Realism Invictus - Play-N-Learn

[Joker.ru]

Hi folks,

It's been a while since i played RI (or CIV for that matter) and it seems that there are multitude of major changes in a latest SVN revision (4546) so I've decided to give it a shot hoping to learn as we go and ultimately get input/advise from more experienced players as well as creators of RI mod.

First off, i would like to thank RI (former TR) team for all the hard work and dedication they've put into making this awesome mod. Ever since I stumbled upon TR, number of years ago, CIV was never the same to me. Vanilla CIV, mo matter what version, just can't compete with variety and diversity of RI - great job guys, thanks for making CIV the way it was meant to be

Now, as i mentioned before, i am hoping to get active discussions going on various strategies, RI mechanics, analysis, next moves, etc., so i will be making pauses between moves to give people a chance to analyse and post comments.

Let's start:

Difficulty - Emperor
Map size - Standard
Number of Civilizations - 10
Settings:

Spoiler :

Civilization: Celts

Spoiler :

Unique Units:
1. Gaesatae (Melee)

• 1 First Strike

• +25% Hills Defense

• +50% Attack vs. Archery Units

• +50% Attack vs. Melee Units

• +50% vs. Melee Units

• Targets any Melee Units first in combat outside cities

• Inflicts Fear (-1 first strike to enemy forces)

• Provides Assault Aid (+3%-6%-12% strength to stack)

• Upgrades to Highland Clansmen (NU)

Available:

• Technology: Weapon Smithing

• Resources: Bronze or Iron

Notes:
This unit comes at the same time as Axemen, but is 16P cheaper and more powerful against both Archers and Melee (pure strength without promotions or UU bonuses like Fear). Should be good addition to first assault stacks

2. Fianna (Melee)

• 1 First Strike

• +50% Forest/Jungle Attack

• +25% Forest/Jungle Defense

• +50% vs. Mounted Units

• +25% Attack vs. Melee Units

• +25% vs. Melee Units

• Targets any Mounted Units first in combat outside cities

• Inflicts Fear (-1 first strike to enemy forces)

• Provides Assault Aid (+3%-6%-12% strength to stack)

• Upgrades to Light Infantry

Available:

• Technology: Military Engineering

• Resources: Iron

3. Highland Clansmen (Gunpowder)

• 0-1 First Strike

• +55% City Defense

• +25% Hills Defense

• +50% Attack vs. Mounted Units

• +50% Attack vs. Melee Units

• +25% vs. Melee Units

• +25% Attack vs. Light Mounted Units

• Inflicts Fear (-1 first strike to enemy forces)

• Provides Ranged Aid (+3%-6%-12% city and hills defense, 0-1-2 first strikes)

• Upgrades to Scottish Fusilier

Available:

• Technology: Arquebus

• Resources: Sulfur

Unique Buildings:
1. DUN (Walls) – available with Archery and Architecture

Notes: 20H cheaper than Walls. Provides 10% more protection against Mounted and Light Mounted units. Also Robert the Bruce can get 50% more Hammers when building this. Must be built in time with Despotism civic change to maximize benefits.
Might also make sense to go for Ishtar Gate WW (+2 ESP in all cities) with cheaper Walls


2. NEMETON (Pagan Temple) – available with Mysticism

Notes: only valid with Paganism so need to watch economy when switching to any other religion. Needs health surplus but bonuses to Productions and Gold are substantial. Need to build early in cities with high Production and/or Commerce


3. BEER HALL (Tavern) – available with Tolls and Taxes

Notes: bonus for Wheat means that this now becomes Luxury resource and has to be traded or settled at priority. Build in Military cities to get extra XP point for Melee units

Leader: Robert the Bruce

Spoiler :

Notes: well-balanced leader with good early city growth potential (+2 happy faces with Dun and Monument) and good base military promotions.
1. Military:

• +1 to stack size before penalties kick in

• Free promotions (+20% city defense, 1extra 1st strike chance) are good for defending own cities as well as repelling any counterattacks during conquest. These promotions are good for almost entire game (archers to gunpowder)

• +50% GG emergence inside Cultural Borders – more GG from early Barbarian attacks. Can be used to beat rivals to Doctrines and to build Traditions (Melee).

