SE2 - Gandhi

[obsolete]

to obsolete

Spoiler :

obsolete, how can you win culture so fast without cottages?.. moreover, you settled some of your GP...how many GP did you generated?

Spoiler :

That wasn't so fast. That was so slow because I screwed up considerably, and didn't micro well at all.

I lost count of my GPs. Feel free to look at the save and check manually.

 

[CivilizedTiger]

@vicawoo
Thank you for the info!
I've added it to the first post.

 

[sveusb]

This is the first checkpoint. I am playing Monarch/Epic. I am one turn from writing in 2450BC.

Spoiler :

I did steal a worker from Wang Kong.

Note: I downloaded the save without huts and checked the box for no huts but there still were huts. The huts I popped all gave gold.

 

[CivilizedTiger]

The monarch no huts save should not have goody huts, I mean... they aren't in the WB save. Are you playing a no huts version for a different difficulty? Maybe I've forgotten the huts in one of those and I should mend it.

 

[sveusb]

@CivilizedTiger
I am certain I chose the save for Monarch no huts and checked the box for no huts during setup.

 

[drlake]

Monarch/Epic to Code of Laws, 170BC:

Spoiler :

I don't know if this is later than I should be reaching CoL, but I had other stuff that seemed more important to do along the way. I teched Calendar a turn ago, and traded for CoL.

No wars yet, and I'm still expanding, but that'll soon have to come to an end. Here's the map:

I can put one city W across the lake, to try to steal the Gems (and work the Silk and Wine) from Mao, 1 S of Delhi for the Clams and Dye there, but that's about it for "decent" city sites.

I managed to steal the Copper from Hatty, but she's got Iron so that doesn't matter. I can still probably take her, but she may not be the war I want to fight atm. Mao doesn't seem to have any strategic resources (only Archers, so far) so he might be worth hitting soon. Mehmed is the "out" AI civ, since all the rest of us are Hindu. All the AIs have more room to expand than I do, so I'm sending a scout into Mao's lands to look things over down that way.

City list:

The monasteries are mainly for culture, since I'm pressed on my borders in most directions. I'm starting to shift cities to military infrastructures (Barracks, Forges) and will continue to do so after building the one Settler I have in progress. I haven't been running many specs yet, no need due to the Gold.

Foreign Relations:


Tech Race:

Doing OK, but MM is teching like mad so I suspect he's going to become a problem down the line. I'll have to wait until his Oromo Warriors are obsolete, though, since I won't be warring with him anytime soon.

Tech Tree:

After Construction, I'm not sure which way to go. Too many options, and with MM there I need to make the right decision.

VCs:

Doing OK in terms of size, but the AIs can keep expanding into the hinterland and I can't so that's going to stop if I don't go to war.

Demographics:

I'm doing OK here, but need to build up my army now.

So, the next step is probably to take a chunk of Mao's territory away from him.

I did manage to screw up and build a couple of cottages, but I'll destroy them as soon as I can put other improvements on those tiles.

Advice?

 

[CivilizedTiger]

@sveusb
I'm sorry, but I couldn't find the problem. :|
The lines which signal the presence of goody huts in a script were removed from the monarch no huts, I rechecked it now, and it seems ok. Maybe there are more things I should have removed from the no huts scripts, other than "improvement=goody_hut" (or something like that), although I've never faced this problem before.

I hope this won't make your experience with this game a bad one.

 

[qyll]

Emperor/Epic/No huts
Space race victory @ 1900 AD

Spoiler :

My initial warrior died, so I didn't explore as much as I would've liked to in the south. As a result, my initial settlers went to block off Wang Kon and Hatty



Built Schwedagon Paya early and switched to pacifism. I spent the rest of the game in pacifism with a few switches to theocracy.

Once I was on my way to code of laws, Hatty and Mansa had done some furious teching already. Refused a request from Wang Kon hoping he would declare, which he did. Sent my stack in to his land and took his capital and ran out of fuel. Declare peace soon after.




Managed to get to civil service first and bulb philosophy



The land at 500 AD



Bribed Mehmed to attack Mansa to slow down the tech rate. Joined the war on a request and took Djenne. Mansa capitulated to Mehmed a few turns later. I didn't notice Djenne had Great Library in it until I was building my spaceship. Hahahaha.

Won liberalism and took chemistry to trade.



From that point, I got to communism first and infiltrated Hatty with the great spy, who was still ahead of me in tech. Ran a hybrid SE/Espionage economy and stole replaceable parts, rifling, flight, mass media, and robotics from Hatty. During this, I beelined for computers.



