Part 24: 300 BC - 320 AD (Second conquest, third conquest, wonders, mass exploration and colonies)
Last update ended with me breaking my peace treaty to attack the Aztecs when they refused to cancel it. I should be able to crush them soon, but that leaves me with a big problem: I haven’t made contact with any other civilizations, so my conquest will screech to a halt unless I find some.In a “standard” Civ 2 game there are fairly distinct phases of eXploration, eXpansion, eXploitation, and eXtermination. This is not true when playing for speed. I’m going to be frantically exploring everywhere I can get to at once while also throwing down cities anywhere I can make one grow, building Roads and Irrigation across the globe, spinning off colonies, and wiping out the Aztecs and anyone else I can find all at once.
But first there’s a bit of business to take care of.
Quite a few cities to rename as requested. There’s still a lot of Irrigation to make in this isthmus leading out of the heartland, but I think I’ve got all the cities I need at least.
This is really the center of my empire now, my most settled area and the one closest to most of the action. There’s Irrigating still to do here too and a city or two to build, but mainly I need this region producing Settlers to make cities elsewhere.
Like in captured Greece and its surrounds.
Lots of cities to build there- and probably in the soon-to-be-captured Aztec lands too. In particular I want some far-western ports I can start launching exploring ships from.
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Something strange is going on with the city of Vike Me On FB. Notice the tiles it’s working.
Here’s the neighboring city of Vaike. Those tiles don’t have a white outline; they’re available to work here too!
That shouldn’t happen and I have no idea why it did. Vaike and Vike DO interfere with each others’ tile use; it’s only Vike Me On FB that doesn’t seem to. And this bug never went away. I kept expecting normalcy to resume if I clicked the tiles worked on and off or a few turns went by or a city grew or something, but it never did. I’ve still got both Vaike and Vike Me On FB working the same tiles now.
I went exploring the Aztec lands and found them to be full of roads and fortresses which could not possibly help the Aztecs but are great for me. AI fortresses are always like that. For no reason, they’re built internally rather than on the frontier and are thus perfect for invading human players to take advantage of to set up for overwhelming attacks.
The first of many new cities in the former Greek lands is established.
And another.
This guy should do some irrigating instead. Where to start though? Well I already have a road to the northwest Grassland which means I could start irrigating it this turn. One very useful thing to know is that even having only 2/3 or 1/3 of a move left still counts as a full turn of irrigation (or mining, etc.).
Besides the obvious benefit that I can start reaping the +1 Food slightly faster if I irrigate the top left Grassland like this instead of spending a whole turn moving down to the south one first, there are a few other implications. One is that if you have multiple Settlers in an area, it can save you time to have one out in front building Roads while the others follow along making Irrigation.
I’ve had this Horseman stationed in Waylon for a while to prevent Civil Disorder, but as one reader pointed out, there’s some unscouted tiles right to the south that I could have him look at and then move right back into Waylon immediately. Free scouting.
As you can see, I revealed those tiles and then used my second move to get back into the city- thus no increase in unhappiness and no Civil Disorder. The reason I hadn’t bothered to do that before was that I knew those tiles would be empty Ocean and this city will never need to work Ocean tiles. But this is a useful trick in frontier cities that have more useful terrain around them.
I’m building at least one
Back to the action at last. My Crusader uncovered another city out here while I moved in on Tenochtitlan on the other front. Ordinarily I wouldn’t split my army like that of course, but there’s no time to waste setting up careful attacks.
Wow, that city was weakly defended. That Crusader killed the only defender and then was able to seize it immediately thanks to the Road.
Tenochtitlan has a City Wall, so the defenders actually stood a chance. I expected this Crusader to die, but it worked out nicely.
It’s fairly obvious but it’s still worth noting: if you capture a city, all progress toward whatever it was making is lost. Thus if I’d allowed the Aztecs to sit back and complete this wonder, I could have eventually seized the city and claimed it for myself and basically used their Production to my advantage. But it’s not worth the wait- especially since they might well change their idea and build a soldier instead upon realizing they’re surrounded.
Right away I sell off the City Walls. This place should never be the site of another battle, I want the +80 gold, and I don’t want to pay gold every turn to maintain the useless things. Don’t forget to sell junk buildings in captured cities.
