RLC#3. Genghis Khan.

[pigswill]

Need a strategic resource before going for barb villages, don't fancy attacking them with archers. Its likely that Jules and Shaka will grab them first.

Overall I'm wondering how I could have got writing faster without delaying Glight. Could I have got away with fewer fogbusters? I obviously thought not at the time but maybe I'm overcautious and/or know very little about civ mechanics.

I have played a few more dull turns, report to follow later today.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Need a strategic resource before going for barb villages, don't fancy attacking them with archers. Its likely that Jues and Shaka will grab them first.

Overall I'm wondering how I could have got writing faster without delaying Glight. Could I have got away with fewer fogbusters? I obviously thought not at the time but maybe I'm overcautious and/or know very little about civ mechanics.

@strategic resource:
Sorry, I didn't express myself clearly.
I was forming the devious plan of a) spotting a strategic resource in the 1st ring of a barb city, b) settling a city 3 tiles away from that city and 2 tiles away from the resource, c) popping borders asap (chop Monument) to steal the resource (!), in order to d) capture the city with non-Archer Mongolian hordes.
Aye, you're entitled to think it's a terrible plan Chances are good that an AI would capture the city between steps c) and d).


Regarding Writing... Unit maintenance is certainly a factor. Not sure what else.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Regarding Writing... Unit maintenance is certainly a factor. Not sure what else.

Well, couple factors:
- you did build the GLH around 1400 BC but you opened your external trade routes much later. Especially when you build the GLH, you want to open the trade routes as soon as possible.
- you did research Bronze Working after building the GLH. Maybe it was more fitting to go (through Pottery and into) Writing, at that time.
- you did lose some commerce overall by going Agriculture after Animal Husbandry (justified by settling location) and Mysticism after Masonry.

Lack of rivers and presence of jungle didn't help. Maybe the overall lack of commerce (except for trade routes) should have been better identified.
Maybe: you aren't in a bad position either. It's also a common thing to reach Writing late when going for the GLH.

 

[pigswill]

Good point re earlier writing. Getting earlier OBs in conjunction with Glight would have been useful and its one I didn't think through at all to be honest.

If I'd gone for writing before BW it would have slowed expansion a bit by delaying whips and the occasional chop but the economy would have been a bit stronger to compensate and Karakorum had pretty reasonable production at its happy cap. Having said that if we'd had copper nearby someone would have said BW before writing every time!

It would also have helped to have had a more explicit discussion about the poor commerce start, its certainly something I was aware of but maybe I thought it was too obvious to belabour. Ah well, live and learn.

 

[Soirana]

It would also have helped to have had a more explicit discussion about the poor commerce start, its certainly something I was aware of but maybe I thought it was too obvious to belabour. Ah well, live and learn.

You do realize what is your total number of unimproved tiles being worked like right now?
+ at least one settler o the run....

Assuming none of cities is above size 5 it should be... like close to zero if you count in lighthoused shore as improved.

I don't think any elaborate theories gonna work before that gets fixed. In other words workers are needed to sustain economy.

 

[ben-jammin]

Played til 1460AD. Went for music and won the GA, which was used a while later when I was ready for a nice quadruple civic change (HR, CS, Bureau, Pacifism). It got me just shy of 2 GS, not great, could have been planned better.

Julius declared on SB, the AI's favourite punching bag. It was a one-sided affair but I realized I could quite cheaply bribe Shaka in against Rome. Good 'ol Shaka, probably saved this game for me. So it was SB and Shaka against the much larger Rome. Julius did eventually cap both of them, but the war lasted a looong time and left all three of them well behind in tech.

Bulbed philo, which gave it to me as a monopoly tech. Put a bulb into education, which I was also the first to. I think this was crucial because none of the AI went for Lib, allowing me to wait until I was finished chemistry (with the help of a bulb from a third GS produced while teching Lib to within one turn). So I Lib'ed steel at the awe inspiring date of around 1100AD

Switched back into slavery, and theo to pump out combatI+CRII maces and CRII cannons while I teched my way to rifling. Had to stop to build wealth everywhere to get myself there a little faster. Declared on Julius with 1 turn left to rifling and enough cash to upgrade 4 maces to rifles. Switched into nationalism. Took his lightly defended city the next turn, healed a turn, and then pulled back all my units onto an adjacent hill. He proceeded to move his entire stack into the city, which of course had zero cultural defense. City Raider and massed cannons allowed me to eliminate his entire stack over 3 turns, while he suicided a bunch of units against me as the cherry on top.

