[BTS] NC 207 - Charlie Chaplin, the holy roman

Got it done, Domination in 1565Ad on Immortal.

I'll get the writeup posted in a little bit after I read some of the others. This map seemed really generous so should be some good stuff in there!

@Excal
sweet capitol there. Wonders went very slow in my game and it was pretty easy to get ahold of many building resources, seems like I missed an opportunity!

@krikav
Yes, come to the darkside of mass unit spam, where losses are ignored and you only stop pushing because the slider won't holdout at 0% anymore! :devil::evil::rockon: Very impressive death march you had going on there at the end!

EDIT: I'll put this here to avoid triple posting the thread!

NC 207: Have it your way
Immortal
No Huts
No Events
Spoiler turnset :

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The start

Briefly touched on it in the thread, but the plan is to settle on that marble hill and go for an immediate settler with the big hammers + IMP bonus. Luckily, a Scout should help us find a decent 2nd city spot quickly enough, and then the gold +sheep spot (1S of gold) can be the 3rd city spot.

Charlie's techs need time to get to AH/any food tech and Mining both, so this also lets us get a bit ahead productively while waiting. I noticed some discussion about this upthread, with building a warrior and worker stealing seeming like a good alternative too. But I like the idea of having some pretty fast 3 or 4 city date :p

I'm leaning toward BW after that, and then the map will mostly determine teching after that, such as Agriculture (if grains/floodplains are found) or Wheel (to hook up the gold).

Think I will move the scout to the sheep, before the settler goes to the PHmarble.

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Not terrible. The capitol seems to have only gained an ivory, but it will still has that sweet 3H center and can eventually work green cow + up to 2 green farms early enough. Not huge food but a lot of raw hammers with 3h center + cow + ivory + hills to compensate. The kind of capitol that grows to 5 up against the happy cap and just doesn't whip. Puts out a bunch of hammers for stuff like Archers or Chariots, though, and quite helpful for building Research/Wealth for a good while.

I'm satisfied enough with that spot, so I will settle and the scout will check the coast for seafoods I think.


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Aha! Another green cow in the BFC, another PH to settle on that can share it, and a crab spot down south. Preliminary city plans on the pic.

Scout will continue along the coast. Settler started, AH tech.


T6
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Border pop in the cap and scouting has made some revelations in corn to the southeast, stone and spice to the northeast, and most importantly, another gold for the 2nd city spot. Woot!


Though I have already run into some more decisions:

-I don't know how I really want to use the corn. Charlie has immediate monument access, so grabbing more hills with the NE spot seems okay, but the W spot could share Wine cottage immediately if I go Pottery soon enough.

-Might think about moving the West gold site to 2S of gold to pick up the crab? (EDIT: for some reason I thought it could work all three in that spot yesterday, but the crab is not sharable) This delays the gold until it pops its own borders (the capitol will grab the sheep at 100 culture), but is a stronger long run city with 2 foods. I guess it depends more on what's to the W/SW of it. But I will continue north first because....

-I want to scout out the stone area. With a quick second city to take over expansion duty and lots of natural hammers, something like Mids could be easy to get with stone. I just need to see if it can get some food or would just be a junker city.



T8
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Contact with Justin. One of the best AIs (if not THE best), an IMP civ, and a religious spammer. He's right to the North of us, yeesh. Stone may be out, if he wants to go right for it himself. That's his capitol culture, so the way North along the coast will be sealed soon. Just as well, I'm starting to see Jungle, so he's probably right against the Jungle belt and I don't really want to go that way anyway. Scout will start heading West to see what can be seen.

T9/10
Buddhism founds, and next turn Justin converts. Yep, North is locked out now.



T14
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Big turn.

Settler complete in Aachen. Worker (10t) started. Settler headed to PH for East gold + cow + Ivory.

AH is in and reveals horses down by the corn, so I know how I want to settle that now (1NE of corn). Also clears the tech up a little, as I want Wheel fairly quickly so as to get Chariots and ignore Archery.

