NC LXIII: Pericles of Greece

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Noble / Normal

Continuing to keep it simple.

Spoiler :

Somebody useful asked me to close borders with Asoka, and he had been near the top of the leader board, so...

Catapults and Phalanxen. I'm not too happy with Delhi's location, but the 'enge and the shrine were too rich to pass up. I gave some thought to razing Vijay... but decided that it's culture (Holy city plus + religion + free monument) would be strong enough to pull it through.

My scouting to the west is very weak - I never bothered to connect my own horses because of the lack of food, and completely forgot that Greece starts with Hunting. Given that the Aztec capital is very accessible from here, I should be aiming for it.

Delhi will serve as a western military pump, and I end up dropping the forbidden palace there. Varan will get the Maoi.

Hannibal is still bottled up in his little corner, right below the military pump where the Great General was settled. Civil Service is in, and I'm running along the bottom of the tree to get to Maces.

Three Great Scientists so far - Academy and two settled in Athens.

 

[Ororo]

Probably won't be able to finish this one any time soon. Too much work

 

[bamdorf]

Hi,

I am roughly at 500 AD at a good time for planning, I think.

Spoiler :

I noticed the Indians very close and therefore built two cities with barracks (fit in a library for Athens while the second barracks was being finished) then spammed phalanxes and a couple of spearmen. Went after Asoka and got 2 cities, then scouted Montezuma and went back to war immediately. That went fairly well, as I managed to get a couple of catapults to help with the last Aztec city. Delhi founded both Hinduism and Buddhism so at this point I have four founded religions. I also have NO wonders built...too busy building spears.

So what now. I think consolidation and building a couple of ports (right now I have one ) and doing some exploring. I don't think attacking Hannibal makes much sense, but maybe I am totally off base. But after consolidation and getting macemen, maybe that would make sense.

Anyway I have a philo/creative leader who has done little except warmonger.

 

[MikalJ]

Hi, my first time posting in the Noble's Club, but this game looked fun.

I'm playing at Noble\Epic, reached 80BC

Spoiler :

Techs AH -> Mining -> BW -> TW -> Ag -> Writ

Build Warrior -> Fish B -> Worker -> FB -> Barracks -> Phalanx x5 -> Worker

Normally, I'd build a setteler before now, but we have bronze in BFC and India as closest neighbour. Phalanxes built, I storm Delhi: garrison archer/warrior, on hill; losing 1 unit to the archer. Bombay was size 1, so auto razed. Never mind, I have 2 capital sites, and am runinng slavery, so we should have some fun . Now 1880BC.

Restless, I continue West, and end up on the borders of Monty. My stack takes Tenochtitlan with minimal losses, and his second city by 750BC. I now have two holy cities. Pericles' Phil trait should not make it hard to get me a couple GPrphets and shrine them from a temple or two.

By now, I had founded Sparta (south, to catch gold, sheep, wheat) and was beggining to expand more by peaceful means. Delhi and Athens have built libraries and are running science specs and the barbarians are appearing.

After founding a few more cities, and conquoring the rest of Monty's feeble empire, I started to tech towards construction, where I can get a final shot from my phalanxes and chariots against Hannibal. Economy permitting. I'm on 50% research with 2 cities (small) producing wealth. As far as I'm aware I'm the furthest west empire, which means a) lots of barbs b) room to expand into after conquests.

I own about 7 cities and its 80BC. Have math, alpha, currency, calendar (2 bulbs)

I'm thinking of going up a difficulty level, but would want to iron out anything stupid I'm doing before then. Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[WelshGandalf]

Hey MikalJ, I recommend posting your year played outside your spoiler, so people know if they should look at it or not. For example I have played to 1 AD, so it was fine for me to look at your spoiler since it's a similar year.

Spoiler :

Interesting that your massive warmongering has led to the same number of cities as me but i only declared war later on, & took 2 Indian cities. Though I'm on Monarch & you're on noble though so hard to say which is better, if any. One advantage I did gain though was that the shrine was already built in Delhi when I took it. Also you're on Epic & I'm on standard which makes military campaigns that bit easier for you.

