Toku Deity Raging Barbs

[Pangaea]

AIs met. T173.

Spoiler :

Couldn't get Optics until T160, or 1000AD (lacked some gold). Not so lucky with people lacking Compass this time, all had it, but some lacked Optics, including Isabella + Boudica.

After that it gets more tricky, and god damn it. Every single AI I meet except Boudica are in Mercantilism (until the last AI Churchill). So frustrating. But because she has a million cities, I mostly have good trade routes anyway, until we settled too much.

Pretty much 'knew' Monty was in a war already, because there has been a sprawl of GGs born. HC was already plotting when we met him, presumably on Isabella. A while later Boudica started plotting, which has to be on either US (!!!) or... Churchill. She doesn't plot at pleased, and is Buddha-pleased with her neighbour Isabella (like in the last game). I see this lot in HC most northern city:

This really peeved me off, and makes me wonder whether to throw this in the bin. One stinkin' turn!

Luckily Joao didn't have CoL (we had to self-tech it), so got Aesthetics for it. Working on Construction now. Doesn't look like anybody have started on Astro yet. Do I trade it away for a bunch of stuff, or wait? Hmmm.

Well, it doesn't look like Joao is holding up very well in this game... that's kinda high

Also happened to spot this lot. I don't think Joao will stay independent for long.

Have settled a little differently this time, but not much. Quickly chopped out Library in Nara (central pigs). It hasn't grown yet, but has the library + granary. Kinda nice. Wealth on the island to hold the overflow for when marble is hooked up. Had to self-tech Literature, but will soon get working on NE + HE.

Maybe too early to tell yet how this will compare with the first attempt, tho it would have been nice if there was conflict between the Buddhists, so I could jump in there, instead of trying to deal with a rapidly teching Capac, or a soon-to-be vassaled Joao. I'm also very displeased about losing speedboats. That will make everything going forward more tricky, and this will be a long game if I ever get that first war right. Didn't sell map to HC, so he must have gotten early Optics and mapped a lot of the world already, and maybe gotten a map from Boudica (like I did).

Perhaps the early game is simply not good enough, not fast enough, so it's hard to stand a chance if I continue this game too?

Uploading a save too, and would appreciate comments. The game doesn't take too long up to here, so I'd be willing to start over (again).

PS: The barbs have Feudalism and longbows before I do

 

[Izuul]

Question:

Spoiler :

Why isn't anyone meeting Isabella with a sentry chariot? Could be somewhat valuable.

Honestly, that never even occurred to me.

 

[Pangaea]

My techpath went:
Agri->Hunt->Archery->AH->Mining->Pottery->BW->Writing->Myst->Poly->Priest->Monarchy

Sorry to post yet another one, but I was not pleased with losing circumnav, and generally being late out of the gates. Also wanted to try out a leaner approach. 1AD again.

Spoiler :

This is generally how I start out. Initial warrior goes west (happened in the very first game too), and then is parked there to secure that area. One of the first produced warriors goes south to secure those two tiles. None have spawned there yet, but it can happen, and that would be a problem.

Those roads were perhaps dubious, but figured I could try something a little different, and it felt like a waste to spend three turns just moving to the pig to farm it. Alternatively one can farm the jungle-risked tile, but that tile is barb highway, so would get pillaged for sure. A slight lull here, so the wheat can be worked and the city grow.

I get into a lot of problems in this particular game. Often they have just come from the north (pathing towards the forested hill NW of the city), but here they come from all over. The archer luckily beats the southern warrior across the river, but the two warriors lose. Then I counter the archer at 93% odds -- I thought. Forgot to take into account the river as I moved directly from the city (odds is then incorrect), so in reality he had 68%. But he won, so phew! Glad the wheat didn't get pillaged.

Unfortunately a barb archer spawned in the desert, and comes down to the fogbuster in the west. Then wins the fight, somewhat luckily. Now there is a fairly large spawning ground over there too. Didn't happen in the previous three games, but suppose it was bound to occur sooner or later. Have risked moving a warrior over to the east. The jungle hill is a great spot for busting that whole area. Hopefully the rest can hold.

