Adventure 48: Bruindane's report

[Bruindane]

I had a lot of fun with this varient, trying a few as Elizabeth surrounded by lake fish. Fast races to space with minimal ai interaction.

The trick here is to win with the largest tech margin. What steps could you take to deviate from the fastest space build to slow down your opponents?

War! Though with one city, it would take perhaps too many resources while going to space as well. Killing all your continental neighbors would prevent intercontinental trade and tech trading, though early privaters might be better yet. Coastal access needed.

I like the idea of early Emancipation. Giving every ai an early unhappy face must hurt. No caste system would hamstring a huge food-specialist megapolis, but a smaller commerce tile city could do it.

Religion is a bit tricky, grabbing all the later religions allow one extra monastary and temple, risking the possibility of a big happy religious ai mono-culture. Keeping a smaller city allows the delay of Scientific Method (and its monastary killing powers) as I would not need the National Park to reign in health. I also could skip the Globe Theatre and its tendacy to provide artists.

Speaking of the five national wonders, they will be Oxford, Wall Street, Iron Works, and... Red Cross. With a small fleet of privateers, having the medic promotion acts a force multiplier, and likewise for march promotions on infantry.

So here is the land:



Gold! Ripe for Mining Inc.



A snapshot of warriors and workers after the discovery of Bronzeworking. Having found Hinduism (3240 BC) & Judaism (2520), I decided to skip the Pyramids, building temples and researching Monarchy directly. Confuscianism came in (1440) with the Oracle bringing the joys of Bureaucracy. Nabu-rimmanni creates our Academy 80 years later. Christianity (1160), Taoism (750), & Islam (450) develop in our polyreligious city-state. In 325 BC, Isabella, the Buddist founder (3640) spreads Buddism to Cahokia and it becomes the city with 7 religions (and 7 Temples and 7 Monastaries).

Hannibal builds the Pyramids in 700 BC. The Native Americans would not need to lift a stone to gain representation. Liberalism comes in 75 BC, and with it Democracy, unleashing Emancipation unto the unwashed masses still in despotism (Hannibal chose Representation but switched to Universal Sufferage shortly thereafter).



As an aside, looking at the religious distribution. Suyavaman picked up Hinduism prior to writing, and Isabella never opened borders with him but she did open borders with Shaka who became Jewish. I was hoping to get Buddism from Isabella, but her missionaries literally walked into my town and then... left heading south to Shaka. After a bit Shaka asked me to become Jewish (I did... I mean it's Shaka, and hoping that I could get him to close borders with Isabella so the missionaries would come back to me. Instead Shaka converts to Buddism and I was left Jewish until my first golden age when I shift to Hinduism.). A bit later, I built the Kashi Vishwanath, and sent a Hindu missionary with my Caravel to seed that religion on the other continent. This was a bit of a silly move as Suyvaman was Hindu and I would be in free religion. Choosing to see what randomly developed and then building the shrine may have been better. Ultimately Charlemagne and Hannibal become Hindu, and Cyrus became Christian.



A few turns later an Observatory graces our city and our base commmerce multiplies by 50% followed by a 305%!!! science multiple. The 1170 science does benefit from a golden age, but it's not entirely coincidental that these things get built during these times (and screenshots taken .



The age of the privateer would last a thousand years. Shaka had declared war on the Khmer in 375 BC, a war that never ended despite dozens of cities changing hands. Shaka was ahead of tech due to relations with Izzy, but Suyavaman was larger with numerous, if slightly, outdated troops. My privateers could completly ignore them and focus on the other continent which was at peace despite a religious schism. Turns out Izzy was the first to optics, and I lost a few precious privateers aggressively hunting down her carvavels before I got all of her ports blockaded. Boxed in, she attacked, not Sury as I expected, but me. What could I do, but roll out my march promoted marines and raize all her coastal cities to the ground? Since it would do me no good to let Survayman occupy former Spanish land, I let her live (at the cost of some future spy actions taken against me). The minimap hints of the blanket of privateers (mostly double stacked) patrolling the other continent. Buying maps for 5 gold betrayed the location of a pair Carthaginian ships, that were promptly found and sunk.



I held the continents apart until 1340 AD, when my fleet of dwindling privateers saw but could not catch a blocade running Spanish Caravel who managed to get word to Charlemagne before I sent it sinking under the waves the next turn. Trade networks slowly formed, but Hannibal and Isabella would not meet until sometime in the eighteenth century.



From here I started building spaceship parts, but my once speedy tech rate, wasn't much better than it was in 50 AD. Towards the end Isabella declared on me, and I raized Valencia (site of former Madrid) to the ground, forcing another peace when I saw a huge number of Holy Roman galleons stream towards me. I had a metal Navy, but it was small as every last privateer went out fighting, so I traded 2700 gold to Hannibal to net Military Science to take advantage of the blitz promotion. It still took 50 years to wipe out that fleet once the "backstab" was official.

Victory came in 1824, 12 turns after the launching in 1795. I built the Internet on the last turn to net me, one tech, Artillery. I believe Cyrus had Electricity on Hannibal, while Hannibal had Assembly Plant and Medicine on Cyrus. Native America had all the techs save Stealth and Laser, 17 of them known only by me.

[Bruindane]

Ruff's report mentioned that folks might try high food starts, finishing with workshops to build the space parts. I saw quite a few food starts, but not any workshop finishers, so I decided to give it a try. Cahokia was size 72 on the way to 80 when I switched the farms for workshops. At launch Cahokia was 39 and shrinking.



It was quite neat. An 1810 finish with ~10 techs on Hannibal.

[T-hawk]

Hey, just bumping this report for everybody to read it. 17 tech lead with a good gold-based economy deserves a bit more attention. I just didn't have much else to add. Good game and congrats on the solid performance.

I think you got to the right answer (gold economy) by the wrong means (smaller city because Caste System would be precluded by Emancipation.) I'm not entirely sure that Emancipation makes a worthwhile beeline when you don't have cottages to mature. But looks like it worked out okay, and part of the scenario scoring idea was to allow going for non-spaceship techs.

[Bruindane]

I'm not entirely sure that Emancipation makes a worthwhile beeline when you don't have cottages to mature. But looks like it worked out okay, and part of the scenario scoring idea was to allow going for non-spaceship techs.

I took a look at the gnp graphs around 1 AD and there is no apparent difference prior to and after enacting emancipation.

Edit: Was playing another game with high espionage to peak into an ai city, and Emancipation had no affect on the unhappiness, didn't show up as an unhappy whatsoever. So, it literally had no effect.