From my experience, Zara expands like crazy so you want to wipe him out early rather than late. The way things are now, I'd wait for Construction and use an elepult attack since you've got ivory; maybe put a few axes/maces in the stack to protect from spears/pikes. Oh, and grab Code of Laws for courthouses so your economy doesn't crash when you have time. It's worth wiping Zara early even if it means lowering the slider to like 10% temporarily since it gives you a lot of landso don't hesitate to attack ASAP.
From the Earth to the Moon (Challenge)
- Thread starter bioelectricclam
- Start date
bioelectricclam
Warlord
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2006
- Messages
- 244
Hearing someone else say what I've been thinking all along is encouraging. Alright, so we grab some cats and go city busting next round! With that in mind, do you think I should go for utter annihilation (dismantle Zaroq's empire entirely) or ought we to merely target a few key cities - that marble and his capital - for our first wave? Seems like I want to limit my wars to as short a time as possible to keep research from collapsing, but leaving behind (albeit a weakened) enemy on my continent makes me nervous.
He's pretty large already so trying to take him in one piece may actually hurt you more in long run .. just make an assault on a few main cities, sign peace to fix your economy (courthouses will help with espionage too; if you can get a great spy and settle him in Ethiolpia, you can steal some techs from him) and then finish him off with like maces and trebs; try to time it so he's done before you go out to meet the other civs (1000AD at latest). And don't vassalize .. you need all the land you can get. Also make sure you don't forget about optics cuz it seems like you won't be doing much trading and it would suck to fall too far behind even if you have a lot of land.
bioelectricclam
Warlord
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2006
- Messages
- 244
I've played the next round, but American Idol is about to start...so I'll post the update either late tonight or tomorrow. It was a fun round; lots of stuff happened 
.
.SnowlyWhite
Emperor
zara - has +8 for same religion so being friendly with him is easy as pie. Also, an excellent backstabber - prone to war anyone(as long as they don't share religion) and won't declare on you as long as you're friendly with him(and the ob bonus, with the years of resources 2 and with the 1 from long peace will ensure you won't drop to pleased too easy even if you reject his requests from joining up the war and such). Good techer(many times too good - I'd say the best non financial one the ai handles), doesn't ask for stuff too often, is a pain in the behind with his creative and ub if you share borders. Good warmonger too, since so many of his buildings have half the construction time, so he'll busy himself spamming units when nothin' else to build.
bioelectricclam
Warlord
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2006
- Messages
- 244
So we ended last round with a lot of unsettled territory to our East, meaning this round it is time to fill up our continent. But as we shall see, good land is in high demand, and there are others who would take our prize!
So for our first screenshot:
Looks like the barbarians have begun to settle; now getting a navy is even more important since razing their silly little settlement means more gold in our coffers! Like a stockbrocker, black means cha-ching in Civ IV.
The first tech we discover in this round is Mathematics. As I said earlier, I decided getting Aqueducts sooner rather than latter would be a good idea on this food-poor land, and it is a good step towards our Elephants and Cats. Yes, I've decided that it is time to paint our continent a glossy white (what really convinced me is that terrible music Zaroq uses...er, I mean, "land is power", and Zaroq's land would mean more power to us...yeah). Anyways, after Mathematics I went for Hunting; it only took two turns and it will get us some Ivory for happiness (London is approaching the limits of its happiness). It will also get us access to Archery once we get Alphabet and start tech trading, so I don't really have any problems with doing some self-backfilling.
And as our philosopher's work out the finer points of geometry, St. Augustine creates his master work:
I hope people don't mind me posting these classics announcements, but I just feel that they help us to understand just where we stand in the world. Surprisingly, even with our Financial trait we seem to be lagging behind (my guess is that the top two started out with Scouts and found a few goodie huts). Hopefully as my cottages mature the gap will close.
But one must always be aware that sometimes nature rejects the efforts of man:
Awh well, live near a river, expect a flood or two. Apart from the natural disaster, you may notice that our treasury is getting a bit low from leaving our sliders at 100%; because we may have a war in our future, especially with the great chance for a cat rush, I set the slider a bit lower to build up our rainy day funds. Fortunately, I am still teching quit nicely, and we will soon discover Construction. And to help that along:
I decide that the best thing to do with Leibniz is to found an Academy in London, and get started on the road to Civil Service for the Bureaucracy civic.
However, my dreams of a peaceful utopia dedicated to pure reason are soon shattered when our dastardly neighbor to the North decided that stealing England's Marble just wasn't enough:
It seems that the Ethiopians missed the memo in which I claimed this entire continent in the name of Her Majesty the Queen. Though I nearly let this insult slide, the Workers that followed up the initial settlement proved too tempting a target to pass up:
Slave raiding for fun and profit. Not wanting to crimp my research, and certainly not ready for a full scale assault on the heart of Ethiopian land, I went for a Cease-fire shortly after my Chariots burned Yeha to the ground (if the city had been size 2 I would've gladly brought it into our fold...someone ought to reconsider size 1 cities auto-razing). Remember kids, outside of vanilla Axemen aren't effective early defense if your neighbors have Chariots.
With our coffers momentarily filled to bursting with plundered Ethiopian gold, something unexpected happened:
My prediction turned out to be correct: that landmass to our Southeast is another populated continent. Unfortunately, even as schemes to convert Brennus to a wardog are formulating in my mind, Brennus decides he rather likes the view from his ships and settles smack in the middle of that sweet resource site to our East:
His arrogance will be his undoing; this land belongs to us, and I'll be darned if I spend all this time fighting off the Ethiopians only to let the Celts swoop in and steal it all away. With yet more battles on our horizon, I decide that the best course is to use this brief window of peace and our newly acquired knowledge of Alphabet to trade a few techs. Here is the result:
Yes, surprisingly Yaqob agreed to the trade despite our previous skirmish; it is a shame that I have to annihilate him because he seems to have the potential to be an excellent ally to have around. But alas, our borders are too close, and our continent too small.
The discovery of Iron Working is also something of a bombshell; guess where our only close source of iron is:
Always fun to see a big money bag cottage on top of an important strategic resource >.<. For now, the cottage stays; my main military force is likely to be cats and elephants, both of which do not require iron, and this early in the game well developed cottages are a big booster to your economy. Should I get desperate, though, it is nice to know that there is a source of iron within my borders.
