Nobles' Club 195 - Asoka of India

[Pedro78]

@dutchfire sorry about your loss

Spoiler :

With this kind of crowd, it's usually better to strike first, unless you can get them to attack each other before they can attack you.
Horse Archers would have been very strong as the Khmer had only flatland cities and no metals (assuming you settled the NE gold spot)

@Framesticker

Spoiler a few things :

Position doesn't look too bad (@725BC), but your settling plan is weird:

• The jungle city will be useless for a very long time
• A city 3S of Jerusalem to share the Wheat would have been relevant, I'd have settled this one before moving towards Africa
• I'd have settled Patali 2N1E of its current position

You don't need many cities to launch an attack. As of who to attack, several factors are important:

• What units they have. First thing I usually do when picking a target is check out what is the AIs best unit -- to do that you just have to repeatedly open/close dialogue with them until they brag about their best unit (only works @cautious and lower). If an AI doesn't have metal nor LBs it's an ideal target for almost any rush. Also have to take into account what units they can get in the next few turns (i.e. does the AI have Feudalism/Engineering etc. in sight)
• Are their cities flatland or on hills? Attacking flatland cities is much more cost-effective.
• Distance. As you stated, you don't want to attack Shaka because he's too far away.
• Possible bribes (on both sides) and potential diplo hits.
• "If I don't take him out now, he'll peacevassal to X later" is also an important factor, although its weight is usually harder to determine

 

[ArchGhost]

@ArchGhost congrats on your win!

Thank you sir. I don't play very tightly as evidenced by some of my other games but I enjoy the challenge of this kind of stuff.

Here's the extra detail as promised:

hmm. well imagebb is giving me a bunch of hooey with failure to upload random screens, but most of the (sparse) pics I took made it in. I've stopped taking so many during the boring parts like prepping bulbs and stuff since there's only a 30 image limit per post as well.

Immortal attempt:

Spoiler :

Alright, so as i was mulling over before I played, I wanted to move the warrior onto that hill to look around before making the call on SiP, and the plan was to settle on the Spice unless it looked worse. I guess for some reason I thought it would give me another commerce, that certainly isn't the case. But still, given the reveal of no seafood anywhere nearby and those Sugars being jungle-covered, the positioning of the city isn't terrible -- it still has plenty of hills and trees for production, 2 lake tiles, and spice makes an ok tile before calendar whether you can farm it or have to cottage it; I ended up doing one, then the other. Warrior is just gonna run up the ridge of hills there to see what he can see.

More importantly, the reveal of that pig shows that my cap spot isn't so bad: a second city can use both the foods, the spice, and even work the lakes if it wants to by planting on one of those hills. Bombay went there on T35 It ended being my NE spot and it was more than adequate with all the green tiles to farm around it.

started to go AH on kneejerk reaction to the pig until I realized my worker would be doing a fair amount of nothing until the second city came out, so reverted to wheel so he could road around and be useful in the meantime. that gold looks mighty valuable judging by the lack of rivers here.

AH reveals that I made a embarrassing mistake apparently -- SiP had horses! Ouch. Revised settling plan decides to grab them in first ring of the city over there and chop or whip a monument for the food + gold, prioritizing barb defense first. With these forests around and Fast Workers, picking up some Monuments to use them seems like it will pay off if I have to emergency chop some defense....especially as this area isn't so food rich nearby. Starting Mysticism is ok sometimes, I guess, but I'm painfulyl aware of the missed HA opportunity here. Ugh.

seeing Sury so close meant I had to make a judgement call on which spot to go for first. Decided the 1st ring gold + wheat was too useful to cede to him and got another settler going in Bombay to grab the horses. Horse city was only settled 3 turns (T53) later, after all was said and done, and chopped a Chariot ASAP.

Tech up to this point: Agri > Wheel > AH > BW > Writing. Going Fishing > Pottery next so I can start picking up some commerce with Lakes + Cottages. Once the golds come online it will be easy enough to go that
far, at least. ORG is already helping me out though.

Spied Copper and a green Cow over there to the west of the warrior on the hill. Shaka being in that direction and in his own religion makes me nervous as he's one of the AIs that just likes to be fighting for little reason -- and horse alone won't cut it against his metal units which he is sure to get. So that spot is now a priority to in case he starts to WHEOOHRN before the diplo situation shapes itself out. It can share the wheat and lakes, has plenty of forests, and good production...looking good for a wonder or the HE. Shaka also has a TON of land over there all to himself, so it's pretty clear already he's gonna be a major player in this game.

Sending a settler up to that clam + spice to both block Cathy from coming into my zone of influence (and none too late judging by how close she is) and to help share the gold during whip cycles. Unfortunate the stone was so far away and in such a useless spot, but Qin had his own source and killed the GW and Mids anyway.

Picking up the copper spot and squeezing another small one on Sury's border to snag Sugar + banana to share cottages hurt my speed to Aes, but it didn't matte rmuch as Cathy was the only one with Alpha for awhile anyway. Made the trade with her.

The boring parts now.

