Nobles' Club CLVI - Suryavarman II of the Khmer

[Eketek]

Hi. You don't know me, but I have recently decided to graduate myself to a higher level. At least, I've heard that it's supposed to be harder...

Emperor / Marathon / no huts, up to 665 AD:

Spoiler :

I decided that Suryavarman's chief asset is not his traits, his building, or his elephants, but the nearby deposits of marble. These were used to build many wonders:

 

[dalamb]

@Eketek: Welcome to CivFanatics. Even if you've been around for a while lurking, your first post deserves a party:

 

[sampsa]

Deity/normal/NHNE

1 AD (T115)

Spoiler :

Settle on candy, tech Agri-BW-wheel-pottery-writing. Skipping AH felt right, as you can improve the pigs with mining anyway. Built cheap granaries asap, whipped settlers/workers, then built cheap libraries. Spent nearly 20 turns @ 0% after writing.

Fred got Buddhism and Hammu Judaism, I adopted Judaism when Hammu told me to and Freddy started liking me too when I gave him Literacy. Our continent has great land, so deity AIs were blowing me away in tech. Hammu music 550 BC etc. Self-teched aesth-lit-drama-CoL and used them as trade bait. Bulbed philo, but Taoism was already founded on another continent, which was actually a good thing. Was lacking noob techs like AH and IW 100BC. GLib in 450 BC and failgold from Parth/NE. Got xp 10 axe (took 3 barb cities), so I'm able to failgold HE now.

It doesn't look bad at all, I'm at 10 cities and still at least 3 good spots to settle in the north. Both are pleased so I'm immune to war for now. Plan is to chop Oxford in capital and lib Nat.

 

[FlyingSwan]

@sampsa

Spoiler :

that religion spread has turned out nice,Il keep my fingers crossed hammy DOW on Freddy-maybe slow their tech pace down a bit.

 

[sampsa]

540 AD (T137)

Spoiler :

Oxford just in, 2 turns from Lib. I guess it's too risky to try for something else than Nationalism, as it's hard to say what the tech situation is like on the other continent. Several GG:s have been born (4-5) so I hope someone hasn't capitulated the entire continent yet...

No real plans what to do after Lib-Nat, but maybe someone with more deity experience can give some pointers? Hammy is friendly and Fred pleased @ +9 so I'm unsure if I should just take more cities or try to meet the other conti first.

@FlyingSwan

Spoiler :

They have been cautious @ each other for the entire game, but since they are not warmongers, I guess war is not very likely.

 

[Quip]

Deity/Normal/NHNE 1960 BC (T51)

Spoiler :

Well, a chance to fall flat on my face here, just barely becoming competent at immortal. Played it out as I wanted, looks as though I'll have the space for 7 cities. But I think I delayed pottery too long (Should have mined pigs probably).

Still, I've only got one pillage tiled from barbs at turn 51, so at least if I lose it'll be to a real civ (hopefully).

Anyway, a view of the empire:


I'm not sure if I'll be able to pull out of this one. Hopefully I can snag that southern gold in two turns and limp into pottery. From there aggressive cottage sharing and filling out my portion of the map. Culture might be fun if I can lock down the cities and it's a continental lovefest.

 

[sampsa]

@Quip

Spoiler :

I think you are correct, skipping AH and mining the pigs is much better. You just have to skip some beneficial techs on deity. My techpath was agri-BW-pottery-writing, claimed copper with 2nd city and never needed to tech archery.

 

[Fippy]

@Sampsa

Spoiler :

I think you would get a nice window for Cuirs here, these 2 guys are unlikely to reach Rifles. There would be not much harm in whipping all cities besides your Cap for them. If you finish those buildings you already started (mainly AP hammers), and then focus on research Mil. Tradition would not take that long.
For that i would not settle new cities now, but focus on getting food where needed for whips. Many of your cities are supported with farms and forges already, would fit well.

I would invest some gold (or trade away Edu for Machinery + other stuff you want anyways from Hammy it's not a dangerous tech) and make him stop trading with Freddy.