And iron may become important just yet, as yet another war seems to be brewing - this time on our Eastern front. Perhaps emboldened by the success of Camulodonum (a.k.a. Camelot for your King Arthur buffs), Brennus lands yet more settlers on our shores. But the English people have a history of enslaving unsuspecting Workers, and we need those lands for ourselves. More importantly, those few Warriors are no match for England's mighty chariots, and I know the Brennus can't possibly come up with a significant enough force to threaten us with nothing but Galleys available for crossing the channel. And so:
Perhaps we can forgive Brennus' misguided trust in us; after all, only a few turns after we leveled Yeha, it seems Ethiopia still has an eye on our Western front:
I'm seeing a pattern here:
Ain't I a stinker? Like our previous battles, I end this one as quickly as possible, but now a real war with Yaqob is inevitable. The good news is we have managed to stop his expansion and boosted our economy with all the new Workers that we stole. Also, since we did this in piecemeal fashion, our research didn't suffer all that much - we are already nearly finished with Civil Service; after that I plan to get Philosophy and possible win another religion, then go on to paper for the liberalism rush. Our tech lead with our neighbors is pretty enormous, however, so I have full confidence we will succeed.
I also manage to expel the Celts with minor losses (we lost a chariot). Sadly for Author and his Knights, I find the location lacking and sack Camelot. All in all, considering that we have waged three wars and only lost one chariot, I'm feeling pretty confident that we will prevail in the end.
With our borders defended, my people finally feel ready to expand, and Hastings and Canterbury are soon founded:
While Hastings was an obvious choice, I choose Canterbury's site because once it gets some culture growth it could stop the Celts from crossing the channel (provided they don't declare war), leaving me with only one annoying neighbor to deal with. It also gives me the chance for some Clams, and right now unhealthiness is starting to become a problem for my flood plains cities.
I plan to go ahead and start the next round pretty soon since I have much of it already planned out, but I'll go ahead and post my thoughts in case you want to comment.
Basically, for the next round I would like to accomplish the following:
1. Clear out that Barbarian state near Hastings, and if there is time, the one near Canterbury as well for the pillage gold, but I have a feeling Brennus might wise up and go after weaker targets on his own continent.
2. Get my war machine in full throttle and take down Yaqob. He hates me and needs to go down.
3. There are also three wonders I'd like to try for: Great Library, Schwedagon Paya, and the Hanging Gardens. All three would boost our research nicely, either with Civic options or a Great Person boost. Our obvious priority, though, is the Great Library, and with a big war looming getting all three seems not so realistic.
Anyways, that's all for now; I'll update sometime latter this week.
Here's the save:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/95430/Good_Queen_Bess_AD-0300.CivBeyondSwordSave
So for our first screenshot:
Looks like the barbarians have begun to settle; now getting a navy is even more important since razing their silly little settlement means more gold in our coffers! Like a stockbrocker, black means cha-ching in Civ IV.
The first tech we discover in this round is Mathematics. As I said earlier, I decided getting Aqueducts sooner rather than latter would be a good idea on this food-poor land, and it is a good step towards our Elephants and Cats. Yes, I've decided that it is time to paint our continent a glossy white (what really convinced me is that terrible music Zaroq uses...er, I mean, "land is power", and Zaroq's land would mean more power to us...yeah). Anyways, after Mathematics I went for Hunting; it only took two turns and it will get us some Ivory for happiness (London is approaching the limits of its happiness). It will also get us access to Archery once we get Alphabet and start tech trading, so I don't really have any problems with doing some self-backfilling.
And as our philosopher's work out the finer points of geometry, St. Augustine creates his master work:
I hope people don't mind me posting these classics announcements, but I just feel that they help us to understand just where we stand in the world. Surprisingly, even with our Financial trait we seem to be lagging behind (my guess is that the top two started out with Scouts and found a few goodie huts). Hopefully as my cottages mature the gap will close.
But one must always be aware that sometimes nature rejects the efforts of man:
Awh well, live near a river, expect a flood or two. Apart from the natural disaster, you may notice that our treasury is getting a bit low from leaving our sliders at 100%; because we may have a war in our future, especially with the great chance for a cat rush, I set the slider a bit lower to build up our rainy day funds. Fortunately, I am still teching quit nicely, and we will soon discover Construction. And to help that along:
I decide that the best thing to do with Leibniz is to found an Academy in London, and get started on the road to Civil Service for the Bureaucracy civic.
However, my dreams of a peaceful utopia dedicated to pure reason are soon shattered when our dastardly neighbor to the North decided that stealing England's Marble just wasn't enough:
It seems that the Ethiopians missed the memo in which I claimed this entire continent in the name of Her Majesty the Queen. Though I nearly let this insult slide, the Workers that followed up the initial settlement proved too tempting a target to pass up:
Slave raiding for fun and profit. Not wanting to crimp my research, and certainly not ready for a full scale assault on the heart of Ethiopian land, I went for a Cease-fire shortly after my Chariots burned Yeha to the ground (if the city had been size 2 I would've gladly brought it into our fold...someone ought to reconsider size 1 cities auto-razing). Remember kids, outside of vanilla Axemen aren't effective early defense if your neighbors have Chariots.
With our coffers momentarily filled to bursting with plundered Ethiopian gold, something unexpected happened:
My prediction turned out to be correct: that landmass to our Southeast is another populated continent. Unfortunately, even as schemes to convert Brennus to a wardog are formulating in my mind, Brennus decides he rather likes the view from his ships and settles smack in the middle of that sweet resource site to our East:
His arrogance will be his undoing; this land belongs to us, and I'll be darned if I spend all this time fighting off the Ethiopians only to let the Celts swoop in and steal it all away. With yet more battles on our horizon, I decide that the best course is to use this brief window of peace and our newly acquired knowledge of Alphabet to trade a few techs. Here is the result:
Yes, surprisingly Yaqob agreed to the trade despite our previous skirmish; it is a shame that I have to annihilate him because he seems to have the potential to be an excellent ally to have around. But alas, our borders are too close, and our continent too small.
The discovery of Iron Working is also something of a bombshell; guess where our only close source of iron is:
Always fun to see a big money bag cottage on top of an important strategic resource >.<. For now, the cottage stays; my main military force is likely to be cats and elephants, both of which do not require iron, and this early in the game well developed cottages are a big booster to your economy. Should I get desperate, though, it is nice to know that there is a source of iron within my borders.
And iron may become important just yet, as yet another war seems to be brewing - this time on our Eastern front. Perhaps emboldened by the success of Camulodonum (a.k.a. Camelot for your King Arthur buffs), Brennus lands yet more settlers on our shores. But the English people have a history of enslaving unsuspecting Workers, and we need those lands for ourselves. More importantly, those few Warriors are no match for England's mighty chariots, and I know the Brennus can't possibly come up with a significant enough force to threaten us with nothing but Galleys available for crossing the channel. And so:
Perhaps we can forgive Brennus' misguided trust in us; after all, only a few turns after we leveled Yeha, it seems Ethiopia still has an eye on our Western front:
I'm seeing a pattern here:
Ain't I a stinker? Like our previous battles, I end this one as quickly as possible, but now a real war with Yaqob is inevitable. The good news is we have managed to stop his expansion and boosted our economy with all the new Workers that we stole. Also, since we did this in piecemeal fashion, our research didn't suffer all that much - we are already nearly finished with Civil Service; after that I plan to get Philosophy and possible win another religion, then go on to paper for the liberalism rush. Our tech lead with our neighbors is pretty enormous, however, so I have full confidence we will succeed.
