*UN*-Crowded Map, Huge 1-Opponent Emperor
- Thread starter Puppeteer
- Start date
templar_x
usually walks his talks
has this been done before? that someone digs himself and his story out after 8 years?
t_x
Puppeteer
Emperor
Two things surprised me:
A couple of thoughts on the game:
I'm a bit disappointed that the barbs are set different, but on the other hand the second attempt became much more interesting than I had hoped for, and I'm having a hard time deciding if this was a better start than the previous try, but it's still a few turns too early to judge. I was going to have several more cities by 1000 BC, but one got razed and I whipped a few things. I had several granaries in the first try and none so far in the second try as I've learned that quickly settling a new food bonus is often more powerful than building a granary first. But I got too thin on military and workers and I knew it, and I was about 10-20 turns too slow in trying to fix the situation by Greece's clock.
I am starting to realize that while the unfixed barbs may have let me grow unhampered it may have also allowed Alex to reach me more quickly instead of chasing barbs all over the pangea.
I'll have the Pyramids in less than 27 turns, and I don't expect Alex has a ton of units to send my way yet, so if I can absorb his next expeditionary forces I should be strong enough for anything he's got by the time he can mount a serious offensive *and* be able to out-expand him with the Pyramids and my food bonuses.
Now if he suddenly turns up with horses or iron, it may be panic time again.
- I was able to find the save game files
- The Conquests patch level is the same as it was 8 years ago
A couple of thoughts on the game:
- I may have been playing without fixed barbs in the most recent turnlog. I thought they were awfully shy for "restless" barbs, and now I recall I recently made a couple of tutorial game videos where I set most everything to defaults, so I think I have not played with fixed barbs this time. I was really wondering why Greece was a pain and barbs weren't.
- I should have known Greece would attack. I did note their barb-hunter squad was farther south than I expected, and I noticed but didn't comment on that Alex was polite which is in Emperor difficulty is often a warning that a civ is about to stab you in the back, but I had established an embassy and traded 3 techs with him and thought that's why he was polite. I really should have known better, but on the other hand I didn't expect Alex to reach out that far before 1000 BC. But I chose the farmer's gambit and knew it, and I paid a price.
I'm a bit disappointed that the barbs are set different, but on the other hand the second attempt became much more interesting than I had hoped for, and I'm having a hard time deciding if this was a better start than the previous try, but it's still a few turns too early to judge. I was going to have several more cities by 1000 BC, but one got razed and I whipped a few things. I had several granaries in the first try and none so far in the second try as I've learned that quickly settling a new food bonus is often more powerful than building a granary first. But I got too thin on military and workers and I knew it, and I was about 10-20 turns too slow in trying to fix the situation by Greece's clock.
I am starting to realize that while the unfixed barbs may have let me grow unhampered it may have also allowed Alex to reach me more quickly instead of chasing barbs all over the pangea.
I'll have the Pyramids in less than 27 turns, and I don't expect Alex has a ton of units to send my way yet, so if I can absorb his next expeditionary forces I should be strong enough for anything he's got by the time he can mount a serious offensive *and* be able to out-expand him with the Pyramids and my food bonuses.
Now if he suddenly turns up with horses or iron, it may be panic time again.
Puppeteer
Emperor
It's lunch time (nom nom nom), and of course I've had this game in the back of my mind all morning.
I almost used the phrase last post "this is not the last war" with the thought that I would make peace and trade with Alex again. But I started thinking it will be a while before I am strong enough for Alex to respect me (but not long before I can keep him off my lawn), and even if I can afford his price for peace he may not honor the 20 turns of peace. In other words, this may be the last war, or in other words this may have just become an all-war game if he won't make peace for a reasonable price before I'm ready to stomp him.
It also occurs to me that I have no indication that I will have a better fighting unit to build before longbowmen, and given the appearance that he has me blocked from the Eastern half of the world (unless the E coast is an inland sea) he is much more likely to get a strategic resource than I am.
So this is it. Archers and spearmen against archers and hoplites until one of us gets a resource or Invention, and the odds are heavily in his favor to get any more per-unit advantage first.
So I'll think about it some more, but I may need to plan on a long war and abandon my Map Making research which was chosen for max trade value and beeline to Monarchy at max research. He already has Myst according to CAII, so that cheapens my self-research cost.
He (quite cleverly by AI standards) interrupted my rapid expansion, but my food-bonus cities have BGs around them and can quickly become productive even while short of workers, and I still outnumber his cities and will have the Pyramids soon. I have to go vertical for about 20 turns or so before I can resume expansion, but I don't think he can overtake my population and number of cities in that time, and then I'll have granaries everywhere to really spread out quickly.
He started the game with extra units and has a production advantage, but I don't think he has a big stock of units yet, and even if he does I don't think they are anywhere near my border. A rough guess is that worst-case scenario is 6 enemy units reaching me within 6-8 turns if he has more barb hunters in my quadrant, and I have to prepare for that, but more likely I think the next three enemy units are 15-20 turns away.
What's really got me waffling is what to do about the barbs. I just checked the .ini, and they definitely weren't fixed this most recent turnset. From the viewpoint that I meant to have them fixed, I think I should fix them now, but what if that gives me an advantage right now? It could slow Greece's advance if barbs are pestering him, and the barbs don't seem to have a camp near me lately. I don't want to change a setting to give myself an advantage. On the other hand, fixing barbs might give me more trouble if they come calling soon before my defenses are built up. And that's how the world was when I started, so in a way it seems like it's right to leave it as-is.
Edit: Greece just got WC 10 turns ago, so I can expect to not deal with archers for at roughly 20 turns given build time and distance, and not in quantity. That's very useful to know and tips the scales in my decisions on whether to immediately flood cheap warriors or build stronger troops. Reg warriors will be useful as cannon fodder and MP and unless I find iron will never be needed for upgrades during the course of this game. Now I'll have to figure out which troops to make in barracks cities in the near term. If I fix barbs I'll need spears soon to guard against horse attacks, otherwise I'm better off with archers so I can choose when and where the battle happens. Or if I am desperate enough I might need to spam vet warriors for strength in numbers.
I almost used the phrase last post "this is not the last war" with the thought that I would make peace and trade with Alex again. But I started thinking it will be a while before I am strong enough for Alex to respect me (but not long before I can keep him off my lawn), and even if I can afford his price for peace he may not honor the 20 turns of peace. In other words, this may be the last war, or in other words this may have just become an all-war game if he won't make peace for a reasonable price before I'm ready to stomp him.
It also occurs to me that I have no indication that I will have a better fighting unit to build before longbowmen, and given the appearance that he has me blocked from the Eastern half of the world (unless the E coast is an inland sea) he is much more likely to get a strategic resource than I am.
So this is it. Archers and spearmen against archers and hoplites until one of us gets a resource or Invention, and the odds are heavily in his favor to get any more per-unit advantage first.
So I'll think about it some more, but I may need to plan on a long war and abandon my Map Making research which was chosen for max trade value and beeline to Monarchy at max research. He already has Myst according to CAII, so that cheapens my self-research cost.
He (quite cleverly by AI standards) interrupted my rapid expansion, but my food-bonus cities have BGs around them and can quickly become productive even while short of workers, and I still outnumber his cities and will have the Pyramids soon. I have to go vertical for about 20 turns or so before I can resume expansion, but I don't think he can overtake my population and number of cities in that time, and then I'll have granaries everywhere to really spread out quickly.
He started the game with extra units and has a production advantage, but I don't think he has a big stock of units yet, and even if he does I don't think they are anywhere near my border. A rough guess is that worst-case scenario is 6 enemy units reaching me within 6-8 turns if he has more barb hunters in my quadrant, and I have to prepare for that, but more likely I think the next three enemy units are 15-20 turns away.
What's really got me waffling is what to do about the barbs. I just checked the .ini, and they definitely weren't fixed this most recent turnset. From the viewpoint that I meant to have them fixed, I think I should fix them now, but what if that gives me an advantage right now? It could slow Greece's advance if barbs are pestering him, and the barbs don't seem to have a camp near me lately. I don't want to change a setting to give myself an advantage. On the other hand, fixing barbs might give me more trouble if they come calling soon before my defenses are built up. And that's how the world was when I started, so in a way it seems like it's right to leave it as-is.
