Me, you and monarch!

[Beengalas]

I have been surfing around this forum for some time now and just checking stuff out and learning the game. I have really enjoyed reading the games madscientist and Sisiutil have done. Sisiutil with his funny comments and madscientist with his fun role-playing. I have learned tremendously from reading these games and it's comments. But I do now feel that I want to do the same, for several reasons.

First and foremost, to improve my knowledge of this game. This way I will, hopefully, get some comments on my decisions and style. What I need to improve, other ways to think and get even more entranced in this game. Secondly, it's more fun to share the game you are playing with others. Thirdly and last to help others out, I will try to be as detailed as possible with my decision. (There is a fourth reason really, to improve my patience and actually play the entire game instead of starting new ones all the time, but that's off the record).

I will not reload, restart or anything to alter the game. A loss is a loss, I just have to deal with it. Also, I will wait a while before deciding what kind of victory I will try to get. Gotta have to adapt myself to my opponent and the surroundings.

I shall start out with a basic game, the details is:


I use 3.17 BTS, BAT, blue marble and solver's. BAT makes life so much easier, I recommend everyone to get it.

Since this is my first game I will start out with one of the easiest leaders, in my opinion, Huayna Capac (hereby shorted with HC). His trait is financial which gives +1 commerce on a tile that already has two. Makes it a lot easier to keep the economy going. Secondly he has industrious; 50% more hammers when building wonders (And 100% extra hammers when building forges, thanks for the reminder Genv [FP] ). Two very good traits.


His UU is:


Good for early fights versus barbarians and their pesky archers. Also if the need and desire to rush close opponents arise they are great to capture a capital.

His UB is:


Decent building, allows me to completely skip monument due to it's bonus to culture. Otherwise it's like a normally granary.

Now to the actual game, my starting location:


Plenty of forest, a few hills visible and a rice. Down to the left a nice gem to help me with happiness later on. Since the rice isn't irrigated this town might have some trouble with growth and food. I moved the warrior 1NW to see if I could reveal some interesting things there. As you can see in the following picture, there wasn't nothing interesting beside a dye, so I decided to settle in place and hope for something interesting in the dark.



This is how it all reveled itself. Found one banana to the right, yeah, great, two calender depending resources and that not irrigated rice. On the other hand: FOREST! Everywhere but on the resources.

My plan right now:
I will not get additional commerce from gaining population so the time until I get Bronze working (BW) is 26 turns. So starting a worker now will be ineffective since it will do nothing for several turns. So my first production is a warrior. And I will switch so the worker is done exactly the same turn as BW hits the bell. Then whip and chop out a settler as fast as possible (normally I am against whipping in the capital, but in this case I make en exception since I need to find another city early who can get the needed commerce for breakers). Also to catch those two villages, hopefully getting a scout to explore with and/or techs.

Also, I haven't decided on what type of economy yet. It will be decided in a few turns when I have meet my closest opponent and what kind of resources I will get. But mostly I play a mix of specialist and cottage. Very rarely do I have religion or wonder economy. Even if the latest is a possibility with all my forest. But first, scout the area.

I will continue right on now, but please comment and if you like, shadow the game, but please, do not give me any spoiler. Next post will contain more details on my choices and alike.

Wish me luck!

 

[Snovvdog]

Will follow this game .

The capital for me, looks like a mixed cottage & production city, it has enough hills and 3 plain tiles to quickly pump out military but also lots of grassland and the dye for gold.

I'd beeline to BW to see if there's any copper around and to chop asap.
Queachua first, let city grow to size 2 ( while building a 2nd Queachua then build a worker to farm that tile and chop forests after.).

After bw, beeline to pottery through wheel for roads, the UB and cottages...

As for the hints, It'd be great if you resized the pictures to 1024x768 ( or similar 1024x something widescreen) in paint or similar and then post the images directly in that size instead of thumbnails, it might get a bit annoying to open a new tab/window every time you want to look at a pic.

I might shadow this myself as I'm stuck at prince myself and hope to grow a bit too.

Anyways looking forward to the first few turns .

