Nobles' Club 244: Napoleon of France

[dankok8]

Turn 164 (1040 AD):

Spoiler :

I traded Lincoln Pigs for Gold. Cities are starved of resources... 3 health, 3 happy. I don't think I've had it this bad in any game ever! Think I'll consider Sampsa's advice and trade 17 gpt for premium health resources like Corn. Corn gives +2 health become of Granary.

Spoiler :

On a positive note, I'm only 10 turns from Lib and I'll try to leverage a tech lead into a Space win while starting fights on the other continent. Hope Buddhism spreads to me so I can befriend Charlie and Joao even more. Shaka is in FR and kind of likes the other two so that's the block I'll stick with given that Lincoln and Boudica are done and Ragnar is a pariah.

Hope I have an excess of Coal, Oil, Uranium, Aluminum etc. and I can trade that for resources.

 

[Wrathful]

Here's my attempt at this map. Immortal NH/NE to turn 70:

Spoiler :

So I went for the PH settle, figuring that it would speed up my worker by three turns and also allow the worker to immediately begin improving the pig after being produced. The problem here is that AH is a bit too expensive. My worker have to build a road for a turn. I didn't think about this.

The surrounding land is fairly bleak. I was brave and moved my warrior onto an unforested tile, then got nervous and moved back into the forest. I'll just keep him in the forest to fogbust.

AH on Turn 14 revealed BFC horses. Now I'm feeling better about the plains hill settle. I haven't met any AI yet, so we might be alone.

I teched Mining > BW after AH, and built a settler at size three, working pig, horse, and a flood plain.

I didn't know where to go with my second city. I checked for fish in the south with a warrior, finding nothing but desert stone. Thoughts of Rep scientists ran through my head, and I wished we were playing one of the other (Industrious) French leaders. Then I remembered that building a road and quarry on desert stone takes 11 turns or so, and I groaned.

My worker farmed a flood plain, then started roading to the horses. It definitely looks like isolation, so I can't rely on the AI to kill off the barbarians. Thankfully I haven't seen any barb archers yet.

I found copper after all, so I planted my second city to claim it and the stone. I revolted to slavery, intending to whip a worker in Paris.

After BW I teched Fishing because I want to work the lake and it makes Pottery cheaper. (Looking back at it I'm wondering how smart this was.)

I didn't chop anything early on because I thought I would need to save the forests for the Pyramids. Whipping proved to be quite effective with all the food and the Charismatic happiness. My workers occupied themselves with roading to Orleans, improving the copper, farming a flood plain, and improving the stone.

Some barbarians showed up, but I have chariots now and the west is secured.

I placed my third city right on the river. Yeah, I killed a flood plain, but settling it 1E would have resulted in a disease ridden cesspool. Through some arcane mysteries, the place is connected to my empire. I couldn't begin to tell you how this is possible, but I won't complain about it.

I'm quite pleased with how Orleans is shaping up. Paris will supply me with one more worker (whipped 4 > 2 with max overflow) then will focus entirely on the Pyramids. My tech path will be Pottery > Writing.

By the way, I am the least advanced civilization...tell me something I don't know, Thucydides.

Some turns later, I finish the Pyramids and collect some Great Wall failgold (the AI just now built it). I researched Sailing and will now flick in Mysticism (for the fish city's monument). From there, I think it's a straight shot to Optics. Nothing else is needed really. Monarchy is completely worthless now that I have Rep, I have no marble, forests, or IND trait for Aesthetics, and CoL is a nice idea but ultimately not worth the hundreds of beakers. Along the way I can farm a couple scientists for the Astro bulb.

I plan to whip a granary and library next turn. My capital should be a great settler pump, especially now that Rep is in. I will switch to that immediately.

 

[AcaMetis]

Spoiler :

Through some arcane mysteries, the place is connected to my empire. I couldn't begin to tell you how this is possible, but I won't complain about it.

