Nobles' Club CXVII: Montezuma of the Aztecs

[Robert FIN]

1AD-1000AD

Spoiler :

Nothing to say about this massive round...

Well, I built a few wonders:




I built VERY MUCH cities this round. I also captured 1-2 Barb cities:


Nothing else...

Maps:

That's how I did it. I'm gonna grow my cities and restore my poorish economy now. Space Race is my choise to beat this game. If you have some tips I will listen.

SAVE:

 

[Smilingrogue]

@ Robert

I looked at your save. A few observations:

Spoiler :

Tenochtitlan is working unimproved tiles. Get the worker to chop all those forests and mine those hills, build farms and cottages etc.

Your cities are angry. Adopt Hereditary Rule and Organised Religion. HR helps by making all those units you put in cities provide happiness and OR helps you build buildings faster. It also helps that Huayna loves Hereditary Rule. It will offset the close border penalty.

Pacal really went crazy with the religions, huh? Triple holy city? I haven't seen that in a long time! You should have used your Great Prophets to build the Hindu Shrine in Mutal. It's the state religion of your continent and well spread, it will generate a lot of gold for you. Build Banks, Markets and Grocers in Mutal to cash in even more. If you really want to stay peaceful, you can even spam Missionaries for Judaism and Confu and shrine those too. You first need a Great Scientist though. You need an academy in the Gold/Floodplains city. After that you can go crazy with Great Prophets. Might want to generate a Great Merchant and Great Engineer for Corporations later. Another academy in Mutal isn't bad either. When you are this far ahead in the game and the goal is space race, academy in your big beaker producing cities really help.

Speaking of Great People, you do not yet have a National Epic. Hold off on Education for now and tech Literature. Build the National Epic in Navajo (city you took from barbs in the North with the Marble). I would recommend building the Heroic Epic in Texcoco. It's good to have the HE in a coastal city on multi-continent maps in case you need to raise a Navy quickly.

You are missing some important techs like Metal Casting. There's really no rush for Education now. You are going to win Liberalism with ease, even if you don't win it, you can still win the game comfortably. So focus on getting things that will improve your situation right away. Tech Metal Casting as SB is unlikely to trade it to you and Huayna isn't teching it right now. Tech your way to Optics so you can meet the other continent and figure out where they are tech wise. Then tech Astronomy and hold off taking Liberalism as long as possible. I think you can safely pick up at least Physics if not something even more expensive.

And a general bit of advice : More workers, more cities, more improvements for said cities like cottages, mines and farms. You need to pick your beaker rate up and you need good land under your control that's improved and being worked for that. You are in a very good position. Good luck!

Edit:
@ DMD

Spoiler :

Nah, don't give away all your gold if you need it and especially if you can back up the bravado by kicking butt of any attackers. It was the right call in that situation. If you can afford a war, go ahead and tick people off, but do not first tick people off and then get forced into a war you are not ready for as it really hampers you while the AIs at peace are settling and teching away.

About religions, you can actually make some really solid income off shrines. If you really focus on that route on maps of this size a holy city with all the gold multipliers can be very lucrative. But it all once again comes down to opportunity cost. To get this strat to really pay off you need to spam missionaries. I mean absolutely spam them! If there's an iceball tundra the AI settled, you need to get your missionaries there and spread your religion. You need to bribe AIs out of Theocracy to spread your religion if necessary, you need to spawn a Great Prophet for the shrine. All this costs a lot. First, you need to tech some pretty marginal stuff. The only two religions really worth founding are Taoism via Philosophy bulb and Confucianism via either self teching Code of Laws or Oracling it. And they are worth it not because they found a religion, but their techs are very valuable. Pacifism and pre-requisite for Liberalism makes Philosophy useful and Caste System helps you get a couple Great persons faster and slightly boosts workshops. The key here isn't the religion, but the tech. Then there's also the matter of spreading it. A missionary costs 40 hammers, more than an axeman or a chariot. Then there's the Great Prophet. He will delay your next Great Person. He will lead to a later academy or a later bulb or only one Great Merchant instead of two for upgrading those Trebs -> Cannons or HA -> Cuirs. It's generally not worth it and often better to build those aforementioned Axes and Chariots and take a shrined Holy city off AIs.

