The Immortal Challenge 4: Flight of the Phoenix

Round 3: 925BC - 70BC

I decided to research Pottery next for granaries and cottages, and our capital proceeded to start on the settler that would claim the iron:



For now, our capital was the main workhorse, the production centre between our two cities where settlers were built, while Edirne supplemented production by slowly but steadily building units. However, it didn't forget to build improvements as well. And it ran a scientist to help research from time to time, since the prospect of growth was that quick anyway due to a lack of high food resources. Eventually, we got a few cottages up there that it could work for some commerce.

Meanwhile, our exploring warrior found something rather interesting to the south:



The barbs were sitting on a pile of rubble, which I can only surmise was a new Mongolian city that they overwhelmed and razed. Teehee :D The enemy of my enemy is my friend... well, not quite in this case.

After we've discovered Pottery, I decided to go for Alphabet next. Someone mentioned the need to trade techs with or bribe our neighbours, and I agree that the ability would be very useful. The research would take time, however, but I was quite sure that neither of the other two continental denizens would be interested in researching it themselves for a long time. We should be able to trade it for other techs, even if bribing is not possible yet.

Shortly after, our capital was ready to crack the whip for the settler:



And it settled 1S of site A:



I didn't want to delay getting the iron, knowing our neighbours. Anyway, once the iron is mined it can help get a library up for border expansion so that we can work the food resources.

Sure enough, the iron was quickly hooked and, before long, we built our first axeman:



Now that we can breathe safely, our capital built the next settler for the southern commerce city:



It was settled as per the dotmap:



It wouldn't take long to pay off, since mining the gems could be done immediately, but it would take time to grow to its full potential due to a lack of food resources. At least there are some hills to help with production. Once this city is fully cottages and improved, it will be very commercially viable.

To speed up the mining, we had two workers there to do the job:



Working the gems would boost our research. Alphabet would be done in no time, and then we could finally shop around for techs.

But there's one more thing in that screenshot. Notice that both Genghis and Shaka are Jewish? Yup, I forgot to mention last round that Genghis, of all people, founded Judaism. And now it had spread to Shaka and they could become buddies. Not good at all :( To declare on one of them, we would first have to build a very strong military as deterrent against the other. This will be difficult...

Very soon, Judaism spread to us too:



Of course, I decided to convert right away. We don't want to be picked on in this neighbourhood, do we?

And this was also the turn that we finished researching Alphabet. I had to decide on which tech to research next. At first, I was thinking of Metal Casting, so that we could use our first GE to lightbulb Machinery. But what's the use of warmongering if we can't dig ourselves out of the financial hole we would surely be in? First, we needed to research towards CoL. And along the way we could perhaps grab Literature and use our first GE to build the Great Library. That would really help our research, keeping in mind that we aim to win the Liberalism race to get Nationalism so that we can mass draft Janissaries. A few GS's for lightbulbing would be very useful.

So, after thinking for a while, I decided to research Mysticism next.

I also checked the tech screen to see what we could get from our neighbours. Genghis had the usual stuff and was willing to trade. Shaka, however, was upset about our close borders and didn't want to. I decided to wait until after the religion-switch anarchy to get the religious diplomatic bonus with Shaka and try again. It would be better to trade with both on the same turn to minimise the chances of Genghis turning around and trading Alphabet to Shaka.

On the next turn, I tried again. Unfortunately, Shaka was still not amenable to it. Oh, well. I wanted Mathematics and didn't want to risk waiting, so I went to Genghis:



Sometimes the AI isn't willing to make this trade. Seeing that Genghis was willing, I made it without hesitation. We could certainly use better chopping, Hammams, as well as the ability to research Construction. Then, seeing that we were both happy with the trade and Genghis was pleased with his brothers-in-faith, I asked him for Mysticism. And he agreed:



Wow, that was quite nice of the little blood-thirsty warmonger. We saved 4 turns and could now decide on what to research next.

[to be continued in the next post]
 
[continued from previous post]

Both Polytheism and Meditation lead to Priesthood, which leads to CoL. Polytheism enables wonders that had already been built or was going to be built somewhere soon, while Meditation enables monasteries. Moreover, the first was more beaker-expensive than the latter. However, Polytheism is also a requirement for Literature. This last point was enough to make my decision, and Polytheism was next.

Once it was discovered, we began researching Literature. By this time, our capital's population had grown quite a bit, and I ran a scientist there to help with research and speed up the birth of our first GP:



With the help of the scientist, our GP would be born in 10 turns, almost at the same time as the discovery of Literature. Hoping for a GE, I didn't dare run more than one scientist. The timing was fine anyway. In the meantime, Edirne had pretty much stopped running a scientist and was focusing on building units and getting improvements up. Both cities were building Hammams to stretch our population limit a bit more. The development of our newer cities were also on track. So far so good.

