I knew I was going to hear about the ambling warrior. My circle was way too big. Once I found Justinian, he should have went back closer to home. He is heading that way now and will hopefully not be too late scouring the land.
I did not look into the cost of poly v. med, but now will be on the med path instead.
Worker direction...mine the pigs then go gold???? Or gold first?
I will try to take your suggestions on the warrior/worker/settler. With no happy resources, I will need to watch the pop closely for whippage.
I plan on keeping Justinian around until around 500bc or so. Want him yo settle the south for me.
Thanks for all the comments. I'm at my kid's tennis practice now, so I look forward to the next turnset.
I would not necessarily hold to that plan. With your strong cap, I think you have a good chance to box Justy in based on what I'm seeing. He might get three or four cities, spread his Religion to you like crazy while getting a shrine. Take him out later. I would be proactive with expansion not reactive.
Plus, if this is semi-iso, it may be worth keeping him around for a while for trade routes and tech backfills. No real need to take him out early as long as you grab most of the good land and box him in.
As to your question about MC, you will have all the techs you need based on the suggested tech path.
By the way, you may never need to whip that capital.
Following up on this thought: a good initial guess is to count the number of good tiles you have (ie resources that will be improved in the ancient era). Here, The first size I would consider is 4 (corn,wheat,pigs,gold).
Rome grew to size 3, began work on a settler...Settler will go E and settle "City #1."
As soon as the settler is done a warrior will be out 1 turn later. Then I will build worker/settler
Rome's worker will mine the pigs, farm the wheat, then chop worker/settler.
With the only food available do I need to stray from the Myst>Med>Priest path and add AH in before? Or AH after Priest, since the food shouldn't be too much of an issue??? That is the way I am leaning.
Read up on my neighbor...I don't think he will be a problem. As lymond stated earlier, I want trade routes with him and I need him to spread his religion to me and build some shrines and what not. After he has things I want, I will take him down.
Although rushes do work up to Emperor in pretty much every case, this is a clear example where you should go to war soon in pretty much every case.
a) not too many nice city spots. There are some spots, city#1 is great, but apart from that ... #2 will already take some time to become really productive (just like always with fishfood cities), #3 has no food whatsoever, then there's another spot in the north at the clams, but after that it seems you're stuck and have to reach very far to get additional decent spots.
b) strategic resource really close and easy to hook up
c) great capital to support a rush, with early commerce, alot production and a quick overall start with plenty of food
d) a generally rather weak neighbour !early on! who often is expanding very early while researching religious techs, which makes him a pretty easy target - even better to take him out early as Justinian is one of those AIs that can win the game. He's not as easy to deal with like Isabella, but definetely not as hard as the bad guys.
e) enemy capital is pretty close and, from what you can see, does not have metal in it's BFC
f) as you haven't met any other AI so far, it's reasonable to think that you're semi isolated. Unless you have an AI that's easy to please, a good techer and will let you most of the good land, it's better to take it out. Justinian is so-so in this regard, if you get his religion early he'll love you and should be a good trading partner as soon as you get him to friendly, but usually he'll take a crapload of land and become more difficulty to deal with later, especially when you decide to switch out of his religion. Given the circumstances, i'd vote to take him out. It's not like you won't outtech the prince AI with ease
On this difficulty, it's save for you to take oracle first and finish him off later, as soon as you've catapults or something, but on higher difficulties you'd want to take him out and forgo oracle badly. Even more as Justinian is IMP and will give you a hard time securing the best spots.
All right. I settled 2 new cities, in spot #1 and #2. Justinian took the area where I had marked #3, so that is okay.
Here is the area as I see it now:
Iron popped up in city #2, so that is terrific. As soon as I have that hooked up, the Praets will come out and Justinian will soon be no more.
After I have all the resources worked, I believe it will be time to cottage my land. I have many tiles calling for cottages and I think it would be prudent to oblige them.
I could pop another city SE of Atium to grab that Gold+Spice...that probably will be my next city...
Tech path now????
Writing>Math>Aest>CoL?????