Three archers bearing down on us, including the western killer, but we also have the first archer out, so that feels somewhat safe, as long as they don't pillage. Didn't dare to continue with the barracks, tho. We need at least one more archer first. Also a fortunate forest growth on a hill that would often be mined by now (or soon, the riverside is first up). But this time I've gone AH before Mining.

Lots of people bearing down on us, so not until T44 am I able to start to move out a little, and here an archer is moving towards the previous western location. Thankfully he wins the fight against yet another barb archer from the desert.

T66, and things have been hectic, to say the least. When we were able to get a few units up north, and deal with the closest barbs, I decide to try out this wall exploit. Should give us some peace, and won't risk to get overrun again. I also saw a warrior directly north, so figured that guy can either fogbust further north, and if he stumbles into us, we should be able to deal with him. That warrior in the forest is Woodie3.

Fast forward to 1AD. The wall has broken up and moved north. Unfortunately a barb city spawned there, on that hill again, so will need to be razed (hopefully we get a chance before longbows). I waited a little with settling city 4 until I knew we could get Writing. Then 3-popped the library in the capital.

It's mostly moving forward things will be leaner (hopefully!), but I've held back a little on warriors too (can't be built anymore either). Capital can't build anything besides a monument or units, so it's slowly building an archer here. Third GS should be out around T150, which will hopefully be in time, even if I manage to get to Optics faster this time. Postponed things a little by growing clam-horse to size 5 once HR was online. I also wanted to try out settling clam-wheat 1N. Means clam in outer ring, but seeing as I know this will be the future HE city now, and has iron, I wanted to try to grab a few more hills (and I've never put a city on that Izzy-contact PH point anyway). Academy is up, and no galleys seen in the vicinity yet, tho I know there is one up north, and probably near the island.

The idea moving forward is to grow capital to size 9-11, but not the others. I think @krikav is right that the extra unit maintenance isn't worth it. And I want to try it out. Plenty of map knowledge now, but it sure would be fun to actually beat this map (I'm probably not good enough, but want to have a proper go at it), and I want to see how this approach compares with the HR-lotsa-warriors thing I did earlier. Due to building future HE-city 1N, I settled the western one first here, and snuck in Mysticism earlier, so I could whip a monument there.

 

[krikav]

@Pangea

Spoiler :

I did try the opening out abit before venturing on to the Genghis Khan game I'm fiddling with now, trying to push my luck abit in the opening and died horrible.
3 archers storming capital T17 something?

In all atempts I did, I had my first warrior spawnbust standing 1S of the wheat.
I really like that clam/wheat citys location, as settlement there early on greatly reduces the need for fogbusting, the south gets vision due to a hill, and all tiles in the east gets covered too, except one that can be reached by a fogbuster quite far up north.
And long term, it's a bloody impressive spot which probably carried half my empires weight when it came to unit production in the grind against Boudica.
It does come at the cost of the capital though, so one has to weigh those things against each other. Perhaps less in your game now, since the clam/horse city can't steal the pigs.

If you want to win the map, I cross my fingers for you, that Boudi/Isabella are buddies, think that is probably the most important piece. If they are buddies you can buddy up with them both too, and then focus on the others.

A barb city can be nice too, it can serve as a near infinite source of xp for cannons.

 

[5tephen]

@Pangaea
Borderline heresy but any merit in putting the worker on fogbusting duty after improving the wheat? Then your southern warrior could move northwest and it’s not like there’s anything truly great to do with the worker at this point in the tech tree?

 

[krikav]

@Pangaea
Borderline heresy but any merit in putting the worker on fogbusting duty after improving the wheat? Then your southern warrior could move northwest and it’s not like there’s anything truly great to do with the worker at this point in the tech tree?

Thats a very good idea imho. My worker certainly did that a while, roading alot of the tiles that where in reach to fogbust the southern tiles.

 

[Pangaea]

Definitely a good idea. I didn't 'park' him there, but did at times make sure to improve tiles where he could also fogbust a little. Not really much he can do here early on anyway, except run away from all the invading barbs

Optics! T152.

