Spoiler for Single-player PBEM - China

[AutomatedTeller]

Whomp asked for spoilers, so what the heck.

If you are General_w, Memphu, Ronnie1 or Viva_Chignon - be off with you!!! out out, varlet!!!





I don't have the save yet, but I'll talk about my pre-game analysis and what I expect from the game.

I expect to lose.

I hope I don't, of course, but I've never played a full BtS game before and I've never done all that well with a non-financial Civ. That said, I expect to have a really good time and learn something.

Why I chose China:

1) I wanted to try running a specialist economy and to do that effectively, I figured I needed to be industrious. I dunno how well it will work, mind you, but we'll see. Having 2 other industrious leaders hurts my shot at getting pyramids.

2) I also figured that being protective will help me survive early rushes - the quecha is awesome (helps that inca aren't aggressive, but still - assume combat 1 and a quecha rush is useful)... but a protective archer built with a barracks can have city garrison 1, 2 and drill 1, so if fully fortified, would be 3 * (1+.25 + .45) or 5.1 - with walls, 6.6, which will make me safe from quechas and will even give praetorians pause.

3) I'll need allies, though - I'm hoping (I have no idea if this will work) that I can lend out archers to help defend an ally - it would be nice to ally with inca or rome and send the dangerous guys away.

I figure that inca is dangerous early, rome is dangerous very soon after that as is Khmer - and America doesn't get it's UU or UB until pretty late.

The start is key. If I get a start with corn, gold and nearby stone, I'll kick ass. If I get a cow, fish and 2 calendar happys...well, it might be a tough game. Having agriculture and mining can be a big help, or not terribly useful.

Getting to my UU will be nice - Cho-ko-nu with drill 2 out the gate means I don't need cats.

I have no idea how good my opponents are - memphus at least sounds like he knows what he's doing and the General is resourceful. I know nothing of the other two... though I expect to find out!!

Protective also means cheap walls and castles, which means I should pay attention to espionage. This is one reason i want to go a specialist economy - to give myself more money for things like espionage. I have no idea what to do with it, mind you...


My opponents:

1) Roosevelt - Industrious and Organized, late UU, late UB. Starts with fishing and agriculture.
2) Suryavarman II - Creative, Expansive. cultural expansions, cheap workers. Baray is an aqueduct replacement which gives culture and adds food - the UU is an elephant replacement which is good vs. mounted units.
3) Huanya capac - FInancial and Industrious. Another threat for wonders, super warriors, only financial civ. Terrace is a culture producing granary.
4) Caesar - imperialistic and organized. Cheap settlers, great generals. Praetorian is awesome, forum not so useful.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I settled in place - I figured that 2 food bonuses and 2 wines were probably all I had. Maybe I should have gone north 1 tile and settled, got the banana, cause it would have ALSO included a rice.


But I'm ok with this - I have 5 food resources right near by, plus a happiness resource I can get with Hereditary Rule. I kind of wish I was financial with this start, but I'll survive.

Set the cap to make a worker and went to research animal husbandry.

Initial research plan is:

Animal Husbandry
Bronze Working (lots of shields for settlers/workers)
Masonry
Hunting
Archery
Writing

Squeeze the Wheel in their somewhere.

I'll put a pasture on the pigs and cows and probably irrigate at least 1 of of the wines, maybe.

Build order: worker, warrior, then either warrior or worker or settler, depending on what I see.

Away we go!!

 

[azzaman333]

Don't bother with Masonry, you don't have Stone or Marble.

If you have Bronze close to your capital, don't bother with hunting/archery.

I'd probably try and get the Oracle, and pick up Monarchy from that start.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

well, this game is going great so far.

Pop a hut, get a scout. Scout goes north, finds gems AND ivory.

No, I don't have stone or marble... but if I want to get Pyramids, I pretty much have to get started, no? I'm industrious, so it's kind of dumb to not TRY to get some wonders. I suspect that Inca will get Stonehenge unless he's just going for a Quecha rush.

Hunting and archery are important for me, cause they are cheap, cause (now) I can get elephants and cause if I'm next to rome or inca, they are a good way to discourage adventures.

Can I get Oracle, though? Inca is financial, so will outresearch me, and starts with mysticism. I assume they aren't researching towards it, since I'm out in front in GNP and that's because I'm researching animal husbandry and I have one of the pre-reqs

 

[azzaman333]

The mids, whilst powerful, are very expensive without stone. The Oracle, however, is along the path to two key techs, CoL and Monarchy. You want Monarchy ASAP because of the wine, and it allows you to grow your cities much larger through HR. And if you intend to go for a SE, CoL allows Caste, which is probably the most important civic for the SE. So, even if you can't get the Oracle, you've still opened up 2 of the 3 important techs to allow your economy to recover from expansion.

RE: Hunting/Archery. If you have Copper for axes, you don't need Archers. Plus, Archers make you more vulnerable to Quechas. I wouldn't worry about Hunting until you settle the near a camp resources, such as Ivory, or someone is building quite a few chariots.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

true about quechas - but then, I have so many food/happy resources, I worry I'm going to be light on copper or iron. Hopefully i'll have iron, cause my cho-ko-nu are freaking awesome - catapults? Who needs stinking catapults!!

 

[dutchfire]

Maybe keep your warrior near home, now you've got a scout. There's tremendous potential for a riverside ivory, banana gems city there.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

yup - that's the plan. I'm going to scout west, then south. Hard to imagine there is a better site for city #2 than just north of the bananas.