Wait, really? Wow, those guys were actually weaker than the Greeks. Not even close. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjiOtouyBOg
I figured they’d have at least one more city- and probably more defenders- out in this area beyond former Tlatelco. I’d better explore it anyway of course.
There’s just one more land area to explore; this zone east of the Aztec territory where I once had my Elephant running around before calling it back to fortify that front.
That unexpectedly easy win means what I feared has happened and I’m now without anyone to conquer. Fortunately I did start building my Longships a while ago, so I’ve got some ready to explore. Do NOT fall into the trap of starting to build things only when a crisis like this happens. Foresee problems and start building what you’ll eventually need early. That really goes for just about any strategy game; be proactive and plan ahead instead of just fighting fires as they spring up.
I have a fair number of directions to scout from. A good thing too since it’s a big world. One issue is that I’ve got almost nothing on my western coasts. I’ll need to build some cities there and size them up enough to build Longships soon.
Ah, got my last land tech.
Seafaring and Astronomy are each prereqs for Navigation, which I want. Which to learn first Well Seafaring for two reasons. Most importantly, Seafaring was also offered the last time the tech menu came up. Therefore, it will NOT be offered next time. Astronomy will be though. So if I do Seafaring first, I can then learn Astronomy and then probably Navigation. If I did Astronomy first, I’d have to learn something else before Seafaring and thus waste a huge number of turns. This is obviously easier to keep track of one when has a screenshot to look back at, but it IS good to remember which of the techs you need soon showed up last time. If you can’t remember on your own, there’s no reason you can’t make a screencap to remember for you too.
There’s a second reason to get Seafaring first: it has a secret benefit that helps
Uh. I was going to go with one of the names people suggested for this city, but I don’t think anything could top this default one. Welcome to scenic Aldeigjuborg!
Big news! My Longship found Roads and Irrigation, which means there’s another civ here! Unfortunately, this area is far from both my heartland and my main section of the continent, so it will be hard to get masses of troops here quickly. I’d better get started.
At this point I counted squares and figured out exactly how long it would take to get back to 15 Viking Limit. Then I made sure I’d have at least 2 units there and ready to go in time. I also got started making another Longship in the area and training Crusaders in all nearby cities that didn’t desperately need to make something else.
Darn, well it happens. There’s really no alternative but to launch your Longships out into the dark and hope for either land or good luck. Since the Oceans tend to be small and islands are numerous, you shouldn’t see this message many times per game.
Wales launches another Longship out into the same general area and it at least survives. Vike’s Longship is also lucky.
Good, it’s a bad wonder.
I’ve just about finished exploring the zone beyond the Aztecs I think. There’s more land than I expected, and all of it unsettled.
There’s more land than I expected here too. It’s at least possible there’s another civ on this continent but I really doubt it since I should have come across a scout or the like by now.
Narrow Oceans like this that a Longship can cross in one go from the right spot are the norm.
I wanted to make some Roads here before founding the city, but there’s really no time to waste; I MUST have a city building Longships to explore the western ocean immediately.
My plan worked like clockwork and I was able to dump two Crusaders to explore the settled area. In another couple of turns I’ll be able to drop off two more and repeat that process until I have a real army. Till then I’ll need to be careful. This Crusader is on a Hill, which is something, but being next to a city is dangerous.
Icy, that’s not good. Also, they’re a Monarchy already. This might be a competent civ.
They’re definitely going to declare war and probably kill that Crusader if I don’t give them Trade. But they'll quite likely do so anyway.
If I’m lucky, they don’t have anything in that city that can beat a veteran Crusader on a Hill. In that case, I may actually be able to take the city next turn.
Barbarian attack! This time they stopped just offshore, so I actually get some warning. That’s how it should happen every single time. In this case I’m playing it safe. I brought in enough veteran Horsemen to kill just about any available barbarian unit, but there’s a possibility that the barbarians are 2-move units. In that case, they can unload and then also move to attack my Horsemen, so I put a lone one out in front of the stack to minimize possible casualties.
I’ve also started training Diplomats and the like in case the city is somehow taken anyway.
Oh and my north Longship was lost too. That’s a surprisingly big ocean. At least in that direction.
