emperor learning game - huge tect. random leader (GK)

[nanomage]

hello!
first of all, i would like to express gratitude to all those who host and participate in monarch students games, namely ai_shizuka, gcm4738, singlemalt, assass1n, TMiT and many many many others. Thanks to all you friends who helped me excel at civving
to polish my skills at emperor level i decided to start this game - settings are the same as i normally play at home, when not posting to the forum. i hope you will help me to find out what i do wrong.
so, it's huge earthlike tectonics emperor marathon game with a random leader.
first i rolled this start:
View attachment 201134
but i/m afraid it's too godd for me! Fin+ind HC, 3clams of 3coast tiles in BFC + irrigated corn and 14!!! riverside tiles, the city itself being riverside and still tons af lumber for REx. i think i do not deserve such goodies.
So i rerolled, and here we go:
Our leader is Agr/Imp Genghis Khan.
Our people are mongols, starting with hunting and wheel.
Our UU is Keshik, HA replacement with 1FS, no FS immunity and ignore of movement cost.
Our UB is Ger, stable replacement providing 4exp instead of 2.
here is our start:
View attachment 201137
i doubt if i should have rerolled it, too. 6 food resources is ridiculous.
however, surrounding terraing is, if i can say so, "not-genghisy"
so ,let's play and see.

i guess i should settle in place and go for some fish for a lifetime, but i'm open to suggestions.

EDIT: View attachment 201140

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Ugh. Marathon with a warmonger is a smidge easy for me. Maybe I'll at least put it to epic (not faster due to a huge map on a script that's big). I'm actually feeling 1N for more production, unless resource bubbles being off is confusing my eyes and that loses seafood. Yes yes, this screws up the hut, but I want that hill.

On this kind of map, great wall gains a lot of value, so no ruling that out yet. You gonna post the 4k BC save?

 

[nanomage]

urgh, forgotten it! will edit th OP to attach 4kbc save.

 

[MkLh]

With your setting, barbs may be a nightmares. The Great Wall.

 

[assass1n]

Should have gone Standard or Large
Huge will take me 10 years to shadow

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Should have gone Standard or Large
Huge will take me 10 years to shadow

I know this might even take me 5 or 6 hours maybe . Although 4 is possible if things start going well.

 

[nanomage]

Should have gone Standard or Large
Huge will take me 10 years to shadow

i understand it maybe painfully long to play, but for what i love Huge maps - they allow to enjoy every era in its finest, and the games on huge don't get finished at industrial - even after taking out 6 enemies there's always a super-enemy to conquer . And it adds scale, you see )))

 

[nanomage]

I'm gooing to play first round tonight. i guess it will be to 2000BC or so, depening on whether i decide to rush some neighbour. i'll then stop to have your advice.
I will update this post as i play the round.
i'm going to pop the hut with my scout and see if there's seafood 3N and 2N1E from settler. If there is, i'l settle 1N to get more land tiles.
if not, it would hurt me too much to lose 2S fish.(only circles are seen from it on the screen i posted, but it is still there!)
i'm direly temted to settle in place, and it's a huge drawback of mine - i always want to get the maximum yield from moai, and often find myself building it for ages in 1-tile island cities.
EDIT:
the first round is played, and here are it's results

Spoiler :

after poping the hut i saw it's really fish 3N of capital. after 10 minutes of wandering across the room i decided to settle 1N.
scout done some nice exploration before getting eaten. he popped mysticism+3maps. it turns out, we are (semi)isolated. there's a landbridge to another patch of land far NW, but it's blocked by impassable peaks. i'll send galley/workboat there later.
it turns out that nearly half of food resources is concentrated near my cap.View attachment 201259
i researched fishing-mining-BW-masonry-Agri-Sailing
build order was-warrior(suspend)-WB-finish warrior-WB-SH(suspend)-settler-warrior-worker-GW(chopped, finished 1980BC)
second city : worker-settler
View attachment 201261
due to lack of food nearby, i settled the second city to share northern fish with cap.
View attachment 201260
i'm planning to settle third 3W of cap to share rice.
I'm now safe from land barbs, so sailing-pottery-MC would make sence to feel safe from naval ones.
i'll also need some kind of economy-helping wonder, as, being Imp and barb-immune, i'm going to grab the whole continent to myself ASAP.
i think GLH is the best here, but it seems too late to attempt it, and mids are so damned expensive.
View attachment 201263
View attachment 201264

 

[nanomage]

Hi!

Spoiler :

So without advice i started action on my own.
I decided to risk and shoot for GLH - in the very worst case, it would give me some gold to guel expansion. Settled 2 more cities while researchin sailing.
View attachment 201448
I was biting my nails all the 48turns that the thing was being built (it was 60 actually, but 1 whipped when 12 were left)
View attachment 201447
with GLH, coastal expansion is quite cheap. I planted 2 more cities on maonland and 1 city on a 4-tile Horsie island to the south, to let mainland cities benefit from 2-commerce TR, when i saw some orange borders.
View attachment 201450
It's Boud, i guess. Bloody mad warmongering girl with two big traits. It was nice to play her in MSIV game, though. Well, at least she does not backstab (i hope).

Popped a GS in capital, thanks to GW. As i know i am not completely isolated, i settled him - both for beakers and future tech steal from Celts.
View attachment 201454
Soon she borderpopped and offered to sign OB. I refused, for i will not be able to trade, while she will. Do not know if her religion (she is the founder of Hinduism) will spread to me.
View attachment 201452
Heh, it turnes out it does. I converted immediately both to please her and have more happy faces.
I have no happiness resources on my continent, so i teched fast to Monarchy to make my people happier by beating their heads against a wall with some units.
Then teched to Writing to start popping GS's (Karakorum will make a great GP farm, but i should find some other place to move capitol to).
Whipped the border city to get some culture up and establish connection with Boud.
View attachment 201449
I need to border her coastal tiles in order to be able to trade or invade.
Finally borders popped, and i signed OB with Boud. She only has 5 cities, but some techs over me (which i will steal hopefully)

600AD was the first attempt of espionage - unsuccessfull, but i will be persistent.

At this point i really need advice - should i invade her to get more overseas routes and some happiness resoursces? She is unlikely to become friendly, but she is willing to trade techs - this means she knows someone else, i guess. But my galleys got sunk by barbs when i attemted to explore what is beyond his land. If there's someone else near us, it would make sense to annex her - at least after she finally builds her Kashi-Vishvanath and after I steal all the techs she has over me. On the other cide, if there is someone near us, it would make more sence to invade him instead
View attachment 201457
View attachment 201456
View attachment 201458

Waiting for critisism/input.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

She doesn't declare at pleased. Also, you can probably get sailing access over there. If not, you can just ignore her for a bit if you get her to pleased.

 

[nanomage]

Hi.
To 1100 have i played. (Yoda blessings with me let be)
I'm afraid I'm not going well.

Spoiler :

I proceeded with infrastructure buildup and stealing techs from Boud.
Using my huge EP lead, i was able to steal Maths, Construction, Polytheism, Monotheism, Calendar and IW.
Soon after i've stolen to parity with her, i met charlie (his workboat has shown up near one of boud's cities, coming from the east)
I was immediately his worst enemy, and even 20 gold didn't do me good (and he forgot them the next turm, too)
View attachment 201626
He head many techs over me and i had nothing to trade.
I decided that once charlie is here with such a lead, the others will show themselves up too soon, and so i'm free to attack Boud.
I built a small army of Keshiks and attacked.
View attachment 201628
Destroying her "SoD" in a defensive battle, i was able to quickly take her 3 most valuable and productive cities (those that were not drowned in rainforest, in fact). However, my own cities are in disorder due to losing gold suply from her, and she is still not going to cap (it would be nice because of +1 happiness, wich i need badly).
View attachment 201629
View attachment 201632
During the war i came in contackt with Teddy Bear, do not know how (suppose he has spy visibility in her cities)
View attachment 201627
This one doesn't hate me, also he forgot 20gold the next turn, too.
But i still have nothing to offer him in exchange for his numerous techs.
All in all , judging by announcements, i am awfully backward.
SM, UoS and AV are already built. Hammy and Charlie are not tech leaders themselves, and they still are far ahead of me.
I do not have neither tech/economical/military lead nor enough land to acquire it. I know nothing about the world and charlie is but 6 turns from caravels. I'm in despair and fear that the game is lost. However, i'll be brave and play it to the end...
View attachment 201631
View attachment 201630
View attachment 201633
View attachment 201634

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Hi,

This game is not lost by any means... Your land is very good ( lot of food), but you really need to find a way into happiness... If you are using HR, build more units to work more cottages (if you haven't those, whip workers), the trade off (commerce gained <-> unit maintenance penalty) is very good. This is your main problem, size 10 cities at 1000 AD is not good generally.
Also contact other nations asap to trade resources and techs... Build granaries and courthouses everywhere ... your GNP will slowly raise
About tech path, the lib race is probably lost so you might go for the guild (grocers) -> banking (banks) line to improve your long term GNP (by building markets, grocers, and banks and raising the slider).
When you met other AIs with astro, trade resources but don't OB before you get astro yourself (otherwise you are giving them intercontinental trade routes while you get nothing but passage)

I can't look at your save right now so can't offer more input...
On final note, I used to play marathon a lot and I can say you that the game is very long, and AI won't launch before late 19 century, so don't give up too quickly

Cheers

 

[nanomage]

Thank you for the input!

I actually thought i have few food - there's only much near the capital, and many other cities have to share food with cap or live by fishing in fresh-water lakes...
Yes, i am planning to build military to keep citizens happy at this point, but my unit supply costs are allready high. It seems i have enough cottages, but few production tiles or food sources to erect infrastructure... and i have foolishly revolted to CS (well, that's easily fixed)

I think the Hindu shrine captured will definitely allow me to raise a slider to 50% or even higher, along with courts whipped in new cities, but i doubt it would be enough.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

I actually thought i have few food - there's only much near the capital, and many other cities have to share food with cap or live by fishing in fresh-water lakes...

My point was that there are a lot of "green" tiles, grasslands, which are self fed (I don't know if i am clear but...) so most can be cottaged. If one city hasn't a good food resource, farm some grasslands to allow growth.
About HR: if one more unit (you build the cheapest in hammer generally to have it fast) allows you to work one more cottage, go for it, don't worry about your unit cost (obviously, you don't want to be running pacifism and HR in the same time)

Have fun!
Cheers

 

[CreeDakota]

That small forested Island with one fish two south should have been founded long ago for Great light house Trade routes.

 

[nanomage]

yes, you are probably right.
but i've missed the time and now it's quite useless - i already have 4 overseas TR's with southern island and celtic mainland.