Lord Gandhi the Backward Tries to Find A New World

[Rudragun]

I've decided to go with Gandhi. I haven't actually done a game with him yet, and I think his UA is decent. I also like his UU

I usually play on emperor difficulty. I'm a decent player, but I'm definitely not an optimal one.

As for India itself:
The UU seems nice, but I tried playing as Gandhi once before. Their UA makes warmongering a pain since you have to capture a city, wait for happiness to rise, capture a city, wait for happiness to rise, capture a city, wait for happiness to rise, capture a city, wait for happiness to rise, etc. It's annoying. Maybe I'll have to be peaceful.
I really like the War Elephants. The idea of archers on horses is cool, but the idea of archers on top of elephants? I love it! War Elephants are stronger than Horse Archers, but their movement is one lower. However, they don’t get that annoying rough terrain penalty, so they’re effectively faster depending on the map.
Mughal Forts are actually useful now. They have no maintenance cost, and they provide 9 extra city strength and two culture. I don’t know if I’ll build them, but we’ll see.

As for the early social policies, I plan on going down the Tradition tree. I really like this tree, especially the Landed Elite policy. It lowers the cost of cultural expansion by 2/3. Combined with Angkor Wat, you’ll get a new tile from culture at least every 3 turns in each city. It also has the Oligarchy policy which lets me turtle, which I find is very effective.

Here’s the starting position:

Sorry about the fog of war. My graphics are somewhat lacking. Let’s see. Two unique luxuries. That’s not too bad. The problem here is that I need three different technologies in order to access both of them. The dyes luxury needs mining. The sugars need masonry since they’re both on marshes. At least I have a river!
I choose to settle in place, even though that puts the cow tile one hex out of my workable radius. My first build is a scout. I like to know what’s around me, and the ruins are nice, too.

I make a beeline for Writing for the National College. The early techs are laughably easy to research when you have that sort of bonus in your biggest, most productive city. This also has some synergy with Tradition, my favored early social policy tree. After Writing, I plan to get Calendar, then Mining, then Masonry. We’ll see what happens after that.

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And, on Turn 2, I find what I think will be a good spot for our second city. There’s a river, wheat, two cows, and two fish. It’ll make a good coastal city.

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There were actually two more fish resources hiding in the northern fog of war. Our second city will have no trouble getting food.

Next, we meet our first city-state: Oslo. Maritime and Neutral. That’s a decent combo. Hang on a second, Oslo only gave us 15 gold! How ungrateful! I guess that means someone else has met them.

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And, sure enough, we meet Oda Nobunaga of Japan. He’s sent over a scout to trespass in Oslo’s territory and taunt our warriors.

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I have no idea what happened with this picture, but it scares me.

Delhi finishes the scout. He is sent south. Work is begun on a warrior.

We immediately find Lord (!) Alexander of Greece. I've never really liked Alex. His horse seems bored in this picture. He, like Oda, has sent out a scout.

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Meanwhile, my scout hasn’t been idle. He found ruins, explored them and found *drum roll please* a map. The map reveals a bunch of useless ocean tiles and one barbarian encampment. Maps number among the most disappointing rewards from ruins. The only thing that beats it is being told where barbarian encampments are.

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In the next turn, we find Japan and its only city. I plan on destroying Oda soon, but we need war elephants to do so.

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In the next turn, we stumble upon Wu. She sent us a scout. This a crowded continent!

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Then, on turn 13, we find the city-state of Geneva who is sitting in the middle of a huge marsh.

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We also find a barbarian encampment in the north.
Introducing the third city-state: Lhasa. It’s hostile. Joy.

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I finally find Athens. And with it, I also meet Elizabeth. I don't like this world. This sort of continent would, of course, occur just to spite me, seeing as I’m India.

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I was originally planning a somewhat different tech path, but I need to get those war elephants ASAP, so I head for The Wheel.

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Since it would take 16 turns for Delhi to grow, I decide to purchase the hills river tile for some extra production. In hindsight, I could have gotten the same amount of production from one grassland tile and the two forests. That’s 100 gold wasted.

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We meet yet another city-state, Edinburgh. Militaristic and Neutral.

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Phew. That was a hectic 20 turns. Here are some pictures of the known world:

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[Triskelli]

Hah, an interesting start. Let's hope Ghandi can get those elephants before Elizabeth decides to get a little historical on his @$$.

