NC XIV: Saladin of Arabia

[dubrown]

Monarch/Epic ~40AD- ~1500AD

Spoiler :

Right, this will be a short segment picturewise as I forgot the screenie button. More screenies will follow in the last segment that will follow shortly. Otherwise it's a pretty long segment gamewise.

When we left of last time we had established a base for Rexing and building up an army. With the Madrassa I continued to pump out Prophets for my two other shrines, making a decent economical base

I actually went for two other wonders, my last of the early to mid ages.

Hanging gardens because I needed health with all those FPs on this continent.

And of course, Angkor Wat. With the Madrassa UB it's a pretty good wonder to have.

Well, now I felt the time was right to hit Suleman. I didn't have a strong army as I'd wanted, but he was weak, I was techwise ahead and the best thing, he had no iron or copper, so he massed HAs and bows
My little stack, ready for attack

Then my screeniefinger forgot itself in all the fighting. The short version is that Suleman fell pretty quickly, no iron or copper is pretty devastating for the AI.

I kept most of his cities, only razed the ones that where poorly placed. Next target was Hyuana. He was a thougher nut to crack. He had Iron and copper and horses for that matter, techwise fairly equal, but I wanted to see how good the camelarcher was in battle, so I waited until I had a good army of those, sad to say that I missed out on the screenies, it was a good SoD.

Nevertheless, I started fighting, it was a border clash after I took the first of his cities, I played it safe and let him deplete his troops on my defenses until I had massed another stack. Also, this time I had Muskets, which he didnt have, Protective muskets is pretty good, promoted on the drill line...

So, two SoDs, containing of Camel archers, Maces, Drill Muskets and Trebs did take care of Hyuanas last resistance. But instead of killing his useless island cities I opted to vassalise him instead. He was no threat and didn't pose any cultural pressure threat anymore either, so it was for the best.

Lot's of words and no pictures, are there anyone reading?

After this followed a long period of peace in my side of the world, on the other continent, Asoka was the big gun, he had Lizzy as volontary vassal and Hannibal had capitulated to him. Asoka was a bit ahead in tech at this point, likewise was Willem, my only possible targets to pursue a domination victory would've been Hannibal or Lizzy. But as vassals to Asoka, it was a path I didn't want to take a chance on. So I turned away from any thoughts on domination, space was my new goal, with a high techrate, very high production in many cities it's a real possibility.

The exciting end of the story will follow shortly.

 

[dubrown]

Monarch/Epic ~1500AD~1935AD, Victory by space (imageheavy...)

Spoiler :

In the year of 1870 we had left a quiet time of building infra and teching like a maniac behind us. Now things where starting to get exciting.

The Arabian empire in 1870
NorthWest

West

Southwest

Northeast

East

Southeast

Willem built the UN (to explain, the AP got built by Hannibal in the christian religion, a religion I didn't have and didn't get so it didn't bother me). Lucky me Willem built the UN though, he wasn't well liked on the other continent so most of the votes to me.

Unfortunately, when it came to voting for a diplomatic victory, I was always a bit short of the goal, Asoka didn't want to support anyone in that voting, I tried it 3-4 times or something. And no, I didn't want to give away valuable techs in the spacerace to perhaps gain his vote.

In 1870, the techsituation was as follows, things started to look pretty good.

Also, in this segment I had pulled of a few wonders, The Kreml and The Pentagon, both which suited my gameplan.

I also had, some time ago, entered my final civic setup, which stayed to the end.

The spacerace was on, I managed to be first to build the Apollo program, I opted to race for techs with spaceparts in, skipping valuable military techs on the way, but that I would shortly backfill with this.

Now it was just crunch out all those spaceparts. And in 1921 it was liftoff in Mecca

To recap the victory conditions

It seems I'm safe for the space victory, but Willem is a bit to close to cultural for my taste. Lucky for me I was prepared for this and unlucky for Willem he had a coastal city amongst the top culture ones.

So

I actually had a carrier with modern jets along as well, or so I thought, my computer is lagging alot when selecting this size of a mixed stack, so it didn't come along for the ride, no worries though, everything went well as you can se below.

