blid adventure 22

[blid]

After moving the scout south, I didn't see anything. I decided to settle in place. This doesn't feel like the craziest capital ever. Just an unrrigated rice. Man, how are we supposed to grow that ting. Of course, with fishing and hunting, we have completely useless starting techs for the spot. The hut gives us a good overview of the surroundings




<whiner>There are forests all around, but I've come to dislike those starts in BTS since your workers have naught to do before bronze working comes in. Also, the scout would have been able to see the cows :P. Mind you, I was begging for forests as the mayans in epic 13 </whiner>

No worker then. First order a warrior and set research on agriculture

Mali shows early on to our west and another hut pops a map giving me a near whole visibility on the continent shape, or at least its souhtern part. Hinduism is founded early, somewhere away, followed closely by buddhism. Mansa didn't have his share of the early religions.

After agriculture, I went for mining->bronzeworking.

I started the worker at size 3 and got him 6 turns before BW completion (I probably built two warriors). That was approximatevely the time for him to go farm the rice.




A settler was started after that. Seeing there's no copper around, I chose animal husbandry hoping for horsies and queued a worker ahead of the settler. The second city would try to claim horses if there's any. I always try to avoid researching archery.

Our amabassador commited a faux-pas with the malinese. Well, you need more than that to upset the cheerful Musa.

The second worker is whipped and the settler is finished in time with AH. Check the continent :




There are horses in the north. Along with cows and elephants and a looooooot of flat plains. I had the choice between a crappy city, with ultra limited growth and access to the strategic horses or the juicy flood plains spot to the west. I preferred caution as I already lost cities early to barb axes and this was a very bad experience. Here goes Sparta




The oracle fell in 1880 BC. I didn't even know mysticism by then. I was more concerned with defense and researching the wheel, followed by pottery.

Mansa settled his second city to the south west of his capital. I was hoping to have my second settler in time for the flood plains heaven spot. That remained a hope




The elephants are now in danger. Damn you Mansa, you managed to piss me off. Gimme me iron. Against skirmishers, chariots rush is probably not a very good idea.
The settler went for the east, claiming the lesser flood plains spot.




Mansa Musa researched writing and I opened borders with him to confirm we were alone on the continent. I had enough EPs with him to see he was researching code of laws. Confucianism was founded the turn he finished researching it. I checked the city next to Sparta and it wasn't the holy city. It appeared it was founded by another AI. I was very grateful.

You'd think we'll have iron in the capital, since till now it only had ONE resource. You'll be quite wrong. Here's your iron, served with a bit of tundra.




I am researching sailing to have a reliable route to my empire through that river. I researched writing before that to defend my ivory culturally. And I would indeed need it badly. I avoided confucianism but Mansa was determined to get his religion and founded christianity in the city near Sprta.




I was planning from the start to go after Mansa the earliest possible, which led me to settle that far iron. I was researching mathematics on the way to construction while Mansa already had alphabet. I asked him for masonry and he agreed. Kind fellow, that would speed your demise.

I finally managed to get a very late workboat go explore in the north (note forself, always send a scouting boat early on fractal maps).




Mansa spammed christian missionaries to my cities and I converted to his faith.

After the ambassador faux-pas, I had a groom fleeing on his wedding day. What is it with my people ?

I finally got contact with Hatty in 200 BC and opened borders immediately. My workboat visited Darius a few years later. Construction was done in 75 AD. Neither Mansa nor Darius would trade me horseback riding at the moment. I burnt a scientist on alphabet to trade it with Hatty but unfortunately she didn't know horseback riding. You could expect that with her UU being chariots based. Well, I won't have elephants for my malinese campaign.

Mali has skrimishers, who have a 4 strength instead of the usual 3 for archers. He has a capital on a hill. One of his other cities is holy, giving him a strong cultural defensive bonus. He also managed to get copper from somewhere, I was sure the copper in the west was not in his cultural borders yet, so I guess he traded for it. War won't be easy. And this was not the last of the bad news




Guess who is backwards ?




