I managed to get nappy to attack someone for 12 g. Usually the one with the stronger military will be cheaper to bribe. Also factors as how close the are and what kind of relations they have matters.
In which I fail at Civ5
- Thread starter coanda
- Start date
I managed to get nappy to attack someone for 12 g. Usually the one with the stronger military will be cheaper to bribe. Also factors as how close the are and what kind of relations they have matters.
Aaand, try two!
Knocked it down to Immortal difficulty this time; still not expecting to win, but I am hoping with some help to make it to late-game.
Game settings:
Drew Gandhi of India. 6 unhappy per city, but only .5 per citizen; seems like a no-brainer for a vertical rather than horizontal approach to settling. This is probably a healthy development for me to get used to relying on fewer, better cities.
War Elephant is like a Chariot, but big and gray and has tusks. More practically, it has +3 combat, +1 ranged strength, -1 movement, and costs 70 hammers instead of 56. I'm not sure how useful this is - it's a very strong ranged unit available very early, but the hammer cost might make it prohibitively expensive (not like composite bows, where you can build 40-hammer archers then upgrade for a bit of gold on getting the tech). I'm throwing it out to veterans here - is this a unit strong enough that I should be leaning heavily towards an early rush if I see an opportunity?
Mughal Fort is a Castle with +2 culture and, post-flight, some gold. It requires Chivalry, and doesn't look strong enough by itself to be worth blitzing Chivalry, so I'm just going to ignore it for a couple dozen turns; I'll think more about it when Chivalry starts to become a reasonable tech choice.
And the start:
I only see one lux, and I was told by Optional on the last game that the generator guarantees two, so I assume one of the west/north tiles in fog has a luxury resource on it too. I was already thinking about settling on the spice, and this gives me more cause to lean towards that. Warrior scouts a bit north, settler moves onto spice, I discover gold and bananas to the west and fish far north. Settle on the spice.
Initial thoughts about this capital: it's got decent commerce. It's heavily jungled, but I'm getting the sense that jungle may be less of a problem in Civ5 than it was in Civ4 - at least I won't get choked out by disease. It's going to grow slowly until it gets those bananas, so I'm probably going to just stall on size 2 for a bit hurrying out some production while I wait for the bananas to come in. Longer-term, it has excellent food potential with all the riverside grassland. I don't see any drastic problems or incredible strengths to it, so I'm not panicking over anything yet.
I figure you can't go wrong with worker-first, so I... oh wait, that was last game. I listen to the chorus and open up by starting a scout -> monument. Since my city is settled on a plantation resource, and I won't be getting a worker for a bit anyways, my opening tech plan is Pottery -> Calendar -> Mining.
My warrior continues up to the northwest, and discovers that I'm nearly in the northwest corner of this land - with the Maritime Sydney up above me. There's a space for a beautiful city somewhere straight north of my capital; my instinct is south of the spice/sugar (to get, eventually, spice, sugar, gold, and 2 fish on a riverside coastal city), but I'm mentally debating whether settling on the sugar would be a better move to hook the sugar up immediately without needing worker improvements.
The scout finishes and promptly heads in the opposite direction, hunting ancient ruins - and finds one. Then another, and another, and another. It's possible people knew what they were talking about when they suggested building Scout first. While the scout is busy finding everything and making my day, my warrior heads back south to follow the west coast down, and meets my first AI leader: Bismarck.
Bismarck was a wonder-spamming warmonger in Civ4, which wasn't the greatest combination (spend the hammers on wonders, then declare war with a small army), making him in my opinion one of the weaker leaders. But it's a brave new world, new and brighter AIs to deal with. So I head on over to the leader spreadsheet Optional linked me to previously and take a look at Bismarck.
The impression I'm getting is of an aggressive diplomat - he pays a lot of attention to city-states, denounces and forms alliances, focuses on land units, forms friendships and declares wars readily, and lies (deceptive weight of 7). He doesn't look like a psychopath a la Civ4 Monty, but I'm less than thrilled to see him as my first neighbor. If I see a chance to take him out, I'll jump on it.
When I finish the monument, I start on a second scout because my warrior wasted quite a few scouting turns dithering about with the dead-end up near Sydney, so my map knowledge is still rather limited.
My scout continues heading east and runs into the Mercantile Zanzibar eventually; apparently Bismarck has already met them, because I promptly see that Bismarck has guaranteed their independence.
I get my first social policy, and it seems like a no-brainer to me. I'm not planning on settling lots of cities, I do want more culture to unlock policies faster, and generally speaking Tradition just looks more useful for India in this situation. So I unlock Tradition.
I finish Calendar on turn 20 and trade my spice to Bismarck for all his gold and as much gpt as I can get. Then I immediately spend the gold to rushbuy a worker so I can start making improvements. Mining will finish in 7 turns, bronze working in about 17. So I farm a river grass tile, then mine the gold, then farm another river grass tile. Then I can start clearcutting jungle and making other improvements - although I'm not sure how much I want to do that, given that jungle now is +1F -1H instead of just -1F.
My capital has started on a granary, since I really want to get it growing more quickly over the next dozen turns or so. After that, I'll probably get a second warrior then head towards Archery and mix in an archer and go barbarian-hunting.
My settling plans...
I see what look like two good spots for cities. One is the gold / spice / 2xfish / gold coastal river city to the north, although I'd have to fight Sydney for that gold (can you even fight a city state for a tile? How costly will it be? Will it piss them off?). A second is somewhere between the Gems and Mt. Fuji to the east; exactly where in there is tough to nail down. NE of the Gems is my current inclination - get a hill, get some gems and such. For a fourth city if I want one, I'm contemplating 2N or 2N1W of the sheep below my capital, for a defensible city site that links up my cities and grabs silver, but I'm worried about that city's ability to contribute much on it's own.
Bismarck is just barely visible to the south (I think his capital is a bit over a dozen tiles away). No other AIs met... yet... but a barbarian encampment in the fog north of Zanzibar indicates there is significant unexplored land up there. And, of course, there could still be more civilizations to the south past Bismarck. That said, my gut is saying that I'm probably semi-isolated with Bismarck this time, since I would have thought I'd have seen an AI scout by now otherwise.
Long term plan: none yet. Next turn set I plan on getting Delhi's tiles up and running, finishing up my exploration, building a modest anti-barbarian striking force, and hopefully buying a settler to take the city site north of my capital. At that point, I'll reflect on what Bismarck is up to, what else I've discovered, and the overall state of the game and start making more long-term plans.
Should I be getting a shrine around now to found a Pantheon? Or should I be hurrying to get a city near Mount Fuji?
Knocked it down to Immortal difficulty this time; still not expecting to win, but I am hoping with some help to make it to late-game.
Game settings:
Spoiler :
Drew Gandhi of India. 6 unhappy per city, but only .5 per citizen; seems like a no-brainer for a vertical rather than horizontal approach to settling. This is probably a healthy development for me to get used to relying on fewer, better cities.
War Elephant is like a Chariot, but big and gray and has tusks. More practically, it has +3 combat, +1 ranged strength, -1 movement, and costs 70 hammers instead of 56. I'm not sure how useful this is - it's a very strong ranged unit available very early, but the hammer cost might make it prohibitively expensive (not like composite bows, where you can build 40-hammer archers then upgrade for a bit of gold on getting the tech). I'm throwing it out to veterans here - is this a unit strong enough that I should be leaning heavily towards an early rush if I see an opportunity?