Edit: Greece just got WC 10 turns ago, so I can expect to not deal with archers for at roughly 20 turns given build time and distance, and not in quantity. That's very useful to know and tips the scales in my decisions on whether to immediately flood cheap warriors or build stronger troops. Reg warriors will be useful as cannon fodder and MP and unless I find iron will never be needed for upgrades during the course of this game. Now I'll have to figure out which troops to make in barracks cities in the near term. If I fix barbs I'll need spears soon to guard against horse attacks, otherwise I'm better off with archers so I can choose when and where the battle happens. Or if I am desperate enough I might need to spam vet warriors for strength in numbers.
Puppeteer
Emperor
I made it to 1000 BC, and the war is already over! We each think we got out with an advantage.
I got some passable defense to the frontline cities, replaced the ruins of Tours with Grenoble and Son of Ug managed to pop Horseback Riding from a hut shortly before Greece was willing to talk to me.
I thought Greece's relative strength with his hoplites and his having destroyed a city of mine would make him impossible to deal with reasonably, but when he was ready to talk he was willing to make peace for 150g or slightly less, but since I had HBR I made peace giving HBR and got Myst and 182g! I had Myst down to 1 turn, so it's not quite as good a deal as it looks, but popping HBR gave me a monopoly tech that won't do him any good because he would have researched it well before finding horses (if he does), and I got to pry peace, gold and a turn of Myst from him for what the hut gave me.
I can't go farmer's gambit again because I can't trust him to maintain peace, but I can post lookouts and start expanding again while producing military from two cities now and 5 cities soon.
He has nearly caught up with me; he has 9 cities and I have 10. I do have a settler on its way to another city site, but he probably does, too. But Paris grows next turn, so I'll have Pyramids in 13 or maybe 12 turns. He hasn't started building a wonder yet.
I also need to find out the OCN for when I can build Forbidden Palace and maybe start prebuilding it. I also need to consider prebuilding ToA if I want that. My capital may not be my most productive city because it's all flat lands, but it is uncorrupt so it will be close to the most productive.
I might still have a shot at Monarchy slingshot, but I'm not counting on it.
Goals:
Turnlog continued:
1000 BC Save for 2013 turns 0-80
10 towns
20 pop
1 settler
5 workers
9 warriors (4 reg, 4 vet, 1 elite)
3 spear (1 reg, 2 vet)
Tech: Alpha and Masonry from start, Writing researched, CB, Pottery and HBR from huts, BW, WC, Wheel, IW and Myst from trading. Had 21 turns of min research into MM, but abandoned it after war started.
Greece is halfway through his golden age.
I got some passable defense to the frontline cities, replaced the ruins of Tours with Grenoble and Son of Ug managed to pop Horseback Riding from a hut shortly before Greece was willing to talk to me.
I thought Greece's relative strength with his hoplites and his having destroyed a city of mine would make him impossible to deal with reasonably, but when he was ready to talk he was willing to make peace for 150g or slightly less, but since I had HBR I made peace giving HBR and got Myst and 182g! I had Myst down to 1 turn, so it's not quite as good a deal as it looks, but popping HBR gave me a monopoly tech that won't do him any good because he would have researched it well before finding horses (if he does), and I got to pry peace, gold and a turn of Myst from him for what the hut gave me.
I can't go farmer's gambit again because I can't trust him to maintain peace, but I can post lookouts and start expanding again while producing military from two cities now and 5 cities soon.
He has nearly caught up with me; he has 9 cities and I have 10. I do have a settler on its way to another city site, but he probably does, too. But Paris grows next turn, so I'll have Pyramids in 13 or maybe 12 turns. He hasn't started building a wonder yet.
I also need to find out the OCN for when I can build Forbidden Palace and maybe start prebuilding it. I also need to consider prebuilding ToA if I want that. My capital may not be my most productive city because it's all flat lands, but it is uncorrupt so it will be close to the most productive.
I might still have a shot at Monarchy slingshot, but I'm not counting on it.
Goals:
- Build defenses ready for defensive war with Greece and barb horsemen.
- Scout for *any* resources and see what it takes to reach them
- Reach towards diamonds and get them online, with colony if necessary
- Get Monarchy ASAP
- Expand and try to stay more powerful than Alex
Turnlog continued:
Spoiler :
1000 BC Save for 2013 turns 0-80
10 towns
20 pop
1 settler
5 workers
9 warriors (4 reg, 4 vet, 1 elite)
3 spear (1 reg, 2 vet)
Tech: Alpha and Masonry from start, Writing researched, CB, Pottery and HBR from huts, BW, WC, Wheel, IW and Myst from trading. Had 21 turns of min research into MM, but abandoned it after war started.
Greece is halfway through his golden age.
Attachments
How do you know? Is that information provided with your civ assist?
That or by looking at the wonder screen by pressing F7. You can see the wonders that have been constructed by any civilization, met or unmet, and the current wonder builds of the civilizations you have met.
I can provide a short version of the functionalities of each function button. F1-6 are the different advisors, F7 is the wonder screen, as mentioned before. F8 is the victory progress screen, where you can find the current victory progression to all the different victory types available as well as the score, power and culture graphs. F9 is the palace view, which only works in unmodded games, and F10 is the Space Race screen. F11 is the demographics screen and F12 is (I believe) unused. Hope this helps!
Puppeteer
Emperor
I continued with the recent 1000 BC game save and have played to the beginning of turn 119, 170 BC. I built the Pyramids and ruined Alex's Pyramid build as he didn't seem to have an alternate wonder. He later completed Oracle and is expected to get Colossus uncontested, but I think I have both ToA and THG in the bag, although he may surprise me with one or the other because my builds were interrupted by a government change.
I managed to get the Monarchy slingshot, revolted immediately and had only 5 additional turns of anarchy, although I tried putting my citizens back to work a turn too early and made everybody riot just before I became a Monarchy.
He is up Map Making, and I am up Monarchy and Philosophy. A turn or two ago he demanded Philo, and I thought about it and decided that war is inevitable, and even though Philo is cheap for him, why give him a few turns towards MoM or Republic? So I refused and of course he declared. A turn later I got quite a nasty surprise, but I'll let you see the turn log for that one.
I have a lot more land to my East than I thought. The E coast is apparently a big inland sea, although I am not 100% sure yet. There are only three resources in the known world: Diamonds in the mountains near me, 3 wines that Greece has already claimed and put to use, and a horse just outside of Greece's borders, and it never showed up in his available resources. I circled the luxuries with blue and the horses with red on my screenshot.
I "went vertical" for 20-30 turns meaning I stopped building settlers and grew several cities while building military, but I put two high-food cities on worker production, so my core land is being developed quickly if belatedly, and I am now considered average in military strength to him. I was able to resume settler production, but expansion is slow so far, and he has surpassed my city count and has maintained the income lead (per F11) since his golden age which ended 30 turns ago. I think I can catch him again because of the pyramids and that my pause in expansion was building my production capacity, so I can spam settlers quickly from now on.
But I am concerned about his currently being larger than me and the nasty surprise I got, mentioned in the turnlog in the spoiler tag.
14 Cities (Alex has at least 18)
63 Population
5 Settlers
20 Workers
9 Warriors (3 vet)
5 Vet Archers
29 Spearmen (1 reg, 27 vet, 1 elite)
Tech: Ancient techs minus Construction, Currency, Republic, MM and Lit. Greece has MM but not Philo or Monarchy. Greece has in the past 10-30 turns passed me in score, power graph and culture, but I think I can turn all three around soon as I'm rapidly improving the core, expanding again, have Pyramids and expect to complete ToA before he does.
Keeping citizens happy has been expensive, but I hope to get free temples, Hanging Gardens and one luxury in the next 10-20 turns for an extra three content per city. Right now I have war happiness, but cities are growing so I didn't get a chance to lower luxury spending.
