So, what do you make of this start?

[Dubzilla8]

Hello everybody. Havent been playing much lately, but I just got off a handy Prince win and decided to start up another one.

Can't believe what the random map generator gave me this time. I thought I'd post the save game and a screen shot to see what kind of suggestions people have and to see if anyone wanted to play the game as well.

I was going to try a rush with war chariots, having never used them, but now, with all this stone and marble...I'm not sure what to do. Seems like the sky is the limit.

 

[svv]

Nice start. Health will be a bit of a problem. Apparently you can already research pottery, so I'd go after that and cottage some of those flood plains. Then I'd go after masonry and the pyramids, and then mathematics/aqueduct/hanging gardens. Add a forge in there and you'll be able to generate a ton of great engineer points. Build national epic there, save the second slot for ironworks, and you'll have a city that generates huge hammers, huge science, and huge gp (actually great engineer) points.

 

[carl corey]

That is sick! I think GE and GS points should be what you're looking for. Oh, and try to use only this city for wonders and specialize at least two other cities for production. Usually the capital gives quite a few units for the first wars and you'll want your capital building wonders after wonders in this one.

I guess you don't have to bother with Great Wall if you have Horses nearby, barbs won't be a problem. Pyramids & Great Library & National Epic look really good early on, with Hanging Gardens also a worthy addition. Make your capital a research & production powerhouse, add a forge in it too for future wonders. I wouldn't put Ironworks in it, rather Oxford University. Ironworks comes later and you'll have Scientists & Engineer specialists in Representation that you'll want to boost with Oxford.

Depending on your other city locations you could even put the Parthenon in one of them, but don't make it a priority. As I said, you should go for production cities and build barracks and War Chariots in them.

 

[Dubzilla8]

So, I'm looking at rolling out Pottery, then Mining --> Masonry. Then straight to Mathematics? What about AH and Bronze Working for Slavery? Should I be whipping out settlers and workers before going for the Pyramids (never built them before, I dont think. Definately not on Prince)?

What kind of timeline should I be looking at? X number of cities before starting the Pyramids and reaching Mathematics, so on...

Also, should I plan on warring with the chariots or not? Seems like it will be hard to balance army growth with the Pyramids, but maybe the War Chariots are much better than I imagine.

Once I get some more replies I'll try to play a bit and post some more.

 

[carl corey]

Animal Husbandry first I think. Leave pottery for later, you'll grow fast enough without Granary and at first you'll want production, not research.

AH lets you use the cows and also reveals horses that are the most important resource you have to have. Mining -> Masonry next looks good. The problem is you'll need quite a few worker turns to build those quarries in time, so start with the stone one for Pyramids.

Bronze Working will be good for secondary cities, to chop units if needed.

I'm not sure which of Math or Alphabet should be first. Normally I go for Alphabet and try to trade for Math, but seeing how you really want the Hanging Gardens, and you'll have huge research early on, you can go Math -> Alphabet, and aim for Literature next. Hopefully you'll have a 10XP unit by then to build Heroic Epic in a military city.

 

[carl corey]

Oh, and I wouldn't be whipping the capital unless you really really need it to finish a wonder if it's late to build it. (shouldn't happen) With Representation and Calendar you'll have a very high happiness cap, and lost of good tiles to work. And also specialist slots to fill. Grow grow grow your capital!

By the way, why don't you build a warrior before the first worker to grow to size two? You can use the oasis (don't forget to switch to it once your borders expand) and a floodplain to build a worker and a settler.

As for the Pyramids/War Chariots balance: the capital will have 150% bonus for Pyramids! (don't start until you have stone hooked) You can build barracks and War Chariots only in your other cities anyway.

 

[Dubzilla8]

I have never used Representation before, to be honest. I almost always go with Hereditary Rule ---> Universal Suffrage. I'm looking forward to trying it. The idea behind Representation being the +5 happiness and bonuses to research on specialists, so I should run some scientists/engineers for a while I'd imagine.

 

[carl corey]

It's +3 happiness from Representation and +3 beakers for any specialist. It's huge early on. Given the fact that you'll have two free scientists from Great Library, two more from a Library, one Engineer when you have a forge and unlimited scientist spots when you switch to Caste System I say the Representation boost will be quite significant!

 

[AThousandYoung]

Kill anyone who's Industrious and build lots of Wonders.

 

[Dubzilla8]

So I went ahead and played the game a ways. Grabbed the Pyramids and Oracle, popped Code of Laws for Confucianism. Starting to build a settler for my third city while Im researching my way to Hanging Gardens (is this wonder really that good?) and Great Library. Also building War Chariots for conquest when I get the chance.

