News: BOTM 15 First Spoiler - up to 500AD

[Riffraff]

Ok first game on Emporer for me with BTS and it really isn't going well.

I started off quite ok imo: I settled on the plains hill two west of the starting position and quickly built a city east of the capital, cutting off the land to the north.

After teching bronze working and finding no bronze, I decided to go for a chariot rush vs Kublai - the fatal mistake. I chopped myself 7-8 chariots and even managed to raze the city which he built to my boarders, but when I reached his capitol he had spearmen and keshik waiting so I pilliged around a bit and waited for peace to settle in.

That hasn't happened though - he just wont give peace without demanding a city so we've been at perpetual war with no side being able to reap any gain Not surprisingly, Ghandi is the tech leader while I'm in last place, one behind Kublai. I don't even have alphabet yet, and Christianity has long been discovered already so it's really looking pretty bleak.

On the positive side, I got catapults ready now so there is the possibilty that I might end the war and somehow catch up with Ghandi over the next 1000 years. I only have 5 cities though - one of them being a polar city with 4 resources which is working surprisingly nice.

I hope the other continent hasn't been too peaceful, else the game is definately lost arleady, though I'm afraid that's happened anyways

 

[playshogi]

I made a couple of mistakes: 1) I moved my settler thinking it was my scout and so I settled in place with a 2 turn delay 2) I sent my 2nd settler with only 1 archer for protection into barb country. Founded a city, but it got razed next turn. On the brighter side, Gandhi gifted me Alphabet out of the blue and Kublai donated Sailing upon request. Nice neighbors. Only 1 religion on the continent, Judaism, and its been a love-fest so far among us. Unfortunately, all these turns and it has spread to just 1 of my cities. Just 203 turns until I discover Civil Service!

 

[kcd_swede]

It's been a while, so some details are forgotten. But it was a memorable game for me, being at emperor level made it just right for my skill level.

I scouted the East PH, but settled the west PH. Not sure why. I think I scouted with the settler, and then decided that the extra moving to get to the East hill wasn't worth it.

Before starting this game, I had played maybe 5 consecutive games in HoF mode at Monarch level with QUICK gamespeed. The tendency I subconciosly carried over to this game had about the right rate of expansion for a Monarch/Quick game. I REX'd in such a way to block more than half the continent off for myself. Second city was north, third west near stone on coast, fourth city way down in the jungles on the east coast. I had about 2 settlers in reserve that I couldn't settle yet because units are striking.

Fortunately, I got pottery just as the treasury gets to zero, enabling me to cottage spam and prevent any units being disbanded. However, this collapse delayed my abilty to get ironworking, so as you can imagine a jungle surronded city far from capitol was.... sub-optimal. But it did mean I had lots of land for expansion.

At 500AD, KK, Ghandi and I share Judaism (founded by Ghandi, adopted by me on request from KK). I give tribute to KK. KK attacks Ghandi. And Ghandi KICKS HIS ASS! They are worst enemies to each other, but I manage to keep both pleased with me, somehow.

I am last on the score table. Last in GNP. Last in Power. But number 1 in land size. Go figure. At this point I decide on victory condition: relig/diplo. Its my only hope, really. I shouldn't expand like that until AFTER I get pottery. Really!

 

[MarkM]

Ok first game on Emporer for me with BTS and it really isn't going well.

I started off quite ok imo: I settled on the plains hill two west of the starting position and quickly built a city east of the capital, cutting off the land to the north.

After teching bronze working and finding no bronze, I decided to go for a chariot rush vs Kublai - the fatal mistake. I chopped myself 7-8 chariots and even managed to raze the city which he built to my boarders, but when I reached his capitol he had spearmen and keshik waiting so I pillaged around a bit and waited for peace to settle in.

It sounds like our games started similarly, although I built the capital to the east (inland) and the second city on the coast to the west, not visa-versa. But then I also stagnated militarily after not finding copper with BW, and if anything I had it worse than you perhaps, I did not get AH until 2700BC, archery until 2100 BC, and IW until 600 BC.

