[BTS] BOTM 282 - Khmer, Immortal - First Spoiler to 1 AD

[kcd_swede]

BOTM 282: Suryavarman, Immortal - First Spoiler - 1AD

How is the forest chopping going for you?
Use this thread to tell us what happened in your game, up to 1AD

Reading Requirements
If you are participating in BOTM 282, then you MUST NOT read this thread unless EITHER

• You have reached at least 1 AD in your game, OR
• You have submitted your entry

Posting Restrictions

• Do not disclose ANY events or information gained post 1 AD.
• Do not reveal your final result if that happened after 1 AD.
• Do not discuss the location of resources that may not show up before 1 AD (Iron is OK, coal and oil are not)
• Do not post any savegame file from the game. Discussions and screenshots are fine but not actual games

 

[Xcalibrator]

Yes, a bit of a challenge with the slow start. I settled on the plains/river/forest to the SE and at 1 AD have 6 cities and 33 pop. I've just gotten HR this turn to allow growth beyond our meager resource-limited happy cap. I did nab the silver up north, which helped, and only recently got IW to unlock a couple jungle-covered gems. After BW for chopping, I "beelined" (in intent, if not speed) toward Aesthetics, planning to trade for Alphabet, but Isabella was the only one who had it, and she had already discovered Aesth (and Math, which I bulbed) herself, so I had nothing to trade. Ended up researching Alpha myself (400 BC), but it only took about 8 turns at that point because I finally had some decent cottages and was able to run scientists after building libraries (from Writing). I'm running at barely above 0% research, though. Spain is pretty far ahead of everybody else.

Anyway, HR will be a big help, and I have 3 potential Calendar resources (although the dye up north is under heavy cultural pressure). My second city went to the SW to grab the copper so I could fend off that nasty neighbor, Shaka. He did attack me, but other than an initial grab of a couple workers he was entirely ineffective. Gandhi is universally loathed as the only Hindu--everyone else is Buddhist except for deGaulle, who has no religion. I think the only other fighting was when Monte attacked Isabella--she asked me to join and I did for the diplo benefits--Monte had a couple wandering units that ended up lurking along my borders so I had to keep some units up there.

I've just started working on Construction so I can build 'pults, and just hooked up horses way up north. Not sure how long I'll be able to hold those against Catherine's culture--she nabbed a barb city a little before I got to it--would have been nice to have, and also allowed me to settle a nice coastal city with clams and multiple deer, but it was covered by her culture before I could get up there. I'd like to go after Shaka when I have enough forces, but Toku is always a tempting target. There wouldn't be any negative repercussions from attacking Gandhi, but I worry his cities are too far away, and surrounded by others' culture, to be cost effective.

Thanks for the game, kcd.

 

[ariosto]

I decided to SIP after seeing a third deer in the capital's BFC. I don't think there is competition here. Settled second city NNNE for instant connection and to share deer with the capital... wait, WHAT? We are paying 3 maintenance for the second city in the third ring? Am I playing on lower difficulties for too long, or has it always been like that? With all these rivers, I didn't expect commerce to be such a big issue, but now I'm concerned.
Anyway, back to the expansion. Barbs weren't a problem on such a cramped map. Happiness was a huge concern, though, glad we found silver and gems in the near vicinity. Unfortunately, a barb archer spawned near the silver so my fogbusting warrior had to retreat waiting for reinforcements. Of course, at the only possible turn barb city spawned on silver.
You can see my frustration here.

Spoiler Barb city :

At least, barbs chose the correct spot here

So, no happiness until IW? Oh, wait. I can settle on top of the gems! Resolves my hapinness issues now, and I need that more than possible future commerce from this tile. Meanwhile, I started to build a stack of axes to capture the silver city - we badly need that silver... Wait, do they have warriors there? Did the mapmaker forget to add archers for barbarians? I'm very happy if so.

Spoiler Barb cities :

Now my troops can go capture the north city. I hope there are warriors as well, so we don't need more axes. It turns out, that city was a huge asset! Notice how it can never share it's three deer tiles because of Rostov and Yekaterinburg (NW of dyes). I placed 2 scientists there, but still too much food.

Shaka as a neighbour is a big concern. I gifted him city to make him pleased. Unfortunately, this idiot founded a city in the third ring of my copper city, so his attitude became cautious again. The whole world was buddhist and I was praying it to spread in one of my cities, but no such luck. I opened borders with Isabella once I reached writing, but she converted the whole world totally ignoring me. Then my copper city popped the third ring, completely screwing Bulawayo in process. Shaka started to plot immediately and declared on the very next turn. Of course, I got buddhism spread the same turn.