Tech set to Mining for gold and mining some hills. Then Wheel>Masonry if I want to try Mids, or BW for anything else. (more on that in a sec)

There's not a lot of food between us and Justin, so settling Stone would have to be a junker city, probably right on it. If he doesn't go North to something I can't see, he's likely to snag the Rice/Cow spot to his West first. He has his own Horse too, so I'm not sure how likely he is to take the stone either...if the horse was outside his borders he'd be pushed that way too.

So, giving up on the stone idea, I see that this could probably be a good opportunity for a HA attack. Two golds, a source of horse in the backline, nothing too important to snag between us and Justin (who will push out Holy City culture anyway), he is a close target with flatland capitol, and lots of natural hammers for us.

Going for HA attack will probably go straight on to BW after Mining to get chopping opened up and then Wheel> Pottery. Or chops could even be used on Oracle instead? This map is quite generous :D

Either way, it seems the two gold mines and lots of hammers give options.




T16
Prague founded and starts its own worker (12T)


T17
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Meet Mao's scout to the SW.

T18
Saladin met on the NW coast. He's North of Justin somewhere?

T21
Justin founds Thessalonica on the hill 1NE of the cows. More toward me than I thought, but I still expected him to steal that spot.

T22
Mining.

I think I will go for the HA attack route. I don't do it enough, and Justin is close-by. Maybe he'll grab the stone and build me Mids while I prepare :s

....I can dream though.

Tech set to BW. I can set up whips on Barracks or pre-chop until Wheel>Pottery. Lots of raw hammers means I can spam warriors for barbs.

I have to fit Fishing in sometime for the South city, and then on to Archery>HBR. Not sure if Writing is needed before HBR, there are two gold mines to use. But the eventual plan would be HBR > Writing > trade HBR for Alpha after some progress in it.



T24
Worker in Aachen, starts pasture on Cow 1S. Stonehenge for failgold; two barb animals are fogbusting the areas to my south at the moment so I'm chilling on the warriors for now.

I changed my mind and I want Wheel first. Hook up cities for more commerce efficiency, get the gold +ivory happiness, start on chariots a little quicker. Then BW.


T25
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I find Mao's borders. The area between us is somewhat tundra-y and I'm unlikely to grab that fish spot from him anyway even if I wasn't going HAs. I might send something for the Pig/Furs later more toward Alpha/Currency, if he isn't up on me by then.

T26
met Izzy...somewhere. Saladin has Hinduism so she will likely go for Judaism.

T28
Worker in Prague, starting on Warriors for now. He goes to the Gold tile, while Aachen's worker goes to the E cow. Both will be improved in 4 turns.

T33
both workers head to the Ivory tile. Capitol will grow to 3 then start a settler. Prague will start one at size 2 when it can work Cow + Gold.

T34
Wheel. Start Fishing, as the next city will be Crab. City 5 will grab the gold after the cap pops border for the sheep and BW is in to whip the settler. Izzy indeed founded Judaism.

T35
Ivory is camped. Workers move to road Ivory/Gold and then road to the southern city spots to link them up immediately for less economic impact, and hook up the horses ASAP.

T42
Fishing. BW in 4 turns. Settlers coming out the next 2 turns.

T43
Settler in Aachen. back on Stonehenge for now

T44
Settler in Prague. Start a Worker.

T45
BW is in. Start Agriculture (whoops!). Vienna founded 1NE of Crab and starts a workboat.

T46
Stonehenge is finally built somewhere, so a lot of gold coming next turn.

Nuremberg founded, starts a monument for now (eventually to pop border for two extra forests/hills). I'll revolt to Slavery now so my workers can continue to road a bit and SH fail-gold will be ready next turn to run 100% slider.

T47
96g from SH, nice. Aachen working food growing on a Barracks so it can hit 4 sooner, border will pop in 5 turns for the sheep and I want to get ready to whip a settler.