I had much better luck keeping KK down though, I think the reason is because I attacked early (turn 21) and then pillaged the little he had worked & then parked units inside his territories to prevent him from re improving anything. There were forested hills right next to both his horses and his copper source, these were perfect places to fortify on & threaten to attack any worker who tried to bring his military sources online, just with mere warriors as my only military unit for the first 2k years. That's where my comment about the timing of getting the chariots around 2500BC comes in: all I had were two ambush-promoted warriors inside his lands bottling up his workers and preventing him from improving the horses and copper to build keshik and axe, with multiple archers sitting in his capital to escort his worker it was clear he was going to be able to ignore that threat soon (he could have ignored it earlier, but the AI is not that smart). AH/chariots were perfect because they are stronger than archers AND have a movement of 2, so they can attack an unit moving into the horse/copper square and then retreat back to the safety of the forested hill fortified by the promoted warriors (later archers) in the same turn. It was so close a thing IMO of this "containment" breaking down that, as I said, I think it was a stroke of great luck that it turned out I founded my second city right no top of horses, the ~10 turns I would have had to spend improving & connecting them might have been too many.

I actually got one chariot up to 22 XP during this war, doing nothing other than picking off archers whenever they tried to leave capital, then retreating back to the archer fortified forested hill to heal -- that essentially was the entire war, stealing workers & doing that, except for the one instance he broke out and founded the second city and I had to raze it. Again, he could never get his keshiks or axe because I destroyed anything that tried to move into those squares in order to improve them. I basically kept KK down to one completely unimproved size 1-2 capital for 4,500 years with a force that was never larger than two archers and ~4 chariots. I would have probably been worse off than you had I not used that tactic.

MarkM, Gandhi at Friendly is willing to trade techs with you , even monopoly techs, unles he is building the WW depending on that tech.

Yes, I found that, sorry if I was unclear but I was expecting him to be even more generous, to give into my demands for them even when I had nothing to trade, as I said in my last sentence "I had this idea (read it somewhere here I thought) that Gandhi would let me demand monopoly techs from him once we were friendly, when I discovered that was not true it was far too late to change course." I thought I read that in a search of the forums before I started the game. My problem in other words is tht I had nothing to trade to him, with my economy crashing, and I was expecting him to just give me techs.

I also believe in the Easter Bunny, by the way

 

[GreatWaldoneous]

I am last on the score table. Last in GNP. Last in Power. But number 1 in land size. Go figure. At this point I decide on victory condition: relig/diplo. Its my only hope, really. I shouldn't expand like that until AFTER I get pottery. Really!

Yea, that can be a major problem. That's why I usually beeline for pottery at the start of the game (unless I start w/Mysticism) and build cottages immediately, I don't even build roads to them. I'll sometimes build a worker and put him on auto-roads. Or if I have a city that is cannot sustain anymore happiness/health, I'll switch em to build workers. Over-expansion can become quite a problem, especially in the early game. Its a great idea in those higher difficulty levels to switch production over from units to research or wealth if you're having economic problems as well, cause they'll cost you a lot. In those tougher difficulty levels, I'll just disband those non upgraded early warriors to save a few gold a turn. There's some ideas.

 

[kcd_swede]

Yea, that can be a major problem. That's why I usually beeline for pottery at the start of the game (unless I start w/Mysticism) and build cottages immediately, I don't even build roads to them. I'll sometimes build a worker and put him on auto-roads. Or if I have a city that is cannot sustain anymore happiness/health, I'll switch em to build workers. Over-expansion can become quite a problem, especially in the early game. Its a great idea in those higher difficulty levels to switch production over from units to research or wealth if you're having economic problems as well, cause they'll cost you a lot. In those tougher difficulty levels, I'll just disband those non upgraded early warriors to save a few gold a turn. There's some ideas.