Good call on holding off Lib for as long as possible and taking the best tech with it. As for comparing your games with Immortal or Deity games, just don't! On lower levels if you need Math, you are often better off self teching it. Need Metal Casting? Self tech. Need Currency, Code of Laws, Machinery, Kitchen sink? Self tech. The AI is just too slow. On higher difficulties you can trade for a lot of that stuff. Though AIs still keep telling me they don't want to trade the kitchen sink away yet.... That delays your Lib timing. The key isn't when you get Lib, but how many beakers you are producing. Work on maximising that and you are golden.

Sitting Bull is notorious Espionage troll! He will poison your water well endlessly! He is probably spending his wealth towards Espionage instead of Research and thus generating just enough to constantly irritate you. Posting spies in the city does help. But it's not a sure fire thing to stop enemy spies. Just live with or go kill SB.

 

[cseanny]

@ Izuul

Not sure what this means:

Spoiler :

Third, calling me some "random person" (i think that's what you were doing) smacks of arrogance and condescension which is pretty sad. That's not why we are here, or certainly not why I'm here anyway.

Well I agree with you in one aspect for sure, and that would be the bold print above. When you take a look at my previous post below you'll notice 2 smiley faces which is a major play at fun and competition. So to finish with, I'm not trying to play dumb or ignore you, or point the finger. I'm simply telling you as straight forward as I can, the "spirit" of your response has absolutely nothing to do with my original method of delivery (respone).http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=12284947#post12284947

 

[tijup]

1660, Conquest victory.

Spoiler :

As planed, after finishing Incas, I paused to get my economy back on track,
Since it was taking much longer than I first thought, I started my war with SB by 1402.
It ended in 1480, with SB executed by a riflemen squad.

Then, I went to rebuild the whole continent at Monty's image, some productions and tons of research.
I've been delaying Astronomy for a very long time, in fact, until I could barely research anything else, then once done, I've been pumping galleon and frigate to prepare my invasion.

Here how it goes:
1616: DoW on JaoII
1622: Jao capitulated
1628: DoW on Elizabeth
1634: Eli capitulated.
1646: DoW on Isabella (It's a long trip from north to south by roads, they are far behind in tech)
1658: Isabella capitulated
1660 Conquest victory.

I finally used Liberalism to get Industrialization in 1638, Isabella was a few turn away from it.
I don't remember when I built Taj, but I spent quite some time in GA due to it and a few GP.

It was a very enjoyable map, I will replay it in Monarch sometime this week.

 

[vale]

Late to the party. To 1000 BC noble normal

Spoiler :

I started by settling in place, this is a monster capitol for early game production. Since I'm on noble and the happiness is useful, I tech meditation->agriculture->mining->bronze working->the wheel->pottery->animal husbandry->priesthood->writing->code of laws.

I do manage to found Buddhism and early scouting reveals Pacal relatively close by. I plan to rush him if early if it is at all in the cards. I do abuse him and steal workers repeatedly from him in the early game. My capital is focused primarily on settler and warrior production once my granary is in, but I squeeze in Stonehenge and a barracks in as well while waiting for my copper to be hooked up.

My first city is copper corn to enable a rush, my second city is a corn 3 elephant settled on on an elephant for the immediate happiness boost. My third city is gold corn which will be a commerce superstar eventually.

6 Axemen is what I end up rushing with and in 1040 BC they take Mutal defended by only 1 archer and 3 warriors? with no losses. I also settle my fourth city on the same turn, a city on the west coast that will access the fish and can use the rice that my capitol only rarely needs anymore.

My scout didn't get quite as much done as I would have hoped and I haven't had time to send any units scouting yet as they have been busy either fogbusting, garrisoning or rushing.

1000 BC also brings in Code of Laws and Confucianism as well as my first great person , a prophet.

Tenochtitlan:

Demographics:

The world as I know it:

Judaism and Hinduism are out there somewhere. No wonders have been completed other than my Stonehenge.

 

[Zindaras]

Spoiler :

It was. SB eventually DoW'd me, but he ran into a wall of knights and I took city after city.
Of note, this was just after he demanded 1010 gold from me and I refused. In future games I will definitely take the advice and give gpt and luxuries, but 1010 gold (when I only had ~1300?).