• +50% faster Archery range – bundled with Free promotions will produce amazing city defenders

2. Happiness:

• 50% faster Dun (walls) will give +1 happy face sooner. Needs Despotism (Writing) or Monarchy – NOTE that +50% means that city will produce 50% more Hammers when building Dun (not 50% cheaper price). Might also make sense to go for Ishtar Gate WW (+2 ESP in all cities) with cheaper Walls

• +1 happy face from Monument (Sculpture) - City Square - Broadcast Tower

No particular reason for selecting Celts, mainly that I’ve never played them before and they seem to be what I would call an average, evenly balanced CIV. High level strategy based on Civilization and Leader traits would be to quickly develope 2-3 cities (if economy permits) to max out population (with Monument and Walls). Build Nemeton(s) in production/commerce cities. Connect Copper (if available), build Bronze Smith and go for early Axemen and Gaesatae rush (cripple rivals, capture strategic resources). Details will be based on location, and again, comments are welcome

Location
Strategic

Spoiler :

I have moved warrior W to the hill to get better view of the surroundings:

WEST: Large river flowing through valley to the West means that city built there will be connected by trade route (which cannot be sabotaged), as soon as Fishing is discovered. Two forest squares (green stars) will probably have to be chopped to remove defensive bonuses for any attackers coming from W and SW (white arrows to the left).
There is also a river to far NW (hard to see but it’s also hinted by yield of top left plains square)

EAST: There seems to be coast line to the East, but even if it’s just a narrow passage to more land, this front (white arrow to the right) can be easily defended by fortifying archers on forested hill (green pentagon) along with chopped W squares

NORTH: unknown but should be defendable by archer on N hill with Coffee (green pentagon)

SOUTH: looks relatively flat and bland which means that it will most likely be developed last. However attacks directly from South should not cause problems due to natural barrier (lake).

Notes: overall this is a promising starting position that is easily defendable on two sides (E and S). Settling on a hill will give bonus to city defenders and access to river (via the lake) will help connecting future cities. Access to sea is also very important for naval operations later on as well as ability to construct various resource enhancing buildings (fishing docks, lighthouse, harbor, etc.) and WWs.
Fertile valley to the East is a prime candidate for second city, depending on what resources are revealed by Metal Lore and Stone working

With that in mind I will settle in place…

Resources

Spoiler :

Green Square = Farm
Yellow Circle = Cottage
Green Star = Lumber mill
Red Arrow = Mine
Question Mark = potential hidden resource

So far we have luxury resource (coffee x2) and food + health (clam)
1. Coffee on a grassland hill (2) 2F-2P-1G – good working squares right off the bet without any improvements. Problem with such resources is that removing forest early to build plantation will only swap one hammer for one gold (2F-1P-2G) until Commerce Code (CC) and Merchant Adventures (MA) are discovered (2F-1P-4G).
So options are:

• Leave them as-is (2F-2P-1G) = 5

• Cottage (2F-1P-4G) = 7

• Plantations (2F-1P-4G) when CC and MA are ready = 7 + happiness + trading possibility

Development plan will be based on economy needs and I might turn them to cottages temporarily until full benefit of plantations can be utilized.
Also need to be careful as removing a Forest will deduct 0.5 health points from the city, so -2 forest squares = -1 health

2. Clam (NO health bonus with Judaism) – will need Fishing boats (+1F) and will gradually produce more food with various techs and buildings (Compass, Steel Hull, Fishing Docks, Lighthouse, etc.). With Fishing Boats (48P) and Fishing Docks (40P) (both available with Fishing tech) will produce 4F-1G plus 1HP.