Before internet:



After internet:



I got away with running pacifism for 80% of the game. How? This:



Being surrounded by friendly civs meant I could tech freely. I didn't dare switch out of buddhism.

Had no aluminum to work with upon finishing industrialism, but popped it from a mine just in time. Hatty was charging me dye and 50 gpt for it. Which wasn't bad, but I was still worried she would cancel the deal.



Hatty pushed for culture. Close, but no cigar.



Final diplomacy screen. My military at this time consisted of an archer in each city, about 6 swordsmen, and 4 catapults.



Final tech screen:

This was a good learning experience for me. I almost always cottage everything, and I didn't feel like I ran a very good SE because I don't micro very much. Oh well.

 

[NihilZero]

Well I decided to play this for some light relief from my exhausting NC Mao game. Didn't quite go to plan however, now I'm in a tense dogfight in this game too.

Spoiler :

There is very little space, we are hemmed in by everybody. It's obvious that somebody has to go, so I keep looking for a strategic resource, all the way to iron. At least we have some of that...

Hatty gets longbowmen at 800BC so I switch from number one target to number two - Mao, who has no metal. He's protective so it's costly, but swords and cats do him in.

Now I'm lookng at some huge AIs. Mehmed starts with a massive amount of land nicely blocked off for him, and a wonderspammy capital. He's up to twelve cities and there's still plenty of room for him yet. The aforementioned monster Hatty has twice my score and a dozen cities too (I've got eight). I'm way behind in tech.

It's not looking good. I haven't managed my economy since it's been a kill to survive sort of game, no time to think about niceties like that. It's nearly 400 AD and I'm not sure what to do next. Attack somebody else probably, although I'm the weakest power in the world.

 

[vranasm]

@NihilZero ouch! It doesnt look good at all from what you write... and 800BC longbows? wth? That's deity?

I think i will play it a bit today (only monarch though) so I hope I will get some fun of the map ;-)

 

[CivilizedTiger]

hm... this is starting to be disappointing. I guess I'll try a hemispheres map next, maybe that one is more balanced. Part of the biggest issue for me has been searching for a map script which is both interesting (and I like continents and islands in this regard) and balanced (with people claiming that continents is a balanced script)

 

[vranasm]

hm... this is starting to be disappointing. I guess I'll try a hemispheres map next, maybe that one is more balanced. Part of the biggest issue for me has been searching for a map script which is both interesting (and I like continents and islands in this regard) and balanced (with people claiming that continents is a balanced script)

it's tough to generate good map I think... and tougher to balance it for all difficulties...
at some diffs such kind maps could be interresting (allowing early steamrolling of a lot of near AIs) and at some impossible to play because other AIs can so easily steamroll you

 

[NihilZero]

My game is looking unwinnable!

Immortal, normal speed, no huts, by the way.

Spoiler :

Here's Hatty's 800BC longbows.



I bulldozed Mao, but I was already in deep trouble. There was nobody left to trade techs with as I was badly behind.



Rather an early Liberalism date...



Not only was I buried in a hellish tech-orifice of doom, but Hatty built the Sistine and started culture-pushing me off the map, As you can see above Mehmed got to 14 cities and had twice my power rating. That didn't stop me:



This first war was aimed at cutting his horses. This succeeded, the AP made peace, and I built up for a second war. I had damned good production from my HE capital, but I couldn't get more than 50% of his power rating...I DoWed anyway, took another city en route to his capital (after some big pitched battles). Then the Janissaries arrived and now it's looking hopeless.



I actually might be able to grind him down, but it's no use, I'm too far behind the others. Attacking the Ottomans was really just a way to let off some steam .

I'm sure somebody else will do better, but things just didn't go my way today.

Thanks to Civilized Tiger for a challenging map! sad

 

[vicawoo]

None of you...

Spoiler :

tried to axe rush Hatshepsut? SE's are supposed to waves of insane aggression, not happy pyramid schemes.
Hatshepsut's been killed off in 3 attacks on immortal (thanks for the tech, why are two of your cities on hills), and that should be enough land to snowball the continent. Horse archers should have time to kill off at least one of wang kon, mansa, or mao.

And too much gold makes the no cottage requirement unrestrictive. It's also kind of silly if you can plantation dyes and silk for commerce but you can't make cottages.

 

[NihilZero]

None of you...

