NC XIV: Saladin of Arabia

[dubrown]

it's been a long while since I did a NC playthrough. This one seems pretty fun so I might give it a go this weekend, Monarch/Epic the setting. Report will come when I start.

Some initial thoughts about the startposition (not much of a spoiler here as I only go from the picture in the first post):

Spoiler :

Settle in place seems like a very good bet, maybe something else will show up if moving around or getting the warrior to start in another position. Though you got food (corn), stone, mineable hills, floodplain, some forest to chop. Everything screams a massive cottagespammed Burocracy capital with a good production.

With stone I'll be tempted to attempt the GW, with the FPs I may even consider an early religion with the single commerce from the fp it may be doable. It could be fun to play Sal as a religious nutcase (though it's quite out of the character for him.) Health may be an issue in this one with all the FPs (quick growth, not much healthresources visible in the start, atleast if I go chopping crazy from the start) but hopefully there'll be healthsources nearby to connect early.

I don't know much more right now, VC will be decided when I know how the situation is.

 

[JTMacc99]

Checking in! Prince/Epic 750 BC (I'm working out my monarch games with Fin leaders right now, so I'll go back to my comfort zone while I give this guy a whirl.)

Spoiler :

I've actually played another 15 turns since this screenshot, so I'll give the update from there.

I've scouted the entire continent. As everybody knows, this will play very nicely with the CE, which is good as I prefer to play that way.

I completely forgot I was spiritual until I came here to post this, so my next 15 turns course corrected a bit. I had JUST generated a great prophet (from Stonehenge, which I thought might be useful given the Map Tip in the original post about having lots of room to REX) and since I was religion free, I put him on ice until he could bulb what I thought would be code of laws. I attempted to trad for some of the open religion techs but got no value or no offers, so I researched Poly, Priest, and Mono (each went VERY quickly, Mono was the last and took 4 turns) and then woke up the GP only to find that he was going to Bulb THEOLOGY rather than code of laws.

Hmm...Alrighty then. I'll take that. I send the missionary down south the Ottoman territory and had him spread the word, as they were pagans like me.

He, of course, immediately converted and I followed suit. WhoHoo! Go Jesus! I also researched one turn of monarchy and then traded alphabet to him for it on the same turn. I set the next research item on Code of Laws for two reasons. I would like to build at least three more cities as soon as possible (bringing me up to 7 shortly after 1 AD, which is a lot) and I am thinking that the having a second holy city might be extremely useful for my soon to be bloated empire.)


From this screenshot, you can see that a settler is in production in the capital. I sent it to found city number 4 just south of the wheat, which claims the horses and will probably keep the Ottomans from attempting to stick a city in between it and his existing one. I started construction on the madrass there first, since I'd like it to claim territory as quickly as possible.

The big question now is, where the heck do I stick the next three cities, and exactly how many workers am I going to need to build enough cottages to keep this sucker afloat? Oh, and by the way, I kind of like the protective trait in a game like this. Those promoted archers are very useful when I'm spending so many hammers on expanding.

Spoiler :

Played some more. Dropped two cities to the East of the capital, picking up all that territory over there. The city with horses and sheep isn't anything special, but it keeps the other guys from getting any silly ideas. Settled a couple more along the rivers, and then captured Barb cities on the river by all that silk (absolutely NO production down there, so I'm setting up watermills on the grassland tiles and am working the four plantations right now) and one right on the coast that picks up the whales. I have switched into Slavery a couple times to hurry production in these low production cities, so I'll say that the spiritual trait is working in my favor. I wasn't going to put a city there, but left it and then dropped a city in the vacant spot between it and the capital, which picks up the horses, wheat and deer.

That should be it for home-grown for a while, although it might be a good idea to send some of my more hardy settlers up into the ice to claim the marble. There have been many opportunities to build wonders so far.

Sully declared war on HC, as they were bitter religious rivals. Heh-heh-heh. Sully did convert to the other religion for a while, but I got him to switch back in a trade that sent currency to him in exchange for monarchy, conversion, and 80 gold. I, of course, jumped in to defend my friend during the war, and we have been bestest buddies ever since. It's too bad that I'll be storming into his territory one of these days. (I'll probably wait for him to clear some more of that jungle for me.)

