Turn 100 Screenshot:
- Where did you settle your city?
Capital settled in place, it just looked like an amazing start spot with a good mix of resources.
- What did you research and which policies did you choose and why?
Mining, Astronomy, Pottery, Irrigation, Animal Husbandry, Writing, Archery, Horseback Riding, Bronze Working, Currency, Mathematics, Apprenticeship, and about to finish Education (Hagia Sophia!)
Mining for the quarries, Astronomy for the Holy Sites, Pottery->Irrigation for the Sugar, Animal Husbandry->Archery for better defenses against barbarians and the threat of too close neighbors, Horseback Riding because... Uh... actually I think that one was a combination of eureka from a hut and a mis-click, Bronze Working to reveal Iron (mostly just to tell who might be a military threat soon), Currency because I'll need CZs for trade routes soon to shore up my economy, and then the path to Education for the Hagia Sophia for more awesome Apostles soon.
Civic'side it was the shortest route to P.P, Theology, and then route to Reformed Church, and now just picking them mostly by whim / free envoys.
- What was your build order?
Capital: Scout, Builder, (bought Slinger), Settler, Holy Site, Settler, Shrine, etc.
Most of my cities, if they had a decent +3 or better HS site: HS, Builder, Shrine, Settler, etc.
My other couple of cities: Monument, HS, Builder, Shrine, etc.
One issue I've ran into is that I should have put Monuments earlier in my holy-focused cities as I don't feel like I've been doing quite as well on the Civic side as I would like, got to Reformed Church a bit closer to turn 100 then I had wanted so my conversion swarm across the world isn't as far along as I'd like.
- How soon did you build a District? Which ones did you prioritize?
Holy Site very early. Since Japan gets the half-price HSs i decided to skip Stonehenge and spam those instead. My capital built it as the 4th build, my first two expansion cities did it as their first build.
I build an Encampment in my capital the mid-80s for turn, after Gorgo & Victoria DoW'ed me on turn 78 and I decided that maybe I'd have to build a bit more military then I had planned.
My first expansion city is working on a Commercial Zone (because having only 1 trade route makes my economy feel anemic right now), and I'll likely build more as I finish getting my Temples build across my empire.
My capital is currently building an IZ, because I expent it will be the center for my military production (since it already has the Encampment) and I'll need the bonus production for the Hagia Sophia, for troop builds, and for HS projects to generate more faith to spit out more conversion units.
- How did you place your districts?
For maximum bonus. With the Desert Folklore pantheon I have three HSs that are +6 or better adjacency bonus, and a couple +4 (iirc) because of the natural wonder to the west of the capital.
- Did you emphasize expansion? How many cities have you built/captured in the first 100 turns?
I am up to 7 cities now, with a plan to drop an 8th into the middle of the desert near my capital. To me, Religion is very similar to a Tourism (refuse to confuse it by calling it Culture) Victory in that having more cities, even small cities, are a huge help in terms of increasing your output towards victory. Going Wide rather then Tall just seems like the optimal strategy, more HSs means more Faith output means more Missionaries / Apostles which means faster victory.
At this point though, after that 8th city I don't expect to build any more. I am over 100 faith per turn already, and as Temples & Mosques start to go up and the envoys hit the Religious CSs and get them to the 2nd and 3rd tier my faith output will sky rocket so I don't expect to need more cities past this.
I am currently at war with Pericles to grab at least Ephesus from him because I want the Iron the city has, but his walls and my lack of Catapults / Rams mean that I might settle the war after just that one city and swing back and conquer the wall'less London to knock out Victoria's holy city of Judaism and keep that religion out of competition.
- How did you play your governance cards, priorities?
Anti-Barb & God King until I got my pantheon. Then swapped GK out for +Prod in all cities. Oligarchy is my current government with: +50 prod on melee & ranged, +Prod, +2 envoy pts per turn, and doubled 1st envoy to stack more envoys into some of the religious CS's around the map to try to rush towards the bonus faith in all HSs level.
- What City-States did you meet and which ones did you cultivate to your side?
