Round 3: to 975 BC
I decided that this round, I should play things through and see how our MC/P plans pan out...or don't. Hence the 975 finish.
To start off, our third continental companion showed up:
Hoo boy, good ol' Monty. He took a while to show up, so I suspect he's nowhere nearby, and that's a good thing for now. More on him later.
I also built the second city, Hamburg, in the Eggman-approved spot:
As I said, a very counter-intuitive location. Just look back through the posts after the last round with everybody urging me to put it either 5 tiles west or 5 tiles north. And here it is only 3 tiles away from the capital, with enough overlap to make a dedicated dot-mapper lose sleep! But it's part of the MC/P gambit, so that's where it goes.
Research-wise, I completed Bronze Working and moved on to Polytheism.
Shortly thereafter, the Chariot fininshed in Berlin. Trusting that barb activity and AI aggression would remain low for a while, I sent him towards Persian territory. I didn't see a Worker, so no luck there. Cyrus has quarried his stone, but strangely, had not yet built a road to it. I also found, against all odds, another goody hut:
I don't think I've popped a hut for a Warrior since my second Civ IV game on Settler level. (My first, if you're wondering, was on the supposedly-best-for-Civ-vets Noble level, where I got promptly and severely spanked for trying all my Civ II tricks.) I would have preferred gold to support research, but I'm not going to turn my nose up at a Warrior, especially since both my cities are still bereft of defenders! I sent the Warrior east to finish exploring the south coast. The Chariot went northwest to reveal that area. And my Scout was further northwest and had earned Woodsman I thanks to a panther and a lion.
(Barbs military units, by the way, have been practically non-existent so far. I've only seen three barb Warriors, and my Chariots have killed all of them. There isn't a lot of empty fog (such as a big swath of tundra), so there may not be many in this game. Or maybe it's still too early.)
A few turns later, I finished researching Priesthood, started the Oracle, and then researched Pottery. I chopped three forests for the Oracle. Following Eggman's precise instructions, when Pottery was done, I changed civics:
And when I came out of anarchy, I put the "hammer collector" back at the top of the queue. I then cracked the whip:
And on second turn after that...
Of course, I selected Metal Casting as my free tech. So I immediately switched Hamburg's production to a Forge.
Then I realized I had a problem.
I'm not the mathematician that Eggman and a lot of other Civ players are. I don't play the game, as I've said, with a calculator in hand. I prefer general principles to precise calculations. Maybe I'll never manage to win on Emperor or higher as a result. Insert shrug here.
Up to this point, I'd done relatively well enough because Eggman had laid out a precise plan for me to follow. But this was where I suddenly realized some of the variations I'd indulged in had the potential to bite me on the butt.
To go back to my cherished general principles, I had failed to sufficiently pre-chop the forests around Hamburg. And I realized, as I finally got past my math aversion and did some calculations, that getting the Forge built ASAP in the second city is far more important than speeding up the Oracle in the first city. But I had focused on the Oracle, because that's what I'm used to doing.
I had six turns after the Oracle completed to get the Forge built in Hamburg, otherwise my first Great Person would be a Great Prophet from Berlin, not a Great Engineer from Hamburg. Three chops weren't going to do the job, and because I had not done enough pre-chopping and road-building to Hamburg's forests, I didn't have time to do a fourth chop. Frankly, I didn't want to--I wanted to keep two forests for their health bonus, what with all those floodplains.
But the floodplains were the saving grace, as was the horse tile. I switched Hamburg to work the horse tile, a floodplain, and the plains forest until it was chopped. Then I switched to working a grassland forest, maxing out the hammers per turn, but also growing the population. Hamburg now had 2 pop, you see, and on the fifth turn of building the Forge, it had just over 90 out of the required 120 hammers to go--that's right, just enough to whip the forge. It would also grow back to 2 pop within a couple of turns.
So I whipped the forge, assigned the Engineer specialist, redid my math, and breathed a sigh of relief. I would indeed be getting a Great Engineer.
After that, I was able to pretty much do what I wanted. I built my third city, Munich, 5N and 1W of Berlin to claim the banana, rice, gold, and cow. Kublai, you see, was expanding quickly, and I didn't think I'd have time to claim the banana tile with another city, at least not peacefully.
I had copper in two inconvenient locations. One was 4W 1S of Hamburg, with too many desert tiles to make a viable city. (if I'd built Hamburg 5W as many suggested, I would have had it, along with all the floodplains. Oh well.) The other was 4W of the cow that Munich claimed. When I moved a Chariot up there to check the area, Kublai had already built rather close to the rice tile, the only nearby food source. It looked like he'd take that tile on the city's first border pop.
So once I had Masonry, I decided to research Iron Working and hope for iron in a better location than the copper.
In 1040 BC, the Great Engineer appeared:
So on the next turn, in EXACTLY 1000 BC...
YES!! Okay, I probably could have done that a little faster and smoother, but I'm not an egghead...er...Eggman.
I immediately switched civics to Representation. I then played one more turn, since I had a couple of things to do.
