Renaissance Start 2: Elizabeth

[dalamb]

After accidentally deleting my save files for the Lincoln Renaissance Start game I decided to start another, this time stomping with Redcoats (at least at the start -- I might decide to go for a non-conquest win at some point, but the start will definitely be aggressive). The plan is

• Run with Mercantilism for a free specialist in each city.
• Research gunpowder.
• Run an engineer (from the free Forge) in the first city. Use the GE to bulb Replaceable Parts.
• When RP and Gunpowder are both done, research Rifling.
• Since your free specialist has to be one you'd be qualified to run anyway, use Caste System at the start to run scientists in the second city; after building a library, you don't need CS for this. Use the resulting GS to bulb Education.
• Since Banking is already known, build Stock Exchanges in cottage cities ASAP after initial buildings (like lighthouses in coastal cities).

With this plan in mind I next have to pick a leader:

• Churchill (Chm/Pro) is a good military leader (fast promotion, good defence of captured cities) but the Redcoats are already strong.
• Elizabeth (Fin/Phi) gets a good war-supporting economy going quickly, and gets those essential Great Persons faster.
• Victoria (Fin/Imp) similarly gets a good economy going, but REXes faster from Imp. That 100% GG emergence sounds nice -- but isn't it just for attacks within one's own territory? If so you'd want a strategy of encouraging the AIs to try to retake your just-captured cities, which seems to me to mean slower conquests, waiting for those attacks.

So I decided to pick:

As usual I'm playing Noble. I usually play Epic but teching was so slow in the first game that I'm going to switch to Normal. I went with Small in the first just to play a shorter game, but would rather go Standard in this one. In the first game I started near both horses and iron, so conquering my continent with Knights was (a) easy (b) un-fun. So this time I'm going with Islands, low sea level (for max territory), 1 major island per civ, various tiny islands (default; don't know anything about how the other values affect the game). Islands also improves the value of Fin.

I did not choose opponents this time. On the one hand, that means I'll probably face some AIs with obsolete early-game UUs and UBs. On the other, it's more fun not to know who the opposition is.

And here's the start. There's a 2nd settler stacked with the first. I expect to change civics immediately, just as in the first Renaissance game, so there will be 3 turns of anarchy and I'll explore with settlers as well as explorer and archers. The worker can start building roads and pre-chopping forests right away.

With all this restricted movement the exploratory settlers aren't going to get very far. I think the explorer has to head east while one settler goes south to the small amount of open terrain. I think the second settler has to stay very close to where he is now, since it's a decent start (coastal, 2 food, an immediately-avalable happiness resource). Maybe he can go east a bit and try to explore stuff a bit to the north of the explorer's route and south of the archers'? I have to admit I'm really unclear about what the best initial exploration strategy might be.

I need to decide whether to chop settlers and workers first, or the readily-available wonders. The best all require religious buildings and stone, so I'd obviously want to delay building them until I actually get a religion, and find out whether stone is available.

Here are links to the various individual rounds:
Round 1: 1250-1430 AD

And here's the starting save:

 

[oyzar]

Victoria != Elizabeth

 

[dalamb]

Uh, I think everybody knows that. What did you mean?

 

[Huaojozu]

Title of your game.

 

[Lone Wolf]

That 100% GG emergence sounds nice -- but isn't it just for attacks within one's own territory?

No, that's the effect of the Great Wall. The Imperialistic trait gives bonus emergence for any territory.

 

[dalamb]

Eek! Title fixed.

I think I'll need to try Victoria some other time, perhaps when I've gone through all the other late-start leaders.

 

[dalamb]

I spent a long time figuring out the best path for getting Rifling as soon as possible to unlock the redcoats, via bulbing with Great People and with winning the Liberalism race. I relied on the Great People Tech Preferences description. Basically, once all the pre-Renaissance techs are known:

• The first Great Scientist bulbs Education; the second bulbs Printing Press
• If Gunpowder and Printing Press are known, a Great Engineer will bulb Replacement Parts.
• Tech rates are so awesomely slow at the start of a Renaissance start that a Philosophical leader like Liz is going to get several Great People long before she researches more than a couple of techs.
• With Caste System it's easy for a large city with enough food to run several science specialists, which means getting Great Scientists quickly.
• On the other hand, you can only run one engineer from a forge, so getting a GE is slow.
• Gunpowder is the least costly initial tech to research, so it might be the best to research directly, rather than bulbing it with a hard-to-get GE.
• The University of Sankore is available to build right away and gives a nice boost both to and to producing the next GS.
• The next teach a 2nd GE will research, after Gunpowder and Replacement Parts, is Constitution if you already have Nationalism (an obvious tech to research with beakers because of Military Tradition). If you delay Nationalism, instead you get Chemistry.
• The third GS, which is easier to get, would also get Chemistry (or an Academy, which might be more useful).