I also manage to expel the Celts with minor losses (we lost a chariot). Sadly for Author and his Knights, I find the location lacking and sack Camelot. All in all, considering that we have waged three wars and only lost one chariot, I'm feeling pretty confident that we will prevail in the end.
With our borders defended, my people finally feel ready to expand, and Hastings and Canterbury are soon founded:
While Hastings was an obvious choice, I choose Canterbury's site because once it gets some culture growth it could stop the Celts from crossing the channel (provided they don't declare war), leaving me with only one annoying neighbor to deal with. It also gives me the chance for some Clams, and right now unhealthiness is starting to become a problem for my flood plains cities.
I plan to go ahead and start the next round pretty soon since I have much of it already planned out, but I'll go ahead and post my thoughts in case you want to comment.
Basically, for the next round I would like to accomplish the following:
1. Clear out that Barbarian state near Hastings, and if there is time, the one near Canterbury as well for the pillage gold, but I have a feeling Brennus might wise up and go after weaker targets on his own continent.
2. Get my war machine in full throttle and take down Yaqob. He hates me and needs to go down.
3. There are also three wonders I'd like to try for: Great Library, Schwedagon Paya, and the Hanging Gardens. All three would boost our research nicely, either with Civic options or a Great Person boost. Our obvious priority, though, is the Great Library, and with a big war looming getting all three seems not so realistic.
Anyways, that's all for now; I'll update sometime latter this week.
Here's the save:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/95430/Good_Queen_Bess_AD-0300.CivBeyondSwordSave
I'm not sure declaring war on Brennus was smart. You antagonized your only possible ally so you've gotta meet other civs soon or spread your religion to Brennus and hope he forgets (he actually regards religion pretty highly so he can be a friend if you convert him). Regarding Zara, you gotta kill him now; you're at 5 cities if I'm not mistaken and you got no usable space to expand to. btw did you research iron working?!? Try to grab some iron soon.
bioelectricclam
Warlord
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2006
- Messages
- 244
Forgot to mention that I traded for IW...with Yaqob...after DoWing him.
EDIT: Actually...I DID mention it. Might want to review my post a bit more carefully.
Anyways, after reading your other comment about Brennus I feel obligated to explain my choice to DoW on him; after all, these sort of threads are supposed to be about feedback and I kind of went in there guns blazing without discussing strategies first, so at least I ought to give you all an explanation.
Namely, before declaring war I always try and weight the pros and the cons, although I'll admit I didn't really explain myself too well in my previous post.
Now, the cons for declaring on Brennus are:
1. So far as we know, Brennus is our only potential ally that is close enough to trade with.
My Remarks: This is a tech game, and I personally have never, ever, found the Celts to be all that useful when it comes to tech trading. In fact, they aren't even that great as a wardog either - most games they just piddle around and occasionally found a religion or two but not much else. So to be honest, I just don't value the Celts friendship as much as some other players might.
2. We already have our hands full with Yaqob.
My Remarks: I feel that I'm handling Yaqob, and since the Celts have to cross the channel to get to me, I have very little cause to fear a counterattack. What I DO worry about is letting them get a few cities on my continent, fortifying those cities, and then becoming a big threat to me. Sure, there is a chance that I could convert him to Confucianism and get a friend, but as other players have pointed out this continent is pretty lacking in resources to begin with, and I'm just not sure it is worth giving up that small area of fertile land for a dubious, likely unhelpful friendship with the Celts.
3. He might have friends.
My Remarks: He has no religion to speak of, so the chance that he'd have some friends is pretty unlikely. Even if he does have friends, since he has no religion there's a pretty good chance that they won't have one either, so there's a decent possibility that I could circumvent the DoW on Friend with a missionary mission or two.
Now in my eyes those cons just aren't that bad; the Celts just don't scare me all that much, even if they have some friends in waiting.
As for the Pros:
1. Free early Worker from capturing that Settler - that alone is reason enough for a DoW in some games. If you can snatch a few free workers, and early to boot, you can get a huge advantage over the competition. Now I realize that this is probably beyond the point of getting them super early, but still, a free worker is a free worker.
2. I clear that land for my cities. Since that area was pretty much going to be my big population center, it seems silly to just sit back and let the Celts have it. Sometimes being a bit aggressive about your lands pays off hugely latter in the game, and this seems like one of those times, considering how nicely Elizabeth cottages and how bad the nearby lands are. Honestly, leaving the Celts alone as they claim all those floodplain tiles is a bit like rolling over and dieing. This more than anything else is what persuaded me to DoW, and sorry if I didn't explain it all that well.
Anyways, feel free to criticize me, that's how I learn new things. For all we know this little slave raid might cost me dearly.
EDIT: Actually...I DID mention it. Might want to review my post a bit more carefully.
Anyways, after reading your other comment about Brennus I feel obligated to explain my choice to DoW on him; after all, these sort of threads are supposed to be about feedback and I kind of went in there guns blazing without discussing strategies first, so at least I ought to give you all an explanation.
Namely, before declaring war I always try and weight the pros and the cons, although I'll admit I didn't really explain myself too well in my previous post.
Now, the cons for declaring on Brennus are:
1. So far as we know, Brennus is our only potential ally that is close enough to trade with.
My Remarks: This is a tech game, and I personally have never, ever, found the Celts to be all that useful when it comes to tech trading. In fact, they aren't even that great as a wardog either - most games they just piddle around and occasionally found a religion or two but not much else. So to be honest, I just don't value the Celts friendship as much as some other players might.
2. We already have our hands full with Yaqob.
My Remarks: I feel that I'm handling Yaqob, and since the Celts have to cross the channel to get to me, I have very little cause to fear a counterattack. What I DO worry about is letting them get a few cities on my continent, fortifying those cities, and then becoming a big threat to me. Sure, there is a chance that I could convert him to Confucianism and get a friend, but as other players have pointed out this continent is pretty lacking in resources to begin with, and I'm just not sure it is worth giving up that small area of fertile land for a dubious, likely unhelpful friendship with the Celts.
3. He might have friends.
My Remarks: He has no religion to speak of, so the chance that he'd have some friends is pretty unlikely. Even if he does have friends, since he has no religion there's a pretty good chance that they won't have one either, so there's a decent possibility that I could circumvent the DoW on Friend with a missionary mission or two.
Now in my eyes those cons just aren't that bad; the Celts just don't scare me all that much, even if they have some friends in waiting.
As for the Pros:
1. Free early Worker from capturing that Settler - that alone is reason enough for a DoW in some games. If you can snatch a few free workers, and early to boot, you can get a huge advantage over the competition. Now I realize that this is probably beyond the point of getting them super early, but still, a free worker is a free worker.