Got a couple interesting quests. Just finished the first one by whipping out my seventh forge. Decided to take the permanent engineer specialist in a city on a river. The hammers will be most welcome there. I had almost no swords to promote to shock, so that was worthless, and a new source of copper was tempting, but I wasn't sure if was liable to show up someplace stupid.

I will complete the holy mountain quest shortly, so whatever that nets me should also be useful.

Tech-wise, I did civil service but chose not to switch out of vassalage yet. I then went machinery, but that was because I wanted watermills more than macemen. The crossbows are pretty cool though, as they start with drill III. I can see making good use of those suckers. Went Feudalism before those two (obviously if I was already in vassalage) for the longbows and the much needed serfdom to speed up my very busy workers. I took a brief detour after machinery to go back and make my way through literature, since Sully won't trade me aesthetics and HC won't trade with me at all. (Such a sourpuss when he doesn't get his way.) I wanted to get the HE up and running in my best production city (which is also a fine commerce city, as you might expect on this map) and I'm slapping up the statue of zeus while I'm at it, just so nobody on my continent gets it first. I'm passing on the G-Lib, since I'm up to my ears in cottages, I can probably live without it this game.

At this point, I have a few directions to go next. I can go with Guilds, which puts the UU on the board, as well as the very useful (for this game) grocers. All of those cottages and floodplains would benefit greatly from a building that multiplies gold and improves health. I guess the only problem I'll run into with this tech, is that I'll both want to start gearing up for war and also I'll want to be building grocers at the same time. I'll probably just start building the units in a couple cities while I wait for the commerce cities to finish up the buildings, and then I'll switch over to theocracy and kick the war machine into high gear.

After Guilds, I need to put engineering up next, and then I'll probably do paper/education, although I might go for Banking when I get the chance, since it gives so much and asks so little on this map.

 

[Bleys]

Emp/Epic, 1000 AD - 1850 AD, likely going to lose:

Spoiler :

Well, I couldnt take down Sulie, got 4 cities and had to give him peace or risk economic ruin from the unhappiness. Same religion war vs the SoZ just wasnt happening.

Once met, the other continent started blowing by us in tech too. Asoka and Willy took control of the game, building almost every Wonder and being first to every tech. I am starting some SS Parts now, and no one has any built, but I dont think I can beat em to space, will try and let you know. This game . . . I made some big mistakes because I was overconfident. Goes to show me, NEVER assume you are in "good shape", always find out, heh.

Oh, for JTMacc99:

Spoiler :

You have likely played, but in case you are wondering, I think I picked strong sites for my Flood Plain cities. I have 5 total covering all but 1 FP, with minimal overlap. Heres my layout:

Spoiler :

In case you cant tell the exact tiles, the cities are:

1N of the Wheat due-south of the Capitol
1N of one silk, 1W of another, in that 4-silk area
On the coast at the mouth of the river
1SW of the Iron to the SW of the Capitol
The Cap itself

This is something like 32 Floodplains with Towns, all with a city able to build a Levee, so they are monster tiles. Health was important, thats why I built the HGs, and tried to get as many health resources in trades as I could, even trading stuff like Iron and Horses with the other continent for them. Very fun game, its been a blast developing this land area. Good luck mate!

 

[Capellan]

Prince/Epic to 1962 AD (end game)

Spoiler :

Suleiman's misplaced aggression did not stop me from building a very useful wonder.

The research boost would come in handy, since the rules I'd set for myself - found a religion and stick to it - meant that I had limited opportunities for resource or technology trading with my two neighbors.

Shortly after the Great Library of Mecca was completed, Suleiman declared war again. This time, he placed his thrust much better, and with more force: a stack of knights, crossbowmen and catapults descended on Baghdad. I rushed what extra longbows I could to the site, but it wasn't enough, and Baghdad fell to the grasping Ottoman.

This was only a temporary setback, however, as I had certainly not ignored my military needs from my other cities. I was currently in Police State and Theocracy, and Medina had never stopped churning out units: camel archers, catapults and macemen, I had 'em all.

On the same turn as Baghdad fell, I reinforced Mecca, and seized Gaziantep.

A few turns later, I destroyed half of Suly's stack outside Mecca, forcing him to retreat toward Baghdad. At the same time, my stack from Gaziantep marched into Samsun. Baghdad was back in my hands a few turns after that, and since Suleiman was still recalcitrant about peace, I went on to seize Diyarkabir, gaining direct connection to Incan territory for the first time.

