NC XXXIV: Pericles

[ppciv4]

acadamy 2000BC guy comes.
longlive Pericle.

 

[Groogaroo]

My games plodding along, not as quickly as I might have liked, but things are going fairly smoothly.


Update 400AD Monarch/Epic

Spoiler :

Things are going okay in my game, though slower than I'd hoped.

I managed to fight my way out of the trashy lands we started in, taking on sitting bull with phlanx & cats. Took three of his cities including his captital then sued for peace in exchange for monarchy. the main religions are split 50/50 between Buddism and Judaism. I joined the buddists primarily to keep Monty happy.

I was planning to just keep pushing with war this game and go for a domination win, first finishing off Sitting bull then perhaps going after Monty or Hannibal next but to be honest I feel like I'm going to start lagging behind in tech soon my economy isn't too strong right now and further war could really put me behind for a while.

I may do a bit of a U-turn and go for a cheeky cultural win...

Looking at my empire I have 9 cities and 5 religions nice round numbers and I'm in a prime place to win the lib race having bulbed philo and with a scientist in reserve for education.


Screenies

Empire

Sitting Bulls remaining cities

My Cities

Religion

 

[Amao]

Groogaroo:

Spoiler :

It will be hard for a domination win considering a terra map.

and you want to fix your Religion map as:

 

[Groogaroo]

@Amao

Spoiler :

It will be hard for a domination win considering a terra map.

I guess I should have really taken my time reading the opening post!

Thanks for the heads up on the religion map I fixed it.

 

[Sleepless]

Emperor/Normal

Spoiler :

I finished this some time back and forgot to post the details. So here goes.

I played a totally peaceful game. Except for the barbs in the new lands that is. I managed to settle most/capture of lands at the cost to my economy. The aim in the end was to reach the stars.

I kept Hannibal from beating Monte the whole game to keep him smaller and apart from that it was just a case of keeping teching whilst settling the new lands. Not a bad tech rate at the end though.

 

[Tibur753]

Monarch, Normal Speed

To 800BC:

Spoiler :

Settled 1E. Working the plains hill to get a workboat out on turn 6 then will switch to the crabs and build another workboat until it reaches size 2 and begin a worker. We begin with fishing and hunting which will improve all of our resources so my initial tech path is Mining>BW>Masonry to chop the mids early right after I settle a city or two. Then I will try to settle as much land as I can while teching towards CoL to start up an SE.

Find SB directly to the north with his capital on a hill.This means that I might have to wait a while before I attack. I might do a medieval war against him if I things work out right.

I met Monty next, who founded buddhism. Very difficult leaders so far, hopefully there will be better ones soon. Hopefully I can get his religion soon so he'll go after someone else.

After the worker I immediately start on a settler so that I might be able to claim a good city between me and Native America. There is a source of copper in the ice to the east and I think the best spot might be 1W of the deer where it has 4 riverside grasslands, a silver, and 2 food resources.

I settled Sparta very close to Sitting Bull where it has the cow, wine, and a few hills. It's not a great city, but it will have okay production and will block him off from settling near me. Creative really helps in pushing back his borders.

Corinth is settled in the copper spot I had mentioned earlier. SB setted 3N of it a while back so, once again, creative will help a lot.

Finally completed on the mids now after chopping a few riverside forests. Sparta is spaming archers and I'm just getting the copper hooked up (very late, I know). SB seems to be building a lot of dog soldiers and his power is currently double mine. Monty's power is hovering around at about the same as me. That seems kind of odd that Sitting Bull produces more units than Monty, though I haven't had many games with SB.

I just completed the mids and am 5 turns from alphabet and only Fredrick knows it so far. SB and Ramesses are hindu, Hannibal and Monty are Buddhist. I am hoping to get buddhism spread to me and maybe I can ally with Monty to attack SB in the Medieval era.