Sound ideas. Usually I find I can get Bronze working and AH before pottery without any problems, and I usually do so since working pastures and chopping/slaving (not to mention metal mines) is much more effective for a rapid start than working cottages so early. Normally, I get away with this because I don't expand too fast and can keep research rates reasonable until I need the cottages. This time, I settled too many cities too fast as a way to grab land. The distance penalty plus city maintenence meant I was at 0% research, breaking even or in deficit, with exactly N+1 units (N=number of cities). All cities were connected in trade network, btw. Some of those N+1 units were of course workers (and setlers). Needless to say, this is rather precarious with land-blocked Mongols next door. (Thanks to the game designer he also had Ghandi next door).

I'd have to open the save to be sure, but I believe N=5 or 6 at like 500BC. Insane. Truly insane.

Anyhow... what I was saying is that at the moment I recognized an impending meltdown, I switched research from Ironworking to Pottery. At about 0%...Twenty-something turns later, pottery is discovered (only 4th or 5th tech researched). And now I just need Ironworking so I can get at those stupid gems...

 

[Skurn]

I REX'd in such a way to block more than half the continent off for myself. Second city was north, third west near stone on coast, fourth city way down in the jungles on the east coast. I had about 2 settlers in reserve that I couldn't settle yet because units are striking.

How did your second and third cities contribute to blocking? Only the barbs did threaten you in the north, let them build a few cities if you can't fogbust everything. You needed only 4 cities to block KK, and maybe the additionnal one near the stone was priority if you wanted to build stone wonders. I had those 4 cities by 1525BC and already got writing at that time.
My guess is that the stone city was really a drain on your economy, especially since you settled near the opposite coast. I hope that you built the pyramids, otherwise I don't understand your haste to get there

 

[MarkM]

Sound ideas. Usually I find I can get Bronze working and AH before pottery without any problems, and I usually do so since working pastures and chopping/slaving (not to mention metal mines) is much more effective for a rapid start than working cottages so early. Normally, I get away with this because I don't expand too fast and can keep research rates reasonable until I need the cottages. This time, I settled too many cities too fast as a way to grab land. The distance penalty plus city maintenence meant I was at 0% research, breaking even or in deficit, with exactly N+1 units (N=number of cities). All cities were connected in trade network, btw. Some of those N+1 units were of course workers (and setlers). Needless to say, this is rather precarious with land-blocked Mongols next door. (Thanks to the game designer he also had Ghandi next door).

I'd have to open the save to be sure, but I believe N=5 or 6 at like 500BC. Insane. Truly insane.

Anyhow... what I was saying is that at the moment I recognized an impending meltdown, I switched research from Ironworking to Pottery. At about 0%...Twenty-something turns later, pottery is discovered (only 4th or 5th tech researched). And now I just need Ironworking so I can get at those stupid gems...

That seems to be a common problem for many in this game (myself included), an economic crash. Even though I consciously limited my early expansion to try to avoid it (probably why i could at least keep 20-30% research rate going).

I remember being conscious of this, and looking at my autolog now reflects it. I did go for BW first, but then after getting that my log shows I first picked AH as tech #2, but then (same turn) immediately changed to wheel. I remember thinking I had to do that because there was no other way to connect my inland capital on that plains hill to my second city without it. Then after AH, my autolog shows I switched back and forth between fishing and pottery for my 4th tech. I think my thinking was that fishing would let me work the sea squares of my second city for food and gold, but in the end I decided the ability to cottage river tiles was the better impact both short and long term. And like you, in the end it was more the need to get at those gems that finally drove me to get IW, not so much the military advantage I might get if I found iron.

I remember really, really, really wanting to go after iron after finding no copper with BW (since I had already DOW on KK), but I just feared it would take so long and I feared building a third city before I had some ability to work a square that could produce more than one coin per turn.

Needless to say, this is rather precarious with land-blocked Mongols next door. (Thanks to the game designer he also had Ghandi next door).