Suleiman, meanwhile, managed to sneak two Knights behind my lines to attack Ankara - which had walls and two CG2 Longbows, so I wasn't too worried.

Sigh.

After Camel Archers retook Ankara, Suly was willing to give me Optics and some gold for peace. I took the offer, since I felt it was about time I got a caravel out looking for the other continent.

Here are my three new cities, a short time after the war:

Happiness was becoming an issue empire-wide, and my power rating was healthy, so I took the chance to ease off on the flow or units and build a wonder in Medina.

In 1515 AD, Liberalism was DIAFL. Not good. I really did need to get that caravel out ... but infrastructure was a priority, too. As of 1600, I'd got the empire more or less on track, but I still hadn't gone sailing:

North

South

Shortly thereafter, I packed up a Hindu Missionary on a caravel, and sailed east (hey, they had liberalism, so I figured someone ought to be in Free Religion, and willing to open borders to my missionary).

Found Asoka first, and yes - he's in free religion! So he either founded liberalism, or has got it since then. Probably founded, I decided, looking at the depressing list of techs he had that I didn't.

Also on the continent were Hannibal (encouragingly backward), and Willem and Elizabeth (both ahead of me for tech, but behind Asoka). For a moment I was horrified by the size of Hannibal's empire on the minimap, but then I realized he was bordering Willem, so it was actually two empires. Phew!

Everyone on the other side of the world turned out to be quite friendly - easier to get along with than my neighbors, in fact. I opened many borders, and began ferrying missionaries across the water.

Then the horns of war sounded between my new acquaintances, as Willem and Hannibal squabbled over who had the rights to the color orange. Suleiman quickly declared on Hannibal, presumably bribed in by Willem (since I am not sure why else he would get involved). He managed to generate a Great General out of it, though, so he must have had some actual involvement in the fighting.

And then Suly came to me and asked me to help beat on Hannibal. I had other plans ... but Carthage was very backward, so I knew it would be completely safe to shout rude things at Hanny from across the ocean. I said yes, then completely ignored the "war".

You see, I'd assembled a stack of troops on my southern border. We'd known Huayna for 3000 years now, and not once had he invited us over for dinner. It was time to explain to him how rude that was.

As you can see, we're about even in power, but I have riflemen, grenadiers and cannon coming out in large numbers from my core cities. He has muskets and knights as his best units. I also have Police State on my side. I expect victory.

Sure enough, Arequippa and Kushans soon fall.

By 1794 AD, four more Incan cities have fallen, and I'm approaching the true Incan heartland. I check to see what Huayna's willing to offer.

Since the economy is starting to teeter, I take it.

(Looking back, that was a significant mistake - I should have pressed on and taken the Buddhist shrine. Even if I wasn't actively spreading Buddhism, that would have been an extra 20+ gpt in the bank. And Huayna was not a helpful vassal, on the whole. Continuing the war would have meant a short term economic pinch, but long term would have served me better.)

At the same time, I check to see what Hannibal will give me to stop making mean faces at him.

I'll take it.

I send a missionary to Cuzco and then force Huayna into Hinduism, which temporarily helps our relationship. He switches back as soon as he can, of course, but not before he gets an event that helps me out quite nicely.

I check the victory conditions and note that the only danger right now seems to be my own vassal, who has three cities around the 20,000 mark. I mutter about Civ 4's vassal mechanics (whattya mean, I can't release a vassal and declare on them?) and make a note to check on this screen regularly.

All this time, I've been building troops, but Suleiman has somehow kept our power ratio at around 0.7 in his favor. But now, I have infantry and tanks, and no less than four cities which can produce a unit roughly every second turn.

Payback time, Ottoman scum!

CR Tanks and Combar-promoted infantry smash through Suleiman's forces, with cannon being used mainly to strip cultural defense. I sacrifice only one or two cannon per city to soften up the defenders - or none, if all he has in it are rifleman.

And heck, once a city's defenders are already battered, even the venerable camel archers still get a work-out.

I wipe Suleiman off the face of the earth. Basically the only thing that slows me down is the need to march from city to city.

But not everything is roses. The tech situation is a bit grim: I'm fourth on the charts. So I beeline computers, give Medina a break from building infantry, and ...

Leonard Nimoy goes berserk.

Feeling smug, I check the new tech situation.

Asoka has satellites???!!!!???

