Deity University - Lincoln

[Grashopa]

Eplek

Spoiler :

In the 2 western cities I only ran the coastal commerce and food tiles. Hammer tiles came after I hit all the commerce tiles. Once you know your key target which was construction and the HE here its not hard in your head to make the decision on city tiles or the whip. And here I wanted to grow to my commerce cap - use up every 2+ commerce tile in the city before starting on hammer tiles or the whip.

 

[beestar]

Round 2: I got a bad feeling about this

Spoiler :

I went straight for Writing, but my New York was on the triple seafood site. It's not bad for GP (I've already popped a GS, but my economy was so bad I settled him in NY so I could get Alphabet in a reasonable time. Tech path in these 50 turns: only Bronze Working and Alphabet! Running on scientists with no cottages yet. I got Alphabet but Zara and Monty had teched it by the time I got it - definitely should have gone Aesthetics instead.

Monty is way ahead with Currency, Math, and I think Monarchy. He's got 9 cities.

Exploration has revealed the chokepoint to the east, but I am too slow - Toku has swarmed 3 cities east. Worse, Monty has claimed the double gems site. The "blocker" city to the northeast was a bad idea, should have claimed the ivory-cows site instead. I guess I don't like giving up land to Toku but looking at everyone else's saves, it seems inevitable.

No Wonders - maybe settling the stone site for Pyramids would have helped the economy.

Right now it's looking really, really bad. My instinct is to gear up for military action as my only way out. I'm really getting boxed in here with 4 cities and Toku expanding behind my lines. Should I go for IW for Swords, or HBR for Horse Archers?

By the way, it's a Buddhist lovefest between Zara, Monty, and Toku (and Buddhism still hasn't spread to me) ...

 

[kossin]

As promised, my round 2 with pictures+save.

Round 2 (turns 50-100)

Spoiler :

Here you see where I unfortunately settled Boston =\
Also Toku stole the bloody hill spot.


Washington doing its thing. I built a lot of settlers from here and sent them at various locations and held the spots.


Gift city location. Up until now I had no open borders so I fell behind a bit on research compared to the Sailing crowd.



Library in Washington, t81.


t83, Toku comes to claim my land... I settle the cities that had been waiting for some time.


Notice Montezuma is in the game due to WE bug.


t98, my borders expand, locking Tokugawa away from the western part of the land.


t99 finish Aesthetics. Unfortunately Gandhi had it and started selling it so I didn't wait any longer.


gpt becomes available and I take advantage of it...



My land



Techs. Not the best compared to some other saves but I'm hanging on.


I still haven't opened borders with Zara so the northern part should be secure. I still need another settler for the southern part near the rice. Hopefully that ZY galley isn't a bad omen.

Analysis of my round:

-some bad luck with errors
-good blocking in north
-curious choice of delaying Sailing and OB for so long. It did block Zara a bit from the north but is it worth it...
-bad luck with AI trading
-no hindu spread yet.

 

[kossin]

Hi Kossin, I recognize you're regulating opening dates rather than closing dates. But I think keeping them spaced at a not too fast rate, allows us all to discuss each others' saves and plans, rather than just posting & moving ahead. If things move ahead quickly, we'll naturally prefer to discuss future events (as you can see many of us have already played to T100 and put discussion in spoilers). Also, as you can see, we are still collecting a few stragglers for Round 1

Anyway, great thread, lots of players & discussion, let's keep it up.

Generally, more players have time to play during the weekends and from what I've seen from round-based series, the first few rounds get a lot more submissions than later ones. Whether it is a time issue, interest or just "the game looks won/lost now" is hard to say.

The thing I don't want however is to space the rounds too far apart and have the game drag for over a month. I'm estimating 2~3 weeks a game should be a decent amount of time to keep interest in the game and generate discussion.

