It’s been a long time since I had stone in my capital’s BFC, which can lead to bad habits with building too many stone wonders. Sent my warrior 1S on the stone hill to see what else I could find about the starting position. Debating between the stone and in place – the reasons are already listed by the posters above.
I decided to settle in place – organized leader and coastal access is nice, even without fishing or sailing. Initial thoughts before starting: I’ve got 1-2 wonders in mind right off the bat, however, these traits were made for military rexing, so need to keep that in mind. Sets up well for vassalage/theocracy and a screw the world approach, potentially, but need to see the map and the opponents. I’m 50-50 on Stonehenge – 90 hammers to raise the early happy cap, but I think all those magic monuments would disappear at calendar, so almost better off whipping the monument in each early city instead. I guess if I don’t see any calendar resources while building my worker, that’s a viable option, because I could delay calendar awhile.
Engineering and Math are likely priority techs after researching the early military/worker techs. I like Hanging Gardens and Notre Dame for early big cities which can be supported by cheap courthouses and cheap civics. Also considering as wonders the Mids and Kremlin, and depending on what happens w/religion, I could put Sankore on the list of possible wonders. Not sure about great wall – I tend to prefer to avoid that when I have charismatic because I want experience for my barb busters. I figure I need to explore a bit to decide whether to peacefully rex, rush, or try for the mids or other stone wonders – all are viable strategies with Napoleon.
Ok, so here goes. I settled in place, and start exploring, built a worker while teching AH – military techs along with masonry and fishing are top priorities. Depending on how much coast I see, may try for GLH with the fast lighthouse. Then, a WTH – Islam was founded on turn 6?!?!?!!?
There’s got to be some sort of twist on this map then – either choose religions, or something else weird. Maybe choose religions with Saladin? And then I see “Atlantis converts to Islam. Ok, I’m totally lost. I don’t think I’ve played any of these games with a twist, but then again, I’ve just started to play some of these series posted on this site about a month or so ago.
First meeting – right as he founds Buddhism. To the east, appears to be somewhat close. But not a good rush option as he’s protective.
Next meeting - Bismarck – west or southwest. In between I lose a couple of goody huts to Charlie’s scout because I explored the wrong direction.
No horses so far, so teching to BW to see if there’s copper. At least my closest neighbors are both loyal if pleased. Meet JC, Brennus and then on turn 52, a great artist has been born? What on earth? I am so unbelievably confused at this point. I’ve discovered horses, there’s copper nearby, and I already have a warrior with 5 XP thanks to beating bears. So time to try to claim the horses. It appears that there’s a lot of land for me to settle, which means rex, rex, rex and whip those monuments. I think I can safely backfill the copper, so time to get those horses first.
Then, I find myself in this situation:
Sometimes, I guess you just have to take what the map gives you. I assume he’ll be an early target of mine anyway, and I’m tired of constant culture games, so…
From here until just about when I ended, the game really did not go well. First, I spotted a barbarian, and sent my worker ahead just in case…sure enough:
Thankfully, my worker maneuvered safely back into my territory unescorted. I settled Lyons here, as I was thinking I could block off some land and backfill later.
That kind of backfired, because I didn't get another settler down there until it was too late, and didn't block the other spot I wanted. Mainly b/c Bismarck was adamant about wanting Lyons, so he waited forever to finally allow peace, sending chariots at my promoted chariots as well as a couple of spears in Lyons. Basically though, it took me about 60 turns to finally get peace - very costly. Little mistakes really do add up on monarch level.
Finally, after Izzy had spread hindu to both of us, he gave me peace. Meanwhile, my expansion didn’t go as well as I’d like either. The barbs were insane!!! Hindsight, I should have peacefully rexed. Barb axes, spears and archers were everywhere. Also should have hooked copper up before horses - axes were what I needed because of all the barb spears I saw. In fact, I was one turn from losing Orleans to a spear (I only had horses hooked up) when I connected my copper, and whipped an axe just in time. I’ll be rewarded for this later hopefully, with powerful troops. I used Paris for wonders, and other cities for units/settlers/workers. Trying to block off land. My tech rate is crappy, but I used a couple of decent trade bait techs (math and HBR) to backfill. Barbs were helpful though, as they built a couple of cities which were easy for me to take. Razed one as I wanted to resettle for what will be a great site once Moai is built. Brought a settler with me to the other to relo it to coastal, but they added 100 or so gold.
I forgot to take screenies, so I’ll show you what I built in Paris.
So far I’ve been way too late about building cottages, and it’s cost me, as I’m not doing really well with tech. Got alphabet, archery and IW in a few trades with my fellow hindus. I decided to play nice to hindus for a bit, while trying to get 2-3 more cities and cottages laid down. I have several outstanding production sites too. So here I am with 8 cities in 190 AD, but a poor tech rate, nowhere near currency or code of laws. I’m running some scientists to try to get to currency. I do have one thing going for me, and that’s a great engineer that popped in Paris. I just finished teching aesthetics/literature for trade bait, the heroic epic, and the option to go great library. I was thinking about the engineer for notre dame, but right now, great library might be just what I need to bump my tech rate. This is where I cut off – empire and tech situation.
I'm ok, but not where I'd like to be - I didn't block off Bismarck as well as i wanted because of all those stupid barbs. See the block sign on the bottom left - that was my intended block, but he got a settler there first. Still think I'm in ok shape with 8 cities and at least 1, maybe 2, decent backfill spots. Biggest fear is Charlie - I'm part of the hindu block, he's buddhist and right next to me. I need to get my heroic epic built and start spamming units. Also need to start growing more, because my happy cap is sky high now that I'm in rep, with monuments and charismatic.
) Settling on the stone completely removes the clams from the BFC but replaces it with irrigated rice which is 5
without the need of a lighthouse and with biology grows to 6
.
.
from monument). Then I was going to go settler, but I can build the Great Wall in like - 8 turns now, which I get down to 5 turns because I've got a worker ready to chop a tile. I can't turn that down, so I delay my REX for 5 turns and chop the wall, and I'm really glad I did because...
(again.)
