PH04: One Happy Family

[pholkhero]

I was actually ruminating on the possiblity of HC being our one and only Vassal state. Might be able to get a 3v1 war going on w/our Hindu brothers.

 

[Meatbuster]

This is the "I got it" post.

Missionary outpost eh? Let's see. How soon should we go for optics?

 

[Meatbuster]

Pre-turn (875 BC)
I don't veto Civil Service.

Turn 2:
The Temple of Artemis has been built...

Turn 4:
Use prophet on CS... 3 turns left.

Turn 5:
Delhi grows to size 6
Delhi: Granary -> Fast Worker
(I can't believe we only have one for our 4 cities!)
Gold hooked up, start cottage in Bangalore flood plains

Turn 7:
Research: Civil Service -> Alphabet (... -> Lit?)
Revolt to Civil ServiceBureaucracy for free
Bombay: Hindu Monastery -> Hindu Missionary

Turn 8:
Babarians spotted approaching Delhi... move Delhi warriors to hill...
Mansa converts to Hindu

Turn 9:
IBT: Warriors dead.

Turn 10:
Delhi: Fast Worker -> Axeman (2 turns)
Move new Fast Worker to Madras to improve it
Start another cottage at Bangalore

That's it for now. Here's a screenshot of our "babarian problems". Don't we have Archery or something yet... ok maybe not. I guess Bronze Working will do for now... ho hum...

 

[pholkhero]

thankfully, too, it looks like it'll take 2 even if the barb comes straight us. Good that units get built before the AI takes their turn!

nice playing, but i couldn't tell if you revolted to Bureaucracy or not ~ did you?

Alpha was a good move, but maybe we should head down the lower part of the tech tree after it comes in for a bit towards Optics for now. Anybody else have an opinion??

oh, and, maybe ARchery too

Roothter:
Pholkhero >>
Karr1255 >>
Robo Kai >> just played
Scowler >> UP NOW
Xerol >> on deck

 

[Meatbuster]

Please see turn 7. Sorry, typo.

Alpha -> Compass -> Optics is OK then.

This will likely let us trade (techs at least) with civs across the ocean?

 

[Xerol]

I should probably mention (I had problems with this in the Culture game) that when my turns come up on weekends, I usually can't get to them immediately.

 

[Scowler]

I should be able to play this tomorrow.

 

[pholkhero]

I should be able to play this tomorrow.

Looks like that works out for Xerol, too ~ just remember the song:

"Why can't we be friends,
why can't we be friends.
Why can't we be friends,
why can't -- we be friends!"

 

[Scowler]

All appears well within the nation of India so I just press turn.

(1) 600BC
- Pyramids BIFAL
- Bombay: missionary -> missionary
- As MM and Genghis now have Hinduism in their lands I send the new missionary south to Bangalore so that he can help pop the borders and grab the stone.
- UGH! There is now a barb city north of Madras. Madras is defended by just a single warrior at present, which could be a problem if the barbs start sending archers. I'm going to prioritise building a road to the river so that the city will have access to copper and be able to build axes ASAP.

(2) 575BC
- Barb warrior dies trying to attack Madras
- Delhi: axe -> axe
- Mansa's skirmisher very kindly takes care of the other annoying barbarian warrior before it can either attack Delhi or pillage the corn. As there is no longer any urgent need for it in the capital I send the newly trained axeman off to defend Madras. A new axe will be ready at Delhi in 3 turns so there is no danger.
- Genghis's demeanor has now improved to Pleased, thanks to Hinduism. However, we have also picked up a -1 from having close borders...

(3) 550BC
- Our missionary spreads Hinduism in Bangalore

(4) 525BC
- Bombay: missionary -> missionary
- The new missionary is sent to Madras

(5) 500BC
- Delhi: axe -> worker (we need more of these!)
- Parthenon BIFAL
- Hinduism spreads to Gao - that's one less missionary needed!

(6) 475BC
- Hinduism spreads to Madras just before the missionary arrives, so I send him further north towards Timbuktu instead

(7) 450BC
- The Great Wall of Inca blocks the way ahead for our intrepid warrior...

(8) 425BC
- Delhi: worker -> axe
- Bombay: missionary -> settler
- The missionary is sent to the Mongolian city east of Bombay. We should be able to take a break from missionarying for a bit so the axe is intended as an escort for the settler, once it is ready.
- Alphabet is completed, so it is time to do some trading. We need Fishing and Sailing before we can consider Compass, so I just make one small trade now so that Sailing will available next turn when I do the bulk of my haggling.

There is no point researching Sailing since I am planning to grab it next turn; instead I put a turn's worth of research towards Literature, just in case we want to go for GL.

(9) 400BC
- Time to see what else I can pick up from our neighbours:

Iron Working reveals that we have Iron west of Delhi, inside the BFC. I halt work on the proposed cottage and send the worker to build an iron mine instead.

HC appears to be the only one on the continent who has Monotheism (I checked again the following turn) and he won't trade with us ("we just don't like you enough"), so I've set research to this so that we can switch to OrgRel for missionaries and faster buildings.
- Library is whipped at Madras
- Granary is whipped at Bangalore

(10) 375BC
- Madras: Library -> Granary
- Bangalore: Granary -> Axeman
- One of our missionaries spreads Hinduism in Old Sarai. Note that Genghis will have access to Iron once the borders here expand...

Our other missionary is still on the way north so please finish guiding him to Timbuktu...