Remember there's no way to force discussion Some players only have just so much time and would rather use it to play rather than "discuss/improve/etc". The more saves there are, the harder it is to look at all of them. I think the most we can ask for is a round report that goes with the save.

It's up to everyone to ask questions... those generate plenty of discussion, but I agree on moving with the general feeling on round openings. A week is too much and 2 days too short, well except maybe for round 1, but we'll go with the flow.

For example, I think we need a few more days for round 2, there hasn't been that much discussion although I believe most of round 2 comes as a result of round 1 so far.

 

[Eplekjekk]

Grashopa

Eplek

Spoiler :

In the 2 western cities I only ran the coastal commerce and food tiles. Hammer tiles came after I hit all the commerce tiles. Once you know your key target which was construction and the HE here its not hard in your head to make the decision on city tiles or the whip. And here I wanted to grow to my commerce cap - use up every 2+ commerce tile in the city before starting on hammer tiles or the whip.

Spoiler :

What you are saying makes a lot of sense. I am used to thinking that city growth is always the primary objective and therefore I tend to focus on working food/hammer tiles to get granaries/libraries as fast as possile. Maximizing commerce for short- or long-term goals is something I will try to implement in my game.

 

[kossin]

Round II has been going on for 4 days so far, I'm thinking tomorrow Round III can be opened, unless more submissions are on the way? The thread has been a bit quiet lately in any case.

Keys to the game so far, as I see them:

Spoiler :

It's been written a bit everywhere by players but I'll try to summarize.

Round I: BW vs. Pottery/Writing. It appears there isn't that big of a difference in either approach from the submitted saves so far. BW first allows to cottage the river in Washington and to chop a bit faster. Pottery first doesn't provide much as there aren't many rivers to be cottaged. Writing first doesn't work so well since Libraries take a while to come up. Moreover, with ZY's tendency to go for Writing early it's a moot point and Sailing is probably better.

So what's the best techpath? Hunting>AH>TW is great for sure. Depending on ZY's research, Sailing can be inserted here or BW>Pottery>Sailing instead if he delays it. This can be determined by focusing EPs on him when he is met early on. The other advantage of Sailing, as dingding pointed out, is it allows your workers to do something else than putting down roads.

Round II: Pyramids are a good option with the abundant seafood and few rivers, they will be good to keep research going should war be needed/wanted - but they aren't necessary.
I think gifting a crappy city to Toku (most of us gave the one overlapping the cow+desert) is a must as it greatly reduces DoW chances.

Aesthetics is one of the better trading chip as usual and it looks like everyone went for it (haven't checked the facts )

Exploring workboats are a must. In my game, I have not opened borders with Zara (to block him) and have not met the last 2 AIs. This is bad as I can't control them this way.

Depending on RNG, games start to vary greatly at this point and it's a matter of handling AI trading and warring to win the game.

Finally, settling locations tend to be similar for everyone, the biggest difference being the timing. It's usually a good idea to delay cities after #4 to strengthen the economy as they start being costly. Once the economy is settled however (read Currency in and trade routes available), new cities don't cost so much and are usually helpful to the overall empire within 20~30 turns [chop granary and improve specials ASAP].

Feel free to rebuke everything I said or add to it!

 

[dingding]

We can already see two different playstyles in the previous submission till turn 100: Peaceful expansion and preparation for military expansion. Things can be very different in these two different playstyles.

Spoiler :

Techs:

About the discussion BW vs. Pottery/Writing, I do think doubtlessly BW is superior to P/W. Earlier chopping/whipping enables more and earlier settlers/workers/workship, so gives more production and population. Earlier cottages or scientists will, however, only slow down the pop growth and reduce the production (build workers/settlers/workships), which harms the development in short/medium term. I think the difference will be great if we compare two games in these different approaches played by the same player.

About Archery, it's true that it won't at all slow down the tech path.

