Japan SG

[Mizzenmast]

For this succession game, to be played between @Tiberiu and myself, I have selected Japan as our civ, and Pangaea map type. All other settings are standard Deity. We have rolled what I would call a tough start. There are many ways we could approach this, from settling in place to moving along the coast or even inland in search of a stronger capital. I will leave it up to you T to play our first 10 turns as you see fit, and share any impressions about the civ/map.

 

[Tiberiu]

Hey, @Mizzenmast I have not played Japan in a while so I look forward to see how this game develops. The start could be worse, at least we have marbe and those 2 sheep. Too bad for no river, and getting Hanging Gardens seems impossible here. Since the start is pretty important and dictates a big part of the game, let us talk a bit about what general plan we have, based on the limited information we have so far. I will first move the warrior of course to reveal more information but looking at the screenshot I have a few ideas for plans. Please tell me which you like more or if you have other ideas and preferences. It is good to have a feel of what your impression and general idea is for this game so that we can coordinate better from the start.

I will put my first thoughts here.

1) SIP, Go for Pottery and quick shrine for Pearls faith, and followed by fast Lighthouse. Good chance for a religion but no World Wonders. We can build more scouts (3-4) and scout map quickly, and then maybe get an army and conquer one neighbour if we want to.
2) SIP, Go for Archery and build Temple of Artemis (this also requires Tradition and Aristocracy to drop 1-2 turns). Then, beeline Philosophy and build Oracle too, to complete Tradition tree very quickly, and play a standard tradition game with 4 coastal cities supported by food sea routes. But most likely no religion unless we get lucky with some Mt.Sinai or the such nearby. (Settling on the marble with this plan has the downside of not building the early scouts fast enough like with the SIP, but gives us 15% prod for ToA immediately, but quick scouts seem more important.)
3) Move to Marble and settle on it, and beeline Masonry to try to build Pyramids which can be useful to cut jungle faster or build trade posts on it. Plus, gives us option for 1-turn pillage-repairs and great warmongering. This involves a bit of risk of course but it should be quite doable with Marble, Tradition Artistocracy and working 2 sheep. This option suggests that we can maybe try to get a religion by sticking with Liberty all the way and take the Prophet.

My first impulse is to go for option 2 but I would like to hear your thoughts before starting.

 

[Mizzenmast]

Great ideas @Tiberiu, sorry I didn’t say more last night, I was sleepy but wanted to start the thread. I thought Japan would be a fun choice, I like that their combat bonus is active the whole game so we launch a strike whenever. Samurai have high utility and Zeros can be handy in tougher games which I think this might be.

Settling in place and growing slowly via the Sheep to get fast Scouts seems like the most conservative choice, with the early Lighthouse and Tears of Gods as you said. Possibly we can build a Settler at 2 pop with the 2 sheep to get a coastal feeder city up ASAP. Tradition is probably best for this route.

I would not have thought to try for any Wonders here, but thinking it through, I do like the Pyramids idea. If we settle on the Marble we will also get a Stoneworks, and could sell the Marble for gold if we war somebody fast. Also I like the potential for Liberty Prophet here. If we can grab Sacred Path as a late pantheon, we could use that culture to speed up finishing the tree to get the Prophet. If we miss the pantheon or Prophet, we won't have invested much in religion anyway. But you also mention Tradition 2 in the Pyramids scenario, so I see two options. We could go Liberty 6 with the Prophet as our first choice. Or we could just splash Liberty for Pyramids and otherwise fill out Tradition. This could be appealing if we get an early culture ruin and take the Tradition opener fast. In terms of quickening the Pyramids, I think the +1 production from Liberty will probably break even with the Aristocracy bonus, so it's up to you.

 

[Tiberiu]

The game begins. I moved the warrior on the Marble and he revealed 1 more pearls and 2 bananas, making Pottery much more attractive. With 3 pearls we could have 6 faith and get a religion with small investment and getting a quick granary will get a big early boost with at least two extra resources. And we don't have to worry about failing any wonders. We could still try to keep options open and go for Masonry and Pyramids after Pottery as this is needed to sell the Marble anyway, but going for Sailing and Optics first is also good for the quick lighthouse. I leave it up to you to choose the path. We'll have to do them both early enough anyway...

1: Settle on the Marble but left citizen unemployed as this allows us to get 2 scouts out in 5 turns each while Pottery finishes otherwise we'd have only 1 scout or would have to delay the shrine until second one finishes.
1-10: No ruins, and did not meet anyone. Slow early game...

note:

-you can buy sheep tile immediately if you get gold by meeting Zurich. This allows us to build the shrine at least 1 turn faster.
-there is a barb camp near our capital with a hand axe inside.
-I think Tradition would serve us better then Liberty here regardless of how many cities we will decide to found or what we want to do. Based on current information I'd even stay on just 3 cities (1 for Cocoa, 1 for more Pearls) and grow them tall and build the National Wonders quickly. Building Samurais and Frigates with Morale would be nice later. However it's still early, of course. Hopefully you uncover something more interesting than I did, @Mizzenmast . And if you wanna go Liberty that's also fine by me.

Spoiler :

 

[Tiberiu]

Damn I forgot the save file. Sorry

 

[Mizzenmast]

No worries.

