DMOC's Immortal Game #3: Julius Caesar

[Soirana]

4food 1 hammer 1 coin to be exact. yes settling on it is a waste long term as it is better than two grassland farms near lake...

nobody said in place is bad....

 

[Dirk1302]

Settling on the sheep seems like a bad idea to me, just settle in place, great location really.

 

[DMOC]

Round 1: 4000 BC to 2625 BC [56 Turns] - A Long, Winding Peninsula - Part I


The title of the round might give away what our start looks like, but read on anyway.

I decided that settling in place for the capital would be the best option, but I moved my warrior southwest, just in case there wasn't going to be a fish resource that I would have missed.



There wasn't, so settling in place seemed appropriate. I also took a close look and saw water around the fur on the east and west tiles, but a land tile up north. This meant that if there was any valuable resource near the northern fur, I could grab them with a second city because of the three-tile city rule.



I settled in place.



I selected Hunting as the first technology to research, and then sent my southern warrior out exploring. I also modified the date colors (from the B.U.G. mod) to make it yellow, since red seemed to be a bit hard to read.

To start off production, I worked a 2, 1 forest.



As Rome's borders expanded, a source of fish was revealed. This bodes well for another city spot.



I switched the capital's citizen to work a 3 plains hill forest to create the workboat at maximum speed.




It was a while before I started meeting civilizations. The first victim, er, friend, to greet us was Isabella of Spain. Get ready for a religion to be founded.



Or ... not.



After Hunting was Animal Husbandry. This technology decision was reinforced by the second source of sheep and cows that my warrior encountered on the peninsula.



I worked the capital's crab to create the second workboat until a certain point.



When the capital was at 32/33 and ready for growth the next turn, I worked a 1 2 tile. I would still grow to size two next turn, but this way, I get extra production. After growing Rome to it's second population, I maxed out on production. I was planning on a worker after the second workboat so extra food in the "food meter" wouldn't be of any use.







After the second workboat was finished, I promptly started on a worker, and worked both crabs.

I found Spain's borders a long way from me. That city's her capital, by the way.



Pretty soon, I finished Animal Husbandry, and crossed my fingers for horses.





Shucks. Bronze Working it is, then.



I found Suryavarman II's borders. Look at how great the land is down there! And as you can see, Tokugawa's scout greeted me.



With the first worker done in Rome, I started on a much-needed warrior.



I received some rather disappointing news concerning money. Then again, I'm playing with huts off so I would naturally have no gold at this point of the game anyway.



I used an exploring technique in order to maximize the tiles I can see with my warrior. See this below?



That's Spain's settler. So once she settles a city, my warrior will get bumped out of her territory if he was in the city radius. This meant that my warrior would explore extra tiles for "free."

[To be continued in the next post.]

 

[DMOC]

Round 1: 4000 BC to 2625 BC [56 Turns] - A Long Winding Peninsula - Part II

Finally, Bronze Working was completed.





We have bronze! Not in the best location, but at least we have some.

Rome also received some good news concerning our leaders out there.



Not only do we have a great trader here, but we already have some worst enemies going on.

After Bronze Working was completed, I decided to end the round.

Here's Rome. Rome will max out on after growing to size 4 and then produce a settler.



This is a map of the land in close proximity to Rome. It's not really great, although my two warriors haven't finished exploring.



Here is my proposed city site.



This gets the copper, crab, and cows all in the first "ring" so no border pop is necessary.

A map of Spain, and to a lesser extent, the Khmer.



They really do have a lot of nice land.

Anyway, what should my plan be? I want to grow Rome to size 4 and create a settler while teching towards Archery (I know that I'm planning on obtaining bronze, but I don't want to run the risk of getting torpedoed by a barbarian archer). Then again, I can probably mitigate many threats posed by barbarians with effective fogbusting and spawnbusting. After Archery, I should probably tech either Sailing or The Wheel to connect my cities. Then, I can research Iron Working and hopefully find some iron and conquer a lot of that nice land to the south. Isabella doesn't have a holy city (so no high culture defense) and she's neither Aggressive nor Protective so she would definitely be the first target.

I think I might go a military route this game and toss out the Great Lighthouse.

The save:

 

[Duckweed]

BW 1st give you much better teching.

