I think things are going well. So far i didn't see a difference between noble and prince... doesn't seem harder. Here's my game status right now :
It's 1155 ad. I'm tech leader, score leader, power leader, and Isabella and Frederick are now my vassals even tough I didn't even see one of their cities, nor talked to them during the game. They just popped on my screen and asked to be vassals so I said yeah. As wonders I have built : sistine chapel, national epic, great library, university of sankore, erioc epic, hanging gardens, colossus, oracle, statue of zeus, moai statues. Captured : Notre Dame (it doesn't seem to be producing culture, is this because I captured it ?) On the way : Taj Mahal
It's one turn after I've been first to discover Liberalism. Used it to get Nationalism, right now I'm building the Taj Mahal. While the taj is being built I'm beelining for economics to A) Build banks and get my science slider up and b) settle the second great merchant in my future westpoint ironworks city, which has lots of hills. My tech is at 60% but I'm still doing 300 beakers. When the taj mahal i built I'll build banks in my big commerce cities and bring science back to 80 or more if possible, all the while researching astronomy under the taj golden age to speed it up since it need lots of beakers. Right now my science is at 60 % because I have a l,ot of sleeping samurais and captapults and various other units. I'll say what I plan on doing with those after the next question, which is ;
My capital is still on the original island. I was thinking of moving it either to the coastal city kyoto, or the mountaineous one Pai Mei Redoubt. That's one of my debates. The one I move cap to will have westpoint and ironworks. Now, if I put them in Pai Mei the mountaineous city, with bureaucracy and those two NW I'll be pumping land and air units with lots of xp like crazy. On the other side, if I put it in Kyoto which has access to sea, I will also be able to build high xp ships aswell. But kyoto doesn't have a lot of hammer squares, so that's why I'm debating. Unless I switch to build some cottages which will be towns later, or wait until workshops give big production. It seems that logic (and greed) tells me to build those 3 things in the mountaineous Pai Mei Redoubt since earth map has more inland than seashore cities anyways, so naval isn't as crucial, and I'll have more production in it than Kyoto.
But I have a gut feeling that later kyoto might be able to have just as much prod as Pai Mei with later civics, towns, workshops and lumbermills with the few forests I kept. Which would put them on equal footing except kyoto will most likely have larger population and ability to build ships. What do you think I should do ? Here's a screenshot of those 2 cities to give a better idea :
Next, about my samurais. Rifling is still very far now from everybody except me, but since no one is short of them I rather research things that strenghten my econ and science to support my soon-to-be larger empire, and use my samurais as military. To put in context, here's what my empire looks like :
Now is the time to enlarge it. I've secured tech lead, power, vassalized people and managed to build a lot of useful wonders, while my original city is spamming great scientists (I only build wonders that emphasize great scientists there) that are building science academy everywhere. North of me looks to be uninteresting cold land, except one mongol city that I might capture, although itdoesn't have special resources. I'm not decided yet if its worth the extra maintenance. Maybe I should just burn everything north. To the west is a desert, not appealing. I'm thinking of moving southwest, first just beside Pai Mei Redoubt to capture or burn chinese cities there, then try to go south and colonize australia ? Haven't discovered australia yet, but I think asoka has it, and he's friendly towards me with +15 -3. He's 6th in score, while cyrus is 2nd (I'm 1st). While his cities are not as inviting to capture, I think I'd benefit more to fight him since he's the second strongest. It would bring him down while bring me still further up. He hasn't been hostile to me at all, but hey, he's 2nd, that's a sin that deserves to be punished. He does have 3 vassals though, but I have 2.
As you can see in the screen shot, the black spot between him and me is filled with I suppose Indian cities. If I go make a smal brust in persia, capture tarsus, burn persepolis and susa and built a new city on the gold hill near susa to get the hill bonus defense instead of susa average location, then call it quits, make peace and put lots of longbowmen and samurais in those 2 cities in case of surprise attack, I think that would cripple persia, give me 2 more cities (possibly 3 or 4 depending on how many chinese cities there are in the black spot), then I can concentrate on reaching rifling, and then I'll probably go attack the greek north and west of persia since tehy've alway been hostile to me while not being very strong. Maybe he'll be my vassal if I do so.
Have I made a good analysis and plans for my game ? I'm not sure about the maintenance costs of such an emterprise, it's only my 3rd civ4 game.