I like what I have done so far. I am sure I made mistakes and could probably of played this more optimally, but all-in-all I think I am in a good position. But what do I know? LoL
If you're planning on Praets, it's time to focus on praets. Your workers should be building mines and chopping forests; your cities should be focusing on high food/production tiles, and you should be whipping. My sense of how fast AIs will expand on Prince is not perfect, but I'd think 10 praets would be plenty to roll over him, especially since his only reasonable source of copper will require a third city and a number of roads to hook up. Your next turn set should be quick and violent - 8-12 turns of war prep in which you build up your praets, then 10-15 turns of combat in which you crush Justin. If you're lucky, he might not even have copper when you hit him.
That said, I'm still not totally convinced that a rush is warranted. If you want to learn to win Prince, kill him; Prince AIs can't get as much out of cities as humans can. But there would be some valuable experience in semi-isolation diplomacy and competitive early expansion you could pick up by letting him live. It's not a situation that absolutely demands playing it one way or another; you could argue either course.
Edit: Also, regarding your tech path.
Writing is the obvious first move; you really want to get at least one library and a pair of scientists going as soon as possible here (without delaying a Praet rush if you're planning that). The fact that you haven't met more AIs (plus that it's Prince, so they tech slower) means Alphabet is an unattractive follow-up, so you're deciding between Aesthetics and Mathematics. Aesthetics would be an option if you were planning a wonder-heavy strategy here, but with no stone or marble and this much land available, even an IND leader will want to just focus on working lots of tiles; expansion is the way to go. There's lots of forests, so you're right that Math is the correct follow-up tech.
After that, though, you have a bit of a game-path choice. Aesthetics -> Literature -> Music would be a solid play to set up for a cultural victory; try to pick up Taoism and maybe Christianity, settle a solid 9 cities, get GLib, Sistine Chapel, and possibly a couple other wonders, and push for cultural victory.
Currency -> Code of Laws -> Civil Service would be my path to set up for a Renaissance domination push, as that'll give you a very solid base to your economy and you can just rapidly fill all the land available, tech along to Optics, bulb to Liberalism, and go conquering.
In neither case do you pick up Aesthetics then go back and get Code of Laws; it's kind of an either-or choice (Aesthetics by itself doesn't offer you that much right now, except as a stepping stone to Literature and Music).
That said, I'm still not totally convinced that a rush is warranted. If you want to learn to win Prince, kill him; Prince AIs can't get as much out of cities as humans can. But there would be some valuable experience in semi-isolation diplomacy and competitive early expansion you could pick up by letting him live. It's not a situation that absolutely demands playing it one way or another; you could argue either course
I think it's more reasonable to learn to play the map... that has nothing to do with Prince Level, as you'd go to war on Immortal and Deity here and especially here. As i said, it's not good play to just rush every time on Prince because it always works and you can't learn anything out of it if you do it every time, but that case is a crystal clear rushing situation. I even forgot that he has Praets, which makes rushing even better (although i'd have gone with Axes, as that'd almost gurantee no strong defender; Axes in cities are quite nasty for Praets).
Also, i don't agree that you can learn something about diplomacy here. Justinian is a reasonable AI and very easy to please as soon as you adopt his religion - with open borders and resource trades it's a cakewalk. It'd be a different situation if he had more good city spots and a neighbour that's harder to deal with, but knowing when to rush and how to execute a rush well is just as valuable to learn as good diplo.
There are other maps where you can do the diplo thing better, this one seems like a "rush is the only viable option" kind of map. Well, it's Prince difficulty, so you could go the peaceful route, but what for? Learn to play the map is the most important skill.
Justinian could no longer be tolerated. I amassed 10 Praets and marched upon his cities, by the way of razing his only source of metal (copper) so that he couldn't reload on his axemen. Victory was not difficult, to say the least. The continent is now mine.
With resources
Now time to decide the way forward...this is where the help is needed the most.
-I need to get the NE city hooked up to the trade routes. So I need to send a worker to road that for me.
-Need at least 2 cities between the N and the S settlements to bridge the gap.
-Spread Buddhism to t3 cities that are not currently worshipping with the rest of us.
-Check out the Eastern part of the island to judge the settle-ability of the land.
-Determine the purposes of the major cities.
-Cottage up the appropriate land.
Tech path:
Pick up the economy techs then Aest??? When should Fued be done? Another point I need to get better at.
