Emperor Challenge (?) #13 - Shoshone Pangaea

[bjelar]

Yeah, early tourism is what I didn't have. And this way you reduced their culture as well.
My main problem was, that I did not finish Aestetics early. I only opened it between consulates and rationalism, and filled the rest after I had the l3 freedom tenet. I am not sure, if forcing arts funding was right. I am not sure that it helped me at all, because all these great works would have been more artifacts (i ended up with just 2-3 artifacts and 4 landmarks) and Bismark would have less culture that way for sure.

Josh - how do u manage to make these 44 pop cities I wonder ... My cap was on food focus the whole game (with HG). Did you have any growth beliefs? I did not get any we love the king day tho, maybe that makes the difference ... Noone had spare copper for trade the whole game.

After finishing tradition at turn 72 D) I went straight for Aestetics, and fully completed it before opening rationalism. That's hardly good advice, but it got me insane culture output, and the rationalism policies took no more than 7-10 turns each, even as third tree. By then I didn't care too much (not enough) about science, because I had decided to go for CV (I thought it would be imminent, but was wrong)

 

[bjelar]

Come to think of it, instead of suggesting boost to world wonders, I think I voted to repeal the ban on cotton during world congress 2. Kind of silly, since I built all but one or two

 

[dragonxxx]

Second congress I voted for world's fair, and after winning it I had over 1100 CPT. Finished Aestetics during these 20 turns.

At the end I had full tradition, rat and aestetics, pat opener + consulates and 6 freedom tenets. 26 policies for 240 turns ain't bad i think

 

[Tinker]

It's not cooked, it's not even legendary start, and it was the first map I rolled when trying for a Shoshone map on Shuffle. Thought I'd share, because

Spoiler :

I went for a Liberty four city opening, settling all three of my new cities on natural wonders - first one on El Dorado, second on Uluru, third on Old Faithful. Won on turn 180 by domination victory, which is probably really slow, but I had a lot of fun messing around

And here a screenshot of my final turn. Only Germany and Brazil took some time, everyone else was quickly dispatched.

 

[justanotherturn]

Josh - how do u manage to make these 44 pop cities I wonder ... I did not get any we love the king day tho, maybe that makes the difference

Question, and I think answer.
We love the king day is what make city from big to "giant"

growth beliefs are usefull too, dont get me wrong, but I personally start to get really really big city after i start to pay more attention to "we love the king"

 

[dragonxxx]

Тinker, can you write a bit how you managed that one ?

 

[budweiser]

Suck it Ramesses.

 

[Tinker]

Sure - I went full Liberty from the start, settling three cities, each near a Natural Wonder (found El Dorado first, bought a settler with the money and settled near it; Pocatello's big initial city expanse is really nice for nabbing those NWs). One with Nature and Uluru combined made getting the first religion my a mile very easy, grabbed Tithe, Pagodas, Mosques, and Itinerant Preachers.

I grabbed the Pyramids, Temple of Artemis, the Oracle, and went for Venice when I hit Composite Bowmen, taking him out really easily. I went Patronage around here, taking Consulates first and then finishing the rest of the tree. Meanwhile, I took my army and launched it at Pachacuti, then Maria, who were both fairly quickly dispatched. Due to the terrain, it took a long time to get to Germany, who I had set up to be at war with Assyria, but still took a lot of beating before he went down.

I grabbed Chichen Itza because I was having tons of Golden Ages, and the Great Wall just so no-one else could, Notre Dame,Alhambra, as well as the Leaning Tower (Great Scientist, used to bulb up to Musketmen and Cannons) - going Printing Press first got me to be leader of the World Congress, although my religion got pushed through as World Religion only 6 turns before the end.

Around this time I had pretty much all the city-states on permanent ally status, and went for Assyria, then Brazil - coming from the North, Rio de Janeiro was actually behind an awful mountain/hilly range that took forever to slog through. In retrospect, I should've divided my army earlier and sent some to Brazil and Egypt and some to Assyria and Germany, but whatever. Grabbed Secularism, but it really wasn't needed anymore - Thebes went down last fairly fast after Rio. My Comanche Riders didn't even have the time to arrive.

