Should I proceed directly to liberalism?

m0rph

Chieftain
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
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I have both iron and horses so it's looking like a cuirassier rush game

However I don't have marble and I haven't researched Aesthetics, Literature, or Music -- and no one is close to music either so trading for music will be difficult.

Should I lib nationalism even though building the taj is nearly impossible? What's the optimal way to play this game?

I think I can lib something crazy, no one else has paper or philosophy yet and I can bulb half of education with a great scientist.

GHUhbGZ.jpg


The map is Pangaea, I'm playing Hannibal on Immortal, 75 BC. I have 7 cities though I'm planning on gifting one of them to Rome/Greece.

I included the original 4000 BC save.
 

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If you're going for cuirassiers, you might as well hold off until you tech Nationalism. There's no need to rush unless AI is close to getting lib first, which isn't happening for a long time, especially since you're bulbing education.
 
Military Tradition requires Music, and Cuirassiers also require Gunpowder.

Getting to Cuirassiers will take a while, but when you do get there, you'll be short on whippable Cities and won't be able to make too many Cuirassiers right away. So, can we find a way to have an advantageous war before that time, to grab you some more Cities to be able to whip once you have unlocked Cuirassiers? How about War Elephants and Catapults?

War Elephants require Construction, Horseback Riding (which you'll need anyway, for Cuirassiers), and Ivory. Veteran War Elephants can be upgraded to Cuirassiers... you seem to be focusing on Commerce more than Food, so perhaps it will make sense to build the cheaper-Hammer-cost War Elephants and then use your Commerce earned after unlocking Cuirassiers to pay to upgrade your War Elephants, rather than continuing to spend your Commerce on Research at that point.

Augustus will trade Strategic Resources to you if he is Cautious or above, and you share a State Religion with him, and you also don't seem to have gotten into any wars, so he should be happy enough to trade an Ivory Resource to you, as long as he hasn't traded away the Resources to someone else... does he have an Ivory Resource that he can trade to you, even if you have to give him the only copy of two of your other Resources and/or cancel some existing Resource trades to get him to sell Ivory to you?

If he won't trade with you, then prioritize sending Workers to the Forests of Leptis and Chop out a Library there, to steal Ivory. Spread Judaism there, too.

Prioritize Chopping and Whipping War Elephants and Catapults, then go to war. Bring along a couple of Axemen to defend each stack from Praetorians, Phalanx, or Spearmen, depending upon whether you attack Augustus, Pericles, or Zara.

Zara might be a vulnerable target, due to running Buddhism while most of the other AIs are running Judaism. Bribe in a couple of war allies and have your force slowly but surely take down Zara's Cities one at a time. The conquest Gold from capturing Cities will help to fund your increasing Maintenance costs in the medium term as your empire expands its reach, and then you won't care about the increased Maintenance after having researched enough techs to unlock Cuirassiers and can switch to a 100% Gold slider (possibly also adding in a bit of Culture slider for Happiness issues if you've received Drama in trade by that time).

Actually, in the short term, I'd suggest even whipping out a few more Workers, to help get the Worker force needed to Chop out an army quickly.
 
Lib race makes sense if you have 6+ cities.
I think you lost oportunity to make Numidian Cavalry rush, maybe followed by construcion and WE's depend how war goes.
Then you could think about Cuirassiers, NC are great after upg to Cuirassiers.

Edit.
O sry i didnt notice that you have 6 cities. SO yea imo Lib MT is best play here. Try to make some GMs ( best if you manage to make 2 of them) then upgrade NC to Cuirassiers.

But anyway i think better play here is NC rush.
 
Dhoomstriker's advice seems very good to me.
I especially like the part about getting more workers to chop faster. I don't think you need the extra workers right now but a worker burst will quicken your military build-up.

Regarding your tech path, you really do have the choice.
I don't think there are any wrong options, there.
- If you want to go for Military Tradition, you'll need Music. You'll probably need to self-research that. Although you could start with Nationalism and maybe trade towards Music. In such a sense, researching Education right now would seem unnecessary.
- For other routes, you need Machinery. To unlock Printing Press towards Rifling ; to unlock Engineering towards Steel. There, it's mostly self-research, isn't it ? Starting with Metal Casting.

Anyway I look at it, I think you'll need to research and backfill some techs.
It would make sense to look for trade baits as you don't necessarily want to let go of your Civil Service + Philosophy monopoly.

I think I'd favour the Machinery route because it would allow you to spam Forges, so as to get more production power. Also, no marble, as you mentioned, makes the Music route less appealing.
Speaking of production power... one Granary ? You certainly need to spam those. Do you think you've gained much by avoiding granaries ?
You've probably been able to work more cottaged tiles but this is very short term. Over ten turns, a granary pays off. Overall, I think you'd have been able to generate more commerce with granaries up.
In the same line of thinking : if you want to make the most out of Bureaucracy, Carthage should probably take control again of its corn.