Mughal Fort is a Castle with +2 culture and, post-flight, some gold. It requires Chivalry, and doesn't look strong enough by itself to be worth blitzing Chivalry, so I'm just going to ignore it for a couple dozen turns; I'll think more about it when Chivalry starts to become a reasonable tech choice.
And the start:
I only see one lux, and I was told by Optional on the last game that the generator guarantees two, so I assume one of the west/north tiles in fog has a luxury resource on it too. I was already thinking about settling on the spice, and this gives me more cause to lean towards that. Warrior scouts a bit north, settler moves onto spice, I discover gold and bananas to the west and fish far north. Settle on the spice.
Initial thoughts about this capital: it's got decent commerce. It's heavily jungled, but I'm getting the sense that jungle may be less of a problem in Civ5 than it was in Civ4 - at least I won't get choked out by disease. It's going to grow slowly until it gets those bananas, so I'm probably going to just stall on size 2 for a bit hurrying out some production while I wait for the bananas to come in. Longer-term, it has excellent food potential with all the riverside grassland. I don't see any drastic problems or incredible strengths to it, so I'm not panicking over anything yet.
I figure you can't go wrong with worker-first, so I... oh wait, that was last game. I listen to the chorus and open up by starting a scout -> monument. Since my city is settled on a plantation resource, and I won't be getting a worker for a bit anyways, my opening tech plan is Pottery -> Calendar -> Mining.
My warrior continues up to the northwest, and discovers that I'm nearly in the northwest corner of this land - with the Maritime Sydney up above me. There's a space for a beautiful city somewhere straight north of my capital; my instinct is south of the spice/sugar (to get, eventually, spice, sugar, gold, and 2 fish on a riverside coastal city), but I'm mentally debating whether settling on the sugar would be a better move to hook the sugar up immediately without needing worker improvements.
Spoiler :
The scout finishes and promptly heads in the opposite direction, hunting ancient ruins - and finds one. Then another, and another, and another. It's possible people knew what they were talking about when they suggested building Scout first. While the scout is busy finding everything and making my day, my warrior heads back south to follow the west coast down, and meets my first AI leader: Bismarck.
Bismarck was a wonder-spamming warmonger in Civ4, which wasn't the greatest combination (spend the hammers on wonders, then declare war with a small army), making him in my opinion one of the weaker leaders. But it's a brave new world, new and brighter AIs to deal with. So I head on over to the leader spreadsheet Optional linked me to previously and take a look at Bismarck.
The impression I'm getting is of an aggressive diplomat - he pays a lot of attention to city-states, denounces and forms alliances, focuses on land units, forms friendships and declares wars readily, and lies (deceptive weight of 7). He doesn't look like a psychopath a la Civ4 Monty, but I'm less than thrilled to see him as my first neighbor. If I see a chance to take him out, I'll jump on it.
When I finish the monument, I start on a second scout because my warrior wasted quite a few scouting turns dithering about with the dead-end up near Sydney, so my map knowledge is still rather limited.
My scout continues heading east and runs into the Mercantile Zanzibar eventually; apparently Bismarck has already met them, because I promptly see that Bismarck has guaranteed their independence.
I get my first social policy, and it seems like a no-brainer to me. I'm not planning on settling lots of cities, I do want more culture to unlock policies faster, and generally speaking Tradition just looks more useful for India in this situation. So I unlock Tradition.
Spoiler :
I finish Calendar on turn 20 and trade my spice to Bismarck for all his gold and as much gpt as I can get. Then I immediately spend the gold to rushbuy a worker so I can start making improvements. Mining will finish in 7 turns, bronze working in about 17. So I farm a river grass tile, then mine the gold, then farm another river grass tile. Then I can start clearcutting jungle and making other improvements - although I'm not sure how much I want to do that, given that jungle now is +1F -1H instead of just -1F.
My capital has started on a granary, since I really want to get it growing more quickly over the next dozen turns or so. After that, I'll probably get a second warrior then head towards Archery and mix in an archer and go barbarian-hunting.
My settling plans...
I see what look like two good spots for cities. One is the gold / spice / 2xfish / gold coastal river city to the north, although I'd have to fight Sydney for that gold (can you even fight a city state for a tile? How costly will it be? Will it piss them off?). A second is somewhere between the Gems and Mt. Fuji to the east; exactly where in there is tough to nail down. NE of the Gems is my current inclination - get a hill, get some gems and such. For a fourth city if I want one, I'm contemplating 2N or 2N1W of the sheep below my capital, for a defensible city site that links up my cities and grabs silver, but I'm worried about that city's ability to contribute much on it's own.
Bismarck is just barely visible to the south (I think his capital is a bit over a dozen tiles away). No other AIs met... yet... but a barbarian encampment in the fog north of Zanzibar indicates there is significant unexplored land up there. And, of course, there could still be more civilizations to the south past Bismarck. That said, my gut is saying that I'm probably semi-isolated with Bismarck this time, since I would have thought I'd have seen an AI scout by now otherwise.
Long term plan: none yet. Next turn set I plan on getting Delhi's tiles up and running, finishing up my exploration, building a modest anti-barbarian striking force, and hopefully buying a settler to take the city site north of my capital. At that point, I'll reflect on what Bismarck is up to, what else I've discovered, and the overall state of the game and start making more long-term plans.
Should I be getting a shrine around now to found a Pantheon? Or should I be hurrying to get a city near Mount Fuji?
regeneration64
Warlord
Heh, after 413 hours I was playing on Chieftain difficulty believing with all my heart that other difficulties exist just to make the menu look prettier.It was back in Civ1 days some good almost 20 years ago (thanks a lot for reminding me how old I am
) and Chieftain was the easiest one.
I'm not near Steam, but I think I passed 1500 hours mark or somewhere close to that and number of hours I spent playing all Civ games is too embarrassing to be published.Many many thousands. Up to Civ3 I thought higher levels are not supposed to be played by humans period.
I won't set any record for number of hours played though. There are many players who played way more than me and know much more about game mechanics. It does come with practice. A lot of game knowledge is provided by this community. Specifically this forum (Strategy and tips) is extremely helpful. Thus people should never be shy to ask questions. Sharing maps with other and comparing strategies is also great way to learn things you might miss on your own. Game of the Month, for example/ Even if you're not interested to play competitively, trying the map and seeing how others did in the same circumstances is insightful. HoF folks are just crazy. No effort is too big effort for them and their knowledge of the game is so extensive, it's scary. You can always take a shot at one of the Minor/Major games or just lurk, or ask questions. Video LP's are another way to learn, although time consuming but very entertaining (in my opinion at least). MadDjinn doesn't deserve advertisement, because he stopped making deity LP's, so I won't recommend watching any of his. And hopefully he'll feel ashamed.
Bottom line, it's all about one's willingness to learn and invest some effort in the process. Be active on forums, ask questions, read strategy guides and practice and you will learn for sure.
Thanks for that. Was an entertaining and interting read. I have learnt so much since joining these forums and can't stress enough how helpful the War Acadamy threads were and the general advice given by the Community.