Either the road on the Horse tile is diagonally connected to the river (which would be news to me) or the game doesn't see the fact that the second river west of Lyons isn't actually connected to the river it's directly connected to despite the unbroken line of river tiles. I couldn't tell you for sure which of those two (if either) is it .

 

[dankok8]

@Wrathful

Spoiler :

Wow! That's a lot of failgold. Needless to say your game will go a lot better than mine. Settling the cap on the PH was a remarkably good decision. Worker out faster, more forests, makes a city location with Stone more viable (although you had no way of knowing that!) and way less unhealthiness with 3 FP's in the BFC instead of 8!

 

[CGQ]

Played to 1700 AD on Immortal.

Spoiler Turn 250 :

I'm sure many mistakes were made but again I'm not familiar with immortal as much and I still struggle past the Medieval times. Being isolated is bad enough but being isolated with few resources sucks!

In the BCs, I built the Pyramids and bulbed PHIL and went Representation + CS + Pacifism. Bulbed Education too.

By time I met the AI, Shaka has vassaled most CIVs and said "We'd rather win the game" if I try to make peace. He's got nearly the whole continent vassaled and might go either after me or Ragnar. Am I in a winning position considering how late it is or am I screwed here?

I'm probably gonna have another go at this map tomorrow and take my time on it.

 

[MeowZeDung]

@dankok8

Spoiler :

I find the land absolutely awful. Most cities have no food to grow past size 7 or so. Health resources are non-existent.

Let me rephrase: I didn't find it so terrible that I couldn't manage to achieve a mildly respectable tech rate. It was garbage relative to a "decent" map.

I also cottaged a bunch and didn't grow much despite having Mids. The lack of health just didn't justify farming flood plains just to lose the +1 food. I was still able to run Caste with 2-4 scientists in most cities.

 

[Snowbird]

Spoiler :

Either the road on the Horse tile is diagonally connected to the river (which would be news to me) or the game doesn't see the fact that the second river west of Lyons isn't actually connected to the river it's directly connected to despite the unbroken line of river tiles. I couldn't tell you for sure which of those two (if either) is it .

Sailing connects without roads, no mysteries involved.

 

[Wrathful]

Continuing my playthrough.

Spoiler :

With the Pyramids secured and most of the early techs researched, my goal now is to make my way to Optics. I plan to whip a granary in my capital. After that, settlers will be whipped 6 > 3 to take advantage of the granary boost. Health is an issue, so I will leave the remaining two forests in place.

My tech path was Iron Working > MC > Compass > Machinery > Optics. The order of these isn't all that important, though I think Iron Working first is best.

Great generals were born elsewhere in the world, so I had hope that it wasn't a religious lovefest.

My fourth city, Rheims, was a bit embarrassing at the start, but I don't see any other way to get the border pop here. When the silver mine is finished I can at least work that until I get a border pop. You could argue that the pig city should be settled before this one, but the health situation is pretty dire. Getting the fish earlier will benefit the entire empire.

City 5 claimed the other pig and iron, and city 6 claims sheep and the other horse. These are the last cities I will settle pre-Optics. From what I have seen, six cities is the magic number for isolation due to maintenance costs.

The AI tech pace seems pretty terrible on this map. Judaism went in 250 BC which is horrendously bad. Buddhism and Hinduism were pretty normal, so I'm not sure what happened. The wonders are also going pretty slowly.

A couple barb galleys spawned in the fog. The joke's on them: I haven't got any coastal fish to pillage!

I explored the extremely rich island to the south. Surely a city here would be incredibly profitable. (With Astro I might consider it for the trade routes and selling the horse to somebody).