That one bagged me alot of wonders, amongst them the UN. I went for two more of his cities before calling him up. He did capitulate quite easily. It went fairly easy as the first thing I did after getting my bombers overseas was take out his only oil.

So, the final addition to the Arabian empire

And the final statistics

Last, the moment I waited for

To recap, Given a little more time, I'd most likely pulled of a domination by capturing more of Willems land, I got over the pop limit but not the land limit.

It was a pretty fun game, my only mistake was to delay optics alot, sure, I got the circumnav bonus but I could've caught up earlier in the techrace and perhaps gotten an earlier victory if I had meet all the AIs earlier.

That's all folks!

 

[JTMacc99]

Prince/Epic 1855AD - Flexing some muscle overseas, contemplating the quickest road to domination.

Spoiler :

I think it took me about 10 total turns to finish off the English. The Dutch were at war with her when I landed my infantry and siege units next to the three coastal cities. There were quite a few redcoats in play, so it did take a little bit of effort to soften up London and the two inland cities. Fortunately, a half dozen fighters were available by the third turn of the war, and they did excellent work speeding up the process.

Also of interest was that the Dutch rolled a stack of 12 calvalry and a couple catapults up to London while I was getting ready to make it my own. I had to be careful not to kill most of the redcoats in a turn without making sure that I'd actually capture the city in the same turn, because I sure as heck didn't want the Dutch to finish the job.

Both fortunately and unfortunately, the entire stack of calvary charged into the redcoats and did very little damage while allowing a couple more defenders to get to be CGIII and letting a GG be born there. Sadly, she opted to attach him to a redcoat rather than settling him.

Anyway, the English "police action" is over now, and I am contemplating the quickest way to get my domination victory. Here's the victory conditions screen:

Basically, I need to figure out a way to claim a big bunch of land as quickly as possible. I'm not really interested in quality so much as I am quantity. I guess I should crank out a couple settlers and fill in the icy gaps in my own territory while I'm at it.

Here's a look at the smoldering ruins of the English civilization.

I just finished industrialism (whohoo! Tanks!) and am diverting from the next war techs (radio, then rockets) for medicine due the god-awful polution problems in some of my better production cities.

I decided to give you a quick look at the stack in a local Indian city. Lots of old stuff, so I'm not really sure what to make of that. Hannibal (vassal of Asoka) has a higher quality stack of artillery and rifles in Carthage. Nobody has infantry at the moment, and Asoka doesn't even have combustion yet.

The Dutch have decent war techs, and an odd land configuration. I'm leaning away from making him the next target, just because it would be a pain to coordinate the attack.

I think what I might do is go all-out military unit production at home (sans a few health related builds and a couple more airports to help with the supply chain) and land a couple of 15+ stacks of tanks on the Indian WEST coast (northwest, to be specific), which is currently defended by longbows. That big area of purple looks like the cleanest way to grab the rest of the land required.

I suppose Hannibal will march his stacks into my new old English territory, but I'll have a bunch of CGIII paratroopers/marines/infantry with plenty of fighter cover waiting for that stupidness.

I'll have similar paratroopers and marines waiting to be airlifted into the cities my tanks take, and I need to remember to have a few bombers ready to relocate over there as well. Artillery will be too slow to keep up with my tanks.

Oh yeah, and one more thing, I think I might also switch over to Theocracy from free religion when I start the unit spam. I always forget I'm spiritual and can make this move with no anarchy. I also have a couple turns left from the pentagon going up in my Iron Works city, so maybe I don't need to do this. Free religion is certainly contributing greatly to my success right now.

 

[JTMacc99]

Prince/Epic - 1897 Domination Victory

Spoiler :

After wiping out the English, I used my massive production capibility to build a big old stack of tanks and a bunch of carriers/battleships. I sailed my destroyers and transports around to the east coast and waited until all 9 transports were filled with tanks (and a few artillery and marines as well.)

Then I broke the fleet into three groups and cruised up to the Indian west coast and took three cities with the first wave. Then I started flying in paratroopers and marines to fortify the new cities as the tanks regrouped and moved on to the next cities.

Here's a look at the consolidated fleet, which didn't have much to do other than use the fighters to soften up the inland defenders. I found it to be very useful to have at least one ship in the carrier group to have the promotion, which lets the fighters heal up quicker due to taking the SAM damage.

