly anyhow; not without the horses hooked for mounted units.
You could even let it build an additional settler too for the horse city. With the production potential of that city it shouldn't divert you for too long, I reckon.

A couple of galleys may be in order for coastal defenses as well (literally a couple, I think 2 ought to suffice)
I doubt Catherine will send any, or none that will be a real threat at least. However, I suspect Monte may settle a city on the "inner" coastline of the continent some time soon - as that part is apparently still clear of cities - and would only be a few naval hops away from you then. Seeing how he's not exactly fond of you either...
Granted, he could probably only harrass you at first but with so few workers about pillaging horse archers are the last thing you want. Moreover, a stray galley could easily pick off your stone city's fishing boats.
Not an immediate priority though, merely something to keep in mind.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

As for letting Cathy get the GL... well the problem is she won't put it where you want it. (in Silk City) [Now the Parthenon, that she can build for you.] The GL is something where Location matters though

Given the Econ situation I'd
1. Make Bronze city the Worker Factory (say ~4 workers before building anything else) and Cottage spam it as well (the economy will do fine in the meantime you can get back to research when Cathy is crushed.. maybe not dead, but at least too far away to bother with... except maybe to bother Monty.)

2. Start smashing Cathy heavily (axes/cats/spear or 2 in Stone+Capital), you know she has axes.. once you have a cat or two just start moving your army in.. I don't know if a scouting mission would gain you too much in terms of useful information v. time lost

3. Maybe research to Literature instead of Machinery yourself in case she doesn't willingly give it up... and you really don't Want Calendar just yet.
In Silk : I probably wouldn't build the Barracks there, the City is decent, but probably won't be able to affect this war... so its probably better leaving it to work on civilian things... Granary/Library.. a Wall would be better than a Barracks if Silk is poorly defended.

Side note if your economy really worries you one thing to do is delete the Warrior scout who's cut off in Mali territory.

Other side note:
I'd make War Goals
1. NW city, Marble city and
either
Moscow OR Literature and something besides OR Big sum of Money
(Moscow is probably the best since you can research Literature yourself then with little to worry about.)


Actually Literature first really does seem like a better investment than going for Machinery... because Literature will
1. help you Get Machinery (with GL) (also by trading Literature to MM for some other Tech towards Machinery once you have/are close to GL)
2. help you Use Machinery (with Hero)

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Looking way into the future....

The doubled shrines + the pyramids opens up the prospect of buy rushing a lot of improvements. So the Kremlin figures to be a big piece (assuming the game is going to run that deep into the tree).

Kremlin calls for stone (which you've already secured), and Communism (which also opens state property and Scotland Yard). But looking at the tech tree, most of the moves required for Communism are very strong.

The baseline techs are Machinery (which you need for Cho ko nu), Theology (already in the bag), Civil Service (already in plans), and Philosophy (ditto). Theology + Civil Service bring in Paper, which is the only prerequisite for Education, which leads to Liberalism. Paper+Machinery brings Printing Press, which is the hard prerequisite for Scientific Method, which combined with Liberalism brings Communism.

The choice is how to get to SciMeth. If the ocean were a more important element in the game, then the proper route would be via Astronomy (Compass, Calendar, Optics, Astronomy), which immediately opens Physics. The more expensive warlike route is via Chemistry (Construction, Engineering,Gunpowder,Chemistry).

Of course, leveraging Shanghai means getting some gold multipliers in there, so Currency Monarchy Feudalism Guilds Banking needs to happen somewhere along the line.

I think you are fairly close to a choice point on Cultural victory - that determines whether you need to worry about researching the alphabet techs.

 

[Nares]

Nice of Cathy to go building all my cities for me like that.

Just noticed that Novgorod was in pretty much perfect placement as well.

Just a few minor notes. First, the dotmap was great.