A potential issue occurred to me when I was around halfway through Optics. My capital was on course to produce my next great person, but due to the Pyramids there was a high chance me getting an engineer, which would mess up my plans to bulb Astro. So I decided to stop running scientists in my capital until Orleans could get out a second great scientist. I figured that it would be about 12 turns until my capital can run scientists again. Each scientist produces 6 per turn, so if I avoid running 2 scientists for 12 turns I lose out on 6 * 2 * 12 = 144. But if I get an great engineer instead of a great scientist, I can't bulb Astro, costing me 1500+. Of course, I could bulb something else like Engineering with my engineer, but I might be able to trade for that with the AI. And, great engineer bulbs are worth less than scientist bulbs. Furthermore, Astro is a crucial tech, so getting it earlier is quite important. Finally, this analysis ignored the tiles I can work in lieu of scientists in my capital, so I can win back some of the commerce I will lose.

Anyway, I reached Optics on turn 118. Time to whip out caravels. I messed up in Rheims and will have to work a couple of bad tiles to gather enough food to grow to size 4 and whip the caravel. Orleans will whip two caravels for two population each. I only have two coastal cities here, so I decided not to cold-whip the boats. I plan to self-tech Math and Alphabet. I could trade for it, but why bother when I can just research it myself, probably before I even make contact? No need to trip the trading limit early.

It took me forever to meet anyone, even with three caravels exploring. Fortunately, the first guy I encountered was happy to trade with me:

With all the Astro prerequisites cleared, all that's left to do is wait three turns for my second great scientist to be produced. I had some ideas about researching Hunting and finishing it with massive beaker overflow to get Astro in one turn, but since I have to wait for the great scientist anyway, there's no point.

I met another AI and made another trade:

According to the diplomacy screen, Lincoln was attacked by Shaka (I assume Shaka is the one who started the war). Shaka probably hates me now for trading with Lincoln. Oh well.

At long last, I double-bulbed Astro on T129. I also met another AI who was not very pleased with me. Well, he's a caveman anyway...

I traded horse to him for corn and gold. My tech path now is Currency > Code of Laws (Lincoln has that, so maybe I can trade) > Civil Service. None of the AI's are too big, so a cannon attack shouldn't be that hard...

Sailing connects without roads, no mysteries involved.

At that point in the game I had not researched Sailing.

 

[dankok8]

@MeowZeDung

Spoiler :

Yea my tech rate was pretty decent too. #1 in GNP hauling in >400 bpt in 1000 AD. But with little growth there would be little production. I think producing an invasion force to invade the other continent (say 10 Galleons with 30 Cannon/Muskets) will be very very painful. Despite a somewhat decent diplomatic situation (CGQ's seemed worse where Shaka vassaled everyone early...) I have real doubts whether this game is winnable unless one gets major diplomatic breaks or is a player far above my level.

 

[Snowbird]

At that point in the game I had not researched Sailing.

Some river edge calculating weirdness probably. I don't think game runs concept 'river' it just deals with something like continuous riverside tiles. No idea that engine counts as continuous although.

Like:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/river-and-coast-network-acting-strange.212929/#post-5230476

This one I get since at least one tile is river-edged from both rivers so counting goes through it.

edit: nothing googling could not solve
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/how-are-these-two-rivers-connected.290871/#post-7259148
Apparently tiles towards origin ("spring") of the river get special treatment in river connections.

 

[CGQ]

@MeowZeDung

Spoiler :

Yea my tech rate was pretty decent too. #1 in GNP hauling in >400 bpt in 1000 AD. But with little growth there would be little production. I think producing an invasion force to invade the other continent (say 10 Galleons with 30 Cannon/Muskets) will be very very painful. Despite a somewhat decent diplomatic situation (CGQ's seemed worse where Shaka vassaled everyone early...) I have real doubts whether this game is winnable unless one gets major diplomatic breaks or is a player far above my level.

Spoiler To Turn 120 :

I built the Pyramids, switched to representation I also built The Hanging Gardens in my capital in 400 BC:

Considering how resource poor this map is, I figure the +1 in all cities and population would help a lot, and it definitely did.

I ran two scientists to bulb PHIL, then switched to caste+PC. State of empire at 125 AD:

My plan now is to bulb ASTRO. I still struggle with the concept of bulbing in this game, like what techs should I avoid to bulb things like ASTRO, or LIB. Am I on the right track to ASTRO here or should I go for Education and whip some universities? I know I would definitely benefit from Oxford+Bureau here, especially if I build it earlier.

