NC206 - Montezuma

[bdubbs]

Played to T60: Emp / Normal

Spoiler :

Probably a little tough of a map for me to be playing on emp being that its a slow start. Settled 1N, worker, WB, warrior, Settler at size 3.

Decided fishing > mining > BW > sailing > masonry > roads > archery (due t61)

I decided not to improve the elephant because I didn't want to divert away from GLH which I 3 chopped and 3 pop whipped to completion on T60. I used those turns to pre chop forests around the cap for GLH and sent the worker down to improve the tundra deer in city 2 which is 1N of the southern tundra deer and is able to share the clams.

Cap just finished GLH and is set to produce an 8 turn settler

City 2 built a garrison warrior, a worker, and is currently slow building a lighthouse

Currently hooking up the elephant, looking to settle 2E of the copper in the north, hook up the copper asap which shouldn't be a problem. It has a lot of forested grassland for a coastal city, thinking I can chop some infrastructure and lay down cottages. It could potentially leech the northern cap deer if needed to help it grow.

I'm expecting I'm alone with Saladin because outside of him I've only met a mongolian workboat.

Plan: hook up copper city 3, thinking about 4 pop whipping another settler in the cap after growing on an archer to try and claim the spices / stone in the north. Tech will be ag > pottery > writing for foreign trade routes. Not sure if it's better to try and elepult Saladin or try and expand naturally yet.

 

[krikav]

@bdubbs

Screenshots helps alot if you want to get useful feedback.
Some thoughts on your game:

Spoiler :

I don't know how much you have scouted, but going GLH here is a very good choice and there is some sense into really prioritizing it's build.
However, I think you might have overdone it abit.
Here is some statistics that @Major Tom did over a few hundred games or so: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/immortal-wonderdates.611664/ and the earliest turn GLH went on immortal was turn 70.
I think I have seen GLH go at T46, but that requires Augustus Ceasar on deity starting seaside. (He starts with fishing and is industrious).

But better safe than sorry, now you have that wonder built and you are in a good situation either to expand like crazy, or do a full scale conquest without regard to maintenence.

I did a similar play for GLH myself, and I tried to make sure that I was up at 4 cities very close to it's completion see my post up till T66 here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/nc206-montezuma.645425/#post-15443242
I think getting that tiny island as city 4 is good play, as it gives at least one +2 commerce trade route in every one of your other cities. (And the island city gets a full set of 2 commerce trade routes, yielding that island city 6 commerce right from the turn it settles.

Is the spice+stone up north coastal? After building GLH you should prioritize coastal sites heavily, but if there is excellent sites inland, those could also be considered.
But foodless sites should certainly be put on hold.

I went the construction route, that call was cut in stone when Saladin went completely bananas with wonders, but I think a more peacefull aproach is doable too, there was some nice cities up north-east.

 

[bdubbs]

@krikav

yeah I wanted to get some screens in there but it was late last night lol. I took at look at your write up up to T66 and you seem way ahead of where I was able to get by T60 a couple questions

Spoiler :

Looks like you're ahead of me by 2 warriors, a galley, a city, and your island settler. Pretty significant considering you're only 6 turns ahead of me. Looks like one of my big mistakes was sending down my worker to improve the tundra deer in my southern city too early and saving forests when I could have used them on settler chops.

Where did you put your chops? Did you have city2 work both clams initially? Did you whip anything pre GLH?

I could continue my game but the first 60 turns go by so quick I think I might try and go from T0 and see how I can make more efficient use of my turns

 

[sampsa]

Being at 1 city @T60 is a huge sacrifice, something I wouldn't do for GLH. Expanding quickly is much better, even at the cost of a wonder.

 

[krikav]

@bdubbs

Spoiler :

Can't remember exacly what I did, but I did put up a bunch of screenshots for T0-T41 too.
The screenshot of T41:

Here I'm about to settle my second city. I have the second WB out.
The second city is in very good position to borrow both clams and the deer, as need be.

I don't think I will improve that southern deer for quite some time, just as you say it's far away and it's in a forest and it's on tundra. It would require oceans of workerturns to get that one up and running. And the second city will not have any urgent need for it for a long time either.

