NC276 Emperor Shadow Game

[civac]

If you go for Mysticism that late consider whether you need it at all. Libraries are horrendously expensive but the wheat/pig city could surely have made one and it would be useful build in that city, too. If you do need border pops in several cities monuments are still the way to go if you can't get religious spreads, though.

Research should go towards whatever you can trade away most profitably.

 

[krikav]

I can just echo what @civac says. Monuments might not be needed at all. Most (all?) cities can be settled with all the good stuff in first ring.
That double food (wheat+pigs) certainly would benefit from a library too.
Some early libraries are very nice with PHI leaders.

That being said... myst is on the way to both monarchy and CoL, both of which are probably good techs for you in this setting.
Capital would love to be in HR and have 6-7 warriors standing around.

CoL is super nice here, massive food surplus already directs toward CoL, but you are also a Phi leader which benefits even more, and you got half-price courthouses which might be good.
And then you got the stone for failgolding Chicken Itza.

 

[konata_LS]

Agree with the posts above. For PHI leaders, libraries are important. CoL and Caste suit a -rich map.

A small note for GLH: since you grabbed GLH, and Fred is PHI --> the first GMerchant will appear after 25 turns in your capital. If you want your first great person to be a GScientist, it'll be nice to chop/whip a library in another high city (not Berlin) and turn two citizens into scientists so that your GScientist would be born before your GMerchant in Berlin.

At this stage of the game, a trade mission is not very lucrative, since both your capital and AI's cities are still small (trade mission brings more when your capital and AI's cities are more than 15 pop). Before Renaissance era, a GScientist help your research more than GMerchants. So it's better to save your GMerchant for Renaissance and later.

 

[Fabled]

I've made a couple of attempts at this but each one has flaws, I need to go back to the T54 save again. It's tough keeping motivation for this game when I've played the same turns half a dozen times and keep making critical mistakes, but it is clarifying what things are important in what order. I have a reasonable grasp of what things are good in this game, but I tend to get things in the wrong order and thus my empire is unfocused and hits critical points too late.

Spoiler T89 :

City spots are good. I think the whip timings are pretty good, too. I keep making a great merchant here, so I should tech a faster writing into a fast library and try to get a great scientist instead (thanks konata_LS for the tip!). The map is too big for an effective war so I should probably grow south into the jungle, although I might be able to make something work against the English. Is it too late to try and hit with horse archers here?

 

[konata_LS]

You situation looks really good IMO ! At least much better than mine when I played this. (my economy after REX was so terrible that slow-teching Alphabet took 20+ turns for me )

Writing is an important tech especially when you have GLH, because foreign trade routes bring much more than domestic trade routes. An article explains more details about GLH and Traderoutes economy , written by a very good Deity player (you may already have seen his name in the HoF of CFC).

About HA rush Churchill:

Spoiler map and resource spoiler :

There is a Copper resource near Churchill's capital, and in my game he settled his second city on the Copper --> it's impossible to pillage his Copper unless I capture his city (on hill!). This is not a good sign for HA rush, because HAs are vulnerable to Spears.

IIRC, Emperor AIs start with Hunting, so Churchill with Copper can certainly build Spears.
Not sure how Churchill settles his cities in your game. Since you have Writing, sending a scout or chariot to check Churchill's land may help you in decision making. If Churchill settles his city near the Copper, maybe you'll have chance to pillage his Copper and capture some cities. But if he settles a city on the Copper, it would be wise to give up HA rush at the moment and wait for stronger attacking units later.

 

[krikav]

Settling the GMerch is a perfecly fine option. It's a good settled person with that added food.
I often do that with early GLH merchants.

With PHI you will have no troubles getting enough people anyway.

I'm not sure it's too late to go HAs, but you got GLH now and there is still room, so I would try to leverage that strong point instead.

 

[Jellybug]

It's hard to hit with HAs before the enemy has metal. Sweet when it works, but not necessary (dunno about Deity). Difficulty seems to depend more on who the enemy is---eg Ramses with metal is still easy as pie, but Shaka with metal is tougher. But from my experience up to Immortal, HA rush into metal units is still very doable.

The only reason I wouldn't go for HA here is you have a churchill with protective on the one hand and an Augustus with praets on the other, both of whom are kinda far away. Going for one would cede land to the other, land which could be yours peacefully. I'm not an expert, but I'm looking at this thinking, if not cuirs, then rifle bust with your capital as a killer globe theatre spot. Either lib toward rifles and, assuming you're still facing longbows, attack with rifle treb (upgrade from treb to cannon costs 80g, super cheap as far as upgrades go), or lib your way to steel with all the scientists and go kill somebody with musket cannon while teching to rifles. It'll be interesting to see what the pros recommend