Settled 1S.
Reasoning was I did not think there would be other food around the PH to the SE, and because I felt it was a trap with krikav rolling the map
Moving the scout 2E1S revealing desert on T0 helped influence that decision too. Don't like to move toward more desert.
Also allows for a decent city to the north to work 2FP + share sheep. Tons of forest to chop for either city, and good cottage potential too long term.
Facepalmed when I saw what capitol on that PH would look like. Oh well.
Went AH > Mining > BW to chop chop chop CHOP.
I chopped every single BFC forest into settlers, started first one at size 2 >chopped > chopped second worker > grew on warriors to 3 > chopped settler > slow build chariot by this point > chop more settlers
2nd city settled horse + Spice + 2 FP to the SW and just whipped workers from size 2 for awhile. This let me power settlers and chariots from Karakorum, which is something I needed to do -- ended up gifting Shaka TWO cities to make sure he stayed Pleased, and gifted one to Boudica as well.
I think chopped + slow built at least 6 settlers in Karakorum, busy spot. End up ganking silver and gold from Boudica, though the silver spot was border tension as she had the wheat just east of there already.
Seems I was way lucky with diplo by reading other accounts. Religion carried the day. Justin was buddhist but converted only Stalin, Boudica got Hindu and converted Shaka, making that an easy choice to convert myself to keep them both happy and Shaka bribeable. Mansa and Sury snapped up all the rest of the religions leaving themselves isolated. HC wonder whoring like a beast grabs the Paya and Free Religion quite early, soooo... >_>
Warring:
Mansa DoWed Shaka as the first attack of the game, then was attacked by Stalin and refused to drop the war for the rest of the game until I vassaled the Man of Steel.
Boudica attacked Sury for being Confucian, then he attacked her back later right before my own DoW on her.
Shaka never even plotted on his own
He was attacked once, and then bribed by me to avoid taking bribes or peace vassals.
Settled out 11 cities, got Great Lib and Taj with Marble. While it was a little rough stagnating before Writing (T79), once I got cottages rolling the great land powered forward and my Currency date was not too terrible at T117. I was just so paranoid about Shaka that I forced out settlers for gifting as priority #1 and settled them carefully in spots to keep him off my border early too.
Running scientists in 4 cities and Great Lib did a lot getting to Lib. Was first to Music and starved scientists in 2 golden ages for Chemistry + SciMeth later.
Cuir attack was late, Gunpowder was post 1000AD, but Boudica had just been in a war with Sury, and her stack was all the way to the East of her empire in one of the newly captured Khmer cities she took. Sniped off two border cities immediately, traded one back and forth, killed her stack, then took two more, including Bibracte, and she folds.
Tech pace shot forward immensely in about 10-20 turns, I was pretty shocked. Every other AI but Stalin and Boudica (vassaled) will have Cuirs before I can hit them, as HC and Mansa followed me up that part of the tech tree (Mansa being at war most of the game not helping!) and dispensing the techs like candy. Shaka beelined Steel on top of being handed MT, so it's like, wow.
Anyway, can't hit Shaka, he's at both Cannons+Cuirs, so go for Sury instead as he's small (7 cities) and supposedly took a thrashing from Boudica just a bit ago; Boudica is also a buffer against him. Turns out, *NO*, he just apparently never engaged her, as his stack is huge and he has probably 30 Cuirs of his own. Anyway, on the DoW he hit and took back a city from Boudica with it, so I hit a different border city, blasted the stack when it came at me to kill all the siege in it, and ceasefired after bribing in Shaka
.
Used the respite to quickly tech to Rifling which conveniently gave Shaka enough time to cross through my empire with his cannon stack. DoW Sury again now that Cavs are coming, and followed Shaka's stack and sniped 3 cities that way
He could blow off over 100% city defenses in a turn, kinda scary! All of Sury's were at least 85% because of Chichen Itza, but Shaka was pretty handy here. Sury caps after 4 cities down, including Yasodharapura.
Justin and Mansa have been at Rifles for ages, HC got them during the Sury war, and Shaka will have them before I can even get my stack turned around. So next target is hopelessly backward Stalin, locked into war most of the game by a VERY unforgiving Mansa. Hilariously, he snagged a popup barb city across the map in Sury's backyard, so I can DoW and take it almost immediately before streaming across the map through HC's borders to power through him.
I quickly bribed out Mansa with ~500g after the DoW to avoid him suddenly deciding to cap, and demanded peace treaty from Justin (the other Buddhist, to avoid Peace Vassal). HC told me to stick it my ear when I tried, but he doesn't really like Stalin that much anyway (just hates me) so not much danger there.
Stalin folds after losing 2 cities and his stack. It always amazes me how brain-dead the AIs are about using their stacks on each other, but they can laser-guide them when it comes to warring with you...it showed up 2 turns after DoW right outside the city I just took despite the fact it SHOULD have been near Mansa somewhere if the stack existed at all.
Situation now is Mansa is already near Industrialism, HC and Justin will be at Assembly soon. Time to tech AL myself and go to Industrialism to close it out.
Mansa was plotting (probably on Shaka or me, since he hates all my vassals) but as he is Cautious or lower with everybody, he could attack anybody. Not worried about it, he doesn't have open borders with Shaka or Stalin so he's kind of caged in and will take forever to get here even if he does DoW Stalin.
And then he dropped the plotting anyway.
By the time I reach AL Mansa is already in space techs, built the UN (which I control, thanks to 19 cities + vassals) + Kremlin + Pentagon, and also sniped Hollywood from HC who is otherwise controlling most of the wonders and trying for culture victory already. And Mansa was at war for half the game. What a beast.
Anyway, this is my stopping point for tonight. Industrialism in a few turns, then slider off and Tank Goodness until all are capped. Sury techs quite well at 5 cities, helped me get all of Physics, Electricity, Astro and Steel on the way here.
Will try to stop things.. but migth just attack for some war relations.
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