 

[Beengalas]

Next update:

Events:

Meet Shaka


Aggressive and expansionist. Yeah, great, gotta love it! I do truly hope he doesn't have copper. He is somewhere east so my second town won't be keeping him away. How do we deal with him?

Scouting:

First quechua went south and managed to collect 72 gold before popping a hostile village and get slaughtered by those evil tribals!

And this how south looks like:



Second one went north

First one gave him experience! Yay, woodsmen II. Second gave 41g. However he meet his doom in the dangerous wild. With his promotion he got to overconfident. Meet a bear, who attacked him, but with a river between and in the forest. Easy! Then came a wolf and backstabbed us, no match for us either. Then, the very next turn, while licking our wounds, a lion attacked us from nowhere and slaughtered everyone!

Well, this is the north so far (I would have gone east earlier but a bear scared us (with reason):



The expansion:
Build order in capital was: Quechua - Worker - settler (1 chop and 1 whip) - Quechua (planned on having one back by the time the settler where done to escort but didn't happen) - Quechua (explore) - Quechua (defend) - worker (working on it now)

Settled settler south to catch those two gems as early as possible. That fish can support those two mines by itself with lighthouse and I do really need commerce. Since I didn't have any info to the east I felt this was the only decent place to place it. And it does stop opponents to travel between the continents.



Build order here - start on the UB but switched as soon fishing was done to fishing boat. Continue on UB and whip it later, need to pop boarder to get both mines. Might use the gems later to please Shaka?

Tech order: Mining - Bw - The Wheel - pottery - fishing - AH (working on)
Reason why I took pottery so early is that if I needed to get culture early for a city to work properly. I will not use monument in this game due to the UB. Fishing for my second town who needs it to be able to use those mines. AH for the cattle and possible horses.



My third town will most likely be to the easy, 1E of the banana or 1NE. Two rivers going through there and cattle. Can become a decent commerce town. Still need to find another production town, can't rely fully on the capitol. Or any other suggestions?

How to continue with the tech?
The ways I can imagen are:
Ironworking, due to the fact that I don't have any copper and especially if I don't get any horses. I might be in big trouble if Shaka decides to show up later on with a stack of axemen. My quechua can easily withstand archers but the rest makes them hide.

Priesthood + writing: Slingshot to CoL for a religion and to spread it to Shaka to please him. And get courthouse to afford an expansive play style. And eventually Civil service with bureucracy; which will be great in my hammer-strong capital.

Priesthood + writing: Slingshot to mathematics for calender, since so many of my resources are depending on it.

Priesthood: Slingshot to colossus and spread several coastal cities to make up for the low commerce otherwise (4 commerce per coast tile is immense).

Other info:

Stonehedge was found 2120 BC. Isn't that really early, especially on monarch difficulty? Luckily I didn't went for a wonder economy...

Shaka is also the largest empire in the world, I'm merely fourth.

Any suggestion, tips or comment on how to continue my quest to spread the Incan empire?!

 

[Beengalas]

Will follow this game .

The capital for me, looks like a mixed cottage & production city, it has enough hills and 3 plain tiles to quickly pump out military but also lots of grassland and the dye for gold.

I'd beeline to BW to see if there's any copper around and to chop asap.
Queachua first, let city grow to size 2 ( while building a 2nd Queachua then build a worker to farm that tile and chop forests after.).

After bw, beeline to pottery through wheel for roads, the UB and cottages...

As for the hints, It'd be great if you resized the pictures to 800x600 ( or similar 800x something widescreen) in paint or similar and then post the images directly in that size instead of thumbnails, it might get a bit annoying to open a new tab/window every time you want to look at a pic.

I might shadow this myself as I'm stuck at prince myself and hope to grow a bit too.

Anyways looking forward to the first few turns .

We think alike about the techs!

As you can see, there are no copper around, and if I lack horses, I will be in deep military trouble. Thus I am leaning mostly towards IW as my next tech. And I will take your advice on getting cottages in my capital, next to the river for the instant +1 commerce. Unlucky the grassland isn't the ones next to the river tiles. For I need some extra food early also to be able to mine those hills.