Spoiler :

I'm not sure how you managed to keep costs down throughout, because I just couldn't. I did start to prepare to settle the island while teching towards Optics, but even so, there were times we still paid 10 gpt in unit maintenance, which hurts. Am very glad I happened to slowbuild a Trireme in the SW , tho, and it was just in the nick of time.

Thankfully the trireme won the offensive fight and gained the first step towards extra movement. It would have been kinda catastrophic if the food went down in that city, because when placed like that i can't borrow the pigs as backup, which means it would starve, and it's important to get out the third GS in time.

Think this may have been while some workboats were moving to the island, but 10gpt is rather a lot. And we only have the minimum of MPs too, so the cities don't become unhappy. Plus the four units from the wall, that are now fogbusting the north of the island. Don't think I have any unnecessary units.

T152 we get Optics, and make instant contact with Isabella. Lucky she had a little gold, as that means I can afford to upgrade the western trireme. Could have paid 5g and gotten Meditation, but that doesn't help me. Shame I don't have Math, tho, because I could have chopped out the caravel without having to three-pop it. Maybe that wasn't worth it, but keeping the other game in mind, that one turn could be crucial -- so I did it. Had i thought about the Math thing earlier, we could have taken that instead of Alpha, but too late now :-|

So this means we managed to get to Optics about 4-5 turns earlier than the first game I played (think it was T156 there), despite the rather big barb problems we had in the start here, which caused cities to be settled later. So yeah, I'd say this much leaner approach is indeed superior. Impressive that @krikav did that instantly, with no map knowledge of anything, and got everything right on the money. Shows how good he is

Once again Isa gets Buddhism, and this time the AP is Buddhist, so I hope Boudica is Buddhist too, and it spreads to me. That would be so brilliant. Then cross my fingers it's possible to take on HC in this game, or that Monty hasn't obliterated Joao yet. 10 Great Generals have been born, and I fully expect the lion's share of those to be Monty's. That guy is totally crazy. First GG born in 800BC. Even Deity AIs will struggle with getting DOWed that early -- I would think?

Wait! Hold on a minute! I just see that Isabella only has 6 cities?! What is going on here? Is Boudica waging war on her? That may be bad news. Well... time will tell *gulp*

Edit: Do you intend to finish the game later, krikav? You looked to be in a very strong position.

 

[krikav]

@Pangea

Spoiler :

I think that looks really nice, good going! Too bad with Isabella/Boudica though. Probably high odds for that happening.
I had only 4 cities prior to optics though. Thats rather low I think, but it came out that way because the opportunity to settle 5/6 came so late that it would almost certainly have just postponed optics more.
How to keep costs down, every little bit helps... Something I don't see me mentioning earlier is the settlement on the wine with my western city.
That has the shortest possible distance to the palace, and I think that saves a gold per turn in city upkeep too. One south or west wouldn't add a gold I think, but your placement 2S of the wine I think cost 1gpt more.

Having a nice central location of the palace, and settling some cities as satellites around that goes a long way to keeping upkeep costs under wraps.

Spoiler Upkeep :

(https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/the-curious-cat-city-upkeep-explained.138473/)

And right on the money... Well, from the few tries I did with map knowledge, I got hammered pretty brutally by barbs, so good early rng probably played a big role too.

Regarding my game:

Spoiler :

Probably not going to finish. When I reach that endgame it starts to get so laggy it aint funny.
I do think it's a strong position. Especially nice with that Capac exile city, that will keep Monty preoccupied for long.
Churchil going space might be a threat though?
To strike such a big and advanced foe, things have to be really well planned in advance though.
Have to identify where Monty and his two vassals keep their doomstacks, and have to have probably 6 different striketeams of 3-4 submarines and tactical nukes ready to really make sure the first strike makes retaliation rather weak.
I'm not at all sure that trying to roll in with Tanks+Bombers have any chance of success with them having advanced flight and such.
Crippling them by razing coastal cities with a huge navy, tons of fighters and marines could work, but with so many cities I'm not sure.

