Nobles' Club 304: Charlemagne of the Holy Roman Empire

[sylvanllewelyn]

The worst leader in the game must be "enjoyed" on deity. No huts, no events, normal speed, up to T78 (925BC).

Jungle is visible from the starting screen. I don't want to settle towards the jungle so I move the scout 1W-1SW.

Spoiler :

Rice resource without fresh water is not exciting but it is still real food.

I decline the plains-hill because I want the two pigs to be placed one tile away from the capital. If farming over bananas counts as a food sources, then the capital has 4 food sources on the second ring. The first couple of new cities can grow more quickly by borrowing food tiles from the capital.

Players have 5 turns to decide on their initial tech. My initial techs were: agriculture, animal husbandry, mining. I did not feel compelled to "mine the pigs" because there are two gold tiles nearby and I thought that I could afford to "detour" into animal husbandry.

I thought I was isolated until T24 (3040BC). The first player I met only has 1 espionage point on me. That meant there are more players beyond the jungles to the North.

After mining, my tech path was: archery, wheel, pottery, bronze working, writing. In my case, purely for defending against barbarians, archery was not a strictly necessary detour. I could have settled the next city to the North, hook up horses, and use chariots. The real reason is because archers, if necessary, can also defend against not-barbarians.

Heroic epic easily unlocked.

I went pottery before bronze working. Bronze working provides production and military units stronger than warriors. However, I am imperialistic, the capital has lots of food and production already, and I already have archery. Cottages were more important for supporting my cities and units.

I am not sure if I settled correctly. This is the best I can come up with. Five (5) cities, with two gold tiles, and my economy is still being strained. My next priority is to build a road though the jungles so I get foreign trade routes.

Ragnar declared war on Wang Kon many turns ago. Despite the number of cities, as long as nobody else gets involved, I am not too worried that Ragnar will get crushed. I met Ragnar much earlier than the other two so I guess that Ragnar is immediately North of the jungle, and that the other two are North of Ragnar. This means that Ragnar still has the jungles to expand into. He won't stay at 3 cities forever.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Deity, no huts no events, normal speed, T115 (1AD). 1AD comes after 1BC. There is no year zero.

EDIT: Okay maybe I would play on. Maybe. Depends if others are playing along as well. The discussions are getting interesting. The rest of this post does not change.

EDIT 2: Finished off my game. Write-up will appear later, below this post. My predictions were mostly accurate up to a point.

My question is

Spoiler :

Why Ragnar?

Ragnar has a high religious diplomacy modifier and his favourite civic is hereditary rule. It's easier to stay friendly with him than to fight him. In an alternate universe we may have to defend against an early attack with archers and then gift him a random city for peace. We have protective archers and cheap settlers. There are no incentives for an early attack against distant cities that are surrounded by jungle.

More generally, I think the game goes like this. Stay friendly with Ragnar and trade calendar resources with him. Code of laws, civil service, liberalism for astronomy. Attack the other continent(s) with something. Win domination by conquering all the other non-Buddhist heathens.

I played a few more turns.

Delayed philosophy until Taoism was founded somewhere else. If someone on other continents wants to take all the religions for a cultural victory, then they will be on the receiving end of something somewhere in the future. I can hold philosophy or trade it around for stuff. After civil service I can switch into bureaucracy and pacifism.

I am not in the mood for this type of game today.

@AcaMetis

Spoiler :

Why would you want to swap the positions of Wang Kon and Ragnar? I am not sure if Wang Kon can manage the jungle start. Why not swap Ragnar and Suryavaraman instead?

@krikav

Spoiler :

Your game turned out differently from the others. I am sorry to hear that it's not working out as intended.

Personally, I would not want The Great Wall on this map. There is a lot of land to the South but also food resources. If left alone, barbarian cities will form and the situation will stablise after the initial wave. I will consider The Great Wall if there are no resources and barbarian cities cannot form.

 

[AcaMetis]

Spoiler :

Why would you want to swap the positions of Wang Kon and Ragnar? I am not sure if Wang Kon can manage the jungle start. Why not swap Ragnar and Suryavaraman instead?