2. I clear that land for my cities. Since that area was pretty much going to be my big population center, it seems silly to just sit back and let the Celts have it. Sometimes being a bit aggressive about your lands pays off hugely latter in the game, and this seems like one of those times, considering how nicely Elizabeth cottages and how bad the nearby lands are. Honestly, leaving the Celts alone as they claim all those floodplain tiles is a bit like rolling over and dieing. This more than anything else is what persuaded me to DoW, and sorry if I didn't explain it all that well.
Anyways, feel free to criticize me, that's how I learn new things. For all we know this little slave raid might cost me dearly.
SnowlyWhite
Emperor
if you go OR, you'll have -3 from war and you should reach around 5 for favourite civic. With years of peace... yeah, you still won't go enough to open borders with him... so confu will have to spread on it's own.
and yes... zara is the dream ally. You throw, he catches; pitty that he's abit expensive usually and well... he techs good which is somethin' you don't really want your pet to do...
and yes... zara is the dream ally. You throw, he catches; pitty that he's abit expensive usually and well... he techs good which is somethin' you don't really want your pet to do...
Commodore Nate
Warlord
- Joined
- Feb 6, 2008
- Messages
- 204
I'd say you did the right thing kicking the Celts out of your continent.
Would you be so kind as to post a map of Ethiopia?
Would you be so kind as to post a map of Ethiopia?
bioelectricclam
Warlord
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2006
- Messages
- 244
My bad, forgot the end-of-round maps! Anyways, here they are:
A nice close-up of Ethiopia so you can get an idea about there current resources:
And the known world maps:
Good call, silly of me to forget those since it helps people understand my current situation in a nutshell.
Commodore Nate
Warlord
- Joined
- Feb 6, 2008
- Messages
- 204
Thanks bioelectric!
I'd say the only city worth keeping is the capital, maybe Lalibela. The rest of the cities are in very poor land and therefore very raze worthy.
Was about to say you could probably get by if you expanded aggressively enough, but English pride (and Ethiopian anger) reminded me otherwise XD
I'd say the only city worth keeping is the capital, maybe Lalibela. The rest of the cities are in very poor land and therefore very raze worthy.
Was about to say you could probably get by if you expanded aggressively enough, but English pride (and Ethiopian anger) reminded me otherwise XD
bioelectricclam
Warlord
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2006
- Messages
- 244
Another thing to consider are the goals of this game - I "win" if I meet my deadline, not if I build the U.N. or dominate or whatever else, so making friends just isn't a necessity. Anyways, update incoming .
.bioelectricclam
Warlord
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2006
- Messages
- 244
For this round, I surprisingly did a bout-face: though we were so gung-ho with going to war with Ethiopia, I decided to wait and build up my economy a bit first. There were a few wonders that I wanted as well, and I simply didn't have the resources to both wage a war AND get the wonders. War with Ethiopia will have to wait for Maces and Trebuchets.
My first big priority is addressing the food crisis; my largest cities (York, London, and Nottingham) are starting to get unhealthy (I expected this for awhile, considering the lack of food variety on this continent, coupled with all the Flood Plains...and I cut down the forest), so it is time to get some Aqueducts and Granaries built, with the goal of hopefully grabbing the Hanging Gardens in London:
Cross your fingers.
Although the only nearby iron is underneath my most developed cottage, I do manage to get some bronze - hence why I abandoned my plans to invade Ethiopia this round, and yet another reason why I feel pretty good about that war with the Celts - they'd have that Bronze if not for my actions. Fortunately, you can build Macemen with Bronze, so I'll hold off the invasion until I have Machinery and Civil Service under my belt.
Anyways, early in this round we meet a new neighbor:
I actually like this guy! Ragnar is an excellent wardog and a decent techer in my experience. He also has no religion, so there is a good chance I can convert him to the Confucian way. Other than that though, there just isn't much to say about him; he has no techs available for trade at this time, and I'm doing well enough on my own that an attack dog isn't really necessary.
Then something I've been dreading happened:
My Spies told me this was coming, but still, I was not expecting Yaqob to convert the next turn, but it seems I leveled his only Confucian city. My bad. Anyways, this works out rather nicely for me; once Maces come around, and considering my huge tech lead, it won't be that hard to grab the Christian shrine city - and the bonus is that Lalibela was already one of the few cities that I wasn't going to level, so more shrines for me. Yay. Still, now I have one mad Ethiopian breathing down my neck, so I start building a few more Archers and Axemen in case he starts thinking his Swordsmen have a chance.
Oh, and is it just me, or is the AI really backward this game? It almost feels like this is Settler difficulty...very surprised Ragnar hasn't even discovered Polytheism and its already 250 AD. I get Ethiopia (only two decent cities and lots of tundra is going to kill their research rates...plus they've been focusing on the mostly useless Theocracy route...they haven't even discovered Mathematics yet, haha), but maybe the other continent is just as bad as this one...
(Next page)
My first big priority is addressing the food crisis; my largest cities (York, London, and Nottingham) are starting to get unhealthy (I expected this for awhile, considering the lack of food variety on this continent, coupled with all the Flood Plains...and I cut down the forest), so it is time to get some Aqueducts and Granaries built, with the goal of hopefully grabbing the Hanging Gardens in London:
Cross your fingers.
Although the only nearby iron is underneath my most developed cottage, I do manage to get some bronze - hence why I abandoned my plans to invade Ethiopia this round, and yet another reason why I feel pretty good about that war with the Celts - they'd have that Bronze if not for my actions. Fortunately, you can build Macemen with Bronze, so I'll hold off the invasion until I have Machinery and Civil Service under my belt.
Anyways, early in this round we meet a new neighbor:
I actually like this guy! Ragnar is an excellent wardog and a decent techer in my experience. He also has no religion, so there is a good chance I can convert him to the Confucian way. Other than that though, there just isn't much to say about him; he has no techs available for trade at this time, and I'm doing well enough on my own that an attack dog isn't really necessary.
Then something I've been dreading happened:
My Spies told me this was coming, but still, I was not expecting Yaqob to convert the next turn, but it seems I leveled his only Confucian city. My bad. Anyways, this works out rather nicely for me; once Maces come around, and considering my huge tech lead, it won't be that hard to grab the Christian shrine city - and the bonus is that Lalibela was already one of the few cities that I wasn't going to level, so more shrines for me. Yay. Still, now I have one mad Ethiopian breathing down my neck, so I start building a few more Archers and Axemen in case he starts thinking his Swordsmen have a chance.
Oh, and is it just me, or is the AI really backward this game? It almost feels like this is Settler difficulty...very surprised Ragnar hasn't even discovered Polytheism and its already 250 AD. I get Ethiopia (only two decent cities and lots of tundra is going to kill their research rates...plus they've been focusing on the mostly useless Theocracy route...they haven't even discovered Mathematics yet, haha), but maybe the other continent is just as bad as this one...