Astro could be done afterwards, but i would look for getting their nice land first
Then you could see if upgrading your Cuirs to Cavalry would get you reasonable wars elsewhere, if not state property can often be strong enuf for other goals.

 

[bhavv]

Why settle on green jumbos because you start with hunting, when you can just build a camp on it instead?

You lose 1 hammer and a 3 food cap by doing that instead of settling the sugar.

 

[Quip]

Deity/Normal/NHNE 900 BC (T79)

Spoiler :

Not a whole lot to report, but I'm curious about what I should do with tech. We're a happy Buddhist family on this continent, but I am a little iffy on tech path from here. I'm considering chasing a culture victory, so I'm tentatively thinking of beelining music.

We did reach pottery and several workers are working along the clock to cottage up our ample riversides. The Khmer have bounced back from a +2 beakers at turn at one point all the way +22. We're only 5 off rival worse GNP! Everything is coming up Sury!

A view of the empire:

 

[Gumbolt]

Past 1140ad.

Spoiler :

After war on Germans. I took MC, COL, CS and I took a golden age. Pretty much ran wealth everywhere. I followed up with Calendar and paper. Eventually self teching edu and bulbing most of PP. I stole machinery from the Germans.

I had the German capital but it was still swamped in German culture.
I still had 15 units left from first war so built 6-7 more mace. I destroyed his large coastal city above his new capital. Took 4-5 losses. Then headed to his capital. Used a spy to revolt city and attacked with 14 or so units. Lost 5-6 units but his 3xlb, pike and 2 HA died. Berlin is now free of German culture.

I took med and poly for peace. He still has 8-9 techs I need. Including lit, engineering, compass, drama, monarchy, feudalism. Hopefully I can steal a lot of these as I have 50 EP a turn on him. I have COL, paper, edu and PP that he needs. Need to whip Ox uni here.

I have 16 cities to his 8. I am probably way behind on tech compared to the other continent but I have secured 90% of the good land. Germans have 8 cities of which 6 are tundra cities.

Probably should of just gone cuirs from start. Hopefully I can build a hammer economy soon.

 

[FlyingSwan]

@quip

Spoiler :

culture victory is definatley an option.You have ankor wat and the capitol as 2 of your citys,and I would suggest babylon as your 3rd.Main reason being that's where the mids are.You have marble for the other main wonders you need,and have ivory for the SoZ.

It would be great if you could get an early capitulation with elephants and catapults and then keep freddy happy till the end of the game to avoid wars.

 

[Bisque]

Monarch, Epic. Domination 1792. First Monarch Win! .. and ...

Spoiler :

I never really felt like it was in doubt.

Granted I took an approach that wont work on higher levels. Teched straight to HBR and did an HA rush over both opponents on my continent. Originally only aiming for the Babs but Germany had only 3 cities so I just kept going. Almost petered out with my last thrust taking the last city.

Wasn't isolated too long, and I was teching ahead of the AI's anyway (also something that wont work on higher levels) so I beelined Optics and found the other continent. From there, I simply expanded my own continent full, teched to Astronomy/Rifling and hit the other guys. Razed the Apostolic Palace city first thing.

Capitulated everyone, NA first, Mansa 2nd, Persia and Japan joined up against me but they still didn't have rifles as my first Infantry landed right at the end of the game.

After 2-3 close losses I ran away with this one, not sure of the difference.

 

[dalamb]

@bisque: congrats on your first Monarch win!