3. Islands on Coast and Lake – these squares cannot be developed by Celts (only Japan AFAIK) but are already very strong squares. Fishing Docks (Fishing) and Lighthouse (Shipbuilding) will make them even stronger (3-1-3 for the lake, and 2-1-3 for coastal). Also as a bonus, these cannot be pillaged by barbarians and lake island cannot even be blocked

NOTES: I would love to have more food resources available but abundance of fresh water grassland tiles should offset shortage of resources. Also this location has a good potential for discovering more hidden resources.

High Level Plan for next 50 turns:
Lay of the Land – first warrior will continue scouting NW-N. I will probably send second warrior S to lift FOW and potentially sentry him there right before Barbs show up (~T50)

Build queue – I usually like to let city grow before building workers and settlers, which in this case also make sense as there is nothing that needs immediate development. First job for our worker would be chopping two forests W of the city, but this can wait. If I am not completely off in my calculations, city will grow by turn 17 and will produce 1.9 of warriors (only 1 turn left for second) so I will start worker on turn 18 and it will take another 18 turn to complete. This means that we can start chopping on turn 37 (+1 for forest move) so hopefully he should be able to chop one square before barbs show up (13 turns to chop). Net result by turn 50 would be: 2 Warriors, 1 Worker, extra gold and production from second citizen, 1 chopped forest. Also, getting warriors out faster will mean more intel and XP from animals (hopefully).
Doing worker first will net roughly same result, but with 14P gain in Production (from second chop) and loss of 21 Gold (less population in city until worker is built).
Ideally we also need to upgrade one or two warriors to archers by T50. Gold can be saved on research or by looting tribal villages.

Research – pretty much all of early techs are equally important, however we need to pick one so:
1. Fishing – this seems like the obvious choice given that only reachable resource we have is out in sea, but we already have two powerful squares (coffee) to work on for next ~50 or so turns and we won’t gain much benefit for developing clams until we need more food (to support mines for example). Skip for now
2. The Wheel – although it’s pre-requisite for Writing (Despotism and Open Borders) we have no Horses and don’t really need to connect any resources yet (cart path). Skip for now
3. Agriculture – our main food supply for this city will come from farming but at a later stage. Also our city has plenty of Health from forests and river, so no need for wells yet. Skip for now
4. Storytelling – Storytelling Circle is nice (+2 SCI and +1 CUL) and it is also needed for Sculpture (Monuments). Can wait until we get base infrastructure in place.
5. Tool Making – also not very useful on its own, this tech is effectively a pre-requisite for almost all techs including Woodworking, which is needed to chop forests, we well as Archery. Will start with that
6. Metal Lore – another obvious choice as it reveals four critical resources (gold, silver, gems, and cooper). Since we won’t have any workers to take advantage of these resources for a while or any settlers to grab them, there is no pressing need to research it immediately.

Since we cannot chop forests until T37, when first worker comes online, research path will be as follows: Toolmaking->Metal Lore->Woodworking->Archery. All of these should be finished by T50 and I will also adjust the plan when we have more intel from scouting.

Let me know your thoughts on this and To Be Continued...

 

[Manco Capac]

Interesting to see this wave of non-BTS write-ups these days. Also interesting to see a former lurker since 2004 starting such ambitious project.

Some guy here named jihe wanted RI, well, unbeknownst to him, he got it.

I hope for ya your presentation will sprout an amount of strategic discussions. It failed to me, but we neve know with a mod that is still really active like RI. Not that I know that mod in details.

 

[plastiqe]

Class of 2004, nice. ; )

Cruel posts a lot in the K-Mod thread. Does R.I. have K-Mod in it?

 

[Lenneth]

You really put some work into that post!

I have to confess, I pretty much gave up on RI because of the insistence of the developers in making the game a grind in terms of economy management. There's no harder to play mod. Economy management in civ iv vanilla is kids play compared to this (oh, the sacrilege!).

I may re install it just bc of this thread, who knows. Not sure if I have the patience, though.

