This bit makes me wonder if we are in for some kind of hidden shock. After all, emperor should be reasonably winnable for quite a few players. Are we going to discover that our nearest neighbours are Monty, Alex and Toku?
So, now you understand the picture selection. It's clear this month what all the leaders have in common.
Would it have been harder or easier if you were facing the regular civ leaders instead of all Nappy?
Any wars yet?
Are you trying for the peaceful challenge? There is plenty of space to the east.
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In my naivete I accepted the mapmaker's challenge. I think I will regret it.
I settled 1S. City#2 went south on the jungled ivory, #3 to the NW to get 2 incense, marble, spices, and deer. The French (the real ones) attacked me and captured it. It's gone back and forth a few times but I have it secured--for now. At 1AD I have 6 cities, with the latest settled way out in the SE with all the furs and fish. It will very likely be surrounded by Babylon, but I'm close to capturing a barb city on the coast farther north with lots of sugar. Total pop is 28 and there's still room for a few more cities to the east and a bit north toward Monte, as DH suggested. I recently lost the double-wheat location to the Zulus--not a big loss, I think. I have 21 techs, including Construction and Currency but no MC or HBR. My score is 506 (last) with the Zulus first with 1015. This is not going to be easy, not at all. I'm bad at diplomacy so will likely head for space--no doubt I will be crushed by Rusten and BiC, even if they take the no-DoW challenge.
I settled SW to get the deer first ring and get the worker out sooner. Initial techs were hunting, AH, then first went wheel before BW in order for the worker not to run out of things to do.
First city went NE at cow/deer/wheat/wheat, second on an ivory south. Techwise up next went agriculture and pottery, but since the map initially was so commerce poor and settling only a few cities already made the slider drop too much, had to do something. So inspired by WastinTime's great thread in S&T decided to do tiny scale "wonder bread" with stonehenge. No multipliers of course, but still, with lots of forest and whip potential with so much food, the only way to get some cash was fail gold and the only wonder available SH. The wonder itself was useful enough for border pops and the fail gold at least got me through the critical techs of pottery and writing.
Basically hired scientist everywhere and cottaged up river tiles. From there the economy recovered and allowed expansion. Unfortunately one city (I think #6) was burnt down by barbs shortly after settling (a fortified warrior wouldn't hold against an archer and an axe to the rescue arrived a turn too late), but still arrived with a reasonable city count at 1 AD (12) for 74 pop, including 2 barb cities in the east. Babylon beat me to a 3rd at the sugars in the east.
Techwise up to literature, currency and CoL, I'm 4 turns away from CS. Wonderwise only have Stonehenge, but Great Library, Parthenon and Hanging Gardens should finish within the next few turns, as well as the National Epic. Also just started on the Pyramids as it was open and the Aztecs were willing to trade stone. Hope to chop it out pretty soon. Decided against the Oracle, but it went rather late so would've been possible. Hope to get calendar soon for more happy and chopping out MoM.
So far the Napoleons have left me in peace and have been taking it out on each other. I don't really trust them much though.
I think I'll go along with the space gauntlet and hope to arrive not too many centuries later than Rusten and BiC... Map looks wonderful for communist paradise. Can't promise to stick to the mapmakers challenge though.
Your game is pretty similar to mine so far, nocho. I'm a little ahead on tech and wonders, but we have the same amount of cities. I have nearly 100 pop, but that's with the HG completed.
I settled 1E as planned and also relied on wonders to fund my research. In hindsight I think I should've expanded a tiny bit slower, but those deer yields are so tempting.
I think I have around 30 workers, and I still feel like I could use more. Underestimated the required worker turns on Arboria.
Bigger write-up later. Just checking in for now as I reached 1 AD earlier tonight.
nocho said:
Hope to get calendar soon for more happy and chopping out MoM.
IMO delaying this was a mistake. I went calendar even before aesthetics as you have access to so many luxuries. It's a priority tech in this game. That probably explains my higher pop count.