Edit: Barbs aren't fixed, but I've only had one barb camp spawn near enough for the military adviser to mention it, and I haven't stumbled upon any while scouting. I wonder if the number of barb camp is also relative to the number of starting players in an epic game?
Edit 2: The next morning I'm looking at the last autosave before the war to see if I missed something, and there is no clue that I was about to encounter the nasty surprise.
I managed to get the Monarchy slingshot, revolted immediately and had only 5 additional turns of anarchy, although I tried putting my citizens back to work a turn too early and made everybody riot just before I became a Monarchy.
He is up Map Making, and I am up Monarchy and Philosophy. A turn or two ago he demanded Philo, and I thought about it and decided that war is inevitable, and even though Philo is cheap for him, why give him a few turns towards MoM or Republic? So I refused and of course he declared. A turn later I got quite a nasty surprise, but I'll let you see the turn log for that one.
I have a lot more land to my East than I thought. The E coast is apparently a big inland sea, although I am not 100% sure yet. There are only three resources in the known world: Diamonds in the mountains near me, 3 wines that Greece has already claimed and put to use, and a horse just outside of Greece's borders, and it never showed up in his available resources. I circled the luxuries with blue and the horses with red on my screenshot.
I "went vertical" for 20-30 turns meaning I stopped building settlers and grew several cities while building military, but I put two high-food cities on worker production, so my core land is being developed quickly if belatedly, and I am now considered average in military strength to him. I was able to resume settler production, but expansion is slow so far, and he has surpassed my city count and has maintained the income lead (per F11) since his golden age which ended 30 turns ago. I think I can catch him again because of the pyramids and that my pause in expansion was building my production capacity, so I can spam settlers quickly from now on.
But I am concerned about his currently being larger than me and the nasty surprise I got, mentioned in the turnlog in the spoiler tag.
Spoiler :
14 Cities (Alex has at least 18)
63 Population
5 Settlers
20 Workers
9 Warriors (3 vet)
5 Vet Archers
29 Spearmen (1 reg, 27 vet, 1 elite)
Tech: Ancient techs minus Construction, Currency, Republic, MM and Lit. Greece has MM but not Philo or Monarchy. Greece has in the past 10-30 turns passed me in score, power graph and culture, but I think I can turn all three around soon as I'm rapidly improving the core, expanding again, have Pyramids and expect to complete ToA before he does.
Keeping citizens happy has been expensive, but I hope to get free temples, Hanging Gardens and one luxury in the next 10-20 turns for an extra three content per city. Right now I have war happiness, but cities are growing so I didn't get a chance to lower luxury spending.
Edit: Barbs aren't fixed, but I've only had one barb camp spawn near enough for the military adviser to mention it, and I haven't stumbled upon any while scouting. I wonder if the number of barb camp is also relative to the number of starting players in an epic game?
Edit 2: The next morning I'm looking at the last autosave before the war to see if I missed something, and there is no clue that I was about to encounter the nasty surprise.
Attachments
Puppeteer
Emperor
Greece didn't have horses connected to his capital when he DoW'ed on me, and I was at the known horse quite recently and he didn't have it hooked up locally, and it's still out of his borders, anyway. So he either colonized it the instant I stepped away and built a horse quickly or he has another horse in a city not hooked up to the capital and built at least one horse so far. (Can you see a colony built under line-of-sight fog like you can see a new city built there?)
The horse appeared out of the fog and took back the worker quickly enough that I didn't notice if it was vet or regular, but it was definitely a green horseman and not a white one. (I thought it was long odds on getting the slave home safely, but I didn't think he had fast units and only had to get by one city.)
The best case scenario is that he plopped a city on top of a horse to the East and it is small, growing slowly and won't be connected to his trade network for a while. Worst case scenario is that his entire core got access to horses just after he DoW'ed me.
It's still only a 2-attack unit, but it can retreat and outmaneuver me. I have to take the fight to him. I don't think I'm ready to capture and keep hoplite-protected cities, but if I can flood his territory with archers-covered-by-spears stacks I should be able to keep most of the battles away from home and my workers and settlers, perhaps prevent him from improving his lands further or settling in my direction and ideally lay long-term siege to his core cities by pillaging, starving and crippling his production capacity. At some point I will be able to start taking cities and even take the "close" horse and wines.
I also need to settle the crap land to the mountain range ASAP to keep any battles on my territory away from my useful cities.
ToA is not usually a wonder I like, but in this game I wanted it to auto-pop borders for cities and prevent Alex's borders from popping even crazier than normal and making conquest more difficult. However now I am really looking forward to the happiness provided by temples due to the lack of luxuries. THG will be useful, too. I wanted to investigate his wonder cities, but I don't know where they are on the map yet so the diplomacy screen won't let me investigate them. So I think I have enough of a head start to grab both, but with his Emperor discount and my 6 or 7 turns of lost production during the government transition he might have caught up on his ToA build if it's in a productive city.
Ever since the first war I haven't had a smooth expansion/production plan and haven't been organized about settler placement. And I have enough workers I should start dedicating some to roading out to future city sites (after I get the existing ones hooked up!).
I think I'm going to go farmer's gambit on the Eastern lands South of the apparent inland sea (or very, very big peninsula) gambling that Alex isn't going to send more than a unit or two the long way around in a reasonable time fram and doesn't have galleys on the inland sea. In any case I expect the East to be able to build its own defenses and the core will concentrate on sending troops to visit Alex's homeland. Sooner or later I'm going to find a pile of these restless-yet-lazy barbs and take a hit in the wallet as they raid a town repeatedly, but I think the speed of expansion is worth it.
I need to fill the NW grasslands, but more deliberately and carefully.
OCN for huge is 36 cities, so I guess I can build the FP after the 18th city, so I might start thinking about where I want it and start a prebuild. At one point I thought I would use a leader, but I'm not sure about how many leaders I'll be getting, and it looks like my fast-and-powerful unit for this game will be archer armies.
Tech may slow down in the MA or due to the warring, but right now longbows and muskets don't seem so far away for Alex to me, so I am developing a sense of urgency to deal some serious blows to him before he can reach Invention.
I really don't want him to have the Great Wall, but I absolutely cannot let him get Sun Tzu. That may be my top priority is to keep Sun Tzu from him.
It occurred to me this morning to count up the max production for Paris: it's 19 shields until I can plant a forest, so no one-turn archers or spears are in my near future. I might be able to get one or two first-ring cities to 20 shields with hills, but I'm not sure. I may elect to keep Paris on wonders or maybe just MM it off of the BG tiles. Oh, I do have a jungle tile in the BFC...if there's a BG under that I may hit 20spt...I'll have to chop that and see what's under it.
The horse appeared out of the fog and took back the worker quickly enough that I didn't notice if it was vet or regular, but it was definitely a green horseman and not a white one. (I thought it was long odds on getting the slave home safely, but I didn't think he had fast units and only had to get by one city.)
The best case scenario is that he plopped a city on top of a horse to the East and it is small, growing slowly and won't be connected to his trade network for a while. Worst case scenario is that his entire core got access to horses just after he DoW'ed me.
It's still only a 2-attack unit, but it can retreat and outmaneuver me. I have to take the fight to him. I don't think I'm ready to capture and keep hoplite-protected cities, but if I can flood his territory with archers-covered-by-spears stacks I should be able to keep most of the battles away from home and my workers and settlers, perhaps prevent him from improving his lands further or settling in my direction and ideally lay long-term siege to his core cities by pillaging, starving and crippling his production capacity. At some point I will be able to start taking cities and even take the "close" horse and wines.
I also need to settle the crap land to the mountain range ASAP to keep any battles on my territory away from my useful cities.
ToA is not usually a wonder I like, but in this game I wanted it to auto-pop borders for cities and prevent Alex's borders from popping even crazier than normal and making conquest more difficult. However now I am really looking forward to the happiness provided by temples due to the lack of luxuries. THG will be useful, too. I wanted to investigate his wonder cities, but I don't know where they are on the map yet so the diplomacy screen won't let me investigate them. So I think I have enough of a head start to grab both, but with his Emperor discount and my 6 or 7 turns of lost production during the government transition he might have caught up on his ToA build if it's in a productive city.