I also took a couple of Hannibal's cities, but he broke free from Asoka and I immediately took him as a vassal. Eventually I took control of every single Indian city and then in 1897 as the cities popped out of revolt, this:

This game basically played out as REX to the time of the UU and then all out war from then to the end. This made a lot of sense, as the protective trait helps a lot with REX, as you need fewer units to feel safe. The UB also helps a great deal with land grab, because it makes you a semi-creative civ with all that extra early culture.

I think the real key for the domination victory came from the land on this continent. All of the rivers and all of the grass/floodplain tiles with cottages on them first allowed me to keep up with a world filled with financial civs. Then, when I picked up the steam power/democracy combination, this happened:

I forget who pointed out the Levees earlier in this thread, but it was very helpful. I put a real emphasis on getting them and democracy, and the extra two hammers per riverside town pretty much put the nail in the coffin for the rest of the world.


ETA: Ah, it was Bleys who said this to me:

"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! "

Thanks!

 

[Dirk1302]

@Dubrown and JTMacc99, looking at your updates i think you both should have played a at least a level higher .I've finished this game, i'll try to write something about it tonight.

 

[JTMacc99]

@Dubrown and JTMacc99, looking at your updates i think you both should have played a at least a level higher .I've finished this game, i'll try to write something about it tonight.

Yeah, I agree. I play mostly at Monarch these days, but I try to do so with the crutch of a financial civ while I work out my strategies. I thought I might have difficulty with the less helpful traits here, but as it turned out, they fit very nicely with the way this game played out.

 

[Fierabras]

Monarch/Epic

4000 BC - 175 AD

Spoiler :

I first tried the religious path, but failed to get Hinduism first, so I restarted...

In the next try I popped Masonry from the first hut next to the capital! I followed the following tech path:

Agriculture - Mining - BW - Hunting - (popped AH!) - Archery - Pottery - Writing - Mathematics.

Build order in the capital: Worker - Warrior (grow to size 2) - Settler - Stonehenge(!)

I lost my 2 warriors to barb animals and had to dance around a lion to get my unescorted settler to found a 2nd city near the gold to the east.

I decided to go for Mathematics early for the chopping bonus. Then I went wonder-crazy in Medina and build the Great Wall (1225 BC), Pyramids (750 BC) and Hanging Gardens (275 BC) in Medina. I actually was going to skip the Great Wall, but I noticed it would be good to have it against the barbarians coming from the north and west. It did delude my GP-points though, while I was trying to generate a Great Engineer.

Before I finished the Hanging Gardens I made sure to expand from 4 to 8 cities to make good use of the +1 population bonus. Until then I had mostly build Archers, Workers and Settlers and I started to cottage all those floodplains. With happiness from Representation (Pyramids) and enough health bonus (Hanging Gardens) my cities where growing big.

After Mathematics I followed the next tech path:

Alphabet - Fishing - Meditation - Currency

I traded Polytheism for Writing, Priesthood and IW for Alphabet, Monotheism and Sailing for Alphabet. I teched Fishing to trade for Sailing and Meditation to bulb Theology with my Great Prophet. After that I traded Currency and Mathematics for MC and Currency for Monarchy.

Next, I took a bit of a risk and went for:

Aesthetics - Literature

I was either going to rush the Great Library with a possible Great Engineer or build it by hooking up the marble in the icy north. Luckily, I got the GE and rushed the Great Library in my floodplain city Damascus south of my capital.

Below are some screenshots of my empire and my first 3 cities:

Capital:

GP-farm:

Science/Commerce city:

I still haven't switched to Christianity, because of the diplo demerits with the Hinduist buddies Suleiman and Huyana. I think I will soon though for the Organized Religion build bonus, becuase I need markets and courthouses for my economy and I want to build the AP in my capital for which I saved the forests all this time.

I think Machinery is the key tech now for several reasons: Engineering, crossbowmen and macemen. I'm not sure if I should trade Theology for Construction with Huyana, before I finish the AP.

 

[dubrown]

@Dubrown and JTMacc99, looking at your updates i think you both should have played a at least a level higher .I've finished this game, i'll try to write something about it tonight.

