The Emperor Series #01: Sitting Bull

[shyuhe]

@gwaja

Spoiler :

Your early cities lack too many hammers and can't even go whip happy (see Mound City). In particular, building city #2 in a spot that makes it suck without a border pop for a non-creative civ isn't very effective since it can't immediately contribute to your economy. I think you're too concerned about blocking the AI here.

 

[Gwaja]

@shyuhe,

Spoiler :

You observed me very well. Yes, I am rather too paranoid with AI encroachment of my immediate lands, especially the Creative kinds that get free border pops without an effort. Granted that I just finished a game with such leader, it really bothers me to no end, and I think it really affects my decision making in putting down cities.

As I have done with my Cathy game for 1080 AD save, I am considering a replay and see if I can create a stronger opening.

 

[Noogai]

Spoiler :

I didn't mind to block Pericles' expansion, instead I wanted to have steady economy. I also built stonehenge (I had enough units/cities to support with tech rate high enough) which gave me nice 'automatic' border expansion for every new city.
Our island doesn't have any religion, and I am quite sure that only the one from divine right is left (not sure if theology is taken). I still have some city sites left (I think im somewhere around 1000AD now), but I'm going to take them soon.
Should I try to rush astronomy and start trading with other island(s) or should I maybe go for concuistagors and vassal Pacal and/or Pericles? Pericles has elephants, so Pacal would be easier target (I haven't checked if he has them too).

EDIT: It's around 500AD, not 1000AD.

 

[JammerUno]

about blocking:

Spoiler :

Considering the land you can block off with a city grabbing wheat/fish/horse or whatever to the north and the decent dye/phant city 4E of the capital, I don't think there's a point to settling either the arid area to the south or the jungle NE. Both have high costs early in the game, while there's an easy 7-8 cities to be had if you move N straight away. You could even consider skipping the city 4E of the cap. However, that city can take an already improved tile and will add early happiness and TR.

 

[Gwaja]

@JammerUno,

Spoiler :

I think one of the weakness in my game is in the very beginning prioritizing the location of city settlements. I think it is a delicate act of balancing between grabbing/securing as much land as possible and building cities that will give immediate benefits. A lot of times, like in this case, we can't have both and it becomes a really tough decision for me. The land to the south isn't all that great with so many flat plains tiles, but there are some resources to be had, especially stone which is looking really tempting.

And speaking of that one particular resource:

Spoiler :

That stone is looking really tempting to grab. The pig near the stone is probably not going to be grabbed by me because Pericles will be settling nearby before I can even get there, but grabbing the stone is doable, at the sacrifice of putting up a 2nd city that will have some delays until it can get decent. Considering we are Philosophical, grabbing that stone for production boost on wonders like Pyramids will be extremely helpful.

Am I being too greedy here? Should I just treat it like as if it doesn't exist?

 

[vranasm]

Spoiler :

Poverty Point is OK. You can chop the totem and improve that PH to the north and work 4H tile while waiting for border pop (building WB).

the other 2 spots I don't see as good one.
Especially the east city from capital is total waste. Too far away from dyes and too far away from capital to really help with cottages. If you check my save you will see that I settled it 1NW, can work 2 riverside cottages for capital, later I cottaged those dyes etc. And of course you use that corn from capital which is wasted eventually since capital grows quick enough on current corn and all those green tiles.

You have plenty of land to the north, north west and west, so the sheep+ivory city was a little bit greedy.

 

[Capellan]

I usually play Monarch and win about half my games. So I am expecting to need help, but that's the point of my playing this

1 AD

Spoiler :

I settled 1E for riverside ... basically due to the lure of levees in the future.

Worker first, while teching Mining and Mysticism. I then went BW, AH, Wheel. Built warriors and Stonehenge while growing to size 5, then began to pump out Dogs and Settlers.

At 1 AD I have 7 cities (6 I founded plus a newly captured bard city). Two settled GPs in the capital allow me to run the slider at about 30%. My tech doesn't seem horribly backward, and my power is OK vs my neighbors, who are pleased with me right now due to sharing Judaism. I just got Alphabet from Pacal by begging.

