There's not much to think: I settle in place and start building a worker. As I have Pig in my capital's BFC, I decide to research Animal Husbandry as my first tech. Some turns later, our neighbor appears.
Hmm. Suryavarman is an unstable leader to have as a neighbor. Although he gets to friendly real quick when you share his religion and run Organized Religion, he's dangerous. Anything you refuse to him gives you a -2 diplomatic penalty and, more times than I would like, he switched to Free Religion in the mid-game and became a really pain. Besides, he can start planning a war against you when he's pleased so it's hard to be really safe around this guy.
I finished researching Animal Husbandry and started on Mining because of the Gold we also have in the BFC. This is something very important and is often the reason why many people are out expanded by the AI in the early game: always prioritize food. Take a look at how my capital looked like after I finished pasturing the Pigs.
If I had started building a mine on that gold, I would be researching much faster at this moment, but I would not be growing, I would be stagnated. Now that I have a surplus of 5
, I can work the gold when I grow to size 2 and still keep growing. Oh, have you noticed that I have a source of horses in my BFC? That makes me decide that Sury has to go and that I have what it takes to dispatch him.
After I finished building the worker I started to build a Barracks. This was not necessary and I don't always recomend that. I did it because Chariots have a low base strength so they die easy when attacking Archers in a city. After researching Mining, I researched Bronze Working to be able to chop the forests. I didn't switch to Slavery at that time because I wouldn't have the need to whip anything. Then I researched Pottery and Writing. I could have researched Writing directly because I already knew Animal Husbandry, but a mine of gold only goes so far and it's necessary to generate
to support an empire, especially when you are about to make a big expansion.
Well, now I had a plan and, because of that plan, it was no longer necessary to keep exploring all the surroundings with my initial Warrior. I sent him to find the Khmer lands and check if they were close enough to be rushed. Another important thing to check was whether they had military resources or not. They had.
Good! As they had Horses, they wouldn't have Copper and no Spears to put a stop to my Chariots.
Well, the Khmer were close enough to be rushed, but not so close that it would be enough to just take their capital and go from there. A long road from Istanbul until Yasodharapura would be a dangerous place for my workers and settlers so it would be good to place a city between the capitals to work as a link. I decided a spot and sent my warriors there to prevent the spawning of barbarians in that area.
I actually settled the city 1N from where I marked it.
Going back to the builds in the capital. After I finished the Barracks I built two warriors then a settler. Only when I settled Edirne that I switched to Slavery. We discovered Writing and started on Alphabet. Wait, what? I was planning to kill the only AI I knew and started to research Alphabet? Yes, because Alphabet has two advantages: it allows me to build Research in my cities, which is useful when you either don't have anything else to build or are not generating enough commerce to research and also because it is a pre-requisite of Currency, which is what I researched when Alphabet was done.
I had two workers at that time. One of them was building a road to Edirne and the other was chopping the forests in Istanbul. I built 5 Chariots and started to build a settler. In Edirne my first build was a Monument that I whipped as soon as it grew to size 2 and then another Chariot. I sent my soldiers to their border. I was a little concerned because Suryavarman had been running Slavery for quite some time and I was afraid he could be building a bunch of Settlers and Archers and that he would have connected some source of copper, but he wasn't doing any of that. Two turns before the invasion I was informed of what he had been doing.
Let that be a lesson to everyone: only build wonders when you're confident you can handle whatever is thrown at you or after you've secured a nice chunk of land for your empire. Well, that's a lesson Suryavarman never learned because that's what he had protecting his capital, that of course fell.
He had another city too, guarded by a Warrior.
I razed that city because I didn't want to have extra maintenance and because I wanted it 1SE to be able to work the copper. Now I had all the time in the world to settle my cities wherever I wanted. It was the moment to start increasing my commerce. Until then I was worried about production, but now I would have to support a growing empire. The next city I founded was perfect for that matter.
It will work the cottages in the tiles it shares with Istanbul until the capital can take them over and get them multiplied when I switch to Bureaucracy. Istanbul was still growing (pigs, remember?) and the
BUG Mod informed me it would become unhappy if it grew.
I had some choices. I could click the Avoid Growth button (some players don't like to use it, but I use it very often and think that sometimes it's the best choice), I could whip the Library or I could switch the tiles I was working. Another thing that could be done was to change the production to a worker or a settler and whip it the next turn. I didn't do that because I didn't think about it. I didn't want to whip the Library because the city would grow back before the unhappiness wore off and I was able to switch the tiles to prevent growth.
As you're seeing, I was working unimproved tiles and that's something you should try to avoid at all times, but I just didn't have enough workers and the extra population would be transfered from their idyllic lives in the forests to the harsh reality of the Library once it was done, which is what happened.
Now, this is not the best set-up for running scientists. I now have a cottage I won't be working, but that's alright because Suleiman is Philosophical and the Great Scientist will be born soon, allowing me to start growing my cottages there for good.
When Currency was in, I went to the next economic tech: Code of Laws. After researching it, I would be missing only two of the early game economic techs: Sailing (not very necessary here) and Monarchy (very necessary). I managed to found Confucianism in Yasodharapura. A brief note about religions: 99% of the time, you're better off avoiding the early religions and focusing on the economy first. That's the same principle that applies to the wonders. I immediately converted and set research to Aesthetics.
I had a Settler on his way to found the city of Konya so I used the free Missionary to be able to skip a Monument there.
Two turns before finishing the research of the mysteries of art, we were greeted by an odd man.
We're not doing bad at techs, despite our isolation. I chose not to do any tech trades with him because I don't know if he's also isolated and because I don't want to get closer to the WFYABTA limit. If he has neighbors, he could be someone's worst enemy especially because he only has three cities so trading with him could give me the "You traded with our Worst Enemy" penalty as the AI leaders like to keep a sorcerer in their courts to constantly watch whatever their worst enemies do and therefore are able to see them trading with us, even though they don't know of our existence. The WFYABTA limit is the short for "We Fear You Are Becoming Too Advanced", which is the excuse the AIs give when you've traded more than the limit of techs each leader has. It is ignored when they are friendly with you. For more information on that, check
VoiceOfUnreason's article.
Hammurabi came from the NE.
Upon meeting him, I decided to research Sailing right after Aesthetics to be able to establish Trade Routes with Babylon. It's not going to work until we've found a clear way to their territory, but still. Foreign trade routes, especially intercontinental Trade Routes are more lucrative than domestic ones. They usually start giving you 2
instead of the 1
of the domestic TRs, which is further increased by Harbors. If you're interested on how Trade Routes work, check
this thread. Then I started to research Literature to build the Great Library in Istanbul. I suggest building the Parthenon in another city, such as Yasodharapura and the GL and the National Epic in Istanbul. That way, you'll have an unending flow of Great Scientists to do whatever pleases you the most:
bulbing techs up to Liberalism, settling them in Istanbul or building Academies all over the place.
I stopped at the turn 100, I'll play some more next weekend. The empire and the dot-map of the future cities are on the next post.
I hope this walkthrough can be helpful. I know I could have done it better, but after a while I got tired so my mind got a little numb. Sorry for that.
we make 97 beakers per turn so we have an economy.
