Age of Discovery

[Newbomb]

Ok now we have threads on Rise of Rome, Fall of Rome could someone shed some light on the "Age of Discovery"?

[joncnunn]

Ok,

This one is extremely easy on Monarch level playing the Protoguese. Everything in this post is from their perspective:

1. Start in a GA
2. Start with the Small Wonder that's resulting in +2 naval movement. (And explorers every X turns)
3. Start with the Great Wonder that's producing a colonist every X turns.
4. Start with several one tile islands.

Great Wonders:

Only one that really matters in Magellan's. Use your GA to get that in your capital. (1 shield in water tiles. Also frigates)

Techs:
High priority ones in order:

1. The one allowing Magellans
2. Beeline to Colonization. If the AI has neither prereq, research Banking because England should finish Printing Press shortly.
3. Beeline to Mining.
4. Bypass all optional techs and beeline into the next age.

I also note that if you are not playing the Dutch/English, you can only buy/sell Protestantism from them. (But they will sell it for a very resonable price : 12 gold )

A similar situation probably occurs with regards to Counter-Reformation.

And those stealing or researching the entry native techs will find cheap prices to buy the rest of them.

This was first noticed in Middle Ages

Colonization:

Colonize the west indies, where there is a high concentration of resources. First priority is to lock this area out via culture from the other Europeans. Next is found a city on are near the coastal Ivory in Africa plus another site just east that takes in the Saltpeter and gold upon expansion. Then infill west indies and plant cities in the Gem section of Africa.

Note that you may not found cities in Jungle nor forest in this conquest. (You must clear it or chop it first)

Multiple cities can use the same resource for the buildings if you place your cities close enough. In addition if a resource is within your trade network it doesn't actually need to connect to the resource within that city boundary, it just has to be within it.

Initally the Temples will be extremely high rush prioities to claim the land, followed by Harbors to allow growth, but once the various factories and mines are allowed, those take preference.

Upgrade your Caravels as you get better techs, no need to build more. Upgrade your free Frigates from Magellens to Men of War with that tech, no need to build more.

A couple or Privatteer ships are okay, but not really needed for you at this level.

Remember that neither the Explorer nor the Missonary can capture treasure.

The Jesuit College is half price for Religous Civs, so stay Catholic as Protogual. (It will also help maintaign better relations with Spain)

Build lots of Kniights in Progtogual when not building something else, to maintaign enough units to keep peace with Spain. The colonies should be building the cheapest units that can capture treasure.

I assume this one will probably be tricker on higher levels due to AI being crankier on higher difficulty levels. (More risk of European civ invading)

# of Tresures returned;
Protoguese (me) : 30. Several more in route.
Spain : 2. And additional one that was one tile away from non-coastal Madrid.
Every other AI: Shut out.

Edit: Forgot to mention the Colonial Capital

I won too fast to complete it. (Another 8 turns)
I think I'd have been better off building the Colonial Capital in Africa, probably the starting city in North West Africa Protogual starts with.

[joncnunn]

This post is from the Aztec perspective [Monarch level] This also applies to Mayas and Incans:

Idea here is to win culturaly single city, so only found two cities initally, and allow the capital to grow. The other two cities will be pumping out military units and supplying workers to your three city empire.

Techs: Beeline to the ones allowing wonders.

Govts: Switch to Blood Rage as soon as you can.

Demands: Any time a European civ demands cash from you, say "Yes, master." But if an MesoAmerican one or Irq do, then refuse it.

UU: Use your UUs to capture barb units and sacrifice them. And if the Mayas declare war, capture them and sacrifice them as well. In both cases, have them improve your terriagns first if it's early enough.

You might even want to consider initaiating a war against the Mayas at some point to trigure you GA.

Turns fly by very rapidally because you don't have much in the way of orders compared to the European ones.

The Incans also need to found a city on a hill next to the Amazon River to ever get an irrigation chain to the plains tiles.

[joncnunn]

And my ideas on playing this as Spain:

Colonization: Don't bother initally, use Conquistors instead and annex the Meso American cities, many of which will be properly located.

And by attacking a MesoAmerican ASAP with Conquistors, you may get your GA started fast enough to build Magellen's.

After wipe out of Incas, have Incan cities not busy building factories and mines form colonies to fill in unused resources, if you were so fast wiping them out that they missed some spots.

