[BTS] Catherine Pangaea Map

[jnebbe]

I've been rolling a lot of interesting starts lately and this is definitely one of them . Attaching an immortal+deity WB save.

Leader is Catherine of the Russians
Starting techs are Hunting and Mining
Traits are Creative and Industrious

Since it's a WB save you'll need to manually add archery to barbs.

The start:

Spoiler :

Settings:

Spoiler :

 

[dankok8]

I like Cathy so I may give this a whirl but ugh... I hate seafood starts. This also looks like we're near the North Pole.

 

[sampsa]

Map seems fun, looks like it might be rough though

immortal T50

Spoiler :

I think the choice T0 is whether to go for plains hill(s) or on marble. Seems natural to me to share the by settling phs, but on marble would work out nicely as well. Went settler first, fishing-BW-sailing-AH-(writing). 1-pop whip worker in 2nd city, 2-pop another settler in cap, worker chops. Tech path is interesting as there isn't any pressing need for any techs after fishing-BW. I'm not a huge fan of writing in general, but here it makes sense for CRE libraries and OB for religion and instant trade routes.

Settler in galley for the fish-island in north, 1-popping a boat for it next turn to improve the fish immediately. 2nd city also has some 40 in a settler so will 1-pop it also when available. Then shipping some warriors towards south for safety and ship settlers/workers that way. Might even go archery just to be safe. Don't think it will be a tough game at all, nice tech pace and expansion should be rather smooth, too.

 

[jnebbe]

@sampsa Very nice, I see you skipped GLH. I went GLH and had a great tech rate but got boxed in very fast at 5 cities by T100 or so, perhaps delaying expansion for GLH when your available land is already low is not the play. Maybe still winnable with 5 cities, there's marble for national epic/great library, maybe settle a crappy 6th city so you can build globe theatre and do a rifle/treb attack.

 

[sampsa]

@jnebbe

Spoiler :

Yeah, GLH on pangaea will never be insanely good and I think expansion is in general more important, plus here thanks to IMP it's easy to 2-pop whip settlers. I see it like this: if you can safely expand to 8 cities and build up your empire normally, you are going to win eventually. Getting boxed in to 5 seafood cities can be a problem however, with or without GLH.

I didn't consider GLH, but I did think about Oracle, mainly because no pressing need for any early techs besides fish-BW. Had I settled on marble T0, I think it's an option, though nothing better to take than CoL I guess.

 

[sampsa]

T75

Spoiler :

Switched to Hindu immediately which I now regret - didn't realize Sury is so close to the south. Will whip the settler for 8th city next turn and then I'm done with expansion. Three cities have granaries, including fish-island (whipped a warrior twice, then 1-pop whip granary). Working a lot of unimproved tiles, but that should change soon. Going for some marble stuff now. Need to somehow keep Sury away, probably city gift, but not sure if that's enough. Pacal is totally boxed in already so don't want to piss him either.

 

[sampsa]

T100

Spoiler :

Gifted a city to Sury down south. Suddenly everyone was switching to judaism, so I followed suit. 2T ago Toku switched to buddhist, just as I was getting him to pleased for math trade... Whipped a settler in Vlad, to gift a city. With liberation bonus it should be enough. Everything would've been so much easier if I hadn't adopted a religion in the first place. I guess it's typical in pangaea, just haven't played such maps in a while. So now teching "nothing" to get maths, then can blaze through music.

T115

Spoiler :

Never got the maths trade. Got Sury to friendly, got GLib, won music. Pacal starts WHEOORN T110 and pretty surely I'm the target. Scraping up some units now, thus the golden age will be a bit delayed. Island city can pop the GS in 1T whenever it's needed. Maybe the game is not such a breeze as I initially thought as even the southern cities are all rather mediocre. But hey, Pacal has 4 cities, so pretty sure some sort of delayed catapult war takes care of him slowly.

Sury has all kinds of goodies to trade (construction, HBR) for music+CoL. Going cuirs, as boring as it is...

 

[krikav]

Tundra, Ice, 4-yielding seafood.
Oh, what a lovely start!
If nothing else shows up, I want to settle on the marble and go worker first, tech fishing->BW and mine those two hills.
Would yield 10 raw hammers toward settlers at pop3, really sweet.

