G-Major 14

[ParadigmShifter]

I win on early war declarations! Asoka 725BC. Wasn't watching diplomacy screen closely enough I guess. Just after trading alphabet and other cheap tech while researching code of laws.

You can only gift techs until they race ahead I find.

 

[Lexad]

I could gift techs some time after I stopped research. You seem to be lagging somewhere to me.

 

[Lexad]

Btw, early Inca seems nice even on Quick. You can kill 1 civ and get 2 cities (1 of them is supposed to be at good location) and 2 workers and some cash for the cost of 5-6 quechuas.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Well I can normally give liberalism and nationalism to someone, or offer them a good deal. After that, nothing at all and no-one wants to give me any cash either if I didn't get enough after the liberalism sale.

The 725BC DoW from Asoka took me by surprise so I couldn't do much about it. Things were going OK until then. Cyrus surprised me a bit with his 1435AD DoW but I had flipped one of his cities, there was a rebellion in another, and I was a different religion so I guess I was asking for it, my 3 warriors and a spearman were raring to go against the mech inf and infantry but I quit instead of going out with a bang.

I was reading someone elses strategy, get stone and pyramids, rush buy temples and cathedrals everywhere but I don't think that's likely on quick speed.

I also tried a pangaea map to see if I could get any better resources but I was in a bad spot and got boxed in immediately so I haven't tried that again.

 

[Harbourboy]

I win

For a moment there, I thought you meant that you had won the game!

 

[ParadigmShifter]

LOL Harbourboy, as if!

It's pretty difficult isn't it. I get 3 cities out in so-so locations, get alphabet quickly, then the AIs number of cities means they tech ahead before liberalism. If I need more cities (which I probably do), it's fairly easy to found a couple of new ones once your territory has pushed back the AIs culture but they are just cities to try and grab a new religion and build a monastery, missionaries and a temple.

The AI tends to like the sneaky golden age while researching liberalism, I noticed. Best attempt was beaten by 2 turns. They are always ahead during paper/education and they seem to just trade for philosophy whenever they need it. EDIT: Wars between AIs helps slow them down but I haven't managed to organise one myself at all.

It's pretty bad to be gifted techs like construction in 1200AD.

My main stumbling block to a fast liberalism seems to be getting meditation, mysticism and priesthood so I can research code of laws without doing drama and currency. I seem to be hanging around after I have finished alphabet researching drama waiting to get priesthood and maths in trades before I can start on it. Hmm.. maybe I should just get meditation and mysticism in trades for writing (if I can), then do priesthhod myself (3 turns or so I guess)... trade alphabet for maths and whatever else I can get (bronze working is pretty handy of course). Might try that next.

EDIT: That's wrong looking at the tech tree. You only need drama OR code of laws (+ meditation, required) for philosophy. So for CoL you need maths and currency or priesthood (+ writing, required, but we'll have that anyway). So I could probably get CoL earlier if I didn't go drama, but I'd probably miss out on founding Taoism then (that's not too bad anyway, just a free missionary and a religion no-one else wants that you might have to declare as state religion, all it is is +5 base culture in one of my cities, not great). I'm still stuck what to do waiting to trade for mysticism and meditation. Maybe shave a few turns off drama or something. Any suggestions?

I've hardly used slavery at all which might be worth doing some more of.

 

[de Mott]

Liberalism is lightbulbable if you have the 3 techs I mentioned earlier (calendar, metal casting and compass) EDIT: and NOT machinery, as you rightly said, hope that helps your strat.

Or if you don't even have fishing (and calendar and compass for that reason, btw). That would be a very streamlined liberalism race.

 

[Harbourboy]

It's pretty bad to be gifted techs like construction in 1200AD.

In my last game, Mansa Musa gifted me Iron Working some time in the BC years.....

 

[ParadigmShifter]

18th attempt, Cyrus declared on me 835BC. A new record for me! Mansa and Cyrus hated each other, so I cancelled open borders with Cyrus earlier when Mansa asked (needed open bordrs with Cyrus to move my exploring warrior through Persia to fins other civs), then refused to trade with him thereafter to keep Mansa happy. Was doing some good tech trading with the others in that game too.

de Mott, I've been playing with Liz and she has fishing as a starting tech so no skipping calendar and metal casting for lightbulbing liberalism for me. I'm following the 2 GS strat anyway (philosophy and 1/2 of education). Not that it is doing much good.

The priesthood route to code of laws is showing some promise. Ended up researching most of drama anyway since the AIs seemed slow to tech last game, Roosevelt was being stingy with techs and wouldn't trade meditation for ages.

EDIT: I do like Mansa's line when he gifts you a tech "The Malinese people are feeling very generous today". He never seems to win any of the games I lose either, it's always Asoka the space cadet.

 

[jesusin]

My main stumbling block to a fast liberalism seems to be getting meditation, mysticism and priesthood so I can research code of laws without doing drama and currency. I seem to be hanging around after I have finished alphabet researching drama waiting to get priesthood and maths in trades before I can start on it. Hmm.. maybe I should just get meditation and mysticism in trades for writing (if I can), then do priesthhod myself (3 turns or so I guess)... trade alphabet for maths and whatever else I can get (bronze working is pretty handy of course). Might try that next.... Any suggestions?

