RLC#5. Suleiman.

[pomthom]

Back from holidays and glad to see you've started a new RLC pigswill!

Tough start mate... so much brown tiles in your BFC and nothing very appealing in the surrounding land. A tile that could turn out to be interesting is your grass Cows NW but will have to see what else is in that spot. Maybe that southern semi-jungled river too. Exploration is key given the very few advantages this start gives you I think.

With that Gold and your PHI trait, cottaging your cap probably ain't the best course of action but not sure. Plus you can farm all your BFC grassland tiles pre-CS. I'd go BW before Masonry (plus I sense you have either Copper or Iron in BFC so this could prove helpful early if I'm right and it's Copper)

Sorry I'm more thinking out loud than providing actual help...

 

[pigswill]

Played 17 turns to discover BW (currently generating 8bpt!).

Warrior wandered around and survived.

T11 Met Buddhist Wang Kong down South.



T12 Met Catherine down South.



T13 Hinduism has been founded.

T15 Got a worker who´s improved both corn and just moved to gold mine then another warrior while growing.

T19. Discover Russian borders to the West.

T26. BW is in. Who said there would be copper around?



Capital pop 3, warrior in 2, grow in 4.

East warrior will check out eastern seafood if she survives.

Its not looking exactly great at the moment. No local psychopaths but Backstabbers Anonymous seems well represented (if I survive that long).

Revolt to slavery I think, worker to continue with gold mine, get up to pop 4 then either double whip settler or maybe chop and single whip imperialistic settler so I can keep working the decent tiles. Settling west seems fairly obvious, either north west coast or south west rice.

However there doesn´t seem to be an obvious path at the moment.

Hunting seems a fairly straightforward choice for next tech, I´ll need it at some time for ivory camp and its a prereq for either AH or archery.

There´s a lot of AI units wandering around and probably a few more AI just South of the jungle so I´m wondering if I need archery or I can get by with warriors and go AH>writing.

 

[enKage]

Yo only have south to fogbust and warriors in jungle should be enough for antobarb defense, so I think archery is a waste of time. Hunting sounds good as pre for AH. Hunting is cheap when all civs start with it. AH you need sooner than later just for horses (instead of copper) and as a writing pretech.

Alternatively - pottery - writing for earlier library and GS bulbs (maths, engineering).

I like pH next to rice as a 2nd city, just to stop imperialistic Cathy from taking nice stone-rice spot, probably she would have to sacrifice a lot to get stones with possibly foodless city. 3rd city - PH 2E from corn (after sailing, if you decide cats+elephs are enough and no need for engineering bulb). Hills + lake + Moai (helps getting elephants without settling those junky land) + stone = unit spamming city. HE there of course

 

[georgjorge]

I would Elepult someone. Reasoning: not very good land nearby (the jungle ressources are fine but need time to be developed), AI not that far away. Now Elepults need some strong early research, and you got a gold mine, but I would definitely either build the Oracle (Horseback Riding) or Pyramids (Representation + Philosophical for early research, then Police State for more Elephants) here as you don't need have many great early cities to settle anyway. Depending on which path you choose, I'd make the next tech Mysticism or Masonry, not Hunting.

 

[pigswill]

Pyramids sounds more tempting than Oracle. On the other hand I want to get out a couple of cities fairly early (before getting completly trapped) so will need writing sooner rather than later to run scientists. So I´m probably looking for couple of cheap settlers, another worker and some warriors before starting on pyramids which makes masonry less of an immediate priority.

Possible research path: hunting>AH>writing>masonry.

If exploration reveals seafood then I´d have to consider fishing considering the general shortage of food.

 

[pigswill]

After pausing a few picoseconds for thought I decided that I would go for hunting before AH.

T27. Switch to anarchy. Barb archer runs away from our fearsome warrior. Maybe revolting to anarchy persuades the barbs that we´re not a civilisation but another barbarian tribe, who knows. Its the last we see of that archer but we meet a rather beat up Persian archer in the neighborhood.

T28 Switch from anarchy to slavery. A new forest grows in capital´s BFC, potentially 40h towards Pyramids.

T29.An envoy from Willem arrives on board a workboat from the West:



So that´s who founded Hinduism. He´s probably not that close however.