Spoiler :

Spoiler Full tech/noteful events list :

T9 Agriculture
T28 Wheel (had been working into AH for a bit first)
T32 Animal Husbandry
T34 Stonehenge goes (Shaka)
T35 Bombay founded (pig + share corn/spice/lakes)
T44 Bronze Working, revolt into Slavery
T49 Great Wall goes (Qin Shi Huang)
T50 Vijayanagara founded (eastern gold + wheat)
T53 Pataliputra founded (western horse + gold + wheat)
T59 Writing, Libraries start
T61 Great Lighthouse goes (Catherine)
T64 Fishing
T67 Pottery
T68 Varanasi founded (block Cathy + clam + spice + share gold with Pataliputra)
T70 Temple of Artemis goes (Shaka)
T74 Kublai demands we go Jewish, so we do
T76 Agra founded (copper + cow _ share wheat/lakes with Pataliputra)
T82 Pyramids go (Qin), Oracle goes (Qin)
T90 Calcutta founded (steals away Sugar + banana from Sury, helps works a couple cottages)
T93 Aesthetics
T94 sniped a hotly contested barb city over by Shaka w/single Chariot for some gold, helps put into Alpha
T95 Alphabet (trade with Cathy)
T96 Iron Working, Sailing, Masonry (all traded for)
T103 Colossus goes (Qin)
T105 Currency
T106 GS #1 born in Bombay, Meditation (self-tech), Polytheism/Hunting/Priesthood (traded)
T108 Monarchy (trade), revolt into HR
T110 Literature as Cathy will trade Marble for Gold for awhile now. Gift city (For Shaka) founded in the middle of the jungle to improve relations with Shaka. He is not anybody's worst enemy at the moment and it will get him to Pleased so I can beg if he goes into war mode. Ragnar is plotting so it made me even more nervous about controlling Shaka.

T111 Monotheism (trade); not going into OR for the moment as I have nothing to really use it for
T112 Great Library goes (Cathy); Cathy probably would've just traded Lit at this point, D'oh!
T113 Math (traded for the last turn of it); Swap into Organized Religion, put saved Math chops (using Wealth) into NE which will complete in 1 turn.

T115 NE in Bombay
T116 Code of Laws. Parthenon goes (Kublai Khan). Only one turn of marble fail-gold
T117 Philosophy (bulb), swap into Caste/Pacifism. Hanging Gardens of Babylon goes (Cathy)
T121 Statue of Zeus goes (Qin), Shweydagon Paya goes (Kublai). Tons of Paya fail-gold
T122 GS #2 in Delhi. Civil Service (self-tech), Calendar (trade from Shaka). Revolt to Bureaucracy
T125 Ragnar declares war on Cathy. Cathy bribes Suryavarman and Shaka onto him same turn.
T126 Paper
T127 GS #3 in Pataliputra
T128 GS #4 in Bombay
T129 Education (double bulb after making sure Bombay was a GS), Mausoleum of Mausollos goes (Kublai). Lots of fail-gold from chopping in Agra (actually thought I would get it, to be honest).

T130 Compass
T131 Metal Casting (trade)
T132 Sistine goes (Kublai), Hagia goes (Cathy), Apostolic Palace (Judaism) built by Cathy; Cathy voted into power. She proceeds to call Religious Leader each time but can't win because Kublai is the biggest Jewish power and the second candidate, but Qin and Sury vote for Cathy, locking them into a stalemate as long as I don't pitch in (I own about 20-25% of the vote as Kublai spread to all 7 of my cities). Shaka and Ragnar are in other faiths and abstain.

T133 Music (trade from Kublai)
T134 Construction, Archery, HBR (trades)
T135 GS #5 in Bombay. I join the war with Ragnar.
T137 Snipe and raze a city off Ragnar with a single chariot by following Shaka around
T138 Theology (trade from Cathy). Ought to come in handy for the war push coming up.
T141 Nationalism finally done. Even with Compass trades + fail-gold, I was running low. Bulb into Liberalism. Agra, my strongest production city, has a ton of hammers saved in Wealth for Taj but I have to wait a few turns as Cathy got the Marble she was trading me razed on this exact turn

T143 finish Lib, take Military Tradition. Starting on Gunpowder and infrastructure (Forge+Barracks+Stable) since most cities have been doing either fail-gold or Research (after courthouses) this whole time. Angkor Wat goes (Cathy)

T144 Peace with Ragnar. Plenty of brownie points earned with Shaka and the Jewish alliance
T146 GS #6 in Bombay
T147 Machinery, Feudalism (trades). Now that Cathy has re-hooked her Marble and traded it to me again, I can actually start to produce Taj. I use one of my spare GS to trigger a Golden Age to for more hammer to build infrastructure/Taj and to finish up Gunpowder quicker at the same time

T148 Shaka takes Ragnar's city bordering me. I now have no border at all with Ragnar
T149 Gunpowder. Taj Mahal built by me in 3 turns. Ragnar peaces with Sury (I bribed him out). This way Sury won't peace-vassal to Cathy during a shared war with Ragnar, and it makes it less likely for him to do so while she refuses to end the war (though not impossible except during Sury's peace treaty with Ragnar). I was hoping to make my attack during this 10 turn window when he couldn't vassal to her (she didn't seem likely to end the war anytime soon as she was kicking Ragnar's ass) but missed it by a couple turns. Luckily nothing happened, but I probably would have just gone for Shaka or gone for a two front war on Sury +his master anyway as he is pathetic in this game.

T151 Notre Dame goes (Cathy)
T152 Engineering, Drama (trade from Cathy), swap into Theo/Slavery/Vassal for pure Cuir production
T153 University of Sankore goes (Cathy)
T155 Guilds (trade) to boost workshops. Shaka peaces with Ragnar. Cathy is still whoopin' him though.
T160 DoW Ragnar. This is to prevent...something. All I have in my notes is "DoW Ragnar: prevention" and i don't remember. I *think* maybe the idea was a fail-safe to force a peace treaty with Cathy if she vassaled Ragnar before I was done with Sury/moved on to Qin or Kublai, which would prevent her from coming in to save him since she can be bribed even on a target she is Friendly with (i.e. me)...and Sury has Guilds to bribe her with... Kublai is at +11 and will remain Friendly even if I DoW Sury so he is not a threat for now and I don';t need to beg now (gonna save that for the attack on Cathy or Qin after Sury is mine), and I have a standing peace treaty with Shaka over something for the next 4 turns.

