Epic 9 - Chariots Sailing through Bloody Waters

[uberfish]

Early aggression was seriously handicapped in this game by no city razing and the forced suboptimal stacks too. Even so, it's still unbeatable for a quick finish.

[Zeviz]

It seems the lack of notes didn't stop you from making a good report.

Our games were very similar (even including a similar schedule of conquests) with main difference being your focus on mellee and gunpowder units and attack on Gandhi, while I built stacks of Mounted and Siege units and went east, leaving Gandhi until the end.

[Compromise]

When I reran this Epic again with Blake's AI DLL, I pretty much followed your game plan: early swords and chariots for the offensive. I also followed your tech path fairly closely too, getting Code of Laws by the Currency route.

I noticed, however, that I was capturing Japanese and Russian cities very quickly. Even though the cities were generally better situated with Blake's AI, and also there were fewer of them because of the AI and the speed with which I was able to capture them, the economy still tanked. By the time I'd conquered Russia (after Japan), I was rearranging citizens to work ocean tiles to stay at a positive GNP at 0% research.

What I'm wondering is if ever thought it might have been economically smarter to get Code of Laws (via Myst, Poly, Priest) before Currency. You'd want Poly soon enough anyway for Literature and the Heroic Epic. And Priesthood opens up the possibility of temples in captured cities with religions.

My thinking is that since you had to keep all captured cities, you'd probably be better off having the opportunity to build/poprush the cheaper courthouses (saving 3-5 gpt) in the newer cities rather than building markets which would pay back more than a courthouse only in an established, bigger, cottaged city.

So, I guess my question is, for this epic, do you think it would have been wise to prioritize CoL even more than Currency while implementing the very early aggression strategy? (With the delayed aggression, marketplaces in the low-maintenance core cities seem like they'd be the better investment.)

[Kylearan]

Hi,

What I'm wondering is if ever thought it might have been economically smarter to get Code of Laws (via Myst, Poly, Priest) before Currency.

I don't think so. I researched Currency while I was conquering Japan, and at this time Currency was worth a lot more than CoL. The Japanese cities' maintenance costs weren't that high, and the extra trade route kicked in immediately without having to build anything. Whipping marketplaces provided me even more gold, and raised the happiness limit. City maintenance only became a problem after capturing some Russian cities, but by then I was researching for CoL anyway and whipped out courthouses ASAP.

So I think Currency before CoL was the better move here, mainly because of the extra trade route.

You'd want Poly soon enough anyway for Literature and the Heroic Epic.

Nope, never researched Alphabet or Literature. I never felt like I needed the Epic, and always had more important things to research, IMHO.

When I reran this Epic again [...]

Funny how many people played this Epic a second time. Tells a lot about how interesting that scenario was! I think Sirian already knows he's a good scenario designer, but it doesn't hurt to tell him again.

-Kylearan