Noble's Club XVI - Shaka

[Dresden]

A big chunk of my Thanksgiving holiday went towards Zulu domination of the world. So here's the first round of reports. And it's two games for the price of one.

Settings:

• Prince "Light"
• Epic
• Choose Religions and No Tech Brokering (hence the "light" qualifier)
• Unofficial Patch, BUG, Chuggi Terrain, some Blue Marble leftovers

Pregame Thoughts:
I normally play a peaceful rex/build early game and don't get into major offensives until the late renaissance or early industrial era. I'm also normally a bit of a wonder-spammer. This game I intend to use Shaka's bonuses to buck both trends. I want an aggressive early military campaign shunning most wonders and then, after economic recovery, an aggressive late military campaign.

Attempt #1: Failure (4000BC-500AD):

Spoiler :

Since my scout started North of the settler, I found the fish on the first turn and chose the 1N starting location. Finding the copper in the BFC was a big bonus. With the pigs nearby AH was a priority so I saw the horses along the coast early too and that led to my first mistake. I chose to get the horses in uMgun...'s BFC which meant it would probably be an okay longterm city but it was definitely an awful short-term city; at least it was awful at production and with the goal of an early rush to fuel the landgrab, early production is what that city really should have focused on.

The rush itself started okay. I built a pack of axes and some supporting impi and they got to Moscow in 1775 BC taking it and then razing Stalin's only other city afterwards. But here I made the critical mistake. Rather than pressing my advantage, I decided to stop there, settle some blocking cities near Babylon, then take a run at them later with swords. I then compounded the error by detouring Ulundi to grab the Great Wall and the Great Lighthouse. So by the time I got a decent sized swords+extras stack on Babylon's borders (295 AD) Hammy had 7 core cities and 2 sources of iron hooked up. I took Babylon but really had nowhere to go afterwards and decided to resign and try again.

Attempt #2: Early rush (4000BC-350BC):

Spoiler :

I tried to start out the same way I did the first time. While you obviously have extra knowledge when replaying a game I tried to approach things the same way generally such as settling in the same spot and sending my scout out in the same direction. In fact, this time I chose to immediately build a second scout so the capital was size 2 before starting a worker. Russia's scout came calling around 18 turns in and my scout saw Babylon's borders on turn 15. He met the Arabs about 10 turns later.

Early techpath was AH, Mining, BW & the Wheel in preparation for the rush. After that it was Pottery, Fishing, Myst, Writing, & Sailing. Following the scout, Ulundi built 2 workers then an Ikhanda (partly whipped) and a Settler. After that it built warriors to defend each city and then started on the axes. This time I chose to settle uMgun in a more production-friendly position SW of the wheat. That meant it could share the copper mine and a hill with Ulundi while also having a hill of its own and a forest for the early production. So even though long-term it will be hampered by too much overlap with Ulundi it is a much better short-term city and should put me in a much better early position assuming I can make the rush pay off.

I built a half-dozen axes first and sent them on their way then switched to Impi. The speed of the Impi meant I could start building them after the axes and yet get a couple of them to arrive on Stalin's borders at the same time. I declared on Stalin in 1600 BC bringing 6 axes & 2 Impi into his territory along with a scout who had been promoted to medic 1 from animal encounters. Moscow was defended by 3 Archers but I got lucky and only lost one Axe. The first 2 axes (1 win, 1 loss) were promoted to cover and the cleanup crew went with CR. While the axes healed up in Moscow, the Impi used their speed to reach St Petersburg, capturing a worker. St Pete had only a warrior defending but the AI got an archer built the next turn. But with no fortify bonus or cultural defense and a cover promotion on my impi the odds were 66% and I won. The other Impi took out the worker and Stalin was no more as of 1525 BC.

Babylon had just founded their 3rd city -- conveniently just North of Moscow. So after a couple turns of healing I pushed forward. Leaving 1 axe behind to guard Moscow the remaining 4 axe/2 Impi stack went after Hammy with reserve Impi on the way. War was declared in 1350 BC with the capture of a worker improving the new city. Since I saw the city only had a single warrior defending it, I took it out on the same turn with an Impi. And it was a good thing I decided to leave an Axe behind in Moscow since a combat-3 babylonian warrior stopped by on that same turn; he didn't stay long...