I do engage in such lategame warfare from time to time, but this game has gone on for so long now.. I needed something new.
Wouldn't mind handing the game to Monty by resigning either. He did put up a hell of a show imho. Attacking west and east early on, taking cities from both his rivals and eventually vassaling them both, and then catching up in tech.

@drewisfat You have seen quite abit of endgame warfare right? What do you think about the position that I left my game in?

 

[Fippy]

I noticed you called the "unit wall" exploit Pangaea, i disagree there
They are kept out but control over barb city spawns is lost, fine strat imo.

On raging barbs in general..not my cup of tea, very rng dependant.
Fine for random fun games but i prefer doing those in high speed mode and without writeup ambitions.

 

[Izuul]

I'd rather try a different start without low sea level I think.

 

[drewisfat]

@krikav

Spoiler :

I think you've done well on a monster game. While I don't know the tech situation, winning the game from that point with nukes should not be difficult. Resorting to nukes diminishes the win somewhat, but given the unfair settings seems appropriate. Need to know what Portugal/England are up to in regards to culture/space and where their capitals are. Inland capitals are a much different beast than coastal. Sometimes the easiest solution can be to go for space and espionage delay a rival's space shuttle. This usually won't work against multiple civs simultaneously though, and won't work against culture obviously.
Next need to know what the status on Manhattan project is. Anyone built it yet? Anyone have SDI / close to it? SDI makes a monster difference in how effective your nukes are as you have to overly compensate for a potential string of bad luck. Without SDI it's a simple task of one sub with 2-3 nukes per city. With SDI and a 3/8 chance to miss, you need to basically double your cushion and use 2 subs, 6 nukes per city. And if any city is super critical (capital space ship) need 9 nukes for security. Or possibly a few backup ICBMs for desperation. It's better to attack when you're not fully ready than wait if SDI creation is imminent. And it won't work on vassals, so you'd want to wipe out whichever target doesn't have SDI first. Primary targets should be any cities where Monty is hiding his navy. Typically the AI inflates their power with insane navies that you can quickly snipe this way, and the sudden power drop can lead to vassals breaking.
The AI *is* programmed to use nukes back at you. It will send its ICBMs at your largest pop cities. Knowing that, you can make some preparations ahead of time and manipulate which cities it hits (to be ones without towns) or hide your units. I always spread my troops out not just to take advantage of first mover attack with nukes, but to prevent nuclear retaliation wiping out my stack. The AI can pull that off, though generally I've seen it when I kept my doomstack in a city.
Short of nukes, your best bet is space as Monty is not going to be great at that. Granted he has two vassals who will tech him into it, or go there themselves eventually. I've never lost a game where I built the Internet - granted only having one independent civ left on the map does not seem ideal. What's the GDP of England v Monty v Celts?
Traditional warfare, I feel the strongest move is what you're doing, artillery + infantry. Basically just outspam him so he can't kill everyone and then win the counter. Some disagree, but I've just never had success relatively speaking with tanks/planes/boats against deity spam. While naval/air dominance sounds great in theory, those pretty much trade at a 1:1 ratio and surely a giant Monty will contest. Better to let him control the skies and the water while you take his cities and peace out once your eco can take no more. Granted, the quantity approach can fail dramatically if he fires nukes at them, so might want to UN that away if possible.
Yeah the lag used to be absolutely unbearable back when I played a toaster PC, which is part of the reason I got used to nuking everyone into oblivion as quickly as possible. Nowadays my comp can better handle it though. You can turn all the graphics down / simplify animations, attack/defend, and just take a water break after you click next turn and the game processes AI moves. I would finish the game though. You want to say you won with the worst civ, isolated, with raging barbs, and low sea levels. Granted Toku isn't the worst civ (That's Hamm, you're all wrong, and it's not even close, but I digress ).

 

[Pangaea]

Update from AI contact in T160.

Spoiler :

No wonder GGs have been born left, right and centre. There is major war between Monty and Joao, and between Boudica and Isabella. Surprised by the latter, since they are both in the same religion. Isabella is getting utterly smashed as well. Saw this lot while visiting a city (because there was an injured mace, so I peeked).

