Civ 5 We Hardly Knew Ye [Spoilers]

[Ichabod]

God King and on to the religion! This pantheon isn't that great, but at least it tells me no one else, besides presumably Nicolae, is going strong into religion. I'll likely build some more shrines in my new cities, in order to get there sooner. I don't want to lose to a wine-faith pantheon by Dave. Anyway, I think it's 134 faith for a chance at a GPro in quick speed, so still a good way to go. Worth noticing that you lose the pantheon faith, so I have a pretty decent advantage from the third place player in the religious race (faster shrine, free faith from GK, less expensive pantheon). Meanwhile, Nicolae is way ahead of me, as expected.



As strange as it may appear, this is the best setup for a settler build in my Capital. The 2/1 tile gets no benefit in settler production over the 1/1 tiles, so it's better to work the 1/1/2 and get some extra gold in the process. 4 turns settlers are pretty decent and I also can use the 3f tile to the third city, for faster growth. I'm still debating about the third city location, either on the hill or on the cotton. I'll make a more detailed post about it later. It's not easy to cram all the cities I want with this 3 tiles between cities rule...



This is the piece of bad news from the turn. Annoying barbs messing with our quick cities. I moved to the desert hill, hoping that the barb will go away next turn and not attack our warrior. But we'll see. Most likely outcome is at least 1t delay into the second city.



And the great news! Our second warrior went exploring and found another luxury resource. We were low on happiness considering all cities we want to settle, so this is a massive help. The northern city will get that resource in third ring, so we'll get there eventually, even if it takes a bit.

I have to be really stingy with gold in this game, even more in the beggining. It seems pretty evident I'll have to use most of it to buy tiles, hills and luxuries mostly. There's just no way to settle every city I want with every tile I want in the first ring, so we'll need the gold. In this sense, that cotton tile is actually helpful now. Otherwise, we'd be losing gold already.

One of my neighbours is using the trick of almost finishing the techs and then changing to a new one. The way the known tech bonus works in this game, you can't get a full bonus by doing that (it doesn't give a bonus to research, it substracts from the cost of the tech). I haven't been doing this so far, because I need the techs I've been researching - my current research is mining, and I want to mine the hill in the Capital. After that, I'll likely go Trapping (which one neighbour already researched), because I need to improve those truffles. After that, BW to reveal Iron, perhaps... Maybe one Immortal and try to extract some gold from City States...

[Rowain]

Hurray for the pearls and a plague on the barbs. I fear there spawned an annoying camp somewhere.

[Ichabod]

Speaking of annoying barbs, take a look at this:
















So, for all this turns the barb made the perfect move to hurt me. He ZoC'd me out of moves, he reached the hill where I wanted my city first and once he reached the hill, he attacked me, while keeping on the hill. I was really, really anooyed at that. Not only it delayed my second city by 2/3 turns, it also forced me to settle it on the marsh, closer to Pindicator.

Speaking of which, I don't think that was a bad move. Further exploration basically confirmed we are on a 3 player continent. Davey went Tradition, Pindi went Liberty. The only way I can think of to win this is by rivaling Pindicator pretty early, militarizing soon (spear + CBs, likely), and taking him out of contention, while hoping Davey goes peaceful. Any other plans depends to much on avoiding a dogpile, which I'm not confident in. So, even if my city is right on Pindicator's doorstep, I think that was actually a better move than the other city. It also allows me the desert gold city on the place where I want it, which helps by not antagonizing Davey too much.

We'll see what happens, my plan right now is to get to 5 cities and then build an army to take Pindicator's Capital. Perhaps a bit crazy, but it's the best I can think of with this map setup.

[Ichabod]

If so, here's what I would like everyone to post for the t20 review:

1. A picture of your capital, showing where you settled.
2. How many ruins you found/what results you got.
3. Your opening builds.
4. Your social policy selection.

1.







2. 4 ruins: 2 culture (13 culture each), one pop (from 1 -> 2) and one map, which revealed that we probably have islands around.

3. Scout; Monument; Shrine; Worker; Warrior; Settler (at size 4, with Collective rule already); Settler; Settler.

4. Liberty. Sped up by Culture runes, second city delayed due to the barb movement shown above (it was supposed to be settled turn 22, went on turn 24).