I snagged another Worker with an Impi en route to Babylon. Meanwhile one of the reserve Impi detoured up the cost and found Akkad. As with the other Babylonian city, this one was defended with a single warrior and the RNG continued to roll my way with a victory at 62% odds. The main stack found Babylon defended by 3 Bowmen. 2 Axes fell softening them up but the other 2 axes and an Impi won and Hammy was gone in 1225 BC. This time I did it right. It was a little risky going after Hammy with that stack but the aggression paid off.

I now had basically 2/3 of the continent to myself. After founding a third city along the coast near the horses the next city went right between Moscow & Babylon and the final city of the set was founded NW of Babylon to claim recently discovered iron and complete the blockade of the Arabs. After IW I had teched Masonry and Alphabet and on the same turn the seventh city went up (350BC), Ulundi built the Great Lighthouse. I had met Charley's workboat around the time of the conquest of Russia and sent a Galley from Moscow to explore his territory later on, mapping the coast of the other continent and meeting Giggles (thanks to Kaytie I can't ever think of him as anything else ) in 470BC.

So with Alphabet in I was able to start trading and switching to a more peaceful mode. I sent Writing to all three guys for Archery, Poly, Priest, and Med and then set research to Currency... due in 23 long turns at 40% science thanks to my ridiculously far-flung empire, Ikhandas notwithstanding. But with a library on the way in Ulundi and a relaxation of the military focus I expect to be able to keep up okay. For now I have a decent power advantage and with Sally founding the only religion in the hemisphere I don't think diplo will be too bad once it starts spreading to the rest of us. Here's the overview of the known world in 335 BC along with Ulundi and some demographic stuff. A hut pop revealed Mayan borders but he's too far away to actually meet yet.

 

[sinergistic]

Noble/Marathon/1560BC

Spoiler :

Before I go on and spend an hour writing a report, I just wanna say sorry. I originally had no intention of starting a game, and I was content with just reading the reports other people where writing. In the past, this has done me well, and I've learned quite a bit about the game through threads like these. This time was different, however, and, after a little internal debate, I decide "why not!". So, I downloaded the game and had a go.

It was a complete disaster. I 'rushed' late, I didn't have enough units in the rush (the RNG didn't like me either!), and the cities I settled (more like shanty towns really) where horrible. "Ok. So this is a little harder than it looks, no problem, I'll just go do some homework and then have another go at it". I 'quit to desktop' around 2000BC or so.

So, despite the obscene amount of prior knowledge, which I know isn't in the spirit of the game (I'll be playing the next Nobel Club properly when it shows up, and I think I'll look up some of the past games and give those a run through as well) here is my second attempt.

Settings:

• No Barbs
• No Random Events
• Marathon
• Noble

(Or would that be noble light with the barbs off?)

Turn 0:
My start. I've moved the settler, and I moved the scout to reveal the fish (seemed 'fair' ... lol, right? )


I sent my scout up along the coast (towards hammi) after grabbing the two huts near my capital. Both huts yielded maps. A third hut yield 303 gold, fourth yielded 267 gold and a fifth, and final, hut yield experience. I gave him Woodsman II.

Meanwhile, in my capital, I had started with a warrior and then followed it with a worker while researching AH. Warrior finished on turn 27, with 2 turns left on AH, capital size 2. I sent the warrior out scouting.

Spoiler :

Turn 29:
I finish AH and meet sally. Sally has founded Buddhism. I start on mining after AH.

Spoiler :

Turn 40:
My warrior minds Stalin's borders, and two turns later spies a worker making a gold mine. I park my warrior right next to him. Now, I'm not sure if this was a good choice or not, but I let the worker finish his task before capturing him, and then razing the gem mine. I figured the 'wasted' worker turns would benefit me. I finally took the worker on turn 54.

Spoiler :

Turn ~78:
Stalin takes peace shortly afterwords.

Capital has finishes the worker around this point, and I built a Barracks after the worker had finished.