Ever since the first war I haven't had a smooth expansion/production plan and haven't been organized about settler placement. And I have enough workers I should start dedicating some to roading out to future city sites (after I get the existing ones hooked up!).
I think I'm going to go farmer's gambit on the Eastern lands South of the apparent inland sea (or very, very big peninsula) gambling that Alex isn't going to send more than a unit or two the long way around in a reasonable time fram and doesn't have galleys on the inland sea. In any case I expect the East to be able to build its own defenses and the core will concentrate on sending troops to visit Alex's homeland. Sooner or later I'm going to find a pile of these restless-yet-lazy barbs and take a hit in the wallet as they raid a town repeatedly, but I think the speed of expansion is worth it.
I need to fill the NW grasslands, but more deliberately and carefully.
OCN for huge is 36 cities, so I guess I can build the FP after the 18th city, so I might start thinking about where I want it and start a prebuild. At one point I thought I would use a leader, but I'm not sure about how many leaders I'll be getting, and it looks like my fast-and-powerful unit for this game will be archer armies.
Tech may slow down in the MA or due to the warring, but right now longbows and muskets don't seem so far away for Alex to me, so I am developing a sense of urgency to deal some serious blows to him before he can reach Invention.
I really don't want him to have the Great Wall, but I absolutely cannot let him get Sun Tzu. That may be my top priority is to keep Sun Tzu from him.
It occurred to me this morning to count up the max production for Paris: it's 19 shields until I can plant a forest, so no one-turn archers or spears are in my near future. I might be able to get one or two first-ring cities to 20 shields with hills, but I'm not sure. I may elect to keep Paris on wonders or maybe just MM it off of the BG tiles. Oh, I do have a jungle tile in the BFC...if there's a BG under that I may hit 20spt...I'll have to chop that and see what's under it.
Puppeteer
Emperor
I didn't have time to play yesterday. And I worked late today, am tired and need to do some at-home stuff for work, so I really don't have time tonight, either.
But I must have a few turns!!
I'm about to start playing and a thread of thought led to some potentially useful nuggets:
Edit: And another nugget falls out of the thought train: I might consider stockpiling some empty armies if I think I'm going to trade for horses. Horse armies are 3/2/3.
But I must have a few turns!!
I'm about to start playing and a thread of thought led to some potentially useful nuggets:
- I am almost certain he will soon (-ish) have two horse sources connected to his trade network. If so, I can at some point trade for horses and rapidly build my own horsemen. It's not my primary plan, but I need to keep that possibility in mind.
- An archer army is a 3/2/2 unit. If I find no horses or iron of my own archer armies are going to be my power units
- A spear army is a 2/3/2 unit that can pillage 2 squares per turn and heal in enemy territory, and I am thinking tearing up Alex's core is the way to get and maintain a production and income advantage.
- Leader fishing needs to become my primary military tactic
Edit: And another nugget falls out of the thought train: I might consider stockpiling some empty armies if I think I'm going to trade for horses. Horse armies are 3/2/3.
Puppeteer
Emperor
I completed THG and ToA and have an unbeatable head start on GLH and Great Wall. I surpassed Alex in cities and land area and got diamonds onto my trade network, all while at war with Alex.
He would pay me a little for peace, but I am building tons of units that just drain money sitting in my lands, so I'm trying to send them North to mess up his lands, but it's a long way and I'm nervous about his forces on my borders, although so far I am winning those battles.
It seems as if the war has severely slowed his expansion as he has only settled three cities this turnset while I have gone from 18 to 27 cities and have 7 settlers running all over the place and more on the way.
He still doesn't have horses showing on his trade network, but there are a fair number of horses coming my way. But he's using them stupidly, and my craplands buffer towns and the mountain range are keeping him from threatening my production or expansion.
However I have a very long front. I guess I'm lucky it isn't longer.
It really struck me the last couple of turns how big the world is. I have some spears scouting way to the east and suddenly realized they've barely made it halfway around the world. I briefly thought it might be faster to settle the world and win by domination, but no it's probably still faster to kill him off. We'll see.
The tech is going faster than I thought as far as where we are. I'm not going to be able to do much against him before longbowmen, and I mean when he gets them. He's four techs away and might get one of them free. So I really need to try to get as many spears as I can in his territory disrupting him and slowing him down, and then maybe I can get some archers in there and maybe even take a few towns. But it's a long, long way.
I used to think this game wouldn't make it to Education, but now I think it might make it to rails because until then I just can't move around very quickly. I also think I won't be able to catch up with Alex in commerce gathered, and I'm not sure I'm going to try. Unlike my usual games, the commerce is spread across a lot of cities, and I'm thinking markets may not be worth the trouble unless I find at least two more luxuries very soon. However I'll have a lot of specialist farms at some point in the future, and then I can out-spend and/or out-research Alex.
I decided in the middle of the turnset to get The Great Lighthouse. It seems unnecessary on a pangea map with one opponent, but I keep thinking maybe there's an island with resources, and it's connected by sea squares and I can harvest it. But now I realize I might be sending a settler in a boat to snag a resource on the same continent because it would take too long to walk and road there. I'm not even sure I'd have to have much defense for it. And GLH will let the boat get there faster.
Edit: One of the spears is a regular (panic built in the first war) and 5 warriors are regular (MPs or scouts), everything else was built veteran. And no, I don't have enough workers. I almost thought I was getting there then realized how much work there is to do and how big the world is. Need way, way more workers.
Edit 2: There was a bonus grassland under the Paris jungle tile, so Paris can and did get to 20 shields per turn.
He would pay me a little for peace, but I am building tons of units that just drain money sitting in my lands, so I'm trying to send them North to mess up his lands, but it's a long way and I'm nervous about his forces on my borders, although so far I am winning those battles.
It seems as if the war has severely slowed his expansion as he has only settled three cities this turnset while I have gone from 18 to 27 cities and have 7 settlers running all over the place and more on the way.
He still doesn't have horses showing on his trade network, but there are a fair number of horses coming my way. But he's using them stupidly, and my craplands buffer towns and the mountain range are keeping him from threatening my production or expansion.
However I have a very long front. I guess I'm lucky it isn't longer.
It really struck me the last couple of turns how big the world is. I have some spears scouting way to the east and suddenly realized they've barely made it halfway around the world. I briefly thought it might be faster to settle the world and win by domination, but no it's probably still faster to kill him off. We'll see.
The tech is going faster than I thought as far as where we are. I'm not going to be able to do much against him before longbowmen, and I mean when he gets them. He's four techs away and might get one of them free. So I really need to try to get as many spears as I can in his territory disrupting him and slowing him down, and then maybe I can get some archers in there and maybe even take a few towns. But it's a long, long way.
I used to think this game wouldn't make it to Education, but now I think it might make it to rails because until then I just can't move around very quickly. I also think I won't be able to catch up with Alex in commerce gathered, and I'm not sure I'm going to try. Unlike my usual games, the commerce is spread across a lot of cities, and I'm thinking markets may not be worth the trouble unless I find at least two more luxuries very soon. However I'll have a lot of specialist farms at some point in the future, and then I can out-spend and/or out-research Alex.
I decided in the middle of the turnset to get The Great Lighthouse. It seems unnecessary on a pangea map with one opponent, but I keep thinking maybe there's an island with resources, and it's connected by sea squares and I can harvest it. But now I realize I might be sending a settler in a boat to snag a resource on the same continent because it would take too long to walk and road there. I'm not even sure I'd have to have much defense for it. And GLH will let the boat get there faster.
Spoiler :
Edit: One of the spears is a regular (panic built in the first war) and 5 warriors are regular (MPs or scouts), everything else was built veteran. And no, I don't have enough workers. I almost thought I was getting there then realized how much work there is to do and how big the world is. Need way, way more workers.
