Learning Diety: Hateshput Re-roll

[Doshin]

Nicely rushed. I had a quick look at the save. From your current position I would:

• Open borders with Boudica ASAP. Look to trade clams or wheat with her for whatever she has as soon as you can, for the eventual resource relations bonus.
• Finish Pottery, go Fishing - Masonry - Aesthetics.
• Whip settlers into a library and workboats in both your capital and Rome.
• Start the Pyramids in your most hammer rich city as soon as you get Masonry. The fail gold is extremely important given the perilous state of your economy.

Once you've settled site 1 you've grabbed six city spots, which removes some of the pressure to expand early. Take as much land from Boudica as your economy can handle, but don't kill your research. The barb city can be captured too, for ~100 gold.

In the long term, you need to decide upon a way to improve your relations with Boudica. She isn't in a religion, but Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism have been founded. Have any of these made it to your continent? If yes, things will be easier. If not, you might want to consider gifting her a junk city.

Gifting techs will be difficult, because you have very low commerce to self-tech and, until optics, you'll only have two trading partners. So giving away a tech halves its trade value.

 

[Revent]

Looking good so far but the low sea level and continents are really helping you land wise. Celts still only have 4 cities. If you don't have foreign trade routes the island city will pay for itself with trade routes doubled.

City 2 seems too close to your existing cities. Why have 3 so close??? There is lots of green glassland 1s of the corn city and it would be a shame to lose that.

Looking at the map your biggest issue is happiness. You have 1 happiness resources but the sugar may well be taken by the celts. Mids could help here but on deity is it a gamble? I would certainly risk it just for the failed gold but you need masonry too.

You need to hook up the copper before barb spears overrun you.

Fail gold. Look to build wonders with intent to get fail gold. Even on national wonders too.

The only reason you might lose this is if the Ai far away simply out tech you. You have lil or no commerce resources and very few rivers. A good GP farm will be very important here to get you trade chips.

Remember Boudica is a one trick pony. She will use large stacks but generally she is a slow tech AI. Wasily bribed with techs. On Deity she will not be so slow though.

Will definitely get that island city up ASAP. I really need the money at the moment. City 2 should actually be 1E of its current plan. River access and some plains hills which will be good for production. I want some overlap so that I can have cities work all of the cottages at all times.
Yes happiness and commerce are such a big issue in this game!

I'm going to get Boudica to pleased hopefully

Re Spears: I have TGW now so no need to worry anymore

@Revent

WC rush (lol, this is so ambiguous) was fantastically performed.


But I think it was too soon for more than one reason:

1)You didn't block land. But maybe you still manage to do that.
2)You got rid from someone who could suck hate from Boudica.
3)AC could have built you at least one wonder and with stone it'd be Pyramids and even GLH (In all of my recent games where Romans started coastal, they built GLH).
4)AC could have traded you some techs before he died
5)Boudica hates Augustus because of peaceweights and would go after him if they had close borders. That'd allow you to dogpile him and get positive diplo from Boudica. Boudica doesn't plot at pleased. You could also use Boudica's army to soften AC's cities before you attack and capture them.

I did play this and have save from around 400AD waiting for you to compare (I played it with BUFFY since I always have difficulties running both BUG/BULL and BUFFY). But you can imagine I did all those things I said you should. If I didn't play it I wouldn't be so ''smart''. I didn't go for full WC rush. I waited for some wonders to be built and for Boudica to declare and hit jackpot. Besides AC settled a city on copper and those spears started coming out pretty early. I'd advise you to scout more and earlier so you could see more tactical options. Believe me, that'll make all your future games lot easier. Barbs were a non factor for me. And I used 3-4 warriors for fogbusting. Even lost one to an archer while I had winning odds (fortified on jungle hill).

You don't need any more military for some time and should focus on commerce and expansion (as you probably meant to do). Try not to forget great scientists too.

Good luck!

I think I could still block the land

Hmm..I never considered letting Boudica kill Rome for me. I guess this is something I will have to learn from experience. This may have been better play as not only could I have gotten some techs, I could have also had the Mids and TLGH!

oh okay, that's great I have BUFFY so that's perfectly fine. For me, I didn't have to fight a single spear, that was the beauty of this rush; the position of the copper was ideal so I just kept stealing workers

Nicely rushed. I had a quick look at the save. From your current position I would:

• Open borders with Boudica ASAP. Look to trade clams or wheat with her for whatever she has as soon as you can, for the eventual resource relations bonus.
• Finish Pottery, go Fishing - Masonry - Aesthetics.
• Whip settlers into a library and workboats in both your capital and Rome.
• Start the Pyramids in your most hammer rich city as soon as you get Masonry. The fail gold is extremely important given the perilous state of your economy.

