Many Leaders Game 4 - The Cultured Monarch

[TriviAl]

Ozbenno

Spoiler :

Wow - that's some Rex-ing there! Nice going on 6 cities. Though the support costs look fairly high -5 @ 70% - do they pay for themselves at 60%?

Think after this turnset it could be interesting to make a summary dotmap of where everyone has cities - I'll have a go at that.

Swiss Pauli

Spoiler :

Can't recall if Roosie or Joao converted - will check when I get home...

 

[Ozbenno]

Think after this turnset it could be interesting to make a summary dotmap of where everyone has cities - I'll have a go at that.

That would be great

 

[Ozbenno]

Here are some comments on the second round games so far

Spoiler :

@njorls - I'm intersted in the reasons behind your research path (I don't think anyone else has headed Calendar/Currency). Are you going to attempt founding a religion? Also interested in how Damascus develops. Was considering a city there before moving south of the spices. I had a simlar experience with my barb city. It had three archers in it, Joao sacrificed an axe leaving me to clean up. I'm sure it must have grown to 2 that turn as well (I thought it would raze and had a settler there waiting).

@Zargon - Well done on Toko destroying. As with njorls interested to see Gao develop. Joao has Rexed madly though. Bummer on missing Confucianism

@pawelo - Good work on a gamble that payed off . You going after Joao?

@Kodii - Again, well done on the gamble. It has meant you are without Agriculture and Pottery though.

@Imhotep - That's some set of neighbours you have there . Nice LOTR quote as well. Just remember axes are cheaper than settlers

@TriviAl - As usual, a well played game. Joao's about to settle a city on your doorstep to steal your spices though .

@azaris - Yes, you scare me too . Great piccie of your jaguars as well. My favourite Montezuma quote found here.

@Swiss Pauli - Great rexing there! Even better keeping up a decent economy with it Now you've discovered Mathematics, the age of Hamanns can begin (one of the better UBs).

And a final comment on the first round

Spoiler :

Can't beleive I forgot to mention Bindamel's truly appaling Steve Miller impersonation. Double plus good

OK, we have 9/16 games so far so another 3 needed until the unveiling of the culture graph (I think I'll open it for silly names after you see what it is).

 

[Ad Hoc]

Round 2 : Chaotic Culture Capers.

Spoiler :

i call this chaotic and believe me thats how i feel after i've played this, i still don't know if these were good turns or not, but i'll try and put a bit of reasoning into my thoughts.

my concerns were that we would end up with no religions on the continent, toku would have come over the hill with his hordes and that i would be out expanded by Joao. (always seems to happen in my game)

i started off by switching to another settler in London whilst leaving reasearch on CoL, Nottingham was founded in 1440. i was running a risk on the gem site but i didn't want Joao getting close to London.

i didn't think i would be first to CoL but you never know.

Only down point was Confucianism was founded in York

the same turn a prophet was born in London, at this point i think i lost the plot a bit and put him to sleep for a liitle while. masonry - poly - mono!

In 1000BC the Oracle popped into London, again didn't think i'd get this. oh well in for a penny in for a pound and philo it is. and about time i expanded a bit so london to build a settler.

again only problem was Taoism founded in York

700BC saw Hastings founded, it was down to go at the gems site, but as luck had it a barb city popped south of that site so i had to redirect to the middle of the jungle (i'm still not certain about this city placement but there were a couple of reasons behind it so it goes where it goes)

675BC and i finally used my great prophet to found Christianiity, this time it pops into hastings

550BC and the barb city was razed and Canterbury founded at the gems site at last.

425BC saw another prophet in london which was sent off to York for the Taoist shrine.

a quick look at my lands

and my cities

Random Thoughts.

i'm in caste system and pacifism
Three religions means three shrines
My military sucks bigtime
i need Taoism in London so i can switch to be with my brothers in faith Toku and Joao
after IW i'm in a bit of a quandry about techs

 

[Ad Hoc]

Chaos rules..forgot the save

 

[pawelo]

Some more comments on games coming in :

Spoiler :

@njorls
I like your 'blocking' path of land.
Your techs choices puzzle me a little, I am waiting to see how will you leverage you UB comparing to those who preferred go religion-crazy.

@Zargon
You seem to have struggled pretty much against Toku - I went with 7 axes after him and was almost too short. His protective archers on the hill made me
Sorry to see Joao rexing into your lands - hope it's temporary

@Ozbenno
Great rexing and blocking off the land
I look forward to see if your plans regarding wonders will go well - with marble, gold and ivory you should have several of them in the pocket.
I am still puzzled about going after Joao. I would rather get Music, Theology and Philo first, then go Maces & Trebs on Joao.

@Ad Hoc
There is absolutely nothing chaotic in your game. Excellent grab on the three religions.
A double holy city is a pure wonder - each shrine is +4 culture. And Wall Street is a no brainer.

