Nobles' Club XCV: Frederick of Germany

[BornInCantaloup]

Deity save to 1 A.D. :

Spoiler :

Tried an uber cheese-house REx. 13 cities for now. More to come.

Entry into the classical era was done researching Alpha, Currency, Compass. Could get Monarchy, Calendar, Maths, IW and CoL in trades. Deity AIs help in that matter.
I was planning Alpha, Currency, CoL but Mansa had the latter.
Next tech is Monotheism to switch into HR + OR.

Green land will be cottaged but, for now, the priority goes to mines. Sushi corp is appealing. Not sure how I get there, though.

The land :

Spoiler :

Stats :

Spoiler :

Infrastructure is slowly kicking in. Will be great when Courthouses come online. I'll have EP superiority over Mansa to (hopefully) steal a few techs.

Demographics :

Spoiler :

Will improve as Libraries/CH are built.

Basic city builds are almost all whipped :
Workers at size 4 ; settlers at size 6 preferably. Sometimes it is a slowbuild at size 4 or 5, especially when the city has a lot of overflow.
Lighthouse and granaries asap (size 2 when available).
Library at size 4 or 6, depending on invested hammers. However, most of the time this isn't needed because :
Overflow from Workers/Settlers is roughly maximized (20-30H into workers ; 30-40H into settlers) and systematically goes into the next building (LH, Gran, Lib, CH, in that order... for the latest cities, CH will come before Lib). 2-3 whips and a little growth will complete a Library.
Growth is on buildings/units.

 

[Choggy]

Monarch/Normal/Huts/No Events to 1AD

Spoiler :

SIP. So many resources in the cap! Had a lucky goody hut pop with a scout for BW in turn 3 which meant I could go for an early Great Lighthouse, that came in at 1280BC. Expanded to 6 cities and took Metal Casting from the Great Merchant from building TGL, which allowed me to build The Collossus in 225BC.

Having completed The Colossus I noticed that nobody had yet built the Oracle, with the forge in the cap it was available for 6 turns even without Marble. To be honest I didn't expect to actually complete it that late on but the failgold was too good to turn down.

Look what came in at 25BC



Took Feudalism and then promptly went to HE from Monarchy. Current position is below.





With the commerce boost from TGL and Collossus I haven't needed to tech Currency or CoL. In fact I don't even have Alpha yet so have no idea what the AI tech rate is, although somebody founded Confuscianism from Col in the last turn.

So, plan now is to expand to 9 cities (dotmapped in blue, red and yellow) before building a stack to vassal Mansa. He's been spamming me with Jewish missionaries and the Jewish holy city (Djenne) is inviting close to my northern border. Hopefully by then he'll oblige me by building the shrine.

Still can't believe I got the Oracle so late at Monarch level though...

Update 300AD:

Spoiler :

Settled Blue and Red dotmap sites and Mansa offered to vassal to me! I turned it down because without Alpha I couldn't tech trade with him and I really want his Jewish holy city but I had a savegame from the previous turn so went back to see what happened if I had accepted. I'm still learning the ins-and-outs of vassals, one thing I didn't realise is that your vassals city maintenance costs get added to your own, had I accepted my economy would have tanked!

To 1250AD:

Spoiler :

Expanded to 12 cities and then Dow'd Mansa with CR Maces and Cats in 1150AD against Skirmishers and a few LB. Took Djenne (Jewish Holy city), his cap (Hindu shrine city)and his largest coastal city before vassalling him in 1240 AD. Mansa also founded Christianity, but the dozy sod lost that holy city to Barbarians some time ago.

Tech Rate is slow. Building TGL and Colossus in the cap along with Mom means I keep missing out on Great Scientists and ending up with Great Merchants and a couple of Great Prophets so am currently crawling my way through Education to Lib. Now I'm out of war can go back to Pacifism and get those specialists working for me again.

I've also met everybody now. Interesting map, btw...

 

[Archon_Wing]

Monarch/Normal/No Huts/No Events 1990 Space

Spoiler :

Settled 2 cities up north to stop Mansa from coming and later conquered Mansa with Cav, but Justinian was enormous, and proved tedious. And there's so much more land this game... so I spent most of the game trolling Isabella with stop war resolutions from UN and launched a space ship. But I never win space so that was kinda funny. Probably would have been better to not attack Byzantines at all.