Spoiler :

If I'm gearing up to war (so I have a serious army) and I'm planning to eliminate that opponent, he's not getting anything (I'd probably even refuse resources at that point). If I want him to become my vassal...then it depends on our current relations and how many cities I will liberate to him after the war is over. Refusing demands may also actually be good diplomatically because it'll make him declare war rather than force you to. As far as gold goes, like I said, I pretty much always give it (I can get new gold by trading around techs) but if you're close to an army upgrade or deficit research, it might be necessary to keep that gold.

Good point. I tend to overbuild roads since I don't like to waste movement points going back and forth over the same tile, but on many let's play videos the elite players defer roads and focus on improvements first.

Improvements first, roads second. Though I'm not actually sure what the general opinion is on roads connecting cities. Seems to me like those are still pretty useful, and I tend to have one of my workers build them while the other improves one of the cities, in the early game (unless, of course, there's a river trade route).

Noob fixation with grabbing religions. I've come to realize that on higher levels you will never have one of the three early religions, but I like to try to get one of the 4 later ones to deny AI a shrine income source. Message received though: the right answer on higher levels is 'doesn't matter'/other more pressing tech priorities to go after.

The later shrines will never be good, unless in isolation. They require an insane amount of hammers to be productive, and that's not worth it. If the AI does that, then power to them. Or, rather, not, as it's time and hammers they're not using to build an army to kill you.

As far as the religious techs themselves go: I'm a sucker for them. I like Theocracy because of the Apostolic Palace (the cheesy solution is to trade it to everyone in your religion and let somebody else build it, especially if you're top pop), and I truly believe Divine Right is the best trading tech in the entire game (simply because the difference in valuation between the human player and the AI is so high). Also, Spinal Minaret isn't half bad. Overall, though, there tend to be better alternatives. But they're not automatic no-nos in my book.

Other tech questions on this game
1) timing Liberalism.
I made contact with the other continent with Optics/Caravels as one of the other people said to do early. I had OB with all them and could see their tech pace, and I was way ahead on Liberalism race, so I actually pushed it back and back until when it showed up in England's "can research" and I took Assembly Line with it (a 7000 beaker tech instead of a 2000 beaker tech if I did it immediately).

Good idea.

2) Tech pace: I think I cottaged well and early this game, but compared to some other saves my pace is VERY slow. E.g. on immortal someone was at nationalism at 125 AD, and someone else was Lib maybe ~500 (I would have been 1100-1200 if I did it ASAP). I purposely held Alphabet from my continent mates so they couldn't trade among themselves, but any other ideas besides 1) lower level/less AI trades, 2) holding alphabet, 3) inexperience?

Tech trading because of difficulty level is the greatest research multiplier in the game.

Espionage:
I kept pace with SB and Inca in espionage points (building altars, etc), but once every 4 turns an improvement of mine was destroyed. I have not had that happen before. I placed spies in the frontline cities. I'm not sure if this works but I thought I read this, so I made a line of spies along my border with SB/Inca to detect spies. Obviously I missed something in the espionage (specifically espionage defense) mechanic (and there is no espionage in FFH so I haven't played a game with espionage in 6+ months). How also when I have a stable espionage ratio with SB and Inca are they able to keep expending points for the missions and able to keep doing the missions?

When you are equal in EP, you can still do stuff to your opponent. The higher level you get, the more stuff like this happens. Sadly, you have to deal with it. Putting commerce into espionage is generally something I don't like doing.

I actually had a rather painful experience recently on the Earth18 map where my opponent was able to destroy my spaceship parts with spies. I didn't know that was possible and I would say that is something that well and truly changes the dynamics of close space races (after all, what are you going to do with all that commerce after you have all the techs?).

 

[Izuul]

Immortal 1545 Conquest

Spoiler :

Continuing on from earlier, I Libbed MT in 700AD, traded for Iron with Maya, and upgraded 30 or so HA to Cuirs with money from 3 GMs. I also built MoM and the Taj in there somewhere for 24 turns of GA. I attacked Pacal in 940 AD, took his good cities including the Buddhist shrine (almost every city on the continent had Buddhism) in Mutal, and then capitulated him in 1100AD. I thought about keeping all cities on the continent and going for Domination, but he had a bunch of real junkers that i didn't feel like paying for so i decided against it.