The ship was full of Legions. I lost one Horseman attacking them, but the second finished the stack off. Not bad.
No civs here so far, but I could make some colonies. I’ll get to work on that and make sure 2 Settlers are ready by the time this Longship could get back.
This city had no good attacking units in it, so my Crusader was unharmed on their turn and immediately wrecked the defenders on mine. And this is their capital, awesome.
Nice. Now the war can begin in earnest since every unit I make for the rest of the game will be a veteran.
The Pretty Good Wall is less useful to me than J.S. Bach’s Cathedral would be, but on the other hand I REALLY don’t want the mysterious Romans to get it and they’re working on it. I’ll bet I can still beat them to it with my use of Caravans.
Sweet. These guys are not off to an impressive start. However, I’m going to have trouble holding this city with just a pair of injured Crusaders with 1 Defense. The biggest issue is that if a Crusader loses a fight to defend this unwalled size 1 city, the city is obliterated even if the other one is still ready to defend.
So I’d better see if I can get them to agree to a ceasefire or peace while I bring in more people.
No sense in trying to push for gold here when I’m the one who wants the ceasefire.
On the other hand, I don’t need a peace but might be able to get them to pay me for one.
Oh well. Well I got them to neutral status so I’ll try demanding tribute.
Oh well again.
My great Road is finally unbroken from Waylon to Viktory. Of course, now I’ve got new cities to make Roads for in other areas.
I’m not quite sure where to look for the Babylonians, but I’ve got a ceasefire for some protection now and I delivered more troops to fan out and find them.
While I’m talking about efficiently waging war by landing party, let me talk a bit about pathing. In this shot I wanted to get my Crusader to 15 Viking Limit ASAP. There’s basically 3 paths to take. The white path is the most direct route. The black one gets on Rivers/Roads immediately even if it means going a bit out of the way. The red path is kind of a middle ground. As you can see, the black path (onto Roads as fast as possible) is a whole turn quicker than the others. It’s worth figuring this stuff out sometimes.
The other thing to note is that the automatic pathfinding done with the G key is horrible. Sometimes it won’t even get to the location at all, let alone by a fast route. Never, ever try to get away with G key auto-pathfinding when time matters at all. There’s no way to take back a stupid move once the automatic pathfinding has made it; all you can do is damage control.
And that’s about it for the Aztec zone.
SWEET! The other land explorer found the best possible village result out there. Building a city in this place will make it much easier to fill in the rest of the continent efficiently.
I’m starting to build some cities on the intermediary peninsula below that one. It’s good land, though in a useless position. I guess I can launch some ships from there.
As the road suggested, the Babylonians must have another city somewhere over here. It doesn’t look like I’m going to turn any more up to the west, though I’ll keep looking. This would be a good time for war to break out, so I’ll try to goad the Babylonians into ending the treaty.
First they ask me to sign a peace treaty.
Darn. I’d better pull my Crusader back one square so there’s no Warrior sneak attack if they decide to break the treaty. Next turn they’ll crack I’m sure.
Lots more land over here. Maybe enough that there’s another civ on it somewhere. I’ll bring over more boats and land units to explore once I can.
Peat is a great resource and will be very helpful for churning out some much needed Settlers here with its massive Production bonus.
Nice. I’ve really had remarkable luck with getting nomads/cities this game, there’s normally only a 1/5 chance of them per hut and I’ve had something closer to 1/3. A few other factors do alter this though; for example there’s a 3/5 chance of getting nomads/cities instead of 1/5 when finding a hut on a continent where you have no cities.
Back to the Babylonians, I got my war as I predicted.
And I started squashing them immediately. Tearing down that Catapult is particularly nice.
Uh oh. Once again, I stumbled across a very inconveniently located city while trying to move onto some good defensive terrain.
Time to make some colonies over here.
Last turn went quite well; with the Catapult dead there turned out to be no good attackers left in Ur and the Warrior lost to my veteran Crusaders.
Now at last I’ve got Seafaring, so my Longships should be able to cross the oceans and explore better.
As planned.
I can’t actually seize Ur this turn though, just kill the defenders. This is bad because if they can bring in another defender, I’ll have to destroy the city instead of taking it.
