[SPOILERS] Marco Outfoxes Everyone Else

[Krill]

I'm reading along.

[Cornflakes]

I'm reading along.

[marcopolothefraud]

Cornflakes do u forgive me for my mistakes in PBEM20

[marcopolothefraud]

While we're on this interturn, let me write a brief report about this single-player game I'm playing. All DLC's, 8 player Pangaea, Disaster Level 4 and Goody Huts on. Secret Societies mode (and nothing else) enabled. I randomly rolled Rome, and I cooked the map to have as many hills/mountains/resources/choppable features as possible. I've just reached t50, just like PBEM21.



After seeing Rome's wheat resources, I adopted a "tall capital" strategy, where I would go for a Water Mill as soon as possible, and get Pingala to make good use of a high population at the capital. Notice the stone resource in the Northeast that could make for a good +4 campus...sadly, I don't have Writing yet.

Unfortunately, I had to research the Wheel technology unboosted, and I could only cash-purchase the Water Mill by the late date of t47. Why did I waste my gold on infrastructure instead of Legion upgrades? We'll get to that later.

Also notice the *terrible* placement of my Government Plaza. The problem was, my GP was unlikely to boost any districts anyway, because I want to keep all of those food resources around and use that population to work nice 4-yield or higher tiles. I ultimately chose to place it on a flat-land location in order to keep all of my Hills for Mines down the road - even though I'm going to use one of those hills anyway for a Bath. Hopefully this is just a minor blunder.

Pingala was in Rome until just recently, because I moved Magnus in position to chop out the Ancestral Hall as soon as possible. I promoted the +1 science/citizen promotion, but I couldn't promote the +1 culture/citizen promotion yet because I wanted 2 promotions into Magnus too. Luckily, Rome has free monuments, and my culture was still very nicely accelerated.



Ostia is in kind of a dicey position. I needed to forward settle Mali (to the south) before they forward settled me, but I don't have many good food resources to grow the city apart from the Bananas. My packed production queues meant that I couldn't spare a Trade Route for this city...at least, not yet, anyway. Note the Encampment in production - I'm not sure if it was a good idea or not.



My third city is going to be in a garbage location, just because there are no Iron resources near me. I already have Iron Working mostly researched, so all I need is the Iron mine and I should be fine.

At 10 iron per Legion, I don't expect to field a sizable army until t70 at the earliest. That will give me some time to build my gold reserves back up after that Water Mill purchase - I'm currently at 36 gold, with +11 gold per turn, and I could make that +14gpt if I worked the Cotton at Ostia - and upgrade a few Warriors into Legions. Legions also have one Builder charge, so I could put Magnus back in Ostia and chop those forests to spawn Legions for an attack on Mogadishu (and maybe Mali, but the terrain is borderline untraversable).



A look at my tech tree. (Civics tree would be somewhat pointless because everyone goes for the same civics every game anyway.) I went Mining -> AH -> Wheel (no eureka) -> Bronze Working -> Iron Working (until the Eureka) -> Masonry. Perhaps I could've switched Wheel with Bronze Working, but I *really* thought I could've gotten that Water Mill earlier...I unfortunately had to spend some gold on a tile purchase at Ostia.

My science and culture rate are going to be a little dismal for the time being. But Rome will go Ancestral Hall -> Settler (for the horse resources to the west) -> Settler (for the fertile land to the east) -> Legions and Battering Ram. It already has a good foundation, because of all the high food and production.

[marcopolothefraud]

Oh, one more thing - I chose the pantheon of +1 culture per plantation. I was considering +1 food and +1 production per Camp (because Rome would be even nicer, and there is one Deer to the east), but I ultimately decided against it. Either choice is really good though.

[marcopolothefraud]

Turn 80 of this singleplayer game.



Ostia is being a very effective Legion factory. Next turn, I'll probably swap in the Maneuver policy card and start chopping out Horsemen too.



Ravenna, my garbage Iron-harvesting city, is sadly still struggling from a combination of bad yields and no Builder love. Its culture yield has provided a quite-significant part of my worldwide culture, though.