Wow, 30 workers at 1AD! That surely is a lot, although I agree they won't be out of work soon on this map. Did you use an AI as a worker farm and if so how many did you get that way? Currently I only have 11 as I got 2 stupidly captured by barbs for lack of attention and may have had 2 more if I hadn't had the little setback with a city I lost to barbs which I had to replace, but in any case, would've had 15 max. Probably should have whipped a lot more of them, or at least have assigned one city to permanent worker-builds.
IMO delaying this was a mistake. I went calendar even before aesthetics as you have access to so many luxuries. It's a priority tech in this game. That probably explains my higher pop count.
Maybe. However, until this point I haven't had much happy issues. In trade I'm getting 4 happy resources plus the ivory which makes for a happy cap of 10 (11 in the capital) which for now was sufficient to work with. Calendar didn't feel very pressing up until here.
I think especially your far superior worker count will propel you way ahead, or actually has already.
Wow, 30 workers at 1AD! That surely is a lot, although I agree they won't be out of work soon on this map. Did you use an AI as a worker farm and if so how many did you get that way? Currently I only have 11 as I got 2 stupidly captured by barbs for lack of attention and may have had 2 more if I hadn't had the little setback with a city I lost to barbs which I had to replace, but in any case, would've had 15 max. Probably should have whipped a lot more of them, or at least have assigned one city to permanent worker-builds.
Just whipping. I got 4 workers from barbarians, but I also lost 2 to them in a stupid way. Big facepalm moment. Maybe I'll share that later.
Maybe. However, until this point I haven't had much happy issues. In trade I'm getting 4 happy resources plus the ivory which makes for a happy cap of 10 (11 in the capital) which for now was sufficient to work with. Calendar didn't feel very pressing up until here.
Perhaps, there are more luxuries available for trade than normal. I still think it's worthwhile to tech it early here though, as you do not want to wait for the AI anyway. Better to get it early. The tile yields are also decent (the 3 incense comes to mind). You can also sell them for money after currency.
I think especially your far superior worker count will propel you way ahead, or actually has already.
Could be true. My empire is about to explode. Tiles are improved, food/health cap is secured and food surplus is high. I think I'm getting around 300 BPT (1T away from CS, but I have MC and calendar which you may not have), and I expect that to increase in a huge way soon. Negative GPT not really relevant for now as I have to much saved up from wonder and also standard selling.
At 1AD I have not yet been at war, but did take one barbarian city. I have been in total city-spam mode, and have lots of territory defended mostly by wariors. Have the Great Wall, Stonehenge, and Pyramids (in that order) and am running a slave republic - much like USA in her early days. Anyhow, I am at about 0% research, but running lots of specialist scientists - which didn't stop me from getting my first two GP as GSpies, who have mapped the world already - and will return home to run infiltrations and/or settle, and/or be saved for eventual golden ages. As usual, I am just playing around and haven't really set any goals yet. Sort of kind of going for the mapmaker challenge, but expect to get so p-o'd when I get dow'd (not if but when) that I'll mess that up. Sort of annoying that the diplo overview screen is so hard to decipher as all the heads look like the Little Colonel (err.. General) that who-hates-who is too much work to figure out, and I'll just make sure I am ALL of them's worst enemy to keep the diplomacy picture simple enough for my pathetic skills.
Anyhow... things are going pretty good so far... but I shoud have done alphabet before IW, as I am now struggling to catch up in tech (which my maturing cottages will fix). One day I will stop messing around and figure out how I want to win this. But not today. I have three cities in the 10-pop range, three cities in the 3-4 pop range, and a couple cities in the 1-2 pop range. Whipping and chopping heavily, but no mathematics yet so a lot of wasted wood.
Hey DH, another question regarding your challenge! For the lesser version (where we can capture cities but still can't DoW) we have to return captured cities before they come out of revolt. Do we have to return them to the original owner? Or can we give them away to somebody else? (I think I know the answer to that one. ) And what if we capture cities and the original owner is eliminated (by us or other AIs) before the captured cities come out of revolt? Can we keep them?