After moving and healing up units, I attacked Capac in 1150AD. I captured 4 cities in 5 turns including his capitol which caused him to cave as well. Cuzco had a bunch of really nice stuff including the mids that let me switch into Rep + Mercantilism and work my way towards Astronomy.

Sitting Bull was obviously the final target on the continent, and that war spanned 6 turns from 1220 to 1270. During this time, i finally got Astronomy in 1240 and started building/whipping Galleons in my 3 coastal cities. This was the part of the game that really slowed me down as i had 50+ Cuirs to transport across to the other continent, and i forgot to build a bunch of galleys ahead of time to upgrade.

I finally got enough Cuirs across the pond (30 or so) to attack Elizabeth in 1390. I went for her first b/c she was getting fairly close to Redcoats, and i didn't want to have to deal with those while using mounted units. That war lasted 8 turns, Joao went down in 3 turns, and finally Izzy capped after 7. In total, my 6 wars lasted 42 turns due largely to the lack of any unit spammers in the game.

There were 3 things in my game that slowed me down.

1) Against my better judgement, I gambled and went for Aesthetics first hoping Pacal or Capac could tech Alpha. In general, i think it's almost always best to self-tech Alpha on continents except maybe when playing on Deity.
2) I never got a level 4 unit for HE. I was really expecting more barbs with all of the open land, but my best axe only managed to get 7 or 8 xp.
3) I forgot to build Galleys to upgrade to Galleons. That was just a boneheaded blunder on my part that caused me to get ~30 units across the sea several turns later than i could have transported all 50. That probably cost me at least a half dozen turns.

I may add some more pictures later, but for now:

Spoiler :

 

[dalamb]

Monarch, Epic, BC 4000-2825

I read many of the messages about possible city locations, so here's my summary; comments welcome.

Spoiler :

Dotmap:

I'm pretty sure about production (magenta), copper (darker blue), elephants (reddish orange), and fish/rice (lighter blue). pigs/corn could be two less-well fed cities, 1N and 3W. I'm reasonably sure about the GP farm to the north, thought it could go 1N to be coastal and give up pigs in the inner ring (I don't expect to build stonehenge, so would need to wait for a monument to get anything in the 2nd ring.)

Production and Copper need to be the first two cities, I think, but thereafter perhaps I need to grab Elephants before Pacal does. Or should Elephants be before Copper because of Pacal?

Gold/FP is problematic. I know there was a long discussion about it, but I'm still uncertain as to where's best. I do plan to squeeze another city in next to the small lake (black, labeled 'late commerce') so don't want it any further south. The trouble is complete lack of hammers aside from the gold hill; I'd have to depend on two forest chops and some whipping to get any infrastructure built. Later on I could put a workshop on some of the outer-ring plains and grasslands squares for when it's time to build commerce accelerators (likely market/bank/grocer) but early on it's going to be hard to get anything built. Isn't it?

I currently plan to expand peacefully until cuirs unless Pacal grabs a city site I want, wereupon I'll go elepults.

 

[dmd175]

dalamb

Spoiler :

glad someone agrees with the same placement I did of the elephant city. Still gives fresh water and became a great southern point base for me.

As far as the gold/FP city I still don't know the optimal place. As you see above I went all out building on hill 1N of gold at cost of a lot of brown and overvaluing the sheep. Looking at your map I was going to say 1E to get two more hills and a forest, but that sacrifices corn. With all the FP though, is the corn truly necessary? Well, silly not to use it. In the end having played this one and spent a ton of time thinking about this city in particular, I like your position, with a future GP farm even if hammer poor.

I like your production city/watching some deity level games on YouTube I'm pretty much convinced now of benefit of overlap and like that placement.

I went with two smaller cities to break up corn and pigs south of capital, but late when I wanted more cities and could afford them.

Can't wait to get home from trip and play another.

 

[Tempesta13]

Monarch, Epic, BC 4000-2825

I read many of the messages about possible city locations, so here's my summary; comments welcome.

Spoiler :

Dotmap:

I'm pretty sure about production (magenta), copper (darker blue), elephants (reddish orange), and fish/rice (lighter blue). pigs/corn could be two less-well fed cities, 1N and 3W. I'm reasonably sure about the GP farm to the north, thought it could go 1N to be coastal and give up pigs in the inner ring (I don't expect to build stonehenge, so would need to wait for a monument to get anything in the 2nd ring.)