I'll be pausing here and waiting for feedback.

Please take a look at my save and tell me what mistakes I've made ... I figure there will be lots of things I could have done better with city placement, tech choice, worker actions and the like. Also let me know what you'd recommend I do between 1 and 1000 AD.

 

[west45]

1928 diplo, try #2.

Spoiler :

First 2 GS settled+academy in cap, wasn't optimal long term.. should have put them in the river city beside it.

Bulbed philo and founded islam before pacal could get any religion. All 3 of us ran it until pericles converted to taoism (divine right I think).

Spoiler :

Getting ready for cuirassiers. It's worth nothing that pacal bombed my horses away with his music artist, he had the nerve to settle right beside them . I had to swap to FR and trade my gold and some extras for pericle's 2nd horse resource.

Spoiler :

The results of the first GA

Spoiler :

Curious cuirassiers ready to do some work

Spoiler :

Pacal bribed kublia khan on me, who lacked astronomy .

Spoiler :

The temple of artemis city is finally found, ready for 3 trade missions.

Spoiler :

More hill cities, more problems...

Spoiler :

Pacal doin what he does best.

Spoiler :

This is what happens when you settle on a gold plains hill.

Spoiler :

Ready for pericles. What I didn't know, was that 95% of his army was frigates that swarmed my seafood on the turn after I declared. No joke, my heroic epic city's clam had 5 frigates sitting on it.

Spoiler :

It is always great to capture wonders you don't have the tech for.

Spoiler :

Holy city #2

Spoiler :

They always, always want to give you some garbage island city in the middle of nowhere. I let him keep it.

Spoiler :

After popping 2 artist in a row, I finally start my 2nd GA in time for factories.

Spoiler :

Getting ready for kublai khan. I might have built too many here, he had about 3 garrisons per city and a 10 unit stack in the capitol.

Spoiler :

More wonders! One of his cities held the judaism shrine too. I took his little continent and left him with 1 garbage island city

Spoiler :

The only reason I kept this guy around.

Spoiler :

Cathy going for culture without sistine? that's funny.

Spoiler :

Before

Spoiler :

After

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Settle order, if I remember right (played this a couple days ago) sheep/ivory blocker city, dye city next to cap to work cottages, clam horse city to the north (missed the marble/corn by one turn!), gold city, iron hill city.

 

[QuixotesGhost]

I play this later today - though I hate, absolutely hate Sitting Bull. He's the only leader that I immediately reroll if I get him on random.

 

[i_imperator]

Might give this a try during the weekend if i have time.

 

[huerfanista]

1911AD diplomation, 2nd attempt:

Spoiler :

I was unhappy with my first attempt at this. Even though I took over the continent, my elepult war was so late that I found myself hopelessly behind the rest of the world.

This time, I settled 1E (this had minimal impact, really). Tech path was mining> BW> wheel> pottery> myst> AH> writing> masonry. I settled on the stone first, and the marble with my 2nd city. This pretty well crashed my research. I also
had to settle the sheep/phants sooner than I wanted to keep Peri out. So I built cottages wherever I could - luckily there's no shortage of riverside grassland - and struggled to writing. Libraries went up everywhere and scientist were run. I chopped out the mids in Cahokia, which really gave a boost. No religion was founded on our continent, so I reserached CoL> Med after bulbing alpha and trading around. With all of the scientists I was running I was able to found an academy in Cahokia, bulb alpha, and bulb Philosophy, founding Taoism in the stone city. I build AW in Cahokia and ran priests to get a prophet for the shrine (which enabled me to take back the pisgs from Pericles). I headed to lit, but was beaten to the GLib by 2 turns - I chopped all my trees for the mids (it was late) so I had none left. After that it was a straight shot to lib, with some trading with my friendly neighbors.

Here's a shot of my cities at 1230AD (I'll take the barb city at the top next turn). My most advanced units are swordsmen (I think I have 2) and catapults (I have 1).

