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Go here for my previoius DAR .
In DAR1 I secured control of all 7 religions in my 4 primary cities. I'm thinking at this point that I will go for either a diplomatic or cultural victory here. I don't have a lot of luck with culture victories so I decide diplomatic is the better approach. To get that diplomatic victory, I'm going to need two things
1) an empire with a large population (so I will have lots of votes)
2) powerful friends.
And then of course, I need to build the UN.
To achieve that, my next few hundred years of play is going to be focused on expansion. I intend to spread out across my continent westward, and to push hinduism far and wide. I'm not going to spread eastward too aggressively. I'm intentionally going to leave that strip of coast along the east for the Germans. No point in agonizing relations with my nearest neighbor by boxing him in. I intentionally want to keep that "our close borders spark tensions" quotient down.
As for my 4 cities: Madrid and Barcelona are my research/cultural centers. Seville, I intend to devote almost exclusively to unit production. As for Cordoba, I haven't really decided.
In the upcoming turns this is what I do:
In Madrid: build every city improvement that I can while focusing on research/commerce, prioritizing religious buildings over all else. When I run out of buildings to build, begin churning out missionaries. Hindu missionaries for the German cities. Other missionaries to spread the other religions internally.
In Barcelona: same as Madrid.
In Seville: build barracks and then alternate between building religious building and units. Spread those units around to fortify in the other cities.
In Cordoba: similar to Madrid and Barcelona, but do place a barracks there and build the occassional military unit.
I'm giving these high level summaries because I didn't really take notes year by year.
But here is some basic timeline information:
1160 AD: Founded Toledo SW of Seville (on the desert coast to the left of the peaks). Put it on a desert square so that at least one of the deserts in the city's area will be usable. Put it on the coast so I can build some caravels and load Hindu missionaries on them.
~1300 AD: WAR. I send some axeman/swordsman around to the western peninsula and find the Libyan's have build a city south of the peninsula. Immediately divert a troup of swordsman there to take the city. It was a fairly easy fight. This gives me my 6th city.
1470 AD: Founded Santiago on the NW tip of the peninsula to the west (the one with all the incense). At this point I've already met some of the other civilizations and I see that they are ahead of me on the seafaring side of things. Not a surprise. In any case, I'm trying to expand westard onto that peninsula before the AI starts landing its own settlers there.
At this point I've pretty much got the core of my empire. I do have additional cities that I want to build (SW of Madrid and NW of Seville in particular). I might go SE of Cordoba too, but I fully expect the Germans to have settled there before I do. There is also room for a city north of Madrid because my borders have extended so far north that the Germans haven't been able to build there. But I intend to leave that space unsettled until much later in the game to cut down on border tensions with the Germans.
I can't go further west at this point either without going to war because the germans and greeks have settled cities on the furthest western reaches of the continent. I'm not too worried about that though.
Unfortunately, I don't really remember what research path I took during this time. Pretty sure I eventually traded to get most of the early era techs that I was missing, while I traded/researched me way to caravels, and then to liberalism. I took Printing Press as my freebie when I hit liberalism (for the commerce benefits since I had so many villages at that point). Then I went for Ecomonics for the Banks, traded for gunpowder, then started on my Bee-line for Mass Media: Astronomy->Scientific Method->Physics->Electricity->Radio->Mass Media.
There is some risk in that course as I am avoiding all the military techs, but I have two advantages I can leverage: I still seem to be out researching the AI. Not by much, but nonetheless ahead enough to take maximal advantage of technology trading to fill in the gaps. I've also got the entire world converted to Hinduism with the exception of Alexander so every body likes me pretty well. And finally, I'm not the most "powerful" civ in the game, but I haven't neglected my military. I'm formidable enough that I don't look like "easy pickings" to the AI. That last point seems to be really important on difficulty levels higher than Noble. At Noble, I can frequently get by with minimal military if I play my cards right with the AI. On Prince the AI seems to inevitibly lay into me if I don't watch my power score and keep it up at a somewhat respectable value (especially when there are multiple AI civs).
During this era, I'm also watching the AI relationships closely and trying to figure out which group of AI I am going to kiss up to and avoid offending. During this ERA, I am working on: Catherine, Victoria, Julius Caesar, and (of course) Frederik. They all like each other well enough, and are all Pleased and/or Friendly with me. I flat out refuse to trade with any of the others. Another part of my plan here is that the Inca have the highest population. I'm hoping that I will end up running against them when I finish the UN, and that the votes from my friends will get me to a victory. I'm expecting that I will really only need Catherine's, Frederik's and my own Vote's to win, with maybe Caesar's or Victoria's to push me over the edge if it is close. That's the plan anyway.