Production and Copper need to be the first two cities, I think, but thereafter perhaps I need to grab Elephants before Pacal does. Or should Elephants be before Copper because of Pacal?

Gold/FP is problematic. I know there was a long discussion about it, but I'm still uncertain as to where's best. I do plan to squeeze another city in next to the small lake (black, labeled 'late commerce') so don't want it any further south. The trouble is complete lack of hammers aside from the gold hill; I'd have to depend on two forest chops and some whipping to get any infrastructure built. Later on I could put a workshop on some of the outer-ring plains and grasslands squares for when it's time to build commerce accelerators (likely market/bank/grocer) but early on it's going to be hard to get anything built. Isn't it?

I currently plan to expand peacefully until cuirs unless Pacal grabs a city site I want, wereupon I'll go elepults.

Spoiler :

That looks pretty good. What I did (not saying it is better) is settled Gold/FP one East, Production 1 NE, and Late Commerce 1N. That gave the gold city the gold in 1st ring and better production, "production city" still can share a corn with capital and gets a riverside hill in 1st ring, and Late Commerce got the corn in 1st ring - poor production though. I split where you have GP city into 2 cities: 1 E of marble and 1 E of corn.

Either way would work well - the land has good food, commerce and production. With 5 or 6 city spots you want to get up and running quickly make sure you don't skimp on workers here. Lots of trees to cut, FPs to improve and roads to build right away. Also think about where you want to get your first scientist from.

 

[dalamb]

Thanks!

Spoiler :

Since pig/corn is in a "safe" location I figured I'd leave it for a while and could decide whether to split into 2 cities when I see what other resources get revealed.

Gold 1E partly solves my production concerns, though one of the 2 gained hills is a weak desert hill. Losing the corn would mean needing a couple of farmed floodplains for early growth but they could be cottaged over later.

Did anybody else make a GP farm up north, with the 3 food, or did most people split it into 2 cities?

 

[tijup]

I'm replaying that map at monarch, but, oh well, I've been waaaay too enthusiast at whipping
I've over expanded, and crashed my economy badly, at around 10 to 20% in research.
I'll give it until 500AD to see if I could recover or if I have to restart.

Spoiler :

I used almost the same dotmap that Dalamb posted, but some of my cities were set too early
and were producing no commerce to speak of.
Economy wise, I should have planted the FP/Gold city before the "late commerce" one and the Ivory city.
I built oracle in the copper city, and took CoL.

I'll see around 500AD how things are going, but I may start over.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

@vale
A quick look at the dot map.

Spoiler :

Obviously, you are rolling. And the city placement is pretty good; comments below are just tuning.

You've let your southern edge get a little bit cramped, I think.

Triple Ivory blocks all the tiles that allow a city to work the pigs from the east. The capital blocks a bunch of tiles to the west. You can settle SW of the pigs, and work the corn as well, but that kills a green hill you might want to keep. Furthermore, it commits you to working the corn and pigs together, because Rice/Fish to the west blocks the western tiles.

The only combination I see that splits the pigs and the corn is to put a city north of the corn, and another north of the pigs.... OK, maybe that's not so bad. Kinda weird, but not wrong. I'd rather have it on the coast, I think, but the extra overlap with the capital may prove useful.

Course, that does imply that I'm biased towards splitting the resources. If you weren't considering that, never mind.

Placement of Rice/Fish may also be costing you some extra maintenance. As it stands now, I believe the maintenance calculator considers this placement to be 4 tiles away from the capital, where the other side of the river would be 4 tiles away. Not sure what advantage you think you are gaining with that spacing.

Corn/Gold may have the same problem that the others have had with under using the corn. You don't really need the corn for food when you also have 7 floods to work, so who uses it? The triangle of cities around it blocks most settlements -- I suppose you can work it from the west, by settling north of the other corn. That's not going to be a bad city by any means (food rocks) but it's not clear to me that it's a particularly effective use of the land.

Not a big deal, any of this -- just a piece of the game you may want to give more thought to later on.

 

[Robert FIN]

1000AD-1500AD

Spoiler :

Once again I built wonders and buildings all the time. I wanna play this one in peace with my neighbors and go easily to space and get my 1st prince lvl victory! But of course, if my country is under enemy fire I will make the enemy pay- by being my vassal.