More exploration of this big island (it’s one big thing shaped like a sideways U as far as I can tell) by my southwest coast. I’ll bring over some Settlers soon; there’s no sign of inhabitants.
I need to explore more now. The Babylonians are crumbling fast and my other Longships just aren’t finding anything. I’m partial rush-buying this Longship to get it out immediately.
Ugh, well it was inevitable.
No surviving this one. I’ll need to scramble to throw down some defenses in my colonies here in Babylon.
My first overseas colony is, unfortunately, not named Vinland since that suggestion was made only some hours after I’d already screencapped this. It looks to be a pretty prosperous place. I landed the other Settler to explore this island, but if it turns out to be really small, then I’ll probably load him onto the Longship in passing as it makes a return trip to the other nearby islands.
Yeah, I had to destroy Ur.
Land ho!
Hope springs eternal…
And then they immediately cancel the project. That’s unusual.
I’m making colonies too fast for the name suggestions to keep up at this point. This one is near Babylon and thus dangerously close to those barbarians. I’ll need defenders here promptly.
I’ve got some scouting to do by land and sea. I’m pretty sure there’s not much more to the continent here, in which case I want to smoothly and efficiently load my Horseman onto the Longship as it goes by and set off to use him to explore some island across the sea.
Yeah, this is a big island but it seems to be just an island and I probably won’t find anyone else on it. All the huts are a clue for one thing. The AI doesn’t seem to seek those out deliberately, but they’d surely have triggered some of these accidentally.
Busy, busy! I’m basically done with Irrigation and Roads here, so these guys have to cross the sea and get founding cities. One of those Settlers is actually a support-free nomad from earlier that I want to have build Roads on the new islands immediately to give me a headstart there. The Longship is from Wishing You Whale, but the other Settler being loaded on isn’t. That’s going to matter.
Over by Babylon, GA I’ve got what may turn into a two-fronted war with the remnants of the Babylonians to the east and those Horsemen coming from the west.
I keep dropping in troops smoothly though, so the tide will turn my way in short order.
Sure enough, this island is too small for it to be worth building another city here. I’ll have that Settler do a bit of work just so he’s not wasting time and then pick him up once there’s room on the Longship and have him make a city elsewhere.
Hm. I’m 95% done with mine and I’m not letting them beat me. I’ll just spend the 40 or so gold to complete it; that will ruin their plans for good. When you get this message, it typically means that they will complete the wonder in 1 turn. Even if you’re 1 turn away yourself, you won’t get it unless you buy it right then and there. If it’s an important wonder, sell whatever buildings you have to for gold and finish it.
Denied!
Excellent, it’s a trash wonder, so I don’t care if they finish that one.
Alright, this just tells me they have a city by that name somewhere.
Uh oh. I don’t think this Horseman has finished moving, so it could still strike and kill a stack of Crusaders unless I make peace right now.
Sure, sure.
I’m just going to keep this up. It’s become apparent that the Babylonians are quite patient, so this doesn’t seem to make them declare war before about icy level friendliness.
My turn! It would be very convenient to end the treaty and strike now. Time to call Ishtari up and demand more tribute!
Darn.
I don’t want to just break the treaty at this point but I’m worried she might, so I pull back carefully to restrict her sneak attack options and prepare to scout or strike next turn.
Another colony here. And I’ve stopped the Longship temporarily so that the guy on Gnashing Isle can step on before it keeps going.
Not a great colony spot here, so I’ll grab that hut and then set off overland to find one. Oh and note the snazzy new walls that now pop up around all my cities thanks to the Great Wall wonder. It not only counts as a free City Wall in every city, but also doubles my combat strength against barbarians on both attack and defense, and also forces the AI to offer peace when they wouldn’t normally. A great wonder- and one you definitely don’t want in AI hands. It’s just not very high priority because it’s not quite as necessary as ones like Hanging Gardens and Michaelangelo’s Chapel on Deity. On Emperor difficulty or below it’s almost certainly worth grabbing (and so are the Pyramids for a non-Celebration player).
Alright, it’s time for war here.
They’re too patient. I’m just going to sneak attack them now; I shouldn’t wait any longer.
One down.
I really need roads down to Pheasant Quest to efficiently launch colonial expeditions to the land its Longship found, so I took the time to build some before founding this intermediary city.