I also continue to pump massive cultural improvements into Madrid/Barcelona/Cordoba throughout this time to try and keep the Culture victory option at least "on the table" if things do not go as planned. One thing worth nothing on that: because Madrid is well on the path to Legendary status and Cordoba is lagging behind, I intentionally build the "cathedral's" for each religion in Cordoba first and don't build any cathedral's in Madrid. Trying to close the gap so Cordoba will be able to catch up in the end game if needed. On that front: I did drop one culture bomb in Cordoba around 1000AD (that is actually how I got access to iron without building a city down by the iron deposit...). The other Great Artist that spawned during this era was fortified in Cordoba but not used (saving it for the end game culture rush if needed). The rest of my great leaders were prophets, which I used to build the religious wonders in Cordoba, Barcelona, and Madrid.
One other thing about religions: as mentioned. I aggressively spread hinduism via caravel whenever possible (I think I did it twice once in Rome, and once in London). And I probably sent halve a dozen hindu missionaries into Germany during this time by foot. As for my empire: I do my best to get at least 5 religions in each of my cities. I don't make any aggressive attempt to push a city above 5 religions because the odds of success at that point are so dang low that it is hardly worth the effort. By 1640 AD, I had one city up to 5 religions, one of to 4, one up to 3, and the others at 2.
The era played out largely as planned. In the 1600s, Victoria asked me to declare war on the Inca, and I obliged (anything to keep my friends happy so long as it won't simultaneously make my other friends mad). At 1640, I was still at war with the Inca, but they were no threat to me, so I pretty much ignored them.
Victoria did do one annoying thing in this era. She put a city SW of my capitol.... that is where my next city was intended to go. :-( I can't afford to be instigating war over that though since I am aiming for that diplomatic victory. Then again, that problem does ironicly end up resolving itself later...
Also, a note about Civics. I'm running the following:
Hereditary Rule: don't have any other choice yet.
Free Speech: the culture bonus is too much to pass up. and with all my towns, it is netting more than bureacracy would.
Slavery: I didn't mention it above, but I cracked the whip frequently in this game, and am not willing to give that option up yet.
Free Market: no brainer. trade with the rest of the world is good for commerce, and good for spreading religions.
Organized Religion: this was a tough choice, but since I'm still building as many religious buildings as possible in all my cities, and seem to be maintaining a technology advantage over the AI without Free Religion, Organized Religion still seems the better choice.
Here is a snapshot of my continent at 1640AD. You can also see in the mini-map how far hinduism has spread to other empires.
In DAR1 I secured control of all 7 religions in my 4 primary cities. I'm thinking at this point that I will go for either a diplomatic or cultural victory here. I don't have a lot of luck with culture victories so I decide diplomatic is the better approach. To get that diplomatic victory, I'm going to need two things
1) an empire with a large population (so I will have lots of votes)
2) powerful friends.
And then of course, I need to build the UN.
To achieve that, my next few hundred years of play is going to be focused on expansion. I intend to spread out across my continent westward, and to push hinduism far and wide. I'm not going to spread eastward too aggressively. I'm intentionally going to leave that strip of coast along the east for the Germans. No point in agonizing relations with my nearest neighbor by boxing him in. I intentionally want to keep that "our close borders spark tensions" quotient down.
As for my 4 cities: Madrid and Barcelona are my research/cultural centers. Seville, I intend to devote almost exclusively to unit production. As for Cordoba, I haven't really decided.
In the upcoming turns this is what I do:
In Madrid: build every city improvement that I can while focusing on research/commerce, prioritizing religious buildings over all else. When I run out of buildings to build, begin churning out missionaries. Hindu missionaries for the German cities. Other missionaries to spread the other religions internally.
In Barcelona: same as Madrid.
In Seville: build barracks and then alternate between building religious building and units. Spread those units around to fortify in the other cities.
In Cordoba: similar to Madrid and Barcelona, but do place a barracks there and build the occassional military unit.
I'm giving these high level summaries because I didn't really take notes year by year.
But here is some basic timeline information:
1160 AD: Founded Toledo SW of Seville (on the desert coast to the left of the peaks). Put it on a desert square so that at least one of the deserts in the city's area will be usable. Put it on the coast so I can build some caravels and load Hindu missionaries on them.
~1300 AD: WAR. I send some axeman/swordsman around to the western peninsula and find the Libyan's have build a city south of the peninsula. Immediately divert a troup of swordsman there to take the city. It was a fairly easy fight. This gives me my 6th city.
1470 AD: Founded Santiago on the NW tip of the peninsula to the west (the one with all the incense). At this point I've already met some of the other civilizations and I see that they are ahead of me on the seafaring side of things. Not a surprise. In any case, I'm trying to expand westard onto that peninsula before the AI starts landing its own settlers there.