I win most of my monarch games these days, though not all of them. But the NC is actually Monarch light with no archery for the AI, so perhaps it's time to move up a level next NC.

But I'm not a fully complete Monarch level player yet. I do lack something, mostly the patience, after a while I tend to start clicking away and not thinking ahead and thus often loosing out in thight spots.

 

[JTMacc99]

Fierabras:

Spoiler :

That's a very nice group of cites! I would HIGHLY recommend getting the rest of the continent scouted ASAP, even if you need to do it with spies. In my game, knowledge of the other guys' situations made a big difference in the way I thought it was going to go.

 

[dubrown]

Monarch/Epic

4000 BC - 175 AD

Spoiler :

I first tried the religious path, but failed to get Hinduism first, so I restarted...

In the next try I popped Masonry from the first hut next to the capital! I followed the following tech path:

Agriculture - Mining - BW - Hunting - (popped AH!) - Archery - Pottery - Writing - Mathematics.

Build order in the capital: Worker - Warrior (grow to size 2) - Settler - Stonehenge(!)

I lost my 2 warriors to barb animals and had to dance around a lion to get my unescorted settler to found a 2nd city near the gold to the east.

I decided to go for Mathematics early for the chopping bonus. Then I went wonder-crazy in Medina and build the Great Wall (1225 BC), Pyramids (750 BC) and Hanging Gardens (275 BC) in Medina. I actually was going to skip the Great Wall, but I noticed it would be good to have it against the barbarians coming from the north and west. It did delude my GP-points though, while I was trying to generate a Great Engineer.

Before I finished the Hanging Gardens I made sure to expand from 4 to 8 cities to make good use of the +1 population bonus. Until then I had mostly build Archers, Workers and Settlers and I started to cottage all those floodplains. With happiness from Representation (Pyramids) and enough health bonus (Hanging Gardens) my cities where growing big.

After Mathematics I followed the next tech path:

Alphabet - Fishing - Meditation - Currency

I traded Polytheism for Writing, Priesthood and IW for Alphabet, Monotheism and Sailing for Alphabet. I teched Fishing to trade for Sailing and Meditation to bulb Theology with my Great Prophet. After that I traded Currency and Mathematics for MC and Currency for Monarchy.

Next, I took a bit of a risk and went for:

Aesthetics - Literature

I was either going to rush the Great Library with a possible Great Engineer or build it by hooking up the marble in the icy north. Luckily, I got the GE and rushed the Great Library in my floodplain city Damascus south of my capital.

Below are some screenshots of my empire and my first 3 cities:

Capital:

GP-farm:

Science/Commerce city:

I still haven't switched to Christianity, because of the diplo demerits with the Hinduist buddies Suleiman and Huyana. I think I will soon though for the Organized Religion build bonus, becuase I need markets and courthouses for my economy and I want to build the AP in my capital for which I saved the forests all this time.

I think Machinery is the key tech now for several reasons: Engineering, crossbowmen and macemen. I'm not sure if I should trade Theology for Construction with Huyana, before I finish the AP.

@Fierabras

Spoiler :

Looks pretty good so far for you. Though I just wonder one thing. Medina as GP farm? Sure, you got high production there to get lots of wonders but it's low on food to run any specialists, atleast pre biology.

In my game, Medina ended up in the same spot but I turned it into my HE city, crunching out troops very quickly. I actually was lazy so I didn't run any pure GP farm in my game, the capital did provide enough GPs though, despite being tuned towards Bureocracy with lots of cottages.

 

[Fierabras]

@dubrown

Spoiler :

Yeah, Medina isn't really a GP-farm, I better make it a military city like you did. I need a Great Prophet first from Mecca to build a shrine and after that I'll probably end up generating a Great Scientist from Damascus sooner than anything from Medina. I founded Christianity in Medina, by the way, so it will get the shrine.

 

[Dirk1302]

I win most of my monarch games these days, though not all of them. But the NC is actually Monarch light with no archery for the AI, so perhaps it's time to move up a level next NC.

But I'm not a fully complete Monarch level player yet. I do lack something, mostly the patience, after a while I tend to start clicking away and not thinking ahead and thus often loosing out in thight spots.

