G-Major 144

[Pangaea]

With those odds, there is a 4.8% chance of losing all three. Bad luck for sure

6 vs 3 is borderline of what I would try, but on flatland and 20% I'd probably try. Two CG1s makes it tougher, definitely, but you had bad luck there. Losing 3 well-promoted guys too, that sucks more than just losing 3 randoms. I'd probably take that battle on myself, as I wouldn't want to face 4 next turn, but maybe use the unpromoted first so the well promoted guys can (hopefully) clean up. But sometimes I let the highly promoted guys attack early as well, when they have winning odds. Lost a Cover-CR3 guy at 86% in the current game. Not fun. But then they get that high by winning fights like 70%, so swings and roundabouts I guess.

I'm not sure how you could even manage to Oracle Civil Service. By the time I can get the Oracle, the economy is tanked, so I need Currency badly. To get CS, I'd have to postpone taking many cities I think, because otherwise I'd never get through Math+CoL in time. By restricting yourself to 5-6 cities, maybe it can be done. It's just that I like to hit AIs while I can with the checkers, and don't want to give them a chance to hook up horse or metal. It's difficult to know for sure too, because it takes time to get Alpha in trade, and until then it's down to tile yield gazing and repeatedly clicking the leaders to see what units and resources they have. Pain in the neck.

Perhaps I tend to overbuild checkers, so that also weighs down the economy, but I prefer to have 8-10 attacking or closely following up instead of a 5-6 units. I do use few if I can get away with it, but if there are already 3 defending archers, it's usually pretty risky to attack with only 6 guys. Usually it should work, at least against unpromoted archers, but then you're likely down to the last guy taking the city, and with a bad roll or two you're stuffed. It's nice to have a few extra guys just in case.

Just to take an upcoming example from my game, I've moved units towards the edge of Elizabeth's land ready to declare. I have 11 guys + medic, with 3 more a turn behind. But that is in T160-ish, not T80, so it's easier to get a decent force.

I've found there is a bigger deviance when attacking hill cities. On flatland you tend to at least injure the archers in the first attacks, even with poor odds, but against hills that is no certainty, with 20-25% chance of no damage to the archer. If you are unlucky and the first 3 guys don't injure anybody, it's going to be costly. Brennus had two hill cities, one 40%, and I lost a lot of guys taking those places.

As for my game, spending so much time on these maps, I get attached to them. It will be difficult to choose which one to continue with, so I may have to play both a bit past T200 just get a clearer impression of which one is in best shape going forward. If the war against Lizzie goes well, I should have 15 cities in this game too. So then it's to a degree down to sheer randomness, in where the GLH and Mids end up. Sure would be nice to locate Mansa though... Rather frustrating to have met 16 of 17 AIs, and the one 'unknown' is flippin' Mansa Musa.

 

[elitetroops]

it's been 2 weeks now and I haven't even gotten one game past T150 and it is always the RNG when I attack a city. I've already severely reduced my expectations but I'm not willing to take games that are below a certain quality and what the RNG does is not funny anymore as this is a 5y long story already.

I think you need to lower your expectations further. Normally it sucks when you run in to that bad luck streak in the early game, but that usually means while taking the first couple of cities. If your "early game" aims at expanding to 20 cities, you will fight so many battles that there will be ups and downs every time. Having some 4.8% event happen over the course of 100 battles is not bad luck, it's bound to happen. It is extremely unlikely that you will ever be able to capture 20 cities without running into some bad RNG rolls. But you should also see about as many good RNG rolls along the way.

While 2:1 or 3-4:1 for hill archers might usually work, it will not work 20/20 times. The amount of checkers you'd need to be fairly safe to win every time is probably too high to be practical, so you will just have to accept that somewhere along the line you will fail an attack and have to make new plans.

To test your chances, you can worldbuilder different scenarios. Give an AI a row of cities with 2 archers each and put a stack of X checkers outside each of them, then you can see how likely you are to win with different amounts of attackers. Remember to use the new random seed on reload option when you set up the game. And you can use Chicken Pizza to simulate the fortification bonus for the archers you add. I tried a setup with unpromoted (= C1) checkers vs unpromoted archers in hill cities with 40% cultural defenses. Stack attack with 8 checkers took the city 5/12 times, the rest failed. 10 checkers took the city 9/12 times. One AI city still had both archers alive and would thus have required at least 12 checkers to take. At the other extreme, one city fell after only 6 attacks. In other words, with that setup 4:1 is quite a gamble and 5:1 still about 25% likely to fail. Promotions will of course change the scenario.