Should I get the pyramids perhaps? Hmm, tough decision...

And when it comes to the pictures, I am not so good at that yet. But I will learn to resize and put them instantly in the threat. Thanks for the advices.

 

[DMOC]

I would have settled your second city 1 north then 2 east relative to where you put your city. This means the city gets the clams south of the capital plus both gems. This way, you can found another city 3 tiles south of that to get the eastern fish, then another city 3 west then 1 south of that city to gain the western fish.

With the second city's placement, it is now impossible to utilize the other, eastern fish unless there is land in the dark but that isn't likely.

 

[Snovvdog]

We think alike about the techs!

As you can see, there are no copper around, and if I lack horses, I will be in deep military trouble. Thus I am leaning mostly towards IW as my next tech. And I will take your advice on getting cottages in my capital, next to the river for the instant +1 commerce. Unlucky the grassland isn't the ones next to the river tiles. For I need some extra food early also to be able to mine those hills.

Should I get the pyramids perhaps? Hmm, tough decision...

And when it comes to the pictures, I am not so good at that yet. But I will learn to resize and put them instantly in the threat. Thanks for the advices.

I haven't read the 2nd round yet as I want to start my shadow game first but one thing about the pics, 1024x768 or 1024xanything is fine too it seems, I wasn't sure what size was needed but that size seems acceptable too.

As for resizing, open them with paint, press ''ctrl + w'' and then enter 70 in both (top) fields, leave the 2 bottom fields on 0, this will reduce the image size to 1024xsomething in your case ( provided your original is 1440xsomething). Then just save the picture and upload to imageshack as usual, and paste the fullsize code here instead of the thumbnail code .

I would have settled your second city 1 north then 2 east relative to where you put your city. This means the city gets the clams south of the capital plus both gems. This way, you can found another city 3 tiles south of that to get the eastern fish, then another city 3 west then 1 south of that city to gain the western fish.

With the second city's placement, it is now impossible to utilize the other, eastern fish unless there is land in the dark but that isn't likely.

Guess so but he settled in his first post and said restarting wasn't an option, so I guess he'll just have to do with it.

 

[Beengalas]

I would have settled your second city 1 north then 2 east relative to where you put your city. This means the city gets the clams south of the capital plus both gems. This way, you can found another city 3 tiles south of that to get the eastern fish, then another city 3 west then 1 south of that city to gain the western fish.

With the second city's placement, it is now impossible to utilize the other, eastern fish unless there is land in the dark but that isn't likely.

Your correct.

I was considering that location also, but my arguments with myself went something like this:

GEMS, GEMS, GEMS!

But wouldn't the cost of having three city located like that eventually be quite high?
But, it's sea and with financial each coast tile would generate three commerce and provide itself with food.

 

[DMOC]

The sea tiles are only 2F though, so they just let you support your population.

The cost of 3 cities close to your capital won't be that much. If I had been in your place, I would have founded one city for the gems, and possibly one other city where I proposed to get one of the fish, and then LATER in the game when your economy is more stabilized you could found the third city in that location.

Looking forward to the next update.

 

[Genv [FP]]

You forgot to mention that industrious also gives you +100% towards building forges

 

[vicawoo]

You need to post a larger map. We have to picture where you can expand, where the other civs are, where most of the resources are.

 

[Beengalas]

Things are shaping up!

Well, not the game but the way I show it to you. From now on, the screenshot will be in thread directly and no more annoying thumbnails! However, the resolution is a problem. I play at 1480*900 on a laptop which makes the pictures looks different on other computers. But I have managed to resize them (thanks snovvdog but the text became unreadable with paint, so I got paint shop pro from my sister and it's a tad better) and I will try to give a better overview of the world. Thought I cannot zoom out as much as others due to lowered graphics setting. I wonder which setting affects that?

Anyway, to the game, where I played 48 more turns to land at 100.
A few turns went by and the excitement increased to the sky the turn before animal husbandry was discovered…

If you look closely, you will see the creature that made people look like gods, at least to the Aztecs and Incan people! Wait, which makes me a god doesn’t it? Well, not really but I can dream and pretend. Anyway, my location of the second city just got a tad justified, I think.