Then, there was some bad news. Our flood plain cottages at Edirne flipped to Shaka:



Ouch! This early in the game the pain could be felt. With a library Edirne had the cultural upper hand for a long time, but now Shaka's city has a religion and probably a library as well. A monument, although I am not fond of these things, is probably in order in Edirne soon.

Fortunately, bad news was followed by a good one. Our first GE was born:



And this is where the round ended. We have to decide on how and/or where to use the GE. We can still reserve him for lightbulbing Machinery and try to slow build the Great Library, in which case our capital is most likely going to be tied down with it. Or we could use him to build the Great Library now. But that comes with the question of where. We can do that in the capital to add to our GPP pool, but I don't really like the idea. I want more control over which GP we're going to get in the future. Our capital is in the process of building the Hanging Gardens right now for more GE points, so it can potentially be the GE pool. Another city can be the GS pool. We probably need only a few GSs to lightbulb Philosophy and Education on the way to Liberalism, at most 3 if we want to spend 2 on Education, while GEs would probably be more useful to us in the long run.

If we're going to build the GL in another city, in which one? My first reaction is Edirne, since, besides the capital, it's most likely to be improved quickly. That way, modifiers can quickly apply to the beakers from the free scientists, but you might have a different opinion.

As for research, we're starting on Priesthood, on the way to CoL. Here's the tech situation:



Shaka is still unwilling to trade, that philistine. Genghis, though, is again amenable to a decent trade:



It's not bad, considering we can get the GL almost immediately and we haven't actually spent any turns researching Priesthood. Of course, that depends on whether we're rushing the GL or how conservative we're going to be about WFYABTA. About the latter, I'm not inclined to worry, since the two of them might not be good tech trading partners for very long anyway.

And after Priesthood, what next? I'm thinking of researching Construction and then CoL while we're building a large pile of catapults to attack Shaka with. It has to be Shaka now, since he's the more reticent of the two and the nearer and more threatening one. The power graph proves the latter:



We're not trailing far behind Genghis, thanks to our constant output of units, but Shaka looks a bit worrying. Maybe we should take him down a few notches soon? We have to curry Genghis' favour, though, so that he doesn't get too annoyed with us attacking his lover. Maybe we could even bribe him to attack Shaka and then join in when he asks, but I'm not too positive about the prospects.

Here's the northern part of our continent at a glance:



Mostly Shaka's land. If it's going to be war, we can look at capturing the city near Edirne (that name is impossible to spell), followed by Ulundi and then Bulawayo. That should cripple Shaka enough and put us in a position of strength.

Here's the map of the south:



There's a pretty tempting barb city there. Maybe that should be the first target for our shiny iron weapons? I made a dotmap of potential city sites, including the barb city:



We can raze the barb city and build a somewhat awesome city (A) with horses, pigs and two gem tiles. Or we can keep it for corn, sugar, horses and pigs (B) and build a coastal city for the gems and two dye resources (C). City C would not be very productive, though, but it would be another commercial centre.

Again, there are plenty of things to talk about.
 

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You really like founding cities with no food resource, don't you? I don't have the heart! :lol:

Want that cottage back? Smack the Great Library in Edirne, and there you go!
 
Shaka usually attacks me around this time, with a large, powerful stack. Declaring war on him might not be necessary: chances are he will attack you. Thankfully he doesn't have catapults usually around this time, and axeman should hold off against swordsman and impis.
 
I agree that an attack is likely soon, likely coming from the direction of our Zulu 'friend'. That would argue quite strongly in favour of rushing the Great Library simply to continue producing units. I would argue for Edirne as the Great Library site, it is less than optimal but should have enough food by the time civil service rolls around to run a few more scientist specialists and be a decent science city.

As for the Barbs, I'd take the city and found the other on the coast, that should push up the commerce and later research over the medium term to keep a military tech advantage over our blood thirsty neighbors. Just the 2cents of a monarch player.
 
I agree with the last poster. GW for GL in Edrine, swords, axes and cats to take the barb city, have settler ready to settle city on coast with dye, and meanwhile prepare for war [or defensive war] with Shaka.

The GL is the fastest way to generate culture up north.
 
I agree...the Barb city is in a great spot, and founding the other city on the coast uses that land area very well.

It's easier to defend than to attack. If you're expecting a war declaration from Shaka anyway, then let him bring it on, while you prepare for that moment by building units yourself.
 
Tough choices to make. E of the unsettled has plenty of food res and W has gems+dye but no food, not farmable grass even. Lovely map scripts.:mad:
Production looks fine though

Both city plans are nice, however i would suggest grabing the barb city + one SE of the horses to include a fp for growth. Or perhaps even 1E2S of the horses leaving the dye + north gem for a third city fed by the wheat.

City C will be great after CS but till then grow very slowly. I'd rather see domination over our continent secured rather than long term potential at sizes 15+.

However in any case we need to hurry, GK will likely have similar plans.
And razing + settling runs a bigger risk of losing much of the land southwards to GK.:D
 
I agree with the GL in Edirne. Grab the barb city and build a city on the coast (B+C) option except instead of your spot for c maybe settle down near those 2 flood plains to grab some extra land. Back fill the C site a little later to get the money and happy bonuses. The C site is nice and will pay for itself quickly, but will grow very slowly and not really be much help in the near future.
 