Mansa is clearly leading away. He built the apostolic palace too, grabbed the music free artist. Hmmm, like I needed more reasons to go after you.
I chopped and whipped an army and went after him, hoping for a quick war.




Mansa switched from caste system to slavery immediately. He does know how to use his spiritual trait. Kumbi Saleh had 4 skirmishers and an axe defending.

[blid]

I had some losses but reinforcements were coming. I also managed to kill a couple units in the open. He was planning to get another skirmisher and two axes inside his city. I'm glad the city didn't have a wall and the defenses fell quickly to my cats.

The next turn, Mansa finished the great library in his capital, yummy. I went for Jenne next to cut Mansa from elephants since he had construction now.




The first GG is born and I attach him to a chariot for a supermedic. In the meantime, I finish researching compass and trade it for code of laws and currency. My economy was starting to collapse and war weariness struck quickly. The domestic trade routes helped a bit. I traded marble for wine with Darius and signed some deals with Hatty.

By the time I got to Mansa cpaital, he already discovered longbowmen. I had 7 cats and 9 swords to take the city defended by 4 longbows and a sword. The shot below is taken after I suicided two cats and realized I was attacking across a river .




Stopping at the moment meant two longbows getting back their health and probably an additional promotion. So I decided to keep the fight. I lost all my cats and a good number of swords but the city fell eventually. The city was worth the price though




I wasn't aware of the most welcome colossus. Scotland yard was also a nice bonus. This city was an incredible spot for a GP farm, having those sea food and all the wonders.

It was peace time. I got aesthetics and mysticism from the peace treaty deal.

I wasn't fnished with Mansa though. I converted all my EPs towards him. He is down to a single city now but he still has some valuable techs. Since we were sharing the same religion, he was quickly pleased with me again, and even offered me polytheism for free. What a nice guy. I gave him compass for literature, mono and priesthood. In fact, I'm not sure this no tech brokering thing is bad for the player. You sure miss on some opportunities but you have the bigger advantage IMO of trading carelessely the turn you finish researching them, getting the benefits of "traded for" techs asap. I'm sure this trade would never have been available with "no tech brokering" off. The AI still values his monopoly techs though, and can't understand that specificity of the new option. He does refuse to trade for techs he's been working on though, so you can't abuse him by giving him the tech a few turns from its completion. He says "we would have nothing to gain". That's a good catch.

I switch to OR, as all my cities are building infra now. I still have some techs to catch :P




The pyramids are finished shockingly late in 780 AD. I had time to finish them twice but I had a war to care about, sorry folks. I get 167 gold for it.

What was I thinking, I forgot to talk about my land grab position. I was checking everytime I took a malinese city, but I was far away from getting number one position. The folks out there are not overcrowded, to say the least.




Timbuktu had a settled scientist I forgot to mention. With all the wonders, the GL couple scientists and an engineer it was already generating 40 gpt before its borders expanded. Gimme those seafood and national epic and it would become quite a GP farm.

I reseached civil service on my own and got it in 900 AD. I used a spy to steal metal casting from Mansa by 1000 AD :ooooh:. Well, Hatty didn't have it either and I traded it for her monarchy. Wait ! trade what ? This is a tech I just stole from Mansa, why am I able to trade it ? I don't know if this is really intended on behalf of the developers but I can't get it. Anyway, I would keep this in mind for the future.

I switch to bureaucracy and hereditary rule for one turn of anarchy. At least, you get some advantage of having a small empire.

Check the best joke of the year :




Yeah, yeah. After all the trouble I went through to get that gem, you want me to give it back. Even Ghandi won't do that

This one is not bad either. Check the date, and they want me to build 7 triremes




I was racing with Darius for liberalism. He got education before I did but he must have made a detour for guilds or something. This guy has been programmed to research like a typical human player would do. Quite annoying for trades but I guess this is a welcome competition since the player is rarely bothered on the liberalism path. This spices it a bit.

I was running 10% espoinage slider for sometime and stole drama from Mansa. I gave education to Hatty for philosophy and machinery. Mansa gave me feudalism and some old techs for it.

When I saw Darius discovered optics, I was sure my liberalism was safe. I didn't delay it though and popped the classic nationalism.