Well I settled all my cities and Inca stole one premium barb city behind my borders...


My massive empire is of cource expansive because of maintenance costs so I make good use for my epic shrine, Mutal.




LIBERALISM!! WOOHOO!! Other empires can't beat me in science!


Ok, That's it. Here are the wonders:




And overall ranking+ Map:

Thanks for reading!

Save file, if someone is interested:

 

[tijup]

Well, I kept playing even if my economy was pretty low. I found out that even at 20-30% research rate, I was still teching quite decently.

Monarch, no tech brokering, no huts, up to 950AC.

Spoiler :

I finally DoW on Pacal and kept most of his cities. During a war between SB and HC,
I DoW on SB to get his closest cities from my southeastern border, then took peace
for some gold. I still have no open borders with SB to avoid worsening my relations with HC.
It looks like Incas and Nat Americans will be at war soon. My plan is to build a
Maceman / cata army to backstab HC sometimes after he will DoW on SB.
I did the same on my previous game at Noble difficulty.

Tech wise, I'm not that sure I have a good tech lead against the other continent.
I made a stupid mistake, and used a GS to bulb Map Making, instead of keeping it for Education.
I'm teching music, even if i'm pretty sure that the other continent already got it,
I've seen a GA pop a dozen turns ago.
I'll tech Machinery next, then optics and liberalism. I hope that I will be able to assess
that the other continent isn't close to lib by the time I'm close to it.

Could s/o review my game and points me improvements on my game play ?
This is my second Monarch game.

 

[Smilingrogue]

@ Robert

Things are looking good

A few comments based on the save:

Spoiler :

Send the scientist to build an academy in Mutal.

After currency, it is preferable to build wealth in cities and run the science slider as high as possible instead of building research. The reason is you are far more likely to have science multipliers (Libraries, Monasteries, Universities etc.) in your cities and not many wealth multipliers (Banks, Markets, Grocers, etc.)

Trade a copy of fur to Sitting Bull and take his sugar.

You can build a few more cities, like one with the Pigs to the West. In a space race, you want as many cities as you can get so they all contribute research, wealth and production for building those space ship parts.

You built the National Epic in Tenochtitlan, but you are only running one specialist. You want the National Epic in a city with lots of food so you can run a lot of specialists there. Something to keep in mind for future games.

You still don't have Optics. Tech to Economics, see if you can trade for Optics from Huayna, load the free Great Merchant from Economics onto Caravels and send him out to meet the other continent and make some money.

That's all I can think of. You are in a very good position. Good luck!

 

[Zindaras]

Since I spent so much time thinking about this map, I figured I might as well actually play it. I won what is probably the only Cultural win in this thread (1796 AD/90k points), though I really could've won in any way I wanted to. Settings are Monarch, Marathon, Huts and Events on.

Spoiler :

Settle in place, get obscene luck from huts (I popped Mining, Archery and The Wheel from huts). I wanted to pop a final hut with Tenochtitlan's cultural borders, but Sitting Bull's Archer was getting too close. So, in what I can only describe as a moment of insanity, I did the following:

I thought I'd gotten away with it, but obviously there was a Wolf waiting for me, setting me back a hugely important Worker. And that at Monarch. This might actually be a danger to my game, especially given the fact that I was making a play for Stonehenge. But I managed to make it despite having to reroute production to replace my Worker. After that, I went on a mad rexing spree, settling a bunch of cities in quick succession, taking the Flood Plains/Corn/Gold city first, then triple Ivory, then Copper/Corn/Fish, then triple Sugar/Spices. I also added a Pig city to the west, a Pig/Corn city to the south and a National Park city in the forests to the north of my capital (I probably shouldn't stunt a city's development to force it to be the NP-city later on, but there were so many forests and so many plains there that I figured it would never be anything better than average in any role other than NP. I timed the Hanging Gardens to finish the turn after settling my final city. With Tenochtitlan being an all-around amazing production capital, I decided to go wonderhogging. My Flood Plains/Corn city and the Deer/Corn/Marble/Pigs location that the barbarians nicely settled for me (actually, scratch that, it cost me 4 Jaguars to get that city) and that I wanted to try to turn into a GP farm (a weak aspect of my play) meant that I'd be running quite a few specialists, so I went on a mad chopping/whipping spree to complete the Pyramids in Tenochtitlan, taking sweet sweet Representation when I got there. In the meantime, I was building up my army to take down Pacal (using the bonus from the Stables quest to get 7 extra Horse Archers), who had founded a lot of religions but was weak militarily. However, with my armies massing on the outskirts of Calakmul...Pacal peacevassaled to Huayna Capac. This was highly frustrating, but I didn't need the war. I whipped and whipped, so I had lots of production, and this was one of the most food-rich starts you'll ever get. My production actually so overpowered the rest's that I decided to wonderhog rather than build up my army up even more, snatching the Great Library, the Statue of Zeus and the University of Sankore. But then, the diplomatic situation changed, as Pacal renounced his position as Huayna's vassal. Sitting Bull, seeing an opportunity, declared war...on Huayna. Given that SB was backwards compared to the rest of us, I figured Huayna could become a juggernaut. However, I just wanted an easy war with Pacal. I took Mutal, Lakamha and Aryan, at which point Pacal was willing to kiss the boot. Given the fact that Pacal by now had a rather huge tech lead on me (Pacal and Huayna teched together and were 5 or 6 techs ahead of me at this point), I wanted to get Pacal pretty badly. I even let him keep his Christian Holy City.

Having the Islamic, Confucian and Jewish Holy City all in one was enough. I don't think I've ever seen this before. Islam for a triple Holy City? Those odds must have been very slim indeed. The Temple of Solomon was already built, but I also built the Kong Miao and the Masjid-al-Haram there, turning it into an amazing gold mine. It would eventually produce 627 gold per turn, all on its own and without building wealth or even shifting any commerce into wealth. But we'll get there.

In the meantime, Sitting Bull was doing a rather amazing job, nabbing Cuzco (he apparently had gotten a quest to get the Hindu Holy City) before taking peace. This nicely pruned the runaway Huayna, and my new "partnership" with Pacal also proved fruitful in reducing my tech disadvantage. I also nicely got to trade around Education because nobody had Philosophy, as João had founded Taoism and nobody cared about Philosophy anymore. I got Optics, then Liberalism for Astronomy, opening up trade routes with Elizabeth and João. I also settled two nice cities off the coast of England using Astronomy, a two-tile desert island city with two fish and a clams (which would get the Moai Statues. I very belatedly realized that I could settle cities on these tiny islands and had the Moai Statues just a couple turns off completion elsewhere) and a three-tile island city with two grass hills, a clams and the possibility to take rice off the mainland if I could beat Liverpool's culture. Given the fact that I was by now seriously thinking of going for a Cultural victory, these two cities would be huge for me later on. Sure, I could've gone for war considering the fact that I never really dipped in power, but with the triple-Shrine city and all religions except Taoism (somebody spread Buddhism to my cities) available to me, I figured that this was a great game to shoot for a Cultural victory. Tenochtitlan had wonder-spammed so much that it'd be easy, and I took the Flood Plains/Gold/Corn site as my second city and Pacal's erstwhile capital of Mutal (which actually had two Mayan revolts throughout the game before my culture overwhelmed the Mayan) as my third. Sitting Bull, in the meantime, took 4 more cities off Huayna Capac and vassalised him as my troops waited outside Vilcabamba. This surprised me, since I don't consider Sitting Bull to be much of a warmonger...and, well, he kind of tends to suck. I most certainly didn't expect him to take down the best AI and biggest threat on this map. Funnily, Huayna Capac liberated himself from Bull later on in the game. I then got the Greed quest to take Iron in Huayna's land, declared on him, easily took out two of his cities, capped him, got 4 free Cuirassiers, liberated his cities, then got to use him as another techer. In the meantime, I had gotten Isabella to open borders with me after obliging to João's request to become Buddhist, then switched back to the true Hindu faith. Both Pacal and Huayna, despite losing their complete core, proved to be excellent techers, providing me with many important techs in my beeline towards the corporations that would catapult my cultural victory. First Sid's Sushi and then Creative Constructions were settled in my triple-Shrine city, and this made my three cities get an obscene culture rate. The RNG, in the meantime, showed its hatred of me, giving me loads of Great Spies (I got 6 Spies throughout the game, one of which was from Communism) but no Artists for Jewelers (it well and truly mocked me by giving Great Artists to both Elizabeth and João near the end of the game). I probably should've switched to Caste System at some point, but I was too sloppy to do that. I doubt that Huayna and Pacal were happy with my chosen victory condition, as I flipped Vilcabamba with a city that wasn't even trying to get culture, and flipped three of Pacal's cities, including the Christian Holy City (which also included the Parthenon) and was assigned a fourth city by the Apostolic Palace. It was just pressing enter and waiting for victory to come to me now. And, in 1796 AD, it came, in the same turn that I won the UN General Assembly elections (and the moment I realised I might have been able to win a diplomatic victory).