10: Met Hostile Zurich first (I am impressed you could tell who they were just by the border color), bought the Sheep tile to hasten our Shrine.
11: Started Shrine, chose Sailing tech. Scouted a Cocoa tile for Kyoto.
12: Eventful turn. Got 2 ruins: 50 gold and 1 pop. This let us purchase and work the 2nd Sheep saving us another turn on the Shrine. Then our new Scout met Geneva for 8 faith just south of the capital.
13: Handaxe blocked a Sheep... Found Barringer Crater.
14: Met Russia to our West. Moscow is in range for a sea route, we could prioritize this. She already has 12 Iron (so 6 if we conquer her). Met Yerevan first.
15: The Handaxe moves off our Sheep, thankfully we didn’t lose any Shrine speed.
16: Unveiled a Fish near Kyoto! Our Shrine has 3 overflow so I bought a Banana to work.
17: Finished Shrine, started Granary.
18: We got Tears of the Gods as the 1st pantheon. Switched the Sheep to Pearls.
19: Sold embassy to Russia.
20: Each of our 3 units can take a ruin this turn. I had been guarding them, 2 were safe but 1 was a little greedy. Hopefully one of them will give 60 Faith.

Spoiler :

Notes:
I imagine we will steal Workers from Zurich.
Russia has gone Liberty and is likely to build Pyramids because of her Wonder competitiveness. For this reason, I think we should be nice to her until she builds it for us. I wonder if the Pyramids possibility + the latest map knowledge will change your assessment of Tradition vs. Liberty here @Tiberiu ? I can see both working well but I think Liberty wins. Some areas are production-poor and will want the Liberty +1 over a food bonus (Kyoto included.) We could still settle few initial cities, get NC/Heroic Epic, and annex Russia with a Galleass-assisted force. I want her Iron too.
No doubt Optics is the right tech to rush, but I naturally want Iron (and horse) knowledge before settling cities. Getting these techs faster is a strong incentive for sending a Cargo Ship to Moscow asap, I think.
I will throw one crazy idea at you. We haven’t built a Monument yet or taken our first policy. Since we’re rushing Optics, we have the option to take very few policies before hitting the Classical. My idea is to take just the Liberty opener + Worker policy before Optics, then ramp culture and complete Patronage, Consulates first. We can take Scholasticism as our 6th policy which is powerful on Deity, and the happiness boost after. If we capture Pyramids from Russia, our 2 in Liberty will pay off bigtime. But Patronage will act as our “Ancient” tree looking back at our first 8 policies. The map so far seems favorable for CS play. Strong gold potential, two friendlies nearby who will take our religion, and one is Cultured. We could still pursue Domination victory with this path and it might be interesting. Incidentally I have imagined a similar strategy for Sweden in which they swap the 2 in Liberty for 2 in Honor (even easier to delay culture), pursue melee violence, and feed Generals to the CS's. It really only works if you rush Optics though, you need the right map. And culture ruins can throw it off, we might get one. You can check the timings and see what you think will work if that idea interests you. But, I am OK with whatever you choose to do as the map continues to unfold.

 

[Tiberiu]

I could see it is Zurich - when you are close to a CS and see their borders, you can see who it is by hovering mouse over their terrain in a visible tile. But if a CS expands to a visible tile, if I am not mistaken, you can not do this trick to know who it is, for whatever reason.

I agree with the Patronage-Consulates plan, but please let us also integrate Tradition Opener first, the borders expand so slowly without it. This will not delay the next policies that much, and it will help us aquire the needed tiles faster. Aristocracy later might be good to have too.

20 - Rng does not want to help us, 20 culture, barb camps and map ruins. We see territory of England to the South of Kyoto, scoutable with trireme. Tradition opener.
21 - England has a scout around Geneva and meets us.
22 - ruin +1 pop.
23 - second pantheon taken by someone (city attack 30%) Meet Wellington. Meet Mongolia already Friendly.
24 - Liberty Opener. ruin- Archery. I buy Cocoa tile for 65. We steal first worker from Zurich.
28 - We meet Buenos Aires.
29 - Third pantheon -desert folklore- is taken. We meet Lhasa for 4 faith. We see Inca and a caravan sent to Buenos Aires. We should most probably DOW and kill this caravan next turn after their caravan makes contact with us.

notes

- I did not work faith tiles yet because I wanted us to finish granary and grow a bit. We need some growth to be able to work all 3 tiles of Pearls.
- started the monument after granary... i was pondering on a work boat but maybe it would be for the best to first have a trireme so as to not risk some lone galley coming and ruining our game.
- We can see a spot with 4 sea resources and sugar to the right of our capital, we can make a city there. I support settling cities to connect at least 1 new luxury or more Pearls for faith. We should, however, be careful about settling cities where England might attack us later.
- I pledged to protect some CS, we can revoke after/If we reach Consulates.

 

[Mizzenmast]

Ok, I still support the Patronage plan with Tradition opener. It will be an unusual game. I like the randomness of the finisher, but if things are going poorly we can skip it for something more reliable/optimal. And good call switching back to the Sheep.