Uh... A lot. I am pretty sure I have explored most, if not all, of the main land mass in the world so I have likely met almost all of the CSs. The ones that I have been cultivating are the religous ones: Yerevan, Jerusalem, and (stone-head guy).
- Were your neighbors peaceful?
Nope. Victoria (with Gorgo) DoW'd me on turn 78. Pericles has been denouncing me every few turns, alternatively because he doesn't like how close my cities are or because I've had decent luck with CS quests and he doesn't like how chummy I am with the CSs.
War with Victoria ended with my killing her entire army, but seeing Pericles moving troops on my other border I accepted her peace agreement (which got me her Relic, and enough GPT that it should have ruined her economy if the AI didn't get to cheat on not having to actually pay the GPT out of their income).
I surprise War'd Pericles on turn 98 or so, after he nagged me about my troops being on his border. In retrospect, that likely was a bad idea and I should have waited a little longer but I know Education will pop soon I had been thinking that was going to push me into the Rennaisance and worse war-monger penalties but checking now as I write this, it is just the top edge of Medieval so I could have waited a few more turns to have gotten into a better position first.
- How were the Barbarians?
Surprisingly not an issue. What local Barbarians I have seen have mostly gotten butchered by CS troops. I do have one tile currently pillaged by a Warrior that stumbled onto my capital while I was moving troops back from fighting Victoria, but otherwise they haven't been an issue for me. The couple of camps that did pop up near me I noticed the change on the tile icon right away and pre-emptively killed them before they'd even built a scout to send out. The tight map layout in the area near my capital, plus the tundra tiles to my south being either forested or hills has slowed any Barbs coming from that direction and appears to have been funneling them to the east towards Brussels and Pericles. All in all, Barbarians have been a non-issue for me.
For the AIs however... When I found Arabia they were neck deep in Barbarian troops pillaging everything around their cities. When I reached Norway a few turns ago it looked like they hadn't managed to settle a 2nd city yet because of how thick the barbarians were by them. While they haven't been an issue for me, the more distant the AIs are from my location (and the cluster of CSs around me) the more trouble they appear to be having with barbarians.
- Any surprises?
How big a difference that early scout made this game. I had stopped doing the early Scout and been going Slinger for my first build instead after a number of really poor scouting starts. In this game I got several very useful envoys because of being first contact, and have found where all of the AI civs are by turn 80 or so (not contacted France yet, but the last city I build was on the coast north of Stockholm because I saw French Galleys along the coast line there, so figure by the time I get an Apostle up there I should have made contact with their fleet).
How quick Pericles got walls up on his cities also surprised me. I had pondered an early war of aggression against him, because it looked more open to expanson in his direction with better land then in Victorias, except he had walls up by turn 60 or so and that killed my ardor for that idea. I still don't have the tech for Battering Rams or Catapults so am just looking at large Archer waves to bring walls down now with a lonely Warrior to capture, which is a less than time-efficient to make war.
Who got their religions first was also kind of a surprise to me. Protestant Norway and very recently Jewish England, while Arabia will get the last prophet there is still one more to be grabbed and at turn 100 it is still up in the air who will get it. Also, Stonehenge came so late that I probably could have gotten it, but the trade-off would have been likely having founded only 4 or 5 cities at turn 100 instead of 7.
- Mid-Game Analysis
Looking at the rest of this thread, I am wondering at this point how big the divide is going to be between the times of people going for a "straight" Religious victory and the times for a Domi-ligious victory.
I know Prince isn't very tough, but the AI is so utterly incompetent at defending their cities (aside from the surprisingly early Pericles wall-rising which seems to be more of a quirk in my game then what other people are running into) that just looking at this thread makes me feel like I would have been better off going full-on warmonger early on and aiming to grab a later G.Prophet instead of the 2nd one.
Just theory-crafting what I have left of my game, and where other people are at in this thread, and I am expecting to see probably a fifty to one hundred turn difference in the times of those who focused on building religion early and those who conquered a couple of AIs by turn 100.
Definitely something I will have to keep in mind for future 6otM rounds: early war appears to beat out any other strategy and is the faster route to any victory condition.