Mainly because I believe Wang Kon is less of an early DoW threat than Sury, though apparently both are kittens compared to Ragnar anyway, and Sury would indeed be a better choice for clearing/surviving the jungle. So yes, swapping Ragnar and Sury would probably be the better move.

 

[Mr_Trotsky]

T100

Spoiler :

Dealt with barbs and settled pig and rice spot. Changed my mind and went fishing and pottery before AH. AH didn’t do me much good without decent tiles to grow on to and pottery allowed me to get going on granaries. Granaries are obviously great and I was also lacking anything useful to put my abundant hammers into. I had enough units to defend if I had to and not enough commerce to fund more fog busting.

I then went for the clam and cow spot. Chopped the boat and then improved the cow when AH was in. AH revealed horses north of the capital so next settler went there. This was also a nice blocking city and allowed me to share the capital’s food.

Then went writing and started building libraries in the capital and the pig/rice city. Started running scientists in the pig/rice city for philosophy bulb.

I put another city for the cow and the second gold but then stayed at six cities. I wanted to give myself the best chance of getting to philosophy first to found a religion. All the religions founded at that point had been founded on the other continent(s) and I really wanted one to help with the diplo as well as religious civics.

Teched aesthetics first. I needed it for philosophy bulb (I think) and nobody was going to give it to me. Fail gold was also nice because I had gold and ivory and it was also quicker to get to than COL and meant I’d be able to get alpha sooner.

Teched aesthetics and then meditation. Traded them for alphabet with WK. Sury demanded aesthetics. I already had -4 for refusing to join the war with Ragnar so not a difficult decision to give it to him.

Then went PH and COL. Traded PH and meditation for sailing with Sury. Got some nice trade routes without roading through the jungle.

Traded COL for maths and masonry with WK. Bulbed philosophy and founded Christianity (chose religions on), making me a true Holy Roman Emperor.

Hopefully trade COL for monarchy with Sury next turn and then I’ll go for mono before a double switch. This little detour will delay CS - which is likely to be a bit late anyway - but I think it’s worth it to be able to spread Christianity to my cities and my future friends.

Although before going CS, I probably need to make a decision about longer term goals. Maybe I should be bulbing astro. I don’t love the idea of lib given I’ve no idea what’s going on on the other continent(s) apart from they’re teching religions quickly and not generating great generals. Suggests there could be some lib rivals over the waters and there are some fairly useless techs on the way to lib if you don’t win it.

 

[konata_LS]

Spoiler T100 :

This must be a very large map

Spoiler :

Moving the mouse to your score on T0 will show 1000+ land tiles. Some AIs may get 10+ cities and run away.
The unlucky DoW from Ragnar cuts all the trade routes between you and Sury or WK, so it hurts both militarily and economically

@AcaMetis

Spoiler :

It seems I've misunderstood your plan about this map . When Ragnar told me "fear my axemen" in 950BC, I thought "AcaMetis probably wants us to defend against an early DoW, leverage PRO traits, and get faster GGenerals". But actually you didn't expect Ragnar to start plotting so early .

Ragnar with capital Copper might plot very early. I guess each case below has a possibility of 1/3 to happenning:
His target can be Sury (Sury may settle on Ragnar's face, especially on high levels), as in Mr_Trotsky's game.
His target might be WK, because Ragnar is Annoyed towards WK, as in sylvanllewelyn's game.
The most unfortunate case is Ragnar's target is the human player, because the human has usually the weakest soldier at the beginning of the game. As he did in krikav's game and mine. Monarch AI doesn't have TW, so it gave me some time to build enough defensive units. Deity AIs have TW for free, which leads to a DoW before 2000BC.

 

[Henrik75]

I would take plains hill settle. Although Sylv brings a valid arguement, losing a dry rice for a plains hill settle is still better. Can still share the pigs, farm the banana and give the rice to another city, Plains hill with IMP is huge. Could even farm the banana, mine both pigs and pump settlers in 5-6 turns at size 3 with IMP plains hill settle & double mined pig tech until settling more cities and researching AH. In this case you could grab fishing, bronze working and pottery first then finish up with AH Writing. Would probably gift a city to ragnar after blocking him off.

