[SPOILERS] *Placeholder* Zakalwe plays a soldier

[zakalwe]

Novice wisely built a spear in Pita. His power is still higher than mine, so I decided to build a couple more cities instead of going on the attack. At least I can feel pretty secure now, with horse archers. And I definitely chose correctly there; the iron is half way between me and Dazed in the N-S direction. Questionable map design IMO, with no backline copper and no backline iron. I think my next city will go on the incense and grab iron in the second ring. It will have a sheep and flood plains for food. I will also put a safe backline city N of the cows, sharing the fish with Brunei.




Seeing as I apparently have to spread my religion the hard way, I also researched monotheism, founding judaism in Djibouti.

[zakalwe]

I'm actually enjoying these turns even though all the data suggests that I'm doomed to lose. I'm setting myself some small micro goals and it's fun to try meeting them.

Novice now only has two units in his border city, so I decided to take the chance on moving three archers and a worker to establish a road for potential future attacks.




Also, the map is not in fact perfectly mirrored, as I discovered last turn. The southern mini-island has marble instead of stone. Dazed hasn't claimed it, and in fact he hasn't even settled his Djibouti equivalent yet.




If my galley remains unopposed, I'm thinking it will move two tiles south next turn, and start a blockade on his whales tile, just for the hell of it. That should knock out all of his seafood in the area. And there's no reason to show leniency after he rudely invaded my waters, earlier.

[zakalwe]

Dazed is just now about to settle the clams. Don't know why he's settling there, and not one tile east. Maybe he has a city east of the corn. But why not one tile north, then?




He also has a galley in his city, and the whales is an ocean tile so I can't go there.




So I started a blockade N of the whales instead, which should still cover both of his seafood resources. Of course, the big question is: do blockades work for tiles that I haven't explored yet? The graphics don't cover the unexplored tiles, but that's not surprising either way.




Looks like I'm actually ahead of Dazed currently. I guess he's been set back by war losses, too.







I'm considering settling a bit more aggressively towards him, in response. Maybe settle on the desert hill S of the incense, NE of the oasis. Here's an old picture (from my north, but it shows you the relevant area):

[zakalwe]

Not much action. Expanding peacefully, and closing in on Boldly in crop yield. I have city visibility on Novice now, and can see that he built a fort on the isthmus. It's a shame I never gained visibility on his city on the other side of the isthmus, all because of Dazed's early warrior incursion.

Novice is also researching masonry, unsurprisingly. I'm picking up priesthood now, and thinking about going for monarchy next. Since I need to keep a fair amount of units on hand anyway, hereditary rule would be pretty nice. I'll get my prophet and shrine next turn. I still haven't got a single natural spread, except to the city that I lost.

Someone popped a scientist a few turns back; I guess Novice has an academy now. Shouldn't be hard to figure out for sure who got it, but who cares.




You can see I decided to settle along the west coast first. There's a road stub that indicates the point in time that I changed my mind. My next settler goes SW of the wheat near the capital. I guess it's about time I settled that site.

[zakalwe]

Or maybe go straight for CoL and caste system. At any rate, that's the next goal. A great artist bomb or two would be fun. Maybe in the gems area.

[zakalwe]

After the prophet, my next GP will probably be a merchant out of Brunei. (Diluted a little by the shrine's prophet points.)

The bulb preferences for a great merchant, filtering out stuff that I know already:

Currency
Banking
Economics
Corporation
Metal Casting
Code of Laws
Constitution
Alphabet (BTS)
Paper
Railroad
Industrialism
Monarchy
Civil Service
Guilds

So if I research Monarchy, Code of Laws, and Metal Casting, then I could bulb Civil Service with a great merchant. I would keep delaying Writing so as not to open up Alphabet.

If I get another great prophet, the list looks like this:

Theology
Divine Right
Code of Laws
Civil Service

So actually, what this means is that I can just research Code of Laws and then immediately bulb Civil Service with a great prophet, so long as I stay away from Writing, which would open up Theology. I'm thinking I should probably do that with the GP I'm getting now, instead of getting a shrine. I could build two or even three temples somewhere (I'll be founding confucianism, too) to generate another prophet for the shrine. Though if I open up Bureaucracy then maybe I want an academy instead. Or again, a great artist...

So anyway, I'll probably tech something like Code of Laws -> Civil Service (aided by a bulb) -> Writing -> Monarchy.

[Commodore]

Um. CoL needs writing, surely?

[regoarrarr]

And Math (for CS)

[zakalwe]

Not in ZakMod they don't.

Thanks for raining on my parade, guys! At least I discovered how to attract lurker comments.




Code of Laws in three turns after Writing. I'll aim for a great artist next, since the tech tree refuses to cooperate with my ambitious bulbing plans. But there's a decent chance it will pop as a merchant or prophet instead.

[TheHumanHydra]

Awesome thread title.