There can be only one response: I beeline that tech as well, and:

I throw everything I can into the race for space. I have great production cities, and the space elevator, but Asoka has a bit headstart. He has several pieces done before I have my first, and my tech rate isn't as fast as I would like. Should I have thrown everything into transports and destroyers, and gone to conquer him instead? I gnaw my fingers and check the victory conditions every few turns.

As you can see, Huayna is definitely trying to back door a culture win. Hordes of Arabian spies are sent to Machu Picchu, keeping it in near constant revolt for the remainder of the space race.

(I didn't actually build the UN, by the way - Suleiman did. I just 'inherited' it.)

In the midst of my charge for space, Willem declares war on me, dragging in his vassals Hannibal and Elizabeth.

That very same turn, a UN vote comes up, and I choose 'stop the war'. I vote in favor, expecting at least that Willem will get unhappiness from defying the resolution.

Or not.

The sum total combat of the war: two Dutch destroyers sink when they attack my destroyer squadron. As far as I could see, Willem's invasion fleet was three transports, so I wasn't too worried. It was an amusing phoney war, though.

Unfortunately ...

I'm still 7 turns from launching my own spaceship. Huayna's attempt at a cultural victory has been wrecked by my spies. Willem's now making a dark horse run for it. I keep hitting enter, launching my own ship when the time comes. The "X turns to Victory!" message taunts me, as I keep going to see who will cross the finish line first out of my two opponents.

Despite losing, I had a great time with this game, and I think I learned a lot (in particular, I need to be more aggressive). Thanks for creating the map, TMIT!

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

Noble Marathon 1909AD diplo victory

Spoiler :

Well it wasnt like 3 or 4 turns into new round when diplo vote came up. My 3 lackeys voted what was good for them and ...

Not as good as last game but at least a win.

Final Graphs:

Score

Power

Hammers

Gold

Final demos

You can see from graphs how willie was a hgue pain in you know what. It took awhile but I was able to get past him EVENTUALLY but his financial and UB wehre really mking hip powerful midgame. My own economy was only half of what it was last game even though I had about the same amount of land and even had waaaay more peacetime to build up. It things like that that make me stick with noble until I can figure out how to get decent economy going everytime and not just always guessing at what is right move :/

Thankfully diplo win came up. Because tight before all of a sudden Willies beaker output dropped BIG time. I am thinking that meant the lil snot turned his culture slider to 100% and was making move for culture win.

So I did manage to pull it out thought it wasnt as easy as I think it SHOULD have been. I cant blame it ALL on just sucky GP spawns but that did hurt though. No priests no egineers only 2 scientists whole game and SEVEN great spies grrrrrr.

I guess probably 20% sucky spawns and 70% bad play that made this game tuffer than it should have been. Oh wells at least I managed to get lucky and win tho And I did have fun which is main thing so good luck to everybody else and hope you all have fun too

Kaytie

 

[Gagonite]

Hey guys, I'm semi-new to the forums, been mostly just stalking the King of the World series since Huanya Capac's beginning, and so this is my first time 'getting involved' in sometin' besides commenting.

Spoiler :

First off, I'm playing on Prince and Epic. I chose to settle in place and made my capitol my GP farm.

I was going for an early religion (Hinduism) and so my build order was:
Warrior -> Worker -> Warrior -> Settler -> Settler

Since I had a 2nd warrior from the first build, I did some quick REXing, then began to work more on improving the 3 cities I had built.

My tech path was:

Polythiesm -> Priesthood -> Masonry -> Monothiesm -> Agriculture

I was able to found Hinduism AND Judism, both in Mecca. Huanya Capac founded Bhuddism.. Luckily though, through a nice event, I was able to get Suli on my side:

And promptly opened borders with him once I got writing.

Not long after, I built the Oracle and got:

Christianity was founded in Damascus

So far I do not have any holy buildings built, though that will change here soon. I figure I'm going to have conflict with Capac soon enough, so I have plans on mining that copper and getting some defenses built.. I'm not much of a rush person, nor insanely aggressive. However, the Heathens will join us soon enough.

So, at 950 BC, here's the state of the (Fairly small so far) world:

Barbarians are just now starting to enclose my territory, so I'm going to be working on my defenses ASAP. Also, if you'd notice, Code of Laws is 3 turns from completion. As long as no one gets to it before me, I'll have founded Confusionism as well.