Two of my new expands, Antium and Aquileia! Unfortunately, neither of them are on freshwater, and they won't be able to make Roman Baths either. But their tile yields are worth enough to make them decent cities. Two builders are on their way to Antium to make 2 more housing-yielding improvements.



And finally, the main part of my empire is up northeast. Rome has unfortunately topped out in food and production, but its culture yield is somewhere around 12-13 per turn and its science yield is almost as high. Hopefully the presence of a Bath and Apprenticeship to boost some Mines will make it a better capital. If I had the gold to spare, I would buy some of its third-ring tiles too.

And Mediolanum...oh dear, the Gauls are at the gates of Mediolanum. Thanks to a combination of a negligible military and bad use of tactical movement, I let a barbarian scout get away and spawn a modern invasion force. (Deity barbarians are no joke.) But they've mostly been shuffling around and making against-the-odds attacks on well-fortified Legions, and as far as I know, those catapults haven't fired a single shot. I came close once or twice, but I haven't lost a single unit in combat yet.

In the last 30 turns, I have fallen behind my target goals. I have not conquered a single city-state, and my military is not in a position to do so yet. The AI has double, if not triple my science yield (Gitarja, how? Did you get lucky somehow?)...but they only have around six or seven cities, just like me, which means that their industrial capacity has to be somewhere close to mine. It's worth noting that my gold income is one of the highest in the world, and I accomplished it without selling or exploiting the AI in any way that I wouldn't be able to do in multiplayer. I haven't even asked them for Open Borders for my scouts to peek through.

I should finally mention my science and culture yields, which have been poorly managed through the last 30 turns. Those campuses at Rome and Mediolanum would be very nice, provided I can finish them without having to divert attention to military. I've roughly leapfrogged from Classical civic to Classical civic, trying to delay them as much as I could until I could get the boost. (After all, few of the civics were really important to a financial/military/industrial juggernaut like Rome.) Feudalism will be up shortly, and I'm within spitting distance of 6 farms, which is pretty good.

Science...science has been okay, though also sub-par. The longer I delay my Legions in battle, the more obsolete they will be. You can already see Singaporean crossbowmen, which means that Singapore can no longer be invaded. Men-at-Arms is within 15 turns, at least.

[marcopolothefraud]

Back to the Aztec game. I don't have a report, but I do have a savefile for any lurkers to snoop around in.

[marcopolothefraud]

Alright. I'll barely get a better chance than this.



The Argentinian archer is stranded 3 tiles away from the city, and it's already down to 47 HP after my first strike. I have a scout and a second Eagle Warrior that are 3 turns from attacking the city itself, and my 3rd Eagle Warrior is only 5 turns away. My Trader's road is incomplete, but it's good enough.

[marcopolothefraud]

I meet Alhambram to my west.




Kwadukuza must have a really nice Campus spot to justify a lack of resources. I also attacked his Slinger right away, even though this gave him Defensive Tactics inspiration in the process. Why?

1. This denies him scouting opportunities east of Cardiff, except by boat. This also denies me the same thing...but I have a feeling that Zulu, with their crazy power spike in the Medieval Era, will need knowledge of the land more than I do.
2. This denies him a view of my new cities for the next 10 turns, because all diplomatic opportunities won't exist. Maybe more of a minor thing, but I'd prefer for him to have as little information as possible.
3. Of course, he's going to lose a valuable unit in the Slinger.

There is also the matter of getting Amani and levying the Welsh military to aggressively poke into (and raid) Zulu territory. Of course they're going to have Archers, so most of the Welsh would die, but they would cause quite a nuisance for him. I probably won't go this route, though, because I'd rather turn the Welsh into my slaves.

Speaking of which:


Dead Argentinian archer.

[marcopolothefraud]

A view into my defensive plans.

1. Encampments are placed because they're on Hills, they as much ground in front of the city as possible, and there are very few attack vectors towards them. Ideally the "Defense" encampment would be right next to Cardiff city center itself, but that isn't possible.

2. I will of course get Crossbowmen as soon as possible and some good Medieval Walls. Battering Rams and Siege Towers are hard buggers to kill, though.

3. If Cardiff falls, my "Defense" city is doomed. Then I would pull back to the base of the land bridge.

4. I need a good fleet on both oceans. A Canal city around Cahokia would help things a little.