 

[Seraiel]

Thx for those answers.

I knew that it wasn't bad luck in that case, 5% chances was lower than expected though and I know that my overall fightings against the RNG were more than only a little unlucky, it's really a major streak of bad luck that needs to end but knowing the chances for that case still helps me to improve, I'll adapt with waiting for more Checkers once a game gets good enough so that caring makes sense.

Regarding Oracle CS: For Oracle CS it's definitely necessary to slow down the opening significantly. I had 7 cities iirc. at T14x but also had 7-8 golds in all of them. It was a very lucky map with only 1 hills-city and Brennus, my 3rd target had no metals and I prevented him from hooking up Horses. I didn't have AH but saw that he had them with showing the tile-yields.

Thx for testing out the Hills-scenario in the worldbuilder elitetroops, so even 5:1 is still a gamble... I believe that hills-cities on this map are really the biggest problems. When I now see that the AIs I plan to conquer have 3 hills-cities I give up the map.

Btw. : I've found the climax of losing against the RNG. It's not getting one acceptable map over night . The last hours I even tried out 1 Gold starts. I now can definitely write that I was right with my statement that nobody should even try starts that don't have at least 2 golds (or Gems or Silver ofc. ) , in one 1 Gold start I didn't even manage to reach Writing because of going broke . I worked on my expansion speed though and it's better now so I practiced playing WastinTime's approach with more cities but only Oracle Currency. Like that I can at least play maps that only have 2+ golds.

@ Pangaea:

If 6vs3 when 2 Checkers are CR3 is borderline in your opinion, then I now know why you have no choice but oracling Currency. 6vs3 with 2 highly promoted Checkers imo. is a safe win (ofc. it's not but 95% chances are good enough for me to try) . As written also Oracle CS needs a significantly delayed start and an outstanding map. 8-10 Checkers +5-6 followers for 3 Archers is completely over the top imo. , that's more than 3 Checkers / Archer and with the 5-6 follow-ups it'd be 5 Checkers / Archer. According to elitetroop's research that amount is viable for hills-cities (while still not 100% safe) and as I wrote in the beginning I'd only plan with such high numbers if the game is worth it. Maybe after having conquered the 1st civ, maybe after the 2nd. I don't use any recipe usually though so like 3vs1 if or 2vs1 if etc. even if it sounded like that. I usually wait until the moment seems right like you probably do aswell so if possible before the AI can get an extra defender but with as many troops as possible and there are very many things that influence my decisions like i. e. the question if I really need something or I also try to imagine both options so doing something or its alternative and what I learned yesterday is that playing slower is more difficult but the results are completely different than if playing at a reasonable speed imo. . It may be that I'm simply not practiced enough at playing in a certain tempo because it's not my style but the decisions one then makes are so much better and it's all those small things adding up again. A single turn working a wrong tile can mean 1 more defender because 1 Checker gets produced 1T later or not getting a trade or not even noticing that there is a chance like moving 1 Checker with thinking thoroughly, then that Checker discovering a sole enemy Archer on the open-field, getting free Cover and then conquering a city solo which was only possible because he arrived at it one turn later and because of moving another Checker with thought aswell and that luring out one Archer etc. .

A game without Mansa you don't need to play, playing a game without Mansa imo. is like playing a game without Luxuries, it's possible but not worth it for HoF.

 

[Pangaea]

If that many golds is needed in the early cities you acquire, then I'm not sure it's very realistic to try to get CS with Oracle. Also want to kick myself a bit, though, because it might well have been possible in the first map I played seriously, where I self-teched Alpha by T113. Had I done things differently, it could have been done in that game.

On the other hand, is it really the best approach to get such a good tech with the Oracle, but at the cost of restricting yourself to fewer earlier cities? And then (probably) needing to limp to Currency once you start taking cities? I'm not sure. But ofc I haven't tried that approach so not sure what the situation was in the game where you did this.

Given your last line, I felt the need to generate more maps overnight. I like the map and want to see where I am after waging war on Lizzie. But I did get a couple of nice ones.

Spoiler :

I don't like coastal starts... but that is nuts!