About Sailing, what is worth being mentioned, it's that foreign traderoads to Zara is 3 commerce. That's just one commerce less than the normal foreign traderoads WITH CURRENCY (two 2-commerce foreign traderoads). So Sailing is an early Currency in this map, which can fund a big REX as I did in my play.

The exploring workship is a must in the sense of technology: if you can't find 3 AIs to trade Aesthetics for Alphabet+Maths+IW, that's a great loss of beakers; moreover, to know one more AI can give 5% bonus to our research for the techs he knows. These differences can't be ignored.

Expansion:

Expansion depends much of the random factors in this kind of map: Barbarians and AI's expansion. For example, I don't understand why Zara didn't grab the gems city till t100 in Kossin's game but it's been taken in t70 in some others' game

Apart from the randomness, the expansion is all about strategy and skills. For those who wish to war with Toku, they avoided of putting too much hammers on settlers, and prioritized early economy and population (so good infrastructure); for those who REXed, it's about how to grab the city points, to organize the building orders (Workers or Settlers or Workship or pop growth?) and to balance the expansion and economy.

For the latter approach which I chose, the keys I see are: prioritize to work on seafood tiles and to improve it by chopping workships; help build some workers in others cities (by chopping); chop settlers in the cap; first 0 then 1, especially when researching Aesthetics; and one again, prioritize Sailing.

The gift city is crucial. It should be the 5th-7th city. One thing is interesting: we can block Toku's settler with this city. So can slow down his expansion for several turns then gift it.

Some other discussions:

About Pyramid, I'm no fan of it. On Deity, usually I don't consider finishing the GW after t40, the Oracle after t50, the Pyramid after t80.

Next tech: Warmonger goes for Literature (for HE) and Construction/HBR. I, as a peacemonger, will choose Compass, which can be traded for Currency, CoL and Calendar. Drama IMO is not enough valuable for the trades, but it enables the bulbing for Philosophy, so can be considered as another option (for Pacifism, especially if Hindu has been spread in and Toku is Hindu as well).

 

[Eplekjekk]

I think dingding and kossin clearly and concisely summed up the important parts of the first two rounds.

I have one question before we proceed into the third round:

Spoiler :

Along with Rusten and Grashopa I have opted for the early confrontation with Toku in form of a Elephant/Catapult war. My question is regarding how you can amass your army in the quickest possible manner. The thing is that I have never attempted a medieval war on Immortal or Deity before. Usually I expand peacefully and hit the AI with Cuirassier/Cavalry.

Before the Cuirassier war i usually only have 1 or 2 good production cities. The rest get whipped mercilessly. This is how I do it: When preparing for a Cuirassier war I try to have some overflow coming in the turn I start producng *Cuirassier. (maybe from chopping or whipping a stable.) This allows me to do a 3-pop whip or a 2-pop whip right away. Then I use the overflow from each whip to have each city 2-pop whip 3-4 Cuirassiers in the span of about 10 turns. The important part is in my opinion to avoid getting whips with little or no overflow, because in a city with almost no production you will have to wait a long time before you can whip again.

Regarding medieval war I am not sure if this approach is the most efficient one. Catapults and Elephants cost significantly less than Cuirassiers and while I might be able to get a 2-pop whip at the start the subsequent ones will most likely be 1-pop whips with variable overflow. My question is this: Do you have any particular cycles of whips (and maybe chops) when producing Elepults, or do you simply whip as often as possible regardless of overflow/happiness and if it is a 2 or 1-pop whip? If you have a certain way of producing units at this stage, I would love to hear it. Perhaps this is a silly question, but in my experience the way you line up your whips can have a big impact on the number of units produced within a certain ammount of turns.

 

[Artichoker]

keys to the game:

Spoiler :

The 2nd round is where we start to see the different strategy paths diverge.