In this period, I will juggle around those tiles around between the two cities, if one city can reach a new pop it will get precedence on the tiles. If a city is stagnating on worker/settler, that city will work the hammer heavy tiles and leave the food heavy tiles to the city that is till growing, becuase I want to grow in pop as fast as possible.
When approaching happycap, this will reverse.

I think that I did put overflow from a settler whip into GLH somewhere in the beginning of it's construction, then the lions share came from woring the two deers+ivory (8 hammers per turn) + chops. Then near the end, I did also whip a galley, but that gave only marginal 15 or so? overflow. But that was partly because I needed the galley.

 

[krikav]

Being at 1 city @T60 is a huge sacrifice, something I wouldn't do for GLH. Expanding quickly is much better, even at the cost of a wonder.

Yes, it's a huge sacrifice. And when it's GLH one is also completely deprived of the benefits that one would get.
Need to reach 4 cities asap if one goes GLH, that is, unless the AI reaches writing very early, and you are able to get traderoutes quickly.

 

[krikav]

@bdubbs There is huge learning benefits of replaying these early turns over and over again, comparing results with others and comparing them with one gets with various other approaches.
Thats how I have learned, and I imagine that is the way most people that are good at this game have been doing at one period or another.

 

[bdubbs]

Try 2 T36

Spoiler :

So this time instead of Settler at size 3 I let the cap grow to 4 while I built some warriors to go north. Settler is due T40, sailing T41. Saladin is still at 1 city but I'd imagine he will be settling somewhere soon. Thinking about having the worker pre chop the river grassland tiles. I need a WB to make a coastal southern city, and a war for my cap if I want to grow past 4. I could settle the copper 2nd, but it would leave several turns before the cap's culture took the copper I think. Definitely open to recommendations what to build after the settler, I'm leaning towards WB possibly with a chop, a warrior to park in the cap, and then either a settler or worker. Or would WB, worker, settler be better? I could possibly hook up the ivory to grow to size 5, and build a warrior in city 2 to garrison in the cap.

Scout has managed to stay alive and revealed this bit of land NE. The 2 clams spot looks good but it seems really far away to consider anytime soon

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T118-T134 :

Comming back to the game, I made the call that I really should start teching again instead of pushing on with the war. So I abandon my half-teched machinery and instead set course for CoL. I swap to representation and delete a bunch of warrior city guards.
Some jaguars is moving back to take their place as military police when they grow enough.
Just growing my cities for the most part now, don't even run rep-scientists. I want to get cities up in population abit before I reach pacifism/cs and start the lib-race.
My goal is to use liberalism to take astronomy. And to do that I settle as many cities as I can, as fast as I can, while growing my cities to a decent pop. Once I have key techs (CoL and Philosophy for casteystem+pacifism, I'll start running alot of rep-scientists.

I will however look at what Saladin is teching, and if he isn't careful, I'll do a push with my current stack. I imagine I would have no problems taking Damaskus before a more permanent peace. That would save me alot of hassle trying to invest in a cultural arms-race with his annoying 4culture-madrassas. (Library UB).

An overview a few turns down the line, a few somewhat decent spots marked.
When you have GLH, you can basically settle anywhere and still turn a profit, so the bar is significantly lower than usual.
I also have the luxury of getting that Hindu shrine, so I have even more leverage.

T119 I trade my copper for spices and stone. That means I can't build more failgold with colossus, which is sad. But I really want to get Moai built on that island.
T121 Saladin is willing to open borders again, I do that but only get about 2 extra commerce. Somehow I have had traderoutes with Charly. I have no idea how those traderoutes have gotten past Saladins land. Is that because they have OB with each other?

First build in Medina was a forge, as I plan to build quite a few buildings here.
Next out after abit of overflow and a chop, was a 2pop whip of the market which gives a solid 5gpt on it's own. Not often markets come to play, but this is certainly one time I think it's worthwhile.

I reach CoL, settle this city and start to run a artist to reach that clam.

Seeing this tech-situation I start to worry that Khan or Charlie will give Saladin MC+Currency for compass and/or theocracy.
So I kind of panic and give him currency+MC and get aesteics and calendar +5g.
I do need aestehics for possible bulbs later on, and I need calendar to get astronomy. But I also want to keep Saladin as backwards as I can, to increase my chances of taking his cities with ease.