Konata! stop playing on monarch you always have rifling before they have printing press you are too good for that level. play emperor and immortal more i believe in you <3

 

[konata_LS]

Monarch from T231 to T263

Spoiler :

After scouting Sury and WK's land and stack, I thought Rifles + Cannons were overkill. So I declared on Sury after my wounded units were healed. Luckily, Kublai's attitude towards WK was Cautious, which meant Sury couldn't bribe Kublai to attack me:


A full health Knight was defeated by a catapult, how could it be possible


Surprisingly, Sury capitulated on T258 even WK was alive. Perhaps because Sury's "resist capitulation" is very low:


Didn't want to take WK as vassal, for diplomatic concern: the low peaceweight AIs disliked WK. WK disappeared on T262


Got 4 GGenerals but don't know how to use them . Some captured cities had already several settled GGenerals from Ragnar and Sury, so I don't want to settle more. Maybe build some Military Academy? as MScience is not far from Chemistry .
Probably I should build some more workers, as I've just adopted SP and need workers to spam workshops or watermills.


Sury and WK's stacks are almost inexistent compared to Ragnar's giant stack.


Kublai adopted Free religion and US, which ended his Friendly relation with Pacal.


Pacal's real attitude towards Kublai dropped to Annoyed, because Pacal disliked Kublai's vassal Asoka:


Sell some resources to the other continent:


Next target is Kublai, because attacking Kublai won't give me -1 penalty on Pacal's side, and Kublai can't bribe Pacal to attack me. If I attack Pacal, Pacal might bribe Kublai in the war with me. Kublai is close to AL. Inf. + Arty will be needed for the next war. Of course, a fleet to transport troops is also required.

Sometimes it's hard to understand AIs behaviour . In this game Pacal is the first to MScience, Asoka is the first to get Rifling, while Kublai is the first to Democracy and he built SoL .
After all, Pacal remains Pacal, as he goes for Physics before RP .

 

[konata_LS]

In this case you could grab fishing, bronze working and pottery first

Interesting. Getting Fishing means giving up Engineering bulb and trebs rush. Which factors lead you to such decisions? IIRC you did some Engineering attacks with Charlie and it went well.

Thanks for encouragement. With good leaders + nice neighbours I usually try Emperor. But Charlie's starting techs are really painful . I would have played this map on Emperor if

Spoiler :

If @ AcaMetis gives me 6 gems in the capital and swaps Ragnar and Pacal's starting position. Ragnar is the human player's neighbour while Pacal on the other continent is wonder spamming with 14 cities and tech like crazy. Starting next to Ragnar makes the game much harder than starting next to Pacal.
In my game Asoka is the first to Rifling .

 

[AcaMetis]

Spoiler :

It seems I've misunderstood your plan about this map . When Ragnar told me "fear my axemen" in 950BC, I thought "AcaMetis probably wants us to defend against an early DoW, leverage PRO traits, and get faster GGenerals". But actually you didn't expect Ragnar to start plotting so early .

...Oh yeah! Imperialistic has that +100% Great General generation trait! I completely forgot about that .

This is why I've learned to just trust the RNG and have the map fill in the details itself. Here's a perfect example of having to leverage PRO and IMP to both survive a possibly really early DOW and still win the game afterwards, and I'm sitting here not knowing that Ragnar is completely crazy while I forget half of what the IMP trait does. Pure brilliance on my part that the map is able to present such a defined challenge to overcome, clearly .

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

@Henrik75
My internet is not good. Catch-up with your videos later. The opportunity cost of declining plains-hill settle as imperialistic is high. My intention was to give the dry rice to another city. If I settled on the plains-hill, then the dry rice will be located 2N3W. The second cultural border expansion from the capital at T50 (2000BC) would not have covered the rice. The new city could not borrow the rice from the capital to get started.

If you played, what would have been your tech path?