There are 3 basic approaches to handling the 2nd round:

1) focus on blocking Zara

2) focus on blocking Tokugawa

3) focus on grabbing good cities


This map was set up in such a way that blocking both Zara and Tokugawa was difficult, since they both threaten to take good territory very early. Zara will get Sailing very early, making the threat of sending settlers by galley very possible before the midpoint of the 2nd round's time span. Tokugawa, on the other hand, seems to have a very strong capital that can spit out settlers at an amazingly fast rate.

The players who were planning for an Elephant war mainly used approach 3), and they didn't really care whether either Zara or Tokugawa got a few of the good city sites. Short-term productivity of the new cities was emphasized, and the focus on research allowed for some very good tech rates.

Players who used approach 2) did well in keeping Tokugawa back, but risked allowing Zara to settle either the southern or western city sites that had access to multiple gems or seafood resources. The challenge that may emerge, in case Zara is able to settle one of those sites, is to deal with having the culture-strong Zara very near the heart of home territory. The advantage of using this approach, though, is that the Open Borders agreement with Zara allows for some early research benefits as well as the opportunity to send a workboat out to find more AIs.

Using approach 1) has the advantage of being the easiest to accomplish successfully, but at the expense of delaying Open Borders with Zara. The research is definitely a loss, but on the other hand having Open Borders with Montezuma can also provide the same economic benefits, although a workboat still can't be sent out. But because this is a more long-term strategy, the 2 sites that are covered by denying Open Borders to Zara have some very good long-term productivity that will eventually come to fruition, and risking the prospect of losing ownership of these 2 sites can be more costly in the long run.

In the interest of having a more controlled game, I chose to use approach 1) and focused on blocking Zara. I knew that even if Tokugawa couldn't be successfully blocked, a sizable area of land with good resources was already available by blocking Zara alone. Since it was easier to block Zara than Tokugawa, I chose to do so, with the estimation that the combination of Lincoln's Philosophical trait, and abundant food resources, would make any kind of war (either Classical, Medieval, or Renaissance) launched against Tokugawa very feasible, provided that adequate time for preparation of war is given.

 

[kossin]

Round III (turns 100-150) is now officially open!

• You may now openly talk about Round I&II (turns 0-50;50-100) but anything from Round III should be spoilered!
  
• Round I&II submissions are still accepted [there will never be a closing date for rounds] but beware that there might be some spoiler information posted from now on.
  
• It would be greatly appreciated if any spoiler information from beyond turn 150 be kept out of the thread until Round IV is opened. If you don't, the next game you generate will spawn Deity Shaka with BFC copper 5 tiles away in semi-isolation!
  
• Remember, you can play from someone else's save if your previous round didn't go so well, just mention it in your report.

Round IV can probably be opened Sunday or after the weekend is over, at least that's my guess. We'll see how much time is needed to play Round III out and how many submissions there are.

Good luck to everybody!

 

[kossin]

Here's my take.

Round 3 (100-150) - to 800AD

Spoiler :

Played this round right after round II so my memory is a bit fuzzy.
I don't know what I did with my round screenshots but they're gone apparently. Probably deleted them by accident when cleaning up DR screenshots =\

Anyway, I kept borders closed with Zara for a while longer until I could manage to settle the spots I wanted.

Won Liberalism in 560AD with a bulb of Education only, taking Printing Press as it was the only tech I could get as monopoly (Justinian was 1 or 2 turns behind me so I couldn't delay).

Just freed up the Iron and will have a settler there really soon for presumably a cannon war on Tokugawa. From there either total domination is possible or if I get better luck (like the @$%(*@$%* damn religion spread) maybe diplo is possible. Oh yea, I failed miserably at getting a level 4 unit for HE, missing 1 exp on an Elephant. Stupid me.


At least killing Tokugawa will provide Hinduism somewhere...

Oxford University can be up in about 15 turns and I'll have around 500bpt by 1000AD.

Yes, that's a Zara settler, but he won't be able to settle before I take the Iron spot and then there'll be no legal spots left.




Techs looks good for now.



Diplo is good also. Joined Monte in a fake war against Gandhi... not much is happening there.