Two turns later, he has finished his teching of litterature, and started to go for Feudalism.
I then abandon all hope of grabbing more cities from him, and go on unit-deletion mode and over the next few turns I delete 5 jaguars and 4 axes.
I still keep my elephants and my catapults however, as they are both more expensive and have way more lasting value. But I start to disperse them throughout the empire.

T128 I finish philosophy and found Taoism. Kublai is finaly willing to talk and since I don't have any cash I get a peace treaty for 9gpt (which I can cancel in 10 turns).

T129 I thought I was losing the race for that lovely fish+clam island. But Saladin is moving his boat in an strange direction. It turns out there is a clam hidden in the uncharted are and he settles on the eastern island 1N of my wb like a complete moron.
This island is completely crazy, with fish+2clams. I'm kind of regretting that I already built the moai.

I'm putting the remaining forest around Mecca and Medina to good use. Can't have too many settlers!

I thought I was losing this spot, but I was just in time to seal that gap with a borderpop with the help of a few extra artists.
With that spot secure however, I went for an other spot I just found...

This city with a lone fish I'll probably just grow to pop3 and then run two specialists on, no need for any buildings.

I just saw these ocean tiles, this means there is land there. I don't think I can get culture out enough to reach it thoug, but it's a good starting direction for caravels+galleys.

T134 Saladin is one turn from CS, and I finish it that turn. I sell it to him for 40g.
Swap into Burocracy... (Now Rep+Bur+Caste+Pacifism.)
I canceled the copper for stone deal when Moai was finished, and have been waiting a while to trade it away again, but I now trade it with Kublai for sheep+8g.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T134 Situation :

Will settle that southern icy fish T136, workboat is on it's way from Medina.
Mecca is pushing culture buildings, I really want those clams. Baghdad is really trolling Mecca and Medina, holding their resources. >_<
Settled my first inland city to work that Deer and to help hold the good food negative tiles that the capital can't work while it's growing.
Getting my third GPerson soon, hoping for a scientist to half-bulb education.
Got two city spots left. 3E of Mecca on the grassland. That will be a good city once it can take cow from Mecca who has enough food already, and borrow wheat from Medina when it gets the deer back from Troll-Baghdad.

The name of the game now is to try if I can to get two GScientists (or at least one!) and half-bulb education and parcially bulb liberalism.
Other than that, just developing infrastructure and trying to increase beaker per turn.

Have quite extensive collection of trade deals.
Can't stress enough how important it is to strike deals. If you don't tie up the AIs resources, they trade with each other and leave you outside completely!

I'm not sure if I should trade away CS to Kublai and Charly. I do need compass, machinery and optics and would love to trade for them all.

There is always the fear that

I'm second in GDP in the world, and won't have any problems outteching this crowd at this stage of the game, so should probably not fear trading away CS now, and paper when I later finish that.

 

[krikav]

Try 2 T36

Spoiler :

So this time instead of Settler at size 3 I let the cap grow to 4 while I built some warriors to go north. Settler is due T40, sailing T41. Saladin is still at 1 city but I'd imagine he will be settling somewhere soon. Thinking about having the worker pre chop the river grassland tiles. I need a WB to make a coastal southern city, and a war for my cap if I want to grow past 4. I could settle the copper 2nd, but it would leave several turns before the cap's culture took the copper I think. Definitely open to recommendations what to build after the settler, I'm leaning towards WB possibly with a chop, a warrior to park in the cap, and then either a settler or worker. Or would WB, worker, settler be better? I could possibly hook up the ivory to grow to size 5, and build a warrior in city 2 to garrison in the cap.

Scout has managed to stay alive and revealed this bit of land NE. The 2 clams spot looks good but it seems really far away to consider anytime soon

@bdubbs

Spoiler :

That northern spot is really premature, yes. I imagine that you will have an opportunity to settle toward Saladin in your game, but getting 4 quick coastal cities rather close to the capital should probably be prioritized if you go GLH.

This is how I would think given your situation:
You should not whip now. Finish that settler naturally and go south with him, let the capital grow to pop5 if possible on wb. The city he founds should take the clams you have improved as that is the fastest way to grow to pop2.