On the bright side, there's Iron at Shanghai, which means CKNs (Iron only). I don't know if you'll need them, to be entirely honest. For starters, it looks like you plan on hitting Cathy sooner rather than later. CKNs will probably start coming up during the war, or closer to it's end (though Machinery isn't all that horrible to research, it can only be GE assisted, unlike CS, which is why I've tried a Machinery slingshot with The Oracle, but I've found it fairly lacking). Basically, by the time you get CKNs you'll be coming up on Monty's border, and you'll need to regroup probably through their entire window of usefulness.

Nanjing will be your production powerhouse. Give a little love and it'll rival a Beauracracied Beijing.

You're going for a far earlier invasion of Cathy than I went (I usually timed it for CKNs/Catapaults). I don't know how far you plan on pushing her (she can get alot with Horses and Copper). Obviously you'll need to disconnect her Iron ASAP (and raze that junk city). You'll probably need to get The Great Library started soon, as if the AI isn't grabbing other wonders you know it's going for the one you want. Grabbing the Marble isn't going to happen in time, I can guarantee you that. Besides needing to attack, you'll also need the city to expand it's border in order to get the bonus, by which time you could probably have completed it through normal means(assuming you're not capturing it while researching Literacy).

Using the second GP on a shrine is a mixed blessing. I'd prefer to use it for aiding with Civil Service (now that you got Theology out of the way). Especially as you don't have a lot of cities to make the most of the shrine. Granted, if you'd care to spam out some Missonaries later it'd be nice. I managed to entirely seed Cathy's cities with one of my religions (Confuscianism had spread best to the AIs in that game, so I chose it as well) before ever sending a soldier at her. Talk about some nice intel, as well as making life easier once you had invaded.

I think the problem with picking the shrine is that you're still behind in key techs you'll need to facilitate invading Cathy. I really think you should clear her out entirely when you do decide to invade. But, in order to do that, you'll need Catapaults. Wait for Catapaults, and she's going to get Longbows, which means you'll need CKNs, Macemen and (almost assuredly) a few Pikemen. Hence why I tended to time my invasion for then (despite that point also being one of the most formative tech periods, and generally not the best time to war when there's peaceful AIs rampaging ahead of you in tech).

All that means a good deal of growth for you. Still, I think Cathy's going to be very pissed if you box her into 3-4 cities placed between you and Monty(with an early war down to the Marble city). Letting her stew (while she could be degenerating other AIs' relations against you) is generally a bad idea.

 

[pigswill]

You could delete the various warriors you've got in cities, obselete and costing you better units in maintenance. Are you planning one long war against Cathy and Monte or stopping after you've wiped Russia?
Presumably a few more CR axes then catapults so you can't be too far away from war. Good point from Krikkitone re GL placement; so earlier war has benefits (all those turns Cathy could have been building axes (assuming she isn't of course)).
It would be good to check out NW Ciy if you have a chance. If its not full of units then an option might be send your main stack straight to Novgorod and contain raiders from NW City with your shock axes.

 

[vormuir]

Cathy has horses, and the Russians tend to build a lot of them -- cheap AI upgrades mean they'll have a bajillion Cossacks, come the day. So, as the Voice said, don't forget to bring some Pikemen.

Have you considered throwing Monte a tech to get him into a war with someone?

You said earlier that, once your wars were under way, you preferred to have AI players butt out. OK, I see that... but surely Monte vs. Cathy for a few turns while you build up your forces would be more good than otherwise? And even if not, then Monte vs. Mansa would seem to have little down side. (Well, unless Monte manages to take Mansa out. But what are the odds?)

Just thoughts. Looking forward to the next round.

cheers,


Waldo

 

[The Tyrant]

Have you considered throwing Monte a tech to get him into a war with someone?

You said earlier that, once your wars were under way, you preferred to have AI players butt out. OK, I see that... but surely Monte vs. Cathy for a few turns while you build up your forces would be more good than otherwise?

If you do use Monty to draw some of Cathy's units south before you attack, it is almost certain he will take Rostov, taking Cathy's only horse resource from her. Along with his city east of Rostov, near the dye, that will give him a wall across the neck of the continent. You could take everything north of the neck and stop with Moscow. Of course that means Cathy would be unlikely to give any techs for a temporary peace, but it could cause her to waste some of her units on Monty before you go in.