My scout passed by Hammi's borders just as one of his workers moved to the edge. Jackpot. The worker was building a road and had 6 turns left to finish, and my warrior could get there in 9. I figured the worker was going to build an improvement afterwards so I had plenty of time. I ended up grabbing the worker on turn 77. When I took the worker, I saw he had improved the corn, and I moved my warrior onto the corn the next turn in order to pillage it. Big mistake. Hammi has bowmen. My warrior died.

Spoiler :

And now hammi won't take peace for some reason...

I discovered BW (and started The Wheel followed by Pottery) shortly afterwards and revolted to slavery. While I was waiting for The Wheel, my capital produced two more warriors, who I sent towards hammi to harass him.

I was also using my scout to prevent him from working his corn tile, simply by moving my scout onto and off the tile each turn. I dunno how well that worked, and the city never dropped in size. Oh well :/ (It also let me keep an eye on how many units he had, which was useful)

Spoiler :

Apparently I snuck my first settler into the build que around this time as well, since he popped out on turn 98, right before The Wheel. I went and settled him in the worst spot imaginable, it's surrounded by jungle, and I had a brain fart about needing ironworking to clear it. The Wheel finished on turn 102, and I used my three workers to build roads.

Spoiler :

And a pic (much later) of where I placed umGun (I had taken one after all)

After the bronze was connected, I whipped twice in my capital, and sent three axes shorty followed by a fourth towards Hammi. At this point he had 1 bowman and 1 warrior + a worker. I was using my warriors and my scout to block tiles as best I could.

My third axe arrives at babylon just as hammi (or maybe slight afterwards) finishes a second bowman. Stupidly, I didn't realize this until AFTER I had suicided my two 'Cover' promoted Warriors onto them. Both died, but one bowman was taken down to 2.6, the other was unharmed. I only noticed the second just before I attacked, and decided to hold off until the fourth axeman showed up. He obliged on turn 130, and I killed both bowmen with 2 losses and two wins. Two turns later (since I really wanted the worker hammi had, and he had moved it out of the city) I killed the remaining warrior and took the city.

Spoiler :

Happy days! Next on my target list was Stalin, who still only had one city, and was defending it with a single warrior. No sweat. I had produced a fifth axe by this time, and I sent all three towards Stalin. The turn after I declared he popped an archer, who didn't get a chance to fortify very much. No losses and +1 city +1worker. I didn't take any pictures apparently. (I think I had Moscow by turn 140).

Turn 164~:

Ironworking came in, and I started improving my horribly placed umGun city. I followed IW with Mysticism and then Fishing and finally Writing. Using archery as a placeholder to get out of that annoying popup menu that won't let you navigate away from it. I'm not really sure where to go from here...

I've got one more settler poping next turn, the other one is ready to settle near the marble, I just haven't done it yet because of maintenance.

Spoiler :

I realize I'm probably being vague in some areas, chock this up to not taking any notes as my game went on. My next one should have a lot more detail in it, and I will take more screenshots as well. (Like screenshots of the rankings that appears every 50(?) turns). I'm gonna pop back into the game and get a screen of my cities and their locations shortly.

So, where should I go from here?

Maybe settle the marble and try and get the oracle? Or do I not have a chance now?
Go after construction, and get some phants and catapults and go after sally?
Go after sally now and whip a bunch of swordsmen and just suicide them onto his cities while sacrificing goats to the RNG gods?

P.S. It's rather late here, so I imagine that I will open this thread tomorrow, read my own report and wonder what I was thinking

Edit: Overview:

Spoiler :

 

[pigswill]

Given up on this game (coz I was winning, not coz I was losing). Playing a noble walkthrough in BtS sub-forum if anyone's interested.

 

[Fierabras]

@dresden

Spoiler :

Good job on the early rush! It looks very similar to my early game, although I couldn't afford 7 cities and more importantly did not have a chance to get the Great Lighthouse.

 

[JTMacc99]

Monarch/Epic 4000BC - 1050AD

Spoiler :

Settled 1N for the fish, turned out to be a really good move, with it also letting me work the copper there as well. On the other hand, I think it made me more comfortable with my own land than I should have been.

The scout ran around and popped 5 huts, two for experience, so I had a level four unit without ever fighting a fight, plus I was able to cruise through all of that jungle and woods more quickly to find everything. One hut was for Writing, one was for a map, and one was for another scout. In total, not a bad group, exept I had absolutely no gold to work with once the second city was settled.