T161 Beg from Qin (who is pleased with me and Friendly with Sury) to keep him from coming in to save Sury DoW on Sury.

T162 Qin DoW on Ragnar (I bribed him). This will keep Qin's nose out of things in the future and boost my relations with him too through Mutual Military struggle which may come in handy if it helps get him up to Friendly. Either way i'm planning to cap Sury and then hit the next target (probably Cathy) like lightning, so even a short war will suffice.

T163 Versailles goes (Kublai)
T165 Spiral Minaret goes (Kublai)
T166 Printing Press. GS bulb into Chemistry, teching that now.
T167 Shaka has been plotting; it couldn't have been on me since he started during our peace treaty. I thought maybe Ragnar but instead he comes over to dogpile with a DoW on Sury.

T168 I take the last of Sury's 3 continental cities and vassal him for Optics. Too slow, Shaka . I immediately bribe Shaka onto Qin so he doesn't get any ideas about using his stack on me since our treaty ran out, he's Cautious and it's right next to me! Qin turns right around and bribes Kublai onto Shaka. Oh, good then. I don't have to try for a beg from Kublai now, and Cathy is all mine, baby.

T170 DoW Cathy. I've been rallying new units here for a couple turns already so I'm ready to punch right in.
T175 Chemistry is done. Pretty much shutting off tech now that my workshops are fully powered.
T176 Astronomy. I had Sury tech it for me and traded it out of him.
T177 Vassal Cathy. Shaka ignores Qin and takes a city off Kublai, then parks his stack next to another one.
T180 DoW on Qin.
T184 Beijing is captured with Mids. Cathy has been calling "stop war" votes ever since I attacked Sury and I have to defy them, so anger from AP and war weariness cause me to swap into Rep + Nationhood and run the culture slider a bit while sneaking Theaters between Cuir builds..

T185 Qin capitulates after losing a random single unit. Sometimes the war success is that close, I guess. I get Banking in the peace deal, and then trade for his Military Tradition to put some M. Academies in spots and for trade value (only he and Kublai have it).

T186 Economics (Cathy Trade). Swap into Free Market. Finally running in the black now.
T188 DoW on Kublai. He bribes Ragnar and that poor bastard accepted it. He'll just get thrashed by Cathy again and softened up for me to I suppose. This was partially motivated (instead of a little more build up, as KK is strong with Grenadiers + Muskets) by the fact that Novgorod flipped to him so it's weak and squishy, plus it had Notre Dame in it and I want it back for the happiness!

T189 Kublai peaces out with Shaka (of course).
T193 Swap into Police State. I've been voted into AP Resident for a bit (thanks vassals!) and got Notre Dame back, so happiness is less of an issue by now. Shaka's absolute beast-mode unit-spam is scaring me and I need to ramp up production NOW to hit him after this Kublai business concludes.

T198 Vassal Kublai Khan. He put up quite the fight, as he was the most advanced and bigger than all but Shaka. He also sniped my GG medic early on with a lucky roll and had a secondary stack coming through Cathy's territory, which bought him a few more turns. Just have to roll up Ragnar really quick and then on to Shaka.

T202 Vassal Ragnar after taking 2 of his cities. Dude got whooped on all game, haha. The next few turns will be a major surge of whipping Cuirs as I have to engage Shaka at our border and wipe out his massive stack at the same time.

T206 DoW Shaka and kill his stack in 2 turns. All newly produced Cuirs are rallying to the front to try to catch any retaliatory actions until the bulk of the veterans can move down and heal then surge in with fresh production.

T210 Statue of Liberty goes (Kublai). Big whoop. At least he was the only one with Democracy and so not much worry about Emancipation. Shaka is putting up one hell of a nasty fight spamming Muskets, Pikes and Cuirs of his own (thank a lot, whichever vassal traded that to him...) so I sneak in a round of Spies and run my bank dry using the EP slider. I plan to revolt cities that he starts to stack heavily in before hitting them, especially as the need to hurry is urgent -- Shaka has been able to tech Rifling since the 2nd turn of the war.

T220 Shaka capitulates after making me take 10 of his 13 cities! What a turd. His unit spam was unreal, each turn he'd put about 8 fresh units into whatever city I threatened every turn and I had to revolt 3 cities to punch through at one point or another, unless I wanted to lose 15+Cuirs on every city (I suppose I could have anyway, I built over 160 of them in this game ). It also helps that he was dumb and apparently wanted to pick up Grenadiers -- teching Chemistry instead of Rifling despite having RP and Gunpowder since the start of the war. Oh well. If he had succeeded in getting Rifling I'd just pick it up myself through a vassal trade and use Spy Revolts + mass Cavs to finish the job.

T221 NC 195 Asoka has won a Conquest Victory!

Kublai managed to convert Sury, Cathy, Qin and me (after a demand) which had me nervous about Shaka (with no land target at all he's just as likely to hit me) though Ragnar would probably hit Cathy or Shaka if anybody.

Qin took over the tech lead from Cathy which is actually kinda good as he's a much more shrewd trader than her, and his wonder-lust further causes him to hang on to techs--normally bad for me, but a good thing to prevent mass tech proliferation in a love-fest. Sury is being throttled by Qin and me, with nowhere to expand on the continent beyond his tiny 3 city peninsula. Ever since I settled the East gold city I've been thinking of him first for the chopping block though the Jewish love-fest that arose would complicate the execution a bit later. That is, how to isolate him so he could be stomped without having him peace-vassal first or have one of his buddies take him in during his downfall.