Capital in 125 AD:

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

@dankok8

Spoiler :

Yea my tech rate was pretty decent too. #1 in GNP hauling in >400 bpt in 1000 AD. But with little growth there would be little production. I think producing an invasion force to invade the other continent (say 10 Galleons with 30 Cannon/Muskets) will be very very painful. Despite a somewhat decent diplomatic situation (CGQ's seemed worse where Shaka vassaled everyone early...) I have real doubts whether this game is winnable unless one gets major diplomatic breaks or is a player far above my level.

I wasn't planning on finishing or taking this game seriously but I am just not sure if sitting back and teching is the right approach.

I didn't finish this game because it's just another domination war game. The tech path after astronomy, refer to my previous screenshot, was approximately

Civil Service, Paper, Education, Gunpowder, Philosophy, Liberalism (chemistry), trade for nationalism.

First draft then whip until some cities were down to 1 population and I was making a loss at 0% research.

My stack was: galleons, frigates, musketeers.

Attack the Vikings even with Defensive Pact with Zulu. No other choices. Everyone was too strong. America was dead by 600AD. Celtia capitulated to HRE by 640AD (ish?). Portugal was big. The whole game became a slugfest. Lost interest.

 

[dankok8]

@CGQ

Spoiler :

Even with Stone, Hanging Gardens still effectively costs 150 hammers whereas an Aquaduct costs 100 hammers and gives +2 health. I'm not sure it's worth it considering only the cap is suffering from a lot of health issues. Regardless my capital was around -10 health in 1 AD or something crazy like that. Only trading for Corn + Wheat + Rice would help the situation a lot. The cap does have a lot of food so it can grow and work a lot of cottages. Other cities not really but then again they don't even have serious health problems. My other cities are maybe -2 health or something which isn't bad.

I was running 156 bpt in 1 AD and it went up a lot from there. Pretty much pure Cottage Economy (CE) and Bureau of course.

Spoiler Cottages vs Specialists :

I'm a bit fan of using a lot of specialists on a normal map because early in the game, Rep Scientists are the best and bulbing is huge. I can reach Cuirs or something else strong very early quickly crush the enemy and really snowball from there. But on this kind of iso map, I feel like SE will peter out by 1000 AD and even if launch an invasion and cap one AI (before 1200 AD is very hard on this map at least for me), I run the risk of being an era behind in tech for the next war and stall out. Especially if there are no easy targets. That's why I chose Cottages because they get stronger as they grow and by the midgame (Towns after PP) overtake Rep Scientists. Plus Monarchy will let me grow bigger than Rep and size is everything when I only have 6-7 good city locations for practically the entire game.

@sylvanllewelyn

Spoiler :

I'm thinking war too. Maybe dogpile on Ragnar is the only option in my game and try to take a few cities and establish a beachhead. Then after partitioning him, try to get Charlie and Joao to go after Shaka (because they hate his vassal Lincoln) then backstab Shaka. If diplo cooperates I think it's doable.

 

[Wrathful]

Update to 1000AD in my game. I continue trying to reach cannons and stop psychopaths from taking over the world.

Spoiler :

I continued my explorations and found the source of all those Great Generals. Shaka appears to have taken bites out of both Charlie and Lincoln in this game. This might not end well.

Joao is pretty big too. Too make matters worse, Charlie declared on Lincoln. Thankfully, none of them are too far along in tech.

I figured I had to stop Shaka now. It feels painful to give him that tech, but Lincoln has Currency and is going for Machinery. So if Shaka got him as a vassal, he would get the techs anyway from Lincoln.

I fed the last AI, Ragnar, ten gold in the hopes that I could trade my copper away for his resources, but apparently he needs to be friendly for that to work.

Charlie took a city from Lincoln. I bribed him off too. I also found Shaka's army and was glad I stopped him from devouring Lincoln.