Current civics are HR/Bureau/Caste/Dec/FR. I hope AIs stop going Mercantilism soon or that'll suck a lot.

 

[Bugg123]

Been a while since I played, but...

T150: (actually saved T151 for some reason, but not much difference)

Spoiler :

The good:
Got Mil Trad from Lib T150. Will aim for Curassiers + spies probably to take on Toku.
Good techsituation.
Diplo is not the worst.

The bad:
For some reason building cats in a few cities. Proably failed to switch to Stable (and could have built chariots, so there's no excuse).
5 cities... well.. it's not like I rely on drafting to start off, but it would've been nice. There's room, so again no excuses.
Too few workers, although it doesn't seem to have hurt me THAT much so far. Not sure the 1.5 rule is needed, but definately > 1.0...
Oh yeah.. I'm in pacifism (had to take on a religion at Monty's request at some point, but switched out) and don't currently have a state religion.

The opening for Mil Trad through lib was only apparent towards the end. It's still no excuse to not have more spypoints on Toku, though...


So I guess.. a lot of bad and a little good. How far behind the good players am I, I wonder

 

[Udey1]

Round 3.

Spoiler :

I am trying to keep up with tech. Unfortunately Qin does not feel like trading. Oxford is built. I am beelining to rifling and then I will use my games first GA to go nationalism/theo/police state to ground out units. Once that is over I will be able to stomp Toku and from there I expect to catch right back up.

Justinian is going to be the one to watch out for in my game. His vassal Monty is being a little attack dog and I think ghandi will go next.

After Toku is out it will be a beeline to democracy and communism so I can get rid of the unhappiness and manage my sprawl.


Once I get a national park up I have an excellent site and will pump out GA after GA.

I may have to go diplo

From turn 156:

 

[dingding]

Till t150:

Spoiler :

Good manner to show picture first:

Spoiler :

Techs:

About techs, for a peacemonger, it's nothing but two issues in this period: how to obtain the crucial techs (for you) and how to hinder your main rival to obtain them.

Main rival: Toku
Crucial techs for you: Currency, CS, Feudalism, Philosophy, Education, Liber
Crucial techs for Toku: Construction, CS, Machinery, Engineering, Feudalism

Conclusion: the faster your techs, the safer you are; the slower his techs, the less dangerous he is. So:

About my techs:

• Compass (t108) then traded for Currency, Calendar, CoL, Masonry, Meditation, Polytheism and Monarchy.
• CS (t117), traded for HBR, Construction and Feudalism.
• Philosophy (t117) bulbed.
• Paper (t122), traded with Philo for MC, Drama and Literature.
• Education (t135). Traded only for Machinery and Music even Monty was on the liber beeline
• Liberalism (t143, 660AD), bulbed Nationalism. Then traded with Nationalism for Guilds and Optics.

About Toku's techs:

I just did two things: NO OB with him so he's got no foreign traderoads (he managed to get some with Monty later). NO techs trades with him. He will only trade techs with Monty and me but Monty is far more advanced than him. So you'll find my Toku is much more behind than in the previous two submissions.

Expansion and development:

I mean, when you realize that the foreign traderoads are 50% better in this game than a normal one, two things are obvious: Sailing and Currency are 50% better as well so need to prioticize them; don't be afraid of the city maintenance, which will be largely covered by the foreign traderoad after Currency.

However, I hadn't yet backfilled all the land till t150 because I'd had to finish some infrastructures and built some units to grab the Bar city and defense.

About the development, one thing is critical: the spread of the AP religion. I was lucky to get it (Hindu) at 75BC, then I didn't hesitated to whip/chop monasteries and temples in almost every city. That's -2 to -4 pop in each city but I think it's worth the whip. After Feudalism, with longbow I felt safe and converted to it even Toku was Buddhist. With monasteries/temples and under Organized Religion, infrastructures were accelerated a lot, and I built Oxford quite early (t149, 780AD).