Once you've settled site 1 you've grabbed six city spots, which removes some of the pressure to expand early. Take as much land from Boudica as your economy can handle, but don't kill your research. The barb city can be captured too, for ~100 gold.

In the long term, you need to decide upon a way to improve your relations with Boudica. She isn't in a religion, but Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism have been founded. Have any of these made it to your continent? If yes, things will be easier. If not, you might want to consider gifting her a junk city.

Gifting techs will be difficult, because you have very low commerce to self-tech and, until optics, you'll only have two trading partners. So giving away a tech halves its trade value.

I think I'm going to skip the Pyramids here actually, I tried to go for Masonry first, and I actually lost the Mids before I even finished researching Masonry
Giving her a city seems to be the plan right now.
I think I'm going to go for TGLH.

 

[Revent]

T54-T79

I know the numbers are random, but I tried going for updates on whenever something interesting happened.

1440BC: I sent a settler down south all the way to near the Celts and liberated a city for her.

Tech Path was Fishing->Sailing->Masonry
With only 2 AI on the continent, I have decided to self tech Alpha.

With this, I was also able to build the great lighthouse in 925 BC (VERY lucky although at same time Mids was very unlucky), which means that my economy has greatly improved With Boudica pleased at me, I can give her some techs to bribe her against Wang Kon who has a -3 with me for declaring war on Augustus

The state of my empire at the moment:

Key problems here at the moment are that I only have 4 cities. This is due to be solved soon and I aim to settle off all of the land as soon as possible now. Working on settler in Cap to settle the city near the barbs. Then going to capture the western barb city whilst building some more settlers.

Trade wise, going to research Alpha->Myst, trade for Poly and Med and everything else. Priority tech here is Monarchy. I can not manage without that technology much longer now. I may even prioritise it before Currency. Not sure if it's that important.

Going to try to bribe Boudica against Wang Kon here, hopefully they screw each other over whilst I play some catch up with building some cities and improving my economy. I may also declare on Wang Kon once I catch up to get Boudica happy and to see if I can grab some coastal cities he may have.

With the GS I'm getting in 7 turns, I'm hoping to use him to bulb Philosophy straight away because I just do not want to risk losing it to an AI on the other continent. That could also set me on my way to my Cuir rush the whole continent.

Tips as always welcome! All the positive encouragement really does motivate me to try my best here although I know I did screw up things a bit.

 

[ABigCivFan]

Cant look at the save now. Did you gain a GG and unlock HE in your first war? Those are always good goals with a first war. I dont mind to drag a war a bit longer just to get those.

In my shadow game, I was up against AC's spears. I could only manage to take a single city with the first war, bought peace with Aesth. But the GG and Heroic Epic helped me to capture prize city Rome (GLH+Colossus+Stone Henge) around 500AD with a bunch of catapults/HA/Axe against Prats/Xbows.

It is usually better to get Aesth and trade for Alpha on Deity since the AIs get Alpha so fast. You can whip libraries in all cities and run scientists to get to Currency/COL faster, and you can usually trade for Monarchy. That way you get these key techs faster.

The city 1NE of the center corn is a great spot, go all farms/mine here and you get a great HE city. The Western barb city is not a great spot if no seafood. you can settle on the sugar (no coastal) to get it up and running fast. The clam/copper site is great as well. Also delay buildings in once of the coastal cities and get out a galley/fish boat to explore the NW island for seafood. the island is actually close to your capital and extra trade route can help.

 

[Revent]

Cant look at the save now. Did you gain a GG and unlock HE in your first war? Those are always good goals with a first war. I dont mind to drag a war a bit longer just to get those.

In my shadow game, I was up against AC's spears. I could only manage to take a single city with the first war, bought peace with Aesth. But the GG and Heroic Epic helped me to capture prize city Rome (GLH+Colossus+Stone Henge) around 500AD with a bunch of catapults/HA/Axe against Prats/Xbows.

