NC LXIII: Pericles of Greece

[bamdorf]

Hi,

I have arrived at 1878 and seem to have a lead but am in a quandary as to how to choose the best course (assuming I want the best chance to win, as opposed to the most interesting, or whatever).

Spoiler :

Whatever I do I think I have to build the space elevator defensively if nothing else.

1. I could attack Hannibal and let the chips fall where they may. If this works, I could reassess then. If it goes well maybe I have a chance for domination. Problem is spaceship builders might be able to catch up. Also, everyone might gang up on me.
Hannibal does not have any defensive pacts, so I could hope the diplo fallout from a war might not be too bad. In this case I would switch specialists to merchants and put science at zero as soon as I have the space elevator tech finished.
2. I have the UN and could try for massive bribes to a diplo win.
3. I could try for a cultural win --- that seems hard but I do have a lead at the moment. I would have to switch specialist to artists, and as above switch to massive culture after space elevator.

4. I could try to build the spaceship. I got three gorges, that should help! This may be the easiest?!

Any comments welcome

 

[pigswill]

Prince Epic 1000ad.

Spoiler :

Very quiet build up. Got to 8 cities early on then turtled while building up a stack of HAs to deter casual aggression by my (not always peaceful) neighbours.
Built Oxford 920ad. Lib>Miltrad 940ad. Launched GA with my free GA from music, gunpowder 980ad. Now 100% cash to upgrade a stack of HAs to cuirassiers (30HAs at 245g a time could take more than a few turns).
Monte and GK very helpfully went to war with each other 850ad. Hoping to annex Mongolia and Azteca, vassalise Hannibal then review.

 

[bamdorf]

Spoiler :

space race win ... I tried for cultural win but didnt come close. Diplo win wasn't close either.

 

[WelshGandalf]

1510AD update

Spoiler :

The former Indian capital turned into an economic powerhouse. Great prophets galore got settled there, plus the shrine, with the side effect that it also became a great production city. Wall street OTW (will give me +110 gold a turn).

Meanwhile my capital became a GP farm/science city. At the moment I'm doing about 900 bpt of which half that is produced at 0% science slider Biology about to come up which will mean I can run an 8th scientist in Athens.

I had the great idea of building the apostolic palace for the +2 hammer bonus. However then Monty got voted in & I wanted to attack him Pretty stupid idea. Monty then let the buddhist world (Mongols, Aztecs, Carthage & I) on a series of wars on the other side of the world So I ditched my war plans for a bit.

Teched very well but missed by lib by 2 turns because I got cocky & wanted steel from it. I'm still near the top of the tech race, and I want a space victory.

Getting into some war now for the lolz - Monty led us against war versus the three weakest civs on the map so why not join in? I got a stack of 20 (cannons/rifles) and have just taken my first city off the Holy Roman Empire (yes, the ones in the top-right of the map 9 turns to walk there!). Plan to take them all, and the last 2 American cities too, if the Aztecs/Carthagians don't get there first. They are just about getting to macemen, haha. I haven't built the forbidden palace so that will be going up over there.

Happy & health caps are definitely problems.I'll be going for Rock'n'roll, an extra +1 with the Odeons.

Finally - I totally love Pericles UB/traits, they go so well for a SE. I had seen a couple of games with him recently & wanted to give him a go, so this thread was the perfect opportunity.

 

[pigswill]

Prince epic 1330ad.

Spoiler :

At 1000ad I was getting ready for war against Monte and GK using a bunch of cuirassiers. Have to say that it went fairly well. Annihilated Monte 1020 to 1150, annihilated GK 1180-1310. Just got to rifling (went for economics first for GM trade mission) and upgraded some cuirassiers to cavalry. Comfortable tech lead, got lot of land. Problem is my economy is tanked (losing cash at 40% research) and I've got lots of small cities surrounded by plains and mountains:

I've built Forbidden Palace is Tenochtitlan and whipping courthouses as fast as possible but city maintenance isn't fun.