 

[CivilizedTiger]

Not about this particular game, but about the leader (well... one question about this particular game)

Brr... I really like the traits of Pericles and I have a subjective passion for the ancient Greek civilisation (RL), but... I just seem to fail miserably with this guy, and early. In my last game, things were almost perfect: started out near jungle, with a lot of + happy resources around, plus cap was coastal, plus had two acceptable spots for engineer cities. I studied mining, bronze, iron, found a source of iron for which I settled my third city, built a mine, a road, and one turn after they were both ready and I was preparing to train swordsies, barbarian spearmen came around and all I had was clubmen. I didn't even want to know the end of that one.

Anyway, I want to ask:
1. Why settle 1E in this game? I don't understand the particular reason. Sure, 1E is a good spot, but why is it better than in place? Surely neither of you expects cap to be attacked anytime soon, right? So there doesn't seem to be much need for defense bonus. (Then again, I haven't, so far, come across any reason to need such a bonus) And what is it so good about 1E that it's acceptable to waste a turn? Also... how many turns would it be acceptable to waste before settling?

Thanks

2. What's the best build and work order in the cap for this? Would any of you be willing to offer a turn-by-turn build-this-work-those-tiles explanation? And and and... if you could say what should, in principle, change for marathon speed?

 

[Groogaroo]

1. Why settle 1E in this game?

Well the main reason for settling 1 east is that settling on the plains hill will give you an extra hammer from you city centre tile, during the opening stages of the game that can make a big difference, getting your initial worker or workboat out quicker.

But overall you lose a plains hill in the capital but you also lose a few lame coast tiles that can never be improved.

2. What's the best build and work order in the cap for this? Would any of you be willing to offer a turn-by-turn build-this-work-those-tiles explanation? And and and... if you could say what should, in principle, change for marathon speed?

Can't remember what my build order and tech was in this game but I do remember having a hard time so perhaps its best that I don't advise too much.

Starting with fishing you can't normally go too wrong with a work boat (or two) before a worker, while teching mining & B/working to give your worker something more to do than improve the deer.

 

[dalamb]

Only a partial answer....

1E puts you on a plains hill and reduces the number of water tiles in your BFC without losing any valuable resources such as seafood. The value of a PH is that, on most starting tiles your city gets 2F 1H 1C but on a plains hill you get one more hammer; getting one extra hammer from (near) the beginning of the game lets you build those critical first few units and buildings faster, which can give you an initial advantage that turns into a long term advantage that far outweighs the loss of long-term production from not mining that hill. I personally am still trying to absorb this lesson; it seems counter-intuitive to sacrifice long-term for short-term but many, many experienced players keep giving this advice.

Edit: Darn, you, Groogaroo, beat me by 1 minute!

 

[CivilizedTiger]

Wow... thanks

I never knew that, it's really helpful
My reason for wanting to settle in place was rather that I read in one of the guides (optimum early growth strategy)(and I probably misinterpreted) that settling the second turn comes with a production loss (the guide mathed out the possible scenarios: starting with worker worker settler was the best thing in epic speed if you could get BW done at most one turn after the first worker, then cut trees, then cut trees with both workers etc)

But I had no clue that your city can have anything other than 2F1H1C, I thought that that was standard.

 

[dalamb]

The actual rule is:
- remove forests and flood plains
- for hammers, food, and commerce, the tile now produced the larger of whatever was already there and 2F 1H 1C

Thus a 3H forested plains hill becomes a 2H plains hill, then with the city in place becomes 2F 2H 1C. A 1F jungle grassland banana tile becomes a 3F grassland banana tile, which becomes a 3F 1H 1C city tile. A 2F 2C riverside grassland dye tile becomes a 2F 2H 2C city tile.

 

[Groogaroo]

Edit: Darn, you, Groogaroo, beat me by 1 minute!

But I had no clue that your city can have anything other than 2F1H1C, I thought that that was standard.

What's really sweet is when you have the opportunity to settle on a plains hill stone or marble resource which gives a whopping 3 hammers on the starting city centre tile. Unfortunatley no such luck on this start.

 

[CivilizedTiger]

Thank you very much for detailing the rule for me, that's really helpful. In a connected point, I'd like to ask... when is it a waste to settle on top of a resource? I imagine that health resources such as corn, rice or wheat are better off as farms, but, what about others? Until this point, I didn't even allow myself to think about ever settling on top of a resource, but I've seen in one of TMIT's youtube games that he settles on top of bananas and immediately gained access to them as well.