Stupid Darius goes and signs a defensive pact with Julius just a couple turns before I'm ready to declare. I thought this might doom my strategy, but the next AP vote comes up right away. And it was built by Darius. And the resolution is to stop the war between me and him...and everyone votes yes including Julius Worst. Defensive. Pact. Ever.

93 units killed in total. 7 lost, one at over 90% odds to win. I went from half Julius' power to slightly more powerful. I think the game is in the bag but Julius can research rifling now so who knows, it'll be a slog and my economy is totally crashed from whipping and drafting (barely breaking even with two cities building wealth). I've only captured the one city but I think Julius is broken militarily and his vassals had nothing much to begin with.

I'm wondering if it would actually be faster to go through capturing as many cities as I need for domination to avoid having to go to the other continent, where Mansa will be way ahead of me in tech by the time i get there.

 

[pigswill]

Soriana. I am in fact aware of the high number of unimproved tiles and the low number of workers. I'm also aware that without pottery for cottages, iron working for chopping jungle and rivers for irrigation there isn't a lot for workers to do at the moment apart from build roads and wait for some worker techs to come along.

Its still early in the game and given the map grabbing land while its still available seems to me to take higher priority than improving a smaller number of cities. Without Glight the economy would have been collapsing after 5-6 cities and I'd have been forced to improve cities before expanding further and hope that there would still be land left to settle.

 

[Soirana]

Soriana. I am in fact aware of the high number of unimproved tiles and the low number of workers. I'm also aware that without pottery for cottages, iron working for chopping jungle and rivers for irrigation there isn't a lot for workers to do at the moment apart from build roads and wait for some worker techs to come along.

to swill-pig:
Who said anything about workers or pottery?

Typical improvement for the GLH map is boats and... the lighthouses. Well after specials aka 5-6 yields at least.

At current point even with GLH any city [even above cap] hardly pays for itself via trading route [after you include increase taxation for all other cities]. the only way to keep going forward is like chop lighthouse, work water. Lighthouses are lot of better than 2xracks you built or most of libraries being in process. [non creative, +2 happy potentially available]

while 22 tiles are not supper great en mass [especially given access two 2 happy resources] these are usually to carry through some delay due to selfteching stuff like masonry/sailing and so on. And in BC's while whipping is still hot i'd take lighthouse water over non riverside cottage anyway.

But please keep going on....

 

[pigswill]

Played a few more turns up to 325bc. On the whole it was pretty dull. Settled last island city. Workers built roads through the jungle. A few WBs and buildings got built (though not enough lighthouses).
Darius of Persia researched aesthetics before us. On the other hand we weren't planning on trading with him (Shaka's worst enemy). We got to aesthetics in 375bc, put one turn research into alphabet. Traded aesthetics to Jules for alphabet in 350bc. Put one turn of research into IW and made this trade in 325bc:

Tech trade table looks like this:

Our explorations have progressed slightly:

We've just popped a GM in Karakorum. Overall quite uneventful indeed. Still no-one has their hands full. However unlike some shadow games the Romans aren't averse to settling the jungle:

What to do with the GM? Having just got alphabet the GM can bulb currency (+1TR/City= +21 commerce per turn) or could go on a TM (trade mission). Trade Mission would likely be more valuable (certainly 900 gold, maybe 1100) but would take a bit longer (turns to travel to destination city then turns of deficit research) and I'd almost certainly be researching currency anyway. If it took 10 turns to get currency through TM I'd have lost 200 commerce through getting extra trade route later (20*10 turns). I'd also be further behind on my next tech (probably though not definitely CoL).

There's also the issue of the Roman settler. I've got a settler for Emerald City that can be settled this turn, this would mean the Roman settler would have to move further before settling a city which would buy time for Karakorum to produce the next settler for Banana City.

Astute observors will have noticed that we've just traded for IW. Do we have iron (given that we don't have horses or copper). Well actually yes:

That will annoy any AI spies sent on a sabotage mission .