If you don't get Monty involved vs. Cathy, then you'll certainly want him to fight Mansa (would hurt relations with Mansa if you brought Monty into it, though). If you take Cathy alone, then you're going to lose more units and by the time you finish her off, you'll have a long route from your better unit production cities to the border. What you don't want is to finish off Cathy only to discover that Monty has reached his unit limit and decides that you look like a good target.

If you can I would try to bring Monty into war with Cathy. Since he doesn't like you atm, that might not even be a possibility. That option could be redlined. If it isn't redlined, I think offering a tech to get him to take her southern border would be worth it.

 

[Sisiutil]

Round 6: to 1000 AD

The simmering pot of conflict has boiled over to the full froth of war.

Sorry, maybe I should restrict the purple in my prose to when I'm playing as Rome.

Yes, I went to war with Russia. But I should summarize the things that happened before then, while I was building up my forces.

Well, first off, Cathy beat me to Philosophy and Taoism; Rostov is the Taoist holy city. She got a Great Scientist before I did--in fact, I still haven't gotten one. I did get another Great Prophet, though, whom I used to get within 1 turn of Civil Service. That's what you get for going after those early GP-heavy wonders.

In other news, Mali and the Aztec Empire have declared war on one another. I couldn't have planned that better; it kept them nice and preoccupied. Besides, Monty absolutely despises me, so EVERYTHING in his diplomatic screen with me is red-lined!

By 500 AD, I felt as ready as I was going to be, so...

Notice where Cathy put that city in the northwest for the iron and wheat? What a lousy spot! She totally missed out on the deer tile north of there, and, of course it is...wait for it...ONE TILE IN FROM THE COAST. Brilliant. I razed it. Not at first, though:

No, my first target was Novgorod. I was working on the Great Library, so I wanted that Marble ASAP. Yaroslavl' was next, while my forces hunkered down in Novgorod, waited for its borders to expand, and fended off a few would-be pillagers, mostly horse archers. Good thing I brought along a Spearman.

And look at that! After Yaroslavl' fell, the borders told me that Cathy and placed another city in the northwest--no doubt to snag the deer, since she missed it on the first try. Razing that little burg delayed my push south.

There were consolations, however. Shanghai produced a Great Engineer! What a nice surprise--the odds were in favour of a Great Prophet. Now I was going to use the GE for the Great Library, but I took a risk.

You see, I now had Novgorod and, within a few turns, Marble; since Cathy now lacked Marble, even if she had been building the GL, it was now going to take her a lot longer. I soon thereafter switched to building The Hanging Gardens in Shanghai (mainly for the GE points)--which was only going to take 8 turns.

I am very reluctant to use a GE for a Wonder that's nearly finished, or that will not take long. So I took the chance that I would finish both the GL and the HG before anyone else, and used the GE for that Wonder we'd all been hemming and hawing over:

Yep, I burned Imhotep for the Parthenon. In the meantime, I researched Civil Service but I did NOT change civics, since I was finishing two Wonders (caught myself just in time). A couple of turns later, my gamble paid off, at least for the HG:

I had to sweat a few more turns for the GL.

Then I popped another GP and used him to snag Monarchy.

Why Monarchy instead of the Christian Shrine? First off, as you can see, I was starting to run into happiness issues, so I wanted to get those two wine tiles on-line. Also, the downside to having a shrine in the same city as the Pyramids was hitting home, since it was skewing the GP points away from a Great Engineer there--so I wanted to hold off on the Church of the Nativity. Christianity is only in two cities and is not my SR, so two wine tiles were going to bring in more $$$ than the Christian shrine. I'd rather focus on spreading Confucianism for now. And Monarchy is a pre-req for Divine Right.

I also went to Mansa for a couple of tech trades:

Although Machinery and CS are pseudo-military techs, I wanted Mansa to be shored up against Monty. I want Mansa around as a tech trading partner for awhile, and I want Monty hurting.