 

[Bleys]

Wow, I won by a nose:

Spoiler :

Well, I figured my best chance was space, so I started building research in all non-parts cities and production multipliers in all SS Part cities. Then I got a good break, popped a GP just in time, fired off the Golden Age (my first of the game), which allowed me to get to Fusion first as well. That GE plus my next pop gave me a 2nd GA back to back, in which I cranked out parts like mad. Launched my ship 4 turns before Asoka, and landed about 10 turns before Willy would have won a Cultural that I had no chance to stop (I was at .2 of his power at the end of the game, LOL). Whew, my closest space race ever.

 

[KingMorgan]

Emp/Epic to 1565AD

Spoiler :

Struggling a little, Sulieman is large and has quite a few units, Jans and Grend and knights. I've built a stack but don't think i can wipe him out, might take 2 cities on the way to his capital.

Possibly will halt the invasion and upgrade to cannons.

Asoka and willy are in the lead and teching like crazy, going to be tight whatever happens. I think i should have expanded more rather than halting after 6 cities.

Advice is greatfully recieved!!

 

[JTMacc99]

Wow, the difference between Emporer and Prince is pretty stark. I see what you guys are dealing with on the high level, and it is vastly different than my haphazard methods on Prince. Heh. I do like to win, though.

Bleys:

Spoiler :

Gah! Levees! I completely forgot about them. Well, that and democracy are certainly going to make a difference in my production. I should have been thinking about that from the beginning. You are correct that I had already played a little since my question. Mostly, I'm in the same area as your cities, but everything is a little bit different due to the fact I moved my settler 1NE before settling the captial.

Cappelan:

Spoiler :

One thing I couldn't believe was that it was 1600 AD and you still had the entire southern half of your continent in the dark! Even without open borders you could have sent a couple spies down there to take a look. As for your assessment of being more aggressive, knowing what was going on down there certainly would help you in the future. Later on, I'm going to post a couple screen shots from my game (same level and speed as you) that show why I went to war in the 1400's, even though I had a barely adequate invasion force, and limited capacity to even reinforce the cities I captured.

Basically, I took a look across the border and saw two cities (one right up against my cultural border and another one tile away) defended by archers and axes when I had a couple small stacks of camel archers and catapults just starting to come together. Also, knowledge of the territory showed me that I was a single tile away from his sole source of iron.

On the other hand, I am a big fan of your stacks of tanks and camels. Heh. You don't see that every day.

 

[Gagonite]

Just out of curiosity, what mod are you guys using (I saw multiple people using it) that makes your terrain look like the RFC terrain? With the dark-green plains and such.

 

[dubrown]

I believe it's the "Blue Marble" mod, a graphic pack that really improves the graphical experience.

 

[cripp7]

Just out of curiosity, what mod are you guys using (I saw multiple people using it) that makes your terrain look like the RFC terrain? With the dark-green plains and such.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=6 Here's where to get it, just d/l, install. I love BlueMarble, it does give Civ a like like look.
cripp

 

[JTMacc99]

I see a lot of the BUG mod too. I love the BUG mod! It does all that great stuff like tell you when the other guys are willing to trade a tech, the number of turns (and odds of type) for your next Great Person, and lets you stack up your units in the display differently.

It also has the Great General points, which is particularly useful in the beginning for that first one, and then later in the game when you might be a peace but are close enough to the next GG to alter behavior slightly and send a couple extra privateers out to pick up the last few points.

 

[JTMacc99]

Prince/Epic 1555 AD:

This actually marks the exact moment of the type of game I am likely to screw up, so it's fantastic that it happened in one of these public games.

Spoiler :

Just met the rest of the world, approximately 3 turns before I wiped out the Ottomans.

Let's go back to how I got to this point:

1140AD: I was just settling in towards plopping down one or two more cities and then doing a little city improvement while I researched the important war techs to get ready for the standard Mace/Knight/Treb offensive.

It is important to restate that I had an odd moment early on where I thought I could use my first great prophet to bulb code of laws and ended up with Theology instead. Since HC founded Bud, but had not spread it to Sully, I sent the first missionary into the dark green territory and then we became Catholic buddies. I had to bribe him back to Jesus once, but mostly we were two against one with HC. HC, being upset about that and kind of boxed in, declared on Sully at one point, and has more territory than he seems to have in many of the other games I see here.

In other words, relegion and diplomacy seems to have left me in a position where I control the top half of the continent, and the guy in the middle is my friend and noticibly weaker than the guy on the bottom. That worked out really well, don't you think?

