BOTM 220: Saladin, Monarch - First Spoiler - 1AD

WT: “Love events (the way the game was meant to be played,) so I'll have to play this one.”

I don’t wish on anyone the hurricane I got in my capital destroying my granary and forge relatively early in the game. Granted, first time I ever got that, but that was pretty devastating, especially considering forges are dubious at best to build at 120 hammers. I built this for the colossus and fortunately it wasn’t destroyed until after I completed the colossus. I have no idea what would’ve happened to my colossus build if the forge had been destroyed one turn prior to completion.

 

yeah, I also got an event that messed up my game substantially - barbarian uprising (4 swordsmen) that I get every BOTM with events on ;( I have been doing pretty good defending, but decided proactively attack the stack since swordsmen get +10% city attack, but overloooked that they were on a defensive terrain ... Long story short, lost the city for a turn and Hannibal immediately conquered it. Got so mad that I DOWed him immediately even though I was meticulously and for a very looong time preparing to attack another AI . So voting for no events next time.

 

When I get Barb uprising it seems to invariably be four Horsemen.

 

Hmm, I guess I've been lucky; no events of much importance--spoiled food or something. Got the Horse Whisperer quest, which I ignored.

I settled on the sugar. City2 went down south, NW of the copper; City3 further south, N of the wheat on the coast; City4 to the NE on coastal tundra with the 2 crabs; City5 to the ENE on the isthmus, NE of the iron--that'll eventually be my Moai city. I have 24 pop, but I've been whipping recently to prepare for war against Sitting Bull, who is the most tech'ly backward. I plan to attack in two turns, initially with around 7 cats, 4 WEs, and a couple of axes.

All civs have 5+/-1 cities, and scores of 542 (Byz) to 449 (Port) not counting Sitting Bull with 415. I'm doing OK on tech but have no Wonders. Portugal got the GLH in 700, and Byz got the Oracle (1000) and Mids (175). Considering this is only Monarch, it's been a rather slow start. Yes, the land is not very good, but the AI have to contend with that too, and seem to be handling it well. Not sure what victory I'm aiming for. This is a pretty big map, and with growth and teching being fairly slow, I'm not sure I'll have time to finish.

 

I settled on the sugar and teched Fishing, Hunting, AH, Bronze Working, Agriculture then Sailing and Masonry for the GLH (which I managed to build in 825 BC). Then I think I went Pottery, Writing, Alphabet. The Monarch AI was pretty slow to expand so I was able to get Medina and Baghdad even at a very leisurely pace (Medina was my first city; I settled Damascus before Baghdad). I had no interest in the foodless plains to the southeast, I was digging coastal sites. I liked the Madrassa culture! I was building a stack to take Chinook from the barbs but I wound up flipping it, and it looks like I had already won that rice tile from Hannibal by this point too. I chucked the Moai statures in Baghdad just for the culture. All four of us on this continent were happy Buddhist friends. Was happy to have six cities by 1 AD, 77 beakers per turn is probably not stellar, but I felt pretty comfortable with the game at this point. Not patting myself on the back too much since it's only Monarch.

 

I took the challenger save which might have been abit too cocky considering the start is rather slow.
Was worried when I saw there was practically no good city spots around at all, but I liked the wheat down south.
However... once my settler was out and marshing south there Sitting Bull stole the wheat.... So I decided to make a huge gamble which did work out!

Game:

Spoiler :

This brown yuckyness everywhere is hurting my eyes.

Whipped one worker and put overflow into a third to get the nasty desert stone improved in time and chop out a massive culture generator.



Built a madrassa early too and it didn't take long until henge was up at 16 culture per turn.
I ran two scientists and prayed and got a scientist at 20-30% odds or so. Bulbed math with this guy. My plan was to come at sitting bull early, his capital was flatland and likewise some other strong city down south, and his hill cities where with T0 access so I figure it would be doable to attack him even though he is crazy with his build unit probability.


T90 Sitting bull builds GLH in his capital, and the cultural metropolis Medina influences the citizens of Poverty point so much they start a revolt against their cruel leader who deprive them of cows.
Was abit worried about Sitting Bull getting angry and declaring on me before I was ready, but T96 he demanded crabs, thereby securing a 10 turn peace treaty.

However... just some turns later Hannibal starts to plot. I was hoping it was on sitting bull since he was his worst enemy, but it wasn't.


Swapping to police state here to get the elephant out w/o a barracks. And some units are hurrying up too.
He didn't come right away which was nice of him.

Nice nice!


He comes in with one sword.
But more was just around the corner.
Mainly archers in the first wave which got me a GGeneral.




And somewhere here I'm cemented into a perpetual war that will last for ages.
Can't say too much yet but I'm not sure if there will be tears or laughter in the game submitted thread.
Still, the game has posed some formidable challenges and provided ample opportunity for me to make horrid mistakes.

 

Like most I settled on the sugar. Second city went down south next to the wheat on the PH on the coast, before SB might steal the elephants. Third city close to home (3E) and then a fourth to get the bronze. Early on I stole a worker from Hannibal. Seems it pissed him off quite a bit, wouldn't sign peace for ages. When he finally did, I did however decide to try and take him out anyway. As construction seemed to take ages, gambled on just using axes and after IW swords, as it seemed he was missing metals. That worked out quite well, so by 1AD I got 3 of his 4 cities including Carthage, which needed 2 assaults as the first one just failed because of one unlucky combat roll. Just now at 1AD took peace as he was willing to give me construction (and archery) which will be nice to elepult SB next. Hannibal for now is left with a size-1 city to his former south. Also built GLH but missed out on Oracle just as I started on Priesthood. The game indeed is going slow, so I'm happy to at least have the 4 C-s (currency, calendar, construction and CoL) and my 7-city little empire (with a settler on the way), that is looking for further expansion.