Might be an opening to go for some fun oracle stunts too, all that seafood gives enough commerce, and with Cathy early writing is always nice, and by the looks of it here, it might make sense to go toward writing through priesthood.

 

[AcaMetis]

Leader is Catherine of the Russians
Starting techs are Hunting and Mining
Traits are Creative and Industrious

CRE and IMP, not IND .

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T58 :

Pacals capital is on flatland, here I contemplate a axerush. I meet Toku next turn who has his capital extremly close to Pacal.

Once fishing was in, I had a worker half-done and thought about the option to either finish that one first, or go for a 8 turn workboat. I'm not sure, but I think the fish first was the way to go.

Pacal founds hindu, and apparantly he settled his now holy city right in Tokus face. Looks like Pacal is squeezed pretty tight. He will be a yummy target.

No copper was depressing. I change tactic here from axes to GLH. Sailing is needed anyhow, and masonry won't hurt long term either. And there isn't really any tech that is pressing.
I changed the settlement of that second city 1S on the green hill instead. Killing one of the few useful tiles hurt, but I figured I really really needed to share all the crabs with capital.

Chopped that south-western tile first, was hoping in vain for some forest regrowth.
Once second workboat was done, I revolted when it was in transit and once I was out of revolt I could grow right away.

I grew to pop5 and then whipped the lighthouse. Was short1 hammer to finish a warrior next so capital was unhappy for a turn.

Setting up a settler 9/100 to do a 3pop whip with maximum overflow.

Continued to slow-build GLH one turn into unhappiness to sync up with road to reach city spot in 1 turn. After this I just slow-built and prepared another 3pop whip and pre-chopped the two forest.
I didn't want to chop either forest prematurely as that would have given me -1food from unhealth.

Time for the whip/chop.

And there it's done.
I'm not connected to anyones trade network except Pacal who has nothing to trade.
I'll try to settle the two islands now, and perhaps find some spot further south.
I went to writing through pottery as I absolutely need granaries/lighthouses to get out an army later on.
Plan is still to go for construction. I do hope that there is some horses or iron around, or that someone will trade me something.
Not sure if aestethics->litterature makes sense with so many wonderhoggers in the game. Capital has some mines but I don't have anything spectacular to build with.

 

[krikav]

@sampsa

Spoiler :

I also considered settling south on the PH, just because it looked like it had nice pattern with your second city, both on PHs.
Oracle play would for sure have been nice here, but when I saw Bella and Capac somewhat early, I just ignored that.
Oracle aestethics might have been nice?
But on the marble is also one turn faster, which is also nice. Sometimes I forget to consider that even though worker turns and production might be equal, you still lose out on one turn worth of research.
Perhaps not as relevant here, but I think that it played a role in that NC277 Joao game.

I ran with the deity save, so will have to see if there is any room left down south for me!

 

[krikav]

@jnebbe

Spoiler :

Yeah, GLH on pangaea will never be insanely good and I think expansion is in general more important, plus here thanks to IMP it's easy to 2-pop whip settlers. I see it like this: if you can safely expand to 8 cities and build up your empire normally, you are going to win eventually. Getting boxed in to 5 seafood cities can be a problem however, with or without GLH.

I didn't consider GLH, but I did think about Oracle, mainly because no pressing need for any early techs besides fish-BW. Had I settled on marble T0, I think it's an option, though nothing better to take than CoL I guess.

Spoiler :

I agree abit on these aspects. What made me not worry too much, is that I saw Pacal being squeezed so heavily early on. There is no way that it will be impossible to grab his stuff eventually, even if it's with catapults+longbows or something like that.
But in general, being boxed in is probably the worst fate that can happen, and if you land yourself in that situation by chasing shiny wonders, then you are doing yourself a disservice.

Regarding IMP, what I mainly see in that trait is a very easy way to get quick overflow hammers. With a non-imp you either have to spend way to many turns converting food->hammers, or you have to luck out and have so insane food so you can do 4pop whips.
So I think IMP here is something that tilted me toward GLH, not away.