Well, let my report be a lesson about the consequences of ignoring the challenge.
I was feeling penned in, so in 300 BC I thought I could grab a city from Babylon. I couldn't. And to make matters worse, France and Japan joined the war against me. France accepted peace in 1 AD, but at this point it looks pretty hopeless.
So I thought I'd show proper manners in this game and reveal the true gentleman that I am.
Hence I gave myself a little handicap to play with :
Spoiler:
Oops ! Oh... maybe I overdid it ? Things went downhill pretty fast.
Farewell, City 2, we'll never meet. I'd have like to know more about you.
Adios, beautiful timings, you're a thing from the past, now. Cows improved the turn City 2 would be settled, eh ?
So long, elephants, it will be a thousand years before you are settled (City 2 on jungle phants).
Hello, unhappiness at size 7, is that really you ?
Welcome, worker idle time, it's been a while, how have you been doing ?
Bye-bye, shared cottages, plain cottages, will I ever be able to afford you ? Ciao woodsman axes, can I even build you ?
Etc.
Now I'll go read your posts and see how far back I've fallen
Fortunately, not all things were lost, since I had devised a devilish little plan.
Actually, I received the blueprints a short while before opening the starting save and I decided to stick with them, despite their mentioning of a second city.
Ah ! What a nepharious machine it would be :
Spoiler:
So the plan, to be able to tech up, despite the lack of early commerce, would be :
Oracle Code of Law, going to Priesthood through Medidation, so as to unlock a Philosophy bulb.
Make an early switch to Caste System and hire specialists to research Alphabet plus Mathematics.
Use the first Great scientist to bulb Philosophy.
Switch into Pacifism and generate an extraordinarily quick second Great scientist to build an Academy in the capital.
As it happened, I could get the Oracle in about 1640 BC :
Spoiler:
But the lack of early happy resource meant Delhi hit unhappiness and couldn't hire as many specs as I would have liked it to.
The research for Alphabet + Mathematics took longer than I had expected. And thus the first GS was kept in store for quite a few turns.
But eventually, I got there. Maths --> Philo bulb --> Pacifism switch.
Hire 4 scientists, go, go, rush, rush, it's already 400 BC and the winner is...
... a Great Spy ! Yeah ! What am I gonna do with you ? You wanna steal techs ? They don't have any.
Well, okay, I'll keep you in store for a Golden Age.
Spoiler:
See those lines ? No stone but eh ? Biggest, baddest Great Wall I've ever built.
Pyramids also in the making despite the stone issue.
Well, those parts were pretty fun.
I think I used 3 switches into Caste System at 1 AD. Got me some gpp without infrastructure and some border pops as well.
Yes, we are very highly educated. We know walls, we have the best walls, we have the best. There are no better walls than ours.
Got carried away with early exploration and warriors went out of position. Didn't adjust plans. Should have sent the settler to the NW where there were AI units to fogbust. Didn't. Derp.
I did say that I was going to make a better and bigger writeup.
My game up to 1 AD.
Spoiler:
Overall theme:
Peaceful REX. Relying on wonder gold to keep tech rate up in addition to the many riverside cottages. Once I eeked myself to pottery I never had any worries. Then calendar was the next step.
I settled 1W. Second city went east towards wheat. I also made a quick 3rd city as #2 had a big downside. It was not connected to my trade network which is a huge deal early on. At least this one will be connected to the capital. Notice the warrior 1S of the westernmost deer in that image BiC?
It has no new resource in the first ring but I felt like I had to settle it there all the same. No other decent way to get copper, stay connected to capital and have good food available from the get-go. There was the option of settling next to copper and use the cows, but I didn't want to settle with only 1 food resource (and didn't have AH yet as I prioritized BW). Furthermore that would ruin a future city which was grabbing the pigs (but Babylon beat me to this spot anyway). After the FW Delhi put some hammers into SH. I had much more production available than I could afford, so putting hammers into wonders seemed obvious.