30: Dowed Inca. We finally got Faith from our 6th post-t20 ruin.
31: Plundered Caravan.
32: Met the Ottomans.
33: Finished Monument, started a Scout to time with Optics and escort our Zurich Worker.
36: Took Worker policy.
37: Finished Optics, started Lighthouse. Went for Mining, queuing BW, mainly so our Workers have something to do (chop jungles). I thought it would be better than AH to get production from the Cocoa before Settlers. I've changed my outlook on the jungles, I now think we should chop them all to maximize production (and even save the forest for a lumber mill), so we can build many Samurai and ships. Even with this, production will be merely decent. What do you think?
39: Stole 2nd Worker from Zurich, and a Worker from Inca. I sold them 7gpt and embassy for 210 gold in the peace deal. We could war them again in 10 turns.

Notes:
Many nice quests have been put out as you will see. We could quickly ally Yerevan to speed Consulates for everyone else.
I’ve been saving all our gold, I think we’re gonna want it all for CS, upgrades, and tiles. So we should be austere with other purchases.
Moscow has been building Pyramids for a while.
I believe Barbarian ships never pillage boats, only trade routes.
Once strategics are revealed we can decide more city placements, but I agree the Sugar area is an obvious settle.

 

[Tiberiu]

Wow, so barbs can't pillage sea improvements? Fascinating and very useful to know. I never knew this. From what I read, this wasn't the same in Vanilla.
About jungle I totally agree we should cut it.

41. Barbs are a bit annoying for the moment. I can't bring the Zurich worker home as there is an archer in the area besides the other barb units.
42. I bought a work boat. If we sell a Pearl for 7 we will recover the investment soon enough.
43. Russia finishes Pyramids. Sell Pearls to Ottomans for 7 gpt. Lhasa has Barb camp quest for a camp with an injured 40% warrior inside. I am trying to bring the warrior to it.
44. DOF with Mongolia! ToA finishes in far away lands. Wellington seeks Mongolia. 6 for 153 to Mongolia and buy another work boat.
One more archer spawned in our area. There are 2 archers, 1 warrior and 2 barb camps in our zone. We might need an archer to start clearling them...
Can't bring workers home...I notice one of them has Embarcation, at least, and I will send it on water.
45. I refuse Mongolia's proposal to attack Ottomans... Pearls to England for 7.
46. A Hunnic scout comes and meets us. I see an Ottoman caravan being sent to a Russian city. Not sure you would agree to attack. I like to pillage caravans early game and I will do it because I think we need the gold right now.
Attila agrees to join us in a war against Ottomans. This move also allows us to get the Pearls back and exchange it with Gems from Inca, triggering We love the King in our capital. If we are lucky and Attila cripples the Ottomans, maybe we can get something out of this war.
47. Pillage caravan, buy the fish tile (it seems too good to wait for the city to take it). No iron around, too bad. I put Writing for research as 2 CS have quest for Mongolia.
49. Patronage Opener.

notes:

-Hopefully we can still clear Yerevan's barb quest using the 2 scouts in the area. Lhasa's and Wellington's barb camp is ours for the taking in a few turns. Maybe I should have build 1 more scout or archer and rush it faster, not sure.
-We still have 1 worker that is cut off and he can't reach home unescorted. There are many barbs in the area.
- Even if we only have the capital, I think we are fine. We'll get a religion, and we have no strong natural enemies. (Inca isn't even coastal, England is on the other side of the ocean, and so on.) If we manage to conquer Russia we'll be more than fine, I'm sure.
- nobody has Honor or Piety out of the 6 civs we know, so far. It would be cool for us to catch at least Mosque of Djenne

 

[Mizzenmast]

Nice round, I do support warring for the Caravan.

50: I hope you don’t mind, we are already playing fast and loose with diplomacy and there are many war-tolerant civs… our peace treaty ended with Inca and I warred them again to get back 7gpt. They have gold again too. The Pearls I swapped for Russian Gold.
51: Someone founded Islam, probably Arabia, with Mosques. Finished Work Boat, started Scout (over Archer) while Writing finishes. It will benefit from Japan's UA more as a melee unit, can take Survivalism, and won’t delay Library as much.
52: Had to sacrifice our Warrior to clear the western camp. No great loss because I had given him Shock anyway (whoops). Finished Writing and bought Mongolian embassy. Went for Calendar.
54: Finished Scout, began Library.
57: Ottomans denounced Mongolia even though Attila is the one whittling away their capital. Meanwhile the Inca are ready for peace… I sold Pearls, embassy, and 1gpt for 300 gold. Started Animal husbandry.
58: The unknown civ built Stonehenge.
60: Got our Prophet! Animal Husbandry finished. Cocoa plantation can be finished this turn and we could swap it for Furs or Gems. A Spearman just spawned which is annoying because I was about to set up a fairly safe escort train with the 2 Scouts.