I took nationalism from lib, then went music> MilTrad> GP. I built cuirassiers everywhere while heading for rifling. Just as I was getting ready to attack Pacal he asked to peace vassal. Since he had lots of good techs and strong research, I agreed and attacked Pericles instead. After taking all of his mainland cities I capped him, leaving him with several cities on the SW islands. I met the rest of the world soon - I was ahead militarily at first, but Joao, Cath, and Gandhi were all teching very well. KK was isolated, which left him way behind and made him my logical next target:

He capped after I took 3 cities. Meanwhile, I headed for AL/ combustion/ flight/ industrialism while my vassals researched things like MilSci, Physics, Bio, Electricity, and Radio. When I had a large oil navy and a mixed invasion force of fighters, bombers, marines, paras, and tanks, I declared on Joao. He was the logical first target, being the most advanced and with only 2 sources of oil - one of them on my continent, which I took on the first turn of the war. Catherine had no oil, and Gandhi was doing a terrible job going for culture, with only rifles defending. I decided to take Lisbon capital first, since it was loaded with wonders and was the engine of his empire. Marines did the trick after naval and air bombardment:

Joao capped after I took 3 cities (I razen the one on top of his only oil), but I gave him his 2 remaining cities back - they were swamped in culture. Russia was next - she was going for culture but had only a small army (no stack), so I took all of her cities by one that was embedded in Joao's culture. I took 2 cities on the first turn of the war, and rolled through her easily:

The turn that I declared on Gandhi a diplo vote came up, so I picked Diplo Victory and won on the next turn:

Gandhi was willing to cap anyway after I took 2 of his cities last turn:

Score:

Charts:

K/D ratio and builds:

Cahokia the capital:

This plains city wasn't much early, but it becomes a nice IW city under State Property:

Heroic epic city:

Taoist holy city, home of Wall Street:

Top cities of the world:

A teaser for Gwaja:

Spoiler :

I got the stone and the marble. Probably not optimal play, but it worked out OK.

 

[Gwaja]

I play this later today - though I hate, absolutely hate Sitting Bull. He's the only leader that I immediately reroll if I get him on random.

I feel the same way about Sitting Bull. I think I gave him a try just once. It may be his annoying existence in my games as AI... he just doesn't seem appealing... hence he was made the first honorary leader, hopefully to be never played again! ^_^

@huerfanista,

Spoiler :

Oooooh.... the temptation grows ever so higher because of you! My greed meter just went up through the roof! ^_^

 

[Capellan]

For some reason I can't my 1100AD save. Anyone else having problems? (I have plenty of space left, and the file is within the max size limit)

 

[QuixotesGhost]

Played to 400AD.

@ABCD

Spoiler :

I went Writing before BW and Pottery and felt it was ultimately a mistake, I had a lot of food and would've preferred BW for slavery before the library.

Spoiler :

I settled 1E, because it looked like there might be some green riverside in that direction. Mostly brown it turned out, but it did put me in reach of a jumbo with my second capitol border-pop. Built my first two cities on the fish sites to the W and ran scientists at the south one and the capitol. Techpath was AH > Mining > Writing > Wheel > BW > Hunting > Pottery > Math > HBR > Masonry > Construction > Alphabet (AI still didn't have it!)

Had 3 GSes by 1AD. Decided to attack Alex with Elephants and Cats. Had a respectable force of them by ~400BC, but was slowed down because I wasn't watching my gold and had a strike which I ended up deleting some dog soldiers to rectify. Also messed up some forests that I was prechopping, and got Dog soldiers from them instead of 'Phants. Took 3 of Alex's cities, including Athens and sued for peace. Tech looks like it's stagnating now - I'm pretty much only teching through my four GSes and assorted specialists. Working on Civil Service now, but it's going slow. Might hit Pascal with the Phants but I think he might have Longbows - should be still be able to take a city or two and get a good Peace settlement.


GAH! I did NOT scout enough, saw everyone mumbling about a gold site.

 

[vranasm]

Had time to finish this game today.