In all of this I apparently missed what everyone else seems to have recognized instantly, that KK would go after Ghandi and leave me alone. I still don't understand why that is true, why people knew that would happen. If anyone could enlighten me why this is, I would appreciate it.

 

[Jbourne]

In all of this I apparently missed what everyone else seems to have recognized instantly, that KK would go after Ghandi and leave me alone. I still don't understand why that is true, why people knew that would happen. If anyone could enlighten me why this is, I would appreciate it.

Gandhi has peace weight of 10 and I believe Kahn has a peace weight of 1 (not sure about it) Anyways the greater the difference more they hate each other and lesser it is, more they love each other. Very human like. Thugs tend to hang around each other and peaceful folks hang amongst them self.

 

[MarkM]

Gandhi has peace weight of 10 and I believe Kahn has a peace weight of 1 (not sure about it) Anyways the greater the difference more they hate each other and lesser it is, more they love each other. Very human like. Thugs tend to hang around each other and peaceful folks hang amongst them self.

Thanks! But how/where does one learn an AI's "peace weight?" Or better yet, a grid that just shows this "baseline attitude" adjustment for each leader against every other leader? I'm thinking something like the attitudes "glance" screen, except showing every leader than exists, and giving the baseline attitude in each cell.

BTW, curiously in my game KK and Gandhi love each other. KK ultimately willingly vassalized himself to Gandhi. Likely the consequence of a common religion I assume, if there is this natural dislike ...

 

[Conquistador 63]

I'm somewhat late with this unusual game and just reached 505AD, hopefully I'll manage to finish it. Before I started the game I was thinking to go for a Cultural victory, which I never tried in a XOTM above Monarch before - I usually go the "safer" Space and Diplo VC's and the occasional Domination on Emperor.

When I loaded the game I tried to use Gosha190's trick of clicking and holding the settler while pointing to the surroundings. SW was one of highlighted areas so I sent scout then settler that way. I settled 2SW on the 2nd turn, getting pigs, corn and later horses in BFC (but missed fish). I regretted settling there as it prevented me from getting a 2fish GP farm city, but had to live with it.

When the Mongols contacted us IBT, I immediately changed build to warrior and set my mind to get rid of him ASAP. After 4 DOWs (and 3 cease fires), KK was no more in 1550BC (t98). Would it been wiser to let him live like TMIT and others have done? All I got from him was 4 workers and his lousy capital. But I was left with only 1 AI which is bad for tech trading.

At that point I was seriously reconsidering the chosen VC. I underestimated Emperor costs and overexpanded to claim resources. With lots of food but low happy cap, City 6 was founded by stone and I set myself to get Rep from Pyramids with lots of math-powered chops by 500BC - but the same overseas wondermonger who already had SH and Oracle decided otherwise and finished his Mids 550BC. This same leader also got the Gardens, the AP, Hagia Sophia and the buddhist shrine in his capital before 500AD.

/Now entering complaining mode.

I have built the Great Lighthouse and Hanging Gardens, and as of 500 AD am 3 turns from finishing a ridiculously late attempt on the Pyramids. I do not know what the other AIs are doing, wherever they are in the world, but they have not been building wonders.

I finshed the Pyramids in 65 BC. My guess is that the New World had marble, but not stone???

And some of the Civ4 masters insist that Random Events add too much randomness to the game. They claim they can control pretty much every other aspect of the game. Go figure. /end complaining mode.

At this point I was actually losing money @0% research but the cash from failed Pyramids bailed me out from an imminent strike and then cottage money started to roll. Capturing/razing the occasional barb city also helped, while I (stupidly?) continued to expand. 8 cities @320BC, 10 cities @190AD.

I had this idea (read it somewhere her I thought) that Gandhi would let me demand monopoly techs from him once we were friendly, when I discovered that was not true it was far too late to change course.