A few thoughts.:
- Settler first until emperor always seemed like a no brainer to me. Immediately "doubling" the production works very well (better than bad and long chopping). Its too hard to get early improvements with raging barbs (your extensive analysis doens't consider that... - there's no worse raging barbs, its quite insane)
- First research goal: Archery. No contest (ok, woodworking for militia can work, still you're not chopping anything for a while...). Warriors? - Prepare to die, even by animals.
- chopping is weak and takes long; this is not vanilla.
- City does not need to focus on growth early on, just pop good stuff out: pop a settler, archers, build storytellers, use the coastal commerce and off you go from there when the raging barbs are diminishing in number.

Early game is that simple actually. Later on however...

If you write all that for the start, I expect pages and pages further on...
Oh, smaller pics, please

 

[Lenneth]

Class of 2004, nice. ; )

Cruel posts a lot in the K-Mod thread. Does R.I. have K-Mod in it?

SVN version, yes.
How a K-mod fanatic does't know this? Stop playing kids games and play this

 

[Joker.ru]

Tachywaxon
Get the mod and jump right in, you will like it

plastiqe
Yes, K-Mod is part of RI

Lenneth, thanks, awesome feedback - let discussions begin
Here is what i think:
- I absolutely agree with you on the economy part . This is what makes it challenging and in turn interesting
- Yes, i do remember the barbarian hordes, but if you look at my map, both S and E are easy to defend. Also i am not planning on developing anything yet - there are no resources Chopping two W tiles are mainly for defensive purposes (barb archers will be vulnerable in the open)
- No point in researching Archery first, in my opinion, as barbs don't show until ~T50 (or am i missing something???)
- Early growth translates to higher production and gold yields. But this is more of my personal preference

P.S> will make em smaller in future posts

 

[plastiqe]

SVN version, yes.
How a K-mod fanatic does't know this? Stop playing kids games and play this

I am accepting donations for a new computer to upgrade the one I have (which matches my forum joining date). Perhaps then I'll give R.I. a whirl. : )

Anyways, now that I've asked everyone else knows the answer too.

 

[Lenneth]

If I recall correctly celtic archers have a defensive bonus on forest, btw and barbs will start showing around turn 40 on emperor.


"- Early growth translates to higher production and gold yields. But this is more of my personal preference"

This is not comparable to an early second city. Try both ways and see the difference.

 

[Joker.ru]

Lenneth

If I recall correctly celtic archers have a defensive bonus on forest, btw and barbs will start showing around turn 40 on emperor.

You are correct: +25% Forest defense and +25% Hills defense, but still, parking them in the forest beside the city does't seem to be right. Besides, i will need to chop these woods anyway to make room for farms and cottages.

Turn 40 is a bit scarier, indeed. Do they send Bowmen immediately or is it Warriors/Savages first? I might still have enough time to get Archery and upgrade. Worst case, we will swap Metal Lore for Archery to get it sooner


Second City is also eating up cash, so unless it's in high-commerce location, i usually hold off on it. Maybe next game will go for two cities right off the bat (before "The Barbs" get there )


Here are few more turns:

T2:
Warrior move to NW hill reveals another freshwater lake to the N (will help in blocking any northern tribes coming my way). There is also a nice looking river bend to NW which might open more fertile tiles. No new resources so far.
Now I have a choice to keep going NW and lifting fog from river valley or going NE and see how large is the Northern Lake.

T3:
Moving further NW to the river shows plenty of fertile plains and grasslands and the river actually bends in U shape forming long narrow peninsula between two arms. NW looks very promising. There is pretty large jungle belt to the N of the Northern Lake and few patches by the NW river. I will be making a detour next to see what lays in that lonely tribal village to the West. Hopefully natives will be generous enough to sponsor my archer upgrades

T5:
Villagers are extremely helpful and understanding of the needs of great Keltic empire - 120 Golden Bullions will be of great help and their generosity will be remembered. Here is a screenshot of an awesome “Three Rivers” valley to the West

Spoiler :

I think i might send this warrior to continue exploring W-SW-S and new recruit (5 turns) will go N

 

[MarigoldRan]

Well it's about time the strategy forum is spreading to the mods/alternatives. People are beginning to get bored of the same old same old.

