Nobles' Club 372: Montezuma of the Aztecs

[jorissimo]

t50 Immortal

Spoiler :

Went Wheel - Pottery - Mining - BW. Now teching AH because we have pig and I would like to see if we have horses. Went worker - warrior - warrior - settler at size 3 - warrior - second settler at size 4 - warrior and now building a worker. Settled Teotihuacan (great city!), which went warrior while growing to size 2 and then worker. Worker 1 farmed the 3 corns in counter-clockwise direction (should have been clockwise really, but oh well) and then built a cottage on the floodplain. After that, it went to improve the corn for Teo, followed by a cottage on the banana and is now chopping for Tenoch. The sheep city is building a granary while growing to size 2, after which it will build and then whip a worker. As for the fourth city, I will probably grab the eastern copper and block SB. Regarding future plans, SB is very close and is inviting an early rush. In the absence of horses, that will be a construction rush supported by axes, jags and perhaps a spear if he has horses. The land is very juicy and neither food nor commerce will be a problem. Tenoch's corns can be shared by no less than three cities potentially. Production could be better but we will be able to whip, especially after we get sacrificial altars. However, happiness is the big limiter right now. I might get wine and other than that there are calendar resources and whales. All of those resources will come kind of late...

 

[Whisker]

Deity, 1870 AD. I give up.
Although being last in tech I still managed to stop one spaceship from reaching Alpha Centauri. Now there is another spaceship about to be launched on the other continent and I simply don't have enough transport capacity or military power to have any hope reaching their capital in time.
Edit: Oh, and there is also this little thing that I'm the only player that has thus far not been a target of at least one nuke. And I have no nukes of my own.

 

[jorissimo]

@BornInCantaloup

Spoiler :

I 100% think you should skip AH and go Writing first.

I hadn't thought of that but you convinced me. Also because of the last quote, I don't really need horses that badly anymore.

While unlocking the sheep is good, you do not have the happy cap to make use of the pigs, yet.

True, pigs are overkill and sheep can be farmed.

In that light, it is possible Tlatelolco should not have settled the sheep but rather corn + copper to the East

The thing is I didn't have BW yet so I didn't even know about that copper when I settled Tlate. If I had known about it then yes, that would have been a better settle for sure.

It's perfectly reasonable to tech up and expand north.

I really needed to hear this! Today my gut feeling shifted more towards teching up, with the nice land to the north. And you answered the exact question I had in mind!

 

[jorissimo]

T75

Spoiler :

2-pop whipped a settler at size 5 in Tenoch, because the eastern copper spot was just too urgent. Went Writing before AH in accordance with @BornInCantaloup 's advice. Settled Texcoco 1800 BC. As soon as Writing finished, Teo started on a Library, which it 2-pop whipped with the help of a chop. Has been running 1-2 scientists ever since. I also built a road from Tex to Poverty Point for trade routes. I whipped a monument in Tex in anticipation of culture pressure from SB. Then built a warrior for urgently needed happiness in other cities. It also worked on a Granary for a while, but at size 2 I decided to get another quick worker out of it working corn and copper. Tenoch finished the worker, then worked on a warrior, again for happiness, and a Granary. Back at size 5, it slow-built a settler that went on to found Tlax, which immediately took one corn from the capital. Overall, as you can see, I focused more on commerce and growth than on infra, with most cities still building Granaries, let alone Libraries. It felt wrong to whip a lot with such a dire happiness situation. I am currently second in GNP. Nobody has Alpha yet, Peter just got IW. I am working on Aesthetics so I can get some trades, because all of my neighbors have traits for teching, so the tech pace may be quite fast. I don't know how far the land stretches in the north, I can see a great 6th city spot there, but I can't really see any further expansion possibilites beyond that yet. Btw, what should I do with the first GS? Save him for Philo? Could be nice to do some spiritual caste-paci gaming, working my way up to Lib. If it's going to be a game like that, the lack of horses makes me wanna go cannons + muskets and later rifles.