1959 Space ship victory and very boring gameplay

some description about further play from the 800AD point

Spoiler :

As planned I started to prepare the Cuirs rush with plans to settle more the island.
As it turned out settling that island wasn't very good (got there 4 cities, pericles 2) and the preparation of rush was very slow.
I totally missed the mark and was finally able to attack around 1300AD! which is really really late. But Pericles and Maya weren't far enough with military invent and I fighted whole time pikes, LB's.
Started with pericles which was a bit drag since he parked something like 17 troops in Sparta, so I took first the cities around and with 26 cuirs made the final break through.
I wiped him clean.

After this I got 6 cities on the island and it was clear I can't continue that way and made new colony - Washington, which proved to be absolutely useless.
Maya war was very quick since he had only 6 cities and strength reduction was very quick.

After that I had 22 cities on mainland and decided that it's time for some space race. Which I slowly burned through.

30T before end I saw that Catherine is going for culture and in a very good way. At the time of Launching the times were 10T to arrive for me and her 14T to 3rd legendary city!
3 turns later she popped GA and came to 4T for cultural victory!
Well at the 30T mark I knew I have to have some solution at hand and since Novgorod (3rd legendary) was at coast the solution was pretty simple. I parked in the reach of 1T army of 10 destroyers and around 20 tanks.

So the last 7 turns of game I was in a war with Cathy and Mongolia (which was previously friendly, but had to be some defensive pact in play). I razed all coastal cities of Cathy and she took peace.
At the time of end I was in war with Mongolia.

and since I can't upload the save and have no screens you will have only text description from me.
Thanks OP for game.

 

[RJM]

I spent a lot of time trying different opening strategies. Unlike a previous contributor, my conclusion was that on this map, with this leader, researching AH followed by writing works better than mining followed by BW. After BW, I researched the wheel and pottery. Then I bee-lined literature to build the GL, in-filling techs with my neighbours when they discovered alphabet. Then music (for a GA) and on to CoL, CS, education and liberalism - picking up some on-path techs by bulbing and trading for off-path techs. Pericles built the AP (which I controlled for most of the game). This left the three of us as a cosy love-in staying ahead of the rest of the world. I avoided Scientific Method until fascism was the only alternative. After that I teched my way to the various space-ship components. The game looked fairly comfortable from the middle game, and I got sloppy - I tech traded with Pericles and Jao longer than I should have. Also I wasted a GP by part bulbing a tech that I later got by trading. After researching the final space-ship tech it was a fairly uneventful conclusion - a small war with Ghandi (!) and tactical nukes being fired off by Jao and Pericles. I attach the save at discovery of my final space-ship tech.

Edit - apparently attachments are still not working, RJM

 

[Mylene]

Sitting Bull is underrated
He is among the best for a X-Bows rush, he is fun to play.
Taking a Civ break atm or i might do one for fun, sorry Gwaia

 

[GKey]

Sitting Bull is underrated
He is among the best for a X-Bows rush, he is fun to play.

Exactly.

...Despite all hatred regarding SB he is just perfect leader for Oracle-MC-GE-Machinery gambit. Drill III x-bows out of the gate anyone?

Taking a Civ break atm or i might do one for fun, sorry Gwaia

Break?! Not before you try this!

They make fine shoes in Holland .

 

[Gwaja]

Crossbow rush with super promoted units from Barracks and Totem Pole sounds like fun... though I am not a big fan of crossbows, with the exception of Chinese unique unit.

I gotta ask though... is it worth building up some super promoted archers/longbows in anticipation of upgrading all of them to super promoted rifles? Just from Barracks and Totem Poles, you will be getting upgraded rifles with Drill 3 with only 3 more exp to go for Drill 4 if you wanted to. Running Theocracy briefly will get them within 1 exp! How about that? ^_^

 

[GKey]

If AI got no War Elephants, drill 3 X-bows are absolutely superior for a long time.

According to formula in your signature upgrading Xbow into rifle will cost 170 gold per unit. Kind of expensive IMO.