Hammurabi (Emperor, Fractal, nhne) interesting situation

[gamingmuse69]

Rolled this interesting map and now I have no ideas what would be the optimum strategy to go on...
To rush or not tu rush???(And which rush do you suggest?)
In which direction to research?

(BUFFY mod)

 

[shulgi]

I think an axe rush would work fine on Izzy - she's close enough that the 1 movement of axes won't be too slow, Hammurabi's aggressive so melee units are a good choice and she has the Buddhist holy city/ I'd expect she'd be in missionary mode and not building units. Thing is, you also have a holy city so getting two this early isn't a big benefit. Maybe oracling construction or horseback riding would have been better. I'd invade through Barcelona toward the rice - capitol? Seville's not going to be too effective for a while yet so don't worry about it. Send your missionary to Cyrus or Monty - well if you can get it past the barb city. edit - well two early holy city could be very good for culture or religion strategies.

 

[pepe26]

i wouldnt ever axe rush because of 3 reason... 1) they are very inefficient on higher levels and thus kinda detrimental to the learning process 2) there are stronger rushes 3) its way too late for axes

strategy-wise, you dont really need a BC rush here... your capital should be working at least 3 cottages at this point which is really really critical! supporter cities growing the cottages that the capital cannot sustain yet and will take over working those tiles later. this is the most important advice i can give you right now

also you should consider not settling on grassland hills, because they make for some excellent productive tiles (some argue they are more productive than whipping with farmed grassland)

city placement in general is crucial and i have struggled with it a lot in the past and still do today sometime. akkad should have been settled on the marble, which would allow another city to be settled on the spices. also nippur does almost nothing to support the capitals cottage growth. i would have settled in 1W1S. then put another city in the corner right next to the fish.

you now have 6 instead of 4 cities and nice capital support, possibly 7 with the stone/rice city or even better the cows/rice city and you can do a lib rush on izzy (with cuirs) or some kind of catapult or trebs attack

 

[Izuul]

You could still axe rush here since it's Emperor. You could also play this peacefully (for now) and get 6 good cities with ease. Has Izzy built her shrine yet?

 

[pepe26]

dude, he probably hasnt even got barracks yet, akkad is jsut getting a grainary... im should it could be pulled off, but its supposed to be efficient right? and stifling the economy with an unefficient war is gonna hurt in the long run...

 

[gamingmuse69]

I decided not to rush and try to peacefully expand&research since the setup was not optimal for an axe rush (was doable but at which costs?). An unexpected surprise was that i built the GLH too
It's too early to make a decision for a win strategy but smells like going for culture...
Again i would like to hear some tips & critics from you guys.
I'm very greatful for the last "bad city placement critic" - do you have any other tips how to develop better city spot recognition? The settle on marlbe move would be much much better as pepe26 suggested.

Here is the situation in 175 BC:

 

[Kadazzle]

Your 1400BC save I'd say is too late to axe rush. Normally you have to have a sufficient amount of axes around 1700BC. For city placement, I probably would've placed my cities in similar locations, but I would've tried to block off more land. Nippur could've been placed 1N to get both the copper and fish in your BFC (which you then wouldn't have needed a culture pop to work 5 good tiles; fish, copper, 1 FP, 2 grassland hills. This would've been much more efficient.). Dur Kurwhatever also could've been placed 1E to better block off some land. I also would've tried to block off Issy from the Northwest before settling any of those locations (why did you settle Akkad where you did? Capital's culture would've expanded to cover the Marble in a pretty short amount of time, a city could've been placed there later as a backfill site, it shouldn't have been a priority).

Your land looked really good from the get-go as a nice wonder and teching site, with FPs, Gold, and Marble. No war is even needed on this map until later, it would only stifle your economy. To me, it seems the regular common approach of teching up to Cavs and wiping out Issy will be an easy play here. Good luck.

 

[gamingmuse69]

Nippur could've been placed 1N to get both the copper and fish in your BFC (which you then wouldn't have needed a culture pop to work 5 good tiles; fish, copper, 1 FP, 2 grassland hills. This would've been much more efficient.). Dur Kurwhatever also could've been placed 1E to better block off some land. I also would've tried to block off Issy from the Northwest before settling any of those locations (why did you settle Akkad where you did? Capital's culture would've expanded to cover the Marble in a pretty short amount of time, a city could've been placed there later as a backfill site, it shouldn't have been a priority).

I actaully wanted her to settle Seville where she did so she can develop the trashy plains site. I will easily take it over when the right time comes. Although her settling of Toledo wasn't in my plans.
Kurwhatever had to grow some cottages for the capital, but wasn't the best move as you noticed it (didn't grow them at all) :-/

 

[Chase_2_Rabbits]

At 1400 BC I'd make a beeline for construction and take out Izzy with catapults.