Astute observors with a good memory may also recall that this spot would have been inside capital's bfc if we'd settled in place. This may explain TMIT's ironic comment in post#25. So we've lost 4 hammers, I'd rather have wheatfish city any day.

There's one other unclaimed source of iron far to the south west:

Its a long way away and pretty vulnerable, even though its coastal I think I'll give it a miss.

Religions are a bit random, think I'll stay NSR for the moment.

As a discussion point I'm tempted to bulb currency with GM and settle Emerald City this turn.

Looking forwards there's lot of other issues including tech path and builds (I can now build granaries, axes, spears, swords and certainly need more than three workers)

 

[ben-jammin]

Man...I would have killed for 3 different religions being adopted in my game My war with Julius went okay I guess, I took 8 of his 16 cities including the +40gold buddhist shrine and Rome with SEVEN settled great generals...but I had to take peace because he'd have taken back a couple cities, he's got grenadiers roaming around causing havoc, and my economy is completely shot. I was within a turn or two of losing units to strike the entire war, I had to defy the AP resolution to end the war two or three times....ugh. Probably still winnable but would be the hardest game I've ever won for sure.

Maybe a better player than myself could give me some advice on how to recover from here and continue on.

 

[Smilingrogue]

@ Pigswill.

I would be tempted to bulb Currency with the GLH. Merchant missions for deficit research doesn't sound too appealing. You can always sell resources and cheap techs with currency to fuel that.

I might be wrong and if a better player than me says otherwise, definitely listen to them.

 

[vranasm]

i would move the iron city 1 W to get overlap on the clams since plains cow are not that great food resources and the north city has fish as food

 

[pigswill]

No more turns have been played but I've made a couple of decisions.

First I used the GM to bulb currency which added a trade route to every city for +20 commerce/turn. It also opens up resource trades and getting gold in tech deals.

The second decision was to burn my settler on founding Emerald City:

Its not much to look at now but beneath the jungle there's gems, ivory, rice, 3 grassy hills and 14 grasslands, surrounding cities can work some of these as cottages. Despite the lack of irrigation this has the makings of an excellent commerce capital later in the game. It also blocks Jules' settler for the moment.

One minor issue is that I've got more cities (10)

than units (8 )!

I also need to consider tech path. The lack of horses makes cuirassier rush somewhat impractical (Darius has a monopoly on horses at the moment) and lack of marble makes Parthenon/Glib unattractive. While at some point I'll probably want HE and NE there's plenty of other stuff that needs doing first.
At some point I'll be looking to exploit the aggressive aspect of Genghis with lots of barracks and units, its either drafted rifles or grenadier/cannon. But that's still medium term planning.
In the short term CoL for courthouses and caste would be good, CS will also be rather useful not only for bureaucracy but also chain irrigation which is pretty durned important in this particular game. Hopefully maths will become available in trade in the not too distant future.

Still considering south west iron city. It'll be a few turns before I can get a settler there so maybe wait to see if the site gets gazzumped.

So a lot to consider. The game isn't particularly lost just yet but its still very far from being won. All advice is welcome. I'll post a save if there's a demand for it, otherwise I won't .

 

[pigswill]

In the absence of sagacious commentary I have pressed on recklessly.

300bc Roman settler heads south rather than enter Mongol territory. Barb galleys shows up in the southwest threatening our poor lone galley.

275. Poor lone galley survives and limps to port for essential repairs.

175bc Clams to Shaka for 3gpt. Fish to Jules for 3gpt. It all counts, may eventually get some diplo points.
175 Col>med (Confu was founded ages ago).

150 bc Varanazum founded (south west iron).

125 Med>PH

100bc. Jules builds Hanging Gardens. Maths up for trade.
PH>cash.

75bc Alphabet + meditation to SB for maths, 30g.
Cash>CS.

50bc Otrar (banana city) founded.

25bc. SB builds Parthenon.
Med to Jules for 75g.
Fish to SB for 2gpt.

1ad. Jules builds Statue of Zeus.
Priesthood to SB for 60g.

Just like that it's 1ad and the early game is officially over. State of the Union to follow.

