Warlords 3 - blid's report

[blid]

Looking at the starting location, there are 2 corns and pigs. That's clearly too much food. Being financial and having those grasslands on rivers, I didn't want to waste the capital on a pure GP farm, so I just went one tile south on the coast to found the capital.




The picture shows the map revealed by the hut. Since no one has mysticism, and this is mainly a diplo game, I'm going to chase religions. I put some turns into agriculture, because if an AI runs after buddhism, I want him to realize too late that he can't have it. This would give me a shot at hinduism too. I want to have it in my second city or nowhere. I start immediately with a settler. Agri was chosen for the corn of course, but also as a pre-req for AH. If we had hunting, I'm not sure I would have started with a settler, since a pig pasture is huge and would compensate for 15 turns worker very fast. Unirrigated corn is another matter.

So the research path went like this

Agri (5/8t)->meditation and buddhism->agri

I researched hunting partially to be sure hinduism is discovered in the new city, P'yongyang




This city has 2 gold, picks the corn and flood plains. A wonderful science center. It also helps claiming space, especially with it being the holy hindu center
I'm counting on my culture to expand enough to ensure me protection against barbs so both cities start on workers.

After poly, I finished hunting, researched AH to hook the pigs. AH reveals horses in capital BFC. I choose bronzeworking next, for slavery more than the copper itself. But I do need the wheel, before I'm able to build chariots, and then cottages to cottage P'yongyang. Research speed is awesome with the gold mines

I met all the AIs early except america. Of course I was first in culture




The next city went to choke england, claiming more territory inside




Stalin was the first to convert to buddhism which was doing better than hinduism.

Writing and alphabet were my next research targets, letting me trade my religious techs for iron working and sailing and some cheap techs. Vicky took judaism and had priesthood. I was not sure she'd chase oracle, but I preferred to go right after the gret library and not risk racing for it. It proved later that I could have gotten it quite safely. I still went for priesthood after literature, not for the oracle but to build a temple and start collecting priest points. I built the temple in Pyongyang to avoid polluting the capital scientist points

My fourth city went in the south, to claim the fist and wheat




I'm not sure this was a good choice. At the time I was avoiding borders clash with Stalin whom I want as a friend. I was also counting on my holy city to claim enough land for me to settle more cities later in the russian direction

I finally met Roosevelt in 650 BC and he was annoyed because I trade with worst enemy Mao. I gifted him polytheism and he turned please. Not a difficult guy. Yet still, he converts to judaism, bad bad boy. We'll care about that later.

Confucianism was founded in the wheat and fish city.




I would have preferred to found it in my northern city, fighting both russian and english culture but buddhism spread on its own there a few turns before.

After Code of laws, I went for monarchy to improve the happiness situation since the cities had a decent amount of food and were growing quickly. The fifth city claimed the rice




My cities were using a lot of coastal tiles. Four coins water tiles is something I love in CIV when playing with financial civs and colossus is so cheap with copper. Of course no AI had metal casting yet. They were quite backward in fact but maybe this was going to change, as Mao asked for alphabet and I gave him. I was more thinking about letting them tech enough to be able to trade with them. And getting the bonus modifers won't hurt too of course.

The great library was done in 175 BC in Seoul and I discovered metal casting a few years later. Stalin grabbed the great wall.
The pyramids fell very lately in 75 AD to Mao, just when my first scientist was born. He popped philosophy and taoism, this time in my northern city, Wonsan. Some turns later, Nappy finished the great lighthouse and Stalin discovered christianity. These turns were used to consolidate my little empire, building granaries, libs, lighthouses and forges.
I got civil service and went bureaucracy in the early 200 AD's, colossus in the 300 AD's. The plan was going well, the only exception to it was this :




I delayed building my settler too much and it was already too late when I spotted Stalin galley. When I closed borders, I just helped him get quicker to my eastern part where he put that ugly city, blocking my 2 cities pattern in that part, and getting a fish resource. With me having the colossus, the loss was huge. So I finished by settling that hill, the only possible location reamining though it was overlapping with the capital a lot.