This one looks more promising actually, despite less bling-bling. PH-settler, oasis, and wet corn, plus 7FP, the perfect amount.

As for the early warfare, it's more a case of this:

I usually wait until the moment seems right like you probably do aswell so if possible before the AI can get an extra defender but with as many troops as possible

I don't have any specific "rules". I sometimes take chances, like 4 checkers vs 2 flatland archers, but prefer to have at least 2:1 +1. Once they have slavery, you have to expect an extra archer as well. Like you, I also leave cities empty, hoping to draw out archers, and that sometimes works a charm, while at other times none leave the city. It's not an exact science really, you just go with the flow and try to do what is best in the specific situation.

For one of the Brennus hill cities for instance, there were just two archers so I took a chance and attacked with 5-6 checkers or whatever it was. Didn't take the city, but he didn't whip an archer for some reason and reinforcements plus promotion healing the survivors and I could take it next turn. May have taken it with the medic actually, so down to the last legs. There have even been times, desperate times, where I've taken on 70% fights with the medic, because it was a "do or die" case. If it works, fine, I can continue. If it doesn't, it's game over. So I'm not as conservative, always, as my post above perhaps gave the impression of.

For the later wars, like the one I mentioned about Lizzie, the goal isn't just to take that one city fast, but to roll over her. With 10+ checkers ready, I can take the first city in T1, and then move the non-combattants towards the next one without needing to heal. Should mean a little faster conquest, unless the RNG funks me.

 

[Pangaea]

Am I the only one who thinks the Quechuas are really rude? Click on them and:

"I 'ate you"

"Ya bunch'a kypee" << Not sure what that means, but it sounds rude

 

[Folket]

I would seriously play the 5 gold start. But then I'm used to play the first start I get.

 

[Pangaea]

I would seriously play the 5 gold start. But then I'm used to play the first start I get.

It certainly looks good, I'll grant you that Farm one FP and you can work 2 golds. Bit tricky to get to work all those golds, though, unless you farm a fair few FPs. However, one of the reasons why I don't like coastal starts is due to higher maintenance. Your capital will be on the edge of the world, and therefore cities you capture and settle will on average be farther away than if you have the capital inland. I should probably try it out though, just to see how it goes.

But not today. Headache out of this world after too much yesterday. Why must the day after be so brutal?

 

[Seraiel]

But not today. Headache out of this world after too much yesterday. Why must the day after be so brutal?

Don't worry, for me the day before can also be brutal and the worst day sometimes the day itself. Don't worry though, there are good days aswell, i. e. when WastinTime wins 2 milleniums earlier, when Kaitzilla posts the start he's playing or when I try to help somebody, the whole post gets good and then I need to give that player one information and either it's wrong, then Pollina finds it or when a new player asks a question, I know the answer and the need 1h to write the whole post because I'm not able to find the right formulation in the end.

No, life is good, there are days that aren't extraordinarily bad .

-------------

Here are some screens of the game I played today just in case that somebody is interested:

Got a quite good start with 2 Golds, 7 FPs and Pigs and later Iron popped up so the start was a little slower but it's potential ofc. is very high:



I first didn't really know what to make out of the map because it had only 3 Golds but an advantage on that map was the AIs having only few hills-cities and the land is generally really good. I had difficulties of focussing in that game so things got "a little" chaotically... I DoWed Lincoln to steal a Worker and I DoWed Frederick aswell to steal another. I then slow built Checkers and decided to conquer Lincolns capital first because it has a Gold in its inner BFC. When I had 5 Checkers at the city and wanted to attack it was defende by 4 Archers and even threatening another city didn't lure any Archer out of it so I needed to wait until I had 7 Checkers and then attacked. I believe I had 4 losses so ok. I needed a little time to conquer his 2nd city aswell and Lincoln deleted one of his Workers so I was only able to capture 2 Workers from him... I then sent forces to Frederick and his cities were also heavily defended with 4 Archers and no possibility to lure any Archers out so I again needed to wait for 7-8 Checkers, attacked and won. I had no chance to capture a Worker that I'm a aware of and Frederick founded his 3rd city on a hill in the wrong place and it was defended by 5 of his remaining Archers... I actually still haven't conquered it because it's simply not worth it and I didn't care about being at war and DoWed Darius with 5 Checkers and again got 1 city from him...

Then Darius and Frederick got superearly Alpha and bribed 6 civs against me .