@TriviAl
The quest require to get in control of a hill south of Lisbon.
As it's blocked by two other Portuguese cities, I must as well as conquer the whole country

@Swiss Pauli
I think about keeping Joao happy and merry until later - see above
It will still be time to wipe him off - I have more than 90 turns left.

 

[njorls]

@Ozbenno, pawelo

Spoiler :

I saw Calendar as a necessity, I'm surprised that's a minority opinion.

I have a great prophet due in 3 turns in my capital, the nice thing about UB (Madrassa) is you can run priests without a religion or a wonder in your city. Plan is to lightbulb Theology with him.

Currency might have been a mistake, I think it's only got 1 turn in it so it's not that big a mistake. I'm switching to Med/Priesthood and will bulb Theology in 4 turns.

 

[Ad Hoc]

@njorls

Spoiler :

@Ozbenno, pawelo

Spoiler :

I saw Calendar as a necessity, I'm surprised that's a minority opinion.

I have a great prophet due in 3 turns in my capital, the nice thing about UB (Madrassa) is you can run priests without a religion or a wonder in your city. Plan is to lightbulb Theology with him.

Currency might have been a mistake, I think it's only got 1 turn in it so it's not that big a mistake. I'm switching to Med/Priesthood and will bulb Theology in 4 turns.

I agree that Calender is a necessity since there are four resources that benefit from a plantation.

i can understand currency as well, markets for the gold and it's also needed to build grocers when you get guilds. three of the resources helped by calender give extra health with grocers

i'm thinking that health and not happiness will be a problem

 

[Zargon]

(I added a screenshot of the overview of my land to my report)

swiss

Spoiler :

I picked up a city in the SE to seal that off, but I missed the marble SW of where Toku was. Joao REXed there way too fast. Looking back, I should have placed higher priority on settling that marble spot, but I was focusing on consolidating, getting conf (and failing), and planning in the long term to get virtually all my culture off the slider, rather than wonders.

When I took a good look at Kyoto way too late at around turn 85 - which I was planning to make one of my three legendary cities - I realized that all those forests are hiding hills, and there's no way I'll ever be able to get a decent amount of commerce out of that place. There's no other city with strong enough commerce to replace it as one of the three, and I realized I would need to shift my strategy to churn wonders out of that place. But by then, the marble in the SW was gone. I'll need to found a trash city for the NE marble very soon. I'll probably drop it right on the marble to get the extra hammer for the city, since all it will be good for is working the sea tiles.

Pausing to figure out how I was going to adust my strategy upon that realization accounted for a large part of the 2.5 hours I spent.

pawelo

Spoiler :

First, I am green with envy that you managed to both wipe Toku out and do a CS slingshot. I think it's safe to assume who the man to beat in this MLG is.

Second, my rush wasn't really that hard, but I made some mistakes. I think I probably should have whipped out the second city early, even though copper was in the BFC. I should have built a barracks. I should have skipped my UU, skirmishers. 4 str, 1-2 first attacks, and 25 hammers vs 5 str and 35 hammers looked really good, but ended up a net loss. It helped me get the rush out the door faster, as I could build skirmishers before axemen, but I had to research hunting & archery.

Basically, I overestimated the power of protective archers, and therefore sacrificed too much to do the rush. Hindsight is 20/20.

 

[Conroe]

lurker's comment:

@Ozbenno:

Spoiler :

Haven't used the Industrious trait much but next set I'm after Parthenon, Zeus, National Epic, Heroic Epic (thanks barbs) and Sistine Chapel all in the capital

I'm curious, why all of them in your capital? Wouldn't it be better to spread the culture around to some of your other cities? Or are you planning on using nothing but Great Artists in your other 2 cities?

 

[Ozbenno]

lurker's comment:

@Ozbenno:

Spoiler :

I'm curious, why all of them in your capital? Wouldn't it be better to spread the culture around to some of your other cities? Or are you planning on using nothing but Great Artists in your other 2 cities?

Spoiler :

I want all my GA points in one city. I'll use the GAs themselves in the other cities. My 2nd legendary will be gems city and it has bad production. Not sure on third. Maybe ex-barb or Toko capital or even sugar city (yet to be founded). So throw then all in capital and pump out some GAs.

 

[pholkhero]

Spoiler :

Okay, to begin with, I need more explorers, and another couple settlers. I won't be worrying about any other wonders in this set i don't *think.* I’m going to let Rome grow some while finishing its Granary, and work on some axes for exploration and protection, and work on some spots for Iron.

My GProphet will be done in about 34 turns or so, and I want to bulb Theology with him, so I’ll need to research those pre-req techs, but other than that, I don’t have a definite tech direction (which may hurt me!).

