Game Walkthrough : Hannibal - Emperor (attempt 2)

[Alhrath]

Turn 71 [EDIT : replayed for 1 more settler instead of barrack]

Mission accomplished. The GLH and the island city are built. I went Agri -> AH -> Myst -> Writing and I built a barrack and two more axemen in Utica. I also made one more WB for Carthage there.

Now I think it's time for new plans I think I should focus on tech now, I wasn't so good at it until now. Then I'd really like to set up the rice city, to be able to do more tile sharing with Carthage. It's maybe also the time to have a plan to take care of the Chinese. Maybe a going for a Catapult-Axemen rush ?

 

[Izuul]

Why a barracks instead of a granary/settler/axe/etc in 2nd city?

Looks like you are OK on workers atm since you stole 2, but settler or granary would both be superior builds to a barracks. Barracks is a situational building IMO, and this definitely doesn't seem like one of those situations. Since the site lacks food and strong tiles i think this would be a good place to pass on the standard granary build and go for a settler at a small size. You will want them soon when you finish the GLH. Another axe would be good too, don't need promos for them for standard barb duty and such.

 

[Alhrath]

Hum. I guess it's an old reflex that push me to make barracks most of the time before any unit. It was even a time when I was building barrack after worker at the start of the game. Now it's not at this point, but I may have some rests ...

 

[Alhrath]

Turn 71 (Replay)

I played again turns forty-something to 71 to make one more settler and launch a granary instead of the barrack and the two axemen in Utica. So we now have Hippo too, who will be able to help Carthage making it's cothages grow. It already has a granary and is now slowly growing. I will wipe the monument in Kerkuane to get this Crab asap, then go for a LH and a granary.

I also explored more in the north with my axeman. There is probably still room there for two coastal cities (1W of Gem, 1N of Sugar, I guess). Question is, will I be able to claim them before the AI. The thing about that is that it will certainly delay my WBs for both food and

For the tech path, I will need Iron Working for the Rice quite soon. So I'm thinking about going for Alph and start trades with AI asap ...

I think I also need help planing city specialisation and land improvment, in particulary for Utica. I guess I'll need a production city, and wanted initially to put it there with WS. But there is not so much food, and the Dye will provide some commerce too ... I kept forest there for lumbermills later, don't know if it's a good idea. Hippo would be another choice, but will also lack food to work all three mine, and eventually WS/LM east.

 

[Fippy]

Nice progress
There are some confusing things thou, why so many roads and one worker still building one while Utica has no improvement on green river?
When in doubt build farms first even with Fin, never wrong for some growth.

How long does Lizzy offer open borders? Foreign trade routes and she has a Reli, very important.

Carthage could have built a monument, with Fin you would like to work many 3c+ tiles early. Or if granary, whip into monument but slow building with a mine did not really benefit you cos you get none of both fast and also a cottage does not get worked for those hammers.

Similar would be true for Hadrumetum, that Lighthouse will give you more food but a monument for your troubled happy cap would have been better.

Also 1 dry Rice is rarely worth planing around, but Alpha and trading for stuff might still be best. On Imm you could expect other AIs getting Alpha instead thou if it's already turn ~80 when completed.
Production cities are not really needed in most games, your prod can always be whipping.

 

[Alhrath]

Yeah, my workers iddled a long time, passing time building some roads. No farm on green river cause long delay of agri (BW -> TW -> Pottery -> Sailing -> Masonry -> Agri -> AH -> Myst -> Writing). Then I forgot that for some turns that's true. I've seen that just one turn ago, and a worker is on his way.

About Lizzy, I have to say I don't know I should be more attentive to this kind of things I guess. Will propose that right now.

 

[Alhrath]

Turn 81

I played a few turns to Alphabet.

With open border with Catherine, I got Buddism in Utica, which is good for now for the border grow. Wiped a lot in Carthage and Hadrumetum for buildings (all done in both except barrack and walls), and wiped a monument in Kerkouane for Crab. The WB for that is almost done in Utica. I didn't convert yet, cause I have no benefit for now, as long as I don't have the tech for missionaries, and Utica don't need happyness.