My initial thought was "whatever, those civs will make peace with me in 10T, it'll be np" and this was also what happened. I farmed some Scouts, some Archers and my army grew steadily and became heavily promoted. I had about 20 Checkers all scattered out on the map because the remaining cities all were hills-cities and there was no chance to go against 4 defending Archers but like that I found out that Asoka who got bribed on me also had no strategics... So I didn't conduct peace but stayed at war with him, left a minimal number of defensive forces to defend against Darius and Frederick and began conquering Asoka's cities. I captured the holy city of Buddhism and another city then came the attack against his capital which was also on a hill. It was 10 Checkers of which 3 were lvl 4 and 3 were lvl 3 and I won .
In between I oracled Currency and fast-teched towards Construction because I found that Pericles has nice land and I hope that he'll build the Pyramids for me with his very high wonder-build-rating so I traded Masonry to him and because being at war with again 2 civs while planning a war against a 3rd I also found that Hatty and Washington need to be punished because they have the wrong religion...

So planning a war against 4-5 civs simultaniously, I'm basically playing conquest-style atm. .

A good thing again was / is that I can own the whole territory that's in the north of the map. My empire is slightly stretched out though... .



Maintenance was so high in between that I barely was able to get Priesthood. I'm still running a major deficit and should WastinTime seriously have had 700BPT maximum possible in T200 then I'm very very very far behind. When comparing the game towards the one in which I oracled CS I also don't think that I'll play this game a lot further because I don't know if I can accept not even having CoL 30T later but a very good thing about the map again is that 10+ civs are Hindu but not sure if getting many to friendly is possible with all the wars that I plan and the other civs for some reason are not really researching that fast though they should:



I'm still holding back a few techs in case someone gets but Mansa going Calendar and Aesthetics afterwards and Gandhi beelining Monarchy again were good.

Some screens that show the edges of my empire again:

East:



Asoka's territory that I conquered behind the lines because I want Darius to develop those Jungle-cities for me before I conquer them, he has no chance to get strategics:



And west so Fredericks misplaced cities and the northern part of Pericles empire:



I'll found another city in 1T so 12 cities at T184, 170 BPT and from 37 Checkers that I built I still have 17. For sure not as good as my Oracle Civil Service game but after 2 weeks of rolling maps I needed to play one map further. It's somehow the same story that I often had already, first game I play is the best and then I make a mistake I can't live with (like i. e. losing 8 Checkers against one city) and then decide that I can improve and get better... After that it gets worse and worse. With the Gauntlet lasting at least 6 months though I have high hopes that I get a severely better round.

 

[Pangaea]

Very nice to get capital iron. Great tile to work and it's good to know you have metal. I've found that one of the downsides to quechua rushing is that, due to the nature of your wanted targets, you may find yourself with 10-12 cities and not have iron or copper. Looks like a good start as well, though I can imagine those far-flung cities cost quite a bit. Nasty when the world declares war on you, especially if some of those had metal units, but it seems to be under control now, thankfully.

Since Seraiel thinks it's pointless to continue the map where Mansa was missing, and he's probably right about that to be fair, I've tried several others today. Played sloppily and wasn't lucky with the surroundings / hill cities. So now I'm trying the map I posted earlier, with PH settler, wet corn and double gold. Unfortunately Asoka's holy city is on a hill, but it's too early to tell yet whether I want to kill him off early. 40% hill cities are brutal, though.

So far it's gone well, and Lincoln is dead T63. He had a capital gold, so now I have 3 Fishing one turn from done, but I'll finish Pottery first. Not found all AIs yet, which is a concern, as I think it's better to have all on one continent, but Mansa is present.

Spoiler :

Lincoln was building a settler or worker, so I waited a few turns hoping I'd get an extra worker, but it turned out he was doing a settler instead. Still, got 2 workers out of the deal, so that's nice. And lots of tiles are improved: two seafood, gold, sheep, and two farmed FPs.

Stone will be available in Atlanta with a border pop, and maybe I can finally self-build that darn GLH

Thankfully my head hurts a bit less now

 

[WastinTime]

Why wouldn't you finish fishing and get a 20% bonus on your beakers for pottery?

 

[Pangaea]

Interesting spot for the HE, Seraiel. Did you want to have it coastal?

When you got early Monarchy, did you revolt to HR? Or will you wait and double-change to HR+Buro?