@coanda, regarding cities and their defense: Cities are arguably better to use defensively early on because all enemy units have to come into the 2-hex range in order to attack. In later eras, a city's HP and combat strength increase dramatically, especially with defensive buildings and units always stationed in them. Strategically placed and/or captured cities in the later game can help tip the balance in your favour. For further reading on city strength see this thread.
Also, good luck in your new game (I haven't got time right now to look through your post properly).
Responding to a couple of questions/issues in your new game post:
1. Competing with a CS for open tiles does not raise any diplomatic consequences. Settle your city and buy up tiles to the tile(s) you want -- the CS won't care. Of course, if you do that with AI civs, there is a diplo hit (ranging from mild disapproval (if you are already good friends) to strong anger to DOW in the near future). Also, if the CS culture borders take in that tile before you get there, you're out of luck. (If you have a Great General, you can settle him to form a culture-bomb citadel and grab the tile, but there are negative consequences with the CS.)
2. On jungle, keep in mind that after you build a university each jungle tile (including the bananas/jungle) will yield +2 science. With a trading post (Guilds) on a jungle tile, Economics, and the Free Thought (rationalism) social policy, each jungle/TP tile will yield 2 food, 2 gold (3 gold if on a river) and 3 science. Of course, you need food and production, so this doesn't mean you never chop jungle, just be thoughtful.
3. On settling a city near Mt. Fuji, if you settle there and work the Mt. Fuji tile, that tile will generate 2 gold, 3 culture and 3 faith. That city will need an early granary to keep growing, but that will put you quickly on the path to a religion. If you take the One with World pantheon belief, you get 4 faith from a natural wonder tile, so Mt. Fuji would yield 2 gold, 3 culture and 7 faith.
1. Competing with a CS for open tiles does not raise any diplomatic consequences. Settle your city and buy up tiles to the tile(s) you want -- the CS won't care. Of course, if you do that with AI civs, there is a diplo hit (ranging from mild disapproval (if you are already good friends) to strong anger to DOW in the near future). Also, if the CS culture borders take in that tile before you get there, you're out of luck. (If you have a Great General, you can settle him to form a culture-bomb citadel and grab the tile, but there are negative consequences with the CS.)
2. On jungle, keep in mind that after you build a university each jungle tile (including the bananas/jungle) will yield +2 science. With a trading post (Guilds) on a jungle tile, Economics, and the Free Thought (rationalism) social policy, each jungle/TP tile will yield 2 food, 2 gold (3 gold if on a river) and 3 science. Of course, you need food and production, so this doesn't mean you never chop jungle, just be thoughtful.
3. On settling a city near Mt. Fuji, if you settle there and work the Mt. Fuji tile, that tile will generate 2 gold, 3 culture and 3 faith. That city will need an early granary to keep growing, but that will put you quickly on the path to a religion. If you take the One with World pantheon belief, you get 4 faith from a natural wonder tile, so Mt. Fuji would yield 2 gold, 3 culture and 7 faith.
Regarding city placement, you might consider settling immediately to the left of Mt Fuji, as that would secure its great yields, plus 2 more spice tiles (for trade) and the gems. Settling next to a mountain is huge, especially when going tall, since it allows you to build an Observatory (+50% bpt) upon discovering Astronomy. The downside is that the city might be defensively weak (though not with a Zanzibar alliance); more importantly, you'd be deprived of many tiles for growth because of Zanzibar. Just something to think over...
Optional
Deity
@coanda, I like your portrayal of Bismarck, and I think you're spot on with that.
@The Pilgrim, for learning the game also joining a Succession Game can be very good. I don't know why they have lost popularity with Civ5, but not much can beat playing and discussing the game as a team. I'm not meaning to say that you should join one, but it would be a shame if neutral readers were led to believe that War Academy and Strategy & Tips is all there is.
Mt Fuji never gets placed on the biggest land mass, so Gandhi must be starting out here on a smaller continent.
I used to think the War Elephant was the worst UU in the game, slower, more expensive and no hammer discount from stables - a triple disadvantage over the unit it replaces; Wow!!
But it looks like it's made stronger now with Gods & Kings, it might be half decent now. Of course it doesn't require a resource - this is with all the trunk bearing units in the game; they don't require horses, but as a result also don't profit from stables.
Germany gets especially dangerous when it gets access to the Landsknecht. The unit is dirt cheap, so can be churned out in high numbers - something to bear in mind.
@The Pilgrim, for learning the game also joining a Succession Game can be very good. I don't know why they have lost popularity with Civ5, but not much can beat playing and discussing the game as a team. I'm not meaning to say that you should join one, but it would be a shame if neutral readers were led to believe that War Academy and Strategy & Tips is all there is.
Mt Fuji never gets placed on the biggest land mass, so Gandhi must be starting out here on a smaller continent.
I used to think the War Elephant was the worst UU in the game, slower, more expensive and no hammer discount from stables - a triple disadvantage over the unit it replaces; Wow!!
But it looks like it's made stronger now with Gods & Kings, it might be half decent now. Of course it doesn't require a resource - this is with all the trunk bearing units in the game; they don't require horses, but as a result also don't profit from stables.
Germany gets especially dangerous when it gets access to the Landsknecht. The unit is dirt cheap, so can be churned out in high numbers - something to bear in mind.
Nice to see you went again. Good start this time. No close neighbours and lots of stuff on the map. Remember that you need a good production city on the coast given you will need to leave you continent sometime and preferably you would want to do it with a fleet of ships.
@regeneration64: Thanks for the link to city defense. I didn't know that city HP would increase as well as strength from defensive buildings.
@Browd: Good to know about city states. I think Sydney ate that gold pretty quickly, so I guess it's lost unless I want to burn a great general just to get it (or raze/conquer Sydney).
Jungle is definitely far better in Civ5 then. I actually changed my plan to make BW less of a priority, since I'd be (initially) cutting the jungles down and losing 1 food, then building a farm and getting back... 1 food. For a net gain of just 1 hammer, which didn't seem worth the dozen or so worker turns it would cost this early.
Mount Fuji is still in my thoughts, but I'm starting to think it might be a bit far to be convenient - I suspect it would drag me into a war with Bismarck, amongst other setbacks.
@Dr. Phil - your choice of location for Mount Fuji is definitely the stronger one economically. I was contemplating city on a hill for defensive bonus, but further discoveries and developments have thrown that whole area into question.
@Optional - thanks for the heads-up regarding Fuji and smaller landmass; that prompted me to look into it, but as far as I can tell none of the other natural wonders have similar early-scouting implications (just knowledge for future games).
@Mohed: Good to see you still helping out. My planned second city site is a coastal city, but I'm not sure how well it will do in terms of production. I also found a potential city site this round far to the east that is coastal and (I think?) reasonably strong, particularly on production.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Another round played, up to turn 45.
Open up the round getting my second social policy, and promptly start heading towards +2 food for capital policy.
On turn 25/26, Bismarck settles his second city... directly towards me basically. Not that I can blame him, since my scouting revealed that he was pretty much at the far south edge of the continent. I just wish he hadn't picked such a silly spot for it; if I do attack him, I'm going to be razing that city. He also apparently bought a truly useless tile; I'm a bit perplexed. Maybe there is horses there and I haven't discovered them yet?
