Giant Earth Map 2.5 - David

[civvver]

I couldn't stay way. My last game as Joao of Brazil was so much fun, I couldn't wait to begin the next one.

This is 2.5 because I played just far enough to guarantee a win with Napoleon in my first game (conquered all of Europe before 1AD), and finished a bit of a nail biter with Joao as my second (won space after nuking Gandhi's culture). This game I'm playing as David and I'm upping the difficulty to Emperor.

Here's the settings and the start.

Spoiler :

So let's discuss opening strategies. First off I picked Ancient resources. Modern is the same map as far as I can tell with extra resources added, like horses in the Americas and corn in Europe. But instead of replacing existing resources Modern just has more. I decided to go with Ancient to make the game hopefully a bit slower, slow the AI down a bit.

As far as opening moves, I know there's three huts north of me, so I'll be scouting for those (map spoilers are fine, this is a scenario so secrets are out). Beyond that, I have three possible warrior rush targets- Hatsheput, Hammurabi and Saladin. All three of them have the potential to make my life miserable!

Hatsheput counters my vultures with her UU war chariots. And trust me, she will spam them. Same with Hammurabi and his UU bowmen. The AI loves to spam archers anyway. I can take on bowmen with the vulture because of the base 6 strength and Hammurabi is on flat land, but I'll need extra numbers and it will take longer. Saladin is just plain protective and has some hills. Very obnoxious. I would like to axe rush all three (it is possible given the game speed and mod), but realistically this may be too hard if I have to go up against protective archers and bowmen. So warrior rushing one of these three is probably my best shot.

Also if I wait too long to expand into Turkey Stephen and/or Pericles will settle it which I don't want. There's gold, marble, stone there, very valuable stuff. It will be tough to balance the war and expansion just right.

As far as the tech situation, Israel (Sumeria) starts out with awesome techs, agriculture and the wheel. I'll need fishing soon to utilize my land, and the seas are great tiles in general on this map. I also want to get ziggurats online once the warring is done. Religious techs are something I usually shy away from early though, but at least they are pretty cheap.

First things first though I'm going mining -> bronze working to get my rush on.

 

[Bigv32]

I would leave saladin alone till axes. Egypt is closest if I remember the map correctly. Babalyon is a buffer between you can persia. I would say rush Egypt as that would open up more room to expand than the other two. Granted I believe most of that room is great for commerce, so production could be lacking.

I would settle one city to the north and then rush Egypt. Turn your first two cities into production centers while you make the nile a nice cottage town. Depending on how well the rush goes, you could possibly get a settler into turkey before the europeans. However, I think that would depend on whether or not the AI gets multiple settlers on this map. On earth 18, I don't think they do, but I am not sure about this map.

One idea. Settle Cyphrus (the island near you and turkey). and then build the Maioa Statues. In my experience that becomes a powerful city to build a navy while fighting the Europeans/Carthage.

 

[civvver]

Egypt starts inland, but you're right they are closer. You make good points about their land. Cottages will work great there, but the production is poor until watermills. Jerusalem however has awesome production with three plains hills and a copper nearby, and enough food to work them all early. So it will balance out. The turkey cities have nice production too.

On this scenario Persia is led by Cyrus. Is he very aggressive? I've not encountered him much, just thought he was balanced. I know Hammurabi is an empire builder and not super aggressive, but I still don't take him lightly.

As far as Cyprus, it's not a bad idea, but the water tiles overlap with Jerusalem and the city spot I have picked out north of there. There are a couple other Mediterranean islands that might work out better.

 

[vranasm]

what's the tile 1N of your settler position? is it dye? I would settle on it if it is.

 

[strijder20]

what's the tile 1N of your settler position? is it dye? I would settle on it if it is.

It's dye.
Don't rush Saladin - he usually isn't a huge nuisance, contrary to the other two.

 

[civvver]

what's the tile 1N of your settler position? is it dye? I would settle on it if it is.

It is but it's also a flood plain (flood plains are all over grassland in this mod/map) and there's a hidden copper in the desert hills south. So settling in place is best. I maybe should turn the tile yields on for those who aren't familiar with the map.

Regarding Saladin, I played the first round last night.

Spoiler :

I was going to leave him alone but all it took was four warriors to take him out So a little spoiler, he's dead.

I'll have a post up soon.

 

[Bigv32]

Nice lol. Anyway on this map I have found that cyrus is usually boxed in pretty good, so as long as there is one civ between you and him, you should be fine.

One question. Does anyone know how aggressive Ethiopia is on this map? It has been awhile so I haven't fought them here. They could be a problem if you go into africa.

