IO7 - Jihad!!

[strijder20]

So, I played a quick turnset of 30 turns. Somewhat uneventful, but we almost have the Oracle and met some new people. I don't like how they are all techers.

Payback for setback event! A turn is shaved off priesthood.

Which enables us to start the Oracle at Mecca. I also chopped out a worker in the meanwhile.

Pericles found Judaism and converts to it. Great, religious indifferences!

I have no idea where his unit is which met us, but I do hope he is far away. He is one of the better leaders, in my opinion.

The Khmer culture is visible in the down right corner of the screenshot. It might be an island, it might be a part of our continent. Time shall bring an answer.

Oh. I forgot to build axes.
I promptly start one in Medina, which can be whipped if needed. We should chop some axes after the oracle is out.

We discover where the Mayas are. Disturbingly close. But in my games they tend to underexpand.

And I end my turnset with the tech which enables Madrassas. Completing the oracle in five turns can't net us theo, but isn't Monarchy good too? Teching Monotheism would take 13 turns, and it's getting late...

Woopdedoo, I didn't read your post but I took exactly the same tech path

We can use the oracle to get Theo, but we can also take Monarchy (also a prerequisite and allows Monarchy and wineries, wine is near our lands).

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

Got it, writing up a plan now. In my opinion, waiting to get Theo would be a bit risky... I'll probably take Monarchy with the Oracle instead.

 

[pigswill]

Monarchy would be good for city growth for sure. Easiest way to DR is generating 3 Prophets, which does enable us to research other stuff instead.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

So after looking at this start... the Oracle will be nice, and nabbing Monarchy from it will allow us to grow that wine. Which reminds me of something... we need more exploration! I KNOW that place just to the south of Medina could be a very nice city, but I just don't know what's out there! Oh well, there's a unit there I can use to explore...

In terms of Tech, the listed tech is Sailing, which I don't really see the rationale behind. It's my personal opinion that Pottery for Granaries might just be a better idea... feel free to disagree, but that's how I feel. After that, I'd almost recommend going for Math... +50% to chopping and it's on the road to construction. All good stuff.

With production, nothing to do in Medina for a long while, which I'm fine with. After all, we NEED an Axe in that city, and then I don't see a problem with building a settler... when it starts building a settler, it'll have 8 production and 2 excess food, which will net us the settler in 13 turns! Or... a better solution might be to whip the axe when Medina reaches size three, then build the settler using the Marble and Cow tiles. 7 production and 2 excess food, yeah, but we'd also get massive overflow from the whipping. I might just do that.

Mecca's building an Oracle and then an Axeman, which are both good ideas. After the Axeman finishes I'll probably consider building another Axeman and start getting ideas about Red Dot. I'm really not sure if I really want to whip Mecca, but I guess we may as well use these two clams. Come to think of it, it might be helpful to whip a Madrassa for two pop after the Axeman finishes, THEN start another Axe. So yeah, there's my two ideas. (Note, I'm not normally a heavy whipper!)

Workers, on the other hand, are relatively easy. My plan with them is for the two working on the marble to finish it, then go west and hook up the gold. After that, I'll probably mine one or two of those plains hills near Medina.

So... thoughts? Concerns? Hateful commentary? Come on, I can take it.

 

[strijder20]

Sailing was just a placeholder tech, and certainly not my first choice. Pottery we'll need soon enough, so that sounds fine to me.
I also suggest we block off Pacal. The warrior is near a nice floodplain city. Combined with the wine city south of Medina, we might block off the entire west from Pacal.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

So opening at turn 100, I don't have TOO much time, so I'll play just 15 turns.That should be good! I do as i said I would, lowering research to 90%. This raises Sailing to 13, but oh well. Speaking of Sailing, I change that to Pottery! Just 8 turns!

Turn 101:
Apparently, according to Toynbee, we're the least cultured in the world:

Not that we were really trying for that anyway. The Maya ask for OB, but I refuse for now. Worker builds the gold, really a boring turn.

Turn 102:
Marble finishes. Nothing else of interest. It does drive the Oracle down a turn, though. Yay?

Turn 104:
Oracle finishes! I take Monarchy. Hereditary Rule just sounds dandy! (I love Spiritual civs. Did I mention that?)

And with that, we're Classical.

Nothing else of interest, really.

Turn 106:
We've got Gold, for whenever Medina needs to use it. It'll be hooked up in a moment, and then we'll have a nice happiness cushion to whip with. And speaking of whipping... Medina just reached size 3, which is my signal to whip that axeman out for 40 extra hammers of overflow!

Turn 107:
Success, Axemen in both cities. We can breathe a little easier now. Mecca starts a Madrassa and Medina starts a settler, a settler which'll be out in turn 117 thanks to the whipping. I figure we'll just want to fortify these guys in the city.

Turn 108:
Pottery!

Granaries good, and I think I suggested Math next earlier, which I had no objection to, so let's do that! ...on second thought, that looks kind of expensive. Let's get Monotheism out of the way first... that way when we get our Prophets, they can skip that cheap-o tech.

Turn 112:
Mecca grows to size six, which is my cue to whip out a Madrassa. Now whenever we need we can turn on the Prophets to help us nab DR quickly. Medina can also whip a settler, but I never like whipping a size-two city. Also, those Mayans are REALLY close... if we want to build another city down there, better do it quick.