T50
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Overview. Aachen will hit 4 and start Settler next turn (working Warrior now because Barracks is 18/50 setup for a 2pop whip). Worker is helping chop out a workboat for Vienna next turn, and Nuremberg is getting horses hooked up next turn as well, when Agriculture will be done and the corn farm will start after. Warrior and Scout busting out West.


T51 Agriculture. Start Pottery.

T54
Pottery. Start HBR (12T at 100%). Granaries start in Prague, Vienna, and Nuremberg. Aachen 2pops whips a settler and will overflow into Granary.

T57
Augsburg founded. Sheep is already improved, workers moving to mine gold and road now.


T58
stupid barb warrior pillages Gold at Prague. Apparently Justin still hasn't settled the Stone area. will set back HBR a few turns, but he suicided next turn on the warrior in the city.

T60
Mao gets Writing, so OB with him.

T61
Justin builds Oracle. Not sure what he took yet.

T71
HBR. Archery started, then Writing > Alpha


T74
Archery is in, and Barracks are 2 pop whipped into Horse Archers. Chopping will begin in earnest with my 4 workers. Scouting Justin out with OB over the last couple turns has revealed he only just now settled the stone, so no Mids for me :( He is pretty under defended though and I see no metal units.



T82
Turn of DoW on Justin.


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Look at this! I was waiting for a small number of HAs or that city to hit size 2 before I went. It only had 2 chariots defending it so 3 HAs or 2HAs + chariot would probably be enough to take it....then this turn he goes and empties the city! And with a free wroker up for grabs too! Jeez. I CAN'T not take this pportunity....I have one HA up North that will try to Pillage his Iron next turn if he doesn't suicide units to kill it.



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and that's all she wrote for that city. Dang. I can use it later with CS and the stone can go to failgold projects, So gonna keep it.



T83
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Iron pillaged successfully. Horses are next, then the big push on Constantinople as the rest of my HAs assemble.

Justin got Alpha this turn, so might be a bribe next turn (bribes are most likely within 2 turns of DoW)


T84
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Yeah. Justin sniped off my Shock HA guarding the Chariot on his Horse tile with a Spear I never saw anywhere, and bribed Mao in on me. Whatever. I will have my scout watching the West and there's a barb city out that way too which should screw up his pathing a little. Nothing he will be up to is gonna save Justin either way. It is annoying that I lose the trade route income though.


T86
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Not sure how, but Justin snuck a Chariot out of Constantinople and into his briefly undefended city, taking it back. Funnily enough, that means one less defender in his Cap, and I took some average fights to leave only one Chariot there. Next turn it might fall, depending on what comes form the NW to reinforce.


T87
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He never reinforced it. and his capitol falls while I take back the stone city. A quick heal up, some scary gestures to keep him off the Iron, and I'll hit in another spot.



T91

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Take Thessalonica and trade HBR for Alpha from Saladman on this turn. Open borders with him since I need a buddy somewhere!

Start Currency tech.


T92
Snipe off a random wandering Mao archer and get a ceasefire. Heh. I guess the plan is to leave Justin alive on one city and extort tech for peace....he has Metal Casting already.



T93
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Next!

T96
Take justin's 2nd to last city and peace out for Metal Casting, Math and Masonry, all techs no one else will trade. Trade HBR for Iron Working with Izzy. Next turn should get at least Sailing from Mao or Saladin (I forgot to do this, d'oh! I had to trade Currency to Saladin like 7 turns later for Sailing + Poly + Meditation). Izzy seems to be West of Mao somewhere, as her Missionaries stream from that direction.



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With Masonry and Marble, NE and maybe GLib is on the table now. Now to swap to building Research to get to Currency for the moment though, then maybe whip some libraries. Gonna do some chopping into the Mids, as they still aren't gone yet. Should be some nice fail-gold if they last a few more turns.