Spoiler :

Notes:
For tech, we could go for Philosophy and build NC, or maybe even Oracle because there don’t seem to be any Oracle-favoring civs if the unknown is Arabia. But there may be gaps in my knowledge here, do England, Arabia, or Inca chase Oracle? I only know of Maya, Indonesia, Portugal, and India.
For religion, choose what you like. Probably Tithe and Pagodas. But I could see potential for Holy Warriors too, to essentially change the Pearls 2 faith into 1 production towards units before the Renaissance, including Samurai. We could skip enhancing if we took this, and it could help us snowball in the midgame.
Personally, I don’t like Great Mosque here. Despite the culture, it will badly delay the powerful Patronage policies. The Piety opener (and subsequent policies) are weak with few cities, and some of the Wonder benefits don't seem too relevant to us. We have enough Faith for our few Pagodas/2nd Prophet, but I doubt we will finish a GP tree to make pushing Faith more than a zero-sum game. Kyoto already has strong local culture and all its good tiles. No Garden to push the Engineer point. And I think the Islam civ might open up Piety if he hasn’t already, with a Faith-y religion and now Stonehenge. Thus ends my exhaustive list of negatives. But at the same time, it wouldn't be bad, I just don't see it as compatible with our current plan. So if you go for it, let's abandon Patronage, and I would say go back into Tradition. Regarding Honor, Attila has started it.
Once again I have spent no gold. Maybe you will decide we need to buy 1 unit. But I think we should just build some now. One idea to consider, since we do have such massive growth in Kyoto and are close to 500g, is buying a Settler to avoid hard-building it. If we sail him across to the Pearls area (with the nearby Scout to guard his landing), we could clear that camp easily. I think we should settle right next to Pearls and send a Work Boat with the Settler.

 

[Tiberiu]

I am all for continuous warmongering whenever we have the opportunity to get something our, sure.
I didn't understand what you said about the Shock Warrior? Why do you prefer drill over shock on melee? I mostly take shock on melee units, since I tend to place citadels on flatland and they are more mobile on flatlands. There are exceptions, like stacking bonuses for rough terrain with Aztec/Iroquois, Inca, etc.
(Edit) about Oracle, we could get embassies and if nobody is building it we could risk it. Not much of a problem if we fail it, I think.

60. We found Taoism with Tithe and Pagodas. (I don't think Holy Warriors is as useful here since we don't really have that much faith output. I see HW a good idea maybe when you have Mt.Sinai or something like that to boost the faith).
62. I wanted to build a chariot archer but forgot we don't have the tech, bought the horse from Attila for 1gpt...I'd like to get a chariot until deal expires, though.
63. Peace with Ottomans and sell Marble and embassy for 110 and 3 gpt. I buy a Settler.
64. Petra built by far away land. Policy - Consulates.
65. England has the Great Wall. Attila has Zeus.
69. Buenos Aires is impressed by our science and we get 40 influence. Russia builds The Great Lighthouse. Good for us later. Attila takes Istanbul.

notes -

- Our settler is on the spot you mentioned, looks fine by me. We should not underestimate Inca's potential to attack us, though. But we should be able to block the area with a few units at the right moment if we need to.
- We should most likely DOW Ottomans to get our Marble back, deal expires in t 73 or so.
- There are a few ideas for the third city, I am thinking that it's best to avoid the other side of the coast for now and stick to the coast we have, so maybe right under that Horse and to buy the Gold Luxury in 3-tile range? Otherwise, we can go for the Dyes but I think we'll run into trouble with England if we do that. I would likes us to be able to conquer Inca at some point too, since they have Gems and we would profit a lot with our religion, but most likely we should focus on a fleet rather than a land army. So placing our cities where we can defend them with the fleet is maybe a good idea. I will let you decide where you want the third city.

- I think we should stay on 3 cities, seems a bit late to place more. But I don't mind if you want more. With 3 cities, we would have the advantages that come along with it, including building the Spy national wonder for an extra spy. We could use Oxford for Industrialization to catch an ideology with 2 tenets. And I think with 3 cities, the best would be Autocracy for a few reasons: pump out experienced units quickly, and use Industrial Espionage as our main tech advancement tool.

 

[Mizzenmast]

I didn't understand what you said about the Shock Warrior? Why do you prefer drill over shock on melee? I mostly take shock on melee units, since I tend to place citadels on flatland and they are more mobile on flatlands. There are exceptions, like stacking bonuses for rough terrain with Aztec/Iroquois, Inca, etc.

I think you forgot Japan is also an exception, Samurai get Shock so it’s better to take the Drill line on the previous units. I agree that Shock is superior strategically though which is why I took it instinctively. I don’t care much about the mobility for melee, but I like covering the flatland weakness so that units have more tactical options. But, I will take Drill on a couple units to be supreme defenders for citadels, which I always prefer to place on Hills.

70: Founded Osaka. I kept its citizen unemployed thinking it should adopt our religion asap (to help convert the nearby CS who has a request out) but with our food ally, we won’t be able to cease growth. So this gives us 15 turns to convert. Edit: But actually I think it needs 100/6 = 16 or 17 turns to convert so maybe we will miss this target and should have been growing and planning for a Missionary, sorry...
74: Met Sofia who offers Berber cavalry.
76: Re-sold Pearls to England for 5gpt. Discovered Mt. Fuji for 2 quests.
77: We strongly allied Geneva with a Faith quest and the NW quest. Now we have 4 allies, Scholasticism will be powerful if we get it with Oracle. Scout near Fuji gets an Archer ruin.
78: Founded Tokyo. I wasn't too confident about this choice but I think it's fine. We could get a garden and guilds there eventually for local culture. Locks up that whole stretch of land so no one can forward settle us. Grabs a circus, cocoa, and we can even connect the Pearls once we get Samurai! Again, I held its one citizen unemployed, but realize now that it might not have time to convert before growing and should be reassigned.
79: Scarcher gets a 70 gold ruin. Bought a Chariot Archer, I wanted one too. If you bring it to Zurich first we can hopefully steal 1 more Worker then peace them to start gaining influence, our war penalty should have faded by now.