GLH cost hammers, but it also saves hammers. Now here we are CRE so libraries are probably worth it anyway. But if you land GLH you can get "enough" commerce just with that, and then skimp on say.. Workers for cottages, or libraries.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T100 :

I saw Bella was missing mining/pottery/sailing, so I teched abit into alpha and then gifted mining to her. That was not enough, but I continued to push alpha for a few turns, then I got it! Traded for IW shortly after that and was very happy to see iron.
Teched math->construction after that, traded for AH then teched HBR. After that I went myst->poly and traded for mono and then monarchy after putting 2 turns into it.

I figured I should go south first, as the fish-island was secured. But I only had time to settle the gold before Sury took the other marginal spot.

Ran two scientists for a long time and had about 70% odds for a GSci. I'm at odds at what to use these early guys for... Bulbing currency/MC doesn't feel that exciting.
Bella built ToAR and I could get 1100g from there, but it's 12 turns away, and I'm not sure how to use the cash. Running 100% is not really a problem (break even at 80%), so burning through 1100g would take ages.

Toyed with the idea to gift away iron and build hordes of warriors to upgrade to axes... If I could upgrade them to swords I think I would try that out, but axes isn't that exciting.
The sane thing would probably be to run a GA, but I settled the guy. The extra food in capital at least gives me something right now.

Pacal has plotted a while, and I think I'm the target as he got catapults in Chichen Itza, but I'm almost ready to go so that would be fine.
Sury asked me to DoW toku a while back, and since he couldn't reach me I agreed. I got peace by giving him math when he would talk.
Fish island and the beavertown have been a nightmare to get up and running. Beavertown I did a 1pop whip of a warrior to get enough overflow to do a 1pop of a granary.
Then lighthouse, then barracks.. It's now at 40+ turns of whip anger and has barely whipped any units.
Fish island isn't ready either.
Capital and second city is up at 30 turns too. Closing in on whip saturation fast.

I feel like I grossly underestimated how slow and bad these cities was.
Oh, Sury gave me ivory for marble+fish, thats why I have some elephants.
Pacals land isn't really that exciting and I probably have to raze a few of his moronically placed cities too. Not that confident that this will be a smooth game!

Just traded for Calendar with Capac for monarchy+HBR.
Currency should give me ability to continue teching by selling small stuff to Capac/Freddy. Rather at a loss about what to continue teching. Maybe Feud for vass or perhaps MC->Machinery->Engineering to continue to fight.
Or I hope that catapult is enough to continue over Toku later too, and try aestethics and perhaps music. Only Toku is able to go for music and he is at war so I don't know if he wants to.

 

[sampsa]

@krikav

Spoiler :

I feel like I grossly underestimated how slow and bad these cities was.

Absolutely the same for me. I think it's a combination of several things, but the most important one is zero forests. Being EXP or even ORG would help a ton, too. CRE libraries aren't useful if going for early aggression.

Regarding IMP, what I mainly see in that trait is a very easy way to get quick overflow hammers. With a non-imp you either have to spend way to many turns converting food->hammers, or you have to luck out and have so insane food so you can do 4pop whips.
So I think IMP here is something that tilted me toward GLH, not away.

This is a great point! Also, despite my negative comments on GLH on pangaea this is also as good as is gets on pangaea.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler 1 AD :

I checked a few turns ago, but I could not stop Sury.. Then the worst thing happend.
Not only does this give Sury too much benefits, but I'll also have Toku as a impenetrable foe in the middle of the map. Hugely annoying.

Found Pacals stack, and he is moving toward me. Fortunaly, I have a plan! Good thing he gave me horses (Fur+22g or something).

Amagad...

Novogrod had 63 turns of whip anger.

His stack was standing 1 tile away from my borders, thats why I pulled the trigger on this city gifting.

Tada! Now I can whip again!

Took Novogrod too, and put all my units there. He spent his turn bombarding. Then I killed one catapult per elephant I had. The next turn he attacked. Not sure how I could have done this differently... Perhaps delaying recapture of Novogrod so I could attack him there? Losing 3 HAs and a elephant wasn't nice.

Ceasefire now for 2 turns so he stops building units and so I can heal.

I won music, woo hoo!
Stack moved to Mayapan first to let the spy build up stationary points. I had about enough to run one sabotage wall mission later on, that makes it so much faster to bombard down defences.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T138 :

Traded Music for MC with Sury who is ahead of the bunch.