Really wish though RI would start you off with a worker too. But otherwise I might try this.

 

[Joker.ru]

Well it's about time the strategy forum is spreading to the mods/alternatives. People are beginning to get bored of the same old same old.

Really wish though RI would start you off with a worker too. But otherwise I might try this.

That's not the intent of the mod, but if you really need that worker, you can always add it either in XML or even World Builder .

Try it, mod is hard but, to my mind, that's how CIV should be played, kind of like chess - need to think ahead and make difficult decisions

 

[plastiqe]

I always like to do a lap around my capital with my first explorer. I'd go S and then back E with the first guy and send the second guy N. Aim to find out exactly where your first couple cities should go.

Looks like you will have A LOT of territory, too much to fogbust, so if there is any wonder that gives the BTS GW barbs-can't-enter-territory ability I'd aim for it. I noticed you mention a change of GG-points-from-barbs which you could still do, but on your terms if you had a BTS GW.

What about chopping and mining or lumbermiling the Coffee for 2F3P1C? Fishing and a Lighthouse would be great to work the Clams and those islands. I'm guessing Woodworking will give you BTS-like chop-forest. Which techs give whip-population ability and Granary food-storage ability?

Anyways just a couple points from a non-R.I. player so take it with a grain of salt.

 

[Lenneth]

I always like to do a lap around my capital with my first explorer. I'd go S and then back E with the first guy and send the second guy N. Aim to find out exactly where your first couple cities should go.

Looks like you will have A LOT of territory, too much to fogbust, so if there is any wonder that gives the BTS GW barbs-can't-enter-territory ability I'd aim for it. I noticed you mention a change of GG-points-from-barbs which you could still do, but on your terms if you had a BTS GW.

What about chopping and mining or lumbermiling the Coffee for 2F3P1C? Fishing and a Lighthouse would be great to work the Clams and those islands. I'm guessing Woodworking will give you BTS-like chop-forest. Which techs give whip-population ability and Granary food-storage ability?

Anyways just a couple points from a non-R.I. player so take it with a grain of salt.

Ok, I re installed the freaking thing,and i'm gonna give it a go. Not sure if I'll go all the way though, there's still things in this mod that pisses me off, its really not for casual play.


I think that fogbusting with raging barbs in this game (its really really insane) its the same as praying. Actually I prefer to try to get as many GG pts as possible.

Mining the Coffee, for sure, once we get the tech that grants plus 1 to mines, otherwise is the same as a forest.
I really think chopping is meh and of course one always need slavery (which doesn't mean constant whipping, btw, bc the slave market already gives a bonus to mines).

 

[MarigoldRan]

That's not the intent of the mod, but if you really need that worker, you can always add it either in XML or even World Builder .

Try it, mod is hard but, to my mind, that's how CIV should be played, kind of like chess - need to think ahead and make difficult decisions

But that would be cheating!

 

[Lenneth]

Great Wall wonder, comes much much further on, btw. You have to deal with the barbs, they can even kill some AIs, actually.

Eer, I am blind, or there's no save game? (facepalm)

 

[Joker.ru]

Lenneth

There WAS no save game (attached now). Please, no spoilers and no WB

Regarding barbs in RI - yes they are brutal and there seem to be no shortage of them, wave, after wave, after wave.... BUT... they are manageable and they generate ton of XP plus, with Robert's +50% GG in cultural borders, we can stock up on GG in no time

Be careful with Slavery - IMHO it's only useful during war for capturing slaves. Otherwise, cons outweigh pros (based on what i see in current Pedia, as they've tweaked it number of times)

plastiqe

Agreed, SW-S it is. Second warrior will go North

Mining Coffee is definitely an option, but as Lenneth mentioned, only after Mining is discovered to get +1 to mines

Thanks for awesome feedback guys!

 

[plastiqe]

So it's to be a barb battle then. Well, you asked for it when you picked Raging. : )

K-Mod barbs are brutal because they won't just attack you if you fortify on a hill, they'll only attack when they have decent odds. The best solution then will be to grab the strategic resources you need to build the units that counter them in the field - or just defend your cities really well and let them pillage you to death.