(Next page)
bioelectricclam
Warlord
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2006
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- 244
Anyways, I reach the Medieval Era a bit latter than I was hoping:
400 AD is right about the time that Rome was falling. In other words, my research is about comparable to the real world...meaning my Apollo program is on schedule to be about 100 years too late. Hopefully once we get Education I can speed things up with Universities. Cross your fingers, this may be a photo finish.
So with Civil Service down, I have to make a choice - do I rush towards Machinery or set myself up for Liberalism? I decide the best thing to do is to switch back and forth between the two tech paths, so I decide to go for Philosophy soon. Not only would Pacifism be nice for a few rounds (I'm hoping I can hold back an inevitable Ethiopian invasion for the next few hundred years...at least our power graphs are about equal, so methinks I can pull it off), but there is a high chance that I can found Taoism, as the AI appears to be hopelessly backwards (I haven't seen any sort of Wonders announcement for hundreds of years, and I've left quite a few for the taking).
However, to that end I decide it is time to start on some Elephants, just for reassurance. So before I get going with Philosophy, I pop out Horseback Riding. Amazingly, no AI had the tech available for trade...not even Ragnar. Wow, just wow.
After switching to Bureaucracy, it is time for some Wonder mongering. York gets started on The Parthenon while London is to build the Great Library and Hanging Gardens. Let's hope I pull it all off.
Just when things were going smoothly, look who didn't learn his lesson:
Sure enough, that Galley had a Settler in tow:
This time around, however, I decide to spare them. Not only do I like the Celts choice of city site (so I want to give it a chance to grow so I can capture it latter), but by letting the Celts settle there it blocks the Ethiopians from further expansion. Basically, right now the Celts are the lesser of two evils, and since I don't have a Settler ready to start a city in that spot I'd rather let it go to the Celts than to the Ethiopians. Mop-up will be a simple matter, too, since the Celts won't be able to easily give that city any sort of backup. My borders are also growing in such a way that they will soon close off any possible expansion routes for the Celts, so I know that that is the only city they will have time to found on my continent. Cool beans.
As for the Ethiopians, their conversion has sparked tensions. I've been very busy watching the powergraphs, and although I've been close I am slowly getting further behind:
Not to mention I've spotted a very large stack moving towards my relatively unprotected Nottingham.
So I bribe them with a mostly useless bit of technology:
I've already taken the Oracle and I'm not too concerned about the advantages that temples will give the Ethiopians, so it seems like a good idea to buy some time. Sure enough, the next turn their stack of swordsmen and Spearmen turns around and heads home. Crisis averted.
And a short time latter we reach another milestone:
Looks like despite our food problems the English people are thriving.
I mentioned earlier that I wanted to get rid of that Barbarian city to our West. Sure enough, though we lose two catapults the city is burned:
Though I'm still keeping Philosophy in my sights, I briefly divert my research. Despite my many victories and the gold that pillaging gets me, the Science slider has been close to 100% the entire game, and funds are started to dip low. So Currency is on the menu.
Meanwhile, the many glorious wonders and monuments of London inspires one of its citizens:
For now, I tell him to rest; there's a chance that I will have a Taoist shrine to build fairly soon, and I find that the gold gained from owning a shrine completely overshadows anything that you'd get by merely settling a Prophet. So far as bulbing is concerned...not interested in Monotheism at the moment.
As I mentioned earlier, my borders are expanding. With the founding of Coventry, I feel that the Eastern frontier is now mostly secure:
Though I suppose our relative closeness upsets Brennus, who makes a demand:
Since no one else seemed interested in that Cow (Ragnar has some and Ethiopia won't trade with his worst enemy), I decided that was a fairly reasonable demand and gave in to it. Better to not have two furious neighbors when I am busy building wonders.
And we soon enjoy the fruits of those labors:
I'm quite pleased =D. The Gardens are the perfect wonder for my kind of start, and those extra citizens really helped some of our new cities along.
Now, despite how much I've been pimping Philosophy, I decide to go after Paper instead. I'm pretty curious about the other continent, and think that trading maps is a better use of my time than trying to scout out the terrain myself; my port city just isn't ready to build transports, and I feel that I need to keep my focus on my current continent and my rival to the North.
(Next page)
400 AD is right about the time that Rome was falling. In other words, my research is about comparable to the real world...meaning my Apollo program is on schedule to be about 100 years too late. Hopefully once we get Education I can speed things up with Universities. Cross your fingers, this may be a photo finish.
So with Civil Service down, I have to make a choice - do I rush towards Machinery or set myself up for Liberalism? I decide the best thing to do is to switch back and forth between the two tech paths, so I decide to go for Philosophy soon. Not only would Pacifism be nice for a few rounds (I'm hoping I can hold back an inevitable Ethiopian invasion for the next few hundred years...at least our power graphs are about equal, so methinks I can pull it off), but there is a high chance that I can found Taoism, as the AI appears to be hopelessly backwards (I haven't seen any sort of Wonders announcement for hundreds of years, and I've left quite a few for the taking).
However, to that end I decide it is time to start on some Elephants, just for reassurance. So before I get going with Philosophy, I pop out Horseback Riding. Amazingly, no AI had the tech available for trade...not even Ragnar. Wow, just wow.
After switching to Bureaucracy, it is time for some Wonder mongering. York gets started on The Parthenon while London is to build the Great Library and Hanging Gardens. Let's hope I pull it all off.
Just when things were going smoothly, look who didn't learn his lesson:
Sure enough, that Galley had a Settler in tow:
This time around, however, I decide to spare them. Not only do I like the Celts choice of city site (so I want to give it a chance to grow so I can capture it latter), but by letting the Celts settle there it blocks the Ethiopians from further expansion. Basically, right now the Celts are the lesser of two evils, and since I don't have a Settler ready to start a city in that spot I'd rather let it go to the Celts than to the Ethiopians. Mop-up will be a simple matter, too, since the Celts won't be able to easily give that city any sort of backup. My borders are also growing in such a way that they will soon close off any possible expansion routes for the Celts, so I know that that is the only city they will have time to found on my continent. Cool beans.
As for the Ethiopians, their conversion has sparked tensions. I've been very busy watching the powergraphs, and although I've been close I am slowly getting further behind:
Not to mention I've spotted a very large stack moving towards my relatively unprotected Nottingham.
So I bribe them with a mostly useless bit of technology:
I've already taken the Oracle and I'm not too concerned about the advantages that temples will give the Ethiopians, so it seems like a good idea to buy some time. Sure enough, the next turn their stack of swordsmen and Spearmen turns around and heads home. Crisis averted.
And a short time latter we reach another milestone:
Looks like despite our food problems the English people are thriving.
I mentioned earlier that I wanted to get rid of that Barbarian city to our West. Sure enough, though we lose two catapults the city is burned:
Though I'm still keeping Philosophy in my sights, I briefly divert my research. Despite my many victories and the gold that pillaging gets me, the Science slider has been close to 100% the entire game, and funds are started to dip low. So Currency is on the menu.