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Whoops, I forgot to fix the barb techs! Ah well, I figure at least one of Mao's 8 cities is probably another barb city that popped up, so I don't feel bad snagging this one. The other new barb cities do have archery by this point, I've been seeing, so he must have just left this one alone forever (it existed at least back before my DoW on Justin). His loss.



T101
Currency. Tech priesthood to open up Monarchy trade next turn.



T102
Priesthood. Well, only Saladin will trade Monarchy, I gave him Currency already cause I forgot to trade for Sailing when I could earlier, and I'm not giving him MC. I thought AIs would never monopolize Monarchy? Izzy and Mao are both WFYABTA with me. Whatever.



Tech idle while I just build wealth and try to recover the economy. Will go Aes > Lit next.



T106
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Justin settled back in my face between the Rice/Ivory...so I DoWed him for it, with my remaining HAs.

Also, since nobody would build the Mids, I guess I just finished them. This has gotta be one of the latest times I've seen the AI leave them for, and it's not even a water map...

Temple of Artemis isn't even built either! That'll be more fail-gold with some chops+marble.

T107
Justin doesn't bribe Mao on me again, but Mao cancels all his trade deals....what a punk. I'm really beside myself trying to figure out why they like each other so much anyway, in different religions and Mao being so low in peaceweight compared to Justin. Random modifier strikes again.

Revolt into Representation before I forget.



T109
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Justin is dead. Good riddance.


Took a break.
 
Last edited:
The rest:

Spoiler turnset :

T114
Temple of Artemis built in a faraway land. Jeez. But I get around 150g from it.

T121
Literature. Mao already has it, so may be a race to Great lib? Either way, I don't think Music is a good call, I can get a lot more use out of Code of Laws and Rathhauses with the massive amount of land I have. And I'm bound to get a prophet in Constantinople soon, that I can use for a GA later. The GPP pollution in Constantinople (Oracle + Mids + NE will go here along with GLib if I get it) means getting scientists will be somewhat unreliable too, so I think I will self-tech Philo to save on GS bulbs.

In any case, I can't really get many Libraries in place, as I need to build wealth for now. Looks like I will get Parthenon, and get some decent fail-gold from HGB, MoM, Shwedagon Paya, and SoZ. Fail-gold is going to be important getting through the next stage of tech. Thankfully, this is the map that keeps on giving, with Marble+Stone+Ivory+Gold to use for fail-gold!

T124
Parthenon complete (chopped in Nicaea, IIRC). Should help in the long term getting 3-4 scientists in the NE city, which is looking like Constantinople.

T125
Prophet born in Constantinople. Saved for Golden Age.

T130
Great Library in Constantinople. National Epic started.

T131
about 450 gold from Paya chops comes in. Full slider ho!


T132
Code of Laws. Tech idle, start to whip Rathauses.

Mao begins to plot :o I'll move my remaining HAs down to his border as he seems to still be stuck on Axes/HAs himself, and that should give me enough time to get Rathauses set up and ready to whip units when he comes.


T136
Say what you want about the viability of Rathauses, but after 3 turns and whipping only 4 of them, my 16 city empire is running +4gpt instead of -38 at 0% slider.

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Mao doesn't look to be going for Saladin, does he? :p

He subsequently made the stack much scarier than this, with about 8 more HAs, 3-4 phants, 2-3 cho-ko-nu, and about 8 catas/trebs along with the assorted trash like Axes/Spears/Pikes. All told he had 21 units in the stack he actually sent moving around his territory.

I rush ALL my HAs back to Illinois and start to chop/whip walls+barracks then spears+axes.


T140
MoM is finally built by Sally. What is up with the wonders on this map?


T141
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about 600g from MoM fail-gold, and Mao accepts a beg. I will chop Axes and Spears in my border city regardless.


T144
Philosophy. Start CS. I had a GS but gonna save him for Edu/Lib instead. With large amount of land + Rathauses, I can self-tech decently when building Wealth so the earlier plan to save a GS by teching Philo normally will go ahead.