T32. Hunting>AH. Worker has finished goldmine, moves to a forest to chop some firewood.

T33. Single whip a settler with small overflow.

T34. Settler>warrior. Settler heads South West.

T35. Warrior>worker. Current woker finishes chopping and heads after settler.

T36. Stonehenge bidl. Not very early, not very late.

T37. A city is born! Yummy rice and one day smelly incense, not much but quite frankly there´s not much anywhere else either.




T38. AH is in! Do we have horses? Yes, we have horses!



Interesting. We´ve got 12 turns until the next border pop. Sury can currently sneak a settler party to grab the elephants and/or settle a city next to the horses to steal our only available strategic resource and create significant border tension at the same.

I also need to think about the north west cow city and try to get there before Catherine.

There´s also the minor detail of city maintenance eating into an already feeble research rate (12bpt iirc with one city).

If I´m going for Pyramids then I´m going to need masonry, if I go for writing first I´m concerned that I´ll be too late to join the Pyramid race but without writing no OBs or libraries.

Uruk finishes worker next turn, current worker has 4 turns left to complete Eridu´s rice paddy. I think I´ll use new worker to road between cities (2 commerce is significant with such a lousy economy). I´ll try to get out a settler for north west cow and hope Sury doesn´t beat me to the north east before border pop.

All ideas welcome coz I´m not sure if this is the best plan.

Save:

 

[Killroyan]

So no seafood near the elephants? If so, then this map is really food poor.

 

[pigswill]

No seafood anywhere so I probably won´t bother with fishing.

 

[Killroyan]

So you get something like western cow city and oasis phant city (sharing corn and stone?) as possible sites. Maybe beeline ironworking soon for jungle chops to get some decent sites there? First trade after alpha? This will be an interesting game Pigswill.

 

[pigswill]

I´m sure I won´t get any jungle sites in the near future. Western cow and eastern ivory are possible but not guaranteed.

 

[vranasm]

seems to me like classic scenario for HA or WE attack

 

[pigswill]

Seems to me more like classic scenario for AI dogpile.

However I´ll keep marching cheerfully towards my doom .

T39. AH>masonry 8 turns.

T42. Istanbul hits pop 4 and starts next settler. Trade route with Edirne adds 2c.

T45. Masonry (6 turns)>writing 11 turns. Edirne starts Gwall for failgold.

T47. Gwall bidl, 8 failgold .

T49. Istanbul settler>pyramids.

T51. Border pop: east is blocked off, horses are safe from Khmer landgrab.

T52. Istanbul pop5. Ankara is founded on top of a helpful blue circle.

T54 Oracle bidl.

T55. Edirne pop4, starts third worker.

T56. Writing>100%cash (waiting for libraries).

T58. OB with Catwoman, warrior starts exploring. Double whip worker in Edirne (22 ov).

T59 Edirne worker>library.

T60 ToA bidl. These Wonders are falling fast

T65 Confu fidl!

T66 Pyramids in Istanbul.

Seems a good place to stop.

 

[Killroyan]

Get the boats out and hope for some good islands. You need them.

 

[enKage]

I will put archery before HBR as soon as WHEOUH (or sth) is indicated. 2 classic backstabbers = early wat on to fronts. I dont think chariots + warriors are enough, Anyway you will need archery for some HA as well

 

[Tall German Joe]

with rep, a few libraries, and a little luck, there's still time to bulb engineering by a decent date... it would do really well considering you a.) have close neighbors b.) have access to elephants and c.) have very good production.

 

[pigswill]

I think elepults is likely the least unrealistic chance I have of breaking out of the gulag. So probably looking at revolting to rep asap, whipping libraries and regrowing to run scientists, get HbR asap and I may be lucky enough to do some minor tech trading. Being philosophical and all I should get a GS pretty soon to bulb maths then start on construction. Maybe I´ll go for archery first, just in case...

Cities meantime need to build rax, maybe a elephant stable somewhere.

I still have my fourth city to settle (and a settler).

Will I survive long enough? A good question.



Whoops, not a great screenshot. Willem is currently +1 with me.

Willem and Wang have religious diferences and close borders, which probably puts Wang somewhere to the South West.

Sury and Darius also have religious diferences and close borders.