You might notice I went after Music. I often have to remind myself how valuable it is, since it leads to Military Tradition. Plus it opens up Notre Dame. However, I did not get a free Great Artist, so someone has beaten me to Music (not Mansa, he came asking for it a few turns later) and may be building ND at this moment.

In between those two trades, my gamble paid off one more time:

Sweet. So Nanjing is now, officially, the science city, though Beijing is no slough in that department, especially since I switched to Bureaucracy once the Wonders were complete. I'm hoping to start producing Great Scientists soon. Should I build National Epic in Nanjing to give it an edge in that regard? Should I move the capital to Nanjing to give it a further commerce ---> research boost? And when it starts producing GS, what should I use them for? Okay, an Academy in Nanjing, but what about after that?

I've also started upgrading Axemen to Macemen when I can afford it--usually thanks to war booty. A few turns later, my Stack o' Doom captured Moscow:

So here's what the map looks like:

And, just because it's relevant to the discussion, here's the tech table, vis-a-vis myself and Cathy:

Okay, everyone has Feudalism for Longbowmen and Vassalage except me. I'm going after Engineering because, as The Tyrant pointed out, my best military production sites (especially Shanghai, which has HE) are quite distant from the theatre of operations now. So I could use that +1 road movement and penalty-free river crossings.

I could trade with Mansa for Feudalism, but the only tech I have that he doesn't is Machinery. Not only would I rather not give him a military tech; I like having him a step or two behind me.

So the easiest way to get Feudalism, and maybe Drama and Philosophy, is to sue for peace with Cathy. Should I? I could gain some techs, but on the other hand, it gives her a chance to shore up her defenses; my stack is in very good shape and doesn't need a rest at this point. In addition, her borders are pressing right up against Moscow, and I'd really like to do something about that. Perhaps I should take or raze the next city south of Moscow and take a break then.

I'm going to have no choice, I think, but to go after Monty after Russia is done. Unless I convert to Hinduism--not likely--he's just going to stay belligerent. Mansa I can live with; Monty, under these circumstances, I cannot.

In terms of Wonders, I have to make some moves pronto if I want to have any chance at Notre Dame, the Sistine Chapel, and Angkor Wat. I have a sinking feeling other civs are at work on all three, so I'd need another GE for a chance at any of them. Plus Divine Right and Versailles/Spiral Minaret are coming up too. Since I missed out on Taoism, I'd kind of like to snag Islam. If any other city but Shangai becomes its holy city, I would prefer to build its shrine and spread it instead of Christianity.

I think I need to decide right now if I'm going to keep going after a cultural victory. If so, I should pursue the Sistine Chapel and Notre Dame. I should build them in another city--Novgorod? Moscow?--to see if I can focus it on producing Great Artists. Mind you, there are some very handy National Wonders that help with that. SC and ND are not crucial to a Culture win, but they help.

To be honest, though, with a city that can specialize in producing science and GS almost exclusively, I'm tempted to go for space race at this point.

Your thoughts, as always, are appreciated.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

So here's How I'd do the city specialization/Wonder Planning depending on the Win you are going for

Space Race
Silk=National Epic+Oxford, focus on GS specialists

Capital=A.W.+Spiral Minaret for the remaining G.Prophets then Heroic Epic and Westpoint, and units

Stone=Shrines, Miscelaneous Wonders, IronWorks and Wall Street



Cultural
Silk=Oxford (Capital at some point)... Cottage Spam

Capital=Chop remaining Sistine First, then National Epic and Globe Theater for Mass GP Artist Farm (farm everything unimproved)

Stone=Notre Dame, Hermitage, Wall Street, Shrines, remaining Wonders (A.W., Minaret)

Marble= Heroic Epic/West Point City (It'll get Good production with its Grasslands Irrigated, and Hills Mined)


If you go Space Race

The scientists would probably be best for multiple Academies in what will be big commerce cities (probably 3-4) and then Super Specialists in Silk city (if you stick with Representation)
Other uses that would come before that would be
1. Hurrying Education.. for Oxford.. not too much else (unless they are offering a nice useful tech)



I Really would have waited on rushing Monarchy with the GP... you could probably research it fast enough, (~300 flasks) or Traded for it easily enough (better for you than Calendar) wheras if you saved the prophet he could have provided ~1000 for DR after you researched/bought Monarchy.

