With both AIs already having Monarchy it doesnt seem a good idea to go to war as by the time Ill have construction and the catapults in my army Ill no doubt be up against longbows. Besides, theres still plenty of land to the South and the West, so Im inclined to continue the Rex!
I change my tech path to Aesthetics now Ive been reminded about trading (I used to do this on Monarch but had recently decided the AI takes too long to reach Alphabet so I started doing stuff for myself). The Zigs and maturing cottages have helped get the research rate up again and so Aes was finished fairly quickly and traded for Monarchy. Now Im teching Mathematics to open a lot more up and get to Currancy. Need I say I have moved into HR!
At 175AD Im recovering well, nothing special done just whipping in the Zigs and working cottages.
Im thinking two things at this point, firstly Im overdue some more cities to the south, and secondly, Hannibals power rating doesnt look nice, I wonder if hes starting to think war.
Question to all those experts out there... At 300AD the Financial Advisor has me paying 11 GPT on units. It says Im paying support for 14 units with free support 14, and then a handicap takes 3 off for me. I havent a clue how this works! All I know is that every unit I build now is going to cost me more, so I wonder if I should be building more units or if its better not to. Could anyone explain the mechanics of these numbers? How do I increase the free support number?
Back to the game and
Finally! Late getting it as I delayed Lagesh a lot to beat Hannibal to land, and then was more interested in growing cities when I hit Monarchy than running the scientists. Just starting to pick up more now
Thats the end of the Rex, well I call it a Rex but looking at the Demographics Im 6th in land area, must be a lot of land on this map. Pacals just trapped me in from continuing to expand SW but that doesnt concern me much.
Id like to talk about Pacal for a moment now, as Im fairly puzzled by his status. Take a look at the techs screen
Hes not exactly doing well is he. My power rating shows at .98 of his, so were essentially the same there. Im wondering why hes so weak compared to the other AI Hannibal in this game. Im presuming either theres another AI South of him, at a guess someone like Monty whos founded Hinduism and theyve been at war all game. Or perhaps more likely just a lot of land = the barbs are swamping him?
Back to my own play
Plenty of land West still and I dont think Hannibals taken much of it, hes probably got the northern part of that land but that doesnt bother me. I like the look of a Pigs/Iron/Fish/Coastal city on the west coast, presumably Id put a rice city down to block if I can get there first. As you can also see in the screenshot, Ive turned Buddist as I really dont want to be declared upon until Steel, and Hannibal looks threatening.
Well that was a disaster, I send my Vulture out to do a bit of scouting and find hes got pretty much all the land settled! Lesson learnt, AI settles much faster and I need to do a much better Rex to get that land!
Tech wise Ive gone Currancy-->Polytheism-->Literature(GL)-->Alphabet-->CoL-->Civil Service and now into Paper. The GL is building in Lagesh but I dont expect to get it, the cash will do anyway. I felt I couldnt delay trading with Pacal any longer as he hadnt gone near Alphabet even at 700AD! The rest is the start of the Liberalism beeline and I used the techs to catch up in other areas. Alphabet was traded to backfill Hunting and Sailing, got another couple of small techs for Literature too (both trades werent gains for me but as the other AI had it, I didnt want the AI trading with each other and leaving me out!). CoL my first big trade out getting Calander off Hannibal whilst getting Horseback Riding off Pacal (again, didnt want to give Hannibal the chance to trade CoL onto Pacal). Civil Service then gave me Fuedalism from Hannibal and three techs including Metal Casting off Pacal. Tech screen shows Ive done a good deal of catching up
those Cant Trades are cus I traded out Civil Service this turn.
Ill end my turnset at that, heres the general feel of things and a save
. Not doing too badly I dont think, but cant see an obvious victory path
not much production available to conquer anybody, not as much land as other AI for space and only one religion on the island so Culture wont happen. Hopefully six religions on the other continant and a couple of war mongers will have caused some big wars and theyve all fallen behind! I think Ill have to draft an army and try to conquer some land later.
I have those Zigs whipped for next turn, did that just after setting the save aside, I hadn't forgotten them!
You could've stolen Currency off of him instead of teching it, meaning you probably would been a lot closer to reaching Liberalism right now. (You can still steal optics off of him once he techs it)