About civics, always under Slavery. One reason is that I have some food-rich hammer-poor cities, another reason is whipping AP monasteries/temples is the best way to build them. Slavery/Whipping harm my SE a lot. I have got a GS which is born at a bad timing. He can't bulb Edu/Liber, so I'll leave him to launch GS after the war against Toku. That's what I'll profit from the SE in the late game.

Planning:

Aim for a Cuirassier rush. Given his tech, I think he'll have just got Engineering when I rush him. Unfortunately, without CoL and any Courthouse, he's few EP towards me and some of his cities are visible for me. Wish him good luck!

About Victory, Diplo is the least time-consuming. But I ban it. Go for Conquest/Domination.

 

[Udey1]

@Dingding,

Spoiler :

I see you are going with later war as I am. Very interested to see how your cuirassiers do compared to my rifles. (T200/no toku for me)

Irrigate thy capital corn.
I like your city placement and see you are set up to whip quite well.

Did you gift Toku a city? I forget,but you must have done something since your borders are hitting his bigtime.

Love your detailed review. I should put more detail in mine.

@Kossin

Spoiler :

I love the blocking job you pulled with your cities. I went pyramids instead and it allowed toku to gain more land in the north.

What is your plan for toku? There has to be some plan since this land we are given won't match up to AI teching.

Very well played avoiding so many techs to avoid WFYABTA from the AI. I fell into that mistake with Qin.

I think I have about 150-170 max beakers on you and dingding, but I have a longer war ahead of me. It will be interesting.

@Bugg

Spoiler :

It is usually advisable to build wealth instead of research. This is true in your case as well. You have libraries/monstaries built.

Since you are going for a cuirasser war you really dont need catapults.

It will be a struggle for you to kill of toku since you have allowed him to expand so much in your north. Good luck in your war

 

[kossin]

@Udey1

Spoiler :

Cannons should do the job on Toku. From there I can probably hit Gandhi, then Monty.

The others will have to wait for Bombers most likely if I don't win Diplo before.

Couldn't open your save but your Oxford date is impressive!

 

[Artichoker]

Round 3 (375 BC to 800 AD):

Spoiler :

The round began with some key trades from Aesthetics and Compass. I did:

Aesthetics for Iron Working
Aesthetics for Mathematics
Compass for Currency
Compass for Code of Laws
Compass for Calendar
Currency for Monarchy
Code of Laws for Alphabet

After these trades were made, research continued with Civil Service.

Unfortunately, I was not able to demonstrate the use of Vassalage in this game, due to the very poor commerce situation in the early game. There was almost no time to develop "trade fodder techs" by researching Music, Theology, or other less researched techs. Furthermore, the lure of building an easy Oxford University made it too tempting to pass up early Education.

In addition, Zara Yaqob and Gandhi were very advanced in tech, each independently getting early Philosophy. I kept my cool and headed straight for Paper and Education. After this was finished, and it was seen that no one else had Education (and I could also get the full trade value of Education from all the other AIs), I researched Philosophy myself.

So far, I have gained only 3 GSs, used as follows:

1) Academy
2) Bulb Education
3) Bulb Liberalism

After the Liberalism bulb was done, I did a massive surge of tech trades, including the following:

Drama + Philosophy for Machinery
Education for Printing Press
Education for Feudalism + Optics
Education for Engineering + 500 gold














After experiencing a wave of good luck in the form of AI tech choices, the Liberalism race was won at 640 AD, and I picked up Astronomy.

I then traded:

Astronomy for Nationalism







The current empire, at 800 AD, now stands at 8 cities. Moai Statues has been completed in New York, with the potential of 9 water tiles.

The capital will have Heroic Epic and Oxford University. I may need to wait until Oxford is done before ramping up military units from the capital. In the meantime, other cities will need to provide the few units needed for garrision duty.




