RLC#2. The Immortal Gandhi.

[Soirana]

@Gumbolt. I assume you moved warrior SE putting it S of settler to reveal southern 3 tiles of SIP BFC (ain't abbreviations wonderful, translation available on request). In retrospect this would have been a stronger opening move because its usually better to find reasons to stay put rather than reasons to lose turns moving.

Don't know. Greece is already sorta behind regular expanding schedule [which is 3 rather quick cities on immortal than slowdown due to AI like never building second worker].

I seriously doubt if he goes for that spot with his next settler you have much of chance anyway. Also the fogbust is, well, good thing it is I guess. Personally I would go for axe/grow up and 3 whip settler if you that paranoic. [and put overflow and chops into next one instead of whip]

Also move up eastern fogbuster, would give the view if there is some settling party coming up.

 

[M3dge]

Boy, this is awesome. I'm struggling to improve from Prince, and some of the detailed management tips here are really going to help.
I'll keep lurking - not sure I can add any advice!

 

[Gumbolt]

2 workers working the copper and not one working the pigs on your second city?? Then you decided to build a worker there at size 2. Was the copper really urgent?? You had 75% of your borders fog busted anyway. That pig worked would of speeded up the worker by 5-6? turns.

If you were that worried about the settler you could of delayed Oracle 3-4 turns. You had plenty of forest left. You are a bit late on the third city.

I think the copper city will be fine. His settler would come from his capital and that appears to be his second city.

I would certainly have a worker head to the pigs and use the other to chop forest.

 

[pigswill]

Its true that I'm pessimistic, sometimes to the point of paranoia and thus I tend to play very cautiously. I'm also not very good technically.

I'm aware that I was late on the second city and I'm now late on the third city .

An issue has been that while riverside gems are awesome for commerce they really are pretty naff for food and hammers (2f1h and 1f2h) so research has essentially benefitted at the cost of expansion.

I'm also slightly impatient (I mean very motivated by this game ) and I've raced ahead to 950bc without the benefit of advice and feedback. Some of these issues have been resolved, but plenty of sub-optimal play has also sneaked in I'm sure.

 

[vranasm]

I will just say (and that is not meant only for you but for newer players reading this especially) that actually people usually do it reverse in thinking...

They usually tend to invest ton of time after T150 when they finally got 15 cities into nonsense and don't invest enough time into the really critical point which is T50 while you have only 2-3 workers and 2-3 cities.

Each minute invested at T50 into those 2 cities will mean earlier finish time sparing more time in the end.

I am guilty of quickciving too of course, but if you are not comfortable on diff level or map seems to be trickier then normal then slowing down is what you really have to do.

Even if i already played like over 50 immortal games I still sometimes just stop and lurk save around T60 and even go take bath to free mind so I can evaluate options better (or just leave the game to settle over night)

maybe preparing some kind of PPP so people could comment on would relieve a bit the disappointment by some posters here (Soirana/Gummy seems to be a bit disappointed with micro)

 

[Gumbolt]

I got second city 2480bc, third around 1880bc. I got Oracle 1640bc in my 2nd city (copper). I settled copper and food city as first three cities. I missed out on the optimal pig city site. Overall Oracle in copper city freed up the capital and allowed the city to grow a bit.

I was a bit sad to see a 2nd city working no resources. He would of been ready for the copper city second leaving the option of a rush open. No spoilers here that you don't already know.

 

[pigswill]

@ Gumbolt. I'm guessing you went for Delhi builds settler at pop3 probably after warrior, added one chop after mining hillside gems, not sure if you went warrior after settler to grow to pop 4 or straight to worker before growing on warriors to pop 5 then settler>worker. You presumably would have grown coppercow Bombay while slowbuilding Oracle there.

Given that we appear to be sharing a medium size island with Pericles and the only other AI we've met so far is Toku I've been thinking along the lines of befriending Pericles for tech trading so a rush hadn't really entered my thoughts.

Maybe I should have posted this earlier on as I haven't touched upon diplomacy at all (nor has anyone else).

@vranasm. A PPP (pre-play plan) sounds like a good idea and one I'll implement after posting my next round.

 

[Gumbolt]

No I worked both the gems. I think I went to size 4. I probably chopped the settler with the worker. Was so long ago i forget.

Edit probably was size 3 with both gems. The flood plains added very little for size 4. Farming a flood plains would of been 7 turns for 1 food. Wasteful.