With that, I definitely catched on the tech race.




I picked optics myself next. Darius won't get the monopoly of trading with the other continent. It is just 3 turns research anyway.

Check this undefended capital, or it's a very brave group of settlers ?




What is Mansa thinking ? He asked to be my vassal but I obviously refused. He may take his dreams for reality though.

I settled a filler city in the south claiming fish and and silver. I also switched to free religion and free speech. No need to make trouble with my northern neighbours and there isn't anymore trades to make with Mansa Musa.

After optics I chose astronomy and see Darius gets it a few turns before me. He's really reading my mind, or rather me his. I need those intercontinental trades, you bastard. Get out of the way

Timbuktu was popping scientists like hell, who were used to pop printing press and build some academies here and there. Someone picked the Taj mahal from my nose. Maybe Asoka ? He's the first one my caravels met. I give him education for guilds. Did I say that no tech brokering was a blessing. No need to meet the other AIs before doing the trade, and my cities start buliding grocers asap. Asoka's world map has also the advantage of proving the world is round. I'm seeing some white, that should be the english. And some blue, hello America. Well, after seeing Asoka, I was expecting to meet some peaceful builders and it does seem the case. I officially meet Linconln and Elizabeth a few turns later.

Timbuktu pops a prophet for the christian shrine. All my cities were christian, so this was quite welcome. The greeks are also the first to discover physics. At least, Darius didn't follow me here. Here's the GP farm output :

[blid]

I would spare you the details of all the tech and resource trades I had with the new continent. There were quite a few. In 1520 AD, I gathered a new army and went after Mansa




I didn't need many units. Mansa had barely any defense at all. His cities fell quickly and it was the end of the malinese empire




It was still legal to claim lands since I was in third position and have a good margin for a little more expansion. This war gave me another -1 with nearly all the civs. Maybe I should have finished Mansa before making contact with the other continent, but this was not a biggie.

I was also spamming missionaries to get more income from the shrine. A merchant sent to Egypt drove a nice trade mission for 2100 gold. Egypt was also my next target for christian missionary spamming but when I get my missionaries there, I found she nearly spread it to all her cities already. My missionaries were diverted to Darius.

Yes, my frind Darius who was pleased, agreed to sign a defensive pact. I had a crappy defense by then and was concentrating mainly on infra since my neighbour was the trustworthy Hatty and she was pleased with me.

I reserached electricity and radio. Of course, Darius did the same. He didn't chase biology though and I gave it to him for democracy. Emancipation problems were starting to appear. A huge fest of tech trading follows, but we were closing on space techs and AIs started to get in WFYABTA status. They also started adopting free religion and getting to friendly status. Asoka is the first, and I sign a defensive pact with him. Intercontinental warmongers are warned.

I did find a niche negelected by AIs by choosing refrigeration path to conductors. Refrigeration granted me the cereal mills coroporation. Now I know better than to spam it around my cities. I'm planning to spread this to Hatty.

I founded a super late filler national park city




I planned this city very early in the game but completely forgot about it. Now, the time it finished its basic specialist buildings and national park, it would be too late.

Like I said, superconductor is a nice new tech you can beeline too and unlock the precious laboratories. And so far, no AI cared about going that way.




You can see that I'm still investing 10% EPs. I am investing all my points on Hatty, but even with that I am far behind her in espinage ratio. She's making like 250 EPs every turn. Hatty seems like an espionage addict and my choice of investing on her was probably a bad idea but I can't change my target now. I am hoping to steal a monopoly from her and trade it around.

I was still third in land, after Elizabeth in first position and Hatty in second one. The first in lands are the most backward civs by the way. I guess they never managed to catch back.

Darius was now friendly thanks to the DP, and trades were open again. I took railroad from him, researched rocketry myself in 1735 AD. I was hoping to trade for assmebly line but I didn't have a suitable offer. I always tend to forget about prioritizing industrialsm path. I had to research both myself.