I'd also rush the GL and use the hammers for extra units.

Bulbing machinery is an interesting option because it'll get you crossbowmen, who will do an excellent job holding off any of Shaka's rush. It's just that I'd prefer to have 6 axes than the GL. (I think it's 6....should double-check. Also, do you have marble? I forget these things. If you have it slow-build the GL in one city and build crossbows in the others)

I've recently fallen a little bit in love with crossbows. They're much more awesome than you'd think. Toss a couple of swords in the stack to kill catapults and you're golden. I'd give the swords combat promos and crossbows drill prmos, to hopefully give the swords a higher odds to get selected to fight catapults, leaving your drill x-bows to destroy enemy melee units.
 
I'd also rush the GL and use the hammers for extra units.

Bulbing machinery is an interesting option because it'll get you crossbowmen, who will do an excellent job holding off any of Shaka's rush. It's just that I'd prefer to have 6 axes than the GL. (I think it's 6....should double-check. Also, do you have marble? I forget these things. If you have it slow-build the GL in one city and build crossbows in the others)

I've recently fallen a little bit in love with crossbows. They're much more awesome than you'd think. Toss a couple of swords in the stack to kill catapults and you're golden. I'd give the swords combat promos and crossbows drill prmos, to hopefully give the swords a higher odds to get selected to fight catapults, leaving your drill x-bows to destroy enemy melee units.

Even better than swords on top of the stack - we already have horses hooked up, a few HA's will take care of any catapults.
 
Take the barb city for sure. It would work fairly well as a GP farm in the future. Then your final city to found would be in site C to get the Dye and Gems. You have Horses already, correct? If so, then it's not a pressing need to claim them. Taking sites A and C would yield more resources for you.

And yes, I'd go with Great Library in Edrine.

Building up your units is also a good idea. If you build up enough in time, you should have enough to defend against Shaka when he decides to come after you, and he probably will. In fact, it's probably better if he declares war first, as that will mean no negative modifier with Genghis for you, but it _will_ mean a negative modifier with Genghis as it concerns Shaka.
 
I can see the UB is really powerful in this stage of the game, along with the represetation government, u will have about equal size cities compared to the rest two, good job.

rush GL in Edirne to help the culture war.

how many workers and axeman do u have right now?

i think 6 workers for now and if u add two cities , u need 10 workers.for those jungles...ah...

as for the war with shaka, i prefer defensive war until u finish the libralism race and have ur UU in hand. DO leave 5+ units in Edirne when u pull your troops to take that barb city.

i like the barb city, it's in the perfect spot. i will choose B and C

for tech, construction next followed by COL--> CS--> paper--> education(2GS)--> gunpowder--> libralism(1GS and delay machinery), choose nationalism as free tech. save your next GE for a lightbulb, either machinery or engineering depends on the tech situation. so that u will have better seige weapons to help your UU taking shaka's cities.

better make Genghis to friendly status to remove WFYABTA, that should be easy when u trade techs in favour of him and gain +4 for the " our trade has been blah blah....." u know what i mean. and accept ALL his requests.
 
As one of the people pushing for a Machinery lightbulb earlier, I did not anticipate the Great Library being available to build when the Engineer arrived. I think Great Library in Edirne is the best option available. It should win back the flood plain, and 8 GS points and 12 beakers (plus bonuses) is too good to pass up. Plus, this speeds the more traditional Gunpowder beeline through Education. One other bonus to building the Library now is the trade with Genghis, which obviously wouldn't be made if you delayed the Library.

Then again, if you finish the Hanging Gardens you could build a forge in Istanbul to run an engineer, speed up a 2nd Engineer, and then rush the Great Library if you think it would wait ~35-40 turns. You could also bulb Machinery second and build the Great Library first, but it would be tough for Istanbul to keep up with Edirne so an Engineer would beat a Scientist (Pyramids + HG + Engineer = 7 points, Great Library = 8 by itself.)

If you plan to go to war now, I'd look at Crossbows. If you are still preparing for war, the beakers would be more helpful.
 
how many workers and axeman do u have right now?

i think 6 workers for now and if u add two cities , u need 10 workers.for those jungles...ah...

I think we have about 4 workers now. Do we really need 10? They might clear the jungle quickly, but after that they will have little to nothing to do for some time.

Military-wise, we should be relatively safe. It will certainly not prevent aggression if Shaka does want to DoW, but we should be able to wage a successful defensive war as long as we keep up with the constant troop production. The trouble is, knowing the AI, war might not end till we capture at least one city and thus force him to sign peace. I suppose we should go for Construction next.
 
Well, maybe not 10.

But surely you'd agree that 4 workers isn't really enough for a concerted jungle clearing. I'd build 2 more myself, and I always feel like I don't build enough workers.

-abs
 
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