On the first turn in, I get some news I already knew:

Next turn, IW was done, and I’m going to head for Hunting > AH to finally pasteurize those Pigs!

1560 bc: Judaism and GW IDL

Also, now that AH is done, I’m going to work on those Theo-pre-req techs. I also got the first of my settlers out, and sent him SE towards that Fish/Iron/Silk(?) site just north of where FDR is. Cumae was founded in 1080 bc.

One of my new axes got stuck in Japan

After that settler and another axe, I decided to set Rome on the Pyramids ~ normal lures me in w/its short build times ~ 27 turns to Pyramids; how could I not?!?!

850 bc, and FDR wants to play nice:

And I finally am able to grow over size 6:

775 bc, and I got my GP; sleep my precious ~ the squirrels do not wish to hear you just yet. Argh ~ damn those stupid Bulbing crap! Got most of the early religious techs out of the way, but forgot Writing! Doing that now to bulb Theo!!

I got so flustered, I lost my 2nd axe:

But in 575:

Christianity founded in Antium
Now am unsure about going for either CoL for another religion or Aesthetics > Lit for more wonders . .

I decide to go for Aesthetics, and then on 2nd thought, go w/CoL after all since I don't think i'll be able to go for those wonders right away, and I’ll still need some more cities, so why not another religion?

City #4 Founded in 550:

In 425 bc, Christianity spread to Boston, so I may look to wipe out both Japan AND Joao for a nice Christian continent.

I also got some good news to finish the set:

This may not look like much, but it’s the 2nd of my newly-freed axes

Now that the Pyramids are in, I’m going to put together a small Praet army to start cracking some skulls while the homeland works on improving the empire. After CoL, over to Aesthetics > Lit, and then perhaps following those up to Drama and Music, and Philo, too, for a 3rd religion. We’ll see. On to read.

 

[Ozbenno]

OK, pholky's save brings us to a tantalising 11/16, one short! I'm itching to get back into this but will patiently wait some more. Would never have believed I'd get excited about playing a cultural game .

 

[Bindamel]

Pericles, Round 2 – Toku haiku

It is Toku’s time
Will he live through the turnset?
Bindy sucks at war

Spoiler :

Early on Research
Build army and learn new techs
Nothing to see here.

Wow! Turn ninety-three
Nothing done yet, get Toku!
Alphabet next turn!

He is overmatched
Phalanxes, nothing special
But I have a lot!

Kyoto is mine.
Japanese cities in fog
More than I had hoped.

Trading possible
They mostly need alphabet
I can live with that.

Here’s turn one hundred
Remember to stop this time!
Here’s my stats this round.

 

[Ozbenno]

Second round reports (2000C - 375BC) can be found in the following posts.

Kodii
Swiss Pauli
azaris
TriviAl
Imhotep
pawelo
njorls
Zargon
Ozbenno
Ad Hoc
pholkhero
Bindamel
Ralph_Jackson
yena
r_rolo1
GreyFox

 

[Ozbenno]

Well are the stats for round 2. Again, if you have any suggestions or improvements let me know. And remember, take all with a grain of salt.



Well done to pawelo for his (near) clean sweep of the stats. Bad luck to Swiss Pauli, who came 2nd in about every category

But I know you're all waiting for the new graph. Well wait no longer. I thought about this for a while, trying to think what would be the most meaningful stat to graph to show progress towards a cultural victory. In the end, I pumped for the culture of our 3rd most cultured city. Still haven't got a name, so any suggestions are welcome.

It's not that meaningful yet but here goes...

 

[Ozbenno]

Feel free to start the next round (up to 800AD) from tomorrow. There are still 4 games to be submitted to complete this round. As they come in I'll update the graph (but not the stats).

Some final thoughts....

I'm particularly interested in how people use wonders in this game. Seven Oracles for 6 religion founding techs and one Civil Service. Ad Hoc and pholk used an early Stonehenge to get an early GP and found a religion as well. pholk also has his hands on Pyramids.

And nice haiku Bindy (also impressive amounts of Phalanxes running about)!

 

[Zargon]

Here's your chart name.

"Biggest cultural Third Leg"

Though, it would be less than appropriate if we have any members of the fairer sex participating.

In other news, my estimation that pawelo would be way, way in the lead after pulling a CS slingshot was correct, though I somehow managed to come up with victories on two categories, approval rate and life expectancy. Not that I know exactly what that's good for. I thought I had been doing a good job of beating my citizens regularly, but I guess I need to pick up the pace.

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

Rameses the Culture Vulture Round 2 2000BC - 375 BC


Pre Turn Plan / Analysis

Spoiler :

Pre Turn

So where do we go.