I'd make peace with Cathy. Offer peace for Philosophy after each city raze/conquest (starting now), and start researching it yourself after Engineering ... trade it away for Feudalism when A.W. is just about finished (or Immediately if it is Stone based)

I wouldn't worry as much about Feudalism just yet, Theocracy = Vassalage, CKNs+Pike > Longbows (+50 v. melee and +100 v Mounted v. +25 for all).

Shrines... I'd put them in the double Holy City first (yes it will increase the G.Prophet odds, but those can be useful).. because that city can then become a serious gold booster. (6 Gold per city of yours.. which should all have Both religions..with Wall Street)


Side note: the number of needed Great Prophets seems to be ~2-5 (1=Divine Right, +1 for Christian Shrine... another two can be used for the Islamic and Taoist Shrines.. assuming you eventually take the Taoist Holy City. Another one can be used to get Liberalism)

 

[Nares]

I Really would have waited on rushing Monarchy with the GP... you could probably research it fast enough, (~300 flasks) or Traded for it easily enough (better for you than Calendar) wheras if you saved the prophet he could have provided ~1000 for DR after you researched/bought Monarchy.

Yeah, holding the GP for a couple of techs until you could get more beakers out of it (for DR, let's say), would have been a better use for it, but either option probably won't make a huge difference (I'm not a fan of DR because it's entirely unnecessary, except for grabbing some gold with its wonders).

CKNs, Pikemen, Axemen and Catapaults will certainly be enough to take down Longbows. CKNs with Drill II+ make for great suicide units, but make sure you brought enough. You might want to suicide excess Catapaults on them as able(only need 4 properly upgraded ones per stack, and it looks like you'll only need one stack to finish clearing out Cathy). Better to give the CKNs experience(it's almost pointless to upgrade Catapaults), and they have a much better chance of finishing off crippled units than a Catapault has.

In every game I played, Cathy founded St. Petersberg SW of Moscow. I'm assuming she did so again in this game. I'd take that, and if there's another city to the east of it(probably along the coast, south of Novgorod), that one as well. As much as I hate to say it, you're kinda of screwed with Rostov. It should be razed if you take it, as it'll be under very heavy pressure from Monty (though it's possible Cathy expanded further south in your game than I've seen her do so in any of mine). But, with it being the Taoism holy city, you pretty much can't raze it (well, you could, but it's a generally bad idea).

I don't really see a best case here. I'd want Monty to take it, if only to get Catherine out of the game. But I generally don't like having the AI take cities. You could beat Cathy down to the mountains, and sue for peace, leaving her with Rostov (AI might consider it worthwhile enough to give you a decent amount of tribute in return for peace).

Alternatively, you could take it and gift it, but the question then is, to who? Obviously not Monty, who would be the best choice if he didn't hate you. You could gift it to Mansa, who in turn will lose it to Monty probably almost instantly (gift it while empty). I'm not too savvy at dealing with the AI (besides beating it down with a whomping stick), so I can't really say what's the best way to offload Rostov, though I'm of the opinion that Cathy's gonna have to go.

Personally, I hate culture wars(except when I'm crushing AI borders with my culture), but there's not enough of Cathy south of those mountains to provide a buffer for Monty to settle in while your captured cities' borders expand. But I wouldn't burn the cities south of Moscow to create that buffer (mostly because you need as many worthwhile cities you can get, whortwhile being non-tundra/desert locked, like half your cities are up north).

Either way, this is the point where you decide cultural vs other victories. You should have enough cities after clearing out Cathy that you're basically playing a diplomacy game to keep Monty from assaulting you while you work on churning out some culture (some of your best production cities are going to need to be converted to culture output, I think, though I'm not familiar on how/when to execute a cultural victory, beyond knowing that you need nine cities).