Justinian could no longer be tolerated. I amassed 10 Praets and marched upon his cities, by the way of razing his only source of metal (copper) so that he couldn't reload on his axemen. Victory was not difficult, to say the least. The continent is now mine.
You seem to already be doing this. Regarding the city itself, I'm not sure I like it that much. It doesn't really add anything to your empire - it's fine as a backfill city, but I wouldn't have tried to settle it before the Praet rush and all the nicer areas were secure.
-Need at least 2 cities between the N and the S settlements to bridge the gap.
There's nothing wrong with a gap between your cities, particularly in isolation when you don't have to worry about an AI filling that gap. Focus on good city spots, rather than spots that look "empty" without a city. By that standard, there isn't too much to be interested in between Cumae/Rome/Antium and Antioch/Thessalonica; it's pretty much filled and dead land. Eventually you could probably fit a city 3S of Rome, but it's not a particularly strong spot.
Regarding other city spots I note, you could fit a nice city 3E of Thessalonica. Otherwise, it's pretty much no-mans-land in the rest of the area you've explored. The NW crabs and the N fish could potentially support some marginal cities, although nothing urgent.
There are some gaping holes in your scouting - especially since you currently have 2 units fortified in each of your cities and none out scouting or fogbusting. There's almost certainly at least a couple good city sites in the far east.
Also, there's that island to the south, which you should be getting a workboat or galley to explore right now (ideally a galley and settler, because you're going to want to get at least one city there ASAP for overseas trade routes; possibly more if it's a large landmass). There's a little trick you can do to check the general shape of a landmass involving the camera - zoom in on the coast (with sound on) then move the camera into the black. If you're staring at water, you'll hear the sound of the ocean. If you're staring at an inland area, you won't hear the sound of the ocean. It's a bit of a gray area between fair play and an exploit which some players frown on using, so I've spoilered what I found by doing so myself (if you don't like it, don't read the spoiler).
Spoiler:
It's a sizable landmass, which seems to be pretty much a north-south peninsula that widens to the south and reaches almost to the bottom of the map. Almost certainly home to 1-2 AIs, which means this should be a huge priority for scouting and settling at least a few cities.
-Spread Buddhism to t3 cities that are not currently worshipping with the rest of us.
This is a priority, but be smart about it. If a city doesn't need the culture or the happiness yet, and you aren't about to start running Organized Religion (or Pacifism plus some specialists in that city), it's not the most urgent priority. (Looking at Neapolis and Antium specifically)
-Check out the Eastern part of the island to judge the settle-ability of the land.
Yes. This should have been top priority for all your praetorians the instant the war ended. At the very least, grab 4-5 praetorians this very turn and send them east.
Ideally you should already have something in mind for the cities you settled yourself, but you're right that this shouldn't be put off any longer. You should take a look yourself, then you could compare with my judgements about how your cities probably break down (spoilered to give you a chance to look for yourself first).
Spoiler:
Rome is your capital; you've already got some cottages developing there, and commerce isn't a bad fit for it's tiles, so making it a Bureaucracy commerce capital is a reasonable move. You also could make it an effective GP farm if you preferred to take that course.
Cumae is a pretty natural production city - no riverside for commerce, modest food surplus, and plenty of plains-hills you can mine.
Depending on how you split the resource tiles between Antium and Rome, it's either a modest production city (stealing Pigs, improving the cows - which should be done long ago! - and working copper-silver-grass mine-plains mine-cow, or it could be a respectable commerce city if you steal the corn or wheat from your capital to help it grow and support cottages. I like it as a commerce city which shares cottages with the capital to ensure they grow to towns quickly. Alternatively, you could work it as both - just don't bother with infrastructure, work it as a commerce city just long enough to grow cottages until capital can take them over, then it can focus on production.
Neapolis is... bad. One 3-food tile, a handful of non-riverside grass tiles and a copper, and a bunch of garbage. I'd plan it up to grow to size-6 working copper, oasis, 2 farms, and a pair of specialists, then forget about it.
Antioch is... also bad. Again no food, and any tiles it wants to work will have to be stolen from other cities that will want them. I'd just build a lighthouse there and grow on coastal tiles, then forget about it. 1SE of there would have been a vastly stronger spot; I'd have razed Antioch on capturing it.