 

[Pangaea]

Why wouldn't you finish fishing and get a 20% bonus on your beakers for pottery?

Oh darn, that's a good point. Bit of a brainfart there I'll finish fishing first instead. Should have thought about that myself, would have saved a few beakers.

 

[WastinTime]

I've moved on to Oxford. I wasn't going to worry so much about rushing it...or the 8 universities. Focus on other builds. But when Edu came in, I figured I had the spare cities to put out the uni's, and then 1-turn Oxford.

 

[Pangaea]

Must be going well then. Did you manage it by 1200BC this time?

-----------------------

I've played a few hours as well, and things are going well. As usual the economy is a bit shot. When I can kill stuff, and it's just there, it's hard to hold back So now Lincoln, Roosevelt and Pericles are dead, and I have 10 cities in 2330BC / T117. Have 16 Quechuas left alive, though some are on MP duty in the bigger cities. Have whipped a few Terraces, but sadly Athens shrunk to 3 before I could 2-pop it. If only I had got his last city (hill) 1 turn before. A little light on workers (6), so may need to whip a few. Asoka still won't open borders after an early worker steal, which is a bit frustrating because I hoped he would spam missionaries. No religion yet.

Very nice to have real food this time, so the capital can slowly grow while working two golds.

Spoiler :

Should probably focus on getting to Currency first, but I'm also pondering about the next victim. Willem has copper, and is building a fort on it, but I have a guy there and can stop him. However, he is the only civ with Alpha, so nasty stuff could happen, and almost certainly would. Since Asoka is close and has chariots, it could be dangerous.

Spoiler :

Darius is probably a better target, although Willem is very tempting because he has several villages already (but his capital is on a hill). Darius doesn't have a real military either, but will get horse in the not too distant future. One hill city, but the two main cities are on flatland.

Spoiler :

Maybe this is the one?

 

[Seraiel]

I'd try to conquer both, Darius and Willem but I'd not push the conquest too much because both are far away. If you prevent them from getting strategical resources you can easily outproduce them from the cities you have. Everytime they build a few Archers and send them towards you you farm them open-field until you have 10+ Checkers in place and then you give them the rest. Just make sure to choke them properly so they don't chop those Forests ^^ . It could be advantegous to let Willem live though because he'll expand towards the Jungle and if he improves that land it'll get an even more valuable target later. I believe the balance counts there so focus on the economy and don't prioritize Checker-building too much, as long as Willem or Darius have only Archers conquering them with Checkers is well possible, make sure that you're ready before they get Longbows. Letting Willem live also has the possible advantage that he could build the GLH as he has many Forests to chop it and his capital is very strong in general, Willem also makes a great trade-partner so he might be very valuable alive but yes, his land is very tempting ^^ .

When I saw the map overview I thought that that looks excellent. I then discovered that there a quite a few quite large deserts but I think you can settle around them. Frederick and Asoka will make good later targets. Frederick has high chances to build the Pyramids or also the GLH from my experience and Asoka could maybe go Missionary strategy so he is likely to invest his resources into a Religion that you will profit from once he builds a shrine for you, that then should be the time at which you conquer him so pay attention to which GPs he gets and when. Prepare a GP yourself no matter what, worst case is that you'll have one for the 4-GP-GA and it's easy with Oracle + a Temple. I hope you get Buddhism somehow, maybe send 1-2 Checkers exploring, Scouts if you don't have the resources pre-Alpha/Hunting so you have the chance for Buddhism to auto-spread via Sailing. Make sure to explore the coast of the map, it'll take quite some time 'til overland road-connections will be available.
You didn't turn on resource bubbles so I can't see but if there are any spots you can settle that have a gold or that are just extremely awesome do so aswell but ofc. expanding via Checkers is a lot cheaper so be fierce and only claim the best spots.

Darius btw. built Moai with 3 cities and no Stone .

One thing: When you have the chance to DoW Darius or Willem with stealing 2-3 Workers take it, the Workers are more valuable than anything in these Incan-games because Incans are so strong that whipping is only needed very little so cities grow faster and one can easily need 1+ Worker to improve them in time. Then there are great distances to cover so long Roads are helpful aswell. If you i. e. have the Workerturns to build a Road towards a neighbouring AI you might get foreign TRs without Sailing and the Roads will need to be built at some point anyhow so what I want to write is "send 3 Checkers and surround Darius + Willems empire and when you have the chance to steal 2-3 Workers with them take it, then both AIs will build new ones giving you a long time in which their troops will not increase by much" and during that time you can build your Forces and then you take their cities and again get a few Workers, chop those Forests into Settlers while your main-cities build Elepults to conquer Frederick and Asoka.