My 4th city was not settled until 1800 BC (NW double deer) in order to get myself to pottery in time.
I one-turn The Oracle 850 BC and take MC which was a tech I didn't really need. At least I can trade for alphabet without putting beakers in with it. In contrast to my pre-game plans I didn't play around the Oracle too much as I took so long to get to pottery. Grabbing the good spots seemed more worthwhile. The Oracle being available was just a nice bonus. I did not dare delay it to try to get mathemtics, though. Next techs were maths-fishing (by trade -- no reason to worry about WFYABTA here)-sailing-calendar. In the end I think I was able to trade for monarchy+IW+alphabet. The expected amount on emperor. Fishing was a small bonus.
500 BC I decide to put the FW to use and steal a barb worker. I move onto the forest and road the same turn. My sword enslaves the worker.
But I am blind and don't notice that the tile 1SW of the barb city is roaded. I lose 2 workers in return!
This new guy better be hard-working!
1AD overview and statistics:
Some of these builds are placeholders.
Great game, Rusten !
30 workers, 30 cottaged tiles, some pretty well developed. Lots of infrastructure. Litterature, Metal Casting...
But I've seen what you did, there : you escorted the first settler ! Ah ! No fair ! ^^
Do you have enough experience with space colonies to set a target date for yourself ?
Early tech path :
Hunting --> Masonry (!) --> Animal Husbandry --> The Wheel --> Meditation --> Priesthood --> Writing.
The Masonry vs AH part is very controversial, I feel. (Cows would usually be better than marble ; there is a single marble tile but could be many pastures.)
I did it for the extra commerce, because I was going after Priesthood.
Now, delaying Bronze Working.
I felt I wouldn't need to rush production (chop/whip) to expand faster.
On the one side, we have plenty of 6 yield tiles to build workers/settlers very fast ;
On the other side, we have very little commerce to sustain a rapid expansion. No gold, no furs, no forested gems.
--> BW would mostly be useful in that it would unlock forestless tiles to improve (namely : cottages) ;
--> it wouldn't really be necessary as long as the workers would have special resources to improve.
If we look at our size 3 capital, it does 14H/t into settlers : that's a settler every 7 turns.
At size 4, it does 18H/t into settlers : a settler every 5,5 turns. Early on, BW = Pottages. It requires Cottery as an additional cost to give its full potential.
Would that be compatible with a Priesthood opener ? Not so sure...
Once the techs are in and we can build cottages, granaries, libraries, then, sure, rushing production becomes most desirable.
I can see early BW working out by skipping on Priesthood and AH.
Tech path : Hunting --> BW --> Agriculture/Wheel --> Pottery.
There are so many deer tiles that AH isn't really a necessary tech.
Upside : unlocks cottages to grow early.
Oracle upside : gives access to border pops, scientists and gpp.
The cost in production is very real, though. Yes, sure.
Following Priesthood --> Writing, I went :
Alphabet 1120 BC
Mathematics 575 BC
Philosophy bulb 550 BC
Calendar 275 BC
Civil Service (2 turns to go at 1AD).
AIs were kind enough to research and trade IW, Monarchy and then a late Currency.
Looking at the tech, I can't say it went all too well but I have a hard part assessing how much I lost by not having a 2nd city... I tend to think I lost a lot and would be interested to replay the opening, once the game is over.
Situation at 1000 BC :
Spoiler:
A meager 5 cities. Great scientist born 5 turns ago already.
Kept him idle from 1200 BC to 550 BC. That was too long.
Some 1 AD screenies :
Spoiler:
Empire :
Spoiler:
Been pretty lucky to secure Agra : was going to send that settler to the SE but spotted a French settler on its way there.
Spoiler:
Decent chunk of land settled with Calcutta and Lahore settled as blockers.
5 swords out in the field saw combat from a distance (AIs captured 2 barb cities that I wanted : NE of Lahore and E).
Cities :
Spoiler:
Some adjustments to do but there are the basic stats : 10 cities, 60 pop.