2nd tech Metal Lore will show copper so if there is a good nearby city site for that I'd settle it as city #2. I like the idea of chopping some forests to funnel them into kill zones.

Once you have Archers they can still fogbust 5x5 squares where barbs won't spawn, assuming R.I. hasn't changed the fogbusting rules.

Does XP from barbs still stop at 10 like in BTS?

 

[Joker.ru]

Raging barbs are actually a default in RI , this is in sync with 'R' in RI (realism). In dark ages, barbarians were raiding everything they can lay eyes on

just defend your cities really well and let them pillage you to death

That's pretty much the plan, although they won't have much to pillage. Their waves will just smash against our archers fortified in a city (on the hill). I am not worried too much about them at this point. We'll see

2nd tech Metal Lore will show copper so if there is a good nearby city site for that I'd settle it as city #2

Agreed, but keep in mind that Cooper by itself is not very useful. It's Bronze (new RI resource, that can be created from Cooper) that is needed for strong attack units (Axemen and Celts National Unit Gaesatae). It's a long way till we get all techs needed for Bronze

Once you have Archers they can still fogbust 5x5 squares where barbs won't spawn, assuming R.I. hasn't changed the fogbusting rules

Still the same

Does XP from barbs still stop at 10 like in BTS?

I don't think so, although, if remember correctly, there still is a cap, just much higher

 

[Joker.ru]

T6:
Moved one tile W – everything W of us is paradise, more rivers, hills, plains, etc… (no resources though, yet). Might eventually consider moving capitol West. Start heading South now.

T7:
Can see some mountain ranges to SW

T8:
Keep heading S. Pack of wolves showed up two tiles N. Wolves have two moves and +100% forest strength but I have no more moves left so just wait for them to attack. Second warrior will be built next turn

Spoiler :

T9:
Stupid wolf almost killed our scout - 0.2 HP left and 10 turns to heal. With city 6 moves away there is no point of sending him back, so he will hide between mountains and heal, hopefully he can survive. Second warrior is out and heading North. Bibracte begin building third warrior (should finish in 8 turns)

Spoiler :

T10:
Our scientists discovered Toolmaking, giving us access to research Archery and Woodworking. Now that we have cash to upgrade two warriors, I am seriously considering going with Archery->Woodworking->Metal Lore. Even if there is Cooper nearby, it won’t be useful until later.

T11:
Archery it is, just need to make sure I send warriors back to the border just in time for discovery. Scout moving North fully reveals large 4 tile lake to the North, one tile desert and another village. Popping village that close to undefended city is a big gamble – our game can finish much sooner. Tempting… If hostile barbs pop out of the village and they are on the south tile, they only need 3 moves to get to our capitol and we have 7 moves until next warrior. Wait 5 turns before popping or gamble?

Spoiler :

T12:
I’ve decided to go around the village for now and not to gamble chicken. Since there are no other civilizations in sight yet (which is actually very surprising, given that we have 10 on standard map), village can wait few more turns. Another wolf pack showed up next to our S scout hiding in the mountains and I had to move it towards the city. Luckily mountains block wolves line of sight.

T13:
Southern scout got eaten by wolves; I guess you can’t escape karma. On more positive note, we have discovered Horses to the North! Given the size of the land, Horses will prove themselves very useful. In RI there are two types of cavalry – Heavy (usually have 2 moves and are powerful attackers against everything but spearmen/pikemen) and Light (3 moves but vulnerable against archers). Light cavalry is also very good at repelling slave revolts and quick raids against enemy. Heavy cavalry causes collateral damage and can be used for softening enemy stacks in the field. Both suffer penalties for attacking cities with defense bonuses.
There is also another land (or island) across the straight to NE.

Spoiler :

T16:
Northern scout has discovered Amber out in North Sea and now is coming back to pop the village. Two turns left until next warrior and Bibcarte will grow on the next turn!