With factories, my cities started to suffer from unhealthiness. This is another drawback of small empires, the lack of resources. I was trading away horses, stone, ivory, anything that could get me more happiness and health resources. I lacked a really strong production city, since I focused mainly on commerce, so I lost the race to Rock'Roll and Co. With biology, US and levees, my cities started to kick in production though.

Fission was another monopoly tech traded carelessely around. It got me medicine and combustion. It also gave me a couple sources of uranium traded for many resources and gold. Those builders are going to vote for a non proliferation treaty for sure. I kept those yummy trades until very late in the game when I needed uranimum for my nuclear powered cities. With all my health problems, coal plants were forbidden in all major cities.

AIs were running state property most of the time. No one wanted to support the corporation huge burden apparently. Some AIs converted to environtalism occasionally though. I didn't get much from the cereal mills corporation and stopped spreading it.

Hatty never managed to get an interesting tech to be stolen from her and the price was getting higher and higher. I ever worked on a spy in my GP farm and when he came, he would have given me a total of 11.000 EPs on her while she already had 12.000 ans was running away. At this point, I completely abandoned her. This was all wasted money. Only space techs remained anyway and trade was closed, friendly civs or not. I'd try to reproduce the path I followed :

Plastics : I needed to build water plants to avoid health problems. Cities without access to rivers would build nuclear plants. I didn't try for the TGD
Sattelites : unlocks the docking bay and unlocks composites
Composites : needed for the casings. I tried to prioritize this as the ship needs 5 of them to get 100% chance of success
Computers : on the wasy to fiber optics and fusion
fiber optics : mainly for getting fusion but also unlocks the cockpit
fusion : you now need to build two engines to travel quickly . The engineer is used on a golden age
genetics : unlocks the stasis chamber and helps with health. Maybe I should have prioritized that for easy health but I made my cities build supermarkets and hospitals
Ecology : the life support is not very costly

This is probably not the optimal route for the spaceship but I found the builds were falling accordingly and I managed to finish the last 5 parts withing a close range. It was probably suited for my empire which lacked production powerhouses.

In the end, I didn't even build the engines in the capital which was the strongest production city of my empire but in my second and third producers so the capital finished life support quickly to catch on. I finally launched in 1892 AD.




Here's the tech situation at the time




Not really threatened right ? Of course now you have to wait looking at the skies and counting the numbers before your ship gets to alpha Centauri. I used the time to build some modern armours and mech infs. In fact, if my ship was launched like 15 turns later, I would have had to go after Hatty :




She was running after a cultural victory, and from the progress of her cultural amount, she was probably using the cultural slider.

I had this funny event while waiting :




Speeding the earth's rotation ? that must have made some big damage, glad the fragment fell on an island

I finally made it to Alpha Centauri in 1907 AD.




I guess I know why the tech rate at the end was slow. Three of the AIs were running after a cultural victory :




Asoka was close too and had two legendary cities when I won. The last city had 42K culture and he was probably a dozen turns away from getting it legendary too.

The demographics at the end have nothing impressive




My win was mainly due to the lack of focus from the AIs. They were outdoing me greatly on GNP though I was probably generating more beakers with all the early modifier buildings.

I made a few blunders like never building forbidden palace, I just never seem ready to build those courthouses. I also forget to build wall street for a while. I already mentioned the very late national park city. Finally, I invested a lot of EPs on Hatty by running 10% espoinage slider but those went to waste. I guess I could have launched in the 19th century if I paid attention to these but still I was quite satisfied with the outcome, seeing how late I was after I finished the first malinese war.

I really liked this game and especially the first part where all the doors to early aggression were closed. Eliminating Mansa was not straight forward but it did pay big time after that for me.

[darrelljs]

Nice game blid...if you read my sponsor's comments the space race victory was the one I was most curious about. Early on I wasn't sure you were going to pull it out (bulbing Alphabet is something I do on occasion, when I am desparate). The AI actually manages cultural victory very well, so to beat three of them to space is quite impressive .

Darrell

[sooooo]

Well I'm glad someone launched a spaceship. It's kind of a shame that asoka and hatty went for culture, it would have been interesting to see if you could have beaten them into space. You got liberalism at around the same date as me despite taking the effort to kill Mansa!