My second scientist built an academy in the capital since I was already well advanced in education and didn't want to loose beakers. After education, I went for gunwpoder. Being protective, the muskets would be enough to defend for a while. Mind that all those techs were on the beeline for mass media. I chose the chemistry path to scientific method to get the maximum profit from the colossus. I researched engineering and machinery myself to open chemistry, realized I needed printing press too and finally got chemistry in 1060 AD. I traded for a lot of techs of course, like currency, optics and calendar.

[blid]

The thirst great person was a low odds merchant in the capital from colossus. I sent him to Paris for a 2500 gold. That was enough gold to research at 100% for a long time. Meanwhile, Islam was discovered by the chinese. And I finally got the great prophet from Pyongyang, by buidling a second temple and hiring a couple prophets. I built the buddhist shrine.




You can see that by the time I built the shrine, three of the AIs were already buddhist. There was some serious missionary expeditions going on. I didn't open borders with Lizzie the entire game, she was hated by all the AIs except Roosevelt. I could have turned Nappy buddhist quite easily but didn't want to, cuz I was not sure who of him and Lizzie would be my oppoenent in the UN vote.

I was delaying astronomy and scientific method by researching them to the last turn and switching, I did the same with liberalism. That led to this funny situation. Look at the number of 1 turn research techs I get :




That was also the result of ignoring some other cheaper tehcs but 2 turns research for banking was quite good, me thinks. How was it called already, this korean uni ? a seowon, yeah they are great.

5 great persons and 3 wonders in 2 turns. You could call it the world's golden age




Korea participated with one the great persons, a scientist. Another one joined him a few years later when I discovered physics. Unfortunately, they preferred biology to eletricity. So be it, it would make for more votes. I burnt both of them on biology and by visiting the foreign advisor, I saw that Lizzie had both philo and education. So I just finished that remaining turn of liberalism




Stalin converted to christianity, so I bribed him back to buddhism




He turned friendly. He even offered me drama for free. That's a nice fellow for ya. I prepared some more missionaries to convert the remaining cities and did the same with Mao and Roosevelt.

The beeline was finally over just before entering the 16th century




A few turns later, the wheat city provided the engineer it was wokring on since the early ADs.




The first vote came in 1535 AD.



The good news is that Lizzie is my opponent. The bad news is that Roosy likes her more than me, though we share religions and they don't. I was short of buddhist missionaries to convert Nappy so I whipped a couple on turn 0, hoping he would convert by himself. He didn't. So I gave him astro to convert loosing one point with Roosy, who didn't like him. Since he was not voting for me, I'd rather bet on solid allies.
But the next turn, Roosy came askinf for astronomy, offering me the opportunity to get +2 without penalty and up the fair trade bonus to +4. Nice timing.
I also switched to mercantilism, Rossy favourite civic. It proved enough to make him change his mind




Diplo victory in 1560 AD. By the time, Lizzie and Nappy had the same number of population. What was she thinking, enslaving poor citizens ?
It was close, by I got the 90 points by voting for my opponent.

And the relationship status at end of game




Stalin : +12
Nappy : +10
Lizzie : -4
Mao : +12
Roosy : +10

That's a total of 40 net points. The total score for my game is 100 (victory) + 90 (diplo victory voting for my opponent) + 40 = 230 points

There was not a single war in my game and I just had to kill a bear and barb archer the whole game. Clearly a peaceful and relaxing game.

[Ruff_Hi]

Double wow - I thought sooooo's 1600 was impressive. What about 1560! Very well done. It seems my hypothetical dot map is basically worthless as
(by and large) no one has shared city locations.

[FeedBack]

Double wow - I thought sooooo's 1600 was impressive. What about 1560! Very well done.

I echo this! Very well done!
And I thought that my date of 1635 was good for Mass Media...

[sooooo]

Yup, nice method of making the GE you needed. And congrats for getting those 90 points the honourable way .