 

[AndiD]

Monarch Epic Diplo 1859 AD (right after finishing the 1st spaceship part)

Spoiler :

Peaceful expansion throughout the game, got an early tech lead despite neglecting GP in the beginning due to land grab. Mansa founded Confucianism, I converted and we entered a happy leapfrogging game in terms of research. Justin discovered us via workboats, went Hindu, but stayed Pleased with me. I remember him being more of a religious nut. He was also a nice trading partner for technology.

Won the Music race (Artist->GA), Lib in 800ish for Nationalism, first to Economics, Physics, Communism and Fascism. Got additional GP left and right from my two GP farms (one Science City, one Merchant City). Slider was at 90% for the last centuries thanks to lots of settled merchants.

Since the general diplo landscape was pretty much smiling faces (except Isabella and Toku) I beelined Mass Media after Rifling and Steel before going towards industry and space techs. Built the UN but lost first election against Mansa.

One invasion by Isabella - Trebs and Knights against Artillery and Infantry, otherwise nothing of note. Interestingly, the UN opponent switched from Mansa to Isabella later on. Entered a late phony war against Toku (Mansa invited me) which probably got me over the Diplo threshold with Joao, who was quite in love with Isabella before and voted for her.

As evident from the screenie I'm quite low on population - but 1st on GNP and 2nd on production. I'm used to smaller maps and even the 12 (?) cities I had felt quite a lot to manage. Space race was basically in the bag, noone else had built Apollo by the time I finished the first thruster, and noone else had tanks yet either. The AI was still founding cities up to the end of the game - guess it is hardwired in the AI to cover every area of tundra and ice...

Pity I didn't have coal, so I didn't get to experience the full power of the UB. Panzers didn't see action either, just built a couple of them. Fun map though, happy stuff was quite limited and I was busy trading and swapping resources left and right. Solved part of the resource problem by building Broadway and getting tons of stuff via Hit Singles. Two silver resource pops and a gold pop helped, too.

 

[Nicol.Bolas]

Prince - no huts - normal
My second game after a lengthy hiatus.
Prince/Monarch is where I left of before my last hiatus - being able to win win prince at 100% rate, iron-man of course.
The sluggish win I achieved here was a 1950 culture win.

I would like pointers especially about my start-up.
The main question is at what city size to build settler, ussually this is my order: war, war, (granary) or worker, settler (size 3-5)

I am happy to win because I consider this kind of map as one of the hardest types.

1000 BC

Spoiler :

Build order

Spoiler :

Turn 15/500 (3400 BC) [14-Apr-2012 15:30:21]
Note 1 agri, wheel, pott, war, work3, war, sett

Turn 21/500 (3160 BC) [14-Apr-2012 15:31:00]
Player contact made: Mansa Musa of Mali

Turn 22/500 (3120 BC) [14-Apr-2012 15:31:15]
Tech research finished: Pottery

Turn 23/500 (3080 BC) [14-Apr-2012 15:31:33]
Research begun: Archery (7 Turns)
Research begun: Masonry (9 Turns)
Research begun: Mysticism (9 Turns)
Research begun: Polytheism (9 Turns)
Research begun: Monotheism (9 Turns)

Turn 24/500 (3040 BC) [14-Apr-2012 15:32:29]
Berlin finishes: Worker

Turn 30/500 (2800 BC) [14-Apr-2012 15:33:16]
Berlin finishes: Warrior

Turn 31/500 (2760 BC) [14-Apr-2012 15:33:35]
Tech research finished: Masonry

Turn 36/500 (2560 BC) [14-Apr-2012 15:34:29]
Tech research finished: Mysticism

Turn 40/500 (2400 BC) [14-Apr-2012 15:38:45]
Berlin finishes: Settler

Turn 43/500 (2280 BC) [14-Apr-2012 15:49:24]
Berlin finishes: Warrior

Turn 45/500 (2200 BC) [14-Apr-2012 15:50:20]
Note pre build granary for 2 turns until size 5
Hamburg founded

Turn 46/500 (2160 BC) [14-Apr-2012 15:51:07]
Tech research finished: Polytheism

Turn 53/500 (1880 BC) [14-Apr-2012 15:53:04]
Berlin finishes: Settler

Turn 54/500 (1840 BC) [14-Apr-2012 15:53:16]
Berlin finishes: Warrior

Turn 59/500 (1640 BC) [14-Apr-2012 15:55:22]
Munich founded
Tech research finished: Monotheism
Berlin finishes: Granary