Now, I started moving East and South, so I didnt realize this until I was all the way to mathematics, but Im almost considering quitting it based on the positions of two of the AI. It almost feels like this game is just too easy.

I mean, have you ever had to think Im going to destroy Civilization A's capitol because it is too close to Civilization B's capitol?

 

[cabert]

on the other continent MM will launch in 500 AD, can you win before that

Before quitting, do yourself a treat and conquer both neighbouring civs completely.
Who needs neighbours ?

 

[carl corey]

Hmm, Oracle. I'm not a fan of it when I have the possibility to go for Great Engineer and Great Scientist wonders. And by the way, why did you need Code of Laws? You're not going to build courthouses very soon, nor are you going to use that many specialists anyway for now, and you don't need religion to help with the happiness cap. I'd much rather have gone for Metal Casting if I built the Oracle at all. You'd have cheap forges for it. Eh, Code of Laws isn't bad anyway, but you'll need to conquer those cities to make it worthwhile (build courthouses in them).

You really need a third city fast to build war chariots. Only two cities won't do the job. You have 3 War Chariots by now, that's nowhere enough to take on anyone. But you're working on that already.

Hanging Gardens is worth it for the health bonus (you're going to need it in the capital) and for the Great Engineer bonus. Getting +1 pop in two or three cities isn't that big. Guess it just depends on the time you get it completed.

 

[carl corey]

Ok, tried playing up to the same date as you did. I tried to see if I could get both Pyramids and Great Wall for more Great Engineer points and it was easily done. Maaaan, Industrious + Stone is just overkill. This is probably one game in which any Great Engineer could be used to pop techs instead of completing wonders, you already can build the wonders faster than anybody else!

Some things I did differently: let Oracle aside and went for Alphabet before Maths, the reason being that the AI is so slow to build any wonder I'm sure to get the Hanging Gardens later anyway. With trades I got hunting (elephant camp, +1 happiness), archery (not very useful), sailing, polytheism (for literature) and iron working.

I also put a city to get Ivory, Copper and Corn, but you're not far behind on that. I whipped my second city to get the settler and a worker, so it's at size 1 right now. Yours is sitting better even if you whip it for the settler, plus you built a mine too there, I only have two good tiles to work for now and it will stay like that since the worker will go take care of the northern city.

In conclusion: even if you went the Oracle way you could have got much more from researching Alphabet next instead of Iron Working and Maths. You probably can't get BOTH those techs, since the AI is waaay slower than I expected.

 

[oyzar]

i dont like the idea of cottages in this game. you are not financial but you are spiritual and industrious. Just farm over everything(though ofc there is some cottages built by the ai) and smash everyone. I tried this save and managed to take out 4 ppl with war chariots alone so far...

Oh i am also the only one who have built any wonders so far... great library stonehenge pyramids oracle all in capital.

 

[Agent Cooper]

Nice starting position - I remember getting stone+marble in the capitals fat cross only 3 times or something - 2 of those were discovered to be be isolated starts. Nice to see that you've got company on your continent.

Might wanna give this game a try too. I would farm the capital bigtime and hire specialists (eng+sci). With all those wonders it's going to be a killer GP factory.

 

[carl corey]

The problem with farming everything is that you'll need happiness to make things work. He'll like his specialists in Representation, so no Hereditary Rule. That means cottages should be ok to get you to the happiness cap unless you want to whip the capital too, which I see no need for.

 

[PMabey]

theres something up with the RNG cos u have jungle and desert in the fat cross and that shouldnt happen....unless u moved.

 

[Egnarts]

First game I fire up on my new comp I get this one :

later in the game I learned that if I'd move my settler one step west i'd have gotten bronze on that plains/hill too

 

[oyzar]

You dont actually need happiness if you kill everything before 1K Ad...

 

[OTAKUjbski]

theres something up with the RNG cos u have jungle and desert in the fat cross and that shouldnt happen....unless u moved.

There's no jungle in the Fat Cross, but yes, the RNG jacked this game all up.

Check out Gandhi and Caesar. They are just 2 spaces from each other ... Rome has only 2 resources, and Delhi has 6 in the Fat Cross and 3 just outside of there.

My take on your game.

Anyhow ... I think you're moving too slow. By 600 BC, I have 3 Cities, have sacked Rome and left Caesar with one city (I sued for techs), and am poised and ready to capture Delhi and move on to Hannibal. I have also explored nearly twice as much terrain.

I only built Stonehenge (5 turns lol) and the Great Wall.

Even this still feels slow to me, though.