What would you do in this situation?

[Gidoza]

A shout-out to Stalker0 for this thread because of his recent mentions of happiness and controlling it - this game will be interesting to keep tabs on the very same thing.

And perhaps like quick questions/answers, this thread could serve for little pickles like this one where I'm not quite sure what to do.


Started game on Immortal with the first hotfix that notably cuts AI bonuses (I know they will heavily kick in later...). Playing as Mongolia on Continents. I took God of Open Sky even though my Capital had zero Pasture tiles as I saw nearby settling locations that were excellent for that very thing (my capital happened to be ON a horse). Got some chariots up right away, picking off barbarians...when a culture civ asks to declare ear on Songhai for some massive influence like 98. I couldn't say no and ran with it.

What followed was the most unintentional massacre I could have imagined. I wiped out Songhai, then proceeded to wipe out Rome because he somehow allied the same CS and made me lose yields (I was then allied with it again after Rome fell). Spain was the other person on the continent, and since I *somehow founded first* (I actually don't know how that happened), I didn't want to be bothered dealing with Spain.

So it's turn 121, and I have a whopping 16 cities under my control. Only 5 cities are my own settled ones and I may settle a couple more. I puppeted every other city and razed only one - I didn't think annexing could work with the unhappiness. However, while my happiness sucks at 50%, I've managed to keep it stable with new luxuries, and it keeps going up.

Now that everyone here is trashed, at turn 135, here's my situation.


1. Authority tree is complete. I've considered Fealty, Statecraft, and even Progress as the next tree, but I think Fealty makes the most sense (most of the Progress bonuses are overshadowed by Fealty, and I wonder at the usefulness of Statecraft since I have dominance over some 8 CS anyways). Do you agree?

2. Is it more worth allying or tributing all these City-States? I actually have Roman Forum, so I have Paper to spare. Also, I'm not sure if Mongolian's new UA is even working...100% tribute recently was not giving me even 50 Faith, which seems wrong.

3. My initial religious picks were Cathedrals (errrr the one that gives bonus good to farms and Pastures and things) because the whole continent is flat as a pancake with a couple jungled areas and one desert. The other was Holy Law since I knew I'd get many followers quite quickly (perhaps Transcendence would have been better, but too late now).

I'm already building my Altar for Renaissance belief and my 2nd Prophet is only a couple turns away. What should I pick? There's so many options. (Only took 3 missionaries to do some initial spreading and the influence has simply taken over the rest of the work)

4. Techs to aim for? I'm heading for Chivalry to get Alhambra and Stables, but I'm not sure where to go after that other than Ocean embarkation.

5. Annexing? My plan is to wait until a city has enough Faith to build the requisite Faith buildings and then immediately do them. Maybe Worker bomb the city too?

6. How many Workers? I think I have about 12 right now. It's not nearly enough - I simply have been able to keep up with the demands of this crazy empire.



At the end of it all, I actually do have contact with a civ on the other continent - Kamehameha, so there's some luxury trading going on there. Funnily enough, because Spain died before he could found (again, I don't get how she failed by turn 120...), all four other religions are on the other continent. Hope somebody over there picked Pagodas...

 

[crdvis16]

You probably need to discover the rest of the other continent to trade luxes for happiness and to assess the situation better. Figure out if there is some dominant/runaway civ on the other continent that you need to immediately stop or if you're on par and can potentially win the game without having to invade across the ocean.

I'd probably not be able to resist non-stop tributing if I'm playing as Mongolia, personally. For no other reason than roleplaying . That would lead me to Fealty for my 2nd tree.

For workers, I'd want any settled/annexed city to be working all improved tiles. If that's not the case then you need more workers. I probably wouldn't be as worried if puppets were working unimproved tiles.

For tech goals I'd be reaching along the top of the tree for culture/science. You have secured your continent so until there is a war coming there's no real reason to reach for military techs in the short term.

I'd probably only annex a city if it is capable of overcoming the tech/policy cost increase (or will do so quickly after some gold spent rush building in it). Or if it is strategically important to be able to build there (maybe you don't have many coastal cities so you annex some to be able to build boats). My guess is that you could annex capitals and 1 or 2 particularly strong secondary cities (natural wonders? Spain/Rome/Songhai lack UIs unfortunately). Maybe the rest stay as puppets and potentially get more useful that way with Imperialism down the road.

 

[Gidoza]

You probably need to discover the rest of the other continent to trade luxes for happiness and to assess the situation better. Figure out if there is some dominant/runaway civ on the other continent that you need to immediately stop or if you're on par and can potentially win the game without having to invade across the ocean.

I'd probably not be able to resist non-stop tributing if I'm playing as Mongolia, personally. For no other reason than roleplaying . That would lead me to Fealty for my 2nd tree.