Spoiler :

T17:
Villagers gave us 78 Gold and capitol has grown to size 2 and is now generating 2F-6P-3G (that’s surplus food and not counting gold from palace). As planned, warrior will be trained on next turn. Northern scout is coming back for an upgrade in 4 turns.
Two concerns at this point: South of the “Capitol” lake is completely uncharted and is covered in FOW. We still don’t have contacts with any other CIV…

T19:
We finally met our neighbor - Emperor Ismail Samani of Transoxianan Empire. He is cautious towards us despite out +1 to diplomacy bonus. His scout came from the South and since this is turn 19, I assume him capitol is relatively far from us. Probably not our client

Transoxianan Unique Units:
Their UU are not very impressive and don’t pose an immediate threat as they become available much later. Bactrian Rider is a version of a Cataphract (Heavy Mounted) and Turkoman Rider is a version of Pistollier (Light Mounted)

Spoiler :

Transoxianan Unique Buildings:
Nothing worth mentioning other than boost to Science from their Pagan Temple (with -1 Food penalty)

Spoiler :

Leader - Ismail Samani

This guy is all about Science and Religion – cheaper Scientific buildings, cheap Temples (their Pagan temple also boosts science), no anarchy (not sure how useful this is for AI), and slight bonus of +25% to GP rate. All in all, I think we need to befriend this guy and sign open borders ASAP. In RI, there is no technology trading and the only way to get help with research is through open borders. The catch here is that it works both ways, i.e. they get research bonus from your techs as well. In this case I am not too concerned as it’s highly unlikely that we will be more advanced any time soon

T20:
Border pop reveals useless Amber in Eastern sea (no way I can get to it) and looks like we are on some kind of large peninsula as I can see portions Southern sea three tiles away. Main land is probably to the West of us and this is where will be focusing our scouting and fog busting efforts. Archery upgrades next turn!

Spoiler :

T21:
We have discovered Archery. Both warriors got upgraded and there is enough cash for one more. Woodworking will be researched in 11 turns. 15 turns left to train worker. Transoxianan scout went back to where he came from. Next turn our fresh Archers will continue scouting NW and SW

T27:
There are more lakes and swamps to the SW and sea of jungle to the North

T29:
Time to send archers back to the capitol, it will take them 10 turns to get back – right in time for barbs

T32:
Woodworking discovered, 9 turns until Metal Lore. There is some Prime Timber to the S and Potatoes to the N but both are too far to be of any interest at this point

T35:
Our archer got baptized by claws of a lion on the way back to Bibcarte and came out victorious and with 1XP

T36:
Worker is ready to move out of the city. I’ve decided to send one of two archers for fog busting duty in the West. Second will go back to protect the city and worker. Bibcarte started working on third archer (9T). So far so good, everything is as planned.

Spoiler :

 

[Lenneth]

Not sure if naming it barbarians and dark ages is really appropriate, but I wont go into that.
I'll say thouh, that although human nature and history and been more violent and power hungry than we'll ever admit to ourselves with our idealisms and naivete, I strongly doubt that the insanity of RI raging barbs (it can be really bad, but we're on the coast, so in this game it should be alright) represents the violence in past hunting and gathering days. But who knows...

Also, Slavery is pretty much forced. Your comment reveals that you have not played the game for a while (nothing wrong with that: but you chose emperor - really?).

Slavery increases food, production and gold enabling the slave markets. You can't pass it most games with most leaders. What else is there, anyway? Caste System does not compare early on and the nemeton is better than an early taoist temple.

Finally, these chopping thoughts are something from BTS that don't apply properly here. Its production yield is meh and clearing forests to better kill barbs is not a strong enough argument.

You need health and low epidemic chance. Consider that the nemeton (you cant pass on the its production and gold bonus) diminishes health already and I only see in the early screenshots a clam for health and that's it! That's a big deal (where's the corn, etc? - Its a low food, bad health start: if there's no metal, its a weak start).

Finally, lumbermills will be better than mines.
The game is made to preserve most forests.