Thessalonica is a textbook site for cottages and commerce.
Adrianople could make a passable early-game production city, or you could just slowly grow it on Financial coast and write it off as a fairly weak long-term prospect.
Nicaea can grow on coast or work a couple specialists (or some mix of the two), but after you farm the rice and plantation the spice you won't be doing much improving over there... and it lacks the production to get buildings needed to heavily specialize anyways.
Constantinople is a GP farm.
Cottages are a pretty urgent priority here; if it takes more than a couple dozen turns to get your cottages going from now, you might as well just stick with specialists. That said... I notice you have Representation, so that's not a bad move to be honest. I would consider just cottaging Rome and Antium, run Bureaucracy and have a low slider so Rome pays your upkeep, and rely on specialists for the bulk of your research.
Tech path:
Pick up the economy techs then Aest??? When should Fued be done? Another point I need to get better at.
You're Industrious, running Representation, and there's Marble off to the east. Great Library is a pretty obvious wonder to pick up, so Literature is a priority.
You've got quite a few cities and are in a position to settle several more, which makes Currency important.
You've got two Calendar resources to work with, making Calendar reasonably important... but you have a religion and Representation, so you have enough happiness that Calendar isn't critical yet.
Civil Service for chain-irrigation would help several of your cities, and a Bureaucracy boost to Rome would also be good; Civil Service looks valuable.
In the longer run, Optics -> Astronomy may be important if you're isolated now, and Liberalism is always a solid choice.
I would go Literature -> Currency -> Calendar, then decide if you want to try to bulb/tech along CoL -> Civil Service -> Paper -> Education or along Machinery -> Optics -> Astronomy.
Feudalism is a non-starter for you in this situation - it doesn't give you anything. You're not going to want to run Vassalage (Bureaucracy will be better); you're not going to want Serfdom (Slavery or Caste would both be better); you're not going to want longbows (you're isolated and should be able to fogbust what's left of your land pretty easy with leftover praetorians, so longbows are just a waste of time). So you have no urgent need for Feudalism. Similarly, you have no real use for Monarchy in this situation. So... you'll need Monarchy only when you need Feudalism. You'll need Feudalism only when you need Guilds. You'll need Guilds only when you need Banking. Banking may or may not be a worthwhile tech in it's own right; Economics may or may not be worthwhile; Corporation may or may not be worthwhile. Eventually you're going to have to head up that whole long line to get Assembly Line if the game goes that long, because AL is always worthwhile sooner or later.
Not a bad situation to be in; I think you've got a very good chance of winning this game. Scouting needs to be a real priority going forward, and hook up that marble and get Great Library, National Epic, and Heroic Epic built as fast as you can.
Apologies in advance if this comes off harshly, that's not my intention. English is not my native language and I prefer to be to-the-point.
I looked at your save and you are in a very good position. But you seem to lack focus. You have lots of happiness thanks to Representation. Yet, your cities are stagnant. They should be growing to fill out the happiness cap.
You aren't working the cottages you built. It's 50 AD and cottages should by now be far ahead of the life-cycle they are currently in your game.
Antium (second city that built the stonehenge) should be helping the cap out by taking all the cottage tiles it can off Rome and working them. Might want to remove the mine on the Pigs and hand that tile off to Antium to allow it to grow.
The coastal city to the West (did I mention I am terrible at remembering names? ) needs a lighthouse far more than it needs coliseum. You might even want to consider Moai Statues here.
You have Rep as a civic, but you aren't running scientists. While the extra happiness from Rep is not unwelcome, its main power in the early game lies in boosting specialists. Justinian's old capital's name evades me right now, but it is a decent spot to run specialists. (Constantinople, I think)
I am guessing the land south is much larger. Jungle usually doesn't appear on smallish islands. Explore it as a priority as you need trading partners. They will come in especially handy thanks to the Great Lighthouse Justinian built for you.
As for tech path, ignore Alpha for now unless you know you are not isolated and can find trading partners. (If you only meet one AI or none on the land to the south, they may be unwilling to trade.) Tech currency, Code of Laws and Civil Service for spreading irrigation.