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

Ethiopia is typically a powerhouse on this map.

I say, go for Europe and take out Hungary first.
They're typically strong techers and you don't want them settling Anatolia, which should
be YOUR land. From there, pick off the Euro countries one by one. It's great land and insulated from barbs.

 

[civvver]

Ethiopia depends. Zara is a huge rexxer but if Shaka goes nuts he will annihilate him. I've seen games where Zara owns all of middle africa, games where he is completely eliminated by 1AD and others where he sticks around but vassals to Shaka. It seems Shaka would also be inclined to attack Mali, due to Mansa's personality but this is not usually my experience on this map. For some reason he always lets Mansa be, maybe it's the distance, and the fact that he dislikes Zara and Hattie/Ramses just as much and they are closer. Having Zara as a buffer between me and Shaka is actually a good thing imo. He's the biggest warmonger on this map, with land/production and the inclination. Genghis too is aggressive but has crappy land.

I don't have plans to go further south into Africa than Egypt. The land there is all jungles and rivers, which is great once you develop it but there is better land north and east.

 

[Bigv32]

Ethiopia is typically a powerhouse on this map.

I say, go for Europe and take out Hungary first.
They're typically strong techers and you don't want them settling Anatolia, which should
be YOUR land. From there, pick off the Euro countries one by one. It's great land and insulated from barbs.

While that it will become necessary to hit Europe, right now I think it is to risky. Europe is a longer ways away on this map. The diplomacy impacts this early in the game could hurt in the long run. I don't think it is early enough for Europe to all hate each other or for some wars to have happened. Even if Europe becomes one large Religion love fest, there will still be a war and that will reck their diplo relations. I would say take out babalyon and cyrus now (after Egypt if you have not done so yet). Get scouting info on Europe and then hit it once you have pults or a sufficient army.

I have found that on larger maps and higher difficulties that long term diplomacy is a necessity.

I would also like to note that unless you plan on moving the palace (a long time to build), that taking out the middle east would be cheaper and more productive than Europe.

@civvver What is the religion situation in the world right now?

 

[civvver]

Opening Round - The way of the warrior (literally)

I actually played this a couple nights ago, so while the forum advice did not go totally unheeded, some of it came in after the fact. All good points though.

First things first, I sent my warrior scouting north for huts. It may be a little unfair I know the location of them having played this map before, but such is life. And this is emperor so I don't feel all that bad really. Got lucky and managed to get three huts before Cyrus or Hammurabi could find them.

Spoiler :

Gold is nice, though all these were rather meager huts, combined I have a nice treasury. It came in handy too because:

Spoiler :

10g for 30 hammers later is worth it imo. I met some peeps and decided on a rush target.

Spoiler :

I think 4 warriors vs his 1 will be enough. I also picked a worker off.

Spoiler :

I actually could've done this with just 2. My first warrior got super lucky and took him down to 0.6 hp. Now that's what I call the way of the warrior! Now I have two desert capitals

Next I frantically researched bronze working for a push into Egypt or Babylon. Two religions were founded and I chose them to be Islam and Christianity (you get to pick the religions as the player with this mod). Kind of thought it would be fun to have a huge world war between those two... maybe that's insensitive lol. As it so happens I found the founder of Islam nearby. So I settled Hevron to block him from further entry into the Middle East.

Spoiler :

My army was soon built/whipped. I chose Egypt because they were still using puny warriors while Babylon had done the smart thing and tech'd archery. Actually because a Vulture can attack a warrior like 5 times in a row before healing I began my invasion with just two backed up by 4 warriors. Why waste time when I have overwhelming numbers?

Spoiler :

A few warriors died charging across the Nile but that is ok by me. Less maintenance. Here is where I reached a crossroads in my planning, a good save point (although I have played the next round too and will post it right after, but first a moment of reflection). Also I should mention I captured a lot of workers from Egypt.

So I am basically setup very nicely in just a few short turns. I have the Nile basin with it's commerce potential and the production of the turkey area. Should I settle a few more cities peacefully or go right for the throat of Hammurabi? Should I expand further south to prevent Zara from obtaining a stranglehold on africa, or maybe try to squeeze Russia and Poland out of the land north of the black sea?

 

[civvver]

Round 2 - One Big Happy Family

You'll get the title by the end of this round. This one is a bit longer.

Summary:

Spoiler :

Eliminated Babylon, didn't expand beyond that but filled in for a total of 15 cities in the middle east. Missed out on some key wonders. Bulbed alphabet and now leader in gnp. Spain has been a wonder whore so they are doing quite well. The whole world is one big happy Islamic family.