Edit 2: There was a bonus grassland under the Paris jungle tile, so Paris can and did get to 20 shields per turn.
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Emperor
Here are the goals I put at the first of my last turnset and my self-grading on how I'm doing on them
I also realize the mountain range has been a mental barrier for me since I found it, with the north being his side and the south being mine. Screw that, the north is my side, too, and I need to start settling it as soon as I get roads through there. I have two mountain passes in mind, one with two hills and a mountain to road, and one with only one mountain to road. I could actually go around one end or the other on flat lands, but it's too far around. With individual workers doing next-closest-task assignments I have roads almost to the two pass points, but now I need to dedicate roading crews and get these road put in because I am not currently controlling where the battles take place and I need to be doing that.
The area just north of the mountains is a large plain with water on the far NW side in Alex's lands, but I have irrigation close to the East end of the mountain range and can get it through in one spot, so I'll be irrigating the entire northern planes from there. They will eventually be productive cities, but not in the near term.
I might have been a bit too defensive so far. Truth is I can lose a city or three as long as they aren't in my first two rings and then he's out of units to continue the fight and my reinforcements are arriving. Not that I want to do that, but I also don't want 3/4 of my army chasing his small invasion stacks all over my quadrant of the world.
I also need to start actively exploring with galleys and spears-in-galleys if I want to find resources, and heck even popping huts has been more productive than expected. With unfixed barbs there are probably several spots where barb galleys are piled up and waiting to ambush me, so I might want to send out empty galleys at first. *Or* with GLH I might be able to end every turn in the sea. I have been attacked in the sea before by barb galleys if they can return to coast after the attack, but I don't think they will attack where they will end their turn in the sea. So I might be able to end every turn in a sea tile where no barb galley could reach me and then return to coast in 3 moves. Then I could safely have either two spears or a spear and a settler in each galley without fear of being sunk.
I don't have a good feel for how this game is going to go. Will I overwhelm his horsemen and hoplites with my spear-and-archer production superiority, or will this drag on until I can build a much better unit? A time or two I wondered if could snowball my expansion so quickly that I could settle the world and have 66% of the land before he can get 33%. With Pyramids and ToA that might be possible, but man that would be a lot of settlers and settling and workers roading.
Or what if I start nibbling away his cities from his S and SW and his capital keeps jumping E and his production bonus and moving capital keeps him productive and competitive? I almost feel like I need to just occupy his core and kill the rest of his cities off rather than roll them in order. But first I need to see if I can even maintain a force inside his territory and then if I can take a town or two.
I am really liking ToA in this game and will try to avoid getting Education until I more or less have to. I know I can plop down a settler anywhere on the continent and 5 turns later pop the borders. This gives better visibility for defense and captures bonus, luxury and strategic resources quickly. And then, what, 50 turns later the borders will pop again giving even more defensive warning against approaching enemies.
I don't want to speed up research, so my hope is to trail Alex in researching, so he's researching at full price (albeit with his discount), and then I can research after him at a discount since the tech is already known. I may change my mind if he takes the Education route through the tree, or if/when I have enough cities and specialists that I can out-research him handily I might race to Military Tradition if I find horses and saltpeter or maybe even to Steam Power if I find iron. (Railroads would make this empire much easier to manage!)
My apparent wonder addiction this game has been somewhat surprising, but when I ask myself if I want Alex, my only rival, to have free granaries and walls in every city I have to scream "hell no!"
The other surprise is that marketplaces (and libraries, banks and universities) look like a bad deal in this game. I'm not even aware of more than two luxes in the world yet, and my top 3-6 cities aren't the bulk of the empire's economic output. Instead of markets for the top 10 or so cities I'd rather have the 5 archers or spears each city for the same shield cost and send them directly to Alex's core. My increase in commerce will come from specialist farms and perhaps even from semicorrupt cities with one or two specialists in an otherwise productive city.
And now I'm wondering about courthouses. I've started a few courthouse builds already, but now that I think about it, 80s and 1gpt to gain a couple of extra shields per city? On smaller maps it's worth it, but I think I'd rather have a large number of mixed specialist/producer towns that slowly build units (with soon-ish free barracks) on this map. When I get into the game again I'll have to see what difference a courthouse makes for each city and ask myself it it's worth it; if it will pay for itself in a reasonable time.
- Farmer's gambit expasion to the east; it's shielded from Alex by a sea. - I am started on this and have several settlers on the way, but I really need to get at least a 4-worker team building a long road down that way to make settlement faster.
- Rapid but guarded expansion to fill the NW grasslands - That went very well last turnset. I made a dot map and placed all the towns.
- Prevent Alex from getting Sun Tzu -- I can't let him build vet troops out of every trash city - Too early for this, but with some planning and prebuilds I'm pretty sure I can keep this from him. We will be out of wonder builds by the time Sun Tzu is available, so no cascade for him *unless* he manages to find ivory and start SoZ.
- Preferably keep GW from Alex; I'd hate to give a 50% defense bonus to all his hoplite garrisons. - I am sure to get this since I had a prebuild going for it and he didn't
- Settle the crappy land between me and the mountains as a war zone to keep battles away from useful cities. - That has worked out well; He sent units my way, and the battles are among the mountains and crap cities while my productive and potentially-productive cities are improving without harassment
- Wage war mostly with spears pushing into his core cities and tearing up imrovements. It's a slow way to wage war, but I need to slow him down, and I don't think I can knock over his cities like dominoes just now. - With such a wide front I have scattered troops all along the mountain line and only in the past few turns started moving 5-8 spears north of the mountain range. I need to get at least two 4-worker teams extending roadways north to Alex's territory and constantly stream spears into his territory at road speeds; I'll probably want to dedicate certain cities to resupply and set rally points so I'm not manually walking everyone around.
- Also, leader-fish as much as I can - With his troops and mine scattered all up and down the mountain range I've only managed to arrange one elite win. Again, I need to take the battle to him and control where the battles take place to more effectively leader-fish
I also realize the mountain range has been a mental barrier for me since I found it, with the north being his side and the south being mine. Screw that, the north is my side, too, and I need to start settling it as soon as I get roads through there. I have two mountain passes in mind, one with two hills and a mountain to road, and one with only one mountain to road. I could actually go around one end or the other on flat lands, but it's too far around. With individual workers doing next-closest-task assignments I have roads almost to the two pass points, but now I need to dedicate roading crews and get these road put in because I am not currently controlling where the battles take place and I need to be doing that.
The area just north of the mountains is a large plain with water on the far NW side in Alex's lands, but I have irrigation close to the East end of the mountain range and can get it through in one spot, so I'll be irrigating the entire northern planes from there. They will eventually be productive cities, but not in the near term.
I might have been a bit too defensive so far. Truth is I can lose a city or three as long as they aren't in my first two rings and then he's out of units to continue the fight and my reinforcements are arriving. Not that I want to do that, but I also don't want 3/4 of my army chasing his small invasion stacks all over my quadrant of the world.
I also need to start actively exploring with galleys and spears-in-galleys if I want to find resources, and heck even popping huts has been more productive than expected. With unfixed barbs there are probably several spots where barb galleys are piled up and waiting to ambush me, so I might want to send out empty galleys at first. *Or* with GLH I might be able to end every turn in the sea. I have been attacked in the sea before by barb galleys if they can return to coast after the attack, but I don't think they will attack where they will end their turn in the sea. So I might be able to end every turn in a sea tile where no barb galley could reach me and then return to coast in 3 moves. Then I could safely have either two spears or a spear and a settler in each galley without fear of being sunk.
I don't have a good feel for how this game is going to go. Will I overwhelm his horsemen and hoplites with my spear-and-archer production superiority, or will this drag on until I can build a much better unit? A time or two I wondered if could snowball my expansion so quickly that I could settle the world and have 66% of the land before he can get 33%. With Pyramids and ToA that might be possible, but man that would be a lot of settlers and settling and workers roading.
Or what if I start nibbling away his cities from his S and SW and his capital keeps jumping E and his production bonus and moving capital keeps him productive and competitive? I almost feel like I need to just occupy his core and kill the rest of his cities off rather than roll them in order. But first I need to see if I can even maintain a force inside his territory and then if I can take a town or two.