I'd also like to ask: is it possible to successfully play having Pericles lead the civ without resorting to the oppressive tactics/civics? I really hate the idea of slavery, and usually, seeing the "we will never forget your cruel oppression" kind of saddens me... despite this being just a game ) Also, given the nature of the Phi trait, I don't normally have any religion until I found confucianism, but also, usually eyeballing the +science from free religion, I don't convert to it. Is there a good guide where I can read about the importance of religion? And... well... is it possible, on top of avoiding slavery, to avoid hereditary rule, state property and other such stuff? (Caste system is really the only liberty-removing civic I don't have a problem with in game )

 

[CivilizedTiger]

Well, I've tried at it again. Of course, I've given up my no-slavery approach, it's just not worth it playing without the early boost, especially if you have 4-5 food resources in your cap's BFC.

Here goes:

Normal, Noble
to 1100ish BCE

Spoiler :

I've decided to settle Argos near the silver, and though I know it isn't in the etymology of the city Argos itself, argyres or something like that means silver in Greek. I thought that my second city, the one near silver, should go with something like that.

I settled Thebes in the great-for-commerce spot north-east of Argos, and this is the main exploit of previous knowledge in this game: I knew that Sitting Bull settles there fast, so I just settled faster. Kind of cheated a bit on this, since I knew this from a previous game. But I don't think it's that big of a deal, since in my last game, leaving this spot behind allowed me to get the gold which I abandoned this time.

Screen:

125CE:

Spoiler :

I discovered iron toward Carthage and settled Thermon near it.
Then, at some point, the city that those pesky NatAms settled to get the two fish, the one I had aimed for earlier, rebelled and joined me, thanks to culture. Since it was high in the mountains, I decided that Olympia was a fair name.

Also, as you can see in the Olympia screenshot, I was building the Colossus. I did manage to whip it ready and got a boost to my water tiles in just a few turns after these screens.

Screens:

The problem, of course, is that I wasn't going to enjoy the benefits of the Colossus for much, since I had planned before game to shoot for early astro. But it took me too few turns to build it in order to pass on the opportunity.

980CE (should have posted earlier, but I have the events log and you'll see the important part)

Spoiler :

In 820 CE I found the secrets of Astronomy, I already had one settler and some xbows ready and started building galleons right away. Though I should have been faster and could have had a greater rate of expansion in the new world just by having more settlers ready until this point. Oh well...

1170CE

Spoiler :

Unfortunately, I got discouraged and made no save after this for about 10-20 turns. This is from the last save:
I have two cities in the New World, soon more to come, since no one is close to Astro yet. I don't know if I manage to keep the whole continent for myself, but I think I'll have a huge dominion over it regardless.

I got discouraged, though, as Monty took over Egypt and is, or will soon be, attacking Sitting Bull. And Carthage is also cautious to me, so all in all, I'm in a tight spot. I've been training macemen like crazy just to keep them away from attacking me. I could, probably, retreat in Athens and let my new world cities do the job, but that means losing the Confucianism and Taoism holy cities, and I don't want to.

All in all, I'm rather discouraged from a safety perspective. Do you have any advice?

 

[obsolete]

540 A.D. (Liberalism)

Spoiler :

Boy, what a crappy piece of land. Things are so terrible this is the first time I wasn’t even interested in getting 6 cities. In fact, I almost didn’t even build 5, things are just junk down there.

Anyhow, Monte was in the score lead, and then the AP was built. First resolution to pop up was Holy War.

BOY IS THAT OVERPOWERED!!

Entire world DoWs on Monte and he right away shifted from top leader to bottom of the list. He won’t last long before R.I.P.

I did get a few wonders, despite the really crap spots and no builder resources. So… I will try to ride them out to victory. Christ, I don’t even have any iron this is so bad. First target I will gun for is SB.