Iron had appeared, you see, and I built my fourth city in order to access it:
I decided to put Cologne 1NE of the location some had recommended in order to decrease its overlap with Berlin. The capital has more than enough overlap with Hamburg.
Notice that I will have Writing on the next turn, so I can start building Libraries. That's important, since the next stage, now that the MC/P gambit has been accomplished, is to build my specialist economy to take full advantage of it.
Here's a look at the map in 975 BC. First, the north...
And the south:
You can see that Monty is, indeed, quite far away (for now), and it looks like Kublai will be a buffer between us for a while.
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So first off, let's talk about next moves. I'll run through what I'm thinking of doing and you can all tell me what you think.
I'd like to build one or two more cities. I definitely want to put one more down to the south, right on the stone as was previously suggested, and make that the science city if I can. If the rice tile nearby remains unclaimed, a lower priority might be putting a city to the northeast to lay claim to that copper. But since I'll soon have iron, that's not vital.
Once the iron is hooked up, I think I should prioritize military. Barracks, Granaries (for more efficient whipping), and units. Libraries, however, have to enter into the equation soon too, to allow for scientists. At least, that's what I'm assuming. I've never run a specialist economy before, so I would appreciate all and any guidance with it.
Back to military. I have two Creative civs and two Aggressive ones on the continent. Cyrus could easily out-tech me, Kublai will jump on me the moment he sees and advantage, and Monty is...well, he's Monty. They all have to die, the sooner the better.
I want to build Axes for city defense, then a stack: an Axe and a Spear for stack defense and several Swordsmen. Then research towards Catapults.
Speaking of research, after Writing, I'd like to research Alphabet. I have an excellent bargaining chip in Metal Casting and I think I should see what I can get for it, especially before I start attacking the neighbours. Fishing, Sailing, Monotheism, Archery, Mathematics, and even Horseback Riding are all on the shopping list. After that, I'll research Literature (for the Great Library), Mathematics (if I can't trade for it), Construction, and Code of Laws.
Back to war: who to attack first? Well, to go about it the other way, I'd like to attack Monty last, since he's furthest away and it looks like Kublai will be between us. So I'd like to buddy up to Monty for now. I'm hoping Buddhism will spread to one or more of my cities, then I'll convert. If he requests tribute, unless it's ridiculous, I'll likely cave.
My thinking here is that Monty can be formidable in the early game, but he quickly falls behind in tech. So if I leave him until much later, I should have enough of a tech lead on him to make the war much easier. So yeah, I'd like to make him my pet dog. For now.
So who's first, if not Monty? Well, the main disadvantage to Kublai at the moment is that he's Buddhist like Montezuma. Attacking him would likely earn me a "You declared war on our friend!" demerit from Monty. Cyrus is closer and is starting to claim some territory I'm thinking should be rightfully mine, like those desert gold hills.
The only problem with Cyrus first is it gives Kublai more time to get and build up a force of Keshiks. That would necessitate lots of Spearmen and prioritizing Engineering for the even better Pikemen.
Thoughts?
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While you're thinking about all of that, let me give you my perspective--thus far--on the MC/P gambit.
As Eggman said, planning is important, but I think my success with the gambit shows you can be a little looser about your approach to it on Prince. But not by much. Obviously, I was very lucky with the huts, but as Eggman pointed out, that wasn't quite as big and obvious an advantage as it seemed.
My main tip to add to everything Eggman said is that building the Forge in 6 turns or less is vital to this gambit's success. So if in doubt, make a priority of pre-chopping and building roads in the forests for the second (forge) city. Looking back, I may have been better off NOT chopping for the Oracle as much as I did.
I think that Frederick is the ideal leader for this gambit. Obviously you don't want to attempt it with anything but a Philosophical leader. But Frederick's Creative trait is a perfect match as well, because it means you don't need Stonehenge, which would--if built early--play havok with the GP generation.
Not only that, you don't need
obelisks either. The chief concern with this gambit is the weakness of your military. But I've been able to build two barracks because I
didn't have to build obelisks, and I also built some promoted units to protect my cities. Since AH and BW are both on the tech path, there's a chance you could locate the second city to obtain copper or horses.
Is it worth it? Well, for that answer, I'll have to play the rest of the game. Which I will do once I hear from everyone.
, go s/P instead. You should be able to make a plan through this far from the moment you found your capital and have enough explored to find a minimally acceptable 2nd city site. I'll admit there is a little practice involved in doing it. I spent over 10 hours in research before I could pull this off one time with even one leader. Saladin is the most forgiving- with Saladin and this start, we would have a 1000 BC Pyramids instead of 950 (maybe 1040). I would recommend that people who are experimenting with this opening try it with him a few times to get the hang of it. Once you've done it a few times, then you'll have an easier time figuring out how to pull it off with other Philosophical leaders and better map bonuses. Unless I get a goofy tundra/floodplains/jungle start I can pretty much pull this off with Saladin every single time (I've yet to fail). But as I said, you can pretty much tell from your opening view in 4000 BC if you can do it or not. If you can't, don't bother. Bah! This was supposed to be brief!
+ hills )
or you'll have to wait until cats