Techs...everyone seems to be teching fast in this game, and I'm able to use their momentum to help propel my own research.

I may be able to make some trades right away with Gandhi and Montezuma, but I'll need to be careful about Montezuma's diplomatic standing. Right now, he hates Gandhi, so trading with Gandhi may give me a -1 penalty.

The good news is, however, is that Montezuma has only a +1 "fair trade" bonus, and is still Pleased. If I can make a generous trade with him, I can raise this bonus to +4, and this will cover up the -1 penalty I might get from trading with Gandhi.



Diplo...Tokugawa is still Pleased, partly thanks to my constant generous trades with him. As expected, he is far behind the others. In preparation for the war, I will probably finish Oxford University before massing military units.



Religion...absolutely dismal. I intentionally switched to Bureaucracy + Organized Religion in the hopes of using Organized Religion to quickly spread Hinduism, once it finally spread to my cities, but this never actually happened.

Now I am stuck with 3 useless religions. I will probably switch to Free Religion soon, but the question is can I switch a 2nd civic to minimize anarchy.

I could try starting a Golden Age, but I'd rather save that for Emancipation.

 

[Riot]

Spoiler :

Tech rate in my save is a bit slower, as ZY and Justinian have been warring against Montezuma, and Toku DoW'd on Qin.

Qin/Gandhi = Jewish
Toku/ZY/Justinian = Buddhists
Monty = Hindu, but has been vassalized to Justinian.

Took PP with Liberalism - I have no Iron since Toku settled behind me long ago. Toku is still way behind in tech compared to the rest of the world. Was hoping to save for something else, but Gandhi got Education and a turn later, EVERYONE else did too.

AP religion is Buddhism, but no spread to me STILL. Probably not going to get it at this point.

VC: Drafted Rifles/Cannons vs. Toku, swap to Buddhism once I take his cities, run Theo for Justinian and ZY and possible Diplomatic win.

Diplo: Toku, ZY, and Justinian are all Pleased, so no immediate DoW threats. Qin is Annoyed with both myself and Zara but I have no shared borders with Qin.

Thoughts?

 

[Bugg123]

@Udey:

Spoiler :

@Bugg
It is usually advisable to build wealth instead of research. This is true in your case as well. You have libraries/monstaries built.

Since you are going for a cuirasser war you really dont need catapults.

It will be a struggle for you to kill of toku since you have allowed him to expand so much in your north. Good luck in your war

Definately on wealth. Thanks for pointing it out!

Catapults: yes... I noticed as well.. it was probably started to get ready for cannons or something a while back which is my "default", and then all of a sudden the Mil Trad Lib opened up and I failed to switch (did the turn of the screenie, though).

Toku expanded like a madman in my game. I felt the gems site was important, so one of the early settlers camped there (and I had to settle it early as well). Tried different opens after spoilers were in on the round, but didn't quite manage to block Toku off enough in those games either.

War will definately be harder, will need a 2 front war to start off as the borders are too extended. Which means more curassiers and a bit thinner stacks, probably. Good thing is Toku isn't that heavily defended yet.

Also my choices for VC are probably were limited with this start, if at all possible.

 

[dingding]

@ Udey1:

Spoiler :

@Dingding,

I see you are going with later war as I am. Very interested to see how your cuirassiers do compared to my rifles. (T200/no toku for me)

Irrigate thy capital corn.
I like your city placement and see you are set up to whip quite well.

Did you gift Toku a city? I forget,but you must have done something since your borders are hitting his bigtime.

Love your detailed review. I should put more detail in mine.

Normally the Renaissance war will be finished 15 turns - 20 turns earlier by using Cuirassiers than using Rifles. The problem is that the Cuirassier rush is not always doable, and Cuirassiers usually harm the economy more than Rifles/Cannons.

I've noticed the Irrigation mistake.

Yes I gifted him a city. In fact the border conflict isn't that serious (only relation -1).