A bit to my surprise, I discover a third city-state on this small continent - Florence, tucked into a little niche west of Bismarck. They're a cultural city state, so if I end up going for a Cultural win I'll probably be buddying up to them... but for now, no particular relevance. Sydney asks me to demand tribute from Sidon; I have no clue where Sidon is, but they're not on this continent. How does Sydney even know about them?
Turn 33 (about when I would be getting my first policy if I hadn't gotten that monument), I get my third social policy and start getting +10% food, +2 food in capital. I assume the +10% food is global? It seemed like the obvious choice - I'm India, my cities don't really suffer from citizen unhappiness much, so I should be piling up all the food in my capital that I can get. Plus I still only have the one city. Because I decided to postpone Bronze Working, I'm currently researching Writing. This was a tough call for me.
-Sailing, because my planned second city is coastal with two seafood.
-Bronze Working, to chop jungles.
-Animal Husbandry, to reveal horses and head towards Composite Bows.
-Writing, to get libraries and head towards NC.
I decided I had enough non-jungle tiles to improve and I could postpone BW indefinitely. I figured I had resources to pursue two of the next three options - Sailing and build workboats, Writing and head to NC, Animal Husbandry and get Composites. I couldn't decide between composite bowman or workboats in this situation, but I knew I would want NC sooner or later, so I took the safe course and grabbed Writing. I'm still not convinced this was the right decision.
Turn 42, Bismarck finishes the Great Library. Time to get some bowmen and take it away from him; that's several hundred hammers he didn't spend on defense. So at this point my planning changes to head towards rushing Bismarck. The workboats will have to wait; heck, the second city may wait (I'm undecided).
I play a few more turns; I've got a pair of warriors and pair of archers and am swatting barbarians with them while I build up. I'm about to have 500 gold in a couple turns, so I could buy a settler and make my second city as planned. Or I could bank the gold, blitz towards Composite Bowmen (~20 turns down the line I think), spam archers, and have the cash to upgrade them all. If I settle the second city, I could improve it's spice and probably pick up a couple hundred gold in trade with Bismarck off that. Unfortunately, he's the only AI I have available for trade right now... so I'm definitely limited in how much gold I can drag out of trades. I'm already getting about 10 gold per turn from him because he didn't have the cash on hand and he kept wasting gold buying stuff instead of piling up a full 240 to give to me.
Tentative plan, very much subject to revision based on advice:
Capital buys settler in a couple turns, I settle the northern city site (on the coast just south of the sugar/spice/assorted nice).
Plantation on the sugar, trade it to Bismarck for gold.
Keep making archers in the capital, get up to 5 or 6. Upgrade to composite bowmen, attack Bismarck with half-dozen bowmen and a pair of warriors.
Likely raze his junker city, puppet or annex his capital... although I'm unsure about those decisions. What exactly are the penalties for puppet vs. annex? Will they scale with my Gandhi trait modifier? Is all this planning to kill Bismarck even worth it for India, or should I be focusing on taking the cities I can get and teching up? Part of the reason I'm taking such an aggressive stance is that I just want to be sure I don't get killed myself and am able to see the game develop to late-game.
Longer-term, my exploration revealed a mountainside coastal city far to the east with 2 stone, marble, 2 fish, 2 spice, a sheep, and quite a few grassy hills. So I think I want to prune cities elsewhere to fit one in there at some point.
@Browd: Good to know about city states. I think Sydney ate that gold pretty quickly, so I guess it's lost unless I want to burn a great general just to get it (or raze/conquer Sydney).
Jungle is definitely far better in Civ5 then. I actually changed my plan to make BW less of a priority, since I'd be (initially) cutting the jungles down and losing 1 food, then building a farm and getting back... 1 food. For a net gain of just 1 hammer, which didn't seem worth the dozen or so worker turns it would cost this early.
Mount Fuji is still in my thoughts, but I'm starting to think it might be a bit far to be convenient - I suspect it would drag me into a war with Bismarck, amongst other setbacks.
@Dr. Phil - your choice of location for Mount Fuji is definitely the stronger one economically. I was contemplating city on a hill for defensive bonus, but further discoveries and developments have thrown that whole area into question.
@Optional - thanks for the heads-up regarding Fuji and smaller landmass; that prompted me to look into it, but as far as I can tell none of the other natural wonders have similar early-scouting implications (just knowledge for future games).
@Mohed: Good to see you still helping out. My planned second city site is a coastal city, but I'm not sure how well it will do in terms of production. I also found a potential city site this round far to the east that is coastal and (I think?) reasonably strong, particularly on production.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Another round played, up to turn 45.
Open up the round getting my second social policy, and promptly start heading towards +2 food for capital policy.
Spoiler :
On turn 25/26, Bismarck settles his second city... directly towards me basically. Not that I can blame him, since my scouting revealed that he was pretty much at the far south edge of the continent. I just wish he hadn't picked such a silly spot for it; if I do attack him, I'm going to be razing that city. He also apparently bought a truly useless tile; I'm a bit perplexed. Maybe there is horses there and I haven't discovered them yet?
A bit to my surprise, I discover a third city-state on this small continent - Florence, tucked into a little niche west of Bismarck. They're a cultural city state, so if I end up going for a Cultural win I'll probably be buddying up to them... but for now, no particular relevance. Sydney asks me to demand tribute from Sidon; I have no clue where Sidon is, but they're not on this continent. How does Sydney even know about them?
Turn 33 (about when I would be getting my first policy if I hadn't gotten that monument), I get my third social policy and start getting +10% food, +2 food in capital. I assume the +10% food is global? It seemed like the obvious choice - I'm India, my cities don't really suffer from citizen unhappiness much, so I should be piling up all the food in my capital that I can get. Plus I still only have the one city. Because I decided to postpone Bronze Working, I'm currently researching Writing. This was a tough call for me.
-Sailing, because my planned second city is coastal with two seafood.
-Bronze Working, to chop jungles.
-Animal Husbandry, to reveal horses and head towards Composite Bows.
-Writing, to get libraries and head towards NC.
I decided I had enough non-jungle tiles to improve and I could postpone BW indefinitely. I figured I had resources to pursue two of the next three options - Sailing and build workboats, Writing and head to NC, Animal Husbandry and get Composites. I couldn't decide between composite bowman or workboats in this situation, but I knew I would want NC sooner or later, so I took the safe course and grabbed Writing. I'm still not convinced this was the right decision.
Turn 42, Bismarck finishes the Great Library. Time to get some bowmen and take it away from him; that's several hundred hammers he didn't spend on defense. So at this point my planning changes to head towards rushing Bismarck. The workboats will have to wait; heck, the second city may wait (I'm undecided).
I play a few more turns; I've got a pair of warriors and pair of archers and am swatting barbarians with them while I build up. I'm about to have 500 gold in a couple turns, so I could buy a settler and make my second city as planned. Or I could bank the gold, blitz towards Composite Bowmen (~20 turns down the line I think), spam archers, and have the cash to upgrade them all. If I settle the second city, I could improve it's spice and probably pick up a couple hundred gold in trade with Bismarck off that. Unfortunately, he's the only AI I have available for trade right now... so I'm definitely limited in how much gold I can drag out of trades. I'm already getting about 10 gold per turn from him because he didn't have the cash on hand and he kept wasting gold buying stuff instead of piling up a full 240 to give to me.
Tentative plan, very much subject to revision based on advice:
Capital buys settler in a couple turns, I settle the northern city site (on the coast just south of the sugar/spice/assorted nice).