Spoiler :

Notes:
Ottomans can be warred anytime to regain Marble and Pearls.
I wasn't thinking clearly and put some turns into Iron Working, but please change it, we should probably go towards Theology to hit Medieval and double our Faith/Culture CS benefits. Russia is building Colossus.
The Fuji area could be good to settle. I would say no-brainer if it provides a new luxury, but none spotted yet.

 

[Tiberiu]

Yes, I forgot about the Samurai. I was't thinking that long term for the Warrior .
(Edit) - I thought it was better for us to Enhance instead of buying a missionary first, to catch a good second belief and maybe IP. Now, I think we should go for Pagodas first, since our Religion is spreading uncontested. England has pantheon but not a religion yet. It would be cool to buy the Pagodas cheaply. Maybe we can build the Grand Temple early too. If you wanna first spread that's also cool, but I'm thinking sending to Russia and not to CSs. Do what you think is best.

80. I denounce Ottomans and DOW them. I don't like how Russia is looking at us. Cathy doesn't like us and has a trireme that could pillage our stuff.
I decided to bribe Attila to DOW Russia. We give him 2 luxuries and he also gives us 3 gpt. Will most likely DOW him soon enough to take these back...
Switched research to Drama and Poetry.

81. Russia turns friendly and sends 2 caravans to us for 3 gold and 8 science.
82. Keeping cities on Avoid Growth due to Religion and lack of happiness anyway. I denounce and DOW Attila to try to gain Russia's favour. Bribe Mongolia to DOW Ottomans for 2 gpt. Ottomans will hate us and denounce us so it would be nice for them to be taken out of this game.
Not sure you would like this move but I gifted 5 gpt to Russia to further try to make her DOF us, and to secure these caravans. The price seems to be worth the attempt.
83. Russia Gold <> Pearls
84. Meet Florence near Fuji and pledge to protect. There's a Marble in the area. Pachacuti turns Friendly.
85. Florence wants the same Camp as Sofia! There is a ruin behind that camp. A bit of care is needed, there's also an archer in the area.
Hanging Gardens build by far away land (Arabia? Morocco?!) Sell OB to Mongolia, and getting loans whenever possible (to buy the libraries or maybe a settler)
86. I bought a tile to go connect the Sugar. A bit expensive....130+110 but it will take too much to wait it out so it's just more sensible to simply buy these and recover the gold by selling the lux if needed.
87. We have Oracle! This is huge. A jump from 31 science to 46 with Scholasticism. Osaka has the religion and is ready to grow.
Capital has many build options but I'm building us 2 triremes to try to scout around...
88. Cathy builds the Collosus... this is great for us... game is going well Sold OB to Inca, we don't care about this I think.
89. We enhance our Religion with Religious Community (there were Cathedrals and Monasteries available but hopefully you agree RC is better for us)
Took Itinerant Preachers as Enhancer... I think it's the best for us considering we would like to spread as much as possible to get as many CSs as we can.
90. DOF with Inca and a caravan from England! 54 Science! not bad for turn 90 without NC.

notes.

I kept the small cities on Avoid Growth. Tokyo has it checked until it has the religion, so don't forget to uncheck it after that.
We should buy the library in Tokyo., but even if the library in Osaka is ready in 54 turns, we should buy a Lighthouse instead and it will be ready very quickly since also have 1 forest to cut after improving the Sugar.
The Scout near Florence can maybe try to look around a bit to see if there is one more CS in the area, before killing that camp. If there is, we could potentially get one more easy CS ally. We should scout the area anyway to check for potentially good city spots and maybe even ruins!
Our archer is around the Ivory near the coast with England. I wanted to guard the area for English settlers, but now that England is sending Science to us, even if she sends a settler there, it might not even be most beneficial to us to DOW and lose science. Our main rival seems to be the Unmet civ. (which isn't very surprising, after all.)
It would be cool if we could build the guilds in Tokyo and try to reach the Dyes in 5-th ring, and maybe even the Gold, possibly using a General. As you said, it's good for them to be there anyway, to have a garden.
I agree we should put a city around Fuji somewhere, possibly adjacent for Observatory. There is stone and horse for +3 happiness, and Marble is still free but mostly likely not for long, Florence will absorb it.
What do you say about an inland city that connects Ivory + Dyes?! This way it is safe from England ships and also guards the area to prevent them from settling there to become stronger than we want them to be.
Still at war with Zurich, couldn't steal any more workers yet, just tried to get some XP. We can make peace if you like, or stay at war just to have somebody to war until we have a General. Both approaches seem ok.

 

[Mizzenmast]

Good show neutralizing Russia and scamming the Huns. Also, I forgot to mention, I like planning for Autocracy/Industrial espionage.

And wait, Avoid Growth actually prevents growth? That’s awesome, I assumed it was just a “zero-food” city focus. It isn’t even present in EUI so I had to temporarily disable this to turn it off.

