Without the Mids (SSE/WE Immortal wt)

[shyuhe]

The levee for all of 1 extra hammer I'd agree that CoL is not a useful sling here since Hatty will hate you if you adopt an early religion. Monarchy has its uses - I can't see what resources you have nearby. Aesthetics is an interesting choice for oracle.

 

[obsolete]

PART II – The Classical Age

1840 BC
Popped a G-Spy.
That’ll give us 1b + 12s for now. And much more later on as time grows. No need to waste him on infiltrations. Now yes, Immortal gives starting AI’s 3 extra bonus starting-techs, but we’d still need to get alphabet early (which I prefer to skip), and get spies built (take production time), and have other things go right to make it work. I just don’t like the trade off.
-ni

1600 BC

We have our first settler ready to do his job. And this is the marble spot I was talking about. Again, it’s not pretty. Not even one food source in the ocean tiles, and the terrain is poor. Not even farmable as no rivers, at least we have a forest to make up for the desert tile (laugh).

Now I’m going to settle directly ontop of this marble. This will give the city a slight production boost, and hook up the resource without a quarry. True, we do lose some hammers, but this tile had a food deficit anyway if we try to go that route, and since there just isn’t food in this spot, the hell with it.

The city won’t ever be a monster one, but it WILL help us make our capital into some sort of beast, so it’s a trade-off. I only set up junker-cities in order to try to give as much advantage to the mega-capital as possible.

Note:: Looks like I am working the corn here. Usually I skip agriculture, but because of no mids/garden path, I decided to do a little catch-up work in this area because there isn’t any wonders now we are going to miss by doing so.

Note:: Researching AH now, and it makes sense as it comes right after Agriculture. This happens to be one of those few games I go after this route early.

 

[obsolete]

1080 BC

Alright, a check shows that we can whip the ToA and shave off 3 turns. SO DO IT! That means, switch into slavery NOW, and crack the whip. I also used the whip on the other sister city to finish a settler, (or did I just grow him from a pop-1 city). You should be able to tell, by doing a math calc from the time-line and plots worked.

A quick F9 check to make SURE we don’t lose by some stupid notice NEXT round that someone else has completed it. I really hate that! Good, so no one’s made it yet. Hurrah, because I love my ToA, the only thing that sucks here is our GP won’t be contributing any beakers for a while, but that’s poker…

Spoiler :

Note: Going after fishing, so I can at least get TWO food sources for my capital up soon. Help me rebuild the pop after this whip and also for some other things. Again, usually I avoid this till after the GL is built, and then I trade but forgoing the mids really changes a lot of the tactics here for me.

Second Note: Egypt isn’t going to change her founded religion to Jewdiasm. So there may be a little tension between her and Roosevelt. However, Roosevelt really doesn’t get too upset by religious differences, so given the better/worse of the two evils, I will switch to Hinduism when given the choice. I’ll suffer at most –1 with Roosevelt, but he has a good peace-weight so we’ll be ok. But I’m still going to try to applease them as much I can, without giving them too many benefits.

 

[obsolete]

1040 BC
Finally, Hinduism spreads to us. Do we want to switch to it?
In the meantime, fishing is 1 turn left to go, and I am now working on the Parthenon. That is the next item to take advantage of our marble. Let’s make the sacrifice of that piss-poor marble-city worth it as much as we can.
-ni

975 BC
I decided to research the Wheel next. I’ll use it to hook up my corn for health, and the elephants for happiness as we will be losing +3h for not having Representation until after liberalism.

· We also pop another G-Spy. Some would use him to install a Scotland Yard, but I again don’t like that tactic. Better to absorb him even still.

· Sister city is working on the boat, which will go to aid the capital. Again, our city isn’t doing anything for itself, it’s junk. But it is there to do everything it can to aid our capital, which is the plan for our metropolis strategy.

-ni

925 BC
And here is where we are going to settle that settler we built. I like this spot, two food sources (though I may split this up if I have to later), and gold. We definitely need a food source here, because that gold will be taking up –2F just to work it. As you can see, the wheel will also bring happiness from the gold once that’s up and running. And with the pigs, you also see why I was interested in getting AH. The only thing that pains me here, is settling on the forest tile, because that’s one less forest we can chop. It feels like such a waste doing that.

 

[obsolete]

650 BC
Alright, a similar sight again. Same thing as before. Switch to Slavery, and use the whip to shave off 3 turns from the Parthenon. This will be a great combo with our ToA, and even greater if we can grab the G-Library.