 

[aitkensam]

Immortal 1AD (Thanks for hosting!!)

Spoiler :

I went for TW, Pottery before Mining, BW. Felt like the timing worked out fairly well although was quite a slow start. Happy cap was an issue for a while. Judaism didn't spread for ages. But it's spread round now and also got Monarchy and Calendar so it's time to grow!
Have 9 workers but feels like they're struggling to keep up. Darned jungle!!
Wang DoW Sitting Bull which makes Diplo pretty easy. Peter built the good stuff (Mids and GLH) so he might have to die soon...
Probably won't play this out as not a lot of time these days but it's turning into a fun map.

 

[jorissimo]

@BornInCantaloup

Spoiler :

Code of Laws is a perfectly valid entry point into the classical era.

Another one of those things I needed to hear. I often go Aesthetics by default, but it's so useless by itself, and then the Immortal AI might not even have Alphabet by the time I finish Aesth. Funnily enough I do sometimes take the CoL route to CS when I go Engineering, like in the (unpublished) Engineering Izzy game.

you could even take a cheap shot at Oracle -> CoL if the wonders are late.

Good call, I could actually try that. Will have to check if it hasn't already been built though.

I think the tech path around Rifling is better overall.

Right, also drafting with all this food will be worthwhile. Or just SacAlt-fueled whipping.

I think you went AH after Writing ? I was suggesting to go Writing --> Classical Era and reserve AH for trade

I see, I see. AH has really yielded me very little. But trading for it, isn't that really bad for one's trade cap?

mostly did the same and I think it makes a lot of sense, here.

 

[jorissimo]

Itching to get back to this game, but life is getting in the way . Won't read any spoilers until I'm at the respective turn myself

 

[Lord Humungous]

No edits to this map? The land is incredible. I'm playing it on Immortal because I think the Sacrificial Alter with the Spiritual trait is the most fun you can have with a unique building.

Spoiler :

I don't think I've ever seen 3 corn tiles next to each other like that. I settled almost identically to Born in Canteloup , except I can't even imagine pulling it off on Deity. I went Wheel->Pottery->Mining->BW->Alpha, cottaged up immediately with all the over-lap and crazy amount of food. I think I whipped the capital only once or twice total. All that sweet, sweet land to the north was just...available. Most importantly: our only source of horses. My situation at 75AD

Wonders were going late so I made a failed attempt at the Pyramids. Spiritual rep/police state/slavery/caste system would be fun. In my game there is a lovefest with only Sitting Bull left out. So with such a strong capital, such easy diplomacy and trading, and so much strong land it will be a standard cuirassier/cavalry/cannons finish.

 

[AcaMetis]

No edits to this map?

Yup. Didn't even need to do any resource swaps to give AIs nearby strategic resources or rescue any seafood from guaranteed unworkable locations...unless I was just too lazy to do the latter because I so rarely get to do zero edits to a map. One or the other .

 

[jorissimo]

It took a while, but here is finally my T100 update:

Spoiler :

Cities:
Narrowly lost the wine/stone spot to SB. Founded Calix (fish gem site) and Xochi (corn dye site) in 525 BC. There was some tension near Calix with a barb archer, which I managed to deflect with a second warrior, which successfully defended against it in a jungle. I briefly switched into Caste to get a 3-turn border pop in each city. I'm not seeing any clear avenues for settlement except one coastal backfill. I could try to conquer the barb cities though.

Tech:
I managed to chop + whip out the Oracle per @BornInCantaloup 's advice and got it in 800 BC
I took CoL and Confu was founded in Tlate. Then I went Maths, which was probably a mistake, as Monarchy was the bigger priority. After that, I was on 0% for a long time, only briefly breaking the fast to tech Fishing. WK finally got Alpha in 600 BC. I could have put some turns into Alpha to trade it for Maths, but I wasn't sure what Wang was going for so I decided to cash in right away and take IW from him. Peter is now 4 turns away from Alpha. Nobody except Wang has Alpha
However, it feels very counterintuitive to self-tech it. I really need Monarchy right now. 79 bpt, not the best, but also not the worst. The northern cities are going to boom soon though, especially once I get Calendar.