Obviously, I should trade for IW asap for Jungle chop. Only Lizzy agree on this, for both Alph and Sailing. Not a so good deal, but I think I need it ... Kubilai is the worst ennemy of Frederick and Elizabeth, so I gess I will prefer not to trade with him and trade with the other two, as they are the most advenced.

For the plan next, I'm thinking of going for settlers and try to claim the land between Lizzy and me. That's three happyness ressources and horses, which will all benefit my glorious empire And two more coastal cities.

 

[nate45]

Ok, I'm way way late to this party, but why does everyone always say to settle in place?

I mean, in this case, it's completely obvious to settle on the forest/plains/hill. the bonus hammer in capitol is huge, it makes your worker come faster, and makes your city better in general. You know there are no important resources to the west because you can see everything. Also, if you don't settle on the hill you won't be able to make a city on that desert square west of the capitol, which would be an awesome city, especially on a financial civ --its got food from the flood plains, hammers from the hills and craptons of commerce from the ocean, and it would be so close to the capitol that maintenance would be very low. yet everyone says to settle in place??

edit: and yeah, you should have attacked the chinese a long time ago,they're totally cutting off your expansion. This is another reason to settle on plainshills, it makes axe/catapult rushes much faster. why are you teching to metal casing and not construction?

 

[lymond]

I initially suggested SoPH as an option with the idea of a helper city to the W, but I'd not say it would be an awesome city..just a helper really. However, SIP is the right move here because the food sharing is far more important than a little helper city in this case.

While getting a city center bonus is nice, it not always best at the expense of a better city and the huge food sharing potential of two cities which provides early game production potential that far outweighs that extra hammer you got early...and SoPH would kill that entirely. (I forget my line of reasoning at the time but for some reason I though initially that there could still be food sharing there)

 

[nate45]

Eh, food sharing is nice, but I think you guys really underestimate the value of the extra hammer in your capitol square.

My suggestion for everyone always saying to settle in place:

Play the same game twice, and only go to 2000 bc.

The first time settle on a plains hill
the second time, settle in place.

You'll notice your empire will be much, much larger on plains hill. It just makes workers/settlers/workboats/stonehenge so much faster.

 

[sampsa]

The real issue on this map is the one pointed out by shakabrade. Although that PH is tempting, SIP is imo probably slightly better.

 

[lymond]

@nate - most here are very very familiar with the value of settling on PHs or other tiles that provide immediate bonuses. Your thinking is not bad at all here. As I said, I suggested it too. However, the value of the food sharing here out weighs it.

edit: Oh..and Stonehenge? I don't think anyone would recommend that here.

edit: Oh...and welcome to CFC

 

[nate45]

All that fish is pointless though if you don't have the hammers to make fishing boats for it all in a reasonable amount of time. multi-Fish starts are really slow without the plains hill extra hammers.

here's how i see it:

If you're boxed in (as is the case, it so happens, in this game), settling on the plains hills will make for a faster axe or chariot rush, so you'd have better luck taking out china (in this case). In this case, who cares about growing your second cities early, you should just focus on shields from about size 2 to get as many axemen or chariots as you can, and then once you've got enough rush units then worry about growing cities.

In the event that he was not boxed in, he could turn his capitol into a huge settler factory for some rapid expansion (since he's financial and he has ocean, this wouldn't kill his economy even if he did it fairly early). Later he could turn the capitol into a huge GP farm.

Also, I agree that it would be nice to be able to share the fish with another city, but i think this is a much lesser concern than the extra hammer and also a lesser concern than the inability to build a city to the west.

and also there is the possibility of acquiring extra resources to the east. Since the west is fully explored and there's nothing there, the unexplored squares to the east have a chance of being an additional useful reseource for your capitol-- which just so happens, in this case, to be cows.

edit: and Hi! Thanks for the welcome. Yeah, i'm new here. I've been playing this game a lot but i haven't really talked to people about it that much, so I seem to use totally different strats than the meta that has developed here... and why don't more people here build stonehenge? I go crazy without it. See my comment in the stonehenge thread for logic behind rushing it...

 

[lymond]

I made an edit above

All you really need is the one WB to start and actually the forested PH is a way to get it fast enough. Straight to BW, whip a worker, and chop any remaining work boats. eXtra hammer becomes pretty irrelevant later for any rushes when you have that much food...and two cities sharing all that food will get out an army much faster than the 1 extra hammer if you know what you are doing.