Definitely sounds to me like you're doing alright & ready for the challenge of a higher difficulty level. YOu can still make mistakes at Prince or Monarch & win Not sure about your starting build though, worker only in there at 3rd, not 1st or 2nd?

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

@MikalJ - some comments on your opening

Spoiler :

Techs AH -> Mining -> BW -> TW -> Ag -> Writ

Build Warrior -> Fish B -> Worker -> FB -> Barracks -> Phalanx x5 -> Worker

That sequence strikes me as bizarre.

I'm wondering if you wrote your tech order incorrectly.
Agri -> Mining -> BW -> TW -> AH -> Writing isn't my choice, but is logically coherent.

Researching AH before Agriculture, with Corn in the inner ring?

I don't understand Warrior -> Fish Boat at all. Why not train a Fish boat from turn 0? If you wanted to explore... ok, that's weak, but I could see it (especially if you are playing on a map with huts), except that Scouts are the better choice for exploring, for the extra foot speed. Maybe you were hoping to steal a worker?

If you aren't going to interrupt your war prep to sneak in a Library, you've got time for Pottery before Writing; your description doesn't make it clear how much of a priority it was. Of course, you might have been using open borders to scout your target.

 

[MikalJ]

@WelshGandalf - will do in future.

Spoiler :

Put this in a spoiler JIC - I could probably have had 10, but I razed a couple due to rubbish placement and them being so small.

@VoiceOfUnreason

Spoiler :

Thanks for your comments, I was kind of expecting to be told I was doing something odd. Writing it out, it looked a little different to tech queues I had seen before. Looking back, AH looks like it took no thought, with there being corn in the inner circle (even outer circle wouldn't have made a difference on a creative capital!), and Agri helping AH.

I think the warrior was for some initial exploring, but after capturing Delhi I used the gold captured to upgrade him to phalanx, replacing the lost one.

I think I skipped pottery because I see writing as an important tech, and wasn't building cottages at the time, mainly chopping and gaining improvements. Would you recommend against this? I did have a brief open borders with Monty, but I don't know how much use that was.

Thanks for the advice so far, I'll try and not make the same mistakes next time, and should post the next part of the game at some point (work permitting)

 

[Gojeran]

Here is my playthrough of this NC game. I wanted to play without huts and events but forgot to turn them off, meh. That being said here we go!

Spoiler :

4000BC, SIP open agriculture. Send scout south.

Spoiler :

3680BC meet Hannibal.

Spoiler :

3520BC meet Asoka.

Spoiler :

2320BC meet Boudica.

Spoiler :

1920BC meet Charlemagne.

More to come!! Opening in kinda dull

 

[Gojeran]

More boring times to be had below, click if you want to and not if you dont

Spoiler :

925BC Here is an overview of my land so far. Currently teching Alphabet. Have open boarders with all currently met AIs. Have a few more cities to found mainly to block off some land. Hannibals land looks nice... really nice

Spoiler :

725BC meet Lincoln. Sign open boarders. Trade him writing for sailing. Lincoln is pleased.

Spoiler :

650BC meet Monty. 400BC meet Genghis Khan. 375BC meet Gilgamesh. Its getting pretty crazy now- so many AIs!

Spoiler :

100BC I complete the Great Lighthouse in my capital. w00t

Next post meet some more AIs and get to fighting!!

 

[Gojeran]

Finally some action, sorry I didn't take many pictures of it though but first...

Spoiler :

100AD meet Willem. Haha no action shot for you!

Spoiler :

1070AD Finish the long war with Hannibal. Finished getting monarchy and now will work on teching and rebuilding, might look to take out Asoka next... time will tell...

Spoiler :

1240AD Win Lib. Meet a ton more AIs. Still working on building up infrastructue and
land improvements. Built a few more workers too. More wars to follow.

Spoiler :

1610AD Here are a few overhead pictures of my territory. Building mass cavalry and
about declare war on Asoka. He is super tiny and I'll finish her fast then move
onto the next target. Current plan is domination via mass compitulations. Hope all does well.