91: Met Vatican City on Fuji island. Cocoa to Inca.
92: Vatican City put out camp quest like you predicted. Cocoa for Mongolian Furs. Started a Cargo ship in Kyoto.
93: England sent us a Caravan and shows Friendly but is giving bad deals. Renewed friendship with Mongolia.
94: Attila has declared war on Mongolia. Wellington put out an encampment quest but it could actually be hard to take.
95: Tokyo adopted religion, I let it grow.
96: Saw an Incan Pikeman and radared an army behind it. He will war Elizabeth for Sugar and spare change though.
97: I got the ruins behind the encampment, I had to swim the Archer there to beat an Incan scout. But it was only a map… And the Archer took a Trireme hit on the way. Sold Marble to Genghis for enough gold to buy a Settler in Osaka to then connect the island Marble. (Thinking to found directly to the right of Fuji.)
98: Finally got another Worker from Zurich and made peace. Eventually they will give us 8 Iron making them invaluable. Bought a Missionary. I want early Pagodas too but I think 2 specific conversions will really start our pressure snowball. Converting Buenos Aires will ally it and put pressure on Yerevan and Geneva (and the Inca). Then converting Sofia will pressure all the cities on Fuji island, and Yerevan again.
99: New policy: Cultural diplomacy. Cleared the encampment for 2 new allies (England has Sofia). Cargo Ship to Moscow for 12 gold, 4 sci. Lhasa put out a gold quest. Started a Caravan in Kyoto. We can send it either to Russia or Inca for a bit of science and diplomacy boost. Having at least 1 Caravan in the mix is good for fulfilling trade route quests across land too.
100: Inca bullied Buenos Aires whom we are about to convert and ally, so I did not forgive him. We should probably send the Caravan to him, I think he has a strong army.

Notes:
The Chariot, Scout, and Archer could possibly take out the tough Mountain encampment together, or they could just shoot at Triremes for now.
No peace with Ottomans, we should remain at war so he can never denounce us.
Surely we will hold Fuji city at 1 and work the wonder immediately so it converts fastest. I hate ever taking a citizen off that tile, let’s just wait for our food ally to grow the city in 15 turns, and maybe buy a Granary later. The local culture is going to be amazing because we are competing with CS for tiles on two sides. This city has high Monument and Pagoda priority too.
I figured Tokyo can work a mine with 3rd citizen and get a Granary before Library.
Here is a list of current gold priorities as I see it. 1) Purchase Marble in Fuji city, 2) Boosted gift to reclaim Lhasa / backup gold to maintain our many allies, especially Geneva whom England could steal from us and we would lose 6 happiness, 3) Granary in Fuji city (if we are happy of course.)
As for another inland city, I think I support it. With Tradition/Liberty and a Pagoda, any city we found will claim lots of tiles and strategic resource possibilities down the road. Especially if we found near the desert for Oil. I can’t decide exactly where the city should go, though. I want to grab that 6 iron deposit but this sacrifices either the Dyes or the Ivory. I think I prefer to sacrifice the Dyes because the Ivory gives a Circus too, and as you say we may be able to claim the Dyes with local culture from Tokyo or a Citadel eventually. Or do we Citadel the Iron? And do we build the Settler in Kyoto, or do we go for the Aqueduct there, and build a Settler more slowly in Tokyo? It is for you to decide @Tiberiu.

 

[Tiberiu]

Hey @Mizzenmast. Great awareness with Inca there to stop the war!
The images below in the spoilers are from turn 109, made them before going next turn.
I did something a bit different than your plan with Fuji, in the sense that I settled the first city so as to take those 2 fish, horse, marble, and stone, and brought 1 more settler for you to settle next to Fuji to the left, where We will also have a lot of good tiles. This way we will cover more ground faster and I think we should be quite safe since we will have Patronage + Religion on the CSs.
And I spotted a nice location where I'd also put a city on (the lone grassland tile under those 2 fish- see spoiler and picture) If you agree it's a good city (not spectacular, but good I would say), there is an extra settler near Yerevan heading there. If you don't like it then please do what you think is best with him. We could get 1 tile of GBR but on a off-river location and not that great anyway.

To the other side of the empire there is yet one more settler that is heading to the Ivory-Dyes area. I was thinking for us to risk it and place the city coastal so as to get 3 fish but this is maybe a stupid idea, just asking for trouble. I leave it to you to decide what to do with this settler, Maybe just putting it on the Wheat (for mountain) or to the right of the wheat? Another crazy idea of mine would be to send it to the North, where I spotted an area with 3 fish and 2 atolls.... but again maybe asking for trouble.

100. Discovered The Great Barrier Reef near Fuji Island. Too bad it is poorly located. I switched to a settler in the capital, it will be done in 4 turns. I'd like to take one ore settler somewhere.
101. Inca founds a pantheon... too bad, but at least we have a good head start with our religion.
102. Mongolia has Chichen Itza. One more caravan from Inca to us. Discovered Krakatoa, this too looks like it's badly located.
103. England founds Protestantism. And is starting to become annoying, has too many CS (4). I would like us to plot against Elizabeth and take her CSs and if we do it, DOW her. Will take a while, though.
105. Our first golden age starts. I found Satsuma. I buy one more settler.
106. Converted Sofia, I buy one more Missionary for Vatican and Florence (it will take a long time until they convert).
107. We finally meet Arabia. They are very Incensey, they have 8 copies.
109. Gift 250 with quest to Buenos Aires to steal it from England.

notes

- Excuse me for not finishing the Caravan, you started, after the settlers I built 1 more trireme because Russia is no longer at war and we should have a blocker for our Pearls. So continue the caravan in your session.
- I bought Open Borders from Mongolia and Arabia so that we can scout.
- The missionary near Fuji can maybe convert Florence and Vatican, or if not, to convert our own cities.
- We received a spearman from Sofia and I put him around the Inca area.
- The mountain camp quest for Wellington is still there with a Spearman inside, and 1 tile up there is a Composite Barb. We have a scout and the chariot there healing. We can maybe take this camp but we have to take it slowly and with Radaring help.
- I have been taking loans from Mongolia and Inca.