From the position you're in, one thing you might consider is a civic switch to Caste System.
You'd have to ponder what Great Persons are appealing and how they can fit into a plan. Great Scientists can bulb (Education, Printing Press, Chemistry) ; Great Merchants can make trade missions (upgrade troops ; better for mounted units or canons than melee) ; triggering a Golden Age is also an option.
Caste System would stun your no-granary growth. Big loss ? Maybe not. That would let you chop your granaries so growth could resume after you've generated some GPs.

Alternatively, you could remain in Slavery a while longer. In this case, I'd focus heavily on establishing your production infrastructure asap (Granaries and then Forges).

Finally, I like the idea of an intermediate war.
A unit that hasn't been mentioned but could do wonders is the Maceman. Those don't upgrade to Cavalries but they're nasty with their City Raider bonus.
If you can catch a civ without Feudalism, they'll be easy pickings to a task force of Macemen (+ some siege in option).

An intermediate war wouldn't mesh very well with a Caste System switch.
It would fit better with a worker burst + Granary chops/whips and Forges whips in option.

If looking for a war target, I'd be very much attracted by the Temple of Solomon.
Greece is close by, sort of weak and has good land. You'd need to solve the diplo situation before getting involved in a war, so as to make it safe.

You're very much ahead as it is, except for your city count.
So the route you choose is up to you, you've got a wide margin for manoeuver. Simply, you need to tie together the decisions that make a route good.
(So if you go Mil Trad, you should pre-produce mounted units and aim to upgrade them via a switch to Caste System, so as to make up for your low production power, so as to make the most of your high population cities and the delay towards the war.)

:)
 
Btw 250BPT at this point of game is preety impressive :goodjob:.
But yea your cities arnt developed allmost at all, iam assuming that you didnt want to whip cottages + looks you dont have enough workers becose fo that crazy amount of forest.
If you going for Lib and MT, you should aim for Granary,Lib.Forge,Baraks,Stables (depending do you want to run Theo or not), at least this. Nice if you can add to this Ap Tempels and Monasteries. NE,HE and Oxford are allso nice things but without Marble its preety hard to get it.
I know that this is a lot of stuff but in future you should aim for this.

Edit.
You have very good Lib date here, if you play this right you can take out this continent only with cuirassiers.
Choop this forest for couple of workers and infrastructure i think you dont have to even upgrade anything with this date on IMM.

Why iam convincing you to go for MT is becouse you have very good date, this is Deity Lib date and just 1AD WE's with Construcion isnt too tempting in time when you get army they will be close to Engi, if they hit Engi .... 1st Castle and its over.
NC WE's Construcion would be great play here like i mentioned becouse you could have free workers, half developed cities and probably you could take out 1 ai with this even Cesar but it is just a little bit too late for this.
I did this kind of play previously you can check a short writup at Deity Carthage thread.
 
Yes, thinking back on it,
You're probably better set to go for Cuirassiers, rather than anything else.
(Tech path : Nationalism, Music, Education)

An early war would be best but it would require to go back some 20 turns and plan for it.
(e.g. research Civil Service first instead of Philo)

As it is, the time you'd need to get Elephants/Macemen up and running would probably be better spent rushing towards Mil Trad.
Chances are slim that you could end a first war before you could reach Mil Trad, I believe.
Mil Trad, however, would make it a lot faster to go from an opponent to another. It allows a sweep.
 
The way to offset not having a lot of cities (6-7 isn't bad at all though btw) is to upgrade some HAs or elephants to Cuirs using great merchants. I think it costs 170g to upgrade each HA and 140g to upgrade each WE.

Looking at your save, i would actually go for Music ASAP. Only 2 of the AI have Aesthetics and none have Lit/Drama so Aest > Lit > Music path right now should allow you to get to Music first and get that crucial Great Artist. You can then use the Great Artist to start your first golden age, switch into Caste System + Pacifism and run a ton of specialists. I would probably tech Nationalism before Education. Try to get at least 1 Great Scientist to bulb part of Education with during your golden age, and then maybe 2 Great Merchants. You want to get several of your cities as big as possible right before triggering the golden age so that you can run as many specialists as possible - don't be afraid to starve them down while running the specialists.

Cities can also build HAs during the golden age so that you will have some ready to upgrade when you get MT.

One question about your cities? Why the lack of granaries? That's the best building in the game and much more valuable than a CH (in a city with almost no maintenance) or a monastery.
 
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