This will leave the capital with pop5 and 3 good tiles that should not be whipped away, and then you are free to perform a 2pop whip of either a worker or a settler, depending on that seems best at the time.

Worker should chop now, nothing else.
I don't think there is a rush to hook up the ivory if you keep a warrior garrison? Perhaps you can even skimp on that garrison. Don't think capital will grow up to pop6 untill some time when it grows on lighthouse or great lighthouse.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T134-T147 beware for big spoilers, this contains almost full map knowledge and contact with all AIs. :

Traded CS for Drama+40g with Kublai, and CS for Compass+90g with Charly. I don't feel that they will challenge me in the lib race, and there is a chance that Saladin would trade with them. I also get some fair trade diplo bonuses which is always nice.

T136 A Gmerch spawns (50-50% chance merch/scientist) I was hoping for a scientist to parcially bulb education.
T137 Paper is in and I start to sell my map, about 50g from both Kublai and Charly.
T138 Charly have had enough with Kublai and starts a war.

I beg 40g from Kublai to get a peace treaty, to avoid war demands from Charly.
Saladin is 2 turns away from Philosophy, so I sell that to him. I'm glad to see that he is then going for Nationalism.

T138 I trade machinery, I won't be able to bulb anything really. Techrate is good as it is, and my cities are all busy building settlers and Saladins former cities are waging their culture war.

I also note that I have only 7 workers, abit thin when I want to chain a whole lot of farms. So I start building a bunch of new ones.

T139 HInduism is spread naturally to the ice-fish city. First natural spread I think.

I run a artist here to avoid letting him get that eastern clam. If he only gets a tiny bit of food, I'm sure he will make it impossible for me to ever reclaim it culturally.
Worker has landed in the forest and will chop a workboat, granary will have to be built naturally with lousy workshops later on.

T140, the GMerch performs his trade mission in Kublais capital, 1100g.
I also stall my teching of education for two turns and instead focus on optics, in the vain hope that I'll get a GSci to bulb the rest of education.

I settle this filler city inland, it does cost me -9GPT at 0% research not sure if this was really wise, but this city will prove valuable to combat that Arabian culture.

T142 I get a GEngineer and I start to think about the possibility to lib nationalism and rush Taj.
I also settle another spot. More cities is more! This one is on solid ground, as it's in the capitals culture.

This was not in my plan... Poor tula still has about a half percent chance of revolt too, even though I place my old stack there.

T143 optics is in, and I get some vision. That looks like Greek culture. If thats pericles, I might have fierce competition with lib.

Two turns later my caravel meets pericles. And he is not his usual self, my first guess here is that he was in isolation.
What I should have done here, was to give him 10g to get him to pleased and be able to trade for his map.
But I blunder and sell him theocracy for 100g. Then I have sell him HBR for his map.

Pericles map reveals Wang and Justinian.
Athens is on the other side of his continent, and that strait requires culture to surpass. Wangs city is far down in his city list and Justinians city is a conqured barbarian one.
It is likely that Pericles has been in isolation for quite some time, and now that the two groups know each other, they are isolated by their religions.

Two turns yet later T147, I stumble on Wangs workboat and get his map and 100g for theology.
Wang is also lacking paper and lacking compass.
I also break my paper monopoly to get 410g from Kublai, and I send him into pacifism and a revolt in the deal.

Up at 12 workers now (one more on the way) , and start to feel that I am catching up with tile improvements. Cities are continuing to grow.
As I'm writing now, I'm thinking that I probably should have swapped to organized religion, i'm so busy growing cities that I'm not really running much specialists.

cont...

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T147-T150 Beware, full AI and map spoilers :

T148 I get circumnavigation from Wangs map, meet justinian and poor Tula is sent into revolt.

Tech situation at full contact. Should I aim for something more ambitious with liberalism...? Kublai has gone for Astro himself, and it's not unthinkable that I can get it in a trade later on. I do already have plenty of offshore trade routes.

T149 Charly finishes Music, which makes Saladin willing to trade it to me.
I give him Optics, my extensive map and 85g to get Music.