Libraries in Delhi, Bombay, Pataliputra and Vijayanagara; the first three run scientists to bank up GPP so two of them will guarantee a pure scientist pool later. Its small, but there is always a chance for an artist with NE.

I went for Currency after picking up Alpha, then as Cathy was perfectly willing to part with her Marble for a Gold, on to Literature for the NE and Math for chop boost. Then CoL and picking up the religious techs, probably through trade (Monarchy included). Kublai has been hard at work spreading the good faith to all my cities so all I need is Pacifism + Caste and I'll be rolling in Scientists while I chop fail-gold into Marble wonders and self-tech through what else I need (Compass, maybe MC, CS, Paper, Nationalism).

Ragnar decided it would be better to fight Cathy than expand south, and bit off a three-way war with her, Sury and Shaka whom she bribed in. I joined a few turn later to avoid (more) negative diplo and build brownie points after sending a chariot to both fronts to make sure Ragnar wasn't in force near my borders -- even managed to snipe and raze a city by tagging along with Shaka's north-driving stack.

NE city and Pacifism + Caste coming through for me: Bulbed Philo, 2x Edu, 1x Lib, and used a 5th to trigger a golden age during build up time, and to snag the free GA turn by finishing Taj in one. A further GS would help with Chemistry later.

Prechops into Wealth/Research in copper city for Taj turned into a 3 turn project. I had to wait for Cathy to rehook her pillaged marble for a couple turns before I could cash the hammers in though, annoyingly perfect timing for Ragnar to do that despite getting his butt whooped by her AND Shaka the whole time, losing 3 cities with no exchanges in his favor.

13 EDIT: err...17 (8+8 + the extra 1 from Taj during GA, right?) turns of GA would help a ton with finishing up Gunpowder as my fail-gold reserves began to run dry. Then whipping Forge +Barracks + Stable (all but one city already had Courthouse) in Theo + Vassalage for 9 exp cuirs being pumped as fast I could manged on only 7 cities.

Ready for DoW on Sury (only a handful of longbows and a single mace there, he has no stack to speak of). This was a delicate matter, as all three of Sury/Cathy/Kublai were Friendly with another and Qin can be bribed/will DoW at Pleased, and at this point Sury was the only other person with Paper so it would totally be possible for a such a lame trade to bring him (or Cathy , if she wasn't already warring or I hadn't traded her paper) in-- for an AI requesting it, anyway. Earlier I had to keep him out the war with Ragnar so he wouldn't join up as a friendly war-time peace-vassal to Cathy when she was stomping on Rags, which was important as it was the only way she could possibly come into the war for Sury while being at war already herself. Kublai was +11; he'd remain Friendly after the -1 on DoW and couldn't come in on me. Qin was neutralized with a beg, while Shaka was already at war (at first) and then had a standing peace treaty with me when he started to plot again -- on Sury, it would turn out.

Catherine's turn (two longbows and a mace only in that city, her stack is off thrashing Ragnar). This time, Shaka was bribed on Qin by me, Kublai got bribed in on Shaka, which left me free to hammer her til the cows came home.

Qin puts up more of a fight, with Grenadiers and muskets ready to go. But he still folds after losing just 2 cities, giving me the Mids which was handy at this point because War Weariness + AP defiance of stopping wars + whipping was stacking up and a swap into Rep + Nationhood really took the hurt away until the next election put me in charge

I either never took one of Kublai or it got eaten during the upload process or something. It was carefully orchestrated with a bit of providence though: Earlier, Shaka tried to attack Sury with a MASSIVE stack right before I capped him, leaving me with a massive army on my doorstep from a Cautious Shaka because of the vassal. I bribed him on Qin to keep them both occupied, Qin brought in Kublai, leaving me completely free to beat up Catherine and burn the AP down if she wouldn't quit calling for stop war votes, or just use her population to vote myself into control.

Long story short, Shaka ignored Qin and took a city off the more advanced Kublai (Maces/Knights vs. Grenadiers + Muskets), they peaced out, Shaka had his massive stack stuck isolated between me and Kublai.

I used Shaka's bruising of a 2nd Kublai city to DoW on KK and wipe said stack/city out. He had a mini-stack attacking Shaka teleport into Cathy's territory when they peaced out as I already closed my border to both of them. It came brazenly walking through her territory only to be wiped out by my fresh stream of Cuirs surging north. Kublai got lucky and bought himself some time by sniping my GG medic inside a stack healing in a city, but he still fell after taking 3 cities and getting bit of the stick. Hilariously Ragnar took a suicidal bribe too; Cathy was already beating him up by the time I used leftover injured Cuirs to roll him over after 2 cities gone.

Shaka proved more complicated. He had a really big stack (40+ units) right on my northern border and was building up another one (upper left of the picture, about 12 Knights and a LOT of Maces/Longbows in his nearby cities) already near my copper city. He was a monster: right before I wiped his big stack out my power was .75 of his or so instead of the 1.22 in the picture, which is a couple turns after DoW. I know he's one of the unit spammy guys but dude was a BEAST.

He was also alarmingly close to rifling, which forced my hand when he was a turn away from Gunpowder (he already teched replaceable parts). One of my stupid vassals also handed him Military Tradition so he'd have Cuirs running around before long. I had all my current Cuirs line up on his stack in the north to wipe it out on the DoW +1 and had to settle for fresh production to keep him at bay in the south until the veterans + new build up could surge through in critical mass.