Turn 113:
I spoke too soon! They build another city right near that area! I think our best bet might be west of Medina now. Mecca finishes Madrassa and starts on an Axeman. I'm also going to take off a forest tile and add on a Priest, which lowers growth but takes our first great prophet from 65 turns to 26. A big improvement.

Turn 115:
And I think I'll end it here. Hopefully I didn't screw up TOO badly this time... I actually think I did pretty well, considering. Here's a screenshot of our current lands:

I really do believe that settling to the west should be our goal here... there's a lot of land if we want to take it. Also a possibility is war with the Maya, but that would be costly and might put us far behind in the long run.

Anyway, here's the save for Woopdeedoo:

IdiotsOpposite 1125 BC

Come on, bring on the commentary! And please, help me with workers. They're my weakest point.

 

[woopdeedoo]

Thanks for the report IdiotsOpposite!

I propose the following for Western Settlements:

I still think we need to settle the Red and Blue dots to prevent the Maya from settling that direction. It will also put us closer to the Greeks. Now, I would like to beeline Divine Right so we can start utilising Religious civics ASAP. So tech wise I would tech Mono>Theo>DR. By the time we have that down, Alpha should be available to trade with will seriously help our backfill.

Our land is really, really mediocre. More exploration is seriously required. We have no horses so recon is going to be slow. To that end, a pair of scouts (grouped together) could do some recon for us. If we switch to Theocracy once Theo is in, they will also stand a better chance against barbs.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

Most of that looks good, Woopdee... I'm guessing you're planning on teching Theology manually, then using a Priest to make Divine Right really short? Not my first strategy, but it would probably work.

 

[woopdeedoo]

Most of that looks good, Woopdee... I'm guessing you're planning on teching Theology manually, then using a Priest to make Divine Right really short? Not my first strategy, but it would probably work.

Perhaps. For me, getting the Islam variant out of the way ASAP and then possibly converting our neighbours is the main focus at this time. Also, to properly use our religious civics for unit or infra building is beneficial for anyone really.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

Well, all things considered, that would probably be the best path... once we get Islam and make it our state religion, we've basically covered half the variant rules already. Then it almost becomes like a normal succession game!

Pigswill, Strijder? You probably aren't awake yet , but what are your thoughts?

 

[pigswill]

I reckon we should aim for 3 prophets to bulb theo and DR and a fourth prophet for the shrine. Given the variant rules about other GPs being used only for golden ages we'll be pushing it to get lib>miltrad/rifles so I'd head for guilds and camel archers, flavoursome and potentially useful.

In the short term rex east and west and aim to avoid war until we're ready.

 

[woopdeedoo]

Well, since the whole world should be of the Muslim faith before we can win, I would bee-line DR to get as many civs converted as possible. We obviously have to destroy those who don't convert. Waiting for GPr's to bulb DR is going to take too long. I would, therefore, self research Theo and use the GPr to bulb half of DR. Subsequent prophets can shrine where possible.

 

[strijder20]

I'm awake now.
I suggest we block off the Mayans as soon as possible. We have an opportunity here. Pacal is semi-peaceful, and it would net us a large chunk of land.
Yes, bulbing DR with a priest is a no-brainer. An artist would have done too, but I don't see how we could get one.
Whip a Madrassa in Mecca and run two priests to get a fast GP?

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

Actually, I just whipped a Madrassa in Mecca, and I'm working one priest now. I'm not sure which tile we'd want to take off to get the other priest, or even if we want to do that yet, though.

 

[pigswill]

I disagree completely with reseraching theo and DR.

We need to expand soon or we'll lose the better spots nearby and get ourselves hemmed in. 6 cities vs 6 cities is always better than 4 cities vs 8 cities (etc). Problem is our economy will tank in the process and our research rate will plummet with every city we build (slight exageration but not a major exageration). To get ourselves out of an economic hole the standard early game formula is alphabet (tech trades+build research)> currency (trade routes+build wealth)> CoL (courthouses). We can research these while expanding, if we go for theo first we'll take ages to catch up. Fortunately we can bulb theo and DR while researching the other stuff.

 

[woopdeedoo]

You make a good point pigswill. While I agree that we need top provision for expansion and prevent our econ from tanking, I am also mindful of our variant. Getting everyone to Islam is going to take much work. I guess we can get one city to simply spam missionaries. If we get the Islamic shrine, then our economy will be fine, assuming we send a million missionaries out, gift them to the AI to get them to spread Islam.

 

[woopdeedoo]

Ok, well. I would like to do something about settling the "red" and "blue" spots. I guess we can detour off our religious tech streak to try and get Alpha and Currency in to help with ReX-ing. I can play today.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

Excellent. I've actually sort of wondering what became of this game... glad to see you're playing still!

 

[woopdeedoo]

So sorry. I typically don't play on weekends (except Sunday evenings, sometimes) as they have this horrible habit of "getting away" from me (read "wine"). I apologise for the delay and will play shortly.

How many turns? 15 or 10?

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

From what I've seen, we seem to be playing 15 turns. It doesn't quite match up with 750, but I have a feeling that one way or another this game will be over before that. So 15 will work fine!