 

[Bisque]

Thanks dalamb, but as I said I clearly know I used things to my advantage that wont work when I move up.. so I'm not sure how to apply it going forward. Did I specialize cities a bit better? yeah... did I use the whip better? yeah but I still miss a lot of perfect 2 pop whips because I simply forget and I don't have the patience to check every turn, even with BUG.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

monarch/marathon/no huts to 525bc

Spoiler :

settled 1e on sugar. Capital acted as worker/settler/unit whipper and double served by running scientist (possible b/c lots of food & 2 lux resources with only 2 cities). Settled S for copper & made production city, SW for horses & block the Jerries (made a weak and slowly growing cottage city mostly to block Fred and get horse), SE for more horses and block Hammy. Settled another city further S by gold and floodplains (cottaged that city heavily). Also settled W for fish/sugar (GP Farm, weak but there it is), E for for more horses, and NW for iron. Everyone is Hindu (Freddy founded) and Pleased. Tech path went Agri --> AniHusb --> BW --> Wheel --> Pottery --> Writing --> Alpha. Back traded then Got first GS bulb -> Mathematics and Currency --> Ironworking (no one would trade for it) --> Aesth.

Plan on cottaging up capital as, with current food, can run all 6 grass hills and still have 4 extra . Bureaucracy dream. Will settle a few more cities, then probably Cats/Phants against Freddy if he has the Hindu Shrine (he only has 3 cities anyway) and try to remain buddies with Hammy (for the time being). Currently heading up Aesth --> Lit for GL in my GP Farm and [possibly] Parthenon in the city b/c everyone is pleased and we are about equal on military strength. I might decide against that, though, as it really doesn't fit with the current lay of the land. Commerce is king for me here.

Honestly, the overall play was a little weak. I could have settled a city just E of capital for cottage growing right after I blocked off the land to the south. The city placement for the SE horse city was bad, too, with no food. Also, with all of the forests in the capital, I could have easily chopped the Oracle since marble in the city to the W. Lessons learned. I was playing sloppy last night but it worked out with a near 100 balanced econ at 525bc. Never thought of Sury as a great leader (fairly weak UU / UB and starting techs). But that creative/expansive is a nice REXing combo!

 

[Seraiel]

@ Sampsa: Run some Specialists in that capital, an additional GP is always nice, you got great Food surplus and the city is working tiles which are even medicore for an Oxford city, like plains Cottage, lake and non-riverside-hill.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

In a cottage-spam capital running Bureaucracy, the 1 missed from non-riverside grassland isn't a reason to avoid a cottage improvement there since it feeds itself. With enough food, I might put a cottage on plains (as long as it was riverside) in a cottage spam bureaucracy capital depending on current commerce in the capital.

But non-riverside hill? Mine it mine it mine it. Especially with good in the city.

 

[Quip]

Deity/Normal/NHNE 575 BC (T92)

Chugging along...

Spoiler :

So this turnset is entirely about me getting Aesthetics and growing cottages. The turn I got Aesthetics though, Bismarck decides "he has his reasons" for not trading away math...

So right now, with current Beakers, which have been much improved since hitting 2 beakers at break even a while back, we're now at 56 beakers a turn at break even, which is good enough for 5th in GNP. I'll take it. So what's the plan from here?

We have 11 turns until the first GS arrives. myst-poly-lit will take 10-11 turns, and then the Khmer are players in the the race to music after a maths bulb. That leaves the question of what to use aesthetics for. Iron working seems to be the most obvious, will give me a few hammers and allow me to get more food for Angkor Wat. I'm thinking it might be unwise to wait and see if Frederick decides to build the Hanging Gardens in a timely fashion.

If you have some thoughts, share them.

A shot of the empire:

 

[Seraiel]

In a cottage-spam capital running Bureaucracy, the 1 missed from non-riverside grassland isn't a reason to avoid a cottage improvement there since it feeds itself. With enough food, I might put a cottage on plains (as long as it was riverside) in a cottage spam bureaucracy capital depending on current commerce in the capital.

But non-riverside hill? Mine it mine it mine it. Especially with good in the city.

Sometimes it's about priorities.

You're right, that in an Oxford-city, even working a plains-riverside-Cottage can pay for itself, anyhow, some Scientists would give Research, and the city is producing Wealth. The mine is actually 1 5.25 but the Scientist would be 9 and 3 . Also, a Great Scientist (or lucky Great Engineer) could help pop a GA or World Wonder, a GM would tremendously help with unit upgrades.

It's just a very minor thing, but minor things like this add greatly to the outcome of a round when adding up.