Just got owned by Persia!

[Scars n Stripes]

So I just started a game on King diff. the other day with Askia and I was placed on a continent full of plains and brown trees. While my settlement Lent itself to lots of hammers, I think what must have ultimately led to my downfall was my own wonder spamming greed.

I also lost my starting warrior to some @&&!ing barbarians, so I was really pretty defenseless early on and I guess I should have worked at building an army in response to Persia just spamming cities all over my continent.. (I was on a fairly small continent with just Persia to the east visible) By the time I finally had the chance to build my second city, Persia had built like 4!

I wanted to play the game clean and no cheap re-loads and rerolling a new start, so I tried to hold up as best as possible.

Let me tell you, the end was indeed ugly.. With Monty massing at my north border and Persia sending wave after endless wave of immortals and horsemen and archers at me from the east I knew I was going to loose. Even though Monty was supposedly at war with Persia, of course those two wouldn't lift a finger at each other! So 10 turns afterward, Monty calls a truce with this flood of Persians hell bent on taking ME instead and then he DOW me and came in and slaughtered me.

I've always played in the past to win, and used a re-load here and there to my favor but what I didn't realize is that loosing means LEARNING and I came away from it with some new diplomatic findings and also techniques of how to use your neighbors to get out of a jam when there seems like no way out.

It was still pretty fun, but I have to say that being on the winning side of wars is much more enjoyable!


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I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=41.391187,-89.058486

 

[woodshadows]

I don't know what your play style is but I think taking specific policy paths can make a huge difference. For king difficulty you can really abuse a specific policy line to get a big headstart over the ai. Unless playing certain civs or aiming for certain victory conditions a pretty safe/advantageous first policy to grab is the first tradition policy. This will give you 3 culture for your capital which can't really be beat by either the liberty or honour tree. This 3 culture means you'll be that much quicker in getting your next policy. Next policy I would grab would be the first liberty tree one, which will provide you with 1 culture per turn per city, tho since you only likely have one city at this point it isn't that powerful yet, it does however open you up to the next policy, which should be the free settler and speed of settler building. With this you can build your next city and suddenly be making 2 culture from the liberty policy you had previously chosen. Next I grab the tradition tree policy for free culture building in first 4 cities, having avoided building them myself in anticipation for choosing this policy. After this it's less obvious which paths to take in the policies and will really depend upon which direction you want to take your empire in. This isn't necessarily the "best ever" path either, there are many opening gambits and some might fit you better than others, but this one seems fairly consistent for providing some easy and instant benefit without having to exploit any more complex game mechanics.

Also, a decent build order will help immensely as well, this is arguable but I find building a warrior first very useful, I take it out with the warrior I started with and take out barb camps, amassing gold/experience quickly, also with two it's far less chance of losing one. Some might argue building a scout first but I find they die too easily and can't be upgraded later unless they get a ruin that upgrades them for you. I never build a settler unless I have the 50% increased settler production policy or hopefully I can buy my second settler for my third city with gold from city states/artifacts/barb camps. Anyways, these are just some ideas which might help .. or not

 

[CYZ]

Persia can be a maniac when it comes to wonder. If Darius is spamming his UU during a golden age I just don't know what to do to counter him.

One time I was going tall in between Denmark on the east and Persia in the west, both going wide.
They both attacked around the same time. Denmark with 3 move Berserkers and persia with 3 move swordsmen and immortals. I only survived because they ended up DoW each other. They basicly had a huge skirmish with my capital in the middle of it all, it was a lot of fun.

 

[woodshadows]

Persia can be a maniac when it comes to wonder. If Darius is spamming his UU during a golden age I just don't know what to do to counter him.

One time I was going tall in between Denmark on the east and Persia in the west, both going wide.
They both attacked around the same time. Denmark with 3 move Berserkers and persia with 3 move swordsmen and immortals. I only survived because they ended up DoW each other. They basicly had a huge skirmish with my capital in the middle of it all, it was a lot of fun.

Check demographics and make sure you're not the lowest of three neighbours, if your army is bigger they generally won't attack and you can gang up with the bigger of the two to go against the weaker of you three.

 

[binhthuy71]

I'd reload your initial start and try it over. One thing I usually do with my starting Warrior is run a quick circle around my border for the first few turns (Barbs don't attack until turn 10) and then garrison him. Build one or two Scouts to explore. They're cheap, therefore expendable, and they can cover a map much faster than your Warrior. Once in a while you'll pop "Your unit has equipped itself with modern weapons," from a Ruin. Your Scout becomes an Archer and a carefully managed Archer can destroy Barb camps with ease in the early game. You can also use your Archer to fog bust a good location for your second city.