Spoiler :

Is archery on the path somewhere? Or is archery only for pu$$ies and n00bs?

@konata_LS
Thanks for the reminder. No shame in playing on monarch or any difficulty. My default is immortal. Noble’s Club maps tend to be on the easier side so I can attempt deity.

Spoiler :

Number of land tiles. I did not know this function until now! In this case I can't think of anything else that I would have done differently. It may be useful for future games.

Deity, no huts no events, normal speed, up to T149 (780AD).

An important mid-game decision. Someone made one choice. I made another choice

Spoiler :

Mr_Trotsky. He wants to lightbulb astronomy directly. Contact the other continent(s) sooner for tech and resource trades. Enjoy intercontinental trade routes for longer before everyone starts running mercantilism.

I got tunnel-visioned into liberalism. I didn't like the idea of Wang Kon getting liberalism and then feeding it to his master Suryavarman.

The other continents might also be sharing religion and trading happily. I did not see the benefit of holding back on my own tech trades.

Classical choice of civics.

More trades. GS1 bulbed philosophy, GS2 education (partially), skipped machinery until GS3 liberalism (partially).

The prize, but don't get excited because...

... Wang Kon already has astronomy. I am the first to liberalism, but not to astronomy. Heh.

Meanwhile Ragnar was first to nationalism. Ragnar is going for the military techs.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Deity, no huts no events, normal speed, up to T174 (1140AD). Map knowledge.

Mostly just a bunch of tech trades.

Spoiler :

Two continents, Hindu and Buddhist. This means I can aggressively trade away anything within my own continent. It won't accidentally spill onto the other continent.

Pacal and had 10 cities and Kublai Khan had 12, with similar land quality. This meant that even though both were Hindu, they could not trade much because their tech rates were too different. That gave me some trading opportunities.

Backwards player that I can use to backfill.

Get ready and conquer the Hindu heathens.

Temple of Artemis. Can give more gold than a Great Scientist can give in science, and with no restrictions in tech choice. A direct lightbulb only gave around 1100-ish. Not coastal so no customs house. Also that's a big stack. I don't want to see them upgraded into anything.

War civics. Nationalism, slavery, theocracy (screenshot is wrong). I forgot to mention that, when Buddhism arrived many centuries ago, I built a monastery and diligently spread it to all my cities. The holy city was too far so natural spread was not reliable.

Ragnar was first to steel and military tradition, and early. Tech preferences are random. Whoever advocated attacking Ragnar - - it wasn't an option for me. I didn't need constitution but once I trade a tech to Buddhist buddy, I had to trade it to the rest. Otherwise they will just trade it around.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Deity, no huts no events, normal speed, up to T216 (1530AD).

Paying attention to diplomacy. There are situations when the rathaus are good but, as always, unique buildings with economic benefits are hard to explain.

Spoiler :

So it's 1260AD and there are Mayan galleons close to my shores.

Back in 1220AD, two bad things happened.
1. Asoka peace-vassaled to Pacal.
2. Pacal begins plotting, on the same turn, and I am his worst enemy.

I cannot fight two deity AIs at tech parity and more (combined) cities. Pacal and Kublai are at pleased so it can become 3v1.

One options was to sign a defensive pact with Ragnar. Some minor distraction, probably India loses a couple of cities. India might capitulate or even die, neither of which are helpful. It does not stop Kublai from declaring on me. Kublai and Pacal will have mutual military struggle benefits. They were pleased before because Kublai has low religious modifiers, now they would be friendly and the Pacal tech-feeding commences.

Instead I gifted chemistry to Kublai to get him to pleased. I have created a monster in the future and eliminated my chances for domination or conquest victories later. The map is big and cities are spaced far apart. Even if I went for tactical nukes later, I cannot hit anything that is not coastal.

But I needed security guarantees now.

Since I have decided not to worry about making Kublai strong later, I might as well drag him in against Pacal. I can use the distraction to try to take as much land as possible. If Pacal is weakened enough, then Kublai will not benefit much from Pacal's eventual capitulation.