Likewise, as our relations with Gandhi were thriving (jewish friends, OB, peace, resource trading, up to +8), I also decided to give Alpha a try hoping we'd get to friendly. Oddly enough, I was able to get Mono for free and Monarchy for Currency even with him at pleased. Maybe he wanted me to adopt same civics as him? We never got to friendly, even when I gifted Alpha (not a single +1 for that), so until 505AD I haven't been able to trade for important stuff like Archery or even IW! But wait, now I learned from a screenie in this thread where iron is located! I'm officially spoiled!

Now seriously, on my efforts to rebuild economy I ended up founding Confu in 190AD and bulbed Tao in 235AD. Hmm, with Gandhi's judaism present in all my cities I have 3 religions - maybe I should revert to (fastest: in my dreams only, most likely the slowest) Cultural target then? Let's see if I have what it takes:
. peaceful neighbors: with KK gone, check!
. 3 religions, with the cathedral special resources? check!
. 9 cities for cathedrals in each legendary city? check!
. 3 heavily cottageable cities? check!
. be the 1st to Music and to Lib? possibly, time will tell: currently 4t from Music, and possibly will need to bulb Paper/Edu/Lib with GSs, wish me luck!
. a strong, dedicated GP farm: wait let me check my 10 cities: hmm, not check

Not a perfect score, but I'll go for it anyways, in fact I've just started the missionary/temple craze. Hopefully I'll get things done before any serious overseas invasion.

EDIT: crosspost with above, insert link
Final word:

In all of this I apparently missed what everyone else seems to have recognized instantly, that KK would go after Ghandi and leave me alone. I still don't understand why that is true, why people knew that would happen. If anyone could enlighten me why this is, I would appreciate it.

I also "missed" it but due to their different peaceweights, which influence their attitude values towards each other, peacemongers tend to dislike warmongers and vice versa, but as one could expect, most often the warmongers take the initiative. Check this link.

 

[Riffraff]

It sounds like our games started similarly, although I built the capital to the east (inland) and the second city on the coast to the west, not visa-versa. But then I also stagnated militarily after not finding copper with BW, and if anything I had it worse than you perhaps, I did not get AH until 2700BC, archery until 2100 BC, and IW until 600 BC.

I had much better luck keeping KK down though, I think the reason is because I attacked early (turn 21) and then pillaged the little he had worked & then parked units inside his territories to prevent him from re improving anything. There were forested hills right next to both his horses and his copper source, these were perfect places to fortify on & threaten to attack any worker who tried to bring his military sources online, just with mere warriors as my only military unit for the first 2k years. That's where my comment about the timing of getting the chariots around 2500BC comes in: all I had were two ambush-promoted warriors inside his lands bottling up his workers and preventing him from improving the horses and copper to build keshik and axe, with multiple archers sitting in his capital to escort his worker it was clear he was going to be able to ignore that threat soon (he could have ignored it earlier, but the AI is not that smart). AH/chariots were perfect because they are stronger than archers AND have a movement of 2, so they can attack an unit moving into the horse/copper square and then retreat back to the safety of the forested hill fortified by the promoted warriors (later archers) in the same turn. It was so close a thing IMO of this "containment" breaking down that, as I said, I think it was a stroke of great luck that it turned out I founded my second city right no top of horses, the ~10 turns I would have had to spend improving & connecting them might have been too many.

I actually got one chariot up to 22 XP during this war, doing nothing other than picking off archers whenever they tried to leave capital, then retreating back to the archer fortified forested hill to heal -- that essentially was the entire war, stealing workers & doing that, except for the one instance he broke out and founded the second city and I had to raze it. Again, he could never get his keshiks or axe because I destroyed anything that tried to move into those squares in order to improve them. I basically kept KK down to one completely unimproved size 1-2 capital for 4,500 years with a force that was never larger than two archers and ~4 chariots. I would have probably been worse off than you had I not used that tactic.