Police State came in quite handy for this massive push of production that ended up being needed, because that stubborn punk resisted down to his last 3 cites -- of 13! And then he just gave away one of them in the deal for peace. Aggravating.

Spoiler End State :

 

[Pedro78]

Great write-up ArchGhost! Impressive how you've managed to stay at peace for so long -- shows how differently games can go. Cuirs are totally unstoppable on IMM (on deity too, but to a lesser extent).

 

[SittinDown]

Ok - rebooted after my 50 turns in 15 minutes attempt.

Spoiler To turn 91 :

• SIP, start on Worker. Do BW first, since I only had 1 good farmable resource.
• Warrior scouts north, and dies on a hill against a lion. :\
• Finish BW, start chopping, met a bunch of AI's and started on Agriculture (which is cheaper than if I'd done it first, since I met ~5 AI's and they all have it).
• Put chops in to settler, but grow to size 2 on a warrior.
• Settle NW between the wheat and gold.
• Start heading to a HA attack.
• Finish HBR around T-66, and can build HA's around T-70.
• Whip / chop about 12 HA's, plus some Chariots (which wind up being nice, because Sury has a lot of axes and not many archers).
• Tech Pottery. not too efficient, since I'm whipping HA's without granaries. I probably should have grabbed fishing earlier for a commerce boost.

• DOW sury around T-88. Take a size 7 city on the Sugar to the East of Delhi, and only lose 1 HA in the attack. (Killed 5 units). Also cherry-pick 2 workers building plantations (he has calendar).
• Trade HBR away to Catherine and Kubli for Iron working, Masonry, and Writing. Figure I'll head to Math, .
• Sury puts a single axe on the iron to defend it, and a chariot finishes him off, then I bait a swordmen onto flat land, and take out that too.
• He's started producting spears, and i'm not sure if he has more metal, but he's willing to take a peace treaty for Mediation and Polytheism (meh). I'd rather get Alpha or Math out of him.
• I may take Cease Fire here until my HA's are healed.
• ...side note - pretty sure Shaka is going to be a problem. Good news is I have a hill city as a choke point. Chopping around it now for more units and better counter-attacks.

 

[ArchGhost]

Well, this isn't going terribly well. Help!!!

Immortal/400BC or so

Spoiler :

Anyway, Cathy beat me to the northern cow site so I'm on five cities with no real prospect of going for six. I found Iron though near Bombay, so I guess conquest is the way to go. Who do you recommend going against? Shaka is an obvious target so he doesn't kill me first, but it seems he's well far away and maintenance would kill me. Maybe Cathy? Or Sury?

I decided settling the Nile cities is a major priority. Shaka was creeping up from the south and Ragnar and Cathy had captured Barbarian cities in the region (Ragnar had the gold city west of the Nile) and I really didn't want to border him, but there was probably no other way around it - north of India was either desert or settled.

Spoiler :

Pedro's points about determining who to attack are all spot on. The most relevant ones in this situation are

a) proximity -- Shaka and Ragnar are pretty much off-limits because anything you took, you'd have a hard time supporting/paying for. I didn't realize this was an Earth map while playing it (thought it was just a random Terra map) but with that information Shaka has an insane amount of land/distance from you. This makes Sury, Qin, Cathy, and Kublai onto your short-list, in that order. Unfortunately you don't know too much about the states of these targets since its still so early you haven't scouted out their land yet, but based on this alone and how you have Sury cornered he makes a good prospect as you already have what you need (iron + close border) even if he has metal...with how small and close he is you could just push him over with swords or HAs, catapults would be overkill but might have value going forward.. Qin would also make an ok target since he likes to sit and build things and he's pressed up between you, Kublai and the coast.

b) diplo -- the most dangerous prospect about this map in particular is that all the AIs will generally like each other, they are all in the same peace weight camp and several of them need little excuse to be bribed in to war (Cathy will attack you on bribe at Friendly and makes friends easily with other AIs!) or dogpile. Whether you attack earlier or later, it's likely to have implications and you need to examine whether you can shield yourself from a bribe or weather the future anger.

The easiest way to handle this for me is to make nice with a good attack dog, like can be done with Monty or Izzy: get them bribeable and sic them on others to stir up trouble and deflect idle aggression. Here, Sury is too small for this purpose and Qin tends to be too cowardly to accept. Shaka is too far away and would only really serve to diffuse plotting. Ragnar is great for this but in his position he can only really project influence onto Cathy. Kublai is more difficult to use than Ragnar (his thresholds are Pleased/Pleased on Instigator/Target for bribes, while Ragnar is Cautious/Cautious) but a better friend as he's usually a better techer.

Your specific diplomatic situation here is more volatile than mine was, which is good and bad: it's harder to stay safe, but it makes it easier for you start trouble. Cathy isolating herself is the key. Get Ragnar or Kublai onto her, even Shaka, and it will be much easier to have the other(s) join in. Since there are the makings of a Hindu bloc going here, I would try to suck up to Kublai in the long run and avoid hitting Qin unless he swaps out of Hindu. This way you can monger some hate between Cathy/whoever and leave yourself relatively free to either kill Sury or defend against Shaka should he attack (which was what I was paranoid of all game).

It is kind of true that Cathy might cap to whoever whomps on her, but capitalizing on the distraction to improve your own position is important.

Shaka is a special case here: he cares little about religious alignments so dealing with him should be fairly straightforward: gift the usual city, give demands, etc. The unfortunate part is his relative isolation: he can't really hit anybody and without a clear land target he can walk across the entire world to attack somebody on his own, randomly. If you get him liking you though you can use him to preemptively break aggression (bribe him on whoever might be plotting on you and nothing will really happen).