Not a modern army, but numbers work too. A few turns later, and her capital disappeared from the map. The only reason Isabella hasn't capitulated yet is because Boudica lacks Feudalism. Ooooh, to have been in a position to wipe out that thing before they become knights, cuirs, rifles and cannons.

Monty just took a city off Joao too. Thought they were going at it somewhat even, but maybe that was wrong and Monty is smashing up Joao's stuff too. Not the best situation. The tech pace has been unusually slow, tho, with several still lacking Feudalism.

Boudica in particular lags behind, but that will change when Isabella caps. I can't even bribe them off. Both Boudica and Monty "wants to win the game", whatever causes that message.

How do I best take advantage of this situation?

Buddhism just spread, so that should ensure peaceful relations with Boudica once adapted (it's also the AP religion). Taoism is the other big one, with Churchill and Joao (and nominally Monty, but he's in Free religion). HC alone in Hinduism. HC isn't too out of whack currently, so provided I can get cannons in decent time, maybe best to strike him. He's pretty close. Joao will probably cap to Monty before I can do much there anyway, unless I can bribe him off at some point.

 

[Pangaea]

I'm still plugging along with this beast. T174.

Spoiler :

As expected, Isabella capped the moment Boudica got Feudalism. Somehow Boudica is a little backwards (relatively speaking), maybe they've been at war for thousand years or something. After self-teching CS, only she lacked it, so we gave her CS+CoL for Feudalism+30g. I put a turn into Guilds. Then thought long and hard, and went back and forth on who to trade Astro to for Guilds+Engineering. Relations are pretty messed up. Almost everybody is the worst enemy of somebody. And Joao and Churchill are either Friendly or very close. If Isabella had Guilds available too, I'd probably do the trade with her. In the end I decided on Churchill. Probably means he will go for the continent near him, which can ruin our horse deal (ivory, fur, banana), but maybe it will help him if Monty turns his attention west.

Not long after, it is apparent that Joao is researching Astro. We don't get as much as we should. Because Churchill and Joao have pretty warm relations anyway, and not all AIs have found each other yet, I opt to trade it to Joao while we can still get a decent lot for it. Went for Paper+Theo+Drama (couldn't get Music). Hoped to be able to trade that further, but that didn't really work -- except some gold for Drama later. What did work, however, was this. Glad I didn't have to pay with Astro

Monty had taken two big cities pretty quickly, so it may have been only a matter of time before Joao folded. Monty scares me, so I didn't want him to get out of control early here, with a strong vassal. He has already declared three times on Joao, and I kinda expect a fourth in the near future, but at least Joao demise is postponed.

Talking about scary, Boudica is even worse. 19 cities + Isabella. She will become a monster later, but for now she's lagging a little behind on techs. Still in Police State too despite the war ending a good while ago (10-12 turns).

We recently finished Gunpowder, which unfortunately Monty and Churchill also got around the same time. Can get Phil from Joao, but it's no rush really, and it will make Monty even angrier. At me... that can't be a good thing. Monty hasn't started plotting yet. Still hope to get something good with Astro with somebody else. Maybe I should do that Philo trade and see if it's possible to get Nationalism? Churchill recently got Military Tradition as well, so now I'm in two minds about that Horses deal. But if Monty DOWs him, those Cuirs will be useful. Nobody has Education yet, but I don't dare to start dreaming about Libbing Steel.

Only Boudica+Isabella not in Merc*ntalism, which is always very annoying. A little tempting to try to rush over to that island with some units (we don't have many), but we also only have 8 cities, so there is still much to fill out on our home continent. Hard to get everything done, and I don't want to whip everything into the ground either. Just whipped a settler, though, and will whip another next turn. Hopefully costs won't rise too much, cause I'd like to get Chemistry without turning off research.

AI relations are all over the place, with 4 worst enemy statuses. Makes trading awkward, and Monty is angry due to a trade with Joao (plus that I agreed when Joao demanded 100 ). May help to keep the tech pace and trading down, but it depends a bit on how things shake up when everybody have met each other.