I'm unsure where to go research wise:

Biology is tempting for productive plains farms. Communism is very tempting for workshops, state property and rush buying with the Kremlin. Steel, steam-power and railroads also tempting, then there's physics for a free GS. Astronomy is available in trade, I've got a GS for academy or bulbing most of chemistry and I've got a GE for wonder-rushing. I'm certainly not short of choices, I'm just not sure what to get first.

 

[WelshGandalf]

@pigswill

I would defeinately go for Biology... I had a similar dilemma as you, I went for steam power first then Bio but looking back I wish I had gone biology first instead. There are indeed so many cities with lots of plains square, the one tech instanly makes all of them so much more viable.

You can easily head for Communism or Phyiscs after that.

 

[Amao]

@pigswill

Spoiler :

Communism, then Biology. Communism gives you instant slider boost and makes court house like trivial. The +1 food on the workshop and watermill also is very powerful boost. In anyway, you are on your way to win, as long as you have enough workers.

 

[pigswill]

WelshGandalf & Amao, thanks for the feedback:

Spoiler :

I decided not to go for early communism because when I posted (1330ad) I'd already completed FP and was more than half way through courthouses so distance maintenance was becoming less of a problem. Played up to 1530 (I'm a slow player), paying 121gpt city maintenance (37 distance, 84 number of cities).

Techwise I went chemistry (part bulb), scimeth, biology (traded junk techs for astronomy and constitution), physics for free GS and airships to support cavalry, corporation for free trade route, steel, finished communism 1530. I've just launched a GA swopping to US, vassalage, caste, SP and FR. I'm thinking about workshops supported by Kremlin subsidised rush buying for production, commerce is ok for now.

I vassalised Hannibal in 1510. move, not waiting for steel and suiciding trebs against castle walls but overall its going fairly smoothly.

Interesting feature of the map: all the oil is down south so I'm now thinking about stomping Isabella.

 

[WelshGandalf]

Just realised I put my spoiler in quote rather than spoiler tags

I should really finish off this game since I came so far. But it takes a long time to process with so many civilizations in the game.

 

[pigswill]

Prince epic 1712ad

Spoiler :

After vassalising Hannibal I had a peaceful interbellum growing cities and building railroads. Swopped to US, Vassalage,Caste, SP, FR during a golden age. Went to war against Spain (1620-1708) coz they were relatively backwards and had a source of oil, added another dozen cities. Zara voluntarily vassalised in 1710 but I'm still only on 35% land .

At least I'm well ahead in everything and I've got a decent tech lead. Giggles and the Body have a DP, maybe I'll pick on Japan and Mali next who are both relatively primitive.

I'm running 100% cash and building wealth to try to get the Pentagon early. Techwise its probably electricity and industrialisation next and try to overrun the rest of the world with tanks.

Only real nuisance is that emancipation is widespread giving me 5 unhappy faces per city for running caste. May have to adopt emancipation and hope that the increased happiness compensates for the lost workshop hammers.

 

[Amao]

Noble/Normal approaching 800AD (150 turns)

I was trying to see how fast I could get Communism and I think I'll lib it at 800ish. My problem now is with my skydrive login issue. Without it, i'm in no mood posting spoilers.

 

[dalamb]

I should really finish off this game since I came so far. But it takes a long time to process with so many civilizations in the game.

Hmm. With this map type giving so much land, maybe I should have reduced the map size? Would still have needed some extra civs, but not so many.

 

[Amao]

Hmm. With this map type giving so much land, maybe I should have reduced the map size? Would still have needed some extra civs, but not so many.

it's simply a big map. i'm really surprised it's standard sized.

 

[vranasm]

Hmm. With this map type giving so much land, maybe I should have reduced the map size? Would still have needed some extra civs, but not so many.

I agree with you on making it smaller. Crowding the map was actually good attempt, but it gets overwhelming a lot and it doesn't reduce number of cities for any kind of domination victory

Spoiler :

You actually could have around 30 cities from first 3 enemies sitting around 30% landmas, which is basically too much. This amount cities on more standard map you get with around 45% landmass

Btw I tried this map script with small size and it seemed to me overwhelming a bit too even on that size ;-).