Then I rush Sistine chapel with my GEng. This feels like it could be a waste. But I'm not to confident about some plan to get nationalism and rush Taj.
Also, the cultural pressure from Saladin is really starting to hurt. And I'm still down at 10-20% on both the clams and the deer. All tiles around these conqured cities have huge plot culture that is left there since the early game. I need to do some drastic to combat this.

I do believe that there is a great benefit in getting this wonder too, as it really diminishes the risk of some AI getting a cultural victory. I'm starting ot feel like this is going to be a long game, and I prefer to avoid the chances that I have to play wack-a-mole with say... Charlies cities as they reach for legendary.
And if saladin gets this wonder shortly, that would simply be a disaster.

T150, one turn away from liberalism.
Just finishing it and getting Astro right away might unlock some nice resource trades, and I would surely get a nice boost in trade routes although not as dramatic as the ones you get when you play from isolation.

And what would I aim for if more ambitious...? I don't have horses so hoping for some quick conquest of Saladin is ruled out.
Teching gunpowder, engineering and chemistry to be able to lib steel feels way too ambitious as my cash is run dry.
If anyone has some interesting idea I'm all ears, but I lean heavily toward just getting Astro.

Economy, commerce is superb but my costs is also kind of high.
Starting to think that I should swap to slavery and organized religion to whip them 90hammer courthouses and possibly spam a bunch of missionaries.
It wouldn't hurt to whip some settlers either, there is some nice unsettled islands/quasi-continents in the area east of me and south of pericles that I should claim before Kublai does. (Or am I to scared here, he is at war. Does he even build settlers then?)

The hindu spread. I'm lacking Hinduism in 4-6 cities, and Kublai haven't done any efforts to spread it in his homeland. I have a decent chance at getting a GProphet of my own, perhaps this could be an oportunity to do something funky, as I have a double-holy city. Shrining chrisiantiy and spreading both could line up very nice with a wall street city.

It's quite a easy crowd to please too. Caste system keeps wang happy, burocracy+religion with kublai. Later on representation with pericles (which usually like the human anyway). Theocracy would please both Justinian and Saladin (But he should really be exterminated sooner rather than later...

An overview. Those islands to the east look really really tasty and could probably host half a dozen cities more.
All AIs are on their own continent (Except Justinian+wang, which are mor or less already grown together), so it's highly unlikely that much vassaling/runaways will occur.

A sensible plan from here would be to settle those islands, tech toward cannons+rifles and whipe out saladin while trying to keep diplomacy under wraps with the rest of the crowd.
That would lead to a very strong position where bascially any victory condition will be within reach, and multiple ways of having fun and trying funky stuff would be available.

I whould probably just lib astro, swap to slavery+organized religion and whip courthouses (sacrificial altars), settlers, galleys and missionaries. Don't really need to tech anything for a long while, although it would be very nice to get the GMerch from economics.
Once that phase is done, whipping cannons will be a breeze with that half-duration slavery debuff. With so many cities, the draft will work wonders to get some rifles up, and it should be no problem crushing saladin.
Depending on the situation after that, the army could possibly go knock on someone elses door, possibly pericles if he continues to stay so behind.

 

[bdubbs]

To T70

Spoiler :

Things went better this time around, GLH is up, built with chops. 3 pop whipped the last settler to get the island city up ASAP. Used the copper city to build my first axe, currently moving towards the barb city to help deal with units coming from there. Not sure what I should build there after the granary, or if I should just cancel it for another axe. Writing is due in 5 turns, cap wants a library after the granary as it keeps growing its pop. The extra workboat being built is a scout to go west once borders open. The island city will take forever to develop but I'm thinking LH then whip a library so I can run specialists there.

This looks like a good inland city post calendar

Good coastal city, but far from the cap. Possibly allows a city that shares 1 clam and picks up an ivory.

As far as a plan goes I think I'd like to take out Saladin and dominate the continent. Elepults seem like the way to go if we're going to take that route, but I'm not really sure we have enough food to whip up that kind of army with what we have. We also have room to expand naturally and I don't mind following the path of least resistance, but I'm not sure what to do with that northern continent with no food.