Barbarians without archery helped a lot indeed, else i'd have had to kill 60 + archers pre 500 bc. Unfortunately 500 BC axes and spears appeared anyway.

 

[Dirk1302]

Deity until 800 AD

Spoiler :

I played this game to a finish but to report the whole game in any kind of detail is to much in one go.

After scouting the land it occurred to me that if i'm able to grab all the floodplains and can block the ais off i just might have enough land to win a space race without ever going to war. I start with Ag obviously, then pottery, would have been mining but i pop masonry from a hut so i can quarry the stone hill immed. After pottery i need hunting archery asap, no time left to gamble on horses/bronze nearby.

I get hammered by barb warriors from the north from ~2000 bc, there's no way i can fogbust all that land so instead i road the vulnerable spots and build a few archers. since i started with barracks in capital and we're protective these archers start out really strong and kill barbs with ease. I think i could have handled arches also by connecting the copper in the east earlier, would sure have been more difficult though.
As it is i end up killing 66 warriors, 8 axes, 5 spears, 4 archers.

I begin blocking off the north with a city near floodplains /wheat, then the east with a city near gold/copper/corn. I need to watch Sulei, it'd be a pity if he got past to take the peninsula.

From that point I keep spamming cities/workers sometimes building an axe to keep the barbs at bay. Research is low for a very long time as all my cities are small whipping infra and new settlers. I only really grow the capital but i have to whip there now and again too. 500 AD i'm at 100 bpt which is low, i get currency shortly after and the situation's looking better now.

Lib's just been taken 780 AD by some tech hog on the other side

But my empire which counts 9 cities already is finally coming online, it'll have huge research around 1200 AD. Both Ais are friendly towards me so no danger there despite the fact that Sulei's power's 10 times as big as mine.

In love

Always sell your resources

Backward as so often on this level

 

[Dresden]

It's about time I actually finished one of these....

Settings, etc:

• Noble/Epic
• Choose Religions option
• Unofficial Patch 0.20 (internal testing)
• BUG Mod 3.5
• Blue Marble 4

Early Game (4000BC - 1000BC)

Spoiler :

Start: Settled in place, sent warrior exploring, builds were worker -> warrior -> settler.

Tech: Agr -> Mining -> Pottery -> BW.

Around 25 turns in, met the Inca who grabbed the first religion (Islam) and then met the Ottomans about 15 turns later. Next 2 religions (Christianity & Judaism) were founded IADL.

Exploring warrior popped some gold huts and killed a bunch of animals netting Woody II. He also mapped out the borders of the other 2 civs and continued clearing the black in the South. Much, much later he popped hut XP, promoted to Woody III, and took out a couple barbs too.

BW came in a couple turns before the settler was done and the revealing of nearby Copper made my second city choice easy. I took the settler 5 tiles due East and founded along the river which would grab Corn and Copper immediately, Gold after a border pop, and Silk after Calendar. I also got lucky and popped Gold on an early grassland hill mine in Mecca.

As this is a low sea level game and it looks like we have a huge continent for just 3 civs, I decided fairly early that I really wanted the Great Wall to repel the barbs. I also decided that there would be no early rush; while I had easy copper access and two strong production cities, I had no desire to either isolate myself early or cripple one of my neighbors and leave the entire southern half of the continent to the other. My focus would be establishing a border along the Northern edge of the Jungle and settling out the North while concentrating troops along the border. There's plenty of room here and the AIs can rent the jungle for now.

So, next came Masonry to hook up the stone and Fishing -> Sailing so I could network my cities. After that I went for Writing for our lovely Madrassas and Alphabet for trading. I also grabbed Hunting & Archery because they were cheap and I figured a few Protective archers along the Southern border couldn't hurt and would help keep my power even.

Mecca had excellent production and commerce potential so I dropped some cottages along with my mines and figured it would be a bit of a hybrid doing some wonderspamming and still making money. Medina was to be a production workhorse to be my prime unit-builder although there was enough food for a couple grassland cottages eventually there too.