T149
CS. Start Paper. Gonna hit my Golden Age soon. I find I often wait too long if I don't make myself start it *before* I'm "ready." Been watching too much Lain, I'm not nearly as diligent at growing my cities as him :p


T150
After getting a GE born in Constantinople, my game plan has changed:

-pop the Great Prophet for a GA now

-Swap to Bureau/Caste/Pacifism

-Swap Hindu. Mao is probably attacking me no matter what from the looks of it (he kept adding to his stack and had random HAs crossing around in my border), so I'll keep Saladin happy while I farm scientists in his religion, which he has spread to about half my empire and several of the largest cities that can starve down on specialists

-Set tech to Nationalism and slider to 100%

-Trade CoL to Mao for 180g + map (the dude 2-turned paper, wow! Impressive for Mao). That's 3.5 turns of full slider funded right there, and I need 5 for Nationalism

-Use the GE to finish the Taj on demand, to swap civics later or extend the GA now



If Mao cancels the treaty next turn, he can't move his whole army into my borders in one turn (I think; it has 1-movers in it but I suppose he could go 1E of Iron as he has Engineering). So if I get that notice when he moves his stack up, I'll just DoW him instead to shorten the war duration. I feel fairly confident I'll be ready for his stack with mine + walls if I can hit it first and cripple/kill the siege with all my HAs. All the forests in Illinois and Pisa are going into Axes/Spears until I hear different from him.

Not that I like the idea of losing the resource trades or routes AGAIN, but I don't really feel too worried about fending him off. Worst case scenario I can trade for Machinery from Sally and mass whip maces to kick his ass. Even if he makes me ruin the Lib bulb, I'll have his head for it!

T151
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Wait, where is that bit of stack going to? And it's only half of it, what's he doing with the rest of it? He didn't cancel the treaty either.


T152
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Well then....20 turns of plotting or so, and he goes for Izzy, who had successfully converted him and is close in peaceweight to him. Heh. This just means he'll have her as a vassal when I roll through I suppose. Back to work then.


T156
Nationalism, tech set to paper (2turns). Swap to Nationhood to further reduce expenses. Great Scientist #3 born in Constantinople. In 2-3 turns when Paper is in, will double bulb Education and single bulb into Lib, then start Gunpowder.

It looks like I'll probably have to self-tech Music (Izzy might get it but won't trade it), so I'll probably just extend the current golden age with Taj. That will let me farm another GS or two toward Chemistry or SciMeth too, with the goal eventually being Communism. Gotta love the power of Pacifism in GAs.

GE rushes Taj to within 2 turns of completion. I will miss the free extra GA turn as I'm just short of hammers to one turn it :( Oh well.


T158
….And I have 9 more turn of GA with Taj? I guess it must complete on the inter-turn then, as I did get the extra turn for completion during a GA.

CS to Mao for 120g as he'll just complete it next turn (apparently he hasn't been EP focusing me and I can see his tech still).

Double bulb Edu. I forgot Compass :sad::thumbsup: so in 1 turn I'll bulb Lib too and trade for Machinery.


T159
Compass. Bulb into Lib. Trade compass to Mao and Izzy for 240g total.

Tech set to about 1/3 of Machinery to set up Philo for Machinery trade from Saladin next turn. Then Music, finish Lib for MT and finally Gunpowder.



T160
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Philo to Saladman for Machinery. Tech set to Music (2t). Then finish Lib.



T162
Music. Set to finish Lib (1t)

Izzy caps to Mao after only losing one of her cities. What a wimp. Mao didn't even attack her 2nd city, only lowered the defenses not even halfway, so she must have gave him the war success by attacking his stack unsuccessfully. Pathetic.