 

[krikav]

@bdubbs Well played!
The screenshots are pretty, but if you keep tile yields on (I keep them on most of time I'm playing too) and let the interface remain, some detail might catch some viewser eye and you might get good advices.

Spoiler :

Things to consider: Saladin is protective, and his libraries yield 4 culture, so his cities will have higher cultural defense and his archers will be tougher. So plan for abit more difficult fight than usual.

Developing cottage for the capital.
You placed the copper city 1N from where I placed it. Your location is certainly better from that owns citys perspective. But it only allows the copper-city to develop one cottage for the capital.
The small island I had to develop a lone plains-cottage 2S1E of capital.
It's good to let lesser cities work cottages that the capital will eventually take from them when they are more mature, and when the happy-cap allows the capital to hold them.
The main reasons for this is partially the burocracy bonus you get at civil service, and party that you will likely have more infrastructure in your capital, (for sure a library but possibly also an academy or a market, depending on circumstances). And that mature cottages will get their best use there.

Northern clam spot.
Settler transit to this location is problematic, I had part of the way roaded, and then settled NE of your warriors location. This allowed me to get the city up quicker, even though it just had a lone clam.
I think that ifyou want to claim both clams with one city, you should place it 1N of your current location, as it grabs way more land tiles. The only reason to consider the location you have, is if you later want to place yet another city 3N of the current location, as that city could then borrow the clam to grow.

You have some decent natural production, both in copper city and the capital. The south-west city is also not totally worthless.

Food situation is superb for whipping in almost all cities, just make sure you have granaries up. The copper city likely will not do any whipping.
What you need to do, is to well in advance of when you want to start whipping units, start to save up population, you can even grow abit into unhappines to do this. You have to weigh your choices when it comes to infrastructure carefully.
Not all cities will be able to afford a library, and if you go with a stable it's likely just in one city. It's not even sure that all cities will get a barracks even though they are dirt cheap.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T151-T161 :

I did swap into slavery+organized religion with the intent to whip a few buildings every here and there, and also a bunch of settlers. I'll race toward those islands in the east and make a try for the economics GMerchant. Was also planning to get out a few missionaries, but that proved to be too demanding.
Justinian is lacking iron, which could open up some ideas for an early assault, but he is half a world away, and by the time I might be able to get there he could have secured a source of iron already.

Some of the city positions that I found. These islands are actually reachable post astro for at least Pericles, so there is a real hurry here.

I'm really deadlocked when it comes to trades. Both Wang and Justinan both have banking, so aquiring guilds+banking myself will be prolematic. I just bide my time and hope.

First two boats on their way, upgraded galleys loaded with the units I had close by. the northern galleon is loaded with one settler and two workers, would have prefered a military unit up there too, but had no one available.
A fleet of workboats is also departing, ready to get cities working right away.

Wang finishes Notre Dame, and the 600g Charly has in failgold is very tempting... I do manage to keep my head cool though. Pericles is still setting himself up for being invaded.

T155 wang is researching optics, since he won't even give me litterature for it. I sell it to him for 70g and his map again.
I also set my slider to 40% to put some beakers into guilds, with the hope of getting both guilds+engineering for my astronomy.

I don't really know why, but it still turned out extremly expensive (like all my gold+astro for engineering+guilds) and I can't afford to give away my gold, that I need to sprint toward economics. So I just trade for guilds with Wang.

I will probably be able to trade for engineering with someone else later.
Seeing these screenshots now, I made a huge blunder trading with Wang first. I should have traded astro to Justinian for guilds first, and only then trade astro for banking with Wang.
The way I did it, I would have been severely punished for my mistake, should Wang have traded his newly aquired astro for justinians gunpowder.

Turns out the game turned a blind eye to my obvious error. My map is worth about 200g for justinian. Nice to get Engineering out of the way.

The resulting tech situation. I will be able to sprint to economics without any competition, as I have preserved my monopoly on education.

The AIs are playing very nicely, giving me all techs I need basically for free. Saladin doesn't get anarchy, but this reduces the amount of despicable artists that he is likely running everywhere.

cont...

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T158-T161 :

That barb warrior slowed down that city settlement with 3 turns. >_< Oh well, the important thing is that I get here and establish a foothold before the AIs.