It is usually better to get Aesth and trade for Alpha on Deity since the AIs get Alpha so fast. You can whip libraries in all cities and run scientists to get to Currency/COL faster, and you can usually trade for Monarchy. That way you get these key techs faster.

The city 1NE of the center corn is a great spot, go all farms/mine here and you get a great HE city. The Western barb city is not a great spot if no seafood. you can settle on the sugar (no coastal) to get it up and running fast. The clam/copper site is great as well. Also delay buildings in once of the coastal cities and get out a galley/fish boat to explore the NW island for seafood. the island is actually close to your capital and extra trade route can help.

No unfortunately not. It's good I didn't drag out the war because I would've suffered a lot of - points with Wang Kon.

I do know about Aesth before Alpha, but with only 2 partners to trade with, I think it made sense to go Alpha first purely because if one searches it, they may not want to give up their monopoly.

Yes, that city was going to be my HE site.

Also, agreed, going to that ASAP hopefully Really need some more cities. I think I may be able to grab around 8-9 cities on this map at least without further war.


Going to wait for further input before I carry on.

 

[ben-jammin]

No unfortunately not. It's good I didn't drag out the war because I would've suffered a lot of - points with Wang Kon.

I do know about Aesth before Alpha, but with only 2 partners to trade with, I think it made sense to go Alpha first purely because if one searches it, they may not want to give up their monopoly.

Yes, that city was going to be my HE site.

Also, agreed, going to that ASAP hopefully Really need some more cities. I think I may be able to grab around 8-9 cities on this map at least without further war.


Going to wait for further input before I carry on.

AIs wont hold back alpha because they're the first one to get it.

 

[Revent]

AIs wont hold back alpha because they're the first one to get it.

Aah I see, this may have been a mistake on my part then. Don't think I'll bother re-loading as my last save was at the point where I killed the Romans.


Still waiting for some further input. I think I'll put this away until tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully should get something by then Thanks to everyone who's helped so far. Really appreciate it!

 

[Mylene]

Razed clams/copper spot is better with Cre, keep the forest
Would say other city ruins better too.
Dun forget you will need a galley very soon, work boats also might have been a better build than granaries for now.

 

[Doshin]

I wouldn't self-tech Monarchy over Aesthetics. The AI will go for the former and trade it immediately. Boudica will never go for the latter. Wang might, but I don't think he'll prioritize it.

With the GLH you should be golden. REX as many coastal spots on the continent as you can and overflow into a galley. Once a galley is built, you can settle the island off your coast with further settlers. This will get you some overseas trade routes.

I teched to Alpha on your save, and in that time

Spoiler :

Confucianism was founded on the other continent. Make sure that you're in a position to bulb Philosophy ASAP, so that there's one religion on your continent.

Edit: don't forget that cheap colosseums will help with your happiness problems.

 

[Revent]

I wouldn't self-tech Monarchy over Aesthetics. The AI will go for the former and trade it immediately. Boudica will never go for the latter. Wang might, but I don't think he'll prioritize it.

With the GLH you should be golden. REX as many coastal spots on the continent as you can and overflow into a galley. Once a galley is built, you can settle the island off your coast with further settlers. This will get you some overseas trade routes.

I teched to Alpha on your save, and in that time

Spoiler :

Confucianism was founded on the other continent. Make sure that you're in a position to bulb Philosophy ASAP, so that there's one religion on your continent.

Edit: don't forget that cheap colosseums will help with your happiness problems.

Alpha->Aesthetics->(backfill and trade for Monarchy ASAP)->CoL->Bulb Phil->Currency seem good? No need for academy in this game I think. I want to block off the land first and then settle the coastal cities ASAP to get some better TR's.
So really, aiming to first get rid of that Barb city where my WC's are and settle in the location planned then settle all of the coastals and then backfill and take that silly barb city in the east.

Try to bribe boudica if I can as well.

Razed clams/copper spot is better with Cre, keep the forest
Would say other city ruins better too.
Dun forget you will need a galley very soon, work boats also might have been a better build than granaries for now.

Hey My, any particular reason you say the spots that had been razed? I personally thought the copper city may be good in the position that I had razed it at, but a grassland tile>plains tile which is why I thought to settle on the plains.

City that can share the wheat; I thought that position was better because I could then work at least one hill if I needed a small amount of production.