 

[Rudragun]

Back into the fray we go!

In between turns, Alex asks me for open borders. Since his empire is, as far as I can see, one city, I decide to sell him access to my lands for a whopping 50 gold.

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This makes me think to get money from the other AIs. Oda and Wu also agree to give me some money, but Lizzy wants me to take out a loan which would give us an 8 gold deficit. I refuse her offer and take money from everyone else. I think she may hate for colonial reasons. She'll be disappointed when we don't bow to her!

On turn 21, we see a weakened barbarian brute inside Edinburgh’s borders. We destroy it for a nice 5 xp and matching influence. Mind you, the influence is pointless since we only have 194 gold and can’t bribe Edinburgh. Oh well, nice to have more experienced units anyway.

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It would appear that at this point Alex has announced his protection of all the city-states in the known world. That doesn’t really matter, though. Alex hasn’t allied with any of them, and we weren’t planning on attacking any of the city-states, anyway.
Also, we’ve found a big desert in the east with some random jungle thrown in.

On turn 25, Pliny approaches us with a list of the people with the pointiest sticks. From this list, I begin thinking we should go directly against Alex before he gets Hoplites and then swing back around to destroy Japan.

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Also, we get to choose our first social policy. As previously discussed, I choose to go down Tradition since I don’t think I’ll need the nerfed Honor bonuses. I change the citizens in Delhi, moving the hill citizen to the forest, in order to make use of the new policy, making my land purchase from before even more pointless.

As a bonus, we just found China! Apparently, China either has better food tiles or the AI has food bonuses of which I’m not aware.

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Then, Oda approaches us with an offer of friendship. Umm… Yeah. No, Oda. I reject it since I do not want the stigma of attacking a friend. The invasion of his empire is non-negotiable.

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We finish researching Animal Husbandry and find quite a few sources of horses. There’s one source of two horses within my borders and a source of four horses near where I plan to put my second city. I don’t need horses for war elephants, so I think I’ll go for Horseback Riding after I finish The Wheel. Then, I can have a nice little army. I’ll go for Chivalry after that, giving me knights and the Mughal Fort. I’m not sure when I’ll fit in Mining, Masonry, and Calendar. I’ll probably get them after Horseback Riding.

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After fighting two barbarian brutes, destroying one and damaging the one shown here, my warrior has earned a promotion. I choose to give him Drill I and name him Firozpur, after the 17th Infantry Division of the Western Command of the modern Indian army. He then begins to heal.

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My scout has found a new place for a city. I think we should settle one tile southwest of the more southern cotton after we destroy China. That way, the city gets the river, the cotton, the cows, the fish, and the silver.

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Next, I destroy the barbarian who ran to the hill. The other warrior destroys the barbarian encampment and we plunder a nice 25 gold from the encampment. We now have a total of 259 gold.

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In 2680 BC, we get a very nice picture of England. We finally know where all the empires in our continent are! The overall military strategy for India is to destroy Greece, then Japan, then China, and finally England. This may be a stupid idea and probably is, but we’ll see.

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Actually, this is probably a much better place for the third city than the one near China. It has some nice horses, a sheep hill, sugar, and some fish. It also has a little forest. It’s a nice place.

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A brute shows up near Delhi in the sugar marsh. Delhi’s citizens deal 2 damage to the brute. Also, Delhi has finished its library. We begin work on the National College. It will take about 19 turns to complete it. I’ll really have to start pumping out war elephants after that. I think I’ll purchase a worker sometime during that, as soon as I get enough money. I don't have enough money now because I spent a pointless 100 gold on a hills tile. Then, I can make a farm on some grasslands and the hill. I’ll make a pasture on the horse tile. I’ll make a decent city yet!

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The Wheel has finished, and now I can start in on Horseback Riding. However, I’m thinking that, due to my large production deficit, I should go for the worker techs instead of even more things on which I could spend my production.

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My city continues to bombard the irritating unit of brutes.

Near London, I find two ruins! I have no idea why Lizzy didn’t get them before.

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The northern one yields new weapons for our scouts.

The southern one yields the location of another barbarian encampment which is directly in the path of my new archer, anyway.

Turn 38, Delhi finally kills the brute.