Then in 1340AD, as I was just starting to put together a nice group of Camels with some siege, I noticed that these border cities were VERY lightly defended, the tech situation showed me with a distinct advantage for the foreseeable future, and that his sole source of Iron was right next to one of those border cities.

Well, I did what anybody playing at Prince or below should do, I jumped head-first into war despite having nothing even close to the proper number of troops ready to pick off all of those cities! No reason to wait around and let him pick up lots of longbows and pikemen, that's for sure. I sure as hell didn't want him still on the map when gunpowder hits the board.

By the way, I was researching printing press at the time, since I was looking for the bump in gold and wasn't in any particular rush to start a war when I made that decision. I went ahead and finished it, and then eventually picked up gunpowder and then optics once I saw that the war was going to be won.

Eventually I remembered that I was spiritual and flopped around a bit between civics, finally settling with monarchy, vassalage, serfdom, mercantilism, and theocracy for the duration of the war. I'll come back to that.

And, in 1555AD, the war was over and the rest of the world has come knocking on our door.

So, the economy is not so hot right now, as I've added a ton of cities with no courthouses and pretty much no commerce multiplying buildings of any kind. I now own three holy cities, although only one has a shrine. The fourth one on this continent is in Incan territory. I'm pretty sure that one has a shrine. On the bright side, I build stonehenge, so they all came with a monument. Maybe I should switch research over to nationalism or something until all my cities get their first border pop. HC culture is making a dent in my workable tiles. I chose astronomy for the trade routes, but going for rifles might be a better way to help my economy. That would give me just about enough time to shore everything up and just be done with the Incan problem once and for all.

Given that he's actaully got a tech lead on me at the moment (notice the scientific method next to his name) but I've got a power lead on him, maybe a little more war is the right way to go at the moment. I really don't want him to have rifles when I'm ready to move in with my own rifles.

As for the new world, I made a trade with the dutch, sending him a couple of valuable techs (printing press being one of them) to get back most importanly education, and his world map. Now I've just got to hurry up and build a caravel on my west coast and have it shoot across the ocean to get the circ bonus. (The east-bound caravel is on its way.) Neither of the other two guys had any techs that I don't already have.

So, that's the deal right now. I will probably switch to rifling, switch the civics to beaurcracy/slavery/organized religion for a while, which will let me build a couple banks and universities in the cottaged homeland cities and whip out some courthouses (possible some walls and applying the overflow to teh courthouses) in the new cities. I will continue to build muskets in a couple cities, just so that I will be able to defend any counter attacks from the Incans when I come knocking, and then once rifling is done, I'll upgrade the city raider maces and go right for the heart of Incan territory.

Ooh, another thought, would it make more sense to go for chemistry rather than rifles at this point? Maces to Grens are cheaper. The tech will take me 4 fewer turns to research, and CR grens would be preferable to rifles if HC figures out a way to get rifling before I'm done with him. Just a thought.

 

[Gagonite]

Thanks for the info on the mods, gonna get it immediately. The graphics definetly do look much better from the screenies. I'm curious though, does it slow gameplay at all? My game is V E R Y slow in the end game on large+ maps, and not very fast even on standard.

 

[Norvin_Green]

long-time lurker, pathetic poster (even worse at completing games though!!) giving this a go on emperor + normal. 4000 bc - 700 bc

Spoiler :

i don't mind getting crushed early in a game as nothing is worse than playing for hours & thinking you are doing well. so with that in mind,thought i would try this - saw floodplains + stone i figured i'd try for stonehenge for border pops & gp points to try and pop theology. i also figured to try and nab the pyramids. got stonehenge + 10 turns from 'mids. barbs are hassling me and pillaging. met the ottomans. two cities other than mecca - mdeina to the se nets corn, sheep, gold and silk. damascus to the south geets horses & wheat & floods but will use the hills for production city. popped hunting & mining from huts (sweet) looks like a lot of land to be had.

 

[Dirk1302]

Until ~1000 BC Deity

Spoiler :

This start looks like it might be winnable on deity so i give it a try. The land in the south is great but i get hammered by barbs from the north an area that is simply too large to be fogbusted effectively early on. Only warriors so far probably because it's a wb save. I don't mind this, it's hard enough as it is.