Rest of colonial development: See Protogual

Govt: Stay Catholic as well.

[Solomwi]

Actually, the quickest approach I found playing as Spain (also on Monarch) is to colonize the islands and the Atlantic coast of South America, plus a canal city in Central America. Use those to begin getting treasure flowing in and ship conquistadors westward. With half a dozen or so conquistadors gathered up, go after the Inca. Lather, rinse, repeat on the Maya, then the Aztecs, and the Ir4oquois if you're feeling ambitious. With all terrain as roads, it's ridiculous how quickly you can overrun them. You've got a couple of cities that take way to long to build conquistadors, but grow plenty fast. Use these for colonists and between them and colonists built in the Americas, you'll be able to pretty much shut the other European powers out of South and Central America completely.

[Newbomb]

Treasure

How do I move treasure?!?
I cant load it on a ship and I cant move it on its own?!?

[joncnunn]

Re: Treasure

It needs to be picked up by a land military unit first. Explorers, Missonaries, Workers, Settlers, and Colonists excluded. A unit can only hold one treasure at a time, and can not drop it until it reaches your capital, at which point it is automaticaly droped. A unit in the same tile as a tresure tile without one results in a new icon with two hands appearing as an order.

And it's a good idea to pick it up as soon as possible even if there's no ship adviable at the moment because when it's by itself, it counts as a unit towards support cost, which may result in it costing 1 GPT. As soon as the treasure is grabbed it is no longer a seperate unit for support cost purposes. And also it doesn't count as a seperate unit towards capacity.

Returning each tresure is worth 1000 Victory Points and 200 gold. Early on that 200 gold can be used to help cash-rush improvements generating more tresure units.

When you have a unit with a tresure selected it will have "!!!" at the end of it in the bottom right. A unit with tresure is also red (like tresures by themselves) on the unit dropdown list.

Note that if would be a bad idea to load a unit with tresure into an army. There are reports that doing it that way it loses track off the tresure. Instead have the army itself grab the tresure.

Originally posted by Newbomb
How do I move treasure?!?
I cant load it on a ship and I cant move it on its own?!?

[Solomwi]

Re: Re: Treasure

Originally posted by joncnunn

Note that if would be a bad idea to load a unit with tresure into an army. There are reports that doing it that way it loses track off the tresure. Instead have the army itself grab the tresure.

Could you expound a little on this, por favor? Does the treasure effectively disappear? Does it lose track of which unit within the army has the treasure? If that's the case, would it really matter, since all three units reach the capital together anyway? Are you talking about some other effect that I'm not seeing?

[joncnunn]

Basically tresure inside a unit that iself is inside the army will not be dropped off. This was first noticed in Middle Ages

[Zealot]

I have to say I find joncnunn's typos on writing Portugal rather offensive, especially for someone who says it played with the Civ and never noticed how to write it properly!

[Solomwi]

Zealot, you'll go nuts if you let jon's typos bother you. I'm sure there was no offense intended (and none intended here, jon, either. I've actually gotten to where I enjoy them. )

[joncnunn]

Hey Zealot, I never intend offense in any typos I make. Just look at the shear number of them I've made in this thread alone.

I only bother to fix typos that have made the meaning unclear.

(With two exceptions :
1. My resume
2. My Borg Guide that's online)

The primary two sources of my typos:

1. Thinking so much faster than my typing, that a letter is skiped, particularly a vowel or double constant.

2. When I mislearned the spelling of a word.

[Terra Nullius]

damn, you mean i have to give up the search for proto-gaul!?

[wertyu70]

I'm trying this conquest at Monarch level with Portugal.
I'm building Magellan on my capital and using my second city to build knights.
Should I build more settlers or can I rely on the colonists produced by the wonder in my capital?

[joncnunn]

In SP the colonists produced by the wonder are plenty on at least Emperor and below. Well, some of your colonies that max out at size 6 early might want to produce their own colonist if there's a city near them worth going after, but you definately don't even to produce colonists from your home land.

I definately wouldn't produce the starting settler units as Protugal at all (unless say playing on Sid and got kicked out of Europe by Spain early). Colonists only cost 20 shields and 1 pop.

Order of concentration [all near Atlantic Ocean]:
1. Gold
2. Silver
3. Gems
Rest of resources. Not really worth going after unless they contain either any of the above or else unique luxaries.