Spoiler :

tried to axe rush Hatshepsut? SE's are supposed to waves of insane aggression, not happy pyramid schemes.
Hatshepsut's been killed off in 3 attacks on immortal (thanks for the tech, why are two of your cities on hills), and that should be enough land to snowball the continent. Horse archers should have time to kill off at least one of wang kon, mansa, or mao.

And too much gold makes the no cottage requirement unrestrictive. It's also kind of silly if you can plantation dyes and silk for commerce but you can't make cottages.

Spoiler :

No copper, no horse. I tried to take her with swords, but she had 800BC longbows.

 

[vicawoo]

Spoiler :

No copper, no horse. I tried to take her with swords, but she had 800BC longbows.

Spoiler :

Copper in the NW, monument first and it's secure from culture pressure.

 

[NihilZero]

Spoiler :

Copper in the NW, monument first and it's secure from culture pressure.

Spoiler :

My man Wang beat me to it, I'm afraid. I think you would need some luck to pick up that copper source, it's very near his capital.

She's a little far off for an axe rush, but she's definitely ripe for early aggression of come kind. Chariots would probably be best, horses permitting of course.

edit:

Spoiler :

Yeah, I just checked my replay and Wang settled on the copper in 3120BC



Oh, you mean North West...hmmm...didn't see that one. That might be doable. It's still a long shot, I think. You have to find the copper pretty fast (I just happened to explore Hatty's area last) so it's the luck of the draw wth limited numbers of scouts.

 

[vranasm]

My progress Monarch/Epic to 550BC, feel free to comment/suggestions.
Special thanks to vicawoo for the direction of the game he gave everyone here.

Spoiler :

As vicawoo suggested there should be rush on egypt. I saw 2 sources of copper in the north, one near egypt, second near korea. I choosed the egypt one, placing probably sub-par city in the north. With the intention of soon connection, etc.

I went with researching IW after writing though, just to check. To my big surprise after 14 turns I realized that I have IRON IN CAP BFC!!! And I managed something that I will remember as one of the biggest thinks I ever did.

Quickly reorganize workers, built mine, connect and begun to chop out Swordsmans. Checking defense of egypt and seeing very subpar defense of 2-3 nonexped archers. I prepared my army View attachment 255238

The rush went very quick (swordsmans against unpromoted archers is strong). Finishing in View attachment 255239. egypt wiped out, I got very strong Egypt capital with stonehenge! and at least 3 sources of food...now that I think about it, that will be probably my GP farm and settlers/workers pump for awhile.

Since chinese and WK are both protective I changed focus on peaceful expansion.

I went with blocking off WK from expansion west (not far enough as I would like, but closing him out of my half). Closed the gems for myself in not so great city (well now that I see it from perspective, it's actually very bad city :-( no food, 1 of coast, but should be strong at holding gems), planning to make another near gold in west.
I would like to secure the Rice SW from delhi but if chinese get it first i will not hang myself, I have now plenty of space and a lot to do.
Then after i tech more I will probably settle at least 3 more cities to the north around memphis (purple dots).

The question is for when plan another war.
View attachment 255240
View attachment 255241

edit:

Spoiler :

Heh I didnt even saw correctly that the Egyptians were so kind inventing 2 religions and I have shrine of one of them in thebes. memphis is the second holy city (of judaism), the comming prophet could even build shrine of judaism and that will definitely help with money problems.
I think I could side with Mao and converting to judaism would secure it. Directing me at WK as next target of conquest of the world.

 

[drlake]

@vicawoo

Why do you say SE is supposed to be "waves of insane aggression"? With no cottages, it seems like it would be almost impossible to dig out of the economic hole that will leave you in. This game with the Gold in the BFC maybe not so much, but in general I found it difficult to get strategic resources hooked up early enough for any kind of "rush", so I have to wait for cats. By the time I get to a horse, it'll be way too late for HAs to be worth anything.

 

[NihilZero]

@vicawoo

Why do you say SE is supposed to be "waves of insane aggression"? With no cottages, it seems like it would be almost impossible to dig out of the economic hole that will leave you in. This game with the Gold in the BFC maybe not so much, but in general I found it difficult to get strategic resources hooked up early enough for any kind of "rush", so I have to wait for cats. By the time I get to a horse, it'll be way too late for HAs to be worth anything.

Using specialists for research and bulbs means that you don't need the science slider. Currency is a vital tech for building wealth, though.

I have started a second attempt to see if my luck is any different this time...

Spoiler :

This time, no 800 BC longbows for Hatty. Sword attack goes ahead, I cripple her and extort techs. I'll probably hit Mao next and then finish off Egypt. Guess my first game was just a freak caprice of the RNG.