Turn 39, we research Mining and start in on Masonry.

Turn 40, Alex offers up a nice juicy little worker to my warrior. I go ahead and declare war on him, take the worker, and escape his empire without incident, netting me a nice picture of Athens in the process.

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Also, our archers bombard the barbarian encampment in the south. I plan on moving them back up to Greece, at which point I hope to have both warriors and at least one war elephant at Athens.

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That would be the end of this turnset. Here are some pictures of our world and the other civilizations.

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[Yoshiegg737]

Make friends with Lhasa. Their in a good spot to cause trouble for other civ's and I've found that they are very reliable from my own experience.

 

[Rudragun]

We plunge back into the fray. I’m hoping I’ll be able to destroy Alex and go for Oda soon.

As I expected, Alex’s warrior attacked mine after I ended the turn. My warriors take 6 damage and deal 6 damage.

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I decide to attack the enemies while I have the advantage and try to destroy them.

Apparently, that was a stupid idea. My warrior deals 4 damage and is destroyed. I send the worker scurrying back to Delhi.

The warrior Firozpur makes his way towards Athens, in order to try to cut down on any future losses by destroying Alex’s defending warriors.

I decide to check on how much a unit of war elephants would cost; 340 gold for one unit! It would cost 200 for another warrior, but I decide to wait. Maybe I can pillage the 50 gold.

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Eureka! I think I found a solution. I decided to check on the rates for loans.
Wu Zetian, with 19 gold, won’t let me take out a loan. What has she done with her money? Oda and Lizzy both have copious amounts of gold. Since I plan on declaring war on Oda sometime within the profit limit of 22 turns, I take the money from him.

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In all this hubbub, I didn’t even notice Alex had made a new city!

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Actually, it doesn’t look half bad as a city site. I think I’ll keep it when I capture it.

I reconsider my idea of making the archer unit in the south go up to Greece. It would take 10 turns, and I’d really like to get a better feel for my surroundings.

My wish is granted, and we find the city state Kuala Lumpur.

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In hindsight, this makes my loan almost totally irrelevant. I could have just gone with the 22 gold for 1 gpt and gotten the same result. I really wish I could reload, but I will not. I shall be forced to live with my mistake(s). Ugh.

Once Firozpur reaches Athens, he finds two units of warriors, the one which we fought against before and a fresh one. I decide to have Firozpur destroy the warrior in the plains and risk a counterattack since I can destroy that one and get rid of the flanking bonus and the warrior in Alex’s borders has the Oligarchy bonus: +33% strength in friendly territory! Therefore, I need to lure it out of Athens’ borders.

Firozpur destroys the Greek warrior, taking 4 damage in the process. We shall see if he survives the next turn.

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My scouting with the archer has born no more fruit than Kuala Lumpur. He shall be heading north shortly.

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In my infinite absent-mindedness, I had forgotten to purchase the elephants. With the money, I purchase my first unit of war elephants!

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The wheat has again been bloodied, and my infinite stupidity has led me to another setback. Firozpur was destroyed by the Greek warrior.

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I have troubles with tactics, apparently, and it’s led to the deaths of many good men. Come to think of it, I don’t have a melee unit now. I’ll try to negotiate peace.
With a token reparation of 47 gold and much stupidity on the part of the Indians, the first Indo-Greco War comes to an end. Ah well, the Indians were never known for being good at war.

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I checked, and we still need 160 more experience before we get a Great General. I think I’d like to make a declaration of war on Japan, avoid paying my loan, get a Great General, a melee unit or two, and then go on the offensive.

In 2120 BC, Delhi grows to 4 population. Also, our scientists learn Masonry. I choose to pursue Horseback Riding in order to get my true army. We’ll see what happens.

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In the hubbub, Japan has also created a new city.

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I decide to declare war on Japan now. Oda is not pleased.

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Our elephants bombard the city, doing 2 damage.
Next turn, they do it again. Osaka does the same, also doing 2 damage.

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The archers clear out a barbarian encampment near Kuala Lumpur and earn me 25 gold.

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My worker finally arrives at Delhi and begins clearing the marsh from the northern sugar source.

My war elephants earn a promotion. I give them Drill I.

I think I’ll end it here before I make my situation any worse.

 

[Yoshiegg737]

Always nice to see a revived story