A very long way to go until Steel ofc, and a lot will change in the meantime, but currently a war on Huayna Capac looks reasonable. I half-expect Joao to have capped to Monty by then, as it may be limited what more I can do if he DOWs him again. Monty may also DOW us of coure, he's Annoyed after all, but for now he can't reach us.

Heroic Epic and National Epic is up, but I haven't started to produce Trebs yet. Just working on some Samurais in the HE city. Most likely futile as archers will be upgraded any moment, but I'm trying to send the few samurais we have up to deal with the barb city.

If any of you have comments or advice, I'd love to hear it, because it feels like I'm in deep waters here.

 

[krikav]

@Pangea

Spoiler :

Boudica can be a monster all she wants now that you got her to pleased! You will likely get friendly soon, and then you will have face some tough choices if you should trade with her or not. You can probably trade all you like, but you will help her advance out of that commerce hole she has made for her with that conquest.
With her that large and a friend, making a swift beeline for mass media could ensure a diplo victory I think, for that path, settling all islands is probably wise.

From my experience abit later on, Capac really isn't any threat, just keep an eye out for if he gets close, but landing large stack of infantry/artillery there made the process with him swift, so can probably safely ignore him for a long time too.

I recall in my first game that I got a iron deal from Monty, is his only source of iron vunerable? (Haven't opend the game), could that be a vector for attack?
If he would lose iron in the cannon/cuirs era, much would be gained.
Probably have to balance Monty and Churchil abit, if you hurt Monty too much Churchil could get the upper hand.

 

[Pangaea]

@krikav

Spoiler :

@Pangea
Boudica can be a monster all she wants now that you got her to pleased! You will likely get friendly soon, and then you will have face some tough choices if you should trade with her or not. You can probably trade all you like, but you will help her advance out of that commerce hole she has made for her with that conquest.
With her that large and a friend, making a swift beeline for mass media could ensure a diplo victory I think, for that path, settling all islands is probably wise.

From my experience abit later on, Capac really isn't any threat, just keep an eye out for if he gets close, but landing large stack of infantry/artillery there made the process with him swift, so can probably safely ignore him for a long time too.

I recall in my first game that I got a iron deal from Monty, is his only source of iron vunerable? (Haven't opend the game), could that be a vector for attack?
If he would lose iron in the cannon/cuirs era, much would be gained.
Probably have to balance Monty and Churchil abit, if you hurt Monty too much Churchil could get the upper hand.

Interesting observations about Capac. Diplo could be a way out of this game, but it depends on getting the 'right' opponent. If that is Boudica, we're out of luck really. And gaining enough pop and then gifting it away probably doesn't work so well here. Warwise however, if it's possible to safely ignore Capac for a long time, maybe the best approach is to go after Monty pretty early on, before he can get super dangerous? Though the issue here will be (I think), that Monty is going hard after military techs. Already got Gunpowder, and may well be going for Chemistry now, and then one of Steel/MilSci after that. Catching him in time may not be easy, and I assume he has a huge stack already that can be upgraded. If Joao doesn't capitulate before (think he will here tho), he could be a good first target. The moving landscape and fast tech pace is hard to deal with. So many factors at play, and things very quickly spiral out of control.

Unless Monty was super-lucky in this game and popped TWO irons in his capital, I think he started with iron. Maybe the timing was very lucky for that iron deal you had, and somebody had sabotaged his iron? In my game he has also settled on top of a third iron, on what should have been the English side of the bay.

I have mostly really enjoyed the opening of this game, so wanted to try something risky. No archery.

Spoiler :

Not something I'd try without map knowledge, but having played the start 3-4 times now, I wanted to try it out. AGG really helps here, especially once we get a barracks and can go anti-archery right away.

Lost some fights I really shouldn't have, like an archer winning at 15%, but think we also had some luck in that relatively few archers invaded -- especially in the very early game (loads of warriors).

Start with Agri->AH

Bad RNG loss here, but we were able to counter it unhurt next turn, which meant the warrior couldn't farm us either.

After AH, we went Mining->Pottery->BW

Struggled a bit when moving out, many defensive fights, but here we have been able to set up five warriors in a (imo) cheesy wall. That barb warrior then starts to fumble around, apparently suddenly oblivious of any of our units.