From my perspective that's the best game you had 'til now, now don't lose focus on Oracle and try to build it as early as possible. I hope Asoka won't build it, he has a high tendency for it but I don't think there's anything you could do with him having Chariots. You could check his builds via Espionage often and if you only lack very few turns and he's too fast DoWing him could be a choice but better keep on praying, believing or whatever helps you that he just doesn't go for it and try to be fast yourself . Good luck towards you regarding this and the future of the game and all the best. Consider carefully what I wrote about how and when I'd conquest Willem and Darius, so wait for the right moment to declare but when you are at war then you don't need to push from that point directly, you'll have enough time and every city they settle, every Worker they build is for you. Once you're at war you can easily prevent them from claiming strategics by blocking those spots with Checkers and frightening any Settler that would try ^^ . Try to get as much from them as you can, you having less cities early is also an advantage economy wise, your biggest aim should be to get Oracle asap imo. . I hope you already have Maths or find a way, I assume that you don't because it's still only T117 but that means that you have about 43 turns until chances start to decrease harsh. Don't play too slow, Oracle earlier than T150 is possible, picking CoL or Monarchy with it is not worth it though imo.
You imo. shouldn't research Polytheism, there are often chances to trade for Meditation, if you have Maths ofc. then it's ok but it's the order that matters there, getting Maths is more unlikely and gives you great chops so it's more important, Polytheism is maybe not necessary at all and gives you nothing. I hope that this "mistake" (assumption) won't screw you.

 

[WastinTime]

When you have the chance to DoW Darius or Willem with stealing 2-3 Workers take it, the Workers are more valuable than anything

strongly agree. Once calendar comes, you need a lot of workers. I was very short on workers about 30 turns ago. Probably around 15 workers. I made an effort to completely scout an AI and locate/trap workers before DoW. Example: Pericles...

Located all 4 of his workers.
He builds Mids and I DoW that same turn and get 4 workers.
Next turn, I own Mids
I take another city and cease fire.

~30 turns later, I take his 5 new workers with just 2 units.
One of his cities which I could have taken last war at size 1, I now own at size 4 with a free courthouse (granary was lost)

^^ kinda makes me think more cities should be left for the AI to prepare. This city was nice because it was all FPs, so I wasn't losing any forests. It was also not on a hill, and Peri had no strategics. You've probably got over 100 turns before borders go to 40%. Captured on DoW+0 means he can't even whip it down.

...got a little OT there. Back to the topic of workers, I have ~35 now.

 

[Seraiel]

You had great luck that you had Pericles as an opponent there because he's neutral and AIs not necessarily love him so stealing Workers from him without diplo-hits is possible. This may even make taking neutral AIs as opponents justifyable so Joao and the like may be good choice aswell.

I got some interesting starts tonight, many 2 gold-starts and one even with a Plains-Hill and the food seems good aswell so Wet Corn, Pigs or wet Wheat.

 

[WastinTime]

Must be going well then. Did you manage it by 1200BC this time?

In spite of the larger tech costs on Huge and the fact that I did NOT bulb Edu this time, my re-engineered playstyle did set a new (all time?) Oxford record.

In preparing for this gauntlet, I had an epiphany. It's the perfect word to describe it.

Definition of Epiphany:

Spoiler :

An experience of sudden and striking realization. which allows a problem or situation to be understood from a new and deeper perspective. Epiphanies generally follow a process of significant thought about a problem. Often they are triggered by a new and key piece of information, but importantly, a depth of prior knowledge is required to allow the leap of understanding

It forever changed the way I will play on all map sizes and game speeds. I believe I can follow up this game with a BC spaceship launch (win the game 290 AD) by pushing my strategy to the extreme.

Ya'all will have to wait til after the gauntlet and maybe after my space game for full details.