----



I bought the truffles tile and there's already a worker there to improve it. I'm calculating the unhapiness and it seems I won't be able to grow much more. With the 5 city setup I think of, I can only grow 2 more pop points, to stay at 0 happy when I reach the 5 cities and improve the avaiable resources. So, workers will focus on improving hammer tiles, after the luxuries, where we'll stagnate while building the aforementioned army to take on Pindicator. That's a Liberty MP game, apparently. Hopefully we can trade with Oledavy for an extra happy resource, but I fear Pindi already hates us.

Now that I think of it, I can perhaps even time my attack on Pindi to be just as I spend the Social Policy that gives me a Golden Age. That would be pretty neat.



Someone built the Stonehenge already and Davey got the pantheon I thought he would. Religion will be hard, apparently, and I don't think I can afford building anymore shrines, not while planning to take on Pindi. I'm cozing up to the GPro as Liberty finisher idea once again, mostly because I think I'll need happiness from religion to survive...



3 cities, 10 food.   Yeah, I'm staving everything due to unhapiness and really starving my Capital while building settlers.



Exploration. 



My lands.

[Rowain]

We'll see what happens, my plan right now is to get to 5 cities and then build an army to take Pindicator's Capital. Perhaps a bit crazy, but it's the best I can think of with this map setup.

Sounds good to me. Better crazy and fun than boring

[Ichabod]

We'll see what happens, my plan right now is to get to 5 cities and then build an army to take Pindicator's Capital. Perhaps a bit crazy, but it's the best I can think of with this map setup.

Sounds good to me. Better crazy and fun than boring

That's the spirit! 

I'll update more regularly, once I get my computer back. I have to play the turns very quickly in the PC I'm using right now, so there's not much time to think about what I'll report. It should be back this week, I think.

[Rowain]

I'll update more regularly ..

So "more regularly" is brazil for "once in a blue moon"

[Ichabod]

A new social policy came in and we chose Representation. That was part of a larger plan, which gad its decisive point on the following turn:



We declared war on Oledavy. We have 3 archers that can shoot the city next turn and 5 archers total. We can attack the city center with 2 spears and a warrior too, but I don't think that's enough to take it, so it's likely I won't attack with all the units. There's anotehr warrior, the damaged one, which got delayed because I had to finish an annoying barb spearman that invaded this turn. I couldn't let him damage my ranged units, which are more important.

Because of the GA, my units have +1 move and +10% strength. With this, I can move into a jungle and shoot with the archers on the same turn and I can attack the city with melee units from outside its range. That's pretty nice, Persia abilities rule!



Oledavy is last in power and, if I know something about Civ 5 power demos, he doesn't have much in terms of military. This is one of the weaknesses of Tradition in an MP environment. You have less spare hammers compared to Liberty, since expanding cost more hammers and you don't get the free one from Republic. I was pretty tight with my hammer spending, so I managed to get all this units. A more conservative path with Tradition will result in very few units at this time, and I bet he has some units fighting barbs.

I think Pinot Noir is going to fall (which will give me sources of Gold and Wine, which I currently lack), but I'm not sure if I can take Oledavy's Capital. He has a third city city, Malbec, that you can barely see in this screenshot:



The problem with taking it, which I'm pretty sure I can do, is that I can't keep it. The map is almost mirrored, so I'd get only doubled luxuries that I already have. I don't have the needed happiness to support yet another city, I thnk. Well, at least I'm going for Construction, so Colosseums become an option. And considering I can pick a GProphet from Liberty pretty soon, I could also have Pagodas online... Well see what happens... 


You can see that I'm at war with the City State in the screenshot above. I declared to steal a worker and didn't get peace. Why? Because I plan to conquer it, and declaring war two times on a CS gives you a penalty with all the other CSs. I would prefer conquering Almaty, but Pindicator had already stolen the worker from it (and Oledavy stole the worker from Kuala Lampur, making it a fair split), so I went for Wellington. And Wellington stole my horse tile, so that's another plus. Anyway, the idea is crippling Oledavy the most I can (if I can't finish him off), and then conquering Wellington on the side.

Exciting turns ahead.

[Ichabod]

I'll update more regularly ..

So "more regularly" is brazil for "once in a blue moon"

What are you talking about, I just updated. 

[Rowain]

What are you talking about, I just updated. 

Conjuring up an Ichabod +1



That aside: Given that you are most likely on a continent with Davy and Pindicator you need to take out Oledavy completely. So make more Units .

Lets hope Pindi stays out of it/is not ready to engage right now.