So it seemed to me that the best plan is:

• Research Gunpowder directly while running engineers in the two initial cities.
• Since I don't need to run a scientist yet, I don't need Caste System to make it possible for the Mercantilism specialist to be a scientist, so I can run Serfdom so workers build improvements faster.
• Before each city finishes its first GE, it should have a library so it can start running a science specialist, or else I should switch to Caste System at that point.
• Spend the first GE on Sankore. Save the 2nd.
• Spend the first GS on Education, the second on Printing Press, then spend the 2nd GE on Replaceable Parts.
• After Gunpowder research Nationalism.
• As soon as Education is bulbed, switch to researching Liberalism. I can't predict the exact state of things at this point, but since Rifling is fairly expensive to research, maybe it can be the Liberalism free tech.
• Use the 3rd GS for an academy.

With that plan in mind I picked initial civics:

I founded London in place; a couple of rounds of exploration gave a good 2nd site near corn, sheep, copper, and silk, for York; I ran engineers in both cities, and researched Gunpowder. London built a workboat first (working the forested plains hill to make it as fast as possible), then a library, then a 2nd workboat for exploration. York built a worker and a library.

Turn 6 gave me a religion (in York), as expected from the Lincoln game:

I decided to delay a missionary until York finished its first two builds.

And in 1430 my first Engineer appeared:

London has its library so will switch to running a scientist instead of an engineer, and may be able to run a second when the city grows a bit. The 2nd GE will be available in York in 16 turns, so it's time to decide whether I really believe rushing Sankore is the best use of Archie (it's still available); any opinions?

There are no particularly good 3rd city sites on the island, and there's no iron -- so my redcoats will have to go conquer some!

I think Cyan, in the NE with the corn and the stone, is the best of a bad lot, but only because stone is an accelerator for Christian cathedrals, which will give a bonus in London and a bonus if I go ahead and build U. Sankore. There might be something more useful in that island to the west, so the 2nd workboat will go exploring.

I'm using the "binary strategy" of running 100% science for as long as possible and 100% gold when necessary to build up a treasury. This means a commerce city can make good use of both buildings and buildings -- so eventually London at least will need a stock exchange, then maybe a market and grocer depending on what else is going on at the time.

In the medium term, before Rifling, I hope to build a few city-raider macemen which I'll eventually promote to city-raider redcoats, which can't normally get CR. After Rifling I'll want Chemistry and Steel for Cannons.

 

[dalamb]

Towards Rifling: Replaceable Parts

Round 2a: get beaten to Liberalism by a PHI opponent, following the above plan.

Round 2b: I decide that getting Education earlier, and switching from Nationalism to Liberalism sooner, is a better plan. I still go for engineers in both initial cities, but as soon as London pops its first GE I switched to running 2 scientists, so a GS pops out in London sooner than the first GE in York. I bulb Education and switch to Liberalism -- then take a chance on holding at 1 turn before Liberalism to wait for that 2nd GS and 2nd GE to bulb Printing Press and Replaceable Parts, so I can take Rifling with Liberalism.

Get beaten to Liberalism by the same opponent.

Round 2c: back up to "Liberalism -1" and win the race.

Spoiler the gory details :

I had finished Round 1 just after popping the GE; when I resume I immediately rush the University of Sankore. I decide that long-term warfare meas circumnavigating is a priority, so instead of building the workboat visible in my Round 1 summary, I build 2 caravels and a 2nd explorer and send them off in opposite directions. Almost immediately (1510) I discover my nearest Western neighbour:

And then the 2nd (1525):

Neither willing to open borders -- so being able to get around them is another benefit of exploring by Caravel. Both are galley-accessible, so even if I defer Astronomy I can still invade.

Meanwhile, in 1520 I finish Gunpowder, start Nationalism, and finish the first settler, founding Nottingham next turn near the stone. In 1545 the first GS appears and fulfills his part in the plan:

I switch from Nationalism to Liberalism.