 

[Revent]

T80-T116

My Tech Path went like this:
Alpha->Myst->Meditation->Priesthood->CoL. Trade for IW, Maths, Hunting->Currency->CS and also traded for Hereditary Rule which took a lot longer than expected. Got it I think 4-5 turns ago!
I also saved my GS for bulbing Phil which I did, currently in the proces of spreading Taoism to all of my cities. I've also started settling the coast now Took a lot longer than expected, but I'm getting there!

Captured the barb city after letting WK take the archers out for me

Same turn, I founded my own city after razing the other barb city

Status of my Empire at the moment:

Future Plans:
-Settle all of those islands ASAP, I think this is my biggest weakness so far, I've not been settling fast enough
-Lib MT, Cuir rush Boudica and Wang Kon, kill them both
-Bulb Astro ASAP to get those TR's up and running so need to get Optics and whatnot as well. Maybe Vassal Boudica/Wang Kon and get them to research that route for me?
-Boudica is preparing to war on WK as you can see

Hopefully try to take a couple of cities from him whilst they destroy each others stacks

Not sure what else to do now.

 

[shakabrade]

Well that is some lucky GLH. I always rage when it goes late and I don't even attempt it. I usually don't consider building it if it cannot be completed by 1500BC.

You have Civil Service so you unfortunately cannot bulb Astro. Your bulb path will now go Paper, Education, Printing Press, Scientific Method, and if you avoid gunpowder, I believe Astronomy is next. That is why I skipped CS in my game. You also must skip Theology cause it opens Paper bulb. Remember that for future games. I think you have all the relevant stuff in Kossin's signature.

Nice game so far. At this moment it looks stronger than mine, but we'll have to wait for some time to be able to truly compare them cause that is how stuff works when grand strategies differ. My first save is 475AD, I believe and don't want to spoil anything for you until then.

Good luck!

 

[Doshin]

You might want to get a defender in Pi Ramesses, since the GW only offers protection on the same continent.

I'd spread your religion to Wang too. If you put it in his capital he's more likely to build missionaries for you. He'll convert, you'll get to pleased, Boudica will attack him anyway... not much there to be lost.

At some stage a shrine would be useful. The question is, when? It's not a priority, so I'd probably farm one a little down the road during a pacific golden age in the NE city, with the help of an obelisk + temple.

Lib. might be a bit of a reach if the other continent is teching well. On the other hand, all the religions were founded there, so they might all be at war (have great generals been emerging?).

 

[Revent]

You might want to get a defender in Pi Ramesses, since the GW only offers protection on the same continent.

I'd spread your religion to Wang too. If you put it in his capital he's more likely to build missionaries for you. He'll convert, you'll get to pleased, Boudica will attack him anyway... not much there to be lost.

At some stage a shrine would be useful. The question is, when? It's not a priority, so I'd probably farm one a little down the road during a pacific golden age in the NE city, with the help of an obelisk + temple.

Lib. might be a bit of a reach if the other continent is teching well. On the other hand, all the religions were founded there, so they might all be at war (have great generals been emerging?).

Oh right, will do that whenever I have the time to do so.
And will spread to his capital actually, that's a very good idea Thanks!

Well, if the religion spreads like wildfire that could be a lot of gold! Would you suggest burning up a GS for a golden age to get more great people, ie maybe/hopefully 2-3 more GS's? I'm not sure if it would even work but it could be worth a try. I really want to Lib MT and get the Cuirs up ASAP to take out both of these guys before they get a chance to replenish their stacks

There have been quite a few GG's, but they also did discover CoL before anyone here as well, so maybe zealots and warmonger combination, ie Izzy, Monty,etc.. I'm thinking along with maybe someone Industrious since all the wonders seem to be unknown and probably FIN leaders as well.

Well that is some lucky GLH. I always rage when it goes late and I don't even attempt it. I usually don't consider building it if it cannot be completed by 1500BC.

You have Civil Service so you unfortunately cannot bulb Astro. Your bulb path will now go Paper, Education, Printing Press, Scientific Method, and if you avoid gunpowder, I believe Astronomy is next. That is why I skipped CS in my game. You also must skip Theology cause it opens Paper bulb. Remember that for future games. I think you have all the relevant stuff in Kossin's signature.

Nice game so far. At this moment it looks stronger than mine, but we'll have to wait for some time to be able to truly compare them cause that is how stuff works when grand strategies differ. My first save is 475AD, I believe and don't want to spoil anything for you until then.