Plantation on the sugar, trade it to Bismarck for gold.
Keep making archers in the capital, get up to 5 or 6. Upgrade to composite bowmen, attack Bismarck with half-dozen bowmen and a pair of warriors.
Likely raze his junker city, puppet or annex his capital... although I'm unsure about those decisions. What exactly are the penalties for puppet vs. annex? Will they scale with my Gandhi trait modifier? Is all this planning to kill Bismarck even worth it for India, or should I be focusing on taking the cities I can get and teching up? Part of the reason I'm taking such an aggressive stance is that I just want to be sure I don't get killed myself and am able to see the game develop to late-game.
Longer-term, my exploration revealed a mountainside coastal city far to the east with 2 stone, marble, 2 fish, 2 spice, a sheep, and quite a few grassy hills. So I think I want to prune cities elsewhere to fit one in there at some point.
The Pilgrim
Deity
I recognize a fast learner when I see one. 
Good start, coanda. Not very good map and not very good civ, but neither is your fault.
Few words, if you don't mind (actually, even if you do, I really don't want to work, so...).
India is not an easy civ to play. Especially early on, especially semi isolated when you don't have many AI to trade with if at all. Every additional city greatly hurts your happiness and thus can prevent growth. Luckily you have Zanzibar right next to you with a unique lux, allying it should get high priority. On this note, I'd suggest pledging to protect it and then hunt barbarians. Don't destroy that camp until you get a quest from Zanzibar. In the meanwhile you can farm it. If you kill a barb inside or immediately next to CS border, you get influence points (I believe it's 12 per unit, don't quote me on that, though). Same with Sydney. Pay attention to its quests and protect it from barbs and ally as soon as you can. The last thing you want is Bismark beats you to it and you get attacked by Sydney from behind.
The downside of settling where you settled is the same as before. It's not a hill. But in this case it makes sense for two major reasons. First, once you tech Calendar you get instant luxury without improving it. While settling on top of copper saves you 5 turns of mining, here you saved 13 turns of chopping the jungle (you need Bronze Working for that - another delay) and building plantation. Second, had you settled on southern hill, you wouldn't have had any luxes in your first ring, but 1 in second ring and 2 in third ring. And you couldn't have known that silver exists at that point, so it's not a factor.
Competing with CS for high value tiles e.i. 'their' luxes and NW is meant to fail more often than not. Don't count on gold next to Sydney and not so much on Mt. Fuji. Singapore's borders already expanded towards it and it's very likely the next borders expansion will grab it. It's also possible there are horses on the plains, but for now we can't know for sure. Anyways, the fact they have the lux in the first ring doesn't help your chances to settle Mt. Fuji. That being said, there is a good enough city location there and it's worth settling regardless. If by the time your settler reaches the spot Mt. Fuji is still available, I'd settle on camp or NW of it and by Mt. Fuji tile. Although ideally I'd prefer to settle on hill but purchasing natural wonder in third ring will be significantly more expensive. Assuming you don't meet more AI's by then, not sure you'll have the funds.
Speaking of buying tiles, it's often a good idea to buy 3
tile asap. You could've bought bananas for 50
instead of waiting for border pop.
Additional good city spots in my opinion: SW of dear. Two unique luxes, some food and coastal city, a future navy port. Not great food-wise but there are enough forests to chop and speed the library, and all possible food boosting buildings. Along with Sydney alliances and Tradition, it'll grow. Bismark will be grumpy about that, probably, but he'll get over it. 4 archers hidden in forests will take care of him in case he decides to make a move.
Northern city you're talking about is not high priority. Although it has a unique lux, it's a weak city overall. Too many useless water tiles and it'd overlap with Delhi and Sydney. City #4 at best.
War elephants are... meh. They come early, but are expensive for this stage of the game. Archers upgraded to CB's are just as good. Cost only 5 hammers more and have the same range strength. And their upgrade path is much more useful. You can have an elephant or two on defense, not bad for barb hunting but not something you should really invest into.
Bismark is still the same wonder-spamming expansive aggressor he was in civ4. With a twist of being one of the top candidates to become a runaway in Civ5. The real problem, as it's been mentioned already, is his huge army. It might not be very effective vs. human, however it's extremely powerful against his brainless AI fellows. He tends to steamroll everything on his way and more cities means more everything. He can grow into a beast if you let him to. Dealing with him earlier rather than later is a good plan.
Build order and tech order sound good. Keep in mind you'll need BW relatively soon.
On standard size maps continents are usually divided 4-4, less often 5-3 and in rare occasions something else. So there is a good chance to find more AI's to trade with, keep scouting.
Good luck!
Edit, I see I came late. Disregard the irrelevant parts, please. I'll comment some more after reading your post.
Good start, coanda. Not very good map and not very good civ, but neither is your fault.
Few words, if you don't mind (actually, even if you do, I really don't want to work, so...
).India is not an easy civ to play. Especially early on, especially semi isolated when you don't have many AI to trade with if at all. Every additional city greatly hurts your happiness and thus can prevent growth. Luckily you have Zanzibar right next to you with a unique lux, allying it should get high priority. On this note, I'd suggest pledging to protect it and then hunt barbarians. Don't destroy that camp until you get a quest from Zanzibar. In the meanwhile you can farm it. If you kill a barb inside or immediately next to CS border, you get influence points (I believe it's 12 per unit, don't quote me on that, though). Same with Sydney. Pay attention to its quests and protect it from barbs and ally as soon as you can. The last thing you want is Bismark beats you to it and you get attacked by Sydney from behind.
The downside of settling where you settled is the same as before. It's not a hill. But in this case it makes sense for two major reasons. First, once you tech Calendar you get instant luxury without improving it. While settling on top of copper saves you 5 turns of mining, here you saved 13 turns of chopping the jungle (you need Bronze Working for that - another delay) and building plantation. Second, had you settled on southern hill, you wouldn't have had any luxes in your first ring, but 1 in second ring and 2 in third ring. And you couldn't have known that silver exists at that point, so it's not a factor.
Competing with CS for high value tiles e.i. 'their' luxes and NW is meant to fail more often than not. Don't count on gold next to Sydney and not so much on Mt. Fuji. Singapore's borders already expanded towards it and it's very likely the next borders expansion will grab it. It's also possible there are horses on the plains, but for now we can't know for sure. Anyways, the fact they have the lux in the first ring doesn't help your chances to settle Mt. Fuji. That being said, there is a good enough city location there and it's worth settling regardless. If by the time your settler reaches the spot Mt. Fuji is still available, I'd settle on camp or NW of it and by Mt. Fuji tile. Although ideally I'd prefer to settle on hill but purchasing natural wonder in third ring will be significantly more expensive. Assuming you don't meet more AI's by then, not sure you'll have the funds.
Speaking of buying tiles, it's often a good idea to buy 3
tile asap. You could've bought bananas for 50 instead of waiting for border pop. Additional good city spots in my opinion: SW of dear. Two unique luxes, some food and coastal city, a future navy port. Not great food-wise but there are enough forests to chop and speed the library, and all possible food boosting buildings. Along with Sydney alliances and Tradition, it'll grow. Bismark will be grumpy about that, probably, but he'll get over it. 4 archers hidden in forests will take care of him in case he decides to make a move.