Don't research Currency yourself. Same for Drama.
I don't know if it is best, by I stay a couple of turns 0% research after Alpha while trading to Priesthood. A wise guy told me his trick: use this turns to revolt to slavery.

 

[Harbourboy]

How can you avoid researching Currency and Drama? There is usually nothing else to research when those come up.

24th attempt just ended with another Frederick launch in 1715 AD. I'm beginning to lose count of how many games I've played on this now. This is getting silly now.

 

[Harbourboy]

25th attempt just ended with a 400-odd BC invasion by Roosevelt. Sigh.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

1715AD seems very late for an AI launch, most of the time in my games they launch in the 1500s.

I've never researched currency in my games.

Changing to slavery after aphabet and dropping the slider to 0% until you get priesthood and maths seems like a good plan to me.

 

[Harbourboy]

Changing to slavery after aphabet and dropping the slider to 0% until you get priesthood and maths seems like a good plan to me.
__________________

Explain, please?

 

[ParadigmShifter]

See Jesusin's comment above mine...

"Don't research Currency yourself. Same for Drama.
I don't know if it is best, by I stay a couple of turns 0% research after Alpha while trading to Priesthood. A wise guy told me his trick: use this turns to revolt to slavery."

Basically, once I have alphabet I find myself hanging around researching drama (so I can lightbulb philosophy). However, you don't need drama to research code of laws, just writing and maths/currency or priesthood. So it makes sense to raise some cash for the civil service/paper/education stretch by dropping the slider to 0% until I can get maths and priesthood in trades, which is easy to do. You can lightbulb philosophy with code of laws too (EDIT: before finishing research on civil service, that is, but that takes a long time anyway), so you don't need drama at all really until you are ready to raise the culture slider to 100%. EDIT: It's easy to pick up drama as well in a trade when you have got liberalism/been beaten to it (more likely in my case). You do miss out on the free GA from music that way but I've never been able to get that anyway.

That's the gist of it I think anyway. Keep getting DoW'd in the BC years at the moment.


My turn for a question now. Jesusin said he only builds a granary, library and temple in his GP farm [and National Epic, obviously, plus any other stuff that can be slow built such as an aqueduct say]. I don't get why he wants a library there, I normally get a library in the capital and run scientists there to get my 2 GS's. I am wondering if Jesusin doesn't bother running scientists in the capital, just concentrating on cottages and gold and research (how he halts growth though I wouldn't know). So does anyone think it is a better idea to run scientists in the GP farm only? I think a GP farm would take longer to set up than the capital though, and you need to lightbulb philo before getting civil service done do you not?

By the time I have my GP farm going I am normally in caste system anyway so I don't even need a theatre there. I do buid culture buildings there when I have nothing else to build though, obviously.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

21st attempt. Great start, capital had gold, cows, rice and corn. Plus Iron popped up right next it on a plain. 2 flood plains and 2 grasslands for cottaging.

Teched to alphabet really fast, then held research at 0% to get maths, meditation, priesthood in trades.

No-one wanted to trade maths at all. Except Frederick, who was last to get it (and the only one not to have alphabet then). So I traded eventually and had a pile of cash, got meditation same turn too. Next turn bought priesthood from Mansa for 100 (thought that was a bargain), and traded 3 techs to Fred for a cheap one (can't remember what it was now). He was +1 cautious. Then he declared war and was still cautious at -2 ("This war ruins our relationship" - too right Fred). No-one wanted to help me out by declaring on Fred as well.

Aarrrghh!!!!!!

I think the game was lost when no-one wanted to trade maths though (not that anyone "redded it out" they just said they didn't want alphabet for it. I must have had about 20 turns at 0% research.

 

[Harbourboy]

You need a library in your GP farm in order to build National Epic, don't you?

26th attempt just ended with a 1575 AD space launch by good old Frederick. There just isn't enough time before then to do all the things you need to do to win.

 

[Shoot the Moon]

My turn for a question now. Jesusin said he only builds a granary, library and temple in his GP farm [and National Epic, obviously, plus any other stuff that can be slow built such as an aqueduct say]. I don't get why he wants a library there, I normally get a library in the capital and run scientists there to get my 2 GS's. I am wondering if Jesusin doesn't bother running scientists in the capital, just concentrating on cottages and gold and research (how he halts growth though I wouldn't know). So does anyone think it is a better idea to run scientists in the GP farm only? I think a GP farm would take longer to set up than the capital though, and you need to lightbulb philo before getting civil service done do you not?

I can't speak for Jeusin, but I would assume that the reason is that National Epic requires a library.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Doh, of course. I remember one of my games I realised that just as I got literature. Message to self: build a library in the GP farm.

EDIT: Although, I wonder if it is a good strategy to concentrate on hammers and gold in the capital and not bother with early scientists there. (Although of course each scientist is 3.75 beakers with a library so you'd need pretty good commerce at a high science rate to beat that). The 2 GS I am trying for can wait for quite a while to come on line. I just need one before civil service and one anytime during the first half of research of education, at the latest.

 

[FiveAces]

Cyrus waited till 1435 to invade me in my last game.

Sounds like you guys might want try a bit harder to keep him happy. He tends to get a bit ornery when his cities are pressed. Otherwise, I've had pretty good luck with him - he's gifted good tech and offered DP's a few times.