Spoiler :

Note: Sister city finishing off producing another fast-worker. Which, will be used to help speed up improvements for the capital, (not itself). Capital is one of the priorities, though the 3’rd city also has some good terrain we need to get up ASAP to take best advantage of.

Literature in ~11 turns. Then you know what’ll be built next

 

[obsolete]

575 BC
GM Pops (due to ToA).
We are 8 turns to literature, and normal library will be complete in 6 turns, enough time to start on TGL as soon as it is avail.
-ni

300 BC
Hatshepsut is pretty pleased with our early conversion. In fact, she just asked us if we want to take Alphabet for free.
Sure!
-ni

225 BC
Another GM pops due to ToA (speeded by Parthenon). We COULD use it to lightbulb currency, but that’s definitely not my style.

Junker-marble city is working on another settler.
-ni

175 BC
Our fourth city is now about to be founded. Actually, I could have speeded this up a few turns, but I remember making some mistake where, where I was being TOO CAUTIOUS because I didn’t want to get pounced on and lose my settler. But it’s alright. Our guy will settle here, because it has great benefits.

#1 It cuts off Roosevelt from expanding past this area (I refuse to open borders with him at this critical stage). This gives us plenty of room and time to back-fill the other areas, giving us lots of nice room to get the rest of our 6 planned cities optimally placed.

#2 It combines with a river, for extra health, and building potential.

#3 has source of copper.

#4 Source of fish

#5 Won’t be giving us any real hassle with culture pressure against Roosevelt (if he doesn’t play another settler very stupid)

Note: CoL researching now. It will help maintenance and give spy points, but the main reason we need this is because it is basically needed for anything we go after at this point.

 

[obsolete]

125 BC
Turn # 110, and we have the Great Library ready. Ahem… just about ready. Switch to slavery (AGAIN) and shave off 3 more turns to make sure we don’t lose the race here.

Spoiler :

Note: The two piss-poor +1h+1f tiles being worked, unimproved because we simply can’t improve them. Yup, nothing we can do about it, except be greatfull we at least could get 2 food sources up to enable us to whip. Every single hammer that we can take advantage of here, is being done so right to the maximum.

At least we can appreciate getting that * Tin event earlier.

 

[obsolete]

25 BC
I made a terrible mistake here. I forgot to un-check the CoL at the very end. So I ended up founding Confucianism by accident. Really sucks. But oh well, we’ll just have to live with our mistakes. When the hell will I never learn? My fault was I didn’t think we’d be so ahead in that race, because I didn’t get representation enabled. However, we do have an extra gold-mine, which seems to make all the difference.
-ni

100 AD
We popped a G-Scientist. Time to use him to install an Academy, this will synergize great with the two GL scientists currently running.
At this point, I’m researching Philo and working on the Paya (maximizing the gold resource for 100% prod. Boost).
-ni

150
Time to get city #5 up (one more left!). This spot will do. While again we have bad luck of no rivers, and won’t be able to farm this for a LONG time, not to mention the nasty desert tile and desert/hill, we have to be greatfull that we can position in a way to get TWO food sources to this spot. The sheep and the Fish. So just be happy and take it, only regretting that we have to settle on a forest here to do it.

Note: Warriors are about and fortified. These were scouts turned into fog busters afterward, to prevent any problems. Yeah, we have the great wall, but it’s still a hassle when a barb city pops up in a non-optimal spot.

 

[obsolete]

250
Alright. You know the drill. Swap to slavery, and use whip to shave off 3 turns from the Paya. And there, we will have yet another wonder. Actually, it’s only 2-turns to save technically, since if I move off that +2F plot, and put a citizen on the +1f+1h it makes the build time 1 turn faster. But whatever, just whip it so we don’t lose this one, and be happy for our gold source that we can now swap to any religious civic. Extra GP pts always help too of course.

Spoiler :

 

[obsolete]

400
G-Scientist pops.
Not going to bother lightbulbing him on mathematics (we could have done that before). It’s rather cheap at this point in time, and we can put him to better use. Besides, this is supposed to be a SSE game anyway.

And because we are on our last turn for philosophy, our Classical Age is coming to an end here. But no need to worry, next time we come back we’ll start off with the Medieval Age.

Note: Not much else to say here. Completing a temple in capital for extra happiness, culture, and extra priest slot. Sister city is working on courthouse, self explanatory. And we see I have a spy running across. I’ll most likely put him in Roosevelt’s city that he planted close to me. I’ll fortify it there, and see what techs I can steal later.

End of Part II

 

[reif99]

Thanks for posting more details this time around.

While I still play vanilla, I see stuff that can help me.