As played to 175 BC you have managed 7 cities with space for another...but 2 are tundra junk cities and 2 are a little detatched from your core land. It's a pretty marginal spot land-wise to not go to war before Lib, but you might get away with it.

 

[pepe26]

I suggest a re-go with proper settling will give you a better grasp, how a well played game can feel and will probably speed up your learning

toledo isnt a good city at all, with no good tiles to work and an unirrigated rice... seville on the other other, is more than decent!

 

[gamingmuse69]

I suggest a re-go with proper settling will give you a better grasp, how a well played game can feel and will probably speed up your learning

toledo isnt a good city at all, with no good tiles to work and an unirrigated rice... seville on the other other, is more than decent!

Sure thing, I'll try again and I will attach the starting save if someone wants to shadow this match

 

[vranasm]

I tried couple of turns from the 4k save and you can have out 1st settler before Isabella and is very logic to try block her off in the west, I made only 1 mistake settling the city 2 1N above the deer and not 1NW since then I would have the wheat in bfc too and she won't settle city 2 that way most probably.

then you make horse city as city 4 south to seal the deal.

and I didnt even beeline the city 2 much...played normally with AH->mining->pottery->bw and settler size 3 as usual.

 

[pepe26]

I'm getting some kind of Buffy error running the save... most likely because I'm running cIV on BUG/BULL

 

[ben-jammin]

I played this through for fun, almost done. I ended up doing an axe rush, late because I had not intended to do so. But at two cities Isabella inexplicably had only one archer in each city (whipped a second one in Madrid of course) so I faced a total of...three archers.

After that I expanded to 12 cities, all the way up to the rice/dyes/gems spot near Monty. Went aesthetics (marble) -> math -> lit -> music after writing. Built the GLighthouse, GLibrary, and National Epic in Madrid which made a top notch GP farm. Built the Parthenon, MoM, and Taj elsewhere. Got probably close to 2000 failgold from ToA, Shwadegon Paya, repeat-building the National Epic, and about 800 failgold alone from the Sistine Chapel.

First GS (a bit late, around 1AD due to the rush to block and fill my land) built an academy in the capital, where overlapping cities were helping it to develop cottages on all the FP and riverside grass tiles. Bulbed philosophy, 2xeducation, 1xliberalism, 1x printing press. Also produced 2 great merchants who were sent to the ToA.

I had no cities close to Monty early when he started plotting, he ended up at war for almost the entire game with Pacal. When I was close to lib Monty requested I declare on Pacal, which I did only to make sure Monty didnt make peace and start plotting on me before I was ready. All cities got barracks/stable/forge and prebuilt a good dozen horse archers for upgrade until Military Tradition was lib'ed and gunpowder was in. I self-teched nationalism before anybody else even had philosophy. Traded for alphabet, IW, monarchy as soon as someone got alpha (was late, but wasnt my priority). Later traded for machinery (after lib bulb), metal casting, engineering, feudalism (music and paper alone got me most of these).

The problem on this map is that even if you box Isabella in and claim lots of land, she will probably start to plot on you shortly after getting Iron Working (she has iron by her capital, you are her only direct neighbour, you are severely limiting her expansion, and she can plot against you at pleased). Thus it's best to get her out of the way early. Here the axe-semi-rush worked pathetically well, but if you want to move up to immortal the obvious strategy would be the Horse Archer rush.

 

[vranasm]

The problem on this map is that even if you box Isabella in and claim lots of land, she will probably start to plot on you shortly after getting Iron Working (she has iron by her capital, you are her only direct neighbour, you are severely limiting her expansion, and she can plot against you at pleased). Thus it's best to get her out of the way early. Here the axe-semi-rush worked pathetically well, but if you want to move up to immortal the obvious strategy would be the Horse Archer rush.

actually she just wanted from me to adopt budhism and it was k then...

but getting rid of her surely is better

 

[ben-jammin]

Here's some screenshots for city placement and such, I stopped at 1100-something AD in the midst of rolling over montezuma.

Northern cities:



Middle:



South:



Akkad was settled first as the original plan was to block Isabelle and use HAs to take her out, but the axes from just Akkad and the capital were more than enough. Settled aggressively north towards Monty as soon as he declared on Pacal.

Capital (will get the heroic epic, as it can work the bronze and various other mines or windmills that are being used by other cities in this screenshot):



Tech screen:



As you can see in a handful of turns it will be cavalry vs pikes and knights.

Second Great Merchant on his way to the ToA:



Which will leave me with close to 4000 gold with which to upgrade cuirs to cavalry.

 

[ben-jammin]

actually she just wanted from me to adopt budhism and it was k then...

but getting rid of her surely is better

If you manage to get her to friendly before she plots, then she's fine but an extremely weak tech pace making for a poor trading partner. And to get her to friendly you undoubtedly have to adopt her religion...which is likely to be more trouble than it's worth from Monty to the north, who is one of the most competent war machines from the classical to renaissance eras.