Three more rivals:

And, shortly thereafter:

SB was the Philosopher-king who beat me to Liberalism on my other two tries; this time around, 1620 is (mostly) A Very Good Year:

And so is 1645: The second GS appears:

And our waiting GE in York:

But Schickard doesn't get the whole job done, so it's not untul 1680 that we finish researching:

In a couple of turns, after pausing to gather some research funding, I'll finish Nationalism and start Rifling, which will take another 14 turns at 100% science.

On the same turn I meet my last rival:

Here is the current state of my little corner of the world:

Monty and Boudica are such good neighbours -- good for invading quickly, before they get the idea themselves! But off to the northeast is an equally high priority:

Civ has never heard of brass cannons, so my copper isn't good enough; I need iron, and that's the closest source I know. There might be a galley route there from the Native American empire; I didn't think to make sure while my caravel was racing eastward to circumnavigate. My rivals all want Astronomy in trade, but aren't listing it as "can research".

It's immediately researchable on a Renaissance start, so does that mean they're all researching it right now? I don't yet have the espionage on them to know what they're up to.

Eventually I may try to figure out a smarter sequence for getting Rifling early, and try again. Maybe just have the 2nd city build a GE, use Caste System to let the first focus on GS, bulb Education and build an academy with the first two GS, take Printing Press with Liberalism, then bulb Replaceable Parts with the engineer. I'm going to strongly resist the urge to restart yet again!

I do think the benefits of Sankore plus the near-certainty of a religion still means it's reasonable that the first Great Person should be a GE who rushes it. I doubt there's time to build it normally; there's so much else to do with the hammers. Still, the various AIs had somehow built Notre Dame and The Apostolic Palace; I expect they chopped them, but I think chopping the first settler was a better use of the trees for me. The scary thing is they're no more expensive to build than Sankore, and I didn't get the GE until two turns after they were done, so my strategy was chancy. On the other hand GEs are pretty useful for bulbing early techs and building other good wonders, so even if my specific goal required luck, it's still not bad.

Current plans:

• I need a galleon, settler, and musketman or other defender ASAP to settle the iron, followed shortly by a missionary, a worker, and another defender. I should have started building the galleon as soon as I took Astronomy from Liberalism. In 1620, which was (mostly) a Very Good Year, I could have started the galleon but I wasted the other two of them on a poor location, whose only benefit was a new Health resource I lacked, crabs. However, that iron island has fish nearby, which I also lack.
  Spoiler bad location :

  
• When I do settle the iron island, there are two choices of location:
  Spoiler iron cities :

  
  

  
  Red gets me that fish and lets me work the iron for better production. Cyan is much safer -- it's a lot harder to take the iron from me. I'll have to think hard about which to do. If I found Red, its highest priority is barracks and churning out its own defenders.
• I've been building CR II macemen (via barracks and Theocracy) intending to upgrade them to redcoats, who don't get CR promotions normally.
• I need some spies to explore Celt and Aztec territory; I think I need them immediately, and maybe 2 per rival. I think I can safely scout them one at a time, Boudica first because of proximity.
• I need espionage points to see what my rivals are building. Once I save up some cash, I think I need to run 100% espionage for a few turns -- which may also mean that before then I should build courthouses everywhere for the extra espionage points.
• After Rifling I need Chemistry and Steel for cannons, plus a soure of iron. Should I try to steal Chemistry from Boudica? I don't have much experience with stealing technology, but ISTR it takes a lot of points, i.e. a lot of turns, that might be better spent on beakers or gold.
• How urgent are cannons? Should I invade with trebs instead? Or are CR II riflemen enough? At max current science I get Rifling in 14 turns, Chemistry in 10 more, and Steel 21 turns after that. Running max science specialists in London, and thus not building much of anything, gives me only 2 turns improvement on that, though it does produce a GS in 11t instead of 36.
• If you look back at the techs, you'd see that everybody I'm not immediately invading wants Liberalism. Should I gift it to them for the diplomacy benefit?

Edit: PS: I could have made that iron city map smaller; does this look preferable?

 

[Bolddrengen]

Take the red. No doubt.

 

[Sian]

red is better on so many levels

 

[dalamb]

I was definitely leaning towards Red; I'll just have to make sure there are several good defenders on top of the iron. What are the best promotions for a rifleman stuck out "in the open" like that? Combat II? Drill II? I don't know who the opponents might be yet, but maybe Combat I / Pinch or Drill I / Pinch for the eventual gunpowder attackers?

Maybe best to leave them unpromoted until The Enemy shows up.