I am really liking ToA in this game and will try to avoid getting Education until I more or less have to. I know I can plop down a settler anywhere on the continent and 5 turns later pop the borders. This gives better visibility for defense and captures bonus, luxury and strategic resources quickly. And then, what, 50 turns later the borders will pop again giving even more defensive warning against approaching enemies.
I don't want to speed up research, so my hope is to trail Alex in researching, so he's researching at full price (albeit with his discount), and then I can research after him at a discount since the tech is already known. I may change my mind if he takes the Education route through the tree, or if/when I have enough cities and specialists that I can out-research him handily I might race to Military Tradition if I find horses and saltpeter or maybe even to Steam Power if I find iron. (Railroads would make this empire much easier to manage!)
My apparent wonder addiction this game has been somewhat surprising, but when I ask myself if I want Alex, my only rival, to have free granaries and walls in every city I have to scream "hell no!"
The other surprise is that marketplaces (and libraries, banks and universities) look like a bad deal in this game. I'm not even aware of more than two luxes in the world yet, and my top 3-6 cities aren't the bulk of the empire's economic output. Instead of markets for the top 10 or so cities I'd rather have the 5 archers or spears each city for the same shield cost and send them directly to Alex's core. My increase in commerce will come from specialist farms and perhaps even from semicorrupt cities with one or two specialists in an otherwise productive city.
And now I'm wondering about courthouses. I've started a few courthouse builds already, but now that I think about it, 80s and 1gpt to gain a couple of extra shields per city? On smaller maps it's worth it, but I think I'd rather have a large number of mixed specialist/producer towns that slowly build units (with soon-ish free barracks) on this map. When I get into the game again I'll have to see what difference a courthouse makes for each city and ask myself it it's worth it; if it will pay for itself in a reasonable time.
Puppeteer
Emperor
Was that only 20 more turns? I got a lot accomplished in 20 turns!
Recently in this war I've had my troops scattered across my northern front, but this turnset I decided I need to take the initiative and push North, risking some of my NW cities. It worked out better than I expected as once I started pushing North he diverted most of his troops and even a galley back towards his lands and my slow troops instead of continuing to threaten my newly-found cities in lush green grasslands with the promise of great future production if left alone by enemies and allowed to be tamed by the ever-growing worker force.
I also organized three roading crews, two to make passes N through the mountain range and one to road east for faster expansion under the natural barrier of the inland sea. Generally I extended each road one tile per turn.
I had started some courthouse builds and was considering markets after currency, but it occurred to me on this huge map that's a lot of shields that don't make much of a difference in each city. I'd need at least 10 markets to really notice a difference, and I'd rather spend the shields on new troops to keep Alex busy. And courthouses really don't seem worth it, at least not in 3rd and 4th ring cities. We'll see what the situation is like after the FP is complete.
During the military and road push to the North I concentrated more on the horse resource than trying to get farther north to disrupt his core. The western road crew wound up veering East to meet the other road crew and all the lines of troops met up at the horses plain. I colonized the horses a turn or two ago (Alex never touched this horse; his source is elsewhere) and then razed what should have been his horse town. There was a fair bit of resistance and counterattacks, but with my pushing most of my new troops down the new roads Alex was able to chew up some of my troops but not really slow me down.
I seem to be a bit stretched out to reach the horses, but Alex is obediently sending his troops around the horses and wines where all my troops are heading instead of causing trouble behind my front lines. And that's what initiative is about. I said I'm going to take the battle to his doorstep and he is following my lead.
But I'll have shiny new--yet somehow veteran--horsemen speeding down those new roads very shortly and have even more control of where each battle takes place. Alex's troops are going to start falling faster.
I also found iron and expect to have it colonized within 10 turns! So not long ago I thought this game would be fought with archers, spears and perhaps longbowmen, but now I'm looking forward to finishing (I think) with knights.
I got the Great Wall and Great Lighthouse completed. Greece and I both entered the middle ages at the same time, and he got Monarchy as his free tech, so I don't have to panic about him getting a head start on Sun Tzu, although he was able to cascade his GLH build to TGL, so I have a slight concern about him possibly changing that build to Sun Tzu when available, but I suspect the city he's building it in is crap, and I'll restart my Sun Tzu prebuild under a Golden age. (He probably will also just start a new Sun Tzu build instead of changing his TGL build, but I am paranoid about any potential for him to build vet units in every city.)
Oh yeah, GLH started my golden age, and I have about 17 turns of it left. I am building some markets after all but only because building 20-shield units would have been a colossal waste of GA shields. Some cities are at 15-19 spt in the GA, and that's still two turns per 20-shield unit, so I'm throwing in some non-unit builds where the shields would otherwise get wasted.
I also got my navy started. I lost one boat to Alex but have two boats in the water now and can avoid barbs by staying far enough into the sea where they can't attack me and then return to the coast.
I almost forgot I got my first leader, first army win (archer army ) and am building Heroic Epic. I did lose my army attacking a hoplite-guarded city. I've had better luck with lone archers, go figure.
Alex researched Republic and like an idiot revolted to it immediately after having been in a war with me that he started well over 20 turns ago, and my troops were starting to tear his up and threaten his cities. Yeah, he doesn't seem to be doing so well in Republic; in F11 I can see his cities starving down, and he is flat broke.
But now that I have horses wrested from Alex's almost-grasp and seem to have a bead on iron I think the end game is in sight, and it looks like a bunch of French knights romping all over Greece after a few decades of horsemen terrorizing anybody that steps outside of a city.
In the next 10-20 turns I'll have the FP built, horses and iron and perhaps wines connected, and a never-ending stream of horsemen heading north.
Turnlog:
Screenshot additional info: There are also two galleys. The two screenshots of the town of "Horses Can Haz" show the procession of troops along the new roads and also how I took over his L1 culture, but it took two turns instead of one like I anticipated. This was possible due to the free temple from ToA generating culture the instant I settled the city. The borders will pop in three more turns, but I colonized the horses so I can start building horsemen immediately. The last screenshot shows a spear guarding iron in the wilderness and my settling and roading crews beelining for it.
Edit: And no, I still don't have enough workers!
Recently in this war I've had my troops scattered across my northern front, but this turnset I decided I need to take the initiative and push North, risking some of my NW cities. It worked out better than I expected as once I started pushing North he diverted most of his troops and even a galley back towards his lands and my slow troops instead of continuing to threaten my newly-found cities in lush green grasslands with the promise of great future production if left alone by enemies and allowed to be tamed by the ever-growing worker force.
I also organized three roading crews, two to make passes N through the mountain range and one to road east for faster expansion under the natural barrier of the inland sea. Generally I extended each road one tile per turn.
I had started some courthouse builds and was considering markets after currency, but it occurred to me on this huge map that's a lot of shields that don't make much of a difference in each city. I'd need at least 10 markets to really notice a difference, and I'd rather spend the shields on new troops to keep Alex busy. And courthouses really don't seem worth it, at least not in 3rd and 4th ring cities. We'll see what the situation is like after the FP is complete.
During the military and road push to the North I concentrated more on the horse resource than trying to get farther north to disrupt his core. The western road crew wound up veering East to meet the other road crew and all the lines of troops met up at the horses plain. I colonized the horses a turn or two ago (Alex never touched this horse; his source is elsewhere) and then razed what should have been his horse town. There was a fair bit of resistance and counterattacks, but with my pushing most of my new troops down the new roads Alex was able to chew up some of my troops but not really slow me down.
I seem to be a bit stretched out to reach the horses, but Alex is obediently sending his troops around the horses and wines where all my troops are heading instead of causing trouble behind my front lines. And that's what initiative is about. I said I'm going to take the battle to his doorstep and he is following my lead.
But I'll have shiny new--yet somehow veteran--horsemen speeding down those new roads very shortly and have even more control of where each battle takes place. Alex's troops are going to start falling faster.