The lack of cash slowed research greatly, so I needed to build a library in the capital to run a couple of scientists, and I also made an unfair trade for monarchy just get the population up to run a few more scientists around the empire as time passed.

Also, I decided to run a couple Impis all the way across the continent to raze a barb city defended by warriors just for the cash. Later, I also razed a second barb city for the exact same reason.

On our continent, I expanded up the river in the jungle, and dropped what will probably be my second best city up by the cows. Hammy must have been on his way with a settler to that spot, because he ended up settling a couple of crappy cities right along the northern and eastern borders of my jungle cities.

I set the workers off on a cottage building frenzy, as well as evenutally hooking up all of the resources for my core 6-7 cities.

Stalin founded Judaism and spread it aggressively. I converted, as did Hammy. Sal's Hindu, but is still willing to talk trade once in a while. Gil and Char are Buddhists, but that hasn't stopped Gil from twice declaring war on Char, and twice asking me to phone in a war with him. I did so both times, and as a result, have made a couple of very valuable tech trades with him. The last was for Feudalism in exchange for Metal Casting and Currency.

Feudalism was a nice thing to pick up, given that I had just declared war on Stalin, noticing that he didn't really have a reasonable chance of stopping my small stack of cats, jumbos, swords, axes and impis. Vassalage and longbows would both be quite useful as I attempt to wipe him off the map. My own tech path was just making it's way from Machinery (I had an event that made it significantly cheaper, so I put it ahead of civil service), Civil Service, and I'm now just starting engineering.

The downside of trading for feudalism, is that everybody is now trading for it, including Stalin. I took two of his cities along my western border (other side of the jungle, other side of the mountains) and was moving towards the third, most southernmost city to consolidate the territory when the longbows showed up. I'm going to need more seige now, which is exactly what I'm doing. He's in pretty bad shape, now, so hopefully I can clean up that southern city, shore up the captured cities with a couple of longbows, and then stack everything back up and head for the prizes of Moscow and shrined Jewish holy city St. Petersburg next. After that, it will be just mop up duty.

I'm really hoping that my cottages are going to start contributing greatly, right around the time this war is over, as then I'll be looking at an excellent chance of maintaing a tech lead and swinging the army around to rid myself of Hammy and we'll see about Sal. From there, I'm not sure what I'll do. I should have a pretty damn nice cottage economy cooking, some really good production, and a pretty large number of cities. Hopefully I'll have a couple good choices of direction for a victory.

In the next post, I'll throw in a couple of screen shots to show what it looks like with a person who let Stalin settle his own cities rather than just killing him at the start, like I should have done.

 

[dalamb]

I don't seem ever to really play a Civ game -- I just putter around trying different stuff. I've done a couple of restarts and here's some things I think I've learned:

Spoiler my half-baked opinions :

1. Going for Stalin early with 2 cities producing Impis works out just fine; he's a bit far away but Impi mobility gets you there soon enough, and with Ikhandas early on the maintenance isn't a killer.
2. Moscow makes a good GP farm if you use it that way. In an early game I went right for monument/ikhanda/library/run 2 scientists got GS for both Moscow and Ulundi, and was ahead of the tech race forever after. On reflection figure I could have skipped monument.
3. Unfortunately, Hammi filled in cities between Moscow and my main empire, and this bugged me so much I did something REALLY STUPID: I restarted and used the food resources in Moscow to whip settlers to fill in the gaps. Wound up losing amazing amounts of time in GP-creation, and chopped too many forests to have enough production to build the National Epic quickly. Killing Hammi would likely have worked much better. Note to self: specialize means specialize: don't dual-purpose key cities.
4. Start from the wheat, move NW to the mountain and W to a jungle square. Lousy city early on, but very good production in mid-game after IW and forges, with 1 plains hill, 2 grassland hills, and food from a couple of river farms plus the wheat. Losing horses made me sad, until reading other people's postings made me realize I didn't need them that early, and waiting for elephants as a mounted unit would be OK.
5. Going for the stone early got production up too slowly. I did better after founding 2nd city SW to get the 2nd bronze and the seafood.