At this point I've pretty much got the core of my empire. I do have additional cities that I want to build (SW of Madrid and NW of Seville in particular). I might go SE of Cordoba too, but I fully expect the Germans to have settled there before I do. There is also room for a city north of Madrid because my borders have extended so far north that the Germans haven't been able to build there. But I intend to leave that space unsettled until much later in the game to cut down on border tensions with the Germans.
I can't go further west at this point either without going to war because the germans and greeks have settled cities on the furthest western reaches of the continent. I'm not too worried about that though.
Unfortunately, I don't really remember what research path I took during this time. Pretty sure I eventually traded to get most of the early era techs that I was missing, while I traded/researched me way to caravels, and then to liberalism. I took Printing Press as my freebie when I hit liberalism (for the commerce benefits since I had so many villages at that point). Then I went for Ecomonics for the Banks, traded for gunpowder, then started on my Bee-line for Mass Media: Astronomy->Scientific Method->Physics->Electricity->Radio->Mass Media.
There is some risk in that course as I am avoiding all the military techs, but I have two advantages I can leverage: I still seem to be out researching the AI. Not by much, but nonetheless ahead enough to take maximal advantage of technology trading to fill in the gaps. I've also got the entire world converted to Hinduism with the exception of Alexander so every body likes me pretty well. And finally, I'm not the most "powerful" civ in the game, but I haven't neglected my military. I'm formidable enough that I don't look like "easy pickings" to the AI. That last point seems to be really important on difficulty levels higher than Noble. At Noble, I can frequently get by with minimal military if I play my cards right with the AI. On Prince the AI seems to inevitibly lay into me if I don't watch my power score and keep it up at a somewhat respectable value (especially when there are multiple AI civs).
During this era, I'm also watching the AI relationships closely and trying to figure out which group of AI I am going to kiss up to and avoid offending. During this ERA, I am working on: Catherine, Victoria, Julius Caesar, and (of course) Frederik. They all like each other well enough, and are all Pleased and/or Friendly with me. I flat out refuse to trade with any of the others. Another part of my plan here is that the Inca have the highest population. I'm hoping that I will end up running against them when I finish the UN, and that the votes from my friends will get me to a victory. I'm expecting that I will really only need Catherine's, Frederik's and my own Vote's to win, with maybe Caesar's or Victoria's to push me over the edge if it is close. That's the plan anyway.
I also continue to pump massive cultural improvements into Madrid/Barcelona/Cordoba throughout this time to try and keep the Culture victory option at least "on the table" if things do not go as planned. One thing worth nothing on that: because Madrid is well on the path to Legendary status and Cordoba is lagging behind, I intentionally build the "cathedral's" for each religion in Cordoba first and don't build any cathedral's in Madrid. Trying to close the gap so Cordoba will be able to catch up in the end game if needed. On that front: I did drop one culture bomb in Cordoba around 1000AD (that is actually how I got access to iron without building a city down by the iron deposit...). The other Great Artist that spawned during this era was fortified in Cordoba but not used (saving it for the end game culture rush if needed). The rest of my great leaders were prophets, which I used to build the religious wonders in Cordoba, Barcelona, and Madrid.
One other thing about religions: as mentioned. I aggressively spread hinduism via caravel whenever possible (I think I did it twice once in Rome, and once in London). And I probably sent halve a dozen hindu missionaries into Germany during this time by foot. As for my empire: I do my best to get at least 5 religions in each of my cities. I don't make any aggressive attempt to push a city above 5 religions because the odds of success at that point are so dang low that it is hardly worth the effort. By 1640 AD, I had one city up to 5 religions, one of to 4, one up to 3, and the others at 2.
The era played out largely as planned. In the 1600s, Victoria asked me to declare war on the Inca, and I obliged (anything to keep my friends happy so long as it won't simultaneously make my other friends mad). At 1640, I was still at war with the Inca, but they were no threat to me, so I pretty much ignored them.
Victoria did do one annoying thing in this era. She put a city SW of my capitol.... that is where my next city was intended to go. :-( I can't afford to be instigating war over that though since I am aiming for that diplomatic victory. Then again, that problem does ironicly end up resolving itself later...
Also, a note about Civics. I'm running the following:
Hereditary Rule: don't have any other choice yet.
Free Speech: the culture bonus is too much to pass up. and with all my towns, it is netting more than bureacracy would.
Slavery: I didn't mention it above, but I cracked the whip frequently in this game, and am not willing to give that option up yet.
Free Market: no brainer. trade with the rest of the world is good for commerce, and good for spreading religions.
Organized Religion: this was a tough choice, but since I'm still building as many religious buildings as possible in all my cities, and seem to be maintaining a technology advantage over the AI without Free Religion, Organized Religion still seems the better choice.
Here is a snapshot of my continent at 1640AD. You can also see in the mini-map how far hinduism has spread to other empires.
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