I also found iron and expect to have it colonized within 10 turns! So not long ago I thought this game would be fought with archers, spears and perhaps longbowmen, but now I'm looking forward to finishing (I think) with knights.
I got the Great Wall and Great Lighthouse completed. Greece and I both entered the middle ages at the same time, and he got Monarchy as his free tech, so I don't have to panic about him getting a head start on Sun Tzu, although he was able to cascade his GLH build to TGL, so I have a slight concern about him possibly changing that build to Sun Tzu when available, but I suspect the city he's building it in is crap, and I'll restart my Sun Tzu prebuild under a Golden age. (He probably will also just start a new Sun Tzu build instead of changing his TGL build, but I am paranoid about any potential for him to build vet units in every city.)
Oh yeah, GLH started my golden age, and I have about 17 turns of it left. I am building some markets after all but only because building 20-shield units would have been a colossal waste of GA shields. Some cities are at 15-19 spt in the GA, and that's still two turns per 20-shield unit, so I'm throwing in some non-unit builds where the shields would otherwise get wasted.
I also got my navy started. I lost one boat to Alex but have two boats in the water now and can avoid barbs by staying far enough into the sea where they can't attack me and then return to the coast.
I almost forgot I got my first leader, first army win (archer army
) and am building Heroic Epic. I did lose my army attacking a hoplite-guarded city. I've had better luck with lone archers, go figure.Alex researched Republic and like an idiot revolted to it immediately after having been in a war with me that he started well over 20 turns ago, and my troops were starting to tear his up and threaten his cities. Yeah, he doesn't seem to be doing so well in Republic; in F11 I can see his cities starving down, and he is flat broke.
But now that I have horses wrested from Alex's almost-grasp and seem to have a bead on iron I think the end game is in sight, and it looks like a bunch of French knights romping all over Greece after a few decades of horsemen terrorizing anybody that steps outside of a city.
In the next 10-20 turns I'll have the FP built, horses and iron and perhaps wines connected, and a never-ending stream of horsemen heading north.
Turnlog:
Spoiler :
Screenshot additional info: There are also two galleys. The two screenshots of the town of "Horses Can Haz" show the procession of troops along the new roads and also how I took over his L1 culture, but it took two turns instead of one like I anticipated. This was possible due to the free temple from ToA generating culture the instant I settled the city. The borders will pop in three more turns, but I colonized the horses so I can start building horsemen immediately. The last screenshot shows a spear guarding iron in the wilderness and my settling and roading crews beelining for it.
Edit: And no, I still don't have enough workers!
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20 turns ago, I thought it would be quite a long time before I had either horses or iron, if ever, but now I already have horses and can have iron within 10 turns, and I'm in the early part of a golden age and 2 1/2 techs from knights.
I am suddenly very paranoid about the iron. It could run out, Greece or barbs could cut the supply line, etc. But I think things will develop too quickly for those issues.
Now the path forward is clear: knights ASAP, produce them from *every* city W of the inland sea.
So I should probably switch to max research and, if I'm lucky, grab Chivalry during my golden age with boosted commerce. After Chivalry I'll probably end research and devote all money to troop support, upgrades and cash rushes. Maybe I'll keep a lone scientist researching the bottom-half of the tech tree, just in case.
Now I'll probably have Feudalism in less than 10 turns, so I can probably start TGL in Paris at 33spt as a prebuild for Sun Tzu and complete it shortly after the GA ends.
In case things run longer than expected I will continue with naval scouting and, extending irrigation N of the mountain range and settling to the East.
I'm thinking about iron-protection strategy, and it occurrs to me the best way to protect it is to settle beyond it. A two-town-deep "ring" around it will give me plenty of warning to cash-rush troops if Greece suddenly gets smart. Paired harbors on the inland sea would also give me a second trade route back to the core in case the road gets cut. I already have a near-core city on the sea, and I've been struggling to figure out what it should build during the GA because it's lands have lots of jungle...now I know.
With archers and spears I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to kill him off quickly enough, that his capital would keep jumping East and he would settle and grow quickly enough to stay alive with a migrating empire. I don't think that will be the case with knights, but I still might consider leaving Athens for last or near-last to mitigate that possibility.
Happy thoughts: I'm not sure where Thermopylae is, but it should be close to Athens, and capturing it with the Oracle will give me an extra happy face on each of my free temples. I expect to capture wines soon, and Greece seems to have furs somewhere, so I should have at least 3 luxes by end-game. With MP's, free temples, one lux and THG I am able to run at 20% luxury for now. With the new happiness I'll probably free up MP's rather than try to lower lux as unit support is my biggest expense now.
I am suddenly very paranoid about the iron. It could run out, Greece or barbs could cut the supply line, etc. But I think things will develop too quickly for those issues.
Now the path forward is clear: knights ASAP, produce them from *every* city W of the inland sea.
So I should probably switch to max research and, if I'm lucky, grab Chivalry during my golden age with boosted commerce. After Chivalry I'll probably end research and devote all money to troop support, upgrades and cash rushes. Maybe I'll keep a lone scientist researching the bottom-half of the tech tree, just in case.
Now I'll probably have Feudalism in less than 10 turns, so I can probably start TGL in Paris at 33spt as a prebuild for Sun Tzu and complete it shortly after the GA ends.
In case things run longer than expected I will continue with naval scouting and, extending irrigation N of the mountain range and settling to the East.
I'm thinking about iron-protection strategy, and it occurrs to me the best way to protect it is to settle beyond it. A two-town-deep "ring" around it will give me plenty of warning to cash-rush troops if Greece suddenly gets smart. Paired harbors on the inland sea would also give me a second trade route back to the core in case the road gets cut. I already have a near-core city on the sea, and I've been struggling to figure out what it should build during the GA because it's lands have lots of jungle...now I know.
With archers and spears I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to kill him off quickly enough, that his capital would keep jumping East and he would settle and grow quickly enough to stay alive with a migrating empire. I don't think that will be the case with knights, but I still might consider leaving Athens for last or near-last to mitigate that possibility.
Happy thoughts: I'm not sure where Thermopylae is, but it should be close to Athens, and capturing it with the Oracle will give me an extra happy face on each of my free temples. I expect to capture wines soon, and Greece seems to have furs somewhere, so I should have at least 3 luxes by end-game. With MP's, free temples, one lux and THG I am able to run at 20% luxury for now. With the new happiness I'll probably free up MP's rather than try to lower lux as unit support is my biggest expense now.
Puppeteer
Emperor
Queen Joan d'Arc was relaxing under the stars contemplating the recent news of the capture of horses from under the nose of Alex of Greece and the discovery of a great source iron of which her majesty's researchers deduced its existence and use millennia ago. But swordsmen are an idea of the past. Joan can see the future and how to combine both new resources for fast, strong, mounted troops that will finally overwhelm the ability of Greece to interfere with her plans any more. It shouldn't take her researchers too long to bring her vision to reality.
All she ever wanted was to explore the universe without interference, and Alex was so rude all that time ago destroying the original city of Tours when the world was still big enough for both of them. It was only a matter of a company of warriors being in the right place when the injured but aggressive group of hoplites stormed toward Besancon, and truthfully, deep in the queen's own mind, a matter of fortune that the full strength warrior company was able to prevail over the thrice more powerful hoplites in two out of three rounds of battle lest Besancon would also be a sad memory. No, not fortune...fate...destiny. It is a sign from the stars!
But she is peaceful (in her own mind). Perhaps Alex and she can live...if not in peace then in isolation of each other. He will never agree, but he doesn't need to, does he? Joan will set aside a City of Greek Heritage for Alex and his loyal followers to stay. (They may choose to name it differently among themselves, but the Queen is a tolerant one.) Of course it will need to be guarded by French troops.
In fact, as large as the world is, Joan does not need to occupy *all* of it. She can set aside vast amounts, say just over 33%, of the world's land as nature preserves, undisturbed by man (except for roads, future means of transit and any colonies needed to procure resources). Deserts and plains sound like good candidates for nature preserves, the Queen observes.