For workers, I'd want any settled/annexed city to be working all improved tiles. If that's not the case then you need more workers. I probably wouldn't be as worried if puppets were working unimproved tiles.

For tech goals I'd be reaching along the top of the tree for culture/science. You have secured your continent so until there is a war coming there's no real reason to reach for military techs in the short term.

I'd probably only annex a city if it is capable of overcoming the tech/policy cost increase (or will do so quickly after some gold spent rush building in it). Or if it is strategically important to be able to build there (maybe you don't have many coastal cities so you annex some to be able to build boats). My guess is that you could annex capitals and 1 or 2 particularly strong secondary cities (natural wonders? Spain/Rome/Songhai lack UIs unfortunately). Maybe the rest stay as puppets and potentially get more useful that way with Imperialism down the road.

I guess one thing that comes to mind here is that if go Fealty, then there's at least two religious buildings that my puppets won't have any access to.

Is it better to have a puppet or to have nothing at all? (e.g. raze)

Fair enough about discovering the other continent. I guess I'll pursue scientific techs and Caravels to meet them all.

I'm *still* not sure whether Mongolia's UA is working, and if it's not, that's a good inspiration to pursue CS alliances...

Thx!

 

[crdvis16]

Regarding puppets vs raze, I believe the tradeoff with puppets is that they are a net negative for gold/happiness typically but give some free culture/science. Authority's tribute helps with gold though as instant yields from puppets count at 100%. So it might be situational- if you're poor and having happiness trouble then it might become worthwhile to raze them at some point. I find with warmonger games that it's normal for me to have low or negative GPT but still be fine financially as long as Tribute (both tributing CSs and the free gold from tile expansion) and conquering cities is still giving me tons of instant gold.

The closer you get to Imperialism the more I'd hold onto puppets, though.

For Mongolia's UA- if you take Autocracy then you'll eventually have the option to tribute AND be allies

 

[azum4roll]

Not my pic, but what would you do if you start in this location? Assuming you know nothing else about the map and rerolling is not an answer.

 

[CrazyG]

Not my pic, but what would you do if you start in this location? Assuming you know nothing else about the map and rerolling is not an answer.

You must have an additional mod since there is no warrior and jungles start at 3 food?

Low production starts like that are really tough, hopefully ruins are enabled. Your scout should move to that south hill. You could consider moving inland if you find decent land there. Maybe the hill next to the citrus, you lose fresh water but an early well might be really important.

 

[andersw]

A shout-out to Stalker0 for this thread because of his recent mentions of happiness and controlling it - this game will be interesting to keep tabs on the very same thing.

And perhaps like quick questions/answers, this thread could serve for little pickles like this one where I'm not quite sure what to do.


Started game on Immortal with the first hotfix that notably cuts AI bonuses (I know they will heavily kick in later...). Playing as Mongolia on Continents. I took God of Open Sky even though my Capital had zero Pasture tiles as I saw nearby settling locations that were excellent for that very thing (my capital happened to be ON a horse). Got some chariots up right away, picking off barbarians...when a culture civ asks to declare ear on Songhai for some massive influence like 98. I couldn't say no and ran with it.

What followed was the most unintentional massacre I could have imagined. I wiped out Songhai, then proceeded to wipe out Rome because he somehow allied the same CS and made me lose yields (I was then allied with it again after Rome fell). Spain was the other person on the continent, and since I *somehow founded first* (I actually don't know how that happened), I didn't want to be bothered dealing with Spain.

So it's turn 121, and I have a whopping 16 cities under my control. Only 5 cities are my own settled ones and I may settle a couple more. I puppeted every other city and razed only one - I didn't think annexing could work with the unhappiness. However, while my happiness sucks at 50%, I've managed to keep it stable with new luxuries, and it keeps going up.

Now that everyone here is trashed, at turn 135, here's my situation.


1. Authority tree is complete. I've considered Fealty, Statecraft, and even Progress as the next tree, but I think Fealty makes the most sense (most of the Progress bonuses are overshadowed by Fealty, and I wonder at the usefulness of Statecraft since I have dominance over some 8 CS anyways). Do you agree?

2. Is it more worth allying or tributing all these City-States? I actually have Roman Forum, so I have Paper to spare. Also, I'm not sure if Mongolian's new UA is even working...100% tribute recently was not giving me even 50 Faith, which seems wrong.

3. My initial religious picks were Cathedrals (errrr the one that gives bonus good to farms and Pastures and things) because the whole continent is flat as a pancake with a couple jungled areas and one desert. The other was Holy Law since I knew I'd get many followers quite quickly (perhaps Transcendence would have been better, but too late now).