As a strategic note, I could have done a combination of A and B. Defensive pact with Ragnar, beg from Kublai, don't bribe Kublai in, and strike Pacal's core cities myself. The problem is Pacal's core cities were close to Kublai's core cities, and both of them have been hoarding world wonders. Pacal's core cities would be useless because all the nearby tiles will be Kublai's.

Asoka's cities would be more useful because they were close to Pacal and Kublai's more periphery cities. There would be less cultural pressure.

I end the war after I take one of Pacal's holy cities. I really wanted a holy city for... reasons.

Kublai inadvertently achieves one of my other goals.

When the dust settled, everyone has railroads already, and no amount of rifles and cannons can fight deity AI with railroads.

Since my army was obsolete, I chose to disband it to cut costs and modernise as quickly as possible. (I did not have much left to begin with). Try to survive using diplomacy until I close the technology gap again.

There is a time gap between when the overseas cities come out of resistance and I reach communism. I can move the palace but I can't really build anything in my original cities. They are recovering from slavery and drafting and can barely work the now-mature towns. The forbidden palace takes a long time to build.

In this screenshot I already reached communism. Infer what I did earlier in other cities.

IMHO there is a big difference between 50% and 75% reduction. Research equals revenue minus cost and margins are small. Without the rathaus, communism would have been delayed by a lot. The Ikhanda are not the same. Maybe it is selective memory but I don't seem to capture cities with barracks intact ever.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Deity, no huts no events, normal speed, up to T263 (1765AD).

Prayers and divine protection.

Spoiler :

1510 AD was another difficult year. Ragnar switched into free religion and universal suffrage. A few turns ago Suryavarman switched into Islam. I switch into organised religion for diplomacy modifiers. High upkeep but what can you do.

By divine intervention, the divine message has spread to one of my newly-formed cities to further cement relations. He would continue to keep spreading Islam everywhere.

Ragnar plots at pleased so it's not 100% but it's better than nothing. It's a useless city anyway. Also notice that I am beginning to replace everything with workshops and watermills. My strategy cannot work unless I am fully committed.

Spoiler :

By a twist of fate, I would find out that the "useless" city I gifted Ragnar had aluminium underneath. He didn't have aluminium otherwise.

Defensive pact for good measure but it didn't last. Muslims versus Hindus. Only happens in video games.

Ragnar declares war on Wang Kon and now it's a true world war. This is great, and not for the obvious reasons that they are building units and not trading with each other.

No, the main benefit is because nobody will be elected secretary-general of the UN! Everyone will abstain. Nobody will get more than 50% of the votes. I get to keep my civics!

I said earlier that I wanted at least one holy city. This is the reason. Under the organised religion civic, we can train missionaries even after scientific method.

This is a trade I - - declined - - . My goal was to race to the internet so I am definitely not trading copper to anyone. Not even if I had extra.

The outcome of the war was inevitable. Now I can largely ignore Ragnar's diplomatic attitude in the future.

A great engineer arrives! The backwards but proud Holy Roman Empire is about to usher in a golden age.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Deity, no huts no events, normal speed, up to T295 (1850AD).

Sort of tech parity. Finally.

Spoiler :

I launched a golden age and switched to... Christianity? For a few turns I am going to be diplomatically exposed.

The holy gifts that keep on giving.

The moment I have been planning for.

Begin the Apollo Project. Nobody's got computers yet. I've got time.

Pacal got computers so I was racing against him. Pacal has been causing me problems for the whole game. He took a peace vassal, declared war on me, tried to win by culture, and almost stole the internet from me.

Kublai was my main competitor for space race. I don't think I can race him to fusion. I begin to train spies and reallocate all my espionage points on him. The passive espionage points were from having the rathaus, security bureau, and intelligence agencies in all my cities. In hindsight I forgot the jails.

The internet gave me robotics in 1840AD and ecology in 1846AD.

With bureaucracy ironworks capital, I complete the space elevator in five (5) turns. It's not worth it to research robotics for the space elevator but you can get robotics off the internet.

You need an Excel spreadsheet for this. The last several turns were a little tricky also because my research comes from production but I also need to produce laboratories.