Sounds like you did a good job in that war - I'll remember the tactic for my next games. Unfortunately I wont be able to submit my game in time, as I'll be abroad the next 4 weeks as of tomorrow. I'll be back for BOTM 16 though

 

[mabraham]

Yea, that can be a major problem. That's why I usually beeline for pottery at the start of the game (unless I start w/Mysticism) and build cottages immediately, I don't even build roads to them. I'll sometimes build a worker and put him on auto-roads.

Cottages don't benefit from roads or railroads. Roads adding commerce to tiles' production was in Civ3, not Civ4. Roads are useful for resource connectivity or trade routes (as are rivers within cultural borders, or coasts and rivers with Sailing and not blocked by barbs or closed borders) or for increasing mobility. Either way, in the early game, you should be choosing to build roads, not building them haphazardly or automatically!

One useful micromanagement is if you have a worker finish an improvement, and the next high-priority job is two moves away, then just ordering the move and then next turn the job is wasteful. You may be able to move the worker one square in a useful direction, and order a turn's work on some improvement (like the road that you're going to want to the far resource) and then immediately wake the worker up again (so it doesn't keep doing that work next turn). Then on the second turn, you move the rest of the distance and start working on the real job. Thus, you lose no time on the high-priority job and have gained a worker-turn by the time you get around to completing the work you halted. This is also greatly superior to (say) building the road there, building the improvement, building the road on the improvement, if you want a city to work the improved tile ASAP.

Or if I have a city that is cannot sustain anymore happiness/health, I'll switch em to build workers. Over-expansion can become quite a problem, especially in the early game. Its a great idea in those higher difficulty levels to switch production over from units to research or wealth if you're having economic problems as well, cause they'll cost you a lot. In those tougher difficulty levels, I'll just disband those non upgraded early warriors to save a few gold a turn. There's some ideas.

Yep, you can't afford to build units for which you don't have a purpose and do have to pay maintenance. Keeping one's power graph up to avert or mitigate a war can be a purpose worth paying money for, however.

 

[Htadus]

Alive at 500 AD.

We founded at least four cities, met others and built units and buildings. No rules are broken in this posting.

We predict to win or run out of time. We hope to build more stuf and learn more techs .

The End

 

[da_Vinci]

In those tougher difficulty levels, I'll just disband those non upgraded early warriors to save a few gold a turn. There's some ideas.

Hmm ... I don't think I have ever disbanded those early warriors. They are too valuable (as the cheapest units you will ever build) to either prevent the "we demand military protection" unhappiness, or to add happiness running Hereditary Rule.

Some unit has to do that job anyway, so why not the lowly warrior?

dV

 

[kcd_swede]

How did your second and third cities contribute to blocking? Only the barbs did threaten you in the north, let them build a few cities if you can't fogbust everything. You needed only 4 cities to block KK, and maybe the additionnal one near the stone was priority if you wanted to build stone wonders. I had those 4 cities by 1525BC and already got writing at that time.
My guess is that the stone city was really a drain on your economy, especially since you settled near the opposite coast. I hope that you built the pyramids, otherwise I don't understand your haste to get there

My second city went north not for blocking. Don't recall why, but I must have thought it would be the best available location with respect to resources of some kind. Third city way over by east coast not so much for stone but to block East-West the rest of the northern continent. Then I realized I could guarantee much more land by putting a city far to the south of that, in the jungles by the gems. That 4th city seemed to me to be the back-breaker. For some reason I thought roads/trade network would be enough to make it managable. It wasn't. Anyhow, I think it had more to do with how fast I was settling cities than so much with where I settled them. And no, I didn't build the Pyramids. I didn't even get masonry till much later.

I remember really, really, really wanting to go after iron after finding no copper with BW (since I had already DOW on KK), but I just feared it would take so long and I feared building a third city before I had some ability to work a square that could produce more than one coin per turn.