I'm already building my Altar for Renaissance belief and my 2nd Prophet is only a couple turns away. What should I pick? There's so many options. (Only took 3 missionaries to do some initial spreading and the influence has simply taken over the rest of the work)

4. Techs to aim for? I'm heading for Chivalry to get Alhambra and Stables, but I'm not sure where to go after that other than Ocean embarkation.

5. Annexing? My plan is to wait until a city has enough Faith to build the requisite Faith buildings and then immediately do them. Maybe Worker bomb the city too?

6. How many Workers? I think I have about 12 right now. It's not nearly enough - I simply have been able to keep up with the demands of this crazy empire.



At the end of it all, I actually do have contact with a civ on the other continent - Kamehameha, so there's some luxury trading going on there. Funnily enough, because Spain died before he could found (again, I don't get how she failed by turn 120...), all four other religions are on the other continent. Hope somebody over there picked Pagodas...

The more I've tested the better I think statecraft is over fealty even at a low nearby 3-4 CS, they dont even NEED to be allies when you take it.
Your diplos will provide more influence than a non statecraft diplo, you get an extra spy that you will plonk in a cs for free alliance.
The yields including happiness have given me a LOT better results for wide compared to fealty.
The same goes for AIs, if there is a runaway its far more likely to be a statecraft civ than a fealty one.

 

[azum4roll]

Grassland jungles are 3f0p. Jungles always add 1f to whatever terrain is below. Most mapscripts just choose to convert tiles under jungles into plains.

The screenshot is taken from the Communitu_79a thread some time ago so there's no starting warrior.

 

[tu_79]

Not my pic, but what would you do if you start in this location? Assuming you know nothing else about the map and rerolling is not an answer.

I'd probably settle on the jungle hill to the right, no fresh water, but probably some fish, and it will leave room for farms.
Unless it's a civ that I wanted to play tradition, in that case I would move somewhere else with fresh water where I can found on the second turn.

 

[Gidoza]

The more I've tested the better I think statecraft is over fealty even at a low nearby 3-4 CS, they dont even NEED to be allies when you take it.
Your diplos will provide more influence than a non statecraft diplo, you get an extra spy that you will plonk in a cs for free alliance.
The yields including happiness have given me a LOT better results for wide compared to fealty.
The same goes for AIs, if there is a runaway its far more likely to be a statecraft civ than a fealty one.

Yeah I've wondered about this. 50% bonus to influence from diplomatic units is quite stupidly high. Fealty is making good for me on Pastures and Monasteries, but I'm not really sure what else - whereas all of Statecraft's bonuses are actually useful.

 

[andersw]

Yeah I've wondered about this. 50% bonus to influence from diplomatic units is quite stupidly high. Fealty is making good for me on Pastures and Monasteries, but I'm not really sure what else - whereas all of Statecraft's bonuses are actually useful.

You also get monopolys, strategic resources and votes from CS.
The only thing fealty really have is that its basically immune to any world congress stuff so you can go full murder hobo and not care.
With statecraft you can (unless you actually have too many votes) lose your CS from open doors or get CS sanctioned, which hurts, I'm not sure how much on immortal, on emperor its easy dealt with because of the number of votes you will have.

 

[Gidoza]

You also get monopolys, strategic resources and votes from CS.
The only thing fealty really have is that its basically immune to any world congress stuff so you can go full murder hobo and not care.
With statecraft you can (unless you actually have too many votes) lose your CS from open doors or get CS sanctioned, which hurts, I'm not sure how much on immortal, on emperor its easy dealt with because of the number of votes you will have.

Yeah this seems a correct enough assessment - if I was sanctioned and CS were sanctioned, it would make no difference since I'm focusing on internal TR anyways, I don't have enough Tourism so that doesn't matter - I'm still pursuing CS and am dominant in votes, and that's interesting because *every* other civ has taken Statecraft. I suppose I have the option of just murdering CS I can't Ally myself.


Anyways...my rival finally declared on me and paid someone else to do so as well even though their participation is irrelevant. Kamehameha is totally dominating in Wonders, is about 7 techs and 4 policies ahead, but we're even in score due to my absurd number of cities. I'm using my production and income to make a huge navy no bulldoze him - which is better, as his influence is already Familiar to me and rising.

What's unfortunate is that with control of an entire continent, I have exactly *one* Coal tile. One!!! This sucks!

 

[andersw]

What's unfortunate is that with control of an entire continent, I have exactly *one* Coal tile. One!!! This sucks!

Are you Marbozir?

 

[Gidoza]

Are you Marbozir?

What's that mean?

 

[andersw]

What's that mean?

He used to play vanilla/bnw on youtube and a recurring theme was having no coal.

 

[Gidoza]

He used to play vanilla/bnw on youtube and a recurring theme was having no coal.

Lol, I see. No - I am not he.