GP:
Got a GS in Theo in 675 BC and decided to save it for Philo. Academies are nice but my reasoning was that Paci and Caste have synergy with Spiritual and are a means towards getting more GS. Getting that Academy would have delayed the second GS quite a lot.

Religion:
As I said above, I founded Confu. However, Buddhism (SB's religion) spread to Texcoco in 600 BC, and I switched to it in 450 BC. Both SB and WK are Buddhist. Meanwhile, Peter and Boudi are Jewish.

Foreign:
As you can see, I got WK to pleased. Boudi, on the other hand, started plotting in t93 after I refused to cancel deals with WK. When I switched to Buddhism, she became Annoyed. She is most likely plotting on me and can reach me through Russia. Need to keep an eye on that northern border. SB is not pleased yet. He is stacking for the barb cities. I will probably lose the northeastern barb city to him as he already has a military ready to go. He will flip the corn from Xochi.

 

[jorissimo]

Something weird happened:

Spoiler :

Something happened that made me realize I may not quite understand AI DoW dynamics. Shortly after my previous update, SB started plotting, and was Cautious with me at that point. He had a stack near my border and seemed to be on the verge of declaring. I decided to try to get him to Pleased by making a favorable trade (CoL for sailing). When that did not work, I also gifted him Alpha and that put him at Pleased. He never stopped plotting though. This is the situation on T75:

At 1 AD, economy picking up, feeling confident about the game, just conquered my 8th city, press enter and then--the dreaded horns of war sound and SB attacks!

If I hover over the Native American Empire on the scoreboard, the only difference I see between 75 BC and 1 AD is that the open borders and peace bonuses are gone (obviously), and there is now a -3 "this war spoils our relationship". The rest is all the same. Was he able to declare because he started plotting at Cautious? There was no real way of begging because no Currency.

 

[sampsa]

@jorissimo

Spoiler :

Something happened that made me realize I may not quite understand AI DoW dynamics.

Well, true. Getting SB up to pleased did nothing. You need to get him to pleased AND beg for something (usually a small amount of gold) for the possibility that he stops plotting. Without currency you can try to beg for a -res and since you have alpha research a tech nearly to completion and then beg that tech.

 

[jorissimo]

Attempts:

Spoiler :

I tried both going back to 75 BC doing the begging trick with Masonry and to 1 AD trying to defend. Both failed. SB did "not want to start trading Masonry away just yet". Just yet. In 1 AD. I put the slider on the highest that would do the tech in 2 turns rather than 1. When I tried to defend against the stack, I didn't have enough time to whip, and the distances were too big to defend. Lost the city. God, I hate this game sometimes. I will have to go further back and just start whipping like a maniac knowing the DOW is coming and nothing can be done against it. Or just beeline Currency earlier.

 

[jorissimo]

Decision point, 50 AD:

Spoiler :

Went back again to 75 BC and started whipping and roading like a madman. Result: SB didn't conquer Texco on turn 2 of the war. However, he has two stacks of 6 each around the city and my capital is in reach of his chariots, but there is no spearman there now, all are defending Texco. Texco has a stack of 7 units and I could move in 4 more this turn. Might have to cold-whip a spear in Tenoch. He also has a sole Dog next to Texco and another small stack of 4 coming. He really prepared for this war. When I say I'm frustrated with Immortal, this is what I'm talking about, and it doesn't seem to change

Btw, there is also the possibility of doing this:

 

[jorissimo]

Honestly though, I think I'll take another big break from civ. It seemed like I was getting comfortable on Immortal, but the past few games have been nothing but frustration. It's tough because I'm still recovering from my accident while also working and doing a lot of physio, plus bureaucracy to sort out with social security and the final formalities of my PhD which I had to postpone til I got better. I clearly just don't have the mental bandwidth available for this game right now.