Critique my game

[Theben]

Of course you could do that AND put 2 or 3 coastal cities north towards Alex which would probably prevent him from making a major presence on your continent.

[Calvin Vu]

My progress

I did a little better since I headed for BW (for chopping and Slavery) and then straight to Alphabet for tech trading. I got hunting, iron working, sailing, animal husbandry, archery, mysticism, meditation through tradings. That gives me a little tech advantage.
I also got Colossus. I'm at around 550AD. With Caste System I don't have to worry about expanding the cultural boundary since I can use a citizen as an artist for a few turns to get it expanded. I have 6 cities and is connecting the iron resource. That city, with iron, pig and rice, will be my military production city and will have a lot of workshops later. I've already got Civil Civics but instead of heading to Machinery for macemen, I have to diverge a little bit to get Calendar to alleviate the happiness problem. Next city will be connected to gold to help with that issue as well despite the fact that the gold sites are a little far. Hmm, I wonder if I should get Machinery next or just try to get the GL by going the Aesthetics path. With this much jungle, it's not like I will be short of room to expand later.
I have not contacted other civs which requires Optics. Among the 3 civs I know, Justinian has the large land area (of ALL civs). However, I think my tech progress is better than his (I have CC, CoL, Alphabet vs his Currency, Monarchy, Masonry). Unfortunately, he is the only civ with any techs worth trading for and he's not at all reasonable when trading, (asking for CoL, Alphabet, and 113 gold (or Metal Casting) for his Monarchy, for example) besides the fact that he is leading the pack so I don't want to help him further along with such exorbitant trades.
Next, I think I will get macemen out, attack the barb cities for gold but most likely will not keep any of them barring some exceptionally good ones. Suleman is as good as dead right now with only his capital left against the barb onslaughts so I think I will have the whole continent to myself with the barbs as my source of extra gold. That will give me a very good chance of winning the game. I don't think the other civs will have macemen for a long while so I should be safe against invasion.
The only problem is that the thought of having to build enough workers to clean up all the jungle makes me sick in the stomach. If it becomes too painful then I might just quit.
BTW, I have two warriors with Woodman III fighting with the barbs .

[Brael]

Why build the workers? I found a few cities with barb workers, I built 6 of my 18 or so. The rest were all captured. The jungle isn't too bad either, it's annoying to clear but just think of all that grassland.

[brandonjm8]

grasslands make for big cities that can support a SE, and add to your wealth and science throughout, goodluck.

[Calvin Vu]

1010AD

An AI civ just founded Islam. It seems the AIs in my game spend less time fighting and more time researching than in yours.
I left Justinian further behind in tech (CoL, CC, Philo, and half way through Guilds vs Drama and Horseback Riding. He just completed Machinery).
The other guys are doing well though. They beat me to Philo even though I light-bulbed it.
It turned out that I probably saved Suleman since the iron mine which I took was right next to a barb city and so they sent all they had at me trying to defend it and destroy my cities. I think they ran out of troops though since they had nothing to throw at me for some 20 turns. My macemen and crossbow are starting to wander around looking for barb cities to destroy. They don't seem to build as many cities as I hope, given the vast amount of empty land.
I know the grassland is good and that's why I think if I have the whole continent to myself then I can win he game. It still does not make the chore of removing all the jungle squares any less painful though !!
I was beaten to the GL also . I think I will head for Liberalism next after Guilds otherwise someone will beat me to that as well. That means I will have to ignore Compass/Optics for now and let those civs find me instead. I have no doubt that they will before I finish Education.

[Brael]

Would you mind going into more detail with how you're researching? I'm interested to see how you're so far ahead. I've managed to keep up in research but I'm nowhere near the highest. If not for a couple good trades recently and a timely gifted tech I would be stuck at the bottom.

It's interesting Suleiman lived so long in your game, in mine he was dead well before 1 AD. Curious, did you set up a choke point like I did? I wonder if that forced my share of the barbarians onto him.

[Theben]

I too am curious how people maintain strong tech rates against the AI at Immortal, as I'm barely keeping up at Emperor. Also some seem to do fine with few cities while others expand to the pre-CoL limit. Just last night I played a game where I was the only one on my continent that had 7 gold and 4 silver(!), in addition to lots of flood plains. Plus I got 3 early techs from huts. I thought I'd have no problem with the tech race until some yob built-BUILT- the Colossus on turn 99 (epic)! Even after tech swaps when contact was made I was still at minimum 10 techs behind the tech leader and falling further back. I'm wondering what I'm doing wrong (I even built the GW when I knew I was alone on the continent so no raging barb troubles).