Spoiler :

 

[Tiberiu]

sorry again

 

[Mizzenmast]

Finished Patronage, founded Fuji city and the Ivory/Dyes city. The other settler is in place but let’s wait a while to found. We lack happiness, it’s not a superb location and we could get aggressive expander modifier because we just founded the other two. I sent two more TRs to Russia, we must keep peace with her. I bought a lot of tiles in Nara the first turn then promised to stop. The Caravan in production should go to Geneva to keep it allied. Went for Steel, we should get a Samurai soon for fishing boats. Got some Pagodas. Stopped taking loans to keep our options open, you can resume them or use the gpt for bribes, or to buy Incense, or to make a gift to Russia even. I made peace with Attila while scouting but he denounced us, and on 120 England and Inca have denounced us too. We should denounce them both back I think. At least Attila can be bribed now despite hating us, and Inca are backstabbers. Good luck!

Spoiler :

 

[Tiberiu]

Hey Mizzenmast. I played this session on another computer and did not keep track of the actions of it, but not a lot of things happened, just basic micromanagement and a few bribes to keep us safe.

Here is a report out of memory.

- bribed Attila to DOW Russia and Ottomans (hoping that Ottomans might give us their second city and we could sell it for big money).
- founded the city because we had enough happiness after improving the Dyes. Sent caravan to Geneva for quest, sent a cargo ship that expired to the Fuji city to help it grow. This city can sometimes grow 1 turn faster without any culture loss if we switch the NW citizen to food and leave city focus on culture.
Inca founded 4 small cities and they all converted to our religion. This could be very useful to us if Pachacuti fails to re-convert his cities.
- brought chariot + scout to the wellington barb camp and in your turn you can fulfil this quest.
- built some happiness buildings in the cities and bought pagodas. We still need a few more, hopefully we can get them before entering the new era.
- Russia was first to Renaissance with Gunpowder and they seemingly engineered the Himeji because it went just a few turns after.
- Sent the spy to Arabia because of highest pop and higher safety as they arent tech leader. First steal was calculated at 9 turns, not bad.
- I chose Meritocracy as a new Policy because I think we will need the happiness.
- We received a Great Writer from the CSs. Not great but not bad either. I would maybe do a work of art with him but if you wanna bulb him he is there near the capital.

Note- we can try to get Silk from Mongolia even if we pay a bit more ti complete Zurich quest which in turn will complete a Lhasa Jewelry quest. If we buy the Silk for 28 value from Mongolia we have the option of not renewing the DOF which will expire soon, and DOW them. And until then we can take loans from them to profit at maximum.
- I suggest we can try to go for quick Acoustics and try to build Sistine Chapel, but maybe going to Navigation asap is better just to start having a good fleet.
- I think we should try to slowly switch our caravans and sea routes to internal food, unless there are CS quests because we profit from growing the cities with both gold (tithe) and production (Rel community), and to have options to DOW people. Nobody except Mongolia likes us and it is likely this is gonna be like that for a while.

I feel that it is only a matter of time until Russia/England attack us. And we should be ready for a England/Inca joint war, too. (I have seen civs at war making peace and making joint dows in same turn) So we should always try to keep them busy unless we do not care about being attacked.

 

[Mizzenmast]

Hi @Tiberiu, I played these turns with a military mindset given our threatening neighbors. I think we have nice cities that can win the game, but an army is needed to defend them, mainly Nara which we could build Forts around. We’ll want to declare war on Russia as soon we can hold our own, to start wasting her resources, getting xp, and eventually push into her territory. She is getting absolutely massive:

Spoiler :

In Kyoto, we had enough citizens to work every hammer tile, so I maxed production (which seems like the crucial resource short- and long-term here) and built a Barracks & Armory. I started 1 Samurai and then I imagine Crossbowmen/Knights/Galleasses are in order. We could detour for a University if you think we need it but I think the Aqueduct, Workshop, Stable are not worth it, we just need units.

Started another Samurai in our easternmost city to build Work Boats as he makes his way West. Got a couple more Workers too.

I think we should bulb the Writer because our raw culture is strong. But no policy seemed immediately useful so he's still around. (Liberty +1? I couldn't decide if it's better than a Tradition happiness policy for later. Or should we plan for 3 in Exploration?)

Traded 3 luxuries for Mongolian silk to trigger the influence chain you spotted. Sadly we missed the mark to supplant England in Zurich by 5 influence so we did not fulfill the Jewelry quest

Blocked an Incan Prophet from going towards Fuji Island, the blockers are still in position until he gets Astronomy. We're getting 30 gold from Tithe by now!

Spoiler :

On Arabia’s t136, they asked us to war Genghis. We only have 7 turns left of friendship so I said to give us 10 turns.