Dotmap:

Texcoco (Heroic Epic) and Calixtlahuaca were my production centers, and they provided the bulk of my army. Most of the other cities were commerce-oriented, except for Tenochtitlan (production, turned into culture), Xochicalco (National Park) and Goth (Great Person).

The following screenshot shows off the power of Spiritual:

Spoiler :

Izzy is pleased with me, despite me not being in her religion. Why? Because this is the second time she asked me to become Buddhist, and I accepted both times. I also accepted João's requests to join him in Hereditary Rule. Five turns of suboptimal religion/civics is, in my opinion, often worth the diplomatic brownie points that you can get this way.

Some general map ideas:

Spoiler :

I feel the start is insanely powerful. There is so much food, and with the Sacrificial Altars you can whip almost as much as you want. I was able to recover from losing a Worker to animals and building Stonehenge and won the game incredibly easily. I really liked the civs that were chosen. The theme was nice and gave the game just that tiny little bit extra. It was a shame that I never got to send a fleet of Aztec warriors over to "Europe" to sacrifice its leaders at the altar. Europe was always going to be terribly backwards, though, with two financial civs alongside the human player (against only poor Elizabeth) and two very much average civs (religious nut Isabella and expansionary nut João) on the other continent.

 

[Bisque]

Prince, Epic, Conquest 1814 AD.

Spoiler :

Sorry I dont have more info but just had to say.. first game with a score over 100K... Oracle for CS and swarmed Pacal before 0 AD... HC became my vassal and I killed SB, then went to rifles and took out Jao and Infantry took Elizabeth. Only needed 2 cities from Isabella to get a cap and finish.

 

[Dubioza]

Playtime was scarce these days - been working like Ima get rich from it
But finally managed to find some compromise...I need to speed up my game as well!

Continued from last time on page 1 Emperor - Normal - no huts & no events:

1874 Cultural Victory

Spoiler :

I had luck early on, Pacal founded hinduism and judaism and spammed missionaries like a mad man - that's when I decided to try for cultural victory. I oracled CoL (1200 BC) and bulbed Philo (275 BC) for Conf & Tao and in first 3 cities built all religion buildings - Teotihuacan was weird choice for that, being science capitol (Oxford and Hermitage combo ) but it had all religions and few k culture more then next candidate.

I didn't stick to that play all the time, I managed to clean my continent in the process.

I bulbed Paper (560 AD), Edu (600 AD) and PPress (760 AD) - was running Pacifism most of the time. First war started in 880 AD and in 1280 AD Pacal was dead. We had PTreaty in between (for Music and gold), when I libbed Steel (1170 AD).

Spoiler Oracle :

Spoiler Lib :

Teching was good, had quite a few comm cities + 2 shrines in Mutal and lots of specs thanks to high food map.

After Lib I went for Econ, upgraded all to cannons and killed HC who built most of WW's and in 1650 to 1750 SBull, who had LOTS of rifles, but I had even more cannons.

Last 50 turns all cities built wealth & research, while 3 cities built culture.

Spoiler 4.GAge :

Spoiler Cities :

Spoiler Tenoctitlan :

Spoiler Teotihuacan :

Spoiler Tlatelolco :

Spoiler SomeEndGameScreens :

Spoiler Victory :

Spoiler NoIdea :

Spoiler Demographics :

Spoiler Top5Cities :

Spoiler Score :

Spoiler HallOfFame :

Question: I mined Uranium, had rroad on it, but I didn't have it. Bug or?

Spoiler Uranium1 :

Spoiler Uranium2 :

Thanks for great map!

 

[The Oz-Man]

@Dubioza: I think you can see Uranium at Physics, but you can't use it until Fission. I may be wrong, though.