This is the current tech situation:

Save​

 

[Scowler]

Some additional comments:

- Genghis has now dropped to Cautious, even though our "score" with him has remained the same. This could be a cause for concern, especially since he will have access to Iron soon (HC has it already), and has two horses within his borders for building Keshiks. According to the diplomatic chart he dislikes Mansa more than us, but we are (of course) the least powerful of his neighbours so he might view us as an easy target as he runs out of space to expand.

Alternatively, the fact he views Mansa as his worst enemy might lead to him demanding we break off contact - a difficult choice if we are hoping to unite these guys for a diplomatic victory, since we will get a long-term malus from Mansa if we agree and a possible drop in relations from Genghis (making war more likely?) if we refuse.

On the other hand, there is definitely bad blood between Mansa and HC; perhaps a war is more likely there instead. With a bit of luck it will slow HC down a bit, since he has been doing better than we would like:

We have had quite some success in spreading Hinduism about, but Judaism is still the dominant religion in the world. I guess we'd better get out there exploring soon...

 

[pholkhero]

Good turns.

We'll have to cross our fingers w/Genghis for now, but i think we should back him in any war w/Mansa, unfortunately; he looks to be the bigger empire at present.

I think expansion and cranking out some defense may be the order of the day for now, no?

Pholkhero >> on deck
Karr1255 >>
Robo Kai >>
Scowler >> just played
Xerol >> UP NOW

 

[pholkhero]

@ Xerol: have you got it??

 

[Xerol]

I'm at work right now, I'll get it when I get home (about 3 hours).

 

[pholkhero]

that's fine. I'm up in about 4 or 5 SGs now, so take your time :nod:

 

[Xerol]

Turn 0 (375 BC): I look over the situation a bit. I take a screenshot, alt-tab to paste it into IrfanView, and Civ crashes. This has been happening more and more frequently as of late, mostly when exiting to menu after pitboss games. Never had it happen in singleplayer though. Until now, at least.

Anyway, I picked a potential city site for that settler that's due out. It'll keep the Mongols from expanding further into our area. I also noticed a bit of a worker shortage, so I'm probably going to order up a few more during my turns.

I'll post more after I reboot, since that seems to solve the crash problem.

 

[Xerol]

Turn 0 (375 BC) (Continued):


With the floodplains tile farmed, it'll have plenty of food to work as a general city site (you could chop/mine the hill for decent production, and cottage everything else).

Turn 1 (350 BC):
Axeman comes in Delhi, dial up another. We might lose one or two taking that barb city, but it's a good site, so we'll need spares. And anyway, you can't have Too Many Axes.

Timbuktu goes Hindu.

Turn 2 (325 BC):
Madras expands, revealing 3 archers in the barb city. Worker goes to make steak.

Turn 3 (300 BC):
Monotheism comes in. I set to Currency - we're going to have at least 2 new cities soon (the one at my proposed site, and the barb city), and are only pulling +3/turn at 100%. The reserves should keep us at 100% until we can get currency in, but a Market in our shrine city would certainly help, and +1 trade routes (with all these open borders) means more commerce in ALL cities.

We go to OrgRel, as does Mansa (must've discovered simultaneously).

Turn 4 (275 BC):
Nothing eventful.

Turn 5 (250 BC):
Set a worker on some roads. Both of our main cities are going to build workers after they grow in pop, but between rough terrain and long distances, the roads will definitely help move things along regardless of our choice of actions - faster missionaries, as well as faster military.

Turn 6 (225 BC):
Zzzz.

Turn 7 (200 BC):
More zzzzz.

Turn 8 (175 BC):
Someone else gets a lighthouse. I send Delhi's new worker down to hook up stone.

Turn 9 (150 BC):
Prophet born in Delhi. I sleep him for now, as his actions should be discussed. Right now, he can research Theology, thanks to us getting Monotheism. I think we can also assume everyone else has Monotheism right now (by everyone else, I mean those on the other continent). The only real purpose of it would be for denial purposes, since the fewer religions available elsewhere, the easier it'll be to spread ours.

Turn 10 (125 BC):
More zzzzz.

One worrying thing in general: There's a few skirmishers outside of the Barbarian city:


They've taken out one archer, but both are wounded, indicating previous combat. We've got 2 axes sitting on the cows, as well as one in the city; that should probably be enough to take it, although I'd feel safer with a fourth axe, just in case.

And the save: PH04 BC-0125.CivWarlordsSave

 

[pholkhero]

nice going ~ hopefully they won't just send units into the fray there and keep promoting those archers, but we'll have to cross our fingers. With it being so close to....is that a Mongolian city?...it may be crushed, but could be worth it for elephants and the sugar.

I definitely agree on keeping Theology and Christianity for ourselves. I see the save, but most likely will NOT play tonight as this makes 5 for me i think.

 

[Xerol]

Yeah, I was thinking we could take it just so the AI wouldn't. Obviously it would need some chopping to be useful, but it'd make a nice cottage spam site. (It's all grassland, no hills.)

I think we definitely need more ROADS. Those axes were taking twice as long as they could've been to get up there; if we had roads already in place, we'd probably have the city by now. I admit I'm guilty of spamming roads where they're not needed, but we need at MINIMUM a network between all cities.

Tech-wise: It looks like we'll have a monopoly on Currency when it comes in, and if we go down towards Optics next, we'll probably have monopolies on Metal Casting and following techs.

 

[Meatbuster]

I'm surprised Madras still doesn't have much improvements... besides roads.

And we're still at 100% so are we on the way to building the next big settler?

 

[pholkhero]

playing.