Shall we play a game?

[cabert]

continue hunting and settle 1 W of the elephants.
Sure, you won't work the gold early, but the rice will let you grow fast and the ivory camp will give you the hammers to finish the monument soon enough.
May I suggest you build another WB? remember you're financial and working those water tiles is good for you!
Oracle? I would build it for construction . hwachas are great!

It would be fun to run a no BW variant, don't you think?
+ your capital is great for production.

Alternatively, you have the perfect starting techs for a monotheism run, and oracling theology opens up paper just as good as CS.

 

[CivSetä]

More games, nice!

Build red city first, you may get lucky and get yellow one too. But no more cities after that, go for alphabet and trade for IW and math. Both AIs should have them at that point, why don't you trade and steal their techs before finally killing them? They never have a change to trade anyway, so there is no need to keep alphabet-monopoly.

Then research construction and the continent is yours. I'd kill them both, they can't put anything too dangerous against your hwachas and elephants for a long time. And you don't even get 'you attacked our friend'-penalties if you do it fast!

Oracle can be worth trying, theology is nice bonus for war. You don't really need it though, hence I'd beeline directly to alphabet instead. If you save your forests you can also chop a GL in your capital to keep you in a liberalism race. Seafood lets you run enough scientist to lightbulb key techs in time (even when you are not philo).

 

[Pete2006]

Well I have some good news and bad news. For those that wanted city 1 1W of the ivory, we did it! For those that wanted 2E of ivory, we got beat!

This actually could be really nice. I can tech to priesthood then take BW, chop the oracle in Pyongyang and then take CoL as the free tech. Confucianism will be founded in Pyongyang and NY will flip over to us. As an added bonus, we can use the GP points to build the shrine later.

In the meantime, we can build some chariots for defense and a couple workers/settlers. City 3 to take the cows/lake and City 4 to take the ocean/lake.

Yes/No?

 

[Neoclast]

With placing cities by the Fresh water lake, remember that if they are also a coastal city in which you can build a light house that the lake tiles also get the +1 food bonus. I think you need to explore the area just south of the lake before you can plan out optimum city placement.

 

[Killroyan]

I guess we know what this means.......... Roosie has to go and quick. Build some war chariots and kick him of the map Tough luck with that but the second city is still very nice but boy do you need that monument.

 

[Pete2006]

I guess we know what this means.......... Roosie has to go and quick. Build some war chariots and kick him of the map Tough luck with that but the second city is still very nice but boy do you need that monument.

Probably. However, since he is industrious it would be nice for him to build us some wonders first, eh?

 

[Pete2006]

I didn't get much feedback so I decided to go with the Oracle chop for CoL. We were successful. By the way - no copper in sight. I researched meditation rather than poly to save 2 turns. Hopefully we can still get the GL.

I had to delay the founding of the third city so I could wage the culture war on NY. That lead to some barb issues but I was able to take them out with the chariots - almost lost a worker though.

The research path then went pottery - alpha. I intend to trade alpha for iron/maths. I need iron badly to get some military built.

I sent the Confucian missionary to Wonsan so I don't have to build an obelisk there. Next city will probably be NE of the spice so I can get the rest of the lake tiles.

I'll probably explore Roosevelt's land after the next city gets built. I'll also venture south to find out where Cathy is. Hopefully she's close.

What are the thoughts on converting to Confucianism? It has already spread to Roosevelt. Cathy doesn't have a religion so I can open borders and probably send it to her as well.

I'd like to be friends with both of them at least until I can make a couple tech trades.

 

[CivSetä]

I'd convert just to guarantee that Roosevelt don't get any bad ideas. Looks like Cathy is much stronger, as usual, I'd take care of her first. If you can trade alphabet for math, why don't you take construction next? Cats and elephants are strongest combination until late gunpowder era...

 

[Pete2006]

I definitely intend to go for constriction next. I would like to find iron in the meantime.

 

[Pete2006]

Well things are still going well. I made it to Alpha first but not many trades were available. Not sure what I should research next. I can self research maths and construction or I can wait until they become available for trade. I'm trying to court Roosevelt's favor as I agree that Catherine should be the first victim.

Here's how it went down:

I started the round off by trying the befriend Roosevelt. Butter him up for some alpha trades. I don't need the health bonus and it doesn't look like adopting Confucianism will make me any enemies.

An the culture war begins! I'll have to whip a library there next to seal the deal.

4th city goes up. A truly pathetic city if I've ever seen one but it'll be decent once a lighthouse gets built (2000 years from now).

Alpha comes in and I make some trades picking up IW and sailing and really don't have to give up anything.

Now that I have sailing, I can start a lighthouse in Pusan. Also I'm building a settler to take that spot by the cows. That should be a nice city.

Next step? Like, I said, we can self research maths - construction here and go straight to war or we could pause and research/trade for some commerce techs and build up our cities.

 

[CivSetä]

I think that both AIs are already going towards Math. If you had three trading partners I would say research something else, you could trade math soon. But with only two AIs, one of them might go to wrong direction. Hard decision.

But I still suggest en-route to GL. You have lots of forests to chop (4 riverside cottages and two hills) and enough food for six scientists. Another two from GL and caste system+pacifism means first in liberalism. Hence poly-lit first, then you probably can trade alphabet for math. Then construction and world is yours.