Northern city you're talking about is not high priority. Although it has a unique lux, it's a weak city overall. Too many useless water tiles and it'd overlap with Delhi and Sydney. City #4 at best.
War elephants are... meh. They come early, but are expensive for this stage of the game. Archers upgraded to CB's are just as good. Cost only 5 hammers more and have the same range strength. And their upgrade path is much more useful. You can have an elephant or two on defense, not bad for barb hunting but not something you should really invest into.
Bismark is still the same wonder-spamming expansive aggressor he was in civ4. With a twist of being one of the top candidates to become a runaway in Civ5.
The real problem, as it's been mentioned already, is his huge army. It might not be very effective vs. human, however it's extremely powerful against his brainless AI fellows. He tends to steamroll everything on his way and more cities means more everything. He can grow into a beast if you let him to. Dealing with him earlier rather than later is a good plan.Build order and tech order sound good. Keep in mind you'll need BW relatively soon.
On standard size maps continents are usually divided 4-4, less often 5-3 and in rare occasions something else. So there is a good chance to find more AI's to trade with, keep scouting.
Good luck!
Edit, I see I came late. Disregard the irrelevant parts, please.
I'll comment some more after reading your post.
Couple of responses to embedded questions:
1. Cultural CSs are quite helpful even in non-Culture games. As you've observed already, getting additional culture early can boost your way through your social policy trees, garnering those benefits all the more quickly. Cultural CS friendships and alliances can serve the same purpose on an ongoing basis, particularly since social policy costs rise with each policy (and even more as you found additional cities). Alternatively, culture from CSs can allow you to push some culture buildings back a bit in your build order, without losing pace on social policy acquisition.
2. The Landed Elite food bonus only applies to your capital, and is a bonus on surplus food, not raw food production. Percentage food (often referred to as "growth") bonuses (the Landed Elite 10% in your capital, the Tradition finisher 15% in all cities, the religious pantheon belief Fertility Rites 10% growth rate, the follower belief Sword into Plowshares 15% growth rate, etc.) all operate on food surplus, not raw food production. (The only exceptions are the Temple of Artemis world wonder and the Aztec's Floating Garden.) Here's a link to an illustrative computation about how food bonuses are calculated: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=12192199&postcount=18
1. Cultural CSs are quite helpful even in non-Culture games. As you've observed already, getting additional culture early can boost your way through your social policy trees, garnering those benefits all the more quickly. Cultural CS friendships and alliances can serve the same purpose on an ongoing basis, particularly since social policy costs rise with each policy (and even more as you found additional cities). Alternatively, culture from CSs can allow you to push some culture buildings back a bit in your build order, without losing pace on social policy acquisition.
2. The Landed Elite food bonus only applies to your capital, and is a bonus on surplus food, not raw food production. Percentage food (often referred to as "growth") bonuses (the Landed Elite 10% in your capital, the Tradition finisher 15% in all cities, the religious pantheon belief Fertility Rites 10% growth rate, the follower belief Sword into Plowshares 15% growth rate, etc.) all operate on food surplus, not raw food production. (The only exceptions are the Temple of Artemis world wonder and the Aztec's Floating Garden.) Here's a link to an illustrative computation about how food bonuses are calculated: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=12192199&postcount=18
The Pilgrim
Deity
Oh well, you two are alone. Good news and not so good news. Good news, because you can deal with him, Berlin is not on hill, thankfully. Bad news, no one to trade with for a while (maybe until Astronomy). I'd beeline Construction and kill him. Raze Hamburg and if he manages to settle something else, probably that too, unless it's good city location with unique lux. As you get more luxes online, you'll be able to settle additional cities.
Never annex a city before the resistance ends. When it does, the cities you may want to annex should have one or more of the following features: strong production - usually capitals; being close to the front allowing rush buying more units; university which you can staff immediately. If the happiness is tight wait until you have cash to rush buy a courthouse. If you have plenty of happiness, you can hard build it.
Early fighting as India is tough. Religion can mitigate some of the unhappiness hits, but since you don't have any and it's unlikely you will anytime soon, I don't expect the next hundred or so turns to be easy. How many pantheons are left?
Never annex a city before the resistance ends. When it does, the cities you may want to annex should have one or more of the following features: strong production - usually capitals; being close to the front allowing rush buying more units; university which you can staff immediately. If the happiness is tight wait until you have cash to rush buy a courthouse. If you have plenty of happiness, you can hard build it.
Early fighting as India is tough. Religion can mitigate some of the unhappiness hits, but since you don't have any and it's unlikely you will anytime soon, I don't expect the next hundred or so turns to be easy. How many pantheons are left?
From the SS it seems that your not teching towards phis/NC atm, which I think you should do asap. Then buy settlers as suggested in this thread, http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=468487
As to the city states knowing about other CS you havent meet, they are probably just close. Get some good costal cities as this is a continents map and try and go for early exploration (More trading partners).
Make sure Sydney is not connected to more land and steal their worker to speed up your development.
As to the city states knowing about other CS you havent meet, they are probably just close. Get some good costal cities as this is a continents map and try and go for early exploration (More trading partners).
Make sure Sydney is not connected to more land and steal their worker to speed up your development.
The Pilgrim
Deity
Yep, sometimes it's that cheap.
Most definitely. SG were big part of my own learning process. I used to like them a lot. I wish they were as popular as in Civ3/4 days and I could plug them. And actually, I'd love to join one as well. Not sure there will be many interested in deity game though. If you think we can gather at least 4-5 players, please let me know.
I had no idea. Explains why I never see it on pangaeas.
@The Pilgrim: Thanks for the advice regarding befriending Zanzibar. I didn't quite get it to allied, but it is solidly friendly with me for the next dozen turns or so because I put off killing the barb camp for a few turns. As far as allying Sydney though, I just wrote it off this turnset. Due to their locations, barbarians simply aren't ever getting to them and barbarian encampments aren't showing up anywhere nearby. Befriending it would have been a very costly process. Fortunately, Bismarck should have the exact same problem.
I ended up settling north city anyways, although your advice was taken into serious consideration. I agree, it wasn't as strong as my initial instincts thought. It was a holistic thing - I was looking at the map as a whole, and decided that was probably the best spot to settle now. More reasoning in full update.
@Browd: Yeah, I'm eyeballing that cultural city state hopefully. No barb camps to farm for relations with them yet though. Thanks for the link to food modifiers.
@Johan: You've put your finger on my #1 concern about my current strategy. My desire to pick off Bismarck early is making me put off NC. It was a calculated risk, but it's entirely possible my calculation was off. More on that in main update. Thanks for the tip about the worker-steal!
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Another set done.
Preliminary thoughts before I started this:
I have two major priorities that I'm balancing off against each other. #1 is keeping Bismarck from being a threat - preferably permanently. #2 is keeping from falling hopelessly behind in tech. One of those pushes for Construction and archers; the other for Philosophy and libraries. I realized I'd mis-timed my buildup a little bit, so I should have built a library in my capital before starting the archer-spam - the rush was going to be limited by beakers, not hammers or gold.
I also had to put some thought into city settling. Since I get double city unhappiness, I thought I'd plan for four cities.
One city will obviously be my capital.
One will certainly be in the far east unless I get anguished screams in the comments.