 

[Soirana]

An issue has been that while riverside gems are awesome for commerce they really are pretty naff for food and hammers (2f1h and 1f2h) so research has essentially benefitted at the cost of expansion.

Honestly it is not problem with gems. My normal approach is just work them and do most of stuff one pop point higher [build sizer at higher size whip from higher pop and so on]. Slows a bit but boost to research is fantastic. And yeah gems give extra happiness for that extra pop point too.

Problem is that you have just one 5 yield tile, while it is not beyond expectation in capitol to have 3-4 tiles with 5-6 yield. REX in general is about settling improving and working 5-6 yields. The only way to compensate is heavy chopping. I am not huge fan of that but sometimes there is not much alternative.

And besides if I am not deleting post en mass I am probably just fine with micro

 

[pigswill]

As mentioned a few posts back I played up to 950bc a couple of days ago.

Techwise I went fishing>sailing for trade routes (used confu missionary do de-fog Greece) then aesthetics and finally meditation (this was a bit of a faux pas as even though I had a GS by that time I forgot that I needed maths to bulb philosophy).

Delhi whipped a couple of settlers, growing back while building axes. First settler went to coppercow founding Vijay in 1640. Second city went west to cowclam founding Pali in 1040. Vijay started by building a library for cool culture, it had copper and cows early on so had plenty of hammers. Pali's just started on a WB.

Workers started by extending the road to coppercow to save a turn on settler movement then nipped over to Bombay to improve the pigs and FP and after that I kind of lost track of what they did but cities are all connected and special tiles improved (Vijay's wheat will be farmed in 2 turns).

Turning our attention to foreign affairs Hinduism spread to Sparta before my confu miss could get there and Pericles has adopted Hinduism. I'm still officially agnostic but I probably should adopt Hinduism to please Pericles.

Very little exploration has been done and no-one else has discovered us. Sururpising but there it is.

Also worth mentioning barbs. It was fairly quiet apart from a major explosion of barbs from the north west between 1600-1400. Things got a bit dicy around Bombay for a while but an axe turned up in time to tip the balance (good job I'd connected copper ). Pericles wasn't so lucky, his third city (Corinth?) was founded north of Bombay around 1600bc and disappeared about 1500bc. Who said the AI were immune to barbs .

Also worth mentioning was GP production. Because I'd built Oracle fairly early we were due a philosophically inspired Prophet in a mere 25 turns. It took a bit of fiddling with micro and adopting caste but Bombay popped a GS one turn before Delhi's prophet was due who is en route to Delhi to establish an academy there.

Here's a look at our technological progress so far. Alphabet is still not on the table so no tech trading for now:


Here's the barbaric/hellenic north:


and the much more civilised south:


Not much (i.e. no) food has been revealed but who knows what tasty titbits lie hidden beneath the western mists? There's a couple of axes around Bombay who are all set to brave the unknown. Wish them luck.

 

[pigswill]

Thoughts for the next set:

Be nice to Pericles. Adopt hinduism, maybe give him gems for a few turns. Will Pericles attack at pleased? I keep telling myself I should study this stuff.

Send axes west to explore, Hope to find food for some more cities.

Pali to whip out WBS (maybe a galley). Send WB south to check out the tropical island. Send WB/galley west to locate Tokugawa. Use WB for clams.

Parthenon or Glib? Still haven't found a three food city for NE. Either way, without marble and not industrious I want maths for extra chopped hammers before building any wonders.

Another GS to bulb philosophy early (once maths is learned).

A lot depends on how soon tech trading becomes an option. I'd consider researching alphabet myself but its likely that maths won't be available in trade until HG is completed.

 

[Revent]

Are you not using BUG mod?

 

[Walter_Wolf]

Athene is a three food city for your NE

 

[Gumbolt]

It would of been better to have one religion over your empire so to make GP generation easier. Some cities will need missionaries now.

Alex has no metal from what I can see. Although you lack IW. He does have a good capital. You talk about him sharing techs with you. Alex is likely very backwards and I doubt he will have many techs to share especially if you are going for construction. If not you should not be teching maths. Do you head towards music and go peacefully? The danger here is Alex will probably get phants.

Land = more power. If you have no great land to settle you grab what the Ai has. pults/phants? You are paying Alex far too much respect.

 

[pigswill]

Its actually Pericles. If it was Alex it would be kill him before he kills me. Pericles can do a pretty good job of teching and isn't a backstabbing weasel. That's why I'm thinking peace with Greece.