 

[Habitus]

Tiny with 7 Civs (include the player) could work if Small would still need more than 7

 

[pigswill]

Its certainly more of an epic struggle than a quick romp.

 

[pigswill]

Prince epic 1774.

Spoiler :

Got there in the end:

Got industrialism in 1738 and cash rushed tanks.

Basically not stop war. Time consuming and to be honest quite tedious.

 

[Amao]

Oh, well. Here is my Noble/Normal/Huts report inspired by VoU.

4000BC-1000BC, Phalanx rush

Spoiler :

SIP, popped AH and researched Agriculture, then Mining/BW. Sent the first settler to 1E of the Gold down south, so that it would be able to utilize all 3 resources (Gold/Wheat/Sheep) there plus some river cottages later. And it would be a good early prod city. Yes, this city won't be impressive in later games, but the early return is very rewarding especially the gold mine.

Since Asoka was so close, I set a 2-city Phalanx rush, which went well. Asoka had only Warriors for defense. So I waited for Bombay to grow to pop 2 before sacking it to keep the city from auto-razed. While waiting for Bombay to raising babies, I built 2 more settler to fill up the space to the east. Hannibal expanded north first, so I set up a city 2N of the east Gold to get Wheat/Stone/Gold. Again, this city's pop won't grow for a long long time, but it will provide some urgent early commerce and can be pretty efficient at pop 5. Another settler went south east to block Hannibal's expansion down to the peninsula. So far no more Hannibal's settler in sight, so I'll get this Corn/Fish site, and it's a nice GP farm. All my GMs will come from here.

My initial scout survived all the animal attacks and reach the east end of the world until it met the not talking Toku. Now I think I might just declared Toku and sent my scout down south which might enable me to meet all the AIs way earlier.

BTW, being Phi/Cre, I didn't waste my time generating the first GS in the Capital and I've already set up the academy. With all the commerce support, I made a beeline to Construction. Somebody got Alphabet, and I traded it and traded some more techs. 2nd thought, in this crowded world, Alphabet and Currency weight a lot more than the normal settings. You can trade a lot more techs if you are careful and especially earn a lot more cashes by selling your tech to others, which means you can do 100% science a lot longer.

Next target, Monty. Building a catapults army now.

Screenies:

Spoiler :

 

[Amao]

1000BC-1AD Catapult/Phalanx rush

Spoiler :

Built up my army and took Monty's 4 cities w/o much of a struggle, there were only 2 Cats lost. I added 2 more cities in the peninsula and now having 11 cities. Now I have a decision to make. Who would be the next victim? There is Hannibal to the right and Khan on the left. I picked Khan because he has a lot of land to expand if not checked and at the mean time, Hannibal had limited grow space. However, there was risk that Hannibal could back-stab me when I'm working on Khan. But I'll take a risk.

So, I started building road to the west first, and then sent my first wave to as close as his heartland, while my cities will producing new armies to take the closer cities. There are many

Tech-wise, got Civil Service and in the HR/Bureau/CS civic combo. Researching towards Machinery to get the Maceman online. I'm running low in cash but with city-sacking treasure coming soon and tech selling trick, I should be fine. At worst, I could assign a few city to build cash.

The capital went up to 15 pop by now, but many cottages are still in primitive stage. Well, they are going to grow eventually. BTW, Odeon is such a nice UB. I spammed it all over.

Next, DoW on Khan and see the result.

Spoiler :

Empire overview

Attacking stacks arriving Khan's border

 

[vranasm]

@Amao

Spoiler :

considering you are ~emperor player not surprising the results, but I ask myself if you will have the willpower to finish the game with over 50 cities...

otoh maybe that's ideal with such map... take easy route to dominate easily AI and enjoy feeling powerful...

I wonder if this setup would be good for some stellar space-race like the great plains map from iggy (Oxfordless hatty)