Spoiler :

1740AD War is moving along. I stupidly forgot to check and Asoka was a vassal of Monty. No wonder he was so small and crappy. Oh well once I cap him I can move onto Gilamesh or Genghis Khan. I have awesome TMIT hax luck to show. Taking the city you see in this picture I lost 3 70% battles and one 97% too! Give me a break, sheesh!

More below. The game will conclude shortly, well sort of.

 

[Fatality_Slim]

Hey Goj, Just FYI your 925 spoiler above has an endgame screenshot from 1610 in it. its not a big deal, but its pretty clear that you arent researching Alphabet in it

 

[warrior459]

Will start this soonish. Probably going to give up on my Rags game as near the end it got a little tedious (and everyone who wasn't my vassal DoWed on the same turn !) Hopefully this goes better.

nothing wrong with an old fashioned world war olaf lol

 

[Gojeran]

The beginning of the end. Hit the spoiler links to find out how it all goes down

Spoiler :

1745AD Take one more city and Money throws in the towel, what a loser! I'm going to work on building some factories in my cities before moving onto my next target.

Spoiler :

1838AD Khan finally gives up. Time to move all my forces back to the other front. I'll likely try for a late space race as I don't really want to fight another or many more wars. Now I'm the loser I guess.

Spoiler :

Or am I? 1944AD Launch spaceship. Win in 11 more turns.

Spoiler :

1955AD Victory via space race. Hurray!

Final screenshots in next post.

 

[Gojeran]

Here are my final pictures from the game. Exciting.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Overall I think this game was less fun than the last one I played. I am still very much a beginner at Civ but I find that I like playing with fewer AIs, 6 is plenty for me at least for now. I was happy to pull out a victory nevertheless. I could use some advice on how to best go about fighting wars. Sometimes I build siege and units, other times just powerful units like cavalry and go to town but I'm never certain which is the better option. Will see you next nobles club game!

 

[Gojeran]

Hey Goj, Just FYI your 925 spoiler above has an endgame screenshot from 1610 in it. its not a big deal, but its pretty clear that you arent researching Alphabet in it

Oops!! I really messed that up . Will have to fix it. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[Habitus]

So did anyone consider moving 1N and settling on the Corn? In the SS you can see that you gain a Grass Hill and Plains Hill to the north, and the hill you were on replaces the one to South you lose by moving, plus a 3F City Tile, at the cost of the easily Irrigated Corn.

 

[Habitus]

Well i decided to play my 2nd go on Emperor BBAI with the settle on Corn, i got lucky with a Silver appearing pretty early on the plains hill. At 1 AD now, and i'll finish up tomorrow

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Noble / Normal

Continuing to keep it simple.

AD 800.

Spoiler :

Two elite maces, 13 catapults, and some leftovers cross the border to drive Hannibal to the sea (where he's already got a couple cities planted, dammit).

A little bit sloppy - I really needed to have a mace or two perched on the yellow square to keep things bottled up - as it is, there's a mini stack parked on my corn that I can't easily roust.

Whoops, discovered one of my fog busters in the danger zone, so out he scampers.

No surprises.

Wow - 8 catapults bought me 5 Indian cities? That seems like a pretty good deal.

Actually, I'm a little bit surprised here, in that I didn't really internalize how few Indian units I killed. I guess six per city is reasonable - it always feels like more than that, somehow.

 

[pigswill]

Spoiler :

I'm pretty rusty at civ. Settled one south. Sparta went north to grab copper I missed by not settling in place.
Tex went something like mine>BW>agric>AH>wheel>pottery>masonry>IW>writing>alph.
Built a few phalanxes. Quick war vs India (phalanx vs warriors) 1500-1350bc, annihilated, kept Delhi and Bombay.
Now got 7 cities. Built pyramids 725bc, swopped to rep. Space for 2 more cities. Short of workers as usual.

 

[Optical]

Playing this soon, Prince/Normal no huts or events.