Spoiler Shaka :

Gifted him this city T78. Should have done that 15 turns earlier - this idea just didn't came to my mind back then - but he didn't attack be by this turn, so it turned out well.

Shaka declared war 9 turns later. Note that I got buddhism not in one, but in two cities. Just 2 turns too late. Switched to buddhism immediately.
I was prepared to Shaka war. All the granaries, libraries and barracks are built, so we have nothing to put our hammers in but army anyway. He just mindlessly suicided his stack in my capital, so we signed peace several turns later. I lost 0 units. At least I was lucky here.

DeGaulle got alpha finally, so I was able to trade for it finally. Let's see how backwards I am.

Spoiler Techs :

Whoa! That's a lot of money. I think, that's Mids failgold - Gandhi finished Mids 2 turns prior to that. By the way, I didn't mention my tech path, but it was simply a currency beeline with the only detour to BW.

 

[ariosto]

After the Shaka war I started to build an army to take revenge. Once I'd cooled down, I realised that he was probably not the best target. He could backstab me any moment if I attacked someone else, but his land was unappealing and he didn't have wonders. I was considering to attack Gandhi for his mids, but the geography was unconveniet - they were too far away. Isabella had Mahabodhi with around 20 buddhist cities, but she already had Monarchy and was close to Feudalism unlike everyone else. I was able to postpone making this decision until T104 placing my axepult stack between them. The plan was to attack one of them around T107 and kill the other one afterwards.

Spoiler Attack plans :

My stack was gathering at the copper mine at the center of the screeshots. We can have fast route to both Shaka's and Isabella's capital this way.

Domestically I placed 2 scientists in 2 of my cities. The second one birthed T106. Initially the plan was to bulb Philosophy, start the GA, then the second one and use it to grow a number of great merchants to speed up my Cuirassiers attack. Around T100 I suddenly realised that I skipped Fishing, so I can bulb Engineering. Now I have 3 possible uses for great scientist with only two were available. I haven't even started the third one. What makes things even more complicated is that I need CoL for both Philosophy and GA and Machinery for Engineering, and I can't research both in the short timeframe.
In the end I bulbed Machinery and Engineering T106 and skipped Pacifism entirely. Mostly because I have never done it before. But also because starting GA right after I whipped my empire for the army seemed like a waste - and the same can be said about Pacifism. By bulbing military techs I can at least pretend I had some coherent strategy in mind. I didn't.

I decided to attack Izabella first. I couldn't resist the temptation to take the shrine. But, first things first

Spoiler Diplomacy :

Bribed Polytheism from Catherine so she couldn't attack me

Asked Shaka and DeGaulle to embargo Isabella, so she couldn't bribe them. The rest were either pleased with me or annoyed with Isabella.

Spoiler Isabella war :

Here is the invasion army.

A keen eye may notice 5XP catapults. I mentioned that I didn't lose a single unit in Shaka's war. In fact, I gained the most important one - the great general. I used him to promote 8 catapults for accuracy and CR2, one chariot for sentry and one axe to 10XP to unlock HE. Accuracy catapults proved to be very helpful!

Isabella was able to provide a good defense for Madrid, but nothing my CR2 catapults can't handle with. I was rather lucky to not lose a single hitter in the attack.

The shrine was even better than I imagined. Given that my economy is negative at 0% this should be really helpful.
I kept her alive to extort some techs. The war was finished T114 - I captured all her cities but one.

I was rewarded unexpectedly for not starting a war with Shaka.

Spoiler Bulawayo :

He didn't build a single cultural building there for like 50 turns. Not the best strategy against creative leader. I was considering to capture this T107, but sometimes peace is the right way to go.

At T115 I have 16 cities with 99 population, 21 workers, 206 CY and 104 MFG. Economy is almost negative, but it will become better once Madrid come out of resistance. I prechopped 4 forest to whip forge on the second turn and chop market right after that. The tech situation

Spoiler Techs :

 

[Jimmy Thunder]

I like the look of ariosto's game. Getting an early chunk out of Izzy seems key.

I couldn't keep up in this game. I settled 2NE which didn't help me at all.
Self researched iron working and went for Shaka, but not fast enough to beat him having axes. Was able to take two cities, one of these I wasn't able to hold so I gifted it to Spain.

Because of if my tech route and large army build I was really shut out of tech trading so am slipping far behind. Plan at this point was to keep massing units and take out more of Shaka, but not looking promising long-term given the size and culture of Spain.