Meanwhile, the many glorious wonders and monuments of London inspires one of its citizens:
For now, I tell him to rest; there's a chance that I will have a Taoist shrine to build fairly soon, and I find that the gold gained from owning a shrine completely overshadows anything that you'd get by merely settling a Prophet. So far as bulbing is concerned...not interested in Monotheism at the moment.
As I mentioned earlier, my borders are expanding. With the founding of Coventry, I feel that the Eastern frontier is now mostly secure:
Though I suppose our relative closeness upsets Brennus, who makes a demand:
Since no one else seemed interested in that Cow (Ragnar has some and Ethiopia won't trade with his worst enemy), I decided that was a fairly reasonable demand and gave in to it. Better to not have two furious neighbors when I am busy building wonders.
And we soon enjoy the fruits of those labors:
I'm quite pleased =D. The Gardens are the perfect wonder for my kind of start, and those extra citizens really helped some of our new cities along.
Now, despite how much I've been pimping Philosophy, I decide to go after Paper instead. I'm pretty curious about the other continent, and think that trading maps is a better use of my time than trying to scout out the terrain myself; my port city just isn't ready to build transports, and I feel that I need to keep my focus on my current continent and my rival to the North.
(Next page)
bioelectricclam
Warlord
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2006
- Messages
- 244
Speak of the devil, he has been busy:
At first, some of you might be panicking about my hated foe having access to Elephants. But fear not, for we have some breathing room:
No Horseback Riding and no Construction...it will take a bit of time before Yaqob can use those Elephants. This doesn't mean we can sit on our hands, though - the threat is real, and it needs to be dealt with sooner rather than latter. To that end, I start turning out a decent defense for my border towns - walls, archers, and a few axemen should keep the swordsmen away for the time being, and with luck we can get macemen before Yaqob has time for Elephants.
So far as techs go, after Paper I (finally) get started on Philosophy. Still confident I'll win the race to it, though.
A few announcements to take note of:
To sum all that up: thanks to the Gardens our population is growing nicely, Yaqob now has a potential ally, and somewhere out there there may be some civilizations with more advanced technologies...maybe.
Moving right along since I can't really do much about Brennus right now and I'll still need Optics to make first contact with those civs, we build another key wonder:
With Pacifism coming up close behind, we may be in line for a Golden Age (fairly soon I am going to reach the point where useful techs can no longer be bulbed by scientists or engineers).
And then I meet yet another inhabitant of the Southern continent:
Unbelievably, Willem, too, is pretty far behind on techs; I find this very surprising since he is usually the tech leader when I play "just for fun" games. Considering his trading partners, though, maybe I shouldn't be all that surprised.
Though he is a backstabber, I see no problems with trading maps; he is Pleased with both the Vikings and the Celts, and it is about time I had some idea about what lies beyond that horizon:
And, although it cost me most of my treasury, I traded Alphabet and 120 Gold for Calendar. I still think that I'll have a chance for Magellan's Voyage if I play a bit of catch up, and no one has built the Mausoleum yet so there's a chance for better Golden Ages.
And then, inexplicably, Ragnar makes a strange demand:
I'm pretty baffled by this, as I'm almost certain that he was Pleased with Willem before I made those trades. Has anyone else ever seen the AI backstab another AI like this? If not...maybe I somehow confused myself and Ragnar actually did not like William
. Anyways, I decline, despite being a bit worried about how widespread Willem is. None of the AI on that continent are a threat technologically, and if one of them (most likely Ragnar at this point) does DoW on me I'll see the ships coming.
Now we have a decent map of the known world, so it is time to give these lands some names. Henceforth, the Southern continent shall be named Danelaw, and our own continent Albion. This makes things easier than constantly having to say "southern continent" and all.
So now I think I understand the mystery that is my enormous tech lead; basically, Danelaw's resources are concentrated in Dutch lands, which in turn led to a bit of warring between him and Ragnar (holding back their development), while the Celts were stuck in a tiny corner of the island. No wonder they keep trying to settle my lands.
Anyways, I'm going to take a short break before finishing this update, but feel free to discuss a few points while I go get lunch if anyone is on at this hour.
1. I think now that we know our neighbors are backwards gits, securing my own continent should be my primary goal. I feel that the 1865 moonshot can be won without relying on tech trading, but only if I get at least twice the land as I currently own, and soon.
2. It is tempting to try and invade the Celtic portion of Danelaw; from what I can tell he barely even has Archers
. But considering the fact that I'd need ships to do so, not sure I should bother at this time. Another option is converting those heathens to Confucianism, but I sort of think it is in my best interest to keep them at each other throats for the time being.
At first, some of you might be panicking about my hated foe having access to Elephants. But fear not, for we have some breathing room:
No Horseback Riding and no Construction...it will take a bit of time before Yaqob can use those Elephants. This doesn't mean we can sit on our hands, though - the threat is real, and it needs to be dealt with sooner rather than latter. To that end, I start turning out a decent defense for my border towns - walls, archers, and a few axemen should keep the swordsmen away for the time being, and with luck we can get macemen before Yaqob has time for Elephants.
So far as techs go, after Paper I (finally) get started on Philosophy. Still confident I'll win the race to it, though.
A few announcements to take note of:
To sum all that up: thanks to the Gardens our population is growing nicely, Yaqob now has a potential ally, and somewhere out there there may be some civilizations with more advanced technologies...maybe.
Moving right along since I can't really do much about Brennus right now and I'll still need Optics to make first contact with those civs, we build another key wonder:
With Pacifism coming up close behind, we may be in line for a Golden Age (fairly soon I am going to reach the point where useful techs can no longer be bulbed by scientists or engineers).
And then I meet yet another inhabitant of the Southern continent:
Unbelievably, Willem, too, is pretty far behind on techs; I find this very surprising since he is usually the tech leader when I play "just for fun" games. Considering his trading partners, though, maybe I shouldn't be all that surprised.
Though he is a backstabber, I see no problems with trading maps; he is Pleased with both the Vikings and the Celts, and it is about time I had some idea about what lies beyond that horizon:
And, although it cost me most of my treasury, I traded Alphabet and 120 Gold for Calendar. I still think that I'll have a chance for Magellan's Voyage if I play a bit of catch up, and no one has built the Mausoleum yet so there's a chance for better Golden Ages.
And then, inexplicably, Ragnar makes a strange demand:
I'm pretty baffled by this, as I'm almost certain that he was Pleased with Willem before I made those trades. Has anyone else ever seen the AI backstab another AI like this? If not...maybe I somehow confused myself and Ragnar actually did not like William
. Anyways, I decline, despite being a bit worried about how widespread Willem is. None of the AI on that continent are a threat technologically, and if one of them (most likely Ragnar at this point) does DoW on me I'll see the ships coming.Now we have a decent map of the known world, so it is time to give these lands some names. Henceforth, the Southern continent shall be named Danelaw, and our own continent Albion. This makes things easier than constantly having to say "southern continent" and all.
