Mr. Cairo v. Cornflakes duels

[Mr. Cairo]

OK, let's give this thing a shot.

First, the picks. Nubia. I'll be honest, I made my pick while quickly having a look at all the civs before work this morning, and I didn't realise the unique improvement for Nubia can only go on desert/floodplain. In any case, that's fine, it seemed a little OP to me anyway.

Cornflakes' pick is Persia. Their unique ability seems very powerful in SP, but in a duel I can just nullify it by declaring war on him as soon as I see him and never making peace. Their unque unit is a sword with a ranged attack. Well, my unique unit is an fast archer with a more powerful ranged attack and I build it with a 50% bonus.

Next, the start:

(Yes I know that my starting movement with the warrior was dumb, let's move on)
I was tempted to move towards the desert so I could have a Pyramid next to my city centre, but in the end I decided it was more important to snowball with my cap. It's districts will always be cheaper anyway as they'll come earlier. Besides, that plains hill jungle banana is 3 food 2 hammers. Seems good. 

My plan is based on my limited SP experience. There I always build a lot of units at the beginning (as in 2-3 slingers and a warrior) then build a settler, using my first chunk of cash to buy a builder. So that's what I'm going to try here. I'll be able to get even more slingers thanks to my ability, and I'll try and nip the barbs in the bud, so to speak, and prevent them from becoming a serious problem later on. Also, I am definitely planning on conquering some city-states early on as well, unless I luck out with a very useful one nearby.

[Mr. Cairo]

I played a SP game as Nubia. First of all, their archers are really strong. Second of all, there's an achievement on Steam when you win as Nubia called "gg nub" 

In this game I've cleared one barb camp so far, dealing the final blow with a slinger for that eureka. I've also met the city-state Stockholm, but Cornflakes (who I have not yet met) met it before me. On the duel map I played, there's one CS between the two civs, and one each at either end "behind" the two civs. I hope that changing the starting distance that Cornflakes did hasn't changed that and I end up screwed when it comes to meeting CS's.

I'm going to finish my 4th slinger and grow to size 4, then start on the settler.

[Mr. Cairo]

Here's some screenshots, we've been tearing through the turns lately:



What I've scouted so far:

Still not sure where he is, or the other city-states (there are other city-states right?). I have 4 slingers out now.
My first city will probably the "star" location, simply because it is towards the centre of the map, and has a great Campus location.

[Mr. Cairo]

Yup, he's closer to every city-state on the map than me, as we have the same population (although he has another city), but he's getting +2 sci/turn, +2 culture/turn, and +5(!) faith/turn compared to me.

Edit: as planned, I instantly declared war on him, so he can't take advantage of his ability. If this game even continues.

[Mr. Cairo]

yeah.... that seems a tad unfair. I kinda want to keep playing for now, but we'll see. My current plan involves conquering Stockholm asap. Then basically just spamming Pitati archers to try and kill Cornflakes. Fortunately none of the city-states are the kind that give hammers to unit production, and hopefully he wont take the God of the Forge pantheon.

[Mr. Cairo]

So he has the Earth Goddess Pantheon, so I can get God of the Forge in 10 turns. Right now I'm on another settler, I'm going to settle in a straight line towards Stockholm, then just spam Pitati's and try and win with them. Or at the very least choke Cornflakes to death.

[Mr. Cairo]

Attacking Stockholm:


I have 4 Pitati Archers and 1 Warrior (sort-of) in position, 1 more on the way, and another about to finish in the city you can just see the borders of in the lower left corner. It should be enough, I had to sort of jump the gun a bit when Stockholm's archer started heading back to the city, I wanted to kill it before it could sit in the city centre. I launched the attack the next turn and managed to hit that archer with one of my own and almost killed it in a single shot. Most of my Pitati's have been promoted from all the barbs I've been killing (and the x2 XP they get). They are really quite powerful, the extra move is also really impactful. 

I'm still building units in all my cities in case Cornflakes decides to intervene. But I think if I can take the city-state I'll be back in the game, as I'll be taking away some of Cornflake's research, and gaining a well developed city, with a campus.

[Mr. Cairo]

Ugh, Stockholm chopped a forest to complete another archer. I'll still be able to take the city, but I might end up with some losses. Fortunately, the AI isn't smart enough to focus on killing my single warrior, and instead will attack the Archers, in my experience at least.

Cornflakes offered peace, hopefully for the last time, there's no way I'm going to let him get his special ability back, so I hope he stops asking.

[Mr. Cairo]

Killed the last of the units outside the city, and I'll probably take the city next turn:



Also, my power atm is at 238, while Cornflakes is at 103, so once I take Stockholm, I'll just head on over to him, see what I can do. I am starting to lose money though, so I'm going to slow down on the military construction. I'm building a builder out of my cap, and a campus in my second city.

[Mr. Cairo]

captured Stockholm as planned, came with a monument and granary, both damaged, and a Campus. I got the Masonry and State Workforce inspirations. Cornflakes has started an encampment in a forward position towards Stockholm, so I'm pressing the attack. At the very least I hope to raze that city of his there. That might be enough to force a concession by itself.