In other news, I won circumnavigation and continued to tech towards Civil Service. Shaka begged Optics from me. It wasn't a demand for tribute, but I still gave in.

I reached Civil Service on T140 and switched to Bureaucracy. I'm going to backfill Meditation and Priesthood now and hope a Feudalism trade. Both trades were successful.

And for the record, Paris did in fact give me a Great Engineer. I think I'll save him for a golden age.

Amidst all of this, my caravels have been exploring the world, looking for islands. They have found absolutely nothing.

Then Shaka declared war on Lincoln again, and he wants Astronomy for peace this time. I don't see any point in continuing to bribe him only for him to redeclare in ten turns. I couldn't even bribe anyone else on Shaka, because they are all plotting or at war. So...goodbye Lincoln, I guess.

He actually held out for a lot longer than I thought he would. In the mean time, I started to build up some units for war. I still don't know who I am going after, but that shouldn't stop me from getting out some macemen, knights, musketeers, and galleons. I can maintain 300 beakers per turn with very low costs thanks to gold per turn trades, so paying some unit maintenance won't hurt too much.

Boudica proved to be a good trading partner.

I teched Paper because I had to wait for the trade to become available. Now I just need Chemistry and Steel to begin the attack. I plan to go after Lincoln; he's the closest and I want to take him for myself before Shaka finally prevails in his war. Lincoln is still holding out against him by the way. Let's hope that continues.

 

[dankok8]

To Turn 229 (2595 AD). In all likelihood a loss.

Spoiler :

Shaka invaded Joao and had mixed success, in other words he was winning but not running away with it. Then Ragnar piled in on Joao. Charlie was plotting to pile on Shaka. Thought it's a perfect setup for me to invade Ragnar. It was a mix of Cuirs and Cavalry as I was upgrading and I took a city but it was going slow because he now had Grens and eventually Cannon but I was still wearing him down and staying competitive even slightly ahead in tech which is all you can ask. I was using Joao's land to try and attack unsuspecting units. But then Charlie of all people beelines Rifling right after I get it and trades it to Ragnar. Yikes! I couldn't make much progress and signed for peace. AP res saved Joao from getting mauled by Ragnar but he's a shell of himself because a lot of his army died fighting Shaka before they signed peace. Meanwhile Charlie declares on Shaka about 20 turns too late. If he had done it before, I would have joined and taken out some nice cities from Lincoln. Or alternatively gone after Joao and partitioned him with Ragnar while Charlie was busy with Shaka and couldn't come to Joao's aid.

Anyways right now Ragnar is too tough to take on militarily without completely throwing my economy down the toilet and Charlie is a runaway. There is no stopping him. He can smack Shaka, then Ragnar then peacevassal Joao and win domination. And he's probably gonna do it but in slow inefficient AI fashion. He's also 3-4 techs ahead of me now and has double my GNP. Simply has fantastic land and lots of it. 16 cities of prime land.

Just for laughs, Shaka's stack stuck in a Portuguese city after he signed peace...

Spoiler Question :

Why does a stupidly strong AI like Charlie in this game plot for ages and ages without declaring? If Charlie declares 20-30 turns earlier I have a really legit shot.

 

[Wrathful]

Moving along to 1330 AD, I learn why people hate the AP.

Spoiler :

At this point in the game, I continued inching ever closer to Steel and keeping an eye on the wars on the main continent. Shaka and Lincoln seemed to have reached a stalemate in their war. Joao got a couple more cities, but a lot of his land is really bad.

Trading opportunities presented themselves from time to time.

I was about halfway through Steel when I happened to glance at the Great Engineer I still had standing around. I had planned to use him for a golden age at some point, but I saw that he now had the option of bulbing Steel. I decided to bulb it. The bulb was worth 1080 beakers or so, so it would speed up my attack by about 3.5 turns. I figured that every turn mattered here. The faster I got a foothold on the other continent, the faster I could stop someone else from running away with the game. I was particularly afraid of Lincoln caving in at some point.