Interesting. If this was a continent I had no cities on, there would have been a very good chance of this being a bunch of nomads instead. This isn’t conclusive, but it does suggest a possibility that this ‘island’ actually does connect to a continent I’m already on.
NOOOOOOOOOOO!
This tech is less than worthless. First of all, Knights are basically never worth building and I’m never going to want Leadership. Second, learning any new techs slows down the rate I learn others at. As a Republic I wouldn’t care about this at all, but as a Monarchy in a hurry to learn Navigation I don’t want to be slowed down.
The biggest problem though is that Knights (unlike Crusaders, Elephants, etc.) obsolete Horsemen. So I can never again build Horsemen. All I can build are Knights, which cost twice as much. Horsemen had been a really critical part of my defenses since they’re so cheap to build and thus don’t waste many turns and are more than good enough to smash barbarians (especially with the Great Wall).
I’ll make sure to have the Horseman in position to load into the Longship after they explore these tiles.
Ready to set sail!
Hm. It’s starting to look like the western Babylon ‘island’ and this U ‘island’ might be connected afterall, as I began to suspect when I got Chivalry rather than nomads from that hut.
Still not conclusive by any means, but again it’s important to draw inferences and make probabilistic guesses about what’s probably true or going to be true rather than paying attention only to the most explicit information you get.
Congrats on your worthless wonder! These guys already cheat to get its main effect anyway.
They aren’t even switching; they’re just giving up. This worked out nicely for me.
A new Babylonian city at last! I know they must have at least one more (Ellipi) somewhere though…
Instant walls pop up around my new city.
I decided not to sell its Barracks. See besides the effect of making all new troops veterans (redundant with Sun Tzu’s War Academcy), a Barracks in a city also causes all ground units in the city to fully heal every turn. I have a bunch of injured guys, so I’ll take advantage of that to heal them and THEN sell it.
A disappointing hut.
My Settlers are slow to arrive in this isolated area because I’m making Roads as I go. I’ve got plans now for exactly where to build my cities to best take advantage of the good terrain while not bothering with the bad. The marked 3 should be about right.
Here’s the most distant city to be founded on the little peninsula south of St. Peatersburg.
Man, this island is just full of huts! I’ll start collecting the things.
Thank you, Seafaring!
Hmm. At this point I’m in a strong position, so I don’t benefit from a ceasefire. Maybe I can get some cash to accept one though.
I suppose I did betray these guys once. And the Aztecs. Though of course there’s absolutely no way these guys could have heard about that (They did, everyone knows everything you do even if they haven’t met any of the parties involved. That’s probably a good design choice even if it makes no sense).
Got to say, these guys are REALLY brave. They never even once gave me tribute or offered gold for peace.
First colony on the U island.
This ocean north of my starting area is really huge and really empty. And it’s where all my Longship bad luck is concentrated; the other ones survive ending their turns at sea just fine. This is the Bermuda Triangle of Midgard here.
First city in the lands beyond the Aztecs.
Looks like a promising continent here. And a moderately bad 1x1 island. As a Republic of course I love 1x1 islands more than anything, but they’re useless for me in this game.
My hut luck is finally beginning to even out.
Another colony here southeast of the heartland. Meanwhile my other dropped Settler is still exploring overland for a good site.
Ah ha! Here’s Ellipi. However, I see Roads leading elsewhere. They probably have yet another city.
It was a dangerous trip, but my Horseman Longship found some land to scout. They’ll go around in separate directions.
This is a bad situation for me, but it’s improvable with a ceasefire. I’ll try to get one made.
Darn. Yeah, the Babylonians have been really shrewd diplomats all game. They just suck at fighting.
Wow, that was surprisingly close to my capital. I’ll send over some Settlers.
Got Ellipi. This would never have happened if they’d just made that ceasefire with me!
I found more Roads and Irrigation, so I’m possibly exposed from 2 sides. I now want a ceasefire or peace.
Shrewd but not polite diplomats.
I do want a ceasefire, but I’m betting they’re finally willing to pay up. Plus I’m starting to think they’re completely harmless; they’ve failed to kill any of my troops any time I was left exposed in their territory.