So now we just sit back and keep clicking end tu... no you do not!

Keep a spy in all cities. Keep espionage points on anyone that might sabotage your parts. Stay vigilant.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Deity, no huts no events, normal speed, up to T305 (1870AD).

The little details still matter.

Spoiler :

Kublai has three corporations and is racing with me to the spaceship. I didn't want to trade any corporation resources to him. Once I got all the technologies for the spaceship parts, I had no more use for slider research. I still needed his resources for the health and happiness so I can build my spaceship parts. I put the slider down and bought his resources using GPT. 30 GPT for each resource. Doesn't matter.

Remember what I said about espionage activities? They kept coming. Foiled them all!

Close! He got bottlenecked by the stasis chamber. Notice that Pacal could have won cultural if Kublai had not intervened.

Launch the spaceship and keep clicking end tu... no I didn't.

If I have already launched the spaceship, and then I lose the capital city, do I have to start all over?

I didn't want to find out so I spent the last 10 turns training units.

 

[krikav]

@sylvanllewelyn

Spoiler :

Nice epic game you got going on there!

If you lose your capital, you need to rebuild all your parts and launch the ship again.
But I think you can pre-empt this by just moving palace...?
Or does it count from the city that was capital when the ship was launched..? I don't know!

Moving palace is something that happends frequently in lategame for me when espionage is involved, palace is built in close proximity of the spy-gift cities for that extra bonus.
Another small trick is to close borders with more AIs, so that eventually even that tiny gift city of yours, when gifted, get a traderoute in some of your large empires cities.
That way, you get another yummy 0.8 multiplier from the -20% traderoutes discount.
Other than that, I think you got them all!

 

[Mr_Trotsky]

620AD

Spoiler :

Traded COL for monarchy with Sury as planned and switched to OR and HR. Decided to go for astro bulb because I had no idea how the other continent was teching. Painful to forgo CS with a size fifteen capital and, as it went on, the inability to chain irrigate became more irritating too.

Tech path was MC because I needed it and could trade it for currency. Then théâtre to trade for calendar and IW. Also, I wanted to chop a theatre in Vienne so I could run artists and speed up my golden age without going into caste. Then teched compass. Traded philosophy for feudalism when WK was going for it and then mechanics much later with Sury.

Started a golden age and got out two scientists for astro bulb. Not amazing great person generation but I ended up with a golden age earlier than planned because I decided to bulb astro and that brought my need for scientists forward a bit. Teched optics during the golden age and then CS. A bit annoying because it’s possible I could have traded for it but I wanted to be able to switch into bureau at the end of the golden age. Bulbed astro 560AD I think.

Tech trading hasn’t been great because the absence of religion until I bulbed philosophy means no religious lovefest. Ragnar wouldn’t trade because he never got above cautious and, because he was getting pounded, he fell so far behind that Sury would hardly trade. Sury’s known tech percentage meant he wouldn’t trade unless both of the other AI had the tech which was rare because of Rags. But I have just traded CS for guilds with WK which was nice.

In terms of expansion, I flipped the barb city south of Vienne and took the other barb city with swords once I got iron working. I founded a city on the one tile island with the fish for overseas trade routes and also to fog bust that part of the coast. Not sure it was worth it. Also settled a city towards Ragnar to get the dry rice and eventually the stone. Used the stone to fail gold Angkor Wat. Already got about 400 gold from Shwedagon Paya which got me to mechanics. Then stayed on ten cities until golden age when I settled two more with ocean seafood which became more attractive with caste. There are probably another three sites to get with communism. Not sure though because I’ve taken not scouting to an extreme and I still haven’t scouted the whole of the south of the island.

Diplowise I spread Christianity to most of my cities. I was going to spread it to the AI but decided that it wasn’t worth the hammers. They’d get it eventually and I wasn’t sure I wanted a lovefest. I decided I’d prefer it if they didn’t all get to friendly with each other and start trading everything. WK had declared on Ragnar so he was getting shared military struggle with Sury while I was up to -6 for refusing to join the war. I was never getting Sury to friendly even with shared religion. I would have joined the war if I’d realised that Ragnar was going to get completely wiped out. I thought he’d become a useful trade partner as the two city vassal of Sury or WK so I decided I wanted to preserve that relationship. But instead he heroically fought to the end and was wiped from the map. I could have got some cheap diplo points after all.