138: Stole education from Arabia, finished Machinery. Our spy was noticed and had 18 turns to steal so I sent him to London. Even if you do not decide to steal from Liz, we might get the intel bonus with Inca or Russia. I went for Chivalry next, I just don’t see Sistine Chapel as something we should put production towards even if we could win it. We can probably capture it from England. You could switch techs, but some Knights would be nice in the army, they'll get Generals quickly and benefit a lot from the wounded UA. Navigation seems less important until we secure the Iron for Frigates. Or we could even go for Gunpowder – with just the 2 Iron and enough gold, we could build and upgrade 1 Samurai at a time to Muskets with Shock III, 30xp to Logistics, and double Generals.

I hope you are OK with the direction I took. You can do things differently during your session of course, but with the Armory up in Kyoto I've kind of forced your hand... It's already been a pretty wacky game with our policy path and settle pattern. I am loving all the violence that seems to be keeping everyone's science low. No RA's to bribe away here!

 

[Tiberiu]

Sure we need some army, it's nice to get it out promoted. I tried to prepare us to be able to DOW who we want. Only Russia is a decent rival, the rest are weak. Once we deal with her for good, we won this game. The only thing that can hurt us bad would be some unexpected Coups on our CS in the wrong moments. None happened in this session and we gained 3 more allies. (Zurich, Lhasa, Mogadishu).
I would have DOWed Russia already but I wanted to leave you the option to decide what is best, (we still have 1 caravan being sent, and they just sent 1 caravan to us I think, but this is the right moment as Russia has 4 of our CS near it and these will help to kill off some of their army. We also have all 3 triremes near capital and we can soon upgrade them, so we are quite safe. Waiting a few more turns until we gave a citadel also works.
(Edit- I think stable is worth it.. 2 tiles and with bonuses, it will pay for itself quick)

140: Bribed Attila to DOW Arabia, England, Wellington and DOWed him.
142: Spy sees England building Forbidden Palace in 8 turns, but no intrige, and steals in 18. I will move him to Sofia for a rig the next turn.
143: DOF with Mongolia expires. I bribe him to DOW Ottomans, Ife and Mogadishu and DOW him. Switched to Astronomy, Chivalry at 1 turn.
A denouncement from Ottomans would be mostly irrelevant now, I make peace to sell Marble for 136 and 6 gpt, re-dow in 10.
I bribe Inca to DOW 4 city states including Buenos Aires and Yerevan, then DOW them. This gets rid of their Prophet and hopefully Buenos Aires can do some damage.
144: Pay 500 to Zurich. Need to DOW Russia so this will steal Lhasa from them.
145: Russia has a huge empire and will surely get a massive army. I think we will need some citadels and this seems the right moment to take Honor Opener and use next policy for General, citadel bomb her and stay at war. Plus, 4 CS have GG quest.
146: Peace with Attila who doesn't even have GPT but sold Pearls and 5 horses for 350. re-DOW in 10 most likely .
149: Peace with Mongolia for 6gpt.

Notes:

- People are indeed teching slowly, the highest literacy is still 40% like 10 turns before.
- I've built us a Workshop (and working it) in the capital and now Stable. We should consider generating an Engineer instead of Scientist and use him for manufactory in capital to help it have a decent production.
- We will need to buy a Lighthouse in our last city at some point soon. It's pretty ugly at the moment but after working 3-4 improved fish and 1 atoll it will become better.
- England is doing very bad, this is good for us. They only have the capital and another small city. Mongolia is also crippled beyond recovery. Arabia just lost a city to Attila, good. Arabia has a Caravel near Fuji Island.
- After rigging Sofia, we should maybe try to steal again. I would re-go to Arabia's capital in order to try to steal Navigation from them, they will maybe get it very soon. ( and we should avoid finishing Astronomy until spy steal is calculated, just in case.) Also
- A prophet soon spawns and I think we should put up Holy Sites around non-river grassland/plains tiles, but maybe not in the capital (so we have room for manufactories) If we adopt a strategy where we plant all of our great people we will later have good option to maybe take Freedom for New deal instead of Autocracy. And later with Historical Landmarks we will have strong culture.
- I did not improve fish near capital because I wanted to bring the Samurai faster in the area in case we want to attack, so maybe you can build another one after Stable finishes.
- We can try to make good use of our scouts, they are quite tough when fortified in jungles so they can block stuff or act as distractions. And our Scarcher with Survivalism is a valuable unit, I didn't get to upgrade him yet though, care needed with him.
- If we get 500 gold and steal Sofia from England, we should DOW her to block her attempting coups on us or stealing our CS. Keeping Sofia is very handy, they just donated 1 pikeman.

My idea for the first citadel placement is adjacent to Rostov (we would have to first buy 1 tile, forest above costs 120. Simply keeping 1 fortified Samurai in the citadel adjacent to it will kill off tons of units while we can use the backline to farm XP.
Putting it somewhere else (maybe even on the upper coast, so as to try to use it to defend from enemy ships) is also possible. Best part is we will soon generate our natural General, too, so we have the option to have 2 citadels very soon. (assuming you'll continue the Honor idea). My theory is that in situations where you have to kill off units from a big empire, the Generals policy from Honor pays off. Also if we stick to the left side, the Frigates will profit from extra XP and they'll get to good promotions faster.