The first thing I did was build up for the clash with Babylon. I went in maybe a little too fast and didn't have enough units for the clean sweep. Akkad had too many bowmen so I signed a cease fire to try to lull Hammurabi into a false sense of security so he would build settlers instead of bowmen. Not sure if it worked, but he did seem to send a few of them scouting. Either way I sent more vultures over and re-declared a few turns later and finished him. For whatever reason I kept both Akkad and Nippur, even though one is a bit of a garbage desert town and Akkad should be settled 1S. I guess I felt that Persia would press me if I didn't settle there fast. In hindsight it was probably a mistake not to resettle Akkad.

Spoiler :

Got a nice event here:

Spoiler :

Then I set my sights on writing for running scientists. Being creative will really help here. It's one of my favorite traits just for the cheap libraries.

Spoiler :

I began to fill in my land with cities. I'm not really scared of Pericles culture from Athens, though I don't think I can pry away that gold tile from him. I will probably send an invasion force at some point, since he is basically playing a OCC. None of these new cities are very foodrich, but they have enough to work multiple production tiles, which will build my armies to capture the lush lands of eastern europe and india when I'm ready.

Spoiler :

Pyramids and GLH were built while I was settling cities. Stonehenge and great wall were built a long time ago. I think oracle was in there too. I soon ran into what looks like to be the tech leader. So I backfilled AH.

Spoiler :

Now something really weird happened. So far we just have two religions but Izzy popped another two in back to back turns. She must've had a great prophet born from the henge or something. I was hoping this would make her a zealot, but she stuck with Islam.

Spoiler :

Made a big trade here for some much needed happiness. Right now all I have is gems until I get calendar.

Spoiler :

Judaism spread to me but I ignored it, waiting for this:

Spoiler :

Got a nice report on power here. Still in 4th even though I really only have one unit per city plus a few for barb invasions, but I have, I think, the most cities by several.

Spoiler :

I founded what may be my last city for a while on the outskirts of Persia. The land is basically full now. Made a couple more trades for much needed tech. Though I am a little concerned about my WFYABTA limits later. But with these techs I should be able to jump to a gdp lead and not need to trade as much.

Spoiler :

Someone however is way ahead of my in gdp. I'm 2nd but the first place is about double mine. Then I figured it out:

Spoiler :

Pyramids is so overpowered on this map. Cities grow extremely fast, Izzy is probably running plain citizens for +3 beakers. But I have triple her cities so she can't stay ahead for too long. Squeezed in one more city for good measure. I used my first great person to bulb alphabet. I need to make a research push for calendar. I'm already getting nervous about losing out on the mausoleum, but I do have marble so there's still a chance.

Spoiler :

Genghis wanted a lot for iron working but I don't really care. He's a backwards goat herder who won't be in contention at all this game. Instead he'll spend his mediocre existence pummeling the walls of china and it's protective archers uselessly with chariots.

Spoiler :

Got another much needed happiness resource. Then I joined a fake war for bonus diplo points. Germany will probably be extinct soon anyway.

Spoiler :

In the end I lost out on masollous with 7 turns to go. Got a lot of fail gold. I was so mad I saved and threw my computer out a window

Spoiler :

Just kidding, but you probably knew that because if I threw my computer out a window, how would I be doing this writeup? Actually it just seemed like a good time to log.

Closing thoughts: I accomplished nearly everything I wanted to in this round. I eliminated Babylon. Cyrus is happy pushing into India and leaving me alone. I backfilled some much needed tech. I'm now in first or second in major demographics. I built zigarauts. Guess I didn't mention that part, but I tech'd to priesthood and built them everywhere. I'm still only running at 40% science because I'm feeding a lot of scientists and have few commerce resources, but that's fine, research is what's important, not the slider.

Next I have tech decisions to make. I should also mention I missed out on the colossus as well. Izzy built that one too (wonder whore). I could go currency for an even stronger economy, though it's important to remember that in this mod the tech doesn't give +1 routes. Building a marketplace does. But I want markets anyway because I have ivory and fur. I could also go aesthetics and literature for trade bait and the great library. Great lib is maybe slightly overvalued by most players but I have marble and am longing for at least a couple wonders this game. Spain is too far away to steal all theirs at the moment.

Stephen has built the masjid and 40% of the world is Islamic so that is a tempting target. It is probably raking in 25gpt right now. Athens looks tempting too. Pericles has Athens and founded Sparta on a Mediterranean island. I'm pretty sure a small army of vultures could make short work of him, opening up access to gold and silver for me.