Turn 60/500 (1600 BC) [14-Apr-2012 15:55:38]
Research begun: Archery (74 Turns)

Turn 61/500 (1560 BC) [14-Apr-2012 15:56:04]
Hamburg finishes: Monument

Turn 64/500 (1440 BC) [14-Apr-2012 15:57:01]
Berlin finishes: Worker

Turn 65/500 (1400 BC) [14-Apr-2012 15:57:04]
Tech research finished: Archery

Turn 66/500 (1360 BC) [14-Apr-2012 15:57:57]
Research begun: Bronze Working (11 Turns)

Turn 68/500 (1280 BC) [14-Apr-2012 15:58:31]
Hamburg finishes: Worker

Turn 71/500 (1160 BC) [14-Apr-2012 15:59:16]
Berlin finishes: Settler

Turn 74/500 (1040 BC) [14-Apr-2012 16:01:22]
Cologne founded

Turn 76/500 (975 BC) [14-Apr-2012 16:04:23]
Tech research finished: Bronze Working

Turn 77/500 (950 BC) [14-Apr-2012 16:04:27]
Research begun: Animal Husbandry (133 Turns)

Turn 78/500 (925 BC) [14-Apr-2012 16:05:26]
Berlin finishes: Barracks
Munich finishes: Monument

Turn 80/500 (875 BC) [14-Apr-2012 16:08:27]
Hamburg finishes: Granary

Turn 81/500 (850 BC) [14-Apr-2012 16:08:48]
Berlin finishes: Axeman

Turn 84/500 (775 BC) [14-Apr-2012 16:11:57]
Tech research finished: Animal Husbandry

Turn 85/500 (750 BC) [14-Apr-2012 16:12:19]
Research begun: Priesthood (5 Turns)
Research begun: Horseback Riding (19 Turns)
Hamburg finishes: Axeman

Turn 86/500 (725 BC) [14-Apr-2012 16:13:18]
Berlin finishes: Settler

It seemed to me from start, that there is lot´s of land and not many rivals. So I did try to get a religion, since I didn´t want to be without one.
On higher then prince I would not try this, and I would build cities more densely.

600 AD

Spoiler :

I always attack my closest neighbour.
After clearing jungle around Frankfurt and Dortmund, I first thought about a culture win. (grassland cottage is key for culture win, since this type of victory is generated from late-game commerce)
North, Mansa Musa was surprise-rushed with HA. (used HA due to huge distances)

1400 AD

Spoiler :

Few more cities taken with HA... Berlin, Frankfurt, Dortmund selected for CV.

final spoiler

Spoiler :

at 157 turns left, my 3 culture cities had this much turns left: 13,20,32
I was massed by virtually all civilizations. I managed to outmanuever them with my HA-knight-cavalry stacks left over from vassalisation of Mansa Musa. I also spammed Rifles.
I decided to go for culture very late and missed a lot of wonders...
But when the map was revealed, I was hell glad I decided for this VC, domination would be really hard if not impossible.

 

[Archon_Wing]

@Nicol.Bolas

Spoiler :

Aiming for a religion is fine but Judaism isn't really a good choice-- too much of a detour. You probably could have oracle'd Code of Laws if you're gonna get those religious techs so early if you focus. As you said, there's not too much rivals and a lot of land so you can get it out; really only need to block the North. It's certainly not worth putting off BW so much given all those chops

You are right. This is a tough map just due to sheer amount of land and no matter what your opponents are huge. I'm not too keen with killing Mansa so fast as he is willing to trade even if he only knows you, but I guess it's fine.

Nice job focusing on commerce for culture

 

[SamSniped]

Noble with events & huts

My out of order list of things I have done this game
~350 AD

Spoiler :

SIP, I grab Metal Casting from a hut among gold and other things...I got Copper in my capital's BFC and Iron in my 2nd city's a few tiles N-NW...My first 4 cities were settled in good spots and to block Mansa from expanding to the good land south of him...I settled to the south of my capital on Justin's capital's continent for city # 5, close to a Barb city that I need to wipe out...Mansa founded Hinduism, so I chose Buddism-which Justin had, along with Wang Kon...I completed a mission to build 7 triremes, and I think that was a mistake, but oh well... I got the GW and the Oracle, the latter I used for Machinery...I'm planning to rush Mansa with swords and maces once I get that Iron resource hooked up and get Civil Service.