Incidentally, do you have enough religions to spread? If Taoism didn't spread to any of Cathy's northern cities, and you didn't found enough yet, you'll need to get Islam. Hopefully this isn't the case, and you have enough religions that you're looking at a putting the rest of the game on cruise control (kind of boring, but it seems that's what the people wanted).

EDIT: Checked the screens more carefully. You do have enough religions (Taoism spread to Moscow in time, and there's the rogue Judaism presence in Novgorod). Also, it looks like St. Petersberg is indeed SW of Moscow. I'm willing to bet she also settled SE of Moscow (near the Cow/Rice). So, with that cleared up, I'd at least take those two cities. As I said, leaving Cathy around to "persuade" Monty to attack you is a bad idea. Then again, gifting Rostov to either Mansa or Monty is going to piss the other off (Monty might actually attack you for gifting to his worst enemy, and Mansa's not going to like you much longer if you gift it to Monty).

 

[Sisiutil]

I hear you on the use of the GP, guys, but...

Can I be totally honest and say that Monarchy is one of those techs I resent researching?

I will probably feel differently on the higher levels when I can no longer build the Pyramids for early Representation and need Hereditary Rule. But when I've got the 'mids, the only reason I need Monarchy is for wine. Which, granted, as a wine drinker, would normally be a high priority for me. This, however, is virtual wine. So it's like a very late worker tech, and by then, I have my hands full with other priorities.

So a GP pops up and says, "Dude, I can like totally get that for you!". Well, I say, go for it, big guy. Yes, I checked, and it would have taken me five turns to research it. Five turns I can better spend researching something else. I suppose I could have traded to Mansa for it, but then I probably would have had to pass on one of the other techs he had available.

So I stand by my decision. Especially since my first three cities went from frownies to smilies as soon as the wine was available. Drink and be merry, little citizens, for tomorrow you may be whipped!

On to other matters.

I like the suggestion of getting Philosophy from Cathy for 10 turns of peace, especially since I'm eyeing a run for Liberalism and its free tech. Properly-promoted CKNs are very respectable city defenders, so Longbowmen aren't the priority for me they usually are. And Theology already gets me Level 3 units out of the gate; Vassalage just puts me 2 XPs closer to Level 4. I'll probably grab St. Pete and then sue--the stack is big and healthy, but I'm running short of Cats and will need to resupply after one more city.

Krikkitone, sorry to say, I have already built HE in Shanghai (stone city) since it's kind of a knee-jerk response for me to do that in my best production city. It's a good point though, I should probably give that more thought in the future. I mean, does your best production city really need that boost to churn out military units quickly? Maybe one of my minor, less-productive cities would better benefit from it. Then the hammer-rich city can focus on other things, including Wonders. Hmmm, food for thought.

My instinct on Rostov is to just go down there and take it. Monty will be a pain, he usually is, but my plan, as I said, is to mop the floor with him. By this point in the game, it's pretty much decided whether or not I can convert Monty into a pet dog, and that ain't happening this time. When that's the case, he's a dead man. Pure and simple. Too much trouble otherwise.

Which is probably why I'm wavering on the cultural victory, because it's very difficult to focus both on that and on the warmongering that's going to be required to make my continent safe. Building an early empire while tech trading when needed with my relatively-friendly (but walled-off) neighbour Mansa, however, lends itself very much to Space Race.

 

[Sisiutil]

Another dotmap, established cities in yellow, proposed in cyan:

The cow/rice city SE of Moscow is principally a bulwark against incursion by Monty and Mansa. I'd like to get it in place and garrisoned fairly soon--probably during the lull after I take St. Pete. The area around Novgorod just doesn't lend itself to another city to serve that function.

(If it wasn't going to be a garrison city vs. Montezuma, it would make a decent GP farm, wouldn't it? Lots of grassland once the jungles are cleared and two food resources! Once Monty is no longer a problem, who knows...)