Other than that everyone is pretty pleased with me. I need to pick some friends though so when they start coming requesting I stop trades I know who to pick. I think it's basically going to be the world vs poor Mansa, since he's a zealot.

Here's the save.

 

[Bigv32]

Okay very nice. To bad you did not get some wonders, but in the long run, I think your rexxing will be good. I would say hit the greeks hard and then hit the hungarians from two fronts. You seem to be in a good position to take on Europe now. The German war should keep some of them busy for awhile.

However, if you don't want to take on the European conglomerant, you could just swing east and continue to india. The land may not be as good, but if the Europeans decide to DOW you, all you have to do is hold the istanbul area. The only problem with this is that I believe the penalty for DOW on a friend is harsher from the European civs than cyrus. Even though it would be easier to hold, the potential for a two front war is not something to take lightly.

NOTE: I am assuming that the culture defense on the enemy cities is not to high. If it is, wait for pults and then go to town lol.

 

[vranasm]

not sure about the issue with MoM, i almost never build it even if I could be the first. Building Mids with stone in BFC...that's something completely other thing.

Still think you should settle 1N on the dye. You are creative, have palace so the 3rd ring should come up quick enough and you would not have 3 desert tiles in BFC and the GH mine would be better then dessert copper.

 

[civvver]

Mausoleum of Massolous is overpowered on this map if you take advantage of it. There is an abundance of food so I often pop three golden ages from great people (if lucky and I need zero bulbs I have popped up to 5) and if I get the taj that's four, so the Mausoleum is like granting two whole golden ages. Ridiculous.

I need to rethink the settling on Dyes. It's a pretty important food tile with the flood plains, it grants 4 food, but I'll check out the tiles you would gain by settling on it.

I played another round last night. Here's a spoiler on the Europe situation.

Spoiler :

I was building up to attack Athens when Pericles vassaled to Izzy. Ruined everything. Also the german war didn't distract anyone, as soon as Feudalism was techd Fredrick vassaled to Rome. So going into Europe is suicide at this point, it'd be catapults and vultures for me vs longbows and maces.

 

[Bigv32]

well then, it is either to the east or to africa. You could go north to Russia, but I do not know the sit rep up there.

I believe Carthage has some decent land in north africa.

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

I'd say expand in whichever direction you'd like (save Europe)
but make sure there's at least one civilization buffering you from (Zululand) and (Khmer) ideally.

 

[civvver]

Round 3 - The Spoils of War... (More Like War Spoiled)

Summary:

Spoiler :

I've never faced opponents like this before. They are all madly in love with each other due to one real religion on the continent. Izzy controlling the AP has made my life miserable, ending a war with Cyrus prematurely. Also Greece and Germany keep vassaling to their buddies so I am pushing for liberalism to pop military tradition for an all out war with what will probably be all of Europe.

When I left off last time I was eyeing Athens and possibly Hungary's land and shrine gold. I sent a unit scouting to judge their strength.

Spoiler :

Nothing I can't handle with some catapults so I set about researching construction. In the mean time a bit of diplomacy. I am admittedly bad at this. Calendar seemed like too high of a demand from a non-player in Hannibal so I refused.

Spoiler :

Actually before researching the much needed construction I went for the great library and music for the free great person to pop a golden age later. It worked, I got both.

Spoiler :

Something terrible happened that really threw a wrench in my plans to invade eastern europe.

Spoiler :

Pericles voluntarily vassaled to Spain! Three problems here with that. Spain is in itself a major power and can throw armies at me from their colonies in Africa or through Europe. Second, Spain holds a lot of clout with the worldwide community. They will most likely pull some allies into the war against me if I attack them. Finally Spain holds the apostolic palace, which means even if the war is going good for me I may not be able to deliver the deathblow without angering my populace and hurting my production considerably.

So instead I decided a war with Greece would not be pertinent at this time and set my sights on Persia instead. It's not ideal, but I will need to invade the east at some point and Persia is far from a power right now. But first a bit of trading.

Spoiler :

I also began to sell a lot of techs to fund my research. I have overtaken Spain in gnp but am still considerably behind in tech. Of course the rule here is don't sell anything you need for trade bait later, as once one of these friendly civs gets it, it somehow ends up in everyone's hands.

Spoiler :

I began an all out fire sale of asthetics and literature. Since the wonders are built there's no harm in the AI having them. I didn't get any great value from one civ, but once you add up 150g or more from 7 civs, that's a lot of gold. It's good to sell it all off in one round because as I mentioned before the AI will gift/trade it around in subsequent rounds.