Spoiler things I'm even less sure of :

I'm still too much of a builder; I'm now convinced that in this game, offing Babylon as soon as possible after Russia is a much better strategy. But I still think going for a couple of wonders might make sense, especially Great Lighthouse given at least 3 early cities are coastal: Ulundi, the SE seafood/bronze city, and Moscow. I managed a couple of times to both conquer Russia and build the GLH. I'm not so sure about going for the pyramids, even with the nearby stone. I really love the pyramids, for both Representation and the Great Engineer points, but that would slow down warmongering, maybe too much to prevent Hammurabi from being a PITA.

So, if I proceed with Shaka at all I'm going to abandon the current attempt and not try to chop/whip settlers in Moscow. I'll attack Hammi as soon as is reasonable, presuming I can figure out when that is. Not sure about Saladin; he build a lot of annoyingly close cities, too, to the NW of Moscow, and wound up ahead of me in power in that stupid-use-of-Moscow game.

Help! I use the BUG mod, and somehow I typed something that made the little foreign-civ summary in the lower right corner disappear - the thing with what religions they have, what their attitude is, what they're researching (if I have enough EP). How can I get it back? I couldn't find anything in the online help for keyboard shortcuts.

 

[bramirez]

Guys I really have to tell you. Been playing till about 1000AD. Was leading and feeling pretty good about it. Had about 7 cities and no war yet. Although stupid Stalin folks where getting on my nervs.

Almost all coast. Had the pyramids and a few other wonders. And then when I went home to report to you guys on my happy gaming the computer died. Maybe it was the Russians?!?

And now I am not even sure I can recover the disk. And don't feel it it fair to start over a third time. Lets hope for the best. Going with the sick bastard to the doctor today. I am really afraid the disk might have died.

 

[sinergistic]

Help! I use the BUG mod, and somehow I typed something that made the little foreign-civ summary in the lower right corner disappear - the thing with what religions they have, what their attitude is, what they're researching (if I have enough EP). How can I get it back? I couldn't find anything in the online help for keyboard shortcuts.

I can think of two things that would cause this.

1: You clicked on your own name in the score list. This shrinks it to just your name.

2: You messed with the BUG settings. I think to access them you need to press Alt-Ctrl-O (thats not a zero). Then go to scoreboard, and find the 'Column Order' field. If this is blank, that is your problem. You will need to rebuild it. I use 'WSZVRAMC?EPTUNBDH*LO' for my scoreboard. Hover your mouse over the field and you will get a large tooltop for what each letter does.

 

[dalamb]

Unfortunately neither is my problem. My own civ does not appear there, and that item in the BUG mod scoreboard options looks fine (probably whatever was there initially: "WSZVRAMC?EPTUNBDH*LO"). I'll post in the BUG forums.

 

[Fierabras]

Possible option for scoreboard problem:

3. you accidentally clicked on the scoreboard button (2nd to the left of the globe zoom button; the one with the check mark)

 

[JTMacc99]

Possible option for scoreboard problem:

3. you accidentally clicked on the scoreboard button (2nd to the left of the globe zoom button; the one with the check mark)

This is my guess as well. Man, I hate when I do that. I always forget which button it takes to undo it.

 

[Fierabras]

@dalamb, comments on "half-baked opinions"

Spoiler :

1. Agreed, but for the success of rushing Stalin and Hammy early, it's essential to settle in place at the start of the game and not 1N. Those early hammers make a lot of difference.
2. I always skip monuments when I don't need an early border-pop and use libraries instead. Moscow did not need one, but I did build one there, because I did not have writing yet.
3. Settling to prevent filling costs too much. Better let it fill and take the cities later.
4. Could be a good spot I guess (depending on dotmap), but there are better ones that need settling first. I did not need horses at first, but got some from another location.
5. Pyramids saved my game and was the only wonder I could get for a long time. Other early stone wonders were either taken already or not needed (Hanging Gardens).

 

[dalamb]

3. you accidentally clicked on the scoreboard button (2nd to the left of the globe zoom button; the one with the check mark)

That was it!