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Make this trade to Sally for Engineering + Feudalism + Theology. He's going Education, but he's my first target too. He'll be capped before he can make it to Cuirs of his own even if he goes straight to Gunpowder next.

thought process:
Spoiler :
I made this trade with Saladman when I saw him going for Education. Knee-jerk reacting and trading him Education (to avoid losing trade-value) would just make him more likely to tech Gunpowder immediately (as he already has Guilds, the other pre-req), right before the Cuir attack :nono:

Him teching Education while already having Guilds means one of 3 things:
-targeting Liberalism
-targeting Economics
-targeting Constitution/Democracy
It's a bit of a mixed bag, as if an AI is targeting Eco or Demo, they can suddenly crank over to Rifling quickly (they'll pick up Banking or PP respectively, on these tech paths). In a world where no AI even has Gunpowder though, the threat is minor.

Better instead to use my full trade value of Nationalism + Music to pick up Engineering and Feudalism (I ended up not using Theo due to costs and lack of dominant religion spread) and make him have to self-tech the more expensive Education + Military Tradition himself if he wants to get to Cuirs, instead of speeding him up to PRO Muskets. He ended up going PP after Education, FYI.



T163
GS #6 born. GS total for this golden age: 5

Lib > Military Tradition. Tech set to Gunpowder (4t). Farming out at least 2 more scientists should be possible before teching Printing Press.

If I get 3 GS they can be used for Chemistry (1) and SciMeth (2) to open up Communism for the conquest gold train. I should be able to get a fourth finished up through just GLib + Library in Slavery though, and use him to help bulb PP itself too. The National Epic is so awesome.

T166
Last GA turn. Swap civics back to Slavery and Free Religion. Now begins whipping infrastructure and Cuirs. Gunpowder next turn, then PP.

T174
GS #7 born in Constantinople. Bulb PP, complete next turn.

T175
PP complete. Single bulb into Chemistry. It'll be awhile before I can finish it, as I'm whipping the crap outta my cities

took a break

Spoiler turnset :

Alright, didn't really keep as close track now (Was fully intending to end it with Cuirs) and less pictures, but I went back through the event log for dates, and let's see what I can piece together along with the ol' noodle.

T176-180
I take this time to whip 3 settlers and hop onto the small island group to the NW of former Byzantium lands.

T182
Finally I decide to declare on Saladin. I couldn't find his stack but his border city of Baghdad only had about 5 defenders and he enticed me by putting about the same amount of workers in reach of 2-movers (and I have been severely starved for worker turns, running about 2/3 ratio workers/cities all game!). I cross the border with 11 cuirs and many, many more coming.

T183
Saladin's stack shows up right next to Baghdad, and I slam it before it can reinforce the city, killing every catapult and treb he had in it. We'd do this dance two more times (with my super-medic healing the vets between turns) before I got about 18 stacked next to the city and overwhelmed the now ~8-9 defenders.

Then like so often with mounted wars, once the initial resistance breaks, he's mostly toast. As long as I continue to pump units to keep the pipeline streaming I just have to look around for a weakpoint and smash through there.


T185
I meet Ragnar's caravel. He's off doing his own thing on his own continent, sucks to be him when he's this late to the party. Without Astro, he's harmless, and not much use besides, so I trade him Education for Guilds + Optics+ gold. He can have the Economics merchant, I don't care.

T193
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After some more thrashing and loss of 3 more cities, Saladman does the honorable thing and joins my team, along with peace offering of Banking + Drama + gold to show no hard feelings between us.

It's actually a good idea to cap him early and keep him more intact, as Saladin is a decent techer. Part of the reason I wanted him first (the other being that his decent tech rate means he can reach Rifles and beyond a littler easier too, so wanted to get him before that) was so he could help me out if I needed to go beyond this continent.

Time to turn around and go for Mao. Since I'm hurting badly economically with 24 cities and not enough cottaging even if I wasn't whipping them mericlessly, due to a shortage of workers, I just turn all the survivors around towards Mao and build Wealth while they are in transit and healing for 2 turns on his border.

This sudden life breathed into the economy allows me to finish chemistry which I put a bulb into nearly 20 turns ago!