A side benefit, and a pretty good one, is selling techs around will get you "+4 our trade relations have been fair diplomacy" points. It's not enough to push any of the civs to friendly with me, but it is enough to keep them pleased when I declare war on all their buddies.

Spoiler :

It was now time to enjoy some spoils of war! My build up was perhaps a bit halfassed, as I was still focusing pretty heavily on the economy, but Persia didn't have much in the way of resistance so I figured it would suffice. Persepolis fell.

Spoiler :

However on the very next turn Izzy held a vote to stop the fighting between the brothers in faith. War spoiled! I probably could've absorbed a lot of the unhappiness, but I didn't. I didn't give it much thought either. Maybe it was the wrong move, but my army of vultures was pretty out of date. I was more or less just attacking Persia because it was something to do while I waited to strike at Europe.

Spoiler :

I got this humorous quest:

Spoiler :

36 libraries?!?! I don't even have half that many cities I guess that the quests auto scale for the size of the map, even custom sizes. So far I have never completed a quest on GEM.

Pericles decided he had outgrown Izzy's protection:

Spoiler :

This is fortunate, but I am hatching master plan of a grand sweep through Europe. I reviewed the tech situation and became confident I could tech nationalism and still win the liberalism race and use it on military tradition. Gunpowder would then be available to research from eduction prereq and I could swarm Europe with cuirassiers. It all sounded very good in theory so I set about this task. To help things along I ran my first golden age with a scientist and did a civics change to caste and pacifism. The idea is to pop another scientist, pair him with the artist, then build the taj for a string of three golden ages to fuel my run at military tradition.

Spoiler :

I got a few more needed techs:

Spoiler :

The civics worked and I was on my way to a long, golden reign.

Spoiler :

All this time I had been using all my espionage on Spain in the hopes of stealing a tech but without bumping up the slider it just wasn't going to happen. I got barely enough points to steal drama, but to get something like engineering would take another 50 turns. So instead I forced Izzy into hereditary rule. Remember she has the pyramids and is running representation, so this will slow her research down a bit.

Spoiler :

I got some awesome fail gold for the sistine chapel. Hopefully whoever built it does not make a big push for a cultural victory like in my Joao game.

Spoiler :

I did win the lib race and used it on military tradition. I traded civil service around some more to get theology and did a civics change to theocracy and vassalage. My cuirassiers will be going in well trained. I then began the build up I would need to invade Hungary and Greece and called it a round.

I also got a little rng luck and popped a great engineer from one of my gp farms. I say one because Thebes is my main one with the national epic but Jerusalem is also able to support about 8 scientists. So they're kind of alternating. This strategy works wonders when you have excess food. I've sometimes devoted three cities to gp farming. Generally the third will never pop someone because the national epic city keeps alternating, but what you do is get the third city close then take a turn off to build a building or research in the main gp farm, then after that third city pops their gp, you ramp them down and ramp the gp farm back up.

Anyway, that's a round, next time will be very fun as I try to conquer Europe in one fell swoop.

Sorry I didn't take any good state of the world pics because I played these rounds really close together. The war round is played, it was really one long session of playing for me, but I'm posting it separately for readability.

 

[Bigv32]

This next round will be interesting. A horse sweep through Europe will be fun to see. Do you have any sort of navy? If your ground forces are mostly horses, you could use your navy to land siege equipment with gaurd units ahead of them. I have done this before on Earth 18 and it let me war a lot quicker and with fewer loses.

Even if the seige get attacked by other enemy units, it will slow down reinforcements heading for your main attack.

EDIT: I keep forgetting you are a round ahead of what I just read, so I keep giving you sugestions based on what you,ve already done lol.

 

[civvver]

Yeah I play quicker than I post.

Two issues with the naval support. First I don't have astronomy. It's not worth getting for the overseas trade as the new world will be so underdeveloped I won't end up with any trade routes to them anyway. Plus the AI usually places a high value on it and will tech it for me.

Second I'm not sure if you remember but the base movement in the latest version is 2 moves. So cuirassiers get 3 movement and siege weapons get 2. Not a big difference when you don't have roads so they can move at basically the same speed, or at least quick enough where I'm not grinding my assault to a stop waiting for siege. So loading a couple catapults onto a trime isn't going to help me much.

Finally cuirassiers are gunpowder units while cats and trebs are not, so cats/trebs will be plinking away at castles/walls while the cuirassiers just ignore them and won't see a huge benefit. You'll see that in the next round where I do use about 10 catapults to bombard but one turn only gets me about a 5% increase in odds for a cuirassier.

I do like the idea of supporting ground forces with navy though, but what I'd want to use is something like ironclads to drop the cultural defense of coastal cities.