I reached Steel at 1180 AD, upgraded most of my Trebs to Cannons, loaded up the boats, and set out for my target. My economy weakened a bit due to the military buildup and AI's switching into Mercantilism.

But as my troops were preparing to board the Galleons, Lincoln broke.

Somehow, he didn't capitulate to Shaka instantly. I bribed off Shaka with Astronomy. I don't think I had any other choice here. He will surely attack Lincoln again in ten turns, so I have to hurry up before it's too late.

Maybe now Shaka will be disinclined to switch to Mercantilism...

And as you might expect, Lincoln was quite unprepared when I landed.

Regarding tech, no one has Education yet, so I might be able to snag something with Liberalism. I do have one great scientist for bulbing. Communism would be the ultimate treat, but that might not pan out. Maybe Scientific Method.

Next turn, Boudica called for an AP vote to stop the war against him. I completely forgot about the AP. I don't even know what religion it's in. I do know that religions haven't spread very much in my cities, so I decided to defy the vote.

It passed of course. Thankfully, Buddhism (the AP religion) was present in only one of my cities. So I don't have to deal with empire-wide unhappiness. In the future I should check the AP before declaring war. In this case all I needed to do was wait one more turn before declaring.

If my understanding is correct, the only way to get rid of the unhappiness is to vote yes in the next vote...or maybe that's what you have to do to get the AP hammers back? I really have no idea.

The war was pretty straightforward. I had a couple unlucky fights, but overall Lincoln didn't put up much resistance.

Trading doesn't cease in wartime, and a nice trade caught my attention while I was marching on one of Lincoln's last cities.

Now if I can just win Lib, I can take Scientific Method. But most people have Education by now, so it's going to be a tight race.

The next AP resolution called for war against Charlie. That guy is giving me 5 resources right now. I can't go to war with him. So that's another denial, and I hope that one doesn't pass.

But of course, everyone voted yes for it. My city of Tours is officially in anarchy.

Maybe I should have voted yes after all. But Charlie is giving me corn, rice, wheat, fur, and gold. If those deals were cancelled, many of my cities would be unhappy and unhealthy. At least now I have concentrated the unhappiness into one city rather than spreading it across the entire empire.

There's also the matter of AI balance. No one is too powerful at the moment, and if they all attacked Charlie that might change. On the other hand, Shaka might have wasted his army against Charlie if he went to war. I could have backstabbed him while he was busy fighting Charlie.

Anyway, I have taken all the cities I want from Lincoln. He's left with a couple poor spots in the south. Now the question is: do I vassal him? Shaka wouldn't like it, but I plan to go for him next anyway. He is the most dangerous AI here for sure. I'm leaning towards capitulating Lincoln for the happiness boost and the crab I can demand from him. He could also be a useful distraction for Shaka in a war against him.

Shaka's army is currently sitting in the interior of his empire. If I capped Lincoln, I could move my troops to his city of Atlanta and attack Shaka's army immediately. Taking uMgung would split his empire in two.

I'll have to think about how to proceed from here.

 

[AcaMetis]

Spoiler :

If my understanding is correct, the only way to get rid of the unhappiness is to vote yes in the next vote...or maybe that's what you have to do to get the AP hammers back? I really have no idea.

As far a I know you can vote no and even have the resolution fall through, so long as you don't defy it again you should be fine as far as the unhappiness is concerned. AP hammers...no idea. With only one city that has the AP religion it doesn't really matter anyway (honestly I'd check whether the AP is on the coast and whether you could declare a quick war to burn the city down to the ground anyway. No AP is best AP).

 

[dankok8]

@Wrathful

Spoiler :

Congrats. I think your game ends in a win from here.

You were right to defy those resolutions with only 1 city potentially affected. Generally you played very very well from the start. You got a break compared to my game where Shaka vassaled Lincoln in 840 AD and Charlie was a runaway AI with 14 cities but you need a break to win with an isolated resource-starved start on Immortal! Not that you didn't deserve it by any means because you definitely played better than me. And besides I didn't even get particularly unlucky. When CGQ played this map, he had Shaka vassal like everyone on the other continent before he could do anything.