Now Ozbenno has summed it up nicely in that in the early game (certainly the first 50 turns at least) a good opening for culture is just a good opening for any game. But now we do need to start gradually moulding our game towards culture

Here is the starting position. Not an overly big or small empire but with a wonder capably capital (good production) and a strong commerce second city (early IW to unlock the Gems was a move I don’t regret).

Now I am aiming for a peaceful cultural victory if possible. Now admittedly I decided this in the first 50 turns when mysteriously I hadn’t met Toku (my guess is he had an unlucky Barb encounter slowing down his westward expansion). But anyway I want to stick with it for a few reasons.

1. It will be a nice challenge with Toku and a test of people’s suggestions that his personality is slightly less isolationist in BTS than before.
2. I will never catch up with Ozbenno’s early elimination of Toku, if you can’t compete in that race start a different one.
3. All my recent SG’s have been heavily war dominated so I fancy returning to my Builder roots!

So how?

Now if we are going to have peaceful culture on our continent the only chance is shared religion. This means a shared early religion so we are all going to join in and be happy Buddhists with Roosevelt. So I will do all I can to get Buddhism to spread to me and also pray that it spreads to Toku.

Other than that I will concentrate on rexing by settling at least two cities (one of which needs to be my 3rd Legendary city). In particular I need to close off the NW peninsula as this will house my temple feeder cities. They don’t need to be great but just OK. Doubt I will have 9 cities but you don’t need 9 for a cultural win (hope I don’t regret such a statement). Although I have located marble up there doubt I will get it hooked up yet.

Other than that need to

1. Found Confucianism (hand researched)
2. Build Pyramids (essential mainly for Universal Suffrage but also helpful for representation) and have a try at Parthenon (not essential as it is usually a couple more great artists in total, as these are saved to the late game in Culture this is just a nice to have but not key)
3. Strong economy
4. Pick up fill in techs (from trading Alphabet or Aesthetics)
5. Get org religion for the hammer bonus and missionary building abilities
6. Pop a Philosophy Great Scientist, but other than Pyramids my pool will then be pure GA.
7. Use my free civic switches to go between caste system and slavery as required. This is partially to reduce the irritating slave revolts which are a good but Irksome feature of BTS.
8. Avoid being obsessed with building early temples and theatres et al. These are needed later but should be delayed (IMHO) in preference to managing and expanding the empire, key wonders…

Report

Spoiler :

Report

So how did things go.

Research

Masonry came in first turn and we start the Mysticism to Code of Laws long slog. Whilst doing this we go through the slightly more expensive Polytheism as we will need it for Parthenon etc so it’s the better route. We found Confucianism on turn 80. Key objective achieved

Following this we then pick up Pottery, Monotheism (hammer boost + missionaries), Aesthetics and are half way through Alphabet at the close.

Rexing

Well whilst exploring down to the SE we spot a nice river, jungle and two bananas site which is potentially y 3rd legendary city. Although Hammer poor rush buying should be able to compensate if our economy is strong enough. This also reveals an opportunity too good to miss of a nice size 2 barb city saving us a settler (every hammer is crucial in the early game) and definitely filling in 1 of our non-legendary city sites.

Later in the set we also expand westwards along the river. Now here we face a decision the fish rice coastal site would be a very nice city but would give us cultural pressure versus Roosevelt so I opt for the nearly as good site further north marked. On the picture. This is my alternative 3rd legendary site.

Relations

Well we pretty soon bump into Toku who is already Buddhist. Now this is a huge break as now the peaceful cultural victory is on. Ironically Jaoao (who is between Toku and Roosevelt hasn’t got infected yet So we must hold our breath and hopes he catches the Buddhist bug.

And finally in 450 BC he does.

Now with a shared religion (Buddhism spread to me rapidly which was not surprising with Roosevelt connected up) the love in can start. And by the end of the turn set who says you can’t get on with Toku under BTS??

Wonders

Well the capital having build the settler for the southern city site moved onto the Pyramids and being Industrious + the fact that it falls late in BTS picked it up in 725BC with just a couple of extra forest chops. Now if those forests grow back they will be destined for the Wooden Sistine Chapel..

Other than that we built an absolute bare minimum military (city garrisons only), worker for each settler and some limited infrastructure. Basically our hammers were divided between expansion and the Pyramids..

How small a military well this is the end of turn position and I am running a non trivial risk being weak but trying to win fast means gambling.

End of Turn

We have a big strong empire with lots of room

Very little culture but that will come

We have popped our required one Great Scientist who will give us philosophy next set. And form now on its Great Artists all the way.

The Game is going well!!

 

[pholkhero]

Though, it would be less than appropriate if we have any members of the fairer sex participating.

Doesn't it count that Ozzie PLAYS like a woman?

nice games so far all ~ i feel like i've played a zillion culture games lately, so I'm hoping to use some of the experience in this one.