 

[Pangaea]

Thanks for the comments, Seraiel. Very useful as always. Before hitting the hay yesterday, I played a bit further. Turns out Willem has iron too, so I can't really prevent him for getting metal. So I've moved checkers towards Darius instead, while mostly focusing on infra in the cities. Some of them are highly promoted so I hope it should be fine, but due to the lay of the land, I need three turns to reach his capital. Darn coast. But as you wrote, maybe taking out Willem later will be better anyway, once he gets a few more cities and chops some jungle. He has very nice land, though, so it would be good to get it early, but think that boat has sailed.

I'd try to conquer both, Darius and Willem but I'd not push the conquest too much because both are far away. If you prevent them from getting strategical resources you can easily outproduce them from the cities you have. Everytime they build a few Archers and send them towards you you farm them open-field until you have 10+ Checkers in place and then you give them the rest. Just make sure to choke them properly so they don't chop those Forests ^^ . It could be advantegous to let Willem live though because he'll expand towards the Jungle and if he improves that land it'll get an even more valuable target later. I believe the balance counts there so focus on the economy and don't prioritize Checker-building too much, as long as Willem or Darius have only Archers conquering them with Checkers is well possible, make sure that you're ready before they get Longbows. Letting Willem live also has the possible advantage that he could build the GLH as he has many Forests to chop it and his capital is very strong in general, Willem also makes a great trade-partner so he might be very valuable alive but yes, his land is very tempting ^^ .

Willem:

Spoiler :

Iron isn't improved yet, but I think it's futile to stop him.

When I saw the map overview I thought that that looks excellent. I then discovered that there a quite a few quite large deserts but I think you can settle around them. Frederick and Asoka will make good later targets. Frederick has high chances to build the Pyramids or also the GLH from my experience and Asoka could maybe go Missionary strategy so he is likely to invest his resources into a Religion that you will profit from once he builds a shrine for you, that then should be the time at which you conquer him so pay attention to which GPs he gets and when. Prepare a GP yourself no matter what, worst case is that you'll have one for the 4-GP-GA and it's easy with Oracle + a Temple. I hope you get Buddhism somehow, maybe send 1-2 Checkers exploring, Scouts if you don't have the resources pre-Alpha/Hunting so you have the chance for Buddhism to auto-spread via Sailing. Make sure to explore the coast of the map, it'll take quite some time 'til overland road-connections will be available.

A little shame about the big deserty areas, but it's just how it is on these Arid maps. Loads of desert, but also FPs. There are some resources though, even some food, so maybe it can be backfilled. Not high priority, naturally. Good point about the GProphet, and I'll try to get out one with the Oracle+Temple. But I want to try to get an early GE, because I assume we need Mining Inc. Self-building Mids is probably too expensive, but I want HG+engineer specialists at least, maybe to get the GE as the 2nd great person, if I can get MC in time (Mansa is doing Calendar now). Asoka still won't open borders, but Brennus has Buddhism as appear to be spamming missionaries. He spent one on me, and it auto spread to another city. Not sure if there is any to this, but I've not converted yet, as I hope he will send more missionaries my way if I haven't picked Buddhism yet. Don't have Sailing yet, but next turn a worker is done roading to Mansa, so then I'll get a few foreign trade routes. Mansa is boosted by gold btw, and can easily expand, so I think he could become pretty strong here

Spoiler :

You didn't turn on resource bubbles so I can't see but if there are any spots you can settle that have a gold or that are just extremely awesome do so aswell but ofc. expanding via Checkers is a lot cheaper so be fierce and only claim the best spots.

Darius btw. built Moai with 3 cities and no Stone .

The AIs sure do like building Moai very early if they are coastal. It's nuts, but fine by me. Better he builds useless crap than defenders

Didn't turn on the resource bubbles on the overview map since it becomes so cluttered, but below are a few pics of the land. Lucky to have both horse (capital) and iron (Washington), and once I can spare the workerturns, will have both stone and marble too.

Spoiler :

North-East

North:

South:

Desert:

As mentioned Brennus has the Buddhist holy city, but also axes, so I can't take him out early. He's powered by double gold as well, so that's a sweet spot. Frederick got Stonehenge, so no chance for a super early shrine, but hopefully the game goes well and I can take out Brennus later. Most of his cities are non-hill.