Mausoleum of Mausoles in the making.
Stats :
Spoiler:
13 workers. 10 cottaged tiles. 4 libraries. Some odd wonders. Great Wall ?
I could secure a stone deal with Napolulu shortly after 400 BC, which actually made the Pyramids affordable (with about 150H already in).
Only 2 GPs popped mean no Academy.
Wonder dates :
Spoiler:
I haven't put too much thought about where I'm heading, next.
Litterature is probably very much needed, if only for the National Epic.
I've got Representation but I'm not currently hiring many specs.
Kinda wondering about the AP, Spiral Minaret and University of Sankore. Cheap temples...
I'd like Woodsman 2 melee units to harass an AI. Would have to be Maces, at this point.
Unsure about any sort of Liberalism target. Democracy (Emancipation) or past Scientific Method... I don't think towards Assembly Line. Biology has that Health Park. Communism gives +1 food to shops.
For now, I need to backfill some more, get up more workers, develop the land, set up infrastructure. Still many things to do.
Great game, Rusten !
30 workers, 30 cottaged tiles, some pretty well developed. Lots of infrastructure. Litterature, Metal Casting...
But I've seen what you did, there : you escorted the first settler ! Ah ! No fair ! ^^
Do you have enough experience with space colonies to set a target date for yourself ?
Yours is looking good too despite the early problems.
This is my first space game in many years (first since I started playing again after long breaks), so I wouldn't know where I stand. But all the same I can't set a target date when I have in fact finished the game. I had some available time this weekend.
It's a cool VC though. You need to balance everything. I'll revisit soon.
Everything has upsides and downsides. I can see the merit in your path. The early masonry is cool.
But as you alluded to, I think missing out on the cottage growth for so long is a big deal. It's more the lack of unlocking tiles, rather than the chop yield itself, that surprises me so. I'd be very interested in you replaying the start later. If so I may replay it too and go pottery before AH, which I think is the strongest opening (with early BW).
Even going AH before pottery I still got it 1680 BC, but in hindsight I agree that pottery first would be stronger. I had a period in between there where the economy was struggling. Would be better off with the early cottages than the early livestock I think.
With the available production and grassland river I think you can go bananas expanding (profitably) early on. Fast workers help here too.
When did you actually get BW? Trade or self-research immediately after the Oracle? When did you complete your first "pottage"?
I checked my save and I do in fact "only" have 25 workers.
But the barbarian one counts as two!
edit: Being a space game you could've considered settling the GS 1200 BC instead of holding on to it or make a poor academy. One of those rare times I think it could be good.
Yes to all, probably. Riverside indeed is free commerce and supports expansion. BW+Pottery is strong.
BW I got with Alphabet, so 1120 BC. First cottage in Bombay a little before 1000 BC, I think. First cottage in Delhi around 900 BC.
I wasn't too hurt by the lack of tiles because I switched into Caste System :
- 1640 BC to 1080 BC ;
- 650 BC (+ Hereditary Rule) and 525 BC Pacifism to 400 BC (+Organized Religion) ;
- 125 BC (+ Representation & Pacifism) and still at it.
That said, a riverside cottage is a better tile to work than a regular specialist.
Maybe I'll use Representation specs to tech up with little infrastructure, now. I'll see when I have the time to think about it.
And... I didn't expect it would take me that long to research Alpha + Maths.
So... in a way, I underestimated the costs of my approach.
Hey DH, another question regarding your challenge! For the lesser version (where we can capture cities but still can't DoW) we have to return captured cities before they come out of revolt. Do we have to return them to the original owner? Or can we give them away to somebody else? (I think I know the answer to that one. ) And what if we capture cities and the original owner is eliminated (by us or other AIs) before the captured cities come out of revolt? Can we keep them?
Sorry about delay in response. Whatever you did was fine.
If you are waiting on me: You can't keep the city. Return means it goes to original owner. If OO has been eliminated, you have to give it away, but to anyone.
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Why on earth did you send it out there without a warrior nearby? 