 

[obsolete]

1755 AD (First Capit)
Immortal - NSC

Spoiler :

A lot of nonsense this game. I had to DoW on SB who was turning into a giant, and who had vassaled Monte. I bribed everyone else to war but seems they all did fake wars while I took the whole brunt of everything. And just as I had both Monte and SB about to be willing to capit to me, they decide to first capital to someone else before I got the friken chance! Yeah... I just love the anti-human bias on the higher levels. Give me a freiken break.

I had to re-DoW on Hannibal now and eventually I just stole his SB vassal back from him. In 10 turns I'll re-Dow on Hannibal when our peace term is over and try to gun for his capital. So far I've been doing everything to save Frederic from Han, but he just sucks terrible. Reminds me of the Roman leaders, they can't win a war to save their life no matter how much power you give them.

Anyhow, the idiot is building me wonders while he is stuck in a war with Frederik. Never ceases to ammaze me how stupid Firaxis coders can be. Civ III used to get it right, by focusing on war units when in war, but they really dropped the ball on this game.

 

[Bezurn]

Played this for fun. Marathon/Noble.

Conquest Victory - 570 AD

Wasn't planning on rushing, as it looked like a great GLH capitol and then could use the islands around the continent for the increased trade income. However, SB settled a turn before me at the NE floodplains spot, so just set my capitol to auto build axemen and kept on steamrolling one civ after another. (Greece axemen are awesome as there is no easy counter for them until xbows / lbows

 

[drlake]

I decided to resurrect this, as a break from the Sury game.

Monarch/Epic to 1515AD:

Spoiler :

No screenies taken so far.

Interesting game. I got blocked in early by SB, with a little help from Hannibal. Only five cities built, and no horses or iron. I decided to play a defensive first stage while teching toward either cats/maces for a war of expansion against SB (ugh, I hate protective leaders) or expansion overseas.

I've had little trouble remaining the tech leader, through a combination of self-research and tech trading. I teched Astronomy right after Optics, thanks to a saved GS and a freshly popped one. That allowed me to establish my first overseas city by about 1250, and that combined with the second I built (only the two, so far) gave me Elephants and Ivory.

I won the race to Liberalism, got Constitution from it (I'd traded for Nationalism already, being way ahead with Education and Astronomy is NICE), and am currently researching Economics (free GM, yay! I should be first). I've got gunpowder, engineering, and guilds for military techs, but still no horses. At least I now have jumbos.

I popped a GM, and decided to send him on a trade mission. The Temple of Artemis was built in Berlin, which is about as far as any major city is, and he'll arrive soon. I'm shifting my GPP to try to get another one, assuming running deficit research will pay off more than bulbing another GS (running almost 300 bpt, but in a GA atm).

I'm in my first war, which started maybe 15 turns ago. Hannibal got cranky because I wouldn't join him against SB (I'm waiting for cannons for that war, due to the walls that SB built everywhere). It was tough stopping the first two stacks (I burned through about 6 cats, 4 trebs, and a few maces to do it) but I'm now building up a mix of muskets, elephants, cats, and trebs to carry the war to Hannibal. I'm hoping I can get some horses that way!

The world is mostly divided into two blocs, a Hindu bloc and a Buddhist one. I'm Hindu, as is Ramses, Hannibal, and Frederick. Hinduism is the AP religion. SB, Huayna, Monty, and Victoria (Freddie's colony) are all Buddhist IIRC. While I'd rather run FR, I'm staying Hindu to try to block Ramses from getting an AP victory.

That's about it. Current city count is low, 5 on the mainland and 2 on the other main continent. No one else has any cities over there, though I don't expect that to last long now that many of the also have Astro. I'm a bit low on population right now due to whipping and drafting some troops to stop Hannibal's invasion, but that's over so my cities are going to be growing quickly again. I should be able to take some cities from Hannibal as well, including a couple he grabbed from SB (I may return one to him for diplo mods, though he's at pleased atm).

Freddie is the points leader, with Ramses and Hannibal next. Hannibal should drop some as I take bites out of him, and I'm about #5 but expect to move up soon. Both Freddie and Ramses love me, but then I'm a lovable guy!