 

[joshua43214]

Josh - how do u manage to make these 44 pop cities I wonder ... My cap was on food focus the whole game (with HG). Did you have any growth beliefs? I did not get any we love the king day tho, maybe that makes the difference ... Noone had spare copper for trade the whole game.

I had Fertility Rights Pantheon and Swords into Plowshares. I built the ToA in a secondary city. We are the king days are the most important though. You just have to grit your teeth and pony up the lux +16gpt for an AI's last copy of their needed lux. I was paying out ~60gpt to the AI's most of the game to keep it going.

 

[dragonxxx]

Hm, I see. Well, I know that they are good, but paying 20 GPT sounds a bit odd ... I had so much stuff to buy already And the 80-90GPT are not enough for everything.

 

[joshua43214]

If you can push your pop really high with we love the king days, then its worth it. It means you have to hard build science buildings most of the time, but with a high pop you can crank out a school in 5-7 turns. building vs buying is not game breaking.

You sort of hit a critical mass at about 30pop once you research fertilizer and all those inland grass tiles start making 4 food. In my experience a city that need a food trade route to grow is a poorly settled city. better to settle with an eye on food and defense than getting that extra lux in the 1 ring and use the TR to make gold. In this particular game I actually only made 4 TR and was running ~200 gpt even when shelling out for WLKD's

 

[dragonxxx]

hm. I opened fertilizer quite late (after research labs). But that GPT - the max I ever saw in that game was around 130. Probably because I had 0 stock exchange and just a few banks.

How high priority do you set on these? In some cities, even market doesnt seem to be worth it.

 

[joshua43214]

I usually build markets before coliseums and get the wonder up as soon as possible after that. There is a sort of "meh" period after each city has granary/water mill/library that I use to build markets and barracks if hammers are good enough. Most folks I think put up shrines. I do shrines later when they build for 1 or 2 turns since I am only interested in faith buying late in the game. I am going to make way more faith from a CS friend than a crappy little shrine any way. I only build an early shrine in the cap to get my fertility rights pantheon

 

[dragonxxx]

Which wonder do you mean? East india? I was always unsure where to make it and at the end forgot about it completely

 

[justanotherturn]

East india? I was always unsure where to make it

In a city where you can have a lot of trade route with other civ. usually it's not very hard to find.

EIC + the faith doubling wonder in a capital-holly city can be really good to send your religion around very fast.

 

[cas]

Playing this crazy map for fun. Decided to go for science from the start and use liberty. Usually I go with tradition.

Got AH, writing, and eventually trapping from huts along with some culture, pop, and 20 faith, upg one pathfinder to CB. Found El Dorado / 500g and used that to buy a worker and pathfinder. Quite a few barbs around early.

Only played to T100. Just finished acoustics for Ren era.
3 cities - 16pop, 11pop, 5pop. Only founded the 3rd next to a mountain.
Wonders: ToA, SH, Pyr, GL, CI, Oracle, Parth, Petra
Science/gold: 101bpt/39gpt
Policies: full liberty, Patronage/Consulates.
Religion: desert folklore, tithe, religious comm. Will enhance in about 7 turns with HagSoph prohet.

My city placement isn't the best because Inca grabbed a prime spot, so that might slow me down eventually. may have to take a Inca city or two.

This is by far my fastest start ever...kinda feels like cheating. We'll see how quick I can get through the tech tree.

cas

 

[budweiser]

I took Tradition and monument of the gods and went for a GE/food focus start. Then Divine Inspiration. Sat back and built almost every wonder out from under Ramesses.

The AI sure do act different when they dont have all the wonders.

 

[glory7]

nice map... I guess I can try to get the fastest win if somebody chooses a certain VC....

 

[budweiser]

nice map... I guess I can try to get the fastest win if somebody chooses a certain VC....

Time.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Insane capital screaming for a GL on a lower difficulty.