The next cities were all slated to block off the South and start exploiting the huge amounts of floodplains. Damascus was settled just North of the wheat at turn 88 and started a monument which will be whipped for border-popping while Medina began cranking axemen and Mecca started the Great Wall (1750 BC; 19 turns to start although it actually took about half that.) After completing the GW, I decided to take a late shot at the 'mids too. Given the difficulty level and the fact that no other Wonders have been built yet, I figured I had a good chance.

The fourth city, Baghdad was settled along the Eastern coast just South of the plains hill. It's actually a fairly bad location as it is squeezed between the mountains and the sea, but it'll do the three things I most wanted from it: be a decent secondary unit-producer, give me a coastal presence, and solidify the South-Eastern border. In a perfect world, settling further NW to get the corn and sheep in the first-ring would be best, but because Suleiman's second city went NW into the jungle I want to block him off right now and this spot is about halfway between him and Medina. It also leaves enough room for a later fill-in city to get the sheep.

Late-round techs were AH which revealed horses by Damascus and Mathematics; Iron Working was up next. I didn't have much jungle but I wanted to see if I had any Iron and build a couple swords in case of unruly neighbors. I also opened borders with both HC and Sully so I could map out their territory, get some early trade routes going, and maybe get Islam to spread to me. Since there was only one religion on the continent, I didn't expect any real diplo problems from it at this point.

Here are the map of the empire, Mecca, the info screen graphs, and the demographics in 975 BC (thumbnails link to full-size.) You might notice that Mecca is working a 3 normal grassland mine instead of the 2 8 grassland gold. There's pretty much no excuse for that; I had the governor emphasizing production and simply didn't notice it at the time. But now you understand why I play Noble.

 

[cripp7]

@Dresden

Spoiler :

How did you change the interface colors?

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

@cripp he is using blue marble graphics mod

Kaytie

 

[Dirk1302]

Until space 1836 AD

Spoiler :

Developed the rest of the land, as expected research is very high, almost all the other ais are techers too so i don't manage to get a tech lead. But i build internet 1680 AD. I could have researched on but i decide to take some 10 turns off to buy all the espionage buildings.

As it is i probably wouldn't have needed them if i had researched straight on, as it is i thwart Willem's cultural ambitions by influencing him from free speech to buro. I also incite some revolts in his third culture city. I destroy Sulei's docking bay as he completes the last tech for the race.

2 tunrs later iirc i launch myself, reaching alpha 1836 AD. I don't think i have ever been there sooner but buying the spy buildings has cost me. Still espionage was the safest way i think, you can't be sure which expensive techs you get when from internet.

Btw if you have internet it's relatively safe to go fiber-fusion. Never go composites, you're almost sure to get it as long as you've got 2 competitors, ais also tend to like superconductors but this is not as clear.

This was really an incredible good start, the fast teching ais made it difficult though.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Emp/normal, try #2:

To the end.

Spoiler :

Alright, last time I lost to a religious victory, over there to liz who had but a few cities. This was a bad draw...religious autospread then insta loss, almost after meeting them .

Disenchanted, I took a break for a while. Now I came back to make this one end differently.

I settled in place, and went AG, mining, BW. Found copper to the east and settled it/gold/food. I optimized both cities for hammers. Terrifying hammers. They spit units out for most of the early game, although I did briefly take time to oracle CoL off a beeline to that.

The results of this Axe/spear rush:

That's pretty helpful since it puts currency a tech away. Still, @ -22 gpt how does one get there? Well:

I took a bunch of cities and even with courthouse whips it was hurting, but currency turned things around. It stopped the bleeding long enough that I could also leave the cities building my way to calendar, then I started finishing courthouses/MARKETS, using the bottom cities for commerce. I moved the palace to Istanbul (since my original capitol was abysmally set to hammers, but istanbul was nice already and improving fast)...this also cut maintenance a lot before I put FP up north again. The old axe mills up there switch to worker/settle mills, and I filled the continent easily using the axes and spears for garrison.

Not surprisingly I met the other guys while backward but it's amazing how fast that many cities can make you a factor. I had an easy win plan though:

UN. Three people who like FR. I tried to get Asoka or Liz to build the UN instead of Willem (had they done so, my pop was overtaking willem's fast and I'd have gotten HIS vote, but alas he got the UN first despite my efforts). However, even though the wrong person got the UN, both Asoka and Liz were friendly, hannibal was small, and Willem dropped to aout 35% of the pop while my western cities grew (emphasize food!). You need about 60% (just over) to win UN.