I'm debating between W of the sheep or NE of them - NE would let me build a Stone Works I think, but W would get an extra spice, fish in first ring, and be a touch closer to capital. More scouting needed in that area to tell for sure (the barb encampment is blocking me from scouting the rest), but that will be one of my cities. However, I didn't think it was practical to settle this city as my second city - it's just a long ways off and I didn't want to burn an extra dozen turns on my second settler just moving to it, plus quite possibly a dozen worker turns hiking someone over there to improve it.
One city will probably be Berlin. It grabs me gems, wine, horses, and about a million river tiles, plus it's already there with a Library.
That leaves one more city... and it has to be a spot I can take now, or I resign myself to going it with 1 city until after killing Bismarck. I debated doing that, but ultimately worried I'd lose too much city growth time if I did. My first choice would have been SW of the Deer as The Pilgrim suggested, but Hamburg throws a spoke in that plan. I contemplated settling on the silver to the south of my capital as a reasonably defensible city which also would grab a lux, mountain, and some random tiles, but I eventually decided it just didn't bring enough to the table. So I took the spot north of my city, with the sugar resources. I actually settled on the sugar to cut down a bit on overlap with capital, and on the off chance I got an opportunity to beat Sydney to that horse I discovered in the far NW.
I started out the turnset by guaranteeing Zanzibar to start earning relations; stalled a handful of turns until they asked me to kill the barb encampment, then did so. That threw me up to +55 relations. I contemplated a gold gift to push them over 60, but I had sufficient happiness now, expected any alliance to wear off before I was ready to deal with Bismarck, and wanted all the gold for upgrading archers anyways.
Meanwhile I adopted Johan's advice about worker-stealing from Sydney.
I was all set to pull back, stall until I could get more archers over there, and bring overwhelming force to bear in order to end this war before going after Bismarck, but apparently city-states just give you peace when you ask for it. So... free worker!
When I finished my current archer, I built a library in Delhi before going back to archer spam - I should have done that earlier really. Live and learn; I underestimated the hammer output and overestimated research rate of Delhi.
My old Spice deal with Bismarck ended, and I started another one for 138 gold plus 3 gold per turn (if he's willing to pay for his own destruction, I'm not getting in his way; that gold is all going to upgrade archers).
Bismarck settled his third city, in as far as I can tell an absolutely pointless spot.
That said, it's a bit irritating just because it's so far from the rest of his cities; I'm going to have a lot of hiking back and forth just to kill him, which will buy him time to tech up potentially. I'm determined to wrap him up before Landsknechts start showing up, and don't have the best sense for how long it will take an Immortal AI (or any AI, for that matter) to get there.
So, turn 68. I think I'm all set to kick off this bash - 5 composite bows, 2 warriors for actually capping cities. I'm planning to pump out another pair of warriors quickly from the capital, but they'll have to catch up on the move.
Time for my first planned Civ5 war. My initial inclination is to let Munich just stew while I raze Hamburg and puppet Berlin. Then I may take a temporary peace treaty with Bismarck for however much gold I can get out of him while marching my troops back to the north, and hopefully kill him 10 turns later.
Simultaneously, it is time and past time to get NC. I also need Sailing so I can start making work boats to get Mumbai up and running, but my sense is that those are less of a priority than NC. Eventually, I'll need Bronze Working too. So tech plan: Philosophy -> Sailing -> BW -> Optics, or Philosophy -> Sailing -> Optics -> BW? Or something totally different?
I actually beat one poor AI to the classical era, which makes me wonder what exactly it's been spending its time on.
One closing question: If I open a new trade with Bismarck now, will that enforce a truce period in which I can't DoW him? I'd like to get the last ~60 gold out of him so he can't spend it against me and I get a second library sooner, but I don't want to postpone my attack just for that. Also - how valuable are trade routes? Is it worth making a road between Delhi and Mumbai now?
I ended up settling north city anyways, although your advice was taken into serious consideration. I agree, it wasn't as strong as my initial instincts thought. It was a holistic thing - I was looking at the map as a whole, and decided that was probably the best spot to settle now. More reasoning in full update.
@Browd: Yeah, I'm eyeballing that cultural city state hopefully. No barb camps to farm for relations with them yet though. Thanks for the link to food modifiers.
@Johan: You've put your finger on my #1 concern about my current strategy. My desire to pick off Bismarck early is making me put off NC. It was a calculated risk, but it's entirely possible my calculation was off. More on that in main update. Thanks for the tip about the worker-steal!
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Another set done.
Preliminary thoughts before I started this:
I have two major priorities that I'm balancing off against each other. #1 is keeping Bismarck from being a threat - preferably permanently. #2 is keeping from falling hopelessly behind in tech. One of those pushes for Construction and archers; the other for Philosophy and libraries. I realized I'd mis-timed my buildup a little bit, so I should have built a library in my capital before starting the archer-spam - the rush was going to be limited by beakers, not hammers or gold.
I also had to put some thought into city settling. Since I get double city unhappiness, I thought I'd plan for four cities.
One city will obviously be my capital.
One will certainly be in the far east unless I get anguished screams in the comments.
I'm debating between W of the sheep or NE of them - NE would let me build a Stone Works I think, but W would get an extra spice, fish in first ring, and be a touch closer to capital. More scouting needed in that area to tell for sure (the barb encampment is blocking me from scouting the rest), but that will be one of my cities. However, I didn't think it was practical to settle this city as my second city - it's just a long ways off and I didn't want to burn an extra dozen turns on my second settler just moving to it, plus quite possibly a dozen worker turns hiking someone over there to improve it.
One city will probably be Berlin. It grabs me gems, wine, horses, and about a million river tiles, plus it's already there with a Library.
That leaves one more city... and it has to be a spot I can take now, or I resign myself to going it with 1 city until after killing Bismarck. I debated doing that, but ultimately worried I'd lose too much city growth time if I did. My first choice would have been SW of the Deer as The Pilgrim suggested, but Hamburg throws a spoke in that plan. I contemplated settling on the silver to the south of my capital as a reasonably defensible city which also would grab a lux, mountain, and some random tiles, but I eventually decided it just didn't bring enough to the table. So I took the spot north of my city, with the sugar resources. I actually settled on the sugar to cut down a bit on overlap with capital, and on the off chance I got an opportunity to beat Sydney to that horse I discovered in the far NW.
I started out the turnset by guaranteeing Zanzibar to start earning relations; stalled a handful of turns until they asked me to kill the barb encampment, then did so. That threw me up to +55 relations. I contemplated a gold gift to push them over 60, but I had sufficient happiness now, expected any alliance to wear off before I was ready to deal with Bismarck, and wanted all the gold for upgrading archers anyways.
Meanwhile I adopted Johan's advice about worker-stealing from Sydney.
I was all set to pull back, stall until I could get more archers over there, and bring overwhelming force to bear in order to end this war before going after Bismarck, but apparently city-states just give you peace when you ask for it. So... free worker!
When I finished my current archer, I built a library in Delhi before going back to archer spam - I should have done that earlier really. Live and learn; I underestimated the hammer output and overestimated research rate of Delhi.
My old Spice deal with Bismarck ended, and I started another one for 138 gold plus 3 gold per turn (if he's willing to pay for his own destruction, I'm not getting in his way; that gold is all going to upgrade archers).
Bismarck settled his third city, in as far as I can tell an absolutely pointless spot.