With this delighted news I decide to go with my civilization trait: industrious; and get me some forges. Well, rather, colossus. I shall go for oracle and slingshot to metal casting. If It would have been philosophical I would go for a great engineer to speed the pyramids, but for this game, I will take that race by normal means. Chopping and hoping. Meanwhile I will scout some more for Shaka and potential production cities. The capital cannot stand for it all.

A few more turns went by and our next opponent decided it was a good time to show himself:

Industrious and expansionist. He may be troublesome player or an liked ally. However, I do not have a clue where he is. Didn't even notice his unit who made contact with me.

Whipped work boat as soon as possible. Second city continues on the UB for culture and help with growth. Second worker out and running.

Found Shaka, he's north west of me. approximately 10 tiles NW from the capital. Going to get open border with him later to see if he has copper. Time moves on and meditation comes and enlighten us some.

UB whipped in second town, start building a chariot that I may whip later to scout the south. Whipped it two turns later. Time to take it easy with that town for a while. Starting on their UU, to defend now when the barbarians will start pop up.

Settler done and the oracle is next. Now I would have prefer to pause and get comments on placement of the second settler but this would make this round very short so I continue making my own decision. Marx would hate me, luckily he isn't born yet.

The newly scouted area and you can see Shaka's border to the northeast:

My plan for cities:

Fear my paint skills! And do not ask me why I wrote B instead of 2. Anyway, these are my plans. I did dwell some between the two number ones. First since the one more to the west gives more river riles and thus more commerce and secondly it helps me spreading my boarders more east and possibility to trap Shaka. As far as I know, I control the only way down south. But to other one, closer to the capital, gives more chopping and a hill. This city would be specialize in commerce, cottages all over the place.

My third settler as it looks now would end up in some of those three options unless something reveals to the east. For the moment, I will wait with expanding south. I want to deny Shaka the possibility to expand, but a war with him is unavoidable. The borders will shake and the clash of titans will happen (or more as Goliath and Dave?). For now, I will take the number 1 blue for third city and make a city to the east of it later. Comments on this? Was is a good one?

And the third opponents decide it's a good time to get some high heels:

Another leader famous for expanding no matter what the cost is! I do not have any opinion about him, thus no idea of his play style. No doubt it's expand and conquer, but we shall make sure he won't get confident above his height.

The scouting south, as I will soon reveal, made me change my mind on the location for the third settler. Even if it might be a high cost I think it should pay itself.

Just after we have Shaka asking for an open border, the same turn as I got writing. How did he know? I think we have a traitor! We shall grant it, but the second we notice a settler close to our border we shall deny him access!

Decided to check their number of cities:

Shaka:

How on earth can he have five cities already?
Napoleon have just three cities and Bismarck also has three. Well, if there is any logic to it all, Shaka cannot have much of defense and I would gladly see if he can withstand a stack of doom.

Another note, no one has yet found a religion here.

Decided to stop the turn before oracle is finished for some planning and reflecting over the situation. First some screen shots to show the current world as we know it.

South:
Large out zoom

Closer look

North:
Large out zoom

Closer look

Cities:
Cuzco

Second city who's name I won't try to spell (A bit angry due to the whipping)

Wannabe Cuzco

Tech:
Finishing AH – Meditation - Priesthood - Writing - hunting (working on now)

As you might have notice, I write as I play so the plan during my threat changes as the game goes on. For example, the city placement is a good idea. I am considering settle my third settler W of the rice down south, it's not yet fully scouted but I think it's a decent place. Very good with some luck, for as we can see it has two hills of plains and two hills of grassland. The rest is grassland with or without a forest on them. This might be a good production city.

Since they all have +1 with each other I think my place isn't the bottleneck as I would have hoped. There goes that military advantage down the drain. Speaking of military, I got horses!

I stand at a crossroad here, for as I see it, there is three possible ways to go now. And with the oracle one turn away, I need to make a choice for the close future.

First and perhaps the most challenging is the militaristic way. Shaka has five cities, he cannot have much military. A stack of quechua can conquer two or perhaps three of his cities, giving me some plundered gold and perhaps more towns. This is a risk since he is aggressive and probably has more army then I want him to have. And his damn impi's makes my horses worthless. If I am going to fight him, I must check out his area and see if he has iron.

Secondly is the religious path. Get Code of laws and spread the religion over the entire continent. Making them my brainwashed minions and go for diplomatic victory through AP or later UN (or culture, but that depends on what opponent there are on the other continent, for if they have Pacal, I have already lost that race). With them all in my faith I can avoid war completely. Easier but more boring.

Thirdly is to continue expanding and therefore take either Aesthetics (for great library) or Mathematics (for calender) from the oracle. And make pyramids my next building in the capital. This will force me to continue being neutral to the rest on the continent and adopt whatever religion they found to continue with it for a while.

Personally I lean towards the first one, take out Shaka and gain the uppercut. But I have little experience when it comes to him, only that he use to declare war on me when I least expect/need it.

I guess that's it for now. Advice, comments or alike is very much welcomed.

 

[JujuLautre]

Sorry, I did not look in details, only your screenshots, but...

Where are your workers? What are they doing?

You're working in the capital (which should be your most important city at this point) no less than 3 unimproved tiles

Chopping is ok, but improving is much better; if you want to chop AND improve, then chop additional workers !

You're wondering how Shaka can have 5 cities already? Here is your answer: worker + improved land

 

[Genv [FP]]

You really need more workers. Never stack more than 2 workers together.

 

[vicawoo]

He went oracle, so he's worker/settler poor.

 

[Genv [FP]]

That's no excuse.

 

[Gwynnja]

You really need more workers. Never stack more than 2 workers together.

i like to stack 6. but i try to get 6 when i get 3 cities

 

[Bostock]

You really need more workers. Never stack more than 2 workers together.

Never say never.

 

[Beengalas]

Sorry, I did not look in details, only your screenshots, but...

Where are your workers? What are they doing?

You're working in the capital (which should be your most important city at this point) no less than 3 unimproved tiles

Chopping is ok, but improving is much better; if you want to chop AND improve, then chop additional workers !

You're wondering how Shaka can have 5 cities already? Here is your answer: worker + improved land

My capital is working three unimproved tiles just that turn due to the reason otherwise it would take an extra turn to finish the oracle. Normally it works 3 worked tile and one unimproved tile that is currently on it's way to get fixed.

I usually get my additional workers quite late, perhaps I shall try to be quicker with them. But it usually ends up with them just make roads all over the place. But I shall get a few more next round coming up in a few minutes. Been moving the last days back to my corridor.

To return to my strategy, I will slingshot to CoL and get Shaka on my side and start expanding one city north and then south.

 

[Beengalas]

So, after a few days away I am here with an update. Got settled down and a little time over to make this. So here we go, but be aware, this update isn't particular exciting. Not much did happen, I tried to fix my number on workers and expand to make my place here in the world. A war did break out, but it didn't make anything really.

So, here we go. I did get the Oracle of course.

As I wrote in my post above, I did go for Code of Laws to make Shaka my best friend and hopefully avoid trouble with him. I did choose Buddhism (I play with "choose religion") and the holy city...It's my third town, the town I played to become my commerce city. Yay!

I listen to your comments about worker and began building that in both the capital and second city. I went to have five for three cities, thought that would be quite enough for now. Will get more when I get more cities later. However, I notice that Bismarck has got Christianity. This could be bad, but I send of my missionary I got for free to Shaka with a guard. Meet an archer but he was no match of my holy warriors!

I made an mistake with Shaka, I spread Buddhism into his capital and I demanded that he switch religion. Damn, I got the "You made an arrogant demand". But eventually he converted and became my . .. .. .. .. . (or at least that is what I want him to be).

I realize that I am behind when it comes to techs due to my lack of commerce. So I started, after hunting, to research alphabet and to see if I can get some techs that way. Now, this is the area I am least good in, diplomacy. I usually end up with several enemies since I want everything and give nothing.

Ouch, twenty turns on normal speed. Not to good, not good at all. But let's go for it.

I also start building courthouses in my second town and later I will whip it in the third town. To give me more cash for expansion later. And I start becoming less against chopping in my capital and thus start getting out more settlers, after building a terrace (wanted the capital to reach a pop of 5 before doing this).

But while I sit and does this, a war breaks out! Between Shaka and Bismarck, great! Now those two can play with each other while I try to fix my expansion and make something useful of my empire. Hopefully Shaka will not grow even more.

They both have a quite strong military and I doubt they will manage to defeat each other. Which just benefits me and Napoleon. Speaking of dwarfs, he isn't doing much of a sound. But a historian decides that he is the second best in the world when it comes to technology.

Well, the turns moves on, nothing really happens. I get a few more worker, second city gets it barrack and my chariot is scouting the world for me. Alphabets gets done and I move on with Aesthetics for literature and the great library. The pyramids gets build somewhere, doesn't matter to much, going for a mixed CE/SE. Would have been nice but hey, I live and it wasn't like I was going for it. Hard without stone.

I traded with Napoleon:

This was quite needed, iron working. To see if I will be left behind in this world or not, and to collect my gems. But I found iron:

Not the best location but also not the worse. I did settle a town 2S of the iron later.

But the turn after, Shaka came and made a visit...

I actually joined him in his war, to gets some points with Shaka. Bismarck still has his own religion and he has to pay for it! Well, I'm not gonna make him pay, I will sue for peace as soon as possible. Just wanted the points with Shaka. I manage to find his location, it's just west of my third town, my commerce town. Great... But he never attacked, he came after some time over there with a few soldiers but I managed to sue for peace before he could do any pillaging. I gave him meditation for it, nothing special.

Later, my chariot found a barbarian city at a very interesting spot (which I didn't take).

Due to the iron and so, I planned on razing that city and build one 1SW to claim all four resources and make it a production city. Perhaps the Super.

I built by 4th city:

Not long after my 5th:

Claimed my iron and had some luck to get that fish. Now I also have access to the ocean and can later get the craps at south.

Turns moves on, I focus on getting terrace whipped or/and chopped in these two towns for the culture. I get literature and realize quite the mistake. Thought I was working on library in the capital but it shows it was a monastery. Will take more time then I counted on for the GL. Hopefully I can get access to those marbles in my 4th city to help the building.

Shaka becames pleased and the dwarf convert to buddhism. Which is good, more power to me! I am also planning on getting the AP later.

Not much later: my 6th city:

It will be my production city later, for now, military city.

When literature was done, I am going maths - calender to be able to use my resources. Annoys me to have banana and dye but cannot utilize them.

Oh, and Shaka wanted CoL:

But I denied him this, he has 9 cities now. Must be quite costly for him and therefore I want to keep him having trouble with his economy.

And lastly, a great prophet who I moved to my third city to build the holy building.

This is where I stop for now.

Thoughts:
I had a quite slow start but it's getting better. I think I will continue focusing on expanding and fixing my tech. But eventually, a war with Bismarck will happen. He just have three cities and I gladly take them of his hand. Later I plan on taking the dwarf out, but I will have to keep an eye out for Shaka. I don't trust him. If possible, I will expend south now, there is nothing more for me to the north really.

The world as we know it
North - large zoom

South - Large zoom

Northern part of my empire

Eastern part of my empire

Center of my empire

Southern part of my empire

My cities:

So, this was the next update. Darn it's can be quite time-consuming with all these pictures. Yet I felt like I took quite little this time. Well, first of all, what do you folks think of my city locations? My sixth town is quite far of and leaves 2 rows with grassland between it and second city. Not sure if this was a smart thing to do. More workers are coming, yes yes.

Any comment, advice and such is much welcome.

Hope you enjoyed the reading.

 

[vicawoo]

Not bad, but you should start building up military. Shaka may backstab, and you may want to expand forcefully. Keep cottaging the commerce cities.