Yep.

I'll host the next NC once there's at least a FEW votes by the community for who to use. Check out the bullpen if you have a preference!

 

[Dresden]

@TMIT:

Spoiler :

Nice. As you will eventually see once I get the rest of my reports up, I also got a diplo victory and what is interesting to me is that I had to take the opposite approach. You had several friends and needed to emphasize food to get enough UN votes, but I had only one tiny friend so I actually stagnated and had to increase rivals' AP votes to get under the monopoly limit.

 

[Dresden]

Next installment.

Settings, etc:

• Noble/Epic
• Choose Religions option
• Unofficial Patch 0.20 (internal testing)
• BUG Mod 3.5
• Blue Marble 4 (this is what causes the gold-colored interface)

Early Mid-Game (1000BC - 500 AD)

Spoiler :

At this point I am in peaceful builder mode. I want to finish closing off my Southern border, build enough units to keep my power even with the AIs, grab some wonders, and go meet the rest of the world. I am also looking to get an AI religion to spread to me to have good relations with one or both of my neighbors.

In 900BC, Sully techs CoL and grabs Buddhism so now I have two potential religions. My newest cities are whipping monuments and then once the wears off granaries. Mecca is still working on the 'Mids and Medina is cranking out axemen. Some station the border, others head into the snow to train against barbs, and one gets sent as the initial defender of any further cities I found. I mix in an occasional archer too for the border cities; they're cheap and I want to do something with my protective trait early on.

It only takes a few turns and Buddhism spreads to Mecca. As Sully is probably more trustworthy than HC anyway, I don't hesitate to immediately adopt it and once Iron Working was done, I grab the cheap religious techs to be able to construct monasteries/temples and run OR. After teching Meditation I can swap with Sully for Priesthood and then head for the others. Since my choice of friends was made, I also closed borders with HC and when Sully asked for "help" in the form of Monotheism, I gave it to him.

Mecca continues Wonder spamming with #3 when the Hanging Gardens finishes which matches the total number of Wonders built everywhere else in the world (Stonehenge and Artemis BIADL and Cuzco has the Oracle). Just before 1AD the Inca pop a prophet and after building the Muslim shrine they go into WHEOOH mode which was not entirely unexpected. I have 5XP axemen, a couple swordsmen, and protective archers and the Inca have a bunch of jungle to slog through to get here so I'm not worried; I'm also still ahead of them on the power graph. However they are teching construction so I need to continue adding troops and keep Sully happy in case they show up with cats and I want his help. It all turned out to be a big bluff though this time; HC backed out of WHEOOH a couple hundred years later without sending a single troop my way.

After the early religious techs were done I went economic and grabbed CoL, Currency, and then Calendar to hook up some of my silks; after that it was time for Theology. Didn't particularly want a religion since Buddhism is spreading nicely for me, but I did want to control the AP. I made sure that Buddhism was in all my core cities before Theology came in to try and direct my free religion (I chose Hinduism) to a coastal/floodplain city I had taken from the barbs. It would be a strong commerce site later on and with an eventual shrine would be a great Wall Street location; the ploy worked and Chinook became Holy.

Sully wanted to swap Monarchy for Theology after I finished it but there was no chance of that. Since I had no wines and could already run HR through the Pyramids, Monarchy was pointless until I wanted to go after Feudalism and I don't need any competition on the AP build. Given the Inca situation I went for Construction myself next too and followed it with MC for forges and to head down the Optics path. I never even considered the Colossus (or Great Lighthouse) with my empire being almost entirely landlocked still. I only had two coastal cities; the one in the East (Baghdad) was busy making troops and the one in the West (Chinook, the Holy Hindu city) couldn't build anything without the help of the .

I won the first AP election but it was very close since HC was voting for him too. I am also building a couple of spies at this point to map out HC's territory since we no longer have OB. My first great person was a Spy from the GW who was settled and at the end of this round another is on the way with chances of 61% engineer, 34% spy, or 5% priest.

Here are maps of the continent (culture view), Wonder-ful Mecca, and my graphs and demographics at the end of the round.