For instance, I always go for agriculture and AH early, but I'm seeing that you don't, and you zoom out to get other techs instead.

Also, I never cease to be amazed how few defenders you build.

If I try that I get killed by barbs.

I hate it, but I almost always go for archery now because the barbs pillage the crap out of me if I don't.

 

[Bleys]

Also, I never cease to be amazed how few defenders you build.

If I try that I get killed by barbs.

I hate it, but I almost always go for archery now because the barbs pillage the crap out of me if I don't.

Try smaller more competitive maps. Barbs are less of a problem when 3 or more civs are on one continent. I have the most trouble with barbs in games where I actually carve out a bigger area than I really need for my cities. I keep forgetting I cant just build and build cities, so keeping your "area" the proper size will help a lot with barbs.

Great game Obsolete. I like Gandhi in vanilla for SE/WE games. SPI is a massive trait for SE whipping. Clicking all those specialists back on every time is a PITA though, heh.

 

[Gliese 581]

Well, he did build The Great Wall.

About the whipping, it's actually 2 turns only in each case as you finish the wonder in 1 turn instead of 3.

 

[Dirk1302]

Thanks for posting more details this time around.

While I still play vanilla, I see stuff that can help me.

For instance, I always go for agriculture and AH early, but I'm seeing that you don't, and you zoom out to get other techs instead.

Also, I never cease to be amazed how few defenders you build.

If I try that I get killed by barbs.

I hate it, but I almost always go for archery now because the barbs pillage the crap out of me if I don't.

Actually going for archery is very sound strategy if you play emperor +, going for AH is also a very good idea unless there is no pig or cow to be found near , then go BW. Read Snaaty's Deity strat and you'll get all the reasons why early archery (on a high level) is so very good.

Obsolete is a very good player but his strat is rather one dimensional and certainly not the only one that'll get you success on this level.Frankly i'd rather look to games by Snaaty, U Sun, AcidSatyr, Mutineer and ABigCivFan. These people provide strats that are largely independent of industrious traits, finding stone etc, providing good insight in how to build a good empire without relying on specific starting bonuses.

 

[futurehermit]

Obsolete is a solid player and his strat is quite innovative. However, I notice in his games that his wins come later than a lot of other top players. That is the only consistent criticism of his game that I have. I think if he expanded more early and tolerated some commerce cities he could win earlier.

 

[Tunguska]

He's not playing an industrious leader now and he has got no stone to hook up, just to show us that his strat. works without these as well.
Even without the nukeshot I wouldn't have a doubt about him winning this game.

 

[Charou]

Why didn´t you cottage the sub-par tiles in your capital.
lack of workers ? no pottery ?

every hammer is to be taken, I understand, but since you have been working them quite a number of turns, wouldn't it be better to keep 1 or 2 forest tiles, for extra hammers. their value on the long term is greater thant the instant chop.
That's not an issue in general (health kept aside), but here ... you don't have better production sites.

 

[Zanttu]

He's not playing an industrious leader now and he has got no stone to hook up, just to show us that his strat. works without these as well.
Even without the nukeshot I wouldn't have a doubt about him winning this game.

Not to mention that his capital has 10 water squares (which are not optimal for a high-production capital in the late game) and only 2 hills for early game production... This surely proves that his strategy is pretty flexible actually.

 

[Validator]

I'm confused by something in the 1080BC screenshot.

There appears to be a trade route connection between Bombay and Delhi, however Fishing is the tech being researched (which presumably means Sailing hasn't been researched) and there is no river or road connection between the cities. Obviously this is a critical point since without a trade route between the two cities Delhi wouldn't benefit from the marble when building wonders.

I've been away from the game for a couple of weeks over the holidays, so maybe my Civ4 knowledge has atrophied, but I can't see how the trade route was established. Can anybody explain it?

 

[OTAKUjbski]

I'm confused by something in the 1080BC screenshot.

There appears to be a trade route connection between Bombay and Delhi, however Fishing is the tech being researched (which presumably means Sailing hasn't been researched) and there is no river or road connection between the cities. Obviously this is a critical point since without a trade route between the two cities Delhi wouldn't benefit from the marble when building wonders.

I've been away from the game for a couple of weeks over the holidays, so maybe my Civ4 knowledge has atrophied, but I can't see how the trade route was established. Can anybody explain it?

I'm not 100% certain, but it's either because of or related to the cultural borders of each city overlapping.

This is something I notice happening sometimes in my own games when I build close, overlapping cities.

I think it's because the cultural border of Delhi and Bombay both share that Coastal tile SW of Bombay.

But, again, that's more of a guess than anything else ...