Again, SoPH city is obviously a beautiful city in theory but that is just way to much food and stuff not be shared by two cities. 1 city can't make use of it for a very very long time, if ever, depending on the game, so that food is just wasted.

(also, some of what you are suggesting is kinda hindsight at this point like "being boxed in" and "the cow"...a decision had to be made at the start without that information and SIP was deemed best...correctly)

 

[Alhrath]

Ok, back to this game

Seems that the SIP/SoPH debate is still going on ^^ I will myself focus on what's here for now. Feel free if you want to shadow play with SoPH to prove your point

Turn 98

I made the trade with Lizzy, IW for Alph and Sailing. It's 312 beakers for 624, but I guess if she is proposing me that, it's because she already has beakers on one of them. I intend to make her a good tech partner for the future, so better make her in a good position.

First I went MC for Colossus, as I have a lot of water tiles I'll use anyway. It's quite quickly obsolete, but will be usefull for a while. Other option would have been math or Aesthetic, but I thought I could trade for Math (AI do it quite early isn't it ?) and I don't have marble for the Aesthetic path wonders. Then I went Currency for additionnal trade route and better commerce, and I'm now going for Math as no AI did it yet.

Mao built the pyramids in Beijing, and Caesar built the Oracle and Stonehedge. On turn 95, Frederick DoWed Mao. Caesar asked me for writing in tribute, which a gave to him.

I was able to claim the land between Lizzy and me with two cities as I wanted. One for the Ivory, Sugar and Horses, the other for the Gem (which will be good with forges). I also made a scout WB that showed me some of Lizzy land.

Now I'm thinking it's maybe time to think about war ... As I don't have Iron, I better do it before middle age, and I don't want the germans to take my precious land and wonder ! Or I could go for Calendar first and get two nice happy ressources.

 

[nate45]

If mao built the pyriamids in beijing, that's really good news for you. You need to build a bunch of catapults and take that city ASAP.

edit: and mao's score is even lower than yours. I don't think he'll be hard to beat if you get catapults. is there someone you can trade with to get math quicker?

 

[nate45]

Turn 45

Well, I went ahead and played it out. Here's my turn 45 for comparison:

And, Yes, I always build stonehenge before 2000 bc. Call me a noob if you want

I didn't actually steal any workers from Mao. I wanted to see what I could do playing it standard without lucky breaks. Maybe this is bad for comparison... I should replay it and steal his worker and see what happens.

You've got an extra settler though, but my capitol is larger, so I ought to be able to whip a settler soon

 

[Fippy]

Well what's your reason behind SH?
You would lose that on Deity easily, not sure about Imm but possible too.

No road cos you delayed wheel for this stuff, later for pottery..nopes i think that's far from good.

 

[nate45]

You would lose that on Deity easily, not sure about Imm but possible too.

Diety, yes. Immortal, i'd still get it. I usually get it sooner than this, actually, but i built a settler first since i wanted to secure the copper.

the reason i build it is cause i usually go full warmonger for the whole game after i get construction, and it drives me crazy building culture in all the cities i conquer. Also, i really like the early great person points in capital.

yes, I'm aware my strategy is different than the way most people play. I want to come up with my own style and see how it compares to the standard playstyles.

>No road cos you delayed wheel for this stuff

I wouldn't have had time to build any roads anyway, since I didn't steal any workers from Mao like OP did. Still playing it, I got pottery soon enough. This game is coming along nicely, actually.

 

[nate45]

Here's my turn 98 for comparison:

beijing is gonna die :

Spoiler :

Note: my econ is only compared to his because i just whipped a bunch of 'pults and i'm now paying -18 in unit/away expenses. I don't really need tech right now, anyhow, since catapults/axe/spear armies are enough to take over the world until at least macemen start appearing. Currency soon + my settled great priest should be enough to keep my cash flow positive while I take over 3-4 people.

...

P.S. I don't want want to come off as if i'm giving lessons since i'm kindof a noob comapred to a lot of people here. I'm just comparing strategies here since i find strategic discussion interesting. You can all explain to me now why this would never work on diety no matter how much i refine this strat.