Spoiler :

Asoka has a gold too, plus iron

Spoiler :

One thing: When you have the chance to DoW Darius or Willem with stealing 2-3 Workers take it, the Workers are more valuable than anything in these Incan-games because Incans are so strong that whipping is only needed very little so cities grow faster and one can easily need 1+ Worker to improve them in time. Then there are great distances to cover so long Roads are helpful aswell. If you i. e. have the Workerturns to build a Road towards a neighbouring AI you might get foreign TRs without Sailing and the Roads will need to be built at some point anyhow so what I want to write is "send 3 Checkers and surround Darius + Willems empire and when you have the chance to steal 2-3 Workers with them take it, then both AIs will build new ones giving you a long time in which their troops will not increase by much" and during that time you can build your Forces and then you take their cities and again get a few Workers, chop those Forests into Settlers while your main-cities build Elepults to conquer Frederick and Asoka.

A little unlucky with where the workers are, but since I have 8-9 checkers in place now, I'm thinking about declaring on Darius. Some are highly promoted so I hope it will be fine. His capital is just 20% for now, but since he has a religion there I don't know when it will get 40% culture.

Spoiler :

From my perspective that's the best game you had 'til now, now don't lose focus on Oracle and try to build it as early as possible. I hope Asoka won't build it, he has a high tendency for it but I don't think there's anything you could do with him having Chariots. You could check his builds via Espionage often and if you only lack very few turns and he's too fast DoWing him could be a choice but better keep on praying, believing or whatever helps you that he just doesn't go for it and try to be fast yourself . Good luck towards you regarding this and the future of the game and all the best. Consider carefully what I wrote about how and when I'd conquest Willem and Darius, so wait for the right moment to declare but when you are at war then you don't need to push from that point directly, you'll have enough time and every city they settle, every Worker they build is for you. Once you're at war you can easily prevent them from claiming strategics by blocking those spots with Checkers and frightening any Settler that would try ^^ . Try to get as much from them as you can, you having less cities early is also an advantage economy wise, your biggest aim should be to get Oracle asap imo. . I hope you already have Maths or find a way, I assume that you don't because it's still only T117 but that means that you have about 43 turns until chances start to decrease harsh. Don't play too slow, Oracle earlier than T150 is possible, picking CoL or Monarchy with it is not worth it though imo.

Totally agree this is the best attempt so far, so here's hoping I don't mess it up. Haven't had 10 cities so early before. Usually more like 50 turns later. Already have Math btw, I did it right after Writing. Willem got super early Alpha, T110 or so, and I traded Math to him for BW+AH. Soon after Alpha started on Math he traded for it, and I think he started straight on Math, because I needed Fishing on top of Math to get IW from him. Struggling to get gold for Priesthood, but if I declare on Darius and it goes well, maybe conquest gold will be enough. Or I can chop+whip a checker (thanks again WT for reminding me about that trick from GM 137). I'm working towards the Oracle now, because it would be disastrous to lose it. Haven't found Hatty yet, and she can go for it early too, but not this early I think. By clicking on techs and checking the demographics screen, I believe nobody have Priesthood yet, so Oracle should be safe for some time.

You imo. shouldn't research Polytheism, there are often chances to trade for Meditation, if you have Maths ofc. then it's ok but it's the order that matters there, getting Maths is more unlikely and gives you great chops so it's more important, Polytheism is maybe not necessary at all and gives you nothing. I hope that this "mistake" (assumption) won't screw you.

Don't necessarily agree Poly was a mistake. I find it's easier to get Mono by going that route to Priesthood. Meditation is easier to trade for, but Poly can be tricky. But as I don't have Alpha yet, I wouldn't be able to trade for any of them anyway. I hoped to get Masonry for Poly with Mansa, but he wouldn't take it

Since I have a few coastal cities, especially if I manage to take out Darius too, I'm thinking about self-building the GLH. If Hatty is truly isolated and builds it, that would be very bad. Frederick may do it too, so I've sent the Willem checker over to inspect his cities. Only Stonehenge has gone so far.

Only Mansa and Willem have Alpha so far, and since I can't get it from them, I hope somebody else gets it soon too, and I can get it with for instance Math+IW.

Wow, that got a bit longer than expected, but at least it will give people an idea about where my game is at right now

 

[WastinTime]

You had great luck that you had Pericles as an opponent there because he's neutral and AIs not necessarily love him so stealing Workers from him without diplo-hits is possible.

no such luck in my game. Most AI are/were Hindu. I've racked -13 "declared on friend" with just Mansa! Soon I may be his worst enemy which will end the tech trading. I'll probably have to flip him to my religion.