Summing up all of that, here's how I would proceed in your situation. Be aware that this is just general for the rest of the game and I can't see the AI attitudes toward each other:
1.) suck up to Ragnar before taking a side. Try to bribe him on Cathy before doing anything
2.) choose sides with Kublai to get into his good graces.
3.) Scout out Sury and Qin. I would still favor Sury since he's closed off and doesn't share Kublai's religion, but you may have to go for Qin if he looks weak too.
4.) Kill Sury before any complications from vassaling can rear their heads.
5.) moving on, try to get Kublai against Cathy and maybe join in, even if you really mean to attack Qin
6.) always keep a watchful eye on Shaka and what he is doing

Great write-up ArchGhost! Impressive how you've managed to stay at peace for so long -- shows how differently games can go. Cuirs are totally unstoppable on IMM (on deity too, but to a lesser extent).

Oh yeah, i definitely got lucky here -- not being attacked in the first 100 turns by this crowd is not insignificant at all. Especially so after seeing what happened to dutchfire!

The real heroes though were

Spoiler :

Shaka and Ragnar snapping up the first two Religions, letting Kublai spread Judaism around like an epidemic.

I saw that and jumped right on that opportunity when I was given the "convert or die" shtick.

 

[SquidInk]

Here is a view of my game at 1 AD. Playing on Monarch and it's going quite well (too easy if I dare say).

Settled 1 SE on the spices and went for Agriculture and Bronze Working iirc. The beginning was a little awkward because my Worker had nothing to do for a couple turns. I settled at least one of my other cities on a Calendar resource and I plan on researching Calendar or trading as soon as I get Currency so I can get an immediate +2 Happiness boost.

I quickly saw that my neighbor the Khmer empire had no strategic metals and I took him out with a Axes + Chariots.

Spoiler :

His capital is really nice and rich in food.

I expanded quite fast and struggled to get to Alphabet (did not have Iron Working to clear out the jungle), when I noticed that Shaka was also only on Archer tech. I took advantage of this to steal a couple of his workers and pillage a bunch of his improvements for $$$ and up my science output a bit. In the end I lost 2 chariots + 2 Axes when he finally got some Iron and got some Swords and Impis out, but I harassed and set him back quite a bit so it was all worth it. His counter offensive was pretty weak with a few swords that died easily against fresh Axes. I am hopeful that I can make piece to trade for some backward tech he has.

I am now at 8 cities but my economy is kind of in the toilet. The upside is that everybody but Shaka is running Buddhism, which I hope will bring some peace to the land while I build my economy and tech up.

 

[SittinDown]

Here is a view of my game at 1 AD. Playing on Monarch and it's going quite well (too easy if I dare say).

Looking pretty good. Might be hard to get Shaka to agree to peace without winning a few more battles, but he's the only one in his own religion, so you might be able to get the Mongols or someone else to join the war!

Couple observations -

• Vij should have been settled 1 North - you had to wait for borders to pop before you could use the wheat and gold.
• You got a ton of forests left around - don't work unimproved forests, whip and chop! You can take out Shaka probably if you do this better / faster.
• Keep in mind, if you're attacking with axes, it's best to put 4 hammers into the axe, and do a 2-pop whip for max overflow. you'll get a 2nd axe in 1 more turn most of the time! that's 2 axes for 2 pop - pretty good trade.
• Vij has no need to be size 6. (So are others). If it's unhappy, shrinking, and working junk tiles - whip it!
• You're over-cottaging away from the capital. Cottages around Pataliputra should be farms, and you should be whipping that city after building a granary.
• Run your slider at 0% or 100%. The game rounds against you, so you'll lose 1 GPT by not using 100 / 0.

 

[SquidInk]

Thanks for the feedback. I applied your advice for whipping fast axes and the difference was really noticeable. Before that I was mostly whipping before growing, to get rid of unhappiness, and/or when a unit was 1 turn away from completing. If I had done this from the get go, Shaka would have been toast a long time ago.

He's alive and doing ok.

Catherine and Kublai Khan decided to backstab me and declared war on me at the same time. I had to make peace with Shaka in exchange for 1 of his measly techs but I did not think I could fight a war on two fronts. I got peace plus a tech. One bird in your bag and all that....
Fortunately my new enemies only have half-assed armies for what I can tell. I razed 2 of Kublai Khan cities and killed a bunch of his dudes. He refuses to talk but Catherine is already ready to settle for peace.

My economy is really bad at the moment. I can't really research anything without capturing/razing cities (which is getting harder the further in I go in Mongol territory) and I have nothing to trade for tech. That was my thinking behind all the cottages in the outskirts of my territory, but as you already could tell, they were not doing much.
Additionally, I made a critical mistake in trying to get Calendar and Code of Law, when I should have gone for Constructions for catapults. At the moment, my plan is to see if I can beat up Catherine enough for her to give me tech in exchange for peace, and maybe get a great scientist out to bulb my way back out of the stone age.

 

[SittinDown]

Do you have currency? A couple of copper mines working 'build wealth' in a few cities can make a huge difference. Also check your trades. Trade any spare resources you have for gold per turn if you can.

You can also use the Axe -> Overflow to whip into a wonder, and then when an AI builds that wonder you get gold. (Called Fail gold). Cottages in outlying cities are a really tough way to get your econ back up. If you have math, chopping into a wonder works decent as well. Make sure you ONLY work the wonder when you're getting overflow from a whip or chopping though, otherwise, you're wasting hammers probably. (You can work wealth while you grow). And don't whip while you're actually working a wonder, because there's a big penalty for that. Helps to work a wonder where you get the 2x prod bonus, but it's not absolutely necessary.