What's wrong with maths? It clears the philo bulb and opens up CS and currency.

 

[Gumbolt]

Its actually Pericles. If it was Alex it would be kill him before he kills me. Pericles can do a pretty good job of teching and isn't a backstabbing weasel. That's why I'm thinking peace with Greece.

What's wrong with maths? It clears the philo bulb and opens up CS and currency.

I was thinking music route for Glib and free great Artist. You are philosophical. You need to abuse this fully. You could use marble.

 

[Shaandore]

Some thoughts and ideas based on screenshots:

4 cities. It's not much, so expanion should be your first proirity. If you are planning peaceful expansion, then you can postpone the axe build in Vijay. The city can be used as a settler/worker pump at size 3, the chariot sitting there could be sent to explore. (there will be no barbs there, the area is fogbusted, and no need for military police at size 3)

If you are not planning a new GP from bombay, you could build/whip a settler there into that axe. (Do you really need that many axes right now?)

I would also think about city specialization now, and start laying down some cottages. Gems are nice, but you will need more commerce soon, unless you decide to attack Pericles and use conquer money to pay for expenses.

On your plans:
Have you decided to go for culture? If so, I have no idea about how I would proceed. I have never played a culture game.

 

[pigswill]

Good point on expansion and meeting the cost of it. Maybe pottery and cottages are the way to go. Still need to explore to see what's around. Lit>Music is tempting. Shame there's no tech trading atm.

I'm not using any mods (as posted at the start of the game).

Its a bit late for an axe rush and I currently have no horses for HA rush. Besides which if I can pick up enough cities through exploration and rex I may be able to avoid nasty war. While Gandhi can be an effective warmonger it would be nice to escape from a standard axe-rush followed by cuirassier rush type stompy game.

I am certainly warming to the idea of culture. I'm not too sure of the mechanics. Lots of temples and cathedrals seems standard as does lib beeline for Free Speech. Whether I go for cottages in legendary cities or specialists and wonders I'm not so sure about.

 

[Doshin]

I think the quickest cultural win involves cottaging like mad, building the mids, using gold to rush-buy the cultural multipliers, teching to Lib., and then building culture in your three big cities while running Free Speech. Obviously the Sistine Chapel is a big help in generating culture before Lib. Your GPP should be used to generate Great Artists via Caste System, which should be saved for culture bombs.

 

[vicawoo]

Double gold or gems means go for oracling civil service

Spoiler :

Could move on to blue circle for food, but that means a 2 hill capital.


Civil service gambit, you go library before settler and get a fast great scientist.
Mistakes: I forgot you can go writing with priesthood, so I teched animal husbandry unnecessarily, and since tech was the bottleneck that probably lost me 5+ turns.
I also sunk some hammers in to mathematics before I realized my library was too slow and had to be chopped, so I could have gone writing-bronze working mathematics.
With ghandi in theory you could try to bulb mathematics while teching code of laws on deity, although it seems like a waste of a great scientist and academy + double gold/gems might not be too much slower.


Second phase, you have a huge tech advantage, but no hammers. bureaucracy chops are the best source of hammers at this point to catch up on cities/escorts. I skimped on workers because my production was too valuable.
Now you must block off land as fast as possible. Since I have caste system, I can settle the pigs outside of the bfc. Unfortunately the barbs took this location.
Pericles ended up getting a lot of land, but outside of the city to the NE he took much earlier, most of it wasn't very good. I ended up getting the north fish/silver/marble city, capturing this barb city, and blocking off most of the rest.


Had marble, so went for parthenon/great library/national epic. Was too far ahead on tech, so I could waste some beakers on auxiliary techs like music. I could have skipped currency before aesthetics possibly, but I wasn't ready to go for the marble for a long time.


125 AD parthenon, reasonable on immortal, but there's a little risk. I went this first because AI shouldn't have a chance at great library this early.


Very late alphabet, was hoping to bulb philosophy much earlier, but oh well.


He lost a wonder, possibly parthenon from 3 turns earlier? But 535 gold is a nice reason to keep him alive.


Great library. I also have a level 3 axeman for heroic epic. I have all the power wonders except mausoleum. Still have a great scientist, so if I want I can bulb philosophy, and go for philophical parthenon pacifism national epic great library.

There's nothing pressing to do, cannons are in easy reach at this pace, could oxford up, go for astronomy.