The other two cities, we have discussed previously. They're not high priorities, in my mind. The NW iron/deer/wheat city will come first, followed by the SE horse city, which I may never bother with. That's an awkward spot, especially since it has two overlapping tiles with the capital and only one resource which I already have available thanks to Novgorod. The next border expansion of either Beijing or Shanghai will make that horse tile available. So we'll see.

Thoughts?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Yeah I thought you had put HE in Shanghai but wasn't sure.

Well with Cultural Victory you probably Have to put the Hermitage Second in Shanghai. It has a significant culture already without commerce, and any new Commerce city (basically It'd have to be exRussian) is going to take a while to catch up.

I'd say go the Space Race path... put West Point as the second in Stone City, all the Prophet Wonders in the Capital, Super Scientist GP farm in Silk...

and then ignore NotreDame/Sistine Chapel (maybe build them in Marble City, without worrying about actually getting them, if you don't it's good money.. if you do... that's nice too...Notre Dame being Better)

And then wipe Cathy out (giving her a short break if she gives you Philosophy). Take Rostov, and then after another Break, wipe out Monty too. He's in the middle of his own war, and techwise you should be able to handle him. That'll leave Mansa a happy, Smaller friend. You can then get out of Theocracy and spread the (4, 5 if you get Islam) Holy City religions within your empire, for a 100% Science game...Hinduism should already have the Shrine. (yeah this makes it a bit of a War game, but the presence of Montezuma sort of does that automatically.)

Even without the Wall Street in any of them, 5 Shrines and Spiral Minaret with Banks everywhere means that you would get 14 gold per city at 0% taxes... Probably enough to cover costs... Especially if you Got Versailles (making Moscow and Tenochitlan your Other Capitals would be very fitting...and I think effective for the Distances)

Re: dotmap... yeah, good spots (both the NW and SE are worthwhile but not as serious as the 'Garrison')

Actually its starting to reach the point of wondering about those other Civs, they were all below Monty a thousand years ago or so... but if they're all on the same continent, maybe they've become buddy-buddy Buddhists and have been swapping techs and cottage spamming.

Not much to do about it just curious (because you have all the Wonders built so far but Colossus, Lighthouse ?and C.I.?... if they have the first two... they might be doing pretty well)
[actually Hagia Sophia will be a Nice one to get in Stone City with Engineering]

 

[Nares]

In regards to the GP, as I said, it probably won't make a world of difference, and if you were facing happiness issues (probably due to the war), then getting a Winery up is a good idea (lost production/commerce/research makes up some of the beaker difference between Monarchy and whatever the GP would give you for DR).

I loaded your latest save, and noticed one glaring issue. You can already see the gold border of Mansa's down where the "bulwark" city would go. An odd place for him to found one, and I'm presuming it's relatively recent (perhaps even during the war with Monty). That's kind of bad, though I doubt it would ever generate enough cultural pressure to threaten you. It does, however, give Monty a bit of a lead into your territory should he take it(not that the AI will ever mount a worthwhile assault against you unless you allow your power rating to drop real low).

The NW city looks fine, as planned. I think the placement of the SE city might need to be changed, moving it so that it grabs those two Fish. I'd personally put another one west of it, on one of those hills south of Beijing, if you felt you needed another city. I can't see either of these being particularly significant to your operation (beyond housing some religious temples). They'll probably best serve to generate some commerce by working the few higher food tiles they have mixed with Plains Cottages (plus the few Grassland Cottages the Fish city can get). Beyond that, a city south of Beijing would probably be able to produce a number of naval vessels (with Drydocks, of course), leaving Shanghai (your only worthwhile coastal city on the eastern side of the continent) free to produce troops, or wonders, or specialists (it's not exceedingly good at the latter).

Actually its starting to reach the point of wondering about those other Civs, they were all below Monty a thousand years ago or so... but if they're all on the same continent, maybe they've become buddy-buddy Buddhists and have been swapping techs and cottage spamming.

Given the relative monopoly on religions on the "main" continent, this is probably the case. Not that same religion AI civs never attack each other, it's just unlikely to happen (and far more likely that they'll be real buddy-buddy by the time you get there, and they'll all be trading techs and Cottage spamming like mad).