Brave and totally ineffectual to the end.
Not even a defending unit! I’ll take it! On my next turn anyway.
Now what? Babylon is gone, but although I’m out exploring every ocean I have access to at full tilt with nearly a dozen Longships (and exploring overland with Settlers and Crusaders on many of the big islands I found), I still haven’t found anyone else. My conquests have ground to a halt despite my best efforts. It would be a complete catastrophe if I was only now starting to explore, but as things stand it’s merely very bad.
Anyway, note that I have a total of 3 Settlers (one of them a nomad) ready to build Roads and colonize the U-shaped island here.
Back by Tenochtitlan, GA I’ve been slowly cranking out a long Road to someday join to one I’ll start back in this direction from St. Peatersburg as I finish settling the last big open area of my continent.
Hm, I don’t like that. The Skraelings have proven they’re capable of actually finishing a wonder (the Colossus) and are still undiscovered, so I can’t stop them or take this from them promptly if they get it. That would give them a wealth of knowledge that could make them a good deal harder to conquer.
I really don’t like this.
And I really, really don’t like this. Every once in a while I start wondering why I don’t play Civ 2 more often. Then something like this happens and reminds me that the game is really badly made in many ways. Unstoppable, out of the blue barbarian attacks that instantly seize well-defended cities is one of those ways.
It’s not like I was lazy or skimped on defense. No, this city had 2 defenders and I have the Great Wall, which is the ultimate hard-counter to barbarians. Nevertheless, I stood absolutely no chance against the torrent of Knights (a unit type the barbarians wouldn’t even have access to if I didn’t get them from a random hut) that piled off a single Trireme and attacked until the city fell.
I did a better than normally feasible job of defending even this completely isolated and safe city and then in one turn it was trashed and taken from me without warning.
And it’s worse than that, as I’ll soon show.
Thankfully the Great Wall gives me an offense boost vs barbarians too, so I easily take down these Knights with my piles of nearby Horsemen. If it weren’t for that, I’d have bad odds to take each Knight down.
I also built a Diplomat and prepared other Horsemen to charge next turn.
Meanwhile, I sacked Ashur.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjiOtouyBOg
That conquest went pretty well; I got quite a few cities out of it intact and even some buildings to sell and didn’t take many casualties at all. I could have taken every city and 0 casualties if I hadn’t been rushing, but oh well.
And there’s more island. I’ll explore this too.
Remember how I said the barbarian attack was worse than it seemed? Well I had 2 Settlers and a Longship disbanded instantly all the way over here. I’d taken significant trouble to bring those Settlers over here and was 1 turn from starting a colony with one of them. And the other one was actually from another city but got disbanded with the boat it was on (which was even next to land!). Bam, all destroyed instantly because a city 15 squares away was conquered out of the blue. This kind of luck element is not appropriate in a strategy game and this kind of massive nuisance is not good design in any kind of game.
A better design might be to have the barbarians never attack on the turn they pop up. They could issue ransom demands or just disembark and get ready. Now granted one could just turn barbarians off altogether, but barbarians are not a bad element of the game in theory- only in practice. It should be possible to play with barbarians without this nonsense.
Well colonization goes on over here on the western edge of Babylon at least.
And I get my city back, but what a loss. It shrunk by 2 sizes, I lost military units, and I lost all those Settlers (and all the time they represented).
A caravan of Caravans is making its way to Waylon to finish the next wonder soon. I had been planning on ending this session once that wonder (J.S. Bach’s Cathedral) finished, but at this point I decided to just play until I found another civilization. How much longer could it take?
The last city on the Viker Gang peninsula is finished. Now I should be able to connect them with Roads in just a few turns.
The island my Horsemen and Longship found all the way up here is empty and boring. Time to load up again and move on.
Oh darn it. Just as I found this awesome spot too!
Ugh. These are veteran Settlers with the Great Wall, so 3 net Defense. And 20 HP. That means they’ll take down a Horseman or two, but there’s no way to survive a giant onslaught like this. Meanwhile my other 2 nearby cities are suddenly threatened and will need defenders urgently.
Killed one and injured another and then they killed my Settler and rode off. It will take forever to get anyone back there.