Sury is also the worst enemy of Mansa (the missing AI) for reasons that are currently unclear.

Cat as usual remains an unpredictable threat, at least we don´t have touching borders yet.

Ankara grows to pop 3 and gets 60h for library whip next turn. Edirne is currently pop3, with minor starvation it can also get 60h for library whip next turn. Istanbul needs to get a settler first, chopping a ghill will help speed that along and workers kep working regardless of anarchy.

So that´s probably what I´ll do next unless I´ve missed something really obvious.

 

[Strickl3r]

Thanks for the map.

Spoiler :

I went gambit-> oracle CoL-> work 4 GS
Wonder if i finally beat a map on deity with engineering bulb approach

To be honest had to do a 2nd try because my first warrior lost vs archer on a forest hill and that caused a gold mine pillage which then cause me losing the oracle by 1 turn.

Now i got the 3 GS out with 2nd try, luckily no GP, i think it's about 66% with this kind of gambits...

 

[pigswill]

Played this a few days ago.

Got a bit carried away and played a bunch of turns up to 425bc. Stuff has happened.

Swopped from turn count to dates half way through just to add to the confusion.

Forgot to take screenshots until end of the set but didn-t miss much.

T66. Revolt to rep. More anarchy .

T68. Whip libraries in Edirne (grow to pop3 in 3 turns tu run scientists) and Ankara (6 turns for pop3 scientists).

T69. Chop settler in Istanbul, due next turn.

T71. Bursa is founded, catches corn from Istanbul, oásis, will need a border pop before we get ivory so needs library first as I don-t have mysticism.

T75. 1000bc. Istanbul finishes library, hires scientists and starts a rax.

975bc. Taoism fidl, there goes liberalism.

950bc. Sury suggests OB, I decline as he´s worst enemy of William, Wang and Darius even though it denies me the chance of some exploration.

875bc. HbR is in, GS is born, bulb maths, 8 turns to construction.

850. Sury has enough on his hands! Time for some trading. Maths and HbR to Willem for alphabet and pottery. HbR to Darius for IW. We have iron! No other trades I want atm.

750. Statue of Zeus bidl.

725. Construction is in. Aesthetics but 100% cash. Sack scientists, time to start chopping and whipping a mini stack. Still waiting for ivory but axes and cats are available.

700bc. Sury declares! . On Darius!

675. Colossus bidl.

650. Christianity fidl.

525 Parthenon bidl.

500. Catlady builds Hanging Gardens.

475. GG bidl.

450. GG bidl.

425. Stackette is in place:


Hopefully Great generals are a result of Sury and Darius beating the crop out of each otherwise I´m in trouble.

Even with 100% wealth I´m at 0gpt and will lose money once stackette moves outside borders, small cities and 15gpt unit maintenance does that I suppose.

Here´s our small and isignificant principality ( calling it an empire would require a gigantic leap of the imagination):



Note how Bursa just missed a second source of iron, I wondered what the blue circle was doing there (before we discovered IW )

Background stuff:

Spoiler :

Not much going on there. Avoiding religious stuff and fishing, still thinking about engineering bulb.



On the other hand dead last in everything by a large margin, no idea how I´ll catch up. Maybe whip granaries, grow cities to run scientists again, aesthetics or MC?



Marginally interesting, we can just see Willem south West of Cat and Darius to the east of Sury.



At the moment we´ve only got OB will Cat and Wang, maybe I should say hello to Willem and Darius. Cat and Wang are annoyed with each other so may have to make a choice at some point.

Time to cry havoc and let slip the cats of war....

 

[pomthom]

I think you should back-stab Sury and therefore feel free to trade Construction for your new-war-buddy-Darius' Currency (Currency should be a top priority, as you pointed out your economy is in bad shape and war isn't going to improve things).

I don't see who else is better to attack: Sury is close, is already at war on another front and doesn't have Construction.

"Time to cry havoc and let slip the cats of war" indeed!

 

[pigswill]

I think I´ll backstab Sury,try to take city to the South and hopefully Isvarapura to the east to say hello to Darius.

Cities will whip granaries then regrow on units until they can run some scientists to try to get some research going.

Not much input from the immortal deities on the fórum, I´m not sure if this is good or bad.