But Alex is not the only hostile force in the world. There are minor barbarian camps. They can be relocated into the nature preserves and also guarded by French troops to carry out their primitive ritualistic existence.
That would leave the world free for peaceful cities and workers to explore and farm the lush lands of the world as they please. By containing and guarding the only threatening elements in the world, the rest can live in absolute peace. They will be free to live happy lives and specialize in science research, because the world is not enough for Joan. She wants the stars, too.
All she ever wanted was to explore the universe without interference, and Alex was so rude all that time ago destroying the original city of Tours when the world was still big enough for both of them. It was only a matter of a company of warriors being in the right place when the injured but aggressive group of hoplites stormed toward Besancon, and truthfully, deep in the queen's own mind, a matter of fortune that the full strength warrior company was able to prevail over the thrice more powerful hoplites in two out of three rounds of battle lest Besancon would also be a sad memory. No, not fortune...fate...destiny. It is a sign from the stars!
But she is peaceful (in her own mind). Perhaps Alex and she can live...if not in peace then in isolation of each other. He will never agree, but he doesn't need to, does he? Joan will set aside a City of Greek Heritage for Alex and his loyal followers to stay. (They may choose to name it differently among themselves, but the Queen is a tolerant one.) Of course it will need to be guarded by French troops.
In fact, as large as the world is, Joan does not need to occupy *all* of it. She can set aside vast amounts, say just over 33%, of the world's land as nature preserves, undisturbed by man (except for roads, future means of transit and any colonies needed to procure resources). Deserts and plains sound like good candidates for nature preserves, the Queen observes.
But Alex is not the only hostile force in the world. There are minor barbarian camps. They can be relocated into the nature preserves and also guarded by French troops to carry out their primitive ritualistic existence.
That would leave the world free for peaceful cities and workers to explore and farm the lush lands of the world as they please. By containing and guarding the only threatening elements in the world, the rest can live in absolute peace. They will be free to live happy lives and specialize in science research, because the world is not enough for Joan. She wants the stars, too.
Puppeteer
Emperor
Another 6 turns taken, and France has learned Monotheism and Feudalism and is 4 turns from Chivalry. Iron will be roaded next turn and borders will expand to make it property of France in two turns. A second source of iron was located to the NE of this iron. Sun Tzu is due in 9 turns, and the FP was recently completed in New Paris.
I threw a stack of archers and spears at Knossos, a size-8 city that claimed the wines, and I razed it. Then I settled the city of Champagne to instantly provide wines to the rest of the queendom (?). I would have though they would need to age it first, but...well nevermind.
Alex is still a Republic to my surprise and delight. He seems to be managing to settle more cities and throw some troops my way, but the horsemen are just now reaching his front lines in mass, and knights are no more than 10 turns away from being invented, built and making it into the battle.
I've been throwing a lot of spears and archers under hoplite busses, but horsemen are on the scene and knights will be there soon. I still don't have enough workers, and I have given up on irrigating plains and deserts for the rest of the game.
I threw a stack of archers and spears at Knossos, a size-8 city that claimed the wines, and I razed it. Then I settled the city of Champagne to instantly provide wines to the rest of the queendom (?). I would have though they would need to age it first, but...well nevermind.
Alex is still a Republic to my surprise and delight. He seems to be managing to settle more cities and throw some troops my way, but the horsemen are just now reaching his front lines in mass, and knights are no more than 10 turns away from being invented, built and making it into the battle.
Spoiler :
I've been throwing a lot of spears and archers under hoplite busses, but horsemen are on the scene and knights will be there soon. I still don't have enough workers, and I have given up on irrigating plains and deserts for the rest of the game.
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A lot more happened in 22 more turns, pretty much all bad for Alex.
I got wines, iron, Chivalry & knights, 4 more leaders, Sun Tzu, ivory, took away Alex's horses and luxes, and will have furs and incense connected soon. Incense was discovered by a distant spear scout while a galley full of pioneer settlers happened to be 4 tiles away.
One pioneer city is established, and another pioneer settler was dropped off at the far corner of the continent. Each of these cities are on or near farmable lands and will cash rush settlers to seed a new rapid expansion.
I knocked over a couple of Alex's cities with horsemen, archers and spears before knights reached the front, and since then it's more or less been a rout. Alex has 10 cities left and can't keep up with my production or the strength of knights, not to mention three (soon four) knight armies.
I think I came up with a new (for me) war strategy. At one point 30-50 turns ago I realized I was spending too many units and too much time chasing enemy units across my long front lines and had no reasonable way to make the line shorter. I decided I would push hard to the horses resource and risk my flank cities; I figured I could lose two or three cities at most before he ran out of units to continue, and by then I would have reinforcements directed his way. What happened is when I pushed all my units towards his core all his units came to where I wanted to fight and no productive city was ever threatened again. Since that worked so well I continued the "spear-point" approach to the wines and then to his capital. Some cities were pretty exposed from the east and west, but Alex was more concerned about where I was going than where I was vulnerable. And really with a steady stream of units coming from my core to the spear point I could have quickly presented a flank defense if necessary. I wound up bisecting his empire with his resources in the east and his capital in the west. I sprang towards the resources first and will double-back to get the rest of him.
With Alex down to 10 cities and me up to 56 cities, 22 settlers, 79 knights and other impressive numbers it's pretty clear the game is in the bag however I wish to win.
I am starting to get bored or at least distracted by real life things that need tending to, so I may flake out on this game, again, but a small part of me is curious about how the other resources are distributed, how my farm-the-world project would work especially with placing new seed cities for REXing and to see if barb camps are indeed limited by the number of players or if there are tons of them out there stocked with units waiting to pounce on me when I see them. I'm curious to see if I can ramp up farming to get 4-turn techs for the rest of the game. It's also been a long time since I launched a space ship because I usually get bored and want to start a new game before then.
Turnlog:
770 AD Save
I got wines, iron, Chivalry & knights, 4 more leaders, Sun Tzu, ivory, took away Alex's horses and luxes, and will have furs and incense connected soon. Incense was discovered by a distant spear scout while a galley full of pioneer settlers happened to be 4 tiles away.
One pioneer city is established, and another pioneer settler was dropped off at the far corner of the continent. Each of these cities are on or near farmable lands and will cash rush settlers to seed a new rapid expansion.
I knocked over a couple of Alex's cities with horsemen, archers and spears before knights reached the front, and since then it's more or less been a rout. Alex has 10 cities left and can't keep up with my production or the strength of knights, not to mention three (soon four) knight armies.
I think I came up with a new (for me) war strategy. At one point 30-50 turns ago I realized I was spending too many units and too much time chasing enemy units across my long front lines and had no reasonable way to make the line shorter. I decided I would push hard to the horses resource and risk my flank cities; I figured I could lose two or three cities at most before he ran out of units to continue, and by then I would have reinforcements directed his way. What happened is when I pushed all my units towards his core all his units came to where I wanted to fight and no productive city was ever threatened again. Since that worked so well I continued the "spear-point" approach to the wines and then to his capital. Some cities were pretty exposed from the east and west, but Alex was more concerned about where I was going than where I was vulnerable. And really with a steady stream of units coming from my core to the spear point I could have quickly presented a flank defense if necessary. I wound up bisecting his empire with his resources in the east and his capital in the west. I sprang towards the resources first and will double-back to get the rest of him.
With Alex down to 10 cities and me up to 56 cities, 22 settlers, 79 knights and other impressive numbers it's pretty clear the game is in the bag however I wish to win.
I am starting to get bored or at least distracted by real life things that need tending to, so I may flake out on this game, again, but a small part of me is curious about how the other resources are distributed, how my farm-the-world project would work especially with placing new seed cities for REXing and to see if barb camps are indeed limited by the number of players or if there are tons of them out there stocked with units waiting to pounce on me when I see them. I'm curious to see if I can ramp up farming to get 4-turn techs for the rest of the game. It's also been a long time since I launched a space ship because I usually get bored and want to start a new game before then.
Turnlog:
Spoiler :
770 AD Save
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And here is the animated minimap covering 4000 BC through 770 AD:
