Adv 53 - Alpine Rocket

[Swiss Pauli]

Space win in 1660AD.

Executive summary: self-imposed no DoW variant; CS-sling for huge tech lead, Radio with Liberalism (though I was hoping for Industrialism); a couple of Unwise Choices ™ from Toku; and the usual slack mid-to-endgame empire management

Full report only likely to follow in 2-3 weeks. Maybe I'll skip the whole narrative and post up a few key summaries instead, which should be much quicker to compile.

[T-hawk]

1660 AD is pretty nice. I got 1740 AD for space, thanks to a bunch of AI wars that diverted resources away from buildering.

Did you go for Democracy/Emancipation at all? I went there ASAP, even before Education and Liberalism. Not sure how well it worked out.

[Swiss Pauli]

I went for Caste System quite early for lack of useful buildings, was beelining hard towards Electricity and Biology, and, having played so little Civ4 in the last 18 months, I'd entirely forgotten about the importance of Emancipation cottages in non-variant Space games

Aside from settling in place, our games were very different so I will put together a report (or more likely a series of mini-reports).

[Swiss Pauli]

Peaceful builder that I am, I decided I would not launch any wars of aggression in this game and see how fast I could get to Alpha Centauri. Timmy827 proved in this game http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthrea...t=timmy827 that early conquering is the optimal strategy for space, but if I can grab enough land the unlimited cash at hand should allow a quick win.

As posted above, I've not played much civ since PB3 was abandoned and BtS simply added more stuff for me to forget about (and I was forgetful enough playing Vanilla) so some is to be expected here

Moved the warrior NE to check whether there was another food special in the fog that would tempt me away from the FPs that fog-gazing determined were to the SW.

With no cash worries, rapid expansion is my immediate goal. Emperor shouldn’t be too bad for barbs, especially as they won’t cross cultural borders for a few millennia. Tech order will be Agri-Hunting-BW. After the worker, a warrior then a settler or another worker depending on the lay of the land:



Borders popped the hut and gave me a map on T5 and on the inter-turn Rameses’ scout was sighted. He must be close to our west/south-west.

There’s some decent land here and I shall try to claim it, starting with Djenne:

Settled on the useless desert hill rather than the plains hill, so that it overlaps with Timbuktu. This will allow me to farm the shared FPs and flip the tile from one city to the other depending on builds and happiness. This also saves worker turns by improving two cities with one action (as well as movement and roading savings). Strong tiles immediately available permits delaying Mysticism and a monument. Instead I teched Pottery and AH and can pump warriors and workers after the granary. Not planning to work the gold super-early, but the happy (combined with Ivory) will allow me to whip Timbuktu hard and skimp on MPs so that I can fogbust and expand. Thus:



A really strong site but my early scouting was limited to a small circle around Timbuktu, so I missed out on settling on the plains hill at 9-9, which would have been better still, both as a city and allowing stronger sites for other cities.

Leaving my narrative for the moment, T-Hawk settled his second city on said plains hill on T47. Tech-wise, I'm up AH (but down Myst?) but am producing fewer beakers because my capital is uncottaged so I'll be slower to Maths. I have one worker (with a second arrving shortly); T-Hawk has three. He's targetting a CS-Sling but I'm still focused purely on expansion; indeed I was actually considering a no-World-Wonder sub-variant at this point, though the relatively late Stonehenge (BC2280 IIRC) has planted the germ of a CS-Sling in my mind...

[T-hawk]

Leaving my narrative for the moment, T-Hawk settled his second city on said plains hill on T47. Tech-wise, I'm up AH (but down Myst?) but am producing fewer beakers because my capital is uncottaged so I'll be slower to Maths.

I'd love to see a continuing play-by-play comparison, as the two games that went for space. Of course, I missed my planned Oracle-CS sling.

I have one worker (with a second arrving shortly); T-Hawk has three.

Baby Meier cries seeing a size-3 city working bare unimproved tiles. But maybe an additional city working flood plains does develop faster than cottaging the capital.

[Swiss Pauli]

Will try to maintain the comparison as far as my memory and screenshots allow. It was actually a spaceship comparison game over at Apolyton that led to me RB on Überfish's recommendation, so it's somehow fitting that a similar game has led me back to activity here.

Baby Meier won't cry for long (And if you peer hard enough at the Gao screenshot, you'll see that the FPs are now farmed and the gold mined.)

More cities:

Cuman spawning in the fog didn't have me jumping for joy. Seeing as I wouldn't have to declare war on the barbs, it would be fair game but military wasn't really on my agenda. Settling was though:

As you can see, Walata was conceived to grab marble and Djenne is building a Hindu temple for max overflow into the Oracle. Rammy has settled Memphis pretty close to Djenne but I'm confident I can win any culture war here, assuming I land the Oracle...

[Swiss Pauli]

Hell Yes!

Synced with Confu being founded in Kumbeh. Here's an overview shot from BC825:



We've had a couple of free Hindu spreads and there are two settlers on the way, one on the 'c'; by the jumbos (along with the Confu missionary) and another to its south for deer and crabs. No copper city yet, so that I can continue to settle towards the AIs and also to minimize hammers invested in military (though I would learn Archery just in case). That Japanese ex-barb city is very annoying: Toku must have had some lucky rolls to claim it this early in the piece. And we know what can happen when an AI wants to move units through closed borders

That barb axe went back into the fog be he (or one of his pals) returned on T90, so I again switched to a skirmisher, but thankfully a Japanese chariot bonked that barb

Here's Awdaghost:

Decided that settling on the plains hill would be the wise choice with this site. I may run light on military but I don't plan on being a farmland caretaker for Tokugawa

[Swiss Pauli]

Clearly, landing the CS-sling when T-Hawk missed out means I'm up a key tech and got into the Big B sooner with its juicy commerce and production bonuses. I'm also ahead on the number of cities (I think) but the focus on expansion has meant that, unlike T-Hawk, my Timbuktu lacks an Academy in BC 650.

It might be pot-luck, but it could also be that my early settling Djenne towards Egypt has deterred Ramy from expanding to his east/north-east judging by the relative positions of Memphis. My Gao has secured the north for Mali, and, if I ever get round to training some units then the hilltop Cuman should be mine, assuming the AIs trickle suicide units into its defenders.

[Swiss Pauli]

With Monarchy and IW bagged before Archery, I'm set for an early run to Literature for the Great Library, but that's not going to stop me expanding. Unfortunately I didn't take the screenshot before moving my lookout, but Justinian had his own settler pair 2N of the rice, so I was forced to settle Tadmekka in a less than ideal spot:

A sub-optimal city is better than none!

The Great Library duly completed in BC 450, expediting a GS for an Academy in BC 175 (I think). Tekedda was founded in the northern desert:

The location was forced by my earlier cities and, although it lacks freshwater and has some useless coast, it can work a good few strong tiles. T108 saw two new cities for the Malian Empire:

I had the idea that I'd try to culture-flip Cuman but I certainly didn't expect it to happen so soon This was one of the reasons why I opted to build the Parthenon in Gao, but faster Great People is always welcome for a non-PHI civ.

Turn 115 is 1AD so it's time for a full review, starting with the map:



We're dunsettlin', so now the 16 workers can focus on getting these 11 cities up to speed. Most cities are focusing on infrastructure, except weedy Walata which I let grow to size 4, whip a worker, rinse and repeat. Niani is my military pump by which I mean that I occasionally slotted in a unit between buildings

OR would have been handy at this stage but, in spite of Ramy spreading Hinduism into my cities, I opted not to adopt it both to allow border pops from other religions and to avoid antagonizing the Buddhist Justinian; my 13 warriors and 3 skirmishers aren't going to fend off any sort of attack! Demographics:

1 AD also saw Mali enter the Renaissance on completion of Education. Oxford without stone is always frustratingly slow, but I have saved some forests in Timbuktu for this very purpose. Research is now set to head to Philosophy to stop the AI from targeting it for Taoism, and from there Calendar is needed to connect resources, a diversion to Construction for bridges, and thereafter to Printing Press (picking up Alphabet and Machinery en route).

[Swiss Pauli]

Cities: Swiss 11, T-Hawk 10
City sizes: SP 11, 7, 6, 6, 5, 5, 4, 2, 2, 1, 1. T-H 10, 7, 6, 5, 5, 4, 2, 2, 1, 1.

BPT: SP 245 (BC50) T-H 228 (1AD). Great Library next turn for T-H (Swiss built in BC450).
Techs: SP: Edu; T-H: Machinery (in 1t)

Military: cut-outs only, but T-H has HE due in 4t.
Relgions: SP - none (2 Hindu, 1 Budd, 1 Confu). T-H - Confu (2 Hindu, 1 Budd, 1 Confu)

Verdict: SP narrowly ahead on points thanks to the CS Sling, and strong cities on his western/northwestern flank, but T-H isn't exactly on the ropes