This game is great. One day you're disappointed and lose interest, the next day you boot it up again it turns into a classic. My disappointment didn't last very long as I later found that I was surrounded by natural wonders. Mount Everest to the North, Grand Canyon to the East (Amina got that one but that's fine), Thera to my South, and Bermuda Triangle to my West. After I got the two other navigable river settlements down, I settled the NW's as soon as possible. Later on, Ashoka decided to attack me. I'm not sure what he was thinking. He literally started the war while his units were sandwiched in between my two city-states. I believe I had 3 suzerainties at this point and was working on a fourth.
Yes this game is incredible in that way! It could also go the other way though, you're having an epic game, the age transitions, you pick it up again the next day and you can't get into it again.
I've got nothing against the new age transition system, by the way, in fact I love it (I seem to be in the minority

I read in the patch notes that the AI would be smarter about declaring war now - seems that's not the case in your game!
I just finished Antiquity myself, and only had 1 war declared on me during the whole age, that's a first for me! That war declaration was clever though - the borders between Himiko and me were extremely tight, and I managed to snatch all wonder tiles + both resources in a settlement vs settlement expansion battle where there were only 4 tiles between our settlements! She had had enough of my shenanigans, declared war, and if I had 4 less gold I'd have lost my capitol to her! Luckily I didn't, and managed to buy a second Hoplite just in time, and just about managed to stave off her attack.
Spent the rest of the age working on my empire. My capital turned into a Wonder Building Behemoth. My 4th suzerainty provided the cherry on top with 5% production towards wonder per CS. Was very sad when I missed out on Colosseum, Nalanda, and Angkor Wat by a turn or two (and by that damn Ashoka!!!), but by the time I got to Monks Mound it only took 4 turns for my capital to build. I had the Wonder building Tjaty also, so I was able to build the Wonder in one turn! (a first for me) On the topic of Tjaty, I was also able to build all of them (also a first for me), and was a big fan of the one that provides the codex (didn't realize this existed, definitely useful). My culture and gold were bonkers. I was comfortably in the culture lead halfway through the age.
Love reading your game story! Keep sharing

That 5% wonder production boost is immense, I got 4 wonders in my game, but could've gotten more if I prioritised (but my priority was purely influence). Most surprising was to see the Pyramids still hadn't been built on turn 98 (!), so I did it in just 3 turns - at that point I had 10 city states under my belt, which meant +50% wonder production, as well as quite a few wonder-boosting resources to help.
And the Tjatys can be brilliant! I typically only build them towards the end of the age when there's nothing else important to build, but should try building them earlier as they can be really powerful. I just dislike the randomness of which type you'll get.
I built quite a few Legios in my game as well (first time playing with Greece), and they give some great benefits, although it was too late to really take advantage of them.
Overall, I'm underwhelmed about the changes to IP's as well as the pantheons so far. The settlement limit from Military IP's came in handy and I can see bonuses to warehouse buildings being strong especially if you're playing someone like Ben Franklin, but it's not anything game-breaking. I'm also not really sure why they added the option that multiple civ's can take the same bonus or pantheons with some of them. The AI needs some help with IP's because I didn't even realize that if another civ takes a city-state bonus, you're no longer allowed to take that one. When it comes to town specializations, I love the new changes. Obviously, a big fan of the resort towns in this game, but Fort Town also came in handy when an AI gave me a settlement on the other side of the map. Hub towns needed to be nerfed, and at least they're trying with the mining towns. I'll still probably take food over gold in these situations (Farming vs Mining town). I like the idea of urban centers as well, but I just had no need for them in this age.
Agree with you on the new IP bonuses. A few are great, especially the Wonder boost and Settlement limit, but some are quite meh, especially as they don't stack. At the same time, most of the ones that do stack, become way overpowered. They need to find a better balance here, perhaps a 'stacking limit'.
Not sure about your last sentence, you're saying the AI needs help with this - yet you're the one who don't realise most bonuses can only be chosen once?

I sometimes miss the notifications of the AI suzeraining an IP, but from my experience it seems that the AI prioritises the unique units and especially the 50% commander bonus.
I tested this out and you would get both! A wonder on Desert Tile gave me +2 gold adjacency instead of one. I assumed +6 would be the highest you can get, so this changes some things.
I know there's the market but after that there's one? more building further down the line. And the market is on the opposite side of the tech tree you want to be usually for the library and monument. And by the time you get to the market, you're really just paying for the building maintenance of previous buildings, No?
Good to know about that adjacency bonus!
And regarding the gold buildings, after the market comes the lighthouse (Currency -> Navigation). Both can be very powerful if placed well on coastal settlements. While you're right in saying that you need those buildings to cover the increasing maintenance costs, with good adjacencies they do way more than just that! Just check out these yields from my current game, which isn't even with a leader or civ that get economical yield bonuses:
I ended the age on 630 gold per turn, which would've been 717 without the crisis policies... Mind you, I skipped building many of the cultural and science buildings, as I got enough techs and civics from all the city states!
As for the technology research: the market is indeed on the opposite side of the tree from the monument, but not from the library - in fact it's the next tech after Writing!
I'll make a separate post a little later, summarising my Antiquity age.
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