Earlier I mentioned that I probably had to raze some cities, but reality has now sunk in. I can't afford to raze or optimize anything. That this city didn't even have a single building was abit depressing, but I keep it anyway. Kept the foodless crap abit north too which at least was coastal for GLH traderoutes.

Got Feud for Music+150g, can't remember but I might have had some beakers into it. Revolt to vassalage right away. Basically I need catapults at 5xp more than anything, and even affording missionaries are tight.
I also had one galley for the longest time, which had a hard time keeping up with all shuffling from the southern gold city and from fish city, but couldn't find time to get another one.
Also still at ONE worker, the same dude who has done every improvement in the entire empire. Including being shipped south to chop two forest in the gold city. Now he is improving beavers.

This saves alot of time when bombarding. One of the best uses of spies/EP there is.

Bombard down. In some cities just abit, in some cities to 0%. Then 1 or two catapults with collateral promotion, then it depends on what gets best odds. Sometimes it's CR catapults, but sometimes the swords or the elephants get better odds.
I also try to take a few small risks to get more XP for GGenerals.
i.e I take a 98% fight which gives 2xp, rather than a 99.9% fight that gives 1xp. Also try to keep a close eye on units that are close to getting just enough to get promoted.

The smile on his face... he knows he is winning.
Just rub it in Sury!

Took Lakamba too. This will be completely engulfed by Tokus culture, but it does make it possible for Mutal to get the crabs.
Pacal would capitulate a long time ago, but I need cities much more than I need him as a vassal.
I might also need to do the city gifting trick again too, think I need to whip alot more units.
But 10 turn peace treaty now for Theology.
Theology I flip to Capac for compass, then compass+190g for Paper sury after I put one turn into Paper.

Settling cities whereever I can now basically. Most give a small gain, or at least they are neutral regarding commerce.
One more settler goes on that central island.
Whip overflow goes into sistine which should give me quite abit of cash once it's done.
Built heroic in capital and also settled two GGenerals there.

Sury is plotting. I think it's against freddy who is his W/E.
Not sure if culture is even an option as I have no high commerce cities.
Could sushi-assisted diplo be an option perhaps...? Not sure I have any chance of reaching mass media before Sury though, he does have culture flavour after all.

Warfare... Not really liking the prospects of that either. Sury will likely DoW Freddy before I can get there (I have to go the long way around Tokus border...), and then freddy will fold like a paper bag I assume.
Bella will likely peacevassal too him too. :|

I think the best chances I have, is to just continue to whip like crazy and wait for sury to DoW Freddy and then backstab Sury and hope I can get some cities and cut him down in size abit.

For all my whipping, I still have a very small army.

 

[Qactus]

Excited to see how you will deal with Khmer who seem spiralling out of control a bit.
Just to add to your mentioning of sabotage walls missions:

This saves alot of time when bombarding. One of the best uses of spies/EP there is.

I completely agree and for a while only used city revolts. But Sabotage Walls missions are great and become even better value for the same buck when you can use them to disable a castle later on. Since castles have walls as prerequisite, it is enough to sabotage the walls and the city will lose the defense bonus of both buildings.

 

[krikav]

@Qactus

Spoiler :

I think I can't deal with him. Bad play on my part not to jump in and rescure Toku way earlier. And that HC peacevassaled was only icing on the cake.

Have played on abit now, and Sury declared on Isabella. I hope that she can hold her own for at least a while longer so I can set up a proper backstab. But it look really really tough tbh.

 

[jnebbe]

Very nice! Much better than what I could do
I've never seen that anger reset trick before. Just gift/lose a city to ai and all whip anger goes away? Seems pretty useful if you have an abundance of food

 

[krikav]

Very nice! Much better than what I could do
I've never seen that anger reset trick before. Just gift/lose a city to ai and all whip anger goes away? Seems pretty useful if you have an abundance of food

Yepp, thats how you do it. It can be very useful sometimes.
Thats another reason not to spam libraries/theatres or other culture buildings too though, they are destroyed at a conquest.

It can also be used in tight spots when you are drafting. Then you can sacrifice a city by drafting it every turn, keeping it alive with HR. Then when you are ready you can gift it and then steal it with a chariot the first turn of the war.

Good trick to get some instant war-success too.