So now I think I understand the mystery that is my enormous tech lead; basically, Danelaw's resources are concentrated in Dutch lands, which in turn led to a bit of warring between him and Ragnar (holding back their development), while the Celts were stuck in a tiny corner of the island. No wonder they keep trying to settle my lands.
Anyways, I'm going to take a short break before finishing this update, but feel free to discuss a few points while I go get lunch if anyone is on at this hour.
1. I think now that we know our neighbors are backwards gits, securing my own continent should be my primary goal. I feel that the 1865 moonshot can be won without relying on tech trading, but only if I get at least twice the land as I currently own, and soon.
2. It is tempting to try and invade the Celtic portion of Danelaw; from what I can tell he barely even has Archers
. But considering the fact that I'd need ships to do so, not sure I should bother at this time. Another option is converting those heathens to Confucianism, but I sort of think it is in my best interest to keep them at each other throats for the time being.bioelectricclam
Warlord
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2006
- Messages
- 244
My stomach's nice and full, time for part two.
Shortly after Ragnar got all huffy another "old friend" made a demand:
This time I accepted; the diplomancy boost would hold off our coming war for a few more turns, and frankly I wouldn't mind getting back some gold after that expensive map trade with Willem. All in all though, I still think trading maps was a good idea; now I know that the other continent isn't that much of a threat (well, maybe Willem, but at least a total warmonger isn't in control of Danelaw), which lets me focus on my own lands.
Even better, Willem soon converts to Confucianism, so now it looks like I have a decent ally in the making. I think that diplomatically we are doing alright; we know who our enemies are and what their strength is, and we haven't pissed off anyone too strong to handle.
And nicely enough, we do indeed manage to found Taoism a few turns latter:
Time to put that Great Prophet to use. As for the free missionary, I spread Taoism to Coventry to spread our culture a bit further into Celtic land. And even though war is coming, I decide for now to run a few turns of Pacifism to help speed up the next Great Person.
Research wise, it is time to get Machinery (and Maces).
Probably not so good for me, Willem and Ragnar's war isn't going to last much longer; Ragnar too has converted to Confucianism. At least it means that my shrine will get lots of gold, but too bad those two might start getting along.
The Vikings, probably annoyed about us refusing to help them, make yet another demand, this time requesting Polytheism for some Gold. I accept, since I want to save some ca$h for my upcoming campaign against Yaqob, and let us face it, Polytheism is a joke now.
And then we got yet another big research boost:
By this point, London has become a GP powerhouse thanks to all the wonders, so I decide to build the National Epic in London. So far as Nottingham is concerned, with all those rivers I'm thinking Watermills could make it a good troops factory for our Ethiopian campaign. I tried hiring specialists in Nottingham, but even if I starve the city I just can't compete with London when it comes to GP output, so it is time to rethink our use for that city.
With two Shrine cities under our belts and the Financial trait making super cottages, it doesn't take very long to backwards fill in Metal Casting and Machinery. You may realize that I have barely traded techs, and the reason is pretty simple: there just aren't any to trade for. I might start giving away techs like Alphabet just to make the trade pool more viable, but with all these warmongers nearby not sure how advanced I want my neighbors to be.
And then, we were given a task:
Sounds like fun to me! We will have to see if it is do-able though...I will probably hit the modern era fairly soon at this rate.
However, seeing as how I intend to war on Yaqob as is, the Statue of Zeus is not a bad idea, so I get London started on that.
And then, it finally happened:
My sympathies exactly! And what perfect timing too, because now I has a maceman:
I'm also just about finished up with the wonders that I wanted to grab. London finished the National Epic and is about halfway done with the SoZ. Also, though I forgot to mention it, the people of York have been busy as well:
Ah, the wonders of having Stone in your lands.
Thanks to the National Epic, London is producing Great People very quickly. In this screenshot, you can see two of them:
I'm saving the engineer for hurrying Notre Dame, and I'll use the Scientist to bulb Education.
Now so far as the war goes, for a moment it looked as though Ethiopia might take York (I sort of neglected York's defense, as I expected them to hit my border cities first...oops). This monster stack had me very nervous:
Fortunately, two things worked in my favor: I had earlier built an elephant and had some spare Chariots with decent promotions that were sitting in Hastings for barbarian defense. Well, I ran them out to Ethiopia's nearest border town (some new spot they had settled a few turns before in bad tundraland) and took down its lone Archer. In addition to razing one of their cities at the very start of the war - a surefire way to get War Weariness building - I used all the gold I earned selling techs to upgrade a few of my axes to maces. My power graph shot up, and Yaqob quickly went from "refuses to talk" to being willing to declare peace. I did so, since I'm still not quite ready to invade his interior and I didn't want to see some cottages raised (I have very light defense around York, I'm afraid). Also, I've gotten myself tangled up in a lover's quarrel over in Danelaw:
It seems that while I was busy with Yaqob, Willem converted to Christianity and started going at it again with Ragnar. Fortunately this situation is holding back potentially dangerous enemies, and with Liberalism coming up I won't have to suffer from religious penalties to my diplomacy for too much longer. Better still, by giving both sides Elephants they remain evenly matched, and I managed to secure much needed food and iron. And if they ever decide to attack me then, well, they lose their ivory, so it seems like a safe trade to make. Who knows, I know a lot of people probably disagree with giving any sort of strategic advantage to potentially dangerous civilizations, but for now it seems like a good deal to take.
With Engineering now researched, I bulbed Education. Also thanks to my Great Engineer, I completed a few more wonders before ending this round:
Both are great wonders for any scenario, peace or war, so I am quite pleased. Now that I have more than enough wonders built, for the next round it is time to take out Yaqob once and for all. Here are the current worldmaps at the end of this round:
Looks like Ragnar might have founded another city, and Ethiopia is still trying to expand, but is mostly bottlenecked and stuck with bad city locations.
So for the next round, here are my thoughts:
1. Death to Yaqob.
2. I'm thinking of using Liberalism to nab either Printing Press or Replaceable Parts...my question is how long is it worth waiting or is there a better option. Last thing I'd want is to lose the race to it, and even though it appears we are in the lead, I do worry about the other continent.
3. Speaking of those guys, I need to start searching the seas to figure out just how advance the remaining civs are.
4. I'd also like to try and do the Sports League quest (don't post spoilers I've yet to do that mission and want the end to be a surprise), and to fully paint Albion white.