 

[civver_764]

That's exactly where I put my second city(since I already knew where the copper was I got it out earlier) and then it got destroyed by Barbarians.

 

[DMOC]

BW 1st give you much better teching.

What's your reasoning behind this? (Just wondering)

That's exactly where I put my second city(since I already knew where the copper was I got it out earlier) and then it got destroyed by Barbarians.

Yeah, I am worried about the barbs. Did you have an archer escorting the settler? I was thinking of 2 pop-whipping the settler and hopefully putting the overflow into an archer. Shame that there weren't any horses since chariots are much faster than archers. Oh, and my warrior to the east or the one to be produced in the capital will also go south to act as a double escort.

 

[oyzar]

I know this is a bit late, but settling on the plains hill where the warrior starts probably isn't a bad option.

 

[DMOC]

True ... I guess I was put off by the tundra that the city would have gotten (even though I would have never worked them), and by the fact that the workboat would have needed 2 turns to reach the northernmost clams. But then again, on the plains hill would mean my troops have 1 turn less to travel when reaching their targets.

But what's done is done.

 

[Duckweed]

What's your reasoning behind this? (Just wondering)

Your 2nd citizen can work on 2F2C tile instead and your 2nd WB can be out a little faster. 2F = 2.7H without pottery through slavery. The downside is that the sheep tile will be delayed by a few turns (no more than 5 turns I think).

 

[Snovvdog]

Perhaps place ''city 1'' 1E on the plain hill instead of on the plain, border pop would grab the cows but you'd still have copper and crabs without a pop, you'd get an extra grassland tile in the BFC and trade one desert tile for a coast tile, 25% defensive bonus and a small boost to production early on ( though in the long run it'll cost 1 hammer or even 2 hammers past railroad)... The disadvantage is you won't be able to use it as a ''canal'' for ships and of course you'll need a lib or monument or religion to grab the cows...

 

[DMOC]

Your 2nd citizen can work on 2F2C tile instead and your 2nd WB can be out a little faster. 2F = 2.7H without pottery through slavery. The downside is that the sheep tile will be delayed by a few turns (no more than 5 turns I think).

I see what you're saying.

Perhaps place ''city 1'' 1E on the plain hill instead of on the plain, border pop would grab the cows but you'd still have copper and crabs without a pop, you'd get an extra grassland tile in the BFC and trade one desert tile for a coast tile, 25% defensive bonus and a small boost to production early on ( though in the long run it'll cost 1 hammer or even 2 hammers past railroad)... The disadvantage is you won't be able to use it as a ''canal'' for ships and of course you'll need a lib or monument or religion to grab the cows...

That's another option. I think I can use that city 1E of where I have it planned and still use it as a canal city (by using a fort). Can anyone confirm?

 

[DMOC]

By the way, does everyone agree with going Archery? I could skip it and rely on spawnbusting warriors and research Sailing instead to connect the 2 cities.

 

[oyzar]

The area you are planning to spawnbust is rather large, so doing it with only warriors will be hard. You will have copper in the second city however, so it might be enough until you get that up.

 

[DMOC]

If I go with just warriors then I'm definitely settling the copper city on the plains hill for the 2.

 

[Maronae3]

That's another option. I think I can use that city 1E of where I have it planned and still use it as a canal city (by using a fort). Can anyone confirm?

Any chain of cities/forts can be used for canals AFAIK.

 

[civver_764]

Yeah, I am worried about the barbs. Did you have an archer escorting the settler? I was thinking of 2 pop-whipping the settler and hopefully putting the overflow into an archer. Shame that there weren't any horses since chariots are much faster than archers. Oh, and my warrior to the east or the one to be produced in the capital will also go south to act as a double escort.

I never bothered researching Archery so I just had a warrior go with them. The city never stood a chance

 

[DMOC]

From the looks of it, I think I'm going to gamble with warriors for now.

 

[DMOC]

Round 2: 2625 BC to 1175 BC [59 Turns] - We Have Horses!

As my western warrior was exploring the peninsula, he encountered a source of horses!