T194
With Chemistry finally done, I instantly double bulb SciMeth and start Communism. I can stay afloat hopping between Wealth/units now and again, but to truly move on to real teching (such as if I wanna go to space, or invade intercontinentally with tanks) I NEED state property going forward.

T199-201
Cuirs are on the border and healed; since I located Mao's stack still over in former Spanish Toledo, shouldn't hesitate here.

I DoW him this turn with a surprise for him. All those HAs and Spears/Axes left over from earlier, that I was stacking in Illinois to guard against his stack? I can't afford to upgrade them, but instead I split them and send them after 3 of his crappy tundra cities defended by only 2-3 units each, and raze them. After that they will make great buffer/fodder units to prevent city recaptures.



T202
Trade Lib to Saladin for Economics after a turn put into it. Instantly revolt to Free Market to stave off strike for a turn and prop up the economy a tiny bit more.


T204
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Mao moves his stack near the 5th city in my sights, and I obliterate it to a man with this resultant power drop

Izzy immediately breaks free next turn (she must've checked out that power graph plummet!) and Mao will talk, but he's afraid of Izzy of all people. Small, 4 city Izzy that he bent over earlier. Heh. Karma or Mao is just really cowardly? Either way, he's dead. I don't need his help or existence anymore, though I may force peace for a tech while I clean up Izzy and then come back for him.


T211
Anyway, war is going smoothly despite Mao's PRO longbows and several hill cities causing lots of losses (and Statue of Zeus isn't helping things!). I finally allow peace in exchange for the demand of Astronomy, and Mao is left cowering in Toledo until his execution stay is up.

All cuir production stops and Wealth is built after I whip about 10 settlers for settling out the continent after State Property.

Ragnar had been plotting, but a demand of 1g will keep him out long enough for me to kill off Izzy. The leftovers from conquering Mao should be more than enough to kill her and act as a response force if Ragnar lands over here.


T217
Izzy is dead, and I finish Communism on the same turn after building Wealth for these past few turns. Immediately start a Golden Age with the Spy and random other GP from Constantinople (I think it was another GS, but might have been an Artist) to swap into Caste+SP.

Now that I'm in state property, I found most of those 10 settlers' city sites and build Wealth everywhere to prepare for a run to Assembly Line.

T219
Trade Corporation from Saladin

T220
Trade Democracy from Saladin.

T221
Mao's peace treaty is up, and I can DoW and reach Toledo in the same turn. He dies instantly, and without ceremony.

T222
Been playing on a different PC, and I haven't got the BUG mod settings set the same way. BUG informs me I'm really close to the Dom limit (63%, nearly there!) after settling out all the remaining space, so I swap over to all culture instead and run the Drama slider. I might leave these notifications enabled from now on, heh

T223
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Enough borders pop, and Domination victory!
Spoiler end state :

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Some thoughts on the map:
Spoiler :

-How was everybody feeling about waiting on techs with a worker vs. doing something else (worker stealing or settler first, or something else)? Personally I had to fight my urge to PRO Archer choke Justin, as Charlie is actually really good at this, especially with a nice hammer start like this and a close victim!

-Wonders seemed very slow on the map. Izzy and Saladin are no slouches when it comes to them, but she was really small trapped behind Mao, and Saladin just...didn't try, it seems.

-On the flipside, there was fair access to several wonder resources (bar copper) so it could be easy to spam them. I felt this map was very generous in that regard, combined with a hammer-heavy starting area

-I took the second gold spot quite late, I saw some took it much earlier (even as their 2nd city). While I don't believe in @krikav's gold "curse" I don't like to work them super early to the detriment of productive output.

-Tech rate also kinda sucked, though this one I know is because I booted out Justinian. Ragnar and Sury didn't even factor, and I didn't even interact with Sury at all beyond contact + OB. A look back through shows he was pushing culture apparently.
 
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Nice game @ArchGhost !