I have to let my cities recover, so no whipping. This also feels like the opportunity to get out a few GPersons.
Free trade is likely to yield much more beakers, but I'm thinking that the free specialist will greatly aid the multiple tiny cities I have settled recently.

I whipped alot, and only domestic trade routes hurt. The new cities have also added considerable cost in upkeep although that is somewhat balanced by the whipped courthouses closer at home.

My colonies. I'm abit streched here... Have not been able to ferry many units as I'm kind of stuck with keeping my elephant stack to avoid having my agressive tiny city close to Damascus to flip from culture.
5 catapults are in the boats, and only a maceman and an elehant are on their separate islands. The barbs have just gotten longbows and both the cities I want to attack are on hills.
I'm also lacking the settler for the city I wish to place close to the lake on the western island.
Ideally I would want to have it SW of the lake, but that would require me to first raze that barb city.
Great news is that I'm all but guaranteed to sequre horses though!

Trade is going nicely.

The glorious Tenochtitlan is the largest city in the world. Not a feat that I manage often against the AIs.
Those grassland farms should probably have been cottaged ages ago, but I was in a rut with severe lack of workerturns.

The holy city, insane how it can't get it's deer from that foodless stone city. >_< Shows how important early culture is if you want it. I really must plan for a war on Saladin soon.
I'm trying to maximize my chances for a GProphet here, would be fun to get a double-shrine and try out some funky stuff.

Tech situation. Still monopoly on education.
Would be no problem getting to communism first. I'm guessing that state property would help the economy greatly with those colonies.
Pericles is way behind and quite close too, any possible wars should probably go Saladin -> Pericles.
Alot of flexibility in warplans too, since police-state is available. Agressive also gives half-price drydocks. When the AIs is this spread out, and so many cities are coastal, there might even be a point in trying to get naval superiority.
That way, I could also delay corporations -> assembly line for abit and preserve my GLH bonus a bit longer, while still getting powerfull military force, bombarding cities and getting them with cannons+rifles and holding them with machinegunners.
Abit confusing to be in a game with soo many options available.

Will just try to recover abit for 5-10 turns now, keep an eye out for good trade deals and save up cash.
If only I could keep my hands of the whip button for a while and get population up, starting a chain of golden ages would be sweet.

 

[krikav]

Excitement on the islands! Rush to settle land.

Spoiler T162-T168 :

T162 I get a Great Prophet and make the Christian shrine. (Almost guaranteed not best play).
I also cash in on banking which almost everyone now has, sending Kublai into revolt through castestystem+170g.
I get 160g for banking from Charly.

Then there is some excitement on the islands!

Wang is comming with a galleon.

And from the other side, saladi joins the race!

Poor Teayo is building a settler at pop1, and workers are still pouring in by the boatload, chopping and roading as they come onshore.

The two workers finish the road the same turn the settler is finished (by chops) and the settler can reach it's position right before the two AIs settlerparties.

The tiny cities have gotten their borderpops, and I can now change civics again, only to free market. Quite a boost economically!

+140 bpt at only 17 extra cost gold per turn.

I also trade away education to justinian for printing press, since he had started researching education himself. Had to pay 75g to seal the deal.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T168-T178 :

Justinian has a tech lead, but Wang has economics which Justinian doesn't. I don't want them to trade with each other so I want to give Justinian economics.
He wants Economics+1250g for replaceable parts though, and thats too expensive, so I decide to give away my monopoly on liberalism and give him lib+economics for replaceable parts.
It's less of a problem if Justinian has lib and Wang doesn't, because Wang is behind him and doesn't have anything to trade for it.

I'm just stalling research now, building cash. I really don't want to research gunpowder myself because it's usually very easy to trade for.

All the scraps of units I managed to rush together have finally arrived at the barb city. I'm abit afraid that it won't be enough.

Catapults doing their thing, dying for the cause.
The CR maceman had 95% odds or so, and the elephant followed with 90%, very nice.
A lone catapult survived too, and will be able to suicide next turn to ensure the units can finish the longbows off before they promote and heal.

Didn't even lose the catapult! Now I have almost total control over the islands.
I'm teching toward communism now, I think I will need state property to handle city upkeep, and the gspy will greatly help in chaining a few golden ages.