That said, it's a bit irritating just because it's so far from the rest of his cities; I'm going to have a lot of hiking back and forth just to kill him, which will buy him time to tech up potentially. I'm determined to wrap him up before Landsknechts start showing up, and don't have the best sense for how long it will take an Immortal AI (or any AI, for that matter) to get there.
So, turn 68. I think I'm all set to kick off this bash - 5 composite bows, 2 warriors for actually capping cities. I'm planning to pump out another pair of warriors quickly from the capital, but they'll have to catch up on the move.
Time for my first planned Civ5 war. My initial inclination is to let Munich just stew while I raze Hamburg and puppet Berlin. Then I may take a temporary peace treaty with Bismarck for however much gold I can get out of him while marching my troops back to the north, and hopefully kill him 10 turns later.
Simultaneously, it is time and past time to get NC. I also need Sailing so I can start making work boats to get Mumbai up and running, but my sense is that those are less of a priority than NC. Eventually, I'll need Bronze Working too. So tech plan: Philosophy -> Sailing -> BW -> Optics, or Philosophy -> Sailing -> Optics -> BW? Or something totally different?
I actually beat one poor AI to the classical era, which makes me wonder what exactly it's been spending its time on.
One closing question: If I open a new trade with Bismarck now, will that enforce a truce period in which I can't DoW him? I'd like to get the last ~60 gold out of him so he can't spend it against me and I get a second library sooner, but I don't want to postpone my attack just for that. Also - how valuable are trade routes? Is it worth making a road between Delhi and Mumbai now?
No truce period after trades. Some frown on DOWing an AI shortly after a trade, but game mechanics permit it and higher levels are hard enough (and AI gets enough advantages) as it is.
On trade routes, there is a War Academy article (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=438745) that describes the mechanics, but for trade route purposes, you generally want your secondary city to have a pop at least equal to the number of road tiles you have to build and your capital 2 pop more than that. In the turn 68 screenshot, Mumbai is only 2 pop and it looks to be about 5 tiles between Mumbai and Delhi. If there were a military need for the road, you should feel free to build it regardless of trade route income calculations. So, for example, you might start building a road from Delhi to the main German cities to speed your army's movement. Once you puppet his cities, the trade route will be there.
On Munich, the AI may be intending to acquire Mt. Fuji before the CS does. In that case, you can just let him do that and enjoy the benefits after your puppet Munich. (And that's consistent with the strategy of taking out his more developed cities first -- that's the right call.)
On trade routes, there is a War Academy article (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=438745) that describes the mechanics, but for trade route purposes, you generally want your secondary city to have a pop at least equal to the number of road tiles you have to build and your capital 2 pop more than that. In the turn 68 screenshot, Mumbai is only 2 pop and it looks to be about 5 tiles between Mumbai and Delhi. If there were a military need for the road, you should feel free to build it regardless of trade route income calculations. So, for example, you might start building a road from Delhi to the main German cities to speed your army's movement. Once you puppet his cities, the trade route will be there.
On Munich, the AI may be intending to acquire Mt. Fuji before the CS does. In that case, you can just let him do that and enjoy the benefits after your puppet Munich. (And that's consistent with the strategy of taking out his more developed cities first -- that's the right call.)
First, you can only have one capital - the one you started with.
Getting Sailing for work boats is probably a good idea, if that tech becomes cheap (i.e., 2-4 turns to research). It doesn't appear to be any sea luxuries around Mumbai, so it's not that important but you do need help on food for it.
No trades enforce a truce, only the 10-turn peace treaty (and practically, a Declaration of Friendship).
Trade routes are usually built when both cities are 4+ in size, so wait a while. The calculation, I recall, is for both cities to be equal or greater in size than the number of tiles between them.
So even if I conquer Berlin, I can only puppet it, not annex it?
You can annex Berlin, but it will not be a "capital", in the sense that the only Palace in your empire is located in Delhi.
There is no mechanism for you to have multiple capitals or to relocate your capital to another city (unless your capital is conquered, in which case the game autoselects another city to serve as your capital, and a palace instantly appears in that other city--that's what will happen in Munich, after you take and raze Hamburg and then take Berlin).
When you take a city, its population is cut in half, most of its buildings are destroyed and it will be in "revolt" for a number of turns equal to its post-conquer population. While the city is in revolt, it produces only food -- no science, no gold, no culture, no production.
If you know you want to raze the city, raze it immediately -- the razing period will coincide with the revolt period, during which you can sell off any buildings that have a maintenance cost.
If you think you want to keep the city (or it is a capital, which cannot be razed), then puppet initially. Once the revolt period is over, you can decide whether to leave it as a puppet or annex it. If you annex it, the unhappiness hit rises until you build or buy a courthouse; best to delay annexing until you have the gold to rush-buy a courthouse.
There is no mechanism for you to have multiple capitals or to relocate your capital to another city (unless your capital is conquered, in which case the game autoselects another city to serve as your capital, and a palace instantly appears in that other city--that's what will happen in Munich, after you take and raze Hamburg and then take Berlin).
When you take a city, its population is cut in half, most of its buildings are destroyed and it will be in "revolt" for a number of turns equal to its post-conquer population. While the city is in revolt, it produces only food -- no science, no gold, no culture, no production.
If you know you want to raze the city, raze it immediately -- the razing period will coincide with the revolt period, during which you can sell off any buildings that have a maintenance cost.
If you think you want to keep the city (or it is a capital, which cannot be razed), then puppet initially. Once the revolt period is over, you can decide whether to leave it as a puppet or annex it. If you annex it, the unhappiness hit rises until you build or buy a courthouse; best to delay annexing until you have the gold to rush-buy a courthouse.
The Pilgrim
Deity
It's better to have more CB's than more warriors. In the worst case scenario you need two melee units to take a city. You park them in third ring. 1 turn before city defense falls completely, you move them in so the next turn they can capture it. You only need one of them to survive. If city and/or ranged unit garrisoned in it target and kill one of the warriors, the second survives and finishes the job. Early in the game I often use scouts. They are cheaper. Another point to keep in mind, pillaging tile will heal 25HP. Try to place units that are likely to be targeted on improved tiles. Hopefully 5 CB's will cut it. I'd make 6th just to be sure. Bismark can whip up walls at the very last minute.
Also, I think it was mentioned before by someone, make sure there is nothing south to Sydney. And yes, stealing a worker is that simple. You get one 'free' DoW from CS and minor diplo hit with AI's, but since you haven't met anyone, there is no one to care about. If you DoW more CS, the resting point of all of them will decrease, so it's better stop after one free worker.
I'd go with BW first. If I see right, spices are covered with jungle and soon you'll need all the happiness you can find. But don't delay Sailing. In fact, I'd train trireme asap and send exploring. It's still possible there are other AI's nearby.
Also, I think it was mentioned before by someone, make sure there is nothing south to Sydney. And yes, stealing a worker is that simple.
You get one 'free' DoW from CS and minor diplo hit with AI's, but since you haven't met anyone, there is no one to care about. If you DoW more CS, the resting point of all of them will decrease, so it's better stop after one free worker. I'd go with BW first. If I see right, spices are covered with jungle and soon you'll need all the happiness you can find. But don't delay Sailing. In fact, I'd train trireme asap and send exploring. It's still possible there are other AI's nearby.