 

[SquidInk]

Played 30 more minutes or so.
I now have currency and I have 2 or 3 of my cities building wealth while I run the science slider to 0. At the moment I can turn on research every 2 or 3 turns for 1 turn. Not great.
Catherine got Feudalism and Crossbows so I really need those catapults.
As for trading resources the AIs have no money so I am giving the resource away to build good relations. I check every 10 turns to see if they have any money to spare. Not sure if there's a minimum of turns for relationship bonuses to develop but if they have money then I'll renegotiate.
Failgold is not an option unfortunately because I am so far behind on tech that all the wonders have gone.

 

[SittinDown]

At the moment I can turn on research every 2 or 3 turns for 1 turn. Not great.

Well, it sounds like you got yourself behind. Maybe you have some old units you could disband... if your axes are obsolete, you might want to stop paying maintenance for them.

.... but keep in mind, it doesn't matter how often you can turn on research, it matters how many beakers you average per turn. So, if you have 100 beakers every 3 turns, that's better than having 30 beakers at 100% all the time.

 

[rfcfanatic]

Settling in place seems to me probably the best option here. The lake behind the settler's back is supposedly a fresh water lake yielding 3 with a Lighthouse. The same fresh water lake would also irrigate the corn.

The biggest problem here might be lack of , but maybe these 3 grassland hills would not be that bad. Also, all those grassland forests could most certainly be chopped and replaced with cottages. As always, I'm not sure about the plains forests. Not sure if it's good or bad practice, but I often keep the plains forests until I can improve them with lumbermills. Early cities can do little with non-hill plains tiles anyway. Doesn't matter much if they are forested or not.

 

[SquidInk]

Lost a save so I replayed from an older point. This time, I decided to stick with getting Code of Laws so I could trade tech and catch up a bit. This partly worked; I did not get great techs trades overall but better than going for Construction (maybe?) since most everybody had it already.

Catherine was not super committed to the war so I beat her up enough that she gave me peace, gold per turn, and an old tech. I focused on The Mongol Empire. The plan was to finish it off and capture a couple key cities (one of which has the Pyramids). But Ragnar built the AP and stopped the war. I took advantage of that to rebuild and shore up my economy a bit.

I was really struggling with money so I decided to build courthouses against previous advice from another thread. My maintenance was getting to be 6-7 in some cities and I had to build wealth in too many cities and could not produce units fast enough. Since it seems I'm in it for the long game it probably is going to be worth it in the end. Plus, not building courthouses feels like a waste of Asoka's Organized trait. I also converted some farms to cottages.

Now Shaka declared war on me but I was ready for him and had an army on that side of the map. I sabotaged his horses and almost immediately captured 2 of his cities. I am headed for a third and a fourth soon. I am hoping to capture all his cities this time. I have macemen and a super Medic general, which should help.

In other news, Ragnar is now a vassal of Catherine and the two of them seem to be teching like crazy. Not sure how I am going to win the game yet. At this point, I think is has to be a military victory since Space is unlikely.

 

[Gumbolt]

@sQuid -

Spoiler comments on game :

I would say something has gone wrong here. For 1290ad on Monarch your tech is way behind here. Normally by this date you should have cuirs. You are trailing the AI badly on techs here.

The Ai have 10-11 gold for trade here for resources. Any reason you are not doing this?

I see no value in this Zulu war. He will give gold and aesth for peace. He will then also offer 6gpt for a resource. Unless you feel you can cap him any time soon? His land is terrible and your science is tanking.

Cathy is in a strong position here with 2 vassals. Game is still winnable but realy you wanted cuirs for 1200ad conquest. I used HA to take out Sury's land based cities.

Not sure about using caste here. Especially when at war. Whipping units is key to warfare at times. You are not running that many scientists. I would of rather whipped libraries.

2 great people by 1290ad is not good either. You really wanted a golden age here and to be running 7-8 scientists in Sury's capital. Mixed with NE and maybe pacifism.

The major issue with this scenario is the number of war crazy AI here nearby making diplomacy key here. Shaka is 99% likely to attack the player here.

Some of these court house builds are wasteful. Especially the one in your capital. Same for the markets. Use your HR happiness. That or find more happiness resources.

Baban should be running artists. Frees up a happiness resource. Happiness is clearly a major issue on this map too. especially with so many Ai to block off land.

 

[Anysense]

@SquidInk You need slavery to whip units. More units built faster -> more cities and conquest gold, more resources for trade and more population to whip more units. Whipping courthouses is also much better than slowbuilding them.

 

[Gumbolt]

Hmmmm

Spoiler The issue :

Yeah my game has 3 Ai in war mode now. Mongols declared on me. Russians and Shaka now plotting too. Thankfully the AI is terrible at warfare.

 

[Pedro78]

About the map

Spoiler :

This is a map where you want to be very careful about diplo & most likely go to war early, whatever the difficulty. Having an army and being ready to counter-attack is very useful.

If people want, I might give this a quick run on deity and attach some saves/screens (although I know the map already). Gave it a test run before uploading and didn't encounter any game-breaking difficulties in the first 100 turns.

 

[SquidInk]

Thanks for your comments, all.

@sQuid -

Spoiler comments on game :

I would say something has gone wrong here. For 1290ad on Monarch your tech is way behind here. Normally by this date you should have cuirs. You are trailing the AI badly on techs here.

The Ai have 10-11 gold for trade here for resources. Any reason you are not doing this?