 

[Fierabras]

Monarch/Epic, 1610 AD - 1758 AD

Spoiler :

After making peace with Saladin, he soon became a vassal of Charlemagne. Charlemagne got another vassal by liberating his southern cities on my continent:



Oddly enough, later on this led to Saladin renouncing Charlemagne as his master and he switched to Gilgamesh as a vassal:



I completed Liberalism and did get the free tech and I chose the most expensive, Astronomy:



Very strange to be the first to Liberalism this late (1620 AD)...

After Liberalism I teched: Economics - MT (for Cavalry) - Chemistry - Scientific Method - Biology. I went this route because I had a plan for the National Park and I needed Chemistry, because I did not have any navy yet.

Saladin cities in the icy north became a bit of a nuisance, so I upgraded some old war elephants and knights to cavalry and declared war:



This time I wanted to get rid of him once and for all and took my galleons (and frigates) to remove his island settlements:





This way I did not have any "we miss the homeland" unhappiness in former Arabia. I signed peace with Gilgamesh, because war weariness was mounting again.

As for civics, I only switched from Theocracy to Organized Religion to spread Taoism to get the most out of the Taoist shrine. The other civics remained the same: Representation (Pyramids) - Nationhood (+2 from Ikhanda) - Slavery (whip buildings) - Mercantilism (most others run this as well, so no foreign trade routes yet).

After Biology I went for Constitution - Corporation for the Wall Street. After that Steam Power for Levees and currently Steel (maybe I'll switch to Assemby Line).

As I did not need the +2 from Nationhood anymore I switched to Bureaucracy, but maybe I should have gone Free Speech right away. The main reason was to get the Oxford University earlier in my capital.

Currently I'm in the middle of specializing my cities with National Wonders, which I had been neglecting all along:

Palace/Oxford science city:



Moai Statues/Heroic Epic military naval base:



National Park gold city:

This one needs some explaining: if you look closely you can see I have built forest preserves all around. The plan is to get the National Park and then use merchants (1 for each forest preserve) under Caste System to maximize gold. I still need to put a bank in and maybe I'll put the National Epic there as well...



Wall Street gold city:



I'm still ahead in power and maybe I should have used my advantage more (I had cavalry when nobody had gunpowder yet), but I like to get a more peaceful endgame. I'll switch to the "Free" civics soon (Free Speech, Free Trade, Free Religion) and I'm going for the space race victory just for fun.

 

[Fierabras]

Monarch/Epic, 1758 AD - 1814 AD

National wonders and economy

Spoiler :

With my cottage and specialist hybrid economy I went on the following tech path:

Steel - Railroad - Combustion

Railroad for my workers, combustion to get the oil online for destroyers.

Assemby Line - Physics - Electricity

I traded Steel for Democracy with Hatshepsut and made a "great merchant trade mission" deal with Charlemagne when I sold Liberalism for 2100 gold.

By now I have a massive open economy, focusing on science:



I achieved this by switching civics to my favorite combination:



I completed the National Wonders I was building and that had a big positive impact on the economy:







The financial leaders are still having some techs on me, but I'm outpacing them already:

 

[bramirez]

2 questions: I have won a domain victory or so bat mod 1 says. But I have no clue how to end the game. If I press retire I loose and get lousy grades.

If I have the apostolic palace how can I decide what resolution to pass?

 

[JTMacc99]

2 questions: I have won a domain victory or so bat mod 1 says. But I have no clue how to end the game. If I press retire I loose and get lousy grades.

When you say that bat mod 1 says you've won the domination victory, do you mean that the statistics say that you have both exceeded the land and population requirements, but the announcement hasn't shown up telling you that you've won a domination victory?

If that's what you are saying, the only thing I know that would cause that, is that you "retired" earlier, and then chose "Just one more turn!" as the option, and continued playing from there. If you did that, you're never going to get a victory screen because you've already retired as a loser. You would need to go all the way back to a save before the first time you retired and play it again from there.

 

[bramirez]

When you say that bat mod 1 says you've won the domination victory, do you mean that the statistics say that you have both exceeded the land and population requirements, but the announcement hasn't shown up telling you that you've won a domination victory?

If that's what you are saying, the only thing I know that would cause that, is that you "retired" earlier, and then chose "Just one more turn!" as the option, and continued playing from there. If you did that, you're never going to get a victory screen because you've already retired as a loser. You would need to go all the way back to a save before the first time you retired and play it again from there.