T173 Justinian starts plottning, which is no joke since he has rushed to rifles when noone else in the world has gunpowder yet.
I beg from mongolia and arabia to get peacetreaties with them.
I also join a defensive pact with arabia, then I swap to free religion to get pleased with Justinian.
I then beg 1g from Justinian and the red fist of doom goes away...
Whats this Justinian? Couldn't we live in peace and harmony while I run away with the game?
I send out some boats to scout out his land and see what his stack of doom is up too.
I also cancel my deal where I'm supplying Justinian with Iron.

Oh, I just ran a trade mission in Karakorum for 1900g.

T178 I can finaly swap civics again, so I'm going leaving free religion and free market for pacifism and state property (remaining in representation, burocracy and castesystem.

I also start the golden age. Cities have been allowed to grow for some time now.

There is a interesting situation with strategic resources. Wang is completely lacking oil, Justinians only source of oil is offshore.
Pericles has one source of oil inland, but it's under the inland city closest to my location.

Have not done much blockading in this game before, but I assume that if I block all of a AIs coastal cities which I am at war with, they can't trade resources.
So I'm thinking that a nice path of least resistance would be to smother these three civs with domination of sea.

Right now I'm teching gunpowder toward chemistry, because I need to get a few frigates up to be able to repell any invasion of Justinian when the pease treaty wears of in 5 turns.
I'll continue toward steel, and with half-priced drydocks and police state, I should have no problem getting a massive fleet up and running.
I do need steel for the cannons to claim my home continent too.

 

[ArchGhost]

I've played the map out to a Diplo win as well on Immortal. I'll throw out a writeup after I proofread it a bit, it won't be too terribly detailed; I lost a lot of it in a power outage. Finally finished out another NC game instead of just saying I was gonna., heh.

General thoughts

Spoiler spoilers! :

-strongly compelled to SiP. Not much reason to move, even to pick up the other deer (it's probably best saved for another city with this much food, even if we have to tech to Fishing). That 3h3f Deer hill ain't too shabby either for a Hunting start that needs to build Workboats.

-LOVING the nearby Copper. I don't count on it much in random maps rolls anymore

-on the lack of food pretty much anywhere that's directly North of use or Saladin, I don't think it's too bad. Then again, I'm used to it because I often take a macro approach to my games and you get a lot of crap land on scenario maps sometimes (earth18 for one). There's TONS of chop hammers to make up for it and with enough river space (for some farming pre-CS) any green tile swaths are useful. With enough green farms you can still run 2 scientists out a chopped Library. Mass scientist running carried the day for me. Huge amounts of fail-gold possibility, setup some cottage cities (farm all then swap over when grown) and you can support running to the coast NE where there are a few seafoods. And of course, the ability to chop out armies.

-Could have done a Mids + Rep scientists play too with a junker stone grabbing city. Would've played nicely too with chopped Libraries in many spots. Felt it was more pertinent to expand around the South/West instead with the food situation to the North though, which lead me into conflict with Saladin.

-These hammers for use and Ivory with otherwise no strong resources North scream attacking a neighbor, especially when said neighbor will contest pretty much the best land! I got in trouble doing that before, but with the specific (continents?) map we're on here it didn't end up too badly when I killed el neighborino. Contact is possible right away with KK and Charlie after killing Saladin, or simply getting OB if you want him alive.

-Hadn't even thought of a GLH play. I had no idea we'd be in a situation to use it. By T60ish when I'd want it built, I hadn't met KK or Charlie and assumed semi-iso. Maybe if I learn how to do some of that demographic wizardry I would've known that.

-Each civ (us included if killing Sally) has a large amount of land except Wang/Justin, so they can be remarkably resistant to an assault. Charlie put up about 3x the fight I thought he would, though he's a unit spammy kinda AI too. I figure Pericles would be a similar story but won before it was his turn to take it on the chin. Good practice for port-hopping to dodge AIs' redonkulous navies though.

-I settled out the islands to the East quickly too, but ended up colonizing instead of keeping it. Pre-SP it was just too much, though the horse over there might have come in handy if I couldn't get a trade from Pericles for the KK war.