[Dinner]

Raging barbs on Immortal? Jesus...

[Brael]

I too am curious how people maintain strong tech rates against the AI at Immortal, as I'm barely keeping up at Emperor. Also some seem to do fine with few cities while others expand to the pre-CoL limit. Just last night I played a game where I was the only one on my continent that had 7 gold and 4 silver(!), in addition to lots of flood plains. Plus I got 3 early techs from huts. I thought I'd have no problem with the tech race until some yob built-BUILT- the Colossus on turn 99 (epic)! Even after tech swaps when contact was made I was still at minimum 10 techs behind the tech leader and falling further back. I'm wondering what I'm doing wrong (I even built the GW when I knew I was alone on the continent so no raging barb troubles).

Well, I can give you the basics which are basically trade techs, don't over expand, watch out for distance maintence, and be careful with your unit count. Trading techs lets you get more out of your research, if you tech deep (particularly along lines the AI doesn't prioritize) you can manage to trade your way up and keep on par with it. I've got no clue how to be a tech leader though, since trading alone pretty much mandates you're always a bit behind overall.

The colossus thing... do you remember what civ got it? If it was industrious with copper, I could see it happening, especially if they started with mining.

Raging barbs on Immortal? Jesus...

They're not that bad, in this game they didn't come to me for a long time although I didn't really fog bust (just that small bit to my west). I'm actually tempted to stop using barbs all together because players fog bust, the AI doesn't and it's a pretty unfair advantage that honestly, makes raging barbs effectively turn the difficulty down rather than up. Once you know how to deal with them, they make things easier.

[brandonjm8]

They're not that bad, in this game they didn't come to me for a long time although I didn't really fog bust (just that small bit to my west). I'm actually tempted to stop using barbs all together because players fog bust, the AI doesn't and it's a pretty unfair advantage that honestly, makes raging barbs effectively turn the difficulty down rather than up. Once you know how to deal with them, they make things easier.

i agree, which is why i turned it off so long ago. all that barbs did was wipe out the AI's for me, id rather do that or lose to them.

[Theben]

Well, I can give you the basics which are basically trade techs, don't over expand, watch out for distance maintence, and be careful with your unit count. Trading techs lets you get more out of your research, if you tech deep (particularly along lines the AI doesn't prioritize) you can manage to trade your way up and keep on par with it. I've got no clue how to be a tech leader though, since trading alone pretty much mandates you're always a bit behind overall.

The colossus thing... do you remember what civ got it? If it was industrious with copper, I could see it happening, especially if they started with mining.

Maybe it's the maintenance thing. I reach out for "needed" resources a lot. I don't think it's any of the others, as I'm aware of those. Maybe I should tech deep more. That game I teched CoL/Alpha/Math so my GS could lightbulb Philosophy, which helped a lot. And I was ahead of a few civs, on par with most, but behind 2. As they were Stalin (master) and Burger King (vassal) AND they were closest it was a bad setup.

Never found out who got the Colossus. Stalin was the only IND leader... I think whoever it was had BW & pottery and then stepped on a hut which popped MC.

[wodan11]

While the AI doesn't fogbust, the AI does 2 things that amount to the same thing: actively scout, and actively have extra units wander around. So it's not as big a disadvantage to the AI as everyone makes it out to be.

[Brael]

Hmm, I wasn't aware of that. I won't look at it as lowering the difficulty level then.

[Ming]

Turning barbs off just takes another tough choice out of the game. It allows you to ignore having to make the decision of "guns vs butter" early in the game. You can concentrate soley on expansion and infrastructure.
Rarely do I see barbs "take out the AI". Sure, they sometimes take new cities that the AI has just put down, but unless one of the "Barb" events happens, the AI is rarely ever in danger of being eliminated.

Leaving barbs at the way the designers intended forces you to make hard decisions early.

[wodan11]

Agreed with you, Ming. I would see taking barbs out as making the game much easier on the human, especially given that the AI is programmed not to rush, so w/o barbs you have 100% safety for quite a long time.

Now, we can argue about normal barbs vs aggressive barbs, but that's a different debate.