Just met Pacal. He’s not alone as he’ll trade and the AP has just been built in Buddhism. He’s in Hinduism. Great generals have been born and he’s nobody’s worst enemy so it looks like there may not be a love in on the continent.

Not sure what to do next. It’ll depend on who else I meet but I’m thinking about killing Sury. I’ve got -8 from refusing to join the war and refusing the go into OR and ruining my great person generation during the golden age. WK is almost friendly so perhaps we can trade our way to rifling together. Or perhaps I can do something before then.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Comments on Mr Trotsky 620AD

Spoiler :

In krikav's game, there was no early religion, and Ragnar declared on him. gg.

In my game, there was early religion, and Ragnar declared war on WK. WK has 7 cities.

In your game, there was no early religion, and Ragnar declared war on Sury. Ragnar dead, WK has 11 cities.

I am interested to keep reading your updates. I want to know which game has a faster tech pace. Fewer trades, but a financial leader with more cities? Or more trades, but the financial leader remains smaller?

620AD
... I’d prefer it if they didn’t all get to friendly with each other and start trading everything....

So would I. Who has optics and who has astronomy as at 620AD?

You seem to have more cities and more cottages. In my game, as you can see, I didn't have many cottages on 1-food tiles. How do I tell if am I supposed to? My 1-food cottages never become towns, and when I work those tiles, my cities don't grow! How did you get a size-15 capital? I also tend to stop building cottages around the time I get optics, sort of.

 

[Fippy]

Saw your question Krikav, moving the Palace works for spaceship launch.
Always the new capital matters

 

[Mr_Trotsky]

@sylvanllewelyn

Spoiler :

On tech pace I’d guess it’s fastest in your game. Early religion and friendly faces make a huge difference. Also, I think Ragnar slowed the trading down in my game by first being a caveman and making it harder for the other two to reach the known tech trade threshold and then dying, reducing the number of trading partners. Trading is massive. Even a FIN AI is going to slow down a lot if they have to tech everything themselves. Also, I’m not really sure at what point having lots more cities helps even a deity AI. In my games it always feels like it takes a long time before a six city Pacal or Willem loses the tech lead. City maintenance for new underdeveloped cities is a problem even for them to a certain degree.

Of the AI I’ve met, only WK has optics and I don’t think he’s close to astro given what he’ll trade for it.

In terms of cottages on brown tiles, almost all of mine are in the capital or a barb city I captured. Therefore, it’s only really the capital where I’ve built them. The non riverside ones are junk atm but will be kind of okay with time and enough commerce or beaker modifiers in the capital plus CS. I’ve got a fair few cottages on non riverside grassland and that’s partly because I built too many cottages, partly because the game might go long so cottages have more time to pay back, partly because without CS and chain irrigation it was the only decent improvement I could put on those tiles and partly because my happy cap wasn’t that high so farming riverside grassland wasn’t really necessary in many places. For all those reasons I was putting down new cottages later than is ideal.

Not sure why I have more cities. One extra city is explained by the barb city taking the sheep but not the fish so I ended up with two cities whereas you got both resources with one city. I perhaps also felt under less pressure to tech as fast as I could because I was going for astro rather than racing AI I couldn’t watch on another continent to lib. Therefore, I really kept expanding after getting philosophy whenever I felt I had the worker turns to improve the new city. There was good land to get so why not?

I guess the size fifteen capital is HR plus four cities that could work capital cottages while it took the three food resources. I think it was probably only 12/13 at 1AD. I can’t really remember because it became less important given I didn’t have CS for so long.

Looking forward to reading on in your game once I’ve met the other continent(s). Think it’ll take me a few weeks to finish this one. Looks like a lot of big AI and naval warfare always makes for a long game.