In all of this I apparently missed what everyone else seems to have recognized instantly, that KK would go after Ghandi and leave me alone. I still don't understand why that is true, why people knew that would happen. If anyone could enlighten me why this is, I would appreciate it.

If I had caved in to a similar Iron-lust, I would probably never have gotten my economy going again. Thankfully, I'm a more flexible player than I used to be.

I had no prior knowledge about the peace weighting stuff. I merely followed information available in the Diplo/Glance screens. Ghandi and KK were getting irritated at each other over close borders very early. I made nice to KK ensuring always to be more liked than Ghandi. Breaking off trade (OB) with Ghandi per request was good. Joining war (with no commited or even available troops) was even better. And Ghandi loves the religion so much he didn't hate me. But he hated KK a LOT. The only thing that came as a big suprise was that Ghandi started winning the war. THAT was unusual.

 

[GreatWaldoneous]

Hmm ... I don't think I have ever disbanded those early warriors. They are too valuable (as the cheapest units you will ever build) to either prevent the "we demand military protection" unhappiness, or to add happiness running Hereditary Rule.

Some unit has to do that job anyway, so why not the lowly warrior?

dV

I have no problem with warriors providing happiness in cities, but in economic breakdowns when I can't build wealth or research, and units are wearing down my economy, I build high tech armies & delete the old ones, so i'm not getting taxed for the armies, unless of course I'm saving them up for upgrades in the future which are impossible to build (ie: Grenadier getting upgraded to Machine Gun w/City Garrison upgrade or double city attack macemen/pratoreans that you save for riflemen/infantry)

 

[da_Vinci]

I have no problem with warriors providing happiness in cities, but in economic breakdowns when I can't build wealth or research, and units are wearing down my economy, I build high tech armies & delete the old ones, so i'm not getting taxed for the armies, unless of course I'm saving them up for upgrades in the future which are impossible to build (ie: Grenadier getting upgraded to Machine Gun w/City Garrison upgrade or double city attack macemen/pratoreans that you save for riflemen/infantry)

Hmm ... just how many warriors do you build?

Sure, if you have more than you need for garrison duty, disband away. I guess I don't make so many, and I tend to keep most cities I take, so I alway need more than I have made.

dV

 

[MarkM]

Thanks Conquistador for the link! Too late for this game, but next time ...

Likewise, as our relations with Gandhi were thriving (jewish friends, OB, peace, resource trading, up to +8), I also decided to give Alpha a try hoping we'd get to friendly. Oddly enough, I was able to get Mono for free and Monarchy for Currency even with him at pleased.

Well, you got "enter complaining mode" about me pulling off the Mids in 65BC ... consider this back at you: I get to friendly with Gandhi and he doesn't give me anything, but you are merely pleased and you he's showering you with favors?!? Hmph.

Hmm ... just how many warriors do you build?

Sure, if you have more than you need for garrison duty, disband away. I guess I don't make so many, and I tend to keep most cities I take, so I alway need more than I have made.

LOL, that's a good point. I think I rarely ever build more than 2-3 warriors!

In my game my problem was a lot of swordsmen and chariots and horse archers, that I could never quite justify paying the price to upgrade (until very late), but I couldn't bring myself to disband because they usually have around 10xp

 

[civilizer]

This is an exmple of faulty AI programming.

Turn 85: Just before war. I have a stack of chariots NW of Karakorum and a lone warrior at SW next to a mongol settler being escorted by 2 archers.

I declare war and move warrior 1 NE and chariots 1 S and 1 SE (next to city)

Turn 86: The AI does the worst possible thing. With Karakorum being attacked by a stack of chariots and defended by only 1 archer, it sends the settler who is defended by 2 archers back to Karakorum. The 2 archers are paralyzed and don't move at all. They could easily have killed the lone warrior.

Of course the warrior captures the settler and the chariots attack the lone defending archer.

Turn 87:
KK whips another archer but to no avail. The chariots die but the warrior takes the city. No mongols.

Very strange AI actions?