Good luck!

Well, the luck with GLH kinda offsets the bad luck with the 'Mids! If I was able to invest some hammers into the Mids, I may have had some stone powered gold which would have made my research faster as well.

Aah, damn, that sucks :erm: So Astro is going to be some time now. Would it be worth Libbing Astro (assuming I get to it of course, no idea how the other continent is)?

It probably only looks stronger due to GLH which helped a lot. Thanks! I have no grand strategy at the moment, having no idea how advanced the other continent is. The only thing I can rely on is that I founded Taoism so that may get me a chance to get to Lib. Normally by what dates does the AI get Lib on Deity?

 

[Mylene]

Lib should still be very possible, but you need great peoples now
Starting next turn, Rome should be on that job mainly, and i'd not use hammer tiles here but let it grow 1 more.
Not sure if you were planning an aqueduct in Thebes, but get your wheat from Boudi back..she smokes too much anyways ~~

Situations usually look acceptable during that stage, but soon they will get out of control and you should get ready fast and drop everything that will not help you killing Wang and Boudi
There's no way you can win here, without a sucessful Curis war or similiar.

 

[Revent]

Lib should still be very possible, but you need great peoples now
Starting next turn, Rome should be on that job mainly, and i'd not use hammer tiles here but let it grow 1 more.
Not sure if you were planning an aqueduct in Thebes, but get your wheat from Boudi back..she smokes too much anyways ~~

Situations usually look acceptable during that stage, but soon they will get out of control and you should get ready fast and drop everything that will not help you killing Wang and Boudi
There's no way you can win here, without a sucessful Curis war or similiar.

Would you suggest revolting over to Caste for this?
Next turn, I'm switching to beauro/pacifism and was considering Caste as well. Not 100% sure though.

Wheat trade is for Cows. Get the fair trade bonus+not actually losing any health. Although will get my crabs back soon as I can.

Cuir war is what I'm aiming for. Think I may Vassal one of them though although not 100% sure about that. Most likely going to go for the kill.

 

[Mylene]

Yup Caste, you have most needed buildings (besides forges) for now i think.
Weak spot is great peoples, so makes much sense.
With your first one you could start a GA in case it's a Gspy or so, Rome and Thebes too (missing 1 work boat here) are nice for GA farming. Memphis can most likely finish 1 GS too.
Cows over wheat loses 1 health cos of granary bonus

edit: Alexandria should be your city of choice for more settlers

 

[PeteJ]

Ah good now I can post my shadow now that you hit the 50BC mark. First of all nice job so far @Revent. Your game looks promising so far. Anyway here is where I am at in 50BC:

Spoiler :

Early tech path was AH>mining>BW>writing, skipping fishing until a bit later. Once horses popped in my capitol, I sent my warrior over to Augustus to steal a worker, then continued with a chariot rush. I was able to camp a chariot near his copper before he had a chance to hook it up then I eventually was able to take all of his cities. By the time I got to his capitol, he had finished both stonehenge and the mids for me which was very nice of him. I actually kept most of his cities unlike you and by the end of the war my economy was more in the hole than you were. I think at worst I was at like -20 gpt at 0% research. I was resorting to things like working coastal tiles without a lighthouse and even working priests instead of 0 commerce tiles.

Anyway thanks to the mids I was able to keep chugging along with my research. I went aesth after writing to trade for alpha, which turned out to be a mistake since no one on my continent seemed to want to research alpha, then I finally self-teched fishing to get my seafood online. Around this time I popped a great engineer from Rome (thanks again Augustus) so I detoured to Lit before going for currency (I was still trying to hold out for the alpha trade). After Lit I teched Math>currency then I broke down and self-teched Alpha, finishing it in 75BC. So here I am at 50BC with 9 cities. I just picked up sailing and I'm building a galley to settle to island to my NW. I have 3 settlers already built and ready to claim my island. I used an engineer to build the GL and I have 2 scientists on hold for bulbing. I decided to skip the academy since I am at 0% research and my beakers are spread out throughout my empire.

Pictures:

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

 

[vranasm]

that 14 cities Korea blob is worrying. Will be interesting to see how you deal with it.

 

[Revent]

Sorry guys, I might put this game on hold for a day or two! I'm over the moon right now! Just got my A Level exams results so in a state of shock at the moment

Further advice welcome though!!