 

[dubrown]

Thanks for the info on the mods, gonna get it immediately. The graphics definetly do look much better from the screenies. I'm curious though, does it slow gameplay at all? My game is V E R Y slow in the end game on large+ maps, and not very fast even on standard.

You can install Blue Marble in two definition, High or low. On my computer it slowed it down a notch with high setting on my old, low end graphic card, with a better one, no trouble there anymore. But on large maps it's pretty slow for me anyway towards the end, but I put that down on lack of RAM (I only got 1Gb). But do try it, it's possible to uninstall if the performance isn't satisfactory.

 

[dubrown]

Monarch/Epic 4000BC-40AD

Spoiler :

Here we go, initial thought is to do a cottage+Bureacracy based economy here. I normally go alot SE so I'm no expert on this kind of economy. But it do looks promising from the start.

Right, I did settle in place, my initial warrior allowed me to see the gold to the east but I didn't bother to move, I figured in place was far better, else I'd lost the corn, and I do want the food from the corn to be able to work the mines, cottage all the FPs and grasslands + have a few specialists. A second city would take care of the gold.

With the FPs, I figured I had a good chance of getting Hindu, so I went for an early religion, and it did work out

After that came the important worker techs, prio here on getting Pottery, AH, Masonry and BW quickly. Masonry because by now I saw a pretty big continent so barbs would be an annoyance without the GW.

Initial buildorder was, Warrior, worker, warrior, worker, settler if I recall correctly. (Warrior because by going religion first I had time to let Mecca grow before having enough to do for a worker.)

The goody huts gave me a free tech (agri), some cash and barbs, so a mixed success there.

After BW I saw where my second city should go, right where I wanted it, had already planned the gold city in that location and now bronze as well. This would become my HE city.

And not before long with opted for another religion:

And some turns later:

And just a little while later:

By now I had my third city up and running, located by the river below Mecca, another cottage friendly city, with two strong cottagecities I figured I would have a decent enough economy to rex like h***.

So CoL from the Oracle gave me a third religion:

The rest of this segment was just rexing, cutting of my two southern neighbours, Sule and Huyana.

The Arabian reich by 40 AD:
East:

West:

Now the plan is to backfill north by rexing and taking barbcities while preparing a large enough army to erase first Sule and then Hyuana from the map, but one at a time. Techwise I'm in front on this continent but some happenings that pops from the unknown world has me worried that there's some strong teching going on some other continent.

Goal, well right now it seems a domination vic seems to be in order, so that'll be my primary goal.

Oh, and a final screenie, Thanx to the Madrassa I'm popping only Prophets which is fine by me, I have 3 shrines to build...

 

[JTMacc99]

Prince/Epic 1828AD - "Time to pick a victory condition."

Spoiler :

I've taken controll of my entire continent, and turned over the crappy Incan cities on the tundra islands to the south to my colony Cathy. (I may regret this a little, as she seems more than willing to trade my techs to the other continent. Oops.) It wasn't that hard once I got going, as I concentrated on the war techs of Rifling and Steel while HC was getting all the science techs and heading for the space race. The initial DOW had him send a big-old stack (25 or so) units right up next to my stack, so I decided to waste a couple turns and fire cannons into it, followed up with some flanking attacks to soften up the siege, and then cleaned up with the Grens. The MASH unit made quick work of healing up, and then I just started picking off the cities until I was done.

I'm in the process of slapping up levees and factories. I've also dialed back the research a few turns in order to upgrade all my CR Grens (to infantry) and all of my Frigates.

I've got a huge power lead on the other continent, so the only problem with going for domination is the fact that they will all probably try to vassalize to Asoka if I declare on one of them. I'll be at war forever if that happens as opposed to just picking them off one at a time until I'm done. (I'm considering just launching a limited attack on Liz. (I'm fairly certain I could take all three of her costal cities from the sea seconds after I Declare War. London's wonder rich, including the SoZ.) I'd have the fourth city one turn later, and then I just have to hurry up before she goes to the Indians for help.

OR, I could go for the space victory. My research will quickly outpace the other civs, and production is going up wildly with the addition of levees and democracy. This would take longer (turn-wise) but take less effort on my part.


If I decide for domination, I should probably pick up Flight after physics, and then head for tanks. Tanks and airports should let me blitz through the other continent like Sh*t through a goose while flying in CGIII Paratroopers and Marines to reinforce the shiny new cities until I reach the Land Limit.