5. Who knows...at our current tech rates, the last round might be the last. Here's to hoping that we reach the goal!
Finally, the gamesave for this round:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/95430/Good_Queen_Bess_AD-1170.CivBeyondSwordSave
Shortly after Ragnar got all huffy another "old friend" made a demand:
This time I accepted; the diplomancy boost would hold off our coming war for a few more turns, and frankly I wouldn't mind getting back some gold after that expensive map trade with Willem. All in all though, I still think trading maps was a good idea; now I know that the other continent isn't that much of a threat (well, maybe Willem, but at least a total warmonger isn't in control of Danelaw), which lets me focus on my own lands.
Even better, Willem soon converts to Confucianism, so now it looks like I have a decent ally in the making. I think that diplomatically we are doing alright; we know who our enemies are and what their strength is, and we haven't pissed off anyone too strong to handle.
And nicely enough, we do indeed manage to found Taoism a few turns latter:
Time to put that Great Prophet to use. As for the free missionary, I spread Taoism to Coventry to spread our culture a bit further into Celtic land. And even though war is coming, I decide for now to run a few turns of Pacifism to help speed up the next Great Person.
Research wise, it is time to get Machinery (and Maces).
Probably not so good for me, Willem and Ragnar's war isn't going to last much longer; Ragnar too has converted to Confucianism. At least it means that my shrine will get lots of gold, but too bad those two might start getting along.
The Vikings, probably annoyed about us refusing to help them, make yet another demand, this time requesting Polytheism for some Gold. I accept, since I want to save some ca$h for my upcoming campaign against Yaqob, and let us face it, Polytheism is a joke now.
And then we got yet another big research boost:
By this point, London has become a GP powerhouse thanks to all the wonders, so I decide to build the National Epic in London. So far as Nottingham is concerned, with all those rivers I'm thinking Watermills could make it a good troops factory for our Ethiopian campaign. I tried hiring specialists in Nottingham, but even if I starve the city I just can't compete with London when it comes to GP output, so it is time to rethink our use for that city.
With two Shrine cities under our belts and the Financial trait making super cottages, it doesn't take very long to backwards fill in Metal Casting and Machinery. You may realize that I have barely traded techs, and the reason is pretty simple: there just aren't any to trade for. I might start giving away techs like Alphabet just to make the trade pool more viable, but with all these warmongers nearby not sure how advanced I want my neighbors to be.
And then, we were given a task:
Sounds like fun to me! We will have to see if it is do-able though...I will probably hit the modern era fairly soon at this rate.
However, seeing as how I intend to war on Yaqob as is, the Statue of Zeus is not a bad idea, so I get London started on that.
And then, it finally happened:
My sympathies exactly! And what perfect timing too, because now I has a maceman:
I'm also just about finished up with the wonders that I wanted to grab. London finished the National Epic and is about halfway done with the SoZ. Also, though I forgot to mention it, the people of York have been busy as well:
Ah, the wonders of having Stone in your lands.
Thanks to the National Epic, London is producing Great People very quickly. In this screenshot, you can see two of them:
I'm saving the engineer for hurrying Notre Dame, and I'll use the Scientist to bulb Education.
Now so far as the war goes, for a moment it looked as though Ethiopia might take York (I sort of neglected York's defense, as I expected them to hit my border cities first...oops). This monster stack had me very nervous:
Fortunately, two things worked in my favor: I had earlier built an elephant and had some spare Chariots with decent promotions that were sitting in Hastings for barbarian defense. Well, I ran them out to Ethiopia's nearest border town (some new spot they had settled a few turns before in bad tundraland) and took down its lone Archer. In addition to razing one of their cities at the very start of the war - a surefire way to get War Weariness building - I used all the gold I earned selling techs to upgrade a few of my axes to maces. My power graph shot up, and Yaqob quickly went from "refuses to talk" to being willing to declare peace. I did so, since I'm still not quite ready to invade his interior and I didn't want to see some cottages raised (I have very light defense around York, I'm afraid). Also, I've gotten myself tangled up in a lover's quarrel over in Danelaw:
It seems that while I was busy with Yaqob, Willem converted to Christianity and started going at it again with Ragnar. Fortunately this situation is holding back potentially dangerous enemies, and with Liberalism coming up I won't have to suffer from religious penalties to my diplomacy for too much longer. Better still, by giving both sides Elephants they remain evenly matched, and I managed to secure much needed food and iron. And if they ever decide to attack me then, well, they lose their ivory, so it seems like a safe trade to make. Who knows, I know a lot of people probably disagree with giving any sort of strategic advantage to potentially dangerous civilizations, but for now it seems like a good deal to take.
With Engineering now researched, I bulbed Education. Also thanks to my Great Engineer, I completed a few more wonders before ending this round:
Both are great wonders for any scenario, peace or war, so I am quite pleased. Now that I have more than enough wonders built, for the next round it is time to take out Yaqob once and for all. Here are the current worldmaps at the end of this round:
Looks like Ragnar might have founded another city, and Ethiopia is still trying to expand, but is mostly bottlenecked and stuck with bad city locations.
So for the next round, here are my thoughts:
1. Death to Yaqob.
2. I'm thinking of using Liberalism to nab either Printing Press or Replaceable Parts...my question is how long is it worth waiting or is there a better option. Last thing I'd want is to lose the race to it, and even though it appears we are in the lead, I do worry about the other continent.
3. Speaking of those guys, I need to start searching the seas to figure out just how advance the remaining civs are.
4. I'd also like to try and do the Sports League quest (don't post spoilers I've yet to do that mission and want the end to be a surprise), and to fully paint Albion white.
5. Who knows...at our current tech rates, the last round might be the last. Here's to hoping that we reach the goal!
Finally, the gamesave for this round:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/95430/Good_Queen_Bess_AD-1170.CivBeyondSwordSave
Wow .. the tech pace in this game is slow ... no one even has longbows yet and its 840AD?!? I think you need to expand badly.. You only have 5 or 6 cities I think .. On the good side, you're doing good in tech and it's what's keeping you ahead in score. You could get dogpiled by Zara and Brennus..
bioelectricclam
Warlord
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2006
- Messages
- 244
You and I are thinking pretty much the same thing...hopefully once I get Free Religion Brennus will be less likely to attack me, but in the meantime I think it would be wise to take down Yaqob. And yes, I too am shocked at how poorly the AI has teched in this game...my guess is they have just been going to war over and over, or they had bad land (Ethiopia, and possibly Brennus' case), but there's still another continent out there and they might be doing better. Looking at the map from what I can tell the Great Wall wasn't built in Danelaw, so they might have had early barbarian problems.
Your research rate (203 beakers/turn) is quite low for this stage of the game considering you're playing a financial leader and you have cottages .. you have too few cities; since you've got 5 civs on your chain of islands, the other 2 civs may have a lot of space to expand and may be giants (even if behind in tech); considering no one you know is either Buddhist, Hindu, or Jewish, that other continent likely has religion mongers (Saladin, Justinian, Isabella come to mind first); hope no Mansa Musa .. or a crazy religious warmonger like Monty.