 

[Wrathful]

Update to 1575 AD; I start another war and approach the endgame.

Spoiler :

I went ahead and capitulated Lincoln. My plan is to use his city of Atlanta as a starting point to attack Shaka's army on the first turn of the war. I am committed to fighting him because he hates me now that Lincoln is my vassal.

I have read that techs taken in a peace deal don't count towards the trading limit, so I took some cheaper techs from him. Hunting is needed to get the happiness from my ivory camp and Drama could be good trade bait. Most people don't have it, so I might be able to sell it for some gold.

I also traded Astronomy to Lincoln for Nationalism.

I ended up winning Lib after all. It was 1350 AD, very late obviously. I was fully prepared to lose the race. I took Scientific Method as my free tech and started on Communism.

I liberated Boston back to Lincoln. The city was being engulfed by Charlie's culture and costed me a lot in maintenance. After thinking it over, I gave him Bulgar back too.

I thought for a bit about how best to attack Shaka, and I decided to change my plan. Using Lincoln's culture, I can take Washington on the first turn of the war. His army is pretty dangerous, especially now that he has Cuirassiers, but I think I have the numbers to withstand it. He might choose to attack Lincoln with his army before going after me, giving me more time to take cities.

I declared and took Washington. It has the Great Lighthouse, so I might not give it back to Lincoln.

Shaka went after Lincoln's city of Atlanta first. That should keep his army busy for several turns.

The plan worked out quite favorably I think. Shaka split up his army in the south and I now march on his core cities..

Charlie is plotting; it's reasonably likely that it's on me. I am not too scared of him.

In 1500 AD I finished Communism, used a Great Scientist to start a golden age, and switched into State Property, Caste System, and Free Religion. Time to transition away from slavery and start using workshops.

The war proceeded smoothly. Shaka eventually attacked me with several Cuirassiers and some catapults, but I've gained too much momentum by now. He took out some of my units, but it wasn't enough. He dawdled for too long while taking Atlanta. I was able to defend my army in the hilltop city of uMgung.

Trading helped keep me in the tech race, though to be fair my economy is in decent shape.

By 1550 AD, Shaka was ready to capitulate. Part of me wanted to accept this immediately, but Charlie, my next target, was close to Rifling. I didn't want to risk attacking Riflemen and Cavalry with my Cannons and Medieval units, so I decided instead to capture the rest of Shaka's southern cities while teching Rifling myself.

5 turns later I had taken all the cities I wanted and ended the war.

At this point the game is very straightforward. Charlie still lacks Rifling and is pretty small; I imagine he would capitulate without much resistance. From there I can overwhelm everyone else and win domination or conquest, whichever comes first.

@dankok8

Spoiler :

I think the key in my game was bribing off Shaka before he could capitulate Lincoln. When I first met him he was close to taking Lincoln's capital. Bribing him off gave Lincoln ten turns to rebuild and get out some more troops, so he was able to defend for a good deal of time when Shaka redeclared on him. Furthermore, bribing Shaka to peace reset his war success against Lincoln; that might have stopped him from vassaling Lincoln even after he took Washington. I'd say this is one of the reasons why early Optics is key on isolation maps - it let's you take control of the situation on the other continents much earlier.

Of course, if an AI settles tons of land and becomes huge without going to war at all, there's not much you can do to stop that. And I have no idea how this map would play out on Deity. Perhaps Shaka would kill off Lincoln in the BC's.

 

[dankok8]

@Wrathful

Spoiler :

In my game Charlie had 13 cities ~600 AD when I met him, all peacefully settled. Then he started crushing Boudica and was simply a monster.

Honestly though paying Shaka to sign peace with Lincoln was a pivotal move. Fantastic move! I didn't know anything about the war success resetting.