Hut barbarians are also a really bad part of the game as implemented; as is the randomness of the huts (and all the secrecy surrounding their true probabilities).
There are many better ways to keep a game replayable and new every time than to make every aspect of it from huts to combat to even movement random.
Trireme tactics talk time!
I want to take this Settler and a Crusader across the whale-road here. What’s the most efficient way to do that?
Well sometimes it’s to move the boat into the city, load the Settler and Crusader on, move the boat over to the destination, and then unload the units. But in this case where the destination is far off, it’s better to try to move those units onto the boat in passing. You can see my Settler has 1/3 of a move left and thus a 1/3 chance of getting onto the Trireme. If it works, I can load up the Crusader too and then move on without needing to waste Trireme movement going into the city and then back out.
It didn’t work, but it was worth a try. Now I move the Trireme in afterall and just order the Settler and Crusader to board. No harm done, I just didn’t get a potential time savings I wouldn’t even have had a chance at if I didn’t try that.
Always remember that you can walk right onto a ship like it’s a roadless Grassland, but that your movement then ends. It can save you significant time sometimes.
Roads everywhere. I even decided to have the nomad Settler that survived the great disaster start building Roads as planned. When I finally get Settlers back over here, they’ll be helpful.
Still working on Roads out to my planned city sites out here. These Crusaders have been stuck in limbo way too far from the Babylonians to help out in time and with nowhere to go. At long last I have a
These colonies are on what seems to be an outright continent. There’s probably another civ on here somewhere. It will just take forever to explore since I can’t do it by sea.
At last I’ve landed some troops on the area discovered west of Pheasant Quesst. It’s really quite lush and full of good city sites despite all the Jungle in the south.
Here’s a look at the top 5 cities for some information. No one has a bigger city than me and I know I have about 6x more than anyone else, so I’m clearly doing well in overall power.
One thing you’ll note is the English on this list. You’ve heard absolutely nothing from them up till now. Why is that? Well because they’re new. They replaced the Greeks. So, unlike last game, civs are actually being restarted in this one. It’s a mystery and it will hurt my plans, but not nearly as badly as my inability to actually find people has.
Babylon’s continent is really empty and really boring.
I started researching this about a hundred screencaps ago. This is a slow game and Monarchies are terrible at developing new techs. I mean, I have about 40 cities now and I’ve been sitting at 70% (max) Science rate forever and I’m even working lots of Whales and Fish and I have Roads everywhere, but I still have so little Science that it takes me about 14 turns per advance. Whole wonders are built in between getting new techs. It’s not even like I have a ton already or anything either.
I think this demonstrates rather well just how bad Monarchies are at Science (and getting gold). If you do not plan on ending the game very quickly, you should never use Monarchy over Republic. It completely screws you over turn by turn no matter how well you play it.
Well at long last I’m researching Navigation. In another hundred screencaps I’ll actually have it!
Excellent.
So I rearrange production to make sure the city gets exactly 12 shields. Now it will finish the wonder with absolutely nothing wasted.
Not bad. Coin is short since I’ve been rush-buying so many Longships and such and the Babylonians refused to
It’s definitely worth building on a shielded Grassland here instead of a shieldless one to get the benefit of both Whales promptly.
I picked my wonder building city quite well; this is working nicely.
What I really want now is Magellan’s Expedition, but that won’t unlock till I get Navigation in 14 turns or so. I could store up shields for that or I could build the extremely inexpensive Marco Polo’s Embassy in that time. I’m not entirely sure which is a better option at this point. I could definitely benefit from Marco Polo’s Embassy to start finding out who’s in this game and who knows who (and thus where they are) and so on. And to extort money from people I haven’t even met. On the other hand, building Magellan’s Expedition right after it unlocks would help a lot with scouting an sea exploration too. I definitely want both eventually. Since I’m struggling so much right now, I’m tempted to build the short term bonus one (Marco Polo’s Embassy) first.
More colonies everywhere.
And more scouting with the Horsemen. I’m glad I have Seafaring. I’m still losing Longships but not nearly as many (and no loaded ones yet; I almost never send a loaded one out into unknown waters of course).
More fringe settlements here on the last frontier of the mainland.
Hm. Not that useful since this place seems uninhabited, but I guess at least I can scout it out faster and make sure.