Oh - I didn't post a pic last night, after i moved the warrior east. I'll post this one, though.

That site got just a bit BETTER.

I think I'm probably best off ignoring pyramids, as suggested. It's hard for me to imagine I'm going to have much in the way of strategic resources - I'm hoping for Iron, at least - at least something I can use.

How good are archers with combat 1/drill 1 at conquest?

 

[Theoden]

With a cultural expansion 1N of the bananas will be incredibly good!

How good are archers with combat 1/drill 1 at conquest?

Not very good, unless your opponent has only warriors. I wouldn't recommend it if you have any sort of metal or horses, in which case you have much better options.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

yeah - I think that after BW comes mysticism, for the expansion.

My worry is that I won't have anything, though we'll find out fast enough

 

[AutomatedTeller]

The plot thickens (and gets tastier and tastier)

Right after I sent the save, the borders expanded (I don't understand how this works - I think they were supposed to pop before my next turn)

Anyway...

down south, I saw corn, another gold and 2 more huts.
Also, when I climbed that little hill, I found fish.

This gives me:

7 food bonuses
5 happiness bonuses (well, the silk is a way)

all within easy reach

plus two more happiness bonuses up the river in the jungle.

It's pretty fast, but this is a fast plan at a dot map.

1 is my first choice for city #2 - Science.
Way early map for the others:

II would be city #3, which would give me two more food resources and be a GP factory.
III would be a production city.
IV might be a production or another specialist city.
V would get me the sugar and be a fortress at the top of my empire.

Probably would be better off settling III first, and obviously, things may change...

I'm almost scared at how well this game is going. God I hope I have at least 1 military resource...

 

[dutchfire]

The most important thing right now is finding your opponents, to see in which way you should expand to block them. You want to keep all of that juicy land for yourself

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I kind of figure there will be a couple of opponents north of the jungle, one north west, along the coast, and 1 south east - that's the one I have to worry about, I think - people don't tend to try to expand across jungle right off, cause jungle is useless - and the one to the west is running into jungle/mountains/desert along there. So I'm guessing I'll have more competition from the south-east. Hopefully, that's not Rome with their 50% bump in settler production...

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I think I'm convinced that the Pyramids are a bad plan, unless I run into stone down south.

What about The Great Wall, though? Only 150 hammers - keeps me safe from barbs entering (for me, that's 100 hammers), which is the same as 3 chariots, plus it gives great spy points, plus helps with great general points if I get invaded.

On the other hand, barbs aren't really that much of an issue..

 

[dutchfire]

Could be a good idea. You will probably want to play defensively with your protective trait and your awesome Cho-Ko-Nu defenders, and the Great Wall could help there.

I like to use the first great spy as a watchdog for one of my enemies. He can't be killed by barbs or enemies, and he can't be caught like normal spies. Of course, this way you won't get the free espionage points, but you will get hard intel on troops counts.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

In one of my test games, I got the random event where china's archery units got combat 1 automatically.

Cho-ku-nu with combat 1 and shock or cover make pretty good assault troops....

 

[dutchfire]

Very true, but they make even better defense troops

In general, I've found it pretty hard to attack in a multiplayer game, unless you're really well prepared. I usually focus on my defense and diplomacy, and try to win the game economically. If you don't konw exactly what you're doing, there's a chance your attack stack is knocked out in a single turn.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

His email:

Hail AutomatedTeller of China!

Well met – all of Rome salutes you.
We have sighted your scout "Lewis & Clark" in the jungles and are
thrilled to meet your people.

With Memphus lurking out there with his skirmishers, I'm very nervous
that I won't live long enough to see my first Praetorian be produced.
I really need an ally badly.
I also confess I'm relieved to have met you before Memphus. Hopefully
that means he's not my closest neighbor.

Since we both have later coming UUs – I think we have a good
opportunity to help each other ensure we both live long enough to get
to play with them.

Any chance you're interested in cooperating and maybe even developing
a more alliance-type relationship as we see the game progress?

Looking forward to hearing back from you!

General_W, Rome.

My reply

Hail and well met, General_W of Rome!! Veni, vici, diplomati, eh?

I am happy to talk alliance.

At worst, an agreement to not attack each other, and I'd be interested in a territory agreement, tech sharing, even mutual support (my archers are really good defenders, especially in cities on hills).

May I ask which direction you are in? I am south and trying to figure out which direction is best to next scout in. I figure I won't go where you are, and you and I can go different directions.

Oh - one thing: I dunno if your skirmisher remark refered to Mansa's skirmisher's, but Memphus is Inca, thus has quecha. Which is frightening in itself...

I edited these a little, mainly keeping the pieces directly related to the game.

I am really happy that the general is my first contact and that he's beyond the jungle. Hopefully, he's north and on or able to access that river - we can share resources that way.

How funny that two guys who start without scouts meet each other fast? of course, for all I know, the other three have met each other already.

I'd like to do a tech alliance with him - we should be able to do a slingshot somehow, as he'll expand fast.

Of course, he might prioritize IW heavily.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Nothing new - memphus' score went up, so he either finished a tech (fishing, probably) or he grew to size 2. I'm guessing fishing.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

General is heading south to scout out my lands - Lewis and Clark (my scout) heads north, my warrior heads south. I may not get one of those huts if his scout keeps going south - wonder if I can keep him from doing that....