Turn 61, and we settle the third city. Nice timing with the workboat

Doubt I'll play this one further, it was "For Science!!", but cool to see that it can work.

Thought about Mysticism here for the second city clam, but may as well just go Writing so we can start on an Academy GS earlier. Osaka (SE) can take the wheat when it grows (and the worker is out), and then grow to four, at which point it should be easy enough to chop+whip the library.

 

[Izuul]

I'm attempting the early game again using a few things I've learned.

Spoiler :

The general strategy is basically Warrior > Worker > Warriors, skip Hunting and Archery entirely and defend with the Warriors for roughly 60T and then connect the horse to get a few chariots. Barracks in the capitol before chariots so one can pretty easily get +1 vision. Use that to meet Izzy (thank you Sampsa), and then tech Alpha to trade for Monarchy (some risk here, but should be justified) and IW.

So far it's all working.

 

[Pangaea]

T186. Working on Steel.

Spoiler :

Chemistry research was slow because there was no GS to bulb with this time. Couple that with only 5-city Isabella not in Merc, and Steel will be slow as well. The slight hope of Libbing it was dashed when several AIs got Education around the same time. It was Churchill that got there first. Think he picked Constitution. Same turn, Monty of all people was first to Economics and got the GM. I'm really surprised he hasn't started plotting again yet. It's been about 20 turns now.

In T182, Boudica was almost done with Gunpowder, and HC had started on Astro. Unsure if this was the best move, as it does risk Astro moving around more quickly, but I opted to carry out these trades:

Wanted to get up a Bank, and the Grocer was a turn from being done, and I'll need Edu sooner or later anyway. When Joao was the only AI that lacked Gunpowder, I pulled the trigger on the Gunpowder for Philosophy trade. He's the worst enemy of both Boudica and Monty, so not great, but I wanted to have it to get view on a possible Nationalism trade, and we already had -4 on Monty anyway (he's still Annoyed). What can go wrong?

It's now T186, and I'm itching to go Theo. Buddhism is quite well spread. Would also like to go Free Market in the same switch, because don't think I dare to drop Buro here. It will crush our research rate (with barely any decent trade routes). But it does feel pretty wrong to give up Chemistry monopoly for that, so soon. What would you do in my position?

Alternatively, I can just do a single-switch and settle that 13th city (double-switches will then be 2 turns anarchy I think). A great person will be out in 9 turns, which isn't the best timing for a GAge, seeing as we're in the last stretch of getting Steel then. Maybe better to postpone it a bit, until we can go into State Property for example.

 

[krikav]

@Pangea

Spoiler :

If you are in bur/OR, I would whip bank and perhaps some units too.
That way, you transform all those pop you whip away to stuff with the bur-bonus, once you get to vass the overflow will be higher (not divided by 1.75 anymore, but by 1.25).
Then revolt to vass/theo and release units in capital with the xp bonus.
You could count, but I don't think bur is doing an enormeous deal. 1-2 turns slower steel tops, and all units you get in other cities will be way stronger.

Capital can then regrow while in vass, and about the time when you have a stock of well promoted units, you can then go back to bur with a recovered capital again.

I wouldn't hand chemistry away at that situation. It's not like free market will give you that much if everyone except Bella is in merc anyway.
If you really want to keep bur, and still want to take advantage of swapping more civics, then it could be good to go into merc yourself.

 

[Izuul]

I got T134 Optics this time. Astro is going to be pretty late though because i opted for an Academy with the first GS since this game is going to go long. I just didn't really have my cities set up with libraries fast enough to get 3 out in a timely manner, and i also chose not to run any in the capitol because i really needed it for units.

Also had a really interesting encounter with a barb spearman. Absolutely terrifying when you only have warriors and chariots.

 

[krikav]

Wow! T134 Optics on this map sounds really really fast, how many cities where you at pre-optics? 4?
If it's possible to get the traderoutes with Isabella w/o astro, then it's probably perfecly ok with delaying astro for a long time too. And that was possible, right?