Now there was definitely no need for me to gamble on getting the copper before the barbarians came. I chose to settle an easily - defended city one tile south of where the warrior was in the last screenshot in order to nab horses. Looking back, I think my city placement was terrible - Antium should have been placed a tile north so I would take the fish to allow for faster growing and more commerce. Oh well. Rome began to build a settler for the horse spot once it grew to size four and built an extra warrior.



A chop accelerated the build time for the settler.



Isabella finally founded a religion - Christianity! I'm hoping that she can build the Temple of Artemis in her capital with the help of that marble and generate a prophet for her shrine. Oops, I mean my shrine.



It looks like the map generator wanted to apologize for putting me in a tundra location.



Now, I wanted to ask you guys a question. I thought that I wouldn't be able to connect Antium with Rome until I researched Sailing, but apparently, that wasn't the case. It looks like I need to research more on the topic of trade routes.



I met another inhabitant of this overcrowded continent. The good news? Another one of Mansa's worst enemies. The bad news? A powerful AI who can easily dominate the game if given too much land, which his creative trait can often give him. He would later build the Great Wall. So now the AI's are Isabella (Spiritual/Expansive), Mansa Musa (Spiritual/Financial), Tokugawa (Aggressive, Protective), Suryavarman II (Creative/Expansive), and Gilgamesh (Creative/Protective).



After I researched Sailing, I opted for Mysticism so I could build some monuments. The technology after that would be Iron Working to reveal iron.



I had to transfer a warrior over to Rome to prevent unhappiness, and by doing so, I enabled a barbarian city, Uzbek, to appear.



I think that I'll be able to use this city as practice for my future military. With a little luck, I might even nab a worker or two. The question is, though, keep or raze?

I whipped my next settler, and then founded Cumae on the plains hill. The nice thing about whipping the settler was that I micromanaged Rome to provide a lot of overflow hammers to the next build, a workboat [45 hammers to be exact, since any more would have resulted in wasted hammers, right?]. As a result, the workboat was completed in one turn and Cumae would have a food resource in practically no time at all.





As I mentioned before, the Great Wall was built by Sumeria, albeit a bit late. I've seen The Great Wall be built much earlier than 1675 BC.



civver_764, you mentioned some barbarian problems on this map, so I was cautious and sent a chariot to protect Cumae. It turns out he was necessary.



Gilgamesh has Alphabet already!



I couldn't make any trades with him yet. I did, though, sign open borders with him which increased my commerce.

It wasn't long before Christianity started spreading to other civs. Antium was the first Roman city to accept the faith. Isabella would later ask me to convert. I turned her down, though, since she was my first target.



Finally, iron working was completed. Do we have iron ?????



The answer?

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Yes.

Spoiler :

As you can see, I was prepared to make a settler to claim iron if it was outside of my borders, hence the pre-chopping that was going on. Now we know that it won't be necessary and I will immediately send my nearest worker to mine the iron. The axemen that is being produced in the capital will head over to Uzbek along with future praetorians to keep or raze the city. Also, Rome has a barracks, so the axemen will be promoted as well.

I decided to end the round here, as I've played enough. Here are the demographics and technology situation.





It looks like Tokugawa grabbed an early lead. I have nothing on him. I can make a trade with Gilgamesh for Writing, though. Whaddya say? Writing would let me start researching other neat techs, such as Aesthetics, for trading. Alternatively, I could hold off on trading and keep checking every turn to see of Gilgamesh is researching Iron Working. If he doesn't agree to writing - iron working, then I can add in mysticism to the deal. It will be me giving 2 techs to him for 1 so WFYABTA will remain the same.



[Gilgamesh wouldn't agree to fork over any other technologies.]

Here's Rome.



My intrepid worker is preparing a path to Spain.



The map of what makes up Rome now.



The map of the greater portion of the continent, with resources and without.





So, what to do? Should I found a fourth city at all? Or should Uzbek be my fourth city? I'm pretty sure that I should wage war with Spain and conquer their empire, which leads to better lands. How many praetorians should I build? 12 to start with? Any other suggestions, comments, or questions?

The save.

 

[Matthew5117]

Concerning the trade routes, if your cities' culture borders are connected, then those cities can trade.

Make Uzbek your fourth city, capture it with a reasonable size of Praets to capture the city.

I think you should wage war with Spain with 6 Praets, capture the capital, call peace and re-decalare to cleanup.