Edit: There is no academy in any city yet. I am not sure if you spawned a Great Person yet, but you should be looking to generate a Great Scientist and build an academy somewhere that is generating a lot of bearkers for your empire.
That covers what immediately jumped out at me when I looked at your save. You are in an excellent position. Good luck.
Try to put a bit more thought into what your cities are building, a colosseum is pretty much useless to Cumae, while a forge would be very useful and a Lighthouse fairly useful, it could also build a workboat. Similarly Adrianople will benefit very little from a Library but quite a lot from a Forge, and does Antium with its 1/turn really need a Library.
A second issue is that you are working a great many unimproved tiles, you could really do with some more workers to combat this, and ungroup the three building a plains mine as it reduces their efficiency considerably!
While exploring east is important, and something that should have been done quite some time ago, don't ignore the southern island. That island will either provide AIs to trade with, or city sites which will gain greatly from trade routes (the first city planted there would cause an increase of 16 before it even works a tile!) and following cities will benefit a lot from the GLH you captured. This is why I mentioned a workboat when talking about Cumae. .
I see no need to be building missionaries, you aren't running a religious civic, your cities aren't unhappy or needing culture, you have a holy city that will autospread with no hammer cost (along with a prophet that should have shrined it already!) and you have more important things to build!
Rome's pig mine should really have been pastured over by now.
Haven't opened the save, but just from the overview screenshot i'd say:
1. more focus on vertical growth (= bigger cities, more worked tiles) and less horizontal growth. Several reasons:
- most of your cities are too small for this time
- additional they seem to lack some basic buildings, as i can see several granaries and/or libraries
- You have good land an can work some great tiles
- there are no really good city spots left for the moment (imo you've already stretched too far out with Neapolis and Nicae)
- you're not in a hurry to settle out your land as you're alone on your landmass for the moment
- You should aim to be far ahead of the AI techwise, and for that you need more beakers per turn.
2. More workers. Pretty much self explaining... don't build any more settlers for the moment. Whip workers out where you can, you'll want them as soon as humanly possible (4pop cities build them for 1-2 turns, then whip for overflow into infrastructure).
3. Techwise:
- Alpha is a bad choice if you don't either a) have trading partner or b) plan on several bulbs to come. Currency will help you alot more in pretty much every regard.
- Why did you research construction? Even up to Immortal, you can crush your enemy with Praets only.
- Beside Currency obviously, Monotheism, Code Of Laws and Civil Service should be your #1 priorities, in that order. It's worth to make the detour for Monotheism and switch into it asap, as you'll be in a build-up phase for a pretty long time given all that land.
4. Scout! Scout! Scout! If there's a way to reach other Civs without Optics/Astro, you should know asap.
Jungle usually doesn't appear on smallish islands.
Mind to explain? That statement is completely different from what i've experienced. I haven't seen any relation between the fauna of an island and it's size so far.
Mind to explain? That statement is completely different from what i've experienced. I haven't seen any relation between the fauna of an island and it's size so far.
What I meant was, I haven't yet seen Jungle appear on small islands that can support at most two cities. (That is the size of that island based on what we see right now). I have only ever encountered Jungle on islands of much larger scale that can support four or more cities or on larger landmasses with AIs.
This isn't exactly a rule, just something I observed. I may not have been observant enough or I may not have seen enough maps to know exceptions exist and might indeed be common place.
Well, let me tell you that i've seen several islands before that couldn't host more than one city. I thought that you'd maybe know something here i don't know, but it seems that we're both tied to our own observations. That said, they exist 100% unless i'm hallucinating or smth ...
I'm enjoying following your game, hope you're having fun too!
The only point I have to add is to pay some attention to your Great People Generation. Rome should sacrifice production to improve your chance of getting a GS pop. It could work wheat, corn, pigs, gold, a cottage, and two scientists.
A likely GProphet in Rome in ten turns, fine if Buddism hasnt been shrined yet, but a GS for an Academy would be much better if the shrine is up allready.
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) needs a lighthouse far more than it needs coliseum. You might even want to consider Moai Statues here.
/turn really need a Library.
before it even works a tile!) and following cities will benefit a lot from the GLH you captured. This is why I mentioned a workboat when talking about Cumae. 
