[BTS] What do you do when you have Julius Cesar as your neighbor

[civ4_mando]

Im playing on Monarch difficulty on a Big_and_Small map with other 8 AI players. I have met with 5 of them already: Tokugawa, Montezuma, Zara Yaqob, Cirius and Julius Cesar (Cirius is my left neighboor and Cesar is on my right). Im Inca by the way. Im on turn 100, Ive managed to build 5 cities but Cesar already have 8 of them. Everyone else has 4 to 5 cities.

Im concerned about a war with Rome, and facing Preatorians. A few turns ago Cirius asked me to convert to Judaism and I say ok. Me, Persia and Japan are jewish, and Rome and Aztecs are Buddist. Im guessing this will lead to war in the coming centuries

 

[lymond]

Well, as Incan, I'd probably just kill JC right out the gate, or at least choked in into oblivion. Still, no reason should not be able to expand sufficiently on this level even against IMP leaders.

As for your current situation though, it's really hard to say without seeing the game.

 

[civ4_mando]

Here I add some images

 

[Fabled]

5 cities at T100 feels slow, especially on monarch. Regardless, I bet you can switch to Buddhism to keep Rome pleased and conquer Persia with construction, and then hit Rome later once they're out of their power spike. Knights is probably a good timing to look for.

 

[Gumbolt]

Some sort of rush was needed here. You were boxed in with nowhere to go.

Adopting a different religion is a good way to upset the Romans. Gifting resources and sometimes a duff city can get you to pleased. Albeit JC can plot at pleased. Phants/catapults probably would do trick here. Financial leader with flood plain start.

 

[konata_LS]

Im Inca by the way.

Build Quechuas from T0, Quechuas rush JC, and make Rome your second city.

Edit: Building Axes is fine, but why are you building a scout in Tiwanaku ?...

 

[Gumbolt]

One of the reasons I rarely play Incas as Quechaus and their uB mixed with financial feels over powered. On monarch level Quechas can take down 2-3 AI if just spammed.

Axes here would be late as no copper. Waiting for iron is an issue if AI like JC get it first.

 

[civ4_mando]

5 cities at T100 feels slow, especially on monarch. Regardless, I bet you can switch to Buddhism to keep Rome pleased and conquer Persia with construction, and then hit Rome later once they're out of their power spike. Knights is probably a good timing to look for.

Im goint to reload the game to an early turn and try a more agressive strategy. Maybe i'll go to war against Persia with Elephants. Im not used to going on an early conquest. Most of my wars tend to be really late game.

Some sort of rush was needed here. You were boxed in with nowhere to go.

Adopting a different religion is a good way to upset the Romans. Gifting resources and sometimes a duff city can get you to pleased. Albeit JC can plot at pleased. Phants/catapults probably would do trick here. Financial leader with flood plain start.

Yeah, I had a feeling that that was a bad idea. Im going to keep Rome happy until I can get them out of the game.

Build Quechuas from T0, Quechuas rush JC, and make Rome your second city.

Edit: Building Axes is fine, but why are you building a scout in Tiwanaku ?...

I was building one cause I wanted to check out the entire map, see where AI had its cities. Do you guys don't explore with scouts?

One of the reasons I rarely play Incas as Quechaus and their uB mixed with financial feels over powered. On monarch level Quechas can take down 2-3 AI if just spammed.

Axes here would be late as no copper. Waiting for iron is an issue if AI like JC get it first.

Don't really feel like doing a Quechua rush . Don't want to get too used on a strategy specific to one civ.

EDIT: By the way, thanks for your comments/suggestions! Feels great to have a place to learn more of this game.

 

[Fabled]

I was building one cause I wanted to check out the entire map, see where AI had its cities. Do you guys don't explore with scouts?

Not as much as you would think, scouting units are often parked nearby to prevent barbarian spawns. If you haven't seen that before, barbs can't spawn in line of sight or in a 5x5 square centered on a unit. If you get warriors on good defensive squares you can pretty much nullify barbarians until you get an offensive unit online (i.e. skip teching archery, since it doesn't do anything great, and get a good tech instead). If you know where your next few cities will be and you've met the AIs there's not really any reason to find out what the rest of the world looks like.

 

[Gumbolt]

Exploring is fine but sometimes I might just use a worker or chariot. Scouts later on have less use.

Keeping Rome happy is a good idea till you have the forces to take them down.

Being aggressive wins you games. Just finished off a huge map with Toku on Immortal. I barely had writing by 1ad. However I used axes to take down 2 AI then used Samurai/trebs for the rest before cheesing out on AP. Suprising how good a stack of 16 samurai/ 10-11 phants and 21-30 trebs does against castle walls. 1-2 turns bombard and Samurai are already 80-90% odds to win. Ai had cuirs, muskets, mace and another had cannons. One AI had Grenadiers but bribes pretty much neutralised them as AI can't fight wars on 2 fronts. Reality is big stacks outside cities tend to wipe out all defenders with little or no losses. Of course I split the stack to speed up conquest. Point is even being behind on tech due to bad early choices some techs can last you to 1480ad. Hadn't taken a golden age by the finish date so funny old game.

Techs on Monarch on a standard size map will be much cheaper so a few cottages and 4-5 early cities will give you a nice break out empire to whip phants and catapults. If you get construction first you can start whipping catapults before phants arrive. Hopefully save some forest to chop into them to. Always whip with under 20H invested on captapult or under 30H on phants so you get best overflow. 1 pop whipping is not great but sometimes useful if a city has little ot no food and build turns are 8-9 turns plus. Very situational.

 

[lymond]

Yeah, don't build scouts. If I start with one, I scout out surrounding area a bit for the purpose of finding nearby city spots, then as Fabled mentioned, just set him to spawnbust duty near one of those spots.

I can understand not wanting to execute the infamous Q rush. It's a bit gimmicking really. However, Qs are great for worker stealing and choking neighbors - slowing their development an and expansion. Buys you some time to get the juicy spots. Then finish them off later with a real army.