Emperor Tutorial Series I - The Pyramids based SE (Monarch/Prince players welcome)

[feralminded]

I've had about 4 attempts at this game now... I keep feeling I've gone wrong so want to try again to improve. Anyway, the pace is so slow I have the time to do that!

First 3 times I was playing specialists and once I put 4 cities down I couldn't cope with the maintenance anymore. Ofc minimal gold income as all specialists are scientists, so I was having to deal with units going on strike.

This map definatly seems to suit a cottage economy as that was my approach the 4th time, and I'm doing much better. At 395 BC I've just settled city #5 and am 2 turns away from settling the 6th city, with the Great Library just starting in Thebes. This game Peter beat the barbs to making the SE city, but luckily for me 3 tiles east from the spot I wanted (I went for the same one as feralminded has taken) so I was able to settle that as city number 4. Number 5 was to fill in between cities 3 and 4, ie that gap between the south city and the one blocking brennus. City 6 will be north of Peter's city taking the corn and 2 dye resources... that ones to block him off.

From here onwards I shouldn't have to race the AI to any city spots, so I can take my time a bit and build a few more workers to chop through all those workers before I expand further. My wonder approach was similar to feral's, took Stonehenge about 2100 BC after settling cities 2 and 3, then knocked in the Great Wall as I had barb Spears knocking on my borders, WC's not hooked up yet but useless anyway, and it was just as quick to chop the GW than train the warriors to defend. Pyramids followed after sending out a settler for city 4.

The only notable mistake I've made was with one of my scouting warriors I think. I got him up to 9 XP but then the axes started to show up. Found a warrior wandering around the north so sent him up to try to get that magic 10th XP... was struggling to get the warrior to engage and had to chase him around a bit. Eventually he took me on with me on a plain old hill, and I lost Disapointing, but I doubt I'd have had another chance to get him leveled up anyway, and a 9 XP warrior is fairly useless. What would be the standard approach if you can't for whatever reason get the 10 XP warrior? Is the HE just left until after the first war?

Big question really is how do I get the SE to work, as I was running dead on research whilst researching Asthetics/Iron Working... sitting with lower cities in jungle I can't improve until I get IW, and can't get IW until I improve those cities a bit!

Miked what I recommend is you pick up my save from 1000BC and try and play from there. You will soon see that your research in Thebes is about to explode and as soon as someone besides us builds the Great Wall we should be looking at 200ish with which to deficit research. Once we get Aesthetics we trade for whatever we need and go from there. I know it "feels" bad when your slider is in the 0-20% territory but honestly the SE could care less. Proper use of CS/Pacifism and Scientists can easily outstrip cottage tech rates early on. I hope to dominantly illustrate this with the next segment.

 

[feralminded]

The reason I stopped in 1025BC is to ask for some (minor) advice: what should I do about my first GP? If I put 2 priests in Thebes I will get a 100% prophet in 8 turns, and clear out the GPP pool for future scientists; or I can put 2 priests in Memphis and get (probably) a spy in 10 turns. I'm leaning towards the prophet route at the moment as it clears the way for high probability scientists in the future, but I can't help wondering whether a great spy would be more useful?

Thalur I would recommend you go for the GSPY if you can. You can settle him in Thebes and he will add both Tech and EPPs. That said don't sweat settling a prophet as well (unless you want to push hard up the religion line). Honestly either is a winning proposition with the spy probably slightly better overall long term.

Your game is looking really strong.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Miked what I recommend is you pick up my save from 1000BC and try and play from there. You will soon see that your research in Thebes is about to explode and as soon as someone besides us builds the Great Wall we should be looking at 200ish with which to deficit research. Once we get Aesthetics we trade for whatever we need and go from there. I know it "feels" bad when your slider is in the 0-20% territory but honestly the SE could care less. Proper use of CS/Pacifism and Scientists can easily outstrip cottage tech rates early on. I hope to dominantly illustrate this with the next segment.

Yes, I'll be looking forward to this "easy" out-stripping of my tech rate .

Although now I'm starting to wish I'd actually gotten some extra bulbing scientists.

 

[miked1991]

Miked what I recommend is you pick up my save from 1000BC and try and play from there. You will soon see that your research in Thebes is about to explode and as soon as someone besides us builds the Great Wall we should be looking at 200ish with which to deficit research. Once we get Aesthetics we trade for whatever we need and go from there. I know it "feels" bad when your slider is in the 0-20% territory but honestly the SE could care less. Proper use of CS/Pacifism and Scientists can easily outstrip cottage tech rates early on. I hope to dominantly illustrate this with the next segment.