Several reasons here.
I am planing to eliminate Shaka entirely. If I am going to try to stop the Russian and vassals, I don't need Shaka plotting against me as I would not be able to wage war on 3 fronts.
Generally, I am not consistent. I check the relationship board every few turns but I don't trade for 1 or 2 gold. I tend to wait for the AI to get more gpt if possible. I don't trade military resources (unless the other civ is friendly and peaceful), and try not to trade happiness resources unless the other civ is behind.
In this case the AI with the most gold is Shaka, and Catherine has 3 gold but I can't sell her rice because that'd bring one of my cities into unhealthiness, and the other resources she wants would give her more happiness. I figure she does not need more help kicking my ass.

@sQuid -

Spoiler comments on game :

I see no value in this Zulu war. He will give gold and aesth for peace. He will then also offer 6gpt for a resource. Unless you feel you can cap him any time soon? His land is terrible and your science is tanking.

Cathy is in a strong position here with 2 vassals. Game is still winnable but realy you wanted cuirs for 1200ad conquest. I used HA to take out Sury's land based cities.

Not sure about using caste here. Especially when at war. Whipping units is key to warfare at times. You are not running that many scientists. I would of rather whipped libraries.

2 great people by 1290ad is not good either. You really wanted a golden age here and to be running 7-8 scientists in Sury's capital. Mixed with NE and maybe pacifism.

The major issue with this scenario is the number of war crazy AI here nearby making diplomacy key here. Shaka is 99% likely to attack the player here.

Some of these court house builds are wasteful. Especially the one in your capital. Same for the markets. Use your HR happiness. That or find more happiness resources.

Baban should be running artists. Frees up a happiness resource. Happiness is clearly a major issue on this map too. especially with so many Ai to block off land.

Several things went wrong here.
- Surii was an easy target but because he was on good terms with other AI's early, I took a diplo hit with the Chinese and Russians and could not get good trades the whole game.
- My early economy is weak. If you need so much food to whip, is the only option war? I get the principle but then you're only going for one type of victory and gameplay. How and when do you transition from farms to cottages?
- I also mismanaged Suri's capital badly (among other cities). It's an awesome spot but I waited way too long to add a lighthouse and I did not whip nearly enough.
- I should use HR more efficiently.
- I did not use my civics properly. Being Spiritual I figured I'd switch back and forth between organized religion and pacifism but i did not line up my builds properly.
- I should have finished Shaka the first time around. If I had been better with chopping and whipping I could have razed/conquered all his cities. I did quite well in my early war with him, stealing workers and pillaging improvements. I fell short when it was time to take his cities.

What the consensus on Forbidden Palace and Versailles? Useless?

Thanks for the guidance.

 

[Gumbolt]

Hmmmmm.

Spoiler On my game immortal 560ad. :

Took our Sury land based cities with HA. Bit of struggle as he got swords. Captured Great Light House.
Mongols attacked me. First stack suicided. 8-9 units wiped out.
Shaka attacked me and promptly suicided his 10-11 stack. I lost a unit.
Russians decided to attack Viking and I have joined this party for shared war bonus. I also took shared religion and shared civic.
Mongols were about to attack me again but I made a demand and he coughed up.

Overall I am managing tech fine. I have traded some techs for gold. I have run wealth/science quite a bit.
Sury capital I have whipped lib, market and NE. Should have 3rd great person soon. Fast on way to philosophy. I was first to music. G library in my capital.

Your game.

Spoiler your game :

-Just looking at your game log. It appears it took you 2 DOW to deal with sury. You took his capital later than me. On a map like this that is not good to do multiple DOW. Attack on Shaka was not needed. He woud of 99% likely attacked you anyway. Unless you could bribe him to attack a neighbour.

Why would you not trade resources? If your short on happiness resources trade for them. If your short on gold trade off spare health or happiness resources. 7-9 gold a turn can be difference between saving 1-2 turns on a tech. You can also trade techs for gold.
You don't need that much food to whip? Common whips. Size 4 to 2. Size 6-3. Even size 8 to 4 for some builds. The only farms I have built are on food resources. I think your stacks for Shaka for 1290ad are too small. You have xbow/mace and other techs available and you are using 7-8 size stacks with many dated units. My first HA stack was about 10 units in 1000bc or so. Use slavery as it really does help. You really wanted HA here for faster units.

HR is a no brainer for happiness. I really doubt org religion and pacf are the issue here. Albeit you have not really used pacf properly as you have not yet got a 3rd great person. You skipped lit/music too.

You should not really need FP or Versailles on this map. I rarely build them unless I have a huge empire. 20-30+ cities.

If you took out Sury with HA here it should of been over pretty early on with Monarch AI. Shaka is shaka. Warmonger and not much else.

Why are you building cottages on happiness resources? No wonder you have happiness issues and lack of resources to trade. That dye resource was better with a plantation on it. +4 commerce from a plantation.

Your city layout here has not really helped either. I was using all the gold resources in the inner ring.

 

[SquidInk]

What is DOW?
As for the attack on Shaka, I figured that it was only a matter of time until he attacked me so when I saw I had the opportunity to steal a bunch of workers and pillaged him, I jumped on the occasion.

I generally build cottages on happiness resource tiles if I already have that resource (happiness bonuses are not cumulative, correct? If you have 3 sugar you're still getting + 1 Happiness in your cities, right?). For instance, Dehli is built on Spices; Varanasi is built on Sugar. For Varanasi, I cottaged the sugars as soon as I settled the city, which was much before getting calendar.
Isn't it better to cottage certain resource tiles if you already have the resource?
For example:
Sugar tile with Plantation = 4 food, 2/3 commerce
Sugar tile with cottage = 3 food, 5-6 commerce, so equivalent to a cottaged flood plain.