 

[Pete2006]

The problem with the GL is that it would probably take 30 rounds to build and that'll cut into hwacha production. Is the GL really that critical?

Cathy's cities look to be covered in grassland and I need to attack soon before she jumps to longbows.

I'm thinking monarchy - trade for maths - research construction - trade for calendar. In the meantime I really need to start laying down cottages. Unfortunately, outside the capital, the land is just too food poor.

 

[CivSetä]

I don't think that any wonder is critical, maybe I'm just too addicted to GL.

But I think you shouldn't worry about longbows, elephants will take care of them easily. Of course it means some suicide cats first, but in my opinion (when playing emperor or above) you simply can't get construction before AIs have longbows anyway. But hey, they don't look too advanced yet, you may have a change this time? It seems like Cathy has more jungle than grassland.

If you choose military-beeline I could play a shadow game with GL, could be informative to compare two different approaches?

 

[Pete2006]

Sounds good to me. Post the results here.

Cathy doesn't look too advanced yet. Maybe we have a window of opportunity. If I can get construction ~200 BC then I think I could take 2-3 of her cities before she gets longbows.

 

[Pete2006]

I played my next turn set and preparing for war. I've scouted Cathy's defenses and she looks weak. Now I just need to mobilize my troops.

I started the round kissing more ass. Roosevelt's ass that is. He's got monarchy and I wanted him to trade it to me. So I practically gifted him alphabet. This sort of served two purposes. 1 - get him to trade monarchy (which did not work out as planned) and 2 - help him towards building the GL for me.

I met Frederick next. He's a bit backwards so I gifted him a crappy tech to get on his good side.

Nampo goes up to claim the cows. I'm starting to feel the pinch from lack of cottages.

Ended up researching Monarchy all by myself. Met two more civs along the way.

Roosevelt ended up building the wrong GL! He's got marble in the capital so he may just end up building both.

At this point, Cathy was the only civ with Maths and she still refused to trade it to me! I decided not to research it myself as one civ would trade it to me eventually.

I got it but it was expensive. I then switched MC for Construction to build my hwacha army.

And NY flips! I was worried it wasn't going to flip at all. Once it flipped I whipped a library to keep control over its eastern tiles.

Hatty doesn't like me much but she was nice enough to make this trade for me. I have 3 calender resourced under my control so I really needed this tech. I was starting to get some unhappy faces in Seoul.

The Oracle comes through with a prophet so I built the shrine. That allowed me to bump up my slider nearly 20%.

Okay. The infrastructure is up and we are ready for war. Now where is my army? Oh, yeah... I need to build one.

Any thoughts on a war route? I wouldn't mind a bit of discussion here.

Rostov - St. Petersburg - Moscow would be nice but my army would likely be in tatters once I made it to Moscow. St. Petersburg is on a hill so I would like to rush there before longbows if possible.

 

[CivSetä]

My game is going ok, got GL 275BC. I went poly-lit-monotheism and lightbulbed theology. Then construction and some war.

I just got education and I have 15 turns to liberalism. I'm not sure if I'm going to get it first, though. I was running war civics too long, hence only two scientists (philo+edu). I'll grab nationalism if I'm first, I can trade marble for TM too.

Well, I'm still struggling in the same war while making slow progress. I have captured whole north-western Russia including St. Petesburg, but road to Moscow seems to be hard. I can see winter is coming. Maybe cease fire for a couple of turns to gather my two armies to one... WW is not a problem, but nasty pikemen have killed too many of my elephants!

I'll post my game maybe tomorrow, I don't want to spoil your game. There are some surprises left!

 

[CivSetä]

Some observations:

- You don't have army!
- You have managed to keep Cathy happy - good! She got mad at me quite early! Have you given her some tribute?
- Why don't you trade CoL and calendar for currency (Roosevelt)? Could help your economy?

Seems like that our wars might start around same time - I declared war 300 AD. Could have started a bit earlier, though, but I am always conservative when playing games like this. Almost made it before longbows, seems like you are not going to be fast enough either.

Yep, Rostov-Petsburg-Moscow seem obvious. But why don't you explore more before making final decision, your knoledge of their land is not superb?

 

[Jet]

Especially after giving her Monarchy in a trade! But - good game.

 

[Pete2006]

Some observations:

- You don't have army!
- You have managed to keep Cathy happy - good! She got mad at me quite early! Have you given her some tribute?
- Why don't you trade CoL and calendar for currency (Roosevelt)? Could help your economy?

Seems like that our wars might start around same time - I declared war 300 AD. Could have started a bit earlier, though, but I am always conservative when playing games like this. Almost made it before longbows, seems like you are not going to be fast enough either.

Yep, Rostov-Petsburg-Moscow seem obvious. But why don't you explore more before making final decision, your knoledge of their land is not superb?

The army is coming I swear. I just got construction so it will take some time. I hope to begin my war with 1-2 elephant, 5 hwacha, 1 sword and 2 archers. That's plenty to take Rostov and then I should have another 3-4 hwacha to march on towards St. Petersburg.

I have 3 cities dedicated to building troops now. Seoul, Pyongyang and Wonsan

I completely missed that currency trade. I'll make that first and stick a market in Pyongyang after the war.

Cathy never demanded tribute but I did gift her some resources.

 

[Pete2006]

Especially after giving her Monarchy in a trade! But - good game.

Yeah, I didn't like that either but that was the only way she'd do it.