Thanks, I never retired. And yes the statistics says I have exceeded both land and population - I am actually number one in everything. So really weird.

And about the AP?

 

[Fierabras]

1814 AD - 1923 AD: Space Race Victory

Spoiler :

After Electricity I teched Radio first and after that I built all the modern wonders. When I completed Christo Redentor I switched to Environmentalism without anarchy.

I beelined to the Space Elevator and maximized production in 5 core cities (former Arabia and Babylon) and also built the laboratories. With the free Great Engineer from Fusion I founded Mining Inc.

Somehow I timed it all perfectly and launced the spaceship in 1908 AD. In 1923 AD I had completed the entire tech tree (with some help from the Internet) and achieved the Space Race Victory

 

[dalamb]

I restarted yet again (no surprise) with some specific goals from my previous "lessons learned" posting.

Spoiler :

I restarted with the specific goals of

• Make proper use of a GP farm in Moscow -- don't whip anything, leave enough trees for production of the few needed buildings, focus on specific GP I want.
• Get both the GLH and Pyramids by starting them in Ulundi as soon as possible, leaving my 2nd and 3rd cities to build military.
• Clean out my continent of foes.

I've accomplished #1:

• two GS in Moscow for academies in Moscow and Ulundi;
• one GM in Moscow to try out Sid's Sushi should I break character and actually get that far in a game;
• two GE in Ulundi because of pyramids and running a GE for production;
• one GA in Moscow for a vaguely-planned art bomb while/after conquering Saladin.

One GE built the parthenon in Moscow, the other built most of Versailles, also in Moscow, intending to reduce maintenance in that corner (Moscow and nearby former Arab cities). The Forbidden Palace will go somewhere in the NW, maybe Babylon or a conquered Arabian city.

I've accomplished #2. That was just a matter of discipline and a bit of luck that nobody else beelined them.

I've accomplished part of #3: Stalin and Hammurabi are gone, producing 2 GG in the process, one dedicated to an academy in my main military city, one to produce a super-medic Impi (now a maceman). I'm about to take on Saladin, whose city spamming has broken up my empire and who is a rival for score and power. He's buddhist, like me, Gilgamesh, and Charlemagne, and they're both Friendly with him. Charlemagne is Friendly with me and Gilgamesh is Pleased, so I expect a relation hit when I attack Saladin. How much damage is this likely to do to me? How do I figure out how big their attitude toward me will change?

Here are the comparison charts; I have met Hatchepsut, The Islander, and Pacal, but haven't build up enough espionage with them to see what they're doing.

Spoiler score chart :

Spoiler power chart :

Spoiler culture chart :

I'm fairly happy with my warmongering in this game -- I am still a compulsive builder -- though it was long and tedious. An Impi rush took Moscow and the first Babylonian city while I was building swordsmen. The rest of Babylon was swordsmen versus far too many bowmen, with Impi sometimes finishing off damaged enemy units. He'd kill off too many swordsmen, then build more bowmen as I built more and healed the injured ones. Usually a swordsman could take a bowman at 65-75% odds, but I still lost a bunch: maybe close to the 1/3 you'd expect from those percentages.

Saladin will face my trebuchets, war elephants (only 2 so far, but, hey, they're cute), and a few macement promoted from swords. I made one big mistake promoting my GG-medic: he was at 24/25, and surely could have squeezed out another point finishing off a badly injured Arab, but I foolishly promoted him anyway and refrained from backing up when I realized my mistake.

I'm hoping to win the circumnavigation race. Hannibal one wanted to trade world maps, but I didn't take the gamble: my info was likely more valuable to him than his was to me, and my caravels (built just after Pacal's showed up) have less eastward to go than he does westward, because of earlier exploration of the Charlemagne/Gilgamesh continent.

Here's the current world map. Is that glow on the east some cities I shouldn't be able to see yet?

Spoiler globe :

Overall, I'm happy with this game, and hopeful that I'll finally finish one of these NC games! Still not entirely sure of intended victory -- I might go with space ship unless I wind up taking over the southern continent and go for domination.