 

[ben-jammin]

I based my strategy on the lack of horses that you've mentioned. Genghis in theocracy can draft combat II units, or combat I+pinch depending on what you're facing at the time. This is pretty much the best you can make of the aggressive trait. I had a hell of a time with my military breakout, I wish you luck I suggest you get the GS points piling up asap and lib steel (assuming you managed to snag that iron down south?), cause alongside cannons you only need maces to get started. I tihnk i made a crucial error in judgement waiting for rifling as well, as I ended up facing both rifles and grenadiers.

 

[pigswill]

There's a long way to go and I'm thinking of going for steel as well. I'm considering going for milsci after steel (if I survive that long) because as well as grenadiers milsci also opens up Military Academies. These don't normally feature prominently but with lots of wars I may get quite a few imperialistic GGs and building MAs for 50% unit production could be a welcome boost.
However the next phase is likely to focus on growing cities and trying to survive the diplomatic minefield.

 

[cseanny]

If you made some good early map choices then going for Rifles can be a good move. Speaking for myself I was already sitting at 14+ (4 conquered-Rome would be gone very shortly after.) cities shortly after 1100 AD on my way to Steam power. You can definitely get to Rifles and upgrade 25+ CR2 mace and do a 4 prong attack and meet in the middle!

 

[pigswill]

State of the Union.

We're not doing too badly so far given our starting position (no rivers, lots of jungle). We've managed to nab the Great Lighthouse which combined with imperialistic and some island cities for overseas trade routes has enabled us to rex out to twelve cities. There's quite a bit of overlap but its going to be a long time before that becomes a major issue and the game will likely be won (or lost) before that becomes a major issue.

Karakorum is producing a settler for our last settled city up north. Hopefully thirteen won't be too unlucky.

The economy is far from brilliant but its not a complete disaster either:

Our cities have a lot of growing to do and we haven't started on courthouses to reduce maintenance so it should improve. We are paying colonial expenses for our third city on Sushi Island but the enhanced trade routes probably compensate for that.

Our military remains pathetic but at least its improved to one unit per city, we even have an axe! We've also expanded our work force to seven, that over 1/2 worker per city. Maybe we could use a few more with all that jungle to clear. One of the challenges we'll be facing in the near future is getting irrigation to build farms to improve city growth rate. We're currently 10 turns from Civil Service:

Diplomatically things are pretty bland and adopting any religion will alienate a majority of the AIs. I'm still hoping religious hatred will eventually prompt the AIs to pick on each other.

Research in our part of the world is surprisingly slow. Our economy has been struggling but we're not actually miles behind yet.

Lots of stuff is still mising but there's time enough; hopefully stuff like MC, calendar and monarchy will appear in due course.

We really should beef up our military, Karakorum is our best bet for that and maybe whip out a few more workers once cities have grown a bit on granaries and courthouses.

GS production has been badly neglected. Turfan will produce our first GS (and second GP) in a mere 19 turns. Ning-Hsai can whip out a library next turn and run a couple of scientists while growing slowly but its still bit of a problem.

Here's a save:

 

[ben-jammin]

Well, I am able to crush Rome who is down to 5 cities, Shaka has broken free as his vassal, SB hasn't but I can crush both of them as well. The problem is that this has been so slow that Darius has pulled way ahead in tech and just completed the Apollo program. I can't tech at all at this point so I don't think I can get to his capital against infantry, so I chalk this up as a loss. Had to be quicker.

 

[ABigCivFan]

With this many cities, MC/Forge should be a high priority since forge gives +25% hammers + 25% whip hammers and + 25% gold when building wealth.

Tech rate is slow partly due so many cities being settled.

On the strategic level, Ger+Barracks+Theo+Vassalage gives you 3 promotion mounted units from every city. You can always trade for horse when you need it later. you have Ivory, so you can even pre-build elephants, and then get horse for 10 turns, then mass upgrade phants to Curies/cavs. You have a 4 seafood city, whip the NE in there and grow GS/GM. Elephants are available early and can help you defend if you get unexpected DOW.

With sheer number and high promotions, your mounted units can completely sweep the conti, even if they face Rifles. You will just need more flank2+combat1 cavs.

You should have very high happy cap given all the resources, heavy whipping should not be a problem.