Yeah I'll give that a try next time I get the time to play.

I've just edited into that previous post an update on my CE game. Thats quickly heading off topic now but some pointers on how to continue what I've done would be great.

Edit - Ok, continued 2 turns and Brennus declared war (turn after I declared on Willem, might have had an effect although can't see why they'd be friends). That might be a dead game where it is.

I'm determined to get my start right rather than follow on from your 1000 BC save! Latest attempt I just rolled some terrible luck on barbs, lost all 3 warriors so had to make a couple more to escort to the city that'll block off Brennus. Both of those die to a barb archer on the way (2500BC archers!!!!!) and when I arrive Brennus has the spot X(

Another reload!

 

[feralminded]

Yes, I'll be looking forward to this "easy" out-stripping of my tech rate .

Although now I'm starting to wish I'd actually gotten some extra bulbing scientists.

lol ... its no competition. I just feel very confident we'll be looking at a mid-late AD's liberalism with this map. Worst case around 1000 but that depends on our expansions and if we get pulled into an early war.

 

[feralminded]

Lets play the next segment

Play from 1000BC->400AD. Try and wrap it up by Sunday morning and we can discuss over the course of the day and start the 3rd segment Sunday night. Good luck.


Try and stick to the following plan.

1. We need to display effective trading tactics. A huge part of any Emperor strategy is tech trading. As you see I'm pushing hard for Aesthetics and this should provide me trade fodder to backfill my techs.
2. Show effective Diplomacy where possible. Diplomacy is my super weakness though so I doubt I will be able to show anything beyond how to avoid a dogpile. Hopefully some of the other experienced players here can show this when I fail.
3. Get down the Great Library ASAP. It is a HUGE portion of our techrate through liberalism ... we have no marble but its ok ... we have endless trees and IND.
4. Get down HE somewhere. We are behind the military curve and this building will catch us up. HE is a critical building on Emperor.
5. Catch up on the military side of things. Long before we will finish the HE we should be looking to fortify up a bit.
6. Finish our Rexx. This one probably won't happen this segment (we have A LOT of land) but we still need to be competitive in the land grab and block the AI as much as possible. Land is Power ... trust FutureHermit.
7. Begin to push for Liberalism. This means we use a GS to bulb Philosophy and unlock CS/Pacifism brokeness. We also get a GS into an academy and have a GS for education. I doubt we'll see education by 400AD but this still means we want 2 GS's in the next 100 turns.
8. Grow our capital. It's our SSC and we will need a lot of population to support CS scientists. This means trading and/or connecting happiness and health resources.
9. Spread a religion around. We need our religion to be in the major cities so we can abuse OR/Slavery when we aren't in CS/Pacifism. The capital absolutely NEEDS this or else pacifism won't work but everyone else should be looking to get it. Get your god(s) on!

And if you are playing off of my 1000BC save, the following are our immediate goals. If not do your best to try and meet the objectives above.

1. We have a great person popping almost immediately. If its a GS our best bet is probably to academy him. If its a Prophet we probably settle him. But what about Engineer? My instinct says save him and build Parthenon with him (which will vastly enhance our CS/Pacifism cheese). However I'm open to suggestions. We don't need him for the Glib (that capital will build the Glib in 15 turns with a couple of lumberjacks)
   
2. We need some more units. The AI is still expanding but we don't want to make too inviting of a target. Heliopolis and Elephantine need some units to really hold back the ire. The threat isn't exactly immediate but by 400AD we better be fairly intimidating.
   
3. We need to land that Gem city and the Corn city. The gem city is an immediate need, the corn/dye city can wait until Peter takes out the Barb city (but we need to settle it very shortly thereafter). I'm pretty sure no one is going to bother with the copper/fish/wine city so we can hold off on that one but we will probably need to settle near the gold or else I'm pretty sure even with the dye/corn city Peter will still slink up the coast and settle the gold ... and once he's that close he'll probably push into our peninsula. I'm pretty sure we need to settle that as well.

 

[dorkynorky]

Sorry this is late.

1000BC

Spoiler :

Positives: Picked up CoL from Oracle. Finished Mids. Settled cities to obtain horses, copper and a number of other resources. Settled cities to block Peter and Brennus. OB with them to try and pick up Judaism and Hinduism.

Plan: Switch to Alphabet. Infiltrate Willie with GS to steal a number of techs. Build a force of axes to take southern barb city and for protection

Concerns: Low power ratings. Picked up an early worker from Willie and destroyed his gold setting him back. But now he is a Jew like Brennus and with all the techs hes got he could probably bribe Brennus into attacking me. Will switch to Judaism and try to get on good terms with Brennus. Need to send some troops to city near Peter to protect it.

 

[feralminded]

@budweiser

Spoiler :

I am uploading my 10AD save. Please take a look.


I will make some quick comments.

Researching Compass in 4 - I want to max trade on my 4+ coastal cities, will use OR.
After that choices:
Aes (4) Lit (4)
MC 8
CS 13 - I think this is a no brainer, yes?

Next GP in 21. Possible GA here.

Worries - Buddhist block, 4 guys have it. I also traded Theo around so they must be workin on AP. I would give my left you know what for a Buddhist city.

Military, but I think I can handle that with a beauro cap.

So, I will do CS, maybe MC and then gerenally tech the upper branch towards lib while trying, I think to grab stone wonders.

My game is more a combined WE/SE than a pure SE. And I could go for a cultural win, as long as I can defend myself.

I wouldn't worry too much about Zeus ... honestly its not that much of a killer even if you have to fight with him ... you just need to make wars hard and fast. You aren't in a horrible position but yeah Willem has boxed you in hard. I knew the AI was going to Rexx hard into our lands which is partially why I pushed so hard to box off our entire peninsula. It may not be the best land but its still land and it has food and water so its good enough.

You need to get the other two cities on that peninsula up and productive to get your economy pumping. Willem is going to be a monster in your game but as others have pointed out ... he tends to make tactical military mistakes so a sufficient SoD could possibly knock him down.

 

[feralminded]

Here I am from 1000BC->400AD. Hope TMIT is happy with this tech rate .

Spoiler :

First thing I wanted was to force out the GP next round just to see what I had (couldn't wait, my first GP!) so I worked 2 scientists in Thebes just for a turn. To my delight out came a Great Engineer (Parthenon is mine ... muhaha) ... so I went back to growing Thebes (started back on 2 scientists once it hit size 6). That said the same turn as I got my GE, Peter built the Great Wall and I scored 201. Upped the slider to 100% and knocked out Aesthetics very fast.

I traded Aes to Willem for Fishing/Poly/Hunting/Pottery. I could also have traded with Peter for IW but I really want Alphabet since everyone else doesn't have it ... would be really easy to trade for anything with everyone else. Here's my prize.

I decide to go for Priesthood to trade to Peter Priesthood + Aes for Alphabet. Well knock out priesthood and no dice. I take Archery and IW for Aes instead. I get a Great Prophet somewhere around here and settle him. I land Literature in 350BC, and 9 turns later ...

I finish CoL at 95BC and trade like mad landing mathematics, Alphabet, and Monarchy and start on Construction and HBR since I know no one will give me it with my elephants roaming around. Then in 35BC all hell breaks loose. I pop a GS, bulb philosophy, and then go into Pacifism/CS mode.

Here's a quick view of me at 10AD, just hitting the Pacifism/CS stride.

I spend the next while shifting between OR/Slavery for quick whipping/chopping/building/growing and Pacifism/CS for GP farming and teching (5 scientists in Thebes really amps up the ). I manage to fill out the rest of my lower continent but am basically completely out of economic steam and Currency just never makes the rounds. I pop two more GS's and bulb Paper and half of Education. Currently at 400AD 1 turn from completing Currency and then going to start on the last third of Education. If we manually research Compass (good trade bait) we could probably bulb liberalism around 650AD with one more pass of Pacifism/CS. That said I say we get greedy and go for Rifling or at least Steel.

Here I am at 400AD

And here's the play by play

Spoiler :

1000BC - Work an extra scientist to force out the GP in Thebes
975BC - Great Engineer pops, sending him to Heliopolis to build Parth. Drop back to 1 scientist in thebes until it grows one size larger. Peter builds GW.
950BC - Thebes stops building GW, starts on Barracks. We score 201 . Up Research slider to 100%. We'll get in 10-14 turns of serious research now which will get us to Aes for trading.
925BC - Become Hindu ... finally a religion.
850BC - Heliopolis finishes library, starts walls. Employ 2nd scientist in thebes.
800BC - Memphis whips out settler. Sending him to get the Gems city before its gone.
675BC - Finish Aesthetics. Trade Aes to Willem for Poly/Hunting/Fishing/Pottery. GE builds Parthenon in Heliopolis. Switch Heliopolis, Memphis, and Elephantine to Granaries, queue one up in Thebes after the Barracks. Start teching Priesthood.
625BC - Found Alexandria between gems and Banana. About to run out of money.
600BC - Finish Priesthood, starting Literature. Peter doesn't want Priest + Aes for Alphabet (wish he did, we'd own the world at this point ... sigh). Settle for IW and Archery for Aes. Don't give up Priesthood just yet.
550BC - Heliopolis is threatening Brennus' expansion town. He's going to hate that Parthenon. Helio employs a scientist to help out tech rate.
470BC - JC goes to war with Pacal ... guess I'm too far away. Whip out granary in Memphis.
410BC - Willem shows me the light of Judaism.
395BC - Great Prophet is born in Thebes. Settle him. Up tech slider to 40% to get Literature in 3 turns. I'm really hurting for those scientist GPPs in thebes.
350BC - Hello Literature. Thebes starts on the GLib.
320BC - Whip Granary in Elephantine, start archer.
305BC - Heliopolis finishes granary, goes Barracks and HE is next.
155BC - Justinian DOWs Brennus. Trade for Monotheism + 90G to Willem for Literature. Get sailing and Mediation out of Peter.
125BC - Finish GLib, Start NE.
95BC - Teched COL. Had a Trade fest and got Mathematics, Monarchy, and Alphabet. Started on Construction.
35BC - GS born in Thebes. Bulb Philosophy ... Whip what I want and then go CS/Pacifism. 5 scientists in Thebes! Next GS 9 turns!
40AD - Finish Contruction, start HBR.
100AD - GS born, academy. Switch the slavery/OR for some whipping.
115AD - Finish HBR, Start on CS. Jumbos online.
160AD - Heliopolis finishes HE, starts Stable.
175AD - Pi-Ramesses founded on Dye/Corn spot. Really need Calendar and Currency bad.
190AD - Russians finally take Barb city ... we will now have border issues. Jumbos are cranking out in HE city.
220AD - Back to Pacifism/Caste to crank out tech.
235AD - Giza founded SW of Gold to finish blocking Peter. He might get mad but I'm going to lean on my Jumbos.
280AD - GS born, saving for paper in 4 turns. We're fixing for a super early lib.
345AD - CS teched, starting on Currency. Will bulb paper next GS that spawns just in case an engineer or prophet shows. Get Metal Casing, Calendar and some for CS. Will switch to Bureaucracy next civic switch.
360AD - Peter DoWs on Brennus since I cut him off and he's not liking my Elephants. Ramp up tech rate to 60% to get Currency in 3 turns. Planning on going OR/Slavery/Bur after that.
385AD - Trade Brennus Lit for 150 , also trade him Ivory for some pigs. Hopefully he can do some damage to peter (our soon to be enemy come lib).
400AD - Great Scientist pops ... pop both GS's (was saving the last one because I wasn't sure I'd get one for education). Switch to Bur/OR/Slavery to get those forges done. Will be back in CS/Pacifism in 5 turns. Really need to settle West of Thebes and need to work my peninsula.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Yeah...that's why bulbing is so important. I think the fact remains, however, that in terms of raw beaker output we're not seeing major discrepancies here...truly good (aka those deity guys) players would get lib before or around 500 AD either way.

So far so good though - looks like a strong illustration of mids/SE.

 

[Ai Shizuka]

That's a lof of homework we have to do in the next segment

 

[Soirana]

Spoiler :

I would probably rushed ToA while trying Parthenon in secondary city.

ToA+GLib+NE is brutal great person farm. At least was few times i did it. Leves you with unpure pool of course.

ToA is simply one of highest PP generating wonders.

 

[dorkynorky]

I wanted to ask a couple of questions about my game to get peoples advice going into the second round.

1. I got a GS from the Wall. I am thinking of infiltrating Willie to steal techs. Is it better to settle him?

2. I picked up CoL from the Oracle. Normally I play CE and if rexing I do this for the courthouses. I guess in an SE I might have a different focus. Any suggestions on this.

3. I've been trying to learn how to be more diplomatic and also learn how to manage religions better. In my game Bren and Willie are Jews, Peter is Hindu, Pacal is Buddhist and JC and Justinian are not religious yet. I'm figuring that Pacal is working hard to conver JC and Justinian on the other side of Bren, so I figured to go for Judaism (to make Bren pleased and deal with a -3 I got with Willie over an early scrape). I am depending on Bren to protect my west from the Buddhists, at least for a while. Is that reasonable? I'm not worried about making Peter unhappy because he is my first target.

 

[budweiser]

I've been playing and playing. I am up to 1280AD and am not dead yet. I have a detailed write up to 400AD beyond that, I stopped taking notes because I did not have a lot of time and also because I wasnt playing in a coherent manner.


Here it is 10AD to 400AD

Spoiler :

Turn 174 – Upgrade war in cap for 110g. Every little bit helps and I am scared. I ran a round of city screen micro, by using left right arrows in city screen. Here we go.

175 – Someone has Hagia Sofia.

176 – Brennus demands I stop dealing with the Byzantines. I refuse. Yikes.

177 – Every town is building men, some are pre-building. The cap is gonna build some monestaries to push culture. Willy has expanded up my gold coast and has warned me about his war elephants! I cant expand south now with out attacking someone.

Sci to 100% this turn to finish Harbors for 31g. Iron is online.

178 – Compass to Justin for HBR and 80g. Gift Mono to Caesar.

181 – Peter ‘the great’ asks for Currency – I give it.

190 – Alexandria founded on peninsula near crabs. CS in 1.

191 – CS is in. Willy and Justin have enough on there hands. Who will they attack?

192 – Peter demands 190g, that will break me. I gave it. I don’t know what to do. I'll get you Peter.

197 – CS and MC to Willy for Feud and 80g.

Turn 200 – Tao founded some place (Caesar).

201 – Caesar and Peter attack Brennus. Looks like I survived. Hey fellas can I join?

I will post a save soon.

 

[feralminded]

@Soirana

Spoiler :

I would probably rushed ToA while trying Parthenon in secondary city.

ToA+GLib+NE is brutal great person farm. At least was few times i did it. Leves you with unpure pool of course.

ToA is simply one of highest PP generating wonders.

Well is there something I'm missing about ToA? I mean the +100% TRs would have mounted to a not so compelling 3 per turn. The 1 extra priest is nice but just didn't feel like it could compare to the parthenon in terms of pure production ... but I might be wrong. I can't claim to have ever built or thought to build ToA so I'm wondering if I'm missing something here. Also without marble I'm pretty sure I'd miss Parthenon ... or would have had to sacrifice something major to get it.

In my experience whenever I play this style of SE, getting Parthenon (which really means getting a 'mids spawned GE) kind of lets me play the Phi-based SE as well. So far its 400AD and I've gotten 1GE, 4GS's, and one GP. I'm fairly certain I'll get 2 more GS's ... if not 3 ... I think I can crank one out every 8-10 turns under Pacifism/CS. I know that the Parthenon is only a small part of that (+200% for Pacifism/NE) but it DID matter early. Without the Parthenon I would have gotten that GS for Philosophy later and that would have held up everything by a long time.

 

[feralminded]

Yeah...that's why bulbing is so important. I think the fact remains, however, that in terms of raw beaker output we're not seeing major discrepancies here...truly good (aka those deity guys) players would get lib before or around 500 AD either way.

So far so good though - looks like a strong illustration of mids/SE.

I don't know man. When I am running Paci/CS I think I am in the low 200s for on the back of 5 scientists in Thebes and 3 in Memphis and 1 in Heliopolis. That's really not a bad tech rate for 400AD under any economy. The only thing I'm curious about is if I had settled all those Great People in thebes what I'd be looking at for / turn these days ... but I suspect what I've done here is going to be much better long term anyhow than settling ever could yield. The real issue is trying to survive the post-lib phase. This is where ... at least the way I play SE ... that the economy REALLY tanks. I'm pretty sure I survive economically through conquering/pillaging really nice cottage cities . We get a nice reprieve come Biology but the gap between lib and biology is enormous.

 

[feralminded]

@budweiser

Spoiler :

Be very careful with Willy not in that war ... even though he doesn't build a lot of units if you have everything over in Brennus' lands he might just decide to gut you. If at all possible get Willy to attack Peter (are they same religion). They now share a large border so there might be some diplo modifiers there and Willy might be up for it. Then you need to dogpile Peter and try and work into his peninsula ... but that's not going to be easy with Willy's culture beating on your doors. I just don't see how you can take on Willy directly with any chance of survival.

 

[Soirana]

Spoiler :

depends on how much your other cities are contributing and of course how much specialist you run.

i don't remeber what you built exactly so take easy if i mistaken:

Mids+HStonehenge+Glibrary+Parthenon -- 14 Gpp before bonuses
21 After Parth
35 with NE - 4 of these being GA.

With 2 GS -- 20Gpp before
30 with Parthenon
50with NE - 4GA which i do not want in my pool

Mids+Henge+Glibrary+ToA
17Gpp
34with NE.

With 2 scientists 23
With NE - 46. Pretty even except i got GA excluded.

The thing is Parth goes late especially if you do not trade Aesthetics immediately and being industrous with some trees lying arround.

If you have Parth in secondary city of course ToA wins. The fact is ToA goes early while Parthenon not.

 

[feralminded]

@Soirana

Spoiler :

depends on how much your other cities are contributing and of course how much specialist you run.

i don't remeber what you built exactly so take easy if i mistaken:

Mids+HStonehenge+Glibrary+Parthenon -- 14 Gpp before bonuses
21 After Parth
35 with NE - 4 of these being GA.

With 2 GS -- 20Gpp before
30 with Parthenon
50with NE - 4GA which i do not want in my pool

Mids+Henge+Glibrary+ToA
17Gpp
34with NE.

With 2 scientists 23
With NE - 46. Pretty even except i got GA excluded.

The thing is Parth goes late especially if you do not trade Aesthetics immediately and being industrous with some trees lying arround.

If you have Parth in secondary city of course ToA wins. The fact is ToA goes early while Parthenon not.

Yeah honestly I don't think I'd build either in my capital. If I did want to built ToA AND Parth ... I'd have built them both down in Heliopolis ... although it doesn't have a lot of trees it does have a lot of that early. But it's all moot because I needed to trade Aesthetics bad. I was in desperate need of IW and Pottery and Hunting so I just pushed it out. Honestly I'm disappointed I didn't build SH in a separate city like Memphis. The early Great Prophet was nice to settle but if I get a 2nd one late when I'm looking for a GS to bulb printing press or liberalism or whatever ... I'm going to cry. I mean I do own Taoism but I'm never going to get a chance to efficiently spread it so no point in building the shrine.

 

[budweiser]

@budweiser

Spoiler :

I just don't see how you can take on Willy directly with any chance of survival.

Well maybe I can. See below:

400AD to 1280AD

Spoiler :

So 400 to 1280...

204 – Lit is in, brennus asks for help (yeah right), next GP is a priest DAMN. Took DR but its still 8 away. Not a good move.

205 – I declare war on Brennus. Capped a jewel city with , 122g.

206 – Pacal got the G Lib. Guess I shouldn’t have done CS?

212 – Islam founded in N City. JC completes AP. I cant take anymore Gallic cities. I make peace for 60g before my army dies. At least I got gem city.

Trades – DR to Just for Machinery, DR to Willem for Music 30g. Paper in 8.

215 – Peter buys Theo for 560. I upgrade 2 axes to mace, what the heck?

217 Colossus in Memphis just because.

218 Justinin Notre Dame.

227 Spiral Minaret... I cant keep writing. I am not confident and I am in a rush.

278 – 1280AD It’s now 50 turns later. What happened?

I warred again on Brennus and took the next city to the west. Then peace was made. Brennus is now a vassal of Peter. After a brief pause to build enough trebs, I attacked Willy and easily captured 3 cities in the south jungle, then made peace because I was running out of men, but moreso did not want to bankrupt myself. So, I have gone from 5 to 11 cities, wiped out a minor threat, and then nuetralized what was a major threat (Willy), leaving Justin and Peter. I am taking care to make good friends with JC, he has the AP, and even after taking 5 cities, I still do not have a Buddhist city.

I have been building crazy things. I have 4 religions! I have Colossus, Spiral Minaret, U of Sankore. I have the HE in Hittite, the ancient barb city on the penninsula. I have harbors, forges and castles in all my coastal cities.

Umm, I totally blew the G Lib, bulb Liberalism race. I wasnt even close. Too much cherry picking fo me early on. That and the fact that there really isnt much food here. Pacal and Justin are ahead of me by 3 techs at least. JC and Peter are behind. I have Lib and Gun Powder, they have economics, PP and Nationalism. I have banking and so do they. I dont have any trades available.

I’m not sure if I shouild go mercantile or not, about half the world is Merc, 2 others are Free Market. I need to get my new lands up to speed. I would like to take out Peter next if I can. He owns the southern half of my end of the world. He is exp/phi, so his lands should be well develpoped. He is a little backwards but will really come into his own soon. So, it would be spi/ind vs exp/phi. I should win. Boy do I hate Justin. He always does well in my games.

Saves coming soon.