Spoiler :

I don't think I have ever seen a AI leave a city empty. Weird!
Izzys land was garbage, and she made it much worse by settling like a AI. If Cordoba was 1W I bet she would have fared much better. She built almost all stone wonders in my game. And yes, they seem to have gone quite slow. I even got MoM.
Saladin seem to have done worse in your game than he did in mine, got alot of land that Justinian seem to have had in your game.

 
-How was everybody feeling about waiting on techs with a worker vs. doing something else (worker stealing or settler first, or something else)? Personally I had to fight my urge to PRO Archer choke Justin, as Charlie is actually really good at this, especially with a nice hammer start like this and a close victim!
I don't think warrior first can be good without map knowledge, pretty much the same about settler first. I didn't finish ivory camp, but switched to cows when available, but not sure which one was better. I'm not a huge fan of choking strategies, unless you can get many workers. I think HA was the right call, especially on immortal.
 
I think that worker first AND finishing camp is correct play here. IIRC it was only 1 or 2 turns earlier cows if you stopped ivory mid-improvement.
Settler first or warrior first I don't like.

I also do think that HAs is right play on this map, but due to the lack of food I kind of think that just slowbuilding/chopping them is superior to whipping. Especially since granaries are quite a heavy investment that early on.
Paradoxically, in many ways granaries provide LESS benefit in cities with little food.
 
@ArchGhost
Yes I was also surprised to get so many wonders, which was why my decision to go Culture was really too late to do optimal religion spread / religion buildings (also my lack of culture victory experience :crazyeye:)
Congratulations on your nice win date

@krikav
Nice monster stack there :goodjob:
I remember a couple of (much easier) old monarch games where even tanks struggled against saladins super-promoted protective infantry on hill cities
 
I'm not a huge fan of choking strategies, unless you can get many workers.
Yeah, I get that. Better to gain as well instead of just drag them down.

I did play back through another 100 turns or so and wasn't impressed with archer choking Justin (though it worked incredibly well with just 3 archers). Worker stealing with a warrior early seems like a lot more benefit than just keeping him on one city all game and letting Saladin run wild instead of him...but with a Hunting civ, and super early aggression in general, a gamble on whether they are close or not. It did put me in a great position to play around with PRO trait against Mao's multiple DoWs though, he got absolutely shredded.

Paradoxically, in many ways granaries provide LESS benefit in cities with little food.
I totally get this. It took me so long to come around re: granaries, because if the city only needs to grow to a target size once...it's not super helpful, and is 60h that could have went to a worker, settler, wonder fail-gold etc. Low food/high hammers with a low happy cap is one scenario where I think a little harder about "granary first, always."
 
As soon as I find the time, i am still inclined to commit to my own challenge here and take my ennemies down with Knechts and Trebs! After having played once up to T150, I believe that the best strategy for a next game would be
Spoiler :
starting with 3 warriors and choke/ steal workers from Justinian while also fogbusting the area
haven't done this for a long time, inspired by Lain's Philosophy, I started to build up everything on my own. But Charlie is special and he is getting stronger only very slowly, but in the engineering area, he is a monster. My settings will be IMM / NHNE / no tech brokering, as usual. Machinery and ENG bulb is highly considered.
 
My general strategy ideas are: building Heroic Epic soon (we have marble), settling the first GG in that city, togehter with barracks, it would pump out Knechts and Trebs with 5 XP points each (= 2 Promotions). Bring also some Drill3 Crossbows against siege damage. Will see if Vassalage is needed before, because obviously, the first GG can only appear after being already at war with someone. The idea is not to "waste" my GG's on super-medics but to settle them consequently. I will eventually get at least a medic 2 from combats. PRO Archers can be promoted Medic 1 right from the start. The target is yet to decided. I don't want to abuse my map knowledge too far and try to stay open for how the game developps. Wonders do also matter with marble. I wonder if the